Courtesy of Live NationJudas Priest's North American co-headlining tour with Deep Purple kicks off tonight in Cincinnati. Both bands have recent studio albums they're promoting, with Priest having released Firepower this past March and Deep Purple issuing inFinite in April of 2017.

Longtime Judas Priest drummer Scott Travis tells ABC Radio that fans can expect "a very spectacular show" from his band, thanks in part to the group's production team.

"[P]eople don't just want to hear a band, they want to see a band," explains Travis. "And so, we've got video screens and everything, sopeople should come out. It's definitely gonna bea rock 'n' roll circus."

Of course, Judas Priest's set will include a number of songs from Firepower, which has garnered plenty of critical praise and also was the group's highest-charting album ever on the Billboard 200, peaking at #5. Founding Judas Priest bassist Ian Hill tells ABC Radio and his band mates are "very, very proud" of the record.

"[P]eople have asked musicians what's their favorite album, and they'll always say 'the new one,' but in this case I think it's truewith Firepower," Hill declares. "It's a tremendous album. It was a real pleasure to make, and I think it shows, actually, on the recording."

Ian adds, "[W]e've always tried to go a step forward with each [new album], and I think it's what's kept the band current and relevant todayIt's a very modern-sounding album, although it's coming from a nearly 50-year-old band."

Judas Priest and Deep Purple's co-headlining tour features a total of 25 concerts and is scheduled to run through a September 30 show in Wheatland, California. Here are all of the dates:

8/21 -- Cincinnati, OH, Riverbend Music Center

8/22 -- Chicago, IL, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre

8/24 -- Detroit, MI, Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill

8/25 -- Mt. Pleasant, MI, Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort

8/27 -- Hamilton, ON, Canada, FirstOntario Centre

8/29 -- Montreal, QC, Canada, Bell Centre

8/30 -- Quebec City, QC, Canada, Centre Videotron

9/1 -- Wantagh, NY, Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater

9/2 -- Bethel Woods, NY, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

9/5 -- Darien Center, NY, Darien Lake Amphitheater

9/6 -- Holmdel, NJ, PNC Bank Arts Center

9/8 -- Virginia Beach, VA, Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater

9/9 -- Camden, NJ, BB&T Pavilion

9/11 -- Charlotte, NC, PNC Music Pavilion

9/12 -- Jacksonville, FL, Daily's Place

9/14 -- Atlanta, GA, Verizon Amphitheatre

9/16 -- Biloxi, MS, Mississippi Coast Coliseum

9/18 -- Kansas City, MO, Starlight Theatre

9/20 -- Welch, MN, Treasure Island Resort & Casino

9/21 -- Council Bluffs, IA, Harrah's Council Bluffs

9/23 -- Denver, CO, Pepsi Center

9/26 -- Chula Vista, CA, Mattress Firm Amphitheatre

9/27 -- Irvine, CA, FivePoint Amphitheatre

9/29 -- Mountain View, CA, Shoreline Amphitheatre

9/30 -- Wheatland, CA, Toyota Amphitheatre

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
20 Agustos 2018 Pazartesi, 16:32

Journalist and translator having German citizenship, Mesale Tolu, who is on trial with a jail term of up to fifteen years sought on the charges of making terrorist organisation propaganda and membership of a terrorist organisation, had been released following eight months in detention. From reports appearing in Taz newspaper, the court has also lifted the ban on journalist Mesale Tolu leaving the country. However, the trial against her continues. The next hearing is on 16 October.
It is 60 years since the world premiere of the first Carry On film, Carry On Sergeant. The last one, Carry On Columbus, was released in 1992. But have you seen these lesser-known gems?

Carry On Counting (1969)

Hattie Jacques stars as the head of a firm of chartered accountants, with Charles Hawtrey and Sid James as her senior management team.

Carry On Counting is also notable for a cameo appearance by the young Norman Tebbit as a police constable who is sent to scrutinise the books.

Entering a roomful of secretaries, he declares: 'I want to get my hands on your figures'. To which Barbara Windsor replies: 'Oooh! Naughty!'

Carry On Virginia (1974)

Cashing in on the revival of interest in the Bloomsbury Group in the early Seventies, producer Peter Rogers and director Gerald Thomas made this famously uneven film, focusing on Virginia Woolf, played by Barbara Windsor.

In the opening scene, the young Virginia is sitting outside in her bikini, struggling to complete her new books, To The Lovehouse and Mrs Dollyway. Lytton Strachey (Bernard Bresslaw) drops by, looks at the books and says: 'You've got a nice pair there, love!' To which Barbara Windsor replies: 'Oooh! Naughty!'

Carry On Protesting (1968)

The only film in the series to feature the young Jeremy Corbyn in a speaking role, Carry On Protesting was a bold attempt by Rogers and Thomas to cash in on the Paris student riots of that year.

Cast against type, Jeremy Corbyn plays The Hon Mr Clarence Cholmondeley-Smythe, sent in by the Foreign Office to help French police sort out the student protesters, led by Charles Hawtrey and Barbara Windsor.

'Remove your placards this minute, and let me take down your credentials!' demands Corbyn.

'Oooh! Cheeky!' replies Barbara Windsor, in a radical departure from her usual comeback.

Interviewed by The Morning Star in 2014, Jeremy Corbyn said that it was all 'a long time ago'. He later admitted that he may have played 'a small role' in this Carry On film, but added: 'I was present but not involved'

Interviewed by The Morning Star in 2014, Jeremy Corbyn said that it was all 'a long time ago'.

He later admitted that he may have played 'a small role' in this Carry On film, but added: 'I was present but not involved.'

Some suggest Corbyn may have filmed another scene that was cut from the final version. It reportedly involved The Hon Mr Clarence Cholmondeley-Smythe of the Foreign Office confronting cross-eyed rabble-rousing intellectual Jean-Paul Sausage (Kenneth Williams).

'Your rank?'

'Well, that's a matter of opinion.'

Cholmondeley-Smythe then takes a look at Jean-Paul Sausage's ID and shakes his head, saying: 'I've got sore misgivings.'

To which Sausage replies: 'I suggest you put some talcum powder on them.'

Carry On Clamping (1975)

The doomed follow-up to Carry On Camping (1969), Carry On Clamping starred Sid James as Bert Van Lock, Chief Car-Clamper of the Belgian city of Knockers.

It is probably best remembered as the only Carry On film in which Laurence Olivier ever starred. The distinguished actor had been going through a fallow period, so was delighted to be offered a five-week contract to play the redoubtable P.C. Bigend opposite Fanny Cradock as Traffic Warden Prunella Derriere.

Plans are already underway for Carry On Brexit, starring Julian Clary as David Davis, Christopher Biggins as Boris Johnson, Danny Dyer as Jacob Rees-Mogg and Barbara Windsor as larger-than-life Prime Minister Theresa May.

His performance was highly praised by the critics. 'Laurence Olivier's profoundly dark interpretation of the role of P.C. Bigend lends Carry On Clamping an air of Dostoevskian fatalism, and an almost unbearable poignancy,' wrote Derek Malcolm in The Guardian.

'At one point, Fanny Cradock looks at his clamp and comments: 'You've got a large one, dear.' Olivier, replies dolefully: 'I've had . . . no . . . complaints,' before bursting into tears. It is one of the most moving moments I have witnessed on screen.'

But audiences stayed away, and the producers refused to cast a Shakespearian actor in a major Carry On role until 1979, when Antony Sher played Barry Biggun in Carry On Bananas, opposite Vanessa Redgrave as the incorrigible Nurse Pout.

Carry On Brexit (2019)

Plans are already underway for this blockbuster, starring Julian Clary as David Davis, Christopher Biggins as Boris Johnson, Danny Dyer as Jacob Rees-Mogg and Barbara Windsor as larger-than-life Prime Minister Theresa May.

In the opening scene, Theresa May says: 'I want a deep and special partnership'.

'You should see my member state!' replies Monsieur Barnier (Alan Carr).

'Ooh! Naughty!' giggles Mrs May.
The British state is increasingly failing in its duty to protect the public.

A sense of lawlessness and fear is sweeping across Britain. Violence is soaring on the streets, police are grossly overstretched and the prison system is sliding into crisis.

Nothing more graphically captures this breakdown in order than the dire situation at Birmingham prison, which, until yesterday, was run by the private firm G4S.

In a dramatic move, the Government has taken over the management of the jail, as G4S staff had effectively lost control.

In a coruscating report that forced the Government's hand, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Peter Clarke, revealed that the prison is now an arena of 'appalling violence and squalor', where inmates carry out assaults and indulge in drug-taking 'with impunity'.

Brutality

Effectively, violent offenders are in control, while staff are so frightened of attacks that they lock themselves in their offices when they should be out on patrol.

The Chief Inspector was also damning about the Ministry of Justice, which he accused of 'institutional inertia' in failing to monitor the jail.

The mess could almost be a metaphor for the authorities' loss of nerve in the face of criminality. Tragically, this case is hardly unique.

Labour has been trying to exploit the fact that the jail was run by the private sector, but ideological point-scoring is irrelevant.

Hundreds of inmates in HMP Birmingham went on a 15-hour rampage in December 2016 (Pictured, two prisoners wearing guard's helmets)

For the reality is that the entire prison network  whether in public or private hands  is rife with over-crowding, drug abuse and simmering brutality.

One key reason for this crisis is the heavy cuts that have been imposed on the prison workforce over recent years.

In 2012, there were 29,660 frontline staff in our jails. By 2016, this had fallen to 23,080.

That year, the then-Justice Secretary Liz Truss admitted prison officers were spread 'too thinly'. The Government then announced that an extra 2,500 officers would be recruited. But the damage had already been done, with a climate of bullying and intimidation becoming pervasive.

An all-too-heavy price is now being paid for the failure to provide adequate resources to prisons. Inmates and staff alike are suffering from the culture of deepening anarchy.

Self-harm among prisoners is rampant, with 46,859 incidents in the 12 months to March 2018, up 16 per cent on the previous year and a record high.

In the same period, there were 364 assaults per 1,000 prisoners, compared to 190 assaults per 1,000 prisoners a decade earlier.

Just as disturbing is the growing aggression towards staff, who suffered 9,003 assaults in the year to March 2018, up 26 per cent on the previous year and, again, a record high.

In this atmosphere of cuts and oppression, rehabilitation becomes impossible.

Peter Clarke has said that it is common for a teacher attending a prison to give a lesson to inmates, who often have low levels of literacy and numeracy, to find that none of them turn up because of a lack of staff to provide the necessary escorts and supervision.

The classic answer from the Left is to advocate a curtailment of the prison population by using alternatives such as sentences in the community.

They say incarceration does not work, as it is cruel and just serves to create a 'university of crime'.

Many argue that offenders are really victims of society, whose descent into crime is driven by poverty, inequality or poor mental health.

Disturbances erupted across four wings of the Birmingham prison, and around 500 inmates were released from their cells (Pictured, a member of the 'Tornado Team' covered in paint)

They say many need support, rather than punishment.

But this is just political dogma for which there is no evidence. On the contrary, the only guaranteed way to prevent reoffending is to put criminals behind bars. So-called community 'punishments' have little impact, as they are not only too soft, but allow offenders to roam free.

It is true that short sentences of a few weeks or months are ineffective, with reoffending rates reaching nearly 60 per cent, but surely that is an argument for longer terms, not greater leniency.

Nor is there anything particularly harsh about the number of people sent to prison here, as campaigners pretend. In the context of our present crime rate, our levels of incarceration are in line with the European average.

In fact, our soft justice system means it is actually quite hard to end up inside. A recent study by my own think-tank Civitas demonstrated that last year, just a third of all criminals convicted of violence went to jail.

Incredibly, even half of those with 11 to 14 convictions avoided a prison term.

There is no need to be hesitant about using prison as a weapon against crime, as long as it is well-resourced, so that it promotes discipline and rigour, rather than anarchy.

In the early Nineties, Michael Howard as the Tory Home Secretary defied the Establishment orthodoxy by ordering a tougher penal approach, encapsulated in his warning: 'If you don't want the time, don't do the crime.'

The result was a surge in the prison population and an unprecedented fall in the crime rate.

Mayhem

New Labour adopted the same approach, driven by the concerns of working-class voters, rather than the hand-wringing, politically-correct theories of Left- wing academics.

But, sadly, the trend has been reversed by the Tory-led governments since 2010  not because of any anti-prison doctrine, but because of the demands of austerity.

Reducing the fiscal deficit was necessary, but it should not have been implemented at the expense of the fight against crime  especially not when some other budgets, most notably foreign aid, were treated as sacrosanct.

Crime should have remained one of the Government's key priorities but, sadly, neglect has been the recent theme. We see the results in the mayhem on the streets and in prisons.

In fact, the Government's failure only illustrates how effective jail can be as a public guardian. Over the past year, the prison population has dropped from 86,388 to 83,165 and this has been accompanied by a spike in violent crime. In the past year, knife crime in the capital was up by 16 per cent.

Catastrophe

The prison service must have increased funding to improve recruitment and, if necessary, build more jails.

More money is needed for the police, too, whose numbers have been slashed by more than 20,000 over the past eight years.

The police's senior ranks can be accused of many failings, including poor management, warped priorities and excessive politicisation  highlighted by their obsession with diversity and hate crimes.

But, in their defence, they simply do not have the numbers to carry out many basic tasks, such as arrests and investigations.

That is why some 90 per cent of all crime does not result in anyone being charged or brought to court.

Given the violence in our society, the police's critics, with some justification, demand a return to foot patrols and stop-and-search. But the numbers are just not there.

Along with the Birmingham prison catastrophe, the current blood-soaked crime wave, epitomised by incidents such as the senseless hammer attack on a mother and daughter in Greenwich, London, on Sunday  shows we are in the middle of a national emergency.

We cannot continue with the penurious policy that is damaging the very fabric of our society. For the sake of our own protection, Britain's prison and police services must be expanded.
If you have a cluster of stubborn white spots on your cheeks, across your nose or near your eyes, you may want to think twice before popping them.

A skin condition known as milia looks very much like a smattering of small white pimples, however, picking these will do little to treat the problem.

According to skincare expert Darlene O'Gara of Australian Skin Clinics not only is this an ineffective solution, it could damage sensitive skin.

'Milia is most common on the nose, cheeks and around the eyes where the skin is softer and more susceptible to damage, which is why it's so important not to try and pop them yourself,' Ms O'Gara said.

Milia is a skin problem that looks much like a cluster of whiteheads, however, squeezing these is an ineffective way to remove them (stock image)

The condition also goes by the nickname of 'milk spots' as it's usually associated with newborns.

And while it occurs most commonly in children, it can also strike adults, and at any age.

Milia are tiny white bumps under the skin that are actually small, keratin-filled cysts.

These can be seen on the body but generally tend to be found on the face especially around the eyes, nose or cheeks

'There are two kinds of milia, primary and secondary. Primary milia occur when dead skin cells build up in the pores, eventually becoming tiny cysts,' Ms O'Gara explained.

'Secondary milia is caused by infection and skin damage such as the blistering caused by sunburn.'

Milia usually appears as a cluster of spots and can occur along with other skin conditions such as rosacea (rosacea is a skin condition that causes redness and bumps on the face).

Milia are tiny white bumps under the skin that are actually small,keratin-filled cysts, and these generally tend to be found on the face (stock image)

Milia can also be a result of skincare and makeup products which have clogged the pores.

Are milia a cause for concern? * Milia are tiny white bumps that appear across the nose, chin or cheeks * Milia (also known as 'milk spots') are common in newborns but can occur at any age * Milia develop when tiny skin flakes become trapped in small pockets near the surface of the skin or when keratin builds up and gets trapped * Trying to remove milia can cause the bumps to bleed, scab, and scar. * Scraping the skin can also introduce germs to the area. This can cause infection Source: Mayo Clinic Advertisement

And once the condition has set in, squeezing will do little to alleviate the problem, Ms O'Gara said.

'Squeezing creates trauma and inflammation, and this leads to indents and delayed red marks, she said.

'If you're lucky, they can sometimes clear up by themselves without treatment, but milia in adults can be stubborn to clear, lasting a few weeks or even months.'

The expert recommends seeking treatment with a skincare professional as they have the tools and knowledge to remove the spots without damaging the layers of skin around it.

'Milia removal with a skincare professional usually requires a small incision, especially when the cysts are deep below the skin's surface,' she said.

Outlining the process, Ms O'Gara said milia are removed using sterilised equipment such as a micro-lance needle and a comedone (blackhead) extractor.

As always skincare prevention is better than a cure, and there are a few simple things you add to your daily routine if milia is a recurring problem.

Ms O'Gara suggests using skincare products which contain exfoliating ingredients like alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs), beta hydroxy acids (BHAs), salicylic or glycolic acid.

And she advises using creams that include retinol as this will help prevent milia and in some cases will clear them completely.

'If you're after a deeper exfoliation, a microdermabrasion is a great option, however, ensure you do your research in terms of what is included in your treatment.'

'Ensure the microdermabrasion includes extractions as part of the treatment and not just the exfoliation, especially if you're wanting to specifically target concerns such as milia,' she said.
A luxury fashion house has received a flood of praise for its latest campaign fronted by a line-up of glamorous Welsh pensioners.

Austrian brand Helmut Lang - known for working with the likes of supermodel Jourdan Dunn - unveiled its Women of Wales campaign this week to showcase its new Women's Fall 2018 collection and sparked a social media frenzy with the 'iconic' images.

The label partnered with photographer Alexandra Leese and stylist Charlotte James - whose grandmother Margaret, 86, was chosen as the face of the campaign - to capture the images in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.

Each of the women who modelled in the campaign spoke about their homeland and embracing their twilight years in a series of short clips shared by Helmut Lang on social media.

Retired funeral director, Margaret (pictured), 86, was chosen by Helmut Lang to be the face of their Fall 2018 collection. Her granddaughter Charlotte James worked alongside photographer Alexandra Leese to capture the shots in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales

Dilys (pictured), 86, from Wales is the world record holder for the oldest female skydiver. She models a blue corduroy suit from Helmut Lang's new collection for the campaign

Gillian (pictured), 78, wore Helmut Lang's newest lamb leather trench coat embellished with studs as she posed by the seafront in pointed heels for the label's Women of Wales campaign

Also starring in the campaign is Dilys, 86, from Wales, who is the world record holder for the oldest female skydiver.

And Gillian, 78, who says although her husband would like to leave Wales, she wouldn't consider it.

The campaign has been positively received by fans, with many claiming it had made them proud to be Welsh.

An Instagram user writing under the handle 'guylinerbebop' gushed over the campaign, writing: 'What amazing films! Love this campaign it's beautiful' while another wrote: 'Helmut Lang, you made my year.'

Helmut Lang was launched in 1986 by the eponymous Austrian designer who is no longer associated with the brand.

Helmut Lang's new campaign has been positively received by fans, with many claiming it had made them proud to be Welsh. Thousands took to social media to voice their appreciation

Gillian's (pictured) coat is on sale for $2,095 (1,639) but prices for items within the new collection start from just over 100 - it was taken from the new Helmut Lang campaign Women of Wales

Dilys (pictured), paired red trainers with a charcoal faux fur waist coat and logo trousers as she stood against a stone wall for an urban look, taken from the new Helmut Lang campaign Women of Wales

Margaret (pictured) who claims to be proud of Wales despite the weather accessorised her cream corduroy outfit with gold chains in the new Helmut Lang campaign Women of Wales

Dilys (pictured) has spent her life trying to make a difference to those with special needs. In addition to her sky diving accomplishments she has also received Lifetime Achievement awards and a Special Recognition award. She stars in the new Helmut Lang campaign Women of Wales

One woman modelled the brand's belted blanket coat valued at $1,295 (1,013) alongside a boy in their sleek blazer, in the new Helmut Lang campaign Women of Wales

Gillian (pictured) revealed although her husband would love to leave Wales she wouldn't consider it. She stars in the new Helmut Lang campaign Women of Wales

A mother and her son also posed for the campaign in the fur waistcoat and $1,015 (794) corduroy suit. The pair star in the new Helmut Lang campaign Women of Wales

Earlier this year the founding editor of V magazine Alix Browne, was announced as the label's new editor-in-residence.

The last collection debuted by the brand was modelled by A-List celebrities Kanye West and Solange Knowles alongside Helmut Lang collectors.

The Helmut Lang Women's Fall 2018 collection is available now at www.helmutlang.com
Kendall Jenner is getting slammed by her fellow models after stating she is 'super selective' about the runway shows she walks in.

The 22-year-old model was photographed topless by Alasdair McLellan for Love magazine's 10th anniversary issue, but its her comment about cherry-picking her fashion jobs that has many of her peers reeling.

'Since the beginning weve been super selective about what shows I would do. I was never one of those girls who would do like 30 shows a season or whatever the f**k those girls do. More power to 'em,' she said.

Hot water: Kendall Jenner is being slammed for saying she is 'super selective' about the runway shows she walks in

Cherry-picking: 'I was never one of those girls who would do like 30 shows a season or whatever the f**k those girls do. More power to 'em,' she told Love magazine

'But I had a million jobs, not only catwalks but everything else. The whole combination was very overwhelming and I started to freak out a little bit and needed to take a step back,' she added, admitting that she 'was on the verge of a mental breakdown.'

The magazine shared a photo of Kendall along with the quote on its Instagram page on Friday, prompting plenty of comments from models who took offence to her remark.

'This makes me so angry,' Victorias Secret model Jac Jagaciak wrote. 'So disrespectful to literally 99% of people in the industry  yes, they had to work their way up. Please get in touch with the real world!'

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit star Vita Sidorkina also hit back at Kendall, writing:'Maybe "those girls" need to pay their bills thats why they are doing 30 shows? No words'

Under fire: Victorias Secret model Jac Jagaciak (left) and Vita Sidorkina (right_ both spoke out against Kendall's comment

Word to the wise: Jac asked Kendall to 'get in touch with the real world'

Just a thought: Vita noted that 'those girls' likely had bills to pay

Other models opted to take screengrabs of Kendall's quote and add their own commentary before sharing it on their Instagram Stories.

'" Whatever the f**k those girls do" is do their very best to make their way up AND try to make some money so that they can provide for themselves and their families,' model Daria Strokous wrote.

'Oh, and its 70 shows a season by the way and we are all f*****g proud of every single one of the girls that did it.'

While sharing Kendall's photo and quote, Irina Djuranovic commented: 'Never been so indirectly and publicly offended in my whole entire life god damn! To be called a supermodel... how easy it comes to you.'

'I have no words,' Amber Witcomb wrote across the photo, and Peyton Knight reposted her image using the hashtag '#ENDTHEPRIVILEGE.'

Furious: Models Irina Djuranovic (left) and Daria Strokous (right_ took screengrabs of Kendall's quote and added their own comments before sharing on Instagram Stories

Comments: Irina wrote that she has 'never been so indirectly and publicly offended,' while Daria pointed out that most models walk in '70 shows a season'

Taking offense: 'I have no words,' Amber Witcomb wrote across the photo, and Peyton Knight reposted the image and added the hashtag '#ENDTHEPRIVILEGE'

Working for it: In their responses, Ginta Lapina (left) and Faretta (right) pointed out how hard-working models are

'This kinda disrespect towards other models who have NO NAME for themselves walking into the industry is disgusting,' Peyton added. 'We dont get to "choose" which shows to do, and its an honor to do a lot. Not to mention we're (mostly) financially independent and have to support ourselves.

'It's stressful but it's part of the job. If we said no to multiple jobs we wouldn't have a career, and we'd be told that too.'

Transgender model Teddy Quinlivan was among those who pointed out that most people in the industry don't have the privilege of being able to pick and choose their own jobs.

In a lengthy post shared on her Instagram Stories, she wrote: 'As models we need to uplift each other. We all work extremely hard to pursue our dreams even the "girls who walk 30 shows a season or whatever the f**k those girls do."

'If you are lucky as a model you might make enough to not be in debt to your agency; maybe even move out of the model apartment,' she added. 'Unfortunately this isnt the case for the vast majority of models who have to leave everything behind including their families in pursuit of a better life.

For real: 'Really?' Lucy Gascoyne asked, while Karlina Caune Wiklund added: 'It's called hard work. Google it!'

Facts: Transgender model Teddy Quinlivan was among those who pointed out that most people in the industry don't have the privilege of being able to pick and choose their own jobs

Sharing her thoughts: 'As models we need to life each other up,' Teddy wrote

Response: Kendall's rep told Daily Mail Online that the quote was taken out of context, saying: 'The point was that it's their path and "the more power to them."'

'Models dont just come from Calabasas they come from Somalia, the Siberian tundra, a rural village in China, a trailer park in Tennessee. Making disparaging comments about your peers doesnt lead to growth or unity which our regulation-less industry desperately needs.'

Kendall's rep told Daily Mail Online that her quote was taken out of context.

'She realized the number of shows some models walk a season is closer to 80,' the rep explained. 'The point was that it's their path and "the more power to them." She admires their hard work and dedication. It's an accomplishment.'

Earlier this year, Kendall skipped fashion month all together, and she opened up about her decision to do so in March.

'I made it a point at the beginning of 2017 to consciously slow down, take more time for myself, be more selective and not just do whatever my agents tell me to do,' she told Vogue for the magazine's April 2018 cover story.

Kendall, who has been candid about her struggles with anxiety, went on to say that she has been practicing transcendental mediation.

'I had a lot of people in the industry say to me, "I know you have a busy schedule what do you do to stay calm, cool, and collected?" I was like, "Um, nothing?" And then one day, when I was having a freak-out  I was having multiple freak-outs  I was like, OK, Im going to try this,' she expkained. 'So I found this lady, shes awesome, she taught me TM [transcendental meditation], and I love it.'
A corporate couple from Melbourne has revealed how they have cut a staggering $23,994 from their annual spend by moving to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

Freelance journalist Michelle Hammond, 31 and her fiance Jason packed up their 'cosy' suburban life in Elwood, Victoria and moved to Thailand earlier this year - and they haven't looked back.

'I knew Chiang Mai offered low-cost living and that the savings I'd make would mean I'd be in for a nice lifestyle upgrade,' Ms Hammond said.

'I didn't realise just how good the value was. Now I'm settled in, I've a good handle on my budget and the savings I'm making run right across the board, from the essentials to the little luxuries.'

The couple saves more than $10,000 a year on rent, $5,000 on transport and $2,600 on dining out - all while living an 'upgraded lifestyle'.

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A corporate couple from Melbourne has revealed how they have cut a staggering $23,994 from their annual spend - simply by moving to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand

The couple saves more than $10,000 a year on rent, $5,000 on transport and $2,600 on dining out - all while living an 'upgraded lifestyle'

Rent Saving: $10,932

Whether you're a homeowner or a renter, housing is one of the biggest costs in Australia.

'In Melbourne, my partner Jason and I paid $1,738 (plus bills) for a two-bedroom apartment in an old building with no amenities,' Ms Hammond told International Living.

'This worked out to $400 a week, cheap by Melbourne standards.

 Slide me  Pictured left is the couple's home in Melbourne and right, their new condo in Thailand

'Compare this to our modern condo in the trendy Chiang Mai suburb of Nimman, which comes with a pool, gym, sauna, library, rooftop area and more,' Ms Hammond said (pictured is their new pool)

'Compare this to our modern condo in the trendy Chiang Mai suburb of Nimman, which comes with a pool, gym, sauna, library, rooftop area and more.'

Their rent now costs 20,000 baht (about $827) a month - considered expensive by local standards but it's less than half the cost of their rent in Melbourne.

'Friends of ours rent a much older place, with no amenities, in the neighbouring area of Santitham for 7,000 baht ($290) per month,' Ms Hammond said.

Their rent now costs 20,000 baht (about $827) a month - considered expensive by Thai standards but it's less than half the cost of their rent in Melbourne (pictured is their view)

Transport Saving: $5,824

'Cars are expensive to run. Back in Melbourne, it cost me at least $50 a fortnight to fill up my Hyundai Elantra - that's $1,300 a year, just on petrol,' Ms Hammond said.

'Add to that the cost of insurance (in my case, $812 for comprehensive cover) and registration ($800), and you're looking at a total of $2,912.

'Multiply that by two (Jason's car expenses were roughly the same as mine) and the grand total is an eyewatering $5,824.'

The pair has no need for a car in Chiang Mai as everything the couple needs is within walking distance.

'If we do need to travel somewhere, we can catch a Grab (Thailand's version of Uber) for as little as 68 baht (about $3),' she said.

'Cars are expensive to run. Back in Melbourne, it cost me at least $50 a fortnight to fill up my Hyundai Elantra - that's $1,300 a year, just on petrol,' Ms Hammond said

Massages and Beauty Treatments Saving: $3,832

Ms Hammond used to dread going to a hair salon because of the dent it left in her budget.

'Every six weeks, I'd fork out about $250 for a cut, colour and blow-dry. I also used to treat myself to a pedicure ($30) every three months, which meant my beauty expenses - not including cosmetics - would set me back around $2,120 a year,' Ms Hammond said.

'While beauty treatments aren't dirt-cheap in Chiang Mai, there are still savings to be had. A cut, colour and blow-dry starts at around 2,850 baht ($118), while a pedicure is about 300 baht ($12). That's an annual saving of $1,128.'

Then there's the savings on massages.

'You can get a full-body, one-hour, oil massage for as little as 200 baht ($8),' Ms Hammond said.

'In Australia, that same massage would set you back at least $60. Let's say you treated yourself to one massage per week. That's an annual saving of $2,704.'

'A cut, colour and blow-dry starts at around 2,850 baht ($118), while a pedicure is about 300 baht ($12). That's an annual saving of $1,128,' she said

Dining Out: Yearly Cost Saving: $2,600

'We love eating out but back in Melbourne, we always felt a little guilty if we didn't cook the bulk of our meals, purely because of the cost,' Ms Hammond said.

'I estimate we spent at least $150 on either restaurant or takeaway food every week. Even takeaway Thai would cost about $40 for both of us.'

But in Chiang Mai the savings are huge as they can eat fresh, authentic Thai food for a quarter of the price.

'The other night, we spent 220 baht ($9) for two servings of pad Thai, a plate of pork ribs and two mango shakes,' Ms Hammond said.

'We eat out every single night in Chiang Mai for about $100 per week. Compare this to our weekly restaurant/takeaway spend in Melbourne and we're saving about $2,600 a year on dining out.'

'We love eating out but back in Melbourne, we always felt a little guilty if we didn't cook the bulk of our meals, purely because of the cost,' Ms Hammond said

'The other night, we spent 220 baht ($9) for two servings of pad Thai, a plate of pork ribs and two mango shakes,' she said (pictured is the meal)

Drinks Saving: $806

Michelle and Jason aren't big drinkers, but they've noticed a considerable difference between the price of drinks in Chiang Mai compared to Melbourne.

'Back home, a beer would cost about $10,' Ms Hammond said.

'Here you can sip on a cold brew for as little as $2. Even if you only drank one beer a week, that's a saving of $416 a year.

'Beer isn't the only refreshment you'll pay less for. You can pick up a fresh fruit shake (literally just your fruit of choice, mixed with crushed ice) for 30 baht (about $1.25) or a delicious smoothie packed with different ingredients for 60 baht ($2.50).

'In Australia, fresh smoothies cost upwards of $10. Assuming you enjoyed just one smoothie every week, that's an annual saving of $390.'
A Scottish mother got the fright of her life after discovering a drunken stranger asleep on her sofa.

Elaine McDade, 43, a dance teacher from Glasgow, had been watching TV in bed with her children on Saturday night when she popped downstairs for a drink.

After hearing some noise in her living room, she looked through the door to discover 26-year-old Thomas Airlie, an engineer from South Lanarkshire, in an alcohol-induced slumber on her sofa.

Thomas had let himself in the wrong house - where his parents lived two years ago - and had gone to sleep - but not before taking off his shoes and helping himself to a drink from the fridge.

Elaine, who said it was the one time she had forgotten to lock her front door, claims she woke the 'apologetic' man immediately, then her husband dropped him off at the nearest Asda because he couldn't remember where he lived.

Taking to Facebook Elaine shared the hilarious incident with her friends, getting hundreds of likes and dozens of comments.

Mother-of-two Elaine McDade, 43, from Glasgow was left shocked when she discovered a drunken stranger asleep on her sofa after he had mistakenly returned to his parents' old home (Thomas Airlie, 26, from South Lancashire seen asleep on her sofa)

Elaine took the incident in good humour and later took to Facebook to share the hilarious incident with her friends, explaining that she was so excited to see the children after a business trip that she left the door unlocked- before the drunk stranger entered

The dance teacher, who has two children, later discovered she had forgotten to lock the door for the first time and Thomas had later drunkenly entered after getting a taxi there as it was his parents' former home.

Elaine said: 'He even took his shoes off at the back door. He was a very polite guy.

'I'd just arrived back from London that night and my husband was at work.

Elaine (pictured), who said it was the one time she had forgotten to lock her front door, claims she woke the 'apologetic' man immediately before her husband dropped him off at the nearest Asda because he couldn't remember where he lived after he wandered into her home

'I was in bed with the kids on Saturday night and got up to make myself a drink.

'We were watching TV for about an hour and a half. I don't know if he was already in the house by then.

'Later on I went back downstairs and that's when I saw him fast asleep.'

Thomas, who had been out with a group of friends, was happily snoozing on Elaine's corner sofa when he was woken by the homeowner.

He had left his friends at around 11pm that night and is got in a taxi back to his parents' old house instead of his current home.

Elaine claims she called Stephen and he drove Thomas to the nearest Asda as he'd forgotten where he lived.

Elaine said: 'When I saw him I woke him up straight away. I even asked him if he used to live here, or if he lived in the same street now and had just got the wrong door.

'I phoned my husband and he agreed to take him home but he didn't even know where he lived so he dropped him off at ASDA instead.

'There was a lady who knew his parents and she said she couldn't believe what had happened.

Thomas Airlie, 26, (centre) from South Lancashire had mistakenly caught a taxi back to his parents' old home after a lively night out (seen with his two pals on the evening out) and ended up on Elaine's sofa

'She sent him the photo and I got a message from him on Facebook saying "oh my god, I can't apologise enough".

'After seeing the picture, he found it funny. He saw the funny side and he was very apologetic.

'To be honest, even just by the way he was laying, I could see he was just a normal guy who'd had too much to drink.

'I knew straight away he was just p*****. I knew he wasn't an intruder or a 'down and out'.

'If that was the case I would just have grabbed the kids and went outside.'

Elaine had just returned from a business trip in London and claims her excitement to see her kids made her forget to lock the door.

She has now vowed to be extra cautious next time and has learned her lesson.

Elaine said: 'I always lock the door but I had been away in London for a week and was desperate to get back to see my boy.

'I'd driven back from London and was unpacking my car when I saw the excitement on my son's face and got distracted.

'Every single time I walk through that door I automatically lock it.. The one time I forget and this happens. I've learned my lesson.'

Thomas had been out with a group of 12 friends and his mate Robbie McKean claims they will 'never let him forget' his drunken antics.

Robbie said: 'Our friend had a baby boy not long ago so we were out wetting the baby's head and we basically had a free night so we overindulged a wee bit.

'I can happily say he doesn't walk into people's houses and sleep on their couch on a regular basis and our group will most definitely never let him forget it.'
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and Jennifer Garner has signalled her admiration for Meghan Markle's wardrobe in the clearest terms - by wearing an identical dress.

Arriving on Hollywood Boulevard yesterday to watch her star on the Walk of Fame unveiled, Garner, 45, chose to wear the Roland Mouret Barwick Dress in navy blue for her moment in the LA spotlight.

The Duchess of Sussex also turned to the Mouret dress for a big moment, choosing to don the A-line dress with a front pleat the day before her wedding to Prince Harry on May 19th.

In Los Angeles, Garner, accompanied by her three children, Violet, 12, Seraphina, nine, and Samuel, six, looked the picture of elegance in the 1,350 off-the-shoulder frock - and even managed to lay down next to her star wearing it.

Actress Jennifer Garner arrives on Hollywood Boulevard to collect her star on the Walk of Fame; the 45-year-old wore the same 1,350 Roland Mouret dress that Meghan Markle was seen in the day before her wedding to Prince Harry on May 19th this year

Snap! The Duchess of Sussex in the same navy wool crepe dress with Mouret's signature pleat detail; the 37-year-old teamed the elegant frock with a pair of light grey Manolo Blahnik heels

The off-the-shoulder number saw the then bride-to-be exude elegance as she accompanied her mother, Doria Ragland, to the Cliveden House Hotel ahead of her big day

On May 17th, just hours before the nuptials of the year, the 37-year-old teemed the close fitting frock with a pair of light grey Manolo Blahnik heels as she arrived with her mother Doria Ragland at Cliveden House Hotel, close to Windsor Castle.

The dress features Roland Mouret's signature draped skirt and is made of wool crepe. While Meghan opted for dove grey stillettos, Garner finished the look with a pair of navy velour heels with a delicate strap.

Jurassic World star Garner has expressed her admiration for Meghan before, joking that she would make a great stand-in for the Duchess if ever required.

Ahead of the royal wedding, Garner posted a photo from her film 13 Going on 30 with co-star Mark Ruffalo, along with the caption: 'Harry and Meghan, if youre looking for stand-ins @markruffalo and I are just hangin around'.

While Jennifer chose to finish her look with elegant blue velour heels, with a delicate strap, Meghan opted for dove grey stilettos to contrast with the dress' classic navy

The 13 Going On 30 star also wore several bracelets and rings to compliment the dress; the actress was joined by her parents and three children: Violet, 12, Seraphina, nine, and Samuel, six

Immortalised! Garner poses alongside the famous pink star, which now bears her own name...and shows the dress is remarkably easy to sit down in with its pleated front design

It emerged earlier this week that Meghan's bridal gown will go on display later this year.

The Duchess' 200,000 Givenchy wedding gown is set to be exhibited at Windsor Castle.

Royal sources say the dress will be on show to the public as part of an exhibition at the Queen's residence in Berkshire, where the Duke and Duchess of Sussex tied the knot in May.

The stunning ivory gown is expected to bring in thousands of visitors to Windsor Castle, in what has already been a bumper year for the attraction.

Garner has expressed her admiration of Meghan before, joking on social media before the wedding that she was available as a stand-in if ever required

Jennifer, with her hair plaited loosely to the right, was joined by her mother, Patricia Ann Garner, at the ceremony on Hollywood Boulevard

The Royal Collection Trust, which manages the public openings of the Queen's official residences, told the Daily Express that any announcements would be made later this year.

Meghan, 37, surprised the fashion world in May by choosing Clare Waight Keller, the British artistic director of French fashion house Givenchy, to design her bridal dress.

The Duchess of Sussex wore the sweeping gown with a 16ft-long veil, embroidered with the flowers of all 53 countries of the Commonwealth.

The Duchess of Sussex later changed into a more contemporary halterneck dress by Stella McCartney for her evening reception at Frogmore House.
It's a milestone that no parent wants to miss; the moment their firstborn starts school.

And Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria, 41, and Prince Daniel of Sweden, 44, proved no exception as they walked hand-in-hand with their daughter Princess Estelle, six, as she arrived for her first day.

The youngster is starting her learning at Campus Manilla, one of Stockholm's most exclusive educational establishments.

Scroll down for video

Let's go! Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel Sweden walk hand-in-hand with their daughter Estelle, six, as she arrives for her first day at school at the exclusive Campus Manilla

Big Day: The royal couple's eldest child beamed as she took her place on the colourful train next to a new friend; without a uniform to adhere to, the six-year-old opted for a pretty blue blouse and white skirt, with a cream jacket

The flaxen-haired young royal bounded towards the red and yellow train that escorted the pupils to the school's front gates

Making friends already: the elite educational establishment in Stockholm attracts some of the city's most wealthy families to its doors

Estelle looked delighted to be meeting new friends as she waved off her mother and father and joined a cute yellow and red train, Harry Potter-style, to take her to the school's front gate.

Crown Princess Victoria opted for yummy mummy glamour as she sported a floral playsuit and silver platform heels, with her hair pulled back from her face.

The 41-year-old heir to the Swedish throne beamed as she waved off her eldest child. and chatted to parents of other children.

The mother-of-two was accompanied by Prince Daniel, who looked dapper in a dark green blazer, with khaki trousers and desert boots.

Proud parents: A very glamorous Crown Princess Victoria, sporting a pretty floral playsuit and silver platform heels, smiled at her daughter as the couple left the school grounds

A regular mother! Crown Princess Victoria chatted with the other parents after watching Estelle board the train

Hej! Prince Daniel watches on as Princess Estelle, who doesn't have to wear a school uniform, began bonding with her new friends

Far from being nervous, Princess Estelle, sister to Prince Oscar, two, appeared to be loving every moment of her first morning at school

It's wobbly! The royal appeared to show a staff member that one of her milk teeth was coming loose. Right: The teacher moves in for a closer look at Estelle's mouth

Children in the Scandinavian country tend to start school later in the UK, with emphasis put on allowing children time to play before they begin learning in earnest.

Campus Manilla, based on the Stockholm island of Djurgarden, was founded by property mogul Knut Pousette in 2013 with funds from private backers. The school now attracts some of the capital city's most wealthiest families.

The school's outgoing principal, Maija Moller Grimakova, told the Swedish media in May that the establishment was looking forward to welcoming the young royal.

She said: 'We look forward to many fantastic school years together. All parents choose the school which is best for their children and this is no exception.'
They enjoyed a lavish Cotswolds wedding this month with Idris Elba and Craig David serenading the bride, but with an age gap of 22 years designer Jade Holland Cooper and Superdry co-founder Julian Dunkerton may seem a somewhat unlikely couple.

However, Jade, 31, insists she never thinks about the age gap with the businessman, 53, who is worth an estimated 441M, and says one of the things that makes them click is that he understands her drive to succeed.

The designer set up her eponymous brand Holland Cooper 10 years ago, which specialises in sexy tailored tweed jackets, 599 leather trousers and luxurious fur-trimmed capes.

She started selling her designs at a stall at the Cheltenham festival ten years ago, in echoes of her husband who co-founded Superdry in 1985 from a market stall in Cheltenham.

'I've never met anyone as inspiring. He's an amazing human being,' she told The Times. 'I need to be with someone who doesn't say, "Have you earned enough money now?". I just can't think like that.'

Jade Holland Cooper, 31, and Superdry co-founder Julian Dunkerton married in a lavish ceremony in the Cotswolds earlier this month after a long friendship, which culminated in the pair becoming a couple 18 months ago

Jade and Julian pictured on holiday in Portofino in April 2018. The designer said she doesn't even consider the 22 year age gap in her relationship with the multi-millionaire, who understands her drive to keep building her brand

The designer, pictured at her home in the Cotswolds earlier this year, specialises in tailored tweed jackets and 'sexy' country casuals and was inspired by seeing everyone wearing itchy, green tweed when she attended agricultural college 10 years ago

Two years ago, the tycoon sold 52 million of shares in the company to fund a divorce settlement with his first wife, Charlotte Abbot.

Earlier this year, he sold his last remaining stake for 71M and now focuses on his businesses in the Cotswolds where he owns a string of hotels and restaurants.

It was at one of these restaurants where he met Jade and the pair have known each other for years, but got together 18 months ago.

Suffolk farmer's daughter Jade was educated at 14,322-per-year Ipswich School for Girls before making her demure public debut on Country Life's 'Girl In Pearls' page.

Jade at this year's Cheltenham festival in March 2018 with Made In Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo, with both dressed in Holland Cooper designs

Jade selling her first designs at a market stall at the Cheltenham festival 10 years ago with Made In Chelsea star and close friend Ollie Locke

Jade Holland Cooper arrives at Cheltenham racecourse on Ladies Day on March 14, 2018 in Cheltenham in one of her tartan coats and fur trimmed scarves

Her mother was a designer and she couldn't decide between a future in design or agriculture, eventually plumping for the latter, studying international equine and agricultural business management at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester.

When she say everyone wearing the same 'bog-standard, green, itchy, masculine tweed', she realised there was a gap in the market for a more glamorous version.

She dropped out after a year and started designing her own clothes, even though she couldn't even sew to begin with.

The designer pictured on a break in Fiscardo Bay, Greece in June 2016. She's set up her own brand 10 years ago after dropping out of agricultural college to pursue a career as a designer, even though she couldn't sew

Superdry co-founder Julian Dunkerton with Idris Elba at the launch of his menswear collection for the brand in November 2015. The Luther star DJed at Dunkerton's wedding in the Cotswolds earlier this month

Jade Holland Cooper wore spectacular, figure-hugging white lace bridal gown by Galia Lahav for her wedding in the Cotswolds earlier this month, describing it as a 'dress of dreams'

Now her clothing, which is entirely made in Britain, is a hit with celebrities and even royalty with the likes of Made in Chelsea's Georgia Toffolo and Zara Tindall wearing her designs.

Despite her success, she admits she's still afraid of failing and that she has no intention of resting on her laurels.

As for plans to have children, she insists she wants them with Dunkerton but has no idea how she will fit it all in, saying: 'My mother will probably take over.'
Melinda Messenger has been criticised after re-igniting the debate over the HPV vaccine on Twitter, by saying mothers 'must ask questions'.

The television presenter, 47, shared a video on Twitter of a speech given by Australian GP Dr Deirdre Little, captioned: 'The hidden truth of HPV vaccines and their devastating effects.'

Posting a link to the video, Melinda commented: 'We are mothers, these are our children and we must ask the questions, even if some do not want us to or try to shut down the conversation with aggression, its too important not to check and question......'

Her comments were met by anger by her followers, with one person replying: 'This nonsense will kill people.'

Melinda previously revealed that she decided to stop her teenage daughter Evie, now 14, from having the vaccine over safety fears.

Melinda Messenger (pictured on This Morning earlier this year) has been criticised after re-igniting the debate over whether the HPV vaccine is safe on social media

Posting on Twitter (above), Melinda said that mothers 'must ask the questions, even if some do not want us to'. She shared a video captioned: 'The hidden truth of HPV vaccines and their devastating effects'

Social media users were quick to respond to Melinda's tweet, with many criticising the fact she was questioning the safety of the HPV vaccine.

One wrote: 'The question has been asked. The question has been answered. The vaccine is safe and saves lives. This nonsense will kill people. Get vaccinated.'

Another added: 'You could play a major role in saving lives, @melindamessenger - 14,000 people follow you. Listen to the medics and the scientists and promote vaccination'.

However, others had more sympathy with Melinda's concerns, with one writing: 'It's one of those very personal decisions that a parent must make. Should be respected either way - they are just doing their best!'

Melinda (pictured above with daughter Evie and son Morgan at the Incredibles 2 premiere last month) previously revealed how she stopped her teenage daughter, now 14, from having the HPV vaccine

Other social media users criticised Melinda for re-igniting the debate, with one commenting 'This nonsense will kill people' (top)

Another Twitter user commented: 'I agree #informedconsent.'

Melinda shared a video of Dr Little telling the case of a 16-year-old girl who went into menopause, after being injected with HPV vaccine Gardasil.

However, global health officials have repeatedly denied the vaccines have any detrimental effects.

Experts add the vaccine, Gardasil, is 'extraordinarily' effective at preventing HPV, which is said to be responsible for around 90 per cent of cases of cervical cancer.

However, some Twitter users had more sympathy with Melinda's concerns over the vaccine, describing it as a 'personal decision' (above)

In the UK, the vaccine is routinely offered to 12 to 13 year-old girls as part of the NHS's cervical cancer programme.

Melinda has previously revealed why she decided to stop her daughter Evie, who was 12 at the time, from having the HPV vaccine.

Speaking on This Morning in 2016, the presenter said: 'Its been out about eight years. Its a brand new vaccine and we dont really know anything about it.

'There are a number of cases which have been reported including ovarian failure and premature menopause, although these havent scientifically been linked to the vaccine.'

She added: 'What we have to weigh up as parents is "is my daughter at risk of contracting a series illness". I think people should do more research.
A mother says a stranger shamed her for breastfeeding her child at the back of her own car, leaving her on the verge of tears.

Disa Sweet, 26, took to Facebook earlier this month to share a photo of herself with tears in her eyes as she nurses her baby.

The mom, of Carsonville, Michigan, explained in a post that has now gone viral that a woman berated her as she was struggling to feed her daughter, claiming her husband and son shouldn't be exposed to the sight of her breast.

Struggle: Disa Sweet, 26, posted this teary selfie while explaining a stranger shamed her for breastfeeding her child at the back of her own car

'To the insecure woman at Walmart that thought she needed to come tell me that I need to cover up myself because her husband and son "don't need to see my breast all over the place".

'I'll have you know I've been busting my a** for 10 days going through so much pain trying to breastfeed and do what's best for my child,' she wrote.

Disa detailed how much she has struggled to feed her baby, and how the difficult process has affected her and caused her to doubt her abilities as a parent.

'I've cried many nights with my daughter trying to get her to latch properly and just feeling overwhelmed and like I wasn't a good mom just waiting for my supply to come in,' she explained.

The mother said she had a blanket over herself and her baby and was 'having a hard time getting her to latch'.

She said the woman 'could see [her] frustration', adding: 'Maybe you should teach your husband not to be such a creep and teach your son this is the natural way to feed your child.'

Trying: Disa detailed how much she has struggled to feed her baby, and how the difficult process has affected her and caused her to doubt her abilities as a parent

Encouragement: The mother has received the support of thousands of people who have encouraged her to breastfeed whenever she needs

'I'm sorry that you're so insecure and miserable but I'm doing my best and I'll never raise my children to shame someone for trying,' the mother clapped back.

'I hope you see this and you understand I'm just a mom out here trying... just like you.'

Disa later edited her post to explain she was sitting at the back of her vehicle when the incident occurred and wasn't inside the store.

Her publication has now received 50,000 comments, most of them offering support to the distressed mother.

'Breastfeed your baby where you and baby are comfortable,' one person wrote. 'To hell with these snotty moms that think they can approach another woman and tell her how to be a mom or where titties need to be. Some people need to just mind their own damn business.'

Someone else told Disa: 'You're doing it right. Don't worry about what anyone else thinks or says.'

'Keep up the good work and don't let others tell you what to do or make you feel bad,' another person chimed in. 'Proud of you!'

'You should be able to feed your baby wherever,' someone wrote, 'it's natural and you should not have to hide feeding your baby.'
As college students head back to their dorms  or settle in their new digs for the first time ever  many are searching for ways to make their new rooms feel more cozy.

But some will go over the top in their quests to make their dorms as comfortable as possible, resulting in spectacular transformations.

Some of them have taken to featuring their impressive decoration work in before and after photos and videos, detailing how they turned their barren rooms into homey spaces complete with massive headboards, curtains, and elegant furniture.

Decor: Some college students go to spectacular lengths to make sure their dorms are as cozy as possible. Among them is Lindy Goodson, a student at Ole Miss, who spruced up this dorm

Barren: Lindy and her roommate Makenzie Hunter started out with a standard dorm

Final product: They transformed their interior by adding headboards, plush bedding, pillows, and even curtains matching her pink, white and gold color scheme

Study time: The two roommates also transformed the area surrounding their desks

Cozy: They added lamps that provide a softer lighting than the room's fixtures

Going way back: In August 2016, Lindy and her roommate Abby Bozeman also transformed their dorm room at Ole Miss. Lindy reused the same headboards and lamps in 2018

Delaney Patrice, a student at Hampton University in Virginia, took to Instagram recently to share before and after photos of her dorm room after she spruced it up.

In the before shot, the room has simple wood floors and barren cream walls. Delaney and her roommate Savannah gave it more character with matching gray velvet headboards, coordinated bedding in gray and white tones, and pictures on the wall featuring inspirational quotes.

Each of the students put up her own nightstand, and has her name displayed in cursive letters above her bed.

Sheila Ybarra, whose daughter Skylar Bantz goes to Texas State University, shared pictures of Skykar's dorm room transformation earlier this week.

Skylar was initially assigned a standard dorm with a loft bed, off-white walls, and wooden floors.

Before: Delaney Patrice, a student at Hampton University in Virginia, took to Instagram recently to share before and after photos of her dorm room after she spruced it up

After: Delaney and her roommate Savannah gave it more character with matching gray velvet headboards and coordinated bedding in gray and white tones

Wise words: Delaney hung pictures on the wall featuring inspirational quotes

Minimalist: One student going by AMya Cianna on Instagram shared this before photo of her dorm room

Quite different: She posted this picture of the same room after sprucing it up with pink bedding, a gray headboard, and other accessories

Living quarters: Sheila Ybarra, whose daughter Skylar Bantz goes to Texas State University, shared pictures of Skykar's dorm room transformation earlier this week

Stylish: Skylar was initially assigned a standard dorm with a loft bed, off-white walls, and wooden floors, which turned into this cozy interior

Finishing touches: Skylar's room now features golden accents and has a soft pink theme

The student turned the room into a comfy space, complete with a coffee table, a white rug, and golden accents.

She added a monogrammed desk chair and a small white couch to make the space even cozier.

Last year, Skylar also went above and beyond when she transformed her dorm room at Texas State University.

She turned her tiny dark room into a stunning loft-style apartment with a faux exposed brick wall and canopies draping below two loft beds. The student posted the photos on Instagram, writing in the caption: 'After many many long hours, we're moved in!

'Thank you to my mom for working so hard to make it look amazing and thank you to my dad and Moses for doing all of the heavy lifting.'

Skylar's 16-by-16-foot room, located in a 50-year-old residence hall nicknamed "Scary Sterry," was completely redone with the help of her mother, Sheila.

Sheila previously told Insider that the room cost approximately $2,400, and that the transformation took 'a lot of preparation.'

'Another thing that was super important was good lighting,' the mother added. 'We purchased lots of extra lighting to update the room and make it feel as homey as possible.'

Getting settled: Student Paige Mills documented her move-in day in a YouTube video

It begins: She used a large white area rug to give the room a much different feel

Details: Paige added other touches, such as a white trunk at the bottom of her bed

Lindy Goodson, a student at Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi, showed how she and her roommate Makenzie Hunter turned their bleak dorm into a glamorous room, bringing in their own bedding, headboards, drapes, and accessories.

Both of them can be seen in a video shared by Lindy putting up their headboards and curtain rods, piling their beds high with pillows and decorating their space with gold and pink accents.

The two students also covered their floor with a large area rug complementing their pink scheme.

Lindy, from Illinois, previously made headlines for her decorating skills when photos of her shared dorm room went viral.

She and her roommate Abby Bozeman, from Mississippi, had been discussing their decoration plans since the December that preceded their move-in date in August 2016.

On that occasion too, the students used headboards, curtains, and rugs in order to bring their personal style to life and radically change the appearance of their dorm.

Paige Mills, a student at Indiana University, also took pains to ensure her room would reflect her own style as much as possible.

The student, who documented her room transformation in a vlog, went as far as having her father place white brick paper on her walls, giving the illusion of a white brick wall.

She covered the floor with a plush white area rug, which matches the white trunk she placed at the foot of her bed for additional storage.

Paige also brought in a white storage cart, in which she arranged a selection of snacks upon moving in.

DIY skills can come in handy when trying to give a dorm room a unique look, as shown by student Jennifer Zhang.

DIY: Student Jennifer Zhang showed how she used her craft skills to transform her standard dorm room into a charming space

Clever: She managed to build herself a canopy without putting any nails in the walls and ceilings

Seeing stars: Jennifer also hung fairy lights across the ceiling for a whimsical effect

She managed to set up a canopy above her bed without drilling any holes into her wall or ceiling, as detailed in a home decor vlog she shared last year.

Jennifer painted a city skyline onto a white piece of clothing using pale blue paint and hung it up to give more life to her barren white wall.

She covered her desk in sticky paper with a marble pattern, making it look much more elegant, and hung fairy lights across her ceiling for a whimsical effect.

Students around the country have showcased their dorm room transformations, showing how they made the most of their cramped spaces, which often come with dim lighting and dingy walls.

Before: Skylar Bantz completely transformed her dorm room at Texas State University

After: With the help of her mom and dad, Skylar was able to transform her dorm into this gorgeous place with loft beds, canopies, and a faux exposed brick wall

Before: Moriah Snipes' dorm at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

After: Snipes and her roommate (pictured) went with a faux-fur gray and turquoise motif

Other students have showcased their impressive decorative skills by unveiling their dorm room makeovers on social media. Those who live with roommates  as many do, particularly during their freshman year  do the extra work of planning and coordinating with those roomies before move-in day.

Moriah Snipes, a North Carolina Agricultural And Technical State University student, posted her room makeover on Twitter.

She and her roommate moved into a tiny room with taupe carpeting, cement walls on both sides, and one exposed brick wall.

The girls went with a gray and turquoise color scheme, picking out matching gray bedding, gray and white striped curtains, and turquoise accents such as pillows and baskets.

They added touches of faux fur, with pillows, blankets, and even an ottoman in the middle of the room.

When Heather Loughrid, a University of Oregon student, first moved into her dorm, the place looked rather barren.

But Heather managed to completely revamp it and turn it into a stunning pink-and-gray-themed home, in keeping with the room's gray carpeted floor that was there when she first moved in.

Heather and her roommate opted for scalloped, tufted headboards  one pink and one gray. They added an ottoman at the center of the room for an extra tufted touch that matched their headboards perfectly.

Before: University of Oregon student, Heather Loughrid, went from drab to fab

After: Heather chose a pink and gray color scheme and the mix-matched scalloped headboards make this room look like it's for a princess

Before: Two students from Austin State University were given a dark, brown carpeted dorm

After: Sophie Fondren and dormmate, Kate, made a monogrammed room and they even added a little satin couch

Two Austin State University students, Sophie Fondren and her roommate Kate, did not like their dark brown, dimly-lit dorm room.

The two friends turned their space into a much cozier room with a navy blue and pink color scheme.

From the pillows to the bedspreads, throw blankets, and signs above their beds, the room became covered in the girls' monograms.

The two also added matching white headboards and scalloped plaques with their initials above their beds.

In the center of the room, they placed a gray curtain to cover the window.

A pretty white shelf was also placed in the center of the room to hold picture frames and trinkets.

While the entire room was stunning, two aspects of their space stood out.

One of them is the white satin loveseat Sophie and Kate added at the center of the space in case they invited guests over.

The other is the coffee station they set up on one side of the room, which has everything they need to craft the perfect brews.

To complete their coffee stations, the roommates used a white shelving unit on which they placed silverware in holsters, a coffee machine, K-cups on a rolling stand, mugs, plates, snacks, and more accessories.

Boring: A student from Texas Tech University completely changed her bland wood room

Glam: Diamond, a student at Texas Tech, revamped her gloomy room into a bright pink palace

Diamond, a student at Texas Tech University, turned her side of her dorm room into a glam pink cloud.

After the transformation, her living space featured a baby pink wall outlined in pretty pink string lights, with pictures of lips, diamonds, and quotes hanging on it.

The student accessorized her room with matching pink baskets and bins and faux fur pillows.

Kaelyn Odom from Texas Tech University also made sure to decorate her dorm room to make it completely unique.

She spruced up her space with funky accents and bold colors, using rainbow accessories, patterns likes stripes and polka dots, and a hot pink ottoman as a statement piece.

Swanky: Kaelyn Odom from Texas Tech University transformed her room into a 'babe cave'

Pink: The student's dorm room in Chitwood Hall looks like Hannah Montana and Lizzie McGuire's bedroom in one

Shades of blue: Olivia Stokes and her roomie, Ashlyn Eaves, made their dorm at The University of Mississippi look like a condo in manhattan

Starry surprise: Roommates Lydia Gratwick and Maggie Farmer transformed their Mississippi State University dorm into a glam star-themed room with sequins and fur

Olivia Stokes and her roommate Ashlyn Eaves, from The University of Mississippi, turned their boring space into a picture-perfect room.

From matching gold lamps to matching bedspreads, ottomans, curtains, photographs, and picture frames, the two students crafted a tasteful decor.

Lydia Gratwick and Maggie Farmer also transformed their Mississippi State University room into a starry-eyed surprise.

The duo matched everything from their bedspreads to their lamps, throws, headboards, and even made sure to coordinate their touches.

Among the prettiest parts of their room are the white loveseat in the center, the glass coffee table with elegant accessories on top, and the little star mirrors above their beds, which ties the room together.
Lidl has launched a range of cured meats from a luxury brand that also sells its wares at upmarket department store Selfridges for more than twice the price.

The budget store is the first UK supermarket chain to sell British-made salami and chorizo by Cannon&Cannon, which is based at high-end Borough Market in central London.

It is selling packets for just 1.99 each - while similar cured meats by the same brand at Selfridges cost 4.50.

All the 10 new cured meats are made in Britain, with the salami and chorizo selections coming from Wales, Scotland, Kent, Cornwall, London, and Yorkshire.

Lidl is selling a new range of 10 cured chorizo (bottom centre and bottom top right) and salami (top left, top centre and top right) made in Britain using British ingredients by upmarket brand Cannon&Cannon for just 1.99 a packet

Lidl's new range of cured meats Welsh Fennel Salami Welsh Chorizo Scottish Salami Yorkshire Chorizo Kentish Salami Kentish Chorizo Cornish Salami Cornish Chorizo London Salami London Spicy Salami Advertisement

Each region gives the salami or chorizo a different flavour, and the different herbs used in the curing process include fennel, rosemary and paprika.

The meat all comes from high-welfare British pigs in the north east, south, and west of England and Scotland.

Cannon&Cannon usually supplies the UK's top restaurants, delis and food halls, but it has now partnered up with the German-founded budget retailer too.

Selfridges also sells salami and chorizo by Cannon & Cannon but the prices are much steeper.

Cannon&Cannon is selling a range of five salamis and five chorizos (pictured, one of Cannon&Cannon's range) at Lidl from Thursday from just 1.99. They are made in different regions of the UK such as Cornwall, Kent and Scotland

It has different flavours on offer, and its salami and chorizo sausages start from 4.50.

The high-end department store also stocks Cannon&Cannon's luxury charcuterie boards, which cost 55 each and come with five varieties of meat, as well as crackers, a jar of chutney, lardo and rillette.

Lidl's offering is a paired down version, with 10 different types of meat on sale for 1.99 each.

Thomas Bryan, meat buying manager at Lidl UK, said: 'This partnership is enabling us to showcase the quality and innovation of locally cured meats in Britain today, as well as supporting smaller, local suppliers.

'It's exciting to be able to bring top-quality salamis and chorizos from artisanal British producers to an interested customer base, looking to engage with food provenance at a local level.'

The new cured meats will be on sale in Lidl stores from Thursday, August 23.
Look away now if you're afraid of heights, as new snaps show how a group of intrepid diners recreated one of the world's most iconic photographs by eating their lunch atop a 450-ft high girder.

The original photo, Lunch Atop A Skyscraper, was taken in 1932 during the construction of the world-renowned Rockefeller Center in New York City in the midst of the Great Depression to show that American was still building, progressing and working.

Eighty-six years later, members of the public won a competition to enjoy the most perilous meal of their lives by recreating the famous image 32 floors above the ground at one of the tallest buildings in central London.

 Slide me  Lunch Atop A Skyscraper was snapped in 1932 of workers in the middle of the construction of the world-renowned Rockefeller Center in New York City by an unknown photographer and is one of the most iconic pictures of all time. Now Deliveroo has recreated the shot with members of the public who won a competition to eat lunch on top of a girder 450ft above central London at one of the capital's tallest buildings, including a descendant of one of the original workers in the picture, George Glynn (far right). He is thought to be related to Sonny Glynn, who is sitting on the far right of the original image

Among them included George Glynn, who is believed to be a descendant of Sonny Glynn, an Irish immigrant working in New York at the time who is pictured on the far right of the original image - the same spot that George occupies in the recreation.

The original photograph, snapped by an unknown photographer, is a cultural watermark that has been parodied, referenced and copied countless times over the years. It originally appeared in the Sunday supplement of the New York Herald Tribune.

This year's recreation in London at one of the tallest buildings in London Bridge, which cannot be named for legal reasons, was organised by food delivery service Deliveroo to celebrate a 210 per cent rise in outdoor food orders due to the summer heatwave.

A handful of lucky members of the public entered a free ballot to eat takeaway atop the girder just like in the original photograph, and they tucked into dishes from pizzeria Firezza, vegan restaurant by Chloe, KFC, and cake shop Konditor & Cook.

Winners of a competition enjoy a meal 450ft up on the roof of a central London skyscraper, as Deliveroo recreates 'Lunch Atop a Skyscraper', the photograph taken during the construction of the Rockefeller Center in New York City, 1932. The group includes the probable descendant of one of the workers in the original image, George Glynn (far right)

Members of the public enjoyed meals from vegan restaurant by Chloe, a pizza from Firezza, and cake from Konditor & Cook as they sat 450ft above central London on a skyscraper in London Bridge

Although the meal looks perilous, all the diners were safely harnessed so they would not have been able to plunge to their untimely deaths.

Dan Warne, UK and Ireland managing director at Deliveroo said: 'Deliveroo has been committed to delivering the most amazing food experiences all summer, whatever the weather, be it to the beach, a park, at home or 450ft in the air.

'When thinking about infamous lunches, the photograph from Rockefeller Center is hard to beat, but we thought we might as well give it a go.'

Deliveroo launched the sky high meal after commissioning research which found that that millions of British workers have fallen into a cycle of boredom when it comes to office lunches.

According to its data, seven in 10 of the 1,500 polled said they were stuck in a rut when it came to their office lunches, yet one in four say they talk about what they are having for lunch daily.

The research found a third of Brits eat exactly the same thing every day, the average Brit has a repertoire of just three different meals they rotate, and ham sandwiches are the most popular lunch option, followed by cheese and tuna mayonnaise.
Fifty-five people are now feared to have died in the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Less than half of the deaths have been confirmed to be down to the virus, considered one of the most lethal pathogens in existence.

But health officials in the African nation fear the remaining fatalities are likely to have been caused by Ebola.

Aid workers are battling round-the-clock to contain the outbreak, which has struck the east of the country on the border with Uganda.

Virologists have already warned the situation is hard to control because the cases are in a conflict zone, roamed by armed militias.

DRCs Ministry of Health updated the Ebola death toll in its latest bulletin, released yesterday, as a mass vaccination campaign continues.

Aid workers are battling round-the-clock to contain the outbreak, which has struck the east of the country on the border with Uganda

It said the five new victims were in Mabalako-Mangina, close to Beni, the epicentre of the outbreak in the North Kivu province.

The body added 96 cases of haemorrhagic fever  thought to be Ebola  have been reported in the region since the start of August.

Laboratory tests have confirmed 69 of these have had Ebola, however the remaining suspected cases are still being analysed.

Beni's mayor Jean Edmond Nyonyi Masumbuko Bwanakawa announced treatment for Ebola will be free in the region for three months, starting Monday.

It is hoped the move will remove the financial barrier that could dissuade the population from going to the health centre.

It is the 10th outbreak to strike the DRC since 1976, when Ebola was first identified and named after a river in the north of the country.

The outbreak on the border of Uganda was announced just days after another was declared over in the north west DRC at the start of this month.

Virologists feared it was 'reminiscent' of the 2014 Ebola pandemic, which decimated West Africa and killed 11,000 people.

Emergency: A health worker gets ready to perform medical checks inside an Ebola Treatment Centre run by The Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA) in Beni

An Ebola patient is lead by two medical workers into CUBE, which has being constructed by The Alliance for International Medical Action in response to the Ebola outbreak

HAS THE DRC HAD AN EBOLA OUTBREAK BEFORE? DRC escaped the brutal Ebola pandemic that began in 2014, which was finally declared over in January 2016 - but it was struck by a smaller outbreak last year. Four DRC residents died from the virus in 2017. The outbreak lasted just 42 days and international aid teams were praised for their prompt responses. The new outbreak is the DRCs tenth since the discovery of Ebola in the country in 1976, named after the river. The outbreak earlier this summer was its ninth. Health experts credit an awareness of the disease among the population and local medical staff's experience treating for past successes containing its spread. DRCs vast, remote geography also gives it an advantage, as outbreaks are often localised and relatively easy to isolate. Advertisement

But the new outbreak has already dwarfed the one earlier this summer, and has stoked more fears among the medical community.

In a desperate attempt to stem the outbreak, the World Health Organization's chief last week called for an end to the fighting in the DRC.

Dr Tedros Adhanom travelled to east DRC to examine the situation in person and told reporters in Switzerland he was 'actually more worried after the visit than before'.

He said: 'We call on the warring parties for a cessation of hostilities because the virus is dangerous to all. It doesnt choose between this group and that group.'

Professor Paul Hunter, a virologist at the University of East Anglia, last week praised an experimental vaccine being dished out in DRC that can stop the spread of Ebola.

However, he also raised fears that conflict in the region could make the outbreak hard to control, as those infected could be displaced into refugee camp, where the virus may thrive.

An Ebola patient is being checked by two medical workers after being admitted into a Biosecure Emergency care Unite (CUBE) in Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo

He said: The effectiveness of any immunization campaign depends on the ability to deliver that vaccine to the appropriate people is a timely manner.

Unfortunately the latest outbreak is in an area of armed conflict and this poses substantial difficulties for effective prevention.

The unsafe burial of a 65-year-old Ebola sufferer triggered the latest outbreak in the DRC, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

After she was buried members of her family began to display symptoms of the virus 'and seven of them died'.

Ebola virus disease, caused by the virus with its namesake, kills around 50 per cent of people it strikes  but there is no proven treatment available.

Eight healthcare workers have been struck down by Ebola so far in this outbreak, of whom one has died.

Genetic analysis has confirmed the virus strain in this latest outbreak is the Zaire strain, the same as the one earlier this summer.

Officials in the African nation have confirmed nine deaths so far (pictured: Doctors Without Borders team members walk through an Ebola security zone at the entrance of a hospital in DR Congo, where a fresh outbreak of the virus was declared in the east of the country)

However, Peter Salama, WHO deputy director for emergency preparedness and response, last week revealed it is genetically different.

Most of the confirmed cases have been recorded in Mabalako, 18 miles (30km) west of the trading hub of Beni, where 230,000 people live.

DRC health officials have also confirmed five cases of EVD in Beni itself, which borders Uganda and Rwanda. Another seven are suspected.

Aid workers have been told they will have to navigate their response among more than 100 armed groups.

A WHO spokesperson said last week: 'This is an active conflict zone. The major barrier will be safely accessing the affected population.'

Vaccinations began two weeks ago, following the success of the jabs in Equateur province, which two weeks ago declared the end of its Ebola flare-up.

Some 33 people were feared to have died in that outbreak, which started in the poorly-connected region of Ikoko-Impenge and Bikoro.

It travelled 80 miles (130km) north to Mbandaka, a port city on the river Congo  an essential waterway - with around 1.2 million inhabitants.

There was a concern it would spread to Kinshasa  364 miles (586km) south, which has an international airport and 12 million people residents.

Dr Derek Gatherer, a virologist from Lancaster University, warned the outbreak earlier this summer was 'reminiscent' of the 2014 Ebola pandemic.

All neighbouring countries were alerted about the outbreak of Ebola before it was declared over amid fears it could spread easily.

Officials hailed the use of an experimental vaccine, called rVSV-ZEBOV, in stemming the Ebola outbreak in north west DRC in July.

More than 3,000 doses remain in stock in Kinshasa, allowing authorities to quickly deploy it to the affected areas near the Ugandan border.

Barthe Ndjoloko, who oversees the health ministry's Ebola response, said officials are working to identify those who may be infected.

He revealed last week the vaccination campaign will focus on healthcare workers and those who have come into contact with confirmed cases.

The 2014 international response to the Ebola pandemic drew criticism for moving too slowly and prompted an apology from the WHO.

But international aid teams have moved much quicker in response this time - with vaccination campaigns already underway in several regions.
Many teenagers feel that there is more and division and discrimination in the world, and the stress may make them act out more, new research suggests.

Since 2016, the US has only become further politically polarized, and American teenagers don't have to be old enough to vote to be affected by the climate.

Meanwhile, stress, depression, anxiety and a general swath of mental health concerns are on the rise among teens across the country.

New University of Southern California research suggests that to explain rising rates of ADHD, smoking, drinking and more, we need to look beyond genetics and home life to the political arena.

Between 2016 and 2017, teenagers were very much aware of the intensifying political climate and stress over discrimination raised their risks of substance abuse and ADHD, a study found

Teenagers are sensitive to the world around them - and that doesn't just apply to their social circles or what's trending on Twitter.

Developmentally speaking, high school students (typically between ages 15 and 17) are at once extremely self-absorbed and beginning to understand and engage with the broader world.

A sense of right or wrong and ideological loyalties start to take more concrete shape during these years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And as these young people begin to care more about the world around them, the world's conditions begin to matter and affect them more, too.

In the lead up to and immediate aftermath of the 2016 election, no one had to pay very close attention to notice rising political tensions.

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) have been studying a group of group of more than 2,500 teenagers in Los Angeles, giving them a survey with questions to monitor their mental health and substance use patterns every six months.

Nearly 20 percent of the students were Hispanic, 17 percent were multiracial, six percent were Black and seven percent were white.

'Prior to our spring 2016 survey, we noticed highly public instances of police violence - especially toward minorities - backlash toward same-sex marriage and a surge in hate crimes against American Muslims,' says Dr Adam Leventhal, lead study author.

'We wanted to see whether the teens in our study were concerned that discrimination in our society appeared to be increasing.'

They also wanted to see if concern over discrimination would translate into increases in behavioral patterns and disorders typical of stressed out teenagers.

Dr Leventhal and his team at USC surveyed the teenagers about six different behavioral health measures: how much they were drinking, smoking cigarettes, using marijuana and using other substances, as well as questions to screen them for both depression and symptoms of attention deficient hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

They asked the students these same questions again a year later, after President Donald Trump had been elected.

'We didn't know what was going to happen, but the societal climate intensified, particularly in the first few months of the presidential campaign,' says Dr Leventhal.

'During the campaign, there was talk of policies that were perceived by many as discriminatory, like building a wall at the border between Mexico and the US, and we have a lot of Hispanic study participants.'

These developments seemed to concern all of the students, and they all showed signs of their stress in their behaviors.

'We hypothesized that the teens from racially ethnic or disadvantaged socioeconomic groups might have more at stake in terms of whether society is becoming more discriminatory, at least from their perspective' says Dr Leventhal.

'But we found that, for many of our outcomes, the association between stress and an increased risk of all sorts of behavioral health outcomes held true across lower and higher socioeconomic groups.'

The students' reactions to these societal stressors did vary with their race and socioeconomic statuses.

As black and Hispanic students reported a growing concerns about discrimination, they tended to smoke - both marijuana and cigarettes - more, drink more and report more symptoms of both depression and ADHD.

White students were marginally more likely to develop these problematic behaviors as the political climate changed, except for smoking, which was no more common among these students at the end of the study than it had been at the beginning.

If a student was in the 13 percent of the participants with parents who had not even received a high school diploma (an indicator of low income), however, all of these behavioral impacts were 'amplified,' regardless of race.

'Previous studies of polarizing social events have later linked these to behavioral health ... but nothing in recent memory would rial this,' says Dr Leventhal.

'I think, given some of the events more recently have to do with social policies that are national, one could envision that those might have more wide-spanning implications for a very large cross-section of teenagers in the overall population.'

We have long a myriad of factors affect teenagers' mental and behavioral health, and 'what this study shows is that the larger societal context at a national - and potentially an international - level might be affecting them too,' Dr Leventhal says.

'Parents, teachers, pediatricians, and anyone who interacts with teens need to know that opening up a dialogue with them to discuss whether they're feeling stressed about these issues is probably something that should be taken more seriously.'

And he urges policymakers to take note of what's going on with these younger generations, too.

'When considering enforcing a social policy that may be used in ways that could be viewed as discriminatory, there may be wide implications for the mental health of teens on a wide spread basis,' he says

'That should enter into discussions so policymakers can consider the net productivity effects on our nation's youth, including those who are not members of sociodemograpic groups that are historically discriminated against.'




Holidaymakers were yesterday urged to ensure they were vaccinated against measles after cases of the disease in Europe reached an eight-year high.

The World Health Organisation warned that the number of cases during 2018 has already outstripped any year since 2010.

Across Europe there were more than 41,000 cases recorded during the first six months of 2018, including 37 deaths.

Across Europe there were more than 41,000 cases of measles recorded during the first six months of 2018, including 37 deaths

The global health body said France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine have had more than 1,000 cases each so far in 2018.

Ukraine has been the hardest hit, with more than 23,000.

Public Health England said holidaymakers should ensure they are up to date with their measles, mumps and rubella vaccination before travel.

Those starting university or attending festivals should ensure they are protected. WHO said that from January 1 to August 6 there were 807 laboratory confirmed measles cases in England  many linked to outbreaks in Europe.

It said 58 per cent of them have been among children aged 15 and younger, who missed out on their MMR vaccine when younger.

Dr Mary Ramsay, of PHE, said: Anyone who missed out on their MMR vaccine should contact their GP to catch-up.
A woman with a mysterious itch on her legs has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer that may kill her.

Jade Baldwin, from Pitsea in Essex, is now desperately trying to raise 50,000 for a life-extending immunotherapy drug to tackle her Hodgkin lymphoma.

Four different forms of chemotherapy have failed and now her hopes rely on raising money for nivolumab - once denied to late Sunday Times food critic AA Gill.

Ms Baldwin, 35, claims she has been told the drug isn't available on the NHS for her type of cancer - but watchdogs Nice state it is recommended for Hodgkin lymphoma patients that don't respond to treatment.

The project manager is battling the disease with her father, who also has terminal cancer. The pair sometimes receive treatment in the same hospital together.



Ms Baldwin, who hasn't given up her job and works mostly from home, is now relying on the generosity of others so she can try nivolumab.

Jade Baldwin, from Essex, is now desperately trying to raise 50,000 for a life-saving immunotherapy drug to tackle her Hodgkin lymphoma (pictured before her diagnosis)

Ms Baldwin had been suffering from mystery symptoms for two years before she finally received a diagnosis.

Speaking for the first time about her ordeal, she said: 'I think the main symptom for me was an itch, but there was nothing to scratch.

'I have got scars from where I scratched so much. I also got sores and I was very tired, I was literally falling asleep at work.

'It was really hard to diagnose, because most people get enlarged lymph nodes, which is why they go to the doctor.

'Unfortunately I didnt have any of that. They think I got the cancer for a few years before I was diagnosed.'

Ms Baldwin was eventually diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in November 2016, after she visited hospital after experiencing breathing problems.

Doctors gave her antibiotics to deal with an infection and asked her to return two months later for tests.

Then in February 2017, doctors found that her lymph nodes were swollen when she visited the hospital with her partner Vince.

Four different forms of chemotherapy have failed and now her hopes rely on raising money for nivolumab - which isn't available on the NHS for her cancer

WHAT IS HODGKIN'S LYMPHOMA? Hodgkin's lymphoma is a type of cancer that starts in the white blood cells. It affects around 1,950 people each year in the UK. A common early symptom is having a painless swelling in the armpits, neck and groin. Some people also experience heavy night sweating, extreme weight loss, itching, shortness of breath and coughing. Hodgkin's lymphoma is most common between the ages of 20 and 24, and 75 and 79. It has been linked to people with lowered immunity, a family history of the condition, smokers and those who are overweight. Treatment may include chemotherapy, radiotherapy, steroids and stem cell or bone marrow transplants. Source: Cancer Research UK Advertisement

Ms Baldwin said: 'Once they said the lymph nodes were swollen I Googled it, so when I went back I was expecting it to either be just an infection or Hodgkin lymphoma.

'They put me and my partner in a room and said the doctor would be coming. You know its probably bad when the doctor is giving the news.

'I had been feeling ill for so long it was a relief to know what was wrong and I thought something could be done about it.'

Ms Baldwin then discovered her cancer was at stage four - 'the worst it could be' - when she went for a scan.

She began chemotherapy in March, undergoing gruelling sessions every two weeks for six months, describing it as 'scary' and the 'start of a new life'.

A scan two months later showed Ms Baldwin was in remission - but a second scan in August revealed the cancer had spread to her spine, ribs, lungs and hips.

In November last year, Ms Baldwin began her second stage of treatment and was given a stronger form of chemotherapy.

She said: 'I dont know if that was the worst or the second worst treatment. Most mornings I was still sick as I arrived at the hospital.

Ms Baldwin, a 35-year-old project manager, is battling the disease with her father, who also has terminal cancer. (pictured in hospital)

'I had a central line in my chest because the drugs were too strong to go through my veins. A tube goes from your chest to the main vein that goes into your heart.'

Ms Baldwin had another scan this January, which showed the chemotherapy had had no effect on the cancer.

After the second treatment failed, Ms Baldwin was referred to University College Hospital Macmillan Cancer Centre in London for her third treatment.

They helped her get onto a trial comparing a new drug called pembrolizumab, to one currently used by the NHS called brentuximab.

Ms Baldwin said: 'The new drug was showing particularly good results for my type of cancer, but unfortunately I was randomly placed to receive the drug that is already available.'

After two months Ms Baldwin had another scan to see if the drug had had any effect.

She said: 'With the brentuximab I had mixed results. The cancer had cleared up in some areas, but had progressed in others.

'This meant they believed the drug was no longer effective, so I was taken off the trial.

'Its their policy to take people off the trial when it looks like a drug isnt working, but I cant help but wonder if it would have helped if I had continued on the trial.'

Ms Baldwin had been suffering from mystery symptoms for two years before she finally received a diagnosis (pictured with her friends)

Speaking for the first time about her ordeal, she said: 'I think the main symptom for me was an itch, but there was nothing to scratch (pictured with her partner Vince before her diagnosis)

WHAT IS NIVOLUMAB? Nivolumab is a form of immunotherapy that harnesses the immune system so it targets and destroys only cancer cells. The late Sunday Times restaurant critic AA Gill, who died from lung cancer, was denied nivolumab before he passed away. Watchdogs in England originally said the drug was too expensive - costing around 5,000 per month. But they have since made nivolumab, brand name Opdivo, available to other types of cancer, including Hodgkin lymphoma that does not respond to treatment. Trials have shown the drug increases the number of patients still alive after three years of treatment by up to three-fold. Advertisement

Ms Baldwin was then put on her fourth treatment, which she described as the worst yet.

She said: 'This was probably the worst one, it was horrific. I was meant to be in hospital for six days, but I ended up in there for eight of nine days.

'I was collapsing and having problems with my kidneys. I went home for two days, but then had to go back to hospital as I had contracted sepsis.

'When you have chemotherapy your immune system is lowered, making you more vulnerable to infections.'

But a scan two weeks later showed the treatments made no impact and her cancer was now in her liver, abdomen and deep in her lungs.

She said: 'It is horrible to know that you have gone through all that for no change. But at the time you dont know, so you have to do it.'

Now running out of options, Ms Baldwin has been given a drug called bendamustine, but has been told by her doctor that this is unlikely to work.

Her only option is to raise 50,000 for nivolumab - which harnesses the immune system so it targets and destroys only cancer cells.

The late Sunday Times restaurant critic AA Gill was denied nivolumab before he passed away. Watchdogs originally said it was too expensive.

Trials have shown the drug increases the number of patients still alive after three years of treatment by up to three-fold.

She said: 'Before they even put me on bendamustine, the doctor told me it was unlikely to work and that I needed to start fundraising.

'The new drug is called nivolumab. They think I am chemo-resistant, but the new drug works differently to the ones Ive had so far.

Her only option is to raise 50,000 for nivolumab - which harnesses the immune system so it targets and destroys only cancer cells

'My consultant believes it could put my cancer in to remission, which would mean I could finally have a stem cell transplant.

'However, because it is brand new it is too expensive and is not available on the NHS for Hodgkin lymphoma.'

Ms Baldwin last week set-up a fundraising page, which has already raised more than 17,000.

She said: 'The page is doing fantastically at the moment, but I still need to raise more for the treatment.

'It took me a while to set up, because you dont know how people will react.

'People have started helping me fundraise, which is amazing. One of my friends is going to scale the Barclays' building in London in September.'

Even though the fundraising is going well, Ms Baldwin needs to raise the rest of the money as quickly as she can.

She said: 'The itch I had at the start is back, so Im in no doubt that the cancer is there and thriving. The new drug is my only option.'

Despite her uncertain future and the impact the cancer has had on her, Ms Baldwin remains positive in her situation.

She said: 'I dont know any other way to be. I cant imagine being at home feeling sorry for myself. I have got to live my life while I am here.

'I dont know how long I am going to be around. I just really want my normal boring life back, I would be so happy with that.

'This makes you realise what is important and that is making memories with family and friends and thats what I intend to do.'
An outbreak of the deadly West Nile virus is spreading across Europe and more mosquitoes known to spread the disease have been found in Essex.

The World Health Organisation has warned of a spike in cases of the mosquito-borne infection, which has killed three people in Italy in recent days.

Some 401 cases of the virus have been reported in the EU so far this year and 22 people have died as a result of infection.

And in the same week, Public Health England announced the type of mosquito known to transmit the infection  Culex modestus  has been found in the Thames Estuary.

The area around Southend-on-Sea is the first new known UK location of the bugs since 2016, but officials insist there are no traces of the West Nile virus.

While around 80 per cent of people infected do not have any symptoms, others may show flu-like signs or develop a more serious, possibly deadly, illness.

Some 401 cases of West Nile virus have been diagnosed across Europe so far this year, with the majority occurring in Serbia, Italy and Greece

West Nile virus is usually spread to humans by a specific type of mosquito and, although the majority of people who get it show no symptoms, it can be fatal

The World Health Organisation says the insects started transmitting the infection earlier this year, and high temperatures and rainy spells followed by dry weather have encouraged mosquitoes to breed more.

Countries most affected include Serbia  where 126 people have been infected  Italy, with 123 cases, and Greece with 75. Thirty nine people have also been struck down in Hungary, while 31 incidences have been confirmed in Romania.

Two people, aged 69 and 86, died in the Ferrara region of Italy earlier in August after being treated in hospital for 10 days.

The other victim, who also lived in the area, died of the virus in late July.

Greek health authorities revealed three people had died in Athens of West Nile fever, and the virus has affected 60 people in the area this year.

Most people infected with West Nile virus suffer no symptoms

Most people infected by West Nile virus do not have symptoms, but some may experience flu-like signs such as a fever and headache.

In extreme cases, it can result in tremors, fever, comas and a lethal swelling of the brain tissue known as encephalitis. It can also cause meningitis.

Healthy people are usually able to recover quickly, though in older adults and those with weakened immune systems the disease may progress to be more serious.

No cases have been reported in the UK but Government advice updated this week shows the Culex modestus species mosquito was found around the mouth of the River Thames for the first time on July 11.

It has been found elsewhere in the country in past years but the new information suggests the insects have spread across the country.

Public Health England announced this week the Culex modestus species of mosquito  which is known to spread West Nile virus  has been found in the Thames Estuary, the first new discovery of the insects since 2016

Health officials insist mosquitoes in UK are not infectious

Public Health England (PHE) insists, however, the risk of getting West Nile virus from mosquitoes in the UK is low.

The insects must bite infected prey  usually birds  in order to carry the disease and, as West Nile virus has not been found in animals in this country, it is unlikely the mosquitoes will pick it up.

WHAT IS WEST NILE VIRUS? West Nile virus is a disease spread by mosquitoes. It was first diagnosed in Uganda in 1937, but no cases were reported in the U.S. until 1999 in New York. The virus gradually spread across the country. Only about one in five infected people report feeling unwell. Early symptoms can include fever, headache and body aches. Some recover in a matter of days. But one in 150 infected people will develop severe symptoms including neck stiffness, disorientation, coma and paralysis. Advertisement

Dr Jolyon Medlock, PHE's head of medical entomology said: 'While we have detected this mosquito species in areas around the Thames Estuary, we have not detected the virus itself.

Cases in the UK are caused by bites abroad

'The few cases of West Nile virus diagnosed in the UK have been due to insect bites abroad and the risk of contracting the infection in this country is low.'

Public Health England monitors mosquito populations around the UK and regularly checks for new species.

It says the C. modestus species has not been found outside of the south east.

Dr Medlock added: 'The majority of people infected with West Nile virus do not develop symptoms but those that do will experience a mild, flu like illness and rash lasting up to six days.

'Those over 50 and with underlying health conditions are at higher risk of more severe disease.

'People can avoid insect bites by using insect repellent and wearing tops with long sleeves.'
Fitbit activity monitors are only right half the time, a study claims.

The popular fitness trackers are only 50 per cent accurate when it comes to counting steps.

Researchers found the devices, which cost between 50 and 110, tend to overestimate steps taken by users aiming to achieve the recommended 10,000 steps a day.

But when used in the lab for research, the high-tech gadgets seem to underestimate activity.

Researchers found the devices, which cost between 50 and 110, tend to overestimate steps taken by users aiming to achieve the recommended 10,000 steps a day

Researchers from the University of British Columbia said the findings suggest Fitbit monitors should not be used for research purposes because they are so inaccurate.

In a report in the online medical journal JIMR Health, researchers said: 'There are a limited number of situations where this device is likely to provide accurate measurement.'

Sales of fitness trackers have soared in recent years.

UK consumers buy more than three million activity monitors and smartwatches a year and their popularity has partly been fuelled by advice from health experts to walk 10,000 steps a day  roughly five miles.

It's estimated most adults currently take no more than 5,000 steps daily.

WHY IS 10,000 STEPS RECOMMENDED? Fitbit starts everyone off with a 10,000-step goal, and heres why... This adds up to about five miles each day and for most people, that will mean about 30 minutes of daily exercise  satisfying the recommendation of doing at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week. However, according to a blog on the manufacturer's website, 10,000 steps per day might not make sense for you. It states: 'You may need to nab more if you want to lose a certain amount of weight, or take fewer steps if youre new to fitness or recovering from an injury. 'Your step goal can vary depending on your needs, and it can also shift over time.' Advertisement

The gadgets work by using a tiny device called an accelerometer to detect motion.

Many wrist-worn trackers do this by counting arm movements forwards and backwards as they swing during walking.

But several studies have questioned the accuracy of devices like Fitbit.

Last year, scientists at Galway University in Ireland found some devices were over-estimating the number of steps people actually take by up to 25 per cent.

Their tests showed some registered 'movements' when volunteers were standing still washing dishes, while others notched up dozens of 'steps' while recruits stood motionless stacking books on top of one another.

In the latest probe, researchers pooled data from 67 different studies on Fitbit trackers to try and get an overall result on their accuracy.

They found the gadgets got the actual number of steps wrong at least half of the time.

They were more likely to give an accurate reading of steps when worn jogging but tended to significantly over-estimate time spent doing high-intensity activities.

Researchers said: 'Fitbit trackers were designed to help motivate people be physically active.

'But they are becoming increasingly popular in health promotion research and are commonly used to inform health care decisions.

'Discretion should be used when considering their use in research.'
Popular brands of baby monitors may not be accurate in measuring your infant's vital signs, a new study has warned.

Researchers said they found that these commercially available monitors - which are not FDA-approved - either never showed there were low levels of oxygen in the blood or did so inconsistently.

When it came to testing infants' heart rates, the monitors also often inaccurately indicated low pulse rates.

The team, from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, says their finding show that these monitors need to undergo more stringent testing before they're placed in the hands of consumers.

Popular baby brands monitors like the Owlet Smart Sock 2 (pictured) are not accurate in detecting your infant's vitals. The Owlet had an 88 percent sensitivity rate in detecting hypoxemia, which is when there are low levels of oxygen in the blood

There are a growing number of smartphone-integrated baby monitors on the market, which are made to ease the anxiety of new parents.

By placing a sock on your infant's foot, sensors will detect heart rate, blood oxygen levels and respiration and alert you via smartphone if anything is wrong.

For the study, the team looked at the Owlet Smart Sock2 and the Baby Vida, which are currently the only two marketed baby monitors paired with smartphones that use pulse oximetry, which measures heart rate and oxygen levels in the blood.

They tested the monitors using 30 babies who were six months old or younger and in the hospital's Cardiology and General Pediatrics units between July and December 2017.

Each of the infants wore an FDA-approved monitor, in this case the Masimo Radical-7, on one foot, and one of the consumer monitors on the other one.

During testing for the Owlet, which cost $299.99, both the FDA monitor and the Owlet detected hypoxemia, which is when there are low levels of oxygen in the blood.

Hypoxemia can lead to hypoxia, low oxygen in your tissues, which can result in tissue damage and - in some cases - death.

However, during at least one reading, the Owlet indicated that five of the 12 infants had normal oxygen levels while the other monitor indicated all 12 had hypoxemia.

The overall sensitivity rate of the Owlet was 88.8 percent, meaning it detected hypoxemia but inconsistently.

'I'm a parent with a baby due any day now and I would want it to work 100 percent of the time,' study leader Dr Chris Bonafide, a pediatrician and safety expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), told Daily Mail Online.

'Working 88 percent of the time means that 12 percent of the time it missed hypoxemia. What's good enough when it comes to something we're putting on our babies to monitor them?'

During testing of the Baby Vida monitor, which cost $149, it showed that none of the infants had hypoxemia despite the FDA monitor indicating that they did have it.

This means that when it came to the Baby Vida monitor's sensitivity rate, it was zero percent.

Additionally, the Baby Vida monitor indicated that 14 of the babies had bradycardia, which is a slower than normal heart rate.

However, the FDA monitor showed that all of those patients actually had normal pulse rates.

Another brand, the Baby Vida monitor (pictured), indicated 14 babies had slower than normal heart rate when they actually had normal pulse rates

'If a normal baby's heart rate is 130-160 beats per minute, then a low heart rate of 50 would make me run to the bedside to figure out what is going on,' said Dr Bonafide.

'So for a parent, they might call a pediatrician to figure out what to do because that abnormal heart rate could suggest a number of medical problems that need to be addressed.

'So they could seek that medical care by going to the ER, where a nurse or health professionals could perform blood tests, X-rays, or even admit the baby to the hospital - all unnecessarily.'

Last year, the team published an opinion piece in the Journal of the American Medical Association, voicing concerns about the fact that the brands have not been FDA-cleared and the companies have not published data backing their claims of accuracy.

'This study confirms what was in the opinion piece,' said Dr Bonafide.

'Since then we put [the monitors] in the lab, put them on 30 babies and they were found to have accuracy problems.

'The ball is now in Owlet's and Baby Vida's court. We would encourage them to publish their data rather than make claims they're accurate and to pursue FDA clearance, to show us and the public that these devices are safe and accurate.'

Co-Founder and CEO of Owlet, Kurt Workman, sent Daily Mail Online a statement ensuring the efficacy of its product.

'Owlet is designed for in-home use, with healthy babies while they sleep, to provide parents with information about their child's wellbeing,' the statement read in part.

'As the JAMA study notes, the optimal method of accuracy testing uses arterial blood gas measurements.

'Owlet sensor accuracy has been validated in studies performed by independent laboratories and when compared to arterial blood gas measurements the sensor performed well within international standards for pulse oximetry.

'The accuracy and performance of the Owlet Smart Sock is something that we take very seriously.'
Britain's top nurse resigned yesterday in the wake of the NHS pay rise blunder that misled thousands of nurses.

Janet Davies, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, announced she will step down from her role at the end of August.

She apologised to the 435,000-strong union last month after previously telling members they would receive an immediate three per cent pay rise in July.

But only half are thought to have received a pay rise straight away  the rest were told they had to wait the nearly a year until their appraisal.

Ms Davies offered a 'sincere personal apology' at the time and said the pay deal was 'not as straightforward as we said'.

Many nurses were furious over the misleading deal and hundreds signed a vote of no confidence petition, calling for her and other bosses to step down.

The RCN is the world's largest nursing union and professional body, and the Queen has been a patron of it since the 1950s.

Janet Davies, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, announced she will step down from her role at the end of August

Maria Trewern, chairwoman of the RCN council said: 'The RCN and Janet Davies have decided to part ways by mutual agreement.

'We thank her for all her service to the college as chief executive and general secretary over the past three years, and wish her well.'

Ms Davies, who had been in her role since 2015, said: 'It has been a great honour to represent my profession at the highest level.

'And I am proud of the achievements the college has made over the past three years against a difficult political backdrop.

'I wish my colleagues and our membership all the best for the future, and look forward to taking on some new challenges.'

Dame Professor Donna Kinnair will assume the role of acting chief executive and general secretary.

WHO IS JANET DAVIES? Janet Davies has been chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing since 2015, taking over from Peter Carter, who had been in the role for eight years. But yesterday she announced she will step down from her role at the helm of the 435,000-strong union at the end of August. Before she joined the RCN, she worked as a nurse in the NHS, and was director of nursing in West Lancashire and Liverpool. Ms Davies was also once the chief executive of Mersey Regional Ambulance service. The RCN is the world's largest nursing union and professional body, and the Queen has been a patron of it since the 1950s. Advertisement

The RCN said it is 'awaiting the full findings of a review into the past few months' events' before it chooses the permanent head.

More than one million health workers were told they would receive a pay rise worth 6.5 per cent over the next three years in June.

The union for nurses claimed the deal would see all nurses receive a three per cent pay rise in July, dating back to April.

The agreement, reached after months of negotiation between unions, employers and ministers, was made possible with an extra 4.2 billion of government funding.

Unions said the decision to accept the deal meant a significant wage boost for the lowest paid workers in the NHS.

But due to the complex system of how pay bands work for nurses in England, scores claimed to receive only very small increases.

Several nurses took to Twitter to complain at how their salary had increased by a few pennies  with one saying it had risen by 20p.

Most nurses received an increase of 1.5 per cent, Nursing in Practice reports, and were told the remainder would come on their next appraisal.

In the wake of the news, a 1,000 members of the RCN were left furious and signed a petition to try and oust the leadership.

An average nurse earns 23,300 a year - so a three per cent pay rise would be about 700, taking the salary to around 24,000.

But only nurses on the top of their 'pay band' received the agreed increase because of the misleading deal.

Nurses usually start off on 'band 5' - according to the NHS's pay scale - progressing up to 'band 8' as with seniority.

The RCN could not provide figures for the numbers of nurses affected at the time.
Neither doctors nor patients really know what is in so-called synthetic cannabis, or K2, and often it involves multiple, far more potent drugs than they think, new research suggests.

In 2017, 72,000 people died of drug overdoses in the US, and the sharpest increase in these deaths was among those using fentanyl or similar drugs.

Meanwhile, the last year has seen a surge in 'synthetic cannabinoids,' which often aren't cannabis-like at all.

In fact, new University of Maryland research reveals that the drug is often a dastardly blend of multiple substances, including potent fentanyl.

So when overdose patients arrive at the emergency room, they and the doctors may be equally uncertain drugs are causing their reactions.

Hospitals across the country have seen a sharp rise in emergency room visits for drug overdoses and a new study shows that two-thirds of these involve multiple substances

Fentanyl has drawn the greatest attention from public health officials because it has proven particularly deadly.

But much of the country has seen a wave of bizarre behavior and overdoses on a synthetic cannabinoids, too.

This group of drugs, including substances known as K2 and spice, encompasses a broad set of totally unregulated substances that affect the same cannabinoid receptors in the brain that marijuana does.

However their effects are often more powerful and dangerous than those of real, plant-based marijuana.

Rarely does synthetic cannabis cause death, but it commonly causes bizarre behavior, vomiting, seizures, hallucinations and extremely elevated heart rate and levels of anxiety.

Last week, a bad batch of K2 led to 72 overdoses in one day in Connecticut, and over the course of the last year, scores of cases of eye bleeding ractionsto the drug have been reported.

In an effort to understand these reactions, and perhaps how better to diagnose and treat them, toxicologists at the University of Maryland and the Office of National Drug Control Policy decided to test urine samples from local overdose patients.

They chose a broad swath of drug metabolites to test for, including 26 known synthetic cannabinoids, 59 designer drugs and 84 other street and prescription drugs.

Based on their observations of these patients in the ER, the Maryland doctors had thought most were overdosing on synthetic cannabinoids.

That wasn't even close to the case.

'We were thoroughly amazed that in a study where we thought everyone was having a synthetic cannabinoid-related problem, only one specimen tested positive for synthetic cannabinoids,' said the study's lead author, Dr Eric Wish of the University of Maryland.

They found few matches to the original 26 metabolites they tested for, and even after expanding their screens to account for signs of 46 different synthetic cannabinoids a year later, only a quarter of overdose patients tested positive for them.

Dr Wish told Daily Mail Online that the government is struggling to keep up with the compounds it needs to ban.

Each time testing efforts identify a new compound to prohibit, chemists in other countries just tweak their formulas so that it won't match the outlawed substance.

But that doesn't mean they bother testing what it will do to users.

'Nowadays, people don't know what they took. The only person in the world that would know is the chemist that created the molecule,' Dr Wish said.

We have to tell people that 'synthetic marijuana' is a misnomer. The drugs contain unknown substances, and even the scientists can't keep up with them Dr Eric Wish, study author and director of University of Maryland's Center for Substance Abuse Research

'It's like Russian Roulette when you buy these drugs on the street.'

In most cases, the patients believed that what they had taken was synthetic marijuana. Their doctors believed them and saw symptoms consistent with overdosing on these drugs.

But according to the drug new research, they were all often wrong.

Bizarrely, the most common drug metabolites the drug screens revealed were those for real marijuana. Among the three hospitals involved in the study, between a fifth and a third of the patients tested positive for weed.

Weed was common everywhere but the prevalence of other drugs in overdoses varied from hospital to hospital.

Fentanyl was most common in Baltimore, where 700 people died of opioid overdoses last year.

Nearly 30 percent of the samples tested at the university's midtown Baltimore campus were positive for fentanyl.

Dr Wish says that this is an indicator that, in areas where fentanyl is common, like Baltimore, ER doctors should take the time to administer a quick dip stick test for the drug, to make sure a patient that might need Naloxone gets it.

More than half of overdose patients at the Baltimore location were positive for opioids other than fentanyl, including heroin, morphine and codeine, signalling that while the city's opioid problem may be evolving, it certainly isn't going away.

At its Washington, DC area campus, on the other hand, nearly half of overdoses involved PCP, a hallucinogenic also known as 'angel dust.'

Not unlike synthetic cannabis, PCP is known to cause aggression and strange behavior.

PCP was at the height of its popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, but it remains an issue in the DC area and, between 2005 and 2011, emergency room visits for PCP overdoses shot up by 4000 percent, according to drugabuse.com.

Perhaps most worryingly, two-thirds of all of the overdose patients had two or more drugs - some of which the doctors couldn't even identify - in their systems.

'We have to tell people that "synthetic marijuana" is a misnomer,' says Dr Wish.

'The drugs contain unknown substances, and even the scientists can't keep up with them'

The good news of the study, however, was that regardless of what the overdose victims had actually taken, doctors were able to effectively treat them based on their symptoms.
A teenager was left vomiting in agony after her right fallopian tube spontaneously twisted four times.

The 18-year-old unnamed patient at a hospital in Amsterdam endured abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting for three days before she took herself to hospital.

Unsure what was wrong, doctors were forced to examine the teenager vaginally, which they were reluctant to do given that she was a virgin.

The medics discovered that as well as her fallopian tube twisting multiple times, the teenager's oviduct was blocked with fluid, while she also had a 31x44mm cyst on her right ovary.

After making an abdominal incision to take a closer look, they found her twisted fallopian tube was red and inflamed, with part of it showing signs of rotting.

Working quickly to drain and untwist the tube, the teenager then made an almost immediate recovery and was discharged from hospital the same day.

It is unclear what caused her fallopian tube to twist, however, the condition has been linked to ovarian cysts, infections and endometriosis.

Teenager was left vomiting in agony after her right fallopian tube twisted four times (stock)

Fallopian tube twisted four times

The teenager took herself to Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis hospital, Amsterdam, after the symptoms she had been battling for three days worsened over two hours, according to BMJ Case Reports.

She described the discomfort as 'continuous with intermittent bouts of increased pain every 15 min.'

The teen had normal menstruation cycles, with her last period ending nine days before. She was not experiencing any vaginal bleeding or unusual discharge.

Although her symptoms initially eased after being given painkillers, they later returned. Doctors were forced to make an abdominal incision to examine the affected area 11 hours after she first arrived at hospital.

The medics then surgically drained and untwisted the teen's fallopian tube.

A follow-up scan 38 days later revealed her ovaries appeared to be normal, with no further treatment being required.

It is unclear what caused her fallopian tube to twist, however, the condition has been linked to ovarian cysts, which she had, as well as infections and endometriosis (stock)

Why do ovaries and Fallopian tubes twist?

Twisting of the ovaries, and sometimes the fallopian tubes, usually occurs in reproductive women who have a problem with one of their ovaries.

It is more common during pregnancy, as well as if a woman is taking hormones to boost ovulation or has an ovarian cyst.

Such twisting cuts off the blood supply to the ovaries, which can cause sudden, severe pain and vomiting.

If the blood supply is cut off for long enough, the tissue in the ovary can die or spaces in the abdomen can become infected. Surgery is therefore required immediately to untwist the affected organs.
New university students should check they have had their MMR jab amid ongoing measles outbreaks in Europe, health officials urged today.

Public Health England's request comes as the number of cases of the contagious bug on the continent has reached an eight-year high.

The Government-body has also asked freshers to check they are up-to-date with their MenACWY vaccine, which protects against meningitis.

Students are thought to be at a much higher risk of meningitis because they mix closely with lots of new people.

Officials say some of those they mix with may unknowingly carry the meningococcal bacteria at the back of their noses and throats.

Public Health England's request comes as the number of cases of the contagious bug measles on the continent has reached an eight-year high

Dr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisations at PHE, said colleges and universities can be 'hotspots' for the spread of measles and meningitis.

She added: 'First year students especially are at increased risk of meningococcal infection if they are unvaccinated.

'Which makes sense when they spend large amounts of time with new people in confined environments such as university halls.

'We therefore encourage students to check with their GP that they are up to date with their MMR and MenACWY vaccinations before term starts.

'It's never too late to protect themselves and their friends from these highly infectious and serious diseases.'

MMR vaccination rates plummeted in the late 1990s after a controversial scientific paper linked the jab linked to autism.

The majority of children heading to university this year were born in 1999 or 2000, when fears were highest.

Uptake of the two-dose vaccine, of which the first is given to babies within a month of their first birthday, was as low as 80 per cent in the early noughties.

The second dose is given to toddlers before they start school, usually at 3 years and 4 months.

The MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella, is available on the NHS to anyone who did not receive two doses as a child.

Across Europe, there were more than 41,000 cases recorded during the first six months of 2018, including 37 deaths.

The World Health Organisation said France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine have had more than 1,000 cases each so far this year.

England has also experienced outbreaks of measles, with 828 laboratory confirmed cases between January 1 and August 13, according to PHE.

Holidaymakers were also yesterday urged by the official body to ensure they were vaccinated against measles amid the outbreaks.

Cases of the most aggressive form of meningitis, Men W, has also soared over the past decade in England, from 22 in 2009/10 to 225 in 2016/17.

Last year saw the first decline in numbers since 2009, with numbers dropping to 192, according to provisional statistics.

The MenACWY vaccine protects against four meningococcal strains that can cause meningitis and septicaemia.

The jab was added to the national immunisation programme in 2015 as cases of the most aggressive Men W bacteria have soared in recent years.

It is routinely offered to those in years nine and 10 at school, but anyone who has missed out can be vaccinated free of charge until their 25th birthday.
Scientists claim they may have identified gut bacteria that could convert blood types A and B into type O.

People with type O-negative blood are known as universal donors, meaning they can give to anyone with any blood type.

This is why people with this blood type are always in high demand in medical emergencies and natural disasters.

But with only 6.6 percent of the US population carrying O-negative blood - and less than 10 percent of all Americans donating - blood banks are often in short supply.

Researchers, from the University in British Columbia in Canada, however, say they've discovered an enzyme found in the human gut that could covert other blood types in type O - potentially putting an end to the massive blood shortage.

Scientists have announced that they've discovered an enzyme found in the human gut that could covert other blood types in type O - potentially putting an end to the massive blood shortage (file image of blood donation)

There are four major blood groups: A, B, O, and AB. Just like your hair color or eye color, your blood type is inherited from your parents.

They are each discerned by sugars known as antigens, which cause your immune system to produce antibodies.

In each group, there is a protein called the Rh factor, which is either positive or negative, resulting in eight blood types.

The American Red Cross states that there are very specific ways in which blood must be donated to ensure safety.

If someone with type A blood is given type B blood, their antigens will attack the new blood cells and cause an incompatibility reaction resulting in fever, chills, muscle aches and nausea.

People with Type AB blood carry both the A antigen and B antigen, meaning they can only give to other AB types, but are universal recipients.

Those with A and B blood types only carry one antigen, meaning they can only give to people with a similar blood type.

But O-blood, specifically O-negative, are the universal donors because they lack A and B antigens.

For this reason, Dr Stephen Withers, a professor in the department of chemistry at the University of British Columbia, says scientists have been trying to find a way to modify altered blood via enzymes.

'If you can remove those antigens, which are just simple sugars, then you can convert A or B to O blood,' he said.

To figure out which enzymes would be the best candidate, Dr Withers and his colleague at UBC employed a technique called metagenomics, which is the study of genetic material of microbial communities present in environmental samples.

'With metagenomics, you take all of the organisms from an environment and extract the sum total DNA of those organisms all mixed up together,' Dr Withers said.

The team zeroed in on microbes found in the human gut, whose job it is to break down sugars.

From there, the microbes were inserted into strains of E coli to identify the genes that code for enzymes that break down sugar.

The researchers found a candidate in enzymes which remove sugars from mucins, proteins that line the wall of the gut.

Next, they tested the enzymes' effectiveness at removing the antigens from blood types A and B and found them to be 30 percent more effective than previous enzymes that been tested.

Dr Withers said he wants to test the enzymes on a larger scale so he can begin clinical trials.

'I am optimistic that we have a very interesting candidate to adjust donated blood to a common type,' he said.

'Of course, it will have to go through lots of clinical trials to make sure that it doesn't have any adverse consequences, but it is looking very promising.'

The researchers presented their findings at the National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society in Boston, Massachusetts, on Tuesday.
The first disabled woman to sail solo around Britain has died at the age of 46.

Hilary Lister, who was paralysed from the neck down, became famous after she used the 'sip-and-puff' system for steering and controlling a yacht's sails.

She became the first quadriplegic to sail across the English Channel in 2005 and then the first female quadriplegic to sail around the Isle of Wight in 2007.

Hilary Lister on board her specially equipped boat (Ben Birchall/PA)

Ms Lister went on to sail solo around Britain in 2009.

The International Sailing Federation (ISAF) judged that the feat put her in the top four sailors in the world.

Announcing her death, a post on her website says: 'It is with deep regret that Hilary's Dream Trust announces the passing of its founder  Hilary Lister  an inspiration to many, a recipient of many accolades and a record holder of many sailing achievements.'

Alex Lister paid tribute to his stepmother, telling the BBC: 'She turned the suffering she was experiencing into an opportunity.'

On the 23rd August 2005 Hilary Lister, inspired by Around Alone yachtswomen Emma Richards, entered the record books on Robin Grays modified Soling as she became the first quadriplegic to sail the English Channel... https://t.co/MsWtSyPb3X  Andrew Pindar OBE DL (@A_Pindar) August 19, 2018

Ms Lister, from Canterbury, Kent, was born able-bodied but suffered from the degenerative condition reflex sympathetic dystrophy, which meant she used a wheelchair from the age of 15.

She went on to study biochemistry at Jesus College, Oxford, but during her studies her condition worsened and she became paralysed from the neck down at the age of 27.

Ms Lister started sailing with Westbere Sailing Opportunities in Canterbury in 2003, and said: 'Within 30 seconds of being in a boat I was in love.'

She was named Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year 2007 and won other accolades, including a Cosmopolitan Superhero Award and the Royal Cruising Club's Seamanship Award 2005.

Her charity, Hilary's Dream Trust, supports disabled and disadvantaged people in taking up sailing.
The family of John Lennon's twisted killer is praying that he is denied parole at his hearing this week, DailyMail.com can reveal.

In an exclusive interview, Mark David Chapman's stepsister Linda Walker admitted that she hopes he never sees the light of day  and fears he could come after his family if he is set free.

This Jan. 31, 2018 photo shows Mark David Chapman, who is serving 20-years-to-life in the Wende Correctional Facility in western New York for the murder of John Lennon, is scheduled to go before the parole board this

Walker's mother Reathy Breteler met the convicted felon's father David Curtis Chapman at a Parents Without Partners event in Georgia, and they were married until his death in 1995.

Walker described how Chapman, now 63, would send letters to her mother in an attempt to get in touch with his father, who wanted nothing to do with his murderous son.

But Chapman believed Breteler was withholding the letters and resented her for marrying his father.

'He was trying to get to his dad via my mother,' Walker explained. 'He was writing letters and David's request was 'don't open them'. He just said he didn't want to have anything to do with it anymore.'

The notes stopped after his dad passed away, but Walker is concerned the killer may try to track down her mom if he is released to get some answers. Walker revealed that she would attempt to get a protective order against him - but worries that she wouldn't be able to do so until it was too late.

'If he ever got out, holy moly. I don't think he would find my mom, because she's married again, she's got a different last name,' she said.

But, Walker added, 'She's not living a high on the hog life, and there's no way that she could hide anywhere or do anything about it. She just stays in her teeny apartment and tries to make best of her life, the rest of her life.'

Given his violent nature, the family are terrified about what he could do to them.

'They live in fear of this man and that he could do God knows what to them,' a source close to Breteler said.

'They genuinely are terrified that he could come after them and do what he did again. He's as calculated and cold-blooded a person you could ever meet. They literally see him as the devil and have actually said that by washing their hands of him entirely they are trying to exorcise him out of their lives.'

Chapman's mother Diane and father David are pictured with Chapman at his high School graduation. But once he was convicted of Lennon's murder they cut all ties

Chapman, his mother Diane, sister Susan and father David Chapman circa late 1968

Chapman poses up with is father on a family vacation to Hawaii before he shot John Lennon in 1980

Walker described how Chapman would send letters to her mother in an attempt to get in touch with his father, who wanted nothing to do with his murderous son. 'He was trying to get to his dad via my mother,' Walker explained. 'He was writing letters and David's request was 'don't open them' This unopened letter was sent from his inmate son in 1988

'I pray to God it doesn't happen. It shouldn't. If by some freak of nature he gets paroled, I think he should get paroled to a nuthouse for the rest of his life. That's the only other place he should go. I don't think he should be in a jail, sitting fat and sassy, three hots and a cot. I think he should work every day. It's just wrong.'

Walker also slammed Chapman's suggestion that his dad was abusive towards his mother  and believes his father's death is on his head.

'He had so many strokes, so many heart attacks, and it was all brought on by what his son did. And it's just not fair,' she revealed.

'I think it's just horrible. I think what he did basically harmed his father physically, mentally, emotionally, but I don't think for a moment he was ever abusive to that child at all. Because the man I knew didn't do that. I never heard him raise his voice.'

This will be the 10th time that Chapman has been up for parole since he was arrested for assassinating the legendary Beatles star on December 8, 1980.

'From my understanding, it happens every so often and if there was any way I could sit beside John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono I would. She don't know me from nobody, but 'please God, don't let him out,' would be what I would say. They can't let him out,' Walker told DailyMail.com

'If anything ever happened to John Lennon's widow, I would hope that his children would sit in her place and see that that man never steps his foot on public property.

Gloria Hiroko Chapman, loyal wife of twisted Mark Chapman, with the killer during one of her conjugal visits in prison in September 2014

Mark David Chapman at scout camp with his dad in 1960 and in front of their home in Ft. Worth, Texas

Walker described how Chapman would send letters to her mother in an attempt to get in touch with his father

From all appearances Chapman and his father were close when he was a kid

Years before he became known around the world for killing Beatles star John Lennon, a young Mark David Chapman poses for photographs in never-before-seen private family photo album.

'I can't even imagine a judge letting [him] out. I don't think too many people would appreciate any action like that.'

Walker admitted that she's shocked Chapman receives privileges such as conjugal visits with his still-devoted wife Gloria at Wende Correctional Facility in New York  and believes he shouldn't even be considered for release.

'I hope to God that he never gets out. And this crap that he gets conjugal visits, please.

'I think he gets way too much. His wife should only get to see him through Plexiglas on a telephone, no touch. Good lord, he committed a hideous crime, he planned it, it was premeditated, and he's crazy,' she said.

'You go to another country and you go and slaughter someone, they don't put you up [for parole]. They make sure you pay for your crime. In America, we just stick you somewhere and let you make friends and work out, eat and sleep with a roof over your head.

Sister Susan, David and Mark,on a family vacation to Hawaii, where it is believed that Chapman first met wife, Gloria.

'I have no words. All I know is nobody on our side of the family wants that sucker roaming the streets.'

Walker vowed that if Chapman is granted parole, she'd plead with a judge to keep him far away from her family.

'Honest to God, if there was an iota of a chance that person was to get out, I just don't know what I'd do,' she confessed.

'I'd have to walk to New York and sit in that damn courtroom and say, 'Please, whatever you do, I don't know him, I don't want to know him, if you're going to let him out, make sure he can't go anywhere. Put a bracelet on him that shocks him if he tries to walk out of his house. Send him back to Hawaii. That's where his wife and his mother is.'

Walker added that it doesn't matter that Chapman is technically part of her family. She is amazed he didn't receive the death penalty and hopes he rots in jail.

'I would think anybody on Earth that has respect for human life wouldn't want him out. I don't give a damn who you kill. You go to jail or you get executed. How he didn't get executed, I don't understand,' she said.

'That's just my feelings, and I would imagine anybody would feel the same if it was a real brother, stepbrother or just somebody they knew. We can all just hope that he can stay right put where he is.'




Millions of Muslims around the world have just begun celebrating Eid al-Adha, one of the holiest holidays of the Islamic faith.

The event is observed by Muslims worldwide and includes celebrating with prayer, meals with friends and family members and more.

Heres everything that you need to know about what Eid al-Adha is and how its celebrated.

Muslims from all around the world perform the Hajj pilgrimage every year around Eid al-Adha

What is Eid al-Adha?

Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, is the second of the two Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide annually alongside Eid al-Fitr and is widely considered the holier and more important of the two.

In the Islamic religion, the holiday commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ishmael to signify his obedience to God. However, before the sacrifice occur, God instead offered a ram to be sacrificed in Ishmaels place.

The event is now commemorated as Eid al-Adha.

Per the Islamic lunar calendar, the holiday always falls on the tenth day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the twelfth and final month of the calendar year. In some countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia, Eid al-Adha is a public holiday.

When is Eid al-Adha 2018?

Eid al-Adha 2018 will be observed from the evening of Tuesday, August 21 until the evening of Saturday, 25 August.

How is Eid al-Adha celebrated?

The holiday is observed in a number of ways by Muslims all around the world.

In some traditionally Islamic countries, families or groups of families may choose to purchase a sheep, goat or other livestock animal for whats known as qurbani, an animal to be sacrificed, representing Ibrahims sacrifice of a ram in place of his son Ishmael.

The sacrificed animal is divided into three parts: one third for friends and relatives, one third for those in need and one third for the family. Muslims in Western nations sometimes will instead purchase a whole carcass from a butcher to be divided among themselves or buy large amounts of meat for a communal meal among friends, neighbors and relatives.

In addition, many Muslims around the world attend mosques, wear new clothes and visit with friends and relatives.

Around Eid al-Adha, many Muslims also travel to Mecca in Saudi Arabia as part of the Hajj pilgrimage, considered one of the Five Pillars of Islam alongside the declaration of faith, prayer, charity and fasting.
Jeremy Corbyn welcomed a group of notorious Islamic extremists to Parliament, including one who led a boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day and called for attacks on the Royal Navy, MailOnline can reveal.

The meeting, which took place in the House of Lords just six months before Corbyn became Labour leader, included at least four of Britain's most influential extremists.

It comes as it emerged that Corbyn went with spin doctor Seamus Milne on a secret visit to Hamas extremists in Ramallah in 2010, failing to declare the trip in violation of parliamentary rules.

A picture from the 2015 event in Parliament shows Corbyn flanked by Daud Abdullah, who signed a letter saying that the Royal Navy should be attacked if it tried to help prevent weapons from being smuggled to terror groups in Gaza.

Also visible is Azzam Tamimi, who said he wanted to blow himself up in a suicide attack. 'Sacrificing myself for Palestine is a noble cause,' he told the BBC. 'It is the straight way to pleasing my God and I would do it if I had the opportunity.'

Zaher al-Birawi, who is close to the Hamas leadership and has posed for pictures with terror chief Ismail Haniyeh, can be seen just two spaces away from Corbyn, along with Mohammed Swalha, who represented Hamas in a visit to Russia last year.

Jeremy Corbyn pictured at a meeting of Hamas extremists in March 2015, six months before he became Labour leader

Jeremy Corbyn, centre, speaks at the event with pro-Palestinian writer Karl Sabbagh on his left and Zaher al-Birawi, who been pictured with Hamas terror chief Ismail Haniyeh, next to him

Jeremy Corbyn, left, poses with Abdel Bari Atwan, centre, who said he would 'dance with delight' in Trafalgar Square if Iran attacked Israel, and Azzam Tamimi, right, who said he wanted to blow himself up in a suicide attack

Extremists listen to Corbyn's speech. Azzam Tamimi, left, said he wanted to blow himself up in a suicide attack; Mohammed Swalha, who represented Hamas in a visit to Russia last year, second left; Jenny Tonge, who was suspended from the Lib Dems for anti-Semitism, third left; Daud Abdullah, who called for attacks on the Royal Navy and boycotted Holocaust Memorial Day, fifth left

Jeremy Corbyn, far right, and fellow Labour MP Andy Slaughter, far left, pose with Hamas officials Ahmad Attoun, Khaled Abu-Arafah, and Muhammad Totah during a secret trip to Ramallah. Khaled Abu-Arafah and Muhammad Totah had their IDs removed as they were suspected of terrorist activity

The two-hour seminar on 'the politics of Gaza's reconstruction' was hosted by the British peer John Montagu and chaired by Karl Sabbagh, a British Palestinian writer. In Corbyn's speech, he 'catalogued the growing support for Palestine in Europe'.

Corbyn was also pictured sharing a joke with Tamimi, the would-be suicide bomber, in 2013. Daud Abdullah and Mohammed Swalha were also present at that event.

At the same function, the MP posed with Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of a London-based Arabic newspaper editor who told Lebanese media: 'If the Iranian missiles strike Israel, by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight'.

The revelations will add to the pressure on the beleaguered Labour leader, who is still reeling from the publication of a picture showing him apparently laying a wreath to the Munich terrorists in Tunisia.

Last week, MailOnline disclosed that a range of the biggest terror leaders in Hamas were invited to the Tunisian conference attended by Corbyn in 2014. One of them gave a speech calling violence 'magnificent'.

The latest developments highlight the depth of Corbyn's connections with Hamas, as the four extremists pictured with him at the House of Lords are all involved with the terror group's British operations.

Hamas is a designated terror group by Britain, the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia and numerous other countries. Corbyn notoriously called the organisation his 'friends' in 2009, something he later claimed to regret.

Today, an Israeli news outlet reported that the Labour leader held a secret meeting with Hamas officials in Ramallah in 2010, failing to declare the trip in violation of parliamentary rules.

Jeremy Corbyn, left, shares a joke in 2013 with Azzam Tamimi, right, who said he wanted to blow himself up in a suicide attack

Zaher Al-Birawi, who is close to the Hamas leadership, speaks at anti-Israel protest in London

Zaher Al-Birawi, fourth from left, sits beside Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, fifth from left

Zaher Al-Birawi, left, who has strong Hamas links, pictured with Jeremy Corbyn on his right

Daud Abdullah, who signed a letter saying that the Royal Navy should be attacked if it tried to help prevent weapons from being smuggled to terror groups in Gaza, and led a boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day

That visit was organised by Middle East Monitor (MEMO), a pro-Palestinian pressure group which was also behind the meeting in Parliament at which Corbyn rubbed shoulders with Hamas extremists.

Corbyn's 2010 trip began with a meeting with members of the Islamic Movement, whose leader, Raed Salah, was excluded from the UK because of concerns over his virulent anti-semitism.

The Labour leader was caught on video praising the hate preacher and inviting him to 'tea on the terrace' at Parliament.

Corbyn went on to meet senior Hamas members in Ramallah and was pictured with men whose ID permits were revoked by Israel as they were suspected of planning 'terrorist activities'.

Labour spin doctor Seumas Milne and radical MP Andy Slaughter accompanied Corbyn on the visit. Footage has emerged of Milne addressing a rally in 2009 in which he said:

'Hamas is not broken and will not be broken because of the spirit of resistance of the Palestinian people'. He went on to describe the foundation of the State of Israel as a 'crime'.

Corbyn and his associates also visited the wife of a man convicted of spying for Hezbollah and met various Palestinian Authority officials. According to the MEMO report, Corbyns delegation did not meet a single Israeli Jew.

A Labour spokesman said: 'Jeremy Corbyn has a long and principled record of solidarity with the Palestinian people and engaging with actors in the conflict to support peace and justice in the Middle East. That is the right thing to do.'
Joel Arrona Lara was driving wife Maria del Carmen Venegas to hospital at the time

Mexican officials have confirmed that a man who was arrested last week having entered the US to take his pregnant wife to a Los Angeles hospital is wanted for murder - despite his claims ICE officials had made a mistake.

Joel Arrona Lara was arrested by immigration agents in California on Wednesday after entering the US to take his pregnant wife to hospital.

Lara and his attorneys said the man authorities were actually seeking was Lara's brother - but an official of the Mexican state of Guanajuato confirmed Monday that Lara himself was being hunted for the crime.

The official was not authorized to be quoted by name and could not say when the crime occurred, but said it was an intentional homicide case akin to a U.S. murder charge.

The official also revealed that Mexican prosecutors had asked the U.S. government to help find and detain Joel Arrona Lara.

Joel Arrona Lara, 35, was detained at a gas station San Bernardino, California on Wednesday while he was driving his pregnant wife to the hospital for a scheduled C-section

His arrest prompted outrage after his wife Maria del Carmen Venegas revealed she was left alone at the gas station (above) and then forced to drive herself to the hospital to give birth

Lara's arrest in San Bernardino, California on Wednesday prompted outrage after his wife Maria del Carmen Venegas revealed she was forced to drive herself to the hospital to give birth.

Venegas, 32, said she and her husband were driving to the hospital last week when they stopped for gas in San Bernardino, just east of Los Angeles.

Surveillance footage shows two vehicles immediately flank the couple's van after they pulled into the gas station. ICE agents questioned the couple and asked for identification.

Venegas said she provided hers but that Arrona had left his at home in their rush to the hospital.

The surveillance footage shows the agents handcuffing Arrona and taking him away, leaving a sobbing Venegas alone at the gas station.

Venegas said she drove herself to the hospital for a scheduled cesarean section for the birth of her fifth child.

Venegas said she drove herself to the hospital for a scheduled cesarean section for the birth of her fifth child (pictured above)

Venegas said she and her husband came to the US 12 years ago from Mexico. They do not have legal authorization to live in the US and all five of their children are US citizens

'I feel terrible,' Venegas said in a telephone interview from the hospital as her newborn son Damian cried in the background.

'We need him now more than ever.'

Venegas said she and her husband came to the US 12 years ago from the city of Leon in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. They do not have legal authorization to live in the US and all five of their children are US citizens.

Venegas said her husband is a hard worker and the sole provider of the family.

She claimed her husband had never committed any crimes.

Authorities released a statement Saturday afternoon saying Arrona 'was brought to ICE's attention due to an outstanding warrant issued for his arrest in Mexico on homicide charges'.

ICE said agents with the agency's Fugitive Operations Team detained Arrona on Wednesday and said he remained in custody pending removal proceedings.
Spains largest and most famous food fight is now reportedly set to soon be held in London.

La Tomatina, the annual event in the town of Bunol, Spain, is held in August as a huge tomato fight thats often been pitched as the worlds biggest food fight by its organizers.

Now, Londoners will have a chance to join in on the fun with their own version.

La Tomatina is a large tomato fight that takes place in the town of Bunol in Spain each year

Heres everything you need to know about it, including what and when it is, where itll be held and how much it will cost to participate.

What is La Tomatina?

La Tomatina is a large tomato fight that takes place in the town of Bunol, Spain on an annual basis.

The event is held on the last Wednesday of August and draws tens of thousands of participants every year.

La Tomatina is thought to have first started in 1945 after a food stall was knocked over during a town parade, prompting revelers to pick up tomatoes and begin throwing them at each other, a tradition that was held for the next several years. Though banned in the early 1950s, it was later reinstituted in 1957.

The fight, which typically lasts about an hour, reportedly sees an estimated 20,000 participants and 130 tons of tomatoes used every year.

When is La Tomantina in London?

The event is slated to be held on Saturday, August 25 with a start time of 12:30pm BST.

Where will it be held?

Londons own La Tomatina event will be hosted by the Spanish restaurant Aqua Nueva on Oxford Street and will start with a three-course lunch and cocktail. Participants will then head over to the Carousel Spaces event venue for additional drinks.

Guests will then be given ponchos and invited to participate in their own version of the famed tomato fight.

The giant food fight will use tomatoes that would have otherwise gone to waste with any leftovers later sent to a compost center afterwards.

Are you ready to get dirty? We're bringing La Tomatina  a riot of a tomato fight to London on Sat 25th Aug. Tickets are 49 & includes a cocktail, lunch, a Bloody Mary, master class by @KetelOne & the tomato fight. Book now! https://t.co/0F3TCfYxDT! #aquanueva pic.twitter.com/jKC6bcGAJQ  aqua nueva (@aquanueva) August 17, 2018

How much will it cost to participate?

The cost to participate is pegged at 49 per person.
President Cyril Ramaphosa (pictured) wants to force the pace of land reform

South Africa's president has declared it is time to 'correct a past wrong' by seizing land from white farmers - and a 10million family ranch is among his first targets.

President Cyril Ramaphosa wants to take lands from white farmers without compensation and redistribute them to black farmers to make up for the injustice of apartheid.

He said at a farmers' conference on Monday that land reform was necessary to 'correct a past wrong.'

'It has required that we confront the injustices of the past, acknowledge our weaknesses and shortcomings, and seek a sustainable path towards a just and inclusive future,' Ramaphosa said.

'This is the time for South Africans to find each other, not fight each other.'

Since the 1994 end of apartheid - a system of racial segregation - the South African ruling party has followed a 'willing-seller, willing-buyer' model under which the government buys white-owned farms for redistribution to black farmers.

But progress has been slow and it appears Ramaphosa wants to more vigorously force the pace of change.

His government has begun the process of seizing farms where negotiations over compensation have failed.

This 10million farm, the Akkerland Boerdery, is set to be seized by the government after just 10 percent of the asking price was offered

Johan Steenkamp and Arnold Cloete, co-owners of the Akkerland Boerdery hunting farm in Limpopo province, said they were ordered to hand over their land after talks to buy it at a tenth of the price broke down.

Steenkamp and Cloete asked for 200million rand (10.7million) for their reserve but were only offered 20million rand (1.07million).

A letter they received earlier in the year said: 'Notice is hereby given that a terrain inspection will be held on the farms on April 5, 2018 at 10am in order to conduct an audit of the assets and a handover of the farm's keys to the state.'

The farmers have obtained an injunction, which was opposed by the government, to prevent eviction until a court rules on the case.

Mr Steenkamp told Newsweek that the decision to take his land was made on 'very short notice' during a public holiday.

He said he was given notice to hand the keys over to his farm within seven days.

Left: Farmer Johan Steenkamp. Right: Pictures posted on the Akkerland Boerdery facebook page show families hunting game

Other photos posted to the farm's Facebook page say the ranch specialises in 'trophy hunting'

Annelie Crosby, spokeswoman for the agricultural industry association AgriSA, told the Johannesburg based CityPress: 'What makes the Akkerland case unique is that they apparently were not given the opportunity to first dispute the claim in court, as the law requires.'

Government spokesman ZiZi Kodwa said: 'Over time I think the markets as well as investors will appreciate that what we are doing is creating policy certainty and creating the conditions for future investment'.

South Africa's state-owned Land Bank has warned that the government could end up with a bill of $2.8billion if the land seizure policy leaves it so short of money that it can't pay its debts.

Land Bank Chairman Arthur Moloto said in the company's 2018 annual report that the bank has approximately 9 billion rand of debt, which includes a standard market clause on 'expropriation' as an event of default.

Moloto said if expropriation without compensation were to materialise without protection of the bank's rights as a creditor, it would be required to repay 9 billion rand immediately.

'A cross default clause would be triggered should we fail to pay when these debts fall due because of inadequate liquidity or lack of alternative sources of funding,' Moloto said.

The hunting lodge's Facebook page shows several pictures of the farm and wild animals

'This would make our entire 41 billion rand funding portfolio due and payable immediately, which we would not be able to settle. Consequently, government intervention would be required to settle our lenders.'

Moloto said the bank was generally funded by the local debt and capital markets, and more recently international multilateral institutions such as the African Development Bank and World Bank.

'A poorly executed expropriation without compensation could result in the main sources of funding drying up as investors might not be willing to continue funding Land Bank in particular, or agriculture in general,' he said.

Some investors are concerned that the ANC's reforms will result in white farmers being stripped of land to the detriment of the economy, as happened in Zimbabwe, although President Ramaphosa has repeatedly said any changes will not compromise food security or economic growth.

Since Cyril Ramaphosa took power, tensions in white farming communities have been rising as he has committed to a programme of land expropriation.

African National Congress chairman Gwede Mantashe last week said: 'You shouldn't own more than 25,000 acres of land.

'Therefore if you own more it should be taken without compensation.'

More than two decades after the end of apartheid, white people still own most of South Africa's land (Akkerland Hunting Ventures, pictured)

A record number of white farmers have put their land up for sale as the government has been accused of earmarking almost 200 farms for seizure.

But the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform denied the claim, saying there was 'no truth to this document', News 24 reported.

The South African constitution contains a section which allows the government to seize land from farmers, but says that fair compensation must be paid.

However, the ANC, the ruling party, is believed to be trying out 'test cases' to see whether the land can be taken without compensation if it is deemed to be 'in the public interest.'

If such cases fail, it has threatened to amend the constitution to remove the compensation clause.

A program of land seizures in nearby Zimbabwe in the 1990s sent the country into an economic spiral from which it has never fully recovered.

Photos posted online show the idyllic farm which is among the first targets of state seizure

Farm union bosses say a record number of farmers are trying to sell their land before the seizures begin but that nobody is buying, making the land effectively worthless.

The ANC has sought to assuage those fears by saying that land reform will follow a parliamentary process.

'You shouldn't own more than 12,000 hectares of land and therefore if you own more, it should be taken without compensation,' ANC Chairman Gwede Mantashe, who is also the country's mines minister, told News24 in an interview published on Wednesday.

Linda Page, spokesperson for the department of land reform, said it is legal for ministers to intervene the law makes provision for the minister to intervene to purchase if it's for the purpose of land reform.

Since 2007, a total of 23 cases have been finalised, seven in Limpopo, one in KwaZulu-Natal, 14 in Mpumalanga and one in the Northern Cape.
A judge on Monday ordered Michigan's health director to stand trial for involuntary manslaughter in two deaths linked to Legionnaires' disease in the Flint area, the highest-ranking official to face criminal charges as a result of the city's tainted water scandal.

Nick Lyon is accused of failing to issue a timely alert about the outbreak. District Court Judge David Goggins said deaths likely could have been prevented if the outbreak had been publicly known. He said keeping the public in the dark was 'corrupt.'

Goggins found probable cause for a trial in Genesee County court, a legal standard that isn't as high as beyond a reasonable doubt. Lyon also faces a charge of misconduct in office.

Flint resident Ariana Hawkins (right) celebrates with Katrina Petri (left) after Genesee District Judge David J. Goggins gave his decision

Nick Lyon, director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, is accused of failing to issue a timely alert over the water quality issue

Courtesy of WEYI

When the judge announced his decision, a woman in the gallery said, 'Yes, yes, yes.'

'It's a long way from over,' Lyon told The Associated Press. He declined further comment.

Some experts have blamed Legionnaires' on Flint's water, which wasn't properly treated when it was drawn from the Flint River in 2014 and 2015. Legionella bacteria can emerge through misting and cooling systems, triggering a severe form of pneumonia, especially in people with weakened immune systems.

At least 90 cases of Legionnaires' occurred in Genesee County, including 12 deaths. More than half of the people had a common thread: They spent time at McLaren Hospital, which was on the Flint water system.

The outbreak was announced by Gov. Rick Snyder and Lyon in January 2016, although Lyon concedes that he knew that cases were being reported many months earlier. He is director of the Health and Human Services Department.

Nick Lyon, right, was told his decision to keep the public in the dark over the scandal was 'corrupt'

Nick Lyon leaves the courtroom after the decision was announced that he will face a manslaughter trial

Nonetheless, he denies wrongdoing. Lyon's attorneys said there was much speculation about the exact cause of Legionnaires' and not enough solid information to share earlier with the public.

The investigation by state Attorney General Bill Schuette's office is part of a larger probe into how Flint's water system became contaminated when the city used Flint River water for 18 months. The water wasn't treated to reduce corrosion. As a result, lead leached from old pipes.

'We're not looking at today as a win or a loss. We're looking at today as the first step and the next step for justice for the moms, dads and kids of Flint,' said Schuette spokeswoman Andrea Bitely, who specifically mentioned the families of two men whose deaths the prosecution blames on Lyon - 85-year-old Robert Skidmore and 83-year-old John Snyder.

An additional 14 current or former state and local officials have been charged with crimes, either related to Legionnaires' or lead in the water. Four agreed to misdemeanor plea deals; the other cases are moving slowly.

Flint residents Arthur Woodson, Barbie Biggs and Claire McClinton listen on as the judge gives his decision on Monday

Judge David Goggins said deaths likely could have been prevented if the outbreak had been publicly known

'Normally we don't see government officials accused of manslaughter based on what they didn't do,' said Peter Henning, a professor at Wayne State University law school in Detroit. 'That does make it an unusual case, and it will make government officials be much more cautious. Maybe that's the message here.'

Defense attorney John Bursch said the judge's decision was 'mystifying.' Goggins spent more than two hours summarizing evidence from weeks of testimony, but he didn't specifically explain what swayed him to send Lyon to trial.

'We had 20 pages of argument in our legal brief that he didn't address,' Bursch said outside court. 'He didn't talk about the law at all.'

A trial would be many months away after Snyder's term as governor ends on Jan. 1. He said Lyon 'has my full faith and confidence' and will remain as Michigan's health director.

A courtroom spectator, Karina Petri, 30, of Milwaukee said sending a senior official to trial is 'long overdue.'

'He withheld the truth. There's no excuse,' said Petri, who wore a 'Flint Lives Matter' shirt. 'He could have changed hundreds of lives.'
The FBI is on the hunt for three suspects accused of abducting a Chinese businessman who owns a high-end car dealership in Los Angeles and are demanding a $2million ransom.

Ruochen 'Tony' Liao, 28, was kidnapped on July 16 in San Gabriel, according to Gene Kowel, an assistant special-agent-in-charge at the FBI's office in Los Angeles.

Liao, who owns a Southern California car dealership that sold luxury cars, such as Porsches and Bentleys, had just finished an evening meeting with several business associates when three men pulled up in two black vehicles - a Toyota minivan and a Range Rover - and took him away, officials said.

The abduction took place at around 7.30pm along Valley Boulvard, about 10 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

Where is Tony? This 2018 photo provided by the FBI shows Ruochen 'Tony' Liao, who was kidnapped in San Gabriel, California, by three men on July 16

The FBI has released a sketch of one of the suspects in the abduction, who was identified as a man in his mid-30s named 'David' (left). Liao has not been seen or heard from in five weeks

Lioa (left) owns a car dealership outside Los Angeles that specializes in high-end vehicles like Porsches and Bentleys

After they kidnapped him, the abductors - all believed to be Chinese nationals - contacted Liao's family and demanded a $2million ransom, but the money was not paid, Kowel said.

'We don't have evidence indicating he has left the country but we don't know where he is,' said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller.

On Monday, the FBI released a sketch of one of the men they believe was involved in the kidnapping, who they suspect may have been an acquaintance of Liao.

The suspect, a man between the ages of 35-40 whom the FBI identified only as 'David,' had attended the business meeting with Liao, according to Matthew Lombard, an attorney for Liao's family. Investigators say David was heard speaking Mandarin.

Investigators are examining several theories in the case, including the possibility that Liao was involved in a business dispute and that he had had dealings with people who 'were not the most reputable,' Kowel said.

Liao (pictured left as a boy), an only child in his family, was born in Sichuan, China, and attended school in Nebraska before moving to the Los Angeles area

FBI agents believe Liao (pictured driving a Porsche) was possibly involved in a business dispute with some disreputable characters

Although the kidnappers had reached out initially to demand the ransom, Liao's family has not heard from them in about a month, he said.

'Our hope is that Tony is still alive. We're operating under the premise that he is still alive,' Kowel said. 'However, we do become concerned as these cases progress the chance of someone remaining alive can diminish.'

Liao, who is originally from Sichuan, China, moved to the Los Angeles area after attending school in Nebraska.

Liao's relatives, who live in China, are offering a $150,000 reward, in addition to a $25,000 reward being offered by the FBI for information that could lead them to locating Liao.

'He is a deeply loved person by his family,' Lombard said. 'He's their only child and they are very, very concerned for him.'
Labour was engulfed in a new anti-Semitism storm last night after it emerged that a key ally of Jeremy Corbyn had also met senior members of Hamas.

Tony Lloyd, shadow secretary for Northern Ireland, was pictured meeting Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and senior Hamas MP Ahmad Bahar in 2011.

Haniyeh was added to the United States' 'terror list' earlier this year. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organisation by the EU.

A State Department statement said Haniyeh 'has close links with Hamas' military wing and has been a proponent of armed struggle, including against civilians'.

Tony Lloyd, shadow secretary for Northern Ireland, was pictured meeting Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (pictured together) and senior Hamas MP Ahmad Bahar in 2011

The photo brought another round of criticism for Labour amid its anti-Semitism crisis. Pictured: Lloyd and Corbyn in June of 2016

The statement noted how Haniyeh has reportedly been involved in terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens and 'poses a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism'.

Haniyeh has been jailed several times because of his involvement in the Intifada and spent six months in Israeli prison in 1988.

In 2016, Bahar called on people to follow in the footsteps of the terrorist who murdered a newly married police officer and a 60-year-old grandmother.

He reportedly called the family of the terrorist and blessed them for their 'father's martyrdom in the way of Allah', describing the terrorist attack as a 'significant action'.

Tony Lloyd, shadow secretary for Northern Ireland, was pictured meeting Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (pictured last March) and senior Hamas MP Ahmad Bahar in 2011

In the pictures with Bahar, Mr Lloyd appears to be wearing a scarf depicting a Palestine map which includes not just Gaza and the West Bank, but also Israel itself.

This goes against decades of both UK foreign policy and Labour Party policy, which supports a two-state solution.

Mr Lloyd embarked on the 1,680 trip to Gaza and Egypt as a guest of the Council for European Palestinian Relations, which services as Hamas' representative in Europe.

He was Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party at the time.

He recently defended Labour's decision not to adopt the full IHRC definition of antisemitism, controversially arguing that Labour's current definition will 'match up'.
A charity associated with a controversial religious sect has been questioned about its promise to deliver 100 per cent of its drought relief donations to farmers after having previously been caught spending donations on 'employee expenses'.

Rapid Relief Team (RRT), the charity arm of the Exclusive Brethren, was called out when it advertised a $2.6million 'Operation Drought Relief' to provide hay for livestock and food for drought-stricken farmers.

The organisation stated on its website it was raising funds for farmers and their families, but the promise was questioned due to the charity's previous spending.

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The religious drought relief charity Rapid Relief Team (pictured) was called out on its 100 per cent donation promise

The Rapid Relief Team (pictured) is the charity of religious sect group, the Exclusive Brethren

While they stated they have 'committed 100 per cent of every dollar to the farmer', previous reports showed they spent nearly half of previous donations on staff and marketing, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Information provided to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission showed that a large portion of donations from previous charities went on wages, marketing, admin and event planning.

A financial statement provided to the watchdog for 2016/2017 revealed that RRT raised $715,000 in donations and earned an extra $54,000 in revenue but spent $342,000 on 'employee expenses'.

The report showed that the charity's expenses for the same financial period were in excess of $1.2million - including $135,000 being spent on marketing.

Founded in Australia in 2013, Rapid Relief Team (RRT) is a global charity organisation comprised of mostly volunteers from the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, also known as Exclusive Brethren.

The conservative religious sect has been extremely controversial in Australia because of previous allegations that it tried to influence politicians despite its members being exempt from voting, news.com.au reported.

Rapid Relief Team (pictured) has advertised a $2.6million 'Operation Drought Relief' to fund hay and food to drought-stricken farmers

Rapid Relief Team's ongoing commitment to raising funds to support those in need in the community includes providing free meals

However, Federal Law Enforcement Minister Angus Taylor, who has been assisting with drought relief in his seat of Hume south-west of Sydney, said he was particularly grateful for RRT's efforts.

RRT chairman Merrick Grimshaw said in the 2017 annual report that the increase in spending was due to administration, events and marketing, as well as hiring a national administration manager.

He pointed out that there were a number of 'one-off' expenses including, 'the management of global branding requirements including an upgrade of our website and online shop'.

RRT isn't the only organisation having to explain itself, however, with other drought charities having to defend their own spending.

The examination comes after questions were raised about Aussie Helpers' cash reserves and Rural Aid's wages bill.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Rapid Relief Team for comment.
Australians are being urged to get a flu jab as the sick season intensifies after shocking statistics showed only a quarter of our most vulnerable have been vaccinated.

A paltry one in four young children in Australia received the influenza vaccine this year, 3AW reported.

Influenza (flu) is a potentially life threatening illness which can cause serious infection and death around the globe, usually in the winter months.

Despite the vaccination being free, less than one in four children aged six months to four years have received the jab so far this year

Children under 5 and the elderly have the highest rates of hospitalisation for the flu each year.

The highest number of flu cases last season occurred in late August, with 23,129 cases reported.

The flu season was the deadliest in a quarter of a century for both Australia and New Zealand according to a research paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine and co-authored by Professor David Pilcher from the Monash University in Melbourne.

Professor Pilcher told The Sydney Morning Herald September last year was one of the worst at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne as the intensive care unit was flooded with patients suffering from the flu.

He said many of them were unaware how dangerous the flu can be.
A charity has helped a family of six from Sudan buy their own home in Melbourne.

Jireh Foundation gives refugees and new migrants money for a house deposit, which does not have to be repaid.

Beneficiaries of the scheme then pay off the rest of the loan instead of paying rent, the Herald Sun reported.

The program aims to help four families in Victoria a year, particularly in areas with high refugee populations such as Casey and Dandenong in Melbourne's south-east.

A charity has helped a Sudanese family of six buy their own home in Melbourne (stock image)

The Bieth family is the first to get a home as a result of the scheme.

Parents Simon Bieth Kat and Elizabeth Ayen Bol moved into the house with their children Achok, 20, Nyankach, 16, Michael, 13 and Pabut, 11.

Achok said owning their own home 'allows us to feel like Australians'.

'My family and I feel overwhelmed by this, we never thought something like this could be possible but the Lord has made this possible,' she said.

'It makes us feel like we are carrying our own weight and doing something for ourselves, so that we can stand in pride and sing Advance Australia Fair.'

Foundation leader Reverend Glenn Buijs said refugees and new migrants were able to pay rent when they arrived in Australia but often didn't have enough for a deposit.

The Community of the Holy Name in Cheltenham donated $500,000 to the foundation to assist the scheme.
Some 73 per cent of people said they had received an unsolicited marketing or sales call in the last month

Almost three-quarters of people received a nuisance call in the last month, a survey has found.

Two in five said they felt intimidated, and the same number said they were distressed by unsolicited marketing or sales calls, according to the poll.

Consumer watchdog Which? is urging the Government to ensure bosses of the companies behind such calls are held accountable.

Some 73 per cent of people said they had received an unsolicited marketing or sales call in the last month, the survey found.

Around eight in 10 felt that cold calls were an intrusive interruption to their daily life.

Nuisance calls can also have a significant emotional impact on the people targeted, with 41 per cent saying felt intimidated and 40 per cent saying they felt distressed by unsolicited phone calls.

Almost eight in 10 people (77 per cent) said they were discouraged from picking up phone calls from unknown numbers altogether, potentially missing out on important calls from family members or other legitimate sources.

Under new proposals, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) could be given stronger powers to hold company directors directly responsible for breaking the law with further fines of up to 500,000.

Currently only businesses are liable for such fines, and some directors try to avoid paying the penalty by declaring bankruptcy, only to open up again under a different name.

A three-month consultation on the issue launched by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is due to close today (Tue).

Alex Neill, from Which?, said nuisance calls can be a daily torment for some people.

He said: Its time to stem the tide of this daily torment and properly hold to account company directors who are responsible for flouting the law. We must stop them from bombarding households with nuisance calls.

The Government must seize this opportunity and act swiftly to deliver on its promise to stamp out dodgy practices and make sure that those responsible for making nuisance calls can no longer evade justice and skip fines.

Earlier this month telemarketing firm AMS Marketing Ltd was fined 100,000 after making more than 75,000 nuisance calls about compensation for road traffic accidents.

Populus surveyed 2,093 UK residents in August.
Yesterdays BBC news bulletins carried the wonderfully uplifting story of how after eight years of political upheaval, riots on the streets and extraordinary economic privation, the dark clouds over Greece are finally lifting.

After several years in which the country was kept afloat by the munificence of the eurozone countries, they trumpeted, Athens is at last free from an EU bailout programme of 61.9 billion (55billion) in emergency loans. That was part on an eight-year rescue package worth 258billion.

All that was missing was a chorus from the feel-good summer movie Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, set on an idyllic Greek holiday isle. Well, I am sorry to spoil the party, but on my recent visit to Athens for a seminar, everything I witnessed showed nothing could be further from the truth than this so-called fairy-tale recovery.

Athens is at last free from an EU bailout programme of 55billion in emergency loans (pictured, police face petrol bombs in 2015's anti-austerity riots)

Far from saving Greece from pecuniary disaster, the harsh economic medicine forced on the country by the EU and Germany in particular as a condition of the bailout has resulted in death by a thousand cuts.

The countrys once elegant capital has become one of the most depressing and untidiest cities in Western Europe, a city in terrible decay. Shops on once booming boulevards are shuttered, while cranes stand idle over the shells of unfinished buildings and much of Athens is covered in ugly graffiti.

Even the awnings around Greeces most revered ancient site the Parthenon, home of the Athenian Acropolis, is covered in unsightly painted scribbles and drawings.

The hardships and deprivations I encountered during my recent visit were everywhere  and all the more heart-breaking in that they had been caused by European leaders who were masquerading as people bearing gifts.

Take Maria, a cheerful, close friend of my family who spent years studying fine art and the science of paper conservation including a period at the prestigious Smithsonian museums in Washington. Today, she struggles to make ends meet.

To help pay her way she spends almost every waking hour using scrap paper to hand-make table decorations for Greek weddings. The burden of work means that she is only able to visit her ageing parents, some four hours travel time from Athens, two or three times a year.

A hospital doctor among our acquaintances has seen his monthly pay cut to 1,200 (1,071). It is only his social conscience and love of his country that has kept him in Athens.

The countrys once elegant capital has become one of the most depressing and untidiest cities in Western Europe

Some 70,000 highly skilled professionals including doctors, dentists and pharmacists have left the country as part of a broader Grexodus of 500,000 people.

The best way for any country to emerge from financial crisis is to increase its national income so that tax revenues rise and global debts can be paid off.

But during the last eight years, Greece has moved in precisely the opposite direction. National output has slumped by an astonishing 25 per cent.

The result is adult unemployment of 20 per cent. Even more shocking and socially disruptive, some 40 per cent of 18 to 25-year olds are out of work.

Without any income for the young, it is now commonplace for three generations of the same family to be forced to live cheek by jowl in the same crowded apartment. The fact is that the austerity imposed by the eurocrats has ruined Greece and done nothing to relieve it of its monstrous level of debt.

It has snuffed out entrepreneurship, as well as created a poisonous political legacy where a far-Left Marxist party headed by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras rules with the support of fanatical politicians on the populist Right.

The end of the EUs bailout programme may technically mean that Greece can return to the international markets to borrow again, but any notion that the worlds commercial bankers and financiers will be queuing at Athens overcrowded and dilapidated airport to lend  and pour good money after bad  is a fantasy.

Shops on boulevards are shuttered and cranes stand idle over the shells of unfinished buildings (pictured, Greek riot police dodge a petrol bomb thrown by protesters during clash over tax reforms in 2016)

After all, the country is still sitting on a debt pile of 289billion (258billion) which the International Monetary Fund puts at 191 per cent, or almost twice the nations total annual output.

To place that in context, it is more than two times the ratio of Britains national debt to output, which after a decade of UK cuts to public services and surging tax incomes as the economy has grown is now, thankfully, on a downward path.

Not only that, Greeces stricken financial system is currently being kept afloat by short-term cash assistance of some 40billion (35.6billion) per month from the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank.

Without this help, which is akin to that provided by the Bank of England to the British banks at the height of the financial crisis a decade ago, the four biggest Greek lenders would be effectively bankrupt.

Together the bad loans on the books of these banks  Piraeus, Alpha, Euro Bank and National Bank of Greece  amount to 101billion (90billion) or 50 per cent of the total, the highest level of any country in the European Union. Indeed the banks, the lifeblood of any Western economy, are so indebted they cannot lend any more.

Which means the small and medium-sized enterprises that are the countrys business bedrock cannot get the finance they need to carry on and invest. Nor do ordinary consumers find it possible to obtain credit.

This desolate financial scenario is a direct result of the austerity conditions demanded by Brussels eurocrats and German central bankers.

Over the last eight years successive Greek governments have been forced to attend no fewer than 95 meetings at which the most stringent measures have been imposed on them.

The results for the Greek people have been nothing short of catastrophic.

Yet in their determination to preserve the greater political project of the eurozone and the EU, and to keep Greece as their client state, Brussels and German politicians have been utterly ruthless.

In spite of personal appeals from the International Monetary Funds euro-supporting managing director Christine Lagarde to forgive Greece its debt burden and allow the country to be given a fresh start, the eurofanatics have been unrelenting in their determination to keep the debt anvil hanging around its neck.

Greece is in an armlock it cannot escape because of a combination of its debt burden and the fact that its membership of the eurozone means it can no longer devalue its currency. And the EU and Germans are determined to keep it that way to save their precious euro.

So despite the joyous news bulletins about the bailout yesterday morning, be in no doubt that this Greek tragedy is very far from over.
Carlus A. Tucker Jr., 25, allegedly suffocated his four-month-old daughter using her blanket

Police in Virginia say a man has been charged with attempted murder after he tried to suffocate his four-month-old daughter.

The infant was taken to a hospital for a medical evaluation after the incident on August 14 in Chesterfield County and has since been released.

Police said that 25-year-old Carlus A. Tucker Jr. was also charged with malicious wounding, felony child neglect and other offenses.

Tucker was only caught out after he decided to record the incident of his the alleged attempted suffocation on his cellphone.

An acquaintance reported receiving two exceptionally disturbing videos on her cell phone.

One was about six-and-a-half minutes long and the other just five seconds in duration.

Both purport to show Tucker using a large balled-up blanket to cover his four-month-old girl's face and then using a bag to suffocate her.

Investigators say the mother called police when she became aware of the assault on August 15.

'The investigation indicates Carlus A. Tucker Jr., 25, intentionally suffocated his four-month-old daughter for an unknown period of time,' a Chesterfield Police spokesperson said.

Police say Tucker had fled in a vehicle belonging to the child's mother and was arrested Friday.

He has been charged with attempted murder, malicious wounding, felony child neglect, felony domestic assault and grand larceny. He is being held without bond in the Chesterfield County Jail,

The child, meanwhile, was treated and released from the hospital.

Anyone with information about this crime should contact the Chesterfield County Police Department at 804-748-1251, or Crime Solvers at 804-748-0660.
Cuba has made a rare conviction of a man wanted for murder in Florida after he fled to the island to escape justice.

Marcos Yanes Gutierrez, 21, a Cuban national, shot dead Palm Beach County doctor Ronald Schwartz and fled to the island in 2015.

The killer may have thought he'd gotten away with the murder as Cuba traditionally does not extradite its nationals to the United States for trial.

But as a further sign of thawing tensions between the two countries, a Cuban court has convicted Gutierrez of murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Marcos Yanes Gutierrez, 21, (left) a Cuban national, shot dead Palm Beach County doctor Ronald Schwartz (right) and fled to the island in 2015

Prosecutors from Cuba and Palm Beach County worked together to secure the conviction. The Florida prosecutors had agreed to transfer the case to Cuba, and the May trial was public and open to US.

'To me this is a product of diplomacy,' Phil Horowitz, a Miami criminal defense attorney, told the Miami Herald. 'It also shows that in international cases when there is cooperation between governments justice can be done. The Cold War does occasionally thaw.'

Yanes Gutierrez had gone to the Jupiter Farms home of Schwartz in July 2015, accompanied by his friend Saul Retana Lopez, to ask the doctor to give Lopez his job back.

When they began to argue, Schwartz grabbed his revolver from his bedroom and shot Lopez, wounding him, Lopez later told the cops.

Lopez said that he then grabbed the handgun and shot Schwartz in the rib cage.

Yanes Gutierrez 'picked up Schwartz's firearm and shot him in the head,' the police report said.

Lopez, who was arrested and charged with first degree murder, and Yanes Gutierrez reportedly then ransacked the doctor's house stealing jewelry and firearms before fleeing.

Yanes Gutierrez immediately fled to Cuba.

Florida prosecutors were working to extradite him in 2016 but in February that year the docket entries stop with a notation that simply says 'warrant returned.'

Phil Peters, president of the Virginia-based Cuba Research Center, said Cuban officials told him that since Cuba was unwilling to extradite Yanes Gutierrez, they offered US authorities the chance to try him on the island.

'This is the first time the United States has put its faith in the Cuban court system and collaborated with Cuban prosecutors,' said Peters.

Yanes Gutierrez had gone to the Jupiter Farms home of Schwartz in July 2015, accompanied by his friend Saul Retana Lopez (pictured) , to ask the doctor to give Lopez his job back

Marcos Jimenez, a former U.S. attorney in Miami, believes that Cuba may be trying to 'curry favor with the US.'

'That's pretty incredible - trying one of their citizens for a crime committed outside their country. I don't think any U.S. court would exercise jurisdiction over a U.S. national who committed a crime in another country,' said Marcos Jimenez, a former U.S. attorney in Miami. 'Palm Beach prosecutors may have thought this was their only chance to get some sort of justice for the victim of the crime.

The Cuban Embassy in Washington confirmed the conviction on Monday.

An extradition treaty does technically exist between Cuba and the US but has fallen out of use following decades of animosity between the two countries.

But former president Barack Obama initiated a noticeable thaw in relations, beginning in 2014 when he negotiated the beginning of normalizing relations with Cuban President Raul Castro.

That included lifting of some U.S. travel and trade restrictions, reopening of the U.S. embassy in Havana and the Cuban embassy in Washington, and in March 2016, he became the first U.S. President to visit Cuba since 1928.

President Trump announced in June 2017 he was cancelling Obama's deals with Cuba.

This latest case could be seen as another step between the US and Cuba improving relations.

State Attorney Dave Aronberg tweeted last week that he was 'honored' to have played a role in the case.

Peters said that the case may have opened doors for the prosecution of other criminals who went on the run to Cuba.

'I would not think they would be sleeping peacefully based on this case.'

In another case of cooperation between law enforcement in both countries, a US eco-terrorism suspect accused of arson and vandalism was detained in Havana last week by Cuban authorities. Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, 50, who had been on the run for 12 years, was then put on a plane to the US to face changes.
An unholy row has flared after a cathedral's decision to screen films which include a graphic sex scene, full female nudity and a Pagan sacrifice.

Some church-goers believe that showing cult horror movie The Wicker Man and the thriller Don't Look Now at Derby Cathedral is inappropriate.

Wardens from other churches have called for the screenings to be scrapped.

Church-goers to Derby Cathedral (pictured) believe that showing cult horror movie The Wicker Man at Derby Cathedral is inappropriate

However, the Cathedral's Dean said the building was 'for everybody' and it needed to serve a wide range of people in the city, BBC Radio Derby reports.

The Dean, the Very Reverend Dr Stephen Hance, said: 'The first thing we're trying to do is open the cathedral to new people.

'It doesn't just belong to the people who go to church; it certainly doesn't belong to me; it doesn't just belong to religious people.

'This is Derby's cathedral and it needs to serve the needs of the people of Derby, as wide a range of the people of Derby as we possibly can.'

The Wicker Man, from 1973, centres on a devout Christian police officer who goes in search of a missing girl on an island where the inhabitants turn out to be practising paganism.

It famously includes scenes in which Britt Ekland's character is shown dancing naked, and Edward Woodward's character is burned to death inside a giant wicker man.

Don't Look Now, also from 1973, includes a graphic sex scene which was cut from the film by the BBC when it premiered on television.

Over the decades many observers have suggested that the leading actors, Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, were having unsimulated sex, although Sutherland has always rejected this.

The 1973 film The Wicker Man famously includes scenes in which Britt Ekland's character (pictured) is shown dancing naked

The film (pictured) centres on a Christian police officer who goes in search of a missing girl on an island where the inhabitants turn out to be practising paganism

Steve Dunning, a church warden from within the diocese of Derby, said: 'I just think it isn't appropriate to show these films in a place of worship

that is consecrated and hallowed, and therefore it compromises the spiritual integrity of the cathedral.

'There is also a broader issue in terms of why does the cathedral need to show films when there are multiplex cinemas in Derby?'

Kristin Simmons, a deputy warden from another church, said: 'Derby Cathedral is a reflection of every parish church in Derbyshire.

'Of course the cathedral can and should be open and used for outside events, but they should not be adverse to the Christian perspective; the

cathedral is primarily a place of worship.

'One film depicts a human sacrifice of a Christian man who recites Psalm 23 and 'curses' people upon his death, and in the other, the protagonist is

employed to restore a church building; it involves seances and communication with the dead and a very explicit sex scene.

'As someone else pointed out to me, Holy Communion will be celebrated nine hours later in the same seats.'

The films were chosen by Dr Alex Rock from the nearby Quad cinema, who is a member of the congregation himself.

Dr Rock said: 'I have a really good relationship with Derby Cathedral and care about it a lot, and I thought this was a really good opportunity to

stimulate discussion around the space itself and to kind of experience the space in a completely different light.

He described the films as 'some of the greatest examples of British cinema that have ever been made'.

'This programme is designed to celebrate the heritage of British cinema in a fantastic heritage space,' Dr Rock added.

The films are part of a season of film screenings called Quad in Residence at Derby Cathedral, which begins on 7 September.

Other films include Monty Python's Life of Brian, a religious satire telling the story of a man who is mistaken for Jesus, and which has itself sparked controversy in the past.

Sister Act, in which Whoopi Goldberg's character is forced to join a convent, is also being screened.
A neo-Nazi group has placed stickers with swastikas on them across signs in a regional Australian city as part of a 'recruitment drive'.

The Nazi symbols were stuck in public places, including on a banner advertising a popular culture festival, close to the TAFE Queensland campus in Toowoomba, 130km west of Brisbane.

A passer-by informed the Towoomba Chronicle that they had noticed the stickers and quickly removed them, before contacting the Toowoomba Regional Council.

Pictures of defaced Queens Park signs posted by Antipodean Resistance on social networking site Gab

Queens Park sign defaced with swastika by Antipodean Resistance in June

Council's environment and community spokesman Cr Joe Ramia described the vandalism as 'completely unacceptable'.

'Unfortunately this is not the first time we have seen vandalism of this nature but it's pleasing to hear of the local residents who removed the stickers as this reinforces how much our community is opposed to racism throughout the region,' he said.

This is the second time that the political organisation, known as Antipodean Resistance, have struck in the Queensland city.

Members of Antipodean Resistance holding a swastika flag and making fascist salute

Members of Antipodean Resistance holding a flag with slogan 'White revolution is the only solution'

The group were first active in Toowoomba back in September 2017 when, in a bid for new recruits, members put up posters with the slogan 'Nazi youth organising in your area'.

St Mary's College, Queens Park and the TAFE campus were among the areas targeted. The group's website address was also clearly stated on the posters.

Toowoomba is not the only area that Antipodean Resistance have targeted in recent times. Back in May, neo-Nazi posters appeared in a Synagogue in Adelaide. Flyers were also found littered around university campuses in the city.

Antipodean Resistance describes itself as 'the Hitler's you've been waiting for' and first emerged in Melbourne in 2016.

The group only accepts heterosexual white members and likens itself to Hitler Youth. Their ideology opposes homosexuality and has described Jewish people as 'social parasites'.
Philip Hammond was forced to rewrite Treasury plans for a no-deal Brexit after they were likened to Project Fear, government sources claimed last night.

Ministers are due to publish the first of 84 documents detailing contingency plans this week.

However, two Government sources said that concerns were raised with Chancellor Mr Hammond over the tone of several Treasury reports.

Philip Hammond (pictured with the Prime Minister) was forced to rewrite Treasury plans for a no-deal Brexit after they were likened to Project Fear

Sections on the current status of EU arrangements were too upbeat, while the consequences of leaving the EU without a deal were portrayed as negative.

They have since been amended to ensure they are more factual, the sources told The Daily Telegraph.

Treasury papers are thought to include analysis on the impact of a no-deal Brexit on financial services, VAT and state aid. It follows a series of leaks that suggested the Government was ready to release Armageddon scenarios.

They said the Army could be put on standby to deal with shortages of medicine, fuel and food within a fortnight of leaving the EU.

Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab has insisted that technical documents must be serious and sober

Tory MPs warned the Governments kamikaze approach to no-deal planning was handing the initiative to the EU in negotiations.

Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab has insisted that technical documents must be serious and sober.

Officials say they want them to represent Project No Fear.

The Government was accused of running Project Fear in the run-up to the 2016 referendum after making wild predictions about the economy crashing.

It is understood that the publication of the most controversial Treasury documents will be delayed until next month.

Meanwhile Liam Fox will today pledge to make Britain a 21st century exporting superpower after Brexit.

The International Trade Secretary will urge the country to set its sights high as he outlines a strategy to boost the sales of goods and services overseas so they account for 35 per cent of UK GDP. instead of the current 30.
An prisoner flew on his own from Alice Springs to Darwin for medical treatment in a major security breach but the government says it was in line with their policy.

Royal Darwin Hospital staff were also unaware the man was an inmate until he was discharged, NT News reported.

There has also been claims of inmates driving fellow inmates to appointments without being accompanied by guards.

The Northern Territory Government has now been forced to defend their security protocols.

An open-security prisoner was given a leave permit to attend Alice Springs Hospital. He was later flown to Darwin where he spent four days in hospital

The prisoner was able to fly on a QantasLink flight last month unaccompanied to from Alice Springs to Darwin for medical treatment.

The Department of Attorney-General and Justice and the Department of Health did not tell the airline the inmate would be boarding a plane despite Qantas requiring any prisoner on its flights to be accompanied by a trained escort.

An open-security prisoner was given a leave permit to attend Alice Springs Hospital. He then required treatment at the Royal Darwin Hospital

But the Department of Attorney-General and Justice maintains there was no security breach.

Opposition Leader Gary Higgins has questioned whether the security slip was resource driven or due to 'slackness'.

'The fact that a prisoner is just being able to travel anywhere around the NT on his own brings into question what this government is actually allowing to happen in these departments,' he said.

The open-security prisoner was given a leave permit to attend Alice Springs Hospital.

He then required treatment at the Royal Darwin Hospital. He was flown to Darwin where he spent four days in hospital.

Last month a prisoner was able to fly on a QantasLink flight unaccompanied to Darwin for medical treatment

There are five security classifications for inmates. Those are; maximum security, high security, medium security, low security and open security.

There are different rules for each classification.

Open security prisoners can be given leave-permits.

A statement from the department said that custody of the inmate had been handed over to the Alice Springs Hospital before he was sent to Darwin for treatment.

'Therefore, his custody had not been breached,' the statement said.

Qantas would not comment and referred questions to the Department of Attorney-General and Justice.
A young charity worker is recovering in hospital after she was attacked in a Spanish hostel and left unconscious with a fractured skull and brain damage.

Agnes Wong, from Auckland, was travelling alone on a dream holiday in the seaside town of Malaga when she was assaulted last week.

Witnesses reported she was kicked in the head and repeatedly punched.

Agnes Wong was bashed inside her hostel and left with a shattered skull and a brain bleed

Ms Wong was rushed to hospital suffering a skull fracture, a brain bleed and clots.

Close friend Erike Ng has established a Givealittle page, with Ms Wong's family flying to Spain to be by her side.

Ms Wong is slowly regaining her strength, but the assault remains a blur, according to Mr Ng.

'She has no memory of the event ... She has been recovering each day and is now regaining some of her sass and stubbornness,' he said.

'Now is the time that Agnes and her family needs all the support possible.

'If we can help relieve some stress and financial burden this incident has caused, the goal is achieved.'

Prior to the attack, Ms Wong also lived in the United Kingdom on a Youth Mobility Scheme visa.

Agnes Wong was attacked when staying at a hostel in Malaga, a port city in southern Spain

Sarah Manley, a St John's charity's community health services director in Auckland, described Wong as a 'caring and charismatic young woman.'

'She has many friends here and we are very sorry to learn of what's happened to her,' she said.

'Our hearts and thoughts go out to Agnes and her family at this difficult time.'

The motive for the vicious assault remains unclear, with no arrests at this stage.
The Q&A session, which ran on Sunday, did not identify the people involved

The group didn't influence UK votes saying him as PM is a choice for the British

The Palestinian terror group publicly declared its support for him on Twitter

Hamas has come out in support of Jeremy Corbyn  using its official Twitter account to 'salute' the Labour leader.

The Palestinian terror group publicly declared its support for him.

A question and answer session included the exchange: 'Q: Do you endorse Jeremy Corbyn for UK Prime Minister? A: We salute Jeremy Corbyn's supportive positions to the Palestinians'.

Hamas has come out in support of Jeremy Corbyn amid a question and answer session on Twitter last night

However, the group stopped short of trying to influence UK voters, adding: 'But the issue of him as a Prime Minister is an internal British issue and we respect the choice of the British people'.

The Q&A session, which ran on Sunday, did not identify the people who asked the questions.

One post read: 'Q: I'm Jewish and I live in the UK. Would I be right in assuming my family and I are targets?' Hamas replied simply: 'A: This is not true.'
Malcolm Turnbull's survival today against Peter Dutton doesn't mean he will continue as prime minister until the next election.

While he prevailed against the Home Affairs Minister 48 votes to 35 at this morning's Liberal party room in Canberra, Bob Hawke and Julia Gillard were taken down in two challenges.

Mr Dutton, a former Queensland police officer with a marginal seat in Brisbane's outer north, only needs to muster another seven votes to succeed at a second challenge.

Malcolm Turnbull's survival today against Peter Dutton doesn't mean he will continue as prime minister until the next election

Peter Dutton only needs to muster another seven votes to succeed at a second challenge

Kevin Rudd regained his old job in June 2013 following his second challenge against Julia Gillard, who was struggling in every opinion poll following her broken promise not to introduce a carbon tax.

In February 2012, Mr Rudd lost in a landslide to Ms Gillard, 71 votes to 31, in the Labor caucus, after he resigned as Foreign Minister during a late night press conference in Washington DC.

By June 2013, he brought her down with a second challenge, prevailing 57 votes to 45 after Labor's primary vote in Newspoll had fallen to a dangerously low 29 per cent.

He had reaped his revenge, three years after becoming the first Australian prime minister since Federation to have been brought down in his first term.

Kevin Rudd regained in old job in June 2013 following his second challenge against Julia Gillard, after Labor's primary vote in Newspoll had plunged to just 29 per cent

Julia Gillard was defeated in a second challenge losing 45 votes to 57 to the man she deposed of as prime minister in 2010

CHALLENGES TO SITTING PRIME MINISTERS March 10, 1971: Deputy Liberal leader Billy McMahon challenged Liberal PM John Gorton, who voted against himself after the vote was tied 33-33 April 8, 1982: Former Foreign Minister Andrew Peacock unsuccessfully challenged Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser, 27-54 June 3, 1991: Paul Keating who had been Treasurer for eight years lost his first challenge to Labor PM Bob Hawke, 44-66 December 19, 1991: After moving to the backbench, Paul Keating prevailed the second time against Bob Hawke, 56-51 June 24, 2010: Kevin Rudd, a first-term Labor PM, bowed out after Julia Gillard challenged him the first time February 27, 2012: Kevin Rudd loses his first challenge to Julia Gillard, 71-31 June 27, 2013: Kevin Rudd won his second challenge against Julia Gillard, 57-45 September 15, 2015: Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull defeated first-term Liberal PM Tony Abbott, 54-44 August 21, 2018: Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton lost to Malcolm Turnbull, 48-35 Advertisement

In December 1991 Paul Keating brought down Bob Hawke in a second leadership challenge, winning 56 votes to 51, less than a week before Christmas.

Just six months earlier, in June 1991, he had resigned from his eight-year post as Treasurer to challenge his boss, who was Australia's longest-serving Labor prime minister.

Mr Hawke, the only federal Labor leader to have won four elections, was challenged during a recession but prevailed 66 votes to 44.

However, Mr Keating built momentum for a second challenge as Mr Hawke struggled against federal Liberal leader John Hewson, even though he was proposing a hated 15 per cent Goods and Services Tax.

Like Kevin Rudd and Paul Keating, Peter Dutton by convention will need to resign from cabinet and move to the backbench as he garners conservative support within the Liberal Party for a second challenge.

Like Mr Dutton today, Mr Keating was 47 when he challenged a sitting prime minister in his sixties the first time.

Mr Hawke was 62 when he was eventually toppled, a year younger than Mr Turnbull is now.

It is likely Mr Dutton will be relying on the support of former prime minister Tony Abbott and his right-wing supporters, who are angered at Malcolm Turnbull's moderate policy direction on the National Energy Guarantee.

Mr Abbott, who Mr Turnbull felled in September 2015, doesn't have support in the Liberal party room to challenge the PM and isn't popular in the wider electorate as Mr Rudd was after he was taken down in 2010.

Bob Hawke, Australia's longest serving Labor prime minister who had won four elections, was defeated in a second challenge by his former treasurer on December 19, 1991

In December 1991 Paul Keating brought down Bob Hawke in a second leadership challenge, winning 56 votes to 51, only five days before Christmas

No prime minister who has been challenged within their own party has gone on to win a federal election, with Malcolm Fraser losing the March 1983 election to Bob Hawke after facing a Liberal Party challenge in 1982 from Andrew Peacock.

Even if Malcolm Turnbull survives a second challenge against Peter Dutton, he looks set to lose the election in a landslide to Labor's Bill Shorten, following 38 consecutive Newspoll losses with this challenge denting his already-crumbling authority.
He's hit the all-important swing states of New Hampshire and Iowa, and now it appears Michael Avenatti could be seeking the youth vote.

Stormy Daniels' lawyer was spotted on the pink carpet at MTV's Video Music Awards on Monday as talk continues that he could be preparing for a 2020 presidential run.

Avenatti was no doubt a surprising sight at the awards show, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Cardi B, Ariana Grande, and Madonna.

The porn star's lawyer dressed up for the occasion, swapping his casual button-down and slacks from the Hillsborough County Democrats' Summer Picnic fundraiser on Sunday for a slick suit and blue-and-white striped tie.

Stormy Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti was spotted on the pink carpet at MTV's Video Music Awards on Monday night as talk continues that he is preparing for a 2020 presidential run

Avenatti was all smiles for the camera as he walked the pink carpet for the show, which has become notorious for hijinks including Madonna and Britney Spears' kiss and Kanye West's infamous interruption during Taylor Swift's speech.

But Avenatti has made it clear he's hardly shy, and the lawyer has revealed he will hold nothing back if he decides to go up against Donald Trump in 2020.

Avenatti told the Hillsborough County Democrats that he was considering matching Trump's confrontational style with his own pugilistic brand in a presidential bid.

He said Democrats need to 'fight fire with fire' and described himself as an experienced courtroom and TV brawler who is up to the task.

'This president, no matter how corrupt or cruel he is, he knows how to fight,' Avenatti told the crowd.

'This election is going to be a brutal, knockdown, street fight, and if someone's not up for that type of campaign, they need to stay home and not seek the nomination.'

Avenatti was no doubt a surprising sight at the awards show, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Cardi B, Ariana Grande, and Madonna

The porn star's lawyer dressed up for the occasion, swapping his casual button-down and slacks at the Hillsborough County Democrats' Summer Picnic fundraiser on Sunday for a slick suit

'When they go low, we hit harder,' he added, modifying former first lady Michelle Obama's slogan.

The popular former first lady famously repeated throughout 2016: 'When they go low, we go high.'

Avenatti acknowledged that some of the roughly 200 voters at the outdoor barbecue might be thinking, joking 'What is some porn lawyer doing here today?'

But, he added, 'As you all know, these are anything but usual times.'

Democrats today, he said, are fighting for 'nothing short of the survival of our republic'.

Avenatti spoke at the Hillsborough County Democrats' Summer Picnic fundraiser in Greenfield, New Hampshire on Sunday. New Hampshire is considered a major swing state

Tracing his background, Avenatti said he had grown up in Missouri without a 'golden toilet' - an allusion to Trump' wealth - and was the first in his family to graduate from college.

Voters on hand appeared cautiously taken with Avenatti, who received a celebrity reception after arriving on Sunday afternoon.

The lawyer happily stopped every few feet for a selfie photo as he slowly made his way through an energized crowd.

Avenatti's potential presidential bid comes as he continues to try and expand his profile beyond the Stormy Daniels case.

Avenatti - who has represented Stormy Daniels through her high-profile case against Trump, acknowledged that some of the crowd probably only saw him as a 'porn star lawyer'

Before his New Hampshire visit, Avenatti visited Iowa - another all-important swing state

The lawyer has also thrown himself into cases of children separated from their families and released a position paper where he opposed Trump's border wall.

Avenatti recently revealed his stance on a number of hot button issues, saying he supports Medicare for all and wants to see a national paid family leave program.

Stormy's lawyer said he also supports a path to citizenship for Dreamers but does not want the outright abolition of ICE.

He also believes marijuana should be decriminalized at the federal level and that assault weapons should be banned.
Love Island was called out for portraying offensive cliches in 'fireman challenge'

Research found 15 per cent of women think men are better to be firefighters

Stereotypes of male firefighters as musclebound sex objects are putting women off joining the service, London Fire Brigade has said.

Concerns about gender stereotyping have led the LFB to back proposals by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to ban sexist adverts after shocking findings.

A quarter of women think men are better equipped to be firefighters, according to a YouGov survey commissioned by the mayor of London.

Just seven per cent of women thought the same of police officers when asked: 'Do you think men are more able to do the job, women are more able to do the job, or they are both equally able?'

Stereotypes of male firefighters as sex objects are putting women off joining the service, according to London Fire Brigade

The ITV 2 show Love Island has been called out for portraying the 'offensive cliche' in its 'fireman challenge' claims London Fire Commissioner, Dany Cotton.

It saw male contestants strip down and pretend to save a female from danger, in a sexualised portrayal of the profession.

Ms Cotton, the first woman to hold the LFB's most senior position, said: 'I'm especially concerned about how many young people think firefighting is for men.

'When popular shows like Love Island roll out every offensive cliche possible with their so-called 'fireman challenge', it reinforces the misconception that all firefighters are musclebound men. No wonder so many young women are put off by that.'

Ms Cotton, the first woman to hold the LFB's most senior position, said ITV 2's Love Islan portrayed offensive cliches in its 'fireman challenge' this year

Other high-profile examples of sexist stereotypes cited in the brigade's research include a Suzuki advert featuring Ant and Dec which mentioned 'fireman training', and an advert for Harpic toilet cleaner which saw female characters objectifying a male firefighter.

More than 5,000 operational firefighters are in the LFB, yet only 300 of these are women.

Additional research by the LFB among women revealed concerns that the fire service is a 'very masculine environment' and 'a sexist field'.

Ms Cotton urged 'advertisers, journalists and marketers to' stop using 'lazy cliches' as she urged 40 news editors across national and local titles to curb their usage of sexist language.

It saw male contestants strip down and pretend to save a female from danger, in a sexualised portrayal of the profession, claim Ms Cotton

She said: 'It was 30 years ago that people were shocked to see women police officers and it's frankly embarrassing that the public are still shocked to see women firefighters today.

'The armed forces and the police force have all been enriched by having women better represented across their ranks and it's time the fire and rescue service caught up.

The ASA launched a consultation in May which proposed that adverts 'must not include gender stereotypes that are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence' with results being published later this year.

The consultation followed a report last year from the watchdog which called for stronger regulation of adverts based on 'gender stereotypical roles'.

A spokeswoman for the ASA said: 'We've published evidence that shows gender stereotypes have the potential to cause harm because they limit how people's potential is considered by themselves and others - with costs to the individual, economy and society.

'We've already been taking action to ban adverts which reinforce harmful stereotypes and we'll publish the results of our consultation around new rules for advertisers later this year.'
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A Finnish artist creates incredible life-sized replicas of people, using just wool.

Liisa Hietanen, 36, from Hameenkyro, southwest Finland, knits life-like everyday scenes including people, bathrooms, food, and trees.

The artist, who has been knitting since she was ten, uses steel rods to make the frames for the models, and adds in details using wool.

Her soft statues bears amazing resemblance to their inspirations, and Ms Heitanen's creations include a carbon-copy of her own brother, a cleaning lady and a mother and child.

Ms Heitanen creates her statues after her models pose for her and are photographed and measured. It can then take months before the final artwork is completed.

Seeing double: The artist creates life-like life-sized replicas of people from wool

Double take: Liisa exhibits her art in everyday settings such as cafes, causing people to look twice

Liisa Hietanen, 36, from Hameenkyro, Finland pictures knitting in a cafe. She has been practising the hobby since she was 10

Mother and child: Liisa shares her art of everyday things, like a young mother breastfeeding
The bodies of a nine-year-old boy and his father who were swept away while rafting in a New York river Saturday have been recovered.

New York State Police and other agencies had been searching for Marcos Avila, nine, and his father Marco Avila, 46, for three days when they finally located the bodies in Orange County's Neversink River.

Marcos and his cousin were floating near Oakland Valley Campground in Cuddebackville on Saturday when their raft flipped at around 10.30am.

Marco jumped into the river and rescued the nephew before going back in to get his son, but they both went under and never resurfaced.

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Rescue crews recovered the bodies of Marco Avila, nine, and his father Marcos Avila, 46, from the Neversink River in Orange County, New York, on Monday after a three-day search

The father and son had been floating by Oakland Valley Campground in Cuddleback on Saturday when their raft flipped over and they were pulled away by a strong current

The father and son from Queens were found Monday three miles from where they went missing after a search team spotted one of the bodies from a helicopter and the second one was found nearby.

Officials say they had visited the campground regularly, but that the river conditions were more dangerous than usual on Saturday as a result of recent rains.

'They've experience the river before but could be difficult to stand up in,' state forest ranger Captain Stephen Scherry said.

'Saturday's rain, you couldn't stand out here. So it was a different river for them, new to them.'

State Police Captain Jennifer Gottstine said the Avila family is 'doing as well as to be expected, but they're devastated for the loss of their family members'.

State police and forest rangers have said the tragedy should serve warning to other rafters about the importance of wearing life jackets.
Tonya Couch (pictured in her June mugshot) has been told she must stay in Jail until her trial in November after she breached her bond for a second time by taking meth

The mother of notorious 'affluenza teen' Ethan Couch has been denied bond after she failed a drugs test while awaiting trial for taking her son to Mexico in 2015.

Tonya Couch will now have to wait in jail until she goes on trial for money laundering and hindering apprehension charges, which has been scheduled for November.

Couch already had her bond revoked in March this year for failing a urine test, before failing a second test in June just two weeks after being released.

The test showed she had been taking meth. She was reported to police after being seen with alcohol at a gun show.

Couch was arrested in 2016 for helping son Ethan flee to Mexico after he was filmed drinking at a party in violation of his probation the previous year.

He was famously given ten years of probation for killing four people and crippling another in a drink driving wreck back in 2010.

Tonya breached her bond back in March after failing a urine test (pictured in jail) before being caught again just two weeks later

Tonya was arrested for helping son Ethan flee to Mexico in 2015 after he was caught in breach of his probation for killing four people in 2013. The pair were eventually caught (Ethan's arrest mugshot pictured left) and he spent two years in jail before being released in April (right)

The conditions of his probation strictly forbade drinking alcohol.

Police went to arrest Ethan but found he had gone missing, before tracking him to Mexico along with mother Tonya.

The pair were eventually brought back to the US, where Ethan was jailed for breaching his probation. He was released in April this year.

On June 15, 2013, Couch killed four people and crippled another while drink and drug-driving his father's pickup truck near their home in Burleson, Texas.

Speeding at 70mph, Ethan left the road, and hit a group who were helping to fix a punctured tire.

Breanna Mitchell, 24, father Brian Jennings, and mother and daughter Hollie and Shelby Boyles all died in the crash.

Ethan also left friend Sergio Molina, who had been riding in the bed of the pickup, a quadriplegic after he was thrown clear of the wreck.

During his trial, Ethan's lawyers argued that he had been brought up in such a wealthy and relaxed environment that he did not know the difference between right and wrong - a condition they referred to as 'affluenza'.

A judge sentenced Ethan to 10 years of probation with therapy instead of sending him to jail, causing a national uproar.

Tonya (pictured returning to the US after her arrest in Mexico) is facing charges of money laundering and hindering apprehension
Two powerful tornadoes have torn through New Zealand's North Island, damaging dozens of homes and sending roofs flying through the air.

Terrifying mobile phone footage captured the moment one twister struck a holiday park on Monday in the tourist hotspot of Ohope on the island's north-east coast.

Video shot from the balcony of a holiday home showed part of a building soaring towards the person filming, who quickly retreated inside.

Andrea Inman, who lives 50 metres from the holiday park, described the scene as 'eerie'.

'There was a lot of rain and hail and then it stopped and went very quiet... you could hear the birds tweeting it was that silent,' she told Stuff NZ.

'Next thing there was a massive big roar - an incredible sound - and it changed direction in a split second.'

Ms Inman's husband Mark, general manager of the Ohope Beach Top 10 Holiday Park, said part of his property was 'blown to pieces' by the tornado.

'It was in and out like a flash and, yeah, there was a bit noise and wind,' Mr Inman told the New Zealand Herald.

Two powerful tornadoes have torn through New Zealand's North Island, damaging dozens of homes and sending roofs flying through the air

At around the same time, another twister struck near the city of New Plymouth on the island's west coast. Local police said around 30 homes were damaged.

'There's vast amounts of property damage that's been caused by the tornado. We're lucky at this stage that no-one's been injured or that we're aware of,' Sergeant Peter Lawn said, according to Radio New Zealand.

A New Plymouth local said of the 'carnage': 'I was actually just lying on the bed and then started to hear this rumble and then I thought the windows were going to smash and then all of a sudden ''bang''.

'I don't what had happened and then went outside it was just carnage everywhere.'

Terrifying mobile phone footage captured the moment one twister struck a holiday park on Monday

Another resident said she'd lost the roof of her home, which subsequently flooded.

'It's pretty f***ed. The whole roof's gone and all the internal ceilings are coming down and there's water all through the house,' she told Newstalk ZB.

'It freaked me out, I couldn't stop shaking for ages.'

Police have urge locals to check on their own properties and on their neighbours, and to treat all fallen power lines as live.
The Parramatta Eels have denied fresh allegations they have been cheating the NRL salary cap by providing free or heavily-discounted rental properties to their players.

NSW Gaming and Racing minister Paul Toole confirmed an investigation has begun after allegations made by a former Eels employee directly to NRL headquarters.

'The allegations are serious and will be comprehensively investigated, including liaison with relevant law enforcement,' Toole told The Australian.

The development comes just two years after Parramatta were stripped of 12 competition points and fined $1 million for cheating the salary cap.

The Eels have denied fresh claims they have been cheating the NRL salary cap. Daily Mail does not suggest that any of the pictured players know of or are implied in any wrongdoing

An NRL spokesperson said an investigation had yet to begin on the matter, however, the governing body would approach the Eels about the claims.

The club rejected the allegations early on Tuesday.

'The club categorically denies that there have been any salary cap issues regarding players and property post the 2016 season,' Eels administrator Max Donnelly said.

'The club has been open and transparent with the NRL on all salary cap matters and no specific issues have been raised by them since I was appointed administrator in 2016.'

A whistleblower alleged cases where players were charged rent below market value, while electricity bills were also allegedly partly paid for by the Eels leagues club.

As part of approved third party deals, all 16 NRL clubs must provide details on undeclared benefits for players.

There is no suggestion of any knowledge of or involvement in any wrongdoing by the players.

On the field, this year has been one to forget for the Eels, who are locked in a three-way battle for the wooden spoon with the Cowboys and Sea Eagles.
Chinese online retailer Alibaba could wipe out stores such as Bunnings in Australia after becoming one of the fastest growing retailers in the country, millionaire businessman Dick Smith claims.

The founder of Dick Smith Electronics predicts the Chinese giant to be hugely successful, and that its rise will be bad news for Australian-owned retailers, including the popular hardware chain.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Smith said the phenomenon of customers browsing in stores but then ordering what they want from Alibaba will spell big trouble for traditional outlets such as Bunnings.

Alibaba could wipe out Australia's Bunnings as it becomes the world's fastest-growing retailer

'The money they (Alibaba) are going to take out of Australia will be staggering' said Dick Smith

He said that - much like Amazon - Alibaba was following a successful formula for launching a business in a country like Australia that has relatively high minimum wages, putting a premium on businesses that had a low staff-to-revenue model.

'How do they get around it? They virtually don't employ anyone, they automate everything. That's where they are brilliant in their endless greed,' he said.

'Unless Bunnings very quickly moves into hardly having any staff, I can't see how they can compete.'

Smith calls the rise of online stores such as Alibaba to be 'Modern Extreme Global Capitalism' - and he fears for Australia's economic stability if they are allowed to continue unchecked.

'It will be a good thing for the owners of Alibaba, the money they are going to take out of Australia will be staggering,' he said.

'Products will be cheaper, but the disadvantage will be that the wealth and the profits will all be shipped to the northern hemisphere, and more and more Australians will never have a proper job.'

James Hudson, Alibaba's head of marketing in Australia, told News.com that when you look at retail experiences 'it's pretty clear China is a long way ahead of Australia'.

Founded by Chinese entrepreneur Jack Ma in 1999, Alibaba has already launched a car vending machine in partnership with Ford that allows potential buyers to test-drive a selection of cars before making a purchase.

Smith said that the rise of such stores would prompt customers to go into stores like Bunnings before going home to order the goods from Chinese websites like Alibaba

It's also providing a cash-free shopping experience to Chinese customers with its range of Hema supermarkets that deliver shoppers' items back to their home within 30 minutes  all at the tap of an app.

'Magic mirrors' are Alibaba's latest invention which allows customers to test out make up in-store without actually applying the product to skin.

Alibaba has dubbed this merging of online and offline worlds as 'new retail', and Hudson said it is a seamless and exciting experience for customers.

'Online is not replacing offline. Those two experiences are complementary, so some consumers will want to see a pair of jeans, to taste something, to have that sensual experience,' he said.

Alibaba has launched a car vending machine to test drive vehicles, in partnership with Ford

'Our focus is on following customers and helping them use method of choice in these markets.'

But not everyone sees the growth of Alibaba in Australia as a threat.

Dominique Lamb from the National Retail Association told Daily Mail Australia that the rise of Alibaba provides an opportunity for existing retailers to learn and copy the Chinese company's successful methods.

'They can work with Alibaba and they will attempt to do so,' she said.

'Alibaba have made a huge investment in technology - they've spent billions on fast delivery worldwide - which is of interest to Australian retailers as they're always in pursuit of that seamless delivery for customers.'

Alibaba (CEO Jack Ma, pictured) has made a huge investment in delivery technology

Not a threat to all: The NRA said Alibaba's success would be an opportunity for retailers
A surfer has drowned at a popular beach in Sydney's north.

Witnesses pulled the unconscious man, in his 60s, from the water at Avalon Beach just before 9am on Tuesday.

They desperately tried to revive him on South Avalon Headland until paramedics arrived, but he died at the scene.

'About seven or eight young surfers found him... They managed to get him up onto the rocks and started CPR straight away,' a witness told the Manly Daily.

A surfer, in his 60s, has drowned at South Avalon Headland at Avalon Beach in Sydney's north

Witnesses pulled the unconscious man, in his 60s, from the water at Avalon Beach just before 9am on Tuesday. He couldn't be revived

'The paramedics then took over, but they couldn't save him.'

The man is yet to be formally identified, but Swellnet has named the victim as a local identity known as 'Homeless Bob', who appeared in a short film by Spencer Frost in 2017.

According to the surf report resource, the surfer's leg rope became caught on rocks and he was unable to untangle himself.

'The ocean, for me, is everything in my life. It gives me joy and happiness on many levels. It sets challenges both physically and mentally,' he said in the film.

'If life is stressing you out in different ways, you can't jump into the ocean and float around and any troubles, and problems, just seem to float around from you.

'Every day of my life, I've been the first one in the water in the morning and the last one out of on evening.

'Once I saw the ocean, I've never been able to live away from. And I'll continue to live next to it until I die.'

Officers from Northern Beaches Police Area Command are making inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the man's death.

A report will be prepared for the coroner.

More to come.

Officers from Northern Beaches Police Area Command are making inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the man's death
Michael Pullums, 39, of Country Club Hills, Illinois, attacked the woman, who has not been named, late on Saturday night

An Illinois man has been arrested for allegedly strangling, stabbing and beating a woman he met online.

Michael Pullums, 39, of Country Club Hills, attacked the woman, who has not been named, late on Saturday night.

The couple met online and had been dating for some time when he came over to her home in Clinton, Missouri, over the weekend.

Police say they got into an argument and Pullums flew into a violent rage.

'The man stabbed her several times with a knife and a pair of scissors and then (he) strangled her,' police said Monday in a news release.

Cops said that the victim 'played dead' in a desperate ploy to try and get the attack to end.

'When she saw an opportunity, attempted to run outside to escape her attacker,' police added in their statement.

Sadly, Pullums spotted her and caught up with her before beating her with a metal chair. The assault only stopped when he heard sirens form a passing ambulance.

Pullums then loaded the woman into his car and dropped her at the local hospital, telling staff that they had been robbed, before he drove away in her car.

Emergency room staff at the Golden Valley Memorial Hospital called 911 and Warren County Missouri Deputies caught up with him a few hours later, still covered in the victims blood.

Pullums was served a warrant for domestic assault in the first degree with serious physical injury. Bond was set at $100,000.
Five people were rescued from a stranded dinghy eight kilometres from the coast after they sent a distress signal to volunteer rescuers via Facebook.

The boat's skipper got caught out after deciding to return back to Weipa midway through a 60km trip up the coast because of the dangerous conditions.

The 4m long dinghy started taking on water off Weipa on Queensland's Western Cape after it ran out of fuel in rough seas at about 7pm on Sunday.

Five people were rescued from a stranded dinghy that had run out of fuel off the coast of Queensland - after one of the occupants sent a distress call including coordinates to nearby rescue volunteers

Desperate to get help, one of the boat's occupants sent a mayday message to Volunteer Marine Rescue Weipa's Facebook group giving the vessel's coordinates.

VMR Gulf of Carpentaria officer-in-charge Peter Graham was at home watching TV when his wife told him to have a look at the Facebook message.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Mr Graham said: 'I've been doing this for 25 years and I've never received a mayday call on Facebook.

The officer-in-charge of Volunteer Marine Rescue Weipa, who organised assistance for the stranded dinghy (stock image pictured), said he had never received a mayday call via social media despite having done his job for 25 years

The officer said those on the boat, which was bought the day before, must have been desperate as they also set off an EPIRB signal and sent a radio message to rescuers.

He said: 'They were convinced they were going down and tried to get in contact with us anyway possible - including social media.'

The VMR then got in contact with the Pacific Marine Group's tugboat, which was heading out to sea at the time, who were dispatched to provide assistance.

The tug gave the boat unleaded fuel, which was then escorted back to port two hours later by a VMR rescue boat.

Christian Dunn of Thursday Island Water Police said those stuck at sea did not have to use the traditional means of sending a distress signal.

He said: 'Social media is certainly an alternative to setting off an EPIRB.

'But I would encourage everyone to ensure they are carrying enough fuel, and appropriate safety equipment.'
A real-life version of the Kwik-E-Mart featured in The Simpsons has opened in South Carolina.

The shelves of the new attraction in Myrtle Beach are stocked with all kinds of memorabilia inspired by the iconic animated series including iconic pink confections from Lard Lad Donuts and Squishees frozen drinks.

However, beer drinkers will be disappointed to learn that the Duff brand name has been placed on non-alcoholic energy drinks.

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A real-life Kwik-E-Mart from The Simpsons opened in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Friday

The original convenience store featured in the long-running animated series is pictured above

Video Courtesy of WBTW

The first full-service Kwik-E-Mart in the world celebrates the long-running animated series centered around Bart Simpson, his parents, Homer and Marge, sisters Lisa and Maggie and other characters in the fictional town of Springfield.

Written on the wall of the new store is one of the show's most well-known catchphrases by Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu: 'Thank you, come again!'

The attraction is the result of four years of planning by developers who hope it will bring more tourism revenue to the seaside community.

The shelves are stocked with items inspired by the show including Squishees frozen drinks

Fans can also buy pink pastries inspired by Lard Lad Donuts - both edible and plus versions

The new store's first customers were a family with three generations of Simpsons' fans.

'A 64-year-old grandmother, her son and daughter-in-law, and their three children,' developer Mark Cornell told WBTW.

'They were all sort of arguing about who were stronger fans, but to see three generations walk through the door that all love The Simpsons, how can you say that about anything else?'

The store will eventually be linked to the Aztec Theater, another business inspired by the show, that's opening later this year.

At the theater fans will be able to watch a Simpsons 4D movie experience.
A controversial Confederate statue on the campus of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was torn down by protesters.

More than 300 demonstrators marched to the base of the Silent Sam statue during the rally, which kicked off at 7pm on Monday night.

About two hours into the protest, a group surrounded the statue - which has long been decried as a symbol of black oppression and racism - and pulled it down. Once it was on the ground, demonstrators kicked it and cheered.

The crowd chanted 'Tar Heels!' and 'Whose Campus? Our Campus!' Cars honked as they passed nearby on the college town's main drag.

A controversial Confederate statue on the campus of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was torn down by protesters on Monday night

The century-old statue was left face down on the ground after the protest on Monday. A blood stain on the plinth hints that the monument may not have come down without a fight

At least one protester was arrested and charged with concealing their face during a public rally and resisting arrest.

School officials condemned the protesters' actions as 'dangerous' and have launched a vandalism investigation.

Many students, faculty and alumni had called the statue a racist image and asked officials to remove it, though some argued it was a tribute to fallen ancestors.

UNC leaders including Chancellor Carol Folt had previously said state law prevented the school from removing the statue.

Word that the statue had fallen drew curious students out.

'I heard the statue had come down, so I had to see it myself,' said freshman Manuel Ricardo, who arrived after the statue was on the ground.

The site of the empty pedestal 'is pretty breathtaking,' said Ricardo, who's African American. 'I think most people here are happy. I'm ecstatic.'

Shortly after 10 p.m., a dozen officers were surrounding the fallen statue, which was eventually covered with a tarp next to its empty pedestal.

Silent Sam, pictured before the protest in August 2017, is so called because the statue does not include a cartridge box on the Confederate soldier's belt, meaning he cannot fire his gun. On the base of the statue is a young student dropping his books and a woman, representing the state of North Carolina

Banners had been used to cover up the statue - considered a symbol of oppression and racism - before the protest

Students and protesters surround plinth where the toppled statue of a Confederate soldier nicknamed Silent Sam once stood, on the University of North Carolina campus

Junior Ian Goodson said he came out after he heard the statue fell because he wanted to see history.

'It's a significant event for UNC,' he said.

He said that while he doesn't agree with what the Confederacy stood for, he understands that some saw the statue as an important memorial.

Asked whether he's glad the statue came down, he said: 'I was always kind of torn.'

North Carolina, which ranks among the handful of Southern states with the most Confederate monuments, has been a focal point in the national debate over them following a deadly white nationalist protest a year ago in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Protests over the UNC statue erected in 1913 have flared in the past year, and another Confederate monument in nearby Durham was torn down shortly after the Virginia protest.

Police try to take a banner from protesters as people gather during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus

Police remove a protester during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus at the University of North Carolina

Police and protesters react to a smoke bomb during a rally to remove the confederate statue

Gov. Roy Cooper had called for removing Silent Sam and other rebel symbols on public land. A state historic panel is set to meet this week to debate Cooper's request to remove other Confederate monuments at the state Capitol.

Still the Democratic governor issued a statement on Twitter Monday night arguing the protesters took the wrong approach to removing the statue.

'The Governor understands that many people are frustrated by the pace of change and he shares their frustration, but violent destruction of public property has no place in our communities,' said the tweet from his official account.

The university echoed the sentiment in a statement issued after the statue came down.

'Tonight's actions were dangerous, and we are very fortunate that no one was injured. We are investigating the vandalism and assessing the full extent of the damage,' the university said in a tweet.

THE CONTROVERSIAL STATUE WHICH HAS IGNITED PROTESTS SINCE THE 1960S Silent Sam was erected in 1913 on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to commemorate the Confederate alumni who died in the Civil War. The statue, by sculptor John A. Wilson, was funded by the University Alumni and the United Daughters of the Confederacy to remember the 50 year anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. He is called 'Silent Sam' because the statue does not include a cartridge box on the Confederate soldier's belt, meaning he cannot fire his gun. Silent Sam was erected in 1913 on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina On the base of the statue is a young student dropping his books as he looks up to answer a call to duty. The boy represents the 40 per cent of the university body who were called up to fight in the war. Next to him a woman, representing the state of North Carolina, is depicted calling students to fight for the South. Its 1913 dedication was shocking racist after Confederate soldier Julian Carr boasted about attacking a black woman, in front of 100 fellow soldiers, and praised the Ku Klux Klan's deadly attacks on black people in the four years after the war to try and assert white dominance in the South. 'The present generation, I am persuaded, scarcely takes note of what the Confederate soldier meant to the welfare of the Anglo Saxon race during the four years immediately succeeding the war...their courage and steadfastness saved the very life of the Anglo Saxon race in the South,' he added in a not so subtle reference to the racist attacks. He added to the crowd that 'one hundred yards from where we stand... I horse whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds because she had maligned and insulted a Southern lady, and then rushed for protection to these University buildings where was stationed a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers. I performed the pleasing duty in the immediate presence of the entire garrison.' The statue, which some view as honoring the Confederate dead but many view as a symbol of oppression of people of color, has long been a lightning rod for political protest. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968, the monument was vandalized and the 1960s also saw it become the site of a number of protests. That continued into the 1970s when the Black Student Movement held several protests by the statue. Following the violent Charlottesville protests, which began over proposals to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee, a crowd of a hundred gathered around Silent Sam in August 2017 to call for its removal. It was finally torn down on August 20, 2018. Advertisement




Two men have been arrested in connection with an attack on a woman who withdrew $75,000 from a Texas bank.

Surveillance video shows the woman park at a gas station in the Houston suburb of Cypress on Friday after making the withdrawal.

A man runs up to the woman and tries to grab her purse, which has the money in it.

The woman was caught on CCTV withdrawing the money at an ATM as the attackers walked up behind her

She holds onto the purse as she falls to the ground, and a man runs from the station to fight off the purse snatcher.

A car driven by a second attacker then backs into the woman, injuring her. The attackers flee with some of the money.

Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman says one man suspected of being involved in the attack was arrested later Friday, while a second man was taken into custody Monday.

'Money can be replaced; your life can't be,' said Constable Herman. 'But she was resilient. She fought, she believed in what she was doing.'

The woman can be seen grappling with the men having been dragged to the floor after taking out the money
An ABC radio host broke down live on radio Tuesday morning after a listener texted in to criticise her interviewing style.

The text accused Adelaide breakfast presenter Ali Clarke of a 'pitiful interview' and claimed she had 'embarrassed the interviewee'.

She was doing her morning radio show with co-host David Bevan when she received the accusatory text, The Advertiser reported.

ABC's Adelaide breakfast presenter Ali Clarke taking a selfie in her studio

Clarke immediately reacted to the message, saying 'Sorry ... we dont always get things right here but we do always try our best, you know and we sit here with the text line in front of us and it just adds up you know.'

'Sometimes we do interviews and it is handed to us last minute and we are trying our very best and when someone texts in that "that was a pitiful interview, and what you just said was awful, I've embarrassed the interviewee, and provided excruciating listening to the Adelaide audience", and maybe this is too, but it adds up.'

She went on to say that she would 'normally be able to deal with it' but 'maybe she was having a bad day'.

Co-host Bevan was quick to support Clarke, saying 'People do say dreadful things on the text line and all of us toughen up and ignore it but sometimes it does get through.'

David Bevan, co-host of ABC Radio Adelaide's breakfast program alongside Ali Clarke

It is not clear which part of her radio show the listener was referring to. Among her interviews that morning, Clarke had spoken with ABC journalist Matt Doran and an expert on weather.
A local community has been rocked by the death of a popular surfer known as 'Homeless Bob' who drowned surfing his home break on Sydney's northern beaches.

Witnesses pulled the unconscious man, 62, from the water at Avalon just before 9am on Tuesday. He couldn't be revived.

Daily Mail Australia understands the victim is local identity Bob Bevern, who lived in his van on the Avalon headland.

The single father, who worked a part-time job, appeared in short film by Spencer Frost in 2017.

'The ocean, for me, is everything in my life... I'm always here. If life is stressing you out in different ways, you can jump in the ocean and float around and any troubles just seem to float away from you,' he said in the film.

A local surfer known as 'Homeless Bob' (pictured) has tragically drowned at a popular Sydney beach

The surfer, in his 60s, was pulled from the water and paramedics tried to revive him at South Avalon Headland

Bob revealed he'd been 'called crazy on a number of occasions' for choosing his unusual lifestyle, but said he wouldn't have it any other way.

'Every day of my life, I've been the first one in the water in the morning - and the last one out of an evening,' he said.

'Once I saw the ocean, I've never been able to live away from it. And I'll continue to live next to it until I die.

'I choose to live like this. I like living in my van. I don't have any regrets about how it's ended up.

'Hindsight is a wonderful thing when you're looking at your life. There's probably things you'd change - but I've had a great life... How good is life?'

The popular local identity (pictured) appeared a short film by Spencer Frost in 2017

Bob revealed he'd been 'called crazy' for choosing to live out of his van (pictured)

Bob married at the age of 20 and fathered one child, but six years later divorced and went travelling.

'[When I returned] I didn't have any money to rent anywhere, so I thought ''that's it, I'm living in the car park'',' he said.

'I love it as much as I ever have. I probably love it more and more every day... I work as little as 10 hours a week - sometimes as much as 30 - and I time my work so I can go surfing.

'I'm parked on the ocean all the time, I wake up in the morning and I smell that salt air - I listen to the waves - I don't need to go anywhere.'

Distraught Avalon locals said the death of the 'beaut guy' had 'rocked' the community.

Distraught Avalon locals said the death of the 'beaut guy' had 'rocked' the community

'Every day of my life, I've been the first one in the water in the morning and the last one out of an evening,' he said

'I've watched the film a few times and thought that it takes real guts to ignore all the external pressures of what life ''should'' be and just do what you love,' one said.

'Sad to read this. All the best in the next world Bob.'

Witnesses desperately tried to revive the surfer on South Avalon Headland until paramedics arrived, but he died at the scene.

His leg rope became caught on rocks and he was unable to untangle himself, according to unconfirmed reports.

'About seven or eight young surfers found him... They managed to get him up onto the rocks and started CPR straight away,' a witness told the Manly Daily.

'The ocean, for me, is everything in my life. It gives me joy and happiness on many levels. It sets challenges both physically and mentally,' he said in the film

Witnesses pulled the unconscious man, in his 60s, from the water at Avalon Beach just before 9am on Tuesday. He couldn't be revived

'The paramedics then took over, but they couldn't save him.'

His friends and off-duty surf lifesavers performed CPR for more than 40 minutes, emergency services said.

'It is not clear at this stage if this was due to a medical episode,' Surf Life Saving NSW said in a statement.

Officers from Northern Beaches Police Area Command are making inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the man's death.

A report will be prepared for the coroner.

Officers from Northern Beaches Police Area Command are making inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the man's death
A model who seemed to have the fashion world at her feet has told how she became at risk of having her own children taken away by authorities due to her mental health problems.

Brooke appeared to be living the perfect lifestyle, with two beautiful young girls and regular TV appearances as a contestant on Australia's Next Top Model.

But away from the catwalk and the bright lights, the mother-of-two from Sydney was regarded by authorities as being a 'risk to her children'.

In a revealing interview on ABC's Four Corners program, Brooke told how she was in such a 'dark place' suffering depression and mental health issues, that authorities were considering whether to take away her kids.

Brooke, a model and reality TV contestant, has revealed her battle with mental health issues that saw her regarded as 'a risk to her own children' (pictured)

'My thoughts started to get a lot worse, that's when I knew that there was an issue,' Brooke said

Looking back now, Brooke admits her mental health left her two young daughters in danger.

'I kind of hit a bit of a brick wall in terms of my emotions,' she said.

'When you suppress a lot of it, you kind of... you're going to blow, in a sense, if things kind of keep building up. There is a point. There is a limit.

'I was definitely in a dark place. When my thoughts started to get a lot worse, that's when I knew that there was an issue.

'I definitely had thoughts about checking out. I remember locking myself in the laundry and saying to my girlfriend: "I can't do it. I'm done with life. I can't cope".

'I would find myself having panic attacks in the car. I'd have to pull over. I would find myself screaming, just screaming.'

But the budding model has turned her life around after taking part in SafeCare, an intensive program for improving parents of young children at risk of neglect.

'I'd say I've done pretty well. Seeing myself where I am now from where I was last year is crazy,' Brooke said.

The mother-of-two was a contestant on Australia's Next Top Model (pictured) and appeared to live the perfect life, but behind the scenes the reality was far more serious for her and her kids

Brooke (left) is now part of SafeCare parenting program teaching mothers of at risk children how to care for their young ones

Running over 20 weeks, the program pairs parents with a specially trained SafeCare worker who visits the family home to help them one-on-one.

According to SafeCare case worker Laura Vincin, many women such as Brooke who appear to have perfect lives are battling behind closed doors.

'She's quite gorgeous and glamorous and she's been on a top modelling show,' Ms Vincin said.

SafeCare case worker Laura Vincin said that while many women like Brooke (pictured) appear to be living the perfect life, the reality behind the scenes is anything but

'It really just highlights that there's often a lot going on underneath the families that we work with and in their lives.'

Since beginning her work with SafeCare, Brooke has been deemed to no longer be a risk to her children.

She told Four Corners she felt like she had come a long way.

For confidential support call the Lifeline 24-hour crisis support on 13 11 14
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A Lake Tahoe property where late American business magnate Howard Hughes once hosted social gatherings with prominent people has been sold for $17.5million.

The picturesque 5.5 acre lakefront estate was finally sold to an unnamed buyer, after it was on the market for three years.

The 2,518 square-foot residence includes five bedrooms, four baths, a hot tub, guest home and gorgeous views of the lake.

Its initial price of $19.5million was recently reduced, according to the San Francisco Gate.

This picturesque Lake Tahoe property where Howard Hughes once lived has been sold

The gorgeous lakefront estate that sprawls 5.5 acres was sold for $17.5million after three years on the market

The initial price of the $19.5million property had recently been reduced

The home, where guests such as John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe were said to have spent time at, has been renovated several times

Hughes was one of the wealthiest men in the world at the time he purchased the posh property as well as other homes in 1950, according to Today.

Prominent guests such as John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe were said to have spent time on the lakefront property, built in 1934, public records state.

According to the San Francisco Gate, the sellers bought the property in 1995 from the Howard Hughes company and have made 'significant changes' - such as adding more space for guests.

The Gate reported that the sellers have maintained the authenticity of the land since.

The 2,518 square-foot residence includes five bedrooms and four baths

A photo from one of the specious bedrooms in shown above

The bedroom areas include windows that provide a clear view of the water

Hughes lived in the Lake Tahoe home and also bought a property in Palm Springs, among others

Also this month, a California home once owned by the billionaire was sold for $1.35million.

KNTV-TV reported the three-bedroom home located along a secluded desert road in Palm Springs, California, retains the style of the 1950s.

It features a lagoon-shaped pool, and comedian Bob Hope was once a neighbor.

Billionaire business magnate Hughes (pictured in this undated archive photo) was 70 years old when he passed away in 1976

The identity of the buyer was not immediately released.

Hughes, who was an aviation tycoon and film mogul, lived in hotels during the final years of his life.

He was 70 years old when he passed away in 1976.

The posh property also includes a hot tub, guest home and gorgeous views of the lake
The MTV Video Music Awards were filled with the usual amount of glitter and skin on Monday night.

But Logic once again used his turn on the stage to send a powerful protest against Donald Trump's immigration policy that had Twitter alight.

The rapper joined together dozens of immigrant parents and children on the stage of Radio City Music Hall in New York for a performance of his song One Day.

Logic sported a shirt reading 'F**k The Wall', while every child and parent wore shirts that read 'We Are All Human Beings' for the emotional moment.

Logic once again used his turn on the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards to send a powerful message, this time about the Trump administration's immigration policy

The rapper joined together dozens of immigrant parents and children on the stage of Radio City Music Hall in New York for a performance of his song One Day

The performance began with OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder at the piano on stage, before Logic came out from the lobby with dozens of children behind him.

Rousing applause and a standing ovation from the celebrity-filled crowd greeted the children, who were of various ages, as they walked towards the stage.

The children stood in a line and held hands in front of a screen that showed a bright piece of yellow Caution tape that read 'US Border Patrol'.

Then, as Logic continued to rap and sing about how everything's 'gonna be alright', the screen suddenly went up and revealed the children's parents.

The crowd exploded into applause as the children happily ran up to hug their parents, simulating the reunions of families separated by Trump's former policy.

They then all turned on electric candles from the stage, holding them up to the sky as the performance came to an end, some children with tears in their eyes.

The children stood in a line and held hands in front of a screen that showed a bright piece of yellow Caution tape that read 'US Border Patrol'

Logic sported a shirt reading 'F**k The Wall', while every child and parent wore shirts that read 'We Are All Human Beings' for the emotional moment

Children and parents hugged during the emotional moment, simulating reunions of families separated at the US-Mexico border

The emotional performance quickly caught the attention of Twitter, where many admitted that they were likewise crying at home.

'So much for live tweeting the VMAs, I'm probably just gonna spend the rest of the night tweeting about how great @Logic301's performance was,' one fan wrote.

'When the parents came out on stage to reunite with their children during @Logic301 performance I started crying. Love how he always uses his platform to spread awareness for bigger issues,' another added.

'Thank you Logic for the compassion and humanity that defines you. If the rest of the world was like you, it would be a better place,' one commenter said.

Another fan tagged Trump in their tweet, asking the president if he was watching the performance.

Included in the group of children was Jefferson Arpi, a fifteen-year-old whose father has been detained for nine months.

Logic was joined on stage by OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder, who features on his new song

'I'm so excited to have performed with Logic tonight,' Arpi said in a statement.

'It meant a lot to me to be able to represent my family because my dad, Manuel Arpi, is in a detention camp.'

'Logic's music video showed that even though our families face a lot of pain, we are strong, we are fighters, and we are human.'

This isn't the first time Logic has taken the VMA stage to spread awareness.

Last year the rapper brought out 50 suicide attempt survivors, all wearing shirts that read 'You Are Not Alone', as he performed his song 1-800-273-8255.

Logic's VMA performance took inspiration from his song's music video, which juxtaposes scenes of an immigrant child being ripped from his mother's arms at the border with a white boy happily celebrates his birthday with his family.

While Donald Trump dropped his own administration's separation policy more than a month ago, hundreds of children who were separated from their parents still remain in federal custody.
Travellers have been warned about an email scam falsely offering flight vouchers from Virgin Australia.

Prospective travellers have been receiving the message, featuring the airline's logo, urging them to 'hurry up' and fill out a short survey to win $1,000 worth of flights.

The email, mysteriously signed off from an Alabama address in the American deep south, tells its recipients they had been 'randomly selected'.

An email scam falsely offering flight vouchers from Virgin Australia is being sent out to inboxes featuring the airline's logo

'You have a chance to become one of our lucky winners,' it said.

'Hurry up, there are only a few vouchers left!!!'

A woman who received the hoax email said she got the message shortly after returning from overseas.

'The email had my correct name and featured a charming image of a Virgin Australia crew in front of an aircraft  exactly the kind of promotional shot youd expect from an airline,' she told News Corp Australia.

Prospective travellers have been receiving the message, featuring the airline's logo, urging them to 'hurry up' and fill out a short survey to win $1,000 worth of flights

A Virgin Australia spokeswoman said the airline knew about the scam.

'For your information, we are aware of the scam email and we advise for any customers who receive this email to delete it,' she told Daily Mail Australia today.

In a bizarre giveaway that indicated this was a hoax, the message featured an amateurish email address: 5HYAb@nFG3vUTSat.menu.boardpassengers.com.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for comment.
A teenage boy, 14, surfing at a secret 'invite-only' beach has narrowly avoided bullets as furious locals fired warning shots at him for using the private beach without permission.

The terrifying attack happened at Albatross Point off the Tahoroa coast in New Zealand on Thursday, August 16.

The bullets hit the water just three metres from where the teenage boy was surfing with his father and family friend, Otorohanga police said.

The terrifying incident happened at Albatross Point (pictured) off the Tahoroa coast in New Zealand on Thursday, August 16

Professional New Zealand surfer Daniel Kereopa (pictured) confirmed locals believed the beach was private and surfers were allowed by 'invitation only'

After the bullet hit the water, the men said they saw two people yelling abuse from the water's edge.

The terrified surfers fled the beach and returned to the Kawhia boat ramp and reported the incident to the police.

While the surfers were unable to get a good look at their attackers, they believe both were men.

Otorohanga Police Sergeant Andy Connors said the shots left the boy fearing for his life.

'You'd be fearing the worst and petrified what's going to happen in the next few minutes,' he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

The police said they were investigating the incident and urged anyone with information to report what they knew to the police.

Professional New Zealand surfer Daniel Kereopa confirmed locals believed the beach was private and surfers were allowed by 'invitation only'.

'Ever since I have known the place and the people that have cared for it, it's generally been by invitation,' Daniel Kereopa (with girlfriend) said

Personally invited to the beach off the Tahoroa coast (marked on the map), Kereopa said surfers needed a landowner's permission before they were accepted

'Ever since I have known the place and the people that have cared for it, it's generally been by invitation,' he told the publication.

Personally invited to the beach himself, Kereopa said surfers needed a landowner's permission before they were accepted.

Kereopa said the locals were very protective of the beach and did not want it inundated by tourists.

'It's one of those places that is still New Zealand, not affected by tourists, not promoted. People live there because they are born for that land and, unfortunately, it's brought some attention by what's happened down there,' he said.

While the competitive surfer said the experience would be 'terrifying' for the three surfers, especially the young boy, he said the locals should be respected.

'If you don't get asked, you shouldn't think you deserve to go down there,' he said.

Kereopa said some places should remain secret and isolated.
Grandparents who turned to medicinal marijuana to save their young granddaughter do not regret their decision.

Barry and Joy Lambert, from New South Wales, continue to provide their seven-year-old granddaughter, Katelyn, the illegal product, despite Katelyn's father being found guilty of possession and cultivation of cannabis as a result.

The benefits it provides Katelyn, who previously suffered regular and debilitating seizures, are too good to pass up.

Katelyn was diagnosed with Dravet syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy, when she was only six months old.

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A pair of doting grandparents who are putting their grand daughter's well-being above the law know first-hand the repercussions associated with their actions (pictured is Barry with his granddaughter, Katelyn)

Katelyn (pictured) regularly suffered debilitating seizures, and was diagnosed with Dravet syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy

Each of the thousands of seizures little Katelyn suffered have caused brain damage and had the potential to be fatal.

Since she begun treatment using hemp oil, she has only suffered four seizures in four years, Mrs Lambert wrote in a Facebook post.

Despite the potential criminal ramifications associated with providing Katelyn the medicine she needs to recover, her grandparents continue to be pillars of support, and outspoken activists in the community, rallying to legalise the use of medicinal marijuana in Australia.

'It appears it works miracles for her. But that's why the research needs to be done to understand the science behind it and to prove beyond doubt that it works and what the long-term impacts would be,' Mr Lambert told Daily Mail Australia last year.

'It's very hurtful when they have a seizure. No one wants to see a child sick when they're young,' he said.

Mr and Mrs Lambert donated $33.7 million to the University of Sydney's research into the treatment, marking one of the biggest private grants to medical research in Australian history.

"We're talking about a harmless product  it's from hemp, it's not marijuana. When it comes to cannabis, marijuana is up one end and at the other end of the spectrum is the hemp plant which has all the same benefits but doesn't make you high,' Mr Lambert told 9Honey.

Since she begun treatment using hemp oil, Katelyn has only suffered four seizures in four years

Mr and Mrs Lambert (pictured) donated $33.7 million to the University of Sydney's research into the treatment

The family insist her improvements are astronomical, and have been noticeable since day one.

Where she was once struggling to communicate, she is now speaking clearer and can engage in more age appropriate conversations.

"She's improving dramatically day by day. And she was brain damaged. She doesn't have the seizures anymore and her brain is recovering and continues to develop. She's doing well."

'I just said to my wife: 'Holy smokes, it works,' Michael said.

The father (pictured) reiterated medical cannabis does not give his daughter a high, and confirmed Katelyn takes other medication

'Instead of all this noise in her head, it was just clear instead of jerking and dribbling.

The father reiterated medical cannabis does not give his daughter a high, and confirmed Katelyn takes other medication.

He said it had given the family hope, despite a low life expectancy for children with Dravet syndrome.

"So what should people do?' Mr Lambert said, 'they should do what we do and ignore the law because they've got to put their children first."

The 72-year-old grandfather is a former Commonwealth Bank executive and was the chairman of Count Financial.

He came in at number 145 on the finance magazine's Rich 200 list in 2014 with an estimated net worth of $350 million.
A man nicknamed 'Tarzan', who fled Russia to shun society while living with crocodiles in Australia's far north, has died aged 88.

Michael Fomenko was the son of a Russian princess but was drawn to rainforests in the country's north after being inspired by Homer's epic poem The Odyssey.

He shunned modern society more than 60 years ago, surviving by slaying crocodiles and boars with his bare hands in the wilderness.

His remarkable lifestyle, which included a tilt at the Olympics, had fascinated locals who often saw him trekking bare-chested along major highways.

Michael Fomenko died on Friday, after spending his last months alive in aged care in Babinda, Queensland

The 88-year-old was the son of a Russian princess, and fled to rainforests in the country's north after being inspired by Homer's epic poem The Odyssey

He died on Friday, after spending his last months alive in aged care in Babinda, Queensland.

His sister Inessa confirmed the news to the Cairns Post.

'Michael Fomenko was a man to be remembered for his undying love for the Australian bush and his incredible courage in pursuit of his dreams,' she said.

Mr Fomenko was reputedly the son of Princess Elizabeth Machabelli and champion athlete Daniel Fomenko, though there was no evidence to support that theory.

After he was born in Georgia, then part of the Soviet Union, the family escaped to Japan in the late 1930s.

But three years after Japan invaded China to initiate war in the Pacific in 1937, the family fled again to Sydney.

In 1959, it was reported that 'Tarzan' had been saved by indigenous locals from semi-starvation in a 'wild, unexplored, crocodile-infested tropical jungle'.

Wearing only a loincloth, he was chased by police in 1964 and arrested for vagrancy and indecent behaviour before being declared insane, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

He was found covered in septic wounds from a boar attack and was locked up in a series of psychiatric institutions, where he was sedated and given electric shock therapy.

But on his release, he immediately returned to the wild and lived among Aborigines until 2012 when he was taken in by Gympie's Cooinda Aged Care facility.

Alienated by the language barrier and his refugee status, he slowly started to remove himself from modern life and began to see himself as Greek hero Odysseus.

In 1959, it was reported that 'Tarzan' had been saved by indigenous locals from semi-starvation in a 'wild, unexplored, crocodile-infested tropical jungle'

During his youth he won state medals in the decathlon and was tipped for a place in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne.

But before he could compete in the trials he ran away from his family's Northbridge home and retreated to the jungles in Queensland.

In later life he was spotted trailing the Bruce Highway in Queensland, visiting local shops near Innisfail to stock up before heading back into the bush.

The 'wild man of Cape York' vanished from the public spotlight in late 2012, and residents promptly spoke of their concern.

Innisfail police Senior Constable Scott Hayes said at the time he had regular on their roads had 'dropped off the face of the Earth.'

He was discovered weeks later 'safe and well' living at a care home, The Courier-Mail reported.
The Trump administration on Tuesday came out with new rules scaling back Obama-era constraints on coal-fired power plants, striking at one of the former administration's legacy programs to rein in climate-changing fossil-fuel emissions.

The Environmental Protection Agency called the regulations on coal power plants 'overly prescriptive and burdensome' in the proposal to roll-back the former president's climate-change initiative.

President Trump's plan broadly increases the leeway given states to decide how and how much to regulate coal power plants. The EPA says it 'empowers states, promotes energy independence, and facilitates economic growth and job creation.'

The Dave Johnson coal-fired power plant is silhouetted against the morning sun in Glenrock, Wyoming. The Trump administration on Tuesday proposed a major rollback of Obama-era regulations on coal-fired power plants, striking at one of the former administration's legacy programs to rein in climate-changing fossil-fuel emissions

President Donald Trump is expected to promote the new plan at an appearance in West Virginia on Tuesday

Combined with the EPA's proposal earlier this month to ease mileage requirements for vehicles, the move may actually increase the country's climate-changing emissions, according to some former top EPA officials, environmental groups, and other opponents.

The Natural Resources Defense Council called the replacement proposal Trump's 'Dirty Power Plan' and vowed to fight it tooth and nail.

'The worlds on fire and the Trump administration wants to make it worse,' the environmental policy organization said. 'This Dirty Power Plan is riddled with gimmicks and giveaways. It would mean more climate-changing pollution from power plants. Thats a recipe for climate disaster, and well fight this dangerous retreat with every tool available.'

Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, similarly referred to it in a release as the Dirty Power Scam.'

She accused the administration of selling out America's children in order to provide a hand-out to special interests in the energy sector.

'The Administration is devastating Americans health every chance it gets,' the California lawmaker charged.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein also bashed it as 'the latest in a string of terrible decisions that undermine our fight against global warming, lower our quality of life and endanger lives' in a statement.

Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey cited this summer's wildfires and increasing droughts and coastal flooding as evidence that man-made climate change from burning coal and other fossil fuels is already well upon the United States.

'Once again, this administration is choosing polluters' profits over public health and safety,' he said.

Scientists say that without extensive study they cannot directly link a single weather event to climate change, but climate change is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme events such as storms, droughts, floods and wildfires.

Trump's EPA said Tuesday its plan, the Affordable Clean Energy rule aka ACE, would reduce C02 emissions by 1.5 percent on its own by 2030. If states act, the EPA says, emissions could be cut by as much as 34 percent over 2005 emission levels.

Obama's plan was designed to cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The rule dictated specific emission targets for states based on power-plant emissions and gave officials broad latitude to decide how to achieve reductions.

EPA will now put the proposed rule through a required 60-day public comment period and a hearing before formally announcing that it will adopt the plan

In a statement, Republican Sen. John Barrasso from the coal state of Wyoming welcomed the overhaul of the Obama administration's 2015 regulations, called the Clean Power Plan. He said the current rules are in violation of the U.S. constitution.

'The Obama-era regulation wasnt just bad policy, it was illegal,' he said. 'I am glad the Trump administration is focused on getting this punishing rule off the books.'

Mitch McConnell, the head GOP senator, said that the policy was based on 'far-left ideology' and it was 'unfair, unworkable, and likely illegal.'

'Remember, the far left tried to push through radical legislation like an energy tax through Congress. Well, enough of us knew it would have hurt American competitiveness, victimized the poor, and done little to actually give the American people a cleaner environment,' he said. 'But instead of learning from those failures, the Obama Administration tried to go it alone and impose their radical agenda unilaterally.'

House Speaker Paul Ryan said the proposal was 'an absolute nightmare for coal country' and 'the Trump administration has laid out a better path.'

'The Obama administration waged a war on American energy with devastating consequences for workers and manufacturers,' the Wisconsin Republican said.

The new proposal establishes emission guidelines for states to use when developing any plans to limit climate-changing emissions from power plants. Critics say the new plan would allow utilities to run older, dirtier power plants more often and extend the plants' overall operating life, undercutting potential environmental benefits.

President Donald Trump is expected to promote the new plan at an appearance in West Virginia on Tuesday.

He said in a morning tweet: 'Big Rally tonight in West Virginia. Patrick Morrisey is running a GREAT race for U.S. Senate. I have done so much for West Virginia, against all odds, and having Patrick, a real fighter, by my side, would make things so much easier. See you later. CLEAN COAL!!!!'

Trump has already vowed to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement as he pushes to revive the coal industry. The Obama administration had worked to nudge the country's power producers to natural gas, wind and solar power, and other less-polluting power sources

Trump has already vowed to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement as he pushes to revive the coal industry. The Obama administration had worked to nudge the country's power producers to natural gas, wind and solar power, and other less-polluting power sources.

He also has directed Energy Secretary Rick Perry to take steps to bolster struggling coal-fired and nuclear power plants to keep them open, warning that impending retirements of 'fuel-secure' power plants that rely on coal and nuclear power are harming the nation's power grid and reducing its resilience.

The Supreme Court put Obama's plan on hold in 2016 following a legal challenge by industry and coal-friendly states, an order that remains in effect.

Even so, the Obama plan has been a factor in a wave of retirements of coal-fired plants, which also are being squeezed by lower costs for natural gas and renewable power and state mandates that promote energy conservation.

Trump has vowed to end what Republicans call a 'war on coal' waged by Obama.

'They are continuing to play to their base and following industry's lead,' Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator when the Obama plan was developed, said of the Trump administration and its new acting administrator, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist. 'This is all about coal at all costs.'

Michelle Bloodworth, president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a trade group that represents coal producers, called the new rule a marked departure from the 'gross overreach' of the Obama administration and said it should prevent a host of premature coal-plant retirements.

'We agree with those policymakers who have become increasingly concerned that coal retirements are a threat to grid resilience and national security,' she said.

Tuesday's move opens a public-comment period on the proposal before any final administration action.
The father of a young boy with cerebral palsy has lashed out at a woman who left a cruel note on the family's car.

Paul Francis and his nine-year-old son Jack had returned to the vehicle after spending time at a swimming pool only to be confronted by the insulting letter.

'You may have a mobility card but today's use of it was not genuine. Shame on you,' the note read.

Mr Francis, from Christchurch, posted a photo of the note to his Facebook page, where he said the wording had dented the confidence of his son who had read the comments.

A note which New Zealand father Paul Francis said was placed on his car after he parked in a disabled spot and displayed his mobility card when he took his son, who has cerebral palsy, to a swimming pool

'To the woman who left this... shame on you for a cowardly attack that my son found on the windscreen,' Mr Francis wrote on Facebook.

'All you did was make him sad and sap his confidence on an already demanding condition... and all because you assumed you thought you were doing the right thing.

'All you have done is make ass of yourself in the eyes of a nine-year-old boy who is disgusted you have belittled all the doctors appointments and surgery he has had.'

Mr Francis, who was at the Rangiora swimming pool at the time, said he had every right to have displayed his mobility card and park in a disabled spot.

Mr Francis posted a photo of the note to his Facebook page where he said the letter from a woman was a 'cowardly attack that my son found on the windscreen'

'As a caregiver we are able to display this badge only when I have the disabled person in the car,' he wrote on Facebook.

'Due to the nature of my son's disability he gets very tired after physical activity... like swimming... so this is why I parked where I did.

'Please educate everyone that the driver is not always the disabled one or even have to have a wheelchair to be entitled to use these spots. They are for everyone that has a badge.'

Mr Francis said he was trying to track the woman down to 'educate her to my son's disability'.
Reginald Antonio Dowdell, 42, is facing felony dog fighting and animal cruelty charges after police discovered what appeared to be a dog-fighting operation in Mulga, Alabama

At least 17 dogs have been rescued from a suspected dog-fighting operation in Alabama where authorities found fresh blood and 11 canine skulls.

Reginald Antonio Dowdell, 42, was formally charged with felony dog fighting on Monday following the bust in Mulga.

Jefferson County authorities have said Dowdell could face three additional dog fighting charges as well as 16 animal cruelty charges.

Deputies responding to a complaint about dogs fighting on Sunday morning were approaching a home in a wooded area when they were met by a juvenile carrying an injured dog.

When they reached the ring, deputies initially found 17 pitbulls, at least four of which had injuries consistent with dog fighting.

Several more dogs were later found near the site, as well as 11 skulls so far.

'It's gut-wrenching and heartbreaking,'' said Chief Deputy Randy Christian.

'The fact that some people can see it as a sport to facilitate or be an audience for is just despicable and hard to comprehend.'

Police initially found 17 pitbulls at the operation and later rescued 'multiple' more dogs

Many of the dogs rescued from the property had injuries consistent with dog fighting

Animal control has taken custody of the dogs, according to the sheriff's office.

Greater Birmingham Humane Society president Allison Black Cornelius reacted to the bust in a Facebook post, writing: 'If you see or hear something say something. And that's what happened. It was a long and grueling day. Many thanks to our staff and to Sheriff Hale's incredible deputies.

'None of us will ever forget what we saw and none of us will rest until violence like this stops. It sickens me to think these people live and walk amongst us in our community. And the fact that these scum bags had a child on scene made me want to throw up.

'Pray for all of these poor creatures and pray for the GBHS hands that will be trying to heal the hurts these animals have suffered over the next many many months.'

Animal control has taken custody of the dogs with help from the local humane society
Animal rights activists want to put up a memorial to the cattle killed in a truck rollover - as the gruesome details of the incident emerged.

Mo Orr, co-founder of Vegans in Toowoomba, said the group wanted people to place flowers at the scene of the crash in the city west of Brisbane.

Ms Orr said she travelled to the scene of the loaded B-double cattle truck crash as soon as it happened at 5pm on Monday.

17 cows had to be put down after a cattle truck rolled over on to its side in Toowoomba, Queensland and animal rights activist Mo Orr wants a memorial to be set up in their memory to say 'we're sorry and we're trying'

Chaotic scenes ensued when some of the cattle escaped the crashed truck - with one woman reporting that she was charged at by a cow

Speaking to the Fraser Coast Chronicle, she said: 'It was horrific - there were cattle trapped, injured, dying and dead.'

'It's important (to put up a memorial) as nobody has seen these animals - they're invisible.

'We want to say to the cows that we see them and we're sorry and we're trying.'

She said she was told at the scene that the animals who survived the crash would be loaded onto another truck to be taken for slaughter.

The group estimated that 33 out of 66 cattle on board died in the crash, while police said 17 were put down.

Police said a further eight of the cows were unaccounted for by Tuesday afternoon, with some of the bovines escaping in the chaotic scenes.

Queensland police said eight of the cows were still unaccounted for on Tuesday afternoon, with the road having reopened on Tuesday morning

One woman said she was charged by a cow following the truck's rollover.

The road was reopened at just after midnight on Tuesday morning.

Police investigations are continuing into how the truck overturned while turning left onto Cohoe Street from James Street.
The residents of a luxurious Manhattan high-rise apartment are living in fear after a mystery gunman began randomly shooting into their windows.

Two windows of separate apartments at the Upper East Side complex were pierced by bullets from across the water on Roosevelt Island within 24 hours of each other.

One tenant who lives on the 14th floor of One River East woke up on Friday morning to find their living room completely covered in glass.

On the floor was a .38-caliber bullet that authorities believe was most likely fired from a Smith & Wesson handgun.

The residents of luxurious Manhattan high-rise apartment One River East (pictured) are living in fear after a mystery gunman began randomly shooting into their windows last week

Just hours later, the window of another apartment on the 32nd floor of the 50-story building was struck by a bullet around 1.15am.

Neither tenant were injured by the bullets, which shattered their living room windows.

'They were lucky they weren't up late watching television,' a law enforcement source told the New York Post.

The shootings have terrified the residents of One River East, where two-bedroom apartments can rent for more than $7,000 a month.

Two windows of separate apartments (pictured in file photo) at the complex were pierced by bullets from across the water on Roosevelt Island within 24 hours of each other

The incidents have terrified the residents of One River East, where two-bedroom apartments can rent for more than $7,000 a month. Pictured is the swanky high-rise's pool

Ilene Epstein, whose apartment on the 22nd floor faces the river, said she was 'petrified for my life'.

'I moved into this apartment because of the river. I have beautiful views. But I'll move out of my building before I walk around with a bulletproof vest.'

'I'm paying close to $10,000 a month in rent so I can use the fitness center and be shot in the head in my apartment,' another resident said.

Authorities were baffled by the shootings until they discovered that the second apartment was hit at the same time two 911 calls were placed on Roosevelt Island.

Authorities have discovered that the gunshots are coming from Manhattan Park (pictured), a complex on the island 1,400 feet away and directly across from One River East

Two overnight workers heard gunshots coming from Manhattan Park, a complex on the island 1,400 feet away and directly across from One River East.

Officers found that the two living room windows that were hit were clearly visible from the building, where two-bedroom apartments rent for around $3,000 a month.

Authorities believe the gunman could be someone 'standing on a balcony, shooting across the river', an NYPD source revealed.

A spokesman for Manhattan Park said management is cooperating with the investigation.
Iran has unveiled its first homemade fighter jet this morning - and boasted that the US would not dare attack the country because of its 'power'.

The domestically built twin-seat Kowsar, which looks strikingly similar to the decades-old American F5, was displayed in a flypast in Tehran today.

Iran already has US-made F4, F5 as well as F14 fighter jets and also Russian-made Sukhoi aircraft in service.

This morning, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic Republic's military prowess was what deterred Washington from attacking it, adding that under President Donald Trump the United States was becoming isolated even from its own allies.

Iran has unveiled its first homemade fighter jet (pictured) before boasting that the US would not attack the country 'because of our power'

The domestically built twin-seat Kowsar, which has a striking resemblance to the decades-old American F5 (aircraft pictured in 1981), was displayed in a flypast in Tehran today

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic Republic's military prowess was what deterred Washington from attacking it, adding that under President Donald Trump the United States was becoming isolated even from its own allies

'We should make ourselves ready to fight against the military powers who want to take over our territory and our resources,' Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live on state television ahead of Wednesday's National Defence Industry Day.

'Why does the United States not attack us? Because of our power, because it knows the consequences,' Rouhani added.

Last week, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also said the United States would avoid any military confrontation with Tehran because of Iranian military might.

Khamenei has rejected Trump's offer of unconditional talks on a new nuclear deal, prompting Trump to tell Reuters in an interview on Monday: 'If they want to meet, that's fine, and if they don't want to meet, I couldn't care less.'

Relations between Washington and Tehran worsened further after Trump in May took the United States out of an international deal that curbed Tehran's nuclear programme in return for an easing of economic sanctions.

Trump branded that 2015 deal as flawed because it did not address Iran's missile programme or involvement in conflicts in Syria and Yemen, and he has reimposed U.S. economic sanctions.

The aircraft is dubbed Kowsar, which in Islamic meaning refers to a river in paradise and is also the title of a chapter in the Muslim holy book, the Quran

Footage of the Kowsar's test flights was circulated by various official media. But live footage of the plane taxiing along a runway at the defence show was cut before it took off

Iran already has U.S.-made F-4, F-5 as well as F-14 fighter jets and also Russian-made Sukhoi aircraft in service

Rouhani compared the sanctions on Iran with the U.S. trade war with China and its new tariffs on some imports from Turkey and European countries.

'It's not only us who do not trust America. Today even Europe and China do not trust them; even American allies like Canada have lost their trust,' he said.

Earlier on Tuesday Rouhani attended a ceremony, broadcast by state TV, that included the fly-past of a new home-made fighter jet called Kowsar, which is capable of carrying various weapons, and will be used for short aerial support missions.

Iran has sent weapons and thousands of soldiers to Syria to help prop up President Bashar al-Assad's forces, but had to rely on Russia for aerial support due to its own lack of a powerful air force.

Irans air force has been limited to perhaps a few dozen strike aircraft using either Russian or ageing U.S. models acquired before the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Iran unveiled in 2013 what it said was a new, domestically built fighter jet, called Qaher 313, but some experts expressed doubts about the viability of the aircraft at the time.

Iran has developed a large domestic arms industry in the face of international sanctions and embargoes that have barred it from importing many weapons.
A new study has revealed two out of three patients are being cannulated in the wrong place, potentially delaying treatment and increasing the risk of infection.

The research, which was published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine, found that despite cannulation being one of the most common medical procedures, it is often done incorrectly.

Lead author of the study and senior lecturer at Western Sydney Universitys school of nursing and midwifery, Dr Evan Alexandrou told The Sydney Morning Herald for something so commonly used, failure rates are unacceptably high.

New research suggests one in 10 cannulas were unnecessarily painful or caused inflammation of veins (stock image)

'If you walk around any hospital in Australia, you will find that at least 10 per cent of patients will have painful, red and swollen or malfunctioning devices,' he said.

And with more than half of patients admitted to hospital needing to be cannulated, Dr Alexandrou said up to 90 per cent of those fail before the end of treatment.

For the most part, cannulation is used for fluid hydration and medications, but it can also be necessary for pain relief, or nutrient and blood product administration.

One of the study's key findings was one in 10 cannulas are unnecessarily painful or cause inflammation of the veins - also known as phlebitis.

The researchers said poor vein choice was a likely reason for this, including creases in the hands, wrists and elbow instead of the recommended veins in the forearm.

The study also revealed that 10 per cent of cannulas were found to be leaking, blocked or falling out - despite being left in place.

The study also revealed that 10 per cent of cannulas were found to be leaking, blocked or falling out - despite being left in place (stock image)

'This means millions of patients around the world have painful or malfunctioning catheters that staff have not responded to,' Dr Alexandrou said.

Despite clinical guidelines that state cannulas need to be replaced every 72 hours, the study also found one in six cannulas were left in place although not required.

Other issues raised in the research were sub-optimal dressings and a lack of documentation, suggesting cannulas weren't being monitored regularly.

Dr Alexandrou said one in every 1000 cannulations will result in a bloodstream infection, which is linked to an increased risk of morbidity and death (stock image)

The researchers said that cannulation issues lead to delayed treatment, but ultimately increase the risk of phlebitis and, in most serious cases, lead to cannula-associated blood poisoning.

Dr Alexandrou said one in every 1000 cannulations will result in a bloodstream infection, which is linked to an increased risk of morbidity and death.

The authors concluded by saying in order to prevent these issues from occurring, there needs to be stronger monitoring and documenting of cannulas, as well as insertion practices.

'If we dont improve insertion practices, we will continue to see significant numbers of cannulas failing and patients undergoing unnecessary, painful sticks,' he said.
Ohio grandfather, Dan Schaffer, 61, (above in his mugshot) is accused of killing his grandson

An Ohio man is facing murder charges after he allegedly shot his own grandson to death after an argument inside his home late Sunday.

At least four horrified neighbors of the 61-year-old grandpa, Dan Schaffer, phoned Akron police to report sounds of screaming and gunshots around 10:30pm, according to local WKYC 3.

Schaffer's 22-year-old grandson, Cody Czerpak, was identified as the victim who died.

Frantic 911 audio obtained by the station hears one female neighbor as she tells the dispatcher what happened.

The woman is heard telling the dispatcher: 'Somebody just got shot... it's my next door neighbor. I heard a big old bang first and then I heard the screaming.'

Another neighbor is heard screaming in a emergency call: 'It's his grandpa! He shot him!'

Police said Schaffer was in the home when they arrived to the scene. He was taken into custody and booked to the Summit County Jail.

Schaffer's grandson, Cody Czerpak, 22, (pictured above) was identified as the victim who died in the Sunday domestic dispute. The young man had two children

Czerpak is pictured above. His grandfather is facing murder charges in his death

The station reports that Czerpak had a six-month-old baby and four-year-old child.

A GoFundMe page, titled 'Brianna and her babies,' was set up by a woman named Carla Long.

Long wrote in the page description: 'Brianna and her two children are two babies are two of many of the victims traumatized by the fatal shooting of the childrens father.

'I'm attempting to raise funds to assist with this difficult event.'

Further investigation is underway.
Disgraced property director Salim Mehajer has been accused of impersonating a police officer in a typo-riddled email, a court has heard.

The 32-year-old is currently serving time behind bars for electoral fraud offences from 2012, during which time he was the deputy mayor for Auburn.

He was sentenced to a minimum jail term of 11 months in June, but is yet to be sentenced over charges in January over an alleged 'staged' car crash in 2017.

Mr Mehajer, 32, appeared before the NSW Supreme Court via video link on Tuesday, applying for bail.

But at the failed bail application hearing, the court was read an email from a police officer, which was allegedly 'forged' by Mehajer.

Salim Mehajer (pictured) is accused of impersonating a police officer in an email with typos clearing him of an alleged 'staged' car accident in 2017, a court has heard

A court heard as a poorly-worded email addressed to Mehajer said that a suspicious car accident from 2017 was no longer being investigated

Mehajer was involved in a car crash in western Sydney earlier in the year, the same day he was to face court over the assault of a taxi driver.

He was later convicted for the assault, though Detective Sergeant Matt Taylor alleged that the accident was 'planned and staged' to allow him to avoid court.

The alleged email presented to the court on Tuesday is addressed to Mehajer from Detective Taylor, and says that the accident is no longer being investigated.

Police claimed in court that Mehajer was fraudulently impersonating the officer in the email, using an old email signature from 2016.

It allegedly reads: 'Hi Salim. We are not inspecting the collision. The accident was given the all-clear by the NRMA [National Roads and Motorists' Association].

'Considering you have a perfect tract (sic) record with Mercedes Australia service, there should not be a long turnaround time in returning your vehicle.'

The email is in regards to an allegedly 'staged' car accident, which police say was planned to allow Mehajer (pictured) to avoid a court date

No charges were laid against Mehajer for the email, who told the court that: 'I still maintain my innocence for that'.

The image of the typo-riddled email and Mr Taylor's was tendered to the court and residing Justice Robert Allan Hulme.

Mr Hulme said that Mehajer has 'an arrogant disregard for the law', and is concerned that he would breach his bail if it were granted.

Mr Mehajer was jailed for a minimum 11 months in June.
Richard Cousins, a British catering tycoon who was killed with his family in a New Year's Eve seaplane crash in Sydney changed his will so 41 million was left to foreign aid charity Oxfam

A British catering tycoon who was killed with his family in a seaplane crash changed his will so 41 million was left to charity.

Richard Cousins planned to leave most of his wealth to his sons but drew up a new will inserting what is known as a 'common tragedy clause.'

It was to be activated in the unlikely event that he and his sons were killed, and would make charity Oxfam the main benificiary.

The 58-year-old died alongside his magazine-editor fiancee Emma Bowden, 48, her young daughter Heather, and his son's Will, 25 and Ed, 23, in the New Year's Eve crash in Sydney.

The DHC-2 Beaver aircraft he was in plunged into the Hawkesbury River, killing his family and experienced pilot Gareth Morgan, 44.

Now all but 3million of his fortune will go to the scandal hit charity, The Sun reports

Oxfam has been shaken by claims staff preyed on sex workers in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake and has faced funding cuts.

Mr Cousins, of Hyde Heath, Buckinghamshire, was the boss of catering giant Compass, lost his first wife to cancer in July 2015.

He died at age 58 after the DHC-2 Beaver aircraft he was in plunged into the Hawkesbury River, killing his fiancee her young daughter Heather, his adult sons and the pilot

The CEO's magazine-editor fiancee Emma Bowden, 48, and her young daughter Heather were also killed, months before he was to retire to spend more time with them

His sons Ed, 23, right, and Will, 25, were also killed in the crash, and had been due to receive his fortune

Richard Cousins's brothers Simon and Andrew, who were the best men at the 1982 wedding of his first wife Caroline, will get 1million each.

His brother-in-law Ian Thorpe told Mailonline how widower Mr Cousins, 58, had decided to quit his 5.6million job as boss of a catering giant to spend quality time with his new fiancee, magazine editor Emma Bowden, 48, and 'be a dad again'.

Ian, whose sister Caroline was happily married to Richard for 32 years before her death, said the tycoon was tired of the stress of being a CEO and had planned to retire in March 2018.

Richard Cousins (centre) left his brothers Andrew (left) and Simon (right) 1million each. They are pictured as the best men at their late brother's 1982 wedding

Richard Cousins's first wife Caroline (pictured on her wedding day in 1982) died of cancer in July 2015

'Richard was planning to retire so he could make Emma and her young daughter the focus of his life,' he said in January shortly after the tragedy.

'He was in a stressful hard job and at the top of the tree and he saw an opportunity to get out.'

Richard Cousins's estate is going to Oxfam only months after it announced it would be cutting 16 million in aid programs following allegations its staff used sex workers in Haiti after being sent there in 2010 to administer aid in the aftermath of an earthquake.

Last year, the British public gave nearly 10 billion to their favourite causes  with 2.8billion by people as part of their will.

A spokesman for Oxfam, said: 'We are extremely grateful for this bequest of which we have only recently been notified.

'We are working with the family and our board of trustees to identify how the money will be used.'
An Egyptian movie star who quit the film industry to embrace a 'religious lifestyle', has shocked the Muslim nation by announcing her return to acting - and ditching her hijab.

Hala Shiha, 39, went from a glamorous celebrity lifestyle to shunning the limelight in 2006, donning hijab and conservative clothes and eventually choosing to wear a niqab face veil.

After a 13 year hiatus, Ms Shiha announced that she had returned to acting by posting images of herself in western clothing and a bare head on social media.

This has sparked outrage among Islamists in Egypt, with some accusing her of 'failing' conservative Muslim fans and giving in to 'worldly temptations'.

Then and now: Hala Shiha, 39, is pictured at the time when she retired from acting as she embraced a conservative Muslim liferstyle, and now, announcing her comeback

Ms Shiha's highly publicized return to acting immediately ignited a storm in social media, the press and on TV talk shows. Her case in many ways mirrors the larger conflict in Egypt.

The country has been polarized since a popular uprising in 2011 toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak, ushering in a period of political domination by the Muslim Brotherhood, which won a series of elections - including the presidency.

The generals ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013 after massive protests over his divisive rule and cracked down against the Brotherhood, outlawing it as a terrorist group. Under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the military-backed government has little or no tolerance for political Islam.

It is against this backdrop that the status of women is among the most debated aspects of Islam in Egypt, with the question of how they appear in public getting special attention.

Shiha, often cast in dreamy, romantic roles, sought to distance herself from the often- acrimonious argument over her decision to take off the hijab and seek a more secular lifestyle.

'I never meant to insult or offend anyone,' she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. 'Just because I took off my hijab, doesn't mean I am against it. Not at all.'

Back in the days: A photo of Ms Shiha from 2004 shows her at the height of her acting career

'At the end, this is a personal decision and it's my choice. I am an actress and I don't want to be dragged into any political conflicts,' she said. She cited 'personal reasons' for her decisions - both to quit acting the first time and to resume her career - and didn't elaborate on what was behind them.

But a recent video posted on Instagram may have made things worse for the Islamists. It showed her flashing a broad smile and telling a hairdresser at a salon: 'I came here to change my hair color a bit. I hope it turns out well. I am sure it will be surprising.'

According to her father and sister, she only recently opened an Instagram account, with about 149,000 followers. In none of her photos is she wearing a hijab.

Since her decision, Islamists have been saying she has disappointed women and girls who had looked to her as a role model.

'There were many girls that trusted her as a virtuous sister,' ultraconservative preacher Sameh Abdel-Hameed told a private TV talk show. 'But now she failed a large audience of young girls who followed her.'

Other Islamists appeared incredulous over her decision. But Shiha told the AP that she had no links to Islamist groups while she embraced a religious lifestyle.

Khadija Khairat el-Shatter, daughter of a jailed Muslim Brotherhood leader, wrote a long post on Facebook urging Shiha - 'my soul twin' - to prove everyone wrong and appear in public wearing the veil again.

Starting over: Ms Shiha is now hoping to relaunch her acting career in Egypt

'Today, the rumors that you took off your hijab had slaughtered me with a blunt knife,' she wrote.

Mohammed el-Sawy, another ultraconservative, or Salafist, preacher, posted a video of himself in tears. In a quavering voice, he implored Shiha to repent. He also sought to belittle her decision, labeling it a 'relapse' and blaming it on 'worldly temptations.'

In contrast, prominent film critic Tarek al-Shennawy commended her for showing courage in the face of what he described as a 'difficult society.'

One recently rekindled debate is whether wearing the hijab or the niqab is a religious duty or simply an option. Another is whether Islam's strict dress code for women shields them from being objectified by men in a country where sexual harassment on the street is widespread.

Those who oppose the hijab maintain that Egyptian women are sexually harassed whether they are in tight jeans, a miniskirt or a niqab. Others say that peer pressure plays a role, with young women wearing the hijab to win acceptance in their communities while adopting nothing else from Islam's prescribed modesty.

'There has long been a conflict between liberals and Islamists with the status of women always the battlefield,' said political analyst Saeed Sadeq. 'It is often a question of veil or no veil.'

Shiha remains unmoved by how her personal decision not to wear a hijab has turned into a national debate with political undertones.

'I am just at a different phase in my life now,' she told the AP. 'And I am happy that I am going back to acting.'
State-sponsored Russian hackers who broke into DNC emails before the 2016 election are now targeting anti-Trump Republicans.

Microsoft said it took down six websites linked to the Russian state including two designed to look like the homepages of the International Republican Institute and the Hudson Institute.

The hoax pages are intended to dupe users into entering their usernames and passwords for the real webpages, so the credentials can be used during attacks.

Hackers linked to the Russian state launched a spear-phishing attack against two Republican think-tanks which have criticized Trump and Putin

The International Republican Institute and the Hudson Institute are GOP think-tanks which have openly criticized Trump while seeking further sanctions against Moscow.

They have also worked to expose the shady dealings of Russian oligarchs and push for increased human rights.

Another target for their criticism was the two-hour closed-door meeting between Trump and Putin in Helsinki.

Senator John McCain, Governor Mitt Romney, and Senator Marco Rubio are all on the boards of both think-tanks.

Other websites created by the hackers included three which mimicked US Senate websites and another which aped the Microsoft Office 365 login page.

Microsoft named the group behind the pages as Strontium, also known as Fancy Bear or APT28, which has links to the Russian military group GRU.

The attack used is known as spear-phishing and is the same kind of attack used to get into the emails of former DNC chair John Podesta.

Microsoft said: 'We're concerned that these and other attempts pose security threats to a broadening array of groups connected with both American political parties in the run-up to the 2018 elections.'

Hackers targeted the International Republican Institute and the Hudson Institute, which count John McCain and Mitt Romney - two of Trump's biggest GOP critics - among board members

A federal grand jury in the U.S. indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers earlier in July on charges of hacking the computer networks of 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russia's role in the 2016 election and whether the campaign of Republican candidate Donald Trump colluded with Moscow.

Russia denies meddling in the elections while President Trump has denied any collusion.

'They are pursuing attacks that they perceive in their own national self-interest,' said Eric Rosenbach, the director of the Defending Digital Democracy project at Harvard University, on Monday to the New York Times.

'It's about disrupting and diminishing any group that challenges how Putins Russia is operating at home and around the world.'

The attackers created websites and URLs that closely resembled the sites that their victims would expect to receive email from or visit, Microsoft said.

'To be clear, we currently have no evidence these domains were used in any successful attacks before the DCU transferred control of them, nor do we have evidence to indicate the identity of the ultimate targets of any planned attack involving these domains,' Microsoft said on the blog.
The founder of a reclusive Muslim sect has vowed to never let government officers force their way onto his land because he does not acknowledge Australian law.

Dr Mustapha Kara-Ali believes symbols within the Australian flag and New South Wales coat of arms are an affront to his religion and anyone bearing them is a 'Crusader'.

Dr Kari-Ali, who is in a legal dispute with Hawkesbury City Council over a religious retreat at Colo north of Sydney, also refuses to attend court because he does not recognise its authority.

'It's against our religion,' the imam said of attempts to bring him before the Land and Environment Court. 'It's against our religion to be subject to any other religion.'

'Because of the religious symbolism of the court, that contradicts with my religion. For my religion to be free I can't be dictated to by another religion.'

Dr Mustapha Kara-Ali is the founder of the Diwan Al Dawla Muslim guild which has set up a religious retreat on the Colo River, north of Sydney. He does not recognise Australian law

Imam Mustapha Kara-Ali, pictured with one of the more than 30 Arabian horses on his Southern Chariot religious site at Colo, believes all government officials are 'Crusaders'

Hawkesbury City Council says this structure is a boat ramp. The imam of the Diwan Al Dawla group says it is a walkway to the Colo River used for baptisms fashioned from an old spillway

Dr Kari-Ali is the founder of the religious guild Diwan Al Dawla which bought the Colo property for $670,000 in May last year and began building what it calls the Southern Chariot religious site.

The 12 hectares is home to about 30 Arabian horses which the group intends to use to help troubled Muslim youth, particularly from western Sydney, engage with God.

A shed and two demountable buildings have been erected on the site and a barn is being built. There is also a grove of young trees including olives, figs and walnuts.

An elaborate structure described by council as a 'boat ramp' is in fact a walkway for people to be baptised in the Colo River, according to Dr Kara-Ali.

'It's not a boat ramp because we have no boats,' he said. 'The purpose of it is religious. The purpose of the horses is religious. The purpose of everything you see here is religious.'

On the other side of the road the group is carving a 1km hippodrome out of a hillside to train horses.

Mustapha (right) and Diaa Kara-Ali (left) pictured when confronted by Hawkesbury City Council officers at the gates of their 12 hectare property in the Hawkesbury region last month

Hawkesbury City Council has launched civil action against Dr Kari-Ali alleging the men carried out illegal land clearing and earthworks on the site. Pictured is the frame of a horse barn

The Diwan Al Dawla guild is carving a hippodrome out of this hillside at Colo so it can train Arabian horses. The group did not seek development approval from council to construct it

The council has launched civil action against Dr Kari-Ali and his brother Diaa Kara-Ali alleging the men carried out illegal land clearing and earthworks and built gates, fences and driveways without approval.

The brothers agree they have not sought approval for the work and say they have no intention of doing so because they do not recognise Australian law.

Dr Kara-Ali considers any government symbol which incorporates a version of a Christian cross - including the Southern Cross and the Cross of St George - to be an affront to Islam.

He has cited a description of St George 'appearing at the head of an army of the Seven Champions of Christendom - a celestial knight who won a great victory over a Moslem host.'

He believes any authority which uses such a symbol - such as the police and the courts - to be religious, rather than secular.

'Any religious symbol, if they come to us by force it is a violation,' he said. 'It is a violation of our site.'

This shed on a concrete slab has been built without development approval by the Diwan Al Dawla guild at Colo, north of Sydney. The guild says it does not recognise Australian law

Two portable buildings have been erected on the Colo site but Dr Mustapha Kara-Ali says no one lives in them. They are used by workers on the property or sometimes for prayer

There are more than 30 Arabian horses on the Diwan Al Dawla religious site at Colo

He compared anyone who acted in government interests under a religious symbol to the Christian Crusaders who fought against Muslims in the medieval period.

'Crusaders, absolutely, by virtue of their use of Crusader symbols,' Dr Kara-Ali said.

'My main issue is the interference between the secular and the religious. What we are saying in a nutshell is the country of Australia is entrenched in secular symbolism and religious symbolism that stretches back to the time of the Crusades.

'This means that this government is not secular. It is religious because it carries these symbols.

'And we refuse for pagan symbols such as crosses to be on top of our lives.

'Remove these religious symbols and we can talk about secular government. But not now.

'For us, this is religious freedom.'

Dr Kara-Ali said if government bodies tried to enforce their rules upon him he would resist. 'I tell you what, people like us will say our God is supreme.'

The Kara-Ali brothers were due in court on Monday but did not attend. A hearing went ahead without them or a lawyer acting on their behalf.

Imam Mustapha Kara-Ali at the gates of the Southern Chariot religious site. Dr Kara-Ali says the Southern Cross is a corrupted Christian version of this celestial navigation diagram

The main entrance to the Southern Chariot religious site as seen from inside the retreat

The court heard the brothers had ignored repeated calls for them to stop developments on the site.

Lawyer Mark Cottom for the council said an officer had requested police accompany them on an inspection of the property because they might have required to force entry,' according to the ABC.

'The police appear to have significant concerns in relation to safety... wishing to have the riot squad and Polair available,' Mr Cottom said.

Dr Kara-Ali said that was 'just plain ridiculous'.

'There is no need for the police,' he said. All the police would find is 'a group of people praying and a few horses.'

'We are living our life like we desire. We desire to be separate from the secular. Is this too much to ask? And the secular wants to intimidate us with military might.'

'We are more powerful than their helicopters.'

No approval was sought or granted for the tree clearing and earthworks at the Colo site

Dr Kara-Ali believed his guild members were being treated as 'violent ragheads that know nothing about the world.'

'We believe in our cause. We believe we are pioneers of religious freedom in this country.

'It is our way to disconnect. We want to disconnect. We want to be left alone.'

Dr Kara-Ali declined on Tuesday to say how many members of Diwan Al Dawla there were.

'That's not significant,' he said. We don't have to report that to anybody. It's not a matter of numbers. It's a matter of concepts. We're not short of numbers, let me assure you.'

The court has heard the conflict turned ugly last month when three council officers attended the property to serve papers on the Kara-Ali brothers. A dashcam video tendered to the court showed the pair confront the officers.

'Both men were repeatedly yelling obscenities from the other side of the gate, calling out, "You dogs, I step on your cross", one of the council officers alleged.

The horses at the Southern Chariot site at Colo have their own religious meaning to adherents

However, Dr Kara-Ali said he and his brother were intimidated by the actions of the 'violent monkeys' and anyone could enter the site as long as they did not do so under a cross.

'This gate is open,' he said.

Dr Kara-Ali wrote to Hawkesbury City Council in March explaining another reason why he believed government had no authority over the group.

'The Colo Wilderness site is a religious site that is owned by the members of Diwan Al Dawla for the carrying out of religious activities of devotion, self-discipline, ritual baptism, inter-community prayers, contemplation and religious study, he wrote.

'The Land with its Colo River access serves as a reclusive place of worship.

'Members of Diwan al Dawla... live as a religious guild separated from secular lifetsyles to pursue a religious mode of worship to and an ascetic lifestyle under an oath of self-sacrifice and dedication to the purpose of Diwan Al Dawla.'

The planned hippodrome across the road from the religious site will be used to train horses

Dr Kara-Ali contends Hawkesbury City Council has no power to tell Diwan Al Dawla what to do because it is a 'basic religious charity' registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for profits Commission (ACNC).

'Charities who meet the definition of Basic Religious Charity do not have to submit annual financial reports, and they do not have to comply with the ACNC governance standards which include... "Compliance with Australian laws",' Dr Kara-Ali wrote.

According to the imam, that also puts his guild above the law.

'Religious activities, according to our ACNC registered governing rules... must remain independent of entities that represent secular socio-economic structures and modes of living,' he wrote.

'...Diwan Al Dawla, as a Basic Religious Charity, is not required to comply with Australian laws.'

That claim is not supported by the ACNC.

The Land and Environment Court is due to make a judgement next week.
A school teacher has spoken out about how she overcame the invasive act of up skirting while working at an all-boys high school.

Hester Tingey used to be hit with pangs of anxiety as she drove past groups of uniformed school boys at her former workplace, St Patrick's College in New Zealand.

But now the 25-year-old wants to share her message of resilience after her and a female colleague were explicitly filmed while she was teaching last year.

Hester Tingey, 25, (pictured) said there needs to be social media education at schools

Ms Tingey has since moved on from the school in Wellington but battled the aftermath of the sexual harassment.



She struggled with sleep deprivation, anxiety and feared running in to the students who assaulted her.

'I have moved on with my life. The only reason I revisited the event was to try to turn a negative situation into something more positive. I wanted to show people how a small action can change a life,' Ms Tingey told the Daily Mail Australia.

Ms Tingey can't talk about how the school handled the incident but said needs to be more education put in place for younger males.

Ms Tingey said: 'Kids have such easy access to the technology and they dont understand the implications of putting something online'

'I do think education is the key to stopping this from happening.

'Kids have such easy access to the technology and they dont understand the implications of putting something online,' she said.

The teacher's aide also touched on how social media has taken a hold of the younger generation.

'Social media is really important for kids these days and it effects how they are seen at school in terms of popularity,' Ms Tingey said.

Ms Tingey explained the boys would put their phones in to their shoes or pockets and press record

Up-skirting is the act of filming or taking photographs under someone's skirt which captures an image of the crotch area or genitals.

'The intention behind it was to gain as many up-skirt photos of female staff members from the school,' she said.

Ms Tingey explained the boys would put their phones in to their shoes or pockets and press record.

She used to be hit with pangs of anxiety as she drove past groups of uniformed school boys at her former workplace, St Patrick's College in New Zealand (pictured)

They would block the classroom aisle with their bags so the teacher was forced to step over the item. The images were then screenshot and posted on Instagram.

The teenage boys were ordered to restorative justice meeting with her to see how the invasive incident had affected her on a personal and emotional level.

'I really wanted this to be something that they learnt from, and not just be a slap on the wrist and something that they go on to think is OK,' she said.

At the time the school described the attack on the female teachers as 'most distressing' but hasn't spoken on the incident any further

At the time the school described the attack on the female teachers as 'most distressing' but hasn't spoken on the incident any further.

They released in a statement to parents, 'We remain committed to developing within all our students the appreciation of, and respect for, the inherent dignity of each person.

'In our particular environment, this specifically includes the appropriate and respectful treatment of women and girls.'
WABC-TV(NEW YORK) -- A plane made a successful emergency landing in New York after blowing two tires during takeoff at Teterboro airport in New Jersey, authorities said.



Sixteen people are on board the aircraft, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. A spokesman for rapper Post Malone confirmed to ABC-owned station WABC-TV that he is on board the plane.



The plane, a Gulfstream Aerospace GLF-4 aircraft, was diverted to Stewart International airport in Orange County, New York, the FAA said. Emergency crews were standing by at the airport to meet the plane, which appeared to make a safe landing. The plane was previously being diverted to Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport in Massachusetts.



It was originally heading to London's Luton Airport and took off around 10:50 a.m., the FAA said. It has been circling over Connecticut to burn some of the fuel it had ready for the trans-Atlantic flight before attempting the emergency landing. Stewart airport is about 50 miles north of Teterboro airport.



The type of aircraft is mainly used for private and business flights, ABC-owned station WABC-TV reported.





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Plastic waste and debris is being dumped back into rivers to clear roads after devastating floods killed 410 in the Indian state of Kerala.

Footage shows a JCB operator picking up rubbish including hundreds of plastic bottles from a major connecting bridge and simply dumping it back into the muddy water below.

The video has gone viral online, with furious residents accusing officials of polluting the landscape in desperation to get traffic between two villages moving again.

Footage shows a JCB picking up the debris from a bridge and simply dumping it back into the muddy water

One commenter wrote: 'The river returned the garbage back to us. And now the so-called Intellectuals' Government of Kerala is against pouring the garbage back into the river.'

The video was taken on the Malayattoor-Kodanad bridge in the Ernakulam district, which was completely submerged by floodwaters last week.

It comes as more than one million people are housed in refugee camps after half a million homes were destroyed during monsoon rains.

A total of 1,028,000 people have registered in about 3,200 relief camps across the state, a state government spokesman said.

Six more bodies were found Monday, taking the toll to more than 410 since the monsoon started in June.

Shocking videos depicting the scale of the destruction are being shared online, with one showing a three-storey house sliding down a huge hill in the city of Mercara on Thursday.

At Chengannur, one of the worst-hit towns, more than two feet of water still blocked many roads as more rain fell on Tuesday.

Indian rescue workers transport a bed with an elderly sick woman as she is moved from her home in a waterlogged area to a relief camp in Chengannur

Locals from nearby villages in the Chengannur area take shelter at the relief camp in local collage in Chengannur on August 20, 2018

Army teams said several thousand people in the town remained in homes inundated by 10 days of torrential downpours that have battered the state.

Rescue teams in Chengannur on Tuesday finally reached the house of retired army officer K.G. Pillai, who said up to eight feet of water had engulfed the house where his family had lived since 1952.

'In the past there has never been more than one foot of floods and people are not used to this,' he said.

Many roads and homes around Pillai's house remained inaccessible.

'Around 26 people moved into the first floor of our home' to take refuge from the floods, he said.

A senior army officer involved in the rescue operation in Chengannur said authorities believed most of the people left in town did not want to be evacuated and were instead seeking food and water.

'We received a distress call late yesterday to rescue a disabled child and will be going in today on boats to check if there are others who need assistance,' he said.

A total of 1,028,000 people have registered in about 3,200 relief camps (pictured) across the state, a state government spokesman said

Locals cross the flood water after taking a lift on a rescue truck during monsoon rains

An aerial view of Cochin city from the aircraft on August 20, 2018 in Kerala, India

Thousands of army, navy and air force personnel have fanned out across the state to help those stranded in remote and hilly areas.

Dozens of helicopters and even drones have been dropping food, medicine and water to cut-off villages.

Tens of thousands of people in Chengannur and surrounding towns and villages are relying on community kitchens for meals, after water from hilly districts in Kerala's north poured down into lowland regions.

'People have lost all or most of their belongings in the last few days,' the officer said.

Shashi Tharoor, a deputy from Kerala and former UN official, estimated that 50,000 houses had been destroyed. He said he would seek possible UN assistance in relief efforts during a trip to Geneva this week.

Millions of dollars in donations have poured into the state from the rest of India and abroad since the extent of the devastation became known.

Supreme Court judges have donated $360 each while the British-based Sikh group Khalsa Aid International has set up its own relief camp in Kochi, Kerala's main city, to provide 3,000 meals a day.

Millions of dollars in donations have poured into the state from the rest of India and abroad since the extent of the devastation became known

Locals cross flood water on route to Chengannur as flash floods batter the region
Truck drivers are 13 times more likely to die at work than other Australians - making it one of the nation's most dangerous jobs, a new study has revealed.

The 12-year study, from Monash University in Melbourne, investigated more than 120,000 insurance claims.

Truck drivers were found to have made more injury-related claims than bus, delivery, automobile and rail drivers and were also at higher risk of illness, psychological stress and other injuries.

Truck drivers are 13 times more likely to die at work than other Australians - making it one of the nation's most dangerous jobs, a new study has revealed

Musculoskeletal injuries made up the vast majority of injury-related claims and the study also revealed that these claims added up to more than a million in lost weeks of work over the 12 year period, The Age reports.

Only 17 per cent of this working time lost was due to vehicle crashes, with the remaining 83 per cent down to physical and psychological stress and other causes such as slips and trips.

'It has long working hours, lots of sitting, poor nutrition, social isolation, shift work, time pressure, low levels of job control, all in addition to the risk of road crashes,' Study lead Professor Alex Collie said.

The 12-year study, from Monash University in Melbourne, investigated more than 120,000 insurance claims

The study was launched at Parliament House in Canberra today and has called for the health of truck drivers to be monitored

The average age of truck drivers who had their claims accepted was 44.5 years and Collie said that the demand for on road freight is expected to double from 2010 to 2030.

The study was launched at Parliament House in Canberra today and has called for the health of truck drivers to be monitored.

TWU national secretary Michael Kaine said that truck drivers had been failed and were being 'bashed, broken and killed because of their jobs'.

'It has long working hours, lots of sitting, poor nutrition, social isolation, shift work, time pressure, low levels of job control, all in addition to the risk of road crashes,' Professor Alex Collie said (pictured)

TWU national secretary Michael Kaine said that truck drivers had been failed and were being 'bashed, broken and killed because of their jobs'

'These are alarming findings which require serious action, not platitudes, voluntary codes or misguided regulation which doesn't tackle the real cause of the problems: the economics of the industry,' he said.

He blamed wealthy retailers and manufacturers at the top of the transport supply chain for their low cost contracts which result in high financial pressure on transport operators and drivers.

'We are demanding that the Federal Government addresses the causes behind the problems highlighted in this report,' he said.

'Pressure must be taken off transport so that drivers can go to work and be safe and healthy.'
A woman who became the youngest person ever to receive a full face transplant after shooting herself in the face after a break-up says she feels much better.

Katie Stubblefield, from Cleveland, USA, attempted to end her life with her brother's hunting rifle at the age of 18.

Her face was completely disfigured but miraculously the bullet missed her brain and she survived.

After 22 operations and over 1,000 hours of physical therapy over the course of three years, 21-year-old Katie told Good Morning Britain today: 'I feel much better'.

Katie Stubblefield, from Cleveland, USA, attempted to end her life with her brother's hunting rifle at the age of 18. Three years later she is the youngest person ever to have a face transplant and is pictured on Good Morning Britain today

Katie is pictured before and after her ordeal that saw her face completely disfigured

Appearing on the programme with her parents Robb and Alesha and wearing sunglasses, she said she has been given a 'second chance of life' after receiving the face of 31-year-old Adrea Schneider who died of a drug overdose.

Her mother told the programme how the ordeal has affected them, saying: 'It blew us off the map, but we have clung to one another and we've clung to our faith.

'We know that Katie had an impulsive moment and it changed her life and it changed all of our lives. But we're so grateful she's alive and neurologically she's all there.

'We've still got a journey ahead, though.'

Her father Robb added: 'It's been a challenge, something that step by step, day by day we have been able to go through each of the situations and we are very thankful that as we have encountered each challenge we are able to make it.

Appearing on the programme with her parents Robb and Alesha (pictured with her) she said she has been given a 'second chance of life' after receiving the face of 31-year-old Adrea Schneider who died of a drug overdose

Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, USA are pictured during her life-saving operation

'We have come a long way and we've still got a long way to go  but so far so good.'

A special edition of National Geographic with images of her transplant will be available from September 5 and will also feature Katie Piper, the British TV personality whose face was left disfigured by a horrific acid attack.

The Stubblefield family also called Sandra Bennington, their daughter's face donor's grandmother, a 'saint'.

Robb said: 'She's the one who ultimately made the decision. We met her a number of months after transplant. Shes just a saint.

'Shes a grandmotherly kind of person, a beautiful person. She says 'why not a face?'

'A face is so important, so why not donate that?'

She is one of 40 people worldwide to have undergone the procedure, but surgeons who treated her believe she had the worst injuries of any patient to date, requiring one of the most extensive transplants yet undertaken.
A five-year-old boy died from after his mother locked him in a stifling car for two hours while she went for a job interview.

When Olesya Yeletskova, 35, returned to her car in Stupino, near Moscow, she found her son Oleg Gusev dead.

The temperature was 24C (75.2F) and she had locked her Kia Cerato with the windows shut. The child was strapped in a car seat.

Olesya Yeletskova's son (pictured together) died after she left him locked in a car for two hours while she went for a job interview

After finding her son dead, the distraught mother - who was seeking a job in a fibreglass factory - was hospitalised with a 'nervous breakdown', law enforcement sources said.

An unnamed witness said: 'I came to my shift and saw police and a woman in tears in the car park.

'It turned out she came to get a job at our company, and left her five-year-old son in a locked car.

The 35-year-old woman had locked her Kia Cerato with her son (pictured) strapped in a car seat

After finding her son dead, the distraught mother was hospitalised with a 'nervous breakdown', sources said

'He choked and there was no-one to help him.

'The woman looked normal. Probably, she just did not think.'

Police have opened a criminal case into causing death by negligence. If convicted, the mother could face up to two years in jail.

A Russian law passed last year bans leaving children alone in a car.

The woman and her husband Alexey Gusev (pictured with their son) were seen as good parents

Moscow region children's ombudsman Ksenia Mishonova said: 'The mother went to the factory for a job interview leaving the boy in a closed car.

'When she returned after two hours, the child no longer showed signs of life.

'The causes of death and all the circumstances of the incident are being clarified.'

The woman and her husband Alexey Gusev, 31, were seen as good parents.

'We have repeatedly told parents that it is dangerous to leave children in a car, even for a short time.

'Such unaccountable negligence of adults towards children leads, unfortunately, to tragedies.'
Loosening Tory leadership rules to smooth the path for Boris Johnson would risk 'swamping' the party with entryists, Lord Hague warned today.

The former Foreign Secretary insisted the Conservative grassroots should not be given too much weight in any future contest.

The intervention comes after Tory Remainers raised fears about the threat of ex-Ukip supporters flooding in to ensure the next leader is a 'hard' Brexiteer.

Currently MPs whittle the field of leadership candidates down to two, before activists get a chance to decide the final winner.

But backers of Mr Johnson want any MP with the support of 20 colleagues to go through to the final ballot - reflecting the fact that his support is stronger among the rank and file than in the Commons.

Backers of Boris Johnson (pictured in London last week) want any MP with the support of 20 colleagues to go through to the Tory leadership run-off - reflecting the fact that his support is stronger among the rank and file than in the Commons

Writing for the Daily Telegraph, Lord Hague pointed out that similar changes in Labour had opened the door to Jeremy Corbyn taking charge.

The hard-left surge had threatened to tear the party to shreds, and left democracy 'fundamentally weaker'.

Theresa May to quit: What happens next? How does a leadership election work? The election to find Theresa May's replacement is held in two stages with up to 20 Tory MPs expected to try to stand. To join the battle, any candidate requires two other MPs to sign forms agreeing to be their proposer and a seconder. The race will start on June 7 and is expected last around six weeks with the new leader in place by the end of July. Mrs May is expected to remain as Prime Minister until a successor is appointed and ready to be confirmed by the Queen. How are candidates eliminated? Conservative MPs will hold a series of head-to-head ballots to whittle the list of contenders down to a final two, with the lowest placed candidate dropping out in each round. Who votes on the final two? There will then be a series of hustings involving the two final candidates - probably in all regions of the UK - and a TV debate could also be held. It is then the Tory members across the country step in. They will then have around a fortnight to vote via postal ballot - which Mrs May avoided after rival Andrea Leadsom dropped out of the race. The last time a postal vote was held was in 2005, when David Cameron grabbed the leadership. Advertisement

Lord Hague, a former foreign secretary, said Mr Johnson was 'currently thought to be more popular with the party members than with parliamentarians'.

But he warned it would put too much power in the hands of Tory activists, who he says 'are often the first to point out that they are not remotely representative of society at large or even of their voters'.

He highlighted a call by Leave.EU, a hard Brexit campaign group, for its supporters to 'flood' the Conservative Party to ensure a 'true Brexiteer' like Mr Johnson becomes prime minister.

Lord Hague's reform gave party members the deciding vote in a leadership contest for the first time.

He said he had hoped the rules would lead to the revival of the Conservative grassroots but had been proved 'spectacularly wrong' after membership of the party halved to its current level of 124,000.

'A small membership is then at risk at any time of being swamped by a sudden influx of new recruits - the very thing that happened in Labour in 2015,' he said.

'Having not thought to include the three-month membership requirement in their own new rules and having all candidates put to the whole party, Labour's former leaders inadvertently produced the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, complete with extremism, anti-Semitism, divisiveness and the impossibility of removing him.

'The result of what might be thought of as a more perfect and open democracy in Labour is that British democracy as a whole is now fundamentally weaker, since there is currently no moderate, easily electable alternative to the government of the day.'

He also drew parallels with the US, where open primaries replaced the influence of senators and governors, leaving voters with a choice of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.
Kim Jong-un has vented his fury over North Korea's dismal health services, uneven roads and 'idle' officials - after attending the funeral of his late father's military chief.

The dictator, standing in the pouring rain in Pyongyang, paid tribute to the 'glorious life' of Kim Yong-chun, who collapsed and died of a heart attack on Thursday.

Kim looked sombre at the state funeral yesterday in honour of his father Kim Jong-il's influential military leader.

This morning, the dictator resumed his leadership duties as he took aim at his country's health sector and infrastructure.

Kim Jong-un has vented his fury over North Korea's dismal health services, uneven roads and 'idle' officials - after attending the funeral of his late father's military chief. The dictator, standing in the pouring rain (pictured), paid tribute to the 'glorious life' of Kim Yong-chun, who collapsed and died of a heart attack on Thursday

Kim (pictured back centre in the funeral procession) looked sombre at the state funeral yesterday in honour of his father Kim Jong-il's influential military leader

Kim Yong-chun (pictured), of Kim Jong-Il's top military chiefs) died on Thursday after suffering a heart attack

He hit out at officials for being 'very idle and irresponsible' insisting there is 'nothing to be proud of in the public health sector'.

It was the latest salvo of public criticism unleashed as part of his campaign to jumpstart economic development in the impoverished hermit state.

Impoverished and isolated North Korea, which is subject to multiple sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its pursuit of nuclear weapons, suffers from chronic food shortages and inadequate health services according to international aid agencies.

Hospitals lack medicines, equipment, and trained staff.

Since a June summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore - where Kim lauded the city-state's economic progress and 'world-class' amenities - North Korea's authoritarian leader has been on a blitz of visits to various industrial sites and factories, often criticising sluggish development.

This morning, the dictator resumed his leadership duties as he took aim at his country's health sector and infrastructure. He is pictured today at Myohyangsan Medical Appliances Factory

During a visit to the Myohyangsan Medical Appliances Factory in North Phyongan province northeast of the capital Pyongyang, Kim strongly condemned the lack of visible modernisation at the factory, state media outlet KCNA said on Tuesday

During a visit to the Myohyangsan Medical Appliances Factory in North Phyongan province northeast of the capital Pyongyang, Kim strongly condemned the lack of visible modernisation at the factory, state media outlet KCNA said on Tuesday.

Kim promised personal attention to the work of updating the factory in keeping with the goal to 'radically' improve 'domestic production, automation and modernisation,' KCNA said.

In another site inspection to Samjiyon, a northern county near China, Kim criticised poor workmanship on a railway to the border with China to be completed next year, calling for even roadbeds, accident-free construction and increased electricity production, according to a KCNA report on Sunday.

After launching a number of ballistic missiles last year - including one believed to be capable of striking anywhere in the United States - Kim has since suspended his testing programmes and embarked on an effort to spur economic development in his politically and economically isolated country.

North Korea argues that its move to end missile and nuclear weapons testing should be acknowledged by easing international sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council and a number of countries because of the weapons programmes.

During a recent trip to Wonsan, Kim said the ongoing construction of a coastal tourist area there represented 'an acute standoff with hostile forces trying to stifle the Korean people through brigandish sanctions and blockade,' describing the construction as 'a do-or-die struggle' in 'such a difficult time as now,' KCNA reported last week.

To press North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programmes, the U.N. Security Council banned North Korea's sale of coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood in a bid to slash by a third the country's $3 billion annual export incomes, while capping imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products.

The United States, which has led the sanctions campaign, has also stepped up its own sanctions on North Korea, and says it won't ease pressure until North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons.
This is the sickening moment a helpless tourist was repeatedly gored, tossed and trampled on by an enraged bull when a Spanish festival went horribly wrong.

The man was savaged at the 'Bous al Carrer' (Bulls on the Street) festival in the village of Ademuz near Valenica in eastern Spain last Tuesday.

Shocking smartphone footage shows the bull, with flaming wooden balls attached to its horns, repeatedly goring and trampling on the man in the town centre.

This is the horrific moment a bull attacked a tourist by repeatedly goring and tossing him into the air during a bull-running festival

Onlookers desperately tried to distract the bull - but the beast kept attacking before leaving the man lying still on the ground.

The 45-year-old man, whose name has not been released, is being treated in the intensive care unit of a hospital in the nearby city of Zaragoza.

Doctors say he received multiple injuries, including a brain clot, but he is responding to treatment and will survive.

The tourist, who was staying in the nearby village of Campillos de la Sierra, had come to Ademuz for the party that marks the last day of the festival, which was suspended following the incident.

Local officials said all of the correct safety precautions had been followed and the man had been rushed by ambulance to a hospital in the city of Teruel before he was transferred to Zaragoza.

The 45-year-old was savaged at the 'Bous al Carrer' (Bulls on the Street) festival in the village of Ademuz near Valenica in eastern Spain last Tuesday

Onlookers desperately tried to distract the bull - but the beast kept attacking

'He was not a rookie, he had participated at other times, he is an amateur who usually comes at this time,' a spokesman for Ademuz Town Hall said.

The festival takes place every August in the town. It's common for the bulls to have flammable balls attached to their horns so they are on fire as they run through the town, adding to the spectacle.

The attack happened within days of an incident at another bull-running festival in the village of Chiva, also in Valencia, where a bull charged spectators in a narrow street after it escaped when one of them slapped it on the body.

Two people had to be taken by ambulance to hospital but neither of them suffered serious injuries.
Indonesian children took part in a street parade wearing niqabs and carrying replica weapons.

A video of the event, showing children dressed head-to-toe in black, marching with wooden guns, was uploaded onto social media and sparked outrage as it went viral.

The group of about 15 kindergarten students were taking part in a parade for Indonesia's independence day in Probolinggo, East Java. Authorities have tried to defend the parade.

Video footage shows some 15 kindergarten students dressed in black face veils and holding fake guns during a parade in Probolinggo, East Java

Indonesia's education minister Muhajir Effendy told local media that the parade had been 'misinterpreted'.

The Kartika kindergarten, which is located inside a military complex in Probolinggo, said the costumes were resurrected from storage to save parents the cost of buying new ones.

It denied that the gun replicas and full-body veils promoted extremism.

'I never meant to teach violence to my students,' said school principal Suhartatik, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. 'We only used the props that we already had to cut costs for parents. I deeply apologise.'

The costumes had been used in previous parades to teach students about the prophet Muhammad's faith and beliefs, she added.

Indonesia's education minister Muhajir Effendy told local media that the parade had been 'misinterpreted'

But the principal's explanation was met with derision on Indonesian social media.

'Nobody carried assault rifles in the prophet's time - is this teacher that clueless about history or was she just trying to dodge the blame?' one user posted on Twitter.

Another tweeted: 'Obviously the seeds of ISIS are being nurtured early on.'

Probolinggo police chief Alfian Nurrizal said they were investigating who uploaded the video.

He said it may have been edited to convey the wrong impression, and that the person behind it would be arrested.

The incident came as Indonesia looks to promote itself as host of the 18th Asian Games, the world's biggest multi-sport tournament after the Olympics.

Indonesia has endured a spate of deadly militant violence in recent years.

The 17,000 island archipelago, which has the world's biggest Muslim population, suffered its worst terror attack in a decade in May after ISIS-inspired Islamist militants attacked several churches.

The incident in Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, saw militants used their children as suicide bombers.

Indonesia's deadliest terror attack was the 2002 Bali bombing which killed over 200 people.
Jeremy Hunt today warned EU leaders that a 'messy divorce' from Britain will be 'terrible' for the bloc.

The Foreign Secretary delivered the stark message as he urged Brussels to realise the 'importance' of the UK for its 'security and prosperity'.

Delivering a speech in Washington, Mr Hunt stressed the need to present a united front against challenges such as Russian aggression.

But he admitted that the chances of negotiations collapsing were 'not negligible', even though it would be 'terrible for the EU project'.

In a speech in Washington today, Jeremy Hunt warned European leaders to stand together with Britain and US amid Russian aggression

Mr Hunt insisted he was 'cautiously optimistic' that there will be a Brexi t deal 'in the end'

'One of the biggest threats to European unity would be a chaotic no-deal Brexit,' he said.

'Britain would, of course, find a way to prosper and we have faced many greater challenges in our history.

'We will always be a dependable ally for the US and all countries that share our values.

'But the risk of a messy divorce, as opposed to the friendship we seek, would be a fissure in relations between European allies that would take a generation to heal - a geostrategic error for Europe at an extremely vulnerable time in our history.

'So, as I have been saying to European governments, now is the time for the European Commission to engage with an open mind with the fair and constructive proposals made by the Prime Minister.'

Earlier, Mr Hunt insisted that the EU had to follow their 'hearts' by compromising with the UK.

'The challenge we have is that for EU countries there is a tension between their heart and their head,' Mr Hunt told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

'In their hearts they want to give Britain a good deal because they know how important we have been for the security and prosperity of Europe in the post-war period.

'But in their heads they're worried that if they give us a good deal other countries will follow suit.'

In his speech, Mr Hunt urged European and American allies to speak with 'one voice' against aggressive actions by Russia 'whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea'.

In a rebuke to Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, the Foreign Secretary demanded fresh sanctions from the EU on 'malign' Moscow.

While Britain is tied to Brussels it can only impose sanctions as part of the EU and must wait on other members before action is taken. After Brexit, the UK will be able to take its own foreign policy decisions.

EU nations including Germany and France were among dozens of countries that expelled Russian diplomats following March's Novichok nerve agent attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury.

The attack also resulted in the death of a British woman, Dawn Sturgess. But some EU leaders have since reached out to President Putin's regime.

German chancellor Mrs Merkel held talks with the Russian leader in her country on Saturday after he had first stopped in Austria to attend the wedding of the country's foreign minister Karin Kneissl.

French president Mr Macron has travelled to St Petersburg to call on Russia to work 'hand-in-hand' with Europe.

And Italy has questioned whether sanctions imposed over the 2014 annexation of Crimea should continue.

Mr Hunt's visit follows the historic and controversial summit between the Russian president and Donald Trump in Helsinki.

German chancellor Mrs Merkel held talks with the Russian leader in her country on Saturday after he had first stopped in Austria to attend the wedding of the country's foreign minister

In a speech at the US Institute of Peace, Mr Hunt said under Mr Putin, Russia's 'aggressive and malign behaviour undermines the international order that keeps us safe'.

He said: 'Of course we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt: Russia's foreign policy under President Putin has made the world a more dangerous place.

'And today, the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US.

'That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea.'

The Foreign Secretary's three-day visit to the US is expected to include talks with senior Trump administration officials such as secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Jared Kushner, the president's adviser and son-in-law.

Among the discussion topics are Iran, North Korea, Syria, Yemen and the Middle East peace process, the Foreign Office said.

Mr Hunt will then travel to New York, where on Thursday he is due to address the United Nations Security Council and discuss the fight against Islamic State.

No deal: Migrants 'can stay'

Ministers could give the 3.8million EU migrants living in Britain the right to remain even under a no-deal Brexit scenario.

Leaked Cabinet papers claim it would enable the Government to take the 'moral high ground'.

The move was said to reflect fears of potential labour shortages once Britain is outside the EU.

Ministers could give the 3.8million EU migrants living in Britain the right to remain even under a no-deal Brexit scenario (pictured Spanish Maritime Rescue Services ship carrying 274 rescued migrants arrives at the port of Algeciras, southern Spain in August 2018)

The details would be set out in technical notes due to be published by the Government setting out its preparations for a no-deal break across a range of sectors, The Daily Telegraph reported.

It will mean EU citizens in the UK could continue to access the NHS and benefits, regardless of whether Britons in the EU are granted reciprocal rights.

Downing Street said securing the rights of EU citizens in the UK had been 'a priority right from the get-go'.
The Rowntree trust was set up in 1904 by York-based philanthropist and confectionary maker Joseph Rowntree to deal with 'weakness and evil in the community'

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust is facing questions over funding for a charity with ties to a dissident republican terrorist group.

The Quaker trust has given more than 385,000 to Conflict Resolution Services Ireland (CRSI).

But according to the Times the organisation - which offers a mediation service to those threatened by paramilitaries - has been under investigation by the charities watchdog in Northern Ireland.

Its offices in Belfast are said to have been raided twice by counter-terrorism police amid claims of links to dissident group Oglaigh na hEireann (ONH).

The Rowntree trust insists it rejects all violence and grants support 'dialogue with republicans outside the peace process'. The CRSI declined to comment.

The latest allegations come after the Charity Commission demanded the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust 'explain and justify' giving the funding to Teach na Failte, which was founded by the Irish Republican Socialist Party, the political wing of the Irish National Liberation Army.

The INLA was formed in 1974 during The Troubles and has been involved in bombings and shootings in Northern Ireland and London, including the killing of shadow Northern Ireland secretary Airey Neave in Westminster in 1979.

It emerged last month that the Rowntree trust had been giving money to Teach na Failte since 2014 and handed over a grant of 125,000 last year.

Doug Beattie, the Ulster Unionist justice spokesman, told The Times that CRSI was 'clearly linked to dissident republicans who are still going about their reign of terror on the streets of Northern Ireland'.

The Rowntree trust said the CRSI worked 'in very difficult circumstances to provide mediation services for those under threat of paramilitary punishment attacks'.

The Trust said it had 'no relationship with any armed groups or proscribed organisations'.

'JRCT supports a range of organisations that seek to help deal with the legacy of conflict-related violence in Northern Ireland in order to build a society that is characterised by peace and security for all,' a statement said.

'The ongoing peace process in Northern Ireland has required engaging with those previously involved in conflict and now committed to peace, in order to facilitate a transition to purely democratic and peaceful society.

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust was already facing questions over 275,000 given to a group linked to the Irish National Liberation Army, connected to terror attacks during the Troubles. Pictured: The remains of the car where shadow Northern Ireland secretary Airey Neave was killed in 1979

'Such work has been supported by many funders. To criticise the principle of this work is to criticise the foundations on which the peace process has been built.'

The statement added: 'CRSI works in very difficult circumstances to provide mediation services for those under threat of paramilitary punishment attacks by armed groups. These mediation services are supported by a number of funders, including JRCT...

'CRSI have also made a significant contribution by their engagement with republicans who are outside of the peace process in efforts to reduce conflict. They have used a variety of peacebuilding methods to work towards this goal.'

Approached by MailOnline, CRSI said it had nothing to add to the statement from the Trust.
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A photographer with a passion for wild animals was able to get up close and personal with one of natures most powerful beasts to prove they are not as scary as people think.

Alex Suh has travelled to the Banco Chinchorro reef, in Mexico, three times in the past three years to get into the waters and capture the crocodiles in their natural habitat.

The pictures, taken in July, show the photographer just inches away from the carnivorous crocs who seem more than happy to pose for the camera.

Alex, who works in shark conservation and is the founder of Save My Fin, is a strong believer that humans and wild animals can co-exist and that crocodiles are not automatic killers.

The American crocodile can only be found within the US in Florida and has experienced a resurgence after nearly disappearing from the state entirely during the 1970s.

Numbers of the fearsome creatures have climbed to around 2,000 - up from a meager 700 crocodiles 40 years ago.

Crocodiles had been endangered up until 2007 because they were hunted for their skin which was often made into fashion accessories.

Alex Suh was able to get incredibly close to the jaws of the beasts as he got up close and personal for the photograph series

Remarkable photos show Suh swimming underneath the potentially deadly wild animals as he used special apparatus to take the pictures

Suh's underwater cameras managed to capture an intimate glimpse into the lives of the crocodiles which he believes are widely misunderstood

Crocodiles were upgraded from 'endangered' to 'threatened' in the US back in 2007 as their numbers have recovered since almost disappearing in the 1970s

Suh and his assistants used the photo series as an opportunity to prove that the creatures can be safe to live alongside despite their reputation

Suh (pictured left) has started a photography blog entitled 'Save My Fin' which aims to show that sharks and crocs are not the killers they are made out to be

In some of the photos Suh gets so close to the animals that it is possible to see all the way inside their gaping jaws past their sharp teeth
The widow of a Welsh politician who hanged himself following groping allegations has hit out at the 'cover-up' over the circumstances around her husband's death.

Carl Sargeant, 49, was found dead at his home in Connah's Quay four days after he was sacked over allegations of 'inappropriate touching'.

His family are angry at moves which could bar them from an inquiry set up to investigate the actions of Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones before the death.

The wife of Welsh politician Carl Sargeant (pictured together) has launched a legal challenge against the terms of an inquiry into the political decisions made before he hanged himself

Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones is to stand down in autumn following criticism of his actions before Mr Sargeant (right) was found dead

They have now lodged an application at the High Court in London, seeking a judicial review of the way the inquiry was set up and rules on how it will be heard.

Speaking publicly for the first time since her husband died, Mr Sargeant's wife Bernie said today: 'I'm so disappointed that I have been forced to take this action.

'I had thought after Carl's death that I, and my young family, would be treated with honesty and respect. Yet, we can't help but feeling we are looking at a cover-up.

'We have a right to be able to hear and challenge the evidence. Please believe me, we are not trying to be obstructive, we just want to get to the truth and feel that we have a great deal to offer the inquiry. We don't want to be excluded.

'It's been over nine months since Carl's death and we're no further forward in getting answers than we were last November.

'All I want is to understand and process why my husband is no longer here. This whole thing just adds agony to heartbreak, but I owe it to Carl to get the full picture.'

Mrs Sargeant, pictured with her husband and their children Lucy and Jack, says the way the inquiry has been set up makes it feel like a 'cover-up'

Mrs Sargeant is challenging the decision to bar the family's lawyers from being able to question witnesses at the inquiry, prevent oral evidence from being heard in public and to allow the investigator to bar to keep the family out of hearings.

Mrs Sargeant's lawyer Neil Hudgell said the First Minister, the Permanent Secretary and the inquiry chair had ignored the family's concerns.

He added: 'Aside from the ongoing and very obvious distress this is causing Bernie and her family, we now have no other option but to seek a judicial review.'

Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones is to stand down in the autumn following the controversy.

Mr Sargeant was found dead at his home in Connahs Quay, North Wales, four days after he was sacked by Mr Jones following allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards women

Responding to criticisms of the inquiry, a spokesman for the First Minister told The Guardian: 'This is not, and was never intended to be, a public inquiry. Nor is it an investigation into the tragic death of Carl Sargeant. That is a matter for the inquest, which is expected to take place in the autumn.

'The first minister established this investigation voluntarily, solely and specifically to give independent scrutiny of the actions and decisions which he took in relation to Carl Sargeant at the time of the ministerial reshuffle last November.

'Independence is assured by the appointment of a QC who will have access to all the evidence and will have the opportunity to cross-examine the first minister and other witnesses.

'The process is also designed to protect the confidentiality of the women who had made complaints about the behaviour of Carl Sargeant when he was a minister in the Welsh government.'
A university PhD graduate is set to become a millionaire after his biotech company was sold for more than 620million to a global healthcare giant.

Ziylo - a firm created by Professor Anthony Davis, his former PhD student Harry Destecroix and businessman Tom Smart - has been bought by Novo Nordisk of Denmark.

The University of Bristol said the deal for its spin-out firm could transform diabetes treatment by leading to the world's first glucose-responsive insulin being developed.

As the majority stakeholder in the firm with 23 per cent, Dr Destecroix could stand to make 143million from the deal.

According to a Companies House shareholders document, Professor Davis could make even more, with slightly more shares to his name, than his student.

Professor Anthony Davis (left) and his former PhD student Harry Destecroix have worked together on Ziylo at the University of Bristol, and it has now been sold for 623million

Ziylo's glucose binding molecules are synthetic molecules designed by Rrof Davis (right, pictured in the laboratory with Dr Destecroix)

Dr Destecroix (far right), whose company's work could lead to the development of the world's first glucose-responsive insulin, is pictured working in the lab

Dr Destecroix, 31, who lives in a detached house worth 285,000 in Bristol's affluent suburb of Redland, admitted on Twitter that he was 'really excited' by the deal.

The company is owned by its investors and directors, including Dr Destecroix  and 623million is the total potential deal value over ten years.

This is said to be dependent on clinical and regulatory milestones being met during the next decade, after which any profits made would be distributed to all the shareholders.

There are about 30 stakeholders involved, which include the co-founders, angel investors and the University of Bristol.

Companies House records dating back to May show that Dr Destecroix owned 23 per cent of the firm's shares, which would on paper be worth 143million at the sale price.

Other major shareholders include Prof Davis, who owned roughly the same - Mr Smart and the university, who each owned about 7 per cent worth 45million.

More than 382million people worldwide, including four million in Britain, are said to have diabetes, which is a metabolic disorder affecting blood sugar levels.

The company is owned by its investors and directors, including Dr Destecroix (pictured)  and 623million is the total potential deal value over ten years

Dr Destecroix (left, seen with colleague Michael Tomsett) has had great success with his firm

Everyone with Type 1 diabetes and some people with Type 2 diabetes needs to take insulin, either by injection or a pump, to control their blood glucose levels.

What is glucose responsive insulin? Ziylo's Glucose Binding Molecules are synthetic molecules that detect sugar levels in the blood. According to the company, they can be thought of as nano-sized sugar switches, which only 'turn on' if glucose levels rise in the bloodstream. When glucose levels return to normal, the molecule's insulin becomes inactive, which reduces a diabetic's risk of hypoglycaemia. This is known as glucose responsive insulin. Hypoglycemia occurs when blood sugar levels fall below normal levels, leading to clumsiness and difficulty talking, as well seizures and even death. Advertisement

Ziylo has developed technology which could help enable the next generation of insulin which would be able to react and adapt to glucose levels in the blood.

This would eliminate the risk of dangerously low blood sugar levels, known as hypoglycaemia, and give people with the condition better metabolic control.

Davis Research Group scientists in the university's school of chemistry had been working on the problem for years before Ziylo was established as a start-up in 2014.

Ziylo's glucose binding molecules are synthetic molecules that were designed by Prof Davis, who has been researching synthetic sugar receptors for 20 years.

Dr Destecroix, Ziylo's chief executive, said: 'Novo Nordisk, as the leader in the diabetes field, is the ideal company to maximise the potential of the Ziylo's glucose binding molecules in glucose responsive insulins and diabetes applications, and it brings hope of a truly ground-breaking treatment to diabetes patients.'

Dr Destecroix (far right) with the research team at the Univesity of Bristol's school of chemistry

The team at Unit DX in Bristol, including 31-year-old former PhD student Dr Destecroix (far left)

The acquisition announced last week gives Novo Nordisk full rights to Ziylo's glucose binding molecule platform to develop glucose responsive insulins.

Who are the new Ziylo owners Novo Nordisk? Novo Nordisk is a global healthcare company set up nearly a century ago with the aim of developing products to help those to diabetes. It was formed out of two companies called Nordisk Insulinlaboratorium and Novo Terapeutisk Laboratorium, which were founded in the mid-1920s. They were producing the revolutionary new drug insulin which had just been discovered by two Canadian scientists. The firms spent decades competing with each other before merging in 1989 to create Novo Nordisk. The firm now also works on developing obesity care, haemophilia care, growth hormone therapy and hormone replacement therapy. The company is based in Bagsvrd, eight miles north of Copenhagen.It employs 43,100 people across 79 countries, but markets its products in more than twice that number. Advertisement

The development of glucose responsive insulins is a key area for Novo Nordisk in its effort to develop a next generation of insulin which would lead to a safer and more effective insulin therapy.

Prof Davis added: 'The glucose responsive insulin we will develop with Novo Nordisk combines a natural molecule (insulin) with an artificial component (Ziylo's glucose binding molecules).

'This combination of natural and unnatural could be a new approach to biodesign. These unique molecules were inspired by nature and work in much the same way as natural glucose receptors.

'A group of chemists, called supramolecular chemists, have been working on this problem for many years.

'Often, they make molecules which behave quite like natural molecules, but usually they don't work quite well enough for real-world applications.

'The success of the Ziylo molecules shows that, with persistence, the problems can be solved and that biological molecules can be matched as well as mimicked.'

Professor Nishan Canagarajah, pro vice-chancellor for research at the university, said: 'The university is proud of its cutting-edge research which has potential to generate major societal impact.

Dr Destecroix was born in Winchester in 1987 and earned his doctorate in chemistry in 2014

Unit DX, a science incubator in Bristol which was set up by the founders of Ziylo last year

What is Dr Harry Destecroix's firm Ziylo? Ziylo was created by University of Bristol Professor Anthony Davis, his former PhD student Harry Destecroix and businessman Tom Smart. The spin-out firm has developed synthetic molecules which bind to glucose in the bloodstream to help diabetics control their condition. It eliminates the risk of low blood sugar which can lead to death in the severest cases. The glucose-binding molecules were designed by Prof Davis. Ziylo has received 2million in funding since its formation from angel investors and government grants. Dr Destecroix said the firm's new owners Novo Nordisk could start clinical trials of products based on Ziylos technology within three years. Advertisement

'It is gratifying to see our research being developed to the point where it has the potential to make a real difference to people's lives.

'The acquisition of Ziylo by Novo Nordisk will allow this technology to take the next leap forward.

'Well done to the team at Ziylo and to Professor Davis and his team at the university for getting to this exciting point.'

Dr Destecroix was born in Winchester in 1987 and used to live in the quaint Hampshire village of Liss. He earned his doctorate in chemistry four years ago.

He was responsible for setting up Unit DX last year, a science incubator in Bristol where up to 100 experts work in 16 laboratories across a 15,000 sq ft facility.

Writing last November, he said: 'At home, when my parents told me I couldn't do something, I asked them why. It was the same at school, and it's been the same in my professional life.'

** Do you know Dr Destecroix? Please email: tips@mailonline.co.uk **
A four-year-old girl dangerously leaned out of a third-floor window in an attempt to rescue her three-year-old brother after he got stuck on the air-conditioning unit.

Residents who witnessed the heart-stopping incident said the boy was dangling off the flat's aircon unit nearly nine metres (30 feet) above ground while his sister desperately tried to pull him back inside.

They were eventually both rescued by their parents who rushed back to the flat in Xinzheng city.

The boy in central China's Xinzheng city was dangling off the flat's aircon unit nearly nine metres (30 feet) above ground on Sunday while his sister desperately tried to pull him back in

The children were left at home alone and neighbours could not open the locked door

Video footage of the incident on Sunday showed the boy swaying dangerously while clinging onto the aircon unit of his flat at about 7pm.

Horrified onlookers immediately held a large curtain below the boy in case he falls.

'The little girl was trying to climb out of the window as well. It was so scary,' a shop owner who witnessed the incident told Henan Radio and Television Station City Channel.

Horrified onlookers immediately held a large curtain below the boy in case he falls

Finally, the siblings' parents arrived home and were able to pull them back to safety

'Everyone was yelling at the boy, telling him to go back inside,' another nearby resident said. 'We were so afraid that he might loose his grip.'

The children were left at home alone and neighbours couldn't open the locked door, according to the report.

Finally, their parents arrived home and were able to pull them both back to safety. They were not injured.
A visitor to an Anish Kapoor exhibition in Portugal was hospitalised after falling into one of the British artist's installations.

The visitor, an Italian man in his 60s, was injured after toppling into an 8ft (2.5m) deep hole at the Serralves museum in Porto, Publico reports.

He was taken to hospital with back injuries, but has since been discharged.

A visitor to an Anish Kapoor exhibition in Portugal was hospitalised after falling into one of the British artist's installations. Pictured, Kapoor and curator Suzanne Cotter stand next to Descent into Limbo at the Serralves museum in Porto

The installation in question is Descent into Limbo  a seemingly bottomless hole in the centre of the floor in a large cube with a single door.

The hole is actually only about 8ft deep, but the sides have been painted with a dark black paint to give it the illusion of being a bottomless abyss.

Since there are no ropes or barriers around the work, visitors are made to sign a waiver acknowledging the safety risk, a museum spokesman said.

There were also warning signs and a gallery assistant in the room, the spokesman told The Times.

Visitors are seen outside the cube structure of Descent into Limbo during the presentation to the press of 'Anish Kapoor: Works, Thoughts, Experiments' exhibition in Serralves Museum

The installation has been closed since the incident to improve security, but should reopen in a few days.

Repairs will also be made to the work after it sustained a 'little bit' of damage when the man fell into it.

Kapoor (pictured) has been informed of the incident, but is not believed to be in Portugal

Kapoor has been informed of the incident, but is not believed to be in Portugal, the spokesman added.

The work, originally created in 1992, is part of Kapoor's first major show in Portugal.

Previous visitors to Kapoor's exhibitions have questioned whether Descent into Limbo featured an actual hole or whether it was just a circle painted with black paint.

The sculptor, whose works include Chicago's bean-like Cloud Gate and the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford London, sparked controversy two years ago when he bought the exclusive rights to use Vantablack.

Vantablack  the darkest pigment ever created  is able to absorb 99.6 per cent of the light that hits it.

Anish Kapoor: Works, Thoughts and Experiments is on at the Serralves museum until January.
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Incredible images have revealed a group of British foundry workers enjoying themselves on the factory floor during the 1950s despite the heavy duty work and the real austerity of post WW2 Britain.

Despite the hardships endured by workers during this period, where many returned from war only to face a nation devastated by the Blitz and rationing still in place, the stunning photos show workers having fun.

They can be seen dancing on the shop floor, smiling for the camera and even kissing each other.

Incredible images show foundry factory workers kicking back and enjoying themselves at work despite the hardships of post-war Britain. Pictured: A man making his own music by pretending to play a piece of equipment like a guitar

Many of the workers would have returned home from the war only to face a nation devastated by the Blitz and rationing still in place. The stunning photos show them finding the joy in everyday

Two smiling and smartly dressed women tear up the factory dance floor with their moves. Work coats can be seen in the background, reminding them of the important job of rebuilding Britain's economy

Another woman shows off her pins. These light-hearted shots show the comradery of the factory workers and the close friendships that must have been formed at the factory

The pictures were taken across two factory sites. Some came from inside the CVA No1 factory on Portland Road in Hove and the rest from CVA No3 factory on Coombe Road in Brighton

In contrast to often sombre modern office-environments, these light-hearted shots show the comradery of the factory workers, with one woman pulling up her skirt to reveal a stocking-ed leg, a man pretending to play a piece of equipment like a guitar and workers laughing and joking with each other.

Some of the photographs were taken in the foundry pattern shop of the now long gone CVA No1 factory on Portland Road in Hove.

The remaining photos are thought to have been taken in the CVA No3 factory on Coombe Road in Brighton. The building is now the Big Yellow Storage Company.

CVA, also known as the Machine Tool company, was founded just before the end of WWI but expanded over the years.

During World War II CVA's manufacturing expertise was used extensively towards the war effort. Because of this the Company expanded to a number of sites in the Brighton and Hove area.

After the war the company was one of the largest manufacturing employers in the area, employing well over 1000 people.

The vintage snaps seem to perfectly capture the spirit in post-war Britain as the population worked hard and played hard to get the country's economy going again.

A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mould, and removing the mould material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools.

The vintage snaps seem to perfectly capture the spirit in post-war Britain as the population worked hard and played hard to get the country's economy going again. Pictured a man fools around with some goggly eyes while having a cigarette

Two workers are snapped canoodling on the shop floor. The amazing images are thought to have been taken by by an amateur photographer, one of the foundry staff, who captured his colleagues at work and play

A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mould, and removing the mould material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools

Three workers share a moment of laughter. After WWII the company was one of the largest manufacturing employers in the area, employing well over 1000 people

Two female employees pose for a picture while at work - one still wearing her apron. The 1950s began with austerity and ended with affluence. Economic problems did not last long and by the middle of the 1950s, Britain's economy boomed

The 1950s began with austerity and ended with affluence. Economic problems did not last long and by the middle of the 1950s, Britain's economy boomed.

British industries were powering ahead of our European competitors. In 1950 Britain produced 75% of the world's cars.

A demand for skilled labour meant high wage packets and a new affluence for working people.

The Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, captured the spirit of the age when he said 'Some of our people have never had it so good'.

Television brought the biggest change to people's lives. In 1950 very few people had a TV set and large areas of the country were not covered by TV transmitters.

By 1959 three quarters of the population had access to a set. Other luxuries, such as washing machines and 'fridges, took second place and many people had to wait until the next decade for them.

British industries were powering ahead of European competitors during the 50s. A demand for skilled labour meant high wage packets and a new affluence for working people. Pictured couples embrace while at work

Two smartly dressed workers stare at the camera as others continue with their jobs around them. Many workers of the time were enjoying higher wages and the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, captured the spirit of the age when he said: 'Some of our people have never had it so good'

Lunchtime power nap: Some of the men take a well-deserved rest break and opt for a glance over the days paper and a quick nap instead of swirling around the factory floor
A Chinese nurse has been hailed as a hero after trying to save an injured elderly woman while still wearing her wedding dress.

Bride-to-be Xie Dan, rushed to perform CPR on the pensioner after witnessing a traffic accident on her way to have her wedding photos taken on Saturday, according to media reports.

The nurse later told the press modestly: 'I only did what I should have done.'

Xie Dan, a nurse from north-east China, squats to give the injured woman resuscitation. She has been hailed as a hero after trying to save the woman still wearing her wedding dress

The heart-warming scene took place in north-east China's Dalian city, according to a video report by Xinhua.

The elderly woman, in her 70s, had been knocked off her tricycle by a car and was seriously injured, Dalian traffic police told the local Peninsula Morning Post.

The woman died in the hospital later after doctors failed to save her. Nevertheless, Ms Xie's kind attempt to save her became widely reported in China.

It is said that Ms Xie's car happened to be passing the scene of the accident in Dalian's Wafangdian, and Ms Xie immediately jumped off her vehicle and started giving the pensioner resuscitation.

Peninsula Morning Post reported that Ms Xie is a nurse at the Wafangdian Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital. She left the rescue scene quietly after the paramedics arrived, it is reported.

Ms Xie later told the paper that she only did what she should have done.

A witness of the event told Xinhua that Ms Xie said if she hadn't stopped to try to save the woman, she would feel guilty.

The injured pensioner sustained severe injuries on the head and was taken to the hospital by an ambulance. She passed away in the hospital, Xinhua reported.

The heart-warming incident took place on Saturday in cosmopolitan Dalian (file photo)

Pictures and footage of Ms Xie's selfless act have been widely shared by media in China. The public has praised Ms Xie for her kindness and sent her warm wishes.

One user commented on Twitter-like Weibo: 'She is the prettiest bride.'

Another said: 'She has a beautiful face and an even more beautiful heart. I wish her happiness for the rest of her life.'

A third one said: 'Her charity would be rewarded.'
NHS trusts have warned that hospitals face running out of drugs in a chaotic no-deal Brexit, it was revealed today.

Poor co-ordination by ministers and health service bosses has resulted in a failure to prepare for a collapse in negotiations, according to a leaked letter from the group that represents hospital and ambulance services.

The intervention by NHS Providers came as Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab headed for Brussels in the latest attempt to break the deadlock in talks.

Fears have been rising about the potential for a no deal Brexit outcome, with the government dramatically stepping up contingency planning.

In his letter, NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said a hard Brexit could negatively effect 'the entire supply chain of pharmaceuticals' at hospitals (file picture)

In his letter, NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said a hard Brexit could negatively effect 'the entire supply chain of pharmaceuticals' and 'jeopardise' the EU citizens making up the 'workforce on which the NHS relies'.

'Public health and disease control co-ordination could suffer,' he said.

Mr Hopson's letter was sent to NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens and NHS Improvement chief Ian Dalton on Friday, and has been leaked to the Times and the BBC.

Mr Hopson said the possibility of a no-deal or hard Brexit 'with minimal regulatory alignment appears to be growing'.

'For as long as that risk remains, it is important that detailed operation planning is undertaken across the NHS,' he wrote.

'Yet trusts tell us that their work in this area is being hampered by the lack of visible and appropriate communication.

'Our members have begun planning ... but they have hit a problem, in that some activities are clearly best done at a national level and, in the view of trusts, are best co-ordinated by NHS England and NHS Improvement.

'However there has been no formal communication to trusts from either of your organisations on this issue.'

Mr Hopson warned it would be more 'efficient and effective' for ministers and the NHS bodies to work out a national contingency plan for trusts, rather than 'expecting trusts to develop contingency plans individually, in a vacuum, and have to reinvent the wheel 229 times'.

Mr Raab said he knew 'how committed' Mr Barnier was to finding a way through the impasse

At a joint press conference, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab and Michel Barnier (pictured) declared that talks would be taking place 'continuously' from now on

Mr Raab insisted he was still 'confident' that the two sides could strike a good Brexit deal

Poor national co-ordination, he added, could mean 'both stockpiles and shortages of medicines and medical devices'.

A spokesman for NHS Providers confirmed the letter was genuine but stressed it had not been leaked by his organisation.

'We have not leaked this letter,' he said. 'These conversations abougt Brexit are obviously something that happened between ourselves and the other organisations.

'This correspondence was private but it has been leaked and we are not saying anything further about it.'

Last month Mr Stevens said 'extensive' planning was taking place to prepare for a no-deal scenario.

'There is immediate planning which the health department, with other parts of Government, are undertaking around securing medicine supply and equipment under different scenarios,' he said.

'That will obviously crystallise when it's clear later this autumn what the UK's position will be.'

Mr Raab was in Brussels this afternoon for the latest round of negotiations with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier, which a Downing Street spokesman said would be 'resolving the few remaining withdrawal issues'.

On Thursday, the Government will publish the first of a series of technical notices, designed to help people and businesses prepare for a no-deal scenario.

Mr Raab will also give a speech outlining how the Government plans to mitigate the potential risks of leaving the EU without a deal and ensure continuity and stability.

The issue of EU nationals' residency will not be among more than 80 'no-deal' technical notices to be issued over the coming weeks.

Ending freedom of movement after Brexit risks 100,000 fewer adult social care workers by 2026, the think tank Global Future warned. Currently 17% of social care staff in England, or 220,000, are from overseas.

An NHS spokeswoman said: 'Ensuring the NHS is prepared for every potential outcome of Brexit is a priority.

'Government leads on contingency planning for different scenarios and we are working with them on this and ensuring NHS voices are heard.

'We will be working with our colleagues and partners across the NHS to ensure plans are well progressed, and we will provide the NHS with the support it needs.'

Meanwhile, arch-Brexiteers announced they have set up a new alliance of 10 groups, the Brexit Advance Coalition, supporting the hardest Brexit, involving the Bow Group, British Friends of Trump and Get Britain Out.

Bow Group chairman Ben Harris-Quinney said his message to Theresa May is clear: 'Your Chequers policy needs to change, or the Government needs to change.

'We may differ on some issues, but we are all united under our three founding principles that we feel are crucial to seeing a full Brexit achieved.'
Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith has said that packed lunches should be banned as children put pressure on their parents to fill them with unhealthy food.

Leith also said there should be better food education in schools as not enough children are being taught to cook and understand where food comes from.

But the veteran presenter and chef was criticised by some who accused her of ignoring the realities of food poverty.

Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith (pictured) has said that packed lunches should be banned as children put pressure on their parents to fill them with unhealthy food

In an interview with Radio Times, she said: 'Very few parents give out healthy lunchboxes due to pressure from their children.'

'The most important thing is to teach children to cook at schools. And not only to cook but to understand about where their food comes from.'

She added: 'I had this argument with Michael Gove when he was education secretary. I said, 'if you made it part of the curriculum and part of the schools' responsibility to address the lack of children's knowledge on food and eating  you can justify that.'

Leith also spoke about the fuss that was made when Bake Off moved from the BBC to Channel 4, adding that it 'now seemed totally unnecessary'.

In an interview with Radio Times, Leith said: 'Very few parents give out healthy lunchboxes due to pressure from their children' (stock image)

The baking competition hit the headlines in 2016 after its production company Love Productions controversially sold it to Channel 4.

However, its first outing on Channel 4 was popular with viewers and performed well in the ratings.

Leith joined the series after its move, replacing Mary Berry who opted to remain with the BBC.

She said: 'It does seem, with hindsight, that all that fuss about the show moving from the BBC was so, I wouldn't say manufactured, but it was so totally unnecessary to worry.

'If anybody had given it five minutes' thought, they would have thought, 'Well why would a production company, who have got a fantastic success, mess with the formula? Why would they change it? Why would Channel 4 pay all that money for a show that is fantastic and then change it?'

The Great British Bake Off returns to Channel 4 on Tuesday, August 28. Pictured left to right: Noel Fielding, Sandi Toksvig, Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood, the presenters and judges

'So they didn't change it.'

As she heads into her second series on the programme, the cook said Bake Off fans are starting to compare her to her predecessor Mary Berry less often.

She said: 'It's always quite funny, it's less now, people just say, 'I love the show, I love Bake Off, I think you're wonderful' or a straightforward compliment, that just makes me feel wonderful.

'But I used to get far more of, 'I really love Mary Berry! I've always loved Mary Berry and I just didn't want to like you' and you wait and you wait for it and are they going to say... and then they say that you're all right and that it's survived the change.'

Last year Leith accidentally revealed the name of the winner, congratulating Sophie Faldo on Twitter six hours ahead of the final.

In her interview with this week's Radio Times (pictured) Leith also spoke about the fuss that was made when Bake Off moved from the BBC to Channel 4, adding that it 'now seemed totally unnecessary'

She joked that this year she would stay away from her phone come finals time.

'Yes that was a bit grim,' she said.

'I sort of understood, I mean people were pretty upset.

'But in the end it didn't matter.

'Actually a lot of people were really nice about it, lots and lots of people have said, 'I've been there, I've done that'. And it was a really stupid thing to do.

'I think I better leave the country now. Actually leaving the country didn't help last time!'

Fellow judge Paul Hollywood teased: 'At least keep in the same time zone!'

'I'll leave my phone behind, that's the answer,' said Leith.

The Great British Bake Off returns to Channel 4 on Tuesday, August 28.
A 29-year-old man beat a small dog to death with his bare hands after it bit him.

Mare Tahau pleaded guilty to one count of ill-treating an animal over the incident at his friends Woodville, Adelaide, home on May 26, 2017.

Tahau had recently moved from Kangaroo Island and his friend allowed him to stay with him.

Mare Tahau (pictured) pleaded guilty to one count of ill-treating an animal over the incident at his friends Woodville home on May 26, 2017

Rover's owner went out one night and the white, fluffy terrier was in the laundry barking.

Tahau went to calm the dog but he bit him.

The man then punched the dog twice, the second of which killed him.

Tahau immediately called Rover's owner who told him to bring the dog to him and then to the vet.

Damon Ind, from the RSPCA, told Adelaide Magistrates Court that the assault on the 5.5kg dog was one of the worst he had seen.

'The dog was in the laundry and was barking, he went to calm and pet it and it bit him  he punched it twice, the second punch ultimately bringing about its death,' Mr Ind said, according to The Advertiser.

When Rover's owner went out one night and the white, fluffy terrier was in the laundry barking. Tahau went to calm the dog but he bit him The man then punched the dog twice (Pictured: stock image of a white terrier dog)

The court was asked to sentence Tahau to the two-year maximum sentence for animal cruelty, to be served immediately.

Magistrate Simon Smart questioned whether such a high penalty was necessary due to a lack of prior offences and good behaviour.

Mr Smart said that he believed Tahau's temper was aggravated when he was bitten by the dog.

'Does that not explain and mitigate the fact he has acted this way?' he asked.

Adelaide Magistrates Court was asked to sentence Tahau to the two-year maximum for animal cruelty, to be served immediately

He said a truly malevolent and malicious act towards an animal would need to be more serious.

However, Mr Ind asked the court not to 'downplay' the severity.

'(The owner) says seeing the dog, a beloved family member, dead in the back seat has scarred him for life,' Mr Ind said.

Tahau's defence laywer argued for a suspended sentence. He will be sentenced next week.
TV chef Jamie Oliver has defended his 'punchy jerk rice' following a torrent of criticism from people accusing him of 'cultural appropriation'.

The Essex-born celebrity cook face anger from critics including Labour MP Dawn Butler, who is of Jamaican descent and branded the product 'not ok' and telling him to halt his 'cultural appropriation'.

Mr Oliver defended the name of the ready meal in a statement after Caribbean cook Rustie Lee claimed the recipe has 'nothing to do with jerk'.

Oliver told Sky News yesterday: 'I've worked with flavours and spices from all over the world my whole career, learning and drawing inspiration from different countries and cultures to give a fresh twist to the food we eat every day.

'When I named the rice my intention was only to show where my inspiration came from.'

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Jamie Oliver (pictured) has been accused of cultural appropriation after he launched a 'jerk rice' that members of the Caribbean community claim 'doesn't have jerk in it' amid criticism from people including Dawn Butler (right)

The row started on Sunday when London MP Dawn Butler tweeted him saying 'your jerk rice is not ok'.

The shadow equalities minister, who describes herself on social media as 'the UK's first elected female African-Caribbean Government Minister', wrote: '#jamieoliver @jamieoliver #jerk I'm just wondering do you know what #Jamaican #jerk actually is?

'It's not just a word you put before stuff to sell products. @levirootsmusic should do a masterclass. Your jerk Rice is not ok. This appropriation from Jamaica needs to stop.'

After Ms Butler's tweet, TV chef Levi Roots appeared on Good Morning Britain with fellow Caribbean cook Rustie Lee to discuss the row further.

Levi Roots (pictured with the product) branded the rice a 'mistake' and accused the chef of 'getting on a band wagon'

The new rice contains chilli, aubergine and beans, which Rustie Lee claims are 'nothing to do with jerk'

Roots admitted to hosts Jeremy Kyle and Kate Garraway: ' I do think it was a mistake by Jamie, either by him or by his team.'

But Lee appeared more infuriated by the row, saying: 'It is an insult. Jerk is from the Caribbean. And as much as I love Jamie. The point is it's getting on a band wagon.'

Roots, who took part in a televised 'jerk masterclass' in London a few years ago, was less incensed.

He said: 'I don't think its that serious. I think for Caribbean food to go get to where we want it to get to, we have to change things and I'm a big one for that.

Jamaican TV chef Levi Roots appeared on Good Morning Britain with fellow Caribbean cook Rustie Lee (pictured together) to discuss the cultural appropriation row further

'But you've got to know what jerk is. Jerk is a method of cooking and it is the actual marinade. If it doesn't have certain ingredients in it, it's not jerk.

'Not a lot of people watching this actually know what jerk is. They think it's just a word but it's a flavour. If you don't have these flavours in the food it's not jerk.'

What is jerk? Jerk is a seasoning for meat and fish that originated in Jamaica. The first jerk recipes can be dated back to slavery and the year 1655. It comes in two forms, a dry seasoning that is rubbed onto meat or fish, or a wet marinade used in the same way. The two key ingredients are allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers. Other ingredients include: ginger, sat, brown sugar, garlic, thyme, cloves, scallions, nutmeg and cinnamon. Advertisement

But Lee insisted that his use of marketing was offensive to her community, saying: 'Why didn't he call it pukka rice? He's taken jerk to try and be funny. It's a bit of an insult to Caribbean people.'

She added that Oliver's rice, which is made with aubergine, chilli and beans, is 'nothing to do with jerk'.

Trying to intervene, host Jeremy Kyle read out one definition of cultural appropriation.

He said: 'Cultural appropriation is 'the adoption of elements of a minority culture by members of the dominant culture.

'It is distinguished from an equal cultural exchange due to an imbalance often as a by-product of colonialism and oppression.'

But then exclaimed: 'It's a bowl of rice!'

Asked why it mattered by co-presenter Kate Garraway, Lee responded: 'It does matter.

'It matters because Jerk chicken, pork and fish originates from Jamaica. And the people who have this, it's their thing. Will they be offended? They would be offended.

'She [Dawn Butler] chose a word that made us talk. Would we have been here talking about it [otherwise]?'

'At the end of the day, I've tasted it and it tastes like Caribbean rice and beans with flavours in it.

'The jerk part of it is barbecue and you can't barbecue rice. Jerk chickengoes onto meat, it doesn't go onto rice.'

Jamie Oliver did not respond to GMB requests for comment. MailOnline has contacted one of his representatives.
The United States has deported a former Nazi concentration camp guard back to Germany.

Jakiw Palij, 95, was taken from his New York City home on a stretcher and spirited early on Tuesday morning to Germany, the White House said.

It came 25 years after investigators first confronted Palij about his past and he admitted lying to get into the US, claiming he spent the war as a farmer and factory worker.

Acting on a 2004 deportation order, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement took Palij into custody and sent him to Germany.

Jakiw Palij was taken from his New York home and spirited on Tuesday morning to Germany

Jakiw Palij was arrested and deported by US immigration authorities, the White House said

He did not respond to questions reporters were shouting at him as he was loaded up to go

Palij's was almost entirely covered by a sheet as he was pushed along the sidewalk

He did not respond to questions reporters were shouting at him as he was loaded up on the stretcher.

Palij left on a plane from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and arrived in Dusseldorf on Tuesday, Bild reported.

He was set to be transported from there to an elderly care facility in Warendorf near Munster, according to the newspaper.

Given his age and questions over his health and also a possible lack of proof, it is unclear whether German authorities will attempt to prosecute the stateless pensioner.

Germany has a mixed record on convicting Nazi war criminals.

Critics say it let many high-ranking Nazis and SS members escaped justice only for their juniors, small cogs in the Nazi death machine, to be put on trial decades later.

But Germany's Foreign Office said the deportation shows that those who served the Nazi regime will not find refuge in the US.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who on Monday visited the Auschwitz camp, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: 'Germany, in whose name the worst injustice was perpetrated under the Nazis, is confronting its moral obligations.'

He added to Bild: 'Meeting the horrors of the Nazi era today means fighting against anti-Semitism, discrimination and racism.

'And it means standing by our moral obligation to the victims and future generations.

'The guilt of those who committed the worst crimes in Germany's name does not pass. She still hurts deeply.'

According to the Justice Department, Palij served at the Nazi SS Training Camp in Trawniki, in German-occupied Poland, in 1943.

Jakiw Palij (pictured in 2003), 95, who lived in New York, was arrested and deported by US immigration authorities, the White House said on Tuesday

Palij entered the US in 1949 under the Displaced Persons Act, a law meant to help refugees from post-war Europe. Pictured, his 1949 visa photo

On November 3 that year, 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered in one of the single largest massacres of the Holocaust.

Palij has admitted serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Palij was born in Poland and immigrated to the US in 1949, becoming a United States citizen eight years later, the White House statement said.

But he concealed his Nazi service when he immigrated, the statement said.

Palij lived quietly in the U.S. for years, as a draftsman and then as a retiree, until nearly three decades ago when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was 'living somewhere in America.'

Palij told Justice Department investigators who showed up at his door in 1993: 'I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied.'

In 2001, Palij told Department of Justice officials that he had trained at Trawniki.

Palij (pictured in 1957) was born in Poland and immigrated to the US in 1949. He became a US citizen eight years later

A file photo shows the home, left, of former Nazi concentration camp guard Jakiw Palij, in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York

A federal judge stripped Palij's citizenship in 2003 for 'participation in acts against Jewish civilians' while an armed guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and was ordered deported a year later.

But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-story, red brick home in Queens he shared with his wife, Maria, now 86.

His continued presence there outraged the Jewish community, attracting frequent protests over the years that featured such chants as 'your neighbor is a Nazi!'

Last September, all 29 members of New York's congressional delegation signed a letter urging the State Department to follow through on his deportation and Ambassador Richard Grenell made it a priority after arriving in Germany earlier this year.

The deportation came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations, which the White House said President Donald Trump had supported.

'Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palij's deportation to Germany and advanced the United States' collaborative efforts with a key European ally,' the White House said.

This document, photographed July 16, 2018 at the National Archives at New York City, shows the Petition for Naturalization of Jakiw Palij

Germany's Interior Ministry and Justice Ministry and Chancellor Angela Merkel's office did not immediately have a comment on where Palij would be taken in Germany and what exactly would happen to him.

Prosecutors there have previously said it does not appear that there's enough evidence to charge him with wartime crimes.

Palij's deportation is the first for a Nazi war crimes suspect since Germany agreed in 2009 to take John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio autoworker who was accused of serving as a Nazi guard.

He was convicted in 2011 of being an accessory to more than 28,000 killings and died 10 months later, at age 91, with his appeal pending.

Palij entered the US in 1949 under the Displaced Persons Act, a law meant to help refugees from post-war Europe.

He told immigration officials that he worked during the war in a woodshop and farm in Nazi-occupied Poland; at another farm in Germany; and finally in a German upholstery factory. Palij said he never served in the military.

Palij served as a guard at the Trawniki Labor Camp in German-occupied Poland. Pictured, Heinrich Himmler shaking hands with new guard recruits at the Trawniki camp in 1942

In reality, officials say, he played an essential role in the Nazi program to exterminate Jews in German-occupied Poland, as an armed guard at Trawniki.

According to a Justice Department complaint, Palij served in a unit that 'committed atrocities against Polish civilians and others' and then in the notorious SS Streibel Battalion, 'a unit whose function was to round up and guard thousands of Polish civilian forced laborers.'

After the war, Palij maintained friendships with other Nazi guards who the government says came to the US under similar false pretenses.

Palij and his wife purchased their home near LaGuardia Airport in 1966 from a Polish Jewish couple who had survived the Holocaust and were not aware of his past.

The Justice Department's special Nazi-hunting unit started piecing together Palij's past after a fellow Trawniki guard identified him to Canadian authorities in 1989.

Investigators asked Russia and other countries for records on Palij beginning in 1990 and first confronted him in 1993.

It wasn't until after a second interview in 2001 that he signed a document acknowledging he had been a guard at Trawniki and a member of the Streibel Battalion.

Palij suggested at one point during that interview that he was threatened with death if he refused to work as a guard, saying 'if you don't show up, boom-boom.'

Though the last Nazi suspect ordered deported, Palij is not the last in the US.

Since 2017, Poland has been seeking the extradition of Ukrainian-born Michael Karkoc, an ex-commander in an SS-led Nazi unit that burned Polish villages and killed civilians during the war.

The 99-year-old who currently lives in Minneapolis was the subject of a series of 2013 reports by the AP that led Polish prosecutors to issue an arrest warrant for him.

In addition to Karkoc, there are almost certainly others in the U.S. who have either not yet been identified or investigated by authorities.

The American public did not become fully aware until the 1970s that thousands of Nazi persecutors had gone to the US after the Second World War. Some estimates say 10,000 may have made the US their home after the war.

Since then, the Justice Department has initiated legal proceedings against 137 suspected Nazis, with about half, 67, being removed by deportation, extradition or voluntary departure.

Of the rest, 28 died while their cases were pending and nine were ordered deported but died in the US because no other country was willing to take them.
Horrific photos show the injuries sustained by an elderly couple who had their car set on fire in an attack at a traveller campsite.

Martha and George Stewart were visiting their daughter at Longman Caravan Park in Inverness on Sunday when a group of six men reportedly surrounded their vehicle.

After using another car to put the grandparents' vehicle in the ditch, the thugs poured petrol over it and set it alight with the couple still inside.

These are the horrific burns suffered by George Stewart after he was attacked at a traveller campside in Scotland

His wife suffered head injuries when their car was reportedly forced into a ditch and set alight

George, 67, and Martha, 61, were engulfed with flames but luckily a family member managed to get them out.

One theory being examined by police is that the attack is linked to a feud with another family at the park.

It is thought they may have tried to intervene in a row between their son and another man.

The couple's granddaughter Demi Stewart has now released pictures showing the terrible burns her grandparents suffered.

Mr Stewart has 20 per cent burns to his back, face and shoulders, which has caused large blisters to form. Mrs Stewart is said to have needed nine stitches to her head.

Their granddaughter wrote online: 'This is what the scumbags have done to my Granda and Granny.'

The couple were pulled from their flaming car by relatives and rushed to hospital on Sunday

Pictures of the couple recovering in hospital show the extent of Mr Stewart's burns

The couple's granddaughter released images of the elderly couple with this message

She continued: 'Poured petrol over the top of them and rammed their car and set them alight. Also attacked my Granda, a 70-year-old man, and 60-odd-year-old woman, who was lying unconscious in the back of a flaming car, scumbags.

'World needs to see what these lowlife scumbags are like.'

A relative who went to their rescue told the Inverness Courier: 'George was burning and I had to rip his clothes off him and throw him on the ground to put out the flames.

'They could have been killed. The doctors said that at their age, injuries like those can be life-threatening. I've never come across anything like this in my life.'

The Stewarts, from Elgin, were described as 'quiet-living' travellers by friends.

Police are investigating although it is understood no arrests have been made.

The alleged attack unfolded when the couple visited the Longman Caravan Park in Inverness

A Police Scotland spokesman said: 'Police in Inverness were made aware of a disturbance in the Longman Caravan Park area of the city shortly after 10.30am on Sunday, August 19.

'As a result of the incident a man and a woman suffered injuries which required treatment at Raigmore Hospital.'

Detective Inspector Eddie Ross added: 'Our enquiries into this incident are ongoing and officers are currently following a positive line of enquiry.

'Our initial enquiries suggest that this was a contained incident and there was no wider risk to the public.'
A man with flexible legs holds two world records for twisting his feet backwards 180 degrees and walking on them.

Moses Lanham, 57, from Michigan, has double cartilage and extra tissue in his knee joints, hips and ankles that allow him to contort his legs and walk with ease.

The footage shows the the flexible contortionist, known as Mr Elastic, spinning his jelly-like legs so his feet face the opposite direction.

Moses Lanham (pictured) 57, from Michigan, holds two world records for twisting his feet backwards and walking on the furthest distance

The flexible contortionist, known as Mr Elastic, can be seen spinning his jelly-like legs so his feet face the opposite direction

Mr Lanham told The Wizard of Odd TV: 'Im the only one that holds a world record for turning their feet around backwards and walking the farthest distance.

'I also hold the world record for turning my feet around backwards 180 degrees.'

The bizarre talent looks excruciatingly painful but Mr Lanham prefers to twist his feet around at the odd angle.

He said: 'A lot of people ask me if its painful for me to do this if it hurts or feels uncomfortable my answer to all three of them is not at all- its actually more comfortable.'

Mr Lanham can walk with ease with his legs facing the opposite way and finds it very comfortable

He likes to show people his strange trick and says only one person has ever 'thrown up' after seeing his legs twisted

The footage shows Mr Lanham walking at some speed with his feet pointing the other way as people watch and are shocked by the stunt.

Cries of shock can be heard while people clap as they try in vain to twist their feet in the same position.

One man can be heard saying 'I'm outta here. This is too much for me'

Mr Lanham discovered the strange trick in high school after falling from an 18ft climbing rope and landing at an angle on his feet

Mr Lanham's son (pictured right) Trey has inherited flexible joints, but can only turn his feet partially backwards

Mr Lanham would wear his clothes backwards (pictured) to trick people, a stunt he loved performing in college

He said: 'When I perform this in front of people I love the reaction I get a lot of people are just amazed.

'Others turn away from them cos it grosses them out. One time in my life time Ive had a person throw up after Ive turned my feet around.'

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Mr Lanham says people have often questioned the authenticity of his odd trick when they see a photo online.

He said: 'They think the photo has been photo-shopped and that its not real.'

Mr Lanham discovered his strange quirk at 14 after a high school gym class accident.

Climbing a rope, he lost his grip and fell nearly 18ft before landing with his feet in an extremely awkward position.

it was thought that he had dislocated his knee but he had actually discovered a new-found ability.

And Mr Lanham has made the most of his talent ever since by amusing people.

In high school he was prone to walking backwards and at college he would wear his clothes backwards to match the direction of his feet.

Mr Lanham's son Trey has also inherited his double joints but has only partially inherited his father's funny feet.

Trey can not turn them the full way round like his father, and also feels pain after staying in the position for a short time.

Doctors who have examined Mr Lanham say he was born with extra tissue and cartilage in his joints, making his hips, knees and ankles especially elastic.

People born with the condition called hypermobility, more commonly known as 'double jointed', can often bend their joints to perform contortionist tricks.

His peculiar talent has also gained him national notoriety after he appeared on 'Candid Camera', 'Ripley's Believe It or Not!', 'America's Funniest Home Videos', 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' and the Discovery Channel's 'Medical Incredible'.
Shadow trade secretary Barry Gardiner voiced fears people would lose faith in the ballot box if the 2016 result was not honoured (file picture)

Holding a second Brexit referendum could spark civil unrest as voters will feel betrayed, a Labour frontbencher warned today.

Shadow trade secretary Barry Gardiner voiced fears that people would lose faith in the ballot box and turn to the extreme right if the 2016 result was not honoured.

The dire warning comes as Remainers mount a massive push to force another vote on the terms of the final Brexit deal.

Senior Labour figures have been urging the leadership to join the drive, but Jeremy Corbyn has so far insisted it is not his favoured policy.

Pouring cold water on the idea, Mr Gardiner pointed out that both Remain and Leave campaigners informed the public two years ago that their decision would be final.

'If we then go back on that, yes, it may well be - and I certainly believe - that we will in the short and medium term be worse off economically as a result of Brexit, and certainly the way the Government is going that is what is happening,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

'It's not about happily putting us in that position, it's saying there's more to this than simple economics.

'There is also the social, the democratic principles at play here.

'If you then say to people 'We did give you a vote and actually we, the Remainers, lost the vote, but because you were stupid enough to do what you wanted rather than what we wanted... ' that undermines the whole principle of democracy in this country.

'You never give as much succour to the extreme right as when you cut off the mechanism of democratic change.

'If people want to be able to achieve change through democratic means, if they feel that that is being denied to them, they then turn to other more socially disruptive ways of expressing their views, and that is the danger here.'

Pressed on what would happen if there was a second EU referendum, Mr Gardiner replied: 'I didn't say violence on the streets.

'What I'm saying is that in any situation, if people feel that the route to change is no longer a democratic route, then you look to social disruption, perhaps civil disobedience, in a different way.

Senior Labour figures have been urging the leadership to back a second referendum, but Jeremy Corbyn has so far insisted it is not his favoured policy

Theresa May, pictured left in Downing Street last month, is fighting to put together a Brexit deal with the EU. Tony Blair, pictured right, has backed calls for a second Brexit referendum

'This is playing with our democracy - it's playing with the foundations of our country in a way that is really, really damaging.

'We have to respect people's vote in that referendum. We told them we would, we must do it.'

Earlier, Mr Gardiner was challenged on whether it was Labour's policy that under no circumstances could there be no Brexit deal.

'Absolutely,' he said.

'That is why we have proposed a new customs union and a strong new relationship with the single market.'

Mr Gardiner said it was 'nonsense' to suggest such a stance put all the power in the hands of the EU negotiators, adding: 'No deal is not in their interests either - they want a deal with us.'

In a sign of the deep divisions in the party, the frontbencher was immediate attacked on Twitter by former minister Ben Bradshaw.

'I'm afraid Barry Gardiner in defending #Brexit whatever the cost on @BBCr4today on democratic grounds completely ignores the democratic right of the people to change their minds #BrexitShambles #PeoplesVote,' he wrote.
A furious Great British Menu TV chef has branded the owners of his former restaurant the 'lowest of the low' after they trademarked his name and sold the rights to his signature recipes.

James Cochran left his self-titled restaurant earlier - James Cochran EC3 - in April this year, but the company behind it has continued to trade under the same name.

Ahead of the chef appearing on the BBC show yesterday, his former employer Rayuela has also launched website jamescochran.co.uk, where it is selling the rights to his signature recipes.

Now Mr Cochran has blasted his former employers on Twitter, describing them as the 'lowest of the low' for 'cashing in' on his name.

On Twitter, where he has changed his name to the Real James Cochran, he said: 'Anyone wanna buy me...www.jamescochran.co.uk my ex-employers are the lowest of low trying to sell off my name as recipes plans??!!

Great British Menu chef James Cochran (right) has branded the owners of his former restaurant the 'lowest of the low'

Mr Cochran left his self-titled restaurant (pictured) in April this year, but the company behind it has continued to trade under the same name

'Wtf?? Who is going to pay 25 a week just to add my name in front of the recipe?? I will give you the recipes for free if your that low!!'

He added: 'It's crazy...just are just trying to cash in on me for being on TV this week!!'

The former two-star Michelin chef claims he cannot now use his own name to promote his new restaurant, 1251, in Islington, London - something Rayuela deny.

On his new website, it states: '1251 is a new restaurant by Head Chef James Cochran, contestant of the BBC2 TV series Great British Menu.

'We are the ONLY restaurant he is associated with and works full-time in the kitchen, cooking for you at our restaurant.

'He does NOT work for James Cochran EC3, where they are trying to capitalise on his TV appareance [sic]. If you want food cooked by James Cochran.....we are the ONLY restaurant.

'Unfortunatley [sic] this is not the introduction we wanted to put on our website before we have even opened.'

On Twitter, the restaurant James Cochran EC3 defended the decision, adding that Twitter was 'not the place to air dirty laundry' and described Mr Cochran as 'volatile'.

He has accused his former employers Rayuela of 'cashing in' on his name after they set up a website selling his recipes ahead of his appearance on the show yesterday

Pictured: James Cochran on the show Great British Menu yesterday evening

Chefs, former colleagues, and friends of Cochran have joined in the debate, with Chef Ellis Barrie calling the situation 'mad' and offering a free meal to anyone who assists Mr Cochran.

He said: 'This is mad, my mate James who is on Great British Menu this week has his old employer using and abusing his name and selling it without James' permission!!

'Anyone out there who can help James fight this can have a free meal at The Marram or any of my establishments!!!'

In a series of tweets, the account for James Cochran EC3 posted: 'Trademark was filed long before James surprised everyone at EC3 by handing in his resignation and GBM series finished filming.

'We wish James well, but we will defend our business vigorously against baseless accusations and defamatory statements.'

The restaurant went on to claim that when they offered James ownership of the brand, he replied 'keep it' and that it was 'naive to assume' the company would not 'be looking to monetise it'.

It added: 'Let me say it again: It is not all black and white. You didn't bet your business success on one employee, did you? It takes a degree of trust, especially if you are dealing with a volatile person like James. Not the 1st business he brought down - FIX, anyone?'

FIX, Cochran's restaurant before his time at EC3, operated for roughly six months before closing down.

The restaurant have claimed that they did offer Mr Cochran the chance to buy back ownership of the trademark

Jamescochran.co.uk sells James Cochran recipe plans which includes recipes for scotch bonnet jerk chicken, nduja scotch eggs, and crispy cauliflower

The restaurant website for James Cochran EC3 does not state that the chef is no longer employed by the company.

But the website jamescochran.co.uk includes a disclaimer that the chef does not work there anymore.

It sells James Cochran recipe plans which includes recipes for scotch bonnet jerk chicken, nduja scotch eggs, and crispy cauliflower.

They are priced from 25 per week, for one recipe; 35 for three recipes; and 50 for five recipes, and allow the buyer to use the James Cochran name on their menu.

Rayuela defended their decision to trademark the chef's name.

A spokesman said: 'Along with a broad range of misconceptions being repeated in the public domain - such as the factually incorrect statement that James Cochran the chef is disallowed from using his own name - the owners of the James Cochran trademark are disappointed that no one has reported that not only have they attempted to negotiate with James at various points regarding his acquiring ownership of the trademark, but they remain open to negotiation.

'To date Mr James Cochran's only offer to acquire the trademark was for a sum less than it cost to complete trademarking.

'This is perhaps ironic given that part of Mr Cochran's histrionic rhetoric in the public domain focuses on baseless accusations that the owners are reaping the financial benefits of this valuable trademark.

'The owners of the trademark remain entirely open to reasonable offers from James that allow them to recoup their investment in the brand.'
Mahmoud 'Mick' Hawi and the man accused of fatally shooting him in a brazen daylight killing in February were once 'friends', an inside source has claimed.

Long before the former Comancheros boss fell out with Lone Wolf bikie Yusuf Nazlioglu, 37, the pair were far from enemies, according to someone close to the Hawi family.

'They were friends, before all of this.' the unidentified source told the Sydney Morning Herald.

'A long time ago, but it's really crazy, really sad.'

Mahmoud 'Mick' Hawi and Yusuf Nazlioglu (pictured) were 'friends' long before they fell out with each other, an inside source has claimed

Nazlioglu, alongside co-accused Ahmad Doudar, 38, was on Friday arrested in relation to the alleged assassination of the ex bikie boss outside Fitness First Rockdale, in Sydney's south.

A photograph released last week also showed what appeared to once be a solid friendship between Hawi and Nazlioglu, with them pictured together in a tight embrace at a beach.

Another source suggested the pair, who stood close for the shirtless photo, shared a tight bond before Hawi snapped at Nazliogu for the way he spoke to a woman, The Daily Telegraph reported.

'Hawi chirped him over the way he spoke to a girl and they haven't been friends since,' the source told the publication.

Nazlioglu alongside co-accused Ahmad Doudar (pictured), 38, was on Friday arrested in relation to the alleged assassination of the ex bikie boss outside Fitness First Rockdale

A photograph released last week also showed what appeared to once be a solid friendship between Hawi (pictured) and Nazlioglu, with them pictured together in a tight embrace

'Nazlioglu used to look at him as a mentor.'

A second person said Hawi decided to cut Nazlioglu off when he found out he had told others what Hawi said about them.

The source said Doudar, a fellow Lone Wolf bikie, was one of the people Hawi once had spoken badly to Nazlioglu about.

A balaclava found inside an abandoned car near a smash repair business in Sydney's south has been revealed as the vital clue that led police to Nazlioglu and Doudar.

Police will allege the item contained traces of DNA belonging to Nazlioglu.

A third man, associate Moustafa Salami, 36, has been charged with accessory after the fact to murder. Police will allege he helped dispose of one of the getaway cars.

Hawi (pictured with Nazlioglu) was once a role model for the Lone Wolf bikie member charged with fatally shooting him in a brazen daylight attack in February

Mahmoud 'Mick' Hawi's widow Carolina Gonzalez has penned a cryptic Facebook post, days after three men were charged in relation to his shooting death

Police told reporters on Saturday the shooting was sparked by financial reasons linked to the Sydney construction industry.

'We will allege there was a financial motive to Mr Hawi's murder and his death was to prevent further money being paid to Mr Hawi rather than any outlaw motorcycle gang conflict,' Mal Lanyon, commander of the New South Wales Police State Crime Command said.

The female relative of a property developer who allegedly owed a large debt to a slain bikie kingpin is being probed by detectives investigating the brazen killing.

Detectives are now investigating whether the Sydney property developer's relative helped pass messages between him and two men accused of Hawi's murder.

Detectives are now investigating whether the Sydney property developer's relative helped pass messages between him and two men accused of Hawi's murder (pictured is one of the men being arrested)

Tow truck driver Moustafa Salami, 36, has been charged with being an accessory after the fact for allegedly moving one of the getaway cars used in the shooting

According to police, Nazlioglu allegedly pulled the trigger in the assassination he is accused of planning with Doudar.

The property developer was allegedly under pressure to pay Hawi $300,000 at the time of the killing, The Daily Telegraph reported.

He had already allegedly paid $200,000 to Hawi, and police will allege he paid Nazlioglu and Doudar $40,000 to shoot the former bikie boss to avoid the debt.

Tow truck driver Moustafa Salami, 36, has been charged with being an accessory after the fact for allegedly moving one of the getaway cars used in the shooting.

Hawi's widow Carolina Gonzales posted a cryptic Facebook comment, just a day after Nazlioglu and Doudar faced court.

Ms Gonzalez took to Facebook on Sunday night, asking friends a cryptic question, in an apparent reference to Yusuf Nazlioglu who was last week charged with her husband's murder

Former Comancheros president Mick Hawi (left) was shot multiple times in his Mercedes 4WD while he sat in the parked vehicle outside a gym at Rockdale, in Sydney's south, in February

Nazlioglu (pictured, left, with Hawi, right) is understood to have been a former friend of Hawi, before the pair fell out over a girl

On Sunday night, Ms Gonzales posted on her Facebook page: 'Saabi...where's your best mate Yui?'.

She then removed the comment a few hours later.

Hawi was shot multiple times in his Mercedes 4WD while he sat in the parked vehicle outside a gym at Rockdale, in Sydney's south, on February 15.

Following his death, Hawi's grief-stricken widow Ms Gonzalez made headlines when she attempted to extract her dead husband's sperm from his corpse.

The process was kick-started by an urgent court application in the hours after the shooting to the NSW Supreme Court, on the basis that Ms Gonzales would have another of Hawi's children following his death.

Justice Peter Johnson then ordered the sperm be extracted and stored at an IVF facility until he ruled on her application, however Ms Gonzales ultimately opted not to go ahead with the procedure.

Hawi had served a prison sentence over the death of Hells Angels bikie associate Anthony Zervas during a brawl at Sydney Airport in 2009.

He was initially convicted of murdering Zervas, who was bashed with a metal bollard during the brawl, but his conviction and 28-year sentence was overturned on appeal.
Nicki Minaj has been slammed for comparing herself to legendary slavery activist Harriet Tubman before an appearance at the VMAs.

The 35-year-old Barbie Dreams rapper was caught on camera saying 'I am the new Harriet Tubman' by TMZ just hours after tweeting about her in the run up to the awards on Monday night.

'All the QUEENS I remember, SHOOK S*** UP!!!!!!!! Queen of the week may go to HARRIET TUBMAN!!!!!! Had she just sat there & ate her rice, you n****z history wouldve been a lot less triumphant,' Minaj tweeted.

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Nicki Minaj was caught on camera saying 'I am the new Harriet Tubman' just hours after posting a controversial tweet about the abolitionist

Minaj posted onTwitter comparing herself to the campaigner who is one of the most famous anti-slavery figures in American history

Twitter users blasted her over the post, in which she seemed to be comparing herself to the abolitionist.

'Comparing your album sales to Harriet Tubmans fight for freedom is the most stupid commentary on slavery in 2018 and that includes Kanye saying slavery was a choice,' one person tweeted.

Another person said: 'I'm not sure if there's a person in the US alive today who can respectfully compare themself to "Harriet Tubman"'

While another user said: 'Someone please take her phone away'.

But Minaj hit back at her critics after her tweet received a lot of attention on social media.

Harriet Tubman was born into slavery and campaigned her entire life for equality and women's rights

She later posted: 'Yall I had no idea Harriet Tubman was now trending. I said what I said.

'#QueenRadio will honor her tmrw. She said she couldve rescued more slaves had they known they were slaves. I fought for streaming services to count toward billboard when alotta n****z stayed quiet.'

Harriet Tubman is one of America's most famous anti-slavery figures having battled her entire life against the practice.

Tubman was born into slavery in 1822 and later escaped before launching a series of daring raids which helped free approximately 70 other slaves.

She later helped campaign for women's suffrage and died in 1913 as one of the most famous African Americans in history.
SARAH VINE: There is something magnificent about Alice Evans's refusal to take her betrayal lying down as she took to Twitter like a Greek Fury about her husband Ioan Gruffudd's new girlfriend Bianca Wallace. 'So it turns out that my husband, after two years of telling me I'm a bad person and I'm not exciting and he no longer wants to have sex with me and he just wants to be on set abroad has been in a relationship for three years behind all our backs,' she wrote, adding: 'Good luck, Bianca.' The raw emotion of her outburst, combined with the fact that she chose to make her distress so public, has divided opinion. Her timeline was full of people calling her a 'bitter psycho' and suggesting she should take herself off to a 'nice spa' to calm down. Many clearly felt she was making an unnecessary fuss and embarrassing herself. Many clearly felt she was making an unnecessary fuss and embarrassing herself. It is the pain of a woman who is not only dealing with the loss of her youth and her fertility, coming to terms with the fact that - in purely biological terms - there is no turning back; but also with the loss of her marriage, the person she had built her life around - and the future she thought they would have together. (Pictured: Left, Alice Evans with Ioan Gruffudd. Right, Mr Gruffudd's new girlfriend Bianca Wallace)
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Up to 600,000 Israelis will be able to apply for a gun license, after the government changed its policy with the motivation that it could prevent 'lone wolf attacks' by Palestinians.

Some 140,000 civilians currently hold a firearms permit, and while officials say they has no intention of creating a 'United States situation' in Israel, critics have warned the new policy will stoke violence.

A source in the public security ministry, however, estimated that only 35,000 people will be interested in applying for gun licences under the new regulations.

Israel has eased its gun controls to enable hundreds of thousands more civilians to apply for licences, a move authorities say will help thwart lone-wolf attacks like this one in the West Bank in 2016 in which the attacker was shot and wounded

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said the change could help thwart 'lone-wolf attacks' by Palestinians, who have carried out gun, knife and car-ramming assaults that have at times been deadly.

A number of people have been shot by accident, however, in the chaos resulting from such attacks, while Israeli security personnel have in some instances been accused of excessive force.

'Many civilians saved lives during attacks and, in an age of 'lone-wolf terror', the more trained civilians carrying arms, the higher the chances of thwarting attacks and minimising casualties,' Erdan said in a statement.

Under the new regulations, any Israeli who had extensive infantry combat training can apply for a gun licence.

Most Jewish Israelis must complete obligatory military service after they turn 18, but only a minority receive such training.

It is already common to see Israeli settlers in West Bank outposts openly carrying rifles, like this one in the settler enclave in central Hebron with his children dressed up in army uniforms for the annual Purim parade

Police volunteers, medics and former military officers will also be eligible, the statement said.

Prior to the change, the main criterion for a permit - besides professions such as hunter or diamond merchant - was one's place of residence.

Settlers or other Israelis working in the occupied West Bank tend to receive licences. It is common to see Israeli settlers in remote West Bank outposts openly carrying rifles.

The new regulations do not change Israel's vetting process for gun licences, which, according to Erdan, is 'one of the strictest.'

'There's no intention to reach a situation like in the United States,' he told public radio on Tuesday.

'Here we conduct background checks on people's past, their health, including mental health - you need permits from the health ministry and police.'

Erdan's move was met with criticism from left-wing politicians who expressed fear an increase in gun ownership could lead to more violence.

Michal Rozin of the Meretz party said the new rules would not diminish the risks of militant attacks but rather 'significantly increase the risk to the lives of women and children' in domestic violence cases.

Dov Hanin, a Jewish lawmaker from the mainly Arab Joint List, said that Erdan's plan would lead to more guns in Arab towns, where unlicensed weapons are already a serious problem.

Arab Israeli leaders accuse police of neglecting Arab towns and allowing crime to flourish in them.
A young woman celebrating her 21st birthday was turned away from her local pub when bouncers refused to believe she had cerebral palsy and thought she was intoxicated.

Matt Moran's Marlborough Hotel in Newtown, Sydney, has faced waves of criticism after it admitted to wrongfully refusing the unnamed woman and her friends and family entrance to the establishment.

One of the woman's friends, Lucy Creswick, went so far as to say they provided security guards with a report of her friend's illness, and were still laughed away.

The Marlborough Hotel in Newtown has faced waves of criticism after it admitted to wrongfully refusing the unnamed woman and her friends, and family entrance to the establishment

'As I was walking out of the line I over heard the security say 'watch she's going to fall' blatently making fun of her. Disgusting!,' she added, on the hotel's public Facebook page.

She was one of many people who shared their horror at the irresponsible and discriminatory manner in which the situation was handled.

'Shame on you for such appalling behaviour towards a girl who just wanted to celebrate her birthday at your establishment,' another disgruntled friend wrote.

'As a long term resident and frequenter of your hotel, I will not walk through your doors again.'

The pub in Sydney's inner west is owned by celebrity chef Matt Moran

With many calling for the security staff involved to have their employment terminated, the hotel's spokeswoman, Jemima Sallows, told the Sydney Morning Herald, the company acted immediately.

'The security guards in question will no longer work at any Solotel venue. In addition the security company we employ at the Marlborough Hotel will undergo anti-discrimination training for their staff,' she said in a statement.

The pub also issued a formal apology to the young woman.

'We screwed up,' a Facebook post said. 'Early Sunday morning we refused entry to a young lady as we believed she was intoxicated. Reality was she had cerebral palsy. And it was her 21st birthday. And we ruined her night.'

'We apologise to the young lady, her friends and family. Unreservedly. We apologise for the humiliation and distress that we have caused.'

'We are committed to building awareness of this issue with our entire team through intensive anti-discrimination training.'

The training, however, is too little too late for the woman, who has chosen to not be identified.

'Exclusion has a long lasting impact on the mental and emotional health of those who experience it.'

'I know this bright young person and I really can't fathom how they could confuse her mobility problems with drunkenness; they are dealing with drunks all the time.'

'She will rebuild her confidence, because she has bravely met these kind of challenges before,' a friend said.

'Perhaps they should invest in a breath testing unit that they propose, if they are in doubt.'
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A collection of stunning images giving a unique insight into life for young black people in 1970s Britain has been revealed by arts charity Autograph.

From passing time outside The Black House project to days out at the park, intimate portraits reveal how children of the Windrush generation who arrived in Britain from the Caribbean spent their time.

The display features twenty-five works from their archive that address critical politics of race and representation by photographers of the Windrush generation.

Photographers from different cultural backgrounds, who documented Britain's Black communities in London during the 1970s and early 1980s, have been handpicked to appear in the exhibition in London.

Artists included in The Autograph Archive x Yardie exhibition include Bandele 'Tex' Ajetunmobi, Raphael Albert, Armet Francis, Colin Jones, Neil Kenlock, Dennis Morris, Charlie Philips, and Syd Shelton.

Multiple images from Colin Jones's The Black House project taken between 1973 and 1976 in Islington, North London, are featured.

His powerful images show a selection of young men in intimate portraits at the government-funded 'Harambee' housing project that aimed to provide support for disillusioned black adolescents.

The exhibition at Hackney Picturehouse is open until September 2. It was created in celebration of Idris Elba's directorial debut Yardie, a film about a young Jamaican man seeking retribution after his brother's murder.

Raphael Albert, Miss Black & Beautiful, Sybil McLean (pictured centre) with fellow contestants, Hammersmith Palais, London, 1972. Raphael Albert (1935-2009) was born on the Caribbean island of Grenada and moved to London in the 1950s. He studied photography at Ealing Technical College before becoming a freelance photographer for black British newspapers like West Indian World

Untitled, from the series The Black House, 1973-1976, by Colin Jones. Jones photographed these men as part of a project on the Harambee project in Islington. The housing project for young black people was located in north London, on the Holloway Road. Many of the young men who lived in the house were said to be fascinated by the Black Power movement, with Jones trying to create intimate portraits of the individuals

Untitled, from the series The Black House, 1973-1976, by Colin Jones. Jones was commissioned in 1973 by the Sunday Times to produce illustrations for an article by the journalist Peter Gillman on the Harambee project in Islington, titled On the Edge of the Ghetto. The hostel was a government-funded housing project which aimed to provide support for disillusioned black adolescents who experienced prejudice, unemployment and problems with the law

Young Gun, Hackney, London, 1969, by Dennis Morris. This striking image was taken by the Jamacan-born photographer when he was just nine years old. He learnt about photography in North London at a club run by Donald Paterson, a wealthy and philanthropic man, and most of the people who appear in his pictures came from the same area. Morris is also known for his music photography including pictures taken of the Sex Pistols

Fashion Shoot, Brixton Market, London, 1973, by Armet Francis. Armet Francis was born in Jamaica in 1945 and was ten years old when he left for Britain. After leaving school at 14 he started to work as a freelance fashion and advertising photographer at the height of the swinging 60s, and towards the end of the decade he started to chronicle Londons black communities

Carnival Sound System, London, by Armet Francis. Francis was interested in representations of the black Diaspora on a global scale, and returned to Jamaica in 1969 to start a cross-cultural project entitled The Black Triangle, photographing black communities in Britain, Africa, and the Caribbean. His work is shown at the Tate, Museum of London and Victoria & Albert Museum

Untitled, from the series The Black House, 1973-1976, by Colin Jones. In the early 1970s the name Black House became associated in the public consciousness as the lair of infamous con artist and murderer Michael de Freitas (also known as Michael X). Though not connected to de Freitas former home, the Harambee project was located less than a mile from it

Untitled, from the series The Black House, 1973-1976, by Colin Jones. Colin Jones, who was born in London in 1936, followed an unorthodox trajectory to become one of the most celebrated photographers of post-war Britain. He spent his childhood in the working class areas of East London while dancing for the English National Ballet. Jones bought his first camera running an errand for ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn in Japan

Untitled, East End, London, 1970s, by Tex Ajetunmobi. Bandele Ajetunmobi  known as Tex was born in Nigeria in 1921. In 1947, at the age of twenty-six, he stowed away on a boat from Nigeria where he was an outcast on account of having polio as a child. He settled in Spitalfields, East London. Most of his work was destroyed when he died in 1994 apart for around two hundred negatives his niece rescued. They're now stored in the more than 5,000 strong print archive of Autograph

Miss Black & Beautiful contest, Hammersmith, London, 1970s, by Raphael Albert. Model unknown. In 1970 Albert established the local contest Miss Black and Beautiful, followed in 1974 by Miss Teenager of the West Indies in Great Britain and Miss West Indies in Great Britain. He organised pageants throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s and eventually founded his own modeling school
Police Constable Sarinda Trudy Welsh, of Belvedere, London, pleaded guilty to assaulting WPC's Emma Cross and Amanda MacKerill on January 9 at Bexley Magistrates Court

A drunken policewoman who attacked two fellow officers in her home while screaming 'where's my f*****g Jack Daniels?' and assaulted her boyfriend before making false abuse claims against him has avoided jail.

Police Constable Sarinda Trudy Welsh, 39, hurled a glass tumbler across the room in a fit of drunken rage and had to be pulled away from a rack of knives.

Welsh, of Belvedere, London, pleaded guilty to assaulting WPC's Emma Cross and Amanda MacKerill on January 9 at Bexley Magistrates Court.

Her twelve-year career with the Metropolitan Police is now in tatters after the court heard she tendered her resignation before an inevitable sacking.

She was also convicted of assaulting her estranged long-term boyfriend Shane Gibson by clawing at his wrist at her home in April - a charge she denied.

Welsh also pleaded guilty to communicating false information to the police on June 5, after claiming Mr Gibson had punched her in the head.

Welsh was sentenced to a 12-month community order, which includes a 60-day alcohol treatment requirement and a 15-day rehabilitation requirement.

She must also pay 300 costs and an 85 victim surcharge and was made subject to an indefinite restraining order prohibiting contact with Mr Gibson.

Prosecutor Denise Clewes told the court: 'Ms Welsh is currently still a serving police officer and has tendered her resignation, although she is suspended.

'She had been off work for a period of time because of problems she was having. She had been in rehab and was released the day before the first assaults.

'Police officers visited her to carry out a welfare check and when they arrived they found she had been drinking.

'She threw a glass tumbler that smashed against a wall and PC MacKerill says: "she was shouting and swearing."

'She reached for a knife rack and one of the officers pulled her back, fearing she would cut herself or someone else.

Her twelve-year career with the Metropolitan Police is now in tatters after the court heard she tendered her resignation before an inevitable sacking. She also pleaded guilty to communicating false information to the police claiming Mr Gibson punched her in the head

'She swung a baking tray in the direction of the officer that did not hit the officer.'

They attempted to put pyjama bottoms on Welsh before taking her to the police station but she resisted.

'She kicked PC Cross, causing minor tenderness to her left shin.'

Police were at the address again three months later. 'Ms Welsh called them, saying her partner hit her in the face.

'Mr Gibson answered the door and said she was drunk upstairs and had assaulted him while he was asleep.

'He said he pushed her when she tried to wake him up and she fell to the floor. She then dug her nails into his wrist, causing a number of small scratches.

'She said she had been punched in the head by Mr Gibson because she was drunk and had been drinking vodka and whiskey the night before and had been an alcoholic for a long time.

Welsh was sentenced to a 12-month community order, which includes a 60-day alcohol treatment requirement and a 15-day rehabilitation requirement. She must also pay 300 costs and an 85 victim surcharge and was made subject to an indefinite restraining order prohibiting contact with Mr Gibson

'She said she woke him for work because he was lazy and he pushed her away and she fell to the floor and then called the police.'

Two months later Welsh called the police again, claiming her boyfriend was banging on her front door.

'When officers arrived her front door was open and Ms Welsh was asleep on the sofa and there was a strong smell of alcohol.

'She was very confused and said Mr Gibson had punched her to the head and left.'

An ambulance was called and Welsh did not make a statement against her boyfriend to police, who became increasingly suspicious about her claim.

'Mr Gibson was able to prove he was in Bristol all day and showed a receipt for coffee he bought on the M4 half an hour before the police were called.'

Her lawyer Heather Oliver told the court: 'She is a woman of impeccable character, having served twelve years with the police and before that was a legal secretary.

'She has expressed remorse and embarrassment and accepts she was reckless rather than having an intention to hurt the officers.

'On officer was trying to put her pyjama bottoms on and she was lashing out and caught her with her bare foot.'
An eight-year-old girl was pulled to safety after an 'avalanche of water' killed 11 hikers as they made their way through a narrow gorge in Italy.

Several hiking groups were caught on Monday afternoon by the flooding in the Raganello river gorge in southern Cozenza province. Five people are still missing, rescue services said today.

Authorities said 23 people had been rescued  including an eight-year-old girl whose parents are believed to be among the dead - and a 10-year-old boy who was treated for hypothermia.

An eight year-old girl is rescued by the mountain rescue service in the Gorge of Raganello where the flash flood killed 11 people in Civita, southern Italy

They said the incident involved two groups of 18 hikers each, with powerful floodlights brought up to allow rescuers to work through the night.

The nationalities of the dead and injured were not immediately known. Most tourists and trekkers who visit the area, in the country's deep south, are Italian.

TV images showed helmeted rescue workers holding survivors as they were brought to safety on ropes.

Rescue workers saved 23 people on Monday after some 8ft of rain filled the narrow gorge, which features rock faces as high as 700m (2,300 ft).

Eleven people were hospitalised, including the 10-year-old boy treated for hypothermia.

The girl receives medical assistance aboard an helicopter after being rescued in the Raganello Gorge

The eight-year-old girl was found in a state of shock next to a body. Her parents were believed to be among the dead

Pasquale Gagliardi, a doctor with an emergency helicopter service, told ANSA that one survivor was an eight-year-old girl, found in a state of shock next to a body.

Her parents were believed to be among the dead.

'A real avalanche of water came unexpectedly. We did not have time to do anything. I was lucky, it was an incredible thing,' a Dutch hiker told local media.

On Monday, this part of Calabria experienced several hours of heavy rain and strong winds although conditions began to improve during the evening.

The dramatic gorges carved by the Raganello river are only recommended for experienced hikers due to the many challenges posed by the route, which at certain times of the year is rendered off-limits.

Italy's civil protection agency said at least three people were missing, although the number could be higher since guides were not mandatory inside the Raganello Gorge, a popular spot for aquatic trekking.

A rescue helicopter is seen after several people were killed in a mountain gorge flooding, in the municipality of Civita

The head of civil protection in Calabria, Carlo Tansi said: 'The problem is we don't know how many people were knocked over by this flood.

'This is a split in the terrain that is very tight and high. Imagine nearly a kilometre in height. And just a few metres wide. Imagine people who were in this hole.'

Italian prosecutors on Tuesday opened a criminal investigation into the deaths of the hikers.

Prosecutor Eugenio Facciolla said authorities were investigating possible charges including manslaughter, causing bodily harm and official negligence. No target has been identified.

The victims were among two groups of trekkers on an excursion in the 7.5 mile long gorge, inside the vast Pollino National Park.

Rescuers are seen at the Raganello Gorge, a popular hiking spot near the Italian town of Civita

TV images show rescuers scaling down the side of a steep rock face to bring hikers to safety

Search operations continued through the night, and the head of the civil protection agency in Calabria, Carlo Tansi, said one of the bodies was found three miles (5km) from the flooded area.

A local resident who helped respond to the emergency, identified only as Claudio, told ANSA that he helped two youths from Naples, who managed to climb out of the gorge on their own.

'They were in a state of shock and they arrived without shoes and with cuts from the rocks. They recounted a terrifying situation,' he said.

The local authorities strictly limited access to the area and have also marked certain rocky areas in order to help rescuers' efforts to locate hikers in trouble.

Rescuers and citizens wait in the central square of Civita, a village in the Italian Calabria southern region

A rescue helicopter takes off after several people were killed in a mountain gorge flooding

Rescuers and citizens wait in the central square of Civita, a village in the Calabria region

Rescue vehicles gather in Civita to save up to 36 hikers who got caught in the flash flood

The gorge on the eastern side of the Pollino National Park boasts aquatic trekking along the stream that cuts through the massive rock, where hikers pass by water falls, water tubs and natural slipways.

The gorge is broken down into three sections, the upper, mid and lower canyons, with hikes averaging between 2 and 3 hours and varying in difficult.

Guides include spelunkers and rescue instructors, who supply helmets, wet suits and other equipment.

In some places the Raganello creek, part of the Pollino National Park, is at the bottom of a narrow, deep gorge in the mountain. Rescue teams used ropes to descend the sides of the mountain to reach the site.

Images on national television showed helmeted mountain rescue squads rushing from the nearest town, Civita, to reach the gorge, a popular tourist attraction in summer.

Last week, a motorway bridge collapsed in the northern Italian port city of Genoa, killing 43 people.

Rescuers work at the Raganello Gorge in Civita, Italy, on Monday after 11 people were killed when heavy rain flooded a gorge filled with hikers
The terrorist has been identified by local media as Abdelouahab Taib (pictured)

A terrorist knifeman shot dead while trying to stab police near Barcelona had come out as gay before the attack and wanted to commit suicide because he 'felt shame,' his wife has revealed.

The 29-year-old Algerian, identified by local media as Abdelouahab Taib, stormed a police station with a knife and shouted 'Allahu akbar' (God is greatest) before he was shot dead on Monday morning.

His Spanish wife, who is thought to have converted to Islam after meeting him, said in her police statement that he told her two months ago he was homosexual, a source close to the investigation said.

'She said she had left him, that he had revealed his homosexuality and that he was disturbed about how that fit in with the Muslim religion,' the source added.

'We're putting this down to confusion, a suicide attempt. There are some who do it throwing themselves off a bridge, he opted for this method.

'We're basing ourselves on his wife's testimony, who says he had not veered towards extremism.'

The woman reportedly told police she suspected his attack was an attempt to get himself killed.

Neither the interior ministry nor the police would comment on the reports.

Taib arrived at the closed police station in Cornella de Llobregat near Barcelona at 5:45 am on Monday and repeatedly pressed the buzzer to be let in, said Rafel Comes, a commissioner with the Mossos d'Esquadra, the Catalan police.

The drama happened around 6am at a police station in Cornella on the outskirts of the Catalan capital. Pictures have emerged showing the man's body being removed from the police station

A terrorist knifeman 'shouting Allahu Akbar' has been shot dead by a female cop after trying to stab officers in an attack on a police station in Barcelona today. Police are pictured preparing to enter the man's apartment block after the attack

After police let him in, the man pulled out a 'large knife' and lunged at officers in 'a clearly premeditated desire to kill an agent of our force,' Comes said on Monday.

A female officer then shot him dead 'to save her own life,' Comes said, adding the man shouted 'Allah' as well as words the police officers did not understand.

'These are enough indication to treat the events being investigated as a terrorist attack,' he said.

Police have so far found no evidence linking the incident to terror attacks last August in Barcelona and nearby Cambrils, which killed 16 people.

The Interior Ministry said it was keeping the country's terror alert at level 4, indicating high risk.

Spain has been at that stage of alert since 2015, following a series of terror attacks abroad. Level 5, indicating a 'very high risk' of attacks, is the highest level.

Police have shot a knifeman shouting Allahu Akbar who tried to attack them at a station near Barcelona early this morning. Pictures show police near the headquarters

Comes said authorities have found no criminal record for the man identified in the documents, although international police databases are being searched for matches with his fingerprints.

Anti-terrorism police sources had earlier told AFP that the man was a 29-year-old Algerian who lived in the area, and had shouted 'Allahu akbar' (God is greatest) as he entered the station.

But Comes said the agent who shot the man dead can only recall hearing him invoking the name of 'Allah' and the rest of what he said was incomprehensible.

The commissioner would not confirm the attacker was Algerian, saying police still needed to confirm that the Algerian identity papers he carried with him were in fact his.

The police station was cordoned off and funeral home employees removed the attacker's body from the building, a witness at the scene said.

Officers searched the man's home (pictured), which was located just a few hundred metres (yards) from the site of the attack

Catalan regional police forces stand guard outside the apartment building of a man who tried to attack a police station in Cornella

The 29-year-old pleaded to be let into the premises in Cornella on the outskirts of the Catalan capital just before 6am - only to lunge at officers inside with a 'large' blade. A neighbour of the suspect is pictured being evacuated this morning

Officers searched the man's home, which was located just a few hundred yards from the site of the attack.

The incident occurred just days after the first anniversary of a deadly jihadist rampage in Catalonia.

Sixteen people were killed on August 17, 2017 when a van drove into crowds on Barcelona's popular Las Ramblas boulevard and in a knife attack in the nearby resort of Cambrils.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, Spain's worst since the Madrid train bombings in 2004 when 191 people died and more than 1,800 were injured.

Spain has kept its terrorist alert at the second-highest level since 2015.

Catalonia, which is home to a significant number of second-generation North African immigrants, has had a long history of Islamic militant activity.

Spain's first Muslim extremist - a member of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) - was uncovered in Catalonia in 1995.

The incident occurred just days after the first anniversary of a deadly jihadist rampage in Catalonia

Mohammed Atta, the pilot who slammed a passenger plane into one of New York's World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, spent time in Catalonia shortly before the attacks.

And in 2008, a plot targeting Barcelona's underground trains was foiled when it was already in advanced stages.

One in four people detained in Spain in relation to extremist Muslim-linked terrorism come from the Catalan province of Barcelona, according to a study published last year by the Real Instituto Elcano, a Spanish think-tank, which called the province the country's 'main centre of jihadist activity'.

There have been a string of similar incidents in neighbouring France targeting police and soldiers, including one in January 2016 in which police shot dead a man wielding a cleaver and yelling 'Allahu akbar' as he tried to attack a police station in northern Paris.

That incident came on the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attack on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

ISIS has frequently called on their followers to attack soldiers and police in France, who they see as a legitimate target because they represent the French state.
A total of eight ministers have now offered their resignations to Malcolm Turnbull following a leadership spill on Tuesday.

It is understood Mr Turnbull is not yet accepting most of the resignations, preferring to heal wounds and move on.

The prime minister won Tuesday's leadership ballot 48 votes to 35, leading Mr Dutton to resign from his position as Home Affairs Minister.

Australian Trade Minister Steve Ciobo and Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells

Justice Minister Michael Keenan has offered his resignation

Frontbenchers Angus Taylor, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, Zed Seslja, James McGrath, Michael Keenan, Michael Sukkar, and Steve Ciobo all tendered resignations to the PM on Tuesday evening after not backing him in the vote.

Mr Dutton's resignation has been accepted, but Mr Turnbull plans to keep the others in his team.

'We know that disunity undermines the ability of any government to get its job done,' Mr Turnbull told reporters.

'We've got to put 25 million Australians first. They hate it when we are talking about each other.'

International Development Minister Concetta Fierravanti-Wells offered her resignation with a letter where she criticised the Liberal Party for moving too far to the left.

'Our conservative base strongly feel that their voice has been eroded,' she wrote to Mr Turnbull.

Frontbencher Zed Seslja (left) and Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, James McGrath

'They needed some demonstrable indication that there are conservative voices around your cabinet table.'

Senator Fierravanti-Wells said she pushed for Mr Dutton to replace Julie Bishop as deputy Liberal leader to improve stability.

Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar offered his resignation after voting for Mr Dutton in the spill, along with Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister James McGrath.

'I voted for Peter Dutton for Leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party. As a matter of integrity, this afternoon I offered my resignation to the Prime Minister,' Senator McGrath posted on Facebook on Tuesday afternoon.

Senator McGrath was one of the key backers behind Mr Turnbull's rolling of Tony Abbott in 2015.

Cybersecurity Minister Angus Taylor and Human Services Minister Michael Keenan have also reportedly offered their resignations.

Mr Turnbull called the spill after a week of leadership speculation from Liberals angry with his National Energy Guarantee.

But his narrow victory leaves him vulnerable to another challenge before the next election.

Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar did not back the PM in Tuesday's vote

The coalition has lost 38 successive Newspolls to Labor, eight more than Tony Abbott's record. However, Mr Turnbull has consistently rated higher than Bill Shorten as preferred prime minister.

Mr Shorten failed to get parliament to back a motion of no confidence in the prime minister on Tuesday afternoon.

'If the prime minister's own party don't want him, why on earth should the parliament put up with him?' Mr Shorten said.
Jon Stewart, the former host of The Daily Show, has made a home for two goats that were found roaming along the subway tracks in New York City.

A train operator on Monday alerted headquarters about 'two very baaaaad boys' along the N Line in Brooklyn, the MTA said on Twitter. It wasn't clear where the goats came from.

The MTA, which runs the New York Subway, called the police and Animal Control about the goats, which were spotted on the tracks between the Fort Hamilton and New Utrecht stations.

Two goats appeared to be having a day out along the subway tracks which caused chaos

One of them collapsed after about two minutes while the other one refused and ran about 200 yards along the tracks before collapsing after being tranquilized

Two runaway goats were discovered playing between the Fort Hamilton Parkway and New Utrecht stops on the N line in Borough Park, Brooklyn

Passersby got a glimpse of a strange sight in Brooklyn, after a pair of goats roamed onto the N train subway tracks in Borough Park

The MTA said the goats were safe, as they were roaming around a portion of the N train known as the Sea Beach Line which is not currently in use due to renovations

The pair were running about 300 feet back and forth between the two stations

The goats were seen wandering up and down the tracks and could easily have been killed

Train staff and police soon arrived on the scene and they managed to corral the white-and-brown runaways on to a closed track and tranquilized them before taking them to an animal shelter.

'We're told they were munching grass,' said Jon Weinstein, a spokesman for the MTA.

That's when Stewart stepped in. In a video, Stewart is shown helping load the goats into a trailer to Farm Sanctuary. The comedian and his wife often assist transporting animals found in the city to the shelter in Watkins Glen, New York

The sanctuary says the goats are males and have been named Billy and Willy.

Former Daily Show host Jon Stewart, a supporter of Farm Sanctuary, picked up the goats from New York City's Animal Care and Control and brought them to the organization's shelter

Stewart is a long-standing animal welfare activist. He and his wife are supporters of the Farm Sanctuary shelter in upstate New York where the rogue goats were taken in

It's still unclear exactly where the furry fugitives came from  but they were spotted grazing on the tracks between the Fort Hamilton Parkway and New Utrecht stops in Borough Park, before the NYPD knocked them out with tranquilizer darts.

'We've seen cats and dogs but never goats,' said Captain Jonathan Bobin, of Transit District 34. 'This is a new one here...They were nervous and kept running from our personnel, but we were able to get them and take them off the tracks safely.

'There are a number of meat markets in the area, so the theory is they could have come from one of those places,' Bobin said. 'But as of now, nobody has stepped forward to claim the goats.'

The officers arrived on the train which brought them directly to the scene of the goats

Just before 10am the goats were tranquilized and removed from the tracks by the NYPD

Tranquilizer hand guns and rifles were used to simultaneously shoot the goats at least twice

It was definitely a different kind of target for these NYPD marksmen

The goats were spotted running wild along Brooklyn N train subway tracks near 62nd street

Where the goats came from is unclear, though there are a number of slaughterhouses in the area where they were found. Here, animal control officers are seen capturing one of the goats

The goat was unable to move after being struck with the tranquilizer dart

After one goat was captured, it took a little bit of time before the second one was caught

The goats proved to be nimble as they bounded across the tracks not wanting to be caught

Eventually the second goat was caught and held in position until it could be secured

All the trains running along the line were halted while the delicate operation was carried out

NYPD ESU officers used tranquilizer hand gun and rifle to simultaneously shoot the goats at least twice

Stewart is a long-standing animal welfare activist. He and his wife have their own sanctuary at their farm in New Jersey

The N train service was delayed for approximately two hours while the goats were dealt with.

Stewart is a long-standing animal welfare activist.

He and his wife are supporters of the Farm Sanctuary shelter in upstate New York where the rogue goats were taken in, and have previously adopted an abused horse and a bull that escaped from a slaughterhouse.

They also opened a sanctuary at their own New Jersey farm in 2015.

The goats found loose near the N subway line Monday morning have been moved to a rescue center in Watkins Glen, New York

Two well fed goats believe to be males were spotted running wild along Brooklyn N train subway tracks near 62nd street and New Utrecht avenue.

The goats were captured thanks to the use of tranquilizer dart

The emergency services were on hand to help remove the goats from the subway tracks

NYPD staff can't help but smile as they deal with a rather unusual rescue to say the least

The goats were loaded into NYPD Transit District van used for transporting perps and taken to ASPCA on Linden boulevard in East New York, Brooklyn

One of them collapsed after about two minutes while the other one refused and ran about 200 yards along the tracks before collapsing

The goat looks totally worn out after running up and down the subway tracks

Both goats were carefully carried across two live third rails with their feet tied up by a rope

The tranquilizer dart ensured that the goat remained totally still while it was scooped up

Officers were extremely careful with the goat as they brought it across the tracks
Boots had a famous face in one of its stores to help launch a new eco-friendly bottled water on Sunday.

In Westfield shopping centre, where he wasn't born and raised, Hollywood A-lister and Fresh Prince actor Will Smith went undercover for the launch of his new joint venture with his son Jaden, 20, JUST Water.

The comedian and rapper, 49, surprised customers in White City, London, by stepping into the customer assistant role, with his very own Boots badge, to educate them on the product while giving away signed JUST Water bottles.

Hollywood A-lister and Fresh Prince actor Will Smith went undercover (pictured) for the launch of his new joint venture with his son

The eco-friendly bottled water will now be available in 800 Boots stores across the country.

Actor Will said: 'While Jaden was surfing as a young kid, some plastic water bottles floated by him and he soon realised that they were dirtying our oceans and killing the environment.

'He was immediately motivated to do something to save our planet; our future - and with that wish, JUST Water was born.'

JUST Water contains still spring water, sourced from the firm's UK bottling partner in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, which offers both the highest quality water as well as being a sustainable source.

The comedian and rapper, 49, surprised customers in White City, London, by stepping into the customer assistant role

While many customers were amazed by Will Smith's appearance, others were left wondering it he was simply a look-alike

The packaging is comprised of 82 percent renewable sources, which means most of the materials used to make the bottle start out as plants.

The JUST bottles are also recyclable throughout the UK through kerbside and bring bank systems.

Jaden Smith said: 'By partnering with a retailer like Boots, it's exciting that so many people across the UK can feel like they are giving back to the environment by drinking JUST.

'Boots shares the same values as JUST through its social responsibility and dedication to sustainability and I'm excited to work with them for the UK launch.'

He even had his very own Boots badge (left) and educating customers on the product while giving away signed JUST Water bottles (right)

The much-loved actor posed with families (left) and then shared details about his son's product (right)

Matt Graham, senior buying manager, added: 'At Boots UK, we're committed to delivering more sustainable products for our customers and we continue to explore various innovative solutions.

'We're thrilled to be introducing JUST Water to 800 of our stores, as it has strong packaging sustainability credentials, which we know will resonate strongly with our customers.

'The launch will be an exciting entry into the UK market, and we're pleased to be offering it as part of our market leading meal deal range.'

The actor surprised customers by stepping into the customer assistant role, with his very own Boots badge, to educate them on the product while giving away signed JUST Water bottles
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Big Fat Gypsy Weddings star Paddy Doherty shed a tear today after the coffin of his nephew arrived for his funeral following the arrival of his friends and relatives in a huge fleet of 16 white Rolls-Royce Phantom cars.

Mikey Connors's funeral was held at St Michael's Church in Ashtead, Surrey, ahead of a ceremony at nearby Epsom Cemetery today, nearly a month after he died in an accident in Thamesmead, South East London.

A life-sized jockey, horse and cart made out of flowers were the centrepiece to the funeral today following Mr Connors's death aged 32 after hitting a car while driving a horse and cart on the A2016 Eastern Way on July 28.

Big Fat Gypsy Weddings star Paddy Doherty sheds a tear as the coffin of his nephew Mikey Connors arrives in Ashtead, Surrey

Paddy Doherty looks visibly emotional at the funeral of Mikey Connors. Mr Doherty was one of ten pall-bearers who carried the coffin of his nephew after the service

A girl carries a sign saying 'Love you always, Daddy' into the funeral as Mr Doherty (left) carries the coffin of Mr Connors

Mr Doherty at the funeral of his nephew Mr Connors, nearly a month after the 32-year-old's death in South East London

Friends and family lean out of the hearse that carries the coffin of Mr Connors today after his funeral in Surrey

Mr Connors after being hit by a car at high speed in London and his horse had to be put down because of its injuries

Mourners travel on sulkys pulled along by horses as they follow the coffin of Mr Connors along a road in Surrey this afternoon

Mr Doherty was one of ten pall-bearers who carried the coffin of his nephew after the service. The coffin was held on the shoulders of ten smartly dressed men as a young girl and boy led the procession.

They held a 'WBC' boxing belt and a framed photo of Mr Connors kissing a small child. Family members banged on the side of the baby-blue coffin and shouted after 'Mikey' and 'God bless ya'.

A woman followed the coffin with a speaker, which played 'A Place in the Sun' by Stevie Wonder, followed by 'Shotgun' by George Ezra. Some of the crowd sang along, while other pumped the air with their hands.

The coffin was placed inside a white Mercedes hearse as mourners tearfully bid Mr Connors farewell. Mr Doherty leant inside the car and placed his hand on the coffin. He was clearly upset as he steadied himself against the car.

Later, Mr Connors was taken for one last race as his coffin in the back of a hearse joined a horse and cart race outside Epsom racecourse.

The funeral cortege of 16 Rolls Royce Phantoms and a white Mercedes hearse halted as an aircraft flew overhead towing the banner that read 'Mikey Connors legend RIP.'

Friends & family follow the coffin of Mikey Connors today. Later, Mr Connors was taken for one last race as his coffin in the back of a hearse joined a horse and cart race outside Epsom racecourse

Horse and carts follow Mikey Connors coffin in the white Mercedes hearse today. The coffin was placed inside a white Mercedes hearse as mourners tearfully bid Mr Connors farewell

Mr Doherty was one of ten pall-bearers who carried the coffin of his nephew after the end of the service

The coffin was placed inside a white Mercedes hearse as both men and women wept as they bid Mr Connors farewell

The coffin was held on the shoulders of ten smartly dressed men as a young girl and boy led the procession

Family members banged on the side of the baby-blue coffin and shouted after 'Mikey' and 'God bless ya'

Mr Doherty leant inside the car and placed his hand on the coffin. He was clearly upset as he steadied himself against the car

Golfers on nearby grounds looked on perplexed as the racers warmed up tearing along the road closed by the police at break-neck speed.

The hearse then joined the eight horse-carts as they raced at high speed along the road dotted by police officers.

Mr Doherty stood in the road shouting 'oi, oi' to keep the parade together as the horse-carts were flanked by the white Mercedes.

Inside the car immediate family took turns in hanging out the window to proudly display flags in homage to Mr Connors. The riders gave several runs across the road adjacent to the race course, as the light aircraft circled overhead.

After the final run the coffin was then transferred into a white hearse pulled by eight all-white horses with baby-blue banners which read and plumes.

The banners read 'Mikey Connors, our legend, one in a billion, king of the road'. The riders of the hearse dressed in black jackets, top hats and white breeches then rode off towards the cemetery.

Horses & carts follow the coffin of Mr Connors through the streets of Surrey today following the funeral service

Horses and carts travel along a road in Surrey as mourners remember the life of traveller Mr Connors today

Floral tributes sit in the back of a truck as it travels through the streets of Surrey following Mr Connors's funeral toda

A photo captioned 'eternal love' can be seen from the back of the Mercedes car as it is given a police escort today

A message saying: 'Mikey Connors legend' is flown by a plane as his coffin leaves the funeral in Surrey today

It was joined by around 80 family members on foot, which included seven young children in baby-blue suits and dresses.

Behind the procession was a dozen luxury cars, including Bentleys and Mercedes motors. The last family members were picked up by white Rolls Royce Phantoms and left for the burial.

Mr Connors was laid to rest to the sounds of bagpipes. As the coffin was brought into Epsom Cemetery and carried up a hill to his grave followed by a caravan of family and friends, the Celtic instruments wailed.

More than 200 people stood as the coffin passed by with many banging the coffin and shouting 'Mikey'. Children held onto blue star-shaped balloons and a pair of boxing gloves was held high in the air.

A relative of Mr Connors said: 'He was a lovely man, with a kind heart and good values. People forget among all of this that somebody has died - there is a mother with a boy lost.'

After the heartfelt send-off, Mr Connor's coffin was lowered into the ground as his family wept and comforted each other.

Mr Connors's horse, Big T, suffered extensive injuries in the accident and was put down by a vet. His brother Simey rushed to the scene of the accident after his brother failed to reach the finishing line following the race.

A mourner stands outside the funeral of Mr Connors today, following his death in a horse and cart accident

A woman followed the coffin with a speaker, which played 'A Place in the Sun' by Stevie Wonder, and 'Shotgun' by George Ezra

Mr Connors, the nephew of Big Fat Gypsy Weddings star Paddy Doherty, was killed when his horse-and-cart was hit by a car

Two mourners arrive this morning, each carrying an energy drink ahead of the funeral of Mr Connors in Surrey

A fleet of 16 Rolls Royce Phantom cars arrive at St Michael's Church in Ashtead, Surrey, for the funeral of Mikey Connors

Close friends and family arrive this morning for the funeral of the traveller who was killed in a horse and cart accident

Speaking about his death at the time, Simey said on Facebook : 'My heart is in bits over you ... I saw you lying on the ground I ran over and got on my knees to beg Jesus and Mary for you to be OK.'

Today, each of the Rolls Royce Phantoms had two light blue flags with the text 'Mikey Connors, our legend, one in a billion, king of the road' as they blocked the road on their arrival to the church in Ashtead.

Gypsy men arrived at the church wearing black shirts, tucked-in polo shirts and dark wraparound sunglasses, while high-heeled women turned up with pushchairs - clutching cans of energy drinks and cigarettes.

A white Mercedes funeral car then brought Mr Connors's coffin to the church as around 200 people gathered outside to pay homage before going inside. The entrance to the church was marked by a red carpet and a blue 1977 Bedford pick-up truck.

Inside the classic truck's window was a small poster dedicated to Mikey, with the text 'our one in a billion'. The burial is due to take place two-and-a-half miles away, at Epsom and Ewell cemetery.

A lavish send-off - complete with symbolic memories of the racer's life - was planned. Leading to the grave was a 50ft red carpet - which ran through the site, surrounded by trees and a view of London in the distance.

A large horse and drawn cart stood made of flowers, with a blue wreath and rider made of green flowers - complete with a white helmet and a Nike tick on his breast.

Two women arrive for the funeral in Surrey which took place a month after the death of Mr Connor in South East London

A view of the grave site of late traveller Mr Connors ahead of his funeral today at Epsom Cemetery in Surrey

A mourner pushes a pram as others arrive for the funeral in Surrey following Mr Connors's death on July 28

A tribute picture at Mr Connors' grave site before his funeral today, following his death nearly a month ago in Thamesmead

Mr Connors's brother Simey had rushed to the scene of the accident after his brother failed to reach the finishing line

The funeral comes nearly a month after Mr Connors died in an accident with a car while driving a horse and cart on a road

A boy steps out of one of the white Rolls-Royce Phantoms before the funeral of the traveller who was killed in an accident

Friends and relatives posted dozens for Facebook messages paying tribute to Mr Connors following his death last month

There were flowers adorning large photos of Mr Connors and his family - from holidays to Universal Studios to smiling family portraits with Mr Doherty.

Written on one shrine was '352 World Record' - possibly relating to horsecart racing - clearly a major part of Mr Connors's life.

There was also a small white bungalow of flowers with a black roof and brown trim - written on top was 'may you get the best bed in heaven'.

Finally, a Rolex watch was made of brown flowers - displaying the time of 2.46, with the date '21'.

After the service, mourners headed to a Wetherspoon's pub in Leatherhead, Surrey - where scuffles broke out as the evening progressed.

Witnesses described lines of policemen watching over black-clad mourners as they pushed and shoved each other in the road.

Floral tributes and giant photographs have been left at Epsom Cemetery in Surrey ahead of the funeral today

One of Mr Connors's friends left a house floral tribute, with the line: 'May you get the best bed in heaven'

Mr Connors has been remembered in a series of photographs after he was killed in a accident on his horse and cart

A collage of photographs put together on a board at Epsom Cemetery this morning ahead of Mr Connors's funeral

Floral tributes including photos of Mr Connor have been left by friends and relatives at Epsom Cemetery today

The photographs surround the plot where Mr Connors will be laid to rest at Epsom Cemetery today

A red carpet was laid out for mourners at the grave site of Mr Connors this morning in Epsom Cemetery

Paddy Doherty is an Irish former bare-knuckle boxer who rose to fame in the Channel 4 documentary series Big Fat Gypsy Weddings (left) and later became known for winning Celebrity Big Brother series eight in 2011 (right)

Following Mr Connors's death, a man was arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving. A police spokesman said: 'The driver of the car, a 30-year-old man, was arrested on suspicion of death by dangerous driving.

'Officers from the Met's Roads and Transport Policing Command are leading the investigation. We are appealing for witnesses to come forward; in particular, motorists who may have dashcam footage.'

Mr Doherty is an Irish former bare-knuckle boxer who rose to fame in the Channel 4 documentary series Big Fat Gypsy Weddings and later became known for winning Celebrity Big Brother series eight in 2011.

He was also famously befriended by speaker's wife Sally Bercow, appearing alongside her in Celebrity Big Brother and starring in reality show When Paddy Met Sally. She later took Mr Doherty and his wife on a tour of Parliament.
Saudi Arabia could be set to carry out its first execution of a female political activist, human rights organisations warns.

Israa al-Ghomgham, 29, has been imprisoned since 2015, after taking part in anti-government protests in the eastern region of Qatif and campaigning for human rights on social media.

Ms Al-Ghomgham, along with five others including her husband, has been charged with 'inciting disobedience of the ruler' and organising anti-government protests.

On trial: Israa al-Ghomgham, 29, pictured as a child holding her sister, has been imprisoned since 2015, after taking part in anti-government protests in the eastern region of Qatif

'Sentencing a female human rights defender to death is a dangerous precedent in Saudi Arabia,' Ali Adubisi, director of the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) told Middle East Eye.

'It's largely a revenge against the Arab Spring, and a punishment for Qatif, which witnessed the largest protests since 2011.'

During Ms Al-Ghomgham's first trial session earlier this month, the prosecution recommended that she be sentenced to death for her crimes.

It is thought that she would then become the first female human rights and political activist to be executed in Saudi Arabia.

However, the court has yet to convict her and her five co-defendants, and the trial is not due to continue until the end of October.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has expressed a desire to soften his nation's image, but the number of executions has risen since his ascension

There have been several false reports on social media claiming that Ms Al-Ghomgham had already been executed.

Images of another woman has also been spread online with commentators claiming her to be Ms Al-Ghomgham, however the only photo of her available is a family photo from her childhood where she is seen holding her younger sister,

Several Saudi Arabian human rights activists have taken to social media to slam the reports, urging supporters not to share false information which could hurt her case.

Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has executed seven women, on average two per year, for crimes such as murder.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has expressed a desire to soften his nation's image, but the number of executions has risen since his ascension.

Last year, the hardline Muslim nation executed a total of 146 people, according to Amnesty, up from 90 in 2015.
A man in China was so obsessed with his phone he refused to put it down after falling into a 13ft deep hole while looking at his handset.

What's more, the pedestrian bore the pain of a fractured kneecap as he carried on playing on his mobile underground.

Rescuers were stunned by the man's act after they arrived at the scene, according to Chinese media.

The man in China was still on his phone after a paramedic went down the manhole to help him

The incident took place on July 27 in Karamay in western China's Xinjiang Province.

The man, said to be a construction worker, plummeted to the bottom of the manhole after failing to notice that it wasn't covered. He was looking at his phone at the time, reported Kan Kan News.

The report said when firefighters arrived, they saw that the man was still playing games on his handset while sitting at the bottom of the hole.

It is said the man was whining in pain while staring at his screen.

He was saved after firefighters pulled him out of the manhole using a rescue tripod

Doctors said he had fractured his right kneecap during the fall on a street in Karamay

Firefighters attached straps around the man before pulling him out of the hole using a rescue tripod.

The man was taken to the hospital afterwards.

Medical examination showed that he had fractured his right kneecap during the fall. The man is reported to be recovering.
A bored wife who manipulated her teenage lover into shooting her husband in the head still insists she's innocent 28 years later.

Pamela Smart is serving a life sentence for orchestrating the murder of Greggory Smart on May 1, 1990, in a staged burglary at their home in Derry, New Hampshire.

The then-22-year-old convinced William Flynn, 15, along with three of his teenage friends, to kill him because it was cleaner than getting a divorce.

Pamela Smart (left) is serving a life sentence for orchestrating the murder of her husband Greggory Smart (right) on May 1, 1990, in a staged burglary at their home

When she was arrested, Smart claimed to have nothing to do with the murder but a remorseful Flynn soon admitted his guilt and testified against her.

Almost three decades later the 'ice princess' still claims Flynn killed Gregg, 24, in a jealous rage after she broke off the affair.

The 51-year-old is the subject of new three-part Investigation Discovery documentary Pamela Smart: An American Murder Mystery examining her case.

'I want the world to know that my incarceration is unjust, my trial was unfair and I'm being held in prison for a crime I didn't commit,' she said in the documentary.

Almost three decades later the 'ice princess' still claims Flynn killed Gregg, 24, in a jealous rage after she broke off the affair

Smart claimed to have nothing to do with the murder but a remorseful Flynn (right at his parole hearing in 2015) soon admitted his guilt and testified against her (left)

Smart claimed for many years that the media hype surrounding her trial poisoned the jury against her, and hopes the series will lead to a parole hearing.

However, Paul Maggiotto, who prosecuted her case, said she should never be considered for release until she admits her guilt.

'Part of the requirement for being eligible for a potential pardon is to accept responsibility for what you've done,' he told Fox News.

'And to admit that you've destroyed the lives of three other people when you did this, as well as having your husband killed and accept responsibility and moving forward from there.'

Mr Maggiotto said he agreed to be featured in the documentary because Gregg had no one to represent him with his parents dead and his brother hard to reach.

He said he wanted to prevent 'false narratives' from being spread, like Smart's claim that Gregg cheated on her before her affair.

Smart took Flynn's virginity at 15 while they watched the raunchy film 9 1/2 Weeks and soon she was sending him photos of herself posing seductively in lingerie (right)

The former prosecutor said this was just one of many 'ludicrous' and 'hypocritical' statements Smart made after the murder.

Smart seduced Flynn when he was enrolled in a self-esteem course she volunteered to teach at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, where she was the media services director.

She took his virginity while they watched the raunchy film 9 1/2 Weeks and soon she was sending him photos of herself posing seductively in lingerie.

Paul Maggiotto, who prosecuted her case, said Smart should never be considered for release until she admits her guilt

Seeing an opportunity to get rid of her husband and be able to play the victim, she told Flynn the only way they could be together is if Gregg was dead.

Smart claimed she would lose her house, money and even their dog Halen in a divorce and that killing him was a better option.

The murderous black widow also stood to collect a $140,000 life insurance payout, but Mr Maggiotto doesn't think she did it for money.

'Pam didn't want to be the 23-year-old woman who was divorcing her husband, because she had an affair with a 16, 16-year-old student,' he told Fox News.

'That would have looked terrible for her. She would have looked ridiculous to the public. She would have ruined her reputation. She would have lost her job at the school and I think instead, she'd rather be the sympathetic widow.'

Mr Maggiotto called Smart a sociopath who didn't think about the consequences of her actions on Gregg, Flynn, or his friends.

Flynn was released from prison in June 2015 after 25 years behind bars, as was his friend Patrick Randall, 16, who held a knife to Gregg's throat before Flynn shot him.

Her trial spawned to books and movies, including the 1995 film To Die For starring Nicole Kidman (left) as a TV personality who enlists three teens, including a lover played by Joaquin Phoenix (right), to kill her husband

Smart (left at her trial) claimed in previous interviews (right in 2015) that she had no reason to kill her husband and Flynn lied to save his own skin

Vance Lattime Jr and Raymond Fowler, who waited in the getaway car, got lighter sentences and have also been released.

Mr Maggiotto said he was 'impressed' with Flynn's remorse after realizing what he had done and how he ruined his friends' lives.

'I think Billy realized that he got his buddies into this and the only way they could ever see the light of day is if they were to plead to a lesser offense,' he said.

He said people should remember that the four teens were just kids at the time and were 'somewhat manipulated by this older woman'.

Smart claimed in previous interviews that she had no reason to kill her husband and Flynn lied to save his own skin.

'I had a very good job, I had a better job than my husband... There's no reason why I would've killed him. That's a very drastic thing to do,' she told Fox in 2015.

Flynn's friend Patrick Randall, 16, (left at the trial) who held a knife to Gregg's throat before Flynn shot him, was also released on parole in 2015 (right)

'I just feel like, why doesn't he just tell the truth? It's over for him. But I know that he can't and that he won't.

'Because if he tells the truth, his plea bargain won't be good anymore. That's how it goes. It's based on his "truthful" testimony.'

She also said in other interviews that she was beaten so badly by two fellow inmates in 1996 that she was left with a broken eye socket and metal plate in her face.

Smart later earned two masters' degrees while in prison and worked as an HIV/AIDS counselor.

Her trial spawned to books and movies, including the 1995 film To Die For starring Nicole Kidman as a TV personality who enlists three teens, including a lover played by Joaquin Phoenix, to kill her husband.
A woman has been arrested after a car crashed into the gate of Dublin's Government Buildings.

It is understood the woman, an Irish national in her 50s, attempted to drive the gold Nissan Micra through the entrance in Merrion Street Upper.

The incident took place shortly after 10am local time on Tuesday. No injuries were reported.

Incident: The female driver of a car that crashed into the gates of Government Buildings in Merrion Street Upper, Dublin, has been arrested

Gardai arrested the driver of the car at the scene and she was taken to Pearse Street Garda Station.

According to the Irish Independent, the woman was driving her own car, and it is not known how the care came to crash into the railings.

It is understood that the gates were open when the car went into the railings.

Pictures from the incident at the Department of the Taoiseach shows the car with minor damage to its front.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has been made aware of the incident and told local media the crash site is now a crime scene.

Police say the woman, an Irish national in her 50s, attempted to drive the gold Nissan Micra through the entrance
The Hamilton writer's mother has provoked a hilarious response on Twitter after accidentally tweeting her son to ask if he was home - when he was actually more than 3,000 miles away.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's mother, Luz Towns-Miranda, was apparently trying to ask her son if he had returned to New York when she tweeted him instead.

Mr Miranda shared the tweet with his 2.4million followers, adding: 'Mom, Im in Wales, move your Twitter app like three screens over from your text app.'

The hip-hop musical star is in Wales at the moment shooting a new TV series based on Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials.

The relatable parent fail has racked up more than 12,000 likes and hundreds of replies where users have revealed their own technology issues.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's mother, Luz Towns-Miranda, pictured together last year, accidentally tweeted 'are you home?' instead of texting her son

The Hamilton creator told his mother she should move the app on to a different screen on her phone to ensure that she doesn't get them confused again

Amanda Fair said: 'My Mom once asked if my FB photo with Jeff Goldblum was a picture of me and my new boyfriend. She was watching Jurassic Park when she asked me that. Mom's are so pure :')'

M.E. Ellison added: 'This is like all the parents on Facebook making Happy Birthday! their status when theyre trying to wish a person happy birthday... only next level.'

Lisa Harrison said: 'My mom went to the Apple store for them to fix the Facebook.'

Others have expressed their joy that all parents struggle with technology - even the parents of celebrities.

Maelie Jade wrote: 'It's good to know that it's all our mums.'

Janet Mattox added: 'Its good to know moms are universal and Im not the only one who does this kind of thing!! [laughing emoji].'

Mr Miranda wrote, composed, and starred in the hip-hop musical Hamilton which has gone on to win 11 Tony awards including best musical. Pictured: the cast performing during the Tony awards

Twitter users have responded with their own stories about their own parents' technology problems

One user said: 'Eleven years ago today was my Mom's funeral. This Tweet was the absolute best possible way to start this particular Monday.'

Hamilton, the show he wrote, composed, and performed in, has taken the world by storm since it was first performed in 2015, and it was given a record-breaking 11 Tony awards in 2016 including Best Musical.

The show opened in the UK at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London in December 2017 and won seven Olivier Awards.

It tells the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton, who went on to become George Washingtons right-hand man during the Revolutionary War and helped shape the foundations of modern America.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are set to see the show for a second time on August 29.

The newlyweds first saw a production in London six months ago on a private visit, where they are said to have been applauding enthusiastically.
No10 slapped down Liam Fox today after he hinted that the target for slashing net immigration below 100,000 a year could be ditched after Brexit.

The Trade Secretary pointedly refused to endorse the goal - championed by Theresa May - staying in place after the UK leaves the EU.

Instead he made clear the policy would be 'reviewed' once ties with Brussels have been cut.

The comments fueled speculation that ministers are preparing to make concessions to the EU over border controls in a bid to break the deadlock in negotiations.

But Downing Street sources quickly stepped in to insist the target would stay in place. 'We remain committed to bringing net migration down to sustainable levels - the tens of thousands,' a source said.

Trade Secretary Liam Fox (pictured delivering a speech in Westminster today) has pointedly refused to endorse the net migration goal - championed by Theresa May - staying in place after the UK leaves the EU

Mrs May has insisted ending free movement is a red line - but there have been rumours that citizens for the bloc could still get preferential treatment after Brexit.

The target for bringing net long-term migration below 100,000 a year was set by David Cameron in 2010, but has never been met. In the run-up to the EU referendum in 2016, the figure hit 330,000.

The level has dipped since then but data published last month showed it was still 280,000.

In a round of broadcast interviews today, Dr Fox said voters could see there was a difference between people coming to work and those who exploited services.

'The government has said there needs to be controls over total immigration,' he told LBC Radio.

'And I think that one of the things that was clear from the referendum was that the public do not want unlimited movement into the United Kingdom.

'I think the public can differentiate between people who come here with a job and will be contributing to the economy and those who under free movement were able to come to the United Kingdom and use our public services without every having contributed to them.'

Theresa May - pictured in Scotland earlier this month - has been battling to get a Brexit deal with the EU

David Cameron set the target for bringing net migration into the tens of thousands.

Pushed on the 'tens of thousands' target, Dr Fox said he supported government policy - but hinted that it could change.

'That's the government target and we'll be reviewing what we do post-Brexit,' he said.

'I think we need to look in the future at how we match our employment opportunities with our migration policy.

'The big problem with free movement from Europe was that people were able to come to Great Britain without having a job and they were able to use our public services like schools and hospitals and housing without ever having contributed.

'I don't think the public think that is fair and neither do I.'

The Downing Street source said: 'There is no consent in Britain for uncontrolled immigration.

'We are developing an immigration system that will continue to attract and retain people who come here to work and bring significant benefits, but will not offer an open door to those who don't.'
A young alpaca has died after eating whole peanuts that were dumped in a Florida field by a man in a blue car.

The Creekside Animal Hospital in Fleming Island, Florida, says it has asked the man on at least four occasions not to toss the food onto the field.

On the last visit, the hospital says the man dumped three boxes of animal crackers, two large boxes of cheese crackers, a large bag of Doritos and two bags of whole peanuts. It was the first time nuts were left.

The animal hospital said the man 'leaves the litter behind every single time and we clean it up'.

A young alpaca that was born out on the shared field over a year ago has died after being overfed with junk food that was thrown into its field

The hospital updated the local community as to what was happening with the animals

The unidentified man typically leaves behind large amounts of junk food that the animal hospital said it hoped was 'eaten up by the herd' so no one would get 'too much.'

However, the man dumped two bags of peanuts into the open field and the alpaca  who is fed peanut hay every day  ate too much.

The young animal suffered for 36 hours in horrendous pain before succumbing to blood poisoning after eating the junk food left behind by the driver.

The animal hospital explained: 'It is with a heavy heart that we want to inform our clients and friends at Swimming Pen Creek Elementary that our youngest alpaca that was born out on the shared field over a year ago has passed away.'

The alpaca died after the man threw in three boxes of animal crackers, a large bag of Doritos, two boxes of Cheese Nips and two bags of whole peanuts into the animal's field

The hospital says the alpacas are fed peanut hay every day, and 'the little guy didn't know any better and he overindulged.'

In the statement the hospital explained how they did everything they could for him, even a blood transfusion from his father, but the young alpaca died nonetheless.

The animal hospital said they 'worked on him for 36 hours and just couldn't bring him back.'

The hospital says it couldn't save the alpaca from endotoxemia, bacterial toxins in the bloodstream.

Creekside wrote on Facebook: 'We tried hard guys and we did keep him on a lot of pain medication because his belly was hurting so badly.'

Employees with the animal hospital said they are now in fear for the rest of the herd, including the goats.

According to the post, a man in a blue car is responsible for the death of the alpaca.

The sheriff's office has been notified.
Tom Riall (pictured) leaving Sudbury Magistrates Court after pleading guilty to speeding at over 100mph on a 70mph dual carriageway in 2009

A speed camera boss who was banned from driving for doing 102mph has once again been barred from Britain's roads - this time for using a mobile phone.

From 2007 to 2013 Tom Riall was chief executive of Serco, which installed about 4,500 speed and traffic light cameras across Britain.

He hit the headlines in early 2009 when he was caught doing over 100 miles per hour on a road in Newmarket, Suffolk, which had a 70mph limit.

The 58-year-old has now been handed a six-month driving ban for using his mobile phone while driving along the M4 near Langley, Slough on April 9.

He denied the charge but was tried and convicted by a District Judge sitting at Reading Magistrates Court on Monday, August 13.

Alongside the six month driving ban he was handed a 2,500 fine and ordered to pay 640 costs and a 250 victim surcharge.

Riall is now chief executive officer for the multi-million pound Integrated Dental Holdings Group Limited.

He worked for Serco from 2005 to 2013 before moving on to a brief stint at The Priory.

Addressing his recent ban, a spokesman for Thames Valley Police said: 'Due to it being a high fine, we put the press release out as we want to set an example and show people why they shouldnt be on their phone whilst driving.'

Tom Riall (pictured) is now chief executive of Integrated Dental Holdings Group Ltd, a company which operates NHS and private dental practices in the UK with sales figures of roughly 600m a year. He has now been handed a six-month driving ban for using his mobile phone while driving along the M4

Investigating officer, Police Constable Jessica Barker of the Roads Policing Unit, said: 'Thames Valley Police take the offence of using a mobile phone whilst driving very seriously.'

From 2007 to 2013 Tom Riall was chief executive of Serco, which installed about 4,500 speed and traffic light cameras across Britain

Riall of Ufton Nervet, Reading, apologised at the time of his original driving ban.

Addressing magistrates, he said: 'In my role I am all too aware of the consequences of speeding.'

The court heard that the married father of three had two previous motoring convictions, including a past speeding offence, from 2006 and 2007.

Riall moved on from SERCO to work at the Priory Group, which provides mental health services, as chief executive before moving to the Integrated Dental Holdings Group Ltd in May 2017, a company which operates NHS and private dental practices in the UK with sales figures of roughly 600m a year.

When contacted about his latest conviction Mr Riall replied 'no comment', while no one was at his six-bedroomed home on a secluded farm road in west Berkshire to speak about the conviction.
Two toddlers survived alone for two days after their mother was killed in a car crash in south Arkansas.

The Ouachita County Sheriff's Office said three-year-old Kylen Holliman was found Monday morning wandering along a road in Camden, about 85 miles southwest of Little Rock.

Kylen was located on Highway 24 in Camden near Harveys Grocery.

Video courtesy KARK

Two toddlers survived alone for two days after their mother was killed in a car crash in south Arkansas. Kylen Holliman (pictured), three, was found wandering down a road after the crash

Police returned to the area where the boy was found and discovered a car (pictured) wrecked in a deep ravine that wasn't visible from the road

Authorities posted the boy's photo online and learned that his mother hadn't been seen for days.

Police returned to the area where the boy was found and discovered a car wrecked in a deep ravine that wasn't visible from the road.

At the scene, authorities found the body of the boy's mother, who had been thrown from the vehicle, and his one-year-old brother awake and alert in his car seat.

Deputies were able to climb into the vehicle and remove the boy.

Police later identified the children's mother as 25-year-old Lisa N. Holliman.

Photos of Kylen showed several scratches and cuts on his face and mouth.

At the scene, authorities found the body of the boy's mother, who had been thrown from the vehicle, and his one-year-old brother awake and alert in his car seat (pictured)

Arkansas State Police said the 2001 Chevrolet that Holliman was driving east on Arkansas 24 crossed the center line, struck a guardrail and overturned into a ditch

Authorities said he appeared to be in good health and didn't suffer any major injuries.

The younger child is being treated for dehydration.

Investigators believe the wreck happened two days earlier.

Arkansas State Police said the 2001 Chevrolet that Holliman was driving east on Arkansas 24 crossed the center line, struck a guardrail and overturned into a ditch.

A GoFundMe account has been set up for the Holliman family. It has raised more than $400 of its $8,500 goal.
Sajid Javid today said sorry to 18 Windrush generation members believed to have been wrongly detailed or deported.

The Home Secretary issued the apology after a review of thousands of cases where people with Caribbean heritage could have been wrongly caught up in an immigration crackdown.

He also revealed that the total number of individuals who might have been wrongly detained or removed could be as high as 164.

The news came in a letter to MPs on the Commons Home Affairs Committee updating them on the process of trawling through records.

The Windrush scandal came to a head earlier this year when it emerged hundreds of Commonwealth citizens who came to the UK in the years up to 1973 and were entitled to be in the country had been wrongly threatened with deportation.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid (pictured) issued the apology after a review of thousands of cases where people could have been wrongly caught up in an immigration crackdown

It led to the resignation of Amber Rudd as Home Secretary and a Government promise of a compensation fund for those affected.

Mr Javid said work was still ongoing, but there appeared to be 164 people of Caribbean Commonwealth heritage who might have been in the UK before 1973.

Of those, officials had identified 18 cases where individuals had lived in the UK but were unable to demonstrate their continuous residence, and were removed or detained as a result.

Mr Javid wrote: 'These are the people we have so far identified whom we consider are most likely to have suffered detriment because their right to be in the UK was not recognised and therefore where the department is most likely to have acted wrongfully.

'I am absolutely clear that this should not have happened and the Home Office is already working to address any wrongs done.

'The Home Office is already in contact with 14 of the 18 people and will continue to reach out to the remaining 4 people to put them in contact with the Taskforce. I will write to all of them offering a full, formal apology and signposting them to the compensation scheme.

'Should any of the 11 people who left the UK wish to return (a few are already here), they will be supported to do so.

What is the Windrush scandal and how did the fiasco develop? June 22, 1948 - The Empire Windrush passenger ship docked at Tilbury from Jamaica. The 492 passengers were temporarily housed near Brixton in London. Over the following decades some 500,000 came to the UK. Many arrived on their parents' passports and were not formally naturalised as British citizens. 1973 - A new immigration Act comes into force putting the onus on individuals to prove they have previously been resident in the UK. 2010 - The Home Office destroyed thousands of landing card slips recording Windrush immigrants arrival dates in the UK. The move came despite staff warnings that the move would make it harder to check the records of older Caribbean-born residents experiencing residency difficulties, it was claimed 2014 - A protection that exempted Commonwealth residents from enforced removal was removed under a new law. Theresa May was Home Secretary at the time. Under a crackdown on illegals, Windrush immigrants are obliged to provide proof they were resident in the UK before 1973. July 2016 - Mrs May becomes Prime Minister. April 2018 - Allegations that Windrush immigrants are being threatened with deportation break. Theresa May issued a grovelling apology to Caribbean leaders after major backlash April 29 - Amber Rudd resigns after inadvertently misleading Parliament by wrongly claiming there were no deportation targets Advertisement

'We have already supported one such individual.'

Mr Javid said of the 18 individuals, four were removed and two detained before May 2010 - when Labour was in government.

Seven were removed and five detained after 2010, when the Tory-Lib Dem coalition came to power.

The Home Secretary, who replaced Amber Rudd when she stepped down over the scandal that saw heavy criticism of the 'hostile environment' for migrants, said he would be writing to apologise to the 18 who are the most likely to have suffered 'detriment'.

Anthony Bryan, of Edmonton, north London, was one of those wrongly arrested, having been detained twice in recent years and told to return to Jamaica, which he left in 1965 aged eight.

'The apology is all well and good but for me personally I'm still going through the Windrush scandal,' the 61-year-old said.

Mr Javid said he will use the letters to direct the 18 towards the compensation scheme.

But Mr Bryan said he needed urgent action after accruing significant debts while being unable to work as a painter and decorator for nearly three years because of the scandal.

'The three years I didn't work, it's been backing up on me. People are asking for their money that I borrowed off them and unfortunately I can't be dealing with that yet,' he said.

'Something should have been done a long time ago. It's supposed to be up and running. And not just for me alone, I'm sure it's not just me going through that. I'm not just fighting for myself, I'm fighting for the 18.'

Mr Bryan said he returned to work last week having got his biometric residence permit after the scandal was made public.

Officials examined nearly 12,000 historical records to establish that 18 people who came to the country from the Caribbean before 1973 and stayed permanently either left the country voluntarily after being unable to establish continuous residence or were wrongly detained.

Mr Javid also said 74 people have been identified who arrived before the crucial date but appear to have spent more than two years overseas, losing their right to remain in the UK.

The Empire Windrush passenger ship docked at Tilbury from Jamaica.

The 492 passengers were temporarily housed near Brixton in London. Over the following decades some 500,000 came to the UK.

Many arrived on their parents' passports and were not formally naturalised as British citizens.

In 1973 a new immigration Act came into force putting the onus on individuals to prove they have previously been resident in the UK.

In 2014 a protection that exempted Commonwealth residents from enforced removal was removed under a new law. Theresa May was Home Secretary at the time.

Under a crackdown on illegals, Windrush immigrants are obliged to provide proof they were resident in the UK before 1973.

Jamaican immigrants being welcomed by RAF officials from the Colonial Office after the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury in 1948
Hawaii has been issued with an extreme weather warning as Hurricane Lane hovers dangerously close to the islands.

Islanders are being warned the dangerous Category 4 storm could bring winds with a maximum sustained speed of 150mph and flash flooding as early as Thursday.

NASA satellite imagery shows the hurricane is currently in the Central Pacific Ocean southeast of the islands.

The National Weather Service warns that the entire state of Hawaii needs to brace for a possible hurricane strike because of the uncertainty of Lane's path and its intensity.

NASA satellite imagery shows the gathering storm just a few hundred miles from the group of islands

Forecasters have suggested the hurricane could take several different paths so have yet to issue an official hurricane watch warning

As of Monday, the storm is about 600 miles (966 kilometers) southeast of Hilo on the Big Island, or about 800 miles (1,287 kilometers) from the state's capital city of Honolulu.

The storm is currently moving westward at 14 mph (22 km/h) and should continue to move west over the next day or so.

But forecast models are indicating that Lane will turn in a more northerly direction by late Tuesday and Wednesday, which could put it on track to bring significant impacts to the islands.

'Latest forecast models indicate that, regardless of the eventual track and intensity of Lane, an extremely moist air mass will move over the islands beginning around Wednesday, and then persist through the end of the week,' forecasters said.

'This is expected to result in very heavy rainfall, potentially leading to flash flooding.'

Hawaii has been plagued by freak natural events this year after a 30,000 foot high ash cloud from the Kilauea volcano blanketed the island in lava and dust.

Residents were forced to flee their homes after the eruptions and emergency services forced to work overtime to deal with the chaos caused to local services.

Forecasters said the extreme weather formation could bring with it flash flooding and winds of up to 150mph
A husband and wife had to be rescued after they were trapped on top of their car in the middle of a raging river in east China.

The couple was attempting to drive cross a bridge when their minivan got swept away in a fast-flowing flood in torrential rain caused by Typhoon Rumbia in Rizhao city.

Firefighters were finally able to transport the pair back to safety using a zip line in a dramatic two-hour rescue operation on Sunday.

The terrified couple was left stranded on top of their minivan after it was swept away by strong currents. They were seen hugging each other tightly as muddy waters cascade around them

After strapping a life jacket and attaching the cables onto the woman, the fireman first sent her across the river on the zip line while other rescuers pulled her to safety

Video footage released by Shandong Fire Department shows the terrified couple perched on top of their minivan and hugging each other tightly as muddy waters cascade around them at high speed.

Emergency service personnel arrived on scene at 1:22pm and were seen gathering on the bank trying to get life-jackets to the pair after setting up the anchor point for the zip line.

One of the firefighters then reached the couple using the rescue device.

After strapping a life jacket and attaching the cables onto the woman, the fireman first sent her across the river on the zip line while other rescuers pulled her to safety.

'Careful! Careful!' they were heard yelling as the woman slowly approaches dry land, desperately clinging onto the cable.

Minutes later, the man landed safely on the bank as well using the zip line.

Emergency service personnel arrived on scene at 1:22pm and were seen gathering on the bank trying to get life-jackets to the pair after setting up the anchor point for the zip line

The husband is also rescued after his wife was pulled to safety by rescuers

Firefighters, police officers and civilians were heard clapping and cheering out of relief.

The couple was in shock but not injured, according to Kan Kan News.

The husband, identified by his surname Yang, told reporters that he and his wife were trying to cross the bridge to reach his father-in-law's home.

He saw that the bridge had flooded in the rain, but decided to 'take a chance'.

The fire department would like to advise the public not to risk their lives and drive their vehicles across flooded crossings.

Typhoon Rumbia on Monday brought heavy rains to China's coastal provinces of Shandong and Liaoning, forcing the evacuation of 140,000 people and damaging crops and houses, according to Xinhua.

A total of 102,800 people in Shandong were displaced and 261,400 hectares of crops were damaged, said the provincial department of civil affairs.
Bunnings' one failing that let Chinese-owned retail giant Alibaba grab a foothold in the market has been revealed by experts.

Bunnings Warehouse has fallen behind thanks to its lacklustre online presence, retail experts said, which has taken a massive toll on how and if it will be able to survive.

The superstore added 20,000 products to its online store, however it has some work to do to stave off financial suffering long-term, with online retail on track to make up for 20 per cent of all shopping in the next two years, industry specialists told Daily Mail Australia.

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Bunnings Warehouse (pictured) has fallen behind in its online presence, experts said, which has taken a massive toll on how and if it will be able to survive future trends

The tradie-haven could suffer for as long as five years thanks to its lack of online presence, which has been intensified by the growing ingenuity of Chinese online retailer Alibaba.

'Bunnings were slow to get online, they're just starting to crank that up,' Roger Simpson from The Retail Solution told Daily Mail Australia.

'Bunnings are going to take five years to get online ramped up - sales still being slow.'

Maximising in-store shopper experiences was crucial in ensuring the store kept afloat amid a shift towards often cheaper, more convenient online stores, CEO of Retail Doctor, Brian Walker told Daily Mail Australia.

The tradie-haven could feel the effect of its online store lag for up to five years into the future, intensified by growing ingenuity of Chinese online retailer Alibaba (pictured)

'Bunnings are interesting, they create a demand for their experience, it's a social experience because of their barbecues (sausage sizzles),' Mr Walker said.

He added the store wouldn't always be able to rely on its infamous 'sausage sanga' to bring in traffic, rather its longevity would be reliant on investment in innovation and technology.

'They need to invest in artificial intelligence, research and development, fulfillment models, and contemplate funding an innovation strategy.'

Mr Walker drew comparisons with the way US retailer Walmart was able to maintain business despite online store Amazon threatening to steal its customer base.

Mr Walker said Bunnings wouldn't always be able to rely on its infamous 'sausage sanga' (pictured) to bring in traffic

'Walmart was hit hard by Amazon, but they're trading well and now doing interesting things similar to Amazon, like predictive stuff on their online platforms.'

Robotic assistants might not be too far from appearing in Australian stores either, according to Mr Walker.

A robot has already been utilised in US store Lowe's for two years, meaning a similar thing could be a reality sooner than most Australians would think.

Such technological advances make for more efficient, streamlined shopping for consumers, but they also pose a threat to retail industry employees.

Robotic assistants might not be too far from appearing in Australian stores either - endangering the jobs of Bunnings employees (pictured)

While an introduction of computerised shop attendants would inevitably force businesses to cut jobs, Mr Simpson said losses would occur slowly and gradually.

He also argued growth in online retail, while it put pressure on physical retailers, would not have an immediate macro impact on Australia's biggest traders.

'There will be re-employment into other roles, but not a massive amount of businesses will be going out of business,' he said.

Mr Simpson predicted there would be a modest amount of physical stores closing due to online shopping, likely resulting in thousands of Australians losing their jobs.
Thousands of Muslims gathered together on Tuesday to show solidarity with drought-ravaged farmers as they celebrate Eid Al Adha.

More than 30,000 people attended Lakemba Mosque in Sydney, to conduct a special 'rain prayer' during the annual Eid celebration.

Eid Al Adha, or Festival of Sacrifice, marks the conclusion of the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca.

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Thousands of Muslims gathered together on Tuesday to show solidarity with drought-ravaged farmers as they celebrate Eid Al Adha

More than 30,000 people attended Lakemba Mosque in Sydney, to conduct a special 'rain prayer' during the annual Eid celebration

Eid Al Adha, or Festival of Sacrifice, marks the conclusion of the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca (pictured Lakemba Mosque)

It is based on the story of Prophet Ibrahim, or Abrahim in Christian and Jewish tradition, who was commanded by God to sacrifice his son.

The story goes that the Prophet Ibrahim obeyed the orders from God and as he was about to sacrifice his son, a ram was took place of the Prophet's son and was sacrificed instead.

Eid is considered a joyous occasion of Muslims where family and friends get together and celebrate, wear new clothes, and donate to the poor.

The 'rain prayer' comes as 100 per cent of NSW is declared drought-affected and has received less than 20 per cent of its usual rainfall since January.

This is also the warmest and driest July in 20 years.

New South Wales is set to experience downpours this weekend as a system (pictured) makes its way across the state

Sydney has received only 1.4mm of rain in the entire month of August, with average rainfall for the month being 55mm.

However, farmers may have a bit of relief with an intense burst of rain is set to drench parts of the country this weekend - bringing a month's worth of rain in just two days.

Almost 50mm of rain is expected to fall in Sydney by Friday and the wet weather will continue into the weekend.

Parts of drought-stricken NSW have an up to 90 per chance of rain, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

Almost 50mm of rain is expected to fall in Sydney by Friday and the wet weather will continue into the weekend (woman walking in rain pictured)
Donald Trump used the bully pulpit on Tuesday to warn James Clapper that he could yank his security credential, just like he did John Brennan's, if the former intelligence chief publicly disparages him.

Clapper criticized Brennan on a Sunday roundtable that Trump apparently watched. He acknowledged that the ex-CIA director's flamboyant rhetoric about the sitting president had become problematic.

Trump suggested in a morning tweet, however, that the director of national intelligence under Barack Obama broke with Brennan to curry favor with the current occupant of the Oval Office. He said Clapper could be turning on Brennan to save his own hide.

'Even James Clapper has admonished John Brennan for having gone totally off the rails. Maybe Clapper is being nice to me so he doesnt lose his Security Clearance for lying to Congress!' Trump tweeted.

Donald Trump used the bully pulpit on Tuesday to warn James Clapper that he could yank his security credential, just like he did John Brennan's, if the former intelligence chief opposes him

Trump suggested in a morning tweet, however, that the one-time director of national intelligence was simply trying to curry favor in order to save his own hide

Clapper has been hit with perjury accusations for claiming at a 2013 hearing that the intelligence community does not collect data on Americans.

The revelation that the NSA was operating a data mining program, a state secret leaked by Edward Snowden, led to cries of foul play, although Clapper has stood by the testimony in the aftermath.

After claiming that the NSA does not collect data on millions of Americans, Clapper said, 'Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.'

Clapper's claims led to a public outcry after Snowden's document dump three months later. The intelligence official noted, however, that he buttressed his original statement with a claim that the NSA doesn't spy on Americans intentionally.

'What I said was, the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens' emails. I stand by that,' he said.

Under fire, he admitted to lawmakers, 'My response was clearly erroneousfor which I apologize.'

Despite calls for him to resign and complaints that he had not been straightforward under oath in a government setting, Clapper remained DNI until Obama termed out in January of 2016.

An American Civil Liberties Union court case involving Clapper and other intelligence officials in 2014 failed after a judge found that the government did not trample on the Fourth Amendment.

The statute of limitations on prosecution for perjury ran out earlier this year, but Trump pointed out on Tuesday that he could personally take measures to punish him.

The president's implied threat to Clapper follows a warning on Monday to Brennan that if the ex-spy chief were to sue the federal government or the executive office of the president, the administration would welcome the opportunity to depose him.

'I hope John Brennan, the worst CIA Director in our countrys history, brings a lawsuit. It will then be very easy to get all of his records, texts, emails and documents to show not only the poor job he did, but how he was involved with the Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt. He wont sue!' Trump tweeted.

Brennan said Sunday that he was considering legal action against the administration in response to the president's decree that he would be stripped of his security clearance.

The White House said that he's a loose cannon who cannot be trusted with national secrets, while the former CIA chief argues he's being unfairly targeted by the president with whom he's routinely clashed with.

President Donald Trump egged John Brennan on in his threat to sue the federal government, saying in a Monday tweet that a suit would give the administration an opportunity to depose him

Brennan is considering legal action against the administration after the president unilaterally revoked his security clearance on the grounds that he's a loose cannon who cannot be trusted with national secrets

Brennan, who served as CIA director under Barack Obama, has emerged as one of President Trump's harshest critics

Brennan, who served as CIA director under Barack Obama, has emerged as one of President Trump's harshest critics.

He's angered Trump with degrading online and television commentary, including a claim that the Republican president acted 'treasonous' during a July news conference with Vladimir Putin.

Clapper in a Sunday appearance on CNN signaled his belief that the comment went too far.

'I think John is subtle like a freight train, and he's going to say what's on his mind. I think, though, that the common denominator among all of us that have been speaking up, though, is genuine concern about the jeopardy or threats to our institutions and values, and although we may express that in different ways. And I think that's what this -- this really is about.

He was quick to tack on, 'But John and his rhetoric have become, I think, an issue in and of itself.'

Brennan said on a competing program that his slams on Trump are not enough for the president to strip him of his security clearance.

He said on Sunday on NBC that he had 'been contacted by a number of lawyers' who have given him advice on filing a complaint or an injunction to try to 'prevent Trump from doing this in the future.'

'If my clearances and my reputation, as I'm being pulled through the mud now, if that's the price we're going to pay to prevent Donald Trump from doing this against other people, to me it's a small price to pay so I am going to do whatever I can personally to try to prevent these abuses in the future and if it means going to court, I will do that,' he warned on 'Meet the Press.'

Appearing on Fox News later in the morning, the president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, laughed off the threat and invited Brennan to take legal action, paving the way for Trump's dismissal of a possible lawsuit on Monday.

Giuliani said he'd demand to depose Brennan immediately if a suit is filed.

'I would volunteer to do that case for the president. I would love to...have Brennan under oath for, I don't know how many days, two, three days? We will find out about Brennan,' he said. 'And we will find out what a terrible job he did going back to being the head of mission at the when the Khobar Towers was bombed and our Marines were killed. Or we can we can see what he what he did or said about Benghazi, how many lies he told about that.'

Former CIA Director John Brennan is considering legal action against the administration

Fox's Maria Bartiomo brought up Brennan's admission in late 2016 that as a college student, he cast a vote for Communist Party head Gus Hall.

'How do you become CIA director if, in the midst of the Cold War, you voted for a communist? Only Obama would pick you,' Giuliani responded.

The president's lawyer signaled that the CIA's water-boarding program and drone strikes - 'where you picked out the terrorists you didn't like and you put bombs on them' - would all become areas of questioning if Brennan takes the president to court.

'Plus, he claims to be a great lover of Islam, of the Islamic religion. He says the Hajj was one of the most beautiful things he ever saw,' Guiliani said of the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. 'So, how does all this square up? Isn't this is a guy who is an opportunist and a political hack who goes whichever way the -- whichever way the winds are going?'

Giuliani said that Brennan's claim that Americans need to look no further than Brennan's claim that the president was involved in treason to understand why Trump revoked the former spy chief's clearance.

'This is an out-of-control political hack,' he asserted.

Drawing on Giuliani's claims in tweets this morning, Trump smacked Brennan and said, 'Everybody wants to keep their Security Clearance, its worth great prestige and big dollars, even board seats, and that is why certain people are coming forward to protect Brennan. It certainly isnt because of the good job he did! He is a political hack. '

Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen said Trump is creating an 'enemies list'

The president's national security team has not commented on the clearance dispute, and ex-officials said Sunday that they had not heard from current CIA Director Gina Haspel or Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden told CNN, 'You can't go back to press to test, because these people are still in government. We don't want to make them vulnerable.'

Hayden and others were supportive of Brennan. They also acknowledged that Brennan's spat with the president was harming the relationship between the intelligence community and the White House.

'It's dangerously close to being permanently broken. It's badly injured right now. Look, if we're back at our old agencies, all right, we're -- we're trying to say to our work force, we have nothing to do with what John Brennan says on TV, and we have nothing to do with what the president has done in response,' Hayden said. 'We have got our basic lane. We have got to do blocking and tackling. But that has to be harder and harder each day, as the administration takes these kinds of actions.'

On 'Fox News Sunday' former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen the accused the president of 'creating a list of political enemies' with his decisions on whom to revoke security clearances.

'It immediately brings back of the enemies list under President Nixon and even before that in early 50s  the McCarthy era where the administration starts putting together lists of individuals who don't agree with them and that, historically, has proven incredibly problematic for the country,' Mullen said on Fox's flagship Sunday morning program. 'So it's creating a list of political enemies,' the retired admiral added.

Mullen, who said he still has his security clearance, did concede Trump has the right to revoke any security clearance he wants.

'I don't think there's any question the president has a right to pull security clearances. That authority is very clear,' he said.

But he said he doesn't agree with the president revoking Brennan's clearance.

'I don't agree with the president pulling it. I think I am concerned about the whole issue of free speech,' he said. 'And as long as John is not revealing classified information that he shouldn't, then I certainly think he has a right to speak.'

He called Trump's move an 'egregious abuse of power and authority.'

Mullen claimed getting his security clearance revoked 'was a clear signal to others who still have their security clearances, both in the government as well as outside, that if you cross him, if you speak out against him, he is going to use whatever tools he might have at his disposal to punish you.'

Brennan also said that senior-level administration officials need to decide at what point they should quit over the issue.

'People like John Kelly, his chief of staff, who I know and respect and like so much, John and I worked very close together. I'm sure he's trying to keep Mr. Trump from doing awful, terrible things,' he said.

Brennan added, 'But at some point, these senior officials have to ask themselves, are they enabling this continued abusive and reckless behavior or not? And if they feel as though they're enabling it, and they're not having that type of governing influence on it, I think they have to show their displeasure and their unhappiness and leave.'

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday that the president was revoking Brennan's clearance at a news conference where she read allowed from a document that her office accidentally admitted had been put together in July.

By announcing it last week, the administration was able to divert attention from a tell-all book by former White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman.

Other people who could lose their clearances include current Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, who was in contact with former British spy Christopher Steele, and whose unverified dossier said the Russians had information on Trump that could be used for blackmail.

The White House had previously said former deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Andrew McCabe, Clapper, Hayden and former National Security Advisor Susan Rice were also in danger of losing their clearances.

All of the above and former FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are on a new list, as is former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

Each of the targets have been critical of or upset the president in some way.

Comey and McCabe do not currently have clearances and there's no threat that the fired, former FBI officials will be getting them back anytime soon.

Other high-level officials, on the hand, continue to have them. They typically keep their clearances for years so they can provide counsel to their successors and be called upon for their advice.
Jeremy Corbyn said there had to be a 'serious dialogue' with Vladimir Putin in the wake of the Salisbury nerve agent outrage

Jeremy Corbyn today risked reigniting the row over his soft stance towards Russia by refusing to back tougher sanctions.

The Labour leader instead urged a 'serious dialogue' with Vladimir Putin in the wake of the Salisbury nerve agent outrage.

Mr Corbyn was widely criticised by MPs from across parties earlier this year when he resisted stating that the Russian authorities were behind the poison attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia.

Both survived, but a British woman has since died after seemingly finding the perfume bottle used to deploy the Novichok.

Mr Corbyn previously played down Moscow's annexation of the Crimea in 2014, suggesting that NATO was to blame for the aggression.

Speaking during a visit to New Lanark in Scotland today, Mr Corbyn was asked how he would deal with Russia's bullying activities on the world stage.

'I think what we need is a serious dialogue with Russia, put the megaphones down, pick up the phone and make the arrangements to have serious meetings with Russia,' he said.

'Yes, there are huge human rights issues that have to be raised with Russia and Russia has to be challenged on them, but at the end of the day there has to be a relationship with Russia, we cannot just have a building up of tensions on both sides of the border.'

Pressed on whether tougher sanctions should be put in place against Moscow, the Labour leader added: 'You have to realise you've got to live with Russia, you've got to negotiate with Russia, you have to be critical of Russia where they are wrong, but you also have to have that relationship with Russia.

'After all, Russia is part of the Europe-wide economy, a major energy supplier and obviously a huge player on the world stage.'

The intervention came ahead of a speech by Jeremy Hunt in Washington where he will urge European and American allies to speak with 'one voice' against aggressive actions by Russia 'whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea'.

German chancellor Mrs Merkel held talks with the Russian leader in her country on Saturday after he had first stopped in Austria to attend the wedding of the country's foreign minister

In a speech today, Jeremy Hunt (pictured in Berlin last month) is urging European leaders to stand together with Britain and US amid feats over Russian aggression

In a rebuke to Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, the Foreign Secretary is to demand fresh sanctions from the EU on 'malign' Moscow.

While Britain is tied to Brussels it can only impose sanctions as part of the EU and must wait on other members before action is taken. After Brexit, the UK will be able to take its own foreign policy decisions.

EU nations including Germany and France were among dozens of countries that expelled Russian diplomats following March's Novichok nerve agent attack on the Skripals.

The attack also resulted in the death of a British woman, Dawn Sturgess.
Shocking mobile phone footage shows a prisoner being attacked in his own cell by a gang of fellow inmates at scandal-hit HMP Birmingham.

Mohammed Waqas, 24, was left with a broken nose and two black eyes in two separate assaults over the weekend after being accused of being a 'a snitch'.

Disturbing footage shows the humiliated victim being made to call himself a 'p***y' and say 'Pete you're the man' before being repeatedly slapped and punched.

The video comes just a day after the Government announced it was taking over the running of the jail from G4S after inspectors said it had fallen into a 'state of crisis'.

Mohammed's partner, Aisha Ali, 24, from Alum Rock, Birmingham, said: 'My partner was assaulted by six inmates on two separate occasions.

Mohammed Waqas, 24, was left with a broken nose and two black eyes in two separate assaults over the weekend after being accused of being a 'a snitch'

'They recorded the incident on a phone and within 15 minutes of the assault the video went all over the internet.

'We have been trying to contact the prison and the police several times because it is really unsafe.

'He has a broken nose and two black eyes and he's been left in really dangerous conditions, it's difficult for us to speak to prison authorities.'

The shocking footage shows Mr Waqas taking blows to the head by a man wearing red gloves

Mohammed's uncle Mushtaq Hussain, 56, a retired garage owner from Alum Rock, said: 'My nephew was beaten in his cell twice.

'They are not looking after his welfare. We have contacted the Home Secretary and our MP about this.

'What hurts the most is they say they don't know what has happened.

'He has broken his nose, yet they have not said anything.

'We are very concerned about my nephew's welfare and we've asked if we can talk to him but they said we can't, there is drugs inside, there are mobiles inside and there are gangs attacking other prisoners and my nephew could have been killed.

A shocking report has revealed staff have lost control of prisoners in one of Britain's biggest prisons in Birmingham. Pictured: Prisoners gleefully pose with guard's helmets during a prison riot in 2016

'I want to speak to the Governor, my nephew should be in hospital and his welfare need to be looked after.

'Everyone responsible needs to go, the security needs to be upgraded.

'We wanted to visit him immediately and they said we couldn't - we are going to arrange a massive demonstration outside the prison.

'This prison has a big problem with gangs if they allow if they like these people take videos and post them on the internet.

'Mohammed is the father of a young child and he has a young wife - he has not even yet been charged.

'He is in prison over an allegation of assault, he's on remand.'

Staff have been beaten up by marauding prisoners, guards hiding in offices and drugs are openly taken as ministers take back control of the prison. Pictured: Lawless inmates during a riot inside the facility in 2016

Chief inspector Peter Clarke (pictured left giving a round of broadcast interviews yesterday) said the government had been 'asleep at the wheel' while the crisis developed. Prisons minister Rory Stewart (pictured right) said as many as 20 other prisons faced similar problems

In one video Mohammed is seen being punched and slapped in his cell by a lag wearing orange gloves along with five other gang members.

The attacker says 'Say 'I'm a p***y', what else are you? A snitch bro, you're a snitch.'

Dozens of dangerous criminals will be released in the next three months after staff 'failed to deal with high-risk criminals' The public are at risk from around 50 dangerous criminals to be released from crisis-hit HMP Birmingham in the next three months, inspectors warned. The report said that between August and November the criminals assessed as posing a 'high risk of harm' would walk free at the end of their sentences. But inspectors said they were 'greatly concerned' about what would happen when they were released. They wrote: 'Birmingham held and frequently released men who were assessed as posing a high risk of harm to others. Between August and November this year, 50 high-risk men are due to be released and we were greatly concerned that measures to protect the public from those men  while in prison and on release  were very poor.' The report also found that risk assessments for inmates were not up to date and criticised staff for failing to deal with high-risk criminals. Sex offenders were also unable to access rehabilitation courses. Advertisement

Mohammed replies 'Get your hands off me' before being slapped and punched in the head as he is made to recite 'I'm a p***y'

In the other video a frightened looking Mohammed can be seen saying: 'Pete, you're the man, I'm sorry, I'll come out of here like a changed man.'

His attacker says 'and what else?' before punching him in the head as Mohammed says again: 'You're the man Pete.'

The subtitled caption on the video reads: 'Don't try and get a man's address because we will wrap you up rapid.'

Earlier this week the Ministry of Justice seized control of Birmingham Prison from G4S after a damning report from Peter Clarke, Chief Inspector of Prisons

It read: 'On average, almost a quarter said they felt unsafe at the time of the inspection; this figure was as high as 37 per cent in Birmingham and Wormwood Scrubs.

'Some prisons had begun to take appropriate strategic action, but even then violence remained high and more sustained action was required.'

Prisons minister Rory Stewart raised fears about the scope of chaos on the system, saying that 'as many as 20' other prisons are struggling with similar issues, with drugs the 'big driver'.

Mr Clarke suggested ministers had been 'asleep at the wheel'.

He said: 'How is it that in 18 months a prison which is supposedly being run under the auspices of a tightly-managed contract, how has that been allowed to deteriorate?' he said.

'There are Ministry of Justice officials on-site permanently, and yet somehow there seems to have been some sort of institutional inertia that has allowed this prison to deteriorate to this completely unacceptable state.'

Asked whether the MoJ had failed, Mr Clarke told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I think that's the only reasonable conclusion you can come to.'
Three men have been arrested on a staggering 1,400 counts of bestiality after allegedly throwing orgies at their Pennsylvania farm.

Terry Wallace, 41, Matthew Brubaker, 32, and Marc Measnikoff, 34, were all arrested in Munson on Saturday after a 16-year-old boy who was living at the property reported them to police.

The teenager told authorities the men had been having sex with goats, horses, dogs and cows and that they were using a 'specially designed V-shaped pen' to do so.

The men were taken into custody and the teenager was placed into protective custody.

Police also found homemade video tapes and recording equipment on the farm.

Matthew Brubaker, 32, (left) and Terry Wallace, 41, (right) were charged along with a third man with 1,460 counts of having sexual intercourse with animals

Marc Measnikoff, 34, (seen left in his booking photo and right in a social media photograph with animals) was also charged

Courtesy of WJAC

Combined, the men were charged with 1,460 counts of sexual intercourse with animals but it remains how many animals were being held on the 'makeshift farm'.

It is not clear how many animals were on the property. There were 18 dogs alone.

They were also charged with endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors and animal cruelty.

It remains unclear if there were more children living at the property.

Authorities do not believe the men sexually abused the adolescent boy but they say they are unsure of the extent of the emotional and psychological damage they inflicted on him.

The teenager also complained that the conditions were 'deplorable'. He said he was forced to collect rain water to shower and said there was no electricity or food.

The abused animals include several horses, 18 dogs, sheep, a goat and cows. Authorities are now trying to find new homes for them. Some of the horses are pictured at the farm after the men were arrested

This is the entrance to the 'makeshift' farm property where the men were arrested on Friday. Image courtesy of WJACTV

Each of the three men were held in county jail on a $100,000 bond. They are expected to return to court on Wednesday.

On social media, Wallace and Measnikoff proudly shared photographs of the animals they look after and asked for donations from friends to support horse rescue charities.

Brubaker posed happily in pictures with a woman and group of children that are believed to be his family.

Authorities in Pennsylvania are now trying to find new homes for the animals. None were being starved but animal rights groups say the conditions were 'not ideal'.
A woman in Muslim-majority Indonesia was sentenced to 18 months in jail for complaining about the volume of a mosque's call to prayer - the latest conviction under a controversial blasphemy law.

Meiliana, 44, an ethnic Chinese Buddhist, was found guilty of insulting Islam on Tuesday for asking her neighbourhood mosque to lower its sound system because it was too loud and 'hurt' her ears.

There are some 800,000 mosques across the archipelago, with the five-times-a-day call to prayer heard everywhere in the biggest cities and smallest towns.

Loudspeakers used to call the faithful to prayer are pictured atop a tower at a Jakarta mosque: a woman in Medan has landed in jail for complaining about the noise

Tuesday's verdict will likely fuel fears that Indonesia's moderate brand of Islam is coming under threat from increasingly influential radicals.

The court in the city of Medan on Sumatra island said the woman's comments two years ago triggered riots that saw angry Muslim mobs ransack Buddhist temples.

Some ethnic Chinese in the area fled in fear.

The defendant's lawyer said his client would appeal the decision.

Indonesia, which has the world's biggest Muslim population, is officially pluralist with six major religions recognised, including Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism. Freedom of expression is supposed to be guaranteed by law.

But criticising religion - particularly Islam, which is followed by nearly 90 per cent of Indonesia's 260 million citizens - can land offenders in jail.

Rights groups have long campaigned against the nation's blasphemy laws, which they say are frequently misused to target minorities.

Last year Jakarta's former governor - the city's first Christian leader of Chinese descent - was sentenced to two years in jail for blasphemy.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla made a plea in 2015 for places of worship to turn down the volume slightly to placate nearby residents.
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A brown bear had to be shot and killed in a school yard in Transylvania, Romania, after it broke into several houses in a local town.

The bear had been running rampage in the city of Miercurea Ciuc, entering homes and reportedly slaying a goat.

The bear then climbed a fence into a local high school after being chased off by locals at around 6am Tuesday morning.

Once inside the school yard, the male brown bear reportedly became agitated and destroyed several fences.

After securing the area at mid-day, a professional hunter shot the bear, which was then removed from the school.

Hi-diddly-ho! The neighbour looks over the fence of the Octavian Goga high school in Miercurea Ciuc in Romania

The climb: The brown bear was seen climbing over the fence and into the school yard on Tuesday morning

Skills: The nifty bear clambered over the fence with ease and entered the school courtyard

Rampage: The bear had broken into several homes in the town, and reportedly also killed and eaten a goat

Too close to comfort: The bear was roaming the town and the school from 6am until it was contained and killed at midday

Point and shoot: After securing the area, a professional hunter was called in to kill the bear
A grandmother who tried to pimp out her own 10-year-old granddaughter to a 75-year-old man has been sentenced to just three years in prison.

The 56-year-old Lower Hutt grandmother, who can't be named to protect the identity of the child, pleaded guilty to charges of entering into a deal to sexually exploit a child, the NZ Herald reported.

Andrew Davie, the 75-year-old man involved, also pleaded guilty to the charges in the Wellington District Court.

A grandmother and a 75-year-old man she planned to pimp her 10-year-old granddaughter to have been sentenced to just three years prison (stock image)

The court heard the pair had known each other through the grandmother's past as a prostitute.

The pair had started to make arrangements for the woman to bring her granddaughter to Davies for abuse, the court was told.

It was only when police arrested Davie on an unrelated offence that the girl was spared the potential abuse.

Davie was caught when he approached a 14-year-old girl in a local library and told her he was a talent scout for a lingerie modelling agency.

At a later meeting arranged with the girl, who had reported the meeting to the police, officers were there and ready to intercept and arrest the man.

The court also heard the grandmother had sent him pictures of her granddaughter while she was in the bath and had asked for a working and 'reliable car' in exchange for pimping out the girl.

Texts were shown to the court which detailed the back and forth between the accused, with Davie offering $1000 until the car was named as a price.

Upon her arrest, police said the grandmother attempted to delete data from the phone and had to be forcefully stopped.

The Wellington District Court (pictured) court heard the pair had started to make arrangements for the woman to bring her granddaughter to Davies for abuse

The grandmother claimed to the court that the pair were merely creating a fantasy but Judge Jan Kelly rejected that claim outright and sentenced both.

The grandmother was sentenced to three years and three months in prison while Davie was sentenced to three years and five months in prison as well as being added to the child sex offender register.

Detective Steve Yates told the court if it hadn't been for the 14-year-old girl seeing that Davie was suspicious, the 10-year-old would have been abused.

'Had she not done so, we would not have uncovered the plot to abuse a younger child,' he said.

'One frightening aspect of the cause is that a young girl ... could have been offended against and never have been able to disclose it.'
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At least 31 people have been killed and another 14 have been reported missing after Typhoon Rumbia devastated east and central China.

The violent storm made landfall in the Chinese financial hub of Shanghai on Friday at 4:05am local time, bringing strong winds and heavy rain to the region.

Typhoon Rumbia, the 18th typhoon to hit the country this year, continues to move inland in a north-west direction after wreaking havoc in eight provinces and cities. A total of nearly 15 million people have been affected so far.

Residents watch high waves splashing against a beach on Monday in Dalian, north-east China's Liaoning province. Typhoon Rumbia made landfall in Shanghai on Friday at 4:05am local time, bringing strong winds and heavy rain to the region

Rescuers evacuate local residents in floodwater after a rainstorm in a village in Duji district, Huaibei city, Anhui province

Local residents in a village in Anhui are being transported to safety after Typhoon Rumbia devastated the province

The deaths were reported across four eastern provinces, according to Cover News: Seven people were killed in Jiangsu and two were killed in Henan; 12 people were killed and one person was reported missing in Anhui while 10 people died and 13 remained missing in Shandong.

The four provinces received between 430mm (17in) to 493mm (19in) of precipitation between Thursday and Sunday, according to local meteorological authorities.

Dramatic video footage of the typhoon's destruction released by CGTN shows emergency services rescuing residents and vehicles were left stranded in knee-deep rainwater.

Photos show huge waves beating against the sea shore in Liaoning province's Dalian as stunned residents look on. It is reported that meteorological stations recorded between 100mm (3.9in) and 250mm (9.8in) of rain in the port city between Sunday morning to Monday night.

Strong gales uprooted trees, caused power outages and hazards on roads as the storm tore through the region.

Meteorological stations reported receiving between 100mm (3.9in) and 250mm (9.8in) of rain in the port city of Dalian

Emergency rescuers transfer the flood-stranded people in Huaibei City, east China's Anhui Province on Sunday

Several elderly residents in Suzhou city, Anhui are being rescued. At least twelve people have been killed in the province

Other clips also show a flight of stairs turned into a waterfall and devastated farmers holding up destroyed crops.

'They're dead. They're all dead after being flooded by torrential rain,' one of the farmers told reporters.

In Anhui, about 243,000 hectares of crops were inundated, with the economic loss estimated at 1.1 billion yuan (125 million), according to Xinhua.

In neighboring Henan Province, nearly 109,000 hectares of crops have been affected by heavy rain, resulting 190 million yuan (22 million) of agricultural losses.

Disaster relief teams have been dispatched to affected areas to assess conditions and deliver supplies to affected residents. Municipal authorities were deployed to monitor low-lying areas to prevent water logging.

In Anhui, about 243,000 hectares of crops were inundated, with economic loss estimated at 1.1 billion yuan (125 million)

Disaster relief teams have been dispatched to affected areas to assess conditions and deliver supplies to affected residents

Local departments in various provinces are also repairing damaged infrastructure including roads, drainage and buildings

Typhoons normally hit China and Taiwan from June through November each year, especially during the summer

Local departments are also repairing and examining infrastructure including roads, drainage and buildings.

Although Rumbia has weakened to a tropical depression as it's expected to head towards north-east China over the next few days, meteorological authorities have upgraded rainstorm alerts for some regions due to expected heavy downpours.

Typhoons normally hit China and Taiwan from June through November each year.

They form as tropical depressions gather strength from the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean or the South China Sea, before weakening over the hills of south-east China and south-east Asia.
A 55-year-old man is being held in police custody with a bail bond of $1million after arranging to 'meet a minor for sexual acts' according to a police report.

Rancho Cucamonga Police Detectives stopped Charles Patrick Mayer's plan to meet someone he believed to be a 14-year-old boy at his home in Menifee, California, but the plot was foiled by accident.

When the 55-year-old middle school dean contacted a social media account set up for an unrelated investigation, undercover law enforcement officers engaged in conversation with Meyer for five days before agreeing to meet him.

Charles Patrick Mayer's plan to engage in sexual acts with someone he believed to be a 14-year-old boy was foiled by police

During that time Mayer 'sent nude pictures of himself to the decoy and wanted the decoy to come back to his residence', the San Bernandino County Sheriff's Department states in a press release.

He was arrested at approximately 4.30pm on Friday after driving from his work place in Banning, Nicolet Middle School, to a location in Rancho Cucamonga.

Recently appointed Dean of Students for 2018-19, Mayer was a teacher there previously.

Banning Unified School District has banned Meyer from its properties until an outcome is reached and notified parents of students via an automated call on Monday.

'Mayer was immediately placed on unpaid administrative leave and is prohibited from entering onto any district facility or school site pending the outcome of the law enforcement investigation,' the school said in a statement.

'The Banning Unified School District is fully cooperating with law enforcement as it investigates and continues to gather evidence regarding this employee.'

Recently appointed Dean of Students for 2018-19, Mayer was a teacher at Nicolet Middle School (pictured) previously and is currently on leave until the investigation is complete

Currently being held at the West Valley Detention Center, police are now concerned whether Meyer may have engaged with minors in the past with a similar intention.

However, the School District believes no one has been effected within their particular community.

'At this time, it is believed the acts of this individual did not involve the district or its students,' the statement continues.

The Detective's Bureau at the Rancho Cucamonga Police Department are asking anyone who may have information to come forward on their anonymous We-Tip Hotline.

Contact them on 1-800-78-CRIME.
President Donald Trump is tying the midterm elections to the immigration issue, warning a Democratic victory will bring 'crime and open borders' while a Republican win will bring 'safety and strength.'

Immigration - including his vow to build a border wall - was seen as one on the key platforms that helped Trump to his own victory in 2016.

It's also been a subject where he's been consistent with his tough talk on protecting American borders, his travel ban and his 'zero tolerance' policy on illegals that resulted in children being separated from their families.

Immigration was one of the issues that helped elect Donald Trump in 2016

Immigration is also a rallying cry for the president's base, who he needs to come out and vote in November

Immigration is also an issue the president returns to time and time again

'A Blue Wave means Crime and Open Borders. A Red Wave means Safety and Strength!,' the president tweeted Tuesday morning.

He later tweeted: 'I am sorry to have to reiterate that there are serious and unpleasant consequences to crossing the Border into the United States ILLEGALLY! If there were no serious consequences, our country would be overrun with people trying to get in, and our system could not handle it!'

Immigration is rallying cry for Trump's base and is a popular topic for the president to tout at his rallies across the country.

And he'll need his base motivated to go to the ballot box in November as polls show Democratic candidates are performing well.

Democrats need to net 24 House seats to retake control of the House of Representatives and independent political prognosticators see their chances as good for hitting that target.

If Democrats win control of at least one chamber of Congress they will be able to bottle neck Trump's agenda and use the power of the congressional subpoena to investigate his administration.

Immigration is also an issue the president returns to time and time again even as the Russia investigation heats up around him and the political world awaits a verdict in the case of his former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Trump also stressed the importance of the immigration issue during an event on Monday honoring employees of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

'I think we're going to do very good in the midterms, and I think this is one of the big reasons,' he stated.

'I think we're going to have much more of a red wave than what you're going to see as a phony blue wave,' the president said. 'Blue wave means crime, it means open borders. Not good.'

He also noted: 'The poisons are flowing across our border and we're hitting it from every angle, but we need new laws. We need border laws, we need immigrations laws, we need them fast, we're going to get them. Hopefully the midterms will help toward that end.'

Trump's immigration push comes as his administration continues its efforts to reunite migrant children who were separated from their families.

Numbers last week showed more than 550 migrant children remain separated from their families.

President Trump greets Customs and Border Patrol agent Adrian Anzaldua, during an event to salute Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border agents at the White House on Monday

A prototype of the U.S.-Mexico border wall stands near San Diego

Last month the president threatened to shut down the government if he doesn't get funding for his border war when Congress returns to Washington D.C. next month to complete its work on the federal budget.

He is seeking $5 billion to get construction started. It's estimated the total wall will cost $25 billion.

But not all Republicans appear eager to follow the president's lead on the controversial issue.

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said earlier this summer that funding for the wall would 'probably' wait until after the midterm elections.

Democratic lawmakers have been reluctant to vote for any funding for a border wall without guarantees from Dreamers, those illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

The president's threat to shut down the government could become the major issue in the 2018 midterms as it opens the door to a politically brutal fall - both in Washington D.C. and on the campaign trail.

And Trump could find himself fighting two wars on a double front as members of his own party have said funding the wall could wait until after voters made their choices in November.

Funding for the government runs out at the end of September.
Missing Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts has been found dead five weeks after vanishing.

The 20-year-old's remains were found on Tuesday on a rural property in Poweshiek County close to the town of Guernsey, around 10 miles from Brooklyn, where Mollie vanished on July 18.

The FAA issued a no fly zone in the area which will last until Wednesday morning. It prevents news choppers from flying overhead.

Police are not releasing any information until 4pm local time but people working for Crime Stoppers to help find her say her family has been informed.

No one has been arrested in connection with her disappearance and several police agencies have been working for weeks to try to uncover leads.

The student was staying alone overnight in her boyfriend's home the night she went missing and was last seen going for a jog in the neighborhood at around 8pm but what happened afterwards has remained a complete mystery for weeks.

Her boyfriend opened a Snapchat photograph from her at 10pm which appeared to suggest that she was indoors but it is not known what time Mollie sent it.

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Mollie Tibbetts has been found dead a month after vanishing. The 20-year-old vanished on July 18

Mollie's body was found on August 21, 10 miles from where she vanished in Brooklyn on July 18. There have been several points of interest in the location including five areas close to Brooklyn which investigators zeroed in on. Pig farmer Wayne Cheney also had his home and land searched but he was never arrested. He lives four miles from where Mollie's body was found

Last week, the FBI said it believed she had been abducted by someone she knew.

They warned that the person was 'hiding in plain sight' and had even attended vigils held in her honor but no arrests were made.

A $400,000 fund for her safe return was established but it did not produce any leads either.

The hunt for the missing student lasted five weeks and drummed up hundreds of tips but it remains unclear how she died or what led to the discovery of her body

Now, it will be dedicated to finding the person responsible for her death.

Greg Willey of Crime Stoppers of Central Iowa said her family and investigators would dedicate their resources to catching her killer 'once they catch their breath'.

The Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation refused to share details of the discovery on Tuesday when contacted by DailyMail.com.

Last week, the student's heartbroken family and boyfriend had a private meeting with Vice President Mike Pence and an award fund for information about the case reached hundreds of thousands of dollars.

No one was arrested in connection with her disappearance and the only person who has come under visible scrutiny is pig farmer Wayne Cheney.

Cheney was questioned several times and had his property searched after police found a red t-shirt that was similar to one owned by the student near his property.

However it was never established if the t-shirt did in fact belong to Mollie.

Mollie was staying alone in the home she shared with her boyfriend Jack Dalton (above) in Brooklyn when she vanished. He is not a suspect in her disappearance

Mollie's boyfriend's older brother Blake Dalton (left with his fiancee) were not in town on the night she vanished either. The only person who has been visibly scrutinized by police is pig farmer Wayne Cheney (right) who was questioned more than once and had his property searched after police found a red t-shirt that was similar to one owned by the student near his land. Cheney took a polygraph test and has never been charged

What happened? It remains unclear who took Mollie or how she died. She is pictured before she vanished on July 18

Cheney maintained his innocence throughout media interviews and took a polygraph test to try to rule himself out. He was never charged.

In the past few days, Mollie's father Rob Tibbetts, who has been in Iowa since she disappeared, went to California for a 'break'.

Mollie's father Rob went back to California, where he lives, last week for what he called a much needed 'break' from the investigation

He said he had been urged by authorities to do so and that it was a 'half way' point in the investigation.

Rob was not in the state when his daughter disappeared.

Her boyfriend, Dalton Jack, was away for work when she disappeared as was his older brother Blake.

The youngsters lived together in a home in Brooklyn with Blake's fiancee who was also cleared.

As the hunt for her intensified, authorities set up a website that was dedicate to finding her.

It provided a map detailing five locations police considered to be significant. It is unclear if Mollie's body was found at any of those spots.

The website also offered a tips page which generated hundreds of clues about what may have happened to her.

It remains uncertain what led to the discovery of Mollie's body on Tuesday.
A terminally ill Chinese woman has died halfway during her wedding in her hospital ward.

The groom was minutes away from saying 'I do' when the bride's condition suddenly took a turn for the worse at a hospital in Henan Province, central China.

Doctors failed to save the 32-year-old bride, Xiao Hui, who had leukaemia. The news left her 27-year-old groom, Yang Feng, heartbroken.

Xiao Hui, 32, lies in her bed while her wedding dress is hung in her ward in Henan, China

Yang Feng gets himself prepared before entering Xiao Hui's ward to marry her on August 12

It is said that before Xiao Hui died, she expressed her gratitude to her fiance who she had dated for two years.

She allegedly said that meeting and falling in love with Yang Feng was the best thing of her life. In response, Yang Feng said he wished he had met Xiao Hui earlier.

Faced with the sudden tragic news, the devoted groom stayed strong as he called off the wedding.

He calmly asked the guests to leave the hospital before going back into his late fiancee's ward to handle the matter.

The emotional yet sad event was captured by Chinese reporters, who had gone to the Cancer Hospital of Henan Province in Zhenzhou to document Yang Feng and Xiao Hui's unusual wedding on August 12.

Yang Feng holds a ring during the couple's wedding at the Cancer Hospital of Henan Province

The wedding planner holds a bridal veil and tiara while doing preparation for the wedding

Xiao Hui found out she was ill eight years ago when she was 24, according to China News, citing Workers Daily.

She was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia - a type of blood cancer where too many white blood cells are made in the bone marrow.

Xiao Hui had got married once before meeting Yang Feng, but her first marriage ended in divorce.

It is said the couple met around two years ago when Xiao Hui was hitchhiking. Yang Feng gave her a lift and they stayed in touch.

One month after they started dating, Xiao Hui's illness became more serious and had to be hospitalised. Yang Feng decided to stay by Xiao Hui's side when she underwent treatment.

Yang Feng said he loved Xiao Hui and would look after her in sickness and in health. And so he did.

The loving boyfriend took up extra jobs in order to earn more money to pay for Xia Hui's medical bills. He reportedly worked 16 hours a day as a delivery driver and spent the majority of his monthly income of 5,000 yuan (560) on treating Xiao Hui.

Xiao Hui's hospital ward has also been decorated with flowers before the emotional ceremony

Yang Feng decided to marry his girlfriend of two years after he condition became critical

He contacted a wedding planner and the organisation of the ceremony took just two days

Yang Feng gave all his love to Xiao Hui in the two years' time, but when doctors told him that her condition had become critical on August 10, he wanted to give her more - Yang Feng decided to marry Xiao Hui and see her in a wedding dress.

A local wedding planner helped organise the ceremony for the couple for free after hearing about their story. They decorated Xiao Hui's ward and arranged a wedding dress to be rented.

The wedding took place on August 12.

Unfortunately, the bride died from her illness before the couple could exchange wedding vows.

Ms Shi, the wedding organiser, told Workers Daily: 'I never thought that I would plan a wedding that had something to do with death. I never thought I would attend a wedding with such a heavy heart.'

Doctors shut the doors of Xiao Hui's ward after her condition worsened during the ceremony

Xiao Hui's picture cries when Xiao Hui's illness suddenly took a turn for the worse (left). Yang Feng calls off the wedding after Xiao Hui was pronounced dead by the doctors (right)

The couple's story has melted the hearts of millions in China.

Web users are moved by the 'modern-day Romeo and Juliet'. They also praised Yang Feng's devotion to Xiao Hui, saying what he gave her was pure and true love.

One user consoled Yang Feng on Twitter-like Weibo: 'She didn't leave you. She will keep loving you in a different place.'

Another user said: 'This is heartfelt, once-in-a-life-time love.'

A third commentator wrote: 'Let's all cherish what we have right now.'

Xiao Hui's funeral was held on August 17, which collided with the Chinese Valentine's Day.

Despite the fact that he wasn't able to marry Xiao Hui, Yang Feng carved his name on Xiao Hui's tomb as her husband, reported People's Daily.

He wrote on her tomb: 'You might have physically left me, but you will never leave my heart.'
The brutal 1959 killing of a black Mississippi teen stemming from an attack on Halloween night has been referred to the state for potential reopening, a report from the Department of Justice said.

Eight white teens were charged with the murder of William Roy Prather, 15, which included shooting both of his eyes out with a shotgun, but only one served any jail time.

Jerry Darnell Glidewell, then 16, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter in January 1960, and was immediately sentenced to five years in prison with four years suspended, serving less than one year in state prison before being released.

Six of the others allegedly involved got one year of probation through youth court, released with a judge's comment that each 'would make a good citizen' by March of 1961, a letter from the DOJ which was hand-delivered to Prather's sister, Eberlene King showed.

An eighteen-year-old walked free.

That may change, thanks to the DOJ's latest report from February on pre-1980 racially-motivated homicides.

The brutal 1959 killing of black teen William Roy Prather (shown here in a portrait held by his sister, Eberlene King) has been referred to the state of Mississippi for possible reopening, potentially related to an 18-year-old white man who escaped prosecution at the time

'Although prosecution of some of the subjects may be barred by double jeopardy and other subjects are deceased, the Department referred the matter to the state of Mississippi to determine whether any state prosecutions might be appropriate,' the DOJ said in the report.

King said FBI agents knocked on her door a few years ago and hand-delivered her a letter from the Justice Department that said no federal charges could be brought in the killing of her brother, based on laws that existed in 1959.

It said 'the only possible prosecution' would be for the state to bring unspecified charges against one suspect who was 18 at the time of the crime.

Glidewell said 'four or five' of the people with him that night are still alive. 'I don't know where they live right now,' he said. 'I don't ever see them.'

He didn't say whether one of those individuals who are still living was the 18-year-old who escaped prosecution in 1960.

The state prosecutor whose territory includes Corinth, District Attorney John Weddle, did not immediately return DailyMail.com's call seeking comment.

King, now 73, remembers her 15-year-old brother as he lay dying, after the white teenagers cruised through their black neighborhood in a pickup on Halloween night in 1959 and shot him in the face.

'His eyes ... were hanging out,' King recalled. 'His head was full of pellets.'

Rome News-Tribune confirms that Judge Raymond T. Jarvis accepted a grand jury's 'highly unusual' recommendation for leniency against Jerry Darnell Glidewell, then age 16

King's letter from the DOJ said that, based on investigators' interviews with witnesses, a group of white teens drove through a black neighborhood of Corinth on Halloween night in 1959.

Black witnesses said they saw the white teens throwing firecrackers at black teens, and some young black people threw rocks and bricks at the truck. Investigators were told the white teenagers got a shotgun and shells from a home of one person in their group, then returned to the black part of town, where Glidewell shot Prather.

'Glidewell reported to police that before he fired the shotgun several of the subjects said, "There they are, shoot,"' the letter said.

News reports from the time said Prather was not among those who had thrown rocks or bricks at the truck.

'Although Glidewell and some of the subjects contended that Glidewell had shot straight up in the air, the autopsy report indicated that Glidewell had aimed the shotgun dead-straight at your brother's face,' the DOJ said in the letter addressed to King.

Prather died the next morning in their hometown of Corinth, Mississippi, a few miles south of the Tennessee line.

The letter said the all-white grand jury that indicted Glidewell recommended he be treated with 'leniency.' A news report from January 1960 from the Rome News-Tribune confirms that detail, citing that Judge Raymond T. Jarvis accepted that 'highly unusual' recommendation.

The grand jury recommended that six of the remaining white teens have their cases sent to youth court, and that the one 18-year-old in the group have his case sent to a July 1960 grand jury; investigators found no record indicating any indictment against him.

It's unclear whether the district attorney will pursue charges against any aging defendant in a decades-old case where witnesses' memories may be fading and some pieces of evidence, including the truck and the shotgun, have disappeared.

Today, Corinth is home to about 14,600 people, 70 percent of them white and 24 percent black.

In the city, once besieged during the Civil War, a Confederate soldier statue still stands sentinel outside the courthouse on Corinth's town square.

In Corinth, Mississippi, once besieged during the Civil War, a Confederate soldier statue still stands sentinel outside the courthouse on Corinth's town square

The 1950s and '60s saw racial strife throughout the South, as white people resisted racial integration, and schools and neighborhoods in Corinth remained segregated throughout the 1960s.

While some black residents remember fear and violence, others say the town was quiet as long as everyone, in their own words and echoing the language of those long ago decades, 'remembered their place.'

Glidewell, who goes by his middle name Darnell, now lives off a hilly country road north of Corinth. When asked about Prather's killing on a recent early morning call, he spoke vaguely, unwilling to say much at the time.

'They charged me with that, yeah,' Glidewell said, now in his mid-70s.

As to what happened that Halloween night, he said: 'I'd rather not talk to you on the phone.'

But Glidewell did add that when investigators spoke to him about the case several ago, one said, 'Don't worry about it.'

'It's all over with, you know?' Glidewell said. 'But I ain't heard any more from it. That's over 50 year ago.'

The names of the six teens and one adult who were with Glidewell that night don't appear in court records alongside Glidewell's

The names of the six teens and one adult who were with Glidewell that night don't appear in court records alongside Glidewell's, but they are listed in the Justice Department letter received by King.

After the phone conversation, an AP reporter and photographer drove to Glidewell's house and knocked on the door. His wife said he has liver cancer, his memory is failing and he did not want to talk.

King said her older brother was 'a real quiet person' who had helped his friends clean up a church, earlier on that Halloween night.

'He didn't deserve what happened to him. Well, nobody deserves that,' King said in a phone interview from her home near Atlanta. 'He would just go to school, go back and do his chores at home.'

Johnnie Sue Johnson, a second cousin of Prather, lived near the funeral home and went to view his body; she was 13.

She said his face was swollen from being shot. 'He looked like he was 90-something years old,' Johnson said from her home in Champaign, Illinois. 'It was just awful.'

One of Johnson's nieces, Gennella Graham, was born in 1974 and grew up in Corinth but had never heard of Prather's death until the summer of 2017, when she took a course at Tougaloo College in Jackson and was assigned to write about her hometown's 'hidden history.'

Graham, who teaches English at Corinth High School, was given Prather's name and called her aunt. Johnson told her about the killing and about their kinship to Prather.

Graham wrote that her aunt told her Prather's mother decided to keep his casket open so the people could see what had been done to him.

Johnson also told her that Prather's friend who was with him that night, Lavelle Powell, survived but lost hearing in one ear because of the shooting. A news report referring to Powell from that time said Prather's 'companion was slightly wounded.'

Powell later moved away from Mississippi, and he died a few years ago.

Graham wrote a poem about Prather, which says, in part:

'Write that I, Wanted to fight, Wanted to live, But no one asked what I thought, What I wanted.'

The poem ends with the line, 'Write that I am, William Roy Prather.'

This school year, Graham will teach her 11th grade students about Prather.

'I know he just lived 15 years on this earth. But I would like to know - what was he interested in? Did he have a girlfriend? ... Did he have a job somewhere? Where did he attend church?' Graham said.

'I just want them to know that he was important. When you die, that's not the end of your story.'
An inquest into the death of a baby who was dropped on her head by a nurse just minutes after she was born has begun.

Brieaan Keldie called Gladstone Hospital, in Queensland at 10.05pm on February 10, 2016, as she was having painful contractions.

Disregarding advice to stay at home until her waters broke, Ms Keldie went anyway and her daughter Millah was born at 11.31pm.

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Brieaan Keldie (pictured with Adam Rolston) called Gladstone Hospital, in Queensland at 10.05pm on February 10, 2016, as she was having painful contractions - her baby died almost seven hours later

The inquest will help determine the cause of death, as well as look at whether the hospital's (pictured) treatment, staffing arrangements and treatment were satisfactory

Ms Keldie was already in the process of giving birth when she was taken into the birthing suite.

The inquest was told Millah was passed from one midwife to another - Gabrielle Matamoros.

Ms Matamoros realised Millah was not breathing and took her to a Resuscitaire machine.

However she noticed that the machine was missing the adapter which linked the tubes to the breathing device.

Midwife Gabriella Matamoros told the inquest, according to 9 News: 'I had the baby in my hands. I had slipped  fell to my knees  and the baby had come out of my hands'

The midwife was taking Millah into another birthing suite with a working machine when Ms Keldie told the inquest she heard a 'thump and a slap'.

Ms Matamoros told the inquest, according to 9 News: 'I had the baby in my hands. I had slipped  fell to my knees  and the baby had come out of my hands.'

When asked by the magistrate why the baby wasn't taken to the other room in a bassinet, she said that the hospital didn't keep them in the rooms.

John Aberdeen, Counsel Assisting, said Millah was stabilised to a certain degree but she died at 4.55am.

The inquest is to determine whether the drop had anything to do with the infant's death.

A coroner will hear whether a group b streptococcus infection, birth trauma or Meconium aspiration were responsible for the child's death.

Ms Keldie said outside court: 'We just want the best outcome at this point, for the Queensland Health Services and the mothers and the babies.'

The baby's father, Adam Rolston, said 'It hasn't been easy at all. We just keep plodding along.'

The inquest continues.
President Donald Trump says he did not consider the extraordinary step of blocking Barack Obama's access to national secrets after the Democratic president left office last year.

He slapped down the claim that appeared in an article in The New Yorker with a tweet on Tuesday that dubbed the report 'fake news' and the publication 'very tired.'

'Never discussed or thought of!' Trump wrote, calling the claim 'falsely reported.'

The nugget appeared in a piece about Trump's battle with national security officials who worked for Obama.

President Donald Trump says he did not consider the extraordinary step of blocking Barack Obama's access to national secrets after the Democratic president left office last year

He slapped down the claim that appeared in an article in The New Yorker with a tweet on Tuesday that dubbed the report 'fake news' and the publication 'very tired'

Trump's threats to strip former national security figures of their ability to see government secrets away has already been compared by some with the strong-arming of disgraced former President Richard Nixon.

Then the New Yorker claimed that Trump in early 2017 considered limiting Obama's knowledge by denying him access to briefings routinely made available to all his living predecessors.

Trump's alleged plot to punish Obama synced up with a tweet in March of that year in which he made the shock accusation that the then-president spied on him when he was running for office.

'How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process,' Trump said at the time. 'This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!'

The New Yorker said in piece unraveling the current drama that 'some of Trumps most fervent supporters in the White House saw former Obama Administration officials as powerful enemies who threatened the new Presidents rule' at the time 'and they agitated for punishing them by revoking their security clearances.'

'As Trump stepped up his public and private attacks on Obama, some of the new Presidents advisers thought that he should take the extraordinary step of denying Obama himself access to intelligence briefings that were made available to all of his living predecessors. Trump was told about the importance of keeping former Presidents, who frequently met with foreign leaders, informed.'

Then National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster is said to have talked Trump out it.

'In the end, Trump decided not to exclude Obama, at the urging of McMaster,' the New Yorker wrote.

Trump did not dispute the overarching claim of the section - that he and his advisers has been eyeing security clearances of his political enemies since a month or two after he took office - in his Tuesday tweet.

The article's claim that he wanted to go after Obama, he said, is not accurate.

'Fake News, of which there is soooo much (this time the very tired New Yorker) falsely reported that I was going to take the extraordinary step of denying Intelligence Briefings to President Obama. Never discussed or thought of!' he tweeted.

Trump used the bully pulpit in a tweet minutes earlier to warn another political opponent, James Clapper, that he's on a short leash, however.

The president said that he could yank Clapper's security credential, just like he did John Brennan's, if the former intelligence chief publicly disparages him.

Clapper criticized Brennan on a Sunday roundtable that Trump apparently watched. He acknowledged that the ex-CIA director's flamboyant rhetoric about the sitting president had become problematic.

Trump suggested in a morning tweet, however, that the director of national intelligence under Barack Obama broke with Brennan to curry favor with the current occupant of the Oval Office. He said Clapper could be turning on Brennan to save his own hide.

'Even James Clapper has admonished John Brennan for having gone totally off the rails. Maybe Clapper is being nice to me so he doesnt lose his Security Clearance for lying to Congress!' Trump tweeted.

Donald Trump used the bully pulpit on Tuesday to warn James Clapper that he could yank his security credential, just like he did John Brennan's, if the former intelligence chief opposes him

Trump suggested in a morning tweet, however, that the one-time director of national intelligence was simply trying to curry favor in order to save his own hide

Clapper has been hit with perjury accusations for claiming at a 2013 hearing that the intelligence community does not collect data on Americans.

The revelation that the NSA was operating a data mining program, a state secret leaked by Edward Snowden, led to cries of foul play, although Clapper has stood by the testimony in the aftermath.

After claiming that the NSA does not collect data on millions of Americans, Clapper said, 'Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.'

Clapper's claims led to a public outcry after Snowden's document dump three months later. The intelligence official noted, however, that he buttressed his original statement with a claim that the NSA doesn't spy on Americans intentionally.

'What I said was, the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens' emails. I stand by that,' he said.

Under fire, he admitted to lawmakers, 'My response was clearly erroneousfor which I apologize.'

Despite calls for him to resign and complaints that he had not been straightforward under oath in a government setting, Clapper remained DNI until Obama termed out in January of 2016.

An American Civil Liberties Union court case involving Clapper and other intelligence officials in 2014 failed after a judge found that the government did not trample on the Fourth Amendment.

The statute of limitations on prosecution for perjury ran out earlier this year, but Trump pointed out on Tuesday that he could personally take measures to punish him.

The president's implied threat to Clapper follows a warning on Monday to Brennan that if the ex-spy chief were to sue the federal government or the executive office of the president, the administration would welcome the opportunity to depose him.

'I hope John Brennan, the worst CIA Director in our countrys history, brings a lawsuit. It will then be very easy to get all of his records, texts, emails and documents to show not only the poor job he did, but how he was involved with the Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt. He wont sue!' Trump tweeted.

Brennan said Sunday that he was considering legal action against the administration in response to the president's decree that he would be stripped of his security clearance.

The White House said that he's a loose cannon who cannot be trusted with national secrets, while the former CIA chief argues he's being unfairly targeted by the president with whom he's routinely clashed with.

President Donald Trump egged John Brennan on in his threat to sue the federal government, saying in a Monday tweet that a suit would give the administration an opportunity to depose him

Brennan is considering legal action against the administration after the president unilaterally revoked his security clearance on the grounds that he's a loose cannon who cannot be trusted with national secrets

Brennan, who served as CIA director under Barack Obama, has emerged as one of President Trump's harshest critics

Brennan, who served as CIA director under Barack Obama, has emerged as one of President Trump's harshest critics.

He's angered Trump with degrading online and television commentary, including a claim that the Republican president acted 'treasonous' during a July news conference with Vladimir Putin.

Clapper in a Sunday appearance on CNN signaled his belief that the comment went too far.

'I think John is subtle like a freight train, and he's going to say what's on his mind. I think, though, that the common denominator among all of us that have been speaking up, though, is genuine concern about the jeopardy or threats to our institutions and values, and although we may express that in different ways. And I think that's what this -- this really is about.

He was quick to tack on, 'But John and his rhetoric have become, I think, an issue in and of itself.'

Brennan said on a competing program that his slams on Trump are not enough for the president to strip him of his security clearance.

He said on Sunday on NBC that he had 'been contacted by a number of lawyers' who have given him advice on filing a complaint or an injunction to try to 'prevent Trump from doing this in the future.'

'If my clearances and my reputation, as I'm being pulled through the mud now, if that's the price we're going to pay to prevent Donald Trump from doing this against other people, to me it's a small price to pay so I am going to do whatever I can personally to try to prevent these abuses in the future and if it means going to court, I will do that,' he warned on 'Meet the Press.'

Appearing on Fox News later in the morning, the president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, laughed off the threat and invited Brennan to take legal action, paving the way for Trump's dismissal of a possible lawsuit on Monday.

Giuliani said he'd demand to depose Brennan immediately if a suit is filed.

'I would volunteer to do that case for the president. I would love to...have Brennan under oath for, I don't know how many days, two, three days? We will find out about Brennan,' he said. 'And we will find out what a terrible job he did going back to being the head of mission at the when the Khobar Towers was bombed and our Marines were killed. Or we can we can see what he what he did or said about Benghazi, how many lies he told about that.'

Former CIA Director John Brennan is considering legal action against the administration

Fox's Maria Bartiomo brought up Brennan's admission in late 2016 that as a college student, he cast a vote for Communist Party head Gus Hall.

'How do you become CIA director if, in the midst of the Cold War, you voted for a communist? Only Obama would pick you,' Giuliani responded.

The president's lawyer signaled that the CIA's water-boarding program and drone strikes - 'where you picked out the terrorists you didn't like and you put bombs on them' - would all become areas of questioning if Brennan takes the president to court.

'Plus, he claims to be a great lover of Islam, of the Islamic religion. He says the Hajj was one of the most beautiful things he ever saw,' Guiliani said of the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. 'So, how does all this square up? Isn't this is a guy who is an opportunist and a political hack who goes whichever way the -- whichever way the winds are going?'

Giuliani said that Brennan's claim that Americans need to look no further than Brennan's claim that the president was involved in treason to understand why Trump revoked the former spy chief's clearance.

'This is an out-of-control political hack,' he asserted.

Drawing on Giuliani's claims in tweets this morning, Trump smacked Brennan and said, 'Everybody wants to keep their Security Clearance, its worth great prestige and big dollars, even board seats, and that is why certain people are coming forward to protect Brennan. It certainly isnt because of the good job he did! He is a political hack. '

Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen said Trump is creating an 'enemies list'

The president's national security team has not commented on the clearance dispute, and ex-officials said Sunday that they had not heard from current CIA Director Gina Haspel or Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden told CNN, 'You can't go back to press to test, because these people are still in government. We don't want to make them vulnerable.'

Hayden and others were supportive of Brennan. They also acknowledged that Brennan's spat with the president was harming the relationship between the intelligence community and the White House.

'It's dangerously close to being permanently broken. It's badly injured right now. Look, if we're back at our old agencies, all right, we're -- we're trying to say to our work force, we have nothing to do with what John Brennan says on TV, and we have nothing to do with what the president has done in response,' Hayden said. 'We have got our basic lane. We have got to do blocking and tackling. But that has to be harder and harder each day, as the administration takes these kinds of actions.'

On 'Fox News Sunday' former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen the accused the president of 'creating a list of political enemies' with his decisions on whom to revoke security clearances.

'It immediately brings back of the enemies list under President Nixon and even before that in early 50s  the McCarthy era where the administration starts putting together lists of individuals who don't agree with them and that, historically, has proven incredibly problematic for the country,' Mullen said on Fox's flagship Sunday morning program. 'So it's creating a list of political enemies,' the retired admiral added.

Mullen, who said he still has his security clearance, did concede Trump has the right to revoke any security clearance he wants.

'I don't think there's any question the president has a right to pull security clearances. That authority is very clear,' he said.

But he said he doesn't agree with the president revoking Brennan's clearance.

'I don't agree with the president pulling it. I think I am concerned about the whole issue of free speech,' he said. 'And as long as John is not revealing classified information that he shouldn't, then I certainly think he has a right to speak.'

He called Trump's move an 'egregious abuse of power and authority.'

Mullen claimed getting his security clearance revoked 'was a clear signal to others who still have their security clearances, both in the government as well as outside, that if you cross him, if you speak out against him, he is going to use whatever tools he might have at his disposal to punish you.'

Brennan also said that senior-level administration officials need to decide at what point they should quit over the issue.

'People like John Kelly, his chief of staff, who I know and respect and like so much, John and I worked very close together. I'm sure he's trying to keep Mr. Trump from doing awful, terrible things,' he said.

Brennan added, 'But at some point, these senior officials have to ask themselves, are they enabling this continued abusive and reckless behavior or not? And if they feel as though they're enabling it, and they're not having that type of governing influence on it, I think they have to show their displeasure and their unhappiness and leave.'

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday that the president was revoking Brennan's clearance at a news conference where she read allowed from a document that her office accidentally admitted had been put together in July.

By announcing it last week, the administration was able to divert attention from a tell-all book by former White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman.

Other people who could lose their clearances include current Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, who was in contact with former British spy Christopher Steele, and whose unverified dossier said the Russians had information on Trump that could be used for blackmail.

The White House had previously said former deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Andrew McCabe, Clapper, Hayden and former National Security Advisor Susan Rice were also in danger of losing their clearances.

All of the above and former FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are on a new list, as is former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

Each of the targets have been critical of or upset the president in some way.

Comey and McCabe do not currently have clearances and there's no threat that the fired, former FBI officials will be getting them back anytime soon.

Other high-level officials, on the hand, continue to have them. They typically keep their clearances for years so they can provide counsel to their successors and be called upon for their advice.
The jury in Paul Manafort's tax fraud trial indicated that it is struggling to reach a consensus on at least one of the charges against him, according to a note the jury gave to the judge on Tuesday.

It was unclear from the note whether the jury has reached a consensus on any of the other charges against Manafort. He faces a total of 18 counts related to bank and tax fraud.

The jury of six men and six women asked Judge T.S. Ellis for guidance, writing, 'Your honor, if we cannot come to a consensus on a single count how do we fill in the verdict sheet?'

The jury, which has been deliberating for four days, also asked what impact this deadlock would have on the overall verdict, and requested a fresh verdict sheet from the judge.

Judge Ellis said he will ask the jury to retire and continue to deliberate. He said he will not ask them at this time if they have reached on a decision any of the other counts.

However, he said if the jury remains deadlocked on the charge, he 'may then enquire if they have reached a unanimous conclusion on other counts' so he can determine the status of the case in general.

If the jury is unable to reach a unanimous decision on any counts then the court may need to declare a mistrial. In that case the prosecution would have to decide if it wants to retry the case before another jury.

Here to watch: Kathleen Manafort arrived for the fourth day of the jury's deliberations in a case which could send her husband to prison for the rest of his life

Confident: Defense attorney Kevin Downing arrived for the fourth day of deliberations after saying on Friday that he believed the length of time the jury was taking favored Manafort

In action: This courtroom sketch depicts U.S. District court Judge T.S. Ellis III speaking to the lawyers and defendant Paul Manafort, fourth from left, as the jury continues to deliberate in Manafort's trial on Friday

However, it is possible based on the ambiguous wording of the note that the jury has already agreed on some or all of the 17 other counts and is stuck on the last one.

Judge Ellis also told the court that the jury question was 'not an exceptional or unusual event in a jury trial.' He said he wanted to make sure nothing he advised the jurors would have a coercive effect on their decisions.

Manafort's wife Kathleen was in court close to her husband, as she has been throughout the trial.

The development is the most significant yet in the jury's days of deliberations.

They were sent home at 6.15pm Monday after sending the judge a note an hour earlier saying it did not want to sit any later, which he accepted.

The verdict - when it comes - will be the first given by a jury on a case brought by Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation.

Monday's lack of any verdict came after a dramatic Friday when the stakes were raised significantly by both Donald Trump and Judge T.S. Ellis III, the outspoken federal judge who has overseen the trial.

Trump made an extraordinary intervention Friday with a jury in its second day of deliberations, calling Manafort a 'very good person' and his trial 'very sad.'

But he wouldn't talk about a potential pardon of Manafort, who refused to cooperate with prosecutors to get what could have been a reduced sentence. 'I don't talk about that,' he said.

Inside the court room on Friday the judge revealed that he had received threats and was being guarded by U.S. Marshals as he ruled on a motion from CNN and other news outlets asking him to make the jurors' names and addresses public so they could be interviewed after the trial - a routine move by the press.

Ellis rejected the motion, saying he has received threats during the course of the trial and fears for the jurors' safety if he releases their names.

Ellis said he has also been traveling with the U.S. Marshals Service due to the threats, and added that the jury does not have this same security.

'I don't feel right if I release their names,' said Ellis, adding that it would 'create a risk of harm to them.'

'I had no idea this case would excite these emotions,' said Ellis.

He declined to discuss the details of the threats against him.

The judge has put no limit on how long he will allow them to deliberate over the 18 bank and tax fraud charges leveled at Donald Trump's former campaign chairman by Robert Mueller's special counsel probe.

The trial had heard that Manafort's offshore bank accounts were often in the name of companies which he held only a minority stake in, although the prosecution said he was in reality in full control of them.

His turncoat deputy Rick Gates had testified that he bought 'shelf' companies for Manafort, which were pre-existing legal companies set up with the intention of being used by their buyers.

His prosecutors say Manafort earned $60 million advising Russia-backed politicians in Ukraine, hid much of it from the IRS and then lied to banks to get loans when the money dried up.

Manafort's defense countered that he wasn't culpable because he left the particulars of his finances to others.

The financial fraud trial calls on the dozen jurors to follow the complexities of foreign bank accounts and shell companies, loan regulations and tax rules.

It exposed details about the lavish lifestyle of the onetime political insider, including a $15,000 jacket made of ostrich leather and $900,000 spent at a boutique retailer in New York paid via international wire transfer.

Judge T.S. Ellis III told the six men and six women of the jury to take as long they needed to reach a verdict.

Key case: Paul Manafort, a one-time Trump campaign chairman, is the first person to go to trial on charges brought by the Robert Mueller special counsel probe. Judge T.S. Ellis III revealed Friday that he was under armed guard and the jurors were 'scared'

Manafort's defense team claimed he was a victim of a 'desperate' attempt by Special Counsel Robert Mueller to pin a bogus crime on the former Trump campaign chief, during closing arguments in Manafort's tax and bank fraud trial on Wednesday.

Attorneys for Manafort argued in a 90-minute closing statement that their client was a victim of his embezzling former business partner Rick Gates, who they claim cut a deal with the government and testified against Manafort in exchange for getting his own tax fraud charges dropped.

For the first time since the trial began, defense attorneys also raised the fact that Manafort worked for Donald Trump  a possible implication to the jury that the charges were politically motivated.

'The government  so desperate to make a case against Mr. Manafort  made a deal with Rick Gates,' said Manafort's attorney Kevin Downing. 'Mr. Gates was orchestrating a multi-million dollar embezzlement scheme.'

The move may be a brave one by Manafort's defense, who had got the judge to keep Trump's name out of the case, saying it would prejudice a jury drawn from heavily Democratic areas of northern Virginia around the Alexandria courtroom.

Those in the court who want to be there for the verdict - including Manafort's wife Kathleen - have been warned they need to go no further than 10 minutes away.

In its summary to the jury the prosecution honed in on Manafort's alleged 'lies' and greed, while also downplaying Gates.

The trial is the first test of Robert Mueller's special counsel probe, with the charges brought by his prosecutors in the course of their investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 election - although they do not include any of collusion.

An acquittal would be a significant blow to Mueller and likely to be seized on by Donald Trump and his supporters as a reason to end the investigation.

'Mr. Manafort lied to keep more money when he had it, and to get more money when he didn't,' prosecutor Greg Andres told the jury in an exhaustive closing statement that lasted over an hour and forty minutes.

But Richard Wesley, a lawyer on Manafort's team, called the government's bank fraud evidence against his client 'selective.'

'Clearly the goal was tostack up the counts,' said Wesley. 'And to give you a sense that the evidence is so overwhelming to draw one conclusion.'

'There is not a single bit of evidence that any of these banks came to the government and complained about these frauds,' added Wesley.

He said none of the banks seemed concerned 'until the special counsel showed up and starting asking questions.'

Throughout the trial, Manafort's attorneys have suggested Gates was responsible for falsifying bank and tax records  even implying he forged Manafort's signatures on foreign bank records. They claimed he did this to cover up for millions of dollars he embezzled from Manafort's businesses.

In testimony last week Gates said he committed tax and bank fraud crimes under orders from Manafort  but also admitted to embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from his former boss while carrying at least one extramarital affair.

Downing told the jury that Gates was a 'liar' who 'tried to get one over on you.'

'How [Gates] was able to get the deal he got [with Mueller's team] I have no idea,' said Downing. 'He gets to walk out of here on probationbecause [prosecutors] were so desperate to try to make the case.'

Gates pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice earlier this year. Although Manafort's attorneys have repeatedly implied that Gates was offered a deal of probation for cooperating with prosecutors, he in fact faces up to 10 years in prison for these charges.

However, Mueller's team has promised not to object if Gates requests probation during his sentencing. Prosecutors also dropped bank and tax fraud charges against Gates in exchange for his cooperation.

Downing said Gates was prepped extensively by prosecutors during at least 20 meetings with Mueller's team. He said Gates tried to 'look all clean shaven' during his testimony, but 'showed himself to be the liar he is.' He also claimed Manafort felt 'foolish' for trusting Gates and giving him access to his financial accounts.

Power brokers: Rick Gates (left) and his boss Paul Manafort (second from right) ran the Trump campaign during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, in 2016.

'To the very end [Gates] lied to you,' Downing told the jury. 'He was flawless on direct [questioning] but on cross examination he fell apart.'

Downing also emphasized Gates's 'secret life,' a reference to Gates's extramarital affair. The defense claimed last week that Gates stole money from Manafort because he was living beyond his means, paying for an apartment for his mistress in London and first-class trips across Europe.

'He finally admitted his secret,' said Downing. 'He was paying for his apartment in London, he was paying for fancy restaurants and hotels.'

Downing also argued that Manafort was not trying to knowingly conceal his foreign bank accounts from the government, saying he disclosed them to the FBI when he was interviewed about an unrelated matter in 2014.

'If you're in this major concealment scheme, why would you just disclose it?' asked Downing.

The prosecution had said that Manafort lied to his personal book keeper, his tax preparers, the IRS, and multiple banks and financial institutions, according to prosecutors.

He also neglected to file required government reports disclosing his foreign bank accounts and did not mention them on his income tax filings, the government claims.

While hiding money in at least 31 foreign accounts, Manafort also transferred millions to vendors in the U.S. to fund his decadent lifestyle, according to prosecutors. He spent over $1.5 million on custom menswear  including a $21,000 crystal watch and a $15,000 ostrich jacket  and millions more on high-end TV and audio equipment and landscaping for his Hamptons mansion.

Judge T.S. Ellis has clashed with prosecutors in the case over their references to Manafort's wealth, prodding them to focus instead on the tax and fraud charges. Andres stressed during his closing argument that the government is not prosecuting Manafort due to his spending habits.

'This case is not about Mr. Manafort's wealth,' said Andres. 'We are not in court today because Mr. Manafort is wealthy. We are in the court today because he filed false tax reports and he failed to file [a Foreign Bank Account Report].'

Andres also argued that Manafort's failure to disclose his income was deliberate  a point prosecutors must prove the jurors to get a conviction.

Noting that Manafort was an attorney and an experienced international political consultant, Andres said 'Mr. Manafort is capable and bright' and 'met regularly with his own tax preparer.'

Prosecutors also seemed to downplay the importance of testimony from Rick Gates, Manafort's former business partner who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators earlier this year and has been cooperating with Mueller's team.

Gates, who was previously billed as the prosecution's key witness in the case, testified last week that he helped Manafort carry out his tax and bank fraud schemes.

But Gates's credibility was also heavily damaged under cross examination, when he admitted to embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from Manafort and having at least one extramarital affair.

Manafort's attorneys suggested that Gates had as many as four affairs, and claimed he used the money he embezzled to pay for a London apartment for his mistress and first-class trips through Europe.

Andres seemed to acknowledge Gates's credibility problems during his closing arguments.

'We're not asking you to like him,' said Andres.

He told jurors to take Gates's testimony and 'compare it to the testimony of [other] witnesses. This is how you know if it is consistent.'

Andres also pushed back against Manafort's attorneys for concentrating on Gates's infidelity.

'Why were there so many questions on Mr. Gates's affair?' he asked. 'Was it to distract you? Does it matter?'

'Mr. Manafort was a mentor to Mr. Gates in his criminal activity,' added Andres. '[Manafort] didn't choose a boy scout.'

The prosecutor urged the jury to focus on the documents in the case rather than on any single witness.

'The star witness in this case is the documents,' said Andres. 'Virtually everything Mr. Gates testified on is in the documents.'

Andres closing argument came on the twelfth day of the trial. Nearly all of that time was spent on testimony from prosecution witnesses; Manafort's defense team declined to call any witnesses.

Manafort's attorneys will make their closing arguments on Wednesday afternoon. Prosecutors will then have 17 minutes to give a rebuttal  the time remaining from their two-hour closing argument allowance.

Afterward, the judge will advise jurors on legal requirements for a conviction. Judge Ellis told jurors this will likely take an hour and a half. The court will then go to recess until the jury reaches a verdict.

While the case against Manafort does not relate to any allegations of Russian election interference or possible coordination with the Trump campaign, the proceedings have drawn President Donald Trump's attention - and prompted tweets - as the president has worked to undermine the standing of the Mueller investigation in the public square.

Star witness: Rick Gates was on the stand for three days but his credibility was attacked by Manafort's defense and he admitted cheating on his wife with a long-term mistress in London

Trump has distanced himself from Manafort, who led the campaign from May to August 2016 with Gates at his side. Gates struck a plea deal with prosecutors and has provided much of the drama of the trial so far.

Gates testified that he helped Manafort commit crimes in an effort to lower his tax bill and fund his lavish lifestyle.

During testimony, Gates was also forced to admit embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from Manafort and conducting an extramarital affair.

After jurors were excused on Tuesday, lawyers for both sides conferred with the judge in open court on the language Ellis will use to instruct the jurors in their deliberations.

The only dispute was about what jurors should be told about how to interpret questions and comments interjected by the judge during the course of the trial.

Prosecutors, who have been frustrated by Ellis' tendency to interrupt and chide prosecutors in front of the jury, sought stronger language to make clear that jurors do not need to adopt any opinions expressed by the judge.

At one point in the discussion, Ellis asked prosecutors whether they thought he had ever interjected his own opinions. Prosecutor Greg Andres, who has had the strongest confrontations with Ellis, said 'yes.'

Ellis eventually came up with compromise language that was agreeable to both sides.

Mueller's final tally: Trump's inner circle of convicts and turncoats - and 25 wanted Russian trolls GUILTY: MICHAEL FLYNN Pleaded guilty to making false statements in December 2017. Awaiting sentence Flynn was President Trump's former National Security Advisor and Robert Mueller's most senior scalp to date. He previously served when he was a three star general as President Obama's director of the Defense Intelligence Agency but was fired. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his conversations with a Russian ambassador in December 2016. He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation. GUILTY AND JAILED: MICHAEL COHEN Pleaded guilty to eight counts including fraud and two campaign finance violations in August 2018. Pleaded guilty to further count of lying to Congress in November 2018. Sentenced to three years in prison and $2 million in fines and forfeitures in December 2018 Cohen was investigated by Mueller but the case was handed off to the Southern District of New York,leaving Manhattan's ferocious and fiercely independent federal prosecutors to run his case. Cohen was Trump's longtime personal attorney, starting working for him and the Trump Organization in 2007. He is the longest-serving member of Trump's inner circle to be implicated by Mueller. Cohen professed unswerving devotion to Trump - and organized payments to silence two women who alleged they had sex with the-then candidate: porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. He admitted that payments to both women were felony campaign finance violations - and admitted that he acted at the 'direction' of 'Candidate-1': Donald Trump. He also admitted tax fraud by lying about his income from loans he made, money from taxi medallions he owned, and other sources of income, at a cost to the Treasury of $1.3 million. And he admitted lying to Congress in a rare use of the offense. The judge in his case let him report for prison on March 6 and recommended he serve it in a medium-security facility close to New York City. GUILTY AND JAILED: PAUL MANAFORT Found guilty of eight charges of bank and tax fraud in August 2018. Sentenced to 47 months in March 2019. Pleaded guilty to two further charges - witness tampering and conspiracy against the United States. Jailed for total of seven and a half years in two separate sentences. Additionally indicted for mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney, using evidence previously presented by Mueller Manafort worked for Trump's campaign from March 2016 and chaired it from June to August 2016, overseeing Trump being adopted as Republican candidate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He is the most senior campaign official to be implicated by Mueller. Manafort was one of Washington D.C.'s longest-term and most influential lobbyists but in 2015, his money dried up and the next year he turned to Trump for help, offering to be his campaign chairman for free - in the hope of making more money afterwards. But Mueller unwound his previous finances and discovered years of tax and bank fraud as he coined in cash from pro-Russia political parties and oligarchs in Ukraine. Manafort pleaded not guilty to 18 charges of tax and bank fraud but was convicted of eight counts in August 2018. The jury was deadlocked on the other 10 charges. A second trial on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent due in September did not happen when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and witness tampering in a plea bargain. He was supposed to co-operate with Mueller but failed to. Minutes after his second sentencing hearing in March 2019, he was indicted on 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy by the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., using evidence which included documents previously presented at his first federal trial. The president has no pardon power over charges by district and state attorneys. GUILTY AND GOING TO WEEKEND JAIL: RICK GATES Pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and making false statements in February 2018. Sentenced to 45 days weekend jail and three years probation, December 17, 2018 Gates was Manafort's former deputy at political consulting firm DMP International. He admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government on financial activity, and to lying to investigators about a meeting Manafort had with a member of congress in 2013. As a result of his guilty plea and promise of cooperation, prosecutors vacated charges against Gates on bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy, failure to disclose foreign bank accounts, filing false tax returns, helping prepare false tax filings, and falsely amending tax returns. GUILTY AND JAILED: GEORGE PAPADOPOLOUS Pleaded guilty to making false statements in October 2017. Sentenced to 14 days in September 2018, and reported to prison in November. Served 12 days and released on December 7, 2018 Papadopoulos was a member of Donald Trump's campaign foreign policy advisory committee. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his contacts with London professor Josef Mifsud and Ivan Timofeev, the director of a Russian government-funded think tank. GUILTY AND JAILED: RICHARD PINEDO Pleaded guilty to identity fraud in February 2018. Sentenced to a year in prison Pinedo is a 28-year-old computer specialist from Santa Paula, California. He admitted to selling bank account numbers to Russian nationals over the internet that he had obtained using stolen identities. GUILTY AND JAILED: ALEX VAN DER ZWAAN Pleaded guilty to making false statements in February 2018. He served a 30-day prison sentence and was deported to the Netherlands on his release Van der Zwaan was a Dutch attorney for Skadden Arps who worked on a Ukrainian political analysis report for Paul Manafort in 2012. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about when he last spoke with Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik. His law firm say he was fired. GUILTY: W. SAMUEL PATTEN Pleaded guilty in August 2018 to failing to register as a lobbyist while doing work for a Ukrainian political party. Sentenced to three years probation April 2019 Patten, a long-time D.C. lobbyist was a business partner of Paul Manafort. He pleaded guilty to admitting to arranging an illegal $50,000 donation to Trump's inauguration. He arranged for an American 'straw donor' to pay $50,000 to the inaugural committee, knowing that it was actually for a Ukrainian businessman. Neither the American or the Ukrainian have been named. CHARGED: KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK Indicted for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. At large, probably in Russia Kilimnik is a former employee of Manafort's political consulting firm and helped him with lobbying work in Ukraine. He is accused of witness tampering, after he allegedly contacted individuals who had worked with Manafort to remind them that Manafort only performed lobbying work for them outside of the U.S. He has been linked to Russian intelligence and is currently thought to be in Russia - effectively beyond the reach of extradition by Mueller's team. INDICTED: THE RUSSIANS Twenty-five Russian nationals and three Russian entities have been indicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States. They remain at large in Russia Two of these Russian nationals were also indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 11 were indicted for conspiracy to launder money. Fifteen of them were also indicted for identity fraud. Vladimir Putin has ridiculed the charges. Russia effectively bars extradition of its nationals. The only prospect Mueller has of bringing any in front of a U.S. jury is if Interpol has their names on an international stop list - which is not made public - and they set foot in a territory which extradites to the U.S. INDICTED: MICHAEL FLYNN'S BUSINESS PARTNERS Bijan Kian (left), number two in now disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn's lobbying company, and the two's business partner Ekim Alptekin (right) were indicted for conspiracy to lobby illegally. Kian, an Iranian-American was arrested and appeared in court charged with a conspiracy to illegally lobby the U.S government without registering as a foreign agent. Their co-conspirator was Flynn, who is called 'Person A' in the indictment and is not charged, offering some insight into what charges he escaped with his plea deal. Kian, vice-president of Flynn's former lobbying firm, is alleged to have plotted with Alptekin to try to change U.S. policy on an exiled Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania and who is accused by Turkey's strongman president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of trying to depose him. Erdogan's government wanted him extradited from the U.S. and paid Flynn's firm through Alptekin for lobbying, including an op-ed in The Hill calling for Gulen to be ejected. Flynn and Kian both lied that the op-ed was not paid for by the Turkish government. The indictment is a sign of how Mueller is taking an interest in more than just Russian involvement in the 2016 election. GUILTY AND AWAITING SENTENCE: ROGER STONE Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign official and longtime informal advisor to Trump, was indited on seven counts including obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks in January 2019. Convicted on all counts November 15, 2019, awaiting sentence Stone was a person of interest to Mueller's investigators long before his January indictment, thanks in part due to his public pronouncements as well as internal emails about his contacts with WikiLeks. In campaign texts and emails, many of which had already been publicly revealed before showing up in Mueller's indictment, Stone communicated with associates about WikiLeaks following reports the organization had obtained a cache of Clinton-related emails. Stone, a former Nixon campaign adviser who has the disgraced former president's face permanently tattooed on his back, has long been portrayed as a central figure in the election interference scandal. 'They got nothing,' he said of the special counsel's investigation. Stone gave 'false and misleading' testimony about his requests for information from WikiLeaks. He then pressured a witness, comedian Randy Credico, to take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify, and pressured him in a series of emails. Following a prolonged dispute over testimony, he called him a 'rat' and threatened to 'take that dog away from you', in reference to Credico's pet, Bianca. Stone warned him: 'Let's get it on. Prepare to die.' CLEARED: GREG CRAIG Greg Craig, President Barack Obama's White House counsel, was indicted for failing to register as a foreign agent. Mueller's investigators uncovered Craig's work on behalf the government of Ukraine while probing Manafort, who did business with Craig. Prosecutors released a grand jury indictment of Craig in April 2019, after Craig's law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP agreed to pay more than $4.6 million as part of a settlement. The prominent firm also acknowledged it had failed to register, and placed much of the blame on Craig, a senior partner there. Craig's lawyer blasted the decision as an abuse of prosecutorial discretion, and prepared to argue that omission of information during an interview is not tantamount to making false statements. The charges stem from a 2012 report Craig and the firm produced on behalf of the Ukrainian government on opposition figure and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. She was an opponent of Manafort's client , former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Craig was cleared on September 9 2019. Advertisement
This is the terrifying moment a car deliberately accelerates and ploughs into a group of terrified people.

The pedestrians can be heard screaming in fear as the grey Ford Focus swerves wildly and then mows them down on a street in Romford, east London.

The Snapchat video which was posted on Twitter is believed to have been taken at around 3am on Sunday, August 19, on Chandlers Way.

Footage emerged of a car mowing down pedestrians in a street in Romford, east London

A grey Ford Focus can be seen revving its engine and driving at full speed into pedestrians

It shows the car revving its engine and taking a sharp turn to the right before crashing into the people.

The driver then swerves around and takes aim at another group of people next to railings as they try to throw themselves out of the way.

At one point, a body can be heard hitting the bonnet.

The man filming can be heard shouting: 'He's dead! He's dead!'

The car, which appears to have been damaged in the incident, drives away as one man tries to open the door.

Screams can be heard as the car knocks people over multiple times before driving off

Police are now investigating after the video emerged on social media.

A local woman said she had been leaving her home in Romford when she recognised the car from the video which had been parked just 10 minutes away from where the incident happened.

Shannon Quartermaine told The Sun Online: 'I examined the cars marks and noticed the colour difference from the front and back wheel, exactly the same as the video.

'The car was sat with a shattered front window, dented side and the front passenger window down.'

Railings on the street in Chandlers Way appeared to have been bent and damaged during the incident after the car drove into it.

Police in Romford are investigating after the video of the incident was posted on social media

Railing next to where the incident happened shows where the car had smashed into it trying to knock over people

The car appeared to be damaged in the incident as it smashed against some railing on the street

Metropolitan Police confirmed they were called to the discovery of a damaged grey Ford Focus.

A spokesman said: 'Officers are aware of footage circulated on social media of an incident consistent with attempted grievous bodily harm, believed to have taken place in Romford.

'The footage is in the process of being reviewed and enquiries are underway to establish whether the vehicle is linked to the incident. No allegations have been received at this time.'

Romford Town Police said in a Tweet: 'We are aware of a video circulating on social media which shows a car driving at several people in Chandlers Way Romford.

'We would urge anyone who was there at the time of the incident to make contact with police as soon as possible.'
Scotland Yard detectives flew to the US to question alleged victims of disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein, it emerged today.

Weinstein has been at the centre of an avalanche of claims of sexual impropriety since harassment allegations first came to light in 2017.

The complaints against him have sparked police probes on both sides of the Atlantic, with London's Met Police understood to be examining 15 allegations made by 10 different women.

Uma Thurman, Natassia Malthe and Lysette Anthony are among the high-profile actresses who have alleged Weinstein attacked them in the UK.

Ms Anthony says she has gone to police, although it is unclear whether Uma Thurman or Ms Malthe did the same.

British detectives have flown to the US as part of the investigation into alleged sex attacks by the disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, pictured in court in New York in July

Among those to have made allegations against Weinstein relating to the UK are Pulp Fiction actress Uma Thurman and Hollyoaks star Lysette Anthony

Detectives travelled to the US earlier this summer to question some of those who have made complaints against Weinstein, police confirmed today.

A spokesman said: 'The Met can confirm that officers involved in Operation Kaguyak travelled to the United States in June as part of their inquiries. We are not prepared to discuss further.'

Operation Kaguyak, as it has been named by police, was opened in October last year after Merseyside Police received an allegation of sexual assault in London in the 1980s and referred it to Scotland Yard.

Natassia Malthe claims Harvey Weinstein burst into her room at the Sanderson Hotel in London in 2008 and raped her

Investigations into alleged attacks on a woman in Westminster in 2010 and 2011, and in Camden in 2015, begun later that month before another allegation, relating to a woman in Westminster in the mid-1990s, was then added to the investigation in February this year.

Lysette Anthony came forward in October to allege Weinstein had raped her at her London home in the 1980s.

She said he pushed her inside her home then forced himself on her against a coat rack.

She told The Sunday Times: 'He came over my leg like a dog and then left. It was pathetic, revolting... I remember lying in the bath, crying.'

In an interview in February this year, Uma Thurman described how Weinstein allegedly attacked her in London's Savoy hotel in the 1990s.

She said: 'He pushed me down. He tried to shove himself on me. He tried to expose himself. He did all kinds of unpleasant things. But he didnt actually put his back into it and force me.

Weinstein later denied Thurman's claims and insisted he couldn't have attacked her because they stayed friends for years after the alleged incident.

Uma Thurman said Weinstein attacked her in London's Savoy hotel in the 1990s

Natassia Malthe claims Harvey Weinstein burst into her room at the Sanderson Hotel in London after the 2008 BAFTA Awards and began masturbating in front of her while sitting on the bed.

After telling her a number of A-list actresses he claimed to have bedded, Weinstein allegedly forced himself on Malthe and began having sex with her despite her pleas for him to stop. He did not wear a condom, she claims.

More than 75 women have accused Weinstein, who was one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, of wrongdoing since the MeToo movement  a global campaign against sexual assault  gathered momentum.

Court proceedings have since begun in relation to three different women. Weinstein has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.

It was reported in the US yesterday that Asia Argento, one of Weinstein's accusers, paid 300,000 to a teenage co-star who accused her of sexual assault.
A mother has been detained after officers found an AK-47 and more than 80lbs of cannabis at her California home, where she allegedly encouraged her 15-year-old daughter to sell drugs.

Norma Angelica Alvarez and Jose Reyes Martinez, both 44, were arrested after Merced County Sheriff's deputies served a marijuana cultivation search warrant at the Delhi home on Friday.

Deputies found the loaded gun and weed in the master bedroom closet of the home located on the 15000 block of Roseann Court.

It is unclear if Martinez lives in the home or what his relationship is to Alvarez but cops say Alvarez gave and encouraged her teenage daughter to sell the drugs.

Jose Reyes Martinez and Norma Angelica Alvarez, both 44, were arrested after Merced County Sheriff's deputies served a marijuana cultivation search warrant at a Delhi home on Friday

Deputies found the loaded guns and weed in the master bedroom closet of the home and 12 large cannabis plants in the backyard

'During the investigation deputies learned the 15 year old daughter was given marijuana from her mother to use and sell from her bedroom', the Sheriff's Office statement said.

Among the evidence was a poster which appears to have come from the teenager's bedroom door which reads: 'It's the law. You must be 15 years of age or older to purchase weed. No coming in!! Knock!'.

While in her room, deputies say they found more weed for sale, scales, lighters, grinders, edibles and wraps associated with the use of cannabis.

Also taken from the scene were 12 large marijuana plants, taken from the backyard in a makeshift green house.

A 15-year-old girl in the home was alleged to have been selling from her bedroom. This sign was among the evidence seized

While in her room, deputies found more weed for sale, scales, lighters, grinders, edibles and wraps associated with the use of cannabis

The teen, along with another minor, was taken to CPS to be placed in custody

The teen and another minor were placed in CPS custody.

Martinez was charged with marijuana crimes, possessing an assault weapon and assault on a child, the Merced Sun-Star reports. He was booked into the Merced County Jail on a $591,000 bond.

Alvarez was charged with suspicion of marijuana crimes and child endangerment. She was placed in the Merced County Jail and booked on a $151,000 bond.

'Today deputies eradicated marijuana from eight locations throughout Merced County totaling 180 pounds of processed marijuana, 348 plants and 4 firearms,' the sheriff's office said in the Saturday post.

'Deputies have confiscated 77 firearms during marijuana investigations from 125 locations over the last 10 months.'
Bexar County Sheriff's Deputy Jose Nunez, 47, died on Monday of a suspect suicide while jailed on a charge of super aggravated sexual assault of a child

A Texas sheriff's deputy accused of sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl and threatening her undocumented mother with deportation has died in jail from an apparent suicide.

The Bexar County sheriff's office says 47-year-old Jose Nunez was pronounced dead shortly before 6pm on Monday at the Karnes County Correctional Center, where he had been since June.

According to the sheriff's office, Nunez appears to have killed himself, but it didn't say how or where in the jail he did it.

Nunez was a 10-year veteran of the Bexar County sheriff's office assigned to that county's jail when he was arrested on June 17 on a charge of super aggravated sexual assault of a child.

Nunez was accused of inappropriately touching the young girl's genitals on numerous occasions causing 'at least some indication of minor injury' at her residence.

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said at the time the abuse took place for several months and potentially as long as two years.

Authorities said Nunez also threatened the victim's mother, who is an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, with deportation if she reported him.

Nunez, a 10-year veteran, was arrested in June for allegedly raping a four-year-old girl and threatening her mother with deportation to Guatemala

Nunez was pronounced dead shortly before 6pm on Monday at the Karnes County Correctional Center (pictured)

The child 'made an outcry to her mom' who brought her to a local fire station to report, despite Nunez's threat of deportation.

'The details of the case are, quite frankly, heartbreaking, disturbing, disgusting and infuriating all at the same time,' Salazar said in a press conference after the deputy's arrest.

'Folks like this are creatures of habit and opportunity. I dont know that he was purposely targeting the undocumented community.

'Certainly I think what appealed to him, in this case anyway, is the vulnerability of that community because of the fact that theyre less apt to report things.'

If convicted at trial, Nunez could have faced a minimum of 25 years in prison.
A photo of two on-duty Chicago cops sleeping in their patrol van following another violent weekend in the city has sparked an internal investigation - while some are blaming the incident on overworked officers.

The picture, taken around 4am on Saturday, shows an unidentified male and female officer dressed in bullet proof vests with their heads slumped over as they snooze. The Chicago Police Department confirmed that the officers were on duty when the picture was snapped.

The image was shared on Facebook thousands of times, including by mayoral candidate Ja'Mal Green, who blamed the incident on mayor Rahm Emanuel making officers work overtime to combat a surge of violence in the communities.

Two officers in Chicago were pictured sleeping in their patrol van on Saturday around 4am. 59 people, including a three-year-old boy, were shot in the city over the weekend

Mayoral candidate Ja'Mal Green shared the photo on his Facebook page, writing that the officers were overworked as the city tries to combat a surge in violence

'In light of all of the violence that happened last week, Rahm decided to deploy 600 MORE officers & make officers work overtime! This picture proves WHY that was a bad idea,' Green wrote.

'Officers get fatigued which will prevent them from reacting to crime. Militarizing communities does NOT reduce violence. That's why I'm running for mayor because we need a REAL comprehensive plan to address violence that deals with economics/jobs, education, mental health, small businesses, affordable housing and more!'.

In a statement to the Chicago Sun Times, Green said the answer to solving the city's crime problem is not deploying more cops on the streets.

'Taking away their days off. Making them work. That's not the answer. Officers are fatigued. We've got to start talking about the health of our police officers who are on the street, all day, every day on overtime on our neighborhood,' he said.

'We can't continue to overwork police officers. It ends up in a situation where police officers can't do their official duties. They're tired. That really messes them up mentally and physically. We have to make sure they get the rest and care they need. With the trauma they see on the streets every day, the mental health issue is real.'

Green (left) blamed Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel (right) for taking away officers' days off and forcing them to work overtime

Over the weekend 59 people were shot in Chicago. Pictured are police officers on scene outside a home where the two teenage boys were found dead on Sunday

Authorities have described the city as a 'war-zone' due to its increasing crime rate. Detectives are seen in Chicago investigating a shooting on Sunday

The Chicago Police Department, however, released a statement saying the officers involved have not been working overtime.

'Officer welfare, health and safety are among our highest priorities,' the statement read. 'The officers involved in this incident were not on an overtime initiative and worked minimal amounts of overtime since July 1st and didn't work overtime this week or weekend.'

The department also said the officers will be disciplined and the incident is being investigated by the internal affairs department. According to WGN9, the officers could face three to five days off without pay but that is still being determined.

It's not clear where the officers were at or what they were supposed to be doing.

The embarrassing photo follows a a violent weekend in Chicago which saw 59 people shot, six of whom died. A three-year-old boy in Englewood was among those injured when gunfire erupted while residents were outside enjoying the summer evening.

Authorities have described the city as a 'war-zone' due to its increasing crime rate. Earlier this month, 72 people were shot in a single weekend in Chicago, leaving 13 dead.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly spoken out about the violence in Chicago blaming the crime rate on the city's mayor, Rahm Emanuel. In a statement earlier this month, Trump said community bonds with law enforcement need to be stronger.

'That's bad stuff happening. And probably, I guess, you have to take it from the leadership, it's called bad leadership,' he added. 'There's no reason in a million years that something like that should be happening in Chicago.'
Austin Ross stuck racist posters on buildings around his hometown, and torched a school

A far-right group supporter was today jailed for six years after a month-long hate campaign which included spray painting landmarks with swastikas.

Austin Ross, 23, stuck racist posters on buildings around his hometown, as well as torching a school and a masonic lodge, causing tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage.

A court heard Ross was both a supporter of Tommy Robinson and far-right group System Resistance Network, and painted their initials SRN - plus messages such as 'Free Tommy Robinson' - on buildings.

During May of this year he spray painted Nazi symbols and stuck racist propaganda on to landmarks around his hometown of Newport, South Wales.

Prosecutor Jason Howells told Newport Crown Court that Ross first targeted the city's Riverfront Theatre by posting a 'racially abusive poster' on a window pane.

Mr Howells said: 'The poster was linked to the System Resistance Network, and there were swastikas spray painted next to it.'

Bassaleg School was also hit with graffiti which included swastikas and slogans referencing the SRN and 'Marxist filth'

Prosecutor Jason Howells said: 'He set fire to two premises using an accelerant and causing damage of more than 58,000'

A swastika spray painted by Ross on a window of the Riverfront Theatre (left) in Newport, and another building in the city (right)

Ross went on to post racist posters on Bethel Community Church which read 'Marxist maggots we remember faces, names places. SRN'

His next target was Newport's multicultural Maindee Primary School, where parents reported seeing racist posters outside it referring to refugees, and the message 'You have been visited by the SRN'.

Ross returned to the school four days later to spray paint several swastikas on its walls.

The slogan '1488' was painted by Ross on to the outside wall of Gwent Probation Services - with 14 being code for 'We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children' coined by white supremacist David Lane, and 88 being code for 'Heil Hitler'.

Ross spray painted swastikas on a school sign in his hometown of Newport, South Wales

Swastikas and the letters SRN (System Resistance Network) spray painted on a wall in Newport

A prison van arrives at Newport Crown Court ahead of Ross's sentencing hearing today

Ross also wrote 'Free Tommy Robinson' along with graffiti of swastikas at the University of South Wales campus.

He then caused 38,000 worth of damage by causing a fire at Newport's Masonic Lodge, which had a Star of David on the front of the building, and another 20,000 worth of damage by starting another fire at Bassaleg Secondary School, of which he is an ex pupil.

A court heard Ross was a supporter of Tommy Robinson (pictured earlier this month)

Gwent Police released CCTV recordings to the public which caught Ross in the act of several of the incidents, which resulted in him being identified after an anonymous tip off.

Police raided his home and found stencils of swastikas, and posters which read 'Keep Britain White' and 'Hitler was right'.

His Facebook account contained links to a Hitler Youth account.

Ross was arrested and later pleaded guilty to 15 counts including arson, racially aggravated harassment and racially aggravated damage.

Harry Baker, defending, said: 'There's a different side to this young man. His family are concerned and upset for him.'

Judge Jeremy Jenkins told Ross: 'Your actions were not born out of some mental disorder, but out of sheer hatred and malice, based on a perverse view of race and religion different to your own.'

The judge added: 'People like you have no idea what living under a tyrannical regime is really like.'

Ross, from Bettws, Newport, showed no emotion as he was jailed for six years.
Cutting It actor James Murray has revealed he and his wife Sarah Parish have been given a new 'purpose in life' after setting up a charity when their baby daughter died from a rare heart defect.

Mr Murray and his wife Sarah Parish set up the Murray Parish Trust in 2014 after they were left devastated when their daughter Ella-Jayne died at just eight months old.

Eamonn Holmes asked Mr Murray on This Morning if grief had renewed his purpose in life, and the 43-year-old Cutting It star told him 'absolutely'.

The Murray Parish Trust raises money for paediatric facilities across south England, and in January this year the charity raised 1million for a new state-of-the-art Children's Emergency & Trauma Department at Southampton University Hospital.

Little Ella-Jayne spent much of her life at Southampton General Hospital after she was born five weeks early in May 2008 after an emergency caesarean.

Actor James Murray has revealed he has a new 'purpose in life' after setting up a charity when his baby daughter died of a rare heart defect

The actor and his wife Sarah Parish lost their baby daughter Ella-Jayne at just eight months old. Ella-Jayne was diagnosed with Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome (RTS), a syndrome affecting just one in 125,000-300,000 births

What is Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome? Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome (RTS) which increases the risk of heart defects and can cause learning difficulties. It affects one in 125,000 to 300,000 births. Those with the condition often have broad thumbs and first toes, a short stature and distinctive facial features including misaligned eyes. The syndrome is caused by a mutation of a chromosone and occurs randomly, and most of those diagnosed with the condition do not have relatives with the syndrome. Advertisement

She was diagnosed with Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome (RTS), a syndrome affecting just one in 125,000-300,000 births that meant Ella-Jayne was likely to develop mental disabilities.

Mr Murray and his wife set up the charity after feeling an 'overpowering' need to help the people who had looked after their daughter in the hospital which became like a 'home' to them.

He said on This Morning: 'It puts, what I do as a day job... I'm very lucky I'm being paid to do something vocational.

'But running the Trust, and raising funds for this much-needed facility, kind of puts everything into a distant second.'

The couple had a second daughter, Nell, in November 2009.

Mr Murray and Mrs Parish set up the charity after feeling an 'overpowering' need to help the people who had looked after their daughter in the hospital which became like a 'home' to them

Mr Murray, pictured on This Morning with co-star Lisa Riley, said: 'Running the Trust, and raising funds for this much-needed facility, kind of puts everything into a distant second'

Earlier this year Mrs Parish, 50, revealed in an article for the Daily Mail that she writes her daughter a birthday card every year.

She wrote: 'Every year, on my daughter Ella-Jayne's birthday, I write her a special card, just like any other parent. Unlike other parents, I then place it in a drawer along with the other ones from past years that she'll never get to read.

'It's a ritual I have been through since we lost our darling girl  a way for me to mark the day she came into our lives.

'Eight months later, my husband and I mark another annual ritual: the day she was taken from us in January 2009. When that day comes round, we just stay indoors with our memories.'

Speaking about their charity, Mrs Parish said at the time: 'I think if we hadn't created a charity, the Murray Parish Trust, in memory of our daughter, then things wouldn't have worked out so well for us.'

The couple convinced the government to match the 2million they hope to raise for Southampton General Hospital in 2016.
Alejandra Suarez says she forgot her sleeping three-year-old child in a hot car for three hours on August 13

A 26-year-old mother has been charged with second-degree cruelty to children after leaving her young son in a hot car for three hours.

Alejandra Suarez says she forgot her sleeping three-year-old child in the vehicle outside their grandmother's house on August 13, after taking her two other children inside.

However, when she realized what she'd done at approximately 8pm that night, the Georgia woman called 911 to confess.

'She stated that she had dropped off her other two children at their grandmother's home, and the third child had apparently fallen asleep in the car,' Lt. Scott Ware, a spoken for the sheriff said in the statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

'Ms. Suarez departed the grandmother's home without realizing this and did not discover the child until sometime after she had already been back at home.'

After city and county authorities took the boy for check-up at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center, he was said to be in 'good physical condition' following the ordeal.

Still, after police obtained a warrant for her arrest on Friday, Suarez was arrested and charged this past Sunday.

Gainsville resident, Suarez, was set a bail of $5,700 and is being held in county jail.

The Division of Family and Children Services was notified and the mother-of-three is reportedly being cooperative with the ongoing investigation.

It's just one of a number of cases of children across the United States being left in dangerously hot vehicles this summer.

County authorities took the boy for check-up at Northeast Georgia Medical Center (pictured)

In Florida, Hernando County Sheriff's officials say Eric O'Callaghan found his 9-month-old, Keyton, in the car which was parked in the driveway Friday morning.

Despite performing CPR until rescuers arrived, he was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Keyton's mother, Cami Lee Moyer, was supposed to be taking care of the child at the time, and it's unknown how long the baby spent there since the grandmother started taking care of him on Thursday night.

The investigation is ongoing.
An Australian grandmother's Bali holiday has turned into a nightmare after a stroke left her intensive care with no way of getting home.

Perth grandmother-of-13 and mother-of-six Rosalind Connaughton was rushed to a hospital in Bali after collapsing with bleeding on the brain while on holiday.

Mrs Connaughton had suffered a severe stroke, 7 News reported. and has been placed in an induced coma.

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Perth grandmother Rosalind Connaughton (centre with family) was taken into intensive care in Bali after collapsing with bleeding on the brain while on holiday

Mrs Connaughton had to be put into an induced coma in Bali after suffering a stroke

The woman was on holiday with family when the incident occurred and she is stranded in Bali until she recovers, because she does not have travel insurance.

The family also can't afford a Medivac and Mrs Connaughton is still too sick to fly.

Her daughter Hope Connaughton was back in Australia and received the bad news via phone call.

'Were just waiting for that phone call basically to say shes gone,' she said.

Rosalind Connaughton is a mother of six and a grandmother to to 13, all of whom are eager for her to make a recovery, her daughter, Hope, said.

'She's our rock, she's our world,' she said.

There is still hope that Mrs Connaughton could receive a much needed lifeline, with the Department of Foreign Affairs providing consular assistance.

'She's our rock, she's our world,' her daughter Hope said while fighting back tears

Mrs Connaughton is stranded in Bali because she did not purchase travel insurance and her family can''t afford a Medivac

'Owing to our privacy obligations we will not provide further comment,' the statement read.

Australian Miss Universe contestant Stephanie Kaiser spoke about an accident she was in in 2016 while holidaying in Thailand, also having travel insurance issues.

She was in the water off the coast of Thailand when her jetski was hit side-on by another jetski at 60km/h.

She suffered a broken leg in two places, spinal injuries, and her kneecap and pelvis were fractured.

Rosalind Connaughton (pictured) is a mother of six and a grandmother to to 13, all of whom are eager for her to make a recovery her daughter Hope said

Her medical insurance stopped paying out after covering her hospital stay and a flight home for surgery, however, the bills are still coming and she has had to sell her car to help pay the costs.

'If I had known they weren't going to cover ongoing costs I probably would have gone for a different package,' she said.

'You definitely need to read what you're buying and what it covers,' she said.

Miss Kaiser's incident and now Miss Connaughton have prompted experts to remind Australians to check their travel insurance closely.
Russia's most famous weapons manufacturer has unveiled a 13ft tall walking killer robot operated by pilots who sit inside it.

Kalashnikov Concern presented the state-of-the-art bulletproof robot along with utility vehicles and new assault rifles at the Army 2018 fair at the Patriot Park just outside Moscow.

The gold robot, called Igorek, is still in development and its creators do not wish to reveal all of its features until they have finished.

So far, all that is known about the 'controlled bipedal walker' is that it weighs 4.5 tonnes and can reportedly hold and move objects - including weapons - with its claws.

Russia's most famous weapons manufacturer has unveiled a 13ft tall walking robot operated by pilots who sit inside it

Kalashnikov Concern presented the state-of-the-art robot along with utility vehicles and new assault rifles at the Army 2018 Fair

A cabin behind the robot's glass panels allows people to sit and operate the robot from inside.

The pilots are protected from bullets, debris and any other dangerous object behind the armoured glass and metal encasement.

The robot is designed for 'engineering and combat solutions,' according to the Kalashnikov website. The company is best known for manufacturing the AK-47, which is the most widely used assault rifle in the world. It was designed in the 1940s.

Vladimir Dmitriev, from Kalashnikov Concern, said: 'This robot is probably one of the hottest new models of the 'Army 2018'. Currently it is only a demonstration of the path we are planning on following.

The gold robot, called Igorek, is still in development and its creators do not wish to reveal all of its features until they have finished

All that is known about the 'controlled bipedal walker' is that it weighs 4.5 tonnes and can reportedly hold and move objects - including weapons - with its claws

'We understand that there are robotic machines driving on caterpillar and wheel drive, we also understand that there will be demand for anthropomorphic automatic movable systems.'

The robot has been compared to the AD-209 (Enforcement Droid series 209) from the Robocop series.

Kalashnikov Concern also presented an OV-2 hybrid buggy, a compact four-seater capable of going up to 100km/h, a new SM-1 electric motorcycle and a new model of assault rifle - the AK-308.

Foreign military visitors pass Kalashnikov Concern's concept of a guided straight-up robot-style system

Visitors examine AK-12 and AK-15 assault rifles made by Kalashnikov Concern during the International Military Technical Forum 'Army 2018' in the Patriot Park

About 1,200 Russian defense companies and weapon manufacturers take part in the International Military Technical Forum 'Army 2018' event.

They display an estimated 26,000 pieces of weaponry and military equipment, ranging from helicopters and fighter jets to tanks and small arms.

Kalashnikov Concern is Russia's largest rifle and assault weapons manufacturer.

A visitor examines an AK-12 assault rifle at the presentation of Kalashnikov's new products

Kalashnikov Concern presented the prototype of the new AK-308 modification of the AK103 with elements and components of the design AK-12

Kalashnikov Concern presented new Izh Pulsar electric motorcycle at the Army 2018 fair

It produces some 95 per cent of all small arms in the country and supplies more than 27 countries across the globe.

It found fame with the production of the AK-47 assault rifle - which is named after its inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov and colloquially known as the 'Kalashnikov.'

A 2004 report found that of the 500 million estimated firearms in the world, around 100 million were made by the Kalashnikov corporation - and 75 percent of which are AK-47s.
Watkins (pictured) killed Sophie Smith after losing control of his BMW in Manchester

A man was today jailed for nine years and nine months after killing a teenager when he lost control of his car struck a group of pedestrians.

Scott Watkins, 25, of Salford, was sentenced today at Minshull Street Crown Court after ploughing into seven pedestrians in Trafford Park, Manchester.

He was charged with eight offences - causing death by dangerous driving, causing death while driving without insurance, four counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, failing to stop at scene of a collision and failing to report an accident in June.

Several people were hit during the incident, including 19-year-old Sophie Smith.

Sophie was taken to hospital but passed away.

There was no reaction in the dock from Watkins as he was sent down.

The public gallery remained silent although some relatives broke down in tears after the judge rose.

The road was sealed off by police after the crash on May 31, in which seven people were hit and Sophie was killed

Scott Watkins, 24, admitted causing death by dangerous driving and driving without a licence

He has been sentenced to nine years and nine months for causing the death of Sophie Smith by dangerous driving.

There are additional sentences on the other eight counts but all will run concurrently.

He has also been banned from the road for 14 years and 10 months. The court has heard that Watkins first passed his driving test in October 2016. Five months later, he was banned from the road after being found to be driving without insurance.

On the May 31, there was a meeting of 'spontaneous, unauthorised' car enthusiasts in Trafford driving 'high performance and modified' vehicles in what is often known as a 'car meet', the court was told.

There was a 500m stretch of road which runs north to south, the court hears. The speed limit is 30mph.

Drivers were 'showing off their cars' as they drove backwards and forwards between the roundabouts.

Outlining the facts of the case earlier, prosecutor Rob Hall said spectators gathered on Europa Way in Trafford to watch the drivers 'drifting' at the roundabouts.

Sophie Smith, 19, was killed after being hit by a BMW in Manchester in May

'As the the car meets are on public roads and unauthorised by police there is very little in the way of consideration of health and safety measures such as barriers,' Mr Hall said.

CCTV recorded the entire incident on the southern roundabout, the court heard.

It was not being shown again as the judge has seen it and doesn't want to distress family and relatives in court any further.

In a victim personal statement read to the court, Sophie's stepfather, Harishchandra Patel said: 'On Thursday 31st May 2018 our daughter Sophie Smith was involved in a collision on Europa Way in Trafford Park West.

'As a result she died the following day in Salford Royal Hospital. We can never begin to put into words how we feel. I have been with Sophie's mum since Sophie was five years old and I have brought her up as my daughter.

'It is very difficult for the family to speak about that day. I still think: "No it's not happened, we will wake up from this, everything seems so surreal."

'I try to keep myself busy, but then I hear a certain song that reminds me of Sophie and I have to stop and compose myself.

'You should not have to organise funerals for your children and that was one of the hardest days for us and we couldn't wait for it to be over.

'We will never be able to see her get married, Sue will never help her pick a wedding dress, and I will never be able to walk her down the aisle.

'We will never see Sophie's special smile again and that is due to the actions of the driver that night.'

In another statement read to the court, Sophie's boyfriend, Jordan Chidgey, 24, said: 'I just want the driver of the vehicle which caused the collision to feel what we are feeling. I feel gutted and devastated.

'This has been especially difficult for me as a Sophie was not only my girlfriend but my best friend and my soul mate. I have since been confined to using a wheelchair and crutches and I have had to teach myself how to get out of bed on my own.'

Judge Potter told Watkins the death of Sophie Smith and the serious injuries caused to four others 'lies squarely with you'.

He described the crash as a 'grotesque act of selfishness'. Judge Potter said the case concerns an 'unauthorised and unregulated' car 'meet' or 'cruise'.

He said a number of drivers had been executing manoeuvres 'particularly around roundabouts' such as the so-called Magic Roundabout.

'A considerable amount of driving was taking place that night which some observers described as creating an atmosphere of driving at excessive speed creating danger to themselves and others.'

The judge reads a statement from a witness who says the event was getting out of hand and like 'Need for Speed'.

Watching the cars shorty before the crash, he said: 'My teeth were gritted and my body was stiff thinking there was going to be a crash.

'Someone remarked that they thought something bad was going to happen. I agreed an was thinking of going home as I was getting scared.'

The judge told the court how Watkins got into the BMW having never driven it before with the intention of copying the 'drifting' happening at the roundabout.

Sophie Smith from Bury was killed when she was hit by a car. Her boyfriend was seriously injured and has spent weeks in hospital

He describes how Watkins approached the roundabout and lost control as he tried to 'over correct' the swerve.

The BMW left the road and mounted the pavement and into a crowd of people who were standing and sitting as they watched, causing 'the most dreadful carnage'.

The judge cited a number of aggravating features to the case - Watkins was uninsured and driving without a licence and had another traffic conviction - 'aggravated vehicle taking'.

There was also very serious injuries caused to others in addition to causing the death of Sophie Smith.

Boyfriend Jordan suffered a broken pelvis and shattered kneecap among others and is in a wheelchair.

Colin Burton suffered injuries including loss of kidney function, broken leg, arm, and is also in a wheelchair.

Helen Lord suffered a broken nose, three lost teeth and bruising of her heart among other injuries.

Sarah Morrison's injuries included a broken leg, severe lacerations to her head, legs and arms. Each suffered life-changing injuries.

Teenager Sophie was at the car event at Trafford Park in Greater Manchester when she was hit

Colin Burton, 32, of Eccles said: 'Being bedridden and asking people to help with things has been embarrassing for me. I was an independent man and now my right wrist is permanently limp so I've been unable to return to work.

Helen Lord said: 'I am no longer able to look in a mirror as I feel ugly. I have permanent scars down my face and I have had trouble sleeping.'

Sarah Morrison said: 'I feel I've become a burden on my family as I am unable to do anything. I feel nothing but anger and frustration towards the driver of the vehicle.'

The court heard how Watkins told police officer that he felt suicidal on knowing that his actions may have caused the death of another.

Mitigating, his defence lawyer Michael Brady said: 'He knows he will be receiving a substantial custodial sentence. He expresses sincere and genuine remorse for his actions.

Sophie Smith (pictured) was killed when the BMW ploughed into seven pedestrians

'There is an absence of self-pity. It was his error of getting behind the wheel of the BMW. He told the police he felt suicidal at the thought he killed someone.

'It's clear he was responsible for driving and responsible for the death of Sophie Smith and the injuries caused to the unfortunate other individuals, those were not the intended consequences of what he wished would happen that day.

'He simply put his own wish to drive the car around the roundabout above the risk he posed to others.

'This has weighed heavily upon him and he carries the burden of guilty. The genuine remorse is the only mitigation he has.

'His family are supportive and do not condone his actions. This was a devastating and catastrophic action. He did drive away from the scene.'

Sentencing Watkins, Judge John Potter said: 'Sophie Smith was just 19 at the time she died. She was looking forward to a life in which her many gifts would have flourished.

'I have heard evidence that she was a vibrant, bubbly person, she gave much to others in her short life which was extinguished in an act of grotesque selfishness by you.

'You drive around the "magic roundabout" as it is commonly known, as you had seen others doing so. You had never driven that car before and were unaware of the power of the high performance vehicle.

'It was described by a witness as a "need for speed" setting. This was a deliberate action and a flagrant disregard for the rules of the road.

Scott Watkins, 24, sobbed as he pleaded guilty to causing the death of Sophie Smith, 19, in court

'You have caused them profound physical and psychological harm that they will remember for the rest of their lives. Your act of selfish hedonism was grotesque indeed.'

Watkins, who kept his head down in the dock, was banned from driving for 14 years and 19 months.

Outside Manchester Minshull Street, a family statement read: 'With Scott Watkins receiving a custodial sentence, his family will have to privilege of visiting him. We shall have the privilege of visiting our beloved Sophie only at a graveside.

'Although Sophie will always be in our hearts we shall never have the privilege of welcoming her back home. The sun will never shine on Sophie's beautiful and youthful face again.'

Another aggravating feature is that Watkins showed 'not a shred of concern for what you had done' after the crash, the judge said.

He didn't stop 'for even a moment' and a member of the public chased after Watkins but had to give up because he thought there might be another crash, the court heard.

A 21-year-old man was charged with aiding dangerous driving, driving without insurance and perverting the course of justice in relation to the incident.

Thomas Humphries, of Farnworth, is due to appear at court for a plea hearing next month.

In a statement released following her death, Sophie's family, from Bury, said: 'Sophie was an amazing daughter, sister and girlfriend and our hearts are broken.

'We will always love her and never forget the time we spent together. Sophie was our little angel and loved by everyone who knew her.

'A big empty space has been left in our souls and life will never be the same without her. We will always be thinking about her and she will be in our hearts forever.'
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders lauded her boss President Trump as well as the embattled ICE agency on Tuesday for the removal of a former Nazi guard who served at a prison where thousands were slaughtered.

She issued her tweet hours after news broke on the deportation of Jakiw Palij, 95, from New York to Germany. President Trump held an even Monday afternoon hailing ICE where he hailed its officers for busting traffickers of illegal immigrants.

'For many years a Nazi forced labor camp guard had been living in NY - a terrible injustice. Past Administrations failed to deport him. Today, @realDonaldTrump got the job done! ICE has removed this despicable Nazi from our great country,' Sanders wrote, using the handle of Trump's personal Twitter account with millions of followers.

Jakiw Palij was taken from his New York home and spirited on Tuesday morning to Germany

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handled the enforcement aspect of the case, is the only agency she mentioned by name.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders lauded her boss President Trump and mentioned ICE in a tweet about the deportation of the former Nazi SS guard

Her tweet came as a press call organized by the White House involved revealed the successful deportation had numerous parents  from Justice Department officials who doggedly search for Nazis, New York high school students who protested, the new U.S. ambassador to Germany who pressed the issue, and new figures in the German government who agreed to accept a man who is not a German citizen.

Jakiw Palij was arrested and deported by US immigration authorities, the White House said

'Were very thankful for all our partners in Washington,' said U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Grinnel, who also noted a change of heart among new German cabinet officials.

'They saw this as a moral obligation that they had not so much a legal obligation, the individual was not is not a German citizen,' he said on a press call.

'There just seemed to be a new energy with the new govt here in Germany and we're very thankful for their help,' he said.

A statement from Queens Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley, who lost a primary against an opponent who supported abolishing ICE, touted local efforts on the issue.

'Today marks a solemn victory for the Queens community, who has, for years, demanded this justice for victims of the Holocaust and their families. Jackson Heights is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in America, and the presence of a former Nazi guard in the heart of our neighborhood violated our most cherished values of love, equality, and acceptance,' Crowley said.

For years, Ive been working with my fellow members of the New York Congressional Delegation to urge the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to deport this war criminal and I appreciate the German governments willingness to accept his deportation,' Crowley continued. 'This process dragged on for far too long, but today, our Jewish neighbors, and all proud Americans, can rest assured that our nation took a stand against hate.

The German government decided to take Palij despite its reservations amid a series of conflicts in the U.S. relationship, Politico reported. Palij is unlikely to ever face trial in Germany.

The praise for ICE's role in the removal of a former Nazi SS prison guard came hours after President Donald Trump spoke at an event at the White House to salute U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents

US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell said U.S. diplomats raised the issue 'very regularly and as loudly as we could' with German counterparts

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government relented, despite misgivings, amid tensions with Washington on a number of fronts

Justice Department official Eli Rosenbaum described the slaughter at the camp where Palij was a guard.

He described the November 3, 1943 'day-long killing spree of unfathomable ruthless and horror [where] an estimated 6,000 human beings of Jewish faith or descent, men, women and children were systematically shot to death.'

He said 'every single jewish prisoner at the camp was slaughtered,' and that parents were forced to listen to the murderous shots for hours.

Rosenbaum noted that a group of Long Island high school students and their teacher 'never stopped crying out publicly for justice in this case,' helping to keep attention focused on it.

Sanders followed up hours later with a tweet mentioning the 'great work' by Grennel. Grennel on Twitter lauded Trump's 'crucial' leadership. He also retweeted the Republican Jewish Coalition, which in a statement proclaimed: 'President Trump deports Nazi War Criminal.' The statement also mentioned Grenell, but not ICE.

Trump, who was born in Queens, where Palij lived, took a personal interest in the case. 'I don't know how he learned of the case but it was very clear that he knew this individual as a Nazi guard and wanted him out of the United States,' Grinnel said.

An ICE official on the call did not try to claim an outsized share of the credit.

She said the removal 'required a whole of government approach,' adding: 'We are grateful for the cooperative spirit of our colleagues.'

Jakiw Palij, 95, was taken from his New York City home on a stretcher and spirited early on Tuesday morning to Germany, the White House said.

It came 25 years after investigators first confronted Palij about his past and he admitted lying to get into the US, claiming he spent the war as a farmer and factory worker.

Acting on a 2004 deportation order, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement took Palij into custody and sent him to Germany.

He did not respond to questions reporters were shouting at him as he was loaded up to go

He did not respond to questions reporters were shouting at him as he was loaded up on the stretcher.

Palij left on a plane from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and arrived in Dusseldorf on Tuesday, Bild reported.

He was set to be transported from there to an elderly care facility in Warendorf near Munster, according to the newspaper.

Given his age and questions over his health and also a possible lack of proof, it is unclear whether German authorities will attempt to prosecute the stateless pensioner.

Germany has a mixed record on convicting Nazi war criminals.

Critics say it let many high-ranking Nazis and SS members escaped justice only for their juniors, small cogs in the Nazi death machine, to be put on trial decades later.

But Germany's Foreign Office said the deportation shows that those who served the Nazi regime will not find refuge in the US.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who on Monday visited the Auschwitz camp, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: 'Germany, in whose name the worst injustice was perpetrated under the Nazis, is confronting its moral obligations.'

He added to Bild: 'Meeting the horrors of the Nazi era today means fighting against anti-Semitism, discrimination and racism.

'And it means standing by our moral obligation to the victims and future generations.

'The guilt of those who committed the worst crimes in Germany's name does not pass. She still hurts deeply.'

According to the Justice Department, Palij served at the Nazi SS Training Camp in Trawniki, in German-occupied Poland, in 1943.

Jakiw Palij (pictured in 2003), 95, who lived in New York, was arrested and deported by US immigration authorities, the White House said on Tuesday

Palij entered the US in 1949 under the Displaced Persons Act, a law meant to help refugees from post-war Europe. Pictured, his 1949 visa photo

On November 3 that year, 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered in one of the single largest massacres of the Holocaust.

Palij has admitted serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Palij was born in Poland and immigrated to the US in 1949, becoming a United States citizen eight years later, the White House statement said.

But he concealed his Nazi service when he immigrated, the statement said.

Palij lived quietly in the U.S. for years, as a draftsman and then as a retiree, until nearly three decades ago when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was 'living somewhere in America.'

Palij told Justice Department investigators who showed up at his door in 1993: 'I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied.'

In 2001, Palij told Department of Justice officials that he had trained at Trawniki.

Palij (pictured in 1957) was born in Poland and immigrated to the US in 1949. He became a US citizen eight years later

A file photo shows the home, left, of former Nazi concentration camp guard Jakiw Palij, in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York

A federal judge stripped Palij's citizenship in 2003 for 'participation in acts against Jewish civilians' while an armed guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and was ordered deported a year later.

But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-story, red brick home in Queens he shared with his wife, Maria, now 86.

His continued presence there outraged the Jewish community, attracting frequent protests over the years that featured such chants as 'your neighbor is a Nazi!'

Last September, all 29 members of New York's congressional delegation signed a letter urging the State Department to follow through on his deportation and Ambassador Richard Grenell made it a priority after arriving in Germany earlier this year.

The deportation came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations, which the White House said President Donald Trump had supported.

'Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palij's deportation to Germany and advanced the United States' collaborative efforts with a key European ally,' the White House said.

This document, photographed July 16, 2018 at the National Archives at New York City, shows the Petition for Naturalization of Jakiw Palij

Germany's Interior Ministry and Justice Ministry and Chancellor Angela Merkel's office did not immediately have a comment on where Palij would be taken in Germany and what exactly would happen to him.

Prosecutors there have previously said it does not appear that there's enough evidence to charge him with wartime crimes.

Palij's deportation is the first for a Nazi war crimes suspect since Germany agreed in 2009 to take John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio autoworker who was accused of serving as a Nazi guard.

He was convicted in 2011 of being an accessory to more than 28,000 killings and died 10 months later, at age 91, with his appeal pending.

Palij entered the US in 1949 under the Displaced Persons Act, a law meant to help refugees from post-war Europe.

He told immigration officials that he worked during the war in a woodshop and farm in Nazi-occupied Poland; at another farm in Germany; and finally in a German upholstery factory. Palij said he never served in the military.

Palij served as a guard at the Trawniki Labor Camp in German-occupied Poland. Pictured, Heinrich Himmler shaking hands with new guard recruits at the Trawniki camp in 1942

In reality, officials say, he played an essential role in the Nazi program to exterminate Jews in German-occupied Poland, as an armed guard at Trawniki.

According to a Justice Department complaint, Palij served in a unit that 'committed atrocities against Polish civilians and others' and then in the notorious SS Streibel Battalion, 'a unit whose function was to round up and guard thousands of Polish civilian forced laborers.'

After the war, Palij maintained friendships with other Nazi guards who the government says came to the US under similar false pretenses.

Palij and his wife purchased their home near LaGuardia Airport in 1966 from a Polish Jewish couple who had survived the Holocaust and were not aware of his past.

The Justice Department's special Nazi-hunting unit started piecing together Palij's past after a fellow Trawniki guard identified him to Canadian authorities in 1989.

Investigators asked Russia and other countries for records on Palij beginning in 1990 and first confronted him in 1993.

It wasn't until after a second interview in 2001 that he signed a document acknowledging he had been a guard at Trawniki and a member of the Streibel Battalion.

Palij suggested at one point during that interview that he was threatened with death if he refused to work as a guard, saying 'if you don't show up, boom-boom.'

Though the last Nazi suspect ordered deported, Palij is not the last in the US.

Since 2017, Poland has been seeking the extradition of Ukrainian-born Michael Karkoc, an ex-commander in an SS-led Nazi unit that burned Polish villages and killed civilians during the war.

The 99-year-old who currently lives in Minneapolis was the subject of a series of 2013 reports by the AP that led Polish prosecutors to issue an arrest warrant for him.

In addition to Karkoc, there are almost certainly others in the U.S. who have either not yet been identified or investigated by authorities.

The American public did not become fully aware until the 1970s that thousands of Nazi persecutors had gone to the US after the Second World War. Some estimates say 10,000 may have made the US their home after the war.

Since then, the Justice Department has initiated legal proceedings against 137 suspected Nazis, with about half, 67, being removed by deportation, extradition or voluntary departure.

Of the rest, 28 died while their cases were pending and nine were ordered deported but died in the US because no other country was willing to take them.
Two houses next door to one another have suffered serious fires within the space of two days.

Although there are no suspects in custody as yet, a number of people heard threats being made against one of the homes which is now just a burned-out shell.

On Thursday, neighbors Ronald and Misty Waddy heard a man stand in front of the house at 601 Chittenden St. in Akron, Ohio yelling 'I will burn this house down!'

Less than 24 hours later, the house was ablaze.

Firefighters in Akron are investigating two fires that broke out in homes next to each other on Chittenden Street over the weekend

The fire was ferocious but incredibly nobody appears to have been injured in the blazes

A former neighbor was seen ranting outside one of the houses threatening to burn it down

The homes are now just empty shells are are going to have to be torn down

By the time firefighters arrived at the scene on Friday night at around 7pm, the building was engulfed.

Then on Saturday night, the house next door at number 597 exploded in flames just after 11pm.

No one was inside home at the time and in fact the people living there had planned to move, with their last day being Sunday.

The two-story homes, which were both rented, sustained extensive damage and will now be torn down.

Akron firefighters investigating both blazes say they are suspicious although no one has been charged.

Investigators say cause of both fires is 'suspicious' and could be arson

The first home burned on Friday night. The second home burned 24 hours later

It was too early to determine exactly what the cause of the fire was

According to a fire report, a five-gallon gas can was recovered as possible evidence from the second fire.

Incredibly, nobody was injured in the fires. People who were home at the time of the blaze were able to get out.

John Staubs and Amanda Werner were sleeping when Staubs was startled by loud crashing noises.

'I saw that the entire upstairs was on fire, like multiple areas, the living room, the kitchen, the dining room like somebody made a bunch of bonfires,' Staubs said to News5.

Staubs woke up Werner, and the friends scrambled out of the rental property.

The home that burned Friday was occupied while Saturday's was vacant

According to a fire report, a five-gallon gas can was recovered as possible evidence from the second fire

'By the time I got up, the whole house was pretty much done for,' Werner said. 'I would have died.'

'I'm still in shock. Freaking out, because the house I was in is gone and I'm sitting here feeling sorry for myself and then I find out the neighbors are going through the same thing. Luckily it happened when they weren't home, they were at a wedding,' Straubs said to Fox8.

Now, other residents living in the neighborhood are on edge fearing they could be next.

'A lot of us are worried,' Ronald Waddy said to Ohio.com. 'We are installing security. I just have to protect my family. Keep my eyes open and my head on a swivel.'

'I'm just glad nobody got hurt,' he continued.

'We think it's kind of odd that our house burns down on Friday night and then the neighbor's house burns down Saturday night, which our heart goes out to them,' Staubs said.

This resident heard the commotion on both nights and says neighbors are worried

Franita Cooper and Clarron Wright are not going to wait around to see what happens.

The couple live right next door to the house that exploded and have said that they are now planning to leave the area.

'Is somebody going to come back and blow up our house?' Cooper asked.

'We're afraid. We are really scared. We don't know what's going on. But we are scared and we're asking everybody to keep us in their prayers so we're not next on this block. I won't be able to sleep tonight,' Cooper said.

'They are being looked at to see if there is a relationship between the two,' fire department spokeswoman Lt. Sierjie Lash said.

The Waddys say that they watched the man who made the threat about burning down the house leave the home and then casually walk down the street after fire had begun.

It's believed the home was being used by drug addicts.

He was questioned by authorities at the scene, but then released, they said.

The man had run a methamphetamine operation out of the home but then went to prison, Ronald Waddy said.

He was upset when he got out and found out someone had taken over the location, Waddy said.

The fire incident report states something similar, namely 'the home was producing illegal drug products.'
Adriano Villavicencio, 23, was found dead on his sofa bed in Surrey by his stepfather

A medical student and weightlifter had a heart attack and died because he had been taking steroids, an inquest heard today.

Adriano Villavicencio, 23, was found dead on his sofa bed in Bookham, Surrey, by his stepfather surrounded by needles and a pile of pharmaceuticals, including an anabolic steroid.

He was training to be a doctor at Imperial College London when he died, and had been due to fly to Finland to compete in a weightlifting competition.

An inquest at Woking Coroner's Court today found that his death was drug-related after a pathologist discovered Mr Villavicencio had suffered a heart attack.

The breast cancer drug tamoxifen was found next to his body. The chemical has been used by those abusing steroids in order to reduce the size of breast tissue.

A report given to the coroner said that it was the long term use of steroids that lead to the Villavicencio's death, and not an overdose at any one point in his life.

The student lived with his stepfather Malcolm Faux and mother Rosario. Mr Faux said in a statement read to the court how he thought that his stepson was sleeping - but became worried when he was still in the same position when he returned from work.

Mr Villavicencio (right) had been due to go to Finland to compete in a weightlifting event

Mr Faux said: 'I was aware he had taken many supplements, and that he had injected supplements. He did not heed our warnings. I remember hearing Adriano leave home at about 10pm when he went for a short run.

'The following morning I went into his bedroom at about 7am and saw Adriano asleep on the sofa.

'I went to work, and returned home at about 6.15pm. I went back into the room and he was still asleep on the sofa. I was aware something was wrong.

'I called 999 and an ambulance showed up. Adriano was declared dead at the scene. I did have concerns that he was taking drugs to enhance his weightlifting.

'He seemed to be himself before he died, and there was no change in character.'

A post mortem examination carried out showed gave the medical cause of death as cardiac arrest, or heart attack, caused by the left side of his heart expanding and thickening in a process called left ventricular hypertrophy.

David Wright, a consultant histopathologist, provided an email to the corner which said that the 'detrimental effects of steroids were chronic and not acute'.

Mr Villavicencio was training to be a doctor at Imperial College London when he died

This means that while one could not overdose on the drugs, prolonged use was dangerous. As such it was concluded that chronic use of anabolic steroids probably contributed to Mr Villavicencio's death.

A toxicology report on his body found no significant presence of chemicals in his system.

Emergency services rushed to the scene on June 5 last year, but paramedics confirmed the student was dead at 6.40pm.

Mr Faux continued: 'Adriano was in his fourth year at college, and he received glowing reports from his university. He was due to go to Finland for a weightlifting competition shortly after his death.'

According to his profile on Linkedin, he held numerous titles and records in weightlifting and specially mentioned that some of them were drug tested.

One sentence said: 'I hold the current British record for both single-ply (equipped) deadlift and single-ply bench press for the Junior Under 90kg category of the drug tested side of the federation.'

Mr Villavicencio went on to say that he wanted to pursue a career in 'Sports and Exercise Medicine'.

He competed in the under 90kg body weight category, and had lifted as much as 200kg in the gym from a deadlift.

Officers from Surrey Police went to the scene of hisdeath and in his room found a number of drugs including two anti anxiety medications - diazepam and sertraline.

Also found next to him was tamoxifen, which is used to treat breast cancer. It is also used by those taking steroids to offset some of the effects caused by the ingested hormones. These effects include enlarged male breast tissue.

Hypodermic needles were also found next to the corpse at the scene.

The assistant coroner for Surrey, Anna Crawford, presided over the inquest and came to the conclusion that Mr Villavicencio's death was drug related.

She said: 'Taking into account evidence from the parents, from Dr Wright, the presence of anabolic steroids and the known side effects.

'I can say it is probable that Adriano Villavicencio used these steroids to enhance his performance. Regular use of them contributed to left ventricular hypertrophy which caused his death.

'However there was no sign of any actual use of these steroids on his body. His cause of death was cardiac arrest cause by the hypertrophy.

'An additional factor in his death was chronic use of anabolic steroids. He was a keen weightlifter who used anabolic steroids to enhance his performance. My conclusion is that this was a drug related death.'

Ms Crawford offered her condolences to Mr and Mrs Faux, the latter of whom was at work when she found out her son had been taken ill.

No members of Mr Villavicencio's family were present at the inquest.
A 98-year-old New York man has been going the distance to see his ill wife of 50 years in a hospital in Rochester, making the miles-long trek on foot each day.

Luther Younger walks a total of about 12 miles each way to see his love, Waverlee Younger, who is now paralyzed and has suffered from brain cancer since 2009.

'I aint nothing without my wife,' Luther told Spectrum News. 'Its been a rough pull. Its been tough.'

Luther's wife has been a patient at Strong Memorial Hospital for over two weeks now, and during that time their daughter, Lutheta Younger, has offered to give him a ride, if he can wait until she's available to do so.

'He still says, "Nope I have to get out there to my wife. I have to go,"' she said.

A GoFundMe account was created on Friday by Lutheta to help the family cover Waverlee's medical costs and provide transportation for Luther, to and from the hospital.

Luther Younger, 98 (right), has been going the distance to see his ill wife of 50 years, Waverlee (left), in a hospital in Rochester, New York by walking 12-miles-roundtrip each day

The smitten Marine and Korean War veteran shared sweet words about Waverlee, recalling his favorite ways she'd show him affection over their many decades together.

'Shes the best cup of tea I ever had,' Luther said.

'She would come in and kiss me and say "baby" and feed me in the bed and this is what I need right here.'

It's that intense emotion that fuels Luther's drive to get to his wife, as soon as possible, every day.

'He doesnt have to [walk], but he wants to,' Lutheta said. 'I can drive him. He just doesnt want to wait; hes impatient.'

She added: 'The whole time she was sick, he would stay overnight [in the hospital].' He wouldnt leave her.'

Luther walks six miles each way to see his wife, Waverlee, at Strong Memorial Hospital

Luther is shown here at right, with family members, in a photo shared to his daughter Lutheta Younger's Facebook page

Lutheta said her mother was given five years to live when she was first diagnosed with brain cancer in 2009; Waverlee (center) is shown with family in a photo shared on May 8, 2016

Lutheta said her mother was given five years to live when she was first diagnosed with brain cancer. That was nine years ago.

Luther's incredible story of what lengths he'll go to in order to be there for the love of his life came to light when a man picked him up on the side of the highway on August 14.

Dan Bookhart spotted Luther walking along Interstate 390 after just having left the airport that day.

'My upbringing; when you see somebody elderly, when you see somebody struggling when its raining,' he said.

'I had to pick him up and I couldnt be one of the ones who would just drive by.'

Luther's incredible story of what lengths he'll go to in order to be there for Waverlee (pictured) came to light when a man picked him up on the side of the highway on August 14

Luther and Waverlee have lived with Lutheta Younger (pictured) for some time now, she said

Dan Bookhard spotted Luther (left) walking along Interstate 390 after just having left the airport on August 14; He snapped this photo when Luther was in his car and share it online

'My upbringing; when you see somebody elderly, when you see somebody struggling when its raining,'Dan Bookhart said

Lutheta thanked him for his help, pointing out that her dad is in good health and very active.

'My dads always walked,' she said. 'He says he does it to stay alive.'

Luther and Waverlee have lived with Lutheta for some time now, Lutheta told Yahoo Lifestyle.

She shares caretaking responsibilities with her sister, Joyce Johnson.

The Younger's GoFundMe account has raised more than $30,000 since it was created four days ago.

Those who would like to contribute may do so by clicking here.
Billionaire art mogul David Mugrabi and his wife Libbie are divorcing with explosive allegations he frolicked naked with a woman at their Hamptons home.

Libbie got her nanny to secretly tape a confrontation between herself and the woman who allegedly skinny dipped in their pool while she and their two young children were out of their Hamptons, Water Mill home in July.

A source told Page Six that Libbie 'confronted the woman the next day over breakfast, and secretly got her nanny to record it'.

Just days later, on July 10, police were called to their home after the warring couple were allegedly locked in a struggle over a three-foot, $500,000 Keith Haring dancing men sculpture.

Acrimonious split: Billionaire art mogul David Mugrabi and wife Libbie (pictured) are locked in an ugly divorce. Pricey masterpieces, money and properties are all on the line

The estranged couple have been married for 13-years, share two children and have no pre-nup (pictured here in 2010)

'David came home to find Libbie holding the statue . . . She says he shoved her as she was holding the statue, and she fell back so that the heavy artwork fell [and] hit her,' the source added.

No arrests were made, but police took a domestic incident report and the next day- Libbie filed for an order of protection at Manhattan Family Court.

The couple have been married for 13-years and have no pre-nup in place.

Their two children are nine and 11-years-old.

Following the wild allegations, on August 14 a judge ordered a devastating financial blow to David- granting Libbie and the children combined support of more than $25,000 a month.

David must also pay the full fees for their pricey private-school tuitions.

There is also the matter of the couple's properties, aside from their Water Mill home where Libbie is currently residing, they also own an Upper East Side apartment that has been renovated for millions, according to Page Six.

One of the couple's properties is on Manhattan's tony Upper East Side in The Lucida building (shown)

The couple also own several Warhol 'Flower' paintings (one from the artist's works here) that line one of their dining room walls, which will more than likely be fought over

Their Upper East Side home is in The Lucida building.

Their Water Mill home has six bedrooms, sprawling over 7,000-square-feet on an almost seven-acre-lot. It appears the couple purchased the property in 2007 and the home was completed in 2014.

An estimate of their Hamptons' home from Trulia has the property listed as worth about $6.5million.

Both have also accused the other of removing pricey masterpieces from their homes.

Libbie previously told Resident her dining room is lined with Warhol's Flower paintings as well.

David has protested in filings that Libbie is asking for too much money, citing it is his father who holds the family's fortune - not him.

DailyMail.com reached out to David's attorney, Lois Liberman and Libbie's lawyer Bill Zabel, both of whom have not responded to a request for comment.

David's brother Alberto Mugrabi, 48 (middle, front) and wife Colby Jordan, 25 (pictured here at 23-years-old) are fairing better than the unhappy couple. The pair were married in 2016 in a star studded event that included the Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen and Owen Wilson (third in from right)

Alberto, whose known as Tico, married Colby Jordan in September of 2016 in France

David's older brother Alberto 'Tico' Mugrabi, 48 and wife Colby Jordan, 25, appear to be fairing better than their unhappy counterparts.

They tied the knot just two years ago in a star studded wedding that saw the likes of actor Owen Wilson, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, and supermodel Heidi Kloss.

The Mugrabi family owns the world's largest collection of paintings by Andy Warhol with a staggering 800 of the late artist's pieces.

The collection also includes works by Renoir, Picasso, Rodin, Ernst, Daumier, Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons.

Their art is stored in Zurich and near Newark, New Jersey.

David sued the New Jersey Mana Contemporary storage facility this past October for refusing to hand over more than 1,300 of their pieces.

In October of 2017, David was locked in another legal battle with New Jersey's Mana Contemporary Storage (pictured) over the family's art work being held hostage in a dispute about payments

The suit claimed the facility had stopped the Mugrabi family from accessing their art for over a month.

The Mugrabis claimed they struck a deal with Mana back in 2014 that allowed them to store their collection for free in exchange for them referring the facility's services to their clients.

But the bookkeeper who knew about the deal left and Mana demanded the family back pay the $500,000 in storage fees they owe, according to the complaint.

The Mugrabis also alleged that 11 of their pieces, which are worth millions, had been damaged while in Mana's storage facility.
The widow of a slain Detroit police officer has sobbed over his coffin after he was killed on duty by a speeding SUV just weeks after getting married.

More than 1,600 people attended the funeral for 30-year-old Fadi Shukur at St. George Chaldean Catholic Church in Utica, Michigan on Monday.

His emotional wife Nadeen Maroof Shukur cried as his coffin, which was draped with a US flag, was escorted out of the church and into a hearse.

Nadeen Maroof Shukur, the widow of a slain Detroit police officer Fadi Shukur, sobbed over his coffin on Monday at his funeral in Utica, Michigan

The couple only got married on June 29.

Shukar died on August 11 from injuries he suffered 11 days earlier when he was struck by a speeding SUV outside a Detroit nightclub

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan spoke directly to the officer's widow during the funeral service, saying her husband always spoke highly of her.

'He would say 'I'm a lucky man, I got to marry my best friend',' Duggan said.

'His other partners would try to get him to stop somewhere for lunch during their shift and he always said 'no' because you packed him a lunch, which was back in the refrigerator at the precinct.'

Detroit Police Chief James Craig described Shukur as a 'true American hero' during the funeral service.

'He was an American hero who served with distinction,' Craig told the mourners.

He said Shukur, who joined the force 18 months ago, was known for his contagious smile that would 'light up a room'.

Shukur's widow Nadeen (center) was comforted by family members and other police officers as her husband's casket was put in the hearse at the end of the service

Detroit Police Chief James Craig (front right) described Shukur as a 'true American hero' during the funeral service attended by more than 1,600 people

The newlywed officer died on August 11 from injuries he suffered 11 days earlier when he was struck by a speeding SUV outside a Detroit nightclub.

Shukur had been helped with crowed control near the club on the city's west side at the time.

His family released a statement following his death, saying: 'Fadi Shukur's dream was to always help people when they were in need'.

A 19-year-old man was been charged with reckless driving causing death and second-degree murder in Shukur's death.

The couple only got married on June 29 and Shukar had been on the force for 18 months
Top White House lawyer Don McGahn is offering reassurances to President Donald Trump that he didn't implicate him in any legal jeopardy during his 30 hours of testimony to the special counsel on the Russia investigation.

McGahn's attorney, Bill Burck, told Trump's lawyers this past weekend that White House counsel did not claim Trump engaged in any wrong doing when he spoke to special counsel Robert Mueller's team about their probe of Russia's role in the 2016 election and whether the president obstructed the investigation.

'He did not incriminate him,' Burck wrote in one email, which was described by multiple people to The Washington Post.

Don McGahn is offering reassurances to Trump's legal team he didn't implicate the president in any legal jeopardy

Don McGahn's lawyer told President Trump's lawyers that McGahn didn't witness the president engage in any criminal activity

Additionally Burck told Trump's legal team that McGahn did not witness Trump engaging in any criminal activity and that the White House counsel would have resigned if he had.

Trump's legal team is also pushing back against reports they don't have the full extent of what McGahn said.

Rudy Giuliani, one of the Trump's attorneys, said that former Trump lawyer John Dowd, who was one of the primary forces behind the initial strategy of full cooperation with Mueller that led to McGahn's testimony, has briefed him on that testimony.

'John Dowd got a complete version of what McGhan said during that period of time,' Giuliani told Fox News Monday night. 'I've been on the phone with him for hours and gone over it with him. When this first came out, I didn't know any of the details of what McGhan said, now I do.'

He added: 'I knew not to worry about it because if the president had said anything criminal to the counsel of the White House, McGhan wouldn't be there. McGhan, as a matter of legal ethics and possibly even law, would have to quit. And he's a very ethical guy.'



The president has railed against the New York Times' reporting on McGahn's' conversations with Mueller since the first story was published on Saturday.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether Trump obstructed the Russia investigation

In his repeated Twitter rants, Trump has claimed the story is a 'fake piece' of news, that McGahn had his permission to testify, that his lawyer is not a rat who has turned as White House counsel John Dean did on President Nixon, and that the situation is worse than McCarthyism.

McGahn has told the Special Counsel's investigators about Trump's responses to the Russia investigation, the president's firing of FBI Director James Comey, and attempts to pressure Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reassume control over the probe after he recused himself.

The White House counsel also told Mueller's team about Trump's attempts to fire the Special Counsel.
A ten-year-old boy has died after he was hit by a van while crossing a road with his sister at the weekend.

The boy, from Croydon in Melbourne, was crossing at a green light in Blackburn in the city's east at about 6.30pm on Saturday.

He was taken off life support on Tuesday evening.

A ten-year-old boy has died after he was hit by a car while walking with two friends last week

Behind the wheel of the van - a white Toyota Hi-Ace - was a 45-year-old male from Blackburn North who came to a stop 20 metres after striking the child.

He tried to give the boy first aid while waiting for paramedics to arrive.

The driver was questioned by police but no charges have been laid.

The two girls who were with the boy - including his six-year-old sister - were able to move out of the way but were left 'hysterical and upset' over what they had seen.

Detectives are investigating whether the 45-year-old ran a red light.

Sergeant Darren Williams, major collision detective, told The Herald Sun: 'All indications are at this early point that the kids were doing everything right.

Behind the wheel of the van - a white Toyota Hi-Ace - was a 45-year-old male from Blackburn North who came to a stop 20 metres after striking the child

'The girls, we understand, were in front of him, and something attracted their attention, be it the sound of the car approaching or what, we dont quite know.'

The boy was rushed to the Royal Children's Hospital, where he died on Tuesday.

Officers were spotted photographing the child's shoe at the scene following the incident.

Anyone who witnessed the incident is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Asia Argento is speaking out for the first time since The New York Times reported she had a sexual relationship with a teenager and then paid the $380,000 when his lawyer sent her a notice of intent to file a lawsuit.

'I strongly deny and oppose the contents of the New York Times article,' states Argento.

'I am deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false. I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett.'

She goes on to state that Bennett went after her because of her relationship with Anthony Bourdain, a 'man of great perceived wealth' who 'had his own reputation as a beloved public figure to protect.'

Argento also claims that it was Bourdain, who took his own life back in June, that urged her to settle in exchange for Bennett's silence.

Bourdain also paid the settlement despite the fact that it represented almost half of his cash and savings at the time, with court papers submitted after the chef's death revealing $425,000 of his $1.2 million estate was in cash.

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Speaking out: Asia Argento claims that she never had sex with her Heart is Deceitful Above All Things costar Jimmy Bennett in a statement on Tuesday (Argento and Bennett above on the day of the alleged sexual assault)

Shakedown: Bennett extorted Argento because he knew her boyfriend Anthony Bourdain was a 'man of great perceived wealth' claims Argento

Musings: On the day of the assault, Argento posted a note with a heart and Bennett's name on Twitter and wrote: 'I cry, I sweat, I pace, I tremble, I am alive' (above)

No comment: Bennett has not spoken since his allegations against Argento were revealed on Sunday night (Bennett above on Monday)

'Anthony personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life,' writes Argento in her statement.

She says that at the request of both Bourdain and Bennett, the matter was settled privately

That payout was only a fraction of the $3.5 million that Bennett had requested in the notice.

ASIA ARGENTO SAYS BOURDAIN URGED SEX ASSAULT SETTLEMENT 'I strongly deny and oppose the contents of the New York Times article dated 20 August 2018, as circulated also in national and international news. 'I am deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false. I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett. 'I was linked to him during several years by friendship only, which ended when, subsequent to my exposure in the Weinstein case, Bennett - who was then undergoing severe economic problems and who had previously taken legal actions against his own family requesting millions in damages - unexpectedly made an exorbitant request of money from me. Bennett knew my boyfriend, Anthony Bourdain, was of great perceived wealth and had his own reputation as a beloved public figure to protect. 'Antony [sic] insisted the matter be handled privately and this was also what Bennett wanted. Anthony was afraid of the possible negativity that such person, whom he considered dangerous, could have brought upon us. We decided to deal compassionately with Bennetts demand for help and give it to him. Anthony personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions into our life. 'This is, therefore, the umpteeth development of a sequence of events that brings me great sadness and that constitutes a long-standing persecution. I have therefore no other choice but to oppose such false allegation and will assume in the short term and all necessary initiatives for my protection before all competent venues.' Advertisement

'This is, therefore, the umpteenth development of a sequence of events that brings me great sadness and that constitutes a long-standing persecution,' claims Argento .

'I have therefore no other choice but to oppose such false allegations and will assume in the short term all necessary initiatives for my protection before all competent venues.'

The statement does not address the photo of Argento naked in bed with Bennett that multiple people had seen and verified according to the Times.

TMZ reports that Argento told Bourdain she was 'too broke' to pay the settlement, and the two referred to Bennett as a 'donkey' in text messages.

These claims were first hinted at by Argento's friends, who took to social media defending the actress.

It all began just an hour after the news broke when Rosanna Arquette tweeted about Harvey Weinstein and suggested he was involved in leaking the story to the Times before going on to claim it was nothing but a set-up and Argento a victim of extortion.

'The monster is at it again,' wrote Arquette on Sunday night, using her nickname for the man she accused of sexually harassing her in a Beverly Hills hotel room back in the mid-90s.

The actress then started defending Arquette on Monday morning in a series of posts.

'I know many many rape and trauma survivors who act out sexually The wounds they carry run deep. I pray for them. the timing of this story is suspect. Asia was still raped by Harvey Weinstein,' wrote Arquette at one point.

She then chimed in following a tweet from Rose McGowan that read: 'None of us know the truth of the situation and Im sure more will be revealed. Be gentle.'

Arquette replied: 'That's for sure.'

She also responded to a woman who stated: 'I thought we believed accusers? I get this is your friend, but you are talking out of both sides of your mouth right now.'

This question prompted Arquette to state: 'I didnt say I didnt I said wait to hear the whole story.'

Arquette also made a number of remarks that suggested the victim, Jimmy Bennett, was not telling the truth.

She called the allegations a 'set up' multiple times, writing at one point: 'Stop until you hear all the facts this is a set up. Extortion is a problem.'

Meeting: Argento and Bennett met when they played a mother and her son in The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things

Premiere party: Argento and her alleged rapist Weinstein at the premiere of The Heart is Deceitful at Cannes in 2004 (above)

Close encounter: Argento and French journalist Hugo Clement embrace in Rome on June 3 (above) just days before Bourdain's death

Twitter users were quick to call out Arquette, with one writing: 'Rosanna, Millions of sexual assault survivors manage to live their lives without victimizing others. The fastest way to damage this movement is to ignore a victim when the perpetrator is a hero. There is no good reason for an adult women to get in bed with a 17 yr old boy.'

Arquette in turn deleted those tweets calling the claims a 'set up' and responded: 'Whos ignoring him ?'

She also posted a question mark when one woman took issue with Arquette tweeting that 'trauma begets trauma ..until we heal ourselves. we are all on a path to healing ..gratitude for being the beacon that keeps us moving forward.'

The woman responded to this by stating: 'This is in no way an excuse to defend a rapist, only because she was also abused.'

These comments come just two months after Arquette appeared on NPR and in her interview said that fear of retaliation and people questioning accusers' allegations had forced many into silence.

She was not the only actress to speak out on Monday.

'I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere,' wrote McGowan on Twitter early Monday.

She then hinted that there might be more to the story, adding: 'None of us know the truth of the situation and Im sure more will be revealed. Be gentle.'

McGowan's remarks came hours after the Times reported that Argento had paid actor Jimmy Bennett $380,000 when he filed a notice of intent to sue back in November.

In that notice, Bennett claimed that he was sexually assaulted by Argento in a California hotel room in 2013 when he was 17 and the actress 37, a decade after he first met her on the set of The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things.

Bennett was just 7 when he was cast to play the son of Argento's drug-addicted prostitute in the film, based on the popular novel by JT Leroy.

The film also starred Argento's then-boyfriend Michael Pitt, Winona Ryder, and McGowan's former fiance Marilyn Manson.

Argento has a daughter Anna Lou Castoldi, 17, with singer Marco Castoldi and a 9-year-old son Nicola.

McGowan's remarks come just two months after the Scream star rushed to Europe to be by Argento's side after her boyfriend Anthony Bourdain hanged himself in a French hotel room.

In the wake of the celebrity chef's suicide, McGowan acted as Argento's spokesperson, and even released the actress' first statement on the passing of Bourdain.

The claim that McGowan 'got to know' Argento for 10 months is a bit questionable however, with Argento herself posting a photo of the two on Instagram earlier this year and writing: 'The day we met - March 17th, 2003.'

McGowan and Argento have been at the forefront of the #MeToo for almost a year now after both women claimed to have been sexually assaulted by disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein.

It was Argento who first went public with her story followed by McGowan, who had signed a nondisclosure agreement after receiving a reported $100,000 settlement from Weinstein following allegations that she was sexually assaulted at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival by the then-Miramax head.

Argento was allegedly assaulted the following year by Weinstein at the Cannes Film Festival.

Weinstein has denied these allegations.

Bennett's lawyer wrote in the notice that his client was sexually assaulted by Argento back in 2013 after being dropped off by a family member at a Marina del Rey hotel for a visit.

The teenager was unable to drive himself due to an eye condition which prohibits him from obtaining a license in the state of California.

Strong remarks: Rosanna Arquette (above in July) wrote the Asia Argento was being 'set up' and called the payout to her alleged sexual assault victim 'extortion' in since-deleted tweets

Deceitful above all things: Rose McGowan played down her relationship with Argento (pair above in 2003 despite McGowan's claim she only knew Argento for 10 months) after her fellow Harvey Weinstein-accuser was accused of sexually assaulting a teen

Explanation: ''I know many many rape and trauma survivors who act out sexually The wounds they carry run deep. I pray for them. the timing of this story is suspect,' she said

Heartache: 'My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere,' wrote McGowan on Twitter (above)

Caveat: McGowan hinted that there might be more to the story, adding: 'None of us know the truth of the situation and Im sure more will be revealed. Be gentle' (above) prompting Arquette to respond: 'That is for sure'

The Times, citing a copy of the notice they were sent by an anonymous source, reported that Argento then sent the family member away and was alone with Bennett in her hotel room.

Argento then gave the minor 'alcohol to drink and showed him a series of notes she had written to him on hotel stationery.'

'Then she kissed him, pushed him back on the bed, removed his pants and performed oral sex,' said the report.

'She climbed on top of him and the two had intercourse,' according to the notice.

'She then asked him to take a number of photos.'

Argento took a number of photos of herself and Bennett after the alleged assault, including one of the two lying naked in bed.

She also posted five photos from the pair's meet-up to her Instagram that day, starting with one of herself in which she wrote: 'Waiting for my long lost son my love @jimmymbennett in trepidation #marinadelrey smoking cigarettes like there was no next week.'

In her second post she shared a selfie of herself with Bennett and wrote: 'Happiest day of my life reunion with @jimmymbennett xox.'

In that same post, one follower wrote: 'Asia cast him again!! xoxo.'

Argento replied: 'jimmy is going to be in my next movie and that is a fact, dig that jack.'

When she was then asked if the film would shot stateside, Argento responded: 'no we shoot the s*** in eye-2-ly 's @jimmymbennett's never been there - yet X.'

Bennett never worked with Argento again however, and then in November filed his notice after the actress' very public condemnation of her alleged rapist, Weinstein.

'His feelings about that day were brought to the forefront recently when Ms. Argento took the spotlight as one of the many victims of Harvey Weinstein,' stated Bennett's lawyer in the notice.

He then asked for $3.5 million in damages, sighting intentional infliction of emotional distress, lost wages, assault and battery.

The parties agreed to a settlement in April, and one month later Argento appeared at the closing ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival.

In a speech that garnered much praise at the time she said: 'In 1997, I was raped by Harvey Weinstein here at Cannes. I was 21 years old.'

Argento continued: 'Even tonight, sitting among you, there are those who have still to be held accountable for their conduct against women. You know who you are. But most importantly we know who you are. And we're not going allow you to get away with it any longer.'

The actress then said Weinstein was no longer welcome at the festival.

The Italian star told the New Yorker that Weinstein raped her in 1997 at a party hosted by Miramax at the Hotel Du Cap-Eden-Roc. She claims the mogul led her to an empty room and asked her to give him a massage.

She reluctantly agreed, and halfway through he began to perform oral sex on her after forcibly lifting up her skirt despite her repeated requests for him to stop.

Argento says that she became suspicious when the party she arrived at was just an empty hotel room, but was assured that people would soon be arriving by Weinstein.

Then, he emerged from the bathroom in a robe and holding a bottle of lotion says the actress, who was just 21 at the time.

'He asks me to give a massage. I was, like, 'Look man, I am no f***ing fool,'' said Argento.

'But, looking back, I am a f***ing fool. And I am still trying to come to grips with what happened.'

The actress, who is the daughter of famed Italian director Dario Argento, said that once Weinstein began performing oral sex on her there was no way for her to stop him because he was so much bigger than her.

'It wouldn't stop. It was a nightmare,' said Argento, who eventually decided to pretend she was enjoying the act in hopes that it would end.

When it was over, Argento said she said on the bed and told her attacker: 'I am not a whore.'

He laughed at her and said he would put that on a shirt according to Argento, who said that Weinstein contacted her for months after the attack and even began offering her expensive gifts.
A Minnesota man has been charged with aiding the suicide of his wife, who was reportedly suffering from unexplained chronic pain.

Thomas Houck, 61, of Eden Prairie called 911 at around 2.20am last Thursday to report that he woke up in the middle of the night to find his wife had 'euthanized herself' using nitrogen gas and a plastic bag, according to a criminal complaint.

Eden Prairie police arrived at the couple's home in the 18200 block of Cascade Avenue to find 59-year-old Linda Conrad dead from a suspected asphyxiation.

Thomas Houck (left), 61, has been charged with felony aiding a suicide after he admitted to helping his wife, Linda Conrad (right), 59, take her own life using nitrogen

The complaint said that what appeared to be a handwritten note was next to her body that said she couldnt endure any more pain and needed 'a way out.'

Houck initially told police he helped his wife research suicide methods and accompanied her to the store to buy supplies, according to the complaint.

He later allegedly confessed that he not only helped Conrad create a contraption to end her life based on information the couple found online, but also turned on the nitrogen gas tank.

When the container was empty, Houck felt that his wife had no pulse, the complaint said.

On Monday, Houck was charged with felony aiding a suicide and ordered jailed on $70,000 bail.

The couple's neighbors told Fox 9 they had not seen Conrad outside in years since she had sustained serious injuries in an accident.

Conrad died of a suspected asphyxiation at the couple's Eden Prairie, Minnesota, home on Thursday

According to her ex-husband, Tim Conrad, Linda had been plagued by medical problems since childhood, including migraines, stomach pains and depression.

Tim, who remained closed friends with Linda after their divorce in 2006, claimed in an interview with Minneapolis Star Tribune that doctors refused to prescribe her pain medications because of the ongoing opioid crisis, and said she had not eaten in three weeks leading up to her death.

Conrad also said 'it could have ended up the same way' had he and Linda remained married.

If convicted of the charge against him, Houck, Conrad's second husband, could face up to 15 years in prison and/or a $30,000 fine.

Minnesota law prohibits assisted suicide. In 2016, state legislators introduced a bill called the Compassionate Care Act to legalize assisted suicide, but it was later withdrawn by its sponsor.

So far, the states of Oregon, Washington, Montana, Colorado, California, Vermont, as well as Washington, DC, have legalized physician-assisted suicide.
Washington is prepared to impose more economic pain on Russia if it does not change its behavior, Trump administration officials said on Tuesday, as U.S. lawmakers pushed for stronger measures to counteract 'malign' Russian activities.

'Though Russia's malign activities continue, we believe its adventurism undoubtedly has been checked by the knowledge that we can bring much more economic pain to bear using our powerful range of authorities - and that we will not hesitate to do so if its conduct does not demonstrably and significantly change,' Acting Deputy Treasury Secretary Sigal Mandelker told the Senate Banking Committee.

The Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on two Russians, one Russian company and one Slovakian firm, already on Tuesday over actions it said helped another Russian company avoid sanctions over cyber-related activities.

The Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on two Russians, one Russian company and one Slovakian firm, already on Tuesday over actions it said helped another Russian company avoid sanctions over cyber-related activities

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he would like better ties with Moscow, but although he met Russian President Vladimir Putin last month, relations between the two countries have come under further strain.

Members of Congress, where both chambers are controlled by Trump's fellow Republicans, have called for more action - including threatening sanctions 'from hell' - to punish Russia for actions including its annexation of Crimea, involvement in Syria's civil war and cyberattacks seeking to influence U.S. elections.

Two U.S. Senate committees held simultaneous hearings on Russia on Tuesday, where some lawmakers chastised administration officials for failing to sufficiently answer their questions, and for sending conflicting messages and doing too little to change Russian behavior.

Marina Igorevna Tsareva is one of the two individuals sanctioned for helping Divetechnoservices attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions

Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have criticized Trump, particularly after his summit with Putin in Helsinki last month, for failing to stand up to Moscow on issues including what they see as Trumps failure to hold the Russian president accountable for Moscows meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Microsoft Corp said late Monday that hackers linked to the Kremlin sought to launch cyberattacks on the Senate and conservative American think tanks, warning of broader attacks ahead of congressional elections in November.

The Kremlin rejected the Microsoft allegations and said there was no evidence to support them. Moscow has repeatedly denied attempting to influence U.S. elections, including the 2016 presidential vote that brought Trump into office. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 campaign, seeking to tilt the vote in Trump's favor.

U.S. administration officials told the Senate hearings that existing sanctions were having an effect on Russia's economy, despite continuing behavior that concerns Washington.

Assistant Secretary of State Wess Mitchell told the Foreign Relations Committee that concern about sanctions has cost Russia $8 to $10 billion in arms deals. Without the American measures, Moscow's behavior would be further 'off the charts,' Mitchell said.

Mitchell also said foreign direct investment in Russia has fallen by 80 percent since 2013, 'which is a pretty stunning number.'

Washington is prepared to impose more economic pain on Russia if it does not change its behavior, Trump administration officials said on Tuesday, as U.S. lawmakers pushed for stronger measures to counteract 'malign' Russian activities

'I think this administration has been clear that we are prepared to take additional steps,' Mitchell said. 'There is an escalatory ladder to sanctions. We are aware of what additional steps would be needed to make an even bigger point.'

Marshall Billingslea, assistant Treasury secretary for terrorism financing, told the Foreign Relations panel it was important that European allies, particularly in eastern Europe, do more to combat money laundering.

'There is an enormous amount of money that is still being exfiltrated from Russia by both organized crime and cronies surrounding Putin,' Billingslea said.

In an interview with Reuters on Monday, Trump said he would only consider lifting sanctions against Russia if it were to do something positive for the United States, for instance in Syria or in Ukraine.

Trump's administration also announced sanctions on Russian shipping over the transfer of refined petroleum products to North Korea in violation of U.N. restrictions.

Treasury said in a Tuesday statement that it was sanctioning two companies - Saint Petersburg-based Vela-Marine Ltd and Slovakia-based Lacno S.R.O. - and the two individuals helped Divetechnoservices evade previously imposed sanctions.

In June, the United States sanctioned Divetechnoservices, also based in Saint Petersburg, for procuring underwater equipment and diving systems for Russian government agencies, including Russia's FSB intelligence agency.

The Obama administration sanctioned the FSB in December 2016, citing the Russian government's aggressive harassment of U.S. officials and cyber operations aimed at the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In its statement, the U.S. Treasury said the two individuals sanctioned on Tuesday - Marina Igorevna Tsareva and Anton Aleksandrovich Nagibin - had both helped Divetechnoservices attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions.

The head of Vela-Marine told Reuters he did not understand why his firm was being designated. Speaking by telephone, Andrei Kuklin, head of the company, said: "Unfortunately I cannot comment. I don't understand what the problem is."

Reuters was unable to immediately determine contact information for Lacno, which does not have its own website and which does not list any contact number on the Slovak finance ministry registry of firms website.

Nagibin did not answer a call seeking comment. Reuters was not immediately able to identify contact information for Tsareva.
A man who stabbed his mother-in-law to death in her own home after his arranged marriage with her daughter failed was today found guilty of murder.

Muhammad Tafham, 31, knifed Rahman Begum, 46, after she helped her daughter run away to live with her long-term boyfriend.

Mrs Begum tricked the defendant into leaving their home in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, while his wife Aysha packed her belongings to move to Bradford, West Yorkshire.

She had told her daughter don't ruin your life, go live it when she saw the marriage wasn't working.

Forensics officers are pictured at the scene in Rochdale where Tafham stabbed his own mother-in-law

One day later the mother-of-five was found on her kitchen floor with three stab wounds to the chest and a knife in her hand.

Jurors at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester were shown footage from street cameras of Tafham entering and leaving the Mrs Begum's property on February 6, the day of her death.

The Begums also had their own CCTV cameras outside the house which captured Tafham entering - but they were switched off from inside the property and did not capture him leaving.

Tafham denied murder and instead claimed that Mrs Begum had stabbed herself due to depression.

He admitted that he was present at her property at the time of her death but insisted he was sat in the living room watching a family DVD.

The killer said that he thought of her like a mother and that he did not blame her for his marriage break-up.

But a jury deliberated for just over three hours to find him guilty of murder by a unanimous verdict today.

After stabbing her to death, Tafham left his mother-in-law to bleed and fled the scene without alerting the emergency services.

Tafham will be sentenced tomorrow after stabbing his mother-in-law to death in this street following the failure of his marriage

When police arrested him, he was found with his passport on him and it is believed he was planning on travelling back to Pakistan.

After moving from the country in September 2016, Tafham married Aysha, who became the sponsor for his visa  meaning they had to live together for three years for him to stay in the country.

Aysha continued seeing her long-term boyfriend - a man named Malik from Bradford - despite entering into an arranged marriage with the defendant.

His wife eventually moved back to live with him in Rochdale, but they argued constantly and she asked him for a divorce, which he refused.

Following months of arguments, Aysha decided enough was enough and with the help of her mother, left her husband to move back to her lover in Bradford.

A few days before Mrs Begum's death there was another incident involving a knife when an argument broke out between the defendant and his wife.

The defendant went into the kitchen and fetched a large knife and threw it onto the sofa where Aysha was sitting. He said that she had ruined his life and that he was better off dead.

At the opening of the trial, Prosecutor Andrew Thomas said: 'The prosecution say that the defendant took his anger out on his mother-in-law and attacked her in her own kitchen.

'He then placed the knife in her hand to make it look like suicide and he fled - hoping no-one would know that he had ever been there.'

Following an examination of the house, forensic scientist Pamela Bower found blood stains in the kitchen, including splatters on the kitchen roll and dishes in the drying rack.

She also said how a small amount of blood was found on the back and underside of the hot tap handle, with DNA inside matching to Tafham.

Blood was found inside the toilet roll in their house next door, and on bedding in both bedrooms.

The victim was found with the knife in her hand and had several stab wounds to her body, as well as defensive wounds to her hands.

During the trial, the husband of Rahman Begum, Gulfraiz Sharif, told the court how he was unaware that his wife was taking medication for depression and said she was happy at the time of her death.

Speaking of his wife, who was nicknamed Ruksana, he said: 'I was in Pakistan around the time of my wife's death.

'I spoke to Ruksana in the evening [the day before she died] as she takes our youngest daughter to school and she had been to mosque. She was happy at the time. She didnt say anything at all to me.

'My daughter picked up the phone as my wife was cooking. It was a video call. We were talking as usual. She said look after Asman, our son, and make sure he stays out of trouble.

'She never said she wanted to kill herself. Why would she kill herself, she never had any problems. She was very happy. It is not true that she had lots of stress at home. Mothers and fathers have stress with their children.

'She was fine, she had no problems with self-confidence. She was a housewife, she did house chores and she was happy.

'She was only suffering with diabetes, not depression. She used to be open to me, she used to tell me everything. She never mentioned any depression.'

The defendant showed no reaction in the dock as the jury delivered their conclusion. He will be sentenced tomorrow.
A British backpacker reportedly took his own life while in police custody in Cambodia, according to local media.

Matthew Paul King, 29, from Luton, Bedfordshire, had been arrested at the weekend following allegations of theft at a guest house in Kampot, southern Cambodia.

He was reportedly found dead while in the custody of the Immigration Department in the capital Phnom Penh, some 93 miles northeast of Kampot.

Tragedy: British backpacker Matthew Paul King, 29, killed himself after being arrested at the Blue Buddah guest house in Kampot, southern Cambodia

Reports of Mr King's arrest first emerged this weekend when photos of him being questioned by immigration officials were published by local media.

One website said he had been arrested pending an investigation into an allegation of 'cheating' at the Blue Buddha guesthouse in Kampot.

A person writing on a local forum for expats in Cambodia claimed that the reports about 'what happened at Blue Buddha Guesthouse may be inexact and that it was a personal matter and that Matthew did not cheat them as reported.'

Local media reported that after Mr King was found unresponsive in custody at the Department of Immigration, attempts were made to revive him.

Allegations: Mr King had reportedly been accused of 'cheating' while staying at the guest house, pictured, located some 93 miles southwest of the capital Phnom Penh

Mr King was brought to a local hospital where he was declared dead.

The British Foreign and Commonwealth office said: 'Our staff are supporting the family of a British man following his death in custody in Cambodia.

'They are in contact with the Cambodian authorities about the incident.'
A friend of the Foxtons founder's son is feared dead after he disappeared in a lake when he fell off an inflatable banana boat.

Police have been searching for the body of Richard Chapelow, 29, since the boat flipped at high speed at the Santa Clara Dam in the country's south around 5pm on Monday.

It is understood he was staying with Foxtons founder Jon Hunt's son Harry at the billionaire's luxury mansion when the accident happened.

Mr Chapelow worked in marketing and advertising after attending London's 19,000-a-year Latymer Upper School and Leeds University.

Tragic: Police have been searching for the body of Richard Chapelow (pictured), 29

Mr Chapelow (pictured) worked as a Senior Account Manager at Columns. He went to 19,000-a-year Latymer Upper School in London and Leeds University

Mr Chapelow (right) was a friend of Harry Hunt (centre). It is understood the pair were staying at a luxury villa belonging to Mr Hunt's father, John Hunt when the tragedy occurred

Specialist divers are looking for the 29-year-old Briton after he disappeared at Santa Clara Dam (pictured) near the city of Ourique

A statement from Jon Hunt sent to MailOnline read: 'My family and I are devastated by the loss of Richard, following a tragic accident at Santa Clara Dam.

'Our thoughts and prayers are wholly with Richard's family, and we ask that both families are given space to grieve such a painful loss.

'We will be working closely with the Portuguese authorities to understand what has happened, and are grateful to the local police and fire services for their efforts. It is a time of great sorrow.'

It comes after fire chief coordinating the search for the missing Briton said on Tuesday crews were probably looking for a body.

Commander Mario Batista said: 'The search teams know they are probably looking for a body at this stage but it may be time before there is any news.

'Visibility is very poor and the water has a depth of up to 104 feet in the deepest places.

'In a worst case scenario it could take days to find the missing man's body.'

A friend of the Foxtons founder's son Harry Hunt (pictured) is feared dead after an inflatable banana boat accident

A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'We are assisting the family of a British man reported missing in Portugal and are in contact with the local authorities.' Pictured: Richard Chapelow

Police are searching for the body of Richard Chapelow, 29, after the boat overturned on the Santa Clara Dam in the country's south on Monday (stock image of banana boat)

A spokesman for the GNR police force in the city of Beja where the force HQ is, said: 'A 29-year-old British man who disappeared just before 5pm yesterday is still missing. Pictured: Richard Chapelow

A spokesman for the GNR police force in the city of Beja where the force HQ, said: 'A 29-year-old British man who disappeared just before 5pm yesterday is still missing.

'The operation to find him resumed early this morning and is continuing.'

More than 30 people are taking part in the search.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'We are assisting the family of a British man reported missing in Portugal and are in contact with the local authorities.'

Mr Chapelow's family has been informed.

Jon Hunt, 65, from Colchester, founded estate agent Foxtons in 1981 and is now worth just over 1billion.

It is understood the man feared dead was staying with Foxtons founder Jon Hunt's (pictured) son Harry at the billionaire's luxury mansion when the accident happened

The Foxtons tycoon who grew his two-man estate agent into a 340m behemoth before selling it at the peak of the market in 'the sale of the century'

By Debbie White

Hes been described as a silent type with a passion for fast cars and a love of the natural environment  aside from being a property guru.

But where did it all start for Jon Hunt, the billionaire founder of Foxtons estate agents, and father-of-four who owns a luxury Grade II-listed mansion in London?

Although he lives in Kensington Palace Gardens  a road dubbed Billionaires Row  its a far cry from Hunts early days in the property industry, when he founded Foxtons as a two-person agency in Notting Hill Gate in 1981, in a former pasta bar.

Jon Hunt, the billionaire founder of Foxtons estate agents, started out in an estate agency in Guildford

At the age of 28, about nine years after starting out in an estate agency in Guildford, Hunt threw himself into his business, working 12-hour days for eight years.

According to the Independent, he would not close the office until 9pm  four hours after his competitors had shut for the night.

In 1982, Foxtons launched its revolutionary 0% commission offer.

The next year, the agents opened a second office, in Fulham Broadway, before expanding into South Kensington (1986), Chiswick (1992), and elsewhere throughout the capital.

In 2002, its first cafe-style offices were launched in Ealing, Richmond, Balham and Wimbledon.

Five years later, Foxtons opened offices in Dulwich and Pinner, bringing the total number of branches in the capital to 23.

Foxtons estate agents expanded across London, to include cafe-style offices

However, the one-time Army officer sold the company shortly before the property crash in 2007 for a reported 360million  a deal the Financial Times later described as the sale of the century.

There was another celebrated deal in 2012, as the car enthusiast sold Britains most expensive car, a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO, for a reputed 20.2million.

But it wasn't just four wheels and bricks and mortar that piqued Hunt's interest.

By about 2013, he had made dozens of property deals over the space of about two decades which resulted in him amassing a 4,500-acre property close to the coast in Suffolk, known as Wilderness Reserve, which has restored natural lakes, woods and parkland.

The site includes Heveningham Hall, near Halesworth.

Jon Hunt spent years overhauling his Grade II listed mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens, a road dubbed 'Billionaires' Row' in London

He told the FT that he was drawn to the area as, I was looking for a lake; the kids were interested in watersports.'

The Independent has described Hunt as obsessively neat, rarely photographed and as a man who goes to great lengths to keep his name  and those of his wife and four children  out of the press.

Despite his efforts, though, the family's name continues to crop up in various reports.

For example, last year his son Max, known as 'Mad Max' for his daredevil exploits, was banned from driving for six months after being caught crossing the road on a hoverboard, near London's Green Park.

Max Hunt told Wimbledon Magistrates' Court that he was going from his office in Kensington High Street, west London, to meet a friend in Knightsbridge when he was stopped by officers.

He claimed he had been trying to overtake a pedestrian at a junction and didn't realise it was illegal to ride them on roads or pavements in the UK, according to the Evening Standard.

Max Hunt (pictured), whose father Jon founded the Foxtons empire, is a former British Supersport motorcyclist who completed a 5,000-mile off-road rally in South America

And two years ago, the East Anglian Times reported that Jon Hunt was banned from driving for nine months. He was ordered to pay 3,000 after being caught speeding four times in eight months.

Magistrates were told that he travelled frequently, and that he is involved in property, and has various sites in London and the south-east, and other areas of the country.

Hes very much involved in the running of his own successful business.

The court was also told that as two of his adult sons were involved in motor sports, he was driving a support vehicle to assist them and that hes a person who enjoys motoring.

Kensington Palace Gardens is an expensive and exclusive street in the capital

The property magnate hit the headlines again last year, when he received the green light to build a mega basement in his eight-bedroom mansion in London after a 10-year planning battle.

He was given the go-ahead to expand into the ground after he appealed to the Planning Inspectorate, when Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea turned down the ambitious scheme.

His initial plans had sparked a diplomatic row when his neighbours, including the French ambassador, who cited the Vienna Convention in an attempt to kill off the proposals.

He and his wife Lois bought the mansion, around the corner from Wills and Kates Kensington Palace, in 2005 for 15.75million.

The extension  designed to hold his growing collection of classic cars  was expected to increase the value of the property to somewhere in the region of 100million as of October 2017.
Cody Wade Wise, 29, was arrested on Saturday after investigators learned through Facebook messages he was planning to buy meth in the local area, according to an affidavit. He is pictured in a recent mug shot

A capital murder suspect arrested on drug charges in Arkansas was found with three grams of meth and a smoking pipe hidden under his scrotum.

Cody Wade Wise, 29, of Siloam Springs, was arrested on Saturday after investigators learned through Facebook messages he was planning to buy meth in the local area, according to an affidavit.

He was free on a $250,000 bond over the 2015 murder of 53-year-old Ronnie Kultgen, who he allegedly shot in the head before burying his body in Madison County.

Wise was most recently arrested in connection with possession and delivery of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, furnishing prohibited articles and unlawful use of a communication device, reported 5NewsOnline.

There were no illegal items in his truck but the meth and smoking pipe were found under his scrotum by staff at Benton County Jail, where he is now being held before a hearing on September 24.

It comes a week after a judge in Washington County ordered Benton County Sheriffs Office to hand over nude photos a detective sent to an anonymous female witness in Wise's murder case.

Miguel Cordova resigned in 2015 after asking the woman for naked photos and sending her a photo of a man's penis, according to court documents.

Wise was free on a $250,000 bond over the 2015 murder of 53-year-old Ronnie Kultgen, (right) who he allegedly shot in the head before burying his body in Madison County. Wise is pictured (left) in his 2015 mug shot

The sheriff's office were refusing to hand over Wise's personal files before being ordered to do so by a judge at a hearing on August 7.

Wise faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if he is found guilty of the capital murder charge. The drug delivery charge alone could land him behind bars for five to 20 years.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull narrowly survived a leadership challenge by rival Peter Dutton on Tuesday morning - but the saga isn't over yet.

The prime minister had 48 votes in the Liberal party room ballot to Mr Dutton's 35, however, a source on Mr Dutton's side has said 'there will be a second challenge shortly,' reports Newscorp.

There are four scenarios that could play out in the coming weeks, including another challenge and Mr Turnbull calling an early election.

Bill Shorten (left) will be hoping for a snap election, while Peter Dutton (right) is considering mounting a new leadership challenge already

In the first scenario, Mr Turnbull stays on as prime minister and goes into next year's election without facing any further leadership challenges.

This, however, looks unlikely, with sources claiming Mr Dutton is already plotting his next move, which could be another challenge as soon as Thursday.

Another scenario could see Mr Turnbull step aside and anoint one of his key allies - such as Treasurer Scott Morrison - as his successor.

This, however, is unlikely and would also be unpopular with rebels within the Liberal party.

A snap election could also be on the cards, with Bill Shorten licking his lips at the opportunity to go to the polls.

This would be a massive gamble, and could see the Labor leader take power.

The most likely scenario to unfold is Mr Dutton challenging again as his support among the party continues to swell.

There are four scenarios that could play out in the coming weeks, including another challenge and Mr Turnbull calling an early election

Mr Turnbull was hit hit with resignations on Tuesday evening as seven frontbenchers offered to quit after they voted for Mr Dutton.

So far only those of Mr Dutton and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells have been accepted.

Frontbenchers James McGrath, Angus Taylor, Zed Seselja and Michael Sukkar, Michael Keenan and Steven Ciobo also resigned but it is understood the prime minister has not accepted these.

Backers of Mr Dutton have said with time and an organised campaign they could win a fresh challenge, having narrowly lost in the impromptu vote.

'Dutton will win in a matter of a few days, or at worst, a few weeks,' a Liberal MP told The Advertiser.

Mr Turnbull's backers are staying stoic in the face of the revolt with many coming out in defence of the PM.

'Malcolm Turnbull showed guts and strength by today putting his job on the line to ensure Australians get the stability and leadership they deserve,' Education and Training Minister Simon Birmingham said.
Pink-haired and puffing on a cigarette, this is the young man who has accused actress Asia Argento of sexually assaulting him when she was 37 and he just 17  under the age of consent.

Seen in photos obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, 22-year-old Jimmy Bennett appeared tired and strained as he got a nicotine fix and spoke on the phone on the balcony of the Los Angeles apartment he shares with his Canadian girlfriend Allie Jadeski.

Bennett, who played 42-year-old Argento's son in 2003 movie The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, claims the actress assaulted him at a hotel in Marina Del Rey, California, in 2013.

On Tuesday, the LA County Sheriff's Office announced it would be opening an investigation into the sexual assault claims, having initially said it would not.

Statutory rape, depending on the seriousness of the incident, can be prosecuted as a felony under California law  with a maximum penalty of three years in jail and a $10,000 fine.

Jimmy Bennett was seen outside of his Los Angeles apartment hours after news broke that he had accused Asia Argento of sexually assaulting him in a hotel in 2013

The 22-year-old actor appeared tired and strained as he puffed on a cigarette on the balcony of the apartment he shares with girlfriend Allie Jadeski

Bennett has not commented on the claims which emerged on Sunday in an explosive New York Times article which revealed Argento paid him $380k after he claimed emotional distress over the incident

Argento released a statement this morning responding to the allegations and denied ever having a sexual relationship with the young actor.

'I strongly deny and oppose the contents of the New York Times article,' states Argento.

'I am deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false. I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett.'

She goes on to state that Bennett went after her because of her relationship with Anthony Bourdain, a 'man of great perceived wealth' who 'had his own reputation as a beloved public figure to protect.'

Argento also claims that it was Bourdain, who took his own life back in June, who urged her to settle in exchange for Bennett's silence.

'Anthony personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life.

'This is, therefore, the umpteenth development of a sequence of events that brings me great sadness and that constitutes a long-standing persecution,' claims Argento .

'I have therefore no other choice but to oppose such false allegations and will assume in the short term all necessary initiatives for my protection before all competent venues.'

Bennett, who is now pursuing a musical career and has been signed to Bella Thorne's record label Filthy Fangs, initially asked the actress for $3.5m in damages  citing emotional distress, lost wages, assault and battery.

She later agreed to pay him $380,000 to settle copyright over three images he had from the day  including one showing both naked  to be paid in two installments.

He received the first batch  a $200,000 payment  in April.

Argento posted a photo of herself hugging then-17-year-old Bennett on May 9, 2013, at the hotel where she is accused of sexually assaulting him

She captioned the photo, posted the same day as the alleged assault, referring to Bennett as 'my son' and 'my love'

The child actor played Asia's son in 2003 film The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (pictured) when he was seven years old

Bennett's assault claims came to light after a notice to sue sent to Argento's attorneys in November 2017 and a subsequent tie-up deal including a payment schedule was passed to the New York Times last week.

In them, he claimed he had been plied with alcohol in Argento's room at the $429-a-night Ritz Carlton Hotel in Marina Del Rey before she pushed him onto the bed, pulled down his pants and performed oral sex on him.

The legal notice continued: 'She climbed on top of him and the two had intercourse,' according to the notice. She then asked him to take a number of photos.'

Some of the photos, including a picture of herself and Bennett laying naked in bed, she later posted to Instagram, along with a number of notes.

The first read: 'Waiting for my long lost son my love @jimmymbennett in trepidation #marinadelrey smoking cigarettes like there was no next week.'

In her second post, she shared a selfie of herself with Bennett and wrote: 'Happiest day of my life reunion with @jimmymbennett xox.'

According to Bennett's lawyer, Gordon K. Sattro, his client decided to sue after seeing Argento make her own sexual assault claims about Harvey Weinstein.

The actress has publicly claimed that the disgraced movie mogul sexually assaulted her at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997, although he is not facing charges pertaining to any of her claims.

In the notice, Sattro said: 'His feelings about that day were brought to the forefront recently when Ms. Argento took the spotlight as one of the many victims of Harvey Weinstein.'

On Tuesday, Argento released a statement responding to the allegations and denied having a sexual relationship with Bennett. She claimed the actor went after her and boyfriend Anthony Bourdain - who killed himself in June - because he was a 'man of great perceived wealth'

Since working with Argento in The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, the jobbing actor has gone on to rack up more than 50 credits  most recently as Dustin in 2017 low-budget romantic thriller Heartthrob.

But according to Sattro, the 22-year-old is now focusing on his musical career  some of which, including a recording session with LA-based producer David Davis, is documented on his now-scrubbed Instagram account.

He has also struck up a close friendship with Thorne, 20, who has also claimed to have been sexually assaulted  alleging via social media that a 'close family member' attacked her as a child in January.

Videos posted to his Instagram show Bennett partying with the former Disney star and her 31-year-old rapper boyfriend Mod Sun.

Thorne has returned the compliment, posting a photo of Bennett smoking a cigarette and wearing a black sweatshirt from her Filthy Fangs label on June 20.

The accompanying caption reads: 'When your artist looks dope af wearing the sweatshirt you made by hand yeee [sic]'.

Bennett has also found love with pretty Canadian Jadeski, with whom he lives in a balconied apartment complex in Los Angeles.

Jadeski, a vegan who has since made her account private, regularly posts pictures of Bennett at home in their loft and documents their life together, including his passion for ramen noodles.

Bennett also appears to have a good relationship with his mother Martha, 41, whose Facebook page is dotted with pictures of her son and daughter and their younger brother Ozzy.

The family currently live in a modest gray-painted trailer home in Huntington Beach, directly across from the city's famous golden sandy beach.

According to Jadeski's Instagram page, she and Bennett recently visited  making the 30-mile drive south to spend time with his family.

Bennett, pictured in 2013, is now pursuing a musical career and has been signed to Bella Thorne's record label Filthy Fangs

The child actor's lawyers claimed the sexual assault was so traumatizing that it had affected their client's acting career. Above he is pictured as a young boy with Argento and Dylan and Cole Sprouse

But Bennett hasn't always been so close to his mother and step-father Frank Cono Pestarino, 46.

In 2014, he sued them over money he claimed to have earned during his time as a child star  accusing them of cheating him out of $1.5m.

Bennett also claimed that the former family home, sold earlier this year, had been paid with his money and said in his complaint that his mother had kicked him out.

The lawsuit was dropped a few months later but the terms of the deal were not disclosed in documents lodged with Orange County Superior Court.

Bennett has so far refused to comment on the allegations against Argento, who lives in Rome, but in a statement passed to DailyMail.com, lawyer Sattro said he was composing a response  expected within 24 hours.

He said: 'At this time, our client, Jimmy Bennett, does not wish to comment on the documents or the events discussed in the New York Times article yesterday evening.

'While we realize that the news cycle demands an immediate response, many times, people need more than a few minutes or hours to respond.

'We are asking that you give our client some time and space. Jimmy is going to take the next 24 hours, or longer, to prepare his response.

'We ask that you respect our client's privacy during this time.'
Dominic Raab last night blasted hair-raising claims that hospitals could run out of drugs in the event of a no deal Brexit as scare stories.

As the EUs chief negotiator effectively extended the deadline for a deal, the Brexit Secretary dismissed the scaremongering as being very far from the truth.

It came after a health boss warned the NHS entire supply chain of pharmaceuticals could be adversely affected from day one if Britain leaves without a deal next March.

At a joint press conference, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab (left) and Michel Barnier (right) declared that talks would be taking place 'continuously' from now on

Mr Raab is due to give more detail about Britains preparations for such a scenario tomorrow when the Government begins publishing technical notices on its no deal plans.

He and Michel Barnier met in Brussels for the latest round of talks, with the latter suggesting the deadline had shifted from October to early November. Mr Raab insisted even if the two sides fail to reach a deal, Britain will carry on with no significant disruption.

Yesterdays three-hour meeting was the third time Mr Raab and Mr Barnier have met in little over a month. In contrast, it took the first six months of 2018 for Mr Barnier to meet former Brexit Secretary, David Davis, the same number of times. It reflects ministers hopes of stepping up the pace of negotiations in the hope of hammering out a deal in time for an EU summit in October. And Mr Raab revealed he would be visiting Brussels again next week.

He said: I agree with Michel that we need to keep, as we climb the mountain, our eyes on the summit and accentuate the positives. But weve got to close down those areas of disagreement.

Were going to be picking up the intensity of negotiations. The responsible thing for any government to do, and on the EU side, is to make sure were prepared for all eventualities. Mr Raab is expected to give more details in his speech tomorrow, with around 20 papers being published detailing Britains preparations for leaving the EU in the event of a no deal.

The documents will cover such subjects as payments to farmers, state aid, nuclear research and the Erasmus education scheme.

An impact paper for financial services  one of the most contentious areas  was also originally listed for publication tomorrow but could be delayed. One already leaked document suggests the UK plans to give 3.8 million EU citizens currently living in the UK the right to remain permanently in the event of no deal.

The papers are understood to be relatively short, anywhere between two and five pages.

Mr Barnier warned the EU would not be swayed by what he described as a blame game in Britain over who would be responsible for a no deal Brexit.

Mr Raab said he knew 'how committed' Mr Barnier was to finding a way through the impasse at the press conference

He added that the EU did not want no deal because it would be the most costly but that it also had to prepare for it. Brussels has long insisted a deal on the withdrawal agreement should be reached by October to give the EU Council and Parliament enough time to ratify it before Britain formally leaves at the end of March. When asked if he believed a deal could still be reached by October, Mr Barnier said it needed to be well before the end of the year and no later than early November.

However, he said disagreements remained over Theresa Mays Chequers white paper as it contradicts the negotiating guidelines from member states. The Irish border issue remains a sticking point. When asked why the EU had not shifted on its red lines while Britain appeared to, he said: How can you change principles on which the EU is based? The UK is leaving the EU, not the other way around.

Yesterday Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt still believed a deal would be reached saying: As a country we have had bigger challenges than this and we will find a way whatever the outcome to survive and prosper.

Mr Raab said he knew 'how committed' Mr Barnier was to finding a way through the impasse

Mr Barnier also appeared to play down the idea that the EU should make concessions, despite saying he would be 'pragmatic'.

'How do you change principles on which the EU is based?' he said.

'The UK is leaving the EU, not the other way round. The EU is based on principles, on values, on laws.'

Mr Barnier said an agreement had to come quickly, suggesting it could happen by the 'beginning of November but not much later than that'.

'We have agreed that the EU and UK will negotiate continuously from now on, and Dominic and I will meet regularly to take stock and move the negotiations forward,' he told the press conference.

Mr Barnier has played down the idea that the EU should make concessions to Britain. Here the pair are pictured shaking hands at the European Commission in Brussels last month (July 2018).

Mr Barnier added that the two sides are more 'advanced' in defining the common ground for foreign policy and security than the economic relationship.

'Our challenge for the coming weeks is to try and define an ambitious partnership between the UK and the EU - a partnership that has no precedent.

'This partnership has to respect the single market and the foundations of the European project, and if this is well understood we can conclude the negotiations successfully.'

Mr Raab said he knew 'how committed' Mr Barnier was to finding a way through the impasse.

'We agreed that we need to step up the intensity of the negotiations as we come into the final phase and we have agreed to meet regularly and resolve at the political level those outstanding issues that remain under technical consideration," he said.

He added: 'If we have that ambition ... I am confident we can reach the agreement in October.'

The scramble to break the deadlock comes as ministers escalate preparations for no deal.

On Thursday, the Government will publish the first of a series of technical notices, designed to help people and businesses prepare for a no-deal scenario.

Mr Raab will also give a speech outlining how the Government plans to mitigate the potential risks of leaving the EU without a deal and ensure continuity and stability.

Speaking at the press conference, Mr Raab shrugged off 'hair raising scare stories' about the consequences of negotiations collapsing.

The issue of EU nationals' residency will not be among more than 80 'no-deal' technical notices to be issued over the coming weeks.
An American Airlines pilot caught a 12-foot, 1,000-pound alligator on a Florida lake after spending an hour and a half wrestling it onto his boat.

Jim Howard, from Cooper City, hunts alligators for fun and was out on Lake Okeechobee on Thursday when he spotted the animal from his Sea Ray ski boat just after sunset.

He lured the gator with bait and used a multi-pronged grappling hook to pull it up from the bottom of the lake. A friend and his son soon joined him on the boat and pulled the alligator in close before using a bang stick to shoot it in the skull.

Jim Howard, from Cooper City, caught a 12-foot, 1,000-pound alligator in Lake Okeechobee. He is pictured posing with the animal alongside his wife and daughter

He lured the gator with bait and used a multi-pronged grappling hook to pull it up from the bottom of the lake. It is pictured strapped to the back of his ski boat

'I figured I'd try for him. So I put the bait in the water and about 30 minutes later he finally went after it and took it,' Howard told Local10.com.

'He'll fight really hard at first, of course, and he'll slow down a little bit. And three or four times he'll really wrestle and try to get away.'

Eventually the hunter and his two friends managed to pull the animal onto the boat, which is 18 and a half foot long.

Howard, who says he is a captain at American Airlines on his Facebook, had a permit from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which has allowed alligator hunting as a way to manage the population since 1988.

He plans to have purses and wallets made from the skin and keep the skull.

Eventually the hunter and his two friends managed to pull the animal onto the boat, which is 18 and a half feet long
Sixteen male teachers allegedly sexually harassed 180 girls at a high school in South Korea, including groping their buttocks.

The teachers at an unnamed girls high school in Gwangju in the country's southwest were stood down and under investigation by police.

They allegedly directed sexually demeaning comments at the girls are regularly groped the buttocks and waists of some of them.

Sixteen male teachers allegedly sexually harassed 180 girls at a high school in South Korea, including groping their buttocks (stock image)

They also allegedly made comments like: 'That girl has a great body and big behind,' 'it's disgusting if fat women wear skirts,' and 'women are baby-making machines,' according to Korea Joongang Daily.

A group of girls reported the alleged harassment to the principal who then had all 860 students surveyed to learn the extent of the problem.

The school was shocked to find more than a quarter of the school's 57 teacher were accused and called in police to investigate.

Students claimed some of the teachers made unspecified threats to keep them from reporting their behaviour or telling anyone else.

The Nambu Police Precinct in Gwangju assigned 13 police to the case, who will interview all 180 girls to find all the details of the allegations.

With so many teachers stood down, the Gwangju Education Office drafted in part time teachers to fill in, and sent eight counsellors to help students.

The harassment may have been going on for at least eight years as a 25-year-old graduate said similar behaviour was rampant in 2010.

They said teachers 'would make sexual comments in classes but none of the students knew how to react'.

The teachers at an unnamed girls high school in Gwangju (pictured) in the country's southwest were stood down and under investigation by police

Students feared they 'may face disadvantages in preparing for their college entrance exams and teacher recommendations' if they spoke out.

Police would also inspect other schools to see if there were any similar situations students were too afraid to report.

'Parents at other schools in the area came up to me asking if something like this could be happening in other schools,' Gwangju Education Office head Jang Hui-gook said.

South Korea has heavy penalties on sex crimes against children under 13 after six teachers, including the principal, and a school for the deaf-mute students, also in Gwangju, raped or molested nine students in 2000-03.

Public outcry at the light sentences they received caused the government to remove statues of limitations and increase the maximum penalty to life in jail.
Longtime Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to campaign finance violations linked to a porn star and a Playboy model as well as his former boss  and said he did so 'at the direction' of a candidate for federal office.

Cohen made the stunning statement linking President Donald Trump to his crimes as he pleaded to eight different counts, including those related to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

Although he didn't mention Trump by name, Trump's former lawyer and fixer spoke in open court about a $130,000 payment as well as a deal he helped negotiate with a publisher involving McDougal.

He said he did so 'in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,' CNN reported  in an obvious reference to Trump, his former employer. Federal law bars donors from coordinating with a campaign while placing strict limits on the amount of contributions.

Both women claim they had affairs with Trump, and both got payments, Daniels from Cohen directly and McDougal from a publisher.

Cohen made his plea in open court within minutes of a Virginia jury convicting former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on eight counts following his trial on tax and fraud charges.

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Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump, leaves his apartment building, in New York, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Cohen could be charged before the end of the month with bank fraud in his dealings with the taxi industry and with committing other financial crimes, multiple people familiar with the federal probe said Monday

As he landed in West Virginia for what was expected to be a raucous campaign rally Tuesday night with his supporters, Trump said he feels 'badly' for both Cohen and Manafort. But he didn't address the explosive developments as his rally began.

But he did mock the Mueller probe before a crowd of supporters.

'Fake news. Fake. How fake, how fake are they?' Trump asked rhetorically. 'Fake news and the Russian witch hunt. We got a whole big combination. Where is the collusion? You know theyre still looking for collusion. Where is the collusion? Find some collusion. We want to find the collusion,' Trump said.

A federal charging document lays out how Cohen helped deal with a person identified as 'Individual-1's relationships with women' by identifying stories and keeping them from being published.

The documents note that the individual was a candidate for president.

Cohen negotiated $150,000 payment to 'model and actress' and made a $130,000 payment to 'an adult film actress,' according to the documents stated the offenses he pleaded guilty to. Cohen caused and made the payments 'in order to influence the 2016 presidential election,' he is admitting.

The White House didn't hold a press briefing amid the turmoil, instead confronting reporters only through the safer medium of conference calls. Trump didn't mention either bombshell development in his speech in West Virginia hours after they occurred.

Cohen as part of the plea gets jail time of up to four years  in a deal that apparently does not include cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe. Nevertheless, some legal experts were not ruling out cooperation, and he was facing more charges than he pleaded to.

Cohen appeared in federal court on Tuesday following a series of repots he would plead guilty to federal crimes that would land him in jail for up to four years.

According to U.S. attorney Robert Khuzami, Cohen failed to report income of $4.1 million, costing the U.S. Treasury approximately $1.3 million.

He failed to disclose $14 million in dead when he applied for a home-equity loan he used to get funds to pay the porn star.

Khuzami also laid out Cohen's campaign finance guilty plea as it related to Daniels and McDougal  though he never mentioned the name of the president or the porn star.

'In addition what he did was he worked to pay money to silence two women who had information that he believed would be detrimental to the 2016 campaign and to the candidate and the campaign,' Khuzami said.

Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations 'in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office'

Charging documents lay out millions in unreported income by Cohen

Documents also reference Trump as 'Individual-1'

'In addition, Mr. Cohen sought reimbursement for that money by submitting invoices to the candidate's company which were untrue and false. They indicated that the reimbursement was for services rendered for the year 2017, when in fact those invoices were a sham. He provided no legal services for the year 2017 and it was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful campaign contribution,' Khuzami said.

'There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government's charges against Mr. Cohen,' Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said in a statement. 'It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohen's actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.'

In addition what he did was he worked to pay money to silence two women who had information that he believed would be detrimental to the 2016 campaign and to the candidate and the campaign

Sources told NBC about the negotiations over a possible plea Tuesday morning, noting that no deal had been reached. Word of the talks followed reports over the weekend that Cohen is being investigated for a $20 million bank fraud.

ABC then reported Cohen had reached an agreement with prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. Cohen surrendered to the FBI in advance of a scheduled 4 pm court appearance, according to CNN.

The campaign finance violations related to the $130,000 payment Cohen made from his own funds to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with Trump.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, claims she had an affair with Trump. Among the charges Cohen will plead guilty to are campaign finance violations in connection to a $130,000 payment he made to Daniels

What Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to doing Five counts of tax evasion. Avoided declaring $4.1 million in income earned in 2012 through 2016, depriving the government of about $1.3 million in tax revenue. Making false statements to a bank. Failed to disclose a $14 million line of credit when taking out loans, including for the purchase of an $8.5 million summer home. Declared a net worth of $40 million when applying for a home equity loan, omitting the $14 million debt. Campaign finance violations. Helped deal with 'Individual-1's relationships with women' by identifying stories and keeping them from being published. Negotiated $150,000 payment to 'model and actress' and made a $130,000 payment to 'an adult film actress.' He caused and made the payments 'in order to influence the 2016 presidential election.' He faced up to 65 years in prison for what he is being charged with had he not pleaded guilty. Advertisement

Trump said in April that he did not know about payments Cohen made to Daniels  although lawyer Rudy Giuliani later said Trump reimbursed his longtime lawyer for the funds.

Cohen admitted the payment was a violation of strict federal limits on political contributions. Prosecutors deemed the payment an in-kind contribution to the Trump campaign since it helped shelve potentially damaging information.

Cohen agreed to jail time as part of the agreement.

Despite the array of charges, jail time, and restitution, Cohen was not expected to reach an agreement to cooperate with authorities, the New York Times reported.

Such a status, if maintained, would spare President Trump from having one of his closest and most knowledgable associates aiding an inquiry the president has termed a 'witch hunt.'

Nevertheless, Trump faced the political prospect of seeing one of his closest longtime advisors go to jail over serious federal crimes. Just as the news broke on Cohen's plans, the White House was holding a press call on Trump's plans to travel the country in support of Republicans.

Cohen was expected to plead guilty to campaign finance violations  a likely reference to a $130,000 payment he made to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with Trump

Cohen also negotiated a $150,000 payment by American Media Inc. to former Playboy cover model Karen McDougal, who claims she had a year-long affair with Trump

Cohen pleaded guilty to a campaign finance violation in relation to a $150,000 payment that American Media Inc. made to Playboy model Karen McDougal. AMI publisher David Pecker (c) was part of the deal

Prosecutors in Cohen were negotiating with a man involved in myriad business and political deals involving the president, including the negotiation of a non-disclosure agreement with porn star Stormy Daniels, and talks on an effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow that fell through.

However, the New York Times reported Tuesday afternoon that the deal did not include an agreement to cooperate.

Cohen in June resigned his post as deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee once it came out he was under criminal investigation

Mueller's final tally: Trump's inner circle of convicts and turncoats - and 25 wanted Russian trolls GUILTY: MICHAEL FLYNN Pleaded guilty to making false statements in December 2017. Awaiting sentence Flynn was President Trump's former National Security Advisor and Robert Mueller's most senior scalp to date. He previously served when he was a three star general as President Obama's director of the Defense Intelligence Agency but was fired. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his conversations with a Russian ambassador in December 2016. He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation. GUILTY AND JAILED: MICHAEL COHEN Pleaded guilty to eight counts including fraud and two campaign finance violations in August 2018. Pleaded guilty to further count of lying to Congress in November 2018. Sentenced to three years in prison and $2 million in fines and forfeitures in December 2018 Cohen was investigated by Mueller but the case was handed off to the Southern District of New York,leaving Manhattan's ferocious and fiercely independent federal prosecutors to run his case. Cohen was Trump's longtime personal attorney, starting working for him and the Trump Organization in 2007. He is the longest-serving member of Trump's inner circle to be implicated by Mueller. Cohen professed unswerving devotion to Trump - and organized payments to silence two women who alleged they had sex with the-then candidate: porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. He admitted that payments to both women were felony campaign finance violations - and admitted that he acted at the 'direction' of 'Candidate-1': Donald Trump. He also admitted tax fraud by lying about his income from loans he made, money from taxi medallions he owned, and other sources of income, at a cost to the Treasury of $1.3 million. And he admitted lying to Congress in a rare use of the offense. The judge in his case let him report for prison on March 6 and recommended he serve it in a medium-security facility close to New York City. GUILTY AND JAILED: PAUL MANAFORT Found guilty of eight charges of bank and tax fraud in August 2018. Sentenced to 47 months in March 2019. Pleaded guilty to two further charges - witness tampering and conspiracy against the United States. Jailed for total of seven and a half years in two separate sentences. Additionally indicted for mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney, using evidence previously presented by Mueller Manafort worked for Trump's campaign from March 2016 and chaired it from June to August 2016, overseeing Trump being adopted as Republican candidate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He is the most senior campaign official to be implicated by Mueller. Manafort was one of Washington D.C.'s longest-term and most influential lobbyists but in 2015, his money dried up and the next year he turned to Trump for help, offering to be his campaign chairman for free - in the hope of making more money afterwards. But Mueller unwound his previous finances and discovered years of tax and bank fraud as he coined in cash from pro-Russia political parties and oligarchs in Ukraine. Manafort pleaded not guilty to 18 charges of tax and bank fraud but was convicted of eight counts in August 2018. The jury was deadlocked on the other 10 charges. A second trial on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent due in September did not happen when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and witness tampering in a plea bargain. He was supposed to co-operate with Mueller but failed to. Minutes after his second sentencing hearing in March 2019, he was indicted on 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy by the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., using evidence which included documents previously presented at his first federal trial. The president has no pardon power over charges by district and state attorneys. GUILTY AND GOING TO WEEKEND JAIL: RICK GATES Pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and making false statements in February 2018. Sentenced to 45 days weekend jail and three years probation, December 17, 2018 Gates was Manafort's former deputy at political consulting firm DMP International. He admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government on financial activity, and to lying to investigators about a meeting Manafort had with a member of congress in 2013. As a result of his guilty plea and promise of cooperation, prosecutors vacated charges against Gates on bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy, failure to disclose foreign bank accounts, filing false tax returns, helping prepare false tax filings, and falsely amending tax returns. GUILTY AND JAILED: GEORGE PAPADOPOLOUS Pleaded guilty to making false statements in October 2017. Sentenced to 14 days in September 2018, and reported to prison in November. Served 12 days and released on December 7, 2018 Papadopoulos was a member of Donald Trump's campaign foreign policy advisory committee. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his contacts with London professor Josef Mifsud and Ivan Timofeev, the director of a Russian government-funded think tank. GUILTY AND JAILED: RICHARD PINEDO Pleaded guilty to identity fraud in February 2018. Sentenced to a year in prison Pinedo is a 28-year-old computer specialist from Santa Paula, California. He admitted to selling bank account numbers to Russian nationals over the internet that he had obtained using stolen identities. GUILTY AND JAILED: ALEX VAN DER ZWAAN Pleaded guilty to making false statements in February 2018. He served a 30-day prison sentence and was deported to the Netherlands on his release Van der Zwaan was a Dutch attorney for Skadden Arps who worked on a Ukrainian political analysis report for Paul Manafort in 2012. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about when he last spoke with Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik. His law firm say he was fired. GUILTY: W. SAMUEL PATTEN Pleaded guilty in August 2018 to failing to register as a lobbyist while doing work for a Ukrainian political party. Sentenced to three years probation April 2019 Patten, a long-time D.C. lobbyist was a business partner of Paul Manafort. He pleaded guilty to admitting to arranging an illegal $50,000 donation to Trump's inauguration. He arranged for an American 'straw donor' to pay $50,000 to the inaugural committee, knowing that it was actually for a Ukrainian businessman. Neither the American or the Ukrainian have been named. CHARGED: KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK Indicted for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. At large, probably in Russia Kilimnik is a former employee of Manafort's political consulting firm and helped him with lobbying work in Ukraine. He is accused of witness tampering, after he allegedly contacted individuals who had worked with Manafort to remind them that Manafort only performed lobbying work for them outside of the U.S. He has been linked to Russian intelligence and is currently thought to be in Russia - effectively beyond the reach of extradition by Mueller's team. INDICTED: THE RUSSIANS Twenty-five Russian nationals and three Russian entities have been indicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States. They remain at large in Russia Two of these Russian nationals were also indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 11 were indicted for conspiracy to launder money. Fifteen of them were also indicted for identity fraud. Vladimir Putin has ridiculed the charges. Russia effectively bars extradition of its nationals. The only prospect Mueller has of bringing any in front of a U.S. jury is if Interpol has their names on an international stop list - which is not made public - and they set foot in a territory which extradites to the U.S. INDICTED: MICHAEL FLYNN'S BUSINESS PARTNERS Bijan Kian (left), number two in now disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn's lobbying company, and the two's business partner Ekim Alptekin (right) were indicted for conspiracy to lobby illegally. Kian, an Iranian-American was arrested and appeared in court charged with a conspiracy to illegally lobby the U.S government without registering as a foreign agent. Their co-conspirator was Flynn, who is called 'Person A' in the indictment and is not charged, offering some insight into what charges he escaped with his plea deal. Kian, vice-president of Flynn's former lobbying firm, is alleged to have plotted with Alptekin to try to change U.S. policy on an exiled Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania and who is accused by Turkey's strongman president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of trying to depose him. Erdogan's government wanted him extradited from the U.S. and paid Flynn's firm through Alptekin for lobbying, including an op-ed in The Hill calling for Gulen to be ejected. Flynn and Kian both lied that the op-ed was not paid for by the Turkish government. The indictment is a sign of how Mueller is taking an interest in more than just Russian involvement in the 2016 election. GUILTY AND AWAITING SENTENCE: ROGER STONE Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign official and longtime informal advisor to Trump, was indited on seven counts including obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks in January 2019. Convicted on all counts November 15, 2019, awaiting sentence Stone was a person of interest to Mueller's investigators long before his January indictment, thanks in part due to his public pronouncements as well as internal emails about his contacts with WikiLeks. In campaign texts and emails, many of which had already been publicly revealed before showing up in Mueller's indictment, Stone communicated with associates about WikiLeaks following reports the organization had obtained a cache of Clinton-related emails. Stone, a former Nixon campaign adviser who has the disgraced former president's face permanently tattooed on his back, has long been portrayed as a central figure in the election interference scandal. 'They got nothing,' he said of the special counsel's investigation. Stone gave 'false and misleading' testimony about his requests for information from WikiLeaks. He then pressured a witness, comedian Randy Credico, to take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify, and pressured him in a series of emails. Following a prolonged dispute over testimony, he called him a 'rat' and threatened to 'take that dog away from you', in reference to Credico's pet, Bianca. Stone warned him: 'Let's get it on. Prepare to die.' CLEARED: GREG CRAIG Greg Craig, President Barack Obama's White House counsel, was indicted for failing to register as a foreign agent. Mueller's investigators uncovered Craig's work on behalf the government of Ukraine while probing Manafort, who did business with Craig. Prosecutors released a grand jury indictment of Craig in April 2019, after Craig's law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP agreed to pay more than $4.6 million as part of a settlement. The prominent firm also acknowledged it had failed to register, and placed much of the blame on Craig, a senior partner there. Craig's lawyer blasted the decision as an abuse of prosecutorial discretion, and prepared to argue that omission of information during an interview is not tantamount to making false statements. The charges stem from a 2012 report Craig and the firm produced on behalf of the Ukrainian government on opposition figure and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. She was an opponent of Manafort's client , former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Craig was cleared on September 9 2019. Advertisement

Statement to the press by U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami 'What he did was he worked to pay money to silence two women who had information that he believed would be detrimental to the 2016 campaign and to the candidate and the campaign.' 'In addition, Mr. Cohen sought reimbursement for that money by submitting invoices to the candidate's company which were untrue and false. They indicated that the reimbursement was for services rendered for the year 2017, when in fact those invoices were a sham. He provided no legal services for the year 2017 and it was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful campaign contribution.' 'First, these are very serious charges and reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over an extended period of time. They are significant in their own rights. They are particularly significant when done by a lawyer. A lawyer who through training and tradition understands what it means to be a lawyer, to engage in honest and fair dealing and adherence to the law. Mr. Cohen disregarded that training. Disregarded that tradition and decided that he was above the law, and for that he is going to pay a very, very serious price ...' 'Mr Cohen made guilty pleas for those campaign violations and those are core violations. These remind us that it is illegal for corps to make contributions to candidates and it is illegal to make contributions in excess of the amount that congress set for individuals. That is a strong message today and we will not fear prosecuting additional campaign finance cases ...' 'We are a nation of laws and the essence of this case is about is justice and that is an equal playing field for all persons in the eyes of the law and that is a lesson that Mr. Cohen learned today and it is a very harsh one for him.' Advertisement

WHICH CANDIDATE? Cohen said he negotiated the payments 'In co-ordination with, and at the direction of' a candidate for federal office

Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis tweeted Tuesday about his client: 'Today he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election. If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?'

Justice Department guidelines state that a sitting president shouldn't be charged with a crime while in office, although they could be subject to a court challenge should the government decide to do so.

Numerous legal experts say Trump most likely will avoid getting charged with anything while in office  though he could be charged after he leaves and he could be forced to give testimony in legal matters. The charging documents describe 'Individual-1' as being closely involved with Cohen's efforts. It says Cohen 'coordinated with one or more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls, about the fact, nature, and timing of the payments' to women.

News of Cohen's talks came just as word broke that jurors in the trial of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort asked the judge overseeing the case a question about how to proceed if they fail to reach a verdict on a single count.

That in turn led to speculation that special counsel Robert Mueller's team might be on the verge of scoring critical conviction, even if it is on tax and fraud crimes that are not related to the campaign of President Donald Trump.

Mueller's investigators prosecuted Manafort. In the case of Cohen, they handed information they uncovered during their probe to the SDNY for prosecution  although any plea deal could include cooperating with the Russia probe.

The report on Cohen's intentions followed a series of maneuvers by Cohen that raised the prospect he might reach an agreement to cooperate with prosecutors. These included praising the FBI agents who raided his home and apartment, and stating boldly that he would do what is best for his family.

He told ABC's 'Good Morning America' last month that: 'My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will.' He added: 'I put family and country first.'

Cohen left his apartment in New York Tuesday dressed in a dark suit and tie.

His new lawyer, Lanny Davis, told NBC he couldn't comment on an ongoing investigation, having earlier sent signals that Cohen could cooperate. Cohen's hiring of Davis, who has longtime Democratic ties and advised President Bill Clinton, was one such signal.

Michael Cohen, left, former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump, leaves his apartment building past his doorman, in New York, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. NBC reported he was in talks about a possible guilty plea

Were Cohen to follow through and plead guilty to any alleged violations, it would come as prosecutors were considering filing charges against him that include include bank and tax fraud, as well as violations of campaign finance law, against Cohen by the end of the month, sources told the New York Times.

Investigators are looking into more than $20 million in loans which were made to taxi companies owned by Cohen and his family. The amounts reportedly involved only upped the pressure on Cohen, who was intimately involved with Trump as he navigated a variety of business deals in recent years.

Financial statements showed that Cohen used his 32 taxi medallions, then worth around $1 million each, as collateral for the loans from Sterling National Bank. Melrose Credit Union also supplied some of the loans made to 16 separate companies controlled by the Cohens. Cohen and his wife also personally guaranteed the loans, according to public findings.

Investigators are now looking to determine whether Cohen misrepresented the true value of his assets to obtain the loans.

They are also looking at when the lawyer violated campaign finance laws by arranging hush money deals to secure the silence of women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump.

The FBI raided Cohen's home and office earlier this year as part of their investigation into his alleged tax fraud.

President Trump's (left) former personal lawyer Michael Cohen (right) is being investigated for a $20 million bank fraud, according to a new report

Investigators are looking at whether Cohen's income from his taxi-medallion business was underreported in federal tax returns, The Wall Street Journal reported.

That income reportedly included hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and other payments over the last five years.

Donald Trump has criticized the probe into his former attorney, calling the raids an 'attack on our country in a true sense.'

Cohen caught the attention of the Manhattan US Attorney's Office during Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race.

Prosecutors are looking into whether Cohen inflated the value of any of his assets as collateral for bank loans, the Journal reported citing sources familiar with the investigation.

If convicted of tax- and bank-fraud, Cohen, who once said he'd take a bullet for President Donald Trump, could find himself subject to heavy jail time.

That threat could put pressure on Cohen, once known as Trump's 'fixer,' to cooperate with prosecutors if he's charged with these crimes.

Cohen was Trump's personal attorney for years and has deep ties to the Trump Organization.

He is reportedly prepared to tell Mueller that the president knew about the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting ahead of time and approved of it.

That meeting was attended by Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and a lawyer with ties to the Kremlin who claimed to have dirt on Trump's presidential rival Hillary Clinton.

Trump has denied he knew about the meeting ahead of time.

But that gathering at Trump Tower has become a central focus of Mueller's look into what role Russian played in the 2016 presidential election.

Meanwhile federal prosecutors are taking a deep dive into Cohen's business dealings after Mueller's team handed over documents discovered in an April 9th FBI raid.

They are looking closely at Cohen's relationship with Sterling National Bank, which provided financing for his taxi-medallion business. Medallions are the permits taxi drivers need to operate in the city.

Federal prosecutors subpoenaed Jeffrey Getzel, Cohen's former accountant who was responsible for preparing many of Cohen's financial statements.

Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, declined to comment to the newspaper 'out of respect for the ongoing investigation.'

As of April 2018, Cohen owned 22 medallions in Chicago, and either he or his wife, Laura, controlled 32 medallions in New York City.

Taxi medallions were considered a solid investment that are bought and sold on a secondary market. Some in New York sold for an average $1.25 million per medallion in 2013 and 2014.

But their value has fallen sharply in recent years due to competition from ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft. Some estimate the value of each medallion has dropped to $200,000 to $225,000.

As prosecutors look at whether Cohen under reported his income to avoid federal taxes they're also examining whether he overstated it in loan applications.

Cohen has previously denied any wrongdoing.

He worked on projects for Trump ranging from Trump Tower Moscow that never got off the ground to a non-disclosure agreement with porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with Trump, and on a deal involving former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who also claimed an affair.

Trump has denied both women's allegations of a sexual affair.

But Cohen also had his own business dealings including real estate, personal loans and investments in taxi medallions.

Evgeny A. Freidman, a Russian immigrant known as 'the Taxi King' and who partnered with Cohen in the taxi medallion business, avoided jail time and got five years probation when he pleaded guilty to tax evasion in May.

As a condition, he is cooperating with prosecutors, who may find him to be a valuable witness as they investigate Cohen on potential tax, campaign finance, and bank fraud charges.

His deal came after an April 9th FBI raid on Cohen's home, office, and hotel where he was staying. They scooped up 3.7 million digital documents.

If Freidman is able to provide useful information, it might strengthen prosecutors hands if they decide to charge Cohen.

Prosecutors are already combing through Cohen's financial records, including big payments he got from major firms as he touted his access to President Trump after the elections.

Also under the microscope is his $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, who signed a nondisclosure agreement and claims she had an affair with Trump.

The president revealed last week on his financial disclosure that he 'reimbursed' Cohen for expenses related to a payment of up to $250,000.

Cohen is under investigation for possible bank fraud. He has said he took out a home equity loan in order to make the payment to Daniels, which he executed through a Delaware LLC he set up in October of 2016, weeks before the presidential election.
A Utah man has been charged with the brutal murder of a 60-year-old woman whose body was found strangled and doused in bleach after a robbery in her home four years ago.

Jared Gourdin, 34, was charged on Monday over the 2014 murder of Belen Perez in her Provo home.

The 60-year-old victim was found dead by her son in May 2014 with a stereo cord wrapped around her neck and chemicals, including drain cleaner and antifreeze, poured across her body.

An iPod and $350 in cash had also been stolen from her purse.

Jared Gourdin, 34, was charged on Monday over the 2014 murder of Belen Perez in her Provo, Utah home. He is already in prison for stabbing someone with a screwdriver

Gourdin, who had only just been released from prison at the time, had moved in with his girlfriend just a few houses down from the victim.

He was interviewed several times by police when Perez's body was found after witnesses recalled seeing him walking around the neighborhood asking people about odd jobs.

He told police at the time that he spoke to Perez on the sidewalk, but later said he had gone into her home and shaken her hand.

His girlfriend told police that Gourdain had showered multiple times that day, including once with his clothes on.

Investigators said while the information they had at the time pointed to Gourdin being a possible suspect, there was no DNA evidence because of the chemicals found on Perez's body.

Belen Perez, 60, was found dead by her son in May 2014 with a stereo cord wrapped around her neck and chemicals, including drain cleaner and antifreeze, poured across her body

The victim was found inside her home (pictured above) by her son. Gourdin, who had only just been released from prison at the time, had moved in just a few doors down

Gourdin has been in prison for much of the last four years after he was convicted of stabbing someone with a screwdriver in an unrelated case.

Gourdin has been in prison for much of the last four years after he was convicted of stabbing someone with a screwdriver in an unrelated case. He is pictured in his 2014 mugshot

In announcing the homicide charge on Monday, authorities revealed that Gourdin had tried to join a prison gang and told another inmate he had killed someone, Fox 13 reports.

The information was then passed onto investigators in charge of Perez's case.

'Much of what we had in the beginning pointed to Mr Gourdin,' said Utah County Deputy Attorney Lance Bastian.

'At this point we are confident to say he's the individual who committed this offense.'

Provo Police Chief Rich Ferguson said on Monday they had 'not forgotten about Belen Perez'.

'We have investigated this case carefully, and we have not stopped working to provide justice for her,' Ferguson said.

Gourdin was charged with one first-degree felony charge of homicide committed for pecuniary gain and is facing life in prison.
The wife of a Jamestown man who severed a hand while making sausages in his garage believes the quick actions of emergency responders likely saved his life but says her husband will still lose the hand.

Cel Schlafman said Tuesday that there is no chance that doctors will be able to reattach the left hand of her right-handed husband, Myron.

'They haven't closed the wound yet. The concern is for infection,' she said. 'Once they feel all the tissue is viable, they'll close him up.'

Cel Schlafman, the wife of Myron Schlafman (pictured), 69, who severed his hand while making sausage in his garage believes the quick actions of emergency responders likely saved his life but says her husband will still lose the hand

Myron, 69, was injured Friday afternoon while making sausage in his garage, something he has done for years, often using meat from hunting trips.

'He's got a little makeshift sausage kitchen out there,' said his wife, who was in the house at the time.

'He was just finishing up a batch, he went to take the mixer apart to wash it, and there was a piece of meat in there. He reached inside, and accidentally stepped on the pedal' activating the machine.

Emergency crews who responded to the scene applied a tourniquet to his arm and got him to the Jamestown hospital within minutes, according to police.

'It made a big difference, for sure' in stopping the blood flow and likely saving his life, Cel said.

Emergency responders also put the severed hand in a special package to keep it cool and free of contamination, but Cel said there is 'no chance, none' that it can be reattached.

'It was just one of those freak accidents,' she said. 'Life can change in a matter of minutes.'

Myron is now at a hospital in Fargo, a much larger city about 100 miles to the east of Jamestown. It's not known how long he'll be there.

'He tells me he's doing good, he's being taken care of,' said his mother, Martha Schlafman, also of Jamestown.

It is not yet known if he will be a candidate for a prosthetic, she said.
President Donald Trump has been steadfast regarding his position on undocumented immigrants, advising them not to 'come into our country illegally. It's not a good thing.'

Well, he smiled as he rubbed elbows with one of them during a picture opportunity.

Apparently, a business partner inside the Trump International Hotel in Washington has employed undocumented workers in the past.

Three undocumented immigrants opened up to Univision about their experience working at a restaurant inside the Trump International Hotel in D.C. Pictured left is one of the immigrants

The undocumented immigrant, whose image appears to match that of the one next to him on the photo, said she would laugh at him because he hated them 'but you have us here'

Three former employees who entered the United States without legal documentation spoke to Univision under the condition of anonymity about the practices they endured while working for a subcontractor, the BLT Prime By David Burke, one of the top steakhouses in the D.C. area.

One of the workers, who on camera appears to be a woman despite her identity being covered by the Spanish broadcast network, was lucky enough to have met the Donald during an outing.

However, she laughed off the President's ever present ill treatment towards undocumented immigrants, some who just so happened to be employed by a business associated with his own hotel.

'It just causes me to laugh seeing (him) and saying, you hate us so much but you have us here', the immigrant worker said.

This undocumented worker was afraid every time Trump visited the hotel

One worker lived in fear every time Trump visited the hotel.

Although they were lacking all of the legal papers to apply for the job titles, which weren't revealed, they all managed to navigate through the lax application process with no questions asked.

'At no moment did they asked you if you were legally in this country or if you had a work permit in this country', the same immigrant worker recalled.

'They don't ask us that. They just gave us an application.'

This undocumented worker says she was never told to furnish proof that the documents she presented were legally belonging to her

Another worker, who said she earned $12.50 an hour, was not surprised at how painstakingly free the entire hing process moved along.

'The documentation part was easy,' the undocumented immigrant said.

'They didn't tell me anything at any moment. They didn't tell me if (the documents) were rightfully mine.'

The restaurant did not deny to Univision that all three had been employed.

In a statement released to the Daily Mail, it maintained that the company followed all of the labor guidelines upon hiring staff.

BLT Prime by David Burke abides by all of the applicable laws and regulations for the hiring of all its employees. We maintain the integrity of these practices, through the implementation of appropriate hiring practices and management tools and take these matters seriously.
This is the moment rapper Post Malone is seen bracing himself for an emergency landing on a private plane in New York yesterday.

Video footage posted on Instagram by his manager Dre London shows passengers grabbing onto their legs in a brace position.

Two of the plane's landing tires had blown shortly after take-off as Post Malone and his crew were travelling to London, UK.

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Malone (pictured in red and white) and members of his entourage are pictured above preparing to land just moments before the plane made the safe emergency landing

Post Malone thanked fans who prayed for him and dissed those who 'wished death' on him on Tuesday. He is pictured above after getting off his private jet following an emergency landing in New York

The private jet, carrying the rapper and his 15-strong entourage, made a safe emergency landing after circling in the air for five hours to burn fuel.

The troubled plane landed at New York Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, about 70 miles north of New York City, on Tuesday at about 4pm.

Malone tweeted shortly after stepping from the plane: 'I landed guys. Thank you for your prayers.

'Can't believe how many people wished death on me on this website. F**k you. But not today'.

Speaking to TMZ after landing, Malone said: 'Oh, my God, I hate flying in general. I don't even know what to say, man. I'm shook.

'There was one hell of a team on that aircraft, and we're here, we're here on earth, and I need a beer, and I need some wine, at the same time, mixed together.'

Post Malone's jet made an emergency landing in New York on Tuesday at 4pm after blowing its tires taking off in New Jersey five hours earlier. The rapper is pictured above just moment after stepping off the plane

Malone's plane was en route to London early Tuesday when the pilot realized that the left main tires had blown (pictured after landing) shortly after takeoff at 10.50am from a small New Jersey airport

Malone tweeted shortly after stepping from the plane that he had landed safely and thanked people for their prayers

Malone's plane was en route to London early Tuesday when the pilot realized that the left main tires had blown shortly after takeoff at 10.50am from a small New Jersey airport.

The pilot circled the Teterboro Airport for about 30 minutes before the jet was diverted so it could burn fuel to make it safer in case the pilot needed to eventually crash land.

The Federal Aviation Administration initially said the plane would be landing at Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport in Westfield, Massachusetts before being re-routed to New York.

Flight trackers showed the plane circling over Connecticut shortly after 1pm before making its way towards the New York airport just before 3pm.

The plane had enough fuel to fly to London so was forced to circle for about five hours.

Flight trackers showed the plane circling over Connecticut (right of this map) shortly after 1pm before making its way towards the New York airport just before 3pm. His plane landed at 4pm

The troubled plane carrying Post Malone and his entourage landed safely (pictured above) at New York Stewart International Airport at about 4pm on Tuesday

Malone was spotted drinking water and smoking a cigarette soon after landing at New York Stewart International Airport

Fans of the face-tattooed singer flooded the New York airport and cheered when the flight eventually landed.

The Gulfstream IV jet was met by multiple fire crews and EMTs.

Malone performed at the VMA awards in New York on Monday night and took home the song of the year award for his hit Rockstar.

He was joined on stage by rockers Aerosmith and 21 Savage for a performance that closed out the awards show.

The 23-year-old boarded the plane bound for London just hours after his win and a heavy night of celebrating.

Instagram posts from his entourage showed them boarding the jet and taking off from the New Jersey airport.

Malone was flying to the UK ahead of his scheduled performance at the Reading and Leeds Festival in England over the weekend.

The plane carrying Post Malone (pictured on board prior to take off) made an emergency landing in New York on Tuesday at 4pm after blowing its tires taking off in New Jersey five hours earlier

The plane carrying the rapper and 15 other passengers left Teterboro Airport around 10.50am on Tuesday bound for London. Instagram posts showed the rapper (above in red carrying a pillow) boarding the jet Tuesday morning

Instagram posts from his entourage showed them on board the jet and taking off from the New Jersey airport prior to the incident
Hillary Clinton is stepping back into campaign mode this fall when she'll help rake in the cash for the Democratic Party at three high-profile fundraisers in Democratic strongholds.

The 2016 presidential nominee will host three 'intimate dinners with discussion' for the Democratic National Committee in San Francisco, Chicago and New York, NBC News reported.

The first is scheduled for San Francisco in September.

Hillary Clinton will host three fundraisers for the Democratic Party this fall

It's her biggest effort to date to help Democrats retake control of Congress

"There has never been a more important midterm election, and Secretary Clinton is going to do her part to lift up the next generation of leaders," her spokesman Nick Merrill said.

It's Clinton's biggest effort to date to help Democrats retake control of Congress this fall. She had kept a low profile in the 2018 midterm contests, making few endorsements and doing little campaigning.

And while the fundraisers will likely be closed to the press, they are some of the former secretary of state's most public plans for the upcoming contests.

She is also planning fundraisers for some women running for Congress in key races, a Democratic source to the news network.

There are a record number of women running for office this year.

Clinton may have kept a low-key physical presence in the 2018 contests but she's been used as a Republican boogeyman in many ads against Democrats, who are hoping her unpopularity will transfer to the candidates.

President Donald Trump has also kept her name in the foreground through is many tweets on the 'witch hunt' Russia investigation and questioning why investigators at not examining Clinton's campaign.

She's not the only prominent Democrat to help boost the party's coffers. Former President Barack Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder have headlined fundraisers.

The DNC has trailed the Republican National Committee in fundraising this year, having raised $110 million compared to the RNC's $213 million.

Obama named 81 candidates earlier this month that he is supporting in the midterms.

Clinton put her toe in the water earlier this year when she endorsed and made a robocall for Michigan House candidate Haley Stevens, who won that Democratic primary, earlier this month and Clinton hosted a closed-door fundraiser for Georgia House candidate Lucy McBath in July.

She's also donated to 19 Democratic House candidates through her political organization, Onward Together.
Russia's newest warship has been shadowed by the Royal Navy as it sailed through the English Channel.

Portsmouth-based minehunter HMS Hurworth and a Wildcat HMA2 helicopter from 815 Naval Air Squadron based at Yeovilton were scrambled to monitor the Admiral Makarov.

The 4,000-tonne Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate is the latest in a number of Russian warships to be watched over by the Royal Navy as they sail close to UK shores.

Russia's newest warship (pictured) has been shadowed by the Royal Navy as it sailed through the English Channel

The 4,000-tonne Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate (pictured) is the latest in a number of Russian warships to be watched over by the Royal Navy as they sail close to UK shores

How Putin's newest warship is a multi-purpose frigate loaded with cruise missiles and anti-aircraft firepower The Admiral Makarov is a 4,000-tonne Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate. It boasts a speed of 30 knots and sea endurance of 30 days. The vessel is armed with Kalibr-NK cruise missiles, the A-190 100mm artillery gun, antiaircraft artillery, and a rocket launcher. On top of this the impressive warship also has torpedoes and can carry a Kamov Ka-27 or Ka-31 deck-based helicopter. It is the third ship in a series of Project 11356 frigates developed by the Severnoye Design Bureau and built for the Black Sea Fleet. The first two ships of the series, Admiral Grigorovich and Admiral Essen were both used in Syria for its cruise missiles. It joined the Russian Fleet at the end of last year and was built in Kaliningrad. The warship was laid down at the Yantar Shipyard on February 29, 2012, and floated out on September 2, 2015. Advertisement

The commanding officer of the Royal Navy's aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth has spoken of the 'eye-watering' level of Russian naval activity in the Atlantic region in recent years.

Prior to setting sail from Portsmouth, Captain Jerry Kyd said: 'The increase in Russian activity we have seen in the last couple of years is frightening and for national security reasons it just underlines why we need to maintain a balanced, strong and able, capable fleet.'

A Royal Navy spokesman said: 'They are the latest Royal Navy assets to be activated over the summer to monitor the activity of Russian surface ships sailing in or close to the UK's sphere of interest.

'Patrol ship HMS Mersey, destroyer HMS Diamond and frigate Montrose have all been dispatched to observe Russian vessels passing the UK in the past two months.'

The RAF is also involved in monitoring Russian activity.

In January, two Russian Blackjack bombers were intercepted by the RAF over the North Sea.

Two RAF Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled from RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland.

But the Russian aircraft did not enter sovereign UK airspace.

The warship (pictured) was laid down at the Yantar Shipyard on February 29, 2012, and floated out on September 2, 2015

Portsmouth-based minehunter HMS Hurworth (pictured) and a Wildcat HMA2 helicopter from 815 Naval Air Squadron based at Yeovilton were scrambled to monitor the Admiral Makarov
Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has refused to allow an Italian coast guard boat to drop off 177 migrants it rescued in the Mediterranean.

The Diciotti vessel, which rescued the migrants from an overcrowded boat near the Island of Lampedusa five days ago, arrived at the port of Catania in Sicily overnight 'for a technical stopover'.

Mr Salvini was forced to allow the boat to dock but refused to let migrants onto land until the European Union committed to taking care of some of them.

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Matteo Salvini has refused to allow the Italian coast guard to drop off 177 migrants rescued near the island of Lampedusa (pictured)

The far-right minister was forced to allow the boat to dock overnight in Catania, Sicily for a 'technical stopover'

He said: 'Either Europe begins to seriously defend its borders and shares the relocation of immigrants, or we will start taking them back to the port that they left.

'Italy has already done its duty, and when it's too much, it's too much.'

Mr Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League, has threatened to return the migrants to Libya if other European countries do not participate in a solution.

The boat had been stuck 17 miles off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa since Thursday while Italy's populist government, in power since June, battled with Malta over who should take them in.

The Maltese government said the migrants refused the help of a Maltese boat because they wanted to reach Lampedusa.

The Diciotti vessel rescued almost 200 migrants 17 miles off the coast of Lampedusa island five days ago

But 13 of the migrants were taken to Lampedusa due to serious medical conditions (pictured, passengers aboard the Italian coast guard ship)

The Italian coast guard initially picked up 190 migrants on August 15, but 13 were taken to Lampedusa due to serious medical conditions, CNN reported.

The majority of migrants are from Eritrea in northeast Africa, with some from Bangladesh, Syria and Egypt.

The spat between Italy and Malta is the second in just over a month. It follows a fight over 450 rescued people who were eventually allowed to disembark in Italy after five European countries agreed to take 50 each.

Last week Malta allowed 141 migrants aboard the French NGO rescue vessel Aquarius to dock after an agreement to distribute them to a number of European countries.
General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and President of China Xi Jinping welcomes Politburo member Tran Quoc Vuong (Source: VNA)



So said General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and President of China Xi Jinping during a reception for Tran Quoc Vuong, Politburo member and permanent member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee, in Beijing, China, on August 20th.

The Chinese leader said he hopes that the two sides will continue to increase the exchange of high-level delegations, intensify mutual political trust, enhance strategic connectivity and promote humanitarian exchanges, thus developing the relationship between the two Parties and nations stably and healthily in the coming time.

The continuous nurture and consolidation of the neighbourliness and friendship between the two Parties and countries is of strategic significance to each side, Xi said.

He noted with pleasure the great achievements the Vietnamese Party, State, and people have recorded during the reform process, voicing his belief that the Vietnamese people, under the leadership of the CPV, would successfully complete the targets and tasks set in the 12th National Party Congresss Resolution.

For his part, Vuong congratulated the Chinese Party, State, and people on the successful organisation of the 19th National Party Congress and the first sessions of the 13th National Peoples Congress and the 13th National Committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference.

The official expressed his belief that under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Xi as the core, the Chinese people would firmly reap greater achievements in the cause of socialist building and reform.

He held that the active progress has been made in relations between the two Parties and nations across many fields, noting the first-ever exchange of visits by their top leaders in the same year in 2017.

Vietnam highly evaluated Xis selection of Vietnam as the first country he paid a State visit to, as well as his attendance at the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Vietnams central Da Nang city right after the 19th National Party Congress, Vuong said.

He called on the two sides to effectively realise the perceptions reached by senior leaders of the two Parties and countries, while continuing to strengthen political trust, improving the efficiency of existing cooperation mechanisms, properly handling maritime issues, maintaining the development trend of bilateral ties, and ensuring peace and stability in the region.

Also on August 20th, Vuong held talks with Wang Huning, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee.

They briefed each other on the situation of their respective Parties and countries, and reviewed some of the past achievements and shortcomings in Vietnam-China relations.

The two officials also discussed measures to fully and seriously implement agreements and common perceptions reached by senior leaders of the two Parties and nations, and to satisfactorily settle sea-related issues, thus improving the efficiency of practical and mutually-beneficial cooperation in different fields.

During his five-day visit, starting on August 19th, Vuong had working sessions with several agencies under the CPC Central Committee on issues of mutual concern, and visited the Vietnamese Embassy in China./.
Sharon Moore had heard the stories about her father getting his duffel bag stolen on his way back from the Korean War. The New Hampshire woman never expected to see any of the contents.

In July, Moore received a Facebook friend request from a stranger in France. She deleted it. But, the person responded with a Facebook message asking for help in finding the owner of a lost wallet.

Attached were several black-and-white pictures, including one of her mother as a young woman, and another of her aunt, as well as a tattered Social Security card and Massachusetts driver's license.

'I immediately saw my dad's driver's license and my mother's photo. I knew it was my dad's wallet,' Moore said of her father, Robert McCusker, who died a day before her 20th birthday in 1983. 'I couldn't believe it. Really, my dad's wallet after all these years? It was just weird.'

The lost wallet of Robert McCusker, a war veteran who served in World War II and Korea, is displayed with its contents on a kitchen table in Dover, New Hampshire

The brown leather wallet was found in the basement of a building in Chatellerault, France, a small city about 185 miles southwest of Paris. Workers had tossed it out, but the building's owner, Patrick Caubet, noticed it on a pile of gravel and was drawn to the half-dozen photographs and what looked like official documents.

On closer inspection, he saw a field ration permit dated September 1950 belonging to Cpl. Robert S. McCusker, as well as McCusker's Social Security card and other military documents.

It was unclear how the wallet ended up in the building, although Moore said Caubet had heard that the building once was a social club for American officers and that officers might also have stayed there.

'The photographs made it very sentimental and personal, and really gave me the desire to find the family they belonged to,' said Caubet, who works in communications for the French military.

Sharon McCusker Moore and her brother Steven McCusker pose with their father's long lost wallet. Robert McCusker, a war veteran who served in World War II and Korea

'My grandfather and father were also in the war,' he said, adding that his grandfather had been injured by a shell in World War II and his father suffered serious burns in the Algerian War. 'I would have loved it if someone had found papers or other things belonging to them and sent them to me.'

Caubet, who was interviewed in French, found a friend who spoke English and together they found an obituary for Moore's mother, Jean McKenney McCusker, who died in 2014.

They went in search of his surviving relatives listed in the obituary, first posting the wallet's contents on Caubet's Facebook page. That prompted some replies from friends, including one who surmised that the wallet's owner was possibly 'a soldier who fell in love with a French woman.'

They tried contacting the Pentagon and the U.S. Embassy in Paris, but got nowhere. Then, Caubet sought the help of a French military office in Paris, which tracked down the names of McCusker's children in just days. Caubet found Moore on Facebook last month and shortly after the wallet was headed to Dover, New Hampshire.

Sharon's father, Robert lost his wallet almost 65 years ago in France. It was found at a construction site and returned to his family in New Hampshire. She says her father would have been 'floored' by the whole story

'She was so happy to know there was this trace of her father,' Caubet said. 'She was almost ready to come to France with her brother to get the wallet. But I told her I could send it. I was so afraid it would get lost in the mail. But it arrived in less than a week. I was so happy.'

When the package arrived, Moore and her brother, Steven McCusker, filmed themselves opening the wallet and emailed the video to Caubet, so he could share in their joy.

For Moore and her relatives, the wallet represents another part of a father who rarely talked about his time at war. He also fought in World War II, forging a birth certificate at the age of 15 and running off to the Merchant Marine. He then re-enlisted for the Korean conflict and received a Purple Heart after he was injured in a grenade attack.

Moore gave the wallet to her brother, Steven, who also lives in Dover, because she already has her father's Purple Heart, his dog tags and the flag from his coffin on display in her home. The family also sent Caubet a gift basket featuring maple syrup from her backyard, some of the candy her father enjoyed and a New England Patriots jersey.

'It's just amazing. It's just amazing. To hold something he held every day, there are just no words,' Moore said, adding that her father would have been 'floored by the whole story and just thankful and grateful, especially because it was a soldier that helped get it back to us.'
The father of murdered Shanann Watts wept silently but uncontrollably as he watched his son-in-law face nine felony charges in court on Tuesday morning.

Frank Rzucek, 55, broke down in tears as Judge Marcelo Kopcow read out the charges against Christopher Watts, that include three counts of first degree murder, two of murdering children in his trust, one of terminating a pregnancy and three of tampering with bodies.

Rzucek's son Frankie, 32, put his hand on his father's back in support as the older man's face leaned forward in his seat and cried.

At the end of the 18-minute hearing in Greeley, Colorado, Rzucek Senior stared down Christopher Watts as he was led from the court by prison officers.

Watts, 33, whose hands and legs were shackled did not lift his head to acknowledge his father-in-law as he shuffled out of the third-floor courtroom.

Christopher Watts, 33, was charged with nine felony counts - including three counts of first degree murder - on Tuesday morning

Frank Rzucek, 55, the father of murdered Shanann Watts broke down in tears as Judge Kopcow read the charges against his son-in-law

At the end of the 18-minute hearing in Ruczek, pictured with his son Frankie (right) stared down Christopher Watts as he was led from the court by prison officers

Watts answered, 'Yes sir,' several times in a barely audible voice as Judge Kopcow read the charges to him. He was not required to enter a plea.

He will next appear in court on November 19.

Watts is accused of murdering his 15-week pregnant wife Shanann and their two daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, at their home in Frederick, Colorado last week.

Judge Kopcow told him that if found guilty of the murder charges he could face the death penalty and in any case will never see life outside of prison.

District Attorney Michael Rourke has nine weeks to decide whether to seek execution.

According to an affidavit unsealed on Monday, Watts claimed that he had been having an affair with a workmate at Anadarko Oil and he told his wife he wanted to separate after she returned home following a business trip to Arizona.

He claimed he then left the bedroom and when he returned he watched on the baby monitor as Shanann strangled Celeste. Bella, he claimed, was already lying on the bed, dead.

He became enraged, he claimed, and strangled Shanann. He then bundled the bodies into his truck and drove 35 miles to a windswept plain outside Roggen, Colorado, where he buried his wife in a shallow grave and dumped his two daughters into a tank filled with crude oil.

But investigators do not believe his version and say he killed all three.

Watts remained emotionless in court as the charges were read against him. He answered, 'Yes sir,' several times in a barely audible voice

Watts was last week arrested for murdering his wife Shanann and their two young daughters

A lone protester stood outside the court on Tuesday waving a placard. Andrew O'Connor, an attorney from Lafayette, Colorado, told DailyMail.com that Anadarko had to share the blame for the murders.

'Wherever Anadarko does business, murders, aggravated assaults, rapes, STDs and human trafficking all go up,' claimed O'Connor.

'What Chris Watts did to his wife and kids, Anadarko is doing to my community.'

According to the affidavit, Watts told cops he had seen Bella turned blue and sprawled out on her bed as Shanann was 'actively strangling' Celeste.

'Chris said he went into a rage and ultimately strangled Shanann to death,' the affidavit reads.

'Chris said he loaded all three bodies onto the back seat of his work truck and took them to an oil work site.'

After a two-day investigation, police discovered that Watts 'was actively involved in an affair with a co-worker' - something he had initially denied.

He later told police where he had hidden the bodies and they found a bed sheet near the oil tanks that matched other linens in the house.

A lone protester stood outside the court on Tuesday waving a placard. He told DailyMail.com that Anadarko, the petroleum company where Watts worked, had to share the blame for the murders

Christopher Watts was seen being taken in and out of court in a white van

Watts could face the death penalty and in any case will never see life outside of prison if convicted

His claim that it was Shanann who killed his daughters is likely the reason that his court-appointed defense lawyer Megan Ring had asked for DNA swabs to be taken from the girls' necks.

Police had originally been notified that Shanann was missing by her workmate Nickole Atkinson, who had been on a business trip to Arizona with her, returning early in the morning on August 13.

Christopher was formally charged Monday with nine felony counts - including unlawfully terminating a pregnancy.

He was also charged with three counts of first degree murder, two counts of first degree murder of a child under 12 while in a position of trust and three counts of tampering with bodies.

District attorney Michael Rourke said he had not decided on whether to seek the death penalty in the case that has shocked the nation. Watts, 33, is due in court in Greeley, Colorado, on Tuesday morning.

The charges come exactly one week after Watts had reported his wife and children missing.

Shanann Watts, 34, and her two daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, disappeared from their home in Frederick, Colorado last week.

He even went on local television to plead for them to return home even though he already knew they were dead, police say.

Since then, as inmate number 18-12255, he has been held at Weld County Jail on the outskirts of Greeley. He is being kept away from other prisoners for his own safety, according to Fox News.

Shanann's body was discovered on Wednesday two days after she disappeared from the family's five-bed, four-bath home in Frederick, Colorado, 30 miles north of Denver. She was 15 weeks pregnant with a boy the couple intended to call Nico.

She was in found in a shallow grave dug on land owned by the oil company Anadarko, where her husband worked as an operator.

The bodies of the couple's two daughters, Bella and her younger sister Celeste were found the following day submerged in cans of crude oil nearby.

Shanann's father made an emotional appearance Monday to thank everyone involved in arresting his son-in-law.

Shanann's father Frank Rzucek (right) spoke to reporters at a press conference. Rzucek's son Frankie, 32, (left) also appeared at the press conference but did not speak

In an affidavit unsealed late Monday, Watts claimed that he watched on the baby monitor as his pregnant wife killed one of the two daughters she had struggled so desperately to conceive

The case has drawn national media attention to the town of Frederick, as well as hundreds of flowers and toys from friends and strangers

Frank Rzucek teared up as he spoke briefly to reporters at a press conference in the courthouse in Greeley, Colorado.

'I'd like to thank everyone in the Frederick Police Department and all the agencies involved for working so hard to find my daughter, granddaughters and Nico,' Ruczek, 55, said between sobs.

'I'd like to thank everyone for coming to the candlelight vigil and saying all your prayers. They are gratefully appreciated  and keep the prayers coming for our family,' added Rzucek.

Rzucek's son Frankie, 32, also appeared at the press conference but did not speak.

Since the bodies were found, well-wishers have left several hundred soft toys, along with dozens of flowers, candles and balloons in the front yard of the $400,000 house on Saratoga Trail in Frederick that the couple bought in 2013.

Despite the image of a blissfully happy marriage that Shanann projected through frequent Facebook posts, in which she called her husband her 'rock', friends of the couple, who are both originally from North Carolina, have suggested they were having marriage problems.

Nick and Amanda Thayer said Shanann had told them she thought her husband was cheating and on Monday Atkinson, who had dropped Shanann off at her home after the two had been on a business trip to Arizona told Good Morning America that after his wife had disappeared, Christopher had told her they were planning to separate.

Mourners are seen Sunday at the family home where police say the murders were committed

Atkinson, 37, said in the weeks previous to her friend's murder the couple had not seemed quite so loving, but that Shanann had not told her they were considering splitting.

'I didn't find out that they were going to separate or anything like that until I called Chris that morning. When I called him and asked him where she was, that's when he told me and I basically told him that that wasn't my (concern) at that particular moment.'

Atkinson, who believes she is the last person apart from the killer to have seen Shanann alive, said she thought all along that Watts had killed his family as he did not seem concerned after she couldn't get in contact with her colleague and friend.

'He just kept saying that he didn't know where she was and that she was on a playdate,' she told ABC's Clayton Sandell. 'But he couldn't give us the name of the friend.

'I knew he had something to do with it the day I was at his house with him, but I didn't want to think that.

'Anyone in their right mind will start piecing things together and think something had happened, but you don't want to go there. You want to believe the best in people,' added Atkinson.

'He was defending himself, but it just didn't make sense. Like in that moment it is kind of surreal. He was just sitting there waiting for something to happen; it just didn't seem right to me.'

Chris and Shanann Watts were also known to live well beyond their means and have had money problems. They filed for bankruptcy in 2015 owing some $70,000, and were due in court on Friday this week after their homeowners' association had sued them for an unpaid bill of $1,533.80.

Shanann suffered from lupus, an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks its own healthy cells. Her brother Frankie said on Facebook that because of the disease she had had to 'beat the odds' to get pregnant.

But things had started to look up for them after Shanann landed a well-paid job with Le-Vel, a nutrition supplement company, which involved her making frequent business trips, leaving her husband at home with their children.

Investigators have said all along that they believe the 5ft 10in, 225lb, Watts had killed his family in their home and transported them to the windswept high prairie land that he had intended would be their final resting place.
A British backpacker was raped and robbed after having her drink spiked on the same Thai island where tourist Hannah Witheridge was murdered.

The girl, who cannot be named, had travelled with friends from London to the notorious island of Koh Tao in June.

She had a drink in the Fishbowl Bar on Sairee Beach before visiting the Leo Bar - close to where the bodies of Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were found four years ago.

A British backpacker was raped and robbed after her drink was spiked on the notorious Koh Tao Island in June (pictured)

The victim passed out shortly after drinking at the bar, and later woke up on the beach with no shorts or underwear on next to a man, the Samui Times reported.

The man, who was reportedly smiling, then left the scene.

A friend also reported seeing the same man checking up on her as she left the bar that evening.

The girl left the island following her assault on June 26 and attempted to report her ordeal to the Koh Phangan police. Officers reportedly refused to take any details of the alleged rape.

The girl passed out shortly after drinking from Leos Bar, and woke up undressed on a beach next to a man (file photo)

The girls mother contacted the Fishbowl Bar and was told the CCTV cameras were not working on the night of the assault.

Fears over the safety of the idyllic Koh Tao island were heightened after the murder of Hannah Witheridge, 23, from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk and David Miller, 24, from Jersey in 2014.

Four other Western tourists, including three more Britons, died on the island in the two years following their deaths and the family of some of the deceased accused local police of not investigating the deaths properly.

Koh Tao has become a huge draw for young backpackers thanks to its stunning beaches and cheap accommodation - so much so that as many as 750,000 Britons visit each year.

The location of the assault was very close to where the bodies of Hannah Witheridge (left) and David Miller (right) were found in 2014

But on September 15 2014, the island's community was left reeling after the battered bodies of Ms Witheridge and Mr Miller were found on Sairee Beach.

Ms Witheridge had been savagely raped and beaten to death and Mr Miller had been beaten unconscious and left to drown in the incoming tide.

Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo were sentenced to death for the killings. But although Mr Miller's family called the verdict 'justice', the trial of the two Burmese migrant workers was plagued by accusations of human rights abuses.

The men, apprehended soon after the pair's bodies were found, initially confessed to the crime only to retract their statements amid claims they were extracted by torture.
A video of an 11-year-old student crying after being pulled out of class for wearing braided hair extensions to a Louisiana school has sparked outrage.

The clip shows Faith, who is the niece of music artist and Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta star Vanity Tokyo, absolutely distraught as she's reprimanded for her look on the first day back at Christ The King Parish School in Gretna on Monday. She has attended the school for two years,

Her brother Steven Fennidy shared the clip on his Facebook page, noting that wearing extensions in her hair was nothing new for Faith or the school.

However, the problem arose when the private school changed the policy over the summer break.

'I hate that I have to post this. But this just isn't right. This is an issue we tried to resolve with the school, but they won't compromise at all. My sister Faith and many little black girls wear extensions,' he captioned the video which shows the family walking out of the school building with the visibly upset student.

'She's been attending this school for two years and wearing extensions. Over the summer the school has sneakily added in a policy, that no extensions, clip-ins or weaves are allowed.'

Fennidy noted that the school is just one of many that are quick to make decisions, likely without consulting students and parents how it may affect them.

In this case, he mentioned that the protective hair style is especially important to his younger sibling so she doesn't have as difficult a time caring for her hair after using the swimming pool.

Chlorinated water strips the hair of its natural oils but twists knots and braids, among other things, can help prevent absorption of the bacteria-killing chemical.

A video of an 11-year-old student crying after being pulled out of class for wearing braided hair extensions to school is going viral today

The clip shows Faith, who had been attending Christ The King Parish School in Gretna, Louisiana for two years, absolutely distraught as she's reprimanded for her look

'Faith got a notice on the first day of class and it's ridiculous that these schools that we are PAYING for, will go in and make policies without consulting or trying to figure out how this will affect your life or your child's life,' he continued in the post.

'Extensions make the hair easier to maintain. It allows my sister to have access to the swimming pool without having to get her hair Re-done every night. How do you make a policy without even having a discussion.'

When speaking about the response Principal Dawn Castillo gave the family, he compared her concern to how hair was not an issue when he was a high school student.

Fennidy mentioned that the protective hair style is especially important to his younger sibling so she doesn't have as difficult a time caring for her hair after using the swimming pool

Faith's parents are reported to be filing a lawsuit for discrimination against the school

Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta star, Vanity Tokyo, and says her niece was 'humiliated'

'It's because you don't care and it's just one more barrier to entry for black people. This decision is going to affect black children more than white children,' he added, urging people to share the video.

'All the principal could say was, 'They're swinging it and things like that...' My entire middle and high school career I was in private school I sat behind a million white girls who would play in their hair. Re-do their pony tails a million times a day. Nothing was ever said.

'She kept saying the issue is it's not their natural hair. It's a style that we are not allowing. It's not uniform. WOW. This is Christ The King Middle School in Gretna, Louisiana. This has all just been very upsetting.'

He's not the only one who believes the way the situation was handled was without consideration for black lives.

Well-known names have helped spread the word via their social media accounts.

Faith's aunt Tokyo took to Instagram to say that her niece was 'humiliated', prompting rapper, T.I. to share the post with his approximately 8 million followers.

Asking whether the school generally had an issue with black people's hair, the star - whose real name is Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. - encouraged girls in a similar position to recognize their beauty and 'DONT LET THEM WIN!!!'

Faith's brother said the entire ordeal with the school had been very upsetting for his family

Vanity Tokyo shared the video with her one million followers on Instagram

Shaun King, co-founder of Real Justice, an organisation 'working to elect reform-minded prosecutors who are committed to using the powers of their office to fight structural racism' encouraged people to fight back by posting the school's number and email address on his Twitter account, which has approximately 1 million followers.

He labelled it 'Christianity as White Supremacy' and called the attack on the child's self-esteem the 'New Jim Crow'.

The parent/student handbook for 2018-2019, says that 'Hair (including cuts, colors, and styles) should not interfere with the learning process or values being upheld at Christ the King School'.

T.I. shared the post with his approximately 8 million followers, asking whether the school generally had an issue with black people's hair

T.I. told girls in a similar position to recognize their beauty and 'DONT LET THEM WIN!!!'

Shaun King, co-founder of Real Justice, an organisation 'working to elect reform-minded prosecutors' called it 'Christianity as White Supremacy'

King said the event was an attack on the child's self-esteem and labelled it the 'New Jim Crow'

Students are given a time (a discretion) to modify the style or are suspended until they comply. However, it's believed Faith's family opted to take her from the school on Monday after trying to reason got them nowhere.

Archdiocese of New Orleans, RaeNell Houston, gave a statement saying: 'The policy was communicated to all parents during the summer and again before the first day of school'

According to Eyewitness News, the Archdiocese of New Orleans, RaeNell Houston, gave a statement saying: 'The policy was communicated to all parents during the summer and again before the first day of school, and was applied to all students.

'Furthermore, the school leadership worked with families as needed to ensure compliance. We remain committed to being a welcoming school community that celebrates our unity and diversity.'

However, the publication reports Faith's mother and father told them they had previously attended a parent-teacher meeting and received no complaints about the same hairstyle at the time.

The child's parents are said to be meeting with an attorney to consider filing a discrimination lawsuit against the school.

Daily Mail was not able to get a response from Christ The King Parish School on Tuesday despite repeated calls to reach out for comment.

The school later removed the contents of their Facebook page.
A 59-year-old New Jersey father discovered he had a long lost daughter, 40, after using a DNA home testing kit to learn more about his family history.

John Gonsalves used an Ancestry DNA kit given to him as a birthday present by his other daughter, Robin, 21, to find out more about his European ancestors. But to his astonishment it identified his long-lost daughter, Jeanie Siciliano.

'It's just as exciting to me to have a daughter who's 40 years old as one that's only one-month old,' Gonsalves told CBS News.

John Gonsalves (left) used an Ancestry DNA kit given to him as a birthday present by his other daughter, Robin, to find out more about his European ancestors. But to his astonishment it identified his long-lost daughter, Jeanie Siciliano (right)

Siciliano was born in 1977 after a relationship John had at high school, and adopted two months later.

She had long wondered who her biological parents were, and two decades ago managed to track down her birth mother, but not her father. Her birth mother, Gonsalves' wife, died several years ago.

The break came when she submitted her details to Ancestry DNA, which then matched her genetic profile with that her father had submitted.

Astonishingly, both Gonsalves and Siciliano lived three miles apart from more than a decade and went to the same grocery store.

'When I first opened my AncestryDNA.com results and John's name came up and underneath it, it said "father", and I was, like, "Holy cannoli this guy is my biological father. Oh my gosh."'

Gonsalves was also at first skeptical, and admitted that when he received a letter from Siciliano he thought it was a scam.

But he soon realized the results were accurate and arranged a meet-up with both of his daughter two months later.

Siciliano was born in 1977 after a relationship John had at high school, and adopted two months later. They are seen embracing after meeting this week

Robin (left) also met Siciliano, her sister, alongside her father John during the emotional meeting

'I get to chat with my daughters. It's no longer singular. It's plural!' he said.

Robin said she was pleased at being able to give her father 'the gift of another daughter' for his birthday.

'I knew that he wanted it, and I never know what to get him and he had been talking about it  So I gave him the gift of another child basically for his birthday,' she said.

It is unclear who Siciliano's adopted parents are.
Vermont's transgender gubernatorial candidate says she's been getting a steady stream of death threats and other personal attacks since her candidacy began to gain traction.

Christine Hallquist, who won Vermont's Democratic gubernatorial primary last week, says the threats began before the primary when people across the country and the world started to pay attention to her campaign.

Hallquist is the first openly transgender person to win a major party nomination to run for governor.

She says the threats have been reported to the Vermont State Police and the FBI.

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Christine Hallquist, who won Vermont's Democratic gubernatorial primary last week, says the threats began before the primary when people across the country and the world started to pay attention to her campaign. She is pictured speaking at a Vermont Democratic Unity Rally on August 15

As a result of the threats, Hallquist says her campaign isn't publicizing her appearances or the location of her campaign office.

Hallquist says she's not surprised by the threats. She says it's a 'natural outcome of our divided country.'

Christine transitioned from David in 2015. For years beforehand he had worked as the CEO of a Vermont utility company

Before transitioning, Christine was Dave, a married, father and CEO of a Vermont utility company.

She revealed that she was transgender while filming a documentary for her son Derek in 2015.

The documentary is called Denial. It was critically acclaimed upon its release.

Christine remains married to Pat, her spouse and the mother of her three children. The pair also have two grandchildren.

Vermont is a reliably Democratic state but its current governor, Phil Scott, is Republican.

He is seeking reelection and will go up against Hallquist in November's guvernatorial election.
This is the shocking moment a Ukranian missile launching vehicle spins out of control at a parade dress rehearsal - smashing into a storefront.

Kyiv is preparing to hold a large-scale military parade showcasing Ukraines military strength on Independence Day.

This moment shows the moment the dress rehearsal for Friday went terribly wrong, as a missile carrier careered into an office building surrounded by people.

The Buk missile carrier was developed in the Soviet Union and is still in operation in Ukraine

The missile carrier (pictured) careered into a concrete wall of an Astaria store in Kiev, Ukraine

Horrified onlookers watched as the vehicle, loaded with four missiles, smashed into the store in Kiev on Saturday - but there have been no reported injuries.

But it isn't known if the carrier - which can seat up to four soldiers - had any injuries to its occupants.

Reports in Ukraine suggest the carrier was actually being towed, and not moving under its own power. Reports also suggest the incident took place at about 8.40 pm local time.

The incident sparked a flurry of activity on social media in Ukraine with one user, Vlad Vash, writing on Facebook: 'Heres a parade for you! First, a tank nearly hit me but was able to stop. Following it (a Buk) also nearly ran over us and drove into an office building.'

The self-contained, road-mobile, medium-range SAM is most notorious for shooting down Malaysian Airlines flight 17 over Eastern Ukraine in 2014 - killing 298.

The missile system remains in service in a number of configurations in dozens of countries around the world, including China, Pakistan and Egypt.

In this case, the loaded carrier was of Ukrainian origin.

Crowds gathered to watch the parade in Ukraine's capital, Kiev on Saturday evening

Spectators initially fled the scene before crowding around the missile carrier to take pictures

The incident occurred on August 18th, 2018 during a practice run for Ukraine's Independence Day parade in Kiev.

As people look on and use video camera to record the practice run the missile carrier swings out of control and crashes.

People can then be seen gasping and running away from the scene. One woman was holding a young child as a loud bang is heard.

The clunking metal beast labelled '805' seems to be the only carrier of a convoy that loses control.

Police can be seen arriving with a fire engine as people crowd around the stricken SAM taking videos and pictures.
From Iowa in the United State, to Kazan in Russia, Muslims have gathered around the world to mark the Eid al-Adha holiday with prayers and slaughtering of cattle, sheep and goats.

Commemorating the willingness of Ibrahim, or Abraham, to sacrifice his son on God's command, animals are killed so the meat can be shared among family and friends, and also donated to the poor.

Muslims around the world have spent today marking the Eid al-Adha holiday, gathering at mosques or in vast open sites to celebrate one of the two most important festivals of the Islamic calendar.

Muslim Hajj pilgrims pray around the holy Kaaba at the Grand Mosque on the first day of Eid al Adha in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, August 21, 2018

As with tradition, Muslim women stand separately during prayers during the Eid al-Adha Ei at the Tax Slayer Center in Moline, Illinois on Tuesday August 21, 2018. Close to 900 attended the festival of sacrifice, which marks the end of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and commemorates prophet Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son to show obedience to God

Muslims pray to mark Eid el-Kebir, also known as Eid al-Adha, outside a mosque in Koumassi district in Abidjan, Ivory Coast

The official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) handout photo shows Syrian first lady Asma Assad visiting a cancer patient at the Basma Association that cares about children suffering of cancer on the first day of Eid al-Adha in Harasta suburb of Damascus, Syria

People prepare to sacrifice animals during Eid al-Adha celebrations in Istanbul, Turkey. Muslims slaughter sacrificial animals and split the meat into three parts, one for the family, one for friends and relatives, and one for the poor and needy

Malian children wash a goat in a river on the eve of the Islamic Festival of Eid al-Adha in Bamako

More than two million Muslims took part in the symbolic stoning of the devil in Saudi Arabia, the last major ritual of the Hajj pilgrimage that heralds the start of the Eid al-Adha feast.

Muslims on the annual pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam, made their way across the Mina valley of the western Saudi Arabian Mecca province, many carrying pebbles in plastic bottles.

Clad in white, they threw seven stones each at a pillar symbolising Satan, shouting 'Allahu akbar' ('God is greatest') under the watchful eyes of security forces.

Large fans sprayed water over the crowd as temperatures climbed to 111F (44C).

'Thank God it hasn't been too crowded this year. There hasn't been a big rush,' said Mohammed Osman, 27, who regularly attends Hajj.

Muslim Hajj pilgrims pray around the holy Kaaba at the Grand Mosque on the first day of Eid al-Adha in Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Muslim pilgrims walk back to their tents during the annual Haj pilgrimage on the first day of Eid al-Adha in Mina, outside the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia

In Kazan, Russia: Selling sheep on Eid al-Adha, also known as the Feast of the Sacrifice

People butcher cattle which were sacrificed during Eid al-Adha celebrations in Istanbul

Palestinians visited the compound known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City, following morning prayers marking the first day of the Eid al-Adha celebration.

In Syria, President Bashar Al-Assad attended prayers at a mosque in Damascus.

The festival was also celebrated across Africa and Asia.

In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, thousands gathered in a field for mass prayers; the faithful also met in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, and prayed at Almaty's Central Mosque in Kazakhstan.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (centre) and Syrian Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddin Hassun (right) praying at a mosque in the capital Damascus on the first day of Eid al-Adha

Quad-City area Muslim males pray during Eid al-Adha Ei at the Tax Slayer Center in Moline, Illinois

Muslims around the world have spent today marking the Eid al-Adha holiday, gathering at mosques or in vast open sites to celebrate one of the two most important festivals of the Islamic calendar

People shop at a market ahead of the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Adha in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir

People pray outside a mosque in the start of the Eid al-Adha, or 'Feast of Sacrifice', a feast celebrated by Muslims worldwide, in Istanbul, on Tuesday

For those who took part in the symbolic stoning of the devil in Saudi Arabia, authorities ensured reinforced safety and security measures were in place, as Mina was the site of a 2015 stampede which saw more than 2,300 pilgrims crushed or suffocated to death.

'We are under God's protection,' said May Khalifa, a 37-year-old Egyptian Muslim living in Riyadh.

'Despite the exhaustion, I'm enjoying my first hajj,' she said, lifting her small bag of stones.

The Hajj is one of the world's largest Muslim gatherings and drew this year nearly 2.4 million pilgrims to Saudi holy sites.

In Kazan, Russia: Selling sheep on Eid al-Adha, also known as the Feast of the Sacrifice

Sheep, cattle and goats are killed so the meat can be shared among family and friends, and also donated to the poor

Kyrgyz men skin sheep during Eid al-Adha celebrations in the village of Kok-Jare outside Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

People try to hold down a cow ahead of sacrificing it on the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday on August 21, 2018, in the Adjame neighbourhood of Abidjan. Muslims across the world have been celebrating the annual festival which marks the end of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and commemorates prophet Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son to show obedience to God

Roads from Muzdalifah - another holy site where pilgrims spent Monday night - to Mina were littered with plastic water bottles as sanitation workers scrambled to remove them.

Bangladeshi Moueeneddine Ahmed, 35, complained of the scorching heat but said he was 'very excited' to take part in the stoning of the devil ritual.

In keeping with customs he said he would then 'shave his head' and trade the white seamless robe he wore for the Hajj for his 'normal clothes'.

Ahmed also praised the Saudi government for keeping the peace throughout the hajj. 'There's a lot of security. Very disciplined,' he said.

Bangladeshi homebound passengers gather on ferries as they travel to villages at Sadarghat launch terminal in Dhaka, Bangladesh, for Eid al-Adha

People scramble to reach the roof of an overcrowded train at a station in Dhaka as Muslims across the world celebrated the annual festival of Eid al-Adha

Tens of thousands of security forces, including police and civil defence, have been deployed for Hajj, according to Saudi authorities.

Saudi Arabia's King Salman made the trip to Mina on Tuesday and was seen on state-run television observing worshippers from the window of a high-rise.

The king, who took to Twitter to say it was a 'great honour' to welcome the pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, later paid homage to Saudi soldiers in a televised speech.

'On this day, we must remember our martyrs and heroes, who gave their lives to protect their faith and country,' the king said, in an apparent reference to the war in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia leads a regional military alliance battling Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen, where more than three years of war have killed thousands and triggered what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The Hajj retraces the steps of the Prophet Mohammed on his last pilgrimage to Mecca.

It is one of the five pillars of Islam which every Muslim is required to complete at least once in their lifetime if they are healthy enough and have the means to do so.

Muslim tradition holds that pilgrims must throw seven stones each at a pillar representing Satan on the first day of Eid al-Adha, which comes after two days of prayer and meditation.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (second from left)and Syrian Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddin Hassun (second from right) at a mosque in the capital Damascus on the first day of Eid al-Adha

Quad-City area Muslim men kneel in prayer during the Eid al-Adha Ei at the Tax Slayer Center in Moline, Illinois

As with tradition Muslim women stand separately during prayers during the Eid al-Adha Ei at the Tax Slayer Center in Moline, United States

The stoning ritual is not without risk, as millions of pilgrims converge on a tight space.

Since 2004, authorities have expanded the site and replaced the pillar by walls to accommodate the growing number of pilgrims, who can now reach Mina via multiple bridges.

Muslims traditionally slaughter sheep for the three-day Eid al-Adha, a tribute to the prophet Abraham's sacrifice of a lamb after God spared Ishmael, his son.

They will consume some of the meat and give the rest to poor people unable to buy food.

Pilgrims can purchase coupons from the Saudi government, which organises the slaughter and freezing of the meat to avoid public health problems.

Revenues from the coupons are considered 'zakat', or a charity donation, another pillar of Islam.

In Syria, President Bashar Assad attended prayers for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha in Damascus, the seat of his power.

State-run television showed Mr Assad saluting worshippers as he arrived at the al-Rawda mosque and various footage of him praying and talking to people following prayers.

It is the first Eid al-Adha since Syrian troops, backed by Russia, recaptured suburbs of Damascus earlier this year and areas in southern Syria previously held by rebels.

In recent years, Mr Assad has often travelled outside Damascus to towns and villages recaptured from rebels or Islamic State fighters to attend holiday prayers there.

With crucial military support from allies Russia and Iran, Mr Assad's troops have recaptured most rebel strongholds across the country.

The northern province of Idlib is the last major remaining opposition bastion.
A grandfather has described how he and his pedigree dog were showered with corrosive liquid by robbers in a botched pet kidnapping.

Two men threw industrial cleaning fluid concealed in an Irn-Bru bottle at the 64-year-old as he walked his short-haired German pointer Alfie, who is thought to be worth 3,000, on Sunday morning.

Michael, a tiler who did not want his surname published amid fears he could be targeted again, said he could have been blinded had he not shielded his face as his body blistered like hell.

A grandfather, Michael (pictured, who wished for him and his pet not to be fully identified), has described how he and his German pointer were showered with corrosive liquid by robbers in a botched pet kidnapping

The dog managed to escape but suffered burns to his back  while Michaels wife Gabrielle, 66, was last night awaiting surgery after having a heart attack shortly after the assault in Boughton Monchelsea, Kent.

Michael said: The first man was big and fat, about 6ft 2in  he just grabbed Alfie by the collar and was wrestling with him.

'Alfies only ten months old but hes a big strong dog, about 31kg [5st], and he managed to knock this guy over somehow, I think he tripped him. I was more concerned about the dog than anything else, so I went over to try and free him.

It was at this point the second attacker came out of the trees with the Irn-Bru bottle.

Michael, who has three children and four grandchildren, added: He sprayed me but I turned away just in time. It went all over my back, arm, some on my hands and a bit just below my left eye.

It burned like hell and started blistering straight away. I only had a T-shirt on and it ate straight through it.

He was doused with corrosive liquid disguised in an Irn Bru bottle in Kent last Sunday between 7.30am and 8.30am (pictured, Monchelsea, Kent)

He came back and tried to throw more, but Alfie was between the two of us at this point so he was hit by the acid on his back so started yelping and screaming. Alfie wriggled free and ran right back to the house, which wasnt far away. My wife found him outside.

Michael, originally from Ireland, was also walking his other dog, Tia, who is eight-and-a-half and of the same breed, but he said the attackers had no interest in her.

There was no doubt that it was Alfie they wanted, whether it was for breeding or to sell or what, he said.

The robbers ran away and discarded the soft drink bottle, which was picked up for analysis.

Michael then showered at a neighbours house before he was taken to Tunbridge Wells Hospital by the fantastic emergency services and St Johns Ambulance.

Michaels wife was driven by her son and daughter-in-law to meet him at hospital but fell ill on the journey and had to be admitted herself after suffering a heart attack.

Alfies grandfather Gus was a winner in the 2008 Breeders Stakes final at Crufts. Alfie has won a number of awards at local dog shows.

Dogs are increasingly being stolen, with nearly 2,000 snatched last year amid a soaring market for designer pets (file photo)

Michael said: The vet said Alfie should be OK but we dont know how bad his scars will be so its unlikely hell be able to compete again. There are some horrible people out there. They have no respect for the law.

A friend posted on Facebook how Gabrielle had messaged her the following about the attack.

The text read: The stress of it all has put me in hospital. I have been told I had a small heart attack.

We may never be able to show Alfie again! Only care that he is OK. Alfie managed to get away and ran home  thats my clever boy,' the Sun reported.

Sue Rose, of the German Shorthaired Pointer Society, said: Michael and Gabrielle are the nicest people, which makes this all the more shocking. Alfie is a very attractive dog with a lovely personality.

Sue decided to start a JustGiving page to support Michael and Gabrielle and it has so far raised more than 1,500.

Dogs are increasingly being stolen, with nearly 2,000 snatched last year amid a soaring market for designer pets.

Police hunting the men said the first suspect was of large build, in his 40s and wearing a white shirt and jeans. The second is in his 30s and slim.
Chicago officials continue to play the blame game when looking to point fingers for the city's gun violence, this time blaming those involved with the court system for failing to jail repeat offenders.

CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson spoke at headquarters on Monday to blast judges and prosecutors, adding that his struggling department can 'only do so much'.

He also shared that 'it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why shootings continue to be a problem in Chicago,' according to Fox News.

CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson spoke at headquarters on Monday to blast judges and prosecutors, adding that his struggling department can 'only do so much'

'These shootings are not random,' Johnson added. 'They're fueled by gang conflicts. We know who they are.

'If people don't give us the information we need, and our judicial partners don't hold them accountable, would you stop if that's what you wanted to do? You know, it's ridiculous.'

Johnson's remarks comes after Chicago was hit with its second bloodiest weekend of the year. A staggering 58 people were shot and, of those, seven were killed.

Johnson's remarks come after Chicago was hit with its second bloodiest weekend of the year. A staggering 58 people were shot and, of those, seven were killed

Earlier this month, the city saw 12 people shot dead and 59 injured over the first weekend of August

'As long as we fail to create repercussions for carrying and using illegal guns, or more importantly, hold repeat violent offenders accountable for their actions, we're simply going to continue to have these discussions on Monday mornings,' asserted Johnson.

'As long as we fail to create repercussions for carrying and using illegal guns, or more importantly, hold repeat violent offenders accountable for their actions, we're simply going to continue to have these discussions on Monday mornings,' asserted Johnson

Earlier this month, the city saw 12 people shot dead and 59 injured over the first weekend of August as President Donald Trump blamed mayor Rahm Emanuel's lack of leadership for the crisis.

'We must strengthen community bonds with law enforcement, including cities like Chicago that have been an absolute and total disaster,' he said.

'That's bad stuff happening. And probably, I guess, you have to take it from the leadership, it's called bad leadership.

'He's corrupt. He's part of the problem in Chicago,' Trump said. 'Failure on jobs. Failure on taxes. He's got to go.'

In conjunction with those remarks, the controversial mayor made statements during a August 7 press conference that were seen as blaming the people living in these communities for not having the morals needed to abstain from violence.

'This may not be politically correct,' he said. 'but I know the power of what faith and family can do...

'Our kids need that structure...I am asking...that we also don't shy away from a full discussion about the importance of family and faith helping to develop and nurture character, self-respect, a value system and a moral compass that allows kids to know good from bad and right from wrong.'
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R), also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, meets with Tran Quoc Vuong, a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee and permanent member of the CPV Central Committee's Secretariat, in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 20, 2018. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday met with a senior official of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), calling for efforts to further promote bilateral ties.

During the meeting with Tran Quoc Vuong, Politburo member and permanent member of the CPV Central Committee's Secretariat, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, Xi said that complicated and profound changes are currently taking place concerning the international and regional situation.

Xi, also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), said that bilateral ties and the socialist causes of both countries have entered into a new phase of development and face new opportunities and challenges.

Xi said he and Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the CPV Central Committee, again made mutual visits to each other's countries within a year in 2017 and reached a series of important consensus on deepening relations between the two parties and the two countries.

China is glad to see the momentum of the sound development of bilateral ties be consolidated and potential of bilateral cooperation be released, he said.

"We stand ready to work with Vietnam on in-depth conversations on overall and strategic issues and enhance the political guidance on bilateral ties so as to further promote relations," Xi said.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of forging the China-Vietnam comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation. Hailing the achievements scored in the past 10 years, Xi said China has always viewed the bilateral ties from a strategic height and a long-term perspective.

China is willing to work with Vietnam to make sure bilateral ties forge ahead along the right path under the guidance of the policy of long-term stability, forward-thinking, good-neighborliness and comprehensive cooperation, and the spirit of being good neighbors, friends, comrades and partners, said Xi.

He called on both sides to maintain high-level exchanges, enhance the synergy of development strategies, continue dialogue and consultations, manage differences and consolidate the foundation of people-to-people exchanges.

Xi said the CPC and the CPV share common views on party building. The CPC is willing to further promote exchanges with the CPV and upgrade both sides' governance ability.

Vuong congratulated China on the progress it has made under the leadership of Xi and the CPC Central Committee since the 19th CPC National Congress held last year, and spoke highly of China's contributions to regional and world peace and stability.

It is of great significance at present to cement and deepen relations between the two parties and to remain true to both parties' original aspirations, said Vuong.

Vietnam values its traditional friendship with China, he said, adding that it is the top priority in Vietnam's foreign policy to develop relations with China.

He said Vietnam is willing to work with the party and the government of China to promote the healthy and stable development of the comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation.

[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]
The wife of Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad has visited cancer striken children after revealing her own breast cancer diagnosis just two weeks ago.

Asma al-Assad has started treatment for early stage breast cancer and was today pictured at the Basma's society in the Harasta area.

Official photographs released by the Syrian presidency show her talking to young children at the centre.

She was seen wearing a headband as she went to visit the children at the centre. In one picture, it appeared the colour of her eyebrow hair may have faded slightly.

A handout photo made available by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syrian first lady Asma Assad visiting a cancer patient at the Basma Association that cares about children suffering of cancer on the first day of Eid al-Adha in Harasta

Syrian first lady Asma Assad hugging a mother of a cacner child patient

Official photographs released by the Syrian presidency show her talking to young children at the centre

Two weeks ago, an official photo posted to Facebook today showed President Bashar Assad smiling next to his British-born wife in hospital as she sat with an IV in her left arm.

A short statement posted with the photo said a 'malignant tumor' was discovered in its early stages. The presidency wished her a speedy recovery in the post.

Later, the presidency posted another photo of the first lady waking, carrying a laptop in one hand and a cup in the other. Her left wrist was bandaged.

'I belong to the (Syrian) people who taught the world steadfastness, strength and how to face difficulties,' read the caption in Arabic. 'My determination comes from your determination and strength in the past years.'

The wife of Assad talking to a cancer patient victim during a visit to the Basma Association

Two weeks ago, this photo was posted on the official Facebook page of the Syrian Presidency, shows Syrian President Bashar Assad sitting next to his wife Asma Assad with an IV in her left arm

A further photo of Asma Assad was shared on her Instagram account later today, purportedly showing her after the treatment in a different outfit. She is pictured carrying files and holding a glass of tea with her wrist bandaged

The couple are pictured here at a summit in Paris in 2008. Their marriage was announced in 2000

It was not specified where the first lady was being treated, but the word 'military' was printed on a blanket visible in the picture. State news agency SANA said later the first lady is undergoing treatment at a military hospital in the Syrian capital of Damascus. It gave no further details.

Such public health announcements are uncommon in the Arab world, where cancer is considered a taboo.

Asma Assad's parents, a cardiologist and a diplomat, are from the central province of Homs but she was born and raised in London before moving back to Syria after meeting the president.

The two have been married for 18 years and have three children, Hafez, Zein and Karim.

The couple's marriage was announced by state media six months after he assumed the presidency in July 2000 following the death of his father Hafez.

The former investment banker styled herself as a progressive rights advocate and was seen as the modern side of the Assad dynasty.

Mrs Assad uses her Instagram account to regularly post propaganda images such as this one of her husband with government forces

Since Syria's civil war broke out in 2011, Mrs Assad has mostly been seen in public receiving families of fallen soldiers

Since Syria's civil war broke out in 2011, Mrs Assad has mostly been seen in public receiving families of fallen soldiers, or hosting people wounded in the conflict, now in its eighth year, which has killed more than 400,000 people.

Before the crisis began in March 2011, she was the subject of flattering profiles in Vogue and other fashion magazines.

As Syria's conflict worsened, the first lady became a target of contempt for many opposition supporters who saw her as whitewashing atrocities carried out by the government.

The Syrian Civil War The war is an ongoing multi-sided armed conflict in Syria between the Syrian Arab Republic led by President Bashar al-Assad and various forces opposing both the government and each other in varying combinations. It started when Assad harshly clamped down on 2011 Arab Spring protests. Estimates put to the total death toll so far at around 500,000 people. Assad, supported by Russian and Iran and opposed by a US-led coalition, has been accused by the west of bombing hospitals and using illegal Sarin gas on his own people, which he denies. Assad said in an interview in June with Russia's state-controlled NTV television channel that his government got rid of all its chemical weapons in 2013 and that allegations of their use were a pretext for invasion by other countries. A U.N. investigative body determined the government used the nerve agent sarin in an aerial attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in April 2017 that killed about 100 people and affected about 200 others. The U.S. and its allies also blamed government forces for a sarin gas attack on the suburbs of Damascus in 2013 that killed around 1,000 people. Advertisement

When her husband faced calls to be tried as a war criminal, Mrs Assad was widely criticised for saying accusations against him were 'propaganda' against the regime.

She even used her Instagram account, where she regularly posts propaganda images of her husband with government forces, to accuse the west of lying over his use of Sarin gas on his own people.

On her Instagram account, she wrote in Arabic: 'The presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic affirms that what America has done is an irresponsible act that only reflects a short-sightedness, a narrow horizon, a political and military blindness to reality, and a naive pursuit of a frenzied false propaganda campaign that fueled the regime's arrogance.'

Mrs Assad's parents, both Sunni Muslims, moved from Syria to London in the Fifties so that her father, who is now based at the Cromwell Hospital and in Harley Street, could get the best possible education and medical training.

Though a Muslim, she was educated at a Church of England school in Ealing before attending a private girls' day school  Queen's College, Harley Street.

After studying computer science and French literature at King's College London, Mrs Assad worked as a banker at JP Morgan in the Nineties when she met her future husband.

At the time, Assad was training at a hospital in London to become an eye surgeon.

Those who knew her said that, given that she spent the first 25 years of her life in London, Mrs Assad had liberal western values.

In 2012, she was banned from travelling to Europe and last year MPs called for her British citizenship to be revoked.

Nadhim Zahawi, a Conservative MP on the Commons foreign affairs committee, said: 'The time has come where we go after [President] Assad in every which way, including people like Mrs Assad, who is very much part of the propaganda machine that is committing war crimes.'
A Labour MP has sparked fury after praising a controversial pro-Assad blogger who once branded murdered MP Jo Cox as a 'warmongering Al Qaeda advocate'.

Derby North MP Chris Williamson wrote on Twitter that it was a privilege to meet writer Vanessa Beeley at the Beautiful Days festival in Exeter, over the weekend.

Yet in a tweet nearly a year after Mrs Coxs death, Ms Beeley, 53, wrote: Jo Cox was a warmongering Blairite and White Helmet Al Qaeda advocate.

Derby North MP Chris Williamson (left) has sparked fury after praising a controversial pro-Assad blogger who once branded murdered MP Jo Cox (right) as a 'warmongering Al Qaeda advocate'

Mrs Cox, mother-of-two, died in 2016 after she was attacked by far-right extremist Thomas Mair in her Batley and Spen constituency. He was later jailed for life for her murder.

Her foundation donates to White Helmets, a volunteer group who helps rescue those involved in Syrias civil war.

Yet the pro-Assad blogger claims it is actually a terrorist-linked organisation that fakes it activities to create sympathy for the western regime plot against Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad.

Ms Beeley, who was at the festival to discuss the Syrian conflict, has also previously tweeted that Zionists rule France, Huffpost UK revealed.

In a tweet nearly a year after Mrs Coxs death, Ms Beeley, 53, wrote: Jo Cox was a warmongering Blairite and White Helmet Al Qaeda advocate

Ms Beeley (pictured), who was at the festival to discuss the Syrian conflict, has also previously tweeted that Zionists rule France

Who is the controversial blogger Vanessa Beeley? Vanessa Beeley, 53, the daughter of the late British diplomat Sir Harold Beeley, became an activist in 2012. She has gained notoriety over recent years for her accounts of her trips to Syria along with her controversial opinions. One being that she supports the Assad government's argument that those in rebel-held areas are terrorists. She is also widely criticised for her believes that the attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was staged and that al-Qaeda wasnt behind the 9/11 attacks, Huffpost UK reports. Her writings have reportedly been heavily promoted by the Russian government during their propaganda campaign regarding the Syrian conflict. Advertisement

After meeting the blogger Mr Williamson tweeted: 'Great to meet Vanessa Beeley today and a privilege to hear her speak at the Beautiful Days 2018 festival about her experiences of reporting from Syria'.

The comment quickly faced backlash from social media users who called the MP an 'absolute disgrace'.

Mr Williamson, who is considered a close ally of Corbyns, was previously accused of comparing the Liberal Democrat Party to the Nazis in 2013.

He tweeted at the time: The #LibDems have facilitated the most vicious right-wing govt since WW2. Let's vote these collaborators out of office.

And now the former shadow ministers praise of Ms Beeley comes amid ongoing claims of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

A recent poll found that more than a quarter of voters think Mr Corbyn is anti-Semitic - and nearly half believe Labour has a serious problem with the issue.

The leadership has been engaged in a bitter battle with the Jewish communities after refusing to adopt the international definition of anti-Semitism in full in the party's new code of conduct.

After meeting the blogger Mr Williamson tweeted: 'Great to meet Vanessa Beeley today and a privilege to hear her speak at the Beautiful Days 2018 festival about her experiences of reporting from Syria'

The comment quickly faced backlash from social media users who branded the blogger 'Assad's very own Alex Jones' and called the MP an 'absolute disgrace'

Veteran left-winger Mr Corbyn has been under intense scrutiny since the MailOnline revealed he attended a wreath-laying in Tunisia in 2014 for masterminds behind the Munich Olympics terror attack on Israeli athletes.

Meanwhile, a OnePoll survey for The Sun found 27 per cent of the public thought Mr Corbyn was anti-Semitic - something he fiercely denies.

More than one in three said he was unfit to be PM due to the row, and 47 per cent agreed that Labour has a serious problem with anti-Semitism.

A spokesperson for the Labour Party said they are looking into Williamsons tweet, the online newspaper reported.

Chris Williamson has been contacted for comment.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, agrees that Roe vs. Wade is 'settled law,' according Republican Sen. Susan Collins, a key vote in the confirmation process.

Kavanaugh met with Collins in her Capital Hill office for more than two hours on Tuesday morning as the Supreme Court nominee wraps up his final one-on-one meetings with senators before his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee begins on September 4.

Theirs was the longest sit down Kavanaugh has had with a senator since Trump nominated him to replacing retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins said Judge Brett Kavanaugh considers the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade to be 'settled law'

Kavanaugh is holding one-on-one meetings with senators ahead of his Sept. 4 confirmation hearing

Collins and fellow Republican Lisa Murkowski are the two senators who could make or break his confirmation. Without their votes, Trump's nominee would need one Democratic senator to support his confirmation.

Both senators are pro-choice and have expressed concern about his stance on abortion rights.

Murkowski will meet with Kavanaugh on Thursday.

'We talked about whether he considered Roe to be settled law. He said that he agreed with what Justice Roberts said at his nomination hearing in which he said it was settled law,' Collins told reporters after the meeting.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts said during his 2005 confirmation hearing that Roe was 'settled as a precedent of the court.'

Collins also said she wouldn't announce how she'll vote on Kavanaugh until after his confirmation hearing.

'You never know what questions are going to come up at a Judiciary Committee hearing where 21 individuals will be questioning him,' she said.

'We had a very good, thorough discussion,' she noted.

But her pronouncement about his stance on the landmark case that legalized abortion could raise uncomfortable questions for Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

Other Republicans senators generally support overturning Roe v. Wade and Kavanaugh could be the necessary fifth vote on the high court to make that happen.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who is meeting with Kavanaugh later Tuesday, said the real question for the judge is whether Roe was 'correctly decided.'

'Of course we know Roe is settled law,' Schumer told reporters in the Capitol. 'We need to know if Judge Kavanaugh believes it was correctly decided  that's the key question.'

'Time and time again judges nominated to the Supreme Court by Republican presidents have told the Senate they'd follow the law of judicial precedent only to overturn it when they're on the bench,' he noted.

After his meeting with Kavanaugh, Schumer said the judge 'would not say if the case was correctly decided.'

Sen. Susan Collins and fellow Republican Lisa Murkowski are the two senators who could make or break Kavanaugh's confirmation

Sen. Lisa Murkowski meets with Judge Kavanaugh on Thursday

He said he intends to as Kavanaugh for more details during their meeting.

Democrats are concerned about the opinion Kavanaugh wrote as a Washington, D.C. federal judge in Garza v. Hargan.

The case features a pregnant teen in immigration custody wanted to obtain an abortion, Kavanaugh dissented from the opinion of the D.C. Circuit's full bench to permit the teen to receive the abortion.

Kavanaugh is replacing Kennedy, often seen as a 'swing vote' on tight 5-4 decisions with enormous societal implications. He's nomination is considered a move of the high court to the right.

Kavanaugh is also meeting Tuesday with Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, who is facing a tough reelection battle in the state of Missouri, which Trump won in the 2016 campaign.

A no vote on the nominee could hurt her politically during the campaign. She voted no on Trump's first Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.

Three Democratic senators - Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota - voted yes on Gorsuch and all have met with Kavanaugh.

Collins and Murkowski also voted for Gorsuch.

Kavanaugh's new round of meetings come the day after it was revealed he argued forcefully for interrogating President Bill Clinton with detailed and explicit questions about phone sex and oral sex with Monica Lewinksy in a 1998 memo.

Kavanaugh, who was an associate counsel to independent counsel Kenneth Starr, urged fellow lawyers that to hold back from the explicit questions would be to 'conspire' to keep them quiet.

He said the idea of 'going easy' on Clinton out of a sense of misplaced respect for the office was 'abhorrent' to him.
An Emirati millionaire's luxury 'white bull' Lamborghini has turned up in Poland after it was stolen while being shipped to London from Cannes.

The 422,000 Lamborghini Aventador LP760-2 is a special model created by Oakley Design and only five of them were ever made.

Owner Abdullah Alfahim, whose Instagram account is followed by more than 71,500 people, had posted a picture of the vehicle, saying that he was taking it with him to Europe.

He was then contacted by a person, who allegedly set up a fake Instagram account, offering his services to move the supercar from France to London, reports Khaleej Times.

Owner Abdullah Alfahim, whose Instagram account is followed by more than 71,500 people, had posted a picture of the supercar

Alfahim, 30, from the UAE, posted a photo of the car about to be transported to London on social media with the comment: 'Have a safe trip white bull....'

But: The so-called company picked up my car from Intercontinental Hotel in Cannes. A day before I flew to London, the man called me and said the Lamborghini will be at the hotel in London in one hour.

'He blocked my number after that, and I never heard from him again.

As soon as he realised the car had not arrived, Alfahim told Interpol and the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in London after he was unable to contact the company supposedly transporting it.

Tapping into his thousands of followers, his social media posts went viral, and police have now found his car  in the Polish capital city of Warsaw where it was attracting admiring glances after being left parked on the street.

Officers said the car was being driven by a 29-year-old Nepalese man who is now under arrest.

The car has been secured and will be returned to its rightful owner, they said.

After he broke the news broke on Instagram about his vehicle being recovered, one man posted: 'The bull is back with you brother'

Alfahim believes his car might have been stolen to order from Russia.

Currently, it is being held at the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Warsaw.

'Posts on social media made it easier for the police to find my car and I cannot be more grateful to those who have helped spread the information,' Alfahim added.

'I would also like to thank Interpol and the Polish police for their hard work and extensive search.'

After he broke the news broke on Instagram about his vehicle being recovered, one man posted: 'The bull is back with you brother.'
A truck driver's daughter accused of posing as the daughter of a Russian billionaire to swindle bank loans, trips and hotel stays appeared in a Manhattan court on Tuesday for her indictment.

Anna Sorokin, 27, wore heavy framed glasses and a beige Rikers Island-issue jumper and pants as she was indicted on grand larceny charges at New York Supreme Court while locked in shackles.

Her lawyer then discussed prosecutor matters with the judge, including the lifting of a protective order preventing from seeing documents relevant to her case.

Anna Sorokin, 27, wore heavy framed glasses and a beige Rikers Island-issue jumper and pants as she was indicted on grand larceny charges at New York Supreme Court

Addressing the removing of the protective order, Sorokin's lawyer Todd Spodek told Dailymail.com: 'It is imperative that I be able to share any and all evidence in the case with Ms Sorokin so that she can provide meaningful input into trial preparation.

'I am pleased that Judge Kiesel and the District Attorney's office are in agreement as well.'

Sorokin was last in court on June 19, when a judge rejected her lawyer's proposed deal of a sentence of one to three years imprisonment. A counter-offer of three to nine years in prison was itself turned down by her defense team.

Lambasting the former fashion student and magazine intern, Justice Diane Kiesel said: 'I see no remorse.

'She seems more concerned about who is going to play her in the movie than what shes done to the people she allegedly took advantage of.'

She added that a sentence of just three years behind bars would serve as a 'mere a slap on the wrist for a crime this serious.'

The defendant now faces 15 years in jail if convicted on all counts. Netflix signed a deal to acquire the rights to her story in June.

Sorokin posed as Anna Delvey, the heiress daughter of a fictitious billionaire Russian magnate and used the persona to dupe elite circles in Manhattan from 2013 until January this year.

She talked banks into lending her money to start the 'Anna Delvey Foundation' and skipped out on bills at the end of a weeks-long stays in some of New York's finest hotels.

She also targeted individuals who she believed would serve her well and got them to pay for things with the promise that she would eventually give them the money back.

Sorokin's lawyer (right) then discussed prosecutor matters with the judge, including the lifting of a protective order preventing from seeing documents relevant to her case

Lawyer Todd Spodek flicks through legal documents as Sorokin looks on during Tuesday's hearing in Manhattan

Among them was a Vanity Fair picture researcher whom she convinced to pay $62,000 for a trip to Morocco after her own card was rejected.

Sorokin denies the charges and insists she was always trying to be seen as a businesswoman.

She claims the dinners, at extravagant restaurants like Le Coucou were business meetings and that it was all going towards the Anna Delvey Foundation, an arts-focused members club she planned to open and still speaks about.

In an interview with New York Magazine earlier this year, she said: 'I had what I thought was a great team around me, and I was having fun.'

Sorokin is pictured in one of the many Instagram photographs she uploaded as Anna Delvey, before her arrest

She said that while she had done some things wrong, it 'doesnt diminish the hundred things I did right.'

Prosecutors say she facilitated her lifestyle by check-kiting - a practice whereby a person deposits bad checks into a bank account then withdraws a cash amount before they bounce.

In May, Sorokin spoke from Rikers' Island to say it was 'not that bad'.

She said she had learned not how 'easy' it was to steal other people's identities by watching financial criminals behind bars.

'This place is not that bad at all actually. People seem to think its horrible, but I see it as like, this sociological experiment.

'There are couple of girls who are here for financial crimes as well.

'This one girl, shes been stealing other peoples identities. I didnt realize it was so easy,' she told New York Magazine.

Sorokin's case received notoriety from two lengthy articles in Vanity Fair and New York Magazine.

Among those who have spoken out about it are some of her alleged victims including staff at the hotel where she stayed.

They told how she tipped with $100 bills and gave off an air of extreme wealth.

One, who was the receptionist at 11 Howard where Sorokin stayed for a month, told how she once attended a dinner she organized for a large group at Le Coucou which included MaCaulay Culkin.

Others described how restaurants began calling them after seeing pictures of them with Sorokin on Instagram and asking to be put in touch with her because she had skipped out on her bills.

Sorokin (far right) is pictured in September 2014 with Giudo Cacciatori, Gro Curtis and Giorgia Tordini at The Jane hotel

The truth is that she was born in Russia and grew up in Germany as the daughter of a truck driver.

She left Germany in 2011 to move to London where she attended Central St. Martin's College as a fashion student.

Her father told New York Magazine that they had supplemented her rent and schooling at first and that he was stunned by the news she had been arrested.

'We always paid for her accommodations, her rent, and other matters.

'She assured us these costs were the best investment. If ever she needed something more at one point or another, it didnt matter.

'The future was always bright,' her parents, who did not want to be identified, said in an email.
A brazen robber bizarrely tunneled his way into a convince store in California, and didn't even get away with the goods.

The masked man was caught on the store's cameras, and then captured by the cops.

The alarms went off at the Inland Dairy Store around 4am Friday.

When responding officers arrived on scene they noticed a hole in the wall that suspect, Rudy Mindiola, apparently climbed through.

As the suspect entered the store in this shore he is seen poking his head out form between the two refrigerators

Once the alarms in the store are triggered, the suspect knows he has no time to lose and starts making a run for it back out of the hole

He is just about to the hole he tunneled into the store as he knows the police are on their way

Vanishing act: The suspect begins to disappear between the two fridges as the police close in

And hes out! The suspect probably thinks he is safe as he makes his way out through the hole

The hole the suspect made is pictured by police photos after he exits the shop and is arrested

They found their suspect trying to hide at the store, according to KTLA.

Once he was discovered, Mindiola was detained and arrested on suspicion of a commercial burglary and possession of burglary tools.

Found around the hole in the wall were broken wood chips and a black gate inside the hole.

In the surveillance video, the masked burglar can be seen running from police and ducking in between two refrigerators before seemingly vanishing into the shop's wall.

Police were able to surround the store's property where they found the suspect hiding.

An employee at the store said the suspected burglar could be seen on the floor, not walking and with his face covered, as he described the whole incident as 'very strange.'

Mindiola was later released on $20,000 bond.
The 'appalling' soft justice meted out by courts is laid bare in a Daily Mail investigation today.

Violent thugs, prolific burglars and drug dealers are all escaping jail terms.

An audit of sentences imposed at 12 courts reveals how 'habitual' criminals are being allowed to remain at liberty to commit further offences.

One lout with 38 previous convictions  who broke an innocent man's jaw in an unprovoked street attack  turned up at court with a holdall clearly expecting to receive a custodial term.

The 'appalling' soft justice meted out by courts is laid bare in a Daily Mail investigation (pictured, Sheffield Crown Court)

But a judge opted not to send him to jail, much to the disgust of the victim in the case. Shockingly, since the Mail's week-long survey, a string of new examples of light-touch sentences have emerged. Over the course of the last two weeks alone, judges have allowed serious offenders  including sex criminals and kidnappers  to walk free.

In some instances, judges have even expressed sympathy towards those facing punishment by claiming sending them to jail would be unfair.

The four men pictured on the front page  Mark Thomas, Thomas Younger, Glyn Leedell and Mark Greagsbey  were all convicted of serious offences, including serious violence, but were all allowed free.

Today's findings are likely to raise questions over whether the crisis in UK prisons  graphically illustrated this week by the scandal at Birmingham jail  is partly to blame for these 'soft' sentences. Assaults in jails are on the rise and reports have highlighted rampant drug use.

Earlier this year, Justice Secretary David Gauke urged courts to only use short sentences of under 12 months as a 'last resort'. However, critics are likely to argue that soft justice is contributing to the violent current 'Wild West Britain' crime-wave. Many now believe the lack of a deterrent is emboldening law-breakers. Violent crime surged by 21 per cent last year, with 1.3million offences recorded by police  the highest level since records began 15 years ago.

An audit of sentences imposed at 12 courts reveals how 'habitual' criminals are being allowed to remain free (pictured, Newcastle Crown Court)

Harry Fletcher, founder of the Victims Rights Campaign, called for an inquiry by the Commons' Justice Select Committee into the Mail's findings. 'These are truly shocking cases involving very serious violence which should result in custodial sentences. It is astonishing they do not,' he said. 'Victims are being let down and communities are not being protected. It is appalling.'

The Mail commissioned reporters to cover punishments handed out by courts in Bristol, Cardiff, Southampton, Bournemouth, London, Birmingham, Ipswich, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester and Newcastle across one week.

Among the cases were those of a serial menace to society who dodged jail despite holding a knife to a woman's neck and telling her 'I am going to kill you'.

A crack addict who committed burglary while on licence from a previous break-in was allowed to stay on the streets. In June, Justice Minister Rory Stewart said prison sentences of less than a year should be scrapped for all but the most serious offences.

He argued that community penalties should be imposed  and even claimed victims of crime would be 'better off' with fewer criminals in jail.

The sex offenders and kidnapper walking free The Daily Mail unearthed numerous examples of judges adopting a lenient approach in sentencing. Below are some examples from the last two weeks: A kidnapper whose teenage victim was bundled into a car boot and raped was spared jail because a judge said it would be 'unfair' to her. Helen Thompson, 43, was convicted for her role in the 1998 kidnapping in which she drove a 16-year-old girl to a flat where she was subjected to a horrifying sexual assault. While two men were jailed for a total of 38 years for their involvement, Thompson, who denied taking part, was let off with 12 months in jail, suspended for a year. Judge Sylvia de Bertodano at Warwick Crown Court said: 'You have worked hard to put that behind you, and it would be quite unfair of me to send you to prison today.' A Border Force worker walked free despite admitting to grooming what he thought were two girls of 12. Gary Hodgkiss, 48, also admitted possessing nearly 250 indecent images when he appeared at Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester. But Judge Bernadette Baxter said she was giving Hodgkiss a chance to 'build on the admissions' and handed him 20 months in jail, suspended for two years. A voyeur who described filming up women's skirts as his hobby was spared jail and even allowed to keep using his phone. Richard Sivier admitted he had used cameras to take the photos and videos of women over the course of 18 months, before posting some of the images online. Though a new law allows those convicted of 'upskirting' to be jailed for up to two years, he was given only an eight-week jail sentence suspended for two years at Westminster Magistrates' Court. A driver who sped the wrong way down a dual carriageway to escape police during a chase was spared jail. Troy Stanton, 22, was uninsured when he drove into oncoming traffic at 70mph in a bid to evade officers in Coventry. After pleading guilty to dangerous driving and having no insurance at Warwick Crown Court, he was given a 12-month community order with 200 hours of unpaid work, banned from driving for a year and fined 340. Sentencing, Judge Sally Hancox said she was giving Stanton a 'one and only chance'. Advertisement

Ministers have argued prisons are not working because they have become 'offender warehouses'. At the time, critics branded Mr Stewart's call a 'green light for criminals'.

But he was recently backed up by Mr Gauke who urged courts to only use short sentences of under 12 months in extreme circumstances.

He said prison should 'change the lives' of criminals instead of being used solely as a tool for 'punishment' and 'retribution'.

Crime victim Tony Rutherford, 36, whose jaw was broken by Younger in an attack, was shocked when the Mail  not the police  told him his attacker had been freed.

Mr Rutherford said: 'What message does that send to people if someone can leave someone in the condition he left me and walk away without a care? I've been through hell.'

David Spencer, of the Centre for Crime Prevention pressure group, said: 'This fascinating investigation illustrates all too clearly what we have been saying: The British criminal justice system as it stands is much too soft. For the sake of public safety, this has to end now.'

Top magistrate: We need more JPs with a criminal record More people with criminal records should be made JPs to increase diversity among the judiciary, the chairman of Magistrates Association said last night. John Bache insisted a more representative set of magistrates would make criminals feel less alienated by the system. Someone with a criminal conviction is not barred from becoming a JP, but Ministry of Justice guidance has warned against people who have committed a serious offence applying for the job. It said that it is 'unlikely' a serious offender would be taken on. It also appeared to rule out people who have committed a number of minor offences, been banned from driving in the past five to ten years or declared bankrupt. But Mr Bache defended those with minor criminal records. He told the Daily Telegraph: 'We all make mistakes, we all do things we shouldn't have done. But we want to increase diversity. And if we did say anyone who's done anything wrong ever isn't going to be appointed, that's no way at all to increase diversity.' He added: 'I'd want to encourage everyone, I wouldn't want to particularly encourage people who have got a criminal record but I certainly wouldn't want to discourage them from applying. 'I wouldn't want them to think that because they've got a relatively minor criminal record some years ago that they're not going to be accepted as a magistrate, because that would be completely erroneous.' A total of 15,000 magistrates in England and Wales deal with 95 per cent of all criminal cases. But latest MoJ figures reveal the number has plummeted in the last six years by 40 per cent. It is thought the drastic drop is because scores of older magistrates are retiring. Magistrates must retire at the age of 70. Mr Bache said another 9,000 magistrates are needed to fill the void. He also agreed with Labour MP David Lammy's report last year that noted the lack of black and ethnic minority magistrates. He stressed: 'If you see three white faces, as Lammy pointed out, and you're from an ethnic minority, the perception may be that they're not on your side. 'That would be wrong, but you can understand that might be the perception.' Mr Bache, who has sat on the bench since 1989, added: 'We're trying very hard to increase diversity, but it isn't as easy as you'd think. 'For a start people aren't applying from ethnic minorities to the same degree as they are from white people  because they've got the idea that people from their backgrounds don't become magistrates. And that is obviously erroneous.' Advertisement

Damning evidence of how soft justice is handed out at courts can be revealed after a Daily Mail investigation into sentencing hearings at 12 courts across the country.

Brutal thugs, serial burglars and drug dealers escaped prison despite reaching the threshold for custodial terms.

Stephen Wright reports on a week-long survey of lenient sentences included the following cases:

A drunken electrician who punched his work supervisor so hard it damaged the man's voice box avoided jail  after a court heard he was about to get married.

Mark Thomas, 31, threatened and later attacked Lee Street, 33, at a wedding reception after finding marshmallows in his beer. He left his victim with life-changing injuries.

After drinking up to ten pints of beer at the event, Thomas, pictured right, directed his anger at Mr Street, with whom he worked at Scottish and Southern Energy, even though the victim had not been responsible for the prank.

The yob struck him twice on the back of the head and then punched him in the face and neck. Mr Street was left with a damaged voice box after the attack in July last year and is still unable to speak normally, Southampton Crown Court heard.

Marc Thomas (pictured) escaped three years in jail after he threatened and later attacked a man at a wedding

Thomas, of Totton, near Southampton, admitted causing grievous bodily harm. Mitigating, Jodie Mittell said: 'He walks into court today with uncertainty on whether he will be given an immediate custodial sentence. His wedding is arranged for August 13.'

He could have faced up to three years in jail but was given a 12-month suspended sentence and was ordered to pay 2,000 in compensation to Mr Street. It is just one of numerous lenient sentences handed down by judges.

In another case, a young drug dealer who expected to be jailed and even entered court with an overnight bag also avoided a custodial sentence.

Jake Faulkner, 24, was caught with nearly 10,000 in cash when police raided his one bed flat in Chorlton, Manchester. Faulkner also had four Nokia mobile phones, an iPhone, digital scales and bags for the sale of drugs. He was also found to have a ball bearing gun and two knives.

The guidelines for his offences had a starting point of one year in prison with a range of 26 weeks to a maximum of three years' immediate custody.

Judge David Hernandez told him: 'I noticed you entered court with a bag no doubt anticipating custody.' But the judge then imposed an eight-month suspended sentence with 120 hours of unpaid work and a 40-day rehabilitation order.

And a career burglar with 24 previous convictions for 77 offences was spared jail for a spree of hotel burglaries which a judge called 'a way of life'.

John Warren broke into a number of London hotel rooms including one at Raddison Blu in Marylebone, where he kicked down the door on a terrified unaccompanied female guest.

Prosecutor Christopher Prior said Warren had stolen a pair of 18 carat earnings, headphones and Apple products from one hotel, valued at around 4,040, in order to feed his drug addiction.

He added Warren had been given a five year sentence at the same court back in 2013 for similar theft related crimes.

Warren, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to five counts of burglary other than a dwelling with intent to steal and one count of burglary other than a dwelling. The maximum sentence for burglary other than a dwelling is ten years.

But the 53-year-old was handed a two year sentence suspended for 24 months after the judge, Recorder Clive Jones, decided the serial burglar was intent on rehabilitation.

Agreeing with Mr Prior, Judge Jones added: 'It is a way of life.'

Attacker Thomas Younger entered court carrying a holdall in anticipation of starting an immediate prison term for brutal assault.

But Younger grinned and said 'thank you' to Recorder Andrew Dallas after being given a suspended sentence.

He left his victim Tony Rutherford with life-changing injuries after breaking his jaw in three places.

Thomas Younger (pictured outside court) threw two fingers up to a reporter after escaping jail for a brutal assault

Newcastle Crown Court heard that without warning Younger, 28, hit Mr Rutherford, 36, in the face outside a city centre bar in January this year.

The victim was left needing plates screwed into his shattered jaw following the motiveless attack.

Despite surgery, his teeth were left permanently unaligned and he can no longer bite correctly or smile properly.

Younger, from Newcastle, had 38 previous convictions.

He pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm without intent, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in jail.

But Judge Dallas instead gave him a suspended 12-month jail term, and ordered 200 hours of unpaid work.

The tattooed tout gave a Daily Mail reporter a two-fingered salute as he left the court building with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

A crack addict who committed a burglary whilst on prison licence from a previous burglary walked free after a judge was told he 'thrives on positive reinforcement'.

Marc Price broke into a Subway restaurant and caused 500 worth of damage whilst stealing a British Heart Foundation charity box. Newcastle Crown Court was told that at the time of the offence Price, who has a 20-year drug problem, was on post-release licence for a previous burglary and had seven burglaries and a robbery on his record of 81 convictions.

Marc Price (pictured) broke into a Subway restaurant and caused 500 worth of damage whilst stealing a British Heart Foundation charity box

Judge Sarah Mallett asked to hear from a probation officer who told her: 'Mr Price tells me that he very much thrives on positive reinforcement, it might just be the time for Mr Price now.'

Rather than sending the 39-year-old back to prison for the offence which took place near his home in Blyth, Northumberland, the judge deferred sentencing for four months.

However, she warned that if he committed further offences during that time he really would go to jail.

Glyn Leedell avoided jail despite threatening to kill a woman with a kitchen knife.

The criminal and his girlfriend met the victim in a pub in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.

They were invited back to the victim's house to carry on socialising with her friends.

But the woman became concerned when she discovered Leedell, 39, had taken a knife from her kitchen, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

The woman tried to pass the knife to one of her friends but Leedell, above, then produced another one with a blade of about five inches. He held the knife to the woman's neck telling her: 'I am going to kill you. I am going to slice your throat.'

Glyn Leedell (pictured) avoided jail despite telling a woman 'I am going to slice your throat'

He was eventually bundled out of the house. Leedell admitted affray which carries a maximum penalty of three years in jail.

The Recorder of Sheffield, Judge Jeremy Richardson, was told the lout, from Mexborough, had 44 previous convictions  but gave him an 18-month suspended sentence.

And in another case, a son avoided jail despite smashing up his mother's house and threatening to stab her.

Shane Haddlesey, 25, had caused hundreds of pounds of damage at his mother's home in October last year and also grabbed a knife and told her: 'I am going to f****** stab you'.

He pleaded guilty to criminal damage, possession of a bladed item, threatening behaviour and battery at Leeds Crown Court but received a nine-month suspended sentence.

A pervert who had more than 600 images on his computer of children being sexually abused escaped with a two-year community order.

Allan Williamson, 45, had 446 images including 68 films which were classed at the highest level of Category A on his laptop when police raided his flat in Hulme, Manchester.

The still and film images showed children as young as seven being sexually abused by adults. Williamson also had 137 images classed as category B and 76 as category C.

The court heard the starting point for the Category A offences was one year with a maximum of three years in prison.

But Judge Elizabeth Nicholls imposed a two year community order with 30 days rehabilitation at Manchester Crown Court after saying Williamson had been 'open and frank' with the police about his behaviour. She told Williamson: 'In the light of the fact you have taken tentative steps to address these issues, I can step back from the custody threshold.'

A controlling son who terrorised his mother into handing over her life savings by violently attacking her dogs every time she tried to resist was spared jail.

Mark Greagsbey bullied his mother Carol, 54, so severely over three years while he was living with her in west London she considered taking her own life. The 34-year-old, right, denied engaging in coercive and controlling behaviour in a family relationship but was convicted after trial.

Mark Greagsbey (pictured) bullied his mother Carol so severely over three years that she considered taking her own life

Magistrate Sarah Houston said the case was 'one of the most serious we see in these courts' but still handed him a 26-week suspended jail term at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

He must also pay his mother 5,000 in compensation.
A former beauty queen accused of hiring a hitman to kill her wealthy husband is set to go on trial  more than a decade after the crime was committed.

Aurea Vasquez Rijos, 38, was jailed in Spain and extradited back to her native Puerto Rico in 2015 but due to legal obstacles and other delays has not yet faced trial for her alleged involvement in her husband's brutal 2005 murder.

The trial is expected to begin on Tuesday, the BBC reports.

According to prosecutors, Rijos, dubbed 'black widow' in the media, agreed to pay a hitman $3million to kill her husband, 32-year-old Adam Joel Anhang, in September 2005.

Aurea Vasquez Rijos' trial for her alleged involvement in her husband's 2005 murder is expected to begin on Tuesday. She is pictured above after she was extradited to Puerto Rico in 2015

Prosecutors said Rijos agreed to pay a hitman $3million to kill her husband of six months, Adam Joel Anhang. He was beaten and stabbed to death in September 2005

They claim Rijos, former Miss Puerto Rico Petit winner, tricked Anhang, a wealthy real estate developer and online gaming tycoon from Canada, to meet her at a restaurant in San Juan so they could discuss their pending divorce. The couple had only been married for six months when Anhang was killed.

As the estranged couple was walking down the street near the restaurant a man, later identified as Alex 'El Loco' Pabon-Colon, approached them from behind and demanded money from Anhang.

According to an FBI affidavit and Pabon-Colon's confession, he grabbed a loose cobblestone on the street and struck Anhang over the head with it before repeatedly stabbing the victim with a large kitchen knife, Global News reports.

Prosecutors allege that Rijos had her husband killed because she would not get any of his estate, worth $24million, if they divorced.

A witness told authorities that during the attack Rijos did not yell, flee or attempt to stop her husband's attacker. Another witness said after stabbing Anhang, the attacker briefly spoke to Rijos before hitting her in the head with the cobblestone.

'Pabon-Colon then hit Aurea in the head with the piece of cobblestone, and she fell to the ground. Pabon-Colon did so because in prior conversations, Aurea had instructed Pabon-Colon to assault her as well, in order to make the incident look real,' the affidavit states.

Rijos fled Puerto Rico in 2008 to live in Italy, where she could not be extradited to the US because she said she faced the death penalty. Rijos is pictured during a hearing in Madrid in 2013 following her arrest

Prosecutors believe Rijos had her wealthy husband killed because she would not get any of his $24million estate if they divorced

Pabon-Colon was arrested in 2008, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with authorities. That same year, Rijos was indicted for her role in her husband's death, but she had already fled Puerto Rico and was living in Florence with her new husband and their twin children.

Authorities said the new husband was unaware of Rijos past and divorced her after learning about it. She then moved to Venice, following news reports that she was hiding out in Florence.

Authorities said Rijos used different names and IDs to assume her new life overseas.

Police could not arrest Rijos and extradite her back to US territory because Italian law prohibits the extradition of suspects who face the death penalty, which Rijos said US authorities were considering.

She was finally arrested in 2013 when the FBI and other agencies tricked her into traveling to Madrid with the promise of her meeting a tourism group. Spanish law also doesn't permit the extradition of people who could face the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole.

In order to have Rijos extradited back to US territory, prosecutors agreed that if she's convicted she will not be sentenced to death or to life in prison without parole.

Authorities said Rijos' brother and sister, as well as her sister's boyfriend, were also arrested for their alleged involvement in the murder-for-hire plot

While jailed in Spain, Rijos fought the extradition getting pregnant and marrying a man. Despite having a third child and arguing that she should not be taken away from her baby, Rijos was extradited to Puerto Rico in 2015.

Hurricane Maria and other legal troubles stalled her trial, which is expected to finally begin on Tuesday.

Authorities said Rijos' brother and sister, as well as her sister's boyfriend, were also arrested for their alleged involvement in the murder-for-hire plot.

Abe, Anhang's father, told BBC that he believes justice will finally be served for his son but finds it ironic that Rijos will most likely face a light sentence.

'Aurea is likely to get the lightest sentence of all the accused because she fled and waited to be extradited from a country which placed conditions on her transfer back to the United States to face justice,' he said.

'In essence, she will be getting rewarded with the same sentence as if she were caught and sentenced in Spain. At the same time her co-accused will get longer sentences, despite having much less involvement in the crime.'

Pabon-Colon was sentenced to life in prison in 2008 as part of a plea agreement.
An American man who admitted to jetting off to the Dominican Republic to have sex with underage girls has been sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Theodore Symonds, 51, traveled to Puerto Plata in March 2017 to have sex with an at-the-time 13-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl, according to the United States attorney's office for the Southern District of Florida on Friday.

Prostitution is legal in the Dominican Republic, but 60 percent of the 25,000 to 35,000 prostitutes in the country start out as minors, according to the International Labour Organization.

Theodore Symonds, 51, traveled to Puerto Plata in March 2017 to have sex with an at-the-time 13-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl

The age of consent in the Dominican Republic is 18. Many children find that they can get in a cycle of abuse as they work to make ends meet for their families, hoping to escape the waves of poverty that ravishes the nation.

'There is no immunity for these heinous crimes, whether committed at home or abroad,' asserted Benjamin G. Greenberg, the United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

Court documents reveal that Symonds corresponded with the girls on Facebook, asking if he had ownership over the girls and demanding that they send him nude photos.

When clothes were seen in the photos, he stated 'No clothes, my God,' and required that the girls take off more of their clothes.

The man also sent photos to the girls that featured past visits, including one where he and a victim were lying down while partially clothed.

Symonds told American authorities that he would not have gone back to the Dominican Republic if he knew that he could get in trouble in the United States

Messages between Symonds and a friend - only referred to as A.R. - show that at one point, he made a comment about one of the girls being 20 but was quickly informed that she was actually 13.

Symonds would go on and explain that the girl's age was no concern because he was friends with her family and the police.

A.R. claimed that the man was the girl's first sexual encounter, to which Symonds informed him that the girl's mother was cool with the relationship.

The 15-year-old girl once asked Symonds to use protection when they next met up, prompting questions from the man and him informing her that he didn't want problems with his penis.

Symonds told authorities that he had relationships with the girls and knew they were underage. But the man asserted that he never had sex with the girls.

The investigation started in March 2017 after Domincan authorities detained him and informed the United States Government.

Symonds told American authorities that he would not have gone back to the Dominican Republic if he knew that he could get in trouble in the United States.
The prominent Republican family which owns the farm where Mollie Tibbetts' alleged killer worked have insisted that he passed background checks for migrant workers.

Christhian Rivera, 24, who is from Mexico, was charged with first degree murder on Tuesday after leading police to a corn field where Mollie's body was dumped.

Dane Lang, co-owner of Yarrabee Farms along with Eric Lang, confirmed that Rivera had worked there for four years and was an employee 'of good standing.'

Dane's brother is Craig Lang, former president of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and the Iowa Board of Regents, and a 2018 Republican candidate for state secretary of agriculture.

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Cristhian Rivera, 24, was charged on Tuesday after leading police to the corn field where he dumped Mollie's body after attacking her on July 18

It is not yet clear how Mollie (pictured) died. Her autopsy is planned for Wednesday but the results may not be released for weeks

Dane Lang (left) co-owns the farm where Rivera worked with Eric Lang, and said he passed the government's background check for foreign workers. Dane's brother is Craig Lang (right), a prominent Iowa Republican

Craig is the former president of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and the Iowa Board of Regents, and a 2018 Republican candidate for state secretary of agriculture

Rivera's employer Yarrabee Farms (pictured) denied hiring illegal immigrants and said the family-run firm would cooperate fully with the Tibbetts inquiry

Dane's statement said: 'First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Mollie Tibbetts.

'This is a profoundly sad day for our community. All of us at Yarrabee Farms are shocked to hear that one of our employees was involved and is charged in this case.

'This individual has worked at our farms for four years, was vetted through the government's E-Verify system, and was an employee in good standing.

'On Monday, the authorities visited our farm and talked to our employees. We have cooperated fully with their investigation.'

The E-Verify site allows employers to establish the eligibility of employees, both US or foreign, by comparing a worker's Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 with data held by the government.

The employee is eligible to work in the US if the data matches. If it doesn't, the worker has only eight federal government work days to resolve the issue.

Despite the Lang family using the system, police say Rivera had been in the US illegally for between four and seven years.

Investigators say Rivera followed Mollie in his dark Chevy Malibu as she went for a run around 7.30pm on July 18.

He 'blacked out' and attacked her after she threatened to call the police unless he left her alone, officers said.

Rivera was identified by surveillance footage obtained in the last couple of weeks from someone's home.

It showed him following the student in his car and Mollie running ahead of him. It is not yet clear how Mollie died.

Mollie Tibbetts was abducted on July 18 as she jogged through Brooklyn, Iowa, her hometown

Earlier Monday a member of the Lang family which runs Yarrabee Farms told DailyMail.com he was a personal friend of Mollie and her brothers and was devastated by the news of her death.

Its understood the company hires around 15 migrant workers, most of whom are believed to be Mexican.

Rivera is believed to have lived with a number of other migrant workers on a secluded farmhouse in Brooklyn owned by their employer.

Workers associated with the farm told DailyMail.com that they barely knew Rivera but confirmed that he lived there with a girlfriend named Iris Monarrez and their baby.

They said Iris had gone to stay with her mother after Rivera was arrested in Mollie's murder.

Neighbors told DailyMail.com they had seen a black Chevy Malibu just like the one Rivera was driving when he abducted Mollie regularly driving to and from the property for the past couple of years.

Rivera has been living illegally in Iowa for between four and seven years

Rivera is from Guayabillo in Guerrero, Mexico and was in the United States illegally

Mollie's autopsy is planned for Wednesday but the results may not be released for weeks.

Rivera told police that after seeing her, he pulled over and parked his car to get out and run with her.

Mollie grabbed her phone and threatened to call the police before running off ahead. The suspect said that made him 'panic' and he chased after her.

That's when he 'blacked out.'

He claims he remembers nothing from then until he was back in his car, driving.

He then noticed one of her earphones sitting on his lap and blood in the car then remembered he'd stuffed her in the truck.

Rivera drove her then to a corn field where he hauled her body out of the truck and hid her beneath corn stalks.

He was arrested on Friday after police honed in on his vehicle by viewing surveillance footage obtained from a private resident's home surveillance cameras.

'He followed her and seemed to be drawn to her on that particular day. For whatever reason he chose to abduct her,' Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation special agent Rick Ryan said on Tuesday afternoon.

But it's still unclear what the motive behind the killing was, Rahn said.

Rivera told police he had seen her in the area before. She is friends on Facebook with the mother of his daughter but it is not clear if he and Mollie knew each other.

Mollie was abducted while running along 385th street, in Brooklyn, Iowa, on July 18, and her body was discovered just over a month later in a corn field in Poweshiek County

President Donald Trump chirped in during his Tuesday address at a rally in Charleston, West Virginia, blaming immigration laws for Mollie's death.

'You heard about today with the illegal alien coming in very sadly from Mexico,' he said. 'And you saw what happened to that incredible beautiful young woman.

'Should've never happened, illegally in our country. We've had a huge impact but the laws are so bad. The immigration laws are such a disgrace.

'We are getting them changed but we have to get more Republicans.'

Gov. Kim Reynolds complained about the 'broken' immigration system that allowed a 'predator' to live in her state.

'I spoke with Mollie's family and passed on the heartfelt condolences of a grieving state,' Reynolds said. 'I shared with them my hope that they can find comfort knowing that God does not leave us to suffer alone. Even in our darkest moments, He will comfort and heal our broken hearts.'

At 3pm on Monday, law enforcement arrived at the farmhouse where Rivera worked, according to a neighbor.

FBI agents were still searching the house and a number of nearby trailers on Tuesday afternoon.

Neighbors said the building housed a 'revolving door' of hired migrant workers but that they had never caused any problems.

FBI agents attended another nearby property belonging to the farm overnight Monday to quiz Rivera's co-workers, most of whom claim only to understand Spanish.

'There was a panic when they arrived because they thought at first that it was ICE launching a raid,' a local source told DailyMail.com.

'A lot of these people arrive with forged documents. But it turned it was the FBI and it was about Mollie.'

According to public records the property being searched is owned by Mary and Craig Lang, whose family own the nearby Yarrabee Farms.

Mollie was staying alone overnight in her boyfriend's home the night she went missing and was last seen going for a jog in the neighborhood at around 8pm but what happened afterwards has remained a complete mystery for weeks.

Special Agent Rick Rahn, of the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation, speaks during a news conference about the investigation of missing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts

Friends and family of missing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts react following a news conference

The family were emotional as they heard that Mollie's body had been discovered

Mollie (left and right) was staying alone overnight in her boyfriend's home the night she went missing and was last seen going for a jog in the neighborhood at around 8pm July 18

Her boyfriend opened a Snapchat photograph from her at 10pm which appeared to suggest that she was indoors but it is not known what time Mollie sent it.

In his arrest warrant, police describe Rivera's chilling confession.

'Rivera admitted to making contact with the female running in Brooklyn and that he pursued her in his vehicle in an area east of Brooklyn. Defendant Rivera stated he parked the vehicle, got out and was running behind her and alongside of her.

'Rivera stated that she grabbed her phone and said: 'I'm gonna call the police.'

He went to get her out of the trunk and noticed blood on the side of her head... he then dragged Tibbetts on foot to a secluded location in a cornfield, put her over his shoulder and took her 20 meters into the field where he left her, covered up in some leaves

'Rivera said he then panicked and he got mad and that he 'blocked' his memory which is what he does when he gets very upset and doens't remember anything after that until he came to at an intersection.

'Rivera stated he then made a u-turn, drove back to an entrance to a field and then drove into a driveway to a cornfield.

'He noticed there was an ear piece from headphones in his lap and that this is how he realized he put her in the trunk.

'He went to get her out of the trunk and he noticed blood on the side of her head.

'He described the female's clothing, what she was wearing including an ear phone or head phone set.

'He described that he dragged Tibbetts on foot from his vehicle to a secluded location in a cornfield.

'He put her over his shoulder and took her about 20 meters into the cornfield and he left her covered in some corn leaves and that he left her there, face up.

'The Defendant was able to use his phone to determine the route he traveled from Brooklyn.

Among his social media photographs are pictures of weapons proudly displayed on a bed. How Mollie died remains a mystery

Rivera is being held on a federal immigration detainer but has also been charged with first degree murder. He remains in custody on a $1million bond

Mollie is Facebook friends with Iris Monarrez who has a baby with her murderer

'Rivera then later guided law enforcement to her location from memory,' the affidavit continues.

Rivera's arrest and the discovery of the student's body brings an end to five weeks of tireless investigation by the FBI, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and local sheriffs.

Rivera's initial court appearance is scheduled for 1pm Wednesday in Montezuma.

If convicted of first-degree murder he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.

Last week, the FBI said it believed she had been abducted by someone she knew.

President Donald Trump chirped in during his Tuesday address at a rally in Charleston, West Virginia, blaming immigration laws for Mollie's death.

They warned that the person was 'hiding in plain sight' and had even attended vigils held in her honor but no arrests were made.

A $400,000 fund for her safe return was established but it did not produce any leads either.

Greg Willey of Crime Stoppers of Central Iowa said her family and investigators would dedicate their resources to catching her killer 'once they catch their breath'.

The Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation refused to share details of the discovery on Tuesday when contacted by DailyMail.com.

The only person who had been visibly scrutinized by police after she went missing was pig farmer Wayne Cheney.

He was grilled by officers more than once and had his property searched twice after search crews found a red t-shirt that was similar to one owned by the student near his land.

It was never established if the t-shirt did in fact belong to Mollie.

Mollie's body was found in a cornfield on Tuesday after Rivera led police to it in Poweshiek County

Mollie's boyfriend's older brother Blake Dalton (left with his fiancee) were not in town on the night she vanished either. The only person who has been visibly scrutinized by police is pig farmer Wayne Cheney (right) who was questioned more than once and had his property searched after police found a red t-shirt that was similar to one owned by the student near his land. Cheney took a polygraph test and was never charged. He protested his innocence throughout

Cheney maintained his innocence throughout media interviews and took a polygraph test to try to rule himself out. He was never charged.

In the past few days, Mollie's father Rob Tibbetts, who has been in Iowa since she disappeared, went to California for a 'break'.

Mollie's father Rob went back to California, where he lives, last week for what he called a much needed 'break' from the investigation

He said he had been urged by authorities to do so and that it was a 'half way' point in the investigation.

Rob was not in the state when his daughter disappeared.

Her boyfriend, Dalton Jack, was away for work when she disappeared as was his older brother Blake.

The youngsters lived together in a home in Brooklyn with Blake's fiancee who was also cleared.

As the hunt for her intensified, authorities set up a website that was dedicate to finding her.

It provided a map detailing five locations police considered to be significant. The website also offered a tips page which generated hundreds of clues about what may have happened to her.

The news of her death shook the small town of Brooklyn where most residents are known to each other.

The Rev. Joyce Proctor at Grace United Methodist Church said she'd been praying for Tibbetts' enemies 'to do the right thing... and release her.'

Sadly that never happened.

Proctor, who said she heard Tibbetts 'was a wonderful young lady', said people were in shock their little town isn't as safe as they first believed it was, the Des Moines Register reported.

'I told the ladies at our prayer group this morning that if it's not safe in Brooklyn it's not safe anywhere,' she said. 'And I think that's been a hard thing to realize for a lot of people here.'
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 20, 2018. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

BEIJING, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Beijing on Monday.

Xi expressed his appreciation for the great importance Mahathir has attached to advancing ties between the two countries and his support for the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, as well as his contributions to accelerating regional cooperation within Asia.

China is endeavoring to achieve its two centenary goals, meanwhile, Malaysia has embarked on its journey of building a new Malaysia, Xi noted, saying that bilateral ties stand at a new and pivotal point.

China and Malaysia, as major rising forces in Asia, are cooperating in providing development opportunities for each other, Xi said, voicing his hope that the two countries can strengthen strategic communication to promote bilateral ties, the rejuvenation of Asia and prosperity of the world.

Malaysia was the first country from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to establish diplomatic relations with China since the regional organization was founded.

Xi reiterated China's commitment to developing friendly ties with Malaysia and expressed his confidence in further intensifying relations in the new era.

He called on the two countries to respect one another, settle issues properly through negotiation and follow the direction of friendly cooperation, so as to achieve mutually beneficial and win-win results.

With a focus on Asia and a global perspective, the two should upgrade the quality and efficiency of China-ASEAN cooperation, speed up construction of the East Asia economic community, inject new impetus into South-South cooperation, enhance the representation and voice of developing countries, and take a firm position against unilateralism and trade protectionism, Xi said.

He noted Malaysia is an important country along the ancient Maritime Silk Road and was among the first to participate in the Belt and Road construction.

Xi called for the joint construction of the Belt and Road, which serves as a focus in pragmatic cooperation between the two countries in the new era.

China and Malaysia should increase overall planning and alignment of development strategies, push forward industrial and innovation cooperation, cultivate new bright points, expand new fields, and seek new ideas and models in their cooperation, Xi added.

He also encouraged the two countries to look for cooperation opportunities with third parties along the Belt and Road so as to inject positive energy into the economic development of the region and the world.

Saying his visit to China indicates an important step taken by Malaysia's new government, Mahathir stressed his country's friendly policy toward China remains unchanged.

Malaysia has benefited from its cooperation with China, a significant and influential country as well as Malaysia's largest trading partner, said Mahathir, adding that China's development never poses a threat to his country.

Malaysia admires the miraculous achievements China has made in industrial and commercial fields and hopes to learn from China's experience in its attempt to "Look East," he said.

China is welcome to invest more in Malaysia, the Malaysian prime minister said, expressing his hope that through this approach bilateral cooperation can be cemented and people of the two countries will benefit.

He spoke of the great Chinese navigator Zheng He's visits to Malaysia more than 600 years ago and voiced his country's support for the Belt and Road Initiative, which is expected to increase regional exchanges.

Also on Monday, Li Zhanshu, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, met with Mahathir, calling for more cooperation between the two countries' legislatures.

Mahathir is paying an official visit to China from Aug. 17 to 21.

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[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]
Richer Americans are moving to the coasts while poorer families are relocating to the Rust Belt as part of a national gentrification trend that is dividing the haves and have-nots geographically, according to a new study.

The phenomenon is called 'income sorting' by a researcher at BuildZoom.com, and it means that the people who move to more expensive metropolises like New York and Los Angeles are increasingly wealthy, while those who are moving into more depressed inland cities are making less money than those who are leaving them behind.

'What we are seeing happening is the population being separated into the haves and the have-nots,' study author Issi Romem said. 'The haves are increasingly being concentrated in the expensive coastal cities.'

San Francisco is an example of this trend, with people who relocated to the city from 2005-2016 making an average of $12,650 more per year than those who are leaving, he said.

Americans moving to major metropolitan cities are increasingly richer than the people fleeing those cities, while those moving inland tend to be poorer than those moving away. The chart above shows (in blue) how much more people moving to major coastal cities are making, on average, than the people who are leaving those metropolitan areas. The cities in red show how much more people are making, on average, than the people fleeing those locations

By comparison, those who are moving to places like Detroit and Cleveland have average salaries up to $4,200 less than those who are fleeing those cities.

The problem is exacerbated by high housing costs in coastal cities, where demand is high, supply is low and 'homebuyers and renters in these metros compete with each other over a smaller housing stock, bidding up prices, and pushing out those who are the least financially able,' the study said.

The result is that lower income people are then deterred from moving to those cities, further exacerbating the problem and creating a never-ending cycle of rising prices for the wealthy who are left behind. Eventually these cities could become unaffordable for all but the wealthiest Americans.

'We're not willing to build enough to accommodate the people who want to live in these coastal cities,' Romem told DailyMail.com. 'That's not a choice that we're making without consequences. The consequence is long-term rising housing costs and another consequence is an (income) sorting process.'

People who migrate to these higher-cost metropolitan areas also typically have more people in their household who are earning money, making the big city lifestyle more realistic. Meanwhile, those who migrate out of those cities tend to come from single-income families.

The rich residents heading for the coasts are largely young, well-educated professionals who prefer renting to buying housing  in some cases with roommates.

For example, the people moving to Sacramento typically have fewer wage earners in their households compared to those who are leaving that metro area. Romem said this was likely because Sacramento is a 'key destination' for those fleeing the high costs of San Francisco.

On the other hand, the people who are increasingly being forced inland often include single-income families with less education who can no longer afford the high cost of city life.

This results in a potential brain drain in parts of middle America, making it harder for those regions to establish knowledge-based economies  or to create jobs that would help them hold onto more educated people.

Richer Americans are moving to the coasts while poorer families are relocating to the Rust Belt as part of a national gentrification trend that is dividing the haves and have-nots geographically. San Francisco (pictured) is an example of this trend, with people who relocated to the city from 2005-2016 making an average of $12,650 more per year than those who are leaving

For example, Pittsburgh is home to multiple universities, but the students tend to leave the region after graduation, taking their education and higher earning potential with them to coastal cities.

Meanwhile, unskilled labor shortages could occur in the wealthier parts of the country, where low-income people increasingly can't afford to live.

The study bolsters findings of income inequality in another recent report that found U.S. CEOs made 312 times more than their average employees in 2017.

Average compensation for CEOs rose by 17.6 percent to $18.9 million last year  more than 58 times the 0.3 percent increase in pay that typical workers in those industries received, according to an analysis by Washington D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute.

That is dramatically higher than 1965's 20-to-1 ratio, and even beats out the 58-to-1 ratio of 1989  and signals the country's income inequality problem is not going away any time soon.
For the first time since their homes were raided and they were arrested on federal charges of money laundering and facilitating prostitution, Backpage.com's founders are speaking out.

Michael Lacey, 69, and James Larkin, 70, were released to home confinement on a $1million bond after both plead not guilty to state and federal charges stemming from a broad investigation of the sex ad website.

Larkin and Lacey spoke to Reason.com from their respective Arizona homes, where they are both confined in Maricopa County, wearing ankle monitoring devices until their trial in 2020.

In the meantime their bank accounts have been sized. 'Everything has been brutal,' says Larkin.

Backpage.com founders James Larkin (left) and Michael Lacey (right) say having their finances siezed is an effort by the US Attorney's Office to ensure they are unable to pay their legal bills

Lacey (left) and Larkin (right), were indicted on federal charges in what authorities say was a scheme to knowingly facilitate prostitution by running ads for sexual services

The 93-count indictment, which also includes money laundering charges, was unsealed after Backpage.com and its affiliated websites were seized in April by US federal law enforcement authorities and taken off the internet

Lacey says wearing the monitoring device and hearing it beep when he gets too far is 'a constant slap in the face.'

Both of the men had been fitted with the trackers after their homes were raided by the FBI, something Lacey likens to the same 'intense emotional violation' that he felt when his home was burgled when he was young.

They say that the case against them is politically motivated, and a trial date so far out is designed to force a plea.

But 'they're going to have to win this in court,' says Lacey, 'and we don't think they can. And our lawyers don't think they can.'

'We didn't go looking for this fight,' says Lacey. 'But we didn't back away from it either.'

In October 2016, the CEO of backpage.com, Carl Ferrer, was arrested in Houston on felony pimping charges after arriving back to the US from Amsterdam. Those charges were later dropped

The men believe the US Attorney's Office is trying their best to rid them of their defense attorney through punitive financial depletion and by using the law in their favor.

'They try to exhaust all your financial resources so that you can't afford these lawyers,' Lacey says, and 'if the lawyers are still around, they then move to get rid of the lawyer.'

They say the US Attorney's Office is trying to have their lawyer dismissed from the case after the lawyer worked with Carl Ferrer, the site's Chief Executive, in a conflict of interest argument.

'You know, we think we will prevail if we're allowed to defend ourselves,' Larkin adds. 'If we're allowed to use our resources to defend ourselves in court, we will prevail.'

'You know, there's this old, lame-ass horsesh** that priests and nuns will tell you about ''God doesn't give you a burden that you can't carry,'' Lacey says.

'We will carry this burden, and we will f****** prevail at the end of this god damn sh**. But it's ugly in the middle.'

The men are also convinced their prosecution is politically motivated.

'Part of the reason this has really worked is because you have Cindy and John McCain involved in this,' Larkin says, 'and they see an opportunity to even a score. We think there's no question that this is partly their doing.'

'The fact that the law is clear about this [yet] they can still ignore it and play to the rafters, you know? That's politics,' says Lacey.

'We've never, ever broken the law,' Larkin says. 'Never have, never wanted to. This isn't reallyI know this is probably heresythis isn't about sex work to me. This is about speech,' Larkin adds, sounding a bit like Larry Flynt of Hustler who stood against his own lewdness charges and won under First Amendment rights.

'This is the biggest speech battle in America right now,' Lacey adds.

'The First Amendment isn't about protecting the rights of the McLaughlin Group to speak their mind on television. This is specifically what the f*** it's about. Unpopular speech. Dangerous speech. Speech that threatens the norm. Not only do we have that right, our readers have that right. The [Backpage] posters have that right.

'We spent 40 years doing journalism, groundbreaking journalism, and they want to take all that away,' he saysbecause 'they don't like who exercised their constitutional rights to use our advertising platform. And that has no god damn bearing. The law doesn't say, 'You get to pick and choose who exercises their constitutional rights by whether or not you like their lifestyle.' It's just incredible,' says Lacey.

Several Backpage.com employees were charged in a 93-count indictment unsealed on Monday that accused them of knowingly facilitating prostitution. Lacey personally faces 79 criminal counts.

'For far too long, Backpage.com existed as the dominant marketplace for illicit commercial sex, a place where sex traffickers frequently advertised children and adults alike,' Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement earlier this week. 'But this illegality stops right now.'

Efforts to get that law changed were featured prominently in a Netflix documentary called 'I am Jane Doe.' Pictured is a grab from the documentary

In the indictment, the US Justice Department accuses Backpage of earning $500million in prostitution-related revenue since its inception in 2004, and of money laundering that entailed routing funds through seemingly unrelated entities, wiring money in and out of foreign accounts and converting it into and out of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Pictured are Larkin, Lacey and Ferrer in court in 2017

Prosecutors have accused the website of generating $500 million in prostitution-related revenue since launching in 2004, in addition to money-laundering by routing funds through seemingly unrelated entities, using foreign accounts and converting it into and out of cryptocurrencies.

Backpage.com was used primarily to sell sex and was the second-largest classified ad service in the United States after Craigslist.

The unsealed indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in Arizona, lays out details concerning 17 alleged victims, including both adults and minors as young as 14 years old, who were trafficked on the site.

Lacey's release in April came a day after Ferrer, 57, entered guilty pleas to conspiracy and money-laundering charges in both Sacramento County Superior Court and U.S. District Court in Arizona under agreements with state and federal prosecutors that call for him to serve five years in prison.

As part of his agreements with the U.S. Department of Justice and with prosecutors from California and Texas, Ferrer agreed to cooperate in the criminal case against Backpage.com co-founders Lacey and James Larkin.

Also charged in the indictment were Backpage.com Executive Vice President Scott Spear, Chief Financial Officer John 'Jed' Brunst, Sales and Marketing Director Dan Hyer, Operations Manager Andrew Padilla and Assistant Operations Manager Joye Vaught.

Congress passed legislation that makes it easier for state prosecutors and sex-trafficking victims to sue website operators that facilitate online sex trafficking.

The bill amends the Communications Decency Act, which largely shielded website operators from state criminal charges or civil liability if they were facilitating sex ads or prostitution.

Efforts to get that law changed were featured prominently in a Netflix documentary called 'I am Jane Doe.'
Australia's largest live sheep exporter has been permanently banned after shocking footage emerged of animals cramped together and dying aboard a squalid ship.

The federal Agriculture Department has cancelled the livestock export licence of Emanuel Exports, saying the action is in the industry's best interests.

The department suspended Emanuel Exports' licence in June after revelations of thousands of animal deaths in sweltering conditions.

Australia's largest live sheep exporter has been permanently banned after shocking footage emerged of animals cramped together and dying aboard a squalid ship

The federal Agriculture Department has cancelled the livestock export licence of Emanuel Exports, saying the action is in the industry's best interests

The department suspended Emanuel Exports' licence in June after revelations of thousands of animal deaths in sweltering conditions

The decision to cancel the company's licence followed 'a thorough investigation and show cause process', the department said in a statement late on Tuesday.

'The department has made this decision in accordance with the requirements of the Australian Meat and Livestock Industry Act 1997, and has taken action against this company in the best interests of the industry and for the protection of Australia's high standards of animal welfare and health,' the statement said.

It added that it was the responsibility of each exporter to meet the legal requirements governing livestock exportation, including to provide accurate information to the regulator.

Failure to do so undermines the legislative regime and compromises the industry's ability to export livestock in a way that ensures livestock health and welfare, the statement said.

'Cancellation of licence is a serious step and is not one taken lightly. The department is satisfied that this the most appropriate response.'

The statement also said the Agriculture Department is implementing a series of changes to improve the sustainability of the trade, with 'improved animal welfare outcomes'.

Footage emerged in April showing the shocking conditions on an Emanuel Exports ship

The changes include recommendations from a review of conditions for sheep export to the Middle East during the northern hemisphere summer.

Footage emerged in April showing the shocking conditions on an Emanuel Exports ship.

More than 1300 sheep allegedly died in two days during an intense heatwave in the Persian Gulf.

The ship's navigation officer told Nine Network's 60 Minutes program that crew fainted while the sheep, unable to leave the boat, were essentially being 'put in an oven'.

Crew members were seen tossing carcasses from the boat into the sea while others fight for food or collapse and die in filth below deck.
The New York Attorney General's Office has been investigating sexual harassment and workplace discrimination at The Spotted Pig for months The New York Times reported on Monday.

In that report, the Times said that two of the restaurant's owners were also being looked into for their alleged behavior towards female staffers - Ken Friedman and Mario Batali.

'The subpoena seeks, among other things, any records of sexually suggestive communications between Mr. Friedman and any employees, including nude photos or descriptions of the attractiveness or sexual availability of employees and job applicants,' reports the Times.

'It also seeks video footage of Mr. Batali with female employees in the restaurants third-floor party room, as well as records of complaints related to sex harassment or discrimination based on employees gender or pregnancy.'

Fall from grace: The New York Times reports that an investigation into The Spotted Pig has been ongoing for the past few months (Batali above last October)

Coming forward: A number of women alleged in interviews with 60 Minutes back in May (one alleged victim above) that they been sexually harassed and groped by Batali

Location: Sources tell the paper that the office recently subpoenaed text messages between owner Ken Friedman and staff members

This news comes after a number of women alleged in interviews with 60 Minutes back in May that they been sexually harassed and groped by the married father-of-two, 57, who they referred to as 'The Red Menace.'

These incidents all occurred at The Spotted Pig according to the women, a restaurant in Manhattan's West Village that Batali has had an ownership stake in since it opened.

The stories these women told had for the most part previously been reported back in December by The New York Times.

In fact, every woman but one who appeared on 60 Minutes had previously spoken to the Times, including former general manager Jamie Seet and former server Trish Nelson.

Seet claimed in that interview 'she intervened when she saw on the security camera feed that Mr. Batali, who was drunk, was groping and kissing a woman who appeared to be unconscious' back in 2008.

'We called him the Red Menace,' Nelson told the Times.

'He tried to touch my breasts and told me that they were beautiful. He wanted to wrestle. As I was serving drinks to his table, he told me I should sit on his friends face.'

The Batali & Bastianich Hospitality Group announced on Monday that they were dropping one half of their partnership, stating:'The accounts tonight were chilling and deeply disturbing. This is the first we heard of them.'

It is unclear how they managed to not hear the 'accounts' prior to last night however, as only one of the woman had not spoken in the press before Sunday.

A rep for B&B had also revealed that an employee reported inappropriate behavior by Batali back in October last year and he was reprimanded and required to attend training.

That was the first formal complaint according to the spokesperson.

'Our partnership with Mr. Batali is ending. We have been actively negotiating with Mr. Batali to buy his interests in the restaurants, and he and Joe Bastianich have signed a letter of intent that sets forth the broad terms to do so,' added the statement.

'We expect to have the final terms set by July 1, and that Nancy Silverton, Lidia Bastianich, Mr. Bastianich, and other current investors will participate in the acquisition.'

One woman who previously worked with Batali and said she too thinks she was sexually assaulted by the chef was speaking out for the first time on 60 Minutes.

That woman believes she may have been drugged as well back in 2005, after waking up around dawn one day after passing out in a private room at The Spotted Pig.

'I woke up by myself on the floor, I don't know where I am, of an empty room, wooden floor. I see broken bottles. The first thing I think is, "I've been drugged." That was the first thing I thought is, "I've been-- I've been assaulted,"' said the woman.

'My right leg was very deeply wounded, like, scratched, like, deep scratches.'

She then added: 'I didn't think I had been raped. I didn't feel any kind of trauma ... I didn't feel any trauma internally. But I also did find- I looked on my skirt- There were two areas. It looked like DNA.'

She then tried to talk about the incident with Batali but she claims he refused to even speak.

'I said, "What happened? What- what happened last night," And he just was silent, wouldn't talk to me,' said the woman.

The woman decided to call a crisis hotline and then get an exam she claimed, with four individuals confirming that she had told them about this at the time.

She even went to speak with police, but in the end could not bring herself to file a report out of fear that she would never work in a restaurant again and be left unemployed in the news got around.

'They tried getting me to file a report. They tried, they tried,' she explained of the officers with the special victims unit.

'But I-- you know, a young actress, no resources, no money. I couldn't. I-- I couldn't do it.'

Batali said in a statement: 'I vehemently deny the allegation that I sexually assaulted this woman.'

He also released a statement back in December after the allegations first came to light, along with a recipe for cinnamon buns.

Batali stated at the time that he was stepping down from his restaurant empire and would no longer be appearing as a host on his ABC daytime show The Chew.

That came soon after Eater published an article in which four women accused the chef of inappropriate groping following the Times report.

Batali has stepped down form some of his restaurants but still has an ownership stake in many and remains married to wife Susi

One of the women said that Batali groped her chest after wine spilled on her shirt while another said he grabbed her from behind and held her tightly against his body.

Three of those four women asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution from Batali, who was their boss at that time.

Batali did admit that 'much of the behavior described does, in fact, match up with ways I have acted.'

A few weeks later, Eater published a second piece in which multiple employees of B&B said it would be impossible for Batali's partner Joe Bastianich to have not witnessed the chef;s incidents or groping and assault over the years.

Bastianich claimed he was in the dark and said that while he had heard Batali make inappropriate comments he never once witnessed an incident of inappropriate contact between his business partner and a woman.

B&B has over two dozen very profitable restaurants including Babbo in New York, Carnevino Italian Steakhouse in Las Vegas and Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles.

It is also a partner in Eataly, an Italian food hall and grocer, which has locations in New York, Chicago and Boston.

His career took off after opening Po in New York City in the early 1990s, and he skyrocketed to fame with the airing of Molto Mario, a show that ran on the Food Network for eight years, until 2004.

It was there that his signature look, a fleece vest, shorts, and orange Crocs, became recognizable to most people. He has also won several prestigious James Beard awards.

Batali and his wife Susi appear to still be together in spit of the allegations being made by these women, and the couple have two teenage sons.
A white Georgia superintendent was allegedly recorded in a racist rant in which he used the N-word eight times and spoke of wanting to kill black construction workers.

The audio recordings emerged amid a racial discrimination lawsuit filed against Buford School District Superintendent Geye Hamby by his former employee, Mary Ingram.

Hamby was allegedly recorded in two separate conversations discussing African-American workers at a construction site, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

It remains unclear when the remarks were made, who Hamby was allegedly speaking to, and where the recordings came from.

The horrific audio - which has not been released to the public - begins with a voice, allegedly belonging to Hamby, discussing workers from a temp agency.

'How much are they charging us for?' he can be heard asking. 'Can you show me our general conditions, how many of these damn deadbeat n*****s'.

Buford School District Superintendent Geye Hamby was allegedly recorded in a racist rant in which he used the N-word eight times and spoke of wanting to kill black construction workers

'They said they're from a temp service, so I guess...have you got more of these big n*****s than the ones from the temp service?'

Hamby then allegedly begins complaining about one man, who he calls a 'deadbeat n****r' that was on his cell phone.

'He said he worked for the temp service and he didn't have to do what the f**k we tell him to do. F**k that n****r,' Hamby allegedly says in the recording.

'I kill these damn - shoot that n****r - if they let me.'

He then tells the person on the other end of the line: 'Well, check out what's going on with all the n*****s down here. Thank you.'

In the second recording, the voice allegedly belonging to Hamby can once again be heard complaining about the workers and saying they have a 'damn attitude'.

'I know Phillip told two of the n*****s to get off the damn job site,' he tells someone.

'Send us a park-quality person. Don't send us a deadbeat n****r from a temp service. S**t, we can find you some kids around here that want a damn job.

'We've got young kids right here that put in the work. They can do more than the damn deadbeat n*****s  but I mean it's too late on this damn job. Find out why in the hell we still have them. Bye.'

Ingram, 66, filed a lawsuit against Hamby and the Buford school district in June, claiming she was the victim of racial discrimination and retaliation.

The former city school district employee alleges that issues began with Hemby when she asked him why the color gold wasn't included in the district's emblem.

Gold represented the city's black school district before Buford was integrated in 1969.

'I was afraid we were about to lose our heritage,' Ingram told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 'I wanted them to know it was important to the community.'

Ingram presented a petition to include gold in the emblem to the school board in 2014 and brought up the issue at City Hall meetings.

Weeks after she questioned Hamby about the emblem, she said she bumped into the superintendent in a hallway.

When she asked Hamby why she hadn't heard from him, she claims he replied: 'I didn't speak to you and I don't have to and probably would never speak to you again.'

Ingram said the superintendent later called her into a meeting and said he wanted to be told in advance what she planned to say at school board and city commission meetings.

She refused, saying it was a violation of her First Amendment rights.

Then, Ingram claims, she began to get written up frequently at work despite more than a decade of 'glowing evaluations' with the district.

She alleges that she was even told to stop encouraging children to smile after they got off the bus in the morning before school, according to the lawsuit.

After two years, Ingram was fired and told she was 'perceived as being disrespectful, argumentative, unfriendly, and not a good fit in a school environment'.

Ingram said she 'couldn't move' when she heard the news.

'I just froze,' she added. 'My legs felt weak. Before this happened, I looked forward every morning to getting up and going to work to do things for the children.'

But Ingram said she didn't decide to sue Hamby until she heard the audio recordings.

'This is the man who is over our children,' she said.

The district said that Ingram was 'terminated for cause and neglect of her duties', a claim that her attorney, Ed Buckley, disputes.

'She was well thought of by principals and children and very dedicated to what she did,' he said.

'It's disgraceful that she would be fired because of her race and the race of her constituents for whom she stood up in public meetings during the exercise of her First Amendment rights.'

Hamby refused to comment on the suit to the AJC, saying only that it was a 'personnel and legal matter pertaining to a disgruntled employee'.

Meanwhile, the school district continues to deny that Hamby uses racist language.

Walt Britt, who is representing the school board, claims it has been unable to determine the 'veracity and authenticity' of the recordings.

Britt also claims that Ingram has 'failed or refused to produce the original recordings for testing or provide any information concerning the background or foundation of the recording'.

Buckley denied Britt's claims, saying he hired an expert to analyze the audio and that the district has the recordings as they are 'embedded in the complaint'.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he feels 'very badly' for his ex-campaign chairman, who is now facing life in prison after being convicted of fraud.

Jurors found Paul Manafort guilty today on eight of 18 charges in a financial crimes case brought by prosecutors tasked with probing Russian election meddling.

'I feel very sad about that, because it doesn't involve me, but I still feel, you know, it's a very sad thing that happened,' Trump told reporters ahead of a West Virginia rally.

Trump did not take the same opportunity to praise his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty today to a host of crimes in a statement that implicated the president.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he feels 'very badly' for his ex-campaign chairman whose now facing life in prison after being convicted on charges of fraud

Jurors found Paul Manafort guilty today on eight of 18 charges in a tax and banking fraud case brought by prosecutors who were tasked with probing Russian election meddling

Trump did not take the same opportunity to praise his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty today to a host of crimes in a statement that implicated the president

The president indicated that he sympathizes with his ex-attorney and his ex-campaign manager as he landed in Charleston for a rally this evening that was supposed to pump up his base and energize voters in West Virginia to support Republicans.

Back to back blows in the criminal cases of Manafort and Cohen cast a shadow over Trump's travel, though, and the president appeared unusually downtrodden.

Walking over to reporters shouting on the tarmac about the former Trump associates the president said: 'I feel badly for both.'

'I must tell you that, Paul Manafort's a good man,' he insisted.

In a flash of anger Trump berated special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of investigators.

'This has nothing to do with Russian collusion. This started as Russian collusion. This has absolutely nothing to do - this is a witch hunt, and it's a disgrace,' he said. 'This has nothing to do - what they started out, looking for Russians involved in our campaign, there were none.'

Trump had an hour on his way to West Virginia to process the guilty verdict for Manafort and the guilty plea for Cohen. And still he was in apparent shock when Air Force One landed.

'I feel very badly for Paul Manafort,' Trump told reporters a second time during the tarmac interaction. 'Again, he worked for Bob Dole, he worked for Ronald Reagan, he worked for many, many people.'

Pausing to take it all in, Trump added: 'And it's just the way it ends up.

'It was not the original mission, believe me. It was something very much different. So it had nothing to do with Russian collusion.

'We continue the witch hunt,' he concluded.

After four days of deliberation, a jury found Manafort guilty of eight counts of bank and tax fraud on Tuesday just as Trump was leaving the White House. The guilty verdict will ensure that Manafort spends the rest of his life in prison, unless he wins on appeal or Trump decides to help him.

The jury said it was unable to reach a verdict on 10 additional counts, leading Judge T.S. Ellis to declare a mistrial on those accusations of misconduct. It is unknown as to whether prosecutors will attempt to retry Manafort on the remaining charges.

And at precisely the same time as Manafort's verdict was delivered, Trump's former personal attorney, Cohen, was pleading guilty to eight crimes at a New York federal court that will directly affect the president.

Cohen said that he made an illicit payment at the 'direction' of a political candidate in the last election, without naming Trump. He was referring to a hush-money payoff to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

The former Trump lawyer made the stunning statement linking Trump to his crimes, including some related to Daniels and another woman who says she had an affair with Trump, Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, after falling out with the client for whom he once said he'd take a bullet.

Attorney Kevin Downing, center, with Richard Westling, left, addresses the media outside federal court after Paul Manafort, the longtime political operative who for months led Donald Trump's winning presidential campaign, was found guilty of eight financial crimes in the first trial victory of the special counsel investigation into the president's associates

The president's White House spokeswoman, Sarah Sanders, declined on Tuesday evening to comment on either the Cohen or the Manafort cases, directing reporters in a statement to the Trump's comments on the tarmac after it happened and the president's outside counsel.

President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani said in a statement that Cohen's statements 'reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty' and that Trump has nothing to do with the crimes that Cohen says he committed.

'There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government's charges against Mr. Cohen,' Giuliani said. 'It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohen's actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.'

Trump's former lawyer and fixer spoke in open court about a $130,000 payment he made to Daniels, as well as a deal he helped negotiate with a publisher involving McDougal.

U.S. attorney Robert Khuzami said at a news conference that Cohen also failed to report income of $4.1 million, costing the U.S. Treasury approximately $1.3 million.

'In addition what he did was he worked to pay money to silence two women who had information that he believed would be detrimental to the 2016 campaign and to the candidate and the campaign,' Khuzami stated.

Khuzami said that Cohen sought reimbursement 'by submitting invoices to the candidate's company which were untrue and false. They indicated that the reimbursement was for services rendered for the year 2017, when in fact those invoices were a sham.

'He provided no legal services for the year 2017, the U.S. attorney said, 'it was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful campaign contribution.'

Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis suggested Tuesday that Trump should also be charged with a crime as he tweeted about his client.

'Today he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election. If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?' the attorney asked.

Trump's lawyers have argued that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime while in office, although that precedent could be subject to a court challenge.

Numerous legal experts say Trump most likely will avoid charges while in office, but he could face prosecution after he leaves and be forced to give testimony in legal matters.

The president's posse nevertheless scrambled to distance Trump from Cohen's allegations.

Trump-defending attorney and frequent talking head Alan Dershowitz told Fox that the president could be named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Cohen case, even though he believes that would be unfair.

'But it's not nearly as deadly lethal as some have portrayed it as being,' Dershowitz said.

Ex-White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci predicted on Fox News that Trump would be totally 'shielded' from the crimes committed by his former lawyer.

Scaramucci said that if critics are looking for a 'smoking gun' to nail the president, it's 'not in those two cases' against Cohen or Manafort.

'What's clear is you can't indict a sitting president,' he said, noting that it will be up to Congress to decide whether Trump should be tossed out before his term ends.

Optically, the cases don't look good for Trump, but legally, he said, 'I don't think it hurts the president.'

Trump's allies had been bracing themselves for the verdict in Manafort's tax and bank fraud trial for days, stressing to DailyMail.com while the jury was out that the charges against Manafort has nothing to do with sitting president.

They universally highlighted the fact that Manafort's alleged crimes took place before he joined the president's entourage in an unpaid position and that the political consultant departed the Trump campaign prior to the general election.

Ex-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who was booted by the president in June of 2016 after Manafort came on board, told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor that he, for one, had 'no idea' that Manafort was struggling with his finances.

'Nobody would know that,' the political operative who remains close to Trump said in defense of himself and the president.

On the surface, Lewandowski said, the multi-millionaire who lived in Trump Tower had his affairs together.

'There's no vetting process I could have gone through to check Paul Manafort's financial status prior to him coming on the campaign,' Lewandowski asserted.

Those around the president said they feel bad for him, particularly because the case that involved not one but two former campaign officials. Manafort was joined at the trial by ex-deputy Rick Gates, who flipped and testified against his long-time boss.

Trump insiders lamented the fact that Manafort's case is routinely linked to the president, even though Ellis instructed prosecutors and the defense not to bring the president up.

The court case that sprang from the special counsel investigation into Russian election interference has drawn in the president with a knack for saying exactly what is on his mind for reasons other than the apparent, Manafort connection, though.

Trump said last week, for instance, that his ex-campaign chairman is 'a very good person' and the accused's 'trial is very sad.'

'I think its a very sad day for our country,' he observed to a reporter. 'And I think its very sad what theyve done to Paul Manafort.'

A senior official insisted to DailyMail.com after the exchange there's 'very little conversation' about the Manafort trial within the White House.

'We have plenty to do without focusing on the Paul Manafort trial,' the high-ranking Trump aide said.

President Trump was merely responding to what he had been asked - if he was considering a pardon for Manafort - the person added. 'This is just not part of what we're discussing every day,' the source said.

Trump, his lawyers and sources close to the president have all said that a pardon for Manafort is not under consideration.

The topic has repeatedly come up, however, in response to the president's comments on Manafort's case and similar instances in which he has shared his belief the plaintiff had being mistreated by the Department of Justice.

Several times in his first year in office Trump has exercised his power of the pardon to commute sentences or wipe clean the slate of the party he believes is being persecuted.

Trump lashed out at DOJ earlier this month for using its Russia probe to pin down Manafort on unrelated charges.

Giuliani has said that a pardon for Manafort would be up to Trump and his White House counsel.

It did not come up on Tuesday, but Trump told reporters last week that he was not considering it.
Ziylo was created by University of Bristol Professor Anthony Davis, his former PhD student Harry Destecroix and businessman Tom Smart.

The spin-out firm has developed synthetic molecules which bind to glucose in the bloodstream to help diabetics control their condition.

It eliminates the risk of low blood sugar which can lead to death in the severest cases. The glucose-binding molecules were designed by Prof Davis.

Ziylo has received 2million in funding since its formation from angel investors and government grants.

Dr Destecroix said the firm's new owners Novo Nordisk could start clinical trials of products based on Ziylos technology within three years.
By Gennella Graham , Corinth, Mississippi, For my cousin, William Roy Prather

Write that I,

Was minding my own business

That Halloween night, 1959.

I, too, just wanted to have fun

With my friend before they decided that I

Wasnt fit to live.

Write that I,

Had a life too, family, friends, my own dreams.

Visions of my first kiss, finishing school, having my own family,

All left dark by those bullets,

That pierced through my light

Darkening my path

Halting my steps

Silencing this world

Forging through to the next and taking me captive

Write that I,

Was fifteen when those eight white boys

Took my life and busted LaVells eardrum.

Can you hear them?

Can you see me?

Write that I,

Wanted to fight,

Wanted to live,

But no one asked what I thought,

What I wanted.

No choice

Just silence

Just another he was, yet

Write that I am,

William Roy Prather.

Gennella Graham wrote: I learned of the murder of William Roy Prather on CRMvet.org. He was a 15-year old black male from Corinth, MS, who was murdered on Halloween 1959. After finding this information, I called my aunt, who now resides in St. Louis, MO, but grew up in my hometown, Corinth. She informed me that William Roy Prather was our cousin, and to this day she still hates Halloween because his murder took place on that date. She also filled in the blanks. She said the eight white boys that murdered him shot out both of his eyes and damaged the eardrums of his friend, LaVell Powell. Prathers mother left his casket open for the public to view. My aunt stated that he no longer resembled that young, full of life 15-year old boy but a 97- year old man.

Source: TeachingForChange.org
Sixty nine major earthquakes have hit Earth's most active geological disaster zone in the space of just 48 hours.

Sixteen 'significant' tremors - those at magnitude 4.5 or above - shook the Pacific 'Ring of Fire' on Monday, following a spate of 53 that hit the region Sunday.

The quakes rattled Indonesia, Bolivia, Japan and Fiji, but failed to reach the western coast of the United States, which also falls along the infamous geological ring.

The tremors have raised concerns that California's 'Big One' - a destructive earthquake of magnitude 8 or greater - may be looming.

Scientists have previously warned that Ring of Fire activity may trigger a domino effect that sets off earthquakes and volcanic eruptions elsewhere in the region.

California, which straddles the huge San Andreas Fault Line and sits on the eastern edge of the ring, is long overdue a deadly earthquake, researchers claim.

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Fears that a deadly earthquake may soon hit California have emerged after a swarm of quakes rocked one of Earth's major geological disaster zones. Pictured are the locations of 53 earthquakes above magnitude 4.5 that hit the Pacific Ring of Fire in just 24 hours on Sunday

The recent spate of Ring of Fire activity was recorded by experts at the United States Geological Survey, which is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.

Maps generated by the agency's vast array of seismometers shows Fiji was the worst hit, with five earthquakes above magnitude 4.5 - classed as 'significant' by the USGS - rumbling the country since Monday morning.

The largest of these was a 5.0 tremor that struck the region at 6:30am BST (1:30am ET) on Tuesday morning.

An enormous 8.2 magnitude earthquake struck in the Pacific Ocean close to Fiji and Tonga on Sunday, but was too deep to cause any significant damage.

The quake's depth at 347.7 miles (560 km) would have dampened the shaking at the surface.

'We are monitoring the situation and some places felt it, but it was a very deep earthquake,' Director Apete Soro told Reuters.

A string of 16 quakes on Monday rattled Indonesia, Bolivia, Japan and Fiji, but failed to reach the western coast of the United States. Pictured are the locations of 'significant' earthquakes to hit the ring of Fire since Monday morning

Indonesia was hit by seven significant earthquakes, while the Soloman Islands, Bolivia and the Tonga were each rocked by a single quake, on Monday.

The nations often experience seismic activity as they sit along the Ring of Fire -a massive horseshoe-shaped area in the Pacific basin.

The ring is formed of a string of 452 volcanoes and sites of high seismic activity that encircle the Pacific Ocean, including the entire US west coast.

The (USGS) has not issued a warning over the recent shakes, meaning they do not pose an immediate risk to US citizens.

WHAT IS EARTH'S 'RING OF FIRE'? Earth's so-called 'Ring of Fire' is a horseshoe-shaped geological disaster zone that is a hot bed for tectonic and volcanic activity. Roughly 90 per cent of the world's earthquakes occur in the belt, which is also home to more than 450 volcanoes. The seismic region stretches along the Pacific Ocean coastlines, where the Pacific Plate grinds against other plates that form the Earth's crust. It loops from New Zealand to Chile, passing through the coasts of Asia and the Americas on the way. In total, the loop makes up a 25,000-mile (40,000-kilometre) -long zone prone to frequent earthquakes and eruptions. The region is susceptible to disasters because it is home to a vast number of 'subduction zones', areas where tectonic plates overlap. Earthquakes are triggered when these plates scrape or slide underneath one another, and when that happens at sea it can spawn tsunamis. Advertisement

But the recent jump in Ring of Fire activity may spark activity elsewhere in the region, including California.

Professor Emily Brodsky, an Earth scientist at the University of California Santa Cruz, told Vox in February that volcanoes and earthquakes in the area 'can interact'.

California was recently shaken by a cluster of 11 earthquakes, ranging in magnitude from 2.8 to 5.6 on the Richter scale.

The cluster occurred last month on the seabed at the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate, around six miles (10km) underwater off the US west coast.

This plate forms part of the Cascadia subduction zone, which runs from Northern California to British Columbia.

The string of tremors has raised concerns that California's 'Big One' - a destructive earthquake of magnitude 8 or greater - may be looming. Pictured is the aftermath of the Northridge Earthquake, a 7.6 quake that struck the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles in 1994

Seismologists say a full rupture along the 650-mile-long (1,000 km) offshore fault could trigger a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and an accompanying tsunami.

Fears of a quake of this size, dubbed the 'Big One', were stirred last year by an expert who warned that a destructive earthquake will hit California 'imminently'.

Seismologist Dr Lucy Jones, from the US Geological Survey, warned in a dramatic speech that people need to act to protect themselves rather than ignoring the threat.

Dr Jones said people's decision not to accept it will only mean more suffer as scientists warn the 'Big One' is now overdue to hit California.

In a keynote speech to a meeting of the Japan Geoscience Union and American Geophysical Union, Dr Jones warned that the public are yet to accept the randomness of future earthquakes.

People tend to focus on earthquakes happening in the next 30 years but they should be preparing now, she warned.
Gmail users on Android now have access to a helpful feature that allows you to 'unsend' embarrassing emails.

However, you will have just ten seconds to recall a message before the option disappears and the email is sent.

The option comes in the form of an 'undo' button that appears on your screen after you click 'send' on a message.

It rolled out to users worldwide in Google's latest update of its email service.

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Gmail's Android app now includes a helpful feature that allows you to 'unsend' embarrassing emails. The option comes in the form of an 'undo' button (bottom right) that appears at the bottom of your screen after you click 'send' on a message

The feature was already available on desktop and iOS versions of Gmail.

But Google stopped short of granting users the ability to choose the time limit you have to 'unsend' messages - a setting desktop users can change.

To recall a message, simply tap the 'undo' option that appears at the bottom of your screen once an email has been sent.

Tapping the button will bring the email back to a draft so you can edit it before re-sending.

The undo button lingers for around ten seconds before it disappears for good, meaning you can no longer retrieve the email.

It is unclear exactly when Google rolled out the change, but the feature appears on all versions of the service beyond version 8.7.

You will have just 10 seconds to recall a Gmail message before the option disappears and the email is sent (stock image)

Google has rolled out a number of changes to its email service in recent months.

They include a new 'confidential mode' released to users with a service-wide redesign last month.

It can be switched-on when drafting an email to add extra security to emails with sensitive information.

Users can block recipients from forwarding or printing an email, add a 'self-destruct' timer to messages, or require that users click a link before reading.

Google believes the feature will help people who accidentally share information with the wrong person.

WHAT FEATURES DOES THE NEW GMAIL INCLUDE? Snooze - Gmail has added a hover menu that has the option to snooze messages until a specific time Nudging - The nudging feature relies on AI flagging messages that are from a certain sender and contain specific content. The company estimates that the 'nudges' feature will lead 8 per cent of business users each week to remember to follow-up on something important. High priority notifications - Gmail will use its in-built AI to flag high-priority notifications. It says this will 'help you stay focused without interruption' Unsubscribe -Gmail will start suggesting when to unsubscribe from newsletters or offers you no longer care about The new layout will allow users to click on attachments without needing to scroll through large conversations. The snooze button will allow users to delay some emails until they have time to address it Credit: Google Attachment chips - You can view and download attachments without opening an email Confidential mode - Users who enable a 'confidential' option when sending an email can time-limit its access to recipients. The new setting does not override corporate email retention policies or present new obstacles to law enforcement. Recipients can also be blocked from being able to forward, download or print an email. Improved security - Google's machine-learning algorithms will run safety checks on every message received and will alert users in bold when it spots something that appears to be a threat. Two-factor authentication is also being added so users can request the recipient authenticates themselves with a passcode received by text message before opening the confidential mail. Google is also trying to up its security and protection for users against fraudulent emails and spam with alert of potentially risky emails Smart replies - These will let users rapidly answer with a automatic response. New look - Cosmetic changes bring Gmail's website in line with Office by placing Google's calendar, tasks and note-taking services within the same page as emails. Generally, the design aims to be less cluttered with side panel that provide access to Google's other apps such as Calendar. How to get it - Users will be invited to opt in to the new changes from today, but most can also opt-in by going to 'Settings' and selecting 'Try the new Gmail'. In order to go back to the original Gmail, users can go to the same place and select 'Go back to classic Gmail'. Advertisement

However, the Department of Homeland Security has now warned that the tool could make it easier for cyber criminals to carry out phishing attacks.

Hackers purporting to be someone else could send out mass scam messages containing fake confidential links that steal people's data.

A spokesperson for Google said Gmail already had AI spam-detection systems in place to spot phishing emails and block them before they reach people's inboxes.

But an expert told ABC that the tool still poses a risk to users because it normalises the process of blindly clicking links within emails.

John Cohen, former acting undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said: '[It] may actually place users at a higher risk because it may support a pattern of behavior where people click on links they receive.'
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) holds talks with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 20, 2018. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

BEIJING, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Premier Li Keqiang held talks with visiting Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Beijing on Monday, saying China will work with Malaysia to promote neighborly friendship to a new high.

With new governments established in the two countries this year, the development of bilateral relations was standing at a new starting point, Li said.

He said that China will follow the friendly policy towards Malaysia, and will work with Malaysia to score the long-term healthy development of bilateral ties on the basis of mutual respect, equality, and mutual benefit.

China and Malaysia have strong economic complementarity and great potential for cooperation. China is willing to better integrate the Belt and Road Initiative with Malaysia's development strategy, while promoting China-Malaysia industrial cooperation and construction of industrial parks, and strengthening cooperation in economy, trade, investment, agriculture, fisheries, and transportation infrastructure, said Li.

He said China will import more high-quality Malaysian products to cater to the needs of domestic consumers, improve the level of trade facilitation, and encourage strong and reputable companies of the two countries to expand two-way investment.

Li called on the two countries to provide a stable and sound business environment.

"China is willing to explore new cooperation with Malaysia in the fields such as science and technology innovation, automobile, finance, and e-commerce," said Li.

He also stressed the need to promote cultural exchanges, so as to lay a solid foundation of public support for cooperation.

As Malaysia is an important member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the development of China-Malaysia relations will not only benefit the two countries but also help deepen China-ASEAN relations and cooperation, said Li.

Against the background of rising unilateralism and protectionism, China is willing to work together with ASEAN countries including Malaysia to advocate multilateralism and free trade, adhere to putting development as a priority, and promote the building of an economic community in East Asia, so as to contribute to regional peace, stability, and prosperity, Li said.

Mahathir said that this is the first time he has visited a country outside ASEAN since he assumed office as Malaysian prime minister for the second time but his eighth visit to China as the prime minister.

He confirmed that the Malaysian government will continue to pursue the friendly policy toward China and look forward to further consolidating bilateral relations through this visit, realizing mutual benefit and win-win results in the economic and trade fields, and promoting the upgrading of Malaysia-China relations.

While calling trade protectionism a historical reversal, Mahathir said Malaysia hopes to export more products to China, welcomes investment from Chinese companies, and hopes that both sides will expand cooperation in tourism, innovation and research and development.

Malaysia actively supports the Belt and Road Initiative, which is conducive to promoting inter-connectivity and trade exchanges between countries and enhancing the links between the East and the West, he said.

A healthy and stable Malaysia-China relationship will not only benefit Malaysia but also contribute to regional peace, stability, and prosperity, he said.

Li and Mahathir also attended the signing of bilateral cooperative documents on economy, trade, agriculture, finance, and technology.

When meeting the press after the talks, Li said they agreed that the two countries should be partners in trade and investment, industrial cooperation, and innovation and growth.

Li said China will work with Malaysia to build a new pattern of pragmatic cooperation and open up a new space for cooperation in the fields of e-commerce, upgrading of traditional industries, and technological innovation.

The two sides also agreed to expand two-way opening up through capacity and industrial cooperation, and promote a more balanced development of bilateral trade on the basis of expanding trade scale.

Under the current international situation, the two sides agreed to jointly safeguard free trade, oppose trade protectionism, and promote the healthy development of economic globalization, according to Li.

The two sides are committed to promoting the construction of the East Asian Community, supporting ASEAN's central position in regional cooperation, and jointly sending a positive signal to the region and the world of maintaining the long-term friendship and safeguarding regional peace, stability, and development, he added.

Mahathir said Malaysia hopes to learn from China's experience and enhance the level of e-commerce and innovation cooperation.

The two countries are willing to work together to support globalization and maintain an open, free, and fair international economic system.

Also on Monday, the two sides released a joint statement, saying that standing at new historical junctures of their respective national development, China and Malaysia are optimistic about the prospect of their bilateral relations.

The statement said that during the visit, leaders of the two countries charted the course for future development of the bilateral relations, and had in-depth exchanges of views on regional and international issues of common interest in a friendly and cordial atmosphere.

It said both countries underscored the importance of maintaining peace, security and stability, as well as safety and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

Both sides emphasized the need for all sovereign states directly concerned to resolve their differences by peaceful means through friendly consultations and negotiations, and the need for all parties to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities, and to avoid actions that would complicate or escalate tensions in the South China Sea.

China and Malaysia, together with the ASEAN Member States, will work for the full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and encourage maritime cooperation, as well as actively push forward consultations on a Code of Conduct (COC) to see early conclusion of an effective COC, the statement said.

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[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]
Lyft has completed more than 5,000 self-driving rides through its ride-hailing app, the company said, as it aims to become a serious competitor in autonomous driving while its biggest rival, Uber, retrenches.

Lyft launched its self-driving service in January in Las Vegas, where passengers can take a ride in an autonomous BMW to and from some 20 different pick-up and destination spots around the city's casino-laden Strip.

The autonomous driving system is not built by Lyft, however, but by high-tech auto-parts supplier Aptiv Plc, which Lyft partnered with earlier this year.

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When you first get in, its not all that different from getting into a typical Lyft, as someone is sitting in the drivers seat. But, the backup driver keeps their hands off the wheel except in situations where it's required they take over. But instead of a smartphone with GPS on the dashboard, the self-driving Lyft is equipped with a small display that shows everything it sees

INSIDE LYFT'S SELF-DRIVING CAR Instead of a smartphone with GPS perched on the dashboard, the self-driving Lyft is equipped with a small display that shows everything its seeing in real-time. Cars, pedestrians, and other objects on side of road displayed as clusters of little blue dots, while purple route lines and yellow special indicators can also be seen moving around on the screen. The cars communicate with small boxes mounted on the traffic lights, allowing them to understand the color of the light even when if they cant see it. This works as a redundancy factor, to make the trip even safer, explained Nandita Mangal, whos in charge of rider experience. Whenever the car makes a decision, such as a lane change, it announces its activity to the riders. Advertisement

Lyft is developing its own self-driving system, but company officials have declined to say when it will be ready for public streets.

Lyft is far behind competitors such as Alphabet Inc's Waymo, which has been testing autonomous cars for about a decade.

The Las Vegas service is available to all Lyft passengers, who get a prompt asking if they agree to ride in a self-driving car.

If their destination is along one of the approved routes, they may get picked up by a robot car.

Two safety drivers are in the front seats.

Lyft and Aptiv declined to provide financial details on the service, which costs passengers the same as a Lyft ride in a human-driven car, but both companies "are making money on this," said Jody Kelman, product lead for Lyft's self-driving platform.

Aptiv has a fleet of 75 self-driving cars in Las Vegas, 20 of which are picking up Lyft passengers.

The company is a spin-off of Delphi Automotive Plc, which last year acquired self-driving startup NuTonomy, which is also testing self-driving cars in Singapore and Boston.

Aptiv and NuTonomy are working to integrate their systems.

Lyft has several partnerships in the self-driving space, but the deal with Aptiv is the only one so far to result in rides for the public.

Lyft was late to self-driving cars, announcing just more than a year ago plans for an autonomous driving development center in Silicon Valley.

Lyft has several partnerships in the self-driving space, but the deal with Aptiv is the only one so far to result in rides for the public

Lyft is developing its own self-driving system, but company officials have declined to say when it will be ready for public streets

Lyft's chief rival, Uber Technologies Inc, has meanwhile retrenched from its self-driving ambitions.

Following a fatal accident in March in Arizona, in which an Uber SUV operating in self-driving mode killed a pedestrian, Uber suspended its self-driving testing and shuttered its operations in Arizona, its chief testing ground.

Uber has not yet reintroduced its self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as it said it would by this summer.

And last month, Uber ended its work on self-driving trucks.
Strange looking primates known as aye-ayes and the prehistoric ancestors of lemurs and both made their way across the sea from Africa to Madagascar, scientists have found rewriting the history of their migration.

It had been thought ancestors of both of these unique animals, found nowhere else on Earth, arrived on the island some 60 million years ago and then their lineage split.

A re-examination of African fossils found half a century ago in Kenya has altered our understanding of when and how lemurs got to the island.

The new study suggests ancestors to the aye-ayes and lemurs arrived on Madagascar much later, in separate waves and as late as 23 million years ago.

Scientists still can't agree on exactly how the creatures made the journey across the perilous ocean between Africa and the island.

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Strange looking primates known as aye-ayes split from lemurs (pictured) in Africa before both made their ways to Madagascar, a new study has found. It had been thought ancestors of both of these unique animals, found nowhere else on Earth, arrived on the island together (stock)

The findings were based on the roughly 20-million-year-old fossil Propotto leakeyi long classified as a fruit bat. This image shows a 3D microCT scan of the fossilised fragments of the jaw of what is now thought to be an ancient relative of the aye-aye

The findings are based on the roughly 20-million-year-old fossil Propotto leakeyi, long classified as a fruit bat.

Researchers from the University of Southern California now believe the fossil of the strange creature wasn't a bat, but an ancient relative of the aye-aye.

The bucktoothed nocturnal primate, dubbed the aye-aye, represents one of the earliest branches of the lemur family tree.

It challenges the long-held view today's 100-some lemur species descended from ancestors that made their way to Madagascar in a single wave becoming some of the first mammals to colonise the island.

Instead the two lineages of lemurs split in Africa roughly 40 million years ago with one eventually leading to the aye-aye and the other to all other lemurs.

These ancestors then colonised Madagascar independently, and millions of years later than once believed.

It sheds new light about the early evolution of lemurs, distant primate cousins of humans.

Professor of anatomy Erik Seiffert at the university said: 'One implication is that lemurs have had a much less extensive evolutionary history on Madagascar than was previously thought.'

The study suggested the two lineages didn't make their separate ways to Madagascar until later, arriving around the same time as other mammals, such as rodents, Malagasy mongooses and hedgehog- and shrew-like animals called tenrecs.

Researchers now believe it was an ancient relative of the aye-aye (pictured), that represents one of the earliest branches of the lemur family tree

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT LEMURS? Lemurs, whose name means 'spirits of the night', are a special group of primates, which look something like a cat crossed with a squirrel and a dog. They are found only on Madagascar and the Comoro Islands. Lemurs live in a variety of habitats. Some live in moist, tropical rainforests, while others live in dry desert areas. The largest ever living type of lemur was the Archaeoindris with its weight ranging between 350 and 440lbs (160 and 200kg). It became extinct when humans first settled in Madagascar about 2,000 years ago. Lemurs are prosimians, or primitive primates. They are social animals with long limbs, flexible toes and fingers, and long noses. Each type of lemur looks very different. They vary in colour from reddish brown to gray, and come in all different sizes, too. The smallest lemur, the pygmy mouse lemur, weighs only 1oz (28g) but the biggest, the Indri and Diademed Sifaka, can weigh up to 15 lb (6.8kg), which is equivalent to a big cat. Lemurs are mainly vegetarian, generally they eat fruits and leaves. Some are nocturnal, whilst others are active during the day or at dawn. Lemurs are often seen 'sunbathing' in a meditative type position. Because their bellies are not as protected from a colder environment, these animals will warm themselves up by basking in the sunlight before they proceed to their daily foraging activities. Lemurs use their lower teeth, incisors and canines as a toothcomb to groom themselves as well as other members of the group. Lemurs are vocal animals, making sounds that range from the grunts and swears of brown lemurs and sifaka to the chirps of mouse lemurs to the eerie, wailing call of the indri. Habitat loss is the main threat to lemurs today, as people clear their native forests for farm land. 80 per cent of the lemur's original habitat in Madagascar has been destroyed. Out of the 50 different kinds of lemurs, 10 are critically endangered, 7 are endangered, and 19 are considered vulnerable. All types of lemurs are protected, which makes it illegal to hunt or capture lemurs for trade. Advertisement

Frogs, snakes and lizards may have made the trip around the same time.

Lemurs can't swim, so some scientists hypothesise the small-bodied creatures crossed the 250-mile-wide channel that lies between Africa and Madagascar after being swept out to sea in a storm, by holding on to tree limbs or floating mats of vegetation before finally washing ashore.

But if the arrival were more recent, they might have had a shorter distance to travel, thanks to lower sea levels when the Antarctic ice sheet was much larger.

Associate professor of evolutionary anthropology Doug Boyer at Duke University, North Carolina, said: 'It's possible that lemurs weren't in Madagascar at all until maybe the Miocene as recently as 23 million years ago.'

'The fossils tell us something we never could have guessed from the DNA evidence about the history of lemurs on Madagascar.'

The study said in the 1960s experts were divided about Propotto which consisted of just three lower jaw bones, each barely an inch long, and a handful of teeth less than three millimetres across.

Paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson classified the specimen as a previously unknown member of the loris family, nocturnal primates with enormous eyes.

But colleague Alan Walker thought otherwise, eventually convincing Simpson that the bones belonged to a bat.

In 2016 paleontologist, the late Gregg Gunnell of Duke University thought the creature's hind teeth were more reminiscent of a primate than a bat.

The new study suggested ancestors to the aye-ayes (pictured) and lemurs arrived much later in separate waves and as late as 23 million years ago. These ancestors then colonised Madagascar independently, and millions of years later than once believed

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT AYE AYES? The aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is a native to Madagascar that combines rodent-like teeth with a long, thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker, using its finger to extract food from tree holes. It is the world's largest nocturnal primate and mainly lives in forest canopies. It is characterised by its unique method of finding food; it taps on trees to find grubs, then gnaws holes in the wood and inserts its elongated middle finger to pull the grubs out. The aye-ayes tail is bushy and shaped like that of a squirrel, its rodent-like face houses bright, beady luminous eyes. Its incisors are very large, and grow continuously throughout its lifespan. The aye-aye commonly eats nuts, and also grubs, fruits, nectar, seeds, and fungi, classifying it as an omnivore. It often picks fruit off trees as it moves through the canopy, often barely stopping to do so. It was previously thought to be extinct, but was rediscovered in 1961. The aye-aye remains an endangered species not only because its habitat is being destroyed, but also due to native superstition. Ancient Malagasy legend said that the Aye-aye was a symbol of death, with some believing its mere appearance predicts the death of a villager. Advertisement

He also noted the stump of a broken front tooth, just visible in cross section, which would have jutted out from its mouth like a dagger, a trait only known in aye-ayes, the only living primates with rodent-like teeth.

To verify Propotto's place in the primate family tree, scientists analysed more than 395 anatomical features and 79 genes for 125 mammal species, living and extinct.

The team then compiled microCT scans of the lower molars of 42 living and extinct mammal groups, including bats, treeshrews and primates.

A computer programme compared the bumps, pits and ridges on the scans of Propotto's teeth to those of other animals.

They found Propotto shared a number of features with a similarly buck-toothed primate that lived 34 million years ago in Egypt called Plesiopithecus, and that both were ancient relatives of the aye-aye.

The findings suggest there was an African origin for the common ancestor of two lemur lineages and that the dispersals of these groups took place across the Mozambique Channel to Madagascar independently.

The full findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.
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Sections of Arctic soil are no longer freezing over all year round, threatening to pump thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Pictured is a map showing the extent of permanent and sporadic permafrost in the Arctic region

Sections of Arctic soil are no longer freezing over all year round, threatening to pump thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Scientists found that soil in one of the world's coldest regions remained mushy and damp throughout the most recent winter.

During these months the soil normally freezes over, forming a protective layer over Arctic permafrost that houses billions of tonnes of ancient carbon.

Scientists warned that without this insulation, the permafrost will begin to melt, potentially releasing a dangerous payload of carbon dioxide and methane.

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Russian scientist Dr Nikita Zimov sent a team to drill into the top layer of soil at Cherskiy, Russia, in April.

The small town in Northern Siberia is one of the coldest places on Earth, with average winter temperatures as low as -34C (-29F).

His team found that the top layer of soil at Cherskiy - one of the coldest places on Earth - failed to freeze over during winter, instead remaining soft and moist.

The ground below the surface there should be frozen solid even in late spring, Dr Zimov told National Geographic.

The scientist runs Russia's Pleistocene Park project, which aims to recreate an ice age ecosystem in a remote region of northern Siberia to boost wildlife numbers.

Assuming this same process is occurring across warmer parts of the Arctic Circle, much of the polar region's permafrost could be at risk of accelerated thawing.

During winter Arctic soil normally freezes over, forming a protective layer over Arctic permafrost that houses billions of tonnes of ancient carbon and methane. Pictured are polygons formed by the annual freezing and thawing of subsurface ice in Cherskiy, Russia

Every winter across the Arctic, the top few inches or feet of soil and rich plant matter freezes up before thawing again in summer.

Beneath this active layer sits continuously frozen earth called permafrost, which extends hundreds of feet down and, in places, has remained frozen for millennia.

Without a protective layer of soil, permafrost across the Arctic could melt for the first time in thousands of years, scientists warned.

WHAT IS PERMAFROST AND WHAT HAPPENS IF IT MELTS? Permafrost is a permanently frozen layer below the Earth's surface found in Arctic regions such as Alaska, Siberia and Canada. It typically consists of soil, gravel and sand bound together by ice, and is classified as ground that has remained below 0C (32F) for at least two years. It is estimated 1,500 billion tons of carbon is stored in the world's permafrost - more than twice the amount found in the atmosphere. The carbon comes in the form of ancient vegetation and soil that has remained frozen for millennia. If global warming were to melt the world's permafrost, it could release thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. Because some permafrost regions have stayed frozen for thousands of years, it is of particular interest for scientists. Ancient remains found in permafrost are among the most complete ever found because the ice stops organic matter from decomposing. A number of 2,500-year-old bodies buried in Siberia by a group of nomads known as the Scythians have been found with their tattooed skin still intact. A baby mammoth corpse uncovered on Russia's Arctic coast in 2010 still sported clumps of its hair despite being more than 39,000 years old. Permafrost is also used in the study of Earth's geological history as soil and minerals buried deep in Arctic regions for thousands of years can be dug up and studied today. Advertisement

'This is a big deal,' Professor Ted Schuur, a permafrost expert at Northern Arizona University, said.

'In the permafrost world, this is a significant milestone in a disturbing trend - like carbon in the atmosphere reaching 400 parts per million.'

Permafrost is found beneath nearly a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere's landmass.

Scientists found that soil in one of the world's coldest regions remained mushy and damp throughout the most recent winter. In this image, permafrost can be seen up close along the perimeter of the Batagaika Crater in eastern Siberia

Trapped in this frozen soil and vegetation is around 1,500 billion tons of carbon - more than twice the amount found in the atmosphere.

If global warming continues to thaw Arctic permafrost, it could allow microbes to eat the organic matter stored in it, releasing carbon dioxide and methane.

This threatens to create a deadly feedback loop in which global warming releases more greenhouse gases from permafrost, which in turns heats up the planet.

Scientists have previously estimated that permafrost in the Arctic holds the potential to release hundreds of thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the air.

The Batagaika Crater (pictured) in the town of Batagay, Russia, is the one of the largest craters in the world. Scientists believe it started to form in the 1960s as a result of permafrost thawing beneath the Earth's surface. The thawing may have been caused by local deforestation

At a site just 11 miles (18km) from Dr Zimov's drilling, researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany measure carbon exchange between the Earth and atmosphere.

Researcher Dr Mathias Goeckede told National Geographic snow depth there has doubled over the past five years.

When deep snow covers the ground, it insulates the top layer of soil and stops warmth beneath the surface from dissipating during winter.

Data from a drill hole on Dr Goeckede's site show temperatures 13 inches (30cm) below ground rose by about 6 degrees Celsius between 2013 and 2018.

Russian scientist Dr Nikita Zimov sent a team to drill into the top layer of soil at Cherskiy, Russia, in April

'This is just one site, and it's just five years, so this really should be considered just a case-study,' Dr Goeckede said.

'But if you assume it's a trend or that it might continue like this, then it's alarming.'

Other scientists warned that Arctic permafrost remains exposed by melted soil for increasingly lengthy periods.

Vladimir Romanovsky, permafrost expert at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, said: 'For all years before 2014, the complete freeze-up of the active layer would happen in mid-January.

'Since 2014, the freeze-up date has shifted to late February and even March.'
Facebook is secretly rating users based on their 'trustworthiness' to try and cut down on fake news on its platform.

The social media giant plans to assign users a reputation score that ranks them on a scale of from zero to one, according to the Washington Post.

It marks Facebook's latest effort to stave off fake news, bot accounts and other misleading content on its site.

But the idea of a reputation score has already generated skepticism about how Facebook's system will work, as well as criticism that it resembles China's social credit rating system.

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Facebook plans to assign users a reputation score that ranks them on a scale of from zero to one. It marks Facebook's latest effort to stave off fake news on its platform

Facebook product manager Tessa Lyons told the Post that the firm has been developing the system for the past year and that it's directly targeted toward stopping fake news.

The firm partly relies on users to flag content they believe to be fake, but this has led some to make false claims against news outlets, often due to differences in opinion or a grudge against a particular publisher.

Users' 'trustworthiness' score will take into account how often they flag content as being false, Lyons said.

As part of the system, Facebook will also factor in thousands of other metrics, or 'behavioral cues.'

It's unclear what those other metrics will be, who will get a score and what Facebook will use that data for.

It also remains unclear whether the score will be solely applied to reports on news stories, or if it will factor in other information as well.

The idea of a reputation score has already generated skepticism about how Facebook's system will work, as well as criticism that it resembles China's social credit rating system

Lyons declined to elaborate on the intricacies of the system, saying it could tip off 'bad actors' who use the knowledge to manipulate their score.

However, this has done little to quiet users' concerns about whether or not they will be assigned a score and what contributes to it.

'Not knowing how [Facebook is] judging us is what makes us uncomfortable,' Claire Wardle, director of Harvard Kennedy School's First Draft, told the Post.

'But the irony is that they can't tell us how they are judging us - because if they do, the algorithms that they built will be gamed.'

Several Twitter users pointed out that the proposed trustworthiness score reminded them of the popular series Black Mirror, which chronicles the dystopian downsides of technology in the future, as well as China's social credit system.

The controversial scoring system rates assigns citizens a score that can move up or down based on certain behaviors. It can be negatively impacted if you don't pay bills, fail to care for elders or if you're lazy and spend to much time playing video games.

Others questioned Facebook's ability to assign users a trustworthiness score, citing the firm's recent user privacy scandal and murky success with removing fake news from its platform.

Earlier this year, Facebook began using a system that ranks news organizations based on their trustworthiness, relying on data from users who indicated whether they were familiar with certain sites, as well as whether or not they trusted them.

It then ranks stories on a user's News Feed based on that credibility score.
All of China's 1.4 billion citizens are about to be put under greater scrutiny as the country prepares to launch its 'social credit score' scheme.

The project rates citizens based on their behaviour, and those who do not play by the rules are added to a list that prohibits them from certain luxuries.

Fears are growing regarding the ethical implications of scheme, with some questioning the morality of the big-brother culture.

The government is likely to use its rapidly growing surveillance network to enforce the system, with some academics growing concerned that it may be manipulated to enforce the ideology of the ruling Communist party.

Completing community service and buying Chinese products is thought to improve it whereas fraud, tax evasion and smoking in non-smoking areas can drop it.

Benefits of cooperating with the state include priority public housing, travel visas and job promotions.

One journalist says he is banned from sending his children to private school or buying property after a court ordered him to apologize for an unfavourable tweet about the regime.

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All of China's 1.4 billion citizens are about to be put under greater scrutiny as the country prepares to launch its 'social credit score' scheme. The project rates citizens based on their behaviour, and those who do not play by the rules are added to a blacklist (stock)

This is all made possible by the ever-increasing network of surveillance cameras in the Asian country.

Xu Li, CEO of Sensetime, one of China's most successful artificial intelligence companies, said: 'It can recognise more than 4,000 vehicles.

'We can tell whether it is an adult, a child, male or female.'

China launched a pilot version of the scheme in 2010 in a province just north of Shanghai.

This pilot system provides incentives for those with a high social credit score such as priority access to public housing, travel visas and job promotions.

The system is currently labelled as optional but the Chinese government plans to make it mandatory and publicly available by 2020.

Liu Hu, a journalist in China, told CBS News that when he tried to book a flight, he was told he was banned from flying because he was on a list of untrustworthy people.

Mr Liu was issued with a court order to apologise for a series of tweets he wrote and was then told his apology was insincere.

As a result his score dropped and he found himself on the list of undesirables.

'I can't buy property. My child can't go to a private school,' he said.

'You feel you're being controlled by the list all the time.'

According to Ken Dewoskin, an expert in China's economic and political culture, revealed in an interview the damage and implications this system could have.

He says how the new scoring system truly works is kept secret and could be easily abused by the government.

Mr Dewoskin said: 'The government and the people running the plan would like it to go as deeply as possible to determine how to allocate benefits and also how to impact and shape their behaviour.'

The system is made possible by the ever-increasing network of surveillance cameras in the Asian country that use artificial intelligence to identify people and vehicles alike (stock)

HOW CAN CHINESE CITIZENS INCREASE THEIR 'SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE'? China launched a pilot version of the scheme in 2010 in a province just north of Shanghai. Details as to how it works and the algorithm it uses are thin on the ground but certain behaviours have been found to be beneficial to boosting the score. Completing community service and buying Chinese products is thought to improve it whereas fraud, tax evasion and smoking in non-smoking areas can drop it. Companies that pay their takes on time and any bills also receive favour from the system, improving their social credit standing. In the pilot system, incentives are provided for those with a high social credit score. Benefits include priority access to public housing, travel visas and job promotions Advertisement

The system has raised many ethical concerns around the world, with scholars debating the morale issues created by such a universal and publicly accessible database.

Experts published research last year in the journal Marketing Intelligence and Planning which looked at how the gamification of life would affect people.

They claim the system could be manipulated by the government to create universal conformity to the ideologies presented by the ruling communist party.

Audrey Murrell, Director of the David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership at the University of Pittsburgh writes in an article for Forbes: 'It is one thing to reward positive behaviour, but one could argue that the introduction of penalties for 'untrustworthiness' produces consequences for lack of adherence to government-mandated social behaviours.'
They are the bricks that could build mankind's first home on another planet.

European Space Agency officials have revealed the latest 'moon bricks' that could soon be used to construct a lunar habitat.

They say the bricks are the starting point to building up a permanent lunar outpost and breaking explorers' reliance on Earth supplies.

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This 1.5 tonne building block was produced as a demonstration of 3D printing techniques using lunar soil. The design is based on a hollow closed-cell structure inspired by bird bones to give a good combination of strength and weight

HOW DO YOU MAKE A MOON BRICK? The surface of the Moon is covered in grey, fine, rough dust. Lunar soil is a basaltic material made up of silicates, a common feature in planetary bodies with volcanism. ESA has been experimenting using a similar material on Earth. The material is first compacted into shape, then heated using a furnace to 'bake' the brick. The resulting bricks have the equivalent strength of gypsum, and are set to undergo detailed mechanical testing. ESA said. Advertisement

'Moon bricks will be made of dust,' says Aidan Cowley, ESA's science advisor with a wealth of experience in dealing with lunar soil.

'You can create solid blocks out of it to build roads and launch pads, or habitats that protect your astronauts from the harsh lunar environment.'

The surface of the Moon is covered in grey, fine, rough dust.

This powdery soil is everywhere  an indigenous source that could become the ideal material for brickwork, ESA says, and has already carried out experiments to crush, burn and compress it.

They say the bricks are actually similar to those used on Earth.

Lunar soil is a basaltic material made up of silicates, a common feature in planetary bodies with volcanism.

'The Moon and Earth share a common geological history, and it is not difficult to find material similar to that found on the Moon in the remnants of lava flows,' explains Aidan.

Around 45 million years ago, eruptions took place in a region around Cologne, in Germany.

Researches from the nearby European Astronaut Centre (EAC) found that the volcanic powder in the area is a good match with what lunar dust is made of.

The lunar dust substitute 'made in Europe' already has a name: EAC-1.

The Spaceship EAC initiative is working with EAC-1 to prepare technologies and concepts for future lunar exploration.

'One of the great things about the lunar soil is that 40% of it is made up of oxygen,' adds Aidan.

Lunar soil is a basaltic material made up of silicates, a common feature in planetary bodies with volcanism.

One Spaceship EAC project studies how to crack the oxygen in it and use it to help astronauts extend their stay on the Moon.

Bombarded with constant radiation, lunar dust is electrically charged.

This can cause particles to lift off the surface. Erin Tranfield, a member of ESA's lunar dust topical team, insists that we still need to fully understand its electrostatic nature.

Scientists do not yet know its chemical charge, nor the consequences for building purposes.

Trying to recreate the behaviour of lunar dust in a radiation environment, Erin ground the surface of lunar simulants.

She managed to activate the particles, but erased the properties of the surface.

'This gives us one more reason to go back to the Moon.

'We need pristine samples from the surface exposed to the radiation environment,' says Erin.

EUROPE'S MOON BASE PLANS REVEALED Last year, the head of the ESA elaborated on plans to build a village on the moon. 'The future of space travel needs a new vision,' said Jan Woerner. The concept is a base for lunar exploration by humans and robots, which would act as a stopover for spacecraft, and become a 'village' with mining and even tourism.

'The future of space travel needs a new vision. 'Right now we have the Space Station as a common international project, but it won't last forever,' said Woerner. Multi-dome lunar base being constructed, based on the 3D printing concept. Once assembled, the inflated domes are covered with a layer of 3D-printed lunar regolith by robots to help protect the occupants against space radiation and micrometeoroids._constructed.jpg 'If I say Moon Village, it does not mean single houses, a church, a town hall and so on. No, that would be misleading. 'My idea only deals with the core of the concept of a village: people working and living together in the same place. 'And this place would be on the Moon. 'In the Moon Village we would like to combine the capabilities of different spacefaring nations, with the help of robots and astronauts. For ESA's 3D-printed lunar base concept, Foster+Partners devised a weight-bearing 'catenary' dome design with a cellular structured wall to shield against micrometeoroids and space radiation, incorporating a pressurised inflatable to shelter astronauts 'The participants can work in different fields, perhaps they will conduct pure science and perhaps there will even be business ventures like mining or tourism.' Woerner said the village could even help man get to Mars. 'The Moon Village would also act as a 'pit stop' for the further exploration of the Universe,' he said. 'Esa is eager to fly to Mars as well. 'For more than a decade, we have had a very successful spacecraft orbiting there. And now, with ExoMars, two unmanned missions are aiming at martian orbit and the surface. 'Yes, the Americans want to send astronauts to Mars one day, but today's technology isn't prepared for this trip yet. 'For example, we must develop countermeasures against the cosmic radiation that endangers the health of humans on long space trips. And we have to learn how to endure longer periods of time in space, not only in low orbit as on the Space Station. Structures for a lunar base could be built by robots sent ahead of human astronauts. Experts said 3D printing technology can currently construct an entire building in around a week 'This is where our Moon comes into play  it is the perfect stepping stone to Mars.' Advertisement

For this biologist who dreams of being the first woman on the Moon, a few sealed grams of lunar dust would be enough.

Setting up a permanent village on the moon is the first step towards exploring Mars, the European Space Agency has previously said as plans to reach and colonise the Red Planet gather pace.

At an annual gathering of 4,000 global space experts in Adelaide, the ESA said the Moon was the 'right place to be' as humans expand economic activities beyond low-Earth orbit, even while Mars remained the 'ultimate destination'.

'We have been living in low-Earth orbit for the last 17 years on board a space station and we are on our journey to Mars for the first human mission,' ESA's Piero Messina told AFP at the congress.

'In between, we believe that there is an opportunity to create a permanent... sustainable presence on the surface of the Moon.'
Fears of the supervolcano lurking at the heart of Yellowstone National Park have long lingered in the backs of many Americans minds.

Its been nearly 650,000 years since the last giant eruption, and predicting when the next will occur is a complex feat that continues to elude scientists.

Despite all the attention directed toward the supervolcano, experts monitoring activity at the park around the clock say it isnt an eruption we should be immediately concerned about  its earthquakes.

The seismically active region produces up to 2,500 small earthquakes a year on average, and scientists say its only a matter of time before its rocked by a much larger magnitude 7 event.

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Despite all the attention directed toward the supervolcano, experts monitoring activity at the park around the clock say it isnt an eruption we should be immediately concerned about  its earthquakes.

The biggest concern we have for Yellowstone is not with the volcano, its with the earthquakes, Michael Poland, scientist-in-charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, told USA Today.

This is an underappreciated hazard in the Yellowstone area. There can and there will be in the future magnitude-7 earthquakes.

The chances of a major volcanic eruption at Yellowstone are currently considered to be quite low; based on knowledge of three explosive eruptions in the past 2.1 million years, at an interval of about 600,000 to 800,000 years, scientists estimate the yearly probability of another major event to be about 1 in 730,000.

Smaller lava flows have sprung up in the time between, with the last occurring about 70,000 years ago,USGS explains.

Large earthquakes, on the other hand, are far more common.

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake hit the park just 59 years ago on August 17, 1959, spurring a landslide that resulted in 28 deaths.

A massive gap in the hillside of Hebgen Lake, Idaho can be seen in the image above, following the huge magnitude 7.3 earthquake at Yellowstone in August 1959

Compared to the quake that happened in the late 1950s, a magnitude 7 event at the park today would be far more catastrophic. A park ranger is shown above surveying shattered trees beside a fallen boulder after the 1959 quake

The event shook so many rocks loose  more than 80 million tons, experts estimate  that the debris blocked a river and created an entirely new lake, dubbed Earthquake Lake, according to USA Today.

Another quake of this magnitude is likely to occur in the foreseeable future. And when it does, it will strike by surprise.

Thats something that happens on a human life scale, Poland told USA Today.

We can say where they are likely to occur, but we cant say when.

Compared to the quake that happened in the late 1950s, a magnitude 7 event at the park today would be far more catastrophic.

Scientists are continually monitoring Yellowstone for any signs that a hazard may be brewing, with live maps, including the one above, from multiple observatories showing where and how big each tremor is as it hits, paying particular attention to earthquake swarms

COULD AN ERUPTION AT THE YELLOWSTONE SUPERVOLCANO BE PREVENTED? Recent research found a small magma chamber, known as the upper-crustal magma reservoir, beneath the surface Nasa believes drilling up to six miles (10km) down into the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park to pump in water at high pressure could cool it. Despite the fact that the mission would cost $3.46 billion (2.63 billion), Nasa considers it 'the most viable solution.' Using the heat as a resource also poses an opportunity to pay for plan - it could be used to create a geothermal plant, which generates electric power at extremely competitive prices of around $0.10 (0.08) per kWh. But this method of subduing a supervolcano has the potential to backfire and trigger the supervolcanic eruption Nasa is trying to prevent. 'Drilling into the top of the magma chamber 'would be very risky;' however, carefully drilling from the lower sides could work. This USGS graphic shows how a 'super eruption' of the molten lava under Yellowstone National Park would spread ash across the United States Even besides the potential devastating risks, the plan to cool Yellowstone with drilling is not simple. Doing so would be an excruciatingly slow process that one happen at the rate of one metre a year, meaning it would take tens of thousands of years to cool it completely. And still, there wouldn't be a guarantee it would be successful for at least hundreds or possibly thousands of years. Advertisement

Millions of people now visit the park each year, with human presence booming during the summer months.

Scientists are continually monitoring Yellowstone for any signs that a hazard may be brewing, with live maps from multiple observatories showing where and how big each tremor is as it hits, paying particular attention to earthquake swarms.

For now, the region remains at its normal alert level for both volcanic activity and seismicity, with earthquake activity said to be at background levels as of the most recent USGS update.
A Hong Kong-based startup has created an innovative wristband that's a mix between a Fitbit and a mood ring.

The wearable, dubbed 'Upmood', is able to track users' daily moods, heart rate and stress levels to give them an in-depth picture of their emotional wellbeing.

Its creators say it can help users manage stress, get a better night's sleep and even build healthier relationships with family and friends.

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A Hong Kong-based startup has created an innovative wristband that's a mix between a Fitbit and a mood ring. The wearable is able to track users' moods, heart rate and stress levels

WHAT ARE THE UPMOOD WRISTBAND'S SPECS? A Hong Kong-based startup has created a mood tracking wristband called Upmood. A photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor is located on the underside of the device, which tracks a user's heart rate and contractions. That data is synced with an app to track stress levels, BPM and mood. Here are the wristband's specs: Wristband made of polyester and comes in three colors - sea green, yellow and black

Compatible with iOS/Android devices

Can be adjusted to 5'-9' diameter

Equipped with a li-polymer battery

Battery lasts for up to 12 hours when always turned on, or up to 48 hours when on standby

Takes up to 1 hour to fully charge Advertisement

Upmood collects 'biodata' from users through a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor, which measures a person's heart rate and contractions.

This is used to track your beats per minute (BPM) and stress levels.

'[An] algorithm turns the data from your pulse waves into analytics, through Bluetooth connection to the app, to let you know of your stress level, heart rate, vitality levels and emotions,' Upmood's website notes.

In addition to stress levels and your heart rate, the wearable can also detect up to 11 different emotional states, including calm, pleasant, unpleasant, sad, excited, anxious, strained, confused, challenged and zen.

The wristband connects to a smartphone via a Bluetooth connection, where all your data is continuously logged in the Upmood app.

The app has a 'mood stream' that breaks down information by day, showing the time, stress level, emotion and BPM in a daily log.

Users can follow their friends and family on the app and share status updates using emoji.

The company believes that by gaining greater insight into your friends and family's emotions, it can help build better and deeper relationships.

'For the first time in human history, using a single band around your wrist, we have the power to understand each other on a deeper level,' Upmood noted.

The app has a 'mood stream' that breaks down information by day, showing the time, stress level, emotion and BPM in a daily log. Users can also follow friends and family on the app

The wristband connects to a smartphone via a Bluetooth connection, where all your data is continuously logged in the Upmood app. Mood updates are shown in the 'mood stream'

'...Upmood unveils a new dimension of communication by giving you insight into the people you care about most.'

The company claims that it measures heart rate and other factors with an 'unprecedented level of accuracy.'

Polyester straps secure Upmood's tracker to your wrist. The straps also come in black, sea green and bright yellow.

However, prospective buyers may have to wait a while to get their hands on one.

Upmood first developed concepts for the device in May 2016 and just launched its Kickstarter campaign this month.

So far, $1,882 has been pledged out of the company's goal of $31,487 on Kickstarter.

The company believes that by gaining greater insight into your friends and family's emotions, it can help build better and deeper relationships

Upmood will compete head to head with a raft of fitness trackers that are already on the market, including devices made by Fitbit, Garmin, Samsung and, of course, the Apple Watch

Anyone who pledges $69 will get access to an early bird deal on the device, which amounts to a discount of about 30 percent off.

The firm said it expects to start production on the device by October.

Upmood will compete head to head with a raft of fitness trackers that are already on the market, including devices made by Fitbit, Garmin, Samsung and, of course, the Apple Watch.

Fitbit just released its latest fitness tracker, the Charge 3, this week, while Apple is expected to release an upgraded Apple Watch later this year.

The app has a 'mood stream' that breaks down information by day, showing the time, stress level, emotion and BPM in a daily log. It can track up to 11 different emotional states

However, if the Upmood begins selling at about $100, it would be a significant discount to other models currently available, which can cost hundreds of dollars.

It also has the added benefit of being able to track your mood, a feature that has yet to arrive on a Fitbit tracker or Apple Watch.
Laughing gas was critical to the emergence of life on Earth, helping keep our young planet at the perfect temperature, researchers have found.

Early in the planet's existence, the sun was dimmer than it it today, but the Earth stayed warm due to a strong greenhouse gas effect, geoscience theory holds.

Astronomer Carl Sagan coined this 'the Faint Young Sun Paradox', but for decades, researchers have been unable to find the right balance of atmospheric gases that could have kept the early Earth warm enough for life.

Jennifer Glass in her lab at Georgia Tech holding a stromatolitic ironstone, which formed while iron oxidized and left ocean waters. Laughing gas was critical to the emergence of life on Earth, helping keep our young planet at the perfect temperature, researchers have found

WHAT IS THE FAINT YOUNG SUN PARADOX? In the first billion years of Earth's history, the planet was bombarded by primordial asteroids, while a faint sun provided much less heat. However, the Earth stayed warm due to a strong greenhouse gas effect, geoscience theory holds. Astronomer Carl Sagan coined this 'the Faint Young Sun Paradox' Advertisement

Now a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology suggests that nitrous oxide, known for its use as laughing gas, may have played a significant role.

The team carried out a series of experiments and atmospheric computer modeling to see what would happen if there was nitrous oxide (N2O), a powerful greenhouse gas, in the ancient atmosphere.

In lab experiments, researchers found that soluble ferrous iron in seawater reacted rapidly with nitrogen molecules, especially nitric oxide, to yield nitrous oxide in a process called chemodenitrification.

This nitrous oxide (N2O) can then bubble up into the atmosphere.

'It's quite possible that life was breathing laughing gas long before it began breathing oxygen,' Jennifer Glass, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech, said.

'Chemodenitrification might have supplied microbes with a steady source of it.'

When the plugged the higher fluxes of nitrous oxide into the atmospheric model, the results showed that nitrous oxide could have reached ten times today's levels if mid-Proterozoic oxygen concentrations were 10 percent of those today.

This tiger eye BIF (banded iron formation) rock shows layers of iron that settled as compounds out of oceanic solution. Before oxygen became more plentiful, the oceans were likely full of iron that could have made nitrous oxide that entered Earth's early atmosphere to keep it warm

This higher nitrous oxide would have provided an extra boost of global warming under the Faint Young Sun.

The study focused on the middle of the Proterozoic Eon, over a billion years ago.

The proliferation of complex life was still a few hundred million years out, and the pace of our planet's evolution probably appeared deceptively slow.

'People in our field often refer to this middle chapter in Earth's history roughly 1.8 to 0.8 billion years ago as the 'boring billion' because we classically think of it as a very stable period,' said Chloe Stanton, formerly an undergraduate research assistant in the Glass lab at Georgia Tech and the study's first author.

'But there were many important processes affecting ocean and atmospheric chemistry during this time.'

This risen sea floor is red like rust. As oxygen built up in the waters, iron rusted out of solution. When it was was a plentiful in the ocean, the powerful chemical reactant that could have facilitated production of N2O (laughing gas). Karijini National Park Banded Iron Formations, Australia

Chemistry in mid-Proterozoic ocean was heavily influenced by abundant soluble ferrous iron (Fe2+) in oxygen-free deep waters.

'The ocean chemistry was completely different back then,' said Glass.

'Today's oceans are well-oxygenated, so iron rapidly rusts and drops out of solution. Oxygen was low in Proterozoic oceans, so they were filled with ferrous iron, which is highly reactive.'

Even today, some microbes can breathe nitrous oxide when oxygen is low.

There are many similarities between the enzymes that microbes use to breathe nitric and nitrous oxides and enzymes used to breathe oxygen.
A 'war drone' that can be fitted with everything form machine guns to explosives and rocket grenades has been revealed.

The founder of Ukrainian firm called Matrix UAV, Yuriy Kasyanov, posted a video of the prototype drone to his Facebook page.

'Armed with a grenade launcher, the unit is designed to inflict sudden, precise strikes on armored vehicles, fire points, air defense equipment, and enemy headquarters at a distance of up to 10 kilometers' Kasyanov says in the post.

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The Ukranian drone has been tested carrying a grenade launcher, and is designed to inflict 'sudden, precise strikes'

He claims the Demon could also carry out kamikaze strikes up to 12 miles away, diving directly onto its target with a 7-kilogram bomb.

For more remote attacks, Kasyanov says a a 4-kilogram payload could be carried 56 miles.

In the Facebook comments he also claims the firm had successfully test fired the drone without losing control - although no video of this has been posted.

The first prototype of the Demon UAV is fitted with the RPG-26 grenade launcher.

It can also carry small arms and a bomb load weighing up to 5 kg.

The firm says the grenade launcher could be used for surprise attacks on armored vehicles, firing points, air defense systems and enemy headquarters at distances up to 10 km.

The drone will be controlled by an operator.

The threat of drone attacks has heightened in recent weeks after an alleged 'drone attack' against the president of Venezuela.- although many claim it was faked after TV cameras failed to capture the 'missiles' and firefighters said the incident was actually a gas tank explosion.

Nicolas Maduro started rounding up his political opponents after blaming them for what he called an assassination attempt on Saturday.

Maduro had been addressing a military parade in Caracas on live TV, when he suddenly halted and looked to the sky after hearing an explosion.

He and his wife Cilia Flores were swamped with aides carrying bulletproof shields but both escaped uninjured.

Maduro claimed a 'flying device' exploded before his eyes and quickly blamed his 'ultra-right' opponents, but no drones were seen on television footage, which cut out after the incident.

No footage of drones emerged on social media either.

Then, three fire officials at the scene disputed the government's version of events, claiming the attack was actually a gas tank explosion inside the Residencias Don Eduardo apartment building.
CANBERRA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called for unity after narrowly winning a leadership ballot on Tuesday morning.

Turnbull defeated Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, the most senior conservative member of the government, 48-35 after he prompted the challenge by declaring leadership of the Liberal Party vacant at a party room meeting on Tuesday morning.

"We cannot allow internal issues to undermine our work," Turnbull told reporters in Canberra.

"United we are able to deliver the great results that we have for all Australians.

"We are seeing the strongest economic growth we have had for a long time, and last year was the strongest jobs growth in the history of the country."

Dutton resigned from his position as home affairs minister on Tuesday despite Turnbull asking him to continue to serve in the position.

"Peter has done an outstanding job as home affairs minister and I want to thank him for his work," Turnbull said.

"I've invited him to continue in that office, however he has said to me that he doesn't feel he can remain in the Cabinet having challenged me for the leadership of the party, and so he is resigning."

His resignation has prompted speculation that Dutton is preparing to mount another leadership challenge once he has had more time to gauge his support among the party.

It was reported that a second challenge was likely to occur as early as Thursday, the last Parliamentary sitting day until September.

A successful challenge on Thursday would give Dutton time to establish himself as prime minister and announce policy positions before facing the Opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) in parliament in September.

Turnbull also announced that deputy leadership of the party was vacated on Tuesday morning but incumbent Julie Bishop, a Turnbull supporter, ran unopposed.

If Dutton does challenge for the leadership again it has been reported that Health Minister Greg Hunt will run as his deputy.

Tuesday's leadership challenge came after weeks of conservative government Members of Parliament (MPs) threatening to rebel against Turnbull over the prime minister's signature energy policy, the National Energy Guarantee (NEG).

The conservatives, led by Dutton and former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, have taken issue with Turnbull's plan to embed an emissions reduction target of 26 percent within the legislation, arguing that the policy should be solely focused on reducing electricity prices.

The prime minister on Monday announced that he had abandoned his plan to legislate the emissions target; a move that was described by many as a desperate attempt to save his status as leader with pressure mounting.

A Fairfax-Ipsos poll published on Sunday night revealed that the Liberal National Party (LNP) was facing a landslide election defeat to the ALP with the Opposition leading 55-45 on a two-party preferred basis.

Especially concerning for Turnbull was that the poll revealed that the party's conservative support base was abandoning the LNP in favor of the right-wing One Nation Party (ONP), fuelling the discontent among conservative MPs.

The poll exacerbated the results of July's Longman by-election where voters swung 3.7 percent in favour of the ALP for the Opposition to retain the seat in the key battleground state of Queensland.

Dutton's own electorate of Dickson borders Longman prompting speculation that Dutton could lose his seat, which he won by 3.2 percent in 2016, at the upcoming general election,

Gary Spence, president of the LNP in Queensland, on Monday urged Queensland government MPs to support Dutton over Turnbull, saying that the former was the LNP's best chance of beating the ALP in Queensland.

[ Editor: WPY ]
Facebook is cutting more than 5,000 ad-targeting options in a bid to prevent advertisers from discriminating against certain groups of people.

In doing so, the social media giant says it can help 'prevent misuse' from advertisers who may be unfairly excluding people based on ethnicity, beliefs, political affinity or other data that could be considered sensitive or personal.

Facebook's announcement comes just a few days after the US Department of Housing and Uban Development filed a complaint against Facebook alleging it violated the Fair Housing Act.

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Facebook is eliminating the ability to target ads based on certain criteria such as race or ethnic affiliation amid concerns this could lead to discrimination

'While these options have been used in legitimate ways to reach people interested in a certain product or service, we think minimizing the risk of abuse is more important,' Facebook said in a blog post.

'This includes limiting the ability for advertisers to exclude audiences that relate to attributes such as ethnicity or religion.'

Now, advertisers can't hide their ads from people interested in things like 'passover,' 'evangelicalism,' 'Native American culture,' 'Islamic culture' and 'Buddhism.'

A complaint filed by HUD argued that Facebook advertisers were able to target offers of homes available for rent or sale based on factors such as race, religion, gender, nationality or disabilities.

The complaint said Facebook's ad settings shirk the law by letting advertisers target particular demographics.

Facebook also announced that it would require advertisers who run employment, housing or credit ads to review its policies

'When Facebook uses the vast amount of personal data it collects to help advertisers discriminate, it's the same as slamming the door in someone's face,' Anna Maria Farias, assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, said in a statement.

An investigation confirmed that advertisers on Facebook could exclude certain categories such as people who said they were interested in assistance dogs, parenting, China, or the Bible, according to HUD.

Facebook responded by saying it prohibits discrimination. It added that the actions weren't prompted by the HUD investigation but had been in development for a while.

'We've been building these tools for a long time and collecting input from different outside groups,' a Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed.

The firm added that it has strengthened its systems to protect against advertisers using its targeting tools for the wrong reasons.

'We're committed to protecting people from discriminatory advertising on our platforms,' Facebook said.

In its announcement, Facebook explained that it would require all advertisers to review the company's non-discrimination policies, as well as confirm that it accepts them in order to place ads.

Previously, the compliance certification was required only of those posting housing, employment or credit ads.

A complaint filed by HUD argued that Facebook advertisers were able to target offers of homes available for rent or sale based on factors such as race, gender, nationality or disabilities

The certification is intended to educate advertisers regarding 'the difference between acceptable ad targeting and ad discrimination,' according to the social network.

Some media reports this year noted that advertisers could choose to target ads at African Americans, Hispanics or other demographic groups -- or exclude them, to effectively market products or services to whites.

A 2016 investigation from ProPublica discovered that Facebook allows advertisers to discriminate by race in housing ads, allowing advertisers to filter out certain ethnic groups from seeing their ad.
A nanofibre cloth could help drought-hit communities capture clean drinking water from the air.

The lightweight, battery-powered freshwater harvester could take as much as 10 gallons per hour from the air, even in arid locations, its inventors claim.

The University of Akron project uses electrospun polymers to 'squeeze' water out of the air.

The University of Akron project uses electrospun polymers to 'squeeze' water out of the air and could take as much as 10 gallons per hour from the air, even in arid locations. Nanofibres also filter out dirt and bacteria, meaning the water is safe to drink.

GETTING WATER OUT OF THIN AIR Harvesting water from the air has a long history. Thousands of years ago, the Incas of the Andean region collected dew and channeled it into cisterns. More recently, some research groups have been developing massive mist and fog catchers in the Andean mountains and in Africa. However, the yield of these nets is often limited and the water only flows on foggy days. The technology is also restricted to mountainous regions where warm, wet air arriving from the coast is forced up steep slopes, where it cools and condenses as fog. Advertisement

These nanoscale fiber polymers offer an incredibly high surface-area-to-volume ratio, much larger than that provided by the typical structures and membranes used in water distillers.

The normal way to 'harvest' water from the air is using fog nets consisting of a sheet of polythene mesh put between two poles.

Passing water vapour condenses on the small fibres and trickles down into collection bottles below - although the yield of very limited in most situations.

Shing-Chung Josh Wong at the University of Akron in Ohio, US and his team created a new material that they believe will be a large improvement.

In his system, nanoscale fibres are tangled around fragments of expanded graphite to give a large surface area for droplets to condense onto, while the graphite encourages the water to drip out of the material when it is squeezed or heated.

Wong says that harvesters made with these nanofibres could yield up to 180 litres of water per square metre every day.

In comparison, a commercial system currently in use in Morocco only produces around 30 litres per square metre per day.

As well as squeezing water from the air, the nanofibres also filter out dirt and bacteria, meaning the water is safe to drink.

He says to operate the collector it would only need to be 10 degrees cooler than the surrounding environment.

'We could confidently say that, with recent advances in lithium-ion batteries, we could eventually develop a smaller, backpack-sized device,' he says.

What's more, Wong's nanofiber design simultaneously grabs water and filters it.

The electrospun fiber network can act as an anti-fouling surface, sloughing off microbes that could collect on the harvester's surface.

So the water would be 'clear and free of pollutants' and immediately drinkable once it's collected, he says.

Next, Wong hopes to obtain additional funding to build a prototype of the freshwater harvester. He anticipates that, once his team is able to produce the prototype, it should be inexpensive to manufacture.

The researchers will present their results today at the 256th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
A new study from Vanderbilt University gives a look at the just how much data Google is harvesting from its users.

Researchers examined how the search giant collects information from Android mobile devices, Chrome browsers, YouTube and Photos, among other Google products.

But the most surprising revelation gleaned from the study is likely to be that Google continues to collect data even when users are browsing in incognito mode.

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Researchers examined how the search giant collects information from Android mobile devices, Chrome browsers, YouTube and Photos, among other Google products

Google collects data in 'active' ways, such as when users sign into an application, as well as 'passive' ways that users are less likely to be aware of.

In this scenario, an application is designed to gather information on users when it's running, sometimes without the user's knowledge.

'The extent and magnitude of Google's passive data collection has largely been overlooked by past studies on this topic,' according to the study, which was published Tuesday.

Most people assume that their browsing history is hidden from Google when they use incognito mode.

However, the study explains that Google can still link the data from incognito browsers to a specific user.

That's because if a user logs into a Google account while a private browser is open, cookies left behind on the incognito window can identify them.

If they close out of the incognito window before logging into a Google account, then the data will be erased.

Google collects data in 'active' ways, such as when users sign into an application, as well as 'passive' ways that users are less likely to be aware of

'While such data is collected with user-anonymous identifiers, Google has the ability to connect this collected information with a user's personal credentials stored in their Google Account,' the study says.

What's more, even if you avoid using Google services on an iOS device, the firm can still collect data on users.

Visits to non-Google webpages still registered a 'surprisingly high' number of communications with Google servers.

'The number of times such Google services are called from an iOS device is similar to an Android device,' the study noted.

'In this experiment, the total magnitude of data communicated to Google servers from an iOS device is found to be approximately half of that from the Android device.'

Researchers were most concerned by the amount of 'passive' data collected via third-party networks and advertisers that aren't owned by Google.

Google 'learns a great deal about a user's personal interests' during a day of typical phone use - things like their location, routes taken, items purchased and music listened to,' the study explained.

HOW DOES GOOGLE TRACK ITS USERS' LOCATIONS OUTSIDE OF 'LOCATION HISTORY'? A new investigation led by the Associated Press found that some Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking - even when you've paused Location History. The investigation found, for example: Google stores a snapshot of where you are when you open its Maps app

Automatic daily weather updates on Android phones pinpoint where you are each time the forecast is refreshed

Simple searchers, such as 'chocolate chip cookies,' or 'kids science kits,' pinpoint your precise latitude and longitude  accurate to the square foot - and save it to your Google account This information is all logged as part of the 'Web and App Activity feature, which does not specifically reference location information in its description. This is enabled by default, and stores a variety of information from Google apps and websites to your Google account. When paused, it will prevent activity on any device from being saved to your account. Leaving 'Web & App Activity' on and turning 'Location History' off only prevents Google from adding your movements to the 'timeline,' its visualization of your daily travels. It does not stop Google's collection of other location markers. Advertisement

The firm collects about two-thirds of that information through 'passive' means, or in the background of certain apps, largely without the user's knowledge.

The findings are just the latest example of Google's widespread data collection tactics.

An explosive report from the Associated Press last week revealed that several Google apps and websites store user location even if users turned off Location History.

It found that Google Maps and the Weather app kept track of users location and collected route information whenever users opened them.

The firm now faces a lawsuit that alleges Google violated users' privacy by monitoring and storing their movements even after their Location History was turned off.
Scientists have long suspected that light has momentum, a property measured by the combination of mass and velocity.

But, photons  or particles of light  are said to be massless, and just how their momentum can exert force on matter has largely remained a mystery.

A new technique could finally help to solve the 150-year-old conundrum, using acoustic sensors to listen to the elastic waves of laser pulses traveling across a mirror.

Scientists have long suspected that light has momentum, a property measured by the combination of mass and velocity. But, photons  or particles of light  are said to be massless, and just how their momentum can exert force on matter has largely remained a mystery

German astronomer Johannes Kepler first suggested back in 1619 that pressure from sunlight could be responsible for the position of a comets tail, which always points away from the sun.

Then, more than 200 years later, James Clerk Maxwell predicted the radiation pressure was the result of momentum in the electromagnetic fields of light.

But, in the time since, scientists have struggled to explain how the phenomenon works.

Until now, we hadnt determined how this momentum is converted into force or movement, said Kenneth Chau, an engineering professor at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus.

Because the amount of momentum carried by light is very small, we havent had equipment sensitive enough to solve this.

To get to the bottom of it, the researcher and colleagues from Slovenia and Brazil devised a new setup to measure the weak interactions between light photons.

The team built a mirror equipped with acoustic sensors and heat shielding to cut down on interference and background noise.

Then, they shot laser pulses at the surface, and used the sound sensors to detect elastic waves as they traveled.

The effect, the researchers note, is much like watching ripples across a pond.

The team built a mirror equipped with acoustic sensors and heat shielding to cut down on interference and background noise. This setup is illustrated above

We cant directly measure photon momentum, so our approach was to detect its effect on a mirror by listening to the elastic waves that travelled through it, says Chau.

We were able to trace the features of those waves back to the momentum residing in the light pulse itself, which opens the door to finally defining and modelling how light momentum exists inside materials.

COULD LIGHT BE USED TO PROPEL INTERSTELLAR SPACECRAFT? Scientists have been working to create craft that harness the power of light to cut down travel times to distant worlds. Back in 2016, for example, a team from the University of California Santa Barbara detailed such a plan through the Directed Energy Interstellar Precursors (Deep-In) program. The idea is to use what's known as photonic propulsion, a technique that uses light from lasers to produce thrust to drive spacecraft. All spacecraft operate by firing propellant in the opposite direction to the way they want to travel. An artist's impression of photonic propulsion is shown above Traditionally this propellant is fuel and has to be carried on board the spacecraft, making it heavier and slowing it down. Photonic propulsion uses an array of lasers instead, which means no fuel needs to be carried on the spacecraft. This enables it to accelerate for longer and reach higher speeds. The experts said the technology is completely scalable so could be used on both small and large spacecrafts capable of carrying humans. Advertisement

The new discovery could finally be a step in the direction of understanding light momentum, the researchers say.

And, understanding radiation pressure could have a number of applications.

Imagine traveling to distant stars on interstellar yachts powered by solar sails, Chau said.

Or perhaps, here on Earth, developing optical tweezers that could assemble microscopic machines.

Were not there yet, but the discovery in this work is an important step and Im excited to see where it takes us next.
Google has just honored Ismat Chughtai with a new Google Doodle for what wouldve been her 107th birthday on August 21, 2018.

Chughtai, one of Indias greatest writers, championed many causes through her influential works, including gender equality and human rights regardless of social class.

But just who exactly was Ismat Chughtai? Heres everything you need to know about who she was and what a Google Doodle is.

Google has just honored Ismat Chughtai with a new Google Doodle for her 107th birthday

Who was Ismat Chughtai?

Ismat Chughtai was an Urdu language writer known for her notable literary works regarding themes such as gender equality, social liberation, class conflict, human rights and the freedom of speech.

She was born on August 21, 1915 in Badayun, Uttar Pradesh, British India into a Muslim family.

The ninth of ten children, Chughtai grew up in Northern India and, inspired by an elder brother Mirza Azim Beg Chughtai who worked as a novelist, took up writing at a young age.

She attended Aligarh Muslim University and later graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Isabella Thoburn College in 1940. Around this time, Chughtai also became associated with the Progressive Writers Association and started to look for a way to utilize her writing skills to support human rights.

#IsmatChughtai's 107th Birthday! #GoogleDoodle celebrates the eminent Urdu writer, known for her indomitable spirit & a fierce #feminist ideology also considered the grand dame of Urdu fiction, with outspoken & #controversial style of writing! #Feminism@KumariRukshmani @iamrana pic.twitter.com/393GpSHeXe  Muzzammil Khan   (@MohdMuzzammilK) August 21, 2018

Over the years, she produced a number of notable works which explored themes like human rights, womens rights and class, particularly in Gainda and Lihaf, which centered on characters who find love outside of their castes and traditional class roles. Many viewed such works as highly controversial at the time, though today theyve been hailed as some of the boldest and most progressive works of Indian literature.

Chughtai was later awarded the respected Padma Shri award in 1976 by the Indian government in honor of her literary achievements and advocacy for human rights. She continued to inspire new writers in the years afterwards and today is regarded as one of Indias most influential writers of the 20th century.

Chughtai passed away on October 24, 1991 at age 76, but her revolutionary literary accomplishments have stood the test of time and helped to enshrine her as one of Indias most respected and notable authors.

What is a Google Doodle?

Google Doodles are temporary changes to the logo on Googles homepage in order to reflect an important event, anniversary, individual, achievement and the likes.

First created by Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998 to mark the Burning Man festival. They were later produced by the companys PR officer Dennis Hwang and outside contractors before the creation of an in-house team known as Doodlers was established to produce them more regularly.

Google Doodles, nowadays, are generally used to commemorate holidays like Halloween and St. Patricks Day and also to mark events such as Hungary State Foundation Day and honor notable individuals like Ebenezer Cobb Morley and Mary G. Ross.
The trains running in and out of London Bridge may not run on time terribly often  but at least commuters using the station can now drown their sorrows with jaw-dropping wine.

Thats because wine merchant to the Queen and Prince Charles  Berry Bros. & Rudd  now has an outlet there.

Thats astonishing enough  but what makes it even more surreal is that wines from the ultra-prestigious merchant are sold amid shelves of crisps, soft drinks and chocolate bars.

Wine merchant to the Queen and Prince Charles  Berry Bros. & Rudd  now sells its wine at London Bridge train station (pictured). It offers bottles from around 8 up to over 40

The Berry Bros. & Rudd bottles can be found in a shop called Urban Express, which also sells homemade frozen ready meals from Cook and books courtesy of Foyles, including the retailers top picks. Plus soft drinks and snacks

Commuters at the railway station would be forgiven for doing a double take.

The Berry Bros. & Rudd bottles can be found in a shop called Urban Express, which also sells homemade frozen ready meals from Cook and books courtesy of Foyles, including the retailers top picks.

Urban Express also offers good to go deals, which include a sandwich, a choice of crisps or confectionery and a drink.

The wine on offer is sold in full, half and quarter bottles (perfect for train travel) and includes less expensive offerings such as a Rioja for 11.99 and a merlot-based red for 8.99.

But for those commuters who are feeling flush, theres a New Zealand pinot noir for 25.99 and a red from Argentina  from the Pulenta Estate  that costs a cool 41.49.

The Urban Express is located next to platforms six and seven. Commuters might be forgiven for doing a double take when they see the fine wine inside

London Bridge (pictured) serves suburban areas of the capital as well as the south and south-east of England and Luton and Bedford

Berry Bros & Rudd began trading in 1698 in London's St James's Street and over the past 300 years has developed a reputation for selling the very finest wine available.

It has a new shop in London's Pall Mall (its headquarters is still at St James's Street), as well as in Basingstoke, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo.

Its wines can also be found in Virgin Atlantic's business class cabins.

Some of its most expensive bottles cost around 2,000 and its stock is carefully managed by no less than five masters of wine.

Berry Bros & Rudd began trading in 1698 and over the past 320 years has developed a reputation for selling the very finest wine available. Pictured is its shop at 63 Pall Mall

Berry Bros offices and cellars are located at 3 St Jamess Street (pictured)

Its website says: Today, with two Royal Warrants, over 300 years of history and five Masters of Wine, Berry Bros. & Rudd is Britains original wine and spirits merchant. While the firm embraces progress, traditions are also valued.

'Everyone is welcome to the shop by the Palace, whether they want one bottle or a cellarful. We are run by members of the Berry and Rudd families and we continue to supply the British Royal Family, as we have done since the reign of King George III.

The Urban Express outlet is run by SSP and its CEO, Simon Smith, said: These innovative brands have been carefully selected to complement the offer at the station and meet the aspirations of Network Rail and its customers.

The Berry Bros & Rudd Urban Express concession is operating on a trial basis, the company said.
The Polish city of Krakow has been named as the favourite destination for a short-haul city break for Brits by new research.

The historic city, famous for its medieval buildings, has seen a 221 per cent increase in searches online year-on-year as holidaymakers look for an overseas autumn/winter getaway.

It beat Amsterdam into second place, which has previously been Brits' number one choice.

The market square in the Polish city of Krakow, which has been revealed as the favourite city break for Brits, beating Amsterdam into second place

The research was revealed by Travel Supermarket, which looked at the number of holidaymakers searching for city breaks and at the prices of visiting 60 cities across Europe.

The Turkish city of Istanbul saw the second biggest increase in searches year-on-year with a 102 per cent uplift.

And with the lira crisis currently looming over Turkey, cheap prices means Brits have been snapping up breaks to the country.

Emma Coulthurst, travel expert for TravelSupermarket, said: 'Consumer prices are their lowest in Istanbul (out of all of the 60 cities studied), with the lira having plunged by as much as 45 per cent in value just this year.

'It is, currently, pretty much the cheapest mini break destination in Europe for eating out and drinks.

'You just need to try and find a low-priced package deal to get you out there.'

The cheapest place in Europe for a weekend getaway is the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, pictured

The cheapest overall place for an autumn city break is the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. Travel Supermarket says two people could holiday there for two nights for just over 80 each, including flights and accommodation.

A three-course meal at a medium-level restaurant is 15.65 per person while a local beer costs 2.68.

The rest of the entries on the top ten cheapest places list are evenly split between Eastern and Western Europe.

Also rating highly in the east is Bratislava (second), Krakow (fifth), Riga (seventh) and Sofia (ninth).

While in western Europe are Turin (third), Lyon (fourth), Porto (sixth), Berlin (eighth) and Cologne (10th).

At the expensive end of the ranking is Dubrovnik (292.66pp) in first place, Helsinki (289.72) in second and Bruges (265.80) in third.

Searching prices across the market via the price comparison site, the median two night autumn/winter package price to Dubrovnik and Helsinki has risen by 28 per cent year on year and to Bruges (58th) by 33 per cent.

High package prices for short breaks see Malaga in fourth and Ljubljana in sixth, despite food and drinks costs in both cities being less than in the UK. Incredibly high food and drink costs see Reykjavik take fifth spot.

The most expensive European city for a weekend getaway is Dubrovnik, pictured, according to Travel Supermarket

Emma added: 'The price of your city break can differ tremendously, depending on where you opt to go.

'A break to Dubrovnik can cost you 195 per cent more than to Vilnius, yet both offer lots to see and do.

'If you want to ensure great value look at the package price (combined flights and hotel costs) as well as how much things are going to cost you when you get there.

'Consumer prices in cities like Zurich and Reykjavik can be a real shock. Know what to expect from a city before you take the plunge.'
Crime taking place at airports has doubled over the past two years, police figures have revealed.

Last year there were 5,234 recorded crimes at or close to airports in England and Wales. In 2015 this number was 2,432.

Passengers trying to travel with banned items such as CS spray, knives and air rifles are said to be partly to blame for the spike in incidents.

Crime taking place at airports has doubled over the past two years. The airport with the highest number of crimes is Stansted, pictured

The people carrying banned weapons often come from countries that allow their possession.

The figures, which the BBC obtained from Police.uk, showed that the airport with the highest number of crimes was Stansted.

In total there were 1,870 incidents recorded at or close to Stansted in 2017 and 721 crimes have already been recorded in the first five months of 2018.

The airport, the UK's fourth busiest, also accounted for the vast majority of cases where illegal weapons were confiscated from passengers.

However, Essex Police, which is responsible for policing the airport said Stansted is still one of the safest airports in the UK.

A spokesperson for the force said: 'Earlier this year, all police forces had to adhere to a change in the way it recorded the seizure of CS sprays, small knives, air soft weapons and air rifles under the National Crime Recording Standards. The new crime category is possession of offensive weapon offences.

'These weapons are seized from visitors to the UK from countries where possession of these articles are usually not an offence. They are mostly dealt with by a community resolution.

'There are rare situations where UK passengers are stopped at security checks in possession of these same weapons. They are detained by our officers and are either fined or put before a court.

'The airport also runs regular Op Sceptre campaigns, a national campaign to raises awareness about the dangers of knife crime.

'Project Servator, highly visible yet unpredictable police deployments involving a police dogs, armed officers and CCTV teams, was also launched at Stansted Airport in November 2016.'

As well as weapons being confiscated, vehicle crime at airports has also doubled from 88 cases in 2015 to 169 cases last year.

The airport with the most vehicle crimes was Birmingham, pictured, with 55 recorded incidents

The airport with the most vehicle crimes was Birmingham with 55 recorded incidents taking place in the first five months of 2018.

An airport spokesperson said: 'Birmingham Airport and its car park operator, NCP, had ten incidents reported out of 800,000 transactions during the months January to March 2018.

'The data that 55 incidents were reported during this period are categorised as "on or near airport vicinity" or "on or near Airport Way" which encompasses areas that are outside the boundaries of Birmingham Airport car parks.

'NCP, the car park operator, engages with all relevant law enforcement agencies to mitigate the risk of vehicle crime and the team conduct regular patrols in the car parks.

'The continual security of the car parks over many years has led to the Park Mark accreditation, a designation which is achieved in combination with a police-led risk assessment of the car park. NCP and the Airport continue to work with West Midlands Police and other law enforcement agencies to ensure the security of all car parks on site.'

Earlier this month, it was revealed that thieves are stealing valuables as passengers go through airport security with laptops and jewellery vanishing from trays left on conveyor belts.

One passenger, Fernanda Ardiles, was travelling to the Netherlands via London City airport when when long delays meant her belongings travelled through security quicker than she did and her 1,000 laptop was taken.

Fernanda complained to airport staff, who said she couldn't watch CCTV footage because of data protection rules, and that she would have to make a complaint via the police.
She had a breakout role in 2015's Mad Max reboot, Mad Max: Fury Road.

And now Australian model Abbey Lee Kershaw has landed one of her edgiest roles yet, playing the lead in the upcoming thriller Elizabeth Harvest.

The 31-year-old plays newlywed Elizabeth, and strips off completely naked in some selected steamy scenes.

Abbey Lee Kershaw like you've never seen her before! Australian model strips off and goes completely NAKED in edgy new thriller Elizabeth Harvest

In one, Abbey is seen lying naked with Californication actress Carla Gugino, who plays the role of Claire in the film.

In another, Abbey wears a raunchy white lace robe which barely protects her modesty as she reclines in a bed.

She can also be seen topless between the sheets as she sits in the darkness.

Edgy: Abbey wears a raunchy white lace robe which barely protects her modesty as she reclines in a bed

Dark and gloomy: She can also be seen topless between the sheets as she sits in the darkness

The film focuses on Abbey's character Elizabeth, who visits her scientist husband at his secret lavish estate.

At the estate, there is a locked-off room she's forbidden to enter, but she vows to see what's inside when he's away.

She becomes increasingly suspicious of two staff members, Claire and Oliver, one of whom she appears to have a sexual encounter with.

Breakout gig: Abbey Lee - who has walked for the likes of Gucci and Victoria's Secret - scored a breakout role in the film Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015

Abbey Lee - who has walked for the likes of Gucci and Victoria's Secret - scored a breakout role in the film Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015.

She has since gone on to appear in films including, Gods of Egypt and The Dark Tower.

Earlier this year, she spoke about gender inequality in Hollywood, claiming there is still 'one female to every 10 men' getting roles.

Speaking out: Earlier this year, Abbey Lee spoke about gender inequality in Hollywood, claiming there is still 'one female to every 10 men' getting roles

Speaking to The Herald Sun, she said: 'For every script I get, a male actor friend will get five.'

'Every script with a female, there's one female to every 10 men. On top of that, there's the gender pay gap issue that's a huge problem worldwide.'

'In my workplace, I get paid less purely for that fact I am a female,' she continued.
She's never been shy when it comes to gushing over her three daughters.

And Denise Richards seemed to be soaking up as much time as she could with her youngest girls Lola Rose, 13, and Eloise Joni, six, on Monday before school returned.

The 47-year-old beauty was also spotted alongside her boyfriend Aaron Phypers as they headed to lunch together.

Family time: Denise Richards soaked up some time with her daughters Lola, 13, and Eloise, six and boyfriend Aaron Phypers during lunch in Los Angeles on Monday

Denise looked California cool in a form-fitting black singlet top that showcased her lean physique.

She paired the look with denim jeans that were heavily distressed in the knees.

The ex-wife of Charlie Sheen completed her ensemble with flip flops and sported a large pair of designer glasses.

Gorgeous: Denise looked California cool in a form-fitting black singlet top that showcased her lean physique

Denise had her blonde locks styled back into a messy up-do and appeared to be wearing a minimal amount of makeup.

Aaron was similarily dressed ina a T-shirt and jeans with brown flip flops.

While Eloise who was dressed pretty in pink held onto her mom's hand, Lola opted for a cropped T-shirt and was busy on her phone.

Loved up: Denise has been dating Aaron for over one year

Denise's next venture will see her star on Bravo's Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills.

According to Radar Online, the Wild Things star is set to earn $1 million per season and is under a four-year contract.

The publication added that her debut in season nine will make her the highest paid cast member ever.

Mom-of-three: Denise (seen 2017) shares daughters Sam, 14, (center) and Lola, 13, with ex-husband Charlie Sheen. She adopted Eloise, six, in 2011

They're back! Kyle Richards (pictured in 2016) with fellow Real Housewives of Beverly Hills co-stars Kim Richards (left) and Camille Grammer (right)

While it's unsure if her daughters will appear on the show, co-star and friend Kyle Richards hinted on Sunday that Charlie may make an appearance.

'I think possibly, I think we may have a peak into that,' she said when asked by a TMZ reporter.

'The housewives are the ones who are confirmed, whoever shows up in their lives shows up, so we'll see. Stay tuned.'

'I've known Charlie forever, I'd love to see him show up here and there,' she continued.

Denise and Charlie share daughters Sam, 14, and Lola. The beauty adopted Eloise following her divorce from the Two And A Half Men star in 2011.
SEOUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's intellectual property rights deficit hit a record low in the first half of this year thanks to spreading popularity for local computer and mobile games, central bank data showed Tuesday.

The intellectual property account posted a deficit of 550 million U.S. dollars in the January-June period, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). It was the lowest deficit since the bank began compiling the data in 2010.

The country exported 6.67 billion dollars in intellectual property rights, while importing 7.22 billion dollars of the rights in the first half.

The record-low deficit came as domestic online game companies increased export of franchise rights and computer software copyrights, while local tech firms raised import of patent use relevant to electrical and electronic products.

Trade in copyrights logged a surplus of 370 million dollars in the first half, while the industrial property rights trade was a deficit of 1.05 billion dollars.

The figure for franchise and brand rights recorded the second-biggest surplus of 70 million dollars in the first half.

[ Editor: WPY ]
Nick Furphy's father Graeme has died aged 62 after a battle with motor neurone disease.

The former Married At First Sight star, 31, announced the sad news via Instagram on Monday.

Paying tribute to his father, Nick wrote: 'RIP Dad you will be forever in my thoughts. You loved us unconditionally, but [were] always hard on us. It made us who we are.'

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Heartbreaking: Married At First Sight star Nick Furphy's father Graeme has died aged 62 after a battle with motor neurone disease. Pictured: Nick (right) and Graeme (left) in June this year

He continued: 'We will make you proud Dad, love you. I'm going to commit some time fundraising towards a cure for MND.'

While Married At First Sight was airing last year, Nick's was concerned for Graeme's health after be began showing symptoms of MND - a degenerative disease in which sufferers progressively lose the use of their limbs, and ability to speak, swallow and breathe, while their mind and senses usually remain intact.

He told TV Week in March 2017: 'We're still trying to pinpoint whether it's motor neurone disease. He's had a few specialist appointments and we're still unsure.

Loss: Paying tribute to his father, Nick wrote: 'RIP Dad you will be forever in my thoughts. You loved us unconditionally, but [were] always hard on us. It made us who we are. We will make you proud Dad, love you. I'm going to commit some time fundraising towards a cure for MND'

'There's also a chance it may be spinal damage. We're actually hoping it is that rather than motor neurone disease, because there's more treatment options.'

Graeme's worsening condition meant that Nick was unable to fully commit to a relationship with 'wife' Sharon Marsh on Married At First Sight.

Nick had offered to relocate to Sharon's hometown of Perth, but was forced to backtrack so he could support his father in Bairnsdale.

Support: Graeme is pictured on the front row, fourth from right, at his son's MAFS wedding day which aired in 2017. Nick (left) is standing next to fellow TV groom Jesse Konstantinoff (both men were paired with twin sisters Sharon and Michelle Marsh, and so shared a joint ceremony)

The Melbourne-based carpenter told the Herald Sun in April 2017 that his decision to stay in Victoria 'put [him] in a hard spot with Sharon'.

He said: 'I don't want to lose the relationship, but at the end of the day I don't want to not be there for Dad if he does have [MND].'

At the time, Nick and his family were waiting on the results of tests that would determine if Graeme had motor neurone disease.

He claimed they '[didn't] want to be thinking the worst straight away'.

Struggles: Graeme's worsening condition meant that Nick was unable to fully commit to a relationship with 'wife' Sharon Marsh on Married At First Sight last year. Nick had offered to relocate to Sharon's hometown of Perth, but was forced to backtrack so he could support his father in Bairnsdale. Pictured (left to right): Sharon, Nick and Graeme last year

Declining health: In June, Nick revealed his father had gone from being 'fully independent to needing 24 hour care and not being able to use [his] limbs' as the disease progressed

Sadly, the family's worst fears were realised and doctors confirmed that Graeme was in fact suffering from MND.

In June this year, Nick revealed his father had gone from being 'fully independent to needing 24-hour care and not being able to use [his] limbs' as the disease progressed.

Graeme's funeral takes place this Friday in Bairnsdale.

Meanwhile, Nick and Sharon announced their split in July 2017 - nine months after meeting for the first time at the altar.

WHAT IS MOTOR NEURONE DISEASE? Motor neurone disease is a rare condition that mainly affects people in their sixties and seventies, but it can affect adults of all ages. It's caused by a problem with cells in the brain and nerves called motor neurones. These cells gradually stop working over time. It's not known why this happens. Having a close relative with motor neurone disease, or a related condition called frontotemporal dementia, can sometimes mean you're more likely to get it. But it doesn't run in families in most cases. Early symptoms can include weakness in your ankle or leg (like finding it hard to walk upstairs), slurred speech, finding it hard to swallow, a weak grip, and gradual weight loss. If you have these symptoms, you should see a doctor. They will consider other possible conditions and can refer you to a specialist called a neurologist if necessary. If a close relative has motor neurone disease or frontotemporal dementia and you're worried you may be at risk of it  they may refer you to a genetic counsellor to talk about your risk and any tests you can have. Source: NHS UK Advertisement

Didn't last: Nick and Sharon announced their split in July 2017 - nine months after meeting for the first time at the altar. Pictured on Married At First Sight last year
Many women have a favourite fragrance but Newsnights Kirsty Wark takes things to extremes.

The 63-year-old, who is paid more than 200,000 a year by the BBC, has an entire bathroom cabinet at her Glasgow home dedicated to storing her hoard of Chanel No 19.

Been wearing 19 for more than 30 years, but stockpiling just in case the range is further depleted, she explained, next to a snap on social media. Whenever I go abroad I find myself scouring the duty-free so I can bulk-buy it.

Newsnights Kirsty Wark (pictured) has an entire bathroom cabinet at her Glasgow home dedicated to Chanel products

The above alone is worth around 600 and includes a 65 mousse and a 98 Chanel perfume

This lot alone comes in at 600 and includes a 65 mousse and 98 perfume. Kirsty recently declared that power dressing for ambitious women is over, but at least there is one thing in her life that will never go out of style.

Palumbo plan angers neighbours

Peter Palumbo could be forgiven for thinking back ruefully to the glory days when he owned ten magnificent properties, including Bagnor Manor in Berkshire, where he gave sanctuary to his close friend Princess Diana after she separated from Prince Charles.

Now 83 and living in the 4 million townhouse he shares with his second wife Hayat, 69, property developer and art collector Lord Palumbo is embroiled in a dispute with locals in Chelsea.

His neighbour objects to the peers new proposal to add a two-storey extension to the back of his property.

This will cause significant light reduction into our kitchen on the ground floor, the neighbour claims. Palumbo insists the extension will not affect neighbouring properties.

Pop star Ellie Goulding, with whom Prince Harry once reportedly canoodled under a blanket at the polo, announced her engagement to his fellow Old Etonian Caspar Jopling two weeks ago.

And she's already contemplating a lifetime of looking up to her future husband.

Pop star Ellie Goulding announced her engagement to Old Etonian Caspar Jopling two weeks ago (pictured together)

She posted a picture of her and her beau (pictured) kissing on a yacht on Instagram - poking fun at their height difference

The 31-year-old, who was raised by her supermarket worker mother in a Herefordshire council house, shared this picture of herself online kissing Jopling, 25, on a yacht abroad.

Sporting a stylist white lace cover-up, Ellie tried to boost her 5ft 4in frame by raising her heels to embrace her 6ft 2in fiance.

Poking fun at their height difference, she wrote: 'Cricked necks for ever.'

Trumpeted as the next James Bond, Idris Elba already has a licence to...print money. The 45-year-old actor, who played a business-savvy gangster in The Wire, made a profit of almost 1 million in the past year.

Newly published accounts for his company IE7, whose principal activity is described as undertaking contracts for the personal services of Mr I. A. Elba, report a 924,964 profit.
She has always been candid when it comes to her social media.

And Chrissy Teigen did not disappoint on Monday when she told her followers on Twitter what happened at Luna's school orientation today.

The 32-year-old model revealed in a series of tweets that she 'projectile puked caffeine upon arrival.'

Real talk: Chrissy Teigen did not disappoint on Monday when she told her followers on Twitter what happened at Luna's school orientation today, which involved puke

Chrissy addressed the fellow parents at the school who witnessed her vomit: 'Hello everyone from Luna's school orientation today. I'm sorry I projectile puked caffeine upon arrival. Couldn't open my eyes and had the noisiest newborn in the room.'

Adding: '(not a joke, very sorry, see you tomorrow).'

She concluded with: 'Oh no it was not first day of school jitters. It was last night's wine and Korean bbq and jet lag combo.'

Yikes: The 32-year-old model revealed in a series of tweets that she 'projectile puked caffeine upon arrival'

Happy family: Chrissy addressed the fellow parents at the school who witnessed her stomach upset: 'Hello everyone from Luna's school orientation today. I'm sorry I projectile puked caffeine upon arrival. Couldn't open my eyes and had the noisiest newborn in the room'

Luna is two years old and Miles was born three months ago.

Chrissy and her husband John Legend just returned home from a summer holiday to Bali.

Last week, the TV personality shared an adorable picture of her posing with her two kids - with Luna looked serious as she stared directly at the camera.

Family first: Last week, the TV personality shared an adorable picture of her posing with her two kids - with Luna looked serious as she stared directly at the camera

Chrissy rocked a black and white halter dress with gladiator sandals as she cradled baby Miles.

Luna donned a striped dress with her purple sandals sitting in front of her.

The mother of two captioned the Instagram picture: 'Luna. Luna please. Luna one smile. Please for mama. Okay that's fine you don't have to. Don't listen to people that tell you to smile. But please can you smile. No it's ok nevermind. Maybe one smile?'
She's been enjoying some much needed down time since the cancellation of her show Life Sentence.

But Lucy Hale has continued to keep busy, running errands around Los Angeles on Monday.

All smiles, the 29-year-old flaunted her trim physique during a shopping run to Walgreens.

No time to stop! Lucy Hale flaunted her trim physique in a chic ensemble during an errands run in Los Angeles on Monday

Lucy showcased her enviable decolletage in a spaghetti strapped cream colored camisole with a lace trim.

She tucked in the short to her high-waisted straight jeans that fell to her ankle.

The Pretty Little Liars star completed her casual look with a pair of simple sandals.

Gorgeous: Lucy showcased her enviable decolletage in a spaghetti strapped cream colored camisole with a lace trim

Fashion-forward: She tucked in the short to her high-waisted straight jeans that fell to her ankle

Natural beauty: She appeared to be wearing a minimal amount of makeup complete with bold eyebrows

Lucy's brunette locks were no fuss, styled out and straight.

She appeared to be wearing a minimal amount of makeup complete with bold eyebrows.

The multiple time Teen Choice Award winner accessorised her look with round shades and a dainty necklace.

Supporting kids cancer research: And there's been no slowing down Lucy, spending much of her time delving into charitable ventures

Doing what she can: Lucy posing next to a child suffering from cancer at the St. Jude Children's Research event

Cause close to her heart: Her work in children's cancer comes after her character in Life Sentence was suffering from the same disease

And there's been no slowing down Lucy, spending much of her time delving into charitable ventures.

Taking to Instagram last week, she revealed she had designed a shirt of which the proceeds went pediatric cancer research.

'Introducing my new "Do It for the Babes" tee! Every shirt purchased supports such a special place in my heart,' she shared.

Her work in children's cancer comes after her character in Life Sentence was suffering from the same disease.

Pregnant Victoria's Secret Model Lily Aldridge has since shown her support by purchasing the shirt and sharing a selfie on her socials.
Their whirlwind romance and June engagement made tongues wag.

And Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson were the talk of the town once again on Monday when they made their first ever red carpet appearance as a couple during the MTV VMAs at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

The God Is A Woman songstress, 25, and SNL regular, 24, couldn't keep their hands - or mouths - off one another during their stop.

Grand outing: Ariana Grande and fiance Pette Davidson made their red carpet couple's debut during Monday night's MTV Video Music Awards in at Radio City Music Hall in NYC

Signs of affection: The God Is A Woman songstress, 25, and SNL regular, 24, couldn't keep their hands - or mouths - off one another during their stop

The couple appeared smitten as ever, lavishing each other in affection while Grande whispered sweet nothings into the stand-up's ear.

The former Nickelodeon star looked lovely in a metallic silver frock worn with shimmering over-the-knee boots.

Instead of her iconic high-ponytail, the Sweetener singer wore her light brown tresses down.

She made sure to keep her signature cat-eyed liner for makeup, however.

Can't hide their love: The couple lavished each other in affection and Grande whispered sweet nothings into the stand-up's ear

Carefree: After posing for a few red carpet shots, the couple ran away together giggling

Passion for fashion: Pete was fashionable in a white sweatshirt, black trackpants and upscale Off-White brand sneakers

Shining star: Later inside the event Ariana spent some solo time in front of the camera

Pete was fashionable in a white sweatshirt, black trackpants and upscale Off-White brand sneakers worn with its red tag intact.

His bleach blonde locks had grown out to reveal dark roots which expertly complemented his on-trend apparel.

After posing for a few red carpet shots, the carefree couple ran away together giggling.

Back to his roots: His bleach blonde locks had grown out to reveal dark roots which expertly complemented his on-trend apparel

Later! The couple couldn't hide their glee while fleeing from the red carpet

In the spotlight: The Light Is Coming singer is set to perform at the event, joining the likes of Travis Scott, MTV Vanguard Award winner Jennifer Lopez and her long-time collaborator Nicki Minaj

Later inside the event Ariana spent some solo time in front of the camera.

The Light Is Coming singer is set to perform at the event, joining the likes of Travis Scott, MTV Vanguard Award winner Jennifer Lopez and her long-time collaborator Nicki Minaj.

Grande is up for some big awards tonight, nominated for Artist Of The Year and Video Of The Year, in addition to three others.

Her lucky charm: Grande is up for some big awards tonight, nominated for Artist Of The Year and Video Of The Year, in addition to three others
She recently added another notch to her acting belt, starring in the gripping new Channel Nine thriller series, Bite Club.

And now Pia Miller has revealed whether she will be heading to Hollywood to further her career.

During an appearance on The Today Show on Tuesday, the 34-year-old model told Karl Stefanovic, 44, and Georgie Gardner, 48 that she'll get straight on a plane 'if Hollywood calls'.

'Am I going to go to Hollywood?' Home And Away star Pia Miller revealed whether she will be heading to Hollywood to further her career during an interview with the Today show on Tuesday

The brunette beauty also addressed rumours she was a 'diva' during her time on set of Home and Away.

'The thing is "diva" in Spanish has a different connotation to it. It has a positive connotation...Diva. What does it mean? Does it mean I'm difficult? I don't know,' Pia explained.

'I refused to do some things or to put my children on the cover of magazines or whatever. There's always a ruckus and there's always something to say about people..It's just non apologetic I think. Non-apologetically you,' she added.

Last year, Woman's Day reported that Pia 'carried on like she's a five-time Oscar winner' on the set of the long-running soap.

Diva tendencies? The brunette beauty also addressed rumours she was a 'diva' during her time on set of Home and Away

'People don't like Pia,' a source told the publication at the time, adding the brunette model had a tendency to indulge in her own stunning model looks and 'throws it in their faces any chance she gets.'

The insider continued: 'She has one of the smallest acting portfolios on the show, but carries on like she's a five-time Oscar winner.'

Not long after the report, Pia laughed off the rumours.

'We all just had a really good giggle about it,' she said during her interview with Inside at the time.

'We are and will continue to be a community on that show.

'During my time, long after my time there, that's just the kind of place it is. It's a home, it's a family.'

'The thing is "diva" in Spanish has a different connotation to it. It has a positive connotation...Diva. What does it mean? Does it mean I'm difficult? I don't know,' Pia explained

Pia, who is an ambassador for the Gillette Venus brand, has previously spoke about juggling her career with motherhood.

And on Tuesday she said on the Today show: 'We just have to make it work. I am no different to any other working parent, I am juggling stuff all the time - relying on my family, relying on my friends and my partner.'

Pia has two son - Lennox, 11, who she shares with ex-husband Brad Miller, and 15-year-old Isaiah Powell, who she gave birth to at age 19.

Family: Pia has two son - Lennox, 11, (middle) who she shares with ex-husband Brad Miller, and 15-year-old Isaiah Powell (far left), who she gave birth to at age 19

After giving birth to Isaiah, Pia starred in campaigns for Myer, Qantas, Midas and Star Casino, before kick starting her acting career by landing breakthrough role as Summer Bay cop, Katarina 'Kat' Chapman.

Quite the opposite to her most recent role on Bite Club, where Pia will be portraying 'Kate' - a detective's best friend who enjoys causing trouble.

Pia initially auditioned for another role on the new crime series, which aired earlier this month on Nine Network.
She is set to tie the knot later this year to former Coronation Street actor Oliver Mellor.

And Rhian Sugden looked every inch the bride-to-be as she shared a slew of snaps from her hen party via her Instagram on Monday.

The busty glamour model, 31, couldn't resist posing nude behind a string of white and metallic balloons before heading on a night out in Manchester with her family and friends.

Wedding bells: Rhian Sugden looked every inch the bride-to-be as she shared a slew of snaps from her hen party via her Instagram on Monday

Grinning for the camera, Rhian strategically protected her modesty behind the dozens of balloons, proudly holding up one which said: 'Mrs Mellor to be!!'

After a quick change, the blonde pin-up exuded bridal beauty in a white playsuit as she headed to Neighbourhood bar.

Quaffing champagne as she celebrated her impending nuptials, Rhian added a boost to her leggy frame with a pair of yellow stilettos and amped up the glamour with fluttery eyelashes and a slick of pink lipstick.

Party-time! The busty glamour model, 31, couldn't resist posing nude behind a string of white and metallic balloons before heading on a night out in Manchester with her family and friends

Glamour girl: After a quick change, the blonde pin-up exuded bridal beauty in a white playsuit as she headed to Neighbourhood bar

She captioned the string of snaps: Had sun a fun hen dolast night! Had a fair bit to drink I rek'.

Rhian and former Coronation Street actor Oliver are due to tie the knot later this year, after he proposed at a sold-out Manchester theatre in 2014.

Speaking at the time about the proposal, she told The Sun: 'I started blubbing like a baby.

'Hes definitely the one for me, even if he did get a ring the size of a hula hoop.'

Sore head: Quaffing champagne as she celebrated her impending nuptials, Rhian amped up the glamour with fluttery eyelashes and a slick of pink lipstick

Before she met Oliver, Rhian was involved in a scandal with Vernon Kay, with the starlet first coming to the forefront when she went public with several racy messages sent by the married TV presenter in 2010.

The 43-year-old was famously forced to make an apology to his wife Tess Daly on BBC Radio 1 following the sexting scandal.

Vernon went on to promise live on air that he would no longer contact Rhian or the four other women he had been caught messaging at the time.

It was then revealed the pair had got back in touch in 2015, with Vernon sending hundreds of texts asking to 'reconnect' with the model.

After a break of six years, the busty blonde admitted that it felt like an 'old friendship coming back'.

The blonde beauty recently claimed however that she had been treated as 'the villain' in the light of the sexting scandal, while the radio host has had a career boost.

Speaking on Celebrity Sex Pod earlier this year, the beauty reasoned: 'He got drunk and sent inappropriate text messages to me. And Im the one people would pour drinks on.'
Bristol Palin says her 'life is not perfect at all' as she chats with her mother Sarah Palin in a new preview for her stint on Teen Mom OG.

'I was a teen mom,' the 27-year-old said as she chat with Sarah, who validated her musings with the phrase 'Amen.'

In another frame from the clip, the oldest daughter of former Vice Presidential candidate said, 'I want to do what's best for my kids.'

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Revealing: Bristol Palin says her 'life is not perfect at all' as she chat with her mother Sarah Palin in a new preview for her stint on Teen Mom OG

Bristol, who parted ways with husband Dakota Meyer this past February, took to Instagram last month to announce she was joining the cast of the series.

She wrote: 'I am excited to join MTV's Teen Mom OG. I look forward to sharing my experiences and hope that I can help others on their journey.'

In the adjacent shot, Bristol posed with her three children - son Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, nine, and daughters Sailor Grace Meyer, two, and Atlee Bay Meyer, 14 months - with a trio of cameramen in the background.

It's been more than a decade since the Wasilla, Alaska native was launched into the limelight shortly after Senator John McCain selected her mother as his running mate in his unsuccessful 2008 bid for the oval office against former President Barack Obama.

High-profile: Bristol joins Maci Bookout, Catelynn Lowell and Amber Portwood on the MTV series

Revealing: Bristol's life and family will be before the camera when she appears in the show

In the limelight: Bristol has parlayed her fame into TV stints on Dancing with the Stars in 2010, and Bristol Palin: Life's a Tripp in 2012

Fast fame: Sarah rose to national prominence when Senator John McCain selected her as his running mate in their unsuccessful 2008 campaign against ex-President Barack Obama

Happy family: Bristol posed with her three children - son Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, nine, and daughters Sailor Grace Meyer, two, and Atlee Bay Meyer, 14 months, in a shot on social media earlier this month

News of Bristol's first pregnancy at the age of 17, with her former fiance Levi Johnston, made national headlines amid the presidential campaign. Johnston will be seen on the series as well, his wife Sunny said on social media earlier this week.

She parlayed the fame into TV stints on Dancing with the Stars in 2010, and Bristol Palin: Life's a Tripp in 2012.

Teen Mom OG, also featuring Maci Bookout, Catelynn Lowell and Amber Portwood, debuts on MTV beginning October 1.
Nev Schulman - who hosts MTV's Catfish - transformed Monday night's Video Music Awards red carpet into an impromptu maternity shoot with his pregnant wife Laura Perlongo.

It was five days after the ATTN: ambassadors officially announced they were going to welcome a baby brother for their 22-month-old daughter Cleo next January.

The 33-year-old native New Yorker and the Detroit-born 32-year-old - who met on Instagram in 2015 - also celebrated their first wedding anniversary on July 22.

Congrats! Nev Schulman - who hosts MTV's Catfish - transformed Monday night's Video Music Awards red carpet into an impromptu maternity shoot with his pregnant wife Laura Perlongo

'We got a bun in the oven!' It was five days after the ATTN: ambassadors officially announced they were going to welcome a baby brother for their 22-month-old daughter Cleo next January

For the star-studded ceremony at Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall - Nev (born Yaniv) sported a pink jean jacket, matching skinny jeans, black T-shirt, and sockless Oxfords.

Laura better showcased her burgeoning bump in a white crop top beneath a red double-breasted blazer, matching flared trousers, and black peep-toe slingbacks.

The Boston University grad hilariously tried and failed to keep her pants from wrinkling by standing and laying down in the car on the way to the event.

Schulman's glamorous sighting came two months after the music cable network closed their internal investigation into 'baseless' sexual misconduct allegations by Ayissha Morgan.

Met on Instagram in 2015: The 33-year-old native New Yorker and the Detroit-born 32-year-old also celebrated their first wedding anniversary on July 22

Star-studded ceremony: Nev (born Yaniv) sported a pink jean jacket, matching skinny jeans, black T-shirt, and sockless Oxfords outside Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall

Mom-to-be! Laura better showcased her burgeoning bump in a white crop top beneath a red double-breasted blazer, matching flared trousers, and black peep-toe slingbacks

Oh well: The Boston University grad hilariously tried and failed to keep her pants from wrinkling by standing and laying down in the car on the way to the event

On May 12, the actress who appeared on Catfish in 2015 had claimed on YouTube that Nev attempted to 'coax her into having sex with him to prove to herself she was truly a lesbian.'

The photographer-turned-presenter previously admitted in his 2014 memoir In Real Life that he was expelled from Sarah Lawrence College in 2006 after punching a female student in the face.

The victim told Vulture the PETA brand ambassador had 'repeatedly punched me,' 'broke my glasses,' and 'held me in a headlock' after asking him not to film LGBTQ students kissing at a school dance.

Schulman and Perlongo currently co-star in the 10-episode second season of their relationship advice show We Need to Talk, which streams Thursdays on Facebook Watch.

Dismissed: Schulman's sighting came two months after the music cable network closed their internal investigation into 'baseless' sexual misconduct allegations by Ayissha Morgan

Ummm...: The photographer-turned-presenter previously admitted in his 2014 memoir In Real Life that he was expelled from Sarah Lawrence College in 2006 after punching a girl in the face
A record number of applicants were submitted for this year's 10th anniversary Heath Ledger scholarship.

And for the first time since its inception in 2008, a transgender finalist could win the prestigious award.

Actor Harvey Zielinski, 27, is one of 10 nominees up for the accolade, created in honour of the late actor 'to give a huge boost to an upcoming talent from Australia'.

'Our industry will only get stronger as we embrace, celebrate and support!' Harvey Zielinski becomes the first transgender nominee for the Heath Ledger scholarship as finalists are announced for its 10th anniversary

An honour: The Heath Ledger scholarship was created in 2008 in honour of the late Australian actor (ABOVE), who died that year

'The finalists include actors from culturally diverse backgrounds and the LGBTQ community, including the very first transgender finalist. Congratulations all!' Kirsty McGregor, President of the Casting Guild of Australia and HLS10 Judge said.

'Our industry will only get stronger as we embrace, celebrate and support new talent and ensure the faces we see on our screens reflect our community,' she added.

Harvey recently spoke to ABC News last week about the changes he'd like to see, and be a part of, in the industry.

'I'll be really happy if I never see another murderer who's revealed to be trans. Or a psychopath, or someone with debilitating mental illness who is then revealed  the big twist  is that they're trans,' he said.

'I'm pretty done with that narrative. It's pretty obviously problematic.'

'I'm pretty done with that narrative': Harvey recently spoke to ABC News last week about how he wants to change how the industry portrays the trans community on screen, as she claims its often someone who is a psychopath

Meanwhile, other finalists this year include Picnic At Hanging Rock's Aaron Glenare and Bethany Whitmore, Neighbours' Gemma Bird Matheson, and Doctor, Doctor's Shalom Brune-Franklin.

The prize is valued at $41,000.

All 10 finalists will be flown to Los Angeles, courtesy of Qantas, for the ceremony, and a collection of esteemed A-list Hollywood members will select the winner.

The panel of judges, headed by Matt Damon, include Naomi Watts, Rose Byrne and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura.

Could they win it? (L to R) Other finalists this year include Picnic At Hanging Rock's Aaron Glenare and Bethany Whitmore, and Neighbours' Gemma Bird Matheson

The scholarship is backed by Ledger's family and other members of Hollywood's elite including Nicole Kidman, Michelle Williams, Hugh Jackman, Deborra-Lee Furness, Vince Vaughn, Liam Hemsworth, Alex O'Loughlin, Phillip Noyce, Catherine Martin, Baz Luhrmann, Byrne and Watts.

Past winners have included Mojean Aria, Cody Fern, Ashleigh Cummings, and Bella Heathcote.

The winner of this year's scholarship will be announced on Thursday, September 20, at the iconic Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.
Video: QIU XUEYING/GMW.CN

BEIJING, Aug. 20 (GMW.CN) A group of 48 students from 18 China Cultural Centers across the world arrived in Beijing on Saturday for the 10-day Experience China tour by Bureau for External Cultural Relations, Ministry of Culture, the Peoples Republic of China, the organizers of the tour, announced at a ceremony in Beijing on Monday.

The 48 students, who come from countries including Paris, Madrid, Benin, France, Mexico, New Zealand, and Thailand, will visit several cities during the 10-day "Experience China - 2018 China Cultural Center Students Award Tour."

The tour got its start in 2003 is aimed at offering outstanding students from China Cultural Centers worldwide the chance to better understand Chinese culture through first-hand experiences and communication.

During their stay in the capital, these students will have the opportunity to experience Chinese culture by participating in activities related to Chinese intangible cultural heritage and visiting the National Museum of China, Beijing's well-known 798 Art Zone and the Palace Museum.

There have been more than 30 Chinese Culture Centers overseas with the aim of building a bridge for people around the globe to learn more about China.

Editor: Xueying
She recently lost 19kg after embarking on a new fitness regime.

And Tziporah Malkah is set to make her TV comeback in a hilarious new reality show, Daily Mail Australia can reveal.

The 44-year-old ex-fiancee of billionaire James Packer appears in a new pilot for My Fabulous Life alongside Real Housewives stars Matty Samaei and Christa Billich.

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EXCLUSIVE: Tziporah Malkah's big comeback! James Packer's ex-fiancee (second from right) stars in a new reality show with Real Housewives stars Matty Samaei and Christa Billich (right)

Actress Krissy Stanley also appears in the show, which is being helmed by creative producer Thomas Grainger.

Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday, Thomas said filming the pilot episode was a blast.

'It's been a lot of fun, we've had a lot of laughter and a bit of drama but it has been going really well so far,' Thomas said.

In good company! Krissy Stanley also appears in the show, which is being helmed by creative producer Thomas Grainger (second from right). Fellow star Matty Samaei is pictured right

'They all have very big personalities': Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday, Thomas said filming the pilot episode was a blast

'They all have very big personalities and different opinions,' he added.

'But ultimately deep down, they're all lovely people and all want the best for each other and the show.'

Thomas also said that Tziporah, formerly known as Kate Fischer, is back with a bang after spending several years in the celebrity wilderness.

'I know she is looking very much to get back on her feet. She's got a few things in store, so watch this space,' he teased.

'She has got a few things in store': Thomas also said that Tziporah, formerly known as Kate Fischer, is back with a bang after spending several years in the celebrity wilderness

'She is really focusing on herself at the moment, and getting back into fitness. I know she's been working out a lot and has a lost a heap of weight.'

According to Thomas, Tziporah's new boyfriend Justin Green is also helping her find her mojo again.

'He's very much helping her get back into finding health and she seems to be really focusing on pushing forward and moving forward with that.'

Reality TV role: Tziporah is pictured on I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! in 2017

One highlight from filming was a dinner party scene hosted at Christa's penthouse.

Tziporah apparently rocked up wearing a bed sheet and pillow case.

'The bed sheets thing is pretty fun,' Thomas said. 'It's an interesting concept and I'm loving it.'
Cassandra Thorburn is determined to set the record straight on her media career after being falsely portrayed by the press as 'living in the shadows for 21 years' during her marriage to Karl Stefanovic.

The children's author, 47, recently penned a light-hearted biography on her website that alluded to her accomplished career in journalism and TV production - and the 'little-known fact' that she worked on the Today show before her ex-husband.

'Cassandra Thorburn grew up in regional Australia and started working in community radio and newspaper at 13 years of age,' the bio began.

Speaking out: Cassandra Thorburn is determined to set the record straight on her media career after being falsely portrayed by the press as 'living in the shadows for 21 years' during her marriage to Karl Stefanovic. Pictured: Karl and Cassandra on May 1, 2011 in Melbourne

She explained that her father, who who was also journalist, discouraged her from studying a journalism degree as it 'couldn't teach her anything he had not already taught her' and so she decided on a Bachelor of Teaching degree instead.

This decision turned out to have unforeseen benefits for Cass when, after having three children with Karl (sons Jackson, 18, and River, 11, and daughter Ava, 13), 'her passion for children's books was reignited'.

But motherhood and a globetrotting career in journalism meant she didn't have the opportunity to write her own book until her marriage abruptly ended two years ago.

Taking a stand: The children's author, 47, recently penned a light-hearted biography on her website that alluded to her accomplished career in journalism and TV production - and the 'little-known fact' that she worked on the Today show before her ex-husband

She wrote in her bio: 'Life was busy and she never got around to it until her husband left the marriage and Cass saw an opening to do something for herself. Well, truth be told, her close friend Cara Campbell shook her off and said, "Let's do a course".

'Despite all that, Cass is really only known in Australia as the ex-wife of a breakfast TV host who happily stayed in the shadows for 21 years.

'A little-known fact though is that Cass worked at the Today show first.'

Cassandra was working as a line-up producer on the Today show in 2002 before Karl was posted to Los Angeles as a correspondent for Channel Nine.

He didn't become host of Today until 2005.

It comes after Cassandra claimed last week that her children were being neglected by Karl's side of the family following their marriage split in 2016.

Tell-all interview: It comes after Cassandra claimed to AWW last week that her children were being neglected by Karl's side of the family following their marriage split in 2016. Pictured: This month's cover of The Australian Women's Weekly

She told The Australian Women's Weekly that she and the kids had been 'discarded' by the Stefanovics - but did not suggest that Karl himself was an absent father.

'Last year, I declared that Karl really was dead to me, a man I no longer know, but the children still have their father,' Cassandra told the magazine.

'The flip-side of that is I feel like we're dead to his family and almost anyone from our old life.

'There has been practically no contact. I feel like we've been discarded and disposed of, replaced by a whole new line-up of starters.'

Claims: Cassandra told AWW that she and her three children had been 'discarded' by the Stefanovics - but did not suggest that Karl himself was an absent father

After the AWW article was published online, a Stefanovic family spokesperson issued a statement to The Fix refuting Cassandra's claims.

'We are disappointed Cass would claim such inflammatory suggestions that we have alienated Karl's children from our family,' the statement read.

'Nothing could be further from the truth. Karl regularly co-parents his children and has his loving family around them.

'We refuse to keep a running dialogue of the children... Family is often compromised when parents go through a painful divorce and we do our best to continue our love and support for the children.'

Karl spoke about his relationship with his children in an interview with News Corp on Saturday, emphasising that he was very much a presence in his kids' lives.

'First and foremost, I'm a dad... and I'm not going anywhere,' he said. 'I love my kids. They know that. And that's what matters.

'I don't want my silence, or the fact that my children aren't visibly front and centre with me for everyone to see, to be misinterpreted as absence. That couldn't be further from the truth.'

Karl announced his split with Cassandra, an accomplished journalist and TV producer, in September 2016 after 21 years of marriage.

A few months later, he met ambitious fashion designer Jasmine Yarbrough, 34, and they became engaged in January 2018 after a whirlwind romance.

In March 2018, Karl and Jasmine celebrated their relationship with a commitment ceremony.
Teen Beach Movie star Garrett Clayton came out as gay on his Instagram Monday.

The actor, 27, said he was motivated to speak out after starring as a socially awkward high schooler dealing with thoughts of suicide in the upcoming film Reach.

He also revealed that he has been living with a boyfriend 'for a long time.'

Teen Beach Movie star Garrett Clayton, 27, came out as gay on his Instagram Monday and revealed that he has been living with a boyfriend 'for a long time.' He's pictured August 11 in LA

'REACH deals with some very serious and timely topics that have affected me personally, and have likely influenced many of your lives as well,' he wrote.

'I have personally dealt with suicide within my own family, intense bullying in high school, and - on top of it all - myself and the man Ive been in a relationship with for a long time (@hrhblakeknight) have both experienced shootings within our hometown school systems, and have witnessed the heartache that takes place in affected communities after such tragic events,' Clayton said.

He tagged boyfriend Blake Knight in the post.

Candid post: The actor, 27, said he was motivated to speak out after starring as a socially awkward high schooler dealing with thoughts of suicide in the upcoming film Reach

Young star: Clayton starred in the Disney Channel's 2013 film Teen Beach Movie (pictured) and its 2015 sequel

He also starred in NBC's Hairspray Live in 2016. he's pictured with co-star Tracy Turnblad

And Knight responded by sharing several photos of Garrett to his own Instagram.

'So proud of @garrettclayton1 today! Hes overcome a lot, and still has one of the biggest hearts of anyone Ive ever met. Handsome, talented, hilarious, kind... whats not to love?!' he commented.

'Its been an awesome journey all over the world together so far, and Im looking forward to many more years and trips and puppies and movies and naps and dinners and friends! I love you, Gary!' Knight added.

Clayton starred in the ABC Family sitcom The Fosters from 2014 to 2016 and also appeared in NBC's Hairspray Live! in 2016.
It is one of the world's most famous landmarks.

But Love Island Australia winner Grant Crapp, 23, made sure to go the extra mile and explain to his international fans what the Sydney Opera House is on Monday.

After sharing a photograph of himself and his manager Max Markson dining against the backdrop of the iconic building, the electrician cleared up any confusion as to where their meeting was taking place.

Crapp for brains! Love Island Australia's Grant Crapp explained to UK fans what the Sydney Opera House is on Monday despite it being one of the world's most famous landmarks

In the photograph, Grant is pictured engaged in conversation with Max in a hotel lobby across the harbour from the Sydney Opera House.

Although the caption for the post was sponsored by a drinks company he was promoting, the reality TV star went rogue in the comments section.

'To those asking behind me is the Opera House located in Sydney,' Grant wrote. (Nobody had asked him).

'To those asking behind me is the Opera House located in Sydney': After sharing a photograph of himself and his manager Max Markson dining against the backdrop of the iconic building, the electrician cleared up any confusion as to where their meeting was taking place

'To those asking...': Despite no-one asking him to clarify the location, Grant kindly explained to his fans in the UK and Ireland that he was dining near the Sydney Opera House

Grant is currently gearing up for a UK tour to capitalise on his rising profile overseas as Love Island Australia is currently airing in Britain.

Many comments urged Grant to visit specific towns and to enjoy his trip.

'Organising a tour to basically everywhere,' Grant responded to one fan. 'I want to meet as many people as possible.'

Very familiar: The Sydney Opera House is one of the most famous and distinctive landmarks in the world and is instantly recognisable to most adults

Going global: Grant is currently gearing up for a UK tour to capitalise on his rising profile overseas as Love Island Australia is currently airing in Britain

Earlier this month, Daily Mail Australia revealed the huge amount that the Islanders - including Grant, Eden Dally, Erin Barnett and Cassidy McGill - are making from nightclub appearances.

An industry insider, who has worked with stars of Love Island, Married At First Sight and The Bachelor, said: 'Nightclub appearances are the easiest way for Australian reality stars to cash in on their fame as soon as their show ends.

'The average price for this type of work tends to be between $3,000 and $6,000 for a single appearance - but it does vary depending on their relevance, the type of club night and if it's a solo appearance or with some of their co-stars.'

Although the appearance fee may change per venue, the source added: 'The price tends to be higher immediately after their show comes off air while interest is at its peak, which explains why the talent often squeeze several PA's into one weekend.'
Studio 10 host Denise Scott stormed off the set of Have You Been Paying Attention? on Monday night after jokes about her age went too far.

Throughout the episode, the panellists poked fun at the comedian's age and her hosting role on Studio 10, a morning talk show known for its older audience.

However, it was Sam Pang and Tony Martin's rapid-fire jokes that prompted Denise to walk out during filming - but it was all in good humour.

The walk-off segment began when host Tom Gleisner asked the panel about a recent news story concerning Australian cuttlefish.

Tony buzzed in and declared: 'It's joining the cast of Studio 10!'

Sam added: '[Cuttlefish have] got a bit too much life in them for that, I would have thought!'

'You're taking away the little bit of glory I've got!' This is the moment Studio 10's Denise Scott, 63, stormed off Have You Been Paying Attention? on Monday after Sam Pang made ageist jokes

Playing along with the joke, Denise pretended she was upset, threw her hands up in the air and stepped down from the set.

Sam tried to apologise before Denise snapped back: 'It took me until 63 to get a job on that show, Sam! Now you're taking away the little bit of glory I've got.'

Just as the presenter was about to intervene, 2Day FM radio host Ed Kavalee quipped: 'Tom, this is the best drama Ten's had!'

All in good fun! After Sam Pang (left) and Tony Martin made jokes about Denise's age and Studio 10's older viewership, Denise pretended she was upset, threw her hands up in the air and stepped down from the set

Later, Denise reminded Sam that he could one day end up working on Studio 10 in his old age.

In response to this, Ed said: 'That is one of the great showbiz threats, "You'll be on Studio 10!"

After the show aired, Studio 10 co-host Joe Hildebrand jokingly accused the Have You Been Paying Attention? panel of 'ageism'.

He tweeted: 'Disgusted by the rampant ageism by those disrespectful millennials on HYBPA? Frankly I have jokes that are older than Sam Pang.'
Jarrod Woodgate is the newest ambassador for Camp Quality.

The Bachelor In Paradise star has revealed he signed up to the charity after tragically losing his cousin to cancer when his relative was just five-years-old.

Recalling his family's heartbreak in an emotional interview, Jarrod said helping sick children is a cause close to his heart.

'My second cousin passed away when he was five due to cancer': Bachelor In Paradise star Jarrod Woodgate reveals his family's heartbreak as he spends time with sick kids on weekend away for Camp Quality

'My second cousin was with Camp Quality and he passed away when he was five,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

Over the weekend, the vineyard manager enjoyed a Camp Quality camp at Victoria's Lake Mountain, partaking in fun games with children and their families.

'It's my first camp as an ambassador for Camp Quality,' Jarrod said '(I wanted to) make the day as fun as possible for the kids.

A good cause: Over the weekend, the vineyard manager enjoyed a Camp Quality camp at Victoria's Lake Mountain, partaking in fun games with children and their families

'As long as they're having a fun day. It also allows the families to reconnect, meet new people and enjoy their time without any stresses.'

He added: 'I've been wanting to do something like this for a while.'

Jarrod also encouraged others to get involved with the charity.

Close to his heart: Jarrod said helping sick children is a cause close to his heart

'It's bigger than anything': Jarrod also encouraged others to get involved with the charity

'Being a part of something [like this], it's bigger than anything,' he said.

'I think if we put all our attention and focus on getting these kids through the tough times...we need to make sure that they can continue on and have a great life.

'And you feel really good for helping out...Anybody can do it,' he added.
He rose to fame in January alongside 'wife' Charlene Perera on Married At First Sight.

And after failing to find work off the back of the whirlwind Nine show at home in Australia, Patrick Miller, 34, has now attempted to make it in the Philippines instead.

The former operations manager, who is half Filipino, seems to have had a successful start in Southeast Asian country too after kicking off his press tour.

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EXCLUSIVE: Going global? MAFS' Patrick Miller, 34, makes bizarre bid for fame in Philippines as he appears on variety show alongside actress Anne Curtis-Smith, 33, ...after failing to find work in Australia after appearing on Nine

An insider told Daily Mail Australia: 'Patrick and his agent have a big plan to make a name for himself over there and introduce him to a whole new market.'

'He's making lots of connections and has several meetings lined-up with TV producers about potential projects he could star on.

'Although Married At First Sight wasn't aired over there, people already loved him just from his social media presence.'

Celebrity cameo: Patrick made a brief, and unexpected, cameo on top rated variety programme Showtime after host Anne gave him a personal shout out

'Hi to my friend Patrick': As host the Filipino-Australian actress and model introduced a live link at the start of the show, she took a moment to introduce Patrick

Earlier this week, Patrick made a brief, and unexpected, cameo on top rated variety program, It's Showtime.

As host, Filipino-Australian actress and model, Anne Curtis Smith, 33, introduced a live link at the start of the show, she took a moment to shout out to Patrick.

'Hi to my friend Patrick,' she declared as the camera cut to Patrick on the front row.

The Melbourne-based reality star then shared a variety of pictures with Anne, who boasts 9.5 million online followers, to his Instagram page.

Homegrown star: Patrick rose to fame in January alongside 'wife' Charlene Perera on Married At First Sight

Following the TV appearance, Patrick appeared as a guest on Filipino radio station, Boys Night Out, which is described by the station as 'Baddest Radio Show in Asia.'

'My mum was a huge part of the show,' Patrick said while explaining the phenomenon that is Married At First Sight to the hosts.

Referencing his mother Ruby's starring role on the Nine show, Patrick added: 'We've all got Filipino mums and mine's a ball breaker, seriously!'

Press tour: Patrick appeared as a guest on Filipino radio station, Boys Night Out, which is described by the station as 'Baddest Radio Show in Asia'

Family first: Referencing his mother Ruby's starring role on the Nine show, Patrick told the radio hosts, 'We've all got Filipino mums and mine's a ball breaker, seriously!'

'Hanging with the cool kids': It appeared it wasn't all work for Patrick during his first few days overseas as he cosied up to Anne's famous sister, Jasmine Curtis-Smith

It appeared it wasn't all work for Patrick during his first few days overseas.

The star also shared a selfie cosying up to Anne's famous sister, Jasmine Curtis-Smith.

The beauty, 24, who is also a successful Filipino-Australian actress and dancer, commented on his post: 'Awesome seeing u last night!!!'

Patrick, then revealed a surprising history with the famous family, while asking to see the actress again.

'Good to see you too after all these years,' he responded. 'Catch up for a coffee or something soon !!!! Im hanging out with your mom tomorrow lol.'
Eight members of The Hills reunited at Monday night's MTV Video Music Awards in Manhattan to help announce the cable network's 2019 reboot of the retro reality show.

It's been eight years since the LA-based gang was last in the spotlight for the Laguna Beach spin-off (2006-2010), which was criticized for fabricating storylines.

But following the tremendous success of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, MTV will 'soon' debut The Hills: New Beginnings.

Miss us? Eight members of The Hills reunited at Monday night's MTV Video Music Awards in Manhattan to help announce the cable network's 2019 reboot of the retro reality show

2006-2010: It's been eight years since the LA-based gang was last in the spotlight for the Laguna Beach spin-off, which was criticized for fabricating storylines

The 30-second preview - which aired during the ceremony - featured LA landscapes, a remix of the Unwritten theme song, and the quote: 'It's like we're all growing up, it's weird.'

Mingling during the pre-show were Spencer Pratt and his wife Heidi, Audrina Patridge, Frankie Delgado, Jason Wahler and his wife Ashley, Justin Brescia, and Stephanie Pratt.

New Beginnings is said to focus on 'the original castmembers, their children, and friends as they follow their personal and professional lives.'

According to Us Weekly, a mystery celebrity as well as two blogging influencers will also guest star in the upcoming reimaginging.

It's happening! But following the tremendous success of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, MTV will 'soon' debut The Hills: New Beginnings

The 30-second preview - which aired during the ceremony - featured LA landscapes, a remix of the Unwritten theme song, and the quote: 'It's like we're all growing up, it's weird'

Jersey Shore meets The Hills: Mingling during the pre-show were (from L-R) Spencer Pratt and his wife Heidi, Audrina Patridge, Frankie Delgado, Jason Wahler and his wife Ashley, Justin Brescia, and Stephanie Pratt

Reboot: New Beginnings is said to focus on 'the original castmembers, their children, and friends as they follow their personal and professional lives'

Guess who? According to Us Weekly, a mystery celebrity as well as two blogging influencers will also guest star in the upcoming reimaginging

Trio: Audrina (L) donned a silver fringed mini-dress, Stephanie (M) took the plunge in a red-lace Stello gown, and Heidi (R) wore a cross-backed metallic mini-dress

'Mom life': The 31-year-old first-time mother struggled to find somewhere to breastfeed their 10-month-old son Gunner backstage, and she left the glitzy awards show early with the baby

33-year-old Audrina donned a silver fringed mini-dress, 32-year-old Stephanie took the plunge in a red-lace Stello gown, and 31-year-old Heidi wore a cross-backed metallic mini-dress.

As a first-time mother, Pratt struggled to find somewhere to breastfeed their 10-month-old son Gunner backstage, and she left the glitzy awards show early with the baby.

Missing from the Radio City Music Hall festivities was Whitney Port, who hinted at her owninvolvement with a tweet teasing the unveiling: 'Everything MIGHT happen tonight at the #VMAs!'

The 33-year-old I Love My Baby But vlogger - who has a 13-month-old son Sonny with husband Tim Rosenman - told Us Weekly in June that a reboot would 'definitely be something fun.'

Missing from Radio City Music Hall was Whitney Port, who hinted at her own involvement with a tweet teasing the unveiling: 'Everything MIGHT happen tonight at the #VMAs!'

Family portrait July 24: The 33-year-old I Love My Baby But vlogger - who has a 13-month-old son Sonny with husband Tim Rosenman - told Us Weekly in June that a reboot would 'definitely be something fun'

Sorry! And though Kristin Cavallari (L) remains very close with some of her old castmembers, she contractually can't make a cameo due to her E! series Very Cavallari

And though Kristin Cavallari remains very close with some of her old castmembers, she contractually can't make a cameo due to her E! series Very Cavallari - according to People.

The Hills originally centered on Lauren Conrad, but she told Access Hollywood back in 2013 that she was 'not looking to go back' and said the show 'made me uncomfortable.'

And Love Wellness founder Lo Bosworth told her Lady Lovin' podcast in February that she said 'F***, no! I don't want any association with those people' after a TV executive reached out to her.

As for Brody Jenner, the newlywed DJ will kick off his 36th birthday weekend with a couple of nightclub hosting gigs in San Diego and Las Vegas.

Original star: Lauren Conrad told Access Hollywood back in 2013 that she was 'not looking to go back' and said the show 'made me uncomfortable' (pictured in 2016)

Ouch! And Lo Bosworth told her Lady Lovin' podcast in February that she said 'F***, no! I don't want any association with those people' after a TV executive reached out to her (pictured Monday)
She's the current frontrunner and the favourite to capture the heart of Nick 'The Honey Badger' Cummins on The Bachelor.

And contestant Brittany Hockley, 30, is doing nothing to silence the speculation that she wins the popular Network Ten show.

Earlier this week, the brunette was caught 'liking' posts by friends on her personal Facebook page, hinting that pals should place cash bets on her taking the top spot.

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SPOILER: Did The Bachelor frontrunner Brittany Hockley just reveal she wins the show on Facebook? Brunette appears to hint that friends should place bets on her and Nick 'The Honey Badger' Cummins

'Not used to getting so glammed up for a honey Badger!' Brittany innocently joked while captioning several pictures of her on-set of the show.

As friends flooded the comment section with support, one pal wrote: 'Britt we are all enjoying the journey but just tell us what we really want.... Am going heavy on sportsbet or not???'

The comment, which was instantly liked by many other friends, was referring to online bookmaker Sportsbet, which is currently taking bets on the show's final result.

Appearing to hint that her friend would be wise to 'go heavy' on her as the final result, Brittany 'liked' the comment.

'Not used to getting so glammed up for a honey Badger!': Brittany innocently joked while captioning several pictures of her on-set of the show.

Money matters: The top comment on the post asked her if they should place a 'heavy' bet on her winning the show in Australian gambling site Sportsbet

Subtle hint?Appearing to hint that her friend would be wise to 'go heavy' on her as the final result, Brittany 'liked' the comment

Brittany is currently the favourite on the gambling website with odds of $1.83.

She is followed by Sophie Tieman at $3.50 and then Brooke Blurton at $4.50.

In a second post, Brittany dropped another hint after responding to a friend that joked 'Mrs Brittany Honey Badger' has a nice ring to it, with 'haha'.

Nick may have accidentally already revealed Brittany as the winner too.

The 30-year-old rugby star revealed that a 'brunette' beauty may have won his heart on the show.

Clear favourite: Brittany is currently the favourite on the gambling website with odds of $1.83, followed by Sophie Tieman at $3.50 and then Brooke Blurton at $4.50

What does this mean? In a second post, Brittany may have another hint after responding to a friend that joked 'Mrs Brittany Honey Badger' has a nice ring to it, with 'haha'

Speaking to Nova's Fitzy and Wippa on Wednesday, Nick accidentally revealed that while he typically goes for blondes, this time around he's had a 'big changer.'

Wippa asked Nick: 'Have you got a type of girl? I mean if you look at past relationships, are they brunettes? Are they blondes? Are they outdoorsy type people or?'

Nick replied: 'In the past, they have actually been sandy blonde and that's why I've had a big changer.'

He soon realised his slip when he was probed further by the radio hosts, before continuing to ramble on in a bid to not give anymore information away.

Daily Mail Australia have contacted Network Ten for comment.
Former Neighbours' star Nicola Charles already referred to herself as a 'DJ widow' before her split from her husband Mark Tabberner in May.

But as time has passed, the British-born actress is no longer mourning her turbulent marriage and instead looking to the future.

The 48-year-old, who hasn't spoken to a media publication about the split until now, insists she's looking to relaunch her acting career and form a friendship with her ex.

'It broke my heart': Former Neighbours star Nicola Charles (pictured) looks radiant after a turbulent split with DJ husband Mark Tabberner... and has revealed plans to return to the beloved TV soap

Over! In June, 2012, Nicola (left) married British DJ Mark Tabberner (right), after they had met years prior in Los Angeles. They have a son named Archie

Nicola rose to fame after debuting as Karl Kennedy's saucy mistress Sarah Beaumont on Neighbours in 1995, she kept a reoccurring role until 1999 and returned twice from 2012 to 2013, and then again in 2016.

In June, 2012, Nicola married British DJ Mark, after they had met years prior in Los Angeles. They have an eight-year-old son named Archie.

In their first year of marriage, Nicola claimed to have felt 'terrible strain' in her family life with Mark as he was regularly away working at bars and nightclubs.

'DJ Widow': In their first year of marriage, Nicola claimed to have felt 'terrible strain' in her family life and referred to herself as a 'DJ Widow' while Mark was regularly away working at bars and nightclubs

Remember her? Nicola rose to fame after debuting as Karl Kennedy's saucy mistress Sarah Beaumont on Neighbours in 1995, she kept a reoccurring role until 1999 and returned twice from 2012 to 2013, and then again in 2016

Entering into full-time work herself, Nicola claimed she rarely saw her husband as he was working on weekends as a DJ.

Nicola claims the couple officially split in May 2018, but she felt like they weren't an item for a long time prior.

She spoke of the split: 'It broke my heart and I was never able to recover from it emotionally.'

Making it work: Despite their past, Nicola has claimed she wants to work on remaining friends with her son's father, Mark

Despite their past, Nicola claimed that while the divorce is not yet finalised, she's hoping to remain friends with the father of her son.

While she originally announced the split on social media, all recent mentions of Mark appear to have been wiped from her accounts, with the latest now being from 2014.

Since leaving Neighbours full-time in 1999, Nicola set up her own business, filmed a few TV commercials and just recently began writing a fiction book based on 'a woman who ends up living with a man who's addicted to online pornography'.

Nicola spoke to the Daily Mail in June about making brief return to Neighbours: 'I moved back here [Australia] in 2012 from Los Angeles with the premise of going back on the show, and I did go back on from 2012 to 2013, and then again in 2016, but it wasn't full-time.'

The actress still looks incredible at 48, showing off her youthful visage, striking facial features and trim figure on social media.

Stunning! The actress still looks incredible at 48, showing off her youthful visage, striking facial features and trim figure on social media

She has also openly hinted at a possible return to Neighbours this year.

Nicola claims to have been in talks with producer Jason Herbison, saying 'it would be marvellous' to reprise the role.

Nicola married Irish actor Jason Barry (from Titanic) in August 2003 but the pair split in 2008.
The Chinese military will take part in the Vostok-2018 (or East-2018) strategic drills in Russia from late August to mid-September, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense announced on Monday.

Military forces from the two countries will hold joint operation exercises at the Tsugol training range in the Trans-Baikal region in Russia from September 11 to 15, said the ministry.

"The drills are aimed at consolidating and developing the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, deepening pragmatic and friendly cooperation between the two armies, and further strengthening their ability to jointly deal with varied security threats, which are conducive to safeguarding regional peace and security," it said.

"The military exercises are not targeted at a third party," the ministry said.

China will dispatch about 3,200 troops, along with more than 900 pieces of weaponry and 30 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, to conduct fire strike and counter-attack training, among others, it said.

[ Editor: Xueying ]
Former Studio 10 producer Rob McKnight has labelled the infamous Brussels sprout incident as an act of 'assault' on media doyenne Ita Buttrose.

Robt made the revelation on his TV Blackbox podcast, released on Monday, and told listeners: 'Ita Buttose was assaulted at that shoot.'

The ex TV boss explained they were in a professional setting while filming a Christmas video clip and not at a party, when TV personality Denise Drysdale, 69, allegedly 'hurled' Brussels sprouts toward Ita, 76.

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Standing his ground: Former Studio 10 producer Rob McKnight (left) said on Monday that Ita Buttrose (right) was 'assaulted' during the infamous 'Brussels sprout' incident. He made the revelation on his TV Blackbox podcast telling listeners, 'Ita Buttose was assaulted at that shoot'

'How Ten and the people at Studio 10 have treated her I can't reconcile in my head. I'm genuinely distressed by it, she doesn't deserve this,' he said.

'Ita is horrified by this. She is embarrassed by it,' he added.

Rob also noted the lack of respect for Ita during her final weeks on the talk show.

Professional setting: The ex TV boss explained they were in a professional setting while filming a Christmas video clip and not at a party, when Denise Drysdale (right) allegedly 'hurled' Brussels sprouts toward Ita (left)

'What did Ita Buttrose ever do to deserve this amount of hatred from Studio 10 and this lack of respect?' he said.

'Jessica Rowe was given a three-and-a-half-hour bon voyage by Studio Ten, and Ita was given a "don't let the door hit your a***" on the way out,' Rob added.

He continued: 'The whole show was built around Ita Buttrose. She was the face of it.'

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Rob and Channel 10 for comment.

In the podcast he said he was left reeling after Denise was surprised with a cake made of Brussels sprouts after she addressed rumours she was leaving Studio 10, last week.

Bringing up the past: TV personality Jonathan Coleman (right) presented Denise (middle) with a cake and jokingly called her 'Ita'

TV personality Jonathan Coleman, 62, presented Denise with a cake and jokingly called her 'Ita'.

Studio 10 presenter Sarah Harris, 37, followed suit and quipped: 'You wouldn't want to throw them would you?'

Denise played along with the gag, saying: 'I don't know, if the right time came up I'd give them a hurl.'

No more ties: Legendary media personality Ita Buttrose (pictured) left Studio 10 in April




As Monday night's MTV Video Music Awards aired from Manhattan, Rihanna was in Cuba where she shared a video of herself dancing to Childish Gambino's new song Summertime Magic.

In the Havana street clip - technically filmed last Thursday - the 30-year-old pop diva donned a loose gold dress sheer enough to reveal her 'thicc' 5ft8in figure.

The eight-time Grammy winner - who boasts 226.6M social media followers - twirled up a storm in her white sneakers while clutching a large-brimmed straw sun hat.

Huge smile: As Monday night's MTV Video Music Awards aired from Manhattan, Rihanna was in Cuba where she shared a video of herself dancing to Childish Gambino's new song Summertime Magic

Technically filmed last Thursday: In the Havana street clip, the 30-year-old pop diva donned a loose gold dress sheer enough to reveal her 'thicc' 5ft8in figure

Riri (born Robyn Fenty) might have been a thousand miles South, but her Lemon music video with N.E.R.D still scored the Moon Person trophy for best editing by Taylor Ward.

According to Vistar Magazine, the Ocean's Eight actress has been shooting Hiro Murai's movie Guava Island alongside Donald Glover, Letitia Wright, and Nonso Anozie.

The 34-year-old Golden Globe winner (Solo: A Star Wars Story and FX's Atlanta) will also perform at the Bajan beauty's fourth annual Diamond Ball on September 14 at Cipriani Wall Street.

Insecure actress Issa Rae will host the Loyalty songstress' black-tie educational fundraiser benefitting The Clara Lionel Foundation (named after Rihanna's late grandparents).

Werk! The eight-time Grammy winner - who boasts 226.6M social media followers - twirled up a storm in her white sneakers while clutching a large-brimmed straw sun hat

'Sleepy AF': Riri (born Robyn Fenty) might have been a thousand miles South, but her Lemon music video with N.E.R.D still scored the Moon Person trophy for best editing by Taylor Ward (pictured Monday)

Childish Gambino in the flesh! The Ocean's Eight actress has reportedly been shooting Hiro Murai's movie Guava Island alongside Donald Glover (R), Letitia Wright, and Nonso Anozie (pictured Wednesday)
Anna Heinrich has revealed that she and husband Tim Robards are living in separate cities, just two months after tying the knot.

And the blonde beauty appeared to be missing her beau on Monday while wearing a symbolic blue frock in an Instagram snap.

The 31-year-old went solo as she snapped a sultry mirror selfie ahead of a guest appearance on Network Ten's quiz show Have You Been Paying Attention?

Blue belle! Anna Heinrich (pictured) sizzled in a sapphire coloured frock on Tuesday... after revealing she and husband Tim Robards are living in separate cities just two months after marrying

Anna looked sensational in the Rebecca Vallance frock, despite feeling the weight of being in a long-distance relationship with her spouse.

The stunner is currently living in Sydney, where she is filming her new series Trial By Kyle, which premieres on Thursday night.

The part-time criminal lawyer will appear alongside shock jock Kyle Sandilands, 47, in the highly-anticipated legal series, which has already been likened to the US show Judge Judy.

Long-distance love: Tim Robards (left) and Anna are currently living in different states due to work commitments

Meanwhile, Tim, 35, is currently spending time in Melbourne where he has commenced a new role on soap Neighbours.

Anna spoke candidly about living in separate states in an interview with NW magazine, published on Monday.

'It's extremely hard, but we're both extremely busy with our own projects,' she stated.

Career moves: Tim is currently based in Melbourne, where he's just started filming Neighbours, while Anna is in Sydney, where she'll star on the new series, Trial By Kyle

The star added: 'Obviously we just got married, so that doesn't make things easy, but at the same time I speak to him all day every day.'

Tim and Anna first met on the 2013 season of The Bachelor Australia, and have been together ever since.

The pair tied the knot in a lavish Italian wedding back in June, before enjoying a breathtaking honeymoon across Europe.
Joanna Burgess, the wife of high-profile NRL star George, has given birth to the couple's second child.

On Tuesday, George took to Instagram to share a tender snap of the new parents, with Joanna pictured holding their bundle of joy in the hospital bed.

In the portrait shot, the Rabbitohs player leans over his 28-year-old wife, who is tenderly cradling the newborn.

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'Welcoming Birdie Maquelle Burgess': Joanna Burgess,28, wife of NRL player George Burgess, gave birth to the couple's second on Saturday

Clearly in high spirits, George first introduced his new daughter.

'Welcoming Birdie Maquelle Burgess,' he wrote, sharing the infant's unusual name.

George then let fans know the birth took place on Saturday at 10.52pm, before adding his adorable bundle weighed 3.59kgs and measured 53.5 centimetres.

'115.5 days': During the pregnancy, Joanna kept her followers updated with a number of bump snaps, showing her excitement about the impending birth. Pictured here in March

The proud new father, then went on to gush over his wife.

'[Joanna] did an unbelievable job,' he said, before adding he can't wait to introduce her to one-year-old brother, Boston.

'We can't wait to introduce her to our little Boston tomorrow.'

Quick getaway: Prior to the birth of their daughter on Saturday, George and Joanna took a babymoon to Noosa together in July. Pictured here with one-year-old son, Boston

George is the brother of fellow high-profile rugby league players, Sam, Luke and Tom Burgess.

During her pregnancy, Johanna has shared a number of bump updates, with the interior design student letting her followers know of her excitement.

In March, Joanna took to Instagram to share a snap of herself marking the four-month point in her pregnancy.

It's a girl! The high-profile pair had a gender reveal party in February, letting fans know they were having a daughter on social media

'115.5 days,' she wrote under a relaxed snap of herself wearing a leopard print bikini top and a billowing white skirt.

In February, Joanna and her NRL star husband had a gender reveal party, with the pair cutting into a large cake in order to find the surprise.

'Exciting way to find out and share our special news with family and friends we are so excited to welcome a sweet little G I R L into our family,' she wrote.

'We are so excited to welcome a sweet little G I R L into our family': The couple have been open about their joy at expanding their brood

Recently, the couple were snapped at Sydney Airport after enjoying a babymoon to Noosa together, ahead of Saturday's birth.

George and Joanna publicly revealed they were dating in 2014, before tying the knot in a lavish ceremony in Noosa.

Socialite and wife of George's brother Sam, Phoebe Burgess, was bridesmaid at the lavish nuptials.

The pair then held their reception at the ritzy Sofitel.
She has been linked with the Oscar-winning actor in recent days as it emerged he split from his girlfriend of one year, Lindsay Shookus.

And now Ben Affleck's reported new squeeze Shauna Sexton stepped out in a thigh-grazing mini dress while walking her dog in Los Angeles on Monday.

The 22-year-old Playboy model showcased her sensational figure in a daring spaghetti-strapped sundress which featured frill detailing around the hem.

Stepping out: Ben Affleck's reported new squeeze Shauna Sexton stepped out in a thigh-grazing mini dress while walking her dog in Los Angeles on Monday

The American beauty's look teased at her ample cleavage and highlighted her slender legs as she strolled around her neighbourhood with her adorable canine companion.

Keeping to a low-key appearance, she donned a pair of Adidas trainers and accessorised with a statement gold necklace.

She worked her brunette tresses into a chignon at the nape of her neck and opted to sport minimal make-up to accentuate her natural beauty.

Following her walk with her pet pooch, she was later seen around Studio City, grabbing a bite to eat at eatery Mexicali with pals.

Natural: The 22-year-old Playboy model showcased her sensational figure in a daring spaghetti-strapped sundress which featured frill detailing around the hem

Model behaviour: The American beauty's look teased at her ample cleavage and highlighted her slender legs as she strolled around her neighbourhood with her adorable canine companion

Her appearance comes as news broke that her beau Ben, 46, had split from girlfriend Lindsay Shookus, 38.

The Batman star had been seen with the Playboy model in recent days and it came as no shock that E! News reported on Monday that Ben had called time on his romance with Lindsay.

On Monday the site claimed it's over for good: 'They are still very amicable and have stayed friends. They both tried to make it work, but the distance just proved to be too much for them right now. Family comes first for them both.'

A source told People that the actor was 'never fully committed.'

All in the details: Keeping to a low-key appearance, she donned a pair of Adidas trainers and accessorised with a statement gold necklace

Catching up: Following her walk with her pet pooch, she was later seen around Studio City, grabbing a bite to eat at eatery Mexicali with pals

Ben lives in LA to be near the three kids he has with Jennifer Garner; Violet, Seraphina and Samuel, while Lindsay lives in New York to be near her son and work on SNL.

The couple were last photographed together in July in Puerto Rico, a month before their split was confirmed.

Ben and Lindsay were first linked in July of 2017, and they made their first official appearance together in September of 2017.

The news comes as Lindsay reportedly deleted her Instagram account on Sunday.

Over! Her appearance comes as news broke that her beau Ben, 46, had split from girlfriend Lindsay Shookus, 38 (Pictured in 2017)

Friendly exes: The Town star shares his kids his estranged wife Jennifer Garner, and the powerful pair have yet to formally finalize their divorce (Pictured in June)

Lindsay was noticeably absent from his 46th birthday festivities with the family on Wednesday evening.

And it appears as though Ben has moved on quickly when he was seen with Playboy model Shauna at least twice last week.

Shauna, who hails from Virginia Beach, Virginia, showed off her killer curves in a figure-hugging dress and heels at Nobu

Not only did the 22-year-old receive the coveted title of Miss May 2018, she's also returned to Playboy for various blogs and photo shoots.

Problems? To add even more fuel to the fire, Lindsay and Ben haven't been spotted together since July when the pair were in Puerto Rico as he filmed scenes for the upcoming Netflix movie The Last Thing He Wanted; seen in June

The way they were: Ben often flew to NYC to see Lindsay; here they are spotted in January

Shauna lists herself as 'single' on her Facebook page, and in addition to her career as scantily clad model, boasts about her work with animals as a veterinary technician.

'I started in this field when I was about 16,' she told Playboy. 'After my first experience in surgery, I realized working fast-paced and under pressure is for me. Whatever requires me to move quickly and freely is intriguing. I love surgery more than anything.'

At the time, Sexton told the publication that she was 'very much single' and is looking for someone with a strong head on their shoulders.

'I want someone who's able to compromise but doesn't sell himself short,' she said. 'I appreciate people who are the truest forms of themselves and brutally honest about who they are.'

The Armageddon star's appearance comes after he celebrated his birthday with his children Violet, 12, Seraphina, nine and Sam, six, in Los Angeles last Wednesday.

Celebrations: The Armageddon star's appearance comes after he celebrated his birthday with his children Violet, 12, Seraphina, nine and Sam, six, in Los Angeles last Wednesday

Ben shares his three children with estranged wife Garner, and the powerful pair have yet to formally finalize their divorce.

The couple separated in June 2015 following 10 years of marriage, and filed for divorce in April 2017.

The actor is reportedly 'in a good place' and is 'doing well' after recent reports surfaced that he and Jennifer, 46, were sent legal warnings by the court for 'dragging their feet' over their divorce, according to People.

'He is in a good place mentally and has worked really hard to get here,' a source told the publication. 'He continues to focus on himself and the health of his relationships.'
They were spotted together on Saturday night, both attending the same wedding reception in Malibu.

And Noor Alfallah, 22 - known to have a brief romance with Mick Jagger, 75 - was seen enjoying a night out with director Eli Roth, 46, on Monday night, having clearly hit if off.

Sources had told MailOnline that the wedding reception was their second outing in as many days, making this the third time they had been spotted together by curious onlookers.

Stepping out: Noor Alfallah, 22 - known to have a brief romance with Mick Jagger, 75 - was seen enjoying a night out with director Eli Roth, 46, on Monday night, having clearly hit if off over the weekend

The pair's sighting at Nobu Malibu in California together comes just weeks after Hostel director Eli announced that he and his wife Lorenza Izzo, 28, had made the decision to end their almost four-year marriage so they 'don't f***ing kill each other'.

Film producer Noor cut a slick figure in a black patterned blouse and skinny jeans, with black heels.

With her raven tresses falling beyond her shoulders, she highlighted her natural beauty with a rich palette of makeup while keeping her accessories minimal.

An upbeat Eli looked casual in a colourful patterned shirt, which he teamed with blue jeans, for his night on the town.

Repeat performance: Sources told MailOnline that the outing was their third in as many days

Sleek: Film producer Noor cut a slick figure in a black patterned blouse and skinny jeans, with black heels

Casual: An upbeat Eli looked casual in a colourful patterned shirt, which he teamed with blue jeans, for his night on the town with Noor

And again: They were seen the next morning together as well, looking very comfortable with one another

Last month, he announced his separation from Chilean actress Lorenza, who he worked with when he directed her in the 2014 horror movie The Green Inferno.

In a post statement shared on Instagram, the star said: 'It is with deep love and respect that we are choosing to separate as a couple. We've had an incredible journey together, we love each other very much, and will remain the best of friends.

'We are grateful for the six wonderful years together but have decided to go our separate ways to have the most fulfilled, joyous lives we can.

'We wish to continue working together creatively and are ultimately separating so we don't f***ing kill each other.'

On his arm: Noor was seen clutching onto Eli's arm

The ex factor: Their wedding excursion comes weeks after Eli announced the end of his almost four-year marriage to Chilean actress Lorenza Izzo. Pictured together in October 2015

Setting the record straight: The duo released a statement in July about their split; it was shared with a picture of them while they filmed the movie The Green Inferno

Meanwhile, California-based Noor caused quite the stir back in April, when she took to Instagram to share a shot of Rolling Stones legend Mick hugging her tightly from behind as they posed alongside Ronnie Wood and his wife Sally Humphreys.

Captioning the shot, she wrote: 'Same time last year! Miss you guys!'  just a few hours before his girlfriend Melanie Hamrick, 32, uploaded a black-and-white image of Mick taking a sunset beach stroll with their 20-month-old son Deveraux.

Melanie, who is based in New York City, wrote beside the shot, also shared on Instagram: 'Father + Son. My loves.'

Cosy: In April, Noor shared a throwback shot of herself cosying up to former fling Mick Jagger as they posed with Ronnie Wood and his wife Sally Humphreys

Going for a stroll: Just a few hours later, his girlfriend Melanie Hamrick took to Instagram to share a shot of Mick taking a sunset beach stroll with their 20-month-old son Deveraux

At the time, it was believed that Mick and Melanie had been spending time downtime together before his band's No Filter tour kicked off in the UK in May.

The Sun reported in October that Mick and Noor spent several nights together in Paris, but that the brief romance is 'very much over' and they no longer talk.

Mick welcomed his eighth child, son Deveraux Octavian Basil Jagger on December 8, 2016, with ballerina Melanie.

Ladies: Mick was romantically linked to Noor, left, back in October, while he is currently in a long-term relationship with ballerina Melanie Hamrick, right
She spent the summer working on her tan as well as her love life in the Love Island villa.

And Georgia Steel showed off her trim and sun-kissed figure as she headed to a personal appearance at Blackpool club Home HQ on Monday night.

The 20-year-old beauty wowed in a racy black halter top for her fun night out, which saw her mobbed by hundreds of fans.

Party time! Love Island star Georgia Steel showed off her trim and sun-kissed figure as she headed to a personal appearance at Blackpool club Home HQ on Monday night

Georgia chose a skimpy crop top for her big night out, with the halter-neck design and sizzling cut out detail flashing plenty of her amazing body.

She paired the top with a curve hugging black pencil skirt and patent, strappy heels.

The Love Island favourite styled her long honey-coloured locks into a poker straight style and finished off her look with glam makeup.

Strike a pose: The 20-year-old beauty wowed in a racy black halter top for her fun night out, which saw her mobbed by hundreds of fans

Looking fab: Georgia chose a skimpy crop top for her big night out, with the halter-neck design and sizzling cut out detail flashing plenty of her amazing body

Georgia looked in her element as she posed for the cameras before heading inside to party with 750 clubbers, who were all desperate for a photo with the Love Island icon.

Her schedule has been jam packed since leaving the villa a month ago, with TV and radio appearances squeezed in alongside the club nights.

But Georgia has also found plenty of time for her relationship with Sam Bird.

Say cheese: Georgia looked in her element as she posed for the cameras before heading inside to party with 750 clubbers who were all desperate for a selfie

Georgia and Sam may have had a hiccup in the Love Island villa when they initially decided to split up to stay on the show but now they are stronger than ever.

The couple have embarked on a whirlwind romance as they have already collected the keys to their new Essex home last week.

Already settled in, the pair shared a glimpse into their lovenest via Instagram stories as they gave their fans a walking tour around their home.
Ellie Brown has been putting rumours of beau Charlie Brake cheating firmly behind her.

Yet all did not look totally rosy on Monday evening as she joined her beau during a fun-filled catch up with their former Love Island co-stars, including Doctor Alex George at El Pirata tapas restaurant in London's Mayfair on Monday night.

Looking stunning in a white lace coord, Ellie was seen putting on an extremely animated display with the medical professional while her beau looked on with disdain, shortly before they resumed putting on a loved-up display.

Come here you! Love Island's Ellie Brown could not resist stealing a hug from her former flame Doctor Alex George during their reunion dinner with beau Charlie Brake

Ellie looked stunning as she hit the town with her friends and beau however she seemed to be having a better time with Doctor Alex than with her actual boyfriend.

The duo enjoyed a fleeting romance in the villa, which saw fans overjoyed when the unlucky in love doctor finally got a kiss when Ellie entered the villa, yet their romance was short lived and ended acrimoniously.

She went on to find love with millionaire heir Charlie, who she has been practically inseparable from since - despite recent rumours of strife.

Perhaps hinting all is not totally groovy, Charlie did not look overjoyed to see her amorous display with her former flame, who she was hugging and snapping selfies with, however they swiftly began getting close when they noted prying eyes.

Watching on: Looking stunning in a white lace coord, Ellie was seen putting on an extremely animated display with the medical professional while her beau looked on with disdain, shortly before they resumed putting on a loved-up display

Way back when: While on the show, Ellie and Alex enjoyed a fleeting romance

Snap happy: The duo were snapping photos during the date before Ellie returned her attentions to her beau

New phone who dis? In Love Island style, they were glued to their phones and undoubtedly trawling social media

All white? It was time for selfies all around as Ellie flitted between both her current flame and her former flame for pouty selfies over their drinks

Wahey! Charlie grabbed a shot in between photo opportunities with his girlfriend

It was time for selfies all around as Ellie flitted between both her current flame and her former flame for pouty snaps over their drinks.

She then draped herself around Alex in a sweet display as she proved their former romance had left no impact on their friendship.

Taking to his Instagram stories throughout the evening, it was clear to see just how much of a fan of Alex that Charlie is as he revealed that he 'loved him'.

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Alex, Ellie and Charlie for comment.

Close friends: Ellie left her seat to give Alex a hug during their time in the eatery

Deep in chat: While Ellie was looking at Alex, Charlie looked on watchfully

Happy days: Taking to his Instagram stories throughout the evening, it was clear to see just how much of a fan of Alex that Charlie is as he revealed that he 'loved him'

Tucking in! The whole group were certainly hungry as they devoured the delicacies

New love? Alex was seen chatting to a passerby, who was walking their dog

Chatting away: The duo were engrossed in chat while Alex admired the brunette's pup

Check this out: She turned her attentions away from her boyfriend to chat to her ex

Ellie showed off her svelte figure in skimpy lace co-ords as she, Charlie and Doctor Alex were also joined by close pals Kaz Crossley and Josh Denzel.

She ensured she was the centre of attention in her cream two-piece, which highlighted her flat stomach and toned figure.The fiery-tempered blonde wore her long locks down loose and kept her make-up rosy and natural.

Kaz embraced a more casual look in a statement geometric print jumpsuit, set off with black leather accessories. She highlighted her pout with a slick of deep purple gloss and wore her hair pulled back in a bun.

Chilling out: The happy couple were feeling low-key at moments

Changing roles: After snapping the images with Alex, Ellie then turned her attentions to her beau

Back to you: As Charlie pulled his very best pout for the camera, Ellie sensually kissed him on the cheek

Out and a pout: She looked sensational while displaying her pouting prowess for the camera

Heading off: The couple were spinning into the evening as they headed home

Preened to perfection: She decided to kick off a grooming routine at the table

Blonde beauty: She was having a giggle on her way home following the night with her pals

Hitting the town: The reality star showed off her svelte figure in skimpy lace co-ords as she and Charlie double dated with close pals Kaz Crossley and Josh Denzel - with Dr Alex tagging along as a fifth wheel

Looking good: Ellie ensured she was the centre of attention in her cream two-piece, which highlighted her flat stomach and toned figure. The fiery-tempered blonde wore her long locks down loose and kept her make-up rosy and natural

The girls shared a number of snaps from inside the venue, with Dr Alex appearing glued to his phone throughout the date.

Despite not finding a romantic connection in the Mallorcan villa, the unlucky-in-love A&E doctor seemed unfazed by being the odd one out.

Clad in a camouflage print T-shirt and jeans, the medic and pals Josh and Charlie brought up the rear as the gang left the restaurant.

Chic: The reality star showed off her svelte figure in skimpy lace co-ords as she, Charlie and Doctor Alex were also joined by close pals Kaz Crossley and Josh Denzel

Fifth wheel: Dr Alex was putting on a funky display in his camo top and jeans

Lacy number: Ellie ensured she was the centre of attention in her cream two-piece, which highlighted her flat stomach and toned figure

Glamorous: The fiery-tempered blonde wore her long locks down loose and kept her make-up rosy and natural

No truth: Charlie was also in attendance, brushing off rumours he was flirting with other girls

Rumours were swirling that Ellie and Charlie had broken up amid cheating claims.

The night of the alleged flirtation was the same night that saw Frankie being filmed kissing another girl in video footage exclusively obtained by MailOnline, leading to heartache with his girlfriend Samira Mighty and their eventual split.

An onlooker told The Sun: 'Charlie was flirting with a lot of girls on Saturday  but unlike Frankie he didn't get caught. He looked like he was having a great time, a lot of women were interested in him and like most men Charlie loved the attention.

Rock solid: Josh Denzel went hand-hand-in with his gorgeous girlfriend Kaz

Unlucky-in-love: Alex didn't let his lack of romantic connection stop him from enjoying himself

Snapping away: The doctor was snapping selfies with passing admirers

Pucker up! Kaz and Ellie shared a sweet selfie from their dinner date, pretending to lock lips

Hand-in-hand: The duo were looking smitten as they headed home for the night

The insider added: 'The only issue is that Charlie is in a relationship with Ellie and she may not have felt comfortable seeing him surrounded by so many other girls.'

MailOnline previously contacted Charlie's representatives for comment.

The day after, Ellie admitted she was having a 'horrible, sleepless night' back in Newcastle without her man as her parents were also out of town.

Charlie and Ellie have had something of a rollercoaster relationship so far, with them falling out spectacularly on the night of the wrap party.

Inseparable: The London based couple have been going from strength-to-strength

Keeping it simple: Ellie accessorised with nude shoes and a tan leather bag

Eye-catching: Kaz was hard to miss in her bright blue and red number

Fond farewell: Ellie and Kaz have been spending plenty of time together outside of the villa
Fans will find out just what happened to Jodie Whittakers Thirteenth Doctor when BBCs Doctor Who returns for series 11 this autumn.

The 2017 Christmas Special saw The Thick of It star Peter Capaldi hang up his Doc Marten boots and pass the Sonic Screwdriver to the Broadchurch and Black Mirror actress.

Here is all you need to know about Doctor Who series 11 including when its released, how many episodes will there be and who plays the new Doctors companions.

Doctor Who series 11 which features Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor will return this autumn

Doctor Who series 11 trailer

The BBC dropped teasers about the new series throughout the summer including once that introduced the new Doctor Who companions and gave fans a glimpse of what's to come.

Here is the trailer that was released at the Comic Con San Diego.

Doctor Who season 11 release date

The new series of Doctor Who will return by October, according to Radio Times. Which probably means the BBC show will air sometime during September or October.

No specific date has yet been released.

Who plays the Thirteenth Doctor Who?

Broadchurch and Black Mirror actress Jodie Whittaker takes over from Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor Who.

The pressure on any actor coming into the role  man or woman  is huge because theyre big boots to fill, Whittaker told Radio Times. And for me theres been 12 pairs of boots.

Obviously for Whovians this time the change has taken a very different direction than it has before. In a way, though, there is liberation in that new direction: the pressure is less for me because I can only do this my way.

Anyone who has seen Jodie Whittaker's work will know that she is a wonderful actress of great individuality and charm, Capaldi said after Whittaker was revealed as his replacement.

She has above all the huge heart to play this most special part. She's going to be a fantastic Doctor.

Who are the new Doctor Who companions?

The new series will feature not one, not two, but three new Doctor Who companions. The Thirteenth Doctors new friends are Yasmin (Mandip Gill), Graham (Bradley Walsh) and Ryan (Tosin Cole).

Walsh is most famous for his presenting role on ITVs quiz show The Chase. Gill had a three-year stint on Hollyoaks between 2012-2015 before appearing in shows such as Cuckoo, Doctors and Casualty.

Cole also shares a Hollyoaks connection, having appeared on Hollyoaks Later in 2012 as well as the parent show for 84 episodes.

The new Doctor is going to need new friends, showrunner Chris Chibnall said in a statement.

Were thrilled to welcome Mandip, Tosin and Bradley to the Doctor Who family. Theyre three of Britains brightest talents and we cant wait to see them dive into brand new adventures with Jodies Doctor. Alongside them, were delighted that Sharon D Clarke is also joining the show,

What happened in the 2017 Christmas Special?

During the 2017 Christmas Special, called Twice Upon a Time, showed the Twelfth Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi, struggling with the decision to regenerate. He encounters the First Doctor who is shown to be deliberating the same issue.

The time has come.

Let the regeneration begin...#DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/wkSL3gm2Qv  Doctor Who: Flux (@bbcdoctorwho) December 25, 2017

The episode follows the two Doctors as they face a tough decision involving the life of a WWI British Captain, a rogue Dalek and the avatar of the Twelfth Doctors companion Bill Potts.

The episode ends with Capaldis Doctor embracing the regenration. As the Twelfth Doctor regenerates and becomes the Thirteenth, played by Jodie Whittaker, the TARDIS begins to malfunction, ultimately disintegrating right after the new Doctor falls out of it and begins to hurtle towards the Earth.

How many episodes will there be in the new season?

The new series consists of ten episodes as well as Christmas special. This marks a change from the previous series, which usually had a 12-13 episode run.

The first episode of series 11 will come in at a chunky 65 minutes while the other nine episodes will have a run-time of 50 minutes. Again, this marks a change from the last season which had episodes running for around 45 minutes.

Each episode will serve as a standalone story, a move away from the more serialised approach to the show during the last few series.

Who is the new showrunner?

Peter Capaldi was not the only Whovian personnel to depart the show. Showrunner Steven Moffat stepped down after the Christmas Special and Broadchurch showrunner Chris Chibnail has taken over the reigns. He has previously written six episodes of the show since it started again in 2005.

Chibnail brings with him a new group of writers and directors, saying: We have a team of writers whove been working quietly and secretly for a long time now, crafting characters, worlds and stories to excite and move you.

A set of directors who stood those scripts up on their feet, bringing those ideas, visuals and emotions into existence with bravura and fun.

Hailing from a range of backgrounds, tastes and styles, heres what unites them: they are awesome people as well as brilliant at their job. (It matters!) They love Doctor Who. And theyve all worked above and beyond the call of duty in an effort to bring audiences something special, later this year.

New scribes include the bestselling former Childrens Laureate Malorie Blackman, most famous for her YA novels Noughts and Crosses and Pig-Heart Boy.

A new version of the Doctor Who theme tune

The BBC tapped up Segun Akinola, a BAFTA Breakthrough winner, to reportedly refresh the Doctor Who theme music.

'Welcome to the Doctor Who family, Segun Akinola!' Chris Chibnall said in a release.

'Were over the moon Seguns agreed to join us, to provide the score for the next phase of the Doctor Who adventure.

'From our very first conversations, it was obvious Segun was a passionate, collaborative and delightful human being as well as a fantastic and bold composer. Were looking forward to introducing the world to his exciting and emotional soundtracks for the Thirteenth Doctor.'
They have jetted to sunny Italy to film the newest series of The Only Way Is Essex.

And reality stars Yazmin Oukhellou and Shelby Tribble dazzled as they slipped into swimsuits for a shoot in Sardinia on Monday, alongside their beaus James Lock and Pete Wicks.

Yazmin, 24, looked sensational as she flaunted her surgically enhanced assets in a crystal-studded bikini top, with crossed straps drawing the eye to her slender waist and toned midriff.

Scroll down for video

Wow factor: TOWIE's Yazmin Oukhellou (R) and Shelby Tribble dazzled as they slipped into swimsuits for a shoot in Sardinia on Monday, alongside their beaus James Lock and Pete Wicks

Strut: Yazmin, 24, looked sensational as she flaunted her surgically enhanced assets in a crystal-studded bikini top, with crossed straps drawing the eye to her slender waist and toned midriff

A pair of skimpy white bottoms rested high on her hips and cut high at the rear to showcase her pert derriere and toned legs.

She added height to her frame with studded white platform sandals.

Bringing lashings of Essex glamour to the beach, Yazmin wore her brunette locks styled in bouncy curls and sported smoky eye make-up, bronzer and rose lipstick.

Model moment: A pair of skimpy white bottoms rested high on her hips and cut high at the rear to showcase her pert derriere and toned legs

Catwalk: She added height to her frame with studded white platform sandals

Busty: Bringing lashings of Essex glamour to the beach, Yazmin wore her brunette locks styled in bouncy curls and sported smoky eye make-up, bronzer and rose lipstick

Tanned: The star looked sensational as she posed up a storm

Leggy: Yazmin oozed confidence as she strutted down the steps

Work it: Shelby, 25, looked sensational in an olive green bandeau bikini top which revealed her pert cleavage as she posed

Tanned twosome: Emphasising her slender waist, she slipped into a pair of high-waisted bikini bottoms and completed her ensemble with cream studded platform shoes

Shelby, 25, looked sensational in an olive green bandeau bikini top which revealed her pert cleavage as she posed.

Emphasising her slender waist, she slipped into a pair of high-waisted bikini bottoms and completed her ensemble with cream studded platform shoes.

Her brunette tresses were styled in loose waves while her pretty features were enhanced with false lashes and scarlet lipstick.

Peachy: Yazmin slipped into a ivory swimsuit which flaunted her pert derriere

Toned: The star showed off her flawless figure as she posed up against a wall

Playful: Shelby looked beautiful as she donned a strapless white swimsuit

Cheeky: The star revealed her derriere as she struck a sultry pose

Hands on: Shelby was joined by hunky beau Pete Wicks, who couldn't keep his hand off her derriere

Hunky: While Yazmin packed on the PDA with beau James Lock during the shoot

Tactile: Pete couldn't keep his hands off his love's ample bust as they posed

Lusty: Pete gave his love bedroom eyes as they saucily posed in the sun

Work it: Shelby smouldered for the camera alongside beau Pete

Perfect couple: The TOWIE superstars were every inch the perfect couple as they posed

Work it out: Shelby looked stunning next to her hunky beau

Smile: The couple laughed out loud together on the shoot

Glamour: The stars looked flawless as they worked the camera

Angelic: The star looked sensational as she posed up against a wall

The duo also modelled angelic white one-piece swimsuits which flashed their peachy posteriors as they smouldered for the camera.

The pair were joined by their beaus James Lock, 31, and Pete Wicks, 29, with the reality couples putting on an extremely steamy display on the beach.

Pete, who is a previous flame of Megan McKenna couldn't keep his hands off his beautiful girlfriend, playfully cupping her bust before stealing a kiss and grabbing her pert derriere.

Strike a pose: The star worked her best angles as she posed in her swimsuit

Toned: Yazmin looked fabulous as she showed off her pert posterior

Vision in white: The reality stars dazzled in their pure white swimsuits

Cheeky: Pete couldn't keep his hands off his girlfriend's pert derriere as they kissed

Cheeky: Shelby wowed in her daring ensemble for the shoot

Leggy display: The reality stars flaunted their honed legs in their swimsuits

Tanned: Shelby rocked a glowing Essex tan as she posed up a storm

Busty: Yazmin and Shelby flaunted their ample cleavage as they struck a pose

Double act: The stars showcased their impeccable physiques in the sun

Angles: Shelby posed and pouted with aplomb in the sun

Glamour: The girls wowed in their skimpy swimsuits for the shoot

Brunette beauty: Shelby looked sultry as she flicked her tresses for the camera

Smitten: Pete wrapped an arm around his beautiful girlfriend

His brunette tresses were worn in natural waves while he showed off his hunky frame in a pair of patterned trunks.

James also showed off his muscular chest in a pair of skimpy black and gold swimming trunks as he wrapped his arms around his beautiful love.

Yazmin has been an explosive addition to the cast since she joined last year yet has found her feet and formed close friendships on the show.

Cosy; The pair were the picture of love as they posed up

Glamour; The girls looked sensational during the shoot

Embrace: James and Yazmin looked smitten as they embraced

Selfie: James and Yazmin posed for a glamorous selfie

Look of love: The couple stared into one another's eyes on the steamy shoot

Cute couple: Pete and Shelby looked incredible on their shoot

Dynamic duo: The couple looked closer than ever despite their turbulent romance in the last series

The couple - who looked at risk of breaking up during the last series of TOWIE - defied their critics as they packed on the PDA.

Their appearance together comes after Yazmin recently revealed she had undergone a second breast augmentation, after being left disappointed by her first surgery.

The beauty explained that scarring from her initial surgery had left her self-conscious, prompting her decision to go back under the knife. Sharing the results of her second boob job on Instagram, Yazmin claimed she is 'so pleased' with the results this time round.

Hot couple: Pete and Shelby worked the camera during the shoot

Peachy: Shelby showcased her pert derriere as she rocked her look

Leggy: The brunette beauty looked sensational in front of the camera

Looking swish: The girls looked sensational as they posed

Embrace: Pete couldn't keep his hands off his love during the shoot

Gym bunnies: The pair showed off their honed bodies in Italy

Hunky: Yazmin couldn't get enough of her man's hunky body as she posed

Intense: Pete stared at his stunning girlfriend during the shoot

Printed: The hunky men pulled off different stylish looks on the shoot

Hug: Pete looked smitten with his love in the intimate shoot

Addressing speculation surrounding her second surgery, Yazmin penned: 'Theres been a lot of speculation recently in regards to my boobs and whether or not Ive had them re-done. Well...... the answer is YES.

'Following my first augmentation I was left with scarring that not only affected me physically but mentally as well and really knocked my confidence.'

Meanwhile Shelby is a newcomer on The Only Way Is Essex and secured her spot on the show's latest series, thanks to her relationship with Pete.

Dapper; The stars looked like natural models on the shoot

Kiss: Pete kissed his girlfriend as she laughed for one playful photo

Wow factor: Yazmin and James looked sensational as they posed up

Striking: The couple looked closer than ever in a romantic selfie

Intimate: Pete and Shelby looked stunning as they posed in a romantic shoot

The duo began dating in February earlier this year, following Pete's split with ex-girlfriend Megan McKenna, and their romance is appearing to go from strength to strength.

So much so, that Shelby credited new boyfriend Pete for being 'everything she loves in a man' after just two months of the pair dating.

The former Miss Great Britain told The Sun: 'He's so caring and protective and he's got so many qualities that I love in a man. We're very similar, we think the same, we do things the same, and its really weird.'

Toned; The pair looked like superstars during the shoot

Toned: The couple certainly knew how to work the cameras

Cute: Pete smiled at his beautiful girlfriend between takes

Hunky: James showed off his phenomenal physique during the shoot

Close: The couple wowed during the beach themed shoot

Looking good: James and Yazmin looked stunning for the shoot

Sultry: Pete gave his best pose as he embraced his girlfriend

She also had her say on Pete's fiery on/off relationship with former love Megan and insisted she 'doesn't feel threatened' by his ex, claiming: 'They weren't healthy for each other and I'm sure at the time they loved each other, but they weren't right for each other.'

Speaking on FUBAR Radio recently, Shelby added: 'Exes are exes for a reason. I don't know her, we don't owe each other anything, it's just made a big deal because of the cameras.

'Everyone has an ex. I always get compared to [Megan], but to be honest, it's always good things. Everyone says [me and Pete] are so much more suited, we complement each other... we both bring out the best in each other.'

Good to see you: James planted a kiss on Pete as the pair caught up

Flawless; Yazmin looked sensational as she had her hair restyled

Glow: Shelby was covered in glow oil as she prepared to shoot

Selfie: James took off his shirt for a selfie atop the castle

Hug: Yazmin and James couldn't keep their hands off one another

Wow: Pete grabbed Shelby's bust for one saucy snap

Smitten: Shelby stared into her love's eyes in the steamy shoot

Recalling the moment she and Pete attended the same Love Island event, last month, as Megan and her now ex-beau Mike Thalassitis, Shelby said: 'It felt like a bit of a competition on her side.

'I just thought, 'Get over it, you're not together anymore.'

'There was a lot of history there with them two and it was such an intense relationship they had, but I just honestly don't care.'

Couple: The pair looked stylish as they posed up together

Toned: Yazmin looked confident in front of the camera

Strike a pose: Pete smouldered as he posed for a solo shot

Hug; Shelby wrapped a loving arm around her man as they checked out the photos
A ginger-root-shaped asteroid named Toutatis, which poses a potential threat to earth, might have formed from the merger of two smaller asteroids, say researchers from China and the United States.

The space rock, about 4,750 meters long and 1,950 meters wide - bigger than a city block - is one of the largest "potentially hazardous asteroids", said Ji Jianghui, a researcher at the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

First spotted in 1934, then lost from sight, and rediscovered in 1989 by a French astronomer, the asteroid was named after a Celtic god, Toutatis.

"This asteroid comes from the main asteroid belt, where it was affected by the gravitational perturbations of Jupiter," said Ji, the lead scientist in the research.

Before 2012, the asteroid was in an orbit that brought it close to earth every four years. As a result, it has been closely followed by telescopes and radar. But its orbit changed after 2012 due to the gravity of Jupiter and other planets. It's estimated that it will pass earth again as close as 2.97 million km in 2069.

After successfully completing its mission to explore the moon, China's second lunar probe, Chang'e-2, which blasted off on Oct.1, 2010, rendezvoused with Toutatis on Dec. 13, 2012, at a distance of 770 meters with a relative velocity of 10.73 km per second, as the rock was sweeping by earth at a distance of around 7 million km.

It was the world's first close fly-by observation of Toutatis. The probe took high-resolution images providing a number of discoveries.

The images allowed researchers to observe the topographical features of the asteroid, showing it has two lobes, including a small "head" and a large "body." The strange shape has bewildered scientists for a long time.

After many simulations, the research team thought there might be originally one primary asteroid and a smaller one, forming a system like the earth and moon.

Once they came very close to earth, the gravity affected the orbit of the primary asteroid and its little moon, causing them to collide at a low speed and merge into the current structure, Ji said.

The new study was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Ji and his collaborators have also studied how Toutatis rotates in space and revealed its geological features, showing it was essentially rubble and that the impact craters on its surface could be 1.6 billion years old.

Although Toutatis seemed to have a loose structure, Ji said, it was unlikely to fall apart, even when pulled by the gravity of nearby planets, due to its slow rotation.

Now scientists believe the threat from Toutatis is very low, but many other asteroids, whose orbits are unknown, might cross paths with earth.

"The impact threat from near-earth objects always exists," Ji said.

"Many recent observations show that about 14 percent of near-earth asteroids with a diameter larger than 200 meters have a similar structure to Toutatis."

The study of the formation of such asteroids will improve understanding of the evolution of near-earth binary asteroids, and is essential for deciding how to protect earth against their impact.

"It will also provide scientific data for China's future deep-space exploration of asteroids," Ji said.

China is the fourth space power to directly explore an asteroid, after the United States, Europe and Japan.

China is planning another space mission to explore asteroids after sending a probe to Mars in 2020.

"In order to cope with the potential threat of the near-earth objects, we need ground-based telescopes to form a monitoring, tracking and warning system, as well as space probes to conduct close investigations of asteroids, even to return samples from their surfaces to unveil their physical characteristics, interior structure and components, " Ji said.

[ Editor: Xueying ]
Married At First Sight star Stephanie Jardine has provided the proof that she was still married to her CBB star husband Ben when he impregnated a mystery woman.

After taking to Instagram on Monday to finally break her silence on the matter, she then shared a shot in which she claimed to have disproved Ben's claims that they split eight months ago - as she shared a snap of the couple in February.

Stephanie, 32, spoke out to emotionally reveal how the 'bottom fell out of [her] world' when she learned of her marriage's demise via a radio show.

Proof: Married At First Sight star Stephanie Jardine has provided the proof that she was still married to her CBB star husband Ben when he impregnated a mystery woman

Sharing a snap on Instagram, the couple looked cosy as they posed with a stunning view behind them while enjoying cocktails and celebrating Valentine's Day.

She added a caption reading: '15th February 2018. As promised in the video, this was the belated valentine's date he took me on after we were on This Morning...

'(I was working Val Day). Note same clothes as on the show and zoom in to see the wedding ring back on my finger.

The day before, In a series of tear-filled videos, the brunette beauty shared that her 36-year-old husband, who is currently competing on Celebrity Big Brother, expressed a desire to have a baby with her  before getting his mistress pregnant.

Breaking her silence: Married At First Sight's Stephanie Jardine has broken her silence on her ill-fated marriage to Ben

Speaking of the moment she learned her union with Ben had come to a crashing halt, she recalled: 'I started to shake as I opened my phone and clicked on a link someone had sent.

'There was my husband sitting there laughing and joking about how he had cheated on me and we were getting divorced. I literally fell to my knees. I was shaking like a leaf and sobbing so hard that my friend started to panic.

'There was just too much to process. He was divorcing me. He had cheated on me. He was announcing it on the radio. He was laughing at me. And then I saw the Instagram video he did with Louisa Zissman.

Babies: The reality star has revealed how Ben told her he wanted to have a baby with her  shortly before getting his unnamed mistress pregnant

Radio: She told how she learned her marriage to Ben had come to an end via a radio interview

'I didnt actually know who she was and at first, I thought she was the girl he had cheated with, but then I saw all the comments coming up about her, so I googled her and realised she wasnt the other woman.

'There are very few moments in your life that truly rock you to your core. Where you feel like this moment cannot be real. Because if it is, then your whole life is about to change...

'Ben called me later that night and we talked for an hour. I asked why he had lied to me about the cheating, but he swore on his mothers life to me that he had never even kissed another girl since the day we were matched.

'I told him I had listened to it and heard the words come out of his mouth that he had had a "kiss and a cuddle", which is how he refers to sex. I asked how he could say that if it wasnt true and he replied, "Well, its just what you say isnt it."'

Stephanie  who contends that her marriage ended in March of this year, as opposed to Ben's claim of eight months ago  then went on to share how he said he wanted to have a baby with her, only to then get the unnamed woman pregnant.

Another reality show: Ben is currently competing on Celebrity Big Brother, where he has spoken openly about cheating on Stephanie in the early stages of their marriage

'Ben even said to me that I would make an amazing mum and if he found out the next day that I was pregnant then he would be the happiest man alive,' she said. 'That memory really hurts me now, because Ive been told by one of his friends since, that the girl he got pregnant had conceived around this time.'

The police officer emotionally confessed: 'The bottom fell out of my world. I immediately went into hiding to avoid press so I spent the next month living in hotels. That sounds great, but I can assure you it wasnt.

'My friends dropped everything to be there for me and took it in turns to stay with me. I could hardly eat, and every day was spent in a daze, going between crying at what my life had become and laughing at the ridiculous situation.

'After a while, anger set in and I just wanted to tell the world what really happened, but I knew that if I did, I would just be bolstering him, and he was already standing on my shoulders trying to reach for fame.'

Despite all of the subsequent anguish and heartbreak, Stephanie went on to describe her happier times with Ben as 'brilliant', adding that they had 'fireworks of chemistry' during their ill-fated time together.

Emotional display: In her series of videos shared on Instagram, Stephanie was visibly upset

Devastating discovery: Stephanie confessed that the 'bottom fell out of [her] world' when she realised her short-lived marriage to Ben was over

'Meeting and marrying Ben was brilliant,' she said. 'I was truly relieved that we had fireworks of chemistry. The wedding day didnt feel at all like I expected it to, it felt like how I would expect a wedding to someone I already loved would be.

'All my friends told me the same thing, that apart from the TV cameras, it felt like a normal wedding and the whole wedding party from both sides got on so well.

'The first thing I saw was his huge smile, he looked like the cat that got the cream and he winked at me, which instantly made me burst out with a relieved laugh. Guests at the ceremony have likened it to a comedy act.

'We didn't stop laughing, cheekily taking the Mickey out of each other. One close family member of his told me that no matter what happened, he would be absolutely loyal.'

Stephanie, whose confession comes as her ex admitted before Celebrity Big Brother cameras they he'd cheated on her just a day after their honeymoon, defiantly added: 'We were a real couple, not just for TV.'

Chore: Ben insisted his marriage was doomed to fail, labelling the short-lived union 'a chore' in a piece written for Bella magazine earlier this year

In March, Ben accused his estranged wife of holding up their divorce proceedings, which he charged had prevented him from getting the closure he needed to move on from their relationship.

Speaking to The Sun Online, the property millionaire claimed his ex wasn't impressed that he announced their TV marriage was over during an interview with FUBAR Radio.

He began: 'At the end of the day you need to draw a line under it. Stephanie knew months before that radio interview, and I asked for my divorce papers, Id asked and asked and asked.

'And it was like, "Im never gonna get these divorce papers", because I never got them. Were divorced  do you know what I mean, thats what its about.'

Ben confessed he's been left 'drained' by the battle to receive the papers and admitted that those around them have remained hopeful about them working their relationship out but he can no longer 'live a lie'.

Claims: Earlier this year, Ben accused Stephanie of holding up their divorce proceedings, preventing him from getting the closure he needed to move on from their relationship

Explaining that he doesn't believe his ex is withholding the divorce papers on purpose, Ben insisted that all he wants is 'closure' from the relationship.

'I dont she think was withholding them; I just tried to get - Ive just still not got them... I dont want people telling me what to do. I just want closure, I just want to move on with my life and [signing them] is the only way to get closure.'

He shocked fans of Channel 4's extreme matchmaking show Married At First Sight this month when he announced he is divorcing wife.

His cutting comments came after Ben insisted his marriage was doomed to fail, labelling the short-lived union 'a chore' in a piece written for Bella magazine, in which he also claimed his estranged wife was delaying divorce proceedings.

The businessman met Steph at their wedding, after both signed up for the third series of the UK show, charming viewers with their instant chemistry.

Match: The property developer met police officer Steph at their wedding, after both signed up for the third series of the UK show, charming viewers with their instant chemistry

Ben admitted he thought he'd 'hit the jackpot' when he first laid eyes on Stephanie on their wedding day, and their honeymoon in Mallorca also saw sparks fly.

But writing for Bella, Ben said it was when the couple returned to London and moved in together that he realised the match was never going to work.

'On our honeymoon the chemistry was undeniable. But the honeymoon wasn't reality. We were living in a bubble that soon popped once we returned to real life,' he admitted.

Ben explained that he 'just didn't fancy her', before calling their marriage 'a chore'.

As Married At First Sight viewers saw, Stephanie tried to make their marriage work, desperately willing her husband to talk through their issues.

But Ben later claimed he felt suffocated by his wife and her referral to him as 'her husband' despite the fact that their marriage for TV was legally binding.

Kiss: Ben admited he thought he'd 'hit the jackpot' when he first laid eyes on Stephanie on their wedding day, and their honeymoon in Mallorca also saw sparks fly

While the couple decided to stay married in the finale of the show, ultimately their relationship only lasted another few weeks when the cameras stopped filming.

Ben explained the couple stopped living together and only saw each other once a week, before Ben decided to call it quits.

'"It's not working and I don't think it ever will," I said to her. She cried and said she wanted us to try, but I had to tell her bluntly. "it ain't there kiddo",' he revealed.

The property developer insisted he talked to Stephanie about seeking a divorce, despite claims from her friends that the heartbroken police officer only found out her husband wanted to split when he announced the news on FUBAR Radio earlier this year, with Steph reading the news on MailOnline the next day.

In his Bella piece he claims Stephanie is holding up the divorce as 'she's struggling to accept we're over.' He alleged that while he'd been asking for a divorce for two months, he had been 'met with silence' from his wife.

While Ben initially denied allegations he cheated on his wife during their marriage, Lucy Jade Bonet, 20, told a newspaper she was in a relationship with him while he was still with Steph.

In an interview with The Sun, Ben said he enjoyed a 'kiss and cuddle' with Lucy, admitting: 'I did kiss someone but Steph knew it was all over before that. I'm sorry, I just didn't love her.'

'At the time I was completely committed to my marriage but I was being pursued all the time and I just thought, I dont need this.

'Yes we did have a kiss and a cuddle, but then I thought, No, this is wrong, I completely called time on it. It was only a friendship to me and people are reading too much into it.'

The couple will have to remain married for a year before they can divorce, but Ben is desperate to move on, giving multiple interviews earlier this year while Stephanie had remained silent until speaking out this week.

She has had her corner fiercely fought by her friends, with former Married At First Sight star Sara May leaping to Steph's defence on social media.

Sara shared a girls' night out with Steph and fellow MAFS UK star Melissa in the spring, with the three ladies posting for selfies on Instagram.

But as fans in the comments linked to MailOnline's article revealing Ben had announced his divorce, Sara made the shock revelation that Steph found out about the split via the press too.

'So we all found out via this article just now too. Even Steph. What a t**t,' Sara wrote.

She earlier tweeted: 'The calibre and integrity of men this show chooses is beyond me sometimes. To announce your divorce to your wife via a radio show and Daily Mail article is disgusting. Not all of the men. Just some. But this one in particular.'
She knows how to garner attention on any red carpet.

And Evangeline Lilly had all eyes on her as she attended the Ant-Man And The Wasp premiere at Toho Cinemas Shinjuku in Tokyo, Japan, on Tuesday.

The actress, 39, looked effortlessly chic in a silky Georges Chakra Couture blazer dress with a plunging neckline as she strutted her stuff on stage.

Stunning: Evangeline Lilly had all eyes on her as she attended the Ant-Man And The Wasp premiere at Toho Cinemas Shinjuku in Tokyo, Japan, on Tuesday

The Lost star drew attention to her endless pins in the thigh-skimming ruffle design, and boosted her frame in sky-high black heels.

The brunette let her sophisticated ensemble do all the legwork by ditching any extra accessories, and styled her glossy tresses into tousled curls.

Evangeline highlighted her natural beauty with glamorous smokey make-up as she sauntered her way to the press stage.

Hollywood glamour: The actress, 39, looked effortlessly chic in a silky black blazer dress with a plunging neckline as she strutted her stuff on stage

All smiles: The Lost star drew attention to her endless pins in the thigh-skimming ruffle design, and boosted her frame in sky-high black heels

Co-star Paul Rudd, 49, looked handsome in a deep blue suit paired with a stripped shirt and patent black shoes.

Evangeline's glamorous display comes after the Emmy Award-winning creator of Lost apologised to her after she said she felt 'cornered' whilst filming a naked scene on the show.

J.J. Abrams and the producers responded after the actress - who starred on the show from 2004 to 2010 - said she was horrified when she was told to strip partially nude for the show.

All eyes on her: Evangeline highlighted her natural beauty with glamorous smokey make-up as she commanded attention on the stage

Dapper: Co-star Paul Rudd, 49, looked handsome in a deep blue suit paired with a stripped shirt and patent black shoes

Evangeline posed with Japanese actor Taishi Nakagawa (L), Paul (C), director Peyton Reed (centre right) and comedian Daisuke Miyagawa

Since hearing her comments, J.J told ET that he reached out to personally apologise to Evangeline.

'Our response to Evies comments in the media was to immediately reach out to her to profoundly apologize for the experience she detailed while working on Lost.

'We have not yet connected with her, but remain deeply and sincerely sorry,' he said in a statement to ET.

Lilly shared the bad experience she said that she had on the set of the hit TV series earlier this month.

Moving on: Evangeline's glamorous display comes after the Emmy Award-winning creator of Lost apologised to her after she felt 'cornered' whilst filming a naked scene on the show

Concern: 'In season 3, I'd had a bad experience on set with being basically cornered into doing a scene partially naked, and I felt had no choice in the matter,' she told the Lost Boys podcast

'In season 3, I'd had a bad experience on set with being basically cornered into doing a scene partially naked, and I felt had no choice in the matter,' she told the Lost Boys podcast.

'And I was mortified and I was trembling when it finished. I was crying my eyes out and I had to go on do a very formidable, very strong scene thereafter,' said the beauty.

'In season 4, another scene came up where Kate was undressing and I fought very hard to have that scene be under my control.

'And I failed to control it again. So I then said, "That's it, no more. You can write whatever you want - I won't do it. I will never take my clothes off on this show again." And I didn't.'

Upset: 'I was trembling when it finished [the scene]. I was crying my eyes out and I had to go on do a very formidable, very strong scene thereafter,' said the beauty
The MTV VMAs 2018 were unsurprisingly full of controversies, strange outfits and of course Madonnas tribute to Aretha Franklin.

However, one of the earliest controversies to come out from this years awards was the sheer amount of stars who did not go to the awards ceremony.

Rihanna, Beyonce and Jay-Z didnt go; Ed Sheeran wasnt there; perennial nemeses Katy Perry and Taylor Swift werent there. Childish Gambino wasnt there to pick up his three VMA wins for This is America.

Lady Gaga and Adele werent there. Controversy merchant Kanye West didnt go and neither did Justin Bieber.

So many celebrities werent in attendance that the Washington Post posited a controversial theory.

Camila Cabello beat Drake, Beyonce and Jay-Z, and Childish Gambino to win Video of the Year

The outlet suggested that Camila Cabello, who was the surprise winner of both Artist of the Year and Video of the Year, was MTVs way of sending a message to celebrities who dont show up that they would be punished for not showing up at the awards and rewarded for attending.

Camila Cabello won Artist of the Year and Video of the Year for Havana, despite the video being released back in 2017 and coming in second in views behind Drakes Gods Plan.

The Washington Post described Cabellos win as the most shocking moment of the night.

While popular, the general consensus is that Havana made less of a cultural impact than the music by the other nominees that included Childish Gambinos This is America, Beyonce and Jay-Zs Apes**t, Drakes Gods Plan and Ariana Grandes No Tears Left to Cry.

Variety too picked up on the low wattage of star power at the ceremony pointing out that unlike in previous years, celebrities who turned up were given double duties: that of performer and presenter.

It also pointed out how just five years ago MTV VMA headliners included Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake and Drake, while Rihanna was there just to watch the whole thing and Miley Cyrus sparked controversy for her dance with Robin Thicke.

The absence of so many celebrities was all many people on Twitter could talk about, leading to a hilarious meme that started as early as the MTV VMAs red carpet.

Fans started tweeting pictures of an empty red carpet and joking that the likes of Lady Gaga, One Direction and Taylor Swift all look beautiful at the awards.

Here are some of the best Twitter reactions:

lady gaga looking beautiful at the vmas  pic.twitter.com/Z60XXp5Q23  __ (@aVioletCrown) August 21, 2018

Im just gonna accept the fact that MTV cant afford Beyonce anymore #VMAs pic.twitter.com/NPs76wy3Vd       (@royalconflict) August 21, 2018

I know I'm old af I don't know half of these people smh #VMAs pic.twitter.com/4BTPm0SHm6  G1enniePop (@GlenniePop) August 21, 2018
Matt Smith sensationally claimed Claire Foy should have been paid more than him for The Crown when he branded Netflix's salary disparity as a 'great mistake'.

Shockwaves erupted when it emerged the actor, who played Prince Philip, was paid significantly more than the actress who played the titular role Queen Elizabeth II.

The Doctor Who star hit out at Netflix bosses for the 'grave oversight' as he insisted the actress was the 'lead in the show' and she worked 'the hardest'.

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Matt explained on the Larry King Now show: 'Claire was the lead in the show, she worked the hardest, she should have been paid the most. It was a great mistake.'

He elaborated: 'Its dumb! Its dumb! She did the most work, she worked the hardest, honestly every single day.

'It was representative of the amount of work and how she worked. All you can do is learn from your mistakes and move on!'

'She worked the hardest': The Crown's Matt Smith claims Claire Foy should have been paid MORE than him as he slammed Netflix for the 'huge mistake' over pay disparity

Although it is not known how much Matt made on the show, Claire earned $40,000 per episode throughout her run on The Crown.

Bosses claimed Matt was only paid more for the first seasons as he was a bigger name than Claire at the time of casting.

Lily James' boyfriend explained all he wanted to do was 'amend' the 'grave oversight' the moment he heard about the pay disparity.

Surprise: Shockwaves erupted when it emerged the actor, who played Prince Philip, was paid significantly more than the actress who played the titular role Queen Elizabeth II

The hunk did credit Netflix for responding 'diligently' to amend their 'huge mistake' which left Claire feeling red-faced.

He elaborated: 'Well I didnt know about it to be honest with you. And I thought it was a mistake a huge mistake. It was a grave oversight and when we heard about it together we sort of said about trying to amend it really and I have to say that I think Netflix did respond very diligently.

'I think in that particularly situation it changed quickly I think what it alludes to its not just our industry that needs to change it needs to change across all industries whether that be nursing or teaching and it speaks to a much wider problem.

'One we need to address as a society that we need to improve.'

Claire and Matt were both nominated for Emmy awards for their performances. Left Bank stated that male and female stars will get the same pay.

Producers of the show pledged earlier this year that there will be no gender pay parity for the new cast in season three.

The Crown stars, including leads Claire and Matt, will hand over the baton to a whole new galaxy of Hollywood's elite.
Earlier this summer, she enjoyed a fleeting romance with Adam Collard on racy reality show Love Island  only to find herself dumped within a matter of days.

And Darylle Sargeant, 24, has now revealed that she's since split with hunky TV personality Jack Quickenden, 29, just weeks after embarking on their romance.

However, former X Factor star Jake appears to have already moved on, as it's now been reported that he's now dating a single mother from Essex.

Going their separate ways: Love Island's Darylle Sargeant has revealed that she and Jake Quickenden have parted ways, just weeks after embarking on a low-key romance

Former X Factor star Jake was spotted in an amorous embrace with heavily-tattooed beauty Daryelle while they spent a romantic day out together in Leeds in July  but they have since decided that they're better off as friends.

In an interview with OK! magazine, Darylle admitted: 'We're just friends. We were seeing each other, but we're both so busy at the minute and we live quite far away.'

However, she has not ruled out a romance in the future with musclebound Jake, adding: We still speak and we're still getting to know each other, but we're not in a rush to go anywhere.

Blossoming relationship: In July, Jake and Darylle were spotted cosying up at a family party

Out and about: The tattoo artist has been making the most of the London social circuit since she was dumped from Love Island just days after making her arrival

'He's a lovely boy, we get on really well together. It would be nice, but we'll see.'

Her confession comes weeks after Jake attempted to downplay the nature of his relationship, after they were spotted together in Leeds in July, and he started liking a stream of her steamy snapshots on Instagram.

When contacted for comment by MailOnline, the hunk said through his spokesperson: 'Every girl Im spotted with now will be linked to me... Me and Darylle are mates but who knows what could happen.'

However, it has now been reported that Jake is dating Essex single mother Sophie Church, who is raising a four-year-old son from a previous relationship.

Swiftly moving on? Since parting ways with Darylle, Jake has reportedly embarked on a romance with Essex single mother Sophie Church

A source told The Sun: 'It wasnt working with Darylle  she wanted to make their relationship official and Jake just wasnt ready for at the moment.

'He hasnt long been single following the end of his engagement with Danielle and right now is enjoying being back on the dating scene.

'Sophie has definitely caught his eye; theyve been spending quality time together and Jake loves the fact she isn't in the celebrity world.'

Jake split from his fiancee Danielle Fogarty in May, just seven months after they got engaged. But he previously admitted he was hoping for a reconciliation.

Wahey! Jake showed that he'd taken a liking to Darylle's Instagram pictures as he liked a stream of her steamy snapshots on the image-sharing app

He said: 'Obviously we like to remain private but right now we're having a bit of time apart, dealing with ourselves and work and being busy.

'I've so much respect for Dan and her family but for me, it's about taking time out and seeing what happens.

'There's not a bad word, I was with her [recently], we still talk and I still love her to bits, but sometimes you've got to go away to come back.'

Jake's commitments to the Dancing On Ice tour and plans to join The Dreamboys stripping troupe were said to have caused tension in their romance.

Cheeky! Darylle's time in Love Island was fleeting, where she was hooking up with Adam Collard, before being dumped days later (pictured on the show)

Lothario in love: Adam has since returned to his romance with Zara McDermott, the second girl he was coupled with in the Love Island villa

A source told The Sun after their split: 'Jake and Danielle have been joined at the hip since her dad introduced them. But winning Dancing On Ice has meant Jake's had other priorities.

'He's been touring the country with Kem [Cetinay] on the show's tour and getting a lot of female attention, which hasn't been easy for Danielle. Things aren't going to get any easier on that front either, with Jake set to join The Dreamboys strip group.

'It's caused a lot of friction and they've both decided to take a breather. They are now in the UK and are spending time with their families. The wedding is very much off for now.'

Jake and Danielle were introduced by her father Carl Fogarty, who appeared on 'I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!' with Jake in 2014.

Single once again: Adam is recently single, after calling off his engagement to Danielle Fogarty
Superdrug profits have been boosted because of their beauty collection deal with Love Island, which has also driven sales of male skincare products, their parent company AS Watson revealing a 16 percent increase in pre-tax profits to 93 million.

The boost in sales has also been attributed to the recent summer heatwave, which resulted in the British public spending an extra 67 million on alcoholic drinks during the month of July, while Love Island helped the surge in mens skincare products for 12 weeks, until August 12.

Superdrug profits have been boosted because of their beauty collection deal with Love Island

Fraser McKevitt, Head of Retail and Consumer Insight at Kantar Worldpanel, the company that produced reports on this data, said: Love Island not only tugged on shoppers heartstrings but also their purse strings, as reported in The Guardian.

Superdrug, which has sponsored Love Island for the past two series, launched a campaign in June of this year that promoted the products the Love Island boys will be using all summer. This collection included avocado and manuka honey conditioner, beard oil and charcoal toothpaste, the latter for teeth as white as Jacks.

As reported in UK Investor Magazine, the group also had a 2.3 percent jump on revenue to 1.2 billion last year. CEO of AS Watsons UK Health and Beauty division Peter Macnab, said: We are pleased with the companys performance, and the continued recognition of our colleagues customer service efforts.

The Love Island effect also applied to Missguided, which revealed the impact the stars of the show have had on its sales after the final. According to website, contestants like Megan Barton-Hanson and Georgia Steel boosted their sales by a whopping 9,000 percent.

Dani Dyer, winner of Love Island 2018, also proved to be influential and the crochet patchwork dress she wore soon became Missguideds overall bestseller. After she wore the dress, sales soared by 9,300 percent and sold out.

In a clever move, the retailer is believed to have organised a gifting suite where the islanders were able to pick their wardrobe before they headed to Mallorca. Chief Customer Officer Kenyatte Nelson said: From a commercial standpoint, its worked brilliantly.

Even on the first day the show aired, our trade - particularly from around the hours of 7pm to midnight - saw an increase of around 40% week on week. And its trajectory has been ratcheting up ever since. It hasnt slowed.

10 other brands, including Rimmel, Primark, Samsung, Echo Falls, Jet2holidays and Thorpe Park, also reported a massive sales rise. LucozadeZero, which is sponsoring social content, TV, outdoor and in-store promotion, saw a 27 percent rise in the first three weeks.

Dani Dyer was influential and the crochet dress she wore became Missguideds bestseller

Kelloggs Corn Flakes, Love Island podcast sponsor, received more than 2.5 million streams and the Ministry of Sound Love Island: The Pool Party album went straight into number one on the day it was released.

ITV has also reportedly profited from the merchandise, selling more than 260,000 water bottles, doubling last years figures.

The heatwave also encouraged shoppers to buy branded products over supermarket own lines for the first time in three years. McKevitt said: The grocery market experienced strong growth buoyed in particular by the recent heatwave.

Consumers willingness to spend that little bit extra to fully enjoy the summer sunshine has helped push brands ahead of their own-label counterparts. The Guardian wrote that Co-op also experienced its fastest rise in sales in almost seven years at 7.8 percent.

In addition to this, the report revealed that this rise was due to more than 250,000 additional shoppers deciding to pop into their local shop, rather than doing a big supermarket shop during the summer heatwave.

Morrisons also claimed its position as the fastest-growing of the big four and cited sales up 2.7 percent, while Sainsburys, which is attempting to push through the 7.3 billion takeover of Asda, reported the lowest growth rate at 1.2 percent. Tesco sales increased by 1.8 percent and Asda, by 2.6 percent.
She is in a relationship with a doctor who she has known since she was ten years old but Hayley Atwell has never disclosed his name.

And the star, 36, told Town & Country UK that she won't appear on any red carpets with her love until there's a ring on her finger.

The British-American actress said of her plans to marry: 'If thats on the cards for us, lovely.

Love: Hayley Atwell told Town And Country magazine that she won't let her partner join her on the red carpet until they are married as she admitted she wants to 'belong to someone'

'The emotional connection of belonging to someone, or having the intention to build something together, that feels really nice.

'I wouldnt want him to be on a red carpet with me, or in any way in the public eye unless there was a ring on my finger to respect him and respect the relationship. Hes not seen on my arm as my date.

However, she did say that her boyfriend isn't hugely into the whole showbiz scene.

She said: 'I wouldnt want him to be on a red carpet with me, or in any way in the public eye unless there was a ring on my finger to respect him and respect the relationship. Hes not seen on my arm as my date'

She said: I saw him watching the Oscars highlights, and he said, God, your job is really weird.

'He doesnt know anyone in terms of celebrity, so I can bring him to anything and he doesnt change how he responds to anyone at all. That makes everyone feel very comfortable.'

Hayley is best known for her roles in Howards End, The Duchess and Captain America and is currently starring alongside Ewan McGregor in the new Disney film Christopher Robin.

The British-American actress said of her plans to marry: 'If thats on the cards for us, lovely' although she is yet to disclose her partner's name, only to say he is a doctor who she has known since she was ten years old

She also spoke about avoiding contact with Harvey Weinstein, despite starring in Bridesheads Revisited, a Miramax production.

She said: Maybe I was intentionally kept away from him? I dont know. I consider myself lucky. Hollywood at that time was still very new to me, I was just out of drama school.

Hayley also spoke about what it was like to work with legendary actress Emma Thompson.

She also spoke about avoiding contact with Harvey Weinstein, despite starring in Bridesheads Revisited, a Miramax production. She said: Maybe I was intentionally kept away from him?'

Read the full interview in the autumn edition of Town & Country, on sale from 23 August

She said: 'Its difficult to do a film with Emma Thompson and not feel incredibly safe. Being in Ems company, it feels like anything is possible.

'As Ive got older, I admire qualities in women that are more universal instead of trying to emulate roles that theyve done. Wherever she goes, she tries to engage with people.

Hayley touched upon her role as Margaret Schlegel in the BBCs Howards End, a part that Emma Thompson played in 1992:

She said: Im an actor, I want a go at the good parts. For me, Margaret was in that canon for those great female roles in literature.

[Emma] just went, Oh God, dont do what I did. You are she, and she is you, make her your own. And choose to cry just once and that will have emotional impact, because if you cry in every other scene, it doesnt affect the audience.

Read the full interview in the autumn edition of Town & Country, on sale from 23 August. For more exclusive content visit: www.townandcountrymag.co.uk
Jennifer Garner's unique good looks have made her one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.

But on Monday the 45-year-old Alias vet reminded her fans she has a sister who looks just like her.

When getting her star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, the estranged with of Ben Affleck posed next to one of her two sisters, Melissa.

Sibs: Jennifer Garner's unique good looks have made her one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. But on Monday the 45-year-old Alias vet reminded her fans she has a sister who looks just like her

Tight knit: When getting her star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, the estranged with of Ben Affleck posed next to one of her two sisters, Melissa; also seen are Garner's kids

When the ladies were side by side they almost looked like twins.

Both have strong facial structure and megawatt smiles with dark brown hair and sparkly eyes.

And they appear to be about the same height. Jennifer is 5ft8in.

Even their outfits matched - both had on dark dresses.

They all made it: Her kids, sister, and parents all glowed as they stood by her star

Another sister: At one point, Jennifer and Melissa posed with their sister Susannah Kay Garner Carpenter, far left

Melissa's full name is Melissa Lynn Garner Wylie and she is older than the Tribes Of Palos Verdes actress.

At one point, Jennifer and Melissa posed with their sister Susannah Kay Garner Carpenter.

Jennifer looked looked like Mom Of The Year as she posed with all three of her kids on Monday.

The siren held tight Violet, 12, Seraphina, nine, and Samuel, six, who she shares with estranged husband Ben, 46.

Affleck - who reportedly split from Lindsay Shookus to date Playboy model Shauna Sexton - was not seen at the important event.

Her blessings: Garner looked like Mom Of The Year as she posed with all three of her kids on Monday

Mommy duty: The 45-year-old siren held tight Violet, 12, Seraphina, nine, and Samuel, six

Over? Her estranged husband Ben Affleck - who reportedly split from Lindsay Shookus to date Playboy model Shauna Sexton - was not seen; here Ben is with Lindsay in 2017

The Elektra siren appeared several years younger than she really is as she stunned in a blue gown with her hair tied up in an elegant style.

This event comes the same day E! News reported that her estranged husband Ben, 46, has split from his girlfriend of one year, Shookus, 38.

He is now reportedly dating Playboy model Sexton.

Her folks: The beauty was also seen with her parents in the audience as she clapped away

Good mood: Garner looked thrilled to be getting her star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame

Garner looked picture perfect in her off-the-shoulder dress that came in at the waistline, highlighting her trim waist.

She has gotten into tip-top shape to star in the action film Peppermint.

The beauty was also seen with her parents in the audience as she clapped away. All three of her kids were dressed up for the fun event.

And it also looked as if Jennifer's sister was there as well.

And actor Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad fame was also at the splashy event which required a sidewalk in Hollywood to be blocked off.

A lot accomplished: The pinup has been acting for 30 years and has made over two dozen movies including Daredevil, Juno and Love Simon

So many laughs: The 45-year-old star was seen next to friend Judy Greer

So close: The beauty gave a hug to the blonde Jurassic World actress

Steve Carrell was also seen speaking at the podium.

Affleck has been in the news a lot in the past few days. On Monday the site claimed he and Shookus are over for good:

'They are still very amicable and have stayed friends. They both tried to make it work, but the distance just proved to be too much for them right now. Family comes first for them both,' a source told E!

They go back: And actor Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad fame was also at the splashy event which required a sidewalk in Hollywood to be blocked off

Ben lives in LA to be near the three kids he has with Garner: Violet, Seraphina and Samuel. Lindsay lives in NYC to be near her son and work on SNL.

They were last photographed together in July in Puerto Rico.

Ben and Lindsay were first linked in July of 2017, and they made their first official appearance together in September of 2017.

Shookus reportedly deleted her Instagram account on Sunday.

Bling baby: The 13 Going On 30 star wore several bracelets and rings to the event

Lindsay was noticeably absent from his 46th birthday festivities with the family on Wednesday evening.

And it looks like Affleck has moved on quickly.

Last week he was with Playboy model Sexton at least twice.

Shauna - who hails from Virginia Beach, Virginia, showed off her killer curves in a figure-hugging dress and heels at Nobu

These heels are made for walking: And the Catch And Release actress had on spiky high heels with a strap around the ankle

Not only did the 22-year-old receive the coveted title of Miss May 2018, she's also returned to Playboy for various blogs and photo shoots.

Sexton lists herself as 'single' on her Facebook page, and in addition to her career as scantily clad model, boasts about her work with animals as a veterinary technician.

'I started in this field when I was about 16,' she told Playboy. 'After my first experience in surgery, I realized working fast-paced and under pressure is for me. Whatever requires me to move quickly and freely is intriguing. I love surgery more than anything.'

Another A lister: The siren from West Virginia was also seen with actor Steve Carell (L)

At the time, Sexton told the publication that she was 'very much single' and is looking for someone with a strong head on their shoulders.

'I want someone who's able to compromise but doesn't sell himself short,' she said. 'I appreciate people who are the truest forms of themselves and brutally honest about who they are.'

The Armageddon star's appearance comes after he celebrated his birthday with his children Violet, 12, Seraphina, nine and Sam, six, in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Ben was spotted heading into the Refuge Recovery Treatment Center in the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles.

Ben shares his three children with estranged wife Garner, and the powerful pair have yet to formally finalize their divorce.

The couple separated in June 2015 following 10 years of marriage, and filed for divorce in April 2017.

The actor is reportedly 'in a good place' and is 'doing well' after recent reports surfaced that he and Jennifer, 46, were sent legal warnings by the court for 'dragging their feet' over their divorce, according to People.

'He is in a good place mentally and has worked really hard to get here,' a source told the publication. 'He continues to focus on himself and the health of his relationships.'
She has a host of films slated for the coming year.

And Charlize Theron was on her way back to work in Montreal after a quick stop at the Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday afternoon.

The 43-year-old actress sported a black pajama onesie as she hustled through the terminal after enjoying a bit of rest and relaxation in The Bahamas.

Charlize Theron was on her way back to work in Montreal after a quick stop at the Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday afternoon

Charlize hid her famous figure underneath an over-sized black jumpsuit which featured a long row of buttons down the front.

Her flowing pant legs were hemmed above her ankles to reveal a pair of black Birkenstock sandals.

She carried a taupe leather bag across one arm with a slew of paperwork in one hand as she crossed through the terminal.

The 43-year-old actress sported a black pajama onesie as she hustled through the terminal after enjoying a bit of rest and relaxation in The Bahamas

The Fate of the Furious star accessorized with a few simple gold chains around her neck and a matching band on her finger.

She kept her bleach blonde hair tied back into a low ponytail with a pair of dark sunglasses positioned on top of her head.

Theron recently returned from a beach vacation with her mother Gerda at the popular Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas.

Airport chic: Charlize hid her famous figure underneath an over-sized black jumpsuit which featured a long row of buttons down the front

Casual: She carried a taupe leather bag across one arm with a slew of paperwork in one hand as she crossed through the terminal

The vacation was certainly welcomed as Charlize gears up for an arduous filming schedule during the coming months.

She is filming Flarsky, co-starring Alexander Skarsgard, about a political journalist who tries to hook up with his old babysitter, who now holds an important government position. The comedy is due out on February 8.

The former dancer is also in pre-production on Fair And Balanced and is set to reprise her character, Lorraine Broughton, in Atomic Blonde 2.

Charlize is currently lending her voice to the animated film The Addams Family, which will come out in October 2019.
She is nothing short of an ageless beauty.

And on Monday, Debra Messing displayed her glowing, youthful skin as she wore a sparkly, short, black, dress to the Los Angeles screening of her upcoming film Searching.

The 49-year-old looked half her age as she showed off some skin in the sleeveless ensemble and even straightened her signature red hair.

New movie: On Monday, actress Debra Messing, 49, displayed her glowing, youthful skin as she wore a sparkly, short, black, dress to the Los Angeles screening of her upcoming film Searching with her co-stars

The mother-of-one's dress was covered in silver shine and she paired the number with black, healed, combat boots that laced up the front.

Debra had a full face of dark makeup on as earrings aligned up her one ear that showed off her more youthful side.

The actress portrays Detective Rosemary Vick in the drama that tells the story of a father who searches for his missing daughter.

Also at the event and who posed with Debra were Searching co-stars John Cho, Michelle La, Alex Jayne Go, and Sara Sohn.

Style: The 49-year-old looked half her age as she showed off some skin in the sleeveless ensemble and even straightened her signature red hair

Co-star: John Cho, 46, wore a blue suit with a black undershirt and snazzy brown dress shoes

Cast: Also at the event were Searching stars Alex Jayne Go, Sara Sohn and Michelle La

Beautiful: Megan Liu looked almost identical to her co-star Alex Jayne Go in a pink dress

Cho wore a blue suit with a black undershirt and snazzy brown dress shoes.

His thick black hair was slicked back as he put his arm around the movie's youngest star Alex Jayne Go and the actress who plays his wife in the movie, Sara Sohn.

Both girls wore dresses with the younger of the two opting for a pink tu-tu-inspired piece that stopped right below her knees.

Hot: Michelle La stood out in a fire-engine red two-piece pants suit and actress Alex Jayne Go sparkled in pink

Her look: The Hollywood newcomer sported a cropped shirt with wide-legged matching pants that together showed off a peek of her belly

Sohn wore a sexy, long sleeved, black dress with a hemline mid-thigh.

She wore strappy, silver high heels and carried a matching purse on her shoulder.

Michelle La stood out in a fire-engine red two-piece pants suit.

The Hollywood newcomer sported a cropped shirt with wide-legged matching pants that together showed off a peek of her belly.

Celebrating: John Cho and Debra Messing attend the screening of Stage 6 Films' Searching at ArcLight Hollywood

The star's shoes were covered by her flowing pants and she held onto a silver clutch.

Searching is about a desperate father's attempt to find his missing 16 year old daughter through technology and clues left on her laptop.

Searching hits theaters in limited release Aug. 24 and wide release Aug. 31.

New role: The actress portrays Detective Rosemary Vick in the drama that tells the story of a father who searches for his missing daughter

Career: Currently, Debra stars as Grace Adler on the NBC comedy, Will & Grace
Sacramento Police Department(SACRAMENTO) -- The suspected "Golden State Killer," accused of murders across California, will be prosecuted in one combined trial in Sacramento, prosecutors announced Tuesday.



Joseph DeAngelo, a 72-year-old former police officer, was arrested this April, following decades in which California law enforcement officers were stumped by what became known as the "Golden State Killer" case.



An amended complaint filed Tuesday morning in Sacramento alleges crimes including 13 counts of murder, spanning six jurisdictions in the northern, central and southern parts of the state, prosecutors said at Tuesday's news conference.



The unified prosecutors said they are committed to delivering justice for the victims and their loves ones in the single jurisdiction.



"We stand united" on "team justice," Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said Tuesday.



DeAngelo is in custody in Sacramento County and has not entered a plea.



He will be arraigned on the amended complaint on Thursday, Schubert said.



The "Golden State Killer" was believed to have committed a string of murders, rapes and home burglaries throughout California in the 1970s and 1980s, with the last known crime in 1986.



But no arrest was made for decades.



In the early 2000s, investigators obtained the unknown killer's DNA at one crime scene: The murders of Lyman and Charlene Smith, who were bludgeoned to death at their Ventura County home in 1980.



Investigators then started reviewing rape kits -- which contained DNA samples from victims -- in other jurisdictions, prosecutors said.



This year, investigators plugged the mystery killer's DNA into a genealogy database.



Based on the pool of people on the genealogy website, investigators were then able to build a family tree of the unknown killers relatives, who had submitted their DNA to the database on their own.



Investigators narrowed the search based on age, location and other characteristics, leading them to DeAngelo.



Authorities conducted surveillance on DeAngelo and collected his DNA from a tissue left in a trash. Investigators plugged his discarded DNA back into the genealogy database and found a match, linking DeAngelo's DNA to evidence gathered at multiple crime scenes, prosecutors said.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Cambodia was the largest importer of Vietnamese steel during the January-July period, accounting for 37% of the total steel export volume.

The countrys steel exports to Cambodia increased by 49% in volume and 77.9% in value over the same period last year, reaching 717,572 tonnes, equivalent to US$462.73 million.

Some 532,779 million tonnes were shipped to the US for US$452.81 million, increasing by 71.6% in volume and 81.7% in turnover.

Shipments to Malaysia escalated 88.5% in volume and 108.6% in value to reach 391,607 tonnes, or US$266.98 million.

However, steel exports declined sharply in the following markets: Switzerland (down 96% in turnover), Saudi Arabia (down 63.4% in value), and Pakistan (down 45.6% in value).

During the period, steel export price increased by 11.3% to reach average US$742.8 per tonne. Of which, exports to Hong Kong reached the highest rate with US$2,995.8 per tonne, up 33.4%. Some markets also enjoyed good prices such as Switzerland, Turkey, China and Ukraine.

Although the steel sector has witnessed thriving exports, it is struggling to cope with trade defence lawsuits in the context of growing protectionism. From July 16 to August 9, the sector faced anti-dumping lawsuits in many foreign countries such as Thailand, the EU, Canada, Malaysia, the US, the Eurasian Economic Union, and India.

Chairman of the Vietnam Steel Association (VSA) Ho Nghia Dung said that improving competitive capacity to expand export markets and understanding of international trade regulations are significant for Vietnamese steel firms to respond to trade defence lawsuits.

The association recommended the state to enhance the use of trade defence tools to protect domestic steel production.
Ben Affleck is spending time with nude model Shauna Sexton after 'splitting' from SNL producer Lindsay Shookus.

But before the 22-year-old beauty even met the Argo director, she talked about what she wants in a man.

In May the star told Playboy magazine she hoped to date a guy who was 'brutally honest.'

Looking for a beau: Ben Affleck is spending time with Playboy model Shauna Sexton. But before the 22-year-old beauty even met the Argo director, she talked about what she wants in a man

She wants him to tell the truth: In May the star told Playboy magazine wanted to date a guy who was 'brutally honest'

Ben was seen with the looker at Nobu in Malibu last week and then, days later, in his car.

He has yet to confirm that he has split from Shookus and has move on to the young model.

Affleck is best known for his marriage to Jennifer Garner, who was last seen on Monday getting her star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

Together they have three kids, Violet, Seraphina and Samuel.

Done: The Batman star has 'split' from SNL producer Lindsay Shookus; seen in January

Getting help: The star seen heading to Refuge Recovery in early August

Their divorce is not yet finalized.

Sexton said in May she was single and looking for love. 'I want someone whos able to compromise but doesnt sell himself short,' she told the magazine.

'I appreciate people who are the truest forms of themselves and brutally honest about who they are.'

His ex: Affleck is best known for his marriage to Jennifer Garner, who was last seen on Monday getting her star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. Together they have three kids, Violet, Seraphina and Samuel

Sexton has made a career as a bikini and nude model, which has been easy for her because she loves to exercise: 'If Im not working, Im working out. I do a lot of high-interval training and incorporate cardio,' she said on her Playboy bio.

She also told Playboy that modeling is like a side job and what she really wants to do is be a vet tech. She has wanted that career since she was 16, she said, adding shes 'good at working under pressure.'

She currently works full time at VSEC  Veterinary Specialty and Emergency Center in Thousand Oaks, California.

And proving she loves animals, the beauty has a Lab-Bloodhound mix named Otis.
Last autumn, she was seen trudging through the streets of London as she got into character as the deputy news editor of a daily newspaper for her new show Press.

And now Charlotte Riley has been unveiled in full cutthroat mode in the first trailer released for the anticipated BBC series.

Cutting a stern figure as she oversees page drafts of her newspaper The Herald, the brunette beauty is seen looking the part of journalist Holly Evans as she wears a red sweater with her dark locks slicked back.

Scroll down for video

Coming soon: Charlotte Riley appears in a new trailer for the upcoming BBC drama Press

However, dominating the trailer is Ben Chaplin, who plays Duncan Allen, the no-nonsense editor of rival tabloid newspaper The Post.

As he intimidatingly swaggers through the buzzing newsroom, he is heard booming: 'Mostly, our purpose here is quite a clear one  to entertain...The most outrageous storytelling in the world. Get me something good, or you're fired!'

Also seen popping up in the trailer is veteran actor David Suchet, who plays George Emmerson, the chairman and CEO of The Post.

Getting into character: The six-parry series also stars David Suchet, left, and Ben Chaplin, right

Editor: Charlotte portrays deputy news editor of fictional broadsheet newspaper The Herald

In the upcoming show, written by Mike Bartlett, screen beauty Charlotte portrays the deputy news editor of fictional broadsheet newspaper The Herald.

Her character will be seen battling it out to beat rival publication The Post to the biggest news scoops of the day.

The six-part show, directed by Tom Vaughan, will also follow the private lives of the newsrooms' numerous employees, from reporters to editors to CEOs.

On announcing the show last autumn, the BBC described Press as a look at the 'fast-paced and challenging environment of the British newspaper industry', as well as the 'constant professional dilemmas facing its characters'.

Junior: Ellie Kendrick, who appeared in Game Of Thrones, plays a junior reporter in the series

Leader of the pack: Actress Priyanga Burford will appear on the show as The Herald's editor

The broadcaster's statement reads in full: 'Set in the fast-paced and challenging environment of the British newspaper industry.

'Press will immerse viewers in the personal lives and the constant professional dilemmas facing its characters.

'The series follow their lives as they attempt to balance work and play, ambition and integrity, amid the never-ending pressure of the 24-hour global news cycle and an industry in turmoil.'

A release date for Press has yet to be announced, although it is expected to hit screens later this year.

Intimidating: Ben's character is seen cutting an intimidating figure in the trailer for the show
She is riding high on a wave of success after reaching the final of Love Island and finding true romance with Wes Nelson.

And Megan Barton-Hanson had a day off from her hectic schedule as she went shopping in her native Southend on Tuesday.

The blonde beauty, 24, looked glum as she stepped out in an uncharacteristically casual ensemble for the day of retail therapy

Casual cool:Megan Barton-Hanson had a day off from her hectic schedule as she went shopping in her native Southend on Tuesday

Low-key:The blonde beauty, 24, looked glum as she stepped out in an uncharacteristically casual ensemble for the day of retail therap

The reality star slipped into a cropped vintage-inspired Fila top which teased at her toned abs and braless bust as she strolled along with shopping bags.

She paired the tiny top with a pair of high-waisted skinny jeans which revealed her honed legs.

The beauty completed her ensemble with dove grey sliders.

Her platinum tresses were styled into a tousled ponytail while she showcased her radiant complexion by going make-up free for the outing.

Natural beauty: The reality star slipped into a cropped vintage-inspired Fila top which teased at her toned abs and braless bust as she strolled along with shopping bags

Glamourpuss; The star has been riding high on a wave of success since leaving the Love Island villa

Megan spent some quality time in her hometown outside of the villa, as her romance with Wes continues to go from strength to strength.

Megan was arguably the most explosive addition to the villa as her stunning and surgically-enhanced good looks captivated the male stars while her saucy past continually hit headlines on the outside world.

During her time on the show, the vixen 'tested the waters' with an array of hunky contestants, including Eyal Booker and Alex Miller, before settling with 20-year-old nuclear systems design engineer Wes and falling in love.

Looking good: She paired the tiny top with a pair of high-waisted skinny jeans which revealed her honed legs

Family outing: The star was enjoying some quality time off, having built up an impressive media following in the Love Island villa

Radiant: Her platinum tresses were styled into a tousled ponytail while she showcased her radiant complexion by going make-up free for the outing

Earlier this month, Megan reportedly cancelled all of her upcoming nightclub appearances citing 'personal reasons.'

The former stripper was scheduled to visit Lourenzos Dunfermline in Fife, Scotland, but cancelled the appearance, with club managers saying the rest of the dates have been scrapped.

A statement posted on the venue's Facebook page read: 'Management cancellation: Megan Barton.

'Unfortunately Love Island star Megan Barton has decided to CANCEL ALL personal appearances due to personal reasons.

'Lourenzos sincerely apologise to everyone who was excited about meeting Megan on Saturday 4th August but unfortunately the situation is out with our control.'

MailOnline contacted Megan's representatives for comment at the time.

Making a splash: Megan was arguably the most explosive addition to the villa as her stunning and surgically-enhanced good looks captivated the male stars while her saucy past continually hit headlines on the outside world

Kicking back: Megan looked naturally radiant as she spent time in her hometown

The news comes shortly after the blonde beauty divulged on her previous occupation as a stripper, and said she doesn't understand the negativity surrounding her former career.

In an interview with Grazia magazine, Megan explained: 'I did it for a year - I got in, I got out, I earned my money, I didnt hurt anyone, I dont see why its so negative. Men enjoyed it, I enjoyed it, couples came in everyone is happy!'

While Megan appears in the throes of love with Love Island beau Wes Nelson, 20, , she lifted the lid on her past experiences with dating as she recalled some of her worst encounters.

Megan admitted: 'I was getting the worst bumble dates ever. I ran away from one, I got egged on one!

'I had people telling me they thought I was a catfish so they didnt turn up.
He recently sent James Bond fans into a frenzy with a cryptic tweet, suggesting he could be signing up to be the new 007.

And Idris Elba added more fuel to rumours during his DJ set at London's Elrow Town Festival on Saturday.

The British actor, 45, opened up his main-stage set with the famous James Bond theme tune, further hinting he could be stepping into Daniel Craig's shoes as the formidable MI6 spy.

Tongues wagging? Idris Elba continued to fuel James Bond rumours after opening a DJ set with the iconic 007 theme tune in London on Saturday... after cryptic tweet sends fans into a frenzy

Idris - who performed in a bold green shirt and blue jeans - looked totally in his element as he worked the decks for the packed out crowd.

The Wire star teased the audience with the franchise theme song, which has been used in every Bond film since the first in 1962.

It comes after Idris caused a huge stir on Twitter on Sunday after posting a selfie alongside the caption: 'my name's Elba, Idris Elba'.

Rumours: The British actor, 45, opened up his set with the famous James Bond theme tune, further hinting he could be stepping into Daniel Craig's shoes (pictured above in Skyfall 2012)

Curious: Idris - who performed in a bold green shirt and blue jeans - looked totally in his element as he worked the decks for the packed out crowd

The Luther star is one of many stars to be linked to the role of James Bond, as speculation continues over who will take over from Daniel Craig when he leaves the franchise.

His tweet comes just days after Bond producer Barbara Broccoli said 'it is time' for a non-white leading man to play the character.

Speaking with American filmmaker Antoine Fuqua on Thursday about who could next take on the role she said it 'will happen eventually' and Idris is a clear favourite.

There has been a lot of speculation surrounding the role, and Idris was first revealed to be a front-runner back in 2014 when leaked emails suggested he should be cast.

New role? Idris sent James Bond fans into a frenzy with a cryptic tweet, suggesting he could be signing up to be the new 007 on Sunday

Front-runner? His tweet comes just days after Bond producer Barbara Broccoli said 'it is time' for a non-white leading man to play the character

In the correspondence, which was released during the massive Sony hack that year, the then-studio co-chair Amy Pascal said to a colleague: 'Idris should be the next Bond.'

But the actor has denied the claims on several occasions, and has also said that it's time for a woman to take on the role instead.

In January, the Luther star said producers should 'do something different' with the role and have a black or white actress take up the mantle of the spy franchise.

Iconic role: Speculation continues over who will take over from Daniel Craig after he leaves the franchise (pictured in Casino Royale in 2006)

Speaking to Vanity Fair, he said: 'It could be a woman - could be a black woman, could be a white woman,' he said. 'Do something different with it. Why not?'

Several actress have been tipped to play the Bond role in the past, with X Files star Gillian Anderson being shunted to the forefront of speculation after a fan tweeted a convincing poster of her as Bond in 2016.

Other actors whose names have been suggested to take over the role of 007 include McMafia star James Norton, Tom Hardy, and Poldark's Aidan Turner.

It was recently confirmed Daniel will return to his 007 role for fifth time, in the 25th Bond movie which is directed by Danny Boyle.

Surprise: Craig will return to the role one more time, which will undoubtedly stun fans as he stated three years ago that he would 'rather slit his wrists' than play Bond again

Universal Pictures also won the international distribution rights to the film, which will drop in the UK first on October 25, 2019.

Craig's return comes after he stated three years ago that he would 'rather slit his wrists' than take on the role once more.

EON Productions' Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli told Deadline this month: 'We are delighted to announce that the exceptionally talented Danny Boyle will be directing Daniel Craig in his fifth outing as James Bond in the 25th instalment of the franchise.

'We will begin shooting Bond 25 at Pinewood Studios in December with our partners at MGM and thrilled that Universal will be our international distributor. Production on the movie, which will land in the US on November 8, 2019.'

Speaking in 2015, when asked about returning to the role, Craig told the Guardian: 'Now? I'd rather  slash my wrists. No, not at the moment. Not at all. That's fine. I'm over it at the moment. We're done. All I want to do is move on.'
She was spotted enjoying a stroll in NYC on Monday afternoon.

Supermodel Karolina Kurkova kept things casual in a white sweater, silver grey leggings with a white palm tree print and fresh-out-of-the- box white trainers.

The smiling 34-year-old, who hails from the Czech Republic, has just returned from a trip to Australia where she shot the cover for Jones Magazine.

Smiling star: Supermodel Karolina Kurkova kept things casual when she turned the NYC sidewalk into her own personal catwalk on Monday

And she shared her time there with her 650K Instagram followers on Monday starting with a shot of her on a beach on one of the unspoiled Mackerel Islands off Mackerel Bay in New South Wales.

'This day was one of my favorites while in #Australia,' the former Victoria's Secret Angel captioned a set of nine snaps.

'We went to #MackerelBay in the #NorthernBeaches to a beautiful location on an island by boat with the most talented team.

'We were visited by lots of wildlife that day and we had the best time listening to great music to get me in the right mood for each shot.'

Cool look: The smiling 34-year-old wore a white sweater, silver grey leggings with a white palm tree print and fresh-out-of-the- box white trainers

From NYC to Down Under: Karolina has just returned from a modeling assignment in Australia, and she shared a day there with her 650K followers on Instagram on Monday

'This day was one of my favorites': The beautiful blonde, who was on one of the unspoiled Mackerel Islands off Mackerel Bay in New South Wales. marveled at the size of the blueberries

The beautiful blonde showed off her slender body in a white swimsuit as she leaned seductively against a tree on the beach.

She later changed into a black halterneck as she lounged next to a picnic table.

Karolina even shared a shot of a wallaby who seemed unconcerned by the commotion.

Back to black: The 5ft 11ins model, who landed her first Vogue cover in 2001 at age 17, showed off her assets in this black swimsuit as she posed for Jones Magazine

Rest and relaxation: Karolina and the shooting team traveled to one of the Mackerel Islands off Mackerel Bay in New South Wales by boat

She captioned it: 'This little friend came for a visit and stayed for most of the shoot.'

When she's not hard at work, Karolina is a mum to her boys, Tobin, eight, and Noah, two, whom she shares with her former Marine-turned-entrepreneur husband Archie Drury, 46.

The family live on Miama's exclusive Fisher Island, a 200-acre private island only accessible by ferry.
She's known for her powerful vocals and impressive performances on stage.

And Ariana Grande certainly isn't afraid to take a risk with her fashion as she stepped out from her New York apartment on Tuesday morning.

The 25-year-old award-winning entertainer rocked a black crop top with camouflaged shorts and boots just hours after her stellar MTV VMAs performance at Radio City Music Hall.

Style: Ariana Grande certainly isn't afraid to take a risk with her fashion as she stepped out from her New York apartment on Tuesday morning

Ariana seemed to be reveling in the last of the summer weather as she stepped out in a belly-baring black crop top by Ilaria Nistri.

Her high-waisted camouflaged shorts hugged her hips and featured silver metal garter belts attached to matching thigh-high boots.

While dark green and brown colors covered her legs in a military-inspired print, Grande added inches to her petite frame with black leather heels.

Not so hidden: The 25-year-old award-winning entertainer rocked a black Ilaria Nistri crop top with camouflaged shorts and boots just hours after her stellar MTV VMAs performance at Radio City Music Hall

Hot: Ariana seemed to be reveling in the last of the summer weather as she stepped out in a belly-baring black crop top

Star power: While dark green and brown colors covered her legs in a military-inspired print, Grande added inches to her petite frame with black leather heels

The Dangerous Woman songstress wore her long, chestnut brown tendrils straight past her shoulders with a distinct part down the middle.

Aside from a silver bracelet wrapped around her wrist, Ariana accessorized with her massive $93,000 engagement ring from fiance Pete Davidson.

The lovebirds packed on the PDA Monday night at the MTV Video Music Awards before her female-driven performance of God is a woman from her fourth studio album, Sweetener.

Beauty: Aside from a silver bracelet wrapped around her wrist, Ariana accessorized with her massive $93,000 engagement ring from fiance Pete Davidson

Lucky in love: The lovebirds packed on the PDA Monday night at the MTV Video Music Awards

During the show, the Be Alright crooner nabbed a coveted silver moonman for Best Pop song, No Tears Left To Cry - an instant hit from her latest album.

The 15-song catalog was recorded in various studios across Los Angeles, and includes a song titled Get Well Soon, a five-minute, 22-second record focused on healing and dedicated to the 22 victims of the bombings at Manchester Arena following her May 22 show.

Pete and Ariana shocked fans and followers when they announced their engagement in June after only a few weeks of dating.

Both entertainers have admitted to love at first sight when first meeting on Saturday Night Live in 2016 where she hosted and performed as the musical guest.

Golden girl: Ariana shined on stage for her female-driven performance of God is a woman from her fourth studio album, Sweetener
Sam Neill spent several months retracing Captain James Cook's Pacific voyage, returning with nothing but the highest praise for the controversial explorer.

On his travels, the former actor spoke to the 'cultures left in Cook's wake' resulting in his new documentary for the History channel, Sam Neill: The Pacific in the Wake of Captain Cook.

Speaking to The Herald Sun about the project on Tuesday, Sam insisted the criticism levelled against Cook's sometimes violent impact on the region 'is not fair'.

'You cant blame him for massacres of Aboriginal people': Sam Neill insists criticism of Captain James Cook 'is not fair' after retracing the Pacific voyage and interviewing 'cultures the explorer left in his wake'

Sam decided to retrace Cook's journey on the 250th anniversary of the British explorer's first voyage, interviewing native people to gauge their opinion on the controversial figure.

The New Zealand native acknowledged the fact it's no longer 'cool' to be a Captain Cook supporter, but insisted he's not bothered by popular opinion.

'Cook did, rightly or wrongly, change everything. And he has become a symbol for something that he probably didnt deserve,' Sam said.

'I personally dont think its fair for Cook to take the blame for everything. You cant blame Cook for massacres of Aboriginal people, and these things happened.

Sam did not elaborate further on his comments.

Voyage: Sam Neill spent several months retracing Captain James Cook's Pacific voyage, resulting in his new documentary Sam Neill: The Pacific in the Wake of Captain Cook

He came away from the trip with both a renewed fondness for Cook, and a newfound respect and understanding of the cultures he impacted, for better or worse.

Sam travelled to six places in total: Tahiti, Tonga, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, The Arcrtic and Alaska.

'I think he was actually an extraordinary man, and often had extraordinary insights into the cultures and the people he was encountering,' he said.

Sam Neill: The Pacific in the Wake of Captain Cook airs 7.30 Monday on History.
Her husband is set to make a comeback to UK television after securing a hosting role on ITV mainstay This Morning.

And Michelle Keegan looked thrilled to have Mark Wright back in the country as they spent some quality time together in Cheshire on Tuesday.

The Our Girl actress, 31, who is preparing to start filming her new sit-com Brassic, cut a stylish figure in a suede fringed jacket and a black baker boy hat.

Smitten: Michelle Keegan looked thrilled her husband Mark Wright was back in the country as they enjoyed a coffee date in Cheshire on Tuesday

Clutching a chilled beverage in hand, Michelle layered the tan jacket atop of a simple black t-shirt which sheathed over her trim frame.

She teamed the look with black ripped denim jeans and opted for comfort on her feet with black leather sandals.

The former Coronation Street star styled her glossy brunette tresses in soft curls and amped up the glamour with a bronzed make-up look and a slick of pink lipstick.

Trendy: The Our Girl actress, 31, who is preparing to start filming her new sit-com Brassic, cut a stylish figure in a suede fringed jacket as she stepped out with 31-year-old husband

Mark meanwhile looked dapper in a smart black shirt, which he paired with denim jeans and trendy trainers.

Their outing comes after MailOnline revealed the TV presenter, 31, will be hosting the show for the first time on Friday alongside Mollie King, who recently also joined the presenting team.

While Mark takes a break from his presenting duties in the US on Extra, he has been asked to take on the exciting new role.

New role: Mark Wright is set to make a comeback to UK television as he has secured a hosting role on ITV mainstay This Morning, MailOnline can exclusively reveal

A source told MailOnline: 'Mark is super keen to continue presenting in both the UK and the USA - and sees This Morning as great way to re-introduce himself to UK viewers as a host since spending the last year on TV every night in the USA as the host of EXTRA.

'Mark will present This Morning this Friday alongside Mollie King, who herself is new to the This Morning team, after hosting two weeks ago with Ben Shepard and last week with Matt Edmundson.'

Mark seemed to be making the most of his time in the UK spending time with Michelle, as the pair are often kept apart due to work commitments.

Quality time: During his time in the UK, Mark will no doubt spend time with his wife Michelle Keegan, as the pair are often kept apart due to work commitments

Michelle, who married husband Mark in May 2015, recently chatted about what her and Mark do together when they do find the time in an interview with Stylist Magazine.

The brunette beauty lives in Mark's native Essex yet their glitzy careers, including his presenting role on Extra in LA and her work on Our Girl in South Africa, means their time at home can often be sparse - a tough fact for a self-proclaimed 'home bunny'.

Michelle and Mark's interest lies in food, as she admitted she loves to cook and is particularly famed for her tapas while at home with her beau.

Close look: Michelle, who married husband Mark in May 2015, recently chatted about what her and Mark do together when they do find the time in an interview with Stylist Magazine

Opening up about her keen interest, she said: 'I love cooking for friends, and when Mark comes home from being away he always asks me to cook tapas  we have creamy mushrooms, gambas al pil pil and chicken in Parma ham...

When asked about how she unwinds, Michelle revealed: 'As soon as I can feel myself getting pent up, I either go to the gym or do a jigsaw. My mum got me into them...

'I have a shower, get my comfies on, get a film on the TV and do a jigsaw. Its so therapeutic. I do the 1,000-piece ones for an hour at a time and then I put it away.'

Alongside her love of puzzles, she also revealed she recently went on a solo holiday to Mykonos, where she loved nothing more than kicking back alone, dining by herself and tucking into her new book - The Tattooist Of Auschwitz.

Her choice of reading is reflective of Michelle's love of history as she admitted she loves nothing more than dreaming about the past and imagining days gone by.
Lena Dunham was not compromising comfort on Monday while running errands in Los Angeles.

The 32-year-old actress was spotted leaving a clothing store sporting what can only be described as pajama-chic.

Lena rocked her signature messy top knot and a no-frills makeup free look.

PJ Style: Lena Dunham was pictured in Los Angeles on Monday letting her jammies inspire her look in a slouchy onesie

Dunham opted for a pale blue apron-style onesie with spaghetti straps on a warm August day while stopping at Reformation Vintage on Melrose.

Her baggy overalls were nipped in with a bow detail right at her shin, showing off a modest amount of leg.

The New York native seemed to be embracing the laid back Los Angeles style vibe. The actress layered the look with a simple white t-shirt and a California staple sunglasses.

Pop of Color: Dunham amped up her casual look and slipped on some day-glow yellow mules by Alexander Wang

Knot an Issue: The Girls star wore her signature hair style of late, a messy half-up top-knot

The Girls star paired the ensemble with a fabulous pair of neon yellow Alexander Wang mules and classic gold hoop earrings.

Later on Monday Dunham posted a heart wrenching tribute to her late Yorkie, Bowie, who she adopted just three months ago.

In the post Dunham poured her heart out about losing her beloved pup.

Lena paid a heartbreaking tribute to her late dog Bowie on Monday: 'She made me feel safe and strong in a sea of change'

'My head knew she was 91 in dog years, but my heart felt she was just a sweet baby,' Dunham lamented.

'Bowie left everyone who saw her, in the street or the airport or the Rite Aid, with a crazy smile. She kept me safe at night, even if it was just from the indistinct shadow of a tank top strewn over a lamp.'

In Bowie's memory Dunham is donating to a local animal rescue in New Jersey.

Furry friend: Lena Dunham waved to the camera as she carried her beloved Bowie in a burgundy purse in this snap from June

Snuggle time! The Lenny Letter creator cuddled up with her late Yorkie during happier times

It's not all sad news though, last week the actress welcomed a new Sphinx cat into her brood.

Dunham was spotted barefoot in Los Angeles on Friday 'oohing' and 'aahing' over a sweet little kitten.

The star was all smiles while holding her new cat who was all wrapped up in a cozy blanket.

Lena's 3.1 million Instagram followers were treated to their first look of her latest addition over the weekend when she posted a picture with the cat snuggled up on her chest.

The actress' new kitten is joining her already large family of pets. The star is already the fur-mommy to two Sphinx cats named Candy and Irma and two dogs named Karen and Susan.

Special Delivery: On Friday Lena couldn't hide her excitement when she saw her new kitten for the first time

Hello Kitty: Lena was pictured outside her home in Los Angeles as she took her new kitten home for the first time
Jenna Dewan was spotted heading to her hair salon in Los Angeles on Monday.

The World Of Dance star was seen hugging her male hair stylist as soon as she slipped out of her car near the valet stand.

The estranged wife of Channing Tatum was giving her new Kim Kardashian style bob haircut a grooming.

Hair day: Jenna Dewan was spotted heading to her hair salon in Los Angeles on Monday

So close: The World Of Dance star was seen hugging her male hair stylist as soon as she slipped out of her car near the valet stand

The petite actress who got her start as a backup dancer for Janet Jackson was dressed up for the day at the salon.

The Tamara star wore a white shirt with a pair of skinny jeans that were torn at the hem as well as a pair of beige heels with tassels on the ankle ties.

And staying on trend, the mother-of-one added a beige crossbody purse that matched her heels.

Her inspiration? Jenna's hair looks a bit like Kim Kardashian's new short bob

Chic chick: The petite actress who got her start as a backup dancer for Janet Jackson was dressed up for the day at the salon

Dewan was last seen at the Amazon Back-to-School Prep event in the Pacific Palisades in California on Saturday.

The brunette bombshell looked toned as she modeled a lovely floral summer dress with eye-catching heels.

The Playboy Club star also posed with pal Sara Foster, who was striking in white.

Good day look: The Tamara star wore a white shirt with a pair of skinny jeans that were torn at the hem as well as a pair of beige heels with tassels on the ankle ties

Take my car please! The pal of Jennifer Lopez took time to chat with the valet attendant. She at one point pointed her finger at the man

The beauty recently spoke with Women's Health about her life after ending her marriage to Channing this year.

'I did a lot of work healing from the inside out, becoming more in touch with my womanly power,' she said after almost nine years of marriage.

'It was always, 'I'm a dancer,' or 'I'm married,' or 'I'm an actress.' Over the last couple of years, it became about learning about myself.'

'I feel I've been on a wave of growth,' she said. 'It does look different; it's a new normal, and I really think we'll get used to that.

'It's been a journey, and it's been a transformation of myselfmy needs and wants as a woman. I think everyone wants to hold on to what's in front of them, but when you open your mind, saying, 'I want what's best for myself and my daughter,' you have to be okay with however that looks.'

Good pair: Dewan was last seen at the Amazon Back-to-School Prep event in the Pacific Palisades in California on Saturday as she posed with Sara Foster

The couple announced their separation via shared Instagram posts.

'It's always challenging to go through a big change and have the whole world have an opinion about it,' she explained.

Jenna remains optimistic about the future and positively co-parenting their five-year-old daughter Everly.

Good times: The beauty recently spoke with Women's Health about her life after ending her marriage to Channing this year. She said she was 'healing'

'It's okay for a relationship to change into a new form that is actually better for both people involved, and I think that's maybe what shocked everyone so muchthat it can be a positive thing,' she said. 'That was ultimately what happened with us.'

In addition to working on herself from the inside, Dewan remains focused in the gym to keep her dancer's body as fit as ever.

'I really like to feel strong, and I like to feel curvy. And when I say 'curvy,' I mean 'muscular.' In the gym, I add more weight rather than increasing reps because I want to build muscle, so I can pick up my daughter,' she said. 'Before, it used to be like, 'I wanna get long, lean muscles.' Now, I'm just like, 'I wanna feel strong and good.'
The programme included two chapters featuring song and dance performances inspired by the life and career of communist Ton Duc Thang who was a close friend of President Ho Chi Minh.

Audiences at the event also had an opportunity to meet and talk with Ton Tuyet Dung, a daughter of President Ton.

President Ton is a shining example of morality and revolutionary virtue, who was a role-model for the Vietnamese working class.

* Earlier the same day, a talk on President Ton Duc Thang was held by the National Assembly Office in the presence of NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.

Attendees reviewed the life and revolutionary career of President Ton who made great contributions to the Vietnamese revolution, the world peace movement and international friendship.
He has been hotly tipped to be the new James Bond  even DJ-ing the iconic 007 theme tune continuing to fuel speculation he is in line to take on from Daniel Craig.

And Idris Elba showed off his killer good looks when he walked the red carpet with his fiancee Sabrina Dhowre at Yardie premiere, in Southbank on Tuesday.

The dashing engaged couple stayed close to each other as they held hands at the BFI Southbank centre in London.

Killer looks! Idris Elba and his stunning fiancee Sabrina Dhowre flaunted their romance at Yardie premiere amid James Bond speculation on Tuesday

Idris was every inch the movie star as he flashed his pearly white teeth at waiting fans while showing off his very glamorous wife-to-be.

Sabrina looked breathtaking in her ocean blue gown which cut across her bust and had an enviable snug fit to show off her incredible figure.

The beauty was there to support her fiance at the premiere and despite being a well known actor, Yardie is the first film he has directed.

Holding hands! The dashing engaged couple stayed close to each other as they held hands at the BFI Southbank centre in London

Good together: Sabrina looked breathtaking in her ocean blue gown which cut across her bust and had an enviable snug fit to show off her incredible figure

Yardie tells the dark story of retribution as a young Jamaican seeks revenge after he encounters the murdered who killed his brother 10 years ago.

Idris has been hot gossip on the showbiz circuit with the actor fueling rumours he is going to be the next Bond after speculation has been mounting in recent weeks.

The Luther star teased his fan base when he took his own spin on James Bond's famous catchphrase saying: 'my name's Elba, Idris Elba'.

007 looks: Idris was every inch the movie star as he flashed his pearly white teeth at waiting fans while showing off his very glamorous wife-to-be

Supportive: The beauty was there to support her fiance at the premiere and despite being a well known actor, Yardie is the first film he has directed

Idris' name was first thrown into the mix for the envy-inducing spy role after leaked emails suggested he should be cast in the famous shoes.

However, Idris did express his reservations about taking on the role last October as he admitted he didn't want to be the token black James Bond.

He told The New York Times: 'I think its more about, "We just want to have a black guy play James Bond" rather than, "Idris Elba, the actor," play James Bond. Thats the part Im like, ugh, come on.'

Appearance: Idris has been hot gossip on the showbiz circuit with the actor fueling rumours he is going to be the next Bond after speculation has been mounting in recent week

Cosy: The lovebirds joined forces with Hannah Walters and Stephen Graham at the glittering evening for the Yardie film

History: Idris' name was first thrown into the mix for the envy-inducing spy role after leaked emails suggested he should be cast in the famous shoes

Headline-grabbing: However, Idris did express his reservations about taking on the role last October as he admitted he didn't want to be the token black James Bond

Having a blast: The Luther star appeared in high spirits at the bash as he posed with a pal

Close friends: Idris put on an animated display as he wrapped his arm around Spike Lee

Sweet: The pair posed with Myla-Rae Hutchinson Dunwell on the red carpet ahead on stepping inside the venue

Busting a move: The friends appeared deep in conversation as they took to the dancefloor

Elsewhere at the Yardie premiere, Thandie Newton put her pins on parade in her blooming lovely floral print dress and colourful pair of heels.

The Westworld star looked out of this world as she caught the eye with her flirty number which had violet flowers dotted all over the dress.

Thandie, 45, accessorised with a violet handbag and she added a bright pink lipstick to her looks to draw attention to her natural beauty.

Spinning the discs@ It wasn't long until the talented DJ got behind the decks with David Rodigan

Out of this world: Elsewhere at the Yardie premiere, Thandie Newton put her pins on parade in her blooming lovely floral print dress and colourful pair of heels

Blooming lovely: Thandie, 45, accessorised with a violet handbag and she added a bright pink lipstick to her looks to draw attention to her natural beauty

Must be love: Ol Parker joined his wife of two decades at the premiere where they put on an incredibly loved-up display

Daring! Shantol Jackson flashed a glimpse of her toned legs in her thigh-split lemon co-ords when she attended Yardie's film premiere

Flirty and floral: Angela Griffin oozed confidence when she stormed the red carpet in her bright number with a cheeky split up the side

Blooming lovely couple! Thandie Newton, 45, flaunted her legs in a violet flower print dress as she cuddled up to her husband Ol Parker at glitzy Yardie premiere in London on Tuesday

Going strong: The couple were every inch the Hollywood power couple as they took their romance to the glittering red carpet with stars including Idris Elba in attendance

Twirling around: Thandie caught the eye in her shimmering colourful heels when she posed on the red carpet solo

Catching the eye: The mother-of-three showed off her quirky sense of fashion when she wore dangling hand earrings adorned with colourful jewels

Good looks: Thandie tamed her raven curls in a high ponytail to ensure all eyes were on her bold flower number

Effortlessly cool: Adrian Lester (L) and Lolita Chakrabarti made their arrival count when they stood among a whole galaxy of stars

Classic looks: Danielle Isaie looked incredibly leggy in her stilettos and black mini dress as she joined Ashley Walters on the red carpet

What a turn out! Idris Elba and Thandie Newton were also joined by Akin Gazi
Gregory Smith has wed his longtime girlfriend Taylor McKay.

The Everwood actor, 35, said 'I do' to the Saving Hope actress at the Lookout Cabin in Park City, Utah, on Saturday afternoon.

The beautiful bride wrote on her Instagram account, 'I'm on Cloud 9! Best day of my life.' She added, 'Love of my lifetime.'

Congratulations! On Tuesday it was revealed Gregory Smith had wed his longtime girlfriend Taylor McKay over the weekend

Man and wife: The Everwood actor, 35, said 'I do' to the Saving Hope actress at the Lookout Cabin in Park City, Utah, on Saturday afternoon

Wedded bliss: The beautiful bride wrote on her Instagram account, 'I'm on Cloud 9! Best day of my life.' She added, 'Love of my lifetime'

Both the bride and groom shared several stunning images from their wedding photo shoot at Guardsman Pass to Instagram.

The two looked every inch in love as they kissed on a mountain top and held hands while beaming at each other.

The Double Date actress wore a lovely full-length backless white lace gown with a long white veil. She added a headband and dainty earrings as well.

Happy day: Both the bride and groom shared several stunning images from their wedding to Instagram

Touching: The two looked every inch in love as they kissed on a mountain top and held hands while beaming at each other

Her dreamy look: The Double Date actress wore a lovely full-length backless white lace gown with a long white veil. She added a headband and dainty earrings as well

He looked sharp in a dark suit and grey tie as he smiled away at his lady love.

The star announced the wedding news on Instagram. '8.18.18, my beautiful bride, my darling @taylorjmckay,' he captioned the post.

Taylor also shared several images from her rehearsal dinner the night before.

They seemed to have about a dozen friends and family with them on the hill stop overlooking Park City.

On the eve: Taylor also shared several images from her rehearsal dinner the night before

The gang: They seemed to have about a dozen friends and family with them on the hill stop overlooking Park City

Chic set: The Elle model had on a white dress and said even though it was only the rehearsal dinner, her heart was bursting

Time to talk: The coupe gave a speech outside what appeared to be their outdoor wedding venue that had benches

The Elle model had on a white dress and said even though it was only the rehearsal dinner, her heart was bursting.

Smith and McKay announced their engagement in August 2017 with a sweet photo.

'Thank you @taylorjmckay for agreeing to spend our lives together,' he wrote. 'You make me so happy. I love you.'

Smith was on Everwood from 2002 until 2006/ His co-stars were Treat Williams, Emily VanCamp and Chris Pratt.

From 2010 until 2015 he was on the series Rookie Blue. His most recent show is 2017's Designated Survivor.

Time for a little bubbly: The also had champagne in plastic cups
She has set her sights on stealing Gwyneth Paltrow's crown as an online lifestyle guru.

And Holly Willoughby shared an off-the-shoulder snap, teasing fans of her upcoming online business venture, Truly via her Instagram page on Tuesday.

The This Morning presenter, 37, posed up a storm as she sat on the beach, showcasing plenty of shoulder in a white knitted jumper.

Latest project: Holly Willoughby shared an off-the-shoulder snap, teasing fans of her upcoming online business venture, Truly via her Instagram page on Tuesday

In keeping with the brand's big Autumn reveal, the television host turned her face away from the camera as she showed off her platinum blonde bob.

She captioned the post: 'Couldn't wait to share this with you...I've just finished shooting the Truly range in the most beautiful location with the most wonderful team. Everything is coming to you really soon.'

The lucrative project, launching in the autumn, is tipped to double Holly's fortune, which already stands at 10 million.

Competition: The This Morning presenter, 37, has set her sights on stealing Gwyneth Paltrow's crown as an online lifestyle guru

Making her moneys: The lucrative project, launching in the autumn, is tipped to double Holly's fortune, which already stands at 10 million

The new project closely mimics Goop, the website set up by Gwyneth in 2008.

Goop also has six lifestyle 'pillars' wellness, travel, food, beauty, style and work.

In addition, the Oscar-winning Hollywood actress sells her own skincare products alongside fragrances, vitamins and a fashion range.

A friend of mother-of-three Holly previously said: 'This is a big deal for Holly. She is creating a lifestyle site  a one-stop shop for all you need to lead a good life.'

On the website, which is monochrome, posted the message: 'Truly is a new lifestyle brand for you that launches later this year.

Rivals: The new project closely mimics Goop, the website set up by Gwyneth Paltrow in 2008

It's about beautiful things that are the highest quality, surprisingly affordable and designed to make your life easier.'

Asides from her new project, Holly is reportedly the firm favourite to replace Ant McPartlin on I'm A Celebrity this year.

The presenter is said to be adored by ITV bosses, who are yet to find a replacement for Ant, 42, after he released a statement on Thursday revealing he would not be returning to TV until 2019.

According to The Mirror, there have been no official talks about Ant's replacement, but Holly is looking likely to be the main contender.

An insider told the publication: 'Holly is very close friends with Ant and Dec and both she and Phil have been backing Ant since his troubles.

'Ant and Dec both love her and I am sure they'd be thrilled if she got the job'.
She's mom to three children with husband Kanye West.

And Kim Kardashian and her rapper beau are reportedly planning on having a fourth child, according to US Weekly.

The website's insider revealed that they have one embryo left and that it is a boy.

Family is everything: Kim Kardashian and her rapper beau are reportedly planning on having a fourth child, according to US Weekly

The entrepreneur and the artist plan on implanting the last embryo into a gestational carrier 'soon,' another source for the magazine added.

Kim, 37, and Kanye are parents to North, five, Saint, two, and Chicago, seven months.

They welcomed Chicago via gestational carrier on January 15.

She has been vocal about how how she could not carry Chicago because of her two previous high-risk pregnancies due to Placenta Accreta.

One more kid? The website's insider revealed that they have one embryo left and that it is a boy; pictured on August 9 heading to Kylie Jenner's 21st birthday bash at Delilah in LA

Sweet: Kim and Kanye are parents to North, five, Saint, two, and Chicago, seven months

The condition is when the placenta gets to deeply embedded into the uterine wall and does not come out of the birth canal once the baby is born, according to People.

If it is too deeply embedded, the placenta can cause the mother to hemorrhage, which is life threatening.

Three days after Chicago was born, Kim took to her website KimKardshianWest.com to talk more about their decision to use a gestational carrier.

She said: 'Doctors said that it wasn't safe for my - or the baby's - health to carry on my own.'

Cutie: Three days after Chicago (pictured) was born, Kim took to her website KimKardshianWest.com to talk more about their decision to use a gestational carrier

Kim continued: 'After exploring many options, Kanye and I decided to use a gestational carrier. Althought I have the term surrogate in the past, a gestational carrier is actually the technical term for a woman who carries a baby that has no biological relationship to.'

Adding: 'Since we implanted my fertilized egg in our gestational carrier, our baby is biologically mine and Kanye's.'

Kim also said that she doesn't want more than four kids in an April interview with Elle: 'I don't think I could handle more than that. My time is spread really thin. And I think it's important that in all couples, the mom gives the husband as much attention as the kids.'

Doting mom: Kim also said that she doesn't want more than four kids in an April interview with Elle : 'I don't think I could handle more than that. My time is spread really thin. And I think it's important that in all couples, the mom gives the husband as much attention as the kids'

Over the weekend, Kim was spotted eating at a separate table from her daughter North, according to Page Six.

The outlet reports that North and her nanny were at a separate table at upscale Carpaccio in South Florida.

Kim has a team of nannies to help with her three kids but they are rarely seen on Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

DailyMail.com reached out to Kim's spokesperson for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.

Interesting: Over the weekend, Kim was spotted eating at a separate table from her daughter North, according to Page Six

An insiders attempted to offer an explanation for the bizarre seating arrangement, telling Page Six it was because there was a videographer near by.

Kim's rationale, insiders said, was that she did not want the child to be seen in footage that would subsequently be broadcast on TV, online or otherwise.

However, Kim often shares snaps and videos of North on her social media, including her Instagram and Twitter.

North is also often seen on Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

Kim was in Miami with pals Jonathan Cheban and Larsa Pippen; she later attended the wedding of 2 Chainz and Kesha Ward with Kanye, 41.
After almost half a century of dealing with the infamous Paul is dead rumors, Paul McCartney finally addressed the conspiracy theory.

In an extended cut of his Carpool Karaoke segment on The Late Late Show with James Corden that aired on August 20, McCartney summed up his reaction to the debunked theory that threw Beatles fans into pandemonium in 1969.

We just kind of let it go, he said.

McCartney finally revealed his reaction to the 'Paul is dead' rumors on The Late Late Show

Also on the program, McCartney and Corden sang classic Beatles songs such as Drive My Car, Lady Madonna and I Wanna Be Your Man.

He also offered up interesting anecdotes, including when he was arrested in Japan after being caught with marijuana at a Tokyo airport in 1980.

I still am hazy as to how that happened, but it did. And in my suitcase, yes, there was some marijuana in the suitcase. And I ended up in jail, the iconic musician recalled.

What is the Paul is dead conspiracy theory?

The Paul is dead conspiracy theory is a longtime urban legend that alleged that Paul McCartney of The Beatles died in 1966 or 1967 and was secretly replaced by an impersonator.

The rumors first emerged in September 1969 after college students at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa started publishing articles claiming that various clues to McCartneys supposed death could be found in The Beatless album cover artwork and lyrics.

The rumors quickly grew into an international phenomenon as Beatles fans across the world started looking for clues to verify the theory. Speculation was quickly spread by disc jockeys in New York City and Detroit, also being fueled by false rumors that McCartney was killed in a January 1967 car accident and the fact that he had made few public appearances in the lead up to the release of the bands Abbey Road album.

Some fans claimed that clues could be heard by playing songs backwards and that the iconic album cover of their Abbey Road record actually depicts a funeral procession.

The rampant speculation finally declined after The Beatles rebutted the rumors with an official statement that they were a load of old rubbish and McCartney himself conducted an interview with Life magazine in November 1969 in which he stated: Perhaps the rumor started because I haven't been much in the press lately. I have done enough press for a lifetime, and I don't have anything to say these days. I am happy to be with my family and I will work when I work.

'I was switched on for ten years and I never switched off. Now I am switching off whenever I can. I would rather be a little less famous these days.

Who is Paul McCartney?

Paul McCartney is a musician who rose to fame as the bass guitarist for The Beatles in the 1960s.

He was born in Liverpool, England on June 18, 1942.

Playing various instruments in his youth, he met future bandmate John Lennon in July 1957 and soon joined his band The Quarrymen, who went through a number of lineup changes and rebranded themselves as The Beatles in August 1960.

Playing bass guitar for the band, he played a key role in helping them achieve popularity in the UK in the early 1960s and later became an international phenomenon in early 1964, leading the British Invasion of UK-based bands into the United States market and selling millions of records worldwide, including A Hard Days Night in 1964, Help! in 1965 and Abbey Road in 1969.

After the groups disbanding in 1970, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the rock band Wings in 1971 while also becoming a very active philanthropist.

Over the course of his career, he has been honored with wins and nominations for prestigious accolades such as the Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, BRIT Awards, Critics Choice Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, MTV Europe Awards and many others.

Paul McCartneys net worth is estimated to be about $1.2 billion (930 million).
She spent several years in Los Angeles, where she co-founded the popular shoe brand Mara & Mine.

But an extended period living overseas hasn't affected Jasmine Yarbrough's accent, as she still sounds like your typical Aussie sheila.

'Hi. I'm Jasmine Yarbrough, one of the co-founders of Mara & Mine and I'm here to take you through my night-time routine,' she said in a beauty tutorial shared to Instagram on Tuesday.

She speaks! Karl Stefanovic's fiancee Jasmine Yarbrough (pictured) revealed her surprisingly thick Aussie accent while sharing her night-time beauty secrets on Tuesday

In a series of clips posted to Byrdie Australia's social media page, Karl Stefanovic's fiancee revealed her secrets to looking youthful.

Jasmine, who originally hails from Brisbane, explained how she begins by using a ProCeramide Cleanser by Rationale worth $92.

Next, she applies a $154 Catalyst Serum, also by Rationale, which 'reactivates vital youth enzymes through recalibration of the skin's pH to youthful acidity'.

No American twang here! Spending several years living in Los Angeles hasn't affected Jasmine's accent, as she still sounds like your typical Aussie sheila

Tips and tricks! Jasmine, who originally hails from Brisbane, explained in a tutorial video that she begins her night-time routine by using a ProCeramide Cleanser by Rationale worth $92 (left). Next, she applies a $154 Catalyst Serum (right), also by Rationale, which 'reactivates vital youth enzymes through recalibration of the skin's pH to youthful acidity'

That's her secret! Step three involves 'a few drops' of Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair (Synchronised Recovery Complex II), which retails for over $100 (left). She then dabs on SK-II Facial Treatment Essence with a cotton pad (right)

Step three involves 'a few drops' of Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair (Synchronised Recovery Complex II), which retails for over $100.

She then dabs on SK-II Facial Treatment Essence with a cotton pad and moisturises her T-zone with a La Mer soft lotion.

For the final step in Jasmine's night-time routine, she 'de-puffs' her eyes with Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Eye Supercharged Complex, which costs $105.

Soft, supple skin: After this, she moisturises her T-zone with a La Mer soft lotion

Check out that rock! Jasmine's diamond engagement ring from fiance Karl - rumoured to cost around $120,000 - took centre stage throughout the tutorial

Final touches: For the last step in Jasmine's night-time routine, she 'de-puffs' her eyes with Advanced Night Repair Eye Supercharged Complex, which costs $105

Jasmine's diamond engagement ring from fiance Karl - rumoured to cost around $120,000 - took centre stage throughout the tutorial.

It is believed the couple, who got engaged in January after a whirlwind romance, will marry before the end of year.

They first met in December 2016, just a few months after Karl, 44, separated from his wife-of-21-years Cass Thorburn, 47.
She thanked fiance Pete Davidson for existing as she accepted the award for Best Pop Video for No Tears Left TO Cry at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York City Monday.

And one day later, Ariana Grande shared a loved up picture to her Instagram as Pete planted a kiss on her head while coordinating in neon jackets.

The 25-year-old songstress captioned the adorable mirror snap with her man simply with 'subtle jus like our love,' jokingly referring to the brightly colored jackets they both wore.

Happily ever after: Ariana Grande shared a loved up picture to her Instagram as Pete planted a kiss on her head while coordinating in neon jackets on Tuesday

Ariana sported a loose fitting T-shirt with gray cuffed sweats, adding an oversized highlighter yellow jacket.

The gorgeous artist styled her brunette hair back into a ponytail, opting for a deep side part.

Meanwhile Pete sported boots with black trousers and a bold orange jacket; he styled the cover up with the sleeves scrunched up at the elbows.

In the background were silver letter balloons spelling out the word Sweetener - the name of her fourth studio album, which was just released on August 17.

So in love: She thanked fiance Pete Davidson for existing as she accepted the award for Best Pop Video for No Tears Left TO Cry at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York City Monday

The lovebirds exchanged kisses on the purple carpet as they arrived to the MTV Video Music Awards in New York City on Monday.

Ariana donned a silver strapless mini dress with gray boots, opting for sleek loose tresses.

Meanwhile, Pete, 24, donned a NASA logo sweater, black track bottoms and Adidas sneakers.

Affectionate: The lovebirds exchanged kisses on the purple carpet at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York City on Monday

Inseparable: Ariana donned a silver strapless mini dress with gray boots, opting for sleek loose tresses; pictured at the VMAs

Ariana shared a kiss with Pete when her name was called for Best Pop Video for No Tears Left To Cry before heading to the stage.

After accepted the award, she said in her speech: 'Pete Davidson, thanks for existing. I love you.'

The lovebirds began dating in May and got engaged one month later; he proposed with a three-carat diamond ring.

Soon after their engagement, Ariana and the Saturday Night Live actor moved into an apartment together in New York City.

Talented: Ariana shared a kiss with Pete when her name was called for Best Pop Video for No Tears Left To Cry before heading to the stage

The Grande women: During her performance of God Is A Woman, Ariana was joined by her grandma, her mom, and her aunt

Post show: Pete held hands with Ariana and her grandmother Nonna as they headed to Irving Plaza for the after party
He smoked marijuana on and off for four decades and turned to whisky to cope with the stress of the Beatles breaking up.

But Sir Paul McCartney has revealed his wild days are over as he has transformed his lifestyle and now only drinks one glass of wine per week.

He credits his eight grandchildren for keeping him on the straight and narrow as he simply doesn't have time to enjoy raucous nights out any more.

Lyrics on Sir Paul's new album, Egypt Station, refer to his bad old habits during the height of his fame as a Beatle.

A song called Happy With You features the lines, 'I used to drink too much/Forget to come home.'

Paul McCartney has revealed his wild days of smoking marijuana and drinking whisky are over as he now only drinks one glass of wine per week

Speaking to MOJO magazine about the lyrics, Sir Paul said: 'It is candid - I did used to get stoned, and wasted.'

Asked if he was not necessarily happy while he was taking drugs and drinking to excess during Beatlemania, he added: 'That's right. Also... I've got a lot of friends who are sober.

'Cos they have to be. Like Ringo [Starr], [former Eagles guitarist] Joe Walsh - because they just took it too far.

'When we were growing up, everyone would be going to the pub and drinking, but mostly it all seemed quite jolly.

'But when I talk to Ringo about it, he says: 'No, if you give me vodka, I would have to finish the bottle.'

'So that's empathising with Ringo: used to be doing crazy things, but you don't now, 'cos you're happy. And Ringo is - he's very content with his life.'

Asked if the lyrics were autobiographical, Sir Paul: 'I did used to get a little bit more crazy than I do now - I've got eight grandchildren. I haven't got the time.

'Grandad can't just be sitting in his armchair with a great big doobie on and a bottle of tequila.'

Sir Paul had moments where he used drink to self-medicate in an unhappy time but knows not to get 'crazy' now as he has eight grandchildren

In hindsight, Sir Paul feels he had periods when he was self-medicating with drink, and has admitted in his song lyrics that he would lie to his doctor.

He said this was 'most particularly in the period right after The Beatles', adding: 'I was bummed out and in the middle of this horrendous s*** where someone was going to take every penny we'd ever made.

'That wasn't easy, and led to a very difficult time in my life. I definitely self-medicated there, and drank more than I ever had and probably more than I ever have since. But you go through it.'

Sir Paul has previously spoken about his dependence on alcohol after The Beatles broke up, and how he would often worry his first wife Linda with his drinking habits.

'I overdid it, basically. I'd drink whisky, of which there was a large supply in Scotland. What happened was The Beatles, towards the end, was very constricting,' he said.

'You were in a corporate world suddenly. It's not what you get into music for, but it's there. It got very heavy, so me and Linda escaped with the kids, but the business hassles were still there.

'So I think I was just trying to escape in my own mind. I had the freedom to have just have a drink whenever I fancied it.

'I'd go into the studio, maybe have another drink and so on. I got to a point where Linda had to say, 'Look, you should cool it'. I'd be getting like, 'heeyyyy, nice and fuzzy,' and it's not a good thing to write. Least for me it's not.'

He now drinks just one glass of wine a week, although he stressed: 'It's a big glass!'

Sir Paul also revealed he has recurring dreams where he sees his late bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison.

Describing his dreams, he said: 'Failing on-stage, or in the studio. Just it going wrong. We're playing a dreadful gig somewhere and the audience are walking out. That happens a lot. But it's kinda nice - I get to meet John and George. So that's kinda good.

'Another one is I've got my bass and I'm trying to record something and it's got black gaffer tape all over it. So I'm ripping this black gaffer tape off the neck... Frustration dreams. I don't think anyone escapes that stuff.'
She's in the UK promoting her latest film The Miseducation Of Cameron Post.

And Chloe Moretz was putting in an appearance on The One Show on Tuesday night, chatting about the issues surrounding homosexuality raised by her new movie.

The A-list actress was supported by her older brother Trevor, who is openly gay, and the pair were seen heading on to London restaurant Gymkhana after her TV interview.

Stepping out: Chloe Moretz was putting in an appearance on The One Show on Tuesday night, chatting about her new film The Miseducation Of Cameron Post

Chloe looked stylish in a pink and black patterned blouse and high-waisted trousers.

She set off her look with a pair of red patent leather boots and wore her blonde locks down loose.

Following a quick change, the star emerged in a smart black suit and bold printed blouse as she headed out for dinner with Trevor.

Smart attire: Chloe looked stylish in a pink and black patterned blouse and high-waisted trousers

Best foot forward: She set off her look with a pair of red patent leather boots and wore her blonde locks down loose

Radiant: The Kickass star showcased her natural beauty with a soft focused make-up look while Trevor looked dapper in black jeans and red velvet loafers

Chloe - who is one of five children and has two gay brothers - plays the titular role of Cameron Post, a teen whose guardians place her into gay conversion therapy.

Explaining why she wanted to work on the film, she said on The One Show: 'I took about a year and a half off after working 15 years straight, it struck me in a personal way because I have two gay brothers.

'And the story of a young woman who is sent to a Christian conversation therapy camp, it focuses on the interpersonal relationships of meeting other people for the first time'.

Dining in style: The A-list actress was supported by her older brother Trevor, who is openly gay, and the pair were seen heading on to London restaurant Gymkhana after her TV interview

Close to her heart: Chloe - who is one of five children and has two gay brothers - plays the titular role of Cameron Post, a teen whose guardians place her into gay conversion therapy

She said on The One Show: 'I took about a year and a half off after working 15 years straight, it struck me in a personal way because I have two gay brothers'

She is thrilled the film has received a positive response from critics and cinema-goers alike and is proud to be bringing the subject matter to 'the masses'.

Chloe said: 'Whats beautiful about it doesnt focus on the obstacles, it finds the comedic moments in the hypocrisy of it all.

'The beauty of this is that is shows that people will see you for who you are, and they will love and accept you unconditionally.

'I think its a very rare thing to see in film currently, especially under the administration were under in America, its probably one of the most important acts of activism that we can do is push this film out for the masses.'

Important: She is thrilled the film has received a positive response from critics and cinema-goers alike and is proud to be bringing the subject matter to 'the masses'

The real her: Chloe said: 'Whats beautiful about it doesnt focus on the obstacles, it finds the comedic moments in the hypocrisy of it all... people will see you for who you are'

Behind the scenes: Chloe was chatting to hosts Alex Jones and Matt Baker
They recently marked their 25th anniversary, proving that Hollywood couples can last the test of time.

And Pierce Brosnan and his wife Keely Shae Smith were enjoying a relaxing getaway in Hawaii on Monday, soaking up the sunshine as they spent some quality time together.

The former 007 star, 65, proved he was still in great shape, donning a pair of patterned board shorts for his swim.

Beach break: Pierce Brosnan and his wife Keely Shae Smith were enjoying a relaxing getaway in Hawaii on Monday, soaking up the sunshine as they spent some quality time together

Keely was seen bobbing around in the crystal clear water beside him, shielding her eyes behind a pair of sunglasses.

Pierce showed off his physique during his shirtless splash in the shallows, before covering up in a loose blue shirt shirt.

Sporting a jaunty fedora, the A-list actor was in high spirits during his holiday.

Getaway: Keely was seen bobbing around in the crystal clear water beside him, shielding her eyes behind a pair of sunglasses

Hitting the beach: Pierce showed off his physique during his shirtless splash in the shallows

Long-term love: Pierce and Keely recently marked their 25th anniversary, proving that Hollywood couples can last the test of time

Funky trunks: The former 007 star, 65, proved he was still in great shape, donning a pair of patterned board shorts for his swim

The actor, famed for his Irish charm, gushes enthusiastically when asked about his wife.

I love her vitality, her passion', he has said. She has this strength that I wouldnt be able to live without. When Keely looks at me, I go weak.

At an age when some Hollywood couples are communicating only through their lawyers, the Brosnans post adoring messages on Instagram.

Smitten: The actor, famed for his Irish charm, gushes enthusiastically when asked about his wife

I love her vitality, her passion', he has said. She has this strength that I wouldnt be able to live without. When Keely looks at me, I go weak'

Long-term love: The couple have been spending some quality time together on holiday

Sad loss: When he met Keely he was still grieving for his first wife, the Australian actress and former Bond girl Cassandra Harris

When he met Keely he was still grieving for his first wife, the Australian actress and former Bond girl Cassandra Harris.

She had died of ovarian cancer three years earlier in 1991, aged 43, after they were married for 11 years.

Five years ago, in 2013, the actor suffered a second blow when his daughter Charlotte died.

Although Brosnan is stoical after so much heartache and talks about just getting on with life, he admits it hasnt been easy.

I dont look at the cup as half full, believe me, he said last year. The dark, melancholy Irish black dog sits beside me from time to time.

Hats off: Sporting a jaunty fedora, the A-list actor was in high spirits during his holiday

Loving life: The Hollywood heartthrob flashed a big grin as he gazed out to sea
Aiming to celebrate 45 years of Vietnam-Japan diplomatic ties (September 21, 1973-2018), the two events entailed a series of activities.

During their three-day courses, business networking and investment promotion events took place, with several memoranda of understanding on economic cooperation signed. An experience exchange in smart city building as well as discussions on Japanese culture, education, and literature were also organised.

In addition, the events featured photo and handicraft exhibitions and a food festival.

Le Van Thanh, Vice Chairman of the Quang Nam Peoples Committee, praised performances featuring Japanese folk culture like Yosakoi dance, and Kagura music and dance, and those staged by Minori Dako drum artists from Japans Ibaraki Prefecture.

He stressed the importance of exchange and cooperation activities between Quang Nam and its Japanese partners in deepening Vietnam - Japan friendship.

Hoi An is one of the localities in Vietnam having early friendship ties with Japan. The two sides boast long-standing trade, economic and culture exchanges, which were dated back to hundreds years ago when Japanese traders came to do business in Hoi An, a popular international trading port back then.
He rose to fame in the '90s on the popular lifeguard drama Baywatch.

And David Chokachi appeared to be in fighting form as he strolled on the beach in Hawaii on Tuesday morning.

The 50-year-old actor looked to be soaking up the summer sun as he waded in and out of the warm waters on the tropical island.

Buff: David Chokachi appeared to be in fighting form as he strolled on the beach in Hawaii on Tuesday morning

Davids sculpted abs were front and center as he went shirtless to catch a few rays in the bright sunshine.

He covered his lower half with a pair of dark grey board shorts which revealed his muscular legs.

Chokachi's bleach blonde hair was slicked back after he swam a few laps in the Pacific Ocean.

Waterman: The 50-year-old actor looked to be soaking up the summer sun as he waded in and out of the warm waters on the tropical island

Beach day: A massive silver pendant rested between his pecs with dark tattoos inked down his biceps and onto his forearms

A massive silver pendant rested between his pecs with dark tattoos inked down his biceps and onto his forearms.

David portrayed Cody Madison on the hit lifeguard show Baywatch, which began airing on NBC in 1989.

The famous program was on air for 11 seasons, with syndication providing viewership through May 2001.

Sporty: He covered his lower half with a pair of dark grey board shorts which revealed his muscular legs

Family: The Witchblade star, who hails from Massachusetts, has been married to Susan Brubaker for more than a decade and the happy couple share one daughter, Brit

Chokachi's character dated Carmen Electra and Pamela Anderson's characters on the series which also starred David Hasselhoff.

He eventually replaced David Charvet as a main cast member and held his role for four seasons before diving into new endeavors.

The Witchblade star, who hails from Massachusetts, has been married to Susan Brubaker for more than a decade and the happy couple share one daughter, Brit.
Vicky Pattison documented herself having blood injected into her scalp as she battles traction alopecia after years of 'hair extension abuse.'

The former Geordie Shore star, 30, took to Instagram on Monday to share a video of the procedure, which is designed to stimulate hair growth.

In the clip, Vicky could be seen grimacing after looking at the needle, which was used to draw blood from her arm to be transferred into her scalp in a bid to reduce her bald patches.

Scroll down for video

Ouch: Vicky Pattison documented herself having blood injected into her scalp as she battles traction alopecia after years of 'hair extension abuse'

She revealed: 'For the last couple of years I've been getting progressively more concerned about the condition of my hair, it's under a lot of stress  it is under a lot of pressure.

'I've abused hair extensions, it's constantly being styled, it's constantly being pulled in all different directions and subsequently I am experiencing a little bit of... what I've described as probably traction alopecia.

'Bald patches, thinning and when you consider I'm only 30, the only place to probably go from here in terms of the hair world is down.'

Hair she goes again: The former Geordie Shore star, 30, took to Instagram on Monday to share a video of the procedure, which is designed to stimulate hair growth

She captioned the clip: 'So last week I took a very scary trip to see a very good friend of mine! @drtijionesho.

'I've struggled for a long time with what can only be described as traction alopecia in certain parts of my head due to years of hair extension abuse.

'When I explained to @drtijionesho how it was getting me down he looked into ways to treat it! What a guy! To see the full treatment and our reactions head to @drtijionesho @youtube channel! The link is on my insta story!!! Enjoy... (btw, I'm a big f***y but this isn't for the faint hearted!!)'

Injections: In the clip, Vicky could be seen grimacing after looking at the needle, before explaining that she having the procedure due to her concerns at her bald patches

Eek: Vicky had blood drawn from her arm that was then injected into her hairline

Stressed: She revealed: 'For the last couple of years I've been getting progressively more concerned about the condition of my hair, it's under a lot of stress  it is under a lot of pressure;

Vicky treated herself to something more relaxing after the procedure, as she has been sharing snaps from a juice retreat in Portugal.

Vicky put on yet another sizzling display as she enjoyed a sun-soaked boat ride the Jason Vale Juicy Oasis Health Retreat & Spa on Monday morning.

The stunner poured her toned curves into a scanty leopard print bandeau bikini top, which highlighted her ample cleavage and taut stomach.

Fun in the sun: Vicky treated herself to something more relaxing after the procedure, as she has been sharing snaps from a juice retreat in Portugal

Vicky paired the raunchy top with matching bikini bottoms, which rode high up on her hips to put her slender pins on full display.

The reality TV star swept back her luscious brunette tresses into a sleek bun as elegant circle shades concealed her eyes.

Vicky opted for a fresh-faced glow with minimal make-up as she threw a sultry pose while kneeling on the sun-kissed boat.

The I'm A Celebrity star looked in great spirits for the snap, but revealed in the caption that she had been 'struggling' with the third day of the juice cleanse - known as 'toxic tuesday'

Poolside poser: Vicky Pattison showed off the fruits of her labour as she soaked up the sun poolside at the Jason Vale Juicy Oasis Health Retreat & Spa in Portugal on Monday morning

Vicky elaborated: 'Struggling a little as it's what's known as toxic Tuesday on camp- the day all you toxins etc leave your body and make you feel a bit cranky and down- almost like a detox.

'So me and @raywooldridge went for a wander and cheered ourselves up with an impromptu photo shoot on @jasonvale's boat!! Hope you don't mind buddy...'

The sizzling snap comes a day after Vicky showed off the fruits of her labour as she soaked up the sun poolside for another bikini snap on Monday.

Plenty to smile about: The reality star put her toned curves on display as she slipped into a scanty scarlet bikini after arriving at the wellness camp on Sunday

The TV personality stretched out her slender pins as she bathed in the glorious sunshine, with her incredible physique taking centre stage next to the glistening water.

The Jungle Queen looked composed but poked fun at herself as she revealed she soon fell off the side of the pool moments after taking the saucy snap.

In her caption, Vicky joked: Morning from @juicemasterretreats. Ps I fell off after I took this picture (k***)'

Making plans: Vicky's poolside snaps comes after she revealed she can hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet a lot closer than before as she got very candid about her plans for a baby

The reality TV star shared a smiling selfie in the same crimson bikini from the luxury pool when she arrived in Portugal on Sunday.

With her glossy chocolate tresses pulled back into a messy ponytail, Vicky looked in fantastic spirits as she prepared to kick-start her journey at the health spa.

The star's poolside snaps comes after she revealed she can hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet a lot closer than before as she got very candid about her plans for a baby once she's made it down the aisle with fiance John Noble.

Family planning: The star's poolside snaps comes after she revealed she can hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet a lot closer than before as she got very candid about her plans for a baby

In an interview with Now magazine, she admitted she feared being left behind while her friends all had children, but confessed that her businessman beau is actually 'broodier' than she is.

Vicky spoke about her close relationship with former TOWIE star Ferne McCann, 28, and how her adorable daughter Sunday, nine months, has left fiance John desperate to kick start their own brood.

Of her plans for babies, Vicky told the publication: 'Before I met John, I was scared I was being left behind! Now I have him, I know babies aren't far off.'

Discussing her plans for a family, the reality TV star continued: 'There's a running joke between my friends that John's probably broodier than me. If I leave him for five minutes, I'll come back and he'll have a picture with a kid'.

But despite the excitement surrounding baby plans, Vicky said she's still happy to wait until after their 2019 nuptials.

Vicky added: 'We'll get married next year, enjoy a couple of years in that stage, and then we'll embrace the next one.'

The couple had previously postponed the special day in January as they didn't want to rush into married life, but Vicky recently revealed that plans are in full swing with a goal of tying the knot next summer.
WHAT NEXT FOR THE PRIME MINISTER?

* The prime minister says if a letter being circulated among the Liberal Party calling for a party room meeting to settle the party's leadership fight reaches 43 signatures, he will call the meeting for midday on Friday.

* Mr Turnbull is also awaiting feedback from the Solicitor-General on the eligibility of leadership rival Peter Dutton to sit in the parliament, which is due early on Friday morning.

* If a Liberal Party meeting goes ahead on Friday, Mr Turnbull will invite a spill motion and if is it carried by the party, he will not attempt to be returned as leader.

* He will also leave parliament if he loses the leadership.

* It is not yet clear whether Mr Turnbull would step down immediately or at the next election, but the latter seems more likely. The prime minister believes the Australian public would be "crying out for an election" if the Liberal Party gets a new leader.

* Should Mr Turnbull stick around, he would face the difficult task of rebuilding bridges with Liberal MPs who oppose his leadership, including ministers Mathias Cormann, Mitch Fifield and Michaelia Cash.

* The leadership fight is playing out as the House of Representatives remains adjourned by the government. It will not return until September 10.

* The PM is scheduled to head to South-East Asia next week for trade and security talks.
Police have charged a fourth person in relation to the death of Brisbane teenager Larissa Beilby, whose body was found in a barrel in the back of a ute on the Gold Coast.

A 32-year-old Mountain Creek man was charged on Monday with being an accessory after the fact to the 16-year-old's murder, as well as other property and drug charges.

Two others have already been charged with being an accessory after her death, while 34-year-old Zlatko Sikorsky was charged with her murder in June.
Australia's first female Muslim senator has lashed politicians for fanning the flames of division, a week after a "racist" speech targeted her religion in parliament.

Pakistan-born Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi on Tuesday made her first speech to federal parliament, following Katter's Australian Party's Fraser Anning controversial address last week.

Senator Anning called for a ban on Muslim migration and praised the White Australia policy in a widely condemned speech which united parliamentarians against his views.

Senator Faruqi said it was good politicians condemned the "blatant racism", but couldn't be allowed to use the public solidarity to cover their role in fanning racial division.

"Political leaders, in addition to their old habit of racist dog-whistling, are now comfortable outright fanning the flames of racial conflict," Senator Faruqi told parliament.

"You can't condemn racism and then use dog-whistling and race-baiting as an electoral tactic."

Senator Faruqi spoke of receiving thousands of racist and sexist messages, as well as death threats levelled at her son Osman.

She took aim at the people who want her to "F off back to where I came from" with an Urdu phrase.

"Sorry, not sorry. This is my home and I'm not going anywhere," Senator Faruqi translated it as meaning.

Media and politicians encourage and normalise racism, she said, pointing to neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell's appearance on Sky News and the treatment of Melbourne's Sudanese population.

Senator Faruqi, who spent five years in the NSW upper house from 2013, replaced factional rival Lee Rhiannon in federal parliament.

She spoke of her pride in becoming the 100th woman to sit in the Senate before listing a range of the Greens' core issues including climate change, animal welfare and indigenous rights.

"It is people, not parliaments, who will lead the way in sparking our political imagination and creating radical change," Senator Faruqi said.

"We can build a future for each and every one of us. No matter where we come from. No matter the colour of our skin, our religion, our gender or sexuality, our bank balance or our postcode."
Water-bombing aircraft battling a bushfire in northern NSW were grounded after an "idiot" flew a drone over the blaze, authorities say.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is investigating after the drone took to the skies near the Mothersoles Road bushfire at Ellangowan on Saturday.

Aircraft were grounded as a result despite the blaze continuing to rage out of control.

"We will not risk our pilots' lives due to someone else's stupidity," the NSW Rural Fire Service's North Casino brigade posted on Facebook at the time.

"Actions such as these stop us from being able to assist those in need."

The drone was being flown by a local media outlet, News Corp Australia has reported.

The fire by Tuesday had burned through 3,159 hectares of bushland. It remains at advice level.

Saturday's "urgent request" to clear the skies came a day after firefighting pilot Allan Tull died in a helicopter crash while battling a bushfire in the state's south. It's thought his water bucket got caught in trees and pulled down the chopper.

CASA says it's extremely dangerous to fly drones during bushfires because firefighting aircraft are operating at low altitudes in difficult conditions.

"A pilot is unlikely to see a drone and a collision could be catastrophic," spokesman Peter Gibson told AAP in a statement.

Emergency authorities sometimes use drones but the general public should stay well away from any fireground with their craft.

"Don't be a drongo with your drone," Mr Gibson said on Tuesday noting it was "irresponsible and plain idiotic" to fly near an emergency.

Local police say the drone flight on Saturday is being investigated.

Meanwhile, a fifth teenager has been charged over a fire in the Blue Mountains which was lit near bushland during a total fire ban.

That takes to seven the total number of people who've been charged with deliberately lighting fires since the middle of last week.

Three homes and more than 20 buildings have been destroyed across the state.
A Sydney marine biologist and professor, struck and killed by a garbage truck on Monday, has been remembered for her "lifelong passion" - the science of sea life.

Emergency services were called to Claremont Crescent, Windsor just after 5pm on Monday.

Rosalind Hinde had been struck by a garbage truck and died at the scene.

On Tuesday her colleagues remembered her as an "active collaborator" and "leader" of research in her field.

Ms Hinde rose to become an associate professor at the University of Sydney in her three-decade academic career, the university said in a statement on Tuesday.

She researched aphids, corals, algae and sponges and regularly published her findings in leading journals.

From 2005 until her retirement in 2008 she headed up the school of biological sciences.

The university's dean of science, Ian Young, extended his heartfelt sympathies to Ms Hinde's family.

"Although I never met her, it is clear she had a lifelong passion for marine sciences," he said.

"She published numerous journal papers on this subject and continued to deliver lectures in marine biology after her retirement."

Meanwhile, police have raided the truck's depot issuing defect notices.

On Tuesday morning, they visited the waste management company in Sydney's west to conduct an inspection.

Seven defect notices were issued for a range of maintenance issues and one vehicle was hit with a "red label" major defect notice.
Education experts are set to launch a 10-year policy vision for the sector, calling for major reforms including a minister for early childhood education.

Trade union United Voice will reveal the "Big Steps" policy plan in Canberra on Wednesday.

Among the 10 reforms is equal pay for educators, an investment of one per cent of gross domestic product toward early childhood education, and a minister for early childhood education, health and welfare.

Director of the Mitchell Institute at Victoria University, Megan O'Connell will address early childhood education leaders at the launch.

Ms O'Connell says the sector needs qualified workers, after an interim Senate committee report released this month recommended otherwise.

The report, which looked into reducing red tape in child care, suggests formal qualifications for child care are not the only prerequisite to providing high quality care.

"As this can also be provided by parents," the recommendation says.

Ms O'Connell says the sector was one of the least understood and worst supported areas of education.

"There is no way anyone would question whether school teachers need qualifications to ensure children get a good education," she said in a statement.

"And we know that early childhood education is at least as important as school, so this suggestion is just unbelievable."
The federal Agriculture Department has cancelled the livestock export licence of Emanuel Exports, saying the action is in the industry's best interests.

The department suspended Emanuel Exports' licence in June after revelations of thousands of animal deaths in sweltering conditions.

The decision to cancel the company's licence followed "a thorough investigation and show cause process", the department said in a statement late on Tuesday.

"The department has made this decision in accordance with the requirements of the Australian Meat and Livestock Industry Act 1997, and has taken action against this company in the best interests of the industry and for the protection of Australia's high standards of animal welfare and health," the statement said.

It added that it was the responsibility of each exporter to meet the legal requirements governing livestock exportation, including to provide accurate information to the regulator.

Failure to do so undermines the legislative regime and compromises the industry's ability to export livestock in a way that ensures livestock health and welfare, the statement said.

"Cancellation of licence is a serious step and is not one taken lightly. The department is satisfied that this the most appropriate response."

The statement also said the Agriculture Department is implementing a series of changes to improve the sustainability of the trade, with "improved animal welfare outcomes".

The changes include recommendations from a review of conditions for sheep export to the Middle East during the northern hemisphere summer.
Guterres welcomed the inter-Korean family reunions that began on Monday, the first held in three years which follows a diplomatic thaw on the peninsula

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday said he planned to discuss ways to encourage denuclearization of the Korean peninsula during next month's gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

Guterres welcomed the inter-Korean family reunions that began on Monday, the first held in three years which follows a diplomatic thaw on the peninsula.

The UN chief "hopes that such reunion events will become routine," said a statement from his spokesman, welcoming "efforts by both Koreas to continue their engagement and to take steps to build confidence and trust."

Guterres said he "looks forward to discussing how he can further support the parties in their diplomatic efforts to bring sustainable peace, security, and complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula during the upcoming high-level week of the United Nations General Assembly."

President Donald Trump is set to attend the gathering of world leaders at UN headquarters in New York beginning September 26 as will South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho.
Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping made the remarks during a reception for Tran Quoc Vuong, Politburo member and permanent member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee, in Beijing, China, on August 20.

The Chinese leader said he hopes that the two sides will continue to increase the exchange of high-level delegations, intensify mutual political trust, enhance strategic connectivity and promote humanitarian exchanges, thus developing the relationship between the two Parties and nations stably and healthily in the coming time.

The continuous nurture and consolidation of the neighbourliness and friendship between the two Parties and countries is of strategic significance to each side, Party General Secretary and President Xi said.

He noted with pleasure the great reform achievements the Vietnamese Party, State, and people have recorded during the reform process, voicing his belief that the Vietnamese people, under the leadership of the CPV, would successfully complete the targets and tasks set in the 12th National Party Congresss Resolution.

For his part, Politburo member Vuong congratulated the Chinese Party, State, and people on the successful organisation of the 19th National Party Congress and the first sessions of the 13th National Peoples Congress and the 13th National Committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference.

The official expressed his belief that under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Xi as the core, the Chinese people would firmly reap greater achievements in the cause of socialist building and reform.

He held that the active progress has been made in relations between the two Parties and nations across many fields, noting the first-ever exchange of visits by their top leaders in the same year in 2017.

Vietnam highly evaluated Party General Secretary and President Xis selection of Vietnam as the first country he paid a State visit to, as well as his attendance at the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Vietnams central Da Nang city right after the 19th National Party Congress, Politburo member Vuong said.

He called on the two sides to effectively realise the perceptions reached by senior leaders of the two Parties and countries, while continuing to strengthen political trust, improving the efficiency of existing cooperation mechanisms, properly handling maritime issues, maintaining the development trend of bilateral ties, and ensuring peace and stability in the region.

Also on August 20, Politburo member Vuong held talks with Wang Huning, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee.

They briefed each other on the situation of their respective Parties and countries, and reviewed some of the past achievements and shortcomings in Vietnam-China relations.

The two officials also discussed measures to fully and seriously implement agreements and common perceptions reached by senior leaders of the two Parties and nations, and to satisfactorily settle sea-related issues, thus improving the efficiency of practical and mutually-beneficial cooperation in different fields.

During his five-day visit, starting on August 19, Vuong had working sessions with several agencies under the CPC Central Committee on issues of mutual concern, and visited the Vietnamese Embassy in China.
(FILES) This file photo taken on April 29, 2018 shows the Google logo displayed on a screen and reflected on a tablet in Paris. A US lawsuit accuses Google of invading people's privacy by tracking smartphones users despite "location history" settings being turned off

A lawsuit filed in federal court here accuses Google of invading people's privacy by tracking the whereabouts of smartphones users despite "location history" settings being turned off.

The suit filed Friday by a California man seeks unspecified damages along with class-action status to represent all US iPhone or Android smartphone users who turned off location history in order not to have their movements logged by Google.

"Google expressly represented to users of its operating system and apps that the activation of certain settings will prevent the tracking of users geolocations," the lawsuit read.

"This representation was false."

The suit accuses Google of violating privacy law, and cites a news report last week confirmed by university researchers.

Google did not respond to a request for comment.

After the report, Alphabet-owned Google modified its support page to read that turning off location history off "does not affect other location services on your device, like Google Location Services and Find My Device."

Location data may also be tracked for use in other services such as maps or search, the support page indicated.

The page had previously indicated that turning location history off meant places visited were not stored by Google.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a non-profit public interest group, said it has sent a letter to the US Federal Trade Commission to look into whether Google has violated a 2011 consent order.

"Google's subsequent changes to its policy, after it has already obtained location data on Internet users, fails to comply with the 2011 order," Epic quoted its letter as stating.
Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, left, was forced to shelve plans to embed carbon emissions targets in law after a revolt by fellow Liberal politicians Monday

Embattled Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull narrowly survived a leadership challenge from within his own party Tuesday as discontent with his rule boiled over less than a year before national elections.

Turnbull, considered a moderate, declared his position vacant at a Liberal party meeting to force the issue after rampant speculation that the more hardline Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton wanted his job, with the government consistently trailing the Labor opposition in opinion polls.

The disunity came to a head on Monday when Turnbull was forced to shelve plans to embed carbon emissions targets in law after a revolt by fellow Liberal politicians.

Party whip Nola Marino told reporters Dutton challenged but Turnbull won 48-35.

"The result of that ballot was Malcolm Turnbull was elected leader of the Liberal Party by a margin of 48-35, with Peter Dutton as the other candidate," she said.

There was also an election for deputy leader. The incumbent, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, was the only one who threw her hat in the ring and she held onto the role.

Asked what Turnbull said after winning, Marino replied the prime minister "thanked his colleagues for their support and will get on with the business now of governing in the interests of all Australians".

On Monday Turnbull had declared he had Dutton's "full support".

After losing Dutton, a former police officer who ran a powerful department that oversees the country's domestic spy service, border force and national police, quit and moved to the backbench.

John Hewson, a former leader of the Liberal party who is now with the Australian National University's school of public policy, said Turnbull was wounded and another challenge was likely within weeks.

"This was a trial run and I expect them (Dutton and supporters) to do it again in September," he told AFP, adding that it was all about "revenge and ego".

He pinpointed former prime minister Tony Abbott, who Turnbull ousted in a 2015 party room coup, as a key player behind the move.

"Abbott wants to get even and Turnbull is now in the tightest of positions. He must stand up for his key polices in the national interest and get out there and argue the case.

"When he was elected people expected him to stand up for something, but all he has done with major policies is kick them down the road," he added.

- Vocal critic -

It is the latest chapter in a turbulent period for Australian politics.

Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted by his deputy Julia Gillard in 2010. He later returned the favour and stormed back to power in 2013 shortly before losing the election to Abbott's Liberal/National coalition.

Abbott was then unseated by Turnbull. He is now a vocal backbencher and critic of his successor.

Abbott was in charge when Canberra agreed to cut emissions by 26 percent by 2030 as part of the so-called Paris Agreement. But he has since railed against the commitment he made.

He argued it should not be enshrined in law as part of the government's new energy policy, known as the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), with consumers facing soaring electricity prices.

Several right-wingers allied to Abbott had threatened to vote with the opposition to block the NEG, and with the government only having a wafer-thin parliamentary majority, it was doomed in its current form. Turnbull caved in, triggering the leadership ballot.

Disquiet with Turnbull has been building in recent months, with the government trailing Labor in 38 consecutive opinion polls.

The latest on Monday showed it lagging even further behind -- 45 to 55 percent on a two-party basis -- with national elections due by the middle of next year.
Cameroon opposition leader Joshua Osih, who will run in October's presidential election, says people want 'clear, simple and bold answers' to the ongoing separatist crisis

Cameroon's opposition leader, who will run for president in October's elections, has pointed the finger squarely at President Paul Biya for the mounting bloodshed in the country's separatist crisis.

"If the president of the republic, commander in chief of the armed forces, sends his troops to fire on Cameroonians, then he is solely responsible," Joshua Osih told AFP in the Atlantic port city of Douala.

Osih hails from the English-speaking west of the mostly Francophone country, where a political crisis which erupted in 2016 has led to armed separatist activity and a crackdown by the security forces.

Dozens of people have been killed, including at least 80 soldiers and police officers, and about 200,000 people have been forced to flee their homes.

Running as a candidate for Cameroon's Social Democratic Front (SDF), Osih was named as the party's representative in February after founder John Fru Ndi, 77, said he would not challenge Biya but instead pass the torch to a younger activist.

At 85, Biya has ruled this central African country for 35 years through his Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (RDPC) with his regime periodically facing blistering reports of corruption.

Seven other candidates are running against Biya in the October 7 election, but unlike some, Osih says he opposes any investigation of alleged human rights violations by troops against civilians in the Anglophone North-West and South-West regions.

"There's a political responsibility that is by far superior to the responsibility of simple soldiers," this 49-year-old member of parliament and business told AFP at the SDF headquarters.

- Biya 'understands nothing' -

"You can't shift the problem on to individuals on the ground while the whole (military) corps had no reason to be there. I don't want to see the whole of this army discredited because the commander in chief sent the army to fight a war that is not its own.

"Responsibility for the violence in the so-called 'Anglophone' crisis lies with Mr Biya," said Osih, who comes from the South-West anglophone region.

Cameroon's President Paul Biya has ruled the country for 35 years and shows no sign of giving up

"We have a president who understands nothing about what's going on in Cameroon, who spends the best part of his time abroad and who thinks that sending in the army ... will sort out this problem.

"It can't. You can kill people but you cannot kill ideas."

He said the absence of political leadership over the separatist issue had caused the situation to escalate.

"We have entered a civil war because the government is absent, we have no leadership, no president of the republic. Nature abhors a vacuum, so the situation flared up very quickly and the spiral of violence gained the upper hand," he said.

He said Biya should have travelled to the flashpoint areas to get "a close first-hand view of local realities" which could have kick-started the process of resolving the issues.

"The only way out so far has been to declare war against one's own people," he told AFP, saying some within the regime and the military were profiting from the "war economy".

"That's why we're stuck in this spiral of violence."

- Back to a federal state? -

If Biya believes the army can settle the issue, "it means he recognises either that he doesn't really govern the country, or that he still doesn't grasp that it's a political problem that calls for a political response," Osih said.

"The major institutional reform required to bring the beginnings of a solution to this crisis is federalism."

In the decade which followed independence in 1960, Cameroon was more of loose-knit federation until 1972 when it was declared a unitary state. And today, Yaounde firmly rejects any return to federalism.

Within Cameroon, there is "a linguistic community that has a genuine historical gripe and rightly believes itself to be marginalised," he said of the Anglophones who account for around a fifth of the population.

A former German colony, the country was divided under French and British rule after World War I. The French protectorate became independent in 1960, while the minority English-speaking part followed suit in 1961.

"I don't think any Cameroonian would disagree with the political demands arising from the problem of marginalisation," Osih said, adding that Anglophone citizens "have had the courage to put the problem on the table".

"Cameroonians want clear, simple and bold answers to get out of this."
"The established rules of international conduct are repeatedly being flouted by major countries like Russia," Jeremy Hunt was to say in Washington, in his first major policy speech since succeeding Boris Johnson in July

New British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Tuesday will urge the United States and European countries to do more to call out Russia's "malign behavior" and keep Vladimir Putin in check, notably by implementing tough sanctions.

"The established rules of international conduct are repeatedly being flouted by major countries like Russia," Hunt was to say in Washington, in his first major policy speech since succeeding Boris Johnson in July.

"Such aggressive and malign behavior undermines the international order that keeps us safe," Hunt was to tell an audience at the US Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan think tank, according to excerpts provided by the Foreign Office.

"Of course we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt: Russia's foreign policy under President Putin has made the world a more dangerous place."

London has blamed the March poisoning in southwestern England of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia -- using a Soviet-made nerve agent -- on Moscow, plunging the two countries into a diplomatic crisis.

A number of Western countries have punished Moscow by expelling Russian diplomats in a coordinated manner. Some have gone further, with other punitive measures.

Those come on top on sanctions already in place over Russia's annexation of Crimea or Moscow's interference in foreign elections, notably in the 2016 presidential vote in the United States.

Hunt, who is to meet on Wednesday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, will ask London's allies to do more.

"Today, the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US," Hunt will say, according to the excerpts.

"That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea."

The administration of US President Donald Trump has been firm with Moscow, regularly announcing new sanctions over the Skripal case, but that message is sometimes muddied by American leader's willingness to improve ties with Putin.

At his July summit with the Russian leader in Helsinki, Donald Trump appeared to be rather conciliatory towards Vladimir Putin, shortly after raising hackles at a NATO summit in Brussels with his contrarian stance

At his July summit with the Russian leader in Helsinki, Trump appeared to be rather conciliatory towards his counterpart, shortly after raising hackles at a NATO summit in Brussels with his contrarian stance.

That earned the president widespread criticism at home, even angering many in his own Republican Party.

- Red lines -

For Hunt, NATO's "credibility" has taken a hit.

"Those who do not share our values need to know that there will always be a serious price to pay if red lines are crossed -- whether territorial incursions, the use of banned weapons or, increasingly, cyber attacks," he was to warn.

Hunt will also seek to carry a tough message to Europe on the subject of Brexit, warning that a no deal departure could threaten the continent's unity for a generation, according to his office.

"One of the biggest threats to European unity would be a chaotic no-deal Brexit," he was to say.

Hunt, who replaced Johnson last month amid discord over how London should handle Brexit, was to say Britain would manage -- "we have faced many greater challenges in our history" -- but the European Union would suffer a serious blow.

"The risk of a messy divorce... would be a fissure in relations between European allies that would take a generation to heal -- a geostrategic error for Europe at an extremely vulnerable time in our history," he was to say.

A deal on Britain's divorce from the bloc -- which both sides want to strike by late October, with an eye towards a formal separation on March 29, 2019 -- is still up in the air, with Brussels sticking to its red lines.
El Salvador's Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, left, and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi drink a toast during a signing ceremony to establish diplomatic relations, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing

China and El Salvador established diplomatic relations Tuesday as the Central American nation ditched Taiwan in yet another victory for Beijing in its campaign to isolate the island.

Beijing has been using its economic clout to peel away international support for the democratically-ruled island, leaving it with only 17 diplomatic allies around the world.

Speaking in Beijing at the Diaoyutai Guest House, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised El Salvador's decision to "recognise there is one China in the world".

"This further goes to show the One China policy is in line with international norms, is the correct choice... and is the basis of China's relation with any country," he said.

Salvadoran Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, after signing a document with Wang establishing relations, said his country had made a "strategic decision" and taken the "correct and beneficial path for the people of both nations".

The president of El Salvador, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, said in an address on national television Monday night: "We are convinced that this is a step in the right direction, which corresponds to the principles of international law, international relations and the inevitable trends of our day."

Diplomatic ties with Taiwan

The announcement in Beijing followed a decision by Taiwan to sever its ties with El Salvador after it learnt the country was planning on recognising Beijing.

"Losing (a) diplomatic ally is not an isolated incident. It is part of China's string of sabre rattling and intimidation," Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said at a press conference in Taipei.

The news came just after Tsai, who is trying to raise Taiwan's international profile, wrapped up a Latin American tour which included stops in the United States, which drew criticism from China. She visited allies Belize and Paraguay during the trip.

Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu said Taipei "will not engage in dollar diplomacy with China", adding that El Salvador had been asking for "huge funding" for a port development project, which Taiwan was unwilling to give because it would leave both countries in debt.

- 'No pre-conditions' -

El Salvador's move leaves Taiwan with a dwindling number of allies around the world as more countries switch recognition to China, which sees the self-ruling democratic island as a renegade part of its territory.

"El Salvador has made the choice to commit itself to one China with no pre-conditions, thus standing with most countries in the world," Wang said in comments that seemed intended to pre-empt Taiwanese accusations that China had bought the small Latin American nation's loyalty.

But, he added, the country "will get tangible gains from its partnership with China".

Tsai said this was a clear sign of China's continuing pressure, and had moved beyond being just a cross-strait issue.

"China's intention in the Asian region (is evident), especially to challenge or even replace (the) international order led by traditional powers," Tsai said.

"China intends to highlight its influence and power in the region through intensifying pressure on Taiwan."

Relations between Taipei and Beijing have worsened since Tsai came to power as her government refuses to acknowledge that Taiwan is part of "one China".

Speaking in Taipei, foreign minister Joseph Wu, right, condemned China's "crude actions"

China has stepped up its poaching of Taiwan's allies since Tsai became leader in 2016.

El Salvador is the fifth diplomatic loss under her presidency and the third this year, following Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic.

The small African nation of Sao Tome switched recognition to Beijing in late 2016, followed by Panama in June last year.

Taiwan and China have been engaged for years in a diplomatic tug-of-war in developing countries. Economic support and other aid are often used as bargaining chips for diplomatic recognition.

Tsai's government is trying to enhance Taiwan's international profile but faces a concerted attempt by Beijing to shrink its space on global platforms.

Beijing has stepped up pressure on her government by blocking Taiwan from attending a growing list of international events and staging a string of military drills around the island.

burs-el/lth/fa
Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic

Turkey is ramping up pressure worldwide to shut down schools close to a network that it accuses of terrorism.

But it is facing unusual resistance in the Central African Republic (CAR), one of the poorest and most vulnerable countries in the world.

The Galaxy school, in the capital Bangui, is close to Hizmet, the group run by US-based Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen, whose supporters say he promotes a progressive form of Islam.

But Turkey blames Gulen for the attempted coup in 2016 against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It has vowed to root out his influence, at home and abroad.

Its intelligence agency MIT has staged several operations, whose nature remains mysterious, to "bring back" suspects as far afield as Kosovo, Ukraine and Gabon, where three Turks working in education were apprehended in April.

"We will never allow these vile people to walk freely," Erdogan said after the Gabon operation.

As a result, the Turkish headmaster of the Galaxy school is living as a fugitive and an exile.

"On July 15, 2016, they named me personally as belonging to the Gulen movement," said the headmaster during a tour of the premises, who asked to be identified by the pseudonym "Emre" to avoid any repercussions for his family back home.

"We're accused of being a terrorist group when what we are doing is education and humanitarian work," he said.

The school boasts equipment worthy of a well-funded facility in Europe -- a modern digital smart board and a video projector, as well as a classroom devoted to information technology.

The school, which also has playing fields and a canteen, is private. And with fees just over 100 euros ($115) per month, it caters mostly to the upper classes.

The rate of pupils passing the high school exam stands at 83 percent, compared with a national average of 12 percent. The Islamic component in its curriculum is very small, although students can ask to have additional classes.

- 17 African nations closed schools -

Turkey's efforts have brought about the closure of such schools in at least 17 African countries -- which have either been nationalised or taken over by the Maarif foundation that is close to the authorities in Ankara.

Given CAR's vulnerability, the survival of the Galaxy school so far appears remarkable. The country has been ravaged by rival armed groups and bandit gangs since 2013, ranking last of the 188 countries in the UN's 2016 Human Development Index.

Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, exiled head of the Islamic social movement that promotes schools like the Galaxy in Bangui. Living in the Unted States, he firmly rejects "terrorist" allegations of being behind a 2016 coup bid in Turkey.

CAR's institutions of state are feeble and the country has the entrenched reputation of being a place where pretty much anything can be bought. It ranked 156th out of 180 countries in Transparency International's 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index.

For one staff member at the school, "the Central Africans have upheld their dignity", in being a country that has not ceded to Turkish pressure.

Jean Serge Bokassa, a former minister of security and territorial administration, said Turkish diplomats visited him in March last year, dangling a mixture of "verbal intimidation and promises" if he conceded to Ankara's demands.

A second minister said he too was approached and offered "presents" and trips to Turkey.

"I told them, 'If you want to help us, build an establishment instead of closing one down'," that minister said.

"They said that if I accepted, I wouldn't regret it."

- No diplomatic ties -

The school's survival "is above all because there is no Turkish embassy in the country, with few economic and diplomatic ties," according to an expert in the case.

"Moreover, the management of the school has very good relations with the government -- the deputy director is the prime minister's wife -- and the academic level is very high."

Although Bokassa says he is a political foe of President Faustin-Archange Touadera, he commends him for standing firm against Ankara.

"For the moment, I'm delighted that the president has conceded nothing."
Hwang In-cheol was only two years old when his father was kidnapped to North Korea in 1969

As a lucky few Korean families meet decades after being divided by war, Hwang In-cheol looks on lamenting the absence of his father, whose plane was hijacked by the North.

Hwang was only two when his father Won left for a business trip in 1969, never to return. Now 50, he has spent his life missing a man he only knows from pictures.

Scores of elderly North and South Koreans who were separated by the 1950-53 conflict met for the first time in decades on Monday, hugging each other tearfully.

But none of them was among the thousands of South Koreans Seoul says were kidnapped by the North after the war.

"The sight of the families reuniting looks very nice but these one-time reunions are not a solution to the problem," Hwang said.

"I hope that day for me comes soon. I'm hoping that my father will be alive until then."

His father was on a domestic Korean Air flight hijacked by a North Korean spy with 47 passengers and four crew members on board.

Months later 39 people were repatriated, not including Won, a producer for South Korean broadcaster MBC.

Returning passengers said he was dragged away after resisting efforts to indoctrinate them and questioning the North's ideology.

- 'Heartbroken' -

Hwang's only knowledge of his father is from photos and the stories told by relatives.

His mother told him that he was working in the US and would return on Christmas Day.

"I always waited for Christmas but he never came," said Hwang, who concluded his father had left them.

"I thought he didn't like us. I remember being heartbroken."

When he turned nine, his uncles told him the truth.

Hwang expected never to see his father again, but in 2000 the two Koreas agreed to include South Korean abductees at reunions for families separated by the war.

Hwang In-cheol only knows his father from old photographs and the stories that his relatives tell

His hopes were fuelled when one of the stewardesses on the flight, Seong Kyung-hee, met her mother at the 2001 event, and his longing intensified when his own daughter reached the age he had last seen his father.

"The thought of being stripped away from my daughter was just so painful," he said. "I could feel how painful it must have been for my father."

But five years later the Red Cross informed him the North had said it was "unable to confirm" whether his father was alive or dead.

Pyongyang almost never admits it has seized South Korean citizens, putting an extra hurdle in the way of reunions between abductees and family members.

According to Seoul government figures, nearly 4,000 South Koreans were kidnapped by the North after the end of the 1950-53 conflict -- some never returned from a stroll on the beach, while others were on board fishing boats that vanished.

The South's unification ministry estimates around 516 remain in the North, but so far only 19 have been briefly reunited with their families at previous events.

The issue is not prominent in the South, unlike Japan, where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe regularly demands resolution of the fate of a handful of missing Japanese -- although Pyongyang released what it said were the five survivors in 2002, and said eight others it admitting kidnapping had all died.

"For us, meeting our family is as hard as plucking a star from the sky," Hwang said.

- Time running out -

Hwang has given up hope of a meeting at the official reunions, and devoted himself to a solitary search for his father, eventually losing his job at a publishing company.

"My body and my mind were focused solely on my father," he said.

His father is still alive, he has been told by a broker, who was able to provide details of family history that only an insider would have known.

But he has not been given pictures or had direct contact, and a 2013 plan to bring the older man to China came to nothing.

Hwang now works odd jobs on construction sites to support his family, but says there is not enough reason for him to give up.

"I made a list of why I should and should not continue," he said. "The only reasons I had for giving up was that it was difficult."

Even so, his father turns 81 this year and he knows he is running out of time.

"I only know my father from photos and I want to feel his presence myself," Hwang said.

He beamed as he held up a black and white picture of his dad next to his own face, taking off his glasses and imitating his facial expression.

"I look even more like him now," he said.

"It's simple for me. I just want to call him 'Dad'."
Car bombings, roadside explosives and gunfire have targeted and killed more than 200 fighters, but have also cost the lives of dozens of civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says

Targeted killings and kidnappings for ransom have for months rattled Syria's Idlib province, with angry residents blaming dominant rebel and jihadist forces for the chaos.

Even as the regime says it aims to retake the northwestern province on Turkey's border, its inhabitants are falling victim to infighting between the rival groups controlling most of it.

Car bombings, roadside explosives and gunfire have targeted and killed more than 200 fighters, but have also cost the lives of dozens of civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

These mostly unclaimed killings, as well as increasingly frequent abductions, have left inhabitants in constant fear of being caught up in the violence.

"Every time I want to take my car somewhere, I inspect it thoroughly... to make sure there's no explosive device planted in it," a media activist in southern Idlib told AFP.

"Whenever I drive by a dustbin, I accelerate, afraid it's going to blow up," he said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.

At the mosque on Fridays, he sits at the front of the congregation, as far away as possible from the entrance, in case a car or motorbike blows up outside.

Since April, 270 people -- including 55 civilians -- have been killed in assassinations of rebels and commanders from all sides in Idlib, and adjacent parts of Hama and Aleppo provinces, the Britain-based Observatory says.

Activists and analysts blame most of the violence on two rival umbrella groups, also attributing some to the Islamic State (IS) group and alleged regime collaborators.

- Abducted doctors -

The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) alliance, which is led by jihadists from Al-Qaeda's former Syrian affiliate, controls more than 60 percent of Idlib.

Part of the rest is held by the National Liberation Front, a rival umbrella group backed by Turkey, while IS also has sleeper cells in the area.

The regime holds the southeastern tip of the province that is home to some 2.5 million people -- more than half displaced by Syria's seven-year war or bussed into Idlib under surrender deals.

As the rampant insecurity in opposition areas reaches all walks of life, residents have grown increasingly angry.

The media activist from southern Idlib said he mostly blamed the dominant force of HTS for the chaos.

"As the most powerful force on the ground, it is responsible for guaranteeing security," the activist said.

Medical staff in the HTS-held provincial capital have also had enough.

In June, doctors and pharmacists in Idlib city announced a three-day strike to protest against "chaos and a lack of security", including the kidnapping of doctors for ransom.

In one of the latest incidents, on August 7, masked men abducted Khalil Agha, a hospital director in the southwest of the province, district spokesman Mahmud al-Sheikh told AFP.

He was only released a week later after payment of a $100,000 ransom, Sheikh said.

A second activist told AFP that, in the street, residents changed their route if they saw men with scarves wrapped around their faces, fearing an attack.

- 'Revolt' -

In recent weeks, HTS as well as other rebels have arrested not only alleged IS members, but also dozens of people accused of collusion with the regime.

Rebels fear loyalists could help broker a surrender deal, but HTS official Khaled al-Ali also accused government forces of helping to foment instability.

"The regime has cells working to destabilise Idlib to have a pretext for a military operation," he said.

President Bashar al-Assad on July 26 said regaining control of Idlib was a priority.

But analysts say any offensive is likely to be limited to Idlib's peripheries, to allow Turkey and regime ally Russia to eke out a deal for the rest of the province.

A report for the Turkey-based Omran Centre for Strategic Studies said the chaos was due to "competition between a flurry of local forces", as well as IS and regime sleeper cells.

The instability was affecting the popularity of all rebels, the report's author Nawar Oliver told AFP, especially HTS.

"Many areas in Idlib hate HTS and are ready to revolt against them at any time," said the analyst.

Popular anger "could help the regime if it tried to take back the province", Oliver said.

But discontent over the violence could also "make civilians more favourable to an alternative" put forward by Ankara and Moscow, he said.
Pilgrims seek the blessing of Idriss I, a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed who founded Morocco's first Islamic dynasty, by placing a hand on his tomb or kissing it

It's dubbed the "pilgrimage of the poor" -- every summer, tens of thousands of people flood this small central Moroccan town to honour a Sufi saint buried here 12 centuries ago.

Moulay Driss Zerhoun, nestled between two hills covered in olive groves, is where Idriss I, a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed who founded Morocco's first Islamic dynasty, was laid to rest in the late eighth century.

In the main square, pilgrims grouped in "brotherhoods" from a host of countries walk in a procession to mark the start of the "moussem" (season), an annual homage that lasts for over a month.

For many Moroccans it is an alternative to the major Muslim hajj pilgrimage to holy sites in Saudi Arabia.

"Those who can't afford to travel to Mecca come here to pray at the grave," says Fatmi Chbihi, who belongs to a town committee made up of descendants of Idriss I.

The faithful walk towards the green-tiled sanctuary, reciting Koranic verses with hand on heart.

Posters advertising the event are plastered across the town, while whitewashed buildings house modest shops selling candles as offerings to the saint.

Hailing from Sale, a town near Rabat and about three hours away by car, a pilgrim wearing a red fez who gave his name only as Zakaria said he has been coming for 16 years.

Koranic inscriptions adorn the ceramic walls of the ornate shrine, while a grand copper chandelier hangs near the top of the tomb covered in gilded silk fabric

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," Zakaria, who is in his 40s, told AFP, adding that the pilgrimage gives him a "sense of spiritual renewal".

- Developing 'spiritual tourism' -

Sufism, a mystical strand of Islam with hundreds of millions of followers, breaks with Salafism, Wahhabism and other austere interpretations of Sunni Islam that view the reverence of saints as heresy.

Sufism, a mystical strand of Islam with millions of followers, breaks with Salafism, Wahhabism and other austere interpretations of Sunni Islam that view the reverence of saints as heresy

It advocates inner transformation, encouraging self-knowledge as a path to the understanding of others and God.

Sufism is especially popular in Morocco, which sees itself as protecting an "Islam of the middle ground".

"The Islam practised in Morocco is... open and free of all fundamentalism," said Chbihi, dressed in an immaculate white robe.

"The brothers play a significant role in promoting this moderate Islam," he added.

A picture of King Mohammed VI hangs at the entrance in front of a white arch of Moorish-Arab inspiration.

Morocco's monarch -- the "commander of the believers" -- paid pilgrimage here after he was enthroned, as did his father Hassan II.

A sign reminds people that the site is forbidden to non-Muslims, like all of Morocco's mosques and religious sanctuaries.

Worshippers pass beneath a wooden beam that serves as a barrier and crowd in front of the tomb.

A marble commemorative plaque details the history of the mausoleum as far back as the 18th century.

Koranic inscriptions adorn the ceramic walls, while a giant copper chandelier hangs over the tomb.

Pilgrims kiss or place a hand on the gilded silk fabric covering the tomb when they seek the saint's blessing.

Dwarfing the town's population of 12,000, the annual wave of pilgrims "reinvigorates the local economy", says guesthouse owner Zakia El Hanaoui

As night falls, the brotherhoods of pilgrims meet in private homes, taking part in ceremonies full of mystical songs and divine pleas.

Dwarfing the town's population of 12,000, the annual wave of pilgrims "reinvigorates the local economy", says guesthouse owner Zakia El Hanaoui.

But much more than that, the festivities mirror a "serenity that reigns in the town", helping to develop a "spiritual tourism", he adds.
A series of deadly quakes have killed hundreds on Indonesia's Lombok island in recent weeks

Indonesian aid agencies and officials rushed Tuesday to help survivors after the third quake disaster in less than a month on Lombok island, where some 500 people have died and hundreds of thousands are homeless.

The picturesque island next to holiday hotspot Bali was hit by two deadly quakes on July 29 and August 5. On Sunday it was shaken again by a string of fresh tremors and aftershocks, with the strongest measuring 6.9 magnitude.

At least 13 people were killed on Sunday on Lombok and the neighbouring island of Sumbawa, mostly by falling debris, according to the national disaster agency.

Aid agencies are concerned that food and water supplies may be insufficient for those affected by the quakes

Drone footage from the village of Sugian, on the hard-hit eastern part of Lombok, showed streets lined with rubble, caved-in roofs and a collapsed mosque.

Aid organisations have vowed to step up humanitarian assistance on the island as devastated residents struggle in makeshift displacement camps.

"We are focusing on the basics, provision of shelter materials -- tarpaulins, shelter kits, hygiene kits," said Tom Howells from Save the Children.

"We have shipped enough for about 20,000 people over the past two weeks," he told AFP.

No caption

Indonesia's disaster agency said it was also accelerating efforts to rebuild destroyed homes, hospitals and schools.

However, relief agencies fret that access to food, shelter and clean water is insufficient for some of the more than 430,000 displaced by the disaster.

"There has been damage to the water infrastructure, which is already quite poor in Lombok due to a lack of ground supply and drought conditions," Howells said.

- 'Cracking sound' -

Tens of thousands of homes, mosques and businesses across Lombok had already been destroyed by the 6.9-magnitude quake on August 5 that killed at least 481 people.

A week before that quake, a tremor surged through the island and killed 17.

Some 150 patients at a hospital in Lombok's capital Mataram were being treated in tents after they were taken out of the damaged building Sunday over safety fears.

"We heard a sound like the building was cracking and everyone panicked, so all the patients were taken outside," said Andre, a relative of a patient.

The hospital had already been damaged in the early August tremor.

Most people caught in the latest quake had been outside their homes or at shelters when it struck, a fact which limited casualties, authorities have said.

The quakes have left hundreds of thousands homeless on Lombok

Rebuilding costs are estimated to top seven trillion rupiah ($480 million).

However, the disaster agency said Tuesday that the quakes would not be labelled a national emergency, which would unlock the central government's four trillion-rupiah disaster relief fund.

While the idea was gaining support in some quarters, the agency's spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said it would "show weakness" from a country regularly hit by natural disasters.

"We want to show the world that we are capable in handling the quakes -- we are strong in responding to disasters," he told reporters in Jakarta.

Indonesia sits on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire", where tectonic plates collide and many of the world's volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.

The Australian and Eurasian plates, which sit under the archipelago, have been colliding and putting stress on key area fault lines, according to geologists.
Chairman of the VHFAs municipal chapter Le Minh Triet highlighted the time-honoured friendship and growing cooperation between the two countries, including those between Ho Chi Minh City and Hungarys Budapest capital.

He spoke of the role of the VHFA over the past years in connecting Vietnamese and Hungarian partners and closely working with the Hungarian Consulate General in HCM City to carry out numerous exchanges and cooperative and friendly activities between the two countries, and HCM City and Budapest in particular.

Hungarian Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City Baloghdi Tibor said after re-establishment in 2016, the Consulate General in the city has coordinated with Vietnamese partners to successfully organise activities in trade and investment promotion, cultural exchanges, music performances and art exhibitions.

The Consulate General will continue promoting various cooperative activities with Vietnamese partners in HCM City such as cultural exchange, music shows and cinematographic cooperation

HCM City and Budapest signed an agreement on increasing friendship and cooperation in 2015. Two years later, HCM Citys District 1 and Budapests District 11 set up friendly and cooperative relations. From this year, Hungary provides 200 scholarships for Vietnamese students, doubling that of 2017.


Iranians walk by a fighter jet at the Holy Defence Museum in the capital Tehran

Iran unveiled its first domestic fighter jet at a defence show in Tehran on Tuesday.

Images on state television showed President Hassan Rouhani sitting in the cockpit of the new "Kowsar" plane at the National Defence Industry exhibition.

It is a fourth-generation fighter, with "advanced avionics" and multi-purpose radar, the Tasnim news agency said, adding that it was "100-percent indigenously made".

State TV said the plane had already been through successful testing and showed it waiting on a runway for its first public display flight.

The plane was first publicly announced on Saturday by Defence Minister Amir Hatami, who had said it would be unveiled on Wednesday.

He gave few details of the project, focusing instead on Iran's efforts to upgrade its missile defences.

Hatami said the defence programme was motivated by memories of the missile attacks Iran suffered during its eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, and by repeated threats from Israel and the United States that "all options are on the table" in dealing with the Islamic republic.

"We have learned in the (Iran-Iraq) war that we cannot rely on anyone but ourselves. Our resources are limited and we are committed to establishing security at a minimum cost," he said in a televised interview.

The US has sold hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons to Iran's regional rivals, but has demanded that Tehran curb its defence programmes, and is in the process of reimposing crippling sanctions in a bid to force its capitulation.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un denounced his own country's health services as he toured visiting the Myohyangsan Medical Appliances Factory

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has denounced his own country's health services, state media reported Tuesday, criticising officials for being "very idle and irresponsible".

Impoverished and isolated North Korea, which is subject to multiple sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its pursuit of nuclear weapons, suffers from chronic food shortages and inadequate health services according to international aid agencies.

Hospitals lack medicines, equipment, and trained staff.

While Pyongyang regularly proclaims its desire to provide its people with a better life, Kim roundly condemned its health system on a visit to a medical devices factory.

Some sectors "have made remarkable leaps forward in recent years" Kim said according to the official Korean Central News Agency, "but the public health sector has never done so and become more and more passive".

"There is no unit keeping its environment well in the public health sector, to say nothing of equipment modernisation," he added at the Myohyangsan Medical Appliances Factory.

While Pyongyang regularly proclaims its desire to provide its people with a better life, Kim roundly condemned its health system on a visit to a medical devices factory

Such "field guidance" visits by the leader are the mainstay of the North's state media output, and a key part of the authorities' domestic messaging, sometimes lauding the quality of projects and sometimes criticising officials.

The ruling Workers' Party had stressed the need to improve health services, but "officials are very idle and irresponsible in doing so", Kim said according to KCNA.

In the Korean-language version, he berated them for "hibernating for a long time", adding: "Animals only hibernate once a year but the health sector has been holed up and hibernating for years and shouting empty slogans."

Since his summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June, Kim has stressed a focus on economic development, visiting industrial sites and factories across the nation.

In this year's "needs and priorities" assessment of North Korea, the UN Development Programme described its healthcare services as "inadequate", with a "lack of essential medical equipment, pharmaceutical remedies, appropriate referral systems, therapeutic equipment and assistive devices, as well as limited professional capacity".

"Furthermore, health infrastructure is poor with many [facilities] having inconsistent water, electricity and heating," it added.

North Korea has called for an end to sanctions against it, while the US has urged the international community to maintain a tough approach until its complete denuclearisation.

Following several ballistic missile launches and by far the North's most powerful nuclear test last year, Kim declared the development of its atomic capabilities complete and said economic development was the new priority.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's position has been seriously undermined by the leadership challenge

Embattled Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull pleaded for unity Tuesday after narrowly surviving a leadership challenge as discontent with his rule boiled over less than a year before national elections.

Turnbull, considered a moderate, declared his position vacant at a Liberal party meeting to force the issue after rampant speculation that the more hardline Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton wanted his job, with the government trailing the Labor opposition in opinion polls.

The disunity came to a head on Monday when Turnbull was forced to shelve plans to embed carbon emissions targets in law after a revolt by fellow Liberal politicians.

Turnbull won the ballot 48-35, but the episode seriously undermined his position.

"It is really important that we put these differences behind us and get on with our job of looking after the 25 million Australians who have put us here," he said afterwards.

"We know that disunity undermines the ability of any government to get its job done, and unity is absolutely critical."

Peter Dutton (standing) quit his ministerial role and headed to the backbench after the failed leadership challenge

There was also an election for deputy leader. The incumbent, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, was the only one who threw her hat in the ring and she held onto the role.

Dutton, a former police officer who ran a powerful department that oversees the country's domestic spy service, border force and national police, quit the cabinet and moved to the backbench.

Treasurer Scott Morrison will assume his job until a replacement is appointed.

John Hewson, a former leader of the Liberal party who is now with the Australian National University's school of public policy, said Turnbull was wounded and another challenge was likely within weeks.

"This was a trial run and I expect them (Dutton and supporters) to do it again in September," he told AFP, adding that it was all about "revenge and ego".

He pinpointed former prime minister Tony Abbott, who Turnbull ousted in a 2015 party room coup, as a key player behind the move.

"Abbott wants to get even and Turnbull is now in the tightest of positions. He must stand up for his key polices in the national interest and get out there and argue the case."

- Vocal critic -

Dutton refused to rule out another tilt at the top job, saying he made his move in the belief that he had the best chance of steering the party to an election victory.

"What is my next step, what is my job from here? My job is to make sure I can prosecute the sort of messages I spoke about and that is the only thing I am focussed on," he said.

It is the latest chapter in a turbulent period for Australian politics.

Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted by his deputy Julia Gillard in 2010. He later returned the favour and stormed back to power in 2013 shortly before losing the election to Abbott's Liberal/National coalition.

Abbott was then unseated by Turnbull and is now a vocal backbencher and critic of his successor.

Abbott was in charge when Canberra agreed to cut emissions by 26 percent by 2030 as part of the so-called Paris Agreement. But he has since railed against the commitment he made.

He argued it should not be enshrined in law as part of the government's new energy policy, known as the National Energy Guarantee, with consumers facing soaring electricity prices.

Several right-wingers allied to Abbott had threatened to vote with the opposition to block the NEG, and with the government only having a wafer-thin parliamentary majority, it was doomed in its current form. Turnbull caved in, triggering the leadership ballot.

Disquiet with Turnbull had been building for some time, with the government trailing Labor in 38 consecutive opinion polls.

The latest on Monday showed it lagging even further behind -- 45 to 55 percent on a two-party basis -- with national elections due by the middle of next year.
The attack, near the presidential palace in Kabul, was claimed by the Islamic State group

Militants rattled the Afghan capital Kabul Tuesday in an hours-long attack that saw parts of the city showered with mortar fire, sparking intense clashes with security forces who used air strikes to quell the assault.

The attack, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, was near the presidential palace as President Ashraf Ghani was addressing the nation on the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday, and came days after he offered the Taliban a conditional three-month ceasefire.

The clashes follow what has already been a bloody month in Afghanistan with the Taliban ramping up assaults on security forces across the country and IS targeting Kabul, with hundreds killed according to estimates.

Afghan police said the attackers launched up to 20 mortar rounds targeting four districts in central Kabul, after earlier statements claimed the militants were firing rockets.

During the battle, an Afghan army helicopter swooped in low near the Eidgah Mosque in central Kabul and fired on the militant position, sending a plume of dust into the sky.

Shoppers who moments earlier had been buying livestock for the Eid feast sprinted for shelter as cars swerved in the road to flee the fighting.

Ghani's speech was being aired live on Facebook when the attack began.

The president paused as multiple blasts were heard in the background, some sounding nearby, before stating: "This nation is not going to bow to these rocket attacks."

The attackers were in a building behind the mosque, which was partially destroyed in another attack several years earlier and is not believed to have been in use for Eid.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the assault

Live TV footage of the attack showed black smoke emanating from the area, while fire trucks and security vehicles rushed to the scene.

An interior ministry spokesman, Bahar Mehr, said on Facebook that security forces were also defusing two explosives-packed vehicles during the fighting.

Analyst Nazar Sarmachar said the proximity of the attack to the presidential palace highlighted glaring security shortcomings in the capital.

"It could have killed or wounded the president," he said.

After the attack was over, officials issued conflicting statements over the number of militants involved. An Afghan general said two militants behind the attack were killed, while police said four were captured but mentioned none killed.

Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai also said just six people had been wounded in the fighting.

A spokesman for US forces offered a third take, saying nine insurgents from two separate positions fired around 30 mortar rounds, with four killed and the other five surrendering to Afghan forces.

- Ceasefire offer -

Ghani unveiled the government's latest ceasefire offer during an Independence Day address late Sunday, saying security forces would observe the truce beginning this week -- but only if the militants reciprocated.

People were buying livestock for the Eid holiday feast when the attack broke out

The offer was welcomed by the United States and NATO after nearly 17 years of war, though it was not clear if their forces in Afghanistan would also participate.

The Taliban have not yet officially responded to Ghani's proposal, and a spokesman said they had "nothing to do with" the attack on Kabul.

The group has not claimed an attack on the capital in months, despite engaging security forces across Afghanistan.

IS has claimed multiple assaults, however, including a devastating suicide blast inside a school last week which killed at least 37 people, the majority of them students. The group said Tuesday's attack had targeted "the presidential headquarters".

However, Kabul-based military analyst Ateequllah Amarkhail said he doubted whether IS had the ability to carry out such an assault.

"There have been suicide attacks carried out by Daesh in Kabul, but they are not capable of such a complex attack," he told AFP, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Ghani's truce proposal came after an initial ceasefire in June, the first since the US-led invasion in 2001 that toppled the Taliban regime.

The attack was near the presidential palace where Afghan leader Ashraf Ghani was speaking

For three days, thousands of insurgents poured into cities across Afghanistan, eating ice cream and taking celebratory selfies with security forces.

The brief respite spurred hopes a new path was opening for peace talks in the country.

The Taliban have long insisted on direct talks with Washington and refused to negotiate with the Afghan government, which they see as illegitimate.

In June, Washington indicated a change in its longstanding policy, with US officials meeting Taliban representatives in Doha in July.

However, State Department official Alice Wells told AFP Monday that any future peace talks must include the Kabul government, and would not take place directly between the Taliban and Washington.
The Demilitarized Zone that has divided the peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953 is, despite its name, one of the most fortified places on earth

North and South Korea have agreed to close some guard posts along their border on a trial basis, Seoul's defence minister told parliament Tuesday amid a rapid diplomatic thaw.

The Demilitarized Zone that has divided the peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953 is, despite its name, one of the most fortified places on earth, with the areas on either side of it bristling with minefields and barbed-wire fences.

Song Young-moo said the South would withdraw around 10 guard posts as part of confidence-building measures following the landmark summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the South's President Moon Jae-in in April.

"What it means is that we will first withdraw one or two guard posts and gradually expand it," Song told lawmakers, adding the North would take reciprocal measures.

"The North and South agreed to withdraw guard posts that are closest to each other," he added.

"The closest is about 700 metres away and we will begin withdrawing guard posts that are within one kilometre."

A defence ministry official told AFP the issue was still being discussed and declined to clarify whether the posts would be physically removed.

The 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically at war.

The DMZ, designated as a buffer zone, bisects the Korean peninsula and is about four kilometres (2.5 miles) wide. It includes a Joint Security Area around the truce village of Panmunjom, where negotiations take place.
Cambodian land activist Tep Vanny has been released from Prey Sar prison in Phnom Penh after being pardoned

Two journalists were freed from jail in Cambodia on Tuesday, a day after a prominent land rights activist was pardoned, as the government loosens its grip on dissenters in the wake of a flawed election victory last month.

Cambodia's king pardoned land campaigner Tep Vanny late Monday at the request of strongman prime minister Hun Sen, days after he officially extended his 33-year grip on power.

And on Tuesday, two journalists who had worked for the US-backed broadcaster Radio Free Asia received bail and were released, ten months after they were detained on espionage charges in a case slammed by rights groups.

Analysts have said Hun Sen could use pardons and the kingdom's pliant courts to help deflect criticism, as he has in the past, amid questions of legitimacy after July's vote was widely decried as a sham.

Vanny has long been a thorn in the side of authorities for advocating on behalf of Phnom Penh communities displaced by unchecked development, and has been in and out of jail.

Last arrested in August 2016, she was hit with an additional two-and-a-half-year jail term just as her sentence was due to expire.

Vanny told AFP on Tuesday while picking up her belongings at Phnom Penh's Prey Sar prison that she was surprised by the pardon, which cut short her time behind bars by about a year.

"I was reluctant to believe it when prison guards told me to prepare myself for the release, so I asked them: 'Are you joking with me?'" she said.

Three other activists who were already out on bail were also included in the pardon signed by King Norodom Sihamoni.

- Joyful reunion -

The journalists -- Oun Chhin and Yeang Sothearin -- were arrested last November for allegedly running an illegal media studio and filing reports from a guesthouse in the capital.

Cambodian land activist Tep Vanny was "reluctant to believe it" when she was told she was being released from prison after being pardoned

Their arrest came after Radio Free Asia, a popular source of Khmer-language news, suspended its operations in Cambodia, citing the government's "increasingly threatening and intimidating rhetoric about RFA".

Phnom Penh municipal court spokesperson Y Rin told AFP they received bail based on the decision of an investigating judge.

The two were released later Tuesday from Prey Sar, where they greeted family and friends at the prison gates in a joyful reunion.

Sothearin said he was happy to be let go but that his legal troubles were not over.

"We call on the court to drop all charges against us so that we can have full freedom," he told reporters.

Hun Sen backed a crackdown on perceived threats in the run-up to the election, which included the shuttering of media outlets and the expulsion of foreign staff from a prominent pro-democracy NGO.

The main opposition party was dissolved and one of its leaders arrested, clearing the way for Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party to grab all seats in parliament in the vote -- turning the country into a one-party state.

Vanny said she would continue her work but suggested she would dial down her activism as it had taken a toll on her family.

"I was in jail four times," she said. "So it affects my family, especially my children, and I lost my job and livelihood."
The US Department of Justice released a photo taken in 1957 of Jakiw Palij, who illegally concealed his Nazi past from US immigration agents

Germany, citing its "moral duty", on Tuesday took in a 95-year-old former guard at a Nazi labour camp where more than 6,000 people were killed, after he was stripped of his US citizenship.

The German foreign ministry said it had agreed to accept the former Ukraine national Jakiw Palij following his expulsion from the United States late Monday, saying Berlin felt obliged to accept him in light of the Nazis' crimes.

"The United States had repeatedly pressed for Germany to take in Palij," the ministry said. Berlin, however, had long resisted because he was not a German citizen.

"The US administration, senators, members of Congress and representatives of the Jewish community in the United States stress that people who served the rogue Nazi regime should not be able to live out their twilight years in peace in their country of choice, the United States," the ministry added.

Berlin also appeared to be making a diplomatic gesture against the backdrop of major transatlantic tensions over trade and defence spending, on a case the White House described as a "high priority".

Palij concealed his Nazi past from immigration agents when he moved to the United States in 1949, the US Justice Department said. He became American in 1957.

Efraim Zuroff, chief Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, praised the "perseverance and dedication" of US authorities in their efforts to have Palij removed.

- No US 'safe haven' -

The White House said in a statement that President Donald Trump had "prioritised" the removal of Palij "to protect the promise of freedom for Holocaust survivors and their families".

German media reports said Palij arrived early Tuesday at Duesseldorf airport and was to be taken to a care home.

German prosecutors had opened a criminal investigation against Palij in 2015 but closed the case for lack of evidence.

Although Germany has put several aged former Nazi guards on trial in recent years for crimes committed during the Holocaust, the head of the Central Office for Investigation of Nazi Crimes, Jens Rommel, told AFP it was unlikely he would be prosecuted.

"Nothing has changed in terms of the evidence just because he has been transferred here," he said.

Washington had tried for several years to expel Palij, who had lived in Queens, New York since 1949.

Palij, who was born in what was then Poland and is now Ukraine, admitted to federal officials in 2001 that he was trained as a Nazi guard in spring 1943, the Justice Department said.

A federal judge revoked Pajil's US citizenship in August 2003 and the following year, a US immigration judge ordered his deportation to Ukraine, Poland, Germany or any other country that would admit him. It would take another 14 years of US diplomatic efforts before Berlin consented.

- 'A single, nightmarish day' -

In court documents, the US government said men who trained at Trawniki participated in implementing the Third Reich's plan to murder Jews in Poland, code-named "Operation Reinhard".

On November 3, 1943, more than 6,000 men, women and children imprisoned at Trawniki were shot to death in one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust.

"During a single nightmarish day in November 1943, all of the more than 6,000 prisoners of the Nazi camp that Jakiw Palij had guarded were systematically butchered," Eli Rosenbaum, then director of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, said at the time.

"By helping to prevent the escape of these prisoners, Palij played an indispensable role in ensuring that they met their tragic fate at the hands of the Nazis."

The US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who has clashed repeatedly with Berlin officials over policy differences since his arrival in May, welcomed Palij's arrival and thanked German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas for his efforts.

"He and Secretary (Mike) Pompeo worked very closely and he brought some new and different energy to this issue," Grenell said.

"We brought it up very regularly... with every person that we met," he added.

The last alleged Nazi war criminal deported by the US to Germany was John Demjanjuk, who served as a guard at the Sobibor extermination camp in occupied Poland, in 2009.

A German court sentenced him to five years in prison in 2011. He died the next year.
Seoljeong (C) has been in hot water since an investigative TV programme accused the Buddhist leader of violating his celibacy and poverty vows

The head of South Korea's biggest Buddhist denomination stepped down on Tuesday amid allegations that he forged his academic credentials, amassed vast wealth and fathered a child in breach of celibacy rules.

With more than 3,000 temples, 13,000 monks and seven million followers, the Jogye Order is followed by most of South Korea's Buddhists and is highly influential in a country where religion remains a powerful social force.

But it has long been dogged by corruption allegations and factional feuds that often spill over into the headlines.

The resignation of Jogye president Seoljeong came days after he lost an unprecedented vote of no confidence by the order's governing committee.

The 76-year-old bid farewell to the followers and officials at the the order's headquarters in Seoul and left for another temple south of Seoul where he had previously served for years.

"I joined this religious sect to bring changes to the flawed Korean Buddhism but will have to return to the mountain having failed to fulfil my wish," he said in a press conference.

Seoljeong would likely have been forced out of the job at a Wednesday meeting of the order's elders.

Pressure had mounted on the monk since an investigative TV programme claimed in May that he had fathered a daughter in breach of celibacy rules, and secretly owned vast real estate holdings despite taking a vow of poverty.

The investigation also revealed that the nation's top university denied Seoljeong had graduated from the institution, contradicting a claim made in his autobiography.

Many rank and file members and civic groups staged months-long protests demanding his resignation, and a senior reform-minded monk was recently hospitalised after a conducting 41-day hunger strike againstr the monk.

Seoljeong, who took office last November, has denied all the allegations, accusing an "old guard" within the order's leadership of derailing his reform drive by framing him.

He repeated the denial on Tuesday, claiming that "a handful of politically-minded monks are destroying the order".

A 2014 survey by Korea Gallup showed 22 percent of South Koreans identify themselves as Buddhist, while nearly 30 percent are Christian.
Muslim pilgrims take part on August 21, 2018 in the symbolic stoning of the devil at the Jamarat Bridge in Mina, Saudi Arabia, which marks the final major ritual of the hajj pilgrimage

More than two million Muslims took part in the symbolic stoning of the devil Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, the last major ritual of the hajj pilgrimage that heralds the start of the Eid al-Adha feast.

Muslims on the annual hajj pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam, made their way across the Mina valley of the western Saudi Arabian Mecca province, many carrying pebbles in plastic bottles.

Pilgrims clad in white threw seven stones each at a pillar symbolising satan, shouting "Allahu akbar" ("God is greatest") under the watchful eyes of security forces.

Large fans sprayed water over the crowd as temperatures climbed to 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit).

"Thank God it hasn't been too crowded this year. There hasn't been a big rush," said Mohammed Osman, 27, who regularly attends hajj.

The hajj

Mina was the site of a 2015 stampede which saw more than 2,300 pilgrims crushed or suffocated to death. Authorities have since reinforced safety and security measures.

"We are under God's protection," said May Khalifa, a 37-year-old Egyptian Muslim living in Riyadh.

"Despite the exhaustion, I'm enjoying my first hajj," she said, lifting her small bag of stones.

The hajj is one of the world's largest Muslim gatherings and drew this year nearly 2.4 million pilgrims to Saudi holy sites.

- 'Great honour' -

Roads from Muzdalifah -- another holy site where pilgrims spent Monday night -- to Mina were littered with plastic water bottles as sanitation workers scrambled to remove them.

Bangladeshi Moueeneddine Ahmed, 35, complained of the scorching heat but said he was "very excited" to take part in the stoning of the devil ritual.

In keeping with customs he said he would then "shave his head" and trade the white seamless robe he wore for the hajj for his "normal clothes".

Muslim pilgrims gather at dawn on August 21, 2018 before heading to the symbolic stoning of the devil at the Jamarat Bridge in Mina, Saudi Arabia, to perform one of the last major rituals of the hajj pilgrimage

Ahmed also praised the Saudi government for keeping the peace throughout the hajj. "There's a lot of security. Very disciplined," he said.

Tens of thousands of security forces, including police and civil defence, have been deployed for hajj, according to Saudi authorities.

Saudi Arabia's King Salman made the trip to Mina on Tuesday and was seen on state-run television observing worshippers from the window of a high-rise.

The king, who took to Twitter to say it was a "great honour" to welcome the pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, later paid homage to Saudi soldiers in a televised speech.

"On this day, we must remember our martyrs and heroes, who gave their lives to protect their faith and country," the king said, in an apparent reference to the war in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia leads a regional military alliance battling Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen, where more than three years of war have killed thousands and triggered what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

- Public health measures -

The hajj retraces the steps of the Prophet Mohammed on his last pilgrimage to Mecca.

It is one of the five pillars of Islam which every Muslim is required to complete at least once in their lifetime if they are healthy enough and have the means to do so.

Muslim tradition holds that pilgrims must throw seven stones each at a pillar representing satan on the first day of Eid al-Adha, which comes after two days of prayer and meditation.

The stoning ritual is not without risk, as millions of pilgrims converge on a tight space.

The symbolic stoning of the devil in Saudi Arabia is a key ritual of the annual hajj pilgrimage that heralds the start of the Eid al-Adha feast

Since 2004, authorities have expanded the site and replaced the pillar by walls to accommodate the growing number of pilgrims, who can now reach Mina via multiple bridges.

Muslims traditionally slaughter sheep for the three-day Eid al-Adha, a tribute to the prophet Abraham's sacrifice of a lamb after God spared Ishmael, his son.

They will consume some of the meat and give the rest to poor people unable to buy food.

Pilgrims can purchase coupons from the Saudi government, which organises the slaughter and freezing of the meat to avoid public health problems.

Revenues from the coupons are considered "zakat", or a charity donation, another pillar of Islam.
Indian rescue workers transport a bed with an elderly sick woman as she is moved from her home in a waterlogged area to a relief camp in Chengannur

More than one million people have swarmed relief camps in India's Kerala state to escape devastating monsoon floods that have killed about 420 people, officials said Tuesday as a huge international aid offers poured in.

People are flocking to camps as the scale of the desolation is revealed by receding waters and the military rescues more people each day.

The state government said 1,028,000 people are now in about 3,200 relief camps across the southern state. Officials said at least eight more bodies were recovered Tuesday taking the death toll to some 420 since the monsoon started in June.

Keralan authorities say they are desperate for funds and the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday promised $100 million in aid, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced after telephone talks with UAE leaders.

Kerala and Tamil Nadu Fire Force personnel carry children on their shoulders through flood waters during a rescue operation in Annamanada village in Thrissur District

The amount is more than the $97 million so far promised by India's central government. Vijayan asked for a $375 million package from the government, saying the state must confront more than $3 billion in devastation.

Millions of dollars in donations have poured into Kerala from the rest of India and abroad in recent days. Other state governments have promised more than $50 million while Mukesh Ambani -- Asia's richest man according to Forbes -- gave $10 million through his Reliance Industries group.

- Desperate journey -

Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama sent $15,000, according to the Kerala government and even India's Supreme Court judges have donated $360 each. The British-based Sikh group Khalsa Aid International has set up its own relief camp in Kochi, Kerala's main city, to provide meals for 3,000 people a day.

The rescue operation is now focused on the worst-hit areas such as Chengannur, where more than 60 centimetres (two feet) of water blocked many roads as more rain fell Tuesday.

Army teams said several thousand people in the town remained in homes inundated by 10 days of torrential downpours.

Relief teams reached the house of retired army officer K.G. Pillai, who said up to 2.4 metres (eight feet) of water had engulfed the house where his family had lived since 1952.

"Around 26 people moved into the first floor of our home" to take refuge, he said.

In nearby Pandanad, locals said there was a desperate shortage of drinking water and dry clothes and people implored drivers of passing vehicles for supplies.

Next to an inundated road, army major Jingy Joseph sat barefoot with her four-year-old daughter Angelina, gazing at an overflowing river.

"My daughter is safe -- and that is all that matters," Joseph told AFP. She was on duty in Punjab when her parents' house, where her daughter was staying, was inundated last week.

"I lost all contact with them for around four days and literally had to make an appeal on Facebook for any update," she added.

Her video became one of the most widely shared distress appeals on Indian social media.

"I can talk about it now but they were the most anxious hours. I was strong but broke when I heard my daughter was crying for milk and water at the time," Joseph added.

She took a train ride and a flight and travelled several hours in a car to reach her parents and move them to a safe place.

- Relief efforts -

Thousands of army, navy and air force personnel have fanned out across the state to help those stranded in remote and hilly areas.

Dozens of helicopters and even drones have been dropping food, medicine and water to cut-off villages.

Volunteers carry boxes of food aid at a relief camp for families displaced by flooding in Aluva on the outskirts of Kochi

Tens of thousands of people in Chengannur and surrounding towns and villages are relying on community kitchens for meals, after water from hilly districts poured down into lowland regions.

The government says that more than 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) of roads have been destroyed or damaged while a legislator said 50,000 houses had been wiped out.

Shashi Tharoor, a deputy from Kerala and former UN official, estimated that 50,000 houses had been destroyed.
Politburo member Chinh, who is also Secretary of the Party Central Committee and President of the Vietnam-Japan Friendship Parliamentarians Group (VJFPG), lauded the sound relations between the two countries legislative bodies, including the cooperation between the VJFPG and the Japan-Vietnam Friendship Parliamentary Alliance.

He affirmed that the Vietnamese National Assembly supports the development of the Vietnam-Japan extensive strategic partnership towards practical outcomes.

The Party official said Vietnam and Japan are celebrating 45 years of their diplomatic relations (1973  2018), a period that has marked significant cooperation achievements across the fields of politics, socio-economy, culture, education, and people-to-people exchange.

He noted that as Vietnam is working with Japan in human resources training and administrative reform, the country wishes to receive support from Japanese parliamentarians to ensure that joint projects in the two fields are implemented effectively, he added.

He took the occasion to send his sympathy to flood victims in Japan, believing that the country would soon recover from the disaster.

For his part, Kawamura Takeo, who is also Vice Chairman of the Japan-Vietnam Friendship Parliamentary Alliance, agreed that bilateral ties are thriving in various fields from politics and economy, to culture and education.

He said he expects Vietnam to continue providing favorable conditions for Japanese investors operating in the country.
In 2009 Pyongyang expelled IAEA inspectors from its Yongbyon nuclear site and has since refused to allow IAEA inspections on its territory

The UN's nuclear watchdog said it had not seen any indication that nuclear activities in North Korea have stopped despite its pledges to denuclearise.

"The continuation and further development of the DPRK's nuclear programme and related statements by the DPRK are a cause for grave concern," said a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), referring to North Korea's official name.

The report, published late Monday, by director general Yukiya Amano is to be submitted to an IAEA board meeting in September.

In 2009 Pyongyang expelled IAEA inspectors from its Yongbyon nuclear site and has since refused to allow IAEA inspections on its territory.

The watchdog has stepped up monitoring through open source information and satellite imagery, it said.

"As the Agency remains unable to carry out verification activities in the DPRK, its knowledge of the DPRK's nuclear programme is limited and, as further nuclear activities take place in the country, this knowledge is declining," it said.

Between late-April and early-May, there were indications of the operation of the steam plant that serves the radiochemical laboratory at the Yongbyon site, according to the report.

However, the steam plant was not operative long enough to have supported the reprocessing of a complete core from the experimental nuclear power plant reactor, it added.

The report added steam charges and the outflow of cooling water at the Yongbyon experimental nuclear power plant had also been observed "consistent with the reactor's operation".

"Since December 2015, when the current operational cycle started, there have been indications consistent with several short periods of reactor shutdown. However, none of these periods were of sufficient duration for the complete reactor core to have been discharged. The Agency's observations indicate that the current operational cycle is longer than the previous one," it said.

It also found "indications consistent with the use of the reported centrifuge enrichment facility located within the plant, including the operation of the cooling units as well as regular movements of vehicles."

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump held a groundbreaking summit in Singapore in June.

At the meeting the pair struck a vague agreement to denuclearise the Korean peninsula, but there has been little movement since.

Before this, Kim met South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April for their first summit. They agreed to push for a declaration of an end to the Korean War this year.

The two leaders are due to meet again in September.

The IAEA has said previously it stands ready to help verify any future agreements between the US and North Korea over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.
Oksana Chusovitina of Uzbekistan is by far the oldest female gymnast in the Asidan Games competition in Jakarta

Uzbekistan's 43-year-old gymnast Oksana Chusovitina blew kisses to the crowd as she began her Asian Games campaign on Tuesday -- and angrily batted away suggestions this could be her last tournament.

The oldest female gymnast in the competition by far, Chusovitina was greeted by whoops and shrieks from a near-capacity crowd on the first day of the women's tournament in Jakarta.

But the atmosphere took a minor tumble as the gymnasts filed past journalists at the end of the session -- and Chusovitina was asked whether this would be her final tournament.

"No! I want to go to Tokyo," said a horrified Chusovitina, referring to the upcoming Olympics in 2020.

The mother-of-one, whose first Olympics was in 1992 in Barcelona, became the first gymnast to compete in seven Summer Games when she appeared at Rio 2016.

She appears determined to make it eight.

"It's my dream (to go to Tokyo)," she told AFP, adding that she still has fun on the gymnastics floor.

Chusovitina is aiming to reach the finals of both the vault and the balance beam.

The clear crowd favourite of the qualification round on day one, Chusovitina -- who first competed in 1987-- spun into a seemingly perfect first vault to cheers and applause.

And by the end of her second and final flip across the apparatus, her noisy followers reached fever pitch as the mother-of-one blew a stream of kisses into the crowd.

The individual finalists will be confirmed at the end of three qualification divisions on Monday at the Jakarta International Expo, where the women's all-round final is also being contested.

Despite her extensive fan base Chusovitina told AFP she had no family watching her in the crowd, although her son is following the competition at home in Germany and calls her every day.

At 18, her son Alisha is older than many of the competitors at the Asiad.

Chusovitina's extraordinary career saw her first competing for the Soviet Union in the 1980s, before she went to the Barcelona Games for the Confederation of Independent States -- a unified team of former soviet states -- where she won gold.

By the time the 2008 Olympics came around in Beijing, she had switched to Germany after moving there to get treatment for Alisha, who was suffering from leukaemia.
A man walks past a mural depicting Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi painted by Italian artist Jorit Agoch on Israel's separation barrier in Bethlehem, on July 29, 2018

The brother of a teenager who became a symbol of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after slapping two soldiers has been sentenced to jail for throwing stones at a police officer, the army said Tuesday.

Waed Tamimi, the brother of Ahed Tamimi, confessed to his role in a March 2017 "violent riot" in which an Israeli police officer was wounded by stones thrown by Palestinians at his vehicle, according to a military court ruling from Monday.

Since he had already received a suspended sentence for stoning Israeli security forces in 2016, he was handed a 14-month sentence for the 2017 incident as part of a plea bargain, the court document said.

Asked by the court if he had anything to say, the 22-year-old said: "I have nothing to add. There will be no third time," according to the ruling, which was published by the army on Tuesday.

The incident took place in Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank, where the Tamimi family lives.

Tamimi's sister, Ahed, was released from prison last month after an eight-month sentence for hitting and kicking two Israeli soldiers in front of her house in the occupied West Bank.

In an interview the day after her release, the now 17-year-old told AFP that she understood she had become a "symbol" of the Palestinian cause.

Video of that incident went viral, leading to praise and support from Palestinians but scorn from Israelis who accused her activist family of using her in staged provocations.

Rights groups harshly criticised Israel for the length of Ahed Tamimi's sentence.
Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera looks on during a meeting with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in Colombo

Japan has pledged to help strengthen Sri Lanka's maritime security, authorities said Tuesday, in a new sign of efforts to counter China's strategic grip on the Indian Ocean island.

President Maithripala Sirisena thanked Japan's Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera for donating two coast guard patrol craft costing over $11 million in total, his office said in a statement after talks in Colombo.

"Attention has been drawn to further strengthening maritime security cooperation between Japan and Sri Lanka," the statement said.

The visit came a week after the US State Department gave $39 million to strengthen the island's naval capabilities.

Sirisena said he was happy that Onodera, the first Japanese defence minister to visit, was travelling to two strategic ports on the island.

Onodera will visit Hambantota, which Colombo in December 2017 leased to a Chinese state-owned company for 99 years.

The government said it was forced to lease the port for $1.1 billion because it could not service loans from Beijing to build the white-elephant facility agreed by former president Mahinda Rajapakse.

Hambantota, 230 kilometres (143 miles) from Colombo, straddles the world's busiest east-west shipping route and gives China a foothold in a region long dominated by India.

The Japanese minister will also visit Trincomalee, a natural harbour that was the target of Japanese bombing during World War II.

China has edged out Japan as a key funder of ports and other projects in the island in recent years. Sri Lanka has become a key link in its ambitious "Belt and Road" international infrastructure initiative.

China has also vowed to keep providing financial help to Sri Lanka. The International Monetary Fund, which bailed out Sri Lanka in 2016 with a $1.5 billion loan, has warned Colombo over its debt.
US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, seen here at a Cabinet meeting at the White House August 16, 2018, says the US is holding off for now on auto tariffs on Mexico, Canada and Europe

The United States is holding off on a final decision on whether to impose tariffs on auto imports as trade talks with Mexico, Canada and Europe are ongoing, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Monday, he said it is "not clear the report will be out at the end of the month ... in view of the negotiations" to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Washington also is in talks with the European Union after President Donald Trump reached an agreement with EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker in late July to avoid the auto tariffs in exchange for a new deal on duty free trade between the two economies.

Citing national security concerns, Trump in May had ordered Commerce to investigate the possibility of imposing tariffs of up to 25 percent on foreign autos and auto parts, a prospect that alarmed the industry.

The department collected over 2,000 written comments from diverse industry representatives and car enthusiasts calling on the administration to scrap the tariff plan, and dozens more testified at a public hearing in late July.

Ross told the Wall Street Journal the volume of comments also is a factor delaying the final report, saying the department received "zillions of pages" from car companies and "We're running out of August."

Despite the administration's rush to impose tariffs in other cases, including against China, Ross declined to set a new deadline for releasing the findings on the auto sector, saying the department is not required to issue its report until next year.

Trump also invoked national security concerns when he imposed steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, angering key allies and prompting retaliation against US products like soybeans and motorcycles.

The US imported $212 billion in autos last year, $151 billion more than it exported, a deficit that has risen 29 percent since 2013, according to Commerce Department figures.

Autos are a key sticking point in negotiations to revamp the nearly 25-year-old NAFTA, and Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo is due to arrive in Washington later Tuesday to continue efforts to reach an agreement.

He said last week he was hopeful officials would be able to wrap up the issues affecting Mexico this week, after which Canada would rejoin the talks.
Israeli soldiers keep watch as a Palestinian demonstrator gestures along the Gaza-Israeli border on June 5, 2018

Israel's army announced Tuesday an investigation into soldiers who shot dead two Palestinian teenagers in separate incidents on the Gaza border, the first such probe in months of protests and clashes.

Its decision to open an investigation was a rare step and comes with Israel having faced international criticism over its use of live fire during unrest along the Gaza frontier.

Israel maintains its use of force is necessary to defend the border and stop infiltrations and attacks.

An army statement said that Abdul Fatah Abdul Nabi, 18, was shot dead near the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip on March 30, one of 20 Palestinians killed that day as Gazans launched a wave of mass protests along the frontier called the "March of Return".

Tuesday's army statement did not give the circumstances of Nabi's death but the military said at the time that 10 of those killed had "documented terror backgrounds" in Islamist movement Hamas and other militant groups and were killed "whilst carrying out acts of terror."

Video posted on Israeli news site Ynet at the time appeared to show Nabi running away from the fence while carrying a tyre, when he is shot in the back and falls to the ground.

The other death under investigation, the army said, was of 15-year-old Othman Rami Halles, who was shot east of Gaza City on July 13.

A Palestinian video posted on Facebook showed what it says is Halles, apparently empty-handed, starting to climb the border fence then fall back onto the Gaza side as the sound of gunfire is heard.

The army did not say what led the Military Advocate General to order the investigations into the two deaths, speaking only of "a suspicion that the shooting in these incidents was not in accordance with standard operating procedures."

"Upon the completion of the investigations, the findings will be examined by the Military Advocate General," the army statement said.

Military police will carry out the investigation.

Since March 30, 171 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, mostly in clashes on the frontier.

One Israeli soldier was shot dead by a Palestinian sniper in July.

UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov and Egyptian officials have been seeking to broker a long-term truce between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers, which have fought three wars since 2008.

The Gaza border has been notably calmer in recent days as speculation over the indirect negotiations has intensified.
Kevin Downing (C), the defense attorney for Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, walks to the US courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia

The jury deliberated for a fourth day Tuesday in the fraud trial of Donald Trump's former campaign chief Paul Manafort, the first resulting from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Jurors indicated they were struggling to reach a consensus on at least one of the 18 counts of which Manafort is accused but implied they could be in agreement on others, and Judge T.S. Ellis instructed them to attempt to reach a unanimous decision.

The case against Manafort stems from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference and possible collusion between the Trump campaign team and Moscow, and is viewed as an important test for the probe, which the president denounces as a "witch hunt."

But 69-year-old Manafort is charged with crimes that are unrelated to his brief time as campaign chairman.

He is accused of failing to pay taxes on tens of millions of dollars he earned while advising Russian-backed politicians in Ukraine between 2006 and 2015, as well as of providing fraudulent statements to secure bank loans.

On Tuesday, jurors gave a note to Ellis asking for instructions on how to proceed if they cannot reach an agreement on one of the counts.

"If we cannot come to a consensus on a single count, how should we fill in the jury verdict form for that count and what does that mean for the final verdict?" said the note, which Ellis read to the court.

Ellis added that it was not an "unusual event in a jury trial," later instructing the jurors that "it is your duty to agree upon a verdict if you can do so."

The judge said he did not plan to ask the jurors if they were in agreement on other counts at this time, but added that the jurors' note implied an answer to that question.

The case went to the jury on Thursday after 12 days of gripping testimony about hidden bank accounts, betrayal and lavish spending by Manafort on luxury homes, cars, antique rugs and clothes.

Prosecutors outlined schemes allegedly used by Manafort to avoid paying US taxes on the millions of dollars he earned in Ukraine and then deposited in bank accounts in Cyprus.

Manafort also filed false statements to obtain millions of dollars in loans from banks when his Ukraine consulting fees dried up, according to prosecutors.
The Lee Correctional Institution, in Bishopville, South Carolina, was the site of a deadly riot in April that led to calls for a nationwide prisoners' strike to protest conditions at US pentitentiaries

US prisoners on Tuesday declared a nationwide strike demanding changes to correctional institutions including living conditions, pathways to parole and voting rights restoration.

The US incarceration rate is the world's highest: about 2.2 million people were behind bars at the end of 2016, a figure the American Civil Liberties Union says represents approximately one-fifth of the global population of prisoners.

The strike -- set to continue through September 9, according to organizers -- was called in response to a deadly riot in April at a maximum security prison in South Carolina, Lee Correctional Institution.

"Seven comrades lost their lives during a senseless uprising that could have been avoided had the prison not been so overcrowded from the greed wrought by mass incarceration, and a lack of respect for human life that is embedded in our nation's penal ideology," the group of incarcerated prison rights advocates leading the strike said.

"These men and women are demanding humane living conditions, access to rehabilitation, sentencing reform and the end of modern day slavery," the group, known as Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, said in a statement.

Organizers throughout the United States advised inmates to engage in peaceful sit-ins, hunger strikes and work stoppages.

Low remuneration for prisoners put to work at jobs like cooking and cleaning is high on the list of grievances released by organizers, who dubbed the practice "slavery."

Udi Ofer, who leads the ACLU Campaign for Smart Justice, praised the strikers and backed their 10 demands, particularly the right to vote for felons and prisoners.

Felon enfranchisement laws vary state by state, but in many places inmates lose voting rights for a period while incarcerated, and sometimes after release as well.

"Our country is stronger when people most marginalized and directly impacted by unjust policies raise their voices in protest and demand a different future," Ofer said in a statement. "The courageous people who are bringing focused attention to America's system of mass incarceration through the Nationwide Prison Strike deserve our admiration."

"We urge corrections officials not to respond with retaliation," he added.

"Peaceful demonstrations challenging unjust conditions and practices do not merit placing participants into solitary confinement or adding time to their sentences."

In 2016, inmates responded to a similar call to action, with prisoners striking in states including Florida, Alabama, Texas and South Carolina.
A handout picture released by the Yemeni interior ministry in April 2009 shows suspected Yemen-based Saudi al-Qaeda expert Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri

A master Al-Qaeda bomb maker who hid out for years in Yemen while developing hard-to-detect explosives is believed to have been killed last year, a US official told AFP on Tuesday.

Ibrahim al-Asiri is thought to have been involved in numerous plots including one on Christmas Day 2009, when a Nigerian man attempted to set off plastic explosives sewn to his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

"We are confident he was killed late last year," the official said on condition of anonymity.

According to a UN team that tracks terror groups in the Middle East, some Security Council members "report that explosives expert Ibrahim al-Asiri may have been killed during the second half of 2017."

"Given al-Asiri's past role in plots against aviation, this would represent a serious blow to operational capability," notes the report, released last week.

The Pentagon said it had no information it could provide.

Asiri, a Saudi, belonged to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen and is the target of ongoing US counter-terror operations.

Asiri, a one-time chemistry student also known as Abu Saleh, was on several most-wanted lists and had survived repeated US attempts to kill him.

He specialized in building non-metallic explosives, often using Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN, and chemical detonators.

Asiri was thought to have been involved in making a bomb for the failed 2009 Christmas Day plot, and an attempt to send parcel bombs containing PETN hidden in printer ink cartridges from Yemen to Chicago in 2010.

He is also believed to have designed a bomb used by his brother Abdullah, who died in a failed suicide attack on Saudi Arabia's deputy interior minister in 2009.

In the Christmas Day plot, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to set off plastic explosives sewn to his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

He failed to detonate the explosives, was subdued by a passenger and is now serving a life sentence in the United States.
The three teams will compete against the remaining seven finalists from the Republic of Korea, Ukraine, the US, Russia, France, and Poland for the final round in Hanoi in mid-October. This will be an offline 8-hour straight race covering the challenge of overcoming hardware security breaches.

With the theme Legends of Vietnam, the Whitehat Grand Prix 2018 has attracted a record number of participants, with 720 teams from 79 countries around the world, including 146 teams from the host Vietnam.

The champions will walk away with US$10,000, while the second and third runners-up will be awarded US$2,000 and US$1,000, respectively.

The WhiteHat Grand Prix  Global Challenge was launched on a national level by WhiteHatVN.com in 2014, the leading cyber security forum in Vietnam. In July 2015, the company began rolling out the global competition on a quarterly basis thanks to the collaboration with the Authority of Information Security (AIS) under the Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications.

The competition aims to create a venue for the cyber-security community to share experiences and techniques with others, while keeping them updated on the latest technologies and developments in cyber security.
A poll worker is seen during Madagascar's municipal elections in July 2015, three years before 46 candidates seek to contest the country's presidency

A total of 46 candidates including the incumbent president and his two predecessors are seeking to contest Madagascar's presidential polls at the end of the year, the Constitutional Court said Tuesday.

The court will now assess the candidates' eligibility and confirm by Sunday which ones will be allowed to stand in the first round of the elections.

The vote scheduled for November 7 comes after an outbreak of protests that forced President Heri Rajaonarimampianina to accept the formation of a "consensus" government tasked with organising a fresh poll.

If no candidate receives more than 50 percent in the first round, a second round of voting will be held on December 19.

Rajaonarimampianina, elected in 2013, will seek re-election as will his predecessors Andry Rajoelina, who was in power from 2009-2014, and Marc Ravalomanana, who held office from 2002 to 2009.

Opposition grandees Rajoelina and Ravalomanana were both barred from running in 2013 under a deal designed to bring stability to the impoverished Indian Ocean island.

Madagascar is a former French colony with a population of 25 million that has been beset by political instability for decades.

A standoff erupted over proposed electoral reforms that triggered mass protests and led the Constitutional Court to order a caretaker government to organise the ballot.

Demonstrators took to the capital Antananarivo's central square in April over Rajaonarimampianina's efforts to change electoral laws that opponents said were intended to favour his party.

The proposals were overturned by the courts.

But the protests morphed into a full-blown movement to oust Rajaonarimampianina. Clashes between activists and the security forces claimed two lives and left more than a dozen injured.
Emissions spew from a large stack at the coal-fired Brandon Shores Power Plant in Baltimore, Maryland

President Donald Trump's administration announced a plan Tuesday to weaken regulations on US coal plants, giving a boost to an industry that former leader Barack Obama had hoped to phase out to cut harmful emissions that drive global warming.

The Environmental Protection Agency's new Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule would allow states the flexibility to set their own standards for performance at existing coal-fired power plants, rather than follow a single federal standard.

The EPA says the measure is designed to replace Obama's 2015 Clean Power Plan, which called for cuts to greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, and a shift toward solar, wind and less polluting natural gas.

The move marks the latest effort by Trump's administration to roll back the environmental legacy of his Democratic predecessor, having already pulled out of the 2015 Paris climate accord aimed at slashing global fossil fuel emissions.

Obama's energy plan aimed to usher in the strictest anti-pollution measures in history on power plants, but was put on hold in 2016 by the US Supreme Court.

Trump, whose ascent to the presidency effectively killed off the plan, had blasted it as "intrusive" and claimed it would "kill jobs."

The president trumpeted the plan at a rally late Tuesday in the coal-producing state of West Virginia.

"We are putting our great coal miners back to work," he said, adding: "We love clean, beautiful, West Virginia coal."

Earlier, EPA acting administrator Andrew Wheeler told reporters in a call: "The era of top-down, one-size-fits-all federal mandates is over."

The new plan could take months or even years to take effect. Legal challenges are already lining up, as the proposal awaits a 60-day comment period before it can be finalized.

Critics warned the plan will boost emissions from power plants, which emit about 28 percent of US greenhouse gases, and worsen global warming.

"Under this proposal, the air will be dirtier and we'll be less healthy as a country because President Trump is siding with a few powerful special interests," said Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer.

Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the plan called for "only modest efficiency improvements at individual power plants, which will barely make a dent in cutting heat-trapping emissions from the electricity sector, and could even, under some circumstances, lead to increased emissions depending on how much the plants are run."

Kimmell said the new rules "would also result in more pollution from nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury and other harmful pollutants."

- Coal in decline -

The United States, Donald Trump and coal

The White House said in a statement that, if finalized, the rule "will significantly decrease bureaucratic red tape and compliance costs, keeping American energy affordable and competitive on the world stage."

The White House claimed it would also save $6.4 billion in compliance costs for industry, compared to the Obama plan.

"We're the only country in the world doing this, looking at coal as the future instead of understanding the future is about clean air, the future is about clean energy," Gina McCarthy, who served as EPA administrator under Obama, told CNN.

Despite Trump's support for coal plants, there have been many closures.

Some 40 percent of coal plants in operation in 2010 are now closed or slated to close, according to estimates from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

According to Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, "EPA is now proposing a plan that will essentially be ignored by most of the industry."

Bill Wehrum, administrator for EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, acknowledged that the industry "continues to transform in front of our eyes."

"What we see is an ongoing significant shift in the direction of natural gas and renewable energy generation," he told reporters.

Wehrum said that because of the shifting energy landscape, he expected emissions to fall at a rate "roughly comparable" to the goals outlined under the Obama-era plan, which called for a 26 percent cut in greenhouse gases from power plants by 2025, compared to 2005 levels.

According to former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, a leading philanthropist and climate activist, coal is a losing proposition.

"Americans are demanding cleaner air and cheaper, cleaner energy -- and cities, states and businesses are delivering," he said in a statement.

"Wind, solar and other clean energy sources are beating coal in the marketplace, which is benefiting both public health and the economy. That will continue to happen even if the EPA keeps spitting in the wind."
Andrew Scheer, leader of Canada's opposition, called Justin Trudeau's trip to India "disastrous"

Canada's opposition leader will travel to India to "repair" bilateral ties he said were harmed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was dogged by controversies on his first official trip there earlier this year.

Tory leader Andrew Scheer said he would meet this fall with Indian officials as well as business, civil society and religious leaders, likely in a bid to shore up support among Canada's large Indian diaspora ahead of next year's general election.

Indo-Canadians number about 500,000, representing only 1.4 percent of the population -- but holding sway in key electoral battlegrounds.

"Standing with a united India is Canada's gateway to unprecedented human and economic development, and an essential alliance for Canada to strengthen in the face of shared threats," Scheer said in a statement.

"Unfortunately, Justin Trudeau's disastrous trip to India damaged this key relationship and we must now work to repair it," he said.

Trudeau's eight-day trip to India in February to drum up trade and investment was mired by blunders and controversies -- from the Trudeau family's choice of traditional Indian fashions while touring the country's landmarks to a controversial dinner guest.

The prime minister had been at pains during the visit to quash long-simmering perceptions in India that his Liberal administration was too cozy with Sikh militants calling for independence.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (2nd R) and his wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau (2nd L) sit with their daughter Ella-Grace (R) and their sons Xavier (3rd L) and Hadrien (L) as they try out a ceremonial spinning wheel

Tensions over the Khalistan issue flared up hours before Trudeau was to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after revelations that a convicted Sikh extremist had been invited to dine with Trudeau in New Delhi.

The invitation was later rescinded but Trudeau returned home to a barrage of criticism, and relatively little to show in terms of commercial or trade deals.

Recent polling showed the Tories closing a gap with the Liberals. Trudeau personally, however, remains Canadians' preferred choice for prime minister.
The USNS Comfort hospital ship while docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico last year

The US Navy is sending a hospital ship to Colombia on a mission to assist in the humanitarian crisis in neighboring Venezuela, a defense official said Tuesday.

The USNS Comfort hospital ship "will return to South America this fall," Pentagon spokeswoman Commander Sarah Higgins said.

"We are working the details in close coordination with our Colombian partners."

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, while on a trip to South America last week, said the deployment is "an effort to deal with the human cost of (Venezuelan President Nicolas) Maduro, and his increasingly isolated regime."

"This is a very specific effort to try to help our neighbors, who are doing their best, I think, to help these refugees," he added.

According to Pentagon spokesman Colonel Rob Manning, the hospital ship will provide life-saving treatment and medical care to thousands of people.

"Our service members and medical professionals, doctors and nurses, will work alongside regional partners to support ongoing humanitarian response efforts to include addressing the impact of the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis," he said.

The mission marks the sixth hospital ship deployment to the region since 2007.

The United Nations estimates that 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled an economic and political crisis looking for work and to escape poverty, and Colombia has given temporary residence to more than 800,000 Venezuelans.
Michael Cohen, former personal attorney for US President Donald Trump, has reportedly agreed to plead guilty to charges stemming from his business dealings and possible campaign finance violations

Donald Trump's longtime attack-dog lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen was set to plead guilty to a ream of charges Tuesday, including fraud linked to the president's election campaign.

Cohen was to appear in a Manhattan courthouse at 4 pm (2000 GMT), where US media reported he would admit breaking a slew of campaign, banking, fraud and tax laws.

The charges stem from a federal investigation into his business dealings -- including a $130,000 pre-election hush payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, who says she had an affair with Trump.

Trump has denied an affair with the now 39-year-old actress, but admitted a hush payment -- not disclosed in campaign declarations -- was made to prevent "false and extortionist accusations" getting into the public domain.

Cohen now faces potential jail time and could yet decide to throw open the window on decades of dealings with his former mentor Trump in return for a lenient sentence.

The US president spent much of Tuesday cooped up at the White House, as rainstorms raged outside and two high profile legal cases with profound implications for his presidency reached their coda.

At a courthouse close to Washington, jurors deliberated on whether the president's former campaign chair Paul Manafort -- a man who was instrumental in him winning the Republican nomination -- was guilty of a separate slew of charges.

Manafort is accused of tax evasion, bank fraud and money laundering in the course of his dealings with Russian-backed oligarchs.

The charges against Manafort were brought by special counsel and respected former FBI director Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russia's role in tipping the 2016 presidential election in Trump's favor.

Trump has repeatedly played down Russian interference, and denounces Mueller's investigation as a politically motivated "witch hunt".

He recently called Mueller "disgraced and discredited" after it emerged that White House lawyer Don McGahn had spent over 30 hours in testimony.

"Where's the Collusion? They made up a phony crime called Collusion, and when there was no Collusion they say there was Obstruction (of a phony crime that never existed)," Trump said in a Monday tweetstorm.

"If you FIGHT BACK or say anything bad about the Rigged Witch Hunt, they scream Obstruction!"

- Plea deal -

A Cohen guilty plea would avoid a high profile trial, but also could require him to cooperate with investigators.

Neither prosecutors in Manhattan nor Cohen's attorney would comment on the matter.

Guilty pleas are common in the United States when it appears prosecutors have sufficient evidence for a conviction if the case goes to trial.

The FBI raided Cohen's home and office on a referral from Mueller.

Cohen once declared he was so loyal he would "take a bullet for the president".

Talk of a plea deal comes days after The New York Times reported that Cohen is also under investigation for potential tax and bank fraud, possibly exceeding $20 million via loans obtained by the taxi medallion business he owns with his family.

Trump is scheduled to leave the White House later Tuesday and make remarks at a rally in West Virginia.
The case against Paul Manafort stemmed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference and possible collusion between Donald Trump's campaign team and Moscow

Donald Trump's former campaign chief Paul Manafort was found guilty of fraud Tuesday, in the first trial resulting from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

While the jury was unable to reach a verdict on 10 counts, prompting the judge to declare a partial mistrial, Manafort was found guilty on the eight remaining charges.

These included five counts of making false income tax returns, two counts of bank fraud and one of failure to report foreign bank and financial accounts.

Each of the bank fraud counts carries a significant maximum sentence and the 69-year-old could theoretically live out the remainder of his years in prison -- though a legal expert AFP contacted predicted it would in reality it would run to under a decade.

Addressing the subject of the remaining charges, Judge TS Ellis told jurors : "I have declared a mistrial as to those counts."

Manafort's lawyer Kevin Downing said his client was "evaluating all options" and thanked the judge for a "fair trial."

The case against Manafort stemmed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference and possible collusion between the Trump campaign team and Moscow, and is viewed as an important test for the probe.

Reacting to the verdict as he arrived in West Virginia for a rally of supporters, Trump described Manafort as a "good man," said he was "very sad" at the trial outcome -- and once more denounced the Mueller investigation as a "witch hunt."

Trump had previously suggested Manafort, who was briefly his campaign manager, was being treated worse than American gangster Al Capone.

He has refused to rule out a pardon. Observers have speculated that the prospect of a pardon may have been why Manafort chose a trial as opposed to a plea deal like his former aide Rick Gates.

The case went to the jury on Thursday after 12 days of gripping testimony about hidden bank accounts, betrayal and lavish spending by Manafort on luxury homes, cars, antique rugs and clothes.

Prosecutors outlined schemes allegedly used by Manafort to avoid paying US taxes on the millions of dollars he earned in Ukraine and then deposited in bank accounts in Cyprus.

The president spent much of Tuesday cooped up at the White House, as two high profile legal cases with profound implications for his presidency played out on US television screens.

Barely minutes after the Manafort verdict was announced, Michael Cohen, Trump's longtime personal lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty in a Manhattan court to eight counts including fraud and campaign finance violations.

Questioned by a federal judge, Cohen indicated he had paid sums of $130,000 and $150,000 each to two women who claimed they had affairs with Trump, at his boss's request in order to buy their silence "with the purpose of influencing the election."
US Marine Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. shows a damage assesment image of the Him Shinshar Chemical Weapons Storage site April 14 2018 after the US, France and Britain launched airstrikes in Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack

The United States, France and Britain on Tuesday threatened to respond if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad uses chemical weapons in its offensive to retake Idlib province.

In a joint statement, the three powers said they were "gravely concerned" over the military offensive in Idlib and the resulting humanitarian consequences.

"We also underline our concern at the potential for further - and illegal - use of chemical weapons," they said.

"We remain resolved to act if the Assad regime uses chemical weapons again."

The three UN Security Council powers released the joint statement to mark the fifth anniversary of the sarin attack in Ghouta that killed more than 300 people.

That attack, which the West blamed on Assad's forces, led to a US-Russian agreement to rid Syria of its chemical stockpile and its means to produce the deadly chemicals.

"Our position on the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons is unchanged," said the statement.

"As we have demonstrated, we will respond appropriately to any further use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime, which has had such devastating humanitarian consequences for the Syrian population."

The United States, France and Britain in April launched airstrikes on Syrian targets in response to a chemical weapons attack in the town of Douma that left scores dead.

The one-night operation hit three sites in Syria amid warnings from Russia that a military intervention could lead to a broader war.

After seven years of war, Assad has set his sights on retaking control of the Idlib, the biggest area in rebel-held hands, which borders Turkey.

The regime holds the southeastern tip of the province that is home to some 2.5 million people -- more than half displaced by Syria's war or bused into Idlib under surrender deals.

The council is scheduled to discuss the humanitarian situation in Syria next week.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - The Latest on uncertainty over Australia's political leadership (all times local):

9:45 a.m.Australia's prime minister has survived a challenge to his leadership in an internal government ballot.

Government lawmaker Nola Marino said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had survived in a ballot of conservative Liberal Party lawmakers 48 votes to 35.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, left, and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg address reporters at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. Turnbull abandoned plans to legislate to limit greenhouse gas emissions to head off a revolt by conservative lawmakers. Turnbull conceded that he could not get legislation through the House of Representatives where his conservative coalition holds only a single-seat majority. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

Turnbull called the vote at a party meeting as speculation mounted about his support within the government.

His challenger was Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.

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9:11 a.m.

Australia's environment minister has warned government colleagues that they would lose popularity if they dumped their prime minister.

Some lawmakers want to replace Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull with Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton in a ballot of 83 legislators in their conservative Liberal Party as early as Tuesday.

Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg told Australian Broadcasting Corp. voters were tired of governments repeatedly changing their prime ministers. Ousting Turnbull would be a sixth leadership change in less than 11 years.

Turnbull made a major concession to his opponents in his party on Monday by abandoning plans to legislate to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

The concession avoided the most conservative government lawmakers voting against the legislation in Parliament.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, center, Treasurer Scott Morrison, left, and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg address reporters at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. Turnbull abandoned plans to legislate to limit greenhouse gas emissions to head off a revolt by conservative lawmakers. Turnbull conceded that he could not get legislation through the House of Representatives where his conservative coalition holds only a single-seat majority. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)

Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sits during a meeting with Poland's President Andrzej Duda at Parliament House in Canberra, Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. Turnbull abandoned plans to legislate to limit greenhouse gas emissions to head off a revolt by conservative lawmakers. (Mick Tsikas/Pool Photo via AP)
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - Federal officials said Monday they were prepared to act quickly if oil pipelines in a sensitive Michigan waterway leak, drawing a skeptical response from a U.S. senator who said the handling of a suspected anchor strike last spring exposed flaws in the system.

Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, questioned the readiness of government agencies and the forthrightness of Enbridge Inc., owner of Line 5, which carries 23 million gallons of oil daily between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario. A nearly 5-mile, dual segment of the pipeline runs beneath the Straits of Mackinac, where Lakes Huron and Michigan converge.

Enbridge says the 65-year-old pipeline is in good condition, while environmentalists and some elected officials contend it poses a risk of causing a catastrophic Great Lakes spill and should be decommissioned.

"It needs to go," said Peters, a member of a Senate subcommittee that deals with pipeline safety policy.

He grilled federal agency representatives during a crowded Traverse City hearing, saying the underwater portion of Line 5 "could have been a ticking time bomb" after it was struck by a suspected ship anchor April 1.

"I don't want to wait until the next disaster to consider what more we could have done to prevent it," Peters said.

Howard "Skip" Elliott, chief of Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, said the agency believes Line 5 is less likely to fail than another Enbridge line that spilled around 1 million gallons of oil in southern Michigan in 2010. The underwater portion of Line 5 has walls three times as thick as the pipe that ruptured and is operated at well below maximum pressure, he said.

Underwater inspection revealed some "gouging" on the pipeline's exterior after the anchor strike but not structural damage that would justify a shutdown order, Elliott said.

He acknowledged it took several days for his agency to dispatch personnel to the straits area. But he said the agency and the U.S. Coast Guard had participated in drills there in recent years "to ensure seamless emergency response coordination."

Peters said it was "completely unacceptable" that Enbridge waited more than two weeks to send a remotely operated vehicle to inspect the pipelines, and Elliott said he "would like to have seen something more swift."

David Bryson, Enbridge's senior vice president for liquid pipeline operations, said the Canadian company takes "extra precautions" with the underwater section of Line 5, describing it as "the most inspected segment of pipe in our entire North American network."
Organised by the Vietnam Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA), the two-day conference gathered representatives from social insurance bodies and agencies involved in the field of the countries, and from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the ASEAN.

In his opening speech at the event, Vice Minister of the MoLISA Doan Mau Diep praised Thailands initiative of organising labour conferences at ministerial and senior-official levels among the five countries. He said the functions have helped the CLMTV group bolster their management of cross-border migrant workers, bring practical benefits for their residents and each countrys economic development.

Diep stressed that the theme of the conference reflects a commitment made at the 2nd CLMTV Ministerial Conference on Labour Cooperation in August 2017. The minister added it is also in line with the five countries priority of ensuring social welfare, particularly in social insurance payment and benefits for migrant workers amid their increasing number in the five countries.

At the conference, participants were updated about the latest information on migrant workers affairs in the region, as well as the ratification of ILOs protocols and recommendations related to social welfare, including social insurance for migrant workers. Representative from the five countries delivered reports on their respective nations implementation of social insurance for the workers.

The conference reviewed the CLMTV groups realisation of their commitment at the 2nd Ministerial Conference on Labour Cooperation. It also looked at the five countries preparation of agenda for the third ministerial conference in Cambodia in 2019.
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - Taiwan broke off diplomatic ties with El Salvador on Tuesday as the Central American country defected to rival Beijing in the latest blow to the self-ruled island China has been trying to isolate on the global stage.

The break in ties means Taiwan is recognized as a sovereign nation by only 17 mainly small, developing countries. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced that his government had established ties with El Salvador.

"History will prove that establishing diplomatic relations with China is in full accordance with the fundamental and long-term interests of the country and the people of El Salvador," Wang said.

El Salvador's Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi celebrate a toast at a signing ceremony to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between El Salvador and China at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Taiwan split from mainland China amid civil war in 1949, and Beijing, which considers Taiwan its territory, campaigns relentlessly to isolate the island globally. It cut off relations with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's government shortly after she took office in 2016 and has been steadily ratcheting up both diplomatic and economic pressure.

Earlier this year, the West African nation of Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic broke ties with Taiwan and resumed or established diplomatic relations with China.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu on Tuesday condemned what he called China's campaign of luring away Taiwan's allies with promises of vast financial aid and investment.

Taiwan is willing to consider cooperating with its allies in education, farming or even infrastructure initiatives, Wu said, but refuses to compete with China in buying diplomatic support.

Wu said that El Salvador had repeatedly sought large amounts of funding from Taiwan for a port project that a Taiwanese team of engineers dispatched by the government thought wasn't economically feasible.

"We think this is an inappropriate development plan that risks causing both countries to fall into great debt," Wu said, noting that some developing countries were increasingly concerned about the risks of unsustainable debt linked to Chinese investments.

Wu said El Salvador's ruling party was also expecting Taiwan to provide funds to help it win in elections, but Taiwan refused.

"It is irresponsible to engage in financial aid diplomacy or compete with China in cash, or even in providing illegal political money," Wu said. "My government is unwilling to and cannot do so."

Some analysts say Chinese President Xi Jinping, one of the most powerful Chinese leaders in decades, seems determined to bring Taiwan under Beijing's control during his time in office, which would place him in the history books alongside Mao Zedong.

The island's 23 million residents are strongly in favor of maintaining their de facto independent status, but Xi has previously warned a Taiwanese envoy that the issue of unification cannot be put off indefinitely.

Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren said on national television that China and El Salvador would discuss ways to cooperate in trade, investment and infrastructure development.

"It will give great benefits to the country and provide extraordinary opportunities on a personal level to each one of you," he said.

The move comes just a day after China's foreign ministry said it had complained to the U.S. over Taiwanese President Tsai's visits this month to Los Angeles and Houston while in transit to diplomatic allies Paraguay and Belize.

The administration of President Donald Trump has been boosting relations with Taiwan amid a brewing trade war with Beijing.

Tsai urged the island's people to unite despite the pressure the government was facing diplomatically.

"Taiwan will not yield because of pressure," Tsai said in a televised address. "We will be stronger and more united, and this will strengthen Taiwan's determination to go out."

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Marcos Aleman in San Salvador, El Salvador, contributed to this report.

El Salvador's Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, left, speaks as China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi listens at a signing ceremony to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between El Salvador and China at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Taiwan says it is breaking off diplomatic ties with El Salvador because the Central American country plans to defect to rival Beijing. The move is the latest blow to the self-ruled island that China has been trying to isolate on the global stage. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

El Salvador's Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda attends a signing ceremony to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between El Salvador and China at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Taiwan says it is breaking off diplomatic ties with El Salvador because the Central American country plans to defect to rival Beijing. The move is the latest blow to the self-ruled island that China has been trying to isolate on the global stage. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

El Salvador's Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda stands as his country's national anthem is played at a signing ceremony to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between El Salvador and China at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Taiwan says it is breaking off diplomatic ties with El Salvador because the Central American country plans to defect to rival Beijing. The move is the latest blow to the self-ruled island that China has been trying to isolate on the global stage. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents and supervisors raised repeated concerns about expired body armor for more than a year before a union grievance was filed this May, public records show.

Emails released by Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine's office shed new light on behind-the-scenes anxiety surrounding more than 50 bulletproof vests that had passed the five-year expiration date set by the National Institute of Justice.

"I WILL NOT ALLOW MY FOLKS TO GO THROUGH A SINGLE DOOR!!!," a BCI supervisor declared in one of the emails obtained by The Associated Press.

FILE - In this Aug. 2, 2017, file photo, Ohio Attorney General and former U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine discusses the opioid epidemic while speaking at the Columbus Police Academy in Columbus, Ohio. Emails released by DeWine's office show Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents and supervisors raised concerns about expired body armor for more than a year before a union grievance was filed May 3, 2018. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete, File)

All vests are now on order, said DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney, following a report on the grievance by The Associated Press.

As he gathered statistics on the number of expired vests, one employee emailed he was "afraid to ask" how old one officer's vest was.

Another employee said the vest situation could "seriously limit personnel that are able to participate in search warrants and other law enforcement functions."

One law enforcement agent described a practice he'd started that he urged colleagues to follow: submitting a monthly photograph of his vest to management.

"This will create an e-mail paper trail that can be recovered by your spouse in case of any misfortune! (May the good Lord forbid this!)," he wrote.

As agents' concerns burgeoned, DeWine was scheduled to be fitted for a vest of his own. Tierney said the attorney general did not ask for - nor did he ever receive - that body armor.

"The attorney general did not request a vest, to our knowledge," he said. "The best we can tell, this was staff members being proactive." Tierney said two staff members who scheduled DeWine's fitting are no longer with the office and couldn't be asked how the appointment came about.

Body armor has become common in law enforcement, and special agent Larry McCoy told the Ohio Labor Council in his May 3 grievance that 53 of 99 special agents, investigators and personnel transport workers were assigned Kevlar vests that had expired.

Ballistic panels woven into the vests are designed to stop bullets for five years, even with heavy wear and tear. After that, though, manufacturers no longer guarantee their effectiveness in attacks.

Tierney said 95 special agents, two evidence security transport officers and two other bureau investigators are among 115 sworn attorney general employees assigned protective vests.

DeWine's office has said fittings for the expired vests already were underway when the grievance was filed, but DeWine, a candidate for governor, has faced intense pushback over the situation in his race against Democrat Richard Cordray.

Last week, DeWine announced he would partner with the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation to make available safety grant funding to help local police agencies pay for bulletproof vests.

The Fraternal Order of Police said it was grateful for the added financial help but "dismayed" that DeWine appeared to be politicizing a police safety issue.

"DeWine has had seven years to take law enforcement officers' safety seriously, and he's waited until it's politically necessary and expedient to do so," FOP President Gary Wolske said last week, on a phone call coordinated by the Cordray campaign.

"As members of the FOP, we put our lives on the line every day to keep Ohioans and their families safe and we deserve to be treated with respect, not as political props."

Tierney said DeWine has acknowledged the vest issue and is working through the union grievance process to address it.

"To our knowledge, every individual who is not on a leave right now has been fitted and their vest has been fitted and the manufacturing process has begun," he said.
SAO PAULO (AP) - With poll-leading former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in jail and likely to be barred from running, Brazil's presidential election is wide open. A look at the five contenders with the best chances, according to polls:

JAIR BOLSONARO

The former army captain and seven-term congressman has tapped into deep unease in Brazil, which is reeling from a sweeping corruption scandal and is struggling to grow again after a protracted recession. Bolsonaro has expressed nostalgia for the 1964-1985 military dictatorship, has been repeatedly fined for offensive comments, and has made cracking down on crime a centerpiece of his campaign. He says he supports market-friendly economic policies but has given few details.

FILE - In this Aug. 9, 2018 file photo, debate mediator Ricardo Boechat, center, stands with Brazil's presidential candidates before the start of a debate in Sao Paulo, Brazil, ahead of October elections. From left are Alvaro Dias of Podemos Party, Cabo Daciolo of Patriota Party, Geraldo Alckmin of the Social Democratic Party, Marina Silva of the Sustainability Network Party, Jair Bolsonaro of the National Social Liberal Party, Guilherme Boulos of the Socialism and Liberty Party, Henrique Meirelles of the Democratic Movement Party, and Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labor Party. General elections are set for October. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, File)

After da Silva, he garners the most support, between 18 to 20 percent in an Ibope poll released Monday. But Bolsonaro is backed by a small party that will get only a small share of the free TV air time allocated by law for campaigns. He will also have to overcome high disapproval ratings.

The poll, which has margin of error was 2 percentage points, interviewed 2,002 people between Aug. 17 and 19.

MARINA SILVA

When da Silva's name is removed from polls, one of the main beneficiaries is Marina Silva: Her support jumps from 6 percent to 12 percent in the Ibope poll. Silva, who once served as da Silva's environment minister, has a dramatic personal story: She suffered numerous illnesses and often went hungry as a child. She didn't learn to read and write until her teens. Silva nearly upended the last presidential race when her party's candidate died during the campaign and she took his place. She initially surged in polls, tapping into voter discontent and attracting Brazilians on both the left and right.

Back then and to this day, however, Silva has struggled to define herself, beyond her focus on environmental issues.

CIRO GOMES

The left-leaning Gomes, who has roots in da Silva's stronghold of the northeast, is another beneficiary when the former president is removed from polls. Gomes has extensive experience, having served as governor, mayor, minster and federal congressman, and would be prepared to navigate the halls of power in Brasilia from Day 1. He appeals to voters who are disgusted with dirty dealings so common in Brazilian politics, touting the fact that has remained clean, despite decades in public service.

Still, Gomes has struggled to unite the left - he attracted between 5 and 9 percent support in the Ibope poll - and he has a reputation for being prickly and saying controversial things.

GERALDO ALCKMIN

A three-time governor of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest and richest state, Alckmin has a lot of executive experience. At a time when deteriorating public security is of growing concern to many voters, Alckmin can run on the city of Sao Paulo's remarkable reduction in its murder rate. He is a conservative who supports market-friendly economic policies, like scaling back the country's faltering social security system, making him the darling of investors.

But Alckmin lacks charisma and his poll numbers have been in the single digits. He also has high disapproval ratings. However, Alckmin will get significant funding and free TV time because of the size of his Brazilian Social Democracy Party and alliances he has made.

WORKERS' PARTY SUBSTITUTION

Da Silva and his Workers' Party have insisted he is running, but most in Brazil expect him to eventually be barred from the race because of his conviction. The party has chosen former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad as its vice presidential candidate, and it looks likely he will assume the top spot if the Supreme Electoral Court rejects da Silva's candidacy.

In the Ibope poll, Haddad garnered only 4 percent support when he replaced da Silva. But two-thirds of da Silva's supporters have indicated they would vote for whomever he eventually endorses. The question is if that endorsement might come too late in the campaign to give Haddad's numbers a chance to rise.

FILE - In this July 22, 2018 file photo, presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro gives a thumbs up to supporters alongside his wife Michelle during the National Social Liberal Party convention where he accepted the party's nomination in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The former army captain and seven-term congressman has tapped into deep unease in Brazil, which is reeling from a sweeping corruption scandal and is struggling to grow again after a protracted recession. (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 4, 2018 file photo, Marina Silva, a former Environment Minister who is running for president, gives a thumbs up to supporters during the National Convention of the Sustainability Network Party in Brasilia, Brazil. Silva has a dramatic personal story: She suffered numerous illnesses and often went hungry as a child and she didn't learn to read and write until her teens. However, Silva has struggled to define herself, beyond her focus on environmental issues. General elections are set for October. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 6, 2018 file photo, Democratic Labor Party presidential candidate Ciro Gomes smiles during a presentation of candidates event, in Brasilia, Brazil. Gomes has served as governor, mayor, minster and federal congressman, and appeals to voters who are disgusted with dirty dealings so common in Brazilian politics, touting the fact that has remained clean, despite decades in public service. General elections are set for October. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

Sao Paulo's former Gov. Geraldo Alckmin, the presidential candidate representing the Social Democratic Party, speaks at the Brazilian Association of Infrastructure and Basic Industries (ABDIB) forum, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. Alckmin is a conservative who supports market-friendly economic policies, like scaling back the country's faltering social security system, making him the darling of investors. General elections are set for October. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Microsoft has uncovered new Russian hacking efforts targeting U.S. political groups ahead of the midterm elections.

The company said Tuesday that a group tied to the Russian government created fake websites that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. Three other fake sites were designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate.

Microsoft didn't offer any further description of the fake sites, although it has previously outlined in court filings how this hacking group operated a network of fake sites designed to trick victims into installing malicious software.

FILE- In this Dec. 30, 2006, file photo with the Capitol in the background, American flags fly at half-staff at the foot of the Washington Monument in Washington. Microsoft has uncovered new hacking attempts by Russia targeting U.S. political groups ahead of the midterm elections. The company said Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, that a group tied to the Russian government created fake websites that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. Three other fake sites were designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Microsoft's report reflects a "witch hunt" in the U.S. The ministry said Tuesday that Microsoft's statement lacked any proof of Russian involvement because "there can't be any."

The revelation of new hacking efforts arrives just weeks after a similar Microsoft discovery led Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who is running for re-election, to reveal that Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate her Senate computer network.

The hacking mirrors similar Russian attacks ahead of the 2016 election, which U.S. intelligence officials have said were focused on helping to elect Republican Donald Trump to the presidency by hurting his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

This time, more than helping one political party over another, "this activity is most fundamentally focused on disrupting democracy," Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, said in an interview this week. The FBI said Tuesday it's aware of Microsoft's actions to disrupt the sites but the agency wouldn't provide details about whether it's working with the company to combat the hacking group.

Microsoft's court filing last week said the hackers "registered or used" the fake domains at some point after April 20.

Smith said there is no sign the hackers were successful in persuading anyone to click on the fake websites, which could have exposed a target victim to computer infiltration, hidden surveillance and data theft. Both conservative think tanks said they have tried to be vigilant about "spear-phishing" email attacks because their global pro-democracy work has frequently drawn the ire of authoritarian governments.

"We're glad that our work is attracting the attention of bad actors," said Hudson Institute spokesman David Tell. "It means we're having an effect, presumably."

The Hudson Institute, which promotes American global leadership on multiple fronts, doesn't always see eye-to-eye with President Donald Trump, particularly with respect to Russia. In April, the institute published a report entitled "Countering Russian Kleptocracy" that laid out a blueprint for punishing Russian corruption and discouraging it through sanctions, including on Russia's sovereign debt.

The International Republican Institute, the GOP counterpart to the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, trains foreign political operatives and parties on how to run elections and govern. Its members help political parties organize campaigns and observe election processes with the aim of fixing flaws and improving public confidence in elections.

It is led by a board that includes six Republican senators, and one prominent Russia critic and Senate hopeful, Mitt Romney, who is running for a Utah seat this fall.

The group's president, Daniel Twining, said in a statement that the apparent hacking is "consistent with the campaign of meddling that the Kremlin has waged against organizations that support democracy and human rights."

"It is clearly designed to sow confusion, conflict and fear among those who criticize (Vladimir) Putin's authoritarian regime," Twining wrote.

But Thomas Rid, a cybersecurity expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said he thought the Microsoft finding as presented were nothing particularly extraordinary.

"This looks like run-of-the-mill espionage to me, something that happens all the time," he said. Think tanks in rival nations are generally fair game for cyberspies, including for U.S. and other Western intelligence agencies, he said.

Microsoft calls the hacking group Strontium; others call it Fancy Bear or APT28. An indictment from U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller has tied it to Russian's main intelligence agency, known as the GRU, and to the 2016 email hacking of both the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

"We have no doubt in our minds" who is responsible, Smith said.

Microsoft has waged a legal battle with Strontium since suing it in a Virginia federal court in summer 2016. The company obtained court approval last year allowing it to seize certain fake domains created by the group. It has so far used the courts to shut down 84 fake websites created by the group, including the most recent six announced Tuesday.

Microsoft has argued in court that by setting up fake but realistic-looking domains, the hackers were misusing Microsoft trademarks and services to hack into targeted computer networks, install malware and steal sensitive emails and other data.

Smith also announced Tuesday that the company is offering free cybersecurity protection to all U.S. political candidates, campaigns and other political organizations, at least so long as they're already using Microsoft's Office 365 productivity software. Facebook and Google have also promoted similar tools to combat campaign interference.

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AP political reporter Matthew Lee in Washington and AP technology reporter Frank Bajak in Boston contributed to this article.

FILE- In this July 9, 2018, file photo, the U.S. Capitol dome is seen in Washington. Microsoft has uncovered new hacking attempts by Russia targeting U.S. political groups ahead of the midterm elections. The company said Tuesday, Aug. 21, that a group tied to the Russian government created fake websites that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. Three other fake sites were designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

FILE - In this April 28, 2015, file photo, a man walks past a Microsoft sign set up for the Microsoft BUILD conference at Moscone Center in San Francisco. Microsoft has uncovered new hacking attempts by Russia targeting U.S. political groups ahead of the midterm elections. The company said Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, that a group tied to the Russian government created fake websites that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. Three other fake sites were designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) - With tweets and taunts, President Donald Trump is attempting to turn one of his most outspoken critics into the public face of the Russia probe that he has long worked to discredit.

In John Brennan, the blunt former CIA director, Trump believes he has found an unsympathetic foil - one with whom he can spar publicly as he seeks to bolster his public-relations campaign against special counsel Robert Mueller and a team of federal investigators.

Where Mueller's disciplined silence creates a void, Trump is eager to fill that empty space with Brennan.

FILE- In this May 23, 2017, file photo former CIA Director John Brennan testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington before the House Intelligence Committee Russia Investigation Task Force. Brennan says he is considering taking legal action to try to prevent President Donald Trump from stripping other current and former officials' security clearances. Brennan said Sunday, Aug. 19, 2018, on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he's been contacted by a number of lawyers about the basis of a potential complaint. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

Trump has long been unable to resist a fight with a foe who publicly challenges him, particularly on television, and Brennan got under Trump's skin with his declarations and innuendos about Trump's fitness for office and ties to Russia. But White House aides and Trump confidants say Trump's attack on Brennan is as much strategic as it is impulsive.

Goaded on by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has been fiercely critical of Brennan's policy views and actions for almost a decade, Trump signed an order weeks ago to strip the career intelligence official of his security clearance. The president has told confidants in recent days that he views Brennan as a useful adversary.

In a decision he later spelled out on Twitter, the president began attacking Brennan not just as a critic but also as a face of the institutional government corruption he believes is driving the Mueller probe, according to two Republicans close to the White House who are familiar with Trump's thinking. The two spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations.

One White House official, who likewise spoke on condition of anonymity, put Trump's motivations more bluntly, saying the president simply doesn't like Brennan.

"Many people don't even know who he is, and now he has a bigger voice," Trump told reporters Friday. "And that's OK with me because I like taking on voices like that. I've never respected him. I've never had a lot of respect."

Although many in the White House urged Trump to ignore Brennan, others in the president's orbit labeled the former CIA director as the epitome of the deep state that they believe has conspired to undermine Trump.

Brennan's loud criticism of Trump, including repeated accusations of "treasonous" behavior alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin last month, has caused even some allies to roll their eyes.

"The common denominator among all of us that have been speaking up, though, is genuine concern about the jeopardy or threats to our institutions and values," former National Intelligence Director James Clapper, himself a frequent Trump critic, said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." ''But John and his rhetoric have become, I think, an issue in and of itself."

On Monday, 175 national security professionals joined 75 others before them in signing an open letter protesting Trump's decision to revoke Brennan's security clearance but indicated there is not unanimous support for how Brennan has conducted himself either.

"Our signatures below do not necessarily mean that we concur with the opinions expressed by former CIA Director Brennan or the way in which he expressed them," the letter stated. "What they do represent, however, is our firm belief that the country will be weakened if there is a political litmus test applied before seasoned experts are allowed to share their views."

Trump's fight with Brennan comes as the Mueller inquiry looks into the president's conduct in office and as Trump devotes more of his public comments and private griping to trying to undermine the investigation. It also comes amid his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort's financial fraud trial and as his lawyers engage in a back-and-forth with the special counsel's office on a potential presidential interview.

"He has become nothing less than a loudmouth, partisan, political hack who cannot be trusted with the secrets to our country!" Trump tweeted of Brennan over the weekend.

"Everybody wants to keep their Security Clearance, it's worth great prestige and big dollars, even board seats, and that is why certain people are coming forward to protect Brennan," Trump said in a Monday tweet. "It certainly isn't because of the good job he did! He is a political 'hack.'"

White House officials are also preparing paperwork to revoke the security clearances of more than a half-dozen current and former national security professionals who have criticized the president or had a role in beginning the federal probe of potential collusion between Trump's campaign and agents of the Russian government.

Some Republicans close to the White House noted that in elevating Brennan, Trump was seeking to exploit partisan fractures over some of the more controversial elements in his past.

While celebrated by former Obama administration officials for his role in the operation to kill al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, Brennan's role in the previous administration's drone program had made him a subject of some criticism from both ends of the political spectrum.

The White House has not offered specific examples of Brennan improperly using classified information. But on ABC, national security adviser John Bolton argued Sunday that Brennan politicized his information when he served under President Barack Obama.

"It was my view at the time that he and others in the Obama administration were politicizing intelligence," Bolton said. "I think that's a very dangerous thing to do."

Brennan, like other former Obama administration officials, has been a prominent face on MSNBC since leaving office. Bolton is a former Fox News contributor.

___

Miller and Lemire reported from New York. Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann and Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
SAO PAULO (AP) - Attorney Carlos Gomes is a political junkie who plunged into campaigning for national and local candidates as a teenager. Two years ago, he even moved to Sao Paulo to work for a law firm that represents several candidates for office.

However, he says he won't be able to bring himself to vote in October's general election.

"This time, I can't choose," said Gomes, 30. "These candidates are either uninspiring or plain bad."

In this Aug.20, 2018 photo, people cross the street at a bus terminal in Brasilia, Brazil. Record numbers of Brazilians are expected to abstain from the October general election, according to polls and studies, raising the specter that whoever wins will struggle to govern Latin America's most populous nation. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Record numbers of Brazilians are expected to do the same, according to polls and studies, raising the specter that whoever wins will struggle to govern Latin America's most populous nation. It also means that the political fights of the last years, which culminated in the 2016 impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and the ascension of Vice President Michel Temer, who has since become Brazil's least popular leader in history, are far from over.

"Imagine a scenario with a president elected by one third of the electorate, beating another candidate who gets almost as much," said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper university in Sao Paulo. "Congress will know that one third doesn't support him and another is against him."

Such a turnout might be celebrated in the United States, where winners typically get about half the vote of the 50 to 60 percent of eligible voters who turn out, but in Brazil it could turn into political battles that threaten governability.

That's partly due to the fact many Brazilians remain bitter over the ouster of Rousseff, which they see more as a political overthrow than as punishment for any crime. And the country's fragmented political system - there are more than 30 parties represented in Congress - means presidents must spend much political capital forming coalitions. At the very least, a weak mandate would make that more difficult.

Brazilians have long been souring on their elected leaders, in part because of a corruption scandal that is arguably the largest in Latin American history. Launched in 2014, the so-called Carwash probe into kickbacks by construction companies has brought down many of the country's top businessmen and politicians. That includes former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who leads preference polls for October's election despite serving a 12-year-sentence for corruption.

Da Silva will most likely be barred from running, which is one of the factors expected to keep many supporters of his Workers' Party from voting. Many other former backers have long lost faith in the party, which was in power when much of the corruption was happening.

"I voted for Dilma Rousseff four years ago, but after her impeachment, and with Lula (likely) being banned, I don't feel like voting at all," said Thais Ramos, a telecommunications specialist. "It is not because I reject totally whoever Lula endorses later, but I can't put faith in our democracy now."

Voting is mandatory in Brazil, though the fine for not doing so - about $1 - has little influence on people who would prefer not to be bothered.

In the 2014 general elections, almost 19 percent of eligible Brazilian voters skipped the polls on Election Day. Nearly another 9 percent showed up but left their ballots blank. The end result: Rousseff was narrowly re-elected with 38 percent of the total potential electorate. Opponents of the Workers' Party immediately began talking about impeachment, based on allegations ranging from voter fraud to campaign finance violations. Eventually she was ousted for illegal management of the federal budget, allegations she strongly denies up to this day.

This election cycle, all indications are it will be worse. An Ibope poll released Monday found that 29 percent of Brazilians had no intention to vote in the in the most likely scenario for the country's presidential election, with da Silva being replaced by former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad.

"A high number of no votes would not kill the legitimacy of the election from a legal perspective," said Claudio Lamachia, president of Brazil's bar association. "But it makes our representation less legitimate."

For months, politicians and electoral authorities have been urging voters to participate, the kind of get-out-the-vote rhetoric usually not seen until weeks before Election Day. That worry increased in June, when 50 percent of voters in state of Tocantins skipped a special election for governor.

So many people sitting it out could benefit Congressman Jair Bolsonaro, a former Army captain who garners both enthusiastic supporters and detractors. Bolsonaro's closest competitor is centrist Marina Silva, who lost presidential bids in 2010 and 2014.

In the Ibope poll, which has a margin of error of 2 percentage points, Bolsonaro captured 20 percent support and Silva 12 percent when da Silva was excluded, with Haddad getting just 4 percent.

The question is whether Haddad can eventually capture a large percentage of da Silva voters if the former president is excluded and starts campaigning explicitly for the man who is currently his vice presidential candidate.

Also competitive but lagging behind with less than 10 percent support are left-leaning Ciro Gomes, who has served in cabinet posts in previous administrations, and right-leaning, Geraldo Alckmin a former governor of Sao Paulo state. The poll was conducted between Aug. 17 and 19 and 2,002 people were interviewed.

Enthusiasm is so low for the field of candidates that analysts say rejection votes could determine the winner. The candidate who sparks the most condemnation in polls is Bolsonaro, who has a long history of making racist, sexist and homophobic comments.

The Ibope poll found Bolsonaro had very high disapproval ratings. Thirty-seven percent of responders said under no condition would they vote for Bolsonaro, seven percentage points above da Silva. The next most rejected was Alckmin, referred to by many as the "squash popsicle" for being seen as bland. He was rejected by 25 percent, according to the poll.

"I will only leave home if it is to block Bolsonaro. I might vote against him, but I am not voting for any of these candidates," said Guilherme Prado, a 44-year-old Uber driver who lives outside of Sao Paulo. "None of these candidates give me the confidence that Brazil will be doing better next year."

In this Aug. 20, 2018 photo, an electronic voting machine which will be used in the presidential election, shows the Portuguese word "end" at the Superior Electoral Court in Brasilia, Brazil. Frustrated by corruption scandals and uninspired by the candidates, a large chunk of the Brazilian electorate is expected to sit out October's election. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

FILE - In this Match 28, 2018 file photo, Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stands amid supporters during the final rally of his week-long campaign tour of southern Brazil, in Curitiba, Parana state, Brazil. Da Silva leads preference polls for October's presidential election despite serving a 12-year-sentence for corruption. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

In this Aug. 20, 2018 photo, people wait at a bus terminal where signs cover the wall of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that read in Portuguese: "No to prison for Lula" in Brasilia, Brazil. Da Silva will most likely be barred from running, which is one of the factors expected to keep many supporters of his Workers' Party from voting in October's general elections. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

FILE - In this July 22, 2018 file photo, Brazil's presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, center, holds ups his hands with his wife Michelle and son Flavio during the National Social Liberal Party convention where he accepted the party's nomination in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. So many people expected to abstain from October's general elections could benefit Congressman Bolsonaro, a former Army captain who garners both enthusiastic supporters and detractors. (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday said he views Roe v. Wade as settled law, according to Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, but the answer did little to mollify Democrats who say he would restrict abortion access from the bench.

In a two-hour meeting, Kavanaugh told Collins that he agrees with Chief Justice John Roberts, who called Roe v. Wade settled law during his confirmation hearings in 2005.

"We talked at great length about precedent and the application of stare decisis to abortion cases," Collins said, using the legal term for settled precedent.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaks with Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh at her office, before a private meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Kavanaugh's views on abortion are of major importance to Collins, as the Maine Republican had vowed to oppose President Donald Trump's nominee if he had "demonstrated hostility" to the 1973 decision codifying abortion rights.

Collins called the meeting "very informative" and said they discussed a variety of topics. She said she would not make a decision on how to vote until after the Senate Judiciary Committee holds confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh, set for next month.

Democrats fighting Kavanaugh's ascension to the high court sought to keep up the pressure, dismissing Kavanaugh's stance on Roe v. Wade as an artful dodge.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., met with Kavanaugh later Tuesday. He said the judge refused to answer when asked directly whether Roe. V. Wade was correctly decided.

That lack of clarity, Schumer said, should "send shivers down the spine of any American who believes in reproductive freedom for women."

Schumer added that Kavanaugh has a special obligation to be forthcoming on abortion, given Trump's "litmus test that he would only appoint judges who would overturn Roe."

Kavanaugh has already met with most Senate Republicans, but winning support from Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, could be crucial. Both senators support access to abortion services.

Republicans have a narrow 50-49 majority in the Senate due to the absence of ailing Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and can't afford a single defection on Kavanaugh if every Democrat votes no.

Schumer said he asked Kavanaugh about his views on executive power, and particularly whether the president must comply with a subpoena, testify or provide records. The questions are particularly relevant as special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation proceeds.

"He would not say that the president must comply with a subpoena or provide records," Schumer said.

Schumer said they also spent much of the interview going over Kavanaugh's years working at the White House under President George W. Bush. "Unfortunately, the judge either wouldn't answer or could not remember key moments of his tenure," the senator said.

Schumer said that Kavanaugh's inability to "recall almost anything that happened while he was secretary for the president or while he was counsel is why we need his full record released to the American people."

Democrats complain that Republicans are withholding documents in their rush to confirm Trump's pick for the court ahead of the midterm elections.

They want records that crossed Kavanaugh's desk as Bush's staff secretary. But Republicans have declined to pursue them, saying there are adequate records available from Kavanaugh's previous administrative work, as well as his 12 years as an appellate court justice.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said the Democrats' demand for more records is a stall tactic.

"We know the true reason for their unprecedented document demand: to delay Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation until after the midterm elections, when the Senate Democrats hope to win back the Senate and block Judge Kavanaugh's nomination forever," Grassley said.

The National Archives is also producing documents from Kavanaugh's time on Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Bill Clinton, but has said its larger cache of files from the Bush years won't fully be delivered until late October.

The Senate's No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, said senators will have all the paperwork they need to make a decision on Kavanaugh's nomination. "I'm confident he will be confirmed," Cornyn said.

While Schumer was working to build opposition, several Democrats from states that Trump won in the 2016 election remained undecided about how to vote, including Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Claire McCaskill of Missouri. Manchin, Donnelly and Heitkamp voted for Trump's first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch.

McCaskill had her chance to question Kavanaugh on Tuesday and was noncommittal. She said she talked to the judge about access to health care and getting "dark money" from anonymous donors out of politics, among other things.

Kavanagh, 53, is a conservative who, in replacing retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, could tip the court rightward for a generation.

Several Democratic female senators joined with advocates for women's health care Tuesday to talk about the stakes of adding Kavanaugh to the court, particularly when it comes to access to abortion services.

"This is a wakeup call," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. "Do not take this moment lightly."

Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee pushed back, scolding colleagues for treating the nominee as if he'd just been released from prison. "I hope we treat him with dignity and respect," Alexander said.

Republicans hope to have Kavanaugh confirmed by the start of the court's session on Oct. 1.

___

Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh arrives at Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, office, for a private meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh arrives at Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, office, for a private meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
LONDON (AP) - Claudio Belotti knows he cut the denim that became the jeans Meghan Markle wore on one of her first outings as the fiancee of Britain's Prince Harry.

That's because he cuts all of the fabric for Hiut Denim Co., a 7-year-old company that makes jeans in Cardigan, Wales. Belotti is a craftsman with 50 years of experience that gives his work a personal touch - something that's not quite couture but not exactly mass-produced either.

"There's a story behind each one," Belotti said. "You're paying for the skill."

FILE - In this Thursday, Jan.18, 2018 file photo, Britain's Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle leave after a visit to Cardiff Castle in Cardiff, Wales. When Meghan wore jeans from the Hiut Denim Company, there was worldwide publicity about the firm in Wales that started to re-employ workers displaced when the local factory closed, helping small companies like Hiut buck the globalization trend. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, FILE)

Customer demand for something unique is helping small companies like Hiut buck the globalization trend and set up shop in developed countries that had long seen such work disappear. While international brands like H&M and Zara still dominate the clothing market, small manufacturers are finding a niche by using technology and skill to bring down costs and targeting well-heeled customers who are willing to pay a little more for clothes that aren't churned out by the thousands half a world away.

Profits at smaller national clothing firms grew 2 percent over the last five years, compared with a 25 percent decline at the top 700 traditional multinationals, according to research by Kantar Consulting.

Their success comes from promoting their small size and individuality, said Jaideep Prabhu, a professor of enterprise at Cambridge University's Judge Business School.

"It's a different kind of manufacturing," he said. "They are not the Satanic mills. These are very cool little boutiques."

Hiut, which makes nothing but jeans, employs 16 people in Cardigan and makes 160 pairs a week. Women's styles range from 145 pounds ($192) to 185 pounds ($244), men's go for 150 pounds to 235 pounds. Each is signed by the person who sewed it, known in the company as a "Grand Master." By contrast, Primark says it sources products from 1,071 factories in 31 countries and keeps costs down by "buying in vast quantities." The most expensive pair of jeans on the company's website sells for 20 pounds.

Many of these small manufacturers also try to stand out by embracing social issues, from reducing waste to paying a living wage.

Hiut, for example, highlights its efforts to put people back to work in a small town that was devastated when a factory that employed 400 people and made 35,000 pairs of jeans a week shut down. Underscoring the years of craftsmanship that go into each pair of jeans, the company offers "free repairs for life."

This kind of customer service helps form a "personal relationship" between a brand and the shopper that is valuable, says Anusha Couttigane of Kantar Consulting.

Customers notice. Laura Lewis-Davies, a museum worker who from Wales, says she wants to support independent businesses when she can and bought a pair of Hiut jeans after seeing a story about Markle wearing the brand.

"Well-crafted things bring more joy," she said. "I'd rather buy fewer things but know they're good quality (and) made by people who are working in good conditions for a fair salary."

The rise of small clothing makers reflects a broader shift in consumer preferences away from big brands - as evident, say, in the boom in craft beers. In fashion, technology is fueling the trend.

The internet provides a cheap way to reach customers, while off-the-shelf artificial intelligence programs allow companies to accurately forecast demand and order materials so they can make small batches and avoid unwanted stock. That makes it possible to produce clothes that are more customized.

"Data is the backbone for this and the trigger," said Achim Berg, a senior partner at McKinsey & Co. in Frankfurt who advises fashion and luxury goods companies. "It's not custom-made, but it gives the consumer the opportunity to be more individual."

A survey of 500 companies by McKinsey and The Business of Fashion, an influential industry news website, identified personalization as this year's No. 1 trend. Consumers are willing to hand over personal information to get more customized products and services, according to a 2016 survey by Salesforce.com, which provides online sales and marketing tools for businesses.

Established brands have recognized the trend and offering to customize products, too. Adidas, for example, offers the chance to mix and match colors and materials on things like the sole and laces on some of its shoes.

But making clothes on a smaller scale has also gained a moral tinge after scandals about sweatshops, child labor and unsafe working practices hit global brands in recent years. The 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, which killed 1,100 and injured 2,500 others, highlighted the grim conditions in factories that export to the United States and Europe.

Jenny Holloway, who employs 100 people at Fashion Enter in London, said she's not interested in making as many garments as possible and selling them as fast as she can.

"I'd like to say we've done a massive business plan and we refer to it. We don't," Holloway said. "We sit down and have a cup of tea and we have a chat and we evaluate how things sit with us. How does that client fit our ethics? ... It isn't about money and making that big buck. It's about sustainability."

Prabhu sees this as part of a bigger shift away from the model of outsourcing production to low-cost countries like China. "You're trying to constantly keep up with your customers. Your competitive advantage is to give them something closer to their needs."

Hiut Denim is an example of this backlash.

The company is based in a town of some 4,000 people where 10 percent of the population once made jeans. Then, a decade ago, the factory shut down as the owners moved production to Morocco and later to China.

When David and Clare Hieatt decided to start making jeans again, they were determined to take advantage of the years of professional experience going to waste. They hoped that would give their products a "story" to market.

Markle's decision to wear Hiut jeans in Wales boosted that effort. The company now has a waiting list of three months.

"For the town it's been incredible because it gives people a confidence to go, 'Wow. This town makes a world-class product,'" David Hieatt said. "We lost our mojo when we lost 400 jobs, but now we're getting it back. That's a very cool story."

___

Martin Benedyk contributed to this report.
MILAN (AP) - Italy's environmental minister on Tuesday urged prosecutors to look at possible criminal responsibility and administrative lapses that may have contributed to the deaths of 10 people swept away by a flash flood as they hiked through a narrow gorge in the southern region of Calabria.

Rescue workers saved 34 people Monday after a torrent about 2  meters (8 feet) deep filled the narrow Raganello Gorge, which features rock faces as high as 700 meters (2,300 feet) inside the vast Pollino National Park. Of those, 11 were hospitalized, including at least four children - several of whom lost either one or both of their parents.

Three people who had been listed as missing had changed plans and were located elsewhere, and officials called off the search for any further possible victims.

Rescuers search through the Raganello stream, Italy, Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. Italian prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into the deaths of at least 10 people swept away by a flash flood as they hiked through a narrow gorge in the southern region of Calabria. Italy's civil protection agency said at least three people were missing, although the number could be higher since guides were not mandatory inside the Raganello Gorge. (Francesco Arena/ANSA via AP)

"Italy is tired of crying for the dead. Enough," environment minister Sergio Costa said during a visit to the scene. "If what happened is the result of negligence, sloppiness or a lack of awareness of the risks, we are facing a serious situation that we need to get to the bottom of."

The tragedy came six days after a highway bridge collapse in the northern port city of Genoa killed 43 people.

Italian prosecutors on Tuesday opened a criminal investigation into the gorge deaths, and the government has asked for a separate administrative proceeding to determine if there were lapses that contributed to the deaths.

Prosecutor Eugenio Facciolla said authorities were investigating possible charges including manslaughter, causing bodily harm and official negligence, the news agency ANSA reported. No target has been identified.

Questions focused on whether weather alerts had been properly issued and heeded, and whether access to the gorge and its challenging terrains should be better regulated.

Meteorologists say that the intense rainfall that provoked the torrent wasn't particularly extraordinary for the period. Still, rescue workers and officials said flash floods in the gorge are rare in the summer, and that one of that magnitude hadn't registered for about a century.

"Without a doubt, the event was of a weight we haven't seen for many years. We are talking about at least 90 years ago," the president of the Pollino National Park, Domenico Pappaterra, told Sky TG24.

Pappaterra said the park's own guides don't bring hikers through the canyon, and he said that only well-equipped and trained trekkers should access the upper part of the canyon. The lower area, near a man-made stone crossing known as Devil's Bridge, is more accessible to casual tourists.

"There are those out for an adventure, and they do it in a careless way," he said.

The victims, who were among two groups of trekkers on an excursion, appeared to have been spread throughout the 12-kilometer-long (7-1/2-mile-long) gorge.

Pasquale Gagliardi, a doctor with an emergency helicopter service, told ANSA that one of the survivors was an 8-year-old girl, found in a state of shock next to a body. Her parents were believed to be among the dead.

Italian media reported that the dead were all Italians. Costa said Dutch tourists were among those who survived.

A local resident who helped respond to the emergency, identified only as Claudio, told ANSA that he helped two youths from Naples who managed to climb out of the gorge on their own.

"They were in a state of shock and they arrived without shoes and with cuts from the rocks. They recounted a terrifying situation," he said.

The gorge boasts aquatic trekking along the stream that cuts through the massive rock, where hikers pass by waterfalls and natural slipways. Several private companies offer guides, and advertise that they provide also helmets, wetsuits and other equipment.

The news agency ANSA said the dead included one such guide, a 32-year-old who also worked as a rescue worker during the avalanche that buried the Rigopiano hotel in Abruzzo in January 2017. Twenty-nine people died in that tragedy.

A view of the Raganello Gorge in Civita, Italy, Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. Italy's civil protection agency says at least five people have been killed when a rain-swollen river flooded a gorge in the southern region of Calabria. The Italian news agency ANSA reported Monday that 12 people were brought to safety in the flash flood. It was unclear how many people were missing. The flood hit a group of hikers in the Raganello Gorge. (Antonio Iannicelli/ANSA via AP)

A girl is assisted by a member of the National Alpine and Caving Rescue Squad (CNSAS), in the Raganello Gorge in Civita, Italy, Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. Italy's civil protection agency says the death toll in a flash flood that swept away hikers in a narrow gorge in the southern region of Calabria has risen to 10. At least three others are missing, too. (ANSA via AP)

A girl receives medical assistance aboard an helicopter after being rescued in the Raganello Gorge in Civita, Italy, Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. Italy's civil protection agency says the death toll in a flash flood that swept away hikers in a narrow gorge in the southern region of Calabria has risen to 10. At least three others are missing, too. (ANSA via AP)

Italian Environment Minister Sergio Costa, center, arrives in Civita, near Cosenza, southern Italy, Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. Italian prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into the deaths of at least 10 people swept away by a flash flood as they hiked through a narrow gorge in the southern region of Calabria. Italy's civil protection agency said at least three people were missing, although the number could be higher since guides were not mandatory inside the Raganello Gorge. (Francesco Arena/ANSA via AP)

An hiker is airlifted on a firefighters helicopter flying over the Raganello Gorge, southern Italy, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Italy's civil protection agency says the death toll in a flash flood that swept away hikers in a narrow gorge in the southern region of Calabria has risen to 10. At least three others are missing, too. Authorities on Tuesday said 23 people have been saved from flooding in the Raganello Gorge, a popular spot for aquatic trekking. They included a 10-year-old boy treated for hypothermia who was among 11 hospitalized. (Vigili del Fuoco via AP)

Rescuers walk on a bridge on the Raganello stream, Italy, Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. Italian prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into the deaths of at least 10 people swept away by a flash flood as they hiked through a narrow gorge in the southern region of Calabria. Italy's civil protection agency said at least three people were missing, although the number could be higher since guides were not mandatory inside the Raganello Gorge. (Francesco Arena/ANSA via AP)

Rescuers at work along the Raganello Gorge in Civita, Italy, Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. Italy's civil protection agency says the death toll in a flash flood that swept away hikers in a narrow gorge in the southern region of Calabria has risen to 10. At least three others are missing, too. (Francesco Arena/ANSA via AP)

Rescuers work at the Raganello Gorge in Civita, Italy, Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. At least eight people were killed when heavy rain flooded a gorge filled with hikers in the southern region of Calabria, Italy's civil protection agency said. The dead included four men and four women. The head of civil protection in Calabria, Carlo Tansi, told Sky TG24 that 12, including a 10-year-old boy, were brought to safety in the flash flood in the Raganello Gorge, a popular hiking spot. The boy was among six people who were injured. (Francesco Capitaneo/ANSA via AP)

Rescue vehicles gather in Civita, Italy, Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. Italy's civil protection agency says at least five people have been killed when a rain-swollen river flooded a gorge in the southern region of Calabria. The Italian news agency ANSA reported Monday that 12 people were brought to safety in the flash flood. It was unclear how many people were missing. The flood hit a group of hikers in the Raganello Gorge. (Clemente Angotti/ANSA via AP)
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R), also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, meets with Tran Quoc Vuong, a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee and permanent member of the CPV Central Committee's Secretariat, in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 20, 2018. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday met with a senior official of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), calling for efforts to further promote bilateral ties.

During the meeting with Tran Quoc Vuong, Politburo member and permanent member of the CPV Central Committee's Secretariat, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, Xi said that complicated and profound changes are currently taking place concerning the international and regional situation.

Xi, also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), said that bilateral ties and the socialist causes of both countries have entered into a new phase of development and face new opportunities and challenges.

Xi said he and Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the CPV Central Committee, again made mutual visits to each other's countries within a year in 2017 and reached a series of important consensus on deepening relations between the two parties and the two countries.

China is glad to see the momentum of the sound development of bilateral ties be consolidated and potential of bilateral cooperation be released, he said.

"We stand ready to work with Vietnam on in-depth conversations on overall and strategic issues and enhance the political guidance on bilateral ties so as to further promote relations," Xi said.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of forging the China-Vietnam comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation. Hailing the achievements scored in the past 10 years, Xi said China has always viewed the bilateral ties from a strategic height and a long-term perspective.

China is willing to work with Vietnam to make sure bilateral ties forge ahead along the right path under the guidance of the policy of long-term stability, forward-thinking, good-neighborliness and comprehensive cooperation, and the spirit of being good neighbors, friends, comrades and partners, said Xi.

He called on both sides to maintain high-level exchanges, enhance the synergy of development strategies, continue dialogue and consultations, manage differences and consolidate the foundation of people-to-people exchanges.

Xi said the CPC and the CPV share common views on party building. The CPC is willing to further promote exchanges with the CPV and upgrade both sides' governance ability.

Vuong congratulated China on the progress it has made under the leadership of Xi and the CPC Central Committee since the 19th CPC National Congress held last year, and spoke highly of China's contributions to regional and world peace and stability.

It is of great significance at present to cement and deepen relations between the two parties and to remain true to both parties' original aspirations, said Vuong.

Vietnam values its traditional friendship with China, he said, adding that it is the top priority in Vietnam's foreign policy to develop relations with China.

He said Vietnam is willing to work with the party and the government of China to promote the healthy and stable development of the comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Indonesian officials have defended a street parade that involved veiled kindergarteners carrying replica weapons, with police saying they will arrest the person who uploaded a video of the event to Facebook.

The video of children dressed head-to-toe in black marching with wooden guns has caused a sensation in Indonesia, which in May suffered one of its worst attacks in years when militants used their children as suicide bombers in the second-largest city, Surabaya.

The parade in East Java was one of thousands held across Indonesia last Friday to mark independence.

Probolinggo Police Chief Alfian Nurrizal told The Associated Press on Tuesday that police were investigating who uploaded the video. He said it may have been edited to convey the wrong impression.

"He or she did not upload the entire footage," Nurrizal said. "There are allegations of intentionally cutting the footage for a certain purpose." If the parade was "filmed completely since the beginning, there will be no misunderstanding," he said.

Local media reported that Education and Culture Minister Muhajir Effendy said the parade was misinterpreted and the staff of the school, located inside a local military command, had no intention to instill radicalism in children.

It contained many elements, he said, including symbols of Muslims who struggled for Indonesia's independence and the red and white of Indonesia's national flag.

"It was recorded when these veiled children carried only replica guns," he told reporters. "In fact, there were themes raised by these children, namely the struggle of Islam. Until finally this piece of video spread on social media and was very biased."

However, the principal of the school apologized. And the head of prevention at the National Counter-Terrorism Agency said public outrage over the incident was a positive sign.

"For us, people's reaction against such a parade was a sign of good awareness about radicalism," Brig. Gen. Hamli told AP.

"In the past, maybe people didn't care about these kinds of activities," he said, "but now at least people were concerned that it was inappropriate activities for these children and they responded immediately."

Nurrizal said the provincial police's cyber unit is helping to track down the video uploader.

After Jakarta's minority Christian governor was convicted of blasphemy last year and imprisoned, police also prosecuted the individual who helped trigger massive street protests against the governor by posting a video online of him making offending comments.
SINGAPORE (AP) - The craze for "Crazy Rich Asians" is hitting Asia, with a premiere in Singapore followed by openings in several neighboring countries later this week.

Much of the over-the-top romantic comedy was set in this wealthy city-state. As the stars streamed past flashing lights down the red carpet Tuesday evening, fans and tourists swarmed around them taking photos and asking for selfies.

The movie is expected to draw enthusiastic crowds across Asia after its box-office bonanza in the U.S.

Director John Chu and his wife Kristin Hodge pose for photographers as they arrive for the red carpet screening of the movie "Crazy Rich Asians" on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in Singapore. (AP Photo/Don Wong)

Directed by John M. Chu, the film was adapted from Singaporean author Kevin Kwan's best-selling novel of the same name. It follows Chinese-American Rachel Chu as she travels with her boyfriend Nick Young to Singapore to meet his family and discovers they are ultra-wealthy.

The movie is drawing a mixed reaction. Admirers of the film say that as the first majority Asian-cast film in over two decades to be released by a major Hollywood studio it upends Hollywood's usual stereotypes of Asian characters. Critics say it misses a chance to showcase Singapore's ethnic diversity.

The $30 million Warner Bros. film has grossed more than $35 million since its Aug. 15 world debut in Los Angeles and came out tops with its release in U.S. theaters over the weekend.

"This (movie) is something very personal to people, and it feels like a bigger movement than just the movie itself," Chu, the director, told The Associated Press.

The film has drawn criticism for its inaccurate portrayal of Singapore's ethnic diversity, with some calling it a misrepresentation of the country's minority races. Even though a majority of its residents are Chinese, a quarter of its population are Malay, Indian, or Eurasians, with many migrant workers from other Asian countries like Bangladesh or the Philippines.

"There's this whole notion of the movie being a triumph for representation, which is very problematic. The only Indians and Malays you see are servants," said Nicholas Yong, a Singaporean journalist and author who saw the movie before its Singapore premiere.

Even though its glamorous depiction of Singapore could give its tourism a boost, it was not entirely welcomed.

"To us, 'Crazy Rich' should not just be about the opulence and luxury showcased in the film, but Singapore's actual richness in terms of our diversity," said Singapore Tourism Board's spokesperson Lynette Pang.

As is true anywhere, in Singapore, the super-rich with their extravagant lifestyles are a tiny, privileged minority.

Writing in the South China Morning Post of Hong Kong, which has more than its share of tycoons and elite wealthy families, commentator Alex Lo said he enjoyed the film with "guilty pleasure."

"But amusement aside, it strikes me the whole purpose of the film exercise is to glamorize and legitimize the super-rich in Asia, many of whom are ethnic Chinese in real life," he said.

"Should we, as the audience and hoi polloi, be tantalized and awed by the display of mega wealth, which has been described, by most accounts, as accurate. Or should we rather be repelled?"

Many in Asia looked forward to seeing some familiar faces.

In Manila, the Philippines, an audience of mostly movie writers, critics and bloggers and some celebrity guests were thrilled and applauded when two Filipinos in the film, Kris Aquino and Nico Santos, appeared in their roles during an advance screening Monday night, said Ruth Navarra-Mayo, an editor of the Lifestyle section of the newspaper Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Santos plays a fashion designer. Aquino, a popular actress and daughter of late pro-democracy champions in the Philippines, played a member of Malay royalty.

A former American colony, the Philippines has a highly Westernized culture and Hollywood movies are a local entertainment staple. Audiences would welcome more films with Asian themes and characters, Navarro-Mayo said.

"We want to see Asian actors on Asian topics," Navarro-Mayo said. "We're hungry and ready for this type of film."

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Associated Press writer Jim Gomez in Manila contributed to this report.

Actress Fiona Xie poses for photographers as she arrives for the red carpet screening of the movie "Crazy Rich Asians" on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in Singapore. (AP Photo/Don Wong)

Actor Henry Golding and his wife Liv Lo pose as they arrive for the red carpet screening of the movie "Crazy Rich Asians" on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in Singapore. (AP Photo/Don Wong)

Actress Constance Lau poses for photographers as she arrives for the red carpet screening of the movie "Crazy Rich Asians" on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in Singapore. (AP Photo/Don Wong)

Actor Pierre Png and his wife Andrea De Cruz pose for photographers as they arrive for the red carpet screening of the movie "Crazy Rich Asians" on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in Singapore. (AP Photo/Don Wong)

FILE: In this Aug. 14, 2018, file photo, Actors Michelle Yeoh, from left, Henry Golding, Constance Wu, Ken Jeong and Awkwafina participate in the BUILD Speaker Series to discuss the film "Crazy Rich Asians" at AOL Studios in New York. The craze for "Crazy Rich Asians" is hitting Asia, with a premiere in Singapore to be followed by openings in several neighboring countries later this week. Much of the movie was set in the wealthy city-state and the red carpet premiere Tuesday night for the over-the-top romantic comedy was expected to draw an enthusiastic crowd after its box-office bonanza in the U.S. Critics say its satirical portrayal of an uber-rich Singaporean Chinese family fails to showcase the city's ethnic diversity. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

Burlesque performer Sukki Singapora poses for photographers as she arrives for the red carpet screening of the movie "Crazy Rich Asians" on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in Singapore. (AP Photo/Don Wong)
BERLIN (AP) - A 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard who lived quietly in New York City for decades was carried out of his home on a stretcher by federal agents and flown to Germany early Tuesday in what could prove to be the last U.S. deportation of a World War II-era war-crimes suspect.

Jakiw Palij's expulsion, at President Donald Trump's urging, came 25 years after investigators first accused Palij of lying about his wartime past to get into the U.S. But it was largely symbolic because officials in Germany have repeatedly said there is insufficient evidence to prosecute him.

Trump "made it very clear" he wanted Palij out of the country, and a new German government that took office in March brought "new energy" to expediting the matter, U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell said.

In this Monday, Aug. 20, 2018, frame from video, Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard, is carried on a stretcher from his home in the Queens borough of New York. Palij, the last Nazi war crimes suspect facing deportation from the U.S. was taken from his home and spirited early Tuesday morning to Germany, the White House said. (ABC via AP)

"He's gone. He's back in Germany," Trump said at a campaign rally in West Virginia Tuesday night as he celebrated his role in the deportation.

Eli Rosenbaum, the former head of the U.S. office investigating accused Nazi war criminals, said Palij's removal "is a landmark victory in the U.S. government's decades-long quest to achieve a measure of justice and accountability on behalf of the victims of Nazi inhumanity."

Palij lived quietly in the U.S. for years, as a draftsman and then as a retiree, until nearly three decades ago when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was "living somewhere in America."

Palij, an ethnic Ukrainian born in a part of Poland that is now Ukraine, said on his 1957 naturalization petition that he had Ukrainian citizenship. When their investigators showed up at his door in 1993, he said: "I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied."

A judge stripped Palij's U.S. citizenship in 2003 for "participation in acts against Jewish civilians" while he was an armed guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and he was ordered deported a year later.

But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-story, red brick home in Queens he shared with his late wife, Maria. His continued presence there outraged the Jewish community, attracting frequent protests over the years that featured such chants as, "Your neighbor is a Nazi!"

According to the Justice Department, Palij served at Trawniki in 1943, the same year 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered. Palij has acknowledged serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Last September, all 29 members of New York's congressional delegation signed a letter urging the State Department to follow through on his deportation.

"Good riddance to this war criminal," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.

The deportation came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations.

Grenell told reporters there were "difficult conversations" because Palij is not a German citizen and was stateless after losing his U.S. citizenship. But "the moral obligation" of taking in "someone who served in the name of the German government was accepted," he said.

Video footage from ABC News showed federal immigration agents carrying Palij out of his home Monday on a stretcher. Palij, with a fluffy white beard and a brown, newsboy-style cap atop his head, was wrapped in a sheet as the agents carried him down a brick stairway in front of his home and into a waiting ambulance.

He ignored a reporter who shouted, "Are you a Nazi?" and "Do you have any regrets?"

Palij was flown on a specially chartered air ambulance from Teterboro, New Jersey, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and arrived in Dusseldorf, Germany, at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

Palij's lawyer, Ivars Berzins, declined to comment.

The local German government in Warendorf county, near Muenster, said Palij would be taken to a care facility in the town of Ahlen.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said "there is no line under historical responsibility," but added in a comment to the German daily Bild that doing justice to the memory of Nazi atrocities "means standing by our moral obligation to the victims and the subsequent generations."

Jens Rommel, head of the German federal prosecutors' office that investigates Nazi war crimes, said Tuesday that the deportation doesn't change the likelihood that Palij will be prosecuted for war crimes. "A new investigation would only come into question if something changed in the legal evaluation or actual new evidence became known," he said.

However, Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said he hoped prosecutors would revisit the case now that Palij is in Germany.

"Trawniki was a camp where people were trained to round up and murder the Jews in Poland, so there's certainly a basis for some sort of prosecution," he said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem.

"The efforts invested by the United States in getting Palij deported are really noteworthy and I'm very happy to see that they finally met with success," he said.

Palij's deportation is the first for a Nazi war crimes suspect since Germany agreed in 2009 to take John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio autoworker who was accused of serving as a Nazi guard. He was convicted in 2011 of being an accessory to more than 28,000 killings and died 10 months later, at age 91, with his appeal pending.

Palij, whose full name is pronounced Yah-keev PAH'-lee, entered the U.S. in 1949 under the Displaced Persons Act, a law meant to help refugees from post-war Europe.

He told immigration officials that he worked during the war in a woodshop and farm in Nazi-occupied Poland, as well as at another farm in Germany and finally in a German upholstery factory. Palij said he never served in the military.

In reality, officials say, he played an essential role in the Nazi program to exterminate Jews as an armed guard at Trawniki. According to a Justice Department complaint, Palij served in a unit that "committed atrocities against Polish civilians and others" and then in the notorious SS Streibel Battalion, "a unit whose function was to round up and guard thousands of Polish civilian forced laborers."

After the war, Palij maintained friendships with other Nazi guards who the government says came to the U.S. under similar false pretenses.

The Justice Department's special Nazi-hunting unit started piecing together Palij's past after a fellow Trawniki guard identified him to Canadian authorities in 1989. Investigators asked Russia and other countries for records on Palij beginning in 1990 and first confronted him in 1993.

It wasn't until after a second interview in 2001 that he signed a document acknowledging he had been a guard at Trawniki and a member of the Streibel Battalion. Palij suggested at one point during that interview that he was threatened with death if he refused to work as a guard, saying, "If you don't show up, boom-boom."

Though the last Nazi suspect ordered deported, Palij is not the last remaining in the U.S.

Since 2017, Poland has been seeking the extradition of Ukrainian-born Michael Karkoc, an ex-commander in an SS-led Nazi unit that burned Polish villages and killed civilians during the war. But it could take years before the 99-year-old, who currently lives in Minneapolis, faces deportation. He was the subject of a series of 2013 reports by The Associated Press that led Polish prosecutors to issue an arrest warrant for him.

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Sisak and Herschaft reported from New York. Associated Press writers Geir Moulson in Berlin and Jonathan Lemire and Ashraf Khalil in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak , Rising at twitter.com/davidrising and Herschaft at twitter.com/HerschaftAP

People pass by the residence of Nazi war crimes suspect Jakiw Palij on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in the Queens borough of New York. Palij, the last Nazi war crimes suspect facing deportation from the U.S., was taken from his home and spirited early Tuesday morning to Germany, the White House said. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

New York State Assemblyman, Dov Hikind, D-Brooklyn, pauses after speaking to reporters in front of the residence of Nazi war crimes suspect Jakiw Palij on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in the Queens borough of New York. Palij, the last Nazi war crimes suspect facing deportation from the U.S., was taken from his home and spirited early Tuesday morning to Germany, the White House said. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

In this Monday, Aug. 20, 2018, frame from video, Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard, is carried on a stretcher from his home into a waiting ambulance in the Queens borough of New York. Palij, the last Nazi war crimes suspect facing deportation from the U.S. was taken from his home and spirited early Tuesday morning to Germany, the White House said. (ABC via AP)

In this Monday, Aug. 20, 2018, frame from video, Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard, is carried on a stretcher from his home in the Queens borough of New York. Palij, the last Nazi war crimes suspect facing deportation from the U.S. was taken from his home and spirited early Tuesday morning to Germany, the White House said. (ABC via AP)

FILE - In this Nov. 20, 2003 file photo, Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard, stands in front of a building in the Queens borough of New York. The White House says that Palij, a 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard has been deported to Germany, 14 years after a judge ordered his expulsion. In a statement, the White House said the deportation of Palij, who lived in New York City, was carried out early Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. (Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times via AP, File)

This 1942 photo provided by the the public prosecutor's office in Hamburg via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, shows Heinrich Himmler, center left, shaking hands with new guard recruits at the Trawniki concentration camp in Nazi occupied Poland. Trawniki is the same camp, where some time after this photo was made, Jakiw Palij trained and served as a guard. The White House says that Palij, a 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard has been deported to Germany, 14 years after a judge ordered his expulsion. In a statement, the White House said the deportation of Palij, who lived in New York City, was carried out early Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. (Public prosecutor's office in Hamburg via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum via AP)

This document, photographed July 16, 2018 at the National Archives at New York City, shows the Petition for Naturalization of Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard whose citizenship has been revoked. The White House says that Palij, a 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard has been deported to Germany, 14 years after a judge ordered his expulsion. In a statement, the White House said the deportation of Palij, who lived in New York City, was carried out early Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. (National Archives at New York City via AP)

This document, photographed July 16, 2018 at the National Archives at New York City, shows the reverse side of the Petition for Naturalization of Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard whose citizenship has been revoked. The White House says that Palij, a 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard has been deported to Germany, 14 years after a judge ordered his expulsion. In a statement, the White House said the deportation of Palij, who lived in New York City, was carried out early Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. (National Archives at New York City via AP)

This 1957 photo provided by the US Department of Justice shows Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard who has been living in the Queens borough of New York. The White House says that Palij, a 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard has been deported to Germany, 14 years after a judge ordered his expulsion. In a statement, the White House said the deportation of Palij, who lived in New York City, was carried out early Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. (US Department of Justice via AP)

This 1942 photo provided by the the public prosecutor's office in Hamburg via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, shows Heinrich Himmler, center left, shaking hands with new guard recruits at the Trawniki concentration camp in Nazi occupied Poland. Trawniki is the same camp, where some time after this photo was made, Jakiw Palij trained and served as a guard. The White House says that Palij, a 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard has been deported to Germany, 14 years after a judge ordered his expulsion. (public prosecutor's office in Hamburg via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum via AP)

FILE - This Nov. 9, 2017 file photo shows the home, left, of former Nazi concentration camp guard Jakiw Palij, in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York. The White House says that Palij, a 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard has been deported to Germany, 14 years after a judge ordered his expulsion. In a statement, the White House said the deportation of Palij, who lived in New York City, was carried out early Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)

Police officers stand in front of a senior home in Ahlen, Germany, where Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard, arrived earlier Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Palij, the last Nazi war crimes suspect facing deportation from the U.S. was taken from his home and spirited early Tuesday morning to Germany, the White House said. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) - Protesters at North Carolina's flagship university took advantage of a non-confrontational police response to topple a century-old Confederate statue that's long been the target of critics who say it symbolizes racism.

Now, backlash over the Monday night takedown could make it harder to negotiate a resolution to the fate of other Confederate monuments in the state - including three on state Capitol grounds being debated Wednesday by a state historical commission.

A year before protesters took down "Silent Sam," University of North Carolina campus police responded much differently to a similar protest. In 2017, officers in riot gear faced criticism for heavy-handed tactics after using metal barricades to keep activists from getting near the statue.

Police stand guard after the confederate statue known as Silent Sam was toppled by protesters on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

The portable barriers weren't used Monday, and officers didn't keep protesters away from the statue. The bronze figure of an anonymous soldier was pulled down from its stone pedestal with ropes by protesters who used banners to mask their action.

University and legislative leaders said they're taking a hard look at how protesters used "mob rule" tactics to bring down the statue. A top legislative leader urged all levels of government to reevaluate the response to such protests, while campus police were preparing a detailed timeline of events leading to when "Silent Sam" fell.

North Carolina's powerful Republican state Senate leader Phil Berger urged officials "from the Governor down to the local District Attorney" rethink how they deal with such "violent riots" and work on "re-establishing the rule of law."

Chancellor Carol Folt and UNC System President Margaret Spellings, along with the heads of their boards, issued a joint statement acknowledging "many have questioned how police officers responded" but it wasn't the administration's intention to allow the statue to fall.

They said the protest was "unlike any previous event" on campus, "carried out in a highly organized manner."

To outwit officers, the protesters raised four tall black banners on bamboo poles, along with banners on the ground, concealing efforts to tie a rope around the sculpture. They then split into two groups. Most marched away as a small group remained behind. The banners were up for about an hour before the groups converged and yanked the statue down, according to videos.

The tactics appeared to have evolved from previous protests where activists wrapped the pedestal in banners, put up signs or staged a sit-in at its base. Police guarding the statue have also been closely watched by activists.

The statue, erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1913, had been under constant, costly police surveillance after being vandalized in recent months. Many students, faculty and alumni argued that "Silent Sam" symbolized racism and asked officials to take it down.

Campus police referred reporters to university media relations officials, who declined to answer questions Tuesday.

Seth Stoughton, a former police officer who teaches law at the University of South Carolina, said police at protests balance factors ranging from potential harm or damage to fostering community relationships. Further, social media has changed how protests coalesce.

"Those sets of priorities are in tension with each other. There is typically not going to be a single right answer," he said, later adding: "There will always be the potential for something to happen that would not have happened if police had taken a harder approach."

The backlash comes on the eve of the state historical commission's meeting to discuss Gov. Roy Cooper's request to remove three other Confederate monuments at the state Capitol.

Two state lawmakers - moderates from each political party - said they're worried the protesters' actions Monday could prevent finding peaceable solution to Confederate memorials statewide.

"People will harden their positions in response to this," Rep. Craig Horn, a Union County Republican, said in an interview, later adding: "When someone is taking a swing at you, it's human nature to try to swing back ... or say 'I'm done with you.'"

Democratic Rep. Ken Goodman of Richmond County said he doesn't approve of the way the statue was destroyed, but understands frustration over Confederate monuments.

"It needs to be resolved and I don't think leaving the statue there resolved the issue ... but you can't erase history, so maybe there's some third way to deal with that issue," he said.

North Carolina is one of the Southern states with the most Confederate monuments, and has been a focal point in the national debate over them following a deadly white nationalist protest a year ago in Charlottesville, Virginia.

On Tuesday, students stopped by the empty pedestal to take photos or simply observe the protest's aftermath.

Freshman Joy Aikens said she's glad the statue is gone: "It was being talked about but it seemed like there wasn't very much listening or actual conversation going on."

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Associated Press writers Alex Derosier, Gary D. Robertson and Emery P. Dalesio contributed to this report.

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Follow Drew on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JonathanLDrew and Waggoner at www.twitter.com/mjwaggonernc

Police stand guard after the confederate statue known as Silent Sam was toppled by protesters on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Police stand guard after the confederate statue known as Silent Sam was toppled by protesters on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Banners are used to cover the statue known as Silent Sam as people gather during a rally to remove the confederate statue from campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Police try to take a banner from protesters as people gather during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

A protester covers his face as people gather during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Police remove a protester during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Police remove a protester during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Police and protesters react to a smoke bomb as some protesters are removed during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A mother wails as she embraces a son she hasn't seen since the 1950-53 Korean War. A woman weeps as she greets a grandfather she never got to know.

The scenes of Koreans meeting this week, likely for the last time before they die, are heartbreaking, but they often bely a highly political and tightly controlled event in which participants often struggle to have genuine conversations.

Much of the awkwardness centers on the defining fact of the Korean Peninsula: For decades it has been divided between the authoritarian North, originally backed by the Soviet Union and then, during the war, communist China, and the U.S.-backed capitalist South. Citizens from both nations, especially the elderly who remember the bitterness and bloodshed of the war, often wear their nationalism on their sleeves, and some South Koreans have complained that their relatives take every chance to score propaganda points for their authoritarian nation.

South Korean Lee Keum-seom, 92, center, hugs her North Korean son Ri Sang Chol, 71, left, with Kim Ok Hui, daughter-in-law of Ri Sang Chol during the Separated Family Reunion Meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Lee Ji-eun/Yonhap via AP)

About 200 South Koreans and their family members crossed the border on Monday for three days of meetings with their North Korean relatives. The relatives have been given a total of 12 hours together, including three hours in private. Another 337 South Koreans and accompanying family members will participate in a second round of reunions from Friday to Sunday.

After the initial tears at North Korea's Diamond Mountain resort, Cha Jae-geun, an 84-year-old South Korean, and his 50-year-old North Korean nephew began an awkward exchange Monday over international politics surrounding the Korean Peninsula and the origins of the war that split their family apart and killed and injured millions.

The Koreas should "drive the American bastards out," Cha Song Il, the nephew, said, according to South Korean pool reports. He accused the United States of being unfaithful to the commitments of a June summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, in which they expressed an aspirational goal for a nuclear-free peninsula without describing when or how it would occur.

The elder Cha reminded his nephew that it was North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader, who triggered the war by ordering a sneak attack on the South in June 1950.

"That's a lie," the nephew replied, waving both hands. "The Korean War was something the Americans did. "We fought against (our enemies) with our own strength."

Cha Jae-geun smiled and quickly changed the subject, as South Korean officials urge their reunion participants to do if politics come up. South Korea's government instructs participants not to criticize the North's leadership and economy during the reunions.

Some North Korean participants, who are reportedly chosen for the reunions based on their loyalty to their authoritarian rulers, were eager to show their government commendations to their South Korean relatives. In at least once case, this resulted in another awkward exchange.

Ju Yong Ae, a 52-year-old North Korean who came to meet her 86-year-old South Korean aunt, steadfastly refused when a South Korean official who had come to the North to help manage the meeting repeatedly asked her to put her "Kim Il Sung commendation," a public service medal, below the table.

"How can you put down our supreme dignity?" Ju asked.

A North Korean official intervened, telling the South Korean official, "She's just trying to show it to her family; leave her alone."

After sleeping separately Monday night, the relatives had private meetings at hotel rooms on Tuesday morning before meeting again in group sessions later in the day. Tuesday's exchanges were less emotional and more amicable than Monday's.

"Isn't my younger sister pretty?" 88-year-old South Korean Kim Byung-oh said of his 81-year-old sister from North Korea, Kim Sun Ok. He smiled and fed his sister a snack bar.

During their first encounter Monday, Kim Sun Ok wiped away her tears when she said, "Let's live together even at least one minute after unification before we die."

South Korean participants at past reunions have complained that the heavy monitoring presence of North Korean officials and intense media coverage made genuine conversations difficult or impossible.

The North sees the reunions as a crucial tool to win concessions from the South, but it has rejected the South's demands to increase the number of reunions and the people participating in them.

The North also ignores the South's proposals for letter exchanges and hometown visits, something currently banned. Pyongyang doesn't want the reunions expanded because it fears they would give citizens a better awareness of the outside word and weaken its grip on power, analysts say.

The North uses the reunions for propaganda purposes, carefully choosing participants based on loyalty and instructing them to praise the authoritarian leadership during the meetings. But Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University, said it could become harder for the North to maintain previous levels of control because the participants are so old now that it's harder to train them to do what the government wants.

Nearly 20,000 people have participated in 20 rounds of face-to-face reunions held between the countries since 2000. No one has had a second chance to see their relatives. Past participants express frustration and anger that their final conversations with North Korean relatives included so little genuine conversation.

Hong Yong-gee, who went with his mother for a 2015 reunion at Diamond Mountain and met his three North Korean aunts, said Tuesday that it seemed his North Korean relatives were working off a script.

"They praised the leadership of Kim Jong Un and life in North Korea so frequently that any genuine conversation became impossible," Hong said. "It was difficult for my mother and aunts to talk freely when several North Korean officials stationed themselves so close to our table, listening in to whatever we were saying."

Choi Ho-seok, 83, also said that his 76-year-old sister kept praising the North's government when they met in 2015 under the watchful eyes of North Korean officials.

"There were things closer to our hearts that we couldn't talk about because we were being watched closely at all times," he said. "It would be painful if that's the last time I get to see her."

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Associated Press writer Hyung-jin Kim contributed to this report.

North Korean Ra Sun Ok, 58, left, talks with her South Korean relative Na Sung-phil, 51, during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)

South Korean Kim Hye-ja, 75, right, meets with her North Korean younger brother Kim Eun Ha, 75, during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)

South Korean Lee Keum-seom, 92, left, meets with his North Korean son Ri Sang Chol, 71, during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)

South Korean Park Gab-il, 79, second from left, takes pictures with his North Korean relatives during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)

Lee Moon-hyuk, 95, third from left, takes pictures with his North Korean relatives during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)

North Korean Lim Jong Sun, 57, left, takes pictures with his South Korean relative Min Jae-hong, 44, during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)

North Korean women carry lunch boxes to rooms where South and North Korean families hold individual meetings at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. For the first time in three years, elderly North and South Korean relatives separated during the chaos of the 1950-53 Korean War are meeting at the North's scenic Diamond Mountain, where they'll embrace their loved ones after decades apart. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)

North Korean women carry lunch boxes to rooms where South and North Korean families hold individual meetings at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. For the first time in three years, elderly North and South Korean relatives separated during the chaos of the 1950-53 Korean War are meeting at the North's scenic Diamond Mountain, where they'll embrace their loved ones after decades apart. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)

North Koreans arrive to meet their South Korean family members during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)

North Koreans stand to meet their South Korean family members during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Lee Ji-eun/Yonhap via AP)

North Koreans arrive to meet their South Korean family members during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)

North Koreans arrive to meet their South Korean family members during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Lee Ji-eun/Yonhap via AP)

North Koreans arrive to meet their South Korean family members during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Lee Ji-eun/Yonhap via AP)
MEDAN, Indonesia (AP) - An Indonesian court has sentenced a woman who complained about a noisy mosque to 18 months in prison for blasphemy.

The ethnic Chinese woman, Meiliana, burst into tears as presiding Judge Wahyu Prasetyo Wibowo announced the sentence Tuesday. She was taken from the court in handcuffs.

Prosecutors said the 44-year-old defendant violated the criminal code by committing blasphemy against Islam, the dominant faith in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Ethnic Chinese woman Meiliana weeps during her sentencing hearing at a district court in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. The court has sentenced Meiliana who complained about a noisy mosque to 18 months in prison for blasphemy. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)

Mobs burned and ransacked at least 14 Buddhist temples throughout Tanjung Balai, a port town on Sumatra, in a July 2016 riot following reports of Meiliana's complaint about a mosque's noisy loudspeakers.

The woman's lawyer, Ranto Sibarani, said the sentence would be appealed. A conservative group, Islamic Community Forum, said Meilana's sentence was too light.

The maximum sentence for blasphemy is five years.

Indonesia's Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and religion, but in recent years blasphemy cases have been filed against people perceived as offending Islam in a possible sign of a more conservative brand of the religion gaining ground in Indonesia. The overwhelming majority of cases end with guilty verdicts.

Since 2004, 147 people have been imprisoned under blasphemy or related laws, according to monitoring by Human Rights Watch. The number of cases has slowed since 2014 under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration.

Last year, the minority Christian and ethnic Chinese governor of Jakarta, the capital, was convicted of blasphemy and imprisoned for two years after massive street protests over comments seized upon by his political opponents.

Judges imposed the sentence despite prosecutors downgrading the blasphemy charge to a lesser offense.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The reunions taking place this week between Korean families separated by the 1950-53 war produce heart-wrenching images of elderly relatives who are likely seeing each other for the last time before they die.

But they're also highly political and tightly controlled events where participants often find it difficult to have genuine conversations.

Much of the awkwardness centers on the defining fact of the Korean Peninsula: For decades it has been divided between the authoritarian North and the capitalist South.

CAPTION ADDITION ADDS WOMAN ON RIGHT: South Korean Lee Keum-seom, 92, center, hugs her North Korean son Ri Sang Chol, 71, left, with Kim Ok Hui, daughter-in-law of Ri Sang Chol during the Separated Family Reunion Meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Lee Ji-eun/Yonhap via AP)

Citizens from both nations, especially the elderly who remember the bitterness and bloodshed of the war, often wear their nationalism on their sleeves, and some South Koreans have complained that their relatives take every chance to score propaganda points for their authoritarian nation.

North Koreans arrive to meet their South Korean family members during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Lee Ji-eun/Yonhap via AP)

North Koreans arrive to meet their South Korean family members during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Lee Ji-eun/Yonhap via AP)

North Koreans arrive to meet their South Korean family members during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Lee Ji-eun/Yonhap via AP)

North Koreans stand to meet their South Korean family members during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Lee Ji-eun/Yonhap via AP)

North Koreans arrive to meet their South Korean family members during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)

North Koreans arrive to meet their South Korean family members during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)

North Korean women carry lunch boxes to rooms where South and North Korean families hold individual meetings at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. For the first time in three years, elderly North and South Korean relatives separated during the chaos of the 1950-53 Korean War are meeting at the North's scenic Diamond Mountain, where they'll embrace their loved ones after decades apart. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)

North Korean women carry lunch boxes to rooms where South and North Korean families hold individual meetings at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. For the first time in three years, elderly North and South Korean relatives separated during the chaos of the 1950-53 Korean War are meeting at the North's scenic Diamond Mountain, where they'll embrace their loved ones after decades apart. (Korea Pool Photo via AP)
NEW YORK (AP) - Since the 1970s, the U.S. government has initiated legal proceedings to expel just 137 of the estimated 10,000 suspected Nazi war criminals who immigrated to the U.S. after World War II.

At least 67 have been deported, extradited or left voluntarily, and 28 died while their cases were pending. Jakiw Palij, a 95-year-old former labor camp guard, was the last living in the U.S. with an active deportation order. He was deported to Germany Tuesday.

A look at other notable Nazi suspects removed from the U.S.:

This 1957 photo provided by the US Department of Justice shows Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard who has been living in the Queens borough of New York. The White House says that Palij, a 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard has been deported to Germany, 14 years after a judge ordered his expulsion. In a statement, the White House said the deportation of Palij, who lived in New York City, was carried out early Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. (US Department of Justice via AP)

HERMINE BRAUNSTEINER RYAN

Ryan, a New York City housewife who hid her past as a ruthless concentration camp guard known as "The Stomping Mare," was the first suspected Nazi war criminal that the U.S. extradited for a war crimes prosecution.

The U.S. sent Ryan to West Germany in 1973, where she was convicted of multiple acts of murder while a guard at the Majdanek concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

She was also a guard at the Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany.

Ryan's life sentence was shortened in 1996 because she was in failing health. She died three years later at age 79.

A court found Ryan was involved in the process of deciding whether inmates were sent to the gas chambers or were spared so they could perform forced labor.

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JOHN DEMJANJUK

Demjanjuk, a Cleveland, Ohio autoworker born Ivan Mykolaiovych Demianiuk in Ukraine, was deported to Germany in 2009. He was convicted there in 2011 on charges he aided the deaths of more than 28,000 Jews as a guard at the Sobibor extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Demjanjuk, pronounced dehm-YAHN'-yook, steadfastly denied involvement in the Holocaust, maintaining he was a victim of mistaken identity.

He died in a Bavarian nursing home in 2012 at age 91 while appealing. His conviction was unprecedented in German law because it was solely on the basis of serving as a camp guard, with no evidence he was involved in a specific killing.

Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel in 1986 and sentenced to death on charges he was "Ivan the Terrible," a guard who operated gas chambers at a camp where about 850,000 Jews were killed.

Israel's Supreme Court overturned that verdict, citing evidence "Ivan" was another man.

___

FEODOR (FYODOR) FEDORENKO

Fedorenko, the first suspected Nazi war criminal deported from the U.S. to the Soviet Union, was executed by firing squad in 1987 at age 79.

A Soviet court found the former Treblinka death camp guard guilty of treason, voluntarily joining the Nazis and participating in mass killings at the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Fedorenko was deported in December 1984 after a seven-year battle to remain in the U.S., where he had worked in a Connecticut factory before retiring to Miami Beach.

The U.S. stripped his citizenship after finding he attained it by omitting references to his Nazi service.

Trial witnesses said they saw Fedorenko beating and shooting Jews.

Fedorenko did not deny he had worked at Treblinka, but said he did not participate in any killings, telling the court, "Jews were among my best friends."

___

KARL LINNAS

Linnas, a concentration camp chief who settled on Long Island and worked as a land surveyor, was one of the highest-ranking Nazi collaborators expelled from the U.S.

Linnas was stripped of his citizenship in 1982 and sent to the Soviet Union in 1987, where he had been convicted in absentia three decades earlier on charges he had a hand in the deaths of 12,000 people at the Tartu concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Estonia.

Linnas died of heart failure at age 67 before he could face a firing squad.

Investigators said Linnas ordered guards to fire on prisoners as they kneeled along the edge of a ditch, causing them to fall directly into their graves.

Immigrating to the U.S. in 1951, Linnas claimed to be a person displaced by the war and failed to disclose his Nazi service. He gained citizenship in 1959.

___

ARTHUR RUDOLPH

Rudolph, one of the Germany's most prominent rocket scientists, was brought to the U.S. after World War II because of his technical skill.

NASA awarded him a Distinguished Service Medal for achievements that included his central role in the Apollo project that put a man on the moon.

Decades later he was accused of "working thousands of slave laborers to death" in the Nazi factory that built the V-2 rocket.

Rudolph signed a settlement agreement with the U.S. in 1983.

He traveled on his U.S. passport to West Germany in 1984. Then he went to the U.S. General Consulate in Hamburg and renounced his citizenship. The West German government protested, but Rudolph remained there.

He was eventually granted German citizenship and collected U.S. Social Security benefits until his death in 1996 at age 89.

___

VALERIAN (VIOREL) TRIFA

Trifa, the former U.S. archbishop of the Romanian Orthodox church, relinquished his citizenship in 1980 and left for Portugal in 1984 after admitting he lied to immigration authorities to conceal pro-Nazi activities during World War II.

The U.S. government alleged Trifa had been an ardent Nazi supporter who wrote inflammatory newspaper articles and made anti-Jewish speeches as a member of the Iron Guard, a Romanian fascist group.

One speech, in January 1941, touched off four days of rioting in Bucharest that resulted in hundreds of deaths. Trifa denied any role in the riots.

Trifa attained a U.S. visa through the post-war displaced persons program.

He was interned in the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps but investigators said he never told refugee officials about special treatment he received.

Trifa died in 1987 at age 72.

FILE - This Nov. 9, 2017 file photo shows the home, left, of former Nazi concentration camp guard Jakiw Palij, in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York. The White House says that Palij, a 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard has been deported to Germany, 14 years after a judge ordered his expulsion. In a statement, the White House said the deportation of Palij, who lived in New York City, was carried out early Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)
MILAN (AP) - Humanitarian groups urged the Italian government Tuesday to allow 177 migrants aboard an Italian coast guard ship docked at the Sicilian port of Catania to be permitted to disembark.

Doctors Without Borders, the U.N. refugee agency and Save the Children have all appealed to the government to let the migrants off the ship for humanitarian and medical reasons.

The Italian coast guard ship Diciotto arrived in Catania late Monday, but the Italian government won't let them off the ship until it has pledges from other European countries to take them, in the latest standoff over migrants being rescued at sea.

Migrants stand aboard the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti, moored at the Catania harbor, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. One and seventy-seven migrants rescued at sea remained aboard the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti Tuesday morning as the Italian government refused to let them disembark in the port of Catania until other European countries agree to take them.The Diciotti arrived in the port of Catania late Monday night after spending days off the Italian coast as the Italian and Maltese government bickered over where they will be taken. (AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli)

The migrants rescued last week have been on the boat about six days.

Doctors Without Borders said its team is standing by to offer psychological assistance to the migrants, urged Italy "to allow disembarkation so that rapid treatment can be given."

Giovanna Benedetta of Save the Children noted that many of the migrants aboard the ship had been detained in Libya for months before the passage on overcrowded smugglers' ships and were traumatized. Twenty-eight are unaccompanied minors.

And Carlotta Sami of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees tweeted that "they have an urgent need to receive assistance and to ask for asylum. It is a fundamental right, not a crime."

Malta has declined to take them, saying the smugglers' boat they were in wasn't in distress as it passed Maltese waters and that, in any case, the migrants preferred to continue to Italy.

Italy has asked the EU to work out a solution and follows a threat by Interior Minister Matteo Salvini to send them back to Libya.

A man stands on the deck of the Italian Coast Guard ship "Diciotti" moored at the Catania harbor Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. The European Union is trying to find countries willing to take 177 people rescued at sea after Italy sought its help to deal with yet another migrant standoff with Malta. The Italian coast guard ship Diciotti that had been sitting off Italy's Lampedusa island entered Catania's harbor. Rome asked Malta to take them in but Malta, the EU's smallest member country _ refused, saying the migrant boat wasn't in distress and that the migrants declined Maltese assistance, preferring to continue toward Italy. (Orietta Scardino/ANSA via AP)

A man stands on the deck of the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti, moored at the Catania harbor, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. One and seventy-seven migrants rescued at sea remained aboard the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti Tuesday morning as the Italian government refused to let them disembark in the port of Catania until other European countries agree to take them.The Diciotti arrived in the port of Catania late Monday night after spending days off the Italian coast as the Italian and Maltese government bickered over where they will be taken. (AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli)

Migrants stand on the deck of the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti, moored at the Catania harbor, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. One and seventy-seven migrants rescued at sea remained aboard the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti Tuesday morning as the Italian government refused to let them disembark in the port of Catania until other European countries agree to take them.The Diciotti arrived in the port of Catania late Monday night after spending days off the Italian coast as the Italian and Maltese government bickered over where they will be taken. (AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli)

Migrants stand on the deck of the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti, moored at the Catania harbor, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. One and seventy-seven migrants rescued at sea remained aboard the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti Tuesday morning as the Italian government refused to let them disembark in the port of Catania until other European countries agree to take them.The Diciotti arrived in the port of Catania late Monday night after spending days off the Italian coast as the Italian and Maltese government bickered over where they will be taken. (AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli)
PRAGUE (AP) - A ceremony to honor the victims of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia on Tuesday turned into a protest against Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis.

Hundreds jeered and booed Babis' arrival for a ceremony in front of the Czech public radio building in downtown Prague, a site of a fierce street battle between unarmed civilians and invading troops in the first hours of occupation where 17 people died.

"Shame, shame...," the crowd chanted while blowing horns and whistles during his speech.

Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis, front right, arrives to lay a wreath of flowers to honor the victims of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 at a ceremony in Prague, Czech Republic, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of protesters gathered to oppose the prime minister. Babis, a populist billionaire, is a controversial figure for many due to a power-sharing deal with the maverick Communist Party and fraud charges he is facing. His position is also complicated by allegations he collaborated with the former communist-era secret police. The white banner reads: "Babis is a liar". (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Babis didn't immediately react to the protest.

In his speech, he said

Babis, a populist billionaire, is a controversial figure because of a power-sharing deal with the maverick Communist Party and fraud charges he is facing. His position is also complicated by allegations he collaborated with the former communist-era secret police.

Troops from the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance formed in 1955 between the Soviet Union and seven Eastern European nations, invaded Czechoslovakia on Aug. 20, 1968 to crush liberal reforms enacted in the brief era known as the Prague Spring. The country was subsequently taken over by a hard-line Communist regime fully loyal to Moscow.

In 1968 alone, 137 people were killed by Warsaw Pact soldiers, and a total of more than 400 died during the occupation of Czechoslovakia that ended only after the 1989 anti-communist Velvet Revolution.

In Brussels, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that Europe isn't divided by an Iron Curtain any more.

"But let us use this day of solemn commemoration to collectively remember that freedom and the respect for human rights can never be taken for granted and need to be fought for every single day," he said.

In another move related to the anniversary, which will likely anger Russia, Prague authorities unveiled a new explanatory text about the role of Soviet World War II commander Ivan Stepanovic Konev to his monument in Prague.

Marshall Konev led Red Army forces that liberated large parts of Czechoslovakia from Nazi occupation in 1945. His monument was unveiled in the Prague 6 district in 1980.

On Tuesday, Prague 6 mayor Ondrej Kolar said the authorities wanted to give people "full information that would not conceal what happened."

The new text describes Konev's leading role in crushing the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, his contribution to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the preparation of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Russia and four other former Soviet republics had officially protested that.

A small group of communists condemned at the site what they called "the rewriting of history."

Others demanded the monument was completely removed given what Konev had done.

A protester holds a mirror in front of Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis, front left, while delivering a speech to honor the victims of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 at a ceremony in Prague, Czech Republic, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of protesters gathered to oppose the prime minister. Babis, a populist billionaire, is a controversial figure for many due to a power-sharing deal with the maverick Communist Party and fraud charges he is facing. His position is also complicated by allegations he collaborated with the former communist-era secret police. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis smiles as he waits to deliver a speech to honor the victims of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 at a ceremony in Prague, Czech Republic, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of protesters gathered to oppose the prime minister. Babis, a populist billionaire, is a controversial figure for many due to a power-sharing deal with the maverick Communist Party and fraud charges he is facing. His position is also complicated by allegations he collaborated with the former communist-era secret police. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis, center, waits to deliver a speech to honor the victims of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 at a ceremony in Prague, Czech Republic, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of protesters gathered to oppose the prime minister. Babis, a populist billionaire, is a controversial figure for many due to a power-sharing deal with the maverick Communist Party and fraud charges he is facing. His position is also complicated by allegations he collaborated with the former communist-era secret police. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

A protester holds a mirror in front of Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis, front left, while delivering a speech to honor the victims of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 at a ceremony in Prague, Czech Republic, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of protesters gathered to oppose the prime minister. Babis, a populist billionaire, is a controversial figure for many due to a power-sharing deal with the maverick Communist Party and fraud charges he is facing. His position is also complicated by allegations he collaborated with the former communist-era secret police. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Prague 6 district representatives unveil a new explanatory text about the role of Soviet World War II commander Ivan Stepanovic Konev at his monument in Prague, Czech Republic, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. The new text describes Konev's leading role in crushing the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, his contribution to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the preparation of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. On Tuesday, Czech Republic is marking the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

The monument of Soviet World War II commander Ivan Stepanovic Konev is pictured in Prague, Czech Republic, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Prague 6 district representatives unveiled a new explanatory text describing Konev's leading role in crushing the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, his contribution to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the preparation of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. On Tuesday, Czech Republic is marking the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Residents stand behind a newly unveiled explanatory text about the role of Soviet World War II commander Ivan Stepanovic Konev at Konev's monument in Prague, Czech Republic, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. The new text describes Konev's leading role in crushing the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, his contribution to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the preparation of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. On Tuesday, Czech Republic is marking the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. Text on left banner reads: "He has blood on his hands. Remove him!". Text on right banner reads: "Kolev-Communist lie. We don't want the lie here". (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
BEIJING, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping is to chair the 2018 Beijing summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which is scheduled for Sept. 3-4 in Beijing.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang made the announcement Monday, noting that Xi would also hold relevant activities on the sidelines of the summit.

The summit will be themed "China and Africa: toward an even stronger community with a shared future through win-win cooperation."

Leaders of FOCAC members are invited to attend the summit, and representatives of related regional organizations in Africa and international organizations will also participate in relevant activities.
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:

1. MICROSOFT UNCOVERS MORE RUSSIAN ATTACKS AHEAD OF MIDTERMS

The tech giant says that hackers tied to the Russian government created fake internet domains that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute.

Police stand guard after the confederate statue known as Silent Sam was toppled by protesters on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

2. US DEPORTS FORMER NAZI CAMP GUARD, 95, TO GERMANY

Investigators first confronted Jakiw Palij about his World War II past 25 years ago and he admitted lying to get into the United States.

3. TRUMP TO ROLL BACK OBAMA'S CLEAN POWER PLAN

The Trump administration would give states broad authority to determine how to restrict carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

4. TALIBAN ROCKETS HIT NEAR KABUL PRESIDENCY

The insurgent group fired the projectiles toward where the Afghan president was delivering his holiday message for the Muslim celebrations of Eid al-Adha, police say.

5. COLORADO FATHER CHARGED IN FAMILY'S MURDER

Christopher Watts told police he killed his pregnant wife in "a rage" when he discovered she had strangled their two daughters after he sought a separation.

6. 'SILENT SAM' STATUE TOPPLED ON COLLEGE CAMPUS

Hundreds of protesters at the University of North Carolina pulled down the Confederate statue they decried as a symbol of racist heritage.

7. PRIMARIES SET FOR ALASKA, WYOMING

Voters in Alaska will choose a Republican nominee to advance to what is expected to be a hard-fought battle for governor this fall.

8. WHERE SUPPORT IN ACADEMIA HAS RISEN

Support for charter schools and private school voucher programs has gone up over the past year, with Republicans accounting for much of the increase, a survey finds.

9. ANIMAL CRACKERS BREAK OUT OF THEIR CAGES

Nabisco redesigns the packaging of its Barnum's Animals crackers after relenting to pressure from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

10. WHO GOT SLAMMED AT VMAS

The backlash was swift for Madonna's rambling and egocentric Aretha Franklin tribute during the MTV Video Music Awards.

An MD 530F military helicopter targets a house where attackers are hiding in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. The Taliban fired rockets toward the presidential palace in Kabul Tuesday as President Ashraf Ghani was giving his holiday message for the Muslim celebrations of Eid al-Adha, said police official Jan Agha. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
MILAN (AP) - The Latest on migrants and refugees in Europe (all times local):

1:30 p.m.

Germany's labor agency says efforts to integrate refugees in the country's labor market are progressing well, with more than 300,000 people from eight main countries of origin in work by this spring.

A man stands on the deck of the Italian Coast Guard ship "Diciotti" moored at the Catania harbor Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. The European Union is trying to find countries willing to take 177 people rescued at sea after Italy sought its help to deal with yet another migrant standoff with Malta. The Italian coast guard ship Diciotti that had been sitting off Italy's Lampedusa island entered Catania's harbor. Rome asked Malta to take them in but Malta, the EU's smallest member country _ refused, saying the migrant boat wasn't in distress and that the migrants declined Maltese assistance, preferring to continue toward Italy. (Orietta Scardino/ANSA via AP)

Federal Labor Agency chief Detlef Scheele told news agency dpa Tuesday that the figures are slightly better than expected. In May, over 300,000 people from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan and Somalia had a job - 103,000 more than a year earlier.

More than 187,000 refugees were registered as unemployed in July, a figure that has been fairly constant for months. Ensuring that refugees learn German remains a main focus.

Germany saw more than 1 million refugees and other migrants arrive in 2015-2016, but new arrivals have declined steeply.

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12 noon

The Italian coast guard ship Diciotto has made port in the Sicilian city of Catania with 177 migrants awaiting word on which countries will take them following another standoff between Malta and Italy.

Though the ship made port late Monday, the Italian government is not allowing the migrants to disembark pending a decision by the European Union on where they will go.

The migrants, rescued last week, include 28 unaccompanied minors.

Malta has declined to take them, saying the smugglers' boat they were in was not in distress as it passed Maltese waters and that, in any case, the migrants preferred to continue to Italy.

Italy has asked the EU to work out a solution and follows a threat by Interior Minister Matteo Salvini to send them back to Libya.

A man stands on the deck of the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti, moored at the Catania harbor, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. One and seventy-seven migrants rescued at sea remained aboard the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti Tuesday morning as the Italian government refused to let them disembark in the port of Catania until other European countries agree to take them.The Diciotti arrived in the port of Catania late Monday night after spending days off the Italian coast as the Italian and Maltese government bickered over where they will be taken. (AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli)

Migrants stand aboard the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti, moored at the Catania harbor, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. One and seventy-seven migrants rescued at sea remained aboard the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti Tuesday morning as the Italian government refused to let them disembark in the port of Catania until other European countries agree to take them.The Diciotti arrived in the port of Catania late Monday night after spending days off the Italian coast as the Italian and Maltese government bickered over where they will be taken. (AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli)

Migrants stand on the deck of the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti, moored at the Catania harbor, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. One and seventy-seven migrants rescued at sea remained aboard the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti Tuesday morning as the Italian government refused to let them disembark in the port of Catania until other European countries agree to take them.The Diciotti arrived in the port of Catania late Monday night after spending days off the Italian coast as the Italian and Maltese government bickered over where they will be taken. (AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli)

Migrants stand on the deck of the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti, moored at the Catania harbor, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. One and seventy-seven migrants rescued at sea remained aboard the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti Tuesday morning as the Italian government refused to let them disembark in the port of Catania until other European countries agree to take them.The Diciotti arrived in the port of Catania late Monday night after spending days off the Italian coast as the Italian and Maltese government bickered over where they will be taken. (AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli)
VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Vatican said Tuesday that Pope Francis is expected to meet with victims of sexual abuse during his weekend visit to Ireland and speak out about the problem.

Spokesman Greg Burke effectively confirmed the meeting during a briefing Tuesday. He said Francis always meets with victims when he visits countries where abuse "is a reality" and that any information would be released after the fact, based on what the survivors themselves decide.

"The important thing for the pope is to listen," he said.

FILE - In this Sunday, Aug. 19, 2018 file photo, Pope Francis prays for the victims of the Kerala floods during the Angelus noon prayer in St.Peter's Square, at the Vatican. Pope Francis has issued a letter to Catholics around the world condemning the "crime" of priestly sexual abuse and cover-up and demanding accountability, in response to new revelations in the United States of decades of misconduct by the Catholic Church. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

Francis is under enormous pressure to speak out strongly against abuse given Ireland's devastating history of priests who raped and molested children and bishops who covered up for them. The trip is likely to be dominated by the issue given recent revelations of misconduct at the highest levels of the Catholic Church in the U.S., Chile and beyond.

The fact that Burke essentially confirmed a meeting with victims ahead of time - something the Vatican has never before done - was an indication that the Holy See is well aware of the expectations going into the visit.

The original aim of the trip Saturday and Sunday was to close out a big Catholic family rally, the World Meeting of Families. But asked if Francis would weigh in on abuse, Burke noted that the pope will deliver six major speeches during his 36 hours on the ground, and thus "has several opportunities."

Francis will also pray for abuse victims before a candle in St. Mary's cathedral in Dublin on Saturday.

Francis has met with victims before in Philadelphia, Chile and at the Vatican. His refusal to do so during a 2016 trip to Mexico riled some victims, given the country is home to the founder of the Legion of Christ, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, perhaps the most notorious pedophile of the 20th century Catholic Church.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - White storks that have nested in Poland are heading south for the winter earlier than usual after an especially hot, dry summer, a development experts are linking to climate change.

Poland has a large population of white storks that arrive from Africa every spring and nest all summer before returning south by the end of August.

Gabriela Kulakowska, an ornithologist with the Polish Society for Bird Protection, said storks in many cases have departed about two weeks earlier than usual this year.

FILE- In this Thursday, Aug. 24, 2017 photo a stork walks on a field in the early morning near Bierun, Poland. Storks that have nested in Poland for the summer are heading south for the winter earlier than usual this year, and ornithologists believe the change is related to climate change. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, file)

"The nests in the villages are already empty," Kulakowska said Tuesday. "Ornithologists say they have never seen anything like this."

She said that if the weather this summer is a result of climate change, "then this year's early journey is also an effect of climate change."

There is some disagreement about why exactly they are leaving early.

Because summer also came early, Kulakowska said the birds have had good conditions for breeding, feeding and growing their chicks, and gathered the energy stores early to begin their long flight back to southern Africa.

Monika Klimowicz, with the Polish Society for the Protection of Birds, noted that this summer's dry spell has meant there have been fewer insects, snakes, lizards, frogs and small mammals for the storks to feed on.

Klimowicz said her organization has also observed the birds departing early and said that "most of the nests are already empty now."

There are some 50,000 white storks that visit Poland every summer, making up some 20 percent of the world's population. The numbers, however, are declining.

The birds are much loved in Poland and a key element in folk beliefs and iconography.

People believed that if storks nested on their homes, it brought them good luck - and children. That idea was rooted in the fact that storks often arrived in spring, when human births were also at a peak, caused by the fact that women in the past were more likely to conceive at times of improved nutrition, Kulakowska said.
LONDON (AP) - The British government apologized Tuesday to 18 long-term U.K. residents from the Caribbean who were deported or detained because they could not produce documents to prove their right to live in the country.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said their treatment was "completely unacceptable," and issued a personal apology. He said those affected would get "the support and compensation they deserve."

The government reviewed almost 12,000 immigration cases after it was reported that some people from the Caribbean who had lived in Britain for decades had been denied housing, jobs or medical treatment because they could not prove their status.

FILE - In this file photo dated Tuesday, May 1, 2018, Britain's newly appointed Home Secretary Sajid Javid arrives for a cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street in London. The British government has apologized to 18 long-term U.K. residents from the Caribbean who were deported or detained because they could not produce documents to prove their right to live in the country, with Home Secretary Javid saying their treatment was "completely unacceptable," and has issued a personal apology, Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, FILE)

The treatment of members of the so-called "Windrush generation" caused widespread outrage in Britain.

The Home Office said Tuesday that the most serious cases include 11 people who were wrongly removed from the country, and another seven who were detained but not deported.

Javid said these 18 people are the "most likely to have suffered detriment." The government found 146 other cases of Caribbean immigrants who were detained or deported, but "the degree of detriment suffered varied considerably," he said.

Those affected are known as the "Windrush generation" after the ship Empire Windrush, which in 1948 brought hundreds of Caribbean immigrants to a Britain seeking nurses, railway workers and others to help it rebuild after the devastation of World War II.

They and other Commonwealth immigrants who came to Britain before 1973 had an automatic right to settle in the U.K. But some have fallen foul of rules requiring employers and doctors to verify people's immigration status.

The Conservative government introduced the checks as part of its goal of making the U.K. a "hostile environment" for illegal immigration.

Javid, whose parents came to Britain from Pakistan, has dropped the "hostile environment" label and is reviewing immigration procedures.

"We must do everything we can to ensure that nothing like this happens again, which is why I have asked an independent adviser to look at what lessons we can learn from Windrush," he said.

Labour Party lawmaker David Lammy said the apology was "a drop in the ocean" and the government had still not disclosed the full number of people affected. He tweeted that "apology is crocodile tears & an insult to people still not given hardship fund, left jobless, homeless & unable to afford food."
UTICA, Mich. (AP) - More than 1,600 people attended the funeral for a newlywed police officer who was struck and killed by a speeding SUV outside a Detroit nightclub.

A requiem Mass was held Monday for 30-year-old Fadi Shukur at St. George Chaldean Catholic Church in Utica. He died Aug. 15 from injuries he suffered 11 days earlier while helping with crowd control near the club on the city's west side.

Shukur got married June 29.

In an undated photo provided by the Detroit Police, Officer Fadi Shukur is shown. Flags will be lowered to half-staff Monday, Aug. 20, 2018 in honor of the police officer who died after being struck by a speeding SUV while assisting with crowd and traffic control at a neighborhood event. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder ordered the lowering for U.S. and Michigan flags at state buildings and within the state Capitol complex in honor of Officer Shukur, who died Wednesday, Aug.15. (Detroit Police via AP)

The Detroit News reports that Detroit Police Chief James Craig described Shukur as a "true American hero."

Mayor Mike Duggan said officers like Shukur are helping Detroit in its turnaround by reducing crime and making it a "great, safe city."

A 19-year-old man is charged with reckless driving causing death and second-degree murder in Shukur's death.

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Information from: The Detroit News, http://detnews.com/

Detroit Police Chief James Craig, front right, and other officers salute the casket of fallen police officer Fadi Shukur as it leaves St. George Chaldean Catholic Church after the funeral in Utica, Mich., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. Shukur died 11 days after being struck by a speeding SUV. (Clarence Tabb Jr./Detroit News via AP)

Nadeen Maroof Shukur, wife of officer Shukur cries as his casket is put inside the hearse at the end of his funeral service at St. George Chaldean Catholic Church in Shelby Township, Mich., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. Shakur died after being struck by a speeding SUV while assisting with crowd and traffic control. (Clarence Tabb Jr./Detroit News via AP)
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - The family of an imprisoned Ukrainian filmmaker who has been on a hunger strike for 100 days said on Tuesday he is in critical condition, a claim that a Russian official quickly denied.

Oleg Sentsov, a native of the Russia-annexed Crimea Peninsula, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2015 for conspiracy to commit terrorism. His supporters call the prosecution of Sentsov, who staunchly opposed the annexation, politically motivated.

Sentsov's sister, Natalya Kaplan, told The Associated Press that Sentsov is in intensive care in critical condition. She said, however, that the family doesn't have full information about his health.

People hold posters to support Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who is currently on hunger strike in a Russian jail to demand the release of the other Ukrainian hostages taken by the Kremlin, in front of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Today is the 100th day since the beginning of the indefinite hunger strike of Oleg Sentsov, announced on May 14, 2018, demanding the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners of the Kremlin. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Russia's prison system has been contradicting claims about the filmmaker's worsening condition, saying that he's been given nutritional supplements.

Kremlin ombudswoman promptly contradicted Kaplan's statement, telling the RIA Novosti news agency that the prison sent in a group of doctors to examine Sentsov on Monday and they reportedly concluded that his condition was satisfactory.

Sentsov is demanding he and 64 other Ukrainians kept in Russian prisons who he considers political prisoners be released.

About 50 people rallied outside the Russian Embassy in the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday with the placards saying "Save Oleg Senstov!"

Ukrainian officials on Tuesday renewed their calls on Russia to release the filmmaker, with President Petro Poroshenko tweeting that "there isn't a single meeting or international talks where I don't call on world leaders and urge them to be proactive in pushing the Kremlin to release Oleg and all the prisoners of ours."

FILE - In this Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2015, file photo, Oleg Sentsov gestures as the verdict is delivered, as he stands behind bars at court in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, where he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Sentsov's sister, Natalya Kaplan told the Associated Press Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018, that Sentsov who has been on a hunger strike for 100 days is in intensive care in critical condition. (AP Photo, file)
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Two Cambodian journalists who had worked for U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia and are charged with espionage were released on bail Tuesday, a day after a pardon freed four land rights activists from prison.

Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin, who is better known by his professional name of Yeang Socheameta, were arrested last November and charged with undermining national security by supplying information to a foreign state. The two journalists were also later charged with producing pornography after police said they found pornographic images on their computers. They face possible prison terms of up to 15 years.

The pair were greeted by friends and family when they walked out of Prey Sar prison Tuesday evening.

Two former Radio Free Asia reporters Uon Chhin, left, and Yeang Socheamet, right, hold together after they walk outside the main prison of Prey Sar at the outskirt of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Two Cambodian journalists who had worked for U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia and are charged with espionage have been released on bail, a day after a pardon freed four land rights activists from prison. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

"Frankly speaking, we are not fully receiving our freedom because we must still present ourselves upon police request," Yeang Sothearin told journalists outside the prison. "We are continuing to urge the court to drop all charges against us so that we can do our jobs, living our lives as other people do."

His colleague, Uon Chhin, vowed to stay in his profession. "I love my job as a journalist," he said.

Their employer welcomed their release on bail while also calling for the charges against them to be dropped.

"The targeting and intimidation of anyone who has worked as an independent journalist in Cambodia is a clear violation of press freedom," said Libby Liu, president of Washington, D.C.-based Radio Free Asia. "With today's development, we hope all charges against them are dropped and their case is immediately dismissed."

Their arrests came during Cambodia's crackdown on the media and political opponents before last month's general election.

Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling party swept the results in a vote widely seen as not fair or credible. The official voter turnout was high even though a boycott had been called by the main opposition party that was dissolved last year by a court ruling seen as biased.

Hun Sen, who has been in office since 1985 and has held a tight grip on power since ousting a co-prime minister in a bloody 1997 coup, has a record of cracking down harshly when facing a serious challenge, then effecting reconciliation when he no longer feels threatened. The pattern keeps human rights groups and Western governments off balance and moderates their criticism.

On Monday, four women jailed for participating in Cambodia's land rights movement were freed under a royal pardon requested by Hun Sen. One of those freed, Tep Vanny, had led protests against evictions from a lakeshore community in Phnom Penh where the government had granted concessions to develop a luxury residential and commercial community.

Last September, Radio Free Asia closed its office in Cambodia after operating for 20 years, citing unprecedented government intimidation of the media. By the end of last year, the government had closed more than a dozen radio stations, some of which had rebroadcast Radio Free Asia's programs, and the English-language The Cambodia Daily newspaper was forced to shut down.

The two reporters were no longer working for RFA after their office closed, and police initially said they had been detained for running an unlicensed karaoke studio. But they were later accused of setting up a studio for RFA and charged with espionage.

A spokesman for the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, Ei Rin, said it ordered the release on bail as requested by the journalists' lawyer.

After their release, the two journalists went to a Buddhist temple to get a monk's blessings, a rite meant to get rid of bad luck.

Their detention had been sharply criticized by rights groups and journalists' associations.

The Committee to Protect Journalists in a statement issued Wednesday that they welcomed the journalists' release on bail, "but they never should have been detained in the first place."

"Authorities should drop these bogus charges and stop harassing journalists with frivolous accusations," said Shawn Crispin, the New York-based group's representative in Southeast Asia.

A former Radio Free Asia reporter Uon Chhin, foreground, is held his hand by his wife, second from right, outside the main prison of Prey Sar at the outskirt of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Two Cambodian journalists who had worked for U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia and are charged with espionage have been released on bail, a day after a pardon freed four land rights activists from prison. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Two former Radio Free Asia reporters Uon Chhin, center, and Yeang Socheamet, right, hold together as they walk outside the main prison of Prey Sar at the outskirt of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Two Cambodian journalists who had worked for U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia and are charged with espionage have been released on bail, a day after a pardon freed four land rights activists from prison. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - The Latest on Wyoming's primary election (all times local):

11:15 p.m.

Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney will face a little-known Democrat from Laramie in her first campaign for re-election.

CORRECTS THAT GORDON IS STATE TREASURER NOT SECRETARY OF STATE - Gubernatorial candidate and Wyoming's State Treasurer Mark Gordon mingles with supporters as poll results come to an end during Gordon's election night party at Bozeman Trail Steakhouse in Buffalo, Wyo., Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Gordon won a fiercely contested GOP primary to replace Republican Gov. Matt Mead. (Josh Galemore/The Casper Star-Tribune via AP)

Businessman Greg Hunter beat Laramie attorney Travis Helm to win the Democratic nomination for Wyoming's lone U.S. House seat on Tuesday.

Hunter says he has worked as a consultant in Washington, D.C., and for a range of federal agencies, giving him insight into how the federal government works.

Hunter previously ran for Congress as a Republican in Ohio.

Cheney beat two other Republicans in Tuesday's primary, Blake Stanley of Cheyenne and Rod Miller of Buford. Stanley and Miller both characterized themselves as blue-collar conservatives and ran low-key campaigns.

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9:48 p.m.

Wyoming State Treasurer Mark Gordon has won a fiercely contested GOP primary to replace Republican Gov. Matt Mead.

Gordon won the nomination Tuesday against five opponents, including GOP mega-donor Foster Friess and Cheyenne businessman Sam Galeotos.

Mead is term-limited after serving two full terms.

Wyoming is among the reddest states, and Gordon is favored to win the general election and become governor.

The 61-year-old Gordon ranches near Buffalo, Wyoming, and served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. His quiet and non-confrontational demeanor makes him the candidate most like Mead.

Gordon is finishing his first full term as treasurer, a job to which he was appointed in 2012

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This item has been corrected to show Mark Gordon is state treasurer, not secretary of state

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9:01 p.m.

Incumbent Liz Cheney has won the Republican nomination for Wyoming's lone seat in the U.S. House.

Cheney beat two other Republicans in Tuesday's primary, Blake Stanley of Cheyenne and Rod Miller of Buford. Stanley and Miller both characterized themselves as blue-collar conservatives and ran low-key campaigns.

Cheney now seeks a second term against either of two candidates competing for the Democratic nomination, Laramie businessman Greg Hunter and Laramie attorney Travis Helm.

Cheney won over 60 percent of the vote to win her first term in 2016. She dominated a field of Republican candidates to win her party's nomination earlier that year.

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8:44 p.m.

Former Wyoming state Rep. Mary Throne has won the Democratic primary to replace outgoing Gov. Matt Mead.

Throne beat three little-known candidates Tuesday to secure her party's nomination. She now faces a tough fight in heavily Republican Wyoming to become the state's first Democratic governor since 2011.

Throne would also be Wyoming's first female governor since Nellie Tayloe Ross left office in 1927. Ross was the first female governor of a U.S. state.

Throne and Freudenthal have much in common politically. Both are staunch supporters of Wyoming's coal industries and deeply knowledgeable about the workings of state government.

Throne grew up on a ranch in Campbell County and graduated from Princeton and Columbia law school. She was a state representative from Cheyenne from 2007 to 2017 and served two years as House minority leader.

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8:38 p.m.

U.S. Sen. John Barrasso has fended off a well-funded challenger in Wyoming's Republican primary.

Barrasso on Tuesday beat five opponents, including investor and Stanford University lecturer Dave Dodson of Jackson Hole. Dodson put $1 million of his own money toward a campaign that questioned Barrasso's ties to corporate interests and Washington political insiders.

Barrasso won with help from long-standing name recognition and an endorsement from President Donald Trump. Trump won Wyoming by the largest margin of any state in 2016.

Barrasso's campaign, meanwhile, questioned Dodson's campaign contributions, including $1,000 to Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Dodson explained that he gave the money out of opposition to Sanders' opponent, Hillary Clinton, but regretted it.

Barrasso faces Wilson businessman Gary Trauner in the general election. Trauner ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

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7:00 p.m.

Polls have closed in Wyoming.

Businessman Gary Trauner of Wilson has won the Wyoming Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

Trauner was unopposed Tuesday.

He will likely face either Republican businessman Dave Dodson or Republican Sen. John Barrasso in the general election.

Trauner ran two unsuccessful campaigns for U.S. House a decade ago. In 2006, Trauner came within half a percentage point of beating Republican Rep. Barbara Cubin.

In 2008, he lost by a 9-point margin to former state treasurer and legislator Cynthia Lummis.

Trauner faces an uphill battle to win the general election. Wyoming hasn't had a Democratic U.S. senator since Sen. Gale McGee left office in 1977.

Trauner has held a number of positions in Teton County, including president of the school board and chief operating officer of St. John's Medical Center.

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3:40 p.m.

The Wyoming Secretary of State's Office says it hasn't heard of any problems with conducting Tuesday's primary election.

Office spokesman Will Dinneen also says there have been no issues with voting security.

The week before the primary, the agency hosted county officials and state cybersecurity and homeland security officials for a national virtual cybersecurity exercise.

The office says Wyoming's voting system is secure in part because it's never connected to the internet and cannot be hacked or subject to cyber threats.

Wyoming received $3 million recently from the federal government for election security and improved technology. The state used it to purchase new voting equipment and to address any cybersecurity issues.

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3:25 p.m.

Wyoming gubernatorial candidate Mark Gordon says last-minute automated calls to voters are trying to tarnish his record.

The Republican says some calls falsely accuse him of being "anti-energy."

Wyoming is the top coal-mining state and the future of the coal industry has been a big issue leading up to Tuesday's primary.

The Wyoming Mining Association says some calls come from a group named "Wyoming Friends of Coal," which doesn't appear to have a website or listed phone number. A message left for the "Wyoming Friends of Coal" through its Facebook account wasn't immediately returned Tuesday.

The mining association says the calls are "garbage politics." The association hasn't endorsed any candidates for governor, saying all of the candidates appear to support Wyoming's coal industry.

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3:00 p.m.

There's some Democratic cross-over voting in Wyoming's Republican primary.

Retired police officer Pat Seals, of Cheyenne, says he changed over from Democratic registration to be able to vote in the Republican primary. That's not uncommon in Wyoming, which allows voters to change party registration at the polls and vote in whichever primary they want.

Seals says Democrats aren't running many people in Wyoming this year and he wants his vote to be more consequential.

Seals says he voted for State Treasurer Mark Gordon for governor. Seals says he likes Gordon's experience in government - none of the other five Republicans running for governor has held elected office before.

Seals also voted for Dave Dodson for U.S. Senate. Dodson is challenging incumbent Republican Sen. John Barrasso and Seals says it's time for "fresh air" in Washington, D.C.

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This item has been corrected to show Mark Gordon is state treasurer, not secretary of state

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11:40 a.m.

The Wyoming governor's race in Tuesday's primary election brought 18-year-old Slade Raine of Cheyenne out to the polls to vote for the first time.

Raine says he voted in the Republican primary for Cheyenne businessman Sam Galeotos, who is one of six candidates for the office on the GOP side.

He says all six candidates were good, but he had a "good feeling" about Galeotos and liked the ideas that Galeotos offered.

For U.S. Senate, Raine says he went with Jackson Hole business investor Dave Dodson over incumbent John Barrasso.

He says he felt it was time for a change in that seat and a mailing from Dodson's campaign decided his vote.

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11 a.m.

The Wyoming Secretary of State's Office reports that 32,147 ballots were cast in advance of Tuesday's statewide primary election.

Voters could cast early ballots through the mail or in-person leading up to the election, which features races for governor and U.S. Senate.

About 90 percent of the absentee ballots sent by out by county clerks were returned.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. and will close at 7 p.m. for people who choose to cast ballots in the traditional way.

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9:40 a.m.

In an unusual move, one of the Republican candidates for Wyoming U.S. Senate seat has withdrawn from the race.

Charlie Hardy withdrew has application for the Republican Party nomination on Monday afternoon, less than 24 hours before the polls opened Tuesday.

Hardy was one of five challengers seeking to unseat incumbent John Barrasso.

But Hardy was never seen as a serious challenger in the primary. He had switched his party affiliation after running unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2014 as a Democrat against Mike Enzi and advocated for policies that were far more liberal than other candidates.

In announcing his withdrawal, Hardy says he was endorsing Jackson businessman Dave Dodson for the job.

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7:10 a.m.

The polls are open in Wyoming, where voters will choose from among six Republican candidates for governor and decide whether a wealthy outsider has made his case to oust an influential U.S. senator.

The governor's race is Wyoming's most contested since 2010, when Matt Mead won 29 percent of the vote to beat six others in the Republican primary.

This year, the largest share of Republican governor votes could go to any of at least four candidates, including investor and philanthropist Foster Friess, State Treasurer Mark Gordon, attorney Harriet Hageman and businessman Sam Galeotos.

In the Republican U.S. senate primary, Jackson Hole business investor Dave Dodson has tapped at least $1 million of his own funds to try to oust incumbent Sen. John Barrasso.

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CORRECTS THAT GORDON IS STATE TREASURER NOT SECRETARY OF STATE - Gubernatorial candidate and Wyoming's State Treasurer Mark Gordon stands with his family as he celebrates his win in Wyoming's GOP primary during his election night party at Bozeman Trail Steakhouse in Buffalo, Wyo., Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. (Josh Galemore/The Casper Star-Tribune via AP)

CORRECTS THAT GORDON IS STATE TREASURER NOT SECRETARY OF STATE - Gubernatorial candidate and Wyoming's State Treasurer Mark Gordon stands with his family as he celebrates his win in Wyoming's GOP primary during his election night party at Bozeman Trail Steakhouse in Buffalo, Wyo., Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. (Josh Galemore/The Casper Star-Tribune via AP)

Chad Campsey checks out the first results coming in for Republican candidate Harriet Hageman during her gubernatorial watch party on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, at the Cheyenne Depot Museum, in Cheyenne, Wyo. (Blaine McCartney/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle via AP)

Foster Friess thanks supporters after conceding the GOP nomination for Wyoming governor to Mark Gordon on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in Casper, Wyo. (Alan Rogers/The Casper Star-Tribune via AP)

Supporters look dismayed as results come in at the watch party for Republican gubernatorial candidate Sam Galeotos at his residence on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in rural Laramie County, Wyo. (Jacob Byk/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle via AP)

Gubernatorial candidate Mark Gordon juggles phones as he talks with supporters during his election night party at Bozeman Trail Steakhouse in Buffalo, Wyo., Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Wyoming's Secretary of State has won a fiercely contested GOP primary to replace Republican Gov. Matt Mead. (Josh Galemore/The Casper Star-Tribune via AP)

Results come in at the watch party for Republican candidate for governor Sam Galeotos at his residence on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in rural Laramie County, Wyo. (Jacob Byk/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle via AP)

Pins for Republican gubernatorial candidate Harriet Hageman sit in a bowl during her watch party on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, at the Cheyenne Depot Museum, in Cheyenne, Wyo. (Blaine McCartney/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle via AP)
BIHAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - Not so long ago, people in Bosnia were sarcastically joking that their war-scarred country is in such a bad shape that not even the migrants fleeing violence and poverty in the Mideast and Africa were willing to pass through it.

That's not the case anymore.

As previous migration routes to Western Europe from the Balkans have closed off over the past year, the trail has shifted toward Bosnia. Now the impoverished nation is trying secure proper shelters for at least 4,000 people expected to be stranded in its territory throughout the coming winter.

In this photo taken on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018, a migrant man rests on the floor of a makeshift migrant camp in Bihac, 450 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Impoverished Bosnia must race against time to secure proper shelters for at least 4,000 migrants and refugees expected to be stranded in its territory during coming winter. The migrant trail shifted toward Bosnia as other migration routes to Western Europe from the Balkans were closed off over the past year. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

Peter Van der Auweraert of the International Organization for Migration says it's a race against time.

"We have to accelerate the process, because the danger is that when the first snow falls . we will have people sleeping outside in conditions that even in summer were already not acceptable," he said.

Since the beginning of the year, close to 11,000 migrants and refugees have entered Bosnia, which has never truly recovered from its brutal 1992-95 war, which left more than 100,000 dead and forced more than half the population to flee before a peace deal was brokered.

That compares to just 755 migrant arrivals for all of 2017.

Bosnian authorities have increased border controls along its northeastern border with Serbia, but between 400 and 500 migrants are still entering Bosnia weekly.

Most end up living in horrible conditions in the northwestern Krajina region on the border with European Union member Croatia, which shares a 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) border with Bosnia.

Thousands have been staying in an abandoned dormitory, a windowless, roofless concrete building on the edge of Bihac, and in tents in the woodlands surrounding it. In the nearby cities of Velika Kladusa and Cazin, smaller groups of migrants have set up squalid makeshift camps where they spend days curled up on the ground, cooking simple meals over open fires and watching their children play in the dirt.

Local Red Cross volunteers have been providing food for migrants and refugees in Bihac since April. At first, they fed just a few hundred people, relying on local donations. But since July, they have been serving two meals a day to 1,500 migrants who are also receiving basic health care from local medical workers.

Although the U.N. refugee agency and the IOM have now joined the effort, local volunteers are desperate for more help.

"We are reaching the end of our rope, because this has been going on for four months already. Only God knows what awaits us in the future," said Abdulah Budimlic, head of the Red Cross organization in Bihac.

While around 60 percent of those who entered Bosnia this year have managed to cross into Croatia, more and more migrants in Bihac and Velika Kladusa have accused Croatian police of beating them, confiscating their meager belongings and pushing them back into Bosnia.

Croatian police have repeatedly denied those claims.

"They take your mobile phones, your power pack. They destroy these and say 'Don't come back,'" said Abdul Hai Baloch from Pakistan's volatile Balochistan province.

Amjad Dakkakn, a 25-year-old from Syria, echoed the sentiment, swinging his fists to illustrate how he was treated by Croatian border guards, calling them thieves for smashing his phone and taking his money.

"They are hitting us as they hit an animal," claimed AbuBakar Khan, a 20-year-old from Pakistan who has made several unsuccessful attempts to cross the border since arriving in Bihac about a month ago.

Having lived through their country's brutal 1990s war, Bosnians sympathize more than most with those fleeing their homes in search of a better, safer life. But they are growing more vocal in their criticism of the national government, accusing officials of forcing towns and villages to deal with the migrants' many needs on their own.

"In less than a month, the weather will change. It will get cold," said Bihac resident Halid Dedic. "I fear that the local people will be left alone to face the migrants."

Bosnian Security Minister Dragan Mektic hopes the pressure will be eased after the EU pledged 6 million euros ($6.9 million) earlier this month to help Bosnia with the unprecedented migrant influx. It comes on top of 1.5 million euros ($1.7 million) Bosnia already received from the EU in June for migration-related needs.

"Now that the EU had provided us with this substantial donation ... I believe we will have enough time to set up proper reception centers where migrants can spend the winter and be treated humanely," Mektic said.

Those better conditions can't come soon enough for the migrants in Bosnia.

"I just want a safe life, to work and live like normal people," said Khan, but he appeared resigned to the fact he probably will spend many months in Bosnia under the "very worst" conditions before he is able to leave.

"(The EU) needs to fund Bosnia to prepare camps here and to protect refugees," he said.

In this photo taken on Monday, Aug. 13, 2018, a migrant man plays with his son in a makeshift migrant camp in Velika Kladusa, 500 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Impoverished Bosnia must race against time to secure proper shelters for at least 4,000 migrants and refugees expected to be stranded in its territory during coming winter. The migrant trail shifted toward Bosnia as other migration routes to Western Europe from the Balkans were closed off over the past year. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

In this photo taken on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018, migrants prepare dinner in a makeshift migrant camp in Bihac, 450 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Impoverished Bosnia must race against time to secure proper shelters for at least 4,000 migrants and refugees expected to be stranded in its territory during coming winter. The migrant trail shifted toward Bosnia as other migration routes to Western Europe from the Balkans were closed off over the past year. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

In this photo taken on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018, migrants sleep on the floor of a makeshift migrant camp in Bihac, 450 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Impoverished Bosnia must race against time to secure proper shelters for at least 4,000 migrants and refugees expected to be stranded in its territory during coming winter. The migrant trail shifted toward Bosnia as other migration routes to Western Europe from the Balkans were closed off over the past year. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

In this photo taken on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018, migrants stand by a window in a makeshift migrant camp in Bihac, 450 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Impoverished Bosnia must race against time to secure proper shelters for at least 4,000 migrants and refugees expected to be stranded in its territory during coming winter. The migrant trail shifted toward Bosnia as other migration routes to Western Europe from the Balkans were closed off over the past year. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

In this photo taken on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018, migrants rest in their beds in a makeshift migrant camp in Bihac, 450 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Impoverished Bosnia must race against time to secure proper shelters for at least 4,000 migrants and refugees expected to be stranded in its territory during coming winter. The migrant trail shifted toward Bosnia as other migration routes to Western Europe from the Balkans were closed off over the past year. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

In this photo taken on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018, a migrant woman walks with her baby in a makeshift migrant camp in Bihac, 450 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Impoverished Bosnia must race against time to secure proper shelters for at least 4,000 migrants and refugees expected to be stranded in its territory during coming winter. The migrant trail shifted toward Bosnia as other migration routes to Western Europe from the Balkans were closed off over the past year. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

In this photo taken on Monday, Aug. 13, 2018, migrants eat lunch in a makeshift migrant camp in Bihac, 450 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Impoverished Bosnia must race against time to secure proper shelters for at least 4,000 migrants and refugees expected to be stranded in its territory during coming winter. The migrant trail shifted toward Bosnia as other migration routes to Western Europe from the Balkans were closed off over the past year. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

In this photo taken on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018, a migrant man sleeps on the ground a makeshift migrant camp in Bihac, 450 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Impoverished Bosnia must race against time to secure proper shelters for at least 4,000 migrants and refugees expected to be stranded in its territory during coming winter. The migrant trail shifted toward Bosnia as other migration routes to Western Europe from the Balkans were closed off over the past year. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

In this photo taken on Monday, Aug. 13, 2018,, a migrant child eats corn in a makeshift migrant camp in Velika Kladusa, 500 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Impoverished Bosnia must race against time to secure proper shelters for at least 4,000 migrants and refugees expected to be stranded in its territory during coming winter. The migrant trail shifted toward Bosnia as other migration routes to Western Europe from the Balkans were closed off over the past year. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

In this photo taken on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018, a migrant man receives a haircut in a makeshift migrant camp in Velika Kladusa, 500 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Impoverished Bosnia must race against time to secure proper shelters for at least 4,000 migrants and refugees expected to be stranded in its territory during coming winter. The migrant trail shifted toward Bosnia as other migration routes to Western Europe from the Balkans were closed off over the past year. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

In this photo taken on Monday, Aug. 13, 2018, Shilla from Iran plays with a ball in a makeshift migrant camp in Velika Kladusa, 500 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Impoverished Bosnia must race against time to secure proper shelters for at least 4,000 migrants and refugees expected to be stranded in its territory during coming winter. The migrant trail shifted toward Bosnia as other migration routes to Western Europe from the Balkans were closed off over the past year. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)
Facebook/George Papadopoulos(WASHINGTON) -- George Papadopoulos, the embattled former foreign policy advisor to Donald Trumps campaign, is strongly considering backing away from the agreement he struck with special counsel Robert Mueller that led him to plead guilty to lying to the FBI, his wife told ABC News.



He will make his final decision tomorrow, said Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos, who has been vocal online and in television appearances speaking out on his behalf since prosecutors revealed they want her husband to serve jail time. He needs a serious conversation with his attorney.



Papadopoulos tweeted his own musing about his next move Monday afternoon, saying, Been a hell of a year. Decisions.



The decision will be fraught for Papadopoulos, who pledged to assist prosecutors with the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign in exchange for lenience on charges that, according to his wife, may have included allegations of improper work for the Israeli government.



If he backs away now, she said, he could face a raft of new charges.



Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in October to lying to the FBI about his contacts during the campaign with a professor who, prosecutors alleged in court filings, had substantial connections to Russian government officials.



On Friday, Mueller submitted a recommendation that Papadopoulos serve up to six months in jail for lying to the FBI, a request that includes a strong rebuke of a man prosecutors said had failed to assist with their investigation.



The government said he should be held accountable for having repeatedly misled them about critical facts, in an investigation of national importance, after having been explicitly warned that lying to the FBI was a federal offense. The nature and circumstances of the offense warrant a sentence of incarceration.



Papadopoulos, who had served as a volunteer to the Trump team, traveled as an emissary from the campaign to foreign leaders in the Middle East and the Mediterranean.



Court records filed by Mueller said the professor approached Papadopoulos after learning of his role in the Trump campaign. The court filing does not name the professor, but he has since been widely identified as Joseph Mifsud, then the director of the London Academy of Diplomacy. ABC News has been unable to reach Mifsud for comment.



The professor told Papadopoulos the Russians had dirt on Democrat Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails that they had procured, according to the court documents.



Papadopoulos reportedly bragged about that offer to an Australian diplomat, who then tipped off the FBI and launched that agencys counterintelligence investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.



Papadopoulos was arrested by the FBI when he arrived at Dulles International Airport in July 2017 and initially charged under seal.



In an interview Monday, Mangiante Papadopoulos said her husband never saw the evidence amassed against him when he agreed to the plea agreement. Some of that material has recently been turned over to his attorney, and Papadopoulos expects to review it ahead of his decision, she said.



She said her husband has grown suspicious of government allegations that the professor was a Russian intelligence asset at all.



He could be nobody, she said. He could be a charlatan.



The governments sentencing recommendation includes signs the Mueller team felt betrayed by Papadopoulos after he struck a plea agreement and pledged his full cooperation.



The filing says Papadopoulos repeatedly withheld key details about his contacts with Russians and neglected to turn over the cell phone he used to communicate with Mifsud until the government expressly asked for it.



His lies negatively affected the FBIs Russia investigation, and prevented the FBI from effectively identifying and confronting witnesses in a timely fashion, the filing says. His lies were not momentary lapses. He lied repeatedly over the course of more than two hours, and his lies were designed to conceal facts he knew were critical: the importance of the information he received from the Professor, and his own communications and contacts with Russians and Russian intermediaries during the Trump campaign.



Papadopouloss legal team will file their own sentencing assessment to the court in two weeks, and is expected to ask for probation.



Since her husbands guilty plea in exchange for cooperation with the Mueller probe, Papadopoulos has been living in Chicago. Federal investigators have imposed restrictions on his travel until his sentencing, which is now scheduled for September 7.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
News Analysis: Experts see no quick solutions to U.S. sanctions

MOSCOW, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- With the United States recklessly wielding its sanctions on a number of countries of late, Russia has quickly responded by strengthening cooperation with other nations such as Iran and Turkey.

Though the active interactions enable Moscow to establish closer ties externally, no major changes can be expected until fundamental problems are resolved, Russian experts said.

ECONOMIC BLOWS

The United States has lately gone further in its aggressiveness and slapped economic sanctions -- once after the next -- on several countries.

On Aug. 7, the United States reimposed sanctions on Iran that it lifted just two years ago.

On Aug. 8, Washington declared to take punitive measures against Russia that will affect almost all Russian state companies.

On Aug. 10, it announced the decision to double the tariffs on steel and aluminum products from Turkey.

"Sanctions - not only against Russia - are becoming one of the main instruments of the U.S. foreign policy," Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council Andrey Kortunov said.

The heavy punches have immediately brought about chaos in these economies. Russia's ruble has plunged to its weakest since mid-2016 and Turkey's lira lost 25 percent of its value in just one week.

The global economy is also taking a serious hit, with a universal depreciation in the currencies of emerging economies and fluctuations in the stock markets of developed countries, all in a chain reaction.

"The measures are sensitive, because they are aimed at reducing the incomes of national economies. This is painful for any country," said Azhdar Kurtov, editor-in-chief of the National Strategic Issues journal published by the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies.

Kurtov said the United States is trying to use economic means to force others to yield and follow its lead.

CLOSER NEIGHBORS

Common challenges make alignment possible, and Russia has been in closer-than-ever touch with its neighbors in the past few days.

Right after the sanctions on Iran were announced, Moscow declared to consolidate its economic cooperation with Teheran and reiterated its determination to preserve and implement the landmark Iran nuclear deal, which was abandoned by Washington in May.

During the visit to Ankara on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Turkey and Russia would take steps to enhance their strategic partnership and continue talks for cooperation on Syria. Moreover, the two sides are reportedly discussing the scenario of settlements in their national currencies.

In addition, Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan have signed a new convention lately for collective use of the Caspian Sea.

"Cooperation allows countries to act more efficiently and find productive solutions," Kurtov told Xinhua.

He noted that the pressure of U.S. sanctions will also be reflected across regional organizations in which these countries are included and therefore other members will "be forced to coordinate their actions" to cope with the sanctions as well.

Furthermore, the international community may also question the global status of the U.S. and seek more a pluralistic trade system if Washington continues to violate international law and harm the interests of others, he said.

"It will not happen quickly, but the U.S. is gradually losing its dominant position," Kurtov said.

NO QUICK SOLUTIONS

Despite closer ties with other countries, Russia for the moment still has limited bargaining chips on the matter of the U.S. sanctions.

Imbalanced trade between the United States and Russia has made retaliation from Moscow less intimidating to Washington.

Experts say Russia is currently much more dependent on the West economically than the other way round.

Russia should move to manage multiple risks and survive in an environment of extremely severe pressure, said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs magazine.
NEW YORK (AP) - Kelly Marie Tran is breaking her silence about online harassment months after deleting her Instagram account.

In an essay published Tuesday in The New York Times, the "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" actress wrote it "wasn't their words, it's that I started to believe them."

Tran deleted her Instagram account in June.

FILE - In this March 4, 2018, file photo, Kelly Marie Tran arrives at the Oscars, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Tran is breaking her silence about online harassment months after deleting her Instagram account. In an essay published Tuesday, Aug. 21, in The New York Times, the "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" actress wrote it "wasn't their words, it's that I started to believe them." (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

She wrote the words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of color had taught her, that she belonged "in margins and spaces." She wrote she started blaming herself and felt brainwashed into believing her existence was "limited to the boundaries of another person's approval."

Tran wrote she wants to live in a world where people of all races and genders are seen as human beings.

Tran will reprise her role as Rose Tico in next year's "Star Wars: Episode IX."
NEW YORK (AP) - Jon Stewart has helped make a home for two goats found roaming along the subway tracks in New York City.

A train operator on Monday alerted headquarters about "two very baaaaad boys" along the N Line in Brooklyn. It wasn't clear where the goats came from.

Police arrived on the scene, tranquilized the male goats, and took them to an animal shelter. The shelter contacted Farm Sanctuary.

In this Monday, Aug. 20, 2018 photo provided by the New York City Transit, goats stand on the subway tracks in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Jon Stewart has made a home for the two goats found roaming along the tracks. The comedian and his wife own Farm Sanctuary, a shelter in Watkins Glen, N.Y. (New York City Transit via AP)

That's when Stewart stepped in to help. In a video , Stewart is shown helping load the goats into a trailer to Farm Sanctuary. The comedian and his wife often assist transporting animals found in the city to the shelter in Watkins Glen, New York.

They have partnered with the organization to open a farm and education center in New Jersey.

___

This story has been corrected to show Stewart assists Farm Sanctuary in transporting animals and does not own the sanctuary. Deletes reference to new names of goats because they have not yet been named.

FILE - In this Oct. 12, 2017, file photo, Comedian Jon Stewart and wife Tracey arrive at "Springsteen On Broadway" opening night at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York. Stewart has made a home for two goats found roaming along the subway tracks in New York City. A train operator on Monday, Aug. 20, 2018, alerted headquarters about "two very baaaaad boys" along the N Line in Brooklyn. The comedian and his wife own Farm Sanctuary, a shelter in Watkins Glen, N.Y. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
BRAMPTON, England (AP) - "Looks like we brought the weather with us from California," the elderly tourist says, pulling on a hat and strolling past me. He disappears up a grass slope, beneath a brilliant, blue sky, his wife beside him.

It's the first of several American accents I hear that morning. Perhaps they've come to see what a real border fence looks like.

Because that's precisely what's drawn them, and me, to this remote and spectacular part of northern England: an imposing, defensive barrier meant to keep the bad guys out and the good guys safe.

In this July 3, 2018 photo, a stretch of Hadrian's Wall cuts through the northern English countryside, near Birdoswald Fort, Cumbria. The wall was built by Roman soldiers, beginning in 122 AD, to control movement across the frontier and to protect their territory from warlike tribes. When finished it ran from coast to coast: a distance of 118 kilometers (73 miles). Large parts of it remain today. (AP Photo/Jerry Harmer)

At least, that's how the ancient Romans would have seen it.

Hadrian's Wall - named after the emperor who commissioned it - was begun in the second century, in the year 122. Soldiers toiled for a decade or so, piling stone upon stone until it stretched from coast to coast, across the very top of what's now northern England: a distance of 118 kilometers (73 miles).

It stood up to 4.6 meters high (15 feet) with walls 3 meters wide (9.8 feet). It bristled with towers, forts and watch posts, called milecastles, and gave commanding views of the surrounding countryside.

Trendy designers today like to talk of statement walls. This was, indeed, a statement wall. It was where civilization ended.

The wall let the Romans control who and what came into the empire. And it kept the peace. Beyond it were war-mongering communities in what is, today, Scotland, itching to ravage the settlements of refined Roman Britain and bring down fire on the hated invaders.

Hadrian's Wall kept them out.

Almost 2,000 years on, long sections on Hadrian's Wall still stand, remarkably well-preserved. The thick stone line snakes for miles across rugged uplands, and down into wooded valleys.

UNESCO named it a World Heritage Site in 1987 for its "extraordinarily high cultural value."

My family and I start at the ruins of Birdoswald Fort, said by English Heritage, a charity that looks after historic sites, to have the most impressive remaining defenses of all the original 16 forts. We then follow the wall, in blazing sunshine, as it undulates eastward.

But they soon tire of this huge slab of history, preferring the lure of a shady river bank and a packed lunch.

I go on alone, past the impressive remains of abutments that once supported a triple bridge across the River Irthing. The wall's thick spine ascends a hill ahead of me.

You are not meant to climb up on it, but I have an urge to connect. I run my hand against the sun-warmed stones; some a whitish-gray, others blackened by an eternity of wild, northern winters. I marvel that the last person to touch them, before me, was quite possibly the man who laid them, back when Hadrian's Wall marked the extreme northern edge of the Roman empire's vast reach.

Sitting on the edge of an escarpment, among the ruins of Harrow's Scar milecastle, a ruddy-faced walker is taking a breather. Bill Vincent is halfway through a six-day trek along the wall's entire length, coast to coast, "to mark the start of my 60th year."

I ask him whether he thinks about the history as he walks: the garrisons, shivering behind the ramparts; the tattooed tribal warriors, staring resentfully at this massive stone affront.

"Yes, you can't help but do that," he says, "but, to be honest, I think more about my feet."

___

If You Go...

HADRIAN'S WALL: By car, Birdoswald Fort is 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) west of Greenhead, off the B6318. There are signposts as you get nearer. Sat nav: CA8 7DD. There is a pay car park a short distance away. Visitors can combine Birdoswald Fort with Housesteads Fort, a short drive away. By train, the nearest train stations are at Brampton and Haltwhistle, about 7 miles (11 kilometers) away. By bus, the local Go Northeast company runs seasonal routes to points along Hadrian's Wall with its AD 122 service, https://www.gonortheast.co.uk/ad122/

ENGLISH HERITAGE: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/hadrians-wall/

In this July 3, 2018 photo, two walkers stroll along part of Hadrian's Wall, near Birdoswald Fort, in Cumbria, northern England. In its heyday the wall - built by the Romans almost two thousand years ago to control frontier movement and as a defensive barrier - stood up to 4.6 meters (15 feet) high and was three meters (9.8 feet) wide. It stretched coast to coast: a distance of 118 kilometers (73 miles).(AP Photo/Jerry Harmer)

This July 3, 2018 photo shows the remains of stone abutments at Willowford, Cumbria, in northern England, that once supported an ancient bridge. The bridge was part of Hadrian's Wall, a defensive barrier that ran coast to coast to control movement of people and goods across the frontier and to seal off Roman Britain from attack by unconquered, warlike tribes to the north. The remains of the wall were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. (AP Photo/Jerry Harmer)

In this July 3, 2018 photo, a section of Hadrian's Wall stretches away towards Birdoswald Fort, in Cumbria, northern England. The wall was built by Roman soldiers, beginning in 122 AD, and ran for 118 kilometers (73 miles), coast to coast. Almost two thousand years later, it remains a powerful reminder of the majesty of the Roman Empire. (AP Photo/Jerry Harmer)

This July 3, 2018 photo shows a section of Hadrian's Wall, near Birdoswald Fort, Cumbria in northern England. When completed, around 128 AD, it stood up to 4.6 meters (15 feet) and was three meters (9.8 feet) wide. It ran for 118 kilometers (73 miles) and bristled with forts, watchtowers and guard posts. It was built by the Romans to control movement across the frontier and to stop warlike tribes raiding their territory. Large sections of the wall still remain. (AP Photo/Jerry Harmer)

In this July 3, 2018 photo, the remains of a Roman building within Birdoswald Fort, in Cumbria, northern England, stand beneath a brilliant blue sky. There were 16 forts in total along Hadrian's Wall, when it was built, from 122 AD, and Birdoswald is one of the best preserved. The wall was a formidable barrier, stretching 118 kilometers (73 miles), designed to control movement into and out of Roman Britain, and to provide protection against attack. (AP Photo/Jerry Harmer)

In this July 3, 2018 photo, sheep rest in the lee of a section of Hadrian's Wall, in Cumbria, northern England. The wall was commissioned by the Roman emperor Hadrian and was begun around 122 AD, to control movement into and out of the empire. It cut right across what is now northern England, from coast to coast: a distance of 118 kilometers (73 miles). (AP Photo/Jerry Harmer)

In this July 3, 2018 photo, ancient stones on Hadrian's Wall warm in the sun in Cumbria, northern England. The wall was built on the orders of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, beginning in 122 AD, and ran coast to coast: a distance of 118 kilometers (73 miles). It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. (AP Photo/Jerry Harmer)
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia on Monday displayed its latest weapons at a military show aimed at attracting more foreign customers.

President Vladimir Putin said in an address to the Army 2018 show that it reflects the "huge potential" of Russian military industries and will serve as a platform for military cooperation with other countries.

The show, held at a shooting range just outside of Moscow, features Russia's latest fighter jet, the Su-57, the Kinzhal hypersonic weapon and the Armata battle tank among other new weapons. It also features robotic systems.

A visitor passes a model of a guided robot-style system presented by the Concern Kalashnikov during the International Military Technical Forum Army-2018 in Alabino, outside Moscow, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Russia has displayed its latest weapons at a military show aimed at attracting more foreign customers. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

The event will involve flyovers by the air force's aerobatic squadrons and displays of new army weapons in action.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu emphasized that most new weapons at the show have proven their worth during the Syrian campaign. "They demonstrate the latest achievements of our industries and science," he said.

A man, left, wears a working sample of a passive exoskeleton combat gear, next to a mannequin dressed in a prototype of an active exoskeleton combat gear presented by the Russian Rostec company during the International Military Technical Forum Army-2018 in Alabino, outside Moscow, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Russia has displayed its latest weapons at a military show aimed at attracting more foreign customers. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A visitor stands near the new "Izh Pulsar" electric motorcycle presented by the Concern Kalashnikov during the International Military Technical Forum Army-2018 in Alabino, outside Moscow, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Russia has displayed its latest weapons at a military show aimed at attracting more foreign customers. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Foreign military visitors observe the International Military Technical Forum Army-2018 in Alabino, outside Moscow, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Russia has displayed its latest weapons at a military show aimed at attracting more foreign customers. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A foreign military visitor holds an AK-202 assault rifle presented by the Concern Kalashnikov during the International Military Technical Forum Army-2018 in Alabino, outside Moscow Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Russia has displayed its latest weapons at a military show aimed at attracting more foreign customers. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Foreign military visitors observe the International Military Technical Forum Army-2018 in Alabino, outside Moscow, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Russia has displayed its latest weapons at a military show aimed at attracting more foreign customers. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

A foreign military visitor holds the new AK-308 assault rifle presented by the Concern Kalashnikov during the International Military Technical Forum Army-2018 in Alabino, outside Moscow,Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Russia has displayed its latest weapons at a military show aimed at attracting more foreign customers. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu speaks during the opening ceremony of the International Military Technical Forum Army-2018 in Alabino, outside Moscow, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Russia has displayed its latest weapons at a military show aimed at attracting more foreign customers. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu speaks during the opening ceremony of the International Military Technical Forum Army-2018 in Alabino, outside Moscow, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Sergei Shoigu emphasized that most new weapons at the show have proven their worth during the Syrian campaign. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, second right, and the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation on the Issues of Environmental Activities, Environment and Transport Sergei Ivanov, left, walk during the International Military Technical Forum Army-2018 in Alabino, outside Moscow, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Russia has displayed its latest weapons at a military show aimed at attracting more foreign customers. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Russian heavy flamethrower system TOS-1 fires during the International Military Technical Forum Army-2018 in Alabino, outside Moscow, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Russia has displayed its latest weapons at a military show aimed at attracting more foreign customers. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The Latest on flooding around Madison, Wisconsin(all times local):

6:45 p.m.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has declared a state of emergency in flood-stricken Dane County.

Onlookers get a close view of Pheasant Branch Creek, below the bridge on Parmenter Street, as the water covers the nearby bike path after Monday's record rainfall hit the area causing flooding, in Middleton, Wis., Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. (Amber Arnold/Wisconsin State Journal via AP)

Walker said Tuesday the state is ready to assist in recovery efforts after torrential rains prompted evacuations and left at least one person dead in the south-central Wisconsin county.

The governor plans to tour the flood damage on Wednesday.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan sent a letter Tuesday to President Donald Trump, asking him to provide federal assistance for flood recovery efforts if Walker seeks a federal disaster declaration.

___

4:25 p.m.

A Madison alderman was one of the bystanders who tried to save a man who was swept away during flash flooding in the Wisconsin capital.

Police say the rushing floodwaters wrenched the man from the grasp of his would-be rescuers as he tried to escape from his flooded Monday evening. Firefighters found his body Tuesday morning in a retention pond a third of a mile away.

The Capital Times reports that Alderman Matt Phair and his wife were biking during a lull in the storm and found the man's car nose down in a ditch.

Phair says he and his wife helped the car's two passengers to safety and tried along with another man to save the driver, but he was sucked away.

Phair says the force of the water was overwhelming. He says he did what anyone would have done.

___

11:20 a.m.

Searchers have recovered the body of a man who was swept away during flash flooding in Wisconsin's capital city of Madison.

Police spokesman Joel DeSpain says searchers found the man in a retention pond on Tuesday morning. He described the man in a news release as being in his 70s. He had been driving a car with two passengers when it stalled in flood waters and was swept into a drainage ditch.

DeSpain says bystanders helped the two passengers to safety but were unable to keep the driver from being sucked under the car and away by the rushing water.

The National Weather Service estimates more than 11 inches (28 centimeters) of rain fell overnight in Dane County, flooding major roads, knocking out power and forcing scores of people in rural municipalities to evacuate.

___

9:50 a.m.

Wisconsin officials have declared a state of emergency due to torrential rains that have caused widespread flooding around Madison.

The National Weather Service estimates that as much as 13 inches (33 centimeters) of rain has fallen in parts of western Dane County on Monday and Tuesday. It has flooded major roads and knocked out power to thousands of customers.

Firefighters were searching a flooded Madison park on Tuesday morning for a man who was swept away by the current after getting out of a vehicle. Evacuations are ongoing in the rural communities of Black Earth, Cross Plains and Mazomanie, which are just west of Madison.

Dane County Executive Joe Parisi declared a state of emergency a little before 9 a.m. Tuesday. The declaration qualifies the county for state and federal disaster assistance.

____

7 a.m.

Dive teams and first responders are searching for a man who was swept away in floods after a deluge of heavy rain in and around Madison, Wisconsin.

The National Weather Service says 11 to 13 inches (28 to 33 centimeters) of rain fell in some spots in western Dane County, flooding major roads and intersections and knocking out power to thousands of people.

The floods led to dozens of water rescues.

In Madison, firefighters responded to a vehicle with three occupants that was stranded in flood water about 9 p.m. Monday. Officials say only two people made it to safety and one man remains missing.

Dane County Emergency Management says Black Earth Creek hit record flood stage with evacuations underway in Black Earth, Cross Plains and Mazomanie (may-zoh-MAY'-nee).

Dane County Sheriff Deputy moving a cone as flood waters from the Black Earth Creek recedes on Hudson Street in Mazomanie. Heavy Rains Monday night caused flooding in the Black Earth and Mazomanie communities Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. (Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP)

Tyler Statz takes a break from cleaning out his flooded home Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, in Black Earth, Wis. Black Earth Creek hit record flood stage with evacuations underway in Black Earth, Cross Plains and Mazomanie, according to Dane County Emergency Management. (Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP)

Mac Campshure, of Middleton, Wis.,rides his bike through flood waters on Greenway Boulevard after bringing lunch to his wife who works in the area, in Middleton, Wis., Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. (Amber Arnold/Wisconsin State Journal via AP)

Vehicles are stalled on a flooded area of Greenway Boulevard after Monday's record rainfall, in Middleton, Wis., Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. (Amber Arnold/Wisconsin State Journal via AP)

Madison Fire Department's lake rescue team search for a man Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018 that went missing after the car he was in was swept away by flood waters Monday evening, at Greentree Park in Madison, Wis. (Amber Arnold/Wisconsin State Journal via AP)

People watching the flood waters of the Black Earth Creek flow over Bridge Road in Mazomanie, Wis., Tuesday Aug. 21, 2018. Black Earth Creek hit record flood stage with evacuations underway in Black Earth, Cross Plains and Mazomanie, according to Dane County Emergency Management. (Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP)

A milk truck was damaged early morning Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, when it fell into the missing section of a bridge over Highway 14 in Black Earth, Wis. More than 11 inches (28 centimeters) of rain fell overnight in places in or around Madison, according to the National Weather Service. (Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP)
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) - The Latest on the toppling of a Confederate statue at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (all times local):

3:30 p.m.

Former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory is comparing the protesters who helped topple a statue of a Confederate soldier with Nazis.

Police stand guard after the confederate statue known as Silent Sam was toppled by protesters on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

The Charlotte Observer reports that McCrory asked Tuesday if the protesters are any different from Nazis who tore down statues and burned books in the 1920s and 1930s. McCrory made the comments on his morning show on WBT radio.

On Monday, protesters at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill brought down the statue known as "Silent Sam" that had stood on campus for more than 100 years. They had decried the statue as a symbol of racist heritage.

McCrory said presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington owned slaves and asked if monuments in their honor should be removed.

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2:15 p.m.'

A protester who threw a mixture of red ink and her own blood on a Confederate statue says students, campus workers and community did what the University of North Carolina refused to do when they toppled the statue.

Maya Little is charged with vandalism for her protest in April and also faces an Honor Court hearing. She said Tuesday that UNC-Chapel Hill had more than 100 years to remove the statue known as "Silent Sam" and didn't do it so others took it down Monday night.

She says the toppling exemplifies activists' commitment to "smashing white supremacy" at UNC.

Little says she has a court hearing in October on the vandalism charge. She says no date has been set for her Honor Court hearing.

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1:40 p.m.

Campus police say one person faces criminal charges for his role in toppling a Confederate statue on the University of North Carolina's flagship campus.

Police at the Chapel Hill campus said Tuesday they charged a 27-year-old man for resisting or obstructing an officer and for wearing a hood or mask on public property.

Ian Broadhead of rural Watauga County did not have a listed phone number and The Associated Press was unable to reach him for comment Tuesday.

UNC-Chapel Hill police spokesman Randy Young said Broadhead is not a student at the school.

He was arrested Monday night, shortly before activists yanked the bronze figure of a Southern soldier off its stone pedestal. The statute was erected in a prominent spot on campus by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1913.

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1:30 p.m.

Two freshmen attending their first day of class say they're happy the statue known as "Silent Sam" is gone from the University of North Carolina's flagship campus.

On Tuesday, Joy Aikens and Savannah Wood were at the pedestal that once supported the statue of a Confederate soldier on the Chapel Hill campus.

Aikens said she was present for the protests Monday night that ended with the toppling of the statue, while Wood was in her dorm room, watching videos from friends.

Wood says activists tried to have the statue removed peacefully, while Aikens said the people who risked an honor court hearing are "beyond amazing."

The bronze figure of a Southern soldier atop a tall stone pedestal was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1913.

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12:55 p.m.

North Carolina's state Senate leader says the people who toppled the Confederate statute at UNC-Chapel Hill are like "violent mobs" and he says their actions won't heal wounds of racial injustice.

Republican Senate leader Phil Berger released his statement after the "Silent Sam" memorial was pulled down during a demonstration by hundreds of people at the University of North Carolina's flagship campus.

Berger said Tuesday "only a civil society that adheres to the rule of law can heal these wounds." He says Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and other politicians must stop labeling violent riots as "rallies."

University officials said their hands were tied by a 2015 law that essentially prohibited the permanent removal of "Silent Sam" and limited the relocation of similar Confederate monuments on public property.

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11:50 a.m.

A top Republican at the North Carolina legislature is calling for those who toppled a Confederate statue on the University of North Carolina's flagship campus to be arrested and prosecuted.

House Speaker Tim Moore made the comments Tuesday, a day after the memorial known as "Silent Sam" at UNC-Chapel Hill came down during a rally attended by hundreds of demonstrators.

Moore is a Chapel Hill graduate. He says it must be made clear that "mob rule and acts of violence" won't be tolerated in the state.

Moore and other Republicans were leading the General Assembly in 2015 when it passed a law that essentially made it impossible to remove the Confederate statue permanently unless the legislature passed another law doing so.

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10:55 a.m.

The top officials of the University of North Carolina system say the toppling of a Confederate statue on the Chapel Hill campus was "unacceptable, dangerous and incomprehensible."

In a statement released Tuesday, UNC board chairman Harry Smith and system President Margaret Spellings say the university won't tolerate the intentional destruction of public property.

They say UNC-Chapel Hill leaders and police are reviewing evidence and conducting interviews "that will inform a full criminal investigation."

The memorial known as "Silent Sam" was toppled Monday night during a rally by hundreds of protesters who decried it as a symbol of racist heritage.

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10:25 a.m.

A Confederate statue in the heart of North Carolina's flagship university is no longer standing.

The memorial known as "Silent Sam" was toppled Monday night during a rally by hundreds of protesters who decried it as a symbol of racist heritage.

The bronze figure of a Southern soldier atop a tall stone pedestal was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1913. It had been under constant police surveillance after being vandalized in recent months, costing the university hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Protesters appeared to outwit officers by splitting into two groups. Most marched away from the statue while a smaller group surrounded it with banners on bamboo poles, concealing efforts to tie a rope or cable around it. Videos show the groups converged and yanked it down.

Police stand guard after the confederate statue known as Silent Sam was toppled by protesters on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Police stand guard after the confederate statue known as Silent Sam was toppled by protesters on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Banners are used to cover the statue known as Silent Sam as people gather during a rally to remove the confederate statue from campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Police try to take a banner from protesters as people gather during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

A protester covers his face as people gather during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Police remove a protester during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Police remove a protester during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Police and protesters react to a smoke bomb as some protesters are removed during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam from campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - One of the founders of Argentina's leading human rights group has died. Maria Isabel Chorobik de Mariani was 95.

The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo group says that she died late Monday at a local hospital where she had been interned after suffering a stroke.

Chorobik de Mariani was instrumental in founding the group that for decades has been searching for children who were stolen from people who were killed or forcibly disappeared during Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship.

In this Nov. 23, 2015 photo, one of the founders of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Maria Isabel "Chicha" Mariani attends a ceremony to pay homage to victims of the last dictatorship in La Plata, Argentina. Mariani died Sunday, Aug. 19, 018, before she could find her granddaughter Clara Anahi Mariani, kidnapped during last dictatorship at three months old. (AP Photo/Rolando Andrade Stracuzzi)

Two former dictators were eventually convicted along with others of systematically kidnapping children. Jorge Rafael Videla died in prison in 2013. Reynaldo Bignone, who was serving time under house arrest, died earlier this year.

During the dictatorship, the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo marched weekly at Buenos Aires' main square to demand the return of their loved ones. The group says Chorobik de Mariani was a "symbol of the fight for human rights."

The Grandmothers pushed for the creation of a DNA database that enables people illegally adopted to determine their real identity. They believe that about 500 children were seized during the dictatorship and given to couples who supported the ruling military junta. The group has so far helped to identify 128 cases of stolen children.

Chorobik de Mariani, who was known as "Chicha," never found her missing granddaughter. Clara Anahi was 3 months old when she was stolen by agents of the dictatorship in 1976. The baby's mother was killed.

"Dear Chicha, we will keep searching for her, along with all the other granddaughters and grandsons who are missing," the group said.
ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - A Flint, Michigan, resident is among those embroiled in a legal battle over a letter criticizing a Virginia Tech professor who helped expose the city's water crisis.

Flint resident Melissa Mays and the Campaign for Lead Free Water's Yanna Lambrinidou and Paul Schwartz filed an Aug. 10 motion to dismiss Marc Edwards' $3 million defamation lawsuit against them, The Roanoke Times reported .

Edwards has accused the three defendants of orchestrating a "smear campaign" against him. At the heart of the matter is a May letter signed by more than 60 Flint residents and the defendants, accusing Edwards of defaming Flint residents, interfering with their efforts to self-organize and abusing scientific authority, among other allegations. The motion didn't take responsibility for organizing the letter, but asserted it was protected by free speech rights.

FILE - In this March 15, 2016 file photo, Virginia Tech environmental engineering professor Marc Edwards testifies in Washington on the ongoing lead water crisis in Flint, Mich. Melissa Mays, a Flint, Mich., resident is among those embroiled in a legal battle over a letter criticizing Edwards, who helped expose the city's water crisis. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

"My clients - a Flint mom, Edwards' former co-researcher, and a community advocate - are being silenced and threatened with homelessness by a frivolous $3 million lawsuit because 60-plus Flint residents signed a letter that said no more and no less about Mr. Edwards than he has said about himself," defendants' attorney William Moran said in an emailed statement.

But Edwards argued the defendants "all harbor ongoing personal animosity" toward him and stand to benefit financially, professionally and socially from the diminishment of his status.

His July filing said his former co-researcher, Lambrinidou, of harboring "severe and persistent animosity," attributed to a dispute over intellectual property arising from a Virginia Tech course they taught together.

Edwards also asserts that Schwartz, Mays and Lambrinidou's Campaign for Lead Free Water aims to position itself as a credible expert "in an area of research and advocacy to which Edwards has devoted more than a quarter century of his life."

Edwards is seeking damages for what he characterized as damage to his reputation, loss of grant funding opportunities, stunted career development, a negative effect on eligibility for awards, diminished potential earning capacity and severe emotional distress to his family and himself.

"I'm confident that I had no alternative but to file (the lawsuit)," Edwards said in a Monday interview with The Roanoke Times, adding that he doesn't like being characterized as a bully.

The defendants' 35-page motion hit back, labeling Edwards' claim as "frivolous" and a "strategic lawsuit against public participation," designed to silence criticism.

"The lawsuit represents a cynical attempt by Plaintiff to strip the residents of Flint of their right to self-determination by replacing their voices with the judgment of Virginians who, for better or worse, would be tasked with deciding whether a Flint mom and two community activists are to suffer unconscionable financial harm and what the future shall hold for a community ravaged by a water crisis," the motion read.

Edwards was appointed to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's task force overseeing the state's response to the Flint water crisis.

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Information from: The Roanoke Times, http://www.roanoke.com

FILE - In this Feb. 3, 2016, file photo, Flint, Mich., resident Melissa Mays speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, following a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing to examine the ongoing situation in Flint. Mays is among those embroiled in a legal battle over a letter criticizing Marc Edwards, who helped expose the city's water crisis. (AP Photo/Molly Riley, File)
NEW YORK (AP) - Two days after a report detailed an accusation of sexual assault against #MeToo activist Asia Argento, the Italian actress and filmmaker said she never had a sexual relationship with the young actor whom she agreed to pay $380,000 in a settlement.

Argento, who has alleged that film producer Harvey Weinstein raped her, said in a statement Tuesday that she was linked "in friendship only" to Jimmy Bennett, a now 22-year-old Los Angeles actor who filed a legal notice of intent to sue Argento. As detailed in a New York Times story published Sunday, Bennett claimed Argento, then 37, sexually assaulted him when he was 17 in a California hotel room in 2013. As a child actor, Bennett played Argento's son in the 2004 film "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things"

Argento said Tuesday that the $380,000 payment was undertaken by her late boyfriend Anthony Bourdain, the television star chef.

FILE - In this April 12, 2018 file photo, Italian actress and director Asia Argento arrives at the ninth annual Women in the World Summit in New York. Argento, one of the most prominent activists of the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment, recently settled a complaint filed against her by a young actor and musician who said she sexually assaulted him when he was 17, the New York Times reported. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File)

"Bennett knew my boyfriend, Anthony Bourdain, was a man of great perceived wealth and had his own reputation as a beloved public figure to protect," said Argento. "Anthony personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life."

Bourdain killed himself in France in June. He has been a staunch supporter of Argento following her allegations against Weinstein.

A lawyer for Bennett didn't immediately comment Tuesday. But in a statement Monday, Gordon K. Sattro said: "At this time, our client, Jimmy Bennett, does not wish to comment on the documents or the events discussed in the New York Times article yesterday evening.

While we realize that the news cycle demands an immediate response, many times, people need more than a few minutes or hours to respond. We are asking that you give our client some time and space. Jimmy is going to take the next 24 hours, or longer, to prepare his response."

Bennett's notice of intent sought $3.5 million in damages, according to the Times report.

Los Angeles County sheriff's Capt. Darren Harris on Monday said investigators were looking into the alleged incident. No police report was filed at the time, Harris said.

Argento became one of the leading figures of the #MeToo movement after she told the New Yorker magazine that Weinstein raped her at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 when she was 21. Argento told the magazine that she continued to have a relationship with Weinstein because she was afraid of angering him.

Weinstein has been indicted on sex crime accusations involving three women, but not including Argento. The filmmaker, who is divorced and has two children, lives in Rome.

FILE - In this May 17, 2009 file photo, Italian actress Asia Argento arrives on the red carpet for the screening of "Vengeance" during the 62nd International film festival in Cannes, France. Argento, one of the most prominent activists of the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment, recently settled a complaint filed against her by a young actor and musician who said she sexually assaulted him when he was 17, the New York Times reported. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)
DENVER (AP) - The Latest on the arrest of a Colorado man in the disappearance of his family (all times local):

10:50 a.m.

A man whose pregnant daughter was killed, along with his two granddaughters, sobbed with his face in his hands as a Colorado judge read formal charges against his son-in-law.

CORRECTS LOCATION TO GREELEY, NOT ROGGEN - Christopher Watts is in court for his arraignment hearing at the Weld County Courthouse on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018 in Greeley, Colorado. Watts faces nine charges, including several counts of first-degree murder of his wife and his two young daughters. (RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via AP, Pool)

Shanann Watts' father, Frank Rzucek Sr., shook visibly Tuesday as District Judge Marcelo Kopcow read the charges against Christopher Watts.

Shanann's brother, Frank Rzucek Jr., rubbed his father's shoulders and glared unflinchingly at his brother-in-law. A bailiff stood between them.

Christopher Watts stoically answered "Yes sir" as the judge asked whether he understood the murder and other felony charges against him and the penalties they carry, including the death penalty.

Christopher Watts is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife, Shanann, and 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste.

Watts didn't enter pleas Tuesday. The judge set the next hearing for Nov. 16.

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10 p.m.

A Colorado man is due back in court Tuesday to formally learn that he has been charged with the murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters.

Christopher Watts also faces charges of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body. It is not clear whether he will enter a plea during the court appearance.

A court filing unsealed Monday says Watts admitted to police that he killed his wife. But he said he strangled her in "a rage" when he discovered she had strangled their two daughters after he sought a separation.

The document says the 33-year-old man then drove his wife and daughters' bodies to an oil work site where he buried 34-year-old Shanann Watts and put the bodies of 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste inside an oil tank.

Watts is being held without bail.

CORRECTS LOCATION TO GREELEY, NOT ROGGEN - Christopher Watts is brought in to court for his arraignment hearing at the Weld County Courthouse on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018 in Greeley, Colorado. Watts faces nine charges, including several counts of first-degree murder of his wife and his two young daughters. (RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via AP, Pool)

CORRECTS LOCATION TO GREELEY, NOT ROGGEN - Christopher Watts is in court for his arraignment hearing at the Weld County Courthouse on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018 in Greeley, Colorado. Watts faces nine charges, including several counts of first-degree murder of his wife and his two young daughters. (RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via AP, Pool)

CORRECTS LOCATION TO GREELEY, NOT ROGGEN - Christopher Watts is in court for his arraignment hearing at the Weld County Courthouse on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018 in Greeley, Colorado. Watts faces nine charges, including several counts of first-degree murder of his wife and his two young daughters. (RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via AP, Pool)

CORRECTS LOCATION TO GREELEY, NOT ROGGEN - Christopher Watts, second left, is in court for his arraignment hearing at the Weld County Courthouse on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018 in Greeley, Colorado. Watts faces nine charges, including several counts of first-degree murder of his wife and his two young daughters. (RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via AP, Pool)

CORRECTS LOCATION TO GREELEY, NOT ROGGEN - Christopher Watts is in court for his arraignment hearing at the Weld County Courthouse on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018 in Greeley, Colorado. Watts faces nine charges, including several counts of first-degree murder of his wife and his two young daughters. (RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via AP, Pool)
Members of separated families reunite in Mount Kumgang in the southeast of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on Aug. 20, 2018. Families of South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, finally reunited in tears and joy as they had never seen each other for decades until Monday when the rare reunions were held in Mount Kumgang in southeast DPRK. (Xinhua)

SEOUL, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Families of South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, finally reunited in tears and joy as they had never seen each other for decades until Monday when the rare reunions were held in Mount Kumgang in southeast DPRK.

Eighty-nine South Koreans, mostly in their 80s or older, crossed the heavily armed border earlier in the day into the scenic mountain resort to meet their DPRK relatives they never saw since the Korean War ended with armistice that left the Korean Peninsula divided.

Han Shin-ja, a 99-year-old grandmother from South Korea, kept weeping without any word when she met her two daughters from the DPRK. She rubbed her cheek against the ones of her daughters who kept wailing and found no word to say, according to a pool report from South Korean reporters at the venue.

Han repeatedly said to her daughters "I'm sorry." She fled the DPRK after the war broke out, leaving her little ones to an aunt. At the time, Han never knew their separation would last so long.

The first session of reunions was scheduled to last until Wednesday. The second session of the three-day reunions was set to start Friday, involving 83 DPRK separated families who applied for gatherings with their South Korean relatives.

South Korean participants were mostly senior and frail, thus many of them were supported by their accompanying families or sat in wheelchairs. Some had difficulty in hearing, so their talks went on slowly.

A 101-year-old Baek Sung-gyu, the eldest South Korean participant for the first session, put on a light smile flanked by his daughter-in-law and granddaughter from the DPRK who wailed next to his wheelchair holding his shoulder.

The frail Baek had difficulty in saying a word. The daughter-in-law showed to Baek two photos of his first son who passed away in the DPRK. Baek's second son from South Korea led the conversation with the DPRK relatives.

South Korea and the DPRK agreed in June to hold the emotionally charged event, the first in nearly three years.

A combined 20 rounds of face-to-face reunions had been arranged since the first inter-Korean summit was held in 2000, but the reunions had been limited to about 200 separated families from each side. Over half of the South Koreans on the waiting list for reunions are in their 80s or older.

A 91-year-old Moon Hyun-sook was joyfully greeted by her two younger sisters from the DPRK, asking one of them "Why are you so old now?" The joy changed into tears when she heard how they have lived.

Among her seven siblings, only Moon ended up in South Korea as she moved to the South in 1947 after marriage. At the time, one of the younger sisters was eight years old, while the other had yet to be born.

Moon asked many questions about how her sisters have lived as she was the eldest daughter of her siblings. One more sister was still alive in the DPRK, but she failed to participate for frailty and sickness.

Their meeting, arranged after decades of separation, will be painfully short. They will be granted permission to meet for only 11 hours in group and private gatherings during the three-day reunions.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Trump administration on Tuesday moved to prop up the declining coal industry with an overhaul of Obama-era pollution rules, acknowledging that the increased emissions from aging coal-fired plants could kill hundreds more people annually and cost the country billions of dollars.

The proposal broadly increases the authority given to states to decide how and how much to regulate existing coal power plants.

The EPA said its Affordable Clean Energy rule "empowers states, promotes energy independence and facilitates economic growth and job creation."

In this July 27, 2018 photo, the Dave Johnson coal-fired power plant is silhouetted against the morning sun in Glenrock, Wyo. The Trump administration on Tuesday proposed a major rollback of Obama-era regulations on coal-fired power plants, striking at one of the former administration's legacy programs to rein in climate-changing fossil-fuel emissions. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)

"We are putting our great coal miners back to work," President Donald Trump crowed during a rally Tuesday night in West Virginia.

"We want a clean environment. ... I want clean air. I want crystal clean water and we've got it. We've got the cleanest country in the planet right now," Trump said. "But I'm getting rid of some of these ridiculous rules and regulations, which are killing our companies ... and our jobs."

Acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler told reporters, "Today we are fulfilling the president's agenda."

The proposal dismantles President Barack Obama's 2015 Clean Power Plan, one of his administration's legacy efforts against climate change. The Obama rules, which have been halted by court challenges, would have increased federal regulation of emissions from the nation's electrical grid and broadly promoted cleaner energy, including natural gas and solar and wind power.

Michelle Bloodworth, president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a trade group that represents coal producers, called the new rule a marked departure from the "gross overreach" of the Obama administration and said it should prevent a host of premature coal-plant retirements.

But the Natural Resources Defense Council called Trump's proposal the "Dirty Power Plan."

Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator when the Obama plan was developed, said the proposed changes show the Trump administration emphasizing "coal at all costs."

The EPA's 289-page regulatory analysis acknowledged that every possible scenario under its proposal projects "small increases" in climate-changing emissions and some pollutants, compared to the Obama plan.

EPA officials said they could give no firm projections for the health effects of their plan because that will depend on how states regulate power plants within their borders.

But models provided by the agency estimate that under the Trump plan, 300 to 1,500 more people would die prematurely each year by 2030, compared to the Obama plan.

The models for the Trump plan also project tens of thousands of additional major asthma attacks and hundreds more heart attacks compared with the Obama plan.

When health costs from air pollution - soot and smog killing people, increased asthma and heart attacks - are factored in, the repeal of the coal power plan would cost the country $1.4 billion to $3.9 billion annually, according to the agency.

"It shows that removing the Clean Power Plan would be detrimental to health," said University of North Carolina environmental engineering professor Jason West, who went through the agency's regulatory analysis with The Associated Press.

"The cost to society in increases of death and other outcomes from air pollution are greater than the cost to industry from removing the Clean Power Plan," West said.

The projection of increased deaths and costs marks "what's extraordinary about this proposal," said Richard Revesz, dean emeritus at the New York University School of Law. "To their credit, they tell us directly, 'We are doing something to cause great harm to the American people.'"

Environmentalists and other opponents said they expect legal challenges, arguing the Trump administration is abdicating its responsibilities under the Clean Air Act as set by Congress and the courts.

Bill Wehrum, head of the EPA's air office, told reporters that the administration rejects any suggestion the agency has a broad legal duty to combat climate change through regulation of power grids or promotion of cleaner energy.

"An important part of what we're doing here is getting us back into our lane," Wehrum said.

The EPA called the Obama-era regulations on coal power plants "overly prescriptive and burdensome."

Combined with the EPA's proposal earlier this month to ease gas-mileage requirements for vehicles, the move may actually increase the country's climate-changing emissions, according to some former top EPA officials, environmental groups and other opponents.

Tuesday's move opens a public-comment period on the proposal before any final approval by the president.

Scientists say that without extensive study, they cannot directly link a single weather event to climate change, but that it is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme events such as storms, droughts, floods and wildfires.

The new proposal establishes guidelines for states to use when developing any plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Critics say the new plan would allow utilities to run older, dirtier power plants more often and extend their operating life.

Trump has already vowed to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement as he pushes to revive the coal industry.

Obama's plan was designed to cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The rule dictated specific emission targets for states and gave officials broad latitude to decide how to achieve reductions.

The Supreme Court put the plan on hold in 2016 following a legal challenge by industry and coal-friendly states, an order that remains in effect.

Even so, the Obama plan has been a factor in the wave of retirements of coal-fired plants, which also are being squeezed by lower costs for natural gas and renewable power and state mandates that promote energy conservation.

Trump has vowed to end what Republicans call a "war on coal" waged by Obama.

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This story has been corrected to increase the projected range of deaths compared to the Obama plan.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - In a state with a long-standing tradition of electing white, Christian men, Florida's Democratic primary could produce the state's first black or woman governor or the second Jewish governor in its history.

Former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham, the only woman running for governor, or Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, the only black candidate, would set a first-in-Florida milestone if either goes on to win the general election. And former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine or billionaire real estate investor Jeff Greene would be only the second Jewish governor.

Of the five major candidates on the Democratic ballot for governor, Orlando-area businessman Chris King is the only white, Christian man, making the Aug. 28 primary one of the most diverse in a diverse state.

FILE - In this Aug. 18, 2018, file photo Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gwen Graham thanks a campaign volunteer, Juan Sabater, of Miami as she speaks to voters in an early "Get Out The Vote" tour in Miami Lakes, Fla. If the Democratic nominee goes on to win in November, voters could elect the state's first woman or black governor, or only the second Jewish governor since Florida became a state in 1845. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)

That fact is not lost on voters like Sharon Davies from Cape Coral.

"I am an old lady. I am 71. I am so happy to see that we have people willing to step up who don't just look like some of us. And they have such different ideas, different backgrounds. I think that all of those cultures coming together is going to make us a much stronger state and a much stronger nation," said Davies, a Democrat who is white.

In the Republican primary, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis better fit the mold of the state's first 45 Florida governors. Republican Gov. Rick Scott can't seek re-election because of term limits and is instead challenging Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.

For Graham, being a woman is part of her sales pitch to voters. She regularly calls herself a mom; likes to use the phrase, "the next governor, whoever she may be;" and has been vocal about sexual harassment and abortion rights.

In a recent interview, she immediately pointed out that men have governed Florida since 1845.

"It's time we had a woman governor for a lot of different reasons. I think particularly in this time of divisiveness and chaos in our government, what I bring is an ability to bring people together and we need it," she said. "I believe that women bring a different approach and have an ability to check egos at the door."

Gillum isn't making race an issue in the campaign, though he acknowledges he has a different perspective than the other candidates, especially since he's advocated for removing a Confederate monument at the state Capitol and repealing the state's "stand your ground" self-defense law, which he thinks has disproportionally benefited white people who commit acts of violence.

"I know that race is still an issue, but it's not one that I have to evoke because you look at me, you can see I'm black. We can get over that," Gillum said.

He said he was thankful while campaigning in The Villages retirement community when a woman stood up and asked, "Can a black man win in Florida?"

"The room didn't really know how to respond, and so I said, 'I sure hope so.' And then I said Barack Obama won this state twice," Gillum said. "So we know it has a role, what I'm saying it doesn't have to be so obvious for me."

Greene and Levine could become the state's only Jewish governor besides David Sholtz, who served from 1933 to 1937, but both said that's not important to them.

"I don't think it really matters to most Americans any more what your race is, or your religion or your nationality of your gender. I think people are looking for someone who they think can solve their problems, or make their lives better," Greene said. "If the person you're choosing happens to have something in common with you, that's just a little bonus."

Levine had similar thoughts but did say the Democratic side of the ballot better represents the people of Florida.

"It represents the diversity of the state of Florida, and I think it's great because it allows Floridians to have these great options," Levine said.

Gillum said he tries not to think about the possibility of being Florida's first black governor for a simple reason: He doesn't want to put pressure on himself.

"I have been really slow to try to think on it because it's too big," he said. "There will absolutely be a part of this that I can't even put words to around what it might mean for my children and other people's kids. Especially growing up for them in the age of Donald Trump."

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AP writer Terry Spencer contributed to this story from Fort Lauderdale.

FILE - In this Aug. 13, 2018, file photo, democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, left, talks with resident Sandra Fair, right, in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami. In a state with a long-standing tradition of electing white, Christian men to lead, Florida's Democratic primary could produce the state's first black or woman governor or the second Jewish governor in its history. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

FILE - In this Monday, Aug. 13, 2018, file photo, democratic gubernatorial hopeful Philip Levine speaks to a supporter during a visit to a polling station in Tampa, Fla. In a state with a long-standing tradition of electing white, Christian men to lead, Florida's Democratic primary could produce the state's first black or woman governor or the second Jewish governor in its history. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 15, 2018, file photo, democratic gubernatorial candidate Jeff Greene speaks with an attendee during a candidates forum hosted by the Florida League of Cities, in Hollywood, Fla. In a state with a long-standing tradition of electing white, Christian men to lead, Florida's Democratic primary could produce the state's first black or woman governor or the second Jewish governor in its history. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 19, 2018, file photo, democratic gubernatorial candidate Jeff Greene, second from right, waits to speak to voters at a rally in Miami Gardens, Fla. If the Democratic nominee goes on to win in November, voters could elect the state's first woman or black governor, or only the second Jewish governor since Florida became a state in 1845. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 15, 2018, file photo, democratic gubernatorial candidate Gwen Graham, left, greets a supporter during a candidates forum hosted by the Florida League of Cities in Hollywood, Fla. If the Democratic nominee goes on to win in November, voters could elect the state's first woman or black governor, or only the second Jewish governor since Florida became a state in 1845. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A Utah man called a city worker to his house, shot her in the head and set her body on fire after she mailed him notice to clean up his yard in suburban Salt Lake City, prosecutors said in charges filed Tuesday.

Kevin W. Billings, 64, killed code enforcement officer Jill Robinson with a single gunshot to the head, then doused her and her work truck with gasoline and set both on fire, authorities said in court documents.

Billings was charged with 13 counts, including aggravated murder, which carries the possibility of the death penalty, arson and desecration of a human body. No attorney was immediately listed for him in court records.

FILE - In this Friday, Aug. 17, 2018, file photo, an Honor Guard folds the U.S. flag during flag presentation at the funeral services for Jill Robinson, in West Valley City, Utah. Prosecutors say Kevin W. Billings, a Utah man called city worker Robinson to his house, then shot her in the head and set her body on fire after she mailed him notice to clean up his yard. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

Billings claimed Robinson, 52, "got what she deserved" after "years of harassment," police said. A neighbor saw him leaning on his walker in his driveway with a "smirk" after the shooting, the charges say.

He also "meticulously" cut a large hole in a fence and burned his neighbors' house down, apparently believing they had reported his yard to officials in West Valley City, the charges say.

He had been clearing thick vegetation from around the fence for days before setting the fire, prosecutors said. It killed five dogs and a cat, but his neighbors were not hurt. Billings also was charged with animal cruelty.

The violence started after Billings made an appointment for Robinson to come to his house the morning of Aug. 9, about two weeks after Robinson first mailed him a notice that his messy yard and unregistered vehicles violated city rules. If he didn't clean it up, the notice said the city could levy a $50-a-day fine.

The appointment would have been a routine follow-up inspection for the unarmed, civilian worker who had worked for the city for 10 years. Court records show Billings had faced weed-control and waste-accumulation charges decades ago, before Robinson started working for the city.

Police also found illegal blasting caps and a detonation cord at his house, prosecutors said.
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) - A group of landowners is suing a South Dakota utility and a Minnesota-based telephone company for alleged negligence in the third-largest wildfire in the Black Hills region's history.

Black Hills landowners filed the lawsuit Friday in Custer County against Black Hills Power and Hanson Communications, The Rapid City Journal reported . The lawsuit alleges the companies caused the Legion Lake fire in December by failing to use proper care around the root system of a large tree in Custer State Park that fell onto a power line.

"Upon investigation, it was discovered that the root system was cut when a utility trench was dug adjacent to the tree, causing the tree's soil root plate to be severely damaged, rendering it vulnerable to toppling," the lawsuit said.

A state investigation had found that the Legion Lake fire began when a tree fell onto a power line in the park. Flames spread into Wind Cave National Park and onto private property, ultimately scorching 84 square miles (218 square kilometers).

A spokeswoman for Black Hills Corporation, the parent company of Black Hills Power, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

The companies should've conducted a "tree risk assessment" and removed or trimmed trees so they wouldn't be capable of striking the power line, the lawsuit said.

"Black Hills Energy has a proactive vegetation management program that meets industry standards and accounts for all applicable state laws and regulations," the company said in an earlier statement about the fire. "We monitor all right-of-way clearances via aerial or ground patrol."

The lawsuit notes the loss of real estate, agricultural value and aesthetics. The landowners are seeking unspecified damages.

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Information from: Rapid City Journal, http://www.rapidcityjournal.com
WASHINGTON (AP) - Prosecutors with the special counsel's office say President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn is not yet ready to be sentenced.

The joint filing with defense lawyers Tuesday is a sign that Flynn's cooperation with investigators is continuing.

Flynn pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials during the presidential transition and his Turkish lobbying work.

FILE - In this July 10, 2018, file photo, former President Donald Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, right, arrives at federal courthouse in Washington, for status hearing. Prosecutors with the special counsel's office say Flynn is not yet ready to be sentenced. The joint filing with defense lawyers Tuesday, Aug. 21, is a sign that Flynn's cooperation with investigators is continuing.(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

His sentencing has been repeatedly put off as he continues to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller's team, which is looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible involvement with Trump's Republican campaign.

Flynn served as Trump's national security adviser before his firing in February 2017.

The two sides say they'll report back to the judge no later than Sept. 17.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Sharon Moore had heard the stories about her father getting his duffel bag stolen on his way back from the Korean War. The New Hampshire woman never expected to see any of the contents.

In July, Moore received a Facebook friend request from a stranger in France. She deleted it. But, the person responded with a Facebook message asking for help in finding the owner of a lost wallet. Attached were several black-and-white pictures, including one of her mother as a young woman, and another of her aunt, as well as a tattered Social Security card and Massachusetts driver's license.

"I immediately saw my dad's driver's license and my mother's photo. I knew it was my dad's wallet," Moore said of her father, Robert McCusker, who died a day before her 20th birthday in 1983. "I couldn't believe it. Really, my dad's wallet after all these years? It was just weird."

In this August 20, 2018 photo, the lost wallet of Robert McCusker, a war veteran who served in World War II and Korea, is displayed with its contents on a kitchen table in Dover, N.H. McCusker lost his wallet almost 65 years ago in France. It was found at a construction site and returned to his family in New Hampshire. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

The brown leather wallet was found in the basement of a building in Chatellerault, France, a small city about 185 miles (300 kilometers) southwest of Paris. Workers had tossed it out, but the building's owner, Patrick Caubet, noticed it on a pile of gravel and was drawn to the half-dozen photographs and what looked like official documents.

On closer inspection, he saw a field ration permit dated September 1950 belonging to Cpl. Robert S. McCusker, as well as McCusker's Social Security card and other military documents.

It was unclear how the wallet ended up in the building, although Moore said Caubet had heard that the building once was a social club for American officers and that officers might also have stayed there.

"The photographs made it very sentimental and personal, and really gave me the desire to find the family they belonged to," said Caubet, who works in communications for the French military.

"My grandfather and father were also in the war," he said, adding that his grandfather had been injured by a shell in World War II and his father suffered serious burns in the Algerian War. "I would have loved it if someone had found papers or other things belonging to them and sent them to me."

Caubet, who was interviewed in French, found a friend who spoke English and together they found an obituary for Moore's mother, Jean McKenney McCusker, who died in 2014. They went in search of his surviving relatives listed in the obituary, first posting the wallet's contents on Caubet's Facebook page. That prompted some replies from friends, including one who surmised that the wallet's owner was possibly "a soldier who fell in love with a French woman."

They tried contacting the Pentagon and the U.S. Embassy in Paris, but got nowhere. Then, Caubet sought the help of a French military office in Paris, which tracked down the names of McCusker's children in just days. Caubet found Moore on Facebook last month and shortly after the wallet was headed to Dover, New Hampshire.

"She was so happy to know there was this trace of her father," Caubet said. "She was almost ready to come to France with her brother to get the wallet. But I told her I could send it. I was so afraid it would get lost in the mail. But it arrived in less than a week. I was so happy."

When the package arrived, Moore and her brother, Steven McCusker, filmed themselves opening the wallet and emailed the video to Caubet, so he could share in their joy.

For Moore and her relatives, the wallet represents another part of a father who rarely talked about his time at war. He also fought in World War II, forging a birth certificate at the age of 15 and running off to the Merchant Marine. He then re-enlisted for the Korean conflict and received a Purple Heart after he was injured in a grenade attack.

Moore gave the wallet to her brother, Steven, who also lives in Dover, because she already has her father's Purple Heart, his dog tags and the flag from his coffin on display in her home. The family also sent Caubet a gift basket featuring maple syrup from her backyard, some of the candy her father enjoyed and a New England Patriots jersey.

"It's just amazing. It's just amazing. To hold something he held every day, there are just no words," Moore said, adding that her father would have been "floored by the whole story and just thankful and grateful, especially because it was a soldier that helped get it back to us."

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Gecker contributed reporting from San Francisco.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) - A Texas sheriff's deputy accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl and threatening her mother with deportation if she reported the abuse died in jail from an apparent suicide, according to authorities.

Jose Nunez, 47, was found dead in his cell at the Karnes Correctional Center, southeast of San Antonio, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said Tuesday.

Salazar declined to specify how Nunez apparently killed himself, but he said the manner of his death and evidence in the cell led investigators to conclude it was suicide.

FILE - This file photo provided by the Bexar County Sheriff Office in San Antonio, Texas, shows Jose Nunez, a deputy sheriff who was jailed in June 2018 on charges alleging that he sexually assaulted a 4-year-old girl and threatened her mother with deportation. The Bexar County sheriff's office says Nunez died Monday, Aug. 20 at the jail in nearby Karnes County. Bexar County Sheriff Office via AP, File)

Nunez, a 10-year veteran of the Bexar County sheriff's office assigned to that county's jail, was locked up at the jail in nearby Karnes County under a policy instituted by Salazar.

"Nothing good can come from housing one of our own deputies in our facility," he said, explaining that he wants to avoid any claims of preferential treatment for some inmates and believes it's safer to hold an incarcerated deputy elsewhere.

The company that operates the Karnes facility, The GEO Group, didn't immediately reply to an email seeking comment.

Nunez was arrested in June on a charge of super aggravated sexual assault of a child.

Authorities said the assaults may have been going on for months or even years and that Nunez threatened the girl's mother, who is from Guatemala, with deportation if she reported him. Nunez was related to the pair.

Despite the threat, the mother took the girl to a fire station to make a report.

Salazar said that even though Nunez has died, the investigation will continue to determine if there were other assault victims. The mother, who Salazar said is in the U.S. legally on a work permit, will remain in the San Antonio area with her daughter during the duration of the investigation.
HELENA, Mont. (AP) - Montana's governor is standing by his recent comments that he'd support a ban on some semiautomatic weapons, saying Tuesday that it's one of several measures that should be considered to curtail gun violence.

The two-term Democratic governor, who is considering a 2020 presidential run, first voiced his support for a weapons ban Sunday in answer to a question posed during an interview on CNN. Gov. Steve Bullock held a news conference in the Montana Capitol on Tuesday and clarified his position: No taking away weapons from law-abiding gun owners and no ban on semiautomatic weapons that are conventionally used by hunters.

"When I view an assault weapons ban, it's sort of military, semiautomatic, typically removable clips, a magazine of 10 or more - it's like the AR-15s," Bullock said of the rifle that has been used in several mass shootings, such as the one earlier this year at a Parkland, Florida, school shooting where 17 people died.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock listens to a question during a news conference in Helena, Mont., on Tuesday, August 21, 2018. The Democrat, who is exploring a possible 2020 presidential run, stood by his comments made over the weekend that he would support a ban on some semiautomatic weapons. (AP Photo/Matt Volz)

Bullock said gun violence should be looked at as a public health crisis and that he wants a conversation on a range of restrictions that would make schoolchildren and communities safer. They include universal background checks, cracking down on straw purchases of weapons, banning bump stocks and passing so-called red-flag laws that allow a court to temporarily restrict a person's access to firearms.

"Frankly, I'm just tired of lowering the flags for school mass shootings and I'm tired of gun violence being part of our collective discussion for a week or two after another mass school shooting and then we move on," he said.

Montana Republican Party chairwoman Debra Lamm said the state's residents are now seeing Bullock for the "gun-grabbing liberal" he really is after he spent years promising that he would protect gun rights.

"In his absurd look at a run for president, he's trying to court the liberal coastal elites by backing universal background checks and a ban on semi-automatic guns," Lamm said. "That's a non-starter for Montanans."

Amy Hunter, a spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association, said Bullock is kowtowing to the gun control lobby and dismissing the constitutional rights of his constituents.

"By doubling down on his support for a ban on commonly owned rifles, Gov. Bullock proved beyond any doubt how out-of-touch he is with Montana voters," Hunter said.

Gun control advocates praised Bullock for supporting a ban and other policies.

"I'm hopeful the Montana state legislature will follow Gov. Bullock's lead and pass common-sense laws to keep our families safe," said Kiely Lammers, who heads the Montana chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Bullock said he is not proposing any specific bills or policy changes at this time. He also denied that the timing of his announcement had anything to do with his exploration of a possible presidential bid.

Bullock is in between trips to early voting states, after speaking at the Iowa state fair last week and heading to New Hampshire on Friday.
Intentionally or not, Microsoft has emerged as a kind of internet cop by devoting considerable resources to thwarting Russian hackers.

The company's announcement Tuesday that it had identified and forced the removal of fake internet domains mimicking conservative U.S. political institutions triggered alarm on Capitol Hill and led Russian officials to accuse the company of participating in an anti-Russian "witch hunt."

Microsoft stands virtually alone among tech companies with an aggressive approach that uses U.S. courts to fight computer fraud and seize hacked websites back. In the process, it has acted more like a government detective than a global software giant.

FILE- In this Feb. 27, 2018, file photo Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith, left, leaves the Supreme Court in Washington. Microsoft stands virtually alone among tech companies with its aggressive approach that uses U.S. courts to fight computer fraud and seize hacked websites back from malicious perpetrators. "What we're seeing in the last couple of months appears to be an uptick in activity," said Smith.(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

In the case this week, the company did not just accidentally stumble onto a couple of harmless spoof websites. It seized the latest beachhead in an ongoing struggle against Russian hackers who meddled in the 2016 presidential election and a broader, decade-long legal fight to protect Microsoft customers from cybercrime.

"What we're seeing in the last couple of months appears to be an uptick in activity," Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, said in an interview this week. Microsoft says it caught these particular sites early and that there's no evidence they were used in hacking.

The Redmond, Washington, company sued the hacking group best known as Fancy Bear in August 2016, saying it was breaking into Microsoft accounts and computer networks and stealing highly sensitive information from customers. The group, Microsoft said, would send "spear-phishing" emails that linked to realistic-looking fake websites in hopes targeted victims - including political and military figures - would click and betray their credentials.

The effort is not just a question of fighting computer fraud but of protecting trademarks and copyright, the company argues.

One email introduced as court evidence in 2016 showed a photo of a mushroom cloud and a link to an article about how Russia-U.S. tensions could trigger World War III. Clicking on the link might expose a user's computer to infection, hidden spyware or data theft.

An indictment from U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller has tied Fancy Bear to Russia's main intelligence agency, known as the GRU, and to the 2016 email hacking of both the Democratic National Committee and Democrat Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Some security experts were skeptical about the publicity surrounding Microsoft's announcement, worried that it was an overblown reaction to routine surveillance of political organizations - potential cyberespionage honey pots- that never rose to the level of an actual hack.

The company also used its discovery as an opportunity to announce its new free security service to protect U.S. candidates, campaigns and political organizations ahead of the midterm elections.

But Maurice Turner, a senior technologist at the industry-backed Center for Democracy and Technology, said Microsoft is wholly justified in its approach to identifying and publicizing online dangers.

"Microsoft is really setting the standards with how public and how detailed they are with reporting out their actions," Turner said.

Companies including Microsoft, Google and Amazon are uniquely positioned to do this because their infrastructure and customers are affected. Turner said they "are defending their own hardware and their own software and to some extent defending their own customers."

Turner said he has not seen anyone in the industry as "out in front and open about" these issues as Microsoft.

As industry leaders, Microsoft's Windows operating systems had long been prime targets for viruses when in 2008 the company formed its Digital Crimes Unit, an international team of attorneys, investigators and data scientists. The unit became known earlier in this decade for taking down botnets, collections of compromised computers used as tools for financial crimes and denial-of-service attacks that overwhelm their targets with junk data.

Richard Boscovich, a former federal prosecutor and a senior attorney in Microsoft's digital crimes unit, testified to the Senate in 2014 about how Microsoft used civil litigation as a tactic. Boscovich is also involved in the fight against Fancy Bear, which Microsoft calls Strontium, according to court filings.

To attack botnets, Microsoft would take its fight to courts, suing on the basis of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and other laws and asking judges for permission to sever the networks' command-and-control structures.

"Once the court grants permission and Microsoft severs the connection between a cybercriminal and an infected computer, traffic generated by infected computers is either disabled or routed to domains controlled by Microsoft," Boscovich said in 2014.

He said the process of taking over the accounts, known as "sinkholing," enabled Microsoft to collect valuable evidence and intelligence used to assist victims.

In the latest action against Fancy Bear, a court order filed Monday allowed Microsoft to seize six new domains, which the company said were either registered or used at some point after April 20.

Smith said this week the company is still investigating how the newly discovered domains might have been used.

A security firm, Trend Micro, identified some of the same fake domains earlier this year. They mimicked U.S. Senate websites, while using standard Microsoft log-in graphics that made them appear legitimate, said Mark Nunnikhoven, Trend Micro's vice president of cloud research.

Microsoft has good reason to take them down, Nunnikhoven said, because they can hurt its brand reputation. But the efforts also fit into a broader tech industry mission to make the internet safer.

"If consumers are not comfortable and don't feel safe using digital products," they will be less likely to use them, Nunnikhoven said.

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Associated Press Technology Writer Frank Bajak in Boston contributed to this report.
Serial killer Todd Kohlhepp, already in prison for seven murders, claims he has two additional victims buried in South Carolina

One of South Carolina's most prolific serial killers already serving life in prison for murdering seven people has told a television documentary crew that he has two additional victims buried near an interstate, sparking a large-scale search.

At 9am on Wednesday, 20 deputies with the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office converged on the heavily wooded, snake-infested area near Enoree, based on the limited information that convicted killer Todd Kohlhepp had provided to a TV crew, which then notified the authorities.

Cadaver dogs and an industrial X-ray machine were also brought to the location to aid with the search.

The documentary makers have been given exclusive access to Wednesday's search.

'We're trying to get a game plan together to find out exactly where and what to do. Investigators have been talking to him,' Sheriff Chuck Wright told Greenville News. 'We're not going to try to keep that quiet. We're going to go search.'

Kohlhepp, 47, has alleged that two unidentified victims are interred near Interstate 26 in Spartanburg County in the northwest part of the state.

'We haven't been able to confirm anything he's claimed yet,' Wright said. 'It's not to say that the details are not sketchy because it's been so long, but we're obligated to go check.'

Kohlhepp is currently serving seven consecutive life sentences without parole plus 60 years at Broad River Correctional Facility in Columbia after pleading guilty to multiple charges in May 2017.

Deputies accompanied by cadaver dogs and X-ray equipment converged on this area off of Interstate 26 in Spartanburg County on Wednesday to search for the two bodies

Kohlhepp is currently serving seven consecutive life sentences without parole plus 60 years for killing seven people, among them Charlie Carver (left), and for imprisoning and raping his girlfriend, Kala Brown (right)

Kohlhepp told Brown he killed Joe Coxie, 29, and his wife, Meagan Leigh McCraw-Coxie, 26 (pictured together), in 2015 and buried their bodies on his land

His string of crimes was uncovered in 2016 after police rescued Kala Brown from a storage container where she was chained at the neck and investigators found a body buried in a shallow grave.

Brown told investigators she saw Kohlhepp shoot and kill her boyfriend, 32-year-old Charles Carter, who went with her for a cleaning job on Kohlhepp's property in rural Spartanburg County.

Kohlhepp raped Brown while holding her against her will, and told her he had also killed a husband and wife in December 2015, burying their bodies on his land.

Johnny Joe Coxie, 29, had been killed immediately, and Kohlhepp kept 26-year-old Meagan Leigh McCraw-Coxie alive for six days before shooting her in the back of the head on Christmas, Solicitor Barry Barnette said.

DailyMail.com typically doesn't identify victims of sexual assault, but Brown has spoken publicly about her traumatic experience.

Kohlhepp admitted to her that he had killed four people in the Superbike motorcycle shop in November 2003, the prosecutor said.

The owner, Scott Ponder, 30; Beverly Guy, 52; Brian Lucas, 30; and Chris Sherbert, 26 were killed because Kohlhepp thought they were making fun of him. Guy was Ponder's mother and worked as a bookkeeper. Lucas was a service manager, and Sherbert was a mechanic at the shop.

Kohlhepp also admitted that he had killed Beverly Guy, 52 (left), and her son, 30-year-old Scott Ponder (right) in the Superbike motorcycle shop in November 2003

Also killed that day were 30-year-old Brian Lucas (left) and 26-year-old Chris Sherbert (right)

Kohlhepp's crimes took place over more than a decade as he ran a real estate business.

'In Todds early statements, he said there were more victims than you could count on two hands and thats what we were going off of and thought all along that hes probably correct,' Charlie Carver's father, Chuck Carver, told WSPA after hearing of Wednesday's search.

According to the plea agreement signed by Kohlhepp, he will serve seven consecutive life terms plus 60 years on kidnapping, sexual assault and other charges. Kohlhepp will not be eligible for parole, and he also agreed not to appeal the sentence.

Kohlhepp moved to South Carolina in 2001 shortly after 14 years in prison for pleading guilty to kidnapping in Arizona. Authorities there said the then 15-year-old forced a 14-year-old neighbor back to his home at gunpoint, tied her up and raped her.

Friends and co-workers at Kohlhepp's real estate business said he was a hard worker with some strange habits. He would watch pornographic videos during work and joked on his firm's website that he motivated workers by not feeding them.
China's campaign against poverty will not come to an end in 2020, as the country is working on a long-term strategy for poverty reduction, an official said Monday.

"To become a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020, our biggest area of weakness lies in rural areas, especially the poor people in rural areas," Han Jun, deputy director of the office of the central agricultural work leading group, said at a press conference.

On Sunday, Chinese authorities unveiled a guideline on winning the battle against poverty by 2020.

In the past 5 years, China brought 68.53 million people out of poverty. But the country still needs to lift around 30 million people out of poverty.

"We aim to solve the problem of absolute poverty by 2020. To solve the problem of comparative poverty, efforts must be made throughout China's modernization process," Han said.

The new guideline said that China should step up plans for its poverty reduction strategy for the years after 2020. "We are currently working in this respect," Han said.

Among the annual average of 13.7 million people brought out of poverty, the amount who fall back into poverty is "not very large," according to Ou Qingping, deputy director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.

The amounts for 2016 and 2017 were just around 600,000 and 200,000, respectively, Ou said, adding that China would provide timely support to such groups to ensure that no one is left behind by 2020.
SULPHUR, Okla. (AP) - The FBI has identified a person in California who authorities say made a threatening telephone call to the Oklahoma School for the Deaf.

The Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services says the school in Sulphur, about 75 miles south of Oklahoma City, closed after receiving the threat on Aug. 16. Officials said at the time they believed the call was linked to threats against a transgender student who attends another school that was closed over safety concerns.

The caller threatened "grave danger" against an employee in Sulphur. The agency said Tuesday that the FBI identified a person in Los Angeles who acknowledged making the threatening call. No charges have been filed and the suspect has not been identified.

Classes were set to start on Monday, but administrators postponed school activities as a precaution. The start of classes has been rescheduled for Aug. 27.
Legal proceedings are due to get under way in Irelands High Court in a challenge against the choice for the countrys new police chief.

Ciaran MacAirt, whose grandmother Kathleen Irvine was killed during The Troubles, has brought the action in a bid to prevent Police Service of Northern Ireland Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris from being appointed to the role.

Mrs Irvine was one of 15 people killed by loyalists in the bombing of McGurks Bar in Belfast in 1971.

Mr MacAirt, who is being represented by Kinnear and Co solicitors with the assistance of MacGeehin Toale Solicitors in Dublin, is applying for leave for a judicial review of Mr Harriss appointment.

Ciaran MacAirt, right, has brought the court action (Paul Faith/PA)

The PSNI deputy became the first Irish police chief appointed from outside the Republic when he was announced as the new commissioner in June.

Mr Harris is a former Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer and his officer father Alwyn was killed by an IRA bomb in 1989.

Mr MacAirt claims Mr Harris lacks the independence required for the job due to his roles in the PSNI and the RUC.

The McGurks bar bombing was one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles and the families of those who died have long campaigned for a fresh inquest.

The bombing was carried out by loyalists but at the time security forces blamed the IRA, prompting speculation the dead might have included IRA members who were carrying the device.

Relatives and campaigners discovered a large amount of new evidence not heard at the original inquest held the year after the bombing.
Indonesian officials have defended a street parade that involved veiled nursery-age children carrying replica weapons.

Police say they will arrest the person who uploaded a viral video of the event to Facebook.

The video of children dressed head-to-toe in black marching with wooden guns has caused a sensation in Indonesia.

The children were veiled (Peter Byrne/PA)

In May the country suffered one of its worst attacks in years when militants used their children as suicide bombers in the second-largest city, Surabaya.

The parade was one of the thousands held across Indonesia on Friday to mark independence.

Probolinggo police chief Alfian Nurrizal told The Associated Press they were investigating who uploaded the video.

He said it may have been edited to convey the wrong impression.

Local media reported that education minister Muhajir Effendy said the parade was misinterpreted.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said the UK has faced bigger challenges than Brexit in the past and will survive the process.

His comments came after a leaked letter from NHS Providers, which represents hospital and ambulance services, warned that hospitals face running out of medicines if a chaotic no-deal Brexit were to transpire.

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson, in a letter to NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens, set out how a hard Brexit or no deal could negatively affect the entire supply chain of pharmaceuticals and jeopardise the EU citizens making up the workforce on which the NHS relies.

Jeremy Hunt said he was `cautiously optimistic the UK would get a Brexit deal `in the end (Peter Byrne/PA)

Mr Hunt, speaking to BBC Radio 4s Today programme, admitted the chance of a no deal was not negligible and warned that the consequences of an acrimonious, messy divorce would be terrible for the EU project.

But whatever the outcome of the negotiations, Mr Hunt said he was confident the UK could manage, adding: We will find a way whatever the outcome to survive and prosper.

He earlier told the programme he was cautiously optimistic the UK would get a Brexit deal in the end.

Mr Hunt said: The challenge we have is that for EU countries there is a tension between their heart and their head. In their hearts they want to give Britain a good deal because they know how important we have been for the security and prosperity of Europe in the post-war period.

But in their heads theyre worried that if they give us a good deal other countries will follow suit.

He added that the Government under Theresa Mays leadership would never sign up to a deal that is not consistent with both the letter and the spirit of the referendum as doing so would be absolutely fatal for the UK.

I am looking forward to meeting Michel Barnier today, to progress our negotiations on the outstanding Withdrawal Agreement, Northern Ireland and the Future Relationship - confident we can strike a deal thats good for the UK and our EU partners.  Dominic Raab (@DominicRaab) August 21, 2018

The intervention comes as Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab heads to Brussels for the latest round of negotiations with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier, which a Downing Street spokesman said would be resolving the few remaining withdrawal issues.

On Thursday, the Government will publish the first of a series of technical notices, designed to help people and businesses prepare for a no-deal scenario.

Mr Raab will also give a speech outlining how the Government plans to mitigate the potential risks of leaving the EU without a deal and ensure continuity and stability.

The issue of EU nationals residency will not be among more than 80 no-deal technical notices to be issued over the coming weeks.

Ending freedom of movement after Brexit risks 100,000 fewer adult social care workers by 2026, the think tank Global Future warned, as currently 17% of social care staff in England, or 220,000, are from overseas.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has spoken of the need to rebuild the Western alliance as he called on the EU to stand shoulder to shoulder with the US and consider further sanctions against Russia.

Mr Hunt, speaking ahead of a major speech in the US, said that, in the wake of the Salisbury and Amesbury attacks, it was his desire to strengthen alliances to ensure that nations considering whether to cross red lines actually think again.

The Cabinet minister, speaking to BBC Radio 4s Today programme, praised the US for implementing fresh sanctions against Moscow and said the EU needed to make sure were matching that.

He said: America said that within 90 days they will implement sanctions and we have to recognise that is taking things further and we have to, as Europeans, make sure that were matching that because this happened on European soil.

So were not saying were going to do exactly the same thing, but we have to make sure that our reaction is to stand shoulder to shoulder with America.

If we are going to stop chemical and biological weapons - including nerve agents - becoming a new and horrific 21st cent norm states like Russia that use or condone their use need to know there is a price to pay. Thank you USA for standing firm with us on this  Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) August 9, 2018

He added: We need to strengthen and rebuild the Western alliance so that the people who are considering whether to cross red lines actually think again.

Mr Hunt was challenged over Donald Trumps record and answered accusations that the US leader had done more to disrupt alliances, he said: My interpretation of President Trump, having met him briefly when he came over to the UK for the visit in July, is that this is someone who does fundamentally believe there should be a rules-based order internationally.

Hes someone who, as a businessman, has traded all over the world; he just doesnt think its working terribly well the way it does now.

Shadow international secretary Barry Gardiner later spoke against further sanctions, telling the Today programme that they would ratchet up international tensions.

He said: I dont think its the right way to go, there needs to be critical engagement, there needs to be dialogue with Russia, we need to try and reduce international conflict, and especially to help bring the horrific Syrian war now to an end.

We dont want to increase the tensions at a time when we really need to be focused on doing that.

Mr Hunts visit to the US follows the historic and controversial summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr Trump in Helsinki, which led to widespread criticism of the US leader.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (Peter Muhly/PA)

In a speech at the US Institute of Peace, Mr Hunt is due to say that, under Mr Putin, Russias aggressive and malign behaviour undermines the international order that keeps us safe.

He will say: Of course we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt: Russias foreign policy under President Putin has made the world a more dangerous place.

And today, the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US.

That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea.

The Foreign Secretarys three-day visit to the United States will also see him hold talks with senior Trump administration officials including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, chief of staff John Kelly and Jared Kushner, the presidents adviser and son-in-law, Downing Street said.

Among the discussion topics are Iran, North Korea, Syria, Yemen and the Middle East peace process, the Foreign Office said.

He will then travel to New York, where on Thursday he is due to address the United Nations Security Council and discuss the fight against Islamic State.

He is also due to discuss humanitarian issues with UN secretary general Antonio Guterres.

European Commission deputy chief spokesman Alexander Winterstein, asked if commission president Jean-Claude Juncker still wanted an end to Russia-bashing or now favoured a tougher stance outlined by Britain, told reporters in Brussels: The position of the president has not changed, its fully in tune with the position of the European Union.

At the same time the president has always said and continues to believe that it is always better to keep communication channels open and not closed.

But his position on Russia is clear and has not changed.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt is considering whether to grant diplomatic protection as a means of freeing jailed charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced to five years in prison in 2016 after being accused of spying.

Mr Hunt, speaking to BBC Radio 4s Today programme, said that he had been going over the case in an enormous amount of detail and was considering a request by Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffes husband to grant her diplomatic protection.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced to five years in prison in 2016 (Family handout/PA)

Good to meet Richard Ratcliffe and his family yesterday. Its a shocking and desperate situation and they are showing extraordinary strength and resilience, as is Nazanin. We will do everything we can to bring her home. pic.twitter.com/tPTfg6SZFL  Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) August 3, 2018

Diplomatic protection is a mechanism under international law that a state can use to help one of its nationals whose rights have been breached in another country.

The broad legal principle is that British diplomats would no longer be representing the interests of a citizen but the interests of their state.

Mr Hunt said he had not come to a final decision on the issue and said there were pros and cons.

He added: This is a totally appalling situation, it should never be possible that someone can be detained like this without any due reason, for three years now Nazanin has been in prison so we have to do everything we can.

Our priority has to be to do the right thing to get Nazanin out.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, is facing a further hearing over an unspecified security charge which her family believes will include an accusation of spreading propaganda against Tehrans Islamist regime.

She has consistently denied all allegations, insisting she was on holiday to introduce her daughter to her family.
A ceremony to honour the victims of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia has turned into a protest against Czech prime minister Andrej Babis.

Hundreds booed as Mr Babis led Tuesdays ceremony in front of the Czech public radio building in central Prague.

It was the site of a fierce street battle between unarmed civilians and the invading troops in the first hours of occupation where 17 people died.

Image on top: Youngsters in 1968 holding Czechoslovakian flags stand on top of an overturned vehicle as other Prague residents surround Soviet tanks in Prague (Libor Hajsky/CTK/AP) Bottom image shows a modern-day scene (Petr David Josek/AP)

Mr Babis, a populist billionaire, is a controversial figure due to a power-sharing deal with the maverick Communist Party and fraud charges he is facing.

His position is also complicated by allegations he collaborated with the former communist-era secret police.

Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia on August 20 1968 to crush liberal reforms enacted in the brief era known as the Prague Spring.
A British businessman who died alongside his family in a seaplane crash has left a reported 41 million fortune to scandal-hit charity Oxfam.

The organisation said on Tuesday it was extremely grateful for the bequest from Richard Cousins, who died alongside his fiancee, his two sons and her daughter in the crash on New Years Eve in Sydney.

The sum will be a welcome boost to the charitys coffers after it reported thousands had cancelled donations in the wake of the Haiti sex scandal.

Richard Cousins was chief executive of Compass Group (Compass Group/PA)

Oxfam was unable to confirm the sum donated, but The Sun reported it to be 41 million.

A common tragedy clause was drawn up in his will a year before the accident stating that the charity would be the main beneficiary if he was killed alongside his sons, the newspaper said.

An Oxfam spokesman said: We are extremely grateful for this bequest of which we have only recently been notified.

We are working with the family and our board of trustees to identify how the money will be used.

The Compass Group chief executive, 58, former OK! Magazine arts editor Emma Bowden, 48, his sons Will and Edward, 25 and 23, and her 11-year-old daughter died alongside the pilot when the seaplane plunged into Jerusalem Bay.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigated the crash, which the aircrafts operator said happened after the pilot took a totally inexplicable turn some 25 miles north of the Australian citys centre.

A turbulent period for Oxfam began in February when allegations emerged that some of its aid workers had used prostitutes in Haiti, which was reeling from a 2010 earthquake.

Oxfam GB chief executive Mark Goldring told MPs that month that about 7,000 people had cancelled donations in the prior 10 days and corporate sponsors were reserving judgment.
A far-right group supporter has been jailed for six years after a month-long hate campaign which included spray painting landmarks with swastikas.

Austin Ross, 23, stuck racist posters on buildings around his home town, as well as torching a school and a masonic lodge, causing tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage.

A court heard Ross was both a supporter of Tommy Robinson and far-right group System Resistance Network, and painted their initials SRN, as well as messages such as Free Tommy Robinson on buildings.

A swastika spray painted on a door in Newport, south Wales by Austin Ross (Crown Prosecution Service/PA)

Between May 2 and May 31 this year he spray painted Nazi symbols and stuck racist propaganda on to landmarks around his hometown of Newport, south Wales.

Prosecutor Jason Howells told Newport Crown Court that Ross first targeted the citys Riverfront Theatre by posting a racially abusive poster on a window pane.

Mr Howells said: The poster was linked to the System Resistance Network, and there were swastikas spray painted next to it.

Ross went on to post racist posters on Bethel Community Church which read Marxist maggots we remember faces, names places. SRN

His next target was Newports multicultural Maindee Primary School, where parents reported seeing racist posters outside it referring to refugees, and the message You have been visited by the SRN.

Ross returned to the school four days later to spray paint several swastikas on its walls.

The slogan 1488 was painted by Ross on to the outside wall of Gwent Probation Services  with 14 being code for We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children coined by white supremacist David Lane, and 88 being code for Heil Hitler.

A swastika spray painted on a window of the Riverfront Theatre in Newport (Crown Prosecution Service/PA)

Ross also wrote Free Tommy Robinson along with graffiti of swastikas at the University of South Wales campus.

He then caused 38,000 worth of damage by causing a fire at Newports Masonic Lodge, which had a Star of David on the front of the building, and another 20,000 worth of damage by starting another fire at Bassaleg Secondary School, of which he is an ex pupil.

Gwent Police released CCTV recordings to the public which caught Ross in the act of several of the incidents, which resulted in him being identified after an anonymous tip off.

Police raided his home and found stencils of swastikas, and posters which read Keep Britain White and Hitler was right.

His Facebook account contained links to a Hitler Youth account.

Ross was arrested and later pleaded guilty to 15 counts including arson, racially aggravated harassment and racially aggravated damage.

Harry Baker, defending, said: Theres a different side to this young man.

His family are concerned and upset for him.

Judge Jeremy Jenkins told Ross: Your actions were not born out of some mental disorder, but out of sheer hatred and malice, based on a perverse view of race and religion different to your own.

The judge added: People like you have no idea what living under a tyrannical regime is really like.

Ross, from Romney Close, Bettws, Newport, showed no emotion as he was jailed for six years.
A newly built ring road in Beijing has been opened to traffic on Monday, reports China National Radio.

The expressway runs 940 kilometers in total, with 890 kilometers of it in Hebei Province. 112 tolls are along the highway. It is estimated daily traffic will reach 25,000 vehicles.

Chen Yanyan, deputy dean of the College of Metropolitan Transportation at the Beijing University of Technology, is quoted saying the 7th Ring Road should help divert heavy trucks from the 6th and 5th Ring Roads, helping ease traffic pressure along Beijing's border areas.

Officials expect this will also ease environmental pollution in Beijing due to the reduction of truck emissions.
Germanys foreign minister has said the country has a moral obligation to seek justice for victims of the Holocaust, after 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard, Jakiw Palij was deported from the US.

Heiko Maas said there is no line under historical responsibility, adding in a comment to German newspaper Bild that doing justice to the memory of Nazi atrocities means standing by our moral obligation to the victims and the subsequent generations.

ICE has deported Jakiw Palij, a Nazi SS labor camp guard living in Queens. President Trump prioritized the removal of Palij, who claimed he spent WWII working on a farm and in a factory. His presence in the U.S. was an insult to the victims of the Holocaust and their families.  The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) August 21, 2018

Palij landed in the western German city of Dusseldorf on Tuesday.

The local government in Warendorf county, near Munster, indicated that Palij would be taken to a care facility in the town of Ahlen.

German prosecutors have previously said it does not appear that there is enough evidence to charge Palij with wartime crimes.

Now that he is in Germany, Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, said he hoped prosecutors would revisit the case.

Palij lived quietly in the US for years, as a draughtsman and then as a pensioner, until nearly three decades ago, when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was living somewhere in America.

A US visa photo of Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp (AP)

Palij told Justice Department investigators who showed up at his door in 1993: I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied.

A US judge stripped Palij of his citizenship in 2003 for participation in acts against Jewish civilians while an armed guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and was ordered to be deported a year later.

But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-storey, red brick home in Queens he shared with his wife, Maria, now 86.

His continued presence there outraged the Jewish community, attracting frequent protests over the years.

Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard (Suzanne DeChillo/AP)

According to the Justice Department, Palij served at Trawniki in 1943, the same year 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered.

Palij has admitted serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Last September, all 29 members of New Yorks congressional delegation signed a letter urging the US State Department to follow through on his deportation.

The deportation came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations, which the White House said President Donald Trump had made a priority.

Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palijs deportation to Germany and advanced the United States collaborative efforts with a key European ally, the White House said.
Rapper Post Malone has criticised trolls who he said wished death upon him after a private jet he was reportedly aboard blew two tyres during take-off.

The Gulfstream IV jet was en route from Teterboro, in New Jersey, to Luton Airport before being diverted to make an emergency landing in New York Stewart International Airport, in Newburgh, about 70 miles north of New York.

Fans turned up to the airport in the hope the 23-year-old landed safely and cheered when the jet, carrying 16 people, touched down.

Fans turned up to the airport in the hope the 23-year-old landed safely (Matt Crossick/PA)

i landed guys. thank you for your prayers. can't believe how many people wished death on me on this website. fuck you. but not today  Posty (@PostMalone) August 21, 2018

And later the rapper tweeted: i landed guys. thank you for your prayers. cant believe how many people wished death on me on this website. f**k you. but not today.

He was on his way to the UK to perform at Reading and Leeds festivals, appearing on the main stage on Friday in Berkshire and on Saturday in Yorkshire.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Thousands of Brazilian soldiers swept into slums in northern Rio de Janeiro on Monday, the army said, targeting drug gangs in violent shootouts that killed at least eight people and trapped terrified local residents in their homes.

The early-morning raids took place in Alemao, Penha and Mare, the army said, some of Rio's most violent areas that have been targeted in a divisive six-month federal security operation.

At least eight people died in the operation, which the army said took place in an area home to more than half a million people.

"The operations are ongoing and there could be more deaths," the army said in an email to Reuters.

Many local residents shut themselves inside their homes for fear of being shot if they ventured out, the Globo TV website reported.

The joint operations, which the army said were intended to flush out drug dealers, involved 4,200 soldiers and 70 police officers, as well as armored vehicles and aircraft.

Just over six months ago, President Michel Temer announced emergency measures authorizing the army to take command of police forces in Rio de Janeiro state, where warring drug gangs and militias have brought a sharp rise in violence.

Since the operation began both murders and the number of people killed in police confrontations have risen, casting doubts on a strategy criticized for relying on military tactics, a lack of transparency and unclear goals.

Nearly 64,000 people, a record, were murdered in Brazil in 2017, and the rise in violence has become a key issue ahead of presidential elections in October. Candidates across the political spectrum are trying to play up their crime-fighting credentials and appeal to an electorate fed up with a weak economy and endemic graft. (Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
WARSAW, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Poland, unlike Germany, strongly opposes Russia's plan to build a new gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea, and shares U.S. opinion that the project would help strengthen Moscow's market position, Polish foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz said.

Berlin has given political support to the building of a new, $11 billion pipeline to bring Russian gas across the Baltic Sea called Nord Stream 2, bypassing traditional routes through Ukraine, despite qualms among other EU states.

In July U.S. President Donald Trump publicly criticised Germany for supporting the pipeline deal with Russia.

"I would like to underline that Poland's stance differs here from the German one. We see this dispute as an existing one between the U.S. and Germany," Czaputowicz said at a joint statement with his German counterpart Heiko Maas.

Poland buys most of the gas it consumes from Russia but has taken steps to reduce that reliance.

"In this U.S.-Germany dispute we are at the U.S. side, as its arguments are more convincing and besides, we have raised them before," Czaputowicz also said in a broadcast speech.

He reiterated Poland's concerns that Nord Stream 2 was a harmful and political project that will strengthen Russia's dominant position in the gas market and be a threat to Ukraine.

"I know about these objections but the German government does not share them," Maas said.

The foreign ministers spoke in Harmeze, south of Poland, near the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, which Maas visited earlier on Monday.

(Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko and Anna Koper; editing by David Evans)
By Muhammad Yamany and Seham El-Oraby

ARAFAT, Saudi Arabia, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Muslims at the annual haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia criticised what they described as discordant Arab leaders for failing to block President Donald Trump's decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem after he recognised the city as Israel's capital.

It was a reversal of decades of American policy and the embassy opened in May at a high-profile ceremony attended by Trump's daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, the U.S. envoy to the Middle East.

The status of Jerusalem - home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions - is one of the biggest obstacles to any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

The United Nations says the status of the ancient city - whose eastern sector was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war - can only be resolved by negotiations. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem for the capital of an independent state they seek. Israel says Jerusalem is its eternal and indivisible capital.

"This happened with the complicity of the Arab leaders," 53-year-old Saad Awad from Sudan said on Monday as he walked east of Mecca with more than 2 million fellow Muslims from around the world.

"If the Arab leaders were united and adhering to the Koran and the Sunna (Islamic practice based on words and deeds of the Prophet), it would be impossible for the Americans or anyone else to do something like this."

Saudi Arabia, which stakes its reputation on its guardianship of Islam's holiest sites - Mecca and Medina - and organising the haj, has urged pilgrims to put aside political concerns and focus on spirituality.

The five-day ritual, the world's largest annual gathering of Muslims, is a religious duty once in a lifetime for every able-bodied adherent who can afford it.

For a graphic on The haj journey http://tmsnrt.rs/2imJ2yf

Few pilgrims openly censured the host country, but dismay among ordinary Arabs at the embassy move has been tinged with anger at regional governments - particularly those of the oil-rich Gulf monarchies - for failing to stop, or even strongly protest against, Trump's decision last December.

"The Arabs are weak and have not taken a stand on the issue of Jerusalem," said Algerian pilgrim Hilal Issa, 70.

Some critics accuse Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, of surrendering Palestinian rights for the sake of its alliance with Trump and his tough stand on Iran.

While Saudi Arabia and its fellow monarchies have previously criticised the embassy decision, they have also welcomed Trump's harder line against Iran, which has cast itself as the guardian of Palestinian rights.

In recent years the bitter regional rivalry that pits Shi'ite Muslim Iran and its allies against a bloc led by Sunni Muslim-majority Saudi Arabia has increasingly pushed the decades-old Arab-Israeli struggle into the background.

King Salman has reassured Arab allies Riyadh would not endorse any peace plan that fails to address Jerusalem's status or other key issues, Reuters reported last month, easing concerns that the kingdom might back a nascent U.S. deal which largely aligns with Israel.

"If the Arabs were united, nobody would have dared make such a move," Yemeni pilgrim Amr Ahmed Ali said of the embassy transfer. "But God willing, the Arabs will unite, and this city will unite the Arabs and Muslims behind one cause which is the Palestinian cause."

(Writing by Stephen Kalin Editing by Mark Heinrich)
On the morning of August 3, Dr. Yohan Koralage stopped his vehicle on the side of Galaha Road to answer a phone call from a fellow medical officer

Dr. Koralage says he lost his consciousness a few times during the merciless assault

Although Dr. Koralage is recovering miraculously from this near-death experience, he is suffering from a neurological deficit in his right arm

Who is responsible for all the patients whose lives are endangered by the absence of such a highly skilled surgeon like Dr. Koralage?

He was to discuss the treatment process for one of his patients and expected the phone call to last at least 30 minutes. No matter the circumstances, patients were always a priority for Dr. Koralage. Little did he imagine that circumstances would be this grim, for making the simple mistake of parking his vehicle on the wrong side of town.

A few minutes after parking his vehicle the doctor was approached by a couple of young men who informed him - albeit offensively -that he could not park his vehicle within the university premises. Dr. Koralage politely explained that he was a doctor attached to the Anuradhapura Hospital and he would need a few minutes to attend to his patients needs. The young men after threatening Dr. Koralage walked away, only to return with a few other friends, who suddenly attacked the doctor.

Out of the blue, they started to attack me. I was forced to the ground and beaten up, even after identifying myself. I didnt know that I couldnt park my vehicle there, laments Dr. Koralage. The doctor suffered serious injuries to his head, neck and arm as a result of the assault. He was admitted to the Kandy General Hospital and later transferred to the National Hospital, Colombo. On a slow path to recovery after the appalling incident, Dr. Koralage says he is still in disbelief of what transpired that morning.

What shocks me the most is how they kept on pounding me. I told these men that I was a frequent visitor to the university. I told them that I was a doctor at the Anuradhapura Hospital and that I was simply attending to a patients need. I also told them that I intended to drive away after the call. Despite all this, they kept on thrashing me, deaf to my pleading, Dr. Koralage recalls. The specialist Neurosurgeon is no stranger to Peradeniya University. He was in fact visiting a plot of land in Hindagala, where he was building a house, when the incident occurred.

Dr. Koralage says he lost his consciousness a few times during the merciless assault. They were patient until I regained consciousness only to beat me up again and again. I begged them to stop. Fortunately, security officers attached to the university came to the scene and stopped the assault, he recalls. However instead of assisting the severely injured victim, the security officers had removed the doctor from the university grounds. They chased me away from the university. I got into the vehicle, which they had also thrashed and damaged at that point. Somehow I drove towards the construction site, where the masons I have employed came to my help, recalls Dr. Koralage.

Work in hospitals comes to a standstill

Operations of the Neurosurgical and Neuro-trauma units of the hospitals in North Central, Northern and Upper Eastern provinces came to a standstill following the brutal assault of the Neurosurgeon. Dr. Koralage oversaw the neurosurgery and neuro-trauma units in two key provinces while he was also in charge of neurosurgery in North Central Province. Moves are underway to appoint a professional to replace Dr. Koralage and assist his recovery, sources reveal.

Dr. Himantha Atukorale, a colleague of Dr. Koralage, speaking to the says the absence of a skilled professional poses a great risk to patients of the area. A person with a simple fall or accident may suffer head injuries. There are also routine procedures for treating cancers and tumours. Dr. Koralage monitored a large amount of work and he should be physically present at these units to function smoothly. Without his guidance, no major surgeries are done in these hospitals, explains Dr. Atukorale.

Who is responsible for all the patients whose lives are endangered by the absence of such a highly skilled surgeon like Dr. Koralage? he questions. The injuries Dr. Koralage suffered as a result of this brutal assault, especially to the head, neck and arms, have disabled him to such a degree that performing an intense duty as a neurosurgeon would not be a possibility right now, opines Dr. Atukorale. Interestingly only 13 neurosurgeons are serving in Sri Lanka and Dr. Koralage is one.

Dates for surgeries are allocated three or four months in advance. All routine surgeries have been postponed since the incident and all cases of head and spinal injuries are being transferred to hospitals in Colombo or Kandy, he adds.

One of Sri Lankas rare Specialist neuro surgeons Dr. Yohan Koralage manhandled near Galaha Road

Suspects arrested

Although Dr. Koralage is recovering miraculously from this near-death experience, he is suffering from a neurological deficit in his right arm. Severe numbness and the inability to do certain fine movements with his hand indicate that he wont be able to perform any surgeries for a considerable time.

Whether the students of the University of Peradeniya allegedly involved in this incident intended to cause grievous harm or not, they are now facing serious charges of assault. Peradeniya Police HQI Chief Inspector M. Caldera said two suspects had been arrested on August 7 and were produced in court on August 16.

Two suspects were arrested so far with the help of the university authorities. We have received information that 6 more suspects were involved in this incident. Their short names have been obtained and we are in the process of obtaining their personal details and addresses from the university. They will be arrested as soon as we receive the information from the Vice Chancellor, explained the law enforcement officer.

Vice Chancellor of Peradeniya University Prof. Upul Dissanayake said that the university has offered assistance in identifying the perpetrators in this incident. As we have been informed, the surgeon was harassed and assaulted, while he was travelling across the university, by a group of students. Dr. Koralage himself has attempted to inform me of this incident, Prof. Dissanayake said.

As of now we have only two parties as witnesses; the first being the victim and the two security officers attached to the university. Fortunately the doctor has managed to take several photographs from his mobile phone and accordingly two students were identified and arrested, the Vice Chancellor detailed.

This is no less than an act of terrorism. As we have assisted in identifying the two students, we expect the Police and the courts to do the needful. As the two students and the security officers are unable to conceal evidence in a court of law, we expect they will co-operate in identify anyone else involved in this dreadful incident, he said.

The Vice Chancellor affirmed that the said group of students was found occupying the university premises, whilst the university was closed due to student protests. Following the police inquiry the university will conduct an inquiry of its own to verify these details. We have offered our co-operation and hope that justice will be served in no time,the Vice Chancellor said.

The sole neurosurgeon serving one-fifth of the country has been irrationally attacked leaving his illustrious career in uncertainty. Patients with complex and crucial medical needs are left without a choice. An all this has happened as a result of the exploits of a group of students allowed to run around executing their own whims and fancies, at the expense of anothers life. Reports of assault and harassment by university students are far too commonplace. How far is too far?
Official launch of the eChannelling for Government Hospitals by Secretary of the Ministry of Telecommunication, Digital Infrastructure and Foreign Employment Hon. Wasantha Deshapriya. Also present were (from left) Director of Projects ICTA Sri Lanka Mr. Indika de Zoysa, Chief Medical Officer in charge of "Digital Hospital Project and Ampara General Hospital Dr. Sampath Dematapaksha, Director of Ampara General Hospital Dr. P. K. C. I. Jayasinghe and Chairman Sri Lanka Telecom and Mobitel Mr. P. G. Kumarasinghe Sirisena

For the first time in history eChannelling PLC launched its service at Ampara General Hospital marking it as the first district Hospital in Sri Lanka to have the service. eChannelling PLC, the largest Doctor Channeling Network in Sri Lanka, along with Mobitel, and Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) have embarked on a national endeavour  eChannelling for Government Hospitals - as a service provider for OPD time reservation at government hospitals. This project is carried out under the guidance of the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure and Foreign Employment, and ICTA to build a healthier nation by upgrading the existing health care system in Sri Lanka and enhancing its position in global rankings. This historic partnership will vastly facilitate smooth access to medical care for government hospital patients. eChannelling believes this service will enhance convenience for government hospital patients and save time and energy spent waiting in queues..

Patients can make OPD time reservation via 0715 225 225 from any network without waiting in queues for OPD treatment in government hospitals, thanks to eChannellings digital platform. The service is offered free-of-charge. The time reservation facility has been extended to the internet (www.echannelling.com) and smartphones (eChannelling App), boasting the latest technology for further convenience of users.

This service offers greater convenience for hospitals as they are able to enable modern healthcare facilities through technology to the general public free-of-charge. This would also help hospitals to better utilize physical infrastructure and human resources more effectively and efficiently. This service also greatly benefits patients as it saves them time otherwise spent waiting at the OPD for hours, and keeps the hospital informed in advance about their service requirements. The facility will be launched island wide in the future as a national endeavor to revolutionize the health care sector and build a healthy nation.

Boasting a network of 200+ recognized hospitals, more than 5500+Doctors, over 2000+ outlets and coverage of any telecommunication network, eChannelling is the easiest way to channel a Doctor dial 225 from anywhere at any time.

Mobitel, the National Mobile Service Provider, has taken digital healthcare to the next level by including eChannelling PLC into its portfolio and strengthening its vital position in the telecommunications industry in the country.
Parakrama Jayasinghe, a Senior Chartered Mechanical Engineer with many decades of service in public and Private sector institutions, in an interview with the Daily Mirror contested the argument by the Engineers Union of the Ceylon Electricity Board that coal is the most viable and cheap energy source to Sri Lanka. Jayasinghe is also the past President of the Bio Energy Association of Sri Lanka.

Mr Kumarawadu speaks of high chimneys, but they only change the location of deposition. It still falls within the country. Who changed the coal supply country of origin?

Building more coal power will actually block this progress as coal is too inflexible a technology. We can see it being played out already

Excerpts:

Q CEB claims that coal is still the cheapest source of power. What are your thoughts?

Globally, coal is only cheaper than diesel from a cost perspective. The recent tenders in Sri Lanka demonstrated the following costs:

CEB of course claims coal is cheap, without reviewing their own books. CEBEU issued a circular to the members claiming it is 7.90 (lower than even the fuel cost), while submitting documents to the regulator showing it is 14.00, sans finance charges. If we assume that this plant was built with commercial funding/ROIs (so that it can be compared with the above prices) we would need to add Rs 4.00/kWh, making it more expensive than all the other sources. So any claims that coal leads to cheaper electricity is not factual. This is a myth that has been propagated over the years by all the supporters of coal power including the Ministry of Power and Energy, willfully distorting the facts, citing only the energy cost as cost of generation.

Coal is only partially viable if the country has coal reserves and can control production costs. For example, in Mundra, Gujarat, Tata and Adani had to close over 8GW of supercritical coal plants, because they were designed to run on imported coal, and were no longer financially viable to compete with cheap renewables. In India, only coal power plants that are still viable are the ones depending on cheap and dirty local coal. There is no business case for coal using imported coal in any country.

Q CEBEU claims that coal is needed for energy security. Do you agree?

I do not understand how depending on any imported fuel can give a country energy security. They cannot understand the difference between diversity and security. True energy security can only come from relying on indigenous sources. Since we do not have coal, but some natural gas, we should be focusing on a generation plan heavily reliant on renewables which are in plentiful supply at no cost together with natural gas.

CEB generation plans have never even focused on energy diversity. The ***following chart shows how consecutive CEB Generation Plans considered fossil fuel diversity in the year 2030. As you can see, CEBs view on energy diversity is highly biased towards coal.

Q There is also an argument that coal is globally still 40% of generation and this is one reason we should develop more coal power. Do you agree with this statement?

This is a mistake of confusing current context vs the trend. At some point, we had more landlines than mobile phones, but when the number of mobile phone additions were larger than landline additions, the change was well set.

Coal is a fuel of the past, due to its impact on climate change, environmental pollution, cost and inflexibility when coupled with renewable systems. Globally coal is 38% of current generation mix, but is expected to drop drastically to 11% by 2050 according to Bloomberg energy projections. But in Sri Lanka if we follow CEBs plan, instead of reducing our coal dependency like the rest of the world we would have increased it to 54% by 2037. Even if CEB doesnt build any more coal plants post 2037 we will still continue to be dependent on coal with 36% of the share come 2050 by when most of the world would have shunned it.

US has stopped building coal power plants, along with EU and Australia. According to reports, a coal power plant retirement was announced in USA every 15 days during Trump presidency, despite his strong push to keep coal running. UK will shut down their coal plants by 2025. All these retiring coal plants will be replaced primarily by renewables and Natural Gas.

I do not understand how depending on any imported fuel can give a country energy security. They cannot understand the difference between diversity and security. True energy security can only come from relying on indigenous sources

EUCEB doesnt understand how change happens. What they need to keep looking at is not what the current installed base is, but what the composition of plants that are commissioned today globally with the future in mind; especially when more non-coal additions outpace coal additions. We crossed that threshold in 2016  now more renewables are coming on compared to fossil fuels. The composition of the grid is changing very fast with coal going down. It is dangerous as a small country to bet on a declining technology without having even our own supply of coal compounded by a depreciating currency.

Q There is a claim that as a poor country Sri Lanka should look for coal, and suggests countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh as those who are building coal plants. There is also a claim that Indonesia, Australia and Bangladesh export Natural Gas while generating power via coal. Why is that?

Vietnam, Malaysia Indonesia and Australia all have large coal deposits. Some are building coal to utilise their energy source for energy security (note Australia are no longer building coal plants, even the so called clean coal type). So it doesnt make sense to follow them. We do not have coal, so comparing with them isnt useful or relevant.

If you look at the two coal plants being built by Bangladesh  at Godda (located in India selling power to Bangladesh at very high cost) and Rampal (with massive ecological impact in Sundarbans a UNESCO world heritage mangrove forest), they arent cheap and come with huge social/ecological costs. The CEBs Norocholai coal power plant is a living testimony of an environmental disaster.

We are no longer a poor country  we are a middle income country. EUCEB is too ingrained with a colonized thinking pattern. They are running around with an old paradigm of electricity generation which is no longer valid. No other industry in Sri Lanka goes for outdated technology claiming were poor. Our telecom technology isnt second to others. Nor is our IT industry, apparel, rubber products etc. The country is full of hybrid and electric cars. Why should we settle for a lesser technology? Does EUCEB engineers use old Nokia phones and rotary dial land phones?

At some point we built a fantastic hydro-electricity network, we innovated mini-hydro industry and now our companies are taking these technologies to other parts of the world. Current EUCEB wants to be a follower of old technology and get the whole country stuck in their outdated model.

Q What changes do you see in the region and around the world that we can take notice of?

First, we have to recognise that there are even developing countries that have had the courage to build a pathway on renewables. A good example is Costa Rica which is building a fossil fuel free plan for itself. Even if we look at a country like India, even with its large coal addiction, the changes they are seeing are amazing, not forgetting the timelines for it.

India thought of developing 175GW of renewables from 2017-2022, and are now already adding another 100GW into that equation by the same end date. They managed to really reduce costs of renewables by going on scale  the Minister recently spoke about doing a 100GW solar contract, along with battery storage, while our Minister is still thinking at a scale of 1MW. This is how you reduce costs, by leveraging scale and reducing transaction costs.

They have begun shutting down coal plants running on imported coal, and cancelling planned coal plants. Just last week NTPC cancelled 4GW project 4 years in the planning in Andhra Pradesh.

Because their transmission companies have been separated from generation entities, the discoms are now refusing to sign any power purchase agreement over a period of 15 years  hitting hard on coal power. They know renewables are reducing costs, and do not want to be locked down to long term expensive coal power. These trends show that the era of renewables is truly here, and India is planning to use it to reduce the costs to the consumer. You cannot do that by locking at imported coal power.

EUCEB doesnt understand how change happens. What they need to keep looking at is not what the current installed base is, but what the composition of plants that are commissioned today globally with the future in mind; especially when more non-coal additions outpace coal additions

There is a lot that India has to do better, but if we can see the direction they are taking, we can make a miraculous transformation of our energy systems and reduce costs for the consumers, without polluting the country.

Q You have been a long term promoter of biomass energy. Where is biomass in this equation?

Biomass is the most talked about underused renewable source in this country. We have ample scrubland and land not used  which can be converted to biomass plantations, and develop them into biomass based electricity. We need to look at the overall impact of biomass  if used strategically, this is one of the biggest rural poverty alleviation programmes we can run. Instead of spending millions of dollars on imported fossil fuel, we will channel it to the rural poor and lift them out of poverty. This would really democratise energy generation in the country, moving it away from a few rich businessmen and politicians, to rural masses. A 10 MW Denro power plant will infuse over Rs 500,000,000 annually to the rural economy just by the sale of Gliricidia Fuelwood. The other spin off benefits are many fold.

Q Do you think CEB is anti-renewable?

Yes, I believe as an organisation they are, although not all engineers in CEB are so, and any renewable energy developer will agree with me. The amount of trouble we have to endure to develop projects is unheard of. If you are a solar developer, you spend months waiting for a connection. CEB recently changed the rules all of a sudden for NetPlus, until the minister intervened to reverse the decision. For two years, CEB has blocked giving PPAs to mini-hydro and biomass power producers asking them to be tendered irrespective of the established law of feed-in tariffs. These are arbitrary decisions. We have been forced to go to the court seeking resolution.

CEB is blocking Mannar wind power projects and has been doing it for years, claiming only they should develop it. It is well understood that the private sector can keep the costs much lower than the CEB, and that CEB cannot develop these due to lack of funds. What is being developed with ADB funds is a fraction of wind potential, and they are not allowing anything else to be developed. This is such a loss to the country. The roof top solar is making steady progress in spite of the many obstacles placed by the CEB. But the CEB is dragging its feet on the 1 MW solar park tenders that they themselves floated and received attractive prices which were much below the actual cost of coal power.

There are over 80 MW odd Dendro power projects which are in various stages of the approval process which have been blocked completely during the last two years. The number of projects using other technologies is of the same order.

I can go on, the list is quite long.

Q What does an ideal future energy scenario look like for Sri Lanka?

I see it dominated by renewables, with large scale wind, solar, hydro and Dendro power adding electricity. Of course this system will be balanced using some natural gas and utility scale battery storage (hydro can also do the balancing). This is not a far-fetched idea  if we look at price and technology trends, getting close to this by 2030 is definitely in the books. But that requires all parties to look beyond this old paradigm of fossil fuel driven baseload power. Such a system will preserve our foreign exchange, and pass the economic benefit to our own people without being a burden to the country.

Distributed solar and wind will ease out fluctuations, solar will complement wind and hydro and we have an excellent combination. Dendro and gas will provide system stability. This is eminently doable. Our current energy demand can be fully met with developing 20% of the total wind potential, or with 0.5% of landmass covered with solar panels (can be rooftops and reservoirs). We have potential, but need the will and thinking engineers to string them together with smart storage technology and gas.

Building more coal power will actually block this progress as coal is too inflexible a technology. We can see it being played out already. The CEB is developing 100MW of windpower in Mannar, but they wanted the system to be designed to curtail wind power so that coal can run at full capacity. Imagine that! In Germany and even in India, when renewables are there, they force curtailment of coal, and in Sri Lanka, we curtail free wind power (at 0 dispatch cost) so that we can burn more coal and pollute the country and drive up costs.

Q What are your thoughts on Norocholai?

Nothing but a total disaster for the people around and also for those far away from the power plant. At least EUCEB now accepts that there are serious issues. We have a fly ash mountain 8m tall, polluting the neighbourhood. Mr. Kumarawadu talks about ESP and FGD  but how often do they break? It was reported that one plant had a broken ESP for months before being forced to shut down by the environmental authorities. The whole country saw how they dumped fly ash into the ocean on two days in March and April. These are not design faults  these are caused by the mismanagement of the existing infrastructure through gross negligence.

It was reported that the plant emits 580kg of mercury (a major neuro toxin) to the ocean and air per year. ESP cannot trap mercury. How much damage can 580kg of mercury do in our country when a teaspoon of mercury can pollute a 25 acre lake?

Mr Kumarawadu speaks of high chimneys  but they only change the location of deposition. It still falls within the country. Who changed the coal supply country of origin? It is the Noracholai plant management who changed the slightly better Indonesian coal to the current South African coal because they couldnt control self-combustion. What I see is EUCEB avoiding the issue, rather than accepting their own role in this disaster and rectifying it.

Q CEB claims that there is only natural gas for a single 1000MW plant. Is that correct in your opinion?

Luckily the developers who are interested in the Mannar gas fields have better information than Mr Kumarawadu. No serious developer would come to Sri Lanka if the estimated deposits are so low. The most conservative quantification would be at least 5 times that size  enough to power our NG plants and provide much needed, clean thermal energy for Sri Lankan industry. You can check this with PRDS. The likely available amount is higher. We will save our foreign exchange and keep the Rupee stable too when we develop the same.

Q As a stakeholder, what is your view of CEBEU, PUCSL conflict?

EUCEB wants to run as if they control the country and the politicians, claiming they are a professional union. What they proved to the country is that they were ready to hold the country, its economy and well-being of the people to ransom, for a misguided plan to build more coal plants. And they did this by lying to the President and the people about the real costs of coal power.

Q What were the problems regarding their plan?

Well the assumptions of course. CEB used a coal price of USD 69.75/ton as coal costs for 30 years while buying coal at USD100/ton. We are buying coal at USD 120/ton now. They also used USD10/MMBTU for gas, when PRDS said that their negotiations were looking at a price of USD8.40/MMBTU. By artificially inflating the costs of Natural gas and reducing the cost of coal, they tried to show that coal based generation is cheaper.

Furthermore EUCEB continues to claim that the PUCSL has approved a LTEGP prepared by them. This is a total lie, designed to mislead the public. What the PUCSL did was to correct the input parameters submitted by the CEB. This resulted in the alternative submitted by the CEB itself No Coal Option emerging as the least economic cost option, rather than the Base Case option with many coal power plants for which the CEBEU is agitating for. It is clear that they would even propagate such lies which are easily debunked by anyone using the data in the public domain.

There were many other problems in the generation plan. The plan had to have the least economic cost (that includes social/environmental externalities) which CEB conveniently ignored. Such changes were designed to show that coal is cheaper than gas. If we followed that plan, it would have cost the country Billions more.

CEB wants to claim that the only thing PUCSL can do is to approve the base case plan sent by CEB, irrespective of its faulty assumptions or any other errors. They want the regulator to be a rubber stamping authority. This is completely against the intent and the phrasing of the Electricity Act and sounds downright silly. No regulator in the world acts like that.

What they were trying to do is also completely unethical. They were flexing their political muscle, through the Minister, Secretary and the President to exert political influence on an independent commission, and forcibly remove its commissioners and Director General. This is what this country wanted to avoid with the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, to keep the commissions independent. The President or any other party cannot influence the PUCSL according to the laws of the country. So EUCEB took trade union action asking the Government to do something illegal. This doesnt sound like a professional union to me.

What EUCEB wants is to take away the regulatory oversight. If it wasnt for PUCSL, the public wouldnt know that real costs of Noracholai is Rs 14.00+ and EUCEB could go around claiming it is 7.90, misleading people. Even now, since they are in non-cooperation mode, they refuse to submit generation data and costs to PUCSL, allowing them to do whatever they want and do all these acts without being noticed by the public. Given their track record of corruption, this is dangerous to the whole country.

Luckily the developers who are interested in the Mannar gas fields have better information than Mr Kumarawadu. No serious developer would come to Sri Lanka if the estimated deposits are so low. The most conservative quantification would be at least 5 times that size  enough to power our NG plants and provide much needed, clean thermal energy for Sri Lankan industry

Mr Kumarawadu claims that the Director General of PUCSL lied  which is an unsubstantiated claim. Mr Kumarawadu is the one who told the country that Norocholai cost is Rs 7.90/kWh, which is a blatant lie. He said that Sulphur Dioxide levels of Norocholai plant are 0 and 5 (presumably mg/Nm3). Both numbers are impossible to reach with the current technology which is another blatant lie. If Mr Kumarawadu wants other people sacked for lying he should resign from his position first.
Eid-Ul-Adha is the festival of sacrifice, celebrated around the globe each year at the conclusion of Hajj performance in Mecca, preferably on the 10th Day of the month of Zul-Hajj.

It is a commemorative festival in reminiscing about the episode of Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH) endeavouring willingly to sacrifice his own son as an act of obedience to Allahs command.

Subsequently, the Prophet was astonished to see that his son was unharmed and instead Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH) was provided with a goat by Allah, to be sacrificed.

This significant and glorious occurrence and the endeavour are celebrated and honoured on this day by the Muslims the world over.

In coinciding with this renowned and distinguished circumstance, Muslims all over the world sacrifice goat or cattle and distribute among the poor, relatives, friends and family members.

Hajj pilgrimage is one of the most significant concepts in Islam, where an enormous gathering of different nations and different colours, assemble at the Holy City of Mecca to perform this consequential obligatory act.

Islam does not presuppose man as an infallible

Hajj pilgrimage is one of the most significant concepts in Islam,

Man buoyantly and joyfully spends his hard earned money in accordance with Allahs directions.

Performing Sai Safa and Marwa, stand as another important ritual.

The Holy Quran reveals:

Behold! We gave the site, To Abraham, of the (Sacred) House, (saying); Associate not anything (in Worship)With Me; and Sanctify My House, For Those who compass it round, or stand up, or bow, or prostrate themselves therein in prayer (Holy Quran 22; 26-29)

The Holy Quran has commanded extensively subscribing about the House of Allah (The Kabah) and its credentials, how Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH) declared and announced the pilgrimage on the direction of the Almighty and responded to it down the ages, the benefits of the pilgrimage and how it represents the essence of all other acts of devotional worship in Islam, especially the spirit of piety and surrender to Allah, disseminating every aspect of pilgrimage.

The Quranic revelation further emphasizes placing pilgrimage in its historical contexts.

Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH) constructed (The Kabah), the House of Allah, at the site identified by Him, in its special Sacred Status.

As for maintaining its pure and Sacred Holiness, the directive has both a literal and a figurative sensation, clear of all material and spiritual obscenity and corruption for the purpose of true worship of the universal God.

Thousands of years ago, long before the era of the press post, the telegraph, the wireless, the radio, television and other such equipment and apparatus of modern publicity and propaganda, that mankind has been responding to during all these centuries, by performing the pilgrimage in their tens, hundreds and thousands every year.

Man buoyantly and joyfully spends his hard earned money in accordance with Allahs directions. So doing, he enthusiastically places divide rulings above his interest.

This Islamic stance is part of its broader scheme of things, according to which man is only a trustee, with some possessions placed under his charges such as his body, his physical and intellectual faculties and potentials and his earnings.

Man is liable to err and forget divine guidance. However, a more important factor is that he should be conscious of all this weakness and repent as soon as he realizes the lapses committed by him.

Islam does not presuppose man as an infallible creature, who does not do any wrong.

Performance of Hajj provides an opportunity to pilgrims, to observe and perceive the benefits by augmenting numerous and varied accomplishments in sectors of religious, financial, social, political and intellectual.

Consistently, Prophet Muhammad (Sal) communicated that on accomplishing Hajj, a pilgrim is akin to a newborn baby, in being pure and sinless.

At the outset of the Quranic verse prescribing Hajj and Umrah, man is clearly told that he should perform all these for Allah alone. (Holy Quran 2196).

This assertion stems from the distinct strain of pure, unadulterated monotheism in all acts of worship in Islam.Sacred sites associated with Hajj are Makkah, Arafat, Muzdalifuh and Mina.

Yet, a pilgrims attention must be focused on Allah only. Gender by the same spirit the pilgrim should perform Hajj rites in the manner laid down by Almighty Allah.

Moreover, each night of Hajj is characterized by many benefits which have both functional and catalytic value. Performance of Hajj rites commences after access into the State of Ihram.

Man is liable to err and forget divine guidance. However, a more important factor is that he should be conscious of all this weakness and repent as soon as he realizes the lapses committed by him.

The clothing of Ihram makes one realize paradoxically both the importance and worthlessness of clothes of which one is habitual since birth. Pilgrims dressed in frugal Ihram display the essential uniformity of mankind, cutting across distinctions of social class, financial status and ethnic origin.

The strong individuality exhibited, rather reinforced by ones preferential clothes, is instantly replaced by the awe-inspiring unity of mankind with one of the millions of Pilgrims, assembled every year during the period of Hajj.

More importantly the donning of Ihram places certain restrictions on a person, refraining from sexual relations with ones wife in hunting or applying perfume etc.

Talbiyah chanting is a significant sequence for the pilgrim, where it helps to discover the true image, by completely surrendering himself to the Supreme Lord.

Circumambulating around the sacred Kaabah (Thawaf) broadens and reinforces the pilgrims spiritual benefits, which act is the most significant observance in performing Hajj or Umrah.

Performing Sai (swift walk) Safa and Marwa, stands as another important ritual.

Standing near Kaabah, praying at the spot on which the Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH) had once stood, visiting the Zamzam Well and drinking its water, are all being part of procedures of Hajj that helps the pilgrims to re-enact the Sacred History.

History bears testimony to the fact that Muslims as a community have demonstrated numerous instances of solidarity, cutting across barriers of race, colour or language, and achieved commendable accomplishments.

The epitome of social equality as professed and practised by early Muslims was the key to the phenomenal spread of Islam across all parts of the globe. The most significant cause for this phenomenon was that the exploited and deprived staggering from crisis to crisis, under a yoke of bondage, saw Islam with its teachings and practice of equality and fraternity on their champion and warmly embraced it in large numbers. When performing Hajj, the pilgrim imbibes the spiritual experience flowing from the philosophical and theoretical framework of the Prophets Ibrahim (Alai), Ishmael (Alai) and Muhammad (Sal) and Hajara (Alai). Every one of them represents an illuminating paradigm model of wholesale surrender to Allahs Will and of steadfastness characterized by determined resolution and undoubting courage in following the path prescribed by Him.

Staying in the valley of Arafath is another important rite of the pilgrims.

Millions of pilgrims display the homogenization of the purpose of the journey and of status, where it brings to mind immediately the Grand Assembly before Allah on the Day of Judgment when each and every human being will be recompensed in proportion to the record of his/her deeds.

Hajj embodies the virtuous inclination of the pilgrims will. It thus serves as an excellent opportunity for dignifying and sublimating a persons emotions and sensation.

Indecent indulgence and wicked acts, whether privately or publicly, outrages the moral health of society and hence constitutes a serious wrongdoing and injustice to fellow human beings.

The young especially, are prone to be so afflicted. It perhaps amounts to stating the obvious that a society teeming with vices cannot enjoy peace and happiness. Sustainability and substantial reconciliation can be attained only if we nullify and annihilate the immoral characteristics.

The convergence of pilgrims from all parts of the world representatives of vast social economic catchment areas, provide pilgrims with many associated benefits.

Acquaintance and social contact with fellow believers revitalized the sense of community with solidarity and open up avenues for trade and commerce. Throughout the history, this institution of Hajj has continued to serve as the major unifying influence in Islam and the most effective common bond among the diversified and distinct believers. It renders every pilgrim a physical healthiness, at least once in a lifetime by circumambulation.

Allah is to be glorified and thanked for His imparting guidance to man.

-The writer is a Retired School Principal
As a matter of state policy, the government will not build any power plants in the future but will provide facilities to the private sector to invest in small, medium and large-scale power plants, Power and Renewable Energy Ministry Secretary Suren Batagoda said yesterday.

He said Sri Lanka was likely to face a power crisis in the next two years pointed out that his Ministry had put in place a strategic plan to mitigate or control the power crisis.

Dr. Batagoda said and plans were afoot to launch a major power generation plant with a total capacity of 1,700 MWs under the recommendation of the Long-Term Less Cost Power Generation Plan that would meet the power requirements or power demands during the next few decades.

If the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) did not sign the power purchase agreement with the 100 MWs ACE Power, Embilipitiya Power Plant on April 15, there was a possibility of their being a power outage in the entire Southern Province. The decision to extend the power purchase agreement with Ace Embilipitiya was a Cabinet decision approved by the Cabinet-appointed Procurement Committee (CAPC). If the CEB had not signed the agreement the power plant would have been shut down by the management and the country would have been in the midst of a major power crisis, he said.

The CEB has managed to purchase power at the lowest cost possible under its mid-term power procurement mechanism by extending the power purchase agreement with Ace Power, Embilipitya MWs at Rs. 22 per unit. If this agreement was not signed, the CEB would have had to make emergency purchases at a unit cost of Rs.28. It may have increased up to Rs.36 or 38 a unit depending on the demand, Dr. Batagoda said. "A 300 MWs LNG power plant will be constructed at Kerawalapitiya with investment from China. Four heavy fuel power plants with the installed capacity of 25MWs are set up at Monaragala, Horana, Pallekekele and Nambuwa. There will a barge-mounted furnace oil power plant of 100 MWs at Galle Port and two 100 MW solar power plants at Sampur and Monaragala. Indian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese investors will invest in the majority of these power plants. The government expects to close tenders for these power projects before the end of 2019."

He said the CEB had already started work on a 100 MW wind power plant in Mannar and two private companies have invested in two solar power plants of 10 MWs in Sampur and Chunakam and that under the Power and Energy Ministrys ambitions Suriya Bal Sangramaya 150 MWs are to be generated with roof mounted solar panels of private houses.

Our target is to offer tenders to foreign investors before the end of 2019 with the target to commission those major power generation plants after 2003, Dr. Batagoda noted.

Quotes -- If the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) did not sign the power purchase agreement with the 100 MWs ACE Power, Embilipitiya Power Plant on April 15, there was a possibility of their being a power outage in the entire Southern Province. (Sandun A Jayasekera)
President Xi Jinping greets Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Monday. During his talks with Mahathir, Xi said the two countries should be dedicated to raising the representation of developing countries in global affairs. WU ZHIYI / CHINA DAILY

Nations' leaders meet to discuss boosting relations

China and Malaysia should make jointly building the Belt and Road a main theme when they advance their pragmatic cooperation in the new era, President Xi Jinping said on Monday.

Xi made the remark while meeting with visiting Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Hailing Malaysia as an important country along the ancient Maritime Silk Road, Xi praised it as one of the countries that supported the Belt and Road Initiative early on.

The two countries should boost the connection of their development strategies and enhance cooperation on industry and innovation, Xi said. He called on the two countries to cultivate new areas and explore new fields for cooperation and to expand their win-win cooperation.

The two sides should properly handle existing problems using the principle of mutual respect and friendly coordination, Xi said.

Xi said he appreciated the great attention the Malaysian government and the prime minister have paid to developing China-Malaysia ties.

Xi spoke highly of Mahathir's remarks deeming China as providing a development opportunity and his support for the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.

The two countries should firmly oppose unilateralism and trade protectionism, Xi said, adding they should be dedicated to raising the representation of developing countries in global affairs.

Mahathir said his visit to China is a significant move for the new Malaysian government, adding that the country will stick to its friendly policy toward China.

"Now we are here to reassure the Chinese government and Chinese people that we have not changed our relationship even though the government is new," Mahathir said.

China is Malaysia's largest trading partner, and the country has never colonized Malaysia, he said, adding that China's development is not a threat to his country.

The prime minister said that Malaysia admires China's miracle of independent development and great achievements in industry and commerce. Malaysia would like to learn from China's successful experience of development, boost innovation and achieve greater development for the country, he said.

The Belt and Road Initiative, put forward by Xi, aims to enhance exchanges and cooperation among the countries, Mahathir said, adding that the initiative will benefit all countries of the region.

The prime minister said that Malaysia would like to participate in jointly building the Belt and Road, which will bring development and prosperity to the region.

"We still believe in friendly relations with all countries, particularly with China, which is so significant in terms of the influence over Malaysia and its development," he added.
A Police Inspector (IP) and two police constables have been arrested by the STF this morning in connection with an alleged robbery in Kalutara.

Police said the IP attached to the Panadura Division Anti Corruption Unit and the constables were handed over to the Police Organized Crimes Unit for further investigations.

The suspects would be produced in the Kalutara Magistrates Court today.(Darshana Sanjeewa)
The visit of the Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera has drawn attention to the need for further strengthening maritime security cooperation between Japan and Sri Lanka.

This was the main focus at a meeting between the Japanese Defence Minister and President Maithripala Sirisena held at the presidential secretariat today.

The Japanese Minister was warmly welcomed by the President and at the meeting the progress on the agreements entered into during the President's recent visit to Japan was also reviewed.

Resulting from the discussions between President Maithripala Sirisena and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Government provided two patrol boats costing some Rs.1.8 billion to the Sri Lankan Cost Guards. The President expressed his gratitude to Minister Onodera. and said he was happy to learn that he would be visiting the Hambantota and Trincomalee ports.

Meanwhile, Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera said the official visit of Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera to Sri Lanka was a significant development in further strengthening defence, trade, diplomatic and cultural ties between the two countries.

He told reporters that this first official visit by a Japanese Defense Minister to Sri Lanka augurs well for the unity government.

The government led by President Maithripala Sirisena does not have enemies in the global community but only friends, the minister said.
Japanese naval ship Ikazuchi arrived at the Trincomalee port yesterday for a three-day good will visit.

The ship belongs to Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force, was welcomed in accordance with naval traditions on arrival.

The Mission Commander of the ship Captain Ryoko Azuma accompanied by the Commanding Officer and other officers paid a courtesy call on Commander Eastern Naval Area, Rear Admiral Sumith Weerasinghe at the Eastern Naval Command Headquarters.

They held cordial discussions focused on enhancing bilateral cooperation.

Further, The Mission Commander of Ikazuchi and the officers of the crew met the Training Captain of Naval & Maritime Academy Captain Kosala Wijesooriya at the Commandants conference hall. They discussed the matters related to training of Navies of both countries and exchanged mementos as a gesture of goodwill.

During the 3 day official visit the ships crew is scheduled to visit the important places in Sri Lanka and to participate in several special programmes arranged by the Sri Lanka Navy in enhancing mutual relationship.
Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools

 Napoleon Bonaparte





Together they hold a crisis-ridden Europe together.The weakened German Chancellor Angela Merkel needs not to worry. Her liberal democratic mission for Europe will not die down all too soon. The boy whom she was planning to take by hand and show the world is not a minion. Barely fifteen months into the presidency, French President Emmanuel Macron has proven he is capable of leading the continent on his own terms or on Merkels lines.



Be it his latest move to woo Turkey, much to the annoyance of Donald Trump or his awe inspiring speech at the US congress that snubbed the Republicans or his no-nonsense attitude towards Brexit and the manner he brokered a deal between France and four other EU countries last week regarding the stranded migrants on a Mediterranean rescue vessel, the 40-year-old French President has already won over the world. Global leaders and the media are awakening to reality that Macron is all but mediocrity. Though nowhere near Napoleon who became emperor of France at the age of 34, Macron fans are making comparisons and claim that in terms of youthful political versatility and innovativeness, Macron certainly is the closest the French have ever got closer to the emperor.



The degree at which the 40 year old French President Emmanuel Macron and the 64 year old German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been complementing each other too is unprecedented in the history of Franco-German relations. Such camaraderie was last seen in global politics largely between United States and United Kingdom during Clinton-Blair and Reagan-Thatcher eras.



The past week was a crucial one.



In the wake of a boiling immigrant crisis in Spain and the Syrian refugee issue taking centre stage in Putin-Merkel talks, Germanys far right-wingers once again held protests against their Chancellor demanding that she resigns. The domestic protests saw Merkel promising to accelerate the pace of the deportation of rejected asylum seekers.



Meanwhile, Macron brokered a deal between France and four other countries  Germany, Spain, Italy and Luxembourg to harbour 141 migrants stranded on a Mediterranean rescue vessel ending a five-day tug-of-war among European countries as to what was to be done about them. Macrons dexterity in handling this crisis was lauded by many parties. The European refugee crisis is largely attributed to Merkel by opponents. Its the price she had to pay for saving humanity. Its obvious that instead of being the protege of Merkel, the French President is fast becoming her saviour.



As per the phone conversation between Merkel and Macron on Friday, both leaders call for a combined European solution as regards rescue two ships and smugglers. The European situation regarding refugees has been compounded with the decision by Italy not to allow private ships into its ports.



Following last weeks domestic protests and refugee crisis in Spain, Chancellor Merkel is now expected to suggest tighter border controls to Macron as well.

She is reportedly planning to reintroduce border controls in boundaries it shares with France and also Switzerland. The German chancellor is already working with Greece and Spain on repatriation of asylum seekers and also holding negotiations with the Italian government.



France and Germany account for around 50 per cent of the Euro Zone output and hence call the shots in the union. However the growing refugee crisis is seeing a new low in Merkels popularity and she certainly must be thanking her stars that theres an Emmanuel Macron to stand by her. Macrons election last year came at a time when an isolated and battered German Chancellor was desperately looking for an influential partner to back her and carry forward her liberal democratic mission. The young French President has certainly fared beyond her expectations.
Oman Air, the national carrier of the Sultanate, makes premium comfort amenities available for all on selected flights in time for Eid Al Adha. Effective from 15 August, Oman Air will launch the sale of sleepwear, an exclusive amenities kit, and other Oman Air branded merchandise at attractive prices on a selected number of routes to mark the festive season.

The airline is committed to maintaining its award-winning standards and continues to offer an enjoyable onboard experience. The new amenities, which have been carefully researched and developed, will be available on all long-haul flights to and from Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The product offering reflects Oman Airs commitment to provide all guests with the best in luxury and comfort.

The elegant Business Class Amouage amenity kit, designed especially for Oman Air, contains a set of luxurious travel essentials including hand and body moisturiser, face cream, a sleeping eye shade and shaving razor. A Colgate dental kit and mouthwash are also included in the kit, to keep Oman Air guests refreshed.

Fatigue is an unwelcome companion when travelling. With this in mind, Oman Air is introducing comfortable, yet stylish sleepwear on selected flights which can be bought at a nominal price. The new sleeper suits will provide Oman Air guests with plenty of comfort and ease when travelling on long haul night flights. A set of soft slippers is also included to guarantee comfortwhen resting or moving during the flight.

Xia Cai, Senior Vice President Guest Experience and Branding, said: Oman Air is always looking at new ways to give our guests more choice and value to build their personalised journey. In addition to providing extra comfort and choice in the air, some of the items are great gift ideas, particularly in the run up to the holiday season. We will monitor guest satisfaction and aim to expand the range of items for sale in the future.

Inflight amenities play an important part in the passenger experience and Oman Airworks hard to ensure that the best possible experience is offered to its valued guests.

Oman Air is committed to constantly improving its product, developing its brand and offering its guests an unrivalled experience. The new offerings, coupled with the quality of the service, make a significant difference to guests onboard experience.
The Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) recently held its Inauguration for the 2nd intake of Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing. The event was organized on a grand scale with a large crowd of Advanced Level students, marketers at executive and middle managerial levels of corporates and other members of thebusiness community participating. Non-Marketers who were interested in a career change, also gathered together to take the step forward which would enhance their Marketing careers and boost their futures.

The PGDIP curricular is made to bestow students with a knowledge that extends beyond the fundamental theories of marketing. The 24 month part time programme consists of four levels. It gears participants with marketing competencies that are needed from operational to managerial level. Students are provided with a detailed understanding on marketing tools. The strategic level focuses on concepts such as Sustainability and Strategic Marketing Planning. The final level of PGDIP is an individual research study, which every student is required to be carried out.Thus the PGDIP is highly recognized by the Sri Lankan corporate sector as it paves the way for any individual with career prospects in the corporate sector.

Special invitee for the PGDIP 2018 inauguration was former General Sales Manager of Fonterra Brands (Pvt) Limited, Stephan Paulraj. He is also the Founder of Cloud Consultancies and the Head of the Panel of Judges for SLIM NASCO 17/18. Inhis speech, he explained that SLIM-PGDIP has made a reputation among the corporate sector including multinational and local organizations, universities and other professional bodies as the qualification to create corporate leaders.

SLIM President, Pradeep Edward who is the CEO of Lanka Hospitals Diagnostics highlighted the importance of bestowing persons with advanced marketing knowledge to excel in the existing vibrant business environment. SLIM has designed the PGDIP programme to groom quality marketing personnel who could add value to the marketing fraternity in Sri Lanka. Postgraduate Diploma holders of SLIM are employed also by companies beyond our territories.He shed light on a wide spectrum of activities that SLIM students are exposed to, beyond their studies. Such as the SLIM-NASCO, Marketers Night, EFFIE and SLIM Toastmasters club.

He reiterated that marketing as a field has globally evolved to become a way-of-life and PGDIP caters to this reality. The cream of resource personnel in the country is conducting the programme. You can learn from their wealth of experience in the local and international spheres and through the multiple support sessions conducted by them to enhance your knowledge in marketing, he added.

SLIM Vice President Education and also aBusiness Consultant, Suranjith Swaris said, We live in a world full of challenges. Especially the corporate sector is very demanding, having stiff competition. A fully-fledged marketer could make his company stand out from the clutter by differentiating himself, his brand and his company from the rest.And also SLIM obtained both ISO 9001:2015 certification in recognition of SLIMs superior quality management systems and ISO 2990:2010 for Learning Service Provider (LSP), proving non-formal education and training services, which enablesa high standard of quality education as SLIM

SLIM CEO and Executive Director Sanath Senanayake commented, The right blend of assignments, individual/group presentations and exams have elevated the PGDIP qualification to its pinnacle. The programme evolves with the changing marketing scenarios in the world to produce fully fledged marketers who could rub shoulders with veterans in the sphere.He added, Marketing is a lucrative profession. It is one of the highest paid and rewarding field in the professional world. Marketing also is a very disciplined and vibrant profession. It has produced corporate heads and entrepreneurs who are respected by the society.

Fresh intakes for Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing are now on and students would follow classes at SLIM Business Schools in Colombo, Kandy and Matara.
Seen from left: Atheeq Ansar, Managing Director of TAD Lanka and Shezad Hameed, President, Round Table Sri Lanka 2018/19 exchanging the banner of 'Friendship and Partnership'.

AtheekAnsar, Managing Director ofTAD Lanka commented, The RTI World Meeting is the most important event in the RTI calendar. It is also a very important occasion for Sri Lanka to showcase its potential for tourism and investment to more than five hundred young and upwardly-mobile businessmen. Many delegates will be touring the country over two weeks including in Wilpattu, Anuradhapura, Sigiriya, Dambulla and Trincomalee. During these visits they will enjoy the beauty of Sri Lanka and the warm hospitality of the people. There will also be many business meetings during this time where Sri Lanka is expected to be the biggest beneficiary. TAD is privileged to be associated with RTI Sri Lanka in organising this event and we are sure that it will be a memorable event for all the delegates.

Set up by Toshiaki, Atheek and Dhanuka, today TAD Lanka operates as the local partner of a number of ventures incorporated with Japanese FDIs handling the management, administration and operations of several sub-brands of one holding company. In addition to Japan, TAD has also expanded to the Maldives, Myanmar, Kenya and Uganda to attract FDIs from those countries.

Round Table International

Round Table is a non-political, non-religious and non-sectarian organisation that cultivates the highest ideals in business, professional and civic traditions and aims to develop fellowship among young men through community service and business activities. The organisation which began 91 years ago in Norwich, England, has spread across the world and now has over 35,000 members. It was inaugurated in Sri Lanka in 1983.
Higher Education Minister Wijayadasa Rajapakshe had a startling story to tell the country last week about ragging of newcomers by senior students of Universities. According to him, for the past two years, nearly 2000 students who entered universities had left them due to inhuman ragging by the senior students. We have heard about brutal ragging incidents in universities and other higher education institutions and stories about students leaving universities but nobody expected such a large number of students to give up university education just because of the barbaric mindset of another group of students.

Earlier, in May 2016, Vice Chancellor of the Kelaniya University Prof. Sunanda Maddumabandara had told that eight students had left his university during the year due to ragging and there could be more planning to leave or have already left without giving notice. Even that number was deemed then as a manifestation of a serious problem. But now Higher Education Minister says the number runs into thousands.

The annual intake of students for all universities in the country does not exceed 40,000 yet. And around 2000 students are leaving the universities not due to poverty, or lack of hostel facilities or any other facilities, but due to the activities of a set of psychopaths. Where is the university administration? Where are the marshals? Where are the so-called student union leaders who take to streets even at the drop of a hat, claiming that the free education was in danger? Where are the GMOA leaders who shout at the top of their voice about free education? Where are the political parties that provoke students through their student unions to demonstrate on all 365 days of the year, in the name of students rights?

What might the students leaving the universities due to ragging be doing after so leaving? The affluent ones might enter foreign universities spending millions of rupees worth countrys foreign exchange and for some others that would be the end of their higher education. What a crime!

The Minister says that the law against ragging that was adopted in 1998 provides for the students found guilty of ragging to be sentenced to ten years rigorous imprisonment. Yet, every year since then we have heard of stories of ragging and sometimes students being arrested. However, we hardly hear of students being meted out any prison term for the past twenty years. Then what is the use of the law?

Sometimes a few students are captured by the university authorities or arrested by the police for ragging but only to let them go scot-free in a few weeks or months, sometimes on the ground that their education would be affected due to the legal actions. With the revelation by the minister now it is clear that the authorities are concerned about the education of a few senior students who are the members of student unions and not about thousands of new students. The excuse occasionally given by the authorities for their failure to penalize the raggers who ruin the higher education opportunities of thousands of students is that the victims do not come forward to complain and the difficulty in identifying the culprits. Should one believe that the authorities were unable to find the raggers for decades? This points the connivance of the authorities in ragging for some reason, may be in fear of student unions. There should be a mechanism to monitor their activities as well, in respect of ragging.

Ragging in universities and other higher education institutions is the best indication of the hypocrisy of those students unions, professional organizations and political parties that claim to stand for the students rights and free education. Are they blind to the fact that thousands of students are leaving the universities just because of the cruelty of a section of psychopaths?

They make thousands of students go to foreign universities by agitating against local private universities. They make another group of students go to foreign universities apart from shattering the dreams of higher education of some others, by way of ragging. They never demand the increase of university intake, while hundreds of thousands of students are being deprived of the right to higher education every year. This is the kind of concern they have on the free education. Therefore the minister must take action against the inhuman ragging without giving in to the fear of intimidation by the student unions.
A salesman introduces a property project in Wuhan, Hubei province. [Photo by Miao Jian/For China Daily]

Leading officials of five cities were questioned by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development on whether they had strictly followed the tightening policies on the property market, indicating that the central government won't loosen its grip on the housing market in order to prevent excessive price hikes and other irregularities.

Officials from Haikou and Sanya in Hainan province, Yantai in Shandong province, Yichang in Hubei province and Yangzhou in Jiangsu province addressed questions from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development last Friday, according to a report in People's Daily.

The officials from the cities were asked to explain whether they had strictly followed the central government's guideline in tightening the real estate sector, carried out measures to combat speculation and rectify the irregularities in the market, and prevent house prices from rising too rapidly.

This is the second time that Haikou and Sanya's leading officials were questioned by the ministry in four months. The two cities took the lead in home price growth in the past six months, with Haikou ranking as one of the top three cities for month-on-month new house price growth for four consecutive months.

In its latest report on 70 cities' home prices, the National Bureau of Statistics said Sanya topped the new home price ranking with month-on-month growth of 3.7 percent in July, and Haikou ranked ninth with 2.3 percent.

Haikou's new house prices rose 2.1 percent in March from a month ago, 0.7 percent higher than second-ranking Qinhuangdao in Hebei province.

During the May Day holiday, leading officials from Haikou and Sanya, along with their counterparts from Chengdu, Taiyuan, Xi'an, Changchun, Harbin, Kunming, Dalian, Guiyang, Xuzhou and Foshan were questioned by the ministry.

In April, Haikou and Sanya both ranked second for new house price growth from the previous month with a rise of 1.9 percent; and the two were in third and second place in May with month-on-month growth of 2.1 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively.

In June, Haikou again became the city with the greatest single monthly growth from May of 3.9 percent, and Sanya was ranked fourth with growth of 3.2 percent.

Similarly, Yantai and Yichang's new house prices grew 2.9 percent from the previous month in July, and Yangzhou's rose 2.8 percent.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said at a work conference in Shenyang in Liaoning province in early August that all local governments should systematically analyze the problems and major risks in their property sector, and ensure the stabilization of house and land prices.

The ministry will create a market monitoring system to measure the fulfillment of local governments' property measures, and those failing to meet their targets will be held accountable.

Analysts said a mechanism for the ministry to question cities with higher house price growth is being formed, which will drive local governments to maintain strict controls to rein in house price growth.

"House prices will be at the center of the housing ministry's work in the second half of this year, and the questioning of the five leading officials is merely the start," Zhang Bo, chief analyst with Anjuke, was quoted as saying by Securities Daily.

More than 60 cities announced more than 70 real estate tightening measures in July, and more than 25 cities have followed suit so far in August.

"Cities with higher house price growth would all be under strong pressure, and it is highly likely for these cities to announce stricter tightening measures in the property market," said Zhang Dawei, chief analyst at Centaline Property Agency Ltd.

More severe policies such as setting a home price limit or capping growth of home prices could possibly be introduced, and a tightening policy environment will become the new normal for the housing market, added Zhang.
Photo taken on August 19, 2018 shows seven Chinese chefs cooking the mutton from 30 sheep, weighing about 300 kilograms in total, in a giant pan as part of a food festival held in Kazak Autonomous County of Aksay, Jiuquan city, northwest Chinas Gansu province. This cuisine is a traditional dry pot meal typically made by the Kazak ethnic minority. It is reported that the county held its first food festival in September 2013, at which point locals made the worlds largest pan, with a diameter of 4.15 meters, a depth of 0.365 meters and a weight of 2.8 tonnes, to hold the enormous mutton tasting event.(Photo/Chinanews.com)
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SYDNEY, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- An international team of researchers including scientists from the University of Western Australia (UWA) have developed a silicon chip which guides single particles of light to process quantum information, bringing the next generation of supercomputer one step closer to reality.

The breakthrough, announced on Tuesday in science publication Nature Photonics, is part of the current push to develop quantum computers, with companies like IBM, HP, Baidu, Microsoft, Google and NASA, all taking part.

Functional and large-scale quantum computers would vastly improve what current machines are capable of, making it possible to solve problems or calculations which are currently beyond the grasp of mankind -- tasks which require vast information processing and analytical power such as the data involved in space exploration, or even building automated navigation systems.

Professor Jingbo Wang, head of the UWA Physics Department, explained that today's computers and smartphones are encoded with information called bits, being either a 1 or a 0, while quantum computers are based on qubits which can be in a superposition of both 0 and 1 simultaneously.

Additionally multiple qubits can be linked in a special way called quantum entanglement, Wang said.

"These two quantum physical properties provide the power to operate quantum computers."

The team's new method, which uses photons or single light particles, demonstrates that it is possible to fully control two qubits of information within a single integrated chip using contemporary silicon technology, a big step forward for the field.

According to Wang, the team has used the silicon chip to perform delicate quantum information experiments with 100,000 different reprogrammable settings.

"One of the experiments is to implement a special class of quantum walk, which allows simultaneous traversing of all possible paths in arbitrarily complex network structures," she said.

"Being able to explore everything at the same time offers exciting prospects for science and practical applications."
Qatar NH90 Contract Comes into Force



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Top-5 notebook vendors see July shipments rise 11% on year, says Digitimes Research

Worldwide top-5 notebook brands saw their combined shipments (not including detachable models) drop 24% on month in July as they had already completed inventory preparations for back-to-school demand in May and June. Compared to the same month a year ago, the July volume rose 11%, the highest on-year growth in 17 months.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) saw its July shipments slip nearly 30% on month, but they still represent a 5% on-year rise. Lenovo experienced an over 30% on-month decline in the month, the worst of the top-5, due to trade tensions between the US and China and the depreciation of China's currency, which has put pressure on the vendor's components purchases, according to Digitimes Reseach's latest monthly notebook data updates.

Dell witnessed a shipment drop of 16% on month in July primarily due to a deceleration in its Chromebook procurement orders.

The top-3 ODMs' combined shipments decreased nearly 20% on month in July. Compal Electronics remained the largest maker in the month and had an on-year shipment growth of more than 10% thanks to Dell's increased orders.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said here on Monday that he would "most likely" meet with the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong Un.

Speaking with Reuters in an interview at the White House, Trump said it would be "likely" when asked whether he and Kim would meet for the second time.

"It's most likely we will, but I just don't want to comment," Trump said, offering no details on the timing or venue.

He also said that he believes Pyongyang had taken specific steps toward denuclearization.

He added that he has "great chemistry" with Kim.

"I like him. He likes me," he said. "There's no ballistic missiles going up, there's a lot of silence ... I have very good personal relations with Chairman Kim, and I think that's what holds it together."

ON TURKEY

As U.S.-Turkey diplomatic deadlock lingered over an American pastor, Trump ruled out any possibility of concessions with Turkey over the case, and said he was not concerned at all that his tough stance on Turkey could hurt other economies.

"I think it's very sad what Turkey is doing. I think they're making a terrible mistake. There will be no concessions," he said in the interview.

Trump said he thought he had a deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to release Andrew Brunson after he had convinced Israel to free a detained Turkish citizen.

"Until now I had a very good relationship as you know with the president. I got along with him great. I had a very good relationship. But it can't be a one-way street. It's no longer a one-way street for the United States," said Trump.

Reuters quoted a U.S. senior official that Trump and Erdogan had met in Brussels in mid-July when they discussed how to solve Brunson's case, as "Turkey had sought U.S. help to persuade the Israelis to release a Turkish woman who was being held in Israel."

When asked about the potential damage of U.S. actions to other economies, the White House host said that "I'm not concerned at all. I'm not concerned. This is the proper thing to do."

Andrew Brunson, a 50-year-old Christian pastor, was detained two years ago in Turkey on spying charges, and would face up to 35 years in prison if found guilty.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury slapped sanctions on Turkey's justice and interior ministers on Aug. 1, citing their roles in the detention of Brunson.

Trump tweeted on Aug. 10 that he has authorized a doubling of tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum imports as their currency Lira slides rapidly downward against the U.S. dollar.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in response that problems with the United States over a series of differences can be solved easily but not with its current mindset.

Cavusoglu also said that Turkey has done its part in terms of preserving friendly relations with the United States, and once again accused Washington of supporting terrorist groups targeting Turkey.

ON RUSSIA, IRAN

In the interview, Trump also indicated that he would consider lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia if Moscow took some actions in such areas as Syria or Ukraine.

"I would consider it if they do something that would be good for us. But I wouldn't consider it without that," he said without mentioning the U.S. threat to sanction Russia in two phases, which has drawn bitter criticism from Moscow.

Trump has been widely attacked after his Helsinki meeting with Putin, due to his reconciliatory remarks that many saw as a sign of siding with Moscow against the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. elections.

The White House has said that the next meeting between Trump and Putin will be delayed until next year.

Turning to Iran, Trump said it did not matter to him whether he met Iran's leaders and there had been no U.S. outreach toward Iran to discuss possible talks.

"If they want to meet, fine. If they don't want to meet, I couldn't care less," he said.

The first round of U.S. re-imposed sanctions on Iran took effect earlier this month. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that any negotiation with the United States to solve the existing problems was an "obvious mistake."

"I have reiterated that we can not rely on American words and even their signature, therefore, negotiations with them are fruitless," he said.

Trump also said in the interview that "I'm constantly reviewing Afghanistan and the whole Middle East. We never should have been in the Middle East. It was the single greatest mistake in the history of our country."
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By NICOLE WINFIELD

Associated Press

ROME  The Italian engineer who designed the Genoa bridge that collapsed and killed dozens warned four decades ago that it would require constant maintenance to remove rust given the effects of corrosion from sea air and pollution on the concrete.

RAI state television broadcast excerpts Sunday of the report that the late engineer Riccardo Morandi penned in 1979, 12 years after the bridge bearing his name was inaugurated in Genoa. The Associated Press downloaded the English-language report from an engineering news portal.





. . .
Operating engineers strike at area construction sites

Members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 302 last night voted to strike local job sites starting today.

The strike affects crane operators, concrete pumpers, dirt and paving crews, and hoisting and material handling crews.

Members turned down the second tentative agreement between union negotiators and the Associated General Contractors of Washington, which represents construction companies.

The strike affects Local 302 members in districts 1-4. It does not affect people working under project labor or community workforce agreements, and people working under the West Coast Drill Shaft and Refinery Building Trades agreements.

Crews at Skanska are not affected because Skanska uses a different collective bargaining agreement with a different expiration date.

The ballot count wasnt immediately available.

The second tentative agreement offered workers a 15 percent increase in total compensation over three years. Hourly wages would have increased nearly 16 percent over three years. The current top level wage is $41.29 an hour and would have risen to $47.84.

In an Aug. 6 letter to union members, Daren Konopaski, Local 302 international vice president and business manger, wrote that the agreement was the contractors final offer.

The current contract expired June 1.




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BETHEL, Alaska (AP)  The Alaska village of Napakiak received $449,000 in federal funding that could help the community respond to erosion and other effects of climate change.

The village of less than 400 residents, which received the funding on Thursday, has lost 50 feet of its shoreline since May, Tribal Administrator David Andrew said.





. . .
A Liberian government official has recently praised China for launching the Belt and Road Initiative. Augustus J. Flomo, Deputy Minister for Economic Management at Liberias Ministry of Finance and Development, said the initiative, which seeks to connect the rest of the world, is historic.

He believes that the Belt and Road Initiative will ensure economic growth and boost trade among countries along the partnership corridors. It pushes the main goals of infrastructure connectivity and capacity cooperation, which fit in with goals of Africas agenda 2063.

Flomo spoke at the 2018 Africa-China Poverty Reduction and Development Conference, as part of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, organized by the International Poverty Reduction Center (IPRC) in China on August 14.

He also expressed the need for China to share its knowledge and skills in alleviating poverty to help Africa, as the continent makes efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Pillar I by 2030.

SDG Pillar I calls for countries around the world to initiate programs to ensure that poverty is alleviated by 2030. Flomo noted that it was important for China to transfer practical and applicable ways for countries to execute successful poverty alleviation programs.

China has a successful poverty alleviation story, lifting 800 million people above the poverty line since its reform and opening up 40 years ago.

We need to work and learn from the Chinese, how they have been able to execute their poverty alleviation program he added.

During the conference, the Liberian deputy minister informed delegates that his government has a robust plan to remove several thousand Liberians from poverty in the next five years using the Pro-Poor Agenda.

The three-day conference has drawn delegates from over 40 African countries, as well as representatives from the UNDP, UNFPA, AU, China, and experts from Africa and China.

Speaking earlier, Liu Yongfu, Minister of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development of China, explained that the Chinese have walked from a deficient life to an affluent one and marched from poverty to a well-off society. He said that since 2005, China has been sharing knowledge and experience with Africa regarding poverty alleviation.

Liu explained that the IPRC organized three China-Africa Youth Exchange Programs on Poverty Reduction and Development to further enhance Chinese and African youths understanding of poverty reduction and to strengthen friendship through discussion and field visits.

He added that China and Africa have fully communicated to enhance poverty reduction cooperation and have reached an important consensus, publishing an outline on strengthening poverty reduction cooperation between China and the African Union.

Statistics from the UN revealed that over 767 million people were living below the international poverty line of $1.90 per day in 2013, much lower than the 1.7 billion in 1999.

However, China still faces the cumbersome task of lifting the last 30 million people out of poverty by 2020. Over 800 million people have risen out of poverty in China, and this is a massive achievement and a contribution to global poverty reduction.
In the Philippines, GSK has donated over 255 million albendazole tablets over the last 17 years. This small white tablet is part of the fight to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (LF), a disease transmitted by mosquitoes and burdens identified rural communities in the country.

By the end of the year, GSK projects this donation to reach 261 million albendazole tablets in support of its goal to help eliminate LF in the Philippines by 2020.

Globally, GSK has donated 8 billion tablets of albendazole to help eliminate this disabling disease. This tablet is used in combination with other medicines to help prevent transmission of LF.

Following almost two decades of successful LF elimination efforts by the Philippine Government led by the Department of Health (DOH), the DOH reported that only eight provinces remain endemic for LF out of the 46 earlier established.

During the 1st ASEAN Lymphatic Filariasis Forum 2018 in July which was held in Manila, Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III stressed, the DOH is ready to take the challenge of eliminating filariasis in the country by being more responsive through the DOHs revitalized agenda of Fourmula 1 Plus for Health.1 Fourmula 1 Plus for Health is a DOH strategy focusing of health financing, health service delivery network, health regulation, governance in health and performance accountability.

To ensure the success against lymphatic filariasis, Duque devised a Formula E approach which is for Engagement and Everybody. Engagement is where government needs to share its resources and expertise with other stakeholders including local governments, and Everybody is where the whole of government or the whole-of-society approach should be adapted by leaders to ensure that all interventions are aligned and inter-connected, the DOH reported.1

LF, a parasitic infection spread by mosquitoes, is found in the tropical and sub-tropical areas of Africa, Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East and the Americas.2 LF is one of the worlds leading causes of disability.3 Symptoms can include chronic swelling of the legs, arms and male genitals. People with LF are also less able to resist common skin infections, resulting in a cruel cycle of fevers and painful swellings. In its severest form, LF leads to elephantiasis, a crippling condition in which the limbs are swollen with marked thickening of the skin and underlying tissues.4

The World Health Organization estimates that 856 million people in 52 countries are living in areas where LF is transmitted and are at risk of being infected.4

In the Philippines, it was reported in year 2000 that over 25 million people live in LF-endemic areas.5

At the turn of the millennium, the World Health Organization launched its global program to eliminate LF with the aim of defeating the disease as a global health problem by 2020. GSK and partners helped build a global alliance including organizations from across the non-profit and private sector to get behind the WHOs campaign. GSKs albendazole donation through the WHO forms part of this global effort.

GSK Philippines General Manager, Sriram Jambunathan, commented, The Philippine Government, through the DOH, is to be commended for its achievement in the elimination of LF in many provinces in the last two decades. This is a testament to the commitment and dedication of the government at the national and local government units, especially the health workers delivering treatments on the ground. We, in GSK, remain committed to playing our part with the global donation of albendazole for as long as it is needed to replicate this success throughout the remaining eight endemic provinces, freeing Filipino communities from the burden of LF.

This year, GSK commemorates its 50th year in the Philippines and commits to continue helping Filipinos do more, feel better, live longer.

For questions, please consult your doctor or community health officials.

Reference:

1 Department of Health (Philippines) official Facebook page. Published 12 July 2018. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialDOHgov/posts/1st-asean-lymphatic-filariasis-forum/2058498820828026/. Accessed 14 August 2018

2 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2018. Lymphatic Filariasis  Epidemiology and Risk Factors. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/lymphaticfilariasis/epi. Accessed June 2018

3 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2018. Parasites  Lymphatic Filariasis. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/lymphaticfilariasis/epi.html Accessed June 2018

4 World Health Organization. 2018. Lymphatic Filariasis Factsheet. Available at: http://www. who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/lymphatic-filariasis. Accessed June 2018

5 Kron M, Walker E, Hernandez L, Torres E, Libranda-Ramirez B. Parasitol Today. 2000 Aug;16(8):329-33. Lymphatic filariasis in the Philippines.

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Not everyone can get into Princeton, but almost everyone can afford a movie ticket and even Paul Manafort can still access YouTube.

Conservatives have spent the summer of Kanyes MAGA hat using PragerU videos and Dinesh DSouzas latest 0% on Rotten Tomatoes endeavor to make the case that its just a huge coincidence that Republicans are closing 7 of 9 voting places in majority-Black Randolf County, Georgia right now. This is happening at the same time a Democrat is running to be the nations first Black woman governor. So we wanted to talk to someone who isnt buying it, someone with a PhD.

Kevin M. Kruse is a Professor of History at Princeton University and author of numerous books including One Nation Under God and White Flight. And hes spent a fair amount of his summer debunking conservative myths that simultaneously argue that Democrats get too much credit for civil rights and Robert E. Lee gets too much blame for leading an army that killed hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers.

Kruse is no partisan. He has plenty of complaints about the Democratic party but so do most Democrats.

On Twitter hes generally focused making the case for accuracy whether hes discussing Supreme Court nominations in presidential years, the parallels between today and the rise of the second Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s or the parties switch when it came to civil rights.

We wanted to talk to Professor Kruse because you pretty much cant use Twitter without wishing you could step into his office hours. But we also wanted to make the case, as William Faulkner said, The past is never dead. Its not even past.

Kevin M. Kruse on Twitter: @KevinMKruse

Kevin M. Kruses website: KevinMKruse.com

Buy Kevins books White Flight : Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism and One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America.

The Good People are starting to get it about education

Dan Kaufman at The New Yorker: Why Education May Be the Issue That Breaks Republicans Decade-Long

Mitchell Robinson at Eclectablog: Please stop with the heartwarming teacher stories: this is no way to treat professionals

The Bad  Weve never seen anything like what Trump is pulling off in front of our eyes. Democratic campaign after Democratic campaign is being hacked.

Joel Schectman & Christopher Bing at Reuters: FBI probing cyber attack on congressional campaign in California  sources

The Shrugly \_()_/  What to focus on when Trump is throwing chaff to distract us?

Quinta Jurecic at The New York Times: What to Care About When Everything Is Terrible

Progressives Everywheres Candidate of the Week (via @JordanZakarin): New York state progressives!

Make a donation to support New York state progressives HERE.

The show notes for Episode 9 of The GOTMFV Show are at http://www.eclectablog.com/2018/08/a-george-wallace-rally-looked-a-lot-like-a-trump-rally-wsg-historian-kevin-kruse-and-educator-mitchell-robinson.html

Give us a five-star review at iTunes!

The GOTMFV Show Facebook page is HERE!

Music clips

Intro and transition music: You Dress Like an Asshole by Not The 1s

Progressives Everywhere intro/outro: Theyre Everywhere by Jims Big Ego

Flint Water Crisis Update intro: Unclaimed by Mike Wagner/Total Strangers

Outro music: Complain (from the movie Bob Roberts) by David Robbins & Tim Robbins
El Salvadors president, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, announced in a nationally televised speech that his government had broken off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and instead established ties with China. Sanchez Ceren said the central American country, which built ties with the Republic of China government in 1933, would see great benefits and extraordinary opportunities in the new relationship with Beijing.... Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told reporters earlier that Taipei was not willing to engage in money competition with its giant neighbor. He said El Salvador had been continuously asking for massive funding support since last year for a port development, but Taiwan was unable to assist with the unsuitable project after assessment.

There was no immediate announcement of Chinese financial investment in the port from the Salvadoran government.





This morning Norman Quijano, ARENA leader and president of the National Assembly, tweeted that the rupture of diplomatic ties with Taiwan was the worst decision of a Salvadoran government. He pointed to a suspension of aid from Taiwan as well as potential damage to relations with the US as negative consequences of the decision.





US Ambassador to El Salvador Jean Manes tweeted that El Salvador's decision was "worrying for many reasons" and "without a doubt" would impact the US relationship with the government of El Salvador. (Apparently the fact that the US has full diplomatic relations with China does not factor into which friends the US allows small Latin American countries to have).





Taiwan has been a significant benefactor to El Salvador since the end of the civil war, and Taiwanese business interests operate many maquila factories in the garment industry in the country. While the diplomatic move could be partly explained by the socialist FMLN government preferring the communist government of mainland China, my guess is that China simply outbid Taiwan.

The government of El Salvador made a surprise announcement yesterday that it was establishing diplomatic relations with the Peoples Republic of China and severing its ties with Taiwan. From Reuters
The president later visited a Naval Forces repair workshops and inspected work at the new port of Ras El-Tin

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi performed Eid Al-Adha prayers on Tuesday at the Mohamed Korayim mosque in Alexandria, Spokesperson for the Egyptian President Bassam Rady said in a statement.

El-Sisi was accompanied during the prayers by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel-Aal and top military leaders.

Egyptian Muslims celebrated the first day of the annual four-day Eid Al-Adha holiday, which coincides with the start of the pilgrimage to Mecca, on Tuesday with prayers and animal sacrifices.

Following Eid prayers, El-Sisi visited an Egyptian Naval Forces' repair workshops along with top ranking naval and military officers.

El-Sisi has also inspected construction at the new port at Raas El-Tin in western Alexandria with a total length of 1500 metres.

The port project is being carried out by the naval forces.

On Monday, El-Sisi extended his greetings to the nation in a tweet.

"We thank Allah for these blessed days, and we call upon him to grant us with security, well-being and blessing," the tweet read.

Eid Al-Adha marks the Prophet Abrahams willingness to sacrifice his own son as an act of obedience to God.

The celebration is traditionally marked by the slaughter of animals, such as sheep, cows and goats.

The meat is then shared between family members and donated to the poor.

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Kurban Bayram, Eid al-Adha or the Feast of Sacrifice, which occurs 70 days after the end of Ramazan, is a spectacular day of slaughter and feasting throughout the Muslim world.

Eid al-Adha, which marks the end of the hajj and the second most important religious festivity after Eid al-Fitr, was planned to officially start on July 20 and end on July 23.

But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on July 12 that there would be a holiday on July 19, which is Monday, making it a nine-day public holiday, including the two weekends.

Millions of people are expected to hit the roads to flock to Turkeys coastal provinces or their hometowns for the nine-day public holiday.

Wearing a mask, following social distance rules and hygiene guidelines are critical things to adhere to throughout the holiday.

Government offices, post offices, banks and some supermarkets will be closed during the holiday.

What is the Feast of Sacrifice?

The Feast of Sacrifice is one of the oldest Islamic holidays in Turkey. It commemorates the story (which appears in both the Koran and the Bible) of Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) who showed obedience to God by agreeing to sacrifice his son. Once God (Allah) saw his faith he spared the boy and sent him a ram to be sacrificed instead.

Abraham ready to sacrifice his son

What do people do?

Traditionally, on the first day of the Feast, men of each family go to a mosque for a special morning prayer. Then the sacrifice ritual begins. Male, healthy, robust animals are preferred, not only because theyre bigger but also because it is considered great misfortune to kill a pregnant beast.

Male, healthy, robust animals are preferred. Photo by Lyn Ward.

A halal prayer is recited before the animal is slaughtered and the atmosphere is solemn and respectful.

Families share about two-thirds of the animals meat with relatives and neighbours, and they traditionally give about one-third to the poor. This is one of the most important aspects of Kurban Bayram and many poor families rely upon Kurban charity.

The first meal with the Kurban meat is cooked quickly and simply and eaten reverently.

Kurban Bayram  The first meat is cooked quickly and eaten reverently

In recent years, some Turkish people started making donations to charitable organizations instead of sacrificing animals. Many people in Turkey take special care to help the poor during the Sacrifice Feast.

People usually wear their best clothes during the Sacrifice Feast. They welcome guests to their homes or visit relatives or friends during the holiday. Many people in Turkey reserve the first day of the feast for visiting their closest relatives. Young people greet their older relatives and neighbours by kissing their hand as a sign of respect.

If you find yourself in Turkey during Kurban Bayram, the chances are that you will not actually see the sacrifice of animals unless you head off to the rural areas.

How do I wish someone a happy Eid al-Adha?

Much like other religious celebrations, it is customary to send messages and well wishes to family and friends during Eid al-Adha.

To wish someone a happy Eid, you can simply say Eid Mubarak, which means you are wishing them a blessed Eid.

Here are a few other ways you can greet people during Kurban Bayram (Eid al-Adha)

Kurban Bayramnz kutlu olsun  Have a happy Feast of Sacrifice

Kurban Bayramnz mubarek olsun  Have a blessed Feast of Sacrifice

Or the easiest one to remember

Iyi bayramlar  Happy bayram.

How to cook your Kurban meat

Lamb Kavurma is a Turkish national dish of lamb cooked on Kurban Bayram.

Heres an easy recipe for you to make with your Kurban meat.

Roasted Lamb (Kurban Kavurma)

Lamb Kavurma -a Turkish national dish of lamb cooked on Kurban Bayram.

Ingredients

Serves 10

2kg lamb chunks

3 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon thyme

Method

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the meat and cook over a medium heat until sizzling. Cover and simmer gently until the meat is cooked (approximately one hour). Turn the meat over occasionally with a wooden spoon.

Add the salt, pepper and thyme and cook for a further 15 minutes

Serve the hot kavurma with a side dish of rice, bulgur salad or vegetables.

Afiyet olsun

The team at Fethiye Times would like to wish you all:

Kurban Bayramnz mubarek olsun

Sources: Hurriyet Daily News/World Food Turkey
SALT LAKE CITY  Alpha Warranty Services was honored for the second consecutive year as one of Utahs 50 fastest-growing businesses, ranking No. 31 statewide.

The Utah Business Fast 50 is an annual event that celebrates the fastest-growing companies in the state for their entrepreneurial spirit, innovative business strategy, and revenue growth. The 11th annual event was hosted by Utah Business Magazine at the Grand America in downtown Salt Lake City.

Were honored to be consistently ranked among the fastest growing companies in Utah, said Jeremy Lindsey, Alpha Warranty Services COO. Our teams commitment to industry-best service has been a primary reason for our growth. Were proud to be a leader for growth and innovation in our industry and local community.
Egypt released 2,376 prisoners, including 627 debt defaulters, by a presidential pardon decree on Tuesday, the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday, according to a statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Interior.

The decree comes weeks after President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi launched the initiative "Prisons Without Debt Defaulters", which aims to help some of the many people - disproportianetly women - who have been imprisoned because they failed to repay loans borrowed for family expenses.

According to Article 376 of the penal code, individuals who default on loan payments may face up to three years in jail.

The law states that debt defaulters could be released from prison if their debts are paid for them or if the creditor forgives the debt.

The Tahya Misr Fund, a fund established by President El-Sisi in 2014 to support social and economic projects, along with other civil society organizations have settled the debt for the released prisoners, according to the statement.

"In accordance with Decree No. 391/2018 and in celebration of Eid al-Adha, the prisons sector [at the ministry] formed committees to examine the files of inmates in order to determine who is eligible for a pardon," the Ministry of Interior statement read.

The high commission of the prisons sector concluded that 1,088 inmates were eligible for a full pardon.

The commission also reviewed the cases of 661 other prisoners who are eligible for conditional release.

Article 155 of the Egyptian constitution stipulates that the president has the power to issue pardons or to mitigate final sentences after consulting with his cabinet.

The last pardon was issued in July 2018 ahead of Eid Al-Fitr, when El-Sisi issued a decree pardoning 712 prisoners.

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(ASX:GNX)

Hello I'm Rachel Jones for the Finance News Network. Joining me today from Genex Power is Executive Director, Simon Kidston. Simon, welcome back.Thank you very much.First up, Simon, can you tell us about the Kidston Energy Hub that Genex is developing?Yeah, so Genex Power is focused on renewable energy generation and energy storage. What we're developing is the Holy Grail of renewables. We're integrating a solar resource, a pumped storage hydro project which is like a giant water battery with a wind farm. The combination of those three technologies enables us to deliver 24/7 base-load of renewable energy. This project is unique globally and is being developed here in Queensland, Australia.Thanks, Simon. Now tell us about your K1 that's been selling power into the grid since December. How is that going?Our Stage One solar farm was constructed last year. It was built on time and under budget. Since December, we've been generating strong cash flows by selling electricity into the Queensland electricity market and one of the great things about this project is that it benefits from a 20-year Queensland government revenue guarantee. So provided the sun shines in Queensland, our project generates a strong cash flows backed by the Queensland government contract.Excellent and now to your flagship project, the K2, the pumped hydro and the larger solar farm. What can you tell us about the financing there?This is a really strategic asset in the context of the east coast Australian energy markets. The pumped storage hydro project has completed feasibility. It's a shovel ready project and we intent to finalize our funding this calendar year and get into construction next year.What can you tell me about the construction?We're ready to commence construction next year. The project is shovel ready and in many ways our pumped storage hydro project acts as a giant water battery. What happens is when the sun's shining, we use the energy from our current located solar farm to pump the water from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir. That water can be released and generate electricity and dispatch the energy into the electricity grid. By doing that, we can sell electricity at peak times and maximize the revenues for the project and returns for our shareholders.How about the economics for that?The economics should be very, very attractive. One of the great things about these infrastructure projects is their long life assets. They're capable of generating very, very stable returns over a period of up to a hundred years.Now to your finances and the share price, how is the business tracking?The share price has been performing nicely this year. We've been very much focused on hitting milestones and as we do so we de-risk our project and that is being reflected in a steady appreciation in our share price. We've got some major milestones coming up before the end of this calendar year so we think the journey's only just begun with some upside potential for investors.Simon there's been a lot of recent development on the National Energy Guarantee Policy. What impacts will this have for Genex and how does it affect the Kidston Stage Two hydro and solar farm?The government's very focused on energy security and energy reliability. The issue with wind farms and solar farms is they don't generate when the winds stop blowing or the sun stops shining. What's critical to the stable functioning of the grid is an efficient form of energy storage. Our pumped storage hydro project is a giant water battery. We can charge that battery with our solar farm by pumping the water from the lower to the upper reservoir. We can then release that energy by generating power into times of peak of demand.Our pump storage hydro project, it's shovel ready and it's ideally suited to comply with the new government policy of the National Energy Guarantee.Excellent and last question now Simon, what can investors expect in terms of newsflow?We have some major upcoming milestones which we're focused on delivering by the end of this calendar year. First and foremost is the finalisation of our energy off-take discussions. We expect to finalise our funding discussions this year and that will put us in a perfect position to commence construction next year. By realizing that and by hitting those milestones, we will unlock the value and the potential of this very strategic asset which we've developed over the last three years. I'd suggest now's a very, very exciting time to join the Genex story and consider investing in the company.Excellent. Simon Kidston, thanks for the update.Thank you very much. Thank you, Rachael.
Dysis Medical Ltd, an Edinburgh, Scotland, UK-based developer of a colposcope used in cervical cancer screening, completed an 18m ($25m) funding round.

Lundbeckfonden Ventures made the investment.

The company is using the funds to continue expansion in the US, UK and other key territories, in addition to advancing strategic R&D programs.

Led by CEO Alastair Atkinson, DYSIS provides the DYSIS colposcope uses patented optical and software techniques to scan a patients cervix, quantify the results and present them to a clinician in the form of an intuitive colour-coded map (DYSISmap).

Within the past year, the company launched the latest generation device (DYSIS Ultra), published updated guidance recommending the adoption of Dysis by the NHS, and the US clinical data.

Dysis has its Headquarters in Edinburgh, UK and US offices in Tampa, FL.

FinSMEs

21/08/2018
TomboyX, a Seattle, WA-based gender-neutral underwear brand, raised $4.3m in Series A funding.

The round, which brought total investments in the company to $6.3M, was led by TAU with participation from Redbadge Pacific and SBI Investments Korea. In conjunction with the funding, Pauline Brown, a senior adviser to TAU and former chairman of North American for the LVMH Group, joined TomboyX board of directors.

The company intends to use the funds to expand its product offerings, elevate brand awareness and support a strategic buildout of the operation and organization.

Co-founded by Fran Dunaway and Naomi Gonzalez, TomboyX is a gender-neutral underwear brand dedicated to a diverse loyal customer base, including plus-sized, gender non-conforming and specialized tradespeople, who are typically excluded from mainstream media.

Size inclusive, the brand offers a full range of styles, from a newly introduced dri release thong to a 9 boxer brief.

The company also announced that Pauline Brown, the former Chairman of North America for the LVMH Group (and a Senior Advisor to TAU), has joined TomboyXs Board of Directors.

FinSMEs

21/08/2018
Rotageek, a London, UK-based workforce management software company, raised 4m in funding.

The round was led by Mobeus Equity Partners, which committed 2m.

The company intends to use the funds to continue to develop its data-driven solutions, and recruit experienced specialists in development and customer service.

Led by Chris McCullough, CEO, Rotageek provides cloud-based, data-driven scheduling technology for multi-site businesses to predict customer demand, schedule staff and improve operational efficiency.

The company serves leading brands, including high street names like The Perfume Shop, Dune, Pets at Home and O2.

Following the deal, the board will appoint Stuart Dawson, who will join as non-executive chairman. He has a track record of scaling fast growing software businesses and was previously Managing Director-ABS Division of IRIS Software. Greg Blin, who led the deal for Mobeus, will also join the board.

FinSMEs

21/08/2018
Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El-Molla discussed with John J. Christmann, the chief executive officer and president of the US Apache Corporation, means to expand the company's exploration activities in Egypt.

During the meeting, El-Molla also discussed with Christmann future investment plans of the company in the oil exploration to achieve more finds in order to increase Egypt's oil and gas output and reserves, a statement issued by the Ministry of Petroleum on Tuesday read.

Christmann said his company's planned investments are expected to reach $1 billion annually, a matter he said reflects Egypt's importance for the company, adding that plans are under way to clinch more tenders in the light of the expected discoveries in the country.

He expressed hope for forming a joint work team to prepare a five-year plan to explore for oil and increase the company's investments in the oil and gas domains in Egypt.

The Apache CEO also pointed out that a plan is being outlined to start work in the new concession area "Sharq Bahariya" in the Western Desert after the signing of an agreement in this respect last month.

He praised the economic achievements made in Egypt during the past three years especially in the oil sector, saying Egypt is on the right track and that its bold rdecisions would bring more investments to the country.

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The Taliban plans to take part in Afghanistan peace talks in Moscow on Sept. 4, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency on Tuesday.

Lavrov's ministry said in a statement that Russia had invited 12 countries, including the United States, to international talks, which come as Moscow is taking a more prominent role on Afghanistan.

Moscow supported an Afghan government offer of a three-month ceasefire, and regretted that the Taliban rejected the offer on Monday, the ministry said.

Foreign Ministry official Zamir Kabulov was cited by Interfax on Monday as saying Moscow had invited the Taliban, which is banned in Russia and considered a terrorist organisation.

Abdul Kayum Kuchai, Afghanistan's ambassador in Moscow, welcomed the Taliban's involvement in the talks, the RIA news agency reported.

Russia conducted international talks on Afghanistan in April last year, but the United States did not attend, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

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Enhancing immune health has become a growing priority for consumers across the globe, and as many as six in ten consumers say that they have become more conscious about... Read More
With most of music industry's top acts absent  from Beyonce to Childish Gambino  the MTV Video Music Awards lacked star power and felt flat, leaving it up to Jennifer Lopez to liven up the show.

A surprising moment came when unlikely candidate Camila Cabello beat out Drake, Mars, Cardi B, Ariana Grande and Post Malone for artist of the year, the night's top honor.

"I can't believe this is for me," Cabello said Monday onstage.

Another surprise was when Lopez, Cardi B and DJ Khaled won best collaboration for "Dinero"  a song that has peaked at No. 80 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart  besting the record-setting hit "Meant to Be," by Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line, and Mars and Cardi B's anthemic "Finesse" remix.

The show, at Radio City Music Hall in New York, lacked oomph with its performances, too: Grande, backed by several female dancers, was a bore during "God Is a Woman," but added some excitement when she was joined by her mother, grandmother and cousin onstage at the end of the performance. Travis Scott, whose album is No. 1 for a second week, had strong energy while onstage, but the performance felt like it belonged more to singer James Blake, who is featured on Scott's album and performed just as long as Scott during the segment.

Scott closed with kind words: "Rest in peace the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin." But nothing was worse than Madonna's self-indulgent tribute to Aretha Franklin who died last week.

Madonna spent her most of her alotted time speaking about herself before attempting to connect her life story to Franklin.

Lopez, who earned the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for lifetime achievement, provided the night's most energetic performance. She started off slow  Kylie Jenner and Scott's unamused faces perfectly captured the vibe  but she hit a strong stride when she sang old smashes like "Jenny from the Block," ''I'm Real"  where Ja Rule joined her onstage  and "All I Have," which showed the skilled dancer's vocal range.

But Lopez's speech was more stirring than her fun performance: She was emotional as she thanked her children and beau Alex Rodriguez onstage at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

She was teary-eyed and looked at her "two little angels," as she called them, and said, "I stand here stronger and better than ever ... so thank you Max and Emme." She called Rodriguez, who filmed her performance with his phone, "my twin soul."

"My life is sweeter and better with you in it," she said.

While Lopez's speech went for the heart, Cardi B aimed for jokes. The rapper, in her well-known silly demeanor, "opened" the show  not with a performance, but with cute jokes. The new mom was onstage pretending to hold a baby, but she then revealed to the audience that it was actually a Moonman, which she won earlier in the night for song of the summer for her No. 1 hit, "I Like It," with Bad Bunny and J Balvin.

Cardi B, who gave birth last month, also won best new artist and said people told her she was "gambling your career" when she decided to become a mother.

"I had the baby, I carried the baby and now I'm still winning awards," she said.

She also seemed to take aim at Nicki Minaj, who while promoting her new album last week said other musicians have hired fans to listen to their music.

Cardi said she's been blessed with fans "that you can't buy," looking into the camera and shouting an expletive.

Cardi B was the top contender of the night with 10 nominations.

Nicki Minaj won the first televised award  best hip hop  and checked comedian Tiffany Haddish for dissing girl group Fifth Harmony, now on hiatus.

After congratulating ex-Fifth Harmony member Cabello on her five nominations, presenter Haddish said sarcastically, "Hi Fifth Harmony." When Minaj accepted an award moments later, she looked to Haddish and said, "Don't be coming for Fifth Harmony because Normani is that (chick)." Normani currently has her first hit apart from the group with the Khalid-assisted "Love Lies."

Minaj, who has been a trending topic this week after she madly tweeted about why her new album debuted at No. 2 behind Travis Scott, also provided the first bleeped moment of the night when she told the audience to listen to her Apple Music radio show this week to hear "who the (expletive) of the day award is going to."

There was a political moment when Logic was joined onstage by young immigrants wearing T-shirts that read, "We are all human beings," to protest the Trump administration's separation of migrant children from their parents after they illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. The rapper, best known for the suicide prevention anthem "1-800-273-8255," wore a T-shirt that read, "(Expletive) the wall."

Grande won best pop video and thanked her fiance Pete Davidson "for existing."

As for the top nominees, Beyonce and Jay-Z were behind Cardi B with eight bids for "Apesh--t," filmed at the Louvre museum in Paris. Gambino's "This Is America," which tackles racism and gun violence, earned him seven nominations, while Drake, who gave away $1 million to Miami residents in his "God's Plan" clip, scored seven nods.

Avicii, who died in April, won for best dance for "Lonely Together" alongside Rita Ora.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Actress Asia Argento reportedly denied sexual assault allegations levied against her and said that her late boyfriend Anthony Bourdain paid her accuser Jimmy Bennett because the then-couple considered him dangerous after he asked for financial assistance.

I strongly deny and oppose the contents of the New York Times article dated 20 August 2018, as circulated also in national and international news, Argento said in a statement given to reporter Yashar Ali. I am deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false. I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett.

On Sunday, The New York Times published an article claiming that Argento was accused by child star Bennett of setting up a sexual encounter with him in California when he was 17  below the age of consent in that state  and she was 37.

Argento  one of the first prominent women to accuse disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault  went on to say she was linked to Bennett by friendship only which ended when he made an exorbitant request of money amid financial problems. Argento said her then boyfriend, CNN star Bourdain, decided to pay Bennett.

Antony [sic] insisted the matter be handled privately and this was also what Bennett wanted. Anthony was afraid of the possible negative publicity that such person, whom he considered dangerous, could have brought up on us, she said. We decided to deal compassionately with Bennetts demand for help and give it to him. Anthony personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life.

Argento said she opposes false allegations made against her and the long-standing persecution brings her great sadness.

Argento did not immediately return Fox News' requests for comment.

The Times obtained documents sent between lawyers for Argento and Bennett that laid out a payment schedule. The paper also obtained a photograph dated May 9, 2013 that showed the two lying in a bed together.

On that date, according to a notice of intent to sue document sent to Argento's then-lawyer in November, Argento met the actor at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Marina del Rey, Calif. After giving him alcohol, Argento kissed him and performed oral sex on him before the two had sexual intercourse, the report said.

The notice of intent asked for $3.5 million in damages. The Times reported that the final agreement was reached in April of this year.

Bourdain was found dead by suicide on June 8.

Bennett's attorney and representative did not immediately responded to Fox News' requests for comment.

Fox News Samuel Chamberlain and Tyler McCarthy contributed to this report.
CNN political analyst April Ryan has floated a bizarre theory that Omarosa Manigault Newman pushed the rumor that President Trump used the N-word to take attention away from Aretha Franklin's failing health.

Franklin -- the "Queen of Soul" -- died last Thursday of advanced pancreatic cancer after days of reports that her health was rapidly declining. During roughly the same time period, former White House aide Omarosa pushed a story that President Trump has used the N-word in the past.

"She did it because Aretha Franklin didn't want her at her birthday party," Ryan told The Hollywood Reporter.

While Omarosas claims dominated the news cycle, Franklin's health and subsequent death still received plenty of coverage  but Ryan said that the former Apprentice contestant purposely helped control the narrative.

"That's how vindictive Omarosa is," Ryan said.

Ryan and Manigault Newman have a long-running feud and both have been making the rounds to promote books in recent weeks. Ryan recently said Omarosa, whom she used to consider a friend, stabbed her in the back and attempted to end her career. The CNN star also told THR why she thinks her former friends book is selling so many copies.

"People still don't like her, but they're willing to sit back and eat the popcorn and watch them shoot at each other, Donald Trump and Omarosa shoot at each other, Ryan said. We don't trust her. She has done a lot of dirt, and people don't forget.

Ryan then told the Hollywood trade publication that Omarosa said that she'd never be poor again before suggesting the book is her cash cow.

If this is her way to be big and grand so she won't be poor, so be it. She'll throw anybody under the bus to get a dollar, and to have herself shine. So, more power to her, Ryan told the magazine. People will be around for the spectacle, and she is providing a spectacle.

While Ryans theory about Omarosa attempting to steal Franklins spotlight is probably the most peculiar part of her interview, she also suggested that Press Secretary Sarah Sanders would ditch her job in the near future and should pay for her own security.

I hear she's looking for an elegant exit. So, I hear it's almost over, Ryan told the magazine about Sanders.

The CNN star said she needs security because of threats shes received while covering the White House.

Do I have a bodyguard? Yes, I do. Am I paying for it? Yes, I am. And, I think [Sanders] should have to pay for it, especially if she's stirring it up with her boss, Ryan said.

Manigault Newman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Disney Channel star came out as gay by way of an emotional post on Instagram about his upcoming movie, Reach.

Garrett Clayton, who starred in the Disney Channels Teen Beach Movie as well as NBCs Hairspray: Live took to the social media platform on Monday to discuss his role in Reach and why he felt it was an important film for him to be a part of. In his explanation, he almost offhandedly revealed for the first time that hes in a long term relationship with a man.

When I read the script for REACH, I immediately knew it was a film I had to be a part of. I have personally dealt with suicide within my own family, intense bullying in high school, and - on top of it all - myself and the man Ive been in a relationship with for a long time (@hrhblakeknight) have both experienced shootings within our hometown school systems, and have witnessed the heartache that takes place in affected communities after such tragic events, the 27-year-old star wrote.

According to Deadline, Reach is a dramedy that follows a socially awkward genius who plans to kill himself after years of being picked on by a bully. However, things change when he befriends a new student at his school.

Clayton went on to explain that he hoped the themes tackled in this movie will allow him to provide some guidance for those that may be experiencing something similar without being able to put words to it.
Donald Trump Jr. mocked Left-wing comedian Michelle Wolf on Monday on the heels of Netflix canceling her show that attacked his family on a regular basis with vulgar jokes.

The Break with Michelle Wolf debuted back in May and Wolf said that people who didnt like her controversial performance at White House Correspondents Dinner would hate her Netflix series. Upon news that it was canceled after only a few months, Trump Jr. quoted her and added: Well, seeing as shes off the air already I guess she #nailedit.

Wolf grabbed headlines in late April due to the jokes she made during the Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C. The jabs she made during the event, aimed at President Trump and several members of his administration, reportedly caused some attendees to sit in silence while others left.

Trump was not present at the event and the administration was instead represented by White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders. The jokes aimed at Sanders prompted many to call out Wolf for attacks on Sanders' job performance, appearance and even her Southern roots.

"I actually really like Sarah. I think shes very resourceful," Wolf said. "She burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Maybe shes born with it, maybe its lies. Its probably lies."

"I'm never really sure what to call Sarah Huckabee Sanders," the comedian continued. "Is it Sarah Sanders? Is it Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Is it Cousin Huckabee? Is it Auntie Huckabee Sanders? Like, what's Uncle Tom but for white women who disappoint other white women?"

Sanders grimaced at the joke, but remained at her seat as she endured the attack.

During the run of her now-canceled show, Wolf took aim at first daughter Ivanka in another series of crude jokes.

The anti-Trump comedian has also referred to Eric Trump as an abortion, compared ICE to ISIS and even joked that the president abused Melania Trump.

Fox News Elizabeth Zwirz contributed to this report.
Investors are looking forward to the announcement of the winning company for the tender to construct a 250 MW wind-power plant in the Gulf of Suez.

The company that will execute the project will be selected from a short list of three including the German energy giant Siemens, the Danish Vestas Wind Systems Company, and Senvion, a wind-turbine manufacturer founded in Germany in 2001.

The financing for the project will be provided by the German Development Bank, the French Development Agency and the European Investment Bank.

The government is targeting the development of renewable energy projects in Egypt so that renewable energy will constitute 20 per cent of the countrys energy mix by 2020, according to the energy strategy approved by the cabinet and the Supreme Energy Council in October 2016.

According to Ihab Ismail, deputy chairman for technical affairs of the New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA), many projects are now underway to generate electricity from wind and solar energy.

Installed wind-power projects now total 970 MW, he said, adding the most of these were financed by international development partners from Germany, Spain and Japan.

A 220 MW wind plant at Gabal Al-Zeit was recently inaugurated by President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi.

The cabinet has recently approved the establishment of another wind-power project with a total capacity of 500 MW in the Gulf of Suez at an estimated cost of $740 million.

Ismail stressed that most of the wind-power projects under construction have been financed by soft loans. The NREA is the owner of these projects and is responsible for paying back the loans.

The projects have a capacity of nearly 300 MW, including one representing an expansion of the Gabal Al-Zeit plant. It is expected that it will be ready for testing in October.

The Spanish government also provided the loan for the construction of the 120 MW wind plant at Gabal Al-Zeit that was recently completed and will begin operations in September.

Another wind-power plant currently under construction is being built by a consortium of Orascom and the Japanese company Toyota.

The project is funded by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation with a total investment of $380 million.

Wind-power projects offer employment opportunities for people from the governorates where they are built, said Hala Al-Khouli, director of wind energy at the NREA.

She said that 30 per cent of wind turbines are locally manufactured and the bases, masts, cables and transformers used are also made in Egypt by Egyptian companies, though using imported materials.

The turbine blades and generators are imported from foreign contractors.

The wind-power projects are being carried out by private-sector companies on a build, own and operate basis (BOO) or as independent producer projects (IPP) in which the company concerned contracts to sell the electricity produced at a predetermined price.

According to Al-Khouli, most of the projects have been established in Gabal Al-Zeit and the Gulf of Suez because of the high wind speeds that make wind farms in these areas economically feasible.

Wind energy plants need to be developed in other areas east and west of the River Nile, so that Egypt can achieve 12 per cent of wind energy in its energy mix by 2020, she said.

She added that electricity produced from wind under the feed-in tariff programme has not been as attractive to investors as solar power, which has attracted 32 companies to build the countrys largest solar complex operating on photovoltaic technology in Benban in Aswan in Upper Egypt.

Among these companies is Infinity Solar, which has completed the construction of a 50 MW photovoltaic plant. The company has been providing electricity to the national electricity grid since February.

The FAS Company is also building a solar-power plant with a capacity of 50 MW in Benban that is expected to start operating in October. Both companies were beneficiaries of the first phase of the feed-in tariff programme.

Another 30 companies plan to contribute to projects producing 1,365 MW in the second phase of the feed-in tariff programme.

These projects are expected to be completed in the first half of 2019, and when completed the Benban area will host around 1,800 MW of solar-power projects, making it the worlds largest solar-power plant.

There are scattered smaller photovoltaic stations with a total capacity of 30 KW in Siwa, Farafra, Darb Al-Arbain, Abu Menqar, Marsa Alam, Halayeb, Shalatin and Abu Ramad, said Mohamed Al-Khayat, chair of the NREA. They were financed by grants from the United Arab Emirates.

There are also other small stations across the country with total capacities not exceeding 80 KW, including those built on the roofs of buildings to pump water and provide electricity to remote areas.

*The writer is a freelance journalist.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 16 August 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Renewables attract investment

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Boyle, Danny Boyle, wont be directing the new James Bond movie.

An official James Bond Twitter account made the announcement on Twitter Thursday, saying the English filmmaker chose to opt out due to creative differences.

The upcoming spy flick, currently dubbed Bond 25, was supposed to kick off production in December, according to the Hollywood Reporter, with Oct. 25, 2019, and Nov. 8, 2019 release dates lined up for the U.K. and U.S., respectively.

Boyle previously directed star Daniel Craig as Bond in a 007-themed segment for the opening of the 2012 London Olympics.

CHER REVEALS JACK NICHOLSON THOUGHT SHE WAS 'TOO OLD,' 'NOT SEXY' ENOUGH TO STAR IN 'WITCHES OF EASTWICK'

Craig is set to reprise his role in the new movie after playing the MI6 agent in the 2006 film Casino Royale, as well as the 2008 follow-up Quantum of Solace, the 2012 movie Skyfall and the 2015 release Spectre.

Martin Campbell directed Casino Royale, with Marc Forster helming Quantum of Solace. Sam Mendes was in charge of the other two.

Confirmation of Craig's fifth Bond film followed speculation the 50-year-old actor was about to hand in his license to kill.

He said in 2015 he would rather slash [his] wrists than return to the role  but later backtracked on those remarks, which he made just after finishing filming Spectre.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The kids are all right.

Comedian-turned-farmer Jon Stewart rescued the two rogue goats caught running around on the N train tracks in Brooklyn on Monday.

The former Daily Show host personally picked up the runaways from the citys Animal Care and Control and took them to the Farm Sanctuary refuge in upstate Watkins Glen, the animal rescue organization said.

Its still unclear exactly where the furry fugitives came from  but they were spotted horsing around between the Fort Hamilton Parkway and New Utrecht stops in Borough Park, before the NYPD knocked them out with tranquilizer darts.

The duo appeared to have come to by the time Stewart showed up to take them to their new home  photos show the animals looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as they were shepherded into his truck.

The billies will be in good company  Stewart previously adopted a bull who escaped from a Queens slaughterhouse and an abused horse found in Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Tracey, are supporters of the Farm Sanctuary and even opened their own location on their farm in New Jersey.

This article originally appeared in Page Six.
Kim Kardashian raised eyebrows over the weekend by dining at fancy Miami restaurant Carpaccio, while her daughter and nanny sat at a separate table.

A spy who posted about it online said #sad.

But sources close to Kardashian tell us that 5-year-old North was lunching sans mom because Kardashian was being followed by a videographer and she didnt want North in the shot, lest the footage end up on TV. (However, North appears frequently on the familys reality show.)

This article originally appeared in the New York Post's Page Six.
Michael Shannon has previously been vocal about how he's not a fan of President Trump, but in a new interview, the actor went on a vulgar, profanity-laden rant against the president.

Speaking to Playboy, the 44-year-old star blasted the president, claiming Trump is not "capable of deep reflection."

"Hes probably thinking 'I want some f---ing p----.' I dont know. Im not going to remotely contemplate the notion that Trump is capable of deep reflection," said the "Shape of Water" star after being asked what he thinks goes through the president's head at night.

He added: "In any form! It doesnt happen. F--- that guy. When hes alone with his thoughts, hes not capable of anything more complex than 'I want some p---- and a cheeseburger. Maybe my wife will b--- me if I tell her shes pretty."

The magazine also asked Shannon if he would ever portray the president, to which he simply replied: "No."

However, when further pressed about the topic, the actor slammed the president, saying Trump doesn't "even know what's in the Constitution."

"He's having the time of his life," Shannon said, per The Hollywood Reporter, as the September/October 2018 issue is not out yet.

"He doesnt even have to work. All the hard work that most people have to do to be president of the United States, he just f---ing skipped all that. The f---ing guy doesnt even know whats in the Constitution. He doesnt have any grasp of history or politics or law or anything. Hes just blindfolded throwing darts at the side of a bus."

Shannon also spoke about Trump supporters.

"Somebody who thinks Trump is doing a good job, there's no conversation to have with that person," Shannon said.

He continued: "I know they say you should reach across the aisle and all that crap, but to me it feels like putting your hand into a fan."
Shaun Weiss is getting the help he needs.

The "Mighty Ducks" star took to Facebook to reveal that he's checked himself into rehab, and it's clear he's maintained his sense of humor. The news comes two weeks after Weiss was arrested for public intoxication in Oroville, California.

"At this time, in an effort to break free from the self destructive patterns of behavior and drug abuse that have landed me at rock bottom, (to be real... BELOW rock bottom. Even rock bottom is like 'holy s--t, how'd you get all the way down there?')," Weiss wrote. "I have checked in to a well regarded, long term rehabilitation center. I have surrendered to the reality that without immediate treatment my life is in imminent danger."

'Mighty Ducks' Star Shaun Weiss Was 'Sober For Weeks' Before Public Intoxication Arrest (Exclusive)

"My spirit was until recently depleted, weak and shrouded by darkness has been renewed by the overwhelming out-pouring of love and support from fans of my early work as an actor. Reaching out to me not only on-line, but in person," he continued. "Everywhere I go, morning, noon and night, folks whom I've never met before approach me with big smiles and hugs, invigorating encouragement, even food. And not junk, the good stuff, grandma's stuffed peppa's."

The actor also thanked fans for their stories about how his past work as an actor has impacted their lives. "Please believe how medicinal these personal exchanges are for me. Even if you think I'm the knuckle-puck guy or the fat kid from "Hook,"" he said. "In the midst of my most challenging times your support is giving me the strength I need to embark down the long road to recovery."

Demi Lovato Temporarily Leaves Rehab for Further Treatment in Another Facility

"Guys, you ARE the wind beneath my wings," he hilariously continued. "(OMG... you went there. A flying V/ Duck reference ON TOP of a throw-back to classic Bette Midler?... you promised you'd be sober when you wrote this...)"

"In closing, I AM going to recover. I'm determined to return to my old self. My mind is set on health and well being," Weiss said.

Weiss' recent arrest wasn't his first brush with the law. In 2017, he was sentenced to 90 days in prison after being arrested on a methamphetamine charge in Burbank, California.

Paris Jackson Claps Back at Claims She's Back in Rehab Following Demi Lovato's Apparent Overdose

That incident followed quickly on the heels of Weiss getting released from jail after stealing $151 worth of merchandise from an electronics store in Los Angeles. He was sentenced to 150 days but was quickly released due to overcrowding.

A source told ET earlier this month, meanwhile, that up until his August arrest, he had been doing "very well." According to the source, Weiss has "been staying with his sister near Sacramento. He was eager to get back to doing comedy shows. He was motivated to make money and work."
A small jet carrying rapper Post Malone has landed safely at New York's Stewart Airport after blowing out two tires during takeoff Tuesday and circling the greater New York City area for nearly four hours.

"i landed guys. thank you for your prayers. can't believe how many people wished death on me on this website. f--- you. but not today," the rapper tweeted.

In a statement to Fox News, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said: "A Gulfstream Aerospace G-IV aircraft landed safely at Stewart International Airport in New Windsor, NY, about 3:50 p.m. today. The aircraft was towed to the ramp." The FAA added that it will be investigating the incident.

TMZ first reported the famed rapper was on board, having spent Monday night at the MTV Video Music Awards, where he took home an award for song of the year for his hit "Rockstar."

The jet carrying 16 people took off from Teterboro Airport near New York City just before 11 a.m. when the pilot reported experiencing trouble.

The Federal Aviation Administration told Fox News the aircraft blew two tires as it took off from runway 24 at Teterboro. The jet was heading to London Luton Airport in Luton, England.

Post Malone was scheduled to perform at the Reading and Leeds Festival in England over the weekend, according to his website's tour schedule.

The pilot was going to make an initial attempt to land back at the airport in New Jersey, and officials prepared for the landing by lining a runway with a fire truck and ambulances, according to Fox 5.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the airport, told Fox News the aircraft then was supposed to be diverted to Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport in Massachusetts. The FAA later told Fox News the plane has been diverted to Stewart Airport, located north of New York City.

Flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed the aircraft making circles across Northern New Jersey before heading off the Connecticut coast near Bridgeport.

The aircraft had 3,700 gallons of fuel to burn, and continued to circle in order to make a safer emergency landing, according to TMZ.

The face-tattooed singer/rapper took home the song of the year award at the MTV Video Music Awards on Monday night in New York for his hit "Rockstar," featuring 21 Savage. The song is from his latest album, "Beerbongs & Bentleys."

The 23-year-old was joined on stage by rockers Aerosmith and 21 Savage for a wild performance that closed out the awards show.

Fox News' Sasha Savitsky, Tamara Gitt and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi actress Kelly Marie Tran is speaking out for the first time after purging her Instagram following a slew of negative and harassing comments from people that disliked her role in the film.

As previously reported, Tran, a Vietnamese-American, faced months of harassment after the movie came out and even had online trolls change her the name of her character, Rose Tico, on the fan-site Wookieepedia to Ching Chong Wing Tong.

Their words reinforced a narrative I had heard my whole life: that I was other, that I didnt belong, that I wasnt good enough, simply because I wasnt like them, Tran wrote in a New York Times opinion article. And that feeling, I realize now, was, and is, shame, a shame for the things that made me different, a shame for the culture from which I came from. And to me, the most disappointing thing was that I felt it at all.

The star continued: Because the same society that taught some people they were heroes, saviors, inheritors of the Manifest Destiny ideal, taught me I existed only in the background of their stories, doing their nails, diagnosing their illnesses, supporting their love interests  and perhaps the most damaging  waiting for them to rescue me. And for a long time, I believed them.

Tran went on to describe how the culture of stereotypes not only affected her acting career but her home life as well. The star noted that she and her parents changed their names to be more easily pronounceable in the U.S.

Tran, who is the first woman of color to have a leading role in a Star Wars film as well as the first Asian woman to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair, has not posted the images she purged earlier this year after receiving such backlash online.

At the time, both The Last Jedi director, Rain Johnson, and co-stars Mark Hamill and John Boyega were among the first to reach out to defend her against the toxic fandom surrounding her character.

My real name is Loan, the star concluded in her op-ed. And I am just getting started.
A Tennessee man decided he found better use for a biscuit when he decided to lunge it at his former girlfriend.

Jeffrey Tomerlin, 45, was arrested Monday after he allegedly threw a biscuit really hard at his ex-girlfriends face, WKRN reported. Tomerlin flew into a rage Sunday night when he spotted his former fling with her new boyfriend in a car in South Nashville.

NAKED MAN BREAKS INTO LIQUOR STORE, ONLY STEALS ONE CAN OF COKE

He reportedly charged at the vehicle and began punching the hood of the car and telling the couple he would kill them. He also yelled racial slurs, according to the report.

Police arrived at the scene where Tomerlin continued to bang his head while sitting inside the police cruiser. He was taken to the hospital before being booked into jail on charges including public intoxication, vandalism and assault.

He is being held on $3,100 bond.

Its unclear the extent of the unidentified womans injuries.
What is left of the rule of the Fatimid Dynasty that built this city back in the 10th century is essentially the buildings where religion was either observed or taught, such as mosques and madrasas [schools] as they would have been practically impossible for any Muslim leader to demolish whatever their political squabbles, said Youssef Osama, a historian and the creator of a website designed to inform readers about the history of Islamic Cairo.

Osama was stepping through Bab Al-Fotouh, one of eight gates in the city walls that Gawhar Al-Siqilli had built to protect the imperial city he had built and to which Fatimid rule was transferred from North Africa.

The Fatimid walls also stayed almost intact with their gates, and in fact they were even strengthened some decades later. Unfortunately, however, almost nothing remains of the houses and palaces of the Fatimids even though they were said to have been very impressive with a great deal of the artworks that the Fatimids are known for, Osama said as he walked down Al-Muizz li-Din Allah Street in Islamic Cairo.

What is left of the Fatimid period are just a few parts of wooden windows and some pottery work on display in the Islamic Arts Museum in Cairo. Historians agree that under the Fatimid Dynasty the crafts reached a very high level, woodwork and pottery in particular.

Throughout the history of the Islamic dynasties, the high level of artisans and crafts was always a sign of flourishing rule. The Fatimids were no exception to this rule, Osama said. He added that since the Fatimid Dynasty was established in Cairo in parallel to the Abbasid Dynasty in Baghdad, the Fatimids tried very hard to excel not just in art but also in the sciences.

Of course, they also acted to expand their rule within the Muslim countries by annexing parts of the east of the Arab world that had previously been under Abbasid rule, he added.

The Abbasid Dynasty was established in the eighth century CE, with Kufa, now in Iraq, as its capital, in the wake of the ouster of the Ummayid Dynasty because of the latters economic failures and obvious social bias. Egypt was under the rule of the Abbasids until it was taken over by the Fatimids in the 10th century.

By that point, and for the first time since it became part of the Islamic Empire, Egypt was the centre of rule and not an annex to a centre elsewhere. I guess this is one of the most significant things that could be attributed to the rule of the Fatimids, Osama said as he walked further along the roads that used to be used by lemon and onion markets and had earlier been a meat market.

With his back to a relatively new Syrian fast-food restaurant, the Syrian Star, Osama stopped before one of the most significant places associated with the Fatimids: the Al-Hakim Mosque. Al-Hakim was the third of the Fatimid rulers, and the mosque that carries his name is at the very far end of Al-Muizz li-Din Allah Street. Al-Aziz, Al-Hakims father, initiated the construction of the mosque, which was outside the Cairo walls.

There was no space big enough inside the walls, and Al-Aziz felt that Al-Azhar was becoming too small to serve as an all-inclusive place for prayer and a school to promote Shia thinking. Later, the mosque was brought inside the walls when these were expanded by Badr Al-Jamali, Osama said.

Al-Jamali was a military commander and one of the ministers of the fifth Fatimid ruler Al-Mustansir.

According to Osama, the Al-Hakim Mosque was the first in Egypt to have a facade made of brick. Its minarets, like those of other Fatimid mosques influenced by the North African style of architecture, have square bases. However, very little is left of the original construction today.

According to the historical narratives, the mosque was neglected after the ouster of the Fatimids by Salaheddin Al-Ayoubi (Saladin), who practically turned it into a prison and in some accounts used it partially as stables.

It was damaged by earthquakes, though also renovated by non-Fatimid rulers, and also later by the Bohras, the ancestors of Indian traders who came to Egypt during Fatimid rule and who followed the Shia sect of the Fatimids.

Today, their presence in Egypt, increasing since the rule of late president Anwar Al-Sadat, is in limited clusters of the city away from Islamic Cairo. However, they continue to frequent the mosques of the Fatimids, especially that of Al-Hakim.

The Bohras, based in India, Pakistan and Yemen, would walk in parades, all dressed in white and chanting in praise of members of the family of the Prophet Mohamed, especially his daughter Fatemah and her husband Ali, two of the most sacred figures for the Shias.

They would smile or nod their heads, but they often do not wish to communicate much. This might be because they see their march towards the mosque as a sort of pilgrimage, or because they do not wish to be seen by the authorities as trying to promote their faith, said Israa, a painter who at times works in this part of the city.

The Bohras are perhaps the most-tolerated Shia presence in Cairo today, as has been the case since Salaheddin orchestrated his coup against the Fatimids in the mediaeval period.

He was a firm defender of the Sunni faith, with Al-Azhar later being at the forefront of the counter-offensive against any possible infiltration by Shiism.

Todays tolerance of the Bohras is based on the fact that they are not Egyptians and their activities do not aim at attracting anyone to their faith.

According to Osama, there is a resemblance between the Bohras pilgrimage towards the Al-Hakim Mosque today and the parades that used to be held by the caliph during religious occasions like the first day of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, the days of the feast, and the days celebrated by Shias like Ashoura, the 10th day of the first month of the Hijra calendar of Moharram, that marks the martyrdom of the grandson of the Prophet Mohamed, Al-Hussein, at the battle of Karbala in Iraq.

For the most part, the parades were jubilees marked by the considerable festivities that the Fatimids brought to Egypt, some of which are still observed today in the celebration of Ramadan and the birthday of the Prophet Mohamed. But other parades related to the martyrdom of members of the family of the Prophet Mohamed, especially Ali and his son Al-Hussein, he added as he stepped into the large courtyard of the Al-Hakim Mosque.

Sunni Practices

Upon his ascent to power, Salaheddin did not ban the colourful festivities that were introduced to Egypt by the Fatimids. Instead, he acted to give a Sunni face to these practices and to redefine the love of the members of the family of the Prophet Mohamed in a way remote from the Shia faith.

I guess this was why he encouraged Sufis to come to Egypt, and at least 300 of them were to find their way to the country, essentially from Iraq. They too would walk to the mosques in their immaculate white clothes, and they would sing songs to the love of God, the prophet, and the members of his family, Osama said.

They were soon to capture the hearts of all Egyptians, and it was only a matter of time before the Sufi schools established a stronghold in Egypt in parallel to the rule of successive Muslim caliphs, he added.

The Sufis association with the countrys rulers has not diminished over the centuries. Even today some leading Sufi figures choose to be closely associated with the powers-that-be, the executive branch of government, for example, seeing this as giving them protection. However, this is not to say that all the followers of the many Sufi orders are in line with the state, Amina, a follower of one of the Sufi orders, said.

Osama said that Salaheddin had acted to replace the parades of martyrdom associated with the Fatimids with days of joy.

One obvious example would be the Ashoura celebrations. Salaheddin decided that this would be a day when a sweet pudding made of grains and pistachio paste would be served, he said.

The historical accounts of the celebrations of Ashoura vary, but for the most part they seem to relate to the belief of Sunni Muslims that it was on that day that God reached out to help his prophets in distress.

Whether it was the heritage of the Fatimids, or of the subsequent Sunni rulers, the art of inshad (singing in the love of God and in praise of the prophet and his family) found its way to Egypt and had been associated with legendary names like Sayed Al-Nakshabandi and Yassine Al-Tohami.

Whatever is left of the legacy of Al-Hakim, more is associated with the eccentric accounts of this Fatimid ruler than anything about his rule, including the construction of the mosque, Osama said.

The accounts are certainly odd, including a decree to prevent people from cooking one of the most admired dishes of Egyptian cuisine and another to ban the planting of specific crops.

Al-Hakims rule is also associated with a wide range of anti-Coptic practices, which some Coptic historians have suggested to be either exaggerated or fabricated by subsequent rulers. However, the most eccentric account of all was Al-Hakims apparent assumption of divinity.

It is a very confused account, given the complexities of the original assumption of the Fatimid rulers that they were God-selected and ordained. It was debated during the life of the Dynasty, especially as Al-Hakim was said to have suffered from psychological problems and the details of his mysterious death, allegedly at the hands of his own sister, were never confirmed, Osama said.

He moved down the street, passing the many Mameluke monuments that have taken the place of what were once Fatimid houses. The Al-Hakim and Al-Aqmar Mosques are the only two remaining Fatimid monuments on this side of todays Al-Muizz li-Din Allah Street that intersects with Al-Azhar Street.

The most prominent Mameluke monument here is the Qalawan Complex of a hospital, school and mausoleum that has truly impressive architecture. It was built in the 13th century on the site of the Western Palace of the Fatimids.

The palaces were already neglected under the rule of Salaheddin. He did not wish to live in them, and he divided them into apartments for his aides. Eventually Qalawan, one of the strongest of the Mameluke rulers who took over from the Ayoubids, decided to use the area for his complex, of which the great hospital building is the most significant, Osama said.

He added that of all the monuments that all the Islamic dynasties have left in Cairo, the Mameluke buildings are the unchallenged jewels of Islamic Cairo.

On this street there were the schools built by the Ayoubids on the ruins of the Fatimid Eastern Palace to teach the Four Schools of Sunni Islam. But the most significant monument that the Ayoubids left is obviously the citadel, Osama said.

Later Monuments

The construction of the citadel, away from Al-Muizz li-Din Allah Street, or rather next to Al-Qahira Al-Mahroussa, (the city of Cairo), as indicated in an inscription on its walls, was a deliberate choice by Salaheddin to disassociate his rule from that of the Fatimids.

Ironically, while Salaheddin ordered the construction of the citadel he died before the fortress was completed, and it was his brother who was the first to rule from there.

According to Osama, Salaheddin did not dislike Cairo because of its association with the followers of the Shia faith. Instead, he was a puritan with no taste for a lavish lifestyle, he said.

While admitting that Salaheddin made a deliberate effort to destroy the library of the Eastern Palace of the Fatimids, whose books needed an entire decade to sell, Osama said that the founder of the Ayoubid Dynasty also made a deliberate effort to give Cairo its urban character and to connect it to the older capitals of Arab Egypt, including Al-Fustat, Al-Askar and Al-Qataei.

He renovated and enlarged the first mosque in Egypt that was built by Amr Ibn Al-Aas, the Arab conqueror of Egypt, and that now carries his name, and he led prayers there, he added.

Osama stopped by a plaque carrying the name of the late novelist Gamal Al-Ghitani in a street that had previously carried the name of Al-Dabiba (the lock-makers). This is the point of intersection of Al-Gammaliya, built by Jamaleddin Mahmoud Al-Istidar, one of the Mameluke emirs, he added. Al-Ghitani spent a good part of his youth in Al-Gammaliya, where he found inspiration for his works of historic fiction, among them the novel Al-Zayni Barakat.

The works of prominent writers like Al-Ghitani and Naguib Mahfouz are set in the streets and alleys of this very layered city. Their works keep the history of the city alive, just like the many monuments on this street, Osama said as he went towards the cafe carrying the name of Naguib Mahfouz, one of the most popular in Islamic Cairo, at the entrance to the Khan Al-Khalili Bazaar.

This part of the city is yet further testimony of its layered history marked by the power of successive dynasties. This was originally the area of the tombs of the Fatimids, the Torbet Al-Zaafran (Saffron Mausoleums). It was in the 14th century that Jaharkis Al-Khalili, one of the emirs serving the Mameluke sultan Barqouk, demolished the tombs to build this bazaar, Osama said.

Al-Khalili did not bother to remove the remains of the founders of Cairo to a decent cemetery. He just assembled them and threw them next to a dump further east. What we see today is not the original construction of the Khan. It is on the original site, but it is not the original construction, Osama noted, just like the case of Al-Hakims Mosque.

Moving through the poorly attended stores of the Khan whose vendors have complained about declining revenues with significantly less tourism than a decade ago, Osama heads towards Midan Al-Hussein, the main square.

This is where legend says that the head of Al-Hussein was buried shortly after his martyrdom at Karbala. There are many accounts, and many carry a clear mystical imprint. There is no way of knowing whether the head of the grandson of the prophet is buried here or not, Osama said.

The present mosque and square of Al-Hussein, standing opposite the Al-Azhar Mosque, were built in the 19th century by the khedive Ismail. This is not a Fatimid monument. In fact, the mosque is not registered as a monument at all, and the area is simply a historic intersection of Cairo, Osama said.

It was during the rule of the Fatimids that the head of Al-Hussein was supposedly buried in Cairo after having been brought to the city and placed in a mausoleum outside the gates next to Bab Zuweila. The latter saw many heads hanging from it, of men executed after political fallings out.

It was then the wish of the ruler Al-Faiz to remove the head for burial inside the walls of the Eastern Fatimid Palace, exactly where the mosque is now, Osama said.

He added that the burial was ordered next to one of the gates of the palace, now the site of the green door (al-bab al-akhdar), which is registered as a monument. The Ayoubids then built the minaret standing almost atop of the mausoleum. This too is registered as a monument.

At The Mosque of Al-Hussein

I am here to ask Al-Hussein for help. I have been leading a very difficult life since my husband died three years ago, and now I have to provide for my four children. I am weak, but with the help and support of Al-Hussein and the will of God I shall be strong, said Aziza, a woman in her early 40s, at the mosque.

The sight of people coming to the Mausoleum of Al-Hussein to ask for benediction from the grandson of the prophet is perfectly customary.

It is also the case with many other mausoleums across the old city that are associated with the members of the Prophet Mohameds family. These might have been buried where they are said to have been buried or might not at all.

Historians are sure that Al-Sayeda Nafisa, the great granddaughter of Ali and Fatemah, came to live and die in Egypt some 150 years before the rule of the Fatimids.

The current mosque that bears her name south of Al-Muizz li-Din Allah Street where her mausoleum was originally built, is the construction of the khedive Abbas Helmi II who ruled Egypt from the late 19th century to the early decades of the 20th.

Crossing the street from Al-Hussein, Osama walks next to the walls of the Al-Azhar Mosque, where he stops by the Mosque of Mohamed Bek Abul-Dahab, an 18th-century building.

It stands between Al-Azhar, built by the Fatimids but enlarged and renovated over the centuries, and the Complex of Al-Ghouri, another jewel of Mameluke architecture in Egypt.

Mameluke rule started with the fall of the Ayoubid Dynasty in the 13th century only a few years before the Mongol conquest of Baghdad and, as Osama said, it ultimately saved Egypt from being taken over by the Mongols just like the rule of Salaheddin saved Egypt from falling to the Crusaders.

Throughout Mameluke rule, there were many challenging time, including plagues, earthquakes and palace intrigues. However, it was stable rule in the sense that the borders of the country were preserved, the army was strong, and above all art and architecture flourished, Osama said.

He added that after the Ottoman take-over, Egypt was again an annex and not the centre of power as it had been in the days prior to Fatimid rule. The interest in art and architecture receded, and there is even evidence that during the conquest the Citadel and many palaces and madrasas were plundered by the invaders.

The Ottoman sultan Selim I conquered Egypt in 1516, killing anyone who dared to resist him. He is said by historians to have had the opposing Mamelukes heads cut off and hung on Bab Zuweila.

This is why there are not many Ottoman monuments in Cairo today and why the Mosque of Mohamed Bek Abul-Dahab is so significant, Osama said.

Abul-Dahab, a brutal ruler who ruled after a coup against Ali Bek Al-Kebir, started the construction of the mosque in the 18th century. It was built to be a madrasa and to assist Al-Azhar in accommodating students.

It eventually evolved into being a madrasa and a mosque with an annexed sabil, or water fountain.

The building has an untraditional square-shaped minaret, an uncommon feature of Ottoman architecture and a reminder of Fatimid architecture and the original minaret of Al-Azhar. Passing behind it, Osama stops next to another impressive manifestation of Mameluke architecture, the Al-Ghouri Complex.

Built in the 16th century on both sides of the street, the complex contains a mosque, a madrasa, a mausoleum, a residence for Sufis and a sabil. It was fully renovated prior to the 25 January Revolution, though there were debates on the quality of the renovation.

To Bab Zuweila

The quality of the renovation is an issue in most parts of historic Cairo, where work can damage the authenticity of the buildings. However, renovation saves structures from decay, said historian Hossam Ismail.

The road from the Complex of Al-Ghouri leads to Bab Zuweila and then Al-Remila Square, another perfect spot for grand architecture.

Standing practically at the feet of the citadel, this square has four impressive Mameluke and Ottoman architectural gems overlooking it: the Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan that was built in the 14th century, the Mosque of Qani Bey Al-Rammah built in the 16th century, the Mosque of Mohamed Ali, built in the 19th century, and the Al-Rifaai Mosque that was built in the 20th century, Osama said.

It was the beauty of these mosques that has granted them a place on the Egyptian currency: the Sultan Hassan Mosque appears on the LE100 note; the Mosque of Qani Bey Al-Rammah on the LE200 note; and the mosques of Mohamed Ali and Al-Rifaai on the LE5 and LE10 notes, respectively.

All the Egyptian notes have an Islamic monument on one side and a Pharaonic monument on the other, but it is not clear how the selection was made, Osama said as he walked into the grandeur of the Sultan Hassan Mosque.

This mosque could be safely said as one of the most impressive, if not the most impressive, of all the Mameluke architecture in Egypt, Osama said.

It stands as testimony to the grandeur of the architecture of this era that was never influenced by the fortune or fate of any particular ruler, Sultan Hassan included, he added.

Sultan Hassan came to power as a child, and his rule was interrupted by palace intrigues. He died, or was killed, before the construction of the mosque was completed.

One of his aides continued the construction and left an inscription that testifies that it was built upon the order and waqf (endowment) of the late sultan.

It was the wish of the sultan to have magnificent architecture associated with his name. He wanted it to be in the most important part of the city, so he bought two palaces and had them demolished to allow for the construction of his mosque. It is breath-taking, even though that its interior decoration is less than other monuments in Islamic Cairo, Osama said.

Historians say that the rule of Mamelukes was marked by a genuine dedication to the construction of madrasas in keeping with a practice that the Ayoubids had introduced. The tradition was originally introduced in the 11th century by the Seljuq Turks from what was then predominantly Sunni Persia.

There was a leading Sunni presence there at the time, and ulamas [religious scholars] from Persia made significant contributions to the collection and editing of the Prophet Mohameds sayings and some interpretations of the Quran, Osama said.

According to Ismail, during the rule of the Mamelukes, Cairo had madrasas that attracted students from all over the Muslim world, especially after the fall of Baghdad, their previous destination, at the hands of the Mongols in the 13th century.

Until the practice was suspended in the past few years, the Sultan Hassan Mosque still served as a madrasa, with prominent scholars volunteering evening readings and discussions.

I used to frequent some of the dorrousse [lectures/seminars] here, especially after the 25 January Revolution. We used to debate the role of religion in politics and the definition of religion in the Islamic sense, said Nada, a student of Arabic literature.

But as always throughout the history of this city, sometimes debate is allowed, and at other times it comes to a stop. History goes in cycles, at least the history of Cairo, she added.

History does go in cycles. The rule of Sultan Hassan, who was removed in the middle of his rule only to be re-instituted and then eliminated, is a very telling example, Osama said as he stepped out of the mosque to the opposite Mosque of Al-Rifaai.

This is one of the monuments whose construction was ordered by a woman, in this case the mother of the khedive Ismail Hoshiar Kadinefendi. She wanted a mosque-mausoleum for the ruling family, Osama said.

She picked this particular spot for the mosque next to a small mausoleum of one of the ancestors associated with the Sufi school of Ahmed Al-Rifaai who established his tariqa (seminary) in the 12th century in Iraq.

This is the reason, Osama explained, that the mosque carries the name of this grand Sufi figure.

The construction of the mosque started in 1869, but it was only completed, after an interruption, in 1911 by the khedive Abbas Helmi II whose name is engraved along with Hoshiars on the pulpit.

Hoshiar was the first of the family to have been buried there, even before the construction was fully completed.

The Al-Rifaai Mosque is one of the major architectural statements of the rule of the Mohamed Ali Dynasty that started in the 19th century and that gave Egypt a state of semi-independence from the Ottoman sultans.

With this regained significance, Cairo regained its architectural glamour, at least gradually, but by the rule of the khedive Ismail later in the 19th century this glamour had taken a European curve, and slowly but surely the legend of Islamic Cairo came to an end, Osama concluded as he stepped outside the Al-Rifaai Mosque down to Mohamed Ali Street in the direction of the Islamic Arts Museum.

This was opened in 1903 to bear witness to the art and history of Cairo.

* All photos by Sherif Sonbol

*A version of this article appears in print in the 31 May 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: The city victorious  the story of Al-Qahira

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New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday ordered the closure of state lands to black bear hunting this year.

The first-year Democratic governor announced the decision with an executive order, but stopped short of unilaterally ending the hunt altogether, saying he doesn't have the authority.

"I am fulfilling my commitment to stop the bear hunt to the greatest extent of my authority by ordering the Department of Environmental Protection to prevent bear hunting on all public lands under the DEP's jurisdiction," Murphy said in a statement. He also called on lawmakers to take action.

TENNESSEE ALLOWS FIRST EVER 'VELVET BUCK' HUNT

Murphy campaigned last year on stopping the black bear hunt, but says the state council with the sole responsibility for setting hunting regulations has authorized bear hunting through 2021.

It's unclear how many bears are taken on state-owned lands.

The DEP says it doesn't have the information.

New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel supports Murphy's move and estimates roughly 40 percent of the bears have come from state lands.

Cody McLaughlin, a trustee with the nonprofit New Jersey Outdoor Alliance, which opposes efforts to stop the hunt, estimated that about three-fifths of hunters use public lands when hunting various quarry.

State officials have estimated around 3,500 bears live in northern New Jersey, and McLaughlin estimated that New Jersey has the densest bear populations on the continent.

He said Murphy's decision ignored scientific studies that show hunting is an effective means of population control, particularly in densely populated New Jersey.

"Honestly, I'm a little shocked and distressed," McLaughlin said.

MICHIGAN SETS NEW DEER-HUNTING RULES TO KEEP CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE FROM SPREADING

Tittel praised Murphy's decision and called it a "good first start."

"Unfortunately, there's plenty of private lands for these bears to still be killed on including county parklands, water company lands, non-profit lands and municipal lands," he said in a statement.

New Jersey resumed regulated bear hunting in 2003 after a roughly 30-year ban. Another hunt was held in 2005. In 2010, under Republican Chris Christie, the state made it annual, with 409 bears taken last year.

State officials have said the annual hunt is a key part of controlling the bear population, and it cuts back confrontations with humans.

But officials also say there are concerns some bears go hungry because of high population density.

Critics say the hunts are inhumane.

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Most of the bears in last year's hunt were killed in the rural northwestern part of the state, with the highest totals in Sussex and Warren counties.
A 12-year-old girl from Detroit, Mich., was hospitalized Friday with severe burns after participating in what her mother called the "fire challenge."

Timiyah Landers was hanging out with two friends at her house when she became "engulfed in flames" after apparently mimicking a video she saw on YouTube, her mother, Brandi Owens, told Fox 2.

DRAKE SURPRISES 11-YEAR-OLD GIRL AWAITING HEART TRANSPLANT AFTER SHE DOES 'IN MY FEELINGS' CHALLENGE

Owens heard a small explosion and witnessed her daughter "running up [a] hallway on fire from her knees to her hair."

Owens' quick-thinking fiance directed Timiyah to the bathtub and sprayed her with water. The 12-year-old was then rushed to the hospital, where the family learned more than 49 percent of her body was burned.

The girl's friends said they were participating in the "fire challenge," an Internet trend in which people seemingly douse themselves in rubbing alcohol and set themselves on fire. One of the girls said she viewed videos of people taking part in the challenge online.

'HOT WATER CHALLENGE' REPORTEDLY LEAVES TEEN WITH SECOND-DEGREE BURNS

Timiyah, who was reportedly supposed to start seventh grade in the upcoming weeks, will remain hospitalized for several months. She'll need to have "at least 3 more surgeries" over the course of her long recovery, according to a GoFundMe page set up for the girl.

Owens told Fox 2 parents need to watch their children to make sure they're not partaking in such stunts.

"These kids are trying these YouTube challenges," Owens told Fox 2. "Monitor these kids, especially with these phones and if I could after with this happening, my kids would never be able to be on social media  no more iPhones, nothing."

Last month, a 15-year-old teen suffered second-degree burns to his face and body after his friends allegedly poured boiling hot water on him as he slept in a bid to complete the Hot Water Challenge," an Internet challenge they also learned about on YouTube.

Fox News' Alexandria Hein contributed to this report.
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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomos grandparents and great grandparents came to America from Italy because they thought America was a great country  a place to build better futures. My ancestors came to America from Africa against their will, in chains and enslaved, treated as less than human.

So its ironic that Cuomo could say last week: Were not going to make America great again. It was never that great. Yet I say America is the greatest nation on Earth and has been since its founding.

America is not perfect, certainly  but it has many fewer flaws today than it had in the past. And we are on the path to becoming ever greater for a lot of reasons, including the leadership of President Trump.

Cuomo said Wednesday: We have not reached greatness, we will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged, we will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping against women, 51 percent of our population, is gone and every womans full potential is realized and unleashed and every woman is making her full contribution.

Well, as someone who has a lot more experience than Andrew Cuomo being a woman, I say that women obviously still face discrimination. But again, the opportunities open to us today far exceed opportunities for my mother, grandmother and earlier generations.

Two days after his original comments  in face of much criticism, even from Democrats and the media  Cuomo realized hed stuck his foot in his mouth and backpedaled, saying: Of course America is great and of course America has always been great. Right. Too bad the Democratic governor didnt say this in the first place.

Cuomo then launched into  what else?  an attack on President Trump, who Democrats seem to believe is the root of all evil. As if President Trump created slavery, racism, discrimination against women, and all the other problems that existed in this great country long before he was born.

I realize Gov. Cuomos ancestors came here poor, with little education and money, not speaking English, facing discrimination. No disrespect intended to those good and hardworking people, but my ancestors had it a lot harder  not just during the days of slavery, but in the years of blatant racism that followed and into our current times.

So why am I more positive than the governor of New York about our great country and our future?

Because while I believe America has never been perfect, I know it has always been a great nation  striving for the ideals of liberty and equality even when it failed to live up to those ideals. And were getting better all the time in matching our actions with the words of the Declaration of Independence and other statements of our highest aspirations.

America is perfectly imperfect. Our nations Founding Fathers were flawed. Today, you and I are flawed. Tomorrow, our children and our grandchildren and great grandchildren will be flawed. Mistakes will be made. Miscalculations will occur. Hindsight will always be 20-20.

I recently finished reading the book An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves and the Creation of America, by Henry Wiencek. To say this book was challenging to read would be an understatement. It tapped into my every emotion.

At times as I read this book I cried. At other times I was inspired. Most times I was infuriated. Seldom did I laugh. It was an unvarnished look at slavery and our first president, George Washington  a great but deeply flawed man.

President Washington is probably the most honored man in American history. He was a brilliant general in the Revolutionary War and a great president. He was a patriot revered by our nation. He was a moral man, except  when it came to the sin of slavery.

Theres a fair amount of documentation that shows Washington had misgivings about owning other human beings as if they were livestock. Yet he lacked the moral conviction and courage to fight to abolish slavery when it was directly within his power to do so.

Washington only acknowledged the evil of slavery in death, when in his last will and testament he freed some of his slaves and said the rest should be freed upon his wifes death.

Many would point to Washingtons role as a slave owner as proof that  as Andrew Cuomo said  America was never that great. The critics could also point to many other sorry episodes in our history  the mistreatment of Native Americans, denying women the right to vote until 1920 and many rights long after that, and on and on.

In the creation of America, our Founding Fathers spoke and wrote about a perfection that they themselves never fully achieved. Yet the beauty of the Declaration of Independence and the genius within the Constitution was that they raised the bar on what America should be.

Our founders could have easily set the bar low and patted each other on the back and given each other attaboys. But they didnt.

So much of our culture today is fixated on constantly lowering the bar of expectations so that everyone feels better about themselves. To the contrary, our founders raised the bar for the entire country, themselves and future generations. They dreamed of a better society and we are the beneficiaries of their efforts.

And today each generation gets the wonderful opportunity to move the needle a little bit farther towards more freedom, equality, unity and yes, even more greatness. None of us will be around 200 years from now, but I have no doubt that America will be an even greater country then.

Our time to impact our world will come and go. Then our children will pick up the mantle to have their crack at self-governance. Yet I fear the examples we are modeling before our children will come back to haunt them. Our manipulative techniques of getting what we want, the downright violent and disagreeable way in which we discuss issues, and our utter disrespect for authority will be hurdles. I fear the next generation will be ill-equipped to overcome these.

There are pockets of fellow Americans scattered throughout our nation who are bitter and mean. Then there is the rest of us. Our founders faced this dichotomy as well. Let us do as they did, raising the bar for all of us.

Let us set the bar just high enough that we always stretch to reach it and never quite make it, but strive ever harder. Let us do more to better understand people who dont see the world as we do, look like us, pray like us, or live like us. Let us practice humility and assume that others have something to teach us. Let us agree to disagree when we must, and disagree without being disagreeable.

Above all, let us believe that all people  in the words of the Declaration of Independence  are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

This is how we move the needle farther beyond our founders, who were sadly incapable of respecting the worth of all fellow human beings. Fellow human beings like slaves, who struggled to prove their worth as they fought in the American Revolution to achieve a freedom that was not even their own.

And this is how we will make our great country even greater.
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More information will be revealed about the Obama administrations anti-Trump political opposition research efforts during the 2016 presidential campaign when demoted Justice Department official Bruce Ohr testifies before members of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees Aug. 28 in a closed-door session.

Ohr was an associate deputy attorney general in the Obama administration before his questionable actions led to his demotion. His testimony should provide the latest peek behind the curtain at the inner workings of the Deep State. Perhaps most significantly is what Ohr can tell members of the House committees about the political opposition research by his wife, Nellie Ohr.

We have learned that Nellie Ohr, a Russia specialist, was contracted by Fusion GPS at some point in 2016 to conduct anti-Donald Trump research. Congressional investigators should nail down the exact date Ms. Ohr starting working for Fusion GPS, to help piece together the timeline of the Democrats collusion with Russia.

Its already known that the law firm Perkins Coie retained Fusion GPS in April 2016 and that Nellie Ohr mysteriously applied for and was granted an amateur ham radio license by the Federal Communications Commission in May 2016. The timing of these events and whether or not theyre related to Nellie Ohrs work for Fusion remains to be seen, but will soon be uncovered through congressional fact-finding.

Congress must drill down into the circumstances surrounding Nellie Ohrs hiring. How and why did she come to be hired by Fusion GPS? Who recommended her? Did anyone working for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee, or the Obama administration have anything to do with her hiring?

Is Nellie Ohr known by Democratic politicians, intelligence officials, or opposition researchers? Did her marriage to the associate deputy attorney general have anything to do with her hiring? And what did Nellie Ohr tell her husband about the fake Russian dossier?

The ongoing saga of Bruce and Nellie Ohr is about to come into much clearer view and the left is worried.

The American people deserve answers to these important questions. And it goes without saying that Congress must hear testimony from Nellie Ohr immediately after her husband. Theres no question that the sworn testimony from both Ohrs is required in order to get a more complete picture of what occurred.

Heres what we know to date:

Bruce Ohr was demoted from his position of associate deputy attorney general late last year when it was discovered that he was in contact with the Christopher Steele (the author of the phony Trump dossier) as well as Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson.

Fusion GPS was paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm.

More recently, newly released email and text messages confirm that Bruce Ohr was in regular communication with Clinton-funded opposition researcher Steele both during the 2016 presidential campaign and after the November election.

These revelations concerning the Obama Justice Department come on the heels of the firing of anti-Trump FBI official Peter Strzok.

The extent to which senior Obama administration officials facilitated anti-Trump political opposition research efforts seems to grow every day  whether it is John Brennans role as CIA director, or former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nulands role at the State Department.

Members of the House committees are likely to ask Bruce Ohr details of his highly peculiar arrangement with Steele. We can expect them to ask about his knowledge of Steeles activities with Fusion GPS, the FBI and any other government agencies. House members will also likely ask about how Bruce Ohr came to be so intricately involved in these hyper-political endeavors to begin with.

Bruce Ohr can also shed light on why Glenn Simpson told House investigators that he only had contact with Mr. Ohr after the election, even though newly discovered communications say otherwise.

Additionally, investigators on Capitol Hill must also question Bruce Ohr about who else at the Justice Department was aware of his political interfacing. Bruce Ohr has been described as the fourth-highest ranking Justice Department official at the time, reporting to anti-Trump then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

The ongoing saga of Bruce and Nellie Ohr is about to come into much clearer view and the left is worried.

When the failing New York Times starts working diligently to diminish Bruce Ohr by describing the former associate deputy attorney general as a little-known career Justice Department official you know there might be some bad news on the horizon for the anti-Trump resistance.

Lets just hope it wont take as long to fire Bruce Ohr as it did to fire Peter Strzok.
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In the latest episode of Banished! by the Peoples Republic of California, Governor Jerry Brown is likely to sign a bill that prohibits restaurants from offering anything other than milk or water with their kids meals, under the pretense of preventing obesity.

Effectively theyre telling parents theyre not capable of being trusted with their childrens health. Its Big Brother Knows Best vs. mom and dad.

They want to control what little Johnny and Susie drink with their kids meal. If restaurants dont play along they could be fined up to $500. So now California isnt just the nanny state, its also the bully state.

Parents are apparently still permitted to order a separate drink but the restaurant cant market the drink on the kids meal.

Having water with that burger and fries isnt going to solve our health problems. Although, they might as well ban juice given there are virtually no straws left for the little ones to drink out of their juice boxes with; since most major cities in the state have banned plastic straws.

These are not well meaning initiatives meant to protect. They are calculated attempts to control.

Stephanie Winn from the American Cancer Society, which advocated for the bill said, "Some of these kids are drinking up to three sodas a day. This is setting them up for tremendous cancer risks down the road. Because now we know that 20 percent of all cancers are tied to being overweight. And government intervention will save us all.

Too bad its not as simple as that. Theyre drinking the sugar free California Kool Aid if they think that banning kids from drinking soda or juice with their burger and fries will stop obesity and kill cancer.

The answer to everything liberals dont like is to ban it, under the guise of doing something noble. In this case its your little ones health thats on the line. Apparently you, mom and dad, are unfit to make healthy decisions for your kids. You need the nanny state.

Some parents who oppose the bill disagree, thank you very much.

I think the government shouldn't determine what's available when I, as a mother, know what's best for my child, said Inez Deocio.

As a parent, you should be able to decide for yourself whether your kid's going to have milk or water or soda. The state shouldn't be telling you that, said Scott Gregory.

Yes, you can decide what is best for your child and no, the state should not be deciding that. California should have bigger fish to fry than worrying about what your child drinks for lunch  like the states economy and securing our borders.

While it may sound well intentioned and innocent enough on the surface to limit drink options for the sake of childrens health, every time you limit the rights of parents you expand the rights the government. This is the problem with the trending socialism thats gaining popularity with liberals.

Big Government cant even run the DMV effectively and were supposed to willingly allow them to make decisions in the best interest of our kids?

If we cant be trusted to be our kids parents, then whats our purpose? Banning straws, dictating the content of your kids meals; sensing a pattern? These precedents are intentional.

They are not well meaning initiatives meant to protect. They are calculated attempts to control.

Inch by inch, with every well intentioned liberal bill, California is moving closer to Orwells Big Brother and the precedent is set for government to rule your life. We could simply yield to what is marketed to us as whats best for us, although the good people of Venezuela would beg to differ, and have a legitimate warning for us.

It just so happens the not only can the socialist paradise of Venezuela no longer dictate what children can have with their Happy Meals, the government may soon be unable to provide basic clean drinking water for its people. Hows that for utopia?

Big Brother is watching. He knows what your kids are drinking. What next?
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The U.S. and Mexico appear close to reaching a new trade agreement, fulfilling President Trumps pledge during his election campaign to renegotiate the quarter-century old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)  an achievement few would have predicted.

At least around the bargaining table, the U.S. and Mexico have cast aside much of the poisonous rhetoric that makes for good cable TV as they close in on a replacement for NAFTA.

President Trump would like to nail down a trade accomplishment before the midterm elections in November, understanding that he needs to focus more on his trade conflict with China and less on ones with Americas neighbors.

On the Mexican side, outgoing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto would very much like to burnish his legacy with a new treaty before he leaves office Dec. 1.

At the same time as Mexico and the U.S. have grown closer to a deal, the third partner in NAFTA has been left OUT in the cold. U.S. and Canadian negotiators havent met for four weeks, and President Trump indicated last Thursday that hes in no hurry.

Were not negotiating with Canada right now, Trump said. Their tariffs are too high; their barriers are too strong. So were not even talking to them right now.

The interdependence of the world economy means that more and more U.S. products have not-so-visible international aspects  as the links between Mexican tequila and U.S. bourbon show.

One certainly hopes that the U.S. and Canada, which have traditionally had extremely close relations, work out their differences. But the thaw in trade relations between Mexico and the U.S. is welcome news. While a June Gallup poll found that 46 percent of Americans dont believe trade with Mexico is fair, U.S. businesses have a much more favorable view of trade with our southern neighbor.

Take spirits, a growth industry in both countries. Tequila is Mexicos national spirit, and the NAFTA agreement itself recognizes it as a distinctive product of Mexico. But while tequila has to be distilled in Mexico, foreign investment in the industry is welcome.

At least eight tequila brands are tied to the U.S. The list includes Herradura, which is owned by Kentucky whiskey distiller Brown-Forman. Also on the list is Patron, which was owned until earlier this year by John Paul DeJoria of Paul Mitchell hair products fame. He sold his 70 percent stake in Patron to Bacardi, which is based in Bermuda, for $5.1 billion.

All of the new investment that has flowed into the tequila industry has completely changed the image of the product. In the 1990s, over 90 percent of tequila consumed in the U.S. went into margaritas. Only 2 percent was high-grade premium tequila (made from 100 percent agave). Now over half of U.S. imports are premium labels. And artisanal brands owned by the likes of celebrities George Clooney and Justin Timberlake have given the spirit real cachet.

Tequila is still a fully Mexican product, but free trade with the U.S. and Canada has meant investment that has turned it into an international sensation.

NAFTA and tequila have grown together over the last 25 years, says Luis Velasco Fernandez, the president of Mexicos National Chamber for the Tequila Industry. Both countries now have stakes in the success of Mexican tequila and U.S. whiskey, and often there is shared ownership.

But for all the cross-investment in spirits, the U.S. whiskey industry is still fragile. Bourbon production in the U.S. only recently recovered from a long slump to reach the levels of the 1970s. Even if theres a successful NAFTA renegotiation, the industry could be hit hard by retaliatory tariffs exchanged between the U.S. and the European Union, which is the biggest market for the $1.5 billion in spirits that America now exports.

In June, the European Union announced it would slap a 25 percent tariff on imported U.S. whiskey if tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on steel and aluminum werent lifted. This could be the end of the bourbon boom, Ken Lewis, the owner of Kentuckys New Riff Distillery, lamented to CNBC.

President Trumps goal of forging a new U.S. trade policy that creates a more level playing field for U.S. products is a worthy one that has eluded all of his predecessors. Some of his tough talk and hardball actions were probably overdue.

But as the Trump administration moves from trade target to trade target  bouncing from Mexico to China to the European Union  its important to consider just how quickly such tactics could also boomerang. The interdependence of the world economy means that more and more U.S. products have not-so-visible international aspects  as the links between Mexican tequila and U.S. bourbon show.

A tough negotiating stance on trade by the U.S. is one thing. Accidently starting a trade war would have consequences that would hurt all players  and could drive many of them to need a good stiff drink. But they would then find its suddenly a lot more expensive.
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The decision Tuesday by a federal court jury to find former Trump presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort guilty on eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud opens the door to a new act in the drama surrounding Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation of Russias interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Jurors could not agree on a unanimous verdict on 10 other charges against Manafort and a mistrial was declared on those charges.

Muellers aggressive pursuit and prosecution of Manafort is a clear indication that the special counsel believes Manafort holds answers to key questions about two subjects: Russian election meddling, and whether Donald Trump or anyone on his campaign team broke any laws by conspiring with Russians to work together to make Trump president.

Manafort, 68, could spend the rest of his life in prison if his convictions are upheld on appeal. That gives Mueller leverage to pressure Manafort to cooperate and present potentially incriminating evidence against President Trump or his campaign, in return for a lighter sentence.

In addition, the trial that ended in Manaforts conviction in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia was just the first of two trials for the former Trump campaign chairman.

Manafort faces serious charges in an upcoming trial in U.S. District Court in Washington. The tax and bank fraud charges Mueller was convicted of in Virginia mention Russians only in passing. But Russians are prominently featured in Manaforts upcoming trial in Washington.

The charges against Manafort in the nations capital focus on Manaforts actions in allegedly generating over $60 million in illegal unregistered lobbying income from Russian surrogates and wealthy business owners  known as oligarchs  with strong ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The indictment alleges that Manafort, his employee Rick Gates (who has pleaded guilty to charges) and a Russian operative laundered the illicit money through various shell corporations without paying U.S. taxes.

Now that key witnesses wait in the wings and Russian espionage has been very clearly established as interfering in our 2016 election, Mueller needs to flip the one person who had the strongest ties to Russia and Putin via his oligarch friends and benefactors. Paul Manafort is that person  making him a key figure to solve the Russian puzzle.

If Mueller can get the now-convicted Manafort to flip and become a witness, the special prosecutor could then use that evidence in his report at the end of his long investigation. Democrats in Congress could then try to use the report to impeach the president and force him from office.

The prospect of a successful impeachment and conviction of President Trump would increase should Democrats capture majorities in the House and Senate in the Nov. 6 midterm elections. And if he were forced out of office, Trump could be charged criminally for allegedly illegal activity if the evidence warranted.

To be clear, the charges that Manafort was convicted of in Virginia have nothing to do with the five months he spent working as a volunteer on the Trump presidential campaign. Instead, Manaforts convictions deal his private business activities, some going back many years.

But now that he has been convicted and is awaiting sentencing, Manafort has a lot bigger incentive to cooperate with Muellers investigation  something he has refused to do up to now.

Some of President Trumps supporters say Manafort is being targeted by Mueller as a casualty of a political witch hunt.

President Trump himself expressed sympathy for Manafort recently, telling reporters at the White House that Manafort happens to be a very good person, I think its very sad what theyve done to Paul Manafort.

Others consider Manafort a willing pawn in Russian President Vladimir Putins effort to sow chaos in our 2016 election and elect Trump.

From my perspective as a former FBI special agent of 24 years and former state prosecutor, I view Manafort as a seedy white-collar criminal who is an actor in a stage production with numerous subplots and dozens of complex characters.

The central question Mueller is seeking to answer for the American public is this: Did members of the Trump campaign collude with Putins surrogates by agreeing to accept dirt on Hillary Clinton and possibly in other ways in exchange for favorable policy changes towards Russia if Trump became president  especially easing economic sanctions on Russia?

Based on his relationship with Russian surrogates through his lobbying work for former Ukrainian dictator and Putin puppet Victor Yanukovych for over 10 years, Manafort may have some answers.

It is clear to any experienced investigator that the charges filed against Manafort in his two trials are a no-holds-barred means to secure his cooperation and testimony. While perhaps shocking to many, this is how complex conspiracies are unraveled: flip the inside operatives against people higher up the food chain.

Such cases are never made with documents alone. Juries are confused by obscure investigative paper chases.

If the U.S. Justice Department had employed similar tactics in the Hillary Clinton email and Clinton Foundation investigations  instead of gratuitously handing out immunity, permitting the selective destruction of critical evidence and severely limiting the scope of the investigations  rational observers may be less prone to see partisanship in the Manafort prosecution.

What also severely detracts from the prosecution is the manner in which former FBI Director James Comeys inner circle operated during the course of the Clinton and Trump investigations by leaking, lying and using tainted opposition research assembled by former British spy Christopher Steele, whose work was being funded by the Clinton campaign.

Special Counsel Mueller shouldnt be faulted for doing his job in conducting an aggressive investigation of Russias election interference and utilizing every tool lawfully available to federal investigators. He was not the FBI director when the hapless Clinton investigations were conducted amid hundreds of leaks and the partisan antics by the Obama administration, the Justice Department under Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Comeys inner circle.

To abandon the Russian investigation at this time would be to play directly into Vladimir Putins hands and send the message to him and his henchmen that there are no consequences for their deadly serious attacks against our democracy. And yes, there are effective consequences available.

In summary, Paul Manafort is a pawn  but he is no sympathetic figure. He chose to cozy up and profit from consorting with one of our most formidable enemies and its surrogates. The charges against him were filed to secure his cooperation and testimony.

The beauty of our system is that our democratic process places ultimate power in the hands of ordinary Americans jurors who will be the final arbiters of not only the work of the special counsel but also the direction of the country. No such freedom exists in Vladimir Putins Russia.
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Tuesday was a lucky day for Imran Awan, the former IT administrator for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. A federal judge sentenced him to three months of supervised release and no fine for one count of bank fraud  sparing him any jail time.

Awan could have faced much more serious charges and a long prison sentence if he had been tried and convicted on accusations that he ran a spy ring inside Congress and stole congressional computer equipment.

Yet stunningly, Awan was not charged with those crimes. Instead, federal prosecutors ignored their own compelling evidence implicating him in the spy ring and exonerated him.

This is what happens when the establishment and the mainstream media collude to cover up a Democratic scandal.

Awan, who pleaded guilty last month to a single charge of making a false statement to obtain a home equity loan, could have been sentenced to up to six months in jail on that plea at his sentencing Tuesday.

Just read the FBI affidavit used to indict Awan and youll plainly see that even a prosecutor working on his or her first case wouldnt have had any trouble getting a conviction for bank fraud against him.

However, the Justice Department opted to plea the charges against Awan down to one count of making a false statement on a home equity loan application  a crime that that allowed Awan to wire $283,000 to Pakistan.

In return for that sweetheart plea deal, the Justice Department got a cover-up.

The more than 40 members of the US. House of Representatives  all Democrats  who employed Awan and members of his family and associates to handle IT work now wont have to explain anything in court. Their staffers  even the ones in offices where so much official equipment went missing, including some that showed up in one of Awans rental properties  wont have to testify either.

Now no one will have to explain why Awan and his crew were paid over $4 million by those members of Congress and why so much has been done to hush this up.

There is a lot of evidence indicating that the Awan and his team members were copying data from the computers of House members to the House Democratic Caucus server and even to a private Dropbox account.

Awan and his associates were even tossed off the House system because they provided false information (a fake copy of the Democratic Caucus server) to Capitol Police. But incredibly, none of that was used against him in court.

This is clearly a political deal arranged to protect the establishment from further embarrassment and reform.

Before announcing Awans sentence Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who was appointed by President Obama in 2013, called the media coverage of the case scurrilous and said that Awan and suffered sufficiently.

Instead of being treated like an accused criminal, Awan was treated as a victim.

Anyone who reads my upcoming book "Spies in Congress: Inside the Democrats' Covered-Up Cyber Scandal, will understand how just appalling this is, as there is still a lot left to come out on this spy thriller of a case.

If the Justice Department had pursued additional charges against Awan, prosecutors might have taken depositions from House members and their staffers. There could have been court scenes that would have given us a look right into the congressional offices that employed Awan and his associates.

A trial of Awan on charges that he was part of a spy ring collecting information from House members would have necessarily dug into a lot of things the Washington establishment would rather not deal with publicly. It also would have forced investigators to follow the trail to Awans native country of Pakistan  something the U.S. intelligence community would rather avoid.

The end result is that Awan, his wife (charges against her were dropped) and his crew are getting off easy, and Congress and the media like it this way for their own reasons.

Whats the big deal?

Outside of the quaint idea that justice should be equal  even for members of Congress, their staffers and contractors  there are a lot of problems inherent in covering up this multifaceted case.

Foreign intelligence agencies must have noticed how easy it was for the Awans to get access to the date and emails of so many members of Congress.

The slap on the wrist that Awan received hardly acts as a deterrent to those whod like to know what members of Congress are saying behind closed doors.

As any computer security professional will tell you, the weakest part of any system is people. Security wont be taken seriously if no one pays a price for allowing massive security breaches in Congress.

President Trumps tweets related to this case were even used as a rationale by Judge Chutkan to let Awan walk out of the courtroom with only three months supervised release.

If there is one takeaway right now its that the Trump administration should demand an investigation by the Office of Inspector General into how this plea deal was made. The IG should also look into what actually happened in Congress. This case offers the president the opportunity to expose the swamp to the American people.

By covering this up, the establishment has left a lot to come out that will embarrass Congress, the mainstream media and the Justice Department.
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Twitter chief Jack Dorsey has proved to be more reluctant than other social-media giants (ahem, Facebook) to give in to progressive outrage mobs demand for censorship. Essentially, hes been less willing to throw his company under the bus.

Thats good, because theres less wrong with Twitter than his tormentors want him to believe.

On Sunday, CNN anchor Brian Stelter asked Dorsey what was broken about Twitter. Dorsey replied, I think it really depends on who you follow and your perception of what you see and how you feel about things. This is undeniably true and Dorsey deserves credit for rejecting Stelters question on its premise.

The desire to bring Twitter under some form of modern-discourse control isnt, at its root, about having a healthier conversation. Its about powerless gatekeepers rebuilding their fallen industry. Its about control.

To continue reading on The New York Post click here.
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With the midterm election less than three months away, President Trump is effectively betting his presidency on the trade issue. Thus far, his aggressive use of tariffs as a negotiating tool have yielded few, if any, positive gains. If this unproductive trend continues -- or takes a turn for the worse as tariffs drive up costs for American consumers and businesses -- voters could very well hand control of the House of Representatives to Democrats. This would bring the entire Trump agenda to a halt and push his presidency into highly difficult territory: having to deal with an empowered Democratic party.

Typically, trade isnt a top-tier issue for voters. But the magnitude of these tariffs could have a major impact on economic growth and job creation, and trade could be the determining factor in several hotly contested races -- perhaps even deciding the fate of the House.

The key will be the impact of the budding trade war on jobs. Research on this topic should be highly concerning for the administration. A study on Trumps steel and aluminum tariffs from the Trade Partnership shows our tariffs and the retaliation from other countries will result in a net loss of 400,000 American jobs. While Trump has repeatedly pointed to steel and aluminum jobs that are propped up by these tariffs, for every one job saved in these industries, we lose 16 jobs in other parts of the economy. And thats just the tip of the iceberg.

Trump appears to be locked in on his current strategy of using costly tariffs to gain trade negotiating leverage. This is an extremely risky approach.

Trump has begun the process of instituting a 25 percent tariff on imported cars and auto parts, which could result in a net loss of 157,000 U.S. jobs, according to the Trade Partnership. Additionally, in a rapidly escalating trade feud with China, the precise scope and level of tariffs well place on Chinese goods remains uncertain -- as does their retaliation. But 1.7 million Americans work in jobs dependent on trade with China. A disproportionate amount of these are agricultural workers in rural parts of our country. That means the economic losses to Trumps base in the lead-up to an important election could be swift and painful, as important foreign markets are closed off to American agriculture products. Closer to home, if NAFTA renegotiations continue to flounder, we could lose another 1.8 million American jobs, according to the Business Roundtable.

While many Trump supporters believe the president will use his negotiating skills to craft a better deal for America, there has been minimal progress to date while the tariffs have only increased, and the election draws closer and closer. Trumps efforts to stop the economic bleeding with government subsidies simply cannot heal the wound. The administrations $12 billion plan to help our farmers may provide temporary, minimal relief to certain agribusinesses, but it is far too small and bureaucratic to adequately address the problem. Closing off important export markets has created a dire situation for American farmers, who would greatly prefer a swift and sure end to the trade war and the tariffs impacting American agriculture, per the American Farm Bureau Federation. Further, it does nothing for other sectors of the economy, like the hundreds of thousands of small American manufacturing companies that rely upon importing low-cost raw materials and exporting high-quality goods to international markets.

If the predictions of job losses are anywhere near accurate, they only steepen the climb for the GOP heading into an uphill election. As it stands, the Republicans best pitch to voters is the strength of the economy, which has been undoubtedly fueled by Trumps own pro-growth tax reform and deregulatory policies. If these economic gains deteriorate, so too will political support for their candidates. Even with the current strong economy, most political prognosticators say control of House is up for grabs. An economic slowdown in the weeks prior to the midterm could hand the Speakers gavel to Nancy Pelosi. In that event, the administration would face a Democratic House majority that stands opposed to its legislative agenda. Perhaps more significantly, it would also give House Democrats the ability to investigate and scrutinize every single activity of the Trump administration using its oversight authority and subpoena powers.

Trump appears to be locked in on his current strategy of using costly tariffs to gain trade negotiating leverage. This is an extremely risky approach. Nearly the entire business community, a slew of economists, and most free-market advocates all agree that a full-scale trade war is economically ruinous. If we continue down this path, the first casualties will be on those workers and farmers whose livelihoods rely on trade. Soon thereafter it will be consumers who will experience significantly higher prices on virtually all products. And as the economy slows and voter frustration grows, then it will likely be dozens of Republican elected officials who will find themselves looking for new jobs. Finally, it will be the president himself as his agenda will be stymied by a Democratic House and his entire administration will spend far more time responding to Congressional inquiries than implementing Trumps policies.

If Trump is going to win on trade -- which as he has acknowledged, means moving toward zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers, and zero subsidies -- hed best start moving fast. The clock is ticking and his presidential legacy is at stake.
The nations food-stamp program is one of the largest run by the government  at $70 billion a year. But while the economy has improved dramatically, food-stamp enrollment has not, declining just 17 percent while the unemployment rate fell three times faster  62 percent.

Why the disconnect? Critics say states are milking the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), overstating their needs, while the Trump administration is approving state work waivers it doesnt have to.

We have almost seven million open jobs across America, said Foundation for Government Accountability executive director Kristina Rasmussen. Employers are struggling to find workers. Yet we have people sitting on sidelines in part, because they can  on food stamps.

Part of this story is about economics. The other part is political.

The work requirement for able-bodied adults without children is the major sticking point in the $860 billion farm bill.

Ive inquired several times on how we can deny these waivers, but we are statutorily precluded from denying the waivers if they fit the criteria, said Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue. These have always been considered transition programs. And certainly when unemployment is over 10 percent, we want to be compassionate and generous as Americans to help people get by and get a job. But when jobs are available, in fact, statistics show more jobs are available than we have people to fill them, why are we continuing to issue waivers?

The latest to receive one is California, the 33rd state to receive a work waiver granted by the Trump administration, even though earlier this month the president himself tweeted, When the House and Senate meet on the very important Farm Bill  we love our farmers - hopefully they will be able to leave the WORK REQUIREMENTS FOR FOOD STAMPS PROVISION that the House approved.

California, according to the state, has 500,000 job openings.

In July, the most populous state in America received a waiver allowing its 836,000 unemployed adults without children to continue receiving food stamps without working. The states unemployment rate is 4.2 percent, while Michigan  which did not seek a waiver  has a rate of 4.3 percent. Last week Michigan told 67,000 adults their food stamps would end if they didnt find work after three months of benefits.

Its unconscionable to think that in the state of California, with a growing economy  less than 4 percent unemployment  that were giving waivers, said Perdue. The problem is  honestly as the former governor of Georgia  the goal was to optimize. Maximize federal revenue into your state. Thats what governors, thats what legislators do.

Perdue approved the California waiver, though he claims to have opposed it.

Rasmussen said the agency could have, but refused, fearing a political backlash. She believes the USDA is not being aggressive enough in regulatory reform, unlike say, the EPA.

There are almost 1 million able-bodied adults without kids in California right now on food stamps, and most are not working, said Rasmussen. This is government on autopilot, and its wrong, and thats why Trump and Perdue should step in, slam on the brakes and say this shouldnt happen anymore.

A spokesman for the California Department of Social Services refused to answer questions why a state, with a vaunted economy and an agricultural sector facing a labor shortage, would seek to protect adults without children from working just 20 hours a week.

Instead, the state provided outdated unemployment data from 2015 to March 2017 as justification for its waiver.

People need to eat. Whether theyre homeless or jobless, said a SNAP recipient outside a county welfare office. Its hard to get a job right now. Able-bodied or not. Its really tough. Im looking for a job every day, and its hard.

Indeed.com lists almost 400,000 jobs in California, including entry level service and retail jobs, manufacturing and agriculture.

The showdown over the work requirement is holding up the massive $860-billion farm bill. The House version, backed by the administration, includes a work requirement and tightens the loophole, giving the USDA the authority to decline state waivers. The Senate version does not include the waiver and Senate Agricultural Committee chairwoman Debbie Stabenow of Michigan reportedly has told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Democrats will not support any compromise that includes the work mandate.

A legislative fix is needed by September 30.

More than 80 percent of the farm bill is food-stamp expenditures.

President Bill Clinton made welfare  workfare  in 1996.

But when unemployment hit 12 percent in 2009, President Barack Obama approved a nationwide waiver for two years. His legislation also provided the loophole and lax language that allows states to keep food stamps for able-bodied adults without children.

Each year, states must reapply for a waiver by showing their unemployment rates justify keeping it, even though in some cases, like California, counties with 2.7 percent unemployment still qualify.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on Monday pressed the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department for more information on the alleged ISIS killer arrested in northern California last week, asking how he could have been granted refugee status.

The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested Omar Ameen, 45, following an Iraqi warrant for his arrest and extradition request, officials said in a news release from the Justice Department. Ameen's refugee status was approved under an Obama-era resettlement program in June 2014.

But before arriving in the U.S. in November 2014, prosecutors say, Ameen went back to Iraq and killed a police officer while fighting for ISIS.

We need to better understand how someone with ties to terrorism and wanted for murder could possibly be granted refugee status and allowed to enter American communities," Grassley wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. "This disturbing case underscores the importance of thoroughly vetting refugees before granting admission to the United States."

SUSPECTED ISIS MEMBER CAPTURED IN SACRAMENTO

Grassley's letter set a Sept. 3 deadline for DHS officials to provide written information on Ameen's immigration history, relevant Visa Security Unit vetting documentation and all records about his travel into and out of the U.S.

The letter also requested that the State Department turn over information as to whether Ameen applied for a visa, whether he ever was denied a visa and why, as well as any additional administrative processing that his application received.

Ameen allegedly arrived in Rawah, Iraq, with a caravan of ISIS vehicles," after the terror network gained control of the town on June 21, 2014, as the group made its way to the Rawah police officer's home, officials said. The following day, multiple ISIS members, including Ameen, allegedly shot the officer.

"This disturbing case underscores the importance of thoroughly vetting refugees."  Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa

Ameen then allegedly fired his weapon at the victim while the victim was on the ground, killing him, officials said.

The suspect is accused of being a member of ISIS and Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), as well as carrying out tasks for the groups, including helping to plant improvised explosive devices, according to the news release.

Following the alleged incident, Ameen relocated to Sacramento from Iraq as a purported refugee and did not mention his alleged ties to the terrorist organizations when seeking refugee status and a green card in the U.S., officials said.

Ameen also attempted to apply for refugee status in Turkey in 2012, according to Grassley, but "returned to Iraq to engage in terrorist activities while his application was pending."

"Its difficult to judge what mistakes may have been made and what policy changes might be necessary to prevent it from happening again without more information, Grassley added. Im grateful for the work of agents and officials at the FBI, the Justice Department and elsewhere who appropriately removed this potential threat, but I am concerned that an active member of two foreign terrorist organizations was able to conceal his past and slip into the United States undetected.

Ameen could face the death penalty after he is extradited to Baghdad under a treaty the U.S. has with Iraq, court documents filed in the U.S. by Iraqi prosecutors say.

Fox News' Elizabeth Zwirz contributed to this report.
Kristin Davis, the former "Manhattan Madam" who's friends with Trump ally Roger Stone, detailed her experience of being questioned in front of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's grand jury in the Russia investigation.

Davis, a friend and business partner of Stone, told Martha MacCallum on Fox News' "The Story" Monday night she didn't know of "any wrongdoing" between the Trump campaign and Russia, adding that Stone told her the truth about his relationship with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

READ MORE OF FOX NEWS' COVERAGE OF THE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

"What [Stone] did discuss was that he did not have any direct communications with Julian Assange," said Davis in reference to the batch of leaked Democratic National Committee emails that WikiLeaks published in July 2016.

Davis, 43, added that she thought Mueller's grand jury was "legitmiately investigating whether collusion happened," and that the jurors questioned her about Stone's Aug. 21, 2016 tweet, in which he foreshadowed possibly forthcoming information on Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

Less than two months later, on Oct. 7, WikiLeaks released a batch of Podesta's hacked emails.

Davis said Stone's tweet is "often misconstrued," but clarified "he was referring to Uranium One." She said it wasn't referring to the "colossal event that happened."

URANIUM ONE DEAL: WHAT TO KNOW

"Julian Assange went on CNN and said there is something coming out. And so, the world was waiting," Davis said of the WikiLeaks dump. "So, you could, you know, make a reasonable assumption with a set of facts what that would be."

Of the grand jury, Davis noted she felt that the jury and prosecutors, who now have known each other for months, "seem to be joking and [having] a fun sort of camaraderie" when they're in a room together, which she described as "concerning."



TRUMP FLOATS POSSIBILITY OF TAKING OVER MUELLER PROBE: 'I CAN GO IN AND I COULD DO WHATEVER, I COULD RUN IT IF I WANT'

"There's nobody there to present another set of facts and that also is concerning to me," she added.

Davis spent four months in New York's Riker's Island prison for running a prostitution ring with 10,000 clients, which the former madam has claimed included the discgraced ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

Released in 2008, Davis met Stone on a radio show and he encouraged her to run for governor  a race she lost.

She has since maintained her relationship with Stone, who is the godfather of her young son. She said the three of them split a duplex in New York City.

Davis has said she didn't work with Stone in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Stone said Davis "has no knowledge of Russian collusion, WikiLeaks collaboration, or any other illegal activity on my part."

Davis is one of about a half dozen of Stone's associates to be contacted by Mueller's office.

Fox News' Martha MacCallum contributed to this report.
After deliberating for more than eight hours Monday, and having considered the fate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for approximately 22 hours in total, the jurors entered the ninth-floor courtroom in Alexandria at 6:12 p.m. ET.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III said the jury was going home for the day and would resume deliberations Tuesday morning at 9:30 ET.

From our vantage point in the second row on the far left side of the courtroom, the jurors seemed to turn away from both the prosecution and defense tables, avoiding eye contact as they entered.

The jurors seemed flat and drained. When Judge Ellis reminded them not to discuss the case or do outside research, as he does every day, one woman in the back row smiled and said "yes" with some energy in her voice, but she seemed to be the exception.

This was a marked change from when the jury had entered the courtroom that morning. Back then, more jurors appeared upbeat, well rested, and replied to Judge Ellis' questions in what seemed to be an enthusiastic tone.

Even then, at least two jurors appeared stressed or preoccupied. One man kept rubbing the side of his face, as another juror look distracted. Another juror looked directly at Manafort when she came in.

Just before 6 p.m., the court security officer had gone to the jury room and brought out a stack of papers, putting them on the deputy clerk's desk. (We don't know what the papers were, but they may have been as insignificant as the next day's lunch menus)

The arrival of the papers sent some excitement through the packed courtroom gallery of about 80 people. A few minutes later, the prosecution team entered. Prosecutor Greg Andres stood by their table shifting his weight with his hands in his pockets.

The defense team followed, escorting Manafort's wife, Kathleen, who wore a navy suit and stood clutching the handrail staring into space.

Hopes that a verdict would soon be announced were raised late in the afternoon. Shortly before 4:30 ET, the court security officer entered the courtroom and walked to Judge Ellis' chambers before waiting outside for some minutes, leaning against the wall.

Both the prosecution and defense entered, with Manafort again engaging with his team. At approximately 4:50, Judge Ellis said the jurors had asked to extend their deliberations until 6:15, the first time the panel had asked for an extension since receiving the case Thursday.

There was some buzz in the courtroom that the jury's request meant that a verdict might be imminent, or that a block of charges was being completed. The 18-count indictment breaks down into three blocks of charges -- income tax fraud, failure to register foreign bank accounts, and bank fraud.

Manafort sat at the defense table, at times clenching his jaw, and appearing to swallow hard.

There were also three bench conferences Monday, which were held with white noise blasting to block the gallery from listening. One bench conference included the court security officer, who is in charge of jurors and logistics. Ellis said the discussion would be unsealed at the end of the trial, along with another related matter, without providing further details.
President Trump asserted on Monday that he would be "totally allowed" to take over Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe if he wanted to, in another thinly veiled broadside against an investigation he has repeatedly derided as a partisan "witch hunt."

"I can go in, and I could do whatever  I could run it if I want," Trump told Reuters. "But I decided to stay out. Im totally allowed to be involved if I wanted to be. So far, I havent chosen to be involved. Ill stay out."



The extraordinary comment -- apparently a reference to Trump's executive authority to order Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at the Justice Department to fire or replace Mueller -- came as jurors continued to deliberate in the first trial brought as a result of Mueller's probe. There was no verdict in the case on Monday, raising the defense team's hopes after three days of deliberations.

Trump also repeated the concerns raised publicly by his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, that speaking with Mueller's team directly would expose him to perjury charges, even if he told the truth.

TRUMP LASHES OUT AT MUELLER 'THUGS' IN MONDAY TWEETS, CALLS SPECIAL COUNSEL A 'NATIONAL DISGRACE'

So if I say something and [former FBI Director James Comey] says something, and its my word against his, and hes best friends with Mueller, so Mueller might say: Well, I believe Comey, and even if Im telling the truth, that makes me a liar," Trump said. "Thats no good.

Speaking exclusively to Fox News' "The Story with Martha MacCallum" Monday night, Giuliani defended his comment Sunday that "truth isn't truth," which drew a firestorm of criticism on social media. Prosecutors can bring perjury charges against an honest witness, Giuliani said, as long as they can find others to present an alternative version of events.

Giuliani also alleged that Mueller's team was trying to cause political damage for Trump, even though, he said, prosecutors had assured him they did not want to repeat Comey's mistakes.

"They're trying to run this right up until the election," Giuliani said, calling the investigation a "travesty."

"They're trying to do the same thing Comey did -- they're trying to be the judge and jury of the 2018 election," he added.

Giuliani also downplayed a report over the weekend that White House Counsel Don McGahn had extensive meetings with Mueller, saying McGahn is an "honorable" man who would have resigned long ago if Trump had told him to do anything illegal.

"They're trying to do the same thing Comey did -- they're trying to be the judge and jury of the 2018 election."  Rudy Giuliani

"I can't imagine him sitting around the White House for six months with a president he thinks committed a crime," Giuliani said.

Trump also told Reuters that he hadn't "given a lot of thought" to the possibility of revoking Mueller's security clearance -- a move that would be sure to trigger a political uproar in Washington and potentially unravel the Mueller probe.

Last week, the White House terminated ex-CIA Director John Brennan's security clearance, charging that he had misled Congress about the CIA's role in spying on Senate staffers and improperly politicized his access to classified information with his attacks on the president.

Trump told Reuters the Mueller probe had played right into the Russians - if it was Russia - they played right into the Russians hands.

Separately, Trump also responded to the news that several tech giants, including Google, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter, had removed or banned content from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

"I won't mention names, but when they take certain people off of Twitter or Facebook and they're making that decision, that is really a dangerous thing because that could be you tomorrow," Trump said.

Fox News' Martha MacCallum contributed to this report.
President Trump sent condolence cables to the families of two college students from Saudi Arabia who drowned in June while trying to rescue two young children from a Massachusetts river, the Saudi embassy in Washington confirmed Monday night.

Theeb al-Yami, 27, and Jaser al-Rakah, 25, jumped into the Chicopee River on June 29 as the children were struggling with the current. According to witnesses, the two students were overcome by the current themselves and swept away.

According to MassLive, the body of one of the students was recovered later that day. The other student's body was recovered near a dam on July 2. The children were rushed to a nearby hospital and discharged that evening.

Both al-Yami and al-Rakah had come to the U.S. to study engineering at local universities. Al-Yami attended the University of Hartford in Connecticut, while al-Rakah attended Western New England University in Springfield, Mass.

In each of the Aug. 9 cables, Trump said that both men had "exemplified tremendous courage by putting[their] own life at risk ... [Their] heroism represents the very best of humanity, and [their] noble actions will always be remembered."

"Melania and I send our thoughts and prayers to you during this sorrowful time," the cables concluded. "May you find strength in the inspiring legacy of [Theeb and Jaser's] selfless sacrifice."

The cables were first reported by Al-Arabiya.

Fox News' Rich Edson contributed to this report.
Top law enforcement officials have countered a claim by Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson that Russian operatives had penetrated some county election systems in his home state of Florida.

In a Monday letter obtained by Fox News, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and FBI Director Christopher Wray told Florida officials that while Russian spies have previously demonstrated both the intent and capability to conduct malicious cyber operations, there is no current evidence to suggest any meddling in the upcoming midterm elections in November.

DHS and the FBI will continue to notify any victim of a successful cyber intrusion into their election network in any jurisdiction nationwide, the letter, which was first reported by the Orlando Sentinel, stated.

The letter is the latest blow to Nelson's claims. It comes after Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner sent letters to the DHS, FBI and congressional leaders inquiring about the senator's assertions.

Nelson made the unsubstantiated claim earlier this month. He said Russian agents have already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about. He added that voting machines in Florida have already been compromised by Russian meddling.

The senators claim drew quick retorts from a number of prominent Republicans, including Florida Gov. Rick Scott who is challenging Nelson for his Senate seat. Scott demanded that the three-term Democratic incumbent provide proof of his claim and raised the concern that Nelson may have revealed classified information.

"Until the essential question is answered  was Nelson revealing classified information or did he make this up  until that answer is clearly marked out by the senator, I think that these questions are not going away," Lauren Schenone, the press secretary for Scott's campaign, told The Hill.

Nelson, and fellow Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote to election officials back in July warning about potential threats to their states election apparatus. Nelson and Rubio suggested that 2018 would be a year that demands greater awareness of cyber threats, and encouraged state officials to take advantage of the wide range of services provided by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to safeguard against such intrusion.

Despite the criticism from Scott and other Republicans, Nelson has refused to back down from his comments.

During stops in north Florida over a two-day period last week, Nelson said state and local officials need to take Russian meddling as a "serious threat" and county election supervisors need to make sure they have help to protect their election systems. Russian hackers targeted at least 21 states, including Florida, during the last election.

"It would be foolish to think that the Russians are not continuing to do what they did in Florida in 2016," Nelson said. "It is unfortunate that some Florida officials are trying to use this for partisan purposes."

Fox News' Alex Diaz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in a fiery speech Tuesday, announced legislation to prohibit lawmakers and other officials from owning or trading individual stocks -- and impose a lifetime ban on members of Congress being hired as lobbyists once they leave office.



In a speech at the National Press Club, the Massachusetts senator declared that corruption has seeped into the fabric of our government and said that like a cancer eating away at our democracy, corruption has eroded Americans faith in our government.



She said her proposal would padlock the revolving door" between big business and the federal government, and stop self-dealing by lawmakers.

"Today I'm introducing the most ambitious anti-corruption legislation proposed in Congress since Watergate," she claimed.



The legislation, called The Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act, would ban members of Congress, Cabinet secretaries, federal judges and other government officials from owning and trading individual stocks. It would also ban foreign lobbying, ban lobbyists donating to candidates and lawmakers and slap a lifetime ban on lobbying by lawmakers, presidents and agency heads.



As Democrats gear up to fight Trumps nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, her proposal also would require the Supreme Court to follow ethics rules for other federal judges.



Warren has been widely floated as a possible 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. Asked Tuesday about whether she was running, she brushed off the question by saying she wasnt running for president in 2020, but running for senator in 2018.



But in her remarks, she took a few shots at President Trump directly on the subject of corruption. She said the Trump administration was not the cause of corruption in D.C., but theyre just the biggest stinkiest example of it.

Her bill would also require politicians to release more tax and financial information, as she suggested Trump may be vulnerable to blackmail from foreign powers.

"Right now, that problem begins with a president who may be vulnerable to financial blackmail from a hostile foreign power and God knows who else -- because it's a president and his family who may be personally profiting off hundreds of policy decisions every day -- but we dont know, because he wont show us his tax returns and wont get rid of his personal business interests," she said.

WARREN TO INTRODUCE THE 'ACCOUNTABLE CAPITALISM ACT'



The move represents the latest form of left-wing populism from Warren, and comes after she introduced the Accountable Capitalism Act, which she says would give workers a "stronger voice in corporate decision-making at large companies."
Imran Awan, the former IT aide to congressional Democrats whose federal bank fraud case has drawn the interest of top Republicans, avoided jail time Tuesday after the defense complained about disparaging comments made against the defendant by President Trump and others.

During a hearing Tuesday in Washington, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan sentenced Awan to three months of supervised release plus time served. Chutkan, who cited unfounded allegations against Awan, also did not impose a fine.

Awan, who pleaded guilty in July to making a false statement on a loan application, delivered an emotional statement vowing: I promise you this second chance will not go to waste.

The prosecution, in a recent sentencing memorandum, did not advocate jail time for Awan.

Federal guidelines recommended a sentence of zero to six months in jail, followed by two to five years of supervised release. Prosecutors said they did not oppose a noncustodial sentence.

The case had generated great interest from conservatives, who suggested Awan could have been involved in a cyber breach operation. Awan, who was arrested last summer at Dulles International Airport before trying to board a flight to Pakistan, worked as a technology employee to top Democrats, including Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

But prosecutors said during Julys plea hearing that they investigated allegations of misconduct by Awan while on the job in Congress and said they "uncovered no evidence" that Awan "violated federal law with respect to the House computer systems."

Awan admitted in Julys plea deal to working to obtain home equity lines of credit from the Congressional Federal Credit Union in December 2016 by giving false information about a property. As part of the deal, the prosecution dropped fraud charges against Awan's wife, Hina Alvi.

In a sentencing memorandum filed this week, Awans attorney, Christopher J. Gowen, requested a sentence of time served plus a fine, citing the costs incurred by Imran throughout this case, the nature of the offense, his substantial cooperation, the positions taken by the United States and the presentence investigator, and the conduct of several government officials, including the President of the United States.

Trump has referred to Awan multiple times as the Pakistani mystery man, and mentioned him during his joint press conference this summer in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Awan was born in Pakistan, but came to the U.S. with his family when he was a teenager.

Trump is not the only sitting government official who has indulged in false or outrageously speculative and racially-tinged attacks on Imran for political benefit, Gowen wrote in the court document, taking aim at Republican lawmakers Louie Gohmert of Texas, Steve King of Iowa and Ron DeSantis of Florida.

Suspicions about Awans activities were raised after revelations that Philip G. Kiko, the chief administrative officer of the House, said in April that the Houses inspector general discovered evidence of procurement fraud and irregularities and numerous violations of House security policies by Awan and other IT employees connected to him.

Prosecutors said the government conducted a thorough investigation of those allegations but determined federal charges were not warranted. The case was investigated by the U.S. Capitol Police and the FBIs Washington field office.

Before his arrest, Awan and other IT aides for House Democrats originally had been on investigators radar for months over concerns of alleged equipment theft, access to sensitive computer systems and more.

The government interviewed 40 witnesses, took custody of the House Democratic Caucus server and other devices, reviewed electronic communications between House employees and questioned Awan during multiple voluntary interviews, the plea deal said.

A grand jury in August 2017 first returned an indictment in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia charging Awan and his wife with federal bank fraud.

Its not the only high-profile bank fraud case with a political connection: a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia is deliberating in the case of Trumps former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
A major newspaper thinks Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, a House candidate in Florida, is out of this world.

The Miami Herald has endorsed Rodriguez Aguilera, a Republican vying to replace outgoing Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Floridas 27th congressional district. The candidate, a former Doral councilwoman, made headlines after she claimed she was visited by extraterrestrials  which shes described as appearing like women with long, blonde hair  when she was 7 years old.

She previously told the Miami Herald that these aliens have communicated with her multiple times throughout her life.

The aliens took her into their spaceship and spoke to her about events that would happen, Rodriguez Aguilera has said. Shes also spoken about these supposed events with several Spanish-language news outlets.

We realize that Rodriguez Aguilera is an unusual candidate, the Miami Herald said in its endorsement of her, adding that it agrees with Rodriguez Aguilera that her experiences are a non-issue.

FOX NEWS MIDTERM ELECTIONS HEADQUARTERS

Her bona fides as a former elected official, and now a businesswoman who spends time in other countries training women to run for office are solid, the Miami Herald said.

Born in Cuba, Rodriguez Aguilera has served as an advocate for human rights, including before the United Nations in Switzerland. Her father was a political prisoner in Cuba, and she was not able to see him until she was 17, she has said.

In its endorsement, the Miami Herald editorial board pointed out that Rodriguez Aguilera is the only candidate who has a working class agenda. Her platform includes: lowering student loan payments, reducing and eliminating tolls, fixing the credit score system, cutting taxes and implementing a hardship rental insurance to help with homelessness.

FLORIDA HOUSE CANDIDATE WHO LIED ABOUT COLLEGE GRADUATION DROPS OUT OF RACE

Rodriguez Aguilera was a social worker for Miami-Dade County before becoming an ombudsman in the county managers office.

She is an advocate for women in business and has worked with efforts to help political prisoners in China, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, according to her campaign website. She's also spent some time in Albania and has supported nongovernmental organization aimed at combating domestic violence.

Rodriguez Aguilera isnt the only candidate in this years midterm elections to have an extraterrestrial connection. Joe Manchik, the Green Party candidate who ran in the tight Ohio special House election where Republican Troy Balderson claimed victory, has said his distant relatives originally came to planet Earth from a planet orbiting a star.
Paul Manafort's prison stay was extended Wednesday  nearly a week after he was sentenced to 47 months on bank and tax fraud charges in a separate case. The former Trump campaign chairman is now slated to spend a total of 81 months in prison.

He was given extra prison time at his second sentencing in connection with his guilty plea related to foreign lobbying and witness tampering.

In August, Manafort became the first Trump campaign associate to be found guilty by a jury as part of Special Counsel Robert Muellers long-running probe. He was convicted of eight bank and tax fraud charges at that time.

PAUL MANAFORT SENTENCED ON FOREIGN LOBBYING AND WITNESS TAMPERING CHARGES

Manafort has been the subject of an investigation over his dealings in Ukraine several years ago  he didnt file as a foreign agent until June 2017. But Mueller has incorporated that investigation into his probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion with Trump associates.

Manafort was convicted on multiple counts of financial fraud last year in connection with his Ukranian work, and is in prison. In November, Mueller accused Manafort of lying "on a variety of subject matters" since his plea deal, thus violating that agreement.

Read on for a look at Manafort's work with the Trump campaign and how he is connected to the Russia investigation.

What kind of foreign work did Manafort do?

A GOP operative who worked for former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Manafort reportedly began his work in Republican politics in the 1970s.

Eventually, Manafort was hired by former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a controversial pro-Russia politician who was ousted from power twice. After Yanukovych was elected president in 2010, Manafort reportedly stayed on as an adviser and worked on other projects in Eastern Europe, including the Party of Regions political party.

Manafort also worked for Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. In 2005, Manafort allegedly came up with a plan to influence U.S. politics, business dealings and the media in order to greatly benefit the Putin government, according to The Associated Press.

Deripaska is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and signed a $10 million annual contract with Manafort in 2006; they maintained a business relationship until at least 2009.

Financial records obtained by The New York Times indicated that Manafort was in debt to pro-Russian interests by up to $17 million prior to joining Donald Trumps presidential campaign.

He also took more than a dozen trips to Moscow and frequently talked to Putin allies over a period of about 10 years, McClatchy reported. He traveled to Kiev at least 19 times in 20 months after the February 2014 removal of Ukraines pro-Russia leader.

How was Manafort involved with Trump's campaign?

Manafort joined Trump's presidential campaign in March 2016 to help wrangle delegates ahead of the Republican National Convention in Ohio, something he'd done for former President Gerald Ford.

Just two months later, Manafort became Trump's campaign chairman.

Manaforts resignation from the campaign was announced on August 19, 2016, after The Times reported that he'd received $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments from Yanukovychs pro-Russian party between 2007 and 2012.

Manafort and Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016. She reportedly was said to have damaging information on Trumps campaign rival, Hillary Clinton, which was "part of Russia and its governments support for Mr. Trump."

What was Manafort charged with?

Along with his former business associate Rick Gates, Manafort was initially indicted in October 2017 on multiple counts that included: conspiracy against the U.S., conspiracy to launder money, false statements and failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.

Nearly four months later, in February 2018, the pair were hit with additional tax evasion and bank fraud charges. These charges involved much of the same conduct Manafort and Gates were initially accused of, but the amount of money Manafort said to have laundered through offshore accounts increased to $30 million.

In June 2018, Mueller's team brought additional charges of obstruction of justice against Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, an associate. The charges against Manafort and Gates dont relate to allegations of misconduct during Trumps campaign.

Mueller also accused Manafort of secretly paying former European politicians to lobby on behalf of Ukraine.

Manafort was found guilty of eight counts in August in the first trial victory for Mueller's team. The judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict.

In September, Manafort pleaded guilty as part of an agreement with Mueller's team ahead of his second trial. According to Politico, the plea deal includes a 10-year cap for how long Manafort will be in prison. It also includes allowing Manafort to serve his time for both trials concurrently.

He received a nearly 4-year prison sentence on March 7 after a federal jury in Virginia convicted him on eight counts of bank and tax fraud last year. A week later, on March 13, he received an additional three and a half years on foreign lobbying and witness tampering charges.

Manafort previously maintained his innocence despite all of the charges brought before him  but he has since expressed remorse for his actions.

"I am sorry for what I have done and all the activities that have gotten us here today," Manafort said in a written statement in March, begging a judge for mercy.

Fox News' Ann Schmidt, Jake Gibson, Alex Pappas, Matt Richardson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A federal jury in Virginia convicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on eight counts of bank and tax fraud, making him the first campaign associate of President Trump found guilty by a jury as part of Special Counsel Robert Muellers probe.

But after four days of deliberations, the jury told Judge T.S. Ellis III on Tuesday afternoon that it could not come to a decision on ten other counts related to financial crimes. A mistrial was declared on those counts.

I feel very badly for Paul Manafort, Trump told reporters Tuesday evening after landing in West Virginia for a political rally.

It has nothing to do with Russian collusion, Trump added, calling Muellers probe a witch hunt.

The jury began deliberating last Thursday after a three week trial where prosecutors said Manafort hid income earned from political work overseas from the IRS while fraudulently obtaining millions in bank loans. Manafort, 69, had pleaded not guilty to all 18 counts.

Manafort was stone-faced as the verdict was read. The government has until Aug. 29 to decide whether it will move to retry the 10 deadlocked counts.

Manafort is facing a maximum sentence of 80 years in prison.

Outside court, Manafort attorney Kevin Downing thanked the jurors for their very long and hard-fought deliberation" and said he believed his client got a fair trial.

He is evaluating all of his options at this point, Downing said of Manafort.

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE PAUL MANAFORT CASE

Before the jury was dismissed, Ellis asked jurors if they wanted their names to remain confidential. All answered yes. The judge told them they were allowed to speak to the press if they chose.

In court, Ellis -- known for his colorful comments and reprimands of lawyers throughout the trial -- commended both sides of lawyers for their "effective and zealous representation.

Earlier Tuesday, the 12-member jury signaled difficulty reaching consensus when it sent Ellis a note.

"If we cannot come to consensus on a single count...what does that mean for the final verdict?" they asked.

Ellis responded that this would not be exceptional and said the jury could reach a partial verdict.

Downing asked Ellis if he would tell the jury they have a third option  hung jury -- on each of these counts. The prosecution objected to that plan and Ellis agreed.

The whirlwind trial is the first to result from Mueller's ongoing investigation into Russian election meddling, although Manafort's prosecution does not relate to any election interference or alleged collusion by the Trump team with Russian officials.

While Trump lamented the guilty verdict, Democrats on Capitol Hill pounced.

The conviction of Paul Manafort on multiple felony charges of bank and tax fraud marks a major turning point in the Special Counsels ongoing investigation, and shows again that the presidents campaign was populated by individuals with a history of unscrupulous and dishonest business dealings and concerning ties to overseas interests, said California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

He is evaluating all of his options at this point."  Defense attorney Kevin Downing, on Manafort

As the jury entered its fourth day of deliberations, the defense expressed optimism that things were headed in their direction.

Manafort entered the courtroom earlier Tuesday morning looking upbeat. Manafort patted a couple of his lawyers on the shoulder and acknowledged his wife Kathleen, sitting in the front row, with a wink.

Defense attorneys rested their case without calling Manafort or any other witnesses to the stand. But attorneys for Manafort suggested that Muellers team had improperly ensnared their client in its probe, as the case did not have anything to do with Russias interference in the 2016 election.

In closing arguments last week, the prosecution painted the former Trump campaign chairman as a chronic liar, telling jurors Manafort was not above the law.

The prosecutions star witness, Rick Gates  Manaforts former business partner who struck a plea deal to cooperate with the government -- testified during the trial that he and Manafort committed bank and tax fraud together.

Manaforts legal troubles continue, whether or not prosecutors attempt to retry the deadlocked counts. He also faces charges in a separate federal court case in Washington, including conspiring against the United States, conspiring to launder money, failing to register as an agent of a foreign principal and providing false statements.

Fox News Catherine Herridge, Meghan Welsh, Jake Gibson, Chad Pergram and Guerin Hays contributed to this report.
White House counsel Donald McGahns attorneys reportedly assured President Donald Trumps lawyers that he doesnt believe his lengthy interviews with Special Counsel Robert Mueller incriminated the president.

The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, reported that McGahns attorneys issued assurances in the wake of Trumps legal team criticism of the New York Times article claiming his lawyers have little knowledge what McGahn told the special counsel.

Bill Burck, an attorney for McGahn, told the presidents attorneys over the past weekend that McGahn didnt say that Trump is guilty of any wrongdoing during his interviews with Muellers investigators.

He did not incriminate him, Burck wrote in one email, according to the Post.

Rudy Giuliani told Fox News on Monday that former Trump attorney John Dowd got a complete version of what McGahn said during that period of time, while noting that he personally wasnt aware of all the details McGhan told the investigators. Now, I do, he added, saying he went over the details in the recent days.

Despite the criticism of the media reports about McGahns interviews with the special counsel, Trump used the interviews to portray the White House as being cooperative with the investigation and as evidence that Muellers team is scrambling for evidence.

Disgraced and discredited Bob Mueller and his whole group of Angry Democrat Thugs spent over 30 hours with the White House Counsel, only with my approval, for purposes of transparency, Trump wrote in a tweet on Monday. Anybody needing that much time when they know there is no Russian Collusion is just someone looking for trouble.

McGahn reportedly had three lengthy interviews with the special counsel investigators since last November, who are investigating the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The White House counsel, whos believed to have become a key witness in the probe, was asked by investigators about Trumps private actions when he decided to fire FBI Director James Comey, publicly attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his failure to control the probe, and when he indicated willingness to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, the Post reported.

Trumps legal team was assured that McGahn told the special counsel that he didnt witness the president committing any crimes and would have left his position if he had.

But Burck also warned that McGahn is merely a witness and he doesnt know if Mueller has more evidence about any alleged wrongdoing by the president or if the information McGahn provided could be used in a broader case.
Michael Cohen, President Trumps longtime personal attorney, admitted Tuesday to violating federal campaign finance laws by arranging hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal at the direction of then-candidate Trump.

In entering the plea, Cohen did not specifically name the two women or even Trump, recounting instead that he worked with an unnamed candidate. But the amounts and the dates all lined up with the payments made to Daniels and McDougal.

In total, Cohen pleaded guilty to five counts of tax evasion, one count of making false statements to a financial institution, one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution, and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution.

Cohen could have received up to 65 years in prison if convicted of all charges. However, as part of his plea deal, Cohen agreed not to challenge any sentence between 46 and 63 months. The deal does not involve a cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors.

Cohen is set to be sentenced Dec. 12.

In a statement, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said: There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the governments charges against Mr. Cohen. It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohens actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.

Cohen attorney Lanny Davis said his client had pleaded guilty so that his family can move on to the next chapter.

"This is Michael fulfilling his promise made on July 2nd to put his family and country first and tell the truth about Donald Trump," Davis added. "Today he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election. If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldnt they be a crime for Donald Trump?"

Separately, Davis told Fox News that Cohens involvement in the Trump-Russia investigation does not end with the plea deal, but in fact "it is only the beginning."

Davis added that Cohen will speak with whoever is investigating the president to make sure the truth about Trump gets out.

Cohens home, office and hotel room were raided in April by federal investigators looking into his financial dealings, including his alleged practice of paying women to stay silent about claims they had affairs with now-President Trump. Daniels and McDougal have both claimed they had sex with Trump while he was married, which the president denies.

Cohen was behind the $130,000 payment to Daniels, and recently released a tape of a conversation from September 2016 of him and Trump discussing the possible payment to McDougal.

Trump denied to reporters in April that he knew anything about Cohens payments to Daniels, though the explanation from the president and Giuliani have shifted multiples times since.

In May, Giuliani initially told Fox News Sean Hannity that Trump had reimbursed Cohen for the payment to Daniels. Giuliani later claimed that the president was unaware the money would be going to Daniels and said Trump repaid Cohen for unspecified expenses.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami told reporters that in January 2017, Cohen had begun seeking reimbursement for the payments to both women by submitting invoices to the candidates company  believed to be the Trump Organization  that falsely indicated that Cohen had provided legal services in the year 2017.

In fact ... [Cohen] provided no legal services for the year 2017, and it was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful campaign contribution, Khuzami said.

According to prosecutors, Cohen sent reimbursement invoices to one or more members of the Trump Organization requesting $35,000 per month.

The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2016 that McDougal was paid $150,000 by American Media Inc. -- the parent company to the National Enquirer  for the rights to the story, but it never ran.

According to court documents, Cohen reached an agreement with Chairman-1  believed to be American Media Chairman and CEO David Pecker  to pay $125,000 for the rights to the non-disclosure portion of McDougals agreement with American Media. Prosecutors say Cohen created a shell entity, Resolution Consultants LLC to execute the transaction.

An agreement was signed, but according to prosecutors, Chairman-1 contacted Cohen in early October 2016 before any money could be exchanged and told him "that the deal was off and that Cohen should tear up the assignment agreement." The documents say that Cohen did not do so and the agreement was found during the April search of his office.

Cohen also admitted Tuesday to underreporting his income by $4.1 million on his tax returns for the years between 2012 and 2016. Of that amount, $2.5 million was interest payments from a personal loan; $1.3 million was income from his taxi medallion business; $100,000 was income from brokerage commissions; and $200,000 was from consulting fees.

The investigation into Cohen was handled by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York after it was referred to them by Special Counsel Robert Muellers office.

Trump has repeatedly blasted developments in the Cohen investigation. In April, after Cohens offices were raided, he declared attorney-client privilege is dead. Last month, he slammed both the FBI raid and Cohens taping of discussions about paying McDougal as inconceivable.

Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyers office (early in the morning) - almost unheard of, he tweeted. Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client - totally unheard of & perhaps illegal.

But, possibly in reference to questions about whether he had violated any campaign finance laws, Trump added that your favorite President did nothing wrong!

Before the election, Cohen had been a trusted member of the Trump organization, working out of an office in Trump Tower next to one used by his boss.

He raised millions for Trumps campaign and, after being interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee last year, told Vanity Fair that Trump had no part in the suspected Russian conspiracy to tamper with the election.

However, Cohen appeared to distance himself from Trump last month. In an interview with ABC News, which was referenced by Davis Tuesday, Cohen said that my wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will. I put family and country first.

Fox News Tamara Gitt, Lissa Kaplan and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Michael Cohen, President Trump's former personal attorney, was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress.

Earlier this year, Cohen, 52, admitted to violating federal campaign finance laws by arranging hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal in the weeks leading up to the election "at the direction" of Trump, who was then a candidate. He pleaded guilty to tax evasion, making false statements to a financial institution, willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution and making an excessive campaign contribution.

The excessive campaign contribution was regarding the $130,000 payment made to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, ahead of the election in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump.

Prosecutors had recommended a substantial prison term with a modest amount of credit for his cooperation. Cohen's lawyers, however, argued he shouldn't spend any time behind bars.

Before he was sentenced, Cohen blamed Trump for making him cover up his "dirty deeds" and said his "blind loyalty" to the president made him "take a path of darkness instead of light."

Read on to look at some of the legal issues and controversies hes faced.

Campaign finance

Cohen pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance laws in August by offering payments to women who claimed to have relationships with Trump in exchange for their silence. He said he arranged the payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal "at the direction" of Trump, who was then just a presidential candidate.

Cohen pleaded guilty to five counts of tax evasion, one count of making false statements to a financial institution, one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution. He faced up to 65 years in prison, but his plea deal stipulates he will not challenge a sentence between 46 and 63 months.

MICHAEL COHEN'S CASE, FROM STANDING BY TRUMP TO IMPLICATING HIM IN PLEA DEAL: A TIMELINE

McDougal has said she had a consensual, loving relationship with Trump in 2006. While this was prior to his presidency, Trump was married to Melania Trump at that point. McDougal was paid $150,000 to squelch her story of the relationship.

The White House has denied the allegations of an affair.

Cohen also arranged a $130,000 payment to Daniels in 2016 for her silence regarding an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 while he was married. Trump has denied an affair took place.

Lying to Congress

Cohen pleaded guilty on Nov. 29 to making false statements regarding a real estate project in Moscow before the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017.

CAN EX-PLAYBOY MODEL KAREN MCDOUGAL TALK ABOUT ALLEGED AFFAIR WITH TRUMP? A LOOK AT HER RECENT SETTLEMENT

Cohen said he told lawmakers the Trump Tower project ended in January 2016 when it continued until June 2016. He also said he lied about never discussing traveling to Russia with Trump, although the pair did not go.

Fox News Samuel Chamberlain, Alex Pappas, John Roberts, Adam Shaw, Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The last known Nazi collaborator living in the United States -- a 95-year-old former camp guard who played an "indispensable role" in the murders of thousands of Jews -- was deported to Germany from his New York City home early Tuesday morning, completing what the U.S. ambassador to Germany called a "difficult task."

Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador who arrived in Germany earlier this year after political maneuvering by Democrats held up his nomination for months, told "FOX & friends" in an exclusive interview that President Trump  who is from New York  instructed him to make the removal of Jakiw Palij a priority. Grenell said the new German government, which took office in March, brought "new energy" to the matter.

"It's really a credit to President Trump, who was very clear about this case, made clear he wanted this individual out of the United States," Grenell said, later adding, "it's a great day for the United States to have this man out of our country."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Tuesday implemented a deportation order against Palij that dated to 2004. But kicking out Palij, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1949 and became a citizen in 1957 after concealing his Nazi background, was no easy task.

Grenell said the deportation came after months of diplomatic negotiations, and was "difficult" because Palij is not a German citizen and was stateless after losing his citizenship in the U.S.

"[Germany] had a moral obligation, not necessarily a legal one, because he worked in the name of the then-German government," he told "FOX & friends."

The ambassador praised Germany's new foreign and interior ministers who both "wanted to work with President Trump to make this happen." He also said that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was "aggressive" about the case.

Palij admitted to Department of Justice officials in 2003 that he trained at a Nazi camp in German-occupied Poland. Court documents indicated that men who trained at the SS Training camp in Trawniki carried out the Nazi regimes plan to murder Jews in Poland.

The 95-year-old also served as an armed guard at the adjacent Trawniki Labor Camp  where he played an indispensable role in the death of roughly 6,000 Jews who were killed in one of the single largest massacres of the Holocaust in 1943, according to the statement.

Palij, who claimed he was working on a farm and in a factory during World War II, had his U.S. citizenship revoked in 2003 by a federal judge, and ordered to be deported a year later. His appeal was denied in 2005.

After the war, Palij maintained friendships with other Nazi guards who the government says came to the U.S. under similar false pretenses. And in an interesting coincidence, Palij and his wife purchased their Queens home near LaGuardia Airport in 1966 from a Polish Jewish couple who had survived the Holocaust and were not aware of his past.

Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palijs deportation to Germany and advanced the United States collaborative efforts with a key European ally, the statement read.

The State Department later issued a statement saying Germany has re-admitted Palij. As for what will happen to Palij in Germany, Grenell said "it's in the hands of the Germans" to figure out what to do with him next.

"The fact is we have a president who really wants to fight for the American people, make sure that the rule of law is followed," he told "FOX & friends."

In a special ceremony at the White House on Monday, Trump honored two agencies -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection -- however, as ABC News noted Palij was not mentioned.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Left-wing Democrats have long said that implementing Democratic socialism is easier than conservatives claim. But according to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, its a walk in the park.

The overnight Democratic superstar, who rose out of obscurity after beating Rep. Joe Crowley, D-NY, in Junes primary, has been widely mocked for a number of gaffes and misstatements she has made on a subsequent media and campaign tour.

That mockery looked set to continue this week after she took a leisurely stroll through Maines Acadia National Park, and declared it -- along with other benign Sunday stops -- an example of democratic socialism.

She cited not only her visit to the park, but also eating a breakfast sandwich at a cafe co-op, and supporting worker-owned businesses. She also added as a bonus that she spotted a Planned Parenthood branch helping people, per usual.

She posted a number of accompanying pictures -- including her relaxing under a bridge, and another of her smiling outside the aforementioned Planned Parenthood center.

But while worker-owned businesses may have a ring of Workers of the World, Unite! to them, Ocasio-Cortez took heat for what critics described as the common mistake of equating some things government-run to socialism.

The National Park System is not socialism in action: It is a mix of public goods, like monuments, and government maintenance of park land, which is not an interruption of private economic activity or a usurpation of private property rights, The Weekly Standards Chris Deaton wrote in a column.

Deaton added that "contra Ocasio-Cortez, a fishing trip to Yellowstone is not a celebration of Marx and Engels."

She was similarly knocked on Twitter, including by some users who noted that the billionaire Rockefeller family -- associated more with capitalism than socialism -- has ties to the park.

Acadia National Park was created by private philanthropists who made land donations and paid for its design, John D. Rockefeller in particular, one user tweeted. Read the signs next time. 

Fact-checkers have been hitting Ocasio-Cortez hard for a number of misstatements on everything from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to healthcare. She has shrugged off the criticism.

OCASIO-CORTEZ CLAIMS HAVE FACT CHECKERS WORKING OVERTIME

Conservatives have delighted in attacking her both for her gaffes, and her left-wing worldview, which they say represents a new extreme direction for the Democratic Party.

In an email push last week, the Republican National Committee referenced Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as it called her the Mini-Maduro foreboding the future of Democrats.
Paul Manafort, a longtime political consultant who briefly led President Trumps campaign, recieved his long-awaited fraud trial verdict on Aug. 21  with the federal jury finding him guilty on eight counts. But the jury could not come to a decision on 10 of the counts.

The trial became a highly publicized showdown between the Trump administration and Special Counsel Robert Mueller over the past few weeks.

Manafort, 69, faced 18 tax evasion and bank fraud charges. He was accused of hiding a significant percentage of income earned from his Ukrainian work from the IRS. He was also accused of fraudulently obtaining millions more in bank loans, including while he was working on the Trump campaign.

Held in Alexandria, Virginia, this was Muellers first trial since his appointment to oversee the Russia investigation more than a year ago. It spanned nearly three weeks before jurors began deliberations.

The case didn't specifically address any alleged collusion between Trump officials and the Russian government. Trump has repeatedly called Muellers probe into such allegations a witch hunt.

On the fourth day of deliberations, the jury sent a note to the judge signaling a problem with coming to a consensus on at least one count.

Read on for a look what you need to know about the case against Manafort and the Alexandria trial as the jury continues its deliberations.

What were the charges?

The charges against Manafort did not relate to allegations of misconduct pertaining to the Trump campaign.

Instead, the trial focused on tales of wild spending, secret shell companies and millions of dollars of Ukrainian money flowing through offshore bank accounts and into the political consultants pockets.

The luxurious lifestyle was funded by Manafort's political consulting for the pro-Russian Ukrainian political party of Viktor Yanukovych, who was deposed as Ukraine's president in 2014.

Along with his former business associate Rick Gates, Manafort was initially indicted in October 2017 on multiple counts that included: conspiracy against the U.S., conspiracy to launder money, false statements and failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.

Manafort had maintained his innocence in all charges. Gates pleaded guilty to the charges against him.

Gates testified Manafort would fraudulently classify certain wire transfers as loans to reduce the amount of taxable income in a given year. Gates also said he embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from Manafort and admitted to having had an extramarital affair.

On Aug. 21, Manafort was found guilty on some  but not all  counts in the bank and tax fraud trial.

What did it have to do with Russia?

Muellers investigation centers on collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians during the election  but this trial wasn't supposed to be about that

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III warned prosecutors about the current antipathy toward Russia in the U.S., saying most people in this country dont distinguish between Ukrainians and Russians.

How long could Manafort be in jail?

Manafort faces the very real possibility of life in prison, according to a federal court order.

What about the Trump card?

Manafort joined Trumps presidential campaign in March 2016 to help wrangle delegates ahead of the Republican National Convention in Ohio  something he had done for former President Gerald Ford.

Two months later, Manafort was elevated to campaign chairman.

Manaforts resignation from the campaign was announced on August 19, 2016, after The New York Times reported he'd received $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments from Yanukovychs pro-Russian party between 2007 and 2012.

Trump has maintained Manafort was only with the campaign for a short time and has insisted he should have been informed of the investigation into him.

Observers have questioned whether Trump will pardon Manafort's crimes.

Is this it?

Manafort has a second trial coming up in mid-September. That trial, set in the District of Columbia, involves allegations he acted as an unregistered foreign agent for Ukrainian interests and made false statements to the U.S. government.

Fox News Alex Pappas, Gregg Re, Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested Tuesday that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had misled him during their hour-and-a-half one-on-one meeting at the Capitol, and claimed that Kavanaugh had failed to offer assurances that abortion rights would not be overturned if he is confirmed.

Schumer's broadsides were a preview of lines of attack Democratic senators are expected to use during Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing in September.

"The judge either wouldn't answer, or couldn't remember key moments of his tenure. He acknowledged being part of the White House's response to the Enron case, but couldn't provide any details about what he did. ... His lack of recollection on almost everything didnt ring true," Schumer, D-N.Y., said, referring to Kavanaugh's five years as a lawyer in the Bush administration. "This is a bright man."

Asked later by a reporter if he was accusing Kavanaugh of lying, Schumer said flatly, "I'll leave it at what I said."

The top Senate Democrat went on to criticize Kavanaugh's answers to his questions on abortion rights, a key issue for moderate Republican senators who could be pivotal in securing or denying Kavanaugh's confirmation.

"I understand that the judge told other members today that he considered Roe v. Wade settled law," Schumer said. "He did not say that to me."

The landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling struck down anti-abortion laws across the country by finding that an implicit constitutional right to privacy protected a women's rights to an abortion to varying degrees depending on trimester.

Schumer continued: "I asked Judge Kavanaugh the appropriate question: I asked him if he agreed that Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood were correctly decided. He would not say yes. That should send shivers down the spine of any American who believes in reproductive freedom. ... He would not give me any reassurance that he believed Roe or Casey were correctly decided or should be left alone." The Casey decision further clarified the right to an abortion.

"Judge Kavanaugh has a special obligation to make his views on this topic clear," Schumer said, dismissing what he said were Kavanaugh's comments during their meeting that all justices would say Roe was settled law. "No other president has nominated someone to the Supreme Court after saying, 'I will only nominate someone who overturns Roe v. Wade.'"

Trump, who said during the 2016 presidential campaign that Roe would be overturned "automatically" if he could nominate several justices, has since said that his advisers told him not to ask Supreme Court nominees whether they would overturn Roe.

Earlier Tuesday, Kavanaugh told Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Maine Republican, that Roe v. Wade was settled law. Schumer had played down that comment, saying more needed to be known about his views on abortion.

Schumer told reporters, "Of course we know Roe is settled law. We need to know if Judge Kavanaugh believes it was correctly decided."



Schumer also took issue with Kavanaugh's previous writings on presidential power, saying, "Its very frightening the president wouldnt have to comply with a subpoena." Trump's legal team has argued repeatedly that a hypothetical subpoena for documents or testimony from Special Counsel Robert Mueller would be legally unjustifiable.

WATCH: GIULIANI SAYS PRESIDENTIAL SUBPOENA WOULD LEAD TO HUGE LEGAL BATTLE

Also on Tuesday, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said she remained noncommittal after meeting with Kavanaugh. McCaskill is one of 10 Democratic senators up for re-election this year in states that President Trump won in 2016. Trump won Missouri by nearly 19 percentage points and McCaskill is under intense pressure from outside groups seeking to sway her vote.

McCaskill said she talked to Kavanaugh Tuesday about his views on ensuring Missouri residents retained access to health care. She says they also talked about his view on "removing dark money from politics, and guaranteeing powerful corporate interests don't prevail over individual Americans."

Kavanaugh is meeting with lawmakers ahead of confirmation hearings, which are set to begin after Labor Day.

MEDIA'S BIGGEST KAVANAUGH MISSES: ATTEMPTED HIT PIECES ON NOMINEE DRAW MOCKERY

Meanwhile, Democrats searching through his files for lines of attacks are digging into his years with the Bush White House, where Kavanaugh worked as a lawyer. Kavanaugh served under Bush from 2001 to 2006. Democrats have said certain documents could reveal his views on high-profile issues including abortion rights and the torture of terror suspects.

"His lack of recollection on almost everything didnt ring true. This is a bright man."  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer

The nominee's years working for independent counsel Ken Starr also are under the microscope. Media reports have focused recently on a 20-year-old memo in which Kavanaugh reportedly opposed giving then-President Bill Clinton a break in the Monica Lewinsky investigation.

Democrats have expressed frustration with how they were receiving documents they requested from Kavanaugh's lengthy tenure in Washington. Specifically, they have complained that most of the released documents have come from Bush's lawyer, Bill Burck, who is vetting them, rather than the traditional process conducted by the National Archives. They said Burck could well be withholding potentially embarrassing items.

Schumer and other top Democrats last week threatened to sue the National Archives if more documents are not handed over pursuant to their Freedom of Information Act request.

Republicans have allowed the release of well over 100,000 pages of Kavanaugh's papers, including papers from his time as a White House counsel to Bush, his later work as an appellate judge and his earlier time as aide to Starr, who investigated Clinton.

More are on track to be released. Democrats want the release of all Kavanaugh documents, including from his three years as White House staff secretary, which Republicans have refused to request from the National Archives. The Archives says those alone could total several million pages.

Schumer on Tuesday also commented briefly on the whirlwind news of the day, including the guilty plea of ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to campaign finance law violations and the guilty verdicts on eight counts in the bank and tax fraud trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

"I understand the president is going to a rally," Schumer said, referring to Trump's planned West Virginia rally in the evening. "He had better not talk about pardons for Cohen or Manafort tonight -- or any time in the future."

Schumer did not take additional questions from reporters on the Cohen or Manafort situations, saying he did not yet have the opportunity to review all the details.

Fox News' Brian Flood and The Associated Press ontributed to this report.
President Trump endorsed Republican Foster Friess, a wealthy conservative businessman, in Wyomings gubernatorial primary on Tuesday.

He will be a fantastic Governor! Strong on Crime, Borders & 2nd Amendment. Loves our Military & our Vets. He has my complete and total Endorsement! Trump said in a tweet.

Friess, 78, previously told Fox News Wyoming needs a political outsider  particularly a businessman  as its governor.

In business, you learn to prioritize, Friess said. The other thing about business is youre very sensitive to cost.

Friess has also been endorsed by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Donald Trump, Jr., the presidents oldest son.

He has a large network of political allies from his years donating to conservative candidates and initiatives, including to Trump's 2016 campaign. He is also a major contributor to Christian causes.

FOX NEWS MIDTERM ELECTION HEADQUARTERS

Friess faces five other Republican contenders vying for the nomination to replace outgoing GOP Gov. Matt Mead. The other three major contenders are: businessman Sam Galeotos, state treasurer Mark Gordon and attorney Harriet Hageman.

Bill Dahlin and Taylor Haynes, who faced questions about whether he is eligible to be governor due to residency disputes, are also running as Republicans.

Hageman, far more than the others, has criticized her opponents  mainly for what she says is too much liberal thinking. A natural resource attorney for ranchers, she could claim much of Wyoming's farm-and-ranch vote.

Galeotos, on the other hand, has focused on technology as the way forward for Wyoming's economy, which is dependent on fossil fuel extraction.

ALASKA VOTERS SET TO CHOOSE REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR CANDIDATE FOR 3-WAY RACE TO LEAD STATE

The winner of the Republican primary will most likely face state Rep. Mary Throne in the general election. Throne faces three little-known Democrats in her primary Tuesday.

Fox News has ranked the Wyoming gubernatorial election as likely Republican. Trump soundly beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in Wyoming in the 2016 election with 70 percent of the vote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Trump on Monday floated the idea of pulling the security clearance of former FBI official Phil Mudd after he went on a rant on CNN over the weekend in response to the White House decision to scrap the security clearance of former CIA chief John Brennan.

Trump tweeted that he saw the clip of Mudd becoming totally unglued and weird during a heated discussion with CNN analyst Paris Dennard and suggested pulling Mudds security clearance.

Just watched former Intelligence Official Phillip Mudd become totally unglued and weird while debating wonderful @PARISDENNARD over Brennans Security Clearance, Trump wrote in a tweet. Dennard destroyed him but Mudd is in no mental condition to have such a Clearance. Should be REVOKED?

During the debate, Mudd began shouting after Dennard expressed support for Trumps decision to strip Brennan of his security clearance, saying former intelligence officials use the access to for profit in the private sector.

A lot of these people that have these security clearances, and this is the secret in the swampy Washington, D.C., they have them and they keep them because it's profitable for them after they leave government, because if you [have] a security clearance, especially high level security clearance, your contracts and consulting gig pay you a lot more money because of the access that you have, Dennard said, infuriating Mudd.

I hope the president continues to do this, and I hope he adds Omarosa to the list, because if she has a clearance, she too because of her actions should have it revoked, he added.

Mudd fired back at the suggestion former officials profit from holding a security clearance. Profitable, Paris? Mudd asked. When I am required to sit on an advisory board, let me ask you one question, how much do you think I'm paid to do that at the request of the U.S. government? Give me one answer, and you've got 10 seconds? How much?

The former FBI official then became visibly enraged, shouting answer the question at Dennard and insisting that he has zero consulting relationships with the U.S. government while Dennard continued to explain that he means private sector work.

Were done, Jim," he then said. Get out. Twenty five years in the service and this is the s--- I get? Get out, Mudd snapped at the end of the segment.

Mudd, who is among the dozens of former intelligence officials that criticized Trump over his decision to revoke clearance for the former CIA director, earned praise from Michael Hayden, a former CIA director whose clearance the president said he's reviewing, calling Mudd a hero and a counter terrorism giant.
President Trump announced late Monday that he would head to West Virginia to campaign on behalf of the hardworking and spectacular Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who is hoping to flip the seat from Democratic challenger and incumbent Sen. Joe Manchin in the upcoming midterm elections.

Morrisey, who won the Republican primary, hopes to give the GOP a much-needed win in one of the top Senate battlegrounds as Democrats set the stage for a tough battle in November to regain control of the House.

Will be going to the Great State of West Virginia on Tuesday Night to campaign & do a Rally Speech for a hard working and spectacular person, A.G. Patrick Morrisey, who is running for the U.S. Senate, Trump tweeted. Patrick has great Energy & Stamina-I need his VOTE to MAGA. Total Endorsement!"

Trump also reaffirmed his support of Californias GOP candidate for governor John Cox late Monday evening, who he says will Make California Great Again.

I am hearing so many great things about the Republican Partys California Gubernatorial Candidate, John Cox. He is a very successful businessman who is tired of high Taxes & Crime, Trump tweeted.

Cox, who vowed to make the Golden State livable and affordable during an interview with Fox Business in June, will face Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor, in the November general election.

Trump predicted earlier this month that Republicans could ride a giant Red Wave into the November midterm elections spurred on by none other than the president himself.

As long as I campaign and/or support Senate and House candidates (within reason), they will win! I LOVE the people, & they certainly seem to like the job Im doing, Trump tweeted. If I find the time, in between China, Iran, the Economy and much more, which I must, we will have a giant Red Wave!

Trump-backed Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach won the Republican primary for the states gubernatorial race, and candidates in three Missouri and Michigan races also won.

Republican state Sen. Troy Balderson, who also had the endorsement of the president, declared victory in Ohio's special election for a vacant House seat despite the race still being too close to call.

Democrats are widely seen as the favorites to reclaim control of the House, and are consistently leading in so-called generic congressional ballot polls  including districts that were once seen as solid red.

Despite coming up short in most of those races, Democratic leaders point out that the fact the races are competitive is a sign of Republican vulnerability in the fall.

Fox News Judson Berger and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Trump administration added to its growing list of sanctions against Russia on Tuesday as U.S. lawmakers urged tighter economic restrictions on Moscow and Britain's top diplomat accused Russia's leader of pursuing policies that are making the world more dangerous.

The Treasury Department announced two new actions against Russian targets: blacklisting two companies and two individuals suspected of trying to circumvent U.S. sanctions imposed in June in response to cyberattacks; and against two Russian shipping companies suspected of transferring petroleum products to North Korean vessels in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

While President Donald Trump has sought closer ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his administration has intensified economic pressure on Moscow over what it describes as "malign Russian activity" in Ukraine and Syria and Russia's attempts to disrupt western democracies.

Two senior officials from the State and Treasury departments told a Senate hearing Tuesday that since January 2017, 217 Russian business people, officials, and private and state-run companies, including 14 banks and 20 energy firms, have been sanctioned. In addition, they recalled that the administration had expelled 60 Russian spies and closed Russia's consulates in San Francisco and Seattle.

Marshall Billingslea, the Treasury Department's top terrorist financing official, acknowledged that the threat from Russia was "significant and continuing" but told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that without the sanctions "their behavior would be even further off the charts."

He and the State Department's top diplomat for Europe, Wess Mitchell, said Russia is feeling the impact, costing its economy tens of billions of dollars, with companies under sanctions losing a quarter of their operating revenue and having to shed employees.

But the officials faced questions from skeptical lawmakers about the administration's policy toward Russia, particularly since Trump has sent conflicting messages about it. The committee's chairman, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., called Trump's comments "undisciplined" and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire lamented that the president had issued "contradictory" statements about Russia. "Until we see a change in that behavior we are going to continue to see and have concern."

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said it appeared to him as though the administration were pursuing two different policies: one of the president's and one of federal national security agencies.

Mitchell denied that. "This is the president's administration, this is his foreign policy." Although Trump himself has repeatedly cast doubt on Russia's culpability in 2016 election meddling, Mitchell and Billingslea both pointed to the Kremlin and Putin as the source.

"Putin wants to break apart the American republic, not by influencing an election or two, but by systematically inflaming the perceived fault-lines that exist within our society," Mitchell said. "His is a strategy of chaos for strategic effect. Accepting this fact is absolutely essential for developing a long-term comprehensive response to the problem. The most dangerous thing we could do is to politicize the challenge, which in itself would be a gift to Putin."

Russia denies accusations of election meddling, but suspicions of interference deepened Tuesday when Microsoft said it had uncovered new Russian hacking efforts targeting U.S. political groups before November's midterm elections. Russian officials dismissed the company's claims as unfounded.

Microsoft said that a group tied to the Russian government created fake websites that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. Three other fake sites were designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate.

Meanwhile Britain's foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, called on the European Union to ensure that its sanctions against Russia were comprehensive, in response to accusations Moscow poisoned a former Russian spy in Britain, using a nerve agent. He said the EU and United States should respond to Russia with "one voice."

"Of course we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt," Hunt said in a speech in Washington. "Russia's foreign policy under President Putin has made the world a more dangerous place."

The U.S. sanctions announced Tuesday targeted two companies and people suspected of trying to circumvent existing sanctions against Divetechnoservices of St. Petersburg. That company was sanctioned in June for procuring underwater equipment and diving systems for Russian government agencies, including the Federal Security Service, formerly Russia's KGB spy service.

The U.S. alleges that Marina Igorevna Tsareva, an import manager for Divetechnoservices, attempted to help the company circumvent U.S. sanctions through Vela-Marine Limited of St. Petersburg. Treasury said another employee, Anton Aleksandrovich Nagibin, also helped Divetechnoservices circumvent U.S. sanctions.

The two companies targeted in Tuesday's action were Vela-Marine and Lacno S.R.O., which is based in Slovakia.

The sanctions freeze any assets they may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bar Americans from doing business with them.

Separately, Treasury targeted Primorye Maritime Logistics Co. and Gudzon Shipping Co., based in the city of Vladivostok, and six of their vessels. The department said that earlier this year, one vessel linked to the Russian companies transferred 3,500 tons of oil to ships flying the North Korea flag.
West Virginia Attorney Gen. Patrick Morrisey is hoping to topple an incumbent Democrat who has held his Senate seat for nearly a decade.

Morrisey is locked in a tight campaign against Sen. Joe Manchin, who was first appointed to the seat in 2010. He pulled off an upset in the Republican primary earlier this year, beating out coal baron Don Blankenship and Rep. Evan Jenkins to secure the GOP nomination in May.

Although the race leans Democrat, according to Fox News rankings, its one Republicans hope to take over in the midterm elections.

President Trump, who endorsed Morrisey in the primary, has set his sights on helping Morrisey in November. He headlined a rally for Morrisey in the Mountaineer State in August.

I have done so much for West Virginia, against all odds, and having Patrick, a real fighter, by my side, would make things so much easier, Trump also said in a tweet.

Morrisey is the first Republican to serve as attorney general in West Virginia since 1933, his campaign website boasts. First elected to serve in the position in 2012, he was re-elected in 2016.

FOX NEWS MIDTERM ELECTIONS HEADQUARTERS

In his campaign, Morrisey, 50, has harped on his efforts as attorney general to curtail the states opioid epidemic. He sued the Drug Enforcement Administration, saying it allows companies to not take into account patients needs when selling drugs. And his office has reached settlements with pharmaceutical distributors for about $47 million, the largest in the states history, according to his campaign website.

His past work as a health care attorney and his wifes work as a lobbyist who has represented several pharmaceutical clients, including those involved in opioids, have come under scrutiny during the race.

His wifes lobbying firm was also paid $460,000 by Planned Parenthood, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported last year. Morrisey has said he is staunchly anti-abortion and opposes taxpayer dollars going to Planned Parenthood. He has also said he supports a repeal of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court abortion case.

In an interview with Fox News, Morrisey said he's already worked with Trump to get rid of some Obama administration regulations and to "go after" sanctuary cities in West Virginia. He said he has an "excellent" relationship with the president.

Fox News' Peter Doocy and Alex Pappas contributed to this report.
The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has begun to break up, opening waters that are normally frozen, researchers say.

This type of incident, which has not been recorded before, has happened twice this year due to warmer winds and what scientists call a climate-change driven heat wave in Earths northern hemisphere, according to the Guardian.

The sea ice off the north coast of Greenland has been impacted by abnormal temperature spikes in February and earlier this month, reports the U.K. publication, which have pushed the ice further away from the coast than at any time since satellite records began in the 1970s.

MELTING ARCTIC COULD RAPIDLY UNLOCK 'DEEP CARBON' BURIED IN PERMAFROST

Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, told the British publication: The ice there has nowhere else to go so it piles up. On average, its over four meters thick and can be piled up into ridges 20 meters thick or more. This thick, compacted ice is generally not easily moved around.

However, that was not the case this past winter (in February and March) and now. The ice is being pushed away from the coast by the winds, he added.

Thomas Levergne, a scientist at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, called the phenomenon scary in a retweet of a satellite GIF of blue water penetrating white ice and exposing miles of the Greenland coastline.

The Norwegian Ice Service said that the Svalbard sea ice area for Tuesday is at 43,231 square miles, which is 44,775 square miles below the average from 1981 to 2010 and its the lowest area for this day of the year dating back to 1967.

The Kap Morris Jesup weather station in the region, where the temperate is usually -4 degrees Fahrenheit, this year showed 10 days above freezing and warmer winds, reports the Guardian. Last week, temperatures briefly hit a high of 62 degrees Fahrenheit and stronger, southerly winds picked up.

AN UNDERWATER IRISH CANYON IS SUCKING CARDON DIOXIDE OUT OF THE ATMOSPHERE

This event is a pretty big one going all the way to west of Kap Morris Jesup. This is unusual, Keld Qvistgaard, the ice service coordinator in Denmark, said.

Beyond the reduction of ice water, scientists fear the ocean waters intrusion could push the Earth into a feedback loop that precipitates what theyve called a hothouse state of freakishly warm weather.
Archaeologists in Egypt have unlocked the secrets of a mysterious ancient cursed black granite sarcophagus.

The massive coffin, which was recently excavated in the city of Alexandria, was found to contain three skeletons and gold sheets with the remains. The tomb dates back to the Ptolemaic period between 305 B.C. and 30 B.C.

In a Facebook post Sunday, Egypts Ministry of Antiquities explained that preliminary studies had determined the gender and age of the skeletons. One skeleton belongs to a woman of 20 to 25 years of age, who was between 5-feet-3 and almost 5-feet-5. A second skeleton belonged to man between 35 and 39 years old, who was between 5-feet-3 and just over 5-feet-5. The third skeleton belonged to a man aged between 40 and 44, who was between 5-feet-10 and just over 6-feet tall.

MYSTERIOUS GIANT SARCOPHAGUS DISCOVERED IN EGYPT

An initial analysis had suggested that the skeletons may belong to three soldiers.

Mystery surrounded the sarcophagus since its discovery was announced last month. The Independent, citing local reports, said that Egyptian officials had been mocking suggestions that opening the sarcophagus would unleash a curse.

Experts explained Sunday that a hole has been made in one of the skulls, the result of trepanation, or trepanning, a surgical procedure used to relieve pressure on the brain, that dates back thousands of years.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS OPEN 'CURSED' ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SARCOPHAGUS

This surgery is the oldest surgical intervention ever known since pre-history but was rare in Egypt, said Dr. Zeinab Hashish, director of the department of skeleton remains studies at the Ministry of Antiquities.

Experts also explained the disgusting red liquid that was found inside the sarcophagus. Dr. Ayman Ashmawy, head of the ancient Egyptian antiquities sector, said that the liquid is likely sewage water combined with the decomposing remains of the skeletons wrappings.

More than 30,000 people signed a bizarre online petition asking to drink the red liquid. By drinking it, people claimed they would absorb the mummies' powers.

More research will now be undertaken, including DNA tests and CT-scans, to find out more about the skeletons and determine whether they were related.

'WORLD'S OLDEST CHEESE' DISCOVERED IN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN TOMB

The sarcophagus was found buried 16.4 feet below the surface. A layer of mortar between the lid and the body of the sarcophagus indicated that it has not been opened since it was closed more than 2,000 years ago.

A carved alabaster head, was also found, prompting speculation that it depicts the tombs owner.

The granite coffin's contents offer the latest fascinating glimpse into the culture of ancient Egypt. Archaeologists, for example, recently found the oldest solid cheese in the tomb of Ptahmes, mayor of the ancient city of Memphis.

MYSTERIOUS ANCIENT ARTWORK DEPICTING FEMALE PHARAOH FOUND BY ACCIDENT

A mummy buried in Southern Egypt more than 5,000 years ago, has also revealed its grisly secrets, shedding new light on prehistoric embalming practices. Additionally, a mysterious sphinx, was discovered during roadwork in the Egyptian city of Luxor.

In a separate project, experts unearthed a 2,200-year-old gold coin depicting the ancient King Ptolemy III, an ancestor of the famed Cleopatra.

Experts in Southern Egypt recently discovered an extremely rare marble head depicting the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

RARE ROMAN DISCOVERY THRILLS EXPERTS: EMPEROR'S MARBLE HEAD FOUND AT EGYPTIAN TEMPLE SITE

In Australia, archaeologists found the tattered remains of an ancient priestess in a 2,500-year-old Egyptian coffin that was long thought to be empty.

On the other side of the world, a rare ancient artifact depicting the famous female pharaoh Hatshepsut surfaced in the U.K. Stunning new research also claims that King Tutankhamun may have been a boy soldier, challenging the theory he was a weak and sickly youth before his mysterious death at around 18 years of age.

Experts in the U.K. also found the worlds oldest figurative tattoos on two ancient Egyptian mummies recently, one of which is the oldest tattooed female ever discovered.

MUMMY WEARING GOLD-GILDED FACE MASK DISCOVERED AT ANCIENT EGYPT BURIAL GROUND

Other recent finds include an ancient cemetery in Egypt with more than 40 mummies and a necklace containing a message from the afterlife. An ancient statue of a Nubian king with an inscription written in Egyptian hieroglyphics was also found at a Nile River temple in Sudan.

Scientists also believe that they may have found the secret of the Great Pyramids near-perfect alignment. Experts are also confident that they have solved the long-standing mystery of the screaming mummy.

In February, archaeologists announced the discovery of a 4,400-year-old tomb near the pyramids. Late last year, archaeologists also revealed that they had uncovered the graves of four children at an ancient site in Egypt.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers
Don't worry: NASA's Mars rover Curiosity isn't falling apart.

On Monday (Aug. 13), Curiosity photographed an odd, flat object that mission team members initially thought might have fallen off the car-size robot. Indeed, they dubbed the weirdly shaped target the "Pettegrove Point Foreign Object Debris," or PPFOD in NASA-speak. (Pettegrove Point is a section of Vera Rubin Ridge, the landform Curiosity has been exploring for the last 11 months or so.)

But Curiosity's observations soon revealed that the PPFOD isn't foreign at all. [Mars Illusion Photos: Seeing Things on Mars]

"In fact, it was found to be a very thin flake of rock, so we can all rest easy tonight  Curiosity has not begun to shed its skin!" mission team member Brittney Cooper, an atmospheric scientist based at York University in Toronto, wrote in an update Thursday (Aug. 16).

"Perhaps the target should have been given a different name befitting the theme of the current quadrangle in which Curiosity resides: 'Rabhadh Cearr,' or 'False Alarm' in Scottish Gaelic," she added.

Curiosity recently drilled a Pettegrove Point rock dubbed Stoer, and the rover has begun analyzing the snagged samples, Cooper wrote in the update. The 1-ton rover has also been measuring the opacity of the Martian atmosphere of late, helping researchers monitor the global dust storm that has been raging on the Red Planet for the past two months.

The storm has begun dying down, but there's still apparently so much dust in the air that Curiosity's older, smaller, solar-powered cousin, Opportunity, cannot harvest enough sunlight to recharge its batteries. Opportunity has been silent since June 10, and NASA officials think the long-lived robot put itself in a sort of hibernation.

Curiosity is nuclear powered, so it's not terribly bothered by dust storms and darkness.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity mission, known formally as the Mars Science Laboratory, launched in November 2011 and landed inside the Red Planet's 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater in August 2012.

Curiosity was tasked with determining if Gale has ever been capable of supporting microbial life. The rover quickly answered that question, finding that the crater's floor hosted a long-lasting lake-and-stream system billions of years ago.

Since September 2014, the rover has been exploring the foothills of Mount Sharp, the 3.4-mile-high (5.5 km) massif that rises from Gale's Center. Curiosity is reading the rock layers as it climbs, hunting for clues about when and why Mars shifted from a relatively warm world to the frigid desert it is today.

Originally published on Space.com.
The arms race is picking up considerable speed, and the United States doesn't want to get left behind.

Over the past four months, the U.S. Air Force has awarded two contracts for hypersonic weapons worth a maximum of $1.4 billion to aerospace giant Lockheed Martin.

The first contract, announced in April, awards $928 million to develop something called the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW). And last week, the Air Force disclosed another deal, worth up to $480 million, to begin designing the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW). [The Most Dangerous Space Weapons Ever]

"We are going to go fast and leverage the best technology available to get hypersonic capability to the war fighter as soon as possible," Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson said in a statement last week.

More From Space.com The Most Dangerous Space Weapons Ever

Hypersonic vehicles travel at least five times faster than the speed of sound (Mach 5; Mach 1 at sea level is 762 mph, or 1,226 km/h). And they're designed to be maneuverable, which differentiates them from intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and other fast-flying conventional weapons systems that follow predictable paths.

"We don't currently have effective defenses against hypersonic weapons because of the way they fly; i.e., they're maneuverable and fly at an altitude our current defense systems are not designed to operate at," Richard Speier, adjunct staff at the nonprofit RAND Corp., told CNBC in March. "Our whole defensive system is based on the assumption that you're gonna intercept a ballistic object."

Not much is known about either HCSW or ARRW. But hypersonic vehicles generally reach their tremendous speeds using supersonic combustion ramjet engines, or scramjets, whichs compress and combust air flowing in at supersonic speeds. Scramjet vehicles therefore need to hitch rides aboard, and launch from, fast motherships  typically missiles or jets.

HCSW and ARRW aren't the U.S. military's first forays into hypersonic technology. For example, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched several test flights of an unmanned hypersonic bomber prototype called the HTV-2. During one of those trials, in August 2011, the vehicle reached Mach 20 before losing control.

DARPA and the Air Force worked together from 2004 through 2013 on the $300 million X-51A program, which developed and tested a robotic scramjet vehicle known as Waverider. Waverider technology could still find its way into a hypersonic weapon, military officials have said. And the U.S. Army has flight-tested its Advanced Hypersonic Weapon as well.

These various efforts could become more streamlined soon. On June 28, a joint team consisting of Pentagon top brass and officials with the Air Force, Navy, Army and Missile Defense Agency signed a memorandum of agreement to work together on the development of "hypersonic boost glide technology."

"The Joint Team requires the right mix of agile capabilities to compete, deter and win across the spectrum of competition and conflict," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said in the same statement. "We must push the boundaries of technology and own the high ground in this era of great-power competition and beyond."

There is indeed competition in the superfast-weapon realm. Russian officials have claimed that the country will be ready to field a jet-launched hypersonic vehicle by 2020 or so, and China tested its own hypersonic wave rider, known as Xingkong-2 ("Starry Sky-2"), earlier this month. The test was a success, according to Chinese media reports; Starry Sky-2 apparently flew at Mach 5 for more than 400 seconds and reached a top speed of Mach 6.

Originally published on Space.com.
The Air Force has entered the next phase in its development of a new, combat-ready Light Attack aircraft designed to maneuver close to terrain, support ground combat operations and operate closely with U.S. allies in an irregular warfare scenario.

The service is now entering a proposal phase for its new aircraft, designed to lead to a production contract by next year.

The Light Attack planes are optimized for counterinsurgency and other types of warfare wherein the U.S. Air Force largely has aerial dominance. Given this mission scope, the planes are not intended to mirror the speed, weaponry or stealth attributes of a 5th generation fighter - but rather offer the service an effective attack option against ground enemies such as insurgents who do not present an air threat.

"We must develop the capacity to combat violent extremism at lower cost," Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson said in an Air Force report. "Today's Air Force is smaller than the nation needs and the Light Attack Aircraft offers an option to increase the Air Force capacity beyond what we now have in our inventory or budget.

The combat concept here, should the Air Force engage in a substantial conflict with a major, technically-advanced adversary, would be to utilize stealth attack and advanced 5th-Gen fighters to establish air superiority - before sending light aircraft into a hostile area to support ground maneuvers and potentially fire precision weapons at ground targets from close range.

Following an initial Air Force Light Attack aircraft experiment last year, which included assessments of a handful of off-the-shelf options, the Air Force streamlined its approach and entered a 2nd phase of the program. The second phase included live-fly assessments of the aircraft in a wide range of combat scenarios. The service chose to continue testing two of the previous competitors from its first phase - Textron Aviations AT-6 Wolverine and the Sierra Nevada/Embraer A-29 Super Tucano.

A formal Air Force solicitation specifies that both Textron and Sierra Nevada will now help draft proposal documents for the aircraft.

The Light Attack Aircraft will provide an affordable, non-developmental aircraft intended to operate globally in the types of Irregular Warfare environments that have characterized combat operations over the past 25 years, the Air Force solicitation says.

The emerging aircraft is envisioned as a low-cost, commercially-built, combat-capable plane able to perform a wide range of missions in a less challenging or more permissive environment.

The idea is to save mission time for more expensive and capable fighter jets, such as an F-15 or F-22, when an alternative can perform needed air-ground attack missions  such as recent attacks on ISIS.

Air Force officials provided these Light Attack assessment parameters to Warrior Maven, during the analysis phase following last summers experiment:

- Basic Surface Attack  Assess impact accuracy using hit/miss criteria of practice/laser-guided bomb, and unguided/guided rockets

- Close Air Support (CAS)  Assess ability to find, fix, track target and engage simulated operational targets while communicating with the Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC)

- Daytime Ground Assault Force (GAF)  assess aircraft endurance, range, ability to communicate with ground forces through unsecure and secure radio and receive tactical updates

- Rescue Escort (RESCORT)  Assess pilot workload to operate with a helicopter, receive area updates and targeting data, employ ballistic, unguided/guided rockets and laser-guided munitions

- Night CAS  Assess pilot workload to find, fix, track, target and engage operational targets

A-29 Super Tucano

U.S.-trained pilots with the Afghan Air Force have been attacking the Taliban with A-29 Super Tucano aircraft.

A-29s are turboprop planes armed with one 20mm cannon below the fuselage able to shoot 650 rounds per minute, one 12.7mm machine gun (FN Herstal) under each wing and up to four 7.62mm Dillion Aero M134 Miniguns able to shoot up to 3,000 rounds per minute.

Super Tucanos are also equipped with 70mm rockets, air-to-air missiles such as the AIM-9L Sidewinder, air-to-ground weapons such as the AGM-65 Maverick and precision-guided bombs. It can also use a laser rangefinder and laser-guided weapons.

The Super Tucano is a highly maneuverable light attack aircraft able to operate in high temperatures and rugged terrain. It is 11.38 meters long and has a wingspan of 11.14 meters; its maximum take-off weight is 5,400 kilograms. The aircraft has a combat radius of 300 nautical miles, can reach speeds up to 367 mph and hits ranges up to 720 nautical miles.

AT-6 Light Attack

The Textron Aviation AT-6 is the other multi-role light attack aircraft being analyzed by the Air Force. It uses a Lockheed A-10C mission computer and a CMC Esterline glass cockpit with flight management systems combined with an L3 Wescam MX-Ha15Di multi-sensor suite which provides color and IR sensors, laser designation technology and a laser rangefinder. The aircraft is built with an F-16 hands on throttle and also uses a SparrowHawk HUD with integrated navigation and weapons delivery, according to Textron Aviation information on the plane.

More Weapons and Technology - WARRIOR MAVEN (CLICK HERE)--
Frontier Airlines says it has suspended a pilot accused of threatening on Facebook to harm a 12-year-old transgender girl for using the girls bathroom at her Oklahoma school.

Frontier spokesman Jonathan Freed said in a statement Monday that the pilot was suspended Aug. 13 pending an investigation into the alleged threats against the student in Achille, a community about 160 miles southeast of Oklahoma City.

MOM OF NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE CEO SAYS PASSENGER WHO PLUNGED OFF SHIP WAS A 'STUPID WOMAN' WHO JUMPED

He says the Denver-based airline doesn't condone discrimination but he declined to release further details, including the pilot's name.

Achille schools closed for two days last week after adults made threatening comments on Facebook about the student's use of a girls bathroom.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

Officials say no arrests have been made, but the child's mother sought a protective order after a man confronted the mother in person.

This story was originally published by the Associated Press.
The British passenger who plunged into the sea from a Norwegian Star cruise ship over the weekend is a stupid woman who didnt fall but jumped from the deck, the mother of the cruise lines CEO said Monday.

The mother of Andy Stuart, CEO of Norwegian Cruise Lines, made scathing remarks to the Daily Telegraph against Kay Longstaff after the 46-year-old passenger said she fell off the back of the Norwegian Star on Saturday. Longstaff was rescued Sunday morning after spending 10 hours in the Adriatic Sea, about 60 miles off the coast of Croatia.

She didnt fall off. She jumped. This has cost Norwegian Cruise Line $600,000. This stupid woman, Stuarts mother told the Daily Telegraph.

Stuart's mom, who lives in England, said she received a call from her son in Miami, Florida, complaining about Longstaffs explanation of what occurred Saturday night. She said Stuart called the former flight attendant's version of events fake news.

"If you think of the cost of the ship being delayed, passengers missing their connections, passengers waiting to embark, the mother added. That has all amounted to more than $600,000. When you get criticism, it is highly unfair.

BRITISH WOMAN WHO FELL OFF SHIP IN CROATIA CREDITS SINGING AND YOGA FOR SURVIVING 10-HOUR ORDEAL

After she was rescued, Longstaff told Croatia news service HRT that she was lucky to be alive.

"I fell off the back of the Norwegian Star. I was in the water for 10 hours, so these wonderful guys rescued me," she said, according to Sky News. "I am very lucky to be alive. I was sitting at the back of the deck."

An unidentified rescuer told The Sun that Longstaff credited her survival to yoga and singing.

"She said the fact that she practices yoga helped her as she was fit. And she said she was singing to not feel cold in the sea overnight, the rescuer told the news site.

Officials are still looking to how Longstaff went overboard. Several passengers told The Sun that Longstaff and her partner appeared to be fighting before the incident. Others said alcohol was involved.

A source also told The Sun surveillance footage showed Longstaff was by herself at the time and was not pushed off.

"The footage has been viewed and you can clearly see she was there on her own when she fell, the source said. She was not pushed. The theory we are working on is that she most likely jumped.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

Norwegian Cruise Lines did not comment on the statements made by Stuarts mother. The company referred to its original statement on the incident:

In the morning of August 19th, a guest went overboard as Norwegian Star made her way to Venice," a spokesperson for NCL said in a statement obtained by Fox News. "The Coast Guard was notified and a search and rescue operation ensued. We are pleased to advise that the guest was found alive, remains in stable condition, and is being treated in Croatia. We are very happy that the individual, who is a UK resident, is now safe and will soon be reunited with friends and family. We remain in contact with the guest and her family. We continue to cooperate with authorities investigating this matter.
As if airports werent crazy enough, can you imagine what would happen if the screens that display flight information stopped working?

Travelers passing through Gatwick Airport in London found out the answer to this question Monday when a technical difficulty forced employees to manually record flight information for people to see.

FRONTIER AIRLINES PILOT SUSPENDED FOR THREATENING TRANSGENDER OKLAHOMA STUDENT: REPORT

Gatwick began what a spokesperson called its manual contingency plan, meaning airport staff had to write flight information on whiteboards and project it on small screens from a document.

According to the BBC, Vodafone confirmed that a damaged cable was to blame. While its unclear how long the screens were down, a spokesperson for Gatwick told Fox News the issue had been resolved by Tuesday morning and flight information was being displayed as normal.

The airports manual contingency plan  which included displaying information manually in the terminals and having extra staff on hand to help direct passengers  worked well and tens of thousands of passengers departed on time and no flights were cancelled. Gatwick would like to apologize to any passengers who were inconvenienced by this issue, the spokesperson said.

People praised the airport on social media for how it handled the difficult situation and reportedly only a handful of people were affected by the glitch.

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The Colorado man accused of killing his wife and two daughters was actively having an affair  and claimed his wife strangled the girls shortly after he requested a separation, according to a bombshell arrest affidavit released Monday.

Christopher Watts, 33, was charged earlier Monday with nine felony counts, including three first-degree murder charges in the deaths of his wife, Shanann, 34, and two daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3.

COLORADO MAN CHARGED WITH MULTIPLE COUNTS OF MURDER IN KILLINGS OF PREGNANT WIFE, DAUGHTERS

The Weld District Attorney's Office also charged Watts with two counts of murdering a child, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.

A warrantless arrest affidavit issued Aug. 15 states Watts was actively involved in a relationship with a coworker outside of his marriage with Shanann, which investigators said he initially denied.

According to the affidavit, on Aug. 13, the day Shanann was reported missing, she was dropped off at the couple's Frederick home around 2 a.m. Watts said around 5 a.m. he told Shanann he wanted to separate and they were both "emotional." He told police he went to work around 5:30 a.m. and carried on with his day.

In subsequent interviews with police, however, Watts changed his story. He claimed he briefly went downstairs after telling his wife he wanted to separate and returned to find a horrific scene playing out on the couple's baby monitor: "Bella 'sprawled' out on her bed and blue and Shanann actively strangling Celeste."

At that point, Watts said he "went into a rage" and strangled his wife to death, the affidavit states. He told police he then put the bodies of his wife and two daughters into his work truck and took them to an oil site.

Watts said he buried Shanann's body near two oil tanks and dumped Bella and Celeste's bodies inside the oil tanks, according to the affidavit. He identified the three separate locations of their bodies to authorities.

Officials have yet to release information on a possible motive in the alleged murders.
Police are saying its a miracle two young boys were able to survive for days in the Arkansas heat  without food or water  after their mother was killed in a car wreck.

Lisa Holliman, 25, died in a car accident believed to have occurred on Friday or Saturday, police said. But her children, ages 3 and 1, werent discovered until Monday.

Police said Kylen, 3, was located just before 8 a.m. Monday walking along Arkansas State Highway 24 outside of Camden, KLRT-TV reported.

Ouachita County Sheriff's Office initially posted a photo of the toddler on social media. Shortly after, family members reached out to identify him, telling authorities his mother hadnt been seen for days. When officials went back to where Kylen was found, they discovered a car wreck in a deep ravine  impossible to see from the road, according to KLRT.

Holliman was discovered deceased and ejected from the vehicle, but her 1-year-old son was still in his car seat. Officials said he was a little sideways and upside down, but he was alive and alert.

INDIANA MAN SURVIVES INTERNAL DECAPITATION YEARS AFTER BEATING BRAIN CANCER: 'OUR BOY IS A MIRACLE'

Holliman's father, James, called his grandson a hero for climbing out of the car through the sun roof and walking several hundred yards to get attention and help.

"Its nothing short of a miracle  Gods blessing  that these children were able to survive this accident."  Deputy Nathan Greeley

Deputy Nathan Greeley told KATV it was incredible the two toddlers were able to survive for several days without food and water and in extreme heat. Temperatures reached well into the 90s over the weekend.

Today is anything but short of a miracle  the 3-year-old and 1-year-old being able to survive in the elements [of], you know, southern Arkansas with how hot it is, the humidity, Greeley said. Weve had precipitation since then, and like I said, its nothing short of a miracle  Gods blessing  that these children were able to survive this accident.

'MIRACLE' BABY SURVIVES MORE THAN 9 HOURS BURIED IN THE COLD MONTANA WILDERNESS

Both boys suffered from dehydration, according to KLRT, and the 1-year-old was still being treated at Arkansas Childrens Hospital as of Tuesday but is expected to survive.

James said it was like his daughter to take her children everywhere she goes.

I'll never get up and see her, I'll never get to talk to her, laugh with her. My baby's gone, he said.

Holliman was four weeks pregnant at the time of her death, her father told KLRT.

Camden is about 87 miles southwest of Little Rock.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A widespread fare evasion problem costing the Bay Area Rapid Transit system tens of millions of dollars each year may end up requiring the agency to spend even more money to stem the tide of 22,000 people who jump the turnstiles each day.

The transit agency said Monday that fare evasion is costing as much as $25 million annually, prompting officials to study a more secure barrier, but one that maintains the open feel of stations and is not an eyesore.

"The most important thing we want people to know is that we don't have the funds to replace fare gates," BART spokesperson Alicia Trost told KTVU. "It's an extremely expensive project. We have 600 fare gates, so we're thinking it's going to cost between $150 to $200 million."

In one half-hour block at San Francisco's Powell Street Station, KTVU cameras captured as many as 20 people slipping by or jumping the barriers. Some of the fare gates pried open by people remained open for at least six seconds, leaving plenty of time for additional commuters to slip through.

"I mean were all trying to get the same place and we all have to pay our fair share," Sheri Wajschal, of Berkeley, said.

One woman was even seen using her two small children to pry the gates open in order to allow her to get a stroller in. Riders who paid their fares were visibly upset.

"It's unfair to the customers that pay," Alicia Spears of Oakland said. "You know everyone needs to pay when they get on BART."

Since the start of the year, BART has caught close to 1,300 fare evaders and issued warnings. Now, the system is going to issue fines at $75 for a first-time offense to help combat the nearly 22,000 people that slip through each day.

BART CRIME SPIKE ACROSS SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA SPURS VOLUNTEERS TO ESCORT RIDERS TO CARS

Besides cutting down on missed money due to fare evasion, officials with the transit system are also hoping they can fend off other problems such crime, open-air drug use, and homeless people sleeping in trains and stations.

"Theyre tied together," BART General Manager Grace Crunican told the San Francisco Chronicle.

3 PEOPLE DEAD IN UNRELATED ATTACKS ON BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT STATIONS IN 5 DAYS

One passenger suggested to KTVU that BART have a uniformed worker or another person of authority at the gates, but Trost said that also comes with a price.

"Our collective bargaining agreement is clear: only BART security can provide security for the BART system and we can't bring in hired help," Trost said.

The transit agency added that there is already an existing officer shortfall, and that all viable options will be presented at a board meeting in spring 2019.

BART has been under heavy scrutiny after a violent summer, when three people were killed in unrelated attacks in the span of just one week. In one of the attacks, 18-year-old Nia Wilson was stabbed to death while her 26-year-old sister, Lahtifa Wilson, was also injured.

Besides a spike in violent crime, conductors have also taken to the taken to the trains' PA systems to warn riders about hypodermic needles being left on seats by transient drug users.

Riders are just hoping BART officials will do something to tackle a problem that isn't going away.

"They need to do something," Meryl Glass of San Francisco told KTVU as a woman pried open a fare gate. "Not okay, not okay."
In an Aug. 21 story about a young black girl asked to leave school because of her hair extensions, The Associated Press headline erroneously said that she had been expelled. She was not expelled from the school. The Archdiocese of New Orleans school superintendent says she withdrew.

A corrected version is below:

School policy blasted after black girl asked to leave over hair

Video of a young black girl leaving her New Orleans area Catholic school in tears after being told her hair extensions violated school policy is prompting social media comments from thousands of people  many expressing puzzlement or outrage

By KEVIN McGILL

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP)  Video of a young black girl walking dejectedly out of a New Orleans area Catholic school in tears after being told her hair extensions violated school policy prompted thousands of social media comments Tuesday many expressing puzzlement or outrage.

Some accused Christ the King Middle School of racism, including social activist Shaun King on Twitter and rapper T.I. on Instagram.

Sixth-grader Faith Fennidy's brother Steven posted Facebook video showing her leaving school with relatives. Her braids are pulled back and hang slightly below the neckline.

Fennidy's post says there are practical reasons for the hair extensions.

"Extensions make the hair easier to maintain. It allows my sister to have access to the swimming pool without having to get her hair Re-done every night," his post said. He said the school wouldn't compromise.

The family told WWL-TV they are considering a discrimination lawsuit.

"This policy was communicated to all parents during the summer and again before the first day of school," Archdiocese of New Orleans Schools Superintendent RaeNell Houston said in a statement to media. "Furthermore, the school leadership worked with families as needed to ensure compliance."

Houston said the family chose to withdraw the girl from school rather than comply.

The Anti-Defamation League, South Central Region and the Urban League of Louisiana issued a joint statement late Tuesday voicing concern about the school's "racially insensitive grooming policy."

"ADL and the Urban League are deeply troubled by the policy in question as well as the manner in which the school is disciplining students of color under this policy," the statement said. "The policy shows racial insensitivity and bias by the administration to students and their families."

The statement said the groups called for the school to revise the policy, withdraw current disciplinary action issued under it and apologize to the affected students. "It should also implement reasonable grooming standards that foster learning while respecting diversity, as well as institute cultural competence and anti-discrimination training for all staff."

The video shows Faith Fennidy appearing to fight back tears while adults around her can be heard in a brief, contentious discussion. "I don't want this to happen," a woman is heard saying. A man who refers to Faith as his daughter curtly replies, "Yes, you do." Faith slips a pink backpack emblazoned with images of fern leaves and wild animals onto one shoulder and walks out of the building.

Reactions to the Facebook post were largely against the school. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with her hair," was typical of many.

Some posters acknowledged the private school's authority to make such rules, but were still critical of the policy.

Others accused the school of targeting black hair styles.

"Let's be clear  this is Christianity as White Supremacy," King's tweet read.
A car hijacker in Santa Rosa, Calif., changed his mind on Monday about the crime and returned the stolen car within 10 minutes after realizing it had a toddler in the back seat, police said.

Police said the thief stole the 2008 Mercedes Benz after its owner went into the his house for a few minutes to get belongings, leaving the vehicle running and his 1-year-old boy strapped to the back seat, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

After seeing that his child and the car were gone by the time he came back, the father began driving around the neighborhood in another car desperately trying to find the car.

He also called the police, prompting the dispatch of several officers and a police helicopter to find the suspect.

But the hunt for the criminal abruptly ended after the thief returned to the crime scene 10 minutes later, according to Santa Rosa police Sgt. Jeneane Kucker.

Kucker said the little boy in the back seat was unharmed and the suspect surrendered to officers on scene without incident.

According to the publication, the suspect is 28-year-old Stephan Salazar, who already has a criminal record. Hes booked into Sonoma County Jail on charges of kidnapping, child endangerment and vehicle theft.
A Catholic priest in Dallas who has been accused of molesting young boys and stealing from the parish has disappeared, church officials announced.

Rev. Edmundo Paredes, a longtime pastor at St. Cecilia Catholic Church, is accused of having molested teenage boys  an allegation Dallas police have found to be credible, Bishop Edward Burns, of the Dallas diocese, said.

Burns informed church members of Paredes' disappearance during Sunday's mass, the Dallas News reported. Church officials said he could have fled the U.S. for the Philippines, his native country.

Paredes had already been suspended from St. Cecilia Catholic Church and removed from its ministry in June 2017, according to Burns. At the time, he was accused of stealing $60,000 to $80,000 from the parish. Paredes admitted to the financial misconduct.

In February, church officials were informed Paredes allegedly molested at least three teenage boys during his time at the church  where he was pastor for 27 years, according to the Dallas News.

I recognize this diocese cannot cover its ears, its eyes, its mouth. We need to look at this head on.  Bishop Edward Burns

Church officials havent disclosed the exact time when the alleged molestations occurred but have said they reportedly took place more than a decade ago.

CLERGY SEX ABUSE HAS COST CATHOLIC CHURCH $3 BILLION IN SETTLEMENTS

The Catholic Diocese of Dallas wasnt aware of the sexual assault allegations at the time of his suspension for financial misconduct, a spokeswoman said. But the church is under fire for just now disclosing the allegations to its members.

Why would Bishop Burns suppress this crucial information? Was it to protect the diocese from scandal? Lisa Kendzior and Paul Petersen, local chapter leaders of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said in a statement. What about concern for the safety of children and the need to comfort any survivors? Where is the transparency that the Catholic bishops promised?

A spokeswoman told The Associated Press the allegations werent made public earlier because officials did not want to hinder the police investigation or compromise the victims identities.

While he had been removed from ministry last year, church members told the Dallas News they believed, until Sunday, Paredes was still living on church grounds. The church had a celebratory mass for Paredes in June 2017, which was reportedly referred to as a retirement celebration.

POPE FRANCIS, ADDRESSING CATHOLIC CHURCH SEX ABUSE SCANDAL, BEGS FOR FORGIVENESS, DEMANDS ACCOUNTABILITY

Burns said he consulted with the Diocesan Review Board, a group of non-clergy Catholics who counsel the diocese on matters involving the sexual abuse of minors, before revealing the allegations to the church. According to the Dallas News, last weeks bombshell grand jury report that claimed hundreds of priests molested more than 1,000 children  at least  in Pennsylvania was a catalyst to Burns being forthcoming.

I need to come face-to-face with the frustration. I need to come face-to-face with this issue, with the anger, with the rage, Burns told the Dallas News. I recognize this diocese cannot cover its ears, its eyes, its mouth. We need to look at this head on.

HUNDREDS OF PRIESTS SEXUALLY ABUSED MORE THAN A THOUSAND CHILDREN, PENNSYLVANIA ATTORNEY GENERAL SAYS

Rev. Martin Moreno, St. Cecilia Catholic Churchs current pastor, also promised Sunday he would do anything I can with my own life to protect his parishioners.

The actions of one person do not represent the entire clergy of Dallas, he said.

The Catholic Church is hiring private investigators to find Paredes, Burns said.

Clergy sex abuse scandals have reportedly cost the Catholic Church more than $3 billion.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A pit bull took a literal bite out of crime in Chicago on Friday when the dog's owner unleashed the canine on an armed man trying to rob someone in a gated community, officials said.

Marshon Hannah, 18, was charged with armed robbery and denied bail by a judge Sunday, the Chicago Tribune reported. The high school senior was dressed in blue scrubs and had a bandage on his right forearm.

Hannah is accused of trying to rob a 47-year-old man Friday in the Back of the Yards neighborhood of Chicago. Hannah allegedly pulled out a small black handgun and took a set of keys from the man and demanded property.

The man began moving slowly toward the backyard of a house where two friends were standing, and one of those men, watching the robbery unfold, unleashed the pit bull, telling the dog to attack Hannah, officials said. Hannah allegedly pulled the trigger several times, but the gun reportedly didn't fire.

The 18-year-old was still attempting to take a shot when the dog bit him, The Chicago Tribune reported. Hannah allegedly chucked the gun while he tried to flee from the group.

The three men reportedly caught up to Hannah, however, and held him down until police arrived. Officers said they found a .38-caliber revolver near the scene.

At the time of the arrest, Hannah was on probation for a juvenile armed robbery conviction. He also faces gun charges from a previous arrest.

Hannah is expected in court Friday.
The superintendent of Chicago's beleaguered police department shifted the blame for the city's gun violence epidemic from the cops to the courts, blaming judges and prosecutors who refuse to jail repeat offenders arrested with illegal firearms.

Supt. Eddie Johnson, speaking on Monday at Chicago Police Headquarters, said his department can only do so much," but noted it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out why shootings continue to be a problem in Chicago.

These shootings are not random, Johnson said. Theyre fueled by gang conflicts. We know who they are.

He added: If people dont give us the information we need, and our judicial partners dont hold them accountable, would you stop if thats what you wanted to do? You know, its ridiculous.

FOUR PEOPLE KILLED, NEARLY 60 SHOT THIS WEEKEND ACROSS CHICAGO

Johnson spoke in the aftermath of Chicago's second bloodiest weekend of the year, with 58 people shot and seven killed, according to FOX32 Chicago. The stunning numbers came despite a deployment of more than 600 additional officers to the neighborhoods hardest hit by the bloodshed.

On Saturday night, three people were shot and another person was beaten at a back-to-school peace picnic held at a playground. Elsewhere, two boys, ages 16 and 17, were found shot dead in a Far South Side field days after their mothers reported them missing.

Johnson, who has called for tougher punishment in the past for those convicted of firearms offenses, said "as long as we fail to create repercussions for carrying and using illegal guns, or more importantly, hold repeat violent offenders accountable for their actions, were simply going to continue to have these discussions on Monday mornings.

The chiefs comments come after Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel came under fire for appearing to blame a lack of morals in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods for the ongoing violence.

Emanuel, who is facing growing calls to resign from members of his own party, urged locals at an Aug. 7 press conference to be a neighbor and speak up to help law enforcement.

AMID GUN VIOLENCE, ALL FIVE CHICAGO PRO SPORTS TEAMS FUNDING THERAPY, MENTORING PROGRAM FOR AT-RISK YOUTH

This may not be politically correct," he said. "but I know the power of what faith and family can do...Our kids need that structure...I am asking...that we also dont shy away from a full discussion about the importance of family and faith helping to develop and nurture character, self-respect, a value system and a moral compass that allows kids to know good from bad and right from wrong.

Meanwhile, two officers are being investigated after an image of them sleeping in their vehicle during work hours went viral.

The picture was posted Saturday by mayoral candidate and Black Lives Matter activist JaMal Green, who blamed the officers' seeming exhaustion on mandatory overtime ordered my Emanuel.

But the Chicago Police Department said the officers were not working overtime, and were not overworked or burned out. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said they will be disciplined.

Fox News' Barnini Chakraborty contributed to this report
A man that stole $4,000 worth of electronics from a Connecticut church Sunday morning, left a note behind asking the congregation to Pray 4 Me!!, police said.

The Waterbury Police Department released surveillance video Monday that showed an unidentified man taking electronics from the inside of the Mt. Olive AME Zion Church at approximately 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning, just hours before service was set to begin.

Jaclyn Davis, head of the churchs media ministry, told Fox 61 that they estimated that at least $4,000 worth of audio and video equipment was stolen.

Realizing that we didnt have the equipment to do what we needed to do on Sunday is really heartbreaking.

One church member told Fox 61 that the theft cripples the efforts of the churchs ministry because it stops other members that are sick or unable to attend services.

The remorseful thief also reportedly left behind an apology note that read: Pray 4 Me!! Sorry brothers. Save me," and drew a little sad face.

Davis said that the minister did, in fact, say a prayer for the man during Sunday morning service, Fox 61 reported.

Police are asking anyone with information to come forward.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A fatal shooting caught on video outside a convenience store in July has reignited debate over Floridas "stand your ground" self-defense law, renewing calls by civil rights activists and politicians to abolish the hotly debated statute.

A July 19 surveillance video shows an escalating encounter in a convenience store parking lot after 48-year-old Michael Drejka confronted Britany Jacobs about why she had parked in a handicap-reserved parking space without a permit. Jacobs was parked while

waiting for her boyfriend, Markeis McGlockton, who was inside the store with one of the couples three children.

A witness went inside to tell him about the argument, which prompted the unarmed McGlockton, 28, to exit the store. He approached Drejka and pushed him to the ground. Drejka then pulled out his Glock .40-caliber handgun and shot McGlockton in the chest, later telling officers he was in fear of further physical threats.

The wounded McGlockton walked back into the store with his son and collapsed. He died at a nearby hospital 30 minutes later.

The law, passed in 2005, says people fearing for their lives do not have to retreat before using deadly force to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm."



He is on the groundat least 10 feet away, theres nothing in the hands of the victim to indicate he is going to shoot, stab or beat him and hes, in fact, turning away, said legal analyst Jeff Brown. We really dont see any of the factors that would support stand your ground here.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri initially did not arrest Drejka, saying the controversial law precluded him from doing so.

Some suggested politics or race played a role in the sheriffs decision  McGlockton is black and Drejka is white  but Gualtieri was quick to deny accusations.

He told deputies that he had to shoot to defend himself. Those are the facts and thats the law, he said. No matter how you slice it or dice it that was a violent push to the ground.

Three weeks would pass before Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe announced his office was formally arresting and charging Drejka with manslaughter on August 13.

Weve finally gotten an arrest, said attorney Michele Rayner, who is representing the McGlockton family alongside prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump. But now we want the justice system to workso a conviction is next.

The arrest warrant stated that the findings of McGlocktons autopsy were consistent with the surveillance video in which McGlockton appeared to be turning away from Drejka when he was shot.

In addition, the warrant said that in 2012 Drejka displayed a gun during two separate road rage incidents in which he was never charged.

A three-lawyer team has signed on to represent Drejka, one of which is facing an investigation by the Florida Bar for allegedly privately soliciting Drejka as a client when she visited him at the Pinellas County Jail on August 14.

According to Florida Bar rules, a lawyer cant "solicit in person ... professional employment from a prospective client with whom the lawyer has no family or prior professional relationship when a significant motive for the lawyers doing so is the lawyers pecuniary gain."

In a statement to Fox News, a legal team spokesperson said, The team does not want to talk about that in public because they don't want to interfere with the Bar's investigation."

When asked about a defense plan, the spokesperson told Fox News, "The legal team for Michael Drejka is not going to speak publicly about defense strategy, except to say that a wide variety of defenses are being considered.

"I think this is going to be one of those cases where the defense tries to argue stand your ground butits a manslaughter case with no real defense for why he shot somebody," said Brown.

In an election year already saturated with debate over guns, politicians have revived the national controversy surrounding the law.

The National Rifle Association, as well as Republican legislators who helped write the law, disputed the sheriffs interpretation of it and all five Democratic candidates for governor stood alongside Reverend Al Sharpton at an August 5 Justice for Markeis rally to call for a repeal of the law.

I thinkits been convoluted, said Rayner. I think that you can have a self-defense statute  thats great, but when everywhere becomes my castle  my castle is in the middle of a parking lot at Walmart or over a handicapped spot or over in the mallyou see the slippery slope thats starting to occur?

Stand Your Grounds creators say there is nothing wrong with the law, but admit the way in which it is being applied could be improved. Last year, state legislators revised the law to put the burden of proof on prosecutors to disprove a stand your ground claim instead of on defense attorneys to prove one.

The defense in stand your ground has changed that whole groundwork and has become one where the prosecution actually has the burden of proving not only their case but proving that stand your ground doesnt apply and that is a little unique," said Brown.

Drejkas team plans to fight to get his $100,000 bond reduced at a joint bond and arraignment hearing Thursday. He faces up to a 30-year sentence if convicted.
A former police officer suspected of being one of California's most elusive serial killers will face a trial in Sacramento County on more than two dozen charges, including 13 murder counts, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, is suspected of being the so-called Golden State Killer who terrorized residents of six counties during the 1970s and '80s. He was arrested in April after authorities linked him to the cold case homicides using DNA.

DeAngelo, who remains jailed in Sacramento, will face trial there because of the complexity of the case, consideration of the suspect's rights, the locations of the crimes and the hardship of victims and witnesses, officials told reporters.

Authorities have said DeAngelo is suspected of being the sadistic attacker who killed 13 people and raped nearly 50 women.

On Tuesday, prosecutors filed amended criminal complaint charging him with 13 counts of murder and 13 new counts of kidnapping for robbery. DeAngelo is set to be arraigned Thursday.

"This human predator, DeAngelo, took a path through all of these counties in our state and wherever he went he left the wake of terror in his path. He committed vicious, violent crimes in all of these jurisdictions," Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said.

DeAngelo's attorney, Diane Howard, declined to comment on Tuesday.

His alleged crime spree had such an impact on residents that it made "opening the window or walking your dog through the neighborhood a terrorizing experience," Rackauckas said.

The new charges filed on Tuesday include four alleging that DeAngelo is suspected of "carrying away four women" to commit robberies in Contra Costa County in 1978 and 1979.

The nine other new charges are in connection with attacks committed in Sacramento County, said Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert. While prosecutors don't have DNA evidence in those cases, they are confident that DeAngelo is the suspect based on his "signature marks," she said.

While prosecutors suspect he's committed other crimes, the statute of limitations has run out, including for the crime of rape, the prosecutors said.

DeAngelo was arrested at his home in Citrus Heights in April after investigators matched crime-scene DNA with genetic material stored in an online database by a distant relative.

"We were looking for a needle in a haystack and we found it," Schubert said.

Prosecutors want to move forward toward trial quickly because some of the surviving victims are older, but she said they have to be cognizant of DeAngelo's right to a fair trial, Schubert said.

"We recognize this case will not be something that goes to trial very quickly," she said.

Prosecutors haven't yet decided whether they will pursue the death penalty against DeAngelo.

"It is a very serious, solemn process we don't take lightly," said Ventura County District Attorney Greg Totten. "That process is quite a ways down the road on this case."
A 24-year-old kayaker who vanished during a family camping trip in Georgia had tied a rock to her ankles with an extension cord in an apparent intentional drowning, police said on Monday.

Maranda Whittens body was located in Point Lake Monday morning, three days after she was last seen in a teal-colored kayak. The vessel, along with the paddle, life jacket and Whittens uncharged phone, were located near a dam in Shaefer Heard Campground on Saturday.

Maranda did have an extension cord which was missing from the campground tied to her ankles which was then tied to a large rock, Troup County Sheriffs Office wrote in a Facebook post Monday.

The sheriffs office said Whitten died of an apparent drowning and the incident is being treated as a suicide.

Whitten, from Valley, Ala., was on a family camping trip. She was kayaking Friday when a storm came through the area, Troup County Sheriff Sgt. Stewart Smith told WSB-TV, citing witnesses. Smith added that campers did not see Whitten get out of the boat.

Whittens mother, Tabatha, told Newsweek hours before the body was found that her daughter was depressed. Whitten had recently graduated from college, broken up with her boyfriend and was dealing with debt.

She also had the idea that she would land that big job [after graduation], her mother said. She went into major depression. Everything hadnt been going her way. Maranda is highly intelligent and seemed on track all her years back in college.
The body of missing college student Mollie Tibbetts was found Tuesday, her father and two sources told Fox News, bringing an end to an intensive search that lasted more than a month and captured national headlines.

Tibbetts' father, Rob Tibbetts, told Fox News the body found is that of his 20-year-old daughter, who vanished in mid-July.

A law enforcement source earlier told Fox News the body was found in Iowa, but more specific details about the location were not released. Iowa Department of Public Safety said a body was discovered in Poweshiek County.

Greg Willey, the vice president of Crime Stoppers of Central Iowa, also told the Associated Press the body found Tuesday is believed to be Tibbetts.

No arrests have been announced in connection with the Tibbetts case. A news conference was announced for 4 p.m. local time on Tuesday.

Tibbetts, a University of Iowa student, was reported missing after she failed to respond to messages from her boyfriend, Dalton Jack, and did not show up for work. She was last seen jogging around Brooklyn around 7:30 p.m. on July 18 and was staying with her boyfriend and working while home from school over the summer. She would have started her junior year of college this week.

MOLLIE TIBBETTS, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA STUDENT, MISSING: A TIMELINE OF EVENTS

Tibbetts' family pleaded for her safe return and had remained hopeful she would be found alive. Rob Tibbetts was returning home to the San Francisco area after spending weeks looking for his daughter, The Des Moines Register reported Sunday.

"The bottom line is somebody knows something," Rob Tibbetts previously told Fox News, adding Brooklyn is a small city and you cant do anything there without someone seeing it.

For the last month, investigators followed hundreds of leads  interviewing hundreds of people and canvassing a nearby hog farm, cornfields and other properties for traces of the college student. Two items Tibbetts typically took with her  a Fitbit and cellphone  remained missing.

Investigators announced last week they were focusing the search on five locations in and around Brooklyn, which included a car wash just a block away from the citys main commercial strip and a TA truck stop next to Interstate-80, which runs across the entirety of Iowa.

Brooklyn, a town of just 1,400 people, was shaken by Tibbetts' disappearance. Blake Jack, the brother of Tibbetts boyfriend, told Fox News on Aug. 8 there was no sign of a struggle at the Brooklyn home she was staying in at the time.

Dalton Jack, Tibbetts' boyfriend of two years, said he believed the doors of the home where his girlfriend last stayed had been left unlocked.

Its Brooklyn. You dont lock your doors, Jack told Fox News. We lock our doors now. Every night.

MOLLIE TIBBETTS, MISSING IOWA STUDENT, HAS ALWAYS RELIED ON PRAYER, DAD SAYS

Rob Tibbetts stayed optimistic to the end, theorizing his daughter must have been with someone she knew and would return home safe.

It's totally speculation on my part, but I think Mollie is with someone that she knows, that is in over their head, he told Fox News. That there was some kind of misunderstanding about the nature of their relationship and at this point they don't know how to get out from under this.

A reward of nearly $400,000 leading to information on Tibbetts' whereabouts will now become a reward for information leading to the capture of any suspects.

"Once they catch their breath, this will turn into a weapon going the other direction to catch the person who did it," Willey said.

Fox News' Matt Finn, Cristina Corbin, Greg Norman, Jennifer Earl and Elizabeth Zwirz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An illegal immigrant from Mexico stands accused of killing college student Mollie Tibbetts and dumping her body in an Iowa cornfield  after he allegedly accosted her during a July 18 jog and she threatened to call police.

Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24, was charged with first-degree murder Tuesday in Tibbetts' death, officials confirmed.

Authorities said Rivera, who lived in the rural Poweshiek County area, is being held on a federal immigration detainer. He's believed to have been in the area for four to seven years.

The body of Tibbetts, a 20-year-old University of Iowa student, was found Tuesday in a field covered with corn stalks. Her father and two sources confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday morning that Tibbetts was found dead; investigators said later in the day they were working to formally identify the body.

MOLLIE TIBBETTS, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA STUDENT FOUND DEAD: A TIMELINE OF EVENTS

Investigators said they used surveillance footage to track down Rivera. The video showed Tibbetts jogging in a rural area near her hometown of Brooklyn, and also showed Rivera's car. She was last seen around 7:30 p.m. on July 18 after she went for a jog around a neighborhood in Brooklyn.

Tibbetts' family pleaded for her safe return and had remained hopeful she would be found alive. Her father, Rob, previously told Fox News that "somebody knows something."

Brooklyn, according to her father, is a small city and you cant do anything there without someone seeing it.

Iowa's Division of Criminal Investigation received more than 4,000 tips during the investigation, and had roughly 30 to 40 investigators working on the case.

Investigators followed "hundreds" of those leads  interviewing several hundred people and canvassing a nearby hog farm, cornfields and other properties for traces of the college student. Two items Tibbetts typically took with her  a Fitbit and cellphone  remained missing.

MOLLIE TIBBETTS, MISSING IOWA STUDENT, FOUND DEAD, HER FATHER SAYS

Investigators announced last week that they were focusing the search on five locations in and around Brooklyn, which included a car wash just a block away from the citys main commercial strip and a TA truck stop next to Interstate 80, which runs across the entirety of Iowa.

Brooklyn, a town of just 1,400 people, was shaken by Tibbetts' disappearance. Blake Jack, the brother of Tibbetts boyfriend, told Fox News on Aug. 8 there was no sign of a struggle at the Brooklyn home she was staying in at the time.

Dalton, Tibbetts' boyfriend of two years, said he believed the doors of the home where his girlfriend last stayed had been left unlocked.

Its Brooklyn. You dont lock your doors, Dalton said. We lock our doors now. Every night.

Vice President Mike Pence said he's "heartbroken" about Tibbetts' death, and called the college student an "amazing young woman." He tweeted that "justice will be served" against the murder suspect.

"We will never forget Mollie Tibbetts," the vice president added.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds shared similar sentiments, calling the news about Tibbetts "heart-wrenching," and said that Iowans "are angry that a broken immigration system allowed a predator like this to live in our community."

"Mollie Tibbetts, our hearts are broken," Republican Iowa Rep. Steve King tweeted Tuesday. "We all prayed for your safe return. May you now be with the Lord and your family one day find a peace. Justice must now be served. RIP Mollie."

Fox News' Katherine Lam, Lillian LeCroy and Emilie Ikeda contributed to this report.
Residents of a swanky Upper East Side high-rise have 24-hour gated entry, a heated indoor pool, breathtaking views of the river  and bullets whizzing through their windows.

A mystery gunman is shooting up apartments at One East River Place from clear across the water on Roosevelt Island, law enforcement sources told The Post.

Now its residents are terrified.

Im petrified for my life, exclaimed Ilene Epstein, 55, who lives in a river-facing apartment on the 22nd floor of the 50-story rental building between East 72nd and 73rd streets.

I moved into this apartment because of the river. I have beautiful views, said Epstein, a real estate agent. [But] Ill move out of my building before I walk around with a bulletproof vest.

The first bullet crashed through the living-room window of a 14th-floor apartment in the building, whose address is 525 E. 72nd St., sometime overnight between Thursday and Friday, police sources said.

The tenant awoke Friday morning to find the living-room floor strewn with glass. Cops found a .38-caliber bullet, most likely fired from a Smith & Wesson handgun, sources said.

Less than 24 hours later, another bullet pierced the window of a unit on the 32nd floor of the building, where two-bedroom apartments can rent for more than $7,000 a month.

This time, the apartments tenant was jolted awake at around 1:15 a.m. Saturday by the shattering of the living-room window. Police sources said no ballistic evidence was immediately recovered in that incident.

Neither tenant was injured, but they easily could have been.

They were lucky they werent up late watching television, a law enforcement source said.

Cops were puzzled by the source of the gunfire until they realized the timing of the second shooting matched up with two 911 calls reporting shots heard coming from another apartment building  about 1,400 feet across the East River on Roosevelt Island, sources said.

Investigators think its some ahole standing on a balcony shooting across the river, a high-ranking NYPD insider said.

Click for more from The New York Post
For the second time in three years, the shocking killing of an unborn child has led captivated court watchers to ask if the death of a baby inside the womb counts as murder inside the court room.

In the latest case, Chris Watts is facing multiple counts of murder in the deaths of his pregnant wife, Shanann, 34, and two daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3  but what about the Watts' unborn child?

Watts was charged Aug. 21 with nine felony counts, including three first-degree murder charges in the deaths of his wife and kids, though an arrest affidavit reveals he is now claiming his wife strangled the girls shortly after he requested a separation. Watts said he "went into a rage" and strangled his wife after witnessing her kill at least one of the children, according to the affidavit.

The Weld District Attorney's Office also charged Watts with two counts of murdering a child and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body. Only one charge, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy  a class two felony  involves the death of the Watts' unborn child, a baby boy Shanann once told family members she planned to name Nico.

COLORADO MAN CHARGED WITH MULTIPLE COUNTS OF MURDER IN KILLINGS OF PREGNANT WIFE, DAUGHTERS

Colorado is not among the 38 states with fetal homicide laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The state does, however, have penalty-enhancement laws to protect pregnant women.

"These laws are considered different than fetal homicide laws because they do not create a separate criminal charge for the loss of the fetus," the NCSL states on its website. "The laws in these states consider the loss of or harm to a fetus in relation to the pregnant woman or her pregnancy."

In Colorado, there are three specific criminal statutes that can lengthen prison sentences if someone intentionally harmed a woman the assailant knew was pregnant.

COLORADO MAN ACCUSED OF MURDERING FAMILY WAS HAVING AFFAIR, CLAIMS WIFE STRANGLED KIDS, ARREST AFFIDAVIT SAYS

Former Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett told Denver7 it's "virtually impossible" under Colorado's statutes to bring a homicide against someone who kills an unborn child.

Colorado requires that the child live outside of the mothers womb independently and then be killed as a result of something that occurs then," Garnett explained to the news station.

This is the second major case that has sparked a debate about fetal homicide laws  and whether the state should adopt it.

Republican lawmakers last tried to change the law in 2015 when a Boulder County woman named Dynel Lane was charged with attempted murder and unlawful termination of a pregnancy for cutting open a pregnant woman's belly and removing her unborn child. Prosecutors said they could not charge Lane with murder because a coroner found no evidence the infant lived outside the womb.

State lawmakers in 2013 also allowed prosecutors to add extra felony charges against anyone who commits a crime that causes the death of a fetus.

While a murder of an unborn child will not result in a homicide charge, it can play a part in whether the suspect faces life in prison or the death penalty.

Denver defense attorney Craig Silverman told the Daily Camera that could be one of the determining factors as to whether Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke will go for the death penalty in Watts' case.

"It's a statutory aggravating factor for the death penalty in this case," Silverman told the newspaper. "So it's not irrelevant. That could be the death penalty argument somewhere down the road if Mr. Rourke wants to make it."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A Vatican official has encouraged an Ohio prosecutor to go to confession after defying the Catholic Church's new policy that the death penalty is never acceptable.

Paul Mueller, a vice director at the Vatican Observatory, wrote a letter weeks ago to Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters (DEE'-turs) saying he was scandalized that Deters would use his office to "oppose and confuse the teachings of the Church."

Deters, a Catholic, has been pursuing the death penalty in the resentencing case of a convicted serial killer.

Earlier this month, Pope Francis changed the Catholic Church's teaching on the death penalty. The policy previously said the Catholic Church would consider capital punishment if it was the only way to defend human lives.

A message seeking comment was left Tuesday with Deters' office.
A Texas deputy who was accused of sexually assaulting the young daughter of an undocumented immigrant has died of an apparent suicide while in prison, authorities said.

Jose Nunez was found dead early Monday at the Karnes County Detention Center Facility, the Bexar County Sheriffs Office said. While authorities have said he died of an apparent suicide, details were not immediately made clear.

Nunez was arrested in June and charged with super aggravated sexual assault of a child, Sheriff Javier Salazar said at the time. The charge was considered super because the victim was only 4 years old.

Salazar said police were notified after the girls mother brought her to a local fire station to make a report. Salazar said investigators believed the abuse by Nunez, who was 47, had been ongoing for several months  if not years.

PREVIOUSLY DEPORTED ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ACCUSED OF SEXUAL BATTERY AGAINST 16-YEAR-OLD FLORIDA GIRL

Nunez threatened the girls mother, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, with deportation if she reported him, Salazar said.

At the time of his arrest, Nunez was working at the county jail. He faced a minimum of 25 years in prison if convicted.

The details of the case are, quite frankly, heartbreaking, disturbing, disgusting and infuriating all at the same time, Salazar had said.

The Texas Rangers are investigating his death, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The destruction of a Confederate statue in the heart of North Carolinas flagship university by hundreds of protesters on Monday night was unlawful and dangerous, university leaders said.

Carol L. Folt, chancellor of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, condemned the actions of a crowd of protestors who took down the memorial known as Silent Sam, which was erected in 1913.

The monument has been divisive for years, and its presence has been a source of frustration for many people not only on our campus but throughout the community, she said in a statement released early Tuesday. However, last nights actions were unlawful and dangerous, and we are very fortunate that no one was injured.

CONFEDERATE STATUE ON UNC CAMPUS TOPPLED BY PROTESTERS

Protests over the UNC stature have flared in the past year with many decrying the memorial as a symbol of a racist heritage.

On Monday evening, a crowd gathered across the street from the universitys plaza for a series of speakers before heading over to the quadrangle. Then, about two hours into the protest, a group surrounded the statue and pulled it down.

Once on the ground, demonstrators kicked it and cheered.

Shortly after 10 p.m., a dozen officers surrounded the fallen statue, which was eventually covered with a tarp next to its empty pedestal.

DUKE UNIVERSITY TO LEAVE EMPTY SPACE WHERE ROBERT E. LEE STATUE STOOD

Many students, faculty and alumni have called the statue a racist image and asked officials to remove it, though some argued it was a tribute to fallen ancestors. Protesters responded to the assertion that the statue wasn't a symbol of white power by reading from its 1913 dedication speech, by tobacco magnate Julian Carr, which praised Confederate veterans for terrorizing former slaves and making sure "the purest strain of the Anglo Saxon is to be found in the 13 Southern States."

UNC leaders, including Folt, had previously said state law prevented the school from removing the statue.

Gov. Roy Cooper, who had called for removing Silent Sam and other rebel symbols on public land, argued Monday night that demonstrators took the wrong approach to removing the statue.

The Governor understands that many people are frustrated by the pace of change and he shares their frustration, but violent destruction of public property has no place in our communities, said a tweet from his official account.

One person was arrested and charged with resisting arrest and for concealing ones face during a public rally, WRAL reported. However, no other arrests were made.

It is unclear if any charges could be brought against the protesters.

UNC-Chapel Hill police referred all questions to the university's media relations department.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A top Al Qaeda bomb maker who masterminded a plot to bring down an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen last year, a senior U.S. official told Fox News Monday.

The Associated Press previously reported that Ibrahim al-Asiri was dead, citing a tribal leader and an Al Qaeda-linked source who said that he was killed in the governate of Marib in eastern Yemen.

The tribal leader said that al-Asiri was struck by the drone, along with two or four of his associates, as he stood beside his car.

Al Qaeda itself has remained silent about its top bomb maker. Instead of the typical "eulogies" posted on militant websites, the Yemeni source said the group is trying to hunt down suspected "spies" who might have tipped off the U.S. on his whereabouts leading up to the strike.

Confirmation of al-Asiri's death to Fox News and the AP follows a United Nations report last week stating that the 36-year-old Saudi national may have been killed in the second half of 2017.

Al-Asiri is believed to have built the underwear bomb that a Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, tried to detonate on board a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit from Amsterdam in December 2009. He is also behind a plot to place bombs hidden in printer cartridges on U.S.-bound cargo jets in 2010.

U.S. intelligence has believed that al-Asiri and his confederates were constantly working to improve their bomb designs so that they could get past airport security.

In July 2014, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) banned uncharged mobile phones and laptops from flights to the United States that originated from Europe and the Middle East.

Al-Asiri, who studied chemistry in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, even once placed explosives inside his younger brother's clothes in a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's interior minister, Mohammed bin Nayef, in 2009. The brother, Abdullah, died in the explosion while the top U.S. counterterrorism ally was slightly wounded.

The U.S. has long viewed Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch as its most dangerous affiliate, in part because of al-Asiri's expertise in explosives. Since 2014, the U.S. has offered $5 million for information leading to his capture. He is thought to have escaped death many times in U.S. drone strikes in Yemen.

Al-Asiri's last known statement was a 2016 audio message threatening Saudi Arabia and the U.S. after the kingdom killed 47 Al Qaeda suspects in one of its largest mass executions since 1980.

Vowing to continue battling America, he said at the time that the Saudis would be dealt with in a "different way," without elaborating.

Wanted by the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Interpol, al-Asiri fled his native Saudi Arabia  home of 15 of the 19 suspected hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks  for Yemen, along with other militants escaping a crackdown in the kingdom.

Once in Yemen, they merged with local Al Qaeda militants who escaped from a Yemeni prison in 2006 to form Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.

Since 2015, Al Qaeda has exploited the turmoil in Yemen as a Saudi-led coalition imposed an air, land, and sea blockade and waged war on Yemen's Iranian-aligned rebels, known as Houthis, who gained control of the capital, Sanaa, forcing President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee the country.

Amid the chaos, AQAP has expanded its territory, occupied entire cities, looted security camps, banks, and collected taxes from locals.

The Saudi-led coalition, in particular the United Arab Emirates (UAE), later claimed to have defeated Al Qaeda and forced it to pull out of the territories under its control.

An Associated Press investigation however revealed that the coalition struck a series of deals with Al Qaeda, offering tribal leaders cash to pay off militants to give up territory without fighting, something both the U.S., the UAE, and Al Qaeda have denied.

The U.N. report also said that Al Qaeda's global network "continues to show resilience," with its affiliates and allies much stronger than the Islamic State (ISIS) group in some places, including Somalia, Yemen, South Asia and Africa's Sahel region.

It added that Yemen's lack of a strong central government "has provided a fertile environment for" AQAP's expansion and estimated its strength inside Yemen at between 6,000 and 7,000 fighters  compared to ISIS militants who only number between 250 to 500 fighters.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Two Cambodian journalists who had worked for U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia and are charged with espionage were released Tuesday on bail, a day after a pardon freed four land rights activists from prison.

Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin, better known by his professional name of Yeang Socheameta, were arrested last November and charged with undermining national security by supplying information to a foreign state. The two journalists were also later charged with producing pornography after police said they found pornographic images on their computers. They face possible prison terms of up to 15 years.

Their arrests were seen as part of a crackdown on the media and political opponents ahead of last month's general election.

The election, swept by Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling party, was widely considered unfair because the only credible opposition party was dissolved by the courts last year.

This week's releases appear to demonstrate clemency to soften international criticism of the government. Cambodia's courts have a reputation for treating critics of the government harshly, while treading softly on well-connected allies of the ruling party.

Hun Sen has a record of using a carrot and stick approach with his foes, cracking down harshly when facing a serious challenger, and then effecting a reconciliation when he no longer feels threatened. The pattern of cracking down, then relenting, also appears intended to keep his critics  such as the U.S. and EU, along with international human rights organizations  off balance.

On Monday, a prominent leader of Cambodia's land rights movement and three female activists imprisoned with her were freed under a royal pardon requested by Hun Sen. Tep Vanny had led protests against evictions from the capital's Boeng Kak lakeshore community, where the government granted a land concession to a Cambodian tycoon and a Chinese company to develop a luxury residential and commercial community.

In September last year , Radio Free Asia's Phnom Penh bureau closed its office in Cambodia after operating for 20 years, citing government intimidation of the media which it said had reached an "unprecedented level." By the end of last year, the government had closed more than a dozen radio stations  some of which had rebroadcast Radio Free Asia's programs  and the independent English-language newspaper The Cambodia Daily was forced to shut down.

The two reporters were no longer working for RFA after their office closed, and police initially said they had been detained for running an unlicensed karaoke studio. But they were later accused of setting up a studio for RFA and charged with espionage.

A spokesman for the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, Ei Rin, said Tuesday it had issued an order for the release on bail of the two journalists as requested by their lawyer.

The pair walked out of Prey Sar prison Tuesday evening and were greeted by several dozen friends and family members.

"Frankly speaking, we are not fully receiving our freedom because we must still present ourselves upon police request," Yeang Sothearin told journalists outside the prison. "We are continuing to urge the court to drop all charges against us so that we can do our jobs, living our lives as other people do."

His colleague, Uon Chhin, vowed to stay in his profession.

"I love my job as a journalist," he said in response to a reporter's question.

The two went to a Buddhist temple to get a monk's blessings, a rite meant to get rid of bad luck.

Their detention had been sharply criticized by rights groups and journalists' associations. The Southeast Asian Press Alliance called the charges against them "a direct assault on freedom of the media and designed to frighten other journalists into silence."

Hun Sen has been in office since 1985 and has held a tight grip on power since ousting a co-prime minister in a bloody 1997 coup. Although Cambodia, ravaged by the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, is now nominally a democratic state, its institutions remain fragile and the rule of law weak.
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A ceremony to honor the victims of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia on Tuesday turned into a protest against Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis.

Hundreds jeered and booed Babis' arrival for a ceremony in front of the Czech public radio building in downtown Prague, a site of a fierce street battle between unarmed civilians and invading troops in the first hours of occupation where 17 people died.

"Shame, shame...," the crowd chanted while blowing horns and whistles during his speech.

Babis didn't immediately react to the protest.

In his speech, he said

Babis, a populist billionaire, is a controversial figure because of a power-sharing deal with the maverick Communist Party and fraud charges he is facing. His position is also complicated by allegations he collaborated with the former communist-era secret police.

Troops from the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance formed in 1955 between the Soviet Union and seven Eastern European nations, invaded Czechoslovakia on Aug. 20, 1968 to crush liberal reforms enacted in the brief era known as the Prague Spring. The country was subsequently taken over by a hard-line Communist regime fully loyal to Moscow.

In 1968 alone, 137 people were killed by Warsaw Pact soldiers, and a total of more than 400 died during the occupation of Czechoslovakia that ended only after the 1989 anti-communist Velvet Revolution.

In Brussels, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that Europe isn't divided by an Iron Curtain any more.

"But let us use this day of solemn commemoration to collectively remember that freedom and the respect for human rights can never be taken for granted and need to be fought for every single day," he said.

In another move related to the anniversary, which will likely anger Russia, Prague authorities unveiled a new explanatory text about the role of Soviet World War II commander Ivan Stepanovic Konev to his monument in Prague.

Marshall Konev led Red Army forces that liberated large parts of Czechoslovakia from Nazi occupation in 1945. His monument was unveiled in the Prague 6 district in 1980.

On Tuesday, Prague 6 mayor Ondrej Kolar said the authorities wanted to give people "full information that would not conceal what happened."

The new text describes Konev's leading role in crushing the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, his contribution to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the preparation of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Russia and four other former Soviet republics had officially protested that.

A small group of communists condemned at the site what they called "the rewriting of history."

Others demanded the monument was completely removed given what Konev had done.
A former beauty queen accused of hiring a hit man to kill her wealthy husband is set to go on trial in Puerto Rico on Tuesday.

After a lengthy international manhunt, Aurea Vazquez Rijos, dubbed The Black Widow by local media, is finally set to appear in federal court, where jurors will decide if she had a part in Adam Anhangs slaying, the BBC reported.

The jury selection began Tuesday, and a clerk with the federal court told CBC it could last until Friday.

Vazquez is a former Miss Puerto Rico Petite winner, according to a Global News profile about the battle to bring her back to Puerto Rico.

Anhang, 32, a Winnipeg native who made his money in real estate and gaming software, was found beaten and stabbed to death in San Juan in September 2005.

On the night he was killed, Anhang and Vazquez, met to discuss their pending divorce after six months of marriage.

Anhangs death at first appeared to be the result of a robbery gone wrong.

But prosecutors say Vazquez tricked her husband into meeting up, and had him killed, the BBC reported. Vazquez had signed a prenuptial agreement with Anhang that would have cost her millions if the two divorced.

Anhangs net worth was estimated to be $24 million.

MOLLIE TIBBETTS, MISSING IOWA STUDENT, FOUND DEAD, SOURCES SAY

A kitchen worker, Jonathan Roman Rivera, initially was found guilty of murdering Anhang, but Riveras conviction was overturned after a witness to the killing came forward, the BBC reported.

Another man, Alex El Loco Pabon Colon, eventually was indicted for the murder, and pleaded guilty after cooperating with investigators. Colon said Vazquez offered him $3 million to kill Anhang.

A U.S. grand jury charged Vazquez in June 2008 with ordering the hit on Anhang. She refused to cooperate with police, and filed a civil lawsuit against Anhangs family shortly after his death, seeking $1 million in damages and millions more from his estate. A judge dismissed the suit.

Vazquez vanished from Puerto Rico, but she turned up a few years later in Spain, and was arrested in June 2013. Vazquez, who fought extradition, said she hadnt known U.S. authorities were looking for her.

NAZI LABOR CAMP GUARD CAUGHT BY ICE, DEPROTED TO GERMANY, COMPLETING DIFFICULT TASK, GRENELL SAYS

While in prison awaiting extradition, she became pregnant and then married the babys father. But Vazquez was sent to Puerto Rico in 2015 to stand trial.

Prosecutors have said they will not seek the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole if convicted.

Fox News' Frank Miles and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Italian prosecutors on Tuesday opened a criminal investigation into the deaths of at least 10 people swept away by a flash flood as they hiked through a narrow gorge in the southern region of Calabria.

Italy's civil protection agency said at least three people were missing, although the number could be higher since guides were not mandatory inside the Raganello Gorge, a popular spot for aquatic trekking.

Rescue workers saved 23 people Monday after some 2  meters (8 feet) of rain filled the narrow gorge, which features rock faces as high as 700 meters (2,300 feet). Eleven people were hospitalized, including a 10-year-old boy treated for hypothermia.

Prosecutor Eugenio Facciolla said authorities were investigating possible charges including manslaughter, causing bodily harm and official negligence, the news agency ANSA reported. No target has been identified.

TV images showed helmeted rescue workers holding survivors as they were brought to safety on ropes.

Pasquale Gagliardi, a doctor with an emergency helicopter service, told ANSA that another survivor was an 8-year-old girl, found in a state of shock next to a body. Her parents were believed to be among the dead.

The victims were among two groups of trekkers on an excursion in the 12-kilometer- (7-1/2 mile-) long gorge, inside the vast Pollino National Park.

Search operations continued through the night, and the head of the civil protection agency in Calabria, Carlo Tansi, said one of the bodies was found five kilometers (three miles) from the flooded area.

A local resident who helped respond to the emergency, identified only as Claudio, told ANSA that he helped two youths from Naples, who managed to climb out of the gorge on their own.

"They were in a state of shock and they arrived without shoes and with cuts from the rocks. They recounted a terrifying situation," he said.

The gorge boasts aquatic trekking along the stream that cuts through the massive rock, where hikers pass by waterfalls and natural slipways.

Guides typically supply helmets, wet suits and other equipment.
The Taliban fired several rockets toward the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan as President Ashraf Ghani was delivering a televised speech on Tuesday, with one rocket landing near the U.S. Embassy, according to Afghan forces.

No injuries were immediately reported, but security forces are currently engaged in a gun battle with militants in the south west of the city.

The attack comes just a day after the terrorist group abducted more than 100 people after ambushing a convoy of buses. Nearly 150 people have since been rescued; however, 21 remain captive, according to Afghan officials.

The sounds of explosions on Tuesday from the rockets prompted Ghani to interrupt his live holiday message for the Muslim celebrations of Eid al-Adha to say, "if they are thinking the rocket attack will keep Afghans down, they are wrong."

The first rocket landed near the presidency, while the second and third fell near a NATO compound and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, according to police. No one was hurt.

Ghani had asked for a conditional cease-fire with Taliban insurgents on Sunday for the duration of the Eid al-Adha holiday.

Afghan forces located the house where they believe the rockets were fired, before an aircraft destroyed the located.

The Taliban and the U.S.-backed Afghan government have been at odds for nearly 17 years, with tensions escalating over recent years as the terrorist group has conducted attacks on an almost daily basis.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Salvadoran authorities on Tuesday denied having asked Taiwan for money in exchange for maintaining diplomatic relations with the self-governing island, saying its decision to switch recognition to China was due to the enormous advantages of trading with the economic giant.

In an interview with state television, presidential spokesman Roberto Lorenzana called Taiwan's allegations "base" and "totally false," noting that other countries have opted to have diplomatic and commercial relations with Beijing.

"We cannot turn our back on the world, ignore that China is the second largest power in the world and the leading export economy on the planet," Lorenzana said. "It is key for our country."

President Salvador Sanchez Ceren announced Monday night in a televised address that his country would break from more than 80 years of relations with Taipei and immediately switch to Beijing.

China considers Taiwan a renegade province, and the two have long competed with so-called dollar diplomacy  funding public works projects such as stadiums, for example  to secure recognition from other nations. With El Salvador's switch, 16 small countries plus the Vatican currently recognize Taiwan.

The move prompted the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, Jean Manes, to tweet late Monday that the decision "is worrisome for many reasons" and "without doubt this will impact our relationship with the government."

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio threatened to block funding for El Salvador, accusing it of being "against the U.S. on everything."

"Why should we keep sending them so much foreign aid? Today I will begin work to end that," Rubio said via Twitter.

The United States formally recognizes only China, but it maintains a de facto embassy known as the American Institute in Taiwan. Taipei has a similar quasi-diplomatic outpost in Washington.

El Salvador's decision also drew criticism from the domestic opposition.

"The position from Taiwan is that the government of the FMLN (Sanchez Ceren's political party) asked it for money to finance the campaign in 2019," said lawmaker Margarita Escobar of the conservative Arena party. "That is called selling sovereignty and allowing another state to intervene in the internal affairs of El Salvador."

"I do not support this erroneous decision," said Guillermo Gallegos of the Grand Alliance for National Unity. "I would qualify it as sad and regrettable."

Sanchez Ceren said in his address that the decision came after "a careful analysis" and "will bring great benefits for the country, and will open up extraordinary opportunities."

He said three high-ranking Salvadoran officials were in Beijing to sign an accord on establishing diplomatic relations.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu accused China of luring away Taiwan's allies with promises of vast financial aid and investment.

Wu said Tuesday that El Salvador had repeatedly sought large amounts of funding from Taiwan for a port project that a Taiwanese team of engineers dispatched by the government thought wasn't economically feasible.

Norman Quijano, a legislator from the conservative Arena party and president of the country's congress, called the move "a betrayal of a friendly country."

In a statement, the party warned that it could have geopolitical consequences including "with strategic allies such as the United States."

The U.S. is El Salvador's largest commercial partner and also home to an estimated 2 million Salvadoran migrants, including people in the country legally and illegally. In January the Trump administration announced an end to temporary protected immigration status for about 195,000 Salvadorans, and the Central American country has hoped for legislation that would allow them to stay beyond a September 2019 deadline to leave.

Panama switched recognition from Taiwan to China in 2017, and the Dominican Republic did the same earlier this year.

Taiwan split from mainland China amid civil war in 1949, and China considers the island its territory.
University summer courses : 85 students from 32 nations are guests of Bonn University

Bonn Mayor Reinhard Limbach welcomed participants in the universitys summer courses at the Old Town Hall on Monday: 85 students from 32 nations.

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Bonns international profile as a United Nations city, as the former capital of Germany, as a city with a more than 2000 year history, as Beethovens birthplace and above all as a city with one of Germanys major universities are cited by many of the 85 students from 32 nations as the reason for their participation in Bonn Universitys international summer course in the German language and cultural studies.

On Monday they were welcomed at the Old Town Hall by Mayor Reinhard Limbach. During the around three and a half weeks to 31 August that most of the students, mainly aged between 20 and 30, will spend in Bonn, mornings are reserved for learning German at different language levels, while in the afternoon there are many optional modules to choose from. Students can choose from theatre courses, seminars on the political system in Germany, writers and thinkers to excursions to museums and research institutes, depending on what best suits their interests or their field of study.

Bonn University has organised a summer course in the German language, literature and cultural studies since 1947, Limbach told the participants in the course gathered in the Gobelin room of the Old Town Hall. The aim 71 years ago was to use the event to re-integrate Germany into the international community.

Network at an international level

The high number of participants today is an indication of the good academic and cultural reputation that the federal city of Bonn enjoys worldwide, Limbach said. The International Office of Bonn University, which organises the summer courses, sees its function as the creation and maintenance of networks at a European and international level as well as linking Bonn University with European and international players. The many short statements from the participants show that it is succeeding in doing so.

Yuta Ishihan (21) from Tokyo is in Germany for the second time. After visiting Erfurt a year ago, he applied for a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to participate in the summer course in Bonn. As a law student, it is particularly important for him to learn about Germany since Japanese criminal law is based on the German system.

Sirengul Ayan (23), who is studying German in Antalya, Turkey, is also enjoying her stay in Bonn because everything is really nice and not so expensive for students. Alice Horowicz (20) is struck by how colourful and friendly everything is in Bonn compared to Geneva, Switzerland. The German and history student is in her mothers birthplace for the first time and is surprised how international Bonn is.
Zero Waste : Life without packaging

BONN The Zero Waste initiative is trying to avoid all forms of packaging. The next meeting of the Bonn group is on 28 August.

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Germany is good at packaging: according to the Federal Environment Agency at the end of July, no other country in Europe produces as much packaging waste as Germany. A fact not everyone wants to simply accept. Under the slogan Zero Waste, people all over the world are opposing the packaging mania and trying to dispense with packaging completely. Now supporters of this Zero Waste movement in Bonn have met for the first time to network with each other and find ideas for joint projects.

It really affects everything, the organiser of the meeting, Annalena van Beek, explains about the consequences for everyday life, be it plastic waste, waste paper, general rubbish or organic waste, but also clothing, for example, that you then buy second-hand. Instead of plastic bags, jute bags are used, instead of toothpaste, tooth-cleaning tablets that are put in re-usable glasses and then weighed. It works the same way with pasta.

Increase in public awareness

Public awareness of the problem is already increasing, explains the young student: Three years ago, I had the feeling that it was not yet something everyone was talking about.

That has since changed. This could be seen from the around 50 participants who came to the meeting and stretched the room to its limits. The increased interest is noticeable, especially against the background of recently released figures. At the end of July 2016, the Federal Environment Agency announced that Germany was again European Champion in the production of packaging waste. 18.16 million tonnes of packaging waste is generated annually in Germany. This corresponds to 220.5 kilogrammes of waste per capita. A sad top position, said the president of the Environment Agency, Maria Krautzberger, of the figures. Between 2000 and 2016, the figure rose by 19 per cent and there was also an increase in 2016 compared to the previous year. This can be seen from figures from the Statistical Office of the EU. If the previous years trend continues, Germany will also top the list in 2017 and 2018. Official figures for 2017 have not yet been released.

Do Germans lack sensitivity when it comes to cutting waste? You are more likely to be labelled an environmentalist, but most people find that great, contradicts van Beek. Many even defend why they themselves have not yet started. She thinks this is nonsense. Everyone starts something in their own time and everyone must come round to the idea themselves of wanting to do it. The lifestyle could be easily implemented in Bonn. In every supermarket, you could simply put fruit and vegetables on the checkout, there is a no packaging shop Deinet in Duisdorf and the range of unpackaged goods is also increasing in the organic supermarket Basic. The only things that are perhaps harder are snacks and sweets, but there are also alternatives, she explains. Apart from that, quality of life improves. You have much more contact with the salespeople in the shops and with food producers, which also increases your connection to food.

Tips and tricks for correct implementation

The Zero-Waste-Group in Bonn was previously only on Facebook. (www.facebook.com/zerowastebonn). Tips and tricks on implementing no waste correctly were exchanged at the meeting and participants also came up concrete project ideas. For those who are interested, a list will be compiled of where you can buy packaging-free in Bonn and information talks about the lifestyle or surveys on the campaign against straws at supermarkets are also being considered. The next meeting is on Tuesday 28 August at the Ermekeil barracks.
Victim of the heatwave : Siegburg confectioner Fassbender is insolvent again

Bonn Ten years after its insolvency, the Siegburg confectioner Fassbender is again in trouble. The heat wave is one reason for its economic problems.

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The Siegburg traditional confectioner Fassbender is again in financial difficulties, ten years after its first insolvency. The company said on Monday when asked that it had itself initiated insolvency proceedings in the Bonn District Court.

The reasons for the financial problems are the hot summer and the consequences of a major fire in 2015. Sales in the shops in Siegburg, Bonn, Bad Honnef and Cologne are continuing for the moment.

The district court has appointed tax consultant Thomas Steger from Sankt Augustin, who managed the first insolvency proceedings, as the provisional insolvency administrator. After the previous insolvency, the former company secretary Stefan Geiger took over the company in 2009. As managing director, Geiger modernised production, which moved to the industrial area in Siegburg, and had all of the shops refurbished or renovated.

A new investor is welcome

Steger told the General-Anzeiger: We are keeping all options open. Of course, a new investor is also welcome. The Fassbender confectioner, which has been on the Siegburg market square since 1910, does its main business in the weeks around Christmas and Easter. The summer is traditionally a time of low sales, although Fassbender does then also offer high quality ice-cream specialities and light fruit tarts. However, the unusually hot days in recent weeks have caused sales to slump by up to 50 per cent in some cases.

Together with the costs the company incurred after a major fire in 2015, it has now become insolvent. The fire broke out in the spring in the central production and packing hall in Siegburg. It was triggered by a defective freezer. According to Steger, the insurance only covered part of the costs, leaving Fassbender with a six-figure Euro amount.

The 135 employees, including temporary staff and trainees, have already been informed of the insolvency at a staff meeting. Their wages and salaries are secured through the Employment Agencys insolvency fund.

Shops refurbished and renovated

There have been changes to the branches since 2008. Production was moved from Markt 12 in Siegburg to the industrial area, where the Fassbender to go business was also opened. In 2012, the Cafe Bottler in the Vivatsgasse in the Bonn pedestrian zone directly on Sterntor was added. In Siegburg, the Literaturcafe in the public library has been a Fassbender shop since 2014.

The cafe in Colognes Mittelstrae is the most important location after the head office in Siegburg. Fassbender also runs Cafe Jansen in Obermarspforte in the cathedral city. The first outlet in Bonn was the shop in Sternstrae, which was opened in 1995. In March 2008, Fassbender took over Cafe Jansen in Bad Honnef.

From Siegburg to the entire world

Most of the Fassbender products, such as the truffle pralines, almond brittle caracas and nougat, are produced in house. The confectionary has also been sent all over the world for more than 40 years, including via an online shop.
Oslo, 20 August 2018 - DNO ASA, the Norwegian oil and gas operator, today reported receipt of USD 69.03 million as payment for May 2018 crude oil deliveries to the export market from the Tawke license in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The funds will be shared by DNO and partner Genel Energy plc pro-rata to the companies' interests in the license.

Separately, a payment of USD 5.99 million has been received net to DNO, representing three percent of gross Tawke license revenues during May, as provided for under the August 2017 receivables settlement agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government.

DNO operates and has a 75 percent interest in the Tawke license, which contains the Tawke and Peshkabir fields.

Following regularization of export payments for Tawke license production since February 2016, the Company will no longer make monthly receipts announcements. The Company will instead update the market on export volumes and values as part of its quarterly financial reporting.

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For further information, please contact:

Media: media@dno.no

Investors: investor.relations@dno.no

Tel: +47 911 57 197

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DNO ASA is a Norwegian oil and gas operator focused on the Middle East and the North Sea. Founded in 1971 and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange, the Company holds stakes in onshore and offshore licenses at various stages of exploration, development and production in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, Norway, Oman, the United Kingdom and Yemen.

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This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.


Local medical staff receive training from Chinese doctors on Ebola treatment in Monrovia, Liberia, Dec. 3, 2014. (Xinhua/Yang Guoyu)

DAR ES SALAAM, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Since the first Chinese medical team arrived in Africa in 1963, all kinds of non-profitable Chinese medical services have contributed to the continent's healthcare and saved the lives of tens of thousands of people.

In recent years, cooperation in healthcare between China and Africa has witnessed tremendous results, helping to forge close ties between the two.

DECADES OF HELP

Through decades of medical cooperation and exchanges, China has exerted all means to assist Africa, including building medical institutions, providing medicines and medical devices, organizing training sessions, and offering scholarships to African medical talents.

From Addis Ababa in Ethiopia to Windhoek in Namibia, 43 Chinese medical teams are working round the clock providing services across Africa.

China has sent over 20,000 medical workers to Africa since 1963 and some 200 million African people have benefited as a result.

When the outbreak of Ebola virus disease picked up pace in West Africa in 2014, China sent over teams with no hesitation.

In February 2014, an Ebola epidemic broke out in Guinea and later spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia, while other countries also reported infection cases. The outbreak claimed hundreds of lives in months and posed a great threat to the affected countries.

Since the outbreak, China has carried out its largest aid program in the area of health, providing several rounds of financial aid to Africa, sending hundreds of medical personnel and public health experts to the affected countries and training local medical workers.

"China has always stood with Liberia as a true friend," then Liberian President Sirleaf said, noting China's assistance and contributions to her country's fight against the Ebola disease has been well noted.

According to Chinese Ambassador to Tanzania Wang Ke, medical and health cooperation between the two countries began in 1960s when the Chinese government started sending medical teams to Zanzibar and the Tanzania mainland.
Governments around the nation are working to design the best vaccine policies that keep both their employees and their residents safe. Although the latest data shows a variety of polarizing perspectives, there are clear emerging best practices that leading governments are following to put trust first: creating policies that are flexible and provide a range of options, and being in tune with the needs and sentiments of their employees so that they are able to be dynamic and accommodate the rapidly changing situation.
UNC system officials issued a statement Tuesday about the protesters' removal of UNC's Silent Sam Confederate monument, saying "mob rule" won't be tolerated.A joint statement from UNC Board of Governors Chairman Harry Smith and UNC President Margaret Spellings said they had conferred with UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt and Trustee Chairman Haywood Cochrane about next steps. They promised a full investigation into the protesters' actions."Campus leadership is in collaboration with campus police, who are pulling together a timeline of the events, reviewing video evidence, and conducting interviews that will inform a full criminal investigation," Smith and Spellings said."The safety and security of our students, faculty, and staff are paramount. And the actions last evening were unacceptable, dangerous, and incomprehensible," the statement continued. "We are a nation of laws--and mob rule and the intentional destruction of public property will not be tolerated."The statement did not address what might happen to any protesters identified or what will ultimately become of the fallen statue, which was hauled away late Monday. On Tuesday, all that remained was the pedestal and mud where the protest had been staged.House Speaker Tim Moore, a Cleveland County Republican, said in a prepared statement that those who toppled the statue should be prosecuted."There is no place for the destruction of property on our college campuses or in any North Carolina community; the perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted by public safety officials to make clear that mob rule and acts of violence will not be tolerated in our state," Moore's statement said.Sometime after 9:15 p.m. Monday, protesters managed to pull down the statue with ropes two hours into a march and protest. The demonstrators had taken banners on tall bamboo poles to the statue and shrouded it from view. The crowd surrounded the statue with police officers mostly keeping their distance from the perimeter.Silent Sam, which was erected 105 years ago, was meant to honor alumni who fought in the Civil War. It was funded by alumni and Daughters of the Confederacy.It has been the target of protesters and vandals for decades, but activity around the monument ramped up after last year's deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va.Student activists, alumni, faculty and others have called for it to be removed, but UNC system and campus officials maintained that their hands were tied because of a 2015 state law that prevents moving historic monuments. Some alumni and others said the statue should remain in its spot as a part of history. A university panel had been developing a plan to erect signs and other information that would provide a more full context about the monument, including a speech made at the dedication by industrialist Julian Carr. In a statement that has been often repeated by protesters, Carr said: "I horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds, because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted and maligned a Southern lady."Gov. Roy Cooper last year suggested UNC had the authority under the law to remove the statue to protect public safety. University lawyers disagreed, and nothing happened. The university never asked the N.C. Historical Commission to take up the issue, though Spellings, Folt, Cochrane and former Board of Governors Chair Lou Bissette wrote to Cooper in 2017 to suggest that avenue. The letter set off a majority of the members of the current UNC system board, including Smith, who chastised Spellings and Bissette about approaching the governor before conferring with the board.UNC officials also never sought the relocation of the statue under another possible exception in the law. A UNC law professor suggested the state law on monuments allowed for a statue to be removed in order to protect it. Silent Sam has been vandalized repeatedly with spray paint, and last year a hammer wielded by a man who climbed the statue and beat it in the face. In April, a protester poured red ink and her own blood on the statue. The university has spent money to clean up the statue, install surveillance cameras and last year, $390,000 on police security.Last year, former N.C. Deputy Attorney General Hampton Dellinger, representing the UNC Black Law Students Association and other UNC students, put the university on notice that students were prepared to sue in federal court if Silent Sam were not removed."Whether there will be any legal consequences for those involved in the toppling remains unclear but I'm certain that Silent Sam stood illegally," Dellinger said in an emailed statement Tuesday.Dellinger said the presence of the statue violated federal civil rights laws by creating "a racially hostile learning environment.""UNC officials were duty bound to remove it. They failed to and that's a shame," Dellinger said in the email. "It is hard to imagine in 2018 that an institution of higher learning would stoop so low as to host a Civil War monument in the middle of campus featuring a towering Confederate soldier with his rifle raised and his finger on the trigger. But that's exactly what UNC was doing. It was not only wrong, it violated controlling federal law."Andrew Skinner, a 2018 graduate, arrived at Silent Sam shortly after protesters toppled the statue. He said the university would find it difficult politically to erect it again."They can put it back up, but now it's down," Skinner said. "They can put it back up that's an action."Others said the protesters' actions will only create problems for the university in the long run.Recent UNC graduate Allyson Ford tweeted Tuesday that her university was "dumb," adding, "violence is not the answer to your problems and it's just going to fuel more problems and deepen the divide between a liberal student body in a vastly conservative state."The N.C. Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans issued a statement expressing "disgust and outrage" about what it called a celebration of anarchy. The group said UNC, "the People's University, should suffer the consequences of turning its back on the people of North Carolina."
There is no doctor in all of Webster County, and the pharmacist there has seen the wreckage.One womans first pregnancy visit was her trip to give birth. One patient has walked miles to Columbus for appointments. Some patients just dont see a doctor.They have heart attacks and they die, said Nikki Bryant, the owner of the countys lone pharmacy, lodged inside her fathers grocery store.Georgias Legislature is once again brainstorming legislation to address the states rural health care crisis. Sixty-four of 159 counties have no pediatrician; 79 have no obstetrician/gynecologist; and nine, like Webster, simply have no doctor. That makes Georgia worse than the national average for needy areas short of primary health care providers, according to federal data assembled by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Health outcomes for Georgia patients lag accordingly, with the state ranked among the worst 10 states for most measures.When lawmakers return to their deliberations at the state Capitol in January, amid Fulton Countys 4,500 doctors, vast swaths of their constituents back home will be living in a different world. The legislators have repeatedly created health care study committees and passed some legislation. But a major fix remains distant.
Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker's campaign on Monday unveiled a web video featuring Barack Obama, marking another foray into his home state's politics for the former president.In the 90-second spot, Obama speaks to the camera about Pritzker's work with nonprofits and technology incubator 1871 Chicago."I know J.B. I trust J.B. And that's who he is, someone who is always thinking about how he can make a difference," Obama said.It's not a surprise that the former Democratic president would back Pritzker over Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, and Obama this month released a list of endorsements that included Pritzker. The digital spot released Monday, though, gives the campaign another video to spread across the internet in the months before the November election.Obama has gotten involved in state politics from time to time since heading to the White House, including backing Ald. Sophia King in her City Council race last year.Pritzker supported Hillary Clinton over Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary and was a national co-chair of her campaign. Pritzker's sister Penny, however, backed Obama's 2008 presidential bid and later became his commerce secretary.In a March 2012 Bloomberg TV interview, Pritzker hesitated on supporting Obama's re-election efforts. "We'll have to wait and see. I don't know who the nominee's going to be on the Republican side," Pritzker said at the time.Pritzker has faced heat over phone calls secretly recorded by federal agents between the influential Democratic donor and then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich discussing their futures and the ramifications of Blagojevich's authority to fill the Senate seat being vacated by Obama.In one of the calls revealed by the Tribune, Pritzker expressed his preference for being state treasurer. In another, he pitched the idea of picking Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White to fill Obama's vacated Senate seat, in part because it "covers you on the African-American thing."
A Democratic objection to independent Greg Orman's candidacy for Kansas governor says more than 6,000 signatures used to help secure his place on the November general election ballot should be thrown out.A successful objection blocking Orman's candidacy would upend the race for governor and arguably improve Democratic nominee Laura Kelly's prospects in the race. The Orman campaign called the filing frivolous.Kelly, a state senator from Topeka, will be competing with Orman for unaffiliated voters and moderate Republicans in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats by a nearly 2 to 1 ratio. Democrats have warned for months that Orman's candidacy will split votes and benefit the GOP nominee, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.Kelly's campaign declined to comment on the objection to Orman's signatures, which was filed by the chief of staff for Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, one of her closest allies in the Legislature.The objection alleges that one petition circulator who recorded more than 1,000 signatures over seven days would have had to collect a signature every 4.5 minutes for 11-hours each day in order to accomplish the task."That statistic casts serious doubt as to the validity of his signatures, even more so when you consider that his petitions included signatures from 20 different counties during that time span," said Pedro Irigonegaray, an attorney for Will Lawrence, who filed the objection.Orman campaign spokesman Sam Edelen called the filing a desperate effort to avoid electoral accountability."This frivolous filing by the lawyer for the Kansas Democratic Party simply shows the lengths to which the supporters of the failed system will go," Edelen said. "They want to avoid giving voters a real choice at all costs."Lawrence's objection also says several counties failed to validate signatures by a legal deadline -- a loss of more than 6,000 signatures if the objection is upheld. The objection says that several petition circulators were not qualified under state law to circulate petitions for Orman.In addition, the objection suggests that notaries public were notarizing petition pages without personally witnessing the signature of the petition circulator.Irigonegaray wrote in a letter that "a substantial number of the notary dates on these signature pages appear to be the same, regardless of the dates the signatures were collected."Irigonegaray was one of the lawyers who defeated Kobach in court four years ago when the Kansas Supreme Court agreed to remove Chad Taylor, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, from the ballot. The decision enabled Orman to run a head-to-head race against U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, the incumbent Republican.The objection came after the Kansas secretary of state's office said Friday it had found more than 7,000 valid signatures on Orman' petition and placed him on the November general election ballot. Orman has said he turned in more than 10,300 signatures.Democrats had previously signaled they planned to formally fight Orman's placement on the ballot. Lawrence earlier said some signatures appeared to be collected by individuals convicted of felonies. Kansas law requires signature gatherers to be eligible to register to vote.Orman said in an interview Friday that he recognized there will be challenges to his petition."I have every confidence based on the process that we went through that we're going to have well more than the 5,000 signatures required to be on the ballot in November," Orman said.Bryan Caskey, the Kansas director of elections, confirmed that the secretary of state's office had received the petition.He said this would trigger a meeting of the State Objections Board, a panel which includes Kobach, Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Lt. Gov. Tracey Mann."We are in the process of scheduling that and alerting all the candidates," Caskey said.Kobach, who narrowly won the GOP nomination for governor, said last week that his decision to recuse himself from the counting of votes in the primary also extended into the review of Orman's signatures. He said he had not physically visited the elections division at the secretary of state's office since his recusal."I'm leaving all of those decisions in their hands. I'm staying out of it," Kobach said Thursday, the day before his office certified Orman's signatures.Caskey said Monday he had not discussed with Kobach about whether the recusal would also extend to his role on the State Objections Board. Kobach has had deputies serve in his stead in the past in situations where there was a potential conflict of interest.Bob Beatty, a political scientist at Washburn University, said a successful Democratic effort to remove Orman from the ballot would recalibrate the governor's race."It would be a blast of dynamite for this governor's race. If he were off the ballot, it would just blow it up," Beatty said. "It would make it a much more straightforward race between the Democrat and the Republican."Beatty noted that in a three-way race a candidate could capture the governor's office with 34 percent of the vote."Getting 35 percent vs. 51 percent makes a giant difference in how you run a campaign," he said.
LONDON, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The biggest warship ever built for Britain's Royal Navy, the aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, has left her home port of Portsmouth bound for the USA, the ministry of defence said Monday.

It will be the ship's maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean on a mission that will see her practice taking-offs and landings of a new generation of warplanes.

Eight years since a British aircraft carrier last flew a fast jet from her decks, the 65,000-tonne carrier will land fast F-35B fighter jets on her deck for the very first time during tests at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, according to the ministry.

Around 200 supporting staff, including pilots, engineers, maintainers and data analysts will be joined by two test aircraft which are expected to conduct 500 take offs and landings during their 11-week period at sea.

The aim of these initial, or "developmental" trials are to ascertain, through the specially equipped aircraft and sensors around the ship, the operating parameters of the aircraft and ship, in a range of conditions. Similar successful trials were conducted by HMS Queen Elizabeth at sea earlier this year for Rotary Wing aircraft.

The ship will conduct trials in British waters over the coming days, before departing for the USA later this month, said the ministry.
A Georgia county has proposed closing seven of its nine polling places on the basis that they are not sufficiently accessible to handicapped individuals, sparking outrage among local residents and activists.Randolph County's Board of Elections on Thursday floated the proposal to keep just two voting locations open, claiming there isn't enough time to revamp the others ahead of the November election, WALB reported."Convenience of the voter, you all not considering that at all," one meeting attendee said, according to the report.Others wondered why the closures would occur now, between the primary and November elections.American Civil Liberties Union legal director Sean Young questioned the motive behind the initiative."Eliminate 7 out of 9 polling locations, that's going to guarantee lower turnout for the election and makes you wonder if that is what the purpose of that is?" Young asked, according to the report.A consultant hired to evaluate the polling centers said the locations in question are not sufficiently accessible to people with disabilities.The ACLU of Georgia maintains that the proposal discriminates against African-Americans living in poverty, who make up a majority of the county's population.They don't have access to reliable transportation, and cannot reasonably access either of the two locations that would remain open under the proposal.Young said some rural voters would have to walk three and a half hours to reach their voting places on election day if the proposal is approved."The bottom line is, it's about race, that's the problem that it's creating," another meeting attendee said, according to the report.The ACLU threatened to file suit against the Board of Elections if they do not arrive at an agreeable resolution.A vote on the matter is expected to take place on Aug. 24.
As opioid overdoses continue to take the lives of tens of thousands of Americans every year, the epidemic has made many jurisdictions and public agencies that deal with health and safety reconsider long-held attitudes. Several cities are moving, for example, to establish safe-injection sites, something that would have been unthinkable to most local officials and policymakers just a few years ago. Medicaid programs have begun offering alternative methods of pain management, such as yoga and acupuncture, before prescribing opioids. And for police departments, an arrest-first mentality is beginning to give way to more compassionate approaches aimed at helping people struggling with addiction.Two years ago, a handful of police departments began requiring officers -- frequently the first to encounter a victim -- to carry naloxone, the life-saving drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. There is still pushback from some departments that dont see helping addicts as their responsibility, but that view is dwindling. According to the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, at least 1,200 police departments around the country now have some kind of program that equips officers with naloxone.The Colorado Springs, Colo., Police Department was one of the first to do so. As a cop, if we can even just help to stabilize those numbers, that will be a victory for me, Thor Eells, who was a commander with the department at the time the policy went into effect, toldin 2016.But for many police officers, its been a mindset shift. Our officers were skeptical, but its been going well with no strain on staffing, says Sgt. Baron Brown of the Ferndale, Mich., Police Department. The Detroit-area force is a part of Hope Not Handcuffs, an initiative that allows anyone struggling with substance abuse to go without fear of arrest to a participating police department, which will work to place the person in a recovery program. Hope Not Handcuffs kicked off in February 2017 with police departments across five counties taking part. As of this June, nearly 1,400 people had walked into police stations seeking help.Brown says joining the initiative made sense for a progressive suburban community struggling with overdoses. Since the city of about 20,000 began participating in Hope Not Handcuffs, about 65 people have come in to request help with their addictions. Were probably overrepresented in overall numbers, he says, but weve been among the most vocal about this program. I believe in this. I have family members with substance abuse disorders.At the national level, the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative, which was ahead of the curve when it was established in 2015, works similarly to Hope Not Handcuffs. It redirects people to recovery programs who might otherwise be arrested. The initiative has worked with more than 140 police departments. According to its annual report, in the programs first year, communities saw a decrease in addiction-related crimes by as much as 25 percent.Some police departments have faced public criticism from those who say they didnt do much to help people get into recovery during the crack epidemic in the 1980s and 90s, which devastated communities largely made up of people of color. But Brown says this drug epidemic is different. Crack just wasnt killing people the way heroin has, he says. You take one dose of heroin and you can be dead if its laced with fentanyl. Its scary. Its caused us all to look at things differently.
Privacy and Cybersecurity

Facing Challenges

In this age of hackers and cybercriminals, every state has a top security official focused on preventing breaches and protecting the vast amounts of data it collects. Now, a growing number also are hiring a top official to make sure that the privacy of residents personal data is protected as well.Many large companies have employed 'chief privacy officers' for years, but they were rare in state government. A decade ago, there were only a few; today, at least eight states have them  Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah, Washington and West Virginia, according to the National Association of State Chief Information Officers. Arkansas hired its first in June.I expect we will see more states doing this in the future, said Amy Glasscock, a senior policy analyst at the association. Its good to focus on privacy rather than just security because of the sensitive information that state governments have on citizens. Educating state agencies how to keep things private is very important.States collect reams of confidential information from residents, such as Social Security numbers, health records, tax forms and credit card numbers. Much of it is stored digitally and some states also use the cloud, remote servers that can be accessed over the internet instead of on a computer hard drive.Chief privacy officers are tasked with ensuring that state agencies safeguard that information and comply with privacy regulations. That means state employees who handle data must know how to protect sensitive information when they use or share it.South Carolina created its chief privacy officer position, for example, after a major data breach at the state Department of Revenue in 2012 that compromised the personal information of nearly 4 million taxpayers.Chief privacy officers typically create statewide privacy policies that apply to every agency and require that staffers be trained. They meet regularly with state agencies privacy teams and evaluate new technology to make sure it doesnt conflict with privacy protections. Some also offer services to consumers to educate them about protecting their privacy.Its a great idea to have state privacy officers, said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based digital civil liberties group. Governments must understand that in their information and data operations they can actually do bad things when it comes to privacy.Alex Alben, Washington states chief privacy officer, said his office is rolling out a privacy checklist app for state and local governments with dozens of topics employees can search, such as how to assess the impact of a program on privacy or protect location-tracking data on mobile devices.His office also has created a privacy guide for residents and does public outreach.You dont want to just live in this bubble in the state capitol, Alben said. Its important to know what residents concerns are about privacy and how their data is being used. We respond to peoples questions and try to be advocates for them.State chief privacy officers work closely with chief information security officers, who oversee cybersecurity. Cybercriminals are constantly scanning state computer networks seeking out vulnerabilities. In recent years, they have stepped up their attacks.If theres been any sort of infiltration of a system, privacy is very important, said Sallie Milam, West Virginias chief privacy officer. We need to know what individuals are affected, what data was impacted, and what is the risk of harm.In a 2016 survey of state CIOs, 65 percent said recent cybersecurity incidents had changed the way they approached oversight of privacy issues. Still, only 11 percent said their state had an executive-level chief privacy officer.The CIOs said they were concerned there was a lack of awareness in state agencies about the importance of privacy.If youre really focused on security, its easier not to give as much attention to privacy issues, said Glasscock, of the chief information officers association.And chief privacy officers dont just deal with external threats. Sometimes, breaches occur when state employees inadvertently release data that contains personal information, email a confidential document in an unsecured format, or dont securely store it.As long as we have humans in these jobs, mistakes can happen, Milam said.A major challenge for chief privacy officers is ensuring that state vendors follow the proper privacy procedures. That can be difficult, given their numbers and the fact that many are small businesses.A lot of vendors, I imagine, just sign the document, and are not engaged in extensive compliance, Milam said.Washington states Alben said he worries about who is overseeing contractors to make sure theyre abiding by privacy rules.What are their privacy policies? How do you know theyre enforcing them? What happens when the contract ends? he said. These are all things we need to know about.Chief privacy officers also must make sure their efforts dont impede the publics right to know. A lot of data collected by states isnt private; its public information that should be accessible to anyone.Glasscock, of the chief information officers group, said many states havent bothered to create chief privacy officer positions because they dont want to spend the money.You need buy-in at the executive level and from the governor, she said. You need people who feel really passionate about the issue.But that may be changing. I think there is a growing trend toward governors caring about this issue and considering it as a priority, she saidMilam, who was appointed in 2003 and was the nations first state chief privacy officer, agrees the concept is gaining momentum in state capitols.There will have to be more of us in the future, she said. Privacy officers understand the rules and risks around the release of data. You have to have someone with that expertise, or youll lose your public trust.
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon will stand trial on charges he caused the deaths of two Genesee County men during the Flint water crisis.Genesee District Judge David Goggins bound Lyon's case over to Genesee Circuit Court for trial on two counts of involuntary manslaughter for the deaths of Robert Skidmore and John Snyder, who prosecutors say died as a result of Legionnaires' disease, and one count of misconduct in office.He also faces one misdemeanor count of willful neglect of duty.Lyon sat quietly, his wife watching in the courtroom, as Goggins read his decision, which comes 14 months after his arraignment.The decision means the judge found there is probable cause to believe involuntary manslaughter was committed against Skidmore and Snyder and that Lyon, 49, committed the crimes.Monday's ruling marks the first time a judge has weighed in on the evidence against a city or state worker charged with criminal wrongdoing related to the water crisis.It also involves the highest-ranking of 15 current and former city and state government officials charged with criminal wrongdoing in Flint.Lyon, a member of Gov. Rick Snyder's cabinet, has remained on the job while facing the charges against him.One other case was bound over to Genesee Circuit Court after former Flint emergency manager Gerald Ambrose waived his preliminary examination. That case is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing in eight days.Four of 15 defendants have already reached plea agreements with prosecutors. Nine other cases are still pending in District Court.In the Lyon case, special prosecutor Todd Flood alleged the director failed to protect the public when he could have mandated a change in the city's water source because of the threat to the public's health.Two university studies have pointed to Flint's water as the likely trigger of outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease during the time the city used the Flint River as its water source. DHHS has maintained that exposure to McLaren-Flint hospital -- not Flint water -- is the only explanation for the surge in cases here.Prosecutors also claimed Lyon tried to cover up the source of the outbreaks by repeatedly attempting to prevent researchers from looking into its cause.Attorneys for the DHHS director told Goggins there was "zero proof that there was anything Director Lyon did or did not do" that actually caused the deaths of Skidmore and Snyder.Expert witnesses for Lyon also testified that the two men likely died of other causes and unsuccessfully tried to strike the testimony of a cardiologist who tied the deaths to Legionnaires'.Designed to save money, the 2014 decision to change the city's water source was approved and carried out by emergency managers appointed by Snyder.Lyon has said he learned of an initial surge in Legionnaires' cases in Genesee County a full year before sharing information about outbreaks of the disease directly with the governor in January 2016.Public records have shown other DHHS officials were aware of a rapid rise in Legionnaires' cases, at least 12 of which proved fatal, even earlier than the director as well as suspicions that the spread was tied to the change of Flint's water source.In addition to doctors, witnesses at Lyon's preliminary exam included current and former DHHS employees and Legionnaires' researchers from Wayne State University.One WSU professor -- Paul Kilgore -- testified in November that Lyon told him during a 2016 meeting about Flint water, "We can't save everyone, everyone has to die of something' ... or something similar to that."
Description

GIS  21 August, 2018: A delegation of twenty-four participants under the Youth Leadership Programme 2018 (YLTP) - Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung(FES Madagascar), met the Deputy Speaker of the Mauritius National Assembly, Mr Mahendranuth Sharma Hurreeram, yesterday in the Chamber of the National Assembly in Port Louis.

Discussions focused on the functions and operations of the Mauritian legislature with regards to the Constitution, Standing Orders and Rules of the National Assembly, the electoral system in Mauritius and parliamentary traditions, conventions and practice.

In his address, Mr Hurreeram highlighted that the platform of YLTP is a great opportunity for young participants to learn about different political concepts and their implications, get familiar to national and international political mechanisms as well as the techniques and tools of leadership, and develop democratic culture in leadership. This platform will thus enable them achieve a personal vision and at the same time master and apply modern concepts and tools of political communication, he said.

In addition, the Deputy Speaker called on the participants to become more responsible, develop their potential, share constructive ideas, and make judicious use of ICT as a means to strengthen democracy and contribute to the advancement of their country.

YLTP and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

The YLTP aims at: promoting and supporting innovative thinking and leadership among youth; accelerating implementation of innovative solutions for sustainable development; building networks of young men and women who are able to create change and positive sustainable impact in their communities, countries and region; and showcasing the achievements of the young men and women as change makers in their communities as well as to promote gender equality and social innovation. The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) contributes to building the capacity of state and non-state actors to play their role in the process of consolidating democracy. Since 2005, the FES has been implementing the YLTP to encourage the emergence of new generations of multipliers prepared for participation in decision-making, especially political decision-making. The beneficiaries are twenty-four young women and men from civil society organisations, the private sector, political parties, and the media and state organisations from different regions of Madagascar
Description

GIS  21 August, 2018: The High Commissioner of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to Mauritius, Dr Syed Rizwan Ahmed, called on the Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, External Communications and National Development Unit, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, today, at the New Treasury Building in Port Louis.

In a statement, Dr Ahmed underlined that the purpose of his visit was to pay his respect to the Prime Minister. The meeting, he highlighted, was cordial and discussions focused on the different ways to further promote relations between Mauritius and Pakistan as well as to explore possibilities of new projects.

The High Commissioner pointed out that the Islamic Republic of Pakistan already has longstanding ties with Mauritius and in particular with the Minister Mentor, Minister of Defence, Minister for Rodrigues, Sir Anerood Jugnauth, who has been gracing several functions organised by the High Commission of Pakistan.
Description

GIS 21 August, 2018: Winners of the Disguise & Poetry competition, Play/Sketch competition and Videography competition on the theme Water and Nature meant for students of the primary, secondary and tertiary education sector as well as professional videographers, organised by the Central Water Authority (CWA) in the context of the World Water Day (WWD) 2018, were announced yesterday at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Tower in Ebene in the presence of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy and Public Utilities, Mr Ivan Collendavelloo. Winners of the Disguise & Poetry competition, Play/Sketch competition and Videography competition on the theme Water and Nature meant for students of the primary, secondary and tertiary education sector as well as professional videographers, organised by the Central Water Authority (CWA) in the context of the World Water Day (WWD) 2018, were announced yesterday at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Tower in Ebene in the presence of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy and Public Utilities, Mr Ivan Collendavelloo.

Students and professional videographers were required to showcase the value of water and how nature can be used to overcome the water challenges in the 21st century. Winners of each category were entitled to a cash prize, a certificate and a shield. The Professional Video award followed by a cash prize of Rs 30 000 went to Mr Vijendra Ramdhun while the first prize of the videography competition for the tertiary level was awarded to Ms Marla Marie Michella of the University of Mauritius.

The winner for the best play (primary level) is Notre Dame de Lourdes RCA who won a cash prize of Rs 15 000. Notre Dame des Victoires RCA and Notre Dame de Lorette RCA bagged the second and third prizes respectively. For the Sketch & Disguise competition, London College was the grand winner and participants received a cash prize of Rs 20 000. The second prize was awarded to Dunputh Lallah SSS while Dr Maurice Cure State College won the third prize.

In his address, Mr Ivan Collendavelloo, highlighted that the world's most expensive commodities are worth nothing in the absence of water. Fresh water is essential for life, with no substitute. Although mostly unpriced, it is the most valuable and precious commodity in the world and hence the need to manage the resource properly, he added.

Speaking about the CWA, the Deputy Prime Minister stated that the organisation has contributed immensely in the development of the country since its setting up in 1973. However, he pointed out, with Mauritius being highly vulnerable to climate change, whose negative impacts are being already felt in the last decade through longer dry seasons, shorter wet seasons and increased intensity of droughts, there is a need to modernise the CWA.

For his part, the General Manager of the CWA, Dr Yousouf Ismael, underlined that as the world is facing the consequences of climatic changes and is getting drier, it is urgent that people realise the value of water. Access to sufficient safe water is a fundamental requirement for the survival of humanity and for the socio-economic well-being and livelihood of each and every one, he added.

Speaking about this years theme Nature for Water, Dr Ismael dwelt on the need to use nature to overcome the water challenges. Environmental damage, together with climate change, is driving the water-related crisis we see around the world. Floods, drought and water pollution are all made worse by degraded vegetation, soil, rivers and lakes. When we neglect our ecosystems, we make it harder to provide everyone with the water we need to survive and thrive, he said.

According to him, nature-based solutions have the potential to solve many water challenges. Planting new forests, reconnecting rivers to floodplains, and restoring wetlands will rebalance the water cycle and improve human health and livelihoods, he added.

The General Manager also spoke of his determination to enhance efficiency at the CWA as well as provide quality and safe water at an affordable price to the whole population. In this context, he recalled that several initiatives have been implemented such as replacing of pipes, construction of dams, upgrading of distribution mains and distribution networks, and upgrading of pumping stations, amongst others.

He underlined that in 2018, 800 million litres of water are being produced compared to 540 million litres of water in 2014. Furthermore, the number of subscribers has also increased to reach around 250 000. As at date, there are 11 dams, five aquifers, 25 rivers and 6 000 km of pipes around Mauritius.

World Water Day, observed on 22nd March annually, aims to raise awareness among the population on the importance of water in our everyday life. The theme chosen this year to mark the day is: Nature for Water which explores nature-based solutions to the water challenges we face in the 21st century.
(TNS)  The School District of Manatee County is likely to spend more time and money on a software project that was already $10 million over budget and a year behind schedule.Its new system for business management, known as enterprise resource planning software, started to go live on July 1  the same day Cynthia Saunders started as superintendent. She was immediately contacted by district employees who wanted another $2 million for the ERP project, said Scott Hopes, the school board chair.Her intuition served her well, that there is something awry, Hopes said.He spoke at a press conference on Monday evening, alongside the superintendent and board member John Colon. They addressed a new report that was commissioned by Saunders and received on Sunday night.At the same time, I want to emphasize this has not had any negative impact on students or the job of our instructional staff, Saunders said in a prepared statement before the news conference.However, the processes required for hiring people, securing contracts, paying bills and other basic functions on the business side of the district are being disrupted, she continued.George Kosmac, a retired deputy superintendent of operations for Seminole County Public Schools, started his assessment of the project on Aug. 10.Existing identified problems will need to be fixed promptly, he said. However, it is likely that new problems will continue to surface as time progresses and these problems will need to be addressed.At least $107,000 was spent without the school boards approval, and the district owes $1.36 million in unpaid invoices, according to the report.The project started under former Superintendent Diana Greene and former Deputy Superintendent Don Hall.I think the district did feel  the superintendent as well as the board and many others  that we did have a lot of safeguards in place, Saunders said at the press conference. Unfortunately, as discovered, sometimes things do occur. Deputy Superintendent Ron Ciranna is on paid administrative leave while the district investigates payments and scope of work related to the ERP process that may not have gone through proper authorization.Though he would not comment on ongoing investigations, Hopes said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is meeting with district officials on Wednesday.And state auditors are expected to launch their own review of the project.The projects estimated budget spiked from about $10 million in March 2016 to at least $19.3 million by October 2017. The amount is likely $20 million or higher now, but Saunders did not have an updated number on Monday.Basic operations, such as payroll or vacation requests, were previously done on paper. The new system was meant to modernize a process that went unchanged for nearly 20 years, but it seems the current program has done little to improve the lives of district employees.Its payroll feature still requires employees to work on many hours of manual data entry when logging certain information, according to the report. And more training is needed before district staff can fully grasp how to use the software.Some employees are continuing to have difficulty using the system even with repeated instruction, the report states.Despite years of work and the enormous expenditure of District funds, the project is still a work in progress, according to Kosmacs report.Only 50 percent of businesses processes were developed, according to the report, which called the existing processes insufficient and useless.Off-cycle payroll runs are payments made outside of the normal payroll schedule. They are often used for overtime hours or summer work, but off-cycle runs were needed to correct payroll errors for several hundred employees, the report said.The next payroll cycle is Friday, but Saunders said district employees have nothing to fear.I can assure you by Friday morning if there are glitches they will be fixed and people will be paid by the end of the day, she said.Kosmacs report said the district had three options to support its employees during the transition. Each requires the continued work of consultants, and the costs range from $270,000 to $1.5 million.The district was not considering those options as of Monday evening, Saunders said.Such problems are the result of high turnover, poor communication and a lack of planning, along with issues at Ciber, the project vendor, according to Kosmacs report.Saunders called on Ciber to finish its work. Though the companys contract with the district ends on Friday, she said the agency had a duty to fulfill its obligations.The same issues were addressed by internal auditors one year ago, which was indirectly cited in this weeks report.Note that these problems were identified very early in the project implementation but nevertheless were not significantly addressed throughout the project, it states.Hopes said ongoing issues were likely clouded in the mixed messages sent by auditors, district employees and department heads. And though the district has internal auditors and a volunteer audit committee, both are primarily focused on money that was already spent.The newly formed Citizens Financial Advisory Committee was meant to review money before its expended, Hopes said.Though the committee is still responsible for oversight of money generated by a voter-approved property tax rate increase, a majority of the school board voted to restrict the groups broader authority , which previously included a review of other areas of financial concern.The district, Hopes said, would pursue anyone responsible for wrongdoing in the ERP project, whether it be vendors or district employees.These are capital dollars, he said. These are dollars that could be used to improve science laboratories, dollars that could be used to add new classrooms.
(TNS) Marble, a San Francisco-based, logistics robotics delivery company, began mapping sections of north Arlington, Texas, sidewalks on Friday, Aug. 17 as part of a planned pilot project.A rolling robot may be coming to a Dallas sidewalk near you.Dallas officials are considering whether to green-light a pilot of autonomous delivery devices. The robots, which are powered by an electric battery, could deliver groceries, takeout, medicine or other items to customers' doorsteps. If it gets the city council's blessing at a meeting later this month, the rolling robots could be deployed as early as November.Delivery robots have become an appealing alternative for retailers and restaurants who are trying to keep up with consumers' changing habits. From meal deliveries to ride-hailing to same-day deliveries, customers have gotten used to ordering online or through an app and then getting what they want on-demand  or at least in a few hours.Delivery by robot has already been tested in major cities, including Austin, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The first of the rolling robots in Dallas could be from San Francisco-based robotics company Marble , according to Michael Rogers, director of the city's department of transportation. The robots  about the size of a motorized wheelchair  would travel at the maximum of 10 mph for 1 or 2 miles. They use sensors and cameras to detect and autonomously steer around obstacles like cyclists, dogs and fire hydrants. For the pilot, however, the number of devices would be limited and a human would walk behind the device to monitor its safety, he said.Rogers gave a briefing on the autonomous delivery devices Monday to the city's Mobility Solutions, Infrastructure and Sustainability Committee. He said the pilot would have upsides for the city: It would reduce the number of delivery trucks congesting the roads, decrease emissions from vehicles and provide surveying data on the condition of the city's sidewalks.Rogers said the robots would use sidewalks and crosswalks, but would not operate on trails or roadways. They would be required to obey traffic laws and yield to pedestrians, bicycles, skateboards and more. Each would be marked with the operating company's website address and contact information.Rogers recommended setting a time limit for a pilot and requiring each company to pay a $808 permit fee and show proof of liability insurance. Each robot has a high price tag, so he said he wouldn't expect more than four or five per company.On its website, Marble describes its autonomous delivery devices as "your friendly neighborhood robot." The company is in discussions with retailers to transport customers' purchases. It has not publicly announced any clients, said Jackie Erickson, Marble's director of communications and government relations, but many suggested Dallas as a test market.The startup, founded by three Carnegie Mellon University graduates, is testing its robots about an hour east of San Francisco in Concord, Calif. It's begun mapping some streets in Arlington and is discussing a pilot with a city in Nevada, Erickson said. Last year, it ran a meal delivery pilot in San Francisco with Yelp 324, a food delivery business that the online review company acquired.Erickson said Marble would like to have its robots in Dallas in the fall or winter. She said "robot ambassadors" would initially tag along with the deliveries. Customers open the robot by punching in a special code that they receive after their purchase.At Monday's meeting in Dallas, the idea of the delivery robots was greeted with enthusiasm. Council member Lee Kleinman said Dallas could be a leader in the state for the delivery vehicles. He said he did not want the city to stand in the way of companies.After watching a YouTube video of a Marble robot, council member Sandy Greyson said they looked "very cool, very hip." Even if it takes just a few cars off the road, she said, it would be an improvement. But she joked about whether the autonomous delivery devices would be able to detect potholes before they fall into them.
10,000 Guesses

Bugs and Hashes

Beyond Geekdom

(TNS)  In 2016, a witness testimony against four West Coast Crips charged with homicide and other crimes was cancelled  with a bullet.They shot one guy in the head a day or two before he was to testify, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Robinson, who prosecuted the gang members in San Diegos federal court.The case, though, would turn on bulletproof testimony. Cyberclues  text messages, locations gleaned from cell phone records, photos posted on social media  helped guarantee the gang members convictions.Its critical, Robinson said of digital evidence last week. I do a lot of gang prosecutions and they are on Facebook, everybody is on their phones. Im typing up an affidavit right now and it includes a picture they sent each other of the dope they were going to sell.Uncovering these clues, though, is like finding a virtual needle in a million electronic haystacks. Cracking the encryption systems of suspects cell phones, tablets and laptops is a daunting task, one often entrusted to the FBIs national network of computer forensics laboratories.If it stores data, said Hans Frank, the supervisory special agent in charge of San Diegos lab, our guys will figure out how to get it.In the high-stakes chess match between cybercriminals and law enforcement, this FBI lab is a grandmaster. Since 1999, its team of computer experts has used digital evidence to convict murderers, child abusers, even a Border Patrol agent who used a hidden camera to film his female colleagues undressing in an agency restroom.The work you are doing is changing lives, Frank tells his digital detectives. Sleep well knowing you are serving your fellow man.Still, this work raises privacy concerns. While the Trump administration argues that law enforcement needs built-in back doors allowing entry to electronic devices, critics say these would expose law-abiding citizens financial and social media accounts to criminals.If there is a back door into the encryption, it is not just available to the good guys, said Steven Andres, who teaches in San Diego State Universitys homeland security program. If there is a back door, it is a weakness, and it is a weakness that is available to bad guys.Even without a back door, the local FBI analysts stay busy. In 2016, the year with the most current statistics, the lab examined 1,276 electronic devices, sifting through a mind-numbing 570 trillion bytes of information.That number is always growing, Frank said. It never goes down, it always goes up.Not every investigation requires the skills of a computer-savvy Sherlock Holmes. Among criminals, there may be more dunces than masterminds. For instance:A man waiting to cross the border opened his iPad to a page of child pornography.An attempted murder suspects social media pages included posts about, yes, the attempted murder.On a suspects computer, analysts found a search history that included how do i get rid of a dead body.There are times, though, when breaking into a suspects electronic device is a nerve-wracking ordeal. A famous instance came after the December 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., when the FBI seized slain shooter Syed Rizwan Farooks iPhone 5c.The cell phones four-digit password was one of 10,000 combinations, but agents couldnt make random guesses or program a computer to try every possibility. The phones built-in encryption system would eliminate all information after 10 incorrect guesses.Apple refused FBI requests to unlock the phone. While the FBI will not comment on how it eventually opened the phone, civilian cybersecurity experts believe the agency took advantage of a vulnerability in the mobile operating system.In San Diego, the suspect in an attempted murder case had another locked phone. In the lab, technicians used a hair-thin wire to connect to the motherboard, bypassing the encryption system and allowing detectives to find descriptions of the crime.On another occasion, investigators cracked the locked phone of a suspected child molester. We used techniques to get around that, Frank said. We were able to find new victims of child abuse because of that.Investigators need an arsenal of password-cracking methods. What works on one electronic device usually doesnt work on another.All of these devices are unique, Frank said. We have to figure out ways to exploit all of them. Our people have to know the difference between Apple and Android and those knock-off Chinese items. Theres no brand loyalty.The FBIs San Diego lab maintains a library of cell phones, representing various makes  iPhones, Nokias, Samsungs  and models.Recently, Frank said, we were given a flip phone. People still use those, so we have to have them.Dissecting these phones, analysts search for vulnerabilities, design flaws that allow outside parties to slip past passwords and other barriers. Thats valuable information for law enforcement  and, for better or worse, others.Some private hackers alert companies when they find a vulnerability, agreeing not to publicize the discovery until the company engineers a fix.But theres a whole industry of selling pre-release vulnerability information, said SDSUs Andres. They weaponize the vulnerabilities, creating something like a screwdriver that allows people to open that device.Not all digital detectives work for law enforcement. Theres a growing corps of civilian cybersleuths, some inspired by the promise of lucrative bug bounties.Those are payments made to hackers who find and report vulnerabilities in computer programs. In 2012, for instance, Microsoft paid $200,000 to one successful hunter, a Columbia University graduate student, Vasilis Pappas.United Airlines, on the other hand, awarded 2 million miles to a pair of hackers who found holes in the airlines website.The federal government also sponsors bug hunts. This April, the fifth annual Hack the Pentagon program unearthed 65 vulnerabilities in the website for the military's internal travel system. The Defense Department paid out $78,650.There are even bounty brokers, like HackerOne, a San Francisco company whose network of 100,000-plus hackers is credited with finding and fixing more than 44,000 vulnerabilities.There are good reasons to eliminate these flaws, Frank acknowledges. Countless law-abiding people rely on the internet to manage their finances, order medications, conduct business deals. In some countries, online expressions of political dissent can lead to prison terms, or worse, if the government is able to identify the messenger.In those cases, robust encryption is a must.But an iPhone, when you cant get in to find the child porn, Frank said, thats a bad thing.At the FBI lab, exploiting vulnerabilities to gain access to a suspects electronic devices is the first step. Investigators then scour files for criminal evidence, ferreting out hidden files and retrieving those that were ostensibly deleted.When you click delete on the computer, that doesnt necessarily mean its gone, Frank said. Any time you do something, the computer keeps a record.Investigators also hash the computer. Using whats known as a hash function, agents create a forensic image of all the data on the device.Its like a fingerprint, Frank said. The whole point is to be able to present in court, beyond a reasonable doubt, that what we did is accurate.The hash, in other words, shows that those incriminating emails, graphic videos and other damning data were there before the FBI began poking around.Found inside the FBIs Sorrento Valley high-rise offices, the local lab is an investigative cooperative. From the El Cajon Police Department to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, 17 law enforcement agencies provide staff for the labs task force.The team also includes more than a dozen FBI agents. While most don't have computer degrees, all start their tenure here with what Frank called A-plus certification.Thats equivalent to the Geek Squad members, he said.Training is ongoing  theres a classroom outside the lab, for lectures and briefings  that pushes investigators well beyond Geekdom. Staying ahead of the latest developments on the electronic frontier is a never-ending job.Frank was reminded of this early last year, when he moved to San Diego from the Bay Area. To relocate his family, he scouted out suitable neighborhoods, scanned homes on the market, applied for a loan, made an offer and closed on the deal.I did the whole process on my phone, he said. If Im doing all that on the phone, how much are the bad guys doing on the phone?
(TNS)  A new system designed to make it easier for first responders to find you and help you in an emergency will be a game changer for 911 operators, said Shelly Meehan, communication supervisor for the Middletown Police Department.Smart911 is new software being used by Butler County law enforcement agencies. Once people register with Smart911, their emergency information, including exact location, will be automatically displayed to the operator when a call is made to 911.These calls can be stressful, tense situations, Meehan said of people making 911 calls. Location is so important. The more information we can get the better off we are.Response times can be delayed after a 911 call if the person has difficulty giving the dispatcher accurate location information, Meehan said. There are times when the caller directs dispatchers to a neighborhood or a closed business and maybe the dispatcher doesnt recognize the location because of their age or inexperience, she said.The increase in cell phones as primary phones can also add to location confusion, said Butler County Sheriffs Office Capt. Matt Franke.The difficulty with wireless phones is they can be any where and we would have no idea where you are or who you are, he said, adding a majority of calls coming into dispatchers are not the location of the phone, just the location of the cell phone tower.He said Smart911 essentially bridges that gap and allows you to build a profile not based upon the definitive phone number that we used to have with the location, but now it attaches to the number.Butler County subscribes to the service at a cost of $49,500 annually. The cost is based on the number of dispatchers who use the data, according to Franke.When the county began looking at the Smart911 technology about two years ago they immediately thought of Miami University in Oxford, with students who have cell phones from all over the country.Franke said the new technology allows dispatchers to understand that a call with a Chicago area code may be coming from a Miami University student in Oxford. That certainly will increase the chance of emergency personnel arriving quicker, he said.Hamilton County in July launched use of the Smart911 system  three months after 16-year-old Kyle Plush suffocated while trapped in his minivan despite making two 911 calls for help.Smart911 couldve helped save Kyles life, his mother, Jill Plush, said at a news conference when the service was launched, and encouraged people to sign up.The Smart911 system can also be invaluable for those with medical conditions. Users can choose to add their medical history or disabilities into the system.The free countywide service allows residents to also provide additional details that 911 dispatchers may need in order to assist them during an emergency. Some of that information may include contact information for family members, specific location in an office building where you work, names and ages of those living in the house, their vehicle description, even any pets living with them.Franke said safeguards are in place to protect sensitive information, noting dispatchers only have access to the data if that specific number calls 911 and the information is shown only for 45 minutes.There is no charge to residents for Smart911, and it only includes data they choose to share.
The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC) will move forward with a proposal to adopt California Low Emission Vehicle standards for new light- and medium-duty motor vehicles sold in Colorado beginning in MY 2022. (Earlier post.) The proposed rule is now set for a Public Rulemaking hearing, scheduled for November.

If adopted these standards would have the effect of preserving existing standards applicable in Colorado, and avoid any freezing of these applicable standards by the federal government. The Proposed Rule does not create a Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program for Colorado.

However, many of the public comments presented at the August Request for Hearing of of the proposal urged consideration of adopting the California Zero Emission Mandate as well.

As a result, the AQCC decided to establish a separate rulemaking for ZEV standards to be presented in December 2018 and to be considered in March 2019.

The LEV standards require automakers to improve the fuel efficiency of their vehicles, reaching an average fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, which is almost twice what it is today. Earlier this summer, Governor John Hickenlooper issued an executive order directing Colorado to join 13 other states in the adoption of Californias LEV standards. This move will help preserve the economic and environmental benefits of clean car standards in Colorado, in light of the Trump Administrations proposed freeze of the federal standards.
The US port district of Houston-Galveston in Texas recently began exporting more crude oil than it imported for the first time on record, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Crude oil exports from the Houston-Galveston port district have increased since the restrictions on US crude oil exports were lifted at the end of 2015. In April 2018, crude oil exports from Houston-Galveston surpassed crude oil imports by 15,000 barrels per day (b/d). In May 2018, the difference between crude oil exports and imports increased substantially to 470,000 b/d.





Source: US Energy Information Administration and U.S. Census Bureau.

Total US crude oil exports rose to a record high of 2 million b/d in May. On average since mid-2017, the US port district of Houston-Galveston has accounted for slightly more than half of the crude oil exported from the United States, and the share increased to a record 70% in May.

Most crude oil exports from the Houston-Galveston port district in 2018 have gone to China, Italy, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Canada is one of only a few countries that have both imported crude oil from and exported crude oil to that port district in 2018. So far in 2018, the Houston-Galveston port district has exported about 30,000 b/d more crude oil on average to Canada than it imported from the country.

A port district is a geographic region defined by US Customs and encompasses several individual US ports of entry. The Houston-Galveston port district includes the port of Houston as well as several other ports along the Texas Gulf Coast, from Galveston to Corpus Christi.

Ongoing efforts to expand crude oil export infrastructure at the ports of Houston and Corpus Christi have allowed for increased export flows. The only other port district that has seen significant crude oil export volumes recently is the US port district of Port Arthur, which includes the Texas ports of Port Arthur, Sabine, Beaumont, and Orange.

This district has on average accounted for close to a quarter of all US crude oil exports since mid-2017. Despite infrastructure improvements, however, crude oil export capacity is still limited on the US Gulf Coast because most ports are unable to load larger crude oil vessels.

Crude oil is imported into many locations in the United States, but most of the oil goes through the US Midwest or the Gulf Coast. The US port district of Houston-Galveston accounted for 12% of total US crude oil imports as of May, second only to the US port district of Chicago, Illinois, at 19%.

Crude oil that is imported into the Houston-Galveston port district mainly comes from Mexico, South America, and the Middle East. These regions generally produce and export heavier grades of crude oil to the United States, and refineries in US Gulf Coast are better configured to process heavier crude oil. The types of crude oil that are exported tend to be the lighter grades that are produced in the United States and shipped mainly to Europe and Asia.
South Korean lithium-ion battery (LIB) cell manufacturer LG Chem recently announced it will increase cell manufacturing capacity to 90 GWh in 2020 from a previous forecast of 70 GWh. Assuming 100% of output was to be NMC532, 90 GWh would require around 100kt of cathode, containing 40kt nickel, 22kt cobalt, 16kt manganese and 50kt lithium (carbonate equivalent), and 90kt of anode materials which could be 100% graphite, concludes metals and minerals market research company Roskill.

If producing at capacity, LG Chems LIB output and raw material consumption would be greater than the entire LIB market in 2015.

In April, LG Chem signed a joint venture with Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt to establish precursor and cathode material facilities with capacity of 40,000tpy, with expansion to 100,000tpy envisioned. Huayou is a cobalt refiner with cobalt mining and processing assets in the DRC.

In July, LG Chem signed a 5-year, 7,000tpy lithium hydroxide off-take with Nemaska Lithium, and last week announced a 3-year, 16,000tpy lithium hydroxide supply agreement with Ganfeng Lithium starting 2019.

LG Chem has also invested in Korean anode producer GS E&C and has a 10% stake in LS Nikkos nickel sulphate plant. With LG Investment, LG Chem is an investor in Cobalt Blues Thackaringa primary cobalt project in Australia, and the company had previously been linked with Pilbara Minerals for a downstream conversion facility.

Roskills view is that while other cell manufacturers and automotive OEMs have been getting plans started to meet future electric vehicle demand, LG Chem is one of the only LIB producers to have revealed publicly information on its LIB supply chain raw material supply/strategy.

With lithium spot and cobalt benchmark prices falling, if there was any doubt about the growth of the LIB industry in the short-term and its impact on battery raw materials, the volume of raw materials being locked-in by LG Chem proves that activity in the sector continues at a rapid pace, Roskill said.

Roskills Lithium: Global Industry, Markets & Outlook report was published in June 2018.
BEIJING, Aug. 21 (ChinaMil) -- According to the consensus reached by China and Russia, Chinese participating troops will leave for Russia from mid-to-late August to mid-September to take part in the Vostok-2018 strategic military drills, the reporter quoted the Information Office of Chinas Ministry of National Defense (MND) as saying. And both sides will hold a joint operations exercise at the Tsugol training range in Russias Trans-Baikal Region from September 11 to 15.

During the exercise, both the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Northern Theater Command and the Eastern Military District of Russian Armed Forces will send personnel to form a joint operations command.

China will send around 3,200 troops, more than 900 pieces of military hardware as well as 30 fixed-wing aircrafts and helicopters to Russia to participate in the drills and take part in such drill subjects as mobile defense, firepower striking and counter-offensive.

The drills aim to consolidate and develop the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, deepen pragmatic and friendly cooperation between the two militaries, and further enhance both sides' capabilities to jointly respond to various security threats. The drills are beneficial to maintaining regional peace and security and will not target any third party.
Polpat Klongkhayam, Duangjai Kitty Thammasat, and Ayada Thammasat at Ayada in Elmhurst. Photo: An Rong Xu

If you were to draw up a map of the citys essential restaurants, youd have to include Ayada. The Elmhurst spot is, some argue, New Yorks best place for Thai food, and an anchor of a local community thats blossomed around it. A decade after opening, the food remains invigoratingly great and the space unquestionably charming. Owner Duangjai Kitty Thammasat remains totally committed to the restaurant; when she travels, such as to visit Thailand, her sisters help run it. Its a bit of a surprise, then, that Thammasat will expand out of Queens and into the Chelsea Market this fall.

I have been to one of Kittys friends restaurants, says her nephew and business partner Polpat Klongkhayam. He was eating from a plate of the restaurants sharp and sunny raw-shrimp salad, to an afternoon soundtrack (courtesy of Spotify) of pop hits covered by unknowns. Her friend does the duck salad, and Im looking at it saying, This is duck salad? Shes slicing it too thinly. This is not the duck salad.

Klongkhayam was speaking to the stubborn particularity that is in Ayadas DNA. That quality is one explanation for why Ayada remains so good and why the family has kept it small, expanding only into a slender space next door. As Thammasat tells it, she had not thought much about another location before and hadnt, she says, even heard of the Chelsea Market before. But some of the Markets staff would eat at Ayada, she says, and started asking if she was interested in Manhattan. She rebuffed their offers until her daughter started at the New School. I said to this guy, Where is Chelsea Market? I have never been in Chelsea Market, Thammasat says she responded when asked about opening there.

One of Ayadas best known dishes is its duck Penang curry. Photo: An Rong Xu

We have a lot of people who come offer us to open another Ayada. Like on the Upper East Side, which is not like the way we want, Klongkhayam says. Theyre too uptight there, and I cannot be working in my T-shirt and shorts like this  and we would never compromise the food. But if I would have to act differently? I dont think I can do that, and I dont think she can do that.

For fans and even friends, it probably comes across as an unlikely development. Theres a joke among Thammasats friends, Klongkhayam says, that if you cannot sell anything to Kitty, you should not be able to be a salesman. Anything except change  for the most part. The Chelsea Market is a tourist destination and very different from Elmhurst, but its also a place thats continued to nurture and attract great food businesses. In recent years Los Tacos No. 1 and Very Fresh Noodles started in the Market, which was also the point of entry in New York for Philly-born Dizengoff and Israeli import Miznon. (Success is not guaranteed; Dizengoff will close its Manhattan location later this month.)

The second Ayada will be in the location of the old Chelsea Thai, a 1,300-square-foot space with seating for 45. The designer is the same one behind the original restaurant, Thammasats longtime friend Francisco Diaz. Were trying to save as much of the essence we have here already, says her daughter Ayada Thammasat. (She did compromise with the Markets operators on an open kitchen, something shes meeting them halfway on.) She likes how the restaurant is now and she wants people to, I guess, incorporate themselves into her culture, as well, instead of her changing too much of it.

Crispy catfish salad with green mango. Photo: An Rong Xu

The family says theyll bring over cooks that have been with them since they opened in Elmhurst, and Thammasat herself will spend the first year working in Manhattan. (Her sisters will cover for her while shes away.) Klongkhayam will be there, too, but more long-term. The menu will be slimmer, more of a greatest-hits collection. Think that raw-shrimp salad, the famous Penang curry with duck, catfish with mango salad, and barbecued pork with papaya salad and sticky rice.

Its the way that we eat. And I think if its good enough for us, it should be good enough for everybody, too, Klongkhayam says. It is in Queens, and will be in Chelsea, too.

Sauteed Chinese broccoli with crispy pork. Photo: An Rong Xu
Business

A master of many trades, Charles Kieu is the definition of self-made

There are many roads to success. Achieving success while doing what youre passionate about is an arduous journey. But doing it without any backing or...




Haiti - FLASH : True attack of Parliament or staging ?





Unidentified individuals "attacked parliament", by throwing from the street a grenade, whose model will be determined by the investigation, against the Parliament at around 4:00 am, several shots were also fired, bullet holes were visible Monday morning on the glass door which gives access to the reception room of the Lower House. Note that in the space where this door is located, more than 4 surveillance cameras are installed, unfortunately, it seems that none is functional according to some sources...



However, these impacts are questionable, as it is impossible by firing from the street to reach that door. On Monday a police source said "unofficially", that the bullet shots had been fired from the inside to outside and not the reverse. A suspicion that also shares the Senator Willot Joseph who said on the air of a radio of the capital, he felt it was a montage and not a real attack. However, the reasons for this possible staging [intimidation ?] and the hands that hide behind, remain for the moment in the field of speculation.



On Monday, the Commissioner of the Government, Me Ocname-Clame Dameus, said that the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ) had been ordered to question all the officers assigned to the security present in Parliament at the time of the incident, both inside and outside adding that people who incite the population to violence on social networks will also be heard during this investigation as well as agents of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) assigned to the security of Parliament.



Commissioner Berson Soljour, Departmental Director of the West of the PNH, the Scientific Police and other specialized units of the police institution, as well as a judge of Peace, were also on the scene for the legal findings.



DCPJ agents who wanted to continue interrogations with some security agents at their offices were prevented from leaving the Parliament by other agents who blocked all the barriers, giving free rein to the violence. Journalists were prevented from practicing their profession, agents damaged or destroyed the equipment of several of our colleagues, some of whom were beaten and threatened during the clashes.



Deputies of the Office of the Lower House deplored the violence against the media, Joseph Lambert, the Senate Speaker condemned these brutal acts and apologized to the journalists assuring them that all measures will be taken with the utmost rigor against the agents involved in these cases of aggression.



Parliament is now under police surveillance.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25005-haiti-flash-parliament-threatened-to-be-attacked-and-burned-within-48-hours.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Thursday, after 3 days of paralysis of the country to protest against the insecurity and the shortage of fuel, Prime Minister a.i. Ariel Henry addressed the Nation but also to the gangs and those who support them...




Haiti - Environment : Port-de-Paix, launch of the project to reduce insalubrity





Friday in Port-de-Paix, Nicole Yolette Altidor Director General of the Ministry of the Environment in the presence of several personalities of the Department among others: Senator Kedlaire Augustin, Departmental Delegate Owell Theock, Mayor of the city of Port-de-Paix, Yanick Auguste, ASEC and CASECs of the region, proceeded to the launch of the project to raise awareness and reduce the unsanitary and flood risks in the North West Department in general and in the city of Port-de-Paix in particular.



In her speech Nicole Yolette Altidor emphasized the benefits of the project, which she says is a major asset not only for the city but for the whole department. Explaining that as part of the planned activities, there is a training component for local authorities and civil society organizations and regular sanitation campaigns in the most vulnerable areas followed by reforestation days for the protection of soil and the treatment of the department's watersheds.



She took the opportunity to draw the attention of the participants to the construction of the Fruit and Forest Germplasm Center established in the 3rd section Aubert commune of Port-de-Paix https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-22550-icihaiti-agriculture-laying-of-the-first-stone-of-the-4th-plant-propagation-center.html which is a strategic tool put in place by the Ministry to better address environmental problems and reduce its vulnerability to natural and environmental hazards.



While affirming her support for the success of the project, Senator Augustin promises to plead with the Upper House for an increase in the budget allocated to the Ministry of the Environment, to help it better respond to Haiti's environmental problems.



The Departmental Delegate and the Mayor of Port-de-Paix welcome the project, which they see as a means of appeasing the local community, often victims of floods and other environmental problems linked to natural hazards.



Note that several areas of the city of Francois Capois aka "Capois-La-mort" such as the entrance to the city and "Soukannal" among others, will benefit from this project.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - FLASH : The Bahamas will demolish all slums where Haitians live





The Government of the Bahamas, known for its severe repression against Haitians in irregular migratory situation, much worse than in the Dominican Republic, announced the demolition of slums throughout the archipelago where Haitian immigrants live crammed in unsanitary conditions.



Recall that the number of our compatriots living in the Bahamas was estimated in 2014 at nearly 70,000 people (18% of the Bahamian population) and that between 20,000 to 50,000 of them lived illegally on the territory of the Bahamas (according to the International Organization for Migration). The number of Haitian migrants on Bahamian soil is estimated at over 80,000 (November 2017).



The Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Hubert Minnis recalled that this decision was not new and that it had been communicated to the League of Haitian pastors a few months ago as well as the objective of the Government to improve the conditions of the life of all Bahamas claiming, "It is unfair to allow slums to stay, especially in view of the social and other problems often encountered in these areas, it is imperative for the country to eliminate these shanty towns, even if we are involved in immigration reform."



He stressed that his government is committed to social justice and will end all slums inhabited by Haitians to improve their quality of life, a long-standing problem that successive governments have never addressed comprehensively, adding "We We have taken care to treat this issue in a comprehensive and compassionate way."



Except it should be remembered that this same Prime Minister Minnis "understanding and compassionate" had also given until 31 December 2017 to all migrants living illegally in the Bahamas, whatever their nationality to voluntarily return to their country origin. Preventing that after this time they will be pursued without respite, arrested and expelled from the Bahamas.



The systematic destruction of all slums will give the Government of the Bahamas the opportunity to uncover all illegal immigrants on its territory and to stalk Haitians relentlessly like in 2014 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-12477-haiti-politic-the-hunt-for-illegals-is-open-to-the-bahamas.html but on a larger scale.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22417-haiti-flash-tens-of-thousands-of-haitians-threatened-with-deportation-in-the-bahamas.html



https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-19664-haiti-flash-the-bahamas-repatriated-4-655-haitians.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-14344-haiti-social-continuation-of-expulsions-of-haitians-in-the-bahamas.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-13670-haiti-social-the-bahamas-will-deport-290-haitians.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-12709-haiti-politic-bahamas-haiti-the-regularization-problem-of-illegal-migrants-unsolved.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-12709-haiti-politic-bahamas-haiti-the-regularization-problem-of-illegal-migrants-unsolved.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-12549-haiti-politic-duly-brutus-very-preoccupied-about-the-situation-of-haitians-in-the-bahamas.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-12477-haiti-politic-the-hunt-for-illegals-is-open-to-the-bahamas.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-11832-haiti-social-uscg-avoids-the-worst-for-100-haitian-boat-people.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-11707-haiti-bahamas-president-martelly-argues-for-the-improvement-of-treatment-of-haitians.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-13307-haiti-politic-the-mhave-condemns-the-measures-against-the-haitians-in-the-bahamas.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-12809-haiti-social-112-boat-people-intercepted-in-the-southern-bahamas.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-12709-haiti-politic-bahamas-haiti-the-regularization-problem-of-illegal-migrants-unsolved.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-12549-haiti-politic-duly-brutus-very-preoccupied-about-the-situation-of-haitians-in-the-bahamas.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-12477-haiti-politic-the-hunt-for-illegals-is-open-to-the-bahamas.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-11832-haiti-social-uscg-avoids-the-worst-for-100-haitian-boat-people.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-11707-haiti-bahamas-president-martelly-argues-for-the-improvement-of-treatment-of-haitians.html



SL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - News : Zapping...





School books, everything will be ready

Pierre Josue Agenor Cadet, the resigning Minister of Education, confirms that 75% of the 1.5 million subsidized textbooks are already ready and should be available in the next few days in bookshops. All of the books endowed (400,000) are available. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25218-haiti-flash-back-to-school-assistance-measures-and-promises-of-president-moise.html



Moise asks for the convocation of the Dominican Ambassador

Jovenel Moise, asked the Chancellor Antonio Rodrigue, to convenes the Dominican Ambassador in Haiti, Alberto Despradel to explain the incidents that took place on August 18 at the border between Haitian civilians and Dominican soldiers, having made 6 wounded by bullets among Haitians. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25292-haiti-flash-shootout-at-the-border-the-details.html



Access to Justice for Women in Detainees Project

Friday at Cabaret Women's Prison, Minujust launched its project of access to justice and support to women prisoners and victims of prolonged or arbitrary preventive detention. A 12-month project aimed at reducing the rate of prolonged or arbitrary preventive detention and reintegrating nearly 217 women by a multidisciplinary support.



No need to analyze PM documents ?

According to Me Monferrier Dorva, the Prime Minister named Jean Henry Ceant should be installed in his office at the Primature, the Parliament did not have to form a Commission to investigate the Prime Minister's documents, they were already validated during his candidacy for the Presidency.



Right of persons with disabilities to culture

As part of an advocacy project for the right of persons with disabilities to culture, the Organization of Disabled and Disabled Children of Haiti (OEDHH) funded by DRF, a delegation of the OEDHH paid a visit to the Secretary of State for the Integration of Persons with Disabilities, Gerald Oriol Jr.



Training on Training on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

The UPGRADE program closed a training session on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) at the GANVIH Health Center in Martissant, for the benefit of a Club made up of around 20 mothers. Conducted in collaboration with the Multipurpose Community Health Workers of the Ministry of Health, this activity is part of a series of training and awareness-raising on behavioral change, designed around the following themes: Environmental hygiene, critical moments of handwashing, diseases related to water, vector diseases, sanitation, excreta management and improved toilets among others...



HL/ HaitiLibre


















The World Health Organization says the number of measles cases in Europe jumped sharply during the first six months of 2018 and at least 37 people have died.

The UN agency's European office said Monday more than 41,000 measles cases were reported in the region during the first half of the year -- more than in all 12-month periods so far this decade. The previous highest annual total was 23,927 cases in 2017. A year earlier, only 5,273 cases were reported.

The agency said half -- some 23,000 cases -- this year occurred in Ukraine, where an insurgency backed by Russia has been fighting the government for four years in the east in a conflict that has killed over 10,000 people.

France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Russia and Serbia also had more than 1,000 measles infections each so far this year.


ConocoPhillips signs $2 billion settlement with Venezuelas PDVSA

US oil and gas giant ConocoPhillips said on August 20 that it has settled with Venezuelas state-run oil company, PDVSA, to recover about $2 billion in arbitration payments. The International Chamber of Commerce awarded ConocoPhillips that amount in April after PDVSA failed to uphold various contractual commitments.

Stock image

PDVSA has agreed to recognise the ICC judgment and make initial payments totalling approximately $500 million within a period of 90 days from the time of signing. The balance of the settlement is to be paid quarterly over a period of 4.5 years.



As a result of the settlement, ConocoPhillips has agreed to suspend its legal enforcement actions of the ICC award. Conoco has ensured that the settlement meets all appropriate US regulatory requirements, including any applicable sanctions imposed by the US against Venezuela. Further details of the agreement are confidential.



On April 25, 2018, the ICC tribunal awarded Conoco approximately $2 billion arising out of PDVSAs failure to uphold its contractual commitments. The award relates to the unlawful expropriation of Conoco's investments in the Hamaca and Petrozuata heavy crude oil projects in Venezuela in 2007 and other pre-expropriation fiscal measures. The ICC arbitration award is final and binding upon the parties.



Additionally, Conoco has a separate and independent legal action pending against the government of Venezuela before a tribunal under the auspices of the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The ICSID tribunal has already ruled that Venezuelas expropriation of Conoco's investments violated international law. Proceedings are underway to determine the amount of compensation owed to the US company.



Bloomberg says the $2 billion represents about a quarter of international reserves held at Venezuelas central bank. PDVSA is behind on $6.1 billion in bond payments to creditors, and a judge in Delaware recently granted Canadian miner Crystallex the right to seize shares of US refiner Citgo held by a Venezuelan parent, though the decision is being appealed.



Under the settlement, Conoco said it will suspend legal actions it had mounted worldwide, including in the Dutch Caribbean where about 16% of Venezuelas crude exports are stored before shipping to the US, China and India.



After the international tribunal in April, the company moved to take over oil facilities on the Caribbean islands of Bonaire, Curacao, St. Eustatius and Aruba. The moves created a hurdle for exports even as Venezuelas domestic troubles cut into production at PDVSA, further hampering the countrys ability to raise cash and pay off its debts. Vessels were ordered to immediately pull away from Caribbean ports, creating a backlog of ships around Venezuela.



The pact comes days after Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro devalued the bolivar to trade nearly in line with the black market exchange rate in the latest attempt to deal with the countrys crippling economic woes. The legal war waged by Conoco, in addition to US sanctions, has severely hampered PDVSAs ability to export crude, the commodity that bankrolls Maduros regime.



In addition to ConocoPhillips, PDVSA has also reached an agreement with NuStar Energy LP, the Texas-based company said. The Venezuelan oil company, which fell behind payments for the leasing of oil storage tanks in St. Eustatius, signed an accord to meet its obligations with NuStar, according to a statement from the US company.



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(Bloomberg) China-U.S. trade negotiations set to resume; Turkish lira little changed with markets closed for holiday.

To read this article:
STT on Monday revealed that the survey shows that 69 per cent of children from low-income families and 40 per cent of people from high-income families have been bullied in elementary school. Over 1,700 1317-year-old children responded to the survey.

Save the Children Finlands survey on bullying and poverty in schools has stirred up widespread discussion in Finland.

Riitta Kauppinen, the head of civic activity and advocacy at Save the Children Finland, highlights in her blog that around one-third of respondents viewed that teachers are not doing enough to tackle bullying and discrimination in schools.

The results are a chilling read, offering shocking flashes of the everyday lives of children, she states.

Kauppinen argues that the income level of families has a clear impact on the school performance of children starting from early-childhood education all the way to upper-secondary general education. Inequalities, she adds, are not limited to the immediate school environment but also encompass hobbies that support school performance, learning and the development of social networks.

She believes the developments warrant a discussion on which children are in a position to learn.

Upper-secondary studies may hit a wall because of the high cost of learning materials and long school journeys. The shame felt by children and young people because of their background is a part of their everyday life that we do not always see, tells Kauppinen.

Adults need to take action to foster the belief of all children in their own abilities and opportunities regardless of the familys income background, she stresses.

Save the Children Finland will publish the full results of the survey on Tuesday.

Adults have a key role in preventing bullying also according to Jenni Haukio, the spouse of President Sauli Niinisto. Adults must fight bullying in all circumstances, she commented on the survey results on Twitter.

The Finnish Ombudsman for Children, Tuomas Kurttila, says he is not surprised by the survey results. He states that parents are responsible for talking to and setting a good example for their children, but reminds that also children can serve as a resource to their peers.

The results are not a surprise, he says. Before you point the finger at schools and teachers, pay attention to two issues: 1) children are responsible for their buddies, no one is bullied or pushed around; 2) decision makers have unleashed a development that allows poverty to be felt at schools.

Esa Iivonen, a senior expert at the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, reminds that childrens experiences of poverty must not be downplayed as poverty has a multi-faceted impact on well-being and opportunities to participate.

Poverty is a cause for exclusion, exposes you to bullying, he reminds.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Vesa Moilanen  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
The General Unemployment Fund of Finland (YTK) reveals that the number of enquiries it received from job seekers increased by six per cent year-on-year in March, indicating that job seekers continue to seek clarification on how the activity criteria can be satisfied.

Some job seekers remain confused by the implications of the activation model for unemployment security adopted in Finland in January 2018.

Petja Eklund, an unemployment security expert at YTK, stressed to Uusi Suomi on Monday that YTK processes 3040,000 benefit applications a month and that the activation model has not caused problems for most job seekers.

The general observation is nonetheless that people feel that it's unclear. They arent always sure whats considered activity and whats not, he said.

Unemployed job seekers are required to work at least 18 hours, earn at least 241 euros through self-employment or participate in employment services for at least five days during each 65-day monitoring period. A failure to satisfy the so-called activity criteria will result in a 4.65 per cent cut in unemployment benefits for the next monitoring period. The first monitoring period ended in March.

Eklund pointed out that the six per cent increase in the number of enquiries coincided with an eight per cent decline in applications for unemployment benefits.

That was a busy month. Lots of people contacted us, he told.

The nature of the enquiries has varied considerably. Eklund said one of the most bizarre question he has been asked is whether work for which the remuneration is paid in paint tins will be counted towards the activity criteria, a question he views is an example of the variation at grass-roots level.

He also revealed that work has been the most common way to satisfy the activity criteria. Some job seekers, however, have failed to satisfy the criteria despite accepting a job offer because their pay was well below the minimum wage.

This is not a problem of the activation model so much as it's a problem of us having employers who are paying below-minimum wages, stressed Eklund.

He added that job seekers should be concerned if they are offered less than seven euros an hour in pay, as such a low hourly wage will increase the risk that the job in question will not be enough to satisfy the activity criteria.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Mikko Stig  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
Talouselama on Monday reported that the committee decided in its extraordinary meeting, by a vote of 10 for and 7 against, to no longer summon experts to comment on the long-discussed reform bill.

Finlands three ruling parties have attempted to speed up the social, health care and regional government reform by putting an end to expert hearings at the Parliaments Social Affairs and Health Committee.

The ruling parties justified their stance by arguing that it is finally time for decisions, whereas opposition parties have reiterated that expert hearings are required to ensure the bill is not in violation of the constitution.

The government is apparently unwilling to make sure the social and health care reform will get through the Constitutional Law Committee, tweeted Outi Alanko-Kahiluoto (Greens).

The committee had to vote again on whether it can hear key experts. The government prevented it from doing so by a vote of 10 for and 7 against. The government is apparently in a rush to hit a constitutional wall with the reform, she added.

Hannakaisa Heikkinen, a deputy chairperson of the Social Affairs and Health Committee, contrastively expressed her relief that the ruling parties were unanimous that no more expert hearings are necessary.

Im very relieved that we managed to stop this perpetual motion machine, she phrased.

Heikkinen also estimated that the constitutional issues in the bill have already been addressed thoroughly by the government, making it possible to proceed with the reform process without another round of expert hearings.

The Parliaments Social Affairs and Health Committee on Monday agreed unanimously that it will double its workload for September by convening two times a day, four days a week until the bill is ready for presentation to the Constitutional Law Committee.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Roni Rekomaa  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
The Daily NK online newspaper and the Korea Times newspaper in Seoul also recently speculated that North Korea was preparing for a visit from the Chinese head of state, based in part on reports that Chinese border patrols along the North Korean border have increased, and that Pyongyang has suspended visiting tour groups.

The report has not been confirmed by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

The Singapore Straits Times newspaper reported on Saturday that Xi would attend the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of North Korea's founding, in Pyongyang on Sept. 9, at the invitation of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

"Like the proverb 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend,' China is complying with North Korea's requests," said Woo Su-keun, a North Korea analyst and political science professor at Donghua University.

Reports that Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit North Korea in September raise questions about whether Beijing will ease sanctions against Pyongyang, as relations between China and the U.S. grow increasingly tense over trade.

 Repairing Relations

If confirmed, it would be the Chinese leader's first visit to the North Korean capital since he took power in 2012, and 13 years after the last visit by a Chinese President, when Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao visited in 2005.

The young North Korean leader, who assumed power in 2011 after his father Kim Jong-il died, has had strained relations with Xi. Until this year Kim declined to visit his most important economic and strategic ally, and ignored Beijing's counsel to refrain from provocative nuclear and ballistic tests.

In response, Xi supported increasingly restrictive rounds of Untied Nations sanctions that now block most financial transactions and 90 percent of all trade with North Korea.

But this year Kim sought to repair his damaged relationship with Xi, as he pivoted to suspend further weapons tests and agreed to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, when he met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore, and during the inter-Korean summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

The North Korean leader also visited Xi in China three times this year and discussed improving cooperation between the two countries and economic reforms. Kim reportedly invited the Chinese president to Pyongyang during their first meeting in March.

 Stalled Progress

Beijing has recently called for easing of sanctions on North Korea but needs agreement from all members of the UN Security Council, including the U.S., to alter the restrictions that were unanimously agreed upon.

However there have been reports that China has permitted increased smuggling with North Korea in the wake of Pyongyang's suspension of nuclear tests, and there are concerns that a possible Xi visit to the North will further expand informal economic ties.

"If Xi Jinping visits Pyongyang this time, although it would be difficult to take a step in lifting the official sanctions at once, he could promise to prevent the North Korean regime from facing a crisis," said Ahn Chan-il, a North Korean defector and analyst with the World Institute of North Korean studies in Seoul.

At the same time, nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled over U.S. insistence that sanctions remain in place until North Korea fully dismantles its nuclear arsenal.

The Kim government wants early sanctions relief for incremental progress, and a joint peace declaration to replace the 1953 armistice that has been in place since the end of the Korean War.

China's increased support for North Korea may also be a strategic move to link denuclearization progress to resolving growing tensions with Washington over the U.S. trade deficit with China and accusations of unfair trade practices by the Xi government.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to visit Pyongyang soon for another round of nuclear talks, said President Trump's national security adviser John Bolton on Sunday.
The soldiers will work as operators, mechanics or training assistants at the combat force, unmanned aerial vehicle units and drone research centers.

The Military Manpower Administration will recruit 64 drone specialists, a spokesperson said on Monday, as the Army plans to launch a dronebot combat force later this year.

An Army spokesman said, "Drone specialists will operate and maintain small drones, each worth several millions of won, until home-grown dronebots are developed" (US$1=W1,123).

Back in April, the Army announced the plan to test dronebots that can infiltrate enemy territory and drop small bombs to strike command posts. They will be able to launch strikes like a swarm of bees and even destroy mobile missile launchers.

The U.S. has been using drones in combat since the early 2000s, mostly in bombing operations in Pakistan and Yemen that have claimed significant numbers of civilian lives.

France, Germany, Israel and the U.K. also operate military drones, and China is speeding up their development.


Hyundai Department Store said Monday that it will launch a futuristic self-service store under a tie-up with Amazon.

The plan is to open a store that uses drones to deliver products to customers in 2020. This is Amazon's first Korean retail venture.

Hyundai said it signed a deal with Amazon Web Service, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, the world's No. 1 player in cloud-based services.
Already a Confederate hero, John B. Gordon still couldnt resist tweaking the record a little

My rifles flamed and roared in the Federals faces like a blinding blaze of lightning accompanied by the quick and deadly thunderbolt. The effect was appalling. The entire front line, with few exceptions, went down in the consuming blast. The gallant commander and his horse fell in a heap near where I stoodthe horse dead, the rider unhurt. Before his rear lines could recover from theshock, my exultant men were on their feet, devouring them with successive volleys. Even then these stubborn blue lines retreated in fairly good order. My front had been cleared; Lees centre had been saved; and yet not a drop of blood had been lost by my men.

Thats how John Brown Gordon, colonel of the 6th Alabama Infantry, described in his widely read Reminiscences of the Civil War the initial Union advance against the Sunken Road (a.k.a. Bloody Lane) at Antietam. The account by Gordon, who was wounded five times in the Sunken Road, is wonderfully descriptive and quotable, and has largely been accepted without pause as an accurate description of the dreadful fighting that day. A modern reviewer of Gordons book effused that his first hand description of the battlecauses the reader to hear the cannons and smell the smoke. No one can question Gordons skill with a pen or his courage and ability to manage troops in battle.

Considerable attention has been paid to Gordons description of his interaction with wounded Union Brig. Gen. Francis C. Barlow at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, and how he shaped the story to make himself the central figure and claim credit for things others had done. The GordonBarlow incident is part-truth and part-myth. Gordons Sunken Road account has eluded the same level of scrutiny. How does it stand up to the evidence of the battle now available?

On page 84 of Reminiscences, he describes the initial approach of the Union attackers:

The men in blue filed down the opposite slope, crossed the little stream [Antietam], and formed in my front, an assaulting column four lines deep. The front line came to a charge bayonets, the other lines to a right shoulder shift. The brave Union commander, superbly mounted, placed himself in front, while his band in rear cheered them with martial music. It was a thrilling spectacle.

It is possible today to stand about the exact spot where Gordon awaited the Union attack. Several things are evident immediately. There is no way he could have seen the Federal soldiers, of William Frenchs 3rd Division, 2nd Corps, filing down the east bank and crossing Antietam Creek. To read they formed in my front, one imagines they were close and in full view of Gordons position. But Frenchs men formed for their advance in the East Woods, more than a mile north of this position, and unless Gordon climbed up the hill in the right front of his regiment, he couldnt have seen them. At that distance he also could not have observed the front rank come to charge bayonets. For one, no soldier in Frenchs leading brigade mentions coming to charge bayonets. No band was playing, and it could not have been heard anyway over the roar of artillery fire. There also were numerous mounted Union officers, not just one. Finally, we need to ask how it was possible for Gordon to know at over a mile the enemy were new recruits or fresh troops from Washington. It is likely he learned these acts after the war.

Those unfamiliar with the battles details might imagine the only thing standing between the utter defeat of Lees army and its survival was Gordon and his regiment. Every act and movement of the Union commander in my front clearly indicated his purpose to discard bullets and depend upon bayonets, he wrote; It was my business to prevent this; and how to do it with my single line was the tremendous problem which had to be solved and solved quickly; for the column was coming. Neither Robert Rodes, Gordons brigade commander, nor any other unit are ever mentioned. It was Rodes business, not Gordons, to assure the Federals did not break through his line. The only way we know any other Confederates were involved in the defense is when Gordon mentions talking to the chivalric Colonel Tew, of North Carolina as Tew is shot in the brain by the first Union volley. This was Charles C. Tew, colonel of the 2nd North Carolina, of Brig. Gen. George B. Andersons Brigade, which fought beside Rodes men in the Sunken Road.

Tew, however, was mortally wounded well into the combat, after being notified he was now in command of the brigade, with Anderson wounded. When asked to acknowledge receipt of the message, Tew bowed and tipped his hat, but was struck in the head as he did.

Even Gordons own description of his fifth wound omits a key detail. He writes that a bullet struck him squarely in the face, knocking him unconscious, and that he fell forward, face in his cap, and would have been smothered by the blood running into my cap had not a bullet hole in it allowed the blood to drain. A litter team bore him to the rear and he did not awake until later that night. A contemporary account by a 6th Alabama soldier revealed, however, that after his fifth wound Gordon foundthe strength to crawl 100 yards to the rear, where he was discovered covered with blood, and then assisted from the field.

It seems unlikely Gordon simply forgot all this. More likely is that a tale of him falling among his men would seem more heroic than the truth. Whenever Gordon chose to exaggerate, bend, ignore, or invent incidents, he almost always did so deliberately either to advance his political agendahe was a postCivil War U.S. senator (1873-80) and later governor of Georgia (1886-90)or to elevate himself to a central role in the drama. There is value in his Antietam account, but it should always be used with care and caution.

Scott Hartwig writes from the crossroads of Gettysburg.
Little more than five weeks before the Allied invasion of Normandythe largest amphibious assault the world has ever seena training exercise gone awry resulted in appalling carnage. Yet the April 2728, 1944, fiasco at Slapton Sands, England, which claimed the lives of more than 1,000 men, may have assured the success of D-Day.

Code-named Exercise Tiger, it was to be a dress rehearsal for Operation Overlord, and that stretch of the Devon coast proved ideal training ground for forces tasked with landing on Utah Beach. Its coarse gravel, shallow lagoon and seaside bluffs closely resembled the terrain Allied soldiers would soon traverse in France. Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered planners to make the exercise as realistic as possible, down to the use of live gunfire from naval vessels and shore-based artillery.

In advance of the initial practice landing at 7:30 on the morning of the 27th the British heavy cruiser HMS Hawkins was to shell the beachhead, stopping just before the troops reached shore. As some of the landing ships were running late, U.S. Rear Adm. Don P. Moon, the officer in command of the exercise, pushed H-hour back to 8:30 a.m. Unfortunately, several landing craft already en route never received word of the change, and when the soldiers aboard clambered ashore, they came under devastating friendly fire. Some 300 men were killed in the accident.

Early the next morning eight LSTs (tank landing ships)packed with U.S. troops and equipment formed up in Lyme Bay. From there the ships would head toward Slapton Sands. As the boats converged, however, a patrol of nine fast and well-armed German E-boats picked up the heavy radio traffic near Lyme Bay and zeroed in on the transports. The fully loaded LSTs (nicknamed large slow targets by the troops) made easy pickings. Making matters worse, the convoy had no destroyer escort, as the one assigned to the exercise had collided with an LST and diverted to Plymouth for repairs. The flotillas only escort, the Royal Navy corvette Azalea, spotted the E-boats but was unable to warn the convoy, as the American vessels were using a different radio frequency.

The Germans struck with abandon, their torpedoes hitting three LSTs, sinking two and severely damaging the third. Of the hundreds of soldiers and sailors aboard, 749 were either killed outright or drowned in the icy channel water, pushing the death toll for the exercise over 1,000. In one of wars tragic ironies, many men had improperly donned their life jackets and then drowned when the weight of their backpacks forced them facedown underwater.

Allied commanders ordered a news blackout as search teams quickly and quietly recovered the bodies. Of immediate concern was the fate of 10 officers participating in the exercise who had top-level clearance and knowledge of the D-Day invasion plans. Fortunately, all 10 were accounted for, and Operation Overlord was given the green light.

Though Exercise Tiger resulted in the worst loss of life for American troops since the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and despite the fact five times more men died at Slapton Sands than were killed storming Utah Beach on D-Day, the Allies learned valuable if grim lessons essential to the success of the invasion. Foremost among the positive changes, the Allies standardized radio frequencies, trained troops how to properly don life jackets and established more effective procedures for retrieving men from the water. As abhorrent as the losses were, the takeaways from the rehearsal paved the way toward the Allied foothold in France and the eventual liberation of Western Europe.

Today an amphibious M4 tank, recovered from the sea in 1984, overlooks Slapton Sands. Recognized by Congress as the Sherman Tank Memorial Site [exercisetigermemorial.co.uk], it stands as a somber tribute to the men who died and to a truth so long buried.
Recent findings offer another view of the famous 1965 battle

The 1965 Battle of Ia Drang was one of the most iconic battles of the Vietnam War. It was popularized in the 1992 book We Were Soldiers Once and Young, by retired Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and journalist Joseph L. Galloway, and the 2002 film adaptation, starring Mel Gibson as Moore. Yet the engagement remains one of the most misunderstood battles of the war.

The battle began the morning of Nov. 14, 1965, when helicopters dropped Moores 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), at Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley to go after North Vietnamese Army troops in the area. Shortly after arriving, Moores soldiers were attacked by a large NVA force, and fierce fighting followed.

When American commanders saw that the enemy had countered Moores one battalion with two NVA battalions, they began reinforcing his unit that evening with men from another battalion. Devastating U.S. airstrikes, including B-52 bombing, began the afternoon of Nov.15. Earlier that day, more troops from the reinforcing battalion had arrived, and a third battalion was rotated in to allow Moores troops to withdraw on Nov. 16. The remaining two battalions departed on Nov. 17, while the B-52 bombardment of the battered NVA force in the area continued through Nov. 20.

Those events are typically portrayed as a ground force operation supported by air attacks, but the battle plan actually was designed principally as a massive airstrike supported by a ground operation that lured enemy forces into the open where they could become targets for B-52 bombers.

The Prelude

The Ia Drang battle was one part of a monthlong operation in response to an NVA attack on a U.S. Special Forces camp at Plei Me in Pleiku province in South Vietnams Central Highlands on Oct. 19, 1965. The 32nd and 33rd NVA regiments besieged the camp until Oct. 25, when a South Vietnamese relief force and U.S. air power broke the North Vietnamese lines.

After failing to take Plei Me, the NVA B3 Field Front, the headquarters organization for three Central Highlands regiments, ordered the 32nd and 33rd regiments to withdraw to their rear bases in the remote Chu Pong massif. These two units were to join up with the 66th NVA Regiment and together stage a second attack on the Plei Me camp. This time, the 66th would conduct the main assault, supported by a 14.5 mm twin-barrel anti-aircraft gun battalion and a 120 mm mortar battalion.

South Vietnamese commanders in the Central Highlands,a region designated as the II Corp Tactical Zone, had obtained that vital information through a unique intelligence sourceintercepts of radio communications between the Chinese advisers embedded in NVA combat regiments and the advisers headquarters in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The Chinese advisers conversed freely and openly without encryption, not realizing that Mandarin-speaking personnel in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam were monitoring their conversations.



Soldiers in the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, led by Lt. Col. Hal Moore, later as a colonel, were landed at Ia Drang on Nov. 14 1965. (U.S. Army)

The gold mine of fresh intelligence was used in every aspect of the ARVN-U.S. combined operations, including the scheduling of B-52 strikes. Col. Nguyen Van Hieu, the ARVN chief of staff in II Corps, stated in his after-action report on the Plei Me Campaign that solid intelligence on the enemy situation had permitted the battle to develop to the maximum degree and scale and at the same time lead to the biggest victory ever achieved by the ARVN and its allies.

ARVN commanders kept the source of this extremely valuable intelligence tightly under wraps. Both the Americans and North Vietnamese at the time thought the information came from ARVN special agents. The Chinese adviser connection was revealed by II Corps commander Maj. Gen. Vinh Loc in his 1966 book Pleime, Tran Chien Lich Su (Pleime, The Historical Battle).

On Oct. 26, 1965, ARVN II Corps requested the help of American troops to conduct an operation to strike the NVA 32nd, 33rd and 66th regiments as they were gathering for their second attack on Plei Me. The entire 1st Air Cav Division was assigned to reinforce its South Vietnamese allies. The combined ARVN-U.S. operation was named Truong Chinh (Long Reach) and conducted with shared intelligence and concept of operations, separate TAOR [tactical areas of responsibility], command, deployment of forces, conduct of activities and reserve, recalled Vinh Loc in Pleime.

The 1st Air Cav established a tactical command post, under the leadership of assistant division commander Brig. Gen. Richard Knowles, next to the ARVN II Corps headquarters in Pleiku. Commanders expanded the 1st Air Cavs area of responsibility from the Plei Me area to encompass the entire Chu Pong-Ia Drang complex, except the Plei Me camp itself. The camp remained under ARVN responsibility to make it appear weak and entice the enemy to attempt a second attack.

U.S. and South Vietnamese forces executed Operation Long Reach, also known as the Pleiku Campaign, in three steps from Oct. 27 to Nov. 26,1965:

 Operation All the Way, Oct. 27- Nov. 9, conducted by the 1st Air Cavs 1st Brigade.

 Operation Silver Bayonet I, Nov. 9-18, 1st Air Cavs 3rd Brigade.

 Operation Silver Bayonet II, Nov. 18-26, 1st Air Cavs 2nd Brigade, South Vietnams Airborne Brigade.

Silver Bayonet I included the Battle of Ia Drang, fought at Landing Zone X-Ray (Nov. 14-16) and Landing Zone Albany (Nov. 17-18).

The ARVN II Corps oversaw the operations concept and intelligence, while 1st Air Cav controlled the troops and the logistics. The operational concept for Long Reach, developed by Hieu, called for B-52 airstrikes to destroy the North Vietnamese 32nd, 33rd and 66th regiments when they regrouped in assembly areas in the Chu Pong-Ia Drang complex after the first Plei Me attack and prepared for a second.

Normally the planning for a B-52 airstrike was handled by the intelligence and operations chiefs of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, the organization in charge of American forces in South Vietnam. MACVs intelligence chief would select bombing targets based on information about existing enemy locations in the rear that contained supply bases and troop concentrations.

In Long Reach, however, intelligence collected by the ARVN II Corps intercepts of the NVAs embedded Chinese advisers radioing their Phnom Penh HQ were used in planning an operation that would lure enemy troops into positions where they would become easy targets. The ground forces of the 1st Air Cav would then keep those NVA troops under attack and fix them into place, unable to conduct operations elsewhere. In the final maneuver, the U.S. Air Force would hit the immobilized enemy from the air.

As Knowles described the plan, 1st Air Cav grabbed a tiger by the tail at LZ X-Ray and then moved to LZ Albany to grab the tiger by its tail from another direction, while the more destructive B-52s struck the tiger and killed it.

Operation All the Way

As the 32nd and 33rd NVA regiments withdrew from Plei Me and headed back to their rear bases in the Chu Pong massif to connect with the 66th Regiment, the 1st Air Cavs 1st Brigade made sure they kept moving in that direction.

On Oct. 27, Eagle Flights of U.S. helicopter gunships flew over the area looking for the NVA troops and fired on them when found, forcing the withdrawing enemy regimentswhich sometimes dispersed and fragmented into small partiesto be continuously on the march. A Viet Cong field hospital was discovered on Nov. 1 and destroyed.



Troops of the 1st Air Cav, ambushed at Landing Zone Albany on Nov. 17, lie in a field illuminated by flares from aircraft. (AP Photo/Rick Merron)

The 66th NVA Regiment began arriving at the assembly points in the Chu Pong-Ia Drang area on Nov. 2, and the next day its 8th Battalion was ambushed by troopers of the U.S cavalrys 1st Brigade. On Nov. 4, the 33rd Regiment established positions on Chu Pongs eastern slopes. Two days later, the 66th Regiment was continuing to move troops into the assembly areas, the 33rd Regiment was waiting for separated units to rejoin it, and the 32nd Regiment was north of the Ia Drang River and adjacent to Cambodia. By Nov. 8, only fragmented NVA units and stragglers remained east of the Chu Pong-Ia Drang complex.

The two battalions of the 8th Cavalry Regiment and two from the 12th Cavalry Regiment involved in the Eagle Flights had just nine engagements with the enemy. But they werent on a mission to destroy enemy units. Their primary job was to herd the enemy regiments into the NVA camps in the Chu Pong area.

Although the shepherding phase ended Nov. 9, the NVA units gathered in the Chu Pong massif area were still so widely scattered in a defensive posture that B-52 airstrikes would have been premature and futile. The next phase, however, would entice the enemy units to concentrate their forcesand thereby become vulnerable B-52 targets.

Operation Silver Bayonet I

On Nov. 9, the 1st Air Cavs 3rd Brigade relieved the 1st Brigade in the Ia Drang area to set the stage for an attack on the NVA regiments gathering there.

Maj. Gen. Stanley R. Larsen, commander of I Field Force (the headquarters organization for U.S. units deployed in II Corps), ordered Knowles to have the 3rd Brigade change the direction in which it was movingswitching from west to eastin a feint to make it look like the brigade had lost track of enemy positions.

The NVAs B3 Field Front fell for the subterfuge and decided to begin preparations for its second attack on the Plei Me camp. On Nov. 11, its three regiments moved into assembly areas to reorganize, re-equip and rehearse for the attackscheduled for Nov. 16. The NVA troops concentrated into assembly areas were now suitable targets for massive B-52 airstrikes, and MACVs operations chief, Brig. Gen. William DePuy, was told to set in motion a plan to drop the first wave of bombs about 5 miles west of LZ X-Ray, on the eastern foot of the Chu Pong massif, on Nov. 15 at 4 p.m.

On Nov. 12, Moores 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, was ordered to prepare for a helicopter landing at LZ X-Ray as a diversionary maneuver to distract the B3 Field Front by showing up at the NVAs rear bases, creating a sudden new threat that would force a postponement of the Plei Me attack and keep the enemy troops bottled up in their assembly areasripe targets for the B-52s. The next day the NVA B3 Field Fronts reconnaissance elements and transportation units moved out of their assembly areas for the Plei Me assault, and Moore received the order to depart for Chu Pong.

The assault elements of the NVA B3 Field Front started moving out of their assembly areas on Nov. 14. At 10:48 a.m. that day, Moores lead elements arrived at LZ X-Ray, following 30 minutes of artillery bombardment, aerial rockets and airstrikes. They landed about 200 yards from the NVA 66th Regiments 9th Battalion. The B3 Field Front took the bait and ordered the 66th Regiments 7th and the 9th battalions to attack the Americans, while the 32nd and the 33rd regiments held their positions in the assembly areas. To reinforce Moores troops, a company from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, landed in the evening

The next morning other elements of 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, arrived. They were followed by the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, of the 1st Air Cavs 2nd Brigade. Those units were supported with a ring of steelartillery fire and round-the-clock air attacks on every route in and out of the landing zone to prevent the 32nd and 33rd NVA regiments from joining the fight. The B-52 bombing began at 4 p.m. on Nov. 15 and pounded the NVA into the next day.

Around noon on Nov. 16, Moores battalion began leaving X-Ray, with the other two battalions remaining there to fight. On Nov. 17, it was time to execute Knowles order to grab the tiger by its tail in another direction and clear the LZ X-Ray area for B-52 carpet bombing on NVA troops still around there. The 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, marched toward LZ Albany (and would be ambushed on the way), while the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry, moved toward LZ Columbus. Despite the effort to minimize U.S. casualties, 1st Air Cav troopers suffered heavy losses at X-Ray and at Albany, as the enemy relied on costly human wave attacks.

The B-52 trikes continued west to east across the Chu Pong-Ia Drang complex through Nov. 20, leaving the once heavily forested area unsuitable for enemy concealment and cover. The NVA forces escape route to Cambodia was reduced to a narrow corridor along the Ia Drang River, and ARVN intelligence estimated that the B-52s had rendered two-thirds of the enemy forces too weak to be effective in combat.

Operation Silver Bayonet II/Operation Than Phong

On Nov. 18, the 1st Air Cavalrys 2nd Brigade moved up to LZ Crooks, about 8 miles northwest of X-Ray, to support the ARVN Airborne Brigade in its mission to destroy the 32nd NVA Regiments remaining 334th and 634th battalions. The cavalry brigade established an artillery firebase at LZ Crooks, manned by the 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, and secured by the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry.

Lt. Col. Ngo Quang Truong, who would later rise to lieutenant general and is considered South Vietnams finest combat leader, commanded the ARVN Airborne Brigade. His American adviser was Maj. Norman Schwarzkopf, the future commander of U.S. forces during the 1991 Gulf War.

The ARVN Airborne Brigade destroyed three NVA training centers, a cache of equipment and 75 houses. Its troops also killed 265 Viet Cong and captured 58 weapons in two ambushes on Nov. 20 and 24. On Nov. 26, after the enemy escaped to its sanctuary in Cambodia and the fighting came to an end, the ARVN Airborne Brigade and 1st Air Cav withdrew from the area of operations.



The crew of a B-52 bomber returns from a mission over Vietnam. The bombs painted on the fuselage show the number of missions flown. (U.S. Air Force)

Aftermath

Even after the battle, the NVA, as well as many U.S. and South Vietnamese personnel, were under the impression that it was a stand-alone American search-and-destroy ground attack by 1st Air Cav troops, who were hit by a larger foe after landing at LZ X-Ray and got help from air support, including B-52 strikes.

A more thorough and in-depth study of primary sources shows that the Battle of Ia Drang was just one component of a joint ARVN-U.S. operation, and the 1st Air Cav landing was a diversionary maneuver intended to switch NVA forces from an offensive to defensive posture and make them the targets of B-52 bombings, the primary thrust of the operation.

The official after-action reports did not clearly spell out the air-ground combination strategy, which was not publicly known until the discovery of Knowles personal notes related to the battle. In them he used the expressions tiger by the tail and grab the tiger by its tail from another direction.

Knowles revealed that strategy in a June 20, 1983, letter to Moore, who had asked the former assistant division commander for his personal recollections of the LZ X-Ray battle. Moore did not include the tiger metaphor in We Were Soldiers Onceand Young, but Knowles copy of the letter was donated to The Vietnam Center and Archive at Texas Tech University after his death in 2013. It was made public in October 2017.

Although the air-ground strategy employed in Operation Long Reach destroyed many of the NVA B3 Field Fronts 6,000 troops, it could not be duplicated with similar success in other operations that lacked a key advantage the Americans and South Vietnamese had at Ia Drangthe intercepts of the Chinese advisers communications with their headquarters, a source of crucial intelligence for the scheduling of B-52 airstrikes. The NVA later stopped embedding Chinese advisers in combat units (although other collaboration with Chinese advisers continued), and that stopped the intelligence leaks.

Tin Nguyen, the younger brother of Gen. Nguyen Van Hieu, is an independent researcher of the Vietnam War for the period 1965-75. His research is posted at www.generalhieu.com.

This article was published in the October 2018 issue of Vietnam.
Cheap package tours are giving Koreans a bad reputation abroad as they are noisily herded through the attractions.

More than 30 million Koreans are expected to travel overseas this year, up from 22.4 million in 2016, which means that they will positively flood some destinations.

Last year one-third of outbound travelers went on package tours rather than traveling by themselves, according to the Korea Association of Travel Agents.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the tours are cheap for a reason. One 45-year-old woman went on a package tour to northern Europe last year to a ski resort in Lillehammer, Norway. The travel guide told the Korean tourists to relieve themselves outdoors.

"The guide told us that bathrooms charge fees only in the local currency, while there will be no toilet stops for the next two hours, so we should take care of our business outdoors," she recalls. "So we ended up walking into the woods to relieve ourselves while there were lots of tourists from other countries around."

It seems tempting to blame the tour guides, who exacerbate their customers' bad manners by trying to get them to hurry up.
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North Korea has allowed foreign tourists to go off-road trekking and camping on the symbolically charged Mt. Baekdu for the first time.

Roger Shepherd became the first foreign national to climb the whole of the Baekdudaegan mountain range in South and North Korea, as he guided tourists from Australia and Norway, hiking in the highest mountain on the Korean Peninsula last week.


The three candidates will be on the primary ballot on Sept. 4.

DA Candidates Battle in Pittsfield Gazette Debate at BCC



The debate was more than standing room only. BCC officials set up an overflow room where attendees could watch Pittsfield Community Television's live broadcast. PITTSFIELD, Mass.  Andrea Harrington said some 95 percent of criminal cases end with plea deals crafted behind closed doors.

When one person gets probation after being caught with pounds of marijuana and guns, while another person is given a two-year mandatory minimum sentence for selling a joint worth of marijuana, it certainly gives people pause. They wonder, is the justice system fair?

"It is essential that the public has faith that the people making these decisions with integrity," Harrington said.

If she is elected she'd set up a citizens advisory board to review policies and cases. She said she'd track data -- from resolutions of cases to the number of times a person of color is kicked off a jury. She wants checks and balances to ensure that the people of Berkshire County are getting a fair justice system.

That's what she told a packed auditorium at Berkshire Community College during a debate between the three candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for district attorney, a nomination that will ultimately determine the winner because there are no other challengers on the ballot.

The Richmond defense attorney is trying to pry the position away from longtime District Attorney David Capeless' handpicked successor in Paul Caccaviello, as is Great Barrington attorney Judith Knight.

Knight said she would have absolutely made sure the person in the example above with guns went to jail. But marijuana, Knight isn't going to prosecute that. She said the Berkshire district attorney's office has "misused" mandatory minimum sentences when it comes to low-level cases.

"Every opportunity they have to put on a mandatory minimum, they have used it," Knight said. "The school zone [charge mandatory minimum] has been more misused by this office than anywhere else in the commonwealth."

She criticized the office for the handling of the case against Bernard Baran, a gay man who was wrongfully imprisoned on sexual abuse charges. It was at the height of the AIDs epidemic and Knight said Baran was "railroaded" because the DA's office "buried" information proving his innocence.

The two women have positioned themselves as bringing progressive ideas to the office. Those include increasing the use of drug courts, implementing diversion programs to get those addicted to opioids into treatment programs, and increasing prevention programs.

Caccaviello said the marijuana example may seem one way on the surface, but that a lot more goes into making decisions about prosecution and plea deals. He has continually said the key is to find a balance of using compassion when needed and securing consequences when needed -- and often there can be a little of both at the same time.

"It is about having the experience, having an even-handed approach," Caccaviello said, but also added that he couldn't elaborate on the details of the examples given.

He disputed Knight's repeated claim that the district attorney's office has overstepped in its use of school-zone charges in the case of marijuana dealing more than a decade ago in Great Barrington. Knight represented one of nearly 20 teens caught up in the charges. Knight has repeatedly cited that case as an example of an overly aggressive district attorney's office.

Caccaviello, however, said 12 individuals were brought up on marijuana charges and the office only sought school-zone charges on two. He added that the case wasn't just about marijuana but also included a number of other drugs as well.

He said the office needs to take everything on a case-by-case basis. But the way the office has been operating isn't working, according to Harrington.

Caccaviello has worked in that office for 30 years and, currently, North Adams has the worst crime rate per capita in the state with Pittsfield following closely behind, she said. There is a high rate of restraining orders being issued. And the opioid epidemic has only gotten worse.

"The old way of doing things is not working and we can see that here in Berkshire County," Harrington said.

Harrington wants to reform the system and said that requires a "leader" who will do just that. She said opioid deaths have climbed from two a little over a decade ago to 38 last year. That is why she feels diversion programs will help get those addicted with the treatment they need. She said additional resources and partnerships need to be brought in to make a dent in it.

"This crisis has affected every part of our community," she said, later adding, "I am very committed to a problem-solving approach in the district attorney's office."

Knight agrees but also emphasized that was her stand 12 years ago when she first ran for district attorney against Capeless. She said her client in the Great Barrington drug bust didn't need jail but instead needed drug treatment. But, the district attorney's office wasn't interested in connecting him with that, she said.

"The addict comes into the criminal justice because of the conduct, but the addiction is the underlying cause," Knight said.

She later added, "I realized then what was happening wasn't working. Twelve years later there is a crime reform bill that echoes my platform."

While Capeless' record in the office has come under fire for some cases, which in turn is a reflection on his former first assistant, Caccaviello, Great Barrington Police Officer Kevin Larkin described him as having a "calming influence" during the Bard College at Simon's Rock shooting in 1992. A gunman opened fire, killing two and injuring four others on the campus.

Knight hopes that if she is faced with a similar situation, officers on scene will say the same about her.

The former Middlesex County prosecutor said handling active scenes like that right comes from experience. "David knew how to handle this. David had been on murder crime scenes before," Knight said. "The district attorney should be able to instantly know what to do and that comes from experience. In crisis mode, there is no time to look at a leaflet or book."

Caccaviello said he been to many similar scenes and he hopes officers say "this is how it is supposed to be done" when he works them. He said he's been to autopsies, worked with forensics to gather evidence and determine what and when to test, and worked with law enforcement at crime scenes to secure them. In recent years, Caccaviello said he was the one responding to the scene first more often than not.

While Harrington says she has leadership qualities and new ideas to bring to the table, she has constantly had to face questions about her experience.

She has never tried a case for the prosecution. She has worked in Appeals Courts for defense teams seeking to overturn death penalty sentences in Florida. That experience, she said, has given her experience and shown her the flaws in prosecutors' cases. Harrington believes she can use that to not only get convictions that will stick during appeals but also prevent false convictions in the first place.

"We found it is incredibly important to follow all the leads, be aggressive in following protocols," Harrington said.

She agreed that "it is essential that we have law enforcement that works together and a district attorney on the scene immediately" in such cases.

It was an appeals case that reinforced her believe in addiction treatment and diversion programs especially when it comes to young offenders. She said her office in Florida had a man convicted of capital murder for something he did at age 17. While she was working on that the courts ruled that people could not be executed for crimes committed under the age of 18 and the client was ultimately given a life sentence instead.

It was in that case when she started looking into brain development and said a humans brain isn't really fully developed until around the age of 24. She said in so many cases young people are being sent to jail when they should be learning life skills.

Harrington is supportive of drug courts, which Berkshire County was the last to see open in 2016, and would expand that into having veterans courts and courts for mental health. She said the drug court is "an intensive program" to help break addicts of the habit that led them into the criminal justice system in the first place.

"Drug courts are cost effective because it deals with the underlying problem," Harrington said. "The vast majority of the crime we see in the district court has to do with a substances abuse problem."

Caccaviello, however, said the numbers just aren't there to financially support more specialty courts. He said the drug court has only seen two graduates and there are fewer than 10 participants in it now and that veterans referrals are only 10 percent of what they are in neighboring counties. He said he is in favor of them but from a budget standpoint it may not be worthwhile.

"The numbers may not sustain such a court," Caccaviello said

Instead, Caccaviello believes that handling such cases of veterans, mental health, or drug cases in which somebody needs additional help should be a function of the district attorney's office. He said the office can get similar outcomes through the existing district court system.

One of those two graduates was a client of Knight's. She said saving lives is worth every penny and she wants more specialty courts. With drug court, she believes there could be some changes to make it more accessible, such as a rule that the person cannot work.

"Many people cannot afford to work for an entire year while they are going through drug court," Knight said.

Caccaviello further defended the office saying he has a strong partnership with Berkshire Health Systems and the Brien Center. He said the office used drug forfeiture money to purchase Narcan. He said those life-saving efforts are leading to a decline in opioid deaths. He said the sheriff's office has one of the best recidivism rates because of the reintegration efforts being done there.

He believes there is a role for treatment programs such as those not only because of the help it gives to individuals but because it also helps decrease the market for drug dealers.

"It took a long time to get to this point, it is not going to be a sprint out of the problem," Caccaviello said.

He defended himself against Harrington's shot regarding restraining orders saying while that is true that those are up, there are also fewer domestic violence cases. He said that shows that more people are using the system to protect themselves.

All three candidates agreed when it comes to a recently passed law that bans parents from testifying against their children. Caccaviello said parents should have the option to testify because sometimes parents get law enforcement involved as a way to get help.

Knight added that the law was likely crafted in response to one specific case. She agrees there should be a law prohibiting parents from being compelled to testify, but that parent should still have the option.

And Harrington said the law should mirror that of marriage in which a spouse cannot be compelled to testify but could in serious criminal matters. However, Harrington added that there should be strict laws in place for minor crimes because sometimes "there could be a very toxic relationship between parents and children" and parents may not be acting out of love.

All three were also leery about using the testimony of inmates. Often that can lead to false testimonies provided by somebody just trying to lessen their own jail sentence.

"The reality is that in certain cases the prosecutors absolutely have to rely on witnesses who are not as reliable as we'd like," Harrington said.

She said working with such a witness would require disclosure with the defense attorney outlining exactly what the person was offered and for what information.

Caccaviello said often information is offered by inmates but sometimes it is rejected because it can't be independently corroborated. He said such information needs to be handled carefully.

"All witnesses expect something," Caccaviello said.

Knight said she'd make sure that information is independently verified and that any offers are documented. She said she wouldn't use any information that couldn't be verified.

The three will be on the ballot in just two weeks. BCC's debate was moderated by former Mayor Sara Hathaway and was sponsored by the Pittsfield Gazette, BCC, and Pittsfield Community Television.

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iciHaiti - Diplomacy : Text signed with Rwanda





On August 15 in New York, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Denis Regis Permanent Representative of Haiti to the United Nations and his counterpart of Rwanda Ambassador Valentine Rugwabiza signed a joint communique on the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Haiti and the Republic of Rwanda More details : https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-25271-icihaiti-cooperation-haiti-and-rwanda-explore-new-areas-of-cooperation.html



Text of the joint communique :

"The Govemment of the Republic of Haiti and the Goverment of the Republic of Rwanda,



Desiring to promote and strengthen ties of friendship and cooperation between their countries and peoples on the basis of equality, mutual respect for eaeh other's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity as weil as non-interference in the internai affairs of each other,



Guided by the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as the Vienna Convention on Diplomatie Relations of 18 April 1961 and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 24 April 1963,



Have decided ta establish diplomatie relations as of the date of the signing of this Joint Communique.



ln witness thereor, the undersigned representatives, being duly authorized by their respective Governments, have signed this Joint Communique in New York on August 15, 2018 in two originals each in English and FrenCh languages, all texts being equally authentic."



See also :

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-25271-icihaiti-cooperation-haiti-and-rwanda-explore-new-areas-of-cooperation.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22774-haiti-politic-rwanda-90-days-without-visa-for-haitians.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-4596-haiti-security-160-new-rwandan-police-officers-in-haiti.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-2042-haiti-education-278-haitian-students-in-the-african-universities.html



IH/ iciHaiti


















Trump to Introduce Peace Plan at UN

The Fellowship | August 21, 2018 Embed from Getty Images

In September, Donald Trump will unveil what he calls the deal of the century at the United Nations General Assembly. Israel Hayom reports that Trump will present his peace plan next month:

U.S. President Donald Trump plans to introduce his Middle East peace plan, dubbed the deal of the century, during the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York next month, the Palestinian daily Al-Quds reported Monday.

The 73rd General Assembly session will be held from Sept. 18 to Oct. 5 and will feature speeches from prominent world leaders, including Trump, who is set to address the assembly on Sept. 25. 

The United States has, in the past, warned that if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas remains adamant in his refusal to engage the U.S. as a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Washington will introduce its regional peace plan regardless of his reservations. 

Abbas has been shunning the U.S.s peace efforts since Trumps Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital and the subsequent move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and has accused the Trump administration of being grossly biased in Israels favor. 

According to the report, U.S. Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who have been working on the plan since early 2017, seek to introduce it under the most optimal conditions and the General Assembly is seen that the best venue to do so
"President Moon said let's get this done in a year," Bolton said. "And Kim Jong-un said yes."

Talking on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, Bolton claimed once again that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un promised South Korean President Moon Jae-in in their summit on April 27 that he would denuclearize within a year.

"On April the 27th at Panmunjom, Kim Jong-un met with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and at that meeting, as President Moon reported to us, President Moon pointed out that the more rapidly North Korea denuclearizes, they sooner could come the benefits of openness to foreign aid from Japan and South Korea, foreign investment from any number of countries," he said. "President Moon said let's get this done in a year."

Asked if that is the "time frame," Bolton said, "Kim Jong-un said yes. So the one-year period that we've talked about from the point where North Korea makes the strategic decision to denuclearize is something that the North and South Koreans have already agreed to."

"Why is that significant?" he added. Because U.S. President Donald Trump "has gone out of his way to hold the door open for Kim Jong-un, thats what the Singapore meeting was about."

Bolton first made the claim on Fox News on Aug. 5, but Cheong Wa Dae has declined to comment. Bolton also hailed U.S. efforts to push for denuclearization, even though their results have been negligible. He claimed U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo "has done extraordinary follow-up diplomacy after the Singapore meeting. As I say, we expect that's going to resume in the near future."

Pompeo is poised to visit Pyongyang for a fourth time to see if he can move matters forward. "I think Secretary Pompeo will be returning to Pyongyang soon for his fourth visit," Bolton said. "The timing will be announced at an appropriate point by the State Department."


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File photo of billionaire diamond trader Nirav Modi (l) shaking hands with Prince Charles, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. Modi, who is wanted in the Punjab National Bank fraud case, is currently in the United Kingdom. (IANS photo)
By Maj. Danny Sjursen

August 21, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - Numbness or apathy. These seem to be Americans go-to responses when each new overseas tragedy unfolds. Recently, it was a bus full of Yemeni children  40 in fact  killed by a Saudi airstrike that represented one tiny speck of catastrophe in an ongoing U.S.-backed coalition campaign. Sure, the dead kids briefly hit the screens of CNN, Fox, and MSNBC; but lets be real: no one really cared. We were all too enthralled in the latest White House drama or too sick of politics to even click on the news. Of course, these were foreign, brown, Muslim children  and the dirty secret is they just dont garner the attention of equally cute American, Caucasian, Christian kids who fall victim to the latest school shooting or terror attack. Let us then call it like it is  the U.S. refuels warplanes, sells bombs, provides intelligence and otherwise enables a Saudi terror campaign thats killed tens of thousands of civilians, unleashed the worlds worst cholera epidemic in recorded history, and threatens to starve millions of Yemenis.

So thats Yemen. More than a thousand miles to the east, in distant Afghanistan, (remember that country, you know, where weve waged the longest war in our history?) just this week, a US Army Special Forces Sergeant was killed by an IED strike. By one semi-official count, that makes him the 2,414th American to die in the conflict. That not tragic enough for you? How about this: next year, young men and women born after the 9/11 attacks will undoubtedly start patrolling the Hindu Kush and other Afghan locales. And hows the forever war going? This same week, an increasing invigorated Taliban killed a couple dozen Afghan soldiers and seized a government base. Back in 2011, when I had the inauspicious task of patrolling the Arghandab Valley, the US had some 100,000 troops in the country. We still couldnt decisively defeat the Taliban. Now, weve got about 15,000 soldiers there  think were poised for victory now? Does it even matter? Americans will simply yawn.

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So thats Afghanistan. I could go on, of course. We could talk Niger, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, or Pakistan; really any of the disconnected locales where the US military currently fights, kills, or dies. Theres no end in sight folks. Its not that no one cares to be fair. Brave and idealistic men and women continue to join the service and dedicate years and sometimes careers to achieving some measure of stability in the Mideast. Its just that no matter how hard the generals try, no matter how late the staff officers work, and no matter how much the enlisted men sweat, there is no indication (the last 17 years being any measure) that Americans are any safer, that the Greater Middle East is any more secure, or that theres any plausible prospect of victory.

Why bother though, one might reasonably ask? Why scream about the questionable value of training the army of Niger; about shattering all sense of security through regime change in Libya; about why air strikes and SOF raids never seem to stabilize Somalia; about the tinderbox of catastrophe that is Syria; about the way an Anti-American warlord was just swept to power in Iraq; or about the way hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan have soured an entire people against Americans for at least a generation? The uncomfortable fact is that: We. Dont. Care.

Yet theres really no excuse. Thing is, weve got an obligation to care, we being citizens in an ostensibly free country and all. Everything the US government does overseas, every special forces raid, every bomb sold, every refueling mission completed and every drone strike executed, is done in our name.

Make no mistake: the people under all those U.S.-dropped, sold, or supported bombs know full well that America is involved, complicit even. From West Africa to South Asia, the ongoing (is it time to admit its never-ending?) US war-on-terror or whatever were calling it now, kills, maims, and traumatizes others and occasionally still sacrifices our own men and women. That most of this occurs in towns and villages that the dead soldiers families cant pronounce or locate on a map is instructive. Fact: perpetual war is a disease to democracy that generates the apathy and numbness we should all be ashamed of.

Shame on us all. On me for trudging through the villages and neighborhoods of Iraq and Afghanistan without measurably improving security; on our congressional leaders for turning a blind eye while one president after another expands the scope of several undeclared wars; on, most importantly, all of us for the mixture of apathy and numbness infecting our entire public space.

Political conservatives never miss an opportunity to tell us, flippantly, that "all lives matter."

I say prove it.

Danny Sjursen is a US Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet.

[Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]

Copyright 2018 Danny Sjursen
August 21, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - In the aftermath of the assassination attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, an article in the Miami Herald (8/5/18) reported that a clandestine group formed by Venezuelan military members opposed to the regime of Nicolas Maduro claimed responsibility. A New York Times op-ed (8/10/18) mused, No one knows whether the Maduro regime will last decades or days. AFP (8/12/18) reported that Trump has harshly criticized Maduros leftist regime.

The word regime implies that the government to which the label is applied is undemocratic, even tyrannical, so its peculiar that the term is used in Venezuelas case, since the countrys leftist government has repeatedly won free and fair elections (London Review of Books, 6/29/17). One could argue that, strictly speaking, regime can simply mean a system, and in some specific, infrequent contexts, that may be how its used. But broadly the word regime suggests a government that is unrepresentative, repressive, corrupt, aggressivewithout the need to offer any evidence of these traits.

Interestingly, the US itself meets many of the criteria for being a regime: It can be seen as an oligarchy rather than a democracy, imprisons people at a higher rate than any other country, has grotesque levels of inequality and bombs another country every 12 minutes. Yet theres no widespread tendency for the corporate media to describe the US state as a regime.

The function of regime is to construct the ideological scaffolding for the United States and its partners to attack whatever country has a government described in this manner. According to the mainstream media, the democratically elected government of Nicaragua is a regime (Washington Post, 7/11/18). Cuba also has a regime (Washington Post, 7/25/18). Iraq and Libya used to have regimesbefore the United States implemented regime change. North Korea most definitely has one (New York Times, 7/26/18), as do China (Washington Post, 8/3/18) and Russia (Wall Street Journal, 7/15/18).

When, for the media, does a government become a regime? The answer, broadly speaking: A countrys political leaders are likely to be called a regime when they do not follow US dictates, and are less likely to be categorized as such if they cooperate with the empire.

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Regimes in Latin America

A search run with the media aggregator Factiva finds that in the nearly 20 years since Venezuela first elected a Chavista government, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post have used the phrase Venezuelan regime 74 times, regime in Venezuela 30 times, Chavez regime 68 times, Maduro regime 168 times and regime in Caracas five times. All of these governments have been democratically elected, but have sinned by trying to carve out a path independent of US control.

Consider, by contrast, coverage of Honduras. The country is hardly lacking in characteristics associated with a regime. On June 28, 2009, a US-backed military coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Manuel Zelaya, replacing it with a US-friendly administration. Since then, Honduras has become the most dangerous place for journalists in the Americas; labor leaders and environmental activists have also been regularly targeted for assassination.

According to a Factiva search, the phrase Honduran regime has never appeared in the Times, Journal and Post in the years following the coup, and collectively they used the phrase regime in Honduras once: It appeared in a Washington Post article (3/31/16) about the assassinations of Honduran indigenous leader Berta Caceres and other environmentalists in the region, in a quote by a professor critical of US support for Latin American dictatorships.

While Hondurass three post-coup presidents have governed a country where impunity for human rights abuses remains the norm, according to Human Rights Watch, these leaders have almost never been described as running a regime. A Post editorial (9/5/09) included the only appearance of Micheletti regime in any of the three papers. Lobo regime returns zero search results. The New York Times (2/16/16) has used Hernandez regime once, but Factiva indicates that the Post and Journal never have. Searches for regime in Tegucigalpa or Tegucigalpa regime produced zero results.

Middle Eastern Regimes

Since the war in Syria ignited on March 15, 2011, Syrian regime has been used 5,355 times, Assad regime 7,853 times, regime in Syria 836 times, and regime in Damascus 282 times in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.

Washingtons economic and military partner Saudi Arabia is described as having a regime far less often than is Syria, despite its rather regime-like qualities: Its unelected government represses dissidents, including advocates for women and its Shia minority, and carries out executions at an extraordinary clip, including of people accused of adultery, apostasy and witchcraft. Saudi Arabia crushed an uprising in neighboring Bahrain in 2011, and with its US and UK partners, is carrying out an almost apocalyptic war in Yemen.

In the same period examined in the Syrian case, the phrase Saudi regime was used 145 times by the same papers, while regime in Saudi Arabia registers four hits and regime in Riyadh can be found once, in the Post (11/29/17).

Saudi leaders can rest assured that their names are unlikely to be associated with running a regime: Factiva indicates that the three publications never used the phrase Abdullah regime in the relevant period, while Salman regime pops up only once, in a Post editorial (5/3/15).

The Iranian Revolution culminated on February 11, 1979, and the US ruling class has seen Irans government as an arch-enemy ever since. Factiva searches of the intervening years turn up 3,201 references to Iranian regime, in the Times, Journal and Post, as well as 326 to regime in Iran, 502 to regime in Tehran, 258 to Khomeini regime, 31 to Ahmadinejad regime and five to Rouhani regime.

The case of stalwart US ally Israel offers an illuminating counterpoint. Even though Israel violently rules over 2.5 Palestinians in the West Bank and keeps 2 million under siege in Gaza, and even though Palestinians living as citizens of Israel face institutional discrimination, the Israeli government is almost never described as a regime in a way that carries the negative connotations discussed above.

A New York Times article (8/2/91) on the Gulf War used the phrase the obdurate Israeli regime to describe Israeli conduct in regional negotiations. In 1992, a Washington Post op-ed (3/11/92) called for America to accept Jewish people from the just-collapsed Soviet Union in part because elements in the Israeli regime are quite ready to place the [Jewish people who moved to Israel from the USSR] in harms way, a reference to the idea that Palestinians are a threat to them. A Wall Street Journal article (7/12/99) employed the term Israeli regime in 1999 to describe Ehud Baraks administration as taking over from the previous Israeli regime of Benjamin Netanyahu, and a piece in the Washington Post (10/1/96) used the phrase in the same way.

Otherwise, Israeli regime appears in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal or Washington Post when the phrase is attributed to critics of Israel (e.g., Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad saying, Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistakenNew York Times, 5/12/08), or is part of a compound referring to a country other than Israel, as when Egypt is described as having a pro-Israeli regime, or Syria is called an anti-Israeli regime.

Sharon regime yields four results. There are no results for Olmert regime. Since Netanyahu returned to power in 2009, Factiva shows, the only use of Netanyahu regime in any of these papers was a Washington Post article (3/1/15); there are three instances of the phrase in these papers from his first go-round (199699). The New York Times referred to Israel as the regime in Jerusalem once in 1981 (3/2/81) and again in 1994 (1/6/94). Regime in Tel Aviv only appears when its part of a quote from someone criticizing Israel.

Calling a government a regime suggests a lack of legitimacy, with the implication that its ousting (by whatever means) would serve humanitarian and democratic ends; its no accident that the phrase is regime change, not government change or administration change. The obverse is also true: The authority of a government is more apt to be seen as legitimate, with resistance to it or defense against it frequently depicted as criminal or terroristic. Thus corporate media help instruct the population that the enemies of the US ruling class need to be eliminated, while its friends deserve protection.

Gregory Shupak teaches media studies at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto. His book, The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media, is published by OR Books.
The number of one-man businesses which shut down hit a record high in the first half of this year compared to first-half data over the past 10 years.

A whopping 200,000 self-employed people wound up their business in the first half of this year, according to a survey of 2 million self-employed merchants with contracts with Shinhan Card.

That is up 36,000 or 22 percent from 2009, a year after the global financial crisis. Some 35 percent of Korea's 5.7 million self-employed businesses have contracts with Shinhan Card.


By Tyler Durden

August 21, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - The internet is buzzing with theories after Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange's mother, Christine Assange, tweeted - and then deleted - what many believe to be a suggestion that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich "leaked docs proving corruption."

In response to the question "why did Julian publish damning docs against Hillary at such a crucial time which gave Humpty Dumpty Trump the upper hand?" Christine Assange replied "Its the duty of media to inform citizens about corruption," adding "a #DNC #Bernie supporter disgruntled with rigging leaked docs proving corruption ."

"What should Wikileaks should have done? Hold on to them till after the election to advantage #Hillary?" she continued, adding "You are shooting the messenger!"

Many have pointed out that Mrs. Assange's the description fits that of Seth Rich, a Bernie Sanders supporter and DNC IT staffer who was slain on his way home from a local bar on July 10, 2016, five days after a forensics analysis indicated that the DNC emails were copied locally - which was the same day Romanian hacker "Guccifer 2.0" claims to have hacked the DNC, per the Washington Post.

12 days after Rich's murder, on July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks released thousands of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee revealing that Bernie Sanders' campaign was undermined when the DNC and the Clinton campaign colluded to share questions before a debate.

Of note, cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike reported on June 14, 2016 that Russia had infiltrated the DNC, after the DNC reported a suspected breach in April of that year. The DNC has received criticism for not allowing the FBI to analyze their servers for hacking, relying only on the Crowdstrike analysis performed by anti-Putin Russian expat Dmitri Alperovitch - a senior fellow on the very anti-Russia Atlantic Council.

Christine Assange's supposed admission caused many on Twitter to note that her son, Julian Assange, "heavily implied" that Rich was a Wikileaks source in an August, 2016 interview on Dutch television when he brought up Assange in the context of WikiLeaks whistleblowers, and then nodded his head when asked directly if Rich was a source.

Deleted tweet

Christine Assange later deleted her controversial tweet, writing that people had wrongfully asserted "Julians mother confirms its #SethRich."

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She then cited former UK Ambassador Craig Murray and the group Veteran Intelligence Professionals For Sanity, who all say the Russians did not hack the DNC.

Deleted my tweet re @Wikileaks #DNCleak being an insider



As many are wrongfully asserting: "Julians mother confirms its #SethRich"



Replaced with 2 tweets citing sources



1) US Ambassador @CraigMurrayOrg



2) #VIPS - (US ) 'Veteran Intelligence Professionals For Sanity'  Mrs. Christine Assange (@AssangeMrs) August 21, 2018

#DNCLeak



"I know who leaked them.Ive met the person who leaked them & they are certainly not Russian. Its an insider. Its a leak NOT a hack"



CIA's Russia hacking claims dismissed as 'bulls***' by former UK ambassador Craig Murray https://t.co/MrDG63rrhX#Russiagate  Mrs. Christine Assange (@AssangeMrs) July 14, 2018

#VIPS , a group of highly regarded former experienced senior US intelligence officers (Including CIA & NSA)



Debunk #Russiagate with forensic evidence



It was NOT the Russians!

It was a leak NOT hack! #DNCLeak#Wikileaks #Journalism#DNC#auspolhttps://t.co/9mrSQkwMez  Mrs. Christine Assange (@AssangeMrs) August 19, 2018

Meanwhile, Twitter users have been left scratching their heads at the entire thing:

@AssangeMrs Hi Mrs.Assange, I'm sure you're busy so i won't take much of your time. Yesterday i was Browsing twitter and Saw an Article, the Heading read Julian Assanges Mom Say's Seth Rich Was DNC Hacker. I Cannot find the article today but was wondering if it as Fake News?   LovingPotus45 (@LPotus45) August 21, 2018

Julian assange mother says it was #SethRich who gave the @DNC information to @wikileaks  Boiling Crude (@BoilingCrude) August 21, 2018

Why isnt anyone talking about Assanges.mother saying Seth Rich was the one that leaked ...  sandra gaeta (@gaeta54) August 20, 2018

Worst kept secret in the world! The mother of Julian Assange claims murdered #DNC staffer Seth Rich was the person behind the leaked DNC emails, not Russia.

Who killed #SethRich  BLKSR71, CFA (@BLKSR71) August 20, 2018
By CJ Werleman

August 21, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - A somewhat grainy video, presumably shot from a decade old cell phone, shows more than two dozen load Yemeni kids, aged 6 to 15, playing, laughing, and excitedly moving about their school bus, invoking warm childhood memories for anyone who has ever caught a bus to and from a school outing.

Moments later every single one of these kids were killed, vaporized by a Saudi fired missile.

This atrocity took place on 9 August, leaving 51 dead, 40 of whom were children, with most victims under the age of 10, while another 77 were seriously injured, according to the International Red Cross.

The US Department of Defense has tried to downplay the United States role in what must surely constitute a war crime and/or a crime against humanity by either arguing its still investigating the matter or by disingenuously minimizing its involvement.

We may never know if the munition [used] was one that the US sold to them, Army Maj. Josh Jacques, a spokesperson for US Central Command, told Vox. We dont have a lot of people on the ground.

Well, we do know who sold Saudi Arabia the missile, and there are plenty of Yemeni journalists and international aid agencies in Yemen on the ground.

Remnants of the missile, which were posted on Twitter by Hussein Albikaiti, a Sanaa-based journalist, show its CAGE code, serial number, and the wording, FIN GUIDED BOMB.

A search of the CAGE code shows the missile to be issued by US defense contractor Lockheed Martin, while the serial number shows it to be a MK-82 missile manufactured by General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas.

A US made laser guided bomb did this 2 a bus full of school children, tweeted Albikaiti. The bus was directly hit by a Saudi-UAE jet, fueled by USA plane, coordinates by US and UK satellites. One bomb sent these happy children to the graves after burning them alive and cutting them to pieces.

Worse  the British and US mainstream media is complicit in the cover-up of yet another atrocity in Yemen, like always!

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Maybe the most dangerous reality of the Trump presidency might be the medias obsessive want to over analyze every tweet, off-hand remark, and gaff made by the current occupant of the White House, which, in turn, places television news networks at the centre of what has been a more than a 3-year long psychodrama if you count the 2016 election campaign.

The medias obsession with this obviously unhinged and deranged US President comes at the cost of informing the American public of the horrors that are occurring in their name and with their tax dollars in countries many voters cant even find on a map.

While CNN and a handful of other mainstream television networks carried news of the Saudi coalition missile attack on the school bus, there has been almost no follow up, leaving the public totally in the dark about the role the US played in this war crime, and in what has been described as the worlds worst humanitarian crisis.

According to FAIR, a media analysis service, the left-leaning cable news network MSNBC has not run a single segment related to the conflict in Yemen since early 2017 but ran with more than 1,300 broadcasts regarding Trumps probable but still speculated collusion with Russia during the 2016 election.

The US media demonstrates a proclivity to report on Yemen only when an American serviceman is killed, according to FAIR, with networks devoting substantial coverage to a botched raid on January 29, which left one US soldier dead alongside dozens.

On the August 9th strike in Yemen, the British media has fared no better. The Guardian, for instance, widely considered a bastion of liberal values and humanitarian concern, failed to feature the killing of 40 Yemeni children among its 13 headline stories, while the Independent failed to include it among its top 8 headlines, according to Middle East Eye.

Coupled with a lack of media coverage is the near total silence that emanates from both US lawmakers and the Department of Defense, with the latter holding only a few public hearings on Yemen since the conflict began more than 3 years ago, one that has resulted in more than 23 million Yemenis being in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.

This is unconscionable and anti-democratic given the US provides the intelligence, guidance systems, warplanes, bombs, and missiles to the Saudi coalition.

Moreover, on the few occasions, Yemen is mentioned in the media, the extent of the human catastrophe is downplayed and underestimated. For instance, most media reports include a total death count of approximately 10,000 Yemenis, but aid agencies have estimated more than 150,000 died of disease and starvation in 2017 alone, with up to 130 children dying each and everyday.

According to the International Red Cross, 70% of the population needs aid to survive; 2.5 million have no access to clean drinking water; 1 in every 12 is severely malnourished; 940,000 are suspected of having cholera; while almost no medical supplies are getting into the country because of the Saudi blockade of Yemens ports, and the destruction of infrastructure throughout the country.

While this is a Saudi war of choice, it is planned and supported by the government of the United States, acting on behalf of the American taxpayer. Its time the media report the full extent of the US role in prolonging the suffering in the Middle Easts poorest country so that voters can pressure their elected representatives into bringing an end to this senseless violence.

The lives of the next busload of Yemeni school kids depends on it.

CJ Werleman is a journalist, political commentator, and author of 'The New Atheist Threat: the Dangerous Rise of Secular Extremists.
Home Search ICH Michael Cohen Pleads Guilty, Admits to Making Illegal Payments at Direction of Candidate to Influence Election



Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer and fixer for President Donald Trump, has struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors, NBC News reported on Tuesday.



Cohen came under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York City earlier this year. They had received a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.



Prosecutors had been eyeing Cohen's business dealings. The New York Times reported that federal authorities were looking into $20 million in loans for taxi businesses linked to Cohen.



By Tucker Higgins and Kevin Breuninger August 21, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - Michael Cohen , the former personal lawyer and fixer for President Donald Trump , agreed to plead guilty on Tuesday to eight charges related to tax fraud, excessive campaign contributions, making false statements to a financial institution, and unlawful corporate contributions at a court hearing in New York on Tuesday. Two of those charges appear to relate to Trump directly. Cohen admitted on Tuesday to making payments to two women at the direction of an unidentified candidate for political office. Those payments, Cohen said, were made to influence the outcome of the election. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Cohen had surrendered to the FBI on Tuesday afternoon. The president's former confidant came under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York City earlier this year after they received a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors had been eyeing Cohen's business dealings for months, and in April seized thousands of items from Cohen's New York office and hotel room. The New York Times reported Sunday that federal authorities were looking into $20 million in loans for taxi businesses owned by Cohen and his family. Experts have said that any deal could have dramatic implications for the president, who has worked closely with Cohen for more than a decade. The deal Cohen reached, however, does not appear to include cooperation with investigators, The New York Times reported , citing two people familiar with the matter. Cohen could still choose to cooperate. Prosecutors have an incentive to seek plea bargains  even without a cooperation agreement  because they conserve substantial resources by striking deals, said Nick Gravante, a partner of New York-based law firm Boies Schiller. "If a defendant is willing to admit guilt, why bother taking him to trial and proving it?" Gravante said in an email. On the flip side, Gravante said, Cohen's plea has no real effect on Trump's legal situation if he doesn't cooperate  aside from the bad optics it creates. News of the plea deal comes as the president's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort awaits a verdict on bank fraud and tax charges in the first trial brought by the special counsel. A spokesperson for Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis declined a request for comment from CNBC. Cohen, a longtime friend and advisor to the president, once said he would take a bullet for Trump. But in recent months, Cohen began to signal that he could cooperate with investigators. In an interview with ABC News in July, Cohen said he put "family and country" before Trump. Prosecutors were looking into a $130,000 hush money payment Cohen facilitated to porn star Stormy Daniels just a few weeks before the November presidential election. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is suing Trump and Cohen to void the non-disclosure agreement that bars her from discussing an alleged affair she had with Trump. Investigators were examining whether the payment could constitute a campaign finance violation. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, which is leading the inquiry, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC. This article was originally published by "CNBC " - The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. ====== Manafort convicted on 8 counts; mistrial declared on 10 other charges Note To ICH Community We are currently searching for a new comment system as we have run out of options on how to prevent the constant bickering and attacks by troll's, whose intention is to paint our website and newsletter as, anti-Semitic, anti-American, pro-Russian fake news. We can no longer afford to invest hours of our time each day, trying to have people behave in a manner befitting those who say they are concerned for others, while offering abuse and hostility to other ICH community members. When we have found such a comment system we will restore the comment function. We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. This would be a better use of out time than trying to prevent abuse of our comment system. Thank you for your continued support. Peace and joy Search Information Clearing House === Click Here To Support Information Clearing House Your support has kept ICH free on the Web since 2002. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.
Super Eagles star, Ahmed Musa has revealed that he wanted to stay in the Premier League, but had no choice but to leave Leicester City.

The Nigeria striker left the King Power Stadium for Saudi Arabian side Al Nassr in a deal believed to be worth 15million and while Musa is expected to be handsomely paid by his new club, he said it was City who drove the deal and not him.

City paid 16million to CSKA Moscow for Musas services in 2016 but he made just one appearance for City last season as he fell out of favour.

I wanted to stay in England because that has been my dream for years but what will you do when youre told a bid has been accepted for you? I had to move to where I know I will be celebrated, Musa is quoted as saying by Owngoalnigeria.com.

Talks have been on about how I moved for the money but nobody has considered the fact that Leicester City also sold me for the money.

Transfers can only happen if both parties agree to it and that was my case.
Former aide to ex president Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri has called out Doyin Okupe for his statement on former vice president Atiku Abubakar.

Okupe, who was also an aide to former president Jonathan in a statement yesterday claimed that, it will take Nigeria 10 years to recover if Atiku rules for just a day. He also said Nigeria will make history, if senate president Bukola Saraki rules.

This statement didnt go down well with Omokri, as he slammed Mr Okupe for slandering Atiku in a bid to canvass support for Saraki.

Omokri also stated that it would be a shame for the opposition to turn the arsenal on themselves as the plan is to remove Buhari, under whose watch, many jobs were lost, he said.

The author also asked Okupe to produce any evidence against Atiku, if he has any or remain silent, as Atiku currently has over 50,000 under his employ.

In his words

1-Dear @doyinokupe, With due respects, Nigerias greatest challenge is unemployment. @SGYemiKales NBS revealed in December that 7.9 million Nigerians lost their jobs in 21 months. We need a job creator like @Atiku. Not a job destroyer like @Mbuhari #OkupeIsWrongOnAtiku  Reno Omokri (@renoomokri) August 21, 2018

2-Dr. @doyinokupe, I know you recently reconciled with President Obasanjo. I appreciate the interplay. But now is the time to put national interest above personal interest. @Atiku knows how to create jobs. Nigerians need jobs more than they need anything else #OkupeIsWrongOnAtiku  Reno Omokri (@renoomokri) August 21, 2018

3-If you, @doyinokupe, have any evidence to substantiate your claims against @Atiku, I urge you to come out and expose it to the Nigerian public or hold your peace. Atiku has 50,000 direct employees. Who amongst those contesting can create jobs like Atiku? #OkupeIsWrongOnAtiku  Reno Omokri (@renoomokri) August 21, 2018

4-I know you support Saraki, but @doyinokupe you can campaign for Saraki without denigrating @Atiku. The opposition must not turn its arsenal on themselves. Under Buhari, 11 million jobs have been lost and herdsmen have killed thousands. Let us get him out #OkupeIsWrongOnAtiku  Reno Omokri (@renoomokri) August 21, 2018
Fashion designer, Toyin Lawani, who took to her Instagram page to share a photo in an outfit she loves, revealed that she wears clothes only once.

Gushing over her risque black dress, Toyin Lawani expressed her regret of not being able to wear the outfit again because she does not repeat clothes.

Sharing a video of herself slaying in the dress, Toyin captioned it;

Im so in love with this dress,wish I can wear it Again,But I dont repeat clothes 

https://instagram.com/p/Bms6l84HSwv/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_loading_state_control
Vanguard

NATIONAL Laison Officer of Bus Conductors Association, BCAN, of Buhari Campaign Organisation of Nigeria, BCO, Prince Israel Adeshola, weekend disclosed that over 1000 affiliate bodies have joined the BCO within the last three months.

The Nation

Kwara police seize vehicle filled with knivesYobe restricts movement as Adamawa cancels Sallah homage to traditional rulersPresident Muhammadu Buhari yesterday directed the security agencies to step up their battle to secure the country.He gave the directive during the Security Council meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.The meeting was held amid reports of security threats ahead of todays Eid-El-Kabir celebration.Many states are taking steps to guarantee a hitch-free celebration.

ThisDay

Former governor of Akwa Ibom, Senator Godswill Akpabio, said at the weekend that the takeover of the state by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2019 would be as total as the 1940 invasion of Poland by the German dictator, Adolf Hitler. Akpabio, who recently defected from the Peoples Democratic Party.

Guardian

An Abuja High Court has given an injunction restraining the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Cross River State from conducting fresh primaries.Justice O.A Musa also restrained the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party from doing so, pending the determination of the applicable suit.

The Sun

TheMinister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, has said he

Daily Times



To investigation alleged brutality Joy Anyim, Lagos. The Nigerian Army on Monday condemned the brutal and inhuman treatment metted on a 10 year old..

Daily Trust



The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has decried what it termed the unrelenting use of security forces, including special police and military units by the All Progressives Congress (APC) for elections in the country.

Leadership

The Governor of Imo state, Rochas Okorocha has called on the former Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to focus on his quest to contest for the presidential seat and not to engage in berating the state and the Governor. Okorocha was reacting to the comments made by the Former Vice-President, when he visited the state.

Tribune



Edo State chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Anslem Ojezua, recently spoke on the rift in the party, President Muhammadu Buharis performance, Governor Godwin Obasekis efforts and his optimism of victory in 2019.
As Muslims all around the world celebrate Eid el-kabir, president Muhammadu Buhari is not left out.

The president who left the presidential villa yesterday evening for his hometown in Daura, Katina to celebrate the Muslim festival has also slaughtered his rams to mark the eid el-kabir ritual.

Buhari, earlier in his Sallah message, urged Muslims to take this time to remember the submission of Prophet Allaisis-Sallam. He also urged all Nigerians to rise above personal, sectarian or group interest in dealing with themselves. He wrote:

Eid-ul-Adha offers an opportunity to remember the submission of Prophet Ibrahim Alaihis-Salam to Allah, by which he taught the world the value of sacrifice in relating with one another.  Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) August 21, 2018

We must imbibe this lesson and make it a duty to sacrifice for others and to always remember those who are less fortunate than ourselves. Selfishness, greed and corruption have no place in our lives and in our dealings with one another.  Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) August 21, 2018

I felicitate with all Nigerians, particularly the Muslim faithful, on this years celebration. I assure you all that our administration will not rest or relent as we work to build the Nigeria of our dreamssecure, prosperous and free from the ravages of corruption.  Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) August 21, 2018

See photos below
Controversial Nigerian lawyer, author and Christian TV host Reno Omokri is all out again on social media. This time around, he is not coming for politicians but for slay queens.

Reno Omokri, who was the spokesperson to former president Goodluck Jonathan has a new nugget for relationships.

On Tuesday, August 21, Omokri took to his Twitter handle to call out slay queens.

According to Omokri, he disclosed that if slay queens only bring sex to a relationship, they are as replaceable as a used recharge cards.

His post reads:

Dear slay queen

Its true love is give and take. That doesnt mean you give sex and take money. Thats not love. The expectation that a boyfriend must maintain you is immoral. If all you bring to a relationship is sex, you are as replaceable as a used recharge card #RenosNuggets
Former presidential aide, Mr Reno Omokri has faulted claims by president Muhammadu Buharis senior special assistant that the President is fit to contest for second term because he walked 800m.

The former presidential aide said it was wrong for Mr Garba Shehu to try to sell Buhari on the account that he can walk not work.

Mr Omokri, who has been a major critic of the present administration said Garba sells Buhari to Nigerians not for the economy he savaged, nor the jobs he created but because he walked 800 meters.

He said these via some tweets on Tuesday, stressing that a candidate should be sold by his achievements not by his trekking feat.

He wrote:

.@GarShehu says @MBuhari is good for a 2nd term not because of the economy he gave Nigeria (he wrecked it) not for the security he gave (Nigeria is insecure), not for the jobs he gave Nigeria (we lost 11 million jobs under him). But because he walked 800 meters today #RenosDarts  Reno Omokri (@renoomokri) August 21, 2018

.@GarShehu says because Buhari walked for 800 meters today he is ready for a 2nd term. How can you sell a candidate by his walking? What about his achievements? I jog 5 miles daily. Going by Garbas logic, I am better suited to govern Nigeria than President Buhari! #RenosDarts  Reno Omokri (@renoomokri) August 21, 2018
Peking opera classes held for foreign students

From:Shine | 2018-08-20 15:29

Shanghai Peking Opera Companys first foreigners' edition of the Follow Me training sessions began on August 20 in the city.

Twenty students from Princeton University will receive three weeks of Peking Opera immersion training, covering classic Peking Opera excerpts and basic performing skills. The sessions will run till September 7.

Celebrated theater artist Sherwood Hu and Peking opera artists such as Yan Qinggu, Chen Shaoyun and Shi Yihong will give workshops for the students and share their expertise about the art form, as well as aesthetics that are unique to the genre.

The students will also give their own performance at the end of the sessions, which will also be displayed in the United States.

According to Shan Yuejin, director of Shanghai Peking Opera Company, a total of 20 Follow Me training sessions have been held by Shanghai Peking Opera Company over the past 10 years, attracting more than 6,000 students.

Starting this year, Follow Me will open special sessions to attract more foreign students and expats to the traditional Chinese theater art.
Spokane, WA - August 21, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Before a packed room of supporters, the Spokane City Council adopted an Ordinance establishing a Sustainability Action Committee to plan for climate resilience, achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions, and support the goal of 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030. Spokane now joins 77 other U.S. cities in its commitment to the goal of 100 percent renewable electricity, including power from wind, hydroelectric, and solar.

"Creating an electrical grid from 100% renewable energy is urgent, but requires collaboration across all sectors," said Spokane Council Member Breean Beggs. "I was pleased that we were able to work so closely with Avista to create a pragmatic and cost effective approach to upgrading Spokane's electrical grid."

A score of faith communities, social justice organizations and environmental and climate groups, including 350 Spokane, Spokane NAACP, The Lands Council, Upper Columbia River Sierra Club, Pax Christi Spokane, St. Clares Ecumencial Catholic Community, Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane, Westminster Congregational United Church, Spokane Independent Metro Business Association, Spokane Riverkeeper, The Center for Justice, Citizens Climate Lobby, and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility supported the Fossil Free Spokane campaign advocating for 100% renewable electricity and a climate action plan to met that goal.

"The creation of this ordinance was a collaborative effort between elected leaders, utility representatives and concerned community members," explains Rebecca MacMullan, Co-Chair of 350 Spokane. "By establishing a standing committee of volunteer community members and stakeholders, the City Council has ensured Spokane will find responsible local solutions to the challenge of climate change through an inclusive and democratic process."

The new Sustainability Action Commission is charged with providing financial analysis of climate action plans it provides and the costs of failure to implement the plan. The 11 member commission shall include representatives of a local energy utility, low-income citizens, public health interests, local or regional companies, and environmental or climate advocacy groups, among others.

"Cities across the country are demanding clean energy not just because it's the right thing to do for the environment and public health, but because it's cheaper in the long run than fossil fuels," said Jesse Piedfort, Chair of the Washington State Chapter of the Sierra Club. "Spokane's leadership on this measure will help kickstart clean energy development in the Pacific Northwest and speed the transition to a cleaner, cheaper future."

Rowan Sandstrom at City Hall on August 7th, delivering over 400 letters in support of the 100% renewable ordinance.

Photo credit, Richard Chan www.riverrockimages.com

More Info:

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Christhian Bahena Rivera, who lives in Poweshiek County, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder on Monday, Aug. 21 in connection with the disappearance of Mollie Tibbetts. Tibbetts, of Brooklyn, Iowa, was an incoming sophomore at the Unive

rsity of Iowa. She was first reported missing on July 18, 2018.
Performer known as "Iona Fortune Sanchez" lipsanc and danced to You Don't Make Me High Anymore during the Spring Drag Show at the Memorial Union on March 30th. During the performance, the audience came up to give money to the performer, which was often used as another prop itself.
Opinion Policies

Editorials are longer opinion pieces that are written by a group of community members recruited across campus who address relevant issues on a local, national and international level. Editorials are research-based. The purpose of the Editorial Board is to promote discussion concerning relevant issues in the community while advising on possible solutions. Topics are chosen via relevancy and interests of the members, which are then discussed by the Editorial Board in order to reach a general consensus concerning the topic or issue.

Feedback policy

If you have a grievance concerning the content or argument of the Editorial Board, please contact either Opinion Editor Peyton Hamel (peyton.hamel@iowastatedaily.com) or the Editorial Board as a whole (editorialboard@iowastatedaily.com). Those wanting to respond to editorials can also submit a letter to the editor through the Iowa State Daily website or by emailing the letter to Opinion Editor Peyton Hamel (peyton.hamel@iowastatedaily.com) or Editor-in-Chief Sage Smith (sage.smith@iowastatedaily.com).

Column Policy

Columns are hyper-specific to opinion and are written by only columnists employed by the Iowa State Daily. Columnists are unique because they have a specific writing day and only publish on those writing days. Each column undergoes a thorough editing process ensuring the integrity of the writer, and their claim is maintained while remaining research-based and respectful. Columns may be submitted from community members. These are labelled as Guest Columns. These contain similar research-based content and need to be at least 400 words in length. The following requirements should be met: first and last name, email and relation or position to Iowa State. Emails must be tied to the submitted guest column or it will not be accepted or published. Pseudonyms are prohibited and the writer will be banned from submissions.

Read our full Opinion Policies here. Updated on 10/7/2020
With iPhone sales hitting an all-time low in India, Apple has revamped its strategy for the country under the leadership of Michel Coulomb. Now, as a part of its new strategy, Apple is looking to upgrade its franchisee outlets in key metro cities.

The company is looking to upgrade its franchisee outlets located in key areas in metro cities. It is looking to expand them by over three times  up to 1000sq. ft, with certain stores being expanded to as much as 5,000 sq. ft. These stores will be called Flagship Apple Premium Reseller stores and will be a stepdown version of Apples own retail stores situated in key and prominent locations around the world.

By opening these premium stores, Apple is looking to reinforce its premium branding and reputation in India after its branding has taken a massive hit due to frequent discounts from online ecommerce players. The company hopes to woo in more customers with its snazzy looking stores who are willing to pay a premium for such an experience.

In the first batch, Apple is looking to open its Flagship premium reseller stores in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chennai. In the second stage, the company will expand these stores to Hyderabad and Pune.

The Flagship Apple Premium Reseller outlets will become a stepdown version of the iconic company-owned Apple Retail Stores and will come up in extremely prominent locations as anchor shops in malls and high-street shopping areas, the executives said. With company-owned Apple Stores yet to take shape in the country, Apple wants some of the franchisee run outlets to up the experience game through this new format. This is part of Apples new India strategy to focus on selling on experience rather than discount, he said.

Apple has been looking to open its direct stores in India for a few years now. However, the strict FDI regulations require the company to source at least 30 percent of components locally which Apple has been unable to do due to the cutting-edge nature of its products. Thus, the company is now doing the next best thing: improving its franchisee based retail stores.

Given the exorbitant pricing of the iPhone X in India, it is not surprising that iPhone sales in India have hit an all-time low. With Apple launching a budget $500-600 iPhone as a part of its 2018 iPhone lineup, theres a possibility of the company making a strong comeback in the premium Indian smartphone market.

[Via Economic Times
Apple has a few suppliers in Taiwan that are instrumental in piecing together some of the companys core devices. A new report from Taiwan now indicates that Apple is taking most of its business to China, leaving some Taiwanese suppliers out to dry.

The move is justified, however, given that sourcing its components from China is significantly cheaper from the company and will consequently help the company boost its profits.

One of the victims of this new move, Catcher Technology, is reportedly taking orders from high-end manufacturers in China to fill the void left by Apple. This company used to make the metal chassis for the MacBook. Catcher lost its business to Chinese vendors Everwin Precision Technology and AAC Technologies.

There is some respite for Taiwan-based companies like Foxconn, Casetek, and Catcher as these companies can comfortably meet Apples rigorous demands. So theres no reason for Apple to sever all ties with these companies as of yet.

Apples move to cut costs makes more sense when we consider the fact that it plans to launch competitively priced consumer products like the MacBook this year. Earlier in 2018, we saw the arrival of the low-cost iPad for $329 which has tipped us in the direction that the company is heading in. Although there were reports earlier this year about a cheaper MacBook Air hitting the markets, we havent heard much about it since then.

Heres an excerpt from the Digitimes report:

With their excellent manufacturing capabilities, many Taiwan suppliers used to rely on Apple orders to support their revenue increases and outperform China counterparts. However, Apple has changed its marketing strategies in recent years and started to introduce more China makers into its supply chains, as the US vendor has no longer stuck to top consumer groups for sales of its devices, becoming more concerned about production costs.

[Via Digitimes
Google today announced a major revamp to its Fit application for Android and iPhone. The redesign does away with steps and puts more emphasis on activity rings to motivate one to meet their daily step goals and move regularly. The approach to put emphasis on activity rings is similar to what Apple already does with Apple Watch and watchOS.

Google says the new activity goals are based on AHA and WHOs activity recommendations. It comprises of Move Minutes and Heart Points.

As the name indicates, Move Minutes is the total number of minutes you have moved throughout the day. The second activity ring is for Heart Points wherein one can earn one point by doing a minute of moderate activity at the very minimum. Google says a user can close their rings by just brisk walking for 30 minutes for 5 days a week which can reduce the risk of heart disease, improve sleep and mental health.

The new Google Fit will also be able to detect ones activity and track them automatically. It will make use of all available sensors on a device or smartwatch including the accelerometer, GPS, and heart rate sensor for accurate tracking.

Theres also a new journal view in the app that will give an overview of ones activities throughout the day.

If you dont use Google Fit for your fitness tracking, worry not as the app also integrates with almost every other popular fitness app out there like Strava, Runkeeper, Endomondo, and MyFitnessPal. This will ensure that you will continue to earn Move Minute and Heart Point irrespective of which app you use for tracking.

[Via Google
Netflix has removed the ability for new users to sign up for its service via its iOS app. The company has done this so as to avoid paying Apple the 30 percent cut every time a new user signs up for Netflix using its iOS app.

Netflix is currently testing in-app payment removal in 33 countries. This includes markets like France, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, the U.K., Italy, and South Korea.

Netflix has been testing the removal of IAPs from its iOS app since June and in the initial phase, the test was limited to just 10 countries. Since August, Netflix furthered widened the scope of the test to include 33 countries.

Netflix has already removed the ability for new users to sign up for its service via its Android app.

Netflix says the test is expected to last until September 30. Up until this point, new or returning Netflix users will be unable to sign up or renew their subscription through the iOS app. Instead, they will be redirected to Netflixs mobile website.

During this time, customers in these countries may experience any of the following when launching the Netflix app on an iOS (mobile or tablet) device: 1. Ability to sign up in app with only iTunes Mode Of Payment. 2. Ability to log into Netflix but not sign up (sign up only via mobile browser), he wrote. We are constantly innovating and testing new signup approaches on different platforms to better understand what our members like. Based on what we learn, we work to improve the Netflix experience for members everywhere.  a Netflix customer support informed TechCrunch.

Netflix is one of the many subscription-based companies which is mulling removing IAPs from its app to avoid giving a share of its revenue to Apple. Spotify is one such service which has already removed the ability for new users to sign up for its service using its iOS app. Instead, it redirects such users to its website thereby avoiding the need to pay Apple a 30 percent share of its revenue generated through iOS.

[Via TechCrunch
Science expo to showcase latest in tech

From:Shanghai Daily | 2018-08-21 04:29

THE 5th Popular Science Products Expo will be held at the Shanghai Exhibition Center between August 24 and 27. The event is organized by the China Beidou Technology Innovation West Hongqiao Park.

More than 350 science and technology companies, science parks, scientific research institutions and universities from over 10 countries and regions will take part in the event, which will showcase their latest technologies and products. The awards ceremony of the China portion of Robotex International, an annual robotics competition, will take place at the exhibition as well.

According to Liang Zhaozheng, deputy head of the Shanghai Association for Science and Technology, the upcoming exhibition will highlight developments in fields such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and science education.

Liang also described the exhibition as a prelude to the 2018 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, to be hosted in Shanghai between September 17 and 19.

The event will showcase a range of consumer products, such as the Mile 1 smart concept car by Qoros Auto. The car is equipped with 5G network connectivity, face-recognition and AI software, among other technologies.

Tech products related to health care will also take center stage, including Xiaoxintong, a mobile app that monitors the health of the elderly and informs their family members of unusual data.

A 24-hour smart medical vending machine will be displayed too, as will an intelligence wheelchair designed by a Swedish company.


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Authentic art, food and travel up for grabs at India festival

From:Shine | 2018-08-21 11:29

The Indian Consulate General in Shanghai is calling for enthusiasts of Indian culture to drop in at the Grand Millennium Shanghai Hotel on September 1 to enjoy an Indian carnival."

At the hotel, from 10am to 6pm, visitors can learn and practice yoga with masters, be introduced to various Indian musical instruments and dances, and taste authentic Indian food.

Visitors are also invited to appreciate traditional Indian art such as hand painting and other handicrafts.

As if that wasn't enough, a lucky draw will see someone jetting off to India for a free holiday.

Those interested can scan the QR code in the picture below to read the full program of the day and sign up by entering their name, mobile phone and a time period during which they wish to attend the event.

The consulate general said all visits to the event are free of charge.
Two that have been featured in all newspapers with a priority are: the alleged murder of former ambassador Keshav Jha in Kathmandu; and the obstruction of vegetable brokers and traders to a government monitoring team at Kalimati fruit and vegetable market. Some newspapers have also highlighted a report prepared by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority about spending of public utilities on their front pages.

Other political activities including preparations in the ruling Nepal Communist Party to wrap up the months-long unification process have also been highlight. There are some stories about the main opposition Nepali Congress as well.

Few other sociopolitical and financial issues have been featured on the cover pages of major newspapers.

Important

Jhas murder remains mystery

Though police have already launched an investigation into the alleged murder of former ambassador Keshav Jha in the wee hours of Monday, they have not cracked any mystery so far according to newspaper reports.

Nagarik says police have suspected the involvement of his domestic workers in the murder as it was found that a kitchen knife was used in the crime. Meanwhile, police have arrested three persons in connecting with the crime, according to Nepal Samacharpatra. All of the suspects arrested are domestic workers at Jhas house, according to Rajdhani.

Quoting SSP Dhiraj Pratap Singh, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Crime Division, police are studying various aspects to draw a conclusion at the earliest.

Province 3 CM warns of action for tax increase

Nagarik and Republica have reported that the Chief Minister of Province 3, Dor Mani Paudel, has directed all local governments under his governments jurisdiction to stop collecting excessive taxes from members of the public.

Paudel has warned that he will not release grants from the provincial government if any local government was found to be involved in exorbitant tax collection.

Meanwhile, the government has directed all 119 local units to send details of their tax collection to the provincial government, Nagarik reports. So far, 10 local units have sent the report.

CM Paudel has been quoted in the report, If the tax imposed by the local government is found to be against rules, such provisions get automatically scrapped.

Ignored

Koiralas prepare to fight against Deuba

Three key leaders of the Koirala family in Nepali CongressShashanka, Shekhar and Sujataare preparing to fight against incumbent party President Sher Bahadur Deuba and his side as the party will go for the new leadership race, according to the lead story in Naya Patrika.

The report claims that Koiralas are planning to woo influential leaders of the party including Prakash Man Singh, Krishna Prasad Sitaula, Kul Bahadudr Gurung and Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar. The partys senior leader Ram Chandra Paudel, however, not find any place in the camp, the report predicts.

NAC disrespected Auditor Generals recommendation

Annapurna Post reports in its lead story that the national flag carrier, Nepal Airlines Corporation, is continuously ignoring suggestions extended by the Office of Auditor General and its financial transactions are breaching existing laws.

The report claims that the recent purchase of two wide body aircraft produced by Airbus is also faulty as the Corporation did not make any attempt to seek discounts.

Task force formed to launch MBBS course at Karnali Academy

In line with an agreement signed with medical education reform activist Dr Govinda KC last month, the government has formed a task force to prepare for the launch of medical science courses at Jumla-based Karnali Academy of Health Sciences.

The Ministry of Education has given the four-member team a period of three months to prepare a report and submit it to the government.

Govt appeals to review Supreme Court order on road expansion

Concluding that the apex courts earlier verdict about providing compensation to people residing by the road is impractical and against existing laws, the Office of the Prime Minister on Monday filed an appeal at the Supreme Court demanding a review on the verdict, reports Abhiyan.

The government in the appeal has argued that obstructing the road expansion will not be legal and logical and such activities will delay the development process.

Malaysia wants employers to bear recruitment cost

A two column story in The Kathmandu Post reports that the Malaysian government has proposed to sign a new labour agreement with Nepal, according to which employer companies, not the workers, have to bear the recruitment costs.

Meeting expectations of the Nepali side, the Kuala Lumpur government has also agreed not to involve any agent or agent company in the recruitment process so that the workers can take up the jobs without any hassle and chance of being cheated, the report informs.

Interesting

Landslide elates Doti villagers

Kantipur reports in its anchor story that locals in Girichauka of Adarsha Rural Municipality in Doti district of far-western Nepal get elated every time a landslide occurs at local Sillabhir. The landslide, unlike that of other places, does not cause any loss to the villagers. Instead, some rocks useful in roofing their houses also fall down with the debris, and villagers collect them enthusiastically, according to the report.
WASHINGTON, D.C.  For Oregon students interested in attending one of the U.S.' most prestigious service academies, earning a nomination from one of the state's top lawmakers can be an essential way to get a proverbial foot in the door.

It is always an honor and privilege to nominate outstanding young Oregonians to our nations service academies each year, said Representative Greg Walden (R-Hood River). I encourage students who are eager to grow intellectually, lead by example, and serve our country to apply for a nomination to one of the prestigious service academies through my office."

Service academies include the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado; the Military Academy at West Point, New York; the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; and the Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York.

Each year, students from across Oregons Second District are nominated by Walden for acceptance to the service academies after being recommended by the representative's Service Academy Nomination Board. The Board consists of active and retired military officers who interview potential candidates for the service academies, then issue recommendations based on the students' "academic performance, extracurricular involvement and character."

To apply for a nomination through Walden's office, click here.

Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley also provide similar nominations for service academy aspirants. For Wyden's application, click here. For Merkley's application, click here.

This year seven students from Oregons Second District were accepted to the service academies of their choice after being nominated by Waldenincluding two from Jackson County and one from Klamath County.
BROWNSVILLE, Ore. (AP)  Linn County authorities say a black teenager was assaulted at a country music festival after he criticized a Confederate flag three men were waving.

Sheriff Jim Yon said Monday that the men were driving through the camping area of the Willamette Country Music Festival in Brownsville waving the flag from a newer-model black Ford truck when the 18-year-old victim spoke out.

One of the men got out and hit the victim several times before fleeing. He has not been found.

The victim was treated for non-life threatening injuries.

Linn County Lt. Michelle Duncan says authorities are investigating whether the incident qualifies as a hate crime.

The suspect had dark hair and was wearing jeans, a black muscle shirt with the sides cut, brown boots and a black cowboy hat.
Home  Just In  Ruling party lawmaker warns of resorting to border blockade again

Birgunj, August 20

A central leader of Deputy Prime Minister Upendra Yadavs Federal Socialist Forum-Nepal has warned that the Madhesh-centric party may resort to a border blockade like that of 2015 again if Nepal decides to install barbed wire fences along the border line with India.

Lawmaker Pradeep Yadav says the Eminent Persons Group on Nepal-India Relations is going to recommend installing fences along the border line, and hence objects to the preparation.

He says such activities will jeopardise the harmonious relations the two countries have been sharing for years.

Speaking at a function in his hometown Birgunj of Parsa district today, It has been learned that the Group recommended installing wire fences and requiring passports to move across the border. But, the two countries are closely connected for ages and these recommendations are efforts to end that.

We will not let it happen.
BROOKINGS, Ore.  An extremely active fire season this summer is pushing people in Oregon and Northern California to escape to the coast to get a breath of fresh air. Coastal towns like Brookings are seeing an increase in tourists visiting because of the smoke inland.

When the fires started it seemed like the pace picked up immediately, says Howard Jones.

You wont find Howard Jones complaining about the busy season. The owner of the Sporthaven Marina Bar and Grill knows how quickly that can change. Last year looked a lot different for the town of Brookings. The Chetco fire, which burned more than 191,000 acres, led to a loss in tourism and profits for local businesses.

Last year the fire was so close that a lot of people cancelled on us. The environment wasnt that appealing so Im pretty sure most of the people coast must have felt a pinch, says Sarju Patel, general manager for the Westward Inn.

Howard Jones says he is sympathetic to what people are going through in areas affected by fires and smoke. His restaurant was almost evacuated last summer and says, our hearts are open for those who are going through the same things that we went through last year.

With people coming from areas like Redding and Medford, Brooking residents are noticing heavier traffic along the 101 and even empty shelves at the grocery store.

Even grocery shopping, the stores are depleted on their shelves, they werent expecting the extra people to be coming in to escape the smoke, says Shacon Ritz, co-owner of Matties Pancake House.

Lodging in the area is another area people are seeing an influx of visitors. Hotels and RV parks have been booked up for weeks, making it difficult for people to find last minute accommodations. As you drive up the 101 highway no vacancy signs are lit up everywhere.

A lot of no vacancy signs, a lot of people calling ahead of time trying to get their rooms. Sometimes we even get them at nighttime, people trying to get rooms when its already filled up, says Sarju Patel.

Many business owners like Jones are grateful for a busier Summer season. He says hes also happy his restaurant can serve a place for people to get a break from the smoke and heat.

This a place you can come to relax just for a minute and kind of let it go, says Jones.

Many of the businesses expect the high tourism numbers to persist into late September because of the smoke. Visitors are already preparing in advance by making reservations for next year at various lodging sites in Brookings.
FILE- In this July 9, 2018, file photo, the U.S. Capitol dome is seen in Washington. Microsoft has uncovered new hacking attempts by Russia targeting U.S. political groups ahead of the midterm elections. The company said Tuesday, Aug. 21, that a group tied to the Russian government created fake websites that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. Three other fake sites were designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
Sebelum Anda bermain, Anda perlu mengetahui apa yang Anda butuhkan untuk masuk ke dalam permainan roulette kasino online ini. Jika Anda sudah mendaftar di situs judi casino online dan sudah memberikan user ID, login terlebih dahulu dan pilih menu live casino yang tertera di situs judi tersebut. Pertama pilih dealer dan putuskan sendiri, lalu pilih meja atau kursi di dalam ruangan. Jika namanya tertera dan berwarna coklat, maka kursi tersebut sudah ditempati oleh pemain lain, dan pilihlah kursi kosong berwarna hitam.

Kasino Roulette adalah salah satu permainan paling populer di situs perjudian kasino. Jadi dalam permainan ini kamu harus menebak angka berapa yang akan keluar. Ada 36 nomor berbeda dalam permainan populer ini di mana sebuah bola kecil diputar dan dilemparkan ke dalam mesin roulette. Anda harus menebak dari mana bola kecil itu masuk dan di nomor berapa ia berhenti. Ada banyak jenis pilihan angka dari 0-36, dan mereka dihitung secara berbeda. Sebagai agen casino terpercaya, panduan permainan roulette ini juga memberikan informasi tentang jenis pilihan dan nama permainan roulette casino online sebagai berikut:

Jika Anda ingin bermain roulette di situs kasino online, caranya sangat sederhana. Anda dapat bermain di Kasino ION, Kasino Sbobet, dan Situs Kasino. Di bawah ini adalah artikel panduan bermain di mana Anda dapat mempelajari roulette langsung dan memainkannya di situs judi online mana pun.

tangkapan layar

Sebelum Anda bermain, Anda perlu mengetahui apa yang Anda butuhkan untuk masuk ke dalam permainan roulette kasino online ini. Jika Anda sudah mendaftar di situs judi casino online dan sudah memberikan user ID, login terlebih dahulu dan pilih menu live casino yang tertera di situs judi online tersebut. Pertama pilih dealer dan putuskan sendiri, lalu pilih meja atau kursi di dalam ruangan. Jika namanya tertera dan berwarna coklat, maka kursi tersebut sudah ditempati oleh pemain lain, dan pilihlah kursi kosong berwarna hitam.

Panduan Bermain Online Kasino Roulette

Kasino Roulette adalah salah satu permainan paling populer di situs perjudian kasino. Jadi dalam permainan ini kamu harus menebak angka berapa yang akan keluar. Ada 36 nomor berbeda dalam permainan populer ini di mana sebuah bola kecil diputar dan dilemparkan ke dalam mesin roulette. Anda harus menebak dari mana bola kecil itu masuk dan di nomor berapa ia berhenti. Ada banyak jenis pilihan angka dari 0-36, dan mereka dihitung secara berbeda. Sebagai agen casino terpercaya, panduan permainan roulette ini juga memberikan informasi tentang jenis pilihan dan nama permainan roulette casino online sebagai berikut:

1. Straight Up: Penempatan angka tunggal dari 0 hingga 36. Contoh perhitungan straight up adalah mengalikan taruhan dengan 35. Ini adalah jenis taruhan tertinggi dalam permainan roulette kasino, jadi 50 dikalikan dengan 35 memberi Anda 1750, mengapa jenis taruhan ini menghasilkan pengembalian yang begitu tinggi? Hal ini karena tidak mudah untuk memenangkan pilihan nomor dengan memilih hanya satu nomor dari banyak.

2. Taruhan split: Jenis taruhan yang ditempatkan pada dua angka atau di antara dua angka yang berbeda. Misalnya, menempatkan di sela-sela angka 9 dan 12 atau 13d dan 14 dihitung sebagai jenis taruhan split. Setiap nomor dapat ditempatkan dalam jenis ini selama nomor tersebut berdekatan dan persis seperti Gambar A dan B. Untuk taruhan ini, jika Anda memenangkan contoh dan mengalikannya dengan 850, Anda akan menerima jumlah taruhan yang dikalikan dengan 17. .

3. Taruhan jalanan: bertaruh dengan 3 angka ke bawah, misalnya 1,2,3 atau 10,11,12. Semua taruhan jalan akan menerima kemenangan dikalikan dengan 11. Misalnya, 50 dikalikan 550.

4. Taruhan sudut: Jenis taruhan di mana empat angka ditempatkan saling berhadapan, seperti 13,14,16,17 atau 19,20,22,23. Semua angka valid karena terdiri dari 4 angka yang diisi seperti kotak dan taruhan dikalikan 8 (misalnya 50 kali 800).

5. Taruhan baris: Atau, Anda dapat mengatakan bahwa ada 6 jenis taruhan yang terdiri dari 2 baris, tetapi 6 poin dengan 2 peregangan, seperti taruhan jalanan. Misalnya, jika Anda memilih angka 7 hingga 12 dan 13 hingga 18, taruhan 50 adalah 5 kali dan kemudian dikalikan dengan 250 kemenangan.

6. Kolom Inner Bet: Jenis taruhan vertikal dengan 12 poin berturut-turut, seperti kolom numerik 1,4,7,10,13,19,22,25,25,28,22,24,34 atau kolom lainnya. Dan jika dia memenangkan kolom, 50 taruhan digandakan dan 100 taruhan.

7. Lusin : Jenis taruhan menempatkan 12 angka tetapi menempatkannya pada kotak berbentuk seperti contoh Kolom A dengan angka 1 sampai 12 dan odds dengan kolom lain untuk dipilih dengan memilih 1 kotak pertama untuk Kolom A. Kalikan dengan 2, 50 taruhan 100.

8. Zero part : Cara bertaruh 0.1,2,3 sama persis seperti di gambar, karena berdekatan dengan angka 0, anda hanya bisa bertaruh 0.1,2,3. Menempatkan taruhan ini mengalikannya dengan 50. hingga 8.

9. Zero Corner: Bertaruh pada angka 0.1,2 atau 0.2,3 adalah dua pilihan karena Anda hanya bertaruh mendekati angka nol. Jenis taruhan ini dikalikan 11 jika taruhan menang.

10. Two Dozen: Jenis taruhan dengan hanya dua pilihan: 1-18 atau 19-36. Jika taruhan Anda adalah 50, itu dikalikan dengan 1 hingga 50 jika Anda menang.

11. Merah atau Hitam: Masukkan taruhan Anda dengan memilih Merah atau Hitam sebagai warna angka yang muncul saat taruhan 50.

12. Genap/Ganjil: Pilih angka yang menghasilkan jumlah jenis taruhan ganjil.
BROWNSVILLE, Ore.  Deputies are searching for a suspect who assaulted a black teenager at the Bi-Mart Willamette Country Music Festival during a dispute over a Confederate Flag.

The Linn County Sheriffs Office said three males were driving a pickup through the camping area near Section O waving a large Confederate Flag before the Kid Rock concert Sunday night.

Deputies said an 18-year-old black man yelled something to the males in the truck about their flag because he didnt like it.

They said a male jumped out of the truck, exchanged words with the victim and hit him several times before driving off.

The victim was taken to Lebanon Community Hospital where he was treated for non-life threatening injuries.

Deputies said the males in the truck were in their late teens to early twenties driving a newer full-sized Ford pick-up. They said the suspect in the assault had dark hair and was wearing blue jeans, a black muscle shirt with the sides cut, brown boots and a black cowboy hat.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Linn County Sheriffs Office at 541-967-3950.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- An attorney for Democratic Gov. Kate Brown's campaign is demanding that Oregon TV stations stop airing an attack ad, claiming it's illegal under state law because it's making false statements.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reports that a letter from attorney Harry Wilson was sent to stations Monday, saying the recent ad by the group Priority Oregon "contains numerous false statements of fact."

The group's ad depicts a woman reading a bedtime story to her children about Oregon under Brown's leadership. At the end of the story, the woman says, "you can sell drugs while running a day care."

Wilson in the letter says that statement is untrue and cites the state administrative rules that prohibit such action.

Republican State Rep. Knute Buehler is challenging Brown for the governor's office.
LANE COUNTY, Ore. -- A Lane County man found guilty of sexually abusing a child under the age of 12 has been sentenced to more than 93 years in prison.

The child was in the foster care of Joe Raygosa, 45, and his wife from June 2016 to July 2017.

Raygosa was accused of touching the child sexually, forcing himself on the child, taking naked pictures of the child and showing the child pornography.

Police said the abuse was reported after the child was moved to another foster home.
EUGENE, Ore.  If youve done some shopping at a Fred Meyer lately, you may want to check your receipt.

Customers in an Oregon class action lawsuit claim the grocery store chain charged a bottle deposit on containers that arent redeemable.

Michael Fuller, the attorney representing the customers, described a tidal wave of people throughout the state complaining they were ripped off.

"Some people looked at their receipt when they were having their items scanned and said, '10 cents? No, this is orange juice in a carton that's not a deposit item,' Fuller said. Others noticed it after they had payed. Others noticed it when they went to return the item that wouldn't have thought to return the item and then others wouldn't have thought to return the item and they didn't know it all until they went back to look at their receipts once they heard of the case."

Fuller said his clients bought a carton of Florida Natural Orange juice and when they tried to get their deposit back, they were turned away.

Under Oregons bottle bill, only metal, glass and plastic bottles can be returned for a refund. This excludes paper cartons.

Fuller said hes had people reaching out to him for a month or two about this.

"A lot of times, especially with these class actions where it's a hidden fee, people don't notice it right away, Fuller said. They say, you know, it's not fair. It's not the 10 cents that's going to break my pocket book, it's just a matter of fairness."

A Fred Meyer spokesperson refused to answer questions about the controversy or its bottle policy in general. In a written statement, the spokesperson said the company will take steps to correct any errors they find:

Fred Meyer has always been committed to our customers shopping experience. If we ever discover we have made an error we take immediate corrective action. We will continue to be the trusted community partner that Oregon residents have come to rely upon for the past 96 years.

Thousands of people who paid the extra deposit on these containers would be eligible to receive about $200 in damages if the customers win the class action lawsuit, according to a complaint filed in federal court on August 13.
EUGENE, Ore. -- Lane Community College is offering an Unmanned Aerial Systems program for the first time this fall.

Staff with LCC said this is an industry that's growing quickly, and it's applicable to many more fields of work than is commonly known. They said many people assume the skills to use a drone only come in handy if you work in media, but drones are being utilized every day in farming, firefighting, construction and so much more.

It's still kind of seen as a toy, but there's a lot of applications that it's growing in, and you're going to see larger and larger drones, and that's where we're looking to the larger applications, said Sean Parrish, Chief Flight Instructor at LCC.

Parrish said in the years to come, drones will start taking on bigger projects like overseeing acres of land and searching for the entirety of a wildfire. It's important for workers to have the skills to operate drones for those projects now.

The new Unmanned Aerial Systems degree and certificate is going to be a two-year program. This comes with an associate of applied science degree, a certificate in aerial photography, and a certificate in geographic information science. You can learn more about the program here.
ROCHESTER, Minn.  A man arrested in 1986 has finally been sentenced in 2018.

Stephen Gerhart Bratrud, 66 of Rochester, was accused in May 1986 of 1st and 2nd degree criminal sexual conduct. Rochester police said a 15-year-old girl reportedly being sexually abused by Bratrud, starting when she was five years old and continuing through February 1986.

A warrant was issued for Bratrud but he wasnt arrested until April 2018. Authorities say it appears he was living outside the United States, returned to the country for health reasons, and was caught in Texas.

Bratrud pleaded guilty on June 21 to 2nd degree criminal sexual conduct and was sentenced Monday to 225 days in the Olmsted County Adult Detention Center, followed by 25 years of supervised probation. He will also have to pay a $1,500 fine or perform 150 hours of community work service.
DECORAH, Iowa  A Winneshiek County man is pleading not guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon and two counts of going armed with intent.

Jayme David Kimber, 38 of Decorah, was arrested after the Winneshiek County Sheriffs Office got a 911 call the evening on July 31 about an ATV accident on 155th Avenue. Deputies found the ATV but the driver was gone.

Another 911 call came in about a disturbance on Middle Sattre Road where authorities say Kimber was threatening people. He was arrested around 2:45 am on August 1 when he was found in a shed surrounded by hay bales. Deputies say firearms were also found with Kimber.

His trial is scheduled to begin on November 7.
DES MOINES, Iowa  Clear Lake, Osage, Riceville, and Garner-Hayfield-Ventura schools will share in a new $1 million fund to build their computer science teacher workforce.

Governor Kim Reynolds announced Tuesday that 49 school districts and schools will receive money as part of a broader effort to expand computer science education in schools across Iowa.

This funding for teachers underscores Iowas commitment to giving all students access to the computer science skills and training necessary to fill the jobs of the future, says Governor Reynolds said. In a technology-driven economy, its essential that students learn the basics of computer science, starting in elementary school, so they have the opportunity to explore these career paths and the foundation to take more advanced courses. They deserve to be prepared for great Iowa computer science jobs, if that is what they want to do.

Schools will use the incentive fund to pay for professional learning or university coursework for teaching endorsements in computer science. They will then report on their progress by the end of the 2018-19 school year.

This is a great opportunity for schools and districts that are just getting started in computer science, as well as those that have a solid foundation from which to build, says Iowa Department of Education Director Ryan Wise. There are many talented, dedicated educators throughout Iowa, and this is about building their capacity to deliver high-quality computer science instruction at every grade level.

Iowa lawmakers provided $500,000 for the incentive fund and the rest comes from a 2007 settlement of an Iowa class-action anti-trust lawsuit filed against Microsoft Corp. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Iowans who had bought the companys programs at allegedly inflated prices, and the settlement agreement included setting aside a portion of unclaimed money for technology in Iowa schools.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Trump administration moved to dismantle another major piece of President Barack Obama's environmental legacy on Tuesday, proposing to dramatically scale back restrictions on climate-changing emissions from coal-fired power plants even as it acknowledged that could lead to more premature deaths and serious illnesses.

The Trump plan broadly increases the authority given states to decide how and how much to regulate coal power plants. The Environmental Protection Agency said the move "empowers states, promotes energy independence and facilitates economic growth and job creation."

Bill Wehrum, head of the EPA's air office, said the administration rejects any suggestion the agency has a broad legal duty to combat climate change through regulation of power grids or promotion of cleaner energy.

"An important part of what we're doing here is getting us back into our lane," Wehrum said.

Environmentalists and other opponents said they expect legal challenges, arguing the Trump administration is abdicating its responsibilities under the Clean Air Act as set by Congress and the courts.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller issued the following statement: Iowa has made huge strides in moving away from its dependence on coal. Wind provided 37 percent of Iowas total electric generation last year, a larger share than in any other state. Iowa is well prepared to comply with the Clean Power Plan. The administration wants to go backward, however, and our health and our environment will suffer as a result. The administrations own proposal acknowledges that its replacement plan would increase carbon emissions and, according to some estimates, lead to up to 1,400 premature deaths annually.

The Natural Resources Defense Council called the replacement proposal President Donald Trump's "Dirty Power Plan."

The Trump administration is emphasizing "coal at all costs," said Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator when the Obama plan was developed.

"There is no other country in the world that is looking at coal as its future  they are all running to clean energy to save money, create jobs and save lives today and protect our children's future. Climate change is real," McCarthy said in a statement.

EPA officials said they could give no firm projections for the health effects of the Trump administration replacement plan because that will depend on what states decide to do in regulating power plants within their borders.

But models provided by the agency estimate that under the Trump plan, 300 to 1,500 premature deaths would be avoided a year by 2030. The Obama plan says 1,500 and 3,600 premature deaths would be avoided.

The models for the Trump plan also project tens of thousands of additional major asthma attacks and hundreds more heart attacks compared with the Obama plan, which has been hung up in the courts.

EPA called the Obama-era regulations on coal power plants "overly prescriptive and burdensome."

Combined with the EPA's proposal earlier this month to ease gas-mileage requirements for vehicles, the move may actually increase the country's climate-changing emissions, according to some former top EPA officials, environmental groups and other opponents.

Trump was expected to promote the new plan at a coal-country appearance in West Virginia on Tuesday. He made no direct mention of the EPA's announcement in the morning but ended a tweet about his upcoming trip by exclaiming, "CLEAN COAL!"

Tuesday's move opens a public-comment period on the proposal before any final approval by the president.

Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey cited this summer's wildfires and increasing droughts and coastal flooding as evidence that man-made climate change from burning coal and other fossil fuels is already well upon the United States.

"Once again, this administration is choosing polluters' profits over public health and safety," he said.

Scientists say that without extensive study they cannot directly link a single weather event to climate change, but that it is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme events such as storms, droughts, floods and wildfires.

In a statement, Republican Sen. John Barrasso from the coal state of Wyoming welcomes the overhaul of the Obama administration's 2015 regulations, called the Clean Power Plan.

The new proposal establishes guidelines for states to use when developing any plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Critics say the new plan would allow utilities to run older, dirtier power plants more often and extend their operating life, undercutting potential environmental benefits.

Trump has already vowed to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement as he pushes to revive the coal industry. The Obama administration had worked to nudge the country's power producers toward natural gas, wind, solar and other less-polluting energy sources.

Trump also has directed Energy Secretary Rick Perry to take steps to bolster struggling coal-fired and nuclear power plants to keep them open, warning that impending retirements of such plants are harming the nation's electrical grid and reducing its resilience.

Obama's plan was designed to cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The rule dictated specific emission targets for states and gave officials broad latitude to decide how to achieve reductions.

The Supreme Court put the plan on hold in 2016 following a legal challenge by industry and coal-friendly states, an order that remains in effect.

Even so, the Obama plan has been a factor in the wave of retirements of coal-fired plants, which also are being squeezed by lower costs for natural gas and renewable power and state mandates that promote energy conservation.

Trump has vowed to end what Republicans call a "war on coal" waged by Obama.

Michelle Bloodworth, president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a trade group that represents coal producers, called the new rule a marked departure from the "gross overreach" of the Obama administration and said it should prevent a host of premature coal-plant retirements.

"We agree with those policymakers who have become increasingly concerned that coal retirements are a threat to grid resilience and national security," she said.
CHARLES CITY, Iowa  A Rockford man charged with 12 crimes in Floyd County is pleading guilty to five of them.

Colten Lee Lindley, 23, was arrested in July and accused of working with Jason Duane Burnett, 20 of Rudd, to steal two Dodge Ram Trucks and an International Harvester tractor. Lindley was then accused of passing bad checks at two businesses, stealing a red Honda ATV, and illegal possession of a prescription drug.



Jason Burnett Jason Burnett

Lindley was charged with 12 crimes, including arson, burglary, and possession of stolen property.

On Monday, he pleaded guilty to ongoing criminal conduct, 1st degree theft, forgery, 3rd degree burglary, and 2nd degree theft. No sentencing date has been set.

Burnett has pleaded not guilty to ongoing criminal conduct, two counts of 1st degree theft, 2nd degree arson, 2nd degree theft, 3rd degree theft, and 4th degree theft. His trial is scheduled to start on October 30.
ROCHESTER, Minn.  The Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC) is awarding $95,000 in grants to 24 agencies throughout the region.

Those receiving funding are:

Goodhue County

 Tony Cuchetti received a $5,000 Advancing Artist grant for Inspired Collusion: Fine Art Interpreted Thru Song.

 Dawn Erickson received a $5,000 Advancing Artist grant for Charcoal & Persimmon: A Textile Travelogue.

 John Wells received a $5,000 Advancing Artist grant to Create Paintings with Contrasting Colors.

 Red Wing Art Association received a $4,000 General Operating Support grant for Facilities & Maintenance.

Mower County

 Austin Symphony Orchestra received a $4,000 General Operating Support grant for Staffing & Salaries.

Olmsted County

 Eric Anderson received a $2,500 Emerging Artist grant for Fantasy for Eleven Fingers.

 Jessalyn Finch received a $2,500 Emerging Artist grant for Shadow Form: The Human Bodys Secret Life.

 Carley McHenry received a $2,500 Emerging Artist grant for Collecting Roots.

 Ann Simerlink received a $5,000 Advancing Artist grant for Vocal Recital with New Works by Regional Composers.

 Richard Swanson received a $2,500 Emerging Artist grant for Light Chasers: An Intersection of Science and Art.

 Dover Eyota Music Association received a $4,000 General Operating Support grant for Administrative Expenses.

 Rochester Chamber Music Society received a $4,000 General Operating Support grant for Staffing & Salaries.

 Zumbro Valley Chorus of Sweet Adelines received a $4,000 General Operating Support grant for Administrative Expenses.

Rice County

 Daniel Kallman received a $5,000 Advancing Artist grant for Our Children, Our World: Intergenerational Concert.

 Tami Resler received a $2,500 Emerging Artist grant for Out of the Woods, Into the Fire.

 Isabella Rose received a $2,500 Emerging Artist grant for Baggage: Immigrants.

 Linda Rossi received a $5,000 Advancing Artist grant for Photographic Puzzles of Rice County.

 Michon Weeks received a $5,000 Advancing Artist grant for Other Hearts: Tales of 18 Outstate Minnesota Lives.

 I Cantanti Chamber Choirs received a $4,000 General Operating Support grant for Staffing & Salaries.

Winona County

 Kathleen Hawkes received a $5,000 Advancing Artist grant for Sea Legs: An Art Exhibition.

 Frozen River Film Festival received a $4,000 General Operating Support grant for Staffing & Salaries.

 Mid West Music Fest received a $4,000 General Operating Support grant for Staffing & Salaries.

 Theatre du Mississippi received a $4,000 General Operating Support grant for Staffing & Salaries.

 Winona Symphony Orchestra received a $4,000 General Operating Support grant for Staffing & Salaries.

SEMAC supports local/regional arts in Dodge, Fillmore, Freeborn, Goodhue, Houston, Mower, Olmsted, Rice, Steele, Wabasha, and Winona counties.
ROCHESTER, Minn. - It turns out if you have anxiety, you're not alone. In fact, a recent survey revealed that anxiety in America has risen with most people worrying about finances and health. According to the American Psychiatric Association 39-percent of people said they feel more anxious now than a year ago.

While many therapists offices offer talk therapy there is a place in Rochester that incorporates animals.

Finding a psychotherapist that Brianne Olson clicked with was a process, she met with five different counselors before connecting to Kit Muellner, at Hope Ranch.

"I remember that first session, I felt like I connected with her right away. I told her a lot of things that I hadn't told any other previous therapists," said client Brianne Olson.

Kit Muellner owns Hope Ranch, which offers Equine assisted learning activities and psychotherapy.

"Often we will get people referred to us after they have not been successful in more traditional approaches," explained Muellner.

When you arrive at Hope Ranch you're greeted at the door by a wagging tail. A dog, multiple cats, and five horses assist in the animal therapy. Having animals at the facility helped Olson feel more comfortable.

"Her old therapy dog Honey, I was super connected to. I would spend a lot of my sessions on the floor either brushing her, massaging her back or just petting her, especially if a particular session was really rough," explained Olson.

Animal assisted therapy has grown in popularity in the past few years.

"There still is unfortunately quite a lot of stigma about mental health diagnosis and the animals don't judge, none of them do and so people feel completely accepted," said Muellner.

Hope Ranch also offers Equine Assisted Learning, in which participants learn about themselves by taking part in an activity with the horses and then discussing their feelings, behaviors and patterns.

"Their ability to tune in to what's going on and the people that we are working with is what makes them such powerful partners in therapy," said Muellner.

When Olson began therapy around 10-years ago at Hope Ranch, she participated in some scenarios with a horse.

"A lot of the issues that were a lot bigger at the time, using the horses to work through those helped immensely," said Olson.

Olson said her main struggle has always been depression.

"My biggest issue that I came here to work on was my depression. I've had depression most of my life and there were times where it was quite literally debilitating. I couldn't get out of bed, I wasn't showering," said Olson.

Mental illnesses are quite common. Nearly 1 in 5 adults lives with a mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. As of 2016, nearly 45-million people are living with a mental imbalance.

Olson tells KIMT she has seen a lot of success with therapy.

"I never used to tell anybody anything was bothering me. I used to say I'm fine, I'm ok. Now I'm much more assertive and able to handle confrontation with a lot more confidence... Feeling a lot more confidence just in general," said Olson.

Hope Ranch also specializes in Equine assisted personal growth workshops and corporate team building.
TAIPEI/BEIJING (Reuters) - Taiwan vowed on Tuesday to fight Chinas increasingly out of control behavior after Taipei lost another ally to Beijing when El Salvador became the third country to switch allegiances to China this year.

Taiwan now has formal relations with only 17 countries worldwide, many of them small, less developed nations in Central America and the Pacific, including Belize and Nauru.

Speaking in Taipei, President Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan would not bow to pressure, describing El Salvadors decision as further evidence of Chinas efforts to squeeze the island, which have included regular Chinese bomber patrols around Taiwan.

We will turn to countries with similar values to fight together against Chinas increasingly out-of-control international behavior, Tsai said.

Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told reporters earlier that Taipei was not willing to engage in money competition with its giant neighbor.

He said El Salvador had been continuously asking for massive funding support since last year for a port development, but Taiwan was unable to assist with the unsuitable project after assessment.

Pressure from China would only make Taiwan more determined to continue our path of democracy and freedom, he said.

Chinas rude and unreasonable behavior will certainly have negative impact to cross-strait relations. This is also not how a responsible country should behave.

Beijing considers Taiwan to be a wayward province of one China, ineligible for state-to-state relations, and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.

In Beijing, the Chinese governments top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, said El Salvador had made the right decision.

Im confident that the people of El Salvador will feel the warmth and friendship of the Chinese people and derive tangible benefits from its cooperation with China, Wang told reporters alongside his El Salvador counterpart, Carlos Castaneda, shortly after the pair signed an agreement establishing ties.

EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITIES

El Salvadors president, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, announced in a nationally televised speech that his government had broken off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and instead established ties with China.

Sanchez Ceren said the central American country, which built ties with the Republic of China government in 1933, would see great benefits and extraordinary opportunities in the new relationship with Beijing.

Taiwans formal name is the Republic of China, whose government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists.

We are convinced this is a step in the right direction that corresponds to the principles of international law of international relations and the inevitable trends of our time, Sanchez Ceren said.

In Beijing, Castaneda said it was a strategic decision his government made to create conditions to change the historical standing of our country and to really elevate the livelihood of our people.

Taiwan has accused China of luring its friends away with offers of generous aid packages. China denies that.

Graphic showing Taiwan's political allies - tmsnrt.rs/2hpQ0xx

The news comes as Tsai wrapped up a high-profile trip to Latin America, including stops in the United States, that drew anger from China.

China will not get unification with Taiwan by luring away our allies. What China did was to humiliate Taiwan repeatedly without getting any respect from Taiwans people, Taiwans ruling Democratic Progressive Party wrote in a statement.

El Salvador is the fifth country Taiwan will lose as a diplomatic ally since Tsai came to office in 2016, following Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic, Sao Tome and Principe and Panama.

Amanda Mansour, spokeswoman of the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan, told Reuters in a written statement late on Tuesday that Chinas efforts were harmful and had undermined the framework that has enabled peace, stability, and development for decades.

The United States urges China to abstain from coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan, she wrote.

The U.S. ambassador in El Salvador, Jean Manes, wrote in a Twitter post on Tuesday the United States was analyzing El Salvadors worrisome decision to break ties with Taiwan.

Without a doubt, this will impact our relationship with the (Salvadoran) government. We continue supporting the Salvadoran people, she wrote without elaborating.

Ahead of next months summit between China and African leaders in Beijing, China has also been upping the pressure on Taiwans last remaining ally on the continent, eSwatini, formerly known as Swaziland, to come over to Chinas side, diplomatic sources say.

We hope the relevant country can see clearly the worlds trend, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a daily news briefing, when asked whether eSwatini would attend the summit.

Chinas hostility to Taiwan has grown since Tsais election as Beijing fears she wishes to push for the islands formal independence, a red line for China. She says she wants to maintain the status quo but will defend Taiwans democracy.
(Adds details)

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 21 (Reuters) - South Africa's Harmony Gold reported a 43 percent fall in annual earnings on Tuesday, hurt by impairments and a loss relating to debt denominated in U.S. dollars, and had a worrying setback in its safety record.

The gold industry in South Africa, which has produced a third of the bullion mined in history and is home to the world's deepest mines, has been squeezed for years by depressed prices and soaring labour, power and operational costs.

The challenges faced by the industry, which is mostly labour-intensive and non-mechanised, were underscored by a spike in the number of Harmony workers killed during the financial year, to 13 from five in the previous year.

Mine safety is high on the radar screen of investors, the government and unions.

Headline earnings per share - the main profit measure in South Africa that strips out certain one-off items - came in at 171 cents, in line with what it had previously flagged to the market, from 298 cents a year earlier.

The net loss was almost 4.5 billion rand ($307.5 million)compared with a slim profit last year of 362 million rand.

The company maintains hedges and its rand gold hedges realised gains of almost 1.2 billion rand.

Harmony produced 1.22 million ounces of gold for the year and said its target for the 2019 financial year was 1.45 million ounces. One of its focus areas for the next financial year will be obtaining permits for its Wafi-Golpu project in Papua New Guinea.

($1 = 14.6363 rand)

(Reporting by Ed Stoddard Editing by Tiisetso Motsoeneng and Louise Heavens)

Messaging: edward.stoddard.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
* Deaths in Harmony mines spike to 13 in FY2018 vs 5 in 2017* CEO says people fired over incident that killed five* Earnings fall, hit by impairments (Updates with CEO comments on safety) By Ed Stoddard JOHANNESBURG, Aug 21 (Reuters) - South Africa's Harmony Gold reported a 43 percent fall in annual earnings on Tuesday, hurt by impairments and a loss relating to debt denominated in U.S. dollars, and a setback to its safety record. The gold industry in South Africa, which has produced a third of the bullion mined in history and is home to the world's deepest mines, has been squeezed for years by depressed prices and soaring labour, power and operational costs. The challenges faced by the sector, which is mostly labour-intensive and non-mechanised, were underscored by a spike in the number of Harmony workers killed during the financial year, to 13 from five in the previous year. Safety is a huge issue in South Africas deep and dangerous mines and a concern for investors. A spate of deaths at Sibanye-Stillwater's gold operations, including a seismic event that killed seven miners in early May, has raised red flags and brought the issue into focus. There was a rise in mining deaths overall in South Africa in 2017 to more than 80 from 73 in the previous year, ending nine straight years of falling fatalities.

In one incident last August at Harmony's Kusasalethu operation west of Johannesburg, which fell under the 2018 financial year, five miners were killed when a support pillar burst at a depth of around 3 kms (2 miles). "We fired people over the incident ... We are taking action," Chief Executive Peter Steenkamp told Reuters.

But he admitted more needed to be done and that more could be done despite the constraints of an unforgiving geology that makes mechanisation extremely difficult and the inherent risks of deep-level mining. "I firmly believe that eventually we will have a way of automating more things for example through robotics," Steenkamp said.

Harmony is also rolling out a network of permanent safety netting in the tunnel roofs to help prevent falls of rock, a common danger. Headline earnings per share - the main profit measure in South Africa that strips out certain one-off items - came in at 171 cents, in line with what it had previously flagged to the market, from 298 cents a year earlier. Harmony produced 1.22 million ounces of gold in the 2018 financial year and said its 2019 target was 1.45 million ounces. ($1 = 14.6363 rand) (Editing by Mark Potter)

Messaging: edward.stoddard.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
DOD designates $200M to Ukraine



WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Department of Defense will be providing $200 million to Ukraine in security cooperation funds. The fund will be for additional training, equipment and advisory efforts to build the defensive capacity of Ukraines forces.



This reaffirms the long-standing defense relationship between the United States and Ukraine and brings the total U.S. security sector assistance to Ukraine to more than $1 billion since 2014.



The added funds will provide equipment to support ongoing training programs and operational needs, including capabilities to enhance Ukraines command and control, situational awareness systems, secure communications, military mobility, night vision, and military medical treatment.



The security cooperation builds on Ukraines recent adoption of the Law on National Security. This law, which provides a legislative framework for aligning Ukraines national security architecture with Euro-Atlantic principles, constitutes a major step toward Ukraines goal of achieving NATO interoperability. The implementation of these reforms will bolster Ukraines ability to defend its territorial integrity in support of a secure and democratic Ukraine.



A timeline for delivery and fielding of equipment will be determined at a later date.



Source: Department of Defense Published August 21, 2018














?By Matt VanVolkenburg







The Korea Times archives

The 1960s are known as a decade when the horizons of art and fashion were expanded dramatically, and Korea was no exception to this trend. While daily newspapers covered these topics in a limited way, their weekly magazines, which tended to sensationalize, gave a good deal more coverage to cutting-edge art and fashion, especially when it involved scantily clad women.







Though the Hankook Ilbo published the country's first weekly in 1964, the form came into its own when Seoul Shinmun began publishing Sunday Seoul in late 1968. Other weeklies soon followed. These magazines were clearly aimed at a male audience and often featured nude photos of Korean and Western women, the latter provided by Associated Press. Unsurprisingly, American and European experimental fashions of the time received eager coverage, including bodypainting, see-through clothing and clothing made of stickers or paper.







It was not long before these trends reached Korea. As the Kyunghyang Sinmun reported in August 1968, bodypainting "finally" reached Korea when a British artist held a bodypainting exhibition at the Olympus Hotel in Incheon. Out of "respect for Korean tradition," his wife wore a bikini rather than be painted in the nude.







In mid-November 1968, Sunday Seoul published an article on bodypainting featuring nude photos of experimental artist Jeong Gang-ja. Jeong had first come to public notice with the performance "Transparent Balloon and Nude Happening" in May 1968 at the music hall C'est Si Bon. The Korea Times covered this event on June 9, 1968, writing: "It was happening all right. It takes 15 balloons, a semi-nude woman's body, loud, loud primitive beats and psychedelic lights to make some graduates of art schools claim that they have produced a work of art."







Despite such dismissiveness, the weekly magazines covered experimental art exhibitions, fashion shows featuring see-through clothing, paper clothing and Korean bodypainters. The cover of the Weekly Kyunghyang on Oct. 29, 1969, featured TV actress Kim Yun-hui apparently topless and covered in bodypaint, while a more modest April 1970 photo spread featured women in miniskirts with flowers and faces painted on their legs or arms.







Sunday Seoul, which made efforts to promote youth culture, went further, publishing rather revealing color photos of a nude Korean model having her body painted in July 1970, followed weeks later by photos of the aforementioned artist Jeong Gang-ja and her fellow male artists with their naked bodies entwined. These photos were taken during a rehearsal for an upcoming exhibition, but as it turned out, the rehearsal was the only performance. This left the reporter wondering whether the term "experimental" was "just a prank," suggesting that Jeong and her friends may have taken advantage of a magazine that had previously described her as being "more famous for disrobing than for art work."







The photos of Jeong and her male compatriots, as well as street performances that drew police attention that summer, may have been the last straw, however. While a crackdown on youth culture starting Aug. 28, 1970, is best remembered for forcing haircuts on long-haired youths, the list of targets, which included "bodypainting nude shows, avant-garde drama which showed sexual acts performed in the streets, and avant-garde clothing involving excessive exposure," made clear the authorities' interest in clamping down on experimental art and risque fashion. Though almost all of the thousands detained by police in the ensuing crackdown were caught for having long hair, the critical eye of the police had a chilling effect on experimental art.







The disappearance of nude centerfolds from most weekly magazines by May 1970 suggests restrictions had begun earlier, but as authorities decried "decadent behavior masked as avant-garde art," nude performance art and bodypainting disappeared from the public eye. Sunday Seoul still found a use for art, however. Its "Sunday Gallery" feature, which aimed to reward male readers, likely had its genesis when the magazine realized the ban on nudity did not extend to paintings of naked women.







Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr
An elderly man armed with a shotgun opened fire at a township office Tuesday, killing two officials, police said.



The 77-year-old man, surnamed Kim, entered the Socheonmyeon township office in Bonghwa County, some 190 kilometers southeast of Seoul, around 9:30 a.m. and fired the gun. Two township officials, aged 47 and 38, respectively, were wounded in the shoulder and the chest.



They were taken by helicopter to a hospital, but both died later, police said.



Kim was overpowered by other officials and residents, and handed over to police.



Before coming to the township office, police said, Kim shot a villager at a Buddhist temple some 3.8 km away. The villager was wounded in the shoulder and was taken to a hospital, but the injury is not life-threatening, police said.



"We've detained the suspect. The suspect took out the shotgun from a police substation, citing a need to hunt harmful birds and animals," a police official said, referring to the firearms control system in which owners must keep firearms at police stations and take them out only when necessary.



The shotgun was officially registered with authorities, officials said.



Police plan to question the suspect about why he committed the crime. (Yonhap)




By Javier Solana





MADRID  It is becoming increasingly clear that globalization progresses not steadily, but through ups and downs. Currently, it appears to be in a downswing, hindered by a growing number of irresponsible political leaders who describe it as the root of all evil.



With the rhetoric of intolerance masquerading as nostalgia, populists such as U.S. President Donald Trump advocate building walls and closing borders to reclaim "sovereignty" and "security."



Of course, it was always naive to suppose that the nation-state could easily be divested of its central role in human affairs. But it is equally naive to believe that phenomena such as Brexit or Trump's election augur the return of a world in which the nation-state reigns supreme. At this stage, the world is so interconnected that any talk of reversing globalization is chimerical.



In the realm of security, we need to confront the dark side of this interconnectivity. The legal and institutional mechanisms currently in place are inadequate to counter today's threats, and this was true even before Brexit and Trump made things worse.



As Christine Chinkin and Mary Kaldor of the London School of Economics and Political Science argue in their book "International Law and New Wars," the classic distinction between international and non-international armed conflict has lost currency. In this day and age, internal and external security must be understood as a continuum.



Chinkin and Kaldor show that "new wars" such as the conflict in Syria tend to involve a wide array of players  public and private, domestic and international  and transcend national borders. This latter point is illustrated by the former territorial grip of the Islamic State in Iraq, as well as its attacks in many other countries. Moreover, new wars usually have a strong ethnic, religious, or tribal component, and last for a long period of time, to the detriment of civilian populations.



The recent surge of conflicts with an intrastate dimension implies that the old Westphalian model of sovereignty _ whereby states monopolize the legitimate use of force within their borders  has become obsolete. If we are to build a truly international society, we must think of sovereignty in terms of not just authority, but also responsibility.



Accordingly, the international community must be willing to intervene in countries where the government poses a danger to its own population. That is the logic behind the doctrine of the "responsibility to protect" (R2P), which the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted in 2005.



Unfortunately, when use of force has been justified on humanitarian grounds, interventions have focused narrowly on tactical military considerations. On paper, R2P also entails a responsibility to prevent and a responsibility to reconstruct, both of which are usually relegated to the background. Even worse, when the U.N. Security Council has authorized interventions with "all necessary" means on the basis of R2P  in Libya and the Ivory Coast, both in 2011  the concept has been accused of whitewashing regime change.



Ever since, R2P has been stigmatized as a prerogative of power  an uncodified right to intervene that is invoked selectively, rather than a collective duty. As a result, it was sidelined. The failure of the Security Council to muster any real response to the crisis in Syria is the regrettable legacy of previous instances of overstepping in other countries, and shows that humanitarianism still comes second to geopolitics.



But does this mean that we are condemned to choose between the interventionist excesses of Iraq or Libya and the inaction that permitted mass atrocities to occur in Rwanda and Srebrenica (where U.N. peacekeepers were not authorized to intercede)?



The Trump administration's rhetoric would certainly seem to suggest that these are the only two options. After all, the administration is starkly divided between isolationists and neoconservative "hawks" like National Security Adviser John Bolton, who is apparently undeterred by the long history of failure when it comes to regime change.



But we should neither resign ourselves to accepting a ramshackle framework for humanitarian intervention, nor underestimate the ability of international law to transform itself and, at the same time, transform societies globally. Chinkin and Kaldor propose a viable security model in which the protection of the individual  rather than the state  gains primacy, without resorting to paternalism.



To succeed, this model should approach security holistically, not episodically. It should internalize the priorities of affected populations, including those of women and other structurally disadvantaged groups. It should give preference to non-military means, placing a special emphasis on disarmament. It should be firmly anchored in the ethic of human rights and in a legal toolkit adapted to the logic of "new wars." And it should enshrine the notion of "human security," whereby the right to be protected would supplant R2P.



This model is not out of reach. In fact, R2P and the human security model were developed simultaneously, with the invaluable support of a leading thinker and global citizen: the late Kofi Annan. Many of the core principles of the latter model were laid out in a 2004 paper, "A Human Security Doctrine for Europe," presented in Barcelona by the Study Group on Europe's Security Capabilities. Three years later, the Human Security Study Group's "Madrid Report" advanced the idea further.



Specifically, the Study Group outlined guidelines for expanding the European Union's external missions. These guidelines inspired, for example, the use of human rights monitors and town-hall type consultations. Yet, as with R2P, the human security doctrine fell into disuse. Or, put another way, it was eclipsed by geopolitics, and by the military focus of various antiterrorism campaigns.



Nevertheless, we should remember that the greatest reconfigurations of international law throughout history have always followed geopolitical upheavals. At a time when civilian populations are increasingly vulnerable to new threats such as cyber warfare, reinventing the concept of human security is not some idealistic project. Rather, it is an urgent necessity.



By thinking in terms of human security, we can develop a comprehensive and collaborative strategy for managing the unconventional conflicts that are multiplying around the world. There can be no reversal of globalization. If we are going to mitigate its negative consequences, there is only one way forward: strengthening its positive effects.





Javier Solana was EU high representative for foreign and security policy, secretary-general of NATO, and foreign minister of Spain. He is currently president of the ESADE Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics and distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. Copyright belongs to Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).


Stop sending retiring officials to private companies



The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) unveiled a plan to overhaul its organization Monday. The self-reform package calls for enhancing the corporate watchdog's ethics code by keeping its retirees from landing jobs at private businesses related to their former duties.



Such a change has become inevitable after the prosecution indicted 12 former and current FTC officials on charges of forcing companies to hire their retiring colleagues.



The country's Constitution guarantees freedom of occupation. By law, former FTC officials are also free to get jobs in private enterprises. It could even be desirable for bureaucrats with expertise and long experience in fair trade to contribute to the private sector's development.



What matters in reality, however, is whether the employment process was voluntary or forced from the standpoint of the businesses.



According to prosecutors, the FTC has systematically coerced companies, mainly conglomerates, to accept retiring trustbusters and give them fat paychecks for doing almost nothing, other than lobbying for their new employers.



If the FTC exerts influence, directly or indirectly, in this process, one can hardly expect the fair implementation of the law. Also, if the former trustbusters play the role of corporate shields, policymakers will find it hard to attain administrative results.



A bigger problem is this practice of parachuting in retiring bureaucrats to state enterprises and private companies is not confined to the FTC. All other powerful government agencies _ those responsible for the finance, industry and transport areas as well as financial regulators and the prosecution _ are doing more or less the same thing. So much so it is hard to find heads of state-invested corporations promoted from within.



That shows why the public see the FTC's case as the tip of the iceberg. The time has long past for the government to discuss how to rid itself of the time-honored harmful practice. If people can take lucrative jobs at state enterprises or even private businesses just because they took high government posts, contributed to winning elections or are close to the power elite, the nation's competitiveness will surely continue to fall.




Trump hints at another meeting with NK leader



U.S. President Donald Trump has hinted that he may meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un again, raising expectations for a breakthrough in the stalled denuclearization talks between the two countries.



During an interview with Reuters Monday, Trump said that he was "most likely" to meet with Kim again, although he did not give more details on the venue or date. It would be their second meeting after the first on June 12 in Singapore. During the historic summit, the two leaders produced an agreement to work toward North Korea's denuclearization. They also agreed on implementing measures to advance bilateral relations, including the return of the remains of U.S. soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War. Pyongyang returned some of the remains in July.



Since the Trump-Kim meeting in Singapore, Trump has faced mounting criticism that it did not produce any visible outcome in changing North Korea. But Trump refuted such views, saying he stopped North Korea's "nuclear and missile testing."



The mention of a second meeting with Kim shows that Trump is eager to communicate directly with him and willing to work toward improving bilateral relations. During the Reuters interview, Trump said that they shared "great chemistry."



Speculation is rising that the two may meet in New York next month during the United Nations General Assembly. If confirmed, it would be a crucial addition to a month of summits which have grave impact on the security on the Korean Peninsula. Chinese President Xi Jinping is reportedly planning to visit Pyongyang in September to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the country's founding at the invitation of Kim. The North Korean leader has already travelled to China three times to meet with Xi this year. The two Koreas have also agreed to hold a third inter-Korean summit next month in Pyongyang. The leaders previously first met on April 27, producing the Panmunjeom Declaration and again on May 26, ahead of the first U.S.-North Korea summit in Singapore.



U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will soon travel to Pyongyang to meet with Kim. We hope that the meeting will advance trust between the two countries and lay a solid foundation for a second U.S.-North Korea summit. Since the June 12 summit, North Korea has not shown much indication of giving up its nuclear and missile programs, and has continued to slam international sanctions. During their second summit, the two leaders should build on their first meeting and produce an agreement that contains more specific measures to ensure North Korea's denuclearization.






By Lee Seong-hyon





On May 31, when the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying was asked about China's stance on the so-called "trilateral declaration" to formally end the Korean War, she replied: "As a major party to the Korean Peninsula issue and a signatory to the Armistice Agreement of the Korean War, China will continue to play its due part." An editorial in China's Global Times on May 29 was less roundabout of its displeasure. It characterized the idea of "trilateral" declaration as "extremely ridiculous" (youqi kexiao).



The Chinese media did not conceal its raw discontent with South Korea for bringing up the very idea. In fact, for the past few months, this has become a major contentious issue, if not a complaint, from the Chinese in meetings with their South Korean counterparts.



The problem with the word "trilateral" lies with the fact that it didn't include China. The three countries, in the "trilateral" here, indicate South Korea, the United States, and North Korea. But China was conspicuously absent.



In retrospect, the origin of China being "sidelined" from the North Korean issue had its origin with Trump's declaration of the U.S-North Korean Summit. Trump previously often highlighted "China's role" when it came to the North Korean issue. He even stated "North Korea is China's problem to fix." As if all the roads lead to Rome, the North Korean nuclear issue has to be solved through China, the logic went.



But then, Trump's declaration amounted to sending out a new and different signal. Namely, "the U.S. now does not need China and it can now deal with North Korea" in resolving the nuclear issue. In that case, China's geopolitical stakes on the Korean Peninsula will fall.



In the mere span of a few months since Trump's declaration and amid increasing media reports on the "trilateral," Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping staged three ambush summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a way to display its close ties with North Korea.



Importantly, China shifted its primary attention from "denuclearization of North Korea" to "securing China's influence on North Korea." It was China's reaction when it sensed the possibility of resolving the North Korean nuclear issue was increasingly driven by the initiatives of the U.S. and South Korea.



Now, an interesting policy question is how the shift translates into China's handling of the current nuclear arms wrestling between North Korea and the U.S. There is a possibility that China will not accept U.S. requests to maintain strict sanctions on North Korea. China is unlikely to sacrifice its ties with North Korea by honoring Washington's demands. Instead, China will use the restored Sino-North Korean relationship as leverage in its deepening rivalry with the U.S. for global leadership.



If China finds itself being "sidelined" in the international deliberations on the North Korean nuclear issue, to the contrary, it will deploy its best efforts to make China's presence known.



Therefore, Seoul and Washington should objectively consider whether they have sufficient leverage to check China. Without sufficient leverage, when Seoul and Washington proceed without consulting China, China may attempt to interrupt the process. China's actions could be subtle and discreet. For instance, it may affirm its continuing commitment to the U.N. economic sanctions against North Korea, while leaving a backdoor open.



It is possible that Washington may have not fully used all its available tools in its diplomatic toolbox in sufficiently pressuring China to behave in a way Washington wants on North Korea. At any rate, Washington, together with its allies, must decide whether it will solve the North Korean issue together with, or without, China.



How the "China factor" will influence the currently unfolding U.S.-North Korean negotiations will draw keen attention. So far, Trump already openly complained, at least three times, that "China was behind" North Korea's defiant attitude that led to their negotiations being stalled.



At a recent closed-door academic conference in China, a Chinese scholar argued: "The three parties to the armistice of the Korean War were China, North Korea and the United Nations (not the U.S.). At that time, China was involved in the 'whole process' leading to the armistice. Why then, this time, there is a voice that tries not to include China? This doesn't make sense." China also proposed a "four-party" declaration to Washington to end the war. A Chinese interlocutor claimed that China is entitled to be a party to "every single process" that would end the war as well as the formal peace treaty.





Lee Seong-hyon (sunnybbsfs@gmail.com), Ph.D., is director, Center for Chinese Studies; and director, Department of Unification Strategy at Sejong Institute.


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As you may have heard, USC is trying to weather some scandals: a meth-abusing medical school dean, faculty that sexually harass students, and a former campus gynecologist who may have abused thousands of patients.

Since May, hundreds of USC faculty and students have called on the university to begin making changes in policies and practices to get rid of a culture and environment that they say swept those problems under the rug and allowed them to continue.

Now, USC's School of Social Work -- the training ground for professionals who help people overcome abuse -- has produced a 45-page report that some in the university see as a blueprint for campus-wide healing.

The report was meant to address an incident of sexual harassment last year that rocked that very school.

"We're going to have to regain the trust of students and staff and faculty and our community," said Devon Brooks, the professor who co-chaired the sexual harassment task force that authored the report. "We're hoping that not just through our words but through our concrete actions, and involvement of those who are vulnerable in some ways."

Here are five key recommendations from the report that are in the process of being carried out by the School of Social Work:

Adopt a clear statement that the school will ensure a safe environment that's free of sexual harassment and misconduct

Create a three-year action plan to change the culture and environment of the school in order to prevent sexual harassment and misconduct

Create a peer group to help students thinking about and coming forward with allegations of abuse

Identify gaps in policies to improve prevention, identification and reporting of sexual harassment and misconduct

Measure progress in part through results of a new sexual harassment survey

The report's recommendations are directed at the School of Social Work but could have a role in university-wide efforts toward reform.

"The model, if you will, that was implemented by the school's task force, I see influencing the approach being taken at the university level," Brooks said.

The university announced last month the creation of a sexual harassment task force formed to come up with changes for all of USC.

Brooks is a member of that task force, too. He said the report from the School of Social Work will be talked about in the new task force's first meeting next month. But the impact of the recommendations shouldn't stop there, he said -- other universities with their own sexual harassment problems could use the report as a template for change.

So what makes this report different than previous efforts?

The last major attempt at reform was criticized by some faculty as a top-down effort that had little input from faculty and students. Then-USC President Max Nikias released an action plan back in May, even as faculty and students called for him to step down.

"This report comes from faculty, staff, and students," said USC Professor Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro. "I think it makes this report more achievable."

Out of the 37 members of the task force that authored the report, 15 were faculty and 14 were students.

Alfaro likes the report's three-year action plan timeline for change and the identification of policies that need to be reformed.

It's unclear whether USC President Wanda Austin has seen the report yet, but Brooks said it's likely she will.

After more than a year of headline-grabbing scandals and a summer roller coaster of questions over the transparency and accountability of leadership at USC, some activists there are starting to feel hopeful.

"I believe that USC is taking the right next steps for continuing to change for the better," said Robin Petering, who graduated last year with a Ph.D. from the School of Social Work. "I think it's going to be a really important time for new leadership to make some maybe bold decisions, and we really encourage that."

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Ref Rodriguez left an empty seat on the Los Angeles Unified School Board after he pleaded guilty to felony charges and resigned in July. On Tuesday, the six remaining LAUSD board members met to decide how to fill that seat.

Board members voted to call a special election on March 5, with a runoff election likely to follow on May 14. But board members could not agree on whether to appoint an interim representative to serve as a voice for the area Rodriguez represented until the election is over.

Why does that matter? It's worth taking a step back and looking at what the L.A. Unified School Board does, and why its composition is important.

WHAT MAKES THIS SCHOOL BOARD IMPORTANT?

The seven members of the L.A. Unified School Board are ultimately responsible for the education of more than 601,000 children. No other elected school board in the country shoulders such a large burden.

Look at New York City. There, the mayor appoints the entire school board and hires staff to run the district; it's the mayor who's ultimately responsible for education in the city.

But in L.A. Unified -- the nation's second-largest district after New York -- voters elect a school board to fill this role. School board members hire the superintendent and establish district policies and priorities.

Yes, it's occasionally unclear where the superintendent's day-to-day powers end and the board's purview begins, but the point is this: in LAUSD, board members answer to no one but the voters.

Also, L.A. Unified School Board races have become a political battleground in an ongoing proxy war between charter school interests and teachers unions. Last year, interest groups poured $15 million into LAUSD board elections, making the 2017 campaigns the most expensive school board races in L.A.'s history.

WHAT DOES AN LAUSD BOARD MEMBER ACTUALLY DO?

Board members' most important duty is to hire a superintendent to handle LAUSD's day-to-day operation -- and they recently did that. Beyond that, board members watchdog a massive $8.2 billion budget, legislate district policies, open charter schools (and shut them down) and review decisions to hire (or fire) staff.

But LAUSD board members also have less-visible duties. Each of the seven board members represent a geographic area, or "board district." Depending on the district, each board member represents between 60,000 and 107,000 students enrolled in LAUSD-run public schools or in charter schools that LAUSD oversees.

(Side note: you can look up your LAUSD board district by entering your address here.)

Board members' offices often field calls from constituents who are looking for help in solving local problems or in navigating the district bureaucracy. Sometimes, board members get involved.

If you want to get your campus renovation to the front of the line, better call your board member. If you're hoping to start a magnet or dual language program at your kid's school, it can matter whether your board member is on your side. If you're unhappy a charter school is co-locating on your campus, get in touch with your board member.

Because of these constituent pressures, board members often lobby LAUSD staff to ensure schools they represent get their fair share -- if not more than their fair share -- of district resources. If a board member feels a proposal doesn't sufficiently benefit their board district, they can vote against it.

Los Angeles Unified School Board member Ref Rodriguez attends a meeting on Aug. 22, 2017. (File photo by Kyle Stokes/KPCC)

SO WHO'S REPRESENTING REF RODRIGUEZ'S DISTRICT NOW?

Nobody -- at least on the board itself.

Many members of his old staff in the LAUSD Board District 5 office remain on the job. The office's social media accounts have remained active. The District 5 staff members have recently been involved in a series of problem-solving sessions with parents.

Still, there are more than 150 schools in Board District 5, which covers Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Eagle Rock, Highland Park and the southeast cities of Vernon, South Gate, Maywood, Bell and Cudahy -- and none of these communities currently has a voting voice on the board.

It's up to the remaining L.A. Unified board members to decide how to fill the vacancy Rodriguez left on the board.

WHAT ARE THE BOARD'S OPTIONS FOR FILLING RODRIGUEZ'S SEAT?

The city charter gives board members a few basic options for filling out the remaining two-and-a-half years on Rodriguez's term, according to the L.A. City Attorney, City Clerk and L.A. Unified's top lawyer. Their options are, in short:

1. Call a special election -AND- leave the seat vacant until the results are in.

2. Call a special election -AND- appoint an interim representative to represent Board District 5 until the election results are in.

3. Appoint a new representative to the seat. (The City Attorney and L.A. Unified's top lawyer, David Holmquist, disagree about this option. The City Attorney says the board can't appoint a board member for longer than one year and would need to call a special election anyway. Holmquist says the board could appoint a representative to fill out the entire term.)

WHICH OPTION DID THE BOARD CHOOSE?

Board members voted Tuesday to call a special election. The problem: it takes four months to set up a special election -- so the district has missed the window for the November ballot.

The earliest this election could take place is now in mid-December, but a campaign waged during the holidays could depress turnout. So board members agreed to follow a proposal by Monica Garcia and Nick Melvoin to order a special election on March 5, 2019.

If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff would follow between the top two finishers in May 14, 2019.

But after Tuesday, it looks less likely that the board will appoint a temporary representative to cover those next six or eight months between now and the vote is still up in the air.

Board member Scott Schmerelson had formally nominated Jackie Goldberg for the interim role. A former teacher, Goldberg held the same seat on the LAUSD board in the 1980s. She was later the first openly lesbian member of the L.A. City Council. She went on to represent the area in the California Assembly.

State Assembly Member Jackie Goldberg (left) holds up a signed copy of AB 205, the measure granting same-sex domestic partners nearly all rights of married couples, with California Gov. Gray Davis shortly after he signed the bill into law on Sept. 19, 2003. (File photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

But Goldberg has been critical of the current board, delivering particularly sharp criticism of the decision to hire Austin Beutner as superintendent. She was known as a consensus-builder while in office and the powerful United Teachers Los Angeles has endorsed her bid for the job. Still, Goldberg's outspokenness probably doesn't help her chances.

As an alternative, board member Nick Melvoin floated another idea late Monday: open up the nominating process to the public.

Under Melvoin's proposal, anyone could submit a nomination to the board by Tues., Aug. 28. Nominees would then submit formal applications. Finally, the six current board members would choose from among these nominees to seat an "interim, appointed, voting member of the board" until the special election determines who completes the term.

But four of the six members of a politically divided board would have to agree -- and the board's swing vote, Richard Vladovic, opposed both plans. His votes were decisive in rejecting both Goldberg's nomination and Melvoin's plan.

Vladovic said he opposes appointing a temporary representative on principle; he feels the choice belongs to the voters.

It's possible the board could revisit its decisions Tuesday; they faced no deadline to appoint a temporary representative.

But if board members don't change their minds, Ref Rodriguez's old seat could remain unfilled until after next May's runoff -- meaning 99,000 children would be without a voice on the school board for almost an entire school year.

UPDATED: This post was updated at 9:05 p.m. on Tues., Aug. 21, to reflect the results of the LAUSD board's vote.

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On a recent warm afternoon, Irma sat barefoot on the floor of her sister's small, sunny apartment in Reseda, resting under an open window. Her two children were in the next room, just back from their first visit with an American dentist.

She'd crossed illegally into the country with her son, 10, and daughter, 12, in May. Border officials arrested her and sent her children to a federal shelter in Texas. She ended up in a detention center in Arizona.

"All I would say every day is, 'God, please let me see them,'" said Irma, 34, who asked her full name not be used because of her tenuous status in the U.S.

She was reunited with her children in late July after more than two months apart. Now, she doesn't know if they can remain in the United States for good. A judge will eventually decide on the family's request for asylum.

Her children were among the more than 2,600 kids separated from their parents and guardians earlier this year under President Trump's strict border enforcement policies.

It was Irma's sister who tracked down the children after they were detained and connected them to their mother by phone. About six weeks after they were picked up, Irma's children were released to her sister while Irma awaited her fate in Arizona.

More weeks in confinement passed, then Irma learned her bond would be posted by a group of American mothers. Living in states stretching from New York to California, the moms informally connected online and raised money through a GoFundMe page to help migrant mothers.

"It felt like I was dreaming, after being locked up for 2 1/2 months," said Irma, a petite woman whose dark eyes occasionally welled up with tears as she spoke.

Volunteers from the group met Irma upon her release in Arizona and drove her as far as Burbank airport. There, one of the American mothers, Evelyn Belasco of Thousand Oaks, picked up Irma and drove her the rest of the way to her sister's apartment. They called from the gate downstairs.

"When her sister answered the phone, you could hear her kids in the background. And then her knees buckled, and I held her, and we heard the kids running," said Belasco, her voice trembling as she recalled the emotional reunion.

Seeing her kids was "like my heart was restored," Irma said. "Because all I wanted, all I prayed for, was to see my children."

MORE CHALLENGES AWAIT

Roughly 2,000 families that were separated at the border have been reunited after a federal judge in San Diego ordered Trump officials to do so by a July 26 deadline. Many were released and others are detained together. Some families, like Irma's, were not reunited in ICE custody, but after the children were released to adult sponsors and the parents followed.

But as of last week, more than 560 children remained in federal custody without their parents. Hundreds were deported without their kids and U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw has pressed the government to find these parents and return their children to them.

The reunion doesn't end their problems.

Those families that were reunited, released and remain in the U.S. now face deportation as the government pushes to have them returned to their home countries.

Some women like Irma are seeking asylum based on what they describe as violent domestic abuse back in their home countries. She said she fled a dangerous situation after her ex-husband tried to strangle her and threatened to kill her and their children.

It won't be easy for Irma and others with similar claims to win asylum. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently raised the bar for such asylum seekers, saying that domestic abuse and gang violence are no longer sufficient grounds for asylum.

An immigration judge will hear Irma's case at a date yet to be scheduled. In the meantime, families like hers will be living in limbo.

"It's very difficult, because you're trying to plan for the new normal, taking care of your child, doing what's best for your child -- pursuing education, pursuing health care, pursuing mental health care," said Niels Frenzen, who directs the immigration clinic at University of Southern California's Gould School of Law.

"But you also have to be doing emergency contingency planning. 'What happens if I get taken into custody at my next check-in interview?'"

Immigration officials could detain the parents, or they could be ordered deported by an immigration judge. If they are, the parents must decide whether to take the children with them or leave them in the care of U.S. relatives while the children pursue their own asylum claims.

For now, however, deportations of the separated families are on hold: Judge Sabraw extended a temporary stay on their removal last week as their rights to seek asylum are argued in court.

GETTING TO WHAT'S ORDINARY

For now, in Irma's sister's apartment, there's a sense of normalcy. One recent weekend, Irma took a breather from packing boxes as the family prepared to move to a bigger apartment with her sister, her sister's husband and their young child.

Her two kids napped after returning with their aunt from their dentist visit. Irma did not want them to be interviewed just yet, but she says they're doing better following their detention.

"Now, thank God, they're eating," according to Irma. She said the children lost weight in the shelter; they told her they were too upset to eat much.

For now, Irma wants the children to just settle in and feel safe. She and her sister enrolled them in a local school, where classes started last week.

Irma is working through her own emotional issues. When she first moved into the Reseda apartment, she had trouble leaving it. Her sister tried to coax her out to the store or for walks with her. But Irma was haunted by the fear she'd be arrested and detained again without her kids.

"I was scared," Irma said when her sister invited her outside. "I told her, 'I'm afraid they will come get me.' "

She's able now to go shopping and visit a doctor for stomach pain.

Belasco and the volunteer moms paid for the doctor's visit and Irma's prescriptions. They also connected Irma to an attorney who will see her asylum case through. Thanks to the moms, the kids have received vaccines to start school.

"I am so grateful, I have no way to repay them," said Irma, who describes herself as a devout Christian. "But I know the one upstairs will repay them in a big way."

Irma hopes, if her asylum case moves forward, that she can eventually obtain a work permit. That will depend on what the immigration judge decides. For now, at least, the family is together and can make plans.

"Blessed be God, I'm here with my kids ... I got to see them, I have them with me once more," she said.
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Joseph James DeAngelo, the former police officer believed to be the long-hunted Golden State Killer, will face trial in Sacramento, prosecutors from several California counties announced Tuesday.

A complaint filed Tuesday in Sacramento Superior Court argued the multitude of charges against DeAngelo should be consolidated and tried in one centralized location. Arraignment is scheduled for Thursday in the Northern California court.

Speaking at a press conference at the Orange County District Attorney's Office in Santa Ana, district attorneys from six counties voiced their support for the move, saying they have full faith in the court (video of the news conference is available here).

Joseph DeAngelo will be charged with 26 counts, including 13 counts of murder. His arraignment is scheduled for Thursday afternoon in Sacramento. @KPCC @LAist  Caleigh Wells (@cgrey307) August 21, 2018

DeAngelo, 72, of Citrus Heights in Sacramento County, faces 13 counts of murder, with 18 rape and burglary special circumstance allegations and 13 counts of kidnapping, among other counts, including several weapons charges. Authorities allege DeAngelo is responsible for a string of murders and rapes that happened over an 11-year period across California, including at least 10 murders and assaults in Orange and Ventura counties.

"Wherever he went, he left a wake of terror in his path," Orange County D.A. Tony Rackauckas said Tuesday.

After decades of investigating, DNA evidence confirmed for police that the Golden State Killer and the East Area Rapist were the same man.

"We are unified, and we are committed to delivering justice to the victims of the Golden State Killer and their loves ones, who for too long have had justice elude them," said Ventura County D.A. Gregory D. Totten.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

UPDATES:

12:48 p.m.: This story was updated to clarify some of the rape and robbery counts against DeAngelo were special circumstance allegations connected to murder charges.

News happens every day. Here at LAist, our goal is to cover the stories that matter to you and the community you live in. Now that we're part of KPCC, those stories (including this one you're on right now!) are made possible by generous people like you. Independent, local journalism isn't cheap, but with your support we can keep delivering it. Donate now.
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WE'RE ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS ABOUT SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA THAT KEEP YOU UP AT NIGHT. IF YOU HAVE ONE, ASK IT HERE.

Target's been trying to build a new store on the corner of Sunset and Western for years, eyeing the location in 2010 and getting their plans approved in 2012. They even started and completed much of the construction -- but a legal challenge, which they lost, put construction on hold.

We've had multiple readers ask us about the half-finished structure, standing silently, waiting for an ending that refuses to come.

Target wants it, the city of Los Angeles wants it -- but there are neighborhood associations that don't. They've successfully kept it in limbo so far. It's become such a local landmark in its desolate state that it even has an unofficial Twitter account, @TargetHusk.

Hope of a Target in our time is still alive -- the city is heading back to court yet again as part of the latest appeal on Tuesday. But why is it there? What's going on?

Before construction, Target submitted two plans to the city: one that met the 35-foot height restriction in place in the neighborhood, and another larger one that didn't. The City Council granted variances allowing for the 74-foot, three-story complex, anchored by a Super Target.

The La Mirada Neighborhood Association sued to block the project, twice, and was joined by Citizens Coalition Los Angeles.

Some of the key questions behind the case:

Whether the city violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by not preparing a supplemental environmental impact report

Whether allowing a three-story building here is a kind of spot zoning that's against the law

The city maintains that the answer to both of those questions is "no," but they've lost that argument in court so far.

Those opposed to the construction of this Target say the city didn't follow environmental regulations -- and that it was due to then-City Councilman Eric Garcetti trying to avoid limiting density in the area.

"Target could have built the store which it wanted about a decade ago," Richard Lee Abrams with Citizens Coalition told LAist in an email. "The sole problem was Garcetti's insistence that the store be illegal."

Abrams also argued that Target won't break with Mayor Garcetti due to the politics involved.

They note that Target's original plans were expanded at Garcetti's urging. The City Council tried to rezone the area in 2016 to allow the Target to move forward -- but as we've discussed, that plan remains in litigation.

"We appreciate the city's continued support for Target in our ongoing efforts to pursue a store in Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard," a Target spokesperson told LAist in a statement, "and we thank the community for its patience as we continue to work toward resuming construction."

News happens every day. Here at LAist, our goal is to cover the stories that matter to you and the community you live in. Now that we're part of KPCC, those stories (including this one you're on right now!) are made possible by generous people like you. Independent, local journalism isn't cheap, but with your support we can keep delivering it. Donate now.
The Trump administration is moving forward this week with plans to impose tariffs on a wider array of Chinese imports even as it explores the possibility of a negotiated resolution of its deepening trade conflict with China.

On Monday, the U.S. trade representatives office began an extraordinary six days of public hearings on President Trumps plans to tax an additional $200 billion worth of Chinese products. The latest tariff proposals, along with earlier levies on $50 billion worth of imports from China, would mean that by next month roughly half of everything U.S. businesses import from China would confront special taxes.

Trump says the tariffs are a response to unfair Chinese trade practices, including forcing American companies to surrender their trade secrets to obtain access to the Chinese market and cybertheft of U.S. technology. Members of both political parties and many industry groups agree that China is guilty of such violations. But as the economic impact of the confrontation with China mounts, opponents are becoming more vocal in their opposition to Trumps chosen remedy of imposing tariffs.

The planned escalation dramatically expands the harm to American consumers, workers, businesses, and the economy, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in its prepared testimony.

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At the hearings held by the U.S. trade representatives office, sporting goods manufacturers, candle makers, footwear companies, semiconductor producers and others will plead to be excluded from the next tariffs. More than 1,300 comments have been filed in response to the presidents proposed action, most opposing the plan.

A paintbrush maker in Newark, N.J., said the tariffs could make the hog bristles it buys from China too expensive, forcing it to cancel more than two dozen government contracts.

If this tariff is enacted, the impact on my small company and its 20 employees will be devastating, wrote Arthur Edelsen, president of Spectrum Paint Applicator Corp. I would be put out of business immediately without question.

On Wednesday, U.S. and Chinese officials are scheduled to meet for the first time in two months to discuss potential solutions to the commercial standoff. The U.S. delegation is led by David Malpass, undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs, while Chinas team is headed by Wang Shouwen, vice minister of commerce.

There is little expectation that the meetings will produce a breakthrough. Neither official has full authority to make a deal, and earlier rounds of talks led by more senior officials made little progress.

And Trump told the Reuters news service Monday that he did not anticipate much from the discussions.

In March, Malpass was forced to backpedal after telling a conference of bankers in Buenos Aires that he had discontinued an official economic dialogue with Beijing. After the Treasury Department publicly contradicted him, he said he misspoke.

Although some Chinese officials have expressed concern about their slowing economy and many Republicans in Congress are worried the trade war could cost them votes in November, neither country appears prepared to back down.

So far, the United States has imposed tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products; levies on a further $16 billion worth of products are scheduled to take effect Thursday. China has retaliated with tariffs on an equivalent amount of U.S. goods.

In both countries, the leaderships political imperative of talking and acting tough on trade seems to supersede any short-term domestic economic costs from tit-for-tat tariffs, said Eswar Prasad, former head of the International Monetary Funds China division. The internal political dynamics in each country could make it difficult to contain or find an exit path from escalating trade hostilities.

Ambiguity over the presidents goals also is clouding prospects for a negotiated solution. During an early round of talks in May, U.S. officials presented the Chinese with an eight-point wish list that included a dramatic reduction in the deficit that the United States runs in trade with China, a halt to subsidies for new technology industries, immediate elimination of various tariffs and other trade barriers and agreement not to retaliate against future U.S. measures.

The long, vague list that, in effect, asks China to boil the ocean is not actionable, said Jeff Moon, who was a U.S. trade negotiator in the Obama administration. A failure to remedy that problem and develop a manageable set of issues would set us up for an indefinite trade conflict with no offramp.

The administration also remains split between hard-liners such as Peter Navarro, a top White House advisor who wants to force U.S. companies to end their dependence upon Chinese factories, and officials such as Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin who favor traditional trade policies.

We still do not know what Trump ultimately wants in a deal, said Claire Reade, a former U.S. trade negotiator who is now with the law firm Arnold & Porter.

Genuine bargaining may await the personal involvement of Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The two leaders are scheduled to meet twice in November, at an Asian summit in Papua New Guinea and at the Group of 20 meeting in Buenos Aires.

The chances of a deal soon are still quite small, said Scott Kennedy, director of the project on Chinese business and the economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Meanwhile, disruptions from tariffs continue to spread. Purolite, which produces a resin that municipalities use to purify their water supplies, is in the cross hairs for the 25% tariffs that take effect Thursday.

The Bala Cynwyd, Pa., company imports about $50 million worth of chemicals from its wholly owned Chinese subsidiary near Hangzhou and  amid a worldwide shortage of the resin  says that it cannot find an alternative supply.

This is a health hazard. If they cant get this product, it can cause another Flint, Mich., Purolite Chief Executive Steve Brodie said, a reference to the city that has suffered with tainted water for several years.

Lynch writes for the Washington Post.
Elon Musk has been much less prolific on Twitter lately amid the controversy around his plan to take Tesla Inc. private, but he dropped a doozy of a tweet early Tuesday, lifting a passage from T.S. Eliots The Waste Land.

Read Eliots notes on The Waste Land https://t.co/2SSsHiJmiO pic.twitter.com/uToAi4kBi1  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 21, 2018

For what its worth, Tuesday marked a fortnight  14 days  since Musks Aug. 7 tweet declaring that he had funding secured to take Tesla private at $420 a share. He has been defending that claim ever since, amid increasing scrutiny from investors and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

It may just be that Musk is rereading the classics of early 20th century modernist poetry, or it could be that he identifies with Eliots mental state  he linked to a Wikipedia passage that explains Eliot was diagnosed with a kind of nervous disorder and asked for leave from his job at a bank so he could rest.

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But heres a bit of context that also might help explain why hes citing this passage. Musk is obsessed with Iain M. Banks, the late Scottish author whose utopian science-fiction novels explored concepts of a post-capitalist galactic society run by artificial intelligence. The first novel in Banks Culture series, Consider Phlebas, draws its title from this same passage of poetry quoted in Musks tweet.

Some of the concepts explored in the Culture novels, such as space travel and a neural lace interface between computers and a human brain, are things Musk is trying to build in real life. Two of SpaceXs landing drones -- Of Course I Love You and Just Read the Instructions -- also draw their names from Banks fiction.

Rutkoff writes for Bloomberg.
Uber Technologies Inc. has selected Nelson Chai, a longtime banking executive who weathered the 2008 financial crisis, as its chief financial officer. Chai will help guide the ride-hailing company through a planned initial public offering late next year.

Uber hasnt had a CFO for more than three years. After Dara Khosrowshahi took over as chief executive in September, finding an experienced financial executive became one of his top priorities. When Chai starts on Sept. 10, Khosrowshahi can finally cross this item off his list.

Although Khosrowshahi has said Uber is targeting an IPO in the second half of 2019, Chai declined to comment on timing until he has had a chance to dig through the books. The timeline has been dictated by the board, and Dara has made public statements, Chai said Tuesday after Khosrowshahi announced his hiring. Let me sit in the seat a little bit, for a little while, before I answer that question.

Until recently, Chai was CEO of Warranty Group Inc., a provider of insurance services to automakers and consumer-goods manufacturers. He sold the company, owned by TPG Capital, to Assurant Inc. for $2.5 billion. TPG, an investor in Uber, suggested he apply for the job at the ride-hailing company, Chai said. John Thain, an Uber board member and longtime colleague of Chai, set him up for a meeting with Khosrowshahi in early June.

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Im incredibly excited to bring on someone as experienced and thoughtful as Nelson, Khosrowshahi said in an emailed statement. He will be a great partner for me and the entire management team as we move toward becoming a public company.

Chai and Thain have a long history together. During the financial crisis, which led to instability and government bailouts at many of the worlds largest banks, Chai served as CFO of Merrill Lynch, where Thain was CEO. They sold the ailing firm to Bank of America Corp. in what was seen as a coup to avoid possible collapse.

The management of Merrill Lynch was the subject of criticism for the billions of dollars in bonuses it handed out to executives when the company  and the global economy  were in turmoil. In 2012, Bank of America agreed to pay shareholders $2.43 billion to settle allegations that they had been misled during the acquisition of Merrill Lynch about the state of the firms finances. Thain and Chai also worked together at NYSE Euronext, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, and at another bank, CIT Group Inc.

Chais appointment at Uber ends a labored search for Khosrowshahi. In the spring, Uber zeroed in on VMware Inc.s Zane Rowe as the top candidate for the job, but negotiations fell apart. In the meantime, senior finance executives left the company at a steady pace. At one point, Khosrowshahi hoped to recruit a woman for the CFO job. He said at a conference in April that he was more focused on developing women who already work at Uber and avoiding the sugar high of recruiting.

At $62 billion, Uber is the most highly valued U.S. private technology start-up, but it has serious challenges. A series of political, human resources and legal scandals last year led shareholders to oust co-founder Travis Kalanick from the CEO post. Uber is working to rehabilitate its image before selling shares to the public.

Even if it can fix its reputation, Uber has another problem: It loses enormous sums of money. The company has burned through more than $11 billion in its lifetime, and the trend continues today. In the second quarter, Uber posted a loss of $891 million on $2.8 billion in revenue.

Some investors are privately advocating for Uber to shed its costly autonomous-vehicle unit. Chai said he doesnt have a strong point of view on that proposal.

Uber regularly reports limited financial information publicly, but Chai said he hadnt gotten an opportunity to scrutinize more detailed data before taking the job. When youre interviewing for a job, you get the information you get, he said.

I understand there are lots of challenges, Chai said. One thing will continue to be a priority throughout the company, he said: My hope and expectation is that it continues to grow.
Toward the back of the L.A. art gallery called the Mistake Room hangs a painting of a preteen girl with one hand on her hip and the other pointed defiantly at a military general.

The artist, Juan Edgar Aparicio, titled it Pesadilla de un General (Nightmare of a General) and dedicated the painting to children who were kidnapped or killed during the 1980s war between the military-led Salvadoran government backed by the U.S. and the guerrilla group Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, better known by the Spanish acronym FMLN.

Its a reminder for the military soldiers and tyrants that there are children who died by their hand, like my first daughter, Aparicio said by phone from his home in El Salvador. The girl embodies the nightmare that wont let them live or sleep in peace for what they have done.

Pesadilla de un General, 1996, by Juan Edgar Aparicio on view at the Mistake Room. (Juan Edgar Aparicio / The Mistake Room)

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The painting is a focal point of My Veins Do Not End in Me, an exhibition that explores not only the Salvadoran immigrant community in L.A. but also the legacy of the Salvadoran civil war through the work from three generations of a single family: Aparicio; his mother, the late Maria de la Paz Torres de Aparicio; and his son, Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio. Its a show that resonates all the more potently following this countrys recent immigration crisis, as families fleeing violence in Central America were detained at the U.S. border and children were separated from their parents.

Eddie Aparicio spent months looking for pieces of his fathers art for the Mistake Room show.

I took on finding the works because it was an opportunity to re-engage with all these histories, the stories and the memories that I was too young to absorb, he said. Thinking about what the works meant versus who bought them and where they are now is interesting.

Step inside the gallery and you have a view of all three artists work. To your left and right, Eddies grandmothers handmade dolls stand on tables. At the center, Eddies immense casts of trees are arranged in a way that frame Pesadilla de un General.

Installation view of My Veins Do Not End in Me at the Mistake Room. (The Mistake Room)

Eddies father was a student leader and organizer who responded to socioeconomic disparities and human rights violations in El Salvador, but he ultimately left the country after his daughter, wife and brother disappeared  taken by government forces during a war that lasted from 1980 to 1992.

Juan continued his activism through community and arts organizations in L.A. and still sees art as an instrument for protest, whether the issue is gay rights or social injustice in El Salvador. (He moved back to El Salvador when Eddie, his youngest son, grew older.)

For Eddie, the parallels between past and present have been striking.

My first response was this is the most recent version of children in El Salvador being separated from their families, Eddie said. As catalyzing as this event has been, I can think of so many events in Salvador where children have been separated unwillingly, whether its conscripted into the military or [by] left-wing guerrillas, or conscription of gangs that forces so many minors to come to the U.S.

The girl embodies the nightmare that wont let them live or sleep in peace for what they have done. Juan Edgar Aparicio, who painted Pesadilla de un General after his wife, daughter and brother disappeared during the Salvadoran civil war

Eddie and co-curators Cesar Garcia and Nico Orozco-Valdivia discussed a solo exhibition, but when Garcia saw the grandmothers dolls and the fathers wood-carved piece, Los Milicianos Bajo Fuego (The Militiamen Under Fire) in a corner of Eddies studio, the direction changed.

After the election, I questioned the use of subtlety, Eddie said, adding later: There is more urgency now, which is why I was so quick to jump into having the show with my father and grandma. It takes the work out of subtlety and makes a point.

Eddies loudest piece is Holbein en Crenshaw. He grew up near Pico and Crenshaw boulevards, so he takes the imprints of trees there or in places with large Central American communities like in Boyle Heights, City Terrace, Highland Park and Pico-Union. He renders the bark, with its natural and human-made marks, with rubber and wood glue. In one piece, a yellow mark across the middle reveals itself from one angle to be a skull, a reference to German painter Hans Holbein the Youngers 1533 piece The Ambassadors, in which a black and white smudge near the bottom of the scene looks like a skull.

The bark is backed with fabric that Eddie finds on the street near his tree subjects or gets from his family members. The piece is draped with a comforter and black hoodie. On top, he drew logos for the Pollo Campero restaurants and Folgers coffee with house paint  more items carried across the border. You can see a faded FMLN logo, representing the party both of his parents supported, and a poem that he wrote, inspired by Nicaraguan priest and poet Ernesto Cardenal, about a person killed and buried in an unmarked grave.

At a recent talk at the gallery, artist Beatriz Cortez told the full audience that the show is a conversation between generations of memories, heritage, material and practice  how we make work. Its about a family inheriting not only memory of the war, but memories of making and creating.

Untitled dolls by the late Maria de la Paz Torres de Aparicio made between 1994 and 2000. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Eddies late grandmother is remembered not only through her own work but also in Juans portraits, in which he captures the personalities and imagined lives of her handmade dolls. Shes also seen more directly in the wood-carved piece La Familia Salvadorena, (The Salvadoran Family), in which shes depicted holding a photo of her disappeared son.

In the gallery conversation, Eddie recounted a moment from his MFA program at Yale. In a class critique, a professor told him that his work felt overburdened  that as an artist, these heavy topics werent leaving space to make other things. Eddie couldnt remember if he responded to the professors critique, but he wondered if the professor would have said the same thing to a white student or an African American student.

It helped me understand my appreciation for these histories, he said. I have a specific way of knowing through my family and their experiences that is worth thinking about, worth not ignoring.

         

My Veins Do Not End in Me

Where: The Mistake Room, 1811 E. 20th St., Los Angeles

When: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday

Information: (213) 749-1200, www.tmr.la

Side view of Holbein en Crenshaw, 2018, by Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio. When viewed from this angle, the yellow image of a skull becomes more apparent. (Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio / The Mistake Room)

See all of our latest arts news and reviews at latimes.com/arts.
Dust would not seem to have much potential as an aesthetic device, but it nonetheless anchors an unusual show at the California Museum of Photography in Riverside. Inevitable decay and total ruin are the motif  ashes to ashes, so to speak  with photography as the instrument both analog and digital. The calamitous 20th century looms as the bigger crumbling picture.

a Handful of Dust: from the Cosmic to the Domestic is a kind of rhapsodic (if often dour) visual tone-poem to those tiny particles of ordinary grit. The titles unusual typography is the first clue to the traveling shows expressive intent.

Rather than a conventional art-historical analysis, London-based independent curator David Campany gives us stream-of-consciousness connections between and among the more than 60 works. Two images flanking the shows entry set his theatrical stage.

It starts with Surrealist photographer Man Ray and Dadaist Marcel Duchamp. In 1920, the two 30-something artists produced a now well-known photograph of the transparent glass surface of a sculpture on which Duchamp worked for nearly eight years. During production, Duchamp left the supporting sheet of glass by an open window at his Broadway studio on New Yorks Upper West Side, near what is today Lincoln Center. Over many months, a layer of grimy dust settled on it.

Man Ray, "Dust Breeding," 1920, printed circa 1967; gelatin silver print. California Museum of Photography

Man Ray photographed the dusty glass, down low and at a raking angle. The image looks almost abstract.

When unveiled a few years later, the picture was cheekily titled View from an Aeroplane. (It would later be dubbed Dust Breeding.) The flat, tilted image features an obscure pattern of straight and curved geometric lines, dotted with organic gray clumps. At first glance, it does indeed look like an aerial landscape view, taken while flying over plowed farmland, an industrial park or maybe the mysterious Nazca lines of Peru.

A mural-size blowup of the picture is to the entrys right. Greatly enlarged, the size indicates two things: photographs are physically malleable, and Duchamps influence on art is big.

To the entrys left is something different  a 1980 commercial image from an advertisement for a can of dust-off cleaner. The compressed-air product, introduced a decade before, was useful for removing dust from photography equipment and film without having to touch the surface of a negative or camera lens.

When the ad ran, the products use was rapidly expanding in response to the rise of personal computers. A blast of canned cleaner could rid screens, keyboards and CPU fans of damaging dust and lint. Tension between old technology and new is established as an exhibition subtext.

The entrance juxtaposition also seems determined to blow some of the accumulated critical dust off of Duchamps enigmatic sculpture. The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), fractionally depicted in Man Rays photo, is a comical construction. Supposedly, it diagrams an erotic encounter between humanity and industrial machinery, metaphorically meditating on the unprecedented absurdity of the modern world.

The sober exhibition could use a bit more of that Dada levity. You can tell it is serious-minded because, with just a few exceptions, all the images in it are black-and-white. Those are the colors of text printed on paper, the academic palette of the library and research department. Mostly absent are the liberating capacities of irrational chromatic reveries like hot pink, lime green or mauve.

Most of the show's more than 60 camera works are in sober black-and-white, including the 1967 "Royal Road Test" (left) by Ed Ruscha, Mason Williams and Patrick Blackwell. California Museum of Photography

Jeff Mermelstein, "Statue," 2001. California Museum of Photography

Aerial surveillance views of post-atomic Hiroshima and Nagasaki record scenes of astonishing devastation. Anonymous photojournalism chronicles the ravaging American Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Nearby, a news photograph of the stored roadster once owned by Benito Mussolini, Italys lynched fascist dictator, presents a modern chariot covered in a layer of dust.

A photograph by Jeff Mermelstein shows a mundane public sculpture of a businessman shrouded in ash from the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The sight echoes against Giorgio Sommers 1873 documentary picture of a plaster cast of a victim of Mount Vesuvius eruption nearly 2,000 years ago.

In Aaron Siskinds 1949 photographic close-up of a wall at an anonymous Arizona building, paint peels and crumbles. Formally, the work is little different from another Siskind picture made 22 years later, this one showing a close-up of tattered handbills peeling off a wall in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Time and space collapse.

Many other familiar works of art are included. The photo book Royal Road Test by Ed Ruscha, Mason Williams and Patrick Blackwell charts the banged-up fate of a typewriter hurled from a speeding convertible in the barren Mojave desert. A single gray painting is recorded in 128 Gerhard Richter photographs laid out on a tabletop, facilitating farcical study. John Divolas gritty pictures show the graffiti-sprayed interiors of an abandoned house.

Less well-known but certainly haunting is Murmur, a looped, seven-minute video projection by British artist Kirk Palmer. Wind eerily rustles trees in a dense, hilly Japanese landscape. Animism, the attribution of a soul to natural phenomena, is central to Shinto religion; also evoked is a chilling intimation of impending doom.

Nature bites back.

The shows primary jolt of color comes in several gallery walls painted forest green  a landscape association, Id guess  amid more standard contemporary museum walls of white and gray. Image overload is the terrain of modern life, a forest of signs unlike any other encountered in world history.

Installation view of the exhibition, "a Handful of Dust." California Museum of Photography

Robert Burley, "Implosions of Buildings 65 and 69; Kodak Park, Rochester, New York #1," 2007, chromogenic print. California Museum of Photography

Roland Barthes 1980 book Camera Lucida, his only full-scale meditation on photography, could serve as back-story to the exhibition. The French literary theorist and philosopher insisted that the essence of the medium will be found in its implied message: Because a photograph, unlike a painting, is never distinguished from its referent (from what it represents), the image is an inevitable record of the past  of a moment gone, a context lost and an experience irrecoverable. Death is the implied message, regardless of the person, place or thing in the picture.

Barthes being Barthes, he laid out his claim in an almost novelistic way. His mother had recently died, and her passing was intertwined with his musings on camera work. In a Handful of Dust, something of that terminal quality reverberates through an arresting Robert Burley work  one of the shows few color photographs.

A crowd has gathered to watch the 2007 implosion of two Kodak film production factories in Rochester, N.Y. The once-titanic business was felled by the rise of digital culture, in which film stock is superfluous. Since Kodak employees are surely among the throng of witnesses to the implosion, the photograph creates a dizzying conceptual loop. The crowds lift cellphones, video and digital cameras to capture souvenir pictures of the destruction of their own way of life.

Sometimes, dust amounts to more than just a handful.

UCR California Museum of Photography, 3824 + 3834 Main St., Riverside; (951) 827-4787, through Dec. 9. Closed Monday. artsblock.ucr.edu/

Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan discuss making The Dust Bowl and the myriad hardships facing those in the Panhandle during the 1930s. The Dust Bowl airs November 18 and 19, 2012

christopher.knight@latimes.com

@KnightLAT
Throughout her life, Princess Margaret was known as a royal rebel, the member of the British royal family who dared push against tradition and carve out her own path.

Sister to Queen Elizabeth II, Margaret was brash, fiery and independent  and famous for presenting herself to the world with a distinctive sense of style. The princess, who died in 2002 at age 71, was an undeniable fashion icon whose legacy continues to resonate today.

She was a complete leader, really, says actress Vanessa Kirby, who is Emmy nominated for portraying Princess Margaret in the first two seasons of Netflixs The Crown. On the world stage, she would set trends. And she was also very, very connected to it emotionally. She was at the Chanel shows in Paris and knew all the designers, and all the designers wanted to design for her.

She was fashion-forward, especially into the 60s. We got to play so much with that in the second season. Im not particularly fashionable myself, so she taught me so much about it.

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Vanessa Kirby has portrayed Princess Margaret for two seasons of Netflixs The Crown. (Alex Bailey / Netflix)

There were several key factors in Margaret, who would be celebrating her 88th birthday Aug. 21, becoming a fashion icon. She donned top-end couture gowns from London and Paris during the 40s and 50s, often drawing criticism for wearing non-British designers. She was an early adopter of Christian Diors 1947 New Look style, an aesthetic defined by long, full skirts and cinched-in waists, and she quickly became one of Diors favorite clients.

The look was rather controversial to start with, as it required a considerable amount of fabric, which was still rationed in Britain as a result of shortages after World War II, says Eleri Lynn, collections curator for the royal ceremonial dress collection at the Historic Royal Palaces. Despite seeming to break the rules by wearing the New Look, Margaret helped popularize the fashion and made the silhouette one of the most iconic styles of the 20th century. British court designers soon started to adapt their collections to emulate Dior.

Alexandra Kim, former collections curator at the Historic Royal Palaces, believes that her position, her youth and her beauty were all key factors in her status as a fashion icon.

Its not just the inherent draw of her royal status, but also that as the younger sister, who did not have the same weighty role as her sister, an interest in fashion and clothes was seen as more fitting and acceptable, Kim added.

I think that youth and beauty are always big draws, and her ability to wear some of the most beautiful clothes of the late 40s and 50s made her a figure that women wanted to emulate. Dior talked about her being a real fairy-tale princess.

The advent of the swinging 60s brought a new style to London, and it was one that Margaret quickly integrated into her own look. Fashion trends began to come from the streets instead of couture houses, which Margaret embraced. Its that aesthetic that Jane Petrie, costume designer on the second season of The Crown, was tasked with re-creating. Instead of exactly replicating photographs of Margaret, Petrie aimed to channel the princess spirit with each ensemble.

Vanessa Kirby pictured here in a Season 2 episode of The Crown. (Robert Viglasky / Netflix)

We were trying to tell a visual story of the two sisters, one stuck inside the palace and one very much in touch with the outside world, says Petrie, who is Emmy nominated for period costumes. With Margaret, it was all about trying to capture the essence of the time, with the onset of the swinging 60s and the London nightlife that became very different, very quickly. It was moving quickly forward in the world, whereas the palace was becoming more out of touch. We looked at how to say all of that in how we dressed Margaret.

Petrie took inspiration from many of Margarets iconic looks, but only one piece was re-created exactly: her wedding dress. In May 1960, Margaret married fashion photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones (also known as Lord Snowden) at Westminster Abbey, and it was notably the first royal wedding to be broadcast on television.

She wore a silk organza dress designed by Norman Hartnell that famously used more than 30 yards of fabric in its skirt and the Poltimore Tiara, a look that was simple and contemporary. Petrie enlisted a couture cutter to remake the dress for the wedding episode.

Princess Margaret, pictured here on her wedding day with husband Antony Armstrong-Jones. (AFP)

If you look at the other wedding dresses of the period  I looked at a lot of wedding dresses of the period  and they were much fussier, Petrie notes. This was clean and fresh and definitely forward-thinking.

Kirby recalls that it felt really profound, actually, to walk in the same dress she did.

For Margaret, it was always about who she was going to marry and who she couldnt and who she wanted to, Kirby added. So to actually walk down the stairs in that dress was a great moment. And it was a much more modern dress than I think people expected.

Many royalists remember Margarets wedding dress. But for Lynn, the princess most iconic look involves a different instance with the Poltimore Tiara.

The iconic image in question is of her in the bath at Kensington Palace, taken by her photographer husband, Lord Snowdon, in the early 1960s, wearing nothing but the priceless Poltimore Tiara, Lynn says. Snowdon captures himself in the mirror, camera in hand. It shows the young couple as a modern, daring, fashionable force, with Kensington Palace the center of this glamorous world.

The portrait of Margaret in The Crown and in other accounts is complicated  she was a self-centered snob as well as a rebel. A new book by Craig Brown, Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret, portrays her as an undeniable wild child, often partying, drinking and smoking.

But even for those who didnt follow royal gossip, Margarets image was its own rebellion. She dared to wear dark, oversize sunglasses during a time when protocol dictated that members of the royal family be visible to the public outside the palace, and she donned trousers and short skirts.

In some ways, Margarets desire to break royal protocol is mirrored today by Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex. Since marrying Prince Harry in May, Markle has been criticized for allowing her bra to be glimpsed through her dress, skipping stockings and for wearing her hair in a messy bun.

I think that there is a definite sense that Meghan Markle, like Margaret, has more freedom in her fashion choices, especially in comparison to the Duchess of Cambridge, Kim says. Many commentators have picked up on the fact that she didnt wear tights or stockings for her engagement photograph, that shes worn off-the-shoulder dresses for daytime events and worn colored nail [polish].

Helena Bonham Carter takes over the role of Princess Margaret in the upcoming third season of The Crown. (Sophie Mutevelian / Netflix)

Margaret represented the beginning of the current obsession with royal fashion (although many British people were equally obsessed with the looks of Queen Victoria earlier on). In the 1950s, Margarets outfits appeared on the covers of newspapers and in fashion magazines, and many women attempted to sew their own versions of the dresses at home. Margaret was a celebrity in her own right, and the public always wanted to know what she wore.

The media was very different then, Petrie notes. You felt that you were getting a look at something unusual. There are a lot more faces out there wearing those expensive clothes now. Back then, youd have your favorite whose style you wanted to copy and youd wait to see them.

The renewed interest in Princess Margaret is due in no small part to The Crown. Kirby is handing the reins over to Helena Bonham Carter, who will portray Margaret for the next two seasons. For Kirby, Margarets legacy lies in her being an independently minded woman who urged her own way forward, both in fashion and in life.

I felt so lucky to play someone so bold and unpredictable and fiery and compassionate, Kirby says. I got to feel all the range of feelings with her, and Im so grateful for that. Thats what shes given me, and I think lots of people remember those qualities about her. I didnt know much about her when I started, to be honest, and now I just completely love her.

calendar@latimes.com
Cult favorite Porridge + Puffs, which has bounced around Los Angeles for four years as a pop-up  in Hollywood, in Silver Lake, at the Smorgasburg market  finally has a place to call home.

Minh Phans porridge shop will open Aug. 30 on Beverly Boulevard in Historic Filipinotown, just west of downtown L.A. Phan will host a neighborhood community dinner from 5 to 7 p.m. the night before, with $5 bowls of porridge.

I just say yes to things when they feel right, she said. And it was right.

The menu will be divided into porridge, plants and puffs. Poultry and mushroom porridge with edible flowers and other classics will make a reappearance alongside new creations such as a summer lemongrass porridge of Malabar spinach, pickled okra, ground gooseberry and amaranth flower tempura. Phan exclusively uses Koda Farms organic heirloom Kokuho Rose rice.

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Also on the menu are an Asian herb slaw as well as a yakimiso and sausage porridge. Phan says she might offer a banh mi  she is Vietnamese  but in a nod to Historic Filipinotown, make it with house-made longanisa sausage. The pillowy rice flour-based puffs  good on their own, even better when dunked into porridge  come naked or dusted with cardamom sugar.

Yakimiso and sausage porridge with grilled black eyed pea miso and negi rice porridge at Porridge + Puffs. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

To begin, the restaurant will be open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. By the end of September, Phan plans to extend morning hours by opening at 8 and add weekend brunch, serving Asian-influenced twists on California breakfast staples, such as Japanese multigrain pancakes. Then, in October, she hopes to add dinner service with a menu that leans to the more experimental.

Porridge + Puffs began in 2014 as a four-times-a-week pop-up within Phans former restaurant, Field Trip, in Hollywood. In his 2014 review, Times restaurant critic Jonathan Gold wrote that one porridge was as dazzling in its complexity as anything coming out of the most famous kitchens in town.

Despite the concept being a hit, the rent was too expensive, so Phan closed Field Trip, and with it Porridge + Puffs, a year later.

We had so much momentum, and then I killed it, she said ruefully.

She vowed to bring the porridge concept back, and soon. But in the ensuing years, Phan worked as a restaurant consultant and caterer and spent time in Japan, Mexico and Denmark, where she staged at the Michelin-starred Dragsholm Slot. She revived Porridge + Puffs in L.A. for pop-up events occasionally, leaving fans to wonder whether a full restaurant would ever materialize.

Poultry and mushroom porridge with sweet soy braised chicken, turkey, mushrooms, crispy shallots, celery pickles, seasonal edible flowers, mirepoix rice porridge and hibiscus-shiso pickled soft egg at Porridge + Puffs. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Funding challenges and finding the right location took a while. Phan met with prominent restaurant investors but became wary; ultimately, she and partner Aaron Sonnenschein fronted their own money and took micro loans from a close group of female friends to launch Porridge + Puffs. She looked at storefronts in Echo Park, where she and Sonnenschein live, as well as Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Glassell Park and Mt. Washington before settling on the Historic Filipinotown spot, previously occupied by the restaurant Thai East Wind.

Phan first encountered the 1,000-square-foot space as a customer about a year ago. In May, she tested it out by holding  what else  a pop-up dinner there for an L.A. Times Food Bowl event. Soon, she was negotiating to take over the property and most of the existing furniture and kitchen equipment.

A speedy makeover has transformed the interior in a few short weeks. A fresh coat of white paint erased the muddy orange and green that used to color the walls. Dark granite dining tables were covered up with light blond wood tops. A big custom communal table now dominates the middle of the space, which, along with individual tables lining a long black banquette, can seat about 40.

The restaurants eye-catching feature is a floral installation; Phan had an artist friend tape dried flowers and plants  lavender, fennel, sage, rose geranium, mugwort and California peppers among them  upside down, sort of a waterfall of flowers that appears to gently rain down from above.

Pinterest-esque floral walls and $12 porridge with ingredients such as Malabar-herb-coconut pistou may be a first for this stretch of Beverly Boulevard, and Phan allows that the site is unexpected. The easiest way to help pinpoint Porridge + Puffs location is to say its two blocks from the first Original Tommys hamburger stand.

Ive always liked areas that are a little less developed. Its realistic for me  you know, rent-wise, of course  but I like exploring these areas, she said. I like the flavor of it. Were gonna change it, and I hope we do it respectfully.

Like so many eateries around L.A., Porridge + Puffs got a huge boost from Golds glowing review.

Phan said she was inspired to create a new dish in honor of Gold, who died July 21, based on a quibble he once shared with her: that lengthy menus bombard diners with too many choices to make.

With that in mind, Phan has been working on a five-item Asian breakfast board that will come with pickles, a salad, eggs, porridge and a choice of protein (such as braised short rib or Dover sole stuffed with shiso and shiitake) for $20.

Im going to call it the Gold, Phan said. And the Gold is the best thing we have to offer.

2801 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 908-5313, www.porridgeandpuffs.com.

andrea.chang@latimes.com

Twitter: @byandreachang
Now You See Me: In the Aug. 20 Section A, an article about Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu said he had directed Now You See Me. That film was directed by Louis Leterrier.

Afghan cease-fire: In the Aug. 20 Section A, an article about Afghanistans president calling for a cease-fire with the Taliban should not have included a Kabul dateline.

Clown convention: In the Aug. 19 California section, a photo caption accompanying an article about the sixth annual International Latino Clown Convention misspelled the last name of professional clown Erick Murias as Munias.

Movie title: In the Aug. 19 Calendar section, a readers letter in the Feedback column referred to the movie Dont Worry, He Wont Get Far On Foot as Dont Worry, He Cant Get Far On Foot.

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Mental health funding: In the Aug. 19 Section A, an article about the Mental Health Savings Act identified Darrell Steinberg as a state senator at the time Proposition 63 was written and passed in 2004. He was an assemblyman at the time.

Seattle police chief: In the Aug. 19 Section A, a photo caption accompanying an article about the new police chiefs of Seattle and Portland, Ore., said Carmen West is Seattles chief. Her name is Carmen Best.

If you believe that we have made an error, or you have questions about The Times journalistic standards and practices, you may contact the readers representative by email at readers.representative@latimes.com, by phone at (877) 554-4000, by fax at (213) 237-3535 or by mail at 2300 E. Imperial Highway, El Segundo CA 90245. The readers representative office is online at latimes.com/readersrep.
The two encounters happened 16 years apart, but they have striking similarities. In both cases, a young actor was summoned to a hotel room by a prominent Hollywood figure more than twice their age. There, the victims allege, they were coaxed onto a bed and sexually assaulted.

In one story, the alleged attacker is Harvey Weinstein. In the other, its one of his most vocal accusers.

Asia Argento emerged as a powerful figure in the #MeToo movement last fall after telling the New Yorker that during the Cannes Film Festival in 1997, Weinstein invited her to his hotel, came out in a bathrobe and sexually assaulted her. At this years festival, she delivered a bold speech about the experience.

In 1997, I was raped by Harvey Weinstein  here at Cannes. I was 21 years old. This festival was his hunting ground, she said in remarks that drew loud cheers and applause.

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But now, the 42-year-old actress and director faces a reckoning of her own.

She is the subject of a criminal inquiry and has been attacked by critics calling her a hypocrite after the New York Times reported Sunday that she recently paid off a former child actor who said she sexually assaulted him in a Marina del Rey hotel room in 2013, when he was 17. In California, the age of consent is 18.

Two lawyers who represent Argento have not returned phone calls or emails seeking comment.

The allegations are unlikely to undermine the explosive #MeToo movement, which researchers say has exposed nearly 480 high-profile personalities, only about a dozen of them female, since last fall. But experts and activists say the claims against Argento do highlight a basic truth: Many sexual assault allegations are at their core about unfair power dynamics.

Sexual violence is about power and privilege. That doesnt change if the perpetrator is your favorite actress, activist or professor of any gender, Tarana Burke, a founder of the #MeToo movement, said on Twitter. My hope is that as more folks come forward, particularly men, that we prepare ourselves for some hard conversations about power and humanity and privilege and harm.

The New York Times reported that Argento settled a notice of intent to sue from Jimmy Bennett, who in 2004 played her son in a film, for $380,000 in the months after she publicly accused Weinstein. Bennett is now 22.

Los Angeles County Sheriffs Capt. Darren Harris said Monday that the department had not received a report on the alleged incident but was pursuing the matter by trying to interview the parties involved.

The allegation of a sexual assault and the payment agreement are laid out in documents between lawyers for Argento and Bennett that the newspaper received through encrypted email from an unknown source. The papers report did not state that Argento admitted any wrongdoing. The newspaper cited three unnamed sources as confirming the authenticity of the documents.

On May 9, 2013, Argento and Bennett  who on social media have referred to each other as mother and son  met for a reunion at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey. Argento posted a photo on that day showing her hugging Bennett, referring to him as My son my love, and included the month and year.

The New York Times report said Bennetts letter of intent to sue laid out his account of the encounter: He arrived at the hotel with a family member, and Argento asked the family member to leave. When they were alone, she kissed the 17-year-old, removed his pants and performed oral sex, and then had sex with him, the document said, according to the newspaper.

Bennetts attorney, Gordon Sattro, issued a statement Monday saying his client does not yet have a comment on the encounter.

While we realize that the news cycle demands an immediate response, many times, people need more than a few minutes or hours to respond, Sattro said. We are asking that you give our client some time and space. Jimmy is going to take the next 24 hours, or longer, to prepare his response. We ask that you respect our clients privacy during this time.

An attorney for Weinstein, meanwhile, released a statement accusing Argento of a stunning level of hypocrisy.

The sheer duplicity of her conduct is quite extraordinary and should demonstrate to everyone how poorly the allegations against Mr. Weinstein were actually vetted and accordingly, cause all of us to pause and allow due process to prevail, not condemnation by fundamental dishonesty, the statement said.

Actress Rose McGowan, another leader of the #MeToo movement, distanced herself from Argento in a Twitter post Monday.

I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein, she wrote. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere.

The stunning role reversal shows how large the #MeToo movement has become, that it could turn around and target someone at its forefront.

Its a man-bites-dog story, and its an anomaly in a serious and profound movement forward, said Davia Temin, a crisis manager who does research on the #MeToo movement. It shows that the story gets more complicated.

We get easy stories about how a man closes a door on a woman who is a young professional and tries to make a pass and says if she doesnt he will hurt her progress. This behavior is far more ubiquitous than we would ever know.

Genie Harrison, an attorney representing one of Weinsteins accusers, said abuse of power cannot ever be ignored, even if the alleged wrongdoer is a #MeToo leader.

Though it seems incomprehensible for victims to become victimizers, history and storytelling are replete with examples of exactly this transformation, Harrison said. Victims need support and excellent therapy to have the best chance for full recovery and healthy relationships, including with themselves.

Daniel Medwed, a professor of law and criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston, said that despite Argentos leadership role in #MeToo, the movement is much larger than any one person.

There are many other strong voices contributing to the discourse, Medwed said. The movement cant be derailed at this stage. Its something that has been brewing for decades.

But the scrutiny on Argento could lead victims of sexual harassment to think twice about coming forward as a public leader in the movement, he said.

With power comes responsibility, and leading the charge of this movement risks more attention and scrutiny to your behavior, Medwed said. It sends a signal that if you get out in front of the movement, everything youve done can be unearthed.
UC Berkeley has suspended a prominent architecture professor for three years without pay for sexually harassing a graduate student and abusing his power for personal gain.

Professor Nezar AlSayyad, who was also chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies for nearly two decades until 2014, was found to have engaged in a pattern of sexual harassment [that] created a hostile environment, university spokeswoman Janet Gilmore said in a statement Monday.

The finding was based on a complaint filed in 2016 by UC Berkeley doctoral candidate Eva Hagberg Fisher.

A campus investigation found that AlSayyad, who was one of Hagberg Fishers advisors, had spent months ingratiating himself with her before placing his hand on her upper thigh, proposing they become close friends and suggesting they go to Las Vegas, according to a report published Monday in the San Francisco Chronicle.

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The investigation found that AlSayyad tried to isolate Hagberg Fisher from other faculty members and establish himself as her most important supporter, thereby using his power for personal gain, the Chronicle reported, quoting an email that Vice Provost Benjamin Hermalin sent last week to Hagberg Fisher.

Based on the investigations findings, Chancellor Carol Christ decided last week to place AlSayyad on a three-year suspension without pay effective immediately, the university statement said.

AlSayyads gross salary in 2017 was $237,000, according to the universitys payroll website.

The chancellor found that between 2012-14, Al Sayyad engaged in a pattern of unwelcome, manipulative and divisive behavior, the university said in its statement, which listed a number of additional restrictions on AlSayyad, who has taught at UC Berkeley since 1985.

During his three-year suspension, AlSayyad is barred from nonpublic areas of the campus and cannot teach or supervise new graduate students, the university statement said.

Through his attorney, AlSayyad denied engaging in any misconduct, the Chronicle said. He did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

AlSayyad is one of several UC Berkeley employees in recent years to face sexual harassment allegations that the university says has prompted it to intensify and reform its response to sexual misconduct.
A serial rapist terrorized a swath of Northern California in the 1970s, breaking into dozens of womens homes in attacks that spanned three years and sparked fear throughout the suburbs of Sacramento and Contra Costa counties.

More than 40 years later, prosecutors in Santa Ana announced Tuesday they had charged a man in those horrific crimes. Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., who already faces 13 counts of murder as the suspected Golden State Killer, is now accused of 13 counts of kidnapping to commit a robbery as well. He will stand trial in Sacramento County.

Though DeAngelo already faces a potential death sentence for the murders, experts say adding the kidnapping charges is a two-fold strategy that could satisfy some victims families and shore up a successful prosecution. But its also a reflection of the limited options left for prosecuting offenses committed in an era when sex crimes were an afterthought for law enforcement.

DeAngelo, 72, is charged with nine kidnappings in Sacramento County in 1976 and 77 and four in Contra Costa in 1978 and 79. As they tried to catch the culprit, investigators initially pursued multiple charges, including rape and assault with a deadly weapon. But as the years passed, time rendered many of them moot because of statutes of limitations.

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Before 1981, the statute of limitations for rape in California was just three years.

Our lawyers have looked at this very strenuously and identified those cases where we could comply with those statute of limitations, said Sacramento County Dist. Atty. Anne Marie Schubert.

That helps explain how a man believed by investigators to have committed more than 50 rapes, 100 burglaries and at least 13 murders currently faces charges for only a fraction of those offenses.

DNA evidence ties DeAngelo to two of the kidnappings in Contra Costa County, prosecutors said. The Golden State Killers modus operandi is the tie that binds them all.

We were looking for a needle in a haystack, and we found him, Schubert said. It is very fitting that this journey for justice thats been sought for over 40 years ends in Sacramento.

Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas, along with Sacramento County Dist. Atty. Anne Marie Schubert and prosecutors from Contra Costa, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura counties, announced new charges and the trial venue for Joseph DeAngelo. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

A week ago, prosecutors in Tulare County charged DeAngelo with the murder of Claude Snelling in his Visalia backyard in 1975. Snellings daughter, Elizabeth Hupp, told police that she was sleeping when a man in a ski mask entered her bedroom and forced her to move in silence to the backyard. Snelling saw his daughter from the kitchen window and confronted the masked man, who shot him twice then ran off without the girl.

Snelling, 45, a professor and public information officer at the College of the Sequoias, died on the way to the hospital.

The murder was immediately linked to a prolific series of burglaries in Visalia, where a prowler had broken into 102 homes and ransacked womens dressers for underwear, and stole coin banks, random jewelry and a gun later linked to Snellings killing. DeAngelo was a police officer in nearby Exeter at the time.

At about the same time the Visalia ransacks stopped, DeAngelo left Exeter and joined the police force in Auburn, a small town north of Sacramento. Concurrently, a serial rapist began to operate in Sacramentos eastern suburbs, attacking some 34 women and killing a young couple who evidently surprised the prowler while they were on an evening stroll.

The so-called East Area Rapist then moved south and west, attacking couples in their homes in Modesto, Stockton, Davis and in the San Francisco Bay communities of Danville and Fremont.

Visalia detectives said it was the work of a single attacker, but detectives in other jurisdictions disagreed.

After DeAngelo was fired from the Auburn Police Department in 1979 for shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent from a store, the rapes stopped, but a serial killer began attacking women and couples in Southern California.

The perpetrator assaulted and killed 10 people in Orange, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties by bludgeoning or shooting them. The last victim, an 18-year-old, was raped and killed in 1986 at her home in Irvine.

Police departments for decades disagreed over whether attacks spanning the state over more than a decade were committed by a single man.

Finally, in 2000, DNA evidence linked most of the murders.

The following year, DNA unearthed in three rape kits confirmed they were also the work of the East Area Rapist.

But it wasnt until this year that cold-case detectives uploaded the killers DNA profile to a public genealogy site to identify the likely family line of the killer, and from there, narrowed their hunt to DeAngelo.

He was arrested in late April. The retired truck mechanic was living in the same north suburban Sacramento home he had bought in 1979.

A search warrant accompanying DeAngelos arrest showed police had sifted through his trash to find a tissue with DNA that matched that of the serial killer.

For decades, he evaded justice and devastated communities across California. Due to the severity of his crimes, his victims often faced tremendous trauma after so much time has passed, said Contra Costa County Dist. Atty. Diana Becton. Thankfully, we can now hold someone accountable for these crimes and seek justice for our victims.

The move to add kidnapping charges could bring solace to victims and their families, but it might also help bolster prosecutors case, said Robert Weisberg, a Stanford University criminal law professor.

Especially with highly publicized cases like this, prosecutors will often charge everything possible, Weisberg said. Its like wearing suspenders and a belt.... Theres always the possibility that something might go awry so you just have insurance policies.

Though investigators initially pursued the crimes as rapes, focusing on kidnapping charges shouldnt hurt prosecutors chances, said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School.

If they can prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, even if its not the original case people thought it would be, the law allows them to do that, she said.

DeAngelo is represented by a Sacramento County public defender. He is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday.

Times staff writer Hannah Fry contributed to this report.

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

joseph.serna@latimes.com

UPDATES:

7 p.m.: This article was updated with context about how sex crimes were investigated and prosecuted in the 1970s.

1:35 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from Sacramento County Dist. Atty. Anne Marie Schubert and Contra Costa County Dist. Atty. Diana Becton.

12:20 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas.

11:15 a.m.: This article was updated with details on the trial venue and additional charges.

This article was originally published at 6:40 a.m.
The city of Los Angeles will pay $1.95 million to the family of Charly Africa Keunang, an unarmed homeless man whose fatal shooting by LAPD officers in 2015 set off days of protests and denunciations of the departments treatment of skid rows mentally unstable population.

The City Council on a 12-2 vote Tuesday approved the settlement, which had been reached tentatively after a federal jury in May found two officers liable in Keunangs videotaped death.



For the record: An earlier version of this story gave the council vote as 10 to 2. It was 12 to 2.

Councilmen Joe Buscaino and Mitchell Englander cast the no votes. Buscainos spokesman noted that the citys civilian Police Commission had found the shooting justified. The district attorney declined to file criminal charges against the officers, stating that the officers acted lawfully in self-defense and in defense of others.

A cellphone recording that captured the March 1, 2015, shooting, which took place on a Sunday morning in broad daylight, was viewed millions of times around the world. Keunang, a native of Cameroon with a history of mental illness, was shot five times on the sidewalk outside his tent in the middle of skid row.

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Police Chief Charlie Beck defended the officers, saying Keunang had grabbed one of their guns during a melee that erupted after they arrived to investigate an attempted robbery and assault against another homeless person. The officer yelled, Hes got my gun, during the incident

Attorney Dan Stormer, who represented Keunangs family in the civil lawsuit, said the homeless mans DNA was not found on the gun, as Beck had contended early in the investigation. Stormer said footage of the shooting, including from surveillance cameras and police body cameras, showed that officers had precipitated the violence.

They escalated step by step to the point it became a melee, Stormer said.

After the shooting, the LAPD intensified mental health training for all officers, including those who patrol skid row.

This was a tragic situation. We hope Mr. Keunangs family will find some solace in this resolution, Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for City Atty. Mike Feuer, said in an emailed statement.

The settlement will go to Keunangs parents, Heleine Tchayou and Isaac Keunang, his sister, Line Marquise Foming, and their attorneys.

gholland@latimes.com

Twitter: @geholland
More than a dozen tanker cars derailed in San Bernardino on Tuesday, prompting authorities to evacuate at least one nearby building.

The BNSF Railway train heading to Los Angeles from Barstow derailed at about 9:25 a.m. in the 7200 block of Cajon Boulevard near Devore Boulevard, police and company officials said.

BNSF representative Lena Kent said 15 tanker cars derailed in the incident.

No one was injured.

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San Bernardino police evacuated the FedEx Freight building on Cajon Boulevard as a precaution. It is not clear how many people were evacuated.

Police said a gas and alcohol-based liquid is leaking from three of the train cars. However, Kent said only two of the cars are leaking.

One car is carrying a type of waxing grease that is considered a hazardous material. The other car contains a nonhazardous material, Kent said.

Police said a hazardous materials assessment determined there is no danger to the public. Officials are using drones to identify rail car contents.

The incident has closed a stretch of Cajon Boulevard and Glen Helen Parkway.

It is not clear what caused the train to derail.

Tanker cars derailed along railway near the 15 and 215 freeways at the base of the Cajon Pass prompting evacuations in the area in San Bernardino, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

EVACUATION ALERT! A train has derailed and we are evacuating the area around Cajon Blvd. and Devore Rd. There is no immediate threat to the area, this is for safety only at this point.  San Bernardino PD (@SanBernardinoPD) August 21, 2018

(Los Angeles Times)

UPDATES:

11:50 a.m.: This article was updated with comments from BNSF Railway representative Lena Kent.

This article was originally published at 10:55 a.m.
It was just before sunrise at Malibu Creek State Park when the shot rang out in the pre-dawn silence.

A bullet whizzed into the tent of Tristan Beaudette, who was camping with his two young daughters. Beaudette, a research scientist from Irvine, was killed, his body discovered by others.

The killing June 22 has baffled investigators ever since. At first, it seemed like an isolated incident. But then officials acknowledged they knew of at least seven other shooting reports in the same rustic area in the last two years. Beaudette was the first to die, but another man was wounded by buckshot to his arm.

Its been a summer of anxiety in and around the popular camping and hiking spot. Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department investigators have spent days scouring the canyon area looking for clues. Theyve fielded more calls about more shots fired but said its unclear how many of those were real. They closed the campsite itself out of an abundance of caution.

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Some have speculated that a sniper has been hiding in the hills taking potshots. Others question whether the incidents are even connected, noting the differences in the circumstances. One Malibu news website operator even took to Facebook, compiling photos of several vehicles that appeared to have been hit by gunfire.

But with few clues, residents in Malibu and the canyon areas are frustrated.

They arent answering our questions. They are clueless, or they sandbag us, said Calabasas resident Linda Edwards at a town hall meeting Sunday where detectives and other officials fielded questions.

Indeed, sheriffs officials were tight-lipped about their investigation.

Its true that we do not have a known theory or definitive answer in Mr. Beaudettes death or a known suspect, said Lt. Rodney Moore, a homicide supervisor. We dont have any independent knowledge or independent information that indicates that those prior shootings are related to Mr. Beaudette. However, we are investigating that theres a possibility.

Nearly two months have passed, with a $35,000 reward in Beaudettes slaying up for grabs. And as hard as sheriffs and state officials try, residents arent getting the answers they want about how their paradise became a crime scene.

For those hoping for new clues, the meeting left attendees disappointed.

Detectives have placed a security hold on Beaudettes autopsy, and Moore refused to say whether any of the other shootings involved the same type of weapon.

Was it a random shooting? We are not releasing any specific information that it is targeted or random, Moore said.

The shootings began Nov. 3, 2016. James Rogers was hiking the Backbone Trail and sleeping overnight in a hammock in Tapia Park, just south of Malibu Creek State Park. He was struck by buckshot; he said he needed surgery to remove the pellets from his arm. I heard a loud bang and then felt a burning sensation in my arm and fell to the ground, he said. Before I could look at my wound, I did a quick check of the perimeter and I saw nothing.

Six days later, someone shot at a person sleeping inside a car at the Malibu Creek State Park campground. Then on Jan. 7, 2017, another vehicle parked at the campsite was hit by gunfire as a man and woman slept inside. Six months later, as a motorist drove down Malibu Canyon Road on June 8, a single shot struck the vehicle. Another car was hit July 22. On July 31, deputies investigated another report of shots fired but were unable to determine what happened.

Nearly a year would pass before a driver of a Tesla on Malibu Canyon Road heard a shot hit his vehicle about 4:30 a.m. June 18. No one was injured. Sheriffs investigators examined the car, and a piece of shrapnel had embedded in it, the owner said.

Four days later, Beaudette took his daughters camping to allow his wife, an Orange County obstetrician, some quiet time to study for an examination. He pitched a tent next to that of his brother-in-law and his children.

His killing stunned his family and the larger Malibu Hills community.

His wife, Erica Wu, calls his death a senseless loss.

I may never understand why our time together was cut short, but we had an incredible journey and I am so grateful for every day I had with him, she said.

Since Beaudettes killing, there have been several other reports of shootings.

But Sheriffs Lt. James Royal said deputies have yet to find any proof that those were actual shootings. Three of the reports turned out to be something other than gunfire, including a backfire and a transformer explosion in the Monte Nido area.

But Royal, who oversees detectives at the nearby Lost Hills station, said the public need to stay vigilant.

I strongly encourage you to trust your instincts, he said at the town hall meeting. If you see something that doesnt feel right, if you have a gut feeling, please trust it.

Adding to the fear was the discovery of two bodies in recent months. On May 16, the body of Francisco Reynaldo Crux, 52, turned up on Las Virgenes Road near the Malibu Hindu Temple. He had died of blunt-force trauma. On July 27, 19-year-old Roger Chavez Barahonas body was recovered on an embankment in the 24000 block of Piuma Road. He had died of multiple gunshot wounds. Moore said those homicides are gang-related and arent connected to Beaudettes slaying. Officials say the remote canyon roads have been used as a dumping ground for bodies for decades.

The area between Pacific Coast Highway and the 101 Freeway is patrolled by five local, state and federal agencies. And that has led to some confusion. Some of the previous shootings were reported to California State Parks Department rangers and others to the L.A. County Sheriffs Department.

Some officials complained they had not heard anything about the earlier shootings until Beaudettes death. Residents have questioned why sheriffs officials did not alert the public to the potential danger early.

We are working on it, but we cannot tell you, is how Lloyd Ahern, a Malibu resident, summed up the law enforcement approach.

Barry Haldeman, also of Malibu, said the shootings have a lot of residents questioning the safety of Malibu Creek State Park after sundown. Some have said theyve stopped hiking and driving there at night.

But Haldeman said he was encouraged by the team investigating the violence.

At least we know they are working on it seriously, he said.

richard.winton@latimes.com

Twitter: @LAcrimes
For more than three decades, David McReynolds was among the most outspoken socialists and pacifists in America, a leftist organizer who combined a belief in wealth redistribution with a fierce opposition to the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons.

As a leader of the War Resisters League, he spurred a wave of antiwar demonstrations in 1965, when he joined four other men in lighting their draft cards on fire, defying a federal law that could have sent him to prison for five years and earned him a $10,000 fine.

He went on to become one of the first candidates to come out as gay to run for Congress and president. Although he never came close to winning office, he helped define modern pacifism in the United States, said his friend Bruce Cronin, chair of the political science department at the City College of New York.

McReynolds, who died Friday at 88 at a hospital in Manhattan, drew the attention of the FBI and landed in jail several times as a result of his activism. His political career was all the more remarkable given his upbringing in Los Angeles, where he was raised by a family of conservative Baptists and joined the Prohibition Party in his youth.

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Though he came to don tie-dye shirts, beads and patchouli cologne with other Vietnam-era peaceniks, he honed his public speaking skills with a group called the Traveling Temperance Talking Team, in which sharply dressed teenagers competed to see who could best denounce the evils of alcohol.

Indeed, McReynolds was described as more professorial than proletarian, with interests that ranged far beyond political rallies and campaigns. He was a prolific photographer, taking more than 50,000 pictures of New York City streetscapes and activists such as the gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin (whom McReynolds described as a mentor) and the pacifist A.J. Muste (for whom he worked as a top lieutenant).

McReynolds was also a member of the Bromeliad Society, an international botanical group, and filled his East Village apartment with tropical plants and hundreds of bottles of perfume, which he created himself and arranged on floor-to-ceiling shelves. He was found unconscious in the apartment Wednesday, several weeks after suffering a fall, said his younger brother, Martin McReynolds.

Active in the anti-Korean War and civil rights movements, McReynolds joined the War Resisters League in 1960 and was soon named field secretary. Alongside Norma Becker and Sidney Peck, he became a behind-the-scenes architect of the anti-Vietnam War movement, Cronin said, known for maintaining unity in a coalition that included members of the political left and right.

If you can bring together labor, teachers, students, folks from all walks of life, then you can turn the country. Thats painstaking work, said Cronin, who met McReynolds while preparing for a 1982 nuclear disarmament rally that, by some estimates, drew 1 million people to Central Park.

It took somebody like David to bring people together and say, Look, lets keep the focus on what we want and not break up over trifles.

Among the leagues most controversial actions was the burning of draft cards. McReynolds made national headlines when he appeared on a wooden platform in Manhattans Union Square to burn his card on Nov. 6, 1965, amid counterprotests from a group chanting, Drop dead, red.

The burning was interrupted, the New York Times reported, when a man sprayed McReynolds and his fellow demonstrators with a fire extinguisher: The pacifists managed to dry the cards over the flame of a cigarette lighter, however, and the cards burned crisply.

At 36, McReynolds was the oldest member of the group, which included Tom Cornell, Marc Paul Edelman, Roy Lisker and James Wilson. While the others were indicted on charges of defacing their cards (three were sentenced to six months in prison), McReynolds was left alone, reportedly because he was too old to be drafted.

He went on to coordinate antiwar rallies across the country and twice met with dissident groups in Vietnam. According to A Saving Remnant, a biography of McReynolds by Martin Duberman, he was visiting Czechoslovakia when the Soviets invaded in 1968 to quash the Prague Spring.

McReynolds  who said he was a socialist, not a communist  was able to return to the United States in time to run for a U.S. House seat that fall, on Eldridge Cleavers Peace and Freedom ticket. As in 1958, during his first bid for Congress, he was crushed, receiving just 5% of the vote.

Undaunted, he went on to run for president with the Socialist Party USA in 1980, on a platform that called for nuclear disarmament, the breakup of large corporations and sharp reductions in military spending.

We have no illusions that we will win the presidential election, he said after a rally with his running mate Diane Drufenbrock, a nun. Our purpose is to make possible a discussion of socialism and to raise issues on foreign policy and unemployment.

McReynolds received fewer than 7,000 votes. He ran once more, in 2000, and four years later mounted a Green Party campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York.

In part, he said, his electoral defeats could be chalked up to an imaging problem in a country where socialism has long been a dirty word.

One of the tragedies is that the things a Socialist candidate will say are things that really could be said by a compassionate and moderately insightful Republican, he told the Progressive magazine in 2000. If I say we should have much greater mass transit in the major cities, that we should be able to rebuild the railroad system so that Amtrak actually connects all the small towns, thats a reasonable thing. Its not a radical proposal.

David Ernest McReynolds was born in Los Angeles on Oct. 25, 1929, one day after the Black Thursday stock market crash signaled the beginning of the Depression.

He described his leftward political turn as probably a Freudian rebellion against my father, a journalist and advertising salesman for McGraw-Hill who served in the Air Force Reserve.

At UCLA, where he received a bachelors degree in 1953, he entered what he called a cabal of radicalism, joining a group of young socialists who danced the hora, listened to Edith Piaf records and published a leftist newspaper on campus. He said he also had a liberating sexual encounter around that same time, with choreographer Alvin Ailey.

In 1969, McReynolds wrote an article for WIN, the War Resisters League magazine, that marked his coming out in professional life. But he said that he never identified as a gay rights advocate, and when running for president in 1980, decided that his identity as a socialist pacifist was complex enough.

McReynolds moved to New York in 1956 and worked for the left-leaning magazine Liberation before joining the War Resisters League. He later served as chairman of War Resisters International, and formally retired from the league in 1999.

In 2015, he resigned from the Socialist Party after being censured for Facebook comments that the party deemed potentially racist and Islamophobic. (McReynolds said that his remarks about the thuggish behavior of Michael Brown, whose shooting sparked riots in Ferguson, Mo., had been misunderstood, and that he was absolutely opposed to efforts to demonize Muslims.)

In addition to his brother of Santa Rosa, Calif., survivors include a sister, Elizabeth Gralewski of Santa Barbara.

In 2000, 25 years after the end of the Vietnam War, McReynolds told the New York Times that he feared the war and its accompanying protests had sunk into a memory hole, and recalled that the period was a harrowing time for him as well as the country. He had turned from teetotalling to alcoholism, he said, but stopped drinking around the time the war ended.

From one point of view, he said, it was a wonderful time  to feel that you were doing something, or that you shortened the war by one day, or saved one life on either side. To some extent, we did that.

Smith writes for the Washington Post.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh suggested that attorneys preparing to question President Bill Clinton in 1998 seek graphic details about the presidents sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

The questions are part of a memo in which Kavanaugh advised Independent Counsel Ken Starr and others not to give the president any break during questioning. He suggested Clinton be asked whether he had phone sex with Lewinsky and whether he performed specific sexual acts.

Kavanaugh worked on Starrs team investigating Clinton. He said it may not be our job to impose sanctions on him, but it is our job to make his pattern of revolting behavior clear  piece by painful piece.

The memo was released on Monday by the National Archives and Records Administration. In the subject line, Kavanaugh asks, Slack for the President?

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Kavanaugh goes on to answer the question with a resounding no.

He said he had tried to bend over backward to be fair to Clinton and to think of reasonable defenses for his behavior, but in the end, became convinced there were none. The idea of going easy on him at the questioning is thus abhorrent to me, Kavanaugh wrote.

He also accused Clinton of committing perjury, turning the Secret Service upside down, and trying to disgrace Starr and the independent counsels office with a sustained propaganda campaign that would make Nixon blush.

Kavanaugh in the memo states, The president has disgraced his Office, the legal system, and the American people by having sex with a 22-year-old intern and turning her life into a shambles.

The release from the Archives comes before confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh, scheduled for the week after Labor Day. Kavanaugh has been making courtesy calls to senators and met Monday for about an hour with the senior Democratic member of the committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hopes to have Kavanaugh confirmed to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy before the new court session begins Oct. 1.

After leaving Starrs investigative team, Kavanaugh went on to serve in the administration of President George W. Bush and as a circuit court judge. Hes reflected on various occasions about investigations involving a sitting president. He wrote in a 2009 Minnesota Law Review article that it would be appropriate for Congress to enact a statute that would allow civil lawsuits against a sitting president to be deferred until the presidents term ends. He said Congress should consider doing the same with respect to criminal investigations and prosecutions of the President.

Democrats have asserted that Trump chose Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court because he would protect him from special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation.

Kavanaughs August 1998 memo to Starr and his legal team said that he was mindful of the need to respect the office of the president. But he said the full facts should be gathered so that the Congress can decide whether the interests of the Presidency would be best served by having a new President.

Otherwise, he asked, Arent we failing to fulfill our duty to the American people if we willingly conspire with the President in an effort to conceal the true nature of his acts?

He went on to suggest 10 questions for Clinton that go into vivid detail about sexual acts, how often they occurred and whether Lewinksy would be lying if she had recounted those actions.

Clinton was impeached in a post-election session of the House, acquitted in the Senate and remained in office.
In 2015, Donald Zimmerman, a conservative city councilman in Austin, Texas, tried a novel strategy to win reelection: suing his own city.

Zimmerman thought the citys $350 limit on municipal campaign donations violated the 1st Amendment.

A federal judge disagreed. After Zimmerman appealed, the full U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to hear his case, with one judge writing a dissent.

That was James C. Ho, newly appointed to that court by President Trump. He argued that not only did Zimmerman have a case, but that all donation limits in the U.S. should be abolished.

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The 1st Amendment protects the freedom of speech, and that freedom emphatically includes the right to speak about who our elected leaders should and should not be, he wrote, concluding: The 1st Amendment therefore protects campaign contributions.

As Washington prepares for a Senate showdown over whether Brett Kavanaugh will join the Supreme Court, Trump has already put his stamp on the judiciary with the lifetime appointments of at least 43 federal judges. Ho was confirmed by the Senate in December by a 53-43 vote.

Trumps total of 22 successfully appointed appeals court judges  as of last month  is more than either of the last two presidents at this point in their terms, according to an analysis last month by the Pew Research Center.

The real kind of big news is the sheer amount of change thats happening on the court of appeals, said Harsh Voruganti, founder and editor of the Vetting Room, a website that tracks judicial appointments. I think were going to see a fair amount of change in jurisprudence.

Trump has reportedly received input in selecting nominees from right-leaning groups such as the Federalist Society. While conservative groups have celebrated his picks, liberal court-watchers are worried.

What weve seen in only a very limited amount of time is deeply disturbing, and confirms concerns that we had before these individuals were approved by the Senate, said Daniel Goldberg, legal director for the Alliance for Justice, a liberal-leaning judicial advocacy group.

He singled out Ho and his campaign finance opinion as an example.

During the confirmation process, senators had pressed Ho on a 1997 article in which he supported abolishing all restrictions on campaign finance.

In a written response, Ho said he had to demur on stating a personal view on these issues because he might hear campaign finance cases in the future. But he promised: If confirmed to be a federal judge, I would respect and enforce the campaign finance laws enacted by Congress, consistent with the precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court.

To Goldberg, it was classic evasion  a judicial nominee trying to present a more politically neutral image in front of skeptical legislators.

You see nominee after nominee come before the Senate Judiciary Committee, try to run away from their past, and [pretend] the minute they put on their robes, they become a robot and forget all their ideological leanings and everything theyve dedicated their lives to over the last 20 or 30 years, Goldberg said.

Another liberal advocacy group, People for the American Way, has launched a blog series called Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears to track the decisions and votes made by Trumps judicial appointees.

The group cited a recent ruling by a 5th Circuit Court panel, in which Trump appointee Don Willett voted with a 2-to-1 majority to give the presidency broader powers to fire the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The decision was notable for relying on a theory advanced by Kavanaugh.

The group also flagged another opinion by Ho involving a Texas law that requires abortion clinics to bury or cremate fetal remains rather than disposing of them as medical waste.

The law drew legal objections from Whole Womans Health, an abortion provider, which sued the state of Texas, arguing the regulations put undue burdens on women seeking abortions.

As part of that lawsuit, the group of clinics sought internal records from the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops over its support of the states policy and its offer to cover burial costs.

The religious group objected on 1st Amendment grounds, saying the discovery request violated its religious freedom. Last month, a panel of three 5th Circuit Court judges agreed, with Ho casting a deciding vote.

In a concurring opinion, Ho called abortion a moral tragedy and wrote, It is hard to imagine a better example of how far we have strayed from the text and original understanding of the Constitution than this case.

Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, a conservative-leaning judicial advocacy group, said that most of us on the conservative side of the debate are looking for a conservative judicial philosophy rather than conservative outcomes.

He called Ho a rock-ribbed conservative when it comes to the law, and said he could understand why the left has flagged him.

But he said a judges personal riffs are not the binding opinions that matter from a legal point of view and pointed out that Ho is still bound by Supreme Court precedent, even if he disagrees with it.

At the end of the day, all judges have to follow [Supreme Court rulings] on abortion whether they like it or not, Levey said.

Still, Hos dissent in the Austin campaign finance case was cited in a request by Zimmerman for the case to be heard by the Supreme Court.

If you can get a split decision from a court of appeals, said his attorney, Jerad Navjar, that is significant, and that certainly helps in getting the case looked at by the Supreme Court.

matt.pearce@latimes.com

Matt Pearce is a national reporter for The Times. Follow him on Twitter at @mattdpearce.

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President Trump needs a new slogan for those red hats the White House sells, one that more closely reflects the true impact of his policies. Heres a suggestion: MASA, for Make Air Sooty Again.

Thats what will happen if the president gets his way and manages to increase the amount of coal that U.S. power plants burn to make electricity. The administrations announcement Tuesday that it intends to replace President Obamas Clean Power Plan with a new Affordable Clean Energy rule  quite the Orwellian appellation, given that coal is the dirtiest of energy sources  is another step down the road to air more laden with carbon, particulates and smog-breeding pollutants after decades of progress. The only silver lining in this particularly sooty cloud is that burning coal also is among the more expensive ways of generating power, and market forces independently are leading power companies to phase out existing coal-fired plants or drop plans for new ones in favor of sources powered by natural gas or renewables such as wind and solar.

Obamas Clean Power Plan sought to reduce carbon emissions from power plants by 32% below 2005 levels by the year 2030, achieved by setting limits for each state but giving them wide latitude in figuring out how to hit the targets. The rule was also projected to yield life-saving reductions in other forms of pollution from power plants. Experts say that carbon emissions must be reduced even more sharply than Obamas goal if we are to avoid the worst consequences of global warming, but the Clean Power Plan moved us in the right direction. Notably, power generation is the nations second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions after transportation.

Even the EPA acknowledges that the plan is likely to cause up to 1,400 more premature deaths a year from pollution-related ailments.

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Unfortunately, the Clean Power Plan was stalled in the courts  courtesy of a lawsuit brought by 27 Republican-led states  and never went into effect. Still, experts say the country is on target to meet many of the emissions goals anyway, though they warn that if Trump gets his way, the reductions are likely to slow.

The new plan sets guidelines for states to follow in getting power plants to use existing technology to operate more efficiently and measuring success based on improvements in the heat rate, or amount of power generated by burning fuel. The plan also allows states to relax pollution controls that would extend the lives of existing coal-fired plants. States would have three years to devise standards individualized to local utilities and subject to Environmental Protection Agency approval.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion 

Environmental advocates say thats an abdication of federal responsibility under the Clean Air Act to reduce carbon emissions. And even the EPA acknowledges that the plan is likely to cause up to 1,400 more premature deaths a year from pollution-related ailments.

The plan falls in line with the administrations decision to freeze fuel economy standards for cars, light trucks and SUVs, as well as Trumps retrograde promises to revive the coal and nuclear power industries. The presidents efforts on the latter front include a so-far fruitless proposal to require utilities to buy costlier power from coal and nuclear plants at consumers expense. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission wisely rejected that request by Energy Secretary Rick Perry, but the administration is continuing to push the issue by trying to frame increased use of coal and nuclear power as necessary to maintain a stable power grid as a matter of national security.

Thats hogwash, and the energy regulators said as much when they expressed doubt that the national security designation was legally defensible. In fact, the commission rejected the proposal unanimously, and four of the five members are Trump appointees. So this idea is too cockamamie for even some of his own people.

Beyond the administrations attempts to put a thumb on the scale of the energy market in favor of big polluters  hypocritical at best given Republicans general embrace of free market forces  the presidents policies pose a dire threat to the health of Americans and weaken efforts to try to combat climate change and rid the air of particles damaging to human health. They must be opposed both in the courts and at the ballot box.

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UPDATES:

1:15 p.m.: This editorial was updated with additional details about the Trump administrations efforts to promote the use of coal.

This editorial was originally published at 10:05 a.m.
Back in 2012, the environmental organization 350.org and its leader, Bill McKibben, took a Do the Math tour across America to talk about the terrifying math of the climate crisis. Alas, it appears McKibben has since developed an allergy to simple arithmetic.

In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, McKibben declared that California legislators should pass Senate Bill 100 this month, committing the states utilities to getting all of their electricity from renewable sources by 2045. But McKibbens essay didnt use any numbers to explain how it could be done. Thats because the math behind the 100%-renewable-energy scheme exposes the folly of the entire concept, particularly when it comes to land use.

Proving that SB 100s goal is unrealistic can be done by looking at the data published by Stanford civil and environmental engineering professor Mark Jacobson. Jacobson, whose energy scenarios have been touted by McKibben for years, puts together state-by-state tallies that show the amount of wind and solar energy that would be required to achieve 100% renewable energy across the entire economy, including electricity generation, transportation and industry. Achieving that goal in California, Jacobson estimates, would require about 124,608 megawatts of onshore wind-power capacity, 32,869 megawatts of offshore wind capacity, and 236,243 megawatts of solar-energy capacity.

To expand renewables...would require wrecking vast onshore and offshore territories with forests of wind turbines and sprawling solar projects.

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Lets examine the solar numbers first. Last year, global solar capacity totaled about 219,000 megawatts. That means an all-renewable California would need more solar capacity in the state than currently exists on the entire planet. Sure, California can (and will) add lots of new rooftop solar over the coming decades. But Jacobsons plan would also require nearly 33,000 megawatts of concentrated solar plants, or roughly 87 facilities as large as the 377-megawatt Ivanpah solar complex now operating in the Mojave Desert. Ivanpah, which covers 5.4 square miles, met fierce opposition from conservationists due to its impact on the desert tortoise, which is listed as a threatened species under the federal and California endangered species acts.

Wind energy faces similar problems. The Department of Energy has concluded in multiple reports over the last decade that no matter where they are located  onshore or offshore  wind-energy projects have a footprint that breaks down to about 3 watts per square meter.

To get to Jacobsons 124,608 megawatts (124.6 billion watts) of onshore wind capacity, California would need 41.5 billion square meters, or about 16,023 square miles, of turbines. To put that into perspective, the land area of Los Angeles County is slightly more than 4,000 square miles  California would have to cover a land area roughly four times the size of L.A. County with nothing but the massive windmills. Turning over even a fraction of that much territory to wind energy is unlikely. In 2015, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to ban large wind turbines in unincorporated areas. Three other California counties  San Diego, Solano and Inyo  have also passed restrictions on turbines.

Last year, the head of the California Wind Energy Assn. told the San Diego Union-Tribune, Were facing restrictions like that all around the state. Its pretty bleak in terms of the potential for new development.

The anti-turbine restrictions have had an effect. In 2017, California had 5,632 megawatts of installed wind capacity  thats 153 megawatts less than what the state had back in 2013.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion 

Dont count on offshore wind either. Given the years-long battle that finally scuttled the proposed 468-megawatt Cape Wind project  which called for dozens of turbines to be located offshore Massachusetts  its difficult to imagine that Californians would willingly accept offshore wind capacity thats 70 times as large as what was proposed in the Northeast.

To expand renewables to the extent that they could approach the amount of energy needed to run our entire economy would require wrecking vast onshore and offshore territories with forests of wind turbines and sprawling solar projects. Organizations like 350.org tend to dismiss the problem by claiming, for example, that the land around turbines can be farmed or that the placement of solar facilities can be managed. But rural landowners dont want industrial-scale energy projects in their communities any more than coastal dwellers or suburbanites do.

The grim land-use numbers behind all-renewable proposals arent speculation. Arriving at them requires only a bit of investigation, and yes, that we do the math.

Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the producer of the forthcoming documentary Juice: How Electricity Explains the World.

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The moral landscape of Americas self-understanding is often reduced to a few easily recognizable landmarks: slavery and abolition, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement, World War II and the Holocaust. Every dictator we confront gets compared to Hitler, and nearly every domestic controversy gets squeezed into a familiar historical mold. (The Trump administrations child separation fiasco at the boarder may have been terrible, but it wasnt Treblinka).

This is an old lament, of course. And other than doing a better job at teaching history, Im not sure how we should go about fixing the problem. What is more interesting to me are the cases where we decide not to use this moral shorthand.

Not long ago, North Korea, a police state, killed hundreds of thousands of its own people. But generations of people who were raised to believe that never again was the abiding lesson of the Holocaust in effect said, Well, maybe one more time. We didnt have the appetite to fight a war.

Or consider the fact that Jim Crow is alive and well  and living in China.

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Americas Jim Crow system of second-class citizenship is rightly remembered as our version of apartheid, a racist raft of laws designed to dehumanize and marginalize African Americans in the name of white supremacy. But it was also a form of economic regulation designed to prevent blacks from participating fully in the labor market and to protect business from the supposedly dire threat of rising wages. Such statist crony capitalism doesnt detract from the moral horror of Jim Crow, but it does help put it in context.

Ethnic minorities  about 10% of the Chinese population  are routinely denied access to elite universities and urban job markets in the name of Han supremacy.

In China, there is systemic discrimination against non-Han Chinese. Ethnic minorities  about 10% of the Chinese population  are routinely denied access to elite universities and urban job markets in the name of Han supremacy. Under Chinas internal passport system, many non-Han arent permitted to even look for work outside of their rural provinces. Tibetan and Uighur citizens are often barred from using Chinese hotels.

Not only does China have its own version of Jim Crow, it still has its own version of slavery. Under its prison labor system, Laogai  reform through work  millions of slaves churn out all manner of Made in China wares and even provide many of the organs for transplant surgeries in China.

Other ideas that arouse rage (cultural appropriation, cultural genocide, occupation, xenophobia) get much less attention in the Middle Kingdom than they do elsewhere. The Han are simultaneously erasing minority cultures and reducing them to kitsch for Chinese tourists. Mongols now make up less than 20% of Inner Mongolias population. Minority languages arent taught in many schools in places like Tibet.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion 

In America, we increasingly hear that enforcing immigration laws is a kind of hate crime. But we mint about 700,000 new citizens each year. Meanwhile, in China, it is almost impossible to become a Chinese citizen if you werent born there to Chinese parents. The 2010 census found just 1,448 naturalized citizens. (Yes, total, not just for the year 2010.)

Earlier this month, the United Nations reported that China is holding millions of Muslim Uighurs in a sprawling gulag of counter-extremism centers and reeducation camps for political and cultural indoctrination. Prisoners are forced to swear loyalty to the Chinese leader Xi Jingping. Bans on Muslim garb and long beards are becoming more common. Much of this has gone unnoticed in America, no doubt in part because many refuse to be distracted from their constant watch for Islamophobia here in America.

I am not offering any policy prescriptions here. Nor am I saying that we should turn a blind eye to our problems or shortcomings just because Chinas are worse. But it does seem as though were most reluctant to invoke our moral lodestars precisely when they most apply.

jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com

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Having turned the Paul Manafort trial into a morality play about the Russia probe and his integrity, President Trump now stands rebuked by the convictions returned Tuesday afternoon by a jury in Alexandria, Va.

After four days of deliberation, the jury of six men and six women returned a verdict of guilty on eight counts. The jury was deadlocked on the remaining ten, and Judge T.S. Ellis III declared a mistrial on those counts. But however Team Trump may try to spin it, the partial verdict subtracts only slightly from special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs victory. The convictions included five counts for felony tax fraud and two counts for felony bank fraud, which carry the strongest penalty. Moreover, at sentencing, all of Manaforts conduct, including the conduct that formed the basis of the deadlocked counts, will be under consideration.

For almost a year, the special counsel has been pursuing a serious probe of great national importance. Trumps incessant response has been to redouble his criticisms of the probe and Mueller himself.

Nobody who knew Mueller or the Department of Justice could credit these inarticulate squawks or doubt Muellers probity. Indeed, the presidents comments had that peculiar Trumpian quality of being all the more strident for their obvious falsity.

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But they have served their coarse purpose among the general public, sowing doubt about the famously honorable Mueller and inflaming the sense of grievance that animates Trumps loyal base. They produced an overall impression that maybe Muellers work was just more politics. In the already classic words of Rudy Giuliani, truth isnt truth.

In achieving this effect, as in all matters in his presidency, Trump was abetted, shamefully, by a Republican-controlled Congress that appears content to acquiesce in all of the presidents constitutional abuses, so long as it permits them to remain in power.

As the Manafort trial proceeded, Trump doubled down on his attacks, tweeting out sympathy for Manafort and contempt for Mueller. Just Sunday, as the jury was deliberating, he tweeted that the probe was a Rigged and Disgusting Witch Hunt. Given that the jury was not sequestered, that public statement amounted to attempted jury tampering, demonstrating once again Trumps contempt for the rule of law.

Had Trumps improper public comments succeeded in swaying the jury, there would have been no remedy: The acquittal would have stood, the prosecutors barred from revisiting Manaforts crimes by the constitutional doctrine of double jeopardy.

Instead, Manafort, and Trump, took it on the chin. Muellers team assembled and presented a methodical case that marched through a 10-year stretch of lie after lie by Trumps former campaign manager. When he was making millions from lobbying work for Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a Russian puppet, Manafort lied to cheat on his taxes; when Yanukovych was chased out and the money stream dried up, Manafort lied to appear richer than he was to obtain loans that would sustain his extravagant lifestyle.

What is so gratifying about the verdict is that Mueller played it by the book  and he still won. He investigated fairly and thoroughly, uncovering a brazen series of frauds. Then he put his evidence to the test in front of 12 jurors, who unanimously found Manafort guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

This happens every day in courts across the country. What doesnt happen is that the process is impeded and attacked by the president. But notwithstanding Trumps attempt to put his thumb on the scale, the jury did its job.

Mueller now looks ahead to Manaforts second trial next month. The political operative will face a separate batch of charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, failure to register as a foreign agent, witness tampering and making false statements. The Washington trial will more directly address Manaforts work during the Trump campaign, which came up only obliquely in the just-completed proceeding.

There is every reason to think Muellers case will be no less formidable and Manaforts defense no less feckless. The upshot is that the 69-year-old Manafort, already facing an estimated 10- to 12-year sentence, will be given yet more prison time. He may never get out.

Will that effective life sentence be the pressure that at long last induces Manafort to cooperate with the Mueller probe? Unlikely. He has been facing permanent confinement ever since the day he was ordered to jail to await trial. And the trial showed that he never had any reasonable strategy for beating the charges. So its hard to see why the conviction would bring an end to his obduracy.

Of course, if Manaforts strategy was to lie flat and let Muellers train run him over in the hope of a presidential pardon, that might yet come to pass.

And while its ever tempting to dream that we at last have reached the point where congressional Republicans will reject Trumps ongoing assault on the Constitution, to date their fidelity to political power appears bottomless. History will judge them harshly, as, hopefully, will the electorate.

All of that is secondary, though, next to the buoying effect of seeing the criminal justice system work as intended. Twenty months of Trump have dulled us to the daily outrage of his dishonesty. A truly foul leader who wakes up lying and lies all day, Trump has had a disheartening degree of success in bending core political institutions to his will. So the result in the Manafort trial presents Trump with the most terrifying possible portent: that truth is truth, and the truth wins out.

Harry Litman, a former deputy assistant attorney general, teaches constitutional law at UC San Diego.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion 

Notwithstanding Trumps improper attempt to put his thumb on the scale, the jury did its job and returned the only fair verdict.

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I noticed a change in my neighborhood about a year and a half ago. It began to feel more dangerous, even during the day.

Scavengers regularly dig through my trash and dump what they cant use. The remains bake in the sun. Sometimes the scavengers pass out on my lawn. In late July, a homeless man set fire to a trash can a block from my home. Flames engulfed the adjacent carport and two vehicles caught fire. One exploded.

A few weeks ago, I was awakened late on a Saturday night by gunfire. It sounded like six shots.

My car has been broken into and vandalized multiple times. The side mirror was stolen, glass popped out with a flat-head screwdriver. Once someone pried a door open. The next morning, I found blackened tin foil and an empty Bic lighter on my front seat.

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Over the course of the summer, more than one young woman was robbed in broad daylight.

Ive lived here, south of Beverly Boulevard and north of West 3rd  Hollywood, more or less  for eight years. I was born at Cedars-Sinai. I grew up in Los Angeles and I believe that things are worse now than any point in my three decades. Many can barely afford to pay the rent. Wages are not rising, but the cost of living has skyrocketed, making the city more expensive and less livable.

The Los Angeles Police Department told us thered been a spate of peeping Tom incidents.

A week after the trash fire, on a particularly hot evening, the bathroom window was open to catch the breeze. My girlfriend was undressing after a long day at work, and as she turned to get in the shower, she saw a man wearing a hoodie staring at her through the window. She was terrified.

The Los Angeles Police Department told us thered been a spate of peeping Tom incidents. One officer warned me about stabbings by transients. You never know what these guys are on or what weapons they have, he said.

When I scoured the crime section of the Nextdoor app, I found that the people I pass every day, walking their dogs, going to work, were all experiencing the same problems.

Crime here is, of course, linked to addiction and homelessness. Theres a free clinic close by that some people use as a headquarters to score meds. They pitch tents and rummage through the neighborhood. With encampments come more transients and more crime.

Theres a man who lives in the alley near my apartment. He strums a stringless guitar. Locals leave out food for him like a stray cat. Another man throws his feces at passersby. Sometimes he wears it on his head like a hat. (I cant make this up.)

As more and more people slide into homelessness, their desperation makes life more difficult for everyone but the very wealthiest among us, who can cloister themselves behind gates and security guards.

The visible changes in Hollywood may be tied to a push to empty the encampments on L.A.s periphery. When the city government cleared the tents along the Arroyo Seco, homeless people had no choice but to flood into residential areas.

I decided to call the mayors office to describe what Id witnessed in my neighborhood. Staffers disputed this cause and effect. And they assured me that the city was trying its best to get on top of the situation, with temporary housing and crisis shelters, among other initiatives.

But not even the mayor is immune to whats happening in the streets.

Theres a guy in my neighborhood who wakes me up each morning, Mayor Eric Garcetti told me in an interview he was kind enough to grant last week, referring to a homeless man who spins through his blocks trash cans like a tornado.

A friend of mine was held at knifepoint a couple days ago, he added. This cant continue.

Ever the optimist, he thinks we can beat the homelessness crisis in the next decade, mentioning so many city plans that my head began to spin. As if on cue, I heard two men shouting at each other in the alley close by.

As I walk around Hollywood every day, it seems to me the problem is getting worse, not better. But for the vast majority of us who cant afford to just pick up and move, resignation seems the only option.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion 

Thirty minutes after speaking with Garcetti, I took out the trash. The stringless guitarist was waist deep in the dumpster.

Excuse me, I said, placing the bag in the bin. He smiled, then took the bag and opened it. I thought about the police officers warning about transients, smiled sheepishly, went back inside and locked the door.

Adam Popescu is a freelance writer in Los Angeles.

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To the editor: California needs to break its oil dependence, as Severin Borenstein notes in his critique of our recent study. Avoiding the worst of climate change (think more fires) involves getting off oil, but Borenstein argues phasing out Californias oil production is a step too far. His main reason is that doing so would benefit the global oil industry.

This abstract, economic logic gives too little weight to the obvious upsides of leaving oil undeveloped: California can reduce emissions, better position itself for a low-carbon future and demonstrate global leadership, all while responding to environmental justice concerns at home.

We agree with Borenstein that further enrichment of oil producers  here in the U.S. as well as under autocratic regimes abroad  can be antithetical to democracy and income equality, as well as to achieving climate goals. But the most direct response to that risk would be to start here, by transitioning away from oil, both in its use and supply.

Peter Erickson and Michael Lazarus, Seattle

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The writers are scientists at the Stockholm Environment Institute.

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To the editor: How can a professor at UC Berkeley write an op-ed article about the economics of leaving oil in the ground, make the case that this will cost consumers more, yet not mention that consumers can just switch to an electric vehicle and power it with solar energy for much less money?

Ive been driving electric vehicles and powering them with solar energy for more than 15 years. My solar photovoltaic system paid for itself in 2010, so since then, and for the rest of my life, I can power my home, cars and motorcycles on free, clean electricity.

That is the complete opposite of what Borenstein says will happen if we keep Californias oil in the ground.

Paul Scott, Santa Monica

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To the editor: Los Angeles leaders proclaim that their city is one of the most progressive metropolises in the United States. Often we hear the rhetoric of social justice emanating from the halls of 200 N. Spring St.

Actions speak louder than words. The fact that the citys Deferred Retirement Option Plan, or DROP, for police officers and firefighters hasnt been dropped, or at least better scrutinized, suggests that our leaders are bold when it is easy to be bold and quiet when being bold comes with political risks  in this case, losing the support of police and fire unions.

The citys most vulnerable residents depend on our leaders spending every dollar carefully and mindfully. A commitment to social justice means ensuring that government is operating as effectively as possible, regardless of the risk of upsetting a powerful political ally.

Ashley Hall, Los Angeles

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To the editor: The cloud under which columnist Steve Lopez says Michel Moore has started his tenure as Los Angeles Police Department chief is nothing more than the creation of the Los Angeles Times.

Whether one likes or dislikes DROP, an incentive program for veteran officers and firefighters to delay retirement for five years by paying them their salary and pension, Moore did nothing wrong. There appears to have been abuse of DROP, as reported by The Times, but the apparent abuse has been by officers and firefighters who allegedly have fraudulently gamed the system. Make that a separate article.

If Lopez thinks DROP is too expensive or unnecessary, he should focus on that. But calling out the new chief was unnecessary and makes Lopezs comment about a cloud nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Mark S. Greenfield, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Congratulations to Moore for milking DROP.

I was a veterinarian for 14 years and paid into Social Security like everyone else. I also held jobs throughout high school and college that required me to pay into Social Security.

Sixteen years ago, I decided to switch careers and become a teacher. As such, I dont pay into Social Security but instead the California State Teachers Retirement System, or CalSTRS. My employer, the Los Angeles Unified School District, also pays into this fund, as does the state of California.

Heres the interesting part: In 1983, Congress passed the Windfall Elimination Provision. My Social Security benefits, which I earned honestly until the age of 40, will be reduced by up to 50% because I now have a teachers retirement plan. This prevents double dipping.

Crazy.

John Reid, San Pedro

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The Trump administration is poised Tuesday to unveil a sweeping rewrite of emissions rules for power plants that would be a boon to the coal industry, laying the groundwork for a revival of the most polluting facilities and abandoning Obama-era mandates for reorienting the electricity sector toward clean energy.

The draft replacement for the federal Clean Power Plan, according to several people who have been briefed on it, reflects a dramatic about-face on national climate action. It is President Trumps second major move in less than a month reflecting a retreat in the fight against global warming, following the administrations plan to freeze fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks.

The new power plan would relieve the electricity industry  the second-largest producer of potent greenhouse gases nationwide  from aggressive goals for reducing its carbon footprint. Heavily polluting coal plants that would have been forced into retirement under the Obama-era guidelines get a new lease on life under the Trump blueprint, which allows them to continue operating with modest modification.

In some cases, states may be permitted to ignore federal guidelines for certain plants altogether and pursue their own strategy. Trump is expected to tout the plan at an event Tuesday in the coal stronghold of West Virginia.

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Climate-conscious states like California are already mobilizing to fight, arguing the administrations approach violates the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the law requires the federal government to take steps to combat air pollutants that are warming the global climate.

Administration talking points leaked to the media say the replacement of the Clean Power Plan is a signal to the nation that the war on coal is over and a new era of energy dominance is underway. A spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees emission regulations, declined to comment on the draft plan.

The administration already made clear last year that it planned to scrap the ambitious Obama-era goals, which were crucial to meeting the commitments Obama made to reducing greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Paris accord on climate change.

Emissions in the power sector would still decline under the new plan, largely because dropping prices for natural gas and, to a lesser extent, solar and wind are pushing utilities away from coal. But the pace of the transition could slow substantially if the Trump plan is enacted, undermining the race by California and other states to carry the nation toward meeting the Paris obligations. In some cases, the new plan encourages the continued operation of old coal plants that might otherwise retire without any government intervention.

They are following the industrys playbook, step by step, said Gina McCarthy, who led the EPA under Obama. This is all about coal at all costs.

The proposal is part of a broader push by the Trump administration to use its regulatory powers to prop up a coal industry that is struggling for survival. It comes as the Energy Department is mulling a directive to power grid operators to add more coal energy to their mix, arguing the continued operation of the plants is a matter of national defense. Independent energy analysts find the argument dubious, warning such a mandate would drive up energy costs and do nothing to improve national security.

The Clean Power Plan replacement comes after 27 states challenged the original Obama administration rule, arguing that it overstepped the federal governments authority to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act. The act requires the EPA to set its targets for greenhouse gas reduction by assessing the best systems for emissions reduction available.

The Obama administration applied the rule in the context of broader electricity networks, pushing regulations that prod states to more swiftly replace coal plants with cleaner burning energy. The states opposed went to court, arguing the federal governments role is merely to ensure coal plants are equipped with limited emissions control technology. In early 2016, the Supreme Court blocked enforcement of the Obama-era plan in a 5-4 ruling that gave states opposed to it an opportunity to make their case.

The previous administrations effort to address greenhouse gases was a complex and unnecessarily burdensome overreach that took much of the responsibility for power systems away from state regulators who know them best, said an email from Scott Segal, a lobbyist for energy companies. The replacement rule is premised on the fact that states are in a better position to judge the inventory of measures available to reduce carbon emissions within their power sectors.

Some of those states, though, have already signaled that they intend to do as little as the courts will allow. Among the states that fought the Obama rule most aggressively was Oklahoma, where the person spearheading the court effort was then-state Atty. Gen. Scott Pruitt, who went on to lead the EPA for Trump until he resigned under the cloud of multiple federal ethics investigations this year.

The Supreme Court order staying implementation of the Obama plan has remained in place at the request of the Trump administration, to provide time to rewrite the rules.

The effects of the new proposal extend beyond global warming. It allows plants to emit considerably more smog and soot-forming pollutants. The Clean Power Plan would have curbed those pollutants enough to stave off thousands of deaths, and tens of thousands of asthma attacks and missed school and work days, according to EPA estimates.

Its worrisome, said Conrad Schneider, advocacy director at the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental advocacy group. You would see an increase in the emissions that ultimately become deadly particulate matter.

The plan Trump is poised to unveil also would unravel rules requiring power plants to install technologies to cut down on their greenhouse gas and smog-forming emissions when they are upgraded or expanded.

The proposal could prove tough to defend in court, where liberal states and environmental advocacy groups have a strong case to argue that it falls short of meeting the federal governments legal requirement to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the power sector. And even if the Trump administration prevails, industry analysts are skeptical its plan will reverse the fortunes of the coal industry.

The coal fleet and coal generation are going down no matter what you do, said John Larsen, a director at Rhodium Group, which tracks progress on climate action. These coal plants are getting old. It costs a lot to keep them running, and they are not competitive in the market.

Rhodium projects that even if the Clean Power Plan were repealed outright, and nothing were put in its place, the declining fortunes of coal still leave greenhouse gas emissions from power plants on track to fall a third or more from what they were in 2005 by 2030. The problem, Larsen said, is that the U.S. needs to move even more aggressively to meet its obligations in the Paris agreement. Even the Clean Power Plan, he said, did not go far enough.

It is all compounded by other moves Trump is making to curb climate action. Among them is the EPAs proposed rewrite of Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards for cars and trucks. The administrations push to abandon aggressive mile-per-gallon goals for new models of cars, pickups and SUVs through 2026 would eclipse the Clean Power Plan rollback in its impact on climate.

Joseph Goffman, an environmental law scholar at Harvard University who helped write the Clean Power Plan while an attorney at the EPA, called the Trump administrations replacement plan an anti-climate, pro-coal policy that is part of the mosaic of policies the administration is pushing to promote fossil fuels.

The latest look at the Trump administration and the rest of Washington 

More stories from Evan Halper 

evan.halper@latimes.com | Twitter: @evanhalper
As the Trump administration unveiled its plan Tuesday to gut landmark rules limiting power plant emissions, it made one thing clear: When it comes to environmental regulations, this White House is all about letting states chart their own course.

That is, as long as the states in question are coal states, and not those determined to use cleaner energy, like California.

The era of top-down, one-size-fits-all mandates is over, Environmental Protection Agency interim chief Andrew Wheeler said on a call with reporters where he presented Trumps replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.

The rewrite, which could prolong the lives of heavily polluting coal plants for decades and pump enough additional soot and smog-forming emissions in the air to cause an estimated 1,400 premature deaths each year, is branded by the Trump administration as the Affordable Clean Energy rule. This rule will continue our progress legally and with the proper respect for the states, Wheeler said.

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That respect for states does not always extend nationwide. It was only a few weeks ago that Trumps EPA was warning that some states  California, in particular  had run wild with their authority and needed to be tethered back to Washington.

Energy and climate were also at issue. But in this case, the Trump administration is displeased that California and allied states plan to go their own way on fuel mileage targets, as the Clean Air Act allows. Those states are not on board with the administrations plan to freeze fuel economy goals for six years, a move that would blunt climate action considerably.

Trump administration attorneys filed a voluminous, blistering critique of the way California and other states have been using their Clean Air Act authority, arguing that they are out of line. They even took aim at judges who upheld the states right to exercise that authority, accusing them of misunderstanding the law.

But on Tuesday, the administrations posture toward states changed dramatically as it touted the proposed new rule that would be a boon to the coal industry. The Affordable Clean Energy rule abandons the central goal of Obamas Clean Power Plan, to push utilities to shift their operations away from coal and toward cleaner-burning fuels. Under Trumps plan, the coal plants that would have been forced into retirement under Obamas proposal could instead continue operating indefinitely, with only relatively modest modifications.

California Gov. Jerry Brown called the Trump administration plan a declaration of war against America and all of humanity.

It will not stand, he wrote on Twitter. Truth and common sense will triumph over Trumps insanity.

The Trump administration faces an intense court fight. The federal government is obligated under the Clean Air Act to regulate power sector greenhouse gas emissions, and to hold the industry to using the best available technology to contain them. States like California and environmental groups argue that the best available technology is cleaner burning fuels, particularly at a time when it is typically priced more competitively than coal.

In regulating greenhouse gas pollution, the EPA is legally required to use the best system of emission reduction, not a mediocre or downright counterproductive system of emission reduction, said Richard Revesz, dean emeritus at NYU School of Law and director of its Institute for Policy Integrity. This proposal is an enormous step backwards, and it will have severe repercussions for public health and the climate.

Former Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy called the proposal essentially a huge giveaway to coal-fired power plants by giving them a free pass to increase not just carbon pollution but conventional smog and soot. The plan does not set targets for emissions that states need to meet, as the Obama plan did, leaving it instead to the states to do their best to reduce them. In some cases, states may be able to choose not to impose any new restrictions on a coal plant at all.

However much people may want EPA to demand new renewable energy [plants] be built instead of fossil fuels plants, we do not have that authority, said Bill Wehrum, who heads the EPAs air and radiation division. We are bringing the agency back to its core function.

He acknowledged that the new rule could result in thousands of premature deaths. According to the EPAs own analysis, the Trump plan could lead to 1,400 premature deaths annually by 2030 as a result of the air pollution that gets released along with the greenhouse gases the Clean Power Plan targeted. The Trump plan could also result in 48,000 new cases of asthma and some 21,000 missed days of school annually.

Wehrum did not dispute those figures, but said it was inappropriate for the EPA under Obama to use a rule targeted at global warming to also fight such pollution. What we are dealing with here are greenhouse gases, he said.

Coal state leaders applauded the approach.

The Clean Power Plan clearly overstepped the EPAs legal bounds and directly attacked Americas coal industry, said a statement from Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo). In Wyoming, we know that a one-size-fits-all mandate isnt the best option, so I am glad the Trump administration is working to provide flexibility for states, the energy industry and the entire nation.

Even under the administration plan, power sector emissions will continue to decline. The plunging price for natural gas, as well as for solar and wind energy, have pushed utilities to move toward cleaner-burning fuels, regardless of federal regulations. Several states, including California, are already meeting the targets the Obama administration laid out in the Clean Power Plan, even though that plan was never implemented. California does not get any of its electricity from coal.

But meeting the emission reduction goals that most climate scientists have laid out for averting catastrophic warming requires more aggressive action than even the Clean Power Plan prescribed. And California and other states would also like to receive some of the flexibility the Trump administration has extended to states like Enzis to chart their own course.

Thats particularly true when it comes to regulating emissions from cars, pickups and SUVs, which is looking to be a significantly more formidable challenge than bringing power plant emissions into check.

Meredith Hankins, an environmental law scholar at UCLA, wrote in a blog post that she was surprised to see the administration talking up states rights around emissions considering how aggressively it is working to keep California from exercising them.

The naked hypocrisy that allows the EPA to cite federalism concerns in rolling back the Clean Power Plan mere weeks after eviscerating states rights to set more protective vehicle standards is truly staggering, she wrote.

The latest look at the Trump administration and the rest of Washington 

More stories from Evan Halper 

evan.halper@latimes.com | Twitter: @evanhalper
President Trumps former personal lawyer and longtime fixer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty Tuesday to eight charges of felony fraud and campaign finance law violations  and implicated Trump for directing him to arrange payments to buy the silence of two former paramours.

Cohen, a brash New Yorker who had vowed as recently as last year to take a bullet to protect Trump, now poses what could be a mortal legal threat to his presidency by accusing him in an alleged conspiracy to violate campaign laws.



For the record: An earlier version of this article said that Cohen obtained reimbursement from the Trump campaign. It was from the Trump Organization.

During a hearing before U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III in Manhattan, Cohen said he had facilitated $280,000 in hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office.

Cohen, 51, did not name the candidate, but one of his lawyers, Lanny Davis, tweeted afterward that his client had testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election.

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In his guilty plea, Cohen admitted that he helped arrange the payments during the 2016 presidential election that bought  until after the election  the silence of the two women, who say they had extramarital affairs with Trump years ago. Trump has denied their assertions.

Those payments  $150,000 from the parent company of the National Enquirer in September 2016 to McDougal, and $130,000 the next month from Cohen himself to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford  violated federal campaign law, according to terms of the guilty plea.

The law prohibits corporations from donating to a candidate for federal office. Though Cohen personally made the payment to Daniels, he later obtained reimbursement from the Trump Organization. The law forbids individuals from donating more than $2,700 per election to a federal candidate.

Cohen could be sentenced to several years in prison, although his sentence could be reduced in exchange for cooperation with special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and its possible collaboration with Trumps campaign.

Although nothing was said in court about Cohens potential cooperation, Davis said on Twitter that Cohen is fulfilling his promise on July 2 to put his family and country first and tell the truth about Donald Trump.

The guilty plea was disclosed just as a federal jury in Alexandria, Va., convicted Trumps former campaign chairman Paul Manafort of eight charges of tax evasion and bank fraud. The judge declared a mistrial on 10 other charges after the jury deadlocked on them.

The Manafort verdict marked a clear victory for the special counsel, who brought the charges. Muellers office also collected the initial evidence on Cohen, and passed it to the U.S. attorneys office in Manhattan.

The two high-profile convictions highlighted the scandals and legal problems that have shrouded the White House since Trump took office. Six people, including the presidents former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, have pleaded guilty.

Robert S. Khuzami, a deputy U.S. attorney, told reporters outside the courthouse that Cohen had paid the money to silence two women who had information that he believed would be detrimental to the 2016 campaign and to the candidate.

Khuzami said Cohen facilitated the payments for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election.

Outside legal experts said in interviews that Cohens guilty plea on the campaign finance charges poses a direct danger to Trump.

If [Cohen] violated the campaign finance laws  then there would be risk to Trump and his campaign that they violated the campaign finance laws, said Jan W. Baran, a former general counsel of the Republican National Committee who now is a partner at the Washington law firm Wiley Rein.

Trump ignored reporters shouted questions about Cohens guilty plea when he landed in Charleston, W.Va., for a nighttime rally with supporters, and the White House declined to comment. Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of the presidents lawyers, defended Trump in a prepared statement.

There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the governments charges against Mr. Cohen, Giuliani said. It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohens actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.

Cohen pleaded guilty to a total of eight felonies. Five counts related to tax evasion, in which he failed to report to the IRS approximately $4.1 million of income. A separate count specified that Cohen lied to a lending institution in obtaining a $500,000 line of credit. The remaining two counts were for his campaign law violations.

Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh who teaches constitutional law at UCLA and UC San Diego, said the significance of Cohens guilty plea is pretty much equivalent to the question, what does Michael Cohen know about Trumps conduct.

Much will hinge, Litman said, on Cohens knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the payments to McDougal and Daniels, and whether Trump knew about them. Those payments, Litman said, very possibly amount to wire fraud, and if Trump was in on them, thats flat out conspiracy.

Cohen began working with Trump in 2007, successfully representing the Trump Organization in a dispute with a condominium board in Manhattan. He purchased an apartment in one of the Trump buildings, and wound up representing Trump in various legal disputes.

Prosecutors investigated Cohen for months for possible fraud related to his businesses, including a company that owned and leased taxi-operating permits, known as medallions, in New York City and Chicago. The medallions were worth millions of dollars, according to a 22-page document that prosecutors made public Tuesday. Their value has plummeted in recent years as ride-sharing apps have challenged the citys taxi industry.

In addition to hiding income from the taxi medallions, Cohen also failed to report to the IRS a $100,000 payment for brokering the sale of property in a private aviation community in Florida, according to the document. It also said Cohen hid $30,000 in profits from brokering the sale of a highly coveted French handbag.

On April 9, FBI agents working with federal prosecutors in New York raided Cohens hotel room, apartment, law office and bank boxes, seizing his computers, cellphones, tax records and other materials. Courts later ruled that prosecutors could review most of the material without violating attorney-client privilege.

Cohen had gained notoriety as Trumps loyal fixer before the FBI raid, which Trump branded a witch hunt, an illegal assault on privacy and a politically motivated attack by enemies in the FBI.

But the presidents initial support for Cohen since has morphed into a public feud, prompting speculation that, to save himself, Cohen might be willing to tell prosecutors some of the secrets he helped Trump keep.

Khuzami, the deputy U.S. attorney in New York, said Cohens plea of guilt demonstrates that we are a nation of laws, and the essence of what this case is about is justice  and that is a level playing field for all persons.

david.willman@latimes.com

UPDATES:

5:35 p.m.: This article was updated with reaction and analysis of Cohens guilty plea.

3:25 p.m.: This article was updated with details of the plea deal.

2:18 p.m.: This article was updated with details of the plea arrangement.

12:30 p.m.: This article was updated with details of the expected plea deal.

11:50 a.m.: This article was updated with information Michael Cohen has reached a plea deal.

This article was originally published at 11:30 a.m.
For the first time in nearly a decade, Republicans are heading into a national election divided and defensive over healthcare, the very issue that once propelled them to majorities in the House and Senate.

After failing to deliver on their years-long promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act and faced with the sudden popularity of Obamacares consumer protections, GOP candidates across the country are struggling to put together a cohesive message on healthcare.

Die-hards still want to repeal the 2010 law, but a growing number of Republicans  particularly those facing tough elections  want to quietly admit defeat and move on to other issues.

Even to bring it up is picking at the scab, said Joe Antos, a health policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Its reminding people that they [failed]. The base isnt that stupid.

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Other GOP candidates find themselves trying to thread an awkward needle of opposing Obamacare  a law that is still unpopular with base voters  while supporting some of its key provisions. A few Republicans who once called for the repeal of Obamacare are now even embracing it, albeit cautiously.

Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), who is seeking reelection in a district that leans Republican, is running ads boasting that he opposed his partys attempt to eliminate protections for people with preexisting conditions.

But between 2013 and 2016, Joyce cast dozens of votes to repeal or undermine the health law. Back then, when President Obama was able to veto repeal efforts, Republicans like Joyce were able to vote against Obamacare with no threat of their constituents losing coverage. After Donald Trump was elected and Republicans tried to repeal the law, Joyce changed his position.

Republican candidates for governor in Ohio and Nevada, both once-harsh critics of Obamacare, now say they wont  if elected  undo previous decisions to expand Medicaid in their states through the 2010 law.

Rich Cordray, the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor, has tried to make healthcare a key issue in his bid against Republican Mike DeWine, the states attorney general, accusing DeWine of trying to end the Medicaid expansion and eliminate coverage for 700,000 Ohioans.

But even as DeWine assures voters he wont undo expansion, he also tried to put a conservative stamp on it by promising reforms. Echoing other Republican governor hopefuls, DeWine wants to consider adding work requirements to Medicaid  an idea the Trump administration has backed but is being challenged in court.

Republican state Attys. Gen. Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia and Josh Hawley of Missouri joined a multistate, GOP-backed lawsuit that seeks to end a requirement in the 2010 law that all Americans have insurance. It was a move that helped buoy their conservative bona fides.

But now as they run for the U.S. Senate, they have had to distance themselves somewhat from the effort, particularly after the Trump administration adopted the legal position that not only should the individual mandate go, but preexisting conditions protections should too. The preexisting-conditions provision is by far the most popular under Obamacare. So both GOP candidates now say they support requiring insurance companies to cover people with preexisting conditions, even as they remain part of the repeal lawsuit.

Its a starkly different climate from just two years ago, when GOP candidates could count on opposition to Obamacare as a guaranteed applause line on the stump. Once repeal became a political possibility, the Affordable Care Act  particularly a few individual pieces  became more popular.

Forty-eight percent of adults have favorable opinions of the law while 40% have unfavorable views, according to a nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation poll. In April 2016, those were flipped: 49% of adults with unfavorable opinions and 38% favorable.

Some Republicans are still eager to keep trying to repeal or dismantle the law.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is facing a surprisingly strong challenge from underdog Rep. Beto ORouke (D-Texas), wants the GOP to try Obamacare repeal again. Earlier this month, he went to the Senate floor to try to block the District of Columbia from requiring people to have health insurance  a requirement similar to the Obamacare rule the GOP repealed across the country earlier this year.

The GOP candidate for governor in Maine has pledged to continue incumbent Gov. Paul LePages die-hard opposition to expanding Medicaid under Obamacare  an expansion that 59% of Maine voters approved in a ballot measure last year. Minnesotas GOP gubernatorial candidate won his primary by promising to move the state away from its Obamacare insurance exchange but offered few specifics on his alternative.

And GOP Senate challengers Leah Vukmir in Wisconsin and Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee won their primaries in part by pledging to do more to repeal the law.

The result is that even if Republicans do maintain control of both chambers of Congress  seemingly a long shot  any legislative effort to stabilize the health laws insurance markets is likely to be met with opposition from the conservative end of the Republican party.

Healthcare is an extremely hard thing for Republicans to agree on, said GOP strategist Doug Heye, adding that the party is divided among those who want repeal Obamacare, those who want to move on and those seeking a middle ground. When you have three different strains of thought, how do you talk about it?

Meanwhile, Democrats  once the party that struggled over healthcare in part because of Obamacares rocky rollout  are hammering GOP candidates on the issue, blaming Republican candidates for rising drug prices, premium instability and trying to take away well-liked protections, such as the ban on denials over preexisting conditions.

Even in places where candidates didnt want to say Obamacare four years ago, we have candidates running on Medicaid expansion, said Jared Leopold, spokesman for the Democratic Governors Assn.

Moderate Democrats are more than happy to exploit the GOP fissures. Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia both started running ads touting the preexisting condition protections and attacking their opponents for trying to get rid of them.

Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), who faces an uphill battle toward reelection, has taken a similar tack against his opponent, Mike Braun, who has backed repeal of Obamacare.

Mike Braun says hes for preexisting conditions coverage, one Donnelly video says. Theres only one problem. Mike has said time after time after time hes against it.

The latest from Washington 

jennifer.haberkorn@latimes.com

@jenhab
A federal jury convicted Paul Manafort, President Trumps former campaign chairman, of eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud on Tuesday, a victory for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in the first criminal trial brought by his office.

The jury said it was deadlocked on 10 related charges and the judge declared a mistrial on them after four days of deliberations and a dramatic 12-day trial that focused in part on Manaforts gilded lifestyle, making him a symbol of gaudy excess and greed in the Trump era.

Manafort, 69, showed a glimmer of a smile when he learned the jurors could not reach a unanimous decision on the 10 charges. But it quickly disappeared behind an expressionless mask and heavy eyes as a clerk read the eight guilty verdicts.

He was convicted on five counts of filing false tax returns, one count of not filing a report on a foreign bank account, and two counts of bank fraud. He could be sentenced to up to 80 years in prison.

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Once an influential Republican operative, wealthy Washington lobbyist and globe-trotting advisor to foreign leaders, Manafort stood motionless as the judge explained the sentencing process to him.

His wife, Kathleen, her eyes vacant, sat directly behind him in the first row of the ninth-floor courtroom. Once the proceedings were over, Manafort appeared to walk toward her, briefly making eye contact before deputies escorted him out the side door hes used throughout the trial.

The case focused chiefly on Manaforts efforts to hide tens of millions of dollars from his work as a political consultant in Ukraine before he joined Trumps presidential campaign in March 2016. But evidence introduced at trial indicated some of the actions occurred as Manafort steered the candidate through the contentious Republican National Convention in Cleveland that summer.

Evidence also showed that after the election, Manafort tried to secure a job in the Trump administration for a Chicago bank executive who helped him get $16 million in loans in 2016 that prosecutors said were based on fraudulent documents. No job ultimately was arranged, although the executive was given an advisory position on Trumps campaign.

None of the charges cited Russias interference in the 2016 election, the initial focus of the special counsels wide-ranging inquiry. But the verdict could strengthen Muellers hand as he spars with Trumps lawyers over whether the president will agree to an interview  or face a potential subpoena  in coming months.

The guilty verdict is also politically awkward for Trump, and he appeared to question it after he arrived in Charleston, W.Va., for a campaign rally.

This is a witch hunt, and its a disgrace, Trump told reporters.

The question of a presidential pardon has hung over Manaforts case ever since he decided to risk a trial  and the stiffer prison sentence that could result  rather than cut a deal with the special counsels office, as other defendants have done.

Trump didnt mention a pardon on Tuesday, but he said Manafort was treated unfairly by prosecutors, a description hes deployed when issuing previous pardons.

I feel very badly for Paul Manafort, the president said, adding that the case against him had nothing to do with Russian collusion and that the special counsels office had strayed from its original mission.

It wasnt clear whether Manafort would try to appeal. Kevin Downing, a lawyer for Manafort, told reporters outside the Alexandria courthouse that he was evaluating his options at this point.

Mr. Manafort is disappointed at not getting an acquittal or a complete hung jury on all counts, Downing said.

During the trial, Manaforts defense lawyers chose not to present any witnesses or evidence, gambling instead that the jury would simply reject the governments case as unreliable or insufficient. Manafort himself did not take the stand.

He faces another federal trial on related charges on Sept. 17 in Washington, D.C., and the judge in that case ordered him incarcerated in June after he was accused of attempted witness tampering.

Manafort was the latest reminder of the scandals that have swirled around Trumps senior staff from the beginning.

The secretary of Health and Human Services and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency were forced out over ethical controversies, and other senior aides have faced harsh scrutiny. Trumps former national security advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty last year to lying to federal investigators.

Even as Manaforts verdict was read in Virginia, Trumps former personal lawyer and longtime fixer in New York, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight charges in a separate case, including campaign finance law violations.

In a plea deal, Cohen said he had sought to influence the 2016 election when he arranged to pay hush money to two women who said they had sex with Trump years ago. Cohen said he made the payments in coordination with the president.

Prosecutors prevailed in the Manafort case despite frequent criticism from U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, a stern jurist who repeatedly questioned prosecution tactics in front of the jury. Ellis sought to limit testimony about Manaforts work in Ukraine and his opulent tastes, saying the details were not relevant to the legal question of whether he had evaded U.S. taxes.

Muellers team twice filed formal motions asking Ellis to retract his comments. He agreed only once, telling the jury on Thursday to disregard an outburst in which he accused prosecutors of improperly allowing an expert witness to sit in the courtroom during testimony.

This robe doesnt make me anything other than human, and I may have made a mistake, he said.

On Tuesday, after the jury was dismissed, Ellis seemed chastened by criticism he had received during the trial. He referenced the brickbats he had gotten and told prosecutors and defense lawyers that they provided effective and zealous representation  a rare bit of praise from a judge better known for scolding the attorneys before him.

According to the special counsels office, Manafort used more than 30 foreign bank accounts in Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the United Kingdom to evade U.S. taxes on more than $15 million he made while he was working for Ukraines then-President Viktor Yanukovich and his political party from 2010 to 2014.

Prosecutors said Manafort had arranged foreign wire transfers to purchase custom-made clothing, including a $15,000 ostrich skin jacket and an $18,500 python skin jacket. The money also went for luxury cars, home renovations, expensive rugs and antiques, and elaborate landscaping services, including flowers in the shape of an M outside his 10-bedroom beachfront house in Bridgehampton, N.Y.

But when Yanukovich was ousted from power by a popular revolt in 2014 and fled to Moscow, Manaforts income abruptly dried up. Prosecutors said he then turned to bank fraud to pay his bills and stay financially afloat.

Richard Gates, who worked with Manafort in Ukraine and on the Trump campaign, testified that he had helped Manafort obtain more than $16 million in bank loans with falsified documents. Prosecutors said Manafort lied on applications to three banks.

Gates was a key figure during the trial, giving the jury an insiders account of Manaforts financial operations. He also served as a target for the defense, which blamed Gates for any financial wrongdoing.

Gates first met Manafort more than three decades ago, and they were indicted together in October. But Gates later cut a deal with Muellers team in hopes of winning a more lenient sentence, and agreed to testify against his former boss.

Gates pleaded guilty to conspiracy for helping Manafort with his financial schemes, and to making false statements to federal investigators  a charge defense attorneys used to question his credibility during the trial. He also admitted on the stand to embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from Manaforts company over a period of years.

Under questioning from defense attorney Downing, Gates did not deny the possibility that he also stole from Trumps inaugural committee, where he was the deputy chairman.

I dont recall, he said. Its possible.

Takeaways from prosecutors case against Paul Manafort 

Follow the latest news of the Trump administration on Essential Washington 

chris.megerian@latimes.com

Twitter: @chrismegerian

laura.king@latimes.com

Twitter: @laurakingLAT

UPDATES:

5:20 p.m.: This article was updated with reactions to the verdict.

This article was originally published at 1:55 p.m.
Melania Trump talked up the importance of teaching children positive cyber habits Monday on the same morning that her husband sent tweets deriding current and former U.S. officials, including one message referring to a former CIA director as a political hack.

Asked about the contradictory messages, the first ladys office said in a statement that she is aware of the criticism but it will not deter her from doing what she feels is right. The president is proud of her commitment to children and encourages her in all that she does.

Melania Trump delivered brief remarks to help open a government-sponsored summit called Federal Partners on Bullying Prevention, encouraging social media and technology companies to provide more opportunities for young people to share ideas for how to be good citizens online.

But the split screen of the first lady encouraging children to act a certain way when they see President Trump behaving in the opposite way underscored the challenge Mrs. Trump faces with her Be Best campaign. A key focus is on youth cyberbullying.

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Mrs. Trump spoke highly of a group of students she recently met who participate in Microsofts Council for Digital Good. The students provide the computer software maker with ideas and feedback for Microsofts policy work on youth-centered online safety.

She told the summit at the Health Resources and Services Administration building in Rockville how impressed she was by their deep understanding of how important it is to be safe and said she was inspired by their sincere commitment to reducing peer-to-peer bullying through kindness and open communication.

I encourage technology and social media companies, schools and community groups, to establish more opportunities for children such as Microsofts Council for Digital Good, the first lady said. By listening to childrens ideas and concerns, I believe adults will be better able to help them navigate this often-difficult topic.

Lets face it: Most children are more aware of the benefits and pitfalls of social media than some adults, but we still need to do all we can to provide them with information and tools for successful and safe online habits.

After speaking, Mrs. Trump took a seat in the front row and listened as a panel featuring representatives from Facebook, Google, Twitter and the nonprofit Family Online Safety Institute talk about how theyre responding to the issue.

As the panelists spoke, Trump sent fresh tweets about John Brennan, calling him the worst CIA director in our countrys history and a political hack. Brennan, who led the CIA under President Obama, a Democrat, has been an outspoken critic of Trump, a Republican, over his performance and behavior as president. Trump recently revoked Brennans security clearance.

Trump also tweeted against Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, who has come under Republican scrutiny for his contacts to Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS. The opposition research firm hired former British spy Christopher Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign to compile a dossier on Trump and his Russia ties. Ohrs wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS during the campaign  and Trump has been tweeting about the connection to highlight his assertions of political bias behind the Russia investigation.

Trump tweeted Monday: Will Bruce Ohr, whose family received big money for helping to create the phony, dirty and discredited Dossier, ever be fired from the Jeff Sessions Justice Department? A total joke!

Trump said last week that he was close to revoking Ohrs security clearance too.

The first ladys appearance at the conference came as part of her campaign to help children Be Best, which also includes an emphasis on child well-being overall and opioid addition.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the Health Resources and Services Administration, which sponsored the conference and which his department oversees, began an anti-bullying campaign in 2001 to help raise awareness. He said 1 in 5 children experience bullying, and that 16% of children currently are victims of cyberbullying.

We need to recognize that bullying is bullying wherever it occurs, Azar said. And we need to stop it.
A landmark bill to end money bail in California passed out of the state Assembly on Monday, clearing a major legislative hurdle despite mounting opposition to last-minute changes that gave judges greater power to decide who should remain incarcerated ahead of trial.

In a heated debate on the Assembly floor, both Republicans and Democrats expressed grave concerns over the late amendments and the push to rush the legislation to a vote. But supporters called the proposal a solid first step  one not likely to come again soon  toward overturning the status quo and helping thousands of families ensnared by what they described as a predatory bail system.

The legislation would virtually eliminate the payment of money as a condition for release from jail. Counties would have to establish their own pretrial services agencies, which would use a risk-assessment tool, or analysis, to evaluate people booked into jail to determine whether, and under what conditions, they should be released.

The changes released last week gave greater discretion to judges over conditions for all prisoners in a practice known as preventive detention, allowing them to decide which people are a danger to the community and should be held without any possibility of release.

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This might not be the perfect bill, Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco) said. This might not go as far as people may want, either to the so-called left or the so-called right. But we need to do something.

Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Alameda), who co-authored the legislation, said California had a chance to lead the nation in fixing a broken system based on wealth, not safety.

This will be a paradigm-shifting move in the criminal justice system whose time has come, he said.

Senate Bill 10 by state Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) and Bonta moved out of the chamber on a 41-27 vote. It now heads to the Senate for final approval.

On the Assembly floor Monday, supporters said the legislation had been two years in the making and had the backing of Gov. Jerry Brown. They argued the latest changes took into consideration concerns from law enforcement and victims rights groups, as well as recommendations from a judicial task force assembled by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye.

Chiu said the amendments would ensure defendants who posed a high risk to their communities wouldnt be able to bail out and that prosecutors would do more to notify victims of a defendants release.

Under the latest version of the bill, only people charged with certain low-level, nonviolent misdemeanors  a list of charges that can be further narrowed by county  would be eligible for automatic release within 12 hours of being booked into jail.

All others arrested would have to undergo risk analysis, a system that would sort defendants based on criminal history and other criteria into low-, medium- or high-risk categories. Courts would be required to release low-level defendants without assigning bail, pending a hearing. Pretrial services offices would decide whether to hold or release medium-risk offenders.

But Republicans and Democrats disagreed over whether the bill would lead to more or less incarcerations, and opponents argued it could result in the release of dangerous offenders.

Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles) said those disagreements were signs of compromise.

For me, what we are doing now straddles right down the middle of where we need to go, he said.

Some organizations that have supported the bill from the start remain behind the effort.

But other criminal justice reform groups have rescinded their support and are actively working to kill the legislation  landing on the same side as a bail industry that has worked to sink the bill from the beginning.

The American Civil Liberties Union became the latest major supporter to move its stance from neutral to opposed on Monday. Three of its executive directors said the new bill fell short of its intended goals and would compromise the right to fair court proceedings for criminal defendants.

Unfortunately, this amended version of SB 10 is not the model for pretrial justice and racial equity that the ACLU of California envisioned, worked for, and remains determined to achieve, read the statement from ACLU directors Abdi Soltani in Northern California, Hector Villagra in Southern California and Norma Chavez Peterson, representing San Diego and Imperial counties.

Outside the criminal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, home to the nations largest jail system, some 20 new opponents of the bill chanted Reject SB 10! More than a dozen more gave emotional speeches against the legislation outside the state Capitol in Sacramento.

Raj Jayadev, director of Silicon Valley DeBug, said grass-roots community groups like his had pushed the boulder up the hill before the changes to the bill, which they considered a bait-and-switch. Other demonstrators said the measure would give judges unfettered power to hold people behind bars and lead to higher rates of incarceration with people locked up for longer periods of time.

SB 10 will keep undocumented people accused but not convicted of crimes in custody longer without the option of bailing out quickly, exposing them to detection by ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], said Pete White, executive director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, a group that helps people dealing with poverty.

Outside the Capitol, Glen Maxwell, 56, who is an activist with DeBug, said the new bill could lead to more defendants taking plea deals while they languish in jail, an experience he knows firsthand, he said. Maxwell, now a deacon at Greater St. John Baptist Church in San Jose, said he was released from prison a year ago after serving nearly four years for low-level drug possession charges.

You get desperate, he said. You want some type of answer, so you will pretty much take the deal because those walls are just caving in on you. Theres a lot of stuff you are going through while you are in there.

More stories from Jazmine Ulloa 

The latest from Washington 

jazmine.ulloa@latimes.com

@jazmineulloa

maya.lau@latimes.com

Twitter: @mayalau

UPDATES:

7:15 p.m.: This article was updated with more quotes from the debate and details about the proposal.

This article was originally published at 5:55 p.m.
State Sen. Joel Anderson is facing a legislative investigation after a female lobbyist accused him of threatening to bitch slap her and harassing her at a Capitol-area bar last week, sources say.

Stephanie Roberson, a lobbyist with the California Nurses Assn., filed a complaint with the Senate Rules Committee on Friday.

Anderson, a San Diego County Republican who is termed out this year, is running for a seat on the Board of Equalization, the states tax board. He released a statement Tuesday morning regarding the complaint.

I have the utmost respect for Stephanie and I sincerely regret my word choice that was not directed at her, Anderson said. I welcome the Rules Committee investigation to clear up this misunderstanding.

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According to a lobbyist who witnessed the encounter, Anderson first approached Roberson at another legislators fundraiser last Monday evening at the Diplomat Steakhouse, a restaurant and bar across the street from the state Capitol.

The lobbyist, who requested anonymity to describe the incident, said Anderson brought up the fact that Robersons organization never endorsed him. During the conversation, Anderson made comments about Robersons appearance, the witness said, and then threatened to hit her.

You better shut up before I bitch slap you, Anderson said to Roberson, according to the lobbyist, adding that the lawmaker repeated the threat multiple times. Another person present confirmed that account.

Restaurant staff ultimately intervened and removed him from the bar, a spokesman for the eatery said in a statement.

On Monday, August 13, a male patron threatened to strike a female patron, said the spokesman, Patrick Harbison. This threat was observed by restaurant staff who immediately intervened and escorted the male out without further incident.

Harbison said the restaurant would participate in any investigation if asked.

Two people present that night, who requested anonymity to discuss the incident, said they saw Anderson being removed from the restaurant.

Bonnie Castillo, executive director of the union where Roberson works, called on the senator to resign and end his Board of Equalization campaign, citing his outrageous and unacceptable behavior.

No one should ever be subject to sexual harassment or threats of violence in the Capitol, or anywhere else in our society, Castillo said in her statement. Sexual harassment and violence against women can never be treated as business as usual or swept under the rug. CNA stands fully behind Ms. Roberson, and we will never be silent in standing up for justice.

Anderson has represented the San Diego area in the Legislature since being elected to the Assembly in 2006. He moved to the state Senate in 2010.

While a reliable Republican vote, Anderson has shown an individualistic streak, choosing for a time not to caucus with his party. He also has partnered with Democrats on criminal justice reform efforts, such as co-authoring a bill to change Californias felony murder law, under which a defendant may be convicted of first-degree murder if a person dies during the commission of a felony, even if the defendant did not intend to kill.

Senate Republican leader Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel) declined to comment, citing a pending investigation.

The Legislative Womens Caucus issued a statement Tuesday afternoon saying the allegations against Anderson warranted a full investigation and are deeply disturbing.

All legislative staff, lobbyists, visitors to the Capitol, and legislators deserve to be treated with respect, said the statement from Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) and state Sen. Connie M. Leyva (D-Chino), the caucus chairwoman and vice-chairwoman, respectively. Sexual harassment and threats of violence are never acceptable and those who engage in that type of behavior must be held accountable.

The complaint against Anderson comes as the #MeToo movement has brought more attention to allegations of misconduct in the Capitol. Since last fall, three state legislators have resigned over accusations of sexual harassment. The Times reported last week that a fourth ex-lawmaker, Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles), was the subject of two sexual harassment complaints when he stepped down in December, citing health reasons.

Coverage of California politics 

melanie.mason@latimes.com

Follow @melmason on Twitter for the latest on California politics.

UPDATES:

1:29 p.m.: This article was updated with a statement from the Legislative Womens Caucus.

8:15 a.m.: This article was updated with a statement from Anderson.

This article was originally published at 9:15 p.m.
Editors Note: The tweet below includes video of officers using foul language.

A petty-theft suspect remains at large after authorities say he rammed his vehicle into a police car in La Crescenta to evade capture.

The incident began around 10 a.m. after the Glendale Police Department received report of a shoplifting incident at a local Vons grocery store, according to Sgt. Dan Suttles, a department spokesman.

He said officers arrived just as the suspect was driving away from the store in a white Ford Mustang.

Police attempted to box the mans vehicle in to prevent him from leaving, Suttles added.

He then rammed into one of our [cars], he said. We pretty much had him stuck in, but he kept on trying, flooring it  his car was smoking and spinning.

Officers can be heard communicating with the suspect in a video of the encounter shared on social media, but the mans vehicle was able to get free, and he drove away.

Suttles said the man soon abandoned the vehicle in the area of Foothill Boulevard and Boston Avenue, fleeing from the scene on foot.

Police soon established a perimeter in the area and asked residents to call 911 if they saw a man dressed in a blue flannel shirt and black pants.

K9 units from the San Fernando and Burbank police departments as well as deputies from the Crescenta Valley Sheriffs Station aided in the search.

The police activity led nearby Chamlian Armenian School to be placed on lock down.

.@GlendalePD Officers determined suspect broke the perimeter and was able to flee. They have leads & have decided to lift the lock down on the school so people can get back to their normal routine. https://t.co/5GDRDDfXbE  City of Glendale, CA (@MyGlendale) August 21, 2018

By 2:15 p.m. Glendale police suspended their search after being unable to locate the suspect.

Suttles said there has been no indication the suspect has a weapon, but that should not discount the possibility.

The incident remains under investigation, and police will continue patrol the area.

andy.nguyen@latimes.com

Twitter: @Andy_Truc

UPDATES:

4:45 p.m.: This article was updated with details from a video of Glendale police attempting to stop the suspect.

3:10 p.m.: This article was updated with information from Glendale police about the search being suspended.

This article was originally published at 12:00 p.m.
To say Glendale High School custodial supervisor Krista Smiley is one in a million might not be a stretch at all.

The 27-year Glendale Unified employee began her career as a custodian and has served at different campuses, including Crescenta Valley High, Valley View Elementary and Hoover High, along with just about every school in between in the district, Smiley said.

Her hard work, humility and dedication was noticed at a high level recently when Smiley was one of five employees statewide honored this summer with a Member of the Year Award from the California School Employees Assn.

Its very humbling to win this, Smiley said. To be recognized among the entire state of California. It was quite nice, and it was something I wont forget.

While the modest Smiley isnt one to brag about her accomplishment, Stacy Toy, president of the Glendale chapter of the association, wasnt as bashful.

Toy pointed out that Smiley is one of 11,000 Glendale Unified staff members and one of 240,000 employees in California eligible for an award only given to five honorees annually. Plus, according to Toy, Smiley is thought to be the first winner from Glendale Unified.

Were one of the oldest chapters in the state  No. 3  and weve never received state recognition before, so this is a big deal, a really big deal, Toy said. I was elated when I heard Krista had won. Shell never brag about her work, but her humility, her work ethic is something admirable.

Toy nominated Smiley for the award partly because she felt Smiley deserved the accolade, but also because she believed it was time the district was honored at the state level.

We hadnt nominated a member from our own area in years, Toy said. I was actually nominated two years ago for a member recognition award for doing things for our chapter and state association and won. So, I felt like it was time we got ourselves noticed and, with Krista, it was very easy to write about her. Shes wonderful.

The Member of the Year Award recognizes the commitment and dedication of classified employees to students and teachers community involvement and activism in the state employees association.

Smileys position as custodial supervisor, which is similar to being a plant manager, has many specifications, including that she delegate schedules, make sure teachers needs are met and that facility-use permits are reviewed and issued in a timely manner.

Smileys husband, Henry, district Supt. Winfred Roberson Jr. and Toy were in attendance in Sacramento on July 31 when Smiley received the award at the associations annual meeting.

Glendale High School custodial supervisor Krista Smiley, right, holds her CSEA Member of the Year award in front of Glendale High alongside CSEA Glendale chapter president Stacey Toy on Tuesday. Smiley, a 27-year district veteran, was honored at the CSEA annual meeting. (Raul Roa/Staff Photographer)

In April, CSEA sent a camera crew to observe Smiley for a day and produce a five-minute YouTube video, which was displayed during the award ceremony.

It was nice that CSEA had an idea about what I did in terms of my job, Smiley said.

Since then, the Montrose resident has been on a victory tour of sorts that included recognition by the Glendale Unified board on Aug. 14.

Toy is pushing for a long shot, which is to get Smiley recognized on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. If that falls through, however, Smiley is more than satisfied.

Im honored that a lot of people have reached out to congratulate me and know what I do, Smiley said. I had no idea Stacy was putting my name up for an award. Im so proud to win have won and represent my school and chapter. Im still on cloud nine.

andrew.campa@latimes.com

Twitter @campadresports
Learn about wines and winemakers this fall and winter when Norwegian Cruise Lines kicks off its third season of Meet the Winemaker cruises, seven-day journeys available on Norwegians ships Bliss, Escape and Dawn.

The program will be offered on an Oct. 27 sailing from the Port of Los Angeles to the Mexican Riviera (rates start at $649 per person, double occupancy), in addition to sailings from New York City, Boston and Miami.

The themed cruises include special dinners and tastings, seminars, question-and-answer sessions and meet-and-greets with experts in the winemaking industry, including Salvatore Ferragamo, winemaker and heir to the fashion empire; California vintner Rob Mondavi Jr.; and French rugby player turned winemaker Gerard Bertrand.

In addition, passengers seeking a personal experience can take part in guided wine tastings, wine-paired dinners and educational seminars at Cellars, the ships Michael Mondavi Family Wine Bar.

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The sessions, hosted by the guest winemaker or expert on board, include an interactive seminar in which participants share tasting notes and learn how to complement the wines. The vintages are chosen by the expert and brought onboard for the event.

Wine tastings are available for $19.95 per person. A five-course, wine-paired dinner costs $60 per person. Seating is limited for the tasting and wine pairing dinners; reservations are available once aboard the ship.

The Meet the Winemaker series will be featured on the following cruises:

--Sept. 23, New York City fall color cruise to Canada and New England on Norwegian Escape featuring Aaron Sanchez, celebrity chef and James Beard award winner and spokesman for Moet-Hennessys Argentine wine, Terrazas de los Andes.

--Oct. 12, Boston fall color cruise to Canada and New England ports on Norwegian Dawn featuring Dina Mondavi, daughter of winemakers Isabel and Michael Mondavi.

--Oct. 27, Los Angeles to the Mexican Riviera on Norwegian Bliss featuring Salvatore Ferragamo, heir of the Italian fashion house and owner of Il Borro Winery in Tuscany, Italy.

--Dec. 8, Miami, Fla., to the eastern Caribbean on Norwegian Bliss featuring Bob Bertheau, head winemaker at Chateau Ste. Michelle of Woodinville, Wash.

--Jan. 12, 2019, Miami, Fla., to the Eastern Caribbean on Norwegian Bliss featuring Juan Munoz Oca, head winemaker at Columbia Crest in Paterson, Wash.

--Feb. 16, 2019, Miami, Fla., to the Eastern Caribbean on Norwegian Bliss featuring Bertrand, vintner of Frances Languedoc-Roussillon.

Info: Norwegian Cruise Lines, (866) 234-7350

ALSO

Want to see more of the sea? See about a cabin with a balcony, which isnt as pricey as you might think

With the reopening of California 1, Big Sur is back  and just in time

Explore Hawaiian islands, look for whales on a holiday cruise

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel
China has protested a visit Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen made Sunday to NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The visit, made on a stopover from a trip to Central and South America, marked the first time a Taiwanese leader has been to an official U.S. government facility. It was widely viewed as a sign of deepening ties between the U.S. and Taiwan  much to the delight of many Taiwanese and the dismay of China.

An official in Beijing, where the Communist government sees Taiwan as part of its territory rather than a state free to engage in its own diplomacy, accused Tsai of trying to split her island from China.

She is finding excuses to visit foreign countries to engage in activities aimed at splitting China, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Monday.

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The Taiwan governments Mainland Affairs Council called the remarks crude and said they would have absolutely no persuasive power among Taiwanese and even less help the positive development of two-way relations.

China had implored the United States to block Tsais latest trip there.

But the Trump administration has been strengthening the U.S. relationship with Taiwan. Last year, the U.S. agreed to sell arms to Taiwan and allow defense contractors to start the process to sell Taiwan submarine technology.

In March, President Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act, which encourages more high-level visits.

This month, Tsai spoke at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. Last year she met a Texas senator and the states governor.

I think the relations between Taiwan and the United States are moving ahead further, said Liu Yih-jiun, professor of public affairs at Fo Guang University in Taiwan. The relationship between Taiwan and China was under great, great stress. And mainland China wants to push its political agenda one step further.

In Taiwan, Tsais visits to the U.S. have helped her party ahead of pivotal midterm elections in November, said Wu Chung-li, a political science research fellow at the university Academia Sinica in Taipei.

The partys chief rival advocates a closer relationship with China, but government opinion polls in Taipei show most Taiwanese prefer autonomy.

Washington does not recognize Taipei diplomatically but considers it a staunch ally in the Pacific Rim. Some experts in Taipei fear Trump is using Taiwan as a bargaining chip in the 6-month-old trade dispute with China.

China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, but both sides have been self-ruled since then. Tsai rejects Beijings conditions for dialogue about the Chinese goal of unifying the two sides.

China resents the U.S. for giving her limelight that suggests legitimacy for the Taiwanese government. Washington says it lets Taiwanese presidents stop over for their comfort and dignity.

Tsai returned to Taiwan on Monday after an eight-day trip that included visits to Belize and Paraguay, two of the islands remaining 17 diplomatic allies. Since Tsai took office in 2016, five countries have broken ties with Taiwan  including El Salvador on Monday.
The British government apologized Tuesday to 18 long-term U.K. residents from the Caribbean who were deported or detained because they could not produce documents to prove their right to live in the country.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said their treatment was completely unacceptable, and issued a personal apology. He said those affected would get the support and compensation they deserve.

The government reviewed almost 12,000 immigration cases after it was reported that some people from the Caribbean who had lived in Britain for decades had been denied housing, jobs or medical treatment because they could not prove their status.

The treatment of members of the so-called Windrush generation caused widespread outrage in Britain.

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The Home Office said Tuesday that the most serious cases include 11 people who were wrongly removed from the country, and seven others who were detained but not deported.

Javid said these 18 people are the most likely to have suffered detriment. The government found 146 other cases of Caribbean immigrants who were detained or deported, but the degree of detriment suffered varied considerably, he said.

Those affected are known as the Windrush generation after the ship Empire Windrush, which in 1948 brought hundreds of Caribbean immigrants to Britain, which was seeking nurses, railway workers and others to help it rebuild after the devastation of World War II.

They and other Commonwealth immigrants who came to Britain before 1973 had an automatic right to settle in the U.K. But some have fallen afoul of rules requiring employers and doctors to verify peoples immigration status.

The Conservative government introduced the checks as part of its goal of making the U.K. a hostile environment for illegal immigration.

Javid, whose parents came to Britain from Pakistan, has dropped the hostile environment label and is reviewing immigration procedures.

We must do everything we can to ensure that nothing like this happens again, which is why I have asked an independent advisor to look at what lessons we can learn from Windrush, he said.

Labour Party lawmaker David Lammy said the apology was a drop in the ocean and the government still had not disclosed the full number of people affected. He tweeted that an apology is crocodile tears & an insult to people still not given hardship fund, left jobless, homeless & unable to afford food.
The Vatican said Tuesday that Pope Francis is expected to meet with victims of sexual abuse during his weekend visit to Ireland and speak out about the problem.

Spokesman Greg Burke effectively confirmed the meeting during a briefing Tuesday. He said Francis always meets with victims when he visits countries where abuse is a reality and that any information would be released after the fact, based on what the survivors themselves decide.

The important thing for the pope is to listen, he said.

Francis is under enormous pressure to speak out strongly against abuse given Irelands devastating history of priests who raped and molested children and bishops who covered up for them. The trip is likely to be dominated by the issue, given recent revelations of misconduct at the highest levels of the Catholic Church in the U.S., Chile and beyond.

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RELATED: Pope condemns sexual abuse: We showed no care for the little ones 

The fact that Burke essentially confirmed a meeting with victims ahead of time  something the Vatican has never before done  was an indication that the Holy See is well aware of the expectations going into the visit.

The original aim of the trip Saturday and Sunday was to close out a big Catholic family rally, the World Meeting of Families. But asked if Francis would weigh in on abuse, Burke noted that the pope will deliver six major speeches during his 36 hours on the ground, and thus has several opportunities.

Francis will also pray for abuse victims before a candle in St. Marys Pro Cathedral in Dublin on Saturday.

Francis has met with victims before in Philadelphia, Chile and at the Vatican. His refusal to do so during a 2016 trip to Mexico riled some victims, given the country is home to the founder of the Legion of Christ, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, perhaps the most notorious pedophile of the 20th century Catholic Church.
A court in Vietnams Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday began the trial of 12 people, including two American citizens, on subversion charges as government authorities step up a crackdown on dissent.

The defendants are accused of attempting to overthrow the government by recruiting members for a U.S.-based exile group called the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam and by engaging in anti-state activities, the official Vietnam News Agency said.

Vietnams government has labeled the little-known group a terrorist organization.

The news agency said two Vietnam-born American citizens are accused of ordering other members of the group to distribute anti-state leaflets, take over state radio stations to broadcast anti-government messages, and participate in anti-government protests. It said most of the plans were thwarted.

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The news agency identified the Americans as Han James Nguyen and Angle Phan. It did not provide their hometowns.

The trial is scheduled to last three days.

We are taking all appropriate actions to ensure Mr. Nguyens welfare and to encourage an expeditious resolution to his case. Due to privacy concerns, we are unable to comment on any other case, a U.S. State Department official said in a statement.

In January, Vietnams Ministry of Public Security declared the California-based group a terrorist organization, a month after 15 alleged members were convicted in a failed bombing at the countrys largest airport.

The attempted attack at the Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City in April 2017 caused a scare but no casualties.

Last week a court in central Vietnam sentenced an activist to 20 years in prison after finding him guilty of attempting to overthrow the government.

Despite sweeping economic reforms over the last 30 years that opened the country to foreign trade and investment and made Vietnam one of the worlds fastest-growing economies, the government tolerates no challenge to its one-party rule.

Amnesty International says 97 people are serving prison sentences for violating national security laws, while Human Rights Watch counts 119.
Zimbabwes latest experiment in democracy will face another hurdle this week when the opposition goes to court to challenge its loss in last months presidential election  a contest the opposition says was tainted by fraud.

The court hearing Wednesday will unfold in rare televised proceedings that will be watched closely  and face unprecedented scrutiny  from around the world.

For nearly two weeks, Zimbabweans have been in limbo after opposition leader Nelson Chamisa launched a legal challenge to the electoral commissions official results that awarded him 44.3% of the vote to President Emmerson Mnangagwas 50.8% in July 30 polls. The rest of the votes were divvied up among another 21 candidates.

Chamisa says he won the popular vote and has accused the government of doctoring the results in favor of Mnangagwa, a long-time ally of former president Robert Mugabe who stepped into the presidency after Mugabe was forced to resign in November.

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The historic elections, widely seen as a chance for the beleaguered nation to restore its democratic credentials after 37 years of Mugabes increasingly autocratic rule, prompted a record number of voters to cast their ballots on a largely peaceful voting day.

But that optimism was stamped out less than 48 hours later, when the army launched a violent crackdown on opposition protesters, opening fire on demonstrators and bystanders and killing six people. In the days that followed, dozens of opposition supporters and activists were arrested, harassed and beaten up by security forces, opposition leaders and human rights groups say.

Now millions of Zimbabweans wait to see whether any resolution is in sight as the opposition Movement for Democratic Change alliance and the ruling ZANU-PF go to court, after months of campaign promises by both parties to fix the broken economy and create desperately needed jobs.

The Constitutional Court can declare a winner, nullify the results and call for a new election, or issue another directive, such as calling for a runoff if it decides neither candidate secured a clear majority. It has until near the end of the month to make a ruling.

Though some members of the opposition have said the bid may fail, both parties leadership have said in recent days that they are confident of their cases, raising the specter of further unrest once the court announces its decision.

Many Zimbabweans believe the countrys judges are sympathetic to the ruling party, though the courts have historically demonstrated some independence, said Piers Pigou, a senior consultant with the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based organization dedicated to preventing conflicts.

This is a real test for the courts to demonstrate their prowess and independence, he said. Its a very fragile situation.

Unusually, the court proceedings will be televised by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corp., the state broadcaster that was roundly criticized by international election monitors for biased coverage in the run-up to the vote.

MISA Zimbabwe, a group advocating freedom of expression, also asked to have the hearing livestreamed on social media to reach more viewers, but the court dismissed the request Tuesday.

Nevertheless, regional media watchdogs say the fact that the proceedings will be televised at all is a good thing.

It means the judges themselves are going to be under massive scrutiny, said William Bird, director of Media Monitoring Africa, a South Africa-based group.

Once you go down the route of broadcasting [proceedings], youve got to do it. If you try to censor it, people arent stupid. Theyre going to sense it in a heartbeat.

Mahr is a special correspondent.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and his once-fierce rival, President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, on Monday pledged cooperation in confronting the nations challenges despite differences on issues such as education reform and a controversial airport project.

Pena Nieto and Lopez Obrador  along with many current Cabinet members and the president-elects designated ministers  appeared together at the National Palace downtown and stressed themes of mutual respect.

It was the latest in a series of gestures meant to demonstrate stability and continuity as leftist Lopez Obrador prepares to assume power amid pledges for a far-reaching transformation of Mexican society. Pena Nieto has faced widespread unpopularity and the perception that he has been an ineffective leader.

It is an institutional transition but it is also a respectful transition because we have received help without conditions from the constitutional president, Enrique Pena Nieto, said Lopez Obrador, who won the presidency after losing in the two previous national elections, in 2012 and 2006.

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Pena Nieto, in turn, vowed to do all he could to ensure that the next government begins its term in a successful fashion.

Lopez Obrador, elected July 1 in a landslide, is scheduled to take office Dec. 1 for a single six-year term. Pena Nieto was not a candidate in the election as Mexican law bars reelection of presidents.

The two men Monday answered a half dozen questions from the press but didnt veer from differences on a number of contentious issues  notably national education reform and a planned new multibillion dollar airport for Mexico City.

Lopez Obrador reiterated his vow to review the controversial airport plan  critics say it is too expensive and not needed  and to rescind the current administrations education overhaul blueprint. The president-elect has said he will seek out views from all sectors on how to improve the nations moribund public education system and what to do about the airport proposal.

Education reform was a centerpiece of Pena Nietos administration, but it drew fierce criticism from teachers opposed to revised rules to evaluate teacher performance. The new airport, already under construction, was the major infrastructure project of the outgoing administration.

Lopez Obrador and Pena Nieto met July 3, two days after the election, but that was a one-on-one meeting before Lopez Obrador had been legally declared president-elect.

Despite many preelection fears of an economic slide after a Lopez Obrador victory, Mexicos economy has remained stable and the peso has retained its value against the U.S. dollar and other currencies. The incoming president has vowed to revitalize the sluggish Mexican economy, but has provided few specifics beyond a broad anti-corruption push.

Since election day, Lopez Obrador has generally toned down his often fiery rhetoric he campaigned relentlessly against what he labeled mafia of power, including Pena Nietos administration  and has met repeatedly with investors and business interests.

The president-elect has also reached out to Washington and said he would invite President Trump to his inauguration.

U.S.-Mexico relations have experienced turbulence since Trump took office and repeatedly criticized Mexico and Mexicans.

Negotiations are continuing between the United States, Mexico and Canada in crafting a new North American Free Trade Agreement, the three-nation accord that has governed commerce on the continent for almost a quarter century. Trump has assailed the pact as unfair to U.S. interests.

The free-trade regimen is a cornerstone of the Mexican economy. Almost 80% of the nations exports go to the United States. Pena Nieto and Lopez Obrador have voiced support for a new trade accord.

Lopez Obrador, who ran on a leftist populist campaign vowing fundamental change, won 53% of the vote, defeating his nearest challenger by more than 30 percentage points. He has vowed to increase social-welfare payments to the poor, make higher education available to all and eliminate deep-rooted corruption.

Lopez Obrador is the first Mexican president to take office with a majority vote since 1988, during the days of dominance by the countrys Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI.

The PRIs more than seven-decade hold on the presidency ended in 2000, with the election of Vicente Fox of the right-of-center National Action Party. But Lopez Obrador is the first avowed leftist and first contender from a non-traditional party to be elected president in the 21st century.

Pena Nieto is the current standard-bearer for the PRI, which suffered a humiliating defeat in the July 1 elections.

Lopez Obrador is among a number of left-leaning politicians who abandoned the PRI starting in the late 1980s. Lopez Obrador ran under the banner of his own party, the National Regeneration Movement, known as Morena, which is 4 years old.

Morena  which includes many defectors from the PRI and other traditional parties not only won the presidency, but garnered major majorities in both chambers of the national legislature.

Despite his partys newfound dominance at the federal level, Lopez Obrador has repeatedly vowed to run a democratic administration and to reach out to all sectors.

This government is going to represent all Mexicans, Lopez Obrador said Monday. No one will be on the margins of the law or above the law.

Cecilia Sanchez of The Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com

Twitter: @PmcdonnellLAT
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The Shape of Trump to Come

I thought Id make list of things we can expect to emanate from the White House over the coming year or so. Im sure you will agree, wherever you stand on the political roller coaster, that theres little chance things are going to be boring going forward. Here goes:

Trump will end the monopolies of Facebook, Google, Twitter et al. The intelligence community will hate this, but they already hate him anyway, so why bother? And besides, its the only thing to do that makes any sense. The AT&T model might be useful, essentially creating Baby Bells, though the international reach of the companies may add a layer or two of complications.

But you simply cant have a few roomfuls of boys and girls ban and shadowban people with impunity from networks that span the globe and reach half of the worlds population on the basis of opaque Terms and Conditions that in effect trump the US constitution the way they are used and interpreted. Whether they are private companies or not will make no difference in the end.

At some point an entity becomes a utility. Twitter and Facebook already are the most efficient way to alert people in cases of emergency. To throw people out of such systems is indefensible.

The CIA and FBI will protest like theres no tomorrow, but they have to realize that spying on Americans the way they do at present in conjunction with Alphabet and Facebook is just as indefensible as throwing people off these services. The judicial system will at some point be forced to curtail these powers. Better for the executive power to be ahead of that. Baby Bells it is.

Trump will tell his people to open up to Mueller . Hes already done this, but will do it again, loudly and publicly, citing the need to wrap up the Mueller investigation ASAP. That will be the target: stop the inquisition. Mueller has talked for 30 hours over the past nine months to White House lawyer Donald McGahn II, and at some point enough is enough.

As I cited a few days ago, Trumps legal team has given Mueller until September 1 to talk to the president, and thats it. It doesnt look like thats going to happen, Giuliani again said he doesnt want to rush Trump into a perjury trap, but Mueller has had plenty time to have that talk. The investigation risks being used as a political tool in the midterms, and that cant happen.

Moreover, since US District Court Judge Amit Mehta has ruled that the FBI must release documents pertaining to what it knew about the veracity of the Steele dossier, the most consequential reason to start the Special Counsel investigation in the first place may well soon be going going gone.

The FBI offered to pay Steele $50,000 for evidence that what was in his report was true, and they never paid that money. Ergo, it is reasonable to conclude that he never delivered the evidence. This points to huge potential problems for the FBI, the DNC -which financed the dossier-, Steele himself, and various other parties. How about James Comey?

Since the judges ruling was a direct effect of Trump declassifying the Nunes and Schiff memos in February, count on one thing: Trump will declassify many more documents . Judge Mehta ruled in January that the FBi didnt have to disclose the existence of any records containing the agencys efforts to verify the dossier, but now says that after Trump declassified the memos the ground shifted.

In other words, once docs are declassified, intelligence services no longer have a place to hide. Trump is thinking: why didnt I do this much more and much sooner? Note: it still took 6 months for the judge to rule on the FBI and the memos, but next time this could go much faster. And there are thousands of files that could be de-classified.

Trump will revoke the security clearance of many former FBI and CIA agents whose names have come up in connection with Russiagate. He needs to do this so they cant get in the way of the Second Special Counsel hes going to initiate. By now, there are many more reasons for the second counsel than there ever were for the first.

Mueller is going after George Papadopoulos, a nobody, because hes the only person who allegedly ever mentioned Russians. Everyone else hes focused on has only ever been indirectly -at best- connected to Russia. But Papadopoulos was allegedly caught saying the R-word when he was drunk, to some never properly identified professor.

And thats the only link between Russia and the Trump campaign that weve ever seen. It is at times like this that we can see how shaky and shady the entire Mueller file was from the get-go. And why that Second Special Counsel will become reality. If youd like to read a very long and detailed report on this, I recommend Barbara Boyds damning Fish Stinks From the Head Down for LaRouchePAC:

In the past week, we have learned that Steele was being paid as a human source by the FBI early in as of February 2016, if not sooner, based on a release of his highly redacted FBI file to Judicial Watch in a FOIA suit. After he was fired as an official FBI human source in October 2016, based on the obvious fact that he was using his FBI relationship as coinage in the information warfare operation he was running against Donald Trump for the British government, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, his relationship to the FBI was continued through a back channel. That channel was the Number Four attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, Bruce Ohr, whose wife, Nellie, worked for Steeles American employer, Fusion GPS, on the Trump Russiagate project. According to documents finally released to Congress by the Justice Department, Ohr would meet with Steele, who would convey new information, and then meet with the FBI to convey Steeles findings. This relationship lasted through May 2017, if not later. Ohrs meetings with the FBI were meticulously recorded on formal FD 302s by the FBI agents, the Deputy Associate Attorney General of the United States having become, in effect, an FBI informant in order to circumvent Christopher Steeles firing as an informant for egregious violations of FBI Guidelines. Steele sought Ohrs intervention when Senators Lindsay Graham and Chuck Grassley referred him to the Department of Justice for prosecution because of lies he told the FBI. Steele also sought Ohrs help in getting placed on Robert Muellers investigative team.

Boyd provides a lot of additional details of a part of the Mueller investigation that has so far barely been mentioned: the involvement of British intelligence. And on the link between Christopher Steele and Victoria Nuland.

Finally, Trump will push for Julian Assange to testify -with immunity- to probably the Senate Intelligence Committee (but there are alternative options) on what he knows about -potential- Russian involvement in US election meddling and hacking of DNC or RNC servers and computers. Theres no-one who know more on this than Assange, and he has evidence.

That his deal with the DOJ was killed by James Comey will be all the more impetus for Trump to hear what he has to say. For many people, it will appear ironic, but this may be Assanges best bet to regain freedom.

The one person who can prove that there was never any collusion between Trump and Russia is locked up in a tiny embassy in London. And the one person who can get him out of there lives in the White House.

By Raul Ilargi Meijer

Website: http://theautomaticearth.com (provides unique analysis of economics, finance, politics and social dynamics in the context of Complexity Theory)

 2018 Copyright Raul I Meijer - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

Raul Ilargi Meijer Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




When the Constitution Hurts the US

Im not a fan of small spaces, and MRIs give me the willies.



I understand that theres no way the giant machine could collapse, and no possibility that Ill run low on air, but that doesnt make me feel any better.



Maybe President Trump has a similar issue, although not with small spaces.



Instead, the smell of new car leather might make him sweat.





Or the sound of a revving precision engine could cause his blood pressure to spike.Perhaps driving a well-appointed, great-handling, streak of lightning passenger car reduces him to a huddling mass.I dont know why this would be the case, but how else can you explain the presidents fear of BMWs, Porches, and Audis?And hes not content to live with his own fear, hes projecting it to the rest of us, and now trying to defend the nation!Our Commander-in-Chief wants to slap tariffs on foreign car imports because of national security, as if were in danger of foreign cars breaching our shores and enslaving us all.The funny part is that the leading auto exporter from the U.S. isnt GM (NYSE: GM) or Ford (NYSE: F), its BMW (ETR: BMW), which makes hundreds of thousands of cars in Spartanburg, South Carolina.The plant employs thousands of workers, helping Americans grow their prosperity.Obviously, the president doesnt fear foreign cars, at least not in the sense that they pose a security risk.Instead, hes using the tariff as a bargaining tool. But the only way he can act without congressional approval is to claim this power as a matter of national security.Hes twisting the U.S. constitution, trying to wring out new ways to get what he wants.In doing so, he also weakens the power of the document, which is bad for everyone.Parsing the constitution, looking for new federal government powers, isnt new.Generally, those wanting more expansive authority look to the general Welfare clause in the taxation section.Presidents, congressmen, and judges have fought over this concept since the document was first ratified. But for the first 140 years of our nations history, we ebbed and flowed across a narrow band when determining what general Welfare meant.This changed with the Social Security Act of 1934.President Roosevelt used the term welfare in the act itself as a way to make relief for the poor appear constitutional.He got his way, but in doing so he opened the door for many programs that came later, such as Johnsons Great Society (Medicare).Im not suggesting these programs are bad, or that we shouldnt have them, only that they do not fall under the purview of the national government as formed by the U.S. constitution.We can add such things any time through the amendment process.But who wants to go down that long, arduous path when you can simply claim a general power to spend anything you want and then dare someone to challenge it?Today our president is stretching the notion of national security beyond recognition.His cause might be correct, and the outcome might be beneficial. But that doesnt mean we should allow him to assume the power.If everything can be construed as part of the general Welfare, and anything can fall under the guise of national security, then there are zero limits on the powers of the national government.This is the exact opposite of the U.S. constitution, which specifically limits the powers of the federal government to those listed and leaves all others to the states.This issue might seem far removed from your daily life.It isnt.The federal government isnt an efficient machine that generates surplus revenue and spends without waste.Its a gargantuan enterprise that sucks in tax dollars by the trillions, runs 12-figure deficits, and blows billions on questionable pursuits.Every time it gets bigger, we the taxpayers owe more.As the Boomers age, well see more proposals to spend out of the national coffers for the general Welfare for things like pension fund bailouts and healthcare.Maybe we should address such things.But before we do, we should ask if the U.S. constitution remains relevant, or have we decided simply to let the national government officials do whatever we want while we foot the bill?

Rodney

Follow me on Twitter ;@RJHSDent

By Rodney Johnson, Senior Editor of Economy & Markets

http://economyandmarkets.com

Copyright  2018 Rodney Johnson - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

Rodney Johnson Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




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.
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Education

Montgomery County Community College will present the spring installment of the interview/talk show program Issues and Insights April 20 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Science Center room 214, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The programs will be simulcast to the Colleges West Campus in South Hall room 216, 101 College Drive, Pottstown. Dr. Kolsky will offer a humorous presentation, Carrots, Sticks and Politics: A State of the Nation and the World Message. In this speech, he will provide his interpretation of domestic and international politics and then welcome questions from the audience for discussion. Issues and Insights, is free and open to the public. For information, contact Dr. Thomas Kolsky, professor of political science, at 215-641-6380 or tkolsky@mc3.edu.

Montgomery County Community Colleges STEM Scholars Program will host a STEM Jam! open house April 25 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Advanced Technology Center at the Colleges Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The drop-in event is designed for students interested in learning more about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Activities will include STEM program information and career advising, STEM speakers throughout the day from industry and academia, micro-helicopter and robotics competitive obstacle courses and demonstrations and static models of STEM student and faculty work. For more information about STEM Jam! or STEM programs at MCCC, contact William Brownlowe at wbrownlowe@mc3.edu or 215-641-6644, or Robin Zuhlke at 215-619-7440 or rzuhlke@mc3.edu.

Temple Ambler, located at 580 Meetinghouse Road, presents the following events:

International Club Global Bazaar April 15 from 5 to 8 p.m. The Ambler Campus International Club invites all students, faculty, staff and the community to celebrate a multitude of diverse cultures, which will be showcased at the organizations Global Bazaar. This family friendly event will highlight cultural traditions and celebrations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South American, North America and Africa through music, entertainment, food and informative displays developed and presented by students at the Ambler Campus. Young visitors will be provided with passports, which they may get stamped at each country they visit. Prizes will be awarded to world travelers who talk to cultural representatives, answer questions about the countries theyve visited and take part in fun-filled activities designed to help them learn about the rich diversity of cultures found throughout the world. Refreshments will be served. The event is free. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail tuc36466@temple.edu.

EarthFest 2011 April 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 75 exhibitors, including the Philadelphia Zoo, The Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Elmwood Park Zoo and the Insectarium, will take part in EarthFest 2011. School students of all ages are invited to attend and develop displays of their own. EarthFest partner the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society also offers its Kids Grow Expo, featuring the Junior Flower Show, as part of the event. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail duffyj@temple.edu.

Annual Spring Plant Sale May 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The plant sale  an Ambler Campus tradition dating back to the early 1900s  will feature woody plants and perennials in portable sizes, hardy trees, shrubs, and vines, native plants that are attractive to wildlife, herbs, and hanging baskets. There will also be numerous special plants for sale to highlight Amblers special anniversary year. Garden books and garden tools will also be available for sale. Students, staff, and volunteers from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and the Ambler Arboretum Advisory Committee will be available to answer questions. All proceeds from the Spring Plant Sale will support the Ambler Arboretum Fund and the Pi Alpha Xi National Honor Society. Information: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

June Homecoming/Louise Bush-Brown Garden Dedication June 5 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. (June Homecoming), Bright Hall Lounge; 2 p.m. (Garden Dedication), Ambler Campus Formal Perennial Gardens. Tickets  June Homecoming: Participant  $18 per person; Sustainer  $25 per person; Benefactor  $40 per person. The 2011 June Homecoming, sponsored by the School of Environmental Design Alumni Association, will include the Alumni Association annual meeting and luncheon. June Homecoming will be followed by the formal dedication of Temple University Amblers Formal Perennial Gardens as the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Gardens. During this 100th anniversary of the campus, Temple University Ambler and the Ambler Arboretum of the Temple University is honoring Louise Bush-Browns many contributions to the history of the campus by formally dedicating the gardens in her honor. During the program, campus Executive William Parshall will welcome guests, Ambler Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey will speak about the Bush-Browns and the history of the garden, and an official ribbon cutting will be held for the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Garden. Following the ribbon cutting, guests are invited to take a tour of the gardens, which will wend their way to the Campus Greenhouse for the School of Environmental Designs annual Plant Auction. Information (Garden Dedication): 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Information (June Homecoming): 215-482-0722. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

Northview Garden Tour and Fundraiser for the Ambler Arboretum June 12 from noon to 5 p.m. Call for reservations. Tickets: $15 per person or $20 at the door. In addition to the gardens of the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University, Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey has a garden oasis all her own right in Ambler  Northview. Visitors will have the opportunity to take self-guided tours throughout the many gardens, where garden experts will be available to answer questions about the various designs. The Ambler Keystone Chapter of the Womans National Farm and Garden Association will also provide tea and refreshments. All proceeds from the tours will support the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University. Information or to register: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

The Senior Adult Activities Center of Montgomery County, 536 George Street, Norristown, will hold the following events:

SAAC Adult Day Care, an alternative to Nursing Home Care is available  for information call 610-275-1960

Volunteers are needed for Meals on Wheels Program (call the number above)

SAACs Fifth Avenue Boutique opens Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Exercise with Theresa will be held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 1 p.m.

Dance class is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Tai Chi is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Yoga is held every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m.

Line Dancing is held every Thursday at 10:30 a.m.

Dancing with Joan is held every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.

Sculpture Class is held Wednesdays from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Why Should I Learn Spanish? will be held Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m.

Generations On-Line computer classes for seniors will be held Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.  4 p.m.  computers are available during those hours.

Health Living will be held every Tuesday at 1 p.m.

Boomer U will hold the following events. Boomer U is located at 45 Forest Avenue, Ambler. Registration & payment is required for all events: 215-619-8863.

Pilates Class is held Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:30 a.m. First class is free; please bring a mat. For information call 610-291-5376.

Blue Bell School of Dance, 921 Penllyn Blue Bell Pike, Blue Bell, hosts Argentine Tango Classes and a Milonga dance party every Friday evening. Lessons start at 8:30 p.m. followed by dancing at 9:30 p.m. Andrew Conway, master Argentine Tango dancer, instructor and performer and his partner Linda Chase will instruct. All levels welcome and no partner is needed. Refreshments will be served. Fee is $12 per person and includes lesson and dancing. Information: 215-634-1101 or www.amoretango.com.

The Montgomery Hospital Medical Center will offer the following classes:

Childbirth Education Class- all parents are invited to participate, including those who are delivering at

other hospitals. For more information on maternity services or classes, call 610-270-2020.

CPR and First Aid Courses are offered for beginners to experiences health care providers. Call 610-270-2313.

The Ambler SAAC (Senior Adult Activities Center), located at 45 Forest Ave in Ambler will hold the following events:

Tai Chi every Monday and Thursday at 11 a.m.

Yoga is every Tuesday at 1 p.m. and Friday at 10:30 a.m.

Strength and balance training every Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Armchair Aerobics is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Gourmet Weight Wise every Thursday at 12:30.

Fitness Center and Pool Room open daily 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

The Diabetes Education Center will offer day and evening classes each month. Health insurance pays for diabetes education classes. Preregistration is required. Call 610-270-2301.

For Kids & Families

The Ambler Kiwanis Club will host its annual Easter Egg Hunt April 26 at 10 a.m. in Ambler Borough Park, located just off of the intersection of Hendricks Street and Valley Brook Road. Members of the Wissahickon Key Club will assist Kiwanians in hiding thousands of wrapped chocolate eggs in a designated area of the park. Also hidden will be plastic colored eggs, which are redeemed for prizes. Elementary school children are separated by age.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation will hold its 21st annual Storybook Egg-Stravaganza April 15 fom 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Upper Dublin Township Building. Toddlers and preschoolers love this annual event where photo opportunities with favorite friends abound! Treasures are collected from UDP&Rs assortment of lifesize cutouts of favorite cartoon characters from Disney, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon and other well-known animation. Children can have their picture taken with Bugsy OHare; bring your own camera. And dont forget a basket for goodies! $7 for UD residents; $12 for non-residents. Pre-register at 215-643-1600 ext. 3443.

Splash Week is a free week-long program that teaches children and families basic swimming skills and water safety practices. All YMCA branches will host multiple classes each day from April 11 to 15. For more information, contact the Ambler Area YMCA at 215-628-9950.

Healthy Kids Day is April 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The day is filled with fun, engaging and artistic activities that cultivate healthy living as part of the YMCAs larger efforts to help more kids and families become physically active. All activities are free and open to the community. For more information, contact the Ambler YMCA at 215-628-9950. No reservation is required.

The Ambler Area YMCA has added several new programs for area youngsters. Classes are held late afternoons or evenings on various weekdays. For more information, visit philaymca.org or call 215-628-9950.

Basic Beading: Ages: 10+. Wednesdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. This class will teach you the fundamentals of wiring and stringing along with how color can be used to create unique and vibrant beadwork design. You will create various jewelry including earrings, bracelets, charm pendants and much more! Supplies will be provided. Bringing your own jewelry pliers or tools would be a plus.

Messin with the Masters: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. Learn about some of the worlds greatest artists. You will be inspired to create your own Starry Night with oil pastels and tempera paints, a tissue paper painted Monet garden, a Picasso head using scraps of paper, a Georgia OKeeffe clay flower bowl and a Rousseau jungle collage.

Super Scientist: Ages: 5-7. Mondays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Well be concocting chemistry experiments such as making slime, mixing potions and having fun with magnet magic. Your budding little scientist will enhance his/her creative thinking and motor skills and to top it off will learn that science can be serious fun.

Wacky Junk Art: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 6 to 6:45 p.m. Why throw it away! Instead join us to make household junk into aliens from outer space, wacky specs, crazy hats, body masks or a recycled train.

Globe Trotters: Ages: 4-6. Tuesdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Youre never too young to start thinking globally. Each week, we explore a new country through crafts, games, music, stories and even some taste-testing. A perfect introduction to our great big world!

Crazy about Crafts: Ages: 5-7, Thursdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Let your childs creative juices flow with our fun arts and crafts projects each week. Fine motor skills and creative thinking skills will be enhanced with this crafty class.

Come out and join the Ambler Area YMCAs Teen and Junior Leaders Club. Participants are given the freedom to plan community service projects year round and truly make a difference in the lives of people in need. Those in Teen and Junior Leaders also attend leadership retreats all along the East Coast three times a year and meet other leaders who are doing the same great work in their respective areas. Dont miss out on this inspiring opportunity. Teen Leaders, ages 13-17, meet every Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Junior Leaders, ages 10-12, will begin in the spring and will meet every Monday. For more information, contact Mike Miles, Teen Director, 215- 628-9950 x 1540 or mmiles@philaymca.org.

Did you know that the new Ambler Area YMCA holds childrens birthday parties at its site for members and non members as well. The Ambler Y does all the work from start to finish and birthday parties include a personalized cake, ice cream, beverage and paper products. Parties are held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and include two party hosts to lead activities, set-up, clean-up and assist with serving. You can have a Splash Party for children ages six to 12 in the new zero depth entry pool with water slide and spray fountains. Up to 25 children have exclusive use of the pool area with 30 minutes in the party room. Sports Parties are offered for kids ages four to 12 with age appropriate activities and games, and sports such as floor hockey, soccer, basketball or dodge ball. Children ages three to five years of age will enjoy parties in the Family Active Center with use of the Moon Bounce and organized activities, such as parachute play and songs. For information, 215-628-9950 ext. 1583.

Community Events at the Ambler Y:

-YAchievers YMCA Achievers is a developmentally based, extracurricular, educational and team mentoring program designed to help students in grades five through 12 prepare for fulfilled livelihoods in college and beyond. Participation is free and all students in this program receive a free YMCA membership. Registration for the 2009 program begins now. You do not need to be a YMCA member to utilize these special services. Call 215-628-9950 to register.

Greater Norristown Art Leagues Childrens Weeklong Summer Art Camps will be held at 800 West Germantown Pike in East Norriton, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday throughout the summer. The cost per session is $125 per student for ages 6 and up. Jo Ann Cooksey Bono teaches an introduction to basic drawing skills and techniques from 10 a.m. until the lunch break each day. In the afternoon sessions, Mary Vogel Lozinak involves the students in hands on projects such as collage, papermaking, T-shirt printing, 3D design and sculpy clay. Fridays Graduation Day includes an art show, awards ceremony and reception for parents, siblings, grandparents and friends. All supplies are included. Students provide their own lunch. A refrigerator is available and the building is air-conditioned. This is the 15th year to run this successful program. Both instructors are professional artists with State Police and Child Abuse Clearances. To register, call Jo Ann at 610-279-1008, or register on-line at www.gnal.org.

Health

Dresher Physical Therapy is hosting an interactive seminar discussing its Golf Assessment Progam April 30 from 10 a.m. to noon at Dresher Physical Therapy, 1075 Virginia Drive, Suite 200, Fort Washington. Physical therapist Chris Miller, certified through the Titleist Performance Institute, will discuss why your body may be the most important piece of golf equipment you invest in and how this can drastically improve your game. $10 in advance; $15 at the door. Call 215-619-4545 to reserve your spot.

The Chestnut Hill Center for Enrichment, Center on the Hill and Chestnut Hill Hospital will host a Senior Health and Resource Fair April 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, 8855 Germantown Ave. The event is free. For more information, call 215-248-0180 or e-mail chseniors@cavtel.net.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is hosting Help Yourself to Health, a new six-week workshop for older adults with ongoing health conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, heart disease and others. The free workshop will take place at the Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center, 45 Forest Ave. on six Thursdays, May 12 through June 16 from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Although there is no charge to participate, registration is required. To register, call 215-619-8863.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is sponsoring an eight-week program called A Matter of Balance: Managing Concerns About Falls. Presented by the Montgomery County Health Department, this workshop will be held on Tuesdays, May 3 to June 21 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ambler Center, 45 Forest Ave. If you pre-register by April 27, the fee is only $5! Registration at the first class is $10. (Checks should be payable to SAAC and will benefit our Meals on Wheels program that serves homebound seniors.) A workbook will be provided and refreshments will be served. Call 215-619-8863 to register or for more information.

Fort Washington Wellness Center classes are ongoing. There are several offered during lunch or right after work, for your convenience: Boot Camp from noon to 1 p.m. on Monday; Zumba is MWF from 11 a.m. to noon and Friday at 4 p.m.; there are 25 cycling classes; Ashtanga and Vinyasana Yoga and Pilates; and a group Womens Strength Training class M-F from 10 to 11 a.m. Questions, call Cathy DeMarco at 215-641-1245.

Following the success of other local area programs, Impact Sports and Upper Dublin Parks and Recreation are delighted to team up again to offer a spring program for the 2011 season! Upper Dublin area children ages 3-5 years old can attend a Sports Program featuring their favorite sports games; soccer, rugby, hockey, track and field, basketball, and more. The program will start on April 27 and run through June 1. Cost for the program is $85 for the six weeks. The classes will be running 12- 1 p.m.; 1- 2 p.m.; 2- 3 p.m. For more info or to register, call Upper Dublin Township on 215 643 1600 or visit their website a http://www.upperdublin.net.

Spring Aquatic Programs  UDHS Pool:

-Summer is just around the corner  Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool can help get you into shape! Programs begin in March; preregistration is required.

 Shallow Water Aerobics  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 8-8:45 p.m., $40R/$50NR.

 Adult Swim Instructions  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 7-8 p.m., $50R/$60NR

-Open Rec Swims are fun for the whole family! Come out on Fridays from 7-9 p.m. or Saturdays from 1-4 p.m. and enjoy use of the pool and diving area. Fridays are offered through June 17; Saturdays are offered March 12-May 21.

-Join a growing group of adult lap swimmers and water walkers. Lanes are set aside evenings and weekends for use; lanes are shared. Monday  Thursday from 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Fridays from 7-9 p.m. and Saturdays (March 12-May 21) from 1-4 p.m.

-Private Swimming & Diving Lessons for ages 3-adult are offered at the UDHS Pool through a partnership with the Upper Dublin Aquatic Club (UDAC). Visit the UDAC website for more information, www.udac.us, and click the link to UDHS Private Lessons.

-Looking for local programs for US Masters Swimming (adults) or Water Polo (all ages)? UDAC and UDSD are working together to develop programs that will be offered at the UDHS Pool. Add your name to Interest Lists by emailing slohoefer@upperdublin.net. emails will be sent about clinics and program start dates.

Questions about Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool, group use of the pool or pool rental? Contact Susan Lohoefer, Facility & Community Affairs Manager at slohoefer@upperdublin.net or call 215-643-8800 x8994.

SilverSneakers Fitness Program. The Healthyways SilverSneakers Fitness Program is a result-oriented program that enables older adults to take charge of their health. The program is an innovative blend of physical activity, healthy lifestyle and socially oriented programing. Members of the program are eligible for a free YMCA membership, with use of the pool and exercise equipment, along with customized classes designed for older adults who want to improve their strength, flexibility, balance and endurance. If you are a subscriber to Independence Blue Cross (Personal Choice 65 PPO) or Keystone 65 HMO, Bravo Health, or Health Options Programs (HOP), call the Ambler Area YMCA, 215-628-9950 or Hatboro Area YMCA, 215-674-4545. You can also visit www.silversneakers.com.

Zumba Fitness offers Zumba dance/fitness classes at Academy of Dance and Music/BBAD Studio located at 1524 DeKalb Pike in Blue Bell (behind Sherwin Williams). Classes are offered three times a week: Tuesdays at 6 p.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 8 a.m. For a free trial pass for your first class, email us at info@danceandmusic.biz or call 610-277-2557. For more info, visit our site at www.academyofdanceandmusic.org.

Chestnut Hill Health Systems presents the following Health Education Programs:

FITNESS CLASSES

Golden Yoga: A Breathing, Stretching and Relaxation Class. Fridays, 2:30-3:30 p.m. Lea Auditorium, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. Registration for four classes at a time required. Golden Yoga is Classical Yoga, adapted by the SKY Foundation, to accommodate those who have difficulty getting up and down from the floor. The program includes postures, breathing, relaxation and meditation techniques, all performed while sitting in a chair and standing. Registration required. Call 215-247-3029. Cost: $20 for 4 classes per month.

Tai Chi: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 8:30  9:30 a.m. Springfield Residence, 8601 Stenton Ave. Classes, for the novice or beginner/intermediate student, are designed to improve balance, power, posture, coordination, flexibility and mental focus. Slow, gentle movements are modified to most everyones abilities. For more information or to sign up for a free introductory class, call 215-882-2804. Cost: $8 per class/paid monthly.

SUPPORT GROUPS

Weight Loss Surgery Support Group: Fourth Wednesday of the month, 7-8 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. Join us for a monthly get-together where well share information for those interested in weight loss surgery, learn from guest speakers discussing current news on issues including lifestyle modification, nutrition and exercise and provide ongoing support for those who have completed surgery. Registration required. Call 215-753-2000.

Breast Cancer Networking Group: Fourth Tuesday of the month 5:30  7 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. A free, confidential support group for women living with a diagnosis of breast cancer designed to provide a forum for sharing information, feelings and concerns associated with breast cancer. Facilitated by Tish Wakefield, LCSW, Oncology Social Worker. Registration required. To register or for more information, call 215-248-8047.

New Moms Support Groups Tuesdays 10:30 a.m.  12 p.m.; contact Jeanine ORourke, MSW or 2:30  4 p.m.; contact Susan Schack, Ph.D Volunteer Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. The Center for Postpartum Depression at Chestnut Hill Hospital is pleased to offer two new support groups to support new moms. Both groups will be run by experienced mental health professionals who really get it when it comes to new motherhood and juggling relationships, extended family, work/family balance and self-care. If you are experiencing new mom challenges that often heighten anxiety and involve hormonally driven depression, join us for an informative and supportive forum to connect with other moms. Infants are welcome. $30 per session (flexible based on need). Registration is required. Call Dr. Schack, 646-265-2484, or Ms. ORourke, 215-206-2931.

Man to Man Prostate Cancer Support Group Third Thursday of the month 8-9 a.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. A networking group for men diagnosed with prostate cancer designed to provide education, support and encouragement. Spouses and partners welcome. Harry M. Baer, MD, Chief, Urology Division, will host Ask the Doctor. Registration required. Call 215-248-8325.

Contact the Senior Center by phone 215-248-0180 or email (chseniors@cavtel.net) with your questions about these programs or any of our on-going activities and classes.

Holy Redeemer HomeCare and Hospice seeks compassionate and emotionally mature volunteers to provide support to local hospice patients and their families in Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Volunteers may also assist with pet therapy and administrative work within the hospice department and are requested to have daytime availability. Hospice patient care volunteers visit with patients in their homes or nursing facilities once a week for two to three hours. They provide emotional support and companionship to patients and family members, assist with errands or provide respite for caregivers. Bereavement volunteers support the families of hospice patients following the loss of a loved one, while administrative volunteers assist with typing, mailings and/or filing. Hospice care workers provide a great service to families and loved ones of hospice patients. Many volunteers also report a great deal of personal satisfaction as a result of their services. Patient care and bereavement volunteers complete an application and attend an 18-hour volunteer training program that covers the medical, psychological and spiritual aspects of hospice volunteering. Day and evening training programs are offered. To sign up for volunteer opportunities in Pennsylvania, contact Holy Redeemer Volunteer Coordinator Jean Francis at 215-698-3737 or email jfrancis@holyredeemer.com.

Librarytalk

Upper Dublin Public Library, 805 Loch Alsh Avenue, Ft. Washington, 215-628-8744

www.upperdublinlibrary.org

APRIL CHILDRENS PROGRAMS:

Storytimes: Please register in the library.

o Wee Ones: 0 to 23 months Thursdays and Fridays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m.

o Tiny Tots: age 2. Wednesdays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. and Fridays 11 to 11:20 a.m.

o Jr. Book Lovers: ages 3 to 6. Tuesdays 10:30 to 11 a.m.

o Bedtime Storytimes: 7 to 7:30 p.m. April 20 and 27. Wear your jammies, bring your teddy & hear Miss Barbara read bedtime stories! For ages 3 to 6.

APRIL TEEN PROGRAMS:

North Hills Library Teens April 28 from 4 to 6 p.m. Movie Matinee

APRIL UDPL ADULT PROGRAMS:

NEW! ESL Conversation Group. Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. Interested in practicing your English in a safe and caring environment? Come to our conversation group and improve your skills! Please register with Kay Klocko at 215-628-8744 or kklocko@mclinc.org.

One-on-One Computer Mentoring. Get personalized assistance from experienced computer volunteers! Sign-up for a one-hour session. Limit one session per month. Please register  contact info above.

Book Groups Please register with Kay Klocko 215-628-8744.

o Daytimers: April 21 at 1:30 p.m. Tired of book groups where you all read the same book? Read any fiction or non-fiction book on this months theme: Explorers. Please register.

Meetings:

Annual Meeting of the Friends of UDPL: April 14 at 1 p.m.

Board of Directors: April 20 at 7 p.m.

Blue Bell Library www.wvpl.org Upcoming Events: The Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 650 Skippack Pike (Route 73) in Blue Bell, is diagonally across from the Blue Bell Inn. Call 215-643-1320 or visit their website at www.wvpl.org.

For children and teens at Blue Bell:

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Mondays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* Fridays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Family Movies, new releases, second Saturdays of the month at 1:30 p.m.

* May 14  Despicable Me

* June 11  Alpha and Omega

* Special Events

* April  watch for date of spring/Easter events

* April 14 at 4:30 p.m.  Junior Lego Club for children ages 3 through 5. Parents and caregivers need to stay with children.

* April 14 at 7 p.m.  Jeopardy for ages 11 to 18. Test your book and library knowledge for prizes. Sign up to be a contestant. No sign up to be in the audience. Snacks provided.

* April 16 at 1 p.m.  Adult Mystery Book Group discussing The Beekeepers Apprentice by Laurie King.

* April 16 at 1:30 p.m.  Childrens event for One Book, Every Young Child celebration. Story and craft for book Whose Shoes?

* April 19 at 7 p.m. and April 26 at 1:30 p.m.- Adult book group discusses The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. Group led by Adam Button.

* April 30 through May 3  Friends book sale with about 10,000 items for sale for children, teens and adults.

* May  sign up for Science in the Summer

* June  sign up for Enrichment Programs for Elementary-Age children

* June  sign up for Summer Reading, all ages

For adults at Blue Bell:

* Daytime Book Discussion Group  fourth Tuesday, Jan  April at 1:30 p.m.

* April 26  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Night-time Book Discussion Group  third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m.

o April 19  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Art Series with Dr. Sheldon Weintraub, docent at The Barnes and speaker at local colleges

o April 27 at 2 p.m. The Art of Looking at Art-Is She Nude or Is She Naked?

*Mystery Book Discussion Group, third Saturday of the month at 1 p.m.; new mystery theme each month; www.wvpl.org/programs

* Yoga on Mondays at 1:30 p.m. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop-in class.

* Tai Chi on Mondays at 3 p.m. with Dr. Kurt Findeisen. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop in class.

* Philadelphia Museum of Art presents class on their Marc Chagall exhibit, April 13 at 2 p.m.

* Giant Book Sale, April 29  May 3

o Starts with almost 10,000 items for children and adults!

o Held during library hours.

o Preview for members of the Friends of the Library, April 28 at 7 p.m.

o Join the Friends and attend the preview sale. Modest fee to join.

* Blooms at Blue Bell Gardening Series

o May 11 at 1 p.m.  Summer Bulbs by PA Horticultural Society

* Knitting group Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Work on your project or observe and learn. The groups continue year-round in the community room.

* Socrates Cafe discussion group every Monday at 7 p.m. You pick the topic to discuss each week. No sign-up, nothing to read.

* Bridge every Friday at 12:30 p.m. New players welcome.

* Mah Jong every Wednesday at 1 p.m. New players welcome.

*Chess every Wednesday at 7p.m. for adults and teens 14 and older.

* Movie Matinee showing recent releases every Thursday at 2 p.m. April 14: Maos Last Dancer; April 21: Welcome to the Rileys; April 28: Conviction; May 5: Inception; May 12: Inside Job; May 19 The Kings Speech; May 26 The Fighter; June 2 Rabbit Hole; June 9 Black Swan; June 16 127 Hours

* Ongoing like-new, year-round book sale for adults & children during library hours

* Library opening at 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday!

Ambler Library, a branch of the Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 209 Race St., 215-646-1072. www.wvpl.org. All the following events occur at the Ambler Library.

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* For adults:

* Beading Group meets the first and third Monday of every month at 1 p.m. Work on your own projects or come to watch and learn.

* Free Family History Lookup with Connie Briggs. Email Connie for an appointment at the Ambler Library. conniebriggs@comcast.net

* Special Events:

* April 14 at 1:30 p.m.  Book Group discusses Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian.

* April 19 at 7 p.m.  Travel to Paris with world traveler Harry Balin. Tea and scones at 6:30 p.m.

* April 21 at 7 p.m.  Art with Sara for children in fourth through seventh grades.

*May 2 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Lone Star with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

*May 10  Robert Capucci discusses Art into Fashion. Tea and scones served at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*May 12 at 1:30p.m.  Book Group discusses The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman.

*May 17  Tour the gardens of Devon and Southwest England with Lois McMullen. Tea and Scones at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*June 13 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Blade Runner with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

Meetings and Lectures

The Unisys Blue Bell Retiree Group will meet in the Church on the Mall in the Plymouth Meeting Mall April 14 at 1:30 p.m. Kathy Sacket Young, director/trainer with the North Penn YMCA, will speak on Keeping Fit in Retirement. For more information, contact Membership Committee Chairperson Jerry Feldscher at 610-275-3538 or President Al Rollin at 215-368-4833.

The next FWBA meeting will be April 28 at the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Networking begins at 11:30 a.m.; meeting from noon to 1 p.m. Leon Singletary, Principal, First Contact HR and FWBA Executive Board, will present: Social Media: How to Use It To Get More Business. Lunch is provided courtesy of the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Members are welcome to bring a guest. An RSVP is requested by return email or 215-628-0313.

Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern PA is hosting a information sessions over the next few weeks on how to become a Big Brother. The information sessions will take place: April 16 at noon, April 19 at 8 a.m. and April 28 at 6 p.m. All sessions will be held at the groups Norristown Office,t 530 DeKalb St., Norristown. For more information, call 610-277-2200.

The North Penn Chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) normally meets on the third Tuesday of each month from now until May. Meetings are held at the William Penn Inn on Route 202 and Sumneytown Pike, Upper Gwynedd, PA. Social hour starts at 5:30 p.m., dinner is served at 6:30 p.m., and the technical program begins at 7 p.m. Cost with reservation is $28 for members. Members without reservations and guests pay $30. Students with reservations pay $15. Reservations may be made by noon on the Monday preceding the meeting by phoning 215-371-1854 or emailing the reservation to northpennima@yahoo.com northpennima@yahoo.com. Information about the North Penn Chapter is available at http://northpenn.imanet.org/.

LeTip, a professional organization of men and women who are dedicated to the highest standards of competence and service meets every Tuesday at Cedar Brook Country Club, 180 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell at 7 a.m. -meeting officially starts at 7:16 a.m. and ends at 8:31 a.m. Our purpose is the exchange of business tips, leads, and referrals. Each business category is represented by one member and conflicts of interest are disallowed. Guests are welcome to visit any of our breakfast meetings.

Every third Thursday of month, Sunrise Assisted Living of Blue Bell (795 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422, 215-619-2777) serves as a satellite site to 148th Legislative district PA congressman Mike Gerber from 10 a.m. to noon. Stop by for help needed with things such as disability placards and license plates, vehicle registration, utilities issues, birth/death certificates,property tax/rent rebates, etc. Notary services arranged by appointment.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce is an action-oriented organization dedicated to promoting its members and the economic health of eastern Montgomery county. The Chamber is committed to serving as a catalyst by uniting business, community agencies, government and education to make our county a great place to live and work. For information, call 215-887-5122 or visit www.emccc.org.

Do you have a fear of public speaking? Blue Bell Toastmasters Club can help. We meet from 7 to 9 p.m., on the second and fourth Tuesday at the Marriott Courtyard, located on Route 202, directly across from the Montgomeryville Mall. Learn how to improve communication and leadership skills in a friendly and supportive environment. Guests are welcome. Admission fee: $5. For more info, visit www.bbtoast.org.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will hold the following meetings (for reservations to any of the following, email info@PennSuburban.org)

-Breakfast News Network, 7:30-8:45 a.m. at Normandy Farm Hotel (1401 Morris Road, Blue Bell, PA 19422) $15 members, includes full buffet breakfast. Join us for a networking program at Normandy Farm Hotel every Thursday morning for breakfast, business news, informative speakers, and plenty of networking. The cost includes a full breakfast buffet. Copies of the business cards will be made available to those who would like them.

The BNI, Fort Washington Chapter meets every Monday at The Hilton Garden Inn, 520 Pennsylvania Ave., Fort Washington for a networking meeting. Meetings are from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Visitors are welcome. The only cost to attend is the cost of your meal. For information or a reservation to attend, please call Luanne Cram at 215-947-7784, or visit our Internet site at: http://www.BNIDVR.Com and click on the menu item Find a Chapter.

For the past seven years, people have enjoyed participating in WVWAs Adopt-a-Tree program. Individuals can support the Association in its reforestation efforts by purchasing native trees to be planted. Supporters can plant their adopted tree or have WVWA volunteers will plant it. Trees cost $30 each. If you would like to volunteer or purchase a tree(s), please contact: Bob Adams at Bob@wvwa.org or call: 215-646-8866 for more information. Check www.WVWA.org for directions and maps.

Sustainable Upper Dublin, http://sustainableupperdublin.org, meets the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m., at the Upper Dublin Township Building, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington, PA 19034. Please send any questions to suec@sustainableupperdublin.org or call 610-996-6316. To learn more about Sustainable Upper Dublin, view or join the discussion at http://googlegroups.com/group/sustainableupperdublin.

Special Events

The Mattie N. Dixon Community Cupboard will hold its first nutrition class April 19 at 10 a.m. at the Community Cupboard, 150 N. Main St., Ambler. Lynne Sinclair, a nutritionist from Abington Memorial Hospital specializing in diabetic nutrition, will conduct the class. Topics will include healthy eating, beneficial foods, recipes, making meals with every day foods, and how to use unfamiliar produce. A healthy snack will be provided.The class is is open to all residents in Montgomery County.

The Historical Society of Fort Washington presents The History of Conshohocken April 19 at 8 p.m. at the Clifton House, 473 Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington. Jack Coll will present an illustrated program on the history of the Borough of Conshohocken. Coll is a longtime resident of Conshohocken and a member of the Conshohocken Historical Society. He is co-author with his son, Brian, of the Arcadia Then and Now Series book Conshohocken. He has also done books Conshohocken and West Conshohocken Sports and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Italian Feast. He has taken many photos for the Conshohocken Record and the Norristown Times Herald. This program is free. Refreshments will be served. For additional information, call 215-646-6065.

Taste of the White House Soiree featuring former White House Chef Walter Scheib will take place April 29 at 6 p.m. at Manufacturers Golf & Country Club in Fort Washington to celebrate HealthLinks 10th anniversary and honor its founders, the Eugene Jackson Family. The evening will heat up with a Chef Meet & Greet, followed by a specially selected presidential menu. Gala tickets are $150 per person. Proceeds benefit HealthLink, a free clinic providing compassionate, quality medical and dental care to uninsured, working adults in Bucks and Montgomery counties who fall in between the health care cracks. Go to http://tasteofthewhitehouse.charityhappenings.org to make reservations online or lend support through sponsorship. For event information, call 267-699-0124 or email jmarushak@healthlinkmedical.org.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association will hold an open house at the Evans-Mumbower Mill April 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. The Mill is at the corner of Swedesford and Township Line Roads in Upper Gwynedd. The open house is free but donations are welcome. For more information, call 215-646-8866 o email info@wvwa.org.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce will host Breakfast With Your County Commissioners and State Representatives April 21 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Fort Washington, 432 W. Pennasylvania Ave. Commissioners: James R. Matthews (Chairman), Joseph M. Hoeffel (Vice Chair), State Representatives: Todd Stephens (District 151) and Josh Shapiro (District 153). Register onlineat www.emccc.org. $10 for EMCCC member; $20 for non-members.

Upper Dublins Districtwide Allied Art Show will be held April 27 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in the Upper Dublin High School Athletic Complex.

The Rev. Alfred Muli, chaplain at Fort Washington Estates, will be the featured speaker at the Kiwanis sponsored breakfast observing the National Day of Prayer May 5 at 7 a.m. at the William Penn Inn. The breakfast is open to the public ($15). Reservations can be made by calling 215-646-4356 or by emailing georgesaurman@Juno.com.

The Upper Dublin Shade Tree Commission invites people to participate in its spring bare root planting events, sponsored in part by Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Friends of Robbins Park. On April 9, zix trees will be planted at the Evelyn B. Wright Park & Community Pool, 401 Logan Ave., North Hills, at 9 a.m., followed by the planting of 10 trees at Sheeleigh Park, Loch Alsh Avenue and Douglas Street, Ambler, at 10:15 a.m. On April 29, students from Upper Dublin High School will join the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to plant 16 trees in Robbins Park, Butler Pike and Meetinghouse Road, Ambler, to help launch the societys Million Trees campaign. This event will occur in conjunction with Temple Amblers EarthFest. Experienced tree-tenders are sought to assist the students. For more information,contact Ron Ayres at 215-653-0421 or 215-483-4348.

The Friends of the Wissahickon and the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association are teaming up once again to clean the Wissahickon Creek from top to bottom April 30 from 9 a.m. to noon. This spring marks the 41st anniversary of Wissahickon Valley Watershed Associations annual Creek Clean Up, and the second year that FOW has teamed up with WVWA. Volunteers of all ages will clean the creek, the surrounding trails and the many tributaries of the Wissahickon Creek. Armed with bags, volunteers will be assigned to sections of the creek. Following the clean up, all volunteers are invited to WVWAs Talkin Trash picnic in Fort Washington State Park, with food provided by Whole Foods Market of North Wales. The pavilion is located on Mill Road in Flourtown. To help out in Montgomery County, all volunteers must be pre-assigned a section of the Wissahickon Creek to clean. Please contact Bob Adams, WVWA director of stewardship, at 215-646-8866 ext. 14 or bob@wvwa.org. To work with the Friends of the Wissahickon in Philadelphia, meet at the pavilion along Forbidden Drive, a short distance south of the intersection of Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue. Limited parking is available along Northwestern Avenue and other nearby streets. Volunteers are encouraged to bike or carpool to the event. To participate, register at www.fow.org. Contact Kevin Groves with questions at 215-247-0417 ext. 105 or groves@fow.org.

Montgomery County Community Colleges International Club invites the community to the second annual International Festival April 20 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The rain date is April 26. The International Club will transform the outside quad area into multicultural celebration with various performances by dancers, singers and musicians. Artists will share their artwork at various display tables. Activities include games, raffles, Easter egg decorating and henna tattoos. Students will have samples of international cuisine at tables representing different countries and will serve food from various local ethnic restaurants. Throughout the evening, volunteers will accept donations and will raffle gift baskets and prizes to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity. Donations of food, international clothes and prizes are needed. Volunteers, including artists and performers, are welcome. For more information or to sponsor an activity, contact Gillian Nel, International Club president, at gnel9277@students.mc3.edu or 267-974-0163.

The Arts and Humanities Division at Montgomery County Community College is partnering with the Philadelphia Writers Conference to host Memoirs Matter: How Life Stories (Including Yours) Can Transform Your Relationship to Literature April 23 from 1 to 3 p.m. in Advanced Technology Center room 101, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The event is free and open to the public. In the first part of this two-hour seminar, professor and author Robert Waxler will explain how writing his two memoirs affected his life as well as his relationship to literature. In the second part, blogger and workshop leader Jerry Waxler will present a sequence of steps to help writers find their own story. For information, contact Dana Resente at dresente@mc3.edu.

The Maple Glen Garden Club will hold its fourth annual Plant Sale on May 7 from 8 to 11 a.m. Perennials, shrubs, vegetables and native plants grown by the club members will be sold. The club uses the plant sale proceeds to fund community projects, a college scholarship and community plantings. The sale will be held in the 500 block of Coach Road, Horsham, as part of a neighborhood garage sale. Plants will be sold at bargain prices. For more information, email MapleGlenGardenClub@gmail.com.

The Relay for Life Craft Show is looking for local crafters to participate in show, which will be May 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Wissahickon High School track, 521 Houston Road, Ambler. There is a $10 entry fee, and 20 percent of sales are donated to the American Cancer Society. Participants will receive a 6-foot table under a tent. For information, contact Joanne at joannescoles@comcast.net or Mindy at mcamsilver@comcast.net.

Spring House Estates is hosting its annual book fair on April 18 from 4 to 7 p.m. and April 9 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Included will be hardback and paperback used books. Spring House Estates is located at 728 Norristown Road, Lower Gwynedd.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will present the Penn Suburban/Hatfield Joint Business Card Exchange April 20 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Univest Bank Lansdale Area Financial Service Center, 120 Forty Foot Road, Hatfield. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. Join Univest National Bank and Trust Co. for a spring-inspired Business Card Exchange at its newest office in the Hatfield Pointe Shopping Center. Come out and meet members of Univests executive management team while enjoying fine food and beverages.

13th Annual Community Reading Day Kick-off Breakfast Get Together April 26 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the North Wales Area Library, 233 Swartley St., North Wales. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. For more information, contact the chamber office at 215-362-9200 or info@pennsuburban.org. Join presenting sponsor Verizon, chamber staff and fellow members for the Community Reading Day volunteer get together. The Community Reading Day program allows volunteers to read a designated book to second-grade students throughout 38 area public and private schools and present the book as a gift to each class. Even if you are not a volunteer, you are cordially invited to stop by to network, enjoy coffee and pastries.

Ambler Mennonite Church is hosting a Spring Craft Show and Flea Market May 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Rain date will be May 28. The community is invited to shop the great craft booths, find some gifts and deals, as well as enjoy home baked goods and tasty lunch specials. Childrens activities are planned. All vendors are encouraged to contact the church at 215-643-4876 or AmblerMennonite@verizon.net. Advertising, signage, customer parking and a shuttle to auxiliary parking at nearby lots for vendors will be provided. 10 foot by 10 foot spaces can be rented for $5 each and tables for an additional $5 each. All proceeds from space and table rentals go toward school kits for children around the world. The church is located at the corner of East Mt. Pleasant Avenue and North Spring Garden Street, Ambler.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association presents The Life & Times of Aquatic Insects in the Wissahickon Creek April 16 from 1 to 3 p.m. Join WVWA for a hands-on program. RSVP required: www.wvwa.org or 215-646-8866. WVWA member fee: $5 per person / $15 per family. Non-WVWA member fee: $10 per person / $20 per family.

The photography exhibition Natures Palette by photo-artist Judy Miller will run March 18 to May 19 at the Art in the Storefront gallery, 41 E. Butler Pike, Ambler.

JPRN  Networking For People in Transition & People Who Can Help Them  Unemployment remains high. JPRN, the Jarrettown Professional Relationship Network can help. Are you trying to network your way to a new job? Do you have expertise or contacts that can help people in transition? Is your company or organization looking for people in the area? This is a free outreach program to support those seeking work, involve people with contacts and networking know how, and involve local companies. Meetings held monthly at Jarrettown United Methodist Church, Limekiln Pike.

Pennsylvanias Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) grant program is now open for the 2010-11 heating season. Grants are based on income, family size, type of heating fuel and region. Additional information, such as specific income limits, and applications for LIHEAP grants are available online via the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Access to Social Services (COMPASS) website at www.compass.state.pa.us. Applications are available at most public officals district offices, county assistance offices, local utility companies and community service agencies, such as Area Agencies on Aging or community action agencies.

Begin your holiday shopping at Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation! Entertainment books for 2011, Philadelphia North, are now on sale at $30 each. Regal/United Artists movie tickets are on sale for just $7.50 each, and tickets to the Adventure Aquarium, Baltimore Aquarium, and the Philadelphia Zoo are also available. Discounted ski vouchers to area mountains will be arriving in December; call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

RSVP of Montgomery County and the Wissahickon Valley Public Library have partnered again to offer the public their popular free mock interview sessions. The mock interviews are conducted by RSVP volunteers who are retired professionals, some of whom were in hiring positions themselves. Packets of information which include a sample employment application and interviewing tips with mock interview questions are available at the library to pick up prior to a scheduled mock interview or will be sent via email once the interview is scheduled. To schedule your interview, please contact Janis Glusman at RSVP 610-834-1040, ext. 16. The library is also offering a free resume review service. Bring in your current resume and the professional reference staff will assist you with hints and tips on capturing your work history accurately.

Registration for Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation summer playgrounds, Camp B.I.G. and Small Folks, X-Zone, and sports camps has began. Register online at www.upperdublin.net/store, or at the UDP&R office, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington. Call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Danielles Espresso Cafe presents Mornings at Mondaug Bark Park April 16 and May 21 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Meet fellow dog lovers. These events include complimentary coffee, treats for people and pups and raffles/giveaways.

Upper Dublins Annual Spring Flea Market will be held June 4 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Reserve a table, or come and shop. Tables are $15 for UD residents, $20 for non-residents. This successful event occurs rain or shine. Refreshments available. Call 215-643-1600 ext. 3443 to register for a table.

Regal movie tickets available for purchase at Upper Dublin Township Parks & Recreation. Reduced rate: $7.50 per ticket. Some restrictions apply. Call 215-643-1600 x3443.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation movie tickets $7.50 Regal Cinemas, United Artist & Edwards Cinemas on sale throughout the year Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation Camp Sign-ups for Stony Creek Day Camp  Stony Creek Tracers and Park n Tots. Register on-line at www.whitpaintownship.org OrCome to Township Building with check or Visa MasterCard Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m. For additional information call 610.277-2400 ext. 374

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation offers exciting new programs for the fall:

-Returning favorites include UK Elite Petite Soccer, Tiny Dancers, Kiddie Tennis, Fun-nastics, Messy Playtime, Little Chefs, and more. Babysitters Training will be offered in November and December. Continuing Adult Fitness Classes include Cardio Circuit, Core & More, Yoga, Boxing, and Adult G.Y.M. For more information call 215-643-1600 x3443. Register for programs online at www.upperdublin.net/store.

Music and Theater

The community is invited to a Cantors Concert April 16 at 8 p.m. Congregation Beth Or, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen. Listen and hum-along to the Yiddish, pop tunes and classical music performed by Congregation Beth Ors own Cantor David Green and his special guest, Cantor Irvin Bell, from Temple Beth Israel in Deerfield Beach, Fla. The cantors will be accompanied by Mark Sobol and his Klezmer musicians. Tickets are $18 in advance and $25 at the door. RSVP with payment to Barb Murtha, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen, PA 19002, or call 215-646-5806 ext. 220.

Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse will host the Jameson Sisters May 14. Doors open at 7:30 pm, performance at 8:00 pm. Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse is located at the corner of Rte. 202 & Sumneytown Pike, Gwynedd. $5 suggested donation. Light refreshment available at a modest cost. For further information, call 215-393-9576 or visit gwyneddmeeting.org/coffeehouse.html.

Celebrate patriotism through song with Gwynedd-Mercy Colleges choir, the Voices of Gwynedd, as it presents Hear America Singing April 15 at 8 p.m. The choir will perform song selections from all over the country, including Georgia on My Mind, New York State of Mind, and a medley including Philadelphia Freedom and Allentown. The performance will end with When the Saints Go Marching In to acknowledge the choirs upcoming tour in New Orleans. Hear America Singing will take place in the Julia Ball Auditorium, located in St. Bernard Hall. Parking is available in lots A, C and D. Admission is free.

The Choristers will present Anton Dvoraks Stabat Mater April 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church in Ambler. The choir will be accompanied by a 41-piece orchestra. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for senior citizens, $10 for students and children are free. Tickets will be sold in advance or at the door. For more information, call 215-542-7871 or visit TheChoristers.org

Religious News

The Staircase Gallery at Or Hadash: A Reconstructionist Congregation in Fort Washington will feature the work of Emily Ennuat-Lustine. The artist will be showing paintings and graphics inspired by her own personal spiritual journey and quest for meaning. Some of the works to be shown have been inspired by Biblical Psalms and writings. Her work has been shown at Abington Art Center, Cheltenham Arts Center and Old City Gallery of Jewish Art among others. The exhibition is open Friday evenings starting Feb. 18 after Shabbat services. Gallery hours are: Mondays through Thursdays 10-4:30, Fridays 10-3 and following Shabbat Services and Sundays 10-1. The synagogue is located at 190 Camp Hill Road in Fort Washington. For additional information contact the synagogue office at 215-283-0276.

Reunions

St. Matthews High School Conshohocken Class of 1961 is looking for classmates. For details, contact Greg Marincola at 215-646-2239, 215-740-1296 or gregcola@comcast.net.

Olney High School Class of 1971 is Lloking for classmates for a 40th reunion Oct. 28. For details, contact Judy at ohsclassof71@yahoo.com or 215-870-7572.

Abington High School Class of 1961 is seeking classmates for a 50-year reunion to be held Oct. 14-15, 2011.Visit the website, www.abington61.com, for details or call 215-947-1779.

Overbrook High School class of January 1956 is having a 55 year reunion on May 22, 2011 at the Bala Golf Club in Philadelphia. For information please contact overbrookreunion56@comcast.net

Germantown High School Class Of January 1961 is looking for classmates for 50th year reunion to take place in May of 2011. Please contact: 215-362-9148, 856-577-0659 or samdelcomo@comcast.net

The June 1961 class of Germantown High School is holding their 50th reunion on May 15, which will be a brunch. For further details please contact Linda Dorfman Alten at lindaalten@yahoo.com or call 215-441-8411.

Support

New Life Presbyterian Church in Dresher, will host GriefShare, a special seminar and support group which will run on Monday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m., from March 7 through June 6. At each meeting there will be a DVD about the grief process, discussion and reference to a grief workbook. Preregistration is required to secure a place in the group and to purchase a GriefShare notebook (for a one-time fee of $15). The notebook goes along with the 13-week schedule covering such topics as: living with grief, the effects of grief, and stuck in grief. For more information or to register, call: Sandy Elder at 215-884-5149.

PUPS (People Understanding Parkinsons) A self-help group for those adjusting to a new diagnosis or dealing with the early stages of Parkinsons Disease. Meets fourth Tuesday of the month from 1 to 2:30 p.m., at Abington Health Center, Schilling Campus, Willowood Building, 2510 Maryland Road, Suite 251, Willow Grove. For more information or to RSVP, contact Lorna at 215-542-2931.

The North Penn Visiting Nurse Associations Meals on Wheels program is looking for volunteers to pack or deliver meals to the elderly and infirmed. Meals are packed and delivered mornings, Monday through Friday. You can volunteer for as many days per week or month as you would like. Packaging meals requires approximately 2-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves making sandwiches, packaging food into individual serving containers and packing coolers with the meals. Delivering meals requires approximately 1-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves loading coolers into your car and delivering a route of approximately 10 to 15 stops. The Meals on Wheels program is also in need of emergency, winter-weather volunteers to pack and deliver meals in bad weather. North Penn VNA is located at 51 Medical Campus Drive in Lansdale and delivers meals in the Lansdale, North Wales and Blue Bell areas. For more information or to volunteer, please call Bridget, North Penn VNA Meals on Wheels coordinator at 215-855-8296.

Elkins Park Area CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) meets the first Tuesday of every month, 7- 8:30 p.m., at Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital in Elkins Park. For information on CHADD or ADHD, please see our website www.chadd.net/249 or call Claire Noyes at: 215-779-6656.

Center for Loss and Bereavement, 3847 Skippack Pike, Skippack (610-222-4110) www.bereavementcenter.org Offers professional counseling for individuals, couples, children and families dealing with issues of loss and bereavement. Six-week adult support groups: Newly forming young adult grief support group  every other Wednesday, 7  8:15 p.m. (free of charge); Monthly loss of child support  second Mondays, 7-8:15 p.m.; Six-week young loss of spouse/partner  Thursdays, 10-11:15 a.m.; Other groups scheduled as interest is shown for suicide loss support, adult loss of parent, motherless daughters, adult loss of sibling, coping with chronic illness and disability and mens loss of spouse. Nellos Corner Family Bereavement program offers peer grief support groups for ages 4 through teen and their caregivers  Every other Tuesday or Wednesday (free of charge) Local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children also meets at the Center. Registration required. Call for further information.

CHADD is a national organization for children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, providing education, advocacy and support for individuals and their families with AD/HD. Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital, 60 Township Line Road, Elkins Park, PA 19027, will host children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder on the First Tuesday of each month 7  8:30 p.m. Free, no childcare provided.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphias Kehillah of Old York Road is sponsoring a free Caregiver Support Group for individuals who care for an elderly person with cognitive and/or physical impairments. The group meets at SarahCare Adult Day Care Center, 101 Washington Lane, Suite G-6, Jenkintown, Pa., on the first Wednesday of each month. Patty Rich,
Letter to editor: Congress can get this right
By By:

Dr. Francis R. Souder, 85, formerly of Telford, died Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007 in the skilled nursing unit of Peter Becker Community, Franconia Township. He and his wife Marion R. (Parker) Souder celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary in July.

Born in Souderton, he was a son of the late Elvin B. and Mary (Rittenhouse) Souder.

A 1938 graduate of Souderton High School, he received his undergraduate degree in 1941 from the University of Pennsylvania where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa. Dr. Souder went on to receive his medical degree from Hahnemann Medical College in 1944 and completed his internship at Hahnemann Hospital from Oct. 1944  July, 1945.

He served with the U.S. Navy Medical Corps for 30 months in San Diego and Long Beach, Calif. during WW II and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant prior to his discharge. He entered his second tour of duty during the Korean War where he served in Panama City, Fla. as the medical officer for the Panama City Naval Air Station and the Tyndal Air Force Base.

Dr. Souder owned and operated his family practice on Main Street in Telford from 1947-1989. He served on the staff of Grand View Hospital, and as its president, and taught at the Grand View Hospital Nursing School. He was a member of the Pa. Medical Society, the Bucks County Medical Society, Diplomat American Academy of Family Practices, and served on the board of trustees at Grand View Hospital, Sellersville.

He was a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Telford, where he sang in the church choir. He was also a member of the MacCalla Lodge #596 in Souderton, the Raja Shrine, and Lehigh Consistory.

In addition to his widow, he is survived by a son, Dr. Ronald L. Souder, and his wife Susan L. of Green Lane; a daughter, Susan J. Souder, and her husband Stephan Russo of New York, N.Y.; five grandchildren: Jennifer A. Souder of Philadelphia; Emily E. Souder of Philadelphia; Kathryn A. Souder of Washington, D.C.; Noah Russo of New York, N.Y., and Rebekah Russo of New York, N.Y., and two brothers: Attorney Elvin B. Souder of Souderton and Dr. Lawrence Souder of Souderton.

Memorial services will be held on Saturday, Nov. 10 at 12 p.m. in Trinity United Church of Christ, 101 S. Main St., Telford, with calling hours following the service.

Interment will be private in Trinity UCC Cemetery Telford.

Memorial contributions may be made to Grand View Hospital, 700 Lawn Ave., Sellersville, Pa. 18960.

Arrangements are by Sadler-Suess Funeral Home, Telford.
August 21, 2018 Microsoft Promotes Russia Scare To Gain Insider Access To Campaign Information The software behemoth Microsoft Corp wants to gain an insider view on candidates and election campaigns at the federal, state and local level. The Seattle based company now offers a "special cybersecurity protection" to those candidates and campaigns that use its Office 365, Outlock or Hotmail cloud services. Those who take up the offer will put their emails, internal strategy papers and financial records onto Microsoft owned and administrated servers where Microsoft personal will have a special eye on them.

The company hopes that a large amount of such data will enable it "to collect critical feedback" into developing political dangers and will allow it to "to address the specific needs of eligible organizations". This could, for example, be done by directing or withholding campaign contributions in line with its corporate interests. The acquired material will also be of interest to various national intelligence agencies and might be of value for future political trades. Microsoft's new data acquisition path for its corporate intelligence has its own marketing campaign. This uses the well established bogeyman of the "Russian threat". Microsoft engineers scanned the 220 million internet domain names to find a few domains that seem to have some similarities with know product names or known institutional names. The search found my-iri.org, hudsonorg-my-sharepoint.com, senate.group, adfs-senate.services, adfs-senate.email and office365-onedrive.com. These names, Microsoft claims, could potentially be mistaken for the names of known entities and could thus be used for login spoofing or email fishing campaigns. Microsoft claimed that these domain names were trademark infringements of its office product, as well as of the conservative Hudson Institute, the International Republican Institute and the U.S. Senate. A judge agreed and allowed the company to seize the domain names. They now redirect to Microsoft honeypot servers. Any attempt to access them will be logged. Its public relation department held a press conference and managed to spin a scare story of a "Russian threat" around the seized domain names. It did not provide any evidence or explanation how the seized domain names might or might not be related to "Russia". Journalists were pointed to a blog post by Microsoft's president which includes some mumble about "Russia" and "elections" they could pick for quotes. After apparently scaring the bejesus out of the stenographing scribes, the company made sure to emphasize the offer that, if taken up, will give its strategic intelligence department valuable internal insights into election campaigns. Major U.S. news sites swallowed the bait, hook, line and sinker. The Washington Post headlines: Microsoft says it has found a Russian operation targeting U.S. political institutions A group affiliated with the Russian government created phony versions of six websites  including some related to public policy and to the U.S. Senate  with the apparent goal of hacking into the computers of people who were tricked into visiting, according to Microsoft, which said Monday night that it discovered and disabled the fake sites. The effort by the notorious APT28 hacking group, which has been publicly linked to a Russian intelligence agency and actively interfered in the 2016 presidential election, underscores the aggressive role Russian operatives are playing ahead of the midterm congressional elections in the United States.

...

Microsofts Digital Crimes Unit, which is responsible for the companys response to email phishing schemes, took the lead role in finding and disabling the sites, and the company is launching an effort to provide expanded cybersecurity protection for campaigns and election agencies that use Microsoft products.

...

Microsoft said Monday that it had found no evidence that the fake sites it recently discovered were used in attacks, but fake sites can carry malware that automatically loads onto the computers of unsuspecting visitors.

...

After discovering the sites recently, Microsoft said, it sought to obtain a court order to transfer the domain names to its own servers, ... The cases have been brought under trademark infringement ...

...

Microsoft did not explicitly blame the Russian intelligence agency for the attack announced Monday but it did cite Russias government and named APT28 and its pseudonyms, Strontium and Fancy Bear. At the end of the piece the Washington Post again points to the Microsoft campaign fleecing offer: Starting today, Microsoft AccountGuard is open to all current candidates for federal, state and local office in the United States and their campaigns; the campaign organizations of all sitting members of Congress; national and state party committees; technology vendors who primarily serve campaigns and committees; and certain nonprofit organizations and nongovernmental organizations. Microsoft AccountGuard is offered free of charge. Organizations must be using Office 365 to register. Microsoft AccountGuard has three core offerings: Unified threat detection and notification across accounts Threat detection and notification will initially be available only for Microsoft services including Office 365, Outlook.com and Hotmail. Security guidance and ongoing education In-depth live sessions will be modeled after the highly successful, multi-day sessions for both parties national campaign committees and their partners which we recently held in Washington, D.C. Early adopter opportunities In addition to being among the first to deploy the latest technology, this aspect of Microsoft AccountGuard will enable us to collect critical feedback and rapidly evolve security to address the specific needs of eligible organizations. All internet companies that offer services "free of charge" will use the data they acquire through these services for their own needs. They might use it to sell advertisements, to train 'artificial intelligence' networks they can resell, or to get insight into issues that might effect their bottom line. There is no free lunch. Those candidates or campaigns that fall for the evidence free "Russian threat" and take up Microsoft's offer will put their data into the hands of way more dangerous organizations. While Microsoft has its main seat outside of the Surveillance Valley, the Snowdon documents, published in 2013, show that it was and is a major part of it: Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;

The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;

The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;

Microsoft also worked with the FBI's Data Intercept Unit to "understand" potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;

In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism;

Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a "team sport". In 2016 the partisan FBI leadership used the fairytales in the Steele dossier to get a FISA wiretap on people involved in the campaign of Donald Trump. Had the Trump campaign joined a program similar to Microsoft's new AccountGuard, the FBI would not have needed to take such complicated steps. It would have had direct access to the briefings, calenders and emails shared within the campaign. Such insight potentially would have enabled it to change the outcome of the election. Posted by b on August 21, 2018 at 13:18 UTC | Permalink Comments
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The Ohio Division of Liquor Control has partnered with Makers Mark to create Ohio Private Select. They traveled to Makers Marks distillery in Lorretto, Kentucky and worked with the Private Select team, led by Scott Mooney, to select two barrels specifically for Ohio. These barrels are different than other barrels programs because they selected the finishing staves used to create the flavor profile of the finished whiskey. In the Private Select barrel process, there are five different types of wood staves that are added to the base Maker Red Top at barrel strength. A total of 10 staves are placed in these barrels which creates 1,001 different flavor variations. With the selected staves in place inside the barrels, they are rested for an additional nine weeks in a temperature controlled area. The final product has notes of vanilla, caramel and mocha over a little spice and smoke. The Ohio Division of Liquor Control has partnered with Makers Mark to create. They traveled to Makers Marks distillery in Lorretto, Kentucky and worked with the Private Select team, led by Scott Mooney, to select two barrels specifically for Ohio. These barrels are different than other barrels programs because they selected the finishing staves used to create the flavor profile of the finished whiskey. In the Private Select barrel process, there are five different types of wood staves that are added to the base Maker Red Top at barrel strength. A total of 10 staves are placed in these barrels which creates 1,001 different flavor variations. With the selected staves in place inside the barrels, they are rested for an additional nine weeks in a temperature controlled area. The final product has notes of vanilla, caramel and mocha over a little spice and smoke.

Bottles go on sale for $65.36 plus tax when the participating Agencies open on Friday. In Dayton the only store to stock this special bottle will be the Arrow Wine and Spirits located at 615 Lyons Road in Washington Township.

When you pick up your bottle of Ohio Private Select, be sure to also grab a taste profile card! The Ohio Private Select taste profile includes: One Stave: Baked American Pure 2 (sweet brown vanilla, caramel, brown spice)

One Stave: Seared French Cuvee (oaky, caramel, roasted/toasted)

Four Staves: Makers 46 (dried fruit, vanilla, spice)

Two Staves: Roasted French Mocha (char, maple, cacao)

Two Staves: Toasted French Spice (smoke, coumarin, spice) About Makers Mark: Bill Samuels Sr. had his own idea of how whisky should taste. So he abandoned the family recipe that was passed down six generations and set out to create his own. If he was going to make bourbon and put his name on it, he wanted one he could be proud of. And that meant bourbon that was more pleasing to the palate. He developed a new recipe based on locally grown grains. The most unique thing he did, however, was replace the traditional bourbon flavoring grain of rye with red winter wheat, which produced a much gentler taste.

Distilled in Lorretto, Kentucky, the barrels are rotated during aging  to ensure every barrel achieves the same flavor maturation. Every bottle of Makers Mark bourbon to taste  not by age  to ensure the same consistent taste and quality batch-to-batch, year-to-year. Currently, aging lasts approximately five and three quarters to seven years.
#Moon-EU leader Moon, EU leader agree to bolster vaccine supplies for developing nations South Korean President Moon Jae-in and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen agreed Saturday to step up efforts to boost the supply of COVID-19 vaccines to developing ...
By Express News Service

MUMBAI: Banks may have been billed as the bad boys of the industry for amassing a $200-billion toxic loan pile, but the government and judiciary also are a part of the crisis in the making, said Rajnish Kumar, chairman, State Bank of India.I would say everybody is responsible  be it the bankers, the industry or borrowers, be it the government and, without inviting contempt of the court, even the judiciary has played a role in this situation, Kumar said, adding that bankers delayed response, however, aggravated the NPA situation.

Speaking at an industry event in Mumbai on Monday, Kumar explained that banks dont have the mindset of the Central Bureau of Investigation or Enforcement Directorate, and instead, lend money based on trust and paperwork. There have been several cases with a clear breach of that trust. Now, we will trust, but we will verify. Probably that verification factor was missing, he said.

Expressing concerns about the availability of genuine equity in businesses, he said that going forward, it would be important for banks to ensure that the promised equity is available. The second issue has been around whether the funds given by the banks have been used for the purpose for which they were meant to. The enterprises, where the money has been used for the purpose for which the borrowing was made, are in much better positions, he said, adding that anyone who was just playing with the banks money and how much interest and stake they had in the business is again a subject matter of debate.

According to the SBI chairman, there were problems around consortium-lending and multiple banking systems. Up to the mid-90s, it used to be consortium-banking and later on, because there was a complaint from the industry that it is delaying the process, we went into multiple banking. But that has not resulted in faster decision-making, it has led to more problems, he said.

Kumar suggested limiting the size of the consortium as it doesnt make sense to have too many banks for small loans. We will definitely reorganise many consortia. We are looking at that kind of exercise. For up to `500 crore, I dont do consortium lending anyway. I can take over, I can exit, he said.

Meanwhile, Kumar observed that although some sectors were showing signs of a turnaround, the power sector remains under stress and hopes for its revival were fading.

Dont be greedy

On Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, Rajnish Kumar said that it has been a good step in instilling fear in promoters of losing the company, but if the bidding process is delayed just for a few hundred crores of rupees more, the entire purpose of the law will be defeated.
By PTI

NEW YORK: Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani's telecom unit Reliance Jio has been ranked as the top company globally on Fortune's 'Change The World' list that ranked companies using the profit motive to help the planet and tackle social problems.

Jio is ranked ahead of pharma giant Merck and Bank of America, according to Fortune list released today.

Chinese group Alibaba is ranked 5th on the list that has food and drug stores Kroger at number six, industrial machinery firm ABB at number 8 and network and communications giant Hughes Network System at number 10.

"If access to the Internet is a basic human right -- and the United Nations declared it one in the summer of 2016 -- then Reliance Jio deserves more credit than most for expanding access to it," Fortune said.

Jio stormed the sector with free calls and data forcing rivals to merge or exit in September 2016 and has amassed 215 million subscribers since then and says it is profitable.

Fortune said Ambani "likes to say it provides the public with 'digital oxygen'" but "two years ago there wasn't much oxygen to go around in the world's second-most-populous country."

"Mobile phones crawled on 2G networks, and consumers typically paid more than Rs 200 for one gigabyte of data.

India had just 153 million mobile Internet subscribers among its population of 1.3 billion.

"Enter Jio, with a speedy 4G network (which it spent billions building out), free calls, and dirt-cheap data (as low as 4 per GB).

It has since issued a super-low-cost smartphone and is rolling out fixed broadband service as well," it said.

"The resulting 'Jio-fication' has been nothing short of revolutionary; with data use surging and Jio's competitors scrambling to match its offerings, the development has jump-started India's digital economy."

The biggest winners, it said, are those in rural areas or of modest means -- farmers, students, and entrepreneurs who finally have in their hands the tool they need to participate in the modern economy.

Fortune said the Change the World list recognizes companies that have had a positive social impact through activities that are part of their core business strategy.

Considering only companies with annual revenues of USD 1 billion or more, the list measures social impact, business results (profitability), the degree of innovation and corporate integration, it said.
By Express News Service

MUMBAI: The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Monday granted a stay on the liquidation order passed against construction engineering company Jyoti Structures Limited. The case will come up for next hearing on September 18, 2018.

The case of Jyoti Structures was the first one that headed for liquidation from the Reserve Bank of Indias first list of 12 large accounts shortlisted for insolvency proceedings in June 2017. It was admitted for proceedings under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) in July 2017.

The order to stay the liquidation proceedings comes after investors led by Sharad Sanghi, founder, Netmagic Solutions, and 800 employees of the corporate debtor, appealed against it. Jyoti Structures owes about Rs 8,000 crore to its lenders. As part of the resolution plan, banks were to incur a haircut of about 60 per cent on the principal amount. Sanghi and a consortium of investors  including Madhusudan Kela, chief investment strategist at Reliance Capital, and Manish Kejriwal, managing partner of Kedaara Capital  were the only applicants interested in acquiring the company.

Their resolution plan was approved by 81 per cent of the lenders, more than the IBC-stipulated 66 per cent, but DBS Bank, one of the financial creditors, voted against the plan. Subsequently, the Corporate Insolvency and Resolution Process deadline of 270 days passed in July. The resolution professional sought an eight-day extension last month, which was again opposed by the DBS Bank. Consequently, the NCLT rejected the plan and asked the resolution professional to file for liquidation on July 25.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: A 23-year-old software engineer was found murdered at her house in Whitefield police station limits on Sunday night. Police suspect her boyfriend could be involved in the murder. The deceased is Vijayalakshmi, a native of New Delhi.

Police said, Vijayalakshmi had come to the city about three months ago and was working in a software company. She had rented a house in Immadihalli in Whitefield and was living alone. The incident came to light on Sunday night when the house owner sensed a foul smell emanating from her house, located on the second floor of the building, and alerted the police.

It was found that Vijayalakshmi was strangled to death 2-3 days ago and the motive for the murder is yet to be investigated.The house owner has made a statement that a man was staying with her from the last few days. When he asked her about him on August 16, she had told he was her friend. After that the owner did not see her going out of the house nor did he know when her friend left the house. He is suspected to be her boyfriend and may be behind the murder, the police said.

As Vijayalakshmi did not answer their repeated phone calls, her parents had directly contacted the house owner and requested him to check what had happened. It is then that the owner grew suspicious and went near her house to find her body lying on the floor, the police added. A murder case has been registered at Whitefield Police Station in this connection and police are on the lookout for the absconding accused.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: As relief pours in following the devastating floods in Kerala and Kodagu, some members of the Muslim community have decided to donate funds set aside for qurbani or animal sacrifice to help the victims. The initiative gained traction after posts on social media found support from members of the community during the last two days.

Ayaz Afrid, a resident of Mangaluru, told The New Indian Express that the proposal to donate money set aside for qurbani was discussed in private circles before the topic surfaced on social media. Several philantrophic efforts have been made for the benefit of the victims. People are offering help irrespective of their caste and creed, and with the meagre resources they have. Therefore, we thought it would be prudent to donate the qurbani amount for rehabilitation efforts of the affected population, he said.

Imthiyaz Ahmed, a resident of RT Nagar, said that by diverting the qurbani amount they were also fulfilling their religious duty of charity during Bakrid. The purpose of animal sacrifice and other charity performed during the festival is to ensure that the poor are provided with food and other essentials. However, considering the humanitarian crisis unleashed by the floods, some of us have decided to divert it towards aid in Kerala and Kodagu, he said.

While some are directly paying the amount of qurbani - which varies from `10,000 to `2 lakh depending on the animal being sacrificed - others have decided to buy required utensils for the victims and have dispatched them with volunteer groups. Qurbani is practised during Bakrid to commemorate Abrahams willingness to sacrifice his lone-son Isaac, to prove his devotion to God.
Rochana Mohan By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Happy birthday, Chennai! Some people may say that the city is 379 years young, but is there any point lying to yourself after a certain age? Chennai, like a Carnatic musician with a good PR team, has stuck to its roots while also welcoming newer trends. From the heritage buildings and art forms to the exotic cuisines and nightlife (by which we mean Indian-Chinese and 3 am temple visits, of course)  Rochana Mohan lists out reasons we love the city

KAAPI BEGINNINGS

A hot cup of frothy coffee is a city staple and is usually downed at the crack of dawn. Instant coffee is akin to blasphemy for a true Chennaite and will resort to drinking it only in dire circumstances. Filter kaapi has no right time or right reason  it can be drunk all through the day and at all occasions and brings Chennaiites together in a way no other can.

Rahman in our DNA

Going to AR Rahman concerts, and singing along to all the songs composed by the Oscar winner. Thousands of adoring fans and Chennaiites will sit with you and sing along to 90s jams as the mild-mannered musician recreates the songs that we all know by heart.

Colour concerns

The flutter of cloth as the attendant at the cloth shop in T Nagar shows you the exact shade of blue you were searching for from the intimidating collection of rainbow-coloured cloth on display. There is no way you wont find what youre looking for, because there are hundreds of shops in T Nagar, with each having a thousand varieties of the cloth you need.

Drive me happy

Going for a long drive on the ECR, feeling the sea breeze rush around you and the smooth road loom before you. Stopping by the thousands of shops that are easy distractions to either get something to eat or grab a cup of coffee only makes the trip better, and you always come back home feeling happier and calmer.

Marghazi mania

Spending the entirety of Marhgazhi maasam kutcheri-hopping from one sabha to another, having a set list of kutcheris to visit and making different WhatsApp groups with different friends who are going to the same events.

Thalaivar!

Going to Kasi theatre on a FDFS of the newest Thalaivar padam, and hooting and cheering and whistling with the theatre as Rajini makes his usual, mass entry. You and your friends cheer until your throat is hoarse, and then brag about it for the rest of the week.

Cheering for CSK

Going to Chepauk Stadium in your classic CSK yellow IPL t-shirt and sitting in a sea of yellow, cheering with fellow fans who quickly become friends, and going wild when Dhoni comes onto the pitch.

Iconic spots

Riding a rickety roundabout on Marina Beach while one of your friends tries to shoot down pinned-up balloons and another friend watches the two of you make a fool of yourself while licking an ice-cream coneWalking down Elliots beach in the evening, surrounded by youngsters and elders enjoying the breeze and the lights from the shops casting light on the sand

Watching the librarian climb up the ladders at the Madras Literary Society to find you a book you wanted

Going to Semmozhi Poonga with your cousins and playing around in the grassy hills

Sitting at the desks of Connemara Library and being surrounded by people enjoying their books in their little cocoons

Taking a walk in the beautiful green and serene

Theosophical Society, and resting in the shade provided

by the ancient, huge banyan tree

Making a full-day trip to MGM, VGP, or Queensland for a day filled with laughter and noise, making sure you go on every amusement ride

Architecture

Marvelling the red brick masterpiece that is Chennai Central as you approach the railway station

Walking around the Egmore Museum, looking at the figurines, coin collections, and huge skeletons of dinosaurs, while roaming around the grounds to see the statues hidden around Seeing the majestic red-and-white domed building that is the Madras High CourtWhooshing by the white semi-circles in Napier bridge on your two-wheeler, feeling the salty air strike your face

Marvelling at the modern design of Anna Nagar Tower by day, and being captivated by its beauty at nightThe various statues on Marina that tell stories of our culture and history on their own

Understanding the science between the agaraharam-style houses in the city, and its unique qualities

to protect people from the heatThe massive and eternally bustling CMBT in Koyambedu, the second largest bus terminus in Asia

The striking Wallajah mosque in Triplicane with its two minarets that was built in the Mughal style in the 1700s

Art and Culture

Yelling HISS BOO with your friends at the annual Christmas Pantomime when the evil character comes on stageHall-hopping during kutcheri season, and ensuring you make it for all of TMKs recitals

Going for a poetry slam at a cafe and leaving feeling like youve been educated on emotions and rhymes Walking around the art displayed at Lalit Kala Akademi and pausing to read the descriptions or interact with some of the work

Stumbling by an art gallery on the side of the road and walking in only to be wowed by colourful displays arranged across the room The smell of paper, the muffled sound of others walking around and the comfort of being surrounded by books in Higginbothams Going for an underground jam session in a quaint cafe, humming along with musiciansCheering with the audience as your friends band performs on stage at Bay 146Clutching your stomach, tears running down your face as you laugh at S Arvinds shows

Watching your friend's arangetram in Music Academy Mini hall and clenching your fists so that you dont clap and induce the wrath of all the other patrons in the hall

Cinema

Passing by the legendary and iconic AVM Studios and trying to look your best so that someone will spot your clearly innate acting talent Wishing that youd also age as awesomely as Thala

Recreating the same moves as Vijay did in Mersal at home, only to hit the edge of the bed

The old-school cinema vibes in Casino, Srinivasa, Kasi and Minerva, where the buildings tell you as much of a story as the movies themselves Having the entire city covered in movie posters during the Deepavali movie rush Watching Goundamani-Senthil and Vadivel comedy highlights on the TV with your family in the evening, after watching the Sunday Tamil movie special in the morning

Food

The smell of crispy dosas in the morning, listening to the whirring of the blender and wondering what chutney your mom is making

Swallowing pani puris at Gangotree, the best place for South Indian chaat, and then asking for a dry puri Biting into a hot, oily bajji at a roadside stall with your friends after spending five minutes deciding which bajji you wanted. Tearing a soft idli apart and watching the steam rise from the two white halves at Murugan Idli Kadai. Arguing in group chat about where to eat because three new places opened up. Having pizza at Super Star Pizza just to establish your Madrasi identity. Opening Swiggy to help you choose which biryani place to go to before getting stumped by Hotel Junior Kuppanna, Samco and Aasife, again stopping by Mor Thathas stall in Thiruvanmiyur at 3 am because there is no wrong time for more hounding Sundari Akkas seafood stall in Marina to get the best prawn and fish fry in the city. Period. Stopping for a frosty ice-cream bar at Ibaco on a hot day, only to stop by another, a few minutes later

People

Trying to keep calm when S Muthaiah steps up on the podium, trying not to show what a history nut you are Watching all of JJs movies and her speeches because you miss her Passing by the posters of Karunanidhi and feeling a deep sense of loss and sadness

Getting updates on TM Krishnas US tour even though youre sitting in your house in Tambaram

Excitedly looking at the traffic police at every junction, hoping hed be the one who breaks into dance

Discussing the legendary works and iconic life of MS Subbulakshmi with your friends, and all of you agreeing that we wont ever have someone like her

Blasting Ilaiyaraaja tunes on the radio and singing along to Rakama Kaiya Thattu

Proudly yelling at your television screen when Vishwanathan Anand plays against another chessplayer

Shopping

Walking down the road near Burma Bazaar with your family, pointing at the hundreds of clothes, watches, electronics and accessories lined up for display

Trying to refine your Hindi while speaking to the shopkeeper at Sowcarpet, who entertains you just long enough to give you whatever north Indian clothes you came to buy The smell of freshly baked cookies in Spencers Plaza as you walk across the main hall while window shopping Being pushed and shoved around in Pondy Bazaar while searching for an obscure item, only to return with 20 moreHauling all your electronics to Ritchie Street, knowing that theyll have the exact adapter or battery or charger or device youre looking for Knowing the layout of Express Avenue better than you know your school or office building Visiting Pantheon Road with your college friends during convocation and finding every kind of material known to man available by the roll at Co-optex Taking selfies with all the unique statues at Phoenix MarketCity, and wondering if you could jump on the toy train with the kids without getting arrested

Festivals

Walking down the road near Burma Bazaar with your family, pointing at the hundreds of clothes, watches, electronics and accessories lined up for display

Trying to refine your Hindi while speaking to the shopkeeper at Sowcarpet, who entertains you just long enough to give you whatever north Indian clothes you came to buy The smell of freshly baked cookies in Spencers Plaza as you walk across the main hall while window shopping being pushed and shoved around in Pondy Bazaar while searching for an obscure item, only to return with 20 moreHauling all your electronics to Ritchie Street, knowing that theyll have the exact adapter or battery or charger or device youre looking forKnowing the layout of Express Avenue better than you know your school or office building

Visiting Pantheon Road with your college friends during convocation and finding every kind of material known to man available by the roll at Co-optexTaking selfies with all the unique statues at Phoenix MarketCity, and wondering if you could jump on the toy train with the kids without getting arrested

Festivals

Waiting for Pongal so that you can thulp sugarcane, chakra pongal and ven pongal without being judged

Getting a hot pack full of biryani from your friends on Eid, and calling up their parents and thanking them with every mouthful of mutton The sparkle of lights when you light a flower pot on Deepavali with your neighboursGazing at the beauty of the Velankani Church on Chirstmas Eve, as the lights that drape the building twinkle in the evening

Celebrating a series of pujas during Aadi masam, only to realise that there are more to come

Going for golu shopping at Mylapore tank, and seeing rows and rows of bommais lined up on the street, with some being small enough to fit your hand and others too big to fit your house

Celebrating Deepavali twice, both on the day and on karthigai deepam because why not?

Celebrating Holi and Rakhi with our friends from the north because were always down for a party

Watching children pull the rope connected to a boat carrying the idols of Shiva and Parvathi at the Kapaleeshwar Koil tank in the evening

Ancy GEORGE

I like Madras because of the word machaa and how often its used to address a friend.

Anushree MADHAVAN

Santhosh stores, Sathyam and sapaadu. Also, Im a true-blue Anna Nagar vasi who finds other areas too far.

Dia REKHI

The people make this city. People are welcoming and most importantly, simple and straightforward.

KV Navya

I love strolling through Pallavaram market that brings a complete village to the city. From antiques to saplings and auto parts, you get everything here.

Rama RAMANAN

Born and raised in a city which has no vertical limit, I have been wooed by uninterrupted views of azure blue Chennai skies every morning.

Rochana MOHAN

Every time I see the domed roof of Museum Theatre, with the small chandelier twinkling as the lights go down, I feel a rush of emotions.

Roshne BALASUBRAMANIAN

Marina promenade. If there are 101 reasons to love the city, romancing the shore and halting at different landmarks along the promenade top my list.

Ruchika JAIN

I have always been a fan of South Indian food. But after coming to Chennai, I have fallen in love with podi idli.

Sayantika BHOWAL

Driving past the busy spots of the city in the middle of the night, stopping by tea joints are the highlights for me.

Vaishali VIJAYKUMAR

I love the beaches here. The evening scene at Besant Nagar beach is vibrant. This is my go-to place.
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday demanded that the Centre declare the floods in Kerala a national calamity and extend all necessary support until the State overcomes the crisis.

Naidu, who was speaking to media persons at the Interim Government Complex in Velagapudi on Monday, said the amount promised by the Centre to Kerala  Rs 600  was grossly insufficient.

Stating that Andhra Pradesh was extending aid to the tune of around Rs 50 crore, the Chief Minister urged the entire nation to come together to help Kerala. During the discussion, Naidu said the Centre was yet to release Rs 350 crore of the Rs 1,000 crore aid it announced to AP when cyclone Hudhud devastated several parts of the State and observed that the Rs 61,219 crore allocated by the 14th Finance Commission for dealing with natural calamities in the country was grossly inadequate and called for increasing the amount. Naidu added that he spoke to his Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan twice and enquired about the situation. Andhra Pradesh will send rice worth Rs 6 crore to the affected State as requested by its Chief Minister.

The State government has moved 6,336 people to the 16 relief camps set up in 10 mandals of the Godavari districts after they were lashed by rains for several days. The downpour has caused crop damage and cut off some villages from major roads.

Excess rainfall in 111 mandals

The Chief Minister said the extent of crop damage caused by the floods would be assessed soon. Road connectivity has been hit in 36 villages. Naidu said 111 mandals had recorded excess rain while 217 received just normal rainfall. Eighty-four mandals recorded scanty precipitation. We are in a strange situation. While rain battered East and West Godavari and Krishna districts, regions including Rayalaseema, Prakasam and Vizianagaram have received 33 to 56 per cent less rainfall, he said.

Naidu added that the State government had spent Rs 56,000 crore on irrigation projects in four-and-half- years and claimed over 50 per cent of the Polavaram project works had been completed. He alleged that the State government was yet to be reimbursed of Rs 2,622 crore it had spent on the project and said the revised estimate of the irrigation project was yet to be accepted.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: Vitamin B3 has the potential to prevent acute kidney injury, an often fatal condition without a specific treatment, a study has found.

The condition causes a build-up of waste products in the blood and an imbalance of fluids throughout the body.

Acute kidney injury, which affects up to 30-40 per cent of all hospitalised adults in low-income countries, can occur from ailments that place the body into extreme stress -- putting patients, particularly those in intensive care units, at risk.

ALSO READ | Eat less salt to prevent kidney diseases at young age: Experts

Researchers led by Samir M Parikh from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the US discovered that levels of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) -- the end result of vitamin B3 after it is ingested-declines in cases of acute kidney injury.

"We were able to detect a drop in NAD+ in the urine of high-risk patients who were either in an intensive care unit or undergoing a major surgery and found that oral vitamin B3 could safely elevate NAD+ in high-risk patients," said Parikh, who is also an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in the US.

"These findings are very early, but the results suggest that we could one day have a non-invasive test for NAD+ status and perhaps even treat acute kidney injury by boosting NAD+ levels," said Parikh.

Researchers made the discovery by studying the metabolic changes associated with acute kidney injury in a mouse model.

ALSO READ | Belly fat matters for women with kidney cancer

In subsequent human studies, the team found high urinary quinolinate in patients undergoing major surgery at risk for acute kidney injury and confirmed this metabolite pattern in a separate study of 329 intensive care unit patients also at risk for acute kidney injury.

The team then gave large doses of oral vitamin B3 to 41 cardiac surgery patients enrolled in a Phase 1 pilot study.

"Our results suggest that NAD+ biosynthesis becomes impaired during human acute kidney injury and that augmenting vitamin B3 levels may be safe and potentially beneficial to patients.", said Kamal Khabbaz of BIDMC, who co-led the clinical trial.

"We showed that urinary measurements in at-risk patients can indicate this impairment and, furthermore, predict adverse outcomes.

Restoring NAD+ could constitute and important advance for patients at risk for acute kidney injury, though further studies are needed to verify these findings," Khabbaz said.
By Online Desk

Todays Google Doodle commemorates what would have been Indian writer, Ismat Chughtais 107th birthday. Born in the small town of Badayun, Uttar Pradesh, Chughtai is renowned for being one of the most contentious albeit inspiring writers of her time. Since the 1930s, her work offered frank depictions of womens lives while exploring topics of sexuality, femininity and class struggle, which are indeed pertinent to todays reformist ideals. Chughtai has elevated the eminence of Urdu literature, and the feminist movement immortalises her progressive consciousness.

Heres a look back on some of her most evocative pieces.

1. Lihaaf (The Quilt)

Conceivably Chughtais most provocative piece, Lihaaf grapples with ideas of homoeroticism and the suppression of a womans sexual desires. Considered brash and illicit, the text was banned in South Asia, and Chughtai found herself amid a legal dispute which she ultimately won. The story is written from a childs perspective and illustrates the life of a young woman named Begum Jaan. Begum Jaans husband habitually neglects her, and instead averts his attention to young, fair and slim-waisted boys. Robbed of her husbands affection, Begum Jaan finds solace in her masseuse, Rabbu, and their relationship turns sexual. Lihaaf is notoriously disconcerting in its portrayal of Begum Jaan and forces us to consider the consequences of practising sexuality, shamelessly.

2. Vocation

Vocation is a cleverly written tale of a woman who vilifies her neighbours, assuming they are prostitutes. The protagonist deems her profession as a teacher to be far more respectable, using it as leverage to cast judgement on those deviating from so-called normalcy. Later, she discovers that her neighbours in fact hail from the aristocracy, and is left bemused. Accordingly, Vocation is a shrewd allegory that highlights the pretence of morality and the duplicitous ways in which women perceive one another.

3. Terhi Lakeer (The Crooked Line)

Set in Indias colonial past, Terhi Lakeer chronicles the life of Shaman, a spirited, middle-class Muslim girl who seeks to revolt against any traditional upbringing. Shaman, however, is sent away to boarding school by her family. The story aptly underlines the confusion and juvenile outbursts of a girl attempting to navigate her way through Indias fight for independence. Chughtai toys with concepts of fluid masculinity and femininity, allowing us to dissect the social constructs of gender roles in the height of imperialism.

4. Gharwali (The Homemaker)

This iconoclastic story by Chughtai implies that the institution of marriage is redundant, as the relationship between the two main characters, Lajjo and Mirza, dispels any myth that fidelity is only realised through a legally binding union. Lajjo does not shy away from sexual pleasure. She has minimal regard for social status and views everyone as an equal. Perhaps promiscuous, she is desired by many, including Mirza, the owner of the house in which she is the live-in maid. Mirza tries to tame Lajjo on many occasions, but her care-free soul remains unshackled by any conventional guideline of love.
By Online Desk

NEW DELHI: The Centre today released Rs 600 crore to flood-hit Kerala and decided to waive customs duty and GST on the relief materials being imported for the affected people in the state.

The announcement came following a meeting of the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC), which met for the sixth consecutive day.

Meanwhile, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan thanked the UAE government for its decision to provide Rs 700 crore to help the state, currently reeling under massive floods.

ALSO READ | Move ahead proudly as people who overcame a crisis in an exemplary manner: Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan

Welcoming the generous contribution from the Arab kingdom, Pinarayi said, "Kerala has a special relationship with UAE, which is a home away from home for Malayalees. We express our gratitude to UAE for their support."

The Chief Minister also thanked the President of UAE HH Shaeikh Khaleefa Bin Sayed Al Nahyan, Vice President and Prime Minister HH Shaeik Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum and the Crown prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Syed Al Nahian.

(With inputs from PTI)
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Trouble seems to be mounting for Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath as the Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from the state government on a plea challenging an order of the Allahabad High Court dismissing a petition seeking prosecution of the CM in a 2007 hate speech case.

The notice came on an appeal by petitioner Rasheed Khan, who has challenged the Allahabad High Court order rejecting the plea for action against the CM for hate speech. The High Court had upheld a decision by the Uttar Pradesh government to deny sanction to prosecute Yogi Adityanath in the case.In May 2017, the Uttar Pradesh government had refused to grant the mandatory sanction for the prosecution of the chief minister.

Several incidents of violence were reported in Gorakhpur on January 27, 2007 after the alleged hate speech by Adityanath, who was then the BJP parliamentarian from Gorakhpur. The petitioners have alleged that his speech led to riots in Gorakhpur. Ten people were reported dead in the Gorakhpur riots and Yogi Adityanath was arrested and sent to police custody for 11 days.A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra issued notice to the state government and the district magistrate of Gorakhpur and slated the hearing after four weeks.

Earlier this year, the Allahabad High Court had upheld a sessions court order which had quashed a magistrates order taking cognizance of the charge sheet filed by the police in 2009 in the case.The high court had said that the sessions court was right in holding that there was no prosecution sanction to initiate a trial against the chief minister and others in the case. In January 2017, the sessions court in Gorakhpur had quashed the magistrates courts order. The sessions court had said that there was no sanction to prosecute the accused, including Adityanath.

The petition filed in the Allahabad High Court had sought a probe against Yogi under IPC sections 302,307,153A,395 and 295. A case was registered by the police in 2008 and was investigated by the Criminal Investigation Department or CID of the UP police. The CID completed the investigation in 2015 and had sought sanction for prosecution that year. The Samajwadi Party government of Akhilesh Yadav was in power in UP then, but did not sanction prosecution.

Timeline of trouble

2007: Yogi adityanath gave hate speech

2008: Case registered by UP Police

2009: UP Police filed charge sheet

2015: CID of UP completed the investigation

2017: Allahabad High Court upheld a sessions court order which had quashed a magistrates order
Anand ST Das By

Express News Service

PATNA: Sixteen people, including a local RJD leader, were arrested and eight policemen placed under suspension in Bihar's Bhojpur district on Tuesday, after a woman was thrashed and paraded naked by a mob which suspected her role in a murder.

Armed policemen patrolled Bihiya town, about 60 km from Patna, even as raids were conducted to arrest the men who had dragged the middle-aged woman from her house, ripped off her clothes and paraded her naked on the roads on Monday afternoon. The woman was kicked and slapped as she was made to walk nearly a kilometre through a local market.

The SHOs of the Bihiya police station and the GRP police station are among the eight suspended policemen, said ADG (headquarters) SK Singhal.

Trouble started after Vimalesh Sah, 19, was found dead near railway tracks on Monday morning. A resident of the nearby Damodarpur village, Sah had left home for a vocational training centre at Ara.

Despite locals alerting the police, there was no action till afternoon as the Bihiya police station and the GRP police station quarrelled about jurisdiction.

Soon, rumours circulated about the role of women from a red-light area near the railway tracks in Sahs death. The mob, allegedly led by local RJD leader Kaushal Kishore Yadav, then set afire a number of shops and damaged vehicles. Several trains, including the Secunderabad-Patna Express, were pelted with stones. An FIR lodged by the police stated that nearly 300 people were involved in the mob frenzy.

Bhojpur Superintendent of Police Avakash Kumar said autopsy confirmed that Sah was murdered. Meanwhile, sources said Sahs 14-year-old sister died of shock within minutes after hearing his death.

The parading of the woman sparked outrage and prompted the Opposition RJD, the Congress, the HAM and the Left parties to attack the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government over the worsening law and order situation. Later, former Chief Minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha president Jitan Ram Manjhi demanded imposition of Presidents rule in the eastern state.
Ramananda Sengupta By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Australian High Commission has warned the public of a new visa scam allegedly perpetrated by an employment agency operating in South-West Delhi. In recent weeks, more than 50 people have approached the High Commission after paying lakhs for a work visa, only to be informed that they have become a victim of yet another visa scam, it said.

Noting that the Australian High Commission is concerned about the growing number of victims and advising potential visa applicants to exercise caution when visa agencies offer jobs, a high commission spokesperson said: Australia does not have a work visa program of the sort being promoted by the scammersour Temporary Skills Shortage work visa is run only with approved sponsors, and only for applicants with specific skills in demand in Australia...Some of the recent victims have said they paid up to Rs 50,000 just for a non-existent airfare and a medical check with an unauthorised clinic, in addition to all the other fees they were charged.

In addition to being charged for job placementsometimes with bogus job offers using the names of genuine, well-known companies in Australiaand visa lodgement fees, the victims have also had to pay to undergo a medical examination in a medical facility also located in South Delhi, that is not associated with Australias approved panel physicians.

We have seen clones of our website before but the newest versions link to a fake visa checking site that only contains the visa details concocted by the agent. This may look convincing to someone who is wanting proof the agent is not duping them  but actually, it is still all fake, the spokesperson said. We encourage victims of this and other scams to promptly report this illegal activity to local authorities.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Uttar Pradesh police on Monday traced the much-talked-about red-coloured car which, according to some of the Deoria shelter home inmates, was used for taking girls to Gorakhpur, Varanasi and other districts for sexual exploitation.

A 10-year-old girl, who somehow fled from the shelter home on August 5, had informed the police that red-and white-coloured cars used to take the girls in the evening and drop them back next day. Four other girls, who were sexually abused, had corroborated her statement.

SIT Inspector BK Singh claimed that the car was owned by shelter homeowner Girija Tripathi and her family. The SIT had taken Girija, her husband Mohan and their daughter Kanchanlata on remand for interrogation. A forensic team from Lucknow is examining the vehicle. During its investigation, the SIT found that three former Superintendents of Police had ignored repeated correspondence from the Deoria administration against sending girls to the tainted shelter home which was running without valid documents.

After the Allahabad High Courts reprimand, the Uttar Pradesh government had shifted the Deoria Superintendent of Police and the Circle Officer. A probe is on against two other cops of the local police station area where the shelter home is situated. Moreover, as per the sources, three former SPs of Deoria and the intelligence officials were also brought under the ambit of probe.
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's official Twitter account tweeted twice on Tuesday afternoon to once again invite India to dialogue and pursue peace, terming it the "best way to alleviate poverty and uplift the people of the subcontinent", according to a Dawn report.

The tweets, which included a note of gratitude to longtime friend Navjot Singh Sidhu for attending PM Khan's inauguration on a special invitation, reiterated the new prime minister's belief that "without peace our people cannot progress."

To move forward Pakistan and India must dialogue and resolve their conflicts incl Kashmir: The best way to alleviate poverty and uplift the people of the subcontinent is to resolve our differences through dialogue and start trading https://t.co/V2UkXp0WwS  Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) August 21, 2018

Addressing sections of the Indian media, politicians and civil society who have been criticising Sidhu for visiting Pakistan, PM Khan said: "Those in India who targeted him [Sidhu] are doing a great disservice to peace in the subcontinent."

"He was an ambassador of peace and was given amazing love and affection by people of Pakistan," the prime minister wrote.

"To move forward, Pakistan and India must dialogue and resolve their conflicts, including Kashmir," the premier was quoted as saying.

"The best way to alleviate poverty and uplift the people of the subcontinent is to resolve our differences through dialogue and start trading."

The incumbent regime had also extended an olive branch to India a day earlier, when newly-appointed Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had made clear that he would pursue dialogue with the neighbouring rival as a way forward.

"Us coming to the table and talking peace is our only option. We need to stop the adventurism and come together. We know the issues are tough and will not be solved overnight, but we have to engage," Qureshi had said.

"We cannot turn our cheek. Yes, we have outstanding issues. Kashmir is a reality; it is an issue that both our nations acknowledge."

"We need a continued and uninterrupted dialogue. This is our only way forward," he had stressed.

"We may have a different approach and line of thinking, but I want to see a change in how we behave," he had added.

"India and Pakistan have to move forward keeping realities before them." The new foreign minister had also dismissed fears that attempts to mend fences with India will be met with resistance from the so-called 'establishment'.

"There are pre-conceived notions about where the foreign policy of Pakistan was formulated," he said on Monday.

"Let me be clear: the foreign policy will be made here at the Foreign Office of Pakistan. I will engage with all the institutions for the betterment of the country," he said, adding: "It is the policy across the world. Feedback is sought from national security institutions."
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today directed the Jammu and Kashmir government to file its response on a plea alleging custodial torture of the Kathua case witness by August 27.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud fixed the matter for further hearing in August 29.

The top court was hearing a plea by Talib Hussain, a key witness in the Kathua gang rape-and-murder case, alleging custodial torture by the state police in an alleged rape case lodged against him by his sister-in-law.

The court had earlier asked the lawyer, appearing for Hussain's cousin Mumtaz Ahmed Khan, to satisfy it on how a writ of habeas corpus (produce the body) was maintainable in the present case where the accused was in lawful police custody following an FIR being registered against him.

The counsel had referred to a Supreme Court judgement and said irrespective of the nature of detention, whether legal or illegal, such a petition could always be filed in cases of custodial torture.

The petition was opposed by the lawyer, appearing for Hussain's sister-in-law who has filed the FIR alleging rape, that there were as many as 10 FIRs against the accused and no relief should be granted without hearing the victim.

The plea seeks protection of Hussain in police custody and alleges that he had been brutally beaten up in the alleged fake rape case.

Hussain is a key witness in the Kathua case, in which an eight-year-old girl from a minority nomadic community was abducted in January and gang-raped before being killed.

The state police's Crime Branch, which probed the case, filed the main charge sheet against seven people and a separate charge sheet against a juvenile.

The charge sheet has revealed chilling details about how the girl was allegedly kidnapped, drugged and raped inside a place of worship before being killed.
By ANI

NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge has decided to boycott the meeting of the Lokpal Selection Committee for the fourth time in a row.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kharge said, "I would not be able to attend the meeting of the Selection Committee until the leader of the single largest opposition party is conferred the status of a full-fledged member as envisioned in the Lokpal Act, 2013."

Raising objection on being invited to the meeting, the Congress leader argued that he will not have the right to participate, record an opinion or vote.

Drawing attention to his three earlier letters where he rejected government's previous invitations, Kharge said, "Despite these earlier letters of mine, the government continues to me as a special invitee to the Selection Committee knowing very well what would be the outcome. Perhaps, the government intends this outcome in order to create another strawman to attack by suggesting that the opposition is not cooperating in implementing the Lokpal Act."

He further highlighted that there is no provision in the Lokpal Act for a special invitee.

The Lokpal Selection Committee meeting, headed by Prime Minister Modi is to meet today in order to set up a search committee that will be mandated to recommend a panel to appoint a Lokpal and its members.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Maurya sparked controversy by hinting that the government might take the legislative route to build a Ram Temple in Ayodhya if other options failed to resolve the issue. Leaders of political parties and members of the Muslim community raised objections to Maurya's suggestion and expressed doubts on the intent of the BJP government here on Monday.

Speaking to a section of the media, Maurya had said though the Ram Mandir issue was pending with the Supreme Court and all were awaiting the verdict, but if the issue was not resolved either through legal recourse or even mutual dialogue, it could be settled through a legislation of Parliament if the ruling party had a majority in both the Houses.

"The BJP is committed to the issue and will always be ready to fulfill the commitment for construction of Ram Temple," Keshav Maurya said.

Reacting to Maurya's statement, a senior Samajwadi Party leader said the deputy CM's statement seemed a well thought out strategy to stir a hornet's nest. "Even PM Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah support the idea of accepting the court verdict, Maurya's statement is against his own party line," said the SP leader.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) rejected the statement as a mere posturing for polarisation of votes ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. However, AIMPLB member and Lucknow Imam, Khalid Rashid Firangi Mehli said such statements would create confusion in minds and the communal divide would be widened.

Maulana Salim Qasmi from Darul Uloom Deoband said such statements were being made to get political mileage when the general elections of 2019 were inching close. "Any discussion about bringing an legislation in Parliament for temple construction will be seen as contempt of the Supreme Court," opined Qasmi.

One of the main litigants Iqbal Ansari, also expressed displeasure.

"Centre should stop such leaders from giving irresponsible statements. It will lead to communal tempers running high," asserted Ansari.
Harpreet Bajwa By

Express News Service

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Cabinet on Tuesday approved amendments to the CrPC and the IPC to make sacrilege of all religious texts punishable with life imprisonment.

The Cabinet also approved a series of other Bills to be tabled before the Assembly in the forthcoming session.

It has approved insertion of Section 295AA to the IPC to provide that whoever causes injury, damage or sacrilege to Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Srimad Bhagwad Geeta, Holy Quran and Holy Bible with the intention to hurt the religious feelings of the people, shall be punished with imprisonment for life.

The meeting okayed the withdrawal of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2016 (Bill No.7-PLA-2016) and the Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2016 (Bill No.6-PLA-2016), passed in the 12th session of 14th Vidhan Sabha, 2016. It has given nod to the introduction of The Code of Criminal Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2018 and the Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2018, in the ensuing session of the Vidhan Sabha.

Reservation in promotions for SC employees

In order to safeguard the interests of Scheduled Castes, the Cabinet okayed the introduction of a Bill in the Vidhan Sabha for ensuring restoration of 14 per cent reservation in Group A and B and 20 per cent reservation in Group C and D to the ST members in promotions.

The enactment of the legislation would pave the way for implementation of the benefit of reservation.

In its judgment on February 20, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had struck down sections 4 (3), 4(4) and 4 (8) of The Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes (Reservation in Services) Act, 2006 following which the state government had decided to restore 14 per cent reservation in Group A and B and 20 percent reservation in Group C and D to SC employees.

New Higher Education Council for state

In another move, the Cabinet approved the constitution of Punjab State Higher Education Council by bringing a Bill in Vidhan Sabha. The move is aimed at ensuring planned and coordinated development of Higher Education. The Higher Education Council headed by the Punjab Chief Minister will have the Higher Education Minister as its Vice-Chairman and the Administrative Secretary, Higher Education as Member Secretary.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Congress today expressed serious concern over India's defence preparedness, claiming the country was at its weakest under the Narendra Modi government due to its "wrong policies".

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari asked Prime Minister Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as to why the country's defence expenditure as a percentage of India's GDP is at its lowest since 1962, as pointed out by a parliamentary panel report.

He cited the reports of parliamentary committees on Public Undertakings and the Public Accounts Committee to target the government, saying the reports pointing out the shortcomings in the defence budgets and expediencies were adopted unanimously.

He said the committees have BJP members in majority and the panel on public enterprises is headed by former BJP chief Murli Manohar Joshi.

He recalled that in the run-up to 2014 general elections, Modi had questioned UPA's track record on defence preparedness and national security.

"In 2018, the track record of the NDA-BJP Government speaks for itself.

This country is perhaps, unfortunately, at its weakest because of the wrong policies which have been pursued by the NDA-BJP Government in both the foreign policy realm and in the realm of defence preparedness," he said.

The Congress leader asked why the defence expenditure as a percent of GDP constantly declined since 2014-15, as it was 2.06 pc in 2014-15 and came down to 1.96 pc in 2015-16.

It further came down to 1.5 pc in 2016-17 and down to 1.56 pc in 2017-18, which is below the pre-1962 level.

"The question to you Mr.

Prime Minister and Madam Defence Minister is - does this make India stronger or does this make India weaker? Tewari also questioned the decline in capital expenditure as a percentage of the defence budget from 39 pc to 34 pc in the last four years.

"Does this make India strong or does it make India weak? And the most important question is Mr Prime Minister and Madam Defence Minister has the Government junked the proposal cleared by the previous UPA Government with regard to the raising of the 17 Strike Corps which is also called the Mountain Strike Corp," he asked.

He said the country would like to know "if it is true, why it has been done and under whose pressure has this decision been taken".

The Congress leader alleged that the NDA Government which claims to be "muscular" on national security has dismantled Mountain Strike Corp, which was a counter force posture to China.

Tewari also expressed concern over the scenario in India's neighbourhood, with "Pakistan indemnified by China, Nepal pushed into the Chinese corner by ill-conceived economic blockade of Modi government, the Yameen Government in Maldives threatening India regularly and a Chinese port in Sri Lanka's Hambantota".

Pointing out that the entire water front of Colombo is being built by a Chinese company for about 1.

4 billion US dollars, he said, "the Chinese threat is real.

What is the Government of India doing, what was the response of the Government of India?" He said the parliamentary panel report has said that "the decrease in capital expenditure has an adverse impact on modernization process of defence forces and can compromise the safety and security of the nation.

" The Committee further held that it is "aghast to note this dismal scenario where the representatives of the services have themselves frankly explained the negative repercussions on defence preparedness due to inadequate allocation in the capital head".
By Express News Service

BHOPAL: Nearly two months after a seven-year-old girl was kidnapped and gang-raped by two men in Madhya Pradeshs Mandsaur district, a court handed death sentence to the duo on Tuesday.

This is the 13th case this year in Madhya Pradesh in which those convicted of sexual crimes against minors was awarded capital punishment. Additional District and Sessions judge Nisha Gupta held Bhaiyu alias Irfan, 20, and Asif Mewati, 24, guilty and gave capital punishment to the two convicts for the June 26 ghastly act.

The duo was booked for gang-rape, abduction and attempt to murder under the IPC sections, besides being booked under the provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. While Irfan was arrested on June 28, Asif was caught the next day.The charge sheet was filed on July 12, while the charges against the accused were framed in the court six days later. The actual trial started with the submission of evidence before the court from July 30. A total of 37 prosecution witnesses testified during eight days of trial.

Case that shook the country

The minor was lured by the two men when she was waiting for her parents, outside her school on June 26.

Irfan took her to a secluded place where she was raped and tortured.

Her throat was also slit. She, however, survived.

Doctors were shocked on seeing injuries.

The arguments were completed by both sides on August 14 and the verdict was reserved for its pronouncement on Tuesday, Mandsaur Superintendent of Police Manoj Kumar Singh told TNIE.The judge took into account the available evidence, including submissions of witnesses, the DNA report of the clothes and undergarments of Irfan, CCTV grabs and the statements of the rape survivor, to decide the case.

On June 26 evening, the Class III girl was kidnapped from near the gate of her school, while she was waiting for parents to return home. She was raped by the duo, who also tried to brutally murder her, but the minor survived miraculously. Later, the minor was found lying unconscious in Laxman Darwaja area. She was admitted to the MY Hospital in Indore, where timely surgery saved her life.

Mandsaur saw repeated protests with demonstrators forcing shutdown of markets, schools and colleges, and demanding that the accused be hanged at the earliest. Subsequently, the MP government had formed an SIT under DSP Rakesh Mohan Shukla to probe the case.
By PTI

HYDERABAD: Former Chief Election Commissioner T S Krishnamurthy has pitched for the second round of elections in constituencies where the winning margin is less than the NOTA option and the victorious candidate fails to muster one-third of votes.

He also expressed the view that India's first-past-the-post electoral system has outlived its utility.

"In my opinion, NOTA is very good; we should say if NOTA crosses certain percentage of votes; for example, if the difference between the winner and the loser is less than the NOTA votes, you can say we should have second-round of elections," Krishnamurthy told PTI.

A law needs to enacted to implement this measure, he said.

NOTA (None of the above) gives the voter a right not to vote for any candidate contesting from a particular seat.

More than 5.5 lakh voters -- or 1.8 per cent voters -- pressed the NOTA button on the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in the recent assembly elections in Gujarat, where the winning margin was less than NOTA in several constituencies.

NOTA's vote share in Gujarat elections was higher than that of any party other than the Congress and the BJP.

Krishnamurthy also said, "Another possibility is to say that the winner should poll more than 33.33 per cent or one-third of a total number of votes polled," a move which would make smaller political parties "disappear".

"There should be second-round (of elections) if NOTA is more (than the winning margin) or if a person fails to get 33.33 per cent (of the total votes polled)," he said.

Krishnamurthy said NOTA will eventually force political parties to field candidates known for their integrity, and those who are more popular in segments taking into account people's sentiments.
Avay Shukla By

Its time to accept that the debate about privacy is now just an academic exercise in futility. We have traded it in for the convenience and glamour of technology, and no amount of carping will restore it. Under public pressure, governments will no doubt make laws to try to protect it from corporate attacks; but the irony is that in this matter the interests of the state and the market converge, for reasons of security and profit, respectively. Forget about Aadhaar and biometricsthese are rudimentary prototypes of what the algorithms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have in store for us.

Take facial recognition: It provides many times the information that an identity card does, works at a distance without invading your privacy physically, and anyone with a camera and the required software will instantly know more about you than you yourself do. Facial recognition software already exists that can develop faceprints, which can then be algorithmised and with a reasonable degree of accuracy, predict our sexuality (homosexual or heterosexual), IQ level, personality, ailments or predisposition to gene-related disorders such as Down syndrome or depression.

And the frightening thing is that the more data AI crunches, the more proficient and accurate the algorithms become in detecting and correlating patterns, and in digging up more information. This machine learning improves geometrically the more data it has access to. Combined with online information about a person which already exists in various apps, it will soon be able to spot traits that will reveal your political views, consumer preferences and criminal tendencies. Even your Aadhaar number can be discovered by matching facial recognition with online information.

Businesses abroad are already using facial recognition technology to track you in stores, find out your shopping preferences and then target ads at you. They can similarly delve into your creditworthiness and soon, by simply looking at you, a bank manager would be able to assess whether you should be given a loan or not. By building up data banks over time, stores can instantly identify shoplifters, regular customers and troublemakers.

The state is not to be left behind in this race either. Faces in a crowd can be matched against data banks in a nanosecond to spot convicted criminals or wanted persons. There are even rumours about a smart bullet that is trained to home in on a particular face, just as cruise missiles are guided to a precise location by GPS and photographed data of the terrain. There are more positive uses of this wonder technology too, as in the field of healthcare. Research has shown that some genetic diseases leave typical physical imprints on faces or the shapes of skulls: AI algorithms are becoming proficient at diagnosing them through facial recognition. An American company has already developed an app called Face2Gene which does precisely this: it is used by doctors in 130 countries.

What is of particular concern, however, is how the state can use apparently innocuous online data about you for its own surveillance ends. Ostensibly harmless data about you on Facebook, WhatsApp, Tencent, Amazon and any of the other three million available apps can be collated by governments to build a 360-degree profile of you and use it for surveillance purposes. China has already progressed some way on this. It has started assigning social scores to citizens, using data generated by a person every time he shops online, takes a Uber cab, draws money from an ATM, orders in food, converses on social media or pays a pending utility bill.

A persons behaviour, as revealed by these transactions, will enable the government to build up a Social Credit Rating score for a citizen, which can then be used to reward or blacklist him. It has been reported that till May this year, using these scores, the Chinese government blocked 11.14 million people from boarding flights and 4.25 million from taking high-speed trains.

This type of information can be used in future by non-democratic regimes to deny employment, voting rights, purchase of properties and credit. And this becomes more pervasive over time: If you associate with people with low scores, your own social credit rating can be affected. In the near future, the state might be in a position to record and monitor a persons emotions or moods over various occasions, events and times, and thus find out whether you are patriotic and support the Great Leader, or are angry with the governments policies and rebellious. It is not hard to imagine to what use this intimate information will be put to. Over time, AI will become a tool of coercive control and will be used to discipline citizens to conform to standards set by the state.

The new mantra for invasionactually, takeover is a better wordof privacy is national security. Our own governments obsession with it is a matter of concern: The straws in the wind are not encouraging. It is significant that the new draft Privacy Bill proposed by the Srikrishna Commission has a clause which exempts the government from taking consent of the individual before accessing his personal information.

The government has also proposed a law which will make DNA profiling of every citizen mandatory and has now asked Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram to suggest how these services can be blocked in certain exigencies. This can be dangerous for individual liberty in a country where even a speech in a university or a cartoon in a newspaper or a gig by a stand-up comedian is charged as sedition. So, move over Aadhaar, the big boys have arrived.
Arun Bothra By

One of the worst-ever cases of rioting in London took place in 2011. After the death of Mark Duggan, a black man, in police firing, the city and nearby areas saw massive riots for five days. Other than the damage to property, a total of five deaths were reported during the riots. Within a week the police arrested 3,100 people. Courts were officially advised to ignore existing guidelines and deal with the criminals harshly. Judges sat for extra hours and in less than a year, 1,292 rioters were sent to jail with an average sentence of 16.8 months, totalling 1,800 years of imprisonment.

Cut to India. Our country has seen far worse including riots involving thousands of killings. Have we heard even a few hundred rioters getting punished in any instance? Even in cases where a few dozen Kanwariyas run amok in broad daylight in our capital, we tend to feel satisfied by booking one or two of them and forget about the rest in due course of time. It takes years and decades to even punish a few rioters. No wonder across India, people find it alright to turn into or join a mob and lynch others without any fear of the law.

In fact, as a sovereign nation, we began our journey amidst riots in August 1947. One estimate puts the toll during the Partition riots at one million human lives. But no one tells us who killed them and how many of the rioters were actually booked or punished. In last seven decades thousands of people have been killed in all parts of our country including New Delhi, but from Gujarat to Odisha

and Kashmir to Kerala, no mob has ever been sufficiently punished.

A lynch mob is beyond the law in our country. A person, who is with a crowd, can get away with anything. Even the most efficient officers invariably fail to punish a crowd. Some fail to rein in the mob crimes on streets during the frenzy. Most fail to bring the criminals to book after the crime. Almost all fail in getting them punished in the court of law. A crowd can get away with murders, rapes, arson, etc. It can even step on the toes of the otherwise high and mighty segments of our society like the bureaucracy, judiciary, press or legislature. The lynching of a district magistrate in Bihars Gopalganj, attacks on the office of a leading newspaper in Tamil Nadu or storming of courts in Ghaziabad and the Orissa State Assembly in Bhubaneswar are a few examples.

In case of mob crimes, democracy has overtaken the rule of law. Arguably, they are complementary to each other. But from the purpose of law and order, the former takes precedence. When confronted with crowd crimes, the Goddess of Justice also favourably considers the will of the mob. Democracy is, after all, of the people, by the people and for the people!

Anonymity is a big motivation for mobs to commit crimes with impunity. Some NGO, human rights group or political party will always argue that the crowd was innocent. The liberal democratic values perhaps call for an unconditional support to mobs, even to the murderous ones. If the police do not take action to control the mob violence, it is termed as ineffective; but if they do then they are branded as cruel and merciless. Due to this hounding of police by civil society, the use of force even against wild crowds is becoming rare. Police officers on the spot know that non-use of force may or may not invite trouble but with the use of force, they are doomed for certain. With human rights groups breathing down their necks, they find that allowing the mob its way is a safer proposition for them. In the bargain, the innocent people ultimately suffer and are left to be lynched.

The police response also depends on the crowd size. The possibility of punishment is inversely proportional to the crowd size. The bigger the crowd involved in a crime, lesser the possibility of punishment. There are provisions in the Indian Penal Code by which a crime committed by a member of an unlawful assembly is sufficient to punish all of them. However, for all the crimes committed by a crowd, not even a few are punished.

A lot of efforts are made to prevent and control riots, but unlike the London riots, very little attention is paid to post-riot efforts. After it is over, both people and police tend or pretend to forget the bitter memories of riots. But this convenient forgetting and forgiving ensure fresh and bigger trouble next time. The law enforcement may not draw lessons but trouble-mongers learn that they can go scot-free under the cover of anonymity.

What is the way out then? In an era of over-vigilant human rights groups, it may be difficult to use force to stop a crowd gone berserk. However, the use of non-lethal weapons, which incapacitate but do not kill, needs to be increased. Unfortunately, even now in most areas, policemen carry rifles when on law and order duties. One bullet from these weapons can kill even more than one, at times, and that too from a long distance.The use of force has obvious limitations. So it is more important to take away the advantage of anonymity.

The use of CCTV, videography and social media feeds were very helpful to the London Police in identifying and prosecuting the culprits. It is vital to make painstaking efforts after the riots to identify culprits and bring them to book. A lynch mob would desist only if we are able to make it a costly affair. At present, the state loses life and property, but crowds lose nothing. There is no need to shoot or hang rioters. The only thing necessary is that each one of them must be punished. It is not the severity, but the certainty of punishment that deters crime. This is truer in case of mob crimes.
Rashmi Belur By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: Over 30 private engineering colleges in the state have failed to attract a single student for the undergraduate engineering courses offered during the current academic year under Consortium of Medical Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK).

The process of admission to undergraduate engineering courses for the 2018-19 academic year has been concluded recently both by Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) and COMEDK. The data available from COMEDK shows that at least 62% of the total seats under COMEDK quota have been unfilled. Total seats available under COMEDK quota this year were 16,236, of which 10,175 seats remained vacant.

While many colleges failed to attract even a single student, some ended up with single digit admissions.

Post-admission data available from COMEDK shows that 33 colleges could not find a single student and 33 others got admissions in single digit. Only six colleges managed to fill 100% seats, while 10 others got 80 to 99% of seats filled.

According to COMEDK authorities and college managements, the trend of declining engineering admissions is not new. This has been observed from the last eight years, said Dr S Kumar, executive secretary, COMEDK. The condition of the colleges is mainly to blame for the changing trend. Students are smart these days, and they dont get fooled by advertisements and tall claims. It is time for engineering colleges in the state to rebuilt infrastructure and provide quality education, said an official of COMEDK.

Six colleges, which got 100 % admissions, share 1,349 seats among them and are among the top colleges in the state. Of the six, four are in Bengaluru and two in Mysuru.

Less demand for Civil, Mechanical branches

Computer Science stream, which was not in demand for the last three-four years, has again sidelined courses like Mechanical and Civil on the popularity list. This year, Computer Science seats got filled fast in comparison to previous years. The demand for Civil and Mechanical streams has gone down, said a COMEDK official.

Meanwhile, COMEDK is asking all its member institutions to get the accreditation done by a private agency. According to officials, it will help colleges to know their drawbacks and areas in which they need to improve.

The private accreditation company will charge `5 lakh per institute, and COMEDK is ready to pay 80% of the amount, said a COMEDK official.

KEA too failed to fill 21,000 seats

Not just COMEDK, over 21,000 engineering seats of the total 64,000 seats available via KEA counselling have also been left unfilled this academic year. This is over 2,000 seats more in comparison to the previous year.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, who returned to Bengaluru after spending two days touring flood-hit Kodagu, said that the process of rehabilitation will begin immediately. In an attempt to help people restart their lives, the Karnataka government will begin rehabilitation measures, including compensation, jobs, temporary shelters, distribution of groceries and planning for permanent housing for those rendered homeless in the monstrous rains.

Towards the first step of rehabilitation, the government will provide Rs 3,800 as interim relief to every family currently being sheltered at relief camps. Every family will also be given a standard supply of groceries including 10 kg of rice, 1 kg sugar, 1-litre palm oil, 1 kg toor dal and 5 litres of kerosene.

As rains have subsided in Dakshin Kannada, six relief camps have been shut down, he said. Apart from giving compensation, the government will build temporary aluminium sheds with all amenities for those who have lost their houses in the flood. Kodagu DC has been instructed to identify land on priority for long-term rehabilitation of displaced people. If the need be, the government will bear all expenses for building houses, he added.

Official reports have registered 13 deaths so far in rain-related incidents of which 12 are from Kodagu alone. Karnataka has sought Himachal Pradeshs expertise on handling the situation, apart from seeking the help of experts fromNational Geophysical Research Institute to conduct geo-technical studies in areas affected in landslides. The government has sought the armys engineering corp to help rebuild roads and restore connectivity. With a moto of Build Back Better, a group comprising experts from Geological Survey of India, National Institute of Rock Mechanics, Army Engineering Taskforce will be involved in restoring critical road infrastructure at the earliest.

The Karnataka government on Monday opened up the CMs relief fund for Natural Calamity 2018. All donations made to the fund will be 100% tax-free under 80 C.

Chief Minister announces
By Express News Service

KOCHI:The Union Government on Monday informed the Kerala High Court it has treated the flood situation in the state as a disaster of serious nature but there is no provision in statutes or manuals to declare a disaster as a national calamity.

The term national calamity is only an expression used in the general parlance, said an affidavit filed before the High Court by Assistant Solicitor General of India N Nagaresh.

No provision to declare Kerala floods as national calamity: Alphons Kannanthanam

There is no provision in statutes or manuals to declare a disaster as national calamity, howsoever big the disaster may be. The Central Government has treated the Kerala flood situation as a disaster of serious nature and has categorised the same as L3 level of disaster, under the National Disaster Management Guidelines.

The affidavit was filed in response to a petition lodged by A A Shibi, a native of Anachal in Idukki district, seeking a directive to the state government to effectively coordinate the rescue and relief operations with the Army, Navy and Air force to rescue persons stranded in flood-affected areas.

Legal Metrology Dept gets cracking

The Legal Metrology Department has formed squads to prevent traders from charging hefty price on packaged food products. The squads have been carrying out inspections since Saturday following complaints that traders are overcharging on packaged products.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: Clerics in Lucknow have called upon the Muslim community to donate at least 10 per cent of their budget, saved for Eid-ul-Azha, to the Kerala flood victims as zakat and to keep their festivities a low-key affair.

Naib imam of Aishbagh Eidgah and chairman of Indian Islamic Centre, Maulana Khalid Rasheed Farangi Mahali exhorted the community to spare 10 per cent of their Eid-ul-Azha budget for the cause of flood victims of Kerala.

"An important appeal: Donate at least 10% of your Eid-Ul-Azha budget to the Kerala Flood Relief Fund. The true message of Eid-ul-Azha is that we must develop a spirit of sacrifice in ourself so that whenever the humanity is in need of help, we all must come forward and help the mankind. This is the true message of Qurbani," Firangi Mahli wrote on his Facebook page.

"Bakrid is all about celebrating the spirit of sacrifice, and the people should realise this and restrict themselves from any kind of lavish extravagance."

Similarly, Shia cleric Maulana Yasoob Abbas also issued an appeal to the community for contributing as much as possible to help the flood victims. "Those who can afford to contribute are requested to please donate towards the Kerala Flood Relief Fund and extend a helping hand to the people there," he said, adding that Eid-Ul-Azha always gave the message of sacrifice.

Another Shia cleric Maulana Yasoob Abbas made a similar appeal.

"The festival of Eid-ul-Azha (Bakrid) has always been a festival of sacrifice, and the people should come forward and help their counterparts in Kerala in this hour of crisis."

With toll reaching 370, over seven lakh people in Kerala have been displaced by the most devastating floods of the century. Those displaced have taken refuge in 5,645 relief camps in the state.

In another appeal, Maulana Saif Abbas of Markazi Shia Chand Committee urged the community to celebrate Bakrid as a low key affair in the wake of the demise of former PM and five-time Lucknow MP Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The Maulana said owing to Vajpayee's departure, the nation was observing a seven-day mourning.

"In such a situation, the Muslims should do sacrifice and offer Namaz-e-wajib to mark Bakrid and try to be away from celebrations on Wednesday."
By PTI

VILLUPURAM: The gesture of a nine year-old girl from a town in Tamil Nadu to part with her savings of four years meant for a bicycle, for Kerala flood relief has moved a premier cycle manufacturer, who has now promised her to gift the cycle of her dreams.

Anupriya from Villupuram in the state has decided to give away about Rs 9000 of her savings, done over the last four years, after coming across TV visuals of the deluge in Kerala.

"I had saved money (of around Rs 9000) for over four years to buy a cycle.

But I saw visuals of Kerala flood on televisions and decided to give the money," toward relief activities, she told reporters here.

The girl lending the helping hand won her hearts and accolades, with Hero Cyles taking special note.

Hero Cycles, in it official Twitter account, appreciated her "gesture to support humanity" and said she would get a brand new cycle from them.

Dear Anupriya, We appreciate your gesture to support humanity in the hour of need. You would get a brand new cycle from us. Please DM your address or contact us at customer@herocycles.com. @PankajMMunjal  Hero Cycles (@Hero_Cycles) August 19, 2018

"Dear Anupriya, We appreciate your gesture to support humanity in the hour of need. You would get a brand new cycle from us. Pls DM your address or contact us at customer@herocycles.com.@PankajMMunjal," it said.

Chairman and Managing Director of Hero Motors Company, Pankaj M Munjal, hailed Anupriya as a "noble soul" and assured to give her "one bike every year of your life."

"Anupriya, pranam to you. You are a noble soul and wish you spread the good around.Hero is too pleased to give you one bike every year of your life. Pl share your contact on my account. Love you and best wishes. Prayers for Kerala," Munjal said in a tweet.

Congress MP from Kerala, Shashi Tharoor, welcomed the company's gesture.

"Thanks to HeroCycles for donating a bicycle to a 9-year-old girl who gave up all that she was saving for a cycle to help the victims of the #KeralaFloods," he said in a tweet.

The deadly monsoon rains in Kerala have claimed 210 lives since August 8 and has displaced over 7.14 lakh people from their homes.

Thanks to HeroCycles for donating a bicycle to a 9-year-old girl girl who gave up all that she was saving for a cycle to help the victims of the #KeralaFloods : https://t.co/lPflmVOUwK  Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 19, 2018

The Centre, various state governments and other entities including individuals have extended a helping hand to Kerala.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI : The commission, set up under the leadership of retired High Court judge Justice S R Singaravelu to find out the truth behind the death of Dalit youth Ilavarasan, whose marriage with a caste Hindu girl sparked clashes in Dharmapuri district a little more than five years ago, submitted his report after a span of five years. Justice Singaravelu handed over the report to Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Monday, official sources said.

The commission was constituted in July 2013, to inquire into the death of Ilavarasan, the Dalit boy, who was found dead near a railway track in Dharmapuri on July 4, 2013, a day after his wife Divya belonging to the Vanniar community said she would not return to him.

The police claimed that he committed suicide but the claim was contested by several organisations including Dalit outfits. They cried foul over the death of the boy and demanded an impartial inquiry.

Ilavarasans marriage with Divya triggered violence in Dharmapuri district and several Dalit huts in three villages - Natham, Kondampatti and Anna Nagar - were torched by Vanniars, following the suicide of the girls father.
By Express News Service

ASIFABAD: Another pregnant woman belonging to Yelkapalli village in Kumrambheem district died on way to the hospital as the Bejjur primary health centre did not have the required facilities to handle her case.

According to sources, the woman Farzana Begum was taken to Bejjur PHC after she developed labour pains at around 7.30 am on Monday. The woman was bleeding profusely. The nurse could not handle the high-risk case and due to lack of blood bank in Bejjur, she was referred to Sirpur T community health centre, which is 55 km from Bejjur. She breathed her last before reaching Sirpur T.

Farzana had her check-up on August 13 where it was found that her haemoglobin percentage was as low as 9 gms. With staffers of 108 Ambulance service on strike, the woman was taken in an auto to the PHC.

This is a second such incident in less than a week. Saritha, a nine-month-old pregnant woman of this mandal, had died while being rushed to Mancherial government hospital on Saturday.

Speaking to Express DMHO GC Subbarayuddu said since there is blood bank in the district, patients have to go to Mancherial government hospital.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday directed the officials to send 500 tonnes of rice to flood-hit Kerala. Reacting to a request from Kerala government, the Chief Minister discussed with Civil Supplies Minister E Rajender, who in turn asked Civil Supplies Commissioner Akun Sabharwal to make arrangements to send 500 tonnes of rice, worth `1 crore, immediately. The rice will be sent by road, in 30 trucks, on August 22 from Hyderabad to Ernakulam.

Earlier in the day, Animal Husbandry Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav flagged off a vehicle carrying 100 tonnes of cattle feed and 1.25 lakh doses of veterinary vaccines to Kerala. The poultry federation has donated `20 lakh. The State had already donated `25 crore financial help apart from reverse osmosis plants, 20 tonnes of milk powder and 100 tonnes of Balamrutham to Kerala. Panchayat Raj Minister Jupally Krishna Rao has donated one month salary towards relief in Kerala. In order to help Kerala, Telangana Legislative Council chairman V Swamy Goud is holding a meeting with MLCs on Wednesday at 1 pm at his chambers on the Council premises. All the TRS MLCs should attend the meeting, chief whip in the Council Paturi Sudhakar Reddy said in a release here on Monday.

Kerala CM thanks KCR

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan thanked the Telangana State government for donating `25 crore for flood relief operations in Kerala. Pinarayi Vijayan wrote a letter to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday. I would like to express my gratitude on behalf of the people of Kerala for your kind gesture in contributing `25 crore for the relief and rehabilitation in flood-affected areas in Kerala.

IAS officers donate 1-day pay

Telangana State IAS Officers Association has decided to contribute at least one-day salary of the serving IAS officers to Chief Minister Relief Fund of Kerala as a contribution towards the rescue and rehabilitation work in flood-hit Kerala. The IPS officers association of TS have also decided to contribute one-day salary for the cause.
By AFP

Germany on Tuesday took in a 95-year-old former guard at a Nazi labour camp where more than 6,000 people were killed after he was stripped of his US citizenship.

The German foreign ministry said it had agreed to accept the former Ukraine national Jakiw Palij after his expulsion from the United States late Monday, citing Berlin's "moral duty" in light of the Nazis' crimes.

Jakiw Palij, former Nazi concentration camp guard, lives in the Queens borough of New York. (Photo | AP)

"The United States had repeatedly pressed for Germany to take in Palij," the ministry said. Berlin, however, had long resisted because he was not a German citizen.

"The US administration, senators, members of Congress and representatives of the Jewish community in the United States stress that people who served the rogue Nazi regime should not be able to live out their twilight years in peace in their country of choice, the United States," the ministry added.

Palij illegally concealed his Nazi past from US immigration agents when he moved to the United States in 1949, the US Justice Department said. He became American in 1957.

No US 'safe haven'

The White House said in a statement that President Donald Trump had "prioritised" the removal of Palij "to protect the promise of freedom for Holocaust survivors and their families".

"Palij's removal sends a strong message: The United States will not tolerate those who facilitated Nazi crimes and other human rights violations, and they will not find a safe haven on American soil," it said.

The home of former Nazi concentration camp guard Jakiw Palij, in the Jackson Heights neighbourhood of the Queens borough of New York. (Photo | AP)

German media reports said Palij arrived early Tuesday at Duesseldorf airport and was to be taken to an elder care home.

The daily Bild said that German prosecutors had opened a criminal investigation against Palij in 2015 but closed the case for lack of evidence.

Although Germany has put several aged former Nazi guards on trial in recent years for crimes committed during the Holocaust, the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said it was unlikely Palij would be prosecuted.

Washington had tried for nearly two decades to expel Palij, who had lived in Queens, New York since 1949.

Palij, who was born in what was then Poland and is now Ukraine, admitted to federal officials in 2001 that he was trained as a Nazi guard in spring 1943, the Justice Department said.

A federal judge revoked Pajil's US citizenship in August 2003 and a year later, a US immigration judge ordered his deportation to Ukraine for working at the Trawniki forced-labour camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

'A single nightmarish day'

In court documents, the US government said men who trained at Trawniki participated in implementing the Third Reich's plan to murder Jews in Poland, code-named "Operation Reinhard".

On November 3, 1943, more than 6,000 men, women and children imprisoned at Trawniki were shot to death in one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust.

This 1942 photo shows Heinrich Himmler, centre left, shaking hands with new guard recruits at the Trawniki concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. (File photo | AP)

"During a single nightmarish day in November 1943, all of the more than 6,000 prisoners of the Nazi camp that Jakiw Palij had guarded were systematically butchered," Eli Rosenbaum, then director of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, said at the time.

"By helping to prevent the escape of these prisoners, Palij played an indispensable role in ensuring that they met their tragic fate at the hands of the Nazis."

The US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who has clashed repeatedly with Berlin officials over transatlantic policy differences since his arrival in May, welcomed Palij's arrival.

"The decision to allow Palij to return to Germany was because of the political will and strong commitment of several members of the Chancellor (Angela Merkel)'s team," the embassy said in a statement.

"We are grateful to them for helping bring another step towards closure for the victims of the Holocaust and their families."
By AFP

SUGIAN: Indonesian aid agencies and government officials rushed Tuesday to help survivors after another series of powerful quakes rattled Lombok island, killing at least 13 people with hundreds of thousands left homeless by the multiple disasters.

The picturesque island next to holiday hotspot Bali was hit by two deadly quakes on July 29 and August 5. On Sunday, it was shaken again by a string of fresh tremors and aftershocks, with the strongest measuring 6.9 magnitude.

At least 13 people were killed on Sunday, mostly by falling debris, according to the national disaster agency.

ALSO READ | Indonesia Earthquake: Lombok lifted 10 inches by deadly earthquake that killed nearly 400

Drone footage from the village of Sugian, on the hard-hit eastern part of Lombok, showed streets lined with rubble, caved-in roofs and a collapsed mosque.

(Photo | AP)

Aid organisations have vowed to boost humanitarian assistance on the island as devastated residents struggle in makeshift displacement camps.

"We are focussing on the basics, provision of shelter materials -- tarpaulins, shelter kits, hygiene kits," said Tom Howells from Save the Children.

"We have shipped enough for about 20,000 people over the past two weeks," he told AFP.

Indonesia's disaster agency said it was also accelerating efforts to rebuild destroyed homes, hospitals and schools.

ALSO READ | Five dead as multiple earthquakes rock Indonesia's Lombok island

However, relief agencies fret that access to food, shelter and clean water is insufficient for some of the more than 430,000 displaced by the disaster.

"There has been damage to the water infrastructure which is already quite poor in Lombok due to a lack of ground supply and drought conditions," Howells said.

Tens of thousands of homes, mosques and businesses across Lombok had already been destroyed by the 6.9-magnitude quake on August 5 that killed at least 481 people.

IN PICTURES | Indonesia: Earthquakes across Lombok Island kills hundreds, render thousands homeless

A week before that quake, a tremor surged through the island and killed 17.

Most people caught in the latest tremor had been outside their homes or at shelters when it struck which limited casualties, authorities have said.

Rebuilding costs are estimated to top seven trillion rupiah ($480 million).

However, the disaster agency said Tuesday that the quakes would not be labelled a national emergency, which would unlock the central government's four trillion-rupiah disaster relief fund.

Motorists ride past a road torn apart by Sunday's earthquake in Gangga, Lombok Island. (Photo | AP)

While the idea was gaining support in some quarters, the agency's spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said it would "show weakness" from a country regularly hit by natural disasters.

"We want to show the world that we are capable in handling the quakes -- we are strong in responding to disasters," he told reporters in Jakarta.

Indonesia sits on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire", where tectonic plates collide and many of the world's volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.

The Australian and Eurasian plates, which sit under the archipelago, have been colliding and putting stress on key area fault lines, according geologists.
By Reuters

DUBAI: Bahrain's interior ministry said on Tuesday that it would stop issuing new visas to Qatari nationals, escalating measures against Qatar more than a year into a diplomatic row.

The statement, carried on state news agency BNA, said Qatari students studying in the kingdom and other Qatari citizens with existing visas would not be affected.

It also said the move came in response "hostile acts" by Qatari authorities.

It did not elaborate.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut diplomatic, transport and trade ties with Qatar in June 2017, accusing it of financing terrorism.

Doha denies that and says the boycott is an attempt to rein in its support for reform.

In October, Bahrain said it would impose entry visas on Qatari nationals as a security measure.

Citizens from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council countries are otherwise supposed to be able to travel within the GCC carrying only an identity card.
By Reuters

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration on Tuesday proposed replacing the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of former President Barack Obama's regulatory efforts to combat climate change.

The proposal released by the Environment Protection Agency is now open for a public comment period.

A final EPA rule is expected later this year.

The effort to re-write the plan is the latest move by the EPA under President Donald Trump, a Republican, to roll back environmental protections put in place by Obama, Trump's Democratic predecessor.

EPA's proposal would grant states the ability to write their own weaker regulations for the plants and give them the ability to seek permission to opt out of regulations on power plant emissions.

Trump, who is scheduled to hold a rally on Tuesday in West Virginia, a top coal-producing state, has vowed to end what he has called "the war on coal" and boost domestic fossil fuels production.

The power plan, which was finalized by the EPA under Obama in 2015, sought to reduce emissions from power plants to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 but never took effect.

The Supreme Court put the brakes on it in 2016 after energy-producing states sued the EPA, saying it had exceeded its legal reach.
By PTI

LONDON: Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's key aide, Jabir Moti, appeared in a London court today for his bail hearing on money laundering charges during which the judge turned down his counsel's request to ban the media from the hearing.

During today's hearing, Moti's counsel requested the judge to ban the media from the court over safety concerns due to "reports appearing in the Indian media".

Judge Coleman, hearing the case at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, turned down his request.

"We have open justice in this country," the judge said, adding that she may consider allowing Moti to not to have his UK address aired in open court.

Moti, who had been arrested by Scotland Yard's Extradition Unit on Friday on suspicion of conspiracy to commit blackmail, import illegal drugs and money laundering in the US, appeared in the docks wearing jeans and T-shirt.

He was represented in court by his defence attorney Toby Cadman, from the law firm Guernica, who raised some issues with the charges listed in the provisional warrant and those is a "diplomatic note" seeking his extradition to the US.

The court was told that the "criminality is vague" as the warrant and the diplomatic note have some differences and should be deemed invalid.

"This is just a provisional warrant, which allows for 65 days to present the paperwork to back up the charges," the judge said, allowing for the hearing to go ahead.

The hearing, which was to begin this morning, was adjourned for post-lunch as the judge decided that any "inconsistencies" between the provisional warrant and the diplomatic note can be dealt with over the 65-day period available for extradition matters.

Moti, referred to as Jabir Motiwala in the Metropolitan Police warrant, is believed to be the right-hand man of Dawood, managing his investments in the UK, the UAE and around the world.

The Pakistani national, reportedly in the UK on a 10-year visa, has been described as the financial manager of Dawood, the key accused in the Mumbai serial bomb blasts in 1993.

His extradition to the US is being sought in relation to an allegation of "conspiracy to commit blackmail, import class A drugs and money laundering", the Met Police said after his arrest from a hotel in the Paddington area on August 17.

Dawood remains on the UK government's recently-updated financial sanctions list.

Financial sanctions in force in the UK could apply to individuals, entities and governments who may be resident in the UK or abroad.

The measures include prohibiting the transfer of funds to a sanctioned country and freezing the assets of a government, the corporate entities and residents of the target country to targeted asset freezes on individuals or entities.

The UK Treasury department's 'Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets in the UK', updated on August 16, records Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar as the only "Indian" on its annually updated asset freeze list.
By Associated Press

DENVER: The father of two young girls found submerged in oil tanks after being missing for days told authorities his pregnant wife killed the children after learning he wanted a separation, and that he erupted in rage after witnessing the killings and strangled their mother inside the family's suburban Denver home, according to court documents.

Days after letting police inside his home so they could help find his missing family, Christopher Watts told investigators "he would tell the truth."

Watts first asked to speak with his father then admitted to killing his wife, Shannan. Watts told police in court papers released Monday that he killed her after witnessing her strangling one of the girls on a baby monitor. The other child had already been killed by the woman, he said.

Frank Rzucek Sr. speaks during a news conference at the Weld County Courthouse, Monday, Aug. 20, 2018, in Greeley, Colo., in regards to the charges brought against his son-in-law Chris Watts, who has been charged with murder in the deaths of his wife and their two young daughters. (Photo | AP)

Watts, 33, faces three first-degree murder charges, two counts of murdering a child under 12, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body. He is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday and is being held without bail.

District Attorney Michael Rourke declined to answer questions about the case Monday but said his office has three prosecutors working on it. Rourke also said it was too early to discuss whether he will seek the death penalty.

Police first visited the family's house on Aug. 13, after a friend asked officers to check on Shanann Watts. She had missed a doctor's appointment and wasn't answering calls or text messages hours after returning home after a business trip, the friend reported.

With Christopher Watts' approval, police searched the house and found his wife's cellphone stuffed inside a couch. Her purse was on a kitchen island and a suitcase was at the bottom of the stairs.

A detective spoke to Christopher Watts and learned about his separation plans. Watts first described the conversation with Shannan as civil but later told police that "they were both upset and crying" and she planned to go to a friend's house that day, the court papers said.

When Shanann Watts and the girls did not return home by Tuesday morning, investigators ramped up their efforts with the help of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Christopher Watts was interviewed by several local television stations, asking for the return of his family and discussing how much he missed spending time with his children.

It wasn't until Wednesday night that he made his promise to tell police the truth.

According to Watts' account, the early hours of Aug. 13 began with an intense conversation. He said he told his wife that he wanted a separation. Separately in the papers released Monday, investigators said they learned that Watts was "actively involved in an affair with a co-worker," something he denied in earlier conversations with police.

Watts told police that after discussing the separation he walked downstairs.

When he returned, he told them he spotted a baby monitor on his wife's nightstand  displaying her "actively strangling" their 3-year-old daughter, Celeste. He said the video feed also showed their other daughter, 4-year-old Bella, "sprawled out on her bed and blue."

"Chris said he went into a rage and ultimately strangled Shanann to death," the document said.

Police found surveillance video from a neighbor showing Watts' truck backing into the driveway at 5:27 a.m. and shortly after driving away from the house in Frederick, a small town on the grassy plains north of Denver where fast-growing subdivisions like the one the Watts family lived in intermingle with drilling rigs and oil wells.

Watts, an operator with Anadarko Petroleum, said he loaded his wife and daughters' bodies into the back seat of his truck and drove to an oil work site about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of the family's home. There, he buried Shanann Watts' body and "dumped the girls inside" oil tanks, according to the court document.

Separate court documents filed by Watts' defense attorney last week said the girls' bodies were submerged in crude oil for four days before police found the remains late Thursday. Their mother's body was found nearby, in a shallow grave, according to prosecutors.

Anadarko, one of Colorado's largest oil and gas drillers, has since fired Watts.

The court filing says Watts gave police an aerial photograph of the area and identified three areas where he placed the bodies. Investigators used a drone to search the area and spotted a bed sheet that matched other linens in the family home, along with fresh dirt.

Shanann Watts' social media social media posts show the girls playing with their father and each other. The couple married in North Carolina nearly six years ago, and moved to Colorado soon after.

Shanann's father, Frank Rzucek, spoke to reporters for the first time on Monday. In a statement, he thanked police for their efforts, along with friends and neighbors who organized a candlelight vigil outside the family's home last week.

"Keep the prayers coming for our family," Rzucek said.
By PTI

DHAKA: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today accused her predecessor Khaleda Zia and her "fugitive" son Tarique Rahman of being directly involved in the 2004 grenade attack on an Awami League rally in which 24 people were killed and she narrowly escaped.

Her comments came as the belated and protracted trial of the attack neared completion.

"There is no doubt that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Khaleda Zia (the then prime minister) and her son (Tarique Rahman) were directly involved in the gruesome grenade attack on the Awami League rally," she said commemorating the 14th anniversary of the assault here.

While Zia is currently serving a jail term in a corruption case, Rahman is residing in the UK under political asylum.

On August 24, 2004, militants lobbed 13 grenades on a peaceful rally of the Awami League (AL) in front of its Bangabandhu Avenue central office here.

Twenty-four leaders and workers of AL and its associate bodies, including wife of late president Zillur Rahman, were killed and over 500 others suffered splinter injuries in the attack and many of them became crippled for life.

Former Bangladesh PM Khaleda Zia (File | AP)

Though Hasina narrowly escaped the attack, she lost her hearing ability due to the impact of the repeated grenade blasts near the truck-dais of the huge public rally.

Hasina claimed ahead of the attack, Zia had said that Awami will not be able to come to power in 100 years and that she would never be the prime minister or even the Leader of the Opposition in future.

In Bangladeshi media, Zia, 72, and Hasina, 70, are known as the 'Battling Begums' for their bitter rivalry going on for nearly four decades.

Prosecutors said the evidence and testimonies of key accused and crucial witnesses, including the then Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) chief gradually unfolded the plot.

Retired major general Sadik Hassan Rumi, former DGFI chief, earlier appeared as a crucial prosecution witness in the court and said perpetrators of the attack targeting the incumbent premier were protected under higher political authority's directives.

"I was asked not to catch them (culprits)... There was no dearth of efforts on my part to unearth the plot but I was repeatedly obstructed," Rumi told the court as the belated trial of several high-profile suspects of the attack was underway.

Rumi claimed the ex-premier appeared annoyed and rebuked him when he wanted to talk to her on the attack issue and subsequent investigations.

"From where did you gather the ridiculous information... what is your headache if Tajuddin (a key suspect) goes to Pakistan or anywhere else?" Rumi recalled Zia as telling him, confirming a report that the ex-premier herself had ordered the safe passage of his son abroad.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the chief of the banned Harkatul Jihad (HuJI) militant outfit and a key accused in case, in his confessional statement before the trial court had given a detailed description of how the plot was orchestrated and his outfit was entrusted with the task to kill Hasina and other front-ranking AL leaders.

Hannan along with his two associates were executed last year for a separate attack in 2004 on a shrine that killed three people and wounded the then British high commissioner Anwar Chowdhury.

In his statement Hannan had said Rahman was directly involved in the attack along with the then junior home minister Lutfozzaman Babar and deputy education minister Abdus Salam Pintu.

"Tarique Zia (Rahman) assured us of giving all kinds of cooperation... then we held a series of secret meetings at several places, including Mohammadpur, to kill Sheikh Hasina and Awami League leaders," Hannan had deposed before a magistrate in his confessional statement.

Three former police chiefs and some military officials who were posted at DGFI at that time are among 17 people facing trial in the case.
By Associated Press

SEOUL: A mother wails as she embraces a son she hasn't seen since the 1950-53 Korean War. A woman weeps as she greets a grandfather she never got to know.

The scenes of Koreans meeting this week, likely for the last time before they die, are heartbreaking, but they often bely a highly political and tightly controlled event in which participants often struggle to have genuine conversations.

Much of the awkwardness centers on the defining fact of the Korean Peninsula: For decades it has been divided between the authoritarian North, originally backed by the Soviet Union and then, during the war, communist China, and the U.S.-backed capitalist South. Citizens from both nations, especially the elderly who remember the bitterness and bloodshed of the war, often wear their nationalism on their sleeves, and some South Koreans have complained that their relatives take every chance to score propaganda points for their authoritarian nation.

South Korean Lee Keum- seom , 92, left, meets with his North Korean son Ri Sang Chol, 71, during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea.

(Photo | AP)



About 200 South Koreans and their family members crossed the border on Monday for three days of meetings with their North Korean relatives. The relatives have been given a total of 12 hours together, including three hours in private. Another 337 South Koreans and accompanying family members will participate in a second round of reunions from Friday to Sunday.

After the initial tears at North Korea's Diamond Mountain resort, Cha Jae-geun, an 84-year-old South Korean, and his 50-year-old North Korean nephew began an awkward exchange Monday over international politics surrounding the Korean Peninsula and the origins of the war that split their family apart and killed and injured millions.

The Koreas should "drive the American bastards out," Cha Song Il, the nephew, said, according to South Korean pool reports. He accused the United States of being unfaithful to the commitments of a June summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, in which they expressed an aspirational goal for a nuclear-free peninsula without describing when or how it would occur.

The elder Cha reminded his nephew that it was North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader, who triggered the war by ordering a sneak attack on the South in June 1950.

"That's a lie," the nephew replied, waving both hands. "The Korean War was something the Americans did. "We fought against (our enemies) with our own strength."

North Koreans arrive to meet their South Korean family members during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven't seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Photo | AP)

Cha Jae-geun smiled and quickly changed the subject, as South Korean officials urge their reunion participants to do if politics come up. South Korea's government instructs participants not to criticize the North's leadership and economy during the reunions.

Some North Korean participants, who are reportedly chosen for the reunions based on their loyalty to their authoritarian rulers, were eager to show their government commendations to their South Korean relatives. In at least once case, this resulted in another awkward exchange.

Ju Yong Ae, a 52-year-old North Korean who came to meet her 86-year-old South Korean aunt, steadfastly refused when a South Korean official who had come to the North to help manage the meeting repeatedly asked her to put her "Kim Il Sung commendation," a public service medal, below the table.

"How can you put down our supreme dignity?" Ju asked.

A North Korean official intervened, telling the South Korean official, "She's just trying to show it to her family; leave her alone."

After sleeping separately Monday night, the relatives had private meetings at hotel rooms on Tuesday morning before meeting again in group sessions later in the day. Tuesday's exchanges were less emotional and more amicable than Monday's.

"Isn't my younger sister pretty?" 88-year-old South Korean Kim Byung-oh said of his 81-year-old sister from North Korea, Kim Sun Ok. He smiled and fed his sister a snack bar.

During their first encounter Monday, Kim Sun Ok wiped away her tears when she said, "Let's live together even at least one minute after unification before we die."

South Korean participants at past reunions have complained that the heavy monitoring presence of North Korean officials and intense media coverage made genuine conversations difficult or impossible.

The North sees the reunions as a crucial tool to win concessions from the South, but it has rejected the South's demands to increase the number of reunions and the people participating in them.

South Korean Park Gab-il, 79, second from left, takes pictures with his North Korean relatives during a separated family reunion meeting at the Diamond Mountain resort in North Korea. (Photo | AP)

The North also ignores the South's proposals for letter exchanges and hometown visits, something currently banned. Pyongyang doesn't want the reunions expanded because it fears they would give citizens a better awareness of the outside word and weaken its grip on power, analysts say.

The North uses the reunions for propaganda purposes, carefully choosing participants based on loyalty and instructing them to praise the authoritarian leadership during the meetings. But Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University, said it could become harder for the North to maintain previous levels of control because the participants are so old now that it's harder to train them to do what the government wants.

Nearly 20,000 people have participated in 20 rounds of face-to-face reunions held between the countries since 2000. No one has had a second chance to see their relatives. Past participants express frustration and anger that their final conversations with North Korean relatives included so little genuine conversation.

Hong Yong-gee, who went with his mother for a 2015 reunion at Diamond Mountain and met his three North Korean aunts, said Tuesday that it seemed his North Korean relatives were working off a script.

"They praised the leadership of Kim Jong Un and life in North Korea so frequently that any genuine conversation became impossible," Hong said. "It was difficult for my mother and aunts to talk freely when several North Korean officials stationed themselves so close to our table, listening in to whatever we were saying."

Choi Ho-seok, 83, also said that his 76-year-old sister kept praising the North's government when they met in 2015 under the watchful eyes of North Korean officials.

"There were things closer to our hearts that we couldn't talk about because we were being watched closely at all times," he said. "It would be painful if that's the last time I get to see her."
By AFP

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has denounced his own country's health services, state media reported Tuesday, criticising officials for being "very idle and irresponsible".

Impoverished and isolated North Korea, which is subject to multiple sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its pursuit of nuclear weapons, suffers from chronic food shortages and inadequate health services according to international aid agencies.

Hospitals lack medicines, equipment, and trained staff.

While Pyongyang regularly proclaims its desire to provide its people with a better life, Kim roundly condemned its health system on a visit to a medical devices factory.

Some sectors "have made remarkable leaps forward in recent years" Kim said according to the official Korean Central News Agency, "but the public health sector has never done so and become more and more passive".

"There is no unit keeping its environment well in the public health sector, to say nothing of equipment modernisation," he added at the Myohyangsan Medical Appliances Factory.

Such "field guidance" visits by the leader are the mainstay of the North's state media output, and a key part of the authorities' domestic messaging, sometimes lauding the quality of projects and sometimes criticising officials.

The ruling Workers' Party had stressed the need to improve health services, but "officials are very idle and irresponsible in doing so", Kim said according to KCNA.

In the Korean-language version, he berated them for "hibernating for a long time", adding: "Animals only hibernate once a year but the health sector has been holed up and hibernating for years and shouting empty slogans."

Since his summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June, Kim has stressed a focus on economic development, visiting industrial sites and factories across the nation.

In this year's "needs and priorities" assessment of North Korea, the UN Development Programme described its healthcare services as "inadequate", with a "lack of essential medical equipment, pharmaceutical remedies, appropriate referral systems, therapeutic equipment and assistive devices, as well as limited professional capacity".

"Furthermore, health infrastructure is poor with many [facilities] having inconsistent water, electricity and heating," it added.

North Korea has called for an end to sanctions against it, while the US has urged the international community to maintain a tough approach until its complete denuclearisation.

Following several ballistic missile launches and by far the North's most powerful nuclear test last year, Kim declared the development of its atomic capabilities complete and said economic development was the new priority.
By UNI

WASHINGTON: U.S.President Donald Trump said on Monday he would "most likely" meet again with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, while defending his efforts to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

In an interview with Reuters, Trump, who held a landmark summit with Kim on June 12, said he believed North Korea had taken specific steps toward denuclearization, despite widespread doubts about Kim's willingness to abandon his arsenal.

While insisting that "a lot of good things are happening" with North Korea, Trump complained that China was not helping as much as it had in the past because of its trade dispute with the United States.

Trump, who faced the North Korean challenge as soon as he took office in January 2017, said he had only been working on the North Korean issue for three months whereas his predecessors had been working on it for 30 years.

"I stopped (North Korea's) nuclear testing. I stopped (North Korea's) missile testing. Japan is thrilled.

What's going to happen? Who knows? We're going to see," he said.

At their summit in Singapore, Kim agreed in broad terms to work toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula but North Korea has given no indication it is willing to give up its weapons unilaterally as the Trump administration has demanded.

Trump has hailed the Singapore summit as a success and went as far as saying North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat.

South Korea's presidential Blue House said on Tuesday Trump's mention of the possibility of another summit with Kim could be a sign of progress in their relations.

"We think it is part of a process for achieving the two leaders' resolve for the denuclearisation and peace of the Korean peninsula," spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told reporters.

Kim Jong Un and South Korea's President Moon Jae-in agreed at their summit in April to push to declare an official end to the 1950-53 Korean War together with the United States.

Seoul officials see the U.N.General Assembly in New York next month as a desirable venue for the declaration but said they are flexible about its formality.

"We hope that North Korea-U.S. relations would make rapid progress and bear fruit," the spokesman Kim said.

The Washington-based think tank 38 North reported last month that satellite images indicated North Korea had begun dismantling key facilities at a site used to develop engines for ballistic missiles, in a first step toward fulfilling a pledge U.S. officials say he made to Trump at the summit.

However, several members of the U.S. negotiating team, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they had seen no progress toward denuclearization and no sign that North Korea was prepared to negotiate seriously until the United States promised relief from sanctions in return.

Last month Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a Senate committee hearing that North Korea was continuing to produce fuel for nuclear bombs, and a U.S. official said U.S. spy satellites detected renewed activity at the North Korean factory that produced missiles capable of reaching the United States.

In the interview, Trump credited his "great chemistry" with Kim for easing a nuclear standoff that last year raised fears of a new Korean war.

"I like him. He likes me," he said.

"There are no ballistic missiles going up, there's a lot of silence. I have very good personal relations with Chairman Kim, and I think that's what holds it together.

" Asked whether another meeting with Kim was on the horizon, Trump said: "It's most likely we will, but I just don't want to comment.

" But he offered no details on the timing or venue.

Critics say Trump made too many concessions to Kim by agreeing to hold the summit in the first place and then suspending joint U.S. -South Korea military drills while gaining little in return.

Asked whether North Korea had taken specific steps to denuclearize other than blowing up its main nuclear bomb test site ahead of the summit, Trump: "I do believe they have.

" But he did not elaborate. He also pointed to North Korea's pre-summit handover of three American detainees.
By AFP

MOSCOW: Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov on Tuesday entered day 100 of his hunger strike, as he languishes in a Russian Arctic prison on terror charges with little hope of release.

The 42-year-old Kremlin opponent announced the hunger strike in May, demanding the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners being held in Russia.

But Russian authorities are reluctant to free him or his countrymen, despite a dramatic decline in his health and pressure from the West.

Sentsov's cousin told AFP in an interview last week that Sentsov was "losing hope" and had said in a recent letter he felt the "end is near".

"In his letter, he wrote to me that we mustn't tell him any more that freedom is coming. He doesn't believe it any more," Natalia Kaplan said.

People hold posters to support Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who is currently on hunger strike in a Russian jail to demand the release of the other Ukrainian hostages taken by the Kremlin, in front of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Kiev, Ukraine.

(Photo | AP)

"He has a very weak heartbeat of 40 beats per minute. He complains that his heart hurts, that he's weak, and he tries not to get up too often to preserve his strength," she said.

Kaplan was among several dozen people demonstrating in front of the Russian embassy in Kiev Tuesday in support of Sentsov.

"Oleg is hanging in there... he is not broken," she told protestors, some of whom were carrying signs that read "Free Sentsov" and "Stop Putin".

Ukrainian foreign ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa meanwhile called for the immediate release of the prisoner.

"We call on our partners and international organisations to increase pressure on Russia to #SaveOlegSentsov and free Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia," she wrote on Twitter.

The father of two is receiving supplements in a drip usually meant for people unable to eat.

Sentsov was convicted of planning arson attacks on pro-Moscow party offices in Crimea after Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

He had also taken part in the Maidan protests in Kiev during the winter of 2013-2014 that culminated in Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovych fleeing the country.

Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for terrorism and arms trafficking after a trial denounced as "Stalinist" by Amnesty International and criticised by Kiev, the EU and the US.

Journalist and activist Zoya Svetova said Sentsov had no plans to end his hunger strike, after she visited him in his strict-regime penal colony in the Russian north last week.

Svetova said the prisoner told her he had lost 17 kilograms (38 pounds) as a result of the protest, while prison medics said he had lost 11.

Diplomatic, Hollywood pressure

Sentsov was working on his second film when he was arrested. His first film "Gamer" is about a young video game player, and was shown at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2012 as well as several other European festivals.

G7 ambassadors as well as major figures from the world of cinema, from director Jean-Luc Godard to Hollywood star Johnny Depp, have called for Sentsov's release.

This month French President Emmanuel Macron raised the issue with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, discussing the need to find "an urgent humanitarian solution" in Sentsov's case.

Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko discussed a possible prisoner exchange during a phone conversation this summer, but no concrete agreements have been reached.

(Photo | Twitter)

The Kremlin has so far remained unresponsive to requests for his release, saying that a request for a pardon can only be filed by the prisoner himself, which Sentsov has refused to do.

Russian prison authorities said this month that members of a public monitoring commission had visited the filmmaker, who "had not complained about anything" during their conversation.

In a rare public intervention on the subject in early June, Putin showed little sympathy towards Sentsov's plight.

Sentsov was arrested because "he was planning a terrorist attack" rather than because of opposition or artistic activities, the Russian president said.
By AFP

TEHRAN: The US has an "addiction to sanctions", Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said.

"I believe there is a disease in the United States and that is the addiction to sanctions," Zarif told CNN.

"Even during the Obama administration the United States put more emphasis on keeping the sanctions it had not lifted rather than implementing its obligation on the sanctions it lifted."

It was Zarif's first interview with Western media since US President Donald Trump walked out of the 2015 nuclear deal in May, leading Washington to reimpose sanctions earlier this month.

"We felt that the United States had learned that at least as far as Iran is concerned, sanctions do produce economic hardship but do not produce the political outcomes that they intended them to produce," he said.

"I thought that the Americans had learned that lesson. Unfortunately, I was wrong," he said.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump today railed against special counsel Robert Mueller in the second day of angry tweets that drew comparisons to Watergate, insisted his general counsel isn't a "RAT" like President Richard Nixon's and accused Mueller's team of "looking for trouble."

"If you FIGHT BACK or say anything bad about the Rigged Witch Hunt, they scream Obstruction!" he tweeted.

Trump's latest rant follows a New York Times report that the White House general counsel, Don McGahn, has been cooperating extensively with the special counsel team investigating Russian election meddling and potential collusion with Trump's Republican campaign.

In a tweet yesterday, he contrasted McGahn with John Dean, the White House counsel for Nixon during the Watergate scandal.

Dean ultimately cooperated with prosecutors and helped bring down the Nixon presidency in 1974, though he served a prison term for obstruction of justice.

"The failing @nytimes wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel, he must be a John Dean type 'RAT,'" Trump wrote Sunday, misspelling "counsel."

"But I allowed him and all others to testify - I didn't have to. I have nothing to hide," he wrote.

Today he called Mueller "disgraced and discredited."

"Anybody needing that much time when they know there is no Russian Collusion is just someone looking for trouble," he wrote.

"They are enjoying ruining people's lives and REFUSE to look at the real corruption on the Democrat side - the lies, the firings, the deleted Emails and soooo much more!" Dean, Nixon's White House counsel and a frequent critic of Trump, tweeted yesterday that he doubts the president has "ANY IDEA what McGahn has told Mueller. Also, Nixon knew I was meeting with prosecutors, b/c I told him. However, he didn't think I would tell them the truth!" Trump's original legal team had encouraged McGahn and other White House officials to cooperate with Mueller, and McGahn spent hours in interviews.

Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Trump didn't raise executive privilege or attorney-client privilege during those interviews because his team believed he says now, wrongly that fully participating would be the fastest way to bring the investigation to a close.

"The president encouraged him to testify, is happy that he did, is quite secure that there is nothing in the testimony that will hurt the president," Giuliani said.

McGahn's attorney William Burck added in a statement: "President Trump, through counsel, declined to assert any privilege over Mr. McGahn's testimony, so Mr. McGahn answered the Special Counsel team's questions fulsomely and honestly, as any person interviewed by federal investigators must."

Trump also assailed the Mueller investigation yesterday.

"So many lives have been ruined over nothing - McCarthyism at its WORST!" Trump tweeted, referring to the indiscriminate and damaging allegations made by Sen.

Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s to expose communists.

"Study the late Joseph McCarthy, because we are now in period with Mueller and his gang that make Joseph McCarthy look like a baby! Rigged Witch Hunt!" Trump later wrote.

Giuliani, in his interview, also acknowledged that the reason for the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign aides and a Russian lawyer, arranged by Trump's son Donald Trump Jr., was that they had been promised dirt on Trump's 2016 Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

"The meeting was originally for the purpose of getting information about Clinton," he said, adding that the Trump team didn't know that Natalia Veselnitskaya was Russian even though emails later released by Trump Jr. show that she had been described as a "Russian government attorney."

Giuliani also tried to make the case that having Trump sit down for an interview with Mueller's team wouldn't accomplish much because of the he-said-she-said nature of witnesses' recollections.

"It's somebody's version of the truth, not the truth," he said, telling NBC: "Truth isn't truth."
By Reuters

BOGOTA: Colombia's foreign ministry said on Tuesday it had sent a letter of protest to Venezuela, accusing it of allowing helicopters and soldiers to cross the shared border without permission over the weekend.

"There was a violation to Colombia's sovereignty on the part of two military helicopters, identified with the acronym of the Bolivarian National Guard, and some 30 armed soldiers," Colombia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

The ministry sent a letter to the Venezuelan embassy in Bogota expressing its "most energetic protest" against the incident, which took place in the Tibu municipality in Norte de Santander province on Sunday, the statement added.

The Venezuelan government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Venezuelan soldiers have repeatedly crossed into Colombia without permission, exacerbating long-standing tensions between the neighbors.

Colombia is a top destination for Venezuelans fleeing due to food and medicine shortages amidst their country's deep economic crisis.
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Jasper, Machingura, Mathonsi, Pilisani were arrested during a snap operation comprising members of Crime Intelligence, police from Westenburg and officials from the Department of Roads and Transport, while transporting the stolen motor vehicle at about 3:30am last Wednesday. A consignment of snacks and other goods carried on a trailer, turned out to be a stolen vehicle that was being transported along the N1 road, the statement read.
The war veterans also vowed to safeguard the sovereignty of the nation they fought for and not to allow the opposition to reverse the gains of the liberation struggle. zbc
If You Want to Avoid Vampires,

Here's Where You Should Go
(Newser)  The Catholic Church has hired two private investigators to track down a former Dallas priest who disappeared months before sexual abuse allegations against him surfaced. Pastor at St. Cecilia Catholic Church in Oak Cliff for 27 years, Rev. Edmundo Paredes stands accused of molesting three boys in their midteens between 10 and 20 years ago, though the exact period is being withheld to protect the victims identities, reports the Dallas Morning News. Paredes, 69, was removed from St. Cecilia in June 2017 after allegedly stealing $60,000 to $80,000 in cash. This February, church officials also learned of sexual abuse allegations, which were reported to police and found to be credible, Bishop Edward Burns told parishioners on Sunday.

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"I recognize this diocese cannot cover its ears, its eyes, its mouth. We need to look at this head on," Burns said. Still, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests questions the delay in releasing the information. Officials initially said the allegations werent disclosed earlier because of a police investigation. Late Monday, however, the Diocese of Dallas said a Pennsylvania grand jury report describing more than 1,000 victims of abuse by clergy since the 1940s had motivated the disclosure after victims objected to an announcement in March, per Fox 4. Officials suspect Paredes is in his native Philippines, which he visited annually, per WFAA. Per the Morning News, authorities there say they are unaware of his location. (Read more priest sex abuse stories.)
(Newser)  It felt like grains of salt floating around Earl Wilkinson's mouth. "In fact, they were teeth remnants"the result of the 52-year-old's face-plant during an electric scooter crash. Wilkinson ended up in the emergency room with a broken arm in what BuzzFeed describes as a fairly frequent occurrence. With e-scooter sharing startups Bird and Lime arriving in cities across the country before regulations are in place, "we are seeing daily injuries from users of the motorized scooters," says an ER doctor at UCLA Medical Center. A doctor at a San Francisco hospital likewise describes a low estimate of five to 10 scooter injuries a week, per Cleveland.com, which notes the nation's first reported death on an electric kick scooter came Saturday when a 21-year-old rider was hit by a car in Cleveland.

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Cars, potholes, and pedestrians tend to get in the way of the scooters ripping around at 15mph. But there are also concerns about functionality. Given a race to take over the e-scooter market, Entrepreneur reports "there is a high probability that companies are cutting corners," and Bird admits its scooters "may malfunction, even if the Vehicle is properly maintained and that such malfunction may cause injury." "I think there's blood on the hands of every city that allows them to operate knowing how many riders and pedestrians are being injured," a personal injury attorney tells BuzzFeed, noting a broken leg and foot are among her clients' injuries. At CNN, a doctor argues lawsuits from such riders are needed to regulate the industry operating in a "guerrilla fashion," as cities race to keep up. (Read more scooters stories.)
(Newser)  In 1966, a man named Jakiw Palij and his wife bought a home near LaGuardia Airport from a Polish Jewish couple who had survived the Holocaust, reports the AP. It's likely they never would have sold had they known Palij's pasthe served as a Nazi prison guard at a death-camp in Poland, then lied about that in order to enter the US after the war, say Justice Department officials. On Monday, immigration officials rousted the 95-year-old from his Queens residence and shipped him to Germany to face possible war crimes charges, reports ABC News. Palij is believed to be the last Nazi war crimes suspect in the US who had been facing deportation. He is now in a German nursing home as prosecutors there try to figure out if they have enough evidence to convict, reports the Washington Post.

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Palij's Nazi history has been long known. A fellow guard at the Trawniki camp tipped off authorities back in 1989, per the AP, and investigators first confronted him a few years later. In 2001, he finally admitted he worked as a guard, but said he did so because he feared he'd be killed otherwise. "I know what they say, but I was never a collaborator," Palij told the New York Times back in 2003, the year his US citizenship was revoked. The US tried to deport him then, but Germany, Poland, Ukraine all refused to take him. The US says Monday's deportation took place after "extensive negotiations" with Germany. "Trawniki was a camp where people were trained to round up and murder the Jews in Poland, so there's certainly a basis for some sort of prosecution," said Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. (Read more Nazis stories.)
(Newser)  Authorities said Monday they're now looking into sexual assault allegations against Italian actress Asia Argentoone of the most prominent activists of the #MeToo movement. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Capt. Darren Harris said investigators want to talk to Jimmy Bennett or his representatives about the alleged incident at a Southern California hotel in 2013, when Bennett was 17, the AP reports. The move is an about-face, as TMZ reports that police initially declined to open a criminal investigation after a New York Times story that the 42-year-old settled a legal notice of intent to sue filed by Bennett, who's now 22, for $380,000. That was shortly after she said last October that movie mogul Harvey Weinstein raped her.

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Bennett says in the notice that he had sex with Argento at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Marina del Rey, Calif., in 2013. The age of consent in California is 18, per the Times. Investigators have learned no police report was filed at the time, Harris said. In a statement to the AP on Monday, a lawyer for Bennett said the actor "does not wish to comment on the documents or the events" at this time, noting Bennett would take "the next 24 hours, or longer, to prepare his response." Representatives for Argento didn't respond to a request from the AP for comment. (Read more Asia Argento stories.)
(Newser)  Scientists called it "the last ice area," believing the oldest and thickest section of Arctic sea ice north of Greenland would be the last to remain as our planet warms. Turns out, it's already broken up twice this year, reports the Guardian. More than 13 feet thick on average, the ice piled along Greenland's north coast thanks to an ocean current flowing south from Siberia moved away from the coast in February in a first since satellite recording began. The move coincided with warm winds after a nearby weather station in February recorded 10 days with temperatures above freezing. The same thing happened again this month, as the weather station registered a record high temperature of 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit, per the Guardian.

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"Almost all of the ice to the north of Greenland is quite shattered and broken up and therefore more mobile," says a scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute. Experts expect the area to freeze again soon. But "the harm will be done: The thick old sea ice will have been pushed away from the coast, to an area where it will melt more easily," adds a scientist at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, who describes the phenomenon as "scary." Also concerning is a similar change seen on Arctic land. Per National Geographic, the topmost layers of soil that insulate deep permafrost failed to freeze for the first time in memory in one Siberian area, raising concerns that greenhouse gases trapped in permafrost could be released sooner than expected. (Read more Arctic sea ice stories.)
(Newser)  It apparently started out above-board, at least according to court documents. Paul Hansmeier and John Steele of what Ars Technica calls "legitimate if aggressive copyright law firm" Prenda Law found their niche around 2010: The men repped clients who held the copyrights to porn flicks and went after internet users who downloaded those films or attempted to do so. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports the lawyers would file copyright infringement suits and push the downloaders to settle for $3,000 or face embarrassing and expensive litigation. But Ars Technica reports rumors of nefarious doings bubbled up in June 2013, when the legal team of a man being sued by Prenda suggested the "sharkmp4" user who uploaded a film in question to the Pirate Bay might be Steele. The truth ended up being something much more extreme.

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Hansmeier and Steele had become porn producers themselves in order to get their hands on more source material, with Steele's March 2017 plea deal stating the men produced at least 9 films in Chicago, Miami, and Las Vegas (including Great Teen Sex, Worst Plot Ever) to facilitate the scheme, which is said to have brought in $3 million. The films were never publicly released, but only used as Pirate Bay fodder. Now Hansmeier himself has taken a plea, pleading guilty on Friday to wire fraud and money laundering charges. The now-disbarred Minneapolis lawyer will have to make full restitution, and faces a sentence of up to 150 months in prison. His plea deal doesn't interfere with his appeal of a motion to dismiss the case; if that's successful, he can withdraw his plea. (Read about another lawyer misdeed.)
(Newser)  President Trump visits West Virginia Tuesday, and it's a safe bet he'll be trumpeting the proposal his administration just unveiled to ease up on coal plants. The Affordable Clean Energy Rule would roll back an Obama-era plan on emissions deemed too heavy-handed by the Trump administration, reports the Washington Post. Under the Trump plan, statesand not the federal EPAwould have the authority to regulate the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, per the AP. "The ACE Rule would restore the rule of law and empower states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide modern, reliable, and affordable energy for all Americans," says acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler in a statement. The New York Times, meanwhile, digs into the fine print and finds one aspect of the new rule unlikely to be celebrated: a prediction of more premature deaths.

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For starters, within the reams of technical analysis accompanying the plan is the assertion that, when compared to the Obama plan, "implementing the proposed rule is expected to increase emissions of carbon dioxide and the level of emissions of certain pollutants in the atmosphere that adversely affect human health." And while the Obama plan said it would help prevent up to 3,600 premature deaths annually by 2030, the EPA now predicts the nation will see between 470 and 1,400 premature deaths annually by that same year. The reason is an expected uptick in particulates in the air known as PM 2.5, which have been linked to heart disease, lung disease, asthma, and bronchitis. (Meanwhile, the Trump administration is preparing for a big fight on fuel standards with California.)
(Newser)  Mollie Tibbetts' father confirmed the reports that emerged Tuesday morning: His daughter has been found dead. Rob Tibbetts made the confirmation to Fox News in advance of a 4pm local time news conference, at which time authorities revealed a first-degree murder charge has been filed in the case. The Des Moines Register reports the suspect is Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24. He lives in rural Poweshiek County, where the body was found; Brooklyn, the town from which Tibbetts vanished, is in that county. Rivera has reportedly lived in the area for four to seven years and is an undocumented immigrant.

CNN reports surveillance video helped authorities zero in on a suspect and that data from Tibbetts' Fitbit also provided clues. Officials say Rivera followed Tibbetts as she jogged and allegedly abducted her; they say he led them to a female body, which was in a cornfield and covered with cornstalks, per Special Agent Rick Rahn with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. "For whatever reason he chose to abduct her," Rahn said.

An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday, and should reveal more on how and when she died, though the Register notes it could take as long as six weeks to get the results.

The Des Moines Register reported the property where the body was found is a roughly 15-minute drive from Brooklyn. A medical examiner vehicle and SUVs were seen at the scene, and the Register reports a no-fly restriction has been put in place by the FAA over an area that encompasses "460th Avenue near North English River just southeast of Guernsey" through early Wednesday morning.

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Crime Stoppers of Central Iowa has been handling the massive reward fund associated with the case: The balance of the Bring Mollie Tibbetts Home Safe Fund as of last week was $385,718. The group's Greg Willey previously said the money that was to go to anyone with information that could lead to Tibbetts' safe return would likely shift into a reward for information leading to the capture of the person responsible for her death. "Once they catch their breath, this will turn into a weapon going the other direction, to catch the person who did it." It's unclear what will happen to the money now.

The Des Moines Register on Monday published an extensive piece on Tibbetts that pulls together beloved stories and details about her from friends and family. Her parents had liked the girl's name Grace but, upon her birth, thought she seemed just like a Mollie, and so she was named. The psychology major at the University of Iowa was described as "already everybody's counselor" by a friend. She had a love of reading and Harry Potter and was described as easy to love. Read the full piece, which has more on how she and Dalton Jack began dating three years ago, here.

(Read more Mollie Tibbetts stories.)
(Newser)  A political candidate in Florida has been dropped as a customer by Wells Fargo for her ties to and support of medical marijuana. Per the Tampa Bay Business Journal, Democratic candidate for agriculture commissioner Nikki Fried was forced to move her campaign funds to another institution because of this stance. Fried spoke out against the move Monday during a news conference in which she criticized the banking giant. "I am happy to tell Wells Fargo 'good riddance,' and finding a bank to take my campaign contributions without making a value judgment on my platform was not difficult to find," she told reporters while calling out banks in general that routinely refuse to do business with medical marijuana businesses.

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To that end, a Wells Fargo representative told the Orlando Sentinel that the bank's policy is "not to knowingly bank or provide services to marijuana businesses or for activities related to those businesses, based on federal laws under which the sale and use of marijuana is illegal even if state laws differ." Nonetheless, Fried maintains she doesn't fit under that category simply because of her espoused values. "I'm a candidate. I have a right to be heard," Fried said. "I am not touching the plant, I am not selling the plant, I'm not producing the plant. I'm simply advocating for the expansion of medical marijuana." The bank gave Fried's campaign 30 days to close its account after learning that some contributions have and would come from the marijuana industry, for which Fried herself is a former lobbyist. Fried is now banking with BB&T Bank. (Read more medical marijuana stories.)
(Newser)  Big news that surely will not please President Trump: His former "fixer," Michael Cohen, has struck a plea deal with prosecutors, reports ABC News and the New York Times. Other outlets don't go quite as far, saying that he's close to a deal, but all should be cleared up at a court appearance scheduled for 4pm Eastern. Trump's former attorney has been under investigation by prosecutors in New York's Southern District for bank and tax fraud, as well as his role in making financial payments to women alleged to have had affairs with Trump.

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The AP reports that under his plea deal, Cohen would cooperate with the government, but exactly how that might affect the Robert Mueller investigation remains unclear. It was Mueller's office that referred the case to the New York prosecutors. Still, any such deal "could ratchet up the legal pressure on the president," per the Washington Post. The plea deal reportedly came about as prosecutors investigated whether Cohen improperly obtained millions of dollars in loans for his taxi business. (Read more Michael Cohen stories.)
New Delhi:

A total of 15 people were arrested in Bihar Tuesday after a woman was beaten up and stripped by a mob over the suspicion of a youth's murder in Bihiya of Bhojpur district.

"Total 15 people arrested in connection with the incident where a man was found dead in Bhojpur's Bihiya and a woman was allegedly stripped and thrashed on suspicion of being involved in the murder," the news agency ANI reported.

On Monday, a man named Vimlesh Sah, 19 was found dead on railway tracks in Bihiya, following which the angry mob allegedly thrashed the woman, who is currently under police custody and undergoing medical tests. Scores of agitated villagers also burnt down shops and torched vehicles including police cars in Bhojpur.

15 arrested. We have video of 200 people in connection with incidents of violence&60 in connection with stripping&thrashing the woman. Hope to catch others soon:Bhojpur DM on woman stripped&thrashed on suspicion of being involved in a man's murder in Bhojpur's Bihiya y'day #Bihar pic.twitter.com/EmJs5TOCGh  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2018

Read | Brajesh Thakur shifted to high-security ward inside Muzaffarpur jail

The dreadful incident also led to the suspension of eight police officials, including the Station House Officer, Bahiya, and station in-charge Government Railway Police. Meanwhile, police, Awkash Kumar, the Superintendent of Police has launched an investigation into the matter.

According to Kumar, Sah's native village Damodarpur rushed to the spot following his death and suspected that those living in a red-light area nearby would have strangled the youth to death.

Read | Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia charged for alleged assault on Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash

However, Inspector General of Patna Zone, Naiyar Hasain Khan has also assured significant steps to nab the culprits. "The culprits would not be spared, and strict action will be taken against them," Khan added.
New Delhi:

Xhoixobote Dhemalite (Rainbow fields), an Assamese film dealing with the sensitive issue of children growing up in violent times, has won another award - this time for screenplay at a US festival. The Bidyut Kotoky-directed film bagged the best screenplay award at Treasure Coast International Film Festival in Florida. It received nominations in five categories.

"The film's story is based in Assam but people from halfway across the globe are relating to it. This goes to show that emotions across the globe are same. In Xhoihobote Dhemlite, we always believed that we are making a film for in Assamese language for the global audience," said Mumbai-based Kotoky.

Also Read | Assamese movie streaming portal Movietonne launched

Last month, Xhoixobote Dhemalite became the first Assamese film to be commercially released in the US. Besides, it won three awards, including that of best film, in the Love international Film Festival, Los Angeles.

Based on true events, the film also features seasoned actors like Victor Banerjee, Nakul Vaid, Naved Aslam, Nipon Goswami and Nikumoni Barua.

The film is produced by 'India Stories', a Mumbai-based production house and co-produced by Kotoky's Dhruv Creative Productions and US-based Kurmasana Kreates.

Also Read | Mahesh Babu believes celebrities should be good role models

The Treasure Coast International Film Festival (TCIFF) is dedicated to the promotion of independent and foreign films as an art form.

This year, the TCIFF Lifetime Achievement Award was given to director and industry veteran Isaac Florentine. The inaugural film of the festival was Florentine's Acts of Vengeance, starring Antonio Banderas.
New Delhi:

Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an immediate relief of Rs 500 crore for flood-ravaged Kerala, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Monday urged the Centre to sanction an ex-gratia of Rs 100 crore for Kodagu district too.

Addressing the media, Kumaraswamy said, "The Prime Minister has announced relief of Rs 500 Crore for Kerala, we expect at least Rs 100 Crore for Kodagu. We will request the central government for it. We have to repair roads for connectivity. We are taking help of the Army and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF)".

"We conducted an aerial survey in Kodagu to review the flood situation. In all, 12 people have lost their lives. 845 houses have been damaged out of which 773 houses are partially damaged," the chief minister added.

As per the latest data, around 6620 people have been rehabilitated in over 40 relief camps while additional nine camps were set up in Dakshina Kannada to provide shelter to another lot.

Read | Kerala Floods LIVE updates: Cabinet to convene special assembly session to discuss relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction

"An adequate supply of drinking water and milk is being ensured in these camps," Kumaraswamy said.

On Saturday, the chief minister had conducted an aerial survey of landslides and flood-affected areas in Kodagu and announced ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh for the families which were rendered homeless.

Meanwhile, Kodagu District-in-Charge Minister SR Mahesh has requested people to send money instead of relief food material as there is no space left to store retail stuff.

Earlier, torrential rains have affected lakhs of lives in the north-eastern states, including Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland and Assam. At least 49 people had also lost their lives in Uttar Pradesh as heavy monsoon rains sparked floods and caused buildings to collapse in the north Indian state.

Read | Kerala Disaster - Wrath of God or Man-made Disaster

According to the Home Ministry data, a total of 868 people were killed and 247 others were injured as floods and landslides wreak havoc this monsoon across the country.

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New Delhi:

The government is unlikely to accept any foreign financial assistance for flood relief operations in Kerala, official sources said. They said that the government has taken a considered decision to rely solely on domestic efforts to tide over the situation.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has offered USD 100 million (around Rs 700 crore) as financial assistance for flood relief operation in Kerala.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, called up Prime Minister Modi and made the offer for assistance, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in Thiruvananthapuram.

Also Read | Centre releases Rs 600 crore to Kerala, waives off customs duty, GST on relief goods

Around three million Indians live and work in the UAE out of which 80 per cent are from Kerala. The government of Maldives has also decided to donate USD 50,000 (Rs 35 lakh) for flood-affected people in Kerala.

Also Read | Who loves a good flood? Dealers, consumers eyeing luxury cars at throwaway prices

It is understood that the UN is also offering some assistance for Kerala. However, sources said India is unlikely to accept the assistance.

The floods in Kerala, worst the state has seen in a century, have claimed lives of 231 people besides rendering over 14 lakh people homeless.

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New Delhi:

The flood in Kerala has ebbed, but the nightmare has just begun. As the flood water recedes, thousands return to damaged homes and properties with nothing to hold on to. Millions are still struggling to survive in relief camps. And the death toll is only rising. According to official reports, the death toll has touched 373 since the monsoon fury hit the state on August 8, the worst in 100 years. The maximum deaths were reported from Idukki district, where 43 people have lost their lives so far. The disastrous flood has claimed twenty-eight lives in Malappuram and 27 in Thrissur.

Meanwhile, train and flight services, which had collapsed following the flood have been partially restored. The train services in Kayankulam-Kottayam-Ernakulam and Palakkad-Shoranur-Kozhikkode sections have been resumed while the Trivandrum- Ernakulam section was connected by special trains for the flood period.

Also Read | Who loves a good flood? Dealers, consumers eyeing luxury cars at throwaway prices

Routes and traffic in the worst-hit areas, including Aluva-Thrissur, Thrissur-Shoranur, Kayamkulam-Kottayam- Ernakulam Shoranur-Tirur, Shoranur- Palakkad have been fixed. Few special trains are also operational via Trivandrum, Tirunelveli, and Madurai to Chennai, Egmore, Howarah, Gorakhpur, Bhubaneswar routes to evacuate the stranded people across the state.

Besides that, the Southern Railway had begun running 159 Express trains and 11 passenger trains to ease the communication system all over Kerala. Efforts to restore other essential services are also in full swing with phone connectivity being restored 90 per cent of the state. As per the concerned authority, the issues of water scarcity, lack of fuel and animal fodder are also being resolved. Necessary steps will be taken to eradicate water carried diseases, especially in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram.

Read | Kerala Disaster - Wrath of God or Man-made Disaster

Highlights on Kerala Floods:

# 02:51 PM: Russian President Vladimir Putin writes to President Ram Nath Kovind and PM Modi, expresses condolences over lives lost in Kerala floods.

Russian President Vladimir Putin writes to President Ram Nath Kovind and PM Modi, expresses condolences over lives lost in #Keralafloods pic.twitter.com/LU1Y1pZtFt  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2018

# 02:42 PM: 373 dead in Kerala since May 30 due to rains, floods, landslides.

# 02:33 PM: Kerala floods: Kochi airport suffers estimated loss of over Rs 220 cr

# 02:30 PM: Bajaj Auto announces Rs 2 cr contribution for Kerala flood relief



# 12:31 AM: Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel transport patients on improvised floaters in Chengannur's Pandanad in Alappuzha district.

#WATCH: Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel transport patients on improvised floaters in Chengannur's Pandanad in Alappuzha district. #KeralaFloods pic.twitter.com/KITFKpwrSB  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2018

# 11:44 AM: Coimbatore: 105 battalions of Rapid Action Force (RAF) and G 36 group of Rotary clubs dispatch relief material in 10 trucks for flood victims in Kerala's Ernakulam, Kottayam and Alappuzha.

Coimbatore: 105 battalion of Rapid Action Force (RAF) and G 36 group of Rotary clubs dispatch relief material in 10 trucks for flood victims in Kerala's Ernakulam, Kottayam and Alappuzha. #KeralaFloods pic.twitter.com/b85L5I9RmK  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2018

# 11:39 AM: Kerala cabinet has decided to recommend to the Governor to convene a special assembly session on August 30th to discuss relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction of Kerala after floods: CM Vijayan.

# 11:30 AM: United Arab Emirates (UAE) offered financial assistance of Rs 700 crores for Kerala Floods: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

# 10:00 AM: Restoration work started at Chalakudy market in Thrissur after a decrease in the water level in the district.

Kerala: Restoration work started at Chalakudy market in Thrissur after a decrease in the water level in the district. #KeralaFloods pic.twitter.com/yRZPh6c95q  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2018

# 09:17 AM: Indian Air Force's C-130J om Monday airlifted medical team consisting of 96 doctors led by Medical Education Minister of Maharashtra Girish Mahajan from Mumbai to Trivandrum.

Indian Air Force's C-130J yesterday airlifted medical team consisting of 96 doctors led by Medical Education Minister of Maharashtra Girish Mahajan from Mumbai to Trivandrum. medical & relief supplies were lifted along with the medical team for flood-hit areas of #Kerela. pic.twitter.com/YPVg546o76  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2018

# 09:07 AM: MP Police has donated Rs 1.31 crore to Kerala Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund. Further, all police personnel of MP will donate 1 day's salary for the same purpose: Madhya Pradesh DGP Rishi Kumar Shukla.

MP Police has donated Rs. 1.31 crore to Kerala Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund. Further, all police personnel of MP will donate 1 day's salary for the same purpose: Madhya Pradesh DGP Rishi Kumar Shukla #KeralaFloods pic.twitter.com/5V3vTs1pKa  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2018

# 08:40 AM: Kerala government calls for an all-party meeting over flood situation in the state at 4 pm on Tuesday in Thiruvananthapuram.

# 08:32 AM: I feel it is a natural disaster. People of Kerala are dignified and have self-respect. Govt has sanctioned Rs 500 crores & other states have also donated. I think they don't want our money, they need our prayers: Michael Lobo, Goa Deputy speaker.

# 08:30 AM: The train services which had collapsed following the incessant downpour in Kerala have been partially restored.

# 08:27 AM: Tripura govt has announced to donate Rs 1 crore to Kerala Chief Ministers Distress Relief Fund. We are willing to extend maximum help in accordance with our financial condition, says CM Biplab Kumar Deb.

Tripura govt has today announced to donate Rs 1 crore to Kerala Chief Ministers Distress Relief Fund. We are willing to extend maximum help in accordance with our financial condition: CM Biplab Kumar Deb (20.8.2018) #KeralaFloods pic.twitter.com/imTQRyDTsM  ANI (@ANI) August 20, 2018

# 08:21 AM: The Government of Maldives extended help to India by donating USD 50,000 for the ongoing rescue and relief operations in the flood-hit southern state of Kerala.

# 08:15 AM: Members of Maharashtra's Nagpur's Keraleeya Samajam have cancelled their Onam celebration and are sending financial aid for flood-affected people in Kerala.

# 08:05 AM: CJI Dipak Misra and all Supreme Court judges on Monday decided to contribute Rs 25,000 each for the State of Kerala voluntarily to the Chief Ministers Distress Relief Fund.

# 08:00 AM: Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel of 27th Battalion have been carrying out relief works in Alappuzha and Pathanamthitta districts in Kerala.

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New Delhi:

Delivering speedy justice in the Mandsaur gangrape case, a special court on Tuesday awarded death penalty to two men for raping an eight-year-old girl in Madhya Pradeshs Mandsaur after their conviction in the case. The special court completed the trial and pronounced verdict in the terrifying Mandsaur gangrape case in less than two months.

On June 26, the eight-year-old class two student was lured by two men  20-year-old Irfan alias Bhaiyu and 24-year-old Asif  while she was waiting for her father outside her school.

Also Read | Muzaffarpur Shelter Home Rape: SC pulls up Bihar government for funding Brajesh Thakurs NGO

The little girl was taken to an isolated place and gangraped by them. They even tried to kill her by slitting her throat. However, the minor girl was found alive in a pool of blood, which severe injuries to her neck, face and private parts.

Earlier in the day, the accused Irfan and Asif were held guilty by the special court under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and he Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Little Nirbhaya underwent trauma similar to 2012 Delhi gang-rape victim

The eight-year-old 'little Nirbhaya' had undergone similar trauma to 2012 Delhi gang-rape victim. After the brutal assault, she was left for dead with her throat slit. Later at night in the same day, she was found in a poll blood and miraculously alive.

Read More | Another Muzaffarpur! Hostel girls 'Forced to watch porn, raped for six months' in Bhopal

She was rushed to Indores MY hospital in a critical condition. Doctors treating her had revealed that a sharp object  probably a rod or some wooden stick  was inserted into her. The barbaric torture of the girl was a painful reminder of the brutal 2012 Delhi gang rape.

In December 2012, a medical student was gang-raped in moving bus in Delhi in a similar manner. She was raped by six people, who later inserted an iron rod and hands into her abdominal cavity and pulled out a major part of her intestine from the body.

The little Nirbhaya also went through the similar pain and it took doctors two major surgeries and several hours to minimise the damage to her entrails.

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New Delhi:

Luxurious vegan brands? Yes! Luxury and vegan brands seem an unlikely pair, but luxurious vegan brands provide a new approach to fashion. And, you should be spending your money on vegan brands that are fast catching up as the latest trends in the fashion world. The fashion industry is among the major contributing factors to environmental damage. In view of it, more and more environment-friendly concepts are being introduced in the fashion world . For the vegan brands, not every luxury fashion has to associate with a $300,000 Hermes Niloticus crocodile skin handbag. These luxury vegan brands are made using materials that are eco-friendly. Below are listed six luxurious vegan brands you should be spending your money on.

Also Read | 'India lagging behind when it comes to idea of 'fashion for all''



1. Matt & Nat - of nature and natural material



Unlike the short names of fashion house which either stands for Dolce and Gabbana or Hennes and Mautitz, this vegan brand stands for material and nature. Founded in Montreal, Matt & Nat is highly inspired by the textures and different shades of nature. As a vegan brand, Matt & Nat is constantly exploring new unconventional ways to maintain their eco-friendly and sustainable methods of vegan leather production. Their methods include using different recycled materials such as cardboard, rubber and even cork.



2. Cult Gaia - of the unconventional



Another luxury vegan brand which uses materials that are seemingly unconventional of a fashion industry. Their materials include basic bamboo, straw and acrylic. This cruelty free vegan brand is worn and used as a message by many celebrated individuals such as Beyonce and other countless Instagram stars.



3. Melie Bianco - of mission leather



Founded in 2003 by a husband-and-wife duo this vegan brand designs handbags and is on a mission to bring about a different fashion message to the customers. This handbag vegan brand stands as a favourite of the LA celebrities. Their message no doubt is working! The eco-friendly brand uses premium faux leather and has also been previously featured in various fashion publications such as Vogue and Marie Claire.

Also Read | How fashion icons defied time and age



4. Nemanti shoes - of traditional touch



High-end luxury shoes dont always include leather of various animals and these vegan brand just proves the point. The vegan Fashion Awards winner Nemanti make all their shoes with traditional and artisanal techniques. This Italy based vegan brand delivers exactly what one would expect from this European fashion capital  sexy, seductive, appealing and strappy. Nemanti shoes are known for their production of shoes with only the highest quality of cruelty-free materials.



5. Ethique 212 - of ethical business practices



Luxury bags and animal skin all sounds too familiar, which is because they are. However, this vegan brand is here to tell you not all is at it seems because when one looks at their handbags you are sure to ask yourself. Are you sure those bags didnt cost the lives of crocodiles or pythons? Well, it didnt! The brand is committed to using leathers that are completely animal-free also making sure the materials used in the manufacturing are environment friendly. Ethique 212 also the recycles wastes is known for their ethical business practices.



6. Vaute Couture - of the animals and for the animals



How about a warm, stylish winter coat that doesnt use goose feather or wool? Does it collide with your cruelty free approach? It does! This vegan brand based in New York knows just how to be stylish without having to harm animals. Vaute Couture specialises in making vegan clothing from materials like hemp, cotton, recycled polyester and other animal friendly blends.
New Delhi:

Do you know which are the most unexplored places in the world? Are you raring to travel and explore? The world of tourism has opened up a whole wide world for the travel bugs to explore for a fun-filled ventures and adventures. However, there are still some parts of the globe untouched by human civilization. Next holiday, take the time to explore the thick ice sheets of Antarctica and head for the jungles of Papua New Guinea. These are listed among the most unexplored places in the world by several travel sites.

Also Read | Travel destinations: Eight safest countries to holiday in

Galapagos islands in the Pacific Ocean

Home to just around 23000 human population, this volcanic archipelago remains as one of the most unexplored places in the world. The archipelago is home to giant tortoises, iguanas, sea lions, penguins, whales and fish and has been a biological marine preserve for 50 years. Given the richness of the flora and fauna, this island is also believed to have inspired Charles Darwin to write his Theory of Evolution.

2. Papua, New Guinea

The rugged terrain of these country makes it impossible for human civilisation to creep in. The place remains largely unexplored and many scientists believe that many of the worlds undiscovered spices of plants and animals and indigenous tribes exist in the interior of the jungle. Hence, it retains its status as one of the most unexplored places in the world.

Also Read | Budget travel during monsoon: Cheapest countries to visit

3. Seychelles in the Indian Ocean

Perhaps it is safe to assume that as long as human civilisation does not touch a particular place, nature is preserved at its finest. With very few visitors, Seychelles, a country off East Africa has the largest percentage of land under conservation of any country, about 50 per cent of the island nation is preserved. The place hence deems with natural landscapes of islands, landscapes, birds and animals.





4. Bhutan

This hotspot for biodiversity is deemed as the happiest country. Neighbouring the Himalayan mountain and Tibet, Bhutan is yet another least explored places. More than 60 per cent of the country is under forest cover, with a quarter of its territory has been designated as national parks or protected areas.



5. Antarctica



The smallest continent, Antarctica still remains one of the most unexplored places in the world. Ninety-six 96 per cent of the island is covered with ice, which averages more than a mile thick. Given the fact that it remains mostly unexplored, Antarctica is now conducting and supporting scientific research and other work throughout the year. This coldest place in the world also serves as a habitat to species like penguins, whales, seals, polar bears and so on.

Also Read | Breezing through Grand Teton National Park, Yellow Stone National Park



6. Atacama Desert, Chile



A place so dead unlike the others, Atacama Desert in Chile has one of the world's strangest landscapes. One among the desert that really gets no rain at all. Given the places lifelessness, its high-altitude dry air and lack of pollution with no radio interference and almost alien like NASA can design their Mars ground tests. The desert also serves as the perfect place to conduct astronomical observations.



7. Daintree National Park, Australia



One of Australias remaining tracts of rainforests, Daintree National park is also believed to have one of the oldest ecosystems and is home to thousands of plant species and animals. An ecosystem so old, Daintree National park is believed to even contain a 110-million-year-old rainforest with trees that are more than 2,500 years old. This park is a place back in time.

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New Delhi:

NASAs Parker Solar Probe satellite is on its way to Venus and is rightly achieving its mission objectives. The satellite is likely to reach Venus by October 3 and will use the planets gravity to slingshot towards the sun, its eventual destination according to the new statement released by NASA. The Parker Solar Probe will come within 24.1 million kilometres radius of the sun. Earlier, Helios 2 mission in 1976 achieved 43.4 million kilometres radius.



ALSO READ | NASA likely to allow SpaceX fuel rockets with astronauts on board

The probe is named after US physicist Eugene Parker, whose early theory of solar winds  supersonic particles being shot out of the sun in all directions  were confirmed by the first space missions after World War II. Parker, now 91 also travelled to NASA s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida to attend the launch of his namesake satellite. The mission, which is coming at a cost of USD 1.5 billion, is aimed to study the sun, and send back scientific data to Earth on its findings.



The probe will make its closest approach to sun six years after the launch. The Probe has the ability to withstand the high temperatures of being so close to the star.



ALSO READ | NASA: Foreign object on Mars is just a rock



Parker Solar Probe carries the names of 1.1 million people on a memory card mounted on a plaque on the satellite, along with images of Eugene Parker.

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In order to promote peaceful coexistence and spread the joy of Eid Al Adha to non-Muslims, the Ahmed Al Fateh Islamic Centre will host an Eid Open House event at Al Fateh Grand Mosque. On the second and third day of Eid, Bahrains largest mosque will be welcoming non-Muslims and treating them to a special Eid experience.

Ahmed Al Fateh Islamic Centre coordinator Farahat Al Kindy told Tribune that Eid Open House has become immensely popular and that the mosque is expecting to welcome a huge number of people. Eid Open House events have grown exceptionally since it began in 1999.

The turnout for the first year was in the twenties while second year it rose to 98 and now thousands of visitors turn up during Eid open house events, Al Kindi noted.
The Day of Arafah was celebrated in great zeal across the Kingdom yesterday.

Many children yesterday celebrated Heya Beya in great fervour. Heya Beya is a unique Bahraini tradition in which children plant wheat and barley grains in baskets made of palm fronds. They hang these baskets in the porticos of their houses before throwing in sea on the Day of Arafah.

Children wear traditional Bukhnug costumes during the occasion adorned with gold thread while the boys wear the traditional dress with a waistcoat as well as a skull cap. They sing folk songs with passion and pleasure while throwing Heya Beyas into sea.

The tradition is also observed in other countries of the region including Kuwait and the UAE. The Muharraq Governorate held Heya Beya celebrations on the shores of Busaiteen, opposite to the traditional island of Sayya.

Hundreds of children from various part of the Kingdom attended the celebrations.
A visiting US delegation yesterday hailed Bahrains progress in the electricity, water and renewable energy sectors saying they wish to activate more international cooperation in these areas. The move, according to the head of the delegation, would help encourage investments in the sector as well as boost trade and scientific research in the Kingdom.

This came as Electricity and Water Affairs Minister Dr Abdulhussain Mirza was receiving a delegation from the Energy and Trade Committee of the US House of Representatives, headed by Mary Martin. The minister praised the historical 200-year old relations between Bahrain and the United States of America and made a presentation on the plans and projects of the electricity, water and renewable energy sector.
National Laison Officer of Bus Conductors Association, BCAN, of Buhari Campaign Organisation of Nigeria, BCO, Prince Israel Adeshola, weekend disclosed that over 1000 affiliate bodies have joined the BCO within the last three months.Speaking at the official inauguration of the Kwara State Laison Officer of Bus Conductor Association of BCO, Adeshola stated that his organisation does not believe in verbalisation of membership but operates with fact and visible results.May I inform you also that in less than three months of our membership of BCO, we have gotten over 1000 affiliate bodies. Therefore, todays event marks a watershed in the political history of Kwara State. It is indeed a day that grassroots politics is further and firmly deepened and entrenched in this state.We are here gathered to inaugurate the Bus Conductor Association of Nigeria, BCAN, of Buhari Campaign Organisation, BCO, Kwara State Liaison Officer, Alhaji Abdul-Ganiyu Olarewaju Dada and his team. Bus Conductors Association of Nigeria decided to support President Muhammadu Buhari because of our belief in his person as one whose integrity is unquestionable.
President Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed that he spent most of his military days in the southern part of Nigeria.

President Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed that he spent most of his military days in the southern part of Nigeria.

He also revealed that he has personally called Gen. Yakubu Gowon to thank him for his contribution to Nigerias unity.





Buhari spoke in Daura on Tuesday when he received National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members currently serving in the community.





Reaffirming his support to the scheme established in 1973, the President told the corps members: It is better to know all the country than for people to be state-inclined.





I always look forward to meeting the NYSC team because since I served mostly in the south when I was in the military, some people in Lagos the only thing they know is the sea.





For them (NYSC members) to be brought to the desert or near the Sahel region is a very difficult thing but it will make an impact on Nigeria.





I have personally spoken to Gen. Gowon to thank him for having the initiative to start the NYSC programme. It is very good for Nigeria, he said.





In his remarks, the Corps Liaison Officer, Jibrin Ishak, thanked the President for prioritizing the welfare and a secured future of the Nigerian youths through his style of leadership and developmental initiatives.





The voice of the people is the voice of God and by the grace of God, we pray that in 2019 you will continue to be President of Nigeria to do more for us, Ishak said.





The representative of the corps members prayed God to sustain the President with good health, long life and prosperity.




T he Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Monday filed charges at an Ikeja high court against Albert Bassey, a serving senator...

he Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Monday filed charges at an Ikeja high court against Albert Bassey, a serving senator, for allegedly receiving 12 cars as bribes worth N254 million.





Bassey, 45, who is representing Akwa-Ibom north-east, allegedly received the vehicles between 2010 and 2014 from Olajide Omokore, a businessman, when he (Bassey) served as the Akwa-Ibom commissioner for finance.





The senator is to face a seven-count charge bordering on corruption as a public officer and for inviting bribes.





On his part, Omokore is also facing a seven-count charge bordering on offering gratification to a public officer and giving bribe on account of the action of a public officer.





Omokore is chairman of Atlantic Energy Brass Development Limited and Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept Limited.





According to NAN, both men were absent in court on Monday when the case was announced for mention.





Zainab Ettu, prosecuting counsel for the EFCC, requested a new court date to enable the anti-graft commission arraign the senator and the businessman.





We do not have the defendants in court today, though we had earlier anticipated that we would have them in court at a later date, she said.





We will be asking for a further date, most preferably, after vacation.





Responding, the vacation judge, Obafemi Adamson, said the case had not been assigned to a judge, making it difficult to adjourn.





The judge ordered that the case file should be sent to the registry of the high court for assignment to a judge who will hear it.





According to the charge sheet, Bassey received the vehicles from Omokore over a five-year period in Lagos.





Bassey allegedly received the bribes while serving as the Akwa-Ibom commissioner for finance and chairman of the Akwa-Ibom State Inter-Ministerial Direct Labour Coordinating Committee (IMDLCC).





On May 10, 2010, Bassey also allegedly received a BMW X5 BP worth N50 million from Omokore, and in December 2012, another Infinity QX 56 BP worth N45 million from him.





On November 2013, the serving senator was said to have received a Toyota Landcruiser V8 BP valued at N40 million and in March 2014, a Range Rover also valued at N40 million from the businessman as well as in September 2014, another Toyota Hiace High Roof car valued at N27 million.





Others are Toyota Hiace High Roof car valued at N16 million and six units of Toyota Hilux vehicles valued at N36 million.





The anti-graft commission claimed that the car gifts were given to Bassey by Omokore in exchange for contracts from the Akwa-Ibom government.




Governor Umaru Al-Makura of Nasarawa State has called on Nigerians to intensify prayers for the peace and stability of Nigeria, ahead of the 2019 general elections.Al-Makura in a sallah message issued on Tuesday in Lafia, by his Director General in charge of Strategic Communication and Press Affairs, Yakubu Lamai, stressed the need for intensive prayers.The governor, while congratulating Muslim faithful on the occasion of Eid-el-Kabir, said Nigerians should strive to create an atmosphere of peace and sustained harmonious co-existence.For us in Nasarawa State, we have a long-standing tradition of peoples of different tribes and religions living in peace and harmony, based on the common values of human compassion, tolerance, mutual understanding and solidarity, he said.Al-Makura enjoined Muslims in the state to imbibe the spirit of sacrifice, which is the symbol of the Eid-el-Kabir celebration.He implored citizens of the state to desist from all acts capable of breaching the peace of the state and country, as the country gears up toward the 2019 general elections.The governor noted that political affiliation, ethnic and religious diversity should not be allowed to escalate into hate speeches, violence or conflicts.Nigeria is a country of unity in diversity; and our dear Nasarawa State holds a pride of place as a land of courtesy and a warm welcome to all people from every part of this great nation.We should never fall short of our reputation as an inclusive society, where all religions continue to live in peace and harmony with each other and welcome with open arms all people who are displaced from places far or near, Al-Makura added.In a related development, Mr Najeem Salaam, the Speaker of Osun House of Assembly, has called on Islamic leaders and Muslim faithful to pray for Nigeria.Salaam in an Eid El Kabirs message, issued on Tuesday in Osogbo, urged the people to have faith in the country and its leadership.He said that elected leaders were drivers of the nations development and need the support and cooperation of all.The speaker said in view of next months governorship election in the state, the face of God should be sought, and the efficacy of prayers should not be ruled out.
President Muhammadu Buhari has felicitated all Nigerians on the occasion of the Eid el-Kabir.Muslim pilgrims performing the Hajj in the holy city of Mecca had ascended the Mount Arafat on Monday, and the Federal Government had subsequently declared Tuesday and Wednesday public holiday for the august occasion.Taking to his verified Twitter handle on Tuesday morning, the President wished Nigerians well.In particular, he congratulated his fellow Muslims for the opportunity to witness another Eid-ul-Adha  another name for Eid el-Kabir, which is the Festival of Sacrifice, being the second of two Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide each year. Eid-ul-Adha is considered the holier of the two celebrations.The President tweeted: I felicitate all Nigerians, particularly the Muslim faithful, on this years celebration.I assure you all that our administration will not rest or relent as we work to build the Nigeria of our dreams  secure, prosperous and free from the ravages of corruption.On this occasion of Eid-ul-Adha, I urge all Nigerians to rise above personal, group, sectarian and other interests, and to promote harmony and tolerance in dealing with one another at all times.We must imbibe this lesson and make it a duty to sacrifice for others and to always remember those who are less fortunate than ourselves. Selfishness, greed and corruption have no place in our lives and in our dealings with one another.Eid-ul-Adha offers an opportunity to remember the submission of Prophet Ibrahim Alaihis-Salam to Allah, by which he taught the world the value of sacrifice in relating with one another.
The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Enugu state has expressed worry over Deputy Senate President, Prof Ike Ekweremadus 16 years stint in the Senate and has vowed to show him the exit door in next years general elections.APC in the state has in the alternative urged President Mohammadu Buharis Adviser on Justice Sector Reform, Mrs Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu to replace Ekweremadu, saying that the Deputy Senate President has overstayed his welcome in the National Assembly.The party made the vow when the state, zonal and local government executives of the APC in Enugu State visited Ibekaku-Nwagwu in her country home, Egede/Umuoka Ward in Udi Local Government Area of the State.The State factional Chairman of the APC, Deacon Okey Ogbodo, said that the partys visit was to appreciate and encourage Ibekaku-Nwagwu for her outstanding and quality representations so far displayed as the Special Adviser to President Buhari on Justice Reform.Ogbodo applauded her for working very closely with the Attorney General of Federation, Abubakar Malami, to bringing quality legal reforms and policies that in the sector.Ogbodo also applauded her as the National Coordinator of the Open Government Partnership, noting that Enugu state is very proud of her to have taken the initiative from obscurity to greater height.He called on Ibekaku-Nwagwu to consider participating in the race for the Senatorial seat of Enugu West zone of the State as the 2019 General Election approaches.Ogbodo said: APC in Enugu state frowns at the selfish posture of the current occupant of the seat who has overstayed his welcome as the Senator representing Enugu West at the Senate in the past 16 years.We have quality candidates who can offer better representation for the zone and we, therefore, urge Barrister Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu to consider presenting herself among others during the forthcoming party primaries.In her response, Barrister Ibekaku-Nwagwu attributed her success in the discharge of her duties to the conducive working environment created by President Buhari.She assured party faithful that she would make up her mind on the 2019 Senate election and communicate properly at the right time.
Force Commander of Operation Whirl Stroke, a military spike operation to end herdsmen, farmers crisis in Benue State, Major-General Adeyemi Yekini, has said the force killed 21 herdsmen along Gbajimba-Akor-Tomatar axis of Guma Local Government Area of the state in the last three weeks of its operation, while it lost one soldier.He also said others sustained injuries in several encounters with the armed herdsmen.The Force Command explained that those killed were among the armed marauders who had been carrying out raids on Benue communities.Yekini, who spoke, yesterday, in Makurdi, explained that invaders had last Saturday, engaged our troops in an exchange of gunfire for about two hours in Guma during which one soldier was killed and two others sustained injuries.He noted that in one of the encounters, an Mi35 helicopter had to be deployed to provide air support for the troops as they engaged the militant herdsmen.During the fire fight, Mi35 spotted a group of about 20 armed herdsmen on motorcycles moving towards Nasarawa State. Fifteen of them on five motorcycles were neutralised with rocket fire from the Mi35 while others escaped with varying degrees of injury.Our troops chased the remaining herdsmen until contact was broken close to the boundary between Nasarawa and Benue states. Plans are in progress to conduct further clearance operations of the border areas between the two states, Yekini said.He disclosed further that an operation was conducted in response to the recent killings around Katsina-Ala area of the state, suspected to have been masterminded by the wanted militia leader, Terwase Akwaza, also known as Gana.He said: The operation, which took place at Tse Akwaza camp belonging to Gana in Kastina-Ala commenced at about 5 am on August 18, 2018, through Jato Aka-Kashimbila-Tyotsar axis but was suspended due to bad terrain and damaged bridge at Tyotsar which troops could not cross due to flooding.It was not clear if Gana was killed during the assault but trails of blood seen in the building suspected to be where he slept suggests he might have been hit. A motorcycle usually used by Gana was also badly damaged during the air strike, Yekini said.
A Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday restrained Multichoice Nigeria Limited from going ahead with its recent decision to increase the s...

A Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday restrained Multichoice Nigeria Limited from going ahead with its recent decision to increase the subscription tariffs for DSTV, its satellite cable television service providers.The restraining order was issued in respect of Suit No FHC/ABJ/CS/894/18 brought before the court by the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) in the light of the strong public interest raised in the application.The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, had granted the authority for the Council to initiate the suit under Section 10 and 16 of the Consumer Protection Council Act, Cap c25, LFN 2004.In his order, the judge, Nnamdi Dimgba, said the interim injunction restrains Multichoice Nigeria or its agents and representatives from continuing the implementation of any increase in subscription rates or price review policy imposing increased charges and costs on the consumers pending the determination of the motion on notice.Besides, the court also restrained DSTV from further carrying on or continuing any conduct or activity which interferes with or has effect of circumventing the outcome of ongoing investigations by the CPC into the companys compliance or non-compliance with the February 16, 2016 order pending the determination of the motion on notice.In July, MultiChoice Nigeria announced new monthly subscription rates for the DSTV Premium package from N14,700 to N15,800 (about 7.5 per cent) Compact Plus from N9,900 to N10,650; Compact bouquet from N6,300 to N6,800; Family from N3,800 to N4,000, and Access from N1,900 to N2,000.The new rates took effect from August 1 this month.The application was filed by the CPC on behalf of the federal government, with the Director General of the Council, Babatunde Irukera, leading other concerned Nigerians to appear in court for the case.The application was accompanied with a nine-paragraph statement jointly signed by Messrs Irukera, Abimbola Ojenike, Eme David-Ojugo, Moray Adebayo, Teniola Medupin and Florence Abebe.The CPC said in the statement that it has constitutional responsibility to protect the welfare and interest of consumers in Nigeria through the instrumentality of the Council.In the exercise of its statutory mandate, the Council said it was conducting an investigation into DSTVs compliance with its orders of February 16, 2016 over alleged unfairness, arbitrariness and excessiveness of pricing and billing systems.Besides, the Council said it was also reviewing other emergent issues relating to whether DSTVs business practices and specific conducts were in violation of the law with respect to the rights of consumers in Nigeria.The Council noted that in the course of its investigation and consultative engagement with the Multichoice Nigeria, DSTV preemptively and surreptitiously introduced a subscription regime which imposes increased charges and costs on Nigerian Consumers of digital satellite television service with effect from 1st August, 2018.The agency argued that unless the court restrained Multichoice Nigeria, it was afraid DSTV or its representative would continue the implementation of the increased subscription rate.The action, it pointed out, was capable of rendering ineffective and nugatory the on-going regulatory investigation which seeks to prevent continuing exploitation of Nigerian consumers through obnoxious and exploitative billing systems and pricing regimes.An order of interim injunction restraining the Defendant/Respondent by itself, agents, representatives, affiliates, officers or privies, howsoever described from continuing the implementation of any increased subscription rate or price review policy imposing increased charges and costs on the consumers of Defendant/Respondents services pending the determination of the Plaintiff/Applicants Motion on Notice for Interlocutory Injunction filed in this suit, Mr Dimgba said.The CPC asked the court to accord the matter accelerated hearing so that the substantive issues raised would be determined and settled definitively and expeditiously.Consequently, the court adjourned the case to Tuesday, August 28, for hearing.When contacted, the spokesperson of Multichoice Nigeria Limited, Carole Oghuma, promised to send the companys reaction to the court order. However, at the time of this publication, the response was yet to come in.
Lauretta Onochie, President Muhammadu Buharis Aide on Social Media has said that the Sokoto State governor Aminu Tambuwal and President of the Senate, Dr. Saraki are having fits over the undiluted truth spoken by the All Progressives Congress, APC, fearless national leader, Asiwaju, Chief Bola Tinubu.She said that Saraki and Tambuwal relied on a fake health report the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, paid Cambridge Analytica for and defying their expectations, President Muhammadu Buhari has continued to live and he will not die.She further asking where do Nigerians stands? Said that there are two sides in Nigeria today, the anti-corruption as represented by APCs President Buhari and the corruption as represented by PDP and ally.Sadly, there are two Sides in Nigeria Today.1. Anti Corruption as represented by APCs Pres. Buhari2. Corruption as represented by PDP and ally.Where do you Stand?Stand up for the Champion of Anti Corruption.The very best Africa has to offer.Hes the nemesis that has caught up with inglorious looters in our nation.Hes the Champion of the oppressed, the hope of the hopeless, the strength of the weak and the vulnerable.Stand up and be counted for your Family, your ward, your Local Government Area, your state, your nation, your continent and our world.Stand against corruption. #StandForBuhari.#IStandWithBuhariWhere do you Stand?Leave a comment of solidarity for the People of Kwara State.God bless NigeriaLauretta Onochie Gov Tambuwal & Dr. Saraki are having fits over the undiluted truth spoken by APC's fearless leader, Asiwaju, Chief Bola Tinubu.They relied on a fake health report PDP paid Cambridge Analytica for.Defying their expectations, @MBuhari has continued to live.And he will not die. pic.twitter.com/Snu4JqypN7 Lauretta Onochie (@Laurestar) August 20, 2018
Rose McGowan has spoken out on the allegations that fellow activist/actor Asia Argento sexually assaulted a 17-year old man in a hotel room in Los Angeles.

The expose, which was reported by the New York Times, detailed how Argento - who was one of the most prominent women to come forward with allegations against Harvey Weinstein - paid Jimmy Bennett $380,000 after he alleged that she sexually assaulted him in a hotel room in 2013. Bennett was 17 years old at the time, one year below the age of consent in California where the alleged assault took place.

Bennett had previously played Asia Argento's on-screen son in 'The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things', which Argento also directed.

I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere.  rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) August 20, 2018

None of us know the truth of the situation and Im sure more will be revealed. Be gentle.  rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) August 20, 2018

In her tweet, Rose McGowan said that she "got to know Asia Argento ten months ago," adding that her heart is "broken" and that she "continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere." In another tweet sent from McGowan's account a few hours later, McGowan appeared to be offering tentative support for Argento, adding that "(none) of us know the truth of the situation and Im sure more will be revealed. Be gentle."

In a statement given to Vanity Fair, Jimmy Bennett said that he would take some time to give his formal response to the New York Times' expose, whilst Harvey Weinstein's lawyers released a statement claiming that the latest development was "a stunning level of hypocrisy by Argento."
You need an exceptional pair of lungs to inflate a tyre tube by blowing air into it through your mouth, but one Chinese man has recently set a new world record by inflating 12 tubes at the same time, with one nostril.

43-year-old Tang Feihu accomplished the impressive feat in just two and a half minutes, during a recent event held at Nanjiang Grand Canyon. The stuntman reportedly started off by inflating 10 tyre tubes with a diameter of over 60 cm, a feat that took him 2 minutes and 39 seconds to complete. After taking a 5-minute break to catch his breath, Tang upped the stakes, this time using one of his nostrils to push air into 12 tyre tubes at the same time. It took him only 2 minutes and 30 seconds to finish the job, a new world record.

Photo: jxnews

Its not clear whether the time in which Tang Feihu managed to complete his stunt mattered in this world record attempt, as the previous record holder had only managed to inflate 6 tyre tubes at the same time. Last year, we wrote about Nie Yongbing, another Chinese man, who made news headlines for inflating 4 tyre tubes simultaneously. It took him 20 minutes to do this, which makes Tangs achievement seem all but impossible.



Tang Feihu has reportedly been earning a living by performing all sort of stunts for tourists at various Nanjiang Grand Canyon scenic spots, and decided to try the tyre tube trick after seeing videos of it online. He had practiced martial arts and qigong for many years, so he thought that his breathing techniques might help. It turns out he was right.

Photo: jxnews

On July 5th, Feihu contacted London-based World Record Certification Agency (WRCA) to have his record attempt certified. A month later, on August 12, a WRCA officer was present to oversee the stuntmans performance and later presented him with official record certificate.
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Its an arresting headline:

Researchers identify the most sexist places in America  and Utah ranks pretty high on the list

(And, no, the headline doesnt read most sexiest, even though, since the day that I moved to Utah from California, it could justly have read that way.)

Theres a lot here that might be discussed  thus far, commentators are blaming Utahs high ranking on Mormonism  but let me offer a couple of less-than-entirely-starstruck comments:

1.

I recall a conversation from many years ago in which an ardent male feminist of my acquaintance was railing against the use of sexist terms such as waitress and stewardess and, worst of all, poetess, which he felt were demeaning to women and which, in his view, both revealed a society that devalued females and inculcated a contempt for women that would inevitably perpetuate such devaluation.

Gender markers in terms like those, he insisted, served no useful function and should be eliminated.

Struck by his vehemence, I asked him whether getting rid of gender markers that werent absolutely essential would lead, over time, to a better, less sexist society.

Absolutely, he replied.

So would eliminating gendered pronouns also be a substantial step forward?

Yes, he said. Without a doubt.

I paused for dramatic effect, and then said, Then I give you the Islamic Republic of Iran!

You see, the Persian language (the official language of the Islamic Republic of Iran) doesnt distinguish between he and she, him and her, and his and hers. The third person personal pronoun for both masculine and feminine humans (as well as for it), for instance, is simply u ().

Yet I suspect that very few would confuse the Islamic Republic of Iran with a feminist utopia.

And then there are the Taliban in Afghanistan, another well-known paradise for women. The Taliban are, overwhelmingly, ethnic Pashtuns, whose language is called Pashto. The Pashto word for he/she/it is the undifferentiated hagha () or, when the person or thing being referred to is near at hand, the undifferentiated daa ().

The Taliban are noted worldwide for their treatment of women.

It may not be entirely irrelevant to put on record that I later learned that the particular theoretical feminist with whom I was speaking was notably unkind toward his wife, and he eventually walked out on her. I dont generalize from his case, but I do observe that his may have been an instance of, as it were, arguing for the better treatment of women in the abstract while not treating well the most important woman in his own life. The world is all too full of such idealists.

Is it possible that actual treatment of actual women and adherence to approved feminist ideas are distinct things, and not always clearly connected?

2.

Is the definition of sexism employed in this study the right one to use? Does it capture the most salient or important facts? Or is it focused on the concerns of rather comfortable, safe, contemporary Western and Western-influenced academics?

Consider, for example, the state directly to the west of Utah, for which the study had insufficient data to draw a conclusion:

Nevada consistently ranks first in the nation for domestic violence fatalities. Could Mormonism perhaps help in such cases, or would it make them worse?

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, a Nevada womans chances of being assaulted by her partner at home are higher than the risk a police officer faces of being assaulted on the job. Do such things count as sexist?

If you compare this studys map of the most-sexist and least-sexist American states with a list of The States Where Women Are Most Likely To Be Murdered By Men, its not at all easy to see a straightforward correlation between the two. Would this matter to actual women?

On average and on the whole, will a woman do better in a family and a community devoted to the principles taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or in a family and a community where those principles arent followed?

Within Utah, are rates of domestic abuse or domestic violence (for example) directly related to commitment to Mormonism? If so, is the relationship positive, or inverse?

Just some hasty thoughts inspired by the article.

What are yours?
You can go here to add your signature.

God has shown the strength of Gods arm,

and has scattered the proud in their conceit.

God has cast down the mighty from their thrones,

and has lifted up the lowly.

(Lk 1:51-52)

Statement of Catholic Theologians, Educators, Parishioners, and Lay Leaders

On Clergy Sexual Abuse in the United States

On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro released a comprehensive grand jury report documenting the sexual abuse of over 1,000 children by 301 priests across six Pennsylvania dioceses. The document chronicles, with nauseating clarity, seven decades of clergy sexual abuse and systematic cover-ups by bishops and others in positions of power. The report comes in the wake of last months revelations of decades of sexual predation by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and in the long shadow of the sexual abuse crisis in Boston and beyond.

The crimes detailed in the grand jury report evince a horror beyond expression. The report summarizes the situation thus: Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades. We are brought to our knees in revulsion and shame by the abominations that these priests committed against innocent children. We are sickened in equal measure by the conspiracy of silence among bishops who exploited victims wounds as collateral in self-protection and the preservation of power. It is clear that it was the complicity of the powerful that allowed this radical evil to flourish with impunity.

Today, we call on the Catholic Bishops of the United States to prayerfully and genuinely consider submitting to Pope Francis their collective resignation as a public act of repentance and lamentation before God and Gods People.

We urge them to follow the example of Chiles thirty-four bishops, who resigned collectively in May of this year after revelations of widespread sexual abuse and corruption were brought to light. Through prudent discernment, Pope Francis ultimately accepted three of these thirty-four resignations. It should be noted that the active bishop-to-Catholic ratio is almost the same in Chile and the United States, and that the geographical scope of the crisis in this country appears to surpass that of Chile. After years of suppressed truth, the unreserved decisiveness of the Chilean bishops resignations communicated to the faithful a message that Catholics in the United States have yet to hear, with an urgency we have yet to witness: We have caused this devastation. We have allowed it to persist. We submit ourselves to judgment in recompense for what we have done and failed to do.

Some will feel that the resignation of all bishops is unjustified and even detrimental to the work of healing. After all, many bishops are indeed humble servants and well-intentioned pastors. This is an urge we recognize, but it is not one that we can accept. The catastrophic scale and historical magnitude of the abuse makes clear that this is not a case of a few bad apples but rather a radical systemic injustice manifested at every level of the Church. Systemic sin cannot be ended through individual goodwill. Its wounds are not healed through statements, internal investigations, or public relations campaigns but rather through collective accountability, transparency, and truth-telling. We are responsible for the house we live in, even if we did not build it ourselves. This is why we call on the U.S. Bishops to offer their resignations collectively, in recognition of the systemic nature of this evil.

If we are to say never again to this catastrophic epidemic of sexual violence within the Church, then structural change on a scale previously unimaginable is required. Many have offered sound proposals for specific reforms that would begin to convert this ecclesial culture of violence into one of transparency, accountability, humility, safety, and earned trust. These are proposals we wholeheartedly support, beginning with external investigations of every ecclesiastical province in the United States akin to the one just completed in Pennsylvania. At the same time, we recognize that truth-telling and repentance are prerequisites to conversion. This is as true of institutional conversion as it is of individual conversion. As a collective body, the bishops have given the faithful little indication that they recognize and take accountability for the breathtaking magnitude of the violence and deceit that has continued unabated under their leadership. Thus, we call on them to follow Christs example in offering to the people a willing abdication of earthly status. This is a public act of penance and sorrow, absent of which no genuine process of healing and reform can begin.

We, the undersigned, teach in Catholic schools, colleges, universities, and graduate programs. We work in parishes, retreat centers, and diocesan offices. We are parishioners, lay ecclesial ministers, liturgical musicians, catechists, pastoral care workers, youth and young adult ministers, chaplains, parish workers, community advocates, students, teachers, professors, librarians, and researchers. We are mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, sons and daughters, vowed religious.

We are the baptized.

We stand in solidarity with the thousands of victims, named and unnamed, whom predatory priests, protected by the willing silence of many bishops, have raped, abused, brainwashed, traumatized, and dehumanized. We stand with those driven to alcoholism and drug addiction, to mental illness and suicide. We grieve with their families and communities.

We grieve in a different but no less profound way for our students, children, families, parents, grandparents, friends, neighbors, and all of those we love who have left or will leave the Church because they have found its leaders unworthy of trust. We grieve for our parishes, communities, schools, and dioceses. We grieve for our Church.

The call we issue today is neither liberal nor conservative. It does not emerge from a particular faction or ideology but rather from the heart of a wounded Church. It is an expression of fidelity to the victims, to Jesus Christ, to the Church in whose service we have devoted our lives.

Thus, we call on you, Bishops of the United States, to consider this humble and public act of penance on behalf of us all. Let it be the first of many steps toward justice, transparency, and conversion. Only then might the wrenching work of healing begin.
Thousands bid farewell to legendary Iranian actor Ezzatollah Entezami

08/20/18

By Manijeh Rezapoor, Tehran Times

TEHRAN - Friends and fans joined Ezzatollah Entezami's family in the courtyard of Tehran's Vahdat Hall on Saturday to attend the funeral of the legendary actor who died on Friday at the age of 94.





Ezzatollah Entezami's coffin at Tehran's Vahdat Hall



Entezami was one of Iran's golden generation of actors such as Davud Rashidi, Mohammad-Ali Keshavarz, Ali Nasirian and Jamshid Mashyekhi, who began his career in acting with traditional Iranian performances.





Ezzatollah Entezami





Actor Parviz Parastui, who served as the host of the funeral ceremony, said that no one can replace Entezami in Iranian cinema and added, "He embraced a world of acting secrets and mysteries within himself."







Entezami's old friend Ali Nasirian was called on stage next to tell of his good moments with Entezami.



He expressed his thanks to the people who gathered to bid farewell with their national actor.



"He belonged to the people. He breathed life into the roles he played from within his own soul and spirit. He visualized the roles with all his heart and then played them. That is why they have all been carved in our hearts and turned out to be eternal.



"He is not dead, he is still alive with all the works he has done throughout the years," he said.







Fatemeh Motamed-Arya who co-starred with Entezami in Rakhshan Bani-Etemad's 1995 acclaimed drama "The Blue-Veiled" next appeared on stage to say goodbye to the master.



"We are all here to say goodbye to the individual who taught us hope and discipline. There is no reason to cry. When someone is registered on the history of Iran forever, there is no need to cry for him. He was always energetic, decent and disciplined," she said.



"Do not cry for the national history of Iran and learn to live like the one who always lived with respect and dignity," she noted.



"I cry in my heart for him but I know that artists enjoy a high position, and they are eternal. I wish that all artists would live with dignity and respect like him," she concluded.







Culture Minister Seyyed Abbas Salehi also delivered a short speech at the ceremony.



"His dignity and morals made him an everlasting actor. He was rooted in the culture of this land. He lived with art, and knew the value of this gem. He was careful in choosing his roles and breathed life into the roles he played. He is not gone, he is still with us," he noted.



Entezami's son, Majid, called his father a gem that he could not keep and save forever. He also thanked all the organizations who helped him hold the funeral ceremony in the best way possible.



Entezami was taken to Behesht Zahra Cemetery and buried in the Artists Section of the cemetery.









Coverage of Entezami's death by Iranian media:
























































IRAN: President Rouhani's VP Says Corruption Has Reached Top Officials

08/21/18

Source: Radio Farda

Corruption in Iran has spread and extended to "a number of top state officials", the Islamic Republic's Vice President has declared. While visiting the government's official news agency, IRNA, Es'haq Jahangiri said on Saturday, August 18, "At a time when combatting corruption was possible, it was ignored, and some top officials were lured and drawn in."



Iran's Econmoy

cartoon by Naeem Tadaion, Shahrvand daily



Expanding on the issue of corruption, Jahangiri said, "Fight against corruption needs impartiality, free from factional interests."



Implicitly referring to former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his cabinet (2005-2013), Jahangiri maintained that some top officials were involved in corruption in the past."



Apparently, Jahangiri was referring to Ahmadinejad's VP, Mohammad Reza Rahimi as well as his deputy for Executive Affairs, Hamid Baqaei, who are currently kept behind bars for financial corruption.



However, some of the closest allies of the incumbent, President Hassan Rouhani and his VP have also been detained for corruption, including Rouhani's brother, Hossein Fereydoun and Jahangiri's brother, Mehdi.



"Allocation of 2.6 million pre-sold gold coins to one person"

Satire by Sana Hosseinpour, Ghanoon daily



Meanwhile, close relatives of the Judiciary head, Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani and his elder brother, the Speaker of parliament Ali Larijani have also been accused of corruption in the past.



In February 2013, President Ahmadinejad played a video in parliament showing Fazel Larijani, brother of Ali and Sadeq Larijani, meeting with one of Ahmadinejad's top officials, Tehran's former Prosecutor Saeid Mortazavi, and allegedly seeking a bribe from him. The money allegedly sought was in exchange for gaining Ali Larijani's support for a business deal involving a company linked to Mortazavi. Ali Larijani, presiding over the session, dismissed the video and its content.



A day later, Saeid Mortazavi, then the head of Social Security Organization, was detained. Ahmadinejad strongly condemned Mortazavi's arrest, accusing the judiciary of being run as a "family institution".



Talking about systematic financial corruption in Iran is hardly new. Jahangiri's Saturday comments echoed his earlier remarks, immediately after anti-ruling system widespread protests broke out last December-January.



At the time, Jahangiri described corruption as a termite that has attacked the country's body.



"How many times should I tell you it (Iran's Economy) has finished!"

cartoon by Abolfazl Rahimi, Ghanoon daily



Several MPs have also repeatedly joined the chorus, denouncing corruption and corrupted officials.



"We have been corrupted. Corruption brings along more corruption; as poverty is followed by more poverty," Tehran's outspoken MP, Mahmoud Sadeqi lamented on December 17, 2017.



The representative of Rasht in parliament, Gholam Ali Ja'farzadeh Eiman Abadi also reiterated last April that corruption has infiltrated the infrastructure of the country to the extent that fighting it through legal channels is not possible, anymore.



"It will be a good idea to start fighting corruption at the leader's (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) offices," Ja'farzadeh Eiman Abadi suggested.



Former President Ahmadinejad has also become vociferous in the last few months, accusing the Islamic Republic's top officials of financial corruption.



Following the footsteps of hardline Ahmadinejad, a prominent reformist, Mostafa Tajzadeh, has also ventured more blunt remarks, calling the Supreme Leader "corrupt in practice."



Tajzadeh, 61, is a former deputy interior minister and advisor to President Mohammad Khatami, who was in office from 1997-2005.



In an open letter addressed to Ahmad Tavvakoli, a prominent conservative former MP from Tehran, Tajzadeh wrote that the Supreme Leader "is the flag bearer of the campaign against corruption only in his remarks and speeches," but he and the authorities appointed by him are engaged in corruption.



Tajzadeh also singled out the judiciary and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which is directly under Khamenei's control, saying the IRGC engages in corruption related to its business interests.



Nevertheless, the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader, Khamenei and the head of judiciary, Ayatollah Amoli Larijani have repeatedly denied that corruption has turned into a systematic procedure in the country.
Steve Manteaw, Chairman of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), has emphasized that Ghana is capable of funding the free Senior High School (SHS) policy, which is the flagship programme of the current New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration.



According to him, government should consider consolidating public funds with those from scholarship programmes of the Jubilee Partners and GETFund.



This, according to him, would better help track funding for the Free SHS, avoid wastage and help guarantee the sustenance of the programme.



Dr Manteaw noted that the countrys oil and mineral resources must benefit Ghanaians in a more productive way.



He stressed the importance of financing education to develop the human resource base of the country for economic advancement.



But the modalities for the implementation of the free SHS must be looked at again in order to derive the maximum benefits, he pointed out.



He mentioned that a country like Uganda started a similar programme in 2007 when its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was $12 billion with a population of 29.9 million.



But Ghana in 2017 has a GDP of $37.5 with a population of 27.4 million indicating that Ghana is better placed to implement the free SHS programme on a more sustainable basis, he added.



Dr Manteaw disclosed this at a dialogue on Education Policy in Ghana under the theme: Sustainable Partnership for Educational Financing: Leveraging National Resource Revenue for a better Educational Infrastructure in Ghana.



He stressed the need for a cut-off point for admission into SHSs under the programme to leverage existing facilities.



So the heads of schools should stop converting classrooms into dormitories just to allow every student to stay in boarding house, he said.



Mr Manteaw pointed out that the double track system must be broadly discussed, adding Every programme starts with a pilot test, hence the need to proceed with caution.



He added that the Ghana Education Service (GES) could audit abandoned projects and fix them for use by students rather than concurrently adopting the double track system.



Parents, on the other hand, must also be made to bear some responsibility in identifiable areas as key stakeholders in education delivery.



We have to critically consider every decision in order not to compromise quality in the implementation of the programme.



Joyce Cudjoe, who represented Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition, bemoaned the fact that the coalition was not consulted on the double track system.



She, therefore, called on the government to backtrack and engage all stakeholders for effective education delivery at the second cycle level.



John Dadzie, representative from the Conference of heads of Assisted Private Senior High Schools, stressed that private schools must be given a quota in the intake system.



According to him, the cutoff point was critical to maintaining quality standards to ensure that average students are transferred to the private schools for proper grooming and fine-tuning to get the best out of them for the development of the country.



He said: We have rooms and are capable of grooming these children; we dont need the double track system as a country.



During an open forum, some of the participants called for specialized fields of study as against the many subjects offered by students.



They also indicated that there must be a cut-off point for free entry into public schools to allow the private schools to absorb the rest.



We believe this would help to grow educational entrepreneurs and serve as a means of job creation, he noted.

Source: Daily Guide









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Mrs Cecilia Abena Dapaah, outgoing Minister of Aviation, says Ghana will start processes to develop an Aviation Masterplan to better position the industry for investment.



She said the development of the Aviation Masterplan had become necessary in order for Ghana to be able to attract investors.



Speaking at the Ministrys turn at the Meet the Press session, held at the Ministry of Information on Monday, Mrs. Dapaah said a new and updated aviation-sector master plan was necessary due to Ghanas position in the sector, and also to help it compete for investment.



She said that all countries had been tasked to update and submit their master plans to be considered by the African Development Bank and the Kuwait Fund, among other prospective investors, So that is being done, she said.



The move to use the plan to attract investors is significant given the out-going Ministers admission that inadequate funding was one of the major challenges in the sector. She said the challenge was key, considering the high cost of financing for aviation infrastructure.



Mrs Dapaah, said the Ministry had undertaken various initiatives geared towards enhancing the sector; with some successes.



Key among these is the Ministrys collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, to abolish the 17.5 percent Value Added Tax (VAT) on domestic air fares in April 2017, in a bid to make domestic air travel more affordable to the public.



The policy, she said, was reflected in the reduction of domestic airfares, through the ministrys intervention.



The policy also had an effect on domestic passenger numbers. For instance, domestic passenger throughput increased from 302,270 as at September 2016 to 373,429 in the same month of 2017, representing a 23.5% increase.



The Ministry had also initialled Bilateral Air Services Agreements (BASAs) with Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Rwanda, following Cabinets approval for the signing of BASAs with contracting states.



BASAs allow for commercial air transport services between the two contracting countries. Ghana has also re-negotiated existing BASAs, such as the one with Nigeria, which allowed Africa World Airlines to commence daily flights to Abuja. It also commenced flights to Monrovia and Freetown, based on existing BASAs.



Mrs Dapaah, also noted that the Ministry, following the adoption of the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), to which Ghana is a signatory, had signed the Memorandum of Implementation for the harmonisation of Air Services Agreements.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Murtala Mohammed Ibrahim, a former NDC MP for Nanton Constituency has accused President Akufo-Addo and the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta of orchestrating the collapse of five (5) indigenous banks to pave way for an international financial institution to operate in the country.



According to him, the collapse of the 5 banks is a ploy to bring in a highly prestigious and a leading global financial services firm and one of the largest banking institutions in the United States.



The banking sector has been faced with the collapse of some indigenous banks in the country.



The resultant bank is called Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited.



The Bank of Ghana, a couple of weeks ago, declared five banks Unibank, Sovereign Bank, The Construction Bank, BEIGE Bank and The Royal Bank insolvent and revoked their licences then merged them into what it has been christened the Consolidated Bank Ghana Limited.



The news comes barely a year after it revoked the licences of the UT and other banks which were also indigenously owned.



The BoG said some of those banks were significantly undercapitalised and beyond rehabilitation, while others supposedly obtained their licences under false pretences.



Murtala, a former Deputy Trades and Industry Minister in the erstwhile Mahama-led NDC government, who was speaking on the banking crises in the country during a panel discussion on Radio Gold's Alhaji and Alhaji, Saturday, said the collapse of these numerous banks is just "a ploy by the BoG governor (Dr. Addison), finance minister and the President to bring in an American bank called Morgan JP & Chase (JPMorgan Chase & Co)".

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The chances of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the largest opposition Party, to win Election 2020 are brighter, says Mr Kwadwo Nyamekye-Marfo, a former envoy to Algeria.



He, therefore, urged supporters and members of the NDC to work hard, intensify campaign and reach out to voters at the grassroots in particular and sensitise them on the need to return the Party to power for the good of Ghanaians.



In an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the side-lines of a fund raising rally at Dumasua in the Sunyani West District, Mr Nyamekye-Marfo said the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) had failed Ghanaians in all areas of governance.



Organised by the newly-elected Sunyani West Constituency executives of the NDC, the rally was to seek public support towards the construction of an ultra-modern office complex for the Constituency at Odomase, estimated to cost GHC500,000.00.



The 28-member Constituency Executive have already acquired four acres of land and raised GHC10,000.00 for the project, comprising offices, conference hall and recreational centre, which is yet to commence.



Mr Nyamekye-Marfo expressed discomfort with some of the policies of the Government including the high taxes and import duties, which were making life unbearable for most businesses and individuals.



Its glaring Ghanaians are fed-up with the NPP Administration. The economy is very bad and businesses are struggling to survive, he said.



Mr Nyamekye-Marfo said the NDC could regain power if the Partys leadership, supporters and members demonstrated unity of purpose, identified and addressed peculiar challenges, which affected the Party in the 2016 elections.



He said petty squabbles, backbiting and internal wrangling would only divide their front and jeopardise the Partys chances in Election 2020.



The NDC delegates in the Brong-Ahafo Region are expected to endorse Mr Nyamekye-Marfo as the substantive Regional Chairman because Mr Opoku Atuahene, the incumbent, would step down.



By the close of nominations about a month ago Mr Nyamekye Marfo was the only person who had filed to contest the position.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Gender and Social Protection Minister, Otiko Afisa Djaba has decided to leave 'active politics' and enjoy 'life' with her family.



The Minister was one of the casualties in a recent reshuffle by President Akufo-Addo. She was appointed as an Ambassador to Italy.



However, in an interview with the Daily Graphic, Monday, Otiko disclosed that she had resigned from active politics and has decided to turn down the appointment.



At 56 years, I want to relax and enjoy my family and life and, therefore, I am not ready to take up the appointment as Ambassador to Italy, she said.



Apart from that she is going to take care of her ex-husband who had stroke for the past six years; adding, I am the one who has been taking care of him since he got sick and I cannot abandon him now



Meanwhile, her decision has been made official in a letter to the President. She has also handed over to the Minister of Planning, Professor George Gyan-Baffour.

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
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.
The Trump administration faced several rounds of bad news today as not one, but two prominent campaign officials experienced legal consequences. This afternoon a jury found Paul Manafort guilty on eight separate counts including five tax fraud charges, one charge of hiding foreign bank accounts and two counts of bank fraud. Almost simultaneously, Trumps former lawyer Michael Cohen faced a judge after being arrested by the FBI. According to reports, he pleaded guilty to multiple counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud.

Manafort

Manafort was initially charged with 18 counts of tax evasion, bank fraud and hiding foreign bank accounts. Ten of those counts ended in a mistrial while the eight guilty verdicts could keep Manafort in prison for the rest of his life with a potential maximum sentence of 80 years.

And thats not the end his legal troubles, either.

Manafort could be retried for those 10 counts should prosecutors decide to pursue them. Additionally, Manafort is due back in court for a separate set of charges in Washington, DC for failure to register his foreign lobbying and of money laundering conspiracy related to the same Ukrainian political work that was central to the Virginia case.

A little over 200 miles away, as Manafort learned his fate, Michael Cohen appeared before a judge to admit guilt.

Cohen

When he appeared before the court to plead guilty, Cohen dropped what might be the largest bombshell in a day full of historic news. In open court, under oath, Cohen said he made the illegal hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, Playboy model Karen McDougal, and others at the direction of then candidate Donald Trump, implicating Trump as a co-conspirator.

Though he didnt say Trumps name, he did implicate the candidate he was working on behalf of.

According to Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami, Cohen made the illegal payments for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election.

In addition to the illegal payments, Cohen pleaded guilty to several other charges. The Daily Beast noted:

Trumps former attorney and fixer pleaded guilty to eight counts  five counts of tax evasion, one count of making a false statement to a financial institution, one count of causing an unlawful corporate contribution, and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution  in a deal with the U.S. Attorneys Office in Manhattan.

The common thread between both of todays blockbuster stories is the the tie not only to the Trump campaign and their efforts to circumvent the law to help elect Trump, but the alleged knowing involvement of then candidate Donald Trump in those activities.

If he wasnt a sitting president, Donald Trump would most likely already be in FBI custody based on Cohens court testimony today. As it stands, he now faces potential charges of conspiracy to commit a crime for his part in Cohens financial crimes should enough evidence exist to link Cohens accusation to provable actions by Trump.

And thats not to mention that Omarosa Manigault Newman is rumored to be releasing a new and damning recording this evening in an interview on Hardball.

As attorney Michael Avenatti said earlier this afternoon to Rudy Giuliani, Buckle Up Buttercup. You and your client completely misplayed this

Peacock Panache readers:

Tim Peacock is the Managing Editor and founder of Peacock Panache and has worked as a civil rights advocate for over twenty years. During that time hes worn several hats including leading on campus LGBTQ advocacy in the University of Missouri campus system, interning with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, and volunteering at advocacy organizations. You can learn more about him at his personal website.

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The RCMP logo is seen outside Royal Canadian Mounted Police "E" Division Headquarters, in Surrey, B.C., on Friday April 13, 2018. A coroner's inquest will be held into the suicide of an RCMP officer who was in charge of media relations in British Columbia when Robert Dziekanski was fatally stunned with a Taser at Vancouver's airport. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
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El Salvador's Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda stands as his country's national anthem is played at a signing ceremony to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between El Salvador and China at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. Taiwan says it is breaking off diplomatic ties with El Salvador because the Central American country plans to defect to rival Beijing. The move is the latest blow to the self-ruled island that China has been trying to isolate on the global stage. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Plaintiff Bryant Miller (left) walks into Philadelphia City Hall in September with lawyers arguing for better school funding in Pennsylvania. The lawyers are Maura McInerney and, Deborah Gordon Klehr of the Education Law Center and Michael Churchill of the Public Interest Law Center. Read more

A landmark lawsuit challenging how Pennsylvania pays for public education is moving closer to trial after Commonwealth Court dismissed state lawmakers' last remaining objection to the case.

State Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) argued for dismissal on the ground that in 2016, Pennsylvania adopted a formula directing more money to school districts with greater student needs. But the plaintiffs  among them the William Penn School District in Delaware County and parents of Philadelphia students  said that disparities between low and high-wealth districts had increased despite the formula, which applies only to a portion of what Pennsylvania spends on public education.

"Clearly, a factual dispute about the significance and adequacy of the funding changes  persists," the court said in its order Monday.

A spokesman for Scarnati did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment. Neal Lesher, a spokesman for House Speaker Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny), said lawmakers had increased funding for school districts by $2 billion since 2015.

"Crafting a budget, including education funding, is constitutionally a legislative matter that we take very seriously," Lesher said. "We continue to believe that this matter does not belong in the courts."

Filed in 2014 by the Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center on behalf of school districts, parents, and statewide organizations, the lawsuit alleges that the state is violating its constitution by failing to adequately educate children and discriminating against children based on where they live.

It was dismissed in 2015 by Commonwealth Court, which held that education funding couldn't be reviewed by judges. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed that decision last year, reviving the case and sending it back to the lower court.

Legislative leaders continued to argue that it shouldn't move forward  in part because the state had since adopted a funding formula. Monday's order put an end to those objections.

While lawmakers still may file additional motions, the next stage is deciding what the trial will look like, how the issues will be presented and the timetable for producing evidence, said Maura McInerney, legal director of the Education Law Center.

Pennsylvania's formula "in no way resolved the broken funding system in the state," McInerney said. "It did not add a single dollar to the state contribution to education.  There's no question that the schools that are underfunded continue to suffer from the same harm."

Staff writer Kristen A. Graham contributed to this article.
The second season of true-crime parody American Vandal, created by Exton native Tony Yacenda, officially has a premiere date at Netflix. But rather than spraypainted phalluses, this season will deal with something a little grosser  feces.

In its first season, American Vandal investigated a series of spraypainted penises in a fictional school's parking lot, with protagonist Peter Maldonado (Tyler Alvarez) working to clear the name of local ne'er-do-well Dylan Maxwell (Jimmy Tatro) of the crime. Now, however, the new season will have Maldonado and his partner, Sam Ecklund (Griffin Gluck) investigating a series of "poop-related pranks" at an elite Catholic School.

"American Vandal's addictive second season will have everyone speculating: Who is the Turd Burglar?" a release reads.

Co-creator Yacenda teased a second season last year, when the Inquirer caught up with him following the premiere of American Vandal. In an interview, Yacenda said that the show might not continue to focus on spraypainted penises.

"There are still so many tropes of true-crime documentaries and so many other high school stories that we haven't told," Yacenda said. "We're pretty confident we can make a second season much stronger than the first."
Last year, Kevin Peck, from California, discovered his half-brother, Peter Klenk, a Philly lawyer, on Ancestry.com while searching for his biological father. In July, Peck found their father, now deceased, more siblings, and one more mystery. Clockwise are photos of their father Darold Oliver Hanson, Peck, another half-brother Scott Hanson and Klenk. Read more

Last I left the half-brothers who had gone on Ancestry.com to find their father but instead found each other, they were getting acquainted  discovering similar senses of humor and tastes in cheesesteaks:

Dalessandro's, when Kevin Peck, a technical marketing manager from California, and his family came to visit Peter Klenk, a Philadelphia lawyer.

"I have had a Philly cheesesteak before," Peck said, "but that was definitely the best."

Bros by blood and cheese, it turns out.

And then, last month, they discovered something new.

Using the same genealogical site that led him to Klenk, Peck finally found their father.

His name: Darold Oliver Hanson. The brothers had so many questions for the Minnesota man, who'd fathered two sons in 1962.

But then, disappointment: More digging showed that Hanson had died in 2002.

It could have been the end of the road, except, now armed with their father's details, Peck kept looking on the site and found what appeared to be yet another half-brother.

Equipped with a script full of notes to prepare for questions the stranger might ask, Peck dialed the number for Scott Hanson, an engineer from Minnesota.

With every word from Peck's mouth, Hanson's suspicions grew.

The Californian on the phone was talking about a father who was an electrician. Hanson's father had laid carpet his whole life.

"What in the world?" he thought before hanging up. Whatever this guy was selling, he wasn't buying.

Peck sent the Minnesota engineer a few emails full of information he had gathered over the years, including the column I wrote about him and Klenk.

Hanson took one look at Peck's photo, turned to his wife, and said:

"My God, this might be true."

Hanson couldn't deny the resemblance. "He looks just the spitting image of me from the nose on up, and he looks just like my dad," he said of Peck. A lot of the information was spot on, too.

But it was the DNA test results that finally convinced him.

Hanson gave Peck and Klenk, both 55, some of the details they'd long sought  including a fuller family health history. Their father, a smoker, had died at 63 of lung cancer.

"My dad was supposed to be the key that opened up things," Hanson said, "but I guess I was the key that unlocked a lot."

And the 54-year-old engineer told them something else. He had two sisters from their father. And there was a half-brother that the Minnesotans had heard about when they were growing up but had never met. Someone named Craig, who maybe lived in California.

It seemed odd that the family would know about that half-brother, but not of Klenk and Peck. Maybe their father didn't know of them. No one knows for sure.

What Peck, who was adopted and has never met his birth mother, does know is that after years of searching, his family tree is suddenly taking shape  and it's fuller than he ever imagined.

It's a lot to digest.

>>READ MORE: One Ancestry.com DNA test later, Philly lawyer discovers a half-brother

When I checked in with Klenk, the Philly lawyer sounded conflicted.

Many of the feelings he thought he put behind him have bubbled up again, he conceded. It stings that his father's death means he'll likely never get answers to questions he had, that his mother has long refused to answer.

But like a good older brother  he's a couple of months older than Peck  Klenk's got his brother's back:

"Kevin's a really cool guy, and he obtained his goal, and seeing that, that's like the victory, right? You have to hold on to the victory, and he deserves it. He did all the work."

The brothers are traveling to the Twin Cities over Labor Day weekend to meet their new half-siblings and their families.

And in the meantime, Peck has set out to solve one more mystery  finding that last half-brother.

This time he's started a Facebook page. It's called, "Searching for Craig Michael Hanson B:1962."

It includes the few details he has. The man was born in 1962 in Hennepin County, Minn., to Darold Oliver Hanson and Ilga Debra Rozemberg.

And this personal message.

"You have siblings trying to connect with you."
Gov. Wolf has asked the state's Judicial Conduct Board to review decisions by the Bucks County judge who let the father of Kayden Mancuso have unsupervised visits with the 7-year-old girl in the weeks before he fatally beat her and killed himself.

A spokesperson for Wolf confirmed Tuesday that the girl's family asked for his help in the wake of the murder-suicide in Manayunk this month.

"Gov. Wolf empathizes with the family regarding their tragic loss," spokesperson J.J. Abbott said in an email.

Relatives of the girl have lashed out at Judge Jeffrey G. Trauger for letting Jeffrey Mancuso continue unsupervised weekend visits with Kayden despite his threats to other relatives and their warnings to the judge about his violent tendencies. The girl's mother, Kathryn Sherlock, had primary custody.

In the days after Kayden's death, a family friend started a Change.org petition seeking Trauger's removal from the bench, contending that "he allowed a historically violent man to have unmonitored visits even after the child expressed fear." As of Tuesday afternoon, the petition had more than 37,000 signatures.

Sherlock had obtained a protection-from-abuse order against Mancuso; she has said he repeatedly threatened, abused, and harassed her. Mancuso's sister, Allyson, said she was also concerned about her brother's violent nature, and that he struggled with alcohol abuse and frequently got into fights.

Trauger has not responded to the family's criticisms. Stephen Heckman, the Bucks County court administrator, has said Trauger can't comment on individual cases.

During an unsupervised visit during the weekend of Aug. 4, Mancuso fatally beat his daughter with a 35-pound dumbbell in his living room. He then hanged himself in an upstairs room. The girl's body was found by her stepfather and her maternal grandfather on the morning of Aug. 6. Her death prompted an outpouring of grief and support around her Lower Bucks community; Kayden was to enter second grade this year at Edgewood Elementary School.

Trauger's last decision in the custody case, on May 21, noted that Kayden had personally witnessed her father's violent behavior when he was frustrated or angry. It also recounted Mancuso's aggravated-assault conviction for biting off part of a man's ear at a South Philadelphia bar on New Year's Day 2012, his abusive interaction with Kayden's kindergarten teacher and her principal at her Lower Makefield Township school, and a psychiatrist's conclusion that he suffered from major depression.

Trauger also noted that Kayden's mother told a custody evaluator that Mancuso, a 41-year-old consultant, had been "violent to her when they were together." Kayden's parents never married; she lived with her mother, stepfather and half-brothers in Langhorne.

The judge also wrote in his ruling that while Kayden was aware of the conflicts and turmoil between her mother and father, Mancuso loved Kayden and had not physically abused her.

His last ruling reaffirmed a prior ruling giving Sherlock primary custody of the girl but also restricted Mancuso's time with his daughter. Instead of getting Kayden from Thursday afternoon to Monday mornings every other week, Mancuso was limited to alternate weekends between 10 a.m. Saturday and 6 p.m. Sunday.

"However," Trauger wrote, "the court cautions father to be aware at all times of the potential risks that his behavior may have on child's future emotional and psychological well-being and her long-term relationship with father and others as she matures."

The Judicial Conduct Board investigates complaints against state judges and can bring cases against those who are accused of unethical actions.

Robert Graci, the board's chief counsel, declined Tuesday to acknowledge if a complaint had been filed. He said matters filed with the board are not public record and the board's proceedings are confidential.

In general, he said, every complaint is reviewed, but most are dismissed because they lack merit. The board could seek to review a judge's decisions, obtain hearing transcripts, or interview witnesses, he said.

Samuel Stretton, a Philadelphia-area lawyer who has represented judges in disciplinary cases, said he did not think the family's public complaints  that Trauger gave Mancuso unsupervised access despite being told of his past acts or threats of violence  would have merit before the board.

"Assuming he [Trauger] evaluated all the evidence and made a decision, that's not a basis for judicial discipline," said Stretton. "Judicial discipline would be if he didn't take the time to review the record, or didn't listen to evidence, or acted badly on the bench  cutting off people, yelling," or if a judge didn't have proper decorum or made a crude comment.

"You don't get judicial discipline just because a judge makes a decision that turns out to be wrong, as long as it was made fairly, honestly and based on the record," Stretton said. "Otherwise, if that was the case, it would be the end of an independent judiciary. Every judge would be looking over his shoulder."

Stacey Witalec, a spokesperson for the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, said family law and custody cases are among "the most difficult" for judges. She noted that Pennsylvania enacted sweeping changes to its custody laws in 2010 in an effort to further protect children.

"Sadly, however, no legislation, medical or psychological testing can prevent a senseless act of violence," Witalec said in an email. "The tragic loss of a child leaves everyone involved looking for answers."

In an Aug. 10 email to county Bar Association members, reported by the Bucks County Courier Times, association president Jessica Pritchard wrote: "The murder of a child is a tragic event that can never be understood. It is even more difficult to understand when that murder is committed by a parent. While I sincerely sympathize with and understand the emotions surrounding this horrible crime, the vitriol towards our judiciary and Judge Trauger is unwarranted."

A message left Tuesday for Pritchard was not returned.
Representative Margo "Crash" Davidson, poster child for "why are we pampering and spoiling state legislators?" Read more

Criticize state lawmakers all you want, but they are consistent on one point: They always reliably provide poster children for their own embarrassing excesses.

Such as Vincent Fumo, poster child for public corruption.

And LeAnna Washington, poster child for using her own staff to plan campaign fundraisers

And John Perzel, poster child for constructing elaborate taxpayer funded systems to help him and cronies get reelected.

All of these offenses have a key point in common: They are connected to the sense of spoiled entitlement that often comes with state elected office.

Today, we present Representative Margo "Crash" Davidson, poster child for "why are we pampering and spoiling state legislators?"

According to a recent Inquirer report, Davidson apparently has a hard time handling her state-government-issued car; in the past three years, she's had three accidents in two different state-supplied vehicles, one of which happened when she was driving with a suspended license. In another, separate episode, she left her state-owned car in her driveway unlocked with the keys in it; it was stolen and damaged. Taxpayers have been on the hook not only for her cars, but for $30,000 in repairs.

It's bad enough that cars are provided to state lawmakers; those deals also include fuel and maintenance. But the car perk is just the tip of the iceberg. State lawmakers are paid an average of more than $87,000 way more than any other state except California. Leaders get even more. Lawmakers also get per diems  up to $183 per day, no receipts required.

They get gold-plated health care, and after serving in office for 10 years  eight, if you're a senator  they can retire (at 55, with a pension) and keep it for a low cost, for life. And they get to draw their own district lines, ensuring them long stints in office.

If Davidson's bumper car experience is any guide, no one bats an eye or puts a limit on the amount of money taxpayers are expected to shell out for the damage done by expensive perks.

Who ever thought it would be a good idea to create a body of lawmakers empowered to codify into law generous salaries and perks for themselves?

It's hard to be optimistic anything will change. Following the "Bonusgate" scandal of 2006 when lawmakers approved raises for themselves in the middle of the night, a scathing grand jury report called for a number of reforms for a legislature they said "exists in a time warp." Those reforms called for eliminating political caucuses, cutting bloated staffing levels, and killing per diems.

Nothing much has happened since  except for more car crashes for Davidson.

Other states require voters to approve every pay raise. Still others have a commission that helps establish salaries and perks. Others tie their salaries to the pay of other state employees, according to Ballotpedia. We'd settle for tying it to the average state income which is $56,907.

Lawmakers will continue to assure themselves a well-paid, pampered life at the expense of taxpayers  until, that is, voters get wise and start demanding they behave more responsibly, or find other jobs.
The Mazzoni Center, in the 1300 block of Bainbridge Street, was also rocked by allegations of sexual misconduct in 2017. Read more

The Mazzoni Center, Philadelphia's largest LGBT health-care provider, seems to be in a constant state of turmoil.

The same problems keep surfacing: employees of color feeling mistreated by upper management, a disconnect between the CEO and staff, sexual-misconduct accusations against high-ranking officials.

We break down the controversies from the last two years, starting with the most recent:

August/September 2018: Citys LGBT Affairs Office says it is deeply troubled by events at Mazzoni; employees sign petition

Philadelphia's LGBT Affairs Office calls out Mazzoni's leadership and says the city's Commission on Human Relations, which investigates discrimination in employment and other areas, is looking into the recent firing of Mazzoni's diversity director.

"We are dismayed to receive continued reports from staff regarding allegations of discrimination within the agency," the LGBT Affairs Office says in a statement. "While Mazzoni Center has employee personnel policies which address harassment, inclusion, retaliation, and work rules, these policies appear to be enforced selectively, if at all. The potential for this kind of inconsistency leaves employees vulnerable to a culture of discrimination and retaliation.

"We are concerned for the well-being of Mazzoni Center staff and how any mistreatment may affect the care of patients and clients," the LGBT Affairs Office adds.

Eighty-two employees sign a petition saying they lack confidence in Mazzoni's CEO, Lydia Gonzalez Sciarrino. The petition demands that the center's board of directors "force resignations where just cause exists" and also reinstate the diversity director.

The allegations of racial hostility at Mazzoni echo what the city found a year earlier, when it ordered the center to undergo anti-bias training after concluding employees were vulnerable to discriminatory practices.

August 2018: Dozens of staffers walk out to protest firing of diversity director

The firing of Kay Martinez, a queer transgender person of color who was hired to address disparities in staffers' compensation and advancement opportunities, upsets many employees, causing nearly 50 to walk out of work.

Martinez was the center's first diversity director, and employees had created the job description in hopes it would force Mazzoni to address pay inequities and better support staffers of color.

>> READ MORE: Philadelphia's start-up community launches data survey to address its diversity shortcomings

Martinez says Mazzoni's CEO, Lydia Gonzalez Sciarrino, is trying to silence them. Some staffers speak out and say Gonzalez Sciarrino doesn't belong at Mazzoni.

They also say Gonzalez Sciarrino offered little support when three staffers of color, including Martinez, were assaulted by protesters in early August outside the Philadelphia Trans Wellness Conference, an event that Mazzoni runs. Martinez recalls being hit in the face and says the two others were maced.

May 2018: Mazzonis former interim CEO is accused of deeply disturbing sexual harassment

The allegations against Stephen Glassman come up at the Philadelphia LGBTQ State of the Union during a question-and-answer session with Glassman's successor, Lydia Gonzalez Sciarrino.

Questions for Gonzalez Sciarrino are written anonymously on index cards and read by two moderators. One of the first questions asks how Gonzalez Sciarrino is responding to allegations that Glassman sexually harassed 10 employees.

Gonzalez Sciarrino initially confuses Glassman with Mazzoni's former medical director, Robert Winn, who resigned in 2017 amid his own sexual-misconduct allegations. Upon being corrected, Gonzalez Sciarrino says this is the first she has heard of the accusations against Glassman. In a statement the following day, she calls them "deeply disturbing."

Glassman calls the allegations "entirely false," and a third party is hired to investigate. Details about the alleged harassment  such as the nature of it, who may have been victimized, and during what time period  are not disclosed.

March 2018: Mazzonis hiring of new CEO, a straight woman from Florida, lacks transparency

Lydia Gonzalez Sciarrino faces calls to resign soon after being hired.

Some former and current employees ask why a straight woman  with few ties to Philadelphia  has been selected to lead an LGBT organization here. Mazzoni's board of directors, which made the hiring decision, pushes back in a blunt statement: "We are disappointed members of the community  our community  chose to judge Lydia without first meeting her, based on their perceptions of her race, gender identity and orientation, and not her qualifications."

The board says Gonzalez Sciarrino led a health clinic in Florida that mostly served LGBT patients.

But the hiring process is quickly scrutinized.

Mazzoni won't disclose the number of candidates interviewed or say how many people of color were considered, citing a nondisclosure agreement it signed with a search firm. A committee of Mazzoni staffers and LGBT community leaders is also supposed to meet final candidates and offer input, but that never happens. The center says some candidates requested confidentiality, making it impossible to meet staff.

The executive director of the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs, Amber Hikes, who was on the committee, says: "There could have been more community and staff involvement in a decision of this magnitude, especially considering Mazzoni's significant recent challenges."

September 2017: Interim CEO fights staffers attempts to unionize  and hires antiunion consultant with extremist ties

Mazzoni's interim CEO, Stephen Glassman, brings in aggressive antiunion consultants to stymie an organizing effort by employees trying to unionize. One of the consultants has ties to a right-wing hate group, as Philadelphia Weekly reports. Glassman says he did not properly vet that consultant and terminates the contract.

A letter signed by seven members of City Council urges Glassman and Mazzoni leadership not to obstruct the unionizing effort. "Bringing in outsiders notorious for harsh, anti-union tactics is not only a concerning use of the nonprofit's resources, but it risks doing untold damage to the very trust that must be rebuilt if Mazzoni is to flourish," the letter says.

The staff votes to unionize.

April 2017: Mazzonis longtime CEO resigns amid backlash over response to sexual-misconduct allegations

Nurit Shein, who has led the center since 1995, is accused in 2017 of failing to address earlier sexual-misconduct allegations against former medical director Robert Winn. A former board member tells Philadelphia Weekly that Winn was accused at least four years earlier of having sexual relationships with patients and that Shein didn't take the allegations seriously, because they were made anonymously.

Mazzoni staff members walk out and call for Shein to resign.

Mazzoni's board of directors initially defends Shein but asks for her resignation days later. She resigns. Several board members do as well.

The allegations against Winn aren't the only problem. Employees of color also say Shein fostered an environment of racial hostility. Black employees describe being singled out for disciplinary action and facing retaliation for filing complaints. The city finds Mazzoni's employees are vulnerable to discriminatory practices and orders the nonprofit to undergo antibias training.
Michael Cohen, President Trump's former lawyer and fixer, has entered into a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Read more

Michael Cohen, President Trump's longtime fixer and personal lawyer, implicated Trump directly in campaign finance crimes after pleading guilty to eight criminal charges Tuesday as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

The charges include five counts of tax evasion, one count of bank fraud, and two campaign finance violations that stem from hush-money payments intended to silence two women who claimed they'd had affairs with Trump  porn star Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal.

Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court, Cohen told Judge William H. Pauley III the payments made to Daniels and McDougal were made "in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office," understood to be Trump.

"I participated in this conduct, which on my part took place in Manhattan, for the principal purpose of influencing the election," Cohen said.

Robert Khuzami, the deputy U.S. attorney with the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, told reporters at a news conference that Cohen made the payments during the 2016 presidential campaign for the "principal purpose of influencing" the election. Cohen then submitted "sham invoices" for nonexistent legal services to the Trump Organization for reimbursement for those payments.

Cohen was released on $500,000 bond and exited the courthouse to chants of "Lock him up!" Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 12, and Cohen faces a likely prison sentence of 46 to 63 months.

Here are the latest updates:

Top Republicans stay silent on Cohen, Manafort

Top Republicans in both the House and Senate have largely remained silent following Cohen's guilty plea and his implication of President Trump in illegal campaign payments during the 2016 election.

Sen. John Cornyn (R, Texas), the Senate majority whip, told reporters that people like Cohen who break the law "need to be held accountable."

"But this doesn't add anything to the allegations of misconduct relative to the Russia investigation," Cornyn added.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office did not respond to a request for comment. Paul Ryan, the top Republican in the House, declined to offer an opinion on either Cohen's guilty plea or the guilty verdict of Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman.

"We are aware of Mr. Cohen's guilty plea to these serious charges," Ryan's spokesperson said in a statement. "We will need more information than is currently available at this point."

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy also avoided commenting on either Cohen or Manafort, but did comment on the murder of Mollie Tibbetts, a 20-year-old Iowa student who officials say was killed by an undocumented immigrant named Cristhian Rivera.

Trump: The witch hunt continues

Stepping off Air Force One ahead of a 7 p.m. rally tonight in West Virginia, Trump told reporters that "the witch hunt continues."

"This has nothing to do with Russian collusion  absolutely nothing to do with Russian collusion," the president told reporters. "This is a witch hunt, a disgrace."

Trump called the guilty verdict of his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, "sad." He didn't address questions from reporters about Cohen.

Cohen implicates Trump in plea deal

As part of his plea agreement, Cohen said that he worked "in coordination with and at the direction of" of then-candidate Trump to pay off Daniels and ex-Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to silence their allegations ahead of the 2016 election, according to several reporters in the courtroom.

"Cohen just directly implicated Trump," wrote New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman.

In court, Cohen said the payments were "for the principal purpose of influencing the election," the Times reported.

The full plea agreement

Paul Manafort found guilty on 8 counts in fraud trial

In a separate trial in Alexandria, Va., former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been found guilty on eight counts of bank and tax fraud, according to the Associated Press.

Judge T.S. Ellis declared a mistrial on the 10 other charges Manafort faced after jurors couldn't reach a consensus.

Manafort, who served as Trump's campaign chairman during the 2016 campaign, pleaded not guilty. The jury deliberated for four days before announcing the verdict.

Senate Intelligence Committee recently re-engaged with Cohen

In a joint statement issued Tuesday afternoon, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R, N.C.) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (R, Va.) said they "recently re-engaged" Michael Cohen and his team following reports Trump's former lawyer had advance knowledge of a controversial campaign meeting at Trump Tower.

Burr and Warner said that Cohen had previously testified to the committee he was "not aware of the meeting prior to its disclosure in the press last summer," and said Cohen recently told the committee that "he did stand by his testimony."

"We hope that today's developments and Mr. Cohen's plea agreement will not preclude his appearance before our Committee as needed for our ongoing investigation," the statement said.

Michael Avenatti reacts to reports of plea deal

Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Daniels, told MSNBC he was "100 percent" sure Trump's former lawyer would offer "damaging information" about the president.

"Back in early April, I stated that ultimately he was going to be charged and he was going to roll over on the president, and I'm going to maintain that position," Avenatti said. "Of all the people the president should have shown loyalty to, I guess beyond Vlady Putin, Michael Cohen should have been second on the list."

Cohens 2015 tweet about Hillary Clinton goes viral

Following reports that Cohen had agreed to accept a plea deal, a December 2015 tweet Trump's former lawyer wrote about former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was re-shared widely on Twitter.

In the tweet, written before Trump secured the Republican presidential nomination, Cohen suggested that Clinton was headed to prison for unspecified crimes.

Ramifications for President Trump

Implicating President Trump as part of his plea agreement marks a dramatic reversal for Cohen, who in the past had professed total loyalty to Trump and told Vanity Fair he "would take a bullet for the president." And while there is no mention of cooperation in today's court documents, Lanny Davis, Cohen's lawyer who served as former President Bill Clinton's special counsel during Clinton's presidential impeachment hearings, has signaled that his client would be willing to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russia's attack on the 2016 election.

>> READ MORE: After Cohen's guilty plea, Trump attacks Manafort conviction

Seth Hettena, a veteran journalist who chronicled Trump's business career in Trump/Russia: A Definitive History, told ABC News back in June that Cohen was "the guy who knows where all the bodies are buried."

Last month, both CNN and NBC News reported that Cohen was ready to tell prosecutors that Trump knew in advance about a June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower where top campaign officials expected to receive dirt about Hillary Clinton from Russians. Trump has maintained he wasn't made aware of the meeting, though he has admitted on Twitter that the purpose of the meeting was "to get information on an opponent."
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal at a press conference earlier this year. He was among those who challenged President Trump's travel ban on Muslim-majority countries. Read more

New Jersey fined 29 unlicensed moving companies that were caught during an undercover sting operation last spring, the state attorney general's office announced Monday.

The movers were snagged during four days in April as part of "Operation Mother's Attic," in which state investigators posed as people hiring the companies to move from a luxury home in Montville, Morris County. The unlicensed movers, who had advertised online, were met by investigators who issued notices of violation and $2,500 fines, authorities said.

"An unlicensed moving company can be a homeowner's worst nightmare," Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement. "They've been known to hold truckloads of property hostage until the customer pays an extortionate fee. And these unlicensed movers often don't carry adequate insurance, creating the risk that homeowners will be left high and dry if their property is seriously damaged during the move. That's why we regulate the industry  and why we crack down on rogue operators."

State law requires movers to be licensed by the Division of Consumer Affairs and to have cargo liability insurance, workers' compensation insurance, and bodily injury and property damage insurance. There are roughly 320 licensed movers in New Jersey, according to the attorney general's office.

The movers cited for operating without a license are:

 Price Movers, Staten Island, NY

Alpha Moving Services, Highland Lakes, NJ

Affordable & Assertive Moving & Storage, Pompton Lakes, NJ

Avelar Trucking, Landing, NJ

Bin It NJ, North Bergen, NJ

Centurion Movers, Willow Grove, PA

Consider It Done, Toms River, NJ

Cruz Moves, Cinnaminson, NJ

Enterprise Van Lines, Congers, NY

GDK Logistics a/k/a GDK International, Fairfield, NJ

H & D Transportation, Clifton, NJ

Helping Hands Moving, Newark, NJ

I.D. Noble Movers a/k/a Noble ID Movers, Hackensack, NJ

Imperial Moving & Storage a/k/a Lion's Den Enterprises, a/k/a Insignia Moving, New York, NY

J & L Moving, Hillside, NJ

Lite Moving, Franklin Square, NY

Moving Good, Little Ferry, NJ

Moving Hero, Rahway, NJ

Old Country Van Lines, East Newark, NJ

Princeton Movers a/k/a Great Eastern Movers, Brooklyn, NY

Rent A Helping Hand, Pennington, NJ

Mundanzas, Dover, NJ

Roadway Moving, Elizabeth, NJ

Round City Moving, Garfield, NJ

Rosie's Master Movers, Cherry Hill, NJ

TB Moving a/k/a TB Moving & Storage, Brooklyn, NY

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Big Men In Trucks, Sloatsburg, NY

Each mover can contest the violation and fine. The $2,500 penalty will be cut in half for movers who apply for a license within 30 days of receiving a notice of violation.

State police also handed out 29 motor vehicle violations and arrested three people (two for outstanding warrants and one for possession of marijuana) as a result of the sting, authorities said.

Consumers can verify movers have licenses by calling the Division of Consumer Affairs at 973-504-6422.
Scott Wagner, pictured in May after winning the Republican gubernatorial primary, joked on Friday that Russia would help him defeat Gov. Wolf in November. Read more

Scott Wagner likes a good Russia joke.

On Monday, the Huffington Post posted a recording of the Pennsylvania Republican nominee for governor joking to a crowd in Wyomissing, "By the way, the Russians are going to help me with Tom Wolf."

"If I have to use Paul Manafort, I will," Wagner says to laughter in a restaurant during a campaign stop Friday, referring to the former Trump campaign chairman who was convicted on eight counts Tuesday in connection with the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Wagner, a former state senator and self-described garbageman who owns a waste-hauling company called Penn Waste in York County, is nothing if not colorful.

When I stopped by his office at Penn Waste in January, there was a cardboard cutout of John Wayne wearing a Wagner for Governor T-shirt. "John was different," Wagner said. "He was a gunslinger."

A Make America Great Again hat sat on a shelf alongside a hard hat and glass-encased bullets he bought at a National Rifle Association banquet.

He greeted me with a file in hand that I told him looked like an opposition-research dossier. "I just got off the phone with Vladimir Putin," Wagner joked, explaining that the Russian president had told him everything he needed to know about me.

During a phone interview last week, reporters for the Inquirer and Daily News informed Wagner he was on speaker phone and asked if he was comfortable being recorded.

"Yeah, I figured you had a couple Russians in the room," he joked.

Which is to say: Wagner's quip about help from Russia was, well, Wagner being Wagner.

Wagner campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo said Wagner "was obviously joking when he made those comments."

"He thinks that Russia's interference in the 2016 Election was real and he pledges to work with the federal government to secure fair elections in Pennsylvania as governor," Romeo said in an email.

Naturally, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party had a different take, saying Wagner was "attempting to undermine the integrity of our democracy."

The remark raises another question: Does a campaign "gaffe"  think Mitt Romney's remark that "47 percent" of Americans don't pay taxes  matter at a time when President Trump has defied just about every conventional rule of politics?

Maybe it depends on the subject matter. Wagner faced some backlash last month when a young woman asked whether political contributions from the fossil-fuel industry had influenced his position on climate change, and he responded by calling her "a little young and naive."

"Are we here to elect a governor, or are we here to elect a scientist?" Wagner said at the town hall-style meeting in Montgomery County. "I'm here to be the governor."

A couple of weeks later, Wagner told another audience: "Listen, climate change is happening. But let's be realistic. I don't have an agenda to go to a complete 100 percent renewable-energy program, because it's not realistic."

Then on Monday night during a town hall in Erie, a man who identified himself as Catholic asked if Wagner would consider eliminating "the recognition and benefits of same-sex marriage."

Wagner punted, saying the legislature would have to pass a bill, at which point he "would have to give that consideration."

A Democratic tracker captured the exchange on video, and the Wolf campaign declared Wagner a "dangerous candidate who would take Pennsylvania backwards."

Tuesday morning, Wagner's campaign put out a statement saying that the candidate had been "caught off guard by the question" and that as governor, he would veto "any bill that would restrict marriage rights for same-sex couples."

The campaign also noted that Wagner has sponsored legislation that would extend antidiscrimination protections to LGBT people. One of his primary opponents attacked Wagner over his support for that legislation.

You might say the conventional rules of politics still applied, at least in this case.
In this Nov. 9, 2017 file photo people walk by Old Main on the Penn State University main campus in State College, Pa. Only a few weeks, or maybe even days, remain until college campuses reopen. But not every student who starts college, finishes. In Philadelphia, there are 176,000 people who didn't finish their degrees. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File) Read more

In a sobering report, the Pew Charitable Trusts recently noted that 176,000 Philadelphians have dropped out of college. Many have little to show for their efforts but an income slightly higher than those who never went to college. Many also have an unbearable debt load.

They dropped out because they ran out of money, weren't properly prepared for college, had to take care of their families, or had a health crisis. While the reasons vary, what many have in common is that they still have a deep desire to improve themselves and could do so with a little help.

Even with uncompleted degrees, however, they do earn an average $34,900 annual income; those who have never gone to college earn $31,800, reports the Department of Education. Finishing their degrees could bump their salaries to $50,000 (with a bachelor's degree) to $64,100 (with a master's degree).

College attainment in this city has been a cause for concern for a long time, and as Pew points out, contributes to the city's lackluster economic performance. Nearly half of the city's adults never attended college, and only 34 percent of adults in the city have completed college degrees. In Boston, 53 percent have graduated; in Washington, it's 60 percent.

Helping the former college students return could be an effective route to raising Philadelphia's college graduation rates overall.

Secondary schools should toughen up pre-college programs to give students a realistic idea of whether they'll be more successful attending college or a trade school, according to the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance's 2012 report to Congress.

Colleges should offer more classes in the evenings and on weekends so students can better fit school into their lives. Because non-completers tend to move around a lot, colleges could be more liberal about accepting credits from other institutions to apply to degrees.

Employers should note that student-workers can be among their most ambitious and potentially productive employees. Employers should give students reliable schedules so they can juggle their responsibilities (and maybe, a little help with tuition).

State and federal governments should establish grants for working students. They can encourage colleges to improve graduation rates by awarding some aid based on student success. Pennsylvania is one of more than 30 states that bases aid on graduation rates. The state should also encourage colleges to improve programs which carefully monitor students for very early signs of academic failure, so they can help them recover and complete degrees.

And, every high school and college in the region should make sure students know about Graduate!Philadelphia or similar programs to help returning students. The non-profit helps students remove impediments, one of the biggest of which is dealing with an unpaid student loan. Students can't get transcripts to return to college without having a clean bill of health from their lenders. Many don't know that they can arrange small payments to get in the clear, according to Executive Director Barbara Mattleman.

The best argument for investing in our human capital is that we all reap the rewards of a better educated, more prosperous city.
James Morse and Lauren Milleron the roof of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Read more

Lauren Miller and James Morse

May 26, 2018, in Philadelphia

Hello there

Lauren and James met in 2008 through mutual friends at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. They became friends, and then close friends.

In 2009, Lauren finished her undergrad classes and began the graduate school part of her five-year communication sciences program. James graduated with his management, marketing, and economics degree but stayed in Cleveland.

By day, James worked in project management. By night, he often brought refreshment to his favorite starving graduate student.

"He would come and hang out to support me as I did my work," Lauren said.

"I was low-key trying to date her," James said.

Lauren didn't realize at first that the sandwiches and Starbucks were edible Valentines. Then James began giving her literal greeting cards  ones he made to encourage her in challenging academic times, such as graduate practicum placement.

"They were nothing elaborate; from the outside, it looked kind of like a kindergartner had made them," Lauren said. "Inside were sweet messages like: 'I hope you have a wonderful day. You're the best.' "

Their closeness made it possible to talk openly about their feelings. It also made Lauren a little hesitant: "If we dated and things went awry, I would be losing a big part of my life."

James didn't push the issue, but if anything, they spent more time together. "We went out and did things all the time, and went to dinner all the time," he said.

"His perseverance is pretty remarkable," Lauren said, appreciatively. "I became more and more comfortable until I realized that the greater loss would be not trying."

One night in July 2010, they kissed. And then they fell in love.

"She's very pretty, extremely intelligent, funny, and laid-back," James said.

James is whole-heartedly enthusiastic, Lauren said. "He's unbelievably caring and supportive, and he always puts me first  it's a pretty remarkable thing."

A partnership formed quickly, in one sense, James said, but then again, not really so quickly. "We had been on many, many dates before we were actually dating."

The engagement

From the time they planned their lives together, they had planned to move to Philadelphia.

In January 2016, Lauren, who is now 30, became a speech therapist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and moved back home. James remained in Cleveland, but they saw each other at least once a month. Because James, now a senior sales engineer for BrandMuscle in Chicago, works remotely, he could stay for weeks at a time. He did so that July.

James picked Lauren up at work and they drove to her parents' home. "I have a surprise for you  just something small," he told her. Everyone was going on the annual Miller trip to Long Beach Island the next week, so Lauren suspected a boogie board.

James asked her to close her eyes as they walked through the house, across the patio, and out into the backyard. "OK. Open your eyes," he said.

She did, and she found him kneeling in front of her.

James told her he loved her and their life together and asked if she would marry him. She said yes, and her parents and sister appeared from their hiding places. "Then he said I had an hour to get ready, because we had friends coming over to celebrate," Lauren said. "It was wonderful."

In July 2017, James and Lauren moved into their Fairmount home.

It was so them

The fun began at the couple's apartment, where they, their parents, and the entire bridal party got ready. "I remember sitting on the couch and seeing that everyone was there in some stage of hair and makeup, wearing gym shorts and eating, drinking, and just having a great time," Lauren said.

The wedding and celebration for 70 were held at the Free Library of Philadelphia. The nine-minute, secular ceremony was led by the couple's friend Brad, who told a bit of the couple's story before they took the vows they'd written for each other.

"I vow to care for you, stand beside you, and share with you all of life's adversities and all of its joys, from this day forward, and all of the days of my life," James promised Lauren.

"Above all, I vow to remain faithful to our friendship and partnership, putting us and our team first," Lauren promised James.

At the cocktail hour, Lauren had a surprise for her new husband. Realizing that his "groom's fountain" flowed with ranch dressing was pure joy, he said. "I had never seen anything like it. I didn't know it was possible! I may have dreamed such a thing, and there it was."

He spent most of the hour drinking a cocktail and dipping carrots, red peppers, cheese, and crackers, and texting his ranch-loving buddies to come see what his wife had done for him.

The groom did not double-dip.

The reception featured many desserts and much dancing, including the couple's first dance as married people  the rumba they'd learned at Society Hill Dance Company to an instrumental version of Peter Gabriel's "The Book of Love"  the same song that played as Lauren walked down the aisle.

Awestruck

After the last dance, the couple, still in wedding dress and suit and carrying the top tier of their cake, walked home. "Did you guys just get married?" a man smoking a cigar called from his stoop. "Congratulations!" Well wishes followed them the whole way up 20th. "It was a lot of fun," James said.

Between such greetings, it was just the two of them for the first time that day. "My heart felt really full  to have the love and support of all the people who came to our wedding, and now to have this moment to enjoy together and reflect on it all, was a special thing," Lauren said.

The budget crunch

A bargain: Nancy, owner of Wisot Designs, charged the couple roughly half the amount quoted by other florists they considered. She used many flowers she grew in her own nursery and was wonderful to work with, Lauren said. "It was quite the deal!"

The splurge: Photography was the couple's top priority. Once they saw Rebecca Barger's work, they knew she was the one they should hire. "She's not cheap, and rightfully so," James said. "She's worth every penny."

Honeymooning

Two weeks in Italy, including a lesson in Italian family cooking, followed by a feast, through a small company called LovexFood. "It was one of the coolest things we've ever done," James said.

Behind the scenes

Officiant: Brad Collins, friend of couple, who was ordained online.

Venue: The Free Library of Philadelphia.

Food: Brulee Catering, Philadelphia.

Music: Matt Spitko.

Photography: Rebecca Barger Photography, Jenkintown.

Flowers: Wisot Designs, Cochranville.

Dress: Nicole Bridal and Formal Shoppe, Jenkintown.

Hair: Up Your Do by Jill Kosar, Jenkintown.

Makeup: Dylan Michael Cosmetics, Jenkintown.

Groom's attire: Brooks Bros.
Ramona Africa, the last survivor of the MOVE bombing, has been hospitalized. Read more

Ramona Africa, the last survivor of the 1985 bombing of the MOVE house on Osage Avenue, is hospitalized, suffering from health complications from post traumatic stress disorder, according to a GoFundMe page.

On the page, MOVE notifies its "supporters, sympathizers and all those in solidarity with the cause of revolution" that Africa had been hospitalized, her sickness a "direct result of the ongoing war waged on our Move Family by this government." It goes on to say that two other MOVE members died under "suspicious circumstances termed cancer" and that Africa has been similarly diagnosed.

As of Tuesday, the GoFundMe page, created last week, had raised $12,500 of a goal of $40,000, the website said.

It was unclear where she is hospitalized. Spokeswoman Sue Africa said MOVE members would hold a press conference at 10 a.m. Wednesday outside its headquarters at 4504 Kingsessing Ave. to talk about Ramona Africa's condition.

Ramona Africa, now about 63, was 30 on May 13, 1985, when she and Michael Moses Ward, 13, then known as Birdie Africa, were the only two survivors of the bombing.

Ward drowned at age 41 in a hot tub on a cruise in the Caribbean.

<< READ MORE: 'Don't shoot no more': How two got out of the MOVE house

Eleven MOVE members, including five children, were killed in the fire that continued to burn after police dropped an explosive from a helicopter onto the MOVE compound in a residential city neighborhood. Police later said they allowed the fire, which went on to destroy about 61 homes in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood, to burn to end the standoff.

<< Read More: On Osage Avenue, rebuilt homes to rise again from MOVE's ashes

City officials had clashed with MOVE, what's often described as a radical back-to-nature group, since the 1970s. At a standoff at its Powelton Village compound in 1978, Police Officer James J. Ramp was killed and 18 police officers and firefighters were injured.

Nine MOVE members were sent to prison on charges connected with Ramp's death, though no one was identified as the shooter. Debbie Africa left the State Correctional Institution Cambridge Springs in June after 38 years, becoming the first of the MOVE Nine to be released on parole.

Seven years after the Powelton Village standoff, police dropped the bomb on the MOVE house in West Philadelphia. Ramona Africa was the only person charged in the incident and served seven years in prison.

The MOVE Commission issued a report in 1986 stating the city should never have dropped a bomb on an occupied rowhouse.
The Trump administration on Monday continued its battering of Obama-era environmental regulations by proposing a new rule that would replace the Clean Power Plan, which was designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. The new plan would allow states to enforce their own guidelines.

Environmental groups, which noted that the EPA's own proposal shows the plan could cost more than 1,000 lives annually due to increased air pollutants, were already lining up to challenge the new Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule. The rule was proposed Monday under acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist. It would give states big leeway on how to restrict carbon dioxide gas and other greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say contribute to climate change. President Trump is expected to promote the new plan at an appearance Tuesday in West Virginia.

The new proposal comes on the heels of an EPA proposal earlier this month to roll back fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, also an Obama-era initiative. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro has already said the state would join others, including California, to legally challenge that proposal.

The ACE rule would affect Pennsylvania, but it's not clear how much. Pennsylvania ranks third in coal production behind Wyoming and West Virginia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The state already sets its own limits on some emissions. About 20 coal-fired plants produced about 30 percent of the state's energy in 2017, according to the most recent data available.

The state Department of Environmental Protection said it was still reviewing the proposal, but said the Wolf administration is "disappointed" and that it supported the Clean Power Plan as "a responsible, cost-effective means of addressing global climate change."

Though the rule would appear to have less impact on New Jersey because it has a dearth of coal-fired plants, Gov. Murphy lashed out at the proposal.

"Reversing efforts to combat climate change and increasing carbon emissions nationwide is not only a shameful move by the Trump administration, but one that puts lives at risk and drastically harms human health," Murphy said.

The Clean Power Plan was designed to cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Republicans cited the plan as an example of federal "overreach." Though it was never enacted after Supreme Court legal challenges by the coal industry, coal-friendly states and labor unions, the Clean Power Plan was still a factor for companies weighing to close coal-fired plants. But an even bigger factor has been the switch to natural gas  another key industry for Pennsylvania, which is the second-largest producer in the nation.

The Trump administration says the new rule would set emission guidelines for states to use when developing their own greenhouse gas emission plans. The rule "empowers states, promotes energy independence, and facilitates economic growth and job creation," the EPA says.

"The ACE Rule would restore the rule of law and empower states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide modern, reliable, and affordable energy for all Americans," Wheeler said in a statement. "Today's proposal provides the states and regulated community the certainty they need to continue environmental progress while fulfilling President Trump's goal of energy dominance."

However, the EPA did maintain that it still plays a major role in addressing carbon emissions. The new rule would define a "best system of emission reduction" for existing power plants, provide states with a list of "candidate technologies" to establish standards, updates permitting to encourage efficiency and gives states adequate time to develop their plans.

A federal court has upheld that the EPA is legally obligated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 under the Clean Air Act.

The EPA says its new rule would not only save companies money by reducing regulation but also reduce carbon dioxide emissions from their current levels and meet its legal obligation  ultimately the equivalent of taking 5.3 million cars off the road. The EPA did not say how much time it would give states to comply, but said the plan, when fully implemented, will actually reduce U.S. power sector carbon emissions more than the Clean Power Plan.

The public has 60 days to comment on the plan and the EPA will hold a public hearing.

The Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a trade group representing utilities, praised the new proposal and called the Clean Power Plan "complex and unnecessarily burdensome overreach." It also welcomed giving states "a significant role in managing the reliability and environmental performance of their power sectors."

But environmental groups were quick to condemn the proposal and disputed the EPA's assertions.

The Environmental Defense Fund called the proposal a "sham" that would increase pollution through a much-weakened rule and took issue with its calculations.

"As America suffers through a summer of record-breaking wildfires and heat waves, acting administrator Wheeler responds with this do-nothing plan leaving American families unprotected from dangerous climate pollution," said Environmental Defense Fund president Fred Krupp.

Krupp maintains that the rule would eliminate "life-saving climate and health benefits" spelled out under the Clean Power Plan. The proposed new rule "contains no quantitative limits or compliance deadlines at all," Krupp said.

Further, Krupp said the new standards amounted to efficiency "tweaks" at power plants and that the EPA's own analysis indicates more than a thousand lives could be lost annually through pollution compared to the Clean Power Plan. He also said power plants could reduce carbon emissions by 68 percent by 2030 with the right incentives, far exceeding the legally mandated goal.

The Sierra Club called the proposal "an unlawfully weak carbon pollution policy" designed to gut the Clean Power Plan's lifesaving standards while failing to fight climate change.

It said the Clean Power Plan, if enacted, would have prevented 90,000 asthma attacks annually and avoided 3,200 premature deaths per year while driving the solar and wind industries.

"The proposed rollback of life-saving clean air and climate safeguards is unacceptable and exposes Wheeler's EPA as a puppet of the very coal executives who used to sign his paychecks and want to pollute with impunity," said Patrick Grenter, a senior Pennsylvania representative to the Sierra Club.
Two former employees of the publicly funded mental health and substance abuse clinic plundered by its politically connected boss, Renee Tartaglione, were sentenced to prison terms Monday in Philadelphia federal court for aiding Tartaglione with her scheme, U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain announced.

Sandy Acosta, former administrator for the Juniata Community Mental Health Clinic, was sentenced to 18 months and Amalia Rodriguez, former billing clerk at the clinic, was sentenced to six months for their roles in Tartaglione's scheme. Acosta and Rodriguez also were ordered to pay $793,000 in restitution to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office on behalf of a successor to the clinic.

Tartaglione was sentenced in July to six years and 10 months in federal prison for defrauding the nonprofit she ran with her husband, Carlos Matos, a Democratic ward leader and felon. A jury convicted her last year of 53 counts of conspiracy, theft, fraud, and tax evasion in a scheme in which prosecutors alleged she fleeced $1 million from the clinic, located in the city's Fairhill section.
Investigators gather at the crime scene on Hegerman Street near Princeton Avenue in the Tacony section of Philadelpia, Monday Aug. 20, 2018, after police fatal shot a man. Read more

Police fatally shot a man who allegedly struck an undercover officer with a car Monday afternoon in the city's Tacony section, police said.

The suspect, who was not identified, hit the officer with a black Toyota Camry shortly after 4 p.m. in the 7100 block of Hegerman Street, near Princeton Avenue, said Capt. Sekou Kinebrew, a police spokesperson.

Another officer who was not injured during the confrontation fired three shots into the Camry, killing the suspect, said Kinebrew, who briefed reporters a block from the scene.

The officer who was hit by the car suffered an injury to his right knee. Two other officers also were injured at the scene, but how they were hurt was unclear, Kinebrew said. All three officers were in stable condition at a local hospital.

Undercover officers with the Northeast Narcotics Field Unit had been preparing to serve a search warrant at a house in the 7100 block of Cottage Street when they saw the subject of their investigation driving the Camry, Kinebrew said.

The officers followed the Camry in their own vehicle for several blocks until it stopped on Hegerman.

The plainclothes officers exited their vehicle to approach the suspect when the Camry started moving and struck one of the officers, Kinebrew said.

The officer who fired the shots is 53 years old and has been on the force for 10 years, Kinebrew said.

Medics pronounced the suspect dead at 4:18 p.m.

Kinebrew said police knew the suspect from the investigation but were still trying to verify his identity.

Rita Grace, 31, said she was home with her husband, Jim Strahan, 36, when they heard the gunfire.

"Three pops. Three loud 'pop, pop, pop,' " Grace said.

She went outside and saw the suspect slumped over the steering wheel of the car.

"It was pretty scary," she said.

The couple said the neighborhood has a problem with drugs and prostitution, particularly coming from nearby Torresdale Avenue.

"I just want to move out of here so bad," Grace said.
Booker T. Hunter, founder and president of the Jasper, Tex. branch of the NAACP, said racism is nothing new in Texas. Read more

JASPER, Texas  Former Texas prosecutor Guy James Gray keeps a 20-year-old CD in his desk that documents with graphic photos one of the most vicious hate crimes in history  the day James Byrd Jr. was beaten, stripped naked, tied to the back of a truck by three men from the Ku Klux Klan, and dragged down a dirt road until he was dead and decapitated.

"When you handle a case like that and get inside the mind of a real racist, a white supremacist racist, and you see how dangerous those people are to the fabric of our society, you just become more sensitive to racial issues," Gray said.

In 2009, Byrd became one of the namesakes for the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a federal law expanding hate crime legislation to include crimes motivated by gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability.

But just 100 hate crimes have been pursued by federal prosecutors nationwide between January 2010 and July 2018, according to a News21 analysis of court documents. Half of those cases involved racially motivated violence against black Americans  more than any other group.

The numbers do not include hundreds of other cases prosecuted in local and state courts. No single agency tracks those arrests or cases, although incidents are supposed to be reported to the FBI by state and local police. Since 1995, black Americans have been the victims of 66 percent of all racially motivated hate crimes, according to FBI data collected from local law enforcement agencies.

>> READ MORE: Millions are victims of hate crimes, though many never report them

"You still see it all over, in all the cities and in the rural places, it's still with us," said Gray, an attorney in Kerrville.

While black Americans have long been targets of hate, advocacy groups and victims told News21 that the 2016 presidential campaign and the election of President Trump may have encouraged more people to express intolerance toward black Americans.

"When this president campaigned, it was a campaign of division and bigotry," said Richard Rose, president of the Atlanta branch of the NAACP. "And so, those people who believe in discrimination of any kind gravitated to that campaign. After the election, they feel emboldened to act out these statements that have racial overtones in them."

Christina Crowder was driving down the expressway in Houston with her two biracial daughters in the backseat last year when a car pulled up next to her and the driver opened his windows. He started shouting phrases like "Go back to [expletive] Africa" and "Trump should build a wall for you n," then began to swerve toward her, she said. "I've been living in Houston for my whole life, and I hadn't experienced things like that."

From the American South to cities across America, federal hate crimes against black Americans in recent years have ranged from brutal beatings and violent killings to burning churches, firebombing homes and outspoken threats of harm.

"It has always been that way," said Booker T. Hunter, 89, founder and president of the NAACP in Jasper for the past 40 years. "The history of [Byrd's] death, people never, never going to forget about it. We really haven't healed from that since. It's still going on."

For those 50 federal hate crimes targeting black Americans, News21 reviewed hundreds of court documents and indictments to determine just how often perpetrators were prosecuted under federal hate crime statutes. Many perpetrators had affiliations with white supremacist groups or invoked "white power" during acts of violence and verbal harassment.

During a Bible study meeting at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C., three years ago, a young white supremacist shot and killed nine black parishioners. Dylann Roof was convicted on 33 federal hate crime charges and sentenced to death for the attack.

In Dubuque, Iowa, that same year, charges were brought against a white man with a swastika tattoo who assaulted a black American man and repeatedly kicked and jumped on his head until he was unconscious, according to federal court records.

In June 2011, a group of white teenagers drove around Jackson, Miss., harassing black Americans. They found 48-year-old James Craig Anderson in a motel parking lot and attacked him, shouting "white power."

Security footage shows that when Anderson tried to stand after the attack, they ran him over with a pickup truck and killed him. Three were convicted of one count of conspiracy and one count of violating the Shepard-Byrd Act.

>> READ MORE: As intolerance grows, targeted religious groups join forces

Mississippi State Sen. Barbara Blackmon, a Democrat, said Anderson's killing made her "wonder just how far we've come."

"I am aware of that James Byrd incident, and each time something like that occurs, whether it's in Mississippi or in any place across this country, if you are a student of history, if you have any kind of conscience, then those kinds of horrific things should make you feel very uncomfortable," Blackmon said.

Despite the passage of hate crime legislation and civil rights protections, black Americans disproportionately face acts of intimidation, extremist rhetoric and life-threatening violence.

She said the country has "not yet overcome that history."

Reliving history of hate

In early 2016, Jordan Williams found the n-word written twice in black permanent marker on the wall outside his apartment in Denton.

"My parents experienced this in the '60s and '70s, and we talked about how we could be judged for the color of our skin," he said. "All these years later, they took it really hard to hear what happened to me. I don't think they expected it to happen to me."

Although black Americans are targeted in hate crimes more than any other group, according to available data from the FBI, only about 2 percent of total hate crimes are reported to the bureau, according to the NAACP. That means no one really knows how many times black Americans have been victims of hate.

"Even the data that we have can be misleading, and it's useful for seeing trends maybe from year to year, assuming that nothing changes in terms of our reporting and how we report," said Kevin Buckler, a criminal justice professor at the University of Houston. "But I don't know if it's a true indication of the number of criminal events that are motivated by hatred."

Dena Marks, the senior associate director for the Southwest Regional Office of the Anti-Defamation League, said political tensions in America are prompting people to publicly act on or express their hate and biases. She said she has seen an increase in hate crime victims and incidents at the ADL in Houston.

"Hate is always there under the surface, but sometimes people hate more openly," Marks said. "We still have a long, long way to go. Since the civil rights movement, I think we've come a little ways since then because of laws, but I don't think as people we're much farther along."

A 2018 report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, found that hate crimes reported to police in the 10 largest cities in America increased by 12.5 percent in 2017, marking the fourth consecutive annual rise in a row and the highest spike in more than a decade. In 2017, anti-black crimes were among the most common in the nation's 10 largest cities, according to the study.

On a June morning this year Debra Davis, a black woman in Clio, Mich., and her ex-husband woke up to find racial slurs spray-painted on her family's 2011 Chevrolet Silverado, including the n-word and "white power."

"I don't think that the people that perpetuate crimes against black people have changed," Davis said. "The only thing that's changed is you have a person in the White House that accepts you saying that's how you feel."

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said Trump's administration and the Justice Department are "committed to reducing violent crime and making America safe."

"As you know, hate crimes are violent crimes," Sessions said at last year's Hate Crimes Summit in Washington. "No person should have to fear being violently attacked because of who they are and what they believe, or how they worship. So I pledge to you: As long as I am attorney general, the Department of Justice will continue to protect the civil rights of all Americans  and we will not tolerate targeting of any community in our country."

News21 reporters Brooks Hepp, Megan Ross, Justin Parham and Lenny Martinez Dominguez contributed to this article.

This story was reported in partnership with ProPublica's Documenting Hate Project., which is collecting reports about hate crimes and bias incidents. If you've been a victim or a witness, tell us your story here.
KAMPALA  The African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME), an organization that promotes professional journalism in Africa, has condemned the arrest, torture and brutality of journalists by security officers during the Arua chaos and in Kampala over the detention of several Opposition MPs, including Robert Kyagulanyi, aka, Bobi Wine.

The new revelation is likely to deliver a big dent to the image of the army, which has for long touted itself as the only disciplined defence force in the history of the country and sought to differentiate itself from the armies of the past based on this front.

Clearly, the security forces that have responded to protesters in the last week want to carry out their wanton abuse of the rights of Ugandans in darkness, said Dr Peter Mwesige, the ACME Executive Director, in a statement released on Tuesday.

During the riots in Arua on August 13 and in Kampala on Monday, August 20, several journalists such Hebert Zziwa, Ronald Galiwango and Juma Kirya, all of NTV, James Akena of Reuters and Alfred Ochwo from the Observer were brutalised by security agencies while covering the riots. Akena has since sustained a clot in the back head as a result of the Monday beatings.

And now Dr Mwesige said the attacks on journalists indicate that security agencies are doing wrong and do not want to be reported.

They dont want any witnesses to their high crimes. Thats why journalists have been targeted deliberately, he added.

In the Arua chaos, NTVs Herbert Zziwa and his cameraman Ronald Muwanga were arrested by operatives in plain clothes in Arua Municipality on Monday evening while covering a murder scene where Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyis driver was shot dead.

They were briefly detained at Arua Central Police station before being driven to Gulu Central Police station on Tuesday morning.

He said the security personnel first begun by beating his cameraman but when he tried to save him, they turned on him too.

I tried to run to save my life, but the direction I took there were five other security officers who overpowered me, they beat me up using sticks, others used their hands and tore my shirt before dragging me to a waiting coaster, Zziwa narrated.

They were charged with inciting violence and malicious damage to properties.

Related
The just-concluded Arua Municipality by-election dominated the early news agenda of the week as the Special Forces Command (SFC), the military wing that guards the president was put in the spotlight over torturing suspects.

The elections saw Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi, aka, Bobi Wine, Hon Francis Zaake of Mityana Municipality tortured and arrested. Other MPs arrested include Gerald Karuhanga of Ntungamo, Paul Mwiiru of Jinja East and Arua MP-elect Kassiano Wadri. The lawmakers were arrested with 30 others over chaos in the election. The arrests were effected in the evening as supporters of different candidates retired to their different offices in Arua Town after a hectic day of final campaigns.

Unknown people threw stones at the presidential convoy resulting in the death of Bobi Wines driver, Yasin Kawooya, was shot dead inside Bobi Wines Tundra vehicle near Hotel Pacific in Arua town. Kawooya was buried on Wednesday.

On Thursday four of the detained lawmakers alongside dozens of others were charged with treason and unlawful possession of weapons and ammunition. According to a charge sheet seen by PML Daily, three of the detained lawmakers are accused of taking part in the stoning.

Opposition politicians and lawyers representing the incarcerated Bobi Wine told reporters that he could not talk or walk by himself following the alleged torture during his arrest.

Gruesome images of tortured Mityana Municipality MP, Francis Mutebi Zaake emerged on social media, showing disturbing pictures of the MP in a hospital bed being attended to by a nurse in Arua.

Zaake was tortured on Wednesday, August 15 dropped at Rubaga Hospital by unknown people. President Museveni in a statement on Sunday said that Hon Zaake escaped from police custody. The police are looking for him.

Government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo denied security personnel had deliberately beaten up the lawmakers and others. Some of these injuries could have been sustained in the course of the confrontation, he said.

The detention of the MPs also sparked off demonstrations in various parts of the country including Kamwokya, Mityana and the Central Business districts. Police on Friday besieged Firebase house, where Bobi Wines studio and other youth enterprises are located in Kamwokya.

Residents burnt tyres and blocked the roads, demanding the release of Bobi Wine, who was arrested on Monday. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters.

In Mityana, one person was shot dead and several others injured on Saturday following demonstrations that sparked off as residents protested the torture of their area MP. Francis Zaake.

Western diplomats in Uganda including European Union on Friday deplored the brutal treatment of lawmakers arrested over a stoning of President Yoweri Musevenis convoy. The Uganda Human Rights Commission called upon

Ugandan authorities to prosecute the perpetrators of the alleged abuses.

The reported brutal treatment of elected members of the Uganda parliament, journalists and civilians, as well as the loss of human life, are very disquieting events, the Kampala-based EU diplomats said in a joint statement.

There is no room for repression or violence in a modern democratic Uganda, said the statement, also signed by ambassadors of Norway and Iceland.

The US embassy warned the government over the brutal treatment of MPs and journalists in Mondays electoral violence in Arua at the hands of security agencies.

In a statement issued on Embassys official social media pages, the US government urged the Ugandan authorities to show the world that the country respects its constitution and the human rights of all its citizens.

We are deeply concerned by recent events in Arua, Kampala, and Gulu, and disturbed by reports of brutal treatment of Members of Parliament, journalists, and others at the hands of security forces.

Foreign media also dominated Ugandans as social media calls for Bobi Wines freedom continued.

Right from the day of the arrest, social media has been cluttered with messages calling for Bobi Wines release under several freedom-themed hashtags

It became impossible, to navigate through any timeline without sight of an update away from Bobi Wine or his situation or at least calling for action.

About 8299 tweets went up under seven hours with a reach of approximately 12 million and 25.5 million twitter impressions.

Related
Three Philadelphia officers were injured and a suspect killed during a warrant operation Monday afternoon in the city's Tacony section. The suspect allegedly struck an undercover officer with a car. The suspect was killed when one of the officers opened fire.

The officer who was hit by the car suffered an injury to his right knee. Two other officers also were injured at the scene, but how they were hurt was unclear. All three officers were in stable condition at a local hospital, Philly.com reported Monday evening.

Undercover officers with the Northeast Narcotics Field Unit had been preparing to serve a search warrant at a house on Cottage Street when they saw the subject of their investigation driving the Camry, police spokesperson Capt. Sekou Kinebrew said.
A search is ongoing for at least four suspects after a Cherry Hills Village, CO, police officer was shot and wounded while responding to a home invasion robbery.

Officer Cory Sack was shot in the ankle and leg in a confrontation with the robbery suspects. He is recovering at the hospital. He went into surgery early Tuesday morning and is expected to make a full recovery, CBS Denver reports.

Officers responded to a 911 hang-up call at the home at 11 p.m. Sack responded and when he entered the home, he came across two intruders. Gunfire was exchanged and Sack was wounded but was able to get out of the line of fire. No residents of the home were hurt, although they were in the home at the time.

The suspects escaped. A manhunt is underway.
BANGALORE, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

To strengthen the educational exchanges and cooperation between China and India; Alliance University, Bengaluru, India and Fujian Provincial Department of Education, the People's Republic of China has reached a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) regarding educational exchange and cooperation on 14th August 2018.

(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/732453/Alliance_University_Chinese_Delegates.jpg )



Indeed it was a memorable day for both parties and countries to promote education in various fields on the pre-independence day of India.

The event began with lamp lighting that according to the delegates was the beginning of a new relationship between Alliance University and the Fujian Provincial Department of Education, China.

Dr. Anubha Singh, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Alliance University in her address mentioned that it was the continuous endeavour of the University to increase ways of engagement and contribution through collaborations. She mentioned that the MoU between Alliance University and the Education Department of Fujian Province of China will have major takeaways such as:

Engagement - Mobility of faculty, staff and students

Employability - Work with Chinese industries and meet the global standards

Research and Scholarships

Mr. Hu Changsheng, member of the standing committee and Head of the Organisation, Communist Party of China, Fujian Provincial Committee, People's Republic of China who led the Chinese delegation to India praised the infrastructure of Alliance University. He shared the story of the monk who travelled to India to learn Buddhism which is usually termed as 'Journey to the West' in the Chinese culture. The belief is that the monk was the first scholar to India from China. The collaboration according to him is an extension of the monk's journey.

He mentioned that India and China are similar in terms of population and are among developing nations of the world. Hence it is very essential for both the countries to open up for harmony and progress. 89 Institutions are part of the province of Fujian among which few categorise as top colleges and universities in the world.

As Alliance University with its excellent intellectual capability is marching out seeking for cooperation, the MoU would enable more universities in the Chinese region to collaborate with Alliance University.

About Alliance University:

Alliance University is a private University established in Karnataka State by Act No.34 of year 2010 and is recognized by the University Grants Commission (UGC), New Delhi. The University is known for its diverse degree courses, state-of-the-art campus, high quality education and excellent placement record, aspires to be among the best universities in the world by the year 2025.

Media Contact:

Mathew Thankachan

[email protected]

+91-8030938100

Alliance University



SOURCE Alliance University
Consumers are already seeing the new packaging on the shelves -- quite dramatic in the glass bottles but so subtle in the more popular tin containers that some shoppers have sought reassurance it's the same product they've always known and trusted.

They can indeed rest assured, said Deoleo India General Manager Susana Toribio Bustelo. This is the same high-grade, carefully crafted olive oil it's always been, but with a slightly new look. "Figaro in its green tin is synonymous with olive oil in India, and the tin packaging is admired by our consumers," she said.

The changes to the tin container, specifically the 500ml, 1 litre and 5 litre are quite subtle, however, the slight changes have given the tin a sharper look with greater emphasis on the brands Spanish heritage and origin. In addition, it is now easy to find corporate and brand information for consumers.

In contrast, Figaro Extra Virgin Olive Oil in the bottle now looks strikingly different, with the glass much darker -- to better protect the oil from the detrimental effects of sunlight -- and the bottle itself taking on a sturdier, handsomer shape. The label also now includes all the extra information of help to consumers.

"India is a key market for our business and therefore a crucial investment for the company," said Chief Commercial Officer Miguel De Jaime Guijarro at Deoleo, which commenced operations in India in 2013.

"The company remains committed to delivering high-quality products and keeps a close watch on all processes, from procurement of raw materials from farmers to the end-produce reaching consumers across the sub-continent."

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180813/2210200-1-a

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180813/2210200-1-b

Related Links

http://deoleo.com



SOURCE Deoleo
GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Capio and Vivalto Sante ("Vivalto") today announce that they have entered into exclusivity regarding the proposed sale of Capio France to Vivalto pending the finalization of the documentation related thereto as is customary in the French market. The consideration for the proposed transaction would be an upfront enterprise value of MEUR 425 plus an earn-out contingent on 2018 financial performance, up to a total enterprise value of MEUR 455. The proposed purchase by Vivalto is binding on Vivalto and fully financed. The proposed transaction would accelerate the positioning towards the less capital intensive Nordic operations and build on Capio's leadership positions to further drive growth and shareholder value. The completion of the transaction would be subject to certain conditions, as further described below, including the approval of Capio's shareholders at an EGM, as required under Swedish takeover regulation, to be convened in due course.

"Under the proposed transaction, we would secure an attractive price for our French operations, allowing Capio to accelerate its focus on the less capital intensive Nordic operations and build on its current leadership positions to drive further growth in a highly fragmented market, aided by specialization and digitalization. The proposed combination of Capio France and Vivalto, also forms a strong healthcare provider positioned as the third largest private operator in France. Capio France, with its leading position in Modern Medicine and Rapid Recovery, will contribute to spread and accelerate its medical know-how for the benefit of the new company," said Thomas Berglund, President and CEO of Capio.

"Capio France and Vivalto share a common understanding of the rapid changes facing the French private hospitals industry and the absolute need to focus on modern medicine, digitalization and innovation. Both groups have a similar philosophy of excellence and of Star hospitals, placing the quality of care and the patient pathway, before and after hospitalization, in center of their strategy. The proposed transaction should strengthen both Capio France and Vivalto to the benefit of all stakeholders and also pave the way for future collaboration between Capio Group and Vivalto within research, digitalization and new services," said Daniel Caille Chairman and CEO of Vivalto.

Transaction details

The consideration for the proposed transaction would be an upfront enterprise value of MEUR 425 plus the earn-out contingent on 2018 financial performance in line with management expectations outlined in the January  June 2018 interim report, up to a total enterprise value of MEUR 455. This would imply an EBITDA multiple range of 9.0-9.6x and an EBITA multiple range of 19.0-20.3x based on Capio France's LTM financials as of June 30, 2018. The proposed purchase by Vivalto is binding on Vivalto and fully financed.

Net proceeds are expected to be between MEUR 400 to 430 after deducting external net debt transferred and other items including customary working capital adjustments estimated at in total MEUR 25. In addition, the deconsolidation of Capio France from Capio Group would also remove the retirement liabilities related to the French business, estimated at MEUR 33, from Capio Group's balance sheet (1). It is anticipated that proceeds from a sale would be used partly to pay down Capio Group debt and partly as a return of cash to shareholders. Capio will provide an update through which mechanisms this will be effected in due course.

Capio France employees' representatives will be consulted as per applicable French law. Vivalto has completed all material commercial/financial due diligence and the enterprise value and related adjustments are agreed upon. Finalization of the transaction would be subject to:

Completion of a confirmatory due diligence (including legal, tax and HR) of Capio France by Vivalto, the outcome of which may give Vivalto the right to terminate the proposed purchase, only if Vivalto were to identify risks (covered by the representations and warranties in the Sale and Purchase Agreement), for an aggregate amount of MEUR 25 or more

The approval of relevant regulatory authorities, and

The approval of the Capio shareholders at an EGM as required under Swedish takeover regulation as a consequence of Capio being subject to a public cash offer, to be convened in due course.

Provided that the conditions are satisfied, the transaction would be expected to close by end of December 2018. Capio has undertaken to cover Vivalto's costs in relation to the proposed transaction by paying Vivalto's actual costs and expenses up to MEUR 5.0 if the Capio board (i) terminates the proposed sale prior to having convened an EGM for approval of the proposed sale; (ii) does not convene or cancels the EGM, (iii) withdraws its proposal or its unanimous support for approval of the proposed sale by the EGM; including recommending the Capio shareholders to accept a public takeover offer for the shares in Capio. This cost-coverage arrangement has been approved by the Swedish Securities Council in AMN 2018:31. If Vivalto would not receive the approval of relevant regulatory authorities, Vivalto is obliged to cover Capio's actual costs and expenses up to MEUR 5.0. Further information will be provided to the Capio shareholders in good time prior to the EGM, including the Board's view of the Nordic market potential going forward. The EGM is expected to be held no later than two weeks before the expiry of the acceptance period under the public cash offer.

Focusing on the Nordics

Proceeds from the transaction will strengthen Capio's capital structure and significantly enhance management's ability to deliver Capio's strategic focus and drive shareholder value across its less capital intensive Nordic operations.

Capio has today an established base in Modern Medicine and the Nordic market provides clear opportunities for continued strong organic growth. Capio's specialized businesses and nationwide presence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark allow the company to rapidly expand tailor-made patient offerings and coherent care chains across the Nordic countries. Capio is at the forefront in driving digitalization in healthcare with its combined digital and physical platform (900,000 listed patients and more than 100 primary care centers), launched in Sweden and Norway to follow. The digital market in Sweden is currently growing at a rate of +100% p.a. and Capio is well positioned to capture growth in this rapidly growing market. In addition there are substantial growth opportunities through further consolidation of a fragmented market with a strengthened balance sheet.

As announced in the interim report January-June 2018, during the second half of 2018 Capio is preparing for a closer coordination of the businesses in Sweden, Norway and Denmark to accelerate growth and streamline offerings both from a medical and operational efficiency perspective. The step-wise implementation of this Nordic cooperation, based on specialization, will start in Q1 2019.

About Capio France

Capio has a strong national presence in seven healthcare regions, including the rapidly growing areas around Paris, Lyon and Toulouse. The segment's 22 hospitals and specialist clinics provide a wide range of treatments, primarily within medicine, surgery and obstetrics. For the rolling twelve month period ending June 30, 2018, Capio France's about 5,400 employees (average FTE) provided healthcare services across 645,000 outpatient visits and 130,000 inpatient visits respectively, generating net sales of MSEK 5,602 representing 35% of total group. The EBITDA of the same period was MSEK 479, representing 43% of total group and the EBITA was MSEK 227, representing 36% of total group. The capital employed of Capio France was MSEK 4,758 as at June 30, 2018.

Other

Capio continues to assess alternatives for its German operations and intend to intensify the process for the divestment of this operation from the beginning of September. Capio will return with more information once available.

PJT Partners is acting as exclusive financial adviser, Mannheimer Swartling and Allen & Overy are acting as legal advisers and Fogel & Partners as communication adviser to Capio on this transaction.

The Board of Directors of Capio AB (publ)

Media and investor call invitation

Media representatives, investors and analysts are invited to participate in telephone conferences as below. CEO Thomas Berglund and CFO Olof Bengtsson will comment on the proposed transaction and answer questions. Prior to the start of the telephone conference, presentation slides will be available at www.capio.com.

Media conference call

Tuesday August 21, 2018 at 09.15 (CET)

To participate in the telephone conference, please register and dial in five minutes prior to the start of the conference call.

Sweden: +46-8-566 426 94

France: +33-170-75-07-12

UK: +44-20-3008-9802

US: +1-855-831-5945

Investor and analyst conference call

Tuesday August 21, 2018 at 10.30 (CET)

To participate in the telephone conference, please register and dial in five minutes prior to the start of the conference call.

Sweden: +46-8-566-426-64

France: +33-170-75-07-25

UK: +44-20-3008-9813

US: +1-855-753-2237

Contact:

Thomas Berglund

President and CEO

Telephone: +46-733-88-86-00

E-mail: thomas.berglund@capio.com



Olof Bengtsson

CFO

Telephone: +46-761-18-74-69

E-mail: olof.bengtsson@capio.com



Henrik Brehmer

SVP Group Communication & Public Affairs

Telephone: +46-761-11-34-14

E-mail: henrik.brehmer@capio.com

This is information that Capio AB (publ) is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above, at 08.45 a.m. (CET) on August 21, 2018.

(1) Estimated adjustments assuming illustrative closing at the end of 2018

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/capio-ab/r/capio-announces-the-proposed-sale-of-capio-france-to-vivalto-sante,c2596537

The following files are available for download:

Related Links

http://www.capio.com



SOURCE Capio AB
TORONTO, August 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

First Quantum Minerals Ltd. ("First Quantum" or the "Company", TSX Symbol "FM") regrets to announce that a worker at its Cobre Panama project passed away today following a fall whilst constructing an electrical transmission line in the tailings management facility area. A second worker was injured in the same incident and has been transferred to hospital.

Cobre Panama has advised the relevant authorities and will assist their investigations. An internal investigation into the accident is underway.

First Quantum extends its deepest sympathies to the family of the deceased, and will work to provide all the necessary support for both employees' families and colleagues during this difficult time.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of First Quantum Minerals Ltd.

G. Clive Newall

President

For further information visit our website at http://www.first-quantum.com

North American contact:

Sharon Loung

Director

Investor Relations

Tel: +1-(647)-346-3934

Fax: +1-(604)-688-3818

Toll Free: +1-(888)-688-6577

E-Mail: sharon.loung@fqml.com

United Kingdom contact:

Clive Newall

President

Tel: +44(0)-140-327-3484

Fax: +44(0)-140-327-3494

E-Mail: clive.newall@fqml.com

SOURCE First Quantum Minerals Ltd.
NEW YORK, Aug. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Atlantia S.p.A. ("Atlantia" or the "Company") (OTC MKTS: ATASY). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. 9980.

The investigation concerns whether Atlantia and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices.

[Click here to join a class action]

On August 14, 2018, a motorway bridge operated by Atlantia's subsidiary Autostrade per L'Italia ("Autostrade") collapsed, killing 43 people. On August 16, 2018, media outlets reported that the Italian government had opened an investigation into Autostrade. Italy's Deputy Transport Minister stated that the government was considering revoking Autostrade's operating concession and imposing a fine of upwards of 150 million on Autostrade. On this news, Atlantia's American depositary receipt price fell $1.66, or 13.7%, to close at $10.45 on August 16, 2018.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com.

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

rswilloughby@pomlaw.com

888-476-6529 ext. 9980

Related Links

http://www.pomerantzlaw.com



SOURCE Pomerantz LLP
NEW YORK, Aug. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Bayer Aktiengesellschaft ("Bayer" or the "Company") (OTCMKTS: BAYRY). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. 9980.

The investigation concerns whether Bayer and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices.

[Click here to join a class action]

On August 15, 2018, the California Supreme Court denied a request by Bayer's subsidiary Monsanto Company ("Monsanto") for a review of a lower-court ruling that upheld California's authority to add glyphosate, the principal ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide product, to a list of known carcinogens published by the state pursuant to Proposition 65. Inclusion of a chemical on California's Proposition 65 list prohibits businesses from discharging the chemical into sources of drinking water and requires them to warn members of the public who may be exposed to the product. On this news, Bayer's American depositary receipt price fell $1.01, or 4.4%, to close at $21.86 on August 16, 2018.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com.

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

rswilloughby@pomlaw.com

888-476-6529 ext. 9980

Related Links

http://www.pomerantzlaw.com



SOURCE Pomerantz LLP
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
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Batty Over Halloween Celebration Was A Treat! The Central Astoria LDCs 6th annual Batty Over Halloween Celebration held on Sunday, October 24 was a real treat for everyone who came out. Excited...

Invest In Violence Intervention This week U.S. Senator Charles Schumer advocated for at least $5 billion in funding for Community-based Violence Intervention (CVI) programs to be included in the...
Rantoul, IL (61866)

Today

Mainly sunny to start, then a few afternoon clouds. High 54F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Mainly clear skies. Low 32F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.
Moscow court refuses to seize apartment of Donstroy co-founder

 TASS/Vedomosti

11:45 21/08/2018

MOSCOW, August 21 (RAPSI)  The Moscow Commercial Court has dismissed a motion seeking to prohibit Donstroy co-founder Maksim Blazhko from being able to make deals concerning his apartment and Rita companys shares evaluated at 199 million rubles ($2.9 million), the court documents read.

According to the court, the applicant did not prove that there is a need to impose such restrictions as asset seizure.

Earlier, the financial manager of Blazhkos property Yury Vnukov asked the Moscow court to recover information from the businessman. The request concerns information on Blazhkos property status, bank accounts and his current location.

On August 8, it was revealed that Russias Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA), several individuals and foreign companies filed claims against Blazhko seeking to include his 28 billion-ruble ($441 million) debt in the creditors list.

DIA filed three claims worth over 600 million rubles ($9.4 million), which are to be reviewed on September 13. The court will also review a claim filed against Blazhko by Vnesheconombank seeking 11.3 billion rubles ($178 million).

On May 18, the court initiated a debt restructuring process against the co-founder of Donstroy.

In November 2018, the Moscow City Court overturned a ruling that put the businessman under house arrest. Blazhko is charged with abuse of office led to grave consequences.

According to media reports, in 2011, Shyuka company managed by Blazhko took $275-million credit from Sberbank and promised to transfer 80% of rent payments from the companys trading center. However, Blazhko allegedly ordered to stop paying Sberbank and transfer money to other banks.

Donstroy is the Russian construction company founded in 1994 by Blazhko and Dmitry Zelenov.
Karelia lake tragedy case against two officials returned to prosecutors

 flickr.com / bloomsberries

13:59 21/08/2018

MOSCOW, August 21 (RAPSI)  The Basmanny District Court of Moscow has returned to prosecutors a criminal case against two officials over childrens death in Karelias Syamozero lake in 2016, the press-service of the court has told RAPSI.

The defendants in the case are an employee of the Moscow mayor offices department of labor and social security Yelena Syomkina and ex-deputy head of the social security department Tatyana Barsukova.

According to investigators, on June 18, 2016, 47 children and instructors of the childrens camp Park-Hotel Syamozero were sailing on a raft and two canoes over the lake Syamozero in Karelia despite the fact that management of the camp were informed about dangerous weather conditions.

Children were accompanied by 4 adults who did not take gathering storm into account. Storm made sailing extremely dangerous: a raft with children and two adults washed up near one of the islands while both canoes were capsized, leaving passengers in the open waters. Only some managed to swim across to the shore. 14 children drowned. Other children survived and were evacuated.

The Moscow officials are charged with criminal negligence for failing to take precautionary measures during signing of contract between mayors office and the summer camp.

A court in Petrozavodsk is reviewing a separate case against the camps staff as well. Defendants in the case are former head of Karelias Rospotrebnadzor Anatoly Kovalenko, his deputy Lyudmila Kotovich, director of Syamozero Park Hotel camp Elena Reshetova, her deputy Vadim Vinogradov and the camps instructors Valery Krupodershikov and Pavel Ilyin.

Reshetova, Vinogradov Krupodershikov and Ilyin were charged with rendering of services in violation of safety protocol which accidentally lead two or more people to death. Kovalenko and Kotovich were charged with negligence.

In April 2017, ambulance paramedic Irina Shcherbakova, who had allegedly refused to notify rescue services about children drowning in Syamozero, received a 3-year prison term. The sentence is suspended until Shcherbakovas daughter reaches the age of 14.
Russian ombudsman appeals to OSCE, Council of Europe, UN over Butinas detention

 RAPSI

16:49 21/08/2018

MOSCOW, August 21 (RAPSI)  Russias ombudsman Tatiana Moskalkova told journalists on Tuesday that she had handed petitions concerning Maria Butinas detention in the U.S. to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Council of Europe Secretary General and OSCE.

According to Moskalkova, Butina, who is accused by American authorities of illegal activity as a foreign agent, must be released from detention. The ombudsmans motion for the Russian nationals release has been submitted to the U.S. ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman.

Moskalkova called detention conditions of Butina inhuman. According to the Russian ombudsman, the woman was placed in a separate cell and she is often in handcuffs. Moreover, Butina was repeatedly subject to a strip search.

The human rights commissioner believes that the detained woman can give any evidence and even incriminate herself in such a situation.

Butina was arrested in the United States on suspicion of espionage in July. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) claims that the woman was fronting for Russia and forged friendly relationships with American officials. She was placed in detention.
Both NRIs and those who make payouts on sale of property need to understand the TDS provisions that are applicable or risk punishment, warns Sanjay Kumar Singh.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

The income tax department says it will focus on tax deducted at source, especially in the case of sale of property by non-resident Indians, according to media reports.

Both NRIs and those who make payouts to them need to understand the TDS provisions that are applicable or risk punishment.

Any payment to an NRI which is chargeable to tax in India is subject to TDS, according to Section 195 of the I-T Act.

Says Suresh Surana, founder, RSM Astute Consulting Group: "The rationale for applying TDS on NRIs' income is better tax administration, the same as in the case of residents."

The TDS rules are, however, a little more stringent for NRIs.

In the case of bank deposits, for instance, the TDS rate applicable to interest on a non-resident ordinary account is 30 per cent, whereas in the case of residents it is 10 per cent.

In the case of residents, surcharge and cess are not deducted while making non-salary payments.

But, in the case of payments to NRIs surcharge and cess have to be levied, which increases the effective TDS rates.

India has entered into Double Tax Avoidance Agreements with several countries.

"Of DTAA and the provisions of the Indian I-T Act, whichever is more beneficial to the taxpayer will apply," says Archit Gupta, founder and chief executive officer, ClearTax.

In the case of certain treaties, a lower withholding tax rate is prescribed on interest income.

NRIs in those countries may avail of the lower rate, provided they have a valid tax residency certificate.

An NRI who is resident in the United Arab Emirates may, for instance, benefit from a concessional tax rate of 12.5 per cent on interest income in India, informs Surana.

In the case of sale of property by an NRI (see table for rates), TDS has to be deducted by the purchaser.

Tax should be deducted only on capital gains and not on the sale price.

"The NRI should approach the jurisdictional assessing officer under Section 197 and make an application for obtaining the lower withholding tax certificate," says Surana.

The assessing officer will decide the proportion of the sale amount on which tax is to be deducted and issue a certificate within 30 days.

Once this is furnished to the buyer, the latter will deduct tax at the lower rate and deposit it with the government.

The credit for such tax deducted can be claimed by the NRI while filing his return in India.

In the case of rent paid to an NRI, the tenant has to deduct TDS at 30 per cent and remit it to the government.

The tenant must fill Form 15CA at the time of making payment.

"Form 15CA is a form for remittance filed by the person deducting TDS. In the case of certain payments, it becomes mandatory to obtain Form 15CB from a chartered accountant, too, besides filing 15CA," says Gupta.

Form 15CB is not required when the remittance does not exceed Rs 500,000 and does not require the Reserve Bank's approval.

Form 15CB is a certificate in which details of payment, TDS rate, deduction and other details of the nature and purpose of the remittance are verified by a chartered accountant.

The buyer of the immovable property should possess a tax deduction account number.

TDS must be deposited on or before the seventh of the month immediately succeeding the month of deduction.

It may be deposited online, using challan number ITNS/281 through the NSDL portal.
Investors have kept their eyes on US-China trade talks and are optimistic about a positive outcome.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

Market benchmarks Sensex and Nifty extended their rise for the third straight session on Tuesday, though gains were marginal, and closed at fresh closing highs on buying in pharma and IT stocks amid optimism over US-China trade talks.

The BSE Sensex edged higher by 7 points and managed to end at a new peak of 38,285.75, surpassing its previous record closing of 38,278.75 hit on Monday.

The 30-share index also went on to hit its life-time high (intra-day) at 38,402.96 in day's trade.

Its previous intra-day high was 38,340.69, reached on Monday. During the day, it touched a low of 38,213.87.

The broader NSE Nifty also logged its fresh closing high of 11,570.90, up 19.15 points, or 0.17 per cent.

The 50-issue index surpassed its previous record closing of 11,551.75, marked yesterday.

The Nifty also met its intra-day record high at 11,581.75, breaking its previous day's record of 11,565.30. The index slipped to a low of 11,539.60 during the day's trade.

Unabated buying by domestic institutional investors (DIIs) and positive sentiment in world markets helped domestic markets scale fresh highs on Tuesday, brokers said.

Investors have kept their eyes on US-China trade talks and are optimistic about a positive outcome.

The tariff war between them has been keeping global markets uncertain for a while now.

But, the trade talks between the two major economies, which are scheduled to take place through Tuesday and Wednesday this week, have led to an improvement in market sentiments, they added.

Among the Sensex constituents, Coal India was the top gainer by climbing 2.59 per cent to close at Rs 291.55 after reports indicated that the government is planning to sell some minority stake in the company.

Other gainers included Axis Bank 1.92 per cent, NTPC 1.70 per cent, Sun Pharma 1.69 per cent, Wipro 1.48 per cent, RIL 0.94 per cent, ONGC 0.71 per cent, Maruti Suzuki 0.32 per cent, TCS 0.16 per cent, ICICI Bank 0.16 per cent and Hero Motocorp 0.14 per cent, helping the index scale record high levels.

Lupin rose 2.23 per cent after company today said it has received final approval from the USFDA to market Hydrocortisone Butyrate lotion, used for treatment of mild atopic dermatitis in patients 3 months of age and older.

Profit-booking in index major Tata Steel pulled it 2.86 per cent, while HUL fell 1.30 per cent, Vedanta 1.17 per cent, M&M 1.12 per cent, Bharti Airtel 0.72 per cent, Yes Bank 0.72 per cent, IndusInd Bank 0.71 per cent, Kotak Bank 0.66 per cent, Asian Paint 0.48 per cent, HDFC 0.38 per cent, Bajaj Auto 0.24 per cent and SBI 0.21 per cent.

The broader markets also displayed a firm trend with mid-cap index rising by 0.52 per cent and small-cap index by 0.34 per cent.

Among the BSE sectoral indices, power index rose the most by surging 1.55 per cent, followed by healthcare 1.12 per cent, energy 0.72 per cent, IT 0.45 per cent, teck 0.38 per cent, capital goods 0.26 per cent, infrastructure 0.19 per cent, PSU 0.12 per cent and oil & gas 0.11 per cent.

While realty fell 1.45 per cent, metal 0.41 per cent, consumer durables 0.35 per cent, FMCG 0.06 per cent, auto 0.05 per cent and bankex 0.01 per cent.

Globally, Asian and European shares rose on optimism over trade talks between the United States and China.

Immediate focus was on the lower-level trade talks, due to start this week, between the United States and China.

Meanwhile, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth a net of Rs 593.22 crore, while foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net of Rs 483.04 crore on Monday, provisional data showed.

However, this week will also see the imposition of 25 per cent tariffs on $16 billion worth of Chinese imports, an action by the Trump administration that China has said it would retaliate against.

Among key Asian indices, Shanghai Composite Index moved up 1.31 per cent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.56 per cent and Japan's Nikkei was up 0.09 per cent.

Among European markets, Frankfurt's DAX rose 0.69 per cent and Paris CAC 40 moved up 0.74 per cent in their early session.

London's FTSE, however, was down 0.41 per cent.

US stocks closed higher for a third session on Monday as a pair of billion-dollar deals reaffirmed confidence that the US economy continues its steady expansion.

BSE and NSE will be closed on Wednesday on account of 'Bakri Id' holiday.
'The Dalai Lama is in a tearing hurry.'

'The 'reincarnation' card remains unplayed, and time is running out.'

'Is something big being planned for the event of Tibetan Buddhist leaders in Leh in November?' asks Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.

IMAGE: 'What if the Dalai Lama was consciously making a loaded political statement with a certain Indian audience in mind who would greatly relish any denigration of Nehru? What if it was a deliberate act on the Dalai Lama's part?' asks Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.

Much animated media coverage followed the caustic remarks by the Dalai Lama regarding Nehru's 'self-centred' mindset that apparently precipitated Partition in 1947.

The consensus seems to be that the Dalai Lama's understanding of British Indian history is weak. Such consensus opinion is predicated on the assumption that the Dalai Lama strayed into a realm that was outside metaphysics and found himself simply gasping for breath.

However, facile assumptions can go horribly wrong.

The point is, what if history was not even remotely in the Dalai Lama's thought process when he made those silly remarks?

What if he was consciously making a loaded political statement with a certain Indian audience in mind, who would greatly relish any, whatever denigration of Nehru in any, whichever context in our present-day extraordinary times when Nehru's legacy cannot even have a final resting place in a living museum?

So, what if it was a deliberate act on the Dalai Lama's part?

For, he is an intelligent man who would know he was being plainly ungrateful to the cherished memory of Nehru to whom he literally owes everything in this material world, especially, his Nobel.

And, above all, make no mistake, the Dalai Lama has an acutely politicised intellectual sensibility, which only qualified him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Succinctly put, after the call on the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat by Lobsang Sangay -- the head of the so-called Central Tibetan Administration -- on August 6 at Nagpur, the Dalai Lama seems to have drawn encouragement that he can still reverse the Modi government's course correction on our Tibetan policies (in the backdrop of a new initiative to improve relations with China), which has lately somewhat relegated him to the dustbin of history.

From Sangay's side, an ecstatic account of his meeting with Bhagwat has been put out.

Some excerpts: 'The meeting which took place at Shri Mohan Bhagwat's residence in Nagpur on Monday evening and the leaders discussed on key issues relating to environmental and political situation in Tibet, Indo-Tibet ties and the geological ('geopolitical'?) impact of the ongoing situation in Tibet on India and rest of the world particularly the South Asian countries considering the strategic significance of Tibet...'

'Shri Mohan Bhagwat is a strong admirer of Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama's commitment and wisdom. During the meeting... the RSS chief told that India and Tibet are a family and he will continue to support and lend his voice to raise the issue of Tibet.'

This could be an exaggerated version. Or, it may not be. That's beside the point.

Importantly, the Tibetans have all along in recent years harboured a notion that they have a direct line to the RSS. Sangay saw to it that he got an invite arranged for Modi's inaugural ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan in May 2014.

Possibly, elements within the Indian establishment have led them to such a belief. But the big question today is something else: Will the RSS undermine a diplomatic initiative that Modi has made to improve relations with China? Seems unlikely.

But then, the Dalai Lama is in a tearing hurry. The 'reincarnation' card remains unplayed, and time is running out.

Is something big being planned for the upcoming event of Tibetan Buddhist leaders in Leh in November? The possibility is there.

After all, these leaders were expected to decide about 'the future Dalai Lama' when the living Dalai Lama 'reaches around 90 years.' That point may have come.

Meanwhile, the Karmapa Lama, who lives in exile in New Jersey for the past year or more (and is most certainly under the control of US intelligence), is also being primed like a retreaded tyre to return to India in time for the conclave in Leh in November.

Interestingly, the American ambassador in Delhi paid a 3-day visit to Leh last month just before Radio Free Asia announced the Karmapa's intention to return to India in November. A recce trip?

Indeed, one can only hope that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing within the Indian foreign and security policy establishment.

It will be a great pity -- even a veritable tragedy, perhaps -- if the Wuhan spirit evaporates as such a short-lived dream.

The best hope will be that the dream doesn't turn sour by November and become a nightmare haunting Indian diplomacy for years or decades to come, long after the Dalai Lama himself joins history books alongside Nehru.
The government on Tuesday asked WhatsApp to set up a local corporate entity and find a technology solution to trace the origin of fake messages circulated through its platform, which is facing flak for mass circulation of certain fake messages that have led to horrific crimes.

IMAGE: IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad met WhatsApp head Chris Daniels and asked him to set up a corporate entity in India, appoint a grievance officer and find a technical solution to tracing the origin of fake messages on its platform. Photograph: @rsprasad/Twitter

After his meeting with WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels here, information and technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the messaging app has contributed significantly to India's digital story but it needs to find solutions to deal with "sinister developments" like mob-lynching and revenge porn.

In a stern warning, the government has also made it clear that WhatsApp could face abetment charges in case action is not taken to tackle circulation of fake messages.

Daniels declined to comment about his meeting with the minister.

Prasad said he has asked WhatsApp to set up a corporate entity in India, appoint a grievance officer and find a technical solution to trace the origin of fake messages on its platform.

"I flagged in particular, which I had said earlier also, it does not take rocket science to locate a message being circulated in hundreds and thousands... you must have a mechanism to find a solution," the minister told reporters.

While noting that WhatsApp could face abetment charges if no action is taken, Prasad said the company has assured that it is working towards complying with these points.

"I had a very productive meeting with Chris Daniels, the CEO of WhatsApp... there are also very sinister developments, which are provoking crimes like mob lynching, revenge porn. You (WhatsApp) must find solutions to these challenges which are downright criminal and violation of Indian laws," Prasad said.

Elaborating on the meeting, Prasad expressed happiness over Daniels saying that WhatsApp was working with law enforcement agencies and that it would organise a campaign to educate people in India on spread of misinformation through social media.

About WhatsApp's impending roll out of payments services, Prasad said the company has assured the government that it would comply with the stipulated rules.

"We said we have (drawn) attention of the RBI, namely (on) financial data being (stored) in India. The RBI is working on the guidelines and he (Daniels) has assured me, whatever guidelines RBI comes out with, he will comply with that," the minister said.

Daniels is also likely to meet various government officials and business executives during his visit this week as the company attempts to address concerns around fake news being circulated on its messaging platform which have led to horrific crimes like mob-lynching.

The government had sent two notices to WhatsApp, directing it to take urgent measures to curb spread of false information and rumours through its platform.

The IT ministry had also warned that WhatsApp cannot escape its responsibility for such rampant abuse and needed to find originators of provocative messages. Besides, the company was told that in the absence of adequate checks, the government would treat the messaging platform as abettor of rumour propagation and legal consequences would follow.

In its response, WhatsApp informed the government that it is building a local team, including having an India head, and has introduced new features to let its users identify forwarded messages. WhatsApp has also restricted the number of forwards that can be done at a time.

Besides, the company is also running advocacy and education programme to help people spot fake news.

Last month, WhatsApp top executives, including COO Matthew Idema, met IT Secretary and other Indian government officials to outline various steps being taken by the company to tackle fake news in India.
The devastating deluge have claimed 231 dead in a fortnight while over 14.50 lakh people are taking shelter in more than 3,200 relief camps.

IMAGE: A woman cries as she holds her son after they were evacuated from a flooded area in Aluva. Photograph: Sivaram V/Reuters

Kerala on Tuesday sought a Rs 2,600 crore special package from the Centre even as the state struggled to find its feet after the devastating deluge that left 231 dead in a fortnight and displaced over 14 lakh people.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan chaired a meeting of the state cabinet, which decided to seek the special package under the centrally-sponsored schemes, including the flagship rural employment programme MGNREGS.

As the cabinet took stock of the havoc caused by the unprecedented floods in a century, the Centre released Rs 600 crore to Kerala and decided to waive customs duty and GST on the relief materials being imported for the affected people.

The central assistance of Rs 500 crore as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rs 100 crore by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had been released today, an official spokesperson said in New Delhi.

In another major relief, the United Arab Emirates, home to a large number of expatriates from Kerala, promised an assistance of USD 100 million (about Rs 700 crore) for the state's reconstruction.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, called up prime minister Modi and made the offer for assistance, Vijayan said.

However, official sources said, the government is unlikely to accept any foreign financial assistance.

They said that the government has taken a considered decision to rely solely on domestic efforts to tide over the situation.

IMAGE: A man salvages the items at his shop after flood water receded at North Paravoor in Kochi. Photograph: PTI Photo

The toll rose to 231 with recovery of eight more bodies from different parts on Tuesday while over 14.50 lakh people are taking shelter in more than 3,200 relief camps a fortnight after a murderous monsoon rampaged through the state in its second spell that began on August 8, the government said.

An all party meeting extended unstinted support for the government's relief and rehabilitation measurers with leaders cutting across party lines assuring that they would all work together to rebuild the state.

The day also saw the rail and road networks, badly hit by the floods, being restored in most places, while flight operations from the Cochin International Airport are expected to resume from August 26.

The airport, among the busiest in the country, had been rendered non-functional since August 14 due to flooding and torrential rains.

Civil aircraft services are being operated from Naval airport in Kochi since yesterday as an interim measure.

The Indian Railways said it has repaired all damaged tracks and restored normal traffic.

IMAGE: The army has deployed 23 teams and 104 boats for rescue operations. Photograph: @ADGPI/Twitter

Union Tourism Minister K J Alphons flagged the need for ready-to-eat cooked food, doctors and nurses, saying people are now getting back to whatever is left of their homes with the waters receding.

He also appealed to skilled workers like plumbers, electricians and carpenters to come to make homes livable and help the state regain normalcy.

Reflecting the enormity of the situation, there will be no 'Onam' and 'Bakrid' celebrations in many parts of Kerala.

The government and other entities have cancelled events scheduled for August 25 to celebrate Onam that brings together people of all religious faiths, castes and creed in celebration of a good harvest.

The money collected for the celebrations will now be spent on flood relief.

The Muslim festival of Bakrid on Wednesday will also be low key.

IMAGE: Flood affected areas of Chengannur seen from an Indian Navy helicopter, at Alappuzha district. Photograph: PTI Photo

Though rains have eased over the last two days, vast swathes of land remain under a seemingly endless sheet of water in Ernakulam, Thrissur, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha and Kollam districts.

Facing a daunting task, the state government also asked the Centre to enhance its borrowing limit and sought permission to impose a 10 per cent cess on GST to mobilise funds for rebuilding Kerala, where 13 of its 14 districts were ravaged by monsoon rains since the first week of this month.

Under the present arrangement, Kerala can obtain three per cent of its gross state domestic product as loans and wants it to be raised to 4.5 per cent so the state can mobilise an additional Rs 10,500 crore from the open market.

"A comprehensive package for rehabilitation of the flood victims and to rebuild Kerala will be submitted to centre," Vijayan told a press conference.

It was also decided to introduce a special lottery to mobilise funds for the state.

A special session of the state assembly has been convened on August 30 to discuss the situation arising from the calamitous floods.

The chief minister had earlier said the state had suffered damages of about Rs 20,000 crore.

As the massive humanitarian tragedy unfolded in the picturesque state, relief poured in.

Governments of other states, corporate entities and individuals, including small children, have loosened their purse strings.

The state-level bankers committee has decided to declare a moratorium on repayment of agricultural loan for a year.

Though most of those marooned have been evacuated, the state government and defence forces said rescue efforts will continue till the last person was brought to safety.

The government is also preparing a comprehensive health action programme to prevent outbreak of water-borne diseases.

Meanwhile, local MLA Saji Cherian said all the stranded persons in chengannur, one among the worst affected nearby areas have been rescued.
A video, showing a sweeper stitching a wound on the head of an accident victim at a government hospital in Bharuch town of Gujarat, has gone viral of social media, prompting the authorities to order an inquiry.

Shockingly, a similar incident had allegedly taken place at the hospital three months ago.

In the video, shot by the patient's relative on August 19, the sweeper is seen stitching the wound in the presence of a woman doctor and nurses.

The hospital's Resident Medical Officer S R Patel said he has ordered an inquiry and served show cause notices to the doctor, who had allegedly instructed the sweeper, a contractual employee, to stitch the wound, and other staff.

Patel said this was the second such incident involving the doctor and the sweeper in the last three months, and the doctor had been warned not to ask the sweeper to stitch wounds on the previous occasion.

"We have taken this matter seriously and ordered a probe into the incident. I have also issued show-cause notices to the doctor and all on-duty staff. They will have to furnish explanations within five days," Patel said.
Two months after an eight-year-old girl was raped in Madhya Pradesh's Madsaur, a special court on Tuesday awarded death sentence to two men for the crime saying they deserved no leniency.

The girl was abducted and later gangraped on June 26, an incident which had triggered widespread outrage and led to protests for several days with demands for capital punishment for the culprits.

In what could possibly be one of the speediest trials in such crimes, Additional District and Sessions Judge Nisha Gupta today convicted Irfan Mewati alias Bhaiyu (20) and Asif Mewati (24) and sentenced them to death, saying the case fell under the "rarest of the rare" category.

"The act of the two accused was of cruel and gruesome nature. The duo raped a hapless girl who was anxious to return home after her school was over," the judge was quoted as saying by assistant district prosecution officer Nitesh Krishnan.

The court noted that the convicts savagely attacked the minor girl and the victim could not defend herself as she was a minor.

"The accused not only raped her, but they attacked and injured her private parts and other delicate body parts with a knife," the special judge observed, the prosecutor said.

"So, they do not deserve leniency. Therefore, treating the incident as rarest of the rare case, as pleaded by the prosecution, death was only way out to punish them under section 376DB of the IPC," the judge remarked, Krishnan added.

The newly-introduced section deals with cases where femles under 12 years of age is raped by one or more persons.

The girl was abducted while she was waiting for her father outside her school in Mandsaur and was later gangraped.

The rapists had also tried to kill her by slitting her throat.

The girl had suffered severe injuries on her neck, face, head and private parts in the incident and is undergoing treatment in Indore.

Following the gruesome incident, local Muslims in Mandsaur district had taken out a rally, demanding the culprits be hanged.

The district remained on the boil for many days and protests were organised in several parts of western Madhya Pradesh, demanding capital punishment for the culprits.

Judge Gupta also awarded life imprisonment to the two under section 307 (attempt to murder), 10 years imprisonment with a fine of Rs 10,000 and seven years imprisonment and fine of Rs 10,000 under sections 366 (kidnapping to rape) and 363 (kidnapping) of the IPC, Deputy Director of Prosecution B S Thakur said.

After the pronouncement of the judgement, one of the convicts, Asif Mewati, was slapped by an unidentified man while he was being taken out of the court on Tuesday.

Earlier, Thakur and Krishnan pleaded with the court that the accused be given capital punishment taking into account the seriousness of the crime they have committed.

The defence pleaded for leniency, saying the convicts should not be hanged as they were in their 20s.

Countering the defence argument, the prosecution said the crime committed by the duo was so grave and cruel that the girl has still not overcome the trauma.

The prosecutors told the court the girl's throat was slit to kill her. In fact, the accused left the spot after being convinced that she was dead.

The duo inflicted such serious injuries to her that she regained consciousness after 18 hours, they told the court.

Thakur and Krishnan cited a Supreme Court ruling contending that only death would deliver justice in the case.

The Judge delivered the verdict after examining 37 witnesses, 195 documents and 50 articles connected to the crime.

The prosecution also placed on record the positive DNA report of the girl's blood stain on the vest and shirt of Irfan Mewati. It also submitted the DNA report of hair of the two convicts recovered from the crime spot.

With this, 14 rapists, most of them who committed the crime against girls below 12, have been awarded capital punishment in MP in the last six months.

Madhya Pradesh was the first state to enact a law in December last year providing for death penalty for rapists of minor girls below 12.

The Centre brought an amendment in the IPC to punish the rapists of minor girls below 12 with death on April 21.

Madhya Pradesh accounted for the highest 4,882 rape cases, out of the 38,947 recorded across the country in 2016, according to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB)'s last report.

The state recorded 2,479 rape cases of minor girls, followed by Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh with 2,310 and 2,115 such cases respectively, the NCRB report said.

Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest number of rape cases (4,391) in 2015 too, according to the report.

Rajendra Kumar, director of prosecution, in a press release, said both the public prosecutors in the case will be felicitated.

'Happy that justice is delivered'

The father of the Mandsaur gangrape victim expressed satisfaction over the special court's verdict.

He hoped that the verdict would send a strong message and act as a deterrent.

The man, a resident of Mandsaur, is currently staying in Indore, as the victim is undergoing treatment at a city hospital.

"My daughter and my family have been under stress since the past two months. Since the beginning, we wanted them to be hanged. Finally, justice has been delivered today," he said.

He said the verdict was delivered in time because the trial was conducted in a fast track court.

"The court judgement would send a strong message in the society and (hopefully) such crimes against minors would be reduced," he said.

The man, around 45 years of age, said his daughter underwent a surgery at the Maharaja Yeshwant Rao Hospital (MYH) in Indore for the second time recently and is doing well.

She was admitted in the MYH here, about 200 kms from Mandsaur, on the night of June 27, a day after the incident.

"Doctors told me that they would consider discharging my daughter from the hospital after her injuries get healed," he said.
IMAGE: US Secretary of State Micheal Pompeo, left, and Secretary of Defence James Mattis will travel to New Delhi next month for the 2+2 dialogue. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Describing India as an 'all-weather partner', the United States has said the upcoming 2+2 dialogue with the country is an important opportunity to enhance engagement on a range of diplomatic and security issues and discuss how to operationalise India's status as a major defence partner.

US Secretary of State Micheal Pompeo and Secretary of Defence James Mattis will travel to New Delhi next month for the 2+2 dialogue, the format of which was agreed upon between the two sides during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington in June 2017.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman were to travel to Washington to take part in the meeting with their US counterparts in July.

But the US had postponed the dialogue citing 'unavoidable reasons'. After June last year, the two countries have tried to schedule the dialogue many times with several dates having been considered.

Earlier this year also, the '2+2 dialogue' had been postponed due to uncertainty over the confirmation of Pompeo as President Donald Trump's new Secretary of State.

"With India, we are looking forward to the inaugural 2+2 dialogue with Secretaries Pompeo and Mattis traveling for these meetings in New Delhi on September 6," Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Alice Wells told reporters on Monday.

"It is an important opportunity to discuss and enhance our engagement on a range of diplomatic and security priorities and really is an indication of the deepening strategic partnership that we enjoy with India," she said.

Wells was addressing a Foreign Press Centre video conference from Washington on 'US Policy in the Indian Ocean Region' during which she previewed her upcoming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference hosted by the India Foundation in Hanoi on August 27-28.

She said India plays a central role in US national security adding that it is 'enshrined in the President's national security strategy as well as the administration's South Asia and Indo-Pacific strategies'.

She said at the upcoming 2+2 ministerial, the US is looking to discuss 'how do we operationalise India's status as a major defense partner'.

India was designated a major defence partner by the US in 2016.

Defence cooperation between India and the US has grown from 'essentially zero dollars' in 2008 to $18 billion (12.5 lakh crore) today.

The US does more military exercises with India than with any other country in the world 'but how do we take this partnership to a new level so that it is not just going to be defense acquisitions but really a way of framing how we see challenges and how we want to be able to respond together to address these challenges'.

Highlighting that the India-US partnership is rooted in shared democratic values and commitment to rules-based order, Wells said the two nations are going to be able to demonstrate at the 2+2 dialogue the facts of this maturing partnership.

On a question about trade relations with India, Wells said opening up trade with India is a 'key strategic objective' for the Trump administration.

Bilateral trade currently stands at about $126 billion (Rs 87 lakh crore), an increase of more than $10 billion (Rs 6.9 lakh crore) from last year and there have been critical purchases by Indian firms in the commercial aviation, energy as well as the defense sectors She however added that impediments do remain between the two countries on trade.

"Tariff and non-tariff barriers have been a subject of longstanding concern and intellectual property rights as well. So we are continuing a very intensive dialogue with the Indian government on how do we address these irritants and unlock the trade that is of great interest to US firms when they look at the Indian market and its potential," she said.

Wells added that looking outside of India, Washington wants to work together with New Delhi and identify projects whether they be in Sri Lanka or Nepal.

"One of the great new elements of our relationship with India is that we are working in third countries," she said as she cited the example of the assistance and developmental level work with India in Africa on health-related issues and peacekeeping training.

She said India and the US worked together in programmes that involved bringing Afghans to India for cost-effective training.

"India really is an all-weather partner as we look ahead to how to ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains free and open."

During the press briefing, Wells previewed her upcoming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference and how it supports the Trump administration's Indo-Pacific strategy.

The annual conference, hosted by the India Foundation along with its partners from Singapore, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, will focus on the theme of 'Building Regional Architectures'.
'Kofi Annan will be remembered more for his Nobel Prize and related glory rather than Rwanda and Volcker,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan with whom he worked in the UN.

IMAGE: Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan arrives at Sittwe airport, Rakhine state, Myanmar, in his capacity as the Myanmar government-appointed chairman of the advisory commission on Rakhine state, December 2, 2016. Photograph: Photograph: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters

Kofi Annan (rhymes with 'Sophie Cannon' according to Shashi Tharoor), who passed away on August 18, recently was the quintessential international civil servant: Well dressed, suave, politically correct, polite and courteous, and more than anything else, unflappable.

The first United Nations secretary-general to emerge from the UN system, his strongest point was his familiarity with virtually every department of the mammoth institution, ranging from accounts and budget to peace making, peacekeeping and peace building.

His networking among the UN staff and delegates gave him an advantage over all his predecessors who were often bewildered by the many intricacies of the UN system.

But this very strength infuriated the permanent members of the Security Council who felt that he ran circles around them with rules and regulations and they vowed after his term that never again would they have such an expert as the secretary-general.

In their eyes, ideal secretaries-general should be colourless and odourless and others inevitably came to grief.

But Annan survived and flourished till his demise.

I worked with him in the early 1990s when I was the chairman of the once powerful UN committee on programme and coordination and, as controller, he was my closest adviser.

The job of the CPC was to turn all the decisions of the UN general assembly into programmes to assist the financial and budget authorities to plan expenditure.

It also had the responsibility to coordinate the work of the specialised agencies, though the powerful heads of agencies did not care about the CPC.

The CPC was perhaps the only committee which had a finger in every pie and a multitude of issues came up there, which needed familiarity with rules and regulations and a rich imagination to give helpful interpretations to them.

Annan, who spent a lot of time with the committee when it was in session, was never at a loss for convincing words to defend the secretariat.

It was an education for me to learn from such a superb UN civil servant.

Annan built his reputation further as the head of the UN department of peacekeeping operations, which was a complex activity of the United Nations.

Soon after the Cold War, the number of peacekeeping operations increased significantly during then secretary-general Boutros Boutros Ghali's term. Ghali earned the nickname 'General' because of his enthusiasm to deploy troops everywhere to enforce peace. He even proposed a standing army at his command to be used in emergencies.

There were successful peacekeeping operations under Annan's watch as the head of the concerned UN department, but there were also disasters like Rwanda, Somalia and Bosnia.

The worst was Rwanda, where 800,000 people were massacred in 100 days under the very nose of the UN even after Annan was given a warning about an impending genocide from those on the ground. He denied that the warning was specific, but later expressed regret over inaction.

'I, myself, as head of the UN's peacekeeping department at the time, pressed dozens of countries for troops,' he said in 2004. 'I believed at that time that I was doing my best. But I realised after the genocide that there was more that I could, and should, have done to sound the alarm and rally support.'

'This painful memory, along with that of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has influenced much of my thinking, and many of my actions, as secretary-general,' he said.

But despite these failures, he was elected secretary-general, because the US vetoed a second term for Ghali and wanted Africa to have another secretary-general to complete the African turn for two terms.

Subsequently, Annan was given a second term, even though Asia had made a claim at that time. Moreover, he was given the Nobel Prize for Peace personally, together with the UN itself for its humanitarian and peace building efforts in 2001.

The worst crisis in his entire career came in 2005 when an independent inquiry committee appointed by Annan himself at a cost of $34 million under Paul Volcker documented a huge amount of evidence regarding manipulation of the $60 billion oil-for-food programme by the Saddam Hussein regime with the complicity of more than 2,200 companies in 66 countries as well as a number of prominent international politicians.

It painted an ugly tableau of bribery, kickbacks, corruption, and fraud on a global scale -- without a doubt the biggest financial scandal in modern history.

Since a number of UN officials were involved, Annan was asked to take moral responsibility.

Moreover, it was suspected that a Swiss company, which employed his son, was also involved in the scandal.

Many heads rolled in the UN and outside, including India's then external affairs minister K Natwar Singh whose name appeared only in a footnote to the Volcker report as someone who benefited from the scandalous deal.

There were also reports that Annan had got the report amended before it was published to save himself. US congressmen and senators cried foul and asked for a thorough reform of the UN.

Yet, Annan went on to complete his term and to become a renowned global figure for peace, humanity and justice.

I was delighted to see him at a meeting in Pretoria of the 'Elders', established in Nelson Mandela's name to resolve global disputes. We briefly chatted about common friends in New York and he was as courteous and friendly as I had known him before he became the UN secretary-general and a Nobel Laureate.

Annan was a good friend of India, even though his chef de cabinet was from Pakistan. He maintained the position that he had a role in Kashmir as it was on the agenda of the UN security council, but he never took the position that the UN resolutions should be implemented or that he should intervene in any manner.

'The secretary-general continues to call on India and Pakistan to exercise restraint and encourage them to resolve their differences, including over Kashmir, by peaceful means' was all that he would say.

His statements on the mandatory nature of the security council resolutions were also helpful. He supported UN reform in general, but left it to the member States to find a formula for expansion of the Security Council.

He appointed General Satish Nambiar from India to the Committee he established to study the matter and placed the Indian recommendation on par with the majority opinion in his report, In Larger Freedom.

As I recounted in an earlier Rediff column, 'on the day Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, I happened to be in the delegates dining room at the UN, totally oblivious of what had happened back home. Annan, who was observing me from another table, realised from my body language that I was unaware of the tragedy.'

'He walked over to my table slowly, took me aside and said that as soon as I finished my lunch, I should go down to the lounge and watch CNN. He did not answer when I asked him what happened so as not to spoil the mood of the party.'

'Although he was cool and collected as he spoke to me, I knew him well enough to realise that something serious had happened. I lost no time in rushing to watch CNN.'

IMAGE: A poster depicting the late Kofi Annan outside his family home in Bompata town in Kumasi, Ghana, the day after his death, August 19, 2018. Photograph: Francis Kokoroko/Reuters

What made Kofi Annan a 'teflon' secretary-general was his thorough knowledge of the UN system, which permitted its chief to distance himself from the misdeeds of the institution as the SG was supposed to act at the behest of the member States, particularly the security council.

By maintaining his persona as a champion of peace, progress, prosperity and welfare through the Millenium Goals and other programmes, he kept himself out of the follies and foibles of the UN.

Someone observed that he spoke as 'we' when he talked of the UN's mistakes while he used 'I' when he spoke on the lofty principles that he espoused as an individual.

This helped him to keep a clean conscience, even in the face of grave charges. He will be remembered more for his Nobel Prize and related glory rather than Rwanda and Volcker.

T P Sreenivasan,(IFS 1967), former Ambassador of India and Governor for India of the IAEA is Chairman, Academic Council and Director, NSS Academy of Civil Services, and Director General, Kerala International Centre.

You can read more columns by Ambassador Sreenivasan here.
It is not often that Goswami's Nation-Wants-to-Know shows become material evidence in a murder trial no less.

Nor was it something CBI Special Judge J C Jagdale was wildly enthused about.

It had to be done because as he put it to CBI Special Public Prosecutor Kavita Patil caustically: "Your witnesses gave interviews to channels about a serious crime."

Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora trial.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

Arnab Goswami was a no show.

The newscaster was slated to join the Monday, August 20, hearing of the Sheena Bora murder trial.

Fortuitously, not in person.

But via one of his earlier broadcasts.

That would have perhaps been a first.

It is not often that Goswami's Nation-Wants-to-Know shows become material evidence in a murder trial no less.

Nor was it something CBI Special Judge Jayendra Chandrasen Jagdale was wildly enthused about. It had to be done because as he put it to CBI Special Public Prosecutor Kavita Patil caustically: "Your witnesses gave interviews to channels about a serious crime."

Those present at CBI Special Courtroom 51 were promised a viewing of one of Arnab's hour-long inquisitions, titled a 'mega exclusive', in the course of the session at the Mumbai city civil and sessions court, Kala Ghoda, on Monday.

Alas, technology played a spoil sport.

The inadequate volume of the laptop speakers prevented the screening of Goswami's interview with Mekhail Upendra Kumar Bora from 2015. Mekhail declared he could not hear the broadcast because the voices were all but inaudible.

There sat Mekhail, wearing a mustard-hued shirt and dark trousers, upon the stool in the witness box, with an open laptop in front of him, with Goswami's face paused in perpetuity.

Subsequently 20 minutes or more was spent on arguing if the written transcript was admissible or whether instead CDs could be heard -- more time than Judge Jagdale would have perhaps deemed necessary, for an interview he had, shocked, called bitingly an attempt at a "parallel investigation."

The court was obliged to go home on Monday without hearing from the television anchor what he had termed the 'facts that were never revealed before'.

The Monday hearing began 90 minutes late.

At 12.30 pm, the scheduled time, the courtroom was still jam-packed, like a Mumbai local, with the Nirav Modi-PNB scam accused -- some 20 of them or so including Firestar CFO Vipul Ambani and former Allahabad Bank MD Usha Ananthasubramanian striking for her grey sari, big bindi and long, curious stares -- now out on bail, who had arrived for a hearing.

Some 50 people, the accused, their lawyers and relatives were milling in and out of the courtroom or in the hallways outside.

The Sheena Bora murder trial hearing was put off till 2.45 pm.

When it began, Indrani Mukerjea's lawyer Sudeep Ratnamberdutt Pasbola spent the initial 15 minutes enquiring minutely about the Gurgaon flat, that was partly in Mekhail's name, that he was trying to sell in April 2012 -- to use the money to buy a Tata Aria for himself -- and the correspondence that went back and forth between mother and son on e-mail on that.

Interestingly, the other name on the flat was of an Agnes, who had once been Indrani's assistant.

The advocate also sought to establish the nature of the interactions between the Mukerjeas' former driver Shyamvar Pinturam Rai and Mekhail at that time.

Rai had come to Delhi during that period at Indrani's behest, like a dogsbody, to help with the running around for the sale apparently. This bit of information had not emerged in earlier hearings or Rai's testimony.

While there were some small disagreements on the approach to selling the flat, over e-mail, and Indrani kept advising and cautioning Mekhail about what to do and what not to do, it was happening amicably.

In the middle of this, Pasbola suddenly popped a question at him about his deteriorating relationship with his mother.

Pasbola: "(In April 2012) aap ka sambandh Indrani ke saath bilkul achcha tha (Your relationship with Indrani was just fine). 'Love you Mummy'. 'I love you' (is written in all the mails)."

Mekhail, stone-faced: "Mein Mummy bolta. Woh beta nahin bolti (I called her mother. She never called me son)."

Indrani smiled mysteriously at the rear of the room.

Pasbola: "Aap ka aur Indrani ka sambandh kharab hua uska immediate reason tha ki usne pocket money bandh kiya (Your relationship with Indrani soured and the immediate reason was because she stopped your pocket money)."

Mekhail: "Nana-Nani ka paisa bandh kiya. Hum ko kitna deti thi? (Money to Nana-Nani was stopped. How much did she give me?)"

Pasbola quietly, silkily: "Ghadi, sab (Cars, everything)..."

Mekhail said they were not in his name.

Pasbola reiterated, reminding him: "Aap ka pocket money bandh kiya iss liye (It was because she stopped your pocket money)."

Mekhail: "Nana-Nani ka kharch. Pura connection toot gaya (She stopped looking after Nana-Nani's expenses. The whole connection broke)." He strongly insisted that pocket money had nothing to do with it.

Pasbola going over the details of the break in contact between him and Indrani, the lawyer had him recall some of the things he said to his mother, between April 2014 and August 2015, in an attempt to set the record straight.

It was, his gist, not all about Good Son-Bad Mother, but possibly about Bad Son-Good Mother too instead.

Indrani sat serenely in the back, looking like a madonna in her full white garb, through this appraisal.

If nothing else, it was an exercise in salvaging some meagre pieces here and there of her reputation that Mekhail had with his earlier court statements destroyed.

The lawyer then asked softly: "April 2015 mein achanak ma ko galee dene ka kya karan tha? Bitch kahalaya (What was the reason for suddenly insulting her in April 2015. You called her bitch). By calling her a bitch and said so many things. Threatening her."

Pasbola stressed on the word bitch, accentuating it loudly for all to hear, trying to build horror.

The messages in which Mekhail abused his mother were pulled out and shown to him.

Mekhail shortly, dourly: "Nahin dekhna hai (I don't want to see them)."

He closed his eyes for a long moment and fiddled with his hands and then offered that the reasons for his were in the messages further ahead.

The judge began to read out the messages: "Stop being a bitch. God is watching you. Fear that money can't keep you young. And you will be old and helpless..."

The words hung in the courtroom. Stark. Frozen.

Pasbola asked again, as if puzzled and deeply perplexed how a beta could do this to his ma: "My question was: What was the reason for these messages in May 2015?"

Mekhail, taking a deep breath: "Sir, mera Nana-Nani ka tabiyat bahut kharab tha. Nani bed ridden thi. Un logon ka halat bahut kharab tha. Medical help woh bhi nahin tha. Baar-baar request karne ke baad aadmi ka frustration ho jaata (Sir, my grandparents were in poor health. My grandmother was bed-ridden. Their situation was very poor. There was no medical help. After multiple requests a man gets frustrated)."

After this emotional high, Pasbola turned his focus to the back and forth that occurred between Mekhail and Sheena's Mumbai landlord.

In his testimony Mekhail had said that Indrani had asked him to look into the cancelling of the leave and license agreement Sheena had with a Domnic and Melanie Machado for her Andheri flat that she shared with Rahul Mukerjea (Peter Mukerjea's son from his first marriage) with whom she was in a relationship.

Indrani said Sheena would send the cancellation of the agreement to Mekhail from her Hotmail address.

After she did that, Mekhail tried to fax the cancellation of the agreement to the Machados in Mumbai. When he could not achieve that, he called the Machados for their address.

The advocate had several issues to raise over this part of Mekhail's testimony to the court:

It wasn't Mekhail that called, but Machado who called him and he subsequently e-mailed Mekhail too.

He wondered if Mekhail, who had been in touch with his sister before on multiple mediums, recognised the Hotmail address from which Sheena sent the agreement, given that it wasn't her usual one (Indrani's secretary Kajal Sharma had created it, she had admitted).

He wanted to know what happened to that e-mail from Sheena? Had he deleted it?

And what happened to the e-mail address to which it was sent -- mekhail77@gmail.com

About recognising the e-mail address, Mekhail said he and Sheena didn't mail much, so he could not remember when he saw her mail anything about the unfamiliarity of the address.

His gmail account he could no longer access because he got locked out of it, he claimed, after his mobile number changed.

About deleting the mail Pasbola stated: "Aapne koi mail nahin diya police aur CBI ko jisme Sheena Bora ka mail tha (You didn't give any e-mail to the police or the CBI in which Sheena Bora's e-mail was there)."

Mekhail replied: "USB se kya nikala maloom nahin (What they took off my phone via the USB cord I don't know)."

Pasbola repeated emphatically for effect: "Kya nikala maloom nahin (What was taken don't know)."

Pasbola explored this point further.

He wondered why Mekhail had not e-mailed Sheena at this Hotmail address when he was looking for her.

He asked about their last conversation and if Sheena had spoken about her marriage or engagement to Rahul Mukerjea (Peter Mukerjea's son from his first marriage).

Like earlier, Mekhail said she had not and he was not aware of the marriage or engagement between his sister and Rahul.

Pasbola put to Mekhail the most critical question of the Monday hearing: "When you got Domnic Machado's letter that must have been the first time you realised that Sheena and Rahul were married."

In the e-mail, which was brought before the court, Domnic made a reference to the flat being rented by Sheena and her husband Rahul and that Mekhail would have read that.

Mekhail didn't look taken aback or nonplussed by this information.

He recited his standard answer to that question: "Relationship mein tha patta tha (I knew they were in a relationship)."

Pasbola sharply: "Marriage ka baat kar raha hai (But he is referring to marriage)."

Mekhail: "Dhyan mein nahi aaya (I didn't notice that)."

One of the defence lawyers muttered: "Itna smart hai woh! (He is very smart!)"

Pasbola, narrowly: "Woh mail padha nahin? (Didn't you read the mail?)"

Mekhail: "Padha tha, pura mail nahin pdrha (I read the mail, but not in in its entirety)."

One wondered how long the mail could have been. And if perhaps the Machados had been told Sheena and Rahul were married so they could rent the flat since in Mumbai landlords don't like to rent out flats to unmarried couples. No doubt, the Machados will be brought in as witnesses and that question will be soon answered.

If Pasbola's mission on Monday was to build some lack of concern on Mekhail's part for the manner in which Sheena disappeared, he achieved it.

There was, without doubt, something bizarre in Mekhail's lack of attempts or urgency between April 2012 and August 2015 -- three years and four months -- to get in touch with his Didi, his closest relative, who had vanished off the face of the earth without a word to him.

Though Rai had left the Mukerjeas' employ in 2012, for an odd reason Mekhail was in touch with the ex-driver right upto 2015. But not his sister.

They exchanged calls lasting upto 1,500 to 1,700 seconds and sometimes multiple calls on one day.

Pasbola asked whether Mekhail knew Rai was no longer the Mukerjeas' driver then and about the details of these strange calls.

Pabola, suspiciously: "Aap ka Shyamvar Rai se telephone contact 2015 tak chalta raha. Mummy ke saath jhagda hone ke baad (Your telephonic contact with Shyamvar Rai continued into 2015 even after your fight with your mother)."

Mekhail: "Kabhi kabhi phone karta tha puchne ke liye ki Indrani aayi hai ki nahin (I phoned sometimes to ask if Indrani had come to India or not)."

But not about his sister.

Pasbola reminded him that Rai was not working for his mother by then.

Mekhail in Hindi: "He would ask how I was managing Nana-Nani ka dekh bhal (care)."

Pasbola questioned if he had ever asked Rai where he was working after leaving his job with the Mukerjeas. Or at any point had he asked Rai to put him in touch with Indrani since he could not reach her and had been frantically trying to do so.

And had he asked Rai about Sheena's whereabouts.

It turned out that Mekhail was also in touch with former INX Media office boy and the Mukerjeas' house help Pradeep Waghmare. He said he had once asked Pradeep about Sheena. But not Rai.

Towards the end of Monday's Q and A, Paasbola once again asked about his not-rather-close relationship with Rahul. It had consisted of one meeting in February 2011 and a conversation after Sheena went missing in the end of April 2012

Pasbola: "Yeh jo phone kiya Sheena Bora ke puchtaach ke baarein mein phone kiya? (This call was to ask about Sheena Bora?) What did you tell him?"

Mekhail: "Kya bola exact yaad nahin. Indrani bolee ki Sheena USA gayee hai. Bakee batein Indrani se karna (What exactly I said I do not remember. Indrani said Sheena had gone to the US. And he needed to talk to Indrani)."

This wooden answer that he recounted also seemed not particularly convincing.

Mekhail had raised no alarm, then too, for a missing sister, even after her boyfriend/fiance/husband was showing anxiety but referred him back to his mother and left it at that. That was Pasbola's point.

The lawyer announced -- it was past 5 pm -- to the judge that his cross examination of Mekhail was nearly over.

Only the questions he needed to ask Mekhail about his interview with Arnab remained and for that the interview needed to be played.

The judge said they could do that right there. Pasbola said it was one hour long and suggested they do it on Tuesday.

The judge, implacable: "From 3 days your cross examination has gone to six. I am sitting here. We can see it."

A laptop was produced and placed before Mekhail. Mekhail said he could not hear it. The transcript was pulled out which he started to read.

In between he commented about an inaccuracy because he said he had never referred to the television host as Arnab Bhai

Patil got up to question the authenticity of the transcript.

And then a storm broke out.

Patil with the judge about the use of the transcript. Pasbola with the judge on what he could ask about the transcript of Mekhail.

The words flew back and forth:

"It cannot be taken on record..." "Document on record to refresh his facts..." "He is not denying the interview. Not a piece of evidence. He cannot put it on record..." "He can. The law is very clear..." "I should be at least allowed to ask about the foundation of the transcript..." "Directed advocate Pasbola to put specific questions to the witness regarding the transcript of the so-called interview. But advocate Pasbola insists!..." "I am not running away, shying away...."

Mekhail looked bemused.

At the back the accused viewed the argument closely. Peter's eyes widened as he watched. Indrani looked on keenly. Sanjeev Khanna, Accused No 2, seemed less faraway than usual as he too observed the dispute.

To settle the various objections it was agreed that hearing the CD, that was in the court's possession, on Tuesday was the best solution. Decided.

It was nearly six and Peter had not had his lunch because his permission to eat had not been sanctioned earlier for lack of opportunity. The judge would not agree, but then relented and gave the former Star CEO 10 minutes to wolf down his burger and fries.

As the hearing came to a close, and the accused departed, the CBI put in its reply to Indrani's bail application that argued that her crime was too heinous for her to be given bail.

They added that the Byculla jail was perfectly alert to her security and health issues granting her a separate cell, around the clock guards and close access to a hospital. And that she could have brought harm onto her person herself: 'It is pertinent to mention here that on each and every date of trial, accused/applicant happens to meet many known persons outside the courtroom and exchanges papers...'

'She is fully safe in judicial custody, as there is no access of persons from outside into the jail premises.'

The statement was signed by Kaushal Kishore Singh, the CBI investigating officer.

After a hearing scheduled tentatively for Thursday August 23, during which arguments from both sides shall be heard, the decision for Indrani's bail will rest with the judge.
Freedom in the World 2018 - Trinidad and Tobago

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Trinidad and Tobago, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc464.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 81 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 2.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 1,400,000

Capital: Port of Spain

GDP/capita: $17,322

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

Since independence, Trinidad and Tobago has maintained a robust parliamentary democracy with a vibrant media and civil society. However, organized crime contributes to high levels of violence, and corruption among public officials and within state institutions remains a challenge. In addition, there is significant discrimination against the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community.

Key Developments in 2017:

The murder rate remained high, with almost 500 killings reported during the year. Much of the violence is linked to organized crime and drug trafficking.

In September, the Organized Crime Intelligence Unit was established "to pursue, target, dismantle, disrupt, and prosecute" organized criminal groups and networks.

The Marriage Act, which raised the legal marriage age to 18, took effect in September, officially making child marriage illegal.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 33 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 11 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The president is chief of state, and is elected to a five-year term by a majority of the combined houses of Parliament. Anthony Carmona has held the presidential seat since 2013. The prime minister serves as head of government. Keith Rowley became prime minister in 2015, after parliamentary elections resulted in a win for his party, the People's National Movement (PNM).

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

Parliament consists of the directly elected, 41-member House of Representatives and the 31-member Senate appointed by both Parliament and the president; members of both houses serve five-year terms. In 2015 parliamentary elections, the People's Partnership (PP) government led by Kamela Persad-Bissessar was defeated by Keith Rowley's PNM. Commonwealth election observers expressed confidence in the elections' overall conduct.

Tobago is a ward of Trinidad, and is governed locally. The Tobago House of Assembly elections took place in January 2017, with the PNM taking a majority of seats.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

Electoral laws are generally fair. The Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) is charge of organizing elections, and is generally trusted by the public to fulfill its mandate.

Following the 2015 elections, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Commonwealth election observation missions recommended that officials take steps to strengthen the transparency and accountability of campaign funding processes, and ensure that adequate training is provided for polling officials.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 13 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 3 / 4

Trinidad and Tobago has a number of political parties. While the PNM had dominated the political landscape for several decades following independence, it has weakened somewhat in the last two decades, allowing greater competition. The political arena is now largely divided between the PNM and the PP.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

There are opportunities for opposition parties to increase their support or gain power through elections, although the country's "first-past-the-post" system has made it difficult for less established parties to gain seats in the House of Representatives.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 3 / 4

People's political choices are generally free from external influences. However, ethnic identity is an important factor in politics.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

Political parties are technically multiethnic, though the PNM is favored by Afro-Trinidadians, while the United National Congress (UNC), the majority PP member, is affiliated with Indo-Trinidadians.

Women's political participation in national-level politics has increased somewhat in recent years, but women remain generally underrepresented. Discrimination against the LGBT community is widespread, which impacts their ability to fully engage in political and electoral processes.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 9 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

The freely appointed and elected prime minister, cabinet, and members of Parliament generally determine government policies.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Corruption remains a pervasive problem in Trinidad and Tobago, especially within the police force and among immigration officers. The government has sought to manage it through anticorruption legislation, but the laws are infrequently enforced.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 3 / 4

Public officials are required to disclose their assets, income, and liabilities, but penalties against those who refuse to comply are limited. The Integrity Commission, which is tasked with overseeing these financial disclosures, has been criticized for its lack of effectiveness.

The public has the right to access government documents by law, although numerous public institutions are exempt. Furthermore, there is no enforcement of a provision that requires the government to respond to information requests within 30 days. A 2015 public procurement law was created to oversee and regulate procurement, but had not been fully implemented as of November 2017.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 48 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 15 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 4 / 4

Freedom of speech and of the press are constitutionally guaranteed, and generally upheld in practice. Press outlets are privately owned and vigorously pluralistic.

Under the 2013 Defamation and Libel Act, "malicious defamatory libel known to be false" is punishable by up to two years in prison, as well as a fine." However, at the end of 2017 it did not appear any journalists had been convicted under it in connection with their work.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of religion, and the government generally honors this provision. However, some restrictions are placed on foreign missionaries; only 35 are allowed in the country at one time, and they cannot stay longer than three years.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Academic freedom is generally upheld.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

Individuals are free to express their opinions in private conversations, and the government is not known to monitor online communications.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 11 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

The constitution provides for freedom of assembly, and the government generally respects this right.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights-and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Civil society is robust, with a range of domestic and international interest groups engaged in political processes.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

Labor unions are well organized and politically active, though union membership has declined in recent years. Strikes are legal and occur frequently. In January 2017, approximately 4,500 refinery union workers threatened to strike against the state-owned oil company Petrotrin, resulting in wage increases for the workers.

The law contains a provision allowing the labor minister to petition the courts to end any strike deemed detrimental to national interests. Walkouts by workers considered essential, including hospital staff, firefighters, and telecommunication workers, are punishable by up to three years in prison and fines of up to $6,000.

F. RULE OF LAW: 9 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 3 / 4

The judicial branch is generally independent, but subject to some political pressure and corruption.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

Due process rights are provided for in the constitution, but are not always upheld. Rising crime rates and institutional weakness have produced a severe backlog in the court system. Corruption in the police force, which is often drug-related, is endemic, and inefficiencies have resulted in the dismissal of some criminal cases. Intimidation of witnesses and jurors has been reported by the judicial officials.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 2 / 4

The government has struggled in recent years to address violent crime, which is mostly linked to organized crime and drug trafficking. The murder rate remained high in 2017, with 494 killings recorded  the most in a single year since 2009. In September, the Organized Crime Intelligence Unit was established "to pursue, target, dismantle, disrupt and prosecute" organized criminal groups and networks, which were linked to many of the murders that occurred during the year.

The police have been criticized for excessive use of force and many abuses by the authorities go unpunished. The US State Department reported in 2017 that more than 70 Trinidadian nationals were identified as fighting with ISIS in Syria as of the previous year, and raised concerns regarding the potential impact of their return. The report added that information sharing among state agencies dealing with counterterrorism was poor, due to corruption and inefficiencies.

Lengthy pretrial detention is a problem, and approximately 60 percent of the prison population is made up of pretrial detainees or remand prisoners. Many prisons are overcrowded and have poor sanitation.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

Racial disparities persist, with Indo-Trinidadians comprising a disproportionate percentage of the country's upper class. Human rights groups have criticized the government's unwillingness to address discrimination and violence against the LGBT community. Immigration law does not adequately protect refugees, and cases of asylum seekers being forcibly returned to their country of origin (refoulement) have occurred due poor training of immigration officers.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 13 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

Freedom of movement and people's the right to choose their place of education and employment are generally respected.

In November 2017, protesters blocked roads into Port of Spain  in part with burning debris  for several hours in protest of a police operation against suspected gang leaders.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or non-state actors? 3 / 4

While the government of Trinidad and Tobago actively supports both national and foreign investment in businesses in the country, insufficient transparency, weak institutions, and corruption contribute to difficulties in starting and operating businesses. Property rights are constitutionally protected, but there are issues with inefficient regulations and complicated registration.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

Violence against women remains a significant problem. Rape, including spousal rape, is illegal, but many occurrences of rape go unreported. There are no laws against sexual harassment, a problem that drew significant media attention in 2017.

The Marriage Act, which raised the legal marriage age to 18, was approved by lawmakers in June 2017 and took effect in September, officially making child marriage illegal.

Abortion is illegal in most cases, and a woman can be imprisoned for up to four years for obtaining an abortion.

Same-sex sexual relations are illegal, although in practice the relevant law is not often enforced. In March 2017, an LGBT activist filed suit against the law, claiming it is unconstitutional.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

Trinidad and Tobago is a destination and transit country for forced labor and sex trafficking. The government has taken some action in recent years to prevent and prosecute human trafficking offenses, and has boosted efforts to identify victims.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Tonga

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Tonga, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc483.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 75 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 2.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 100,000

Capital: Nuku'alofa

GDP/capita: $4,094

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

Tonga's constitutional monarchy has featured a prime minister backed by a mostly elected parliament since 2010. However, the king retains important powers, including the authority to veto legislation, dissolve the parliament, and appoint judicial officials. While civil liberties are generally protected, ongoing problems include political pressure on the state broadcaster and land laws that discriminate against women.

Key Developments in 2017:

In August, the king dissolved the parliament in an apparent bid to oust the government of Prime Minister 'Akilisi Pohiva, a commoner and former democracy activist who had survived a no-confidence motion by members of the nobility in February.

Pohiva was returned to office in December after his supporters won snap elections in November.

The prime minister's harsh complaints about coverage by the public broadcaster led to a series of leadership changes during the year, prompting serious concerns about the outlet's future independence.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 30 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 9 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

The king is no longer the chief executive authority, but he retains significant powers, including the ability to veto legislation and dissolve the parliament. The current monarch, King Tupou VI, came to the throne in 2012 and is known to hold more conservative views than his late brother and predecessor, George Tupou V.

The prime minister, who chooses the cabinet, is formally appointed by the king on the recommendation of the parliament. Prime Minister Pohiva first took office in 2014 after that year's elections. In February 2017, he survived a no-confidence motion led by noble members of the parliament. The king dissolved the parliament in August after consulting with the speaker, Lord Tu'ivakano, who accused the prime minister of seeking to further reduce the monarch's constitutional authority. However, after snap elections in November resulted in a victory for Pohiva's supporters, he was returned to the premiership in December.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

The unicameral Fale Alea, or Legislative Assembly, consists of 17 members who are directly elected by commoners, nine noble members elected by their peers, and up to four additional members whom the prime minister may appoint to the cabinet from outside the parliament and who hold their seats ex officio. The speaker is appointed from among the noble members on the recommendation of the assembly.

In the November 2017 snap elections, Pohiva and his supporters in the loosely affiliated Democratic Party of the Friendly Islands won 14 of the 17 popularly elected seats, a sizeable gain from their previous share.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

The Electoral Commission administers elections competently and fairly, though the framework for parliamentary elections falls short of universal suffrage due to the reservation of nine seats for the nobility.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 14 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

A formal party system has yet to develop, and all candidates technically run as independents in their single-member constituencies. Nevertheless, there are no major restrictions on political competition, and in practice politicians have begun to form loose partisan affiliations such as Pohiva's Democratic Party of the Friendly Islands.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Reformist commoners and more conservative noble politicians have alternated in the premiership in recent years, establishing a pattern of democratic transfers after the 2010 constitutional reforms. Before Pohiva took office in 2014, Lord Tu'ivakano was the prime minister.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 3 / 4

The monarchy, the nobility, and the country's churches exert considerable political influence, but this has not prevented majority support for prodemocracy candidates in recent elections.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

Women have the same formal political rights as men, and 15 women ran for seats in the November 2017 parliamentary elections, but only two won office  an increase from zero in the previous legislature. Cultural biases tend to discourage women's political participation, and women cannot inherit noble titles, meaning the noble seats in the parliament are effectively reserved for men. Participation by ethnic minorities is subject to similar obstacles, though the population is mostly homogeneous, and many members of the small Chinese minority have been able to obtain citizenship and its associated political rights.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 7 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 3 / 4

The elected prime minister and his cabinet largely control the formulation and implementation of government policy, but the king continues to rely on a privy council  whose members he appoints himself  for advice regarding the use of his constitutional powers.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Corruption and abuse of office are serious problems. While public officials and leaders of state-owned companies are sometimes held to account for bribery and other malfeasance, anticorruption mechanisms are generally weak and lacking in resources. An ombudsman was appointed in late 2016, but the post of anticorruption commissioner has been vacant since its creation in 2007. The illegal sale of Tongan passports is an ongoing problem. Pohiva has been criticized for appointing his son as his personal assistant and allegedly misusing public funds.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

Tonga does not have a law to guarantee public access to government information, which can be difficult to obtain in practice, and officials are not legally obliged to disclose their assets and income. The government has at times resisted public scrutiny of pending policies. Nevertheless, the parliament generally operates openly, and the media and civil society are typically able to monitor its proceedings and comment on legislation.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 45 / 60 (+1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 12 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 2 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of the press, and a variety of news outlets operate independently, including online. However, politicians have a history of using civil defamation suits and other means to retaliate against critical coverage. Pohiva has repeatedly complained about reporting by the state-run Tonga Broadcasting Commission (TBC), accusing the radio and television outlet of becoming "an enemy of government" in March 2017. A series of leadership changes followed later in the year. The TBC's longtime general manager was terminated in May when her contract came up for renewal, a Pohiva ally was appointed as board chairman in September after a previous chairman was pressured to resign, and the chief editor and news manager were transferred to the sales department in October, raising widespread concerns among press freedom advocates.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

Constitutional protections for religious freedom are generally upheld in practice. Religious groups are not required to register, but those that do receive various benefits. There are some restrictions on commercial activity on Sundays in keeping with a constitutional recognition of the Christian sabbath. The TBC's policy guidelines bar broadcasts of preaching outside the "mainstream Christian tradition," though this has reportedly not been strictly enforced.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 3 / 4

Academic freedom is generally unrestricted, though there have been reports of self-censorship to avoid friction with the government in the past.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 3 / 4

There are no major constraints on Tongans' ability to discuss politics and other topics in person or on social media. The government is not known to monitor personal communications.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 9 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 3 / 4

The constitution protects freedom of assembly, and demonstrations, though rare, generally remain peaceful. However, political protests in 2006 degenerated into violent riots, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency that lasted until early 2011.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 3 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations have not reported harassment or other restrictions by the authorities. A number of different laws govern the registration processes for civil society groups, but they are not considered onerous.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

Workers have the legal right to organize in trade unions, but implementing regulations have never been issued, meaning the country's various de facto unions generally operate as associations. Tonga joined the International Labour Organization in 2016, though it has yet to ratify the organization's conventions on labor standards.

F. RULE OF LAW: 12 / 16 (+1)

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 3 / 4

The king retains authority over judicial appointments and dismissals. The Judicial Appointments and Discipline Panel, a committee of the privy council, provides advice on appointments, including for the lord chancellor, who has responsibility for administering the courts. The king in privy council has final jurisdiction over cases in the land court relating to hereditary estates and titles.

The judiciary is regarded as largely independent, but the prime minister has accused the royally appointed attorney general of interfering with judicial rulings, and has pressed for reforms that would bring the attorney general into the orbit of the elected government. Broader judicial reforms that would have increased the cabinet's influence over judicial appointments were adopted by the parliament in 2014, but the king never gave his assent.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 3 / 4

Due process provisions and safeguards against arbitrary arrest and detention are typically respected by the authorities. However, there is no mechanism to guarantee access to counsel for indigent defendants.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 3 / 4

Prison conditions are generally adequate, police brutality is rare, and crime rates remain relatively low. A number of police officers accused of misconduct have been investigated, dismissed, or convicted of crimes in recent years. However, rising public concern has focused on problems including the country's role as a transit point for drug trafficking, drug-related petty crime, and organized crime affecting the Chinese community.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4 (+1)

The constitution includes a general provision for equality before the law, and this is upheld in many respects. However, women still face some forms of discrimination, including in land and inheritance laws and with respect to employment in practice. Same-sex sexual activity is criminalized, but the ban is not actively enforced, and in recent years local LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) groups have worked to raise awareness of their cause and lobbied the government to adopt legal reforms.

Continued bias and instances of crime against members of the Chinese minority have been reported, though nothing approaching the scale of the 2006 riots  which targeted Chinese-owned businesses  has occurred since the state of emergency was lifted in 2011.

Score Change: The score increased from 2 to 3 due to long-term, incremental improvements in the environment for women, LGBT people, and the Chinese minority.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 12 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

There are no significant constraints on freedom of movement or the ability to change places of residence or employment.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 3 / 4

The legal framework generally supports private business activity. However, individuals cannot own or sell land outright, as all land is technically the property of the king. Land rights, once granted by nobles or directly by the crown through an allotment system, can only be leased or inherited, and while women can obtain leases, they are not eligible to receive or inherit land allotments.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

Personal social freedoms are typically respected. However, domestic violence remains a problem despite state and civil society efforts to prevent it, and girls as young as 15  the legal minimum age for marriage  are sometimes compelled by their parents to marry.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

While much of the population has access to economic opportunities and protection from abusive working conditions, foreign household workers  many of them from Fiji  are vulnerable to exploitation and practices like passport confiscation, and East Asian women have been trafficked to the country for forced prostitution.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Tajikistan

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Tajikistan, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc49a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Not Free

Aggregate Score: 11 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 6.5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 6 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 8,600,000

Capital: Dushanbe

GDP/capita: $919

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

OVERVIEW

Political rights and civil liberties in Tajikistan are severely curtailed by the government of President Emomali Rahmon, which sustains a campaign of repression against political opposition, dissent, and criticism.

Key Developments in 2017:

In January, President Rahmon further consolidated his family's grip on power by installing his son, Rustam Emomali, as Dushanbe's mayor. He replaced Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev, who had been in power for 19 years.

The harassment and detentions of former members of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) and their families continued throughout 2017.

Continuing its crackdown on observant Muslims, in August the government passed a law that requires citizens to "stick to national clothes and culture," a move widely seen as an effort to limit the wearing of hijabs.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 1 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 0 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

President Emomali Rahmon was first elected in 1994, during Tajikistan's 1992-97 civil war, and has been in power ever since. The president is elected for a seven-year term. Amendments ratified in 2016 removed presidential term limits and further consolidated Rahmon's power. In the last presidential election in 2013, Rahmon was reelected to a fourth term with 83.6 percent of the vote. Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) observers noted that the election "lacked a real choice" and failed to meet international standards.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

The People's Democratic Party (PDP), led by the president, consistently dominates legislative elections. The bicameral Supreme Assembly is comprised of an upper house, the National Assembly, and a lower house, the Assembly of Representatives. The 34-member National Assembly is comprised of 25 members elected by local assemblies and 8 appointed by the president; an additional 1 seat is held for each living former president. The 63-member Assembly of Representatives is elected by popular vote. Members of each body serve five-year terms.

Ahead of the 2015 elections, the government directed an extensive anti-opposition campaign through state media and the persecution of many candidates, particularly those of the IRPT, leading to the disenfranchisement of the country's most significant opposition force. The PDP won 51 of 63 lower-house seats, and small, mostly progovernment parties took the remainder. According to OSCE monitors, the elections were marred by serious violations and failed to meet democratic standards.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 0 / 4

The Central Commission for Election and Referenda (CCER) is subservient to the government, and enforces laws in inconsistent and nontransparent ways.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 0 / 12

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 0 / 4

The government consistently marginalizes independent or opposition parties, which have become completely excluded from the political process. In 2015, the Justice Ministry revoked the IRPT's legal registration based on a technicality and the Supreme Court declared the IRPT a terrorist organization, criminalizing membership in or expression of support for the group. The constitutional amendments passed in a 2016 referendum banned faith-based political parties, effectively preventing the IRPT from reforming.

Harassment of former IRPT members continued in 2017, and included the two-day detention of the father of an activist who attended an OSCE conference on human rights in Warsaw. Additionally, one of two lawyers sentenced to over 20 years in prison for defending IRPT members in court had his sentence extended twice, to total 28 years.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 0 / 4

Years of unrelenting repression of opposition activities have left opposition forces unable to compete, and in many cases even participate, in elections. The incumbent administration uses its near-absolute control over the media, an extremely high threshold for number of signatures required to run for office, and the exclusion of Tajikistani migrant workers  who comprise between 20 and 45 percent of the electorate  from the nomination process for the presidency and parliament, to cement its dominance over the electoral process. Many IRPT members and their relatives were beaten, harassed, and imprisoned before the 2015 elections, with some reportedly tortured in custody.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 0 / 4

Political power in Tajikistan is controlled almost exclusively by Rahmon's extended family, leaving citizens with few avenues to exercise meaningful political choices or participate in political processes.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 0 / 4

No segment of the population has full political rights or electoral opportunities. Women remain underrepresented in the political system, both as voters and in elected positions.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 1 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 0 / 4

Following the 2015 elections, the president's ruling party cemented a virtually unopposed position in determining and implementing policy. Officials from the president's native Kulob District are dominant in government. In January 2017, President Rahmon strengthened his family's grip on power by installing his son, Rustam Emomali, as Dushanbe's mayor. He replaced Mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev, who had been in power for 19 years.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 0 / 4

Patronage networks and regional affiliations are central to political life, corruption is pervasive, and laws designed to prevent it are routinely ignored. Major irregularities have been reported at the National Bank of Tajikistan and the country's largest industrial company, the state-owned TALCO Aluminum.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 1 / 4

Public officials are not required to disclose financial information, and government decision-making and budgetary processes lack transparency.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 10 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 2 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 0 / 4

Independent journalists face harassment and intimidation. Civil libel charges are often used to cripple newspapers that criticize the government. The government controls most printing presses, newsprint supplies, and broadcasting facilities, effectively denying independent media access to them. Authorities block some critical websites and news portals, and use temporary full blackouts of internet services and messaging to suppress criticism.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 0 / 4

The government imposes strict restrictions on religious freedom, and limits religious activities to state-approved venues. In 2017, Tajikistan continued to prosecute individuals for alleged membership in banned religious organizations, including Christian groups. Minors are banned from attending religious services in mosques. A law passed in August that discourages religious clothing is widely perceived as an effort to limit the wearing of hijabs.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 1 / 4

The government exercises significant influence over the administration of education institutions.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 1 / 4

Authorities frequently monitor private communications, often without authorization. In July 2017, a law was passed that allows authorities to monitor citizens' online behavior, and imposes fines and prison sentences for visiting "undesirable websites" or posting "inappropriate comments".

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 2 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 0 / 4

The government strictly limits freedoms of assembly. Local government approval is required to hold demonstrations, and officials often refuse to grant permission.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 1 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) must register with the Ministry of Justice and are vulnerable to closure for minor technicalities. NGOs must disclose funding from foreign sources to the Ministry of Justice. Foreign funds must be logged in a state registry before organizations can access them, and the government has oversight of operations supported by the funds.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 1 / 4

Citizens have the legal right to form and join trade unions and to bargain collectively, but unions are largely subservient to the authorities.

F. RULE OF LAW: 2 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 1 / 4

The judiciary lacks independence. Many judges are poorly trained and inexperienced, and bribery is widespread.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 0 / 4

Court proceedings rarely follow the rule of law, and nearly all defendants are found guilty. Arbitrary arrests are common.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 0 / 4

People in Tajikistan are subject to abuses by security forces and have no meaningful opportunity for recourse. Detainees are frequently beaten in custody to extract confessions. Overcrowding and disease contribute to often life-threatening conditions in prisons.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 1 / 4

Discrimination against ethnic minorities is not a significant problem. However, discrimination, harassment, and violence against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people is common, and there is no legislation against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBT people frequently face abuse by security forces.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 4 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 1 / 4

Citizens can travel freely but must register their permanent residence with local authorities. The right to choose institutions of higher education is formally protected, but schools and universities are plagued by corruption. Students interested in studying Islamic theology are forbidden from attending schools outside the country.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 1 / 4

Tajikistan's generally dysfunctional economic environment affects everything from peasant farms to large enterprises. Officials from the president's native Kulob District dominate government, and family members maintain extensive business interests in the country, offering them great influence over the private sector.

By law, all land belongs to the state, which allocates use rights primarily for agricultural purposes in a process plagued by corruption and inefficiency.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 1 / 4

Sexual harassment, discrimination, and violence against women are common, but cases are underreported and seldom adequately investigated. Reports indicate that women sometimes face societal pressure to wear headscarves.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 1 / 4

Despite some government efforts to address the issue, Tajikistan remains a source and transit country for sex trafficking. Child labor, particularly on cotton farms, remains a serious problem. The scarcity of economic opportunity has forced many to seek work abroad.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Somalia

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Somalia, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc4da.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Not Free

Aggregate Score: 7 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 7.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Explanatory Note:

The numerical ratings and status listed above do not reflect conditions in Somaliland, which is examined in a separate report.

Quick Facts

Population: 11,100,000

Capital: Mogadishu

GDP/capita: $426

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

OVERVIEW

Somalia has struggled to reestablish a functioning state since the collapse of an authoritarian regime in 1991. The country's territory is divided among an internationally supported national government, the Shabaab militant group, a semiautonomous government in the Puntland region, and a separatist government in the Somaliland region. No direct national elections have been held to date, and political affairs are dominated by clan divisions. Amid ongoing insecurity, impunity for human rights abuses by both state and nonstate actors is the norm. However, citizens have experienced modest gains in civil liberties in recent years as the government and international troops have reclaimed territory from the Shabaab.

Key Developments in 2017:

Parliamentary elections that began in late 2016 were completed in February, with a limited electoral college chosen by clan elders casting the ballots.

The new lawmakers chose former prime minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, also known as "Farmaajo," to serve a four-year term as president.

The ongoing civil conflict was punctuated in October by a pair of terrorist truck bombings in Mogadishu that killed more than 500 people.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 1 / 40 (+1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 0 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

Under a 2012 provisional constitution, the president is elected by a two-thirds vote in the Federal Parliament to serve a four-year term. In February 2017, legislators who were not freely elected themselves chose Abdullahi as president after two rounds of voting, rejecting the candidacy of incumbent president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. Abdullahi then nominated oil executive Hassan Ali Khayre as prime minister, and he was confirmed by Parliament in early March.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

Limited elections for the Federal Parliament were held between October 2016 and February 2017, as the security situation and other factors precluded direct national elections. Members of the 54-seat upper house were elected by state assemblies, while the lower house was elected under a system in which 135 clan elders chose 275 electoral colleges, each of which comprised 51 people and elected one lawmaker. Corruption reportedly played a major role in the elections.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 0 / 4

The electoral framework in use for the 2016-17 elections did not provide for universal suffrage. The balloting was the result of an ad hoc process based on lengthy negotiations among the country's main clans.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 1 / 16 (+1)

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 1 / 4 (+1)

Legislation signed in 2016 allowed the first formal registration of political parties since 1969. The National Independent Electoral Commission developed a registration process following the recent elections, and in December 2017 it announced the successful registration of seven parties.

Score Change: The score improved from 0 to 1 due to the formal registration of political parties for the first time in several decades.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 0 / 4

Although there was an orderly transfer of power between the outgoing and incoming presidents in February 2017, there has been no clear division between governing and opposition forces under the clan-based political system, and the lack of direct elections prevents any grouping from gaining power through democratic means.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 0 / 4

Ordinary citizens are largely unable to participate in the political process as voters, and the clan-based electoral process in 2016-17 was reportedly distorted by vote buying and cases of intimidation and violence.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 0 / 4

The current political system is designed to ensure some representation for the country's many clans, but the prevailing "4.5" formula gives the four largest groups eight out of every nine positions, marginalizing all other clans. The system is also dominated by clan leaders, who do not necessarily represent the interests of their respective groups.

Women's political participation is limited by cultural constraints and hostility from incumbent elites. The 2016-17 electoral framework called for women to hold a minimum of 30 percent of the seats in Parliament, but the actual share after the elections was 24 percent in each house.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 0 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 0 / 4

The government, which is not democratically elected, has little practical ability to implement its laws and policies even in parts of the country it nominally controls. Its basic operations remain heavily dependent on international bodies and donor governments.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 0 / 4

Corruption is rampant in Somalia, including in the security sector, and state agencies tasked with combatting it do not function effectively. Impunity is the norm for public officials accused of malfeasance.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 0 / 4

Government transparency is limited. Officials are not required to make public declarations of their income and assets, and oversight procedures for public contracts are not well enforced. There is no law guaranteeing public access to government information.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 6 / 60 (+1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 3 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 1 / 4

Somalis have access to relatively dynamic radio and online news outlets. However, while the provisional constitution calls for freedom of the press, journalists face harassment, arbitrary detention and fines, and violence from both state and nonstate actors in practice. At least two journalists were killed in separate suicide bombings in 2017, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Proposed reforms of a problematic media law signed in 2016 remained under discussion during the year.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 0 / 4

Nearly all Somalis are Sunni Muslims, though there is a very small Christian community. The provisional constitution recognizes Islam as the official religion, requires presidential candidates to be Muslims, and forbids the promotion of any other faith, but it also includes clauses promoting religious freedom and forbidding discrimination on the basis of religion. Blasphemy and "defamation of Islam" are offenses under the penal code. Religious minorities and dissenters generally keep their beliefs and practices out of public view. In areas under its control or influence, the Shabaab use violence to enforce their interpretation of Islam and a crude version of Sharia (Islamic law), including execution as a penalty for alleged apostasy.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 1 / 4

Limited funding and infrastructure, lack of qualified instructors, and unregulated private education all pose challenges to the country's educational system. Nevertheless, there are functioning universities in Mogadishu, Garowe, and Bosaso that have improved over time as curriculums have become more developed. Academics reportedly practice self-censorship on sensitive topics. Islamic instruction is required in all schools except those operated by non-Muslim minorities. The Shabaab impose jihadist indoctrination in schools under their control, and children are forced to attend in some regions.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 1 / 4

Individuals enjoy some freedom of expression in more secure areas of the country, but criticism of powerful figures in the state and society can draw reprisals, and open debate is severely restricted in areas controlled or threatened by the Shabaab.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 2 / 12 (+1)

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 1 / 4 (+1)

Although the provisional constitution guarantees freedom of assembly, security officials require approval for meetings and demonstrations and have used violence to suppress unauthorized protests. Among other incidents during 2017, police in Puntland killed at least one protester in November while using gunfire to disperse a demonstration against price increases related to a port management deal with a Dubai-owned company. Public protests are not tolerated in areas controlled by the Shabaab. Nevertheless, citizens do assemble in Mogadishu and other urban centers to mark important anniversaries, participate in human rights advocacy campaigns, or protest in the wake of terrorist attacks. While a number of political gatherings were reportedly suppressed during the 2016-2017 election period, conditions appeared to improve under the new government.

Score Change: The score improved from 0 to 1 due to the persistence of public assemblies despite police and terrorist violence, as well as reported improvements in the environment for political gatherings after the completion of elections.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 1 / 4

Local civil society groups, international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and UN agencies have been able to conduct a wide range of activities in some parts of the country, but they face difficult and often dangerous working conditions. Regional authorities and security forces have reportedly harassed, extorted, obstructed, and attempted to control NGOs and aid groups, and the Shabaab generally do not allow such organizations to operate in their territory.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 0 / 4

Although independent labor unions are active in Somalia and have worked to expand their operations and capacity, constitutional and legal protections for union activity are not respected. The Federation of Somali Trade Unions (FESTU) has reported threats, dismissals, attempts at co-optation, and other forms of repression and interference from both government officials and private employers, noting that perpetrators benefit from systemic impunity for such abuses.

F. RULE OF LAW: 0 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 0 / 4

The judicial system in Somalia is fractured, understaffed, and rife with corruption. Its authority is not widely respected, with state officials ignoring court rulings and citizens often turning to customary law or interpretations of Sharia as alternatives. In recent years, the office of the president has removed judges and members of the Judicial Service Commission in contravention of the provisional constitution. President Abdullahi has promised to reform the judiciary, but the chief justice's September 2017 suspension of 18 judges  in what was seen as part of the reform effort  may have also been unconstitutional.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 0 / 4

Safeguards against arbitrary arrest and detention are not observed by the country's police, intelligence, and military services, whose performance is also undermined by corruption. Clan politics and other external factors often play a role in the outcome of court cases. Military courts routinely try civilians, including for terrorism-related offenses, and do not respect basic international standards for due process.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 0 / 4

The ongoing civil conflict featured numerous terrorist attacks on government, international, and civilian targets during 2017. In October, a coordinated pair of truck bombings in Mogadishu killed more than 500 people, making it the deadliest such attack in the conflict to date.

Government security services, international troops, and various local militias have also been implicated in indiscriminate lethal violence and the use of excessive force against civilians. Authorities carry out executions ordered by military courts after flawed proceedings. Detainees are at risk of torture in custody, and perpetrators generally enjoy impunity.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 0 / 4

While the provisional constitution and legal system offer some formal protections against discrimination based on sex, clan, and other categories, they have little force in practice. Women face widespread disadvantages in areas including housing, education, and employment, while members of marginalized clans suffer disproportionately from economic exclusion and violence, including gender-based violence.

LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people generally do not make their identity public. Same-sex sexual activity can be punished with up to three years in prison under the penal code, and individuals accused of such conduct are subject to execution in Shabaab-controlled areas.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 1 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 0 / 4

Travel throughout Somalia is dangerous due to the numerous checkpoints across clan and regional territories and the presence of extremist groups in many parts of the country. Security forces and other armed groups commonly extract arbitrary fees and bribes from travelers. More than 2 million people were internally displaced as of 2017.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 1 / 4

The provisional constitution guarantees property rights, but securing ownership is complicated by a mixture of formal and informal or traditional systems governing land rights. Procedures for registering property and businesses are impeded by corruption and other barriers, and disputes can lead to intimidation and violence. Women do not enjoy equal rights to inherit property and are often denied the assets to which they are legally entitled due to discriminatory cultural norms.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 0 / 4

Sexual violence remains a major problem, especially for displaced persons, and the authorities' limited measures to combat it have not been effective. Perpetrators include government troops and militia members. Female genital mutilation is widespread in practice despite a formal ban. Early marriages are common, the Shaabab impose forced marriages with their fighters, and individuals can face strong societal pressure to marry or not marry within certain clans.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 0 / 4

Child labor and trafficking in persons for the purposes of sexual exploitation or forced labor are common, driven in part by widespread poverty, insecurity, and impunity for criminal activity. Refugees and displaced persons are particularly vulnerable. Children are abducted or recruited to serve as fighters by the Shabaab and to a lesser extent by government and militia forces.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Samoa

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Samoa, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc503.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 80 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 2.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 200,000

Capital: Apia

GDP/capita: $4,149

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

Samoa has a largely democratic political system with regular elections, though the same political party has been in government for decades, and only traditional heads of families can run as candidates. The judiciary is independent, and civil liberties are generally respected.

Key Developments in 2017:

In July, the parliament elected Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II to serve a five-year term as the ceremonial head of state.

The 72-year-old prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, spent more than two weeks in New Zealand for medical treatment in October, spurring discussion about succession plans.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 30 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 9 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

The parliament elects a ceremonial head of state to serve five-year terms; there are no term limits. By custom rather than constitutional requirement, the position is given to one of the country's four paramount chiefs. In July 2017, the parliament elected Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II as head of state.

The head of government is the prime minister, who requires the parliament's support. Prime Minister Tuilaepa of the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) has been in office since 1998, having been reelected most recently in 2016. His medical visit to New Zealand for much of October 2017 reportedly led some HRPP figures to begin quietly jockeying for position as possible successors.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

The Legislative Assembly, or Fono, consists of 47 members elected in traditional village-based constituencies and 2 members elected by voters in "urban" constituencies  including citizens of mixed or non-Samoan heritage who lack village ties. Additional members can be added from among the unsuccessful candidates with the most votes in order to meet a minimum 10 percent quota of women members. All lawmakers serve five-year terms.

In the 2016 parliamentary elections, the HRPP won 35 of the 50 seats; one seat was added to meet the gender quota. Independents took 13 and the opposition Tautua Samoa Party (TSP) was left with just two. After the elections, 12 of the independents joined the HRPP, and the 13th joined the opposition.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

The constitutional and legal framework for elections is largely democratic and fairly implemented. However, only citizens with matai status (chiefs or family heads) are allowed to stand as candidates. There are some 17,000 matai, but only about 10 percent are women. A 2015 amendment to the Electoral Act replaced two at-large parliament seats representing voters of non-Samoan heritage with two "urban" constituencies with defined boundaries, though they still overlapped with territorial constituencies and pertained to voters who either lacked or chose not to register according to traditional village ties.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 12 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 3 / 4

There are no major constraints on the formation and operation of political parties, but parties must win a minimum of eight seats to qualify for formal recognition within the legislature. The TSP, which fell from 13 seats to just three after the 2016 elections, lost this status, leading opposition members to criticize the rule for producing a "one-party state."

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 3 / 4

The ruling HRPP has been in power without interruption since the 1980s, raising concerns about whether this is due to the party's popularity or features of the electoral system that may put the opposition at a disadvantage.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 3 / 4

While voters and candidates are largely free from undue interference with their political choices, traditional village councils consisting of local leaders with matai titles exercise considerable influence through candidate endorsements. Those who use the electoral laws to challenge the councils' preferred candidates in court have sometimes faced customary penalties such as banishment.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

Women and ethnic minorities have full voting rights, but the fact that candidates must be matai title holders means few women can run for office. The 2016 elections marked the first application of the gender quota ensuring that at least five seats in the parliament are held by women. If fewer than that number are elected in normal constituency contests, the unsuccessful women candidates with the most votes are awarded additional seats. One extra seat was consequently added to the 2016 parliament. Few women participate in village council meetings.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 9 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 3 / 4

The prime minister and cabinet determine and implement government policies without improper interference by outside groups, but the weak opposition presence in the parliament undermines its role as a check on the executive, and the democratic credentials of the government are tarnished somewhat by restrictive features of the electoral system.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 3 / 4

Independent entities including the ombudsman's office, the Public Service Commission, and law enforcement agencies pursue allegations of corruption by public officials. However, corruption remains a problem and a cause of public discontent, and the government has at times resisted calls for a stronger response. In August 2017, the minister of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries resigned to face corruption charges related to his role as a director for a juice company.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 3 / 4

The government generally operates with transparency and received praise from the International Monetary Fund in 2017 for its efforts to make statistical data more accessible online. The effectiveness of the state auditing system was the subject of public debate during the year. The country lacks a freedom of information law, though a legal reform commission was reportedly considering such a measure.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 50 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 14 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 3 / 4

While freedom of the press is generally respected, politicians and other powerful actors have used libel or defamation suits to respond to remarks or stories about them. In December 2017, the parliament passed legislation that reintroduced criminal libel, which had been abolished in 2013. Also during the year, police were accused of infringing on press freedom by executing a search warrant at a newspaper over a harassment complaint.

There are several public and privately owned print and broadcast news outlets in operation, and internet access has expanded rapidly in recent years.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

Freedom of religion is mostly respected in practice. However, in June 2017 the parliament passed constitutional amendments that declared the country to be a "Christian nation," and there is strong societal pressure at the village level  including from village councils  to participate in the activities of the main local church.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

There are no significant restrictions on academic freedom.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

There are no serious constraints on private discussion or the expression of personal views.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 10 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

Freedom of assembly is protected by law and respected in practice.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 3 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations, including human rights groups, operate freely.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

Workers have the right to form and join trade unions, bargain collectively, and strike. Multiple unions exist, representing both public and private-sector employees.

F. RULE OF LAW: 14 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 4 / 4

The judiciary is independent. The head of state, on the recommendation of the prime minister, appoints the chief justice. Other Supreme Court judges are appointed by the Judicial Service Commission, which is chaired by the chief justice and includes the attorney general and a Justice Ministry appointee. Judges typically serve until they reach retirement age and cannot be removed arbitrarily.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 3 / 4

The authorities generally observe due process safeguards against arbitrary arrest and detention, and the courts provide defendants with the conditions necessary for a fair trial. However, village councils settle many disputes, and their adherence to due process standards varies. They have the authority to impose penalties including fines and banishment, though council decisions can be appealed in the court system.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 4 / 4

Violent crime rates are relatively low. Police officers are occasionally accused of physical abuse, and prison conditions are poor. A new prison under construction during 2017 was expected to relieve overcrowding and other problems.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

The constitution prohibits discrimination based on descent, sex, religion, and other categories, but in practice women face some discrimination in employment and other aspects of life. Although the law offers protections against employment discrimination and hate crimes based on sexual orientation, same-sex sexual activity remains a criminal offense. Ethnic Chinese residents at times encounter societal bias and restrictions on the location of their businesses.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 12 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 3 / 4

While there are few constraints on freedom of movement, village councils still occasionally banish individuals from their communities as a penalty for serious violations of their bylaws.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 3 / 4

Private business activity is encouraged, and property rights are generally protected, though roughly 80 percent of the country's land is communally owned, meaning it is overseen by matai title holders and other village leaders. The rest consists of freehold and state-owned land.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

While personal social freedoms are generally not restricted by law, domestic violence against women and children is a serious problem. The Crimes Act of 2013 made spousal rape a crime, and the Family Safety Act of 2013 empowers the police, public health officials, and educators to assist victims of domestic violence. Nevertheless, many victims do not report abuse due to strong social biases and fear of reprisal.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

Individuals generally enjoy equality of opportunity and fair working conditions. However, most adults engage in subsistence agriculture, and local custom obliges residents to perform some labor on behalf of the community; those who fail to do so can be compelled.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Rwanda

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Rwanda, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc516.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Not Free

Aggregate Score: 23 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 6.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 6 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 6 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 11,900,000

Capital: Kigali

GDP/capita: $710

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), led by President Paul Kagame, has ruled the country since 1994, when it ousted forces responsible for that year's genocide and ended a civil war. While the regime has maintained peace and economic growth, it has also suppressed political dissent though pervasive surveillance, intimidation, and suspected assassinations.

Key Developments in 2017:

Kagame was credited with nearly 99 percent of the vote in the August presidential election, securing a third term amid allegations of fraud and intimidation.

In September, outspoken opposition leader Diane Rwigara and members of her family were arrested and held on dubious charges of forgery and inciting insurrection.

Other members of banned opposition groups reportedly faced arbitrary arrests, beatings, politicized prosecutions, and enforced disappearances during the year.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 8 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 2 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

Rwanda's 2003 constitution grants broad powers to the president, who has the authority to appoint the prime minister and dissolve the bicameral Parliament. Amendments passed in 2015 retained a two-term limit for the presidency and shortened the terms from seven to five years. The changes also explicitly stated, however, that the current president  Paul Kagame  was eligible for one additional seven-year term, after which he may run for two of the new five-year terms, which would extend Kagame's rule until 2034.

Kagame easily won the August 2017 presidential election, taking 98.8 percent of the vote, according to official results. Frank Habineza of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR) and the independent Philippe Mpayimana split the remainder. The electoral process was marred by numerous irregularities, including political intimidation, unfair registration practices, and alleged fraud during the balloting itself.

The National Electoral Commission (NEC) blocked the candidacies of other would-be challengers, including independent and Kagame critic Diane Rwigara, who was barred from running in July on the grounds that some of the required signatures she had collected were invalid. She claimed that her followers were harassed and jailed as they attempted to gather signatures. The government also orchestrated a campaign of media smears and intimidation against Rwigara, and in September she was arrested along with her mother and sister.

Local authorities impeded the electoral campaigns of opposition presidential candidates, and some citizens were coerced into attending RPF rallies and voting for Kagame. Rwandans were also made to attend "solidarity" camps and listen to RPF propaganda, while local authorities tasked traditional leaders with persuading their communities to vote for Kagame. Access to the media and the content of electoral coverage were both skewed in favor of the RPF.

On election day, observers reported ballot stuffing, poll workers showing favoritism toward the ruling party, and denial of access to the vote-counting process, among other violations. Ballot secrecy was not always respected.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 1 / 4

The 26-seat Senate, the upper house, consists of 12 members elected by regional councils, 8 appointed by the president, 4 chosen by a forum of political parties, and 2 elected representatives of universities, all serving eight-year terms. The 80-seat Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, includes 53 directly elected members, 24 women chosen by local councils, 2 members from the National Youth Council, and 1 member from the Federation of Associations of the Disabled, all serving five-year terms.

The RPF dominated the most recent elections for the Chamber of Deputies in 2013, capturing 41 of the 53 elected seats. Two allied parties, the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, won 7 and 5 seats, respectively. As with other elections in recent years, the government's repression of genuine opposition parties and strict control of the media helped to ensure victory for the RPF.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 1 / 4

The electoral laws are not impartially implemented by the NEC, whose members are proposed by the government and appointed by the RFP-dominated Senate. Elections in Rwanda routinely feature unfair barriers to registration, campaigning, poll monitoring, and media access for opposition parties and candidates, among other problems.

The 2015 constitutional amendments were adopted through a flawed petition and referendum process. Rights groups and news organizations cited reports that some signatures on the petition were not given voluntarily. The details of the amendments were not widely distributed or discussed ahead of the December 2015 referendum, in which 98 percent of voters signaled their approval, according to the NEC. The government limited the political activities of groups opposed to the amendments, and the referendum was not monitored by any independent international observer groups.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 1 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 0 / 4

The government-controlled Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) is responsible for registering political parties. In practice it can deny registration at its discretion without proper justification. The government has a long history of repressing its political opponents. For example, the leader of the unregistered opposition party United Democratic Forces-Inkingi (FDU-Inkingi), Victoire Ingabire, has been behind bars since 2010, the year she challenged Kagame in a presidential election. She is serving a 15-year prison sentence for allegedly engaging in terrorist activities, a charge that was widely seen as politically motivated.

In 2017, the authorities targeted Rwigara, who sought to run against Kagame in that year's election. Days after she announced her candidacy in May, photos that supposedly depicted her nude, and which she said were fabricated, were published on social media. After the election, in late August, police harassed and interrogated Rwigara and members of her family, preventing them from leaving their home. Finally, in September, Rwigara was arrested along with her mother and sister for alleged offenses that included forgery of signatures to support her candidacy, tax evasion, and inciting insurrection. As part of a broader wave of postelection repression that month, members of the FDU-Inkingi and another unregistered opposition group, the Democratic Pact of the Imanzi People (PDP Imanzi), were reportedly subjected to arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, and physical abuse.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 0 / 4

The RPF has ruled Rwanda without interruption since 1994, banning and repressing any opposition group that could mount a serious challenge to its leadership. All registered parties currently belong to the National Consultative Forum for Political Organizations, which is meant to promote political consensus. No genuine opposition parties hold seats in Parliament or any other position of authority.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 0 / 4

Both voters and candidates face significant intimidation aimed at controlling their political choices. Even Rwandans living outside the country have been threatened, attacked, forcibly disappeared, or killed, apparently in response to their public or suspected opposition to the regime.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 1 / 4

Although the constitution calls on the president to ensure "representation of historically marginalized communities" in the Senate through his appointees, asserting one's ethnic identity in politics is banned, meaning the level of representation is unclear. The prohibition on discussion of ethnicity makes it nearly impossible for disadvantaged groups, including the indigenous Twa, to organize independently and advocate for their interests.

The 2003 constitution requires women to occupy at least 30 percent of the seats in each chamber of Parliament. They currently hold 10 of the 26 Senate seats and 49 of the 80 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, but women have little practical ability to engage in politics outside the RPF structure.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 5 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 1 / 4

Government policy is largely set and implemented by the executive, with the security and intelligence services playing a powerful role. Parliament generally lacks independence, merely endorsing presidential initiatives.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

The government takes some measures to limit corruption, including regular firings and prosecutions of low-level officials suspected of malfeasance. In February 2017, for example, the police dismissed 200 officers who had been implicated in corruption. However, graft remains a problem, and few independent organizations or media outlets are able to investigate or report on corruption issues due to fear of government reprisals.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

While a 2013 law provides for public access to government information, implementation has been weak. Data published on Sobanukirwa, a website created by the government to ease the process of requesting access to documents, suggest that only a small fraction of requests result in positive and timely responses.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 15 / 60 (-1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 4 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 0 / 4

The government imposes legal restrictions and informal controls on freedom of the press, and most media outlets practice self-censorship. The few journalists in the country who engage in independent reporting are subject to criminal charges and intimidation. In 2016 and 2017, press activist Robert Mugabe, whose reporting has been critical of the government, was harassed and interrogated by the police, who reportedly accused him of treason and undermining the government. In September 2017, a group of journalists were harassed by security forces at Diane Rwigara's home.

Many Rwandan journalists have fled the country and work in exile. Due in part to this phenomenon, the government has increasingly blocked access to news services and websites based abroad. The British Broadcasting Corporation's Kinyarwanda-language service has been suspended in the country since 2014.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

Religious freedom is generally respected. Relations between religious leaders and the government are sometimes tense, in part because of the involvement of clergy in the 1994 genocide. Jehovah's Witnesses face arrest for refusing to participate in security duties or oath-taking involving the national flag.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 1 / 4

The government restricts academic freedom by enforcing official views on the genocide and other sensitive topics. Scholars and students are subject to suspension for "divisionism" and engage in self-censorship to avoid such penalties.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 0 / 4

The space for free private discussion is limited in part by indications that the government monitors personal communications. Social media are widely believed to be monitored, and the law allows for government hacking of telecommunications networks. The authorities reportedly use informants to infiltrate civil society, further discouraging citizens from expressing dissent.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 2 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 0 / 4

Although the constitution guarantees freedom of assembly, this right is limited in practice. Fear of arrest serves as a deterrent to protests, and gatherings are sometimes disrupted even when organizers obtain official authorization.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 1 / 4

Registration and reporting requirements for both domestic and foreign nongovernmental organizations are onerous, and activities that the government defines as divisive are prohibited. Many organizations receive funds from the RGB, which challenges their independence. Several organizations have been banned in recent years, leading others to self-censor. The government has been accused of employing infiltration tactics against human rights organizations.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 1 / 4

The constitution provides for the rights to form trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and strike, but free collective bargaining and strikes are limited by binding arbitration rules and rare in practice. Public workers and employees in broadly defined "essential services" are generally not allowed to strike. Enforcement of rules against antiunion discrimination is weak. The country's largest union confederation has close ties to the RPF, and the government allegedly interferes in union elections.

F. RULE OF LAW: 2 / 16 (-1)

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 0 / 4

The Rwandan judiciary lacks independence from the executive. Top judicial officials are appointed by the president and confirmed by the RPF-dominated Senate. Judges rarely rule against the government in politically sensitive cases.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 1 / 4 (-1)

The police and military regularly engage in arbitrary arrests and detentions, targeting opposition figures and dissidents as well as homeless people, street vendors, and suspected petty criminals. This activity reportedly intensified ahead of the 2017 elections.

In October, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report detailing a system of secret unlawful detention at military facilities for suspected members of armed rebel groups or exiled opposition factions. Such detainees are allegedly denied basic due process rights, and many who are later brought to trial are convicted based on coerced confessions.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 due to further evidence of the authorities' use of arbitrary arrests and detentions as well as convictions based on coerced confessions.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 0 / 4

Both ordinary criminal suspects and political detainees are routinely subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in custody. An HRW report released in July 2017 documented more than three dozen extrajudicial executions of suspected criminals by security personnel over the previous year.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 1 / 4

Equal treatment for all citizens under the law is guaranteed, and there are legal protections against discrimination. However, the Tutsi minority group is often accused of receiving preferential treatment for high-ranking jobs and university scholarships under the pretext of an affirmative action program for "genocide survivors." Members of the Hutu majority often face unofficial discrimination when seeking public employment or scholarships. The indigenous Twa minority continues to suffer from de facto disadvantages in education, employment, and health care.

While women enjoy broad legal equality and have a significant presence in the economy as workers and business owners, gender-based discrimination persists in practice. Same-sex sexual activity is not criminalized in Rwanda, though social stigma still exists for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people. No laws specifically provide protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 7 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4

An easily attainable national identity card is required to move within the country. However, all government officials must receive approval from the president or prime minister's office before traveling for personal or professional reasons; some current and former security officials have been arrested for unauthorized travel. Members of opposition groups have also reported restrictions on foreign travel or reentry to Rwanda.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

While the government is generally supportive of economic growth through private business activity, it has been criticized for seizing land for infrastructure and development projects without proper compensation, and for imposing agricultural and land-consolidation policies without adequate input from farmers.

The law grants the same property and inheritance rights to men and women, though women are not always able to assert their rights in practice.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

The law generally grants equal rights to men and women regarding marriage and divorce, but informal marriages under customary law, including polygamous unions, lack such protections. The penalties for spousal rape are much lighter than for other forms of rape. Domestic violence remains widespread and seldom reported despite government programs to combat it.

Abortion is a criminal offense that can draw significant prison terms. Legal abortions require a court order certifying that the pregnancy is the result of rape, incest, or forced marriage; cases justified by medical necessity require agreement by at least two doctors to avoid criminal liability. At year's end the government was considering legal amendments that would ease the requirement for a court order.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 1 / 4

Regulations governing wage levels and conditions of work in the formal sector are poorly enforced. Rwandan children are trafficked internally for domestic service under abusive conditions, or for commercial sex work. Many children work informally in the agricultural sector. Young Congolese and Burundian refugees are vulnerable to sexual exploitation and coerced recruitment into armed groups linked to Rwandan security forces.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Peru

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Peru, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc53a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 73 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 2.5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 31,500,000

Capital: Lima

GDP/capita: $6,030

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Peru has established democratic political institutions and undergone multiple peaceful transfers of power, though recent polarization has hampered normal political operations somewhat. Corruption continues to be a serious concern. Indigenous groups suffer from inadequate political representation and exclusion, though the government has taken positive steps to address this in recent years. Protests related to land use have sometimes led to violence and the use of lethal force by police.

Key Developments in 2017:

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski narrowly survived a December impeachment vote initiated over allegations that his investment firm had improperly accepted payments from the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht. Kuczynski's pardon days earlier of former president Alberto Fujimori, who had been serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses committed while in office, prompted speculation that Kuczynski had granted the pardon as part of a backroom deal to escape impeachment.

The Popular Force party used its legislative majority to censure or dismiss top-level ministers, and in September won a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Fernando Zavala.

Former presidents Alejandro Toledo and Ollanta Humala were each accused of accepting large bribes from Odebrecht, and Humala was also implicated in conflict-era rights abuses. Humala was detained at year's end; Toledo remained free in the United States, though Peru was attempting to extradite him.

Severe floods in the first months of the year left hundreds dead and thousands displaced.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 31 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 11 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The president is directly elected to a five-year term and may serve nonconsecutive terms. The 2016 election was closely contested, with Pedro Pablo Kuczynski winning by a historically small margin of just 0.2 percent over Keiko Fujimori, a legislator and daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori. The elections took place peacefully, and stakeholders accepted the close result.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

Members of the 130-member unicameral Congress are elected for five-year terms. Congressional balloting employs an open-list, region-based system of proportional representation, with a 5-percent vote hurdle for a party to enter the legislature.

Legislative elections were held concurrently with presidential election in 2016. Keiko Fujimori's Popular Force party captured 73 of the 130 seats, followed by the Broad Front with 20 seats and Kuczynski's Peruvians for Change with 18 seats. The elections were generally considered free and fair.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

While the National Board of Elections (JNE) was applauded for its efforts to improve transparency surrounding electoral processes in 2016, inadequate enforcement mechanisms led to the perception that abuse of campaign finance laws was widespread. Observers criticized the enactment of a 2015 reform to the Political Parties Law after elections had already been called, which caused confusion about which laws were in effect. However, the reform proved to be a useful tool for protecting electoral integrity, as the JNE effectively applied it in disqualifying two candidates, one of them for vote buying.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 13 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

Peruvian parties, while competitive, are both highly fragmented and extremely personalized. Though there are limits on individual donations, there are no constraints on spending by political parties, offering an outsized advantage to parties able to secure abundant funds.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Opposition political parties operate freely and without undue restriction. In 2017, the opposition Popular Force party used its legislative majority as a strong counterweight to the executive, while Kuczynski's Peruvians for Change party, with just 18 seats in Congress, struggled to pass legislation.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 3 / 4

While voters and candidates are generally able to exercise their political choices without influence from forces that are not democratically accountable, the many avenues for corruption can allow business and other powerful interests some influence over candidates' political positions. The Roman Catholic Church receives preferential treatment from the state, and is politically influential.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 2 / 4

The concerns of ethnic and cultural minorities, especially in remote mountain and Amazonian areas, remain inadequately addressed among parties with national scope. The 2011 Law of Prior Consultation, which guaranteed consultation with indigenous groups before mining and other projects affecting them or their land were undertaken, has fostered increased recognition of indigenous participation.

Women hold just under 30 percent of seats in Congress, and while the political participation of women has increased over recent years, they hold few leadership roles in local and regional governments.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 7 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 3 / 4

Elected leaders and representatives are seated promptly, and are the key agents in creating and implementing policy. However, partisan polarization in the wake of the closely contested 2016 election posed an obstacle to legislative and political progress in 2017. President Kuczynski was defied at every turn by the Popular Force party, which censured top-level ministers, and in September won a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Fernando Zavala, leading to his resignation. Also in September, as many as 15 ministers appointed by Kuczynski were dismissed or reassigned under pressure from the legislature. In December, Congress voted overwhelmingly to initiate impeachment proceedings against Kuczynski following revelations that his investment firm had received payments from the construction company Odebrecht. Ultimately, the measure did not secure the 87 required votes; however, the legislature's swift decision to initiate impeachment, rather than an official investigation, reflected the polarization of the legislature.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Government corruption remains a critical problem in Peru, and leaders at the highest level of politics were implicated in scandals in 2017. However, law enforcement authorities frequently investigate and prosecute corruption allegations.

Two former presidents were accused of corruption during the year. Ollanta Humala, who had been under investigation since 2016, was arrested with his wife in July on suspicion of money laundering, and both were awaiting trial at year's end In February, the attorney general accused Alejandro Toledo of accepting $20 million in bribes from Odebrecht, and issued a warrant for his arrest. The Peruvian government that month requested that the United States extradite Toledo, but he remained in the United States at year's end.

The emergence of corruption allegations against Kuczynski threatened to bring down his administration in 2017. Opposing legislators in December introduced documents showing Kuczynski's investment banking firm had received nearly $800,000 in payments from Odebrecht, including while Kuczynski was serving as economy minister and prime minister. Kuczynski denied wrongdoing, and was nearly impeached over the matter.

According to the 2016-17 Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) survey, nearly 76 percent of Peruvians think corruption is "somewhat" or "very" widespread.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

Some government agencies have made progress on transparency, but much information related to defense and security policies remains classified under a 2012 law. In January 2017, the Peruvian Congress established a National Authority for Transparency and Access to Public Information within the Ministry of Justice to ensure compliance with existing law and resolve citizens' appeals. Some observers have expressed concern that the new institution lacks enforcement authority.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 42 / 60 (+1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 15 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 3 / 4

Peru's dynamic press is mostly privately owned, and ownership is highly concentrated. Defamation is criminalized, and journalists are regularly convicted under such charges, though their sentences are usually suspended. Verbal and physical attacks against journalists are reported each year. Photojournalist Marco Antonio Ramon was injured in January 2017 after being shot with rubber bullets by police from close range while covering a demonstration. The following month, broadcast journalist Marco Bonifacio Sanchez, known for his sharp criticism of local authorities in Cajamarca, was attacked by unidentified assailants who attempted to cut out his tongue. Journalists Jose Yactayo and Julio Moises Mesco were murdered in February, though it was unclear whether the killings were in direct relation to their work.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

The Peruvian constitution guarantees freedom of religion and belief, and these rights are generally respected.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Academic freedom is unrestricted.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

People are generally free to discuss politics and sensitive topics without fear of retribution or surveillance.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 8 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 3 / 4

The authorities generally recognize the constitutionally guaranteed right to peaceful assembly. However, the government has frequently resorted to declarations of states of emergency in response to unrest and has done little to prevent excessive use of force by security personnel confronting protests, despite substantial efforts by the state ombudsman and the National Office of Dialogue. Local disputes and protests  often related to extractive industries, land rights, and resource allocation among marginalized populations  have resulted in deaths and injuries.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 3 / 4

Freedom of association is generally respected. However, efforts by environmental activists to discourage land development have been met with intimidation. In September 2017, six farmers were killed in the Amazon in an incident that appeared related to efforts by community activists to impede oil palm growers from using their lands.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 2 / 4

Peruvian law recognizes the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively. Strikes are legal with advance notification to the Ministry of Labor, but few strikers abide by this regulation. Lengthy processes involved in registering a new union create a window in which labor leaders and activists can be easily dismissed from their jobs. Short-term contracts in many industries makes unionization difficult. Less than 10 percent of the formal workforce is unionized.

F. RULE OF LAW: 8 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 2 / 4

The judiciary is perceived as among the most corrupt institutions in the country, and long-running efforts to institute reforms have yet to produce notable results. NGOs, media reports, activists, and others argue that judges are susceptible to bribery and pressure from powerful interests. However, in 2017, the courts demonstrated a willingness to support corruption investigations, and ordered the detention of several high profile individuals under investigation.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

Constitutional guarantees of due process are unevenly upheld. Lawyers provided to indigent defendants are often poorly trained, and translation services are often not provided for defendants from highland or Amazonian regions who do not speak Spanish. Impunity for violence against environmental activists who challenge land development remains a problem.

Kuczynski's December 2017 decision to pardon former authoritarian president Alberto Fujimori, who was serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses committed while in office, sparked popular protests. The pardon came three days after Kuczynski narrowly escaped impeachment over the allegations that his firm improperly accepted payments from Odebrecht, and prompted speculation that it was granted in exchange for the anti-impeachment vote of Kenji Fujimori, a lawmaker and the son of the former president. Separately, 2017 saw the emergence of new allegations that former president Humala had ordered or was complicit in gross rights abuses during the armed conflict that took place from 1980 to 2000, and the claims were being investigated at year's end.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 2 / 4

According to the 2016-17 LAPOP survey, Peru has one of the highest crime victimization rates in the Americas, with over 30 percent of Peruvians reporting that they were victims of a crime in the last twelve months, though many of these were nonviolent robberies and other offenses.

The situation in Peruvian jails is extremely poor. The average prison population is more than 200 percent of capacity; 40 percent of detainees are in pretrial detention.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

Discrimination against indigenous populations and Afro-Peruvians is pervasive. Environmental regulations in remote lands are not always respected, and this has, for example, resulting in the pollution of water sources used by indigenous populations. LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people face discrimination, hostility, and violence.

The Peruvian government was widely applauded in 2017 for its treatment of Venezuelan refugees. In February, it offered special year-long visas to Venezuelans already in the country. In July, it also granted visas to thousands of Venezuelan refugees who had entered the country since.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 11 / 16 (+1)

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4 (+1)

Peru does not place formal restrictions on movement, and movement around the country has become easier in recent years due to a decrease in protest actions that involved road blockages.

Score Change: The score improved from 3 to 4 due to a decrease in protest activities that involved the disruption of travel.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 3 / 4

The right to own property and establish business are mostly respected, though tensions persist between extractive industries and indigenous communities who oppose land development. The Prior Consultation Law, instituted under former president Humala's government, is designed in part to better protect indigenous rights to land. Its implementation has resulted in positive outcomes for communities that have taken part in consultation processes  though prior consultation still does not always take place.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Gender-based violence is widespread in Peru, with more than half of Peruvian women reporting instances of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. Proposals to recognize civil unions for same-sex partners have been repeatedly introduced and rejected in Congress. In 2017, there was some backlash among conservatives against what they perceived as efforts to influence Peruvian institutions and laws toward more socially liberal policies.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

Peruvian women and girls  especially from the indigenous community  fall victim to sex trafficking. Men, women, and children are subject to forced labor in mines and the informal economy. According to the U.S. State Department's 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report, the Peruvian government has made "significant efforts" to combat trafficking; however, it does not report sufficient data, fails to offer adequate protection to victims, and is at times complicit in impeding investigations.

Severe floods in the first months of the year left hundreds dead and thousands displaced, seriously affecting the livelihoods of survivors.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Paraguay

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Paraguay, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc55a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 64 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 3.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 7,000,000

Capital: Asuncion

GDP/capita: $4,109

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Paraguay's democracy is dominated by the conservative Colorado Party, which won the 2013 elections after a brief spell out of power. Corruption is decreasing but remains widespread, while organized crime and environmental destruction damage the rights of rural and indigenous populations. Poverty and discrimination also limit the rights of women and children in particular.

Key Developments in 2017:

A secretive, unconstitutional attempt by Cartes and his allies to permit presidential reelection sparked produced major protests in March and April. Cartes ultimately abandoned the initiative. A number of participants in the protests were arrested, with some reporting abuse by police.

During the protests, in early April killed a member of the opposition Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA) in a raid on its headquarters. The interior minister and police chief were removed over the matter, and an investigation was initiated.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 27 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 10 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

The president is directly elected to no more than one five-year term. The 2013 presidential election, which was won by Horacio Cartes of the conservative Colorado Party with 46 percent of the vote, was viewed as largely free and fair. However, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the European Union (EU), and the Organization of American States (OAS) were among those calling for greater transparency in electoral processes.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The bicameral Congress consists of a 45-member Senate and an 80-member Chamber of Deputies, all elected for five-year terms. The 2013 legislative elections, while largely free, were marred by allegations of vote buying, as well claims of limitations placed on the movement of indigenous voters ahead of the election  an effort described by the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs as intended to prevent them from selling their votes. The next elections were scheduled to take place in April 2018, and the OSCE reported in 2015 that there had been "significant progress" on transparency-minded reforms.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

The Superior Electoral Court of Justice (SCEJ) regulates electoral processes. The OAS, following the 2013 elections, expressed concern about the professionalism of some SCEJ members, but noted improvements after the 2015 municipal polls.

A secretive attempt by president Cartes to introduce presidential reelection sparked protests in March and April 2017, and he ultimately abandoned the effort in the face of public pressure.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 12 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 3 / 4

The system is open to the rise of different political parties, although before President Lugo and the Patriotic Alliance for Change (APC) came to power in 2008, the center-right Colorado Party had ruled Paraguay for over 60 years. Lugo was controversially impeached in 2012. While the vote was constitutional, his swift ouster raised questions about the absence of due process.

The national scene is currently dominated by the Colorado Party and opposition Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA). However, factions and smaller parties regularly depart and build different coalitions.

During the 2017 protests over efforts to amend the constitution to allow presidential reelection, police in early April killed a member of the PLRA in a raid on its headquarters. The interior minister and police chief were removed over the matter, and an investigation was initiated.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Lugo was able to come to power in 2008 due to a split in the Colorado Party. A liberal-left coalition made major gains in municipal elections in 2015, and was expected to contest the 2018 elections.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 3 / 4

The Catholic Church has some political influence. There is concern over the growing influence of Brazilian landowners in border regions. Media outlets are concentrated among a few families, including that of President Cartes, granting owners a platform from which they may attempt to define the political sphere. The constitution bars military personnel from politics.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 2 / 4

Very few indigenous people and ethnic minorities occupy high office or congressional seats, and no Afro- Paraguayans or indigenous people held legislative office in 2017. Women are generally underrepresented in politics, and particularly in leadership positions.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 5 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 2 / 4

While elected officials determine government policy, the making and implementation of decisions is often influenced or hampered by organized crime and corruption.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 1 / 4

Corruption cases languish for years in the courts without resolution, and offenses often go unpunished due to political influence in the judiciary. A number of anticorruption initiatives have been launched in recent years. NGOs and the media work to expose corruption and provide some accountability.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

A secretive attempt by the Cartes government and allied sectors of opposition parties to change the constitution to allow presidential reelection, which is currently prohibited by the constitution, became public in March 2017, when the Senate voted to amend the constitution. The effort provoked major protests in March and April, which subsided after Cartes announced that "in no event" would he run in 2018. Later that month, the Chamber of Deputies rejected the amendment. The events reflected an ability by the government to craft major pieces of legislation without having to inform the public.

Nevertheless, government transparency, especially in public administration, is gradually improving, and the effective implementation of access to information laws has bolstered investigative journalism.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 37 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 12 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 2 / 4

Constitutional rights of freedom of expression and the press are unevenly upheld practice. Direct pressure, including threats by criminal groups and corrupt authorities, encourages self-censorship, and violent attacks against journalists take place occasionally.

Reporters who covered the protests against Cartes's attempt to allow presidential reelection faced harassment and attacks by police. Later in the year, police took some steps aimed at better protecting journalists working dangerous assignments. Separately, Cartes threatened to have authorities arrest two journalists he accused of inciting violence that took place at one of the protests.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

Paraguay is home to diverse religious groups that are generally able to worship freely. However, atheists report discrimination.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 3 / 4

Although academia is generally independent, primary and secondary schools teach a pro-Colorado version of history. University politics are dominated by the Colorado Party and the PLRA, with student elections and professional advancement often dependent on party affiliation.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 3 / 4

Citizens can for the most part engage in free and open private discussion, though the presence of armed groups in some areas may serve as a deterrent.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 8 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 3 / 4

Demonstrations and protests are common, but are sometimes repressed or marred by violence. An opposition activist was killed by police during the March and April 2017 demonstrations against the move to allow presidential reelection. Scores were arrested during the protests, with some reportedly suffering abuse by security forces while detained. Additionally, several protesters set fire to the parliament building.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 3 / 4

Paraguay has a strong culture of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working in the field of human rights and governance, and these are largely free from government interference. However, the government is generally unresponsive to the concerns of NGOs that scrutinize it, and does not take significant efforts to include NGOs in discussions on human rights policies.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 2 / 4

Registration procedures for trade unions are cumbersome and employees are often unprotected from employer retaliation, and the Cartes administration had been generally hostile toward labor activism. Campesino unions, however, secured some concessions in 2017, including emergency funds approved in October to cover losses resulting from adverse weather.

F. RULE OF LAW: 7 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 2 / 4

The judiciary is nominally independent, but money laundering, drug trafficking and other criminal operations have been able to co-opt or otherwise assert control over local judicial authorities, particularly in regions adjacent to Brazil. Politicians commonly attempt to influence judges and prosecutors.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 1 / 4

Constitutional guarantees of due process are poorly upheld, largely due to corruption that permeates the judicial system. Individuals with political or societal influence or access to money are frequently able to obtain favorable treatment in the justice system.

In May 2017, an appeals court upheld the 2016 prison sentences against 11 campesinos involved in the deadly 2012 clash between farmers and police in Curuguaty, after landless farmers occupied private land; six officers and 11 campesinos were killed. In August, the controversial rulings, which activists say were handed down following flawed legal procedures, were brought before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Meanwhile, evictions of campesino communities continued during the year.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 2 / 4

Paraguay is one of the region's safer countries. However, the Paraguayan People's Army (EPP), a radical socialist guerilla group, kidnapped at least two people in 2017. Gang warfare takes place along the Brazilian border. Illegal detention by police and torture during incarceration still occur. Overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and mistreatment are serious problems in the country's prisons.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

Paraguay lacks legislation protecting against all forms of discrimination. While same-sex sexual activity is legal, members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community face endemic discrimination. Indigenous people similarly face discrimination, as well as a lack of access to adequate health care. Rampant deforestation in the Chaco region and forced evictions threaten the welfare of the last indigenous Ayoreo groups in voluntary isolation; indigenous Guarani settlements are also threatened.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 10 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 3 / 4

Freedoms of movement and travel are generally respected, though the presence of armed or criminal groups can discourage travel in some areas.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 3 / 4

Although there are few formal restrictions on private business activity and property rights, land disputes remain a problem. Overlaps in legal titles, frequently believed to be linked to the misappropriation of public land in past years, complicate the ability of individuals to start businesses. Additionally, organized crime groups exert pressure, and the EPP has threatened, kidnapped, extorted and damaged the property of ranchers in its areas of operations. Evictions of indigenous populations from their ancestral lands are commonplace.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Women and children continue to suffer from high levels of domestic and sexual abuse. Criadazgo, or temporary adoption  in which children, generally from poor families, work without pay for families of higher income who have agreed to provide care for them  often involves the mistreatment of minors. Abortion remains illegal, as do same-sex marriage and civil unions.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

Ten percent of Paraguay's population suffers from acute hunger, and around 70 percent of the country's productive land is owned by the wealthiest 3 percent of people. Social mobility is extremely limited for those born in indigenous and campesino communities, who are exposed to exploitation by landlords, employers, and political authorities. According to government figures, 76 percent of the 100,000-strong indigenous population lives in extreme poverty.

The ongoing practice of criadazgo severely limits the freedom of some 45,000 children across the country.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Panama

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Panama, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc57a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 83 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 2.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 4,000,000

Capital: Panama City

GDP/capita: $13,134

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Panama's political institutions are democratic, with competitive elections and orderly rotations of power. Freedoms of expression and association are generally respected. However, corruption and impunity are serious challenges, affecting the justice system and the highest levels of government. Discrimination against racial minorities is common, and indigenous groups have struggled to uphold their legal rights with respect to land and development projects.

Key Developments in 2017:

Electoral reforms were adopted in April with the aim of improving the regulation and transparency of party financing.

Indigenous communities staged protests during the year to call attention to grievances including poor government services and inadequate consultation on development projects in their regions.

Former president Ricardo Martinelli, who faced corruption and wiretapping charges in Panama, was arrested in the United States in June. A U.S. court ruling on Panama's extradition request was pending at year's end.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 35 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The president is elected by popular vote for a single five-year term. In 2014, incumbent vice president Juan Carlos Varela of the Panamenista Party (PP) won the presidency with 39 percent of the national vote. Former housing minister Jose Domingo Arias of Democratic Change (CD) won 31 percent, and former Panama City mayor Juan Carlos Navarro of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) won 28 percent, with four other candidates splitting the remaining votes. International observers considered the elections generally free and fair, though the Organization of American States and the International Republican Institute criticized executive interference in the electoral process, including through the misuse of public resources, and noted that campaign financing was poorly regulated.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

Members of the 71-seat unicameral legislature, the National Assembly, are elected for five-year terms. The 2014 elections were held concurrently with the presidential vote, drawing the same assessment from international monitors. The United for Change alliance  formed by the CD and the Nationalist Republican Liberal Movement (MOLIRENA)  won 32 seats, followed by the PRD with 25, the PP with 10, and the Popular Party with 3; one independent candidate also won a seat.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

The country's electoral framework is generally fair and impartially implemented. The Electoral Tribunal of Panama (TE) is responsible for reviewing the electoral code after each election and submitting any reforms to the National Assembly. In April 2017, the legislature adopted reforms proposed by the TE in 2016 that included tighter regulation of campaign donations, spending, and advertising. For example, the legislation imposed a cap on private funding for presidential and National Assembly campaigns and reduced the length of the campaign periods for primary and general elections. President Varela signed the changes into law in May.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 15 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

Political parties are free to form and compete in Panama's multiparty system, and since the 2014 elections, candidates have also been able to register as independents.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Elections are competitive in practice, and orderly transfers of power between rival parties have been the norm since the end of de facto military rule in 1989.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

Voters and candidates are generally free from undue interference by groups outside the political system, though the threat that improper donations by drug traffickers and other powerful interests could influence the political process remains a concern, even after the campaign finance reforms introduced in 2017.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

Women are free to participate in politics, and women's advocacy organizations have campaigned to improve their representation in elected offices. The electoral code requires gender parity in internal party primary systems, but in practice this has not led to more women winning general elections. Less than 20 percent of National Assembly seats went to women in the 2014 elections.

The country's racial minorities and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community continue to face obstacles to the full exercise of their political rights, which are equal under the law. In May 2017, activists created a new progressive party with a platform that included legalization of same-sex marriage. The constitution establishes five indigenous territories  three at the provincial level and two at the municipal level  and these are duly represented in the system of constituencies for the National Assembly, but the interests of indigenous people remain inadequately addressed by the political system as a whole.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 8 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

The elected government and legislature generally determine and implement laws and policies, though evidence of official corruption has raised concerns about the possibility that unelected entities could unduly influence governance.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Safeguards against official corruption are relatively weak and ineffective, and investigations have revealed extensive corruption in previous administrations. The current government has been criticized for inaction on this issue, though the president remains publicly supportive of anticorruption efforts. During 2017, the legislature held up several proposed reforms designed to strengthen protections against official malfeasance and money laundering.

Two ministers from the administration of former president Martinelli were arrested in September 2017 for alleged money laundering in connection with the Odebrecht case, a massive corruption scandal centered on a Brazilian construction firm that has affected much of Latin America. Martinelli, who has faced multiple investigations himself, was arrested in the United States in June and was awaiting possible extradition at year's end.

A number of officials from the current administration and members of the National Assembly have resigned after being implicated in corruption and other wrongdoing. In November, President Varela admitted to receiving donations for his 2009 vice-presidential campaign from an individual with ties to Odebrecht, but said the funds were received legally and reported to the TE.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

The law provides mechanisms for public access to government information, but the government often does not operate with transparency in practice. The National Authority for Transparency and Access to Public Information (ANTAI) reported in September 2017 that just over 50 percent of state institutions do not act in accordance with a 2002 transparency law. Journalists also report difficulties in accessing public information.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 48 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 15 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 3 / 4

News consumers have access to a wide variety of private media outlets that present a range of views, but the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press is not consistently upheld. Libel is both a civil and a criminal offense, and cases are filed against journalists in practice. Independent, critical journalists and outlets reportedly face editorial pressure from the government, and Varela publicly complained of negative coverage during 2017.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

The constitution recognizes Roman Catholicism as the majority religion and requires general "respect for Christian morality and public order," but freedom of religion is otherwise guaranteed and broadly upheld in practice.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

The government generally honors academic freedom, and the schools are free from political indoctrination.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

Private discussion is free and vibrant, and use of social media platforms for the expression of personal views is not restricted. Former president Martinelli has been accused of illegally wiretapping more than 150 perceived opponents, but the operation was apparently dismantled at the end of his term.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 11 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

Freedom of assembly is generally respected, and peaceful demonstrations are common, though protests that block roads and highways often result in arrests and altercations with police.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations operate freely, but some activists  particularly those focused on environmental issues and indigenous rights  have complained of harassment and intimidation, including through lawsuits by private companies.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

The law generally protects workers' rights to unionize, bargain collectively, and engage in legal strikes. However, enforcement of labor protections is inadequate, and labor-related protests frequently feature clashes with police.

F. RULE OF LAW: 10 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 2 / 4

The country's judicial system is plagued by corruption and inefficiency. Public disagreements between the attorney general's office and judges over rulings that impeded major corruption cases during 2017 raised doubts about whether such cases would be heard impartially.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

In August 2017, the attorney general claimed that prosecutors working on corruption investigations had received threats and pressure from powerful elites. Police and other security forces are themselves prone to corruption and other abuses. Officers were implicated during the year in cases involving drug trafficking and organized crime. The justice system features extensive use of lengthy pretrial detention, with pretrial detainees accounting for a majority of prison inmates.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 3 / 4

Police have been accused of beatings and other forms of excessive force, including while dispersing protests. The prison system is marked by overcrowding, lack of security, and poor health conditions.

The illegal drug trade and related criminal violence remain problems, though the homicide rate is well below those of most countries in the region. The number of homicides declined slightly to 412 in 2017, from 416 in 2016 and 493 in 2015, according to statistics from the attorney general's office.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

Discrimination based on gender, race, and other such categories is prohibited by law, but sexual orientation and gender identity are not covered, and racial minorities  including indigenous people, Panamanians of African descent, and certain immigrant groups  face some discrimination in practice. Indigenous communities enjoy a significant degree of autonomy and self-government, but many live in poverty and lack equal access to basic services.

During 2017, the government took several steps to curb illegal immigration, tightening restrictions on the length and renewal of tourist visas for some countries and stepping up the deportation of migrants without documentation. An influx of migrants and asylum seekers from Venezuela, Cuba, and other troubled countries in the region has stoked anti-immigrant sentiment in recent years.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 12 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

The government generally respects freedom of internal movement and foreign travel.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 3 / 4

Individuals can own private property and establish businesses freely, but there are some practical impediments to defending property rights and operating businesses, including corruption and interference from organized crime.

Although indigenous groups have substantial land rights under the law, implementation has been problematic. Such groups have long protested the encroachment of illegal settlers on their lands, government delays in the formal demarcation of collective land, and large-scale development projects that proceed despite dissent within indigenous communities.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

Personal social freedoms are largely unrestricted. However, domestic violence is a concern; according to official statistics, 7 percent of reported crimes are related to domestic violence, and 3,967 domestic violence cases were registered in 2017. Abortion is permitted in cases of rape or incest or to preserve the life or health of the woman, though there are significant procedural obstacles as well as potential penalties for abortions that do not meet the legal standard.

In October 2017, the Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to provisions of the family code that ban same-sex marriage, but the ruling left open the possibility that the National Assembly could ease the ban through legislation.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

Human trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced labor remains a serious problem despite some government efforts to combat it. Both Panamanian and migrant workers in certain sectors  including the agricultural sector, where many workers are indigenous people  are subject to exploitative working conditions. Enforcement of basic labor protections is weak in rural areas and among informal workers.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Palau

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Palau, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc59a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 92 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 1.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 20,000

Capital: Melekeok

GDP/capita: $13,982

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

Palau's presidential system of government is maintained through regular democratic elections. The judiciary and the media are independent, and civil liberties are generally upheld. A Compact of Free Association with the United States provides defense guarantees and financial assistance. The government has sought to combat official corruption in recent years. Many in the country's large population of foreign workers remain vulnerable to exploitation.

Key Developments in 2017:

Incumbent president Tommy Remengesau was sworn in for a second consecutive term in January, having won reelection in November 2016. He had previously served as president from 2001 to 2009.

In December, the United States finally approved legislation implementing an agreement to update Palau's Compact of Free Association. The bilateral agreement had originally been negotiated and signed in 2010.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 37 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The president, who serves as both head of state and head of government, is directly elected for up to two consecutive four-year terms using a two-round system, with a runoff vote if no candidate wins an absolute majority in the first round. President Remengesau won reelection in November 2016, defeating his brother-in-law, Senator Surangel Whipps, with 51.3 percent of the vote.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The bicameral National Congress consists of a 13-member Senate and a 16-member House of Delegates. The Senate is directly elected by block vote in one national constituency. Members of the House of Delegates are elected from single-member constituencies corresponding to the country's 16 states, which vary in population. All members of the National Congress are elected for four-year terms. In the November 2016 elections, held concurrently with the presidential vote, 13 incumbents were returned to the House and 8 to the Senate.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

Electoral administration is widely considered to be fair and impartial. A review of the Senate's size and electoral system is undertaken every eight years by a Reapportionment Commission. In June 2016 the commission recommended that the Senate be maintained in its current form. In response to a citizen petition, the Supreme Court initially ruled that because the population had decreased, the number of senators should be reduced from 13 to 11, but the court restored the original plan after an appeal in October of that year.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 15 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

There are no laws restricting the formation of political parties, but in practice all candidates run and compete freely as independents. Politicians tend to organize in loose political alliances, often based on clan or family relationships.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Although there are no political parties, lawmakers do organize into informal progovernment and opposition camps, and no single political force has control of the legislature. Power is transferred democratically between rival politicians. Remengesau returned to the presidency in 2013 by defeating the incumbent, Johnson Toribiong, in the 2012 election.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

Palau receives financial assistance from the United States under its Compact of Free Association, but the U.S. government does not exert improper influence over the country's internal politics. While the political views of traditional chiefs are respected, they do not have authoritative control over the choices of voters.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

Women generally have equal political rights in law and in practice. Some legislative seats at the state level are reserved for traditionally male chiefs, though chiefs in turn are customarily chosen by councils of female elders. In the last national elections, women won two seats in the House and two in the Senate.

About a third of the population consists of foreign nationals who do not have political rights in Palau. Citizenship must be inherited from at least one parent, as there are no provisions for naturalization.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 10 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

Palau's democratically elected government determines and implements policy without undue interference.

Traditional chiefs formally play an advisory role regarding customary matters through the national Council of Chiefs. While they also exercise informal influence over government policy, this is widely seen as a positive check on potential mismanagement or abuse of power by elected officials.

The Compact of Free Association with the United States, in effect since Palau became independent in 1994, ensures self-government in the country but also provides for close military and economic relations with the United States, including U.S. responsibility for Palau's defense. A scheduled 15-year review of the compact resulted in a 2010 bilateral agreement on development aid and other benefits to last until the next review in 2024, but legislation to implement that agreement remained stalled in the U.S. Congress for several years, during which time Congress continued to appropriate basic aid funds on an annual basis. In December 2017, U.S. president Donald Trump signed a defense bill that included implementing provisions for the compact review agreement. Also during the year, the two countries advanced plans to install new radar systems in Palau.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 3 / 4

High-ranking public officials have faced corruption charges in recent years, and several have been convicted. The government and lawmakers have deliberated on strategies to deal with corruption more effectively, and in April 2017 the finance minister issued a statement to reiterate the government's ethics rules and a whistle-blower protection policy. The Office of the Ombudsman has asked for a clearer legal mandate with greater independence, as it currently operates as part of the president's office under an executive order.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 3 / 4

A 2014 Open Government Act provides for public access to official documents and hearings, and government officials are obliged to submit annual financial disclosures that are available to the public. However, authorities have sometimes resisted disclosing requested information, particularly at the subnational level.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 55 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 16 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 4 / 4

Freedom of the press is respected. There are several independent news outlets, including newspapers and broadcasters, but they have often struggled financially. Regional and international news services are also available. Internet access has been hampered by high costs and lack of connectivity outside the main islands.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom are upheld in practice. Although religious organizations are required to register as nonprofit organizations, the process is not onerous or restrictive. Foreign missionaries are also required to obtain a permit.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

There have been no reports of restrictions on academic freedom.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

There are no constraints on political discussion, and the government does not monitor personal communications.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 11 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

Freedom of assembly is protected by the constitution and respected in practice.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations operate freely, with various groups focusing on issues such as environmental conservation, youth development, public health, and women's rights.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

Workers can freely organize unions and bargain collectively, but there are no laws specifically regulating trade unions or strikes or prohibiting antiunion discrimination. Union membership and activity are low in practice, as the private-sector economy consists mostly of small, family-run businesses.

F. RULE OF LAW: 15 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 4 / 4

The judiciary has a reputation for a high degree of independence and integrity. The president appoints judges for life terms based on recommendations from an independent Judicial Nominating Commission, which is made up of three presidential appointees, three jurists named by their peers, and the chief justice.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 4 / 4

The authorities generally uphold legal safeguards against arbitrary arrest and detention, and trial proceedings ensure due process.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 4 / 4

Law enforcement agencies maintain internal order, and instances of abuse or impunity are rare, though overcrowding in the country's limited detention facilities is a problem.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

The legal system prohibits discrimination based on gender, race, place of origin, and other categories. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not protected categories, but Palau repealed legal provisions that criminalized consensual same-sex sexual activity in 2014. Women generally enjoy equal treatment in practice. Foreign nationals sometimes face discrimination regarding employment, education, and other matters. Growing tourism from China in particular has created jobs but also raised the cost of living, and some locals regard the presence of Chinese businesses and residents with hostility.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 13 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

There are no significant restrictions on freedom of movement, including internal and international travel.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 3 / 4

The legal framework generally supports property rights and private businesses activity, and the government has undertaken reforms to improve conditions in recent years, though some bureaucratic obstacles and corruption-related impediments persist.

Noncitizens cannot purchase land, which is inherited matrilineally among Palauans.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

Personal social freedoms are largely respected, and women have equal rights regarding marriage, child custody, and other personal status matters. Rape, including spousal rape, and domestic violence are criminal offenses, though victims of domestic abuse are often unwilling to report it to police.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

Residents generally have access to economic opportunity, and the law provides some protections against exploitative labor practices. However, enforcement of such safeguards is inadequate, and foreign workers remain vulnerable to sexual exploitation, forced labor, or otherwise abusive working conditions in sectors including domestic service and fisheries. The minimum wage law does not apply to foreign workers. Some officials have been accused of complicity in human trafficking.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - New Zealand

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - New Zealand, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc5ba.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 98 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 1.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 4,700,000

Capital: Wellington

GDP/capita: $38,202

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

New Zealand has a record of free and fair elections, and of guaranteeing political rights and civil liberties. Concerns include discrimination against the Maori and other minority populations, and reports of foreign influence in politics and the educational sector.

Key Developments in 2017:

Despite winning fewer seats than the center-right National Party in September's parliamentary elections, the center-left Labour Party formed a coalition government with the New Zealand First party and the Green Party. Jacinda Ardern of the Labour Party became prime minister.

The new government has prioritized reducing child poverty, which nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have identified as a significant problem in the country.

Foreign influence in political affairs was a growing concern during the year, especially in the wake of reports of large political donations from Chinese sources, and attempts by China to monitor Chinese students.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 40 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

New Zealand is a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy, with British monarch Elizabeth II acting as head of state. A governor general, appointed by the Queen on advice from the prime minister, represents the British monarch. The prime minister is the head of government and is appointed by the governor general, and is usually the leader of the popularly elected majority party or coalition. Jacinda Ardern, leader of the Labour Party, was appointed prime minister in October 2017 following the year's legislative elections.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The 120 members of the unicameral House of Representatives serve three-year terms. A mixed-member electoral system combines voting in geographic districts with proportional representation balloting. September 2017 parliamentary elections resulted in no single party winning the required 61 votes to form a government. Although the National Party took 56 seats, the Labour Party, which won 46 seats, formed a coalition with two smaller parties: New Zealand First, a populist and anti-immigration party that claimed 9 seats, and the Green Party, which took 8 seats. Elections in New Zealand are generally well administered, and their results considered credible.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

The independent New Zealand Electoral Commission administers elections and referenda, promotes compliance with electoral laws, and provides public education on electoral issues.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 16 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

New Zealanders are able to organize political parties without undue legal restrictions or influence, and political parties are free to campaign for support.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Opposition parties can potentially change with each parliamentary election. Power has traditionally fluctuated between the center-left Labour Party and the center-right National Party. Currently, the National Party represents a strong opposition, holding 56 seats in Parliament.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

People are generally able to express their political preferences without undue influence from powerful groups. However, several studies in recent years have claimed that some lawmakers and parties have accepted sizable political donations from Chinese businesspeople and other Chinese figures, raising the possibility that such donations might influence their politics.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 4 / 4

Political rights and electoral opportunities are granted to all New Zealand citizens, and permanent residents have the right to vote. Seven of Parliament's constituency seats are reserved for representatives of the Maori population, though Maori may also vote or run in general electoral districts. In the 2017 parliamentary elections, Golriz Ghahraman, from Iran, became the first refugee to be elected as a member of Parliament.

Women are relatively well represented in politics, and the government has taken steps to encourage their participation. Ardern is the third woman to serve as the country's prime minister.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 12 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

The prime minister and cabinet ministers  who are selected from the House of Representatives by the governing party or coalition  determine the government's policy agenda.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 4 / 4

Government corruption is not considered a significant problem in New Zealand, and cases of corruption and misuse of office are routinely investigated and prosecuted.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 4 / 4

The government operates with a high level of transparency, and political affairs are openly discussed in Parliament and the media. Parliamentary records, government policies, and commissioned reports are published online and readily available as required by law. The government upholds transparency in budgetary procedures, and members of Parliament must submit annual financial disclosure statements.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 58 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 16 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 4 / 4

New Zealand has a free and robust independent media sector, including a Maori-language public network and radio station.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

Religious freedom is protected by law and generally respected in practice. Only religious organizations that collect donations need to register with the government.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Academic freedom usually prevails at all levels of instruction. However, foreign influence in New Zealand's higher education sector was a concern in 2017, with reports of Chinese attempts to influence student groups and monitor Chinese students.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

New Zealanders freely discuss personal views on sensitive topics. However, in March 2017, new intelligence and security legislation was approved by Parliament. The legislation allows law enforcement to access private communications under certain conditions in order to protect national security. Separately, state security officials warned the government in December that Beijing may have attempted to "unduly influence expatriate communities."

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 12 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

The government generally respects freedoms of assembly. Large antiwar, environmental, and women's rights protests took place in 2017.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

NGOs are free to form, function, and solicit funds.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 4 / 4

Workers may freely organize and bargain collectively, and trade unions actively engage in political debates and campaigns. Workers may strike, with the exception of uniformed police personnel.

F. RULE OF LAW: 15 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 4 / 4

The New Zealand judiciary is generally independent.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 4 / 4

Law enforcement practices and court procedures provide for due process protections in civil and criminal matters. Defendants and detainees are presumed innocent until proven guilty and by law must immediately be notified of the charges against them.

Pretrial detention durations have increased in recent years, as authorities have relaxed the time limit in which cases must be concluded, and tightened bail requirements.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 4 / 4

Citizens and noncitizen residents have legal recourse to seek redress for physical harm. Prison conditions generally meet international standards, though some are poorly equipped to house detainees with disabilities or mental health problems.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

The 1993 Human Rights Act protects all people in New Zealand from discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, among others, and this right is generally respected in practice. However, Maori  who account for approximately 16 percent of the population  and Pacific Islanders experience some discrimination in schools, the workplace, and the healthcare system. Indigenous people are also disproportionately represented in the penal system, accounting for just over half of the prison population as of December 2017. Recent campaigns to recruit more officers of Maori, Pacific Islander, and Asian descent aim to improve cultural and ethnic sensitivity within the police force, and to combat profiling and discrimination.

The government enforces strong legislation protecting the rights of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) individuals.

In 2016, the government agreed to increase the number of refugees accepted annually from 750 to 1,000, which will go into permanent effect in 2018. The number of refugees the country was permitted to accept was temporarily increased in 2017 in order to assist more Syrian refugees.

According to the Child Poverty Monitor 2017 Technical Report, nearly 30 percent of children lived in poverty in 2016, with children of Maori and Pacific Islander descent being particularly vulnerable. The Ardern government has specifically identified reducing child poverty as a priority.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 15 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

The government respects the freedom of movement, and neither state nor nonstate actors interfere with people's ability to choose their place of residence or employment, or institution of higher education.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 4 / 4

New Zealand's legal and regulatory frameworks provide strong protections and mechanisms for the establishment and operation of private businesses and the protection of property rights.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 4 / 4

New Zealanders have extensive personal freedoms and protections, including choice of marriage partner and family size. However, violence against women and children remains a critical problem in many communities. A 2016 government paper reported that one in three women has been a victim of sexual violence in their lifetime. Abortion is legal only under certain conditions, including when the mental or physical health of a women is at risk. Same-sex marriage was legalized in 2013, and same-sex couples may jointly adopt children.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

Citizens have access to a wide variety of economic opportunities, but the Maori and Pacific Islander populations have disproportionately high rates of unemployment, impacting their economic and social mobility.

Migrant workers can be found engaging in forced labor in a number of industries, including fishing, agriculture, construction, and hospitality, and as domestic workers. The government has taken action to combat forced labor, but penalties for some abuses associated with it, such as delays in paying wages, are often light.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Netherlands

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Netherlands, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc5da.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 99 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 1.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 17,000,000

Capital: Amsterdam

GDP/capita: $44,746

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

The Netherlands is a parliamentary democracy with a strong record of safeguarding political rights and civil liberties. Nevertheless, wariness of immigration and Muslim minorities has grown in recent years, and harsh policies toward irregular migrants and asylum seekers have been a source of controversy.

Key Developments in 2017:

The Netherlands held parliamentary elections in March 2017. Prime Minister Mark Rutte's center-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD won the most seats, giving Rutte a third term. The far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), led by Geert Wilders, won 20 seats, the second highest total, but all other parties refused to form a coalition with the PVV, effectively shutting it out of government. It took a record 225 days to form a governing coalition, reflecting the fragmentation of Dutch politics.

Civil society leaders criticized the new Intelligence and Security Services Act, which includes a dragnet approach for surveilling private communications, for threatening the right to privacy and potentially compromising journalists' sources.

Harsh policies toward irregular migrants and asylum seekers, including prolonged detentions in prison-like facilities, continued to be a point of controversy.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 40 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The Netherlands is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The role of the monarch is largely ceremonial. The prime minister is the head of government and is appointed by the monarch after elections. The incumbent prime minister, Mark Rutte, won a third term following parliamentary elections held in March 2017. He formed a coalition government consisting of his own center-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) alongside the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), Democrats 66 (D66), and the Christian Union. It took a record 225 days for the coalition to form, reflecting the fragmentation in Dutch politics.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The Netherlands has a bicameral parliament that consists of the 75-seat First Chamber, which is elected indirectly to four-year terms in a proportional vote by the 12 provincial council members; and the 150-seat Second Chamber, which is elected to terms of four years by proportional representation. The parliamentary elections in March 2017 were generally well administered, and all parties accepted the results. Parliament now has thirteen parties, the most since 1972. Geert Wilders's far-right PVV won 20 seats, the second-highest total, but all other parties refused to form a coalition with the PVV, effectively shutting it out of government.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

Elections are administered by the Electoral Council, which works impartially and professionally to carry out Dutch elections.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 16 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

Political parties operate freely and regularly rotate in and out of power. The Elections Law does not impose any undue restrictions on the creation of political parties. In the 2017 parliamentary elections, the ruling VVD lost eight seats. Government funding extends to all parties that have participated in the most recent parliamentary elections and have gained at least one seat.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Opposition parties have a realistic opportunity to increase support or gain power, as evidenced by the 2017 election results in which the PVV, CDA, and D66 all gained seats, with the latter two joining the governing coalition after being in the opposition during the second Rutte cabinet.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

The people are generally free to make their own political choices without pressure from groups that are not democratically accountable.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 4 / 4

Minority groups participate freely in the political process, and political parties represent their interests. The DENK (THINK) party, which seeks to represent a broad spectrum of ethnic and religious minorities, and voters with migrant backgrounds, won three seats in the 2017 parliamentary elections. The party has been controversial and centrist parties have accused it of enflaming discontent among migrant communities. In March 2017, Dutch LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) activists launched a "Rainbow Agreement" to enhance LGBT rights. Seven of the parties that won parliamentary representation signed the pledge.

While most major parties addressed gender issues in their party manifestos, the PVV's does not mention women. An active debate in the media ensued when the prime minister appointed a cabinet with fewer women than in the previous government and no minorities.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 12 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

Government policies reflect the choices of freely elected members of parliament.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 4 / 4

The Netherlands has low levels of corruption and anticorruption mechanisms are generally effective.

In October 2017, the chairman of the House for Whistleblowers, a government agency created to support those reporting abuse and corruption, resigned due to the organization's failure to conclude a single investigation since its inception a year earlier.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 4 / 4

Laws are in place recognizing the right to access information, and they are generally enforced. However, these laws do not apply to legislative and judicial bodies.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 59 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 16 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 4 / 4

A free and independent press thrives in the Netherlands. The Dutch Association of Journalists has criticized the passage of the Intelligence and Security Services Act in July 2017, because the law's dragnet approach to collecting information may compromise the ability of journalists to protect their sources.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of religion, which is generally respected in practice.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Academic freedom is largely respected in the Netherlands.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

There are no restrictions on the freedom of speech or expression, apart from the criminalization of hate speech. The Intelligence and Security Services Act, which critics fear may lead to dragnet surveillance of private communications, caused a public outcry and led to a campaign for a referendum.

The Netherlands has had lese majeste laws, which forbid insulting the monarch, in place since 1881. Although rarely enforced, these laws do occasionally result in sanctions. Although a parliamentary majority expressed its support for repealing the law in September 2016, the legal situation remained unchanged at the end of 2017.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 12 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

Freedom of assembly is constitutionally guaranteed and respected in practice.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operate freely and without interference from the government or nonstate actors.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 4 / 4

Workers' rights to organize, bargain collectively, and strike are protected.

F. RULE OF LAW: 15 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 4 / 4

The judiciary is independent, and the rule of law generally prevails in civil and criminal matters.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 4 / 4

The right to a fair trial is constitutionally guaranteed and respected in practice. Defendants have access to legal counsel, and counsel is provided for them if they cannot afford an attorney.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 4 / 4

The police are under civilian control, and prison conditions mostly meet international standards. However, people suspected or convicted of terrorism often experienced treatment that NGOs have called inhumane, including constant surveillance and regular full-body searches.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

The Netherlands has antidiscrimination laws and hate speech laws on the books. While Dutch society is known for its tolerance, rising anti-immigrant sentiment in recent years has been accompanied by more open expression of anti-Islamic views. In 2016, Geert Wilders was found guilty of inciting hatred and insulting a group after he had made anti-Moroccan remarks during a campaign rally in 2014, but no penalties were imposed. In the run up to the 2017 parliamentary elections, Wilders called for the "de-Islamicization" of the Netherlands. Perceived discrimination against Muslims is higher in the Netherlands than in many other European countries. Muslims and immigrants experience harassment and intimidation.

Dutch asylum policies have long drawn criticism for being unduly harsh. Asylum seekers and irregular migrants often experience prolonged detentions in prison-like facilities before deportation. Asylum policy remains politically divisive.

The government enforces legal protections for women, including in employment and family law.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 16 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

Residents generally enjoy freedom of movement and choice of residence, employment, and institution of higher education. A counterterrorism law passed in March 2017 allows the government to restrict the movement of people suspected of terrorist links. Human rights advocates have complained that the law is vulnerable to abuse.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or non-state actors? 4 / 4

Property rights are legally protected and generally upheld in practice.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 4 / 4

Personal social freedoms are largely respected. Although the government generally does not restrict individuals' choice of dress, religious dress and symbols are prohibited for police officers in order to safeguard their impartiality. In October 2017, one police officer submitted a complaint to the College for Human Rights because she is not allowed to wear a headscarf.

Female genital mutilation, although illegal, still occurs in some immigrant communities. The Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Sport runs a project to prevent the practice.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 4 / 4

While the Netherlands is a source, destination, and transit point for human trafficking, the government makes strong efforts to combat it, vigorously investigating and prosecuting suspected traffickers. In 2017, the government continued to implement its National Program against Child Pornography and Child Sex Tourism.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Nepal

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Nepal, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc5fa.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 55 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 3.5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 4 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 28,400,000

Capital: Kathmandu

GDP/capita: $747

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Since the end of a decade-long civil war in 2006, Nepal has held a series of competitive elections and adopted a permanent constitution. As politics have stabilized, pressure on journalists has decreased, and authorities have been somewhat more tolerant of peaceful assembly. However, political protests are still sometimes marred by violence, and corruption remains endemic in politics, government, and the judicial system. Other problems include gender-based violence, underage marriage, and bonded labor. Transitional justice bodies have struggled to fulfill their mandates.

Trend Arrow: 

Nepal received an upward trend arrow due to the first national, regional, and local elections held under a new constitution, with high voter turnout despite some reports of violence.

Key Developments in 2017:

Local, provincial, and national elections were held during the year. While there were sporadic outbreaks of election-related violence, the polls saw high turnout and were generally well-conducted, and stakeholders accepted their results.

The parliament rejected a bill designed to address contentious constitutional provisions on provincial demarcation and citizenship, which many marginalized communities argue maintain an unacceptable status quo.

Nepal's two key transitional justice bodies, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP), continued struggling to carry out investigations. Their mandates were extended in February, even as authorities failed to implement reforms demanded by both Supreme Court rulings and the United Nations.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 25 / 40 (+1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 10 / 12 (+1)

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

The president is the head of state and is elected to up to two five-year terms by a parliamentary electoral college and state assemblies. The prime minister is elected by the parliament. Thus, the legitimacy of executive office holders is largely determined by the conduct of legislative and provincial elections.

Sher Bahadur Deuba was elected prime minister in June 2017 after Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, had stepped down from that position in May as part of a power-sharing deal between their two parties. Deuba is the tenth prime minister since the end of the civil war in 2006. National elections took place in late 2017, and a new government will be formed based on those results in January 2018.

The current president, Bidhya Devi Bhandari, was elected in 2015.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4 (+1)

Local elections  the first since 1997  were held in several stages in 2017, and national and provincial elections were held in November and December. The polls were generally well conducted and saw healthy turnout, and their results were accepted by the participating parties. However, the Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal (RJP-N), an umbrella group representing ethnic Madhesis, boycotted several rounds of local polls due to grievances related to provisions in the 2015 constitution.

While more peaceful than the 2013 election period, there were occasional incidents of election-related violence in 2017. Police killed three people during a Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML) campaign rally in March. There was sporadic violence in the lead-up to the national elections held late in the year, in which one temporary police officer was killed. There was a significant uptick in violent incidents before elections held in the south in December; those clashes were related to interparty tensions and separatist opposition.

Score Change: The score improved from 3 to 4 because the provincial and national elections took place in a climate of relative peace and their results were accepted by stakeholders, and because local elections were held for the first time since 1997.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

Nepal's parliament has yet to address the grievances that many have with the 2015 constitution, which are related to province demarcation, proportional representation based on population, and provisions in the citizenship law. In an attempt to placate the RJP-N, which had boycotted the early rounds of the 2017 local elections, parliament introduced a constitutional amendment bill intended to allay some of their concerns, but it failed to secure a two-thirds majority needed to pass.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 10 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 3 / 4

Political parties are generally free to form and operate, though the risk of political violence represents an effective restriction on free political participation. Numerous political figures and party supporters were arrested in 2017 in connection with late-year unrest. Separately, in February, the leader of the separatist Alliance for Independent Madhesh (AIM) was arrested on sedition charges after he addressed a mass demonstration, prompting an outcry among his Madhesi supporters.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 3 / 4

The three main opposition parties  the Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, and Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M)  are relatively competitive, but smaller opposition parties have difficulty gaining representation.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 2 / 4

People's ability to freely exercise their political choices is limited by sporadic outbursts of political violence, as well as by heavy-handed security agents who at times have cracked down on political demonstrations. There were reports of vote-buying during the 2017 campaign period.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 2 / 4

While the constitution has requirements for the participation of women and minorities in the legislature, discrimination against them makes meaningful political participation difficult. A limited definition of citizenship has resulted in the disenfranchisement of stateless people. Few women hold senior positions in politics. Bhandari is Nepal's first female president.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 5 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 3 / 4

Nepal ratified its first democratic constitution in 2015, establishing a bicameral parliament with the prime minister as chief executive, and organizing the state into seven new provinces. Successful legislative elections were held in 2017, with new lawmakers expected to be seated in 2018. However, despite democratic improvements and political stabilization in recent years, representative rule has yet to be consolidated.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 1 / 4

Corruption is endemic in Nepali politics and government and often goes unpunished. Corruption by officials continued to obstruct the delivery of foreign aid that poured into the country after a devastating 2015 earthquake.

The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority initiated its largest case to date in July 2017, when it filed charges against three members of the Tax Settlement Commission for alleged embezzlement and improper granting of tax exemptions to large businesses.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 1 / 4

The government generally operates with opacity. The Election Commission, as well as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP) are among bodies that have been criticized for a lack of transparency. Mechanisms for utilizing the 2007 Right to Information Act are poorly defined, and the law is inconsistently enforced.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 30 / 60 (+2)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 10 / 16 (+1)

D1. Are there free and independent media? 3 / 4 (+1)

The 2015 constitution provides for freedom of expression and prohibits prior restraints on press freedom, though these rules can be suspended in cases of a national emergency. The constitution also states that the prohibition against prior restraint does not forbid restraints placed on the press in the interest of national security.

Arrests and assaults of journalists continued in 2017, particularly during periods close to elections. Nevertheless, pressure on the media eased has eased somewhat in recent years, and substantial investigative pieces on topics including government corruption are becoming more common.

Score Change: The score improved from 2 to 3 because pressure on media has eased, and investigative journalism is becoming more common.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 2 / 4

Like the interim constitution before it, the 2015 constitution identifies Nepal as a secular state, signaling a break with the Hindu monarchy that was toppled as part of the resolution of the civil war in 2006 (it was formally abolished in 2008). Religious freedom is protected under the new constitution, and tolerance is broadly practiced, but members of some religious minorities occasionally report official harassment. Christian groups face considerable difficulty registering as religious organizations, leaving them unable to own land. Proselytizing is prohibited.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 2 / 4

The government does not restrict academic freedom, and much scholarly activity takes place freely, including on political topics. However, Maoist strikes have repeatedly threatened the school system. Minorities, including Hindi- and Urdu-speaking Madhesi groups, have complained that Nepali is enforced as the language of education in government schools.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 3 / 4

The freedom to engage in private discussions on sensitive topics has expanded alongside Nepal's political stabilization. However, the heavy presence of the army in Madhesi regions during the 2017 campaign and election period prompted some anxieties among residents of those areas.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 6 / 12 (+1)

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 2 / 4 (+1)

While security force crackdowns on public assemblies led to three deaths in March, in general, public assembly was better tolerated in 2017  particularly in the context of elections  than it has been in previous years. However, crackdowns do still take place, disproportionately so in the southern regions, where there is a large Madhesi population.

Score Change: The score improved from 1 to 2 because authorities better tolerated peaceful public assemblies during the 2017 election period.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 2 / 4

Although the new constitution allows nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to form and operate within the country, legal restrictions have made this difficult in practice. The District Administration Office (DAO), which is in charge of registering NGOs and associations, is often understaffed and lacks essential resources. Foreign NGOs must enter project-specific agreements with the Nepalese government.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 2 / 4

The 2015 constitution provides for the right to form trade unions. Labor laws protect the freedom to bargain collectively, and unions generally operate without state interference. Workers in a broad range of "essential" industries cannot stage strikes. Several unions linked to the Maoists have been accused of using violence to threaten employers and government officials to comply with union demands during bargaining processes.

F. RULE OF LAW: 6 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 2 / 4

The 2015 constitution provides for an independent judiciary. However, most courts suffer from endemic corruption, and in practice many Nepalese have only limited access to justice.

The state has generally ignored local court verdicts, Nepalese Supreme Court decisions, and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) recommendations addressing crimes committed during the 1996-2006 civil war.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 1 / 4

Constitutional guarantees of due process are poorly upheld in practice. Reports of arbitrary arrests continue. Due to heavy case backlogs and a slow appeals process, suspects are frequently kept in pretrial detention for periods longer than the sentences they would face if tried and convicted. The government provides legal counsel to those who cannot afford their own, but only at a defendant's request. Therefore, those unaware of their right to a public defender often end up representing themselves.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 2 / 4

Rights advocates continue to criticize Nepal for failing to punish abuses and war crimes committed during the civil war, which lasted from 1996 to 2006. Moreover, there has been no institutional reform of the security forces, which stand accused of carrying out torture, murder, and forced disappearances during the conflict. Some alleged perpetrators of wartime abuses serve in government.

Due to a lack of will on the part of the security forces and political parties, neither the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) nor the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP), two key transitional justice bodies, have implemented reforms demanded by the United Nations and two Nepali Supreme Court rulings. The mandates of both bodies were extended by one year in February 2017; the government extended the mandates without requiring implementation of the reforms, which are meant to address deficiencies that permit impunity.

Separately, the state has yet to address allegations of violent repression of the 2015-16 Terai protests.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 1 / 4

The 2015 constitution enshrines rights for sexual minorities. The first passport on which the holder was permitted to select a third gender was issued in 2015. However, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people reportedly face harassment by the authorities and other citizens, particularly in rural areas.

Although the new constitution outlines implementation of major international human rights provisions, and includes civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, the language of the constitution frames these rights for Nepali citizens only. This potentially leaves equal rights of noncitizens, including migrants and people who cannot prove citizenship, unprotected.

Tibetans in Nepal face difficulty achieving formal refugee status due to Chinese pressure on the Nepalese government.

Women rarely receive the same educational and employment opportunities as men.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 8 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 3 / 4

Citizens are generally enjoy freedom to travel throughout Nepal. There are legal limits on the rights of refugees to move freely, but restrictions are inconsistently enforced. Citizens generally enjoy choice of residence, though bribery is common in the housing market, as well as to gain admittance to universities.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

Although citizens have the right to own private businesses, starting a business in Nepal often requires bribes to a wide range of local and national-level officials. Licensing and other red tape can be extremely onerous. Women face widespread discrimination when starting businesses, and customs and border police are notoriously corrupt in dealing with cross-border trade.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Gender-based violence against women remains a major problem. The 2009 Domestic Violence Act provides for monetary compensation and psychological treatment for victims, but authorities generally do not prosecute domestic violence cases. Underage marriage of girls is widespread.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 1 / 4

Trafficking of children and women from Nepal for prostitution in India is common, and police rarely intervene. Bonded labor is illegal but remains a serious problem throughout Nepal. Child labor also remains a problem, and children can be found working in the brickmaking, service, and other industries, as well as engaged in forced begging and sex work.

The 2015 earthquake left millions of people homeless. Many of those affected lack opportunities for social mobility, as they struggle to recover from the disaster.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Nauru

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Nauru, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc61a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 81 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 2.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 10,000

Capital: Yaren District

GDP/capita: $8,053

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

People in Nauru generally enjoy political rights and civil liberties, though the government has taken steps to sideline its political opponents, and corruption is a serious problem. The Australian processing center for asylum seekers in Nauru has attracted international criticism over persistent reports of abuses committed against and poor treatment of those housed there.

Key Developments in 2017:

Reports continued of abuses against residents of the Australian processing center for asylum seekers, as well as of harsh living conditions and inadequate health care.

A criminal case against several lawmakers and their supporters, filed in connection with their participation in a 2015 antigovernment protest, continued.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 35 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

Nauru is a parliamentary republic and parliament chooses the president and vice president from among its members.

The 2016 parliamentary elections, which were considered generally free, led to the reelection of President Baron Waqa and his government. Waqa moved to consolidate his control after the election by appointing seven new assistant ministers, after obtaining legislative approval of the 2016 Assistant Ministers Bill.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The 19-member unicameral Parliament is popularly elected from eight constituencies for three-year terms. A Commonwealth election monitoring mission found the 2016 elections generally well conducted. The polls resulted in the reelection of all but one of the members of Parliament (MPs) who served in President Waqa's government, and the defeat of four suspended opposition legislators, permitting the Waqa-led government to return with an increased majority. The opposition voiced some complaints that they did not receive equal airtime prior to the elections.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

The electoral laws are generally fair and implemented impartially. The Nauru Electoral Commission is responsible for managing the entire election process. The constitution provides for universal suffrage, and voting is compulsory.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 15 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

Although political parties are permitted, most candidates run as independents.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 3 / 4

Intense political rivalries created political instability prior to 2013. However, President Waqa's government served a full term from 2013-16, and was reelected in 2016. Opposition members claimed that some measures implemented by Waqa's first administration, such as higher candidate fees and a requirement that public employees running for office must resign three months prior to an election, were made to discourage opposition candidates from running in the 2016 polls.

Five opposition MPs were suspended without pay in 2014 for what was deemed unruly behavior, and for making remarks to foreign media that were critical of the government. Four ran for reelection in the 2016 polls, though only one secured reelection. The fifth chose not to compete.

Criminal cases remain open against three of the now-former lawmakers, in connection with their participation in a 2015 antigovernment protest. The MPs are among the at least 16 antigovernment protesters whose case will be heard by a foreign judge on the grounds that it was too "complex" for a local judge.

Another opposition lawmaker saw his passport revoked in connection with his participation in the protest, but in mid-2016 he was issued a New Zealand passport and evaded authorities to board a flight bound for New Zealand.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

People's political choices are generally free from domination by powerful interests that are not democratically accountable.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 4 / 4

Women are underrepresented in Parliament, and in political life generally. Few women ran in the 2016 elections.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 8 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 3 / 4

The freely elected Parliament, led by the prime minister, sets and makes policy. However, Australia has had considerable influence over politics, because its Nauru-based processing center for asylum seekers is critical to the Nauruan economy. According to a 2016 Amnesty International report, Australia pays Nauru over $26 million per year to house the facility, and a monthly fee of approximately $760 for each asylum seeker and $2,300 for each refugee. Also in 2016, the news agency Reuters reported that Australian government officials were advising the Nauru government on how to deal with disturbances by asylum seekers, opposition protests, and corruption allegations.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 3 / 4

Corruption remains a problem. Allegations of improper payments to senior government officials, including Waqa, by an Australian phosphate company emerged in 2016. Also in 2016, Australia's Westpac Bank announced it would no longer handle accounts for the Nauruan government, with media reports suggesting that the decision came in response to concerns about suspected financial mismanagement by the government, including money laundering and tax evasion.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

Nauru lacks a law on access to public information, but the Government Information Office releases some budget information. Government officials are not required to disclose financial information.

In July 2017, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) upgraded Nauru's tax transparency rating, giving it a "largely compliant" rating. Earlier, in May, the government completed an audit of the 2013-14 government accounts. The audit capped a 15-year audit gap that officials blamed on an absence of qualified staff.

The government has made attempts to prevent journalists and other observers from reporting on operations and conditions at the processing center for asylum seekers.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 46 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 13 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 2 / 4

Freedom of expression is constitutionally guaranteed, but this right is not always respected in practice. Foreign journalists have a particularly difficult time operating in Nauru, as the government has implemented restrictions that appear largely aimed at deterring outside coverage of the Australian processing center for asylum seekers. Since 2014, foreign journalists have been subject to a visa application fee of approximately $6,000, up from approximately $150 previously.

There were also reports of foreign journalists being denied visas to cover the 2016 elections. And after the 2016 polls, Justice Minister David Adeang attacked the foreign press, claiming that that the Australian and New Zealand media were misleading the public and not accurately reporting progress that Nauru has made towards strengthening democracy.

Separately, the 2016 Crimes Act introduced criminal charges for defamation, now punishable with up to three years in prison.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

The constitution provides for freedom of religion, which the government generally respects in practice.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Academic freedom is generally respected.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 3 / 4

Asylum seekers are closely monitored.

Authorities are not known to illegally monitor private online communications. However, authorities continued to require that internet service providers block access to Facebook and several other websites. Officials justified the policy by citing a need to protect users from obscene and pornographic content, but the policy more likely represents another example of the government attempting to restrict coverage of the Australian processing center for asylum seekers.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 9 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 3 / 4

The constitution upholds the right to assemble peacefully, but this right has not always been respected in practice. Demonstrations related to the treatment of asylum seekers housed at the Australian processing center are often repressed. In August 2017, rights advocates reported violent arrests at peaceful demonstrators at one of the facilities. In 2016, an Iranian asylum seeker was arrested by police on charges of "threatening behavior" for his daily antigovernment protests at a Nauru family compound. And in 2015, nearly 200 refugees, including children, were arrested during a peaceful protest.

At least 16 antigovernment protestors were arrested in 2015 for protesting the suspension of MPs for making critical comments of the Nauruan government. A number of them still faced criminal proceedings in 2017.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 3 / 4

There are no legal restrictions on the formation of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Nauru. There are several advocacy groups for women, as well as development-focused and religious organizations. However, authorities have interfered with the operations of activists seeking to improve the treatment of asylum seekers.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

There are no formal trade unions and only limited labor protection laws, partly because there is little large-scale, private employment. The right to strike and collectively bargain are not protected by law.

F. RULE OF LAW: 10 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 2 / 4

The Supreme Court is the highest authority on constitutional issues in Nauru, but appeals in civil and criminal cases are heard in the high court of Australia. Nauru's judiciary is generally independent, but there have been concerns about undue influence by the government, which has been accused of dismissing judges for rulings officials found unfavorable. There have been concerns that government officials have pressured the judiciary in connection with the 2015 antigovernment protest case.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 3 / 4

The constitution provides for due process rights and those rights are generally respected. However, in June 2017, the government passed a law that distinguishes between public servants who testify in favor of the government or against it. Analysts said it appeared that those who miss work to testify against the government would be placed on leave without pay, and that the law appeared to represent an attempt to discourage civil servants from testifying in favor of defendants on trial in connection with the 2015 protest.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 3 / 4

Civilian authorities control the small police force. Nauru has no armed forces; Australia provides defense assistance under an informal agreement.

The Australian processing center for asylum seekers has received considerable international criticism for poor treatment of asylum seekers housed there. Few arrests have been made in connection with alleged abuses of its residents.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

The constitution provides for equal treatment regardless of race, country of origin, ethnicity, politics, or gender, but those rights are not always protected in practice. There are few legal protections against discrimination, which is notably a problem for women in the workplace.

Reports of widespread abuse of asylum seekers forcibly transferred to the Australian processing center in Nauru continued in 2017. The asylum seekers suffer from grossly inadequate housing; denial of health care for life-threatening conditions; and a high rate of self-harm attempts among residents who wait, at times for years, for their asylum applications to be processed.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 14 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

People in Nauru are free to move around the island, and no restriction hampers people's ability to choose their place of residence, employment, or education. Asylum seekers were granted freedom of movement across the island in 2015.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 4 / 4

The constitution protects the right to own property and people in Nauru are able to freely establish businesses. However, as of 2014, foreigners must pay approximately $4,500 a year for a business visa, up from $300.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

Domestic violence, which mostly affects women, remains a serious problem, and children are also vulnerable to violence. However, authorities have taken some efforts to address these problems, notably by approving the new protections within the 2017 Domestic Violence and Family Protection Bill, and the 2016 Child Protection and Welfare Act. Marital rape was also made a criminal offense in 2016. Same-sex marriage is not recognized by law. Abortion is only allowed when the mother's life is in danger, but not in cases of rape; the ban on abortion in cases of rape sparked controversy in 2016, with regard to the treatment of a pregnant asylum seeker who said she was raped at the Australian run processing center.

In 2016, the government decriminalized homosexuality, which had previously been punishable by up to 14 years of hard labor.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

With the exception of asylum seekers, individuals generally enjoy equal economic opportunities. However, economic opportunities are limited to sectors such as phosphate mining and the government.

There are no health and safety laws to protect workers outside the public sector and issues have been raised in regards to dust exposure for phosphate miners. According to the U.S. State Department, there have been no reports of human trafficking in Nauru in recent years.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Myanmar

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Myanmar, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc641.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 31 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 5.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 52,400,000

Capital: Nay Pyi Taw

GDP/capita: $1,139

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

OVERVIEW

Myanmar's democratic transition now appears uncertain under the leadership of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which came to power in relatively free elections in 2015, but has since failed to uphold fundamental human rights or bring security to areas affected by militant insurgencies and the army's offensives against them. In 2017, a military clearance operation in response to an armed insurgency forced more than 650,000 members of the country's Muslim Rohingya minority to flee to Bangladesh, in what the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing." The military retains significant influence over politics.

Key Developments in 2017:

Military forces launched security clearance operations against Rohingya communities in Rakhine State, which reportedly included torture, rape, indiscriminate killing, and the burning of villages, worsening already dire humanitarian conditions and causing an outflow of more than 650,000 Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh. NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi drew withering criticism from international observers for her reluctance to explicitly condemn violence by the military against the Rohingya.

In January, U Ko Ni, a prominent Muslim lawyer, democracy advocate, and advisor to the NLD, was assassinated at the Yangon airport, in what was interpreted as a warning to democracy and rights activists in the country.

Prosecutions for defamation under the 2013 Telecommunications Act continued under the NLD government. Though the parliament amended the law to reduce the maximum prison sentence for defamation to two years from three, lawmakers chose to retain the key restrictive elements.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 13 / 40 (-1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 5 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 2 / 4

The legislature elects the president, who is chief of state and head of government. Military members have the right to nominate one of the three presidential candidates, and the elected members of each chamber nominate the other two. The candidate with the largest number of votes in a combined parliamentary vote wins the presidency; the other two candidates become vice presidents. Htin Kyaw, the NLD candidate, won the presidency in the 2016 election.

NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi holds the powerful position of state counselor, a post akin to that of a prime minister. The NLD created the office and named Aung San Suu Kyi to it in 2016, through legislation designed to circumvent constitutional provisions that prevented her from running for president.

The commander in chief of the armed forces holds broad powers and is selected through opaque processes by the military-dominated National Defense and Security Council (NDSC).

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 2 / 4

Under the 2008 military-drafted constitution, the bicameral Assembly of the Union consists of the 440-seat lower House of Representatives and the 224-seat upper House of Nationalities. Representatives serve five-year terms. A quarter of the seats in both houses are reserved for the military and filled through appointment by the commander in chief of the armed forces.

International electoral observers concluded that the 2015 legislative polls were generally credible and that the outcome reflected the will of the people, despite a campaign period marked by anti-Muslim rhetoric, the exclusion of Muslim candidates, and the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims. The NLD won 135 of the 168 elected seats in the upper house, 255 of 330 elected seats in the lower house, and 496 of 659 seats across 14 state and regional legislatures. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) placed second with 12 seats in the upper house, 30 in the lower house, and 76 in the states and regions. (Myanmar's first-past-the-post system allowed the NLD to translate its popular vote margin into a much larger majority in terms of seats; it took 57 percent of the popular vote, compared with the USDP's 28 percent.) The remaining seats were captured by ethnic minority and other parties and independents.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 1 / 4

Numerous legal provisions unduly influence electoral results. A quarter of all legislative seats are unelected, and instead appointed by the military leadership. Rigid citizenship laws have resulted in the disenfranchisement of a significant portion of the population. Citizenship laws and excessive residency requirements prohibit many people from standing for office.

The Union Election Commission (UEC), which is responsible for election administration, operates opaquely, and regulations allow it to adjudicate complaints against itself. Election monitors have expressed concern about the potential for early voting procedures to facilitate fraudulent voting.

Constitutional provisions barred Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president due to the foreign nationality of her immediate family members, thus prompting the NLD to pass legislation establishing her role as "state counselor."

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 8 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 2 / 4

New political parties were generally allowed to register and compete in the 2015 elections, which featured fewer restrictions on party organization and voter mobilization than the 2010 vote. Only sporadic interference from government officials was reported. Ninety-one parties competed in the elections, and many of them, including the NLD, convened meetings and large rallies throughout the country.

However, some legal provisions can be invoked to restrict parties' operations. The constitution contains a requirement that political parties be loyal to the state, which has the potential for abuse. Laws allow for penalties, including deregistration, against political parties that accept support from foreign governments or religious bodies, or which are deemed to have abused religion for political purposes or disrespected the constitution.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 3 / 4

As evidenced by the NLD's overwhelming parliamentary victory in 2015, there is a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support and gain power through elections. However, the military still retains substantial influence over politics under a nondemocratic constitution.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 2 / 4

The results of the 2015 election and subsequent transition talks suggest a waning ability or determination by the military to influence electoral outcomes. Nevertheless, the military retains considerable power over political affairs, and many former military officers hold positions in the country's bureaucracy. The 2008 constitution allows the military to dissolve the civilian government and parliament and rule directly if the president declares a state of emergency. It has the right to administer its own affairs.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 1 / 4

Minority groups face restrictions on their political rights and electoral opportunities. In particular, citizenship, residency, and party registration laws disadvantage the mainly Muslim Rohingya, who were rendered stateless by a 1982 law. In 2015, under pressure from Buddhist nationalists, the president issued a decree revoking the temporary identification cards, or "white cards," that had allowed Rohingya to vote in previous elections. A Constitutional Tribunal ruling later in 2015 then found that voting by white-card holders was unconstitutional. Nearly all Rohingya were consequently left off the voter rolls for the 2015 elections. Additionally, a sitting Rohingya lawmaker from the USDP was barred from running in the polls.

Other Muslims with citizenship documents were able to vote, but of more than 6,000 candidates on the final list, only about 28 were Muslim. No Muslim sits in the current parliament.

While ethnic parties generally fared poorly in the 2015 legislative elections, the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) and the Arakan National Party (ANP) performed well in their respective states.

Women remain underrepresented in the government and civil service, due largely to social pressures that discourage their political participation. Notwithstanding the prominence of Aung San Suu Kyi, whose father led Myanmar's independence struggle, few women have achieved ministerial-level appointments.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 4 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 2 / 4

Though the NLD began in 2016 to lay out plans for policy changes among its various ministry portfolios, the military remains a dominant force in policymaking, particularly through its constitutional control over the Defense, Home Affairs, and Border Affairs Ministries. The military effectively controls at least six seats on the powerful 11-member NDSC. Over one-fifth of the total budget is devoted to the military.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 1 / 4

Corruption is rampant at both the national and local levels and recent government initiatives aimed at curbing it have generally not produced meaningful results. For example, an Anti-Corruption Commission established in 2014 has only penalized a handful of people.

Privatization of state-owned companies and other economic reforms in recent years have allegedly benefited family members and associates of senior officials. The government has ignored tax evasion by the country's wealthiest companies and individuals.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 1 / 4

The government does not operate with openness and transparency. A draft Right to Information Law developed in 2016 remains stalled in the parliament. Some information about the budget has been released in recent years, and saw limited parliamentary scrutiny.

ADDITIONAL DISCRETIONARY POLITICAL RIGHTS QUESTION

ADD Q: Is the government or occupying power deliberately changing the ethnic composition of a country or territory so as to destroy a culture or tip the political balance in favor of another group? -4 / 0 (-1)

The government has long used violence, displacement, and other tactics to alter the demographics of states with ethnic unrest or insurgencies. The Rohingya in Rakhine State have faced particularly harsh restrictions for decades, including limits on family size and the ability and right to marry, the denial of legal status and social services, and disenfranchisement and loss of citizenship. Human rights experts and the United Nations have labeled the abuses against the Rohingya as crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, while some analysts have argued that they constitute either genocide or a precursor to genocide.

Repression of the Rohingya escalated in August 2017, after armed men from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), formerly known as Harakah al-Yaqin, attacked multiple police posts with rudimentary weapons. Burmese military forces launched a severe counteroperation on Rohingya communities across the northern part of the state, leading to reports of torture, rape, indiscriminate killings, and the burning of villages, worsening already-dire humanitarian conditions, and causing an outflow of more than 650,000 Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh. In September, the head of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights deemed the situation "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing." NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi has drawn withering criticism from international observers for her reluctance to explicitly condemn violence against the Rohingya.

Score Change: The score declined from -3 to -4 because of renewed violence against Rohingya communities in Rakhine state, which resulted in the forced displacement of over 650,000 people to Bangladesh amid reports of torture, rape, and indiscriminate killing by military forces.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 18 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 6 / 16 (-1)

D1. Are there free and independent media? 2 / 4

Media freedoms have improved since the official end of government censorship and prepublication approval in 2012. However, existing laws allow authorities to deny licenses to outlets whose reporting is considered insulting to religion or a national security danger, and the threat of prosecution under criminal defamation laws encourages self-censorship. Journalists and social media users continued to face defamation cases in 2017. Surveillance of journalists by the military-controlled Home Affairs Ministry remains a common practice.

Reporters covering sensitive topics risk harassment, physical violence, and imprisonment. In June 2017, three journalists covering an antidrug rally conducted by an ethnic armed organization were arrested and imprisoned on junta-era charges of unlawful association, despite a provision in the 2014 News Media Law that exempts journalists from detention while covering conflicts. Two Reuters journalists were imprisoned and charged in December under the State Secrets Act while covering the conflict in Rakhine State.

Previous constraints on internet access have largely unraveled, and the proliferation of smartphones has rapidly increased usage. However, internet activity is still subject to criminal punishment under several broadly worded legal provisions, particularly those in the Electronic Transactions Law.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 1 / 4

The constitution provides for freedom of religion. It distinguishes Buddhism as the majority religion, but also recognizes Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and animism. The government occasionally interferes with religious assemblies and attempts to control the Buddhist clergy. Authorities have also discriminated against minority religious groups, refusing to grant them permission to hold gatherings and restricting educational activities, proselytizing, and construction of houses of worship.

Anti-Muslim hate speech and discrimination has been amplified by social media, and some state institutions and mainstream news websites. Ma Ba Tha, or the Committee for the Protection of Nationality and Religion, agitates for the protection of Buddhist privileges, urges boycotts against Muslim-run businesses, and disseminates anti-Muslim propaganda. Reports have shown systematic discrimination against Muslims in obtaining identity cards, as well as the spread of "Muslim-free" villages with the complicity of officials.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 1 / 4

Political activity on university campuses is generally restricted. Student unions are discouraged, have no formal registration mechanisms, and are viewed with suspicion by authorities.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 2 / 4 (-1)

Free private discussion is constrained by state surveillance and laws that inhibit online speech. Numerous defamation cases involving online commentary have been filed under Article 66(d) of the 2013 Telecommunications Law, which includes broadly worded bans on online activity deemed to be threatening or defamatory. The rights organization Free Expression Myanmar found 106 cases of complaints made under Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Act between November 2015 and November 2017, most of which were filed under the NLD government. The law was amended in August 2017 to reduce the maximum penalty for violations to two years, from three previously.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 due to continued arrests under Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law, and the parliament's move to preserve its repressive nature during an amendment process.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 6 / 12 (+1)

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 2 / 4

Under the 2014 revised Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law, unauthorized demonstrations are punishable with up to six months in prison; a variety of other vaguely worded violations can draw lesser penalties. An antigovernment protest by farmers in April 2017 was permitted, while in February a medical student was arrested for protesting against violence in Rakhine State.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 2 / 4

The 2014 Association Registration Law features simple, voluntary registration procedures for local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and no restrictions or criminal punishments for noncompliance. Although the law was seen a positive development, in 2015 the Home Affairs Ministry issued implementing regulations that required NGOs to obtain government approval prior to registration, drawing sharp criticism from civil society leaders.

Surveillance of activists by the military-controlled Home Affairs Ministry continued in 2017.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 2 / 4 (+1)

Independent trade unions were banned until 2011, and while union organizers continue to face retaliation for their work, union activity has nevertheless taken root in Myanmar. In recent years, factory workers have held strikes in Yangon with fewer repercussions and arrests than in the past. And in late 2017, in response to activism by workers, a government committee approved a 33 percent increase in the national daily minimum wage to approximately $3.56, which was expected to take effect in 2018.

Score Change: The score improved from 1 to 2 because labor activity has increased gradually over recent years, and labor activists have faced fewer arrests and other repercussions.

F. RULE OF LAW: 1 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 0 / 4

The judiciary is not independent. Judges are appointed or approved by the government and adjudicate cases according to its decrees.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 1 / 4

Administrative detention laws allow individuals to be held without charge, trial, or access to legal counsel for up to five years if deemed a threat to state security or sovereignty. A 2017 assessment by the British-based NGO Justice Base, which promotes the rule of law, found that the country performed poorly in nearly every measure of international fair trial standards. According to a report by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), at the end of November, 228 individuals were being repressed due to political activities, of whom 46 were currently serving sentences, 49 were in pretrial detention, and 133 were awaiting trial outside of prison.

In 2016, the parliament repealed the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act, which the previous military government had invoked frequently to silence and imprison dissidents.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 0 / 4

In January, U Ko Ni, a prominent Muslim lawyer, democracy advocate, and advisor to the NLD, was assassinated at the Yangon airport, in what was interpreted as a warning to democracy and rights activists in the country. He had reportedly received death threats from nationalists prior to his murder. While several people were arrested in connection with his killing, at year's end no one had been convicted of it.

The NLD government's push for the creation of a more comprehensive peace mechanism continued to be hampered by military offensives against various ethnic rebel groups, particularly in Shan and Kachin States, attacks by such groups against security forces, and continued divisions among signatories and non-signatories to a 2015 national cease-fire agreement. Reports of indiscriminate shelling, extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and other abuses by the military continued, as militant groups engaged in forced disappearances and forced recruitment. Areas in the north remain riddled with land mines planted by both militants and the army. Authorities at times prevented aid groups from reaching populations affected by violence.

Prison conditions are frequently life-threatening.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 0 / 4

Some of the country's worst human rights abuses, commonly committed by government troops, are against ethnic and religious minorities. The government's failure to protect victims, conduct investigations, and punish perpetrators is well documented.

In August 2017, military forces launched a supposed antiterrorist clearance operation against Rohingya communities in northern Rakhine State, which reportedly included torture, rape, indiscriminate killing, and the burning of villages, worsening already dire humanitarian conditions and causing an outflow of more than 650,000 Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh. The NLD government in June refused entry to a UN-mandated fact-finding mission commissioned in the wake of similar attacks and refugee displacement that took place in 2016.

The anti-Muslim Ma Ba Tha and the similar 969 movement have been accused of stoking outbreaks of violence with inflammatory sermons, leaflets, and other materials, and local government officials have actively sought out administrative loopholes to destroy Muslim schools and houses of worship.

A number of laws create a hostile environment for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people. Same-sex sexual conduct is criminalized under the penal code, and police subject LGBT people to harassment, extortion, and physical and sexual abuse.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 5 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4

Freedom of internal travel is generally respected outside of conflict zones. Numerous exiled activists who returned to the country have experienced substantial delays and evasion from government authorities when attempting to renew visas and residency permits. Illegal toll collection by state and nonstate actors has been a problem in some areas. The parliament voted in 2016 to repeal a long-standing rule requiring overnight houseguests to be registered with local authorities. Guests staying for more than a month must still be registered.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 1 / 4

Contentious disputes over land grabbing and business projects that violate human rights continued in 2017. Instances of forced eviction and displacement, lack of sufficient compensation, and direct violence by state security officials abound. The NLD government's Central Committee on Confiscated Farmlands and Other Lands, formed in 2016 has been accused of releasing data that omits land grabs initiated by the military, other government bodies, and corporations.

In December 2017, President Htin Kyaw approved a law that would simplify processes for establishing private businesses, though it had not been implemented by year's end.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 1 / 4

Laws protecting women from violence and exploitation are inadequate, and violence against women is a persistent problem. The army has a record of using rape as a weapon of war against ethnic minority women, and security personnel typically enjoy impunity for sexual violence.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 1 / 4

While the government has made increased efforts to identify and prosecute human trafficking, it remains a serious problem. Child labor is widespread. Various commercial and other interests continue to use forced labor despite a formal ban on the practice since 2000. Trafficking victims include women and girls subjected to forced sex work and domestic servitude.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Montenegro

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Montenegro, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc65a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 67 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 3.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 600,000

Capital: Podgorica

GDP/capita: $6,514

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

While numerous political parties compete for power in Montenegro, the opposition is fragmented, and the governing Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) has been in power since 1991. Corruption is a serious issue. Investigative journalists and journalists critical of the government face pressure.

Key Developments in 2017:

The opposition continued to boycott the parliament over claims that the 2016 elections were fraudulent, though late in the year they indicated that they may return.

In June, Montenegro officially joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), fulfilling a longstanding goal of the government.

A trial against opposition members and others on charges of plotting an attempted coup began in September.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 25 / 40 (-1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 8 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

The president is chief of state and is directly elected for up to two five-year terms. In 2013, President Filip Vujanovic was reelected with 51 percent of the vote. Miodrag Lekic of the main opposition Democratic Front (DF) followed with 49 percent. Opposition supporters protested the results, alleging fraud, and boycotted the parliament for two months; the boycott ended after parties agreed to investigate allegations of the ruling party's misuse of public funds  a complaint common in Montenegrin elections and one which has prompted public mistrust in electoral processes. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which monitored the election, said the poll had been competitive and that "fundamental freedoms of expression, movement, and association were mostly respected" during the campaign.

The president nominates the prime minister, who requires legislative approval. The parliament confirmed Dusko Markovic of the DPS as the new prime minister in November 2016, following legislative elections. Markovic was considered an ally of Milo ukanovic, who has served as either prime minister or president for most of the last two decades, and who as DPS chairman is expected to retain influence in the government even after vacating the prime minister's post in 2016.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 2 / 4

Members of the unicameral, 81-seat Parliament  the Skupstina  are directly elected for four-year terms.

ukanovic's DPS posted the strongest performance in the 2016 polls, taking 36 seats  5 seats short of a governing majority  and eventually forming a government with smaller parties. The main opposition DF took 18 seats. Alleging electoral fraud, the opposition rejected the polls' results, and initiated a boycott of the parliament that lasted through the end of 2017, though at year's end opposition members were indicating that they planned to return to the legislature.

While OSCE election monitors assessed the 2016 polls as credible, numerous violations were reported, and the European Union (EU) days after the election called for fraud claims to be investigated. The Montenegro-based NGO MANS accused the Montenegrin government of trading tax or debt relief for votes, estimating that the DPS could have effectively bought as many as six legislative seats through such efforts. The government also suspended some mobile messaging applications election day, citing "illegal marketing" taking place on the platforms.

Additionally, on the day of the elections, the Montenegrin government arrested 20 people on charges of plotting a coup that allegedly involved plans to assassinate ukanovic. ukanovic accused the DF of plotting the alleged coup, but offered no evidence for his claims; the DF in turn accused ukanovic of manufacturing the events as a means of securing support for the DPS in the elections, and decreasing turnout. A number of people, including members of the opposition, have been charged in connection with the alleged coup.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

The conduct of elections in Montenegro is facilitated by a comprehensive legal and administrative framework. However, the OSCE following the 2016 elections called on authorities to implement a number of reforms that could boost low stakeholder confidence in electoral processes, among them harmonizing electoral legislation and permitting media access to meetings of the State Election Commission.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 10 / 16 (-1)

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 2 / 4 (-1)

Political parties are for the most part able to form and operate without direct interference. The new Democratic Montenegro (DCG) party gained 8 seats in the 2016 elections, and according to polls its support is increasing. This party has worked to create strategic partnerships with government opponents in civil society, media, and the intelligentsia.

However, the DPS-led government has relentlessly worked to delegitimize political activity that deviates from its preferred policies, characterizing it as a threat to the state or public order.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 due to the government's efforts to delegitimize political activities that challenge its policies as threats to the state or to public order.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 2 / 4

While numerous political parties compete for power, the opposition is fragmented and weak, and frequently boycotts political processes. The DPS has been in power since 1991.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 3 / 4

While voters are generally free to express their political choices, extensive patronage systems encourage loyalty to the ruling party. Both public-sector employers, and private-sector employers with links to the state, pressure employees to vote for the ruling coalition. Marginalized populations, such as the Roma, are have been mobilized by DPS through vote-buying schemes.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

All citizens have full political rights and electoral opportunities. Small political parties representing minority interests participate in the political sphere, and minorities are represented in larger parties, though the Roma minority is underrepresented. In the 2016 elections, voter materials were provided in the Albanian language, but not Romani.

Women are underrepresented in political leadership positions and politics generally. The government has taken some efforts to increase women's participation, including through gender quotas on electoral lists, though implementation is uneven.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 7 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 3 / 4

Elected officials can generally determine the policies of the government, though politics in 2017 were characterized in large part by an opposition boycott of the parliament. Milo ukanovic, who has served as either prime minister or president for most of the last two decades, left the post of prime minister following the DPS victory in 2016 elections, but is head of the DPS and remains highly influential.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Corruption and cronyism remain widespread, though there have been modest efforts by authorities to address them, prompted in part by EU accession requirements. A new anticorruption agency began its work in 2016, but has been criticized for lacking independence and for failing to do enough to expose systemic corruption. Senior officials implicated in corruption schemes rarely face prosecution. Civil society and independent media provide some accountability by reporting on official corruption and its effects.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

The government publishes some information online, but citizens have few opportunities for meaningful participation in public consultations on legislation. Budget plans are not widely available, nor is information on government contracts.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 42 / 60 (-1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 11 / 16 (-1)

D1. Are there free and independent media? 2 / 4

A variety of independent media operate in Montenegro, and media coverage tends to be partisan and combative. The government frequently denies opposition media outlets advertising contracts from publicly owned or controlled entities. Journalists self-censor in order to avoid threats, political pressure, costly defamation suits, or job loss.

In a positive development, investigative journalist Tufik Softic was awarded 7,000 ($8,600) in November 2017 for harm caused by the authorities' failure to effectively investigate two attacks he sustained in connection with work focusing on the activity of criminal groups.

Investigative journalist Jovo Martinovic, who was initially detained in 2015 on allegations that he was a member of the criminal group he was investigating, was released in February. However, the case against him remains open.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of religious belief. However, the canonically recognized Serbian Orthodox Church and a self-proclaimed Montenegrin Orthodox Church continue to clash over the ownership of church properties.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 3 / 4

Academic freedom is guaranteed by law and generally upheld. However, in October 2017, the rector of the University of Montenegro, who was appointed in 2014 and enacted a series of reforms, was removed by the new government. It was the first time the government had intervened in the operations of the university in such a manner, and the events prompted speculation that the move was a reflection of clashes between personalities in the DPS.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 3 / 4 (-1)

People are generally free to engage in public discussions. However, the existence of extensive, DPS-linked patronage networks has fostered an environment where vocal opposition to the government or its policies is widely believed to jeopardize employment opportunities, both in the public and private sector.

Score Change: The score declined from 4 to 3 due to fears that speaking out against the government or its policies may endanger professional standing or opportunities.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 9 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 3 / 4

While citizens generally enjoy freedom of assembly, authorities in the past have taken efforts to limit protests organized by the DF, and violence at demonstrations erupts occasionally. In 2015, antigovernment demonstrators in Podgorica clashed with police who tried to disperse them, with police on one occasion firing tear gas and stun grenades at protesters. The Special Anti-Terrorist Unit was implicated in misbehavior, and a suit was lodged against its commander in 2016 for failing to punish his offers for the improper use of force. He was sentenced to five months' imprisonment in January 2017.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 3 / 4

Citizens generally enjoy freedom of association. However, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that investigate corruption or criticize the government face pressure. In August, workers with an NGO focused on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) rights were attacked, with one person requiring hospitalization.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

There is freedom for trade unions, which remain relatively strong in the public sector. However, reports of intimidation of labor activists by employers continue.

F. RULE OF LAW: 10 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 2 / 4

Efforts to bolster judicial independence continue, though the judiciary remains susceptible to pressure from the government.

The trial of DF members and several others on charges of plotting a 2016 coup began in September 2017. The conduct and outcome of their cases will reflect the level of transparency, openness, and accountability in the judicial system.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

Constitutional guarantees of due process are inconsistently upheld. Legal proceedings are lengthy and often highly bureaucratic, particularly when involving business dealings. Police frequently hold suspects in extended pretrial detention while completing investigations. Courts are poorly funded and often overburdened.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 3 / 4

Violent crime is not a significant problem. However, prison conditions do not meet international standards for education or health care. Reports of the abuse of prisoners by prison guards continue, and a number of legal cases filed over such complaints remained unresolved in 2017.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

Roma, Ashkali, Egyptians, LGBT people, and other minority groups face discrimination. Women in Montenegro are legally entitled to equal pay for equal work, but patriarchal attitudes often limit their salary levels, as well as their educational opportunities.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 12 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 3 / 4

The freedom of movement and the right of citizens to choose their residence, employment, and institution of higher education, are generally respected in practice. However, many jobs are awarded through patronage, limiting access for those without connections.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 3 / 4

The state sector dominates much of Montenegro's economy, and related clientelism, as well as corruption, pose obstacles to normal business activity.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

Domestic violence remains a problem. Same-sex marriage is constitutionally banned.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

Most workers employed in the private sector remain unprotected from exploitation and arbitrary decisions of their employers.

Trafficking in persons for the purposes of prostitution and forced labor remains a problem, and the government has reduced efforts to prosecute traffickers and aid victims, according to the U.S. State Department's 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Moldova

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Moldova, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc67a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 61 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 3.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Explanatory Note:

The numerical ratings and status listed above do not reflect conditions in Transnistria, which is examined in a separate report.

Quick Facts

Population: 3,600,000

Capital: Chisinau

GDP/capita: $1,833

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Moldova has a competitive electoral environment. Rights of assembly, speech, and religion are largely protected. Nonetheless, the pervasive corruption in the government sector, links between major political parties and vested economic interests, and deficiencies in the rule of law continue to hamper democratic governance.

Key Developments in 2017:

The parliament passed a controversial electoral law in July, which opposition parties allege is designed to keep oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc and his Democratic Party in power.

In June, opposition politician Grigore Petrenco received a four-and-a-half-year suspended sentence for "organizing mass disturbances" in 2015, a charge that the opposition claimed was politically motivated.

The 2017 Moldovan LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trangender) march was stopped by police concerned about the potential for violent clashes with counterprotesters. President Igor Dodon, who attended the counterprotest, drew criticism for making inflammatory remarks about the LGBT community.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 26 / 40 (-1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 10 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

A prime minister nominated by the president exercises the most authority over governance. Moldova held its first direct presidential election in 2016, after shifting back from an indirect system. Now, the president is elected by direct popular vote to a four-year term. If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of votes in the first round, they are elected. If no candidate reaches the 50 percent threshold, the two candidates who received the most votes compete in a second round. In the 2016 election's second round, Socialist Party candidate Igor Dodon defeated Maia Sandu of the Action and Solidarity Party in a tight race. This followed a first round in which nine candidates competed. International observers concluded that the election was largely credible. However, state resources were occasionally misallocated and transparency in campaign funding was lacking.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

Voters elect the 101-seat unicameral parliament by proportional representation for four-year terms. Although observers praised the most recent parliamentary elections in 2014 as genuinely competitive and generally well administered, there were some significant deficiencies. The pro-Russian Patria Party was disqualified days before the vote on the grounds that it received campaign funds from abroad. The distribution of overseas polling places favored residents of European Union (EU) countries over those living in Russia. Nevertheless, the constitutional court approved the election results, rejecting challenges by opposition parties.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

The administration of elections is conducted professionally and impartially, despite a lack of resources.

In July 2017, the parliament changed electoral rules from the previous proportional system to a mixed system with both single-member constituencies and seats allocated proportionally. The new system will be in place for the next parliamentary elections in November 2018. Opposition parties claim that the head of the Democratic Party, Vladimir Plahotniuc, an oligarch who controls a media and business empire, is behind the law, and that the new electoral framework could allow his party to consolidate power despite its modest following. The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe strongly urged against the switch to single-member constituencies, saying they may allow local business interests to subvert the needs of constituents.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 11 / 16 (-1)

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 3 / 4 (-1)

There are no legal restrictions on party formation in Moldova. However, business elites dominate party politics, and this effectively discourages the formation and rise of new parties and hampers the competitiveness of existing ones. Members of parliament have charged that, in recent years, some of their colleagues have been coerced or bribed to transfer to Plahotniuc's Democratic Party.

Campaign finance laws favor parties over independent candidates. For the 2014 legislative elections, the limit on private donations to political parties doubled, but remained the same for independent candidates. The ability of the Central Election Commission (CEC) to monitor the financing of campaigns is limited.

Score Change: The score declined from 4 to 3 because the dominance of powerful parties backed by business elites hampers the competitiveness of new and smaller parties.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 3 / 4

Opposition parties have a reasonable chance of increasing their support through elections. In the 2014 parliamentary elections, 21 political parties participated and five gained seats. However, weak campaign finance laws allow business elites to pour funds into their parties, making it difficult for underfunded opposition parties to gain significant power.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 2 / 4

Economic oligarchies and business interests underpin political party structures in Moldova, harming political accountability. Weak campaign finance laws allow business interests undue influence on the electoral process.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

Women and minorities do not experience legal barriers to political participation, but some minority groups remain underrepresented in Moldovan politics. The Gagauz, a Turkic minority concentrated in the country's south, enjoy regional autonomy, but their leaders allege that their interests are not well represented at the national level.

Although the first two Roma women were elected to local councils in 2015, Roma women and women with disabilities have low levels of political participation, and social barriers prevent women from playing a more active role at all levels of Moldovan politics. Law No. 71, introduced in 2016, addresses the gender gap in politics by mandating that 40 percent of all party candidates and cabinet nominees must be women. Moldova is diverse  22 percent of its population are minorities, but they have little representation in government.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 5 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 3 / 4

Unelected business elites hold sway over the government and government policies. The chairperson of the Democratic Party, Vladimir Plahotniuc, has an outsized influence on policy making, even though he does not hold elected office and his party finished fourth in the 2014 elections. Despite his party's poor electoral performance, he was instrumental in forming the governing coalition and plays a strong role setting the agenda for the government.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 1 / 4

Corruption remains a widespread problem at all levels of government, and existing anticorruption laws are inadequately enforced. In a report published in 2017, the National Anticorruption Center recorded a 23 percent increase in corruption cases in 2016 compared to 2015, with the most cases in law enforcement and in the banking and financial sectors. An anticorruption sweep conducted in April 2017 targeted a number of politicians, particularly in local government. In August, former minister of transport and road infrastructure Iurie Chirinciuc, one of the officials caught up in the sweep, was sentenced to one year and four months in prison for corruption.

Moldova is still reeling from a 2014 scandal involving the Central Bank, in which $1 billion was stolen and former prime minister Vlad Filat was sentenced to nine years in prison.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 1 / 4

The government does not operate with transparency. Most political activity takes place behind the scenes in negotiations between and within political parties. A number of laws have been passed in recent years to increase transparency in decision-making processes and require public officials to disclose their assets, but they have not been effectively enforced due to lack of political will.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 35 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 12 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 2 / 4

The media environment is highly polarized. More than 80 percent of domestic television stations are owned by people affiliated with political parties, and some 70 percent of the market is controlled by Vladimir Plahotniuc. Reporters often experience political pressure from the government, such as denial of access to information and events, or public denunciations by government officials. This contributes to self-censorship and the suppression of critical news coverage.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

The constitution upholds religious freedom and establishes no religious authority in the state, though it provides special status to the Moldovan Orthodox Church. Religious minorities, particularly Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostals, Jews, and Baptists, experienced attacks against their communities in 2017, and report that the police often made little effort to bring the perpetrators to justice.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 3 / 4

Academic freedom is generally respected. However, the Gagauz community has complained of exclusion from the mainstream higher education system, as most Gagauz are more fluent in Russian than Romanian, the official language in Moldova.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

Individuals are generally able to engage in discussions of a sensitive or political nature without fear of retribution or surveillance.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 8 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 3 / 4

Freedom of assembly is guaranteed by the Moldovan constitution and mostly upheld in practice. Protests of the new electoral laws in 2017 did not result in any reported detentions, but some protesters were harassed by the police. Protest leader and opposition politician Grigore Petrenco was sentenced in June 2017 to a four-and-a-half-year suspended sentence for "organizing mass disturbances" in 2015, a charge that the opposition claimed was politically motivated. The 2017 Moldovan LGBT march was stopped by police because they claimed its continuation could lead to violent clashes with counterprotesters.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 3 / 4

The nongovernmental organization (NGO) sector is vibrant. In September 2017, the government withdrew proposed legislation that would have potentially hindered the activities of NGOs. However, NGO leaders have alleged that the government unfairly brands them as political partisans. Human rights lawyers and activists have endured media smear campaigns and targeted criminal investigations and prosecutions.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 2 / 4

Trade unions are permitted to operate in Moldova and the government has passed regulations protecting the rights of workers. However, collective bargaining is not allowed in some sectors and union membership is declining. The government often fails to enforce the right to collective bargaining when it is denied. Antiunion discrimination by employers is illegal, but workers have no effective legal recourse when they are fired for union activity.

F. RULE OF LAW: 6 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 1 / 4

Moldova's judicial branch is susceptible to political pressures that hamper its independence. Judges have been dismissed for their decisions; most prominently, appeals court judge Domnica Manole was dismissed in July 2017 after her decision requiring the Central Electoral Commission to hold a referendum on constitutional amendments. Manole faces criminal charges for her ruling on the referendum, though public hearings have not been held. The prosecution has been criticized by the European Union and civil society leaders for being politically motivated. Judicial appointment processes lack transparency.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 1 / 4

Due process is often lacking in the Moldovan justice system. Some prosecutions are politically motivated, especially those of human rights lawyers and opposition figures. Important cases, including the 2016 trial of former prime minister Vlad Filat, have been held behind closed doors, despite legislation mandating audio and video recordings. In 2017, the media and the public were denied access to court transcripts of several high profile trials, and lawyers claimed that their defendants were denied a fair, public trial as mandated by the constitution.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 2 / 4

Some prisoners and detainees have experienced maltreatment and torture. Prosecution for such offenses is rare, and very few of those convicted in torture cases receive prison sentences. Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions are prevalent throughout the prison system.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

The Roma population experiences discrimination in housing, education, and employment, and have been targets of police violence.

LGBT people are subject to harassment, and the president has drawn criticism from LGBT rights groups for saying "I have never promised to be the president of the gays" in May 2017. While discrimination based on sexual orientation is not explicitly banned by the main article of the 2012 Law on Ensuring Equality, it is understood to be covered under a reference to discrimination on "any other similar grounds." The law prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation, but not gender identity.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 9 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 3 / 4

The law protects freedom of internal movement and foreign travel, and the government generally respects these rights. There are no formal restrictions on the right to choose one's place of employment or education, but bribery is not uncommon in educational institutions.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

Although Moldovan law guarantees property rights, they are undermined by a weak and corrupt judiciary. In 2016, the government increased the fee for registering a new company, which made establishing a business more difficult.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Domestic violence and sexual assault are prevalent in Moldova. A joint report submitted by several Moldovan NGOs in 2016 found that more than 63 percent of women over the age of 15 have experienced at least one form of violence (physical, psychological, or sexual) in their lifetimes; the same report found over 20 percent of men admitted to having had sex with a woman without her consent. Moldovan law prohibits domestic violence, but the laws are inadequately enforced.

Among the Roma minority in Moldova, there have been reports of marriages of girls under the age of 17. Same-sex marriage or civil unions are not recognized under the law.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

Persistent poverty, extensive emigration, and a lack of job opportunities for trained and educated workers bedevil the Moldovan economy.

Human trafficking remains a problem, although Moldova has stepped up its efforts to prosecute traffickers. The number of trafficking cases sent to court increased from 33 in 2016 to 85 in 2017. While women and children have long been subject to trafficking, in recent years, the trafficking of males has increased.

Despite legal protections, child labor remained a pervasive problem in Moldova in 2017. The government estimates that 24 percent of children between the ages of five and fourteen are actively employed.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Mali

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Mali, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc69a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 44 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 4.5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 4 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 17,300,000

Capital: Bamako

GDP/capita: $750

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Mali experienced a political transition away from authoritarian rule beginning in the early 1990s, and gradually built up its democratic institutions for about 20 years. However, the country displayed characteristics of state fragility along the way that eventually contributed to a 2012 military coup, and a rebellion in northern Mali that erupted the same year. Though constitutional rule was restored and a peace agreement signed in the north in 2015, the events have left an enduring situation of insecurity.

Key Developments in 2017:

Peace talks between the government and armed groups that back it, the political opposition, and former rebel groups took place in the spring. The talks, which were mandated by the 2015 peace agreement, ended inconclusively, and some groups boycotted parts of the event.

Violence by armed Islamist groups not involved in the peace talks continued, as did rights abuses committed by government security forces fighting them.

Constitutional amendments giving the executive branch more power were approved by the parliament in June, but intense opposition and an accompanying protest movement prompted the president to indefinitely postpone a referendum on the changes.

The government temporarily interrupted internet service and shut down a number of radio stations in an apparent effort to discourage protests against the constitutional changes.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 17 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 6 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 2 / 4

The president, who appoints the prime minister, is elected by popular vote and may serve up to two five-year terms. In a two-round presidential election in 2013, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a former prime minister known by his initials, IBK, defeated Soumaila Cisse, a former finance minister. International election observers found the election to be relatively well conducted in the places where it was held, though a fragile security situation led to very low turnout in parts of the north. Despite the election's relative success, the political system remains fragile due to the security situation, and as the country continues to address the aftermath of the 2012 coup.

In April 2017, President Keita appointed Abdoulaye Idrissa Maiga as the new prime minister to replace Modibo Keita. However, in December, Maiga and his cabinet unexpectedly resigned. Days later, Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga, secretary general to the president, and a former defense minister, was appointed prime minister and formed a new government.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 2 / 4

Members of the 147-seat unicameral National Assembly serve five-year terms, with 13 seats reserved to represent Malians living abroad. IBK's Rally for Mali (RPM) party won 66 seats in legislative elections held in 2013, and its allies took an additional 49 seats. Cisse's Union for the Republic and Democracy (URD) won 17 seats, and the third-largest party, the Alliance for Democracy (ADEMA), won 16. Like the presidential elections, international election observers concluded the legislative elections to be credible despite insecurity that depressed turnout.

Long-delayed local elections were held in most of the country's communes at the end of 2016, despite the threat of attacks by armed Islamists. The elections were relatively well administered and considered credible, although there were issues with voter registration and reports of violence, kidnappings, and intimidation. Regional elections scheduled for December 2017 were postponed until 2018 because various armed groups objected to the timing.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 2 / 4

Electoral operations are divided among three administrative bodies in Mali  the Ministry of Territorial Administration, the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), and the General Office of Elections (DGE), ensuring a degree of mutual control. The Constitutional Court also participates in the electoral process by validating election results and resolving disputes. Electoral bodies have struggled to establish secure polling places in areas where armed groups operate. Voters have been disenfranchised in past elections due to delays in the distribution of electoral identity cards, and an outdated voter registry.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 7 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 2 / 4

The creation and the functioning of political parties are determined by a legal framework known as the Political Parties Charter, which is generally considered fair. This Charter prohibits the creation of political parties on an "ethnic, religious, linguistic, regionalist, sexist, or professional basis." There are more than 100 registered political parties in Mali, though fewer than 20 are active. Political parties are relatively weak, and are usually based around support for a particular personality, and policy differences between parties are not always clear. Parties are often poorly funded, which hampers their ability to effectively organize and win voter support.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 2 / 4

Electoral competition is open to opposition forces. A 2014 law institutionalized specific privileges for opposition parties in the parliament, such as the ability to choose an official leader of the opposition. However, in 2016 the ruling majority passed, over the objections of opposition parties, amendments to the electoral code that favored establishment and majority parties by requiring candidates to make a significant financial campaign deposit, and to receive support from national councilors.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 1 / 4

Political choices remain the privilege of the Malian people, though these choices are occasionally influenced by religious authorities, such as the High Islamic Council, as well as the promise of patronage appointments or other benefits in exchange for political support.

Insecurity in the country has restricted people's ability to freely make political choices, especially in northern and central Mali. During the 2016 local elections, 58 communes were not able to participate in the elections because of violence in the region, and some polling stations were also attacked. The December 2017 regional elections were postponed until 2018 because various armed groups objected to the timing.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 2 / 4

No law limits the political rights of minorities, and no single ethnic group dominates the government or security forces. Tuareg pastoralist groups in the north have historically occupied a marginal position in national political life, but members from these groups have positions in the cabinet, and hold at least 16 National Assembly seats.

Societal attitudes can discourage women from participating in political processes. Only about 14 percent of candidates in the 2013 legislative elections were women, and women occupy less than 10 percent of National Assembly seats.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 4 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 2 / 4

The president and national assembly members were freely elected in the 2013 national elections. The prime minister is generally able to set national policy, and the parliament to enact new laws. However, the executive branch has exhibited influence on the other branches of government. For instance, in 2016, President Keita established a committee to draft revisions to the 1992 constitution. Despite protests from opposition groups that the revision would strengthen the president's powers, the bill was adopted by the parliament in June 2017. However, the scheduled July referendum on the changes was indefinitely postponed amid public protests.

The volatile security situation has also affected the ability of government to effectively operate in northern and central Mali, but there was some improvement in 2017. The establishment of all interim authorities in five troubled administrative regions (Kidal, Gao, Menaka, Timbuktu, and Taoudeni) between February and April, despite some initial contestation, marked a step towards improving governance in the former strongholds of the Tuareg rebellion. The governor of Kidal, Sidi Mohamed Ag Ichrach, returned to office in September after an absence of more than three years, after a ceasefire agreement took effect.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 1 / 4

Corruption remains a problem in government, notably in public procurement. Bribery and embezzlement of public funds is common and impunity for corrupt officials is the norm. The Office of the Auditor General is an independent office responsible for analyzing public spending, but despite identifying sizable embezzlement cases, very few prosecutions have been made.

Some efforts were made in 2017 to deter corruption. In March, 15 finance and equipment directors were removed from their posts within the Finance Ministry as part of an anticorruption effort. Also in March, the Central Office for the Fight against Illegal Enrichment was formed to organize anticorruption activities.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 1 / 4

Government operations remain generally opaque. Mali does not have a comprehensive freedom of information regime, although numerous laws do provide for public access to some official documents and information. However, such laws are replete with extensive and vague exceptions, and journalists have faced obstacles when attempting to obtain information about the military in particular.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 27 / 60 (-1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 11 / 16 (-1)

D1. Are there free and independent media? 2 / 4 (-1)

The media environment in Mali's capital, Bamako, and in the rest of the south is relatively open, though there are sporadic reports of censorship, self-censorship, and threats against journalists. Reporting on the situation in the north remains dangerous due to the presence of active militant groups.

Defamation is a crime that can draw fines or prison time. In April 2017, Ammy Baba Cisse of Le Figaro was sentenced to six months in prison after being convicted of defaming the president of the National Assembly.

Intimidation of journalists, including death threats, were reported frequently in 2017, with incidents often coming in connection with reporting on constitutional referendum scheduled for July, or the upcoming 2018 general elections. In July, the influential blogger, Madou Kante, who was known for his criticism of political corruption and had been highly critical of the 2017 constitutional reforms, was shot in the chest, which some claimed was an assassination attempt. He survived the attack, and it was unclear whether anyone had been arrested in connection with it.

Additionally, the government began restricting media licenses in 2017 and closed approximately 50 radio stations in June for operating without a license, shortly before planned protests against the constitutional referendum.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 due to the closure of radio stations and increasing intimidation of journalists ahead of a planned constitutional referendum and 2018 general elections, and the nonfatal shooting of a blogger known for reporting on corruption.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

Freedom of religion is constitutionally guaranteed in Mali, which is a secular state, and discrimination of the basis of religion is prohibited. The population is predominantly Sunni Muslim, and Sufism plays a role in the beliefs of most residents. Armed extremist groups have terrorized northern and central Mali, attacking those who they perceive as failing to follow their interpretation of Islam. They have also prevented traditional religious ceremonies including weddings and baptisms, and have occasionally carried out targeted kidnappings of and violence against Christians.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 3 / 4

Academic freedom is upheld in areas with a consolidated government presence, but restricted in areas with a heavy militant presence. However, the security situation has improved in recent years, allowing a freer environment in many places.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 3 / 4

Private discussion has grown more open and free as violence and political instability have ebbed. However, the government temporarily restricted social media use in 2017, in an apparent attempt to prevent activists from organizing protests against constitutional revisions.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 6 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 2 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of assembly, but participants in public gatherings risk violence by state security forces. In December 2017, one person was killed and 15 were injured after the police opened fire on demonstrators in Konsiga who had blocked the city hall for a week in an attempt to force the mayor's resignation.

Between June and August 2017, thousands protested against the government's proposed constitutional changes under the platform "Touche pas a ma Constitution," or "Don't touch my constitution." The movement prompted the president to indefinitely postpone the scheduled constitutional referendum.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 2 / 4

Many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operate in Mali without state interference. However, large, established NGOs with ties to the political elite are influential, and can overshadow smaller and more innovative groups, particularly in the competition for funding. Furthermore, ongoing lack of security in some parts of the country hampers NGO efforts to provide aid and services to returning refugees and others affected by instability in those regions.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 2 / 4

The constitution guarantees workers the right to form unions and to strike, with some limitations for essential services workers, and requirements involving compulsory arbitration. The government has broad discretionary power over the registration of unions and recognition of collective bargaining, and the authorities do not effectively enforce laws against antiunion discrimination.

F. RULE OF LAW: 6 / 12

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 2 / 4

The judiciary is beholden to the executive, despite constitutional guarantees of judicial independence. Judges are appointed by the president, while the minister of justice supervises both law enforcement and judicial functions. Additionally, the overall efficiency of the judicial system remains low. Militant attacks against judicial personnel have prompted some judges to vacate their posts. In November 2017, Malian judge Soungalo Kone was kidnapped in central Mali by armed men who asked for the release of detained militants in exchange for his freedom.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

Due process rights are inconsistently upheld, and a 2017 AfroBarometer survey reported that the police and justice system are perceived to be the least trustworthy institutions in the country. Detainees are not always charged within the 48-hour period set by law, and arbitrary arrests are common. Since a deadly 2015 hotel attack in Bamako, a national state of emergency has remained in force, and was extended in October 2017 for one more year. The emergency state gives more authority to security services to search homes without a warrant, detain suspects, and restrict protests.

The trial of Amadou Sanogo, the former army captain who staged a military coup in Mali in 2012, and more than a dozen codefendants began in late 2016 on charges related to the abduction and killing of 21 soldiers. The trial was quickly adjourned until 2017, and has yet to reopen. In November, Sanogo and the other defendants began a hunger strike in prison, denouncing the duration and conditions of their detention. In August, Aliou Mahamar Toure  a leading figure in the Al-Qaeda offshoot known as the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and the former head of a rebel-controlled Islamic police force in the northern city of Gao  stood trial for aggravated assault and endangering state security. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, though rights activists said the charges filed against him did not reflect the severity of the crimes he stood accused of, which included amputating the limbs of those accused of stealing and whipping women deemed to be dressed immodestly.

The Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission created in 2014 is responsible for investigating human rights violations committed since 1960, but is restricted by the rise of terrorist activities and intercommunal tensions within Mali's borders. However, Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted that the commission received more funding in 2017, opened regional offices, and took thousands of witness statements regarding potential human rights violations.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 1 / 4

Islamist militant groups not party to Mali's peace agreement continued to carry out acts of violence against civilians in the northern and central regions in 2017. Additionally, in February 2017, a Colombian nun, Gloria Cecilia Narvaez Argoti, was kidnapped from a health center in the southern region of Karangasso, and as of the end of the year was being held by one such group, Support to Islam and Muslims (JNIM). And in June, at least five people were killed in a jihadist attack on a tourist resort popular with foreigners outside of Bamako.

A September report by HRW described significant human rights violations committed by Malian armed forces in the name of the fight against Islamist armed groups, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and torture.

Prisons are characterized by overcrowding, insufficient medical care, and a lack of proper food and sanitation. The government made some effort in 2017 to improve conditions by holding staff trainings and building a new prison.

Scores were killed and many more were displaced in 2017 in incidents of intercommunal violence. Ongoing instability has contributed to the spread of organized crime, and accompanying violence and kidnappings.

In March and April 2017, Mali held a weeklong Conference of National Understanding in which some 300 government officials, opposition members, representatives of armed groups, and civil society representatives worked toward a final agreement that would end the country's separatist conflict. However, some groups boycotted most of the conference, and a lack of trust between the participants prevented constructive dialogue. The talks were mandated by the 2015 peace accord.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 1 / 4

Members of a northern caste known as black Tamasheqs face societal discrimination, including slavery-like treatment and hereditary servitude. Authorities sometimes deny them official documents or discriminate against them in housing, schooling, and police protection.

Same-sex sexual acts are legal, but LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people face discrimination, including cases of violence from family members meant as a corrective punishment.

Although equal rights are provided for in the constitution, the law does not provide for the same legal status for women and men, and women are required by law to obey their husbands. Sexual harassment is not prohibited by law and is a common practice in schools and the workplace.

Conditions in northern Mali have left many refugees unable or unwilling to return, although the government did report that approximately 1,600 refugees returned to Mali in 2017. However, continuing insecurity in the region complicated resettlement. According to the UN, there were more than 130,000 Malian refugees outside the country and almost 40,000 people displaced inside the country as of December 2017.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 4 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 1 / 4

Freedom of movement and choice of residence remain affected by insecurity, especially in northern and central Mali. HRW reported that in 2017, over 150,000 children in northern and central Mali did not have access to education because of the lack of security.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 1 / 4

Citizens have the right to own property and conduct business activity, but these rights are not consistently respected and widespread corruption hampers normal business activities. Notably, it is generally necessary to pay bribes in order operate a business.

Traditional customs sometimes undermine the right of women to own property. The law discriminates against women in matters of marriage, divorce, and inheritance.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 1 / 4

Rape and domestic violence against women are widespread, and most such crimes go unreported. There are no specific laws prohibiting spousal rape or domestic violence. Female genital mutilation or cutting is legal and commonly practiced in the country. LBGT couples cannot adopt children in Mali.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 1 / 4

Although trafficking in persons is a criminal offense, prosecutions are infrequent. Many judicial officials remain unaware of the antitrafficking law, and the police lacked adequate resources to combat trafficking. Traditional forms of slavery and debt bondage persist, particularly in the north, with thousands of people estimated to be living in such conditions.

Although the government has taken steps to eliminate child labor, it is a significant concern, especially in the agricultural and artisanal gold-mining sectors. Armed groups also regularly recruited and used child soldiers, and in 2017, the government reportedly assisted militia groups that included child soldiers.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Malawi

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Malawi, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc6ba.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 63 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 3.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 17,200,000

Capital: Lilongwe

GDP/capita: $363

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Malawi holds regular elections and has undergone multiple transfers of power between political parties, though the changes were frequently a result of rifts among ruling elites rather than competition between distinct parties. Political rights and civil liberties are for the most part respected by the state. However, corruption is endemic, police brutality and arbitrary arrests are common, and discrimination and violence toward women, minority groups, and people with albinism remain problems.

Key Developments in 2017:

Former minister of agriculture George Chaponda was implicated in the Maizegate scandal, which involved irregular maize purchases from Zambia. He was fired in February and charged with graft in July. Maizegate is the latest in a string of scandals that have rocked Malawi's political elite.

An access to information bill was signed into law in February. However, at the end of the year the law still had not been implemented.

Domestic violence, child labor, and female genital mutilation remained persistent problems.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 26 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 8 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

In Malawi, the president is directly elected for five-year terms and exercises considerable executive authority. Malawi's last general election was held in 2014. The polls were marred by logistical problems and postelection controversy surrounding allegations of vote rigging made by incumbent president Joyce Banda, but were largely regarded as credible by local and international observers. Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was declared the winner, with 36 percent of the vote. Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) placed second, with 28 percent. Banda, of the People's Party (PP) won 20 percent, and Atupele Muluzi of the United Democratic Front (UDF) won 14 percent.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

The unicameral National Assembly is comprised of 193 members elected by popular vote to five-year terms. The last legislative elections, held concurrently with the presidential election in 2014, were generally regarded as credible, despite a number of irregularities and logistical problems. In the parliamentary elections, the DPP won the most seats with 50.

The opposition MCP won five of six available seats in the October 2017 by-elections for both local and national positions. Voter turnout was relatively low and there were no reports of irregularities in the voting.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 2 / 4

Although it lacks resources and is often unprepared to carry out elections, the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) is generally viewed as impartial. The MEC has, however, been plagued by financial mismanagement and in May 2017 fired chief electoral officer Willie Kalonga for alleged fraud and mismanagement.

In 2017, several electoral reform bills proposed by the Malawi Law Commission, including a bill to make the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) financially independent and another proposal to increase the threshold for winning presidential elections to 50 percent, were presented to parliament. However, only one bill, which introducing referendums, was passed in December. International analysts have called for requiring political parties to disclose their sources of financing and to report on campaign spending.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 12 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 3 / 4

For the most part, people can organize in political parties without undue burden. However, the government has occasionally held up the registration of new parties that present a threat to the incumbent. In January 2017, the DPP got an injunction to delay the registration of the Democratic Progressive Congress (DEPECO), claiming that the name was too similar to its own.

Recent years have seen the rise and fall of parties through democratic processes. In 2014, the ruling PP finished third in the presidential election. Malawi has four main political parties  DPP, MCP, PP and UDF  all of which have held power at some point. The parties are loosely formed, with politicians frequently moving between parties or breaking away to form their own parties.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 3 / 4

Political parties are generally able to campaign freely throughout the country. Opposition parties have demonstrated their ability to grow their support and gain power through elections. In 2014, the DPP, an opposition party at the time, won both the presidency and the most seats in parliament.

The playing field during election campaigns is often skewed toward the governing party. In 2014, the ruling PP used state-owned media to broadcast campaign rallies and events where participants wore PP paraphernalia.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 3 / 4

Malawi's population is deeply religious and voting choices are sometimes influenced by the opinions of religious leaders. Local traditional leaders can also have an influence on voters' choices, especially in smaller villages. However, the people are largely free from any form of coercion to influence their choices.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

All ethnic, religious, and gender groups have full political rights. However, women remain underrepresented in politics, and according to Afrobarometer, are less likely than men to become politically involved. In September 2017, the MEC lowered nomination fees for women by 25 percent in an effort to promote their participation in elections, including in the 2017 by-election. While more women ran as candidates in the 2014 elections, only 32 were elected to the 193-seat National Assembly.

Political parties often appeal to ethnic, regional, and religious groups. The LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community faces societal discrimination, and political parties do not advocate for LGBT rights in their platforms.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 6 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 3 / 4

Executive and legislative representatives are generally able to determine the policies of government unhindered. However, patronage and clientelism are common, and wealthy business leaders often have great influence over policymaking, forging relationships with elected leaders and extracting policy outcomes favorable to their business interests.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 1 / 4

Corruption is endemic in Malawi. The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), which is responsible for investigating corruption, has been accused by civil society leaders of being ineffective and compromised.

The trial of the 18 main suspects in the 2013 Cashgate corruption scandal, which involved $800 million in missing public funds, had not concluded at the end of 2017. Former president Banda, under suspicion of involvement in the scheme, was living abroad in self-imposed exile at the end of 2017, and has not been charged with a crime. Maizegate, a corruption scandal involving irregular maize purchases from Zambia by agriculture minister George Chaponda, unfolded in 2017. President Mutharika fired Chaponda in February for his alleged involvement. A raid on Chaponda's home revealed more than $200,000 in cash hidden in suitcases. Chaponda was charged with graft in July, and his trial was ongoing at year's end. Despite the allegations, he retained a senior position in the DPP.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

Malawi lacks budgetary transparency; the government still fails to make year-end budget audit reports available to the public.

In February 2017, President Mutharika signed an access to information bill after a 12-year civil society campaign. However, the law had not been implemented by year's end. Laws require high-level public officials to declare their assets and other financial interests while in public service. Mutharika declared his assets in 2015, but 28 legislators missed the July deadline and faced no sanctions as of December 31.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 37 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 13 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 3 / 4

Freedom of the press is legally guaranteed and generally respected in practice. However, news outlets have experienced intimidation. In January 2017, the offices of the private Times Group were raided and shut down. The government claimed the raid was based on failure to pay taxes, but the Times Media Group alleged that the shutdown was in response to critical coverage of the Maizegate scandal in its publications. Private media outlets were also frequently denied access to government events. There is still a law against insulting the leader of Malawi, but there were no arrests under this legislation in 2017.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

The constitution upholds freedom of religion, and this right is respected in practice.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 3 / 4

Malawi's education system is largely free from political indoctrination. However, President Mutharika was criticized in 2015 for saying that university professors should focus on academic publications rather than commenting on public matters in the media.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

Citizens are largely free to express their personal views on political and sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution. However, according to a November 2017 report by Afrobarometer, many Malawians do not feel comfortable criticizing the government and engage in self-censorship. President Mutharika has not yet signed the Declaration of Table Mountain, which calls on African governments to abolish criminal defamation laws.,

Civil society leaders suspect that the government surveils private electronic communications. The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA), after a series of court challenges, announced in June 2017 that it would implement the Consolidated ICT Regulatory Management System (CIRMS), also known as the "spy machine" in September 2017. Although the government claims the system is for quality control, critics fear that it will be used to monitor phone calls and text messages.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 8 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 3 / 4

Freedom of assembly is guaranteed in the constitution, but the government sometimes limits this right. In September 2017, 26 students at the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources were arrested for participating in a peaceful protest. Police also blocked MCP supporters from welcoming Lazarus Chakwera at the airport in April.,

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 2 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have generally operated without interference from the government. However, draft amendments to a new NGO law introduced in 2017 have led to an outcry among civil society leaders for potentially placing serious restrictions on their activities. If the law passes, an NGO board would approve NGOs' applications for funding from donors and require that the applications align with the policies of the government. NGOs would also be required to register with the NGO board, which would have the power to deregister them.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

The rights to organize labor unions and to strike are legally protected, but workers in essential services have limitations on their right to strike. Unions are active and collective bargaining is practiced, but retaliations against unions that are unregistered and strikers are not illegal.

F. RULE OF LAW: 9 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 3 / 4

Judicial independence is generally respected. However, the appointments process for judges lacks transparency and undermines the legitimacy of the judiciary.

The courts have in recent years served as a check on executive power. A notable example occurred when the courts struck down former president Banda's attempt to nullify the results of the 2014 election. However, the judiciary's role as the arbiter of several hot button issues poses a danger that the courts could become politicized and thus vulnerable to outside interference.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

Arbitrary arrests and detentions are common in Malawi. Defendants are legally entitled to legal representation, but in practice they are frequently forced to represent themselves in court. Although the law requires that suspects be released or charged with a crime within 48 hours of arrest, these rights were often denied.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 2 / 4

Police brutality and extrajudicial killings are not uncommon in Malawi. In 2017, three women accused of assaulting another woman were allegedly assaulted by police. In recent years, there has been an upsurge in criminal activity by police officers, including armed robberies and break-ins. The police are poorly trained and often ineffective. As a result, vigilantism has increased in recent years.

Prison conditions are dire, characterized by overcrowding and extremely poor health conditions; many inmates die from AIDS and other diseases.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

The Malawian constitution explicitly guarantees the rights of all humans. However, violence and discrimination against the LGBT community is a persistent problem. LGBT persons are often unable to access the medical care that they need. Societal stigma against people with HIV leads to patients receiving inadequate care.

Despite constitutional guarantees of equal protection, customary practices perpetuate discrimination against women in education, employment, business, and inheritance and property rights.

Persons with albinism experience discrimination and have been attacked, abducted, killed, and mutilated. In 2016, a UN human rights expert stated that persons with albinism in Malawi are "an endangered group facing a risk of systemic extinction over time if nothing is done."

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 7 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4

The constitution establishes freedom of internal movement and foreign travel, which are generally respected in practice. However, government policy confines refugees to two camps, and the police frequently round up those found outside of the camps and return them. Hundreds of migrants from various African countries trying to reach South Africa were detained in Malawi on charges of entering the country illegally in 2017. Many have remained in detention even after finishing their sentences because the government cannot afford to return them to their home countries.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

Property rights are inadequately protected in Malawi. Most land is held under customary land tenure and the process of creating titles that would allow legal ownership of land have moved slowly. Starting a business can be a cumbersome process, a problem worsened by corruption in several key government agencies.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 1 / 4

Domestic violence is common in Malawi, but victims rarely come forward and the police usually do not intervene in domestic violence cases. According to the Violence against Children and Young People Survey report produced by the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare (MoGCDSW) and others in 2015, one in five girls are sexually abused. Around half are married before the age of 18, despite a marriage law that took effect in 2015 that raised the minimum age of marriage to 18 years. There are no laws that specifically prohibit female genital mutilation, and the practice still occurs in some ethnic communities on girls between 10 and 15 years old.

Consensual sexual activity between same-sex couples remains illegal and punishable by up to 14 years in prison. In 2017, the Malawi Human Rights Commission's plan to conduct a survey on LGBT people was abandoned after an outcry from civil society organizations who claimed that the survey would not address the pervasive discrimination that LGBT people face.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

Revenues from large, state-run industries tend to benefit the political elite. A study by Oxfam found that between 2004 and 2011, economic inequality increased by around 15 percent.

The enforcement of labor laws is weak, and employees are often paid extremely low wages, despite minimum wage laws. Child labor remained a persistent issue in 2017, even though laws restricting such practices are on the books. Forced labor for children also occurs with some frequency. Trafficking in women and children, both within the country and to locations abroad, remained a problem in 2017. The government, however, has stepped up its efforts to address the issue, prosecuting and convicting 26 traffickers in 2017.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Macedonia

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Macedonia, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc6da.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 58 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 3.5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 4 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 2,100,000

Capital: Skopje

GDP/capita: $4,834

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

OVERVIEW

Macedonia is a parliamentary republic. A left-leaning government took power in 2017 after credible allegations of a massive, government-sponsored wiretapping and surveillance program emerged in 2015, prompting a crisis that paralyzed normal political activity. Macedonia continues to struggle with corruption, and while the media and civil society are active, journalists and activists face pressure and intimidation.

Key Developments in 2017:

In April, supporters of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian Unity (VRMO-DPMNE) stormed into the parliament in protest of the election of an ethnic Albanian opposition lawmaker as the body's speaker. The police response to the unrest  in which around 100 people were injured  was notably delayed.

In May, after months of resistance, President Gjorge Ivanov issued a mandate to the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) to form a government. An SDSM-led coalition government that included two ethnic Albanian parties was subsequently seated, capping months of political uncertainty and marking the end of more than a decade of rule by the VMRO-DMPNE.

The SDSM and their coalition partners posted a strong showing in October's municipal elections, reflecting the popular legitimacy of the new government and its agenda.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 21 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 6 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 1 / 4 (-1)

The president is elected to a five-year term through a direct popular vote. President Gjorge Ivanov of the VMRO-DMPNE won a second term in the 2014 general elections, which were criticized by international observers for a number of shortcomings. The presidential portion was marked by relatively low turnout.

The unicameral Assembly elects the prime minister, who is head of government and holds most executive power. The formation of a new government was delayed for months after December 2016 elections, as Ivanov refused the SDSM's request for a mandate to form a government after the VMRO-DMPNE, which had won a plurality of seats in the elections, was unable to cobble together enough support to form its own. VMRO-DMPNE deputies, meanwhile, filibustered a vote to install an SDSM-backed Assembly speaker, Talat Xhaferi, an ethnic Albanian member of the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), an Albanian party.

In April, after Xhaferi was finally elected, VMRO-DMPNE supporters stormed the Assembly and violently assaulted several opposition leaders, including Zaev and Radmila sekerinska Jankovska, a former prime minister. In May, following mediation by U.S. State Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary Hoyt Yee, the SDSM and their Albanian coalition partners were finally able to form a government, with Zaev as prime minister. The SDSM-led government has prioritized rebooting Macedonia's European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) accession paths.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 due to the VMRO-DMPNE's attempts to obstruct the formation of a new government.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 2 / 4 (+1)

Parliamentary elections took place in 2016. An Organization for Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring mission deemed the polls "competitive," but said issues with the media and voter rolls had "yet to be addressed in a sustainable manner," noted instances of voter intimidation, and concluded that the polls were marked by "a lack of public trust in institutions and the political establishment." The formation of the SDSM-led government in May 2017 marked a democratic transfer of power between parties, and capped the period of political uncertainty that followed the 2016 polls.

While irregularities were reported in October 2017 municipal elections, the polls were competitive and generally credible, and played a role in building trust in the government and democratic institutions. The SDSM posted a strong showing, winning the most municipalities of any party, including Skopje, the capital.

Score Change: The score improved from 1 to 2 due to the completion of the 2016 parliamentary election process, and because the conduct of municipal elections held in October represented an improvement from past polls.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

Election laws are fairly robust, and the 2017 polls saw some minor improvements in the overall accessibility of election results and reporting by the State Election Commission. However, some ambiguities in election laws have yet to be addressed, including regulations governing the registration of candidates, and resolution mechanisms for election-related disputes.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 9 / 16 (-1)

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 2 / 4 (-1)

While the constitution protects the right to establish and join political parties, vast patronage networks hamper democratic competition. In April 2017, the election of a new, SDSM-backed parliament speaker was immediately followed by violent attacks on the floor of the Assembly by VMRO-DMPNE supporters against SDSM lawmakers, including the party leader. Around 100 people were injured in the melee.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 due to violent physical attacks by VMRO-DMPNE supporters against SDSM lawmakers, which took place on the floor of the parliament and resulted in the injury of around 100 people.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 2 / 4

In 2017, power rotated between the center-right VMRO-DPMNE  which had been in power since 2006  to the left-leaning SDSM, which had held power through much of the 1990s and early 2000s. The SDSM had boycotted the parliament on several occasions before taking power in 2017 over claims of electoral fraud, as well as issues related to allegations that the administration of former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski of the VMRO-DPMNE had directed the secret service to operate a massive wiretapping and surveillance program.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 2 / 4

While voters are largely free to make political decisions, there were reports of voter intimidation and vote-buying during the 2017 local election campaign. Patronage networks remain influential in Macedonia political life, and can influence political outcomes.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

Ethnic Albanians make up about 25 percent of the population, and a political party representing Albanians has sat in each ruling coalition. Certain types of legislation must pass with a majority of legislators from both major ethnic groups in the Assembly.

Macedonia's Roma community remains politically marginalized.

Despite the introduction of parity laws, and joint initiatives on behalf of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and electoral authorities, societal attitudes discourage women from participating in politics. Some women are disenfranchised through the practice of family voting. Notably, however, in June 2017 the first female defense minister was appointed.

Small LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) advocacy groups are politically active, but LGBT people are poorly represented in politics  as reflected in Macedonia's lack of any law protecting against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 6 / 12 (+1)

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 2 / 4 (+1)

The first half of 2017 was characterized by VMRO-DPMNE attempts to prevent the formation of an SDSM-led government, and by the parliamentary melee in April in which Zaev and other SDSM lawmakers were injured. After Zaev's SDSM-led government was seated, the VMRO-DPMNE made efforts to obstruct its work, including by employing filibusters and forming a number of new parliamentary caucuses with the power to individually demand recesses. However, the formation of the new government six months after the December 2016 elections ushered in a stabilization of national politics, and a return to more normal parliamentary activity.

Score Change: The score improved from 1 to 2 because the inauguration of a new government ended a long period of parliamentary gridlock.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Corruption remains a serious problem, and there has been widespread impunity for corrupt behavior by government officials.

In June 2017, a special prosecutor, appointed following a 2015 internationally-backed political agreement, charged former Prime Minister Gruevski, along with nearly 100 other people, with corruption. Gruevski's trial began in December. The special prosecutor was appointed in 2015 to investigate the revelations of the wiretapping program.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

The law on open access to public information is inconsistently enforced. While the new government has pledged to undertake reforms aimed at increasing government transparency, it has yet to register concrete progress.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 37 / 60 (+1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 11 / 16 (+1)

D1. Are there free and independent media? 2 / 4

Macedonian journalists are subject to political pressure and harassment, and physical attacks continue to be reported; attackers generally enjoy impunity. According to the Association of Journalists of Macedonia, 21 reporters were attacked between the start of 2016 and May 2017. At times journalists were attacked while on the job, such as in March 2017, when masked assailants attacked two journalists reporting on a VMRO-DPMNE rally.

Macedonia's media landscape is deeply polarized along political lines, and private media outlets are often tied to political or business interests that influence their content. Some critical and independent outlets operate, and are found mainly online.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of religion. However, Islamophobia is present in the rhetoric of politicians and in public discourse.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 3 / 4

Academic freedom is largely respected. However, corruption in universities is significant, and the large-scale emigration of young scholars has been detrimental to the country's research institutions. Many textbooks barely cover the postindependence period, primarily because ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians interpret the 2001 civil conflict differently. However, student protests in 2014 and 2015 were instrumental in bringing about the ouster of the Gruevski government, reflecting the ability of students to discuss and act upon issues of a political nature.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 3 / 4 (+1)

Allegations of widespread wiretapping and monitoring of private citizens, journalists, politicians, and religious leaders by the previous, VMRO-DPMNE government helped bring about its ouster. The SDSM-led government has taken some steps to reform the security services, which were widely believed to have carried out the wiretapping and surveillance program under Gruevski's direction. As a result of the change in government, private discussion has been less constrained.

Score Change: The score improved from 2 to 3 due to a lessening of fears about speaking openly, which had been aggravated by 2015 revelations of a mass surveillance program.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 8 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 3 / 4

Constitutional guarantees of freedom of assembly are generally well respected. However, protests have sometimes given way to property damage, and are typically monitored by riot police. In 2017, a mob of protesters stormed the parliament and attacked SDSM lawmakers, and the police response to the events was notably slow.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 3 / 4

The new SDSM-led government has indicated support for civil society, as opposed to the previous government, which had announced plans to more heavily scrutinize NGOs' finances. However, groups that focus on human rights- and governance-related work, and particularly those that receive foreign funding, face pressure from the VMRO-DPMNE and its supporters. In January 2017, several figures associated with the party announced the establishment of a movement aimed at scrutinizing NGOs funded by the Hungarian-born liberal philanthropist George Soros.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 2 / 4

Workers may organize and bargain collectively, though trade unions lack stable financing and skilled managers, and journalists have reportedly been fired for their union activities. The informal economy is large, leaving many workers vulnerable to abuses by employers.

F. RULE OF LAW: 8 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 2 / 4

Concerns remain about the efficacy and independence of the Macedonia judiciary. The EU has stressed judicial reforms as a key priority for the new government. In July, the new administration endorsed judicial reforms as part of a larger package aimed at reducing election-related misconduct.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

Due process rights remain compromised by corruption and patronage within the justice system, which has a low level of public confidence. However, in a positive development, in June 2017 the special prosecutor charged 94 people and 7 legal entities with crimes connected to the wiretapping scandal.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 2 / 4

The violent attack against SDSM lawmakers on the parliament floor in 2017 represented a major escalation of the country's political crisis. However, calm was later restored, and a number of police officers and interior ministry employees were disciplined for the slow response to the violence. In October, a VMRO-DMPNE supporter was sentenced to four years in prison for assaulting sekerinska Jankovska during the melee.

There are occasional outbreaks of violence in Macedonia. In November, a number of men were convicted of crimes connected to a deadly 2015 clash between police and gunmen in an Albanian neighborhood of Kumanovo. Considerable controversy surrounds the events, with prosecutors saying the men were terrorists bent on destabilizing the country, while the defendants and their supporters claim that the men had acted in self-defense against a politically motivated police raid.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

A 2010 antidiscrimination law does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, and anti-LGBT sentiment is widespread. Laws prohibit workplace sexual harassment, but sexual harassment against women employees is rarely reported, and remains a problem.

Anti-Albanian sentiment flared in 2017, as ethnic Albanian political parties called for, among other things, greater representation in government and adding Albanian as an official language, in exchange for joining the SDSM coalition. Roma face employment and other discrimination.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 10 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 3 / 4

Travel and movement are generally unrestricted. Corruption can hamper people's ability to freely choose their place of employment or education.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 3 / 4

The right to own property and establish private businesses is generally respected, though corruption remains a barrier to free enterprise, and certain fees associated with starting a business remain relatively high.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Rape, including spousal rape, is illegal, as is domestic violence, which remains common; both are infrequently reported. The government and some NGOs provide services to victims of domestic violence.

A September 2017 ruling by the Administrative court allowed people to change their gender in the country's official registry.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

Laws do not impose rigid barriers to social mobility, though rampant corruption can effectively hamper individuals from rising to higher income levels.

Human trafficking remains a problem. The government has taken some steps to better identify trafficking victims, notably at government-run transit centers that house migrants and refugees. However, government support to NGOs that aid trafficking victims has decreased.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Lithuania

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Lithuania, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc6fa.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 91 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 1.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 2,900,000

Capital: Vilnius

GDP/capita: $14,252

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

Lithuania is a democracy in which political rights and civil liberties are generally respected. However, corruption and income inequality are issues that often arouse public dissatisfaction with the government.

Key Developments in 2017:

A new Labor Code that provided additional instruments for the organization of strikes took effect in July.

In September, the Lithuanian Special Investigation Service brought formal corruption complaints against the Liberal Movement, and the Labor Party, in connection with allegations of wrongdoing that had shaken the country's politics when they emerged in 2016.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 38 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The president, who is chief of state and whose main competencies lie in foreign affairs, is directly elected to up to two five-year terms. The prime minister, who as head of government is the central executive authority, is appointed by the president with the approval of the parliament.

The present prime minister, Saulius Skvernelis, was appointed after the parliamentary elections in October 2016 and began serving that December. The current president, Dalia Grybauskaite, was elected to a second term of office in 2014. Both the appointment of the prime minister and election of the president took place in a free and fair manner.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

A unicameral, 141-seat Parliament (Seimas) consists of 71 members elected in single-mandate constituencies and 70 chosen by proportional representation, all for four-year terms. The most recent parliamentary elections took place in October 2016. The elections were somewhat unexpectedly won by the centrist Lithuanian Peasant and Greens Union (LVZS), which took 56 seats. The party formed a coalition government with the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP), which received 17 seats. The main opposition Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) took 31 seats.

The elections were considered free and fair, though the election commission faced criticism for delays in announcing the official results  problems linked to issues with new electronic infrastructure for the polls. While relatively few irregularities were reported, there was one notable case of vote buying, to benefit the Order and Justice (TT) party. In late October 2016, the election commission stripped lawmaker Kestas Komskis of TT of his parliamentary mandate in connection with the events.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

The legislative framework for conducting elections is clear and detailed. The boundaries of single-mandate districts of parliamentary elections were redrawn at the end of 2015 to comply with the ruling of the Constitutional Court. The electoral commission operates and adjudicates election-related complaints in a fair manner.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 16 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

Lithuania's political parties generally operate freely. Citizens of other European Union (EU) member states are eligible to become members of Lithuanian political parties, but cannot found them.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Lithuanian politics are dynamic, and opposition parties usually come to power after every parliamentary election.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

Sporadic cases of vote buying during national elections has been observed, and clientelism can influence politics at the local levels. However, people are generally free to exercise their political choices without undue influence or interference.

The State Security Department (VSD) has issued numerous warnings about efforts by Russian to influence politics, including through its energy policies and by influencing the country's ethnic Russian minority.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 4 / 4

Political rights of minorities are generally upheld. In the 2016 parliamentary elections, the Lithuanian Poles Electoral Action (LLRA) for the second consecutive time overcame the 5 percent electoral threshold for parties, and took seats in the legislature.

Women are underrepresented in politics, though they do hold senior political positions, including the presidency. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working toward greater representation of women in politics and business, and combating violence against women, are active in the political sphere.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 10 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

Lithuania's freely elected lawmakers are seated according to schedule and are able to design and implement policy. However, bribery scandals that erupted in 2016 raised concerns about the influence of large businesses on politics.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 3 / 4

Corruption remains an issue in Lithuania, and certain sectors, including health care and territorial planning, are widely perceived as prone to corruption. While anticorruption bodies are active, there are sometimes considerable delays in the investigation of cases of political corruption. In 2016, the leaders of three political parties were implicated in separate bribery scandals involving illicit deals with Lithuanian businesses. In September 2017, the Lithuanian Special Investigation Service (STT) brought formal complaints in response to two of the scandals, one against the Liberal Movement, and another against the Labor Party.

The protection of whistleblowers and journalists who report on corruption cases is guaranteed, though at the local level it is less effective than nationally.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 3 / 4

Lithuanian law grants the public the right to request information, and the government generally complies with information requests. However, the operations of state companies remains somewhat opaque, and prone to financial misconduct. Improvements to make public procurement more fair and open to public scrutiny have also been limited.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 53 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 16 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 4 / 4

The government generally respects freedoms of speech and the press. While the media market is vibrant, some owners of media outlets attempt to use their position to influence political processes. Local outlets are usually financially dependent on the local government.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

Freedom of religion is guaranteed by law and largely upheld in practice. However, nine so-called traditional religious communities enjoy certain government benefits, including annual subsidies that are not granted to other groups. Despite the presence of a Muslim community, Vilnius has been without a mosque since one was demolished by the Soviet government in the 1960s, and the planned construction of a new one remains stalled.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Academic freedom is respected, and the educational system is generally free from political influence.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

Private discussion is generally robust and unrestricted. However, in the wake of increasing concerns about Russia's aggressive foreign policy, individuals who criticize the government's foreign policy stances can face pressure.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 11 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

Freedom of assembly is generally respected.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations may register without facing serious obstacles, and operate without restrictions.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

Workers may form and join trade unions and engage in collective bargaining, though there have been reports of employees being punished for attempting to organize. In July 2017, a new Labor Code came into force, which among other things provided additional instruments to organize strikes.

F. RULE OF LAW: 12 / 16 (-1)

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 3 / 4 (-1)

Businesspeople and politicians closely linked with business exert pressure on the judiciary, and according to the most recent results of an EU survey, only about half of the general public and representatives of the business sector believe that judicial independence is guaranteed. Nontransparent decisions by the courts also remain an issue.

Score Change: The score declined from 4 to 3 due to influence by business groups and politicians on judicial decisions, and a lack of transparency surrounding some judgements.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 3 / 4

Defendants generally enjoy the presumption of innocence and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, but detained suspects are not always granted timely access to an attorney. Their rights to fair and impartial trial and other processes are also not always respected.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 3 / 4

Police abuse of detainees and lengthy pretrial detentions are lingering issues. Separately, despite some progress in recent years, Lithuania still has one of the highest homicide rates in the EU.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

Public signs must be written only in Lithuanian, even in areas predominantly inhabited by minorities who speak different languages. Members of the LGBT community face discrimination, and there have been several cases in the past in which public information about rights for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people has been restricted.

Men and women enjoy the same legal rights, though women generally earn less than men per hour worked.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 14 / 16 (+1)

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

Lithuanian residents may travel freely within the country and internationally.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 4 / 4 (+1)

Successive Lithuanian administrations have worked to maintain a well-regulated market economy, and economic freedoms are generally ensured.

Score Change: The score improved from 3 to 4 because there are no significant impediments on people's ability to own property or engage in commercial activity.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

Domestic violence remains a problem. Lithuania's constitution defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and same-sex partnership is not legally established. Legal regulations that would allow sex reassignment procedures are not in place.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

Regional economic disparities remain acute. The minimum wage remains one of the lowest within the EU, and the share of the population at risk of poverty and social exclusion is a little over 30 percent.

Trafficking of adults and children for the purposes of forced labor or sex work occurs in Lithuania. The government actively works to prosecute traffickers, and provides aid to victims in conjunction with NGOs.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Kuwait

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Kuwait, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc71a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 36 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 5.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 4,000,000

Capital: Kuwait

GDP/capita: $29,109

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Kuwait is a constitutional emirate ruled by the Sabah family. While the monarchy holds executive power and dominates the judiciary, the elected parliament plays an influential role, often challenging the government. Partly due to friction between lawmakers and the executive, government turnover and snap parliamentary elections have been frequent since 2011. In recent years, state authorities have narrowed freedoms of speech and assembly.

Key Developments in 2017:

In October, the Constitutional Court struck down a controversial 2015 law requiring that citizens and visitors supply DNA samples to authorities.

In an effort to preempt a potential parliamentary crisis caused by allegations of corruption and mismanagement, the ruling government resigned in October. This triggered National Assembly elections held in November, in which opposition factions won 24 of 50 seats.

In January, the government carried out its first execution in four years. Seven people were executed by hanging in 2017.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 13 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 2 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

The emir, the hereditary head of state, appoints the prime minister and approves the cabinet that the prime minister appoints. While the National Assembly possesses some legislative authority, most decision-making power rests with the emir and senior ministers in the cabinet, which form the government.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 1 / 4

The 50-member National Assembly is elected by popular vote and serves four-year terms. In October 2017, the emir dissolved the National Assembly and called an election for November, in which the opposition factions, including Islamist, nationalist, and liberal blocs, won 24 of 50 seats. Approximately 70 percent of eligible voters turned out, in a process that monitors regarded as credible. However, Kuwait does not have a history of holding elections that meet democratic standards, and the National Assembly was dissolved before members could serve a full term four times since 2011.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 1 / 4

The electoral system lacks transparency, as evidenced by an opaque voter registration process. The emir has used his extensive powers to implement changes to electoral laws in close proximity to elections. In October 2012, for example, he issued a royal decree two months ahead of elections that reduced the number of candidates elected in each district from four to one  a move designed to limit the opposition's ability to build effective coalitions within the parliament.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 7 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 2 / 4

Formal political parties are banned, and while parliamentary blocs are permitted, a prohibition on parties inhibits political organization and the sharing of resources among like-minded candidates. The National Assembly's relationship with the government has been tense since the opposition boycotted the 2013 election. Authorities punish critics of the government through legal prosecutions and other harassment. In November 2017, several MPs were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for storming the parliament in 2011, in an attempt to question the prime minister about corruption. Former member of parliament (MP) Musallam al-Barrak, a prominent critic of the government who had completed a two-year prison sentence in April for insulting the emir, was sentenced in November to another nine years for his role in the 2011 incident.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 2 / 4

Opposition blocs in Kuwait have a realistic opportunity to gain representation, as demonstrated by the results of the 2016 and 2017 legislative elections. However, the 2012 electoral laws introduced by the emir were viewed as a tool to reduce the power of the opposition, and the opposition boycotted the 2012 and 2013 elections to protest them.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 2 / 4

The unelected emir and the royal family frequently interfere in political processes, including through the harassment of political and media figures, and the government impedes the activities of opposition parliamentary blocs. Government workers can face retaliation for expressing views the government deems improper; in December 2017, five government employees were arrested for posting a video viewed as insulting to the crown prince.

Since 2014, dozens of people, including journalists, activists, and clerics, have been stripped of citizenship for criticizing the government. However, the government has slowed its use of stripping citizenship as a form of political reprisal over the last two years, and in May 2017, reinstated the citizenship of a number of people who had seen it revoked, including former opposition lawmaker Abdullah al-Barghash.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 1 / 4

The electorate consists of men and women over 21 years of age who have been citizens for at least 20 years and who have a Kuwaiti father. Most members of state security agencies are barred from voting.

Kuwait's more than 100,000 stateless residents, known as bidoon, do not have full citizenship rights, are considered illegal residents, and often live in poor conditions. Efforts to grant citizenship to 4,000 of the country's stateless residents through a 2013 law have stalled.

Since 2005, women have had the right to vote and run for office (one woman was elected to the National Assembly in 2016). However, entrenched social attitudes hamper more active participation in the political process, and the interests of women are poorly represented in politics. Societal and legal discrimination against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people impacts their ability to engage in political and electoral processes.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 4 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 1 / 4

Since Kuwait is a hereditary monarchy with limited oversight from the parliament, the policies carried out by the emir lack an electoral mandate. Members of the ruling elite regularly disregard parliamentary calls for accountability and often obstruct elected officials' efforts to investigate corruption and abuse of power. The emir also has the authority to dissolve the National Assembly at will.

In October 2017, the emir accepted the resignation of the government. The move was widely seen as a ploy to defuse mounting criticism of the government. It came as opposition lawmakers in the National Assembly grilled senior ministers summoned for questioning about austerity measures implemented to reduce budget deficits, as well as corruption. Parliament was also just days away from issuing a vote of no confidence in acting information minister Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah al-Mubarak al-Sabah. Five of the sixteen members of the new cabinet appointed in December are members of the royal family, including the emir's son.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 1 / 4

Corruption is pervasive in Kuwait, and charges of government corruption have been at the heart of the ongoing political crisis. The National Assembly was dissolved in 2017 as parliamentarians questioned key ministers over corruption and mismanagement  undermining a key safeguard. In 2015, the government unveiled the implementing regulations for the Anti-Corruption Authority, allowing the body to begin its work. However, in 2017, the Authority only referred 10 cases for prosecution.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

Transparency in government spending and operations is inadequate, and there are few mechanisms that encourage officials to disclose information about government operations. Kuwait does not have any legislation guaranteeing the right to access public information.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 23 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 6 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 1 / 4

Authorities limit press freedom. Kuwaiti law punishes the publication of material that insults Islam, criticizes the emir or the government, discloses information considered secret or private, or calls for the regime's overthrow. Kuwaiti journalists risk imprisonment under a restrictive 2016 cybercrimes law that criminalizes the dissemination online of information on similar topics. However, foreign media outlets operate relatively freely.

Kuwaitis enjoy access to the internet, though the government has instructed internet service providers (ISPs) to block certain sites for political or moral reasons. In 2014, the National Assembly passed a new telecommunications law allowing authorities to monitor, block, and censor online material through a new body, the Commission for Mass Communications and Information Technology.

Several media outlets have been punished for their coverage of the regime. The newspaper Al-Watan, often critical of the government and suspended in 2015, remained closed in 2017.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 2 / 4

Islam is the state religion, but religious minorities are generally permitted to practice their faiths in private. Shiite Muslims, who comprise about a third of the population, enjoy full political rights but have experienced increased harassment in recent years.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 2 / 4

Academic freedom is impeded by self-censorship on politically sensitive topics, as well as by larger restrictions on freedom of expression, including the illegality of offending the emir or challenging Islam.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 1 / 4

Freedom of expression is curtailed due to state surveillance and the criminalization of criticism. In June 2017, following the escalation of tensions between Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states, the government established a committee to intensively monitor social media and to surveil citizens thought likely to criticize the government and its regional allies.

A cybercrimes law passed in 2016 imposes up to 10-year prison sentences and fines for online speech criticizing Kuwait's royal family, the government, religious figures, or foreign leaders.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 4 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 1 / 4

Freedom of assembly is constrained in practice. Kuwaitis must notify officials of a public meeting or protest, though some peaceful protests have been allowed without a permit. In December, 67 people received prison sentences for their participation in a 2011 demonstration outside parliament.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 2 / 4

The government restricts the registration and licensing of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), forcing many groups to operate without legal standing. Representatives of licensed NGOs must obtain government permission to attend foreign conferences, and critical groups may be subject to harassment. In 2015, the government dismissed the directors on the board of the Kuwait chapter of Transparency International, replacing them with government appointees who subsequently dismantled the group's assets.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 1 / 4

Labor uncertainty, particularly in the oil sector where low oil prices threatened to cause widespread layoffs in 2016, has led to public agitation between workers and the state. Private sector workers who are citizens have the right to join labor unions and bargain collectively, but labor laws allow for only one union per occupational trade and one national union federation, the Kuwait Trade Union Federation. Noncitizen migrant workers, who comprise two thirds of the population, do not enjoy these rights. However, hundreds of migrants participated in risky illegal labor actions in 2015 to protest nonpayment of wages and other abuses.

F. RULE OF LAW: 7 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 1 / 4

Kuwait lacks an independent judiciary. The emir appoints all judges, and the executive branch approves judicial promotions. The courts frequently rule in favor of the government in cases related to politics. For example, the Cassation Court in July 2017 upheld a 10-year prison sentence assigned to a blogger who had been convicted on vaguely worded charges of defaming the emir and the judiciary.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

Arbitrary arrest and detention, which is illegal under Kuwaiti law, still occurs with some frequency. Authorities may detain suspects for four days without charge. State prosecutors have issued orders that favor government interests, such as an August 2017 ban on the publication of information related to state security cases.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 2 / 4

The Constitution prohibits torture and other forms of cruel and unusual punishment, but these protections are not always upheld. Detainees, especially bidoon, continue to experience torture and beatings while in custody. Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions are a problem at prisons and deportation centers.

In January, the government carried out its first execution in four years, and a total ofseven people were executed by hanging in 2017. The advocacy group Human Rights Watch has reported violations of due process protections in capital cases.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

Discrimination against LGBT people continued in 2017. Same-sex sexual activity remains illegal, as does "imitating the opposite sex." In August 2017, a government morals committee launched a nationwide crackdown on the LGBT community, shutting down over 20 massage parlors and deporting 76 suspected gay men.

Despite some legal protections from discrimination and abuse, women remain underrepresented in the workforce and face unequal treatment in several areas of law and society. Women comprise more than 60 percent of the student body at several leading universities, but the government enforces gender segregation in educational institutions.

Officials consider the stateless bidoon to be illegal residents, and they lack the protections and benefits associated with citizenship.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 6 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4

For the most part, Kuwait does not place constraints on the movement of its citizens, but migrant workers  who comprise some two-thirds of Kuwait's population  often face de facto restrictions on freedom of travel and residence.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 1 / 4

Kuwaiti law allows citizens and noncitizens to own private property. Although the law allows for the establishment of businesses, bureaucratic red tape sometimes slows the process.

Inheritance laws discriminate against women. Bidoon, who are considered to be in the country illegally, do not have the ability to own or acquire property. Companies are legally prohibited from conducting business with citizens of Israel.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

The 1962 constitution guarantees gender equality, but many government policies discriminate against women. Women must have a male guardian in order to marry, and are only permitted to seek a divorce when deserted or subjected to domestic violence. Domestic abuse and sexual harassment are not specifically prohibited by law.

In 2015, in an unprecedented attack on privacy rights, the National Assembly approved new counterterrorism legislation that requires all citizens and residents to provide genetic samples to the government. In 2016, mandatory DNA testing and the creation of a genetic antiterrorism database went into effect. In October 2017, the Constitutional Court struck down the law, saying it was a violation of privacy.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 1 / 4

Foreign domestic servants and migrant workers are subject to frequent abuse and exploitation, often treated like slaves by their employers. They are frequently confined to slums, lack access to public services, and are forced to work in dangerous conditions for low pay. In 2016, the National Assembly passed legislation expanding the rights of domestic workers, including requiring mandatory leave and regular bonuses. However, critics decried the lack of enforcement mechanisms in the law.

Inadequate safety measures plague many large construction projects and led to multiple worker deaths in 2017.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Kiribati

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Kiribati, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc73a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 93 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 1.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 100,000

Capital: Tarawa

GDP/capita: $1,505

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

Kiribati is a multiparty democracy that holds regular elections and has experienced peaceful transfers of power between competing groups. Civil liberties are generally upheld, though outstanding problems include limited media diversity, a ban on same-sex sexual activity, and some forms of gender discrimination.

Key Developments in 2017:

The administration of President Taneti Maamau completed its first year in office in March.

In October the president signed legislation that strengthened the independence and authority of the country's Audit Office.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 38 / 40 (+1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The president is elected through a nationwide popular vote and may serve up to three four-year terms. The three to four presidential candidates are nominated by the legislature from among its members, and cabinet members must also be members of the legislature. The president can be removed through a no-confidence vote, but this also triggers general elections.

Taneti Maamau of the Tobwaan Kiribati Party (TKP) was elected president in March 2016, taking 60 percent of the vote in a free and fair contest. His two opponents  Rimeta Beniamina and Tianeti Ioane, both of the Boutokan te Koaua Party (BTK)  received 39 percent and 1 percent, respectively. Incumbent president Anote Tong of the BTK was ineligible to run again, having reached his three-term limit.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The unicameral House of Assembly (Maneaba ni Maungatabu) has 46 members, all but two of whom are elected through a two-round runoff system from 26 constituencies. An appointed member is selected by representatives of people originally from the island of Banaba (Ocean Island) who now live on Fiji's Rabi Island, having been displaced by phosphate mining during the 20th century. The attorney general holds a seat ex officio.

Free and fair parliamentary elections were held in December 2015, with a runoff round in January 2016. The BTK took 26 seats, while two parties that merged to form the TKP after the elections won 19.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

The constitution and legal framework provide for democratic elections, and balloting is well administered in practice. Losing candidates and parties typically accept the final outcome and rarely raise accusations of malfeasance.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 16 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

There are no constraints on the formation or competition of political parties. The country's parties are relatively loose alliances that lack formal platforms and are subject to periodic mergers and reconfigurations.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Kiribati has a history of smooth and democratic transfers of power between government and opposition parties, with the most recent change in executive leadership occurring in 2016.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

There are no significant constraints on the choices of voters and candidates by forces outside the political system.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 4 / 4

All citizens enjoy full political rights. Geographic and ancestral ties continue to play an important role in political affiliation. While there are no formal restrictions on women's political participation, it is somewhat inhibited in practice by traditional social norms. Only three women hold seats in the legislature.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 10 / 12 (+1)

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

The president and cabinet are able to both form and implement their policy agenda without undue interference, while the legislature provides oversight and a check on executive authority.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 3 / 4

President Maamau's administration has pledged to fight corruption, launching a national anticorruption strategy in September 2017. While there is virtually no large-scale corruption in Kiribati, petty graft and nepotism in public appointments remain problems.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 3 / 4 (+1)

Kiribati lacks comprehensive regulations on public asset disclosure for officials, access to government information, and other transparency matters. In August 2017, a former president told lawmakers that he had been denied access to basic data on copra production despite multiple requests.

However, in October the president signed a new law, the Kiribati Audit Act, that strengthened the autonomy of the country's Audit Office and established an independent board to oversee its work. The office previously reported to the Finance Ministry. The law also laid out enforcement mechanisms and broadened the scope of the Audit Office's mandate, allowing more thorough assessments of budgets, expenditures, and government performance.

Score Change: The score improved from 2 to 3 due to the adoption of a new law that increased the independence and authority of the Audit Office.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 55 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 15 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 3 / 4

Although press freedom is generally respected, journalists at state-owned outlets have at times been disciplined for coverage that displeases the government. Media diversity is somewhat limited. However, a small number of private news outlets operate freely, and foreign radio services are available.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of religion. Religious organizations of a certain size are required to register with the government, but there are no penalties for failing to do so. On two islands in the southern part of the archipelago that have overwhelmingly Protestant populations, members of small religious minorities are discouraged from engaging in public worship or proselytizing, though only a few dozen people are believed to be affected.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

The school system is free of political indoctrination, and religious education by various denominations is available in public schools but not mandatory. There are no restrictions on academic freedom in the country, which hosts a campus of the Fiji-based University of the South Pacific as well as a teachers' college and technical training centers.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

The government does not impose constraints on freedom of speech or the expression of personal views.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 12 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

Freedom of assembly is constitutionally protected and generally upheld in practice.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

There are no undue constraints on nongovernmental organizations. The Kiribati Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (KANGO) serves as an umbrella group for some 39 local NGOs, including church-based groups and health associations.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 4 / 4

Workers have the right to organize unions, strike, and bargain collectively. The Kiribati Trade Union Congress, an affiliate of the International Trade Union Confederation, claims some 3,000 members and includes unions and associations for nurses, teachers, fishermen, and seafarers.

F. RULE OF LAW: 15 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 4 / 4

The judicial system is modeled on English common law, and the courts are independent in practice. The chief justice is appointed by the president on the advice of the cabinet and the Public Service Commission; other High Court judges are appointed by the president on the advice of the chief justice and the Public Service Commission. Judges cannot be removed unless a special tribunal and the legislature find "misbehavior" or an inability to perform their functions.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 4 / 4

Due process guarantees are typically respected during arrests, initial detentions, and trials. Detainees have access to a lawyer, and defendants are usually granted bail while awaiting trial.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 4 / 4

There were no reports of police brutality in 2017, and procedures for punishing such abuse are effective. Prison conditions are not considered harsh or inhumane. Kiribati has no army, relying on Australia and New Zealand to provide defense assistance under bilateral agreements. The use of traditional communal justice systems, which can include corporal punishment, is increasingly rare.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

Women face legal discrimination on some issues as well as societal bias that limits their access to employment in practice. Same-sex sexual activity is a criminal offense, though the ban is rarely enforced; discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation is prohibited.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 13 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

There are no significant constraints on freedom of movement, though in the past village councils have used banishment as a punishment for wrongdoing.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 3 / 4

The government operates a system of land registration and generally upholds property rights. Land is owned on either an individual or a kinship basis, and inheritance laws pertaining to land favor sons over daughters. The World Bank has reported some bureaucratic obstacles to private business activity.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

Personal social freedoms are largely unrestricted, but citizenship laws favor men over women, for example by allowing fathers but not mothers to confer citizenship on their children. Domestic violence is criminalized but remains a serious and widespread problem despite government efforts to combat it; cultural norms deter formal complaints and police interventions.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

There are few economic opportunities in Kiribati, with most citizens engaged in subsistence agriculture. The economy largely depends on interest from a trust fund built on royalties from phosphate mining, remittances from workers overseas, and foreign assistance. Although forced labor and other exploitative working conditions are uncommon, some local women and girls are vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation, often involving the crews of visiting ships.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Kazakhstan

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Kazakhstan, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc75a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Not Free

Aggregate Score: 22 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 6.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 17,800,000

Capital: Astana

GDP/capita: $10,510

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

OVERVIEW

President Nursultan Nazarbayev has ruled Kazakhstan since 1991. Parliamentary and presidential elections are not free or fair, and all major parties exhibit political loyalty to the president. The authorities have consistently marginalized or imprisoned genuine opposition figures. The dominant media outlets are either in state hands or owned by government-friendly businessmen. Freedoms of speech and assembly remain restricted, and corruption is endemic.

Key Developments in 2017:

Constitutional changes adopted in March shifted some powers from the president to Parliament, granting the latter greater control over government formation and dismissal. However, Parliament remains dominated by Nazarbayev's Nur Otan party.

Three labor activists were convicted of various offenses between April and July as part of a crackdown on independent unions, and a prominent journalist was convicted on politically motivated money-laundering charges in September.

Under rules that took effect in January, citizens must register with local authorities if they move within the country and remain in one locality for more than a month.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 5 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 1 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

The president, who holds most executive power, is directly elected for up to two five-year terms. However, Nazarbayev's special status as Kazakhstan's "first president" exempts him from term limits. Presidential elections are neither free nor fair. Nazarbayev was most recently reelected in 2015 with 97.7 percent of the vote. His opponents were Turgun Syzdykov of the government-friendly Communist People's Party of Kazakhstan and Abelgazi Kusainov, who ran as an independent but belonged to the ruling Nur Otan party; both candidates were virtually unknown before the election. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) noted several shortcomings in the process, including a stifling media environment, lack of a genuine opposition candidate, reports of fraud, and opaque counting and tabulation procedures.

Changes to the constitution adopted by Parliament and the president in March 2017 shifted some powers from the president to the Mazhilis, the lower house of Parliament. The amendments gave Parliament greater influence over the choice of prime minster and cabinet members, and authority to dismiss them. They also limited the president's ability to rule by decree.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

The upper house of the bicameral Parliament is the 47-member Senate, with 32 members chosen by directly elected regional councils and 15 appointed by the president. The senators, who are officially nonpartisan, serve six-year terms, with half of the 32 elected members up for election every three years. The lower house (Mazhilis) has 107 deputies, with 98 elected by proportional representation on party slates and 9 appointed by the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan, which ostensibly represents the country's various ethnic groups. Members serve five-year terms.

Legislative elections do not meet democratic standards. Irregularities including ballot stuffing, group and proxy voting, and manipulation of voter lists have been reported, and the ruling party benefits from a blurred distinction between it and the state. In the 2016 Mazhilis elections, Nur Otan took 84 of the 98 directly elected seats. Two other parties that are generally loyal to the president, Ak Zhol and the Communist People's Party, each secured 7 seats. No genuine opposition party was able to win representation.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 1 / 4

The legal framework is not sufficient to ensure free and fair elections, and the safeguards that do exist are not properly enforced. Electoral laws make it difficult for opposition parties to obtain parliamentary representation. Parties must clear a 7 percent vote threshold to enter the Mazhilis, and they are barred from forming electoral blocs, which prevents opposition groups from pooling votes and campaign resources. Moreover, the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan is appointed by the president at his discretion, giving the executive influence over the nine Mazhilis members chosen by the assembly.

Changes to election laws that were promulgated in July 2017 imposed further restrictions on who can become a presidential candidate, requiring at least five years of experience in public service or elected positions and the submission of medical records. The latter rule raised the possibility that candidates could be arbitrarily disqualified for health reasons. Existing restrictions included a requirement that candidates pass a Kazakh language test whose evaluation criteria are unclear. The 2017 legal changes also banned self-nomination of presidential candidates, effectively excluding independents and requiring a nomination from a registered party or public association.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 3 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 1 / 4

The ability of political parties to organize is heavily restricted by the 2002 Law on Political Parties. To register, a party must have 40,000 documented members, and parties based on ethnic origin, religion, or gender are prohibited. The registration process is onerous, and officials have broad discretion to delay or deny party registration in practice. Opposition parties have also been banned or marginalized through laws against "extremism" and trumped-up criminal charges against their leaders.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 0 / 4

Kazakhstan has never experienced a peaceful transfer of power through elections. Nazarbayev has been the chief executive since before the country gained independence from the Soviet Union, and he holds a special constitutional status as "first president," entitling him to unlimited terms in office, legal immunity, and other privileges. Genuine opposition parties hold no seats in the legislature, and the governors of regions and major cities are presidential appointees, meaning the opposition has virtually no opportunity to present itself as a credible alternative to the ruling party.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 1 / 4

While voters and candidates are not subject to undue influence by the military or foreign powers, the political system is dominated a small group of elites surrounding the president and his family. The country's politics are shaped largely by competition among these elites for resources and positions, arbitrated by the president.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 1 / 4

The legal ban on parties with an ethnic, religious, or gender focus  combined with the dominance of Nur Otan  limits the ability of women and minority groups to organize independently and advocate for their interests through the political system. The language test for presidential candidates also presents an obstacle for non-Kazakh minorities, as well as many Kazakhs. Women currently hold 27 percent of the seats in the Mazhilis and less than 11 percent of the seats in the Senate.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 1 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 0 / 4

Government policies are determined by the executive branch, which is not freely elected, irrespective of the constitutionally defined roles of the executive, judiciary, and legislature. Nazarbayev wields ultimate power with regard to policy and other decisions. Parliament does not serve as an effective check on the executive, largely providing formal approval for the government's legislative initiatives.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 1 / 4

Corruption is widespread at all levels of government. Corruption cases are often prosecuted at the local and regional levels, but charges against high-ranking political and business elites are rare, typically emerging only after an individual has fallen out of favor with the leadership. Journalists, activists, and opposition figures are often prosecuted for supposed financial crimes.

The extent of corruption within the government was highlighted by the case against Kuandyk Bishimbayev, who held positions including deputy minister of industry and trade and economy minister. Bishimbayev went on trial in November 2017, accused of accepting bribes worth $2 million while serving as chairman of the national holding company Bayterek; the trial was ongoing at year's end. Separately, in July a military court in Astana convicted five officials from the defense and finance ministries and sentenced them to prison terms for embezzlement and bribery.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 0 / 4

The government and legislature offer little transparency on their decision-making processes, budgetary matters, and other operations. The media and civil society do not have a meaningful opportunity to provide independent commentary and input on pending laws and policies. A new law on public access to government information was adopted in 2015, but it is poorly implemented in practice. Officials' asset and income declarations are not publicly available.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 17 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 4 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 0 / 4

Media independence is severely limited in Kazakhstan. While the constitution provides for freedom of the press, most of the media sector is controlled by the state or government-friendly owners, and the government has repeatedly harassed or shut down independent outlets. Libel is a criminal offense, and the criminal code prohibits insulting the president. Self-censorship is common. The authorities engage in periodic blocking of online news sources and social media platforms.

The editor of the independent newspaper Sayasi Qalam-Tribuna, Zhanbolat Mamay, was arrested in February 2017 for allegedly laundering money on behalf of exiled banking tycoon Mukhtar Ablyazov. Mamay was convicted in September and sentenced to three years of restricted freedom, a form of probation that would prevent him from engaging in journalism. In May, journalist and press freedom activist Ramazan Yesergepov was stabbed while traveling to discuss Mamay's case with foreign diplomats. He later sought refuge in Europe, saying he was expecting to face trumped-up criminal charges.

New media legislation signed by Nazarbayev in December requires journalists to verify the accuracy of information prior to publication by consulting with the relevant government bodies or officials, obtain consent for the publication of personal or otherwise confidential information, and obtain accreditation as foreign journalists if they work for foreign outlets.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 1 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of worship, and some religious communities practice without state interference. However, activities by unregistered religious groups are banned, and registered groups are subject to close government supervision. The government has broad authority to outlaw organizations it designates as "extremist." The 2011 Law on Religious Activities and Religious Associations prohibited the distribution of religious literature outside places of worship, required the approval of all religious literature by the state, and prohibited unregistered missionary activity, among other provisions.

Local officials continue to harass groups defined as "nontraditional," including Protestant Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Muslims who do not adhere to the approved version of Islam. The courts imposed three-month suspensions of worship on at least two Protestant churches and a Jehovah's Witness center for minor regulatory violations during 2017. A number of people were also convicted on criminal charges related to religious activities. For example, Jehovah Witness Teymur Akhmedov was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for "inciting religious discord" because he discussed his faith with seven young men who posed as students but were actually National Security Committee (KNB) officials.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 2 / 4

Academic freedom remains constrained by political sensitivities surrounding certain topics, including the president, his inner circle, and relations with Russia. Self-censorship on such topics is reportedly common among scholars and educators.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 1 / 4

Authorities are known to monitor social media, and users are regularly prosecuted on charges such as inciting social and ethnic hatred, insulting government officials, and promoting separatism or terrorism. Online tools used to ensure anonymity and circumvent censorship are subject to intermittent blocking.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 1 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 0 / 4

Despite constitutional guarantees, the government imposes tight restrictions on freedom of assembly. Any potential public gathering requires permission from the local government administration 10 days in advance. Permits are routinely denied for antigovernment protests, and police frequently break up unsanctioned gatherings. Organizers and participants, including individuals who call for unauthorized protests on social media, are subject to fines and jail terms.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 1 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) continue to operate but face government harassment when they touch on politically sensitive issues. There are extensive legal restrictions on the formation and operation of NGOs, including onerous financial rules and harsh penalties for noncompliance. Organizations can incur fines and other punishments for vaguely defined offenses like interfering with government activities or engaging in work outside the scope of their charters. Prominent civil society activists often face criminal prosecution and imprisonment in retaliation for their work.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 0 / 4

Workers have limited rights to form and join trade unions and participate in collective bargaining, but the government is closely affiliated with the largest union federation and major employers, and genuinely independent unions face repressive actions by the authorities. In January 2017, a court ruling dissolved the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Kazakhstan (KNPRK) on the grounds that it had failed to meet registration requirements. After oil workers mounted a hunger strike to protest the decision, dozens of participants were fined, and key leaders of the action faced harsher punishments: Nurbek Kushakbayev was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in April for promoting an illegal strike, and Amin Yeleusinov was sentenced to two years in prison in May for allegedly embezzling his union's funds. In July, KNPRK president Larisa Kharkova was convicted of abuse of power and sentenced to four years of restricted liberty as well as a five-year ban on serving in union leadership positions.

F. RULE OF LAW: 4 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 1 / 4

The judiciary is effectively subservient to the executive branch, with the president nominating or directly appointing judges based on the recommendation of the Supreme Judicial Council, which is itself appointed by the president. Judges are subject to political influence, and corruption is a problem throughout the judicial system.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 1 / 4

Police reportedly engage in arbitrary arrests and detentions, and violate detained suspects' right to assistance from a defense lawyer. Prosecutors, as opposed to judges, are empowered to authorize searches and seizures. Defendants are often held in pretrial detention for long periods. Politically motivated prosecutions and prison sentences against activists, journalists, and opposition figures are relatively common.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 1 / 4

Conditions in pretrial detention facilities and prisons are harsh. Police at times use excessive force during arrest, and torture is widely employed to obtain confessions, with numerous allegations of physical abuse and other mistreatment documented each year.

Terrorist violence remains rare, though a pair of attacks in 2016 killed some 35 people.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 1 / 4

While the constitution guarantees equality before the law and prohibits discrimination based on gender, race, and other categories, major segments of society do face discrimination in practice. Traditional cultural biases limit economic and professional opportunities for women, and the law offers no protection against sexual harassment in the workplace. Members of the sizable Russian-speaking minority have complained of discrimination in employment and education. The LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community continues to face societal discrimination, harassment, and violence, despite the decriminalization of same-sex sexual activity in 1998.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 8 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4

Kazakhstani citizens can travel freely but must register their permanent residence with local authorities. New rules that went into effect in January 2017 under the pretext of fighting terrorism require citizens to register even temporary residences lasting more than a month with local authorities or face fines. The change increases the ability of the authorities to monitor internal movement and migration, but critics also suggested that it would lead to corruption and create a black market for false registration documents.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

While the rights of entrepreneurship and private property are formally protected, they are limited in practice by bureaucratic hurdles and the undue influence of politically connected elites, who control large segments of the economy.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

There are no significant legal restrictions on personal social freedoms, but NGOs continue to report instances of early and forced marriage, particularly in rural areas. Domestic violence is a serious problem that often goes unpunished, as police are reluctant to intervene in what are regarded as internal family matters.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

Migrant workers from neighboring countries often face poor working conditions and a lack of effective legal safeguards against exploitation. Both migrants and Kazakhstani workers from rural areas are vulnerable to trafficking for the purposes of forced labor and prostitution in large cities. The authorities reportedly make little effort to assist foreign victims of trafficking.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Jordan

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Jordan, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc77a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 37 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 5.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 8,200,000

Capital: Amman

GDP/capita: $4,096

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Jordan is a monarchy in which the king plays a dominant role in politics and governance. The parliament's lower house is elected, but the electoral system continues to put the opposition at a disadvantage despite recent reforms, and the chamber wields little power in practice. The media and civil society groups are hampered by restrictive laws and government pressure. The judicial system is not independent and often fails to ensure due process.

Key Developments in 2017:

Although the threat of terrorism persisted during the year, there were no high-profile attacks like those in 2016.

In August, Jordan held elections for mayors, local and municipal councils, and new councils at the governorate (provincial) level that were created under a 2015 decentralization law and have a largely advisory role.

Also that month, the parliament abolished a penal code provision that had allowed rapists to avoid punishment by marrying their victims.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 12 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 3 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

King Abdullah II holds broad executive powers. He appoints and dismisses the prime minister and cabinet and may dissolve the bicameral National Assembly at his discretion. The prime minister as of 2017 was Hani Mulki, a veteran former diplomat and cabinet minister who had been appointed in May 2016. Constitutional amendments adopted in 2016 empowered the king to make a number of other appointments, including the crown prince and a regent, without a royal decree countersigned by the prime minister or other cabinet ministers.

Governors and the mayor of Amman are appointed, though other mayors are elected.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 1 / 4

Members of the upper house of the bicameral National Assembly, the 65-seat Senate, are appointed unilaterally by the king. The lower house, the House of Representatives, is elected for four-year terms, with 115 seats filled through races in 23 multimember districts and 15 reserved seats filled by the leading women candidates who failed to win district seats. Twelve of the district seats are reserved for religious and ethnic minorities.

In the September 2016 elections for the House of Representatives, the first held under a new electoral system, the opposition Islamic Action Front (IAF) participated after boycotting the last two elections. It took 10 seats in its own right, and allied groups won several more. However, as in past polls, most seats went to independents  typically tribal figures and businesspeople  who were considered loyal to the monarchy. Vote buying and other forms of manipulation remained a problem.

Elections were held in August 2017 for mayors, local and municipal councils, and 12 new governorate councils that were created under a 2015 law on decentralization. However, 15 percent of the governorate council seats are appointed, and the largely consultative councils will have no legislative authority. A quarter of the seats in the Amman municipal council are also appointed by the government. As with the parliamentary elections, independent tribal candidates won the vast majority of seats, while the IAF and its allies won a plurality of the few seats captured by party-based candidates.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 2 / 4

Elections are administered by the Independent Election Commission (IEC), which generally receives positive reviews from international monitors in terms of technical management, though irregularities continue to be reported. The 2016 reform to Jordan's election law introduced multiple-vote proportional representation for parliamentary elections, replacing a single nontransferable vote system that had favored progovernment tribal elites over opposition-oriented political parties. The new law also redrew district lines to mitigate acute malapportionment that had long placed urban voters at a disadvantage and inflated the influence of the regime's rural supporters. However, even after the changes, rural and tribal voters remained heavily overrepresented.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 6 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 2 / 4

Political parties based on ethnicity, race, gender, or religion are banned in Jordan, but the main opposition party, the IAF, is tolerated. Despite recent legal reforms, the system favors tribally affiliated independents over political parties with specific ideologies and platforms, as does the patronage-based political culture. In the 2016 parliamentary elections, only 215 of 1,252 candidates ran for specific parties, according to the IEC.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 1 / 4

The Islamist opposition holds only about 12 percent of the lower house, and the political system  including the overrepresentation of rural voters  limits the ability of any party-based opposition to make significant gains. Moreover, the constitutional authority of the monarchy means that no opposition force can win control of the executive branch by democratic means alone.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 1 / 4

While voters and candidates are generally free from overt threats or violence, they remain heavily influenced by tribal affiliations and the state-sponsored patronage networks that accompany them. Citizens' political participation is also constrained by the fact that many important positions are appointed rather than elected.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 2 / 4

Women have equal political rights, and female candidates have won some seats beyond the legal quotas set for the parliament and subnational councils, but cultural prejudices remain an obstacle to women's full participation in practice. Five women won House of Representatives seats outside the quota system in 2016, and four won governorate council seats beyond the reserved positions in 2017. Women performed better at the municipal and local levels, but none won mayoral posts.

Nine seats in the House of Representatives are reserved for Christians and three for Circassians and Chechens together. Christians are not permitted to contest nonreserved seats. Citizens of Palestinian origin, who tend to live in urban areas, make up a majority of the overall population but remain underrepresented in the political system.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 3 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 0 / 4

The king dominates policymaking and the legislative process. The appointed government submits all draft legislation to the House of Representatives, which may approve, reject, or amend bills, though they cannot become law without approval from the appointed Senate and the king. Groups of 10 or more lawmakers can propose legislation, but the House must then refer it to the government before it can return to the chamber as a draft law. Among other royal prerogatives, the king unilaterally appoints the heads of the armed forces, the intelligence service, and the gendarmerie.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

The government has undertaken some efforts to combat widespread corruption, and the Integrity and Anticorruption Commission (IACC) is tasked with investigating allegations. However, successful prosecutions  particularly of high-ranking officials  remain rare. Anticorruption efforts are undermined by a lack of genuinely independent enforcement institutions and restrictions on investigative journalism and civil society activism.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 1 / 4

Laws governing access to government information are vague, lack procedural detail, and contain sweeping exceptions, according to Access Info Europe and the Centre for Law and Democracy. Officials are not required to make public declarations of their income and assets. The National Assembly does not exercise effective or independent oversight of the government's budget proposals.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 25 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 7 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 1 / 4

Jordan's media laws are restrictive, vague, and arbitrarily enforced. Various statutes penalize defamation, criticism of the king or state institutions, harming Jordan's relations with foreign states, blasphemy, and a lack of media objectivity. Government gag orders and informal instructions to media outlets regarding news coverage are common. News websites face onerous registration requirements that, if not met, can serve as a justification for blocking. Journalists rarely face serious violence or significant jail time for their work, but they often practice self-censorship. The government closed the local offices of the Qatari television network Al-Jazeera in June 2017 as a result of a political dispute between Qatar and neighboring Persian Gulf monarchies.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 2 / 4

Islam is the state religion. The government monitors sermons at mosques for political, sectarian, or extremist content and has begun issuing recommended texts and themes. Muslim clerics require government authorization to preach or issue religious guidance. Many Christian groups are recognized as religious denominations or associations and can worship freely, though they cannot proselytize among Muslims. While converts from Islam are not prosecuted for apostasy, they face bureaucratic obstacles and harassment in practice. Unrecognized religious groups are allowed to practice their faiths but suffer from a number of disadvantages stemming from their lack of legal status. Atheists and agnostics are required to list a religious affiliation on government documents.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 2 / 4

There is a degree of academic freedom at Jordanian universities, but intelligence services reportedly monitor academic events and campus life, and administrators work with state officials to scrutinize scholarly material for politically sensitive content.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 2 / 4

Open discussion of topics such as politics, the monarchy, religious affairs, and security issues is somewhat inhibited by the threat of punishment under the various laws governing expression. In January 2017, for example, eight activists were arrested and detained for four weeks after criticizing government corruption on social media.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 3 / 12 (-1)

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 1 / 4

Jordanian law limits free assembly. Authorities require prior notification for any demonstration or event and have broad discretion to disperse public gatherings. Violations of the law on assembly can draw fines and jail time. Security forces have in the past engaged in violent confrontations with protesters, though no incidents featuring serious injuries or deaths were reported during 2017.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 1 / 4 (-1)

While many local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are able to operate in the country, there are significant restrictions on freedom of association. The Ministry of Social Development has the authority to deny registration as well as requests for foreign funding, and can disband organizations it finds objectionable. The ministry also has broad supervisory powers over NGO operations and activities, and all board members must be vetted by state security officials. In practice, these regulations appear to applied in an opaque and arbitrary manner.

The government issued warnings and denied foreign funding to dozens of NGOs during 2017. The Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ) was accused of operating under an improper registration and ordered to stop accepting foreign funds in September. Separately, in April the cabinet stipulated that the Anti-Money Laundering Law and Counter-Terrorism Financing Law of 2007 would now apply to NGOs, subjecting them to new and onerous regulatory requirements and potential prison time for failure to comply.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 due to an increase in burdensome regulatory requirements and enforcement actions that restrict NGOs' ability to operate and obtain financing.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 1 / 4

Workers have the right to form unions, but only in 17 designated industries, and the groups must obtain government approval and join the country's semiofficial union federation. The right to strike is limited by requirements for advance notice and mediation, and participants in an illegal strike are subject to dismissal.

F. RULE OF LAW: 7 / 16 (+1)

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 2 / 4

The judiciary's independence is limited. Under the 2016 constitutional amendments, the king unilaterally appoints the entire Constitutional Court and the chair of the Judicial Council, which nominates judges for the civil court system and is made up mostly of senior members of the judiciary. Judges of both the civil and the Sharia (Islamic law) courts  which handle personal status matters for Muslims  are formally appointed by royal decree.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 1 / 4

Police can hold suspects for up to six months without filing formal charges, and governors are empowered to impose administrative detention for up to one year. Legal changes adopted during 2017 aimed to limit the excessive use of pretrial detention, in part by capping the length at 18 months for serious charges. In practice the authorities have often ignored procedural safeguards against arbitrary arrest and detention, holding individuals incommunicado or beyond the legal time limits. Criminal and security defendants generally lack access to counsel before trial, impairing their ability to mount a defense. Despite a constitutional prohibition, courts allegedly accept confessions extracted under torture.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 2 / 4 (+1)

Torture and other mistreatment in custody remain common and rarely draw serious penalties. Prison conditions are generally poor, and inmates reportedly suffer from beatings and other abuse by guards.

The country experienced a number of terrorist attacks and clashes related to disrupted plots associated with the Islamic State (IS) militant group during 2016, causing nearly 30 deaths among security forces and civilians. While terrorism remained a serious threat, there were no similar attacks in 2017.

Score Change: The score improved from 1 to 2 due to a decrease in terrorist attacks compared with previous years.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

Women face discrimination in law and in practice. For example, women's testimony is not equal to men's in Sharia courts, and certain social benefits favor men over women. Jordanians of Palestinian origin are often excluded from jobs in the public sector and security forces, which are dominated by East Bank tribes. Discrimination against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people is also prevalent and includes the threat of violence, though consensual same-sex sexual activity is not specifically prohibited by law. The authorities have denied registration to NGOs that support the rights of LGBT people. In June 2017, the parliament adopted legislation to improve the rights of people with disabilities, including with regard to discrimination in employment; the quality of enforcement remained unclear.

According to the United Nations, there were nearly 740,000 registered refugees in Jordan as of December 2017, including almost 656,000 from Syria, though the government has reported that the true figure may be double that number. Jordanian authorities forcibly returned some Syrians during 2017 and resisted entry by others encamped along the border, restricting aid flows to the camps for part of the year. Jordan does not accept refugees and asylum seekers for settlement but typically allows those in the country to remain while UN agencies seek more permanent solutions. Most refugees lack access to work permits and instead work informally. The government has sought to provide education to refugee children, but many still do not attend school due to overcrowding and other obstacles.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 8 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4

Jordanians generally enjoy freedom of domestic movement and international travel. However, refugees face impediments to their rights to travel and change employers, and there have been reports of employers confiscating the passports of foreign migrant workers.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

The legal framework generally supports property rights for citizens, but noncitizens  including those with Jordanian mothers  are not automatically granted similar rights. Women do not have equal access to property under Sharia-based inheritance rules. Private business activity is hampered by obstacles such as corruption and the abuse of political or other connections.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Personal social freedoms are limited by the country's conservative culture and laws. Women cannot pass citizenship to their children. Matters such as marriage and divorce are generally handled by religious courts, which place women and converts from Islam at a disadvantage and restrict some interfaith marriages. Spousal rape is not a crime.

Modest legal improvements have been enacted in recent years. In April 2017, the parliament adopted legislation to better regulate the processing of domestic violence complaints. Laws enacted in August abolished a penal code provision that allowed rapists to avoid punishment by marrying their victims and eliminated some language allowing reduced sentences for perpetrators of so-called honor crimes. However, reduced sentences were still possible for those who murder a spouse caught committing adultery.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

There are approximately 1.4 million migrant workers in Jordan, of whom about a million have no work permit, making them especially vulnerable to exploitation. Most refugees also lack work permits. Labor rights organizations have raised concerns about poor working conditions, forced labor, and sexual abuse in Qualifying Industrial Zones, where mostly female and foreign factory workers process goods for export. Other problematic sectors include agriculture and domestic service. The legal minimum wage remains below the poverty level and excludes large classes of workers. Rules governing matters such as working hours and safety standards are not well enforced.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Indian Kashmir

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Indian Kashmir, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc7ba.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 49 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 4.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 4 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 4 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 12,540,000

OVERVIEW

Control of Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since 1948, and Indian-administered Kashmir enjoys substantial autonomy under Article 370 of India's constitution. However, separatist and jihadist militants continue to wage a protracted insurgency against the government. Competitive elections are held, but they are often marred by violence. Indian security forces are frequently accused of human rights violations, but few are punished. Civil liberties are curtailed, particularly during times of unrest.

Key Developments in 2017:

The security situation continued to deteriorate, with the deaths of some 200 militants, 75 police officers and soldiers, and at least 40 civilians marking the region's most violent year since 2010.

In July, violent clashes occurred and curfews were imposed on the anniversary of the death of a popular separatist militant leader who was killed by Indian security forces in 2016.

In April, in response to ongoing street demonstrations, authorities instituted a block on more than 20 social media sites, which lasted about a month.

An April by-election for a seat in the Indian parliament was accompanied by separatist calls for a boycott and election-related violence, and saw just 7 percent turnout. A second by-election scheduled for May was suspended due to ongoing unrest.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 22 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 9 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

A chief minister  typically the head of the largest party in the lower house  is entrusted with executive power. The process for selecting the executive is an internal party matter. Mehbooba Mufti, president of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), became the state's first female chief minister in 2016, following the death of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, her father.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

Elections for national parliamentary seats and the state assembly in 2014 were broadly free and fair, with reduced levels of voter intimidation, harassment, and violence compared with past elections. However, in the April 2014 national elections, turnout was less than 40 percent in all districts in the Kashmir Valley due in part to threats of violence. State assembly elections held in November and December 2014 were marked by higher turnout.

A by-election held in April 2017 was held amid heightened tensions related to activism by separatists, who called for a boycott of the polls. Despite a heavy security presence, several people were killed in election-related violence, including attacks on polling stations. Turnout was just 7 percent. A by-election for a national parliament seat, scheduled for May, was canceled due to ongoing insecurity.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

The legal framework governing elections is broadly perceived as fair. Elections are overseen by the Election Commission of India, a well-respected and largely independent body. However, intimidation of election workers and electoral authorities by militant groups can interfere with the orderly implementation of electoral laws and regulations.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 9 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 2 / 4

The state is governed under a multiparty system. While new political parties must register with the Electoral Commission, parties may generally form freely, and there are mechanisms by which independent candidates may stand for office. However, normal party politics are often disrupted by militant violence, intimidation, and separatist boycotts. Moreover, parties are heavily dynastic, making it difficult for independent candidates and less established outsiders to gain political influence.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 3 / 4

For more than a decade, state-level power has rotated between the two largest Kashmiri parties, the PDP, and the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC). The ruling coalition formed by the PDP and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in early 2015 marked the first time that the Hindu nationalist BJP entered government in this Muslim-majority state.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 2 / 4

Militant violence, intimidation, and separatist boycotts negatively affect the ability of people in many areas to assert their right to participate in political processes.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 2 / 4

The state constitution allows all permanent residents over 18 the right to vote in state assembly elections. However, refugees from Pakistan are not entitled to permanent residency rights, and may not vote in state elections. They may vote in parliamentary elections.

While Kashmir's chief minister is a woman, women are generally underrepresented in politics.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 4 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 2 / 4

India has never held a referendum on allowing Kashmiri self-determination, as called for in a 1948 UN resolution. However, Jammu and Kashmir enjoys substantial autonomy under Article 370 of India's constitution. All laws passed by the Indian parliament, except those related to defense, foreign affairs, and financial matters, require the assent of the Kashmiri legislature to come into force in the state.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 1 / 4

Corruption in Jammu and Kashmir is widespread, and while the government has taken some steps to combat it, these have yet to bring about lasting improvements. A 2011 law established an anticorruption commission with far-reaching investigatory powers. The commission has processed more than a thousand complaints since the first commissioners were appointed in 2013, and has filed a handful of bribery charges against public officials. However, few corruption cases result in convictions.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 1 / 4

The government of Mehbooba Mufti has asserted a commitment to transparency, and has introduced some systems to increase accountability among public-sector workers. However, the state administration generally operates with opacity.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 27 / 60 (-1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 9 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 2 / 4

Print media thrive in Jammu and Kashmir, and online media have proliferated, providing new platforms for public discussion. However, threats of government reprisal, including the detention of journalists under the Public Safety Act, continue to intimidate the media. Journalists also face threats from militant groups.

In December 2017, French documentary filmmaker Comiti Paul Edwards was arrested while taking footage for a documentary about people injured by the use of pellet guns at demonstrations. He was released on bail in late December, having apparently been charged with violating the provisions of his business visa.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 2 / 4

Freedom of worship is generally respected by the authorities. However, communal violence between Muslims and Hindus periodically flares up, and many have been injured and killed as a result. In January 2017, more than 20 people were killed in clashes between Muslims and Hindus. In July, seven Hindu pilgrims were killed when their tour bus became caught in a shootout between militants and security forces. The annual pilgrimage event, the Amarnath Yatra, was considered sensitive and had reportedly drawn militant threats before it took place.

Separately, a ban against Muharram processions, which take place during a Shia period of mourning at the Islamic New Year, has been upheld for decades.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 2 / 4

Academic freedom is often circumscribed. Authorities monitor the research produced at Kashmiri universities, and a combination of official and self-censorship discourages students and professors from pursuing sensitive topics of inquiry. Colleges and universities were closed for over half of 2016 owing to unrest. Further closures took place in 2017.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 3 / 4

While private discussion is often robust, fear of reprisals by government or militant forces can serve as a deterrent to uninhibited speech. Free expression was seriously curbed between April and May 2017, when the government issued a sweeping clampdown on social media; 22 platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp, were blocked. Mobile internet services were also suspended. Two UN special representatives deemed the actions "collective punishment" against the people of Kashmir and Jammu.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 5 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 1 / 4

Freedom of assembly is frequently restricted during times of unrest. Requests for permits for public gatherings submitted by the separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) are often denied. Separatist leaders are frequently arrested prior to planned demonstrations. Curfews were repeatedly imposed in parts of the state in 2017 in response to unrest and militant violence. Thousands of protesters defied a curfew in May to attend the funeral of Sabzar Ahmad Bhat, a commander killed by Indian security forces.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 2 / 4

Although local and national civil rights groups are permitted to operate, they are sometimes harassed by security forces. The separatist APHC is technically allowed to function, but its leaders are frequently subjected to short-term detention.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 2 / 4

Although workers have the right to form unions and engage in collective bargaining under Indian law, protection of union rights in Kashmir are inconsistently enforced.

F. RULE OF LAW: 5 / 16 (-1)

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 1 / 4

Courts are politicized, and act as an extension of Indian executive and military authority. The government and security forces frequently disregard court orders.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

The courts in Jammu and Kashmir, already facing large backlogs of cases, are further hampered by intermittent lawyers' strikes.

Broadly written legislation, such as the unpopular Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and the Disturbed Areas Act, allow security forces to search homes and arrest suspects without a warrant, shoot suspects on sight, and destroy buildings believed to house militants or arms. Under the AFSPA, prosecutions of security personnel cannot proceed without the approval of the central government, which is rarely granted. The state's Public Security Act allows detention without charge or trial for up to two years, though 2012 amendments barred the detention of minors under the law.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 1 / 4 (-1)

Indian security personnel have continued to carry out arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture, forced disappearances, and custodial killings of suspected militants and their alleged civilian sympathizers, and generally enjoy impunity.

Militant groups based in Pakistan have killed pro-India politicians, public employees, suspected informers, members of rival factions, soldiers, and civilians. The militants also engage in kidnapping, extortion, and other forms of intimidation in Jammu and Kashmir. After several years of relative stability, the situation in the state deteriorated sharply in 2016 after the killing of Burhan Muzaffar Wani, a popular separatist militant leader. The situation worsened in 2017, when more than 300 civilians, security personnel, and militants were killed in militant-related violence.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 due to an increase in militant-related violence during the year.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 1 / 4

A pattern of violence targeting Pandits, or Kashmiri Hindus, has forced several hundred thousand Hindus to flee their homes in the region over the years, and many continue to reside in refugee camps. Other religious and ethnic minorities, such as Sikhs and Gurjars, have been targeted in the past, but such reports have been less frequent in recent years.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 8 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4

Freedom of movement is curtailed by both state and federal authorities. Curfews were repeatedly imposed in parts of the state in 2017 in response to unrest and militant violence. Thousands of protesters defied a curfew in May to attend the funeral of Sabzar Ahmad Bhat, a commander killed by Indian security forces.

While the Indian government has loosened restrictions on the travel of foreigners to some areas within Jammu and Kashmir, internal movement is disrupted by roadblocks, checkpoints, and periodic protest-related shutdowns or curfews. Kashmiri residents face delays of up to two years to obtain and renew passports due to heightened levels of scrutiny.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

Property rights are undermined by displacement and military activity related to the conflict, and the regulatory environment constrains the establishment and operation of new businesses. While Jammu and Kashmir permanent residents can exercise property rights, outsiders are prohibited from acquiring property in the state.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Women face some societal discrimination as well as domestic violence and other forms of abuse. Female civilians continue to be subjected to harassment, intimidation, and violent attacks, including rape and murder, at the hands of both the security forces and militant groups.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

Affirmative action in areas such as employment exists for members of several marginalized social groups. Child labor is reportedly prevalent in the region, but the government has taken few steps to combat it.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Honduras

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Honduras, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc7da.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 46 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 4.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 4 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 4 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 8,200,000

Capital: Tegucigalpa

GDP/capita: $2,326

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

OVERVIEW

Institutional weakness, corruption, violence, and impunity undermine the overall stability of Honduras. Journalists, political activists, and women are often the victims of violence, and perpetrators are rarely brought to justice. While Honduras holds regular elections, irregularities surrounding the 2017 presidential poll prompted election monitors to call the result into question.

Key Developments in 2017:

President Juan Orlando Hernandez was reelected in a contest tarnished by numerous irregularities and postelection protests that saw more than 20 people killed in clashes between demonstrators and police. A temporary curfew was enacted in response to the unrest.

Election monitors supported opposition calls for a recount of votes in the presidential poll, and the Organization of American States (OAS) eventually called for a rerun. Authorities dismissed their petitions.

The Special Commission for Purging and Transformation of the National Police saw its mandate extended through January 2018, following its success in removing thousands of corrupt police officials.

While violent crime remains a problem, the homicide rate declined to roughly 46.5 people per 100,000, compared to 60 per 100,000 in 2016.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 20 / 40 (+1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 7 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 2 / 4

The president is both chief of state and head of government, and is elected by popular vote to a four-year term. The leading candidate is only required to win a plurality; there is no runoff system.

In a controversial 2015 decision, the Honduran Supreme Court voided Article 239 of the constitution, which had limited presidents to one term. President Juan Orlando Hernandez was subsequently reelected in 2017, with the Supreme Electoral Council (TSE) announcing in December  three weeks after the actual poll  that he had taken 42.95 percent of the vote, to opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla's 41.42 percent. The Organization of American States (OAS) noted numerous issues with the electoral process, which it said "was characterized by irregularities and deficiencies, with very low technical quality and lacking integrity," and appealed for new elections to be held. The government dismissed the OAS petition, and by year's end the United States, the European Union (EU), and Canada had recognized Hernandez as the winner of the election.

Post-election protests led to clashes between civilians and security forces, resulting in the deaths of more than 20 protesters.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

Members of the 128-seat, unicameral National Congress are elected for four-year terms using proportional representation by department. In the November 2017 polls, the governing National Party (PN) acquired an additional 13 seats, but still fell short of holding a legislative majority. The opposition Liberty and Refoundation (LIBRE) party and Liberal Party (PL) lost seven seats, and one seat, respectively. While the 2017 presidential and parliamentary votes were held concurrently, stakeholders accepted the results of the legislative elections; only the presidential poll was disputed.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 2 / 4

The TSE came under heavy criticism for its administration of the 2017 presidential poll, notably after a preliminary vote count had showed Nasralla with a significant lead, but later announcements and ultimately the final result  which was released three weeks after the elections  showed a victory by Hernandez. The delay prompted protests and widespread allegations of TSE incompetence and bias toward the ruling party. As the vote-counting process dragged on, OAS and EU election monitors expressed concerns regarding the lack of transparency and irregularities surrounding the presidential vote, and voiced support for Nasralla's demand for a recount. The OAS eventually called for the poll to be rerun, but authorities dismissed the recommendation.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 8 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 3 / 4

Political parties are largely free to operate, though power has mostly been concentrated in the hands of the PL and the PN since the early 1980s. In 2013, LIBRE and the Anti-Corruption Party (PAC) participated in elections for the first time, winning a significant share of the vote and disrupting the dominance of the PL and the PN. PAC lost all but one of its seats in 2017, but LIBRE maintained its position as the second-largest party in the parliament.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 2 / 4

Opposition parties are competitive, and in 2017 opposition candidates took a significant portion of the vote in both the legislative and presidential elections. However, the many serious irregularities surrounding the TSE's administration of the 2017 presidential election prompted EU and OAS election monitors to question the validity of the vote count, and at year's end the opposition continued to insist that a PN-aligned TSE had denied the opposition candidate victory in the presidential race.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 1 / 4

The military, after decades of ruling Honduras, remains politically powerful. President Hernandez's appointments of military officials to civilian posts, many related to security, have underscored that influence. There were numerous reports of vote buying during the 2017 polling period.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 2 / 4

All adult citizens may vote, and voting is compulsory. Ethnic minorities remain underrepresented in Honduras' political system and in the political sphere generally, though there have been modest efforts by the government to encourage their participation and representation. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have also worked to improve minority representation in government. After being criticized for failing to do so in past elections, the TSE in 2017 printed voter information materials in indigenous and Afro-Honduran languages. However, no representatives of the Afro-Honduran (Garifuna) population were elected to Congress in 2017.

Women are also underrepresented in politics. The TSE has struggled to implement parity laws. However, women's rights groups are becoming more visible in the political sphere.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 5 / 12 (+1)

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 2 / 4 (+1)

In 2014, the Hernandez administration eliminated five cabinet-level ministries and created seven umbrella ministries in an effort to cut costs. Critics have argued that the restructuring concentrated power in too few hands.

The opposition's ability to prevent the ruling party from achieving a legislative majority has forced political parties to form coalitions to pass legislation. Recently, a divided legislature successfully proposed and approved a 2017 budget, proposed a 2018 budget, and approved a penal reform package submitted by the government.

While the results of the 2017 presidential election were hotly disputed, stakeholders accepted the results of the year's legislative elections. The new government will be inaugurated in 2018.

Score Change: The score improved from 1 to 2 due to the ability of the executive and legislative branches to work together to implement policy, and create and approve budgets.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Corruption remains rampant in Honduras, but some safeguards have been implemented to address the issue. The mandate of the Special Commission for Purging and Transformation of the National Police was extended through January 2018, following its success in removing corrupt police officials. However, while thousands of police officers have been removed in connection with the commission's investigations, none of those expelled have been convicted of corruption-related or other crimes.

The Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), which was established in 2016, has since helped facilitate the approval of new anticorruption legislation aimed at preventing illicit campaign donations. However, there are also reports that political elites have taken efforts to undermine or interfere with its work.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 1 / 4

Government operations are generally opaque. Journalists and interest groups have difficulty obtaining information from the government. Secrecy laws passed in 2014 allow authorities to withhold information on security and national defense for up to 25 years. The laws cover information regarding the military police budget, which is funded by a security tax, as well as information related to the Supreme Court and the Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Directorate.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 26 / 60 (-1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 9 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 1 / 4

Authorities systematically violate the constitution's press freedom guarantees. Reporters and outlets covering sensitive topics or who are perceived as critical of authorities risk assaults, threats, blocked transmissions, and harassment. A February 2017 reform to antiterrorism provisions in the Penal Code justified the jailing of journalists for inciting terrorism or hate. The Public Ministry, in a nonbinding opinion issued in June, called the measure unconstitutional.

In January 2017, television reporter Igor Abisai Padilla Chavez, who typically covered general news and crime in his work, was shot and killed by unidentified attackers. While authorities made numerous arrests in connection with the murder, it was unclear whether any convictions had followed or what the motive might have been. In September, journalist Carlos Williams Flores, known for his critical assessment of agricultural companies in the Northern Triangle border region, was shot and killed by hit men on motorcycles in Tegucigalpa.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

Religious freedom is generally respected in Honduras.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 2 / 4

Academic freedom is undermined by criminal groups, who control all or parts of schools in some areas and subject staff to extortion schemes. Authorities sometimes move to suppress student demonstrations by arresting participants and dispersing the events, and violent clashes between police and student protesters sometimes occur. Several such clashes took place in May and June 2017 at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (HNAH), leading to a number of arrests and injuries.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 2 / 4

Under the Special Law on Interception of Private Communications, passed in 2011, the government can intercept online and telephone messages. Violence, threats, and intimidation by state and nonstate actors curtails open and free private discussion among the general population.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 4 / 12 (-1)

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 1 / 4 (-1)

Freedom of assembly is constitutionally protected, but demonstrations are often met with a violent police response. In late December, following the elections, mass demonstrations erupted at which participants called for greater transparency in the presidential vote count by the TSE. More than 20 protesters were killed in the ensuing police crackdown, and hundreds were arrested. In December, authorities instituted a 10-day curfew in response to the unrest.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 due to a deadly police crackdown on demonstrators protesting opaque vote-counting procedures following the presidential election, and the subsequent enforcement of a 10-day curfew.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 1 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations and their staff face significant threats, including harassment, surveillance, smear campaigns aimed at undermining their work, detention, and serious violence. Reforms to the Penal Code enacted in 2017 raise the possibility of NGO workers being charged under broadly worded antiterrorism provisions.

In 2016, prominent indigenous rights leader Berta Caceres was shot to death in her home, after receiving more than 30 death threats connected to her opposition of a dam project on indigenous lands. The investigation into her killing continues, but has been criticized by independent investigators as inadequate.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 2 / 4

Labor unions are well organized and can strike, though labor actions have resulted in clashes with security forces. The government does not always honor formal agreements entered with public-sector unions. Union leaders and labor activists in both the public and private sector face harassment and dismissal for their activities. Operators of factories that employ unionized workers have threatened to shutter operations in response to union activities.

Threats and attacks against union leaders continued in 2017. In April, union leader Moises Sanchez Gomez and his brother Hermes Misael Sanchez Gomez said they were attacked by men wielding machetes in connection with their labor activism.

F. RULE OF LAW: 5 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 1 / 4

Political and business elites exert excessive influence over the Honduran judiciary, including the Supreme Court. Judicial appointments are made with little transparency. Judges have been removed from their posts for political reasons, and a number of legal professionals have been killed in recent years. Prosecutors and whistleblowers handling corruption cases are often subject to threats of violence.

In a controversial move in 2012, Congress voted to remove four of the five justices in the Supreme Court's constitutional chamber after they ruled a police reform law unconstitutional. In 2013, the legislature granted itself the power to remove from office the president, Supreme Court justices, legislators, and other officials. It also curtailed the power of the Supreme Court's constitutional chamber and revoked the right of citizens to challenge the constitutionality of laws. These moves laid the groundwork for the controversial 2015 constitutional change that allowed for the reelection of Juan Orlando Hernandez in 2017.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

Due process is limited due to a compromised judiciary and a corrupt and often inept police force, in which many officers have engaged in criminal activities including drug trafficking and extortion. The government has increasingly utilized the armed forces to combat crime and violence. Arbitrary arrests and detentions are common, as is lengthy pretrial detention. Authorities in the armed forces have dishonorably discharged members accused of rights violations before their trials have taken place.

An investigation into the murder of indigenous rights leader Berta Caceres continued in 2017, and by October, eight people had been arrested in connection with it, including an active-duty member of the military and two officials with a company constructing the hydroelectric dam Caceres had opposed. However, independent investigators have called the government's investigation inadequate, and claimed that the government has further evidence implicating both state officials and the construction company, Desarrollos Energeticos, but has not acted on it.

In 2017, authorities established several new courts in an attempt to address lengthy trial delays. Attorney General Oscar Chinchilla has won praise since taking office in 2013 for prosecuting organized crime figures and corrupt politicians.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 1 / 4

While the homicide rate declined in 2017  standing at roughly 46.5 people per 100,000, compared to 60 per 100,000 in 2016  violent crime and gang violence remain serious problems, and have prompted large-scale migration out of Honduras. Many parents opt to send their children towards the United States to avoid gang recruitment, and those who return to their neighborhoods are often targeted by gangs, and in some cases, killed for fleeing the community.

In response to widespread violence, the government has empowered the Military Police of Public Order (PMOP) and other security forces to combat security threats, and these units often employ excessive force when conducting security operations.

Prisons are overcrowded and underequipped, and many inmates are pretrial detainees. Prison violence remains rampant due in large part to the presence of gangs.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 1 / 4

Violence and discrimination against LGBT people and indigenous and Garifuna populations persist, and while antidiscrimination laws are on the books, in practice victims of such abuses have little recourse. Rights groups have reported more than 200 murders of LGBT people since 2009.

Honduras has among the highest femicide rates in the world, and few such murders are investigated. The Center for Women's Rights, a Honduras-based NGO, reported that 236 women were murdered between January and October 2017, categorizing the victims as having been killed in connection with commercial sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, or domestic violence.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 8 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4

While authorities generally do not restrict free movement, Honduras's ongoing violence and impunity have reduced personal autonomy for the country's residents. Those living in gang-controlled territories face extortion, and dangerous conditions limit free movement and options for education and employment.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

Corruption, crime, and gang activity inhibits the ability to conduct business activities freely, and dissuades entrepreneurs from establishing new businesses. Those who work in the transportation sector (taxi and bus drivers) are notable targets of gangs, but many are unable to flee for fear of retaliatory violence against themselves and their families.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Same-sex marriage remains illegal in Honduras. Domestic violence remains widespread, and most such attacks go unpunished.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

Lack of socioeconomic opportunities combined with high levels of crime and violence limit social mobility for most Hondurans. High levels of youth unemployment combined with lack of proper education help to perpetuate the cycle of crime and violence.

Human trafficking is a significant issue in Nicaragua, which serves as a source country for women and children forced into prostitution; adults and children are also vulnerable to forced labor in the agriculture, mining, and other sectors, and as domestic servants.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Haiti

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Haiti, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc7fa.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 41 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 5.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 11,100,000

Capital: Port-au-Prince

GDP/capita: $815

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Weak institutions, foreign influence, and corruption continue to hinder the capacities of the Haitian government. As a result of its weak governance, Haiti still struggles to recover from recent natural disasters that damaged infrastructure, displaced thousands, and caused acute food insecurity.

Key Developments in 2017:

For the first time since 2012, Haiti had an elected president, full parliament, and local government posts filled in 2017, although observers asserted that there were flaws and procedural errors in the 2016 elections that put the president and legislators in office.

Executive and parliamentary actions threatened to further erode human rights in Haiti  in November, newly elected President Jovenel Moise reinstated the Haitian army, which was disbanded in 1995 due to human rights abuses, while the Senate passed two anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) bills and a bill that would increase criminal penalties for defamation.

Protests and strikes were frequent; the judicial system was paralyzed by striking court workers, and antigovernment protestors denouncing government corruption and an unpopular budget that increased taxes were met with strong police resistance.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 17 / 40 (+2)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 5 / 12 (+2)

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 2 / 4 (+1)

Haiti is a semipresidential republic and the president is directly elected for a five-year term by a majority vote. The prime minister is appointed by the president and approved by the parliament. The presidential election held in 2015, which was won by Jovenel Moise of the Haitian Tet Kale Party (PHTK), was nullified due to extensive fraud. A new election was scheduled for 2016. The European Union (EU) objected to the nullification of the 2015 results and withdrew its election observation mission, and the United States withdrew its electoral funding. The repeat presidential election was held in November 2016, and Jovenel Moise again won, with 55.6 percent of the vote. (Moise was handpicked by the previous president Michel Martelly, whose administration was plagued by political violence and corruption allegations.)

Although the election was seen as an improvement over the previous year's election, there were allegations of fraud, logistical issues, inconsistent electoral lists, and inaccessible polling stations, which contributed to 21 percent voter turnout. President Moise was inaugurated in February 2017 after an electoral tribunal verified the election result, stating that there were irregularities, but no evidence of widespread fraud. The elections results were considered credible by election observers, although civil society groups asserted that the low voter turnout undermined the mandate of the new president.

Score change: The score improved from 1 to 2 due to the improved conduct of the 2016 elections that were held after the annulment of the 2015 polls. The 2016 elections were generally considered credible by the international community, despite significant flaws and low turnout.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 1 / 4

The directly elected, bicameral Haitian Parliament is composed of a Senate, with 30 members who serve six-year terms, and a Chamber of Deputies, with 118 members who serve four-year terms. The 2015 legislative elections were wrought with disorder, fraud, and violence. There was very low voter turnout and no party won a parliamentary majority. Despite concerns about the election's credibility, 92 parliamentarians took office in January 2016. Elections for the Senate and the runoff elections for the remaining 24 seats on the Chamber of Deputies were held concurrently with the 2016 presidential election. Although improvements were made over the 2015 elections, polling was marred by low voter turnout and instances of fraud.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 2 / 4 (+1)

The Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) was established in the late 1980s as a temporary body, but continues to be responsible for managing the electoral process. Although the constitution has provisions to prevent executive dominance of the CEP, the executive branch asserts significant control over it in practice. Legislative elections were not held from 2011 until 2015 because a number of electoral councils appointed by former president Martelly did not meet constitutional requirements or receive parliamentary approval  critics claimed that CEP members would have been beholden to Martelly. A new electoral decree was adopted in 2015, and new council members were appointed in a manner closer to the constitutional provisions, which has improved the CEP's functioning and increased its independence from the executive. In September 2017, the legislature and the judiciary began the process of establishing the Permanent Electoral Council.

Score change: The score improved from 1 to 2 due to the improved quality and functioning of the electoral council.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 7 / 16 (-1)

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 2 / 4

Political parties generally do not face legal or administrative barriers to registering or running in elections.

The number of members required to form a political party was decreased from 500 to 20 in 2014, leading to a proliferation of new groups. However, protests and rallies organized by opposition parties are sometimes repressed by the government. In September and October 2017, several protests against President Moise's budget, organized by the leftist Fanmi Lavalas party, were violently broken up by the police. Although some protesters acted violently, the police fired tear gas into crowds and blocked a march into the city center in Port-au-Prince.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 1 / 4

It is difficult for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections, which are controlled by the ruling class of elites and political supporters. The 2015 elections were violent, and a Haitian observer mission concluded that the ruling PHTK had been the most aggressive in committing election-related violence, which served to depress turnout for opposition parties.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 2 / 4

Haitians' political choices are free from domination by domestic military powers and religious hierarchies. However, many politicians rely on drug-related money and other illegal sources of funding to finance their campaigns, which has a considerable influence over political outcomes in Haiti.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 2 / 4 (-1)

Haitian women are underrepresented in political life, and in 2017 only four out of 149 parliamentary seats were held by women. The constitution mandates that 30 percent of public officials should be women, but that mandate was only adhered to in local elections, and the government lacks penalties for noncompliance. Election-related violence against women was a problem in 2017, and, along with social and cultural constraints, discourages women from participating more robustly in politics. Due to discrimination, LGBT people have little political representation.

Score change: The score declined from 3 to 2 because social, cultural and economic barriers, as well as election-related violence, make it difficult for women to run for office. Additionally, intolerance towards LGBT people make it impossible for someone who openly identifies as LGBT to run for office.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 5 / 12 (+1)

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 2 / 4 (+1)

For the first time since 2012, Haiti had an elected president, a full parliament, and local government seats filled in 2017. However, given credible challenges to election results, especially the parliamentary results, questions of legitimacy loom for many of these elected officials. Due to state failure, the government struggles to carry out its own policies, and has been dependent on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) to help carry out many basic government functions. But the successful seating of all elected officials increases the prospects for stability, improved governance, and continued democratic consolidation.

Score change: The score improved from 1 to 2 due to improvements in the functioning of government and the fact that 2017 marks the first time that all levels of government have seated representatives.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 1 / 4

Corruption is widespread in Haiti, as are allegations of impunity for government officials. Haiti has two main anticorruption units, the Anticorruption Unit (ULCC) and the Central Financial Intelligence Unit (UCREF). In May 2017, parliament approved a law that reduced the independence and powers of UCREF to investigate money laundering cases. In July, Moise replaced both the head of the ULCC and the UCREF with political allies and former members of the Martelly administration; both units had been investigating Moise for potential money laundering. In August and November, two Senate commissions recommended criminal charges against former government officials for misappropriating and embezzling $2 billion in loans from Venezuela intended for post-2010 earthquake reconstruction.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

There is a general distrust of the government among Haitians, and many do not believe the current administration will be able to implement transparency and accountability measures needed to reduce corruption. There are no laws providing the public with access to information and it is reportedly very difficult to obtain government documents and data in practice. All government officials must file financial disclosure forms within 90 days of taking office and within 90 days of leaving office.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 24 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 10 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 2 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of expression, but press freedom is constrained by threats and violence against journalists, as well as government interference. The Senate approved a bill without public consultation in March 2017 that broadens the definition of defamation and increases jail time to three years. In October, journalists denounced the Port-au-Prince district attorney's demand that journalists turn over images and recordings of violence committed during demonstrations. In August 2017, the mayor of Les Cayes threatened the life of a journalist for negative reporting on a local music festival.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

Freedom of religion is constitutionally guaranteed and religious groups generally practice freely, although practitioners of traditional Vodou face social stigma and the Muslim community experiences discrimination, particularly against women who wear hijabs.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 2 / 4

Educational institutions and academics choose their curriculum freely, but university students who protest government actions are often met with police violence. The state-run University of Ethnology closed in June 2017 after allegations that the dean hit a student with his car during a protest  in response students set fire to several vehicles.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 3 / 4

The government does not engage in widespread surveillance, nor is it known to block websites or illegally monitor private online communications. However, due to its lack of infrastructure, only 12 percent of the population has internet access. Haitians often feel uncomfortable discussing sensitive issues such as organized crime and drug cartels out of fear of reprisals.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 4 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 2 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of assembly, though this right is often violated in practice. Security forces often violently crack down on street protests. Antigovernment protestors who took to the streets regularly starting in September 2017 to denounce an unpopular budget were met with strong police resistance. Police-related injuries, fatalities and unlawful arrests were reported.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 1 / 4

Human rights defenders and activists with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that address sensitive topics risk threats and violence, which are rarely investigated or prosecuted. In December 2017, human rights activist Saniece Petit Phat reported receiving death threats for her work combating gender-based violence. In April, two human rights defenders feared retaliation after their colleague died suddenly, the day after they filed a lawsuit for human rights violations against the former mayor of their hometown. The mayor had threatened the group for years prior to the death.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 1 / 4

The ability to unionize is protected under the law, though the union movement in Haiti is weak and lacks collective bargaining power. Workers frequently face harassment, suspension, termination, and other repercussions from employers for organizing.

Court clerks around the country walked off the job from July through October 2017 in protest of poor wages and working conditions, shutting down the court system. Transportation workers also went on strike in September to protest the new budget's effects on transportation taxes.

F. RULE OF LAW: 4 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 1 / 4

Despite constitutional guarantees of independence, the judiciary is susceptible to pressure from the executive and legislative branches. Corruption is common, and weak oversight means that most corrupt judges are not held accountable. When President Moise's government took power, all 18 chief prosecutors in the judicial jurisdictions were replaced, which opened new avenues for executive interference in the judiciary since prosecutors can determine which cases end up before a judge.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 1 / 4

Due process rights are provided for in the constitution, but those rights are regularly violated. Due to a lack of resources and poor pay for judges and other public officials, bribery is common throughout the judicial system. Haitian law guarantees a hearing within 48 hours after arrest, yet the majority of the prison population is in prolonged pretrial detention due to a large backlog of cases and resource constraints.

Arbitrary arrest is common, as well as extortion attempts by police. The right to a fair trial is guaranteed by the constitution, but in practice judges often deny defendants the opportunity to call witnesses and present evidence.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 1 / 4

A culture of violence and impunity in law enforcement, in addition to widespread crime and violence, leave people in Haiti with little protection from the illegitimate use of force. The national police reported almost 900 homicides in 2017, but crime statistics are difficult to authenticate and crimes are underreported by the government.

MINUSTAH, which brought thousands of foreign military and police to Haiti beginning in 2004, ended its mandate in October 2017. The UN installed a smaller mission focused on justice and police, the UN Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH).

In November, a six-hour antigang police raid supported by MINUJUSTH ended in the killing of at least nine civilians and two police officers on a school campus in Port-au-Prince. None of the police officers involved were disciplined or arrested. Police are regularly accused of abusing suspects and detainees. Prisons are overcrowded and lack adequate health and sanitation.

In November 2017, the President Moise reintroduced the national army, which was disbanded in 1995 following a series of human rights abuses. The defense minister says the army will eventually expand to 5,000 soldiers. The violent legacy of the previous army has led to fears about potential future abuses if safeguards and checks on the military are inadequate.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 1 / 4

Discrimination against women, the LGBT community, and persons with disabilities is pervasive. Women often lack access to credit and other financial services, and experience employment discrimination.

Sexual harassment and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation occur regularly, and neither are criminalized. In June 2017, a bill limiting LGBT individuals' access to employment and education was passed by the Senate. It still awaited passage by the Chamber of Deputies at year's end.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 6 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4

The government generally does not restrict travel, place of employment or advancement in school. As of October 2017, approximately 38,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) resided in IDP camps, which were initially built in response to the 2010 earthquake. The country's slow recovery from natural disasters hinders the ability of many people to return to their homes.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

Difficulty registering property, enforcing contracts, and getting credit makes it difficult to start and operate a business in Haiti. Poor record keeping and corruption result in inconsistent property rights enforcement.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Domestic violence is not a criminal offense and according to the Copenhagen Consensus Center, approximately 273,000 women suffer from intimate partner abuse every year. A draft penal code that offered protection against sexual violence was submitted to parliament and tabled in April 2017.

In August, a bill banning gay marriage and public support for LGBT rights was passed by the Senate. Child abuse, particularly sexual abuse, is a widespread problem.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 0 / 4

Poverty is a persistent problem in Haiti  nearly 60 percent of Haitians live on two dollars a day or less, primary school enrollment is approximately 85 percent, and literacy rates are low, all of which deter socioeconomic mobility.

Child labor persisted in 2017, with the majority working as domestic help; approximately 286,000 children work in domestic servitude.

Human trafficking remained a serious issue, but the 2017 U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report for Haiti asserts that the government made some improvements in their anti-trafficking efforts, including the first three convictions under the 2014 anti-trafficking law. However, combatting human trafficking was not made a priority at the upper levels of government, and weak and inefficient institutions impeded the prosecution and prevention of trafficking crimes and the protection of victims.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Guatemala

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Guatemala, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc81a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 56 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 4.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 4 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 4 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 16,600,000

Capital: Guatemala City

GDP/capita: $3,924

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

While Guatemala holds regular elections that are generally free, organized crime and corruption severely impact the functioning of government. Violence and criminal extortion schemes are serious problems, and victims have little recourse to justice. Journalists, activists, and public officials who confront crime, corruption, and other sensitive issues risk attack.

Key Developments in 2017:

President Jimmy Morales attempted to remove the head of the UN-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) after it revealed evidence pointing to his involvement in illegal party financing. His attempts were unsuccessful, and prompted several high-profile government resignations. Legislative votes to remove the president's immunity failed in September, preventing the CICIG from investigating him.

Also in September, the Constitutional Court suspended reforms to the penal code approved by the legislature that would have permitted the commutation of some sentences related to party financing violations.

Opposition lawmakers and the country's human rights ombudsman filed a legal complain over a police crackdown on anticorruption protesters, eventually prompting the Constitutional Court to rule that police must respect the right to free assembly.

The country's homicide rate declined for the eighth year in a row.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 23 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 8 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

The constitution stipulates a four-year presidential term, and prohibits reelection. In a runoff election in 2015, President Morales won a plurality of the vote, with 67 percent. The elections were judged as generally credible, although electoral observers reported some irregularities, including intimidation and vote buying. An estimated 20 election-related murders occurred during the campaign period, mostly involving mayoral candidates and their relatives.

In August 2017, CICIG and the attorney general revealed evidence suggesting that the president and his party, the National Convergence Front (FCN) had received hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of illicit financing during the 2015 campaign period.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

Members of the 158-seat, unicameral Congress are elected to four-year terms. Like the presidential election, the 2015 polls were deemed credible, but observers noted irregularities, and 11 municipal contests had to be repeated. A CICIG report released that year stated that 25 percent of campaign contributions to political parties had come from business interests, and another 25 percent originated with organized crime groups.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 2 / 4

Authorities and lawmakers in recent years have taken some steps to address a serious lack of transparency in party financing, and to prevent illegal party financing  both of which were serious problems in the 2015 polls. In 2016, the legislature approved electoral reforms that included stronger oversight of parties' financial disclosures, and in 2017, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) implemented mechanisms to monitor financing procedures and penalize illegal electoral financing. The TSE then sanctioned a number of parties for various violations, including the FCN, which was suspended in September for not paying a fine for failing to submit required financial reports. Additionally, the TSE created a specialized unit, supported by CICIG, which is tasked with monitoring electoral spending beginning in 2018.

The end of the year saw intense discussion about electoral reforms, with TSE and civil society organizations opposing reforms proposed by the legislature that would, among other things, give lawmakers more power in selecting the TSE's leadership.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 10 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 3 / 4

Political groups and organizations generally operate without encountering legal restrictions. However, new groups sometimes face bureaucratic delays from the TSE when attempting to register.

Elections take place within an inchoate multiparty system in which new parties are frequently created. New parties that lack resources and infrastructure face disadvantages in gaining broad support. A lack of party finance regulations allows some candidates and parties access to vast resources.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 3 / 4

Elections at the national and local levels are competitive, and new parties routinely gain significant quotas of power. Guatemalan politics are unstable and power rotates between parties frequently, which can discourage a traditional opposition from coalescing. Political candidates risk attack during campaign periods.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 2 / 4

Verbal harassment and physical violence against voters is common during elections, and can deter political participation. Weak campaign finance regulations permit lopsided financing of candidates, as well as financing of candidates by special interests and organized criminal groups, distorting the political choices of citizens.[1] Direct vote buying is also common.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 2 / 4

Minorities struggle to fully exercise their political rights. Members of indigenous communities hold just 20 seats in the 158-seat legislature, although they comprise over 40 percent of the population, and there are few initiatives aimed at promoting their participation. Women are underrepresented in politics, though small women's rights groups, mainly those working to draw attention to violence against women, have some visibility in the political sphere. The president began 2017 with 2 out of 14 cabinet ministers who were women, one of whom also identifies as indigenous, though both ministers had resigned by year's end amid political turmoil. A representative in the current legislature is the first to self-identify as a member of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 5 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 2 / 4

The elected government and legislature determine government policies, but they are frequently subject to influence by outside interests. The president's party, the FCN, was established by former military officials, and Morales's association with them has raised questions about military influence in his administration. The media outlet Nomada revealed in September 2017 that the president and the military's high-ranking officers were receiving a monthly bonus from the Ministry of Defense.

Credible allegations of electoral and party-finance corruption have prompted serious concerns about influence by nonelected and illicit groups over the government.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Corruption, which is often related to organized crime, remains a serious problem. The CICIG and the attorney general have pressed forward with investigations of high-level officials in current and past administrations, but authorities and lawmakers have repeatedly attempted to undermine their work.

In August 2017, the CICIG alleged that Morales had been involved with illegal campaign financing during his 2015 presidential campaign, and the body's head, Ivan Velasquez, a Colombian national, requested that the legislature lift Morales' immunity. Days, later the president demanded the expulsion of Velasquez, and the government tried to revoke Velasquez's visa in October. However, the Constitutional Court issues a pair of rulings in favor of Velasquez, and he was allowed to remain in the country; several members of the government, including cabinet members, resigned over the attempt to remove him.

Legislative votes to remove the president's immunity failed in September, preventing the CICIG from investigating him for campaign finance corruption. Also in September, the Constitutional Court suspended reforms to the penal code approved by the legislature that would have permitted the commutation of some sentences related to party financing violations.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 1 / 4

Public information offices frequently fail to publish data about public expenditures as required. The Law on Access to Information is poorly enforced, and dedicated NGOs nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) continue to file grievances over its nonapplication and, together with the country's Human Rights Ombudsman (PDH), work to encourage the government to adhere to its provisions.

The government's contracting and budgeting processes are opaque and wracked with corruption. The CICIG has continued to investigate violations and to call for reforms to address these problems, though there is little political will to implement its recommendations.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 33 / 60 (+2)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 12 / 16 (+1)

D1. Are there free and independent media? 2 / 4

While the constitution protects freedom of speech, journalists often face threats and practice self-censorship when covering sensitive topics such as drug trafficking, corruption, organized crime, and human rights violations. Threats come from public officials, illicit actors, the police, and individuals aligned with companies operating on indigenous lands. Physical attacks against journalists occur each year, and two journalists were murdered in 2017, according to the Guatemalan press freedom group CERIGUA. Journalists have reiterated demands that the government implement a journalists' protection program that was agreed to in 2012, but despite Morales' verbal commitment, no progress has been made.

One of the men charged with killing two journalists in 2015 was sentenced in October 2017 to 30 years in jail in connection with one of the murders. The CICIG has accused a legislator of planning the murders, and while his immunity was removed in 2017, he had not been arrested at year's end.

Despite threats facing journalists, independent media outfits including el Periodico, Nomada, and Plaza Publica continue to provide critical information.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

The constitution guarantees religious freedom, and individuals are free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in practice.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 3 / 4

Although the government does not interfere with academic freedom, scholars have received death threats for questioning past human rights abuses or continuing injustices.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 3 / 4 (+1)

Many Guatemalans take precautions when speaking about social and political issues outside of their homes due to a high level of insecurity in the country.

In 2016, members of the presidential security service came under investigation for unlawful surveillance of journalists, human right advocates, politicians, and business owners, prompting several high-profile dismissals by Morales. The investigation continued in 2017, and meanwhile, no evidence emerged that any such systematic surveillance of private citizens took place during the year.

Score Change: The score improved from 2 to 3 because there was no evidence that systematic surveillance of private individuals took place during the year.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 6 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 2 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of assembly, but this right is not always protected. Police frequently threaten force, and at times use violence against protesters. Protests related to environmental or indigenous rights issues were met with harsh resistance from the police and other armed groups in 2017, with several deaths of protestors reported.

In August, Guatemalans took to the streets to demand transparency from their government after the CICIG presented evidence implicating Morales in illegal political financing during his presidential campaign. In September, police cracked down violently on a large anticorruption protest. Opposition lawmakers and the PDH filed a legal complain over the events, eventually prompting the Constitutional Court to rule that police must respect the right to freedom of assembly and allow peaceful protests to occur.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 2 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of association, and a variety of NGOs operate. However, groups associated with human rights, indigenous rights, and environmental rights face violence and intimidation. The Guatemalan Unit for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (UDEFEGUA) registered 483 attacks against human right defenders in 2017, 119 of which were directed at land rights activists.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 2 / 4

Guatemala is home to a vigorous labor movement, but workers are frequently denied the right to organize and face mass firings and blacklisting. Trade-union members are also subject to intimidation, violence, and murder, particularly in rural areas, and two union leaders were killed in 2017, according the Solidarity Center, an NGO.

F. RULE OF LAW: 7 / 16 (+1)

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 2 / 4

The judiciary is hobbled by corruption, inefficiency, capacity shortages, and the intimidation of judges, prosecutors, and witnesses, both by outside actors and influential figures within the judiciary. However, the Constitutional Court demonstrated independence in several notable rulings in 2017, including those that blocked legal maneuvers by the government to undermine CICIG investigations.

The genocide case against former military dictator Rios Montt, which had been repeatedly postponed, resumed in October 2017.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

Due process rights are guaranteed in the constitution, but those rights are inconsistently upheld, due in part to corruption in the judiciary and an ineffective police force in which many police officers routinely violate the law, and the rights of citizens. Access to justice remains a problem, especially for the indigenous community. In April 2017, CICIG head Ivan Velasquez claimed that 97 percent of crimes committed in Guatemala go unpunished, and placed the blame for such impunity on criminal networks that had infiltrated state institutions.

The increasing independence of the attorney general's office and its work with CICIG to root out corruption reflect a strengthening of the justice system in Guatemala. However, the attorney general has faced serious intimidation, including death threats, in connection with her investigations.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 2 / 4 (+1)

High levels of violence, kidnappings, and extortions at the hands of the police, drug traffickers, and street gangs continue, with related fears and risks routinely affecting the lives of ordinary people. The link between the state, politicians, the military, and illicit actors complicates a cohesive response to the country's security challenges. However, the country's homicide rate dropped for the eighth straight year in 2017. At the end of the year, police reported 4,409 homicides, compared to 4,550 homicides in 2016, and 4,778 in 2015. Additionally, in January 2017, the demilitarization of the police force began, with the removal of all military forces from civilian security expected in 2018.

Prison facilities are grossly overcrowded and rife with gang and drug-related violence and corruption. Prison riots are common, and are frequently deadly.

Score Change: The score improved from 1 to 2 to a declining homicide rate.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 1 / 4

Equal rights are guaranteed in the constitution, but minorities continue to face unequal treatment. Indigenous communities suffer from high rates of poverty, illiteracy, and infant mortality. Indigenous women are particularly marginalized. Discrimination against the Mayan community is a major concern.

LGBT people are not covered under antidiscrimination laws. They face discrimination, violence, and police abuse. The country's human rights ombudsman has stated that people suffering from HIV/AIDS also face discrimination.

The constitution prohibits discrimination based on gender, but women continue to face gender-based inequality, and sexual harassment in the workplace is not penalized.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 8 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 3 / 4

While there are no explicit restrictions on free movement, violence and the threat of violence by gangs and organized criminal groups inhibits this right in practice, and has prompted the displacement of thousands of people.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

Protections for property rights and economic freedom rarely extend beyond Guatemalans with wealth and political connections. Access to land is especially limited for the indigenous community and for women in particular. Business activity is hampered by criminal activity including extortion and fraud. An inefficient state bureaucracy, rife with unclear and complicated regulations, also contributes to difficulties in establishing and operating a business.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Physical and sexual violence against women and children remains high, with perpetrators rarely prosecuted. The PDH reported that over 5,500 incidents of sexual abuse or mistreatment of minors occurred in 2017, while the National Institute of Forensic Sciences reported 772 femicides during the year. A restrictive abortion law limits women's ability to make decisions about the size of their families. In August, a decree banned marriages for children under the age of 18, though some observers expressed skepticism that it would be enforced.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 1 / 4

The indigenous community's access to economic opportunities and socioeconomic mobility remain limited, with more than 70 percent of the indigenous population living in poverty. Guatemala has one of the highest rates of child labor in the Americas, with over 800,000 children working in the country. Criminal gangs often force children and young men to join their organizations or perform work for them.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Grenada

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Grenada, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc83a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 88 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 1.5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 100,000

Capital: Saint George's

GDP/capita: $9,333

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

Grenada is a parliamentary democracy that regularly holds credible elections. Ongoing concerns include corruption, discrimination against the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community, and violence against women and children.

Key Developments in 2017:

Grenada's Citizenship by Investment (CBI) program came under scrutiny following fraud allegations and other claims of impropriety. The rules governing it were tightened in September.

In September 2017, the cabinet appointed a committee to address child sexual abuse, and in November the prime minister announced that a special victims unit would be established to help victims.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 37 / 40 (-1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 11 / 12 (-1)

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The prime minister, usually the leader of the largest party in parliament, is head of government. They are appointed by the governor general, who represents the British monarch as head of state.

Following the 2013 elections, New National Party (NNP) leader Keith Mitchell, who had previously served as prime minister from 1995 to 2008, was sworn in as prime minister.

Cecile La Grenade was sworn in as Grenada's first female governor general in 2013.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The bicameral Parliament consists of the directly elected, 15-seat House of Representatives, whose members serve five-year terms, and the 13-seat Senate, which is appointed by the governor general. Ten Senate seats are appointed on the advice of the prime minister, and the remaining three on the advice of the opposition leader; senators also serve five-year terms.

The NNP won early elections held in 2013, capturing all 15 seats in the House of Representatives with 59 percent of the vote. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) received 41 percent of the vote, and the newly formed National United Front (NUF) received less than 1 percent. Due to the lack of parliamentary opposition after the elections, the governor-general appointed three former NDC ministers to the Senate. Voter turnout was high, at nearly 88 percent.

The electoral observation mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) expressed concern over a lack of campaign finance regulations and other issues, but deemed the polls credible.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4 (-1)

Electoral laws are generally fair, and are they usually implemented impartially by the supervisor of elections, who heads the Parliamentary Elections Office.

Grenada held a constitutional referendum in 2016. All of the proposals  including setting a three-term limit for the prime minister, established fixed dates for elections, and reforming the electoral authority and the body that sets constituent boundaries  failed. Turnout was low, at just 32 percent.

The unbalanced size of constituencies has resulted in unequal voting power among citizens. For example, in a country of just over 100,000 people, the largest of Grenada's 15 constituencies has around 5,000 more registered voters than the smallest. This discrepancy has not been successfully addressed, even as planned 2018 polls draw closer.

Score Change: The score declined from 4 to 3 due to a failure to address the unbalanced size of Grenada's electoral districts, which allow unequal voting power among citizens.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 16 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

Political parties can organize freely. While a number of small political parties have competed in elections, the first-past-the-post system encourages two-party politics, and since 1999 only the NNP and NDC have won seats in parliament. Additionally, weak campaign finance laws potentially create an unfair advantage for certain parties.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

There are realistic opportunities for opposition parties to increase their support or gain power through elections, and power has rotated on several occasions since the first election in 1984, after democracy was restored to Grenada. However, the NNP has won a majority of the elections since then.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

People are generally able to express their political choices without encountering pressure from outside actors. However, the OAS has expressed concern about a lack of transparency and general regulation of campaign finance procedures, which could create avenues for undue influence over candidates and voters by business or other special interest groups.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 4 / 4

Grenada's constitution guarantees universal suffrage for adult citizens. Women remain underrepresented in politics, but saw greater representation following the 2013 elections, and women's advocacy groups have some influence in the general political sphere. The marginalization of the LGBT community impacts its ability to engage fully in political and electoral processes.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 10 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

The appointed prime minister, cabinet, and freely elected parliament representatives are able to determine the policies of the government. However, because of concerns over the lack of an opposition in the House of Representatives, three former NDC ministers were appointed to the Senate after the 2013 election.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 3 / 4

Corruption remains a prominent issue in Grenada, despite safeguards enshrined in the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Integrity in Public Life Act. A number of suggested amendments in a 2016 constitutional reform package would have strengthened anticorruption safeguards, but all were voted down by significant margins.

In 2017, concerns were raised over Grenada's CBI program, which allows foreigners to gain citizenship through an economic investment in the country. Multiple allegations of fraud were made against a passport agent and property developer who had himself become a citizen through the CBI program; it further emerged during the year that he had been granted citizenship despite having been convicted of domestic violence offenses in the US that should have disqualified him. In response to this and other concerns about the CBI program, the rules governing it were tightened in September.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 3 / 4

The government of Grenada generally operates with transparency. A decree passed in 2013 under the authority of the Integrity in Public Life Act requires all public officials to declare their personal assets. In June 2017, parliament passed an amendment to the Mutual Exchange of Information on Tax Matters Bill, which allows Grenadian authorities to request financial information about its citizens residing abroad in an effort to prevent tax avoidance.

However, there is no law to ensure public access to information, even though the government pledged to introduce one Act in 2008.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 51 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 15 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 3 / 4

In 2012, Grenada became the first Caribbean country to decriminalize defamation, but seditious libel remains a criminal offense. Politicians have initiated defamation lawsuits against the media, contributing to self-censorship among journalists who may not be able to afford legal costs or resulting fines. The long-running case between Prime Minister Keith Mitchell and the Grenada Today newspaper led to the liquidation of the newspaper in 2009, and the editor and author of the disputed article were assigned fines in 2016.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

Freedom of religion is protected under the constitution and this right is generally respected in practice.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

The government generally respects academic freedom.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

Individuals are free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 11 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

Freedom of assembly is constitutionally guaranteed, and that right is generally respected in practice.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights-and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are generally free to operate.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

The right of workers to form and join labor unions is constitutionally protected, though unions and labor activists face some obstacles. Workers have the right to strike, organize, and bargain collectively, though employers are not legally bound to recognize a union if a majority of workers do not join. Essential services workers may strike, but compulsory arbitration can be used to resolve disputes. The list of essential services is extensive, and includes services that should not be considered as such according to International Labor Organization (ILO) standards.

F. RULE OF LAW: 12 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 3 / 4

An independent judiciary is constitutionally guaranteed, and judicial independence is generally respected in practice. Grenada is a member of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States court system, and is a charter member of the Caribbean Court of Justice, but still relies on the Privy Council in London as its final court of appeal. In 2016, parliament approved legislation to eliminate the Privy Council as the final court, but the measure was defeated in the year's constitutional referendum.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 3 / 4

Detainees and defendants are guaranteed a range of legal rights, including the presumption of innocence and the right to trial without delay, which are mostly respected in practice. However, due to case backlogs, in practice trial delays are common. Additionally, due to staffing shortages, not all indigent defendants could be provided legal counsel.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 3 / 4

Flogging remains a punishment for petty crimes, and the prison system is overcrowded. Although considered one of the safer Caribbean islands, there has been a rise in reports of sexual assault in recent years.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

Same-sex sexual activity is a criminal offense in Grenada, and LGBT people face significant societal discrimination. The 2016 constitutional referendum included an amendment to protect the equal treatment of people in Grenada, but that amendment was overwhelmingly rejected due to concerns that language in the amendment might lead to the legalization of same-sex marriage.

The constitution prohibits gender discrimination, as do the 1999 Employment Act and Education Act. However, cultural norms perpetuate discrimination in practice, and sexual harassment is common.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 13 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

Freedom of movement is constitutionally guaranteed, and this right is generally respected in practice.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or non-state actors? 3 / 4

The government of Grenada has actively encouraged both national and foreign investors to operate businesses in the country, but procedures involved in establishing a new business can be excessive.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

Violence against women and children is a widespread issue in Grenada. Domestic violence legislation came into effect in 2011, but enforcement has been limited. In September 2017, the cabinet appointed a committee to address child sexual abuse, and in November the prime minister announced that a special victims unit would be established to help victims.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

Poverty and unemployment are pervasive, and hamper the social mobility of many Grenadians.

A 2015 law punishes human trafficking with up to 25 years in jail and large fines. However, reports of human trafficking are rare.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Greece

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Greece, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc85a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 85 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 2.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 10,800,000

Capital: Athens

GDP/capita: $18,071

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Greece's parliamentary democracy features vigorous competition between political parties and a strong if imperfect record of upholding civil liberties. Entrenched corruption has undermined state finances, leading external creditors to impose constraints on the country's fiscal policies. Other concerns include discrimination against immigrants and minorities as well as poor conditions for irregular migrants and refugees.

Key Developments in 2017:

In keeping with a pattern of small-scale political violence in the country, a mail bomb in May seriously injured Lucas Papademos, who served as a technocratic prime minister from late 2011 to early 2012.

Although the flow of migrants and refugees remained lower than before the European Union's 2016 agreement with Turkey checked the crisis, those already in Greece continued to be housed in substandard conditions as officials struggled with a backlog of asylum applications.

Legislation passed in October enabled transgender people to change their gender on official documents through a simple court declaration.

Long-delayed construction on an official mosque for Athens proceeded during the year, but it had yet to open at year's end.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 35 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The largely ceremonial president is elected by a parliamentary supermajority for a five-year term. The prime minister is chosen by the president and is usually the leader of the largest party in the parliament. Current president Prokopis Pavlopoulos, a conservative former cabinet minister, was elected in February 2015. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) took office after January 2015 elections and won reelection in a snap vote in September of that year.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The 300 members of the unicameral Hellenic Parliament are elected to serve four-year terms through a mixture of 8 single-member constituencies, 48 multimember constituencies, and a national constituency with 12 seats. Under current electoral law, the party with the most votes receives a 50-seat bonus, which is designed to make it easier to form a governing majority.

In the September 2015 elections, which were considered free and fair, SYRIZA took 145 seats and renewed its ruling coalition with the right-wing populist Independent Greeks (ANEL) party, which won 10. The center-right opposition New Democracy (ND) party took 75 seats; the ultranationalist Golden Dawn won 18; the center-left Democratic Coalition, composed of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and the Democratic Left (DIMAR), took 17; the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), 15; the new center-left To Potami (the River), 11; and the Union of Centrists (EK), 9.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

The country has generally fair electoral laws, equal campaigning opportunities, and a weakly enforced system of compulsory voting. If passed with a two-thirds supermajority, changes to the electoral laws are implemented for the next elections. If passed with a simple majority, they go into effect in the following elections. An amendment that was passed in 2016 without a supermajority will abolish the 50-seat bonus that is awarded to the winning party. It will also lower the voting age from 18 to 17.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 15 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

The political system features vigorous competition among a variety of parties. Eight were represented in the parliament as of 2017. Many other parties participated in the last elections but did not reach the 3 percent vote threshold to secure representation.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Greece has established a strong pattern of democratic transfers of power between rival parties, with PASOK and ND alternating in government for most of the past four decades. SYRIZA entered government for the first time in 2015.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

No group or institution from outside the political system exerts undue influence over the choices of voters and candidates.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

Greece's largest recognized minority population, the Muslim community of Thrace, has full political rights, and four members of the community won seats in the last parliamentary elections. The authorities have rejected some ethnic minorities' attempts to secure official recognition or to register associations with names referring to their ethnic identity, affecting their ability to organize and advocate for their political interests, though such associations are generally able to operate without legal recognition. Since 2010, documented immigrants have been allowed to vote in municipal elections.

There are no significant legal or practical barriers to women's political participation. Women won about 20 percent of the seats in the 2015 parliamentary elections.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 8 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 3 / 4

Greek elected officials generally set and implement government policies. However, their fiscal policy choices in particular have been limited in recent years by the main creditor institutions that have guided the country though its public debt crisis  the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Greece was expected to exit its last bailout agreement with the institutions in 2018.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Official corruption remains a problem in Greece, and institutions tasked with combating it lack the resources to operate effectively. Tax officials have been implicated in tax evasion schemes, which seriously complicate the government's fiscal reform efforts.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 3 / 4

A number of laws and government programs are designed to ensure the transparency of official decisions and provide public access to information. Officials are required to make public declarations of their assets and income. Corruption related to state contracts remains a concern; a number of former officials, including former cabinet ministers, were charged or found guilty during 2017 for contract-related bribery schemes.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 50 / 60 (+1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 14 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 3 / 4

The constitution includes provisions for freedoms of speech and the press, and these rights are generally protected. Citizens enjoy access to a broad array of privately owned print, broadcast and online news outlets. There are some limits on hate speech and related content. Defamation remains a criminal offense, and journalists face defamation suits by political figures in practice. They are also sometimes subject to physical assaults, particularly while covering protests.

At the end of 2017, the government was preparing to hold new auctions for television licenses under the auspices of the independent National Council for Radio and Television. An earlier auction held without the regulator in 2016 had been nullified after the Council of State found that it was unconstitutional. Critics had accused the government of using the procedure to alter the media landscape in its favor.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of religion, though the Greek Orthodox Church receives government subsidies and is considered the "prevailing" faith of the country. The constitution prohibits proselytizing, but this restriction is rarely enforced. Members of some minority religions face discrimination and legal barriers, such as permit requirements to open houses of worship. Opposition to the construction of an official mosque in Athens remains substantial; the project proceeded during 2017, but it was not yet complete at year's end. To date, the city's nearly 200,000 Muslim inhabitants worship in improvised mosques.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

There are no significant constraints on academic freedom in Greece, and the educational system is free of political indoctrination.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

The government does not engage in improper monitoring of personal expression, and individuals are generally free to discuss their views in practice.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 12 / 12 (+1)

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4 (+1)

Freedom of assembly is guaranteed by the constitution, and the government generally protects this right. Austerity-related protests over the past decade have sometimes grown violent, and extremist groups like Golden Dawn have attempted to attack and intimidate assemblies in support of migrants' rights or other causes they oppose. However, such instances have become less frequent since a crackdown on Golden Dawn's leadership began in 2013, and police have improved their handling of security surrounding demonstrations.

Score Change: The score improved from 3 to 4 due to a gradual improvement in people's ability to participate in peaceful assemblies without the threat of violence from extremist groups like Golden Dawn.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) generally operate without interference from the authorities.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 4 / 4

Workers have the right to form and join unions, bargain collectively, and strike. The law provides protections against antiunion discrimination, and the government generally upholds union rights.

F. RULE OF LAW: 11 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 3 / 4

The judiciary is largely independent, though its autonomy is undermined somewhat by corruption. Judges are appointed by the president on the advice of the Supreme Judicial Council, which is mostly composed of other judges. They serve until retirement age and cannot be removed arbitrarily.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 3 / 4

The law provides safeguards against arbitrary arrest and detention, ensures access to defense counsel, and provides for fair trial conditions. Persistent problems include court backlogs that lead to prolonged pretrial detention as well as improper detention of asylum seekers.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 3 / 4

While overall rates of violent crime are low, there are occasional acts of political violence. In May 2017, a mail bomb seriously injured former prime minister Lucas Papademos, whose tenure was associated with the harsh austerity policies imposed by Greece's creditors.

Some prisons and detention centers suffer from substandard conditions, and law enforcement personnel have at times been accused of physical abuse, particularly against vulnerable groups such as migrants and asylum seekers.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

Women generally enjoy equality before the law, though they continue to face workplace discrimination in practice.

Violence targeting immigrants, refugees, and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people remains a problem. According to the Racist Violence Recording Network (RVRN), the number of attacks has declined overall in recent years. This is due in large part to a law enforcement crackdown on Golden Dawn; a trial against dozens of the group's members and leaders was ongoing during 2017. The RVRN documented 102 cases of violence in 2017, including 34 attacks against migrants and refugees and 47 attacks against LGBT people. The Romany minority is also subject to discrimination despite legal protections.

Since 2016, when the EU reached an agreement with Turkey to curb the westward flow of migrants and refugees, the number entering Greece has been significantly reduced. However, over 60,000 remained stranded in Greece as of 2017, with many living in Reception and Identification Centers on the Aegean islands or in camps across Greece as Greek officials struggled to process asylum claims in a timely manner. Some of these sites feature harsh living conditions, violence, the harassment of women, and endangerment of children; under pressure from NGOs, officials have attempted to close the worst facilities and increase the use of urban accommodation. International observers have also questioned whether individuals who are deported to Turkey under the EU agreement are being returned to a safe third country.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 13 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

Freedom of movement is generally unrestricted.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 3 / 4

The government and legal framework are generally supportive of property rights and entrepreneurship, but bureaucratic obstacles can inhibit business activity. Those who have political connections or are willing to pay bribes can sometimes expedite official procedures.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

There are no major constraints on personal social freedoms, though domestic violence remains a problem. Members of the Muslim minority in Thrace can have their personal status matters adjudicated by muftis according to Sharia (Islamic law), which may put women at a disadvantage, but this community also has access to civil marriage and the courts.

In October 2017, the parliament passed legislation allowing unmarried transgender people over age 15 to change their gender on identity documents without undergoing gender reassignment surgery or other such procedures, subject to validation by a judge.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

Most residents enjoy legal protections against exploitative working conditions, but labor laws are not always adequately enforced. Migrants and asylum seekers are especially vulnerable to trafficking for forced labor or sexual exploitation, and government efforts to combat the problem, while increasing, remain insufficient, according to the U.S. State Department.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Estonia

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Estonia, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc87a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 94 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 1.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 1,300,000

Capital: Tallinn

GDP/capita: $17,156

Press Freedom Status: Free

Net Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

Democratic institutions are strong in Estonia and political and civil rights are widely respected. The greatest challenges facing the democracy are ethnic tensions and economic inequality. About 7 percent of the country's population remains stateless and thus may not participate in national elections.

Key developments in 2017:

In October, the first local elections took place since the merging of municipalities reduced the total number of elected representatives by nearly half. The Center Party gained the most seats.

In December, a tax reform was adopted that raised both the minimum wage for full-time workers and the amount of tax-free income for low- and middle-income earners, among other changes that aim to make the system more progressive.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 38 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The current prime minister, Juri Ratas from the Center Party, was confirmed by the Riigikogu (parliament) following the formation of a coalition in 2016 between the Center Party and two minor partners  the center-left Social Democrats (SDE) and the conservative Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica (IRL). Ratas's selection took place according to proper legal procedures.

The president is elected by parliamentary ballot to a five-year term, filling the largely ceremonial role of head of state. Current president Kersti Kaljulaid was elected as a nonpartisan consensus candidate after six rounds of voting in 2016. Although the overall election process was free and fair, it was criticized as too lengthy.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The constitution establishes a 101-seat unicameral parliament whose members are elected for four-year terms. The 2015 elections were free and fair.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

The legal framework for conducting elections is clear and detailed. Online voting is widespread. October 2017 municipal elections witnessed record turnout online, with 32 percent of participating voters using this method, thus demonstrating strong public confidence in the e-voting system.

Administrative reform in mid-2017 merged municipalities, reduced the number of electoral seats by almost half, and abolished the county level of administration. Upon review, the Supreme Court allowed the changes to stand.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 15 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

Estonia's political parties organize and operate freely. Party members may be citizens of Estonia or of another EU member state. The system is open to the rise and fall of different parties. For example, the 2015 election brought two new parties to power: the conservative, anti-establishment Free Party and the far-right Conservative People's Party.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

The system is open to the rotation of power. In the 2015 elections, the center-right Reform Party, which had led the previous government, captured the most seats (30), and subsequently formed a coalition with its previous coalition partner, the SDE, as well as the IRL. In 2016, the Center Party, which held 27 seats, formed a new ruling coalition with the SDE and the IRL. The Center Party won local elections in October 2017.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

People's political choices are not influenced by undemocratic forces. While the governing Center Party has not fully renounced its cooperation agreement with United Russia, the main political party in Russia, this has not led to foreign interference with Estonia's political rights.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

The political rights of ethnic Russian residents of Estonia, about 7 percent of the population whose citizenship remains undetermined, face limitations on their political rights. Only citizens may participate in national elections, and while resident noncitizens are permitted to vote in local elections, they may not run as candidates. The authorities have adopted policies to assist those seeking naturalization. Although women only make up 27 percent of members of parliament, women's interests are represented through a variety of programs and government initiatives.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT 11 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

Both the government and the parliament are freely elected and function without interference from external or nonstate actors.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 3 / 4

Recent years have seen heavily publicized allegations of corruption within the main political parties as well as in the public sector. The trial of Edgar Savisaar, former leader of the Center Party and Tallinn city mayor, is ongoing for charges of bribery, money laundering, and embezzlement. Other corruption scandals involving Center Party representatives continue to emerge, and the party itself is being investigated for accepting illegal donations. While the government has taken significant action toward curbing corruption according to Council of Europe anticorruption body GRECO, key shortcomings include various measures to prevent conflicts of interest among legislators. State companies have yet to improve their corruption prevention measures.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 4 / 4

Estonia is well-known for its transparency and developed e-governance services. Public access to government information and asset declarations of officials is provided for both in law and in practice.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 56 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 16 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 4 / 4

The government generally respects freedom of the press. Public and private television and radio stations operate in Estonia, and there are a number of independent newspapers. The government does not restrict access to the internet.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

Religious freedom is respected in law and in practice.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Academic freedom is respected. By law, public Russian-language high schools must teach 60 percent of their curriculum in the Estonian language, but this does not severely limit freedom.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

Individuals are free to express political views without fear of surveillance or retribution.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 12 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of assembly, and the government upholds this right in practice.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

The government honors the civic rights of associations and does not restrict or control the activities of nongovernmental organizations.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 4 / 4

Workers may organize freely, strike, and bargain collectively, although public servants at the municipal and state levels may not strike.

F. RULE OF LAW: 14 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 4 / 4

The judiciary is independent and generally free from government interference.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 4 / 4 (+1)

The legal process in civil and criminal matters is generally free and fair. Laws prohibiting arbitrary arrest and detention and ensuring the right to a fair trial are largely observed.

Score Change: The score improved from 3 to 4 because legal processes are organized and orderly, and prosecutors and investigation authorities are generally not subject to political pressure.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 3 / 4 (-1)

While Estonia is generally safe and peaceful, it has one of the highest intentional homicide rates in the European Union. There have been reports of law enforcement officials using excessive force when arresting suspects. Some inmates reportedly have inadequate access to health care. The incarceration rate is the seventh highest in the OECD.

Score Change: The score declined from 4 to 3 due to a relatively high homicide rate and because conditions in prisons and detention facilities remain inadequate.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

Russian language speakers continue to face societal discrimination, which is reinforced by laws such as the Equal Treatment Act, which does not consider Estonian linguistic requirements for public officials as discriminatory. Discrimination based on sexual orientation is legally prohibited, though harassment of members of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) communities is reportedly common.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS 14 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

Citizens and residents enjoy free movement inside Estonia and to leave the country.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 4 / 4

Estonian residents enjoy strong property rights and can establish private businesses, although corruption in the business sector is sometimes a problem.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

Violence against women, including domestic violence, remains a problem. As of year's end, the Riigikogu still could not adopt necessary amendments to previous acts to fully implement a 2014 law permitting same-sex civil unions.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

Russian speakers face discrimination when applying for jobs, especially in the public sector, due to strict language requirements. Women in Estonia earn on average 25 percent less than men, the largest gap in the European Union. Estonia is a source, transit point, and destination for women and girls trafficked for prostitution. The unemployment rate is low at 6 percent, but according to the European Commission about a quarter of the population was at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2016. A tax reform passed in December 2017 aims to make the system more progressive.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Eritrea

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Eritrea, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc894.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Not Free

Aggregate Score: 3 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 7.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 5,400,000

Capital: Asmara

GDP/capita: $1,400

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

OVERVIEW

Eritrea is a militarized authoritarian state that has not held a national election since independence from Ethiopia in 1993. The People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), headed by President Isaias Afwerki, is the sole political party. Arbitrary detention is commonplace, and citizens are required to perform national service, often for their entire working lives. The government shut down all independent media in 2001.

Key Developments in 2017:

In June, a report for the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) concluded that the Eritrean government had made no effort to address chronic human rights abuses outlined in previous reports. The special rapporteur accused the regime of continuing to perpetrate crimes against humanity.

In October, students demonstrating against attempts to place their Islamic school under state control were allegedly attacked by security forces in the capital. Reports from opposition groups outside the country suggested that up to 28 people were killed.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 1 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 0 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

Following Eritrea's formal independence from Ethiopia in 1993, an unelected Transitional National Assembly chose Isaias Afwerki to serve as president until elections could be held under a new constitution. He has remained in office since then without ever obtaining a mandate from voters.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

A constitution ratified in 1997 calls for an elected 150-seat National Assembly, which would choose the president from among its members by a majority vote. However, national elections have been postponed indefinitely, and the transitional assembly has not met since 2002. Local and regional assembly elections have been held periodically, but they are carefully orchestrated by the PFDJ and offer no real choice to voters.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 0 / 4

The 1997 constitution has never been implemented, and national elections have never been conducted. Subnational elections are controlled by the ruling party.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 0 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 0 / 4

The PFDJ is the only legally recognized political party in Eritrea. Alternative groups must operate from abroad among the diaspora community.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 0 / 4

President Isaias and the PFDJ have been in power without interruption since independence, and since multiparty elections have never been allowed, opposition groups have had no opportunity to compete or enter government.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 0 / 4

Eritrean society is dominated by the military, with most citizens required to perform open-ended military or other national service. The authorities' intolerance of dissent and the absence of elections or opposition parties leaves individuals with no political options other than loyalty to the PFDJ, imprisonment, or illegal emigration.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 0 / 4

Women and various ethnic groups are nominally represented within the PFDJ, but they have no practical ability to organize independently or advocate for their interests through the political system.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 1 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 0 / 4

Power is concentrated in the hands of the unelected president, who reportedly determines policy with the help of an informal circle of advisers, leaving the cabinet and security officials to merely carry out his decisions. A 2016 UNHRC commission of inquiry noted that military personnel are overrepresented among the president's closest associates.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 1 / 4

Petty bribery and influence peddling are thought to be endemic, and larger-scale corruption is a problem among some party officials and military leaders. The government's control over foreign exchange effectively gives it sole authority over imports, and those in favor with the regime are allowed to profit from the smuggling and sale of scarce goods such as food, building materials, and alcohol. Senior military officials have allegedly profited from smuggling Eritreans out of the country. There are no independent agencies or mechanisms in place to prevent or punish corruption.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 0 / 4

The government operates without public scrutiny. Basic data about the state budget and its appropriations are not publicly disclosed, and officials are not required to disclose their assets.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 2 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 0 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 0 / 4

The government shut down all independent media outlets in 2001, leaving only state-controlled news services in operation. Several foreign-based organizations try to provide coverage to Eritreans who can receive it, including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which launched internet news services in local languages in September 2017 and planned to add radio programming. Only about 1 percent of the population has access to the internet. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 15 journalists were in prison in Eritrea at the end of 2017, most of whom were detained in the 2001 crackdown. Several others are thought to have died in custody.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 0 / 4

The government places strict limits on the exercise of religion. Eritrea officially recognizes only four faiths: Islam, Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and Lutheranism as practiced by the Evangelical Church of Eritrea. Followers of other denominations are subject to arrest and detention, with several roundups taking place in May 2017. The patriarch of the Orthodox Church, Abune Antonios, has been held under house arrest since he called for political prisoners to be released in 2006. He briefly appeared in public to attend mass in July 2017.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 0 / 4

Academic freedom is constrained. Students in their last year of secondary school are subject to obligatory military service at the Sawa military training center, where conditions are harsh. Academics practice self-censorship, and the government interferes with their course content and limits their ability to conduct research abroad.

In October 2017, government plans to transfer control of all schools to state-supervised community trusts sparked demonstrations by supporters of a privately run Islamic school in Asmara. When a community elder who had spoken out in support of the school was arrested, more than 100 students attempted to march to the presidential offices. According to reports from exile groups, security forces attacked the demonstrators, and 28 people were killed in the ensuing violence.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 0 / 4

Freedoms of expression and private discussion are severely inhibited by fear of government informants and the likelihood of arrest and arbitrary detention for any airing of dissent. While access to the internet is limited, the authorities attempt to monitor online communications. According to reports received by the UNHRC, internet cafes are required to register customers and track their activity.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 0 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 0 / 4

Freedom of assembly is not recognized by the authorities, and few public demonstrations occur in practice. Major protests in past decades, such as those by war veterans in 1993 and 1995 and students in 2001, ended in mass arrests and imprisonment for the organizers.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 0 / 4

The law requires any nongovernmental organizations to undergo an onerous and arbitrary annual registration process and limit their activities to providing humanitarian relief. In reality, there are no independent civil society organizations based in Eritrea. The government continues to deny permission for external human rights organizations to enter the country.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 0 / 4

There are no independent trade unions in Eritrea. The only union umbrella group, the National Confederation of Eritrean Workers, is affiliated with the ruling party. Relatively autonomous student and teachers' unions operated during the early years of independence but were gradually shut down in the late 1990s and early 2000s. According to reports to the UNHRC, the government has prevented new unions from being formed.

F. RULE OF LAW: 0 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 0 / 4

The judiciary has no independence from the executive branch. The Supreme Court called for in the constitution has never been established, nor has a Judicial Commission tasked with appointing judges. Instead, the president controls the appointment and dismissal of all judges; even nominally elected judges in local community courts are controlled by the Justice Ministry, according to UN investigators. Many judges are military officers.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 0 / 4

Basic principles of due process are systematically violated. Arbitrary arrests and detentions are common; targets include those who evade military service, try to flee the country, or are suspected of practicing an unauthorized religion. Eritreans who offend high-ranking government or party officials are also reportedly subject to arbitrary arrest.

Prisoners are routinely held incommunicado for indefinite periods without charge or trial, with the authorities refusing even to inform family members whether they are still alive. There is no operational system of public defense lawyers. Thousands of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience remain behind bars.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 0 / 4

UN investigators have described the routine and systematic use of physical and psychological torture in both civilian and military detention centers. Deaths in custody or in military service due to torture and other harsh conditions have also been reported. Security forces employ lethal violence arbitrarily and with impunity. Individuals attempting to escape military service or flee the country have been fired on by soldiers.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 0 / 4

There are allegations that two of Eritrea's nine ethnic groups, the Kunama and Afar, face severe discrimination. Efforts have been made to promote the rights of women, who played a critical role in Eritrea's independence struggle. Laws mandate equal educational opportunity and equal pay for equal work. However, traditional societal discrimination against women persists in the countryside, and the deeply flawed legal system does not effectively uphold their formal rights. Same-sex sexual relations are criminalized, and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people enjoy no legal protections from societal discrimination.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 2 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 0 / 4

Freedom of movement is heavily restricted. Eritreans young enough for national service are rarely given permission to go abroad, and those who try to travel without the correct documents face imprisonment. Individuals also require permits to travel within the country. Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers who are repatriated from other countries are subject to detention under harsh conditions.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 0 / 4

The national conscription system denies much of the working-age population the opportunity to establish and run their own businesses. Both the authorities and private actors with regime support are able to confiscate property and evict occupants without due process.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Men and women have equal rights under laws governing marriage, nationality, and other personal status matters. However, girls in rural areas remain vulnerable to early or forced marriage. Rape of women and sexualized forms of violence against men are common in detention and in military service. The government has banned and attempted to reduce the practice of female genital mutilation, but it remains widespread in rural areas.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 0 / 4

Eritrea's conscription system ties most able-bodied men and women  including those under 18 who are completing secondary school  to obligatory military service, which can also entail compulsory labor for enterprises controlled by the political elite. National service is supposed to last 18 months but is open-ended in practice. UN human rights experts have described this system as enslavement.

Cash withdrawal limits imposed in 2015 have hampered citizens' ability to buy food and other essential goods.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Dominican Republic

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Dominican Republic, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc8b6.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 67 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 3.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 10,600,000

Capital: Santo Domingo

GDP/capita: $6,469

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

The Dominican Republic holds regular elections that are relatively free, though the most recent polls exposed deficiencies in the electoral framework that disadvantage less established parties. Pervasive corruption undermines state institutions, and discrimination against Dominicans of Haitian descent and Haitian migrants, as well as against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people, remains a serious problem.

Key Developments in 2017:

Electoral reform efforts dominated the legislative agenda in 2017, after the previous year's polls exposed significant flaws in the electoral framework. Lawmakers debated, but ultimately failed to approve, a new electoral law and a law on political parties.

A well-known lawyer was found murdered in October, and a police investigation indicated that he was killed as he was moving to expose a corruption scandal involving a Santo Domingo city agency.

In May, the Senate upheld the criminalization of abortion, despite objections from civil society and President Danilo Medina.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 26 / 40 (-1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 9 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

The president is both head of state and chief of government, and is elected to a four-year term. A 2015 constitutional amendment allowed the possibility of presidential reelection, and Medina, of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), won a second term in 2016.

Observers from the Organization of American States (OAS) monitored the presidential and concurrent legislative elections, and deemed them credible. However, they called for major reforms to guarantee equal access to party financing, and noted "a high degree of unfairness in access to the media by the political parties in contention." The mission also expressed concern about serious complications involving new electronic voting and vote-counting infrastructure; delays in tabulation resulted in the full final results not being made public until 13 days after the elections. Six people were killed in election-related violence the Central Election Board (JCE) head claimed had erupted out of frustration with delays created by demands for manual vote-counting.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 3 / 4

In the 2016 legislative elections, held concurrently with presidential elections, the ruling PLD captured 26 of the Senate's 32 seats and 106 out of 190 seats of the Chamber of Deputies. The OAS observer mission, in its report on the presidential and legislative elections, deemed the polls credible, but called for major reforms to guarantee equal access to party financing and media coverage, questioned the efficacy of the new electronic voting and vote-counting infrastructure, and condemned the election-related violence.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

The 2016 general elections exposed serious problems with electoral infrastructure and the capacities of the JCE, with some saying the delays in vote-counting precipitated post-election violence. The polls also exposed irregularities in party financing. Electoral reform has since been heavily debated in the legislature. In 2017, an amendment to the General Electoral Law and a separate bill on political parties were considered, though neither was passed.

Despite the JCE's shortcomings, the body operates with some transparency and cooperates with international election monitors, opposition parties, and other relevant groups.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 10 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 3 / 4

Political parties are generally free to form and operate. However, under current electoral laws, smaller parties struggle to access to public financing and secure equal media coverage, hampering their competitiveness.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 3 / 4

The ability of smaller and emerging political parties to access public financing and the media on equal terms with larger parties is restricted under the current electoral framework, making it difficult for them to increase their support or power through elections.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 3 / 4

People are generally free to exercise their political choices. However, a history of violent police responses to social and political demonstrations may deter political participation by some, and economic oligarchies and organized crime groups have some influence over the political sphere. Private donations to political parties are unlimited and unregulated, allowing wealthy donors significant influence over politics.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 1 / 4

A 2013 Constitutional Court decision stripped Dominican-born descendants of Haitian migrants of their citizenship, and thus their right to vote.

Parity laws have led to a higher number of women in the legislature, but women lawmakers report that it is difficult for them to exert influence over their parties' positions and to secure funding for political candidacies. A number of marches against gender-based violence have taken place recently, and while the problem generally affects women, a November 2017 march also drew hundreds of men.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 7 / 12 (-1)

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 3 / 4

Government and legislative representatives are generally able to determine national policies in a free and unhindered manner. However, unequal party financing and access to media helped tilt the field in favor of larger parties in the 2016 elections.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Corruption remains a serious, systemic problem for the country at all levels of the government, judiciary, and security forces, as well as in the private sector. A U.S. Justice Department investigation into the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, the results of which surfaced in December 2016  revealed that $92 million had been paid to public officials to obtain contracts for major infrastructure projects in the country during three consecutive governments. Several officials from previous administrations have been charged or linked to the investigations, and three in the current administration have been indicted  though sitting lawmakers enjoy immunity unless lawmakers vote to revoke it. The government has not responded to requests to establish an independent inquiry into these corruption allegations.

Separately, the body of Yuniol Ramirez, a well-known lawyer, was found submerged in a Santo Domingo creek in Santo Domingo in October, weighted with cinder blocks and with a gunshot wound to the head. A police investigation indicated that he was investigating acts of corruption in the procurement system of the Metropolitan Office of Bus Services (OMSA) before his killing. Two dozen arrest warrants were issued in response to the murder.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4 (-1)

Efforts to increase government transparency are ongoing, but implementation remains elusive. Although state agencies generally respond to information requests, they often provide inaccurate or incomplete information. Public officials are required to publicly disclose assets, but nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have cast doubt upon the accuracy of these disclosures. Public contracting and purchasing processes are opaque and allow for high levels of corruption, as reflected in the Odebrecht scandal.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 because authorities' continued failure to improve government transparency, particularly with regard to public contracting and purchasing processes, has permitted high levels of corruption.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 41 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 14 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 2 / 4

The law guarantees freedom of speech and of the press, but journalists risk intimidation and violence when investigating sensitive issues, particularly drug trafficking and corruption. In February 2017, two radio journalists were shot to death during a live broadcast. The assailant, who reportedly believed that land he had purchased has been appropriated and given to one of the hosts, killed himself during the police response to the attack.

Several national daily newspapers and a large number of local publications operate in the country. There are more than 300 privately owned radio stations and several private television networks alongside the state-owned Radio Television Dominicana (RTVD). Ownership concentration is high.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

Religious freedom is generally upheld, though the Catholic Church receives special privileges from the state.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Constitutional guarantees regarding academic freedom are generally observed.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

People are generally free to express personal views in public and privately without fear of retribution.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 10 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 3 / 4

While past years have seen numerous instances of demonstrations being violently dispersed by police, demonstrations in 2017 were mostly peaceful. A number of large protests against government corruption were held during the year. Smaller demonstrations against the denationalization policies affecting Dominicans of Haitian descent, and regarding the absolute prohibition of abortion, also took place in 2017.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Freedom of association is constitutionally guaranteed, and the government respects the right to form civic groups.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

Workers other than military and police personnel may form and join unions, though over 50 percent of workers at a workplace must be union members in order to engage in collective bargaining. Workers must exhaust mediation measures and meet other criteria in order for a strike to be considered legal.

F. RULE OF LAW: 8 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 3 / 4

The judiciary is plagued by corruption and is susceptible to political pressure. Reports of selective prosecution and the improper dismissal of cases continue.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

Corruption and politicization of the judiciary has significant impact on due process, and strongly limits access to justice for people without resources or political connections. Corruption within law enforcement agencies remains a serious challenge.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 2 / 4

Murder and other violent crimes rates are high. Prisons are overcrowded. More than half of all people in the country's prisons are pretrial detainees, some of whom spend as long as three years in detention.

The National Human Rights Commission and NGOs report that security forces committed more than 100 extrajudicial killings in 2017, and that law enforcement agents continue to engage in torture in order to extract confessions from detainees.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 1 / 4

Dominicans of Haitian descent as well as Haitian migrants face persistent systematic discrimination, including obstacles in securing legal documents such as identification, birth certificates, and marriage licenses, and have difficulty registering their children as Dominican citizens. This lack of documentation makes it difficult for those affected to attend school and university, and obtain legal employment.

LGBT individuals suffer from violence and discrimination. They are still barred from working in certain public sectors, such as the police and armed forces. An antidiscrimination bill remains stalled in Congress, despite renewed calls from civil society to pass it after the body of a transgender woman was found dismembered in the town of Higuey in June 2017.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 9 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4

While citizens are generally free to move around the country, there have been reports of instances in which foreigners were deported before they had a chance to collect their documentation to present to police. Asylum seekers and refugees must pay a fee to gain travel documents.

Separately, the prevalence of drive-by robberies can prompt some reluctance to move about freely, particularly at night.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 3 / 4

Private business activity remains susceptible to undue influence by organized crime and corrupt officials.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Violence and discrimination against women remains pervasive. Poor medical care has left the country with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the region. After a 2014 law decriminalizing abortion in some situations was struck down in 2015 by the Constitutional Court, a complete ban on abortion was effectively reinstated.

In May 2017, the Senate rejected proposed amendments recommended by Medina that would have decriminalized abortion when the life of the mother is endangered or in cases of incest, rape, or fetal impairment. The House in July voted against the Senate's rejection, thus setting the stage for another legislative vote on the issue.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

The Dominican Republic remains a source, transit, and destination country for the trafficking of men, women and children for sexual exploitation and forced labor. Haitians who lack documentation and clear legal status are particularly susceptible to forced labor. Many workers in the country are employed informally, leaving them without legal protections.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Czech Republic

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Czech Republic, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc8d8.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 93 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 1.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 10,600,000

Capital: Prague

GDP/capita: $17,716

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

The Czech Republic is a parliamentary democracy in which political rights and civil liberties are generally respected. However, in recent years, the country has experienced a number of corruption scandals and political disputes that hampered normal legislative activity. Illiberal rhetoric and the influence of powerful business entities in the political arena are increasingly visible.

Key Developments in 2017:

Billionaire Andrej Babis and his Movement of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO) party won a plurality of seats in October's parliamentary elections. Babis was named prime minister in December, but without a clear prospect of support for his cabinet in the new Chamber of Deputies.

In October, Babis was charged with fraud, in a case involving the disbursement of more than $2 million in European Union (EU) subsidies to his agribusiness company, Agrofert, 10 years prior. His immunity had been revoked by the parliament in September. (Babis placed Agrofert and other assets in trusts in response to 2016 conflict-of-interest legislation, but the independence of the trustees has been questioned.)

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 37 / 40 (-1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The president is head of state, and is directly elected to up to two five-year terms. The last election, held in 2013, in which Milos Zeman was elected, was considered free and fair. The president can veto legislation and appoints judges, central bank officials, and the prime minister and other cabinet members, but holds few other formal powers. The prime minister is head of government.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The 200 members of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament, are elected to four-year terms by proportional representation. The Senate has 81 members elected for six-year terms, with one-third up for election every two years.

The Movement of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO), led by controversial billionaire Andrej Babis, won a plurality of seats in the October 2017 legislative elections. The polls were generally well administered, and the results broadly accepted by stakeholders.

Babis was sworn in as prime minister in December, but the mainstream parties refused to cooperate with him, and he was unable to assembly a mainstream coalition. The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) and the populist, anti-immigration Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party revealed they would support his minority cabinet if certain programmatic conditions were met. A motion of confidence was scheduled for January 2018.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

The electoral framework is robust and generally well implemented by the State Election Commission. However, the body does not always operate with transparency, and a 2017 Organization for Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) election monitoring mission expressed concern that its meetings were typically closed to the public and opposition representatives. The OSCE mission also expressed concern about decentralized procedures surrounding the maintenance of voter lists, which made the lists difficult to verify. However, the state of voter lists was not a major concern to any party during the 2017 polls.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 15 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

Political parties are free to form and operate. Since the 2013 elections, the political scene has seen somewhat of a shake-up, with the establishment Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) losing support, and space opening up for the liberal populist ANO and anti-immigration and nationalist SPD.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Power rotates between parties regularly. The opposition holds a significant bloc of seats in the parliament.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

In an October 2017 report the Security Information Service stated that the Czech Republic faces attempted Russian and Chinese interference in its political affairs. However, these attempts have generally been ineffective.

In 2017, there was widespread discussion of the influence of politically connected media outlets, notably after a controversy arose in May involving the daily newspaper MF Dnes, which is among the assets Babis placed in a trust. In a leaked recording, Babis could apparently be heard directing the paper's staff to publish stories damaging to his political rivals. Babis has condemned the leaked recording, but did not deny its authenticity.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

By law, all citizens have full political rights and electoral opportunities. However, the Romany minority lacks meaningful political representation. Women increased their representation in parliament in the 2017 elections, but remain underrepresented in politics and public bodies generally, and there are few initiatives aimed at boosting their political participation.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 10 / 12 (-1)

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

Elected officials are duly installed and generally able to craft and implement policy. However, while the ruling coalition under outgoing prime minister Bohuslav Sobotka survived its whole term, there were a number of serious conflicts between ANO and Sobotka's CSSD that sidelined normal legislative activity and prompted talk of snap elections.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 3 / 4

Corruption remains a problem in Czech politics, but institutions have been responsive to corruption allegations and scandals. Babis was subject to a continuing investigation by Czech police and the European Anti-Fraud Office in 2017, as a result of allegations of improprieties regarding the disbursement of EU subsidy funds to small- and medium-sized enterprises in the country. It was alleged that Babis's firm, Agrofert, had wrongfully accepted some 50 million crowns ($2,250,000) through its anonymous ownership of a farm complex. In September, only a month before the elections, the Chamber of Deputies lifted Babis's immunity, and fraud charges were levied against him in October. Babis claimed the development was a political attack on him orchestrated by his political rivals.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 3 / 4 (-1)

Although the government generally operates with transparency, the country still does not have a law regulating lobbying. In February 2017, the Minister for Human Rights and Legislation prepared a strategic document presenting different variants of potential regulation, and before the October election a proposal for a lobbying act was introduced by the government. However, the new government had not acted on the proposal by year's end. The government tends not to proactively publish information about procurement processes, public officials' salaries, and other public spending, and requires that members of the public request a time-sensitive password to view asset declarations online.

Score Change: The score declined from 4 to 3 due to weak lobbying regulations, and obstacles in accessing public information.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 56 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 15 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 4 / 4

The media operate relatively freely, and the government does not place undue restrictions on content. Legislation protects private ownership of media outlets, but concerns remain about the extent to which the media is controlled by wealthy business figures and the potential impact of this on journalists' ability to investigate commercial interests.

Babis placed his significant media holdings in a trust, following the approval of conflict-of-interest legislation in 2016, but the trust is controlled in part by Babis's close associates. In 2017, leaked recording emerged in which Babis apparently directed staff at MF Dnes to publish articles that could damage the reputations of his rivals, and indicated a preference that certain stories be published before or after the year's election.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

The government generally upholds freedom of religion. Tax benefits and financial support are provided to registered religious groups. The state has initiated a process to return land confiscated from churches by the 1948-89 communist regime, which will take place over the next 30 years.

However, Islamophobic sentiment has increased in the wake of the refugee crisis confronting European states, and the country's legal battle with the EU about accepting refugee quotas. The populist and anti-immigration SPD relied heavily on Islamophobic rhetoric during the 2017 election campaign, calling Islam "incompatible with freedom and democracy" and purchasing billboards that read "No to Islam."

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Academic freedom is respected. Ceremonial presidential approval is required for academic positions.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

People are generally able to express controversial or political opinions without fear of surveillance or retribution.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 12 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

Freedom of assembly is upheld in practice, and demonstrations take place frequently and without incident. The Prague Pride Parade  an annual event held by the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community  was attended by 35,000 people in August 2017.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Tens of thousands of registered nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operate in the country, generally without intimidation or interference from government or security forces.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 4 / 4

Trade unions and professional associations function freely, though they are weak in practice. Workers have the right to strike, though this right is limited for essential public employees, such as hospital workers and air traffic controllers.

F. RULE OF LAW: 14 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 3 / 4

The judiciary is largely independent, though its complexity and multilayered composition have led to slow delivery of judgments.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 4 / 4

The rule of law generally prevails in civil and criminal matters. While corruption and political pressure remain within law enforcement agencies, the office of the public prosecutor has become more independent in recent years.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 4 / 4

The Czech Republic is one of the safest states in the world. However, prisons in the Czech Republic are overcrowded and at times unsanitary.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

The 2009 Antidiscrimination Act provides for equal treatment regardless of sex, race, age, disability, belief, or sexual orientation. The Roma minority faces discrimination in the job market and significantly poorer housing conditions than non-Roma, as well as occasional threats and violence from right-wing groups. Many Roma children attend ethnically segregated schools.

Women are underrepresented at the highest levels of business. According to data from the European Commission, the gender pay gap in the Czech Republic is one of the largest in the EU.

Asylum seekers are routinely detained, and conditions in detention centers are generally poor. Xenophobic, antirefugee rhetoric has been voiced by Interior Minister Milan Chovanec and President Zeman. In July 2017, after accepting just 12 asylum seekers of its EU-mandated quota of around 2,700, authorities announced the country would no longer comply with the program.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 15 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

Individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 4 / 4

Economic freedoms are well respected in the Czech Republic.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 4 / 4

Authorities generally do not restrict social freedoms, though same-sex marriages are not legally recognized. While gender discrimination is legally prohibited, sexual harassment in the workplace appears to be fairly common.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

Human trafficking remains a problem as organized criminal groups use the country as a source, transit, and destination point; women and children are particularly vulnerable to being trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The government has made increasing efforts in recent years to fund protective services and other resources for victims, and to prosecute perpetrators.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Cyprus

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Cyprus, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc8f4.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 94 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 1.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Explanatory Note:

The numerical rankings and status listed above do not reflect conditions in Northern Cyprus, which is examined in a separate report.

Quick Facts

Population: 1,200,000

Capital: Nicosia

GDP/capita: $23,075

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

The Republic of Cyprus is a parliamentary democracy that has de jure sovereignty over the entire island. In practice, however, the government controls only the southern, largely Greek-speaking part of the island, as the northern area is ruled by the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey. Political rights and civil liberties are generally respected in the Republic of Cyprus. Ongoing concerns include societal discrimination against minority groups and flaws in the asylum system that lead to prolonged detention and premature deportations.

Key Developments in 2017:

In January, the government restarted UN-sponsored reunification talks with Northern Cyprus under auspicious conditions. However, the talks broke down in July over the future role of the Turkish military on the island.

Irregular migrant workers and asylum seekers faced continued discrimination and extended detentions in prison-like facilities.

Cyprus remains without a freedom of information law  a bill first proposed in 2015 remains stalled in parliament.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 38 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 11 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The president is elected by popular vote to a five-year term. The current president, Nicos Anastasiades, won 57.5 percent of the vote in a runoff in the most recent presidential elections, held in 2013. Pledging efficient negotiations with the EU and the IMF over the bailout agreement, Anastasiades defeated Stavros Malas of the Progressive Party of the Working People (AKEL), whose platform opposed austerity.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The unicameral House of Representatives has 80 seats filled through proportional representation for five-year terms. The Turkish Cypriot community has 24 reserved seats, which have been unfilled since Turkish Cypriot representatives withdrew from the chamber in 1964. The most recent legislative elections in May 2016 were held in accordance with international standards.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

Electoral laws are generally fair. Amendments to the electoral laws approved in 2015, just five months ahead of legislative elections, stipulated that a political party must win 3.6 percent of the vote, up from 1.8 percent previously, to participate in the second round of voting, which was widely interpreted as an attempt to shut smaller and newly formed parties out of parliament.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 16 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

A wide array of parties compete in the political system. Cyprus's two main parties, the center-right Democratic Rally (DISY) and the left wing Progressive Party of the Working People (AKEL), usually split the largest share of the vote in most elections, but neither has dominated politics, and other parties are often able to play significant roles in legislative coalitions.

Both DISY and AKEL lost seats in the 2016 parliamentary elections. Three new parties entered parliament for the first time: the center-left Citizens' Alliance (SYPOL), the right-wing Solidarity, and the far-right National Popular Front (ELAM).

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Opposition parties can gain representation in Cypriot elections, and power rotates between parties regularly.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

People are generally able to express their political choices without undue interference from outside actors.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 4 / 4

Three recognized religious minorities  the Armenians, the Latins, and the Maronites  each have a non-voting representative. Members of these minority groups vote in special elections for their representative, as well as in the general elections. The Turkish Cypriot community's 24 unfilled seats remain unfilled.

Women in Cyprus are politically engaged, and in the 2016 parliamentary elections made up 75 percent of the polling stations' staff. However, they are underrepresented in political parties; no party has a woman leader, and parties have failed to meet internal quotas mandating that 30 to 35 percent of candidates be women. Women also hold only 18 percent of the seats in parliament. Sexism and patriarchal attitudes can discourage women from playing a more active role in politics.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 11 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

The freely elected government is able to make and implement policy.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 3 / 4

Cyprus has strong anticorruption laws that are, for the most part, adequately enforced, but was plagued by a string of high-profile corruption scandals in 2017. In March, for example, former deputy attorney general Rikkos Erotokritou was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for accepting bribes in 2015 while in office.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 4 / 4

In general, the government operates with openness and transparency. However, Cyprus lacks a freedom of information law  a draft bill was presented for public comment in 2015, but at the end of 2017 no vote had been scheduled in parliament.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 56 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 15 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 4 / 4

Freedom of speech is constitutionally guaranteed and generally respected. A vibrant independent press frequently criticizes the authorities. Private and public media compete.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitution and protected in practice. Nearly all inhabitants of the south are Orthodox Christians. Minority religions sometimes experience discrimination. Muslim and Buddhist groups have occasionally faced obstacles in the operation of their religious sites. The government facilitates crossings at the UN buffer zone between north and south to facilitate worship at religious sites.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive

political indoctrination? 3 / 4

Academic freedom is respected in Cyprus. However, state schools use textbooks containing negative language about Turkish Cypriots and Turkey.

Though a general climate of moderation had recently prevailed, the status quo was upset in February 2017 by the passage of a motion in parliament proposed by the far-right ELAM that requires schools to honor the 1950 plebiscite in which Greek Cypriots voted for unification with Greece. In response, parliament passed a law in April requiring that the education ministry consult with the House education committee on commemorations  a move meant to undercut the controversial provision.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

People are generally free to engage in political and other sensitive discussions without fear of retribution or surveillance.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 12 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

Freedom of assembly is generally respected.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) usually operate without government interference. A memorandum of cooperation was signed between the police and 12 NGOs in March 2017 to improve relations and prevent misunderstandings.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 4 / 4

Workers have the right to strike, form independent trade unions, and engage in collective bargaining. The law provides remedies for antiunion discrimination, though enforcement is uneven.

F. RULE OF LAW: 15 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 4 / 4

Cyprus's independent judiciary operates principally according to the British tradition. Since ascension to the EU in 2004, the legal system has been harmonizing with EU law.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 4 / 4

Cyprus's legal system generally upholds due process.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 4 / 4

While Cyprus is free from war and insurgencies, the Council of Europe and other groups have noted occasional cases of police brutality, including the August 2017 beating of a 60-year-old Turkish citizen who crossed a checkpoint without showing his visa. Overcrowding at prisons and migrant detention centers has decreased but remains a problem. Force was sometimes used by authorities to suppress protests at detention centers.

Since the 2015 election of a new, pro-reunification president in Northern Cyprus, Mustafa Akinci, talks between the two sides have raised hopes for a lasting solution to the island's partition, which resulted from a 1974 Turkish invasion of the north following a coup aimed at union with Greece. After resuming UN-sponsored negotiations in January 2017, talks broke down following the Turkish insistence that their military be allowed to remain on the island to guarantee the peace.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

Antidiscrimination laws prohibit bias based on sexual orientation, but the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community faces societal discrimination in practice. Laws barring incitement to hatred apply to both sexual orientation and gender identity. There are no explicit provisions protecting transgender people.

Despite government efforts to combat prejudice and inequality, non-Greek Cypriot minorities, including migrants and asylum seekers, face discrimination and occasional violence. Authorities' long-term detention of irregular migrants and asylum seekers in prison-like facilities, delays in processing asylum applications, and extremely rigorous conditions for asylum have all drawn criticism from NGO leaders.

Gender discrimination in the workplace is a problem, including in hiring practices and salaries, and laws against it have not been adequately enforced.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 14 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 3 / 4

Although the UN buffer zone dividing the island remains in place, freedom of movement has improved since 2004 due to a growing number of border crossings.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 4 / 4

Private property rights are generally respected in Cyprus. However, the status of property abandoned by those who fled north after the 1974 invasion is a point of contention in reunification talks with Northern Cyprus. A 1991 law states that property left by Turkish Cypriots belongs to the state. Under the law in the north, Greek Cypriots can appeal to the Immovable Property Commission (IMP), which in 2010 was recognized as the responsible authority for the resolution of property disputes. As of the end of December 2017, 850 cases out of a total of 6,392 applications have been settled for over $359,000,000.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 4 / 4

Sexual harassment is widespread in Cyprus. To address the issue, the ombudsman provides training to public-sector employees. Domestic violence is a growing problem. Two government-funded shelters are open to survivors of domestic abuse.

In 2015, the parliament passed legislation allowing same-sex civil unions, but it did not include adoption rights for same-sex couples.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

While the government has made genuine progress in combatting human trafficking, migrant workers remain vulnerable to sexual exploitation and forced labor. Migrant workers often have difficulty finding employment and social services for these vulnerable groups are inadequate.

Access to healthcare and employment opportunities are limited for people with disabilities, who experience high levels of unemployment.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Croatia

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Croatia, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc914.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 86 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 1.5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 4,200,000

Capital: Zagreb

GDP/capita: $11,638

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Croatia is a parliamentary republic that regularly holds free elections. Civil and political rights are generally respected, though there are serious problems with corruption in the public sector. Minority rights have improved over the last two decades, though the Roma and Serb minorities face discrimination, as do LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people.

Key Developments in 2017:

In April, the governing Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) lost its coalition partner, the reformist Bridge of Independent Lists (Most), over conflict-of-interest allegations involving the finance minister. The HDZ formed a coalition with the liberal Croatian People's Party (HNS) in June.

A controversial plaque containing a fascist-era slogan that had been placed near the World War II-era Jasenovac concentration camp was removed in September. However, President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic around the same time appeared to endorse the slogan, calling it "an old Croatian greeting."

In June, students and teachers led mass demonstrations against the government's reluctance to implement popular reforms aimed at updating the country's education system.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 37 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The president, who is head of state, is elected by popular vote for a maximum of two five-year terms. The prime minister is head of government, and is appointed by the president with parliamentary approval.

Croatia held the runoff to its December 2014 presidential election in January 2015. Outgoing president Ivo Josipovic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) lost to Grabar-Kitarovic of the conservative HDZ by a margin of less than one percent. Stakeholders broadly accepted the poll's result.

HDZ chairman Andrej Plenkovic became prime minister following the 2016 legislative elections, in which HDZ won a plurality of seats.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

Members of the 151-member unicameral Croatian Parliament (Hrvatski Sabor) are elected to four-year terms.

Snap parliamentary elections in September 2016  which were held after the previous prime minister lost a no-confidence vote, and were the second legislative polls in less than a year  were marked by low turnout, though an Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring mission found the generally well administered and the results credible. The HDZ and its allies won 61 seats, and the party has led the government since then, with support from smaller parties. The composition of the government changed in 2017, after the reformist Bridge of Independent Lists (Most) withdrew from the HDZ-led coalition after refusing to back Finance Minister Zdravko Maric, who was implicated in a conflict-of-interest controversy related to his time working at Agrokor, Croatia's largest private company, which is now under state administration. The HDZ in June allied with the liberal Croatian People's Party (HNS), which was part of the SDP-led opposition coalition.

The HDZ posted strong results in municipal elections held in 2017.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

While some concerns about the use of public funds for political campaigns persist, in general, the State Election Commission maintains a fair standard for elections in Croatia.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 15 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

Citizens may freely organize and participate in the activities of a wide variety of political parties. Small far-left and far-left parties made gains in the May 2017 local elections.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

The main opposition bloc, headed by the SDP, has won the most seats in only two parliamentary elections since 1991, although the country was headed by an SDP president from 2010 to 2015. The SDP-led opposition coalition holds a significant bloc of seats in the legislature, and is generally able to operate without facing restrictions or election-related intimidation. But in general, the HDZ has dominated politics, and draws support from members of the Catholic Church, veterans, and a growing number of conservative NGOs.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

While voters and candidates are generally able to freely express their political choices, the Roman Catholic Church is politically influential, and has advocated for a ban on same-sex marriage and restrictions on abortion. Many public servants obtained their positions through patronage networks, and may be beholden to a party or special interest as a result.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

Eight parliamentary seats are set aside for ethnic minorities, including three for ethnic Serbs. However, the political interests of minority groups, notably Roma and Serbs, are underrepresented.

Women are represented across political parties, and a woman currently holds Croatia's presidency. However, the number of women in parliament decreased in 2016 after the Constitutional Court struck down a law requiring that 40 percent of a party's candidates be women. The 2016 OSCE election monitoring mission called for political parties to run more women candidates, and to promote more women into senior party leadership positions.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 10 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

Democratically elected representatives are duly installed into office, and are generally able to make public policy.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 3 / 4

A criminal code in effect since 2013 enforces stiffer penalties for various forms of corruption, and while some progress has been made, official corruption  including nepotism, bribery, fraud, and patronage  remains a serious problem. Numerous high-level corruption cases have been filed in recent years, but many have yet to see a verdict, including corruption and bribery proceedings against former president Ivo Sanader.

Politics in the first half of 2017 revolved in large part around demands by the opposition and the Most party for the resignation of Finance Minister Zdravko Maric over conflict-of-interest allegations; they claimed that he had long been aware of serious financial troubles at his previous employer, the agribusiness giant Agrokor, which had come under government administration due to its precarious financial position. Most left the government after refusing to support Maric in a parliamentary no-confidence measure, which he narrowly survived. Separately, international bodies including the European Commission have called for greater efforts to eliminate malfeasance in public procurement processes.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 3 / 4

In 2013, Croatia adopted the Law on the Right of Access to Information. The legislation includes a proportionality and public-interest test designed to determine a balance between reasons for disclosing information and reasons for restricting it, and establishes an independent information commissioner to monitor compliance. However, government bodies do not always release requested information in a timely manner.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 49 / 60 (-1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 13 / 16 (-1)

D1. Are there free and independent media? 3 / 4

Media in Croatia is highly polarized, but generally free from overt political interference or manipulation. However, journalists continue to face harassment and occasional attacks. In May 2017, a journalist was assaulted by the mayor of Pozega. And in October, a journalist for the country's public broadcaster received a death threat after reporting on refugees.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

The Croatian constitution guarantees freedom of religion, and this is generally upheld in practice. However, the small Serb Orthodox community remains vulnerable to harassment, and members have reported vandalism of their churches. Jewish and other groups have expressed increasing concern about Holocaust denial and displays by right-wing nationalists of symbols and slogans associated with the fascist Ustasa regime that governed Croatia during World War II.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 3 / 4 (-1)

In June 2017, students and teachers protested against the government's stalling of the planned modernization of Croatia's education system. The reforms began in 2015 and emphasize a focus on skill development over rote memorization, give teachers increased autonomy, update badly outdated history curriculum, and include modules on sex and health education, among others. The reforms, which enjoyed broad public support, have been delayed under the HDZ, which has moved to install its own members into the group tasked with developing the policies, including extremely conservative members opposed to sex education. Protests against the delays took place in over a dozen cities, with demonstrators expressing concern that the HDZ may be attempting to politicize the new curricula, or that it could abandon the modernization plan.

Score Change: The score declined from 4 to 3 due to the government's reluctance to implement a popular program aimed at modernizing the country's outdated education system.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

People are generally free to engage in discussions of a sensitive nature without fearing surveillance or retribution.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 12 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

Freedom of assembly is protected and respected in Croatia.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

The nongovernmental organization (NGO) sector in Croatia remains robust and active.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 4 / 4

The constitution allows workers to form and join trade unions, and this right is generally respected in practice.

F. RULE OF LAW: 11 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 3 / 4

While judicial independence is generally respected, there have been recent concerns about the influence of far-right-wing groups on the judiciary. For example, in July 2017, a court reversed a 1945 conviction of an academic who was found to be complicit in atrocities committed by the fascist Ustasa regime. Critics allege the courts have been ruling in line with the views of right-wing NGOs and the ruling HDZ, while the courts maintain that they are redressing partisan rulings of the Yugoslav communist courts.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 3 / 4

Due process rights are generally upheld, but the system tends to work more efficiently for individuals with abundant resources or high social standing.

The International Commission on Missing Persons has criticized Croatia for its slow progress in identifying human remains of victims of the 1991-95 conflicts, and in making reparations to survivors and their families.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 3 / 4

Violence by state and nonstate actors is uncommon. However, there were several reports of police violence against migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers during the year, primarily at the Serbian border. Prison conditions do not meet international standards due to overcrowding and inadequate medical care.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

There are concerns that the increasing visibility of far-right, nationalist groups in everyday life, and occasional moves by the government suggesting endorsement of such groups, effectively encourages discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities. In 2017, such groups continued efforts to rehabilitate icons and slogans associated with the Ustasa. For example, during the year, a plaque with a fascist-era slogan appeared on a building near the WWII-era Jasenovac concentration camp, where some 83,000 Serbs, Jews, Roma and antifascists had been killed. The plaque became cause celebre for Croatia's far-right, who were buttressed in their attempts to preserve it when the president appeared to endorse it in September, saying the slogan at the center of the controversy was not a fascist salute but "an old Croatian greeting." Nevertheless, the plaque was removed that month.

Ethnic and religious minorities in Croatia face discrimination. Some officials have sought to discourage the use of the Cyrillic alphabet in signage in areas with high concentrations of ethnic Serbs. Both Serb and Jewish community leaders boycotted state-sponsored Holocaust remembrances in 2016 and 2017, due to perceived HDZ support of revisionism for the World War II-era fascist government. Roma have poor access to primary and secondary education.

The LGBT community continues to face discriminatory rhetoric by influential right-wing groups.

The constitution prohibits gender discrimination, but women earn less than men for comparable work and hold fewer leadership positions generally.

Croatian authorities continue pushing asylum seekers into Serbia without offering them access to asylum procedures.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 13 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

Freedom of movement is protected by the constitution and upheld in practice.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 3 / 4

Property rights are generally well protected. However, corruption can inhibit normal business operations.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

In 2014, following a 2013 referendum that banned same-sex marriages, the parliament passed a law allowing same-sex civil unions. The law affords same-sex couples equal rights in inheritance, social benefits, and taxation, but same-sex couples may not adopt children.

Domestic violence remains a concern. Convictions for rape and domestic violence can bring lengthy prisons terms. However, police sometimes fail to adhere to recommended procedures for handling reports of domestic violence.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

Human trafficking remains a problem, sentences for those convicted of it can be light, and witness statements are not always given the appropriate consideration in court cases. However, the government continues to make efforts to better identify victims of trafficking and to provide services to them.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Congo, Republic of (Brazzaville)

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Congo, Republic of (Brazzaville), 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc934.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Not Free

Aggregate Score: 21 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 6.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 4,900,000

Capital: Brazzaville

GDP/capita: $1,712

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

President Denis Sassou Nguesso has maintained power for more than three decades by severely repressing the opposition. Corruption and decades of political instability have contributed to poor economic performance and high levels of poverty. Abuses by security forces are frequently reported.

Key Developments in 2017:

The government of President Denis Sassou Nguesso continued its military campaign in the Pool region, where fighting had displaced at least 80,000 citizens since April 2016. In late December, the government signed a cease-fire agreement with the main rebel group in Pool.

The government continued to incarcerate journalists and political opponents.

July 2017 legislative elections were marked by an opposition boycott and credible reports of fraud.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 2 / 40 (-3)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 0 / 12 (-1)

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

The president is directly elected to five-year terms. The 2002 constitution restricted the president to two terms, and set an age limit of 70. However, an October 2015 constitutional referendum proposed by the president removed age and term limit restrictions on the presidency so that President Denis Sassou Nguesso could run again. The referendum passed amidst protests by opposition activists.

President Sassou Nguesso has been in office since 1979 through a combination of elections and a military coup, with the exception of a five-year period in the 1990s. In March 2016, he secured a third presidential term since reclaiming power in 1997, winning 60 percent of the vote in an election marked by the intimidation of opposition figures and journalists, an election-day shutdown of mobile and internet services, and claims of electoral fraud.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4 (-1)

Congo's parliament consists of a 72-seat Senate and a 151-seat National Assembly. Councilors from every department each elect senators to six-year terms. National Assembly members are directly elected to five-year terms.

An opposition coalition boycotted the July 2017 legislative elections in protest of a process they claimed was rigged, and as a gesture of support for those affected by the conflict in Pool. Sassou Nguesso's Congolese Labor Party (PCT) claimed 96 of 151 seats and its allies won 12 in a process tainted by widespread fraud and low voter turnout. Elections were indefinitely postponed in nine districts in the Pool region because of the conflict.

Score change: The score declined from 1 to 0 because the July 2017 legislative elections were widely acknowledged to be fraudulent and were boycotted by the opposition.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 0 / 4

The 2015 constitutional referendum to increase presidential term limits consolidated the PCT's dominance of the political system by allowing Sassou Nguesso to run for a third term. Elections are administered by the Independent National Election Commission (CENI), which was established in 2016. Analysts assert that the CENI lacks independence from Sassou Nguesso and his administration.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 2 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 1 / 4

The government routinely intimidates and represses opposition parties. In July 2016, opposition leader Paulin Makaya of the United for Congo (UPC) party was sentenced to two years in prison following his arrest on charges of inciting disorder over his participation in protests against the 2015 constitutional referendum.

Political parties are sometimes denied registration without cause. During the 2017 campaign, the Yuki party was denied official party status, forcing its candidates to run independently.

The government banned private campaign contributions in 2016, leaving opposition parties and candidates dependent on limited public financing that is frequently not fully disbursed.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 0 / 4

There is little opportunity for the opposition to gain power through elections, and opposition leaders frequently experience harassment, intimidation, and arrest when campaigning. Two of Sassou Nguesso's rivals in the 2016 presidential race  retired general Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko and Andre Okombi Salissa, president of an opposition coalition called the Initiative for Democracy in Congo (IDC)  were repeatedly harassed during the campaign. After the election, Mokoko was incarcerated in June 2016 and Okombi Salissa in January 2017. They remained in prison at year's end, charged with "undermining the internal security of the state."

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 0 / 4

Both the military and nonstate militias have an impact on Congolese politics. In 2016, Aime Hydevert Mouagni, a member of parliament and a leader of the Republican Patriotic and Defence Platform (PPDR) militia, read a statement on national television in 2016 that called for citizens to rise up against opposition forces they argued were attempting to overthrow the Sassou Nguesso regime. There are a number of militias associated with PCT leaders that use intimidation and violence to help their party maintain its grip on power.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 1 / 4

Members of Sassou Nguesso's northern Mbochi ethnic group control key government posts. Other groups, including the Kongo, Sangha, and Teke, have some political representation, though the indigenous population does not. There are no legal restrictions on political participation by religion, gender, sexual identity, or ethnic group, but indigenous populations face many barriers to political participation, including isolation in rural areas and low levels of civic literacy.

Women are underrepresented in government, holding just 15 of 151 seats in the National Assembly and 14 of 72 seats in the Senate. In August, a new 35-member cabinet was selected, of which 8 members are women. Societal constraints limit women's political participation in practice.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT 0 / 12 (-2)

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 0 / 4

Government policy is set by President Sassou Nguesso, who was reelected in a deeply flawed process in 2016 and thus lacks democratic legitimacy. There is little oversight from the parliament, which is dominated by the ruling PCT and protects the executive from accountability.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 0 / 4 (-1)

Corruption is pervasive in Congo. The country has several active anticorruption bodies, but domestic prosecutions for corruption are limited and often politically motivated. The president's family and advisers effectively control the state oil company without meaningful oversight, and offshore companies are allegedly used to embezzle funds from the company. In June 2017, the President Sassou Nguesso's daughter, Julienne Sassou Nguesso, was arrested in France for money laundering. The illicit funds were tied to the siphoning of public oil money to offshore bank accounts in the Seychelles.

Score change: The score declined from 1 to 0 due to a complete lack of effective anticorruption mechanisms, especially involving the president's family and government ministers.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 0 / 4 (-1)

Although Congo became fully compliant with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in 2013, the government has reportedly developed techniques to circumvent transparency standards, and secrecy continues to shroud elements of lucrative oil deals. Although the constitution guarantees access to information, there is no implementing legislation, nor is there a specific law mandating public access to official information.

In August 2017, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) accused the government of hiding much of its debt. In March, the IMF had estimated that government debt was 77 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). By August, taking into account the hidden debt, the figure was revised upward to 117 percent of GDP.

Score change: The score declined from 1 to 0 because in August it was revealed that the government concealed much of its debt, causing the IMF's estimate of the debt-to-GDP ratio to increase from 77 percent in March to 117 percent in August.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 19 / 60 (-3)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF 7 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 1 / 4

While the constitution provides for freedom of speech and the press, the government's respect for such freedoms is limited in practice. The government routinely pressures, threatens, or incarcerates journalists. In January 2017, Ghys Fortune Dombe Bemba, editor of Talassa, a privately owned newspaper, was arrested after publishing a statement by a former Pool rebel leader. He remained in prison at year's end. In March, the government detained two Italian journalists investigating corruption allegations against a member of the president's family for three days.

Journalists often feel intense pressure from the government to avoid publishing material that casts authorities in a negative light, and self-censorship is rampant.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

Religious freedom is generally respected, though in 2015, the government banned the wearing of the niqab, the full face veil, in public, citing concerns about security and terrorism.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 1 / 4

Academic freedom is tenuous. Most university professors self-censor, avoiding discussions on politically sensitive topics; many work as consultants for the government, compromising their independence.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 2 / 4

The government reportedly surveilled electronic communications of private individuals in 2017. People who spoke out against the government risked reprisal, including occasional arrests.

Internet and text messaging services were cut throughout Congo on the day of the presidential poll in 2016, in what observers described as a means of preventing the spread of information about voter turnout and suspected electoral fraud.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS 5 / 12 (-1)

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 1 / 4

The government restricts freedom of assembly. Groups must receive official authorization from local and federal authorities to hold public assemblies, and permission is sometimes denied. Government forces sometimes employ violence against protesters or disperse assemblies.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 2 / 4

Although the constitution guarantees freedom of association, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) must register with the Ministry of the Interior and Decentralization. Groups that were critical of the government often encountered a more burdensome registration process. Self-censorship is common among NGOs, with groups not reporting on government abuses for fear of reprisals. NGOs also encountered restrictions on access to certain areas, including the Pool region, where the government denied some groups permission to undertake humanitarian work.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 2 / 4 (-1)

Although union rights are nominally protected, laws protecting union members are not always enforced. The government has intervened in labor disputes by harassing and arresting laborers and pressuring union leaders, tactics that were used with greater frequency in 2017, particularly against the country's largest union, Congolese Trade Union Confederation (CSC).

Score change: The score declined from 3 to 2 because the government increased its pressure on unions in 2017 by harassing laborers and pressuring union leaders. These tactics were often used against the CSC, the largest union.

F. RULE OF LAW 1 / 16 (-1)

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 0 / 4

Congo's judiciary is dominated by Sassou Nguesso's allies, crippled by lack of resources, and vulnerable to corruption and political influence. In 2015, the Constitutional Court's confirmation of the national constitutional referendum results was viewed as a rubber stamp approval of Sassou Nguesso's efforts to remain in power.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 1 / 4

Defendants, including the government's political opponents, are routinely denied due process. According to local NGOs, arbitrary arrests and detentions are common, despite being prohibited by the constitution. Other fair trial rights guaranteed by law, including the right to legal assistance for those who cannot afford it, are not always honored in practice.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 0 / 4 (-1)

Significant reports of torture and other abuses by security forces were not investigated by the government in 2017. Colonel Marcel Ntsourou, who was serving a life sentence for leading an insurrection against the government, died suspiciously in February while in prison.

In 2016, Sassou Nguesso launched a military assault in the Pool region after blaming a former rebel group from Pool known as the Ninjas for a series of deadly presidential election-related attacks in Brazzaville, although the group had largely disbanded a decade earlier. The ensuing clash between government forces and the resurgent Ninjas displaced more than 80,000 citizens before a ceasefire was signed in December 2017. Human rights abuses were alleged on both sides of the conflict. Humanitarian conditions among the displaced people were dire, and the government denied humanitarian organizations access to the Pool region.

Score change: The score declined from 1 to 0 due to the ongoing military assault in the Pool region. Though the government claimed its target was a rebel group, this group was disbanded a decade ago.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 0 / 4

Discrimination against women in regard to employment and starting a business persists. Refugees and other foreign workers are prevented by the government from holding certain jobs, and refugees faced harassment and arrest by authorities in 2017.

While no law specifically prohibits same-sex sexual relations between adults, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people experience occasional harassment from the police.

The indigenous population experiences severe discrimination in employment, housing, and education. Indigenous communities often live in substandard housing on the outskirts of villages, and beatings and murders of indigenous people by the majority Bantu population are not uncommon.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 6 / 16 (-1)

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4

Although private citizens generally enjoy freedom of movement, activists and opposition leaders can face restrictions. In 2017, the government restricted the movement and reportedly confiscated the passports of opposition leaders Charles Zacharie Bowao and Claudine Munari.

The conflict in Pool led to the displacement of many of its residents. An estimated 81,000 people left their homes, and at the end of 2017 many of these individuals were still unable to return.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

Legal protections for business and property rights can be undermined by bureaucracy, poor judicial safeguards, and corruption. The government directly or indirectly controls property in key industries such as oil, minerals, and aviation.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 1 / 4 (-1)

Violence against women, including domestic violence and rape, is widespread, but rarely reported. There are no specific laws forbidding domestic violence other than the assault statutes already on the books. During the conflict in Pool, there was a reported increase in gender-based violence.

Men are legally considered the head of the household, and divorce settlements are thus skewed against women. Adultery is illegal for both men and women, but women convicted of the crime face a potential prison sentence, while the penalty for men is a fine.

Score change: The score declined from 2 to 1 due to gender-based violence during the military assault in the Pool region.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 1 / 4

Congo is a source and destination country for human trafficking. Anti-trafficking legislation languished in parliament and allegations of complicity in trafficking by government officials did not lead to prosecutions in 2017. According to local NGOs, indigenous people are often conscripted into forced farm labor by members of the Bantu ethnic majority. Child labor laws are reportedly not effectively enforced.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Chile

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Chile, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc954.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 94 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 1.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 18,200,000

Capital: Santiago

GDP/capita: $13,653

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

Chile is a stable democracy that has experienced a significant expansion of political rights and civil liberties since the return of civilian rule in 1990. Ongoing concerns include corruption and unrest linked to land disputes with the indigenous Mapuche population.

Key Developments in 2017:

The conservative presidential candidate of the Chile Vamos coalition, Sebastian Pinera, won a runoff election held in December with 55 percent of the vote. He defeated Alejandro Guillier, the candidate of the governing Nueva Mayoria coalition.

Congressional elections held in November resulted in a fractured legislature, with no party able to win an outright majority in either the lower or upper house. Pinera's coalition took a plurality of seats in both chambers, but will need some support from opposition lawmakers to pass legislation.

In September, a law introduced by center-left President Michelle Bachelet that decriminalize abortion in the events of rape, an inviable fetus, or danger to the life of the mother, took effect.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 37 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

Presidential elections in Chile are widely regarded as free and fair. The president is elected to a four-year term, and consecutive terms are not permitted. Pinera was elected in December 2017 to serve his second term; he had served as president previously, from 2010 to 2014.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The Senate's 38 members serve eight-year terms, with half up for election every four years, and the 120 members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected to four-year terms. Since 1990, congressional elections have been widely regarded as free and fair.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

Chile's electoral framework is robust and generally well implemented. The 2017 legislative polls were the first to take place under new rules that established more proportional districts, and increased the number of seats in both houses. The Chamber of Deputies now has 155 seats, up from 120 previously. The number of Senate seats was increased from 38 to 50, but the new seats will be introduced gradually, with the Senate reaching its new 50-seat capacity in 2022.

Chile still operates under a constitution drafted during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, though in 2017 lawmakers were working to reform it.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 15 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

Chile has a multiparty political system with dominant center-right and center-left coalitions, though the center-left coalition fractured in 2017, contributing to the strong showing by Chile Vamos in the year's elections. Parties operate freely, and many new parties have emerged in recent years.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Power alternation between parties occurs regularly, both in Congress and for the presidency. In 2014, center-left President Michelle Bachelet succeeded conservative President Sebastian Pinera, who in turn will succeed Bachelet in 2018.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

People are generally free to exercise their political choices without undue influence from actors that are not democratically accountable.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

Women are represented in government, and the new electoral system includes a quota for women in the legislature. However, the presence of women in Congress and in other government positions does not guarantee that their interests are represented, and women report difficulty gaining influence in intraparty debates.

The interests of the Mapuche minority, which represents about 9 percent of the population, are present in political life, with Mapuche activists regularly making their voices heard in street demonstrations. However, this activism has yet to translate into significant legislative power. In November 2017, two candidates from the Mapuche indigenous group were elected; one to the Senate and one to the Chamber of Deputies.

Indigenous people have been consulted in the ongoing drafting of a new constitution, but activists claim that key issues are still not being addressed during the process.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 10 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

While lobbying and interest groups exist and work to shape policy, there is little significant intervention by actors who are not democratically accountable in the policymaking process.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 3 / 4

Anticorruption laws are generally enforced, though high-level corruption scandals crop up with some regularity. In 2017, members of the militarized carabineros police force were implicated in an embezzlement scandal worth some $40 million. Corruption scandals dented Bachelet's popularity during her presidency, as well as that of her coalition. One of the major right-wing parties, Independent Democratic Union, has also been involved in a campaign-finance scandal in recent years.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 3 / 4

The government operates with relative transparency. In 2009 the Transparency and Access to Public Information Law came into force; it increases public access to information and created a Council on Transparency. Agencies have generally been responsive to information requests, and failures to comply with the law or other measures designed to encourage transparent operations have been punished with fines.

However, the legislature has limited ability under the constitution to supervise or alter the executive budget. Moreover, a legal provision reserves 10 percent of copper export revenues for the military, with little independent oversight.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 57 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 16 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 4 / 4

Guarantees of free speech are generally respected, though some laws barring defamation of state institutions remain on the books. Media ownership is highly concentrated.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

The constitution provides for religious freedom, and the government generally upholds this right in practice.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Academic freedom is unrestricted.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

Chileans enjoy open and free private discussion.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 12 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

The right to assemble peacefully is generally respected, though protests are sometimes marred by violence. In 2017, clashes between demonstrators and police erupted at several large demonstrations, including one comprised of Mapuche activists, and at a student protest at which demonstrators called for free education. In July, skirmishes broke out between conservative and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) demonstrators, and police employed water cannons and tear gas in an effort to separate them.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) may form and operate without interference. A number of NGOs working on governance and rights groups operate, including ones that address inefficiencies and other problems in the courts, and hazardous conditions in prisons.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 4 / 4

There are strong laws protecting worker and union rights, but antiunion practices by private-sector employers continue to be reported.

F. RULE OF LAW: 14 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 4 / 4

The constitution provides for an independent judiciary, and the courts are generally free from political interference.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 4 / 4

The right to legal counsel is constitutionally guaranteed and due process generally prevails in civil and criminal matters. However, indigent defendants do not always receive effective legal representation.

Rights groups and the United Nations have criticized the government's use of antiterrorism laws, which do not guarantee due process, to prosecute acts of violence by Mapuche activists.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 3 / 4

The government has developed effective mechanisms to investigate and punish police abuses and corruption. However, excessive force and human rights abuses committed by the carabineros still occur.

The slow and delayed repatriation of the ancestral land of the Mapuche indigenous group has been a cause of years of violent protest, and a number of arson attacks led by Mapuche activists took place in 2017. Targets included churches and equipment belonging to logging operations. In September, security forces, including the carabineros, launched a series of sometimes-violent raids in the south of the country, leading to the arrest on arson charges of eight Mapuche community leaders.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

While indigenous people still experience societal discrimination, their poverty levels have declined somewhat, aided by government scholarships, land transfers, and social spending. In 2017, Bachelet offered a formal apology to the Mapuche for "errors and horrors" committed against them by the state.

LGBT people continue to face societal bias, despite a 2012 antidiscrimination law that covers sexual orientation and gender identity.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 15 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

The constitution protects the freedom of movement, and the government respects this right in practice.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 4 / 4

Individuals generally have the right to own property and establish and operate private businesses, and are able to do so without interference from the government or other actors. However, Mapuche activists continue to demand territorial rights to land, ancestral waters, and natural resources.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 4 / 4

The government generally does not restrict personal social freedoms. However, violence against children and women remains a problem. In July 2017, the Chamber of Deputies rejected a report by a congressional investigating committee that documented governmental negligence of children in state care. The opposition accused the Bachelet administration of lobbying to reject the report in an effort to protect a former minister.

A law against femicide went into force in 2010, but gender violence remains, and dozens of femicides were reported in 2017.

In September 2017, a law introduced by Bachelet that decriminalized abortion in the events of rape, an inviable fetus, or danger to the life of the mother, took effect.

A 2015 law recognizes civil unions for same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

While compulsory labor is illegal, forced labor, particularly among foreign citizens, continues to occur in the agriculture, mining, and domestic service sectors.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Central African Republic

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Central African Republic, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc974.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Not Free

Aggregate Score: 9 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 7.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 5,000,000

Capital: Bangui

GDP/capita: $348

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

OVERVIEW

The Central African Republic suffers from pervasive insecurity and an absence of state authority in much of the country. Efforts to reach a negotiated settlement between the government and various armed groups have not yet achieved political reconciliation. The country faces a humanitarian crisis, and violent attacks against civilians, including sexual violence, are an acute risk in many areas.

Key Developments in 2017:

The government remained unable to restore the authority of the state beyond the capital city, despite the initiation of several mediation efforts aimed at reaching a ceasefire and national reconciliation.

Intercommunal violence and targeted attacks on civilians by armed militias escalated during the year.

A special prosecutor was named in February to the Special Criminal Court, which has jurisdiction to investigate human rights violations committed since 2003. However, at year's end the court was not yet operational.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 4 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 3 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 1 / 4

The president is chief of state and is directly elected to up to two five-year terms. President Faustin-Archange Touadera was elected in February 2016. The elections were monitored by the African Union Election Observation Mission (AUEOM), and were regarded as generally successful and a step towards peace and stabilization. Fears about widespread electoral violence were not realized, but there were many reports of serious irregularities at the polls. Moreover, many voters were unable to participate because insecurity prevented voter registration, or because they had fled to other countries as refugees and the state was unable to set up effective absentee voting procedures.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 1 / 4

Members of parliament are directly elected to five-year terms. The current parliament was elected in February 2016, followed by a second round of by-elections that March. The polls were generally regarded as successful, but like the presidential polls, were plagued by irregularities and the disenfranchisement of voters unable to access the polls due to security concerns or refugee status. Moreover, a first round had to be nullified following a slew of allegations of fraud and other misconduct, by actors ranging from armed groups to political candidates to the National Electoral Authority.

A new constitution adopted in 2015 stipulated the creation of a Senate, but this institution is not yet active.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 1 / 4

The electoral laws of the Central African Republic permit multiparty competition, and adult citizens enjoy universal and equal suffrage. However, the broader electoral framework of the country remains challenged by a weak judicial system, inadequate funding and training for election officials, and a lack of transparency in the composition of national election authorities.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 2 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 1 / 4

While political parties are legally able to form and operate, party members conducting political activities are at risk of intimidation and violence in areas controlled by irregular armed groups.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 1 / 4

Several opposition parties exist in the parliament. However, politicians are at risk of intimidation, harassment, or violence in areas controlled by armed groups, and opposition parties are limited in their ability to garner support in those areas. Current national-level negotiations envision the insertion of armed group leaders into positions of local administration, but these positions have not yet been filled.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 0 / 4

Citizens are vulnerable to pressure and intimidation from nonstate armed groups. Due to enduring insecurity, voters outside the capital are largely unable to participate in political processes.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 0 / 4

Enduring insecurity and an accompanying lack of access to political processes precludes many minority groups from achieving political representation. Sectarian violence affecting Muslims has decreased their ability to participate in politics. Women are underrepresented in politics, and just 11 sit in the 140-seat parliament. Societal and legal discrimination against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people prevent them from working to see their interests represented in the political sphere.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 0 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 0 / 4

Presidential and parliamentary elections held in early 2016 led to a peaceful transfer of power from the National Transitional Council to an elected government. However, while the elected representatives can determine the policies of the government, the weak authority of the state in many areas severely limits the government's ability to implement policy decisions.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 0 / 4

Corruption and nepotism have long been pervasive in all branches of government, and addressing public-sector corruption is difficult given capacity limitations. In March 2017, the president appointed members of the independent High Authority for Good Governance, which is charged, among other things, with ensuring the equitable distribution of natural resource revenues.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 0 / 4

Government operations are largely nontransparent, and civil society groups and others have limited opportunity to comment upon or influence impending policy decisions.

ADDITIONAL DISCRETIONARY POLITICAL RIGHTS QUESTION

Is the government or occupying power deliberately changing the ethnic composition of a country or territory so as to destroy a culture or tip the political balance in favor of another group? -1 / 0

Targeted violence against civilians by armed groups such as the Muslim-dominated Popular Front for the Renaissance of Central Africa (FPRC) as well as Christian anti-Balaka militias escalated in 2017, particularly in the northern and eastern regions of the country. Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain internally displaced or confined to ethnic and sectarian enclaves.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 5 / 60 (-1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 4 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 1 / 4

While direct state censorship of media is uncommon, reporters face restricted access to many areas of the country due to insecurity. Few residents outside Bangui enjoy access to national or international media sources or the internet. Since the onset of conflict in 2013, many community radio stations have been shuttered. However, some independently run stations continue to operate and host robust debates, with active participation from callers-in.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 0 / 4

Officially Central African Republic is a secular state, but religious and sectarian cleavages often overlap with the country's political divisions. In 2017, sectarian clashes between Christian and Muslim populations continued to threaten the free practice of religion.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 2 / 4

While the educational system is generally free of extensive political indoctrination, many schools and universities remain closed, or operate without adequate resources.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 1 / 4

Public discussion and political debates are generally free from surveillance by state authorities. However, a sense of political instability and the risk of violent retaliation for challenging the presence of armed groups or expressing opinions on other sensitive topics inhibits free expression.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 1 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 0 / 4

Although freedom of assembly and the right to political protest is guaranteed under the constitution, in practice these liberties continued to be curtailed in 2017 due to widespread insecurity.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 0 / 4

While the government does not restrict nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and frequently cooperates with them, their operations in practice are severely restricted by poor security conditions.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 1 / 4

Trade unions and collective bargaining are permitted, although union organizers are sometimes subject to arbitrary detention or arrest. Small-scale agricultural organizations and cooperatives exist throughout the country, including organizations for women farmers.

F. RULE OF LAW: 0 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 0 / 4

Courts are inefficient and politicized. Judicial salaries have often gone unpaid, and there is a shortage of judges.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 0 / 4

Arbitrary detention and lengthy pretrial detention are commonplace in Central African Republic, and the state justice system has limited presence beyond Bangui. Impunity for violence, economic crimes, and human rights violations remained widespread in 2017. A special prosecutor, Toussaint Muntazini Mukimapa, was named in February 2017 to the Special Criminal Court (SCC) which has jurisdiction to investigate human rights violations perpetrated since 2003, but the court is not yet operational and suffers from a lack of human and financial resources.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 0 / 4

Armed nonstate actors  many of which are successors to the Muslim Seleka rebels and Christian anti-Balaka militias involved in violent atrocities since the onset of the country's current crisis in 2013  continue to operate with impunity in the eastern, northern, and northwestern regions of the country. These groups were responsible for violent attacks against civilians, often on the basis of ethnic and religious identity, as well as attacks against international peacekeeping forces and humanitarian aid workers. Violent competition among larger insurgent groups for control of territory and natural resources has internally displaced nearly 600,000 people. Armed groups and state security forces and police reportedly engaged in torture.

In response to the escalating crisis, 2017 saw a raft of new mediation efforts  including by the African Union (AU), neighboring states, and the Roman Catholic group Sant Egidio  to reach a ceasefire and national reconciliation. However, these negotiations appear to have had little effect on the behavior of armed groups on the ground.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 0 / 4

Same-sex sexual acts are illegal, and punishable by fines and imprisonment. While enforcement of these laws is uncommon, societal discrimination against LGBT people remains acute. Discrimination continues against the nomadic pastoralist Mbororo minority, as well as the forest-dwelling Ba'aka.

The independent High Authority for Good Governance, whose members were appointed in March 2017, is tasked with protecting the rights of minorities and the handicapped, though its efficacy has yet to be proven.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 0 / 16 (-1)

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 0 / 4

Free movement by citizens is inhibited by the lack of security and targeted violence in 2017. Transportation routes are threatened by banditry and theft in many areas.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 0 / 4

Businesses and homes are regularly looted by armed militants, with little prospect for compensation or legal recourse for victims. The agricultural economy  the livelihood of the majority of the population  remained restricted by ongoing violence and insecurity.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 0 / 4 (-1)

Domestic abuse, rape, and sexual slavery against women by armed groups threaten the security of women and girls, and sexual violence is increasingly used as a deliberate tool of warfare, and attackers enjoy broad impunity Constitutional guarantees for women's rights are rarely enforced, especially in rural areas. Sexual abuses by UN peacekeeping forces have been documented, but many instances have not been investigated or prosecuted.

Score Change: The score declined from 1 to 0 due to the magnitude of sexual violence by armed groups as well as peacekeepers during the conflict, which has worsened and has been met with impunity.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 0 / 4

Economic opportunity is heavily restricted by the presence of armed groups in many areas of the country. Approximately one in two Central Africans depend on access to humanitarian assistance for survival. Many armed groups exploit gold and diamond mines, and forced labor and child recruitment for soldiering are common practices.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Burkina Faso

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Burkina Faso, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc99a.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 60 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 3.5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 4 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 19,000,000

Capital: Ouagadougou

GDP/capita: $575

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Multiparty presidential and legislative elections held in late 2015 ushered in a new government and laid a foundation for the continued development of democratic institutions. Despite extreme poverty, terrorism, and corruption, civil society and the media remain strong forces for democracy and for the respect of civil liberties.

Key Developments in 2017:

An August terrorist attack in downtown Ouagadougou resulted in the deaths of 18 people. The strike was the second such attack in the capital in as many years. Other militant attacks in the north also reflected growing insecurity in the country.

Roadblocks and curfews instituted in response to a worsening security situation posed obstacles to free movement.

In June, the trial of former president Blaise Compaore on charges of authorizing the use of force against unarmed demonstrators was delayed.

In April, soldiers on trial for attacking a weapons depot in 2016 accused gendarmeries of engaging in torture to obtain confessions from them, contributing to concerns about whether security reforms under the new administration had resulted in improvements.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 23 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 7 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 2 / 4

The president is chief of state and is directly elected to up to two five-year terms. Roch Marc Christian Kabore, of the People's Movement for Progress (MPP), won the 2015 presidential election with just over 53 percent of the vote. Observers described the elections as the freest, fairest, and most competitive ever to be held in the country. However, a number of politicians who had supported an ultimately unsuccessful attempt by former president Blaise Compaore to amend the constitution to allow himself a third presidential term were barred from contesting the election. (Compaore's 2014 move to amend the constitution had prompted profound political instability and violent protests, prompting the dissolution of the National Assembly by the military; Compaore subsequently stepped down from office. Following a brief period of military rule, a transitional government was established in late 2014, and administered presidential and parliamentary elections in 2015.)

The prime minister is head of government and is appointed by the president with the approval of the National Assembly, and is responsible for recommending a cabinet that is formally appointed by the president. Kabore appointed economist Paul Kaba Thieba to the post in early 2016.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 2 / 4

The 127 members of the National Assembly are directly elected to five-year terms under a proportional representation system. The transitional government successfully organized and administered the 2015 legislative elections, which were held concurrently with the presidential election and were also viewed as generally credible, despite the exclusion of a number of candidates who had supported Compaore's term-limit changes. The MPP won a plurality, but not a majority, in the National Assembly, with 55 of the 127 seats, and the newly elected members of parliament were inaugurated in late December.

Municipal elections held in 2016 reflected continuing erosion of support for the Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP), the former ruling party, and increasing support for the MPP. Election observers from local civil society groups and international missions noted only minor irregularities in the polls. However, election-related violence prevented polling in some districts. Makeup elections for several constituencies were held peacefully in 2017, though once again some candidates were reportedly excluded.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) is responsible for organizing elections, and the 2015 and 2016 polls were generally well administered. In July, new CENI members were appointed after previous commissioners' terms expired, reflecting the functionality of the country's electoral framework.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 10 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 2 / 4

The constitution guarantees the right to form political parties. Following the 2015 legislative elections, 14 parties held seats in the National Assembly, though 99 parties had participated in the elections. The 2015 Election Code prohibits some former ruling party members from participating in elections.

In 2016, at least three party activists were killed amid clashes that accompanied municipal councils' processes of electing new mayors.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 3 / 4

The end of former president Compaore's 27-year regime in 2014 has given way to a freer environment, in which opposition parties were able to consolidate popular support and gain power through recent elections. However, a history of rotation of power between parties has yet to be firmly established.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 2 / 4

Burkina Faso's military is powerful, and maintains a significant presence the political sphere. In 2015, the presidential guard, which was loyal to former president Compaore, attempted to stage a military coup. The maneuver sparked widespread protests, and failed after the national military's chief of staff moved to support the transitional government.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

The constitution enshrines full political rights and electoral opportunities for all segments of the population. However, a small educated elite, the military, and labor unions have historically dominated political life.

Women are underrepresented in political leadership positions, and within parties are frequently relegated to women's secretariats that have little influence. However, there have been some initiatives aimed at establishing greater legal protections for women and encouraging women's political participation, including proposed revisions to an unevenly enforced quota law. Women's groups are vocal in civil society.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 6 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 2 / 4

Laws are promulgated and debated by the elected National Assembly members. However, while democratic institutions continue to develop, they are not yet strong enough to fully balance the military's power in Burkina Faso.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Corruption is widespread, and particularly affects the police force. Anticorruption laws and bodies are generally ineffective, though local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) provide some accountability by publicizing official corruption and its effects.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

The successful elections and installation of a civilian government at the end of 2015 signified a marked improvement in government representation, accountability, and transparency. However, government procurement processes are opaque. Government officials are required to make financial disclosures, but the information is not made public and penalties for noncompliance do not appear to be enforced.

The president has promoted dialogue on newly proposed constitutional reforms to ensure their adoption will have broad support.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 37 / 60 (-3)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 13 / 16 (-1)

D1. Are there free and independent media? 3 / 4

The environment for media has improved since the end of Compaore's rule. Since then, defamation has been decriminalized, reporters at the public broadcaster have experienced less political interference, self-censorship among journalists has eased, and journalists are generally able to report freely and critically on the government and its activities. There are several private television stations and dozens of private radio stations and newspapers.

Nevertheless, libel convictions still carry onerous financial penalties, journalists at times have experienced pressure from government officials, and the economic environment for media workers remains difficult.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

Burkina Faso is a secular state, and freedom of religion is generally respected. The population is predominately Muslim with a large Christian minority. Followers of both religions often engage in syncretic practices.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 3 / 4

Academic freedom is unrestricted, though due to the former regime's repressive tactics against student-led protests, a legacy of tension between the government and academic organizations persists. Islamic militants groups in the north have threatened teachers in an effort to force them to adopt Islamic teachings, resulting in the closure of schools.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 3 / 4 (-1)

Private discussion is unrestricted in much of the country. However, activity by militant Islamic groups in the north, who have attacked and intimidated civilians, and the increased security presence that has come in response to their presence, has discouraged people from speaking freely about local news and politics and other sensitive topics.

Score Change: The score declined from 4 to 3 because militant activity and a heightened security presence in the north have discouraged free private discussion among civilians.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 9 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 3 / 4

The constitution guarantees freedom of assembly, which is largely upheld in practice. Under the new government, space for demonstrations and protests has opened. Peaceful protests took place throughout 2017, including in October against the pretrial release to house arrest of Djibril Bassole, who is accused of involvement in the 2015 attempted coup. A demonstration against terrorism was held in August. However, past government repression of peaceful demonstrations can still discourage such events, and the ability to demonstrate is restricted in areas affected by militant activity.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 3 / 4

While many NGOs operate openly and freely, human rights groups have reported abuses by security forces in the past.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

The constitution guarantees the right to strike, and unions frequently and freely engage in strikes and collective bargaining, despite that a minority of workers are unionized. Labor organizers can face fines or prison time if a labor action results in property damage.

F. RULE OF LAW: 7 / 16 (-1)

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 2 / 4

The judiciary is formally independent but has historically been subject to executive influence and corruption.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

Constitutional guarantees of due process are undermined by corruption and inefficacy of the judiciary and police force. A 2017 report by the Anticorruption National Network (REN-LAC) identified the municipal police as the government office perceived to be the most corrupt. Police often use excessive force and disregard pretrial detention limits. In April 2017, police officers held demonstrations across the country to protest corrupt within the force.

In May 2017, the trial against Compaore and other former government officials began, but stalled in June; he is accused of authorizing the use of force against unarmed demonstrators during the 2014 uprising that led to his ouster.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 1 / 4 (-1)

The security environment has declined in recent years due to activity by Islamic militant groups and bandits. In August 2017, an attack in downtown Ouagadougou claimed the lives of at least 18 people, marking the second major attack in the city in as many years. Dozens have been killed in attacks by militant groups and bandits in the north, mainly along the borders with Mali and Niger. A self-defense militia known as Kogleweogo, which mainly counts farmers and cattle breeders among its members, continues to commit abuses, and government pledges to regulate it remain unfulfilled.

Accusations of torture against police and security authorities cast doubts on whether security reforms under the new administration have resulted in improvements. Under the former regime, police abuses were routine and at times resulted in the deaths of detained individuals. Renewed accusations of torture under Kabore's leadership suggest these practices continue. Among other claims, in April 2017, soldiers on trial for attacking a weapons depot in 2016 accused gendarmeries of engaging in torture to obtain confessions from them.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 due to continued activity by militant Islamic groups and bandits in the north, and the second large-scale terrorist attack in Ouagadougou in as many years.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

Discrimination against ethnic minorities occurs, but is not widespread. LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people, as well as those infected with HIV, routinely experience discrimination. While illegal, gender discrimination remains common in employment and education.

Reports of growing racial, ethnic, and religious stigmatization within historically tolerant Burkinabe society emerged in the wake of continuing terrorist activities in the north. These reports suggested that the targeting of teachers by violent extremist organizations in the north led many people in other parts of the country to be suspicious of and prejudiced against those appearing to be of Tuareg, Fulani, or Arab descent.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 8 / 16 (-1)

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4 (-1)

Due to increasing insecurity, the government has established a number of heavily guarded checkpoints on roads near the northern border and the capital, and has instituted curfews in some places. Since November 2017, schools have been targeted by armed groups in the north of the country, and the number of people that have fled their homes has increased.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 because free movement has been impeded by terrorist threats and security measures instituted by the state in response to them, including checkpoints and curfews.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

In recent years, the government has implemented reforms in the business sector by reducing the amount of capital necessary to start a business, facilitating the ability to obtain credit information, and improving the insolvency resolution process. However, the business environment is hampered by corruption. Laws and practices involving inheritance discriminate against women.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Women face discrimination in cases involving family rights. Early marriage remains an issue, especially in the north of the country. The practice of female genital mutilation is less common than in the past, but still takes place. Domestic violence remains a problem despite government efforts to combat it.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

Burkina Faso is a source, transit, and destination country for trafficking in women and children. Child labor is present in the agricultural and mining sectors, among other industries. Women from neighboring countries are recruited by traffickers and transported to Burkina Faso, where they are forced into prostitution. In the U.S. Department of State's 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report, Burkina Faso was downgraded to a Tier 2 Watch List country for failing to accelerate its efforts to combat human trafficking.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Bulgaria

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Bulgaria, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc9b4.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 80 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 2.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 7,100,000

Capital: Sofia

GDP/capita: $6,994

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Multiple parties compete in Bulgaria's democratic system, and there have been several transfers of power between rival parties in recent decades. The country continues to struggle with political corruption and organized crime. While the media sector remains pluralistic, ownership concentration is a growing problem. Journalists sometimes encounter threats or violence in the course of their work. Ethnic minorities, particularly Roma, face discrimination. Despite funding shortages and other obstacles, civil society groups have been active and influential.

Key Developments in 2017:

In the March parliamentary elections, the far-right United Patriots alliance won 27 seats and formed a coalition with the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party  marking the first time a far-right party has been part of the Bulgarian government and raising concerns about the normalization of xenophobia and discrimination.

In June, the government completed a new fence along the border with Turkey to keep out migrants. Harsh treatment of migrants and asylum seekers remained a problem throughout 2017.

In December, parliament approved new anticorruption legislation, but President Rumen Radev vowed to veto the bill.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 33 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 11 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The president, who is directly elected for up to two five-year terms, is the head of state but has limited powers. Presidential elections were held in November 2016, resulting in the victory of Rumen Radev, an independent candidate. The election was generally well administered and stakeholders accepted the results. The legislature chooses the prime minister, who serves as head of government. The current prime minister, Boyko Borisov, leader of GERB, the center-right party, was appointed after his party's victory in the 2017 parliamentary election held in March.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The unicameral National Assembly, composed of 240 members, is elected every four years in 31 multimember constituencies. The last parliamentary election in March 2017 was deemed credible by international observers. GERB led with 95 seats, followed by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) with 80, and the United Patriots alliance with 27. Following the elections, the third Borisov government took office in May in a coalition between GERB and the United Patriots. The success of the United Patriots marks the first time in Bulgarian history that far-right nationalist parties have been part of the government. Members of the United Patriots delivered inflammatory speeches attacking the Roma population and migrants during the campaign period, raising concerns about the normalization of xenophobia and discrimination.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 3 / 4

The Central Election Commission administers Bulgarian elections and generally works professionally and impartially. Parliament passed controversial reforms to the electoral laws in 2016, including the introduction of compulsory voting and new restrictions on voting abroad. The new rules on voting abroad limited the number of polling places and led to protests throughout the diaspora. In February 2017, the constitutional court abolished compulsory voting.

Further attempts to change the electoral system, such as a referendum proposed by GERB to introduce a first-past-the-post system, were supported by a majority of voters but failed to reach the threshold required to become law.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 14 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

The Bulgarian party system is competitive and characterized by a relative degree of instability, with several new parties and alliances emerging in each election. Notably, the far-right United Patriots alliance won 27 seats in parliament in their first election in 2017.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

The opposition has the opportunity to increase its support and gain power through elections. In the 2017 parliamentary elections, the BSP, the main opposition party, gained 41 seats.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 3 / 4

Bulgarians are generally free to make independent political choices. However, oligarchs dominate the major political parties and influence their platforms, a problem that is exacerbated by a lack of transparency in campaign finance law.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

The law dictates that electoral campaigns must be conducted in the Bulgarian language, which hinders outreach to non-Bulgarian speaking minority groups. The ethnic Turkish minority is represented by the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), but the Romani minority is more marginalized. Small Romani parties are active, and many Roma reportedly vote for the DPS.

Political parties sometimes take positions that undermine women's rights. In late 2017, the United Patriots Alliance came out strongly against Bulgaria's ratification of the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 8 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

National legislative representatives and the government effectively determine the policies of the country. However, oligarchs dominate the government and greatly influence policymaking. The Bulgarian subsidiary of Lukoil, for example, a Russian company that supplies 100 percent of Bulgaria's oil, has gained monopoly power due to favorable legislation passed by several governments.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Bulgaria, which joined the European Union (EU) in 2007, has struggled to meet the bloc's anticorruption requirements amid resistance from much of the political class. The 2017 CVM (cooperation and verification mechanism) report issued by the European Commission highlighted the need for a new legal framework on the fight against corruption. Anticorruption laws are not adequately enforced, including in high-profile cases, contributing to a culture of impunity.

In December 2017, parliament approved new legislation that would create a centralized anticorruption agency, but President Rumen Radev vowed to veto the bill amidst concerns from analysts that the new anticorruption framework was prone to being politicized  parliament would appoint the agency's leadership and it would no longer grant anonymity to whistleblowers.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

Although Bulgaria has laws meant to ensure that the government operates with transparency, they are inadequately enforced. Public access to information about the budgets and spending of various government agencies was often lacking in 2017.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 47 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 14 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 3 / 4

The constitution protects freedom of expression, including for the press, but journalists faced threats and occasional violence in 2017. In October, television journalist Viktor Nikolaev was threatened by Deputy Prime Minister Valeri Simeonov and member of parliament (MP) Anton Todorov, who said Nikolaev would be fired if he continued investigating an aircraft purchase by the government.

The media sector is pluralistic, but dependent on financial contributions from the state, often in the form of advertising, which can lead to demands for favorable coverage of the government. Domestic ownership of media has become more concentrated in the hands of wealthy Bulgarian businessmen, leaving the sector vulnerable to political and economic pressures, as well as limiting the diversity of perspectives available to the public. News outlets often tailor coverage to suit the interests of their owners.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

Religious freedom is generally respected, but Muslims and members of other minority faiths have reported instances of harassment and discrimination, and some local authorities have prohibited proselytizing or the construction of religious buildings. In 2016, parliament passed a law banning the wearing of full face veils in public locations.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Academic freedom is generally upheld in practice.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

Freedom of expression is guaranteed by the constitution and there are no significant impediments to free and open private discussion.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 11 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

The authorities generally respect constitutional guarantees of freedom of assembly. In 2016, a counterterrorism bill was passed by parliament that critics described as overly broad; under it, the president has the power to declare a state of emergency in the event of a terrorist attack, which would allow the government to ban rallies and demonstrations.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operate freely and have a degree of influence, though they suffer from funding shortages, often rely on foreign donors, and sometimes face hostility from politicians and interest groups.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

Workers have the right to join trade unions, but some public employees cannot legally strike, and none are permitted to bargain collectively. Private employers often discriminate against union members, including terminating them, without facing serious repercussions.

F. RULE OF LAW: 10 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 3 / 4

Bulgaria's judiciary has benefited from legal and institutional reforms associated with EU accession, but is still prone to politicization. Constitutional amendments passed in 2015 strengthened the Inspectorate, which investigates conflicts of interest and the assets of magistrates, and is involved in disciplinary proceedings.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 2 / 4

Constitutional rights to due process are not always upheld. Incidents of misconduct by police were reported in 2017, including arbitrary arrests and failing to inform suspects of their rights. Public trust in the court system is low because most Bulgarians believe that magistrates are vulnerable to political pressure and therefore do not always provide a fair trial for defendants.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 3 / 4

Police brutality, including occasional torture of suspects in custody, continued in 2017. Overcrowding and violence plague many of Bulgaria's prisons. Organized crime is still a major issue, and scores of suspected contract killings since the 1990s remain unsolved.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

Ethnic minorities, particularly Roma, face discrimination in employment, health care, education, and housing, though the government and NGOs operate a number of programs meant to improve their social integration. Authorities periodically demolish illegally constructed or irregular housing  mostly in areas occupied by Roma  without providing alternative shelter.

The Ataka (Attack) party and other members of the United Patriots alliance regularly use hate speech in their campaigns, targeting ethnic Turks, Roma, Jews, Muslims, and Syrian refugees, among other groups. In 2017, human rights groups noted continued reports of mistreatment of migrants and refugees by both security forces and vigilante groups that conducted their own border patrols. In June 2017, the government completed the installation of a fence along Bulgaria's southern border with Turkey to block the irregular entry of migrants and refugees, which in effect denies people the right to access Bulgaria's asylum procedures.

Discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is illegal, but societal bias against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people reportedly persists. The 2017 Sofia gay pride parade was held in June despite threats and counterprotests.

A gender equality law passed in 2016 was designed to foster equal opportunity for women, but they still face discrimination in employment, with higher levels of unemployment and lower pay than their male counterparts.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 12 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

For the most part, Bulgarians face no restrictions on their freedom of movement. Corruption and bias can sometimes restrict access to jobs. In September 2017, parliament passed a law that restricted the ability of asylum seekers to move outside of prescribed areas.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 3 / 4

Property rights, although legally guaranteed, are not always respected in practice. The tax regime and low cost of doing business, however, encourages investment in Bulgaria.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

Domestic violence remains a problem. The National Study on Domestic and Gender Based Violence in Bulgaria, published in 2016, found that one-third of Bulgarians had experienced domestic or gender-based violence at least once. Victims have complained that state authorities were often ineffective in providing protection when violence was reported.

Same-sex marriage is illegal in Bulgaria, and same-sex couples are barred from adopting children.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

Human trafficking continued to be an issue in 2017, with the Roma population particularly vulnerable. Although the government stepped up efforts to combat trafficking, shelter victims, and punish perpetrators, these measures have not matched the scale of the problem, and punishments remain light in practice.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Bolivia

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Bolivia, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc9d4.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Partly Free

Aggregate Score: 67 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 3.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 3 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 11,000,000

Capital: Sucre

GDP/capita: $3,077

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Bolivia is a democracy where credible elections are held regularly. However, respect for freedom of expression and the rights of indigenous peoples and women remain issues, as does corruption, particularly within the judicial system. A 2017 ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal cleared the way President Evo Morales, head of the ruling Movement for Socialism (MAS) to run for a fourth term in 2019. The decision effectively overturned the results of a 2016 referendum in which a majority of voters had indicated a desire to retain presidential term limits.

Trend Arrow: 

Bolivia received a downward trend arrow due to a constitutional court ruling that abolished term limits and paved the way for President Evo Morales to run for a fourth term in 2019.

Key Developments in 2017:

In November , the Constitutional Tribunal, ruling in response to a challenge brought by MAS deputies, struck down presidential term limits, clearing the way for President Morales to seek a fourth term.

A majority of ballots cast in December's judicial elections were spoiled, in what was viewed as a signal of broad discontent with Morales and his presidency.

In June, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal determined that transgender persons who have legally changed their gender may get married.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 28 / 40 (-1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 10 / 12 (-1)

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

Bolivia's president is both chief of state and head of government, and is directly elected to a five year term. In the 2014 general elections, Evo Morales of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) was reelected president with 61 percent of the vote. An Organization of American States (OAS) electoral observation mission stated that the election reflected the will of the people.

In 2015 subnational elections, the MAS won control of more departments and municipalities across the country than any other party. However, the opposition won key mayoralties and governorships, including those of La Paz and Santa Cruz. An OAS electoral observation mission reported overwhelming citizen participation in the elections, but expressed concern about the last-minute disqualification and substitution of candidates, which occurred after the ballots had been printed.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The Plurinational Legislative Assembly consists of a 130-member Chamber of Deputies and a 36-member Senate. Legislative terms are five years. All senators and 53 deputies are elected by proportional representation; 70 deputies are elected in individual districts. Seven seats in the Chamber of Deputies are reserved for indigenous representatives. In the 2014 legislative elections, Morales's MAS maintained a two-thirds majority in the legislature, the share necessary to pass constitutional reforms.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 2 / 4 (-1)

For some years, Bolivian politics have been characterized in part by efforts by Morales and the MAS to abolish presidential term limits. In 2015, the Plurinational Legislative Assembly voted to amend the constitution in order to allow presidents to run for three consecutive terms instead of two, but voters rejected the change in a 2016 referendum. However, in 2017, MAS lawmakers filed a suit asking the Constitutional Tribunal to declare that certain legal provisions and articles in the constitution that ban reelection were unconstitutional and "inapplicable." (While Constitutional Tribunal justices are elected by voters, judicial candidates are selected by the MAS-dominated legislature, and the Tribunal tends to favor the MAS.) In November, the court assented, effectively overturning the results of the previous year's referendum and clearing the way for Morales to run for a fourth term in 2019.

Separately, a 2014 election monitoring mission by the Organization of American States (OAS) expressed some concern about the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE)'s mechanisms for maintaining accurate voter rolls.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 because the Constitutional Tribunal struck down presidential term limit provisions, effectively reversing the outcome of a 2016 referendum in which a majority of voters had indicated a desire to maintain presidential term limits.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 11 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 3 / 4

Citizens have the right to organize political parties. Since Morales's election to the presidency in 2005, the formerly dominant parties have all but collapsed, giving way to a series of new political groupings and short-lived opposition coalitions. The MAS draws support from a diverse range of social movements, unions, and civil society actors. Opposition politicians have claimed that the Morales administration persecutes them through the judiciary.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 2 / 4

There are no formal institutional barriers impeding opposition parties from participating in elections. However, the overwhelming dominance of the MAS makes it difficult for opposition parties to gain power through elections.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 3 / 4

People are generally free to make their own political decisions without undue influence from the military, foreign powers, or other influential groups. However, opposition members claimed that November 2017 rallies held in favor of Morales's reelection were filled with public employees coerced by their employers to attend.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

The constitution recognizes 36 indigenous nationalities, declares Bolivia a plurinational state, and formalizes local political and judicial control within indigenous territories. Adult citizens enjoy universal and equal suffrage. Although they are well represented in government, the interests of indigenous groups are often overlooked by politicians. Women are well-represented in politics, but cases of violence and harassment against them continue.

Judicial elections originally scheduled for October 2017 were postponed for several weeks due to concerns that not enough women and indigenous candidates were registered in some regions of the country.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 7 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 3 / 4

Elected officials are free to set and implement government policy without undue interference from nonstate actors. However, opposition members charge that the MAS majority in the legislature, in conjunction with the country's powerful presidency, allows for strong executive influence on legislative processes.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Corruption affects a range of government entities and economic sectors, including law-enforcement bodies and extractive industries, and anticorruption laws are unevenly enforced. However, there were some notable investigations and other developments in 2017. In June, Guillermo Acha, the former president of the state company Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), was placed on house arrest during an ongoing investigation of irregularities in the purchase of drilling equipment by YPFB officials. In September, a Ministry of Defense official brought to light five cases involving fraud and other corruption within the armed forces they said amounted to roughly $40 million. And the Caja Nacional de Salud (CNS), the national health fund, was investigating dozens of cases of suspected corruption within the institution over 2017.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 2 / 4

Bolivia has no law guaranteeing access to public information. Elected officials by law must make asset declarations, but these are unavailable to the public.

A law enacted in September 2017 mandates that state and public-private entities establish "transparency units" to investigate suspected corruption and oversee transactions of public services and goods.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 39 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 14 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 2 / 4

While the constitution guarantees freedom of expression, in practice, journalists and frequently encounter harassment in connection with critical or investigative reporting. Such harassment at times comes from government officials, who have characterized journalists as liars and participants in an international conspiracy against Morales.

Journalists also face interference with their work. In January, the online newspaper Sol de Pando and the website of the newspaper Pagina Siete experienced cyberattacks that took them offline temporarily. In September, journalist Agustin Aldo Maman was arrested while covering a violent demonstration by people angry over poor road connections between their town and La Paz. He was detained for several days and charged with property destruction.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitution and generally upheld in practice. The 2009 constitution ended the Roman Catholic Church's official status, and created a secular state.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Academic freedom is legally guaranteed and upheld in practice.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

Private discussion is robust and free from surveillance or other interference by authorities.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 9 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 3 / 4

Bolivian law protects the right to peaceful assembly. However, protests sometimes become violent. In February, more than 140 coca producers from Yungas, who were protesting a proposed bill that would have limited legal areas for coca production, were placed in custody after a violent clash with police in La Paz. In September, police forces reportedly used tear gas against residents of Achacachi who were protesting against the local mayor, who was accused of corruption. Earlier in the year, demonstrators had set fire to his home and car.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 3 / 4

Many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operate, but they are subject to some legal restrictions. In 2016, the Constitutional Court dismissed a petition arguing that two statutes in the country's NGO law gave the government license to improperly dissolve such groups.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

Labor and peasant unions are an active force in society and wield significant political influence. The country's official labor code is inconsistent with Bolivian law; for example, it prohibits public sector unions, yet many public workers are able to legally unionize. A National Labor Court hears cases of antiunion discrimination, but tends to hand down verdicts slowly, and penalties for antiunion discrimination are not consistently applied.

F. RULE OF LAW: 6 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 1 / 4

Bolivia stands as the sole country that appoints justices via popular elections. Judges on the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Tribunal, and other entities are nominated through a two-thirds vote in the legislature, which allows the MAS to dominate the candidate selection process and has produced a judiciary that favors the party. In addition to its politicization, the judiciary remains overburdened and beset by corruption.

Days after the Constitutional Tribunal ruled that Morales could run for another term in 2019, elections were held to fill positions for 26 judges on four high courts. A majority of participating voters heeded the opposition's calls to spoil their ballots.

Prior to the polls, opposition figures argued that MAS legislators had coordinated their votes on judicial candidates improperly, and that the candidates were selected through opaque processes. There were also complaints brought to electoral authorities that some candidates had violated the prohibition on campaigning.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 1 / 4

Many people have difficulty accessing the justice system due to a lack of the relevant offices in the areas where they live, and also because services, where provided, are often insufficient. Police are poorly paid and receive inadequate training, and corruption within the police force remains a problem. Police officers who attempted to expose corruption often face repercussions.

Bolivia was governed by a military regime for most of the period between 1964 and 1982, and in August 2017, the government installed a Truth Commission tasked with investigating human rights violations that occurred during that time. It is tasked with producing a report in two years, and can report violations to judicial authorities.

While the constitution and jurisdictional law recognize indigenous customary law on conflict resolution, reform efforts have not fully resolved questions regarding its jurisdiction and proper application.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 2 / 4

Several pardon programs enacted in recent years, as well as fast-track trial procedures, have eased severe prison overcrowding, though some critics contend that fast-track trials push innocent people to plead guilty in exchange for reduced sentences and less time spent in court. Assaults in prisons continue to pose a significant problem.

Impunity for crimes has prompted some to engage in vigilante justice against alleged criminals, including lynchings.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

The 2010 antiracism law contains measures to combat discrimination and impose criminal penalties for discriminatory acts. However, racism and associated discrimination is rife in the country, especially against indigenous groups.

Bolivia has laws in place that prohibit discrimination against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people. However, these laws are rarely enforced, and LGBT people experience widespread societal discrimination. Many transgender people have resorted to sex work in dangerous conditions due to employment discrimination and groundless rejection of their credentials.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 10 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 3 / 4

While the law protects freedom of movement, protesters often disrupt internal travel by blocking highways and city streets. There are no formal limits on people's ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education, but choices can be limited by socioeconomic difficulties.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

Women enjoy the same formal rights to property ownership as men but discrimination is common, leading to disparities in property ownership and access to resources. The situation has improved somewhat in recent years.

Two controversial Supreme Decrees in 2015 threaten the right to prior consultation in cases of natural resource extraction, which is established in international legal provisions recognized by Bolivian law. Opposition leaders and human rights organizations have criticized the decrees, saying authorities failed to adequately consult with indigenous groups before issuing them.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

The constitution reserves marriage as a bond between a man and a woman, and makes no provision for same-sex civil unions. In June 2017, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal determined that transgender persons who have legally changed their gender on their identification documents may get married.

Domestic violence, which mainly affects women, is a serious problem, and laws criminalizing violence against women are not well enforced. Many women lack access to birth control and reproductive health care.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 2 / 4

Child labor and forced labor are ongoing problems. A law approved in 2014 allows children aged 12 to 14 to enter work contracts as long as they do not work for longer than six hours a day. Children as young as 10 are permitted to work in independent jobs such as shoe shining as long as they are under parental supervision.

Bolivia is a source country for the trafficking of men, women, and children for forced labor and prostitution. The government has been slow to address the problem, though in recent years it has allocated greater resources toward investigations and public awareness campaigns.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Belgium

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Belgium, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcc9f4.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 95 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 1.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 11,300,000

Capital: Brussels

GDP/capita: $40,375

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

Belgium is an electoral democracy with a long record of peaceful transfers of power. Political rights and civil liberties are legally guaranteed and largely respected in practice. Major concerns in recent years have included the threat of terrorism and corruption scandals that have unsettled the country's complex governing coalitions.

Key Developments in 2017:

After the media revealed improper payments to politicians by a public utility company in late 2016, multiple executives and elected officials in Wallonia were forced to resign in January, and a commission of inquiry was established the following month.

The mayor of Brussels resigned in June amid a scandal over similar payments he received as a board member at a publicly funded nonprofit organization that provides aid to the homeless.

Later that month, to protest the involvement of the Francophone Socialist Party (PS) in the recent scandals, the Humanist Democratic Centre (CDH) party withdrew from the governing coalitions in Wallonia, Brussels, and the French Community of Belgium, resulting in a new government for Wallonia that left the PS in opposition.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 39 / 40 (-1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The Belgian monarchy is largely ceremonial, although the king retains constitutional authority to mediate during the process of government formation. The prime minister, who is the leader of the majority party or coalition, is appointed by the monarch and approved by the legislature. After the 2014 parliamentary elections, Charles Michel of the Movement for Reform (MR), a center-right Francophone party, became prime minister in a government that also included the separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the Christian Democratic and Flemish (CD&V) party, and the Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD).

Belgium's multilayered subnational administrative units have their own governments with varying degrees of autonomy. In addition to the three main geographic divisions of French-speaking Wallonia in the south, Flemish-speaking Flanders in the north, and the biligual Brussels capital region, there are overlapping governments for the French Community, the Flemish Community, and the German-speaking community. Beneath these are provincial and various local governments.

In June 2017, following corruption scandals that implicated the PS, the CDH withdrew from governing coalitions that included the PS in Wallonia, Brussels, and the French Community. In July, the CDH and MR formed a new government in Wallonia, forcing the PS into opposition.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

Belgium's Federal Parliament consists of two houses: the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate. The 150 members of the lower house are elected directly by proportional representation. The Senate is composed of 50 members selected by community and regional parliaments, and an additional 10 members chosen by the first 50 based on the results of the Chamber of Representatives elections. Members serve five-year terms in both houses.

In the 2014 elections, the N-VA took 33 seats in the Chamber of Representatives, while outgoing prime minister Elio Di Rupo's PS won 23 seats. The MR captured 20 seats, the CD&V took 18, the VLD won 14, and the Flemish Socialist Party secured 13. Several smaller parties, including the CDH with 9, accounted for the remainder.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

Despite the complexity of the political system, the electoral laws and framework are generally fair and impartially implemented.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 16 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

The party system is robust but highly fragmented, with separate Flemish and Walloon political parties representing various positions on the left-right spectrum.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Belgium's coalition-based politics allow individual parties to move easily in and out of government, and there is a long record of peaceful transfers of power between rival parties at the federal level. The most recent such transfer occurred after the 2014 elections, when the center-right MR captured the premiership from the left-leaning PS.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

The political choices of voters and candidates are generally free from undue interference.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 4 / 4

Members of minority groups are free to participate in national and subnational politics, and women also enjoy full political rights. In the 2014 elections, women won approximately 39 percent of the seats in the Chamber of Representatives and 50 percent of the seats in the Senate, which must have a minimum of 20 women senators.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 11 / 12 (-1)

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

Elected officials generally adopt and implement laws and policies without improper interference from unelected entities, though the difficulty of forming majority coalitions has sometimes disrupted governance over the past decade. The country went roughly 19 months without a government in 2010-11 due to protracted coalition talks.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 3 / 4 (-1)

Public officials can face heavy fines and up to 10 years' imprisonment for corruption-related offenses, and enforcement of anticorruption legislation is generally adequate. However, recent scandals have drawn attention to abuses involving politicians who hold multiple positions on the boards of public and private entities, with some officials holding more than a dozen paid positions. At the end of 2016, a news outlet revealed that local officials in Wallonia had received remuneration for sitting on advisory boards at the public utility company Publifin without in fact attending the supposed board meetings. Several politicians and Publifin executives were forced to resign, and Wallonia's legislature established a commission of inquiry in February 2017 to investigate the scandal. In May, similar revelations implicated the mayor of Brussels and Samusocial, a publicly funded nonprofit that assists the homeless. The mayor, Yvan Mayeur, resigned in June, and another official investigation was launched.

Score Change: The score declined from 4 to 3 due to a number of corruption scandals at the subnational level that illuminated weaknesses in safeguards meant to prevent abuse of office.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 4 / 4

The law provides mechanisms for the public to access government information, and these procedures generally function in practice. Legislators and other high-ranking elected officials are required by law to regularly disclose their assets as well as paid or unpaid mandates, executive functions, and occupations to the Court of Audit. Information about asset declarations is not publicly accessible, but declarations of interests are published in the official government gazette.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 56 / 60 (+1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 15 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 4 / 4

Freedom of the press is guaranteed by the constitution and generally respected by the government, though there have been some concerns in recent years about protection of journalists' sources. Belgians have access to numerous public and private media outlets that present a range of views. Internet access is unrestricted.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 3 / 4

More than half of the country's population identifies as Roman Catholic. Freedom of religion is protected, but members of minority religious groups have complained of discrimination by the government as well as in housing and employment. A ban on the partial or total covering of the face in public locations, which is understood to target ultraconservative Muslims, has been in effect since 2011. Offenders can face a fine or up to a week in jail.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

The government does not restrict academic freedom. Schools are free from political indoctrination, and there are no significant impediments to scholarly research or discussion.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

Private discussion is open and vibrant, and freedom of expression is guaranteed by the constitution, though there are laws banning incitement to hatred and other such offenses.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 12 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

Freedom of assembly is protected by law and generally respected in practice.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Freedom of association is guaranteed by the constitution, and nongovernmental organizations operate without undue restrictions.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 4 / 4

Workers at companies that employ more than 50 people have the right to organize and join unions and to bargain collectively. Employers found guilty of firing workers because of union activities are required to reinstate the workers or pay an indemnity. During 2017, labor organizations mounted several strikes and mass demonstrations against the economic policies of the Michel government.

F. RULE OF LAW: 14 / 16 (+1)

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 4 / 4

The judiciary is independent by law and in practice, and court rulings are duly enforced by other state entities.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 4 / 4 (+1)

The judicial process generally guarantees a fair trial, and the authorities typically observe safeguards against arbitrary arrest and detention. In the period surrounding November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and a March 2016 attack in Brussels, the authorities took a number of extraordinary security measures, including a rapid series of police raids, a lockdown that restricted movement across the capital for several days, an increase in searches and short-term detentions amid heavy deployments of police and soldiers, and a large number of trials in absentia against militants who had allegedly gone to fight in Syria. These measures had eased significantly by 2017, though legislative reforms continued. In October, lawmakers increased the maximum length of detention in police custody without a judicial order from 24 to 48 hours.

Score Change: The score improved from 3 to 4 due to a reduction in the extraordinary security measures and deployments that had followed terrorist attacks in France and Belgium in 2015 and 2016.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 3 / 4

Although conditions in prisons and detention centers meet most international standards, many facilities continue to suffer from overcrowding. Torture is illegal, though human rights organizations have criticized Belgian authorities for holding prisoners in terrorism cases in prolonged solitary confinement.

There were no major terrorist attacks in Belgium during 2017, but the threat persisted. Police carried out a number of arrests targeting individuals who were suspected of plotting attacks or colluding with perpetrators of the 2016 bombings.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

Antidiscrimination legislation prohibits bias and acts of hatred and incitement based on categories including gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, and sexual orientation. Nevertheless, some groups, including immigrants and Romany residents, continue to face a degree of discrimination in practice.

In November 2017, the parliament adopted legislation that tightened asylum policies, in part by reducing the time and scope for appeals of negative asylum decisions and expanding the grounds for detention of asylum seekers. Advocacy organizations said that the changes often reduced Belgium's standards to the minimum allowed by the European Union.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 15 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

The law provides for freedom of domestic movement and foreign travel, and the government upholds these rights in practice. There are no restrictions on the right to change one's place of residence, employment, or education.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 4 / 4

The legal framework supports property rights, and commercial activity is regulated without arbitrary interference.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 4 / 4

There are few significant restrictions on personal social freedoms. Belgium legalized same-sex marriage in 2003, and in 2006 same-sex couples gained the right to adopt children.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

Immigration has increased in recent years, but labor-market integration of non-EU immigrants and their native-born children is comparatively low. Despite government efforts to combat the problem, Belgium remains a destination country for human trafficking, particularly for sexual exploitation and domestic labor; victims generally originate in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Belarus

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Belarus, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcca14.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Not Free

Aggregate Score: 21 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 6.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 6 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 6 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 9,500,000

Capital: Minsk

GDP/capita: $5,949

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

OVERVIEW

Belarus is an authoritarian state in which elections are carefully managed and civil liberties are minimal. Limited displays of dissent have been permitted in recent years, as the war in neighboring Ukraine, growing regional tensions, and a struggling economy motivate the government to seek better relations with the European Union (EU) and the United States.

Ratings Change:

Belarus's political rights rating improved from 7 to 6 due to efforts by government agencies to make official information available online.

Key Developments in 2017:

Hundreds of people were arrested in February and March over their participation in demonstrations against the so-called parasite tax, which was implemented by presidential decree in 2015 and introduced taxation on people who work fewer than 183 days per year.

Bowing to social pressure, Lukashenka suspended the tax in March.

Hanna Bakhtsina, a prominent lawyer known for her work defending political activists, was disbarred in September. The Ministry of Justice cited a "lack of qualifications," though she had been practicing law for over 35 years.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 6 / 40 (+1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 0 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

The president is elected for five-year terms without limits. In 2015, Alyaksandr Lukashenka secured his fifth term in a noncompetitive presidential race. Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) observers concluded that the poll fell considerably short of democratic standards. The observers did take note of several positive developments, including the participation of the first-ever female presidential candidate and the peaceful pre- and postelection environment; the latter was welcomed as an improvement given the brutal crackdown on protests surrounding the 2010 election.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 0 / 4

The 110 members of the Chamber of Representatives, the lower house of the rubber-stamp National Assembly, are popularly elected to four-year terms from single-mandate constituencies. The upper chamber, the Council of the Republic, consists of 64 members serving four-year terms; 56 are elected by regional councils, and 8 are appointed by the president.

An OSCE observation mission assessing the 2016 parliamentary elections concluded that the polls took place in a restrictive environment, and that electoral procedures lacked transparency. However, there was less pressure on independent candidates, the general atmosphere was calm, and two candidates not associated with Lukashenka gained seats in the lower chamber.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 0 / 4

The legal framework for elections fails to meet democratic standards. Among other problems, electoral commission members of all levels are politically aligned with and dependent on the government, and independent observers have no access to the ballot-counting process. The access of the opposition to state-run media has improved somewhat, but it remains under tight control while heavily favoring Lukashenka.

In 2017, authorities indicated that electoral reforms recommended by the OSCE would not be implemented before municipal elections in February 2018, citing a lack of time to pursue them.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 4 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 1 / 4

There is no official progovernment political party, and very few lawmakers are affiliated with any party. Individuals associated with the opposition tend to avoid political discussions on the phone or online due to fears of government monitoring.

Political parties face near-insurmountable challenges when seeking official registration. In May 2017, after six failed applications, the Tell the Truth movement was registered. However, government has continued to block the registration of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 1 / 4

Two parliamentarians not aligned with Lukashenka entered the parliament in 2016, ending a long period in which there was no parliamentary opposition. Some analysts dismissed their election as immaterial and designed to placate the opposition, though others have argued that their activity in the parliament may create stronger incentives for people to exercise independent political activity aimed at gaining power through elections.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 1 / 4

While private citizens and political candidates have some limited opportunities to express their views and make political choices, Lukashenka's regime is unaccountable to voters, and meaningful participation in politics is generally not possible. Involvement in politics and activism is considered risky in Belarus and can result in lost jobs, expulsion from educational institutions, smear campaigns in the media, fines, and the confiscation of property.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 1 / 4

No registered party represents the specific interests of ethnic or religious minority groups. Women formally enjoy equal political rights, but are underrepresented in political leadership positions. Women's advocacy groups have diverging positions on promoting the political rights of women, with some such groups taking the position that there is no need for gender equality initiatives in Belarus. There has been some visible activism by women's groups seeking to raise awareness of violence against women.

The Roma minority is politically marginalized.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 2 / 12 (+1)

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 0 / 4

The Constitution vests most power in the president, giving him control over government, judiciary, and legislative processes by stating that presidential decrees have higher legal force than legislation. Lukashenka, who was not freely elected, considers himself head of all branches of government.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 1 / 4

The state controls 70 percent of the economy, feeding widespread corruption. Graft is encouraged by the lack of transparency and accountability in government. There are no independent bodies to investigate corruption cases, and graft trials are typically closed. Lukashenka often uses his powers to free convicted officials, and has the power to place them back into positions of authority.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 1 / 4 (+1)

Governmental institutions for the most part fail to adhere to legal requirements providing for access to information. However, in recent years, the authorities have moved to make some basic information about government operations available online. Additionally, in 2017, authorities announced that all websites will publish information in both Belarusian and Russian, and other languages as necessary, beginning in 2019.

Score Change: The score improved from 0 to 1 due to recent efforts by government agencies to make official information available online.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 15 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 3 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 1 / 4

The government exercises almost total control over mainstream media. The 2008 media law secures a state monopoly over information about political, social, and economic affairs. Libel is both a civil and criminal offense, and the criminal code contains provisions protecting the "honor and dignity" of high-ranking officials, including greater penalties in cases of defamation or insult.

The government owns the only internet service provider, and controls the internet through legal and technical means. The government's definition of mass media includes websites and blogs, placing them under Ministry of Information's supervision.

In 2017, the state renewed its attacks on independent media, especially during large protests against the so-called social parasite tax. Dozens of journalists attempting to cover the events were detained for days, or punished with heavy fines. Journalists working for foreign, unaccredited news outlets also face harassment and persecution.

However, independent journalists are occasionally able to place pressure on authorities. In October 2017, the death of army conscript Alyaksandr Korzhych  which was widely believed to be the result of brutal hazing  was formally deemed a suicide. His death saw wide media coverage, which likely contributed to authorities' later decision to open an investigation into the matter.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 1 / 4

Despite the constitutional guarantees of religious equality, government decrees and registration requirements maintained some restrictions on religious activity. Legal amendments in 2002 provided for government censorship of religious publications and barred foreigners from leading religious groups. The amendments also placed strict limitations on religious groups active in Belarus for less than 20 years. In 2003, the government signed a concordat with the Belarusian Orthodox Church, which is controlled by the Russian Orthodox Church, giving it a privileged position.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 0 / 4

Academic freedom remains subject to intense state ideological pressures, and academic personnel face harassment and dismissal if they use liberal curriculum or are suspected of disloyalty. Students and professors who join opposition protests face immediate dismissal and revocation of degrees.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 1 / 4

The use of wiretapping and other surveillance by state security agencies limits the right to free private discussion. Private citizens often avoid discussing sensitive issues over the phone or via internet communication platforms, for fears that state security agents are monitoring conversations.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 3 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 1 / 4

The government restricts freedom of assembly. Protests require authorization from local authorities, who can arbitrarily deny permission. In the past, police would routinely break up public demonstrations and arrest participants. However, moves toward a rapprochement with the EU and United States have prompted authorities to rely somewhat more on fines as a means of punishing demonstrators.

In February and March 2017, thousands of Belarusians took to streets in a series of peaceful protests against the so-called social parasite tax, which introduced taxation on people who work fewer than 183 days per year, and had been implemented by presidential decree in 2015. Initially, authorities tolerated the protests. But as they gained momentum, authorities turned to preventive detentions and mass arrests; more than 100 arrests were reported by late March. According to Amnesty International, at least 177 people arrested in connection with the protest movement were convicted of administrative crimes and received jail terms of up to 25 days. Nevertheless, the protest movement prompted Lukashenka in March to suspend the parasite tax.

In a related case, in March, police arrested 35 people and opened a criminal case against them alleging preparing mass disturbances. Authorities the following month charged 20 of them  some of whom were former members of the long-disbanded nationalist group White Legion  with forming an illegal armed group. All arrested were released after several months of incarceration, and in November the investigation was closed.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 1 / 4

Freedom of association is severely restricted. Participation in unregistered or liquidated parties or organizations was criminalized in 2005. Registration of groups remains selective. Regulations ban foreign assistance to entities and individuals deemed to promote foreign meddling in internal affairs.

A few groups focused on rights work continue to operate, but staff and supporters risk prosecution and jail time for their activism.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 1 / 4

Independent trade unions face harassment, and their leaders are frequently fired and prosecuted for engaging in peaceful protests. No independent trade unions have been registered since 1999, when Lukashenka issued a decree setting extremely restrictive registration requirements.

F. RULE OF LAW: 2 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 0 / 4

Courts are subservient to the president, who appoints Supreme Court justices with the approval of the rubber-stamp parliament.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 1 / 4

The right to a fair trial is often not respected in cases with political overtones. The power to extend pretrial detention lies with a prosecutor rather than a judge, in violation of international norms. The absence of independent oversight allows police to routinely and massively violate legal procedures. The vast majority of people convicted of administrative offenses in connection with their participation in the early 2017 protests were convicted in summary trials.

The government attacked attorneys during legal proceedings against the "White Legion" defendants accused of forming an armed group in connection with their involvement in the early 2017 protests. Hanna Bakhtsina, who worked on the case, was disbarred by the Ministry of Justice, which cited her "lack of qualifications;" Bakhtsina had been a lawyer for 35 years, and had represented a number of political activists in her career. The Justice Ministry also delayed the accreditation of several other lawyers who had been involved in the case, saying it would be granted after six months on condition that they followed the ministry's recommendations.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 0 / 4

Law enforcement agencies have broad powers to employ physical force against suspects, who have little opportunity for recourse if they are abused. Human rights groups continue to document instances of beatings, torture, and pressure during detention.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 1 / 4

Authorities create advantageous conditions to increase dominance of the Russian language, and UNESCO recognizes Belarusian as "vulnerable." The regime in recent years has been less wary of issues involving Belarusian national identity, though official usage of Belarusian remains rare. Ethnic Poles and Roma often face undue pressure from authorities.

Widely held societal values emphasize that women should be mothers, and while this has helped maintain social benefits including generous maternity leave, these views in practice restrict the opportunities of women. Men and women face significant discrepancies in income.

LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people face widespread societal discrimination, and law enforcement authorities are reluctant to investigate prosecute attacks and other abuses against them. In May 2017, police raided an LGBT event at a nightclub and recorded the attendees' identities.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 7 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4

Opposition activists are occasionally detained at the border for lengthy searches. Passports are used as a primary identity document in Belarus, and authorities are known to harass people living in a different location than as indicated by domestic stamps in their passport.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

Limits on economic freedom eased in recent years, allowing for greater property ownership and small business operations. However, state interference in the economy still affects larger businesses, and large business owners are subject to government pressure and harassment.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

The constitution explicitly bans same-sex marriage. The Belarusian government led an effort in 2016 to block LGBT rights from being part of a UN international initiative focused on urban areas.

Domestic violence is a pervasive problem in Belarus. Some ostensibly protective mechanisms can make finding help more difficult for victims, who are usually women. For example, families with minor children can be deemed to be in a "socially precarious" situation if a parent reports domestic violence, a designation that can allow social services to take any children into custody.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 1 / 4

Mandatory unpaid national work days, postgraduate employment allocation, compulsory labor for inmates in state rehabilitation facilities, and restrictions on leaving employment in specific industries have led labor activists to conclude that all Belarusian citizens experience forced labor at some stage of their life. The lack of economic opportunities led many women to become victims of the international sex trade.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Bahamas

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Bahamas, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcca34.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 91 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 1.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 1 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 400,000

Capital: Nassau

GDP/capita: $29,056

Press Freedom Status: Free

OVERVIEW

The Bahamas are a stable democracy where political rights and civil liberties are generally respected. However, the islands have a relatively high homicide rate, and migrants do not always receive due process under the law.

Key Developments in 2017:

The opposition Free National Movement (FNM) party won general elections held in May, and FNM leader Hubert Minnis became the new prime minister.

A wave of harsh immigration raids took place after Minnis announced a December 31 deadline for irregular migrants to obtain regular status.

Rights groups reported that a number of migrants were detained without being granted access to legal counsel, and that many of their cases were not heard by a judge within the legally required 48 hours.

A long-awaited Freedom of Information Act was approved, but it lacked some key provisions, including whistleblower protections.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 38 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The Bahamas are governed under a parliamentary system, and the governor general is appointed by the British monarch as head of state. The prime minister is head of government, and is appointed by the governor general; the office is usually held by the leader of the largest party in parliament or head of a parliamentary coalition. Hubert Minnis became prime minister following the victory of the FNM in May 2017 legislative elections.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

Members of the lower house of the bicameral Parliament, the 39-member House of Assembly, are directly elected to five-year terms. The 16 members of the Senate are appointed for five-year terms by the governor general based on recommendations made by the prime minister and the opposition leader.

In general elections held in May 2017, the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) was defeated by the FNM, which won 35 out of 39 seats in the House of Assembly; Minnis, the FNM leader, was then appointed prime minister. International monitors praised the electoral process, but expressed concern about an outdated voter registration system, and the replacement of the Parliamentary Commissioner and the redrawing of electoral districts just before the polls.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

The electoral process is regulated by the Parliamentary Elections Act and managed by the Parliamentary Registration Department. The Parliamentary Commissioner heads the Department and is appointed by the governor general acting on the recommendation of the prime minister after consultation with the opposition leader. In 2017, international monitors expressed concern about the designation of a new Parliamentary Commissioner just days prior to the elections

The delimitation of electoral boundaries was approved just a few months before the elections took place. International observers expressed concern that the setting of boundaries so close to the elections could leave insufficient time for other electoral preparations, and reiterated calls for authorities to introduce standard technical criteria to enhance the Constituency Boundaries Commission's impartiality and independence in drawing electoral boundaries.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION 16 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 4 / 4

Political parties can organize freely, and operate unhindered. However, electoral financing is not regulated, there is no legal obligation to disclose funding sources, and there are no limits on campaign spending.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

Opposition parties operate without undue interference. Political power has alternated between the PLP and the FNM since the country achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1973.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 4 / 4

Voters and candidates are generally able to exercise their political choices freely. However, a lack of campaign finance regulations leaves open the possibility for the outsized role of money in politics.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 4 / 4

Protracted and obscure citizenship and naturalization proceedings continue to affect the rights, including political rights, of people born in the Bahamas to foreign parents.

Cultural norms may discourage women from participating in politics, and though the 2017 polls saw an increase in women candidates, women remain underrepresented. The government and political parties generally have not taken specific action to encourage the political participation of women.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT 10 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 4 / 4

Freely elected officials are generally able to determine national policies in a free and unhindered manner.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 3 / 4

The country's anticorruption mechanisms are relatively weak, and there is no agency specifically empowered to handle allegations of government corruption. Domestic transparency advocates have alleged that widespread government corruption has been a significant contributor to a recent economic downturn. The Minnis government has initiated several prosecutions of government officials suspected of corruption.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 3 / 4

Government procurement lacks transparency and political parties and campaigns are not required to disclose their finances. A long-awaited Freedom of Information Act was passed in February 2017 but lacked key provisions, including whistleblower protection.

Legislators and other high-ranking public officials are required to disclose their income and assets under the Public Disclosure Act of 1976, but the requirements are not well enforced.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 53 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF 15 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 3 / 4

Press freedom in the Bahamas is constitutionally guaranteed and generally respected in practice. However, defamation is still considered a crime. The country's privately owned newspapers and radio broadcasters freely express a variety of views, although partisanship is not uncommon in many media outlets, and the government has been accused of favoring state-owned media through advertising funds.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

Religious freedom is generally respected.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Academic institutions are generally free from political pressure and other interference.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

People can freely express personal views in private and in public. Defamation is still considered a criminal offense punishable with imprisonment, but this law is rarely invoked.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS 12 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 4 / 4

Freedom of assembly is protected by the constitution, and the government respects this right in practice.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 4 / 4

Freedom of association is generally protected, and there is no specific legislation governing registration procedures for civil society organizations. A variety of nongovernmental organizations operate in the country.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 4 / 4

Labor, business, and professional organizations are generally free from government interference. Unions have the right to strike, and collective bargaining is prevalent.

F. RULE OF LAW 13 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 4 / 4 (+1)

The judicial system is headed by the Supreme Court and a court of appeals, with the additional right of appeal to the Privy Council in London under certain circumstances. The Bahamian judiciary is predominantly independent, and there have been no major reports in recent years of attempts to use political or other influence to secure favorable rulings.

Score Change: The score improved from 3 to 4 because the judiciary is generally independent, and there have been no major reports of individuals seeking to leverage political or other influence to secure favorable rulings.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 3 / 4 (-1)

Due process in civil and criminal matters generally prevails. However, the government only appoints counsel to defendants in capital cases, leaving some people without legal representation.

Additionally, in 2017, rights groups reported that a number of migrants were detained without being granted access to legal counsel or bail, and that their cases did not go before courts within the legally required 48 hours. At least two Bahaman-born children, according to the groups, were deported to Haiti with their mother under such circumstances. There were reports of police entering the homes and shelters of migrants without probable cause, and sometimes soliciting bribes.

Score Change: The score declined from 4 to 3 due to persistent reports of authorities denying migrants due process under the law.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 4 / 4

Homicide and violent crimes rates in the Bahamas continue to be among the highest in the region. However, state security agents generally do not engage in the illegal use of force against civilians, and the population is not threatened by large-scale violence or insurgencies.

Prison conditions are poor, and reports of violence against prisoners by guards continue

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

The Constitution does not grant equal rights between men and women in the transmission of nationality to their children and spouses, effectively denying many Bahaman-born people the rights and access to services associated with citizenship.

Despite a change in government, the harsh immigration policies enacted in 2014 are still in effect, and police actions against migrants surged after Prime Minister Minnis announced that all irregular migrants had until December 31, 2017, to become regularized, or be "aggressively pursued and deported." A serious backlog of Bahamian nationality applications for individuals of Haitian descent born in the Bahamas has become more problematic in face of this context. Allegations of inhumane conditions at migrant detention centers have persisted. Civil society groups have reported that individuals held at Carmichael Road immigration detention center are often unable to receive family visits, and guards have forced them to pay to receive food or other supplies brought by family members. Increased enforcement of immigration measures, and aggressive rhetoric from Minnis and others, have served to exacerbate stigma and discrimination against Haitian-Bahamans and Haitian migrants.

Discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is not prohibited by law, and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people report discrimination in employment and housing.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS 13 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 3 / 4

The freedom of movement is protected. However, the immigration policies adopted by the previous government are still enforced and have had an impact on people of Haitian descent in the exercise of their individual rights, including their ability to move freely and choose their places of employment and education. In 2017, roadblocks were erected in some places as part of an immigration crackdown.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 4 / 4

The country has a strong private sector and the economy relies mostly on tourism and financial services. Individuals are free to establish businesses subject to legal requirements.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

The government does not place explicit restrictions on social freedoms. Violence against women, including domestic violence and marital rape, constitutes a serious issue in the country. The government has taken steps to address this issue, including by establishing the Department of Gender and Family Affairs in 2016.

Same-sex sexual activity is legal.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

The Bahamas is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children for forced labor and sexual exploitation. The government fully complies with minimum international standards to address the problem and has made significant efforts to prosecute traffickers. Migrant workers, many of whom arrive in the Bahamas to work in agricultural and domestic service industries, are particularly vulnerable to exploitation.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Antigua and Barbuda

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Antigua and Barbuda, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcca54.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Free

Aggregate Score: 83 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 2.0 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 2 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 90,000

Capital: Saint John's

GDP/capita: $13,659

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

OVERVIEW

Antigua and Barbuda is a democracy that holds regular elections. Corruption in government is a concern, and women and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people are underrepresented in politics and suffer some discrimination. In 2017, Hurricane Irma devastated Barbuda; the entire island was evacuated, and many residents lost their livelihoods and have yet to return home.

Key Developments in 2017:

In March, the US State Department criticized Antigua's Citizenship by Investment Program (CIP) for its lax provisions, and for lacking safeguards that could prevent its misuse by politicians. The government tightened the program's policies the same month.

In May, George Wehner, a member of the opposition United Progressive Party (UPP), was charged with threatening to kill Prime Minister Gaston Browne and 13 other members of the ruling Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP). The charges were connected with a video that circulated widely online which appeared to show Wehner issuing the threats, accompanied by the sound of gunfire.

In September, Hurricane Irma badly damaged Barbuda. The government issued a mandatory evacuation order, and many people had yet to return there at year's end.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 33 / 40

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 12 / 12

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The 1981 constitution establishes a parliamentary system, with a governor-general representing the British monarch as ceremonial head of state. Antigua and Barbuda's prime minister is the head of government, and is typically the leader of the majority party or coalition that emerges from the legislative elections. The leader of the ABLP, Gaston Browne, became prime minister after his party won a majority in parliament in 2014 elections.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4

The bicameral Parliament is composed of an appointed 17-seat Senate, and the House of Representatives, whose 17 directly elected members serve five-year terms. In the 2014 elections, the opposition ALP captured 14 out of 17 seats in the House of Representatives, while the UPP took 3 seats. Observers deemed them generally competitive and credible.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 4 / 4

Electoral laws are generally fair, and are implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 13 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 3 / 4

Political parties can organize freely. While there are a number of small political parties in the country, elections have been won by either the ABLP or the UPP since 1994. Inadequate campaign finance regulations effectively allow candidates and parties to accept donations without disclosing donors' identities.

While political threats are uncommon, in May 2017, George Wehner, a member of the opposition UPP, was charged with threatening to kill Prime Minister Gaston Browne and 13 other members of the ABLP. The charges were connected with a video that circulated widely online, which appeared to show Wehner issuing the threats, accompanied by the sound of gunfire.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 4 / 4

There are realistic opportunities for opposition parties to increase their support or gain power through elections. Power has rotated frequently between the ABLP and UPP.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 3 / 4

Recent elections, including those in 2014, have been viewed as free and fair. However, concerns were raised by the Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) about the lack of transparency of party and campaign financing, and thus the potential influence of unknown domestic and foreign interests over candidates.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 3 / 4

Women are underrepresented in politics. Only two women were elected to the House of Representatives in 2014. In February 2017, the UPP's sole female member in the House, Joanne Massiah, was ejected from the party on the grounds of acting against its interests and disrespecting its leaders, in response to her criticism of other party members.

The LGBT community is marginalized, and this impacts its ability to engage fully in political processes.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 8 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 3 / 4

The elected prime minister, cabinet, and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government. However, in 2013 and 2016, normal legislative operations were disrupted when government-appointed senators were dismissed after voting with the opposition. There are some concerns about the influence of businesses on policymaking.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 2 / 4

Despite claims of their involvement, no Antiguan officials have been brought to trial in connection with a massive investment scandal involving Stanford International Bank of Antigua that erupted in 2009.

Antigua's Citizenship by Investment Program (CIP), in which individuals can be granted citizenship in exchange for a sizable business investment or contribution, came under scrutiny in 2017 after being criticized on the US investigative news program 60 Minutes as attracting fugitives and tax evaders, among others. The US Department of State in March called the program "the most lax" of its kind, and raised questions about the program's autonomy from politicians who might seek to misuse it. In March, the government tightened CIP policies.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 3 / 4

Antigua and Barbuda has seen gradual improvement in accountability structures since 2004, when the government enacted a Freedom of Information Act. The Public Accounts Committee can also expose governmental improprieties and wrongdoings, but historically it has not functioned effectively, and there have been lengthy delays in submission of the Auditor General's report.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 50 / 60

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 15 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 3 / 4

Press freedom is generally respected in Antigua and Barbuda. In 2015, the ABLP government passed the Defamation Act, which abolished criminal defamation. However, under the Sedition and Undesirable Publications Act, seditious libel is a criminal office punishable with a maximum of two years in prison and a maximum fine of $5,000. Media outlets are concentrated among a small number of firms affiliated with either the current government or its predecessor.

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 4 / 4

The constitution provides for freedom of worship as well as the right to practice and change religion, and these freedoms are generally respected. A law that outlaws blasphemous language is not enforced.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

Academic freedom is generally respected.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 4 / 4

Individuals are generally free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 9 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 3 / 4

Freedom of association and assembly are guaranteed under the constitution, and the government generally respects these rights in practice. However, demonstrators are occasionally subject to police harassment.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights-and governance-related work? 3 / 4

The country's few nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are active, though inadequately funded and often influenced by the government. NGOs include Women against Rape, the Free and Fair Elections League, and the Professional Organization of Women in Antigua.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 3 / 4

Labor unions can organize freely and bargain collectively. Workers providing essential services must give notice two weeks before intent to strike, and the International Labor Organization (ILO) has described the list of essential services as excessively broad. Strikes are fairly rare.

F. RULE OF LAW: 13 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 3 / 4

The constitution provides for an independent judiciary, which is generally respected by the government. Antigua and Barbuda is a member of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States court system. Past ABLP governments manipulated the judicial system, but in recent years the courts have increasingly asserted independence.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 3 / 4

Constitutional guarantees of due process are generally upheld. However, prisoners on remand often remain in jail for an average of three to four years before their cases are heard.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 4 / 4

Residents of Antigua and Barbuda do not face any significant security threats. Nevertheless, there is a small Antigua and Barbuda Defense Force. Prisons are severely overcrowded, and conditions within them are poor.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 3 / 4

The 2005 Equal Opportunity Act bars discrimination on the basis of race, gender, class, political affinity, or place of origin. There are no specific laws prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities, or LGBT individuals. Same-sex sexual activity remains criminalized under a 1995 law; however, it is not strictly enforced. Societal norms discourage participation of women in some employment sectors, and few women hold leadership positions.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 13 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 4 / 4

Individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education. Many residents of Barbuda remained displaced at the end of 2017 due to damage inflicted by Hurricane Irma.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or non-state actors? 3 / 4

While the government has historically encouraged both national and foreign investors to operate businesses in the country, taxation procedures are cumbersome.

In late 2017, many Barbudans forced to evacuate the island due to Hurricane Irma opposed preliminary moves by lawmakers in Antigua to eliminate the communal land ownership system that had governed the island for almost two centuries. Opponents claimed authorities were taking advantage of the devastation to develop rural Barbuda for mass tourism.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 3 / 4

The Domestic Violence Act of 2015 strengthened the measures that can be taken against the perpetrators of domestic violence, and laid out a process for victims to obtain an order of protection. However, domestic violence remains a serious problem. Same-sex marriage and civil partnerships are not recognized.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 3 / 4

Antigua and Barbuda serves as both a destination and transit country for the trafficking of men, women, and children for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Government efforts to address the problem are inadequate, and there have been no recent reports of prosecutions or convictions of traffickers.

Barbuda was evacuated after Hurricane Irma devastated the island in September 2017. Many of Barbuda's 1,800 residents had yet to return home at year's end due to widespread devastation, which has seriously affected their livelihoods.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom in the World 2018 - Algeria

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2018 - Algeria, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b7bcca74.html [accessed 31 October 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Freedom Status: Not Free

Aggregate Score: 35 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 5.5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 6 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 5 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 40,800,000

Capital: Algiers

GDP/capita: $4,160

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

OVERVIEW

Political affairs in Algeria are dominated by a closed elite based in the military and the ruling party, the National Liberation Front (FLN). While there are multiple opposition parties in the parliament, elections are distorted by fraud, and electoral processes are not transparent. Other concerns include the suppression of street protests, restrictive laws to curb the media, and rampant corruption.

Key Developments in 2017:

In May, the ruling FLN and the military-backed National Democratic Rally (RND) won over half the seats in legislative elections. The polls saw just 35.6 percent turnout, the lowest turnout rate since the introduction of multiparty elections.

In May, the registration of SNATEGS, a union comprised of employees of the state-owned gas and electricity company, was cancelled by the authorities, following a series of labor strikes staged by the organization.

In September, the head of Algeria's Ahmadi Muslim community was sentenced to six months in prison for offending the Prophet and Islam.

POLITICAL RIGHTS: 10 / 40 (-1)

A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 3 / 12 (-1)

A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 1 / 4

The president is directly elected to a five-year term. Constitutional revisions approved in 2016 reintroduced a two-term limit for the presidency, though President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has been in power since 1999 and is currently serving his fourth term, is nevertheless eligible to seek reelection in 2019. The 2014 presidential vote was marred by ballot stuffing, multiple voting, inflated electoral rolls, and the misuse of state resources to benefit the incumbent. Moreover, the authorities were unable to give election observers access to the national electoral roll.

A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 1 / 4 (-1)

The 462 members of the People's National Assembly, the lower house, are directly elected to five-year terms. In the May 2017 elections, the ruling FLN and RND won a combined 261 seats. Several other parties won a smaller share of seats. An unpublished European Union (EU) assessment of the polls, acquired by the Algerian newspaper Liberte, noted serious deficiencies in the electoral process, including a general lack of access to voter lists and opaque vote-counting processes. Opposition parties and other observers alleged widespread electoral fraud, and media outlets carried videos taken by voters that appeared to depict ballot-box stuffing and other irregularities. Vote buying was also reported. Turnout was just under 36 percent.

The president appoints one-third of the members of the upper legislative house, the Council of the Nation, which has 144 members serving six-year terms. The other two-thirds are indirectly elected by local and provincial assemblies.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 because the 2017 legislative elections were marred by allegations of fraud, and their administration was generally opaque.

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 1 / 4

Electoral management bodies are subject to government influence. In 2016, the government created the High Independent Commission for Election Oversight (HIISE) to run and observe elections and respond to complaints. However, the body's head and all of its members are appointed by Bouteflika, and it has not yet assumed its responsibilities for administering elections; polls are instead run mainly by the Interior Ministry. In 2017, the opposition and other observers questioned the independence of the HIISE, and criticized the generally opaque administration of the year's elections.

B. POLITICAL PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION: 4 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings? 1 / 4

The Interior Ministry must approve political parties before they can operate legally. Parties cannot form along explicit ethnic lines. The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), which swept the 1990 and 1991 elections, remains banned.

B2. Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 1 / 4

Opposition parties play a marginal role in the national legislature. Election boycotts by opposition parties are not uncommon. Indecision by opposition parties on whether to boycott the 2017 polls contributed to depressed turnout that harmed the competitiveness of parties that chose to participate.

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group that is not democratically accountable? 1 / 4

In recent years, there have been allegations of corruption and financial sway over the selection of political candidates, as well as of vote buying. In March 2017, gendarmes found the son of FLN secretary general Djamel Ould Abbes with several candidate lists and around 200,000 euros ($210,000). He was detained but released shortly afterward, apparently without being charged.

B4. Do various segments of the population (including ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT, and other relevant groups) have full political rights and electoral opportunities? 1 / 4

Amazigh-dominated parties like the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD) and the Socialist Forces Front (FFS) are allowed to operate, although they sometimes boycott elections. Amazigh-dominated parties control a handful of municipalities, mainly concentrated in Kabylie Region.

Women hold 26 percent of seats in the lower house. While women's participation in politics is increasing, many women reportedly feel reluctant to run for office, and have difficulty making their voices heard in the legislature and in intraparty debates. In 2017, some parties obscured the faces of women candidates on their campaign posters.

LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people are politically marginalized, and have little ability to fight for relevant antidiscrimination laws or the repeal of laws criminalizing same-sex sexual relations.

C. FUNCTIONING OF GOVERNMENT: 3 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government? 1 / 4

The executive is extremely powerful, and parliament plays only a marginal role in policymaking. The aging Bouteflika has increasingly withdrawn from political life, and several actors hold strong influence over executive decisions, including the president's brother, Said Bouteflika; oligarchs; and the army.

C2. Are safeguards against official corruption strong and effective? 1 / 4

Anticorruption laws, a lack of government transparency, low levels of judicial independence, and bloated bureaucracies contribute to widespread corruption. While lower-level officials have been held accountable for corrupt behavior, few corruption investigations are filed against senior officials.

C3. Does the government operate with openness and transparency? 1 / 4

There is no legislation that guarantees citizens' to access official information. There is considerable opacity surrounding official decision-making procedures, the publication of official acts is rarely timely, and public officials rarely declare their assets.

CIVIL LIBERTIES: 25 / 60 (+1)

D. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND BELIEF: 7 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media? 1 / 4

Although some newspapers are privately owned and journalists remain aggressive in their coverage of government affairs, most newspapers rely on government agencies for printing and advertising, encouraging self-censorship. In October and November 2017, access to the online newspaper Tout sur l'Algerie was blocked by two state-owned networks, allegedly following a request by the communications minister. People can access unlicensed private television channels located in Algeria but legally based outside the country, but these can be subject to government crackdowns, including office raids and confiscation of equipment.

Authorities use legal mechanisms to harass the media and censor controversial reporting. In January 2017, a blogger was arrested for interviewing an Israeli diplomat. A cybercrime law gives authorities the right to block websites "contrary to the public order or decency."

D2. Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private? 1 / 4

Algeria's population is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim. Religious communities may only gather to worship at state-approved locations. Proselytizing by non-Muslims is illegal. Religious minorities sometimes face repression. Authorities have cracked down on Ahmadi Muslims, claiming they pose a security threat and at times calling them heretics; nearly 300 such believers were arrested between June 2016 and June 2017, with some receiving prisons sentences or large fines. In September 2017, the head of Algeria's Ahmadi community was sentenced to six months in prison on charges of offending the Prophet and Islam.

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 2 / 4

Authorities generally do not interfere directly with the operations of universities, though due to restrictive laws and practices, debate is somewhat circumscribed.

D4. Are individuals free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution? 3 / 4

Private discussion can take place relatively freely outside of certain sensitive topics. The government monitors internet activity in the name of national security, and does not disclose information about the program's targets or range, which is thought to be extensive.

E. ASSOCIATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: 5 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly? 2 / 4

The government regularly uses force to disrupt public gatherings and protests. A ban on demonstrations in Algiers remained in place at the end of 2017. Demonstrations against increased taxes turned into riots in the Bejaia Province in January, and security forces responded by deploying tear gas.

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations, particularly those that are engaged in human rights- and governance-related work? 1 / 4

The law on associations in effectively restricts the formation, funding, and operations of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Permits and receipts of application submission are required to establish and operate NGOs. Both new and old organizations experience bureaucratic labyrinths while waiting not just for permits but also for application receipts. NGOs must notify the government of staffing change and submit detailed reports on their funding, and gain government approval before accepting foreign funding or risk fines or imprisonment.

E3. Is there freedom for trade unions and similar professional or labor organizations? 2 / 4

Workers can establish independent trade unions, but the main labor federation, the General Union of Algerian Workers, has been criticized for being too close to the government and failing to advocate for workers' interests. Algerian authorities have increasingly clamped down on efforts to form independent unions. In May 2017, the registration of SNATEGS, a union for workers of the state-owned gas and electricity company, was canceled by the authorities, following a series of strike actions. Over 800 workers of the company were charged over their involvement in strikes.

F. RULE OF LAW: 6 / 16 (+1)

F1. Is there an independent judiciary? 1 / 4

The judiciary is susceptible to government pressure. The constitution empowers the president to appoint all judges and prosecutors. Judges are selected by the High Judicial Council, which is led by the president. Those with resources or connections can also influence judicial decisions.

F2. Does due process prevail in civil and criminal matters? 1 / 4

The lack of independence of the judiciary and of prosecutors often erodes the rights of defendants, particularly in political trials. Lengthy delays in bringing cases to trial are common. Prosecutors' requests to extend pretrial detention periods are typically granted. Security forces frequently conduct warrantless searches.

F3. Is there protection from the illegitimate use of physical force and freedom from war and insurgencies? 2 / 4 (+1)

Allegations of torture have decreased since the end of the 1990s civil war, but human rights activists still accuse the security forces of abusing detainees. In July 2017, the family of prominent lawyer Mohcine Amara accused security forces of beating and torturing him.

Terrorist groups operate in Algeria, and in August, a suicide bomber targeted a police station in the city of Tiaret, killing two officers. However, the rate of such attacks has decreased over recent years.

Prison conditions in Algeria generally do not meet international standards due to overcrowding and poor nutrition and hygiene.

Score Change: The score improved from 1 to 2 due to a gradual improvement in the security environment.

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population? 2 / 4

Officials have made modest efforts to recognize the Berber community's cultural demands. Tamazight, the Berber language, is now a national language.

Throughout 2017, thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants, refugees and asylum seekers among them, were arbitrarily arrested and deported from the country without being given the opportunity to challenge procedures against them. Government officials have broadly characterized migrants from sub-Saharan Africa as criminals, effectively encouraging discrimination against them.

LGBT people face severe discrimination and risk violence for expressing their sexual orientation, and many LGBT activists have fled the country. Same-sex sexual relations are punishable with two months to two years in prison, though no prosecutions were reported in 2017.

Though the constitution guarantees gender equality, women continue to face discrimination at both the legal and societal levels. Many women make lower wages than men in similar positions, and there are few women in company leadership positions.

G. PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: 7 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education? 2 / 4

While most citizens are free to travel domestically and abroad, the authorities closely monitor and limit access to visas for non-Algerians. Men of military draft age are not allowed to leave the country without official consent. The land border between Algeria and Morocco has been closed for years, separating families that live in the border areas and forcing many to resort to illegal smuggling networks for routine travel. Police reportedly limit the movement of sub-Saharan African migrants attempting to reach the Mediterranean coast. Married women younger than 18 must obtain the permission of their husbands to travel abroad.

G2. Are individuals able to exercise the right to own property and establish private businesses without undue interference from state or nonstate actors? 2 / 4

The government plays a dominant role in the economy, leaving little room for private competitors. Numerous regulations make Algeria one of the most difficult environments in the world in which to establish and operate a business.

G3. Do individuals enjoy personal social freedoms, including choice of marriage partner and size of family, protection from domestic violence, and control over appearance? 2 / 4

Women do not enjoy equal rights in marriage, divorce, or inheritance. Gender-based violence is common, and womens' rights groups report that between 100 and 200 women are killed in domestic violence incidents each year. No law prevents spousal rape. Sexual harassment is punishable with fines and jail time, but is nevertheless common in workplaces and on the street.

G4. Do individuals enjoy equality of opportunity and freedom from economic exploitation? 1 / 4

Weak rule of law, government involvement in the economy, and bureaucratic obstacles represent barriers to social mobility.

A 2009 law criminalized all forms of trafficking in persons, and Algeria reported its first ever conviction under the law in 2015. In recent years, the government has made an effort to enforce the ban through prosecutions and has provided protections for the victims, though not systematically. Undocumented sub-Saharan migrants are particularly susceptible to exploitation by traffickers.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
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Kjeld Jonsson, a Savage area beet farmer and current president of the Montana-Dakota Beet Growers Association, is glad to forge forward following the July court ruling in favor of local farmers.

Local beet farmers found themselves reluctantly amidst a court battle that began three years ago, between the Army Corps of Engineers and Defenders of Wildlife, over a fish bypass that would determine the fate of irrigation farming in our area. The Intake Diversion weir was mandated by Congress more than 100 years ago, and brings water to a large portion of the Montana and North Dakota growing region. Defenders of Wildlife alleged that the Intake Diversion weir impedes upstream migration of the endangered fish the pallid sturgeon, and that the proposed fish bypass wasn't enough to save the fish.

After three years of fighting, and many long court sessions, District Court Judge Brian Morris finally dismissed Defenders of Wildlife's complaints to allow the Army Corps of Engineers to move forward with the fish bypass, a move that essentially saved irrigation farming in the area.

The Association is "happy to have a positive resolution that gives us a chance to do what we need to do. We need to irrigate, and we need to grow sugar beets," Jonsson said.

Having to fight for the opportunity to carry on with a more than 100 year legacy was something outside of the Association's comfort zone. "The weir was one of the things Congress got right for the benefit of the community," Jonsson explained. "We got challenged from outsiders who think we need to change. There is no farmer that doesn't want to see nature preserved. We try to do what is right for the soil, and we had to defend ourselves for that. For the majority of our growers, that was frustrating. To not be able to explain the logic behind what we were doing was frustrating," Jonsson said.

Dedicated to saving the dam, many growers travelled to Great Falls to defend their farming process and to support the irrigation project. "Lower Yellowstone Irrigation Project has the full support of the Montana-Dakota Beet Growers Association. Every time we had to make a trip to Great Falls, it was during our busy time. But we were dedicated and there to show our support," Jonsson said.

Jonsson also was thankful to the community members and local organizations and business that travelled with them to show their support. "There were a lot of people in town who are not farmers that realized the impact of not having irrigation in this valley. Richland County Economic Development and Sidney Sugars took a big role. It was great to see the support of the community, where everyone stands together to work for a positive common goal," Jonsson said.

Jonsson and other farmers are glad to finally see the end of the lawsuit, and return to farming. "This was a little out of our element. In general, farmers, we keep to ourselves. We had to be out there and be vocal, and that's not our nature," he said.
Public sector finance from the UK is due on Tuesday, headlining a light day for the European economic news.

At 2.00 am ET, Statistics Finland releases unemployment data for July. The jobless rate stood at 6.7 percent in June.

At 4.30 am ET, the Office for National Statistics publishes UK public sector finance data. The budget balance is forecast to log a surplus of GBP 1.1 billion in July compared to a shortfall of GBP 5.4 billion in June.

At 6.00 am ET, UK Industrial Trends survey results are due from the Confederation of British Industry. The total order balance is seen at 9 percent in August versus 11 percent in July.

At 8.00 am ET, Hungary's central bank is set to announce its rate decision.

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Economic News

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AstraZeneca (AZN.L,AZN) announced the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has approved Tagrisso (osimertinib) for the 1st-line treatment of patients with inoperable or recurrent epidermal growth factor receptor mutation-positive non-small cell lung cancer, following priority review.

Dave Fredrickson, Executive Vice President, Head of the Oncology Business Unit, said: "Tagrisso is already approved in Japan for the treatment of patients with EGFR T790M mutation-positive inoperable or recurrent NSCLC that is resistant to existing 1st-line EGFR-inhibitor medicines. Today's approval moves the use of Tagrisso to the 1st-line setting, replacing older medicines which, given the high prevalence of the EGFR mutation in Japan, offers an important new treatment option for these patients."

Tagrisso has now received approval in 40 countries for the 1st-line treatment of patients with metastatic EGFRm NSCLC, including the US, Japan and in Europe.

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Business News
Oil prices were mixed on Tuesday after the U.S. Department of Energy said it would offer 11 million barrels of crude for sale from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve ahead of financial sanctions against Iran, beginning in November.

The delivery period for the proposed sale of sour crudes will be from Oct. 1 through Nov. 30 as renewed U.S. sanctions against Iran take full effect in early November.

Traders also remained concerned about the demand outlook amid ongoing trade dispute between the United States and China.

Ahead of crucial talks in Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said in an interview that he doesn't expect much progress in the talks for ending the dispute with China.

Benchmark Brent oil was up 7 cents at $72.28 per barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures for October delivery were down 3 cents at $65.39 a barrel.

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Market Analysis
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ALNY) said it has achieved full patient accrual in its Envision Phase 3 study of givosiran, an investigational RNAi therapeutic targeting aminolevulinic acid synthase 1 or ALAS1 for the treatment of acute hepatic porphyrias, or AHPs.

Enrollment was completed ahead of schedule, with 94 AHP patients randomized across 36 sites in 18 countries, surpassing the initial target of approximately 75 patients due to high patient demand.

The Envision Phase 3 trial is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, global, multi-center study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of givosiran in patients with a documented diagnosis of AHPs.

Patients were randomized on a 1:1 basis to receive 2.5 mg/kg of givosiran or placebo subcutaneously administered monthly, over a 6-month treatment period.

The primary endpoint is the annualized rate of porphyria attacks requiring hospitalization, urgent healthcare visit or hemin administration at home over the 6-month treatment period.

Alnylam Pharma reiterated its previous guidance that it expects to report topline results of the interim analysis by the end of September in support of a potential accelerated approval, and topline results on the primary endpoint of annualized attack rate after six months of treatment in early 2019.

The interim analysis is based on lowering of urinary aminolevulinic acid or ALA levels from approximately 30 patients at three months of treatment as a surrogate biomarker that is reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit.

Pending company as well as FDA review of the program at the time of interim analysis and assuming positive results and acceptable safety, Alnylam continues to expect to submit an NDA at or around year-end 2018, seeking an accelerated approval.

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Business News
Chinese blockchain startup Atlas Protocol has secured a multi-million dollar investment led by SoftBank China Capital (SBCVC), followed by Baidu Ventures, Danhua Capital and Fenbushi Digital. The seed amount raised was not disclosed.

Atlas Protocol is an application layer protocol for blockchain interactive advertising & marketing. The four investors believe Atlas Protocol will bring disruptive innovations to interactive advertising and marketing in the blockchain industry.

Atlas Protocol is incubated by Nebulas Labs and xGoogler Blockchain Alliance (xGBA). The project aims to build technical infrastructure that will boost the interactive advertisement blockchain ecosystem to address interactive advertisement marketing problems.

It also proposes a new original and creative media model in the blockchain market, which will define the interactive marketing standards among advertisers, publishers, and users. It will create a new secure marketing channel and define a new tokenized marketing frontier.

ATP Smartdrop, the service provided by Atlas Protocol, has already been launched in the Nebulas Incentive Program, which delivered token rewards to more than one hundred thousand users.

The lead investor, SBCVC, has successfully invested in many outstanding enterprises such as Alibaba, Taobao and Focus Media.

Mervin Zhou, a partner of SBCVC, suggests that interactive advertisement marketing has the potential to make the next unicorn in the era of blockchain. He also believes that Atlas Protocol has the opportunity to become the next Google Ads in the world of blockchain.

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Business News
Microsoft has claimed that its security wing has thwarted cyber-attacks against the US Senate and conservative think tanks by hackers linked to Russian military intelligence.

The American tech giant said the Russian group is linked to the hacking of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential election campaign, and had the potential to launch cyber attacks on candidates and other political groups ahead of the US mid-term elections in November.

"We're concerned that these and other attempts pose security threats to a broadening array of groups connected with both American political parties in the run-up to the 2018 elections," Microsoft said in its blog.

Its Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) executed a court order disrupting and gaining control of six Internet domains created by a group known as Strontium, or Fancy Bear.

84 fake websites associated with this group were shut down in the last two years.

According to US special counsel Robert Mueller, Fancy Bear has connections to the Russian intelligence agency, the GRU.

Microsoft President Brad Smith said cyber strikes by foreign entities to disrupt elections and sow discord during the US general election in 2016, and during the French presidential election last May, are now taking place in a broadening way as Americans are preparing for the November midterm elections.

Attackers create websites and URLs that look like sites their targeted victims would expect to receive email from or visit.

Efforts were made to mimic the domains of the International Republican Institute (IRI), the Hudson Institute, and the U.S. Senate. Six senators, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Gen. H.R. McMaster are members of IRI's board.

Microsoft said it has notified the targeted organizations, and will continue to work closely with them on countering cybersecurity threats to their systems.

Smith announced that in order to prevent further attacks, Microsoft is expanding the Defending Democracy Program with a new initiative called Microsoft AccountGuard.

This initiative will provide free state-of-the-art cybersecurity protection to all candidates and campaign offices at the federal, state and local level, as well as think tanks and political organizations that are under attack. The is free of charge to candidates, campaigns and related political institutions using Microsoft's Office 365 online service.

Russia has denied Microsoft's allegations, and accused it of "playing political games."

Last month, a US Grand Jury had indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking the computer networks of the Democratic Party, and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

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Political News
New Zealand will on Wednesday release Q2 numbers for retail sales, highlighting a modest day for Asia-Pacific economic activity.

Retail sales are expected to add 0.3 percent on quarter, accelerating from 0.1 percent in the three months prior.

Australia will see July results for skilled vacancies and for the leading economic index from Westpac, as well as Q2 numbers for construction work.

In June, skilled vacancies fell 1.0 percent on month, while the leading index added 0.01 percent on month. Construction work is expected to climb 0.8 percent after rising 0.2 percent in Q1.

Japan will provide June figures for the all industry activity index, with forecasts suggesting a decline of 0.8 percent on month following the 0.1 percent gain in May.

Finally, the in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia are closed on Wednesday for Hari Raya Haji and will re-open on Thursday.

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Rights, freedom advocates organizations condemns Sunday's coalition's massacre against fishermen [20/August/2018] SANAA, Agu.20 (Saba)  The Organization of Advocates of rights and freedoms condemned the massacre against fishing boats on the island of al-Sawaba, that led to killed more citizens, an statement obtained by Saba on Monday.



The statement called on the UN envoy to Yemen, the international community and international organizations to press on the Security Council to take urgent decisions to stop this war and the siege imposed on Yemen.



The organization demanded to the formation of an international commission to investigate into the crimes committed by the coalition countries against civilians.





Amal/ Ahmed Al-Mutawakel

saba
Cleaning campaign kicks off in capital [21/August/2018] SANAA, Aug. 21 (saba)  Capital Sanaa Mayor Hamoud Obad on Monday launched a campaign for cleaning capital Sanaa streets and markets.



During the campaign's launching Obad affirmed the importance of cooperation of everybody, especially local council members to ensure the succes of the campaign.



He stressed on the importance of keeping the cleaness of the capital and to remove all illegal markets to organize the traffic movement during Eid al-Adhah vacation.





Ahmed Al-Mutawakel

SABA


Punjab cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu Slamming those who criticized him for hugging the Pakistan Army chief, Punjab cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Tuesday said that Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa met him barely for a minute before the swearing-in of Prime Minister Imran Khan. "I did not meet him later," he told reporters.



Defending his action, Sidhu also said that his seating at the swearing-in in Islamabad on August 18 was changed at the last minute and he did not know who sat next to him.



Without mincing words, he said his visit to Pakistan was a tribute to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who wanted peace between the two countries.



Sidhu said he received a lot of love and affection in Pakistan and was disappointed by some of the reactions in India.



He said he went to Pakistan at the invitation and repeated reminders from Imran Khan.



"Even our government gave permission to me to visit Pakistan. Two days after Pakistan gave him the visa, our External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called me and said that I had been given permission (to go)," Sidhu said.




Dear Editor,

Prime Minister Tuilaepa is absolutely right about the issue of the Chinese debt.

While Tonga may be struggling to repay loans, Samoa certainly is not.

Asking for a debt write-off is tantamount to admitting that Tonga is going to default.

If the whole Pacific Forum asks for debt forgiveness in one go, the credit rating for the whole region would be in the toilet.

Samoa can afford to repay the loans that Samoa owes. There has been no issues with repayment and creditors like the ADB, the World Bank, and the Exim Bank of China have had no issues with Samoa.

So why should Samoa jump into the same boat as Tonga?

Tongas economy and revenues are quite obviously smaller than Samoas so Tonga cannot afford to repay.

Maybe their King with all his riches should contribute more money to the repayments. After all, wasnt his lavish palace renovations and the new St. Georges Palace the result of deals done by the last King?

Anyway, Samoa knows it cannot keep asking for loans because then they will become unaffordable. So it hasnt.

The new wharf project at Vaiusu couldve been built by now if they had asked for an Exim bank loan to do it, but they havent. They are steadily building up the grant funds to build the wharf eventually.

They currently have 60% of the funds covered.

Why have they not gone for a loan?

Because the government knows its limits and it wont stray over that limit. This is good discipline and is a result of some sound financial stewardship from Finance Minister Sili Epa Tuioti who has preached fiscal discipline over the past two years.

Revenue minister Tialavea Tionosio Hunt has also been beavering away making sure revenues are collected by everyone, including some of the highest earners in the country - the faifeau.

However, as it stands, Samoa can comfortably afford the current loan repayments and does not need to ask for debt forgiveness.

Petelo Suaniu
Staff and volunteers of the United Nations (U.N.) in Samoa yesterday paid tribute to former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Kofi Annan passed away in his home over the weekend after a short illness. He was 80 years old.

In the first of many official commemorations around the world, the U.N. flag flew at half mast, and service attendees stood for a moment of silence.

A condolences book was prepared and signed with letters by U.N. staff to send to headquarters in New York.

Regional Director Simona Marinescu delivered a heartfelt speech about Mr. Annans legacy, describing him as one of the most remarkable personalities of the U.N.

Mr. Annan was the Secretary General from 1997 until 2007.

In that time, he established the Millennium Development Goals, which are global targets in poverty reduction, healthcare access and more.

He also spent his tenure fighting H.I.V./A.I.D.S, tuberculosis and malaria and established Global Fund, a global public-private partnership still providing resources to countries battling these diseases.

Kofi Annan has been a strong voice for human rights throughout his time with the United Nations, Ms. Marinescu said.

We will remember Kofi Annan as our great mentor, and our wise leader. We pray for his family, relatives and friends to find comfort in the great memories he left behind.

Ms. Marinescu worked with Mr. Annan during her time serving the U.N. in Iraq from 2003 until 2012.

She shared how during a partnership conference in Copenhagen, she had the opportunity to meet Mr. Annan and asked for his advice when she was appointed the director of the first Global Policy Center of the U.N. for Private Sector in Development.

Mr. Annan had established the U.N. Global Compact in 1999 to integrate business into development.

Since he was the leader who established the U.N. Global Compact, I asked his guidance as the first director of that center.

I wanted him to help me with his vision as to how the organisation could best support the objectives of the U.N. Global Compact, she said.

U.N. Global Compact is an arm of the U.N. that promotes contribution and participation of businesses to development, and has become the worlds largest corporate sustainability initiative.

In a written statement, the current C.E.O. and Executive Director of the U.N. Global Compact, Lise Kingo honoured Mr. Annan for his work establishing Global Compact.

As a result of Mr. Annans vision, the U.N. Global Compact is attracting new participants on a daily basis and providing corporate executives around the world with the inspiration and tools needed to drive a more sustainable and responsible business culture which can create prosperity while respecting people and the planet.
The owner of the Princessa chain of Supermarkets, Zhu Jian Chen, has been released from jail after paying off his debt.

His brief imprisonment is in connection to a warrant of committal that ordered him to pay $107,171.70 to Chan Mow Company Limited.

The committal warrant was issued last Friday which led to the arrest of Chen and his release the next day after paying his debt.

The case was confirmed by Ministry of Justice and Courts Administration, Chief Executive Officer Papalii John Taimalelagi, in response to questions from the Samoa Observer.

Mr Chen paid off the debt in full amount and was released on Saturday.

If the debt was not paid in full, there was no way we would allow for the notice to release Mr Chen, from jail, he said.

Repeated phone calls and messages left for Mr Chen for a comment were not returned at the time of going to press.

According to the committal warrant that was issued by the District Court and signed off by a Deputy Court Registrar, it indicated that this is the second order issued on this particular matter.

By an order bearing the date 13 July, 2017 and issued out of his court, it was ordered that unless the above named judgment debtor (Mr Chen) should pay this court at Mulinuu the amount of $107,171.70, he should be committed to Prison for 36 weeks, stated the committal warrant.
An appeal against the Court's decision to discharge Manu Samoa 7s captain Alatasi Tupou without conviction is set for hearing on December 3.

The decision was made by Chief Justice Patu Tiavasue Falefatu Sapolu yesterday.

Alatasi was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and driving without a valid license, which he pleaded guilty to when he appeared before the court in June.

The Office of the Attorney General is appealing the decision. In the Supreme Court yesterday, Tupous lawyer Donald Kerslake said the matter was adjourned yesterday for him to file his response to the appeal.

Prosecution Lucy Marie Sio said they just received the response from the respondent yesterday morning so its a matter of setting a hearing date for the appeal.

During the district court proceedings, Donald argued that a conviction would harm his clients international rugby career, and added that Tupou had already faced intense public scrutiny in the wake of the charges.

District Court Judge Alalatoa Rosella Papalii, who presided over the matter, accepted the argument but still ordered court costs against the rugby player.
The Police has apprehended and charged the driver involved in the death of 79-year-old Lusi Loua Paulo at Nofoalii early this month.

The accused, a 26-year-old male of Faleatiu and Satapuala, is remanded in custody and will appear before court on August 22, 2018.

In their statement issued to media outlets yesterday, the Police said the accused has been charged with negligence driving causing death and failing to report the traffic accident to the Police.

The vehicle has also been located.

The Samoa Police Service wishes to notify the public that the driver of the hit and run case at Nofoalii has been charged by police.

Samoa Police Services wishes to thank members of the public who provided the information that led to the arrest and charge of the wanted driver.

Last week, the Ministry of Police was following up on a lead in connection to a vehicle that killed elderly mother.

According to a statement issued by the police last week, a side mirror belonging to a vehicle was left at the scene of the hit-and-run incident and provided them the only lead into the fatal incident.

It is believed a side mirror was located at the scene and police will post on its Facebook page details of the mirror in the hopes of finding the said vehicle. Faleolo outpost is handling this investigation, the police said in their previous statement.
Three hospital workers facing charges of theft as a servant appeared before Supreme Court Justice Vui Clarence Nelson yesterday morning.

They are Pio Fesolai, Fou Sekone and Amanono Mafualo.

Fou is represented by lawyer Leiataualesa Komisi Koria whereas Fesolai and Mafualo did not want any lawyers.

Prosecution was Vei Faasii of the Attorney Generals Office.

I appear for the second name defendant, Fou Sekone. This matter was adjourned to today (yesterday) for prosecution to submit some new information in relation to Fou Sekone, said Leiataualesa.

However, your honor, there is no change in relation to prosecutions submitting new information so we are still proceeding on information S275/18.

[And] in respect to that information, the defendant still maintains his not guilty plea so its a matter of setting a new hearing date.

Justice Vui then told defense counsel that the matter will be referred back to the criminal mention list to set a new hearing date.

Ill go ahead and pursue with the sentencing of the other two defendants but your hearing date will have to go back to the list, Justice Vui told defense counsel.

As for Fesolai and Amanono, the matter against them was adjourned for prosecution to file a sentencing memorandum.

Therefore this matter will be adjourned to September 3 for the prosecution to bring all the information needed by the court.

Bail conditions to continue, especially dont miss signing at the police office and remember that date so you have to come back.

As for Fou Sekone, through your lawyer, he confirmed that you maintained your not guilty plea therefore this matter is adjourned to next week Monday for criminal mention to set a new hearing date.

Bail conditions to continue.

Earlier this year, the trio were accused of allegedly stealing pharmaceutical products from the Hospital Pharmacy as well as being part of an alleged ring to manufacture methamphetamine or ice.

According to the police summary of facts, at Motootua in between December 31, 2017 and January 1, 2018, the defendants were employed by the National Health Services.

They took 16 large boxes of paracetamol estimated to $10,560, products of the National Health Services.

Fesolai and Mafualo both entered guilty pleas to this charge.
Fofogamua Hawaii Laveas release was granted by the Ministry in accordance with the Prisons Act, says Deputy Commissioner of Prisons and Correction Services, Levaopolo Rosa Mene.

Supreme Court Justice, Vui Clarence Nelson, sentenced Fofogamua to one year six months imprisonment after he was convicted of falsifying a certificate to register a matai title.

Responding to questions from Samoa Observer, Levaopolo said the release of the prisoner was not illegal and was within their powers.

The release of Lavea follows a request and as long as we can confirm the request is legitimate and accurate, we will grant it with the condition the prisoner will be escorted by a correction officer, he said.

The Ministry of Prison and Correction Services has come under a lot of criticism from members of the public for the release of inmates. But Levaopolo said the release was legal.

It does not matter what crime the prisoner is convicted for, the fact is that the Ministry has the authority to release inmates with correction officer to escort them, so long as the request is confirmed.

Whether it is for a wedding, a funeral, birthday, any request is considered by ministry. Regarding Lavea, it was only for one day and it was this past Sunday and he was escorted by a correction officer.

His release was legal and again regardless what is the criminal conviction, under the law one must be escorted by a correction officer. He left Sunday and came back the same, he said.
A Senior Officer at the Lands Division of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is heading to Japan.

Amuimuia Elisapeta Roreta Areta has been awarded the Pacific Leaders Educational Assistance for Development of State (Pacific-L.E.A.D.S) 2018 scholarship, Japan International Cooperation Agency (J.I.C.A.) announced.

She will use the opportunity to study for her Masters Degree in Environmental Management. She leaves this month. This is the 3rd batch of the programme.

The scholarship programme is fully funded by J.I.C.A. and is implemented as part of the Official Development Assistance (O.D.A.) of the Government of Japan based on bilateral agreement between Samoa and Japan Governments.

In this programme, participants from the Pacific Region will be accepted in any of the masters courses at Japanese Universities of their choice.

Pacific-L.E.A.D.S. programme aims to foster young leaders who play vital roles towards the resolution of development challenges in Pacific Islands Countries, as well as to further strengthen the relationships between their countries and Japan.

Ms Areta is a Senior Government Land Lease Officer at the Land Management Division, M.N.R.E.. Prior to that, she was a Land Development Officer/Senior Lease Officer for Samoa Land Corporation (SLC).

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Land Use Planning/Real Estate from the University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji.

Ms Areta is scheduled to depart Samoa for Japan this week to study for a Masters Degree in Environmental Management at the University of Kitakyushu.

She is looking forward to the learning experience as this will add considerable value to both my personal and professional capacity so I can effectively contribute to the social and economic development of Samoa, she said.

J.I.C.A. Resident Representative Toshiaki Tanaka congratulated and wishes Ms. Areta all the best with her studies Give all the study tasks your hard work and push your limits, and always committed to your dreams.

Background

In May 2015, the Japanese government hosted the 7th Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting (PALM7), where the Leaders of Japan and Pacific Islands Counties agreed to enhance cooperation with a central focus on the following areas: (1) disaster risk reduction; (2) climate change; (3) the environment; (4) people-to-people exchanges; (5) sustainable development (including human resource development); (6) oceans, maritime issues, and fisheries; and (7) trade, investment, and tourism.

With regard to sustainable development, Japanese Prime Minister Abe announced the launch of a new program entitled the Pacific Leaders Educational Assistance for Development of State (Pacific-LEADS) in recognition of the importance of fostering upcoming generations, who will play a key role in creating the future of these countries.
Can an egg bounce? How does helium affect your voice? How many balloons are needed to lift a cat?

These are some of the questions students of Vaiala Beach School based their science projects around for the schools annual Science Fair for 2018.

The Science Fair, held each year at the school for its students from Years 5 to 8, saw a number of very interesting, funny, creative and some complicated projects submitted this year.

After judging rounds were held on Wednesday July 15 with a panel of external judges, the school held a small prize giving ceremony the following day.

The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (S.P.R.E.P.) donated prizes towards the event, and two staff members were chosen as judges.

The Science Fair showcased a variety of interesting and creative science projects. Four judges invited from outside the school and each judge was tasked with picking the top three winners for each class along with other special awards.

The different categories of the awards ranged from Nutrition to Most Original, Principals Choice and Highly Commended. Among them, one of the most notable awards was The Environment Award, which was awarded to Year 5 student Dante Senio, who tested the biodegradability of rubbish he collected from a local beach.

The project was titled, Will the litter on the beach biodegrade? In Dantes results, he discovered that most of the rubbish he collected showed no trace of biodegradability or change over the three weeks of his experiment, concluding that most of the rubbish found on beaches will ruin our environment. His suggestion for the future of our beaches and environment was to stop littering altogether, and to dispose of our rubbish properly.

S.P.R.E.P. staff have had the privilege of judging Vaiala Beach Schools Science Fairs in the past, and veteran judge Dr. Frank Griffin noted that the competition has become more difficult with each new year.

This year the Science Fair was really tough and there were a number of highly complicated and well-thought out projects. It was very difficult to judge, but I congratulate all the students for their hard work. They should all be very proud, said Dr. Griffin, Hazardous Waste Management Adviser of SPREP and the judge for Year 8 class.

Among the winners at the Science Fair, another students project stood out in particular and won not only first place equal for her class, but also the Samoa Conservation Award. Year 8 student Aniva Clarkes project was titled, What is the annual Carbon Footprint of Room 8?

For Anivas project, she calculated the total distance each of her fellow classmates travelled to and from school over the course of the year, and calculated not only their collective carbon footprint, but also the offset from planting trees. In total, Aniva found that her class would need to plant 132 trees in order to offset their carbon footprint.

In addition to awarding Aniva this years Samoa Conservation Society award, the Society will also be organising a tree planting with Anivas class to offset the carbon she calculated in her project.

S.P.R.E.P. wishes to congratulate all the winners of the Science Fair, as well as this years winners from all categories and all the students who participated, and commends Vaiala Beach School for another successful Science Fair.
Microsoft said Tuesday it has uncovered new Russian hacking attempts targeting U.S. political groups ahead of the midterm elections.

The company said that a hacking group tied to the Russian government created fake internet domains that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. Three other fake domains were designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate.

Microsoft didn't offer any further description of the fake sites.

The revelation came just weeks after a similar Microsoft discovery led Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who is running for re-election, to reveal that Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate her Senate computer network.

The hacking attempts mirror similar Russian attacks ahead of the 2016 election, which U.S. intelligence officials have said were focused on helping to elect Republican Donald Trump to the presidency by hurting his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

This time, more than helping one political party over another, "this activity is most fundamentally focused on disrupting democracy," Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, said in an interview this week.

Smith said there is no sign the hackers were successful in persuading anyone to click on the fake websites, which could have exposed a target victim to computer infiltration, hidden surveillance and data theft. Both conservative think tanks said they have tried to be vigilant about "spear-phishing" email attacks because their global pro-democracy work has frequently drawn the ire of authoritarian governments.

"We're glad that our work is attracting the attention of bad actors," said Hudson Institute spokesman David Tell. "It means we're having an effect, presumably."

The International Republican Institute is led by a board that includes six Republican senators, and one prominent Russia critic and Senate hopeful, Mitt Romney, who is running for a Utah seat this fall.

Microsoft calls the hacking group Strontium; others call it Fancy Bear or APT28. An indictment from U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller has tied it to Russian's main intelligence agency, known as the GRU, and to the 2016 email hacking of both the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

"We have no doubt in our minds" who is responsible, Smith said.

Microsoft has waged a legal battle with Strontium since suing it in a Virginia federal court in summer 2016. The company obtained court approval last year allowing it to seize certain fake domains created by the group. It has so far used the courts to shut down 84 fake websites created by the group, including the most recent six announced Tuesday.

Microsoft has argued in court that by setting up fake but realistic-looking domains, the hackers were misusing Microsoft trademarks and services to hack into targeted computer networks, install malware and steal sensitive emails and other data.

Smith also announced Tuesday that the company is offering free cybersecurity protection to all U.S. political candidates, campaigns and other political organizations, at least so long as they're already using Microsoft's Office 365 productivity software. Facebook and Google have also promoted similar tools to combat campaign interference.
And so once more, the Controller and Chief Auditor, Fuimaono Camillo Afele, has made some pretty alarming discoveries in his latest report to Parliament to have been made public.

The report to Parliament for the financial years 2013 and 2014 paints quite a grim picture of wrongdoing, abuse of power and misuse of taxpayers monies in the public service. If you have been following the string of stories on the pages of your newspaper for the past few days, based on the Audit Office Reports, you will be quite alarmed.

Why? Its simple.

Since the last Audit reports from 2010, 2011 and 2012 were uncovered and published on the pages of this newspaper several years ago, highlighting corrupt practices and many cases of mismanagement, fast forward to today, it appears nothing has changed.

The Auditors report in question by the way was referred to the Officers of Parliament Committee (O.P.C.) at the time. They carried out a thorough investigation and confirmed the claims made by the Auditor General.

They went a step further to recommend that legal action be taken against public officials implicated in acts of collusion to defraud taxpayers monies and corrupt practices. We all know what happened.

Parliament endorsed both Fuimaono and the O.P.C. reports. With an assurance that the recommendations would be considered, the reports were swiftly relegated to the cupboards where they are gathering dust. They are unlikely to see the light of day again, ever.

But here we are again in 2018 and yet Fuimaonos latest report shows that things appear to have gotten worse. Not only in terms of misuse and abuse of public funds and positions of power, but they seem to be done with absolutely no regard to the rule of law, policies and what is right.

Take a quick look at some of the stories during the past few days. There is one about the Airport Authority illegally using public funds to host end-of-the-year Christmas and farewell parties. The Auditors said the decision was clearly a breach of public service rules.

These expenses were not budgeted and savings were used, reflecting inappropriate spending, the report reads. The funding of these activities from public monies are strictly prohibited under government policies as stipulated in FK 08 Faapitoa (06) and was further stressed in FK (92)50 and Cabinet Circular dated November 27, 2009.

The Board of Directors had approved this activity to farewell retirees which had served the Authority for a long time. In response to the Audit, the S.A.A. management said the Board of Directors approved it.

Incredible, isnt it?

Elsewhere, another story titled $13 million investment lacked proper papers continues the trend. This time the government body in question is the Accident Compensation Corporation (A.C.C.). The report found that investments in financial institutions by the Corporation to the tune of $13 million were done without supporting documentation.

All payments should be properly supported with relevant documents before general managers approval, the report said. The audit also expressed concern at the lack of an investment plan, incomplete accountable forms and missing pages from a sub-receipt book and inconsistent sequencing.

The accountable forms register was incomplete. A risk of fraud exists where an incomplete receipt book is not physically returned or verified by the appropriate/responsible officer.

But thats not all. Like the Airport Authority, the Audit Office also found that the Corporation used public monies to fund alcohol and food for a party. This misuse of public monies for merry-making appears quite standard practice across the board in most Government bodies. They seem to think that they can do whatever they like, whenever and wherever.

This is quite sad.

But the rot is not confined to merry making and a few cold ones. It continues on to some public servants not doing their work costing taxpayers thousands of dollars, there are people abusing their positions by claiming what they are not entitled to and so forth.

Many of these instances are done so blatantly too, and so prevalent.

Ladies and gentlemen, these are just some of the many shocking discoveries made by Chief Auditor Fuimaono and his team in their report.

We will endevour to continue to shed light on these issues in the coming days. It is critical these issues are exposed and brought out in the open so stay tuned.

Weve said it time and time again. Wrong doing, abuse of power and corruption in the public sector hurts ordinary people  among them some of most vulnerable and poorest people in this country. It denies members of the public what they are entitled to in terms of basic health care, education and utilities.

In fact, it is the stuff we believe is dragging this country down. Today in Samoa, we see so much hardship and poverty. Its a dangerous combination breeding despicable violence in the home as people continue to wallow in pain and suffering.

Now lets think about this for a minute. What might have happened if Parliament and the Government did the right thing when Fuimaono and the O.P.C submitted their reports for the years 2010 and 2011?

Could things have been different if the Government did not ignore the recommendations and did what it should have done then?

Would we still be talking about corrupt practices and abuse of power and positions today if the right thing was done at the time? Who knows?

Have a wonderful Wednesday Samoa, God bless!
Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi has asked the Attorney General's Office to begin the process of requesting extradition for a Samoan living in Australia.

He wants Malele Paulo, popularly known as King Faipopo on Facebook, to be brought to Samoa to be charged under the Criminal Libel Act.

This was confirmed in a press release issued by the Press and Communications Division of the Office of the Prime Minister last night.

The Prime Minister's complaint centers on recent accusations posted by Paulo on YouTube and later posted on the Social Media via Facebook accusing Tuilaepa of murder and smuggling firearms, the press release reads.

The Prime Minister has also filed a criminal complaint with police to initiate the process.

Said Tuilaepa: "I am not prohibiting anyone from exercising their freedom of speech or freedom of expression but I take issue when the rights of the innocent, like myself are violated through lies and deceit.

"This kind of lying and attacking members of the community through social media is what the law was designed to prevent.

"And my respect is based on factual claims provided there is sufficient evidence to prove that the claims are truthful.

"It's a public record that the men who assassinated the late Cabinet Minister had their fair trial and were convicted but this nit wit appears to have his own story to prove otherwise.

"If that is the case, it's only fair for him to present his evidence in Court in Samoa."

Tuilaepa said the matter is now up to Police and the Attorney General's Office to pursue.

"As a King, he will be treated first class in terms of brand new accommodation quarters and three square meals a day free of charge, when the new Tanumalala Prison is completed," Tuilaepa is quoted as saying.

It was not possible to get a comment from King Faipopo last night.
Nuanua o le Alofa (N.O.L.A.) is mourning the sudden passing away of one of its members, Louise Tasileta Leauanae.

Louise was 45 when she died last Thursday.

She was one of the founding members of N.O.L.A. when the organisation was first established in 2001. She was also the first Treasurer of the organization.

Office Manager of N.O.L.A., Mataafa Faatino Utumapu, spoke highly of Louise during her time with N.O.L.A.

When Louise first started here, she was working as the Marketing Officer of Polynesian Airlines, Mataafa said.

She came at a very difficult time here in N.O.L.A. and she came here as an Assistant Coordinator in 2006 when we were looking for someone to help out in the work at the time.

We could only offer a little at the time because the organisation had just started. It was not the same as what she was getting at the Polynesian Airlines in terms of salary, but she gave it all up just to come and serve the people with disabilities.

Mataafa said Louise dedicated all her life to supporting all the people like her.

She is remembered with so many things, she loves her family and she served her family with so much love, said Mataafa.

Not only to her own family, but to all the staff here at N.O.L.A. whatever happens to the families of the staff members she would be the one to help out.

She was a very respectful person, she respects everyone here in the office and everyone here respects her as well.

Louise was a Programme Coordinator of N.O.L.A. when she passed away.

She had a very special group that she loves working with in N.O.L.A. and that is the blind peoples group, said Mataafa.

Shes dearly missed in that group, even though she has to work neutrally, she has a special place for the people who are blind. Even with her children, every time they come here they love working with people who are blind.

The 45-year-old looked after her own family and she raised her siblings children who had passed away.

She put them through school, her eldest is 30 years old and her youngest is 11 years old. She loves our children as well she treats them as they are her own children.

Mataafa said Louise is sorely missed in their office.

We admire her hard work and her service in the N.O.L.A. organization and regardless of her disability, it did not stop her from doing great things for her and her family, she said.

She was still at work and that is a great example of someone who has a purpose in life. She did not rely on anyone, she worked hard to ensure that her family survives.

She was an independent woman despite of her disability and that is why she is sorely missed. She left but she surely laid a pathway for her children and her grandchildren.

Louises final service will be held next week Wednesday.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP)  Salvadoran authorities on Tuesday denied having asked Taiwan for money in exchange for maintaining diplomatic relations with the self-governing island, saying its decision to switch recognition to China was due to the enormous advantages of trading with the economic giant.

In an interview with state television, presidential spokesman Roberto Lorenzana called Taiwan's allegations "base" and "totally false," noting that other countries have opted to have diplomatic and commercial relations with Beijing.

"We cannot turn our back on the world, ignore that China is the second largest power in the world and the leading export economy on the planet," Lorenzana said. "It is key for our country."

President Salvador Sanchez Ceren announced Monday night in a televised address that his country would break from more than 80 years of relations with Taipei and immediately switch to Beijing.

China considers Taiwan a renegade province, and the two have long competed with so-called dollar diplomacy  funding public works projects such as stadiums, for example  to secure recognition from other nations. With El Salvador's switch, 16 small countries plus the Vatican currently recognize Taiwan.

The move prompted the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, Jean Manes, to tweet late Monday that the decision "is worrisome for many reasons" and "without doubt this will impact our relationship with the government."

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio threatened to block funding for El Salvador, accusing it of being "against the U.S. on everything."

"Why should we keep sending them so much foreign aid? Today I will begin work to end that," Rubio said via Twitter.

The United States formally recognizes only China, but it maintains a de facto embassy known as the American Institute in Taiwan. Taipei has a similar quasi-diplomatic outpost in Washington.

El Salvador's decision also drew criticism from the domestic opposition.

"The position from Taiwan is that the government of the FMLN (Sanchez Ceren's political party) asked it for money to finance the campaign in 2019," said lawmaker Margarita Escobar of the conservative Arena party. "That is called selling sovereignty and allowing another state to intervene in the internal affairs of El Salvador."

"I do not support this erroneous decision," said Guillermo Gallegos of the Grand Alliance for National Unity. "I would qualify it as sad and regrettable."

Sanchez Ceren said in his address that the decision came after "a careful analysis" and "will bring great benefits for the country, and will open up extraordinary opportunities."

He said three high-ranking Salvadoran officials were in Beijing to sign an accord on establishing diplomatic relations.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu accused China of luring away Taiwan's allies with promises of vast financial aid and investment.

Wu said Tuesday that El Salvador had repeatedly sought large amounts of funding from Taiwan for a port project that a Taiwanese team of engineers dispatched by the government thought wasn't economically feasible.

Norman Quijano, a legislator from the conservative Arena party and president of the country's congress, called the move "a betrayal of a friendly country."

In a statement, the party warned that it could have geopolitical consequences including "with strategic allies such as the United States."

The U.S. is El Salvador's largest commercial partner and also home to an estimated 2 million Salvadoran migrants, including people in the country legally and illegally. In January the Trump administration announced an end to temporary protected immigration status for about 195,000 Salvadorans, and the Central American country has hoped for legislation that would allow them to stay beyond a September 2019 deadline to leave.

Panama switched recognition from Taiwan to China in 2017, and the Dominican Republic did the same earlier this year.

Taiwan split from mainland China amid civil war in 1949, and China considers the island its territory.
BERLIN (AP)  A 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard who lived quietly in New York City for decades was carried out of his home on a stretcher by federal agents and flown to Germany early Tuesday in what could prove to be the last U.S. deportation of a World War II-era war-crimes suspect.

Jakiw Palij's expulsion, at President Donald Trump's urging, came 25 years after investigators first accused Palij of lying about his wartime past to get into the U.S. But it was largely symbolic because officials in Germany have repeatedly said there is insufficient evidence to prosecute him.

Trump "made it very clear" he wanted Palij out of the country, and a new German government that took office in March brought "new energy" to expediting the matter, U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell said.

Eli Rosenbaum, the former head of the U.S. office investigating accused Nazi war criminals, said Palij's removal "is a landmark victory in the U.S. government's decades-long quest to achieve a measure of justice and accountability on behalf of the victims of Nazi inhumanity."

Palij lived quietly in the U.S. for years, as a draftsman and then as a retiree, until nearly three decades ago when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was "living somewhere in America."

Palij, an ethnic Ukrainian born in a part of Poland that is now Ukraine, said on his 1957 naturalization petition that he had Ukrainian citizenship. When their investigators showed up at his door in 1993, he said: "I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied."

A judge stripped Palij's U.S. citizenship in 2003 for "participation in acts against Jewish civilians" while he was an armed guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and he was ordered deported a year later.

But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-story, red brick home in Queens he shared with his late wife, Maria. His continued presence there outraged the Jewish community, attracting frequent protests over the years that featured such chants as, "Your neighbor is a Nazi!"

According to the Justice Department, Palij served at Trawniki in 1943, the same year 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered. Palij has acknowledged serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Last September, all 29 members of New York's congressional delegation signed a letter urging the State Department to follow through on his deportation.

"Good riddance to this war criminal," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.

The deportation came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations.

Grenell told reporters there were "difficult conversations" because Palij is not a German citizen and was stateless after losing his U.S. citizenship. But "the moral obligation" of taking in "someone who served in the name of the German government was accepted," he said.

Video footage from ABC News showed federal immigration agents carrying Palij out of his home Monday on a stretcher. Palij, with a fluffy white beard and a brown, newsboy-style cap atop his head, was wrapped in a sheet as the agents carried him down a brick stairway in front of his home and into a waiting ambulance.

He ignored a reporter who shouted, "Are you a Nazi?" and "Do you have any regrets?"

Palij was flown on a specially chartered air ambulance from Teterboro, New Jersey, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and arrived in Dusseldorf, Germany, at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

Palij's lawyer, Ivars Berzins, declined to comment.

The local German government in Warendorf county, near Muenster, said Palij would be taken to a care facility in the town of Ahlen.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said "there is no line under historical responsibility," but added in a comment to the German daily Bild that doing justice to the memory of Nazi atrocities "means standing by our moral obligation to the victims and the subsequent generations."

Jens Rommel, head of the German federal prosecutors' office that investigates Nazi war crimes, said Tuesday that the deportation doesn't change the likelihood that Palij will be prosecuted for war crimes. "A new investigation would only come into question if something changed in the legal evaluation or actual new evidence became known," he said.

However, Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said he hoped prosecutors would revisit the case now that Palij is in Germany.

"Trawniki was a camp where people were trained to round up and murder the Jews in Poland, so there's certainly a basis for some sort of prosecution," he said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem.

"The efforts invested by the United States in getting Palij deported are really noteworthy and I'm very happy to see that they finally met with success," he said.

Palij's deportation is the first for a Nazi war crimes suspect since Germany agreed in 2009 to take John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio autoworker who was accused of serving as a Nazi guard. He was convicted in 2011 of being an accessory to more than 28,000 killings and died 10 months later, at age 91, with his appeal pending.

Palij, whose full name is pronounced Yah-keev PAH'-lee, entered the U.S. in 1949 under the Displaced Persons Act, a law meant to help refugees from post-war Europe.

He told immigration officials that he worked during the war in a woodshop and farm in Nazi-occupied Poland, as well as at another farm in Germany and finally in a German upholstery factory. Palij said he never served in the military.

In reality, officials say, he played an essential role in the Nazi program to exterminate Jews as an armed guard at Trawniki. According to a Justice Department complaint, Palij served in a unit that "committed atrocities against Polish civilians and others" and then in the notorious SS Streibel Battalion, "a unit whose function was to round up and guard thousands of Polish civilian forced laborers."

After the war, Palij maintained friendships with other Nazi guards who the government says came to the U.S. under similar false pretenses.

The Justice Department's special Nazi-hunting unit started piecing together Palij's past after a fellow Trawniki guard identified him to Canadian authorities in 1989. Investigators asked Russia and other countries for records on Palij beginning in 1990 and first confronted him in 1993.

It wasn't until after a second interview in 2001 that he signed a document acknowledging he had been a guard at Trawniki and a member of the Streibel Battalion. Palij suggested at one point during that interview that he was threatened with death if he refused to work as a guard, saying, "If you don't show up, boom-boom."

Though the last Nazi suspect ordered deported, Palij is not the last remaining in the U.S.

Since 2017, Poland has been seeking the extradition of Ukrainian-born Michael Karkoc, an ex-commander in an SS-led Nazi unit that burned Polish villages and killed civilians during the war. But it could take years before the 99-year-old, who currently lives in Minneapolis, faces deportation. He was the subject of a series of 2013 reports by The Associated Press that led Polish prosecutors to issue an arrest warrant for him.
An independent nuclear power expert said an incident earlier this month at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in which a canister filled with spent nuclear fuel got wedged into a storage cavity about 18 feet from the floor did not pose a threat to the public or workers at the plant that is in the process of being decommissioned.

But at the same time, David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists said the incident raises red flags.

The plants operator, Southern California Edison, is in the process of transferring 73 canisters of nuclear waste from what is called wet storage to a newly constructed dry storage facility at San Onofre.

The Aug. 3 incident with the wedged canister is the second in five months related to fuel transfer at the plant  and that is what concerns Lochbaum.

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A lot of other canisters have been moved without such incidents, said Lochbaum, director of UCSs Nuclear Safety Project in a telephone interview from his home office in Tennessee. So while neither one of these (incidents) caused harm, you need to quit tempting fate and have skill be more part of the equation than luck.

A nuclear engineer, Lochbaum worked in the nuclear power industry for 17 years and spent one year at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency in charge of protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy.

Back in March, the fuel transfer was delayed 10 days after workers discovered a piece of shim  essentially, a pin 4 inches by a half-inch  came loose while a canister, designed by New Jersey-based Holtec International, was being loaded at San Onofre. Edison received assurance from Holtec and an independent engineering firm that the canisters integrity was sound. Fully loaded, a canister weighs about 45 tons.

Tom Palmisano, vice president of decommissioning and chief nuclear operator at the plant, called the Aug. 3 incident unacceptable and has suspended all transfers of spent fuel until the handling practices, the human-performing practices, the procedures are sufficient and are demonstrated to my satisfaction.

Lochbaum said Edison, Holtec and the NRC need to ensure that whatever is causing the string of problems stops before it gets worse.

After studying the Aug. 3 incident, Lochbaum concluded it was unlikely the wedged canister of irradiated fuel could have dropped 18 feet but, I keep saying, the more times you invite disaster at some point, disaster accepts the invitation.

A worker speaks out

The incident came to light after a man identifying himself as an industrial safety worker at the plant stood up during the public comment period at the quarterly Community Engagement Panel meeting earlier this month and described what happened Aug. 3.

David Fritch said a canister being lowered into what is called a cavity enclosure container got stuck but two workers guiding the descent did not realize it.

So what we have is a canister that could have fallen 18 feet, Fritch said. Its a bad day. That happened and you havent heard about it and thats not right. Fritch said the canister was hanging by about a quarter inch.

Fritch said hes been working on the site for about three months and said some workers are under-trained, some supervisors dont thoroughly understand the transfer process and we dont have the proper personnel to get things done safely.

The Union-Tribune has left multiple voicemails with Fritch but has not received a return call.

Palmisano said Fritch is an inspector for a subcontractor who works for Holtec. Palmisano said its not for me to disclose the name of the company Fritch works for but said he had spoken to the president of Fritchs company and the president of Holtec and told them both that I commend Mr. Fritch for voicing his concerns.

In a report to the Community Engagement Panel, Palmisano said there is a very snug fit as the canisters are lowered into the cavity enclosure containers and its not unusual for the loading team to make a few adjustments to get the canister in place properly.

The enclosure containers are about 20 feet high and the canister got lodged on an inner ring that helps guide it into place.

But the Holtec crew were unaware the canister was wedged. About 20 minutes later, an oversight team recognized the mistake and the canister was re-adjusted and successfully lowered to the bottom. Once inserted, the canisters rest largely underground in the cavity enclosures at the dry storage facility.

The Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation that holds canisters of spent nuclear fuel at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. (Photo from Southern California Edison)

The incident happened on a Friday and Palmisano said the following Monday Edisons staff at the plant notified the NRC, and Palmisano decided to suspend subsequent transfers.

Its an unacceptable incident, Palmisano told the Union-Tribune but said the very robust design of the canister would have prevented any radiological leak  even if it had fallen 18 feet.

Lochbaum agreed, saying safety analyses of the canister showed it would have remained intact so that there would not have been a release of radioactivity to harm workers or the public.

But combined with the March incident involving a broken pin, the Aug. 3 incident is problematic for Lochbaum.

If I lived in the area I wouldnt pack up the car and head for the hills or anything like that, Lochbaum said, but its troubling.

Keeping mum

Palmisano described the wedged canister issue as a significant issue but he did not mention it during his presentation at the start of the Community Engagement Panel, which occurred six days after the Aug. 3 incident. Why not?

Because the canister did not fall or drop, because it was recognized quickly and remediated and because I had stopped the activities (related to future transfers), I had thought it didnt warrant an explicit discussion, Palmisano said. In retrospect, I wish I had  Hindsight is always 20/20 but yeah, if I could do it again, I would have addressed it upfront like I did with the shim issue in the first quarter.

William Alley of San Diego, who with his wife Rosemarie has written a book about handling nuclear waste, said he was not reassured.

They did not take this serious enough, Alley said. They seem to be in a mode of, dont worry about it. 

Rosemarie Alley criticized Palmisano for not bringing up the issue at the start of the Community Engagement Panel.

This has been a pattern with (Edison) throughout, its trust us when the evidence is just not there, she said.

Why transfer nuclear waste?

Used-up fuel at nuclear power plants is thermally hot and in order to cool it, operators place the fuel in a metal rack that is submerged into a deep wet storage pool.

Once cooled, the spent fuel is commonly transferred to a dry storage installation. One dry storage facility at San Onofre already holds 50 canisters and Edison is in the process of transferring 73 others from wet storage a newly constructed dry storage facility.

The Aug. 3 transfer marked the 29th canister to be placed at the new dry storage site.

Palmisano said there is no specific target date when the transfers will resume but said it was on the order of weeks, adding, We will take whatever time it is to get this right til were satisfied so this doesnt occur again.

Palmisano said he still hopes to have the transfer completed by the middle of next year.

SONGS is home to 3.55 million pounds of nuclear waste, which is located on the plants premises, about 100 feet from the Pacific Ocean behind a seawall 28 feet high.

One of the busiest freeways in the country  Interstate 5  runs to the east of SONGS. About 8.4 million people live in a 50-mile radius of the plant, which has not produced electricity since 2012.

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rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1251 Twitter: @robnikolewski
Elon Musk rejected Arianna Huffingtons recent suggestion that he get more sleep  and he did so in a tweet in the middle of the night.

The Tesla Inc. chief executive told the New York Times last week that he has been working a lot  up to 120 hours a week lately  saying: There were times when I didnt leave the factory for three or four days  days when I didnt go outside.

When he has time to sleep, he told the newspaper, he often has to take Ambien, a potent sedative. In a tweet last year, he wrote: A little red wine, vintage record, some Ambien ... and magic!

It prompted Huffington, a longtime sleep advocate who co-founded the Huffington Post, to offer her fellow entrepreneur some tips.

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People are not machines, the business executive told Musk in an open letter posted last week on her website Thrive Global. For machines  whether of the First or Fourth Industrial Revolution variety  downtime is a bug; for humans, downtime is a feature. The science is clear. And what it tells us is that theres simply no way you can make good decisions and achieve your world-changing ambitions while running on empty.

Huffington tweeted out the letter Friday, urging the Tesla executive to change his ways.

His response?

Ford & Tesla are the only 2 American car companies to avoid bankruptcy, he wrote Sunday in a 2:32 a.m. tweet to Huffington. I just got home from the factory. You think this is an option. It is not.

In her open letter to Musk, Huffington, who wrote a book last year titled The Sleep Revolution, cited research suggesting that sleep deprivation can lead to cognitive impairment. According to the Mayo Clinic, adults need seven to nine hours each night.

Youve come up against incredible challenges, and youve met them by being ever more rigorous and determined about applying the latest science, Huffington said in the open letter to Musk. But at the same time, youre demonstrating a wildly outdated, anti-scientific and horribly inefficient way of using human energy. Its like trying to launch us into our clean energy future (or into space) with a coal-fired steam engine. It just wont work.

Earlier this month, Musk apologized for calling an analysts questions boneheaded and boring  blaming his behavior partly on his lack of sleep.

Id like to apologize for being impolite on the prior call, Musk said Aug. 1, according to Business Insider. Honestly, I really think theres no excuse for bad manners, and I was kind of violating my own rule in that regard. There are reasons for it in that I had gotten no sleep, had been working 110-hour, 120-hour weeks, but nonetheless, theres still no excuse.

Other successful business executives have said they, too, have worked long hours.

As the Atlantic reported this month, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi is known for her 20-hour days.

Former Yahoo president and CEO Marissa Mayer has said when she was starting out at Google, she sometimes worked 130 hours and pulled at least one all-nighter per week.

The actual experience was more like, Could you work 130 hours in a week? The answer is yes, if youre strategic about when you sleep, when you shower, and how often you go to the bathroom, Mayer told Bloomberg in 2016.

Even President Trump has said that he sleeps only about four to five hours a night.

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson said he works hard as well  but he does rest.

Its in bed and lights out hopefully by 11 p.m., he wrote on his blog. I typically need five to six hours sleep to get the most out of my days.

Research has shown that some people can get by on a small amount of sleep, but that many cannot.

Research has shown that there are rare individuals who function well on four to six hours of sleep, Ying-Hui Fu  a professor of neurology and neuroscience at UC San Francisco, who has studied the regulation of sleep for 20 years  told the Washington Post this year.

For the vast majority of others, long-term sleep deprivation is a serious threat to well-being: It weakens the immune system and is associated with higher levels of metabolic problems, including diabetes, she said. Cognitive function and energy-level decline and the risk of depression and dementia increase, Fu said, because the brain and body arent given enough time to flush waste products and replenish resources.

Sleep is one of the most important things for our survival, Fu said. I would say right after air and water ... and before any food.

Medical experts agree that sleep deprivation may be associated with mental and physical health issues.

According to the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, studies have shown that inadequate sleep can lead to weight gain and obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, as well as depression, anxiety and other mental issues.

In addition to the feeling of sleepiness and changes in brain activity that accompany a night without sleep, other measures of performance are noticeably altered, according to Harvard. Concentration, working memory, mathematical capacity and logical reasoning are all aspects of cognitive function compromised by sleep deprivation. However, not all of these functions rely on the same regions of the brain, nor are they impacted by sleep deprivation to the same degree.

For example, the region of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is responsible for many higher-level cognitive functions and is particularly vulnerable to a lack of sleep. As a result, people who are sleep deprived will begin to show deficits in many tasks that require logical reasoning or complex thought.

Huffington suggested that Musk may be even more successful with adequate rest.

Elon, the future of Tesla depends on you coming up with your masterpiece. It doesnt depend on how many hours youre awake, she said in her open letter. Tesla  and the world (not to mention you and your beautiful children)  would be better off if you regularly built in time to refuel, recharge and reconnect with your exceptional reserves of creativity and your power to innovate.

Bever writes for the Washington Post.
Google has been sued by a San Diego man, who says the tech giant invaded his privacy and that of others by storing location data even when the function was turned off.

Napoleon Patacsil says Googles practice violates the California Invasion of Privacy Act, and the states constitutional right to privacy. Hes asking for unspecified damages from Google, along with an order forbidding the search engine giant from storing location data without permission.

The civil lawsuit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Patacsil is seeking class-action status for Android and iPhone smartphone users.

Google and Patacsil were contacted for this story, but neither responded.

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The lawsuit follows publication of an Associated Press article revealing the practice. The AP articles claims were backed up by computer science researchers at Princeton University.

Google represented that a user can turn off Location History at any time, the lawsuit stated. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.

This simply was not true. As revealed in the recent AP investigation  and confirmed by a team of researchers at Princeton University  Google continues to access and store the precise geolocation information of those individuals who have affirmatively turned off the Location History setting.

Google changed its description of Location History three days after the AP article to indicate that the setting may not totally block location tracking, the lawsuit said. Thats the first time Google has made this disclosure, it said.

Google was quoted in the AP story as saying its instructions for stopping collection of location data are clear  something Patacsil and other critics say is not the case. Google does offer a setting to prevent location tracking, but it is in a deeply buried and non-obvious setting titled Web & App Activity the lawsuit stated.

Patacsil tried to protect his privacy by turning off location history, first on an Android phone, and then with an iPhone he acquired, the lawsuit stated.

Google and other tech companies that provide free services make money by gathering user data, which can be used for advertising purposes. While they usually offer opt-out options for those concerned with keeping their privacy, in a number of cases these options have been found not to work.

Users can also benefit from location tracking. For example, people who have lost their car in a large parking lot might use the location data to retrace their steps and find it.

But some users may not want to use location tracking because it can compromise highly personal information, the lawsuit said.

As the Supreme Court recently recognized  location data is highly sensitive, not just because of what the data point alone says about an individual (i.e., where they were at a particular time), but also because of the massive amount of personal information that can be extracted from location data (such as medical treatment, personal relationships, and private interests), the lawsuit stated.

Related reading

Google tracks your movements, like it or not

Carpenter v. United States

Facebook collects data on you even if you dont have an account

If you thought Facebooks data collection is scary, wait until you check your Google account

Facebook Privacy Settings Maximize Data Collection
Piano prodigy and former San Diegan Chase Morrin is taking time out from his busy schedule for a one-night-only concert at Cuyamaca College along with musical partner DoYeon Kim.

Morrin lives in Boston now, but will return home to perform with Kim at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Aug. 27, at the Samuel M. Ciccati Performing Arts Center.

Morrin, who turns 25 the day before the concert, has a bit of history at Cuyamaca. He gave the first performance at the colleges then-new performing arts center when he was 13 and has played the venue four times previously. Morrins mother, Cindy Morrin, is a counselor at Cuyamaca.

Chase Morrin and Kim will play GaPi, a fusion of jazz and Korean folk music that last year was nominated for a Korean equivalent to the Grammy award. Kim is a South Korean virtuoso of the gayageum, a 12- or 21-stringed zither-like Korean instrument. She and Morrin first met in 2015 at the New England Conservatory in Boston.

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In 2017, they released GaPi, an album of original compositions for the gayageum and piano, then toured South Korea after the album came out. The duo was nominated for best Jazz Crossover at the 2017 Korean Music Awards.

The music that we are creating is really special, Morrin said. We have spent so much time, week after week, learning how to make our instruments work together. There is no history of these Instruments together, no precedence at all, so we are inventing our own way.

Morrin describes GaPis sound as dramatic and dynamic. He said the music was extremely well received during their South Korean tour. Samples of the music can be heard at chasemorrin.com/#/Gapi

People were shocked and excited, especially about DoYeons approach to the gayageum, Morrin said. People appreciated the novel ways she was approaching the sound and challenging tradition.

Morrin has been busy the past few years. After earning earned a bachelors degree in computer science at Harvard, with a minor in neurobiology in 2015, he earned a masters in music in 2016 from the New England Conservatory of Music. Also in 2016, he wrote and performed his first piano concerto, commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra.

Last year, Morrin earned his second masters, this time from Bostons Berklee College of Music, as one of only 20 students enrolled in the schools Global Jazz Institute.

Morrin said he and Kim will not only play but will also talk about their cross-cultural collaboration in their music at the Cuyamaca concert.

Music is a powerful tool to bring people together, share ideas, and learn to respect and understand cultural differences, he said. Since music historically reflects the many aspects of societal struggle, our duo presents a method for dialogue and connection. The depth with which we probe our differences and commonalities through music is a process we advocate for any situation.

Tickets for the concert are $10 for general admission and $5 for students and reserved seats. Cuyamaca College is at 900 Rancho San Diego Parkway in El Cajon.

karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.com
Several programs started in El Cajon last year to help the homeless find housing are working, city officials say.

El Cajon is eager to disprove a grand jury report from 2016 that chastised the city, La Mesa, Santee and Lemon Grove, saying the four cities lacked resources and services for the homeless.

Since 1998, El Cajon has provided more than $1.7 million in federal and local funding for facilities and programs serving the homeless in the city. El Cajon is one of the few places in East County offering transitional housing within its boundaries.

In the past year, the city has seen a small decrease in the amount of unsheltered people living in El Cajon. The Regional Task Force on the Homelesss 2018 Point-In-Time Count found 288 unsheltered homeless individuals; in 2017 there were 323 living unsheltered in the city.

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One of the programs that city officials say has been a success is El Cajon Housing Connections. The program started last summer and is the citys contract with the nonprofit Crisis House to pay $150,000 for a housing navigator and housing assistance funds.

The navigators primary job is to establish a relationship with a person who is homeless, match the person with suitable housing and then help navigate the person to the programs and services available.

The housing assistance funds go toward credit checks, deposits and rental assistance, utilities startup costs and temporary financial help that will help facilitate employment such as a bus or San Diego Trolley pass.

The goal was for the program to find permanent housing for 25 individuals by June 2018.

El Cajon City Manager Graham Mitchell on Aug. 14 gave the City Council an update on the program. He said it has succeeded in finding homes for 47 homeless persons representing 29 households in El Cajon using $34,000 for the housing navigator and $40,000 in Housing Assistance funds.

The City Council asked city staff to bring back a contract to extend the housing navigator and the housing assistance programs for the same cost of $150,000 per year.

Mitchell also updated the council on the success of other programs the city has authorized, including a homeless family/friends reunification program with The Salvation Army and a homeless services app run by the East County Homeless Task Force.

Mitchell said the citys $10,000 invested with The Salvation Armys A Way Back Home program has helped reunite 13 homeless individuals or families since August 2017.

The Salvation Army program assists with the costs of transportation, lodging, food and/or re-settlement, as needed. The program has so far used a little over $4,500 for an average of less than $350 per reunited individual, he said.

El Cajon contributed $3,550 to help the East County Homeless Task Force launch the Connect EC app. The app connects homeless individuals with services such as housing, social services and meals. Since its launch Jan. 8, the app has been accessed 434 times by 268 unique users, Mitchell said.

Mitchell said there are 27 panhandling signs around the city that staff members believe are helping curb the amount of homeless people begging for money on city streets.

The signs tell motorists or would-be-givers that there are more effective ways to assist those in need, and provide a message to those seeking resources.

One of the signs reads: Please Help. Dont Support Panhandling. Contribute to the solution at www.ECHTF.org

Staff believes that this messaging is working, Mitchell said. (We have) received several requests from individuals living outside of the citys limits in how to obtain similar signage because of their perceived effectiveness.

El Cajon has also launched a website for homeless people looking for assistance as well as those interested in what the city is doing about homeless issues at cityofelcajon.us/resident-services/public-safety/addressing-homelessness

Additionally, the city created an online resource directory in partnership with the East County Homeless Task Force at elcajonresources.org

Mitchell briefly mentioned another program the city is involved with  the Homeless Outreach Team managed by the El Cajon Police Department.

HOT began in 2016 and consists of members of the El Cajon Police Department, the San Diego County Sheriffs Department, the countys Health and Human Services Agency and the Psychiatric Emergency Response Team.

He said the city has not yet started offering short-term kenneling of pets for homeless individuals who need to find housing but cannot bring their animals with them..

Mitchell said El Cajon has historically provided funding to assist homeless service providers. The city annually spends money for capital improvements and operating costs of several homeless shelter programs in the city the East County Transitional Living Center, Crisis House and Volunteers of America.

karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.com
Over the past 11 years, 3LB Restaurant Group has opened three gastropubs, two breweries, two wine bars, a speakeasy, a gourmet deli/market and an upscale brewpub in North County.

Now, the company started in Rancho Bernardo in 2007 by two brothers and a buddy, is planning to bring all of its ideas under one roof with its most ambitious project to date: the Outpost Urban Food Hall in Poway.

The 21,000-square-foot, 14-concept food hall is slated to open in fall 2019. It will be the anchor tenant of the Outpost, a $35 million 1.5-acre mixed-use project that will include 53 residential units, a Crunch fitness center and an underground parking garage. Also, 3LB (an acronym for Three Local Brothers) is planning to open a Santa Maria-style barbecue restaurant and, possibly, a stand-alone coffeehouse, on the property.

Co-founder Zak Higson, 40, of San Marcos, said the project at 13247 Poway Road is much-needed in restaurant-starved Poway and it gives his entrepreneurial company a testing space to launch and refine its numerous culinary and beverage concepts.

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The company he launched with best friend Grant Tondro, 39, of Escondido and his brother, Nate Higson, 37, of Boise, Idaho, operates Urge Gastropubs in Rancho Bernardo, Oceanside and San Marcos; Mason Ale Works breweries in San Marcos and Oceanside; Barrel Room wine bar/bistros in Rancho Bernardo and Carmel Valley; the 101 Proof speakeasy in Oceanside; Brothers Provisions deli, market and Mason Coffee Works in Rancho Bernardo; and the new Mason Ale Works Tasting Room + Kitchen in Carmel Valley.

The Outpost Urban Food Hall is one of four food halls set to open in the county in the next year. In late September, restaurateur James Markham will open his Windmill Food Hall in the former Pea Soup Andersens windmill property in Carlsbad. In January, Whisknladle Hospitality will open the 10,000-square-foot Park Commons food hall in the Sorrento Mesa area. And in spring 2019, the Mexican-themed Pan y Sal food hall will open in the historic Bread & Salts arts center in Barrio Logan. They will join 2-year-old Liberty Public Market food hall in Point Loma and the Little Italy Food Hall, which opened in July.

Artists rendering of The Outpost, a mixed-use project in Poway that will feature the Outpost Urban Food Hall, right, and a Santa Maria-style barbecue restaurant operated by 3LB Restaurant Group. (Courtesy)

Food halls are among the hottest culinary trends in the U.S. A recent study by Cushman & Wakefield said the popular destinations have grown in number from 70 in 2015 to a projected 300 by 2020.

The growth is fueled by foodies seeking a unique dining experience, an industry trend toward more fast-casual service to reduce labor costs and an increase in walkable mixed-use developments that combine housing, retail and office space.

Higson said he and his partners are big fans of mixed-use planning. The Outpost will be their third such project. In April 2017, they opened the 1-acre Urge Gastropub & Common House in the massive North City project in San Marcos, and in July they opened both a Barrel Room restaurant and the Mason Ale Works Tasting Room + Kitchen at The Merge development in Carmel Valley.

Were very residential-oriented, Higson said. The idea of being part of neighborhoods marries into our ethos.

The Higson brothers grew up in Canada and moved to Rancho Bernardo with their parents in 1993. A year later, Higson and Tondro met in drivers ed class at Rancho Bernardo High and have been best friends ever since. After college and careers in corporate finance and banking, they came back together and, with Zaks brother Nate, opened their first Barrel Room restaurant in R.B. in 2007.

Their business formula has succeeded from the start, but Higson said creating a successful food hall will take work. Because food halls are tourist attractions, business in the early months is always brisk with first-time visitors, but getting people to come back a second time is key.

Poway is ready for this and we will create an immersive dining experience there, but the quality of the food will be foremost, he said.

The Outpost Urban Food Hall will have indoor seating for 171 people. Instead of renting booth space to local vendors, virtually all of the food served on the premises will be 3LB products.

Higson said the goal will be to create original and portable small-portion bites. Some of the ideas theyve developed include Caesar salad tacos served in baked Parmesan cheese shells; hot Cheetos chicharrons; chicken pot fries; lardon salad; spicy chicken biscuits; pizza; sliders; popcorn confections; and shaved pork dip sandwiches. There will be a full bar specializing in Mason Ale Works beers, a bakery, a salad bar and an old-fashioned ice cream/soda jerk counter.

Upstairs, a barbecue restaurant is planned with a patio featuring a childrens play area, fire pits for making smores and an outdoor movie screening area.

Higson said he hopes the Poway project will allow his company to bring together its built-in North County clientele with San Diegans who know the company for its beer and are attracted by the food hall concept.

If we do things right, he said, we can unite the clans.

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
Its been 75 years since the first women Marines were stationed at Camp Pendleton and the milestone is being celebrated with gatherings and the publication of a commemorative magazine with historical photos and stories.

The 52-page magazine, Celebrating 75 Years, Women Marines on Camp Pendleton, features the stories of 30 women Marines along with a timeline of women in the Marine Corps over a century. The publication includes the history of Camp Pendleton women Marines, women Marine Generals, and the first female Marines at the School of Infantry.

Newly released magazine, Celebrating 75 Years, Women Marines on Camp Pendleton, (courtesy)

The first female Marine based at Camp Pendleton was Capt. Lillian Daly, who been enlisted since World War I. Daly reported to Camp Pendleton on March 5,1943 and the first contingent of 95 female Marines arrived at Camp Pendleton in October that year. The group was welcomed by Maj. Gen. Joseph C. Fegan, the bases first commanding general and other high ranking officers. The women became part of the Women Marine Reserve, which was formed Feb. 13, 1943, under Col. Ruth Cheney Streeter.

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The magazine was unveiled Aug. 13 at the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the day that the first woman enlisted in the Marine Corps  Opha May Johnson enlisted in the Corps on Aug. 13, 1918.

Dozens of Marines, both active duty and retired, gathered with community leaders to mark the anniversary and the release of the commemorative publication at a reception Aug. 13 at the Oceanside Chamber.

Among the attendees were Col. Philip Antekeier, Col. Jeffrey Holt, Oceanside Mayor Peter Weiss and retired Sgt. Maj. Grace Carle, 95, of Lemon Grove. Carle served as the sixth and last sergeant major of the Women Marines from 1974-1976.

The magazine was a joint effort between the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce, two local chapters of the Women Marines Association (CA-2, San Diego and CA-7, Oceanside) and the Camp Pendleton Historical Society) along with support from the Camp Pendleton History and Museum Division.

Women Marines provided photos and stories of their careers and memories of Camp Pendleton. From March to June, the two chapters gathered information from women Marines who had served and are currently serving at Camp Pendleton. Retired Marine Col. Marianne Waldrop, PhD, a Carlsbad resident, spearheaded the effort of writing and refining of the stories. Waldrop had previously interviewed eight female Marine Corps generals as part of her doctorate dissertation at the University of San Diego.

The Chamber printed 20,000 copies of the magazine and it can be picked up free at the Oceanside Chamber, 928 N Coast Highway, Oceanside Public Library, 330 N. Coast Highway and Oceanside Historical Society, 305 N. Nevada St.

The Camp Pendleton Historical Society is putting on a gala event, Honoring 75 years of service of women Marines at Camp Pendleton on Oct. 6 at the Pacific Views Event Center near the bases main gate.

Visit womenmarines.org and camppendletonhistoricalsociety.org.
The bit of anxiety incoming freshman Robbie Sanchez felt before the first day of classes at Southwestern College was mostly gone by late Monday morning.

I like it. I like the vibe here, said Sanchez, who plans to study business management. Youre kind of on your own, but its good to be in an environment where you have to take care of yourself now. Its your future, so you have to know what youre doing and make sure youre taking the right steps and path that you want to take.

The Chula Vista resident and Calvary Christian Academy graduate is one of about 18,000 students who are enrolled at Southwestern College across five campuses for the 2018-19 school year, which began Monday.

The new academic year brings new programs, construction and ceremonies for students, faculty and staff.

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Under the new Southwestern College Promise program, which is part of a larger state effort, some full-time freshman are eligible for free tuition for their first year. The deadline to apply is Oct. 1.

Superintendent/President Kindred Murillo said Southwestern College is fundraising in hopes of offering a second year of free tuition down the road. Full-time students pay about $500 per semester for tuition.

New construction at the Chula Vista campus includes ground breakings for a performing arts center and a station for the Southwestern College Police Department on Sept. 10.

On Oct. 29, Southwestern College will host San Diego State Universitys new president, Adela de la Torre.

San Diego State University is where most of our students transfer, Murillo said. That partnership is something we want to enhance, we want to build on. We want to get more of our transfer students in.

We want to make sure they have a place to go, where they dont have to leave their community. We dont want to lose that intellectual capacity.

In January, in time for the spring semester, Southwestern College will open a building that will house its math and science programs. It will include 15 classrooms and a rooftop telescope platform.

This is going to be state of the art for our students and our faculty, Murillo said.

Jorge Ivan Ortiz, president of the Associated Students Organization, said student leaders this year will work with San Diego Metropolitan System to hopefully offer free bus passes to students. The organization also will launch a pilot program in coordination with the college library to offer free printing for a limited number of pages.

On the first day of classes Monday, Ortiz spent much of his morning in meetings and greeting new students. He hopes to transfer to UC Berkeley, then attend Harvard.

Its always nice as a student whos been here  Ive been here since fall 2016  to see fresh faces and see students in an environment where they can prosper and grow and achieve their potential, Ortiz said.

Email: david.hernandez@sduniontribune.com

Phone: (619) 293-1876

Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez
Kristin Scott Benson has flourished as the virtuoso banjo player in the Grascals, Dolly Partons former backing band and one of the most acclaimed groups in bluegrass music. They headline Saturdays annual Museum of Making Music benefit concert at Irwin M. Jacobs Qualcomm Hall.

But Bensons musical success was anything but assured 20 years ago, when she faced an existential quandary after graduating summa cum laude from Nashvilles Belmont University. She majored in marketing, minored in music business and was considering a tempting offer to pursue a masters degree in engineering.

I had a wonderful opportunity to get a fully paid scholarship for a graduate degree, but I just didnt want to do that, said Benson, who is a member of the award-winning band the Grascals and a four-time International Bluegrass Music Association Banjo Player of the Year honoree. So I thought: Ill just try music and can always go back to grad school.

Some questioned her decision at the time. But Benson received key backing from her grandfather and early mentor, Arval Hogan. From 1935 to 2001, he had been the mandolinist in Whitey and Hogan, the longest-running duo in country music history, and gave Benson her first instrument as a child.

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My grandfather was the most supportive person when I decided against grad school, she recalled. He told me: Dont worry about the money; you can always survive on whatever you make. And then he said: Trust me: When you get to be my age, the memories will matter a lot more than the money.

It was sound advice, although Benson seemed destined for bluegrass even before she started her sophomore year in college.

In 1995, three years before graduating from Belmont, she started a five-year stint as the banjo player in the Larry Stephenson Band.

I missed the first day of school my sophomore year to play a gig with Larry in Maine, Benson recalled with a laugh.

The Grascals Kristin Scott Benson has won International Bluegrass Music Association Banjo Player of the Year honors four times. (Photo courtesy Mountain Home Music Company)

In 2000, she co-founded the bluegrass band The Sidewinders. Then came a stint with Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time, followed by a return to Stephensons band, before she joined the Grascals a decade ago in 2008.

It was the first time a female musician had been hired to assume a leading instrumental role in a top bluegrass band. Last week, Benson was the only female instructor at North Carolinas inaugural Blue Ridge Banjo Camp, presented by Bela Fleck, who is one of her key inspirations on her instrument. She also sings the praises of San Diego-raised banjo star Alison Brown, although Benson only became aware of Brown some years after taking up the banjo herself.

I used to be an oddity at bluegrass festivals as a girl in all-male bands, Benson noted. But now every band has a girl. It could be the fiddle player, the guitar player it could be on any instrument, which is the best way to integrate things. Sometimes, its more effective to just do it and act like its normal, and then its not a big deal.

Benson has made three solo albums and six albums by the Grascals, whose 2011 release, The Grascals & Friends (Country Classics With A Bluegrass Spin), featured such high-profile guests as Parton, Brad Paisley and Charlie Daniels.

Parton was so impressed the first time she heard the Grascals that she hired them to be her backing band in 2004. She then had them accompany and open for her on her 2005 tour, before the Grascals decided to focus on their own career. To date, the group has earned three Grammy nominations and won a slew of other awards. In 2009, the band headlined the ninth annual Summergrass San Diego festival in Vista.

My day life is teaching online banjo lessons, said Benson, who lives in rural South Carolina with her husband, bluegrass mandolinist Wayne Benson, and their 12-year-old son, Hogan. The vast majority of bluegrass musicians do something else professionally during the week. So if I have an extremely talented student, I always encourage them to go to school.

Ive been doing bluegrass for 20 to 25 years. And even now I dont feel like I committed to playing it professionally! But I love it so much that Im very thankful and blessed I get to do it.

Museum of Making Music Bluegrass Benefit Concert, with the Grascals and Flatt Lonesome

When: 7 p.m. Saturday

Where: Irwin M. Jacobs Qualcomm Hall, 5775 Morehouse Drive, Sorrento Valley

Tickets: $33.50-$75

Phone: (760) 438-8001

Online: museumofmakingmusic.org/bluegrass-benefit

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Twitter @georgevarga
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Tuesday, Aug. 21, and heres whats happening across California:

TOP STORIES

It was just before sunrise at Malibu Creek State Park when the shot rang out in the pre-dawn silence. A bullet whizzed into the tent of Tristan Beaudette, who was camping with his two young daughters. Beaudette, a research scientist from Irvine, was killed, his body discovered by others. The killing June 22 has baffled investigators ever since. At first, it seemed like an isolated incident. But then officials acknowledged they knew of at least seven other shooting reports in the same rustic area in the last two years. Los Angeles Times

ICE and politicking

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President Trump brandished two of his favorite political weapons at the White House on Monday: a phalanx of uniformed law enforcement officers by his side, and an angry denunciation of Democrats as a party of lawlessness and open borders. The president aligned himself with rank-and-file Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers he invited to the White House and repeatedly lionized as brave heroes, while battering Democrats as extremists who want to abolish Americas borders. Los Angeles Times

It keeps burning

After more than three weeks, firefighters continued to struggle against the largest fire in modern California history as the Mendocino Complex blaze prompted more evacuations and posed new dangers to those on the front lines. While battling the fire, five members of Los Angeles Fire Department Strike Team 1880C were injured Sunday. Los Angeles Times

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The Herald Examiner building on Broadway at 11th street in downtown L.A. was commissioned by publisher William Randolph Hearst in the early 1900s. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

L.A. STORIES

A #MeToo twist: The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department said Monday that detectives are reaching out to a young actor and his attorney after the New York Times reported actress and director Asia Argento recently paid him in connection with an alleged sexual encounter in a Marina del Rey hotel room when he was 17. Los Angeles Times

Extra, extra: Arizona State University will expand into Southern California by opening a satellite school in the long-vacant offices of the Herald Examiner newspaper in downtown Los Angeles. The newspaper published its last edition in 1989 and its Broadway headquarters has been mostly vacant since then. Los Angeles Times

Countdown: NASA is almost ready to let SpaceX fuel rockets while astronauts are strapped in. Los Angeles Times

Ouch: Scooter injuries are becoming common at hospitals. BuzzFeed

Plus: Sidewalks are a last shred of safe public space. No wonder were fighting over them. CityLab

IMMIGRATION AND THE BORDER

Water wars: Theres a time bomb for U.S.-Mexico relations ticking underground. Quartz

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

New allegation: State Sen. Joel Anderson is facing a legislative investigation after a female lobbyist accused him of threatening to bitch slap her and harassing her at a Capitol-area bar last week, sources say. Los Angeles Times

Disappearing act: Californians with individual Blue Shield health plans have complained of sudden, erroneous cancellations. Los Angeles Times

Tsk tsk: A developer whose wife sat on the Ethics Commission faces a $15,000 fine over political donations. Los Angeles Times

2020 watch, Part 1: Rep. Eric Swalwell said Monday morning he is planning to consider a 2020 run for president after the midterms. CNN

2020 watch, Part 2: Mayor Eric Garcetti spoke with the Washington Post about his policy views on a variety of issues. Washington Post

CRIME AND COURTS

In Sacramento: A landmark bill to end money bail in California passed the state Assembly on Monday, clearing a major legislative hurdle despite mounting opposition to last-minute changes that gave judges greater power to decide who should remain incarcerated ahead of trial. But some onetime supporters of the bill are unhappy. Los Angeles Times

Missing man: The FBI on Monday offered a reward of up to $25,000 for information that could help find a Santa Ana man who authorities say was abducted from a San Gabriel shopping center last month. Los Angeles Times

Theres video: Several car sideshows shut down intersections in Compton and Willowbrook on Sunday night, where crowds of onlookers cheered as vehicles did doughnuts and squealed their tires until the California Highway Patrol. Los Angeles Times

THE ENVIRONMENT

More water wars: The Trump administration is accelerating efforts to pump more of Northern Californias water to farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, setting up a bruising conflict with state officials and environmentalists. Sacramento Bee

We bring fire with us: A look at the human causes of wildfires. New York Times

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

Sad: Spring restaurant owner Yassmin Sarmadi and her husband, chef and partner Tony Esnault, have announced they will close the restaurant in downtown Los Angeles by the end of the month. Los Angeles Times

Elon Musk and Donald Trump: What happens when a charismatic leader goes bad? Los Angeles Times

Exciting: With the reopening of California 1, Big Sur is back  and just in time. Los Angeles Times

Nice: Half of the top 10 U.S. colleges are in the same state  and four are public schools. Money

Eeek: Americas invisible pot addicts. The Atlantic

Yum: The pleasures of tea cakes in South L.A. LAist

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles area: Partly cloudy, 85, Tuesday. Sunny, 84, Wednesday. San Diego: Partly cloudy, 79, Tuesday. Sunny, 79, Wednesday. San Francisco area: Partly cloudy, 66, Tuesday and Wednesday. San Jose: Partly cloudy, 78, Tuesday. Sunny, 79, Wednesday. Sacramento: Partly cloudy, 85, Tuesday. Sunny, 88, Wednesday. More weather is here.

AND FINALLY

Todays California memory comes from Lee Hollen Butler:

In 1929 I lived at the corner of San Vicente and Bundy Drive. There was nothing but open space between us and Beverly Hills. Trapdoor spiders, field mice and snakes were our collector items. There was a little trolley that ran from Sawtelle to Santa Monica along San Vicente, and my brother and I, and the neighborhood kids, would take it to the beach  either the pier or the Athletic or Deauville Club. We called it the Toonerville Trolley. Someone would put a coin on the track, which would knock it off its track, and then we would all hop off and lift it back on. I wonder if there is anyone alive who remembers those days? My little house is still there, tucked behind a large office building and across from a gas station.

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad.
A Colorado man told police that he killed his pregnant wife in a rage when he discovered she had strangled their two daughters after he sought a separation, according to an arrest affidavit released on Monday shortly after prosecutors charged the man with his familys murders.

According to the affidavit, Christopher Watts told his wife, Shanann, that he wanted to separate when she returned from a business trip early on the morning of Aug. 13.

Watts told police that he walked downstairs after the conversation.

When he returned to the couples bedroom, Watts said he checked a baby monitor on Shananns nightstand and saw his wife strangling their youngest daughter while their oldest daughter sprawled on her bed, looking blue.

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Watts, 33, said he then went into a rage and strangled his wife.

He told police that he loaded all three bodies into his work truck, and then he buried his wife at an oil work site and dumped the remains of 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste inside oil tanks.

A judge on Friday denied a request by defense lawyer James Merson to require the coroner to collect DNA from the necks of the children.

Autopsies have been completed but not released.

The arrest affidavit was sealed at prosecutors request until Monday. After nine felony charges were filed against Watts, a judge granted prosecutors request to unseal it.

Watts faces three first-degree murder charges, two counts of murdering a child, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.

The charges come a week after a friend reported Shanann Watts, 34, and the girls missing.

Before his arrest last week, Christopher Watts lamented in interviews with local television stations about missing his wife and daughters. He spoke in front of their home in Frederick, a small town on the grassy plains north of Denver where fast-growing subdivisions intermingle with drilling rigs and oil wells.

The bodies were found on property owned by Anadarko Petroleum, one of Colorados largest oil and gas drillers, where Watts had worked as an operator. Court documents filed by Merson said the girls had been submerged in crude oil for four days.

The affidavit says Watts gave police an aerial photograph of the area and identified three areas where he placed the bodies. Investigators used a drone to search the area and spotted a bed sheet that matched other linens found in the family home, along with fresh dirt.

Watts is being held without bail and will next appear in court Tuesday.

Family and friends said they were shocked by the slayings, saying the family seemed happy and Christopher Watts appeared to be a good father. The social media accounts for Shanann Watts, who was from North Carolina, are filled with photos of the family smiling and playing and posts praising her husband and expressing excitement about the couple expecting their third child.

But a June 2015 bankruptcy filing captured a picture of a family dealing with financial strain.
Dear Amy: My daughter is two years sober from her heroin addiction, and she lives at home with us. She moved home after hitting rock bottom and finally agreeing to enter recovery.

Recovery has been a difficult process, but it is an extraordinary accomplishment, and we are very proud of her! She deals with anxiety, depression, ADHD, LD, OCD and an eating disorder. She has lost all of her friends, a nice boyfriend and the respect of many family members. Her father and I are all she has left at this point.

The thing is, I cant stand living with her anymore. I actually dislike her much of the time. At certain times of the day, before her meds kick in, she can be a really wretched person, and even on a good day, she can be negative and unpleasant.

We have been to counseling and the National Alliance on Mental Illness but cant find a workable solution for us.

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She is not physically and emotionally able to work more than a part-time job, and we cant afford to support her in her own place. I feel that we are stuck with her forever, and I resent coming home after a long day at work to her in the house!

READ MORE: When did it all begin to fall apart? A sons addiction, and a mothers guilt 

She is my child and I am supposed to love her, but I dont feel any compassion anymore. What to do?

 Frustrated

Dear Frustrated: I wonder if there is a (relatively) inexpensive way you can perhaps modify your home so that you and your spouse have more privacy, while still maintaining a supportive proximity to your daughter. Some drywall and a small kitchen unit (available for less than $1,000) might transform her living space into an efficiency.

Continuing her recovery with a goal of perhaps transitioning to a sober living house might give all of you something to aim for  her drug counselor or therapist could furnish you with additional ideas.

It is vital that you find ways to take care of yourselves during this very stressful caregiving time. Getting together with other caregivers through a friends and family support group like Nar-Anon (nar-anon.org) will connect you with other caregivers who can also offer strategies and support.

Dear Amy: My wife (67) and I (73) have worked and saved long and hard so we could enjoy business-class travel in our retirement. One of the benefits of business-class travel is being able to spend long layovers in the airlines lounge, rather than in a crowded concourse.

Another couple recently decided to join us on a trip to Europe. Even though they have more money than we do, they are so cheap they wont even buy an upgraded economy-class ticket.

Now my wife says we should not use the business-class lounge privileges because our companions are so cheap.

Weve all agreed that we dont need to be joined at the hip on this trip, so why do I need to baby-sit them in a crowded airport when Ive paid good money to use the lounge?

 Minding My Business

Dear Minding: Your friends arent banging on the door of the business lounge, insisting that you let them in. So dont blame them for traveling the way they want to travel.

Your wife might genuinely want to hang out with this other couple. When youre with friends on an adventure, crowded airport terminals dont matter as much.

If skipping this quieter experience means that you are going to be grumpy and unpleasant, then by all means  kick back in the business lounge, and leave the hoi polloi to their noisy pleasures. Tell your wife and friends that youll meet them at the gate.

Dear Amy: Responding to the question from Trying to Mend, regarding the experience of being sexually abused as a child, I am a police detective and have investigated cases of child sexual abuse for many years.

I know from experience that sexually abused children almost never report the abuse until they are adults (if ever), especially if the abuser is a family member. It is typical for them to incorrectly feel that somehow they were to blame for what happened.

I also wanted to share that acting out sexually by being promiscuous, along with other high-risk behaviors, including drug and alcohol abuse starting in puberty, is pretty much textbook behavior for many of these victims.

Your advice to her (or him) was spot-on. Intense self-care and counseling is key.

 Concerned Detective

Dear Concerned: Thank you for your insight, and for your work with survivors.

(You can contact Amy Dickinson via email: askamy@amydickinson.com. Readers may send postal mail to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or like her on Facebook.)

Copyright 2018 by Amy Dickinson

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency

I was the father with a needle in his arm. How I took my life back from heroin. 

Children with addicted parents face difficulties in adulthood, including a higher risk of addiction 
Full containment of the 15-day-old Holy fire will be longer than expected because flames have begun burning into remote areas, officials said Tuesday.

Some of the area that is burning is kind of hard to access and a little harder to get in, said Kevin Ferris, a U.S. Forest Service public affairs employee.

Over 500 firefighters are battling the blaze and officials initially anticipated that full containment would occur on Tuesday. That estimate has been pushed back to Sunday, however.

As of Tuesday, the Holy fire, which has been burning in Orange and Riverside counties, has scorched 22,986 acres and is 91% contained, according to officials.

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Authorities have concluded that the fire was the result of arson.

Meanwhile the Mendocino Complex fire  the largest recorded in California history  continues to burn since it broke out nearly a month ago.

The blaze, made up of the Ranch and River fires, has burned a total of 404,532 acres. The River fire is 100% contained, according to Cal Fire, while the Ranch fire continues to threaten around 1,000 structures and is 74% contained.

The fire continued to burn through steep terrain overnight after new evacuations were ordered Sunday in Lake County, Mendocino County, Colusa County and Glenn County.

Over 600 firefighters are also battling a new fire that broke out Sunday afternoon in the Los Padres National Forest in the Santa Maria area.

The Front fire has burned 900 acres and is 29% contained, according to Inciweb. The cause of that fire is still under investigation.

melissa.etehad@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @melissaetehad
Authorities say the body of a hiker missing since last month has been found in Yosemite National Park.

National Park Service officials announced Monday that the remains of 48-year-old Scott Tenczar, a native of San Jose, were found Saturday in a northeastern area of the park.

The cause of his death remains under investigation.

Tenczar, who was described as an experienced backpacker, was last seen at a ranger station east of Yosemite on July 25.

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His was the second body found in the park in less than a week.

Authorities reported Friday that the body of park ranger John Cogdell, who vanished a few days earlier, had been found. No other details were provided.
Maria Chan woke to a slithering surprise in her home early Saturday.

The Santa Ana resident discovered shortly after 1 a.m. that a 3- to 4-foot-long ball python had set up residence in her storage room.

She screamed for her husband, Francisco Chan, to get out of bed.

Oh my God, a snake is in here! he recalled her yelling.

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He said Tuesday that he wasnt initially convinced a reptile was in the house. He put on his glasses to get a closer look and saw the snake next to some boxes.

I didnt know if it was poisonous, Francisco said. It was a big snake.

Animal control wasnt available, authorities said, so Santa Ana Police Officer Justin Collins responded to the couples home in the 900 block of South Main Street. When he pulled up, Maria frantically rushed him inside, Collins told CBS-TV Channel 2.

I saw it on our board and I knew most of my partners wouldnt want to go out to it, he told the station.

Collins, who has owned snakes since he was 5 years old, is familiar with the non-poisonous species, so he calmly picked it up.

Collins said he called a few animal shelters, but none of them could take the snake, so he took the reptile home until its owner comes forward or space at a shelter becomes available.

Police posted about the incident on social media on Monday, calling it the departments strangest call of the weekend.

It is not clear how the reptile got into the house.

Francisco said Collins reassured him that ball pythons are not dangerous.

He said the snake is a good snake, Francisco said. I said Maybe its good, but can you take it?

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @Hannahnfry
An off-duty Border Patrol agent discovered sleeping with an illegal short-barrel rifle in his pickup earlier this year in Oceanside was placed on three years probation Monday.

Brandon Herrera, 37, who is on administrative leave from the Border Patrol pending an agency review of his employment status in light of his legal troubles, pleaded guilty last month in a Vista courtroom to a felony charge of unlawful possession of an assault weapon.

As part of Herreras plea agreement, other charges he faced, including two counts involving heroin possession, were dropped last month, Deputy District Attorney Eric Tran said.

Herrera was arrested the morning of April 8 outside an apartment complex at Los Arbolitos Boulevard and Fredricks Avenue, Oceanside police spokesman Tom Bussey said around the time of the arrest.

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Officers contacted Herrera because he matched the description of a man in his 30s who was reportedly loitering near a trash bin at the complex less than a week earlier, Bussey said. His Ford pickup also matched the suspects vehicle description.

As officers took him into custody, Herrera identified himself as a Border Patrol agent, Bussey said. While searching his vehicle, officers reportedly found about five grams of suspected heroin and the short-barrel rifle.

Prior to making contact with Herrera, officers did not know the person they were looking for was a federal agent, Bussey said.

The day after Herreras arrest, Border Patrol San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent Rodney Scott said Herrera was placed on administrative leave and had his law enforcement authorities revoked pending the outcome of the investigation.

On Tuesday, a Border Patrol spokeswoman confirmed Herrera was still employed by the agency and still on administrative leave.

The agency is aware of Agent Herreras recent sentencing and is actively reviewing his continued employment as a Border Patrol agent, spokeswoman Tekae Michael said.

City News Service contributed to this report.

Twitter: @Alex_Riggins

(619) 293-1710

alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com

UPDATES:

3:45 p.m. Aug. 21, 2018: This article was updated with information about Herreras employment status with the Border Patrol.

This article was originally published at 5:20 p.m. on Aug. 20, 2018.
A Vista judge on Monday agreed to slash the high bail faced by a sheriffs deputy accused of sexual misconduct-related charges involving 16 women, including one who has accused him of assault.

Deputy Richard Fischer has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is on unpaid leave while the matter is pending in Superior Court.

Technically, there are two cases  one involving 13 women, and a second case, filed last week, involving three more accusers. Fischer was out on $100,000 bail when he was re-arrested last week and jailed in lieu of $2 million bail.

The 32-year-old deputy posted bond Friday and was released from custody. On Monday, Superior Court Judge Daniel Goldstein agreed to cut his bail in the new case to $750,000.

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Goldstein also ordered that Fischer be required to wear a GPS device that will be placed on him later this week.

In making his decision, the judge noted the seriousness of the charges, but also that Fischer has attended all previous court hearings, and that he has not had any contact with his accusers.

Prosecutors wanted the bail kept high, citing the serious nature of the allegations. The new case includes a charge that Fischer forced a woman to perform a sex act in spring 2017  by far the most serious accusation against him.

Fischers defense attorney wanted the bail lowered to $210,000  in line with standard bail in such cases. Defense attorney Manny Medrano called the charges baseless, and said they do not lend themselves to a $2 million bail.

The new charges  to which he pleaded not guilty to on Monday  carry a maximum sentence of 10 years, eight months.

That is on top of the 14 years, eight months that the deputy faces if convicted on criminal charges  nine felonies and six misdemeanors  in the case prosecutors filed earlier this year.

Many of those charges in the older case relate to assault and battery under the color of authority; his accusers said he fondled or groped them while he was on duty.

The case has made headlines dating back to the fall of last year, when a woman sued the Sheriffs Department, alleging that the deputy had groped her.

More women came forward. Of the 16 accusers in the criminal case, 15 have filed civil suits against Fischer and the county. Others have filed civil suits, but are not part of the criminal case.

In court Monday, Goldstein also took a few minutes to rein in the high-profile case, strongly suggesting the attorneys to watch their comments outside of the courtroom.

He also noted I wont hesitate to move the trial to a different county, to ensure that the defendant gets a fair trial.

He also agreed  at the request of Fischers attorney  to talk to attorneys involved in the civil suit. That may happen at a hearing scheduled for Sept. 11.
An open government group is suing the California Public Employees Retirement System, saying it has failed to disclose records that should be public about benefit recipients.

The Nevada Policy Research Institute, which operates the website Transparent California, filed suit Friday in California Superior Court, accusing the pension system of violating state law by withholding information about the type of benefits retirees receive.

Such data, the suit alleges, is necessary to safeguard pension systems from waste, fraud and abuse.

The problem of disability fraud has plagued Californias public pension systems for decades, costing taxpayers untold millions, the group said in a news release. Yet the fund, which manages over $300 billion in assets and receives nearly $20 billion annually from California taxpayers and public employees, has inexplicably refused to disclose the very information necessary to identify such cases of potential abuse.

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Transparent California is the states largest and most comprehensive public pay and pension database. It collects compensation data under the California Public Records Act and regularly publishes the information for public review. Since its inception, it has published data on more than 2.4 million public employees from at least 2,000 agencies throughout the state.

According to court records, the group requested in December 2016 records that would identify the amount and type of benefits being received by each retiree, as well as other data points.

The pension system, also known as CalPERS, provided a report in July 2017 that contained most of the information but repeatedly denied Transparent Californias request for records documenting benefit types, such as service, disability and industrial disability.

CalPERS said records that show whether a member has retired for disability are confidential and are exempt from disclosure, adding that releasing the information would be an unwarranted invasion of privacy, court records show.

Amy Morgan, a CalPERS spokeswoman, said the pension system is declining to comment at this time.

The states public records law says access to information about the conduct of government business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person, but not all government information is public. The law offers exemptions for records such as personnel files, police investigative records and medical records. These exceptions should be applied narrowly and be strictly limited, the law states.

The lawsuit argues that CalPERS argument is moot, since the request seeks the type of retirement benefit, not copies of pensioners medical records or personnel files. The benefit type also reflects a governmental decision, as opposed to personal details provided by pension members or beneficiaries, and should be disclosed under the states public records law.

Its highly unlikely CalPERS actually believes providing the one-word designation of the type of benefit received by its members is equivalent to providing a copy of their medical records, said Transparent California executive director Robert Fellner. Instead, CalPERS is exploiting the lack of any penalties for governments who unlawfully withhold public records, secure in the knowledge that taxpayers will be the ones required to pay all legal fees incurred.

Data show at least 23 local and state pension systems, including the San Diego County Employees Retirement Association, the Los Angeles County Pension, the Imperial County Employees Retirement and the California State Teachers Retirement System, provide benefit type information when requested.

According to the lawsuit, CalPERS already calls on the public to assist in reporting cases of disability fraud. A recent tip to its hotline led to criminal charges, and CalPERS general counsel Matthew Jacobs touted the incident as a success.

This case demonstrates the great value of the publics assistance in CalPERS efforts to protect the state pension system from fraud, waste and abuse, Jacobs said in a November 2016 press release. Here, a simple voice message to our disability fraud tip line led to a criminal case and the systems eventual recovery of a substantial amount of money. We continue to encourage the public to assist us in this manner.

The Nevada institute behind Transparent California is a non-partisan think tank that focuses on, among other things, empowering citizens and elected officials with information they need to make informed public policy decisions.

CalPERS is the nations largest pension fund, according to its website. It serves more than 1.9 million members in the retirement system and 1.4 million members and their families in its health program. Nearly 3,000 employers participate in the retirement program and its public employees retirement fund pays out an annual $21.4 billion in benefits.

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Contact Lauryn Schroeder via Twitter or Email.
Though the overall trajectory is up, Covered California premiums for the 116,149 Covered California policyholders in San Diego County will bounce all over the place next year, according to a new rate book recently released by the states health insurance exchange.

After announcing in July that the statewide average premium increase for 2019 will be 8.7 percent, the plan purveyor followed up late last week with a more specific breakdown, publishing detailed information on which carriers will increase their premiums the most during open enrollment, which runs from Oct. 15 through Jan. 15 for the 1.4 million Californians who are currently covered.

Health insurance companies scrambled this summer to account for a big change brewing in the individual health insurance market next year. For the first time since Affordable Care Act plans became available in 2014, Americans will no longer face financial penalties in 2019 if they go without coverage due to the Trump administrations scrapping of the ACAs individual mandate last year.

The coming rate changes are all over the map.

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Sharp Health Plans Covered California policyholders, for example, face average premium increases of 12 percent or 24 percent in 2019, depending on which doctor network theyve selected. But those are just averages. Some Sharp premiums will grow by a massive 32 percent while others will decrease by 4.7 percent. Health Net is increasing some of its plans by nearly 20 percent while raising others by less 1 percent.

This fluctuation, explained Cynthia Cox, a program director for the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, is largely due to decisions made in 2017 after the administration announced that it planned to do away with the individual mandate next year.

This time last year, when insurers were having to set their rates for 2018, there were a lot of questions about whether they would enforce the individual mandate this year. I think insurers were having to make a lot of guesses. Some guessed high and some guessed low, Cox said.

This year, she added, information is more certain, and, to some extent, the increases and decreases listed in Covered Californias new rate booklet reflect insurers correcting their guesses from last year.

Some plans are significantly overpriced, and theyre dropping their rates while its the opposite scenario for others, Cox said.

Thats definitely the case for San Diegos only homegrown Covered California carrier.

The ACA requires all health exchanges to sell plans in four metal tiers from bronze and silver to gold and platinum. Each tier pays an additional 10 percent of overall healthcare costs with bronze at 60 percent and platinum at 90 percent.

Melissa Hayden-Cook, chief executive of Sharp Health Plan, said the largest increases, those greater than 30 percent, are for the bronze plans that her organization offers on the exchange. Last year, she said, Sharps bronze plans were priced about 50 percent lower than other competitors but actuaries estimate that a behind-the-scenes risk-sharing program will cause the company to make payments to other carriers likely to serve riskier patients next year.

Even with this adjustment, were still not going to have the highest premiums in the bronze tier. Were really just trying to establish a sustainable rate, Hayden-Cook said.

She said that Sharps silver-through-platinum tier plans, which each pay a progressively-larger percentage of patients medical bills, will increase only 2.1 percent on average. Silver plan premiums will decrease by nearly 5 percent.

Health insurance premiums are complicated because they vary not just by carrier but also by the age of each person being covered. Covered California runs a special plan shopping website at coveredca.com which allows anyone to enter their information and receive a quote for each carrier available in their area. However, 2019 rates wont be loaded into the shopping tool until October.

Those who just need to know their 2019 rates now, and who are skilled with a spreadsheet, can download the information from Covered California and follow instructions to calculate what theyll pay if they stick with the same coverage for next year. The spreadsheet can be found at bit.ly/COCA2019.

Its important to understand that the raw rates available now do not include the generous subsidies that the ACA provides for individuals and households earning between 138 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level.

Next year, those percentages translate to an annual income of $16,754 to $48,560 for an individual and between $34,638 and $100,400 for a family of four. As of March, 88 percent of Covered California customers received federal subsidies that significantly lowered their monthly premiums, but these savings are not taken into account in the unsubsidized rate tables released last week.

Because ACA subsidies cap an individual or familys maximum premium payment, many will not see much increase in their monthly bills even if their plan increases premiums by double digits. As it has in previous years, those who make enough that they dont qualify for a subsidy will feel the full sting of rate increases.

The states overall rate increase of just 9 percent, Cox said, is lower than some might have predicted when it became clear that the governments mandate to buy insurance or pay a penalty is going away next year.

While other states have seen larger average premium increases, Cox said the sheer size of the Covered California marketplace has kept price hikes toward the lower end of the nationwide range. And, she added, insurance companies have started to realize that its probably the subsidies, rather than the penalties, that were driving enrollment, so actuaries arent freaking out about the mandate going away as much as some suspected they might.

Craig Gussin, a Carlsbad-based insurance broker, said he has seen more interest in the carrot than the stick year after year.

Its almost always about the subsidy. Ive only ever heard one or two people buy Covered California plans because theyre afraid of the penalty, Gussin said.

He added that 2019 rates for group plans offered by companies have, so far, been relatively stable with increases ranging from 0 percent to 6 percent.

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paul.sisson@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1850

Twitter: @paulsisson
Many unauthorized immigrants who came to the U.S. as children think at least daily about getting deported from the U.S., a new study finds.

The study, published by the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, is the third in a series of surveys of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipients by UC San Diego professor Tom Wong, who worked as adviser to the White House under the Obama administration. Wong found that 55 percent of more than 1,000 DACA recipients surveyed said they think about being deported from the U.S. at least once per day.

Just over 11 percent said they never think about being deported.

More recipients, about 64 percent of those surveyed, said they think about a family member being deported from the U.S. at least daily. Just under 11 percent said they never think about that.

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The Trump administration ended the Obama-era program almost one year ago. While many members of Congress at first promised action on the issue, legislators have found themselves once again in a stalemate over immigration policy.

Since then, DACA recipients and state attorneys general have waged court battles with the federal government and with each other over the future of the program.

Several federal judges have ordered the government to keep accepting DACA permit renewals as the cases move forward. A Washington, D.C., judge had ordered that the government begin accepting first-time applications but put that decision on hold on Friday.

A federal judge in Texas heard arguments in early August from states that oppose DACA and seek to end the program. That judge has not yet issued a decision on the states request for a preliminary block on the program.

If the Texas judge sides with the states, that might escalate the conflicting orders from different circuits to the Supreme Court.

More than 70 percent of the DACA recipients who answered the survey said that they have a parent, sibling, spouse or child who is a U.S. citizen.

For the 233 parents who responded to the survey, about 76 percent think about being separated from their children at least one time a day. Just under 6 percent never thought about it.

Almost as many, at about 73 percent, said they think about not being able to see their children grow up because of deportation. Close to 9 percent said they never thought about that.

Just under a third of DACA recipients who responded to the survey live in California.

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kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com, @bgirledukate on Twitter
Paul Manafort, the longtime political operative who for months led Donald Trumps successful presidential campaign, was found guilty of eight financial crimes Tuesday in the first trial victory of the special counsel investigation into the presidents associates.

A judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts the jury could not agree on.

The verdict was part of a stunning one-two punch of bad news for the White House, coming as the presidents former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty in New York to campaign finance charges arising from hush money payments made to two women who say they had sexual relationships with Trump.

The jury returned the decision after deliberating four days on tax and bank fraud charges against Manafort, who led Trumps election effort during a crucial stretch of 2016, including as he clinched the Republican nomination and during the partys convention.

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Manafort, who appeared jovial earlier in the day amid signs the jury was struggling in its deliberations, focused intently on the jury as the clerk read off the charges. He stared down blankly at the defense table, then looked up, expressionless, as the judge finished thanking the jury.

Mr. Manafort is disappointed of not getting acquittals all the way through or a complete hung jury on all counts, said defense lawyer Kevin Downing. He said Manafort was evaluating all his options.

The jury found Manafort guilty of five counts of filing false tax returns on tens of millions of dollars in Ukrainian political consulting income. He was also convicted of failing to report foreign bank accounts in 2012 and of two bank fraud charges that accused him of lying to obtain millions of dollars in loans after his consulting income dried up.

The jury couldnt reach a verdict on three other foreign bank account charges, and the remaining bank fraud and conspiracy counts.

The outcome, though not the across-the-board guilty verdicts prosecutors sought, almost certainly guarantees years of prison for Manafort. It also appears to vindicate the ability of special counsel Robert Muellers team to secure convictions from a jury of average citizens despite months of partisan attacks, including from Trump, on the investigations integrity.

The verdict also raised immediate questions of whether the president would seek to pardon Manafort, the lone American charged by Mueller to opt for trial instead of cooperate. The president has not revealed his thinking but spoke sympathetically throughout the trial of his onetime aide, at one point suggesting he had been treated worse than gangster Al Capone.

The president Tuesday called the outcome a disgrace and said the case has nothing to do with Russia collusion.

The trial did not resolve the central question behind Muellers investigation  whether Trump associates coordinated with Russia to influence the election. Still, there were occasional references to Manaforts work on the campaign, including emails showing him lobbying Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner on behalf of a banker who approved $16 million in loans because he wanted a job in the Trump administration.

Manafort urged Kushner to consider the banker, Stephen Calk, for Secretary of the Army. Though Kushner responded to Manaforts email by saying, On it! Calk ultimately did not get an administration post.

For the most part, jurors heard detailed and sometimes tedious testimony about Manaforts finances and what prosecutors allege was a years-long tax-evasion and fraud scheme.

Manafort decided not to put on any witnesses or testify himself. His attorneys said he made the decision because he didnt believe the government had met its burden of proof.

His defense team attempted to make the case about the credibility of longtime Manafort protege Rick Gates, attacking the governments star witness as a liar, embezzler and instigator of any crimes as they tried to convince jurors that Manafort didnt willfully violate the law.

Gates spent three days on the stand, telling jurors how he committed crimes alongside Manafort for years. He admitted to doctoring documents, falsifying information and creating fake loans to lower his former boss tax bill, and also acknowledged stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars without Manaforts knowledge by filing fake expense reports.

Beyond the testimony, prosecutors used emails and other documents to try to prove that Manafort concealed from the IRS, in offshore accounts, millions of dollars in Ukrainian political consulting feeds. Overall, they said, he avoided paying more than $16 million in taxes.

Central to the governments case were depictions of an opulent lifestyle, including a $15,000 ostrich jacket, luxury suits and elaborate real estate that prosecutors say was funded through offshore wire transfers from shell companies in Cyprus and elsewhere.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III repeatedly grew impatient with prosecutors as they sought to demonstrate Manaforts garish tendencies. The clashes between the judge and the prosecutor became a sideshow of sorts during the weeks-long trial, with the judge at one point appearing to acknowledge that he had erroneously scolded them.

After the trial, Ellis complimented lawyers on both sides for zealous and effective representation. He also remarked on his surprise at the level of attention the case has received and the criticism he received for his management of the trial.

We all take brickbats in life, Ellis said.

The trial in Alexandria, Virginia, is the first of two for Manafort. He faces a trial later this year in the District of Columbia on charges of conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, making false statements and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Ukrainian interests. He is also accused of witness tampering in that case.

Associated Press writers Stephen Braun and Jeff Horwitz contributed to this report.
The last known former Nazi camp guard living in the United States was deported to Germany, an action that the White House trumpeted Tuesday in an apparent effort to show its harsh immigration enforcement policies are not just aimed at migrants on the border.

The Justice Department said that Jakiw Palij, 95, was an armed guard at a Nazi death camp in Poland during World War II, and that he helped oversee the murder of thousands of prisoners during the Holocaust, including 6,000 Jews on a single day in 1943.

Palij emigrated to New York in 1949 and became a U.S. citizen in 1957 after lying about his role in Nazi atrocities, according to the Justice Department. In 2001, however, he admitted lying about his past and was stripped of his citizenship and ordered deported in 2004. Removal efforts stalled because he was effectively stateless and Germany, Poland and Ukraine refused to take him in.

On Monday, TV cameras were on hand in Queens, N.Y., as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wheeled Palij, who was bearded and wearing a cap, out of his brick home on a gurney. He said nothing to reporters and later was put on a plane to Dusseldorf.

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Palij, who was born in what is now Ukraine, is the 68th former Nazi to be stripped of U.S. citizenship and deported since the late 1970s, according to the Justice Department. Several of those identified could not be deported because no country would accept them, and several died while awaiting deportation.

Eli Rosenbaum, a Justice Department official who oversees the U.S. hunt for former Nazis, said the Palij case sends yet another message of deterrence to war criminals.

The passage of time  even many decades  will never weaken our governments resolve, he said. He described Palij as the last person in the U.S. who was under a court order of removal on the basis of his participation in Nazi acts.

People pass by the residence of Nazi war crimes suspect Jakiw Palij in the Queens borough of New York on Tuesday. (Craig Ruttle / Associated Press)

Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) tweeted his approval for the deportation: Nazi prison guards have no place in the USA. We must stand firmly against hate, anti-Semitism and bigotry in all its forms. Good riddance to this war criminal.

The case inevitably had political ramifications since Palij was arrested the same day that Trump hailed ICE agents as heroes at the White House, and celebrated their efforts to deport undocumented migrants from Latin America, as he also demonized Democrats.

In its statement, the White House took credit for finally expediting Palijs deportation, which came after weeks of negotiations between the U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, and German officials.

Despite a court ordering his deportation in 2004, past administrations were unsuccessful in removing Palij. To protect the promise of freedom for Holocaust survivors and their families, President Trump prioritized the removal of Palij, it said.

Jakiw Palij in 1957. (U.S. Department of Justice)

Grennell, speaking on a conference call organized by the White House, also praised Germany, which was under no obligation to take Palij in. They saw this as a moral obligation, not so much a legal obligation, he said.

U.S. officials did not demand that Germany commit to taking legal action against him, officials said.

Palij was little known compared to John Demjanjuk, a former guard at the Treblinka concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland whose case made headlines for years.

Demjanjuk was deported from the U.S. but he returned after his 1988 conviction in Germany and Israel for crimes against humanity was overturned by an Israeli court. He was deported again in 2009 to be tried in Munich, where he was found guilty. He died in 2012 while his case was being appealed.

Palij was an armed guard at Treblinka on Nov. 3, 1943, when 6,000 Jewish children, women and men were shot to death in one of the biggest single massacres of the war, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Jewish laborers were brought in to burn and bury the corpses, after which they, too, were shot and incinerated.

The latest from Washington 

eli.stokols@latimes.com

@EliStokols

UPDATES:

12:00 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with staff reporting.

7:40 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details about the deportation and about Jakiw Palijs life.

This article was originally published at 1:25 a.m.
Five days after Superior Court Judge Ronald L. Styn ordered San Diego County to place a disputed citizens initiative regarding elections on the November ballot  rather than waiting until 2020  the countys attorneys filed an emergency request with the 4th District Court of Appeal to overturn the order.

Appellate judges rejected the petition this past Friday, and voters will decide the matter in November. Under the proposal, candidates for county office would stand for run-off elections in the fall regardless of the outcome of the spring primary election.

Under the current system, candidates who win more than 50 percent of the vote can win outright in the spring without proceeding to a fall runoff election  which happened in the races for district attorney and sheriff this past June.

Proponents of the measure, including labor and other Democrat-leaning groups, say it will allow the higher-turnout fall election to be the decisive one. They say that would increase voter engagement.

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The countys Board of Supervisors is made up of five Republicans  the party seen as having an advantage in lower-turnout primary elections. The countys legal maneuver to ask an appellate court to overturn Styns order was disclosed only after supervisors called a special meeting Monday to debate the lawsuit in closed session  and then reported their action as required by law.

By unanimous vote, supervisors ratified County Counsels decision to file a writ petition seeking emergency relief with the California Court of Appeal challenging the Superior Courts decision to place an election law initiative on the ballot, the clerk of the board reported.

Supervisors also instructed County Counsel to refrain from appealing the Superior Courts decision, the readout said.

The announcement raises questions about why county lawyers filed an emergency petition with the appeals court without first securing approval from elected officials  and county officials would not say.

A writ was filed seeking emergency relief (not an appeal) and it was ratified this morning, county spokesman Michael Workman wrote in an email. The board also instructed counsel not to appeal.

Pressed on why the county counsel approached the appeals court without direction from supervisors, Workman brought up a rival measure proposed by the supervisors themselves, which would would still have allowed candidates to win outright in primary elections. Workman said the Superior Court ruling did not reconcile the two proposals.

The Board of Supervisors in open session consolidated the two measures as one item with the intent that both measures be placed on the same ballot, he wrote in a follow-up email. The judges ruling was inconsistent with this intent. Because the timing in this case was critical, the writ for emergency relief was filed. That action was ratified (by the board) this morning.

Kyra R. Greene, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, said she was not surprised the case was presented to an appeals court without specific direction from supervisors.

This is how the county board has operated for 20 years, as if they can make up their own rules with no accountability, she said in a statement. We are very pleased Measure D will be on the ballot this November and voters will have the chance to reform our county elections.

Measure D, which was dubbed the Full Voter Participation Act when supporters were collecting more than 80,000 signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot, has been political from the start.

The main backers of the measure were union members trying to improve their chances of electing Democrats to the county board, which has been dominated by Republicans since the 1990s.

For years, Republican incumbents and candidates across the county government have won their seats in primary elections, when fewer people cast ballots. Measure D requires those races to be re-contested in general elections, when more Democrats show up to vote.

Board Chairwoman Kristin Gaspar will face re-election in 2020 and could be directly affected by the measure. Her office did not return an email seeking comment about the closed-door meeting Monday.

Almost as soon as it qualified, county officials sought to delay the measure past the 2018 ballot.

Last month, rather than schedule the initiative for this November, the Board of Supervisors opted to study its impact  a review that would take at least 30 days and effectively push past the deadline to make the November ballot.

On July 27, a group of supporters filed a Superior Court complaint aimed at forcing the measure onto the 2018 ballot.

After a hearing Aug. 10, Judge Styn agreed with the plaintiffs and directed Registrar of Voters Michael Vu to place the measure before voters this year. Then, this past Wednesday, the county filed its emergency petition with the 4th District Court of Appeal, which was rejected Friday.

David Snyder of the First Amendment Coalition, an open-government nonprofit group, said it would be unusual for government lawyers to proceed with litigation without formal approval from an elected body.

Its possible the board gives unfettered discretion to county counsel to do whatever it wants, but that doesnt seem like a very sound approach from a policy perspective, he said by telephone. If they did give direction to the county counsel and they did by some vote, the question is when did they do that? Did they notify the public?

The lawsuit was filed July 27. The board met Aug. 7 and Aug. 8 but did not meet in closed session to discuss the case. The case first appeared on a public agenda for closed-session discussion on Monday.

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A 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard recently deported to Germany after living in Queens for years served at a slave labor camp in Trawniki, where thousands of prisoners held in Poland were massacred during the second World War.

Jakiw Palij was carried out of his New York apartment Monday morning and removed from the country  more than a decade after he was stripped of his United States citizenship in 2003 for participating in acts against Jewish civilians while he served as an armed guard at the SS camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

At the end of 1941, a former sugar plant in the village of Trawniki  located about 25 miles south of Lubin  was converted into a training facility and labor camp for Soviet and Polish prisoners of war. Most them died as a result of poor living conditions while others were murdered. Those that remained continued to train at the old sugar factory and would go on to serve in the SS, undertaking such work as guarding the ghettos, transport duty or taking the Jews to the Death camps, according to the Holocaust Research Project.

By the following spring, Trawniki had become a transit camp for local Jews. Several hundred incapable of working in the nearby town of Piaski, located about six miles away, were scheduled for deportation to the Belzec killing center. They were held in a barn-like structure beforehand, where as many as 500 people suffocated.

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During February 1943, the German firm Schultz, a fur and brushes production business, was relocated from the Warsaw ghetto to Trawniki, along with its Jewish workers. Initially, the SS encouraged those who worked at the firm to move voluntarily, but Schultz was only able to persuade less than half of his 1,500 workers to do so.

Losing patience, the SS decided to liquidate the Warsaw ghetto. At 3:00 a.m. in the morning of April 19, 1943, SS and police units, including a battalion of 350 Trawniki-trained guards, sealed off the ghetto, sparking the Warsaw ghetto uprising, according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia.

A photo taken in 1957 shows Jakiw Palij, who reportedly served during 1943 as an armed guard at the SS slave-labor camp of Trawniki in Nazi-occupied Poland. (- / AFP/Getty Images)

Between Feb. 15 and April 30, nearly 3,000 men, an estimated 2,500 women and almost 400 children were removed from Warsaw and taken to the Trawniki camp. By May, nearly 6,000 Jews, most of them Polish, resided there.

Following an October 1943 uprising at Sobibor  where an estimated 250,000 Jews were murdered  officials at Trawniki opted to liquidate the camp out of fear of future rebellions. On an early November morning, Jews at the center were driven from their barracks in groups and forced to undress, put their clothes in a huge heap and enter a trench, where they were shot, according to the Holocaust Research Project. Those who arrived subsequently were forced to lie on the corpses that had been shot before.

By the end of the afternoon, everyone residing at Trawniki and other nearby camps had been murdered.

Palij trained and then worked as an armed guard at the Nazi camp the same year the brutal massacre occurred and then in the SS Streibel Battalion, a unit whose function was to round up and guard thousands of Polish civilian forced laborers, according to the Justice Department.

He has admitted to serving in Trawniki but has denied any involvement in war crimes.

Palij initially entered the United States in 1949 under the Displaced Persons Act  a law intended to help refugees from Europe  and remained under the radar until investigators uncovered his name on a Nazi roster nearly 25 years ago.

German investigators have previously said there is not enough evidence to charge Palij, but the head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center said he hopes officials opt to revisit the case.

Trawniki was a camp where people were trained to round up and murder the Jews in Poland, Efraim Zuroff told The Associated Press from Jerusalem, so theres certainly a basis for some sort of prosecution.
Gute riddance!

A former Nazi concentration camp guard living in Queens for decades has finally been booted from the country and sent back to Germany.

Jakiw Palij, 95, arrived in the city of Dusseldorf Tuesday morning, capping a 14-year-struggle to uproot him from U.S. soil and drawing cheers from his former neighbors in Jackson Heights.

To know that were finally rid of him, its good news. said Shari Anne Brill, who strolled over to Palijs two-story red brick home to see for herself that he was gone.

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I couldnt even walk on this side of the street, Brill added. It just made me ill.

Palij served as an armed guard at a death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland where more than 6,000 Jews were massacred on a single day in 1943, officials said.

The former Third Reich henchman also admitted to U.S. officials that he had earlier trained at the Nazi SS training camp in Trawniki.

By serving as an armed guard at the Trawniki Labor Camp and preventing the escape of Jewish prisoners during his Nazi service, Palij played an indispensable role in ensuring that the Trawniki Jewish victims met their horrific fate at the hands of the Nazis, said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Palij slipped into the U.S. in 1949, telling immigration officials that he was working on his fathers farm during World War II. He became a citizen in 1957.

Jakiw Palij, 84, whose about to be deported out of United States because he was a member of the Nazi party during World War II, stands outside his home in Queens in 2006. (Anthony Delmundo for New York Daily News)

He and his wife Maria bought their home near LaGuardia Airport in 1966 from a Polish Jewish couple who had survived the Holocaust. The sellers were not aware of Palijs past.

But his dark secret was discovered in 1993 when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard revealed Palij was living somewhere in America.

A federal judge ordered Palij deported in 2004, but U.S. officials struggled to find a country willing to take him.

Palij is not a German citizen  he was born in a region of Poland that is now part of Ukraine  and neither of those nations agreed to accept him.

Long Island yeshiva students began holding annual protests outside Palijs home on 89th St. near Northern Blvd. The Daily News published a cover story on Palij last year, calling him the Nazi next door.

New York Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer quickly moved to rally their fellow Empire State members of Congress to pen a letter to the State Department demanding Palijs removal.

Booting him from the country was marked as an early priority of the Trump administration. With steady prodding from U.S. officials, Germany eventually agreed to accept the elderly, white-bearded former death camp guard.

ICE agents and medical staff descended on the home Monday, carrying him out on a stretcher. Palij appeared frail, with missing front teeth and his hands folded on his stomach, video shot by ABC News shows.

Palij was living alone. His wife had passed away in recent years.

He was whisked to a chartered air ambulance at New Jerseys Teterboro Airport. The plane took off Monday night and landed about 2 a.m.Tuesday.

This is landmark victory in a decades-long quest to get a measure of justice and accountability on behalf of the victims of Nazi inhumanity, said Eli Rosenbaum, the nations top Nazi hunter who directs a special Justice Department investigation unit. On Nov. 3, 1943 in a daylong killing spree, an estimated 6,000 human beings of Jewish descent were systematically shot to death. Nearly 75 years after this genocidal mass murder which (Palij) ensured that no Jews would escape, he was returned to Germany.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents removed 95-year-old Jakiw Palij from his Queens, New York, home on Monday. (ABC)

Gillibrand credited The News with leading the ultimately successful charge to boot the Nazi war criminal from the country.

The Daily News was instrumental and relentless in focusing on the imperative to justice to remove Mr. Palij from our country, she said.

Schumer echoed those sentiments. The Daily News intense advocacy and relentless focus on this case made all the difference, and shows the value of an active and vigilant free press, he said.

Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, said a sea change in the countrys cabinet helped ensure that Palij was finally returned to Europe.

The new members of the cabinet here in Germany saw this as a moral obligation, added Grenell who played a leading role in making the case to the Germans. They had not so much of a legal obligation to take him, because he is not a German citizen. The moral obligation was that this individual served the German government and the new cabinet members accepted that.

Grenell said President Trump told him to make Palijs deportation a priority.

I dont know how he learned of the case. He knew this individual as a Nazi guard and wanted him out of the U.S., Grenell said. President Trump sees this as a strong message that the U.S. stands firmly against anti-Semitism, war crimes and human rights violations.

Palij had entered the U.S. under the Displaced Persons Act, a law meant to help refugees from Europe.

I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied, he told Justice Department investigators in 1993.

He has admitted serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

The head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center said he hoped prosecutors would revisit the case. German prosecutors had previously said there was not enough evidence to charge Palij.

Trawniki was a camp where people were trained to round up and murder the Jews in Poland, so theres certainly a basis for some sort of prosecution, Efraim Zuroff told The Associated Press from Jerusalem. The efforts invested by the United States in getting Palij deported are really noteworthy and Im very happy to see that they finally met with success.

Rosenbaum said pressure by the Daily News and other media outlets helped keep the story alive in the minds of Congress and other national leaders, who continually pushed for Palijs deportation.

(They) helped ensure that the public never for got this case and the executive branch never forgot the case so justice was finally done, Rosenbaum said.

With News Wire Services
After a feverish summer debate, state lawmakers made clear last week that they arent going to heed Gov. Jerry Brown and insulate the states three giant investor-owned utilities from liabilities for wildfires that started because of their equipment.

Even so, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric have reason to be heartened. After years of utility scandals, it seemed unlikely their arguments would gain a foothold in Sacramento. Yet their view  that its unfair that they should face huge bills if the equipment blamed for fires was properly maintained  was taken seriously and is sure to resurface.

As The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board has written repeatedly, any steps to reduce utilities liability risks must be taken carefully, if at all, so as not to encourage corner-cutting on safety. In this dry, hot-and-getting-hotter era in the West, we realize state leaders may need to consider basic changes in how they assess blame for the giant wildfires seen every year. But we also believe utilities that want to maintain public goodwill and an image of operating in good faith should not keep trying to shift the cost of wildfires that demonstrably were their fault from shareholders to ratepayers.

As the Union-Tribune reported Friday, that is what SDG&E keeps trying to do with $379 million in leftover costs from three 2007 wildfires that cut a destructive swath through San Diego County. Utility officials continue to insist they bear no responsibility for the Witch, Guejito and Rice fires, which killed two people and destroyed 1,300-plus homes.

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But the truth is that in 2008, investigators for two different state agencies concluded SDG&E was responsible for the Witch and Rice blazes, citing a failure to keep vegetation and tree limbs clear of power lines. Authorities also rejected SDG&Es claim that winds during the fires were so exceptional that they couldnt have been anticipated.

This background is why last year, two CPUC administrative law judges recommended the agency reject SDG&Es bid to pass along the $379 million to ratepayers. Subsequently, the CPUC board voted unanimously to approve this recommendation.

Now SDG&E is appealing this ruling to a state appeals court, alleging that the commission failed to follow its own legal standards for assessing the reasonableness and prudence of utility management decisions. In other words, the utility says it knows CPUC rules better than the agencys own lawyers. Feel free to groan and then groan again.

Because of the high stakes, SDG&E is likely to keep appealing until it has exhausted its appeals. But the utilitys refusal to accept the conclusions of outside investigators about the events of 2007 has a downside that its executives dont seem to grasp: This makes SDG&E seem like it cant be trusted  at a time when it is promising it can be trusted to keep its power lines safe even if it faces a lower risk of liability for wildfires. SDG&E has taken serious steps to keep residents safer since wildfires roared through San Diego a decade ago. But its continued appeals will  and should  be remembered in future discussions of changing liability standards.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

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Re Housing crisis prompts San Diego to pursue inclusionary legislation opposed by developers (Aug. 18): Local governments require builders and developers to mitigate the impacts their projects cause, which seems fair. However, I fail to see how builders have caused the affordability crisis when, in fact, they are due in large part because of failed government policies. This is analogous to forcing those who are about to be hanged to buy their own rope.

I know of no other industry that is forced to sell a portion of its product below cost. If we as a society believe affordable housing is necessary then society should pay for it. Inclusionary housing will result in less, not more, of both market and affordable homes.

Steve Delva

Poway

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Richard Jensens letter Its time to pay for the cost of Proposition 13 (Aug.18) blames most of Californias problems (student debt, a poorly performing school system, the inability of younger folks to buy a house, etc.) on Proposition 13. Meanwhile, less than three column inches above his letter, your editorial (Pension red ink driving tax-hike fervor) points out Californias overall high tax rates and states that even with Proposition 13, California has property taxes that are above average compared to other states.

Proposition 13 is not the problem, the problem is the governments mismanagement of the vast sums of money we send it.

Jensen also states that Proposition 13 was to freeze tax increases while it actually only limited those increases. My home property taxes have increased 64 percent over the years, hardly a freeze. As a retiree on a fixed income I shudder to think what that increase would be without the protection of Proposition 13.

William Hogue

Lakeside

Letters and commentary policy

The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below.

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Cyber attacks in the run up to the November 2018 elections are gaining a spotlight with hackers targeting at least four Democratic candidates running for Congress in the U.S., so far, including two in California.

Only one cyberattack has been tied to Russians, but based on reporting done by major news outlets like Reuters, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast and CNN the cyber attacks pay resemblance to hacking done to Hillary Clintons campaign in 2016.

Here is a running list of those 2018 midterm election candidates who have been targeted in cyber attacks so far:

David Min, House of Representatives candidate in California

Reuters on Friday reported that hackers successfully gained access to a computer belonging to the campaign of David Min, a Democratic candidate running for House of Representatives in the 45th district. Reuters cited sources inside his campaign confirming that the FBI was investigating.

CNN also cited sources of its own to report on the same story.

It remains unclear who was behind the attack, what information was stolen or why such an attack was carried out. Revelations of the hacking come more than two months after Min lost in Californias June primary election. He came in with almost 30,000 votes  third behind Democratic candidate Katie Porter and Republican incumbent Rep. Mimi Walters.

Hans Keirstead, House of Representatives candidate in California

Rolling Stone reported last week FBI agents investigated a series of cyber attacks targeting the political campaign of Dr. Hans Keirstead, a stem-cell scientists and Democratic candidate running for the House of Representatives in the 48th district.

Like Min, Keristead also finished third behind Democratic candidate Harley Rouda and Republican incumbent Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. And, again like Min, it was left unclear who carried out the cyber attacks.

His campaign manager, Kyle Quinn-Quesada, told Rolling Stone that the cyberattacks were not unique and that they have become the new normal for political campaigns in 2018. Quinn-Quesada says the cyber attacks did not affect the election results in the June primary race.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri

Cyber attacks targeting the campaign of Sen. Clair McCaskill, D-Missouri, became the first high-profile hacking case in the 2018 elections as revealed in reporting done by The Daily Beast in late July. McCaskill subsequently confirmed that her staff was targeted by Russian hackers.

Tactics used to attempt to steal passwords resembled those used against John Podesta, Clintons campaign chairman, in 2016. But, McCaskill said, the hackers did not succeed.

In confirming the attack, McCaskill pointed the finger at Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Russia continues to engage in cyber warfare against our democracy. I will continue to speak out and press to hold them accountable. While this attack was not successful, it is outrageous that they think they can get away with this, she said.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire

Though she is not a candidate in this years midterm elections, the office of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, has been the target of phishing and hoax emails, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported in early August.

Shaheen told the paper that the hacking attempts were not successful and that the FBI and Senate security are both investigating. It was also unclear who was behind the cyber attacks.

In response, Shaheen echoed calls from lawmakers to boost cybersecurity in election systems.

Will there be others?

In a press briefing at the White House in early August, five top government officials told reporters that election-related hacking is a real threat and that Russia was behind cyber attacks in attempts to influence the 2018 election.

Those four officials  including FBI Director Christopher Wray, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen, National Security Adviser John Bolton and National Security Agency head Gen. Paul Nakasone  offered assurances that the agencies were working to stop Russian cyber attacks.

One cybersecurity expert, Charles Stewart III, told The New York Times that those most vulnerable to cyberattacks were individual political campaigns.

It remains to be seen how many other political campaigns have been affected by cyber attacks.

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez

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Grading is expected to begin in two weeks on a $35 million mixed-used development on Poway Road following todays groundbreaking ceremonies.

The three-building Outpost development, formerly called The Trading Post, is the first of its kind to be approved under the updated Poway Road Specific Plan. It will include 53 residential units, an urban food hall, a Crunch fitness center and two levels of underground parking.

The project, being developed by Canadian-based Capexco, is expected to be completed by fall of next year. Construction will take place on a 1.58-acre site once occupied by the Poway News Chieftain and Poway Irrigation.

Drawing shows "The Outpost" development along Poway Road.

While Mondays ceremony, attended by about 75 people, will likely be soon forgotten, This project will be remembered for generations to come, Mayor Steve Vaus said.

According to Trent Claughton, president and CEO of Capexco, the development  which will encompass two-story and three-story buildings encircling a central paseo  was named Outpost to speak to Poways colorful history, early Californian roots and being a destination for all of San Diego County.

Outpost marks an important milestone in Poways history that we hope will become a model for revitalization and creating a walkable downtown district for Poway, Claughton said in remarks prepared for the event. It brings needed housing and compelling new food and fitness concepts to Poway in a vibrant live, play and work mixed-use development.

Anchor tenants are Crunch Fitness and the locally-based 3 Brothers Group, which operates The Barrel Room in Rancho Bernardo, several Urge Gastropubs, Mason Ale Works and Mason Coffee Works. The urban food hall is projected to have up to 15 artisan food concepts from around San Diego, a according to a press release prepared for the groundbreaking.

This is all about our roots, said Grant Tondro, who grew up in Poway and is a partner in the food business.

Capexco partner Marco DeDominicis, a Poway resident, said it should take up to 2  months to dig the hole containing the two levels of parking. He said every effort will be taken to lessen the impact of dirt-hauling trucks on Poway Road traffic.

Building 1 will be a 30-foot-tall, two-story structure. There will be a 20,000-square-foot food hall on the first floor and second floors and a 6,500-square-foot patio on the second floor.

Building 2 will be a three-story, 30-foot-tall residential building with four, two-bedroom live-work units and two, two-story lofts.

Building 3 will be a three-story, 38-foot-tall structure with a 20,225-square-foot fitness center, 33 two-bedroom apartments, 10 one-bedroom apartments and four one-bedroom/loft units.

Parking for 329 vehicles would be provided, including 325 below ground and four at ground level.

Email: editor@pomeradonews.com


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Maggies son is causing trouble at a private school, but the headmaster is more interested in stirring up romance.

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Summer is for steamy romance. Our new series of classic fiction from the 1940s and 50s features sexy intrigue from the archives for all of your beach reading needs. In Love Dies Slowly, an illustrator will seek a tender affair with her sons headmaster if she can ever move past the recent death of her free-spirited journalist of an ex-husband.

It had been raining for 10 long days, a steady, relentless downpour that dampened the human spirit as well as the good brown earth. One dreary day followed another with monotonous regularity. The river looked black and threatening and the hedges along its banks were hardly visible through the heavy mist. Even the small ferryboat that crossed from shore to shore had disappeared from sight, but its foghorn tooted eerily all through the day and night. I was working in my studio, an upstairs room with a view of the river and its far shore, when I heard the front door open unceremoniously and close with a shattering bang.

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Chip! I called. Havent I asked you not to use the front door?

Its raining, Maggie.

I know, dear. Thats why I want you to come in the back way.

Roger, said Chip. Over.

Please dont track up the house. Ive just finished straightening it.

Roger. Anything to eat?

Sandwiches in the pantry. Milk and soda pop in the refrigerator.

Mille grazie, said Chip. Yatcha lubia.

I went back to my drawing board and the sketches I was doing for a new childrens book. My son walked into the studio nibbling on a three-decker peanut-butter sandwich and drinking his pop from the bottle. His bright hair was wet with rain, but it was as rebellious as ever. He was growing so fast that nothing seemed to fit him. There was always a space around his ankles and his wrists that remained uncovered.

Are you still working on that silly old book? he asked.

Im working on 500 silly old dollars, I replied.

His eyes clouded. They were very expressive eyes, full of joy or sadness or wonderment or laughter. He had the fair hair and skin and the chiseled features of his grandfather, but the great dark eyes were strictly his own. They had a disturbing way of looking straight through you and of always seeking the truth. He came over and put an ice-cold pop-bottle hand on my shoulder.

I love you, Maggie, he said. I wish you didnt have to work so hard.

He was so sincere and so very young and vulnerable that I longed to put my arms around him. But he was growing up and he didnt like to be babied.

I love you, too, darling, I said, and Im a very fortunate woman. I have a wonderful son and work to do that I enjoy. By the way, did you see the lunch box in the pantry?

He nodded.

I thought you might like to take it down to your friend, Aristotle. It must be difficult to navigate a ferryboat in this fog.

Its spooky, said Chip. Aristotle says that fog is celestial, but I dont agree. Its unearthly all right, but its not divine. Its cold and clammy, and it wraps itself around you and blots you out of sight. Its not like flying through a cloud. Its more like vanishing into a vacuum.

Sounds like a good idea for a composition.

I wrote one on it last week and Mr. O Hara told me today that it may win a prize. He was in Japan, Maggie. When we were there.

Is that so?

My son gave me a long, searching look. He said he met you once in Lisbon and once in Singapore. He said you might not remember him, but hed like to come over and talk to you. He asks me about you all the time.

I remembered Mike OHara very well. He was a brilliant, charming, supercharged correspondent; a romantic type who got into trouble with a colonels wife. I was surprised when I heard he was teaching at Bolton, because he was a really gifted journalist and his father owned a chain of New England newspapers.

I remember him, Chip. I said, but Im not ready for people yet.

Its almost a year, Maggie.

I know, darling, but lets wait until summer. Well invite all your new friends to come and see us and I promise to be very gay.

Chip studied me in silence and then he washed down his thoughts with the bottle of pop. OK., he said, but I wish summer would hurry.

You know what I wish? I wish youd stop drinking out of a bottle.

Why?

Because its so unaesthetic. Nice people dont drink out of bottles.

Around here they do. Everyone at school does, and so do the guys at the gas station. Why, even Eddie Fisher drinks out of a bottle on television.

I couldnt argue the point because, presumably, these were nice people. How about the great Mr. OToole? I asked.

Chip grinned. Ygot me there, Maggie, he said. You really got me. I dont think Mr. OToole drinks out of a bottle. He has a mother too.

So Ive discovered. His mother called me today.

Did she invite you to tea?

Yes.

Chip whistled shrilly through his front teeth. That means Im in some kind of trouble, he said thoughtfully.

I got that impression too. Have you any idea what kind of trouble?

Chips eyes widened anxiously. No, Maggie, I havent, he said. What did you say to her?

I thanked her, but I regretted. I asked her to have Mr. OToole call me.

And did he?

He called and I invited him to dinner.

Well, hallelujah! my son exclaimed. Will she let him come?

Who is she?

Macushla, his mother. They say she wont let him out after dark.

Chip, I said incredulously, didnt you tell me that Mr. OToole is over six feet tall, weighs almost 200 pounds, and won all kinds of medals for shooting down planes over Europe?

Roger. Whats for food?

I couldnt help smiling, although I knew this wasnt a celebration. There was, as my son said, some kind of trouble ahead. But Chips eyes were so bright and his cowlicks so unruly that I put my arms around him and gave him a kiss of confidence.

Your favorite menu, darling, I said, and I think you told me it was also a favorite of Mr. OTooles. Steak and apple pie.

Mr. OToole is not only the current authority in our home on everything from Bach to Buchmanism, he is also the headmaster of Bolton, a small private school for boys. It is an old and venerable institution  my father is an alumnus  with a granite facade and disciplinary ideas that are as rock-ribbed as the New England town whose name it bears. It is not a school I would have chosen for my son  mainly, I think, because father is one of the trustees  but when Jeff was killed, father took my affairs in hand, enrolled Chip in Bolton and, because I refused to be separated from him, installed us in this old house which was once the familys summer home.

Mr. OToole was, as my son had so accurately reported, very tall, unemaciated and well-mannered. I was sure he did not drink out of a bottle. He greeted me gravely, hung up his coat in the hall closet and followed me into the long, low-ceilinged living room that looked out through many windows to the river. There was a fire sputtering on the hearth and Mr. OToole crossed the room and stood in front of it.

He studied me silently for a second or two and then he said, Ive been waiting a long time for this moment.

It was a provocative opening, but I chose to ignore it. Chip talks about you constantly, I said. Youre one of his real heroes.

Before I knew who you were, Mr. OToole continued, I noticed you driving around the village in an open car. When I inquired about you, I learned that you were an artist and that you were married.

I couldnt think of any reply, so I didnt try to make one. If he had discovered that I was married, he must know that Jeff was a journalist and that we were out of the country most of the time. We never settled down, we never had a home, but we always came back to Bolton. We both liked the old town and the old house, and that was why father thought I would be happier here than anywhere else.

When your husband was killed, said Mr. OToole, almost inaudibly, I wanted to write to you, but I was afraid you might think it intrusive. Grief is a very personal thing.

It was well-spoken and hard to say, and I tried to smile my thanks. Its an emotion that cant be shared, I said. I guess thats why I havent been able to face people. Youre the first guest since the accident.

Im honored.

And Im grateful, I said, for all youve done to help my son.

Your son, said Mr. OToole, with a rather shy smile, is a very unusual 10-year-old. Ive learned a great deal from him.

Hes led an unusual life.

Its been a rewarding one for him in many ways. Hes impressionable and he has a remarkable memory. But you can understand that his background has made it rather difficult for him to adjust to a normal life with boys of more routine interests.

I knew this was educational double talk, and while I had no doubt that it was sound, I had little patience with it. If I have a blind spot, it is for my son. I think hes exceptional. I know that hes honest, kind and courageous. If the boys of Bolton School found it difficult to get along with him, the fault must be theirs. But I didnt want any trouble. It would bring my father to town on the run, and father is a man of action. He is also fanatically proud of Chip, who so closely resembles him that even strangers remark upon it.

I dont know what the problem is, I said, but I was thinking today that if Jeff were alive he would say the net result of normal living, in Chips case, is that hes learned to drink out of a bottle.

Mr. OToole smiled. Ill have to confess that its normal, he said, but its only a phase. There is a serious problem that I must talk over with you, and I thought we might set up a meeting with the faculty on Saturday, if that day is convenient for you. We can get together in my office and discuss things informally.

A serious problem? Has Chip done something dreadful?

Not at all, said Mr. OToole. His voice had a soothing quality that was very reassuring. Its an educational hurdle that we cant seem to solve. It has nothing to do with discipline. Believe me, Mrs. Hillyer, Im very fond of your son. By the way, where is he?

In the pantry. Reading a book on how to mix drinks.

Has he ever mixed one?

I shook my head. Never, but he feels that its one of his duties, now that hes the man of the house.

Do you think hed mind if I gave him a hand?

I dont know. Hes rather touchy about his new responsibilities. Im sure hes anxious to impress you, but Im afraid the result may be lethal.

Whatever he concocts well have to drink.

Thats what worries me, I said. Ill leave it up to you, Mr. OToole. Youre his best friend.

If youll excuse me, he replied, Ill see what I can do. And please call me John. Im your friend, too, Mrs. Hillyer.

On the following Saturday, a day distinguished by brilliant sunshine, I drove across the hills to Bolton School. The week had been an eventful one for me. I was beginning to live again. I had done a lot of thinking and I had found a friend in John OToole. It was good to have someone to talk to and I was rediscovering the joys of companionship. I had been too long alone and I had forgotten how exciting it was to be alive.

When I turned in at the gates I was struck with the beauty of the place. The grounds were handsomely planted and there was an air of serenity in the tall trees, the sweeping lawns and the ivy-covered buildings. Seclusion, protection, security  they were all here. These were the things that Chip had never known and I wondered how much they might mean to him, now that he had been given a chance to sample them. He had grown up in many lands; he never had a real home, no close friends, no formal schooling. He learned as he grew by asking questions, and he got his answers from the experts. He went with his father to political meetings, to military headquarters, to palaces and parliaments, to interviews with people of all kinds. And he went with me to market places and museums, to concerts, luncheons and receptions. He talked to anyone and everyone who would talk to him and he learned to speak many languages.

It was not a life my father approved of for a growing boy, but it was the way Jeff wanted it and the only way he would take ii. For Jeff there was no tomorrow; there was only today. If I tried to talk about the future, about a home, about settling down and giving Chip a chance to grow up normally, to have roots and security, I found that I was talking to myself. My loyalties were divided, but I couldnt find any way out. A boy needs a father even more than a home. So we followed him. We followed to the end.

My marriage, which had ended so abruptly in an airplane crash, was one that father had opposed bitterly, but when his grandson was born he became reconciled to its existence. Now that he was in the driving seat, financially and paternally, he would be hard to handle. He expected a lot of Chip. And he expected even more of the school. Since he was a trustee, it would be like him even to demand a certain amount of special consideration for his grandson.

I parked the car and walked across the pebbled path to the front entrance. I had dressed carefully, with what I hoped was proper solemnity for the occasion, but I felt depressed and inadequate, and wondered if I could rise to whatever the situation demanded. I would never forgive myself if I let my son down with tears or emotional protestations or anything that indicated a soft upper lip.

The door was opened by the headmaster himself, who welcomed me with a friendly smile. Ive been on the lookout for you, Maggie, he said.

Thank heaven youre here, I replied. Im beginning to panic.

It wont be that bad. Let me have your coat.

He led me into a book-lined room with a long table in the center of it. There was a large stone fireplace on one wall and on the other a great bank of windows looked out over the lawns to the river far below. The masters, who were assembled around the long center table, were young or youngish men, conservatively clothed in more subdued fashion than the ubiquitous gray-flannel suit or the journalists unpressed tweeds. There was one exception. Mike OHara looked as dashing and as handsome as he had several years ago in Tokyo and Singapore and Lisbon. He came over and took my arm and guided me toward the fireplace.

Ive got to see you, Maggie, he said. Please tell me when I can come.

Ill phone you.

When?

Soon, I said.

The headmaster was waiting to call the meeting, and when I turned he was standing directly behind me. I was presented to the sea of strange, floating faces, and then John led me to one end of the table and motioned to the faces to be seated.

We have looked forward to this meeting, Mrs. Hillyer, he said, in his soothing voice, in order to acquaint you with the special problems attendant upon the education of your son. We will hear first from Mr. Forbes, whose subject is world history.

The story was the same in every case  in social studies, political science, art, languages and economics. The masters were being challenged by a student who questioned the accuracy of their information on the basis that it was dated or prejudiced or factually incorrect.

The masters were unanimous, and very kindly so, on one point: the boy was not trying to show off; he was not impertinent or discourteous; he was simply and honestly skeptical. When asked to substantiate a protest, he launched unhesitatingly into a detailed, firsthand, eyewitnessed account of some event, place, painting, political treaty or commercial project. In his language classes he demurred on meanings or inflections or pronunciations. It was only in English and in mathematics that he was a quiet scholar, and in both of these subjects he was making excellent grades.

Now came the question of what was to be done. It was obvious that the other boys in the class were entitled to an education according to the curriculum. Examinations would be based on textbooks and not on eyewitnessed accounts. This matter of examinations affected Chip also. If he disagreed with the textbooks, how could he make official grades now, or later when the time came for his college boards? In the opinion of the faculty of the Bolton School, it was an insoluble situation, and the recommendation was that another school be sought.

We all rose at a signal from the headmaster and, after I had expressed my thanks, the masters filed out noiselessly and I was alone with John Francis OToole. I dont think we made much of a case for education today, he remarked ruefully.

I was worried about something else. John, I said, this is going to cause trouble for you. Father will fight you  and he wont fight fair.

I cant help it, Maggie. I dont care about myself, but Im very much concerned about Chip. Ive tried every way I can to lick this situation. Im not very proud of any of us, but I do have to consider the school.

You have to live with yourself too, said a clear, sharp voice from the doorway. Fourteen grown men against one small boy. You all ought to be ashamed.

We turned our heads quickly, like automatons, and faced a woman with an impressive figure who wore her years lightly but with great authority. Her hair was startlingly white, combed high on her head like a crown, and her eyes were very blue.

My mother, said John OToole. Autocrat of the dinner table, terror of the faculty, champion of the underdog, and grandmother by adoption to your son.

Patience is an outmoded virtue, said Mrs. OToole. I couldnt wait any longer to become a grandmother. She put her arms around me and gave me a warm hug. Maggie, Maggie, she said, let me look at you. Ive wanted so much to meet you. I love that boy of yours; I find him better company than anyone

Im sure that includes me, said John.

Im afraid it does, his mother replied. Now, how about lunch? I havent fussed, so dont protest. I wish Chip could join us.

Impossible, mother, said John firmly, and you know it. Hes due in the dining hall at 1 oclock, the same as every other boy in this school. Lets not have any more trouble. We have enough to worry about as it is.

Oh, all right, said Mrs. OToole. Rules, rules, rules. And bells. Im so tired of bells. . . . You come along with me, Maggie. I have someone I want you to meet. Shes a friend of Chips. Her name is Muffin.

That evening, after my son had kissed me good night and gone off to bed, I sat down in the study and tried to figure a way out of our problem. From Mrs. OToole I had learned a great deal about Chip and his life in Bolton. She and Chip had the sort of unique relationship that sometimes exists between the young and the old. They respected each other. When Mrs. OToole walked into the shoemakers shop late one afternoon a month after we came back to Bolton and found Chip finishing off lifts on the big power machine at the back of the shop, she showed no surprise. Chip introduced her to Mr. Cantonelli, the shoemaker, and his small daughter, Muffin, who was wrapping up the repaired shoes. She noticed that Chip and the Cantonellis spoke Italian to one another and the whole episode enchanted her. A few days later she asked Chip to bring Muffin to tea, and now she was taking Italian lessons from them.

Muffin was only one of Chips many new friends who were welcome at the home of the headmasters mother. There was Aristotle Perez, who captained the two-car ferryboat that chugged back and forth across the river. Captain Perez was from Portugal and he liked to have a boy aboard his boat who knew his native land and spoke his native tongue. Mrs. OToole was getting her afternoon rides free now, including one in the fog, which, for sheer horror, she said, had no equal in her experience.

There were other friends too. There was the Polish farm family whose land adjoined the school grounds. And there was Mrs. Skourian, who owned the Greek beanery where Chip liked to help out behind the counter. These were my sons best friends, according to Mrs. OToole, because they were sharing his experiences in a strange new land. He knew their countries better than his own and he felt at home with them.

Im running a sort of international salon, Mrs. OToole said to me in parting, and Im having the time of my life.

I came to the conclusion, after my visit with Mrs. OToole, that my son must have been a very lonely and bewildered boy during those first months at Bolton. How deeply Jeffs accident had affected Chip I didnt know. The shock had paralyzed me to such an extent that nothing seemed to matter. But from now on, my son would be my first consideration. Never again would I forget that he had problems, too, and he needed at least one parent to help solve them.

I heard the clock strike 10, and then I must have dozed because I was startled by the ringing of the doorbell. I remembered that John had asked me if I would be at home.

I hurried through the darkened living room and opened the front door. Mike OHara was standing hesitantly on the steps. He had a large bouquet of flowers in one hand and a big square box in the other.

I saw your light, he said, and I thought you might be mulling things over alone.

I am.

Would you like someone to mull with?

Very much, I said. Wont you come in?

He followed me into the study and lowered himself wearily into a chair. The packages made it difficult for him to relax, so he handed them to me. Flowers, he said, and candy. Pretty routine, Im afraid, but Im out of practice.

Thats hard to believe, I said.

He came out into the pantry while I fixed the flowers, and then he got out some ice cubes and mixed himself a drink. Ive been thinking about you all evening, he said. Ive been driving around for hours trying to get up enough courage to ring your bell.

Why should it take courage? Were old friends.

I dont know, Maggie, he said. I guess its because Ive always had a thing about you. I watched you take a beating for so long. I hate to say this to you, but Ive got to  youre grieving over a guy who died 10 years ago, not in a plane accident last May.

You frightened me once before by talking like this.

And you ran away. I tried to tell you then to cut your losses, to pull out and make a life for yourself and your boy.

There were reasons  I was half a world away from home, and there was the money problem too.

He came over and sat down beside me. Maggie, he said earnestly, I want you to believe this. I was trying to shock you into action. Jeff Hillyer was one of my oldest friends. I knew you couldnt save him, but I wanted you to save yourself. I saw what he was doing to you and it scared me. How much longer could you have stood the humiliation and neglect and utter disregard for your welfare or future?

You can stand a lot when you have a child.

Mike looked at me impatiently. You were beginning to crack up in Lisbon, he said harshly. What good would that have done your child? And what good did it do him to watch you being treated without consideration or respect? He could see things straight, even if you couldnt.

How do you know?

I have a composition of his called Why I Dont Want to be a Foreign Correspondent. Any time you want to read it, you can have it.

Youre deliberately trying to upset me, Mike. Why?

Because I want you to give up the ghost  for Chips sake as well as your own. He cant live in that shadow. He has no respect for it. If you cling to it much longer, you may lose your son as suddenly as you lost your husband.

This was shock treatment all right and I was so numb and cold from it that I reached out for a cardigan that was thrown across the arm of the chair. I had refused to face the failure of my marriage. I had sacrificed everything to it. I was still refusing to face it. Dreams always died hard with me. I had avoided Mike because he knew the truth. I remembered how many times he had phoned after we came back to Bolton. I saw that he was watching me and I tried to hold back the tears, but I could feel them running down my face. I turned my head away because I knew he hated tears

Here, he said.

It was a large pocket handkerchief, and I disappeared gratefully behind it.

Thank you. I didnt mean to cry.

Thats OK. I told you Ive grown up. I hope I wasnt too rough on you.

You were disturbing, I said, but profound. Someday, when Ive worked my way out of this mess. Ill try to thank you.

He leaned over and kissed me. I hope that someday isnt too far off. What are you going to do now?

I guess Ill have to tell father. Im afraid hell be very difficult.

Thats something of an understatement. Hell probably have the school charter revoked and all of the faculty blacklisted.

The clock was winding up for the long midnight chime and Mike looked at his watch. Ill have to leave you, Cinderella, he said. In a small town staying anywhere after midnight is synonymous with spending the night.

I was walking through the living room with him when a sleepy voice called from upstairs, Are you still up, Maggie?

Yes, dear, I said. Anything the matter?

No, said Chip. Its just about today. I was thinking how hard it will be for you to tell grandfather.

Ill manage somehow. Dont worry about it.

But suppose grandfather blows his top at Mr. OToole?

Ive thought about that, Chip. I even spoke to Mr. OToole about it.

Whatd he say?

He said he didnt care about himself; he was concerned only about you.

Golly, said Chip.

Mr. OHara is here, but hes about to leave. Do you want to come down?

No, said Chip. Gnight, Maggie. Gnight Mr. OHara.

On the following evening I was sitting alone again in the study trying to finish a letter to my father. I had started it earlier in the day, but it was a hard letter to write. I had to tell him the story of my marriage and the mistakes I had made and everything that led up to the present problem of Chips future at Bolton. Somehow I had to convince him that I was the one person responsible. No one else was at fault; not Chip nor the headmaster nor the faculty. If I had stayed home after Chip was born  as everyone, including father, had urged  I might have an untarnished memory of Jeff, the brilliant journalist who wanted only to be free. And if Jeff had been allowed to roam the world alone, he might have come back from time to time and Chip would have a memory of his father that he could cherish.

Now, for both of us, there was only the memory of a past without peace or possessions, without roots or responsibilities. There was the memory of dimly lit airports and dark railway stations with no one to meet us; of the weary search for a place to stay because no provision had been made for our arrival. There were some good memories, too, when we were all together and happy and, for a few months at least, there was hope for the future. But something always happened. Sooner or later we were alone again.

All of this I told father, and it was not easy to tell, but I needed his understanding. It would confirm his worst suspicions about my marriage, but it couldnt hurt Jeff now and it might save the faculty of Bolton School and its headmaster. I begged father not to interfere in any way, and I told him what a debt I owed to John OToole and his mother for their kindness to Chip. I assured him that I would keep him informed and that I would make no plans for the future without first consulting him.

I was folding the letter when I heard a step on the porch and then the bell rang. I opened the door, half expecting to see Mike OHara standing there, but the figure was taller and straighter and when he stepped into the light I saw that it was John OToole.

Its rather late, he said, but Id like to talk to you.

Come in.

He followed me into the study, but he didnt sit down. He walked around restlessly and studied the titles of the books. I left him for a moment to go into the pantry for some ice cubes, and when I returned the telephone was ringing.

Help yourself to a drink, I said. I dont know who can be calling at this hour, but Id better answer before it wakes Chip.

Hello, I said softly.

Maggie? inquired a clear, sharp voice. Is my son there?

I looked over at John, who gave me no clue. Yes, Mrs. OToole, I said. As a matter of fact, he arrived only a moment ago.

He left here three hours ago. Whats he been doing?

I dont know, I said quietly.

Honestly, she continued, in a voice that carried across the room, I wonder if he knows what hes doing. He forgot the flowers and candy  and last night he didnt even ring your bell.

I again looked over at John, who still gave me no clue. Thats funny, I said. Why not? I was here all evening.

Mrs. OToole harrumphed. Hes not competitive, she said. He saw Mike OHaras car, so he wouldnt go in. Has he told you hes not competitive?

No.

Well, its supposed to explain everything. I admit its beyond me, but I thought it might mean something to you.

Ill think about it, I said. Do you want to speak to him?

No, she said. I just wanted to be sure he got there. Hes in love with you, Maggie, but hes not competitive. Youd better send him home around midnight. I dont think he knows what time it is anymore.

When I hung up the receiver I looked over at John to see what effect the call had on him. As far as I could tell, it had none. He was staring at me a little vaguely, as though his eyes were not focusing.

You forgot the flowers, I said.

They didnt seem important, he replied.

I sat down on the sofa and motioned to him to join me. Ive written a letter to my father, I said. Its a very personal letter, but Id like you to read it. There are a great many things you should know  about Chip and me.

When I had him settled, letter in hand, I mixed a drink and put it on the table in front of him. Then I went upstairs and looked into Chips room. He was not asleep. He was kneeling in front of the window, looking out at the stars.

Chip, I said, why arent you in bed?

I heard a car in the driveway. Its Mr. OTooles car, isnt it, Maggie?

Yes, dear.

Did he bring you flowers too?

No, dear. He forgot them.

May I come down and speak to him  just for a minute?

Of course. But put on a warm bathrobe. Its cold downstairs.

John rose quickly when we came into the study. He had my letter clenched tightly in his hand and he was staring at it with an expression of great indignation. There was something in his eyes that I had not seen before. Chip wants to speak to you, I explained.

Yes, Chip?

Is it confidential? I asked.

No, said Chip. I want you to hear it, too, Maggie. Its about all the trouble Ive caused at school, for which Im very sorry.

Johns face relaxed into a sympathetic smile. No apologies are necessary, Chip, he said. You acted honestly and courageously.

But, Mr. OToole, said Chip, earnestly, I dont want to leave Bolton. I dont want to leave you and Macushla and Muffin and Aristotle and all my other friends. I never had friends before  not real ones who lived in the same place every day. And I dont want Maggie to have to leave here, either. I want her to be happy and not have to worry about something all the time.

Thats what I want for her, too, Chip, said John.

Ive figured it all out, Mr. OToole. All I have to do is learn whats in the books and not argue about it. I dont have to believe it  I just have to keep my mouth shut. Then Ill pass the exams and everybodyll be happy.

Maggie?

Any decision Chip wishes to make is all right with me.

Does that mean I may destroy this letter?

Yes, I said.

Very well. Chip, said John. Ill get the matter straightened out with the faculty tomorrow. He looked at me for a long moment before he tore the letter into small pieces. Then he gave Chip a loving slap on the back. I dont know whether or not youve made the right decision, young man, he said, but its a brave one. Ill be around any time you need help.

To bed now, I said. And to sleep, please.

Roger, said Chip. He came over and put his arms around me and tightened them into a hug that left me breathless. Then he went over and threw his arms around his favorite real-life hero. G night, John, he said. G night, Maggie.

Good night, son, we replied simultaneously.

We listened as he ran whistling up the stairs, and then we heard his door slam with a loud, triumphant bang. A moment later the clock in the living room wound itself up for another long chime. We both listened attentively as it struck.

Its midnight, I said.

So it is, said John. Take that receiver off the hook, will you, Maggie? I have a lot to say to you and I dont want to be interrupted.
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The beginning of the tale sounds like the trailer for a movie: NASA launched Mars Observer to study the red planet . . . but something went wrong.

Twenty-five years ago today, NASA lost communication with the Mars Observer probe three days before it was scheduled to enter Marss orbit. We look back at what the probe was supposed to accomplish, and the dramatic, and ultimately triumphant, changes that NASA made to their Mars exploration plan in its wake.

Mars Observer left Earth on September 25, 1992, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Ahead of launch, the probe had been cleaned due to particle contamination; its suspected that the particles actually resulted from measures taken to protect the probe when Hurricane Andrew made landfall in Florida in August of 1992. Aside from the cleaning, nothing unusual had occurred with the probe, and the launch was successful. The trip from Earth to Mars orbit should have taken roughly 11 months, with an expected insertion in orbit on August 24, 1993.

The mission profile for the probe was ambitious. It would take several weeks to achieve the desired orbital positioning, and then the probe would collect data for one Martian year (687 days, the time it takes Mars to orbit the sun once). As part of this mission, in November of 1993, Mars Observer was to have begun scanning for a global map. Various instruments were to collect over 75 gigabytes of data, far more than previous missions. At an undetermined point, Mars Observer would cease to operate when it ran out of propellant and/or lost battery life.

None of that came to pass. On August 21, 1993, NASA lost contact with Mars Observer; NASA would later call this signal loss inexplicable. At that moment, they had no idea what had happened to the probe. NASA tried to contact the probe every 20 minutes for hours, but could not raise it. Robert J. Macmillan, a spokesperson for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the New York Times that If we dont re-establish a communications downlink, well probably never know if it went into orbit or not. They never did re-establish communications. It is unknown if the probe eventually settled into the planned Mars orbit or if it drifted into another pattern or orbit. Observer, for all intents and purposes, simply disappeared.

The Naval Research Laboratory investigation suggested that a fuel pressurization tank rupture was the likely culprit. This could have caused an improperly early mix of fuel and oxidizer that sent the probe into a catastrophic spin, which could have in turn damaged the electrical systems. Nevertheless, the report states that the board was unable to find conclusive evidence pointing to a particular event that caused the loss of the Observer.

NASA did not simply accept the loss of Observer. By September of 1993, NASA formed the Mars Exploration Program to vigorously pursue missions to the red planet. The MEP has four broad goals as defined by NASA, which are: determine if life ever arose on Mars; characterize the climate of Mars; characterize the geology of Mars; and prepare for the human exploration of Mars.

A direct result of this rededication would come in 2011 when the Curiosity rover landed on Mars. The successful landing was celebrated as a triumph by NASA. Not only has it provided an enormous amount of scientific information and data, including discovering that Mars once had conditions favorable to microbial life, its proven extremely durable. Originally planned to be a two-year operation, Curiositys mission was extended indefinitely. The tough little rover still roams Mars; as of today, its been on Mars for 2,205 days, running reports and collecting samples at sites like the Gale Crater.

Despite the subsequent success of Curiosity, NASA still has one Mars hurdle it cant always overcome: bureaucracy. NASA experienced deep budget cuts in 2013,which resulted in reformulation of some of the Mars mission directives. More recently, Congress went against cuts suggested in President Donald J. Trumps budget, approving instead $20.7 billion for the agency, its biggest budget since 1996. Presently, MEP is pursuing a soil sample and return mission in conjunction with the European Space Agency, which should take several years to complete. NASAs Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen, said, Mars is telling us to stay the course and keep searching for evidence of life.
Hyderabad, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/20/2018 -- According to the new market research report by IndustryARC titled "European Hemostats Market: By Type (Thrombin Based, Gelatin Based and Others); By Treatment (Cardiac Surgery, Vascular Procedures); By End Users (Hospitals, Surgery Centre and Others) & By Region - Forecast (2018-2023)", the market is estimated to reach $1.2 billion by 2023 at a CAGR of 4.4%.



Ireland holds major market share during 2018-2023



Ireland holds major market share in European Hemostats Market as it is reputed to hold the highest cancer rate for men and women, with 338 people per 100,000 being diagnosed in 2012. The key end user markets in Denmark are Hospitals, Surgery Centers, Nursing Homes among others. Ireland hemostats market is estimated to reach $165.51 million by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 7.3% during the forecast period.



Selected Impact Analysis done in the full report



Fibrin sealants are indicated as an adjunct to hemostasis for use in patients undergoing surgery: Fibrin sealants aid in the rapid formation of stable clots. They can be applied to small blood vessels and to areas that cannot be addressed with conventional sutures. Also, fibrin sealants reduce the amount of blood loss during surgical procedures and lower the risk of post-operative infection or inflammation. Moreover, fibrin sealants are conveniently absorbed by the body during the wound healing process. Fibrin sealants are particularly useful in MI surgical procedures, especially in treating patients with clotting disorders. Currently, fibrin sealants are approved by the FDA as broad label hemostats for surgical procedures.



Medically invasive procedures are still considered an ideal choice for the cure and prevention of many diseases: Medically invasive techniques are increasingly being used for managing diseases such as cancerous tumors, cardiac arrhythmias, and dermatological conditions. They are also used to treat patients that are critical or inoperable. These surgeries reduce the risk of infection and cause minimal complications, thus, resulting in shorter hospital stays, reduced pain, and faster recovery when compared to traditional open surgeries. The increase in MI surgical procedures is expected to increase the demand for wound closure devices and drive market growth until 2023.



New tissue sealants and hemostats in the market have addressed issues related to tissue contamination with previous sealants: Many novel hemostats and tissue sealants are being developed to address trauma-associated hemorrhages and contaminants associated with sealants. For example, Novartis's Recombumin is a recombinant albumin derived from humans, which has the potential to seal leakages of fluids or gases from surgical incision sites. It is non-toxic and is highly cost-effective compared to animal-derived sealants. The launch of such products will have a significant impact on the market, and propel the demand for innovative products during the forecast period.



To access/purchase the full report, click the link below:

https://industryarc.com/Report/18043/european-hemostats-market.html



Excerpts Growth Factors Mentioned in the Full Report:

Rising incidents of surgeries has resulted in the growing need for the production of hemostats. The market is driven by factors such as medically invasive procedures and rapid innovation and technical advancements in the industry along with an alliance between health-care insurance providers and rising initiatives taken by the government. For instance, development of recombinant thrombin will drive the thrombin based hemostats market, thereby fueling the hemostats market growth in Europe.



Gelatin based hemostats is estimated to witness the fastest growth during the forecast period.

Companies in Europe hemostats are focused on acquisitions that accounted for 76% of the total developments. The European hemostats market also witnessed large number of product launches and collaborations with 12% each in the aforesaid period.



Talk to one of our sales representatives about the full report by providing your details in the link below:

https://industryarc.com/support.php?id=18043



Key players of European Hemostats Market:

Baxter International Inc, has undergone the maximum number of developments for the European Hemostats Market. The list of dominant players is as below:

Companies Cited/Referenced/Interviewed:

B Braun Melsungen AG (Germany)

C R BARD Inc.

Cryolife

Equimedical (Netherlands)

Gelita Medical GmbH (Germany)

Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc.A (U.S.)

Mallinckrodt PLC

Pfizer Inc. (U.S.)

RESORBA Medical GmbH (Germany)

Thrombotargets Corporation (Spain)

And 50+ companies



Related Reports:



A. Biosurgery Market By Product

https://industryarc.com/Report/16783/biosurgery-market.html



B. Hemostats Market

https://industryarc.com/Report/18331/hemostats-market.html



European Hemostats Market Report is segmented as indicated below

A. European Hemostats Market  By Type

1. Active

1.1 Thrombin Based Hemostat

1.1.1. Bovine Thrombin

1.1.2. Pooled Human Plasma Thrombin

1.1.3. Recombinant Thrombin

2. Passive

2.1. Collagen Based Hemostats

2.1.1. Microfibrillar Collagen Hemostat

2.1.2. Absorbable Collagen Hemostat Sponge

2.2. Oxidized Regenerated Cellulose

2.3. Gelatins

2.4. Polysacchride Hemospheres

3. Flowable

3.1. Bovine Gelatin + Pooled Human Thrombin

3.2. Bovine Gelatin + Other Thrombin Products

4. Sealants

4.1. Fibrin Sealants

4.2. Synthetic Sealants

5. Adhesives

5.1. Polyethylene Glycol Hydrogels (PEG)

5.2. PEG + Trilysine Amine

5.3. PEG + Human Serum Albumin

5.4. Liquid Monomers

B. European Hemostats Market - By Treatment

1. Cardiac Surgery

2. Vascular Procedures

3. Soft Tissue Reconstructions

4. Spinal Procedures

5. Hepatic Resection

6. Others



C. European Hemostats Market - By End Users



1. Hospitals

2. Surgery Centers

3. Nursing Homes

4. Others



D. European Hemostats Market By Geography (Covers 16+ Countries)

E. European Hemostats Market Entropy

F. Company Profiles

G. Appendix: Abbreviations, Sources, Research Methodology, Bibliography, Compilation of Experts, Disclaimer.



What can you expect from the report?

The European Hemostats Market Report is Prepared with the Main Agenda to Cover the following 20 points:

1. Market Size by Product Categories

2. Market trends

3. Manufacturer Landscape

4. Distributor Landscape

5. Pricing Analysis

6. Top 10 End user Analysis

7. Product Benchmarking

8. Product Developments

9. Mergers & Acquisition Analysis

10. Patent Analysis

11. Demand Analysis (By Revenue & Volume)

12. Country level Analysis (15+)

13. Competitor Analysis

14. Market Shares Analysis

15. Value Chain Analysis

16. Supply Chain Analysis

17. Strategic Analysis

18. Current & Future Market Landscape Analysis

19. Opportunity Analysis

20. Revenue and Volume Analysis



Frequently Asked Questions:



Q. Does IndustryARC publish country, geography or application based reports in European Hemostats?

Response: Yes, we do have separate reports as mentioned below



1. U.K. Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

2. Ireland Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

3. France Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

4. Germany Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

5. Spain Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

6. Italy Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

7. Netherlands Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

8. Belgium Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

9. Austria Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

10. Norway Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

11. Sweden Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

12. Denmark Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

13. Switzerland Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

14. Portugal Market for Europe Hemostats (2018-2023)

15. Type Europe Hemostat (2018-2023)

16. Treatment Europe Hemostat (2018-2023)

17. End-User Europe Hemostat (2018-2023)



Q. Does IndustryARC provide customized reports and charge additionally for limited customization?

Response: Yes, we can customize the report by extracting data from our database of reports and annual subscription databases. We can provide the following free customization:



1. Increase the level of data in application or end user industry.

2. Increase the number of countries in geography chapter.

3. Find out market shares for other smaller companies or companies which are of interest to you.

4. Company profiles can be requested based on your interest.

5. Patent analysis, pricing, product analysis, product benchmarking, value and supply chain analysis can be requested for a country or end use segment.



Any other custom requirements can be discussed with our team, drop an e-mail to sales@industryarc.com to discuss more about our consulting services.



To request for a proposal, provide your details in the below link:

https://industryarc.com/subscription.php



Media Contact:

Mr. Venkat Reddy

Sales Manager

Email: venkat@industryarc.com

Contact Sales: +1-614-588-8538 (Ext-101)



About IndustryARC

IndustryARC is a Research and Consulting Firm that publishes more than 500 reports annually, in various industries such as Agriculture, Automotive, Automation & Instrumentation, Chemicals and Materials, Energy and Power, Electronics, Food & Beverages, Information Technology, Life sciences &Healthcare.



IndustryARC primarily focuses on Cutting Edge Technologies and Newer Applications in a Market. Our Custom Research Services are designed to provide insights on the constant flux in the global supply-demand gap of markets. Our strong team of analysts enables us to meet the client research needs at a rapid speed, with a variety of options for your business.

We look forward to support the client to be able to better address their customer needs, stay ahead in the market, become the top competitor and get real-time recommendations on business strategies and deals. Contact us to find out how we can help you today.
Maharashtra, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/20/2018 -- Reports Monitor has included a new report titled, "Liquid Crystal Displays Market Research" into its repository of research reports. This report comprises of the complete assessment of the latest trends of the global Liquid Crystal Displays Industry. The report envelopes all the challenges that the industry is facing and provides the solutions and strategies that have been undertaken to overcome these challenges. An in-depth research and analysis have been carried out in order to gain valuable insights about the industry.



The data accumulated in this report have been verified and validated by the industry professionals. The Liquid Crystal Displays Market report is the key to all the questions arising about the contemporary market developments and the scope of competition and the opportunities. The major objective of this research study is to help the user understand the industry in terms of its market definition, segmentation, potential, trends, growth factors, threats, and the challenges that the market is facing.



A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.reportsmonitor.com/request_sample/71482



Some of the Key Players:

LXD, Philips, Golden View Display, Displaytech, Kent Displays, Panasonic, LG, Sharp, Samsung, Fujitsu, HP, Microtips Technology and More.



The Global Liquid Crystal Displays Market business intelligence report will characterize the analysis of all the segments with the market data during the forecast period, the data on historical, present market size, CAGR for all segments, market share and market forecast by all the segments and by region, and as well as the SWOT analysis for the market, competitive analysis, industry trends, and several qualitative and as well as quantitative data with regards to the market.



All the information pertaining to the market have been taken from reliable sources such as the websites, annual reports of the companies, newsletters, journals, and others. These statistics are represented in the report in the form of diagrams, pie charts, graphs, and other pictorial representations. This augments the visual representation and also helps in understanding the facts in a well-defined manner. The Global Liquid Crystal Displays Market is highly segmented and is based on new product launches and proven results of products. Hence, the leading industry pioneers have made use of different approaches, such as new clinical trials, product launches, high investments on R&D, market initiatives, agreements, joint ventures, partnerships, collaborations, mergers, acquisitions, and others to increase their footholds in this market.



Most important types of Liquid Crystal Displays products covered in this report are:

TN-Twisted Nematic

STN-Super Twisted Nematic

DSTN-Dual Scan Tortuosity Nomograph



Most widely used downstream fields of Liquid Crystal Displays market covered in this report are:

Consumer Electronics

Medical

Aviation



The Global Liquid Crystal Displays Market has also been studied in terms of the geographical segmentation. Some of the key geographies included in this report are:

North America

Europe

Asia-Pacific

Latin America

Middle East and Africa

Available Customizations:



With the given market data, Reports Monitor offers customizations according to the company's specific needs. The following customization options are available for the report:

Regional and country-level analysis of the Liquid Crystal Displays Market, by end-use.

Detailed analysis and profiles of additional market players.



About Reports Monitor

Reports Monitor is a market research and consulting company that provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries including Healthcare, Technology, Chemicals, Materials, and Energy. With an intrinsic understanding of many business environments, Reports Monitor provides strategic objective insights.



We periodically update our market research studies to ensure our clients get the most recent, relevant, and valuable information. Reports Monitor has a strong base of analysts and consultants from assorted areas of expertise. Our industry experience and ability to zero-in on the crux of any challenge gives you and your organization the ability to secure a competitive advantage.



Contact Us:



Mr. Jay Matthews



Direct: +1 513 549-5911 (U.S.), +44 203 318 2846 (U.K.)



Email: sales@reportsmonitor.com
Hyderabad, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/21/2018 -- According to the new market research report by IndustryARC titled "Mexico Stand-Up Pouches Market: By Type (Aseptic, Standard and Retort); By Form (Round Bottom, K-Style, Plow Bottom, Flat Bottom and Others); By Industryl (Food & Beverages and Non-Food) - (2018  2023)", the market is estimated to reach $186.43 Million by 2023 at a CAGR of 7%.



Aseptic stand-up pouch type continues to lead the market share and growth during 2018-2023



In terms of value, Aseptic printed stand-up pouch type is the dominant and fastest growing segment for Mexico stand-up pouch packaging market, owing to the extensive use of plastics in the manufacturing of stand-up pouches. Their key applications are Food & Beverages, non-food items among others. Food & Beverages is further segmented into human food, pet food, and beverages. This is followed by non-food segment that comprise of healthcare, personal & homecare and others. Aseptic Stand-up pouch Market is anticipated to reach $104.26 Million by 2023 with a CAGR of 6.8%.



Selected Value Chain Analysis done in the full report:



Raw Material:

The raw materials that are used for manufacturing stand-up pouches are collected from diverse companies. Chemical companies such as The Dow Chemical Company provide polymers such as polyethylene for manufacturing the stand-up pouches. Other materials are also opted for manufacturing stand-up pouches.



Manufacturing:

This phase of value chain involves engineering, and design which generates important value addition for both manufacturing and remanufacturing companies. The various types of stand-up pouches according to the application are manufactured in this phase. Through innovation in new products and technologies, these phases have the capacity for eventual additive remanufacturing,enabling the extension of the traditional after-sales life cycle of products. Continued investment in R&D, equipment design and engineering is set to enable companies to sustain its competitive advantage and also to differentiate their service capabilities from other competitors.



Testing and Regulations:

The packaging is approved by associations and organizations to be implemented in diverse food and non-food industries.

The stand-up pouch manufacturing company has to approve its packaging materials from packaging associations to ensure safety and trust of its customers.



Distribution:

In this phase, the stand-up pouches are distributed to the brand owners for both food and non-food applications.



Consumer:

The final product is sold in the market to grab the attention of the customers in attractive package forms.



To access / purchase the full report browse the link below:

https://industryarc.com/Report/18048/mexico-stand-up-pouches-market.html



Excerpts on Market Growth Factors Mentioned in the Full Report:



Stand-up pouches market is growing faster than any other packing format, with consumer preference as one of the major growth factor driving the market. These pouches are used as a replacement for traditional packaging.

The growth of the plastics market influences the pouch market, owing to the extensive use of plastics in the manufacturing of stand-up pouches. Also, rising health awareness and growing levels of environmental awareness among Mexican population are driving the stand-up pouches market in the country.



The flexible stand up packaging industry will continue to innovate with production getting faster and films going thinner. It will protect products better and keep them fresher for a longer duration. This would position stand-up pouches to experience progressive growth as consumers continue to demand sustainable packaging that fits their on-the-go lifestyles.



Small snacks pouches are especially popular among younger consumer. Many people go for small packaged products rather than large bulky containers which are not conducive to their lifestyle. Strong growth in the number of single-person households is also driving the demand for small sized packaging such as coffee pouches and other stand up zipper pouches. Mexican people prefer small flexible and re-sealable snack food packaging rather than space-consuming boxes, cans, bottles, and jars, as many items can be fit into pantries, refrigerators, freezers or on shelves in retail stores.



With the help of spout pouches and other customized pouches, marketing opportunities are created for various food and beverage manufacturing companies. Clever marketing strategies such as utilizing the pouch as a refill to promote brand loyalty had not only added value to these companies but also provided new opportunities for them.

Companies in the stand-up pouches market are mainly focused on new product launches as the key strategy that accounted for 56% of the total developments. The stand-up pouches market also witnessed a large number of acquisitions in the aforesaid period.



Talk to one of our sales representative about the full report by providing your details in the below link:

https://industryarc.com/support.php?id=18048



Key players of Mexico Stand Up Pouches Market:

Bemis Company Inc and Smurfit Kappa Group are analyzed to be the dominant players in Mexico Stand-up Pouches Market. The key players are as mentioned below:

Companies Cited/Referenced/Interviewed:

3Pack de Mexico SA de CV

Amcor Limited

The DOW Chemical Company

Mondi Group

PAC Worldwide

PO Empaques Flexibles, SA DE CV

Printpack Inc;

Scholle IPN Packaging Inc;

And 50 + companies



Related Reports:



A. Industrial Packaging Market

https://industryarc.com/Report/18509/industrial-packaging-market-research-report-analysis.html



B. Retort Packaging Market

https://industryarc.com/Report/15217/retort-packaging-market.html



Mexico Stand Up Pouches Market Report is segmented as indicated below:

1 Mexico Stand Up Pouches Market Market By Type:

1.1 Aseptic Stand-Up Pouches

1.2 Standard Stand-Up Pouches

1.3 Retort Stand-Up Pouches



2 Mexico Stand Up Pouches Market, by Form

2.1 Round Bottom

2.2 K-Style

2.3 Plow Bottom

2.4 Flat Bottom

2.5 Others



3 Mexico Stand Up Pouches Market, by Form

3.1 Round Bottom

3.2 K-Style

3.3 Plow Bottom

3.4 Flat Bottom

3.5 Others



4 Mexico Stand Up Pouches Market, by Application

4.1 Food & Beverages

4.1.1 Human Food

4.1.2 Pet Food

4.1.3 Beverages

4.2 Non Food

4.2.1 Healthcare

4.2.2 Personal & Homecare

4.2.3 Others (Fertilizers, Cement, Paints and Coatings)

5 Physiotherapy Market Entropy

6 Company Profiles

7 Appendix: Abbreviations, Sources, Research Methodology, Bibliography, Compilation of Experts, Disclaimer.



What can you expect from the report?

The Mexico Stand Up Pouches Market Report is Prepared with the Main Agenda to Cover the following 20 points:

1. Market Size by Product Categories

2. Market trends

3. Manufacturer Landscape

4. Distributor Landscape

5. Pricing Analysis

6. Top 10 End user Analysis

7. Product Benchmarking

8. Product Developments

9. Mergers & Acquisition Analysis

10. Patent Analysis

11. Demand Analysis (By Revenue & Volume)

12. Country level Analysis (15+)

13. Competitor Analysis

14. Market Shares Analysis

15. Value Chain Analysis

16. Supply Chain Analysis

17. Strategic Analysis

18. Current & Future Market Landscape Analysis

19. Opportunity Analysis

20. Revenue and Volume Analysis



Frequently Asked Questions:



Q. Does IndustryARC publish country, geography or application based reports in Mexico Stand Up Pouches?

Response: Yes, we do have separate reports as mentioned below:



1. Aseptic Market for Mexico Stand Up Pouches (2018-2023)

2. Standard Market for Mexico Stand-Up Pouches (2018-2023)

3. Retort Market for Mexico Stand-Up Pouches (2018-2023)

4. Food & Beverages Market for Mexico Stand Up Pouches (2018-2023)

5. Non-Food Market for Mexico Stand Up Pouches (2018-2023)



Q. Does IndustryARC provide customized reports and charge additionally for limited customization?

Response: Yes, we can customize the report by extracting data from our database of reports and annual subscription databases. We can provide the following free customization:



1. Increase the level of data in application or end user industry.

2. Increase the number of countries in geography chapter.

3. Find out market shares for other smaller companies or companies which are of interest to you.

4. Company profiles can be requested based on your interest.

5. Patent analysis, pricing, product analysis, product benchmarking, value and supply chain analysis can be requested for a country or end use segment.



Any other custom requirements can be discussed with our team, drop an e-mail to sales@industryarc.com to discuss more about our consulting services.



To request for a proposal, provide your details in the below link:

https://industryarc.com/subscription.php



Media Contact:



Mr. Venkat Reddy

Sales Manager

Email: venkat@industryarc.com

Contact Sales: +1-614-588-8538 (Ext-101)



About IndustryARC

IndustryARC is a Research and Consulting Firm that publishes more than 500 reports annually, in various industries such as Agriculture, Automotive, Automation & Instrumentation, Chemicals and Materials, Energy and Power, Electronics, Food & Beverages, Information Technology, Life sciences &Healthcare.



IndustryARC primarily focuses on Cutting Edge Technologies and Newer Applications in a Market. Our Custom Research Services are designed to provide insights on the constant flux in the global supply-demand gap of markets. Our strong team of analysts enables us to meet the client research needs at a rapid speed, with a variety of options for your business.



We look forward to support the client to be able to better address their customer needs, stay ahead in the market, become the top competitor and get real-time recommendations on business strategies and deals. Contact us to find out how we can help you today.
A team of researchers headed by University of British Columbia scientist Stephen Withers reports on enzymes  from the human gut  that remove A or B antigens from red blood cells 30 times more efficiently than previously reported enzymes.

We have been particularly interested in enzymes that allow us to remove the A or B antigens from red blood cells. If you can remove those antigens, which are just simple sugars, then you can convert A or B to O blood, Dr. Withers said.

Scientists have pursued the idea of adjusting donated blood to a common type for a while, but they have yet to find efficient, selective enzymes that are also safe and economical.

To assess potential enzyme candidates more quickly, Dr. Withers and colleagues used a technique called metagenomics.

With metagenomics, you take all of the organisms from an environment and extract the sum total DNA of those organisms all mixed up together, Dr. Withers said.

Casting such a wide net allows us to sample the genes of millions of microorganisms without the need for individual cultures.

We then use E. coli to select for DNA containing genes that code for enzymes that can cleave sugar residues.

The team considered sampling DNA from mosquitoes and leeches, the types of organisms that degrade blood, but ultimately found successful candidate enzymes in the human gut microbiome.

Glycosylated proteins called mucins line the gut wall, providing sugars that serve as attachment points for gut bacteria while also feeding them as they assist in digestion.

Some of the mucin sugars are similar in structure to the antigens on A- and B-type blood.

The scientists homed in on the enzymes the bacteria use to pluck the sugars off mucin and found a new family of enzymes that are 30 times more effective at removing red blood cell antigens than previously reported candidates.

We are now working to validate these enzymes and test them on a larger scale for potential clinical testing, they said.

In addition, we plan to carry out directed evolution, a protein engineering technique that simulates natural evolution, with the goal of creating the most efficient sugar-removing enzyme.

The researchers presented their results today at the 256th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

_____

Stephen G. Withers. 2018. Discovery of CAZYmes for cell surface glycan removal through metagenomics: Towards universal blood. 256th ACS National Meeting & Exposition, abstract # CARB 105
Retired_Can_Soldier said: Omar didn't get it. Justin paid him off to go away, not hang out. Click to expand...

Unfortunately Trudeau is equally obtuse. he doesn't seem to realize that all his virtue signalling and overt support for terrorists rights is easily mistaken for support for terrorists, and has consequences. Sometimes when you want someone to go away, you need to give them a kick in the ass and tell them to piss off. Paying them off certainly won't do it. It's unfortunate that this clown doesn't get that sometimes being an effective leader requires effort, a backbone, and fighting for moral principal over protecting personal image.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 20, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fortress Blockchain Corp. (Fortress Blockchain or the Corporation) (TSXV: FORT), a growth oriented blockchain mining company with operations established in low cost North American green-energy regions, is pleased to report that the Corporations common shares will begin trading on the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. (TSXV) under the symbol FORT, at the opening of the Canadian financial markets on August 22, 2018.



Fortress Blockchain will also release its second quarter 2018 financial results prior to the market open on Thursday, August 23, 2018 and has scheduled an investor conference call to discuss its financial results at 11:00 AM EDT on August 23, 2018 hosted by CEO Aydin Kilic and CFO David Pais. A question and answer session will follow.

Corporate Milestones

Closed $15M pre-QT private placement with some of Canadas leading institutional investors





Acquired a facility of 2MW current operating capacity (with potential for up to 5MW of total operating capacity with upgrades to electrical infrastructure) in Washington State (the Flagship Facility) with an industry low all-in power cost of US$0.026/kWh





Received 1,400 Bitmain S9 Antminers and had all of them operating before the end of Q1 2018





Letters of Intent signed for 9MW and 100MW facilities, which remain subject to further due diligence





Added key Directors that include:



Roy Sebag (Chairman) and Josh Crumb, who co-founded Goldmoney, a Toronto Stock Exchange listed company



David Jaques, founding CFO of Paypal



Kent Wakeford, Co-founder and COO of Kabam, Inc which was sold to NetMarble Games for USD$750M





Added key advisors, including the former Director of Mining at Bitmain, Gao Yong Gang





Mined more than 155 Bitcoins and 58 Bitcoin Cash since it started mining activities in March 2018 at an all-in operations cost (electricity, rent, staff 24/7, facility insurance, etc.) of US$0.041/kWh





The Flagship Facility currently operates at an industry leading power usage effectiveness ratio (PUE ratio) of 1.02-1.05, which allows Fortress to operate up to 700 Bitmain S9 Antminers per mega-watt (MW) of operating capacity, which at 13.5 TH/s per miner, yields up to 9.45 PH/s of hash rate capacity per MW. Depending on the PUE, typical data-center facilities will operate between 600-650 miners per MW. Hash rate is the measure of crypto-currency production; a higher hash rate directly corresponds to a higher production output of crypto-currency.

This event marks a significant milestone in the transformation of Fortress Blockchain as we will now make the move from private capital markets to becoming a publicly traded issuer on the TSX Venture Exchange, said Aydin Kilic, Co-Founder, CEO and Director of Fortress Blockchain. We are now able to focus on increasing our presence in the market all the while delivering value to our shareholders through the transfer of our industry leading operational efficiencies and cost structure. We look forward to the next phase of our growth cycle as a leading publicly traded Canadian digital currency miner and thank our investors for their continued support.

Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call Details:

Date: Thursday, August 23rd, 2018

Time: 8:00 AM (PST)/11:00 AM (EST)

Participant Dial-in Numbers:

Local  (+1) 416 764 8688

Toll Free  (+1) 888 390 0546

Conference ID: 55691235

About Fortress Blockchain Corp.

Fortress Blockchain Corp. is a technology-oriented blockchain mining company committed to operating in low cost North American green-energy regions. Fortresss resources are currently dedicated to achieving peak operational efficiency in industrial scale Bitcoin mining, to ultimately deliver an industry leading competitive advantage in performance. Fortress has strategically acquired a state-of-the-art mining facility in Washington state which has been in continuous operation since 2014, which serves as an R&D facility to optimize and build out the next generation of highly scalable blockchain mining infrastructure.

For further information, please contact:

Aydin Kilic

Chief Executive Officer

604 477 9997

a@fortressblockchain.io Prit Singh

Investor Relations

905 510 7636

ir@fortressblockchain.io

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

The securities referred to in this press release have not been, nor will they be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons absent U.S. registration or an applicable exemption from the U.S. registration requirements.

This press release does not constitute an offer for sale of securities, nor a solicitation for offers to buy any securities.

Forward Looking Statements:

Statements contained in this news release that are not historical facts are forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively, Forward-Looking Information) within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward Looking Information includes, but is not limited to, disclosure regarding possible events, anticipated revenue, conditions or financial performance that is based on assumptions about future economic conditions and courses of action. In certain cases, Forward-Looking Information can be identified by the use of words and phrases such as plans, expects or does not expect, is expected, budget, scheduled, suggest, optimize, estimates, forecasts, intends, anticipates, potential or does not anticipate, believes, anomalous or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-Looking Information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the Forward-Looking Information. Although Fortress Blockchain has attempted to identify important factors that could affect Fortress Blockchain and may cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in Forward-Looking Information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that Forward-Looking Information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on Forward-Looking Information. Except as required by law, Fortress Blockchain does not assume any obligation to release publicly any revisions to Forward-Looking Information contained in this news release to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
Los Angeles, CA, Aug. 20, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pulitzer Prize and Oscar-winning Armenia/American novelist, screenwriter, and songwriter William Saroyan is having his Fresno home turned into an interactive museum with a Grand Opening Celebration on August 31st in Fresno, CA. This historic event is expected to be covered by multiple media outlets with special guests in attendance. The Renaissance Cultural and Intellectual Foundation, a foundation that exists to preserve cultural history, stepped in to preserve his home with objects of historical meaning provided by private collections pertaining to Mr. Saroyan's award-winning career (he won the Oscar for screenwriting the 1944 film "The Human Comedy"). Mr. Saroyan's legacy still stands today and inspires countless modern adaptations of his works and admiration from other artists. Johnny Depp is quoted as saying he lives his life by the mantra 'Place in matter and in flesh, the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption' from Mr. Saroyan's book "The Time of Your Life. Actress Meg Ryan recently directed and starred in a film adaptation of Mr. Saroyans work titled Ithaca based on his work The Human Comedy (Mr. Saroyan was given a writers credit on the film).

The Grand Opening Event will consist of two segments  the first will be a press-only event at the Opening Ceremony of The William Saroyan Museum located at the House Museum where a ribbon cutting and unveiling of the plaque will take place followed by the first tour to members of the press and then a private reception. The second portion of the event will be open to the public and will take place at the Satellite Student Union on the campus of CSU Fresno starting at 6:30 pm where several speakers and performers, including The Renaissance Foundations Arthur Janibekyan, will deliver remarks. Guests will then be invited to view the William Saroyan Pictures/Graphics Exhibition and Saroyan House Documentary film followed by a reception.

The Renaissance Cultural and Intellectual Foundation was founded in Armenia by Artur Janibekyan in 2013. The mission of the Foundation is to preserve and develop Armenias cultural and intellectual heritage, with the vision to make it well-known both in Armenia and abroad. The Foundation has implemented numerous cultural preservation projects in Armenia.

In 2015, the Foundation was made aware of a looming situation regarding the final home of the great American-Armenian writer, William Saroyan. Although listed on the historic registry of Fresno, the home was in danger of being lost forever. The Foundation quickly stepped in and purchased the house out of foreclosure. In the beginning, they were not entirely sure what they would do with the house, their primary goal was to save it.

After securing the house, the Foundation implemented a plan to convert the house into a museum. Saroyan lived in Fresno at 2729 W. Griffith Way for the last 17 years of his life and had produced numerous works during that time.

Saroyan was known for being a novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and he won the 1944 Oscar award for his story in the movie The Human Comedy. During his career, he wrote thousands of pieces, most of which remain unpublished.

But he was an accomplished artist in many other genres. The popular 1951 song Come On-A My House, which launched the singing career of Rosemary Clooney; was co-written by William Saroyan and his cousin Ross Baghdassarian. He also created thousands of drawings, sketches, and paintings throughout his lifetime.

The Foundation will recreate the ambiance of Saroyans house so that each visitor can experience a bit of Saroyans personal lifestyle. After the reconstruction, the house museum will become a center for Saroyan studies. The foundation plans to collect books, photos, videos, paintings, and keepsakes that reflect Saroyans character, to display in the museum. But from this collection, they will also build a digital archive that will be readily available to the public.

The museum itself will be an interactive experience, with videos, digital effects, and a hologram room where William Saroyan himself will lead guests on a tour of his living room and talk to the visitors. On the same day, the Foundation will announce the launch of a William Saroyan VR museum, allowing visitors from around the world to virtually visit the William Saroyan Virtual Museum, giving them an in-depth look at the writer and his craft.

The Foundation plans to open the museum on August 31st, the 110thanniversary of Williams Saroyans birth. The grand opening event will be open to the public and held on the campus of California State University of Fresno. A documentary, musical performances of songs written by Saroyan, a recitation of his writings, and remarks by the Founder and board members of the Foundation will be part of the event. Two of the songs will be a debut performance, having never been played for the public.

Entry to the museum will be by reservation, and free of charge.

For Media/Press credentials and/or interview opportunities please contact Tad Hamilton of Mosaic Public Relations at tad@mosaicpublicrelations.com

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Attachment
'I've seen all the images and I wish I could take a voyage on that vessel,' Merkel remarked after making a buoyant entrance to Stralsund's giant covered building hall to the tune of 'Gonna Fly Now' from 'Rocky.' Hundreds of yard workers in blue 'Team Endeavor' shirts looked on.

Merkel said it was an emotional day for her as she returned to her political home, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. 'People here in Stralsund will always do their best to create great value ... We know how to compete. We are very proud in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Germany and we want to make the label "Made in MV" an attraction,' she said.

'Good ideas and strong nerves'

Crystal Endeavor, the chancellor added, is a great name. She wished the yard workers, Genting Hong Kong and Crystal Cruises 'good ideas and strong nerves' as they build the 20,000gt, ice-class luxury expedition yacht.

Genting HK chairman and CEO Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay called it an emotional day for him, too, 'as we play our part to bring back the shipbuilding industry to the northern shores of Germany.'

Historically, Germany has built a 25% share of the world's cruise ships. Thanks to Genting HK's investment, that will go up to a 35% share by 2020, Lim said.

Global-class keel to be laid next month

Three years ago Genting HK acquired struggling yards in Wismar, Stralsund and Warnemunde for 230m and pumped in 250m to bring them up to the capability of building the latest generation, 200,000gt mega-ships. The keel for Dream Cruises' first Global-class ship will be laid next month in Rostock.

The MV yards have doubled jobs to 2,500, contributing strongly to the state's economy, with economic output of 2bn a year expected starting in 2020 with the construction of one mega-ship and one mid-sized ship a year.

'However,' Lim added, 'we hope we can get as much support as possible from the state and the Federal Republic of Germany so that MV Werften may achieve its vision in becoming another leading, successful example of German manufacturing.'

During her address, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig noted that even during hard times in the state, the yards never stopped training workers, and 100 interns are learning trades in the Stralsund facility. She thanked Genting HK for keeping its promises about reviving the business.

88 lucky coins x 2

Merkel and Schwesig joined Lim, Crystal Cruises president and CEO Tom Wolber, MV Werften president and CEO Peter Fetten and other officials to place 88 US dollars and 88 euro coins in the keel8 being a lucky number in Asia. Then Merkel radioed a crane operator to begin lowering the 400-ton keel block. After that the shipyard apprentices delighted the chancellor by presenting her with a tool they use to 'keep things in alignment.'

Crystal Endeavor's keel-laying is a 'big moment in Crystal's history,' Wolber told Seatrade Cruise News during the festivities. 'It shifts the focus back to the ocean-going itineraries and products, the bread and butter of what we do and something our Crystal Society members are eagerly awaiting.

'The Crystal Endeavor is just whetting the appetite for the Crystal Diamond class, which is going to be a spectacular ship ... a game-changer,' he said.

New delivery date for Endeavor sister

Wolber added that Crystal Endeavor's sister ship is now scheduled for delivery in 2021instead of 2020. Crystal's Diamond-class ship will follow in 2022.

As for Merkel's wish to take a cruise, 'I'll make room for her,' Wolber said.

For photos of the keel-laying, follow @SeatradeInsider on Twitter
While trade has been relatively unscathed for the time being and demand for dry freight containers has remained healthy, rising material costs and appreciation of the Renminbi in the first few months of the year hit the company and led to a $2.1m loss in the first half despite a 63% jump in revenue to $969.2m.

Singamas container manufacturing segment produced 458,374 teu in the first half, an increase from the 310,070 teu in the previous corresponding period. The average selling price (ASP) of a standard 20-ft dry freight container has also risen from $1,902 to $2,203 primarily due to the use of waterborne paint and the ongoing rise in the price of corten steel.

While Singamas sold 457,610 teu or more than 50% more containers in the first half compared to the 303,668 teu sold in the first half of 2017, competition in the market meant the increased material costs were not entirely passed to the customers, which resulted in a segment operational loss of $2.0m reversing the profit of $19.9m in the same period last year.

Dry freight containers demand remained firm, and still made up the bulk of output, comprising about 83% of revenue, but specialised container demand has gradually improved and management believes this segment is key to future success, with generally better margins while also showcasing the Groups development and production prowess which is key to retaining and attracting customers.

Meanwhile the groups new reefer container factory in Qingdao has started trial production although the utilisation rate at the new factory is expectedly low at present. More favourable development is expected once the facility is fully operational towards the latter half of the financial year, Singmas said, adding that the group has received enquiries and will be accepting orders in due course.

Read More: PIL, PSA, IBM conclude successful blockchain trial on Chongqing-Singapore route

In logistics services, the joint venture with Guangxi Beibu Gulf International Port Group and PSA, has completed the reclamation of a property in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and construction of the container depot remains on schedule.

Before the depots completion in mid-2019, the joint venture has been providing logistics services via a property rented in Qinzhou, which is located on the south coast of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. In operation since November 2017, the temporary location has performed satisfactorily, enabling the joint venture to establish a beachhead as it seeks to benefit from the Belt and Road initiative  Guangxi being a strategically important location along the Belt and Road route.

Meanwhile Singamas is disposing its stake in subsidiary Hui Zhou Pacific Container. In line with optimisation of business operations, the group said the disposal will be a good opportunity to recognise a gain and generate additional cash.

Looking ahead, Singamas said: Although the Group expects the upcoming financial period to become increasingly challenging, the Groups container orders are full up to September 2018. Moreover, the Renminbi has weakened in value, thus leading to the moderation of material costs including corten steel.
Newport Beach, CA, Aug. 20, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- DPW Holdings, Inc. (NYSE American: DPW) (the Company) a diversified holding company, today submitted its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q reporting financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2018.

DPW Holdings CEO and Chairman, Milton Todd Ault, III said, Our actual second quarter results, which are consistent with the preliminary results we announced on August 15, demonstrate that we continue to execute our stated strategic plan to create a diverse portfolio of assets with global growth potential. Coolisys order book continues to improve, giving us additional confidence in the growth potential of its advanced engineering, design and manufacturing businesses. As we position the company for continued expansion in 2019, we intend to continually evaluate our diverse portfolio of assets, seeking opportunities to capitalize on new market opportunities in advanced technologies and manufacturing, as well as monetize existing assets for the benefit of all DPW Holdings shareholders.

Second Quarter and First Half 2018 Results of Operations

Second quarter gross revenue was $7.4 million, a 309 percent increase from $1.8 million in the second quarter of 2017 and 43 percent increase from $5.2 million in the first quarter 2018. First half gross revenue was $12.6 million, a 266 percent increase from $3.5 million in the first half of 2017.

Second quarter gross margin was 18.3 percent, compared to 40.1 percent for the second quarter of 2017. First half gross margin was 21.8 percent, compared to 41.7 percent in the first half of 2017. Cryptocurrency mining revenues during the second quarter were lower than the operating costs of the companys mining operation, which primarily consist of colocation costs and depreciation.

Second quarter net loss was $7.0 million, including non-cash charges of $4.3 million, compared to net loss of $1.9 million for the second quarter of 2017, which included non-cash charges of $1.0 million. First half net loss was $13.1 million, including non-cash charges of $8.5 million, compared to net loss of $2.8 million in the first half of 2017, which included non-cash charges of $1.4 million.

Order backlog at the Companys Coolisys subsidiary totaled $74.4 million at August 20, 2018.

June 30, 2018 Balance Sheet

Total assets increased by $14.9 million, to $53.4 million, compared to total assets of $38.5 million for the quarter ending March 31, 2018.

The Companys investment portfolio as of June 30, 2018 included an investment in convertible promissory notes, warrants and shares of common stock of $7.7 million in Avalanche International Corp dba MTIX International, Inc. Under GAAP accounting rules, the value of the warrants and shares of common stock are marked-to-market on a quarterly basis, which can result in significant fluctuations reflecting the volatility of the underlying market.

During the quarter ended June 30, 2018, the Company generated a total of $719,000 from its cryptocurrency mining operations and used $605,000 to pay down its convertible debt and $201,000 to invest in additional miners. The company is closely monitoring cryptocurrency market conditions and believes it has the capacity to have approximately 10,000 miners deployed by December 31, 2018, subject to available financing and more favorable Bitcoin pricing.

Total stockholders equity at June 30, 2018 totaled $31.5 million, an increase of $9.7 million compared to total stockholders equity of $21.8 million for the quarter ending March 31, 2018.

Full Year 2018 Gross Revenue Guidance

On August 15, 2018, the Company updated its fiscal year 2018 gross revenue expectation to between $34.0 million and $39.0 million, compared to its previous guidance of $44 million to $49 million. The Companys updated guidance includes the assumption that its cryptocurrency mining operations will continue to operate at current levels and that Bitcoin prices remain depressed at between $6,000 and $6,500 during the second half of 2018. In addition, guidance was reduced to adjust for the fact that the Companys acquisitions of Enertec Systems and I.AM, Inc. closed later in the second quarter than originally anticipated. The Company estimates that its current annualized gross revenue run-rate is approximately $40 million.

The Company hosted a conference call at 5:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, August 15, 2018 to discuss its preliminary second quarter results, provide a business update and answer questions. A replay of the webcast is available at www.dpwholdings.com under the Investor Relations section.

About DPW Holdings, Inc.



DPW Holdings, Inc. is a diversified holding company pursuing growth by acquiring undervalued businesses and disruptive technologies that hold global potential. Through its wholly owned subsidiaries and strategic investments, the company provides mission-critical products that support a diverse range of industries, including defense/aerospace, industrial, telecommunications, medical, crypto-mining, and textiles. In addition, the company owns a select portfolio of commercial hospitality properties and extends credit to select entrepreneurial businesses through a licensed lending subsidiary. DPW Holdings, Inc.s headquarters is located at 201 Shipyard Way, Suite E, Newport Beach, CA 92663; www.DPWHoldings.com.

Forward-Looking Statements



The foregoing release contains forward looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements generally include statements that are predictive in nature and depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, and include words such as believes, plans, anticipates, projects, estimates, expects, intends, strategy, future, opportunity, may, will, should, could, potential, or similar expressions. Statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on current beliefs and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update any of them publicly in light of new information or future events. Actual results could differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement as a result of various factors. More information, including potential risk factors, that could affect the Companys business and financial results are included in the Companys filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, the Companys Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. All filings are available at www.sec.gov and on the Companys website at www.DPWHoldings.com .

###
FlexiGroup's New Zealand credit card unit boosted annual profit as lending growth outpaced the nation's consumer credit expansion.

Cash profit rose 9 percent to $31.9 million in the 12 months ended June 30, outperforming the wider Australian financial services group. The Kiwi cards unit, which includes the Q Card, Flight Centre MasterCard, Farmers Card and Oxipay, added 73,000 customers in the year, with 481,000 as at June 30.

Customer spending rose 14 percent to $710 million, and closing receivables ended the year up 9 percent at $707 million. Reserve Bank figures show total credit billings in New Zealand rose 5.7 percent to $3.42 billion in June from a year earlier, while total advances outstanding climbed 5.8 percent to $7.19 billion as at June 30. RBNZ figures released today show the pace of growth in spending and outstanding balances slowed in July.

"This sustained growth is being driven by consumers becoming smarter with how they choose to finance and pay for the things they need," FlexiGroup NZ chief executive Chris Lamers said in a statement. "It is also a reflection of the sound retail and economic environment which weve been operating in over the past 12 months."

That growth led to a 13 percent increase in impairment losses on consumer loans to A$14.3 million, or 2.2 percent of receivables in Australian dollar terms. A year earlier, bad debt charges amounted to 2 percent of the loan book.

FlexiGroup's NZ leasing division posted a 14 percent fall in annual earnings to $9.8 million, as lending shrank 3 percent to $91 million and its loan receivables declined 10 percent to $170 million. The company said sales volume picked up in the second half of the year "reflecting positive momentum" from a new management structure.

The Australian group built the New Zealand business through acquisitions. In 2015 it bought Fisher & Paykel Finance from parent F&P Appliances for $315 million and later bought Spark New Zealand's Telecom Rentals business for $106 million.

FlexiGroup posted a net loss of A$10.3 million, writing down the value of assets and receivables in its Australian consumer and cards businesses. Cash earnings shrank 5 percent to A$88.2 million, near the top of their forecast range. FlexiGroup said it expects cash earnings to grow between 8 percent and 13 percent in the 2019 year.

The ASX-listed shares jumped 21 percent to A$2.20.

(BusinessDesk)

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Comvita, the worst performer on New Zealand's benchmark index this year following two poor honey harvests, turned to a full-year operating profit from a loss a year earlier and said it has a positive outlook for the current financial year as it invests in manuka honey supply.

New Zealand's only listed honey company posted an after-tax operating profit of $9.3 million in the year ended June 30, within its forecast range of $8 million-to-$11 million, and marking a turnaround from a loss of $5.5 million in the year-earlier period, the Paengaroa-based company said in a statement.

Comvita's flagship manuka honey business can be volatile as weather conditions impact honey production, and the natural health products company has been hit the last two seasons by adverse weather that reduced volumes and hurt earnings. The company said today it was narrowing its focus to its manuka honey and propolis businesses and has made significant investment in acquiring raw honey inventory during the past quarter to ensure it can meet future demand.

"We are very pleased with a return to operating profitability during FY18," the company said. "Following a second poor honey season in a row we were conscious of securing enough inventory early to satisfy our full year expectations rather than relying on a normal honey season in 2018/19 to satisfy our demand.

"The history of honey harvests in New Zealand shows that empirically a third consecutive poor honey season is unlikely," Comvita said.

Still, the company said it was working to reduce the financial exposure in the event of another poor harvest, by reducing the fixed-cost overhead in its apiary business and using its scientific knowledge to select hive sites that optimize profitability.

"It is very early in the new financial year. However, we are confident that given the changes we have made to our apiary model, our renewed focus on China and the US market opportunities and an increase in marketing spend at the expense of fixed overhead costs, we have a positive outlook for FY19."

Comvita said it would provide an update on the outlook at its Oct. 18 annual meeting.

The shares recently traded down 0.9 percent to $5.65 and have dropped 31 percent so far this year, making them the worst performing stock on the S&P/NZX 50 index, which has risen 8.5 percent over the same period. Ahead of today's results, Comvita stock was rated an average 'hold' with a $6.63 price target, according to Reuters data.

In the past year, sales grew 19 percent to $176.7 million as grey channel sales in Australasia, where individuals buy products to on-sell in Asia, grew 58 percent, while demand in key Asian and North American markets continued to grow.

The company said sales of UMF manuka honey products increased 54 percent and all its overseas markets where it has an in-market sales office, including Australia, UK, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and the US, were profitable. Its branded business produced an after-tax operating profit of $15.5 million in 2018, up from $1.1 million in 2017 when it was hurt by Chinese regulatory change affecting sales through the grey channel. Chinese consumers, who value foods with health benefits, are estimated to buy about 60 percent of the company's products.

Comvita will pay a final dividend of 2 cents a share on Sept. 28, taking the 2018 annual dividend to 6 cents. In 2017, it only paid a first-half dividend of 2 cents. The company said the 2018 payment represents 29 percent of operating profit after tax, and announced a change in dividend policy to 25-30 percent of operating profit after tax from a previous policy to pay 40-45 percent of after-tax profits.

"The board believes a change to this lower payout ratio is more appropriate for a high-growth company with ongoing demand for cash to fund growth," it said.

The company said it welcomed New Zealand regulatory changes which introduced legal enforceable standards for manuka honey, and said it grew raw material inventories, comprising mostly UMF manuka honey, to $89.3 million from $60 million over the past year as part of a more aggressive approach to purchasing honey so it had stock available as global retailers adapted to the change.

It has started a $12 million capital programme to upgrade its manuka honey production capability at its Paengaroa base, due for completion in February 2019, and is also investing in manuka seed nurseries and plantings to ensure it has future supply.

The investments are debt funded, and the company this month increased its borrowing facility to $130.3 million from $110.3 million. At its June 30 balance date, Comvita had net debt of $91.8 million, up from $61.9 million a year earlier.

Comvita has a distribution joint venture in China with its Chinese distribution partner Shenzhen Comvita Natural Food Co, which has more than 400 branded Comvita stores or kiosks throughout China and holds a stake in Comvita. It said the venture continued its good start, with sales of $46 million and its 51 percent share of the JV after-tax profit of $3.3 million.

In addition, about 10 percent of Comvita is owned by China Resources Ng Fung, a Shenzhen-based food company that stocks Comvita products in its stores and more than 4,000 supermarkets belonging to affiliated retailers.

(BusinessDesk)

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New Zealand's inbound net migration continued to slow from a peak last year as a growing number of long-term visitors leave the country, on top of more Kiwis departing for Australia.

Net migration was 63,800 in the year ended July 31, down from 72,400 a year earlier, Statistics New Zealand said. A net outflow of 5,300 people in the month of July continued the declining trend, and reduces the economic impulse of an expanding population.

A net outflow of Australians, Chinese, and Brits contributed almost half the turnaround of the past 12 months, especially Chinese people on permanent and student visas. Filipinos on permanent residence visas also registered a sharp reversal.

"Even though annual net migration is lower than a year ago, it is still high by historical standards," Stats NZ population insights senior manager Brooke Theyers said in a statement. "Smaller countries like New Zealand and Ireland tend to have larger swings in net migration rates simply because they have a small population."

New Zealand's inbound migration figures have been flattered in recent years by a lacklustre Australian economy. Kiwis have typically sought a better life across the Tasman, but have tended to stay home over the past five years as New Zealand's economy has hummed and jobs have been relatively plentiful.

The headline net migration figure was often cited by politicians on last year's campaign trail as putting stress on domestic infrastructure in need of upgrading. International students, in particular, were singled out, despite accounting for about 20 percent of arrivals with many only staying for the length of their study.

Westpac Banking Corp senior economist Satish Ranchhod said the increase in departures and shrinking net migration mirrored "the increase in arrivals of those on temporary work and student visas that we saw in previous years" with many of those people departing after three-to-four years.

"We expect that migration will continue to ease back over the next few years, pulling population growth down in the process," Ranchhod said. "This reinforces our expectations for a period of soft demand growth over the coming years."

New Zealand's strong tourism has also been blamed for the added strain on infrastructure. Today's figures show short-term arrivals rose 1.4 percent to 251,000 in July from a year earlier, for an annual increase of 3.6 percent to 3.79 million, equivalent to about 78 percent of New Zealand's population.

ASB Bank senior economist Mark Smith said the trend in visitor arrivals suggested the numbers have plateaued at historically high levels, with capacity stretched at peak periods given the tourism boom.

"The lower NZD/USD will help boost incomes but stronger growth in tourism capacity and better utilisation of the NZ tourist offering in the shoulder and low seasons will be needed to underpin incomes in the sector going forward," Smith said.

(BusinessDesk)

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Fletcher Building reported a full year loss but expects to resume paying dividends this year after overhauling the business in the wake of steep losses in its Building + Interiors unit.

The Auckland-based company said in a statement its net earnings loss was $190 million for the 12 months to June 30 compared to a profit of $94 million in the prior year. The result was weighed by $114 in impairment charges and $91 million of restructuring costs.

Operating earnings before significant items - excluding Building + Interiors - were $710 million, within the $680 million to $720 million range it forecast. The B+I losses were maintained at $660 million, as forecast in February when it announced further provisions of $486 million.

The losses in the B+I unit, which includes some of New Zealand's most complex and expensive vertical construction projects on its books, had been well signalled to the market after cost overruns on major projects like the Auckland-based International Convention Centre, the Commercial Bay development, and Christchurchs Justice Precinct. In July the company restructured into seven divisions from its previous five, including a standalone Australia unit.

"We are pleased to finish the financial year meeting earnings guidance and containing B+I losses within the provisions we announced to the market in February this year," said chief executive Ross Taylor.

The company reiterated that its focus remains firmly on divesting the Roof Tile Group and Formica businesses as it concentrates on its core markets of Australia and New Zealand. Both transactions are expected to complete in FY19.

No final dividend was declared but the company expects "subject to satisfactory trading performance, to be in a position to resume dividends in FY19," said Taylor.

The market was likely to be cheered by that and the fact the company met its guidance. "The good news is there is no new bad news," said David Price, a broker at Forsyth Barr.

Revenues lifted 1 percent on the year to $9.47 billion, driven by a solid sales performance across its core businesses in Australia and New Zealand, offset by lower construction revenue.

Looking ahead Fletcher said group ebit - excluding B+I and significant items - is expected to be broadly stable in FY19, except for Land Development earnings which are likely to be lower.

Investors, however, have signaled concern about the company as construction activity eases in both its key markets.

Fletcher Building said activity in New Zealand's residential sector is expected to decline slightly in the current financial year, reflecting a modest decline in the number of new residential consents. Activity in non-residential, commercial and infrastructure sectors, however, is expected to increase modestly as large roading contracts are completed and the backlog of significant commercial projects unwinds.

In Australia, residential activity is forecast to decline as a result of a sharp slowdown in multi-unit dwellings, tightening of bank lending and restrictions on foreign ownership. Infrastructure on the Eastern Seaboard looks set to benefit from large state and federal funded infrastructure projects.

The stock last traded at $6.90 and is down 13.7 percent over the past 12 months.

(BusinessDesk)

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Healthscope's New Zealand pathology business gave up earnings growth as it shared operating efficiencies with district health boards through the re-contracting process.

The New Zealand lab testing division reported a 1 percent decline in revenue to A$240.2 million in the year ended June 30 and a 2.7 percent dip in operating earnings before interest, tax depreciation and amortisation to A$58.1 million. In NZ dollar terms, revenue rose 1.6 percent and earnings 2.5 percent, slowing from the unit's outperformance in 2017.

"Revenue growth has moderated by the sharing of operational efficiencies with district health boards through re-contracting, combined with no new DHB contract work," the company said in its annual report. "The priority for Healthscope in New Zealand is maintaining strong relationships with the DHBs by delivering high-quality services and superior operational efficiencies."

The pathology business is willing to share "some of the long-term" gains with the DHBs to "strengthen existing relationships". Healthscope operates under the Labtests, Southern Community Laboratories, and Northland Pathology brands in New Zealand, and provides veterinary services through Gribbles Veterinary.

Healthscope said the Gribbles Vet unit posted a "good performance" for revenue and margins "on the back of expanded services nationwide".

Group profit fell 19 percent to A$89.4 million due to the cost of hospital closures and onerous lease provisions, while revenue increased 3.7 percent to A$2.34 billion.

The Melbourne-based company completed a strategic review of its A$1 billion Australian hospital portfolio and plans to set up an unlisted property trust to house those assets, leasing them back to Healthscope.

The ASX-listed shares slipped 0.2 percent to A$2.165.

(BusinessDesk)

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San Diego, CA, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gopher Protocol Inc. (OTCQB: GOPH ) ("Gopher), a company specializing in the creation of Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence enabled mobile technologies, is pleased to announce that it has attended the Blockchain Futurist Conference on August 15th and 16th in order to evaluate the ability to license Gopher's technology adaptation for the cryptocurrency arena including Gophers database sharing, security and AI technologies.



The two-day conference was located in Toronto, Canada, the birthplace of Ethereum and home to thousands of blockchain enthusiasts and hundreds of blockchain startups. The main objective of the conference was to discuss trends and the future of blockchain technology in addition to presenting new concepts and innovations in the field.

"It was a very impressive conference," stated Danny Rittman, Gophers Chief Technology Officer. "I could identify young talents in the field and their vision about its upcoming future. The discussions with these industry leaders ranged from new methodologies and approaches with the goal of mainstreaming cryptocurrencies to the need to increase security to protect from hackers and fraud."

Dr. Rittman continued, "We believe our AI system could be utilized in this industry as it can be integrated within each transaction (blockchain) formation resulting in an accurate history and audit trail and increasing integrity. We also believe the AI system can provide additional cyber security through monitoring in a decentralized fashion. Once integrated into an exchange, we expect that the AI system would be able to manage and supervise all activities along with learning user's exchange patterns."

About Gopher Protocol Inc.

Gopher Protocol Inc. (OTCQB: GOPH) (Gopher) ( http://gopherprotocol.com/ ) is a development-stage company which consider itself Native IoT creator, developing Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence enabled mobile technology. Gopher has a portfolio of Intellectual Property that when commercialized will include smart microchips, mobile application software and supporting cloud software. The system contemplates the creation of a global network. The core of the system will be its advanced microchip technology that can be installed in any mobile device worldwide. Gopher envisions this system as an internal, private network between all enabled mobile devices providing shared processing, advanced mobile database management/sharing and enhanced mobile features.

Corporate Site: http://gopherprotocol.com

Press page/ press kit - http://gopherprotocol.com/?page_id=228

Consumer and product website for Guardian Patch: http://www.guardianpatch.com/ .

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission located at their website ( http://www.sec.gov ). In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, governmental and public policy changes, the Companys ability to raise capital on acceptable terms, if at all, the Companys successful development of its products and the integration into its existing products and the commercial acceptance of the Companys products. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release.




HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (TSX - CDH): Corridor Resources Inc. (Corridor or the Company) today announced that the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) has accepted its notice of intention to proceed with a normal course issuer bid (the Bid)



Pursuant to the Bid, Corridor may purchase up to 6,803,118 common shares of Corridor ("Common Shares"), representing approximately 10% of its public float as at August 14, 2018. As at August 14, 2018, Corridor had 88,655,299 issued and outstanding Common Shares, including a public float of 68,031,186 Common Shares.

Corridor is commencing the Bid because the Board of Directors of Corridor believes that the current market price of its Common Shares does not fully reflect the underlying value of the Company. Decisions regarding the timing of future purchases of Common Shares will be based on market conditions, share price and other factors. The Company believes that, at such times, the purchase of Common Shares would be an appropriate use of corporate funds in the best interests of the Company. Such purchases are expected to benefit all remaining shareholders by increasing their equity interest in the Company. As of June 30, 2018, the Company had approximately $56.1 million of cash on hand available to support decisions to purchase Common Shares under the Bid.

The period during which Corridor is authorized to make purchases under the Bid commences on August 23, 2018 and ends on August 22, 2019 or such earlier date on which the maximum number of Common Shares are purchased under the NCIB or the Bid is terminated at Corridor's election.

All Common Shares will be purchased on the open market through the facilities of the TSX or through alternative Canadian trading systems or by such other means as may be permitted by the TSX or under applicable securities laws. Other than purchases made under block purchase exemptions, Corridor may purchase up to 14,674 Common Shares on the TSX during any trading day, which represents approximately 25% of 58,696, being the average daily trading volume on the TSX for the most recently completed six calendar months prior to the TSX's acceptance of the notice of the NCIB. RBC Dominion Securities Inc. will conduct the bid on behalf of Corridor. Any Common Shares purchased under the Bid will be cancelled.

Corridor is a Canadian junior resource company engaged in the exploration for and development and production of petroleum and natural gas onshore in New Brunswick and offshore in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Corridor currently has natural gas production and reserves in the McCully Field near Sussex, New Brunswick. In addition, Corridor has a shale gas prospect in New Brunswick and an offshore conventional hydrocarbon prospect in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

For further information:

Contact: Steve Moran, President and CEO

Corridor Resources Inc.

#301, 5475 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 3T2

Ph: (902) 429-4511 F: (902) 429-0209

Web: www.corridor.ca

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively referred to herein as forward-looking statements) within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking information typically contains statements with words such as anticipate, believe, plan, continuous, estimate, expect, may, will, project, should, or similar words suggesting future outcomes. In particular, this press release contains forward-looking statements pertaining to Corridors intention to commence a Bid and the timing, methods and quantity of any purchases of Common Shares under the Bid.

Undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements, which are inherently uncertain, are based on estimates and assumptions, and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties (both general and specific) that contribute to the possibility that the future events or circumstances contemplated by the forward-looking statements will not occur. There can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which forward-looking statements are based, will in fact be realized. Actual results will differ, and the difference may be material and adverse to the Corporation and its shareholders. Forward-looking statements are based on the Corporations current beliefs as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, the Corporation concerning anticipated financial performance, business prospects, strategies, regulatory developments, future natural gas and oil commodity prices, exchange rates, future natural gas production levels, the ability to obtain equipment in a timely manner to carry out development activities, the ability to market natural gas successfully to current and new customers, the impact of increasing competition, the ability to obtain financing on acceptable terms, the ability to add production and reserves through development and exploration activities, and the terms of agreements with third parties such as the Corporations hedging contracts. Although management considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect. By their very nature, forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties (both general and specific) and risks that forward-looking statements will not be achieved. These factors include, but are not limited to, risks associated with oil and gas exploration, development and production, operational risks, development and operating costs, substantial capital requirements and financing, volatility of natural gas and oil prices, government regulation, environmental, hydraulic fracturing, third party risk, dependence on key personnel, co-existence with mining operations, availability of drilling equipment and access, variations in exchange rates, expiration of licenses and leases, reserves and resources estimates, trading of common shares, seasonality, disclosure controls and procedures and internal controls over financial reporting, competition, conflicts of interest, issuance of debt, title to properties, hedging, information systems, litigation and aboriginal land and rights claims. Further information regarding these factors may be found under the heading Risk Factors in the Corporations Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2017. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors that may affect future results is not exhaustive.

The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof and Corridor does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable law. The forward-looking statements contained herein are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.
Speaking to PTI , Prabhu said that as far as private airlines were concerned, "they will have to deal with whatever issues they are dealing with. At the ministry of (civil) aviation, we can only deal at the policy level."

Civil aviation minister Suresh Prabhu has been quoted clarifying that issues pertaining to private airlines are best left to the organisation themselves.

The issue in contention is the turbulence at Jet Airways. Airline companies are grappling with tough times amid high oil prices and stiff competition crimping profitability.

When asked specifically about the issue at Jet, Prabhu said, "We are not aware about their position."

"Now, we will have to work on it. Not only India but globally. Some of the global airlines are facing serious problems. We have no control over the oil prices. One of the things we are trying to pursue is to put the ATF (Aviation Turbine Fuel) into the GST," he said.

The Civil Aviation Ministry has been working on efforts to bring jet fuel under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.

Jet Airways, a full service carrier, deferred announcement of it's June quarter results. The quarter results were to be announced on August 9, but the company held off from announcing the unaudited financial results.

The board at Jet is scheduled to meet on August 27 to consider and approve unaudited financial results.

Unconfirmed reports have signalled losses piling on account of rising crude costs. The carrier is also under the scanner of markets regulator SEBI over alleged disclosure lapses.

On Tuesday, shares tumbled by as much as 4% after reports that the Ministry of Corporate Affairs Ministry was looking into alleged fund diversion at the carrier.

In a regulatory filing, Jet Airways said it "has not received any communication from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in this regard".

Prabhu explained that the situation in airline industry is not limited to Indian companies alone. Whenever the fuel prices go up, airlines get badly affected since fuel is a variable cost and cannot be absorbed into business model immediately.
Albany, NY, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TMR envisages the global pharmaceutical robots market to post a 12.1% CAGR during the forecast period 2018-2026 to be worth a US$250.46 mn by the end of 2026. In 2017, the market held a valuation of US$92.73 mn. Amongst end users, pharmaceutical companies could secure a lions share as their market expands at a CAGR of 12.8%. Regionally, Asia Pacific is prognosticated to take the drivers seat of the market, considering its US$42.53 mn valuation secured in 2017.

Request to View Sample of Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=44444

Large-scale Use of Pharmaceutical Robots in Scientific Research Propels Growth

Growing awareness about various advantages offered by pharmaceutical robots with their outstanding properties and capabilities is expected to push the growth of the market. For instance, pharmaceutical robots can perform tasks more adeptly than humans. Unlike humans, they could operate in risky settings with biological dangers such as the threat of toxic chemotherapy compounds and radioactive contamination. Scientific research is one application that could bring in highly lucrative market opportunities for vendors. Pharmaceutical robots could also be used in blood sample testing, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing, and drug discovery. The market could rake in a whole lot of revenue with rising awareness about robotic machines.

Report PDF Brochure of Report: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=44444

Dearth of Skilled Automated Manufacturing Professionals Punches Demand Down

The global pharmaceutical robots market is prophesied to face with the challenge of lack of skilled personnel in automated manufacturing units. High cost of robots could be another factor looming over the market as a threat to its demand. However, the introduction of cost-effective solutions is envisioned to create rewarding business prospects in the market. On the other hand, massive reduction in production cost, increasing technological developments, and swelling demand from the pharmaceutical industry could help the market to increase demand in the coming years.

Request for Discount on This Report: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=D&rep_id=44444

Pharmaceutical laboratories are using robots on a large scale to inspect and pack drugs. New developments in collaborative robots is anticipated to set the tone for valuable growth in the global pharmaceutical robots market. Their easy maintenance and cost-effective nature could further increase market growth during the course of the forecast period.

Read Press Release: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pressrelease/pharmaceutical-robots-market.htm

The global pharmaceutical robots market is predicted in a report by Transparency Market Research (TMR) to witness high adoption of regional expansion, new product development, and merger and acquisition as key business strategies. This could be evidenced by the addition of three new regional training centers, relocation of three facilities, and opening of four new facilities of FANUC America Corporation in 2016. In the following year, Universal Robots opened its own academy to raise awareness about automation by offering free online training in robot programming. There are also other companies, viz. Yaskawa Electric Corporation, ABB Ltd., and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. looking to secure a position of strength in the market.

More Trending Reports by Transparency Market Research -

Medical Robotic Systems Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/medical-robotic-systems.html

Robotic Rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/robotic-rehabilitation-assistive-technologies-market.html

About TMR

Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.

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China, El Salvador establish ties in fresh defeat for Taiwan



Beijing, Aug 21 (AFP) Aug 21, 2018



China and El Salvador established diplomatic relations Tuesday as the Central American nation ditched Taiwan in yet another victory for Beijing in its campaign to isolate the island.

Beijing has been using its economic clout to peel away international support for the democratically-ruled island, leaving it with only 17 diplomatic allies around the world.

Speaking in Beijing at the Diaoyutai Guest House, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised El Salvador's decision to "recognise there is one China in the world".

Salvadoran Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, after signing a document with Wang establishing relations, said his country had made a "strategic decision" and taken the "correct and beneficial path for the people of both nations".

The president of El Salvador, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, said in an address on national television Monday night: "I announce that my government has taken the decision to break diplomatic relations maintained until today between the Republic of El Salvador and Taiwan, and establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China."

The announcement in Beijing followed a decision by Taiwan to sever its ties with El Salvador after it learned the country was planning on recognising Beijing.

Speaking in Taipei, foreign minister Joseph Wu condemned China's "crude actions".

"We will not engage in dollar diplomacy with China," said Wu, adding that El Salvador had been asking for "huge funding" for a port development project which Taiwan was unwilling to give because it would leave both countries in debt.

El Salvador's move leaves Taiwan with a dwindling number of allies around the world as a growing number switch recognition to China, which sees the self-ruling democratic island as a renegade part of its territory.

"El Salvador has made the choice to commit itself to one China with no pre-conditions, thus standing with most countries in the world," Wang said in comments that seemed intended to pre-empt Taiwanese accusations that China had bought the small Latin American nation's loyalty.

But, he added, the country "will get tangible gains from its partnership with China".

Relations between Taipei and Beijing have worsened since president Tsai Ing-wen came to power as her government refuses to acknowledge that Taiwan is part of "one China".

China has stepped up its poaching of Taiwan's allies since Tsai became leader in 2016.

El Salvador is the fifth diplomatic loss under her presidency and the third this year, following Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic.

The small African nation of Sao Tome switched recognition to Beijing in late 2016, followed by Panama in June last year.

Taiwan and China have been engaged for years in a diplomatic tug-of-war in developing countries. Economic support and other aid are often used as bargaining chips for diplomatic recognition.

Tsai's government is trying to enhance Taiwan's international profile but faces a concerted attempt by Beijing to shrink its space on global platforms.

Beijing has stepped up pressure on her government by blocking Taiwan from attending a growing list of international events and staging a string of military drills around the island.
China, El Salvador establish ties in fresh defeat for Taiwan



Beijing, Aug 21 (AFP) Aug 21, 2018



China and El Salvador established diplomatic relations Tuesday as the Central American nation ditched Taiwan in yet another victory for Beijing in its campaign to isolate the island.

Beijing has been using its economic clout to peel away international support for the democratically-ruled island, leaving it with only 17 diplomatic allies around the world.

Speaking in Beijing at the Diaoyutai Guest House, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised El Salvador's decision to "recognise there is one China in the world".

"This further goes to show the One China policy is in line with international norms, is the correct choice... and is the basis of China's relation with any country," he said.

Salvadoran Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, after signing a document with Wang establishing relations, said his country had made a "strategic decision" and taken the "correct and beneficial path for the people of both nations".

The president of El Salvador, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, said in an address on national television Monday night: "We are convinced that this is a step in the right direction, which corresponds to the principles of international law, international relations and the inevitable trends of our day."

The announcement in Beijing followed a decision by Taiwan to sever its ties with El Salvador after it learnt the country was planning on recognising Beijing.

"Losing (a) diplomatic ally is not an isolated incident. It is part of China's string of sabre rattling and intimidation," Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said at a press conference in Taipei.

The news came just after Tsai, who is trying to raise Taiwan's international profile, wrapped up a Latin American tour which included stops in the United States, which drew criticism from China. She visited allies Belize and Paraguay during the trip.

Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu said Taipei "will not engage in dollar diplomacy with China", adding that El Salvador had been asking for "huge funding" for a port development project, which Taiwan was unwilling to give because it would leave both countries in debt.



- 'No pre-conditions' -



El Salvador's move leaves Taiwan with a dwindling number of allies around the world as more countries switch recognition to China, which sees the self-ruling democratic island as a renegade part of its territory.

"El Salvador has made the choice to commit itself to one China with no pre-conditions, thus standing with most countries in the world," Wang said in comments that seemed intended to pre-empt Taiwanese accusations that China had bought the small Latin American nation's loyalty.

But, he added, the country "will get tangible gains from its partnership with China".

Tsai said this was a clear sign of China's continuing pressure, and had moved beyond being just a cross-strait issue.

"China's intention in the Asian region (is evident), especially to challenge or even replace (the) international order led by traditional powers," Tsai said.

"China intends to highlight its influence and power in the region through intensifying pressure on Taiwan."

Relations between Taipei and Beijing have worsened since Tsai came to power as her government refuses to acknowledge that Taiwan is part of "one China".

China has stepped up its poaching of Taiwan's allies since Tsai became leader in 2016.

El Salvador is the fifth diplomatic loss under her presidency and the third this year, following Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic.

The small African nation of Sao Tome switched recognition to Beijing in late 2016, followed by Panama in June last year.

Taiwan and China have been engaged for years in a diplomatic tug-of-war in developing countries. Economic support and other aid are often used as bargaining chips for diplomatic recognition.

Tsai's government is trying to enhance Taiwan's international profile but faces a concerted attempt by Beijing to shrink its space on global platforms.

Beijing has stepped up pressure on her government by blocking Taiwan from attending a growing list of international events and staging a string of military drills around the island.

burs-el/lth/fa
US hits Chinese pipes with 132% import duties



Washington, Aug 21 (AFP) Aug 21, 2018



On the eve of renewing talks to try to defuse the spiraling trade dispute with China, the US Commerce Department hit the country with import duties of 132 percent on metal pipe.

Commerce said China was selling the large diameter welded pipe used in the oil and gas industry far below the fair price, and that dumping harms US industry, according to the preliminary decision.

US imports of the pipe from China last year totaled $180 million.

Although this case is a separate from the series of punitive tariffs that President Donald Trump has imposed on thousands of Chinese goods, it is another example of the aggressive tactics against Beijing to try to protect US industry and lower the trade deficit.

Canada also was found to be dumping the product, and will face duties of over 24 percent, while India was slapped with a tax of over 50 percent, Commerce said.

Greece and Korea will face 22 percent duties, while Turkey will be charged up to five percent.

Six US pipe manufacturers filed the antidumping complaint with the Commerce Department in January.

Commerce said it will make a final ruling in November on whether the pipe from China and India is dumped into the US market.

However, if the independent International Trade Commission finds that US industry was not harmed from the imports, the duties will be refunded. That decision is due December 20.

The Commerce Department's final ruling on Canada and the others is due in January, with the ITC due to rule the following month.
WICHITA, Kan., Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NeoTherma Oncology (NTO), developer of an advanced bioelectric medical device for noninvasive treatment of serious cancers, today announced the Company was recently awarded Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This Phase I award provides resources to enable Quantifiable Thermal Therapy Using Magnetic Resonance Thermometry Imaging. Under terms of the grant, NTO will work closely with researchers from the Department of Radiology and Imaging Science, Utah Center for Advanced Imaging and Research at the University of Utah School of Medicine.



This grant demonstrates NCIs recognition of the importance of our development of noninvasive Magnetic Resonance Thermometry Imaging (MRTI) techniques in partnership with Dr. Dennis Parkers team at the Utah Center for Advanced Imaging Research (UCAIR), stated Michael Wandell, NTOs Chief Executive Officer. NCIs support of this collaboration results from a combination of our encouraging pre-clinical studies and a growing interest in MRI-guided thermal treatment as a safe and effective, non-invasive adjuvant therapy for serious tumors found deep in the body.

In April 2017, NTO announced that the FDA had designated its VectRx thermal oncology treatment platform a Breakthrough Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer, expediting patient access to this novel adjuvant therapy [1]. Further, in May 2017 NTO presented its pre-clinical results at the annual meeting of the Society for Thermal Medicine demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of radiofrequency generated heat delivery to deep organs in a large animal model.

It is clear that non-invasive treatment and thermal monitoring using available clinical MRIs would be beneficial as well as preferable to cancer patients, commented UCAIRs Dr. Dennis Parker. Our engineering experience combined with the advanced medical device development expertise of the NTO team bodes well for the successful development of a useful tool to help in the treatment of deep solid tumors such as those seen in pancreatic cancer.

Key objectives in this phase 1 program are to develop MRTI techniques to guide thermal treatment applications in the abdomen and support the integration of the temperature information into cancer treatment planning.

About NeoTherma Oncology

NeoTherma Oncology is developing VectRx, a noninvasive thermal oncology therapeutic device system for treatment of a wide range of cancers in addition to Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma, the eighth most common cancer but the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States. VectRx is designed to plug and play with the global installed base of MRI scanners to deliver non-invasive, image-guided adjuvant thermal oncology therapy, which is expected to increase life expectancy and improve quality of life of patients who receive it in addition to standard-of-care radio-, chemo- and immuno- therapies.

Contact: Erik Miller - Cell: +1-512-461-0197; emiller@neothermaoncology.com

_______________________

[1] Messmer and Cumming, 21st Century Cures Act: Innovation, Breakthroughs, and Research in Under-Represented Populations, Evidera|PPD, The Evidence Forum, Nov. 2017, https://www.evidera.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/02-21st-Century-Cures-Act-Innovation-Breakthroughs-and-Research_2017Nov.pdf
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Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd57381b0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd560e068)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd57381b0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd560e068)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd56e65b0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd560e068)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd560e068)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd4cdc3b8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fd56ff828)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fd56ff828)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
System error

error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.

context: ... 21: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951

/var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd5633e00)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd579f360)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd5633e00)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd579f360)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd5638228)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd579f360)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd579f360)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd4cdbd70)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fd5718678)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fd5718678)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
SEATTLE, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Igneous, the leader in unstructured data management, today announced several new integration firsts with primary tier network-attached storage (NAS) systems. Igneous now offers enhanced direct integration with Qumulo File Fabric (QF2), multi-protocol support for Dell EMC Isilon OneFS, and Pure FlashBlade object support. All enhancements use Igneous robust API capabilities simplifying the setup, management and maintenance of unstructured data protection for todays digital enterprises. The integrations extend Igneous data protection as-a-Service solutions to cover more data types and protocols.



In addition to already available API-based integrations with Pure Storage FlashBlade NAS, Igneous announced the industrys only data protection solution capable of supporting Pure FlashBlade object storage. Many new machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI) workflows rely on object storage, and Pure provides a high-performance, low-latency option for them, said Kiran Bhageshpur, CEO, Igneous. Igneous now enables customers to complete their object-based ML/AI pipelines with high-density, high-performance data protection and automated data movement.

Igneous also announced API integration with QF2 by Qumulo - another industry first. Today, many Qumulo customers utilize replication for data protection, lacking the ability to integrate with other protection methods. The Igneous API-based integration with QF2 fills that gap by enabling seamless local copy and fast restore of all data on Qumulo systems across the enterprise. We continue to rely on our partnership with Igneous to protect our customers data at scale, said Aaron Cardenas, CEO, P1 Technologies. With this new integration, we can now offer automated discovery of new exports as they are created, so our customers continually stay on top of data protection SLAs. Igneous complements the Qumulo replication capabilities for customers needing true data protection.

Finally, Igneous announced the industrys only multi-protocol support for Isilon OneFS. Organizations using both SMB and NFS concurrently on Isilon can protect all of their data while retaining both permission sets through a single backup. For our customers managing high volume and change rates of their unstructured data, a modern approach to data management is essential, Bhageshpur says, adding, Multi-protocol support for Isilon makes it easy for our customers to expand data protection across all data residing on OneFS regardless of the underlying application and operating system.

Availability

Since Igneous delivers software as-a-Service, these integrations are available to all Igneous customers as of today. Customers do not have to download or install any additional software.

Pure Storage customers must be running Purity for FlashBlade version 2.1.3 or higher with API version 1.1 or higher to protect object store with Igneous.

Customers running Dell EMC Isilon OneFS 7.2.0 or higher can begin importing and protecting Multi-Protocol shares immediately.

Customers using Qumulo QF2 version 2.7.6 or higher can protect their system with Igneous today.

Igneous data protection solutions are available through Igneous channel partners.

Igneous delivers the first modern protection and archive solution for massive unstructured data. Designed for organizations with valuable and growing data sets, Igneous solutions protect unstructured data across heterogeneous NAS and cloud infrastructure. Igneous streamlines data management, providing data protection, movement, discovery and search for organizations with billions of files and petabytes of data. Delivered as-a-Service, Igneous brings the agility of cloud to customer data centers. Igneous customers include leading Fortune 500, Global 2000 and data-centric enterprises.

Pure Storage (NYSE: PSTG) accelerates possible, transforming businesses in ways previously unimagined. The companys disruptive, software-driven storage technology combined with a customer-friendly business model drives business and IT transformation for customers through dramatic increases in performance and efficiency at lower costs.

Qumulo, Inc. is the pioneer and leader in file storage for the cloud era. Qumulo File Fabric (QF2) gives data-intensive businesses the freedom to store, manage and access petabytes of file-based data in the data center and in the cloud at a global scale. Founded in 2012 by the inventors of scale-out NAS, Qumulo serves the modern file storage and management needs of Global 2000 customers.

Dell EMC, a part of Dell Technologies, enables organizations to modernize, automate and transform their data center using industry-leading converged infrastructure, servers, storage and data protection technologies. This provides a trusted foundation for businesses to transform IT, through the creation of a hybrid cloud, and transform their business through the creation of cloud-native applications and big data solutions. Dell EMC services customers across 180 countries  including 98 percent of the Fortune 500  with the industrys most comprehensive and innovative portfolio from edge to core to cloud.

P1 Technologies is a best-of-breed, leading edge IT consulting company located in Southern CAs Manhattan Beach. P1 concentrates on storage and disaster recovery solutions with key networking products and services. Their founders bring over 50 years of IT consulting in enterprise storage design, implementation and management expertise. They have worked both as customers and employees of companies like EMC, NetApp, Data Domain, and Sun Microsystems.

Contact:

Holly Hagerman

Connect Marketing

Hollyh@connectmarketing.com

(801) 373-7888




Must do better: Japan eyes AI robots in class to boost English



Tokyo, Aug 21 (AFP) Aug 21, 2018



English-speaking AI robots will be helping out in some 500 Japanese classrooms from next year as the country seeks to improve its English skills among both children and teachers.

The education ministry plans a pilot project costing around 250 million yen ($227,000) to improve Japanese students' notoriously weak oral and written English, an official told AFP.

"AI robots already on the market have various functions. For example, they can check the pronunciation of each student's English, which is difficult for teachers to do," added the official in charge of international education, who asked not to be named.

AI robots "are just one example of the trial and we are planning other measures" such as using tablet apps and having online lessons with native speakers, he said.

The move comes ahead of a change in the national curriculum in two years that will require children from the age of 10 to learn English.

Japanese schools struggle to find qualified teachers for English classes and generally lack the cash to hire trained language assistants.

Some primary and middle schools have already turned to technology to bolster English teaching, introducing English-speaking AI robots in the classroom.

English classes are currently compulsory for Japanese students aged between 12 and 15 but the starting age will be lowered to primary school children in 2020.
Chicago, IL, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Belmont Village Senior Living today announced a construction milestone with the topping out of its seven-story senior living community at 700 West Fullerton Avenue in Chicagos Lincoln Park neighborhood. Contractor W.E. ONeil completed the concrete structure with the final roof placement and joined with Belmont Village to thank the sub-contractors who helped reach the milestone at a recent safety luncheon.



Were excited to reach the topping out of our fifth Chicagoland community, and were particularly pleased to achieve this milestone with W.E. ONeil, said Patricia Will, Belmont Village Founder and CEO. Belmont Village Lincoln Park is our first community in the Chicago metro area and, as an urban site, it brings unique opportunities. Weve worked with W.E. ONeil for years and together we have an excellent track record of creating exceptional, high functioning communities for our residents that also fit beautifully into the neighborhood.



The 120,500-square-foot property is scheduled to open in the summer of 2019 and will provide 149 units of assisted living and memory care for area residents. The community will reside on the site of the original Nellie Black building, which housed nurses and interns on the Childrens Memorial Hospital campus. In honor of the original building, Belmont Village has worked with architect Antunovich Associates to closely replicate its style from 1932, incorporating design elements and salvaged pieces from the Nellie Black building with modern construction. The community will feature expansive common areas indoors and out, along with a variety of studio, one- and two-bedroom apartment plans.



It is a true pleasure to be working on our eighth project with Belmont Village, said Lou Reiner, Executive Vice President of Operations at W.E. ONeil. We look forward to continuing our long-standing relationship with Belmont Village and to producing well-designed and well-built buildings throughout the country.



Belmont Village, founded in 1997, is an integrated developer, owner and operator of high-end seniors housing. Since its inception, the company has developed and currently operates 28 senior living communities in seven states and Mexico City. Chicagoland Belmont Village communities include Buffalo Grove, Carol Stream, Glenview and Oak Park. Each Belmont Village property is built to purpose and licensed throughout the building to provide a blended model of care that offers flexibility for residents if needs change, and allows couples with varying health or cognitive needs to stay together.



Belmont Village Lincoln Park is currently taking reservations and will be opening an Information Center this fall in nearby retail space to provide details about the project and the companys signature amenities and services, award-winning programs, and high operating standards for care, safety and support. For more information, please call 773-327-2200 or visit www.belmontvillage.com.



Attachment
Scientists confirm ice exists at Moon's poles



Tampa, Aug 21 (AFP) Aug 21, 2018



Scientists said Tuesday they have confirmed the existence of ice on the Moon's surface for the first time, a discovery that could one day help humans survive there.

Signs of ice on the Moon have been reported by scientists for years, but previous observations could have been explained by other phenomena, such as unusually reflective lunar soil, the study authors said.

"This is the first time scientists have definitive evidence for the presence of water ice on the surface," lead author Shuai Li of the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology told AFP.

The ice mainly lies in the frigid shadows of craters at the lunar poles, and was detected using instruments that flew on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, launched in 2008 by the Indian Space Research Organization.

Using data from NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument, researchers identified three chemical signatures "that definitively prove there is water ice at the surface of the Moon," said a NASA statement.

The polar regions where the ice lies are "super cold," Li said, noting that the warmest temperatures never reach above minus 250 degrees Fahrenheit (-157 Celsius.

It is unclear exactly how much ice exists on the surface, since the instruments could only detect ice within a few millimeters of the Moon's surface, he said.

But NASA said if there is enough of the ice, "water would possibly be accessible as a resource for future expeditions to explore and even stay on the Moon."

The US space agency is aiming to return humans to the Moon in the coming years for the first time since the storied Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

Li said the best way to find out more about the Moon's ice and how to tap into it as a resource would be to send a robotic rover to explore the lunar poles.

The full study was published in Monday's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Hours-long battle ends in Kabul after militants killed



Kabul, Aug 21 (AFP) Aug 21, 2018



An hours-long battle in the Afghan capital involving insurgent rocket attacks and military airstrikes ended Tuesday with the death of two militants, authorities said.

The assault came as President Ashraf Ghani was making a speech marking the first day of the Islamic Eid al-Adha holiday, days after he offered the Taliban a conditional three-month ceasefire.

It was not clear who carried out the attack.

"Two attackers were involved. The enemy was firing mortars," General Murad Ali Murad, commander of Kabul's garrison, told a press conference.

They were killed and at least six civilians or security force members were injured, he said.

Police said the attackers used rockets, several of which landed in at least two areas of Kabul around 9:00 am.

During the battle an Afghan army helicopter swooped in low near the Eidgah Mosque in a central district and fired a rocket at a militant position, sending a plume of dust into the sky.

Shoppers who moments earlier had been buying livestock for the Eid feast sprinted for shelter as cars swerved in the road to flee the fighting.

Blasts and gunfire could be heard as security forces cordoned off the area.

The mosque is near the presidential palace where Ghani was making his speech, which was being aired live on Facebook when the attack began.

The president can be seen pausing as multiple blasts are heard in the background, some sounding nearby, before stating: "This nation is not going to bow to these rocket attacks."

The attackers appeared to be in a building behind the mosque, which was partially destroyed in another attack several years earlier and is not believed to have been in use for Eid.

Footage aired during the attack on Tolo News showed black smoke emanating from the area near the mosque while fire trucks and security vehicles rushed to the scene.

Interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish confirmed that militants had taken over a building near the mosque and fired several rockets.

Danish later told Tolo the militants were using rocket-propelled grenades and mortars to target parts of the city.

"Choppers are flying over the site and the security forces are busy defusing two explosive-packed vehicles," wrote interior ministry strategic communications chief Bahar Mehr on Facebook.

- Ceasefire offer -



Ghani unveiled the government's latest ceasefire offer during an Independence Day address late Sunday, saying security forces would observe the truce beginning this week -- but only if the militants reciprocated.

The offer was welcomed by the United States and NATO after nearly 17 years of war, though it was not clear if their forces in Afghanistan would also participate.

The Taliban have not yet officially responded to Ghani's proposal.

The move followed an extraordinarily violent week in Afghanistan that saw that Taliban storm the provincial capital of Ghazni -- just a two-hour drive from Kabul -- and press the fight against security forces across the country, with estimates suggesting hundreds of people may have been killed.

Analyst Nazar Sarmachar said the proximity of the rockets to the presidential palace as Ghani was speaking highlighted glaring security shortcomings in the capital.

"Had a rocket landed in the backyard of the palace ... it could have killed or wounded the president," he said.

The truce proposal came after an initial ceasefire in June, the first since the US-led invasion in 2001 that toppled the Taliban regime.

For three days thousands of insurgents poured into cities across Afghanistan, eating ice cream and posing for selfies with security forces to celebrate.

The brief respite spurred hopes that a new path was opening for possible peace talks in the country.

The Taliban have long insisted on direct talks with Washington and refused to negotiate with the Afghan government, which they see as illegitimate.

In June Washington indicated a change in its longstanding policy, with US officials meeting Taliban representatives in Doha in July.

However, State Department official Alice Wells told AFP Monday that any future peace talks must include the Kabul government, and would not take place directly between the Taliban and Washington.
Colombia protests Venezuelan border incursion



Bogota, Aug 21 (AFP) Aug 21, 2018



Colombia issued a strong protest Tuesday over what it said was a border incursion by Venezuelan helicopters and troops over the weekend.

The government of President Ivan Duque said it sent a strongly-worded protest to the Venezuelan ambassador over what it claimed was a "violation of Colombia's sovereignty" in Norte Santander department on Sunday.

"Two helicopters, identified with the initials of the Bolivarian National Guard and about 30 armed personnel belonging to the Bolivarian National Armed Forces of Venezuela" landed in the border region of Tibu, the foreign ministry said.

The ministry said it sent a note "expressing the strongest protest" to the Venezuelan ambassador in Bogota.

The South American neighbors have locked horns in recent years over similar incidents along their 2,200-kilometer (1,370-mile) border crisscrossed by guerrillas and drug traffickers.

The most recent incident was in November last year and also involved the Tibu region.

Like his predecessor Juan Manuel Santos, Duque has branded Venezuela a "dictatorship" under President Nicolas Maduro.

Earlier this month, Maduro accused Santos of being behind an alleged attempt to assassinate him during a military parade in Caracas.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing the economic crisis in their home country have taken refuge in Colombia, which Maduro has also accused of sheltering his opponents.

Colombia urged Peru and Ecuador to coordinate their immigration policies to deal with an influx of Venezuelan migrants.
SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Silver Air , the private jet management and charter company, has added a Hawker 4000 to its charter fleet. Extending Silver Airs Dallas-based fleet, the super-midsize jet is managed through Silver Airs PURE Jet Management program and is now available for immediate charter.



The Hawker 4000 features a 8-passenger interior with a 3,280 nm range for cross-country travel. Ideal for national business travel, the jet includes a double club executive arrangement, front galley with cabin service, in-flight domestic Wi-Fi and more.

The Hawker 4000 is a great new addition to our Dallas-based fleet, as PURE Jet Management expands in Texas and across the country, said Chuck Stumpf, Silver Airs President of Business Development. Silver Airs owner-advocate approach is proving to be an effective tool for jet owners who are looking for a partner to manage their assets in their best interest. This new Hawker is a great option for discerning travelers who need to get across the country quickly and comfortably.

Silver Air's PURE Jet Management model treats jet owners as partners rather than assets, creating quality management plans at the best value. Unlike traditional jet management companies that act as multiple service providers, Silver Air does not profit from selling fuel, maintenance, hangers or other fixed costs back to jet owners. Instead, Silver Air expertly manages the multiple service vendors on the owners behalf ensuring a cost effective and transparent relationship.

Silver Air manages and operates privately owned aircraft from bases throughout the United States. Silver Air is the only operator to offer unrestricted charter availability on a Boeing Business Jet. Silver Airs fleet features other light to large-cabin jets from Gulfstream, Dassault, Bombardier, Embraer, Cessna, and Hawker Beechcraft.

Silver Airs charter operations have earned an ARGUS Platinum rating and the company is currently IS-BAO stage two compliant, demonstrating the industrys highest safety practices. Silver Air is also a member of the Air Charter Safety Foundation.

For more information on Silver Air visit http://www.silverair.com/ .

Follow Silver Air at www.facebook.com/FlySilverAir, www.twitter.com/FlySilverAir and https://www.instagram.com/flysilverair/.

About Silver Air

Silver Air is a pure private jet management service provider that delivers a transparent, owner-advocate approach to management creating valuable partnerships with private jet owners. Founded in 2008, the company is based in Southern California with corporate offices in Santa Barbara. Silver Air manages a comprehensive fleet of luxury aircraft from light to long-range heavy jets and a global network operating around the clock, 24-hours-a-day. Silver Air is ARGUS Platinum and IS-BAO rated and is a member of the National Business Aviation Association.

Media Contact:

Van Holmes

For Silver Air

310-902-9457

van.holmes@specpr.com

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4e816044-9dae-4170-90f3-bfc4783c183a

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b50412fb-92ca-48bf-9c6c-66ea946c5aaf

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ee2f6569-16ac-40bd-b8c1-eeee214a4337

A video accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/250ae1c7-53b6-45f7-a704-bdb102e5d9d7
Optimization

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Corbyn's Anti-Semitism Problem Labour Stumbles in Polls as Accusations Mount

Does the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership have an anti-Semitism problem? The debate refuses to go away and new pictures from Tunisia have added fuel to the fire.
Paradise Lost How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love

Travel is no longer a luxury good. Airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet have contributed to a form of mass tourism that has made local residents feel like foreigners in cities like Barcelona and Rome. The infrastructure is buckling under the pressure. By DER SPIEGEL Staff
English Icelandic

Islandsbanki hf. has today tapped by SEK100 million the following bond under its Global Medium Term Notes (GMTN) Programme with the following terms:

Issuer: Islandsbanki hf.

Original Issue Size: SEK 200,000,000

New Issue Size: SEK 300,000,000

Maturity Date: 27 August 2021

Listing: Irish Stock Exchange

ISIN: XS187043735

Dealer: Danske Bank

Information on Islandsbankis USD 2,500,000,000 GMTN and its supplements are available at https://www.islandsbanki.is/english/investor-relations/funding/ .

For further information:

Investor Relations  Gunnar Magnusson, ir@islandsbanki.is , tel +354 440 4665.

Islandsbanki press releases

If you wish to receive Islandsbanki press releases by e-mail please register at: https://www.islandsbanki.is/english/investor-relations/ir-contacts/e-mail-subscription/

About Islandsbanki

A leader in financial services in Iceland, Islandsbanki is a universal bank with total assets of ISK 1,036bn and a 25% - 50% market share across all domestic business segments. Building on over 140 years of servicing key industries, Islandsbanki has developed specific expertise in tourism, seafood and energy related industries. Driven by the vision to be #1 for service, Islandsbankis relationship banking business model is propelled by three business divisions that manage and build relationships with the Banks customers. Islandsbanki has developed a wide range of online services such as the Islandsbanki, Kreditkort and Kass apps, enabling customers to do their banking whenever and wherever. At the same time, the Bank continues to operate the most efficient branch network in Iceland through its strategically located 14 branches. For the fifth consecutive year, Islandsbanki led the Icelandic Customer Satisfactory Index for banks in 2017 and was also named Bank of the Year in Iceland by the Banker. Islandsbanki has a BBB+/A-2 rating from S&P Global Ratings and BBB/F3 from Fitch Ratings and is the only bank in Iceland rated by two international rating agencies. www.islandsbanki.is

Disclaimer

This press release may contain forward-looking statements, involving uncertainty and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from results expressed or implied by the statements. Islandsbanki hf. undertakes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after this press release. It is the investor's responsibility to not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements which only reflect the date of this press release. Forward-looking statements should not be considered as guarantees or predictions of future events and all forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.
If a fifth face were added to Mount Rushmore, which president would you choose?

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Ronald Reagan

John F. Kennedy

Someone in the Civil Rights or Women's Rights movement would be more appropriate. View Results
MIAMI, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Natures Best Brands, Inc. (OTC:HLTY) (the Company), which, through its subsidiaries, markets organic foods to health-conscious consumers, announces that it has signed an agreement to acquire Unisource Health Inc., the exclusive United States distributor of the RM-3A medical device. The RM-3A medical device is a powerful tool used by physicians in managing their patients health. FDA cleared, this medical device performs a range of tests that are covered by most insurance companies. Pursuant to the agreement, the Company will issue 20,000,000 shares of common stock to the stockholders of Unisource which based on todays closing price of the companys common stock the acquisition is valued at approximately $20,000,000. The Company and Unisource anticipate that the acquisition will be completed on or around October 30, 2018.



The acquisition of Unisource will enable us to reposition our business to offer state-of-art medical equipment, which, following the merger, will be our principal line of business, stated Natalia Lopera, the CEO of Natures Best Brands, Inc.

We have been looking for the right partner to help us to reach the next level of growth, stated Lawrence Biggs, the CEO of Unisource Health, Inc., who will become the Companys chief executive officer upon completion of the acquisition.

About Unisource Health Inc.

Unisource was formed in August 2017 to capitalize on the emerging movement in the health care industry towards preventative care. Unisource holds the exclusive United States distribution rights to the RM-3A medical device. The device is a powerful tool in managing patients health by providing the physician with an evaluation of eight critical risk factors to enable the physician to address potential health risks before the underlying problems arise. This system is non-invasive, and combined with a fast ankle brachial index test, takes less than 8 minutes to complete a screening.

The device provides physicians with a one-page comprehensive overview of a patients health at-a-glance as well as in-depth details of the screening results. The screening system provides patient insights covering eight key risk factors which are pre-cursers to disease. Depending on the risk score for each factor, the physician will be able to determine the best course of action to resolve the patients condition and possibly prevent the onset of disease.

About Natures Best Brands, Inc.

Natures Best Brands, Inc., through its subsidiaries intends to market organic foods to health-conscious consumers. In pursuance of this goal, the Company operates four restaurants that offer healthy food, coffee and juice, two in Panama and two in California. The Companys website is www.naturesbestbrands.com.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements contained in this press release, including, without limitation, statements containing the words believes, anticipates, expects and words of similar import, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve both known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Our actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in our forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including our ability to complete the acquisition of Unisource, the ability of Unisource to develop its business, our ability to raise sufficient financing for Unisources operations, Unisources dependence on a single manufacturer for the sole product it sells and the ability of the manufacturer to manufacture and timely deliver quality products and to address the latest technological developments, the ability of Unisource to obtain marketing rights to additional products, the effects of regulatory changes; any legal action which may be commenced against the Company or Unisource arising from the acquisition or the conduct by the Company and Unisource of their business or claims relating to infringement of intellectual property rights, and other risks associated with early stage companies, particularly companies that market one product that is manufactured by a third party manufacturer with no second source, changes in our business strategy or development plans, competition, business disruptions adverse publicity and international, national and local general economic and market conditions. Except as required by applicable law, the Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any of our forward-looking statements in order to reflect any event or circumstance that may arise after the date hereof. Information on our website or any other website does not constitute a part of this press release.

Investor inquiries contact:

SmallCapVoice.Com, Inc.

email: ssmith@smallcapvoice.com

Phone: 512-267-2430
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Because of the May agreement on national presidential and parliamentary elections being held in December many of the larger militias are demanding assurances that militia leaders and their followers will not lose power or income because of a unified government. The combined demands of all the major militias, especially those loyal to the GNA (Government of National Accord), far exceed what will be available. This is one of the reasons the GNA is the weaker of the two existing national governments, despite occupying Tripoli (the national capital and largest city in the country). While the GNA is based in Tripoli and recognized by the UN it has proved much less capable than its eastern (Tobruk) rival the HoR (House of Representatives). It was agreements between these two existing governments that made the December election plan possible. The governments agreed to increase their cooperation (already functional enough) to improve the operation of the National Oil Company and the Central Bank of Libya. But these two institutions are about the only two that are fully functional and even that is difficult to accomplish because of the relentless efforts by various factions to corrupt the bank or the oil company. Keeping these two institutions going is essential to national survival because without the oil income living standards will plunge to levels that will force much, if not most of the current Libyan population to emigrate or starve.

The lack of other functioning national institutions (courts, legislature, civil service and security) keep getting in the way. The judicial system, such as it is, remains local (at best) with no national court to make final decisions. This makes it much more difficult to settle disputes about things like exactly how to conduct the December elections or even complete the registration (only about 55 percent of potential voters have been registered so far). There are still two legislatures (GNA and HoR) and neither of them can get all their members to attend legislative sessions. The lack of a national civil service is largely because of the lack of many national institutions and the many militias demanding more government jobs than the current oil income can pay for.

National security is in somewhat better shape because of the HoR recognizing general Hiftar and his LNA (Libyan National Army). The many still independent militias see the LNA as an enemy because accepting the authority of the LNA will mean a militia can no longer do whatever get away with and that means a substantial loss of income and decline in membership.

The LNA now controls most of the Libyan coast and is establishing security in the major cities. In the east Derna was the last major coastal city to have a Islamic terrorists and rogue militia problem and in the last few months the LNA eliminated that and is now seeking out less visible outlaws in the city. This takes time, as does the process of organizing forces to move further west against the GNA dominated cities of Misrata and Tripoli. Hiftar has held off on that to give the GNA an opportunity to pacify these two cities. That is happening, but very slowly. Meanwhile, the LNA is working on restoring order in the south and massing forces to the final advance west, to the Tunisian border.

In short, the leaders of the GNA and HoR can go to Paris in May 2019 and agree to national elections and a unified government but neither of these leaders has the means to actually make this happen. The leaders have no legs to walk on. The unification agreement was recognition that if the unification did not take place, and the national institutions get established, Libya was doomed. The problem is many armed factions still believe that the interests of their faction come first despite the risk of the nation disintegrating because of that greed.

Neighboring countries (especially Egypt, Tunisia and Italy) are cooperating with the two Libyan governments to identify key Libyan gangsters (often former government officials) and Islamic terrorists based in Libya and impose international (via the UN and Interpol) sanctions on them. These outlaws are key movers of illegal money and goods (people, weapons, oil and so on). Italy has been particularly effective here because many of the European criminals (working with Libyan outlaws) are Italian.

But in Tripoli, the traditional capital, the GNA never had complete control of the city because of so many powerful and uncooperative militias that had been there since the 2011 revolution. The HoR thrived because it had more competent military commanders who literally took over and rebuilt the pre-2011 Libyan armed forces. This was done by replacing all the officers and troops loyal to the deposed 2011 government with tribal militias and former Libyan officers returning from exile and training a new generation of Libyan military leaders. The UN and the West opposed this but it worked and with the cooperation of most Arab countries the HoR was finally accepted by the UN. This made possible the December elections that will merge the GNA and HoR. But the GNA might not last until December and that is a problem that has to be fixed if the elections are to take place.

The Southern Expanse

Most of Libya is desert and most of the desert in the far south has nothing (oil fields or pipelines) of value and the few people scratching out a living belong to Taureg (Berber) or black (sub-Saharan) African tribes. Poverty and knowledge of the territory have made the tribes susceptible to the influence and control of outside groups with money (or guns, but the money works more effectively). Since 2011 the south has seen a number of Islamic terrorist groups (mainly al Qaeda affiliates) enter the area and offer cash for cooperation in providing the Islamic terrorists with sanctuary and assistance (which is paid for) to operate their smuggling (people, drug, weapons and otherwise legal goods) operations. The most lucrative smuggling routes are in southwest Libya (the Fezzan region) bordering Niger and Chad. Smuggling routes tend to come up via Mali into Algeria (which has well-guarded borders) and Libya (which does not). In southeast Libya the routes come via Sudan and Chad. There is a further complication with Sudan because Libya borders the Darfur region which has suffered violence for decades and several Darfur rebel groups have taken advantage of the post-2011 chaos in Libya to establish bases in the southeast. The rebels make deals with the Libyan tribes and life goes on. In the southeast, the LNA persuaded many of the tribes to side with the LNA and with that the LNA found that it had over a thousand Darfur rebels on the payroll. That was because the Darfur rebels often joined local tribal militias and shared profits from smuggling operations the Darfur rebels operated to finance themselves. This puts the Libyan tribes in touch with Chad based smuggling gangs that also run goods (and people) into southeastern Libya.

The smuggling gangs are another matter as most are dominated by Islamic terrorists who also plan and carry out terror attacks. Some Islamic terrorists will also try to impose their religious views (and lifestyle rules) on the local tribes. That never ends well and for that reason, more of the tribes are welcoming LNA forces as they seek to shut down al Qaeda and other such groups. This Islamic terrorist clearance operation has accelerated since 2017 and the LNA is the only one thats really making an effort to restore law and order in the south.

External Complications

Another complication the LNA encounters in the southeast is Qatar involvement. Complaints about this have been common since 2014. Initially, this came as a surprise because in late 2011, after the fall of the Kaddafi government neighboring Sudan, long the target of Kaddafi meddling, welcomed the change in Libya. But there were side effects. Huge amounts of weapons were stolen from Kaddafi era warehouses and some of the Libyan arms were showing up in Sudan, where Darfur rebels were working with Libyan smugglers to get the weapons into Sudan. It was difficult to blame this on Israel and America and Qatari groups appeared to be financing this arms trade. The LNA has also encountered Turkish efforts to influence events in Libya but these may have been mainly Turkish businessmen rather than the Turkish government.

While foreign experts believe there are still 3,000 or more ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) members in Libya the LNA has encountered far fewer and is chasing them down. Currently, a lot of this is taking place in south-central Libya (Jufra, 650 kilometers southeast of Tripoli). This began in May when LNA forces cornered an ISIL faction believed responsible for some recent attacks on southern oil facilities (like the one near Jufra). Most of the remaining ISIL fighters are operating in the largely desert south, surviving as bandits most of the time. The LNA is tracking them down and destroying them, something no other organization in Libya can do.

Oil

Another achievement of the LNA peace effort in the south is to reduce violence against oil production and movement (pipelines) facilities. Most of these are halfway between the coast and the southern borders. Normally the main source of interruption is extortionate oil facility guards or other local militia problems. The LNA has concentrated on dealing with that and been successful. As a result by now (August 2018) production has returned to a million BPD (barrels per day). At the end of 2017 production was about a million BPD but that was disrupted occasionally in early 2018. The current goal is to reach 1.5 million BPD by the end of 2018 and 2.1 million BPD by the early 2020s. This is far in excess of pre-2011 levels (1.6 million BPD) but is necessary because of the need to finance reconstruction and adapt to the fact that the world price may be up now but is at risk of continuing to fall, despite OPEC (the Arab dominated oil cartel) efforts to reduce overall production and drive up the price. The problem is that the United States and Canada are producing a lot more due to new technologies (like fracking) that open up huge new sources that were long known but not reachable. The problem with increasing production is that it attracts more greedy militias seeking to get paid.

August 8, 2018: The LIA (Libyan Investment Authority) has been forced it leave Tripoli (because of militia threats and violence) for a less vulnerable location (believed to be Malta) where it can work with foreign governments and banks to safeguard the Libyan sovereign wealth fund ($67 billion of cash and other assets). Since the 2011 Libyan revolution these assets have been frozen under a UN Security Council resolution and are only accessed for national emergencies and even then there is a lot of scrutiny by foreign auditors.

August 2, 2018: In southwestern Egypt Sudanese forces handed over five Egyptian soldiers who had been captured in mid-July by a Chad militia force from Libya and held prisoner until late July. The Egyptian soldiers (an office and four subordinates) were carrying out a border reconnaissance near the Sudan border when they accidentally crossed into Sudan and caught the attention of the Chadian gunmen (who often pass this way because of their smuggling activities). Sudanese troops were alerted and at the end of July had conducted an operation in southeast Libya to help free the five Egyptian soldiers. At that point Sudan insisted that Egypt reciprocate with problems Sudan was having with rebels and dissidents finding sanctuary in Egypt. Negotiations ensued and an agreement was reached.
While North Korea is officially still seeking to work out a deal that would result in the dismantling of their nuclear weapons program, most North Koreans dont believe this will happen. Part of that is national pride. One thing North Korea has done that South Korea and Japan have not is create nuclear weapons. There are no other achievements worth mentioning (certainly not the mass starvation, labor camps and an oppressive police state). Actually there is another unique aspect of North Korea that North Koreans can be proud of; all those tunnels. There are believed to be more than 10,000 of them. While most are relatively small (bomb shelters for people and material) many are quite large and built with multiple exits (some for assisting in air circulation for underground machinery). North Koreans take it for granted that there are sufficient tunnels to conceal (and protect) nuclear weapons production and storage. Same for ballistic missiles and much else besides. There is also the general belief that the Kim government would never allow treaty inspectors to check wherever they wished to validate compliance to a disarmament deal.

While North Korea has plenty of tunnels and secret police it is seriously lacking in other areas like food, energy and the ability to maintain infrastructure (transportation, electricity, sanitation and water). In mid-July, Kim Jong Un decreed that part of the problem was senior government officials being out of touch with what is happening throughout the country. Most of these officials live in the capital, which is quite comfortable compared to the rest of the country. To deal with this problem hundreds of senior officials have been dispatched in pairs to spend three months in some remote (outside the capital) farming or industrial area to live among the people, pay attention and make note of what needed fixing. These teams are allowed two short visits back to the capital during their 90 day assignment and are warned not to help themselves to any local resources (especially food). While Kim Jong Un regularly visits areas all over the country these visits are highly organized and brief. Kim usually brings gifts for the locals, like a rare allocation of food. Even so, Kim can see where things are not right and apparently hopes to get a more through, and personal, assessment from trusted senior officials. What is generally known is that unrepaired flood damage, a long and extreme heat wave and lack of resources for farmers has led to another failed harvest. But, as the old saying goes, we think in general but live in detail. Kim is going to get some gruesome news from his senior bureaucrats after their mandatory 90 day live among the people and observe assignments. This could shake things up in unpredictable ways.

There are some indications (recent Kim public denunciations of senior officials for bad management) that the government is finally facing the fact that the only way out of its economic death spiral is via the economic reforms China implemented in the 1980s. One thing Kim Jong Un learned during his recent meetings with the leaders of South Korea, America and China is all of them agree that nuclear extortion will not work. If North Korea becomes an immediate nuclear threat the response will be military and violent rather than economic and generous. Other neighbors, like Japan and Russia, agree.

Until North Korea makes a decision on its economic reforms the denuclearization negotiations are going nowhere. North Korea continues to churn out denunciations of American (and South Korean) demands for an official end to the Korean War and denuclearization. North Korea calls the Americans bullies and South Korea unpatriotic accomplices of the Americans. The official North Korean negotiating position continues to be demanding that the U.S. lift some sanctions first and, along with South Korea, provide some economic aid. Both America and South Korea have tried that before and know it is a con and say so to North Korean negotiators. Time is not on North Koreas side because their economic conditions and they have little wiggle room in negotiating. No one appears able or willing to help North Korea out of this mess.

North Korea has hoped that China would ultimately back its old ally and protege North Korea but that is not happening. Despite the current trade war the Americans and China are involved in, China is not going to change its mind on the need for North Korea to get rid of its nukes. Chinese officials are also trying to make Kim Jong Un understand that the Americans have the edge in the current trade war because Chinese banks are vulnerable, largely because of the large number of state-owned firms that have not been privatized and survive only because of cheap, and often uncollectable, loans from state-owned and (under government pressure) private banks. China is more dependent on exports to America than the U.S. is to getting those exports.

Kim Jong Un is not stupid and he was educated in Western (Swiss) schools where he learned the basics of Western economics. This is what China has followed, with great success, since the 1980s and is demanding that North Korea emulate. The Chinese are urging Kim Jong Un to learn from the Chinese experience, including mistakes the Chinese made and are in the process of fixing. The Chinese leader Xi has established a personal relationship with Kim Jong Un, something rare in Chinese-Korean history. This includes doing personal favors for Kim, like quietly shipping two generators (together producing 200,000 kw) to North Korea by ship, where they were quietly moved (without going through customs) to the North Korean capital, where they filled in for failing generating equipment that North Korea cannot afford to replace. Xi will enhance this relationship further on September 9th when the Chinese leader will visit the North Korean capital as a guest at the 70th anniversary of the founding of North Korea. The presence of Xi is a big deal for Kim Jong Un and it puts Kim even more in debt to his powerful patron. At this point, China has the best chance of getting North Korea to enact economic reforms and shut down the nuclear weapons program. The Chinese see this personal relationship as the best way to bring Kim Jong Un around. In this part of the world, that is how things are done.

North Korean Death Spiral

The biggest problem Kim Jong Un faces is his own economic problems, which are getting quite desperate. The North Korean economy is crumbling after several years of stabilizing and even growing (because of allowing some free market activity). Why this irrational and self-destructive behavior by North Korea? It is most likely that the long-simmering disagreements about economic reforms and relationships with China are at the heart of it. China has long complained about the chaotic and self-destructive North Korean leadership. Its not just the ruling Kim family (who are quite odd but so are many politicians), but the whole paranoid, dysfunctional, unpredictable atmosphere in the north. China is particularly critical of the unpredictability and has been demanding more discipline and, to put it bluntly, obedience. Lacking that, there will be consequences. More Chinese troops have been moved to the North Korean border, and China is less discreet about its network of spies and agents in North Korea. The rumors of a ruthless "China faction" in the North Korean leadership have been given some official recognition by the Chinese. Thus the Chinese are attempting to use the "offer you can't refuse" gambit. It may work and bring about much-needed reforms. Otherwise, the Chinese threaten to pull the plug on all aid and political support and perhaps order the China Faction to take action, with help from Chinese troops, special operations forces and secret police. This would be an admission of failure by the Chinese although they could put a positive spin on it by referring to past interventions to deal with troublesome Korean rulers. At that point, China would have the primary responsibility for rebuilding North Korea. China could appeal to South Korea, Japan and the United States to join in. China would endeavor to make the North Korea economic recovery effort pay for itself by insisting that Chinese investments be respected along with growing Chinese ownership of North Korean economic assets. That will generate anger in North Korea but as far as the Chinese are concerned that is normal when it comes to China-Korean relationships.

China and other foreign states know that the situation is getting desperate in North Korea, both for the people in general (less food, electricity and so on) and the government. The growing list of enforced sanctions have shut down or reduced most legal and many illegal sources of foreign currency. This can be seen from the chatter on the black market, where North Korea is less active because they have not got the cash. North Korea has no credit when it comes to legal or illegal purchases from foreign suppliers. There are still North Korean smuggling operations underway but these generally involve basic goods (like oil and items required to maintain or repair things back in North Korea). To raise cash North Korea is leaning on its foreign workers and taking a larger cut of their pay. This policy has its limits because if you take too much the workers realize the job is not sustainable (not enough to send back home to keep kin alive). That will mean more foreign workers trying to defect and fewer suitable candidates for the foreign jobs.

China showed its approval of North Korean efforts at improving relations with South Korea and the Americans by allowing North Korean female workers back into China as well as relaxing its enforcement of sanctions when it came to sending all North Korea workers home. But North Korean workers are no longer allowed to wander around when not working. Most of these workers live in dormitories on factory property and now the North Korean workers are restricted to the factory/dormitory property. The North Korean security personnel who accompany groups of exported workers cooperate with local Chinese police to prevent anyone from leaving the compound. Anyone caught doing so is sent back to North Korea. These restrictions make it easier for Chinese police (and the few North Korean secret police working in China) to detect and arrest defectors. A growing number of the arrested defectors have tried or succeeded in committing suicide before they could be sent back to North Korea. Meanwhile back in North Korea Chinese visiting on business (from truck drivers to technical and management personnel) are complaining about growing harassment by North Korean secret police (who, among other things, keep an eye on foreigners) in the form of accusing the Chinese of minor offenses and demanding the immediate payment of fines. While this may have some legal basis in North Korea the Chinese see it as another questionable method of extracting more cash from visitors. Since these are commercial visitors a growing number are complaining to their bosses back in China and, as in the past, this eventually reaches senior officials who then demand that North Korea deal with the problem before China retaliates (which it has done with increasing frequency and ferocity since the late 1990s).

Inside North Korea the police are increasingly visiting homes of donju (entrepreneur) families and inspecting PCs usually present there, looking for illegal items. Users have found ways to hide the music and video files police are after. One thing police do not look for are South Korean, Chinese and Western video games. These video games are the cracked (copy protection removed) versions smuggled in from China. They then spread throughout the country on USB drives. Once a new game arrives in a town or neighborhood it is quickly acquired by most of the local PC owners. While the most popular of these games were designed for online play (not possible in North Korea) the local PC owners know about using LAN (Local Area Network) capabilities built into current PCs and laptops and the growing demand for LAN cables is mainly about gamers wanting to get together somewhere, use the cables to establish a local LAN and play as if they were online. A LAN requires a router or LAN switch and both of these can be obtained from China at little cost. Another technique, if all participants have PCs with wifi capability, is to link wirelessly in a confined space. Outside North Korea LAN parties became widely popular in the 1990s and are still popular, even though online games are more convenient. The North Korean government has not yet declared video games subversive and forbidden, but that is always subject to change.

Work Camps For Orphans

Since 2013 the government has ordered police to seize any homeless children spotted in the capital and a few other areas where foreigners are allowed to visit, or at least pass through. The children were confined to guarded facilities (farms or factories) until they turned 18. Here they were fed and forced to work but now more of them have been seen again on the street. These kids are begging again, just in areas where the police dont constantly patrol. The kids are thin and report that there was less and less to eat at their government facility and that was because staff was stealing more and more of the food budget and some kids were literally starving to death. The security at these places wasnt as heavy as at regular prisons and labor camps so the more enterprising kids have been able to escape and quickly learn the new rules cops use for picking up suspected orphans.

A lot more children in North Korea are becoming homeless, if not actual orphans. Since 2015 many poverty-stricken North Koreans have, in effect, been selling their children into slavery. The government is allowing orphans to be subject to slavery-like conditions, not just for their childhood but into their adult lives as well. This sort of thing is very unpopular in rural areas where the poverty is worse. Many North Korean men see themselves as serving as slaves for ten years of mandatory service in the military, but then you get out. The government is increasingly forcing poor or hostile (to the government) North Koreans into slavery for life. The government has also ordered the growing number of homeless children taken off the streets by any means. That usually means dealing with the slavers.

Since 2012 the government has seen the growing number of homeless kids as a problem and tried several ways to get them off out of sight. In 2013 the police were ordered to pick up the growing number of homeless children (seen begging or just running wild even by foreign visitors) and put them under the control of local government. This meant putting the kids into state-run orphanages. Because of the food and other shortages, the government didnt have the resources to house and feed all these homeless kids adequately. As a result, many of those rounded up in 2013 ran away from the hard work and short rations at the orphanages, seeing their survival prospects better on the streets. Most of these kids are orphans, their parents having died or disappeared into prison camps, China or elsewhere in North Korea. The poverty and privation is so great in the north that the extended family no longer provides a safety net and there is often no kin to take in abandoned or orphaned children. So the children (many ten and under) just hit the streets and become a source of criminal activity and, more embarrassing for the government, defectors who get to China and commit a lot of crimes or worse yet, tell the truth about how life is in North Korea. Some North Korean officials want to just quietly kill these worthless children but senior officials know that could be a public-relations disaster and forbid it, officially, at least for now. The North Korean secret police often make people just disappear but if it is done on a large scale mistakes are likely to be made and the truth revealed. The current solution appears to capture the homeless kids and send them to the slave labor facilities where, unless they show themselves as extremely loyal to the state, they will spend the rest of their lives as slaves.

August 19, 2018: Japan continues to increase its defense budget, now planning to spend $48 billion in 2019. This is an increase from $45 billion for 2017 and is the seventh year in a row Japanese defense spending increased and much of the additional money is going towards ballistic missile defenses and additional ships to patrol offshore areas that China is aggressively claiming. Unlike Taiwan and South Korea, which continued to be threatened by China and North Korea, Japanese defense spending declined after the Cold War ended in 1991. But in 2013 that changed and every budget since then has increased. By 2015 Japan had its highest ever defense budget ever ($42 billion) it kept growing. Most of the recent increases have been to buy new weapons and upgrade existing ones to improve defense again Chinese or North Korean attack. South Korean spending is putting more emphasis on missile defense. Currently, this includes more F-35 stealth fighters, beyond the existing 42. The additional 20 F-35Bs would be for Japanese helicopter carriers and made in the United States. The first 42 are being assembled in Japan. South Korea has ordered 40 F-35As modified slightly for South Korean use. The first of these will arrive in South Korea in 2018 and all will arrive by 2021. South Korea is considering buying another twenty.

August 17, 2018: Aerial and satellite photos indicated that the northeastern North Korean Simpo shipyard was experiencing some increased activity. Simpo is where a North Korean SSB (diesel-electric submarine carrying ballistic missiles) is being built. This was confirmed in early 2015 when aerial photos clearly (despite a camouflage net) showed an SSB under construction. Based on what was known in 2015 it appeared that North Korea could have an operational SSB (carrying reliable missiles) by 2018 if they completed and successfully test the new 2,000 ton SSB under construction as well as complete development of the SLBM. But construction activity in Simpo declined after 2016, apparently due to lack of resources. The current increase in activity does not indicate completion of the SSB anytime soon.

August 16, 2018: Following a January agreement that the military hotline between the two Koreas would be revived that process was completed as the hotline (fax and telephone) on the eastern end of the DMZ was restored. The hotline on the western portion of the DMZ was restored in July.

August 15, 2018: The United States imposed sanctions on three shipping companies (in China, Singapore and Russia) for taking part in smuggling oil and other items to North Korea. A recent UN audit found that North Korea was maintaining many illegal joint ventures with China (215) and Russia (30). Not all these joint ventures are with companies as some are with individuals.

August 13, 2018: North Korea has canceled all tourist visas until September 9th. This is apparently a last-minute security decision because of the large number of foreign leaders (and their entourages) to attend the 70th anniversary of the founding of North Korea celebrations.

August 9, 2018: North Korea went public to make it clear that it will not comply with the American demands that denuclearization comes first before sanctions are lifted. The Americans have insisted on this and made it clear that it wants verification as well. While China has eased up sanctions a bit, North Korea is still in bad shape because many of the latest sanctions are still working and the Americans are finding out which Chinese and Russian firms are involved in violating these sanctions and publicizing the details. Those discovered assisting North Korea to evade sanctions are themselves sanctioned. If nothing else this makes it even more difficult, and expensive, for North Korea to evade the sanctions.

August 4, 2018: Russia is allowing thousands of additional North Korean workers to enter the Russian Far East. This is in violation of the sanctions but Russia is ignoring that and insisting these workers are an economic necessity in the Russian Far East. Left unsaid is the fact that Russia would rather bring in North Koreans for this than offer higher wages and find that there are no Russians available but Chinese will cross the border do the job (and eventually be the majority of the population in the region).

July 31, 2018: Once more a Japanese Navy patrol aircraft photographed a stationary North Korean tanker tied up to a Chinese tanker off the Chinese coast and apparently transferring petroleum. This makes at least three times Japanese aircraft detected (and photographed) North Korean tanker doing these transfers in the East China Sea. The UN has put sanctions on s growing number of cargo ships and tankers but these vessels can still do transfers at sea. This takes longer, is still illegal and is increasingly being witnessed (and photographed) by American, Japanese or South Korean patrol aircraft. China responded with new rules making it more difficult for Chinese companies to get away with the false paperwork, turning off the automatic ship tracking devices and other scams North Korea uses to illegally export items to China. At the same time, China and Russia are blocking UN efforts to investigate this sort of violation.

July 27, 2018: South Korea complained to China that another Chinese military aircraft had violated South Koreas ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) and remained in the ADIZ four hours before leaving. South Korea is also seeing more ADIZ activity because of Chinese intrusions. In 2013 China announced a new ADIZ that overlapped South Korean, Philippine and Japanese airspace. China demanded that any foreign military or commercial aircraft request permission before flying into this zone. South Korea and Japan protested while the United States quickly flew some B-52s into the disputed zone without asking for Chinese permission. China protested and the United States ignored them just as China ignores South Korean protests.

July 26, 2018: North Korea held another (the fifth) War Veterans conference in the capital. These are veterans of the 1950-53 Korean War and all the surviving vets are in their 80s and 90s. The government transports (often by air) the veterans to the capital for a weeklong stay. The veterans know this is all propaganda, especially since the last one was held three years ago and the vets know how it goes. It works out well for the vets, who are treated well and sent home with gifts (including food and booze).
WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kane Biotech Inc. (TSX-V:KNE, OTCQB:KNBIF) (the Corporation or Kane Biotech) announces its Second Quarter 2018 Financial Results.



Kane Biotech Inc. is a biotechnology company engaged in the research, development and commercialization of technologies and products that prevent and remove microbial biofilms.

Key Highlights of Kane Biotech include the following:

Royalty-based revenue model focused on large markets for biofilm prevention and dispersion solutions that are implicated in 80% of animal and human bacterial infections

Strong patent portfolio of anti-biofilm technologies with 75 patents and patents pending

First commercial licensing and distribution agreement signed (2017)

Several anti-biofilm applications in development for large market opportunities

Targeted company milestones for 2018 include the following:

Uplist to OTCQB Venture Market (January 2018)

Retain investor relations counsel (February 2018)

File lawsuit against Nestle to defend Kane Biotechs intellectual property (February 2018)

Existing license expansion for companion animal veterinary market in terms of geography and product applications

Launch DispersinB  based products with Dechra

based products with Dechra Execute new technology license and distribution agreements

Initiate clinical trials for technologies treating human chronic inflammatory skin disorders

Second Quarter 2018 Financial Highlights:

Note: Financial results in the first quarter of 2017 included a one-time license payment of $500,000 USD which significantly affects the comparison of the first six months of 2018 versus 2017 for revenue, gross margin and loss.

Total Revenues:

For the quarter ended June 30, 2018 were $95,810, a decrease of 10% compared to $106,006 for the quarter ended June 30, 2017.



For the six months ended June 30, 2018 were $188,703, a decrease of 79% compared to $890,906 for the six months ended June 30, 2017.

License and Royalty Revenues:

For the quarter ended June 30, 2018 were $9,218, an increase of 175% compared to $3,355 for the quarter ended June 30, 2017.



For the six months ended June 30, 2018 were $22,314, a decrease of 97% compared to $674,080 for the six months ended June 30, 2017.

Product and Services Revenues:

For the quarter ended June 30, 2018 were $86,592, a decrease of 16% compared to $102,651 for the three months ended June 30, 2017.



For the six months ended June 30, 2018 were $166,389, a decrease of 23% compared to $216,826 for the six months ended June 30, 2017.

Gross Profit % (of Product Sales):

For the quarter ended June 30, 2018 was 72%, an increase of 7% compared to 67% for the quarter ended June 30, 2017.



For the six months ended June 30, 2018 was 62%, a decrease of 8% compared to 68% for the six months ended June 30, 2017.

Total Operating Expenses:

For the quarter ended June 30, 2018 were $771,716, a decrease of 4% compared to $803,989 for the quarter ended June 30, 2017.



For the six months ended June 30, 2018 were $1,714,606, a decrease of 3% compared to $1,763,125 for the six months ended June 30, 2017.

Loss:

For the quarter ended June 30, 2018 was ($701,714), a decrease of 11% compared to ($790,549) for the quarter ended June 30, 2017.



For the six months ended June 30, 2018 was ($1,591,511), an increase of 55% compared to ($1,028,243) for the six months ended June 30, 2017.

Select Income Statement Information:

Kane Biotech Inc. (TSX:V:KNE/OTCQB:KNBIF) Q2, 2018 Q2, 2017 % Change Q1 & Q2, 2018 Q1 & Q2, 2018 % Change Total Revenue $95,810 $106,006 -10% $188,703 $890,906 -79% License and Royalty Revenue* $9,218 $3,355 175% $22,314 $674,080 -97% Product and Services Revenue** $86,592 $102,651 -16% $166,389 $216,826 -23% Gross Profit $ (Product and Services) $62,438 $69,219 -10% $103,169 $146,509 -30% Gross Profit % (Product and Services) 72% 67% 7% 62% 68% -8% Total Operating Expenses $771,716 $803,989 -4% $1,714,606 $1,763,125 -3% General and Administration $648,360 $680,043 -5% $1,357,655 $1,430,428 -5% Research $123,356 $123,946 0% $356,951 $332,697 7% Loss for the Period ($701,714) ($790,549) -11% ($1,591,511) ($1,028,243) 55% Loss per Share (Post Consolidation) ($0.009) ($0.017) -49% ($0.020) ($0.023) -12% * License and Royalty Revenue in Q1, 2017 included a $500,000 USD initial license payment from Dechra. ** Product and Services Revenue in Q1 & Q2, 2018 included only a small amount of international StrixNB sales as this technology was licensed to Dechra for the North American veterinary channel in Q1, 2017.

Select Cash Flow Information:



Kane Biotech Inc. (TSX:V:KNE/OTCQB:KNBIF) Q2, 2018 Q2, 2017 % Change Q1 & Q2, 2018 Q1 & Q2, 2018 % Change Cash, end of period $342,156 $258,259 32% $342,156 $258,259 32% Cash, beginning of period $1,244,828 $579,553 115% $1,975,723 $739,568 167% Operating activities ($870,710) ($669,107) 30% ($1,583,327) ($729,851) 117% Financing activities 0 $400,000 - 0 400,000 - Investing activites ($31,962) ($52,187) -39% ($50,240) ($151,458) -67%

Detailed financial information about Kane Biotech can be found in its June 30, 2018 Financial Statements and Management Discussion and Analysis on SEDAR and on the Corporations website. All amounts referenced herein are in Canadian dollars.



The Corporations Second Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call and Business Update is scheduled on Wednesday, August 22, 2018 at 4:30pm E.T. to discuss its financial results for the second quarter 2018, in conjunction with the filing of its Financial Statements for the second quarter ended June 30, 2018.

Mark Ahrens-Townsend, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ray Dupuis, Chief Financial Officer of Kane Biotech will host the call and provide an update on recent developments. Management will be answering questions live immediately following the earnings announcement part of the call.

To participate in the call, please dial +1 877-407-0312 (toll-free) in the U.S. and Canada. The conference ID number is 13682672.

Event: Kane Biotech Q2 2018 Earnings & Business Update Conference Call Date: Wednesday, August 22, 2018 Time: 4:30pm E.T. U.S. & Canada Dial-in: 877-403-0312 (toll free in Canada and the U.S.) Conference ID: 13682672 Webcast Link: https://webcasts.eqs.com/kanebiotech20180822

A live audio webcast of the conference call will also be available on the investor relations page of Kane Biotechs corporate website at www.kanebiotech.com. In addition, the recorded conference call can be replayed and will be available for 90 days following the call on Kane Biotechs website.

For more information, please visit www.kanebiotech.com or contact:

Mark Ahrens-Townsend

President & CEO

Kane Biotech Inc.

+1 (204) 477-7592 ir@kanebiotech.com

Tirth Patel

Vice President - Investor Relations

Edison Advisors

+1 (646) 653-7035 tpatel@edisongroup.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains certain statements regarding Kane Biotech Inc. that constitute forward-looking information under applicable securities law. These statements reflect managements current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management. Certain material factors or assumptions are applied in making forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, risks relating to the Corporations: (a) financial condition, including lack of significant revenues to date and reliance on equity and other financing; (b) business, including its early stage of development, government regulation, market acceptance for its products, rapid technological change and dependence on key personnel; (c) intellectual property including the ability of the Corporation to protect its intellectual property and dependence on its strategic partners; and (d) capital structure, including its lack of dividends on its common shares, volatility of the market price of its common shares and public company costs. Further information about these and other risks and uncertainties can be found in the disclosure documents filed by the Corporation with applicable securities regulatory authorities, available at www.sedar.com . The Corporation cautions that the foregoing list of factors that may affect future results is not exhaustive.

These risks and uncertainties should be considered carefully undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based upon what management believes to be reasonable assumptions, the Corporation cannot provide assurance that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. The Corporation undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement.




DENVER, BRISBANE, Australia and VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The directors and management of Strata-X Energy Ltd. (Strata-X or the Company) (TSX-V:SXE) (ASX:SXA) are pleased to announce that its shareholders voted in favour of all resolutions brought before them at the Company's Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders held on August 21, 2018 in Denver, Colorado, USA, and announce the resignation of Company Director Timothy Bradley.



Notice is hereby given, in accordance with Listing Rule 3.13.2 that at the Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the Company, the resolutions as set out below were passed by a show of hands without amendment.

Resolution 1 (Ordinary Resolution)

To ratify the issuance of 10,900,000 Chess Depository Units (CDIs) to unrelated sophisticated and professional investors for the purpose of ASX Listing Rule 7.2 and for all other purposes.

Resolution 2 (Ordinary Resolution)

To approve the issuance of a maximum of 4,000,000 CDIs in the Placement (as defined in the Circular) to Mr. Ron Prefontaine for the purpose of ASX Listing Rule 10.1 and for all other purposes.

Resolution 3 (Ordinary Resolution)

To approve the issuance of a maximum of 12,200,000 CDIs to unrelated sophisticated and professional investors for the purpose of ASX Listing Rule 7.1 and for all other purposes.

In respect of the resolutions, the total number of proxy votes exercisable by all proxies validly appointed and the total number of proxy votes in respect of which the appointments specified that:

The proxy was to vote for the resolution; and The proxy was to vote against the resolution; and The proxy was restricted or abstained from voting.

Pursuant to the notice of EGM, undirected votes will not be counted.

Resolution For Against Restricted/Abstain Total 1 7,843,764 323,893 6,005,333 14,172,990 2 7,715,656 322,087 6,135,247 14,172,990 3 7,843,764 323,893 6,005,333 14,172,990

The Board of Directors (BOD) of Strata-X Energy Ltd. announce the resignation of Timothy Bradley from the Board of Directors. Mr. Bradley, a member of the Board since 2010, has historically served various positions within the Company including CFO, Audit Committee Chair and was founding manager, and is departing to focus on this private accounting practice. Regarding the resignation, Ron Prefontaine, Chairman of the BOD comments, On behalf of the BOD, I thank Tim for his valuable service and contributions and wish him well in future endeavors.

About Strata-X

Strata-X is a Denver, Colorado (USA) based company and is engaged in the business of oil and gas exploration and development with a variety of exploration opportunities in the States of California and Illinois in the United States of America and the Republic of Botswana. Strata-X has 65,004,984 common shares outstanding and trades under the symbol "SXE" on the TSX-V and "SXA" on the ASX.

For further information please contact:

Tim Hoops (USA)

President

+1 855-463-2400

info@strata-x.com

This announcement was made in Canada for the TSX.V and in Australia for the ASX.

Public documents for Strata-X Energy Ltd. can be found at SEDAR (Canada) ( www.sedar.com ) and ASX.com.au (Australia).

CAUTIONARY STATEMENTS

This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. The use of any of the words "anticipate", "continue", "estimate", "expect", 'may", "will", "project", "should", 'believe", and similar expressions is intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected and the forward-looking statements included in this news release should not be unduly relied upon. See "Risks and Uncertainties" in the Company's Filing Statement dated August 30, 2011 available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances save as required under applicable securities legislation. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell securities and the Company is not soliciting an offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
The EUR 44 million shipyard is scheduled for completion in 2022 and will be based in the heart of the Bassin Mirabeau. The new shipyard will include tools intended for the exclusive maintenance of 80m-130m superyachts and feature a 50,000sqm platform with a two level building comprising of workshops, offices and crew amenities. Furthermore, the shipyard will include a 6000-tonne yacht lift and four working areas dedicated to superyachts measuring up to 130 metres; providing the very best tools and services.

Over 3,000 yachts from around the world undergo refit, repair or wintering at Monaco Marine shipyards every year thanks to its seven yacht facilities from Beaulieu-sur-mer to Marseille, its marina in Monaco and a mobile shipyard programme.

Monaco Marine has 22 years of experience which has gained the company a loyalty rate of 80 per cent from its customers providing the utmost support for owners, captains and crew. Many owners, captains and clients who are based in the French Riviera and have worked with Monaco Marine, will benefit from the easy access to the port and bigger facilities.
A real estate price monitoring index is pointing to good news in the property sector on the Costa del Sol and is further proof of the strength of the market. The regular survey by Fotocasa, an online real estate agency, focusses on resale properties, not new build, and states that prices in Malaga province are rising at about 12 per cent a year. That's a similar rate to other hotspots like Madrid and Valencia and twice the national average. In Malaga city the growth is 19 per cent.

According to Beatriz Toribio of Fotocasa, the rise on the Costa "is not just due to the interest from national buyers, but also the importance of foreign purchasers".

Speaking at the launch of Expo Costa del Sol in Marbella, Toribio denied that a new real estate bubble was growing and waiting to be burst. "Not in Spain overall," she explained, "prices are still a long way off their previous peak."
Over the past year, over a thousand litter baskets have been removed from New York City streets because of "chronic misuse," meaning people are using them for household trash, reports the NY Times. While it seems counterintuitive to remove trash cans when there is too much trash piling up in them, NYC's Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia defends the practice, saying that it actually creates cleaner streets.

One area that's been hit the hardest is Harlem, where the Department of Sanitation removed 223 trashcans, including all the trashcans from West 136th to West 140th between Edgecombe and 8th Avenues, PIX 11 reported earlier this year. This action seems to have made the trash problem worse in the area, as trash is getting tossed where the baskets used to be, drawing roaches and rats, reports the Times. Gale A. Brewer, the Manhattan Borough President, has sent letters and emails to DSNY to protest the trash can removal.

Residents asked for more trash pickups, more trash cans and enforcement against dumping. What they got was fewer trash cans, a worsened dumping problem and even some inappropriate tickets. The neighborhood deserves better. https://t.co/FSbZjxOO2O  Gale A. Brewer (@galeabrewer) August 20, 2018

A spokesperson for the DSNY told Gothamist in an email:

Litter baskets are for pedestrian litter, and are placed in busy commercial and pedestrian-heavy areas, not in primarily residential areas. The Departments cleaning office routinely reviews litter basket usage and placement around the city, and will remove baskets that are in areas that do not meet the commercial criteria, or baskets that are chronically misused. On the other hand, we will also add baskets to areas that have become more commercial in nature. Baskets may be removed because an area is overwhelmingly residential, and/or the baskets are subject to chronic misuse. Misused baskets are an eyesore and cause quality of life issues. Removing baskets is just one of the measures we use to ensure clean streets and sidewalks, even though the measure may seem counterintuitive at first.

Sanitation officials told the Times that there are still more baskets in Harlem than any other neighborhood: 1,339 in Harlem compared to 779 in the Upper West Side and 719 in the Upper East Side.

The DSNY has data on the location of every litter basket in the city (most recently updated on August, 17, 2018) but it doesn't break it down by neighborhood. Instead, it breaks down the city into 59 districts. Here is a list of the DSNY districts, the neighborhoods included in them, and the number of litter baskets per district. Manhattan has 9,697 baskets, followed by Brooklyn at 6,180, Queens at 4,030, the Bronx at 2,895 and Staten Island with 951.

The data shows slightly different numbers than the DSNY claims in the Times article. The districts that include Harlem and East Harlem have 1,005 baskets, the Upper West Side's district has 1,007, Upper East Side and Roosevelt Island's district has 1,154, and Midtown from 14th Street to 59th Street has 1,185. Districts with the least amount of baskets include Hunt's Point (121) Canarise/Flatbush/Mill Basin (190), Elmhurst/Corona (156), and Arden Heights/Bay Terrace/Great Kills/Tottenville (185).










Take A Mulligan: The Big 7-0

Here is the $64,000 question. Just exactly how old is old? In my teens, I figured it was about 35 but when I was getting close to that age, it ...
As anyone who has watched The Warriors upwards of a dozen times can tell you, subways covered in graffiti used to be the normnowadays, you're lucky if you see even a single defiled Gregg T poster. But every once in a while, some intrepid graffiti artists are able to remake a train in their image. And that's just what happened to a Q train this weekend.

A Q train was completely covered in graffiti overnight at a Second Avenue subway station while it was parked just off the platform https://t.co/0Sm1pTWmxj pic.twitter.com/zTrCF53ZJr  New York City Alerts (@NYCityAlerts) August 20, 2018

The photo above, which was posted to the Progressive Action Facebook page (it's a private group where TWU members "can join in and express their feelings and concerns about the job and where we need to be"), shows a Q train parked at the 96th Street station on the 2nd Avenue Subway line around 5 a.m. Monday morning. Conductor Tramell Thompson, a transit activist who runs the Progressive Action page, said the tagger got to the train while it was parked just off the platform overnight, according to the Post.

"If they can go back there and have the time to do all of that graffiti, they have time to do something to the train," Thompson said. "Its obvious they have no security back there."

Back in April, the NYPD arrested three Spanish nationals for allegedly vandalizing subway train cars with "European style graffiti" in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. All three ended up pleading guilty, with one insisting he had no idea tagging was illegal: "In Spain, it is normal and not a serious crime."

Back in 2006, it was estimated that 70% of subway graffiti was made by Europeans. The MTA has gotten faster at taking tagged trains out of service, as most of the "bombings" are done in rail yards, but some occasionally slip through.

Could this be the work of the people behind another subway spray job earlier this year?
A 95-year-old man who was a Nazi labor camp guard but emigrated to the United States after World War II, and had been living in Queens for years, was deported back to Germany on Monday. Jakiw Palij was removed from his home in Jackson Heightsvideo shows him being wheeled down the sidewalk.

Palij was the last Nazi war criminal believed to be in the United States, and the government was trying to get him deported before he died here. Rabbi Zev Friedman told the Washington Post last year, "Victims of the Holocaust, the people living in Queens, families of veterans, I think for all of us, it is really painful and sad that... someone who stands in direct opposition to every value we have here in America of tolerance and risking lives against evil, can live here for so many years, hiding in plain sight. It goes against everything that we believe in."

According to the Justice Department:

Palij, 95, was born in a part of Poland that is situated in present-day Ukraine, immigrated to the United States in 1949 and became a U.S. citizen in 1957. He concealed his Nazi service by telling U.S. immigration officials that he had spent the war years working until 1944 on his fathers farm in his hometown, which was previously a part of Poland and is now in Ukraine, and then in a German factory. As Palij admitted to Justice Department officials in 2001, he was trained at the SS Training Camp in Trawniki, in Nazi-occupied Poland, in the spring of 1943. Documents subsequently filed in court by the Justice Department showed that men who trained at Trawniki participated in implementing the Third Reichs plan to murder Jews in Poland, code-named Operation Reinhard. On Nov. 3, 1943, some 6,000 Jewish men, women and children incarcerated at Trawniki were shot to death in one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust. By helping to prevent the escape of these prisoners during his service at Trawniki, Palij played an indispensable role in ensuring that they later met their tragic fate at the hands of the Nazis. On May 9, 2002, the Criminal Divisions then-Office of Special Investigations (OSI) and the U.S. Attorneys Office of the Eastern District of New York filed a four-count complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, to revoke Palijs citizenship. The complaint was based primarily upon his wartime activities as an armed guard of Jewish prisoners at Trawniki, who were confined there under inhumane conditions. Palijs U.S. citizenship was revoked in August 2003 by a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York based on his wartime activities and postwar immigration fraud. In November 2003, the government placed Palij in immigration removal proceedings.

Still, it took 14 years to coordinate his departure. In 2013, Palij claimed to the NY Post that he was forced to work for the Nazis and was never given a Nazi uniform, "I am not SS. I have nothing to do with SS."

He also said at the time that he would enter his home through an alley because of protests outside.

"Im glad this man is finally being sent back. Hes a war criminal and did not deserve to live in the US," Senator Chuck Schumer said today. "He doesnt deserve to die in the U.S., a place of freedom and equality where we respect each others differences."

For years, Germany, Poland, and the Ukraine had refused to accept Palij, but now, NBC News reports, "Germany's Foreign Office said its decision to accept Palij showed the country was accepting its 'moral responsibility.' Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told German tabloid Bild that those who 'committed the worst crimes on behalf of Germans' would be held accountable." (Palij never actually held German citizenship.)

State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who had urged for Palij's deportation for many years, said this morning, "Finally, the last Nazi is gone."
Actress Asia Argento has strongly denied accusations that she sexually assaulted a former co-star when he was underage. Argento made her first statement since the NY Times reported on Sunday that she had paid $380,000 to Jimmy Bennett, who once played her son in a movie. "I am deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false," she wrote. "I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett."

In her statement, which you can read in full below, she claims that her late boyfriend, Anthony Bourdain, was involved in the decision to "deal compassionately with Bennett's demands for help," and Bourdain "personally undertook to help Bennett economically."

I just received this statement from @AsiaArgento in response to the NYT story published late Sunday evening. pic.twitter.com/jAOo7TAULX  Yashar Ali  (@yashar) August 21, 2018

According to the Times report, Bennett said she had "sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room years earlier, when he was only two months past his 17th birthday. She was 37. The age of consent in California is 18." Years prior to that, the pair starred in the 2004 adaptation of the J.T. Leroy story, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, about a mother's relationship with her young son. Argento also co-wrote and directed the film; Bennett was 7 when he was cast.

The Times received legal documents and correspondence related to Argento's settlement with Bennett "through encrypted email by an unidentified party, includ[ing] a selfie dated May 9, 2013, of the two lying in bed... Three people familiar with the case said the documents were authentic." From the Times:

For Mr. Bennett, seeing Ms. Argento present herself as a victim of sexual assault was too much to bear, his lawyer wrote, and called up memories of their hotel reunion. His feelings about that day were brought to the forefront recently when Ms. Argento took the spotlight as one of the many victims of Harvey Weinstein, Mr. Sattro wrote in the notice of intent to sue.

Argento has become one of the more outspoken figures of the #MeToo movement after detailing how movie producer Harvey Weinstein assaulted her in The New Yorker last year. Rose McGowan, another actress who has accused Weinstein of raping her and using his power to silence her, tweeted yesterday, "I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere."

Benjamin Brafman, an attorney for Weinstein, gave a statement decrying the "stunning level of hypocrisy" of Argento, adding, "What is perhaps most egregious, is the timing, which suggests that at the very same time Argento was working on her own secret settlement for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor, she was positioning herself at the forefront of those condemning Mr. Weinstein, despite the fact that her sexual relationship with Mr. Weinstein was between two consenting adults which lasted for more than four years."

Tarana Burke, the founder of the #MeToo movement, cautioned against letting people like Weinstein use this to discredit the larger movement. "We are imperfectly human and we all have to be accountable for our individual behavior," she said. "People will use these recent news stories to try and discredit this movement  dont let that happen. This is what Movement is about. Its not a spectator sport. It is people-generated. We get to say 'this is/isnt what this movement is about!'"

Producers of singing competition X Factor Italy say that Argento, currently a judge on the show, will be cut from the show if the allegations are proven to be true.
Sky has confirmed the commission of new comedy, Brassic co created by Joe Gilgun and Danny Brocklehurst and written by Brocklehurst.

Gilgun (This is England), stars alongside Michelle Keegan (Our Girl) and Damien Molony (Ripper Street), Ruth Sheen and Tim Key.

Calamity Films is producing the show about a group of working-class friends finding unconventional ways to win at life in northern suburbia will start in September for Sky and NOW TV.

Joe Gilgun, co-creator, said: Im truly humbled by the opportunity. Weve got an amazing team of creators and watching it all take form has been very moving. Bipolar is a big part of my life. We want to show that you can have mental health issues and in some cases live a productive, exciting life, full of adventure. Our writer Danny Brocklehurst and my friend David Quayle have been invaluable in taking this journey with me. Embrace who you are, decide what to be and go be it.

Danny Brocklehurst, co-creator & writer, said: I couldnt be more thrilled to be making Brassic with Sky One. This is a passion project for Joe and myself and we have collaborated every step of the way to create an outrageous, funny, stylistically bold show that brings to life a rarely seen northern working-class world. This is a big-hearted show about life at the sharp end of modern Britain.

Jon Mountague, head of comedy for Sky, said: I love the authenticity, hilarity and undeniable heart of Joe Gilguns world and Danny has executed his incredible stories brilliantly. Brassic is really different  sometimes raw, often remarkable, and always human. Fantastic scripts complemented by an amazing cast. We cant wait to share the show with Sky customers.

David Livingstone, executive producer for Calamity Films, said: When Joe first told me these stories I was struck by their humour and humanity. But Dannys writing has turned them into something stunning and beautiful. It was like reading a great book with amazing characters for the first time. Something you knew you wanted to be part of. We are so grateful to Sky for giving us the opportunity to bring these stories to the screen.

Brassic, a Sky original production, is produced by Calamity Films. It is executive produced by David Livingstone for Calamity Films and Jon Mountague for Sky. Joe Gilgun and Danny Brocklehurst are also executive producers with Juliet Charlesworth as series producer. Daniel OHara (Block 1) and Jon Wright (Block 2) are directing.

Brassic will be distributed internationally by ITV Global and will air on Sky and streaming service NOW TV in the UK and Ireland in 2019.

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Distributor TCB Media Rights has ordered and funded original series from three production companies  Blackball Media/Woodcut Media, Title Role Productions and Spark TV. TCB has funded the shows before landing a broadcast commission as part of the companys push into becoming a mini-commissioner.



The three shows  Worlds Most Incredible Hotels (13 x 60 mins), Worlds Most Extraordinary Families (6 x 60 mins) and Wild Tube (12 x 30 mins)  are fully funded by TCB, which will retain the worldwide rights. Hannah Demidowicz (pictured) , who joined the distributor in May from BBC Worldwide in the newly created role of commissioning editor, is supervising all three titles, which will be launched at MIPCOM this October.



Worlds Most Incredible Hotels, co-produced by UK indies Blackball Media and Woodcut Media, takes viewers through the staff door of some of the worlds most exclusive establishments, including Solent Forts, Oberoi India, The Reverie Saigon and the Ice Hotel. Filming everyone from managers to maids, the show explores the inner workings of the super-luxury hotels and asks whether their hefty price tags are justified.



Title Role Productions Worlds Most Extraordinary Families, looks into the world of trans-dads, five-parent households and teenage grandmas, the concept of family has never been more fluid  or more surprising. By focusing on some of the worlds most extreme families, the series offers a fascinating insight into how other folks live and love.



Spark TV, which has recently entered into a development deal with TCB, is producing Wild Tube for the distributor. Based in Bristol, Spark TV has combined blue-chip documentary techniques with UGC content to bring alive the real world of animals. Footage is accompanied by insights and explanations from wildlife experts into how animals mate, create homes, rear their young, hunt, mark territory and resolve conflict.



Demidowicz said: Over the last six years, weve discovered exactly what our broadcast partners want: fresh and original concepts, engaging characters and universal stories. Worlds Most Incredible Hotels, Worlds Most Extraordinary Families and Wild Tube deliver exactly that  and a lot more besides. By developing and funding our own content, we are not only in control of our own pipeline, but totally invested in the quality and success of our shows. And that means we can offer a level of service that takes the traditional distributor-broadcaster relationship to a whole new level.



This latest round of commissions reflects TCB Media Rights growing involvement in content development. In the last year, TCB Media Rights has greenlit approximately 50 hours of self-funded or co-funded projects, including First Look TVs A Killers Mistake, Barcroft TVs Extreme Love and Back2Backs Crazy on a Plane, and is aiming to double this total over the next two years with producers around the world.

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In a major victory for criminal justice reform, New York became the first state in the country on Monday to establish an independent commission with the power to investigate misconduct by state prosecutors.

Passed with bipartisan support and signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo, the legislation will create an 11-member state-wide commission, which will field complaints and launch its own investigations into wrongdoing committed by the state's 62 county district attorneys. The body's findings will be made public and referred to the governor, who has the power to remove district attorneys.

"Our criminal justice system must fairly convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent," Cuomo said in a statement. "When any prosecutor consciously disregards that fundamental duty, communities suffer and lose faith in the system, and they must have a forum to be heard and seek justice."

The legislation has been lauded by public defenders, criminal justice reform advocates, and New Yorkers who have been wrongfully convicted. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, the state has overturned 267 convictions of innocent people since 1989the second highest total in the country, after Texas. Nearly two-thirds of those prosecutions involved "official misconduct."

Still, district attorneys guilty of misconduct almost never face consequences. In one high-profile case, Brooklyn prosecutor Michael Vechhione was found to have withheld key evidence in the wrongful murder conviction of Jabbar Collins, who spent 16 years in prison before he was released in 2010. Though a federal judge called Vechhione's actions "shameful," the career prosecutor never faced any discipline or sanctions, and retired with benefits five years ago.

"While most prosecutors respect their ethical obligations, far too many innocent people have been wrongly convicted as a result of prosecutorial misconduct, and until today there was no effective means for holding those who commit bad acts accountable," Rebecca Brown, Policy Director of the Innocence Project, said in a statement. "We hope other states will follow New Yorks lead and address this serious problem plaguing the criminal justice system."

District attorneys, meanwhile, are decrying the legislation, and promising to mount a challenge in court before the law is enacted. "It is unfathomable that lawmakers would author and pass a bill that has numerous constitutional flaws and violates the separation of powers," said David Soares, President of the District Attorneys Association of New York. "It is outrageous that the Governor would sign such a bill."

As written, the legislation may be unlikely to survive judicial review, according to a memo sent by Attorney General Barbara Underwoods office last week. There are concerns about a provision that would allow the legislative branch to name a majority of the commission's members, potentially in violation of separation of power clause, as well as the fact that private information handed over to the commission by prosecutors could be made public.

But Cuomo's signing of the bill was contingent on certain updates to the legislation once lawmakers return to Albany next year. The commission is expected to be formed in January once those changes are made.

Also on Tuesday, the governor announced a pardon of Harveys Gomez, a 39-year-old Bronx man set set to be deported over a drug sale charge from 2009. Gomez will be the 34th person pardoned during Cuomo's governorshipthe majority of whom have been immigrants facing deportation under President Trump. The executive action is not guaranteed to keep a person in the country.
Searches continue after deadly Italy flash floods



Rome, Aug 21 (AFP) Aug 21, 2018



Italian rescuers continued their search Tuesday for possible survivors of deadly flash flooding in the Calabria region's Pollino national park, described by hikers as an "avalanche of water".

Several hiking groups were caught Monday afternoon by the torrential deluge in the Raganello river gorge in southern Cosenza province.

It is unclear whether any people are still unaccounted for, with a spokeswoman for the country's Civil Protection service telling AFP three people who were reported missing had now been found.

The death toll has been revised down to 10, as opposed to 11 as previously reported, she added.

There was a mistake in the earlier death toll of Monday's flooding due to "overlapping reports over the course of the night", the head of Calabria's civil protection unit Carlo Tansi told local media.

Local authorities say 23 people were rescued from the flooding.

They said the incident involved two groups of 18 hikers each, with powerful floodlights brought up to allow rescuers to work through the night.

Environment Minister Sergio Costa also travelled to the region on Tuesday and told journalists: "We want to know who was meant to do what. The government stands with the families but we want to know within two or three days... what didn't work and for this reason we have asked for a report from the Cosenza prefecture."

A Dutch hiker, quoted in local media, said: "A real avalanche of water came unexpectedly. We did not have time to do anything. I was lucky, it was an incredible thing."

According to Corriere della Sera, among the 23 people rescued were two children. One of them was a girl taken to hospital by helicopter with hypothermia.

On Monday, this part of Calabria experienced several hours of heavy rain and strong winds although conditions began to improve during the evening.

Authorities have warned there is a possibility of storms in the region on Tuesday as well.

The dramatic gorges carved by the Raganello river are only recommended for experienced hikers due to the many challenges posed by the route, which at certain times of the year is rendered off-limits, the AGI news agency reported.
One million pack India flood relief camps



Chengannur, India, Aug 21 (AFP) Aug 21, 2018



More than one million people have swarmed relief camps in India's Kerala state to escape devastating monsoon floods that have killed about 420 people, officials said Tuesday as a huge international aid offers poured in.

People are flocking to camps as the scale of the desolation is revealed by receding waters and the military rescues more people each day.

The state government said 1,028,000 people are now in about 3,200 relief camps across the southern state. Officials said at least eight more bodies were recovered Tuesday taking the death toll to some 420 since the monsoon started in June.

Keralan authorities say they are desperate for funds and the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday promised $100 million in aid, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced after telephone talks with UAE leaders.

The amount is more than the $97 million so far promised by India's central government. Vijayan asked for a $375 million package from the government, saying the state must confront more than $3 billion in devastation.

Millions of dollars in donations have poured into Kerala from the rest of India and abroad in recent days. Other state governments have promised more than $50 million while Mukesh Ambani -- Asia's richest man according to Forbes -- gave $10 million through his Reliance Industries group.



- Desperate journey -



Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama sent $15,000, according to the Kerala government and even India's Supreme Court judges have donated $360 each. The British-based Sikh group Khalsa Aid International has set up its own relief camp in Kochi, Kerala's main city, to provide meals for 3,000 people a day.

The rescue operation is now focused on the worst-hit areas such as Chengannur, where more than 60 centimetres (two feet) of water blocked many roads as more rain fell Tuesday.

Army teams said several thousand people in the town remained in homes inundated by 10 days of torrential downpours.

Relief teams reached the house of retired army officer K.G. Pillai, who said up to 2.4 metres (eight feet) of water had engulfed the house where his family had lived since 1952.

"Around 26 people moved into the first floor of our home" to take refuge, he said.

In nearby Pandanad, locals said there was a desperate shortage of drinking water and dry clothes and people implored drivers of passing vehicles for supplies.

Next to an inundated road, army major Jingy Joseph sat barefoot with her four-year-old daughter Angelina, gazing at an overflowing river.

"My daughter is safe -- and that is all that matters," Joseph told AFP. She was on duty in Punjab when her parents' house, where her daughter was staying, was inundated last week.

"I lost all contact with them for around four days and literally had to make an appeal on Facebook for any update," she added.

Her video became one of the most widely shared distress appeals on Indian social media.

"I can talk about it now but they were the most anxious hours. I was strong but broke when I heard my daughter was crying for milk and water at the time," Joseph added.

She took a train ride and a flight and travelled several hours in a car to reach her parents and move them to a safe place.



- Relief efforts -



Thousands of army, navy and air force personnel have fanned out across the state to help those stranded in remote and hilly areas.

Dozens of helicopters and even drones have been dropping food, medicine and water to cut-off villages.

Tens of thousands of people in Chengannur and surrounding towns and villages are relying on community kitchens for meals, after water from hilly districts poured down into lowland regions.

The government says that more than 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) of roads have been destroyed or damaged while a legislator said 50,000 houses had been wiped out.

Shashi Tharoor, a deputy from Kerala and former UN official, estimated that 50,000 houses had been destroyed.
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A "mystery gunman" has lately been terrorizing the residents of an Upper East Side apartment building, firing lone bullets into (ostensibly) random living rooms. The NY Post reports that police "think it's some a-hole standing on a balcony shooting across the river" from Roosevelt Island. Tenants have been on edge since Thursday night, when the first bullet shattered a 14th-floor window.

"I'm petrified for my life," Ilene Epstein, a 55-year-old resident of One East River Place, told the Post. "I moved into this apartment because of the river. I have beautiful views. [But] I'll move out of my building before I walk around with a bulletproof vest."

One East River Place stands 50 stories tall, looming over the expanse between 72nd and 73rd Streets andas the name suggestslooking out over the East River towards Roosevelt Island. According to the NYPD, the sound of breaking glass awoke the first tenant, a 68-year-old woman, around 11:30 p.m. on Thursday night. She awoke the next morning to find a bullet fragment on her floorblanketed with broken glass from her shattered windowand called the police. According to the Post, authorities believe the ammo came from a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun.

Then, around 1 a.m. on Saturday morning, a 61-year-old resident of the 32nd floor awoke with a bang after a bullet whizzed through her living room window. According to authorities, the bullet left a puncture hole in the bottom of the window, spider-webbing the rest of the glass. No further gunfire has been reported since.

Police matched the timing to two 911 calls from the Manhattan Park apartments on Roosevelt Island, directly across the river from this UES luxury tower, regarding gunshots. Investigating those reports, authorities found no ballistic evidence and identified no victimsquite possibly because those bullets had lodged in apartments across the water.

No one has reported injuries, but the atmosphere in One East River Place remains understandably tense.

"My wife is in Long Island with our baby. Maybe I should call her and tell her to stay there for a few days," Arik Cohen, a 37-year-old computer programmer, told the Post. "I'm already planning on leaving New York. This is just one more reason."

"I'm paying close to $10,000 per month in rent so I can use the fitness center and be shot in the head in my apartment," another tenant added.
Sport

T10 format best to promote cricket globally, says Namibia's Wiese

Namibia all-rounder David Wiese, who has scored over 2,900 runs and taken over 200 wickets in T20 cricket, expressed during a virtual media conference on Thursday that the Deccan Gladiators stand a good chance of winning the Abu Dhabi T10, which is set to begin on Nov.19.




Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general died in Switzerland on August 18 at the age of 80. He became the first black African secretary-general in 1997, and four years later he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Born in Kumasi, Ghana, the son of a provincial governor and grandson of two tribal chiefs, Annon had a regal bearing, that was both elegant and dignified. Annan will be remembered as one of the worlds most celebrated diplomats. The breadth of his career was considerable spanning his work at the UN and a host of positions in academia. This included being chancellor of the University of Ghana, a fellow at New Yorks Columbia University, and a professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.



Annan was a leading advocate for climate action. In 2009 an organization led by Annan called the Global Humanitarian Forum, released a study that concluded global warming is causing 300,000 deaths and $125 billion in economic losses annually. The study also predicted that we are running out of time to address the threats we face.

Annan championed peacekeeping and fought poverty, he was a powerful advocate of human rights and development. He helped to make the UN more open and accountable and he set up a formal response to human rights atrocities.

He learned from his failed leadership as a senior UN official during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and the massacre in Srebrenica a year later. After becoming secretary-general he drew on these experiences to create a doctrine called the Responsibility to Protect.

Annon was the secretary-general from 1997  2006 and during this time he led the UN in opposing the war with Iraq in 2003. He is responsible for integrating social issues into the UNs agenda overseeing the creation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). He was active in raising funds to fight diseases like AIDS and he set up the first UN counter-terrorism strategy. In 2005 he created the Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights Council. He also set up an internal U.N. ethics office

He was involved in the independence of East Timor from Indonesia in 1999 and he helped secure a truce between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. He also mediated the settlement of a dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria.

After leaving the UN in 2007, he created a foundation that promoted peace, development, and human rights. He also championed fair elections and he succeeded in brokering peace in Kenya after 1000 people were killed in election violence. He joined the Elders, an organization created by Nelson Mandala, and succeeding Desmond Tutu as its chairman. In 2012 he was named UN Arab Leagues special envoy to Syria in 2012.

Annon spoke out about the refugee crisis, he promoted good government and advocated for anti-corruption measures. He was also a supporter of sustainability in agriculture and the corporate world.

GLOBAL COMPACT



The Global Compact may prove to be one of his most enduring legacies, it is arguably his most impactful initiative. The Global Compact defines itself as a call to companies to align strategies and operations with universal principles on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption, and take actions that advance societal goals. They inspire, guide, and support companies to act responsibly.

On the environmental front, they address risks and leverage opportunities while urging businesses to see how their fates are tied to the planet. On the social front, they manage the impacts and opportunities affecting employees, workers in the value chain, customers, and communities. On the governance side of things, they support economic development leading to good governance and stability.

The Global Compact is also focused on sustainable development. To achieve this goal they leverage financial markets improving investments by proactively managing sustainability risks.

They are also stalwart advocates of principled supply chain practices that deliver strong sustainability performance.

To achieve their sustainability goals the Global Compact calls on companies to integrate 10 Principles into corporate values, strategies, policies, and procedures. The ultimate goal is to establish a culture of integrity that supports the three tenants of sustainability (people, planet, and profit).

Human Rights



Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights;

Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Labor

Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;

Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labor;

Principle 5: the effective abolition of child labor; and

Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Environment

Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;

Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and

Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.

Anti-Corruption

Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.

The vision of the UN Global Compact is to create a sustainable and inclusive global economy that delivers lasting benefits to people, communities, and markets. The Global Compact gets involved in helping businesses to reduce their carbon footprints in many ways including the Science-Based Targets Initiative.

The Global Compact is the worlds largest corporate sustainability initiative and it has spawned corporate action that has helped to usher sustainability into the mainstream.
In Vladimir Putins Russia, the greatest classic of anti-communist literature, Alexander Solzhenitsyns The Gulag Archipelago, is now compulsory reading in all high schools. We dont need to like Vladimir Putin. We dont need to admire him. But we do need to acknowledge that Russia has moved on from the evils of socialism, even as we are in danger of embracing those very same evils.

The recent film, The Death of Stalin, should be shown to all those millions of millennials in the United States who still harbor romantic delusions about communism. According to the findings of a poll, as reported in the Washington Times last year, almost a third of millennials expressed an admiration for Karl Marx and almost a quarter admired Lenin. The same poll showed that millennials are far less likely than previous generations to have a negative view of communism. Only thirty-six percent said they had a very unfavorable impression of an ideology which has killed tens of millions of people in the past century. As tragic and comic as this ignorance is, it is no more tragic and comic than the ignorance of those who insist of conflating contemporary Russia with the Soviet Union, seeking thereby to reignite the Cold War with its nuclear doomsday option of Mutually Assured Destruction, the acronym of which is quite literally and appropriately MAD!

As a means of exposing those who insist of seeing Russian President Vladimir Putin as a reincarnation of Josef Stalin, it would be good to look at Putins relationship with the great Soviet dissident and anti-communist hero, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose centenary we celebrate this year.

On September 20, 2000, Solzhenitsyn met the newly-elected Russian President, Vladimir Putin, for the first time. Mr. Putin was at pains to illustrate that he had Solzhenitsyns approval of his governments policies. A year later, in August 2001, Mr. Putin stated that, prior to his education reforms, documents had been sent to very different people, known and respected by the country, including Alexander Solzhenitsyn.[i] In spite of such praise, Solzhenitsyn retained his right to criticize the government vociferously. Like the character of Aslan in C.S. Lewiss Chronicles of Narnia, Solzhenitsyn was not a tame lion. On the contrary, he was prone to bite the hand that paid him compliments. On December 14, 2000, he made a rare public appearance to accept a humanities award at the French Embassy in Moscow, using the occasion to attack the policies of post-communist Russia. In his acceptance speech, and during the news conference that followed it, he delivered what the Moscow Times described as a devastating criticism of Boris Yeltsins decade. Nor did Mr. Putin escape his wrath, whom he criticized for making several political mistakes, not least of which was Mr. Putins recent decision to reinstate the melody of the Soviet hymn as the national anthem.[ii]

In January 2006, billboards, featuring Solzhenitsyns bearded and benignly beaming face, appeared all over Moscow advertising the forthcoming broadcast on state television of a film adaptation of his novel, The First Circle. As his grandfatherly features looked out across the Moscow streets it seemed that the face of sanity and sagacity had finally replaced the ominous portrait of Big Brother: the face of Lenin, Stalin, Krushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, et cetera ad nauseam, had finally made way for the irrepressible survivor of the Gulag.

The First Circle premiered on January 29 and ran for ten nights. The first episode was the most watched program in the entire nation, narrowly edging out Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 3. Fifteen million viewers watched each of the ten episodes, seven and a half hours of viewing, shown without commercial breaks. Solzhenitsyn, now eighty-seven, had written the screenplay and narrated long passages. He was also a consultant during the filming, advising the crew on how to recreate the claustrophobic environment of the Gulag. He was pleased with the result, and the films director, Gleb Panfilov, reported that Solzhenitsyn had tears in his eyes when he saw the edited version.[iii]

On June 5, 2007, President Putin signed a decree honouring Solzhenitsyn for exemplary achievements in the area of humanitarian activities. Responding to news of the award on her husbands behalf, Natalia Solzhenitsyn told reporters that he hoped that Russia would learn from the lessons of destroying itself in the twentieth century and never repeat it.[iv] Solzhenitsyns failing health prevented his being able to attend the pomp and circumstance of the official awards ceremony at a hall in the Kremlin on 12 June, his wife once again serving as his representative. Yet, later the same day, as a mark of the respect, Mr. Putin visited Solzhenitsyns residence to present the award in person. According to Russian press reports, the two men discussed Solzhenitsyns ideas about the political situation in contemporary Russia at some length.[v]

Then as now, many in the West seemed confused and bemused by Solzhenitsyns evidently comfortable relationship with Mr. Putin, and some were quick to sense a hypocritical rapprochement between Solzhenitsyn and what they perceived to be the new totalitarianism in Russia. Such misreadings of the man were put to rest by Natalia Solzhenitsyn in mid-June, within days of the award ceremony in Moscow, during her keynote address at an international Solzhenitsyn conference at the University of Illinois. Among the many aspects of modern Russia with which her husband by no means agrees were the party-dominated nature of the legislature, the absence of meaningful local self-government and the rampant corruption that continues to plague Russian society.[vi]

In an endeavor to put the Putin-Solzhenitsyn relationship into perspective, Daniel Mahoney, author of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Ascent from Ideology and co-editor of The Solzhenitsyn Reader, insisted that it was a terrible mistake to assume that Solzhenitsyn is an uncritical supporter of the status quo in Russia today. Nonetheless, he surely credits Putin for taking on the most unsavoury of the oligarchs, confronting the demographic crisis (it was Solzhenitsyn who first warned in his speech to the Duma in the fall of 1994 that Russians were in the process of dying out), and restoring Russian self-respect (although Solzhenitsyn adamantly opposes every identification of Russian patriotism with Soviet-style imperialism). The point is, Mahoney concluded, that Solzhenitsyn remains his own man, a patriot and a witness to the truth.[vii]

In actual fact, although Solzhenitsyn had certainly come in from the cold since his days as a dissident, he was only pursuing in his discussions with Mr. Putin what he had sought to pursue with the Politburo of the Soviet Union thirty-four years earlier in his Letter to Soviet Leaders. The only difference was that Mr. Putin was prepared to listen to Solzhenitsyns wisdom, and to discuss it with him in person, whereas the communist old guard had sought to silence him. If Mr. Putin was really prepared to listen to Solzhenitsyns warnings about the population implosion caused by the culture of death, or about the need to tackle corruption, or the necessity of strong local democracy, or the difference between true nationalism and chauvinistic imperialism, why should Mr. Putin be criticised for listening or Solzhenitsyn for speaking his mind?

On June 23, 2007, the German weekly magazine, Der Spiegel, published an interview with Solzhenitsyn. Not surprisingly, the recent controversy over his acceptance of an award from Vladimir Putin was one of the key questions asked. The question, and Solzhenitsyns reply, warrant quotation in extenso:

Der Spiegel: Thirteen years ago when you returned from exile, you were disappointed to see the new Russia. You turned down a prize proposed by Gorbachev, and you also refused to accept an award Yeltsin wanted to give you. Yet now you have accepted the State Prize which was awarded to you by Putin, the former head of the FSB intelligence agency, whose predecessor the KGB persecuted and denounced you so cruelly. How does this all fit together? Solzhenitsyn: The prize in 1990 was proposed not by Gorbachev, but by the Council of Ministers of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, then a part of the USSR. The prize was to be for The Gulag Archipelago. I declined the proposal, since I could not accept an award for a book written in the blood of millions. In 1998, it was the countrys low point, with people in misery; this was the year when I published the book Russia in Collapse [Russia in the Abyss]. Yeltsin decreed I be honored the highest state order. I replied that I was unable to receive an award from a government that had led Russia in to such dire straits. The current State Prize is awarded not by the president personally, but by a community of top experts. The Council on Science that nominated me for the award and the Council on Culture that supported the idea include some of the most highly respected people of the country, all of them authorities in their respective disciplines. The president, as head of state, awards the laureates on the national holiday. In accepting the award I expressed the hope that the bitter Russian experience, which I have been studying and describing all my life, will be for us a lesson that keeps us from new disastrous breakdowns. Vladimir Putinyes, he was an officer of the intelligence services, but he was not a KGB investigator, nor was he the head of a camp in the gulag. As for service in foreign intelligence, that is not a negative in any countrysometimes it even draws praise. George Bush Sr. was not much criticized for being the ex-head of the CIA, for example.

Asked whether the Russian people had learned the lessons of their communist past, Solzhenitsyn responded optimistically, referring to the great number of publications and movies on the history of the twentieth century as evidence of a growing demand for greater knowledge of the recent past. He was particularly pleased that the state-owned television channel had recently aired a series based on the works of Varlam Shalamov, whose Kolyma Tales is a classic of Gulag literature. The television adaptation showed the terrible, cruel truth about Stalins camps, said Solzhenitsyn. It was not watered down.

Solzhenitsyn also expressed pleasure at the large-scale, heated and long-lasting discussions that had followed in the wake of his own republished article on the February Revolution. I was pleased to see the wide range of opinions, including those opposed to mine, since they demonstrate the eagerness to understand the past, without which there can be no meaningful future.

A large part of the interview was devoted to Solzhenitsyns perennial desire that Russia develop local self-government and his regret that power was too centralized under Mr. Putins leadership. He cited his personal experience of local democracy during his years in exile in Switzerland and Vermont and held such models of highly effective local self-government worthy of emulation in Russia.

Discussing the cooling of relations between Russia and the West, Solzhenitsyns analysis of the history of the previous fifteen years highlighted the sharpness with which he viewed contemporary events. When he had returned to Russia he discovered that the West was practically being worshipped. This was caused not so much by real knowledge or a conscious choice, but by the natural disgust with the Bolshevik regime and its anti-Western propaganda. The positive view of many Russians towards the West began to sour following the cruel NATO bombings of Serbia: Its fair to say that all layers of Russian society were deeply and indelibly shocked by those bombings. The situation worsened as NATO sought to widen its influence to the former Soviet republics. So, the perception of the West as mostly a knight of democracy has been replaced with the disappointed belief that pragmatism, often cynical and selfish, lies at the core of Western policies. For many Russians it was a grave disillusionment, a crushing of ideals.

As for the West, it was enjoying its victory after the exhausting Cold War and was observing the anarchy in Russian under Gorbachev and Yeltsin. It seemed as though Russia was becoming almost a Third World country and would remain so forever. In consequence, the re-emergence of Russia as a political power caused unease in the West, a panic based on erstwhile fears. It was too bad that the West was unable to distinguish between Russia and the Soviet Union.

At the beginning of August 2007, barely a week after Der Spiegel had published the interview with Solzhenitsyn, during which he had made reference to the Christian martyrs killed at the hands of the communists at the Butovo cemetery outside Moscow, the Russian Orthodox Church sponsored a commemoration of these very martyrs at the cemetery itself. President Putin and his government were conspicuous by their absence at the event, a fact for which they were roundly condemned in the Russian press. Three months later, in an apparent act of penance for his earlier sin of omission (if one can use such language about the motives and actions of politicians), Mr. Putin visited Butovo and issued a statement about the evils of ideology and about the millions who had perished at the hands of the communist regime. On the same day, the Orthodox Church canonized hundred of victims of communism.

Solzhenitsyn died on August 3, 2008, a few months short of his ninetieth birthday. Only two weeks later, it was announced that Moscows Great Communist Street (ulitsa Bolshaya Kommunisticheskaya) was to be re-named Alexander Solzhenitsyn Street,[viii] an honour bestowed by a personal decree from President Putin.

On the first anniversary of Solzhenitsyns death, Vladimir Putin sent a telegram to his widow in which he described Solzhenitsyn as a global individual, whose creative and ideological heritage will always hold a special place in the history of Russian literature and in the chronicles of our country.[ix]

In October 2010, it was announced that The Gulag Archipelago would become required reading for all Russian high school students. In a meeting with Solzhenitsyns widow, Mr. Putin described The Gulag Archipelago as essential reading: Without the knowledge of that book, we would lack a full understanding of our country and it would be difficult for us to think about the future.

What more need be said? In Vladimir Putins Russia, the greatest classic of anti-communist literature is now compulsory reading in all high schools. If the same could be said of the high schools of the United States, we would not have the endemic historical and political ignorance that has led to the widespread sympathy for communism among young Americans. In light of this, and in light of Mr. Putins evident admiration for Solzhenitsyn, lets not try to pretend that Russia is a communist nation. We dont need to like Vladimir Putin. We dont need to admire him. But we do need to acknowledge that Russia has moved on from the evils of socialism, even as we are in danger of embracing those very same evils.

The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politicswe approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now.

Notes:

[i] Pravda, 29 August 2001

[ii] Moscow Times, 14 December 2000

[iii] New York Times, 9 February 2006

[iv] The Moscow Times.com, 6 June 2007

[v] Alexis Klimoff, e-mail to the author and others, 12 June 2007

[vi] Daniel Mahoney, a speaker at the Solzhenitsyn conference, e-mail to the author and others, 22 July 2007

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] BBC News website, 18 August 2008

[ix] RIA Novosti (Russian Information Agency Novosti) news despatch, 3 August 2009

The featured image file comes from the website of the President of the Russian Federation and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. It appears here courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
US comic actor Danny DeVito, the star of Twins and Batman Returns, will receive a lifetime achievement award at the San Sebastian film festival in Spain next month, organizers said Monday.

The 73-year-old will also attend the festival to promote his latest film, Smallfoot, a 3D animated comedy adventure in which he provides the voice for a yeti.

In a statement, San Sebastian festival organizers said DeVito has "led a versatile career" in theater, film and television spanning almost five decades, in which he was worked with top directors such as Tim Burton and Francis Ford Coppola.

DeVito will receive the festival's Donostia Award on September 22.

The Donostia Award has been given out each year at the festival since 1986 to "a great film personality in recognition for their work and career.

Read also: Amal Clooney speaks from the heart as George gets lifetime award

Past recipients include Gregory Peck, Robert De Niro, Bette Davis, Susan Sarandon and Meryl Streep.

The 66th edition of the San Sebastian festival, the oldest and most prestigious in the Spanish-speaking world, takes place from September 21 to 29 in the picturesque coastal city in northern Spain.

DeVito, who won an Emmy for his turn as the despotic dispatcher in Taxi in the late 1970s and early 1980s, currently stars in the hit television comedy Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

His film credits include 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1988's Twins, Batman Returns in 1992 and LA Confidential in 1997.
Yayasan Kreatif Bangsa Indonesia (Krafbina) introduced several programs on Monday, featuring creative workshops, Desa Kreatif Cerdas (Smart Creative Village) and a creative community.

The series of "Creative Art, Fashion & Lifestyle" (Crafstyle Event) workshops are scheduled to run in several locations, namely Sleman regency in Yogyakarta from Sept. 10 to 16, Bandung, West Java, from Dec. 5 to 15, Denpasar, Bali, from Dec. 25 to 31 and Jakarta from Nov. 10 to 25, 2019.

Krafbina head Luwi Saluadji Purbodiningrat told a press conference on Monday that the workshops would cover various creative topics, including fashion, beauty and film.

For the workshops, Karfbina is collaborating with various organizations, such as the Indonesian Film Actors Association (Parfi), the Northumbria School of Fashion  Bina Nusantara University, Darwis Triadi School of Photography and more, with industry professionals aiming to educate creative talent.

Krafbina collaborates with the creme de la creme [of the industry], said Luwi.

Read also: Creating healthier film ecosystem in Indonesia

The workshops will provide participants with basic information related to the creative industry, such as an introduction to branding, how to create a fashion collection and more.

Luwi saw that it was important to develop creative talent from the roots and educate it to understand what creativity is all about.

Luwi also said that each area had its strengths and weaknesses, hence, Krafbina provided each city with the right workshops.

In regard to Desa Kreatif Cerdas, Luwi shared that the program was currently running in three villages in Yogyakarta. These villages were required to send 25 people and Krafbina would teach them basic creativity in fashion, photography and beauty.

Meanwhile, Parfi chairman Marcella Zalianty said when discussing the creative industry, particularly film and culture, everything was connected. Therefore, collaboration is important in developing a creative industry ecosystem. (kes)
A new, interactive installation, titled Kotak Utak-Atik (The Tinkering Box) by artist Gatot Indrajati, has been unveiled to the public in the Childrens Art Space of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum Macan) .

Kotak Utak-Atik takes the form of a sitespecific installation, with pieces shaped like cartoonish machinery constructed mainly from cardboard filling up the rooms walls.

Each larger piece is made up of smaller pieces taking the shape of machine components, some with moving parts. The surface is also decorated with marker pen drawings, illustrating wires and electrical apparatuses.

Also part of the installation are wooden creations from Gatots workshops, lightly hidden in the nooks and crannies of the pieces for guests to discover with the help of the provided flashlights.

While Kotak Utak-Atik is aimed at children, adults will also be able to rediscover their inner child as there are no age limits for the exhibition. However, younger children will still require supervision so that they will not damage the pieces.

Guests will be able to make their own cardboard creations and decorate them with the provided markers. They are also encouraged to leave their creations in the room as part of the installations interactivity.

While guests cannot bring home the creation kits and markers, they are allowed to bring home their completed creations as a keepsake. They can also use the markers to draw on the rooms walls, while the attached pieces are off-limits.

Gatot  who is known for winning the 2016 United Overseas Bank (UOB) Southeast Asian Painting of the Year with his piece titled Right or Wrong My Home,a mixed media painting inspired by the culture of metropolitan cities like Jakarta  said the idea behind the installation came from his childhood, when he used to create and tinker with his toys.

Read also: Seven tips on how to enjoy Museum Macan

Kotak Utak-Atik is likened to a factory that produces creativity. The message I want to convey is that when you buy something and it becomes lightly damaged, you dont need to buy a new one. We can always tinker with it, Gatot said.

He added that through the piece, he wanted to provide a lesson as a response to an increasingly consumerist society.

The imagery of machines is an illustration of our way of thinking. It starts from a box and goes on until it reaches its ending. The machine produces creativity as well as a mindset to wisely use an object that comes from other global industrial machines.

Known to have a penchant for wood as his medium of choice, Gatot said he chose to use cardboard because of concerns over the weight of the pieces.

This is also an installation that I allow to be touched, and children will be able to construct something with cardboard easily, both in the museum and at home, Gatot said, noting that the entire installation took three months to construct.

Museum Macan director Aaron Seeto explained that the commissioned installation, part of a partnership with UOB, would be the first in a series of commissions for the Childrens Art Space area.

At least twice a year, there will be a new Childrens Art Space commission, and the artists will come from Indonesia and from across Southeast Asia. So, over the next couple of years, we will be exposed to artists from our immediate region who have a commitment to working with children, Aaron said.

The partnership will also include sponsored school visits to the museum.

I think art education is important for everyone, for society. [...] When we look around the world, the resources for art education are declining. Its important for society because if we believe that art and creativity have some greater societal function  it helps us better understand each other, it helps us be more creative and innovative outside of the arts  then that means we all have to support art education.
On the eve of the Islamic day of sacrifice, Idul Adha, a friend visited Al Kautsar Grand Mosque, which is well known for its elegant architecture, in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi.

After performing his ritual prayer, he observed the walls around him and noticed several windows and ventilators adorned with stained glass art decorations.

They are exquisitely beautiful and Islamic, he said.

He learned from the mosques management that the creator of the stained glass designs was Brian Yaputra who was born in Semarang, Central Java, in 1947. Brian owns a stained glass art firm in Jakarta and my friend was surprised to find out that he was a Catholic.

Brians attractive stained glass patterns not only adorn Al Kautsar Mosque, it also graces 50 other mosques in Indonesia, such as Ar-Rahman in Serang, Banten, Dian AlMahri in Depok, West Java, Al Muthaqin in Brumbung, Tunu in Pangkal Pinang, Bangka Belitung, Al-Aqobah in Palembang, South Sumatra, and two grand mosques in Surabaya,

East Java and Jambi. Dozens of others bearing his stained glass motifs are found in Jakarta, including the Islamic Center Mosque in Tanjung Priok and Ramlie Musofa Mosque in Sunter.

Brians stained glass artworks also grace mosques in other countries, such as Zirjah in Dubai and the Syekh Maulana Yusuf Mosque in Cape Town, South Africa.

Brian, who set up the Eztu Glass Art company in 1981, said he was happy with what he had done despite the many challenges he had to endure during the production of his artworks.

Thousands of small pieces of glass, some as tiny as 7 millimeters, are composed according to fixed patterns, which are highly intricate. However, handling artistic creations at mosques, no matter how complicated, is my happiness, he added.

I am happy because as a non-Muslim, I can share my artistic flair with my Muslim brothers and sisters.

Brian, who is of Chinese descent, added that he always made new friends whenever he undertook stained glass art projects for mosques.

Read also: Getting to know Asasi Mosque, one of Indonesia's oldest mosques

Meanwhile, mosque managers and architectural designers have no problem over the fact that Brian is a non-Muslim.

Some of the mosque authorities have even expressed their gratitude.

On Idul Adha holidays, Brian is at his happiest because his stained glass art pieces, he says, are part of the celebration.

He is sure that Allah is very fond of such splendor because he has often heard some ustads (Islamic religious teachers) saying, Innallaha jamilun yuhibbul jamal [Allah is most beautiful; therefore, He is fond of beauty].

To ensure creativity and success in the stained glass art business, Brian continues to believe in the ethos of hard work and smart work.

The foreign language academic graduate has studied the character of drawing art, the symbolic meaning of forms and ornaments, the properties of glass as well as the art of architecture and interiors, besides tracing the thousands of years of stained glass art history.

Behind all of his efforts, fate also played a part in opening up doors for him.

He said in the 1980s, while traveling by air, he was disturbed by a passenger who kept coughing next to him.

Brian offered him a throat lozenge to relieve his cough. The man was thankful and gave him his business card.

The card showed that his fellow passenger was Dr. Tau Ho, who was the then-chairman of the Hong Kong Architects Association.

Brian told him that he worked as a stained glass crafter. Ho was surprised and after further communication he ordered stained glass artworks to adorn the windows and skylights of the Wingwong Pentecostal Church in Hong Kong. It was this order that motivated Brian. While I can work for the church, why not for mosques as well? he thought.

And after that, he created the stained glass decorations of various mosques in Indonesia. His determination to keep developing stained glass art has been stimulated by its long history dating back to 330 CE when Constantine the Great moved the seat of government to Byzantium and renamed it Constantinople.

The citys stained glass art remained popular through to the 6th century as seen at the Hagia Sophia Cathedral with its large dome, which was built between 532 and 537. Church builders in France and Italy in the 7th century also widely copied the magnificence of Hagia Sophias architecture and stained glass elements.

In 1453, the Turks occupied the city and changed its name to Istanbul. Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque by Sultan Ahmed and it was renamed the Blue Mosque. The stained glass compositions were maintained and the building became a center of fascination. Since then, stained glass designs have been a major fixture of mosques all over the world.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 21, 2018 08:41 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df54168e6 1 City Dispute,online-business,detainment,pregnant,Bekasi Free

An accusation of an online business fraud worth Rp 2.5 million (US$171) has resulted in a pregnant woman being detained in Pondok Bambu Women's Penitentiary in East Jakarta since May.

The now seven-month-old pregnant woman, identified as FT, was reported to the police by one of her online shop customers, DW, who is a wife of a one-star military general, according to Uli Pangaribuan, a lawyer from the Legal Aid Foundation of the Indonesian Women's Association for Justice (LBH Apik).

Unequal power relations between FT and DW, who used her husbands position as a [military] general, shows DWs arrogance and power abuse, which influences law enforcement, said Uli.

FT, 22, was detained in May and is waiting for her court hearing on Aug. 29.

FT was arrested and taken to Pinang Ranti Police, then moved to Kebayoran Baru, then to Pondok Gede Police for questioning, and then detained at Pondok Bambu [penitentiary], Uli said on Monday as quoted by kompas.com.

FT, who was pregnant with her second child, sold batik clothes through a Facebook account. Among her customers was DW, who ordered 10 items of batik clothing worth Rp 2.5 million and paid in advance. It turned out that FT could not fulfill the order on the designated date. DW gave FT one hour to return her money.

Uli said her client had agreed to return the money. However, DW still reported FT to the police for fraud. Not long after receiving the report, the police arrested and detained FT.

Uli further said as the disputed money did not exceed Rp 2.5 million, the case should have been settled through mediation mechanism, as regulated in Supreme Court Regulation No. 2/2012, which regulates the boundaries of what constitutes a misdemeanor and the amount of the fine. (gis)
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Linkedin Nurni Sulaiman (The Jakarta Post) Palembang, South Sumatra  Tue, August 21, 2018 16:44 1166 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5439580 1 Sports #AsianGames2018,#2018AsianGames,Asian-Games-2018,Idul-Adha,volunteers Free

Celebrating Idul Adha while on duty has led to mixed feelings for some volunteers in Palembang, South Sumatra.

Traditionally, Palembang residents go to the Great Mosque near the Ampera Bridge to conduct their Idul Adha prayers, which start at 7 a.m. The prayers last more than one hour.

Some volunteers, however, have to reach their venues at 7 a.m. to prepare for the first session of the day, which starts at 9 a.m. The situation has raised concerns as volunteers may not make it for prayers.

Usually I pray with my family near the bridge. This year I hope I can pray with them again, but Im not so sure because I have to be at the venue [when the prayers start], said volunteer Erick Pratama, who is deployed at the main press center in Jakabaring Sport City.

Volunteers Parilah Iis and Yuni Permatasari expressed similar concerns.

An estimated 1,000 Muslim athletes and officials are staying in Palembang, South Sumatra, including during Idul Adha, which falls on Wednesday.

The Idul Adha prayers traditionally begin at 7 a.m. Some morning competitions, however, are set to start at 9 a.m. on the day.

As a solution, the organizers have rescheduled some competitions, in sepak takraw and bowling, to start at 10 a.m. The organizers have also set up a mosque and an open space near the Jakabaring athletes village to host the prayers. (nkn)
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Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Palembang, South Sumatra  Tue, August 21, 2018 20:03 1166 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5446be6 1 Sports #AsianGames2018,#2018AsianGames,Asian-Games-2018,beach-volleyball,womens-team,Indonesia,Japan,Kazakhstan Free

Playing with a severe disadvantage in height, Indonesia lost in two womens beach volleyball group matches in Palembang, South Sumatra, on Tuesday.

Dhita Juliana and Putu Dini Jasita Utami, who played in the afternoon in Group D, looked overwhelmed by strong smashes from Tatyana Mashkova and Irina Tsimbalova of Kazakhstan. Indonesia lost 21-12, 21-17 in the match.

Using their tall bodies as weapons, the Kazakhs pressed the hosts with downward spikes. The Indonesians often failed to withstand the attack, giving up points to their opponents.

Mashkova, at 1.88 meters in height, and Tsimbalova, at 1.82 m, are much taller than Indonesias Dita (1.72 m) and Putu (1.71 m). When Indonesia attempted spikes, they were often blocked easily.

There is a height difference. It played a role, too, [in our loss], Dini said after the match.

In the morning, Indonesias Desi Ratnasari and Yokebed Purari Eka lost 23-25, 21-18, 15-9 to Japans Azusa Futami and Akiko Hasegawa in Group C.

We had trouble blocking their smashes, Desi said after the match.

The Japanese players are also tall  Futami is 1.8 m and Hasegawa is 1.75 m. Meanwhile, Desi is 1.71 m and Yokebed is 1.72 m.
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Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Bandung, West Java  Tue, August 21, 2018 18:15 1166 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5441234 1 National Bio-Farma,measles,rubella,measles-rubella,vaccination,vaccines Free

State-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma is conducting research on the measles-rubella (MR) vaccine in an effort to produce one that will meet the halal criteria set by the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI).

"We are working so that the MR vaccine does not use haram or najis [unclean] materials in its production process," Bio Farma corporate secretary Bambang Heriyanto said in a written statement on Tuesday.

The MUI issued a fatwa on Monday declaring that the MR vaccine is mubah (permitted for use by Muslims) despite containing materials derived from pigs.

However, MUI fatwa commission secretary Asrorun Ni'am emphasized that once a halal MR vaccine had been found, the current MR vaccine would be considered haram as it utilized haram materials in its production process.

Bambang said currently only the MR vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII) met the safety, quality and efficacy requirements according to the standards of the World Health Organization (WHO).

"It will take a lot of research and a long time to replace one of the components of the MR vaccine," he said. "It could take up to 15 to 20 years to find a vaccine with a new component."

Bio Farma would also coordinate better with the MUI in developing new vaccine products and in importing vaccines for use in Indonesia, Bambang added.

In the meantime, however, he urged the public to use the existing vaccine.

"Given the effects of measles and rubella, we call on the public to support the vaccination program conducted by the Health Ministry," he said. (kmt)
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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 21, 2018 16:33 1166 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5437d24 1 National TanjungBalai,North-Sumatra Free

A Chinese-Indonesian woman of the Buddhist faith has been sentenced to 1.5 years in prison for complaining about the volume of the azan (Islamic call to prayer) that was blasted from a speaker of a mosque near her house.

Meiliana, 44, a resident of Tanjung Balai, North Sumatra, was found guilty of blasphemy as stipulated under articles 156 and 156A of the Criminal Code on blasphemy, the Medan District Court said on Tuesday.

[We] declare that the defendant is legally and compellingly proven guilty of [] committing blasphemy against a certain religion that is professed in Indonesia, presiding judge Wahyu Prasetyo Wibowo said.

[We] sentenced the defendant to one and a half years in prison.

Meiliana is one of the first people to have been sentenced to prison for complaining about the volume of a mosque's speakers, despite a plea from the Indonesian Mosque Council, now led by Vice President Jusuf Kalla, for mosque staff to use loudspeakers wisely.

Meiliana reportedly said the azan was too loud and hurt her ears, and asked a neighbor to lower the speakers volume.

Her remark, made in 2016, is believed to have triggered the worst anti-Chinese riot in the country since 1998, with Muslims who claimed to have been offended by her words burning several Buddhist temples.

During the riot, the angry mob destroyed prayer equipment, Buddha statues, tables, chairs, lamps and several cars and motorbikes, the police said.

The police arrested 19 people for their role in the riot. Eight were charged with looting, nine with malicious destruction of property and two with inciting violence. All were given one to four month jail sentences.

Meiliana's lawyer, Ranto Sibarani, said they would appeal the verdict.

"We will appeal the verdict because the judges could not prove that our client has committed blasphemy," he told The Jakarta Post over the phone.

Human rights activists have criticized the law enforcers for prosecuting Meiliana, saying that the case should have been settled out of court.

This is an old case that was brought up again, M. Isnur from the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI) told the Post recently, adding that public pressure was likely the main driver of her prosecution.

In a blasphemy case like this, [law enforcement officials] often listen to the MUIs fatwas.

Meiliana is the latest individual prosecuted under the nations controversial blasphemy laws, under which dozens of people have been sent to prison, including former Jakarta governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama. (ahw)
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Los Angeles, United States  Tue, August 21, 2018 08:18 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5415468 2 World #USA,#Crime,USA,kidnapping,Chinese,los-angeles Free

A Chinese national has been missing for five weeks after being abducted in California by three men demanding a $2 million ransom, the FBI revealed on Monday.

Ruochen "Tony" Liao, 28, who worked at a luxury car dealership in Costa Mesa, was kidnapped on July 16 in the city of San Gabriel by three men riding in two black vehicles, Laura Eimiller, spokeswoman for the FBI office in Los Angeles, told AFP.

She said Liao's abduction may be linked to a business deal gone sour, as he often worked with "people not often reputable."

"A working theory is that there was some sort of business dispute," Eimiller said.

She said the kidnappers, all believed to be Chinese, initially reached out to Liao's family in China, demanding $2 million for his release, but then failed to follow through with their demand.

"We don't have evidence indicating he has left the country but we don't know where he is," Eimiller said.

She said only one of the abductors, identified as a 35- to 40-year-old by the name of David, was seen by a witness who provided a description.

Liao moved to the Los Angeles area after attending school in the state of Nebraska.

His family is offering a $150,000 reward for information leading to his safe return while the FBI is offering $25,000 for information leading to his recovery.

"He's a deeply loved person by his family," Matthew Lombard, an attorney representing Liao's family, told reporters. "He's their only child and they're very, very concerned for him."
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Linkedin Gisela Swaragita (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 21, 2018 10:19 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5421e62 1 City Lapangan-Banteng,security,arrest,beat Free

A man with epilepsy was found covered with bruises and cigarette burns on Saturday at Lapangan Banteng Park in Central Jakarta, after an alleged beating from security guards that forced him to admit to being a thief.

I am not a thief, but [the security guards] did not believe me. They burned my body with their cigarettes, believing I was a thief, said Ali Achmat Firmansyah on Monday, as quoted by kompas.com.

Ali said he was carrying Rp 2.4 million (US$164) in cash on him. The guards who allegedly beat him thought the money was stolen, he said.

It was the money I made from collecting empty plastic bottles and used cardboard, Ali said.

He said the guards dragged and handcuffed him to a bench before they beat him.

His sister Sari confirmed that Ali often scavenged for plastic bottles and used cardboard, and also helped people move house.

Jakarta Social Agency head Irmansyah said the agencys staff rescued Ali after they received a report from Lapangan Banteng Park security. They then took Ali to city-owned social rehabilitation center Bina Insan Bangun Daya in West Jakarta for treatment.

During treatment, he had an epileptic seizure, said Masyudi, the head of Bina Insan Bangun Daya, in a written statement sent to The Jakarta Post.

Alis father, TB Herman Wijaya, filed a complaint on Monday with the Central Jakarta Police on the assault. He said the police had obtained footage from a CCTV camera that had captured the incident.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 21, 2018 13:53 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df542e320 1 National Lombok-earthquake,Lombok,Tjahjo-Kumolo,disaster-mitigation Free

Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo has urged all regional heads to work hand-in-hand to help disaster-hit Lombok Island in West Nusa Tenggara, amid pleas to declare the deadly earthquakes a national disaster.

Tjahjo held a meeting with National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) head Willem Rampangilei to discuss disaster. The two said it would take time for the BNPB to purchase disaster management equipment for Lombok.

So we ask regional disaster mitigation offices [BPBD] to send anything they have to help, he said in a press statement on Tuesday, adding that aid could be disbursed through regional administrations.

He urged regional administrations from the regions closest to West Nusa Tenggara, such as Bali and those in Java, to swiftly send personnel and equipment to help affected residents. The administrations could use their unused funds from their respective regional budgets to send aid.

We have sent a letter of the legalities for distributing aid. This is for the sake of gotong royong [working together] in addition to funds allocated by the finance minister, Tjahjo said.

There has been mounting pleas from the public and local councilors in West Nusa Tenggara to declare the string of quakes and aftershocks a national disaster. The earthquakes claimed at least 487 lives, injured 7,700 people and displaced more than 410,000 people. Thousands of buildings, including public facilities, were also damaged in the powerful quakes, the first of which rocked the island on July 29.

However, Tjahjo asserted that the provincial administration along with regional-level administrations had not been paralyzed by the quakes and public services continued to operate. Moreover, the central government had also directed help to the province on a national scale.

I dont think we need to engage in debate over whether this is a national disaster. The central government has paid extra attention not only to Lombok but to all regions when similar things take place, he said.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 21, 2018 15:40 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5435415 1 Business cow,artificial-insemination,AgricultureMinistry,population Free

The Agriculture Ministry's husbandry and animal health directorate general claims that the increased cattle population through its artificial insemination (Upsus SIWAB) program had caused a decline in imported beef since 2016.

Data at the directorate general shows that Indonesia imported 147,851 tons of beef in 2016 and 120,789 tons in 2017. This year, the country has imported 69,168 tons of beef in the first half, from a projected 113,510 tons of imported beef.

If beef imports do not exceed the projection this year, it means that the import volume has declined since 2016, said husbandry and animal health director general I Ketut Diarmita on Monday, as reported by kompas.com.

Ketut said the ministry was working to realize food resilience by increasing the national cattle population through the Upsus SIWAB program, which was introduced in 2015.

He said that the government had readied 4.78 million vials of frozen bull semen in 2017 through three artificial insemination facilities: the BIBB in Singosari, East Java, the BIB in Lembang and the BIBD in South Kalimantan.

The program successfully impregnated 1.89 million cows in year, but only 911,135 cows carried their pregnancy through birth, Ketut said. Meanwhile, the cattle population in 2017 totaled 18.54 million cattle, a 3.84 percent growth from 2016.

He added that this year, 804,753 calves had been born through the program by Aug. 13, out of the targeted 1.68 million calves for 2018, and that the ministry was aiming for a cattle population of 25 million by 2021. (bbn)
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Linkedin Mike Smith (Agence France-Presse) Jerusalem  Tue, August 21, 2018 16:04 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5436167 2 World #Israel,#Syria,Israel,shooting Free



Israel shot down a Syrian fighter jet with surface-to-air missiles Tuesday after the plane infiltrated airspace it controls, the military said, in a rare incident that could provoke tensions.

Israel signalled that the plane's infiltration may have been the result of internal fighting in Syria's civil war, but stressed it would enforce the ceasefire lines between the two countries.

"This is a blatant violation of the 1974 separation agreements between Israel and Syria," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.

"We will not accept any intrusion or spillage into our territory, either from the ground or from the air."

The plane, either a Sukhoi 22 or 24, crashed on the Syrian side of the fence in the Golan Heights and it was unclear what happened to the pilot or pilots, Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus told journalists.

It was hit after it penetrated some two kilometres (1.25 miles) into Israeli-controlled airspace in the southern Golan Heights, said Conricus.

A Syrian military source confirmed Israel had fired at one of its warplanes but said the fighter had been carrying out operations against jihadists over Syrian territory.

Israel "targeted one of our warplanes... in Syrian airspace", the source said, cited by state news agency SANA.

State media in Damascus gave no account of the fate of the plane or the pilots.

According to Conricus, the plane left from the T4 airbase in central Syria before heading towards the Israeli-occupied Golan.

Israel's military monitored the plane throughout and shot it down with two Patriot missiles, Conricus said.

It was the first time Israel shot down a manned Syrian fighter jet since 2014.

- 'High alert' -

"From our perspective, the event is behind us," Conricus said. "However we of course remain on high alert."

Israel's army said there had been an increase in "internal fighting in Syria" from early Tuesday.

"We issued warnings and messages through different channels in various languages, numerous times over the day, in order to avoid any miscalculations, misunderstandings or any violations of Israeli airspace," Conricus said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that bombing operations in the border area by both Syrian and Russian aircraft had dramatically decreased after the incident.

The Britain-based war monitor said there had been heavy bombing earlier on the Yarmuk river basin in the south but that had all but stopped by the evening, dropping to just one strike per hour.

The Syrian military source said the targeting of the warplane was proof of Damascus's repeated accusation that Israel supports "terrorists" in Syria.

"The Israeli enemy has confirmed its adoption of armed terrorist groups, and targeted one of our warplanes which was hitting them," the source said.

Israel has been stressing for weeks that it would enforce the ceasefire line between it and Syria amid a Russian-backed government offensive in the country's south.

Tuesday's incident comes a day after Israel's air defences fired at Syrian rockets it feared could hit its territory.

Netanyahu also met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Jerusalem on Monday to discuss the Syrian conflict.

Israel has been on high alert since June 19, when Syrian government forces launched the offensive to retake Quneitra and Daraa provinces, adjacent respectively to the Israeli-held section of the Golan and to Jordan.

It has sought to avoid direct involvement in Syria's seven-year civil war, but it has acknowledged carrying out dozens of air strikes there to stop what it says are advanced weapons deliveries to the Shiite Lebanese militia Hezbollah, one of its top enemies.

- 'All forces must leave' -

It has also pledged to prevent its arch-enemy Iran from entrenching itself militarily in the neighbouring country.

A series of air strikes that have killed Iranians in Syria have been attributed to Israel in recent weeks.

The strikes have led to condemnation from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, but Israel has maintained good relations with Russia and has coordinated its actions in Syria with Moscow.

Both Russia and Iran are backing Assad in the civil war.

Conricus declined to say whether Israel informed Russia before shooting down the fighter jet, but said there had been conversations on a hotline between the two countries to avoid accidental clashes in Syria throughout the day.

In Monday's meeting between Lavrov and Netanyahu, Russia offered to keep Iranian forces 100 kilometres (62 miles) away from the Israeli-occupied Golan, but Israel said the proposal did not go far enough.

"We won't accept Iranian military entrenchment in Syria, not near the border, not beyond the 100-kilometre stretch, which by the way the Russians talk about and agree to," a senior Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We said there are also long-range weapons beyond that distance, and all the forces must leave Syria."

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War, in a move never recognised internationally.
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Linkedin Karina M. Tehusijarana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 21, 2018 14:35 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5430d25 1 National kindergartens,TNI,Probolinggo,parade,jihad Free

An Independence Day parade involving a kindergarten overseen by the Indonesian Military (TNI) in Probolinggo, East Java, has raised concerns about radicalism within the TNI's ranks.

Students of Kartika V-69 kindergarten, which is under the supervision of the 0820 Probolinggo Military Command (Kodim), marched in the parade clad in black robes and niqab (face veils) and wielding assault rifle replicas as part of the school's "Fight with the Messenger of Allah to Increase Faith and Piety" theme.

Photos and videos of the parade went viral on social media, leading to accusations that the parade showed that the school was instilling radicalism in its students.

Hartatik, the kindergarten's principal, has since apologized, saying that the school was just utilizing items in its warehouse.

"We apologize for the inconvenience," she said on Saturday as quoted by kompas.com.

Kodim 0820 Commander Lt. Col. Depri Rio Saransi said the school would be given an administrative punishment.

"We did not know about the costumes that would be worn," he said. "The kindergarten did not consult us."

On Monday, Education and Culture Minister Muhadjir Effendy called for a halt to the controversy.

"This was just a spontaneous display," he said as quoted by tempo.co. "There was no intention to display radical symbols."

Observers and analysts were not satisfied by the explanations, however, calling for an inquiry into the incident.

Indonesian Muslim Crisis Center director Robi Sugara said that theme itself was not necessarily problematic, but the way that the school administrators chose to express it was worrying.

"There were no assault rifles in the time of the Prophet Muhammad," he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday. "That type of attire together with the weapons is exactly what IS [Islamic State] extremists use."

He said the parade signaled the school's implicit recognition that IS was representative of Islam.

"This is very troubling and I think that it shows that there is something wrong with the religious understanding within the TNI/Polri [National Police]," he said.

Military expert Mufti Makarim agreed, saying that the existence of such a parade at a TNI-run school meant one of two things.

"I think the parade shows that either there is a permissive attitude within the TNI toward such expressions of radicalism, or that this is an isolated case that the TNI failed to anticipate," he told the Post, adding that both possibilities had worrying implications.

"If it's the first, then it means that the TNI has a lax attitude toward ideologies that are contradictory to Pancasila and that support the establishment of a religious state," he said. "If it's the second, then it reflects poorly on the TNI's understanding of the symptoms of extremism, especially since it wants to play a larger role in combating terrorism." (ahw)
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Linkedin Karina M. Tehusijarana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 21, 2018 10:27 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5422e85 1 National MUI,MUI-edict,vaccine Free

The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued a fatwa on Monday, declaring that the measles-rubella (MR) vaccine is mubah (permitted for use by Muslims) despite containing materials derived from pigs.

MUI fatwa commission secretary Asrorun Ni'am said there were three reasons behind the MUI's decision.

"First, there is a condition of necessity (sharia emergency), second a halal and holy MR vaccine has yet to be made," he said in a statement on the MUI's official website on Monday. "Third, competent and trusted experts have explained the dangers posed by not being immunized due to the lack of a halal vaccine."

Asrorun emphasized, however, that once a halal MR vaccine had been found, the current MR vaccine would be considered haram as it utilized haram materials in its production process.

He added that the Health Ministry should do better to guarantee the availability of halal vaccines for Indonesians, given that the majority of Indonesians were Muslim.

"The government has to use religious considerations as guidelines in immunization and medical treatment," he said.

After completing the first stage of the measles and rubella vaccination campaign in Java last year, the government is currently running the campaigns second stage, which targets around 32 million children in the 28 provinces outside Java.

MUI branches in Riau and South Sulawesi previously urged the government to suspend the program due to doubts over the vaccine's halal status. Several Muslim parents have also voiced a reluctance to have their children vaccinated. (ahw)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 21, 2018 13:53 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df542da27 1 National Idul-Adha,prayer,Magelang Free

Muslims in Magelang, Central Java, conducted Idul Adha prayers in front of the Magelang Islamic Hospital on Tuesday, one day before the official holiday on Wednesday.

The prayers were led by Magelang Islamic Prosperity Foundation head Solichin, who said that the worshippers were following a hadith that stated Idul Adha prayers could be performed after wukuf (peak of the pilgrimage) at Arafah field in Mecca.

"The pilgrims performing the fifth pillar of Islam in the Holy Land conducted wukuf at Arafah field yesterday," Solichin said on Tuesday as quoted by Antara.

He added, however, that the sacrificing of the animals would still be carried out on Wednesday, since it required the presence of many people who would only be available on the public holiday.

"The sacrificing of animals can also be done on the three days after Idul Adha," he said.

He said he would sacrifice three cows and four goats on Wednesday and would hand out the meat to residents near Magelang Islamic Hospital.

In his sermon, Solichin reminded the congregation about the sanctity of marriage and urged husbands to treat their wives kindly. (kmt/ahw)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 21, 2018 12:14 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5429aef 1 City South-Tangerang,swimming,drown Free

The police have said that the body of a man who had reportedly drowned was recovered from a river on Monday in Serpong, South Tangerang.

Jakarta Police spokesperson Argo Yuwono said the man had been swimming with four of his friends in the Cisadane River near Pakulonan subdistrict at around 2 p.m. on Sunday to pick some papayas across the river.

While he was in the middle of the river, his legs suddenly cramped so that he could not continue swimming, said Argo.

He said that according to witnesses, the victim had tried to scream for help, but by the time his companions realized his predicament, he had already drowned. The victims friends immediately sought help.

At 5:15 p.m., the search and rescue team arrived at the location and looked for the victim. He was just found today [Monday], said Argo. (gis)
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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan, North Sumatra  Tue, August 21, 2018 18:46 1166 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5444a1a 1 National blasphemy,Criminal-Code,Medan,North-Sumatra Free

An officer with the Medan Police's medical and health division in North Sumatra faces a possible one year and four months in prison after he was charged with blasphemy for ripping up the Islamic holy book the Quran.

Prosecutors in Medan District Court demanded the panel of judges find the defendant, Brig. Tommy Daniel, guilty of damaging the Quran and throwing the holy book into a ditch near Nurul Iman Mosque in the complex of Adam Malik Hospital in Medan.

"The defendant is guilty of violating Article 156a," prosecutor Mathias told the court on Tuesday referring to the blasphemy article in the Criminal Code.

Tommy will read out his defense plea in the next hearing scheduled for next week.

The blasphemy case involving the officer began when the defendant and his mother took Tommy's wife who was about to give birth to Adam Malik Hospital on May 10.

While waiting for his wife to give birth, the defendant reportedly went downstairs to take a bag from his car, but instead of going to the carpark, he took a detour to Nurul Iman Masjid within the hospital complex. He went through the mosque's terrace to the toilet.

Afterward, the defendant went inside the mosque and took four Qurans from inside a cupboard. He is reported to have brought the holy books to the toilet and allegedly ripped up two Qurans before throwing them into the ditch. He left the two other Qurans near the toilet wall before walking to his car and taking his bag inside the hospital.

Several witnesses reportedly saw the ripped Qurans. Through the CCTV records in the mosque, the witnesses identified Tommy as the man who damaged the holy books. (fra/rin)
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Linkedin Andi Muhammad Ibnu Aqil (The Jakarta Post) Singapore  Tue, August 21, 2018 15:19 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5433d63 1 Business Singapore,Industry-4-0,exhibition,Trade Free

Singapore Expo organizer SingEx Exhibitions, part of SingEx Group, and German-based event organizer Deutsche Messe AG, will organize the first Industrial Transformation Asia-Pacific (ITAP) to encourage industries to transform into Industry 4.0.

The trade event is to be held at Singapore EXPO from Oct. 16 to 18 and will host 200 industries from 10 countries. It is expected to be attended by 10,000 visitors from 30 countries, said Singex Holdings PTE LTD CEO Aloysius Arlando, recently.

This is the first integrated trade event on Industry 4.0 designed to meet various needs of enterprises and economies, Arlando said at ITAP preview press conference.

Media, telecommunications and banking sectors that have felt the influence of digital technologies, as well as the manufacturing sector, have started to look for ways to exploit digital technologies for better performance, he added.

Asia is well poised to lead the way as the worlds new growth frontier and to reap the full benefits of Industry 4.0 growth, he said, citing that manufacturing economy in ASEAN is the fifth-largest in value-added terms.

He said Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia had already launched separate 4.0 policy roadmaps in their countries, and Singapore had just recently launched the Singapore Smart Industry Readiness Index to encourage the application of Industry 4.0.

SingEx executive director James Boey said the trade event would take a learning journey approach where visitors and their industries would be guided the moment they enter the event venue. He said visitors at the event would be able to listen to over 100 speakers in the industry as well as technical tours to 10 selected industries in Singapore that have implemented and offered solutions on industry 4.0. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 21, 2018 17:40 1166 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df543f8a4 1 City Lapangan-Banteng,assault,arrest,suspects Free

Police have apprehended six individuals suspected of assaulting Ali Achmat Firmansyah, 20, at Lapangan Banteng park, Central Jakarta, on Tuesday.

However, police have declined to reveal the identities of the six suspects pending further investigation.

We are still investigating the case. We are still not sure why he was assaulted, said West Jakarta Police spokesperson Adj. Sr. Comr. Suyatno on Tuesday as reported by kompas.com.

Ali was reportedly beaten and burned with cigarettes by unidentified security guards, who accused him of stealing the Rp 2.4 million (US$164) which he was carrying in cash on Saturday. He denied this saying the cash was his own income, after scavenging empty plastic bottles and used cardboard.

Alis father, TB Herman Wijaya, filed a complaint on Monday with the Central Jakarta Police over the assault on his son, who suffers from epilepsy. He said the police had obtained footage from a CCTV camera that had captured the incident.

Jakarta Social Agency took Ali to city-owned social rehabilitation center Bina Insan Bangun Daya in West Jakarta for treatment.

During treatment, he had an epileptic seizure, said Masyudi, the head of Bina Insan Bangun Daya, on Monday

Previously, Central Jakarta Police said they were questioning security staff from Lapangan Banteng and from the event organizer of the 2018 Flora and Fauna Expo, which was being held at the park. (nor)
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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 21, 2018 14:25 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df54300c4 1 Politics Jokowi,Sri-Mulyani,election,presidential-election,campaign Free

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's coalition has revealed the lineup of its campaign team for the 2019 election, which to date includes several high-ranking government officials, many of whom are on the steering committee and advisory board.

According to a document submitted by the coalition to the General Elections Commission (KPU) on Monday, one of the ministers listed as a steering committee member was Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati.

On Tuesday, however, Sri Mulyani clarified that she would not be a part of the steering committee because the President preferred her to focus solely on her ministerial position for the sake of the economy.

"The current situation needs more attention [...] my focus is on managing the state budget in accordance with [the instruction of] the President," Sri Mulyani told reporters on Tuesday.

Sri Mulyani stopped short of saying whether the campaign team had consulted her before including her as a steering committee member.

Other ministers on the steering committee include Cabinet Minister Pramono Anung and Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister Puan Maharani, both of whom are ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politicians.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla has also been appointed as a member of the steering committee, while Industry Minister and Golkar Party chairman Airlangga Hartarto is named a member of the team's advisory board, the document reveals.

Presidential Chief of Staff Gen. (Ret.) Moeldoko is one of eight deputies of the national campaign team, the chairman of which has yet to be named as it depends on Jokowi, Pramono said on Monday.

When asked about the risks of the officials having their ministerial duties disrupted by their tasks as part of the campaign team, Pramono assured that it would not be an issue as the ministers' tasks mostly involved directing technical details.

The campaign period for 2019 legislative and presidential elections starts Sept. 23. However, Pramono said that Jokowi would continued to prioritize his presidential duties during the remaining year of his administration.

The team's advisory board comprises nine political party leaders in the coalition backing Jokowi's reelection.

PDI-P secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto, who was also the national campaign team's secretary, has said the list could be revised before Sept. 21. (ahw)
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Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, August 21, 2018 16:08 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df543788f 1 World world-peace-forum,middle-path,Japan,religion,politics,peace Free

Indonesia recently hosted the seventh World Peace Forum, which discussed the middle path approach for the new world civilization. The Jakarta Post's Liza Yosephine and Sausan Atika Maesara spoke on the sidelines of the event with professor emeritus of anthropology at Chiba University in Japan, Mitsuo Nakamura, who participated in the biennial forum in Jakarta. He specializes in the study of Islamic social movements in Indonesia. Below are excerpts of the interview.

Question: What is your view on the middle path for the new world for civilization?

Answer: According to my understanding, the middle path is an effort to attain a goal, which means a process to pursue solutions in conflict situations.

In conflict situations, you have extremes, pros and cons. You have to overcome the conflict in order to keep the peace and stability of the community. In that case, you have to attain the goal of the middle path, which is not [necessarily] to compromise but to understand each other's differences and come to a common understanding that we must agree to disagree to some extent, acknowledging differences and commonalities. I think that is what is meant by the middle path.

What are other steps that can be taken to move forward in order to reach the goal of the middle path?

I believe the most important thing is to engage in dialogue, talking to each other in a calm situation, thinking rationally without inciting emotions and acknowledging differences. The point is to agree to disagree. That is the philosophy of attaining the middle path.

What do you think about rising extremism, intolerance and what should be done to tackle it?

Basically, what you need to do is create a platform in which the parties in conflict can get together, have a face-to-face, engaging calm and rational dialogue. That is the most important thing. I think civil society organizations, as well as the government, should provide such a platform for dialogue. This World Peace Forum is one of the most important places [to accommodate that].

What are some of the key things that should be highlighted by the World Peace Forum?

This time, I believe that the Indonesian government and all of the organizers of the World Peace Forum are taking the initiative to hold an international dialogue like this, seeing the world and the mass situations.

Things are not too hopeful. I believe that in many parts of the world, the situation, of which religion, culture, ethnicity and conflict, has grown to the worst tendency.

The initiative taken to hold a World Peace Forum is very valuable to address the real situation that is happening in the world nowadays. The participants of this forum are really eager to engage in dialogue.

What are some of the lessons that Indonesia can learn from Japan in terms of creating peace?

From Japan, [I'm not sure if] this is a lesson or not, but one thing I'm quite sure of is that after the defeat of Japan in World War II, Japan made a very decisive decision to separate religion from government.

Before World War II, Japanese militarism utilized Japanese religion, especially the religion of Shinto, to promote the war effort, justify the goal of the war and so forth.

So, Japanese people were unable to face the freedom of Shintoism applied from above, by the government. Christianity and Buddhism were kind of pushed down by Shintoism. From that bitter experience, the Japanese constitution made it clear that religion should be separated from politics.

Because of that, religious freedom in Japan is well-developed. Without making any political conflict, we, the Japanese, are now free to choose any religion. I think thats the fruit that Japanese people acquired at the price of the defeat of the war. I think that was the most important experience for Japan.
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Linkedin Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and James Oliphant (Reuters) Washington, United States  Tue, August 21, 2018 11:11 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5426228 2 World #DonaldTrump,#KimJongUn,Donald-Trump,kim-jong-un,meeting Free

US President Donald Trump said on Monday he would "most likely" meet again with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, while defending his efforts to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

In an interview with Reuters, Trump, who held a landmark summit with Kim on June 12, said he believed North Korea had taken specific steps toward denuclearization, despite widespread doubts about Kim's willingness to abandon his arsenal.

While insisting that "a lot of good things are happening" with North Korea, Trump complained that China was not helping as much as it had in the past because of its trade dispute with the United States.

Trump, who faced the North Korean challenge as soon as he took office in January 2017, said he had only been working on the North Korean issue for three months whereas his predecessors had been working on it for 30 years.

"I stopped (North Korea's) nuclear testing. I stopped (North Korea's) missile testing. Japan is thrilled. What's going to happen? Who knows? We're going to see," he said.

At their summit in Singapore, Kim agreed in broad terms to work toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula but North Korea has given no indication it is willing to give up its weapons unilaterally as the Trump administration has demanded.

Trump has hailed the Singapore summit as a success and went as far as saying North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat.

South Korea's presidential Blue House said on Tuesday Trump's mention of the possibility of another summit with Kim could be a sign of progress in their relations.

"We think it is part of a process for achieving the two leaders' resolve for the denuclearisation and peace of the Korean peninsula," spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told reporters.

Kim Jong Un and South Korea's President Moon Jae-in agreed at their summit in April to push to declare an official end to the 1950-53 Korean War together with the United States.

Seoul officials see the U.N. General Assembly in New York next month as a desirable venue for the declaration but said they are flexible about its formality.

"We hope that North Korea-U.S. relations would make rapid progress and bear fruit," the spokesman Kim said.

The Washington-based think tank 38 North reported last month that satellite images indicated North Korea had begun dismantling key facilities at a site used to develop engines for ballistic missiles, in a first step toward fulfilling a pledge U.S. officials say he made to Trump at the summit.

However, several members of the U.S. negotiating team, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they had seen no progress toward denuclearization and no sign that North Korea was prepared to negotiate seriously until the United States promised relief from sanctions in return.

Last month Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a Senate committee hearing that North Korea was continuing to produce fuel for nuclear bombs, and a U.S. official said U.S. spy satellites detected renewed activity at the North Korean factory that produced missiles capable of reaching the United States.

In the interview, Trump credited his "great chemistry" with Kim for easing a nuclear standoff that last year raised fears of a new Korean war.

"I like him. He likes me," he said. "There's no ballistic missiles going up, there's a lot of silence ... I have very good personal relations with Chairman Kim, and I think that's what holds it together."

Asked whether another meeting with Kim was on the horizon, Trump said: "It's most likely we will, but I just don't want to comment." But he offered no details on the timing or venue.

Critics say Trump made too many concessions to Kim by agreeing to hold the summit in the first place and then suspending joint U.S.-South Korea military drills while gaining little in return.

Asked whether North Korea had taken specific steps to denuclearize other than blowing up its main nuclear bomb test site ahead of the summit, Trump: "I do believe they have." But he did not elaborate.

He also pointed to North Korea's pre-summit handover of three American detainees.
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Linkedin Theo Merz (Agence France-Presse) Moscow, Russia  Tue, August 21, 2018 10:30 1167 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df54234a1 2 World #Ukraine,Ukraine,filmmaker,hunger-strike Free

Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov on Tuesday entered day 100 of his hunger strike, as he languishes in a Russian Arctic prison on terror charges with little hope of release.

The 42-year-old Kremlin opponent announced the hunger strike in May, demanding the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners being held in Russia.

But Russian authorities seem as far from freeing him or his countrymen as ever, despite a dramatic decline in his health and pressure from the West.

Sentsov's cousin told AFP in an interview last week Sentsov was "losing hope" and had said in a recent letter he felt the "end is near".

"In his letter, he wrote to me that we mustn't tell him any more that freedom is coming. He doesn't believe it any more," Natalia Kaplan said.

"He has a very weak heartbeat of 40 beats per minute. He complains that his heart hurts, that he's weak, and he tries not to get up too often to preserve his strength," she said.

The father of two is receiving supplements in a drip usually meant for people unable to eat.

Sentsov was convicted of planning arson attacks on pro-Moscow party offices in Crimea after Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

He had taken part in the Maidan protests in Kiev during the winter of 2013-2014 that culminated in pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych leaving office and fleeing the country.

Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for terrorism and arms trafficking after a trial denounced as "Stalinist" by Amnesty International.

Kiev, the European Union and the United States also criticised the process against him.

Journalist and activist Zoya Svetova said Sentsov had no plans to end his hunger strike, after she visited him in his strict-regime penal colony in the Russian north last week.

But she told AFP: "He is not on a suicide mission, he just wants and hopes to live".

Svetova said the prisoner told her he had lost 17 kilograms (38 pounds) as a result of the protest, while prison medics said he had lost 11.

- Diplomatic, Hollywood pressure -

Sentsov was working on his second film when he was arrested. His first film "Gamer" is about a young video game player, and was shown at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2012 as well as several other European festivals.

G7 ambassadors as well as major figures from the world of cinema, from director Jean-Luc Godard to Hollywood star Johnny Depp, have called for Sentsov's release.

This month French President Emmanuel Macron raised the issue with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, discussing the need to find "an urgent humanitarian solution" in Sentsov's case.

Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko discussed a possible prisoner exchange during a phone conversation this summer, though no concrete agreements have been reached.

The filmmaker's mother, Lyudmila, in June wrote directly to Putin to ask him to pardon her son, according to Russian media.

But the Kremlin has so far remained unresponsive, saying that a request for a pardon can only be filed by the prisoner himself, which Sentsov has refused to do.

Russian prison authorities said this month that members of a public monitoring commission had visited the filmmaker, who "had not complained about anything" during their conversation.

In a rare public intervention on the subject in early June, Putin showed little sympathy towards Sentsov's plight.

Sentsov was arrested because "he was planning a terrorist attack" rather than because of opposition or artistic activities, the Russian president said.
Following recent earthquakes that have devastated Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), since early August, the region's tourism players have initiated efforts to recover tourist visits.

The chairman of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) in NTB, Lalu Abdul Hadi Faishal told tempo.co that some hotels were currently offering hot deals in a bid to draw tourists to their place.

"Hotels that were affected by the earthquake have stopped selling; however, they still welcome guests," said Hadi in Jakarta on Sunday night, adding that "stopped selling" meant these hotels currently no longer conduct promotions to rent out their rooms to guests.

Hadi said that tourists could still find hotels operating in the region, especially around the Senggigi Beach area and the city of Mataram in West Lombok. "The hotels' management still opens their doors to welcome guests who want to spend the night while renovating their buildings as there are still many rooms safe to host guests."

Regional Tourism Promotion Agency (BPPD) head Fauzan Zakaria said that among the hot deals offered by the hotels is lower prices that are being given randomly. For instance, guests can stay for three days and two nights while only paying for a one-night stay.

Read also: Banyuwangi highlights alternative destinations after Ijen Crater closure

There are also hotels that offer a breakfast lottery, meaning guests are only required to pay for breakfast for a three-day, two-night stay. "Of course [these promotions] will be offered randomly," said Fauzan.

Among the hotels that offer these hot deals are those directly affected by the quake, which include accommodations around Lombok area and the three Gili islands.

The program will be available until the end of this year.

Additionally, the BPPD alongside the NTB Tourism Agency isset to hold the NTB Great Sale for tour, hotel and restaurant packages early next year as part of tourism recovery efforts in the region. (kes)
Thousands of islands across Indonesia are renowned for their natural charms. Togean Islands in Central Sulawesi is one of the hidden gems. Located in the center of Tomini Bay, Togean Islands, which belongs to Tojo Una Una regency, was declared a national park for its rich and diverse natural wonders that make it one of the best places for tourists wanting to briefly escape modernity to experience natures beauty.

Renowned for its white sand beaches and clear blue seas, Togean Islands is situated in the middle of the World Coral Reef Trian- gle and home to a mangrove forest that boasts 33 types of mangroves.

The islands recently hosted Togean International Oceanic Festival, featuring local and international performers and putting it on the list of the archipelagos maritime festivals.

The festival, running from Aug. 7 to 11, was held at three locations, namely Kabalutan, Malenge and Papan islands. Each island hosted art and culture shows.

Read also: Togean Islands to lure tourists with cultural festival

Papan Island is one of the homes of the Bajo tribe on Togean Islands. The islands are inhabited by a number of tribes, namely the Togean, the Bajo, the Babongko and the Saluan. The sea is where their culture is rooted and developed, and on which their livelihoods depend.

One of the extraordinary things at the festival was a floating stage set in the center of a bridge connecting Papan and Malenge Islands.

The successful event reflected peoples spirit in preserving the islands while showing its natural beauty to the world.
Flores, dubbed Indonesias "Next Big Thing", has been attracting a staggering number of tourists in search of the concealed beaches, coffee plantations and other hidden gems. The best part about Flores, however, is its exotic culture that remains preserved and its inhabitants who have been living in traditional villages, untouched by modernization.

Kompas.com has compiled a list of the top three traditional villages to experience while in Flores:

Bena

A post shared by Laode Roni Syahirman (@ronilaode) on Jul 15, 2018 at 5:16pm PDT

Many tourists visiting Labuan Bajo continue on to Bena customary village. Although it takes an eight-hour drive, the long journey is worth the effort to experience the traditional houses, local culture and beautiful mountains. While you are there, dont forget to grab some coffee! Planted on a hilltop near Mount Inerie, the cold climate produces top-notch Bajawa coffee.

Tololela

A post shared by indriyuliani (@indriyuliani) on Sep 14, 2017 at 7:39pm PDT

Tololela customary village is famed for its traditional wind instrument, the bombardom, usually played during a performance of music inherited from the locals ancestors. Oftentimes, people from the neighboring villages pay a visit to watch the bombardom performance.

Read also: http://www.thejakartapost.com/travel/2018/06/05/jakpost-explores-sumba.html

Gurusina

A post shared by christin silitonga (@christin_silitonga) on Aug 15, 2018 at 8:06pm PDT

To reach the customary village of Gurusina, visitors need to trek. But the effort is worth it as visitors are greeted by rows of megalithic stones standing at the center of the village.

Unfortunately, the village burned down on Monday, Aug. 13, destroying 27 traditional houses with valuable heirlooms left inside, and leaving only six houses. (saz/mut)
The Tourism Ministry has reactivated its Tourism Crisis Center (TCC) following the earthquakes that struck Lombok on Sunday.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said in a statement that the center's main task was to monitor the 3As, namely tourist attractions, amenities and accessibility.

As reported by kompas.com, Arief said access would be the TCC's main focus to support the movement of foreign tourists, through the airport, seaports, bus terminals, roads, basic infrastructure and other utilities.

After ensuring all access is clear, the next step is to request airlines, airports and state-run air navigation company Airnav to increase the number of aircraft, airport operational hours and slot times for airplanes landing and taking off, as happened with previous quakes.

Read also: Lombok hotels still welcome guests, offer hot deals

"People tend to move to a safer tourist location, hence we must provide more access to offer them safety and convenience," said Arief.

On Sunday morning, Lombok International Airport general manager I Gusti Ngurah Ardita stated that the number of passengers had started to increase.

"Currently the average number of passengers is 4,500; the regular number is between 5,000 and 6,000," said Arief.

Additionally, the TCC will also monitor amenities related to room conditions and capacity and dangerous locations. As for attractions, the team is set to conduct checks regarding which places are safe to visit.

"Although Lombok is still in the emergency response period since the first earthquake, its tourism has to recover immediately since we will not see the results of our promotion today right away. Since Lombok is also one of our priority tourist destinations, the ministry has to conduct special monitoring," added Arief. (kes)
BBC Three has released a hilarious/depressing comedy short detailing (pretty accurately) the struggles actors go through when reading for leading lady parts.

The eclectic, award-winning cast includes Gemma Arterton, Gemma Chan, Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey, Tom Hiddleston, Felicity Jones, Katie Leung, Stacy Martin, Wunmi Mosaku, Florence Pugh, Catherine Tate, and Anthony Welsh.

This comedy short, written and directed by Jessica Swale, takes a sneak peek backstage as the cream of British acting talent step forward to audition for that dream role of the Leading Lady.

This is one of those videos that makes you say, its funny because its true, and then cry because of how bleakly true it is.

Audition rooms are terrifying anyway; theres usually one role and hundreds of people can be seen for the same one. But then when you throw in the ridiculous expectations that big budget films (and even small budget films, and television) have of women, the minefield becomes even harder to navigate.

The duplicity that women are expected to bring into audition rooms (and consequently to the big screen) isnt a mark of good acting; its a mark of ridiculous expectations that no one can ever actually fully meet.

Women are expected to be emotional, but also remain pretty while expressing that emotion. There are so many films starring the Single Solitary Tear Rolling Gracefully Down a Delicate Cheek. Because we cant have people thinking that women are actually humans who ugly-cry. That would be ludicrous.

While theyre at it, they should also be sensual, but naive; multiple casting calls advertise for the Girl Next Door who is pretty but doesnt know it, as if women being confident in their appearance marks Armageddon. Because if the principal female character doesnt need the validation of a man, how could they possibly be a down to earth person? After all, confidence = bad. Thats why male characters are never allowed to be confident. Oh wait.

No, because it is actually possible to be comfortable in your own skin while being a fully fleshed out character. (Oh, but while not being too confident, women should also be confident enough to bare some skin; full frontal nudity is a really key part of developing characters for women.)

Also, they cant be too old. Because everyone knows that women disintegrate into nothingness when they hit 40. So, really it would be unheard of to cast women who have any signs of aging whatsoever. Visible wrinkles? Forget about it, honey.

Something that the video touches on briefly is the difficulty women of colour face, especially women with darker skin. While this topic alone could have its own article, lets focus on what BBC Three raises. The audition panel members assumes Wunmi Mosaku has confused her audition rooms and meant to audition for Black Panther Returns. When she assures them that she means to audition for their film, they dont give her the chance to even read the part and after silencing her out of the audition room, then ask her for coffee.

And, yes, it is satire, but its also so painful. As a Black actress myself, that part hit home a lot harder than the rest of the equally satirical and painfully true commentary. The amount of good roles with actual depth to them for women is limited; the amount for women that are also darker-skinned is even less. Women of colour have a whole host of other expectations inflicted upon them, as well as having to deal with the fact that unless the character is a slave, an ex-girlfriend with attitude, or a sassy best friend, they have the mountain to tackle of not being white enough. Gemma Chan too gets called out for that in the short, for not fitting the narrow constraints of a 'leading lady'.

It bears remembering that much of the humour comes from the fact that the women auditioning in the short are already successful established actors. New, emerging actors are treated to the same impossible standards, without the knowledge that no matter how much you want a job, an audition panel is not a god and feeling uncomfortable in an audition room is reason enough to walk straight out. Its mildly terrifying that it still happens with more seasoned actors, albeit perhaps not quite so obviously.

It was a good move to have the panel consist of two women and one men. The severity of criticism that women receive from other women in the industry is often unspoken, and it can hurt even more than the criticism from men. It is very easy to forget that these impossible standards are upheld by more than just men in the industry.

This is an achingly accurate, majorly condensed, portrayal of a drawn-out process that can be quite difficult for actors at any stage of their career. And it needs to change. Hopefully, hearing the ridiculousness of it all at once might be a wakeup call for some (though Im not holding my breath).

Also, I will say that, for a video aiming to be self-aware, its troubling that the caption on Facebook mentions some of the actresses, but not all of them  mostly the more famous, white actresses. Its arguable that its due to recognisability of some names over others, but, lets be honest, thats not really good enough, is it? And the power of recognisability is another monster altogether.
As Executive Chef at The Earl of March and former Executive Head Chef at the Ritz Hotel, Giles Thompson is exceptional and highly experienced in his field. The National Student catches up with him at West Deans Chilli Fiesta where he hosts the Cookery Theatre shows.

Giles Thompson initially became involved with the Chilli Fiesta around ten years ago after moving to the area from London; he was introduced to the festival by food writer and chef Rosemary Moon.

She invited me on my arrival with my background from the Ritz and London, being sort of a new kid on the block, he says.

Giles Thompson with Joe McFadden at West Dean's Chilli Fiesta

The festival, Giles says, promotes a different angle of our industry, focusing on one product'.

I think the chilli particularly has quite a big influence, he says. You seriously couldnt have considered [it] ten years ago but here we are today with a big culture of spice and hot food.

With a family background in farming and butchery, Giles grew up around food and kitchens, starting his first part-time kitchen job while still a student.

When it got to a point where I decided that I wanted to take it more seriously, he says, I took some good advice from people that I knew were serious people in the industry, and they pointed me in the right direction which led to my career development.

For students, he considers it hugely beneficial to take an active interest in fresh home cooking.

He says, I think that being in a student life, its very healthy when youre cooking communally and sharing dishes, sharing different cultures sometimes and different ideas.

For those hoping to pursue cooking as a career, Giles says, I think theres no mystery that its a very intensive profession - but what isnt?

Its a great profession to be in, he continues. Its exciting, its vibrant, its ever-moving, its ever-changing.

Giles talks brightly when looking back on his career. When chatting about his career highlights, he describes the joys of working in a profession that has allowed him to travel, meet incredible people and follow his passions.



Doing the Millennium in a place like the Ritz, he says, it was just fireworks, from start to finish. It was fantastic.

And, from London to Sussex, he has continued to progress as a chef, describing his culinary career as a journey.

I dont think my journeys over yet, Giles says. I think theres many more things to do.

For more information about West Dean College and the Chilli Fiesta, visit their website here.
If youre at all anxious over Brexit, laughter is a recommended therapy and this show is as light-hearted and fun as you might expect from such a parody. But when Joris Bohnson disappears, the performance as a whole loses its comic stability and youre just left with Dimblebys reminder that were out, and still a bit clueless.

Images courtesy of CG Productions

This article is part of our coverage of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Click here to read other articles written by our contributors.

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The anthology will raise money for survivors of 2017s disaster at Grenfell Tower.

Source: 24 Panels

24 Panels is a new anthology that's set to raise money for survivors of 2017's disaster at Grenfell Tower. Curated by Kieron Gillen, the anthology sees Alan Moore teleport out of retirement to contribute a Boris Johnson-inspired illustrated poem titled If Einstein's Right...

A brief description of the Grenfell Tower fire is below.

On the night of 14th June 2017, a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London, killing at least 72 people and injuring many more. An entire community was destroyed. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a condition that affects many people who have experienced traumatic events, leaving them unable to move on. For those directly affected by the Grenfell Tower fire, the psychological scars may never fully heal but in the hands of skilled professionals who specialise in the treatment of psychological trauma, they can be helped and gradually lives can be transformed. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, the focus was rightly placed on providing food, shelter and health care for those left homeless  but it is important that we don't lose sight of the psychological impact this fire has had on its survivors.

24 Panels is set to be published by Image Comics on November 21, 2018 and all proceeds will go directly to Trauma Response Network, a not-for-profit service which provides free therapy and support to people affected by mass trauma events.

A video of Gillen discussing the project is below.
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Business software firm Sage Group was left floundering as another analyst turned negative on its prospects.

The companys shares sank 7pc, or 46.6p, to 619.2p, making it the FTSE 100s biggest faller yesterday, after analysts at Deutsche Bank stamped the stock with a sell recommendation.

They noted that new players were beginning to creep into Sages market, while higher-end competitors like Microsoft also seemed to be drawing away Sages core users and re-selling partners.

Negative outlook: Critics believe that Sage has been slow to move its offering into the cloud

Steve Goulden, the Deutsche Bank analyst behind the research note, said: Sage appear to have done little to arrest this decline, at least on the product front.

Re-sellers consistently told us that Sages core products, while fit for purpose, have seen little innovation in recent years and the strategy of driving maintenance users on to subscription at higher prices is beginning to cause some resentment among customers with increasingly viable alternatives. He added that Sages guidance that organic growth would continue to increase was unrealistic, and axed his target price for the shares from 630p to 540p.

Big-name fund managers including Fundsmiths Terry Smith and Lindsell Trains Nick Train were battered by the sharp fall in the shares. Each of the firms own around 5pc stakes in Sage, both of which plummeted in value by 25m. Over the year to date, Sage has lost 21.2pc of its market value.

Steve Clayton, a fund manager at Hargreaves Lansdown which owns a smaller stake, also conceded that Sage had been slow to move their products onto the cloud and others have rushed into the void. He said the firm could have been badly damaged had they left the field open much longer  but it seems that investors are still preparing for that possibility.

NMC Health, on the other hand, had a much stronger day.

The private healthcare company, which specialises in operating hospitals in Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, extended its IVF platform into Sweden, Latvia and Kenya over the first half of the year. It has also entered Africa, where it said infertility represents a major reproductive health problem.

NMC revealed it had sealed its first UK deal, buying Aspen Healthcare for 10m.

The companys revenue was up 20.2pc to 729.2m in the first half of the year, while profit climbed 22.1pc to 110.6m. Shares were up 1.5pc, or 60p, at 4120p.

The FTSE 100 began the week on the front foot, ending the day 0.43pc, or 32.67 points higher, at 7591.3 points. Miners helped it climb as positive market sentiment ahead of US-China trade talks later this week lifted commodity prices. Russian steelmaker Evraz was the biggest contributor, as it was also aided by suggestions from its domestic government that a proposed windfall tax was impractical.

Though Evrazs shares climbed 2.8pc, or 13.1p, to 479.7p, the gains were not enough to make up for the 9pc slide which it suffered on August 10 after a broker downgraded its prospects.

Private outsourcer G4S managed to make up steep losses that crushed its shares at the start of trading after it had its contract to manage Birmingham Prison revoked by the Government.

G4S ended the day down just 1.2pc, or 3p, at 249.4p, despite inspectors describing the prison as in a state of crisis with blood, vomit and rat droppings on the floor and obvious signs of drug use by inmates.

On Londons junior market, radiation detection company Kromek won two contracts worth a total of 780,000 with medical companies. Shares jumped 15.7pc, or 3.85p, to 28.35p.
MANZINI  Police were called as an aspiring Mkhulamini chiefdom politician was reported for allegedly dishing out food parcels to community members.



The incident, which almost spoilt the jovial mood of over 100 community members from Vusweni in Mkhulamini under Kukhanyeni Inkhundla, took place on Sunday afternoon.



A well-placed source within the community alleged that the candidate, whose name is known to this publication but will not be mentioned because he has not been charged with any wrongdoing, allegedly distributed the food parcels to community members through his campaign managers (bogalajane).

The source alleged that the community members were gathered at a place called indlunkhulu (headquarters) when the aspiring candidate and his campaign managers arrived.



Thereafter, the source said the candidate introduced himself to the community members and briefly explained who he was and made mention of the fact that he had been nominated for one of the political positions.



According to the source, the candidate is said to have informed the community members that he was busy looking for sponsors who would build a school in the community. He said today (on Sunday), he was pleased to inform the community that he had come with a representative from one of the sponsors who will construct a school in the area, the source alleged.



The representative is said to have made a brief presentation to the gathering. After the presentation, the candidate left the place.

His campaign managers then dished out the food parcels, which mostly included rice, which was packed in plastic bags, and loaves of bread. The packages also included soup, tea bags and sweets, the source alleged.



He said just before the distribution was over, a police van with armed officers from Manzini Police Station arrived. He said the officers did not disturb the food distribution process as they only recorded statements with some of the campaign managers who were dishing out the food parcels.



The areas umgijimi, Nduku Maseko, confirmed that the aspiring bucopho arrived at the umphakatsi on Sunday, around 3:40pm with his delegation.

Maseko corroborated the information from sources.

He said the delegation then started distributing the food to the community. When sought for comment, the aspiring politician confirmed that he visited Vusweni and that he was chairman of a project of the school which was to be constructed in the area.
MBABANE  Stanlib Swaziland (PTY) LTD has opposed the application filed by its former Managing Director, Abel Sibandze who is demanding close to E2 million.



Responding to Sibandzes application, Stanlib, which is the second respondent in the matter, claimed that Sibandze allegedly failed to prosecute his claim within the legally required period.



Liberty Life is the first respondent in the case while Stanlib has been cited as the second and Sibandze is demanding approximately E1 767 690 for alleged unfair dismissal.



Stanlib stated that Sibandze alleged that he had been appointed as managing director during or about November 2008 and argued that such an appointment predated his application in terms of Section 85 of the Industrial Relations Act, 2000, served on it as the respondent on or about July 15, 2018, by a period in excess of nine years. These are allegations whose veracity is yet to be tested by the court.



According to Stanlib, Sibandzes contract of employment was entered into and signed in South Africa which explicitly referred to the of South African legislation application to the contract.

It said in the event that the court found that Eswatini law applied to Sibandzes claim, and in the event that the respondents replied that in terms of Eswatini Common Law, a claim of his nature must be taken up by means of legal processes within a period of two years.

The applicant has delayed taking any action for a period of at least eight years, despite the certificate of unresolved dispute dated May 11, 2010, the second respondent alleged.



Furthermore, the respondent argued that the delay was unreasonable under the circumstances and that the applicant had forfeited the right to proceed with the claim.

Alternatively, the applicant is deemed to have abandoned the claim, further alternatively ought to be stopped from asserting the claim against the respondent, argued the respondent.



When he filed the application, Sibandze stated that on or about March 1, 2006 he was employed by Stanlib Swaziland as a general manager.

At the time of his employment, he alleged, he was working and residing in Johannesburg, South Africa and that his work required that he relocated to Eswatini to assume his position in which he was entitled to repatriation costs of E40 000 payable once-off in terms of Clause 6 of the contract.



Subsistence



The court papers state that the applicant was also entitled to subsistence allowance for the first three months of his repatriation in terms of the costs for lodging in a bed and breakfast establishment while finding a house to reside in, in the sum of E45 000 calculated at the cost of E500 per day, for 90 days in terms of Clause 6 of the contract of employment.



It was stated in the court papers that the first and second respondents merged in 2008 and Sibandze was appointed the managing director of both entities on or about the month of November.



It was stated that Sibandze was slapped with charges including alleged failure and or refusal to comply with direct instructions and a management style of insolence, incompatibility, insubordination and undermining authority.

Another charge, according to the court papers, was for alleged accessing of the companys premises without authority and refusing to hand in his laptop and access cards on the day of his suspension.



Other charges were for alleged non-compliance with the companys credit card policy, irregular use of the company credit card, deterioration and complete break-down of the trust relationship between the parties and creating a risky working environment for the first and second respondents and their clients plus becoming a law unto himself.
MBABANE  Send that man to prison for 30 days. The above is one of the prayers which is being sought by the Municipal Council of Mbabane, through its Chief Executive Officer Gideon Mhlongo against one of the residents of the capital city.



According to an affidavit filed under a certificate of urgency, the municipality wants Bongani Delisa Dlamini arrested for allegedly breaching a court order which had interdicted him from continuing with the construction of a block of flats at Mangwaneni.



In his founding affidavit, Mhlongo alleged that on February 15, 2018, the municipality obtained an interim order which was to operate with immediate effect and served on Dlamini where the latter was interdicted and restrained from continuing with the alleged unlawful construction of the structure.

Mhlongo claimed that on the return date for arguments, which was April 4, 2018, Dlamini was personally before the court when the judge issued an order to the effect that the matter was postponed pending its finalisation at Ludzidzini.



Mhlongo submitted that at all material times, Dlamini was represented by a Mr Simelane of M.E Simelane Attorneys and therefore there was no doubt he may have misunderstood or did not know the contents of the court order.

Mhlongo further claimed that towards the end of July 2018, the municipality and Dlamini were called to Ludzidzini by Indvuna Lusendvo Fakudze to deliberate about the issue.



However, when we reached there, we were advised the dispute about the house (flats) shall be postponed because one member of the royal family had passed on, hence they are not commencing any meetings, reads the affidavit.
MBABANE  A sofa that was allegedly provided by Lewis Stores to be used by the King resulted in a manager being dismissed from work.



Watson Njabulo Mthembu, who was based at the Siteki Branch of the furniture shop, is now accused of having provided the sofa-senator for the use of the King without the authority of his superiors. The King was in Siteki for the official opening of Texland Garments Factory on October 28, 2004 when the incident happened.



He is alleged to have refused to go and fetch the sofa after the ceremony, and this resulted in him being taken to a disciplinary hearing.

The company accused Mthembu of bringing the companys name into disrepute, in that he allegedly falsely informed the divisional general manager of the shop that a one seat sofa, which was borrowed by the Lubombo Regional Administrator (RA), was taken by the King, yet he allegedly gave the sofa to the RA as a gift.



As a result, the company was blaming the Kings Office and the Kings name was wrongly dragged into the matter.

The dispute between the parties is said to have began after the management of the shop started to demand the return of the sofa.



Mthembu is said to have told management that anything given to the King was never returned or taken back. He is further alleged to have stated that he had given the sofa to the King and not loaned it. However, the management was seemingly not content with his explanation and this resulted in him being taken to a disciplinary hearing, where he was found guilty and subsequently dismissed.



Respondent (Lewis Stores) previously issued its stock for the purpose of utilisation by the King, applicant (Mthembu) stated something issued to the King was never returned, submitted David Lugebane Shongwe, who was the stores Regional Manager.
Wayne Defenbaugh, manager of Morris Glass Co., stands Thursday beside sheets of glass inside at the company's New Braunfels location.
Armenias National Security Service (NSS) has issued an international manhunt for Narek Sargsyan, nephew of former Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.

The NSS has been looking for Narek Sargsyan since July 5, after a raid of his home revealed a large cache of drugs and weapons.

An NSS statement says Narek Sargsyan and a bodyguard fled to Moscow on July 22.

On July 7, Armenias Special Investigative Service (SIS) issued a warrant for Levon Sargsyan (Serzh Sargsyans brother), his daughter and son.

Armenias State Revenue Committee (SRC) has accused a company partially owned by Levon Sargsyan and his family of tax evasion in the amount of AMD 300 million (approximately $622,000 at the current exchange rate).
By Trend





Azerbaijan is interested in the establishment of joint ventures with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the fields of industry, logistics and transport, trade representative of Azerbaijan in Dubai Elnur Aliyev told Trend.

"At the same time, we are interested in attracting a big number of Arab companies to the country, because Azerbaijan is an ideal market for foreign investors because it has access to key markets of neighboring countries in the region," he said.

To date, more than 250 companies from the UAE work in Azerbaijan. Baku-Dubai-Baku, Baku-Sharjah-Baku flights operate between the countries.

"In general, Azerbaijan and the UAE have great potential for cooperation and may successfully develop cooperation in the spheres of industry, transport, trade, investment, agriculture, tourism and high technologies," he added.

"Currently, the work is being carried out to accelerate the dynamics of trade turnover between the countries," Aliyev said. "The main share of export of Azerbaijani products to the UAE accounts for Dubai, to which mainly agricultural products are supplied."

"Vegetables and fruits in big volumes, while meat in small volumes, are exported to Dubai," he said. "We intend to maximally increase meat supplies in the future, taking into account the needs of the Dubai market and the growing opportunities for production of this kind of products in Azerbaijan."

"Azerbaijan mainly imports high-tech products, electronics, industrial goods and building materials from the UAE," he said. "Taking into account that the UAE is one of the biggest importers of agricultural products, we expect that our high-quality products will have a niche in this promising market."

"As the UAE has a big potential for re-export, the supply of Azerbaijani goods to the UAE market, may contribute to the supply of our domestic products to the markets of other countries of the Persian Gulf in the future," he added.

"Besides agricultural products, Azerbaijan intends to increase supplies of various types of industrial goods, namely, aluminum plates, pipes, etc. to the UAE," Aliyev said.

According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the UAE amounted to $28.457 million in January-July 2018, which is 67 percent more than in the same period of 2017.

At the same time, exports from Azerbaijan to the UAE amounted to $12.317 million (an increase of 58.8 percent), while imports - $16.139 million (by 73.8 percent).
By Trend





Iran's non-oil exports to Germany witnessed a 275.32 percent and 0.63 percent rise in weight and value, respectively, in the first four months of the current Iranian fiscal year (started March 21).

The exports rose to 53,198 tons worth $94.1 million during the four months, IRNA reported.

Saffron, date, pistachio, jam, jelly, and watermelon were among the main exported commodities to the European country.

Iran exported 274 tons of pistachio, 155 tons of date, 3.705 kg of jam and 393 tons of watermelon to Germany during the period.

Germany and Iran have a long history of friendly relations.

Before the sanctions in 2005, bilateral trade amounted to almost 5 billion, while in 2015, only half was left. It did not come to a standstill, even in periods of sanctions, because not all goods were subject to sanctions.

After 2016, numerous German companies have reopened their representative offices in Iran, selling their products in the Iranian market, and plan investments with Iranian partners.
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Emphasis on the cultural and ethical aspects of the issue

Greek Culture Minister Lydia Koniordou has formally requested the resumption of talks for the return of the Parthenon Marbles by the British Museum, ANA reports.

According to a ministry statement on Monday, Koniordou made the request through a letter to her British counterpart, with whom he had met in London earlier.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Solipsist~commonswiki License: CC-BY-SA
Following eight difficult years for citizens and the country, Greece has officially exited the bailout programs. European officials have welcomed this outcome, however adding that the country must continue down the road to reforms.

For the first time since early 2010, Greece can stand on its own feet, Eurogroup President Mario Centeno noted in a statement. This was possible thanks to the extraordinary effort of the Greek people and the support of European partners through loans and debt relief, he added.

With a message written in Greek, European Council President Donald Tusk congratulated Greece, saying that the country has seized the day, thanks to the huge efforts of its people and European solidarity.

The end of the program marks a very significant and historic moment for all and especially for the Greek people, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici underlined on his part.

Read more at int.ert.gr

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Andrikkos License: CC-BY-SA
Due to the celebrations of Kurban Bayram or Eid Al-Adha, an organised visit by a large number of pilgrims will take place at the Mosque of Hala Sultan in Larnaka

Cyprus Department of Antiquities, Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works, announces that, due to the celebrations of Kurban Bayram or Eid Al-Adha, an organised visit by a large number of pilgrims will take place at the Mosque of Hala Sultan in Larnaka.

Consequently, the mosque will not be accessible to the general public on Tuesday 28 August 2018.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Seksen iki yuz krk bes License: CC-BY-SA
American Portfolios Officially Launches Client-Facing Portal

American Portfolios Financial Services, Inc. (AP)a privately-held, independent broker/dealer which provides services and support to investment professionals throughout the countryofficially launched Client Access, a new investor-focused application on the companys proprietary technology platform, HomePort. Designed with the express purpose of creating value-added services all around, APs affiliated colleagues may now offer their clients the ability to engage more directly with their accounts by performing various online functions.

HomePort  Client Access, which was conceived and built in-house by APs platform development team, increases efficiencies in investment professionals practices, as well as APs home office, providing back-end support and services to the firms growing advisor community. We are entering a new world in which customers are willing to do more things on their own, and should at least be given a choice to do so where feasible, states AP CEO Lon T. Dolber regarding APs further push toward technology independence. We need to create an environment where we can do more with less. To mitigate price compression on a firm level, we have to live within our own technology bucket by building our own systems that are specific and strategically driven to address advisor needs. When we build a program or process for scaling and efficiency, then we want to make sure that it helps both our advisors and their clientsthe investing public.

The objective of driving operating and workflow efficiencies stems from APs commitment to develop innovative business solutions that reap the benefits of trending technology for meaningful change, spanning from home office operations to end-client households. HomePort  Client Access is an important step in our constant pursuit of using technology to improve scalability and to lower the cost of serving our customers, states Executive Vice President of Technology Strategy Atindra Barua, who spearheaded the development of the client portal along with Vice President of Platform Development Andrew Dorfman. This is the first phase in connecting our investing public to our investment professionals. It sets the stage for incorporating new features in the future to increase the scale of servicing our clients, improving service quality and supplying features that can only be offered online.

Through HomePort  Client Access, investors can view any mailings that the independent broker/dealer has sent them on behalf of their AP-affiliated investment professional. Within the self-service application, investors are also able to opt out of receiving mailings and will be notified via e-mail when new documents are on file. Investors who have access to their accounts through Albridge or NetX Investor will also be able to conveniently login to those applications from within HomePort  Client Access. The end-client verification and login process is quick and user-friendly; once established, they are brought to a Welcome Page from which they can navigate to several tabs to view their personal documents and notifications, as well as perform various functions, such as choosing to opt out of receiving physical mailings for all of American Portfolios Financial Services, Inc. (APFS) and the firms Registered Investment Advisory (RIA) American Portfolios Advisors, Inc. (APA), or view any documents that APFS or APA has mailed to them.

As APs platform development team continues to enhance HomePort  Client Access for the utmost benefit of investment professionals and their customers, it is expected that future editions of the application will allow investors to opt out of Pershings physical mailings; to update New Account Form information tied to their Investor Record held at AP; and program the application to automatically grant portal access to any investor whose e-mail address, cell phone number and client signature page are all on file.

American Portfolios looks forward to the limitless potential of HomePort and its newest application, HomePort  Client Access, as well as its future technological endeavors, as it moves ever further along the path to platform and technology independencemaking the firm a leader among independent broker/dealers.

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ON THE MOVE: Algo Vet Marsh to UBS, Tourmaline Adds Pair

State Street Corporation named Andrew Allright as CEO of InfraHedge, the firms dedicated managed account business. Allright has been with InfraHedge since it launched in 2011. Allright will continue to lead a longstanding team comprising Ravi Raman, chief operating officer, as well as new hires including Robert Vanderpool, president of InfraHedge North America, and Lizzy Buss, head of EMEA and APAC business development.

UBS has hired algorithmic trading veteran Chris Marsh. A former managing director within Credit Suisses global markets business, Marsh will join UBS at the end of October as global head of electronic trading and program trading, according to a memo seen by Financial News.

If you have a new job or promotion to report, let me know at jdantona@marketsmedia.com

BTIG, LLC landed Jack McCourt and Kenneth Smalley, CFA, who have both joined the company within the Fixed Income Credit team, focused on high-yield sales and strategy. McCourt onboards as a Managing Director within High-Yield Sales in Los Angeles, while Smalley comes as a Managing Director and High-Yield Strategist in New York.

McCourt has nearly 25 years of industry experience. Prior to BTIG, he was a Managing Director within the Fixed Income division at KeyBanc Capital Markets. McCourt held similar roles as a Managing Director within Fixed Income at RBC Capital Markets, Jefferies and Barclays. Smalley has more than 30 years of industry experience. Prior to BTIG, he was a High-Yield and Distressed-Debt Analyst at Seaport Global, where he also served as a generalist with a focus on the TMT, healthcare and gaming sectors. Previously, Smalley was a Portfolio Manager at The Dreyfus Corporation and Alliance Capital. He was a High-Yield Trader at PaineWebber, Nomura and NatWest Securities. Mr. Smalley began his career as an Analyst at General Electric

McCourt and Smalley will report into Drew Doscher and Darren Haines, Managing Directors and Co-Heads of Fixed Income Credit at BTIG.

Vela, an independent provider of trading and market access technology for global multi-asset electronic trading, named Peggy Sullivan, who served as a consultant to the Company since October 2017, has joined as Chief of Staff. She will be based out of Velas headquarters in New York and reporting to CEO Jennifer Nayar. Prior to Vela, Sullivan spent much of her career at the New York Stock Exchange holding several leadership positions working with the National Market System and as the Administrator to the Consolidated Tape Association and the Head of Market Data Administration for NYSE, Arca, MKT, markets real-time products.

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| By Mary T. Phelan

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogans new anti-human trafficking initiatives take into account the many dimensions needed to address the statewide issue, Ambassador Susan Esserman, JD, founder and director of the University of Maryland Support, Advocacy, Freedom and Empowerment (SAFE) Center for Human Trafficking Survivors, said during a news conference announcing the measures.

From left, Mary Ann Rankin, PhD, senior vice president and provost of the University of Maryland, College Park; Ambassador Susan G. Esserman, JD, executive director of the University of Maryland Support, Advocacy, Freedom and Empowerment (SAFE) Center for Human Trafficking Survivors; and Bruce Jarrell, MD, FACS, executive vice president, provost, and dean of the Graduate School.

Gov. Hogan, thank you for shining a light on the scourge of human trafficking right here in our Maryland communities, Esserman said during the governors Aug. 9 news conference at the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services in Rockville, Md. During the news conference, Hogan announced several initiatives geared toward providing additional support for trafficking victims and harsher punishments for traffickers. She applauded the broad-ranging programs that the governor announced for strengthening both victims services and law enforcement and for bringing data and research to bear to inform policy choices.

Among Hogans new anti-human trafficking initiatives:

An executive order creating an anti-human trafficking director position in the Governors Office of Crime Control and Prevention (GOCCP).

Strengthened data collection.

$5 million in funding to provide human trafficking victims with direct services such as emergency shelter, a 24-hour talk-line, therapy, peer groups, housing assistance, job training, financial counseling, General Education Development and vocational training, transportation assistance, legal advocacy, and victim advocacy.

$4 million in new grants to target gangs and violent criminal networks as part of the Maryland Criminal Intelligence Network.

The chilling reality is that Marylands central location, and access to major highways and airports, make our state a hotbed for human trafficking, including both sex trafficking and labor trafficking. As a father, I am heartbroken for these daughters and sons who are being victimized and brutalized, Hogan said. As governor, Im committed to ensuring that not only are these violent perpetrators bought to justice, but that we also provide the resources necessary to help these survivors recover their lives.

In May 2016, the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) announced the opening of the SAFE Center near College Park, the countrys first university-based program to combine comprehensive services for sex and labor trafficking survivors, legal case management, and medical, mental health, and economic empowerment with research and advocacy to combat trafficking. It is an initiative of UMCP and UMB through their formal collaborative program for innovation, the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State, and draws on the combined resources and the wide range of disciplines at both institutions. The SAFE Center has served 80 victims of human trafficking and their families since it opened.

At the SAFE Center, we see every day the traumatic effects of human trafficking on victims and their families, said Esserman, a visiting professor with a joint appointment at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and the University of Maryland School of Social Work. She also is a partner at the international law firm of Steptoe & Johnson LLP.

In addition to Esserman, Hogan was joined by Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett; Montgomery County Police Assistant Chief Marcus Jones; Glenn Fueston, executive director of GOCCP; Maryland Secretary of State John Wobensmith; and Secretary Lourdes Padilla of the Maryland Department of Human Services.

Esserman was introduced by Fueston, who called her a great friend, a confidante, someone we can turn to to ask questions on a regular basis, who has taken a leadership role at the SAFE Center and at her law firm, where she does pro bono work for survivors of human trafficking. Shes been very helpful and instrumental in some of the work were planning and some of the announcements the governors made, Fueston said.

In her remarks to an audience of state and local officials, law enforcement officers, and victim advocates, Esserman shared two stories to give you a sense of what this looks like in the state of Maryland.

First, she told of a 16-year-old girl born and raised in Maryland who met a man in his 20s who lured her with gifts and flattery and claimed to be her boyfriend but sold her for sex to support his drug habit. All the while, he threatened to hurt her family if she went to authorities.

The second story told of a young woman lured to the United States from Mexico with the promise of a job, a better life, and the ability to support her young child, Esserman said. Instead, the job that awaited her was forced prostitution  and she was thrust into a life of fear, trauma, and cruelty.

Unfortunately, these stories are not isolated incidents, but they are patterns we see over and over again at the SAFE Center, she said, adding we are grateful to the University of Maryland for taking on this compelling human rights issue. In particular, she thanked UMB President Jay A. Perman, MD; UMCP President Wallace D. Loh, PhD, JD; Bruce Jarrell, MD, FACS, executive vice president, provost, and dean of the Graduate School at UMB; and Mary Ann Rankin, PhD, senior vice president and provost of UMCP, the latter two of whom attended the conference.

In other measures, Hogan also said he will introduce the Felony Human Trafficking Act of 2019, which will classify felony human trafficking  cases in which the perpetrator traffics a child or traffics a victim with the intent to forcibly compel the victim to perform a sexual act  as a violent crime. This classification will ensure that offenders will serve more time in prison, he said. The legislation was introduced in the 2018 legislative session but was not approved.

Esserman also credited the strong coordinated state, local, and federal effort in the fight against trafficking and the active support of Maryland legislators, U.S. senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, and representatives in Congress.
(Aug. 21, 2018)  The 2018-2019 school year begins today at UTSA! Thousands of Roadrunners will be roaming the Main and Downtown Campuses this semester including freshmen, transfers, international and first-generation students. They can add some excitement to syllabus week by attending Roadrunner Days, a series of fun events that offer Runners the opportunity to further immerse themselves in the UTSA community.

Heres whats going on today:

UTSA Swag Day



Roadrunner Nation! Show off your UTSA pride by sporting blue and orange UTSA swag to celebrate the start of the fall semester. Students, faculty, staff, alumni and Roadrunner families on and off-campus are encouraged to participate.

Networking Socials  Day 1

8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Student Union, Harris Room (HSU 2.212) and Travis Room (HSU 2.202), Main Campus

The Student Center for Community Engagement and Inclusion hosts Community Networking Socials during Roadrunner Day that focus on UTSAs diverse population. All Networking Socials are casual come and go events for all Roadrunners. Attendees do not have to identify with the population group indicated.

Networking Social times and sessions:

8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. - LBGTQ+

11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. - Hispanic/Latin@/Latinx

4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. - International students, faculty and staff

Free 1st Day of Classes Pic

11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Student Union Paseo, Main Campus



Students can stop by the photo station and capture forever memories with friends on the first day of classes. Share with friends and family via social media using #UTSARRDays. UTSA Involvement Ambassadors will also be passing out first day of classes goodie bags.

Paletas with the Prez

1 p.m. to 2 p.m., Sombrilla, Main Campus

Join fellow Roadrunners and President Eighmy in celebrating the start of the new school year with free paletas.

The Roadrunner Life Hacks - Day 1

2 p.m. to 7 p.m., Student Union, Harris Room (HSU 2.212) and Travis Room (HSU 2.202), Main Campus

UTSA has students covered with tips to help them survive and thrive through their academic career. This new workshop series kicks off today providing information about common issues and questions students may have as they navigate university life. Presentations are led by university staff and student leaders who can share their knowledge and experience providing guidance about university life. Find out more about sessions and times.



Fraternity/Sorority Life New Member Information Session

4 p.m. to 6 p.m., Student Union Retama Auditorium (SU 2.02.02), Main Campus

Students are invited to this information session and meet and greet with members of the UTSA Fraternity and Sorority Life community to see if Greek Life is right for them. This session will introduce potential new members to the values and standards of the fraternity and sorority life community.

Students will need to check into all Roadrunner Days events using Event Pass on their mobile device. To do so, simply log in to RowdyLink, click on profile and download event pass using Apple Wallet, Google Play or screenshot. Saving the event pass makes checking into campus events quick and easy. In many cases, students will need their event pass or abc123 to get free swag, food and shirts at events.
UW Anthropology Department Asks for Publics Help in Mammoth Mystery

UW Professor Todd Surovell radiocarbon-dates the humerus of a mammoth at the Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum in Douglas. (Todd Surovell Photo)

Everyone loves a good mystery, especially if its eventually solved. Thats where University of Wyoming Department of Anthropology Professor Todd Surovell needs help.

Surovell, fellow UW Professor Bob Kelly, doctoral student Madeline Mackie and their summer field school have been searching for a Mammuthus columbi (commonly known as a Columbian mammoth) kill site in Converse County for four years. The researchers have slowly been able to narrow the search radius to a small section of land and believe they are very close to a find, but are now asking for the publics assistance with information.

Surovells mammoth mystery started on a rainy day in 2014. He and the summer field school participants descended on Douglas to continue excavating a separate mammoth kill site along LaPrele Creek. The rain forced the researchers to delay the dig and, by chance, they decided to visit the Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum in town. There, Surovell noticed a display of a mammoths mandible, humerus, radioulna and teeth that said the bones had been found nearby. Surovells interest was piqued, and a discussion with museum Director Arlene Ekland-Earnst saw her produce a letter related to the bones on display.

The letter, dated June 21, 1958, was from Loren Clark (L.C.) Bishop to Wyoming State Geologist Horace Thomas. Bishop, the Converse County land surveyor, had found the mammoth bones on his property around 1938. At that time, he dug several bones out, but he caved the bank over the rest of the find, which included several feet of exposed vertebrae, according to him. The letter goes on to give location details and asks Thomas to provide professional assistance with the excavation of the bones Bishop believed were still there 20 years after his initial find.

Loren (L.C.) Bishop and his wife, Sadie, are shown in this photo. Bishop found the mammoth bones that are the focus of interest by UW researchers.

Surovell also believes those bones might still be there -- enough that he and his group have been hunting for the site each of the last three summers. The summer of 2016 was initial reconnaissance, while a visit to the county assessors office in the summer of 2017 allowed him to pinpoint the land Bishop owned. That summer, he also radiocarbon-dated the humerus of the mammoth, which places the animals life (12,694 to 12,863 years ago and within 100 years of the LaPrele mammoth) during the Clovis period and right in the time frame that humans could have killed it. Surovells interest grew further.

This summer offered more clues when the museums current director, Mel Glover, located a small brown paper bag of mammoth bone fragments with a label saying they had been dug from Bishops site July 15, 1958, by Bishop, (no first name given) Hildebrand and (no first name given) Vetter. Did Bishop not receive the assistance he requested in his letter to Thomas? Again, Surovell felt more and more the bones were out there waiting to be found.

Surovell and company narrowed the search to a 30- to 50-yard stretch of land this summer and made their first major dig by testing the age of the soil. The results of those tests havent returned, but the group did find an archeological site of stone tools on the last day of digging.

I feel like we have done everything we can to try to narrow down the location to the most likely place, and we missed it on our first try, Surovell says. I dont know if we missed it by one foot, 10 feet, 10 yards, 100 yards or 100 miles.

Surovell inches even closer with one last clue. The mammoth bones on display at the museum are accompanied by a placard saying the site was discovered by R.T. Bird, of the American Museum of Natural History, and the bones were a gift of William R. Eastman. No mention of Bishop. Surovell learned through letters between Bird and Eastman in 1938 that Eastman had requested help digging up a mammoth as well. Bishop apparently at some point had given the bones he found to Eastman, who at some point gave them to the Douglas museum. Bird did visit Eastman in 1938 but reported back that he was unable to find more bones. Eastman eventually became the owner of Bishops land where the mammoth is supposedly located, but the relationship between Bishop and Eastman is unclear.

So that leaves Surovell agonizingly close to a mammoth kill site and with four names of presumable Douglas residents around 1958: L.C. Bishop, William R. Eastman, Hildebrand and Vetter.

Given the clues, I feel like we are really close, but its the kind of thing where there could be someone in Douglas who could point exactly to the right spot, Surovell says. If one of these people is still alive or one of their kids who went out with them, they could potentially take us right to the mammoth. Its a super fun little scavenger hunt.

Why put so much time and effort into finding the bones of just one mammoth? Mammoths lived in Wyoming from about 2 million years ago up until they went extinct around 12,700 years ago, which is shortly after the arrival of the first human. Roughly half of the mammoths that have been found in Wyoming are associated with and likely killed by humans, so any time another mammoth is found, there is potential that its an archeological site -- and that humans interacted with the animal.

Weve been doing archeology in North America for roughly 150 years, Surovell says. We have 15-16 sites where humans interacted with mammoths. Its a really, really rare thing, which is why Im willing to chase it down. From all of North America, we have about 30 sites that have any evidence of humans interacting with the various species living on the continent at that time. Every opportunity you have to dig one, you should take advantage of that. So here, even just the possibility of a mammoth kill by humans, Id do anything I can to try to find it.

Thats where Surovell is asking for the publics help. Are you related to or did you know L.C. Bishop, William R. Eastman, Hildebrand or Vetter? Does Bishops mammoth or the kill site ring a bell? The next clue might be the one to help solve this mammoth mystery. Email Surovell at surovell@uwyo.edu or call (307) 766-5136.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has battled disquiet from right-wingers in the coalition after he Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. (Photo: AFP/Ludovic Marin)

Turnbull, considered a moderate, declared his position vacant at a Liberal party meeting to force the issue after rampant speculation that the more hardline Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton wanted his job, with the government consistently trailing the Labor opposition in opinion polls.

The disunity came to a head on Monday when Turnbull was forced to shelve plans to embed carbon emissions targets in law after a revolt by fellow Liberal politicians.

Party whip Nola Marino told reporters Dutton challenged but Turnbull won 48-35.

"The result of that ballot was Malcolm Turnbull was elected leader of the Liberal Party by a margin of 48-35, with Peter Dutton as the other candidate," she said.

"There was also an election for the deputy leader. [Foreign Minister] Julie Bishop was the one person who nominated for that role and she's the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party."

Asked what Turnbull said after winning, she replied: "This was conducted by way of precedent and he thanked his colleagues for their support and will get on with the business now of governing in the interests of all Australians."

On Monday Turnbull had declared he had Dutton's "full support".

After losing Dutton, a former police officer who ran a powerful department that oversees the country's domestic spy service, border force and national police, quit and moved to the backbench, broadcaster ABC reported.

It is the latest chapter in a turbulent period for Australian politics.

Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted by his deputy Julia Gillard in 2010. He later returned the favour and stormed back to power in 2013 shortly before losing the election to Tony Abbott's Liberal/National coalition.

Abbott was then unseated in a party coup by Turnbull in 2015.

Abbott is now a vocal backbencher and is widely seen as a key instigator of the move against the prime minister this week, which has left Turnbull heading a party where 35 people do not want him as leader.

Abbott was in charge when Canberra agreed to cut emissions by 26 per cent by 2030 as part of the so-called Paris Agreement. But he has since railed against the commitment he made.

He argued it should not be enshrined in law as part of the government's new energy policy, known as the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), with consumers facing soaring electricity prices.

Disquiet with Turnbull has been building in recent months, with the government trailing Labor in 38 consecutive opinion polls.

The latest on Monday showed it lagging even further behind - 45 to 55 per cent on a two-party basis - with national elections due by the middle of next year.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc made a keynote speech at the Binh Phuoc Investment Promotion Conference 2018

At the conference, the Binh Phuoc Peoples Committee has granted investment licences to 10 foreign invested projects and 14 locally-invested projects with the total investment capital of $1.13 billion.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc lauded Binh Phuocs efforts to attract investment despite the provinces relatively small budget of VND1 trillion ($43 million). The local authorities have created the most favourable conditions for companies through direct dialogues to identify and solve their problems as well as investment promotion activities.

The prime minister said that the attraction of $1 billion investment capital is impressive. However, it is important to turn the commitments into reality. Binh Duong, the neighbouring province, has become an attractive investment destination in the country. He stressed that Binh Phuoc can do the same if the province can unlock its full potential.

Binh Phuoc is located in the southern key economic region and is a gateway for trade exchange between the provinces of the south-eastern region and the Central Highlands provinces and the Kingdom of Cambodia.

The prime minister cited the recent partnership between Thaco and HAGL to develop agricultural projects worth tens of trillions of dong in the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Triangle Development Area. Binh Phuoc should build stronger connection with these agricultural projects as part of the provinces strategy to attract investment.

Binh Phuoc should also focus on smart agricultural projects with an emphasis on its local cultural identity. Also, the province needs to tap into the potential of the fishery sector and develop a hi-tech processing industry for agriculture, industrial crops, and forest products to join regional and global supply chains.

Nguyen Van Tram, chairman of the provincial Peoples Committee, said that Binh Phuoc is doing its best to accelerate industrialisation and modernisation to continuously promote rapid and sustainable development, environmental protection, social security, and constantly improve the well-being of its people.

In particular, the province will maintain the growth rate of the entire agricultural sector and intensify the implementation of measures to promote the development of high-quality agricultural production, he said, adding that Binh Phuoc continues to reform industries and prioritise the development of industrial products with competitive advantages and industries in service of agricultural development.

Binh Phuoc is home to eight industrial parks with complete infrastructure. Spanning 193 hectares, Minh Hung-Korea Industrial Park has attracted several Korean investors and achieved an occupancy rate of 100 per cent. Meanwhile, Becamex-Binh Phuoc Industrial Park and urban complex covers a total area of 4,600 hectares, including a 2,400ha industrial park and a 2,200ha resettlement area.

According to the master plan until 2020, Binh Phuoc will have 13 industrial parks covering a total area of 4,700ha as well as Hoa Lu Border Economic Zone with a total area of 28,000ha.

Binh Phuoc will focus on attracting projects in the field of high-technology and organic agriculture, agricultural and forestry product processing with the key products being rubber, cashew nuts, pepper, and fruits.

In the first seven months of 2018, Binh Phuoc has attracted 22 projects with the total registered capital of $314 million. Among them, seven new projects are located in Becamex Binh Phuoc Industrial Park with the registered capital of $272 million.
Bad debt ratio at Viet Nams credit institutions dropped from 3.61 per cent in 2013 to 2.18 per cent by the end of June. - VNA/VNS Photo

Enhanced legal frameworks in Resolution 42, which allows credit institutions and the Viet Nam Asset Management Company (VAMC) to rapidly repossess collateral if a borrower defaults, have helped institutions and VAMC manage bad debts.

However, Tran Van Du, deputy general director of the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank), said the Ministry of Finance issued a document in April this year regulating the implementation of Resolution 42, but the document doesnt provide detailed guidance on tax payment when dealing with collaterals of NPLs.

It was still difficult to sell the assets due to the tax payment issue, Du said, explaining that buyers struggled to get the assets after buying them as the tax wasnt paid.

Du suggested there should be clearer legal guidelines on paying taxes when auctioning collateral.

Representatives from Vietcombank said that authorities in some cities and provinces are still cautious and do not want to help credit institutions repossess collaterals.

In addition, though credit institutions have the right to repossess collaterals according to Resolution 42, they still have to initiate lawsuits to be entitled to handle the collateral if borrowers deliberately oppose them.

As such, credit institutions could only repossess collateral successfully in cases where collateral was vacant land or borrowers had fled while collateral was not under dispute, the Vietcombank representative said, adding that this limited the bad debt settlement of credit institutions.

According to deputy governor of the State Bank of Viet Nam (SBV) Nguyen Kim Anh, Resolution 42 has helped resolve many difficulties in settling bad debts, and the above mentioned difficulties are just encountered during the implementation of the resolution and the SBV will report to the Government to fix them.

Anh also affirmed that with Resolution 42, legal regulations for bad debt settlement at credit institutions and VAMC are adequate and effective so he urged VAMC to better settle bad debts.

In the future, VAMC needs to be more active in finding partners and investors for brokerages, buying and selling of bad debt and collaterals and striving to take a key role in the countrys trading debt and collateral, Anh said.

Run by SBV since it was established in 2013, VAMC is responsible for purchasing NPLs from local banks and handling them on the lenders behalf. VAMC plans to recover VND24.89 trillion of NPLs in 2018. It also aims to buy some VND30.5-35.5 trillion of NPLs from credit institutions this year.

According to VAMC chairman Nguyen Tien Dong, thanks to Resolution 42 becoming effective last year, the company recouped VND30.85 trillion of NPLs in 2017, equal to nearly two thirds of the total NPLs recouped in 2013-2016.

Bad debt ratio at Viet Nams credit institutions dropped from 3.61 per cent in 2013 to 2.18 per cent by the end of June, the SBV reported.
Inside Zara store in Hanois Ba Trieu Street.- Photo the courtesy of Zara

Exports of popular brands have raked in tens of billions of dollars each year  but with a population of 90 million, few firms are focusing on local customers.

Instead, more and more foreign labels are selling in Vietnam.

According to the Vietnam Association of Retailers, more than 200 foreign fashion brands are present in Vietnam, accounting for more than 60 per cent of the market share from medium-end to high-end products.

After a year in the Vietnamese market, Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) - Swedish fashion firm  plans to increase the number of its stores to six next month.

Zara also has stores in Hanoi and HCM City.

Meanwhile, other foreign fashion brands such as Mango, Stradivarius, Massimo Dutti and Topshop has recently joined Vietnams market.

After a period of developing brands of Vietnamese goods, fashion firms such as Viet Thy, Foci, Sai Gon 2, Ninomaxx and PT 2000, have forced to narrow their production scale.

For instance, Sai Gon 2 Garment Joint Stock Company launched 70-80 new products before but has made only about a half of this number at present. Production for the domestic market of the company has also decreased 20-25 per cent compared to 2016. Now, Saigon May 2 has accepted to lose the domestic market.

In order to survive in the market, Foci has been forced to cut all new investments and narrowed the store system.

To compete, they are now focusing on selling uniforms and developing more online sales.

Nguyen Van Tang, director of the Manh Cuong Garment Co Ltd, said it is better for his company to export workwear to Japan than to sell at home.

In addition, Hoang Huu Chuong, chairman cum general director of the Nguyen Hoang Corporation, said the trade war between the US and China would make more Chinese goods, including textile and garment products, enter the local market. The textile and garment companies have also faced the problem of counterfeit and fake goods.

Chuong said the authorities need to confiscate counterfeit and fake goods at border gates and market management agencies need to crackdown on businesses and individuals involving in the wrongdoings.

However, local textile and garment enterprises need to overcome weaknesses in design, materials and distribution systems, according to Chuong.

In fact, Vietnam is not lacking in raw materials, said Chuong, adding that it is important to design products made from those materials. If they use foreign design and imported materials, Viet Nam would never have a developed fashion industry, he said.

Chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association Vu Duc Giang said that it is necessary to start from the training stage to develop the fashion industry.

"We need to train students so that they not only can design clothes as usual and but also design from yarn and fabric," Giang told the Thoi bao kinh doanh (Business Times) newspaper.

He said domestic businesses are often not financially stable so developing a distribution system is often tricky. A solution, he suggested, would be for different businesses to work together.

Pham Xuan Hong, chairman of the HCM City Textile and Apparel Association, said the association has proposed creating a design centre in the city to host trade events and encourage better connections for the industry.

Le Tien Truong, general director of Vietnam Textile and Garment Group, suggested the groups member companies could share their distribution systems and sell products in each others stores.
Warming: Steamed rice rolls with chicken eggs.-Photos baotintuc.vn

People in northern Cao Bang have kept culinary traditions alive for many years. Among special dishes made by local Tay and Nung ethnic groups, such as roast duck, sour pho, five-colour sticky rice and others, hot steamed rice rolls have become a popular daily breakfast for both locals and guests. The food is not only tasty but also affordable for diners.

Last year, I visited the province and stayed at my younger sisters home. Early the next morning she invited me to enjoy the food at a shop near her house. The shop owner, Le Thu Nga, is a maternal grandchild of Hoang Thi Nguyen, whose food I had the chance to enjoy some 30 years ago.

The flavour of Ngas dish reminded me of her grandmothers.

Nga said she only used two kinds of rice, locally known as khau pay and khau pet, which have been grown by generations of farmers on the land along the provinces Mang, Bang, Bac Vong and Quy Son rivers. The roll is not only white and crispy but also has a special fragrance as new green rice flakes. The secret is it needs hand grinding with a stone mortar to ensure the wet powder doesnt curdle. She said.

But the most important part is the broth. I have to simmer a pigs tibia for over 10 hours for a pot of quality broth which is pure, sweet and without an oily film, said Nga, noting that as her grandmother did, she uses a special knife made by the Nung ethnic group from the hundred-year-old Phuc Sen handicraft village in Quang Uyen District. She then chops the lean pork shoulder, fragrant mountain mushrooms and wood-ear fungus on the chopping board made from a special type of wood. These utensils help to create the special flavours of her dish.

Popular dish: Steamed rice rolls eaten with pork pie dipped into very hot broth are very tasty. Ngas dish is not only a specialty but also carries the soul of locals.

Different from Thanh Tri steamed rice rolls in Hanoi that are dipped into sour sauce, the Cao Bang version is dipped into a bowl of hot broth.

Accompanying the dish is a pork pie wrapped in banana leaves. But I told Nga to make me a roll with a chicken egg in the middle as her grandmother did for me years ago.

Many people nowadays like to put a chicken egg in the hot steamed rolls, Nga said.

To fully enjoy the dish, one needs patience, as it takes time to steam the rolls and serve them one after another.

After me, there were dozens of people patiently waiting for their turn. They take a seat by the fire and watch as the chef skilfully rolls each piece.

Nga said that many old customers including those from abroad still visit her shop. I was very moved when recently an elderly man from France came and said that there are no places in the world with such special hot steamed rolls, and that he missed the dish made by my grandmother.

During his week-long stay in the province, he ate nothing but the same dish. He enjoyed breakfast with hot banh cuon trung (steamed rolls with chicken eggs), lunch and dinner with banana-wrapped pie and rau mui (coriander).

Nga quoted the man as saying I still enjoy the dish so much. This will be the last time I eat the rolls made by Nguyens descendants because Im too old (86) to come back to Cao Bang again.

Nga said her dish sold particularly well in winter because it helps to drive away the cold.

Local herbalist Nong Ngoc Nam said the dish is very good for health, particularly pregnant women. It is good for those suffering from a cold and patients with low appetites.
According to Dominic Scriven, chairman of Dragon Capital, the scale of the M&A market in Vietnam is now equal to those of Indonesia and Malaysia.

I think that the scale of M&A in Vietnam could pass these two markets in the coming years. 2018 in particular will be a record year for M&A in the Vietnamese real estate sector, he said.

Foreign investors are extremely keen on M&A prospects in real estate. Photo: Le Toan

Real estate remains among the three sectors attracting the most FDI capital to Vietnam. South Korea, Japan, Singapore, China, and Hong Kong are the five largest real estate investors in the country.

According to Recof Corporations managing director Masataka Sam Yoshida, real estate was one of the sectors receiving the most M&A capital from Japan.

Japanese investors Hankyu Realty and Nishi-Nippon Railroad have been co-operating with Nam Long Group to carry out a series of housing development projects in Vietnam. So far, these investors have acquired and developed five large-scale housing projects and offered thousands of units to southern Vietnam.

Japanese investors are now aiming to pour $9-10 billion into Vietnam over the next few years, mostly into infrastructure development and real estate. I am sure that the size of M&A transactions will increase in the near future, especially when it comes to mid-range projects, said Yoshida.

Troy Griffiths, deputy director of Savills Vietnam, said that foreign investors remain very interested in the Vietnamese property market. Much of the capital pouring into the country came through M&A deals, he said.

We can see that M&A activities across the region have been pretty hectic. The listed market has been particularly active, with over $1 billion collected through listings on the Vietnamese stock exchanges in the first quarter of 2018, Griffiths said.

Moreover, the tightening of financial policies for the real estate sector as well as the increased control of the State Bank of Vietnam over non-performing loans have also encouraged domestic investors to look for new financial sources, including M&A, Griffiths added.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are waiting to be invested in Vietnam, mostly in the residential, office for lease, and hotel segments as well as in industrial zones. The stable development of the economy is pulling investment from Japan, South Korea, and China to Vietnam, and real estate remains one of the key sectors, he added.

Figures presented at the recently held M&A Forum 2018 showed that in the first half of this year, the total value of M&A transactions reached $3.35 billion, 139 per cent of the value recorded in the same period last year. Real estate accounted for 66.7 per cent of the total sum.

According to figures from the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, total FDI in the country stood at $318.72 billion at the end of 2017, with $53.2 billion poured into the real estate sector.

Since the beginning of 2018, M&A in real estate have been increasing with a range of major successful deals. One outstanding case was Phu Long Real Estate Companyan affiliate of Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, the owner of Vietjetacquiring 50 per cent of South Korean Posco E&C and becoming a 50 per cent investor in the Splendora Urban Areaone of the first large-scale real estate projects in Hanoi.

Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC also invested about $1.3 billion in leading Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup and related entities of its real estate arm Vinhomes ahead of its market debut, which is slated for the second quarter of this year, to develop high-end and luxury real estate projects in Vietnam.

Vingroup has also acquired two mammoth projects99 per cent of Vietnam International University Township and 32.5 per cent of Vietnam Financial Centrefrom Malaysias Berjaya Corporation, with the total value just short of $560 million.
The entire inspection process at Con Cung will be scrutinised

The special investigation team includes members from the Legal Department, ministerial inspectors, the ministrys office, and the Market Surveillance Agency.

In addition to checking the process of the agencys inspection at Con Cung, the team will assess every mission the agency has carried out since January 28 this year, when the Working Group 334 was established and placed under the leadership of Tran Hung, deputy director of the Market Surveillance Agency.

The ministry ordered the group to submit the results before August 30.

According to the Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh, the groups mission is to ensure compliance with Decision No.334/QD-BCT, which outlines the plan of fighting and preventing violations of producing and selling fake goods in key areas by 2020.

Prior to this, the agency announced its findings on Con Cung after nearly one month of inspections of signs of violations related to the origin of goods. Accordingly, the agency concluded that the firm did not sell fake goods but violated the regulations on labelling.

Specifically, the firm has violated regulations on labelling goods in accordance with Articles 30 and 31 of Decree No.117/2017/ND-CP, stipulating administrative sanctions on standards, measuring, and quality of goods.

Additionally, the firm has violated the regulations on promotions in Article 48 of the Decree No.185/2013/ND-CP on administrative fines on producing and trading fake goods.

Finally, the firm has violated regulations on e-commerce in accordance with the Article 81, 82, and 84 of the revised Decree No.185/2013/ND-CP, which supplies extra regulations on e-commerce trading to those in Decree No.124/2015/ND-CP.

After hearing the ministrys decision to recheck all processes of inspection on Con Cung, the firms representative told VIR that they are not worried about the decision.

He explained that the Market Surveillance Agency previously announced seven violations at Con Cung but the report did not mention these. This may be the reason behind the ministrys decision.

The signs of violation came to light on May 22, when, after buying seven baby products in a Con Cung store in Ho Chi Minh Citys Tan Binh District, Truong Dinh Cong Vinh discovered that the original tag of a VND329,000 ($14.50) pink suit coded CF-G127011 was replaced by a CF (Con Cung Fashion) tag indicating Made in Thailand.

Vinh called the firm to clarify the issue, but instead of explaining the origin of the item, Con Cung apologised and gave him a VND1 million ($44.24) voucher. Dissatisfied with the way the firm attempted to sweep the issue under the rug, Vinh sent a letter of complaint to the Vietnam Competition Authority.
The signing ceremony between SCB and the three banks from Hong Kong

On August 20, 2018, in Ho Chi Minh City, within the framework of the investment promotion event held by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) in coordination with Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB) and three banks from Hong Kongincluding Hang Seng Bank Limited, Chong Hing Bank Limited, and The Bank of East Asia Limitedsigned a co-operation agreement of syndicated credit financing to Union Square Company Limited, which operates in the field of real estate.

Accordingly, SCB and these banks commit to support financial investment and ensure a stable financing source for Union Square to foster its business.

The signing of the co-operation of syndicated credit financing to Union Square opens new opportunities for co-operation, development, and experience sharing among SCB and the three big banks in diversifying financial services, exploiting all potentials, increasing business efficiency, and enhancing their status on the financial market. This event is also an important milestone to meet the capital needs and support the economic development of the country.

Established in 1992, after 26 years of operation, SCB is now among the five biggest private commercial banks in Vietnam with total assets of VND476 trillion (more than $20 billion), and a charter capital of VND14.295 trillion ($630 million) as of the end of the second quarter of 2018. Its network covers 28 cities and provinces in major economic zones with nearly 6,000 employees.

With strong financial potential, rapid growth rate, modern technology background, diversified product portfolio, and gradually increasing service quality, SCB is projected to become one of the most trusted and versatile retail banks in Vietnam, providing all-in-one financial solutions to customers.

Meanwhile, Hang Seng Bank Limited, established in 1933, is one of four Asian banks listed in the top strongest banks in the world for five consecutive years. In 2014 and 2015, this bank maintained its leading position, surpassing other European and American banks with the 270-transaction-unit network in Hong Kong.

Chong Hing Bank Limited, established in 1948 with 39 branches in Hong Kong, provides a variety of banking services to personal and corporate customers, including Hong Kong dollars and foreign deposits, credit, asset management, investment, securities, insurance and other commercial banking products.

The Bank of East Asia Limited (BEA), established in 1918, is a group of leading financial services in Hong Kong, meeting the demands of customers in China and the world, with consolidated total assets of 808.9 billion HKD ($103.5 billion). BEA also owns one of the largest networks in Hong Kong with 70 branches, 54 Supreme Gold centres, and 11 financial centres.
Soviet Prime Minister Josef Stalin meets President Harry S. Truman for the first time at the Little White House during the Potsdam Conference in July 1945. The Little White House was the residence of Truman during the conference in Germany. Front row, from left, are Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet foreign minister; Secretary of State James Byrnes; Truman; and Stalin. Back row are Charles Bohlen, assistant to Byrnes; Admiral William D. Leahy; and V. N. Pavlov, Russian interpreter. Standing at the top of the stairs in the first row are Maj. Gen. Harry Vaughan, Press Secretary Charles Ross, unidentified, and Capt. James Vardaman. Others are unidentified.
Southwest, other carriers are right to tighten rules so planes won't look like Noah's Ark
On 16 August 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the creation of the  Iran Action Group  tasked with coordinating US policies after their withdrawal from the 5+1 nuclear agreement (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) [1].

This announcement was made as President Trump decided to postpone sine die the implementation of his plan for the Middle East (The Deal of the Century). But nothing can change in Palestine without the support of Iran.

Lets remember, by the way, that Barack Obamas JCPoA Treaty was not conceived only to guarantee that Iran is not making nuclear weapons. This was only the pretext. Its true aim was to prevent Iran from having access to high-level scientists and developing state of the art techniques [2]. Incidentally, the agreement forced Iran to close several faculties.

According to the US Democratic opposition, the Trump administration is reprising the neo-conservative policy of regime change, as indicated by the choice of the date of the announcement - the 65th anniversary of the Anglo -US coup detat against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. However, although  Operation Ajax  of 1953 did indeed inspire the neo-conservatives, it occurred years before their movement was born, and has no connection with them. Besides which, the neo-conservatives served not only the Republican Party, but also the Democrats.

During his electoral campaign and for his first few days in the White House, Donald Trump continually stigmatised the globalist thinking of the neo-conservatives, and swore that the United States would no longer seek to change the regimes of foreign countries by force. As for the Secretary of State, he claimed that the coincidence of dates was simply fortuitous.

The people known as  neo-conservatives  form a group of Trotskyist intellectuals (thus opposed to the concept of nation-states), militants of Social Democrats USA, which worked with the CIA and MI6 to fight the Soviet Union. They were associated with Ronald Reagans power structure, then followed through all the US political mutations, remaining in power under Bush Senior, Clinton, Bush Junior and Obama. Today they conserve the control of a common Intelligence agency connected with the  Five Eyes  (Australia, Canada, New-Zealand, UK, USA) - the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) [3]. Partisans of the  World Revolution , they have popularised the idea of  democratising  regimes by way of  Colour Revolutions , or directly by means of war.

In 2006, they created the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group within the Bush Junior administration. It was directed by Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of Vice-President Dick Cheney. At first, they were housed with the Secretariat of Defense, then transferred to the Vice-Presidents offices. The group had five sections.

 The transfer of weapons to Iran and Syria from Bahrein, the United Arab Emirates and Oman ;

 The support for the Trotskyists and their allies, in Iran (the Peoples Mujaheddin) and Syria (Riad al-Turk, Georges Sabra and Michel Kilo) ;

 The surveillance of Iranian and Syrian bank networks ;

 The infiltration of pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian groups in the  Greater Middle East  ;

 The penetration of the medias in the region in order to broadcast US propaganda.

In 2007, this group was officially disbanded. In reality, it was absorbed by an even more secret structure tasked with the strategy for global democracy (Global Democracy Strategy). This unit, under the command of neo-conservative Elliott Abrams (who was involved in the  Iran-Contras affair ), and James Jeffrey, spread this sort of work to other regions of the world.

It is this Group which supervised the planning for the war against Syria.

When the new President had a long meeting with Abrams at the White House, the US Press, which is violently anti-Trump, presented him as the first possible Secretary of State for the Trump administration. It obviously came to nothing.

However, the fact that ambassador James Jeffrey has just been nominated as a special representative for Syria makes the accusation that the Trump administration was attempting to resuscitate this strategy more credible.

Jeffrey is a career  diplomat . He organised the application of the Dayton agreements in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was on post in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion. In 2004, under the orders of John Negroponte, he supervised the transition from the Coalition Provisional Authority (which was a private company [4]) to the post-Saddam Hussein Iraqi government. Then he joined Condolleezza Rices cabinet in Washington, and participated in the Coalition Provisional Authority. He was one of the theorists for US military redeployment in Iraq (the Surge), implemented by General Petraeus. He was also the assistant of National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley during the war in Georgia, then Bush Juniors ambassador in Turkey and Obamas ambassador in Iraq.

If we look a little closer, we may note that his entire career since the collapse of the USSR has been centred around Iran, but not necessarily in opposition to it. For example, during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iran fought alongside Saudi Arabia under the orders of the Pentagon. On the other hand, in Iraq, Jeffrey opposed the influence of Teheran. But when Georgia attacked South Ossetia and Abkhasia, he did not defend President Saakachvili, since he knew that he had rented two airports to Israel to facilitate an attack on Iran.

Mike Pompeo named Brian Hook as the head of the Iran Action Group. He is an interventionist who was the assistant for Condoleezza Rice, working with international organisations. Until now, he was tasked with elaborating strategies for the State Department.

According to Pompeo, the aim of this new group is not to change the regime, but to force Iran to change its politics. This strategy appears while the Islamic Republic is navigating a major economic and political crisis. While the clergy (doubly represented by the Cheikh President and by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution) is clinging to power, there are demonstrations against it all over the country. Contrary to the image we were presented in the West, Ayatollah Khomeinys revolution was not clerical, but anti-imperialist. The protests can therefore either lead to a change of the regime, or to the continuation of the Khomeinist Revolution, but without the clergy. It is this second option which is represented by ex-President Ahmadinejad (today under house arrest) and his ex-Vice-Ppresident Baghaie (imprisoned for 15 years and held incommunicado).

On 21 May last, before the Heritage Foundation, Mike Pompeo presented his 12 objectives for Iran [5]. At first glance, this seemed to be a long list of demands which are impossible to satisfy. However, when we look closer, points 1 to 3 relative to the nuclear question do not go as far as the JCPoA. Point 4 concerning ballistic missiles is unacceptable. Points 5 to 12 aim to convince Iran to give up the idea of exporting its revolution by force of arms.

On 15 August, in other words, on the day before Pompeos announcement, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, recognised that he had been in error when he allowed Cheikh Hassan Rohanis team to negotiate the JCPoA agreement with the Obama administration [6]. Note that the Supreme Leader had authorised these negotiations before Rohanis election, and that he  and the eviction of Ahmadinejads movement  had been part of the preparatory discussions.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who makes a distinction between the policies of Presidents Obama and Trump, wrote to the new President just after his election [7]. He demonstrated that he shared Donald Trumps analysis of the Obama-Clinton global system and its painful consequences for the rest of the world and also for the citizens of the United States.

When the demonstrations began in December 2017, the Rohani government accused Ahmadinejad of being responsible. In March 2018, the ex-President clinched his break with the Supreme Leader by revealing that Khameneis office had misappropriated 80 billion rials belonging to humanitarian and religious foundations [8]. Two weeks before Pompeos announcement, although he was under house arrest, he called for the resignation of President Rohani [9].

Everything therefore points to the idea that although the Obama administration supported Rohani, Trumps administration supports Ahmadinejads party. Just as when President Carter and his advisor Brzezinski launched Operation Eagle Claw  against the Revolution, while President Reagan supported Imam Khomeiny (October Surprise).

In other words, the White House could be quite comfortable with a return to power of Ahmadinejads party, on the condition that Iran agrees to export its Revolution only by the debate of ideas.
The Syrian Arab Army is preparing its attack plans to liberate the northwest of the country, that is to say the Idleb region where the defeated jihadists have taken refuge.

According to the leadership, most fighters would be ready to surrender, only 10,000 men would be ready to fight to the death.

However, according to the Syrian press, a Uyghur colony would have transformed the city of al-Zanbaki (just on the Turkish border) into an entrenched camp. We do not know much about what is going on in this city, which is forbidden to anyone. It would have sheltered 18,000 people.

Speaking Turkish, rather than Chinese, they have benefited so far from the support of the Turkish secret services.

These Uyghurs claim to be al-Qaeda. They refuse to return to China (where they would be judged) [1] and Turkey now refuses to host them.

The presence of this sizeable Chinese colony disrupts the liberation plans for the region.
Sergey Lavrov: Ladies and gentlemen,

We have held talks with Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants of the Lebanese Republic Gebran Bassil. The talks took place in a traditionally friendly atmosphere, were highly informative, and included bilateral relations and regional issues.

Given the nature of multi-faith Lebanese society, Russia has always regarded stability there as a crucial element of regional architecture. We consistently express support for Lebanons sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity. We proceed from the assumption that the Lebanese should address any issues on the national agenda independently, through dialogue, and while displaying mutual respect and willingness to compromise.

We welcomed the results of the May 6 parliamentary elections, which had been postponed for a long time and only became possible owing to the parties finding an internal political balance that enabled all political forces to work as a team. We hope that this internal Lebanese balance will be preserved and consolidated in the course of efforts to form a new government.

During our discussion of bilateral relations, both parties have confirmed their intention to continue intensifying interaction in different areas, including the political dialogue, trade, economic, military and military-technical cooperation, as well as humanitarian ties. In all these areas, a contractual legal framework has been formed or is in the process of being formed and concrete mutually beneficial bilateral and often multilateral projects are being coordinated and implemented. We have agreed to work to consolidate the positive dynamism of Russian-Lebanese ties and to consider new promising projects, including in the regional context.

Russia and Lebanon hold coinciding or very close positions on regional and global problems. We share the view that Lebanon should not be a target of outside interference, a small change in geopolitical games or hostage to the crisis in the Syrian Arab Republic and its negative consequences, such as the issue of Syrian refugees.

We have discussed in detail the prospects for strengthening our cooperation on issues related to the safe and dignified return of Syrian citizens home, those who have found temporary refuge on Lebanese soil. Conditions for this have been created and will continue to improve. I am referring to actions taken following the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi, which gave an impetus to the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2254. The Centre for the Reception, Allocation and Accommodation of Refugees that Russia has established in Syria has been distributing information, practically on the daily basis, on the populated localities that are ready to receive people willing to come back to their homes. Nearly 7,000 refugees have returned from Lebanon to Syria during the last month alone. We will continue to build cooperation in this area.

We have coordinated further approaches to cooperation at the UN and in other formats on other aspects of issues that persist in the Middle East and North Africa, including Iraqi and Palestinian-Israeli settlement and, of course, the need to fully maintain the UNs role in Lebanon.

On all these issues, we will remain in close and trusting contact.

Question: What do you think about Lebanons role in the efforts on the return Syrian refugees?

Sergey Lavrov: Id like to say that Lebanon has been consistently and actively working to resolve the refugee problem and has been doing this since the start of the Syrian conflict. Lebanon has emphasised this issue at all stages of the talks that started in 2012 when the Geneva communique was agreed upon. This subject was also a priority for Lebanon when the International Syria Support Group was established at Russian-US initiative. The subject was promoted by two targeted sub-groups on the ceasefire and on the resolution of humanitarian issues.

Lebanon is a small country. As my friend Georges Bassil said, the presence of over a million refugees is a very heavy burden for this countrys economy and infrastructure. By way of example, of half a million school students that attended Lebanese schools last year, Syrians were in the majority and Lebanese in the minority. It is very important that Lebanon does not just call for a resolution of this problem. As my colleague has just said, it is ready to take part in creating the conditions for a resolution, in part, as we discussed at the talks, by encouraging Lebanese businesses to participate in projects to restore the infrastructure so as to increase the number of areas and cities where refugees can return. We agree with Lebanon on this. Conditions for the return of refugees are already being created. This process has already started. To put it mildly, it is counterproductive to make artificial demands that complicate the return of the refugees and the restoration of the countrys potential.

Question: The US says it is still too early to talk about the restoration of Syria before a political settlement is reached there. Some analysts believe that these statements merely reflect the Wests attempts to prevent Syria from returning to a peaceful life. Is Russia taking any steps to reach a common European or UN Security Council decision on involving the international community in the restoration of Syria and the return of refugees?

Sergey Lavrov: This just emphasises what we have been talking about, notably, artificial attempts to stop the return of refugees by refusing to participate in the efforts to restore the infrastructure in Syria. Several days ago Mr Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria, visited Washington and met with US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. Following their talks, the US Department of State said it was premature to even discuss Syrias restoration. It was said that first it was necessary to reach a political settlement, the so-called political transition. Indicatively, the US sets these preconditions only for the territories that are controlled by the Syrian Government and have been liberated from ISIS, al-Nusra and other terrorists.

Such requirements are not set for the areas controlled by the opposition forces that are cooperating with the US and enjoying its support, primarily on the Eastern bank of the Euphrates. On the contrary, restoration is in full swing and the US is involving many allies in the payment for these efforts. Recently, US officials and senators openly promoted their efforts on removing mines on the Eastern bank of the Euphrates and restoring roads, schools, hospitals, residential and commercial buildings, thereby emphasising that the US is making a contribution to Syrias restoration. However, it is limited to the areas occupied by the opposition that are not always constructive. On the territories under its control and that of the opposition, the US has established a unilateral security area in At-Tanf that includes the Rukban camp. UN officials are not allowed to visit this camp, and humanitarian relief is being impeded. However, militants including al-Nusra fighters periodically conduct raids in the part of Syria freed by Damascus, in part, to prevent refugees from Jordan from returning. You can come to your own conclusions.

Of course, we are drawing the attention of the UN Security Council to this situation that does not meet any requirements of UN Security Council Resolution 2254. Considering this absolutely destructive US position, the UN Security Council will hardly be able make any positive decisions on this issue at this time. We will continue working with the countries that understand the urgency of the measures on returning the refugees and the creation of conditions for this. These are countries that have accepted refugees from Syria (mostly, Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey) and the European states that are also coming to realise the need for specific steps to this end. This was confirmed by the recent joint Russian-French humanitarian act on the delivery of cargo to Eastern Ghouta by a Russian aircraft from France and the talks between President of Russia Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Mesenberg the day before yesterday. They discussed Syria and, in particular, the refugee issue.

Question: Recently, meetings with Turkey have become more frequent. In particular, you recently visited Ankara, and Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar visited Moscow the other day. President Putin and President Erdogan have talks over the telephone all the time. Is there any progress and understanding with Turkey on unblocking the situation in Idlib and the return of Syrian refugees?

Sergey Lavrov: Russia and Turkey, as well as Iran as guarantors of the Astana process are working on this every day by telephone and in person. In the next few days, we will hold talks with our Turkish colleagues to discuss Syrian settlement in general and all of its aspects. Of course, especially with regard to the military, we are focusing, at this stage, primarily on implementing the tasks agreed upon during the creation of the de-escalation zone in Idlib. The key goal now is to separate the opposition groups that are willing to participate in the political process from the al-Nusra militants who abound in the Idlib area and are trying to govern it and provide for day-to-day life in that region. The armed opposition groups that are trying to establish cooperation with Jabhat al-Nusra should think twice and do so as soon as possible.

When our Turkish colleagues deployed 12 observation posts in this zone awhile back, the situation calmed down a bit, but then al-Nusra and their branches began to fire at the Syrian armys positions from this de-escalation zone; they launched drones, and tried to attack our air base in Khmeimim. This must stop. The other day in Ankara, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu of Turkey and I agreed that a separation of the armed groups that are willing to cooperate in resolving the crisis from Jabhat al-Nusra is a priority. I hope that in the coming days we will not only continue this conversation but also reach an agreement.

Question (to Acting Foreign Minister of Lebanon Gebran Bassil): What do you think about the position of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi who spoke against facilitating the return of Syrian refugees, calling the situation in Syria too dangerous?

Sergey Lavrov: I will add a few words to that, because this is an important matter. We also noted these statements by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi and contacted the headquarters of his department. We were told that the media did not interpret his words correctly. They said that in fact, the commissioner had in mind the following: until there is a so-called process of political transition, the main donors, primarily the West, will not send any funding to restore Syrias infrastructure and economy in general. We stated our view that there are other donors besides Western ones, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees should not look like a "branch" of a group of Western countries.

Concurrently and irrespective of the refugee issue, we asked UNESCO how they plan to implement long-standing agreements on how to make that organisations potential useful for restoring Palmyra. From their explanations as to why UNESCO cannot yet engage in this, we realised that they have instructions from UN headquarters in New York. It turns out that the Political Department of the UN Secretariat issued and circulated throughout the UN system in October 2017 a secret directive prohibiting organisations that are part of this system to participate in any projects to restore the Syrian economy limiting their involvement to humanitarian aid and nothing more. Again, a condition was put forward that only after progress had been made on a so-called "political transition" will it be possible to deal with the restoration of Syria. I asked Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres why such matters are the subject of some in-house secret Secretariats directives and why the UN Security Council which deals directly with the Syrian settlement is not aware of them, and why such decisions are made without an open and objective analysis of the situation on the ground. Mr Guterres promised to sort it out. I hope he will.

I am convinced that everyone will agree that no group of countries should be allowed to manipulate in their self-serving geopolitical interests or the secretariats of international organisations whose employees must be impartial and independent. We see our partners in all international organisations. The UN system was created under UN Charter principles based on respect and equality of all states. I call on our Western partners to return to these principles and not to try to take advantage of unwitting, as they say, international organisations. We have disagreements over Syria and a host of other issues, but lets discuss them candidly and openly, rather than try to address matters behind the backs of our partners in a particular international structure by influencing, Im not sure by what methods, the secretariat staff in the corresponding international organisations.
Gibraltar Welcomes Support of European Commission on Tax Transparency

HM Government of Gibraltar have said it is delighted to note the answer provided by the European Commission to a question tabled by Maite Pagazaurtundua Ruiz (ALDE) on the subject of Gibraltar tax information.

The Commission's answer confirms the Government of Gibraltars long-stated position, which the OECD and the EU's own Code Group has confirmed; Gibraltar's financial services are not in any way "harmful" to the tax authorities of other member states. The prejudice held against Gibraltar by some uninformed sources in Spain can best be countered by a serious analysis of the type published by the Commissioner Moscovici in answer to this question. When a fair and objective assessment is made by an impartial observer, Gibraltar benefits from clear statements that we comply with our international obligations.

"No one should for one moment believe that Brexit is going to change our attitude of compliance to the highest international standards in respect of the financial services offered from our jurisdiction."

The question submitted by Maite Pagazaurtundua Ruiz (ALDE) is available at: https://bit.ly/2MmVNYl

The answer provided by the European Commission is available at: https://bit.ly/2OVB22S
Interior of the original Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston, S.C., home to early Americas largest Jewish population. Photo: Solomon N. Carvalho/Courtesy of Special Collections, College of Charleston Libraries.

The conventional narrative of Jewish America begins in the 1880s, with the massive influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe to New York and other cities. Their descendants indeed make up the majority of todays American Jews, but the real story begins much, much earlier and continues across centuries of skirmishes (and at least one riot) over how to be a Jew in the USA. In The Chosen Wars: How Judaism Became an American Religion (Simon & Schuster, August 21), Steven R. Weisman chronicles that history from its earliest colonial days right up to the brink of the great Ellis Island migration. There were a number of turning points along the way; eight of the most critical and contentious follow.

1654: Pioneers

Theres no definitive evidence identifying the first Jew to set foot in the New World. Weisman suggests it could even have been a Jewish convert to Christianity in Columbuss crew, tagging along on the expedition launched in the same year, 1492, that the Jews were expelled from Spain. Whats clear is that the expulsion led to the first Jewish migration to North America 150 years later. Some members of this new diaspora came via the Brazilian city of Recife, a safe harbor ruled early on by the relatively tolerant Dutch. When the Portuguese conquered Recife, 23 Jewish asylum seekers sailed aboard a French ship to New Amsterdam, arriving in September 1654. Governor Peter Stuyvesant, a less tolerant sort of Dutchman, attempted to expel the deceitful race and their abominable religion, but pressure from merchants and Jews in the Netherlands prevailed. In 1655, the newcomers established the countrys first Jewish congregation  Shearith Israel (Remnant of Israel)  but anti-Jewish policies prevented them from building their own synagogue until 1730.

Touro Synagogue in Newport, R.I. Photo: Courtesy of Touro Synagogue

1790: The Letter

Shearith Israel may have been the oldest American Jewish congregation, but the longest-standing house of worship can be found in Newport, Rhode Island. Built in 1763, Touro Synagogue was used by the British as a military hospital during the Revolutionary War, then reclaimed by the Jews during the countrys infancy. When George Washington visited Newport in 1790, a local power broker named Moses Mendes Seixas wrote a letter welcoming him on behalf of the citys Jews. Washingtons reply featured a now-famous passage: For happily the Government of the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. Weisman reads into that letter a whiff of conditionality in Washingtons suggestion that the Jews should demean themselves as a requirement for citizenship  an implicit demand, the first of many over the centuries, that Jews fully assimilate.

The rebuilt Beth Elohim in Charleston, S.C. Photo: Courtesy of The Library of Congress

1841: The Revolutionary Organ

Before the Civil War, the capital of Jewish life wasnt New York but a locale you might not associate with the tribe: Charleston, South Carolina. In the early 1800s, the number of Jews living there hovered between 600 and 700, representing some 40 percent of the countrys Jewish population. After a devastating fire destroyed their synagogue, local congregation Beth Elohim raised funds from Jews around the world to rebuild. Designed in the Greek Revival style, the new temple assimilated well among the Gentile banks and churches. It also had another distinctly goyish trait: an organ. Such innovations had been a major source of controversy in Jewish Europe, given the traditional ban on musical instruments in worship services. A cadre of furious congregants sued to have it removed, but South Carolinas highest court sided with the organ-lovers and established a precedent of noninterference in matters of worship. And so the nascent Reform Jewish spirit, born in Europe, finally reached the Western Hemisphere.

e1850: The Riot

If theres one figure who stands out in Weismans book, its Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise. Born in Bohemia in 1819, Wise landed in New York in 1846 and swiftly became the rabbi of a congregation in Albany. Though he is now regarded as the founding father of North Americas largest Jewish denomination, Reform Judaism, he was less concerned with doctrine than with uniting all of the Jews of the United States  and in that respect, he failed miserably. In fact, in 1850, he got into a fistfight that led to a riot. While visiting Charleston  still Americas Jerusalem  he had disavowed the coming of a literal Jewish Messiah. The prominent Rabbi Isaac Leeser denounced this heresy, and Wise was fired right before the Jewish new year. Wise defiantly went to the synagogue anyway, and came to blows on the High Holiday with the Albany congregations president. Many in the crowd, equally fed up with Wises innovations, turned the fistfight into a melee. The people acted like furies, Wise wrote in his memoir. It was as though the synagogue had suddenly burst forth in a flaming conflagration. Though police quelled the uprising, the riot made all the papers. Weisman writes that the strife in Albany marks an undeniable turning point in American Jewish history, accelerating American Judaism down its path toward division.

Photo: Interim Archives/Getty Images

1861: On Bondage

The freedom that Jews enjoyed in the early United States was, of course, not shared by people of African descent. There were Jewish slave owners and slave traders, and wide swaths of the Jewish-American population were opposed to abolition. The best-known Jewish defender of the Peculiar Institution was Rabbi Morris J. Raphall, a Swedish-born and German-educated traditionalist. Just months before the outbreak of the Civil War, Raphall delivered a sermon on the topic to his Manhattan congregation. Though he was a Unionist and, in his words, no friend to slavery, he added that black people had been cursed by God as the descendants of the Biblical figure Ham, and that slavery was thus their lot in life. The sermon spread like wildfire and was widely seen, Weisman writes, as effectively giving Gods blessing to the very concept of slavery. Other rabbis strongly disagreed, including David Einhorn, who called slavery a moral evil. Einhorns opposition ostracized him in the divided city of Baltimore, forcing him to flee to Philadelphia for the rest of his life.

1879: Hanukkah Returns

As any know-it-all Jewish teenager can tell you, Hanukkah is kind of a bullshit holiday. It commemorates the defeat of an oppressive government at the hands of Jewish zealots known as the Maccabees in the second century BCE. What they dont tell you in Hebrew School is that the victors turned out to be awful rulers, and the holiday languished in obscurity for centuries. But in 1879, American Jews campaigned to give Hanukkah pride of place on the Jewish calendar. Adolescent smart-asses are familiar with their first argument: that the holidays timing made it effective counterprogramming against the increasingly popular Christmas season. But there were also traditionalists behind the revival. As Weisman puts it, Jewish leaders saw the reestablishment of Hanukkah as an echo of what the Maccabees were trying to do: saving Judaism and even monotheism. Pre-1879 Jews would be surprised by how secular the holiday is today  and utterly baffled that its the poster festival for their modern descendants.

Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise founding father of Reform Judaism. Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

1883: The Scandalous Banquet

Jewish meals are not known as quiet affairs, but rarely has a single dinner led to more acrimony than the one served up on July 11, 1883. Hebrew Union College, the educational pillar of Reform Judaism, had just awarded diplomas to its first class of rabbis  purportedly the first ever to be ordained on American soil. Jews from around the country, as well as Christian clergy and academics, convened in Cincinnati to witness the historic event, then sat down to a nine-course feast. Smiles turned to expressions of horror when the plates came out: frog legs, shrimp, crab, and clamsall very, very non-kosher. At least two rabbis fled the room in disgust; for weeks afterward, Jewish periodicals excoriated the culinary provocation and the Reformers who seemed to be behind it. An aging Isaac Mayer Wise rebuffed the criticisms, calling kosher restrictions outdated stomach Judaism. Historians cant agree on the origins of the so-called Treyfa Banquet (treyf being the Hebrew word for forbidden food). It could have been the caterers carelessness, but it had the unfortunate effect of further deepening the divide between old-school Jews and reformers.

1881: Exodus

The most consequential moment in American Jewish life may not have even occurred in America. On March 13, 1881, Czar Alexander II was assassinated by a Russian Gentile, but Jews paid a high price for his crime. After a Jewish woman was implicated in the plot, the Russian government cracked down on Jewish civil liberties. More horrifically, a wave of murderous anti-Semitic pogroms swept across Eastern Europe. More than 2 million Jews from Russia, Romania, and Austria-Hungary escaped to the United States between 1881 and 1914, utterly transforming American Jewry. Prior to 1881, there were only about 250,000 Jews in the U.S., most of them with roots in Central Europe and many of them devoted to some type of Reform Judaism. The new Jews brought with them an Old World emphasis on tradition, closer in line with the budding anti-Reform denomination known as Conservative Judaism. Many also adhered to another new strain of Judaism that called itself by the trendy European term Orthodox. What evolved persists today: a Reform-Conservative-Orthodox triptych that represents a defining quality of American Jews  their tendency to disagree.
Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood School of Rocc Season 5 Episode 5 Editors Rating 5 stars * * * * * Photo: VH1

Lets talk about masculinity in Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood. Sometimes, it involves two women fighting over a man at a sparsely attended showcase signaling his sexual dominance. Other times, it involves hiding a secret family in plain sight to display his brazen selfishness. Usually the characters in this series define manhood by how they mistreat the women in their orbit. But one new addition to the LHHH cast challenges that men can wear orange wigs, press-on nails, and go by the name Kandie  all without the degradation of women.

We start this week with A1 Sauce and Lyrica still reeling from the dissolution of their marriage. Their thoughts and feelings are more twisted up than A1s Alien vs. Predator braids. A1 is at a hotel apparently owned by Mood Fabrics and Lyrica is poolside at a photoshoot. Its apparent that neither of these unnatural blondes are over their blowout.

On the other side of town, Paris and Nikki meet for massages and gossip about their friend Teairra Maris controlling boyfriend, Akbar, who may or may not have a whole wife. I use the word whole to emphasize that he is actively hiding her. As in, I had a whole rotisserie ham in my purse at the BlacKkKlansman screening. But I digress. Paris prepares to text Teairra Mari that her boyfriend is cheating and Nikki, guided by reason and presence of mind, states that thats not a conversation to have via text. Nay, its a conversation for the bathroom of a Chilis or, as well see soon, an open-spaced club on national television.

Next, we go to some studio where A1 Sauce and McIntosh Apple Watts are making music where our favorite dancer turned rapper rhymes bitches with bitches. She confides in A1 that RoccStar tried to steal her as an artist but she is loyal to him. Honeycrisp Apple Wattss best quality is that shes real, stays in her lane, and is focused on her music  this will serve her well.

At a different studio, Lyrica meets up with RoccStar, who asks her what runway she just walked off of. Im assuming it was Project Runway: Latex Challenge because Lyrica looks like an extra in Batman Beyond. (This is not an insult. Id wear this to any postapocalyptic rave or Bushwick housewarming.) Lyrica makes the tragic mistake of responding, This is what single looks like. NOPE! This is what Im Definitely Still Married looks like because nary a paperwork has been signed or filed. Lyrica is about as single as a conjoined twin and she has no business gossiping to her husbands enemy. Then, RoccStar refers to A1 as the Guy with the Pearls as if thats an insult. Whats wrong with pearls? Last I checked, the girl with the pearl earring had a painting, a book, and a movie. Thats in my dream journal, right in between buy a Yacht called Yachty and drink more water. What is it about RoccStar and his masculinity that makes him think liking certain jewelry makes someone less of a man? Seems toxic

But lets hop over to totally different story line about  *checks notes*  two women fighting over Marcus. Honestly, everything about this plot is manufactured, but it gives us amazing insight into the Mona Scott School of Dramatic Acting. Stassi (WHO?) goes over to Brookes house, and Brooke greets her by calling her Latasha. Brookes intentions are clear, Stassis are not. But Ill assume that the reason why Stassi visited the home of someone who torments her is because shes compelled by a dark force. For me, its the little voice that tells me to log on Twitter first thing in the morning and ruin my day. For Stassi, its being on TV. Marcus comes over, and at this point we realize Brooke set a very obvious trap to get everyone in the same room. They argue over who gets to be Marcuss girlfriend and Stassi suggests she might be pregnant. Brooke, ever the delusional villainess says she welcomes Stassi as a surrogate. This is cruel. Brooke Valentine is the black Maleficent thatll curse your baby at his christening. And for some reason, this turns Marcus on.

A1 has a show where he raps as LaBritney twerks. Afterward, A1, who is named Floyd, reconnects with his brother Lloyd. Sometime during this conversation Solo Lucci says, I hope the strip party I threw isnt the reason theyre getting a divorce You know, it didnt help! Then A1 makes the same mistake his Not Wife did and tells everyone his personal business. Meanwhile, Nikki, Paris, and Teairra discuss how Akbars cheating ways are making her look crazy. It does not make you look crazy, Teairra Mari. It makes him like like a trifling polygamist.

We head back to a different studio where Lyrica admits she shouldnt have discussed her marriage with RoccStar. Duh! RoccStar, who is this weeks Master of Messy, shows her a video of LaBritney twerking all over her husbands stage. Lyrica gets so upset she has to leave the studio. No! Havent you ever heard of Mary J. Blige? Put that pain into a song and make a hit record! This is the capitalists creed.

Now, were at the clinic. Which makes me wonder: Do the stars and starlets of Love & Hip Hop get health care? They deserve benefits, Lord knows they need the coverage for all their fist fights. Speaking of, Brooke confronts Marcus and Stassi outside of the clinic and throws condoms at Stassi. Marcus and Stassi break up as the LHHH tactical team carry her away and Brooke screams, Sorry it had to end in front of the free clinic. That really stings. Especially since Stassi has done nothing wrong but consent to relationship with a guy Brooke also likes!

We move to an indiscriminate rooftop where we meet JayWill, a bisexual rapper from Compton who is tired of his sexuality being a punch line. He wants his art to speak for itself. I can support that. I can also support the fact that he called out LaBritney for booty-dropping on a married mans stage. I didnt realize this was disrespectful because Im not in many booty-dropping scenarios  although I just wrote a song called Make It Clap for Democracy, so maybe thatll change.

Moving along on the Messy Express, we find ourselves with Nikki and Paris at a lunch meeting with Akbars wife, Sade, whom I will from now on refer to as Not Sade. In Not Sades defense, Paris brings her to this meeting under false pretenses. But as soon as Not Sade catches wind that they are discussing her marriage and not business, she should make like Camron and dipset. Instead, she indulges in their incredibly invasive questions about her shady husband. Its only after the women imply that shes in an open relationship that she gets upset  and she has every right to. Whether she and her suspect husband are in an open relationship is none of their business.

We end this episode at the showcase weve been overhyping for several weeks. The performances are a mixed bag of gold and turds. LaBritney sings. Granny Smith Apple Watts raps. And then the King Bee himself comes out and slays us all. Im of course talking about JayWills alter ego, Kandie. On a show that measures masculinity by the number of women in ones harem (or orgy party if youre Solo Lucci), Kandie directly opposes every trope. In a hypermasculine environment, its Kandie that lights the stage on fire in a wig, nails, and Fashion Nova bodycon. His masculinity celebrates femininity, pointing at what the Love and Hip Hop: Hollywood franchise is missing: a love for women. He brings much-needed depth and showmanship to a very tired showcase.

Speaking of tired, Apple Watts reaches for drama and brings Lyrica to fight LaBritney. They fight over A1. A1 gets into an altercation with RoccStar. They fight over Lyrica and by proxy which man is a bigger boss. Then, RoccStar gets into a fight with gravity and trips. I love when people on reality TV fall because it always produces a genuine reaction. His scream hits five octaves, just like Tevin Campbell. But aside from a literal misstep, the showcase was pretty exhausting. Which is surprising because apparently it took place at 1:00 p.m. on a Tuesday  why is it so bright when A1 and LaBritney go outside?! But I digress. All this fighting could have been avoided if A1 and Lyrica took the time to actually talk to each other. But that wouldnt be a fun show, would it? The only people that win this petty drama is us, the viewers, (and Kandie!). Until next week on Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood, where well have a black auntie food fight!
Starship Troopers, 1997. Photo: TriStar Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Looking for some quality comedy entertainment to check out? Who better to turn to for under-the-radar comedy recommendations than comedians? In our recurring series Underrated, we chat with writers and performers from the comedy world about an unsung comedy moment of their choosing that they think deserves more praise.

In 1997, Starship Troopers marked the finale of the Triple Dutch, Paul Verhoevens trilogy of hyperviolent, satirical science-fiction flicks that began ten years prior with RoboCop and anchored in the middle by 1990s Total Recall.

A futuristic, big-budget bug-versus-military movie, Starship Troopers shouldve been a surefire hit, especially in a postIndependence Day blockbuster ecosystem that made alien-invasion movies with a sense of humor in vogue and bankable again. Troopers also had momentum in its favor, with a release date that was slated after two other sci-fi smashes that year, Men in Black and The Fifth Element. Unfortunately, extraterrestrial fatigue had set it in, and critics and audiences failed to show up or connect with Verhoevens graphically gory, giant brain-sucking-monster-bugs space opera.

The film has amassed a cult following over the last 20 years, and one of its most passionate and vocal fans is Macaulay Culkin. The 37-year-old Golden Globenominated screen legend celebrates Starship Trooperss sincerity and subversive presentation for what it is: a big, dumb, American action film that parodies big, dumb American jingoism, reactionary propaganda, and imperialist violence. Culkin  who began dabbling in the world of satire with the recent launch of his Bunny Ears website and comedy podcast  wishes more viewers would appreciate Verhoevens self-aware wink.

The performances, Culkin says, are where Starship Troopers finds its magic  especially since the actors seem to be oblivious to what kind of movie theyre actually making.

I cant tell you how excited I am that you picked a political satire from Paul Verhoeven as an underrated comedy.

Are you kidding me? Starship Troopers is one of my favorites of all time. I actually watched it again just to kind of pregame for this chat. I have watched it altogether hundreds and hundreds of times. It was one of those films where, at first, I was quietly a fan of it. Then I discovered on a message board  you know IMDb had those message boards  that there was actually a subculture for Starship Troopers fans. I was like, This is amazing! I dont have to be in the closet anymore! I showed it to my girlfriend about two months ago and I just remember laughing so much, especially with somebody watching it for the first time. So when this came up, the chance to talk about an underrated comedy, I just remembered how much I was laughing my ass off at Starship Troopers. And Im pretty well-versed in the film. It was kind of a perfect marriage.

Why do you think it didnt connect as an effective satire with audiences back in 1997?

Of course it all starts with Verhoeven. Starship Troopers is part of his dystopian future trilogy. It was RoboCop, Total Recall, and then Starship Troopers. He grew up in Nazi-occupied Netherlands. He was working out how he was affected by that type of violent nationalism through these films. In Starship Troopers hes skewering that kind of propaganda and greed and all those things that made their way to America. I think a lot of audiences at first didnt know they were watching a political satire because the actors themselves didnt know they were in a satire. I liked Verhoevens philosophy going into this whole thing  it feels like he just hired some soap actors and didnt really tell them there was a comedic tone. You cant really ask actors to act bad. You hire bad actors and just dont say anything. [Laughs.] I think thats a big chunk as to why Starship succeeds.

Is there a particular performance that you find the funniest?

Michael Ironside is my hero when it comes to this film. He is just amazing. He plays the hardass Commander Rasczak. His presence and his earnestness when he says lines like The goddamn bugs whacked us, Johnny! or The only good bug is a dead bug!  he is just so, like I said, present. He steals the movie. For the most part you got some young actors who didnt really know what they were walking into. Like, Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards definitely didnt know they were making something satirical. So what makes it so funny is everyone is playing it incredibly straight. Jake Busey, who I actually really love in this, is playing it like its for real. Ive liked a lot of his work, but he is 90 percent teeth in this movie. Nobody really knows what kind of movie theyre in. They think theyre just in some action-adventure movie, shooting at evil aliens. Even now, its not listed as a comedy, but Im always rolling on the floor laughing at certain lines. I think Neil Patrick Harris is the only one really aware of the movie hes in.

Even though the film is a vicious critique of American jingoism, Verhoeven still cared enough to make it a big, fun, good-looking popcorn flick.

Its still a proper blockbuster. He had the budget and put it to good use. It does hold up. Thats the thing  its all the sincerity that makes it work. He couldve easily made all the bugs and aliens just look corny and terrible. Theres something about the fact that everyone is trying their hardest. Even Verhoeven, whos the only one who actually knows what the end result was going to be. I know it strays a lot from the source material too. From what I know, the film is virtually nothing like the book. If you were going into this project and youd read the book beforehand, you might be thinking you were getting into a proper Space Marines kind of thing. Youd be expecting to do something like Halo: The Movie. Instead its just so campy and good.

Has watching Starship Troopers in 2018 changed how you view it, especially as Trump is sincerely proposing the idea of a Space Force?

Space Force. I kind of want to do a Power Rangers punch whenever I say it. Trump hasnt recruited any bug psychics  that we know of. But I havent necessarily framed it or modernized it in that kind of context. I think those kinds of qualities and that type of critique is timeless in the same way that it was prevalent in the 30s. Totalitarianism is always something thats there and prevalent, no matter what. And thats what Verhoeven is critiquing.

Youve recently parachuted into the world of satire and parody with your Bunny Ears site and podcast. How did that come about?

An actress friend of mine was really into the Goop lifestyle thing, so I thought it would be funny if I did my own version, except it would be all about whiskey and injecting crystals or something stupid like that. Then I kind of got the ball rolling in my head, and for about two years it was just an on-and-off idea. I kept on banking a lot of material and ideas, just mocking lifestyle brands and pop culture and those kinds of things. Everyone has these ideas but never follows through on them, but this was one of those times where it finally felt like I had enough to make it real. Im surrounded by a good enough team that we actually started pulling this off.

Did you just put out a call and the comedy writers came flocking?

It started by bringing in a great editor-in-chief with Shawn DePasquale. Daniel OBrien from Cracked, who Ive always been a fan of, came onboard too. We also have great writers and editors for the site, like Amanda Mannen and Hana Michels. Not to mention my great podcasting partner Matt Cohen. So we put it all together and then it was off to the races. Im always impressed with their pitches. Its taken on a life on its own. Everyone understands what it is and no one is on autopilot. Everyone really gets it. It was one of those things that started off as comment in passing two years earlier that is now, all of a sudden, a thing where we have 30, 40 people just doing amazing work. Its really cool.

So its the opposite of Starship Troopers: Everyone understands what theyve signed up for.

[Laughs.] Yes, exactly. It would be kind of great if I recruited a bunch of writers who didnt know it was a parody. All the aspiring Goop writers who got rejected? Youre hired!

What can listeners expect from the podcast?

My philosophy going into it was that its not necessarily themed in some specific way. Sure, sometimes we do themed episodes  Desert Island lists or favorite animated characters or maybe well play a game. But sometimes well talk about nothing. The thrust of Bunny Ears is that I want it to feel like a room that youd want to be in if you just happen to walk in, where you wanna hang out with us. Its that simple. When we have guests, we dont really interview people. If they want to plug something, they can plug it and all that stuff, but its honestly just us hanging out.
If you didnt get enough of Netflixs 15-minute stand-up specials that were released last month, youre in luck, because more are on the way very soon. Today the streaming network released the trailer for part two of The Comedy Lineup, this time featuring sets from Aisling Bea, Emma Willmann, Janelle James, Josh Johnson, JR De Guzman, Kate Willett, Matteo Lane, and Max Silvestri. Like the last round of specials, this new batch was taped at Atlantas Terminal West earlier this year. The group heads to Netflix on Friday, August 31.

Related
Tortorella. Photo: Matt Baron/REX/Shutterstock, Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

Just when you think theyre already really going for it, they spot more it and hit the ground running. Giving you Miami Canadian anarcho-Clueless-punk-summer-reading-list-you-lied-to-your-mom-about-finishing realness, Younger star and poet Nico Tortorella wore a sort of political ensemble (designed by Thiiim and hand painted by Jeantrix) comprised of a few choice stanzas to MTVs VMAs red carpet Monday night. We do need no education? Non-flammable is not a challenge? My suspension was not mutual? But what does it all mean though? It means Nico Tortorella now has to go even bigger on the next red carpet, and wed all be fools to doubt they can. Someone get them a large-print King James Bible and some nipple clamps, immediately.

Photo: Matt Baron/REX/Shutterstock/Matt Baron/REX/Shutterstock

Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
Photo: LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Images

California authorities are looking into the sexual-assault allegations recently made against actor and outspoken #MeToo advocate Asia Argento, the New York Times reports. In a Times report published Sunday, actor Jimmy Bennett said Argento paid him $380,000 after sexually assaulting him in a hotel room when he was 17. She also refused to make Bennett sign an NDA.

In a statement on Monday evening, Darren Harris, a captain of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, said the agency is aware of the incident, which allegedly occurred back in 2013. Harris said the department had not yet located any police report alleging criminal activity in relation to Argento, but that it is reaching out to Bennett. Bennetts lawyer, Gordon K. Sattro, said that he has received no such request for contact.

The initial Times report includes a selfie from May 2013, of Argento, 37 at the time, lying in bed with a 17-year-old Bennett in a hotel room in Marina del Rey, California. (The age of consent in the state is 18.) The two had initially met on set for the 2004 film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, in which Argento plays Bennetts mother.

It also includes a notice of intent to sue from November of last year, with Bennett describing an incident of sexual battery that he says has detrimentally affected his work and threatened his mental health. In the notice, Sattro wrote, His feelings about that day were brought to the forefront recently when Ms. Argento took the spotlight as one of the many victims of Harvey Weinstein.

Last October, the actress joined several other women in accusing Weinstein of sexual assault, and speaking out about his history of sexual abuse. Weinsteins New York trial for six felony charges on the basis of accounts from three different women is set to begin with a hearing next month.
Here's a look at Northern Ireland. For many years, Northern Ireland has been split over the question of whether it should remain part of the United Kingdom or become part of Ireland.

Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland. The nation is part of the United Kingdom, along with England, Scotland and Wales.

Armed forces Belfast Belief, religion and spirituality Bombings Labor and employment Catholics and catholicism Christianity Continuity IRA Crime, law enforcement and corrections Criminal offenses Elections and campaigns Europe Gerry Adams Homicide Ian Paisley Ireland Irish National Liberation Army Labor relations Labor unions Martin McGuinness Military Murder Northern Europe Northern Ireland Political parties Politics Protestants and Protestantism Provisional IRA Real IRA Ulster Defence Association United Kingdom Unrest, conflicts and war US political parties Crimes against persons Government and public administration International relations International relations and national security Political Figures - Intl Religious groups Society Treaties and agreements Political Parties - Intl Sinn Fein England Investigations Shootings Fast Facts Law enforcement Policing and police forces Continents and regions Political organizations

The population is approximately 1.871 million (June 2017)

According to the 2011 Census, the most recent survey available, the population is 42% Protestant and other Christian and 41% Catholic. The other 17% are non-religious, did not state their religion (17%), or are members of other religions (.8%).

Other Facts:

Northern Ireland's history has been marked by sectarian violence, although in recent years, its political parties have been working toward compromise and the two sides now make up a power-sharing government.

Between 1968 and 1998, sectarian violence left more than 3,600 people dead, according to the BBC. The conflict is often called "The Troubles."

Marching Season, a series of Protestant celebrations, takes place during the spring and early summer.

Political Groups:

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)

Formed in 1971 by Ian Paisley, a Protestant preacher. Historically, it has attracted support from working-class Protestants.

Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP)

The party attracts middle-class Catholic support and aims to achieve the reunification of Ireland through democratic means.

Sinn Fein

Advocates a united Ireland free from British rule or a British presence.

Irish Republican Army

Founded in 1919 as a paramilitary group fighting for an independent Ireland. In 1969, the IRA split into the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA (the former rejected violence while the latter favored being an armed force). In 2005, the Provisional IRA announced that its military campaign was over, and its weapons would be scrapped.

Timeline:

1920 - The Government of Ireland Act splits the country into two separate political units, with Belfast as the capital of the north and Dublin as the capital of the south.

1949 - The Ireland Act establishes an independent Republic of Ireland in the south. The six counties of Northern Ireland remain a part of the United Kingdom.

January 30, 1972 - Thousands of people take part in a civil rights march in Derry. After a disturbance, the British Army fires shots into the crowd, killing 13 people (in addition, one injured man dies four months later). This day comes to be known as Bloody Sunday.

March 1972 - In the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, British Prime Minister Ted Heath suspends the Northern Ireland Parliament, imposing Direct Rule from London.

July 21, 1972 - Bloody Friday - The IRA sets off 19 bombs in Belfast, killing nine people.

1973 - A power-sharing arrangement called the Sunningdale Agreement is approved but a general strike in opposition to the agreement causes the deal to fall apart.

August 27, 1979 - Eighteen British soldiers are killed in two bombings. The same day, Lord Louis Mountbatten, a British admiral, and Queen Elizabeth II's cousin, dies after an IRA bomb explodes on his fishing boat.

May 1981 - Activist and hunger striker Bobby Sands dies of starvation in prison. His death sparks riots across Northern Ireland.

November 15, 1985 - Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Garret FitzGerald, the Irish prime minister, sign the Anglo-Irish Agreement, calling for collaboration between the British and Irish governments on matters related to politics, security and legal affairs in Northern Ireland. The agreement also calls for the promotion of cross-border cooperation.

1988 - The Irish peace process continues with a series of groundbreaking talks between SDLP leader John Hume and Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein.

August 1994 - The IRA announces a ceasefire.

January 1998 - Citing new evidence in the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre, Prime Minister Tony Blair announces a new investigation into the event.

April 10, 1998 - The Good Friday Agreement is signed, restoring self-government to Northern Ireland, and setting the stage to create their own power-sharing government with a 108-member Assembly.

August 15, 1998 - IRA militants bomb a market in the town of Omagh. The explosion kills 29 people. At the time, it is the single deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the conflict.

December 2, 1999 - Per the Good Friday Agreement, Britain relinquishes its rule over Northern Ireland.

2007 - The British Army ends its military operation in Northern Ireland, 38 years after troops were first dispatched to support police forces amid sectarian violence. At one point, approximately 27,000 soldiers were stationed in Northern Ireland.

June 15, 2010 - The results of the Saville Inquiry, a twelve-year investigation into the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre are released, placing blame overwhelmingly on the British soldiers.

June 27, 2012 - Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander, meets with Queen Elizabeth and shakes her hands, a gesture that signifies progress as the UK and Northern Ireland continue to repair relations.

June 17-18, 2013 - The G8 summit is held in Northern Ireland.

September 29, 2015 - Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service announces that it will not pursue criminal charges against Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and six other people who had been suspected of playing a role in the 1972 abduction and death of a Belfast widow. The mother of 10 was reportedly targeted because of fears that she was spying for the British army.

May 7, 2016 - The Northern Ireland Assembly election is held. The Democratic Unionists win 38 seats while Sinn Fein wins 28 seats in the power-sharing government.

June 23, 2016 - The majority of voters in Northern Ireland cast ballots to remain tied to the European Union in the Brexit referendum. While voters in Northern Ireland, London and Scotland predominantly choose to remain, large numbers of voters in Wales and the rest of England choose to leave. Ultimately the leave voters prevail with a 51.89% majority.

January 2017 - Following the resignation of deputy first minister Martin McGuinness, the British government faces snap elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly power-sharing administration.

March 2, 2017 - The Northern Ireland Assembly election is held. The Democratic Unionists win 28 seats while Sinn Fein wins 27 seats. The size of the Assembly is reduced from 108 members to 90.
For more than a quarter of a century, Nigeria's Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS)-- has taken the lead on the country's most serious crimes  armed robbery, kidnapping, assault, and murder.

But following a months-long social media campaign known as #EndSARS by activists protesting alleged human rights abuses by the squad, Nigeria's acting president has issued an order overhauling the controversial unit.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo  deputizing while President Muhammadu Buhari was on a working vacation outside Nigeria  said the decision was made following "persistent complaints" and allegations.

Speaking after the announcement last week, he said: "Any unit that emerges from the process will be intelligence-driven and restricted to the prevention and detection of armed robbery and kidnapping, and apprehension of offenders linked to the stated offenses, and nothing more."

Human rights abuses

Osinbajo, a former law professor, also ordered the country's National Human Rights Commission to set up a committee to investigate abuse allegations.

But leading figures from the #EndSARS movement have told CNN that, while they welcome the announcement, they will not stop campaigning until the government sets up an independent complaints commission to address specific cases of misconduct involving law enforcement officers.

A spokesman for Osinbajo, Laolu Akande, told CNN the Nigerian government was taking all allegations seriously, adding, "we want to plead with Nigerians to have more confidence in the reforms that are now being implemented."

Segun Awosanya, a leading figure in the #EndSARS campaign who, along with other activists, started documenting alleged incidents of police brutality months ago, said an overhaul is not enough, the unit must be disbanded.

He told CNN the entire police force must be reformed and any SARS officers found guilty of offenses after the inquiry must answer for their crimes.

"The position of the people... is not negotiable. We are asking for a shutdown of a demonstrably criminal network within the police structure and a general reform in the police," Awosanya said.

Torture of suspects

Warnings about the police unit predate Awosanya's social media campaign.

In 2016, an Amnesty International report into SARS accused officers from the unit of torturing detainees in custody and demanding bribes to free them.

Former detainees told Amnesty they were starved, beaten, shot and subjected to mock executions by officers from the squad.

Amnesty also said it found 130 people detained by SARS in a detention center known as the "Abattoir"  or slaughterhouse  in Abuja, Nigeria's capital city.

The human rights organization accused the Nigerian police of covering up the unit's crimes, saying in the report that no officers had ever faced trial for torturing suspects, let alone any convictions. Police denied to Amnesty that any torture had taken place.

Student live-tweets in police cell

Last month, CNN spoke to an engineering student who covertly documented his experience when he was arrested by SARS officers in June.

Daniel Ekanem, 26, told CNN he was arrested on his way to class when men in uniform asked for his identity card and identified themselves as SARS officers.

Despite showing his photo ID, Ekanem says one of the men pulled his shirt collar, kicked and shoved him across the street into a van.

"Another officer slapped me when I asked why I was being arrested and pushed me into the back of the van alongside others," Ekanem said. "He said if we dare mess up, all of us will get bullets."

Ekanem also told CNN that the officers ordered him to contact his family to ask them to bring a minimum of 30,000 naira ($83) to the station to bail him out.

The amount is a considerable sum in Nigeria, where about half of the population lives on less than $1.90 a day, according to figures from the World Poverty Clock.

In a Twitter post, he said men were being punched and slapped by officers in his overcrowded police cell. He also posted a photo of a man he said was beaten over the head with a plank.

The student says he feared for his life as he watched the men being "beaten mercilessly" by the officers in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom, in southeast Nigeria.

"I and over 11 others have been taken hostage by SARS accusing us of being cultists," he wrote during a series of frantic tweets from the cell.

Ekanem posted photos along with a plea for help from his hundreds of Twitter followers.

Activists then sent a lawyer to the police station where he was being held to secure his release. Ekanem told CNN he was freed without charge.

A spokesman for Akwa Ibom police confirmed to CNN that the SARS unit had carried out mass arrests in Ekanem's neighborhood. He said they were investigating an incident in the area.

He denied that money was collected from any of those arrested and added that the highest authorities in the Nigerian police are investigating Ekanem's claims of brutality.

In a separate case, lawyer Bernard Oyabevwe, 33, told CNN he was attacked by SARS officers when he questioned a client's arrest at a police station in Delta State, in the south of the country.

Oyabevwe said he was dragged on the floor and beaten until blood began gushing from his mouth.

Photos of the battered lawyer went viral on social media renewing public anger against police brutality in the country.

"I was beaten by the police, yet I am now being charged to court to defend myself while I am still suffering the injuries I sustained from the assault," Oyabevwe told CNN last month.

A Delta State police spokesman told CNN the lawyer's conduct was not appropriate and the case would have to make its way through the courts.

A reformed unit

Following the interim president's announcement to overhaul the SARS unit on Tuesday, police spokesman Jimoh Moshood said the force was developing new guidelines for SARS operatives.

He said the force has set up an independent panel comprised of human rights activists, senior police officers, and civil societies to regularly address policing activities under the new arrangement.

Awosanya said he and other activists would be closely monitoring to ensure the guidelines are adhered to.

"The campaign against police brutality continues and we need all Nigerians to continue to be vigilant and share their experiences as we continue to collaborate towards a holistic police reform," he said.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff Aug. 20, 2018 | 02:52 PM | PADUCAH

Paducah City Commissioner Richard Abraham has issued a statement in advance of Tuesday's meeting, saying he plans to introduce an ordinance aimed at keeping residents safe and informed after another man escaped from Keeton Correctional Facility last week.Abraham's statement mentions the lapse of time between the escape of inmate Charles Richards on August 12, and the press release issued to the public by State Police the following morning. According to Abraham, Paducah-McCracken County Dispatch was notified about the escape at 8:30 pm on Sunday, but the press release from police was received by West Kentucky Star at 7:25 am on Monday.Abraham told West Kentucky Star he has spoken to people who live near Keeton Correctional Facility, and they have expressed concern for their safety, especially regarding children who ride buses to and from school."Talking to some of the residents up there, they're very concerned about it," Abraham said. "Recently some of the actions that's happened there, folks escaping, stealing cars, wrecking them on the interstate, finding inmates sleeping in folks' cars, all of those things happened there. So, why isn't that shut down? Who wants that in their neighborhood?"Abraham said, "If parents had been notified of the escape within a short period of time, then they would be able to take the necessary precautions with their families and within their neighborhoods. There are vunerable people living in these neighborhoods who may be out alone, walking their dogs or just playing or walking in the neighborhoods."Commissioner Abraham said he will introduce an ordinance that outlines how the public is alerted when an escape occurs at the halfway house. He also intends to introduce a municipal order directing 911 Dispatch to notify the public within 30 minutes of their notification of an escape.After two incidents in 2017 in which escapees were arrested for auto theft and burglary, Abraham, along with other city and county leaders, met with state officials, including Secretary John Tilley of the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Department, to discuss the situation. Local leaders requested that no more inmates be sent to Keeton until conditions were reviewed and policies were updated. They also expressed their hope that the facility be moved away from the residential neighborhood.Abraham's statement says there are still unanswered questions about internal policies at Keeton, and in regards to promises he believes were made by Secretary Tilley. Abraham has written a letter to Tilley and Governor Matt Bevin about his concerns.

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By Ro Morse, West Kentucky Star Staff

Aug. 21, 2018 | PADUCAH

By Ro Morse, West Kentucky Star Staff Aug. 21, 2018 | 12:40 PM | PADUCAH

For 30 years, Paducah Ambassadors have been meeting and greeting visitors in this river city. Monday night they gathered for their annual meeting to honor their founder, former Mayor Gerry Montgomery.



Organizers took Montgomery down memory lane with three decades of photos, quotes, music and notes. All dressed in red, the all-volunteer group filled Walker Hall, shared a delicious meal, listened to Dr. Ted Borodofsky play clarinet, and celebrated their founder and beloved friend Gerry Montgomery.



Mayor Brandi Harless addressed the group and shared how much she admired and respected her predecessor. "I went down to the basement of city hall, found her old chair, cleaned it up and now I have it in my office. I sit in Mayor Montgomery's chair." We hope to continue her legacy, making Paducah the best it can be.



City Manager Jim Arndt expressed his gratitude to the Paducah Ambassadors and said he'd heard bout the organization but after the evening, had an even greater appreciation.



Ambassador President Robert Worden read names of Ambassadors who had each volunteered over 100 hours in the past year. There were some who had served almost 300 hours. As he listed the different meetings, reunions, conventions, ribbon cuttings, riverboat dockings, downtown events, festivals, etc., it was obvious the group stays amazingly involved. He emphasized the organization's continuing goal to make visitors know they are welcome and share Paducah's history and hospitality.



Montgomery was asked to speak. She expressed her appreciation to the group for their dedication to Paducah and how much she admires their tireless efforts and their devotion for the past three decades. She talked about how important it is to always make Paducah the best it can be. She told of how some people, even those who have lived here for a long time, found out how terrific Paducah was from an Ambassador's point of view. A specific example was given. Montgomery shared her past and present interest in preserving, maintaining and manicuring places like Noble Park, where all citizens can utilize and enjoy city property. She was presented multiple awards and one will be made official at Tuesday night's City Commission Meeting.



Roy Hensel narrated a creative skit where Ambassadors wore lots of different "hats". He told about the many different professions and talents Paducah Ambassadors bring to the organization and share with the community. "We wear many hats," he said and one by one the Ambassadors lined up and put on a different hat for each profession they represented. It was clever and entertaining.



An Ambassador Fashion Show showcased different styles worn by Ambassadors during the past three decades. From red kilts and ties, red blazers and polos, red hats and scarves, red shoes and socks, to the formal black pants and red jackets, it was all RED. After all modeled their attire, Worden reminded the group, "Red is the international tourism color representing hospitality".



All in all, it was an evening where all things Paducah were celebrated. Gerry Montgomery, surrounded by family and friends, was surprised and humbled by all the accolades.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Aug. 20, 2018 | PADUCAH

By West Kentucky Star Staff Aug. 20, 2018 | 05:32 PM | PADUCAH

The founder of a local charitable foundation was arrested on charges that he allegedly used a credit card and EBT card entrusted to him for safekeeping.



According to Paducah Police, 40-year-old Ray Thomas Streetman, of Paducah, was arrested on charges of fraudulent use of a credit card, (more than $500, but less than $10,000), and fraudulent use of an ID card or electronic code for benefits.



Police say a victim told them that he gave his wallet and car keys to Streetman on June 28th for safekeeping. The wallet contained the victim's credit card and EBT card. He said when he got the wallet back, those two cards were missing.



An investigation showed the EBT card was used at at least one store in Paducah for more than $50. The credit card was used multiple times, including charges totaling more than $900 to the Hope Foundation, of which Streetman is the founder. All of the charges occurred during the time Streetman supposedly had the victim's wallet.



Streetman denied using the card and told police the wallet and keys remained locked up in the charitys safe.



Streetman was arrested on charges of fraudulent use of a credit card, (more than $500 but less than $10,000) and fraudulent use of an ID card or electronic code for benefits, and was taken to the McCracken County Regional Jail.



According to its website, the Hope Foundation provides assistance to the homeless and near-homeless, veterans and inmates released into the community, helping them with food, clothing and rent and utilities, helping them find jobs and advance their education.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff Aug. 20, 2018 | 03:52 PM | GRAVES COUNTY

The Graves County Sheriff's Office is still searching for two suspects that were involved in a home invasion robbery Monday afternoon.

Deputies say the robbery took place on Piney Point, off of KY 97, about 4 miles south of Mayfield. The suspects were described as two white males, dressed in all black with face masks. Both men reportedly had handguns.

Witnesses who saw the men running from the area said that one of the men was not wearing shoes and another had taken off his shirt. The suspects were last seen near the KY 1890 and KY 303 intersection.

Anyone who sees the suspects is advised to call the Graves County Sheriff's Office at 270-247-4501 or 911.
Our first frost can't be far off
By West Kentucky Star Staff Aug. 21, 2018 | 11:41 AM | MAYFIELD

A Paducah man faces theft and drug charges in Mayfield.

The Mayfield Police Department says an employee of Graves County High School reported his vehicle stolen from the parking lot of the high school on Sunday. The vehicle was later found abandoned on Luisa Drive near State Route 121 North. Contents of the vehicle were then reported stolen.

After an investigation, it was discovered that 40-year-old Robert Langston, of Paducah, had taken the vehicle from the parking lot. On Monday, Langston was found in his room at the Wingfield Inn. Officers said the items reported stolen from the vehicle were also found in his room.

Police also found suspected methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia in the room. Langston was arrested and taken to the Graves County Jail.



He's charged with theft by unlawful taking over $10,000, theft by unlawful taking under $500, possession of controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Williamson, WV (25661)

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Showers early, then cloudy in the afternoon. Areas of patchy fog. High 57F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

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Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 44F. Winds light and variable.
The US believes that Ibrahim al-Asiri, a master al Qaeda bombmaker, is dead.

The Saudi Arabian native was the mastermind behind the "underwear bomb" attempt to detonate a flight above the skies of Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.

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A senior US official expressed "confidence that he was killed."

Two US officials told CNN al-Asiri was killed by a CIA drone last year. The CIA is not commenting on his fate.

CNN reported last week that al-Asiri may have been killed in Yemen last year, according to a UN team that tracks terrorist groups.

Counterterrorism analysts say there should be significant skepticism over al-Asiri's possible demise for one major reason: His group, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has not released any statement acknowledging his death, nor a eulogy celebrating his martyrdom.

Al-Asiri is widely credited with perfecting miniaturized bombs with little or no metal content that could make it past some airport security screening. That ability made him a direct threat to the US, and some of his plots had come close to reaching their targets in the US.

In addition to the "underwear bomb" attempt, al-Asiri was behind the so-called "printer bomb" plot. That plan saw him send explosive devices inside printers to the US. The two packages were being shipped from Yemen through Dubai and the UK in October 2010.

Both were addressed to synagogues in Chicago.

Al-Asiri appeared to have taken on a more public-facing role within al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in recent years, including purportedly recording a speech the group released in 2016.

The most recent public statement attributed to him was a written speech released by the group on September 12, 2017, to coincide with the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The speech promised an ongoing war against the United States.

CNN cannot independently verify he authored these statements.

Few expect al-Asiri's expertise to die with him. Officials believe he trained a number of apprentices. And since 2014, US officials have been concerned that bomb-making expertise built up by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has migrated to other groups, including al Qaeda operatives in Syria.

Meanwhile, ISIS is among the terrorist groups that have worked to develop laptop bombs, prompting large electronics to be temporarily banned in the cabin on certain flights to the United States and the UK from the Middle East last year.
After his pregnant wife and their two young daughters vanished last week, Chris Watts spoke with a local Colorado news station as a concerned father, pleading for the return of his family.

Just a week later, Watts appeared largely emotionless as he was arraigned in court Tuesday on nine charges, including several counts of first-degree murder for the killings of his wife and two daughters.

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In shackles and an orange jumpsuit, he was informed of his rights and agreed to waive a preliminary hearing.

The arraignment came days after the body of his wife, Shanann, was found in a shallow grave, and the bodies of their two daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, were found in nearby oil tanks at a company where Watts had worked, according to a court filing by prosecutors.

Watts, who was arrested last week, is being held without bond.

In addition, investigators claimed to have discovered that Watts was involved in an affair with a co-worker, according to an unsealed Weld County arrest affidavit.

In his initial interview with police, Watts said that he had told his wife that he wanted to separate on the morning of August 13 and then left for work.

However, in a second interview with police, Watts told police that he looked at the baby monitor screen and saw Shanann strangling their daughter Celeste and that he saw their older daughter, Bella, "sprawled" out on her bed and blue, according to the affidavit.

Watts told police that he went into a rage and strangled his wife to death, according to the affidavit. He told them that he took the bodies and dumped them in three separate locations, according to the filing.

Autopsy results have not been released. Watts' defense lawyers requested that the pathologists be required to "take DNA swabs of throats" of the deceased children, but was denied Monday. His lawyers have not commented publicly.

Multiple murder charges

The 33-year-old father was charged Monday with three counts of first-degree murder for the three deaths, as well as two additional first-degree murder charges of causing the death of a child younger than 12.

He also faces three counts of tampering with a body and a count of first-degree unlawful termination of a pregnancy, said Weld County District Attorney Michael J. Rourke. He did not reveal a motive.

In an interview with CNN affiliate KMGH on August 14 -- after his family disappeared but before his arrest -- Watts said he wanted his family back home.

"We had an emotional conversation, I'll leave it at that," Watts told a reporter who asked whether they'd argued. "I just want them back. I just want them to come back."

Shanann's father, Frank Rzucek Sr., thanked authorities on Monday for finding the bodies of his family members. He said the family appreciated those who attended a candlelight vigil and expressed support.

"Keep the prayers coming for our family," he said, holding back tears.

Frankie Rzucek, Shanann's brother, wrote on Facebook that he was thankful that he had been able to spend recent weeks, "loving, laughing, and enjoying what precious time I had with my Sister and nieces that I loved with every inch of my soul. I wish I could go back in time and be there to keep you safe from harm. Sorry uncle couldn't save you. Absolutely heartbroken."

Shanann, Bella and Celeste were reported missing August 13 from their home in Frederick, a town of about 8,600 people 30 miles north of Denver.

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled the first name of Shanann Watts and identified Bella as the youngest daughter. She is the oldest.
The Trump administration is moving forward with more tariffs on Chinese goods this week while officials from both countries negotiate on trade in Washington.

The United States will place a 25% tariff on another $16 billion of Chinese goods Thursday and China is expected to respond with a 25% tariff on an equal amount of American exports.

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It's the second round of tariffs imposed by the two countries this year. A total of $50 billion of goods on each side will be taxed as of Thursday.

The Trump Administration started the process in March, aiming to punish China for what it says are unfair trade practices, such as stealing intellectual property. Beijing has responded with retaliatory tariffs.

The new tariff will hit 279 Chinese products, including chemical products, motorcycles, speedometers and antennas. The Chinese tariff will hit American goods including chemical items and diesel fuel.

About 80 companies and industry groups testified in July before the US Trade Representative's Office about the $16 billion in tariffs.

Many said the tax would hurt their business, and they would not be able to absorb a 25% tariff without raising prices on American consumers.

Representatives from the motorcycle industry, electric bicycle makers, food equipment manufacturers, and chemical companies oppose this round of tariffs.

So does the CEO of Purolite, a company that imports chemicals used to purify water. He warned that tariffs on those chemicals could reduce an already short supply.

"By further reducing the supply of these products in the United States, the proposed tariffs threaten higher prices for US consumers and a higher level of contaminants in American drinking water, food chain, waste water, and chemicals," said CEO Stefan Brodie at the hearing last month.

But other companies said they wanted items added to the list. The president of Southwire, an electrical wire, cable and cord manufacturer, said tariffs on certain cables would allow the company to remain profitable.

"The Chinese government has engaged in a series of policies designed to promote exports of these products and enable Chinese producers to capture significant global market share," said president Charlie Murrah at the hearing.

Trade talks continued this week between mid-level officials in Washington, but President Donald Trump does not "anticipate much" from the discussion, he said in an interview with Reuters on Monday.

There could be more tariffs to come. The United States has threatened a 25% tariff on an additional $200 billion of Chinese goods. Beijing has said it would respond by slapping a tariff on another $60 billion of American goods. It's harder for China to match this latest threat dollar-for-dollar because the United States exports far less to China.

The US Trade Representative's Office is holding hearings this week on what would be a third round of tariffs imposed on Chinese goods this year.

-Donna Borak, Julia Horowitz, Jethro Mullen, and Charles Riley contributed reporting.
Utica, N.Y. - Seventeen-year-old Stefan Medina, a student at Proctor High School in Utica, was a good boy, according to a cousin of his who did not want her identity released as she walked door to door Monday afternoon looking for answers.

The female cousin, who is not much older than Stefan, says she wants justice for her cousin and believes someone in this Elizabeth Street neighborhood knows something that can lead to a suspect.

"I guess his girlfriend lived on Elizabeth, I dont know too much of what happened. Im going door-to-door asking anyone I see, if they saw anything, any details of any person that can help identify someone, we just want the person, we want our justice."

Police were called to the 700 block of Elizabeth Street around 8:30 p.m. Sunday. Police say Medina was shot once. Paramedics worked on him, and he was taken to St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Utica where he was later pronounced dead.

RELATED: Utica police ID teen killed in Elizabeth Street shooting

Medina's cousin says her entire family has been shaken.

"He was very kind, sweet, loved his family, he was doing well, going to school."

Utica Police Chief Mark Williams says officers were once again back out in this Elizabeth Street neighborood on Monday talking to people.

"We are currently talking to possible witnesses, going through any available footage, anything that will help us come up with a possible suspect," Williams said. "If anyone has any information about what transpired yesterday, we would appreciate a phone call. Unfortunately it happened, a 17-year-old young male, what a shame."

Williams is asking anyone with any information to call the Utica Police Criminal Investigation Bureau at at (315) 223-3510.

Utica police say this is the seventh homicide of 2018.
Fifth Circuit Court Rejects Professor's

Anti Campus CCW Lawsuit

By Dean Weingarten. August 21st, 2018

Article Original

A longshot appeal to the Fifth Circuit, to stop Texas Campus carry, has been rejected by a unanimous three judge panel of the Court. Three professors at the University of Texas had filed the case on novel grounds. From uscourts.gov:

Three professors from the University of Texas at Austin challenged a Texas law permitting the concealed carry of handguns on campus and a corresponding University policy prohibiting professors from banning such weapons in their classrooms. The professors argued that the law and policy violate the First Amendment, Second Amendment, and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court dismissed the claims. We AFFIRM.

Two years ago, in July of 2016, three academics associated with the University of Texas sued the Texas AG, Ken Paxton, and several University of Texas officials. They were desperately attempting to stop the start of Campus carry in Texas, where some students who had Texas carry permits were allowed to carry personal defensive firearms on campus. The firearms had to be concealed.

A year later, Judge Lee Yeakel dismissed the case, on the grounds that the defendants had not suffered any harm. Therefore they had no standing to sue. The professors decided to appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. All of the professors are women. One, Dr. Glass, is a Liberal Arts Professor. The other two, Dr. Lisa Moore and Dr. Mia Carter, are professors of English. That may explain their ability to construct the novel arguments used in the case . From mystatesman.com:

Jennifer Lynn Glass, Lisa Moore and Mia Carter argued that their First Amendment right to academic freedom has been violated because free speech is chilled in classrooms out of concern that someone might be carrying a concealed handgun. They also contended that their Second Amendment rights have been infringed because firearm usage is not sufficiently "well-regulated." And they said their right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment has been violated because UT lacks a rational basis for deciding where concealed carry is permitted. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected all those arguments Thursday, upholding the July 2017 dismissal of the case by U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel of Austin.

At the Fifth Circuit, the three judge panel dismissed the appeal because merely claiming you are frightened of a possible outcome does not violate First Amendment protections. The Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to keep and bear arms, not the right of the state to restrict individuals from keeping and bearing arms.

The Fourteen Amendment claim was dismissed under "rational basis", which the Professors had admitted was the correct level of scrutiny for their claim They said there was no rational basis for regulations of the University of Texas, insisted on by the State of Texas, which found that concealed carry could be restricted on some places in the University campus, such as research laboratories, but not others. They claimed different regulations on private universities versus public universities, violated equal protection under the law.

The Fifth Circuit panel stated it was easy to find a rational basis for such disparities, such as the protection of private property rights at private universities.

Now the professors will evaluate if they wish to expend more treasure and time to ask for an en banc hearing of the entire Fifth Circuit. An en banc hearing would be voted on by the entire Fifth Circuit. If approved, the entire Circuit would hear the case.

I expect the entire Fifth Circuit would uphold the dismissal by the three judge panel. The opinion is well argued, and rests on solid precedent. The professors have the option of appealing to the Supreme Court. With the impending appointment of Judge Kavanaugh by President Trump to the Supreme Court, a successful Supreme Court appeal appears less likely.

2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included. Gun Watch

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INDIANAPOLIS (WTTV)  A new letter from nearly two dozen Indiana college and university presidents is calling upon Indiana lawmakers to act now in support of all Hoosiers, regardless of appearance, location, orientation or religious beliefs and pass a hate crime law, WTTV reports.

State Sen. Mike Bohacek (R-Michiana Shores) said he will introduce the bill in the upcoming session, which will be nearly identical to the bill that failed last year.

Crimes such as these where people are being targeted for who they are, what they are, what they believe in  whether its actual or perceived  needs to have some extra teeth, Bohacek said.

He added the bill will include specific groups targeting crimes against disability, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. Opposition in recent years has in part centered on whether to include gay, lesbian and transgender Hoosiers, which Bohacek said will be part of the new bill.

I think that time has come that I think well be able to hopefully look past that and provide the protections we need for all of our citizens, he said.

Opponents, though, will continue to pressure lawmakers, arguing judges already have the ability to enhance sentences, adding a new law has the potential to create a politically favored list, as Micah Clark put it, the executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana.

Theres several instances in the bill that Ive seen where people arent included, Clark said. For example, if someones wearing a Make America Great Again hat and they get beat up, theyre not included.

Gov. Eric Holcomb has publicly backed a renewed push for a hate crime law and has said in recent weeks hes open to all ideas.

Well take the best from them and put forward a suggestion we think will protect, not exclude all Hoosiers, Holcomb said earlier this month.

Bohacek said the legislation he plans to introduce will be nearly identical to last years bill. The question remains whether the outcome will be any different.
FRANKFORT, Ind (WLFI)  Police had to step in, after the sudden firing of Clinton County's Humane Society Director Jim Tate inspired protesters in Frankfort.

More than 30 community members gathered outside a private meeting, run by the Clinton County Humane Society Board of Directors, to discuss the shelter's future.

The board called the police when protesters entered the building at the Clinton County fairgrounds.

The protesters never gained access to the meeting room itself, which was locked.

Police told the protesters they had to leave the building.

They then went outside the fairgrounds and held signs in support of Jim Tate and the other fired staff members.

News 18 reached out to the Clinton County Board of Directors and has not heard back.

The Clinton County Sherrif's Office said the board of directors would send out a press release, but News 18 has not received it.




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Internet platforms and anti-gun bias

From Gun Rodeo. August 20th, 2018

The recent past has been striking:

1. Facebook bans all gun sales and gun transactions.

2. YouTube shuts down multiple user channels over their long-running publication of videos which help to sell firearms and accessories including magazines, and even those which imply how how to safely install accessories.

3. Shopify bans most gun-related sales.

These events happened very rapidly and it begs the question: Who will be the next platform to ban gun-related content? Instagram? Google Search? Amazon? Alexa? Email? Don't be fooled: There will be a next platform.

On the surface these seem like isolated events. But they are not. Each platform drew upon the experience of the previous in their decision making. It is striking to read the policies themselves and notice how similar they are in the specific content subject to the ban. Their implementation was also correspondingly similar: all were introduced with no forewarning and little public communication. There have been no public explanations. There has been no mea culpa. None have spoken about the implicit constitutional rights issues.

It is as if these companies now have a playbook.

This is a moment in time. Yet it is also part of a continuum. It is now more important than ever to focus on the actions of these large platforms, what they mean, and what they will do to our future. Their actions clearly state that they are anti-gun. What these actions mean is that the Internet platforms are largely controlled by gun control advocates. And in the future their actions will bring us a world where our rights are diminished and our ability to develop flourishing online communities could be quashed.

At Gun Rodeo, we have some follow-on questions:

Why do we, as gun rights advocates, continue to invest time and energy in platforms which will eventually curtail our constitutional rights? Why do users not seek out gun-friendly platforms? And what will it take to develop these platforms?

The experience of Gun Rodeo is quite telling in this regard. The founders of Gun Rodeo are old hands in technology, with careers that span 20+ years, much of it in Silicon Valley. It has always been a very open and friendly community. Until the Gun Rodeo project opened the conversation to guns. At this point there were no friends to be had in Silicon Valley. No one wants to talk about a gun-related project. No one wants to help contribute to a gun-related project. And no one will offer networking for a gun-related project.

1. Why do we see tech companies alter their Terms of Service AFTER they have hit critical mass? And, if we know their TOS is incomplete, what other potential targets of discrimination could they be hiding?

2. Why do we, as gun rights supporters, continue to join and use tech services, when we now know they will expel us from their platform once they hit some critical mass (a la Shopify, Facebook, Youtube)?

3. Tech companies are ostensibly fearful of negative press from gun control advocates. Yet they are not fearful of the same negative press from gun-rights advocates. Why? As powerful as the gun rights coalition is, why are we insignificant in the face of getting ostracized from tech platforms?

4. We are now living in a time when all the major platforms (except Google's search) have limited the constitutional rights of gun advocates and gun owners (eg. Shopify, Facebook, YouTube). WHEN will we get our own platforms which allow us our full rights?

The Gun Rodeo homepage. Gun Rodeo Web hosting.

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Angry vegetable traders manhandle inspection team

Tension ran high at Kalimati Fruits and Vegetables Market on Monday after a group of vegetable dealers manhandled members of a government team that was on an inspection visit amid widespread concerns over hefty rise in vegetable prices.
Achyut Wagle holds PhD in economics and is currently a professor at the Kathmandu University School of Management. He is an econo-political analyst, writing for The Kathmandu Post for many years.
Parliaments summer recess has become an occasion for vicious infighting between the contending factions of the ruling elite, with the drive to remove Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn matched by preparations for a leadership challenge against Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May on the other side of the house.

The declared aim of the Labour right-wing challenging Corbyn is to secure a Peoples Vote aimed at overturning the referendum vote to quit the European Union (EU). May faces removal by her partys hard-Brexit wing, led, at this point at least, by former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

Both factional struggles have a series of crucial dates aheadincluding upcoming party conferences and the resumption of parliamentbut looming large in their calculations is the March 29, 2019 Brexit deadline, when a verdict must be delivered on whatever Brexit deal May finally strikes with the EU.

Mays opponents have indicated that they want to mount a leadership challenge at the earliest when parliament reconvenes September 4.

Johnson has staked his claim to leadership against his rivals, including former Brexit Secretary David Davis, Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg, by stoking Islamophobia with attacks on the small percentage of Muslim womenestimated to be less than one percent of the female Muslim population in Britainwho wear the burqa.

In a column for the right-wing Conservative Daily Telegraph newspaper earlier this month, Johnson used deliberately provocative language to describe women who wear such garments as looking like letterboxes and bank-robbers.

Given that the Tory Party is joined with the Labour right in its bogus anti-Semitism campaign against Corbyn, it proved impossible for it to simply ignore Johnson's calculated Islamophobia. Finally, Conservative chair Brandon Lewis announced a formal investigation, while May reluctantly requested Johnson apologise. But Johnson and his backers have utilised these moves to portray him as a free-speech martyr, whose views are shared by most Tory Party members. The pose of outrage in the liberal media has only served to consolidate his position.

One of Johnsons supporters warned May not to continue with threats to discipline Johnson, as he could count on two thirds of the partys MPs to back him over the issue. Four unnamed members of Mays cabinet made known their support for Johnson, with one declaring, What he said wasnt that outrageous and a lot of the party happens to agree with him.

The sooner the party throws this investigation out, the better. Lots of people both on the front and back benches are really p***** off, the MP added.

According to Rupert Murdoch's pro-Brexit Sun, 38 MPs have already signed up to a leadership challenge out of a 48 needed to trigger a leadership contest against May. One Tory MP told the tabloid, Any punishment beating [of Johnson] will be the tipping point. People [MPs] will send letters in. They cant believe whats happening.

Significantly, Johnson won support from Rees-Mogg, the most influential backbench hard-Brexit MP, who said the investigation launched into Johnsons comments was a show trial.

Brendan ONeill of the right-wing libertarian Spiked group, jostling for space in a slew of supportive articles in the Tories house magazine, the Spectator, described Johnson as the victim of the modern inquisition.

A reported 100 Tory MPs, almost a third of the parliamentary party, are being primed to vote down any deal May reaches with the EU when it comes to a vote in parliament this autumn.

Johnson himself is reportedly planning to speak on Brexit at a fringe event at the upcoming Tory conference in October, at which one party figure told Business Insider there would be a bloodbath atmosphere.

Johnson is often presented as a buffoon who shoots his mouth off without thinking, but he is a seasoned politician who for the most part tests out the water before jumping in. His anti-burqa comments and the leadership ambitions that informed them were spurred on above all by the effusive support he was given by US President Donald Trump and his former adviser and strategist Steve Bannon.

Prior to his July visit to the UK, Trump attacked the EU and Germany at the NATO Summit in Brussels before denouncing the deal struck by May with her cabinet that is meant to provide for a soft-Brexit, maintaining tariff-free access to the Single European Market. Johnson had followed David Davis in resigning from cabinet in protest. Trump made clear his support for their position in an interview with the Sun, declaring that May was threatening any future US/UK trade deal because the US would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK.

We are cracking down right now on the European Union because they have not treated the United States fairly on trading, he said, adding that Johnson would make a great prime minister.

Bannon openly called on Johnson to challenge May and has been reportedly in secret talks with him ever since his resignation from cabinet. Bannon was also one of the first to rush to Johnsons defence over his burqa comments, stating that he had nothing to apologise for and should refuse to bow at the altar of political correctness in an interview with Murdochs Sunday Times August 12.

Johnson would be a great Prime Minister, not [simply] a good one, he declared.

Amid an escalating trade war, including the imposition of US tariffs on EU imports of steel and aluminium and sanctions on China, Russia, Iran and Turkey, the Brexiteers feel they have been confirmed in their belief that compromise with the EU is either impossible if relations with America deteriorate still further, or unnecessarybecause Brussels will be forced to accept the opening up of Europes markets by US threats.

May, a Remainer, has only managed to avert a leadership challenge thus far because of continuous fudges she has carried out over her Brexit negotiation proposalsand because her opponents were not quite ready. But such is the rift within the Tories that any notion of May continuing to straddle the two warring camps is a pipe dream. Her standing among broad sections of the party was summed up in a column earlier this month by Sherelle Jacobs in the Daily Telegraph. Stating of May that her populist instincts do not exist, Jacobs continues, [A]lthough it is not clear when or whether May will be ousted, one thing is certain: her successor must not be another liberal elite centrist.

Johnson still faces rivals among the Eurosceptics and discussions are reportedly intense over how to proceedincluding over whether he should first endorse Davis as a stalking horsegiven that he who assumes the role of Brutus will not prosper. But over the weekend it emerged that Johnsons backers are seeking to change party rules so that members and not just MPs are able to nominate leadership candidates to ensure that his enemies do not spike his leadership bid.

The Remain camp continues to present itself as a progressive alternative, including condemning Johnsons burqa remarks. But this is pure cynicism. Mays record as home secretary is one of the most illiberal in British history, while Labours Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said on the BBCs Question Time in 2013, I wouldnt want my four-year-old looked after by somebody wearing a burkaI wouldnt want my elderly mum looked after by somebody wearing a burka  They need to be able to show their face.

More generally, a policy of trade war and stepped up militarism in alliance with Europe will demand attacks on working people no less savage than if conducted in alliance with the US. On this agenda of ever deeper austerity, all factions of the ruling elite are in full agreement.
While most high-income countries experienced a drop in life expectancy in 2015 for the first time in decades, only the United States and the United Kingdom saw that disturbing trend continue into 2016.

The recent declines in American life expectancy are due in part, but not exclusively, to drug overdoses, suicides and alcoholism. Deaths among middle-aged Americans over the past decade and a half were also attributed to heart, lung and other organ diseases, as well as to mental and behavioral disorders.

These were the findings of two studies published last week in the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal). The continuing decline in US life expectancyand the increase in mortality among younger adults and across all ethnic groupspoints to systemic social causes driving this crisis.

The first study, by sociologists Jessica Ho of the University of Southern California and Arun Hendi of Princeton University, examined trends in life expectancy across 18 so-called high-income countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the US and the UK.

The study focused on 2014 to 2016, because previous research has shown life expectancy dropping significantly between those years. Ho and Hendi found that 14 of the countries experienced declines in life expectancy for both men and women from 2014 to 2015. Only Australia, Japan, Denmark and Norway did not.

The decline in life-expectancy was generally attributable to an unusually severe influenza season in 20142015. Leading causes of non-US deaths in this period included influenza and pneumonia, respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimers disease, as well as mental and nervous system disorders. Most of these deaths occurred in the over-65 population.

But while many of the countries saw a rebound in life expectancy in 2016, the US and the UK saw declines for two consecutive years. While the opioid epidemicalong with alcohol-related liver disease and suicideswere seen as key contributors to these declines in the US, mortality rates increased across a broad spectrum of diseases involving multiple body systems. Injuries involving motor vehicles were also key contributors.

While the study was not designed to determine the reasons for the decline in life expectancy in the US and UK, the authors speculate that increasing social and economic inequality and declining access to quality health care among some groups in the population may be strong contributing factors. Ho and Hendi write, It is possible that greater inequality within a country renders that country more vulnerable to declines in life expectancy.

While other high-income countries are also experiencing income inequality, it has been growing at a far more rapid pace in the US. The authors add that this burgeoning inequality may explain why the US has the lowest life expectancy among high income developed countries, and Americans fare poorly across a broad set of ages, health conditions, and causes of death compared with their counterparts in these countries.

The second BMJ study was led by Dr. Steven Woolf, a social epidemiologist at Virginia Commonwealth University. This study examined death rates among Americans aged 25 to 64 across racial and ethnic groups between 1999 and 2016.

Previous research has shown deaths of despairfrom overdoses, alcoholism and suicideswere the main drivers over the past decade and a half of an increase in mortality among middle-aged Americans. However, Woolfs research also found a significant increase in deaths of heart, lung and other organ diseases, as well as from mental and behavioral disorders. Woolf said in a statement released by the BMJ: The opioid epidemic is the tip of an iceberg.

The researchers found that between 1999 and 2016, midlife all-cause mortality in the US increased by a statistically significant 5.6 percent among non-Hispanic whites. All-cause mortality rates showed a decline during the first half of this time period: declining until 2009 among Non-Hispanic American Indians and Pacific Islanders; until 2010 among non-Hispanic blacks, until 2011 among Hispanics, and until 2012 among non-Hispanic whites.

These mortality rates then began to plateau or increase among all groups. The progress made in reducing midlife mortality from heart disease, cancer, HIV and other diseases was offset by statistically significant increases in deaths from external causes: drug overdoses, alcohol poisoning, suicides and a variety of organ diseases.

Woolfs team notes: The unfavorable mortality pattern that began for some groups in the 1990s is now unfolding among Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks, a development made more consequential by the fact that Hispanics and blacks have had higher death rates to begin with.

The researchers also found that the gender gap is narrowing. While middle-aged men still have higher overall death rates than middle-aged women, the relative increase from fatal drug overdoses and suicides was higher among women.

Research on life expectancy has focused recently on white mortality in depressed rural areas. However, the BMJ study documents that non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics experienced the largest proportional increases in drug overdose deaths in suburban fringe areas, while the largest increases for non-Hispanic blacks occurred in small cities. American Indians and Alaska natives living in metropolitan areas experienced a larger relative increase in suicides than those in rural areas.

The researchers warn that the increasing death rate among middle-aged Americans signals a systemic cause and warrants prompt action by policy makers to tackle the factors responsible for declining health in the US. The authors of the first BMJ study correctly note that it is possible that greater inequality within a country renders that country more vulnerable to declines in life expectancy.

They suggest that solutions to the drug overdose epidemic could include better prescription drug monitoring programs, expanding access to substance misuse treatments, establishing supervised injection centers and needle-exchange programs, and increasing the availability of naloxone to counter overdoses.

The researchers also say corrective social policies should address the underlying social and economic conditions that may underpin drug use. It is precisely these underlying conditions that have worsened under successive US administrations and through a bipartisan assault on social programs upon which millions of workers and their families depend.

Cash welfare assistance was all but eliminated under Bill Clinton. Cuts to food stamps, intensified under the Obama administration, have continued under Donald Trump. The current president, while declaring the opioid epidemic a public health emergency, has allocated no new funding to the states to address the crisis.

It is notable that the first BMJ study found that between 2010 and 2016 life expectancy in the US stagnated and decreased, while other high-income countries saw modest but steady increases. In the wake of the Great Recession, the working class continued to see its living conditions worsen while the two big business parties bailed out the banks and the super-rich continued to pad their bank accounts at the expense of the vast majority.

While new declining US life expectancy rates should sound the alarm bells, no such response has been elicited from the White House or Congress. They remained similarly silent at the recent release of a CDC report that estimated 72,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2017 in the US.

Life expectancy is one of the most important measures of the social health of society. An increase in mortality ratesunheard of in modern times except from disease epidemics or world waris a warning to the working class that it must develop a socialist response to this health emergency.

The hundreds of billions of dollars allocated to the US military for its myriad wars must be diverted to fund rehabilitation centers, mental health centers, and hospitals and clinics utilizing the latest scientific methods and treatments. The wealth of the pharmaceutical corporations, giant hospital chains and private insurance companies should be expropriated and placed under workers control. A socialized health care system must be established that provides free health care of the highest quality for all.
Seventy-eight years ago, on August 21, 1940, Leon Trotsky died in Mexico City of wounds inflicted the previous day by Ramon Mercader del Rio, an agent of the Soviet Stalinist secret police, the GPU.

The assassination of Trotskythe co-leader with Lenin of the Russian Revolution, commander of the Red Army and founder of the Fourth Internationalwas a monstrous political crime. It was the pinnacle of a wave of violent counterrevolution that included the coming to power of fascism in Germany in 1933, the defeat of the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39, and the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

Within the Soviet Union, a campaign of political genocide was carried out by the Stalinist regime against workers and intellectuals trained in the Marxist tradition, including nearly all the principal leaders of the Russian Revolution. Over 800,000 people were murdered in the Great Terror of 1936-39. As Trotsky wrote in the 1937 essay Stalinism and Bolshevism: The present purge draws between Bolshevism and Stalinism not simply a bloody line but a whole river of blood.

Trotsky led the political movement that opposed the bureaucratic and nationalist degeneration of the Soviet Union. Trotskys struggle against Stalin was not, as countless historians have falsely argued, motivated by subjective ambition for personal power. Rather, the struggle reflected two diametrically opposed political perspectives.

Stalins consolidation of power in the Soviet Union, facilitated by the death of Lenin in 1924, was a usurpation of power by a nationalist and conservative bureaucratic caste that emerged within the framework of an economically backward and internationally isolated workers state. The Stalinist theory of socialism in one country, first proposed in 1924, repudiated the internationalist perspective of the Russian Revolution and justified the subordination of the world revolution to the interests of the bureaucratic apparatus in the Soviet Union.

The Left Opposition, which Trotsky initiated in 1923, and the Fourth International, which he founded in 1938, were guided by the theory of permanent revolution, which was the theoretical basis of the Russian Revolution itself. The establishment of a genuinely socialist society, Trotsky insisted, was not possible in one country. The overthrow of a national capitalist government could only begin the process of the transition to socialism. This historical law was all the more inescapable in an economically backward country. The realization of socialism in the Soviet Union required the overthrow of capitalism by the working class in the advanced countries of Western Europe and North America.

Living in exile in Mexico City, Trotsky understood that his life was under continuous threat. His refuge in the North American country followed his expulsion from the Russian Communist Party in November 1927, his exile to Alma Ata in January 1928, his expulsion from the Soviet Union in 1929 and his flight from Turkey to France and Norway, and then to his final home in Mexico in 1937.

By 1940, Stalin had murdered many leading representatives of the Fourth International, including Trotskys political secretary Erwin Wolf in July 1937, the GPU defector and supporter of the Fourth International Ignace Reiss in September 1937, Trotskys son Leon Sedov in February 1938, and secretary of the Fourth International Rudolf Klement in July 1938, on the eve of the founding congress.

On May 24, 1940, an assassination squad headed by the arch-Stalinist painter David Siqueiros launched an attack on Trotskys home, using machine guns to spray bullets into the bedroom where Trotsky and his wife, Natalia Sedova, were sleeping. While both escaped with their lives, Trotsky knew it would not be the last attempt. Following the attack, he wrote, I live on this earth not in accordance with the rule but as an exception to the rule. In a reactionary epoch such as ours, a revolutionist is compelled to swim against the stream.

Then, on August 20, as the attention of the world was focused on the Second World War, Stalins assassin dealt the final blow that felled the greatest living Marxist and strategist of world revolution.

Despite the tragic and far-reaching consequences of Trotskys assassination, the crime was not seriously investigated until the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) launched the Security and the Fourth International investigation in 1975.

The Security and the Fourth International investigation produced a series of revelations proving that the assassination of Trotsky and his supporters was orchestrated through a global network of spies and assassins who infiltrated the Trotskyist movement. These included Mark Zborowski, Robert Sheldon Harte, Floyd Cleveland Miller, Sylvia Callen and Joseph Hansen.

Callen was the personal secretary of Socialist Workers Party leader James P. Cannon, a position she used to provide crucial information to the GPU on Trotskys activities (see: An Exemplary Comrade: The Socialist Workers Partys 40-year-long cover-up of Stalinist spy Sylvia Callen). Hansen was one of Trotskys secretaries in Mexico City, a position that allowed him to make critical decisions that facilitated the plot against Trotskys life.

The failure to investigate this crime had the impact of not only covering up for those who were involved in its commission, but also of undermining an understanding of the nature of the Stalinist counterrevolution. This cover-up was motivated above all by political interests. In 1953, the Fourth International was split by a pro-Stalinist faction led by Michel Pablo and Ernest Mandel. While still attempting to present themselves as Trotskyists, the Pabloites promoted the revisionist theory that the Stalinist bureaucracy could be pressured to carry out revolutionary policies.

This political orientation to Stalinism was accompanied by rabid hostility to any effort to expose its crimes. As the ICFIs investigation exposed the network of GPU agents who had penetrated the Fourth International and uncovered evidence of previously unknown relations maintained by Hansen with both the GPU and the FBI, the Pabloites responded with an international campaign of slander. They rejected out of hand the call by the ICFI for the formation of a parity commissionconsisting of an equal number of representatives from the ICFI and the international Pabloite organizationto examine the evidence discovered by the International Committee.

On January 14, 1977, the Pabloite United Secretariat organized a public rally to denounce Security and the Fourth International and Gerry Healy, who was then the leader of the British section of the International Committee. For two hours, leading Pabloites and their alliesincluding Ernest Mandel, George Novack, Pierre Lambert and Tariq Aliscreamed insults and invectives from the speakers podium. But not one of them referred to the evidence that had been published by the International Committee.

When Gerry Healy, the principal target of the tirades, rose from the audience to answer the denunciations and repeat the ICFIs call for a parity committee, Tariq Ali, the chairperson of the proceedings, ruled him out of order and refused to allow him to speak. It should be noted that Ali was to become a fervent admirer of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, and he repudiated any association with Trotskyism decades ago.

The evidence uncovered by the Security and the Fourth International investigation has been completely substantiated. But to this day, the remnants of the Pabloite parties and their leaders have never acknowledged that the attack on the International Committee was slanderous.

For the ICFI, the Security and the Fourth International investigation was not only a question of exposing state agents. It was essential to clarifying fundamental political questions related to the counterrevolutionary character of the Stalinist bureaucracy and the capitalist state. It was inextricably connected to the fight against Pabloite revisionism and all efforts to cover over the crimes of Stalinism.

Its great achievement was to uncover previously unknown facts about the mechanisms and extent of the Stalinist conspiracy and to educate the Trotskyist cadre in the historical experiences of the movement, the character of Stalinism and the role of Pabloite revisionism.

To a new generation of workers and youth politicized in an era of mass state surveillance and police repression, protecting the independence of the workers movement in both physical and political terms is a matter of life or death. They will find in the Security and the Fourth International investigation crucial political lessons for the defense of the workers and socialist movement against the agencies of the capitalist state.

The Security and the Fourth International investigation is a critical part of the revolutionary heritage of the International Committee. It was the only organization prepared to wage a struggle to expose the crimes of the GPU at a time when the Stalinist regimes still held state power and exercised immense political influence. It proved in practice that the ICFI adhered to the principles of Trotskyism and was uncompromising in its struggle against imperialism and all of its political agencies.

On this day, the seventy-eighth anniversary of Trotskys death, the International Committee pays tribute to the memory of this extraordinary revolutionist as it carries forward the fight for the principles and program of world socialism to which Trotsky dedicated his life.
Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind is an HBO feature documentary directed by Marina Zenovich (Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, 2008). The film opens with a voice-over by Williams over a blackened screen: Ladies and gentlemen, its time to pump neurons, we are about to enter the domain of the human mind.

For the next 99 minutes, Zenovich attempts to live up to that promiseor forewarning. She succeeds for the most part, but the task of placing this particular mind in its broader context proves more difficult.

Robin Williams

Robin Williams (19512014) was an exceptional comic whose ability to create personalities and move among them seemed at times almost supernatural. He contained within himself an apparently infinite number of human types.

His career spanned nearly four decades, from the late 1970s until his death four years ago. This was a tumultuous period, but not an easy one for artists. For historical and ideological reasons, its immense contradictions were not readily accessible even to sensitive artists.

It is disappointing, but not surprising, that Zenovich shies away from the complexities of the epoch, including the ones that must have helped undermine Williams psychological state. As the WSWS wrote at the time of his death: One cannot avoid the conclusion that an artist of Robin Williams caliber was especially vulnerable to the blows delivered relentlessly by the existing social setupwith its endless glorification of all that is base and rotten (that is, its adulation of the rich and their values)to a human beings innate sense of decency. The fate of Robin Williamsfor all its poignancyis a highly visible manifestation of the extreme distress in which so many millions of Americans live.

As the movie explains, Williams was born in Chicago. His mother, whom he describes as a comedy maven, was a former model originally from Mississippi, and his father a senior executive for Ford Motor Company, responsible for the Midwest region. Both he and his father were fans of iconic comedian Jonathan Winters, whose rapid transformations into multiple characters Williams would come to mimic.

Williams family moved to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, an affluent suburb, when he was a child, and he attended Detroit Country Day School. Later, the family relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Williams would reside for most of the rest of his life.

In 1973, he began studying acting at the Juilliard School in New York City, where he and Christopher Reeve were the two students accepted into the Advanced Program by famed producer-director John Houseman. (In one of the movies many video clips, Williams is shown flying his baby son around the room during the latters christening in homage to the infants godfather, Reeve, best known for his role as Superman.)

Williams left Juilliard in 1976. Two years later, he appeared in an episode of Happy Days as Mork from Ork and the instant and immense popularity of the character led to Mork & Mindy, which ran for four seasons.

Williams was at his best outside the framework of situation comedy or formulaic Hollywood filmmaking. In Zenovichs film, we see him describing his improvisational method as the instant meshing with the audience. Its like sex without the guilt. He further explains that a character can be a comic actor more than a comedian. I dont tell jokes. I just use characters as a vehicle for me, but I seldom just talk as myself. And later in the film: Theres a real incredible rush, I think, when you find something new and spontaneous. I think your brain rewards that with a little bit of endorphins going.

Robin Williams and Billy Crystal

In the course of Come Inside My Mind, comics such as Eric Idle (Monty Python) and Billy Crystal pay moving tributes. Comic and talk show host David Letterman observes: In my head, my first sight of him was that he could fly because of thethe energy. It was like observing an experiment. Something specialWe knew that whatever it was Robin was doing, we werent gonna get close to that.

One of his writers, Bennett Tramer, explains that being a writer for Robins standup is like being a pinch hitter for Barry Bonds. Youre not necessarily needed, except for special circumstances. But its interesting to see how he would build a bit. He had a lightning-fast mind, but it wasnt like everything he did came to him that night. There was real work and preparation. There was a real thoughtful, analytical process behind it. It probably took him longer to explain it to me than coming together in his mind.

The feverish approach and the need to maintain it took their toll. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Williams became a cocaine addict. The tragic death of fellow comic and actor John Belushi from a drug overdose in 1982 impelled Williams to quit, but he spent a lifetime fighting various addictions.

One commentator states that: He just didnt operate like normal people. He was very vulnerable thats for sure. He held onto a lot of things and internalized a lot of things. He felt everything.

Close friend Crystal notes: He needed that little extra hug that you can only get from strangers. Its a very powerful thing for a lot of comedians. That laugh is ais a drug. That acceptance ... that thrill is really hard to replace with anything else.

Only a few of Williams comedy bits can be reproduced in this review, as his physical performance and vocal delivery were, in most cases, at the heart of the performance:

Yes, God made babies cute, so you dont eat them. How many people do you know that you would let shit on you, piss on you, keep you up all fucking night? They wake up at five oclock in the morning, and I dont know what drug they are onis there some sort of Fisher-Price cocaine...?

A woman would never make a nuclear weapon. They would never make a bomb that kills you. Theyd make a bomb that makes you feel bad for a while. See? Itd be a whole other thing. Thats why there should be a woman president. Dont you see? Thatd be a wonderful thing. Be an incredible time for that. There would never be any wars, just, every 28 days, some intense negotiations.

In 1986, Williams teamed up with Whoopi Goldberg and Crystal to found Comic Relief USA, an annual HBO benefit to raise money for homelessness. And in 1988, he appeared with Steve Martin in an off-Broadway production at New Yorks Lincoln Center of Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot.

Poster for Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind

At the 2003 Critics Choice Awards, Williams was nominated, along with Daniel Day-Lewis and Jack Nicholson, for the Best Actor award (for One Hour Photo). Day-Lewis and Nicholson won in a tie. Williams was then invited on the stage to speak: Thank you. I want to thank Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis for giving me this piece of paper. Has their names on it, not mine. And Im glad to be left out of this incredible group. I want to thank Jack forhe is, to me, the greatest actor, and Daniel Day-Lewis, the greatest actor. And...Im just a hairy actor. And its been a wonderful evening for me toto walk away with nothing. Coming here with no expectations, leaving here with no expectations...its pretty much been a Buddhist evening for me. Thank you.

Williams son Zak lovingly says: His pathos was seeking to entertain and please. And he felt when he wasnt doing that, he was not succeeding as a person. And that was always hard to see because in so many senses, he is the most successful person I know and yet he didnt always feel that.

Come Inside My Mind treats Robin Williams explosive comedy as well as his darker side, but largely ignores the social circumstances in which he matured and worked. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was not possible to be in New York City and San Francisco and not absorb something of the epochs radicalism. The receding of that radical, free-spirited wave had consequences for artists like Williams, whether he was aware of them or not. He was somehow stranded, brilliantly isolated, attempting single-handedly through his routines to make up for the increasing coldness and selfishness of the times.

The disappointments and retrogression of the 1980s and 1990s, at the height of Williams popularity, had to affect his art and emotional condition. There is a slightly hysterical and desperate side to his comedy, fueled at times by drugs and alcohol.

To one extent or another, at considerable cost, he accommodated himself to the ethos of the eraif only to the degree of never commenting on it. (Other than in a few jokes, such as, I believe that cocaine is Gods way of saying, Youre making too much money.) The Wall Street madness, the eruption of militarism, the devastation of industries and cities such as Detroit and Chicago never entered into his comedy.

Williams: Theres all these drugsZoloft, Prozac. I want to have one drug encompassing it all. Call it Fukitol. I dont feel anything. I dont want to do anythingFukitol. The closest thing to a coma youll ever be.

At one moment in Come Inside My Mind, Williams reveals: I did three years of just insane shit... just getting worse and worse and worse. We have these things called blackouts as alcoholics. Its not really blackouts. Its more like sleepwalking with activities. Kind of strange. I believe its your conscience going into a witness protection programAs an alcoholic, you will violate your standards quicker than you could lower them. You will do shit that even the devil would go, Dude!

Charlie Chaplin captured in indelibly comic images the central dilemmas of his historical moment. Williams movies, through no fault of his own, were made during the weakest period in Hollywoods history up to that point. With a few exceptions and despite a number of marvelous moments, his films were often marred by sentimentality and family values. The best known include Popeye (Robert Altman, 1980), The World According to Garp (George Roy Hill, 1982), Moscow on the Hudson (Paul Mazursky, 1984), Good Morning, Vietnam (Barry Levinson, 1987), Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir, 1989), Awakenings (Penny Marshall, 1990), The Fisher King (Terry Gilliam, 1991), Mrs. Doubtfire (Chris Columbus, 1993), The Birdcage (Mike Nichols, 1996) and Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant, 1997).

Whatever Williams may have thought he was doing, his numerous appearances before the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan helped lend credibility to those neo-colonial wars. In 2005, Williams told USA Today, Im there for (the troops), not for W, referring to President George W. Bush. Nonetheless, it is not a healthy legacy.

Come Inside My Mind does not attempt to offer an explanation for his suicide. It registers his death as a sad event that greatly affected large numbers of people, including fellow performers.

Robin Williams

Williams, as the WSWS wrote, had a manic delivery and his obsessive desire to please or win over an audience, which seemed to know no bounds or restraints, suggested a fragile mental state. One had to wonder what life was like offstage, if there ever were such a thing, for such a personality. How could he possibly be satisfied with everyday life, everyday conversation? In the Zenovich documentary, comic Lewis Black asserts that Williams was like the light that never knew how to turn itself off.

His obvious and highly amused sense of the weirdness and complexity of the world made his comedy initially hum with life. This sustained him for decades, but was finally beaten out of him by a combination of career disappointments, social and political disappointments, and severe physical ailments.

Youve got to be crazy. Its too late to be sane. Too late. Youve got to go full-tilt bozo cause youre only given a little spark of madness, and if you lose that...youre nothing. Note, from me to you...Dont ever lose that, cause it keeps you alive.

At another moment, he was more optimistic: And thats whats exciting, the idea you could explore creativity at any price is likethis is what were kind of dealing with as artists, comedians, writers, actors. Youre going to come to the edge, youre going to look over, and sometimes youre going to step over the edge, and then youre going to come back, hopefully.

The author also recommends:

Robin Williams, Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzVOrjxPPA4
The WSWS UPS Workers Newsletter urges workers who want assistance in forming rank-and-file committees to contact us today.

Opposition is growing among UPS workers to the contract being pushed by the Teamsters union. A meeting of Teamsters Local 542 in southern California erupted in anger on Sunday, as UPS workers denounced the sellout contract.

The proposed agreement creates a new, lower-paid tier of hybrid driver and warehouse workers, aimed at cutting labor costs and extending part-time conditions to delivery. It maintains poverty wages for part-time warehouse workers, who make up the majority of the companys 250,000 workers.

Western Region Small Package Division Director Andy Marshall presented the concessions contract to a room of over 100 UPS workers. He speedily read long sections of the contract, insisting that any questions be relevant to the section he was reviewing. He repeatedly declared, This was the best we could get.

Workers, frustrated by this insulting process, repeatedly interrupted Marshall. This contract isnt good enough, one worker interjected. We know how much were worth. We know we are building a behemoth, and we should be compensated.

Hailing the supposed generosity of UPS management, Marshall claimed UPS would spend half its $6 billion in profits on wages and benefits under the proposed contract. In a perfect world, workers would get it all, he declared, but when I was a kid, I also wanted a pony. When workers raised concerns about workplace grievances, Marshall told them to file a complaintto which the workers replied that they had, but it went nowhere.

Marshall said references to poverty wages for part-timerswho make up 70 percent of UPS workforce and are paid as little as $10 per hourwere subjective. He added that claims that the 9.5 system is broken are subjective too, because its always gonna be broken. The 9.5 system supposedly protects workers from excessive overtime, but it actually does nothing to prevent UPS from forcing drivers to work up to 12- to 14-hour days.

Marshall declared contemptuously that the contract before workers was the best in the whole country and that nowhere else offers this kind of benefits package. He defended the widely-hated tier system, declaring thats the way it is, and the company needs to compete on the market.

It is impossible to distinguish such statements, demanding that workers accept concessions to boost their employers bottom line, from those of UPS executives. This is, in fact, the function of the Teamsters: as a labor management arm of UPS, it provides a supply of cheap labor by suppressing strikes and opposition of workers to the destruction of their conditions.

The Teamsters is consciously seeking to pit younger workers against older workers. When Marshall noted that health care costs for retirees would remain at $150 for individuals and $300 for their families, a discussion broke out among workers about putting money aside from each paycheck to cover retired workers health care costs.

Marshall responded by claiming this was not possible, before demanding that workers decide if the contract was good for them on an individual basis. A worker yelled out in response: Youre telling us to vote for ourselves, but excuse me if I like to think of other people!

Aware of the widespread sentiment for strike action, Marshall proceeded to issue a series of threats directed against workers considering striking.

Ask yourself a question, he declared. Did you put money aside to be able to stay out? The last strike [in 1997] was 16 days If we go on strike, you have to ask yourself how long you can afford to stay out there and what were going to accomplish out there. This amounts to a declaration that the union will sabotage any strike and refuse to use the $160 million strike fundpaid for by workers dues.

Marshall then threatened that workers would lose health benefits for themselves and their families in the event of a strike. You have to have one minute of time on the clock [each week] in order for UPS to make a [health care] contribution, he said. No one is going to be without health insurance unless this strike goes for a huge amount of time. The trouble is, you get into week number three and you have an emergency in your family, and you have to go back and pay all three weeks of COBRA [a supplemental insurance costing approximately $400/week].

He declared that workers could vote in the electronic contract ballot as many times as you want and that only the last vote counts. The Teamsters is clearly counting on a protracted campaign to intimidate workers into accepting the contract up to the last minute. Marshall concluded by demanding that workers vote based on what is good for you and your family.

The WSWS UPS Workers Newsletter spoke to workers as they left the meeting.

Manny, a veteran driver, said that Teamsters officials told him he may be unable to vote because he is receiving workers compensation. Now they are telling me I might not be able to vote, he said. Why am I any different if I got injured? Ive been paying dues for years.

Theyre trying to stop us from striking, he said. He [Marshall] is up there scaring people, telling them you need to have hours on the books for that week to qualify for insurance. That is part of making sure the strike doesnt last longer than a week. Thats why he says you need to decide for you and your families, and not you need to decide for your brothers about whats best for the contract.

Why not make them all full-time jobs, give everyone a raise and a full-time position and take away the 22.4s [hybrid roles]? I cant believe he can get up there and talk like that in a union hall! We should be looking out for our brothers and sisters!

Jonah, a young part-time worker who was in a group with Manny, added that older workers whove been here for decades tell us how much better they used to have it, but we dont know any better because we never had it to begin with. Management takes away benefits slowly, over generations.

You need to look at it long term, because they are simply going to take away a little and little each time, he said. Its just like anything else such as your rights. They take away your rights, and thats what your kids will have to deal with. They never will know what they lost, because they never had it to begin with.

The whole world is watching us, Manny responded. UPS sets the bar for other industries and what they can get away with.

Jonah agreed: UPS is the largest contract for Teamsters so whatever we agree on theyll use that against other members in other industries, even places like McDonalds. As soon as we submit to something like that, that isnt a fair contract, then everyone else is going to follow suit... This is a real big fight right here, and we need to lead by example.

It is impossible for UPS workers to conduct a fight so long as leadership of the struggle remains in the hands of the pro-corporate organization of scabs known as the Teamsters. The WSWS UPS Workers Newsletter urges UPS workers to elect rank-and-file committees in the warehouses and hubs to take the struggle into their own hands. These committees should link up with UPS workers in other hubs, prepare demands as the basis for a nationwide strike, and link up with other logistics workersAmazon, USPS, and FedEx, to organize a united fight.
Iran is a republic in Asia, sharing a border with seven countries: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey and Turkmenistan. It has been officially known as the Islamic Republic of Iran since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.

About Iran:

(from the CIA World Factbook)

Area: 1,648,195 sq km, slightly smaller than Alaska

Business, economy and trade Crime, law enforcement and corrections Criminal offenses Elections and campaigns Embargoes and sanctions Embassies and consulates Energy and utilities Hassan Rouhani Hostage taking International relations International trade International trade law Iran Iran nuclear development Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Middle East Middle East and North Africa Oil and gas industry Politics Protests and demonstrations Ruhollah Khomeini State departments and diplomatic services Tehran Trade and development Trade regulation and policy Business and industry sectors Crimes against persons Government and public administration Government bodies and offices International relations and national security Nontariff barriers Political Figures - Intl Nuclear energy Fast Facts Civil unrest Unrest, conflicts and war Continents and regions Government departments and authorities Political Figures - US US federal government Military Civil disobedience Society Exports and imports

Population: 82,021,564 (July 2017 est.)

Median Age: 30.3 years

Capital: Tehran

Ethnic Groups: Persian, Azeri, Kurd, Lur, Baloch, Arab, Turkmen and Turkic tribes

Religion: Muslim (official) 99.4% (Shia 90-95%, Sunni 5-10%), other (includes Zoroastrian, Jewish and Christian) 0.3%, unspecified 0.4% (2011 est.)

GDP (purchasing power parity): $1.645 trillion (2017 est.)

GDP per capita: $20,200 (2017 est.)

Unemployment: 12.4% (2017 est.)

Other Facts:

Before the 1930s, Iran was known as Persia to outsiders.

Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic relations since 1980.

Officially designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the US government.

Timeline:

1921 - Officer Reza Khan stages a coup and takes control of the military.

1925 - Khan has himself crowned Reza Shah Pahlavi.

1939 - During World War II, Reza Shah aligns Iran with Nazi Germany.

1941 - Allied forces invade Iran and force Reza Shah to abdicate in favor of his 21-year-old son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

1951 - Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq orchestrates passage of a bill in Iran's parliament which nationalizes British oil fields in Iran.

1953 - The Shah is forced to abdicate by the supporters of Mosaddeq. However, within days, Great Britain and the United States back a coup that returns the Shah to power.

1963 - The Shah forces cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a critic of his modernization plans, into exile.

October 1971 - The Shah hosts an elaborate party, costing tens of millions of dollars, to celebrate the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire.

January 16, 1979 - After months of riots, protests and unrest, the Shah leaves Iran for what is described as a vacation, but is generally understood to be permanent exile.

February 1, 1979 - Khomeini returns to Iran from exile in France. After his supporters overthrow the government of Premier Shahpur Bakhtiar, Khomeini becomes the Supreme Leader of Iran.

April 1, 1979 - The country is renamed the Islamic Republic of Iran.

October 22, 1979 - The Shah arrives in the United States for treatment of lymphatic cancer.

November 4, 1979 - Iranian revolutionaries seize control of the US embassy in Tehran and take 66 embassy workers hostage. They demand the extradition of the Shah from the United States in exchange for the hostages. Thirteen of the hostages are released within two weeks, and one is released later for medical reasons. The other 52 spend a total of 444 days in captivity.

April 1980 - An attempt by US airborne forces to rescue the hostages fails, killing eight service members.

July 27, 1980 - The Shah dies in Cairo, Egypt.

September 22, 1980 - Iraq invades Iran, starting an eight-year war. Hundreds of thousands of people are killed on both sides. The war ends in 1988 in a cease-fire, with no clear victor. A formal peace agreement is signed in August 1990.

January 20, 1981 - The remaining 52 US hostages are released.

June 3, 1989 - Khomeini dies.

June 1989 - Seyyed Ali Khamenei becomes Supreme Leader of Iran.

July 28, 1989 - Hashemi Rafsanjani is elected president of Iran.

May 1997 - Mohammad Khatami, a reformist, is elected to the office of president.

June 2001 - Khatami is re-elected as president of Iran.

November 2003 - The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran has been secretly manufacturing small amounts of uranium and plutonium for two decades.

June 2005 - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, mayor of Tehran, is elected president of Iran.

June 12, 2009 - In a highly controversial election, Ahmadinejad wins re-election with 62.63% of the vote, according to Iranian government sources. His nearest rival, Mir Hossein Moussavi, receives 33.75% of the vote.

June 2009 - Demonstrations take place in Tehran, protesting the outcome of the election. Dozens of people are reported killed.

June 30, 2009 - Despite widespread unrest the re-election of Ahmadinejad is formally certified by the Council of Guardians.

August 5, 2009 - Ahmadinejad is sworn in for a second term.

February 13, 2011 - In reaction to the anti-government protests spreading throughout the Arab world, demonstrations break out in major Iranian cities and are met with reportedly brutal force by security officers.

February 22, 2011 - Two Iranian warships pass through the Suez Canal, the first such ships to sail through the canal since the 1979 revolution.

November 29, 2011 - Hundreds of Iranian protesters storm Great Britain's embassy and a separate diplomatic compound in Tehran. The next day, Great Britain evacuates all embassy staff in Iran and orders that Iran immediately close its embassy in London.

December 1, 2011 - European Union foreign ministers agree to impose sanctions on Iranian firms and individuals in response to protesters storming the British Embassy in Tehran. Italy withdraws its ambassador.

December 1, 2011 - The US Senate passes economic sanctions against Iran.

January 23, 2012 - The European Union announces it will ban the import of Iranian crude oil and petroleum products.

February 19, 2012 - Iran's oil ministry says that it has suspended crude exports to British and French companies, days after Iran threatened to cut oil exports to some European Union countries in retaliation for sanctions.

March 30, 2012 - President Barack Obama announces that the United States will implement previously announced sanctions that could significantly cut sales of Iranian oil.

July 1, 2012 - The European Union embargo on Iranian oil takes effect.

October 3, 2012 - Demonstrators in Tehran begin protesting Ahmadinejad, blaming him for the rapidly falling value of Iran's currency.

June 14, 2013 - Hassan Rouhani wins the presidential election after securing 50.7% of the 36.7 million votes cast. Ahmadinejad was not eligible to run, due to term limits. Rouhani is sworn in August 4.

September 27, 2013 - Rouhani and Obama speak by phone, the first direct conversation between leaders of Iran and the United States since 1979.

November 24, 2013 - Six world powers and Iran reach a six-month agreement over Iran's nuclear program. The deal calls on Iran to limit its nuclear activities in return for lighter sanctions.

November 24, 2014 - The deadline for a final nuclear agreement between Iran and the UN Security Council's P5+1 countries (the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany) has been set for July 1, 2015.

April 2, 2015 - Negotiators from Iran, the United States, China, Germany, France, Britain and Russia reach a framework for an agreement on Iran's nuclear capabilities, which includes reducing its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%.

April 9, 2015 - Rouhani announces that Iran will only sign a final nuclear agreement if economic sanctions are lifted on the first day of implementation.

July 14, 2015 - The United States and its five partners reach a nuclear deal with Iran, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, during a final meeting in Vienna.

January 4, 2016 - Two days after the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia and an attack on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, Saudi Arabia severs diplomatic ties with Iran. United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan also sever or downgrade diplomatic ties with Iran.

January 12, 2016 - US sailors are captured by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard after their ship enters Iranian waters. They are released a day later. One of the sailors is shown apologizing in an interview on Iranian television.

January 17, 2016 - Iran releases four Americans in a prisoner swap, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, Marine veteran Amir Hekmati and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini. American student Matthew Trevithick is also released.

August 3, 2016 - US officials confirm that the Obama administration secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 million in cash on the same day Iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal. The $400 million was Iran's money, placed into a US-based trust fund to support American military equipment purchases in the 1970s. When the Shah was ousted by a 1979 popular uprising that led to the creation of the Islamic Republic, the US froze the trust fund. US officials said cash had to be flown in because existing US sanctions ban American dollars from being used in a transaction with Iran and because Iran could not access the global financial system due to international sanctions it was under at the time.

January 8, 2017 - Former President Rafsanjani dies after suffering a heart attack, Iranian state-run media says.

January 27, 2017 - US President Donald Trump bans nationals from Iran and six other Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for at least the next 90 days by executive order.

February 3, 2017 - The United States enacts new sanctions on Iran. The moves come as punishment for the country's recent test launch of a ballistic missile.

August 5, 2017 - Rouhani is sworn in for a second term.

May 8, 2018 - Trump announces he is pulling out of the nuclear deal with Iran, adding he will initiate new sanctions. "Any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States," Trump says.

September 22, 2018 - At least 29 people are killed during an attack on a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. The separatist group Patriotic Arab Democratic Movement in Ahwaz claims responsibility for the attack, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency. The separatist group says that the state media report is false, and it had no role in the attack.

September 23, 2018 - Iran's Revolutionary Guard accuses Saudi Arabia of supporting the attackers while Rouhani says US-supported foreign mercenaries were the culprits. ISIS circulates a video claiming that several of the assailants were affiliated with the terror group. Although there is uncertainty about who carried out the attack, the Revolutionary Guard pledges to track down those responsible, Iranian state media reports.

November 5, 2018 - The United States officially reimposes all sanctions lifted under 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Rouhani vowed to continue oil exports, saying Iran will "proudly break the unjust sanctions."
The United Nations nuclear watchdog agency says it has "grave concern" that North Korea continues to develop its nuclear weapons program.

A report Monday from the International Atomic Energy Agency noted that without direct access to North Korean weapons sites its information is limited, though it is monitoring the program through "more frequent collection of satellite imagery."

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The report includes a detailed list of nuclear-related activities the agency believes have been underway in recent months mainly at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, one of the country's major nuclear sites.

The IAEA report provides some of the most specific information made public so far about North Korea's activities. They include:

Indications consistent with the use of centrifuge enrichment technology at the nuclear fuel-rod fabrication plant including operation of cooling units and movement of vehicles.

Indications "consistent" with operation of the 5-megawatt experimental nuclear power plant including discharges of steam and cooling water.

Operations of a steam plant were observed that served a radiochemical laboratory associated with nuclear fuel processing.

There are also indications of ongoing mining, milling and other fuel activities at a site previously declared as a uranium mine and an associated plant.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July that the regime is still making fissile material, but he gave no other details.

Pompeo has subsequently said the US still has a long way to go in discussions with North Korea to achieve the full denuclearization the Trump administration says North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised.

On Monday US President Donald Trump said another summit with Kim would "most likely" happen but offered no details on timing or venue in an interview with Reuters.

In the interview, Trump pointed to an absence of missile or nuclear tests from Pyongyang as a measure of the success he's had in dealing with the reclusive regime, which last year was threatening the US mainland with nuclear strikes.

"I stopped (North Korea's) nuclear testing. I stopped (North Korea's) missile testing. Japan is thrilled. What's going to happen? Who knows? We're going to see," the President said.
HAMMOND, Ind. (AP)  An Indiana man who pleaded guilty to distributing information about explosives in connection with terrorist groups was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

After his prison term, 31-year-old Marlonn Hicks of Crown Point will serve three years of supervised release. The sentence was imposed Monday by U.S. District Court Judge Joseph S. Van Bokkelen.

Prosecutors alleged Hicks, who pleaded guilty in 2016, communicated online with individuals who were cooperating with the government. They say he talked about carrying out an attack in the U.S. and said he wanted to travel to territory under control of the Islamic State.

Before his sentencing, Hicks attorney read a statement by Hicks in which he claimed he is not a menace to society, adding he is a big teddy bear that got emotional.
VIGO COUNTY, Ind. (WTHI) - We have new details regarding a Friday arrest where police and federal agents seized weapons and ammunition.

A home healthcare worker claims Gary Diana threatened them while they treated him.

The nurses said they were there to treat him for foot wounds related to diabetes.

The nurses also told police Diana had numerous weapons and ammunition in the home.

On Friday, police found more than 200 weapons in the home, including one automatic weapon and three other possible automatic weapons.

They also took more than 100,000 rounds of ammunition and 100 rounds of black powder from the home.

Diana is currently in the Vigo County Jail on $100,000 bond.

Federal charges are also possible.
HUTSONVILLE, Ill. (WTHI) - It's a school-wide effort to start the year back on good terms. From the time a student steps on the bus or walks through the doors of Hustonville Schools, the day will start with positivity.

As 5th Grade Teacher Joe Stambaugh shares, "Practice respect, Accepting responsibility, Working together, and Safety first."

These are traits of Hustonville, Illinois Schools PAWS Program. It's based on a PBIS system, which focuses on rewarding the good, instead of reprimanding the bad.

Stambaugh says, "You want to acknowledge students for good behavior and doing the right thing. We really want to promote positive relationships."

Whether its helping another student pick up dropped books, being kind and not bullying, or showing up on time, the program promotes good actions all around. It's setting things up for a bright school year, and an even brighter future for students.

Superintendent Julie Kraemer says, "Helping them understand we expect you to be in the classroom ready to go when the bell rings, just like an employer expects you to be on time to start work. If we can engage those soft skills now, that will carry on and make them more employable."

Administrators and teachers at Hustonville can agree that by putting the PBIS system back in full force, they'll be able to serve the students to their best abilities.

Stambaugh shares, "Us teachers being mindful of the words we're speaking to our students and being positive about it. It's so easy to snap. We don't know what goes on at home but we do know when they walk through our doors we have a responsibility to be that light for them to be that positivity."

Superintendent Kraemer says bus drivers, secretaries, teachers, and administrators all got a refresher on the program before students returned to classes. She says while there wasnt a large discipline problem to begin with, the PBIS program did cut down on disciplinary actions significantly.
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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.
Ex-ambassador Jha found murdered; 3 suspects held

Former Ambassador of Nepal to France Keshav Raj Jha, 80, was found stabbed to death at his own residence in Babarmahal, Kathmandu, on Monday morning.
BELDEN, Miss. (WTVA) - A fire at a Belden church is nothing short of a miracle.

Someone cut through the screen of a back window of the church, and then threw a molotov cocktail through the glass, according to Pastor Joshua Hopkins. Instead of the whole church burning to flames, the fire put out itself. A storage area and its contents suffered damaged.

"That was a hot fire. It melted everything from the top down, but God just said no that fire is not going to leave that room. It's beauty," Hopkins said. "That's God working. We call it a glory sighting. That's what our church calls it when you can't comprehend what God was doing"

Tupelo police confirm officers and firefighters were called Sunday morning, to Belden United Methodist Church on Endville Road. An elder of the church was the one to smell smoke and reveal the damaged room.

Police say the fire was out when church members arrived for Sunday morning service. However, police determined the fire was of suspicious origins.

It's unclear as to when the fire actually happened. After speaking with Hopkins, he said fire officials heat tested the room, and they say it was there for a few days.

Police say they suspect arson.

The congregation of the church hopes the suspect will come forward soon.

"We have insurance, we have things that will take care of this room, what people need to pray for is the person that did this," Hopkins explains. "Because that means that person, is the farthest away from God that they can be."
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP)  Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been found guilty of eight financial crime charges in the first trial victory for special counsel Robert Mueller's team.

A judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict.

The jury deliberated for four days before announcing the verdict at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia.

Prosecutors spent more than two weeks presenting their case as they sought to prove Manafort concealed millions of dollars in offshore accounts from the IRS.
TISHOMINGO COUNTY, Miss. (WTVA) - Tishomingo County deputies were led on a short chase over the weekend before arresting a man in possession of drugs, according to the sheriff.

It happened Saturday, August 18 on County Road 992 in the Iuka area.

Sheriff John Daugherty said deputies were conducting a safety check-point when a pickup truck pulled up and deputies noticed a pipe (one that is commonly used to smoke methamphetamine) in plain view.

Daugherty said the driver, Billy Don Hall, 35, of Dennis, sped off when deputies confronted him. Deputies chased Hall until he finally pulled over to the side of the road and deputies were able to arrest him.

Daugherty said deputies noticed Hall had attempted to throw away "some alleged bags of methamphetamine, but the bags were all recovered by deputies." Deputies also discovered a firearm in the vehicle.

Deputies found out Hall is currently on probation with the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) for a previous felony drug crime.

Hall has been charged with felony tampering with evidence, felony possession of controlled substance with intent to sell, possession of a firearm by convicted felon and felony fleeing.

Hall sits at the Tishomingo County jail, and he waits for a bond to be set.

The MDOC has placed a "hold" on Hall as well.
PRENTISS COUNTY, Miss. (WTVA) - A Booneville man has been arrested after deputies found methamphetamine in his possession, according to the Prentiss County sheriff.

John Durrell Brumley, 46, was arrested Tuesday night, August 14 after a traffic stop on Highway 4 West, according to Sheriff Randy Tolar.

Tolar said Brumley was charged with felony possession of controlled substance and numerous misdemeanor traffic offenses, as well as misdemeanor possession of paraphernalia.

Brumley's bond was set at $7,500 on the felony drug charge and $3,500 on the misdemeanor charges.
Harsh action sought for rape convicts

Nepals #RageAgainstRape movement takes the centre stage once again as activists demandboth on the streets and on social mediaharsh legal measures against rape convicts.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A fired, former Tallahassee Police officer is giving his side of the story.

A media conference is being held Tuesday night disputing TPD's decision to terminate Damien Pearson for shooting at a car that tried to run him over.

The Big Bend Police Benevolent Association's headquarters on East Brevard Street, the association's president, Officer Damien Pearson and his lawyers will be talking about that shooting earlier this year.

According to TPD, Pearson was approaching a suspicious car when the driver hit him and sped off. Pearson tried to stop the driver by shooting at the vehicle.

State Attorney Jack Campbell says it didn't violate Florida law, but TPD fired Pearson anyway, saying he did violate the department's deadly force guidelines.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A judge has agreed to let a suspect in the hazing death of Florida State University fraternity pledge Andrew Coffey move to California for a job opportunity.

A judge has agreed to let Clayton Muelhstein, a suspect in the hazing death of Florida State University fraternity pledge Andrew Coffey, move to San Francisco.

He has accepted a job in the San Francisco area, court documents say, and will remain on bond there and follow the same conditions set here, which includes wearing a SCRAM unit to monitor any alcohol use.

According to court documents, State Attorney Jack Campbell had no objection to the request made by Muelhstein's attorney.

Campbell explained that Muehlhstein is out on bond and has not been convicted of anything, so there's no real reason to keep him here in Tallahassee. He says he's showed up to every court hearing on time, is not a flight risk, and would not pose no increase in potential danger to any place he decides to move.

Muehlhstein was in the headlines in back April when his bond was revoked following a drunken bar fight at the Tenn Night Club.

Investigators determined that he was under the influence of alcohol during the incident and contacted his pretrial officer. He wasn't arrested, but was issued a trespass warning.

A judge later agreed to set a new $5,000 bond for Muelhstein.

He is one of four Pi Kappa Phi fraternity brothers seeking a jury trial for charges in Coffeys death back in November 2017. Five other fraternity members were behind bars after accepting plea deals, avoiding trial and the felony charge.

His next court hearing is scheduled for February 1, 2019.

The hazing cases for Anthony Petagine, Anthony Oppenheimer and Luke Kluttz are all on hold to while the First District Court of Appeals reviews them.
LIVE OAK, Fla. (WTXL) - A local mother is concerned about the way the Suwanee County School District is punishing her child after an incident last week.

11-year-old Aeris Thomas was only in the 6th grade at Suwannee Middle School for couple days before the new school year started to go south.

Aeris says the trouble started with a blade from a pencil sharpener. She says she was just "playing" with it when some other students saw and told an adult at the school.

"They were worried she was cutting herself or she was going to cut herself," said Jessica Rowland, Thomas' mother. "They checked her over and she didn't have any cuts. They went through all her stuff and then sent her home."

Rowland found out the next day that her daughter would be suspended.

"I asked if she threatened anybody and the officer said no. I asked if he felt like she was a threat to anybody and he said no," said Rowland. "Razor blades are considered weapons on school grounds. They're classifying the pencil sharpener blade as a razor blade."

Suwannee County Sheriff Sam St. John says they have to file charges.

"[Because of] her age and so forth, we're not wanting to hurt her at all. We've just got to follow Florida statute," said Sheriff St. John. "Any of the students can have a pencil sharpener in the schools for the intended purpose of sharpening a pencil. Once you dissect that sharpener and actually take the blade out for different purposes, that's where the issue arises."

We asked the Suwannee County School District for more information on their investigation into what happened. The superintendent declined to comment.

Rowland is worried about her daughter's future.

"To ruin her whole school record for the rest of her life... she'll never be eligible for scholarship," said Rowland. Aeris Thomas put her hand on her mother's shoulder as she started to cry.

"It's just hard. She's a good kid," said Rowland. "I don't know what needs to change; I don't know if the law needs to change, the school system, the sheriff's department. I don't know what needs to change but there's no reason for this."

Sheriff St. John says now, it's up to the state attorneys office to decide if they will move forward with charges.

Howard says the school district offered to move Thomas to an alternative school. Instead, Howard will likely home-school her.

WTXL couldn't find the Suwannee County School District's 2018 school supply list online, but last year, pencil sharpeners were listed as a required item for Suwannee Intermediate School.
WAKULLA COUNTY, Fla. (WTXL) - A Tallahassee man is facing charges for a string of gun thefts stretching across multiple Big Bend counties.

The Wakulla County Sheriff's Office says Edward James Hamilton Jr. has been charged with armed burglary, criminal mischief, grand theft of firearms, and grand theft.

Deputies say that on Aug. 16, a Crawfordville resident reported that his home had been broken into. The homeowner reported that multiple firearms, Air Jordan shoes, a flat screen television, two compound bows, various rounds of ammunition, gun magazines, and other items had been stolen from the residence.

Investigators say the victim's game camera recorded the break in suspect leaving the home in a blue Hyundai around 8:42 a.m. Eventually deputies determined the car was registered to a Tallahassee resident.

The same day detectives from WCSO, the Leon County Sheriff's Office, and the Tallahassee Police Department spoke to the owner of the Hyundai who said he had loaned the car to 'EJ,' later identified as Edward James Hamilton Jr.

Later that night, investigators searched Hamilton's apartment in Tallahassee and found property from the Crawfordville burglary as well as Hamilton's wallet containing his ID.

The blue Hyundai was towed to the WSCO impound yard so it could be searched and get its tires removed to compare them to the casting of the tire impressions at the burglary scene.

On Tuesday, Hamilton was arrested by the Gadsden County Sheriff's Office after he was found in possession of a gun reported stolen from a Leon County burglary. He was booked into the Gadsden County Jail.

WCSO detectives were able to obtain arrest warrants for Hamilton and interviewed him at the jail in Gadsden County. During the interview, deputies say he admitted to breaking into the Crawfordville home.

Due to Hamilton being booked into the Gadsden County Jail, a hold was placed on him to face the charges in Wakulla County.
THOMASVILLE, GA (WALB) - Almost 40 cars in Thomasville have been broken into in the past month. Now, the Thomasville Police Department has a suspect in custody.

For the past month, Thomasville Police Department investigators have been stumped on who has been breaking into all of the cars. From the beginning, they believed it was a multi-person operation.

With more than 40 cars broken into and multiple guns stolen, police department investigators have narrowed down the search and arrested a suspect.

"We were struggling to identify these individuals. We had several suspects in mind," said Thomasville Police Captain Maurice Holmes.

The suspect they have in custody is a juvenile.

The juvenile that has been charged is the same teen that is in a juvenile detention facility facing felony charges after speeding off from an attempted traffic stop by a Thomas County deputy.

After wrecking the stolen vehicle into a ditch, he was found hiding in a bush.

It was later revealed that there were two other kids in the car with the 16-year-old, who all have a criminal record.

"This individual has a history of doing the same type of crimes, same mode of operation, and his cohorts who we're working to identify also have a history of the same M.O.," said Holmes.

I spoke with a few community members today about what they're doing to protect themselves.

Community members said they didn't want to be interviewed but they said they never leave their car doors unlocked, or at least on purpose. Which is what Holmes said is the common denominator in each case.

But, those residents said they are constantly on the lookout for suspicious behavior in their neighborhoods, especially with all the stolen guns.

"So, you put guns in the hands of juveniles. So, that's always a reckless situation in itself so you know it's imperative that you be responsible for your guns, and make sure. It is your responsibility to make sure your vehicle is locked if you're going to leave it in the car," explained Holmes.

Holmes said the individuals they have identified will also face a criminal street gang charge, which is a felony in the state of Georgia. He added that they are working to locate some of the guns and the other individuals.

For now, police said you should always make sure your car doors are locked to help prevent yourself from becoming a victim.

Copyright 2018 WALB. All rights reserved.
Malaysia wants employersnot workersto bear recruitment cost

A new labour agreement proposed by the Malaysian government says employers will bear the cost of hiring Nepalis to work in Malaysia. The new recruitment modality comes nearly three months after Nepal barred its citizens from going to Malaysia citing their financial burden in the pre-departure phase.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 03:11:43|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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GENEVA, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) appealed on Monday for 11 million U.S. dollars in critical funding to provide life-saving health care to people in northwestern Syria where conflicts have been escalating.

Hundreds of thousands of people in parts of Aleppo, Hama, Idleb, and Lattakia governorates in northwestern Syria, many of whom have been previously displaced, may be displaced yet again, as they flee growing insecurity and violence, the WHO said, adding that the situation in Idleb is particularly dire and more than half a million people have been displaced to and within the governorate since January 2017.

Meanwhile, growing levels of crime and inter-factional fighting are adding to the insecurity, and targeted assassinations and kidnappings are on the rise.

As many internally displaced people (IDPs) are living in makeshift, overcrowded shelters with little access to health care and safe water and sanitation, the WHO warned that poor health following years of conflict makes them vulnerable to communicable diseases.

For example, rates of acute malnutrition are likely to increase, and a decline in vaccination coverage rates may lead to renewed outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio, jeopardizing the WHO's efforts to eradicate the disease worldwide.

"The health situation in northwest Syria is already dire and looks set to deteriorate. If WHO does not receive additional funding, more than two million people caught in the cross-fire may have no access to essential health care services, including life-saving trauma care," said Michel Thieren, WHO regional emergencies director. "As matters stand, over half of the country's public health care facilities have been destroyed or forced to close after years of conflict."

Facing widespread need across many parts of Syria, the humanitarian community is finding itself increasingly compromised as a gaping funding deficit for health has placed millions of vulnerable Syrians at increased risk.

To cope with the situation, the WHO said it will use any additional funds received from donors to support primary health care, childhood vaccination and trauma services in northwest Syria.

It will also strengthen referral systems to ensure that critically ill and wounded patients can be transferred to hospitals for specialized care, while facilitating medical evacuations and deliver essential life-saving and life-sustaining medicines and equipment to hospitals, clinics and mobile teams to help them treat people in need.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 03:16:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MADRID, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Spanish police on Monday confirmed the seizure of over three tons of hashish hidden in a building in La Linea de la Concepcion, south-western Spain.

The Spanish interior ministry said 3,000 kg of the drug was wrapped in 101 packets and kept in a house used to store drugs smuggled into Spain from Morocco across the Strait of Gibraltar.

The operation also led to the arrest of the person guarding the drugs.

The ministry said the operation began when the police became aware of the storehouse due to the large movement of people and vehicles known for collecting drugs brought over from North Africa in speedboats.

The police were able to identify the person who looked after the drugs and detain him after a brief chase.

The ministry said that another operation carried out in the region led to police preventing a "drop-off" of drugs shipped across the Strait of Gibraltar and seizing four high-range, four-wheel-drive vehicles, "which had been stolen from various cities across Spain", and prepared to transport drugs "from the beach to the storehouses".

The interior ministry described these operations as "a blow to the infrastructure and logistics which the gangs dedicated to drug trafficking in the Campo de Gibraltar region use".

These operations come just two days after a further seven tons of hashish were seized and 11 people were arrested in an operation in the nearby towns of Marbella and Estepona.

The south-west coast of Spain is the main gateway into Europe for hashish cultivated in Morocco and other North African countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 06:57:36|Editor: Lu Hui

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People visit the 2018 Apparel Textile Sourcing Canada Trade Show at International Center in Toronto, Canada, on Aug. 20, 2018. The annual three-day event, which kicked off on Monday, is expected to draw over 500 exhibitors and 5,000 buyers from across the world. (Xinhua/Zou Zheng)

TORONTO, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The 3rd Apparel Textile Sourcing Canada (ATSC 2018) exhibition kicked off at Toronto International Center Monday.

The three-day ATSC 2018 show is sponsored by China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Textile and Apparel (CCCT) and China's Jiangsu Trade Promotion Association.

The show covers an area of about 11,400 square meters, doubling in size from 2017 to include additional categories such as accessories, gift ware, home electronics, footwear, luggage and housewares and general merchandise.

Almost 600 booths line the show floor, featuring the latest and greatest trends and unique offerings in apparel and textile from more than 20 countries, including Canada, China, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Untied States, UK, Turkey, Switzerland, Spain, Nepal and Ukraine.

The show provides thousands of expected attendees with unprecedented networking and business opportunities with international suppliers on Canadian turf.

It is also a major feat for local businesses that are poised to benefit from making unprecedented connections and securing deals with top-rate international suppliers.

During the exhibition, more than 20 lectures and forums will be held, and world-renowned industry experts expected to explain business knowledge, fashion trends and trade trends to the audience.

Meanwhile, a three-day exhibition of Chinese brand goods also opened at the same hall of the center.

It covers an area of 3,000 square meters with 120 booths established in show hall of the international center. More than a hundred Chinese brand enterprises are showing their various products, which were highly praised by visitors.

Show managers have also announced their involvement in the first China Import EXPO, which is to take place in Shanghai on November 5-10 this year.

"This event provides an unprecedented opportunity for Canadians to introduce their brands into the Chinese market," said Jason Prescott, CEO of JP Communications, ATSC organizer and North America's leading publisher.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 07:02:37|Editor: Lu Hui

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LOS ANGELES, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The 2018 International Cultural Angel Arts Festival was held in Los Angeles, children from China, the United States, and Mexico performed a gala show to celebrate the event on Sunday night.

The Win-Win International Youth Culture and Arts Development Association, the host of the event, has been organizing various types of Sino-American youth cultural exchange programs, incorporating artistic and cultural elements to create mutual respect and understanding among its participants.

"This is the third year for us to organize the event, this year we have over 150 participants from China, the United States, and Mexico," said Susan Zhou from the association.

Hundreds of children and teenagers and their families gathered at Rosemead High School, Los Angeles, and enjoyed performances such as dancing, Chinese martial arts, and Peking Opera.

"I feel that the event here is very inspirational for a lot of kids, and I think it's a good educational program for them to get excited about doing something for their future," said one audience named Jerry.

The event also provides a chance for children and teenagers to enhance cross-cultural understanding and develop their talent on stage.

"I'm really nervous, I'm not used to be in front of crowds, but I'm really happy about it too because it helps me open up," said Alexis Guarez, who performed dancing at the show.

There are also many children who showed their musical talent by playing piano, cucurbit flute and horse head string.

Zhou Ciyin, a 17-year-old girl who has been playing violin for 13 years, said that participating in the event helps to improve her skills as well as enrich knowledge of different cultures.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 11:47:59|Editor: Xiaoxia

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Students attend a national high school graduation exam in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Aug. 20, 2018. A total of 117,061 Cambodian applicants on Monday took the national high school graduation exam, which is a prerequisite for the students to pursue their studies at university levels. (Xinhua/Phearum)
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 07:17:41|Editor: Lu Hui

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BRASILIA, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's deputy prosecutor for elections, Humberto Jacques de Medeiros, on Monday called on the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) to reject ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as a candidate in October elections.

The motion comes after Brazil's Workers' Party registered Lula as its candidate on Wednesday, despite his being behind bars, serving a 12-year prison sentence for corruption.

His request to the court cites Brazil's Clean Record Act, which bars those convicted of a crime from running for elected office.

"Indeed, the candidate is ineligible," De Medeiros argued.

The decision ultimately rests with the TSE, the nation's top electoral body.

Also Monday, a new poll showed Lula maintains a firm lead over the other 12 proposed candidates.

The polling firm MDA Institute survey shows Lula leads with 37 percent of voters, and would easily win a runoff.

Last week, the United Nations Human Rights Commission called on the Brazilian government to grant Lula the right to exercise his political rights from prison, including access to the press and members of his party.

Lula's defense team has argued that the commission's decision carries legal weight in the country and its findings should be presented before the TSE in asking that his candidacy be validated.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 07:22:42|Editor: Lu Hui

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LONDON, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Three people were shot and injured Monday night outside an underground station in north London, local police announced.

"Officers are at the scene of a shooting in #Kingsbury Road at 9:45 p.m. (2045GMT) on Monday. Not terror related. Three people taken to hospital, none believed to be life-threatening," London Metropolitan Police said on its Twitter account.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: "Police and London Ambulance Service were alerted at around 2145hrs on Monday, 20 August, to reports of shots fired in Kingsbury Road, NW9."

The police said local roads are closed and there has been no arrest so far.

London Ambulance Service confirmed three patients have been rushed to hospital with injuries.

A spokesperson said: "We were called at 9.43 to reports of an incident on Kingsbury road. We dispatched a number of resources including London Air Ambulance by road."

"Three patients were found at the scene and they were taken to hospital."

Kingsbury Tube station on the Jubilee line was shut down while the police carried out an investigation outside the station, Transport for London announced on its website.

The shooting came just hours after shots were fired outside a school in west London, Daily Mail reported.

According to the report, armed police were dispatched after witnesses reported hearing three gunshots outside the Kennet West Skills Centre.

No one was injured and no arrests were made at the earlier incident and the Metropolitan Police said it was too early to confirm whether the two incidents were related.
NEA to buy 19MW of solar electricity

The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) is diversifying its power sources by increasing the share of solar power in its energy mix.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 08:07:48|Editor: Lu Hui

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CANBERRA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has survived a challenge to his leadership from Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton on Tuesday.

Turnbull won the leadership vote 48-35, strengthening his position in the short-term but leaves the door open for future challenges.

Julie Bishop was unchallenged for the deputy leadership.

The leadership of the governing Liberal National Party (LNP) was declared vacant by Turnbull at a party room meeting in Canberra on Tuesday morning, prompting Dutton to run against the incumbent prime minister.

It came after weeks of conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) threatening to revolt against Turnbull over his signature energy policy, the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) and the 26 percent emissions reduction target embedded in the policy.

Turnbull on Monday announced that he had abandoned his plan to legislate the target as part of the NEG in an attempt to appease Dutton and his supporters.

A Fairfax-Ipsos poll published on Sunday night revealed that the LNP was set to lose the upcoming general election in a landslide with the Australian Labor Party (ALP) leading the Liberal National Party (LNP) 55-45 on two-party preferred terms.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 09:17:59|Editor: Liangyu

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UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday condemned a Boko Haram attack on a village in Nigeria's northeastern Borno State that caused heavy casualties on Sunday, said his spokesman.

Guterres called for those responsible for the violence to be swiftly brought to justice, said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman.

The UN chief expressed his deepest condolences to the bereaved families and to the government and people of Nigeria and wished a speedy recovery to the injured.

Guterres remains deeply concerned about the persisting violence in the Lake Chad Basin region, said the spokesman.

The UN chief commended national and regional initiatives to bring peace and stability to the area and to address the root causes of the conflict. He reiterated his calls on the international community to increase support to regional efforts in the fight against Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin.

Boko Haram insurgents ransacked the Mailari village in the restive Borno State on Sunday. Reports on the death toll varied from 19 to over 60.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 09:33:02|Editor: Liangyu

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CANBERRA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Northern Territory (NT) has distanced itself from the "hot, dry and masculine" image inspired by the popular film Crocodile Dundee.

NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner unveiled the territory's new branding strategy on Monday night with the goal of awakening "dormant Territorians".

The new strategy comes with the new tagline, The Territory, Boundless Possible.

Gunner said the tag line was deliberately jarring.

"I know the Territory story is about diversity, is our shared history. It's not an ambition to be diverse, we are diverse," he told reporters in Darwin on Monday night.

"We have a wonderful, fantastic, diverse history here but we don't go out and sell that. We haven't told our story. And you have to tell it."

Gunner was optimistic that the strategy would counter the NT's stalling migration rate.

A Victorian creative company the Royals Place Brand Consortium partnered with a research company McGregor Tan to develop the strategy.

According to McGregor Tan, many believed that the NT had failed to develop beyond the "isolated, hot, dry, tough and masculine" image depicted by Crocodile Dundee in 1986.

Respondents from interstate also believed the NT was "racist" and "full of crime".

McGregor Tan identified 2.8 million Australians who were willing to move the NT.

The prototypical person willing to move to the region was aged between 25-45 years who were looking to move away from stagnating careers for new opportunity.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 10:03:09|Editor: ZD

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MINSK, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Newly-appointed Belarusian Prime Minister Sergei Rumas on Monday promised to maintain the current policies, local media reported.

"We should not expect any revision of the adopted decisions or revolutionary moves," Rumas said during the presentation of the new government.

The prime minister considered his new job as "a great responsibility and challenge for him personally."

"Today, perhaps the most important stage in my life begins, and it will require all of my energy, skills and experience that I have gained in my previous positions," he said.

On Saturday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko dismissed top government officials for failing to fulfill his instructions and appointed Rumas, previously the head of the Development Bank of Belarus, as the prime minister.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 10:13:11|Editor: ZD

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UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday welcomed the ongoing inter-Korean family reunion event that brought together Korean families separated by the 1950-53 Korean war, his spokesman said.

The secretary-general "hopes that such reunion events will become routine and involve many more people, including affected Koreans worldwide, allow participants to meet privately, and to remain in contact after the meetings," the spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement.

The family reunion event began on Monday and is expected to last until Sunday.

The UN chief further welcomed the efforts by both Koreas to continue their engagement and to take steps to build confidence and trust, said the spokesman.

The secretary-general looks forward to discussing how he can further support the parties in their diplomatic efforts to bring sustainable peace, security, and complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula during the upcoming high-level week of the UN General Assembly, the spokesman said.

The family reunion events have been held since the 1980. The previous one was organized in October 2015.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 10:33:18|Editor: ZD

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump told the Reuters news agency at the White House on Monday that he would "most likely" meet with the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong Un, for a second time.

"I don't want to comment on that, but it's most likely we will," he said.

He also said that he believed Pyongyang had taken specific steps toward denuclearization, and that he has "great chemistry" with Kim.

"I like him. He likes me," he said. "There's no ballistic missiles going up, there's a lot of silence ... I have very good personal relations with Chairman Kim, and I think that's what holds it together."

In the joint statement after the June 12 Trump-Kim meeting in Singapore, Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, while Kim reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The two leaders also agreed to commit to establish new U.S.-DPRK relations, and to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the peninsula.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 10:43:20|Editor: ZD

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SYDNEY, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A mock bioterrorism exercise held at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia concluded on Tuesday that the difference between a contained outbreak and a global pandemic is preparation.

Conducted from Aug. 16 to Aug. 17, the scenario involved a hypothetical outbreak of smallpox in Fiji, designed to test authorities preparedness for such an event, specifically in the Pacific region.

Involved were key international representatives from departments of health, foreign affairs, defence, police, non-government agencies, vaccine manufacturers and other global stakeholders.

One of the architects of the hypothetical attack was Prof. Raina MacIntyre, head of the Centre for Research Excellence in Integrated Systems for Epidemic Response at UNSW.

"Even though the world successfully eradicated smallpox in 1980, the disease has been on the radar again since scientists used mail order DNA to create a virus very similar to smallpox in a lab in 2017," MacIntyre said.

Smallpox is spread through the air and is twice as infectious as Ebola or influenza, with a predicted death rate of 45 percent if it emerged on Tuesday.

"In the case of a biowarfare event, our modelling shows that without a rapid and coordinated response, the epidemic would quickly spiral out of control and become a pandemic," MacIntyre said.

Projections show that first responders would need to isolate 70 percent of smallpox patients and track and vaccinate 70 percent of their contacts.

If this was to fall as low as 53 percent it would take four years and 2 billion doses of vaccine to bring the epidemic under control, with current World Health Organization vaccine stockpiles at 35 million doses.

Even though in such a situation vaccines could be diluted and utilized, according to MacIntyre, "resources to effect large scale isolation and quarantine would be the main problem."

"In a globalized world, disease pathogens do not carry national passports, neither do they respect state sovereignty," said attendee Obijiofor Aginam, deputy director of the International Institute for Global Health.

"The International Health Regulations offer an opportunity for effective governance of emerging and re-emerging epidemics and pandemics in an interdependent world."
Photo released byPakistan's Press Information Department (PID) on Aug. 20, 2018 shows new Pakistani cabinet taking oath at a ceremony at the President House in the capital Islamabad. (Xinhua/PID)

ISLAMABAD, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan's new Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Monday offered dialogue to neighboring India as he insisted that bilateral engagement is the best option to find out solution to problems.

India had suspended bilateral dialogue with Pakistan in April 2016 after an attack on an Indian air base in January, which Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants. Pakistan had denied any involvement and offered cooperation in an investigation.

Qureshi told reporters that the Foreign Ministry has received a letter of felicitations for Prime Minister Imran Khan from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in which he has called for resolving disputes through bilateral talks and indicated the beginning of talks between the two countries.

"This is a positive development. There is a need for continued and uninterrupted dialogue with India," the foreign minister said, adding that Pakistan and India cannot afford any adventurism.

Pakistan and India have fought three wars, two over Kashmir, since their independence from the British colonial rule in 1947.

On Afghanistan, Qureshi said he wants to pay first visit to Afghanistan with a message of goodwill and friendship, and will soon speak with his Afghan counterpart on the phone to decide date for the visit.

"Pakistan and Afghanistan are inter-linked. I want to tell Afghans we need each other. I will travel to Afghanistan with a solid message to work together for peace and stability in both countries and the region," he said.

Responding to a question about China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the top diplomat said the new government will pursue the project, which he described as a "game changer."

He said he will discuss with his Chinese counterpart about the future initiatives to be undertaken under CPEC for socio-economic development of the country.

Qureshi said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf had supported CPEC when it was in the opposition.

To a question about relationship with the United States, the foreign minister said he will listen to the U.S. concerns and also put before them Pakistan's viewpoint.

He stressed that bilateral relationship should be improved on the basis of mutual respect and equality. He told reporters that he will represent Pakistan in the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly next month.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 11:48:32|Editor: zh

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Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen (L, front) welcomes leaders of 16 political parties as he holds a consultation forum with them after his ruling party won a sweeping victory in a recent general election, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Aug. 21, 2018. (Xinhua/Phearum)

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen on Tuesday held a consultation forum with leaders of 16 political parties after his ruling party won a sweeping victory in a recent general election.

Twenty political parties - Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and 19 other parties - contested in the sixth general election on July 29. The official results indicated that the CPP won all 125 seats in the parliament.

Four political parties - the League for Democracy Party, the Grassroots Democratic Party, the Anti-Poverty Party, and the Motherland Party - did not take part in the consultation forum.

Speaking at the forum held at his office, the Peace Palace, Hun Sen said he met with them in his capacity as the prime minister, not in his capacity as the CPP's president.

He expressed his intention to create a Supreme Council for Consultations between the government and political parties in order to seek constructive ideas for national development.

"The participation from political parties is really important to help (the government) develop the nation," the prime minister said.

He said a new parliament and a new government will be formed on Sept. 5 and 6, respectively.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 11:48:33|Editor: ZD

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LA PAZ, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Bolivians may soon file all government paperwork online thanks to a proposed bill being debated by the legislature, a government official said on Monday.

Nicolas Laguna, director of the state Electronic Government and Information and Communication Technologies Agency (AGETIC), said the Digital Citizen Law will make bureaucratic procedures obsolete.

Individuals will no longer have to physically show up at a government office to file an application or make a request, he added. They will be able to access government services and get information while interacting with the corresponding agencies online.

All Bolivians and foreign residents who are 18 and older would be able to register to get their "Digital Citizen" credentials with AGETIC, according to the proposed bill.
Plans to deploy 30,000 security forces for BIMSTEC Summit

The government is preparing to deploy around 30,000 security personnel, including officials from the National Intelligence Department, to guard the 4th Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation(BIMSTEC) Summit scheduled for August 30 and 31 in Kathmandu.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 12:18:37|Editor: ZD

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by Charles Happell

CANBERRA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Australia's conservative government is braced for a period of turmoil following a leadership challenge to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Tuesday which revealed deep divisions within the ruling Liberal Party.

Turnbull survived the challenge from Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, but only just, 48 votes to 35.

Historically, that is the smallest margin of victory by an Australian prime minister facing his first internal leadership challenge, and will almost certainly embolden Dutton, and other senior MPs disillusioned by Turnbull's leadership style, to launch another bid, possibly as early as this week.

Political commentators in Canberra were portraying Turnbull's leadership as "terminally damaged" following Tuesday's dramatic events. Only seven of his supporters in the party room now need to change their mind, and switch to the Dutton camp, for the coup to be complete.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's long-serving pundit, Barrie Cassidy, predicted further resignations from other ministers unhappy with Turnbull's leadership. "There will be other resignations, and that just will add to the sense of chaos and crisis," Cassidy said on Tuesday.

Whatever happens in the next few weeks, Australian politics seems set for a period of upheaval.

In keeping with Westminster tradition, Dutton, as an unsuccessful leadership challenger, resigned his ministerial portfolio and will now head to the backbench.

There, he is not bound by any cabinet solidarity and can speak openly and freely about any issues he likes whether they're damaging to Turnbull or not.

On the backbench, he will be sitting alongside Tony Abbott, the former Liberal PM deposed by Turnbull in 2015, who is now apparently intent on avenging that defeat by destabilizing the PM whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Speaking on Tuesday afternoon after his resignation, Dutton said he was motivated to launch his challenge by the spectre of Labor leader Bill Shorten becoming the prime minister.

"I made a decision not because I had any animosity towards Malcolm Turnbull, I made a decision to contest this ballot because I want to make sure we can keep Bill Shorten from ever being prime minister of this country," Dutton said.

"I believe I had the best prospect of leading the Liberal Party to success at the next election. That was not to be today and I understand and I respect the outcome and I fully support the prime minister and the cabinet."

But, pointedly, he did not rule out another challenge to Turnbull.

In winning Tuesday's vote, 48-35, Turnbull was supported by just 58 percent of the party room.

To put those numbers into context, former Labor PM Julia Gillard won her first challenge from Kevin Rudd 71-31 (69.6 percent), but was defeated in the second ballot later on.

Another long-serving former Labor PM Bob Hawke, who won his first ballot 66-44 (60.0 percent) from challenger Paul Keating was defeated later in the second vote.

Earlier still, Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser won his challenge from Andrew Peacock 54-27 (66.7 percent), but lost the election the following year.

So the portents for Turnbull and his supporters are not good. There were murmurings from Dutton supporters on Tuesday afternoon that another challenge might be launched as early as Thursday.

The 35 people in the party room who voted for Dutton are led by the "conservative rebels", as they have coined themselves, including Abbott, Eric Abetz, Kevin Andrews and Andrew Hastie.

They represent an arch-conservative wing of the party, pitted against the more progressive thinkers such as Turnbull, deputy PM Julie Bishop and senior ministers Scott Morrison, Christopher Pyne and Mathias Cormann.

Dutton is a former Queensland policeman who is not afraid to speak his mind on many contentious social issues, including the treatment of asylum seekers, the immigration rate (which he thinks is too high), and law and order (which he'd like to tighten up).

But he only holds his seat of Dixon in southeastern Queensland by the barest of margins, so he is not guaranteed of his place in parliament, even if he does happen to win the Liberal leadership before the election. That situation just adds another layer of uncertainty to the federal political scene.

So what happens from here? There would seem to be three few options.

Turnbull may decide to visit the Governor-General and call an early election. While many would see that course of action as selfish, it may be the path of least resistance for the coalition. Winning the spill by just 13 votes is far from convincing, but for now at least Turnbull can claim majority support.

Such a move would appear to be futile. Even if he does head to the polls, his government looks doomed to failure.

The second option is that Turnbull looks to support a like-minded and loyal supporter to take the fight up to Dutton. That would be someone like Morrison, Bishop or even Cormann were he to run from the senate.

The third and final option would be for Turnbull to simply walk away and leave the prime ministership open. But this would leave Dutton with a free run at the PM's office and it's unlikely Turnbull want to reward his disloyalty by making it so easy for him.

These are the unpalatable alternatives facing Turnbull who only eight weeks ago was secure in his position and watching on as opposition leader Bill Shorten faced internal dissent of his own.

Now, though, their fortunes have been reversed in the most dramatic way, and it is Shorten who is short-priced favourite to lead the Labor Party to an historic win at Australia's next federal election.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 13:08:43|Editor: Liangyu

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by Rene Quenallata Paredes

LA PAZ, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Community-based tourism has served to bolster cultural identity among Bolivia's indigenous communities, experts said.

Deputy Tourism Minister Ricardo Cox told Xinhua that this travel segment attracts nature lovers and culture mavens and it helps to reinforce cultural heritage and preserve the environment.

"A new trend has emerged out of Bolivia's diverse tourism that coincides with the appearance of a new type of traveler who is seeking to have a different kind of experience and close contact with rural communities," said Cox.

"The country has seen this segment develop quickly and with much success," he added.

The World Tourism Organization has recognized Bolivia as one of the South American countries with the best developed community-based tourism.

In contrast with many of its neighbors, Bolivia has numerous indigenous groups that have preserved their way of life and traditions.

There are as many as 36 different indigenous groups; each has its own language, customs, traditions and way of life, all of which are reflected in the way they build their homes, make their clothes, and celebrate key dates.

In terms of community-based and rural tourism, Bolivia is "on par with Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua and Costa Rica," said Cox.

Other communities have worked to rescue their ancestral heritage, inspired by the experience of traditional towns in attracting tourists, according to Erudita Quispe de Mamani, director of La Paz-based Bartolinas National Confederation of Farming, Indigenous and Native Women.

Community-based tourism allows indigenous groups to improve their quality of life and meanwhile educate the younger generations about their traditions and customs, she said.

"This type of tourism centers on the value of daily cultural, agricultural and festive practices. The community opens its doors to national and foreign tourists," Quispe said.

Communities have reappraised their cultural heritage and raised revenue in the process, said Lourdes Omoyo, manager of the state-run Bolivian tourism agency Boltur.

Bolivia's Constitution cites community-based tourism as a strategy for development.

In addition to providing communities with an alternative source of income, it serves as an incentive for locals to protect their habitats and natural resources.

Bolivia ranks among the world's top 15 countries with the most biodiversity.

"What makes Bolivia stand out from other countries is our living culture," said Omoyo.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 13:13:43|Editor: Liangyu

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LOS ANGELES, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The FBI is offering a reward of up to 25,000 U.S. dollars Monday for information about the whereabout of a Chinese businessman who was kidnapped in Los Angeles' San Gabriel area.

According to information on the FBI's official website, the victim is 28-year-old Ruochen "Tony" Liao, who was born in Sichuan Province of China and was involved in a business selling luxury cars.

"On July 16, 2018, at approximately 7:30 p.m., Ruochen 'Tony' Liao was kidnapped in San Gabriel, California, by three men. He was last seen entering a dark-colored minivan in San Gabriel with a man later identified as 'David'," FBI said. "'David' is described as a Chinese male, 35 to 40 years old, approximately 6 feet tall, who speaks Mandarin."

Besides the 25,000-dollar award, FBI also posted a forensic sketch of "David".

Local ABC 7 news channel said images captured by surveillance cameras on the scene showed that there are one minivan and one SUV driven by the alleged abductors, two of whom were in the SUV, and Tony was taken away in the minivan, which carried the third suspect "David."

The suspects are demanding 2 million dollars from Liao's family for his return. ABC 7 reported that Liao's family did not pay the money but is offering a 150,000-dollar reward for information leading to his return.

"Our hope is that Tony is still alive. We're operating under the premise that he is still alive, which is why this reward and the publicity is so crucial to this case. However...as these cases progress, the chances of someone remaining alive can diminish," FBI agent Gene Kowell told ABC 7.

An official of the Consulate General of China in Los Angeles told Xinhua Monday evening that the consulate is following the case and keeping close contact with the U.S. authorities and the victim's relatives.

"We have provided necessary help to his family," the official said. "We hope U.S. authorities will continue working for his recovery and conclude the case as soon as possible."
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 13:13:43|Editor: Liangyu

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SEOUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's intellectual property rights deficit hit a record low in the first half of this year thanks to spreading popularity for local computer and mobile games, central bank data showed Tuesday.

The intellectual property account posted a deficit of 550 million U.S. dollars in the January-June period, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). It was the lowest deficit since the bank began compiling the data in 2010.

The country exported 6.67 billion dollars in intellectual property rights, while importing 7.22 billion dollars of the rights in the first half.

The record-low deficit came as domestic online game companies increased export of franchise rights and computer software copyrights, while local tech firms raised import of patent use relevant to electrical and electronic products.

Trade in copyrights logged a surplus of 370 million dollars in the first half, while the industrial property rights trade was a deficit of 1.05 billion dollars.

The figure for franchise and brand rights recorded the second-biggest surplus of 70 million dollars in the first half.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 13:18:45|Editor: Liangyu

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PARIS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- About 840 bridges across France are suffering from serious damage and face risk of collapse in the next several years, an audit commissioned by the French government has revealed.

A third of the 12,000 government-maintained bridges in France need repair, according to the audit, published Sunday by the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

It warned that about 7 percent of those bridges are so badly damaged that they are at risk of collapse in the coming years.

The report did not cover thousands of other French bridges maintained by private companies or local authorities.

The French government has blamed previous administrations for inconsistent and inadequate investment in the country's road network and promised new infrastructure spending. Last week, Transport Minister Elisabeth Norne announced a 1-billion-euro (1.15 billion U.S. dollars) investment plan to "save the nation's roads."

The current budget for restoring infrastructure is reported to be 800 million euros (921 million dollars) for 2018, according to The Independent.

The audit said France invests more in its road network than countries in southern Europe, but less than countries in northern Europe, such as Austria, Switzerland and Britain.

The French government has come under pressure following last week's deadly bridge collapse in the northwestern Italian city of Genoa, which killed 43 people.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 14:03:54|Editor: Liangyu

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Although currently in jail, former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva remains the leader of an election poll released on Monday.

It was the first poll conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics (IBOPE) after the Aug. 15 deadline for the registration of candidacies for Brazil's elections slated for October.

Lula's candidacy is still pending approval by the Superior Electoral Court, but IBOPE surveyed the scenarios both with and without Lula in the race.

In a scenario with Lula, the former president has 37 percent of voting intentions, while ultra-right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro, from the Social Liberal Party (PSL), is the runner-up, with 18 percent, followed by Marina Silva, from Rede, with 6 percent.

Sixteen percent of electors intend to register a null vote null and 6 percent remain undecided, according to the poll.

In a scenario without Lula, Bolsonaro takes the lead, with 20 percent of voting intentions, followed by Marina Silva, with 12 percent, and Ciro Gomes, from the Democratic Labor Party with 9 percent.

Fernando Haddad, who is currently Lula's running mate and would replace Lula as the Workers' Party's candidate if Lula is forbidden to run, currently has 4 percent of voting intentions.

In this scenario, the share of electors who said they will register a null vote reached 29 percent, and the undecided increased to 9 percent.

The scenario without Lula shows that a significant share of the former president's electors currently do not have a second choice of candidate, and, remarkably, a good share goes to Bolsonaro, who has a completely different political platform.

Other candidates like Ciro Gomes and Marina Silva also gain a share of Lula's votes.

The IBOPE poll was carried out among 2,002 electors from 142 towns all over Brazil on Aug. 17-19.

Lula, 72, has been found guilty of corruption and money-laundering in connection with the renovation of a beachside penthouse, which was bankrolled by a company seeking contracts with state oil giant Petrobras.

He is serving a 12-year jail sentence in Curitiba in southern Brazil.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 14:18:56|Editor: Liangyu

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SYDNEY, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The government of the Australian State of Victoria announced on Tuesday their intention to enshrine gender equality in law for first time in Australian history.

While there are already laws in Victoria prohibiting discrimination based on gender, according to a government statement, there are currently no laws in Australia which "proactively progress gender equality".

"The equality between women and men needs to be law, good intentions aren't cutting it," Victorian Minister for Women Natalie Hutchins said.

Victorian authorities have suggested quotas be applied for public sector positions, guaranteeing a certain amount of diversity to be decided by consultation with a "citizen's jury".

The historic move is prompted by information from the International Gender Gap Index, which shows that the top three ranking countries -- Iceland, Finland and Norway -- all have gender equality legislation.

The statement said "the evidence is clear: when public bodies are compelled to promote gender equality by law, gender equality improve".

"We need gender equality urgently, but the pace of change is too slow," Hutchins said. "Gender equality is essential for economic prosperity."
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 14:28:58|Editor: mmm

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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) and Salvadorean Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda sign a joint communique in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 21, 2018. The People's Republic of China and the Republic of El Salvador signed a joint communique in Beijing Tuesday establishing diplomatic relations. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The People's Republic of China and the Republic of El Salvador signed a joint communique in Beijing Tuesday establishing diplomatic relations.

The communique was signed by Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Salvadorean Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda.

"The People's Republic of China and the Republic of El Salvador, in keeping with the interests and desire of the two peoples, have decided to recognize each other and establish diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level effective from the date of signature of this communique.

"The two governments agree to develop friendly relations between the two countries on the basis of the principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality, mutual benefit and peaceful coexistence.

"The Government of the Republic of El Salvador recognizes that there is but one China in the world, that the Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China, and that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory," the communique said.

According to the communique, the Government of the Republic of El Salvador severs "diplomatic relations" with Taiwan as of this day and undertakes not to have any more official relations or official exchanges with Taiwan. The Government of the People's Republic of China appreciates this position of the Government of the Republic of El Salvador.

The Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of El Salvador agree that in accordance with the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 and common international practice, they will exchange ambassadors, and provide each other with all the necessary assistance for the establishment and performance of the functions of their respective embassies in each other's capitals on the basis of reciprocity, the communique said.

"Adhering to the one-China principle is a universally recognized international norm and the consensus of the international community, as well as the fundamental foundation for China to establish and develop relations with any country.

"El Salvador has now stood with the overwhelming majority of the countries in the world by resolutely deciding to recognize and make a commitment to abiding by the one-China principle, and to establish diplomatic ties with China without any preconditions," Wang said.

So far, 178 countries have established diplomatic ties with China, according to Wang.

"I believe the Salvadorean people will feel the Chinese people's friendship and hospitality and benefit from the two countries' cooperation," Wang said, stressing that history will prove that forging diplomatic relations with China is in the fundamental and long-term interests of the Salvadorean people.

Wang said China has now added a friend in Latin America and the Caribbean region, as well as a partner in pushing forward the Belt and Road initiative and building a community of a shared future for humanity.

China is willing to join hands with El Salvador to achieve their joint development, press ahead with China-Latin America cooperation as a whole, and contribute to the collective rejuvenation of the developing countries.

Castaneda said that forging diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China is a strategic decision made by El Salvador and a historic event for the country.

El Salvador has cut its so-called "diplomatic ties" with Taiwan, and it will no longer have any official relations or any official exchanges with Taiwan in any form, he pledged.

Saying that El Salvador is willing to work with China to enhance political trust, strengthen exchanges at various levels and carry out pragmatic cooperation, Castaneda expressed his hope that the two countries' cooperation will usher in a new era and benefit the two peoples.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 14:34:00|Editor: Liangyu

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KABUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A group of militants have occupied a building and begun attacking government installations nearby in Kabul city on Tuesday.

However, security forces have cordoned off the suspected hideouts of militants and launched counter offensive, eyewitnesses said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 14:59:05|Editor: Liangyu

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KUNMING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Police in southwest China's Yunnan Province arrested a drug trafficker and seized more than 12 kilograms of drugs, the local police said Tuesday.

Earlier this month, police in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture received information that someone was planning to transport a large amount of drugs across the border into China.

On August 16, police caught a man allegedly carrying 12.06 kg of methamphetamine and 0.76 kg of heroin on a motorcycle in Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture.

The suspect is currently being held in police custody. The case is under further investigation.

Yunnan is a major front in China's battle against drug crime as it borders the Golden Triangle, known for drug trafficking in southeast Asia.
PM inaugurates gas pipeline in Biratnagar

As claimed during his earlier tenure that he would bring an end to the phase of LPG cylinders by setting up gas pipelines for domestic use, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has formally inaugurated gas pipeline installed in the houses at Jatuwa in Biratnagar on Tuesday.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 15:14:08|Editor: xuxin

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SEOUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo said Tuesday that the military will pull out a part of guard posts in border areas with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on a trial basis as agreed upon at the inter-Korean military talks.

Song told a parliamentary defense committee hearing that South Korea and the DPRK agreed to withdraw a couple of guard posts inside the demilitarized zone (DMZ), which separates the Korean Peninsula, on a trial basis and then increase the number.

The agreement was reached during the general-grade, inter-Korean military talks in late July, in which the two sides also agreed to disarm the Joint Security Area (JSA) inside the border village of Panmunjom and jointly excavate the remains of fallen soldiers during the 1950-53 Korean War.

The South Korean defense chief said the militaries of the two sides will first withdraw guard posts placed less than 1 km from each other, noting that the closest one is located some 700 meters away from each other.

The withdrawal would be a part of efforts to implement the Panmunjom Declaration, which South Korean President Moon Jae-in and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un signed after their first summit meeting on April 27 in Panmunjom.

Moon and Kim agreed to defuse military tensions by transforming the DMZ into a peace zone and the sea border into a maritime peace zone.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 15:19:12|Editor: xuxin

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said here on Monday that he would "most likely" meet with the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong Un.

Speaking with Reuters in an interview at the White House, Trump said it would be "likely" when asked whether he and Kim would meet for the second time.

"It's most likely we will, but I just don't want to comment," Trump said, offering no details on the timing or venue.

He also said that he believes Pyongyang had taken specific steps toward denuclearization.

He added that he has "great chemistry" with Kim.

"I like him. He likes me," he said. "There's no ballistic missiles going up, there's a lot of silence ... I have very good personal relations with Chairman Kim, and I think that's what holds it together."

ON TURKEY

As U.S.-Turkey diplomatic deadlock lingered over an American pastor, Trump ruled out any possibility of concessions with Turkey over the case, and said he was not concerned at all that his tough stance on Turkey could hurt other economies.

"I think it's very sad what Turkey is doing. I think they're making a terrible mistake. There will be no concessions," he said in the interview.

Trump said he thought he had a deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to release Andrew Brunson after he had convinced Israel to free a detained Turkish citizen.

"Until now I had a very good relationship as you know with the president. I got along with him great. I had a very good relationship. But it can't be a one-way street. It's no longer a one-way street for the United States," said Trump.

Reuters quoted a U.S. senior official that Trump and Erdogan had met in Brussels in mid-July when they discussed how to solve Brunson's case, as "Turkey had sought U.S. help to persuade the Israelis to release a Turkish woman who was being held in Israel."

When asked about the potential damage of U.S. actions to other economies, the White House host said that "I'm not concerned at all. I'm not concerned. This is the proper thing to do."

Andrew Brunson, a 50-year-old Christian pastor, was detained two years ago in Turkey on spying charges, and would face up to 35 years in prison if found guilty.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury slapped sanctions on Turkey's justice and interior ministers on Aug. 1, citing their roles in the detention of Brunson.

Trump tweeted on Aug. 10 that he has authorized a doubling of tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum imports as their currency Lira slides rapidly downward against the U.S. dollar.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in response that problems with the United States over a series of differences can be solved easily but not with its current mindset.

Cavusoglu also said that Turkey has done its part in terms of preserving friendly relations with the United States, and once again accused Washington of supporting terrorist groups targeting Turkey.

ON RUSSIA, IRAN

In the interview, Trump also indicated that he would consider lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia if Moscow took some actions in such areas as Syria or Ukraine.

"I would consider it if they do something that would be good for us. But I wouldn't consider it without that," he said without mentioning the U.S. threat to sanction Russia in two phases, which has drawn bitter criticism from Moscow.

Trump has been widely attacked after his Helsinki meeting with Putin, due to his reconciliatory remarks that many saw as a sign of siding with Moscow against the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. elections.

The White House has said that the next meeting between Trump and Putin will be delayed until next year.

Turning to Iran, Trump said it did not matter to him whether he met Iran's leaders and there had been no U.S. outreach toward Iran to discuss possible talks.

"If they want to meet, fine. If they don't want to meet, I couldn't care less," he said.

The first round of U.S. re-imposed sanctions on Iran took effect earlier this month. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that any negotiation with the United States to solve the existing problems was an "obvious mistake."

"I have reiterated that we can not rely on American words and even their signature, therefore, negotiations with them are fruitless," he said.

Trump also said in the interview that "I'm constantly reviewing Afghanistan and the whole Middle East. We never should have been in the Middle East. It was the single greatest mistake in the history of our country."
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 15:24:15|Editor: xuxin

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KABUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A group of militants have occupied a building and begun attacking government installations in Kabul city on Tuesday, triggering gun battle.

However, security forces have cordoned off the suspected hideouts of militants and launched counter offensive to ensure peace in the city, eyewitnesses said.

Meantime, Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai has confirmed that three rockets fired by militants slammed into Police District 10 and Police District 2 but caused no loss of life.

The rocket attacks on Kabul city took place just a day after Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani announced a three-month conditional ceasefire starting on Monday, a day before Eid-ul-Adha, the Muslims largest annual religious festival observed on Tuesday Aug. 21, urging Taliban outfit to follow suit.

According to Afghans, Taliban militants have rejected the government's offer of ceasefire by firing rockets into the city. The area where the militants have taken positions, according to locals, are close to buildings including the Defense Ministry and the Presidential Palace.

According to security officials, one of the attackers has been killed and four more people elsewhere in the city sustained injuries.

Helicopters from the security forces are hovering the area to spot and target the attackers, eyewitnesses said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 15:24:16|Editor: xuxin

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ULAN BATOR, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia will launch a national campaign to create a youth-friendly space, and increase job opportunities for them, an official said here Tuesday.

The month-long campaign, Youth Development Month, will be launched on Aug. 24 under the motto "Let's create youth-friendly space" in cooperation with relevant organizations, said Sodnomtsog Sukh-Ochir, head of the Youth Development Department of Ulan Bator.

Some 24 events will be held to increase youth participation in solving social problems, and create opportunities for them to develop and work, the official told Xinhua.

Mongolia has a population of over 3 million, with a third aged between 15 and 34, according to data from the National Statistical Office.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 15:39:19|Editor: mmm

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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) and Salvadorean Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda sign a joint communique in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 21, 2018. The People's Republic of China and the Republic of El Salvador signed a joint communique in Beijing Tuesday establishing diplomatic relations. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

MEXICO CITY, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- El Salvador President Salvador Sanchez Ceren said late Monday that his country has established diplomatic ties with China.

"We are convinced that this is a step in the right direction, which corresponds to the principles of international law, international relations and the inevitable trends of our times," the president said in an address on national television.

In addition, the president said the establishment of diplomatic relations with China will stimulate political dialogue, stronger coordination in international affairs and cooperation between the two countries for mutual benefit.

El Salvador used to maintain "diplomatic relations" with Taiwan.

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Salvadorean Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda signed a joint communique in Beijing establishing diplomatic relations.

According to the communique, the El Salvador government severs "diplomatic relations" with Taiwan as of this day and undertakes not to have any more official relations or official exchanges with Taiwan.

"I believe the Salvadorean people will feel the Chinese people's friendship and hospitality and benefit from the two countries' cooperation," Wang said after the signing ceremony.

So far, 178 countries have established diplomatic ties with China.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 15:44:19|Editor: xuxin

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NEW DELHI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Indian central bank's employees will go on mass leave on Sept. 4 and 5 over long-pending demands relating to retirement benefits like pension.

"To express deep resentment at the attitude of the officials of the government of India, RBI (Reserve Bank of India) staff members have waited too long and the limit of patience is crossing and are left with no alternative but to observe two consecutive days strike action," the employees union said in a statement.

A member of the union said Tuesday that they were fed up with the government's reluctant attitude to address their demands and hence decided to go on mass casual leave. "We are left with no other option to press for our demands," he said, on condition of anonymity.

RBI is India's central banking institution, which controls the monetary policy of the Indian rupee. The RBI plays an important part in the development strategy of the Indian government.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 15:44:19|Editor: xuxin

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NEW YORK, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Disney will open a Mickey Mouse pop-up exhibit in the United States in November as its most iconic cartoon character turns 90 this fall.

"From The True Original Exhibition to a year-long celebration in our parks around the world, we are honoring the deep connection that families and fans have made with Mickey and Minnie Mouse for nearly a century," Bob Chapek, Chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Consumer Products said in a press release.

Billed as an immersive experience that marks Mickey's global impact on popular culture and art, the exhibit will pack 16,000 square feet of space with historic and modern works inspired by the mouse.

Among the highlights will be a walk-through fluorescent black light section called Cosmic Cavern, which is created by artist Kenny Scharf and inspired by the Mickey Mouse watch.

"I want to make a place of fantasy and fun," Scharf said in a video for the exhibit. Colorful art and hidden Mickeys deck every inch of Cosmic Cavern, popping out from walls and hanging from ceilings.

Mickey Mouse was created in 1928 by Walt Disney and animator Ub Iwerks. The mouse first appeared in the animated short film "Plane Crazy," debuting publicly in a black-and-white cartoon "Steamboat Willie" that was the first Disney cartoon with synchronized sound. Since then, the famous mouse, who typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves, has gone on to star in more than 130 films.

Disney will also host parties at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida and Disneyland in California, as well as theme parks in Shanghai and Hong Kong, Tokyo and Paris.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 15:49:20|Editor: xuxin

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by Raul Menchaca

HAVANA, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Mexican marching band Panteras has been a big hit at this year's carnival celebrations here, the city's biggest annual festival.

With their white uniforms, phosphorescent hats, and lively beat, the young musicians, from the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz's Bachelors College (Cobaev), have won over the audience, and underscored the friendly ties between Mexico and Cuba.

"I think our historical ties are stronger. There is tremendous affection for Mexicans, we can feel it," the band's director, Jorge Alberto Morales, told Xinhua.

Trained in the violin and trombone, Maestro Morales, as band members respectfully call him, is moved when he recalls the cries of "Viva Mexico!" heard from carnival revelers each time they play.

The band debuted in style at the opening ceremony of the carnival on Friday along Havana's famed Malecon, or seaside promenade, where 18 dance troupes and 14 floats paraded by.

Panteras came with 100 musicians, though the band has 250 members.

Veracruz has 14 marching bands formed by students from 56 public schools, where they receive music classes as an elective subject to complement their high school studies.

Students who choose to study music receive two hours of classes each week.

Traditional Mexican music, as well as mambo, danzon and boleros, make up the repertoire of the band.

"We are delighted to be in this fraternal country that has invited us," said Amanda de Leon, who traveled to Cuba to accompany her granddaughter, a clarinet player.

Dressed in a colorful typical Mexican costume, she is part of a small group of women that march at the head of the band with a large banner highlighting the ties between the two countries.

This is the first time the band has performed in Cuba, and it introduced itself by holding a surprise performance at the central corner of 23rd and L streets, one of the busiest intersections in the capital, from where it marched five blocks to the Malecon.

Many joined the improvised street party and accompanied the group on its way to the seafront.

"It's a beautiful presentation, especially because they know how to interpret our songs very well," said Alina Valdes, a septuagenarian Afro-Cuban woman accompanying her granddaughter, who watched the band with glee.

A Puerto Rican family visiting Cuba, Aristides David and his wife Aixa Castillo, and their teenage son, said they were staying at the same hotel as the band, but confessed they had no idea the musicians were so talented.

On another corner, carnival goer Desiderio Cabrera subtly bopped his head to the rhythm of the band.

What does he think of the musicians?

They're "a spectacular group," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 16:09:26|Editor: mmm

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NANJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A ginger-root-shaped asteroid named Toutatis, which poses a potential threat to earth, might have formed from the merger of two smaller asteroids, say researchers from China and the United States.

The space rock, about 4,750 meters long and 1,950 meters wide - bigger than a city block - is one of the largest "potentially hazardous asteroids", said Ji Jianghui, a researcher at the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

First spotted in 1934, then lost from sight, and rediscovered in 1989 by a French astronomer, the asteroid was named after a Celtic god, Toutatis.

"This asteroid comes from the main asteroid belt, where it was affected by the gravitational perturbations of Jupiter," said Ji, the lead scientist in the research.

Before 2012, the asteroid was in an orbit that brought it close to earth every four years. As a result, it has been closely followed by telescopes and radar. But its orbit changed after 2012 due to the gravity of Jupiter and other planets. It's estimated that it will pass earth again as close as 2.97 million km in 2069.

After successfully completing its mission to explore the moon, China's second lunar probe, Chang'e-2, which blasted off on Oct.1, 2010, rendezvoused with Toutatis on Dec. 13, 2012, at a distance of 770 meters with a relative velocity of 10.73 km per second, as the rock was sweeping by earth at a distance of around 7 million km.

It was the world's first close fly-by observation of Toutatis. The probe took high-resolution images providing a number of discoveries.

The images allowed researchers to observe the topographical features of the asteroid, showing it has two lobes, including a small "head" and a large "body." The strange shape has bewildered scientists for a long time.

After many simulations, the research team thought there might be originally one primary asteroid and a smaller one, forming a system like the earth and moon.

Once they came very close to earth, the gravity affected the orbit of the primary asteroid and its little moon, causing them to collide at a low speed and merge into the current structure, Ji said.

The new study was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Ji and his collaborators have also studied how Toutatis rotates in space and revealed its geological features, showing it was essentially rubble and that the impact craters on its surface could be 1.6 billion years old.

Although Toutatis seemed to have a loose structure, Ji said, it was unlikely to fall apart, even when pulled by the gravity of nearby planets, due to its slow rotation.

Now scientists believe the threat from Toutatis is very low, but many other asteroids, whose orbits are unknown, might cross paths with earth.

"The impact threat from near-earth objects always exists," Ji said.

"Many recent observations show that about 14 percent of near-earth asteroids with a diameter larger than 200 meters have a similar structure to Toutatis."

The study of the formation of such asteroids will improve understanding of the evolution of near-earth binary asteroids, and is essential for deciding how to protect earth against their impact.

"It will also provide scientific data for China's future deep-space exploration of asteroids," Ji said.

China is the fourth space power to directly explore an asteroid, after the United States, Europe and Japan.

China is planning another space mission to explore asteroids after sending a probe to Mars in 2020.

"In order to cope with the potential threat of the near-earth objects, we need ground-based telescopes to form a monitoring, tracking and warning system, as well as space probes to conduct close investigations of asteroids, even to return samples from their surfaces to unveil their physical characteristics, interior structure and components, " Ji said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 16:14:29|Editor: xuxin

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ISLAMABAD, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has condemned the rocket attack in the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Prime Minister's office said.

Afghan media reported that nearly 10 rockets landed in different parts of Kabul when people were offering prayers during the Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Adha.

Reports also suggested that at least three gunmen fired rocket attack on the Presidential Palace when President Ashraf Ghani was offering prayers there.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet.

"Targeting innocent civilians on religious festivals shows the defeated mindset. We stand with Afghan people and the government to defeat this coward mentality," Khan said in a statement.

The Pakistan Foreign Ministry also condemned the rocket attack.

Rockets were fired two days after Ghani announced a three-month conditional ceasefire with the Taliban insurgents.

Taliban has not declared ceasefire. However, they reportedly released dozens of prisoners in their custody.
Police arrest prime suspect in Kanchanpur rape, murder case

Twenty-six days after the rape and murder of 13-year-old Nirmala Panta in Bhimdutta Municipality-18, Kanchanpur, police have arrested the alleged perpetrator, a 41-year-old man with a criminal past.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 16:54:38|Editor: xuxin

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by Bruna Gama

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Brazilian government announced Monday that they will send volunteers, military and an interministerial commission to tackle the backlash against Venezuelan immigrants in northern Brazil.

Over the weekend, Venezuelan immigrants sheltered in Pacaraima in the state of Roraima were attacked. Pacaraima is the main entry point for tens of thousands of Venezuelans, many of them children.

The attacks were allegedly in retaliation for a Brazilian man having reportedly been robbed and attacked by three Venezuelan immigrants.

Groups organized via social networks went on a rampage in Pacaraima, violently expelled Venezuelans, threatened them and burned the belongings of hundreds of immigrants.

The aggressive actions, including violent attacks and singing Brazilian national anthem, caused more than 1,000 Venezuelans to cross the border back to their country. Many others are believed to have fled to other towns and jungle areas.

According to the Brazilian government, 36 healthcare volunteers will travel to Roraima to tend to the Venezuelan immigrants in partnership with local hospitals, and 120 members of the National Security Force will add to the troops already in the state.

The interministerial commission will head to Roraima to "evaluate possible complementary actions."

Over the past months, the Brazilian government has been moving Venezuelan immigrants from Roraima to other states. However, Roraima still hosts the majority of Venezuelan immigrants, facing related challenges in sectors including public healthcare, education and housing.

The federal government was much criticized for their approach to the immigration crisis. Roraima state accuses the government of not providing enough aid to deal with the big sudden increase of demands from immigrants.

The government however denied any negligence, saying that the "federal authorities have been visiting Roraima since the beginning of the migratory crisis," and the measures such as border planning, screening of immigrants, and house construction have already been taken.

In addition, the Brazilian government is planning a new power transmission line to connect Roraima state to the national grid system, thus ending the state's dependence on Venezuelan energy.

"All measures aim to ensure the security situation and the well-being of the population of Roraima," said Minister of Institutional Security Sergio Etchegoyen.

However, citing the country's immigration law, Etchegoyen excluded the possibility of closing the border. "The closure of the border is unthinkable, it is a solution that does not help the humanitarian issue at all."

On Aug. 6, a local judge in Roraima state ordered a blockade of the Brazil-Venezuela border at the small town of Pacaraima, but the ruling was annulled the following day by the Attorney General's Office.

Brazil's Public Security Minister Raul Jungmann on Aug. 8 said Brazil is a country of immigration and cannot turn its back on the Venezuelan immigrants who are having a rough time.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 16:59:40|Editor: xuxin

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DENVER, the United States, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. man was charged with five counts of murder Monday for the deaths of his pregnant wife and their two young daughters in the U.S. state of Colorado.

Christopher Lee Watts told police that he killed his wife in "a rage" when he discovered she had strangled their two daughters, according to a police affidavit released late Monday.

Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke told Colorado media that Watts is facing nine felony charges and he is undecided whether to seek the death penalty.

Watts, 33, told police that he loaded all three bodies into his work truck, and then he buried his wife Shanann at an oil work site and dumped the remains of 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste inside oil tanks.

The confession and discovery of the bodies come only a week after Watts lamented in interviews with local television stations about missing his wife and daughters.

According to the affidavit, Watts told his 34-year-old wife that he wanted to separate when she returned from a business trip early on the morning of Aug. 13.

Watts told police that he later saw his wife strangling their youngest daughter with their oldest daughter sprawled on her bed, "looking blue," on a baby monitor.

He said he then burst into the bedroom, "went into a rage," and strangled his wife.

Watts faces three first-degree murder charges, two counts of murdering a child, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.

The grizzly murders have shocked the small community of Frederick north of Denver where Watts worked as an operator for Anadarko Petroleum, one of Colorado's largest oil and gas drillers.

Court documents filed by defense lawyer James Merson on Friday said the girls had been submerged in crude oil for four days.

Merson had asked the coroner to collect DNA from the necks of the children on Friday, but the local judge denied her request.

Watts is being held without bail and will next appear in court Tuesday.

Family and friends told Colorado media they were shocked by the slayings as the family seemed happy and Watts appeared to be a good father.

Shanann Watts displayed many photos of a happy family, smiling and playing, on social media, as well as posts complimenting her husband and expressing excitement about the couple's expected third child.

But a June 2015 bankruptcy filing showed the family was dealing with financial problems, the Denver Post reported.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 17:09:43|Editor: xuxin

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Students offer prayers for the Kerala flood victims at a school in Agartala, capital of the Northeastern state of Tripura, India, on Aug. 21, 2018. The Indian government has declared the devastating floods in southernmost state of Kerala as a calamity of severe nature, officials said Tuesday. (Xinhua/Stringer)

NEW DELHI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Indian government has declared the devastating floods in southernmost state of Kerala as a calamity of severe nature, officials said Tuesday.

"Keeping in view intensity and magnitude of the floods in Kerala, the government has declared this a calamity of severe nature," Indian vice-president M Venkaiah Naidu said.

"We appeal our members of parliament to contribute generously from their funds towards relief and rehabilitation."

The Indian federal government in an affidavit to the high court in Kerala stated that it considers the devastating floods in Kerala as a calamity of severe nature.

"In the affidavit it has been stated by the government that it is treating the flood situation in the state as a disaster of serious nature and has categorised the same as 'L3 Level of disaster' under the national disaster management guidelines," an official said.

Experts said the declaration would enable the state to get greater monetary and other assistance from the federal government.

Once a calamity is declared "severe", relief in repayment of loans or grant of fresh loans on concessional terms are also considered.

Reports said relief materials, including provisions, water, medicines and fuel are arriving at the Kochi port from different parts of India.

Local government officials said they were trying to restore mobile phone connectivity, electricity supply and tap water in the affected areas. The movement of traffic is also being restored.

"Commercial flight operations started from the navy airstrip in Kochi and trains have started running between state capital Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam," an official said.

So far the Indian government has announced an assistance of 85.9 million U.S. dollars for the battered state.

Besides, help from other states and people is continuously pouring in.

Reports said the death toll since the beginning of monsoons has risen close to 400 in the state.

The Kerala government has pegged the losses to the state through damage to infrastructure and property at 2.87 billion U.S. dollars. However, the industry estimates the losses by way of loss of working days, cancellations and drop in economic activity to be close to 3.5 billion U.S. dollars.

On Tuesday, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has offered to extended 100 million U.S. dollars of assistance to rebuild the flood-ravaged state.

Kerala has 44 rivers flowing through it. Experts said floods in Kerala would not have been so severe if local authorities had gradually released water from at least 30 of its dams.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 17:14:45|Editor: Yamei

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ATHENS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced Tuesday that years of international financial bailouts and national austerity measures were over, according to local media.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 17:54:51|Editor: Yamei

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MECCA, Saudi Arabia, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Around 2.5 million pilgrims from around the globe start travelling for Hajj destinations in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on Monday, taking light rails constructed and operated by China Railway Construction Corporation Limited (CRCC).

Many of the pilgrims, who travel by the light rail for the first time, gave the thumbs up to the fast and convenient services of the Chinese company, as the rail staff were busy helping passengers board the train.

Li Chongyang, the vice general manager of CRCC, told Xinhua that the light rail system is estimated to safely and accurately accomplish 2.5 million trips in the Hajj season that lasts five days from Sunday according to the Islamic calendar.

The CRCC won the bidding of the Mecca light rail project in 2009, and provided service for over 15 million trips in 2010-2014.

This year, the Saudi government gave the operating contract worth 93 million U.S. dollars to the CRCC again, three years after the company handed the operation back to the Saudi government.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 18:04:56|Editor: Yamei

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TEHRAN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Iran unveiled its first indigenous fighter jet on national defense day on Tuesday, state IRIB TV reported.

At a ceremony attended by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Defense Minister Amir Hatami in the capital Tehran, the Kowsar fighter jet was put on display and made its first flight.

According to Press TV, the fighter jet is equipped with "advanced avionics and fire control systems" and can be used for short aerial support missions.

It also uses digital military data networks, multi-purpose digital monitors, ballistic calculation computers and smart mobile mapping systems.

The jet has an advanced radar system, enabling it to detect enemy targets. It is also equipped with a head-up display or HUD, which promotes precision targeting.

The plane can be manufactured in both single and double cockpit types, the latter of which can be used for advanced pilot training missions in addition to its combat capability.

At the ceremony, Rouhani said that "we are obliged to safeguard power, dignity and safety of the nation at lower cost," quoted the official IRNA news agency.

The Iranian president also said that in case the country overlooks deterrent power and does not rely on its own capabilities, there will be enemies seeking to harm Iran.

"Iran's preparedness for defense does not mean warmongering but signifies a durable peace," he said on the occasion marking the Iranian Defense Day on Tuesday.

Iran has never invaded its regional neighbors and will never do so, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 18:25:01|Editor: xuxin

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BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese authorities on Tuesday released a set of rules regulating government policies for the steel industry, prohibiting any support for illegal capacity in the sector.

In a notice jointly released by nine government agencies including the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Finance, local authorities were told not to release any measures hampering the elimination of steel capacity that did not meet certain standards and the clean-up of "zombie" companies.

Regarding policies on encouraging innovation, research and technology progress in the industry, local regions should step up supervision and inspection to make sure policy funds are properly used.

The notice also stressed that the country's steel trade policies should comply with WTO rules, banning the release of export subsidies and import substitution subsidies breaching such rules.

The notice was the latest sign of government determination to regulate overcapacity after efforts in cutting capacity in recent years helped support economic growth.

China plans to cut 30 million tonnes of ineffective steel capacity and 150 million tonnes of coal capacity in 2018, according to a government work report released earlier this year.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 18:40:07|Editor: xuxin

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Smoke rises after an attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 21, 2018. All the attackers who fired rockets into Kabul city on Tuesday morning had been killed and the cleanup operation was over, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danesh said. (Xinhua/Rahmat Alizadah)

KABUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- All the attackers who fired rockets into Kabul city on Tuesday morning had been killed and the cleanup operation was over, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danesh said.

A group of militants occupied a building in Kabul city on Tuesday morning and began attacking government buildings and installations, triggering a gun battle.

"All the attackers, possibly two or three terrorists, occupied a building to terrorize people by firing but all of them were killed in gunshots by security personnel," Danesh told reporters at the site of the incident.

He also asserted that only two police personnel were injured in the fight.

However, a local media outlet the Tolonews reported that the residents had counted as many as 22 rockets fired by militants. Reportedly two people had been killed and four others injured.

Earlier, Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai confirmed that three rockets fired by militants slammed into Police District 10 and Police District 2 but caused no loss of life.

The rocket attacks on Kabul city took place just one day after Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani announced a three-month conditional ceasefire starting on Monday, a day before Eidul Adha, the Muslims' largest annual religious festival observed on Tuesday Aug. 21, urging Taliban outfit to follow suit.

Taliban militants, according to Afghans, have rejected the government's offer of ceasefire by firing rockets on the city.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 18:40:11|Editor: Liangyu

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Philadelphia mayor James Kenney (2nd R) and Song Heyi (1st R), editor-in-chief of China Cultural Media Group, attend the opening ceremony of China-U.S. Cultural Heritage and Urban Development Forum in Philadelphia, the United States, Aug. 20, 2018. Philadelphia values its partnership and friendship with China, mayor James Kenney said on Monday during the China-U.S. Cultural Heritage and Urban Development Forum. (Xinhua/Zheng Mei)

PHILADELPHIA, the United States, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Philadelphia values its partnership and friendship with China, mayor James Kenney said on Monday during the China-U.S. Cultural Heritage and Urban Development Forum.

"I think it's important that (U.S.) cities and states continue to forge relationship with our partners, especially China," said Kenney when addressing the one-day event held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center downtown.

The mayor said the forum is not only "a superb platform" for Chinese and American experts and scholars to share experiences and best practices regarding cultural heritage protection, but also "an excellent opportunity" to further strengthen the city's ties with China.

"We welcome you here. We value your partnership and value your friendship and we want to continue," he told the audience.

According to the mayor, Mandarin is the third most spoken language in Philadelphia, whose relationship with China has continued to grow since 1979 when the two countries established diplomatic relations.

Zhao Yumin, acting Chinese consul general in New York, said at the forum that Philadelphia was a pioneer in developing Sino-U.S. relationship, referring to the icebreaking trip of the Philadelphia Orchestra to Beijing and Shanghai in 1973.

"What's the most important heritage we need to protect? That's the cooperative spirit China and the United States have honored for 40 years," said Zhao, adding that he looked forward to seeing Philadelphia become another pioneer in promoting China-U.S. cooperation.

The meaning of Philadelphia is "the city of brotherly love" in Greek. "In fact, we need the friendship between people, and the love between people and nature, between people and cities," Song Heyi, editor-in-chief of China Cultural Media Group said.

The forum was jointly hosted by the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in New York, the China Cultural Media Group, and the City of Philadelphia.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 18:45:13|Editor: xuxin

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ROME, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Italian authorities have no idea yet how many people are missing in a flash flood that occurred Monday in southern Italy, which has killed at least 10 people, an official said Tuesday.

At least 10 hikers, six women and four men, died in a flash flood that occurred Monday in southern Italy, Cosenza Prefecture spokeswoman Antonella Vecchio confirmed to Xinhua.

The flood engulfed the hikers along the banks of the Raganello River, which creates a scenic gorge that is 12 km long and 400 meters deep in the Pollino National Park in the southern Calabria region.

Initial reports that 11 people were dead were later revised by the Civil Protection Agency on the night.

A total of 33 people have been rescued and 11 have been hospitalized, including a little girl who was found in a state of hypothermia and has since been transferred to a hospital in Rome, Vecchio said.

She would not disclose the extent of the child's injuries.

A Dutch citizen was among those hospitalized, Vecchio said.

Vecchio said that the search and rescue effort is ongoing but the authorities have no idea how many people are missing because the gorge is accessible to organized groups with guides as well as hikers who decide to go on their own.

There was one organized group of 18 people, Vecchio added.

As many as 36 men, women and children, plus a guide, were reportedly involved in the flood that occurred due to heavy rains.

Speaking to Sky TG24 private broadcaster, Calabria Civil Protection Agency Chief Carlo Tansi said the flood occurred in a very narrow part of the gorge that runs between very high rock faces.

"We recovered some of the bodies three kilometers downstream from where the flood rose," he said, adding that the area has been getting rainstorms on a daily basis for the entire month of August.

The rescue effort, which continued overnight, has mobilized firefighters, alpine rescue units, divers, a helicopter and rescuers who specialize in exploring caves and mountainous areas.
Kanchanpur rape, murder case: Protests intensify after wrong suspect paraded

Locals of Mahendranagar protesting the rape and subsequent murder of a 13-year-old girl in Kanchanpur have intensified their protests accusing the police of parading a wrong suspect on Monday.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 18:50:16|Editor: xuxin

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WINDHOEK, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The first Arts Summit of Southern Africa focusing on human creativity kicked off here on Monday.

With the theme of "Human Creativity is a vital Economic, Social and Cultural Resource," the event displayed the artwork of various artists ranging from writers, poets, painters and sculptors.

Twelve of the 16 Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states are attending the three-day event.

The summit gives African countries a chance to discuss regional integration and give priority to the creative industries in national development policies. It also aims to address the challenges facing creative industries within the region, according to the organizer, the National Arts Council of Namibia.

The SADC is an inter-governmental organization established in 1992 and committed to promoting regional socio-economic cooperation and integration as well as poverty eradication.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 19:10:22|Editor: xuxin

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BERLIN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Prominent academic experts have sharply criticized recent proposals by the federal government for an overhaul of the national pensions system in Germany on Tuesday.

Speaking to the newspaper "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" (SZ), Bernd Raffelhueschen, professor of economics at the University of Freiburg, warned Berlin that a pension level equivalent to 48 percent of their current income would be "unaffordable and unfair for younger generations."

Raffelhueschen hereby responded to a widely-publicized call by Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) to expand a grand coalition promise to guarantee that level to citizens until and beyond the year 2025.

Axel Boersch-Supan of the Max-Planck-Institute for Social Policy also told SZ that the cost of establishing such a fixed and universal threshold would rise steeply from 40 billion euros (46.1 billion U.S. dollar) per year in 2023 to 100 billion euros in 2040 as the German population continues to age. The budgetary gap which would have to be filled as a consequence would be equivalent to raising value added taxes (VAT) in Germany from 19 to 26 percent.

Boersch-Supan's fellow academic Raffelhueschen estimated that Scholz' plan would come at a long-term cost of as much as three trillion euros, forcing fiscal authorities to take the more drastic step of raising share of incomes which is reserved for the German pensions system. "Young employees would face an even higher fiscal burden and the acceptance of the pensions system would decline", he said.

The gloomy predictions made by Boersch-Supan and Raffelhueschen stand in stark contrast to the benefits which Finance Minister Scholz associates with a 48 percent pension level. The SPD politician has described a corresponding overhaul of the German pensions system as being critical to alleviate citizens' concerns about socio-economic inequality and hence prevent the rise to power of a populist politician like U.S. President Donald Trump.

A spokesperson for Scholz told press that the finance minister was still open to diverse suggestions although the "clear goal" of the public debate which he had started on pensions was to nip "populist tendencies" in the bud. Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) has similarly identified reforms of Germany's public pension system as key policy priority for her ruling cabinet but said that it would ultimately be the task of an independent expert commission appointed by the government to make concrete proposals.

While highlighting the priority which Merkel attaches to the issue, her spokesperson Seibert recently emphasized that the chancellor would not intervene with the work of the independent commission. Seibert noted that the 2020s in particular would become a critical period for the German social insurance system when a large number of citizens from the so-called post-war baby boomer generation are expected to retire.

The heated debate on pensions reflects growing popular concern about the fiscal and economic consequences of the ongoing demographic change in Germany.

A study by the Bertelsmann Foundation has found that nearly two thirds (65 percent) of Germans associate risks with an ageing population for themselves, including falling into old-age poverty, having to worker longer and a need to pay higher salary contributions towards pension schemes.
Pilgrims are waiting for taking light rails constructed and operated by CRCC to travel to Hajj destinations in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on Aug. 20, 2018. (Xinhua)

MECCA, Saudi Arabia, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Around 2.5 million pilgrims from around the globe start travelling for Hajj destinations in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on Monday, taking light rails constructed and operated by China Railway Construction Corporation Limited (CRCC).

Many of the pilgrims, who travel by the light rail for the first time, gave the thumbs up to the fast and convenient services of the Chinese company, as the rail staff were busy helping passengers board the train.

Pilgrims are taking light rails constructed and operated by CRCC to travel to Hajj destinations in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on Aug. 20, 2018. (Xinhua)

Li Chongyang, the vice general manager of CRCC, told Xinhua that the light rail system is estimated to safely and accurately accomplish 2.5 million trips in the Hajj season that lasts five days from Sunday according to the Islamic calendar.

The CRCC won the bidding of the Mecca light rail project in 2009, and provided service for over 15 million trips in 2010-2014.

This year, the Saudi government gave the operating contract worth 93 million U.S. dollars to the CRCC again, three years after the company handed the operation back to the Saudi government.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 19:25:28|Editor: mmm

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BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has offered condolences over the passing away of former United Nations (UN) chief Kofi Annan.

In his message dated on Aug. 19 to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Ghana's Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Wang said he deeply mourned Annan and expressed condolences to his family.

The former UN chief and Nobel Peace Prize laureate passed away on Saturday at the age of 80.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 19:25:29|Editor: xuxin

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HARARE, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Zimbabwe Republic Police has said it is on high alert ahead of the Presidential election petition hearing at the Constitutional Court Wednesday.

The Constitutional Court will hear MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa's challenge in which he seeks the court to nullify the declaration by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) that Mnangagwa had won the July 30 presidential election.

Chamisa alleges some irregularities in the conduct of the election and wants the court to either declare him the winner, or alternatively order a re-run of the presidential poll.

According to results released by ZEC, Mnangagwa won the election with 50.8 percent of the vote while Chamisa polled 44.3 percent.

Police spokesperson Charity Charamba said in a statement that to enhance security and ensure proceedings were not disrupted, roads within the precincts of the Constitutional Court would be barricaded on Wednesday and Thursday.

Members of the public would not be allowed to loiter around the court premises.

The Judicial Service Commission had previously announced that only the road leading to the Constitutional Court would be closed to traffic the whole of Wednesday, but the police have extended the security area.

Journalists covering the case will view proceedings from a special tent where a live feed will be provided as there is limited space in the courtroom to accommodate the huge number of interested people.

"The ZRP and other security services are on high alert and will maintain law and order while ensuring that the public is safe and able to conduct their business in the central business district in a peaceful environment. We want to warn all those bent on instigating violence that the law will be applied without fear or favor," Charamba said.

She said the police had noted with concern messages on social media meant to derail the court proceedings.

"Members of the public are implored not to gather or interfere with the processes around the precincts of the Constitutional Court during the same period," she said.

She appealed to citizens to remain calm and peaceful during the period and urged all interested parties to allow the due process of the court to be conducted without any hindrance.

Six people died on Aug. 1 following protests by MDC Alliance supporters who were unhappy about perceived delays by ZEC to announce the election results.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 19:50:37|Editor: xuxin

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DAMASCUS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A total of 200 people have returned to their homes in government-controlled towns in the countryside of Idlib province in northwestern Syria over the past 24 hours under a Russian supervision, a monitor group reported on Tuesday.

The people crossed the Abu al-Duhur crossing between rebel-held areas and government-controlled ones in the southeast

ern countryside of Idlib, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The watchdog group said the people have fled the raging battles that had flared several months ago during the Syrian army campaign in southern Idlib.

It added that more people are now waiting at the crossing to return to their homes under the guarantee of the Russian side.

Those who are returning came from areas under the control of the rebels, including the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front.

Idlib has emerged as the main destination and stronghold for the rebels fleeing other parts of Syria through deals or surrender.

Several Turkey-backed rebel groups are located in the province near the Turkish border.

After sweeping progress of the army, Idlib is now the last major rebel stronghold in Syria amid reports of either an imminent military action or a settlement akin to other former rebel-held areas where rebels agreed to surrender their weapons to the army.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 19:55:39|Editor: mmm

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Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), attends the plenary meeting of the third session of the Standing Committee of the 13th CPPCC National Committee in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 21, 2018. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese national political advisors met Tuesday to discuss problems in the pollution control work and offer suggestions to correct them.

Wang Yang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), attended the plenary meeting of the third session of the Standing Committee of the 13th CPPCC National Committee.

A total of 14 members of the CPPCC National Committee and its Standing Committee addressed the meeting, underlining the complete implementation of the policies made by the Communist Party of China Central Committee on pollution prevention and control, according to a statement issued after the meeting.

Political advisors highlighted several important issues regarding pollution control, including long-term environmental inspections, legislation on natural reserves, capacity building of local environmental law enforcement agencies, comprehensive conservation of mountains, water resources, forests, farmland and grassland, improvement of awareness among rural residents, and eco-friendly development of the power supply sector, according to the statement.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 19:55:41|Editor: xuxin

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BANGKOK, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Thailand has launched a Southern Economic Corridor (SEC) project covering several of its southern provinces.

During Tuesday's roving cabinet meeting in Chumphon province, about 466 km south of Bangkok, the government approved the SEC project to be implemented in four southern provinces, namely Ranong, Surat Thani, Nakhon Si Thammarat and Chumphon, according to Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak.

He said the SEC project is scheduled to be carried out as a pilot project for other southern provinces to follow in the future.

The SEC project includes the development of Ranong port as a major marine gateway to Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India, the construction of a dual-track railway between the Eastern Economic Corridor on one side of the Gulf of Thailand and Chumphon on the other side, and the promotion of agricultural product processing industry in Surat Thani and Nakhon Si Thammarat, according to the deputy premier.

In addition, he said, a long coastal strip of shores between Phetchaburi and Chumphon will be declared as Thailand's "Riviera" in a bid to lure people, especially foreign visitors, to the tourist spots along the western coasts of the Gulf.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 20:10:42|Editor: xuxin

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NAIROBI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A growth in Kenya's niche market amid rise in incomes and increasing expat community has lured many global shops in the East African.

While the most conspicuous entrants into the East African nation are supermarkets, top consumer brands in clothes, transport, food, banks and electronics have entered the market in the recent months.

The brands from different countries are seemingly scrambling to enter Kenya as consumers both in high-end and middle-income and the foreigners accept them.

Kenya is home to various international organizations that include the United Nations Environment Programme and foreign embassies.

These organizations have seen the expat community grow in Kenya providing ready market for the top brands.

Some of the top brands that have entered Kenya include German engineering and electronics firm, Bosch, which launched its first store in Central and East Africa in Nairobi last week.

Subway, a fast-food outlet, similarly, announced last week plans to open four more branches in Nairobi.

For clothes shop, Kenyans have an array to choose from, which include LC Waikiki, a Turkish clothing line, The Foschini Group of South Africa, UK's F&F and Austria's and India's jewellery shops Swarovski and Anmol.

For cars, the luxury brands that have set shop in Kenya include Porsche, BMW and Bentley, among top brands in various industries.

At a top mall in Nairobi, one can shop at a French supermarket, eat at a Chinese restaurant and buy clothes at an American or UK shop.

The scene is replicated in various high-end malls across the capital Nairobi, with the foreign brands taking sizeable space in the facilities.

Henry Wandera, an economics lecturer in Nairobi, attributed the entrance of top brands in Kenya mainly to growing economy and Kenya's position in the region.

"The top brands are finding Kenya alluring because it is the region's biggest economy. Once they establish in Kenya, they can easily enter any other country," he said.

He further noted that the Kenyan retail market is fast-growing thanks to rising incomes, thus opportunities are still huge in the country.

"If you look at the food sector, the industry dominated by local shops, a majority with one or two branches. This offers chance for bigger foreign brands to come in," he said, adding the global shops indicate that Nairobi is an attractive regional hub for investment.

Cytonn, a Nairobi-based investment firm, noted that various international retailers have penetrated the Kenyan market in the last six years.

The firm attributed the move to a number of factors, which include expanding middle class and vibrant real estate development.

"Kenya's private consumption expenditure has recorded the highest growth, since 2013 when it hit 8.4 percent in 2017, compared to 4.7 percent in 2016, 5.2 percent in 2015, and 4.3 percent in 2014. This is attractive to the brands," said Cytonn.

The number of ultra-high net-worth individuals, those who are worth 50 million U.S. dollars and above in Kenya, rose by 13 percent to 90 in 2017 from 80 in 2016, according to Knight Frank's Wealth Report 2018, with the number of wealthy Kenyans expected to increase by 58 percent on average by 2022. This is one of the reason that leads to an increase in demand for luxury brands.

The rise in the top brands has had great impact on the East African nation's real estate sector, with developers keen to build high-quality retail spaces that conform to international standards to attract multinational firms.

"These firms reaffirm Kenya's position as one of the leading regional hubs for investments in the continent. We therefore expect to see continued interest from foreign players and investors coming into Kenya," said Cytonn.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 20:10:43|Editor: xuxin

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ULAN BATOR, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia is keen on enhancing relations and cooperation with the European Union (EU) to diversify its mining-dependent economy, Mongolia's Parliament Speaker Miyegombo Enkhbold said Tuesday.

According to the parliament's press office, Enkhbold made the remarks when meeting with the European Union (EU) ambassador to Mongolia Traian Laurentiu Hristea.

"Particularly, we are eager to closely cooperate with the EU to implement projects aimed at developing areas of agriculture, food, energy and infrastructure, and improving small and medium-sized enterprises as well as creating more jobs," he said.

During the meeting, the two sides agreed to discuss ways to strengthen bilateral ties and cooperation at the regular inter-parliamentary meeting between Mongolia and the European Parliament in September in Ulan Bator, the parliament's press office said.

Mongolia and the EU are set to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations in 2019.
Resolution motion fails to make it to House discussion

A resolution motion proposing inclusion of issues against rape and gender-based violence in school textbooks has yet to be tabled in the House of Representatives following reservations from ruling parity lawmakers.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 20:15:46|Editor: xuxin

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HO CHI MINH CITY, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam Airlines inaugurated a flight simulation complex, the first of its kind in Vietnam, in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday, marking a breakthrough in the national flag carrier's pilot training strategy.

The complex, which comprises four simulators, is expected to save 12.5 million U.S. dollars for Vietnam Airlines in 10 years by training pilots itself, the Vietnam News Agency reported.

The complex is also expected to help the Vietnam Airlines training center in Ho Chi Minh City enter Top 5 training centers in Asia. The center currently provides training services for many airlines in the region, including those from Australia and India.

Vietnam's aviation industry served 28.9 million passengers in the first seven months of this year, up 14.6 percent year-on-year, and transported 205,700 tons of cargoes, up 14.1 percent, according to the General Statistics Office.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 20:20:47|Editor: xuxin

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ACCRA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The government of Ghana seeks partners to establish a home-based international airline, Minister for Aviation Cecilia Abena Dapaah has said.

"Cabinet gave approval in October 2017 for the Ministry of Aviation to start the necessary process for the establishment of a home-based carrier with private sector participation," the minister told the media on Monday.

"The establishment of the carrier has the potential to generate financial and economic benefits with its multiplier effect on Ghana and within the west African sub-region," the minister said.

The previous national carrier, Ghana Airways, was established in 1958, but was liquidated in 2004 by the government of former President John Kufuor. Its last aircraft, a DC-10, has become a restaurant, sitting close to the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).

The cabinet has also given approval for the ministry to enter into negotiations with Air Mauritius and Abu Dhabi Aviation while continuing with discussions with Ethiopian Airlines and other strategic investors to help establish the home-based carrier.

There have been different attempts at securing a new home-based carrier for the west African country, where international passenger numbers grew 3.71 percent to 1,811,428 last year, from 2016's 1,746,699.

Domestic traffic also surged, rising 14.5 percent to reach 483,261 last year, up from 421,261 recorded in 2016.

After the liquidation of Ghana Airways in 2004, Ghana entered into a partnership with a group of international private investors to set up Ghana International Airlines (GIA) in 2005.

However, due to liquidity challenges and a protracted legal battle among the shareholders, the airline, which operated scheduled, charter passenger and cargo services, had to fold up five years later in 2010.

Ghana has expanded the capacity of its international airport with the construction of a third terminal, which experts see as a great opportunity for the country to be able to facilitate larger numbers of international passenger movement.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 20:30:50|Editor: xuxin

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COLOMBO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lankan government will renew its search for an investor for its national air carrier in the next three months through public call for offers, Adviser to the Finance Ministry Mano Tittawella said on Tuesday.

Tittawella said the public private partnership unit in the Treasury will request expressions of interest in September or October as the government hopes to be in negotiation with interested parties during the first quarter of 2019.

"The new board at SriLankan Airlines has now activated a strategic business plan and are confident that by the end of the financial year 2018/2019, the airline can record a significantly lesser loss than what was recorded when the new board took office in April 2018," he said.

The adviser added that some investors had already expressed interest in investing in the airline.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said last year that the government was seeking an international partner who could manage and invest in the flag carrier after the airline recorded a massive debt of 3.25 billion U.S. dollars.

Wickremesinghe said the SriLankan Airlines was a "landmine" for the country's economy with its high debts and the government would take over part of its debts in order to seek for an international partner or investor.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 20:30:50|Editor: xuxin

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Volunteers arrange plastic bags containing food that will be distributed to residents in shelters in Lombok, Indonesia, Aug. 27, 2018. Multiple strong quakes devastated the island since July 29, killing over 500 people. (Xinhua/Zulkarnain)

JAKARTA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Indonesian government on Tuesday asked quake survivors in Lombok Island in central parts of the country to kick off reconstruction of their houses after multiple strong quakes devastated the island since July 29, killing over 500 people.

The jolts rattled over 73,843 houses and scores of infrastructures facilities in the country's tourist destination island, forcing a total of 431,436 people to flee their homes and take shelters in makeshift encampments, spokesman of national disaster management agency Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla met with quake-affected people in West Nusa Tenggara province on Tuesday, saying that the government would provide financial assistance for the reconstruction.

To better cope with possible quakes, the residence would be guided on how to build new houses which can resist the tremblor of quakes of up to 9.0-magnitude, Kalla said in a statement issued by the agency.

The amount of the financial assistance would be various based on the level of the damages, Kalla said.

He said for serious damages, the government would assist a 50-million-rupiah (some 3,432 U.S. dollars) aid, and 25 million rupiah (about 1,716 U.S. dollars) for moderate damages as well as 10 million rupiah (686 U.S. dollars) for light damages.

Indonesian Public Work Minister Basuki Hadimuljono said the ministry would train people on how to build quake-resistant houses.

The minister said the ministry would immediately rebuild collapsed school buildings, markets, and other infrastructures facilities.

Four major quakes of 6.4, 7.0, 6.5 and 6.9 magnitude respectively rattled Lombok Island since July 29, one of which triggered tsunami, devastating houses, buildings, bridges, and cutting off communication and triggering electricity outages.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 20:30:51|Editor: xuxin

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by Abdul Haleem

KABUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Exactly one year ago on August 21, U.S. President Donald Trump announced his much awaited new strategy on Afghanistan and South Asia aimed at winning the so-called war on terror, containing militancy and ensuring lasting peace in Afghanistan.

The new approach covering the militancy-riddled Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and the central Asian states with the objective to find amicable solution to the Afghan lingering crisis and bring about viable peace in the war-torn country, according to Afghan observers, has virtually failed as militancy has been continuing like yester years.

The militants fired several rockets on the fortified Afghan capital Kabul city on Tuesday, which is the first anniversary of Trump's strategy on Afghanistan.

The armed militants took position in a building not far from the Presidential Palace and fired rockets on important areas including the well-protected diplomatic enclave, while the faithful Afghans were offering Eid-ul-Adha prayers amid tight security.

"Increasing militancy in Afghanistan clearly speaks of the failure of President Trump's strategy," political analyst and university professor Abdul Qahar Sarwari observed in talks with Xinhua.

"Today's attack in Kabul and firing rockets on parts of the city displays the U.S. new policy's failure in Afghanistan and instead demonstrates the strength of insurgent groups that they can target any place at anytime if they want to do," the analyst maintained.

Trump in his new strategy, unveiled on Aug. 21, 2017, vowed to increase the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and win the costly and longest war in America's history.

Although the strength of the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan is unknown, media reports suggest the presence of around 14,000-strong troops with the majority of them Americans stationed in the war-battered country to train and advise the Afghan forces in battle against militants.

Despite the U.S. new strategy, the militancy has gotten momentum and different groups including Taliban and the hardliner Islamic State (IS) outfit have continued to maneuver in the war-torn country.

A report released by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) here in July stated that the increasing militancy and conflicts had claimed the lives of 1,692 civilians and injured 3,430 others from 1 January to 30 June 2018.

In addition to the civilian casualties, countless Afghan security personnel and militants have also been killed.

Tuesday's rocket attacks on Kabul city took place just after Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani announced a three-month conditional ceasefire starting on Monday, a day before Eid-ul-Adha, the Muslims' largest annual religious festival observed on Tuesday Aug. 21, urging the Taliban outfit to follow suit.

"Overlooking the government's offer for ceasefire and firing rockets on Kabul city by militants on Eid-ul-Adha festival speaks of utter failure of Washington's new strategy on Afghanistan," another analyst Nazari Pariani told Xinhua.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 20:35:54|Editor: xuxin

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OSLO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Norway's sovereign wealth fund returned 1.8 percent, or 167 billion kroner (19.7 billion U.S. dollars) in the second quarter of 2018, the fund said on Tuesday.

Equity, fixed-income and unlisted real estate investments returned 2.7 percent, 0.0 percent and 1.9 percent respectively in the quarter, according to a statement of the fund, formally known as the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) and ranked as the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund.

Global stock markets had a positive development in the second quarter and thereby reversed the negative development at the beginning of the year, the fund said.

"North American and European stocks had a positive development in the quarter despite the prospect of increased trade barriers," said Trond Grande, deputy CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, which is the part of the Norwegian central bank that is responsible for managing the fund.

In the second quarter, 2 billion kroner was withdrawn from the fund, it said.

"In June, the fund had its first inflow since 2015. For the quarter as a whole we still had outflow," Grande said.

The fund had a market value of 8,337 billion kroner as at June 30, 2018, of which 66.8 percent were invested in equities, 2.6 percent in unlisted real estate and 30.6 percent in fixed income, it said. (1 U.S. dollar = 8.47 kroner)
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 20:35:57|Editor: mmm

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SINGAPORE, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A Singapore-Zhejiang Economic and Trade Council (SZETC) Roundtable was held here Tuesday, with participants agreeing to strive for stronger cooperative relations between the two sides.

The event was joined by Sim Ann, Senior Minister of State of Singapore's Ministry of Communications and Information & Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, and Yuan Jiajun, Governor of eastern China's Zhejiang Province.

At the roundtable, five Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) were signed between Singaporean and Zhejiang organizations. Enterprise Singapore (Singapore secretariat for SZETC) signed an MoU with Zhejiang Provincial Department of Commerce (Zhejiang secretariat for SZETC) to form five work groups under the SZETC to identify key projects, consider policy enhancements and promote dialogue between government officials, business leaders and experts more effectively. Other MoUs touch upon trade, logistics and urban solutions.

More than 100 Singapore and Zhejiang government and business representatives attended the SZETC roundtable, which discussed collaboration in maritime economy, professional services and urban management.

The 13th SZETC meeting was held in April this year in Zhejiang, which is renowned for its private sectors.

Zhejiang is one of the seven Chinese provinces that have established economic and trade councils with Singapore.
A doctor from the Chinese naval hospital ship Peace Ark examines a child at the Kurasini Children's Home in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Nov. 21, 2017. A team of Chinese doctors from the Chinese naval hospital ship Peace Ark on Tuesday visited the Kurasini Children's Home (KCH), a government-owned center established in 1968 to look after abandoned, lost and abused children, where they provided free medical care and donated school bags and toys. (Xinhua/Li Sibo)

DAR ES SALAAM, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- China and Africa have enjoyed a long history of cooperation in terms of health.

The presence of Chinese medical teams is now a common feature in most sub-Saharan countries where they are saving the lives of tens of thousands of people.

STAND SIDE BY SIDE

Since China sent out its first medical team to Africa in 1963, China has exerted all means to assist Africa, including building medical institutions, providing medicines and medical devices, organizing training sessions, and offering scholarships to assist Africa's health infrastructure building, capacity building and talent training.

A doctor checks a man's heart in the Chinese hospital ship Peace Ark in Djibouti, on Aug. 24, 2017. The Peace Ark arrived in Djibouti on Wednesday and was expected to carry out a nine-day medical service in Djibouti. It will then travel to Sierra Leone, Gabon, Tanzania and other countries to provide free medical and humanitarian services. (Xinhua/Wang Shoubao)

From Addis Ababa in Ethiopia to Windhoek in Namibia, Chinese medical staff of 43 medical teams are working round the clock providing medical services to local residents across Africa.

China has sent over 20,000 medical workers since 1963 and some 200 million African people have benefited from medical service of Chinese medical teams in Africa.

When the outbreak of Ebola virus disease picked up pace in West Africa in 2014, China sent medical workers and experts to help with no hesitation.

In February 2014, an Ebola epidemic broke out in Guinea and later spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia, while other countries also reported infection cases. The outbreak claimed hundreds of lives in months and posed a great threat to those affected countries.

Chinese doctor Li Xiushan checks the eyes of a boy at the Ethio-China Friendship Hospital, located in Akaki at the outskirts of Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Aug. 17, 2018. The 20th batch of the Chinese medical team, which constitutes 16 medical professionals, is based at Tirunesh-Beijing Hospital, also known as the Ethio-China Friendship Hospital. China issued the first Medical Workers' Day on Aug. 19.(Xinhua/Lyu Shuai)

Since the outbreak, China has carried out its largest aid program in health area, providing several rounds of financial aids to Africa, sending hundreds of medical personnel and public health experts to the affected countries and training local medical workers on the continent.

"China has always stood with Liberia as a true friend," the then Liberian President Sirleaf said, noting China's assistance and contributions to her country's fight against the Ebola disease should be appreciated by all Liberians.

PROFESSIONAL AND CONTINUING MEDICAL SUPPORT

In Tanzania, Chinese medical team is a household name across the country where China has been sending teams of doctors since half a century ago.

Members of Chinese mobile laboratory team work at a laboratory in Freetown, capital of Sierra Leone, Jan. 22, 2015. Chinese mobile laboratory team has analyzed 4,272 cases of Ebola virus. Since the outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease, China provided its aid in the first time and so far has sent successively several medical teams and four batches of emergency aid worth a total of 700 million yuan (around 112.2 million U.S. dollars) to the epidemic-hit countries, becoming one of the biggest donors to the infected areas and playing an important role in coping with the epidemic.(Xinhua/Xin Wenwen)

According to Chinese Ambassador to Tanzania Wang Ke, medical and health cooperation between China and Tanzania began in 1964 and 1968 when the Chinese government started sending medical teams to Zanzibar and Tanzania mainland.

Wang added that a total of 32 Chinese medical team members are currently working at the Muhimbili National Hospital, the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute, the Muhimbili Orthopaedic Institute and in hospitals in Zanzibar and Pemba.

In November last year, Chinese navy hospital ship "Peace Ark" visited Tanzania and provided 6,441 Tanzanians with free medical treatment.

Tanzanian President John Magufuli thanked Chinese doctors for treating the patients in the Chinese naval hospital ship Peace Ark during its eight-day stay in Tanzania's commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

Magufuli said the move by the Chinese government to send the Peace Ark to Tanzania has further improved the relationship between the two countries.

Wang Peng (L), a Chinese doctor checks a girl's injury at the Katutura State Hospital in Windhoek, capital of Namibia, July 22, 2015. The 10th Chinese Medical Team to Namibia consists of four doctors and nurses of the Traditional Chinese Medicine from China's Zhejiang Province. They treat about 600 patients monthly free of charge at the Chinese Acupuncture Department of Katutura State Hospital in Namibian capital Windhoek. China sent its first medical team to Namibia in 1996. (Xinhua/Wu Changwei)

"The coming of the ship has written a new history in the cordial relationship of the two countries," he said.

In Ethiopia, Chinese medical teams have more than nearly 45 years of working in Ethiopian cities and towns, and authored their stories of success and dedication.

Mei Gengnian, head of the first Chinese medical team to Ethiopia, died in 1975 in a car accident while he was serving local communities in Jimma town of Oromia regional state, 380 km south of Addis Ababa.

File photo taken on Aug 15, 2007 shows Chinese doctor Wu Weiguo (2nd L) exchanges experiences of surgical anesthesia with local doctors in Lusaka, capital of Zambia. In 1963, China's first foreign aid medical team arrived in Africa. For the past 50 years, Chinese government has sent 23,000 medical personnel to 66 countries and regions, most of which are African countries. (Xinhua/Zhai Xi)

Buried near the spot where he died, his grave is being tended by a local family, and Mei's son has followed his father's footsteps by joining a medical mission to Ethiopia.

Amid success and dedication, China-Ethiopia health cooperation is continuing to progress as both sides have learned valuable lessons from each other.

Chitalu Chilufya, Zambia's Minister of Health honored the 19th Chinese Medical Team in May for their exemplary work during their tour of duty in the southern African nation

He said the doctors worked diligently during their tour of duty as evidenced in improved service delivery in the four hospitals where they were stationed in.

Zambia and China, he said, have developed cordial relations in the last 40 years in the health sector which has resulted in the improvement of both infrastructure in the sector and capacity building of health personnel.

"We would like to express our gratitude to the team for helping in strengthening our health system. Since 1978, Zambia and China have collaborated in the health sector," he said.

A Chinese doctor takes medical examination of children at a orphanage in Lusaka, capital of Zambia, June 1, 2013. In a move aiming at promoting China-Zambia friendship, three Zambia-based Chinese organizations -- the Confucius Institute, Chinese medical team and Sino-Hydro Zambia Limited on Saturday got together with children of the Kabwata Orphanage in Lusaka during celebrations to mark the International Children's Day. (Xinhua/Kris Moonga)

DEEPENED COOPERATION IN HEALTH SECTOR

In 2015, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit in Johannesburg listed public health cooperation as part of the 10 China-Africa cooperation plans, lifting China-Africa health cooperation to a new level.

China and Africa have also seen deepened cooperation in the health sector thanks to efforts from both sides in recent years. Besides, medical service such as China-led Brightness Action campaign and medical training has also witnessed achievements.

In the Republic of Congo, since the China-led Brightness Action campaign was launched in 2016, the China-Congo Friendship Hospital (CCFH), where the Chinese medical team in the country is stationed, has been receiving modern surgical supplies and medical instruments from China to treat eye illness.

Zhang Weipeng, an ophthalmologist at the hospital and also the doctor in charge of cataract surgery, said his department receives an average of 30 patients every day and many of them come to CCFH specially for phacoemulsification.

File photo taken on Oct. 11, 2009 shows military medical officers examine patients in Bukavu, capital city of Sud-Kivu Province, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In 1963, China's first foreign aid medical team arrived in Africa. For the past 50 years, Chinese government has sent 23,000 medical personnel to 66 countries and regions, most of which are African countries. (Xinhua/He Changzhen)

The doctor, however, said some local patients are reluctant to seek treatment until their eyesight is blurred by cataract, making it more difficult for the surgery to be performed.

"But as an ophthalmologist, the biggest happiness is to see my patients regain eyesight. It moves me a lot to see that Congolese patients trust Chinese doctors," said Zhang.

Zhang said he is also actively involved in training sessions for local people and doctors to increase public awareness of eye illness and medical officers' skills.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime," said Zhang, adding that only when local doctors can independently perform cataract surgeries, there will be a "permanent" medical team to provide service to the public.

At a ministerial conference held with the aim of stepping up China-Africa cooperation in health in Pretoria, South Africa last year, China pledged to work with all other countries, international organizations and non-governmental organizations in addressing the global health challenge, and through South-South cooperation, to help build the health sector in developing countries.

File photo taken on March 12, 2013 shows Chinese doctor Liang Weimin operates on a patient at a hospital in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo. In 1963, China's first foreign aid medical team arrived in Africa. For the past 50 years, Chinese government has sent 23,000 medical personnel to 66 countries and regions, most of which are African countries. (Xinhua/Meng Chenguang)

China also called for intensified efforts to improve the accessibility of Africa's health services, strengthen the public health prevention and control system and capacity-building in Africa, scale up support for the health needs of the youth and women, deepen people-to-people exchanges in health and bring more benefits to the people through China-Africa health cooperation.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 20:56:07|Editor: xuxin

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MANILA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Seven members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) were reportedly killed in government's fresh offensive, Philippines' military said on Tuesday.

Army spokesperson Capt. Arvin Encinas said troops bombed the hideout of BIFF in a village of Sultan sa Barongis, a town in Maguindanao province on Monday.

"We conducted the surgical operation, utilizing indirect fires, to include our mortars and 105 mm howitzers upon receiving information from concerned civilians on the whereabouts of the group members," he said.

He said BIFF militants under leader Esmael Abdulmalik, alias Abu Toraype, were in the village to make improvised explosive devices in the area in preparation for another bombing attack in Maguindanao province.

Encinas said the offensive was launched to thwart the BIFF militants' plan to carry out bombing in the province.

"Based on initial (information), we are validating reports that there were seven militants who were killed in the offensive. It's not yet confirmed," he said.

He added that the military has yet to uncover the bodies of the dead militants.

According to the Philippine government and military, there are up to 400 BIFF militants operating in southern Philippines.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 21:06:09|Editor: xuxin

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TOKYO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Japan's weather agency said Tuesday it has been monitoring two typhoons that are approaching the Japanese archipelago and has warned of heavy downpours, gusty winds and high waves across many parts of the country.

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), Typhoon Soulik was located about 110 km east of Amami Oshima island in Kagoshima Prefecture and moving at a speed of 25 kph with an atmospheric pressure of 950 hectopascals at its center, at 5:00 p.m. local time.

Weather officials said Typhoon Soulik has been traveling in a northwesterly direction in the Pacific Ocean and will likely skirt southern Kyushu and the Amami Islands from Tuesday night to Wednesday morning.

The JMA has warned that the typhoon will not lose its power as it moves across stormy seas to its west and while it may not make direct landfall on Kyushu, the southern part of the region will see around 400 mm of rain by Wednesday noon.

The Amami region, the JMA said, will likely receive as much as 300 mm of rain, while the Shikoku region could see downpours of as much as 250 mm.

The Amami region has already felt the effect of the typhoon's strong winds, with some 8,000 homes having their power knocked out, according to local media reports.

Strong winds of up to 216 kph will continue to pound the Amami region through Wednesday, the weather agency said, and waves of up to 11 meters are expected in the southern Kyushu and Amami regions, warned the JMA.

In addition, both the Tokai and Kinki regions are also expected to receive heavy downpours, the agency has warned.

Typhoon Cimaron, for its part, is currently moving across the Pacific south of Tokyo and is forecast to make landfall in western Japan on Friday.

The western region has already suffered from a powerful earthquake and devastating torrential downpours recently, the latter of which killed 220 people in July.

The JMA said that as of 3:00 p.m. local time, Cimaron was moving in a northwesterly direction at a speed of 30 kph and is packing gusts of up to 180 kph with an atmospheric pressure of 970 hectopascals at its center.

The agency said the typhoon will likely strengthen as it bears down on western Japan before it makes landfall.
Samsung Note 9: Beauty or a burden?

Every year we see smartphone companies scramble to come up with the most eye- catching designs, innovative software additions, and extensive advertisement campaigns to try and give themselves an edge over competitorswho, in all truth, offer devices that are more or less the same, as far as functionality is concerned.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 21:06:09|Editor: xuxin

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TEHRAN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Iran's first indigenous fighter jet, unveiled on Tuesday, is by no means a threat to the region but for sustainable peace, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said.

The Kowsar fighter jet was designed and manufactured by the Iranian experts to be used as a defensive tool for the country, Rouhani said at a ceremony marking National Defense Day on Tuesday.

At the ceremony attended by Rouhani and Defense Minister Amir Hatami in the capital Tehran, the Kowsar fighter jet was put on display and made its first flight.

"We are obliged to safeguard power, dignity and safety of the nation at lower cost," said Rouhani, quoted by the official IRNA news agency.

The Iranian president also said that in case the country overlooks deterrent power and does not rely on its own capabilities, there will be enemies seeking to harm Iran.

"Iran's preparedness for defense does not mean warmongering but signifies a durable peace," he said.

Iran has never invaded its regional neighbors and will never do so, he said.

Rouhani also warned the "enemies" of the heavy costs of any military action against the country, saying that the existing unity among the Iranian people, leadership and the armed forces has made the Islamic republic unbeatable.

"Any hostile move against Iran would cost the aggressors dearly," Rouhani said according to Tasnim news agency.

He also pointed to the "high political costs" that some regional countries have borne to purchase foreign arms that they cannot even operate.

"Those countries have to invite foreign advisers and become servants of foreign powers by giving in to the demands of the arms sellers," said Rouhani.

Washington imposes sanctions on Iran, but refrains from taking military action against the Islamic republic, since it is aware of the heavy costs of aggression, he added.

Hatami also hailed what he called the country's self-sufficiency in arms sphere.

"We are moving towards the use of modern technologies and defense diplomacy," he said, adding that "we tried to strengthen our defense sector within the framework of our needs and priorities."

"Of course, we are doing this at the lowest cost," and Iran's expenditure on defense sector is even less than that of smaller countries, he said.

According to Press TV, the fighter jet is equipped with "advanced avionics and fire control systems" and can be used for short aerial support missions.

It also uses digital military data networks, multi-purpose digital monitors, ballistic calculation computers and smart mobile mapping systems.

The jet has an advanced radar system, enabling it to detect enemy targets. It is also equipped with a head-up display or HUD, which promotes precision targeting.

The plane can be manufactured in both single and double cockpit types, the latter of which can be used for advanced pilot training missions in addition to its combat capability.

On Sunday, the defense minister also put developing deterrent missile power as the country's top priority.

Hatami hailed the country's military achievements, and vowed to continue enhancing missile capabilities.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 21:06:09|Editor: mmm

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BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Education on Tuesday ordered improved paper grading for school exams to ensure educational fairness.

The ministry gave the order after it announced the results of an investigation into grading errors reported at senior high school entrance examinations in Yan'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Machine errors were to blame for the incorrect grades 3,252 students received for their English exam, the ministry said.

It asked local educational authorities across the country to run a thorough check of every aspect of the high school entrance examination paper grading system -- including the procedure, management, technology, and supervision.

All problems need to be corrected in time, it said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 21:26:15|Editor: xuxin

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BERLIN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The number of female executives at the helm of so-called "Mittelstand" in Germany has declined once again, a study published on Tuesday by the state-owned KfW banking group finds.

The term "Mittelstand" is traditionally used in Germany to denote small- and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs), but also has qualitative connotations such as family-ownership, long-term focus, social responsibility and strong regional ties. The sector is often considered to constitute the backbone of the export-oriented German economy.

According to the KfW researchers, only 16.4 percent of chief executive officers (CEO) in such SMEs were female in 2016. The figure marked a decline of three percentage points compared to the current record year of 2013 (19.4 percent) and meant that women were only in charge at around 608,000 out of Germany's total of 3.71 million SMEs.

The study authors highlighted that the disappointing trend mirrored a fall in the share of female company founders from 43 percent in 2013 to 37 percent in 2017. The study attributed this circumstance to the effect of Germany's booming labor market on the female workforce. More women were currently disincentivized to become self-employed due to the availability of regular and more stable jobs as employees.

The KfW Study noted, however, that the data compiled showcased divergent trends for the number of female executives depending on the size and type of SME. In the category of so-called "smallest companies" with less than five full-time employees, the share of women in leading positions fell from 20.7 percent in 2013 to 17 percent in 2016. By contrast, the rate grew from 10.4 percent in 2013 to 11.5 percent in 2016 for larger companies with between 10 and 49 full-time employees.

In spite of the slight increase in female executives at larger SMEs, women were structurally still far more likely to run businesses in the "smallest companies" category. As a consequence, female-led SMEs accounted for a disproportionately low 10 percent of total employees in the sector, eight percent of investment and seven percent of gross revenue.

"The declining figures of female-led Mittelstand companies is worrying", Joerg Zeuner, KfW chief economist commented on the findings on Tuesday. He added that the Germany economy needed well-educated women in senior positions "more than ever" given the country's shrinking population and scarcity of skilled labor.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 21:26:15|Editor: xuxin

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TOKYO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) decided on Tuesday to hold its leadership election on Sept. 20, in what is likely to be a two-horse race between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

The ruling party's election will essentially decide not just the LDP's leader but also who will go on to serve as the nation's next prime minister.

If Abe, 63, who is currently favorite to win the race with five out of seven intraparty factions supporting him, does so, his third-term at the helm will all but ensure he becomes the longest-serving prime minister.

Official campaigning for the LDP leadership is slated to begin on Sept. 7 and Abe is likely to officially declare his candidacy next week, sources close to the party have said.

Abe has been unopposed and was reelected for his second consecutive three-year term in 2015.

Former Defense Minister Ishiba, 61, declared his candidacy on Aug. 10 and said that if Abe were allowed to run unopposed again, it would undermine democracy here.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 21:31:16|Editor: Liangyu

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Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua (R) and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev co-chair the second meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission for Cooperation of the Northeast China and the Far East and Baikal Region of Russia, in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province, Aug. 21, 2018. (Xinhua/Yang Qing)

DALIAN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Senior Chinese and Russian officials on Tuesday agreed to further boost cooperation between Northeast China and the Far East and Baikal Region of Russia.

Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev reached the agreement when co-chairing the second meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission for Cooperation of the Northeast China and the Far East and Baikal Region of Russia, in Dalian, Liaoning Province.

Citing a major consensus reached between President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin on enhancing cooperation between the regions, Hu said the cooperation will enrich the China-Russia all-round partnership of strategic coordination.

Related departments and regions of the two countries have actively implemented the outcomes of the first meeting of the commission, and achieved new progress in cooperation, Hu said.

The main task of the second meeting of the commission is to implement the important consensus reached between leaders of the two countries, help solve problems, expand and deepen cooperation, and achieve more pragmatic results, Hu said.

Trutnev, also the presidential envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia, said China is a major cooperation partner of the Far East and Baikal Region, and Russia is ready to work with China to promote new progress in bilateral cooperation.

The two sides agreed to increase communication, enhance the planning for the cooperation, improve the business environment, facilitate customs clearance, promote connectivity, and create conditions for expanding cooperation in fields such as port logistics, resources development, modern agriculture, and equipment manufacturing.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 21:31:16|Editor: xuxin

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MANAMA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Bahrain authorities on Tuesday announced it was suspending issuance of entry visas for Qataris.

The Interior Ministry said Qatari students in Bahrain were excluded along with those with valid visas.

"The decision wasn't taken because of Qatari nationals who share brotherly ties with Bahrainis but as a result of irresponsible acts of Qatari authorities that don't consider the rights of neighbouring countries or the principles of the international law," stated the Ministry.

The Arab Quartet that consists of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt severed all ties with Doha last year for "supporting terror groups."

The Quartet issued a list of 13 demands presented to Doha through Kuwait to resolve the crisis that is still not addressed.

The demands include closing a Turkish military base in Qatar and shutting the Al Jazeera pan-Arab television network.
Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad greets his supporters during Eid al-Adha prayers at a mosque in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture provided by Syrian Arab News Agency on August 21, 2018. (Reuters photo)

DAMASCUS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad performed the special prayers of Eid al-Adha feast in a mosque in the capital Damascus Tuesday, according to the state news agency SANA. (Reuters photo)

The president performed the prayers along with ministers of Syrian government at al-Rawda Mosque in a square under the same name in the high-end Abu Rummaneh neighborhood.

Khudr Shahrur, the head of the Religious Endowments of Rif Damascus Governorate, led the special prayers.

The Imam said after the prayer that "Mr. President, you have led the ship to the safety shore with wisdom and ability as you were the skillful shipmaster. The people are behind you hand in hand to build the glory of Syria."

His remarks come as the Assad administration has made strides in the battles against an array of rebel groups, including ultra-radical ones such as the Islamic State (IS) and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front.

The Russian-backed Syrian army has made recent successive victories almost capturing the entire southern region after securing the capital Damascus and other key areas.

The major rebel stronghold remains in the northwestern province of Idlib, where an imminent military operation could be around the corner.

Other than that, the rebels are holding some pockets in the northern countryside of Hama and some desert regions in the north near border with Turkey.

As for the Kurdish-led groups, negotiations have been taking place between the Kurds and Syrian government to a reach a peaceful settlement for the Kurdish-controlled region in northeastern Syria.
File Photo: Top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un (L) shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump during the signing ceremony of a joint statement in Singapore on June 12, 2018. (Xinhua/Ministry of Communication and Information of Singapore)

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said here on Monday that he would "most likely" meet with the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong Un.

Speaking with Reuters in an interview at the White House, Trump said it would be "likely" when asked whether he and Kim would meet for the second time.

"It's most likely we will, but I just don't want to comment," Trump said, offering no details on the timing or venue.

He also said that he believes Pyongyang had taken specific steps toward denuclearization.

He added that he has "great chemistry" with Kim.

"I like him. He likes me," he said. "There's no ballistic missiles going up, there's a lot of silence ... I have very good personal relations with Chairman Kim, and I think that's what holds it together."

ON TURKEY

As U.S.-Turkey diplomatic deadlock lingered over an American pastor, Trump ruled out any possibility of concessions with Turkey over the case, and said he was not concerned at all that his tough stance on Turkey could hurt other economies.

"I think it's very sad what Turkey is doing. I think they're making a terrible mistake. There will be no concessions," he said in the interview.

Trump said he thought he had a deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to release Andrew Brunson after he had convinced Israel to free a detained Turkish citizen.

"Until now I had a very good relationship as you know with the president. I got along with him great. I had a very good relationship. But it can't be a one-way street. It's no longer a one-way street for the United States," said Trump.

Reuters quoted a U.S. senior official that Trump and Erdogan had met in Brussels in mid-July when they discussed how to solve Brunson's case, as "Turkey had sought U.S. help to persuade the Israelis to release a Turkish woman who was being held in Israel."

When asked about the potential damage of U.S. actions to other economies, the White House host said that "I'm not concerned at all. I'm not concerned. This is the proper thing to do."

Andrew Brunson, a 50-year-old Christian pastor, was detained two years ago in Turkey on spying charges, and would face up to 35 years in prison if found guilty.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury slapped sanctions on Turkey's justice and interior ministers on Aug. 1, citing their roles in the detention of Brunson.

Trump tweeted on Aug. 10 that he has authorized a doubling of tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum imports as their currency Lira slides rapidly downward against the U.S. dollar.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in response that problems with the United States over a series of differences can be solved easily but not with its current mindset.

Cavusoglu also said that Turkey has done its part in terms of preserving friendly relations with the United States, and once again accused Washington of supporting terrorist groups targeting Turkey.

ON RUSSIA, IRAN

In the interview, Trump also indicated that he would consider lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia if Moscow took some actions in such areas as Syria or Ukraine.

"I would consider it if they do something that would be good for us. But I wouldn't consider it without that," he said without mentioning the U.S. threat to sanction Russia in two phases, which has drawn bitter criticism from Moscow.

Trump has been widely attacked after his Helsinki meeting with Putin, due to his reconciliatory remarks that many saw as a sign of siding with Moscow against the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. elections.

The White House has said that the next meeting between Trump and Putin will be delayed until next year.

Turning to Iran, Trump said it did not matter to him whether he met Iran's leaders and there had been no U.S. outreach toward Iran to discuss possible talks.

"If they want to meet, fine. If they don't want to meet, I couldn't care less," he said.

The first round of U.S. re-imposed sanctions on Iran took effect earlier this month. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that any negotiation with the United States to solve the existing problems was an "obvious mistake."

"I have reiterated that we can not rely on American words and even their signature, therefore, negotiations with them are fruitless," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 22:16:26|Editor: xuxin

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TOKYO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) decided on Tuesday to hold its leadership election on Sept. 20, in what is likely to be a two-horse race between between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

The ruling party's election will essentially decide not just the LDP's leader but also who will go on to serve as the nation's next prime minister.

If Abe, 63, who is currently favorite to win the race with five out of seven intraparty factions supporting him, does so, his third-term at the helm will all but ensure he becomes the longest-serving prime minister.

Official campaigning for the LDP leadership is slated to begin on on Sept. 7 and Abe is likely to officially declare his candidacy next week, sources close to the party have said.

Abe has been unopposed and was reelected for his second consecutive three-year term in 2015.

Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, 61, declared his candidacy on Aug. 10 and said that if Abe were allowed to run unopposed again, it would undermine democracy here.

Ishiba, a lower house member, has in the past been outspoken about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his policies, and it will be the third time the veteran politician will attempt to win the ruling party's top post.

But Ishiba, who has the support of a powerful LDP faction and has held key posts in the party including defense minister, LDP secretary general and minister in charge of revitalizing local economies, may be able to take advantage of a slumping support rate for Abe and his cabinet following a slew of cronyism and document tampering scandals.

While many believe Abe's success will be a foregone conclusion, some believe that Ishiba's "honest and fair" politics may for some be a refreshing change from Abe who has long been caught up in cronyism scandals.

Ishiba has also been a vocal critic of Abe's plans to revise Japan's constitution and actually rewrote his own constitution revision proposal in February.

Ishiba, known as a security hawk, said recently that the constitutional issue is a thorny one, and any amendments shouldn't be rushed amid a continued lack of public understanding.

While acknowledging some of the positives of "Abenomics," Ishiba is a proponent of introducing more methods to bolster regional economies.

Ishiba, in light of the government's tardy handling of a spate of natural disasters, has proposed setting up a new ministry dedicated to taking charge of disaster prevention.

Ishiba told a press briefing Tuesday that the LDP should make the buildup and the voting process conducive to being able to fully and publicly discuss all candidates' viewpoints on all aspects of policy.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 22:16:26|Editor: xuxin

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by Burak Akinci

DUDEN LAKE, Turkey, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- In Turkey's Duden Lake, flocks of gregarious pink flamingos live and feed together peacefully, which has been a major attraction for bird lovers and tourists.

But the colony faces the threat of wetland shrinking, as in the neighboring lakes of the spectacular ecosystem, the water levels have receded in the past years due to excessive human consumption of water.

Located some 100 km south of the Turkish capital Ankara, the brackish lake is surrounded by wheat fields and steppe, some of which are used for cattle grazing.

The site has been declared a protected area, much to the enjoyment of bird watchers from Ankara.

The lake is part of the neighboring lakes and is attached ecologically to the Salt Lake, one of the largest hypersaline lakes in the world and Turkey's second largest lake in terms of area. It provides sanctuary for thousands of flamingos and other bird species, some of which are endangered.

Recent media reports said that the Salt Lake has been classified as a "zone that has suffered serious and irreparable damages in the last 10 years or irreversibly lost small but significant parts," and it needs immediate intervention to take protective measures.

"Salt Lake is shrinking because of climate change but also because of excessive agricultural practices. This is a big threat for the flamingo colonies," said Melih Ozbek, an engineer by profession and a bird lover with an expertise in the field.

Ozbek explained that Turkey harbors several sites of breeding, nesting and feeding for flamingos. One of the two prominent lands is located in Izmir, western Turkey, and the other is Salt Lake, which is a special environmental protection area as designated by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Local residents in Salt Lake have dug some 110,000 wells there for mainly irrigation purposes, said Ozbek.

Thus, the lake, which provides a perfect habitat and hatching ground for flamingos which usually choose to lay their eggs in salty and wet areas, is rapidly shrinking, Ozbek added.

The expert also emphasized that, though flamingos are not an endangered species, yet shrinking habitat could make the birds a rarer sight in the future.

For locals, Salt Lake is an important source of cash, as it produces more than 50 percent of all salt produced in Turkey every year.

The receding water level in Duden and neighboring lakes is the biggest threat to the fauna living there due to excessive consumption of ground and surface water despite snow and rainfall.

Fortunately, local authorities have taken drastic infrastructure measures since eight years ago to revive the lake, though failing to return to the former levels.

Flamingos arrive in Turkey from Africa in May and leave again toward warmer parts of the African continent in August, feeding on tiny shrimp-like marine planktons that live in salty waters.

Social media is also an excellent tool for initiating campaigns for the protection of wildlife species, said Ozlem Karacasu, an agricultural engineer and bird photographer.

A court in western Turkey decided this week after a nationwide campaign to save the Gediz Delta, the home for 10 percent of the world's greater flamingos, from a major highway planned to pass through the critical habitat and unique wetland.
Writ at top court against new Civil, Criminal Codes

A writ petition has been filed at the Supreme Court (SC) on Monday, arguing that some provisions of the recently implemented new Civil and Criminal Codes contradicted with the constitutional provisions.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 22:26:28|Editor: mmm

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BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- An exhibition featuring Chinese civilization will be held in Saudi Arabia from Sept. 13 to Nov. 23.

This exhibition, "Treasures of China," marks the first major cultural relic exhibition China will host in Saudi Arabia, according to Art Exhibitions China (AEC), which will jointly host the exhibition with the National Museum in Riyadh.

The display includes 264 items provided by 13 museums and cultural institutions such as the Palace Museum, among which are 173 Chinese cultural relics. It will also showcase objects from China-Saudi Arabia joint archaeological excavations. Close to half the items are on display overseas for the first time.

The exhibition consists of five sections in chronological order: "Beginning of Civilization, Establishments of Etiquette," "the Unification, Consolidation and Development," "Prosperities and Diversified Communication," "Start-up of Business and Marine Trade," as well as "Palace and Royal Art."

"We aim to adequately present the beginning, growth and succession of Chinese civilization, as well as its diversity and inclusiveness," the AEC said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 22:31:29|Editor: Liangyu

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Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan talks with Medardo Gonzalez Trejo, the first designated to the Salvadorean presidency, in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 21, 2018. Wang Qishan met with a Salvadorean delegation composed of Medardo Gonzalez Trejo, the first designated to the presidency, Francisco Ruben Alvarado Fuentes, president's legal secretary, and Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda on Tuesday in Beijing. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling)

BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan on Tuesday met with a Salvadorean delegation composed of Medardo Gonzalez Trejo, the first designated to the presidency, Francisco Ruben Alvarado Fuentes, president's legal secretary, and Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda in Beijing.

Wang conveyed President Xi Jinping's warm greetings to El Salvador President Salvador Sanchez Ceren and welcomed the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, which is based on the foundation of the one-China principle, conforms to the cardinal principle of international righteousness and the trend of the times, opens up broad prospects for the development of bilateral relations and is in line with the fundamental and long-term interests of China and El Salvador, Wang said.

He called on the two sides to do a good job in follow-up work, enhance exchanges, deepen mutual trust, and plan and promote mutually beneficial cooperation at a high standard, so as to write a new chapter of bilateral relations and benefit the two peoples.

The Salvadorean side conveyed President Sanchez Ceren's greetings to President Xi and said El Salvador attaches great importance to China's international position and role.

Establishing diplomatic relations with China is a historic decision made by El Salvador and accords with the interests of the two peoples, it said.

The Salvadorean side will adhere to the one-China principle, enhance exchanges and cooperation with China and promote the development of bilateral relations, it said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 22:41:31|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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SKOPJE, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Macedonian government received the guidelines it needs to meet the NATO accession conditions within a period of 18 months, Macedonian media reported on Tuesday.

The document, sent by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, includes a number of political, economic, security and judicial conditions that should be implemented by late April 2020.

According to NATO guidelines, as part of the reforms, Macedonia should deliver a number of conditions related to security, the justice system, procurement procedures, and must allocate a budget for the joint funding of NATO's programs.

Macedonia and NATO are expected to start accession talks next month that may last until April 2020, when NATO member countries and the Macedonian government are expected to ratify the decision.

On July 11, NATO leaders agreed to invite Macedonia to begin accession talks to become NATO's 30th member state, though its people must first back the deal with Greece in a referendum. Under an accord signed by Greece and Macedonia on June 17, the official name of the country will become the Republic of North Macedonia.

Macedonia is formally called the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) by the United Nations. Macedonia is also the name of a northern province in Greece. Athens is worried that the use of the same name by the neighboring state could lead to territorial claims.

The solving of the name row that has existed between two countries is seen as the main obstacle Macedonia has to overcome in order to make progress towards the European Union (EU) and NATO integration.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 23:01:35|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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KIEV, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine is counting on receiving Island-class patrol vessels from the United States, Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Valery Chaly said here Tuesday.

"We are working to get from the United States the Island-class boats that will strengthen our capabilities in the Black Sea basin," Chaly told reporters during a media briefing.

Currently, experts are preparing an agreement on the transfer of the boats, Chaly said.

Later in the day, the government-run Ukrinform news agency said that two Island-class boats are to be transferred to Ukraine for free, but their preparation, equipment and transportation will be covered by funds from the Ukrainian budget.

Island-class boats are the offshore patrol vessels of the U.S. Coast Guard. They are used for security, drug interdiction and defense operations.

According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, the United States has been the largest donor of non-lethal military technical assistance to Kiev since armed conflicts started in eastern Ukraine in April 2014, providing aid worth 1 billion U.S. dollars.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 23:11:39|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese mainland spokesperson Tuesday said Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration overrated itself by trying to sow discord in global community.

Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, made the remarks in response to the censure from the DPP administration on the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and El Salvador on Tuesday. The Central American nation severed "diplomatic relations" with Taiwan on the same day.

The attempts by the DPP administration to cover up the truth, shift focus, intensify confrontation across the Taiwan Strait, and damage cross-Strait relations will not succeed, Ma said.

He said El Salvador made the right decision for the interests of both the country and its people, joining the overwhelming majority of the countries in the world.

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Salvadorean Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda signed a communique Tuesday in Beijing, announcing "the People's Republic of China and the Republic of El Salvador, in keeping with the interests and desires of the two peoples, have decided to recognize each other and establish diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level effective from the date of signature of this communique."

"The Government of the Republic of El Salvador recognizes that there is but one China in the world, that the Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China, and that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory," the communique said.

"The one-China principle is the international consensus, the general trend and common aspiration of the people," said Ma.

"We once again urge the DPP administration to stop doing anything harmful to the interests and well-being of the Taiwanese people and any efforts going against the trend will be in vain," he said.

Ma called on the DPP administration to return to the path of the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations based on the 1992 Consensus, saying it is the only right choice to make.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 23:21:42|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BANGKOK, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A major dam in central Thailand's Phetchaburi province is expected to overflow at Wednesday noon, triggering a fresh flood, officials said on Tuesday.

The Kaeng Krachan dam is currently holding 777 million cubic metres of water or 109 percent of its full capacity, the highest level in 10 year, and discharging water at the rate of 286 cubic metres per second.

The spillover is expected to overflow the Phetchaburi river banks to flood Phetchaburi town by noon on Wednesday, provincial irrigation project director Sant Jorncharoen told a press conference on Tuesday.

He said the spillway of the dam saw running water of 1.44 meters high on Tuesday morning. Irrigation departments estimated that the town would be flooded for five to seven days before subsiding, with floodwater of 10 to 20 cm deep.

Provincial authorities have been asked to speed up drainage downstream rivers as nearly 50 resort hotel near rivers were submerged.

Eight other provinces - Bueng Kan, Sakhon Nakhon, Chanthaburi, Trat, Ranong, Krabi, Trang and Satun, were warned of more fresh floods as they face varying levels of risk as heavy rains continued.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 23:21:42|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MOSCOW, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Russia is developing a new vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet for aircraft carriers as ordered by President Vladimir Putin, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said Tuesday.

"In the future, all aircraft-carrying vessels will need new planes and various technologies will be used, which enable shortened or simply vertical take-off and landing," Borisov told reporters at the Army-2018 International Military Technical Forum.

He said the Russian Defense Ministry began this work last year and normally it will take seven to 10 years before serial production of such aircraft.

Borisov said it will be a totally new aircraft and not a modernized version of previous VTOL jets.

The former Soviet Union produced VTOL Yak-141 fighters for four aircraft carriers built in the 1970s and 1980s.

Two of the carriers were converted into floating hotels, one dismantled, and the last one revamped and sold to the Indian Navy.

Yak-141 aircraft were decommissioned in the middle of the 2000s as Russia's sole aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, which is currently being repaired, was designed for traditional aircraft.

Russia has announced plans to build another aircraft carrier to supplement Admiral Kuznetsov.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 23:31:43|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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NICOSIA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The remains of seven people who died in a bombing by the Turkish air force 44 years ago have been identified and will soon be handed over to their relatives, a Cypriot humanitarian official said on Tuesday.

Fotis Fotiou, commissioner for humanitarian affairs, said the seven were among 33 people killed when the Turkish air force bombed the psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Nicosia, at the start of a military operation in 1974 in reaction to a coup by the military rulers of Greece.

Turkish planes strafed and bombed the institution for more than four hours on July 20, 1974, according to accounts by members of the staff.

They said a large bomb hit a ward, creating a crater as large as a room and killing all 31 patients on it. A staff member and a soldier were also killed.

"We buried the inmates, or what remained of them, in the crater and covered them over with the debris. There was nothing else we could do at the time," one of the staff members said.

Among those killed were three Turkish Cypriots who were being treated at the hospital.

"One of the seven identified is one of the Turkish Cypriot victims whose identity was established through DNA examinations. His remains will be handed to his relatives," Fotiou said.

The remains were recovered after an excavation by international experts who have been trying for almost 40 years to retrieve and identify the remains of about 2,000 people missing since the war.

The remains of less than half of them have been found and, of them, only 500 have been identified.

"We were searching for the remains of 31 people but only 11 were found in the bomb crater," said Fotiou of the people killed at the hospital.

He said that after identifying all 11 people found, authorities will turn their attention to information that some of the victims were actually buried in a cemetery.

"We are at the end of another difficult effort. Our goal is to heal another wound that has been tormenting so many families for almost half a century," Fotiou said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 23:31:43|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ADEN, Yemen, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Fighting continued Tuesday between pro-government forces and fighters of the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen at the start of Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

The fighting during Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, witnessed no temporary cease-fire, giving exhausted citizens zero chance to celebrate peacefully away from random shelling and explosions.

In the Red Sea coast city of Hodeidah, ferocious battles raged between Houthis and the Giants Brigades loyal to Yemen's government in Durayhmi and other surrounding areas.

Local sources told Xinhua that the Houthi rebels mobilized more fighters and launched counter-offensive attacks against the pro-government forces in Durayhmi after losing key locations in previous battles.

He said that the pro-government forces failed to seize full control over Durayhmi district despite the withdrawal of Houthis from the government institutions.

The Houthi rebels overwhelmed many areas with landmines and used the residential buildings as military locations, making it difficult for government forces to advance in the city, according to the sources.

Earlier in the day, warplanes of the Saudi-led Arab coalition launched airstrikes and targeted arms depots belonging to the rebel Houthi group near Durayhmi.

The airstrikes bombed a warehouse containing locally-manufactured weapons and missiles, causing a series of explosions at the scene, an army commander said.

In the southern part of the country, forces of the Fifth Armored Brigade launched an armed attack and seized a number of locations from Houthis near the government-controlled province of Lahj.

The pre-dawn attack succeeded in kicking the Houthi fighters out from key mountains in the outskirts of Lahj, killing and injuring an unknown number of rebels, a government official told Xinhua.

Elsewhere in the central province of al-Bayda, more than 21 Houthi fighters were killed during ongoing armed cconfrontations with government forces in Sawdiyah area.

Medical officials confirmed that several government soldiers were also killed during the same battles with Houthis in al-Bayda, but refused to mention further details.

Officials of the Houthi group in the capital Sanaa were not available to comment about the casualty figures amongst their fighters.

The intensified fighting is taking place just two weeks ahead of a new round of peace negotiations between the Yemeni warring factions sponsored by the United Nations in Geneva.

Local Yemeni observers said that the continuing fighting shows that there is no clear path toward the success of next negotiations, and the warring factions have no desire in ending the three-year long war.

The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including capital Sanaa, in 2014.

Saudi Arabia with other Arab countries intervened militarily and began pounding the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa in March 2015 in response to an official public request from Hadi to protect Yemen and roll back Iran's influence.

The internal military conflict between the Iranian-backed Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government recently entered its fourth year, aggravating the suffering of Yemenis and deepening the world's worst humanitarian crisis in the country.

The ongoing fighting between the two warring rivals with daily Saudi-led airstrikes plunged the most impoverished Arab country in the Middle East into more chaos and violence.

Three quarters of the population, or more than 22 million people, urgently require some form of humanitarian help, including 8.4 million people who struggle to find their next meal.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 23:36:44|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BERLIN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The German government said Tuesday it wanted a new alternative pipelines network constructed to transport Caspian natural gas supplies via Turkey to Europe on Tuesday.

"We have a significant interest in further developing the South corridor," (as opposed to the Norther corridor for gas deliveries between Russia and Europe, note), a government spokesperson told press ahead of an upcoming visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the Caucasus republics of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia.

For several years, the European Union (EU) has mulled the possibility of connecting European gas networks to the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) and Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) routes which are currently being constructed. "This is part of the diversification strategy of the EU to access gas from regions other than Europe," the spokesperson explained.

In spite of a diplomatic row sparked by Azerbaijan's refusal to allow one member of Merkel's official delegation to enter the country, the federal government reiterated that the chancellor would travel to Baku on Tuesday as previously scheduled. The spokesperson described Azerbaijan as a country of high geo-political significance for global energy supply, but noted that Berlin was also open to importing natural gas from other countries such as Turkmenistan, Iran, and Iraq.

Although the exact route of any eventual Transcaucasian pipeline is still unclear, an outstanding agreement must first be secured between five states located around the Caspian Sea in order to develop the necessary infrastructure for a southern corridor between Europe and the resource-rich region. Additionally, the volumes of natural gas which can be transported along the TAP and TANAP pipelines remain substantially below that of the existing Nord Stream pipeline which already provides a direct link between Russia and Germany via the Baltic sea.

The United States has repeatedly spoken out against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline currently under construction -- a second Russian-German energy project through the Baltic -- as allegedly being politically-motivated and devoid of economic value. Nevertheless, German business leaders so far remain steadfast in their support of the pipeline, which was first proposed in 1995.

Replying to criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, the East Committee of the German Economy (Ost-Ausschuss) recently warned Berlin against backtracking from Nord Stream 2 in response to pressure from Washington.

"Nord Stream 2 is a project of European energy companies based on a clear economic calculation: the routes to the new production areas in North Siberia are shorter and the transport costs are lower," a spokesperson for the organization said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 23:36:44|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MOSCOW, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A plant in Venezuela will start producing Kalashnikov assault rifles under a Russian license next year, Alexander Mikheev, CEO of Russia's state-owned arms supplier Rosoboronexport, said Tuesday.

"The small arms plant will be put into operation in 2019. We are working to speed up the timing of its commissioning," Mikheev told reporters on the sidelines of the Army-2018 International Military Technical Forum.

A contract to build the factory in the city of Maracay in the north-central Venezuelan state of Aragua was signed in 2006. According to media reports, the project was suspended in 2014 and restarted in 2016.

Mikheev said that a helicopter service center and a pilot training center will be opened in Venezuela this year.

In the past, Rosoboronexport supplied Mi-35 attack helicopters and Mi-26 heavy transport helicopters to Venezuela.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-21 23:46:46|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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TEHRAN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian capital Tehran will host an event in which several Finnish films will be displayed, semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Tuesday.

Nine films will be screened during the Finland film evening in Tehran on Sep. 5, Iranian Youth Cinema Society announced on Tuesday, according to Mehr.

The event will be held in cooperation between Iranian Youth Cinema Society and the Finland's embassy in Tehran in Cinema Museum of Iran located in northern Tehran.

The event will be open to public free of charge.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 00:11:51|Editor: Liangyu

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's goal of reducing the trade deficit by imposing tariffs is based on a "fundamentally incorrect assessment," a leading U.S. expert told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Trump "wants to see bilateral deficits changed and we will gain wealth. This is fundamentally an incorrect assessment," said Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Paal said Trump's long-time focus on the U.S. trade deficit with China is considered by economists as a "misplaced attention" that is unlikely to help the United States.

Paal points out that the official in charge of U.S. trade polices has been "fixated on protecting U.S. jobs," but the anti-China tariffs the official has implemented and proposed would be detrimental to the U.S. economy and industries.

In the 1980s, negotiations between the United States and Japan resulted in restricting Japanese exports of automobiles and steel to the United States. However, the result also had a negative impact on the United States.

Eight years of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's protectionist approach made the United States a less competitive country in both industries, Paal said.

Paal said that some U.S. policy-makers see the tariffs as a way to undermine China's efforts to close its science and technology gap with the United States, but in reality China has superseded the United States in a number of fields, and both sides can benefit from learning from each other.

"A lot of Chinese advances are ahead of the United States and the United States could learn from the Chinese system," Paal said.

Paal said targeting Chinese tech companies may also hurt the interests of ordinary U.S. workers, as large amounts of U.S. pension funds are invested in them.

"The cross investment in these areas is huge. American pension funds have large investments in Alibaba and Tencent and all these other companies, and so trying to separate them out is going to be very complicated," he said.

He said it is imperative that both Beijing and Washington improve mutual confidence and set up crisis management mechanisms to prevent the confrontation on trade from spilling over to other spheres, Paal said, suggesting that both sides should begin "frank conversations."

"To accommodate each other's needs for China to grow and for the United States to retain influence is very tricky business. It's not going to be done by a formula or a theory. It's going to be done by day-to-day decision-making by people," Paal said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 01:01:55|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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CAIRO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian authorities pardoned and released 2,376 prisoners, including 627 debtors, on the occasion of Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, the Egyptian Interior Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

The pardon is instructed by presidential decrees and initiatives issued by President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to free prisons of jailed debtors and to release those entitled to pardon after inspections conducted by special committees.

"The release comes out of the Interior Ministry's keenness to implement the president's initiative dubbed 'Prisons without Debtors' and to apply the punitive policy in its modern form," said the police statement.

Egypt usually frees hundreds of prisoners, via a pardon or a conditional release, on national and religious holidays.

In mid-June, Egypt similarly pardoned 3,477 prisoners on the advent of Eid al-Fitr, or Fast-breaking Feast, holiday that comes at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Later in July, 700 prisoners were pardoned on the 66th anniversary of the July 23 Revolution that was led by Egyptian military officers in 1952 and ended monarchy in the country.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 01:11:57|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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KIGALI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- African young agricultural entrepreneurs on Tuesday decried poor access to soft agricultural loans which is hampering growth of their agri-businesses.

They said this while speaking at a session panel on the sidelines of the Africa youth event in the Rwandan capital Kigali dubbed "Youth employment in agriculture as a solid solution to ending hunger and poverty in Africa."

Rwanda hosts the conference on August 20-21 with much emphasis on engaging African youth to take part in agriculture transformation on the continent through Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Entrepreneurship.

"Poor access to agricultural loans has become a big challenge to our agricultural businesses due to high interest bank rates and demands for collaterals from financial institutions," said Dieudonne Twahirwa, founder of Rwanda-based Gashora Farm Ltd, a chilli pepper processing company.

He called on African governments to allocate funds to support young people in agri-business in order to address challenges associated with access to bank loans.

The two-day conference brought together participants from across Africa and beyond including representatives from governments, development partners, the private sector, youth and women organizations, civil society organizations, research and academia.

The high-level youth event also aimed to foster exchange among stakeholders on knowledge and best practices regarding the interfaces between agriculture, youth employment, entrepreneurship and ICT innovations, according to organizers.

According to Ruramiso Mashumba, chairperson of the youth wing of Zimbabwe farmers union, African youth are looking forward to starting agri-business ventures but are let down by financial institutions that are reluctant to release money to finance farming ventures.

"African governments should put in place a youth entrepreneurship policy to tackle challenges affecting young people who are creating jobs through agri-business enterprises", he said.

According to him, young entrepreneurs have limited capacity and quite often run short of money to improve their small businesses either in agriculture sector or other sectors resulting into business closure.

According to the African Development Bank's 2018 African Economic Outlook, in 2015, Africa was home to 226 million youth and the number is projected to increase by 42 percent in 2030.

Olawale Rotimi Opeyemi, founder of JR Farms Limited, Nigeria, an agri-business coffee processing firm said that inability to access agricultural loans has made it impossible for youth in agriculture to access improved seeds, tractors and modern farm inputs.

"African young entrepreneurs in agriculture are advocating for an improved enabling environment, better access to training, finance and resources, and for their governments to believe in them," he noted.

The conference discussed solutions that offer new opportunities for youth entrepreneurship, including on-farm and beyond, along the agricultural value chains.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 01:32:00|Editor: Liangyu

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by Marwa Yahya

ISMAILIA, Egypt, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Hassan Ragab, director of the Confucius Institute at the Suez Canal University in Egypt, has hailed the Chinese language institute for enhancing mutual understanding, cooperation between the Chinese and Egyptian people.

Egyptian students are eager to learn about the Chinese language and culture as they see China as the model for developing countries, Ragab said in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua.

Ragab, who received the PhD in Chinese literature in China in 1995, has just returned from a two-week summer camp in China, in which 20 Egyptian students learned about Chinese cooking, writing and literature, in addition to having sightseeing tours there.

More than 1,500 Egyptian students are now studying in Chinese universities, while some 600 others joined the Confucius Institute in 2017, he noted.

In 2018, more than 300 students applied for the Chinese Department in the Language Faculty of the Suez Canal University, which planned to enroll only 30 students, Ragab said.

There are two Confucius Institutes in Egypt, one in the Suez Canal University and another in Cairo University, with several other branches in other provinces.

The Confucius Institute in the Suez Canal University has also opened classes in the China-Egypt TEDA Suez Economic and Trade Corporation Zone, the British University and the Helwan University, with more classes to be opened soon in three other universities.

The institute in the Suez Canal University attracts not only students who want to learn the Chinese language, but also students from different scientific fields across Egypt, Ragab told Xinhua.

Over the past three years, the institute started to receive students from faculties such as engineering, medicine, science, antiquities and law by opening more Chinese classes, Ragab said.

The Chinese government always offers scholarships to help Egyptian students, he said, noting that Egypt ranks the third in the number of scholarships offered by China.

But the Confucius Institute is not only about language, Ragab said, adding that many Chinese companies in Egypt turn to it for hiring Chinese-speaking employees.

In 2017, the Confucius Institute held the Chinese Companies Recruitment Day to help its students find jobs. As a result, almost 200 Egyptian students were hired.

There are around 20 Chinese companies in the Suez Canal Economics Zone in Ain Sokhna district in Ismailia province, where TEDA is located, Ragab said.

These companies have created a lot of job opportunities for Egyptians, and those who speaking Chinese obviously have advantages over others in securing a job.

Ragab also lauded the Chinese policy in the Middle East, which is based on promoting harmony and peace and seeking common development and prosperity.

As its friends increase day by day, China will "win the hearts and the minds of the Arab people," Ragab added.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 01:32:01|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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KIEV, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has ruled out running for president in the presidential elections next year, local media reported on Tuesday.

In an interview with Ukrainska Pravda online media outlet, Lutsenko said that he wants to "put an end to all the talks" that he will be a candidate for the post of the president.

"I am a part of the team of the current head of the state," Lutsenko said, adding that he is considering an option to participate in the Ukrainian parliamentary elections in October 2019.

Earlier, local media have reported that 53-year-old Lutsenko, who is a long-term ally of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, may participate in the presidential race slated for March 31, 2019.

Lutsenko served as Ukrainian Interior Minister twice -- from 2005 to 2006 and from 2007 to 2010 before being appointed as Ukrainian Prosecutor General in May 2016.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 01:32:02|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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VILNIUS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Lithuanian government will introduce measures to boost competition in the country's retail market, Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis said on Tuesday.

A set of measures, which should be ready this fall, would be aimed at lowering prices at the country's shopping centers. Though Skvernelis emphasized the government doesn't plan to control prices.

He told national broadcaster LRT, the government will put efforts to boost competition in the country's retail sector, currently dominated by few major retail chains.

Local authorities will first analyze "internal processes" and the contracts between retail chains and their suppliers, said Skvernelis.

"It is very important to look if there aren't any agreements, especially in the case of major retail chains and major suppliers, when suppliers are forced to sell their goods to other chains for higher prices", Skvernelis told LRT.

Retailers in the country reacted on Tuesday saying they are open to more scrutiny on their operations.

"I think investigations into our contracts with suppliers would give positive results. The government would see that there are no forbidden agreements or hidden taxes to suppliers," Laurynas Vilimas with the Lithuania's Association of Retail Companies told news agency BNS.

The PM also said "it is important" to find alternatives for major retail chains, restore small and medium enterprises.

"Historically, we've lost our small and medium enterprises. They used to have competitive, lower prices. We have to restore it," Skvernelis told LRT.

He also noted the government has already ordered to evaluate red tape for small and medium enterprises.

Skvernelis also thinks restrictions on shopping centers' opening hours would also increase competition and support smaller shops.
A container is loaded onto the freight train from Rizhao to Central Asia at a container station of Rizhao port in east China's Shandong Province, Sept. 12, 2017. (Xinhua/Guo Xulei)

MOSCOW, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Belt and Road Initiative has created opportunities for China and Central Asian countries to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation and achieve common development and prosperity in the past five years, the Chinese ambassador to Russia has said.

The trade volume between China and Central Asian countries has been growing over the past years, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Li Hui said in a signed article published by Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Independent Newspaper) recently.

A driver from Kazakhstan (R) communicates with a Chinese translator in Horgos, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Aug. 4, 2018. (Xinhua/Huang Zhen)

China and Central Asian countries have made progress in cooperation in such areas as production capacity, technology and finance, Li said, adding that China has become the largest investor in Central Asian countries and their major trade partner.

China-Europe freight trains and construction of logistics projects, expressways and natural gas pipelines have contributed significantly to the economic development in Central Asia, Li said.

An exhibitor shows folk costumes at the 6th Chinese Xinjiang Export Commodities Fair in Bishkek, capital city of Kyrgyzstan, June 1, 2016. (Xinhua/Roman Gainanov)

Cultural exchanges between the two sides have seen robust growth. The number of Central Asian students studying in China has increased rapidly in the past years and the Chinese government has set up a "Silk Road" scholarship for them, Li said.

Li said it is a tradition for the Chinese people to help neighbors and friends to seek common development and Chinese enterprises in the region abide by the law and never make trouble.

Junusbekova Meruyert from Kazakhstan learns opera culture at the China University of Petroleum in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, May 3, 2018. (Xinhua/Guo Xulei)

The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by China in 2013, aims to build trade and infrastructure networks connecting Asia with Europe and Africa on and beyond the ancient Silk Road routes. The initiative comprises the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 01:47:04|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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RIGA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Cabinet ministers of Latvia and Estonia convened here on Tuesday for the first joint meeting ever held by the governments of the two neighboring countries.

The joint meeting was organized to mark the centenary of the two countries' independence and with the aim to deepen ties and promote constructive cooperation in areas of mutual importance, Latvia's governmental spokesperson informed.

Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis, who opened the joint governmental sitting, praised the existing cooperation between Latvia and Estonia, but noted that a lot still had to be done to increase the accessibility of health care, education, and transport services in the two countries' border regions. He also noted the necessity for the Baltic countries to step up energy cooperation.

The intergovernmental meeting in Riga also dealt with matters concerning the European Union's multiannual budget. "When it comes to talks on the EU multiannual budget beyond 2020, we are in the same boat. We need to work together to achieve the desired result," Kucinskis said.

At the meeting, Latvian and Estonian ministers affirmed their plan to create a single regional gas market by 2020, which is expected to promote competition in regional gas trade as well as energy security.

The two countries also concluded an agreement on sharing data of the Latvian and Estonian national population registries.
1. Yes. It makes me wonder why Killeen is having the problem and other cities arent.

2. Yes. The city also had water issues after the winter storm, so this is rather troubling.

3. No. Its good that the city is dealing with the problem and playing it safe with consumers.

4. No. Its more of an annoyance than a concern. The city will take the necessary steps.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say until more information about the issue becomes available.

Vote

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Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 01:57:05|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The various parties involved in South Sudan's peace process on Tuesday reiterated joint commitment to the full implementation of the revitalized Agreement and renewed quest for a united, peaceful and rule of law.

The parties stressed the joint commitment to the people of South Sudan on the continuation of the Khartoum Round of Talks, according to the joint statement shared by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) on Tuesday.

"We the Parties, comprising of Transitional Government of National Unity of the Republic of South Sudan (TGoNU), the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army-In Opposition (SPLM/A-IO), the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA), Former Detainees (FDs), Other Political Parties (OPP) and Civil Society organizations reiterate our joint commitment to full implementation of the revitalized Agreement that we expect to conclude," the joint statement read.

The parties further vowed to "renew our quest for a united, peaceful and prosperous society based on justice, equality, respect for human rights and the rule of law."

The statement also stressed that the war and fighting in South Sudan has caused indescribable suffering to all the people of the country and has deeply fractured the country's society.

The parties to the conflict in South Sudan in late June signed the Khartoum Peace Agreement in Sudan, including permanent ceasefire taking effect within 72 hours.

South Sudan President Salva Kiir, opposition leader Riek Machar, a representative of the political detainees in South Sudan and representatives for other South Sudan opposition groups signed on the agreement in Sudan.

The agreement, among other things, called on the parties to ceasefire arrangements within 72 hours, including separation of forces in close proximity, withdrawal of allied troops, opening of humanitarian corridors and releasing prisoners of war and political detainees.

They further called on the east African community and partners to cooperate in providing lasting peace in the world's youngest nation, saying that "we ask all of you to help us to achieve these objectives by reaching out to your neighbor and offering peace and love in the spirit of this Agreement."

They also reiterated their joint commitment to fully adhere to the ceasefire in order to allow displaced populations to begin rebuilding their livelihoods and for the process of implementation of the Revitalized Agreement to begin.

South Sudan has been embroiled in more than four years of conflict that has taken a devastating toll on the people, creating one of the most severe refugee crises in the world.

The world's newest nation descended into violence after a political dispute between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar led to split in the army, leaving soldiers to fight alongside ethnic lines.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 02:12:09|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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GAZA/RAMALLAH, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of the Islamic Hamas Movement, said Tuesday that lifting the Israeli blockade on Gaza will not come as "prelude to division" between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as they are considered one political entity.

Speaking during the preach of Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha at Al-Saraya plaza in Gaza, the Hamas chief said the siege on Gaza will be lifted without having to offer concessions, accepting the U.S. century deal or cutting off the West Bank from Gaza.

Haniyeh underlined that "confronting the occupation and the U.S. century deal comes only through real national unity, Arab and Islamic backing, and then with international understanding of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people."

Haniyeh said that the intra-Palestinian reconciliation issue has been discussed, stressing that his movement is "holding on to its position to achieve reconciliation through committing to the agreements signed in 2011 in Cairo, then forming a national unity government and a unifying National Palestinian Council."

The National Palestinian Council is considered the parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah on Tuesday urged Hamas movement to allow his government to work in Gaza, stressing that "it is ready to take up all its responsibilities in the Strip" to achieve national reconciliation.

Hamdallah told journalists after placing a wreath of flowers at the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat grave in West Bank city of Ramallah that "empowerment of the government doesn't mean that there is a judicial system in the West Bank and another one in Gaza Strip."

He said that reconciliation is "in response to the U.S. administration and occupation attempts to cut off Gaza Strip from the West Bank."

The prime minister warned Hamas of reaching a truce deal on its own with Israel on Gaza, and said "we are counting on the Palestinian people in Gaza to foil this scheme."

Egypt and the UN are mediating a long-term cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel.

Last week, three delegations representing Hamas, the left-wing Palestinian parties and senior employees in various ministries in the Gaza Strip headed to Cairo to resume talks, reportedly focusing on the cease-fire deal and the resumption of the national reconciliation deal.

Gaza Strip has been placed under a tight Israeli blockade since Hamas seized the territory after routing forces loyal to President Abbas in 2007.

The blockade has pushed Gaza's two million people deeper into poverty with unprecedented unemployment rate.

In the recent nine years, Israel and Hamas movement have been engaged in three major wars that claimed lives of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 02:22:10|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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RAMALLAH, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed on Tuesday Israel for approving the construction of 650 new housing units in the Bet El settlement near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The ministry said in a press statement that expanding the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory is a reflection of the "century deal" policy and the inaction of the international community.

It was referring to the reports that U.S. President Donald Trump and his team are working on a peace deal on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, dubbed as the "deal of the century." Several U.S. officials have mentioned that the deal is in the final stage.

The statement denounced the current Israeli government as a "government of settlements and settlers par excellence," blaming it for "publicly undermining the international community and pressing ahead with recalcitrance of international legitimacy and its resolutions."

The statement also criticized the "silence of the international community and its inaction towards the situation in the occupied Palestine."

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted Israeli sources as saying that the Israeli government last week approved the expansion of the Bet El settlement by building 650 new housing units, instead of 296 units as announced earlier.

The decision was taken by the Bet El settlement council and the Israeli Housing ministry, the report added.

Israeli authorities have also given the green light to turn an agricultural land in Khader village, in south of the West Bank city Bethlehem, into a residential area, and expanded the nearby Danial settlement.

Hasan Breijiye, a member of the Palestinian Authority's settlement watchdog committee in Bethlehem area, said that the Israeli Civil Administration (ICA) has agreed to change the status of nearly 100 acres of agricultural land in west of Khader village in order to build settlements.

Breijiye stressed that this is an "arbitrary policy" as the Palestinians are not allowed to make use of these lands.

Israeli settlement activity, deemed illegal by most world powers and under the international law, is considered one of the thorniest issues that hinder the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks which have hit a snag since 2014.

The last round of the U.S. sponsored negotiations between the two sides ended in 2014 after almost nine months of talks without achieving any breakthrough.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 03:07:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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VIENNA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Austrian capital city Vienna has seen a record number of overnight stays for the month of July, totalling 1.56 million, city tourism authority Wien-Tourismus stated in a press release Tuesday.

It said the total represented a 1.9 percent increase over the same month in 2017, and saw notable increases in overnight stays from tourists from most of the traditionally strongest source countries, including Italy, the U.S., China, the UK, and Switzerland.

The tourism authority also noted that from January until the end of July, the city saw a total of over 8.7 million overnight stays, growth from last year of 3.7 percent.

Visitors from China made up one of the strongest increases of 11 percent here in the first seven months. There is also a significant 16 percent increase in the revenue generated from their overnight stays during the period.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 03:17:18|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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CAIRO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. corporation Apache announced plans to increase its annual oil and natural gas exploration investment in Egypt to about 1 billion U.S. dollars, the Egyptian Petroleum Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Apache CEO John Christmann said following a meeting with Egypt's Petroleum Minister Tarek al-Molla that his company's move "reflects the importance of Egypt for Apache," according to the statement.

"Christmann and Al-Molla discussed means to expand Apache's exploration activities in Egypt as well as the company's ongoing projects and future investment plans in the country," the statement added.

The Apache chief expressed his desire to form a joint team to prepare a five-year plan for oil exploration in Egypt including the expected investments and production using the most advanced technologies in the oil and gas industry.

Christmann also hailed Egypt's economic achievements, particularly those in the oil field, over the past three years, stressing that the country is going "in the right direction" with brave investment-attractive policies.

In mid-July, the U.S. corporation signed a 9-billion-dollar deal with Egypt's Ministry of Petroleum to explore and produce oil and gas in the country's Western Desert.

Apache has been working in Egypt for 22 years and it is one of the largest oil corporations operating in Egypt's Western Desert.

Egypt is engaged in deals with international energy corporations for oil and gas exploration, including Italy's Eni and Britain's BP.

Operating in Egypt for over 60 years, Eni announced in August 2015 the discovery of Zohr gas field in the Egyptian offshore as the largest in the Mediterranean Sea.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 03:17:19|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- An American woman walking her dog along a lagoon in southern U.S. state South Carolina was killed by an alligator in attempts to save her dog from the attack, local reports reported Tuesday.

Cassandra Cline, 45, was walking her dog at the time on Monday in an area known as Sea Pines. The dog got too close to the lagoon and the 2.44-meter alligator attacked, said the reports.

She tried to save her dog and the alligator turned on her, pulling her into the water. The dog escaped unharmed.

An ABC News report said she was alive when she was removed from the lagoon but died at the scene.

The alligator was captured and euthanized, Capt. Robert McCullough of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources told the local media.

"It's a very rare occurrence and one we hope we will not witness again," Edward Allen, Beaufort County coroner, told WSAV Channel 3.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 03:32:22|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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HELSINKI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Finnish Blue Reform party, a populist party in the current ruling coalition, on Tuesday proposed that Finnish citizens should be getting a better social security than residents who have a foreign passport.

The demand is part of the party's new immigration policy program.

The current social security system in Finland is based on residency and citizenship has not played a role at all.

A non-EU person gets Finnish social security if he or she has a Finnish residence permit, even one for a temporary nature.

EU citizens get Finnish health care with the EU health card and full Finnish security, if they choose to live and work in Finland.

The Blue Reform is a breakaway group from the Finns Party, a populist and nationalist-oriented Finnish political party. The Blue Reform's popularity in current polls is around 1 percent, while the Finns Party is at the 10 percent level.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 03:37:23|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ANKARA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Turkish security forces confirmed that two suspects who fired on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara were drunk at the time of the attack, local media reported on Tuesday.

The suspects Ahmet Celikten and Osman Gudas have confessed that they attacked the embassy under the influence of alcohol, state-run Anadolu Agency reported, citing security sources.

The two Turkish nationals, who have criminal records, were nabbed late Monday. A 9 mm pistol and the vehicle they used in the attack were also found.

The attack took place at 5:30 a.m. local time (0230GMT) on Monday, when six shots were fired from a white vehicle at the U.S. embassy's main entrance.

Turkish Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin condemned the attack on Twitter, describing it as "a clear attempt to create chaos," amid an escalating row between the United States and Turkey over the detention of a U.S. pastor.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 03:52:25|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's former longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen was widely expected to tentatively plead guilty to criminal charges on Tuesday, multiple media outlets reported.

Cohen was scheduled to appear in the federal district court in Manhattan, New York City at 4:00 p.m. local time.

He is likely to have reached a tentative plea deal involving possible campaign-finance violations, bank fraud and other crimes, media outlets quoted sources familiar with the matter as saying.

It remains unclear if the former Trump lawyer is committed to cooperating with the ongoing Special Counsel Robert Mueller probe over the alleged Russian meddling into the 2016 U.S. general elections.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 04:27:32|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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LOS ANGELES, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Italian filmmaker Asia Argento, one of the #MeToo Movement leading figures and Harvey Weinstein's first accusers, denied claims in a statement Tuesday that she had sexual relationship with an underage American actor.

"I strongly deny and oppose the contents of the New York Times article dated 20 August 2018, as circulated also in national and international news," She said in the statement appeared on Twitter.

Argento is best known for her roles in the films "XXX," "Land of the Dead" and "Marie Antoinette" and so on. Argento alleged that she had been sexually assaulted by the disgraced Hollywood mogul Weinstein in the 1990s.

"I am deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false," she said, noting that she had never had any sexual relationship with her accuser Jimmy Bennett, a young Los Angeles actor and rock musician.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Argento quietly arranged to pay 380,000 U.S. dollars to Bennett in the months that followed her revelations about Weinstein last October. Bennett said that Argento had sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room in 2013, when he was only two months past his 17th birthday. The age of consent in the western U.S. state of California is 18. Argento was 37 that year.

Bennett was 7 when he played a son of Argento in "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things," a 2004 film Argento directed and starred. They met for a reunion in her room at a Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey, California, on May 9, 2013. They had intercourse in the hotel, the New York Times reported.

Argento said in the statement that she was linked to Bennett during several years by friendship only, which ended when, subsequent to her exposure in the Weinstein case. "Bennett - who was then undergoing severe economic problems and who had previously undertaken legal actions against his own family requesting millions in damage - unexpectedly made an exorbitant request of money from me."

Argento said the 380,000 dollars payment was made by her late boyfriend Anthony Bourdain who "was a man of great perceived wealth and has his own reputation as a beloved public figure to protect."

Bourdain was afraid of "possible negative publicity" and insisted "the matter be handled privately," Argento noted.

"We decided to deal compassionately with Bennett's demand for help," and give the money to him, she said.

"Anthony personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life," Argento concluded.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department issued a statement regarding the incident on Monday.

"The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) is aware of the media reports naming Asia Argento as being involved in an alleged 2013 incident in an area policed by our Marina Del Rey Station," said the statement.

"To date, the LASD has not located any police report alleging criminal activity within our jurisdiction in relation to this incident," said the agency, adding that the LASD's Special Victims Bureau is attempting to reach out to the reported victim and his representatives in an effort to appropriately document any potential criminal allegations.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 05:27:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ROME, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Italy has set up a China Task Force to boost economic relations with the Asian country, Italian Industry Ministry has said.

The task force aims to strengthen bilateral trade and investments, positioning Italy as "a privileged partner" in the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, the statement said.

China's "immense domestic market demands more and more quality goods (and) represents opportunities Italy should not miss, both in terms of exports and in attracting investments," commented Industry Undersecretary Michele Geraci.

Geraci was the head of the China Economic Policy Program at the Nottingham University Business School in Ningbo prior to his appointment to his post at the Industry Ministry.

Italy plans to set up new incentives to attract more Chinese investments. Meanwhile, the Italian government wants to promote Italian exports to the Asian giant, and attract more Chinese tourists to Italy.

Another objective of the China Task Force is to "facilitate the expansion of the green economy" in both countries.

Italian companies want to be involved in green economic development in China, and the government wants to facilitate the transfer of Chinese capital and know-how into Italy.

Furthermore, China's investment in Africa "offers Italy a historic opportunity for international cooperation in the socio-economic stabilization" of the continent. This will lift people out of poverty, stem migration to Europe, and create business opportunities for Italian companies, the statement said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 05:47:47|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Paul Manafort, former campaign chairman of U.S. President Donald Trump, was on Tuesday found guilty on eight out of 18 criminal charges of bank and tax fraud by a jury at the federal court in northern Virginia, according to multiple news reports.

Manafort's conviction is the first secured at trial by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team. Five of the guilty verdicts were for filing false tax documents, and the other three involved foreign bank account registration and bank fraud.

Judge T.S. Ellis III declared a mistrial in the other 10 charges on which jurors said they could not reach a verdict.

The result came after days of deliberations by six male, six female jurors and weeks of exchanges of evidence and testimony in the trial.

CNN hailed the verdict as "a major if not complete victory" for the ongoing Mueller probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, while Fox News called it "a highly publicized showdown" between the White House and Mueller in the past few weeks.

However, the case didn't specifically address any alleged collusion between Trump associates or officials and the Russian government. Trump has repeatedly attacked the Mueller probe as a "rigged witch hunt."

"I think the whole Manafort trial is very sad," Trump told reporters in the White House on Friday, saying Manafort "happens to be a very good person."

Manafort, 69, was a veteran lobbyist. He joined Trump's campaign team in March 2016 and spent three months as Trump's campaign chairman until mid August of that year.

However, the charges largely stem from Manafort's time working for a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine before the 2016 U.S. elections, though the trial is widely seen as a key test of the strength of Mueller's investigation.

Manafort is also facing a separate trial in Washington D.C. on charges of money laundering and fraud conspiracy, which is scheduled for September.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 05:52:48|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BERLIN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has said that Europe should form a "counterweight" to the United States whenever Washington "crosses red lines."

In a guest commentary published online Tuesday for German business newspaper Handelsblatt, Maas said Germany wants a "balanced partnership" with the United States, in which it "brings its weight where the U.S. withdraws."

"Single-handedly, we will fail in this task. The outstanding goal of our foreign policy is therefore to build a sovereign, strong Europe. Only in close cooperation with France and other Europeans can a balance with the United States succeed," said Maas.

"Europe relies on the strength of law, respect for the weak, and the experience that international cooperation is not a zero-sum game," according to Maas.

Maas said Europe needs to set up a payment system independent of the United States if it wants to save the nuclear deal.

"That's why it is indispensable that we strengthen European autonomy by creating payment channels that are independent of the United States, a European Monetary Fund and an independent SWIFT system...," he wrote.

"Given the circumstances, it is of strategic importance that we tell Washington clearly: we want to work together," Maas wrote. "But we will not allow you to hurt our interests without consulting us."
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 05:57:51|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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RIYADH, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Saudi-led coalition involved in a war in Yemen announced on Tuesday the interception of a ballistic missile shot from Yemen by Houthi militias towards border city Jazan.

The coalition spokesperson Turki Al-Maliki said in a statement that the missile was shot on Tuesday evening from Omran province towards Saudi Arabia. He said that the Saudi air forces destroyed the missile and no injuries were reported.

The statement highlighted that since the beginning of the war in Yemen, the Houthi militias shot 179 missiles towards Saudi cities.

Saudi Arabia has been accusing Iran of supporting the militias by supplying them with missiles and weapons to destabilize the regional security.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 05:57:51|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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LISBON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Portugal's tourism revenues grew 13.9 percent in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year, reaching 6.9 billion euros, according to the figures released Tuesday by Bank of Portugal.

In June alone, tourism revenues increased by 13.6 percent year-on-year to 1.43 billion euros.

The most significant rises in tourism receipts were recorded in March (20.3 percent), May (19.5 percent) and February (16.1 percent), which are traditionally less recorded for tourism.

"Tourist revenues in Portugal are growing 5 times more than the rate of growth in the number of visitors," said Secretary of State for Tourism Ana Mendes Godinho in a statement.

In the first half of the year, the number of visitors grew 2.6 percent to 9.6 million and overnight stays rose 0.5 percent to 25.4 million, she said.

She said the figures "show that tourism will continue to grow throughout the year," noting that the pace of revenues means that Portugal is "growing in value, managing to attract tourists who spend more."

Portugal's tourism boom has made the industry the largest employer and one of the main contributors to the country's economy.
In this file photo taken on June 15, 2018, Paul Manafort arrives for a hearing at U.S. District Court on June 15, 2018 in Washington, D.C., the United States. (AFP Photo)

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Paul Manafort, former campaign chairman of U.S. President Donald Trump, was on Tuesday found guilty on eight out of 18 criminal charges of bank and tax fraud by a jury at the federal court in northern Virginia, according to multiple news reports.

Manafort's conviction is the first secured at trial by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team. Five of the guilty verdicts were for filing false tax documents, and the other three involved foreign bank account registration and bank fraud.

Judge T.S. Ellis III declared a mistrial in the other 10 charges on which jurors said they could not reach a verdict.

The result came after days of deliberations by six male, six female jurors and weeks of exchanges of evidence and testimony in the trial.

CNN hailed the verdict as "a major if not complete victory" for the ongoing Mueller probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, while Fox News called it "a highly publicized showdown" between the White House and Mueller in the past few weeks.

However, the case didn't specifically address any alleged collusion between Trump associates or officials and the Russian government. Trump has repeatedly attacked the Mueller probe as a "rigged witch hunt."

"I think the whole Manafort trial is very sad," Trump told reporters in the White House on Friday, saying Manafort "happens to be a very good person."

Manafort, 69, was a veteran lobbyist. He joined Trump's campaign team in March 2016 and spent three months as Trump's campaign chairman until mid August of that year.

However, the charges largely stem from Manafort's time working for a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine before the 2016 U.S. elections, though the trial is widely seen as a key test of the strength of Mueller's investigation.

Manafort is also facing a separate trial in Washington D.C. on charges of money laundering and fraud conspiracy, which is scheduled for September.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-22 06:22:56|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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RABAT, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Moroccan King Mohammed VI granted his pardon to 160 people convicted over the protests that rocked the Rif region in northern Morocco in late 2016, local media reported Tuesday.

Citing sources at the Moroccan Justice Ministry, Le360.ma news site said the pardoning of these protesters came on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha.

The ministry said in an official statement earlier that the king had pardoned 889 inmates on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha, but did not specify their background.

The list of the freed people did not include any of the leaders of the protests, who were sentenced to up to 20 years in prison in June, the same source said.

In late June, a Moroccan court sentenced Nasser Zefzafi, figurehead of the protests, along with three other leaders, to 20-year imprisonment.

Another 49 people were sentenced to 15-year jail term, along with fines, by the Casablanca Court.

The sentences given to the Rif protesters sparked outrage in Morocco, and many rallies and sit-ins were staged to call for the release of the jailed activists.

The protests broke out in October 2016, when fish vendor Mouhcine Fikri was crushed to death after climbing into a rubbish lorry to retrieve his swordfish confiscated by police.
House Speaker Laszlo Kover marked Hungarys August 20 national holiday on its eve on Sunday, and said in an interview to commercial radio Karc FM that Hungary is a nation state because its national culture is based on Christian values.

Defending Hungarian national culture, in a broader sense, means protecting the civilisation and culture of the whole of Europe, Kover said in his interview, adding that we are the security and future of Europe.

Concerning Europe, Kover said that Christian ethics was the continents spiritual basis, supported by Greek philosophy, Roman law, and the Ten Commandments.

He insisted that the values built on those foundations are now being jeopardised by massive immigration of people coming from different cultures, who wont even respect Europes written law let alone non-written rules of ethics, as well as by those that manage, help, and propagate organised migration in order to loosen up and eliminate that spiritual basis.

Defending Europe means protecting the sanctity of the family and of marriage and womens equal dignity, Kover said. He added that women and men could never be equal because of their biological characteristics, but it does not mean that they should not be equal in terms of their human dignity.

On another subject, Kover said that parliament in the current cycle would be working to adopt laws aimed at regulating the governments room for manoeuvre. He argued that in the past 28 years parliament has not been able to appropriately control executive power.

Increasing parliamentary control will be a top priority for the next four years, the house speaker added. In an interview with commercial Echo TV, Kover said that the migration crisis in Europe had

made everyone realise that Europe is facing an unprecedented challenge. There are powers outside Europe that make formal or informal attempts to intervene, he added.

Asked to comment on his earlier remarks on cultural autonomy, he said it meant that a community decides what values should be followed by future generations and this affects mass communications, as well as public education and higher education.

Commenting on literature, he said we have not banned any works or writers and added that equal chances cannot be guaranteed without political efforts and external influence.

Answering a question about the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, he said there are some academics who are in their current position only as a result of political decisions made before 1990 and there are those who are not members only because the communists robbed them from their title.

We should decide what the academy is and if it is purely a scientific body we must tidy it up, he added.

Commenting on a recent government decision to discontinue state-funded courses on gender studies in Hungarian colleges and universities, he said autonomy does not mean that academics or teachers stand outside of society and when it comes to such an extremity as including gender studies in the official curriculum, it is necessary to take action.

MTI Photo
A pro-government political scientist challenges the established view that the founder of the Hungarian state opted for the West when he pledged allegiance to the Pope and enforced Christianity in his nascent state.

In his Figyelo editorial, Tamas Lanczi suggests that the standard St Stephens Day speeches on 2 August are mistaken when they describe Hungarys first king as someone who consciously allied Hungary with the West.

In reality, he explains, Stephen never chose a camp from among the three neighbouring powers, the German-Roman Empire, Byzantium and the Venetian Republic.

He accepted the crown sent to him by the Pope along with his missionaries whose task it was to convert pagan Hungarians to Christianity. Meanwhile, he wed several family members to members of the ruling families of Byzantium and Venice.

He realised that Hungary needed allies in the world but rather then joining any of them he wanted to interest them in the survival of sovereign Hungary.

His example, Lanczi continues, was to be followed later by all important Hungarian kings who sought allies in their efforts to bolster Hungarys sovereignty but defended their countrys independence even against Western powers when necessary.

St Stephen himself repelled an attempted conquest by German-Roman emperor Conrad in 1030. Lanczi does not extrapolate further  as to whether his Saint Stephens Day editorial has any relevance to present-day politics.

MTI Photo: Kovacs Tamas

This opinion does not necessarily represent the views of XpatLoop.com or the publisher. Your opinions are welcome too - for editorial review before possible publication online Click here to Share Your Story
Where to find, and build, your favourite burger in Budapest, by Richard Jones. Im a simple man with simple tastes. My last ever meal would comprise of two things: cheesecake and a burger. Give me simple, delicious, unpretentious food, and Im a happy man.

I often travel to the US and I try to get a sample of both of the above when Im there. And while I havent tasted anything close to matching a decent American cheesecake here (yet!), Budapest may have produced my favourite ever burger. Yes, you read that right.

My favourite burger can be found at Black Cab. It has two locations in Budapest, a small restaurant on Mester utca and the larger main restaurant on Rakoczi.



The restaurants are decorated in a diner style with London motifs to reflect the time the owner, Jozsef Toth, spent in London working in restaurants.

Apart from the food, you can buy all sorts of English based drinks: Ciders, bitter, even Scottish speciality Irn Bru. The place definitely has an anglophile feel to the place and is regularly populated both by Hungarians and expats.

What sets this place apart from the rest is that you can build your own burger and this is why it is my favourite. When you enter, you get a leaflet with all the choices available. It can be a bit overwhelming at first, so Ive got the link here so you can plan ahead.

Apart from burgers you can also get hot dogs, and even salads. I tried a sample of them when I sat down with the owner and they are very good, but lets face it, youre here for the burger.

I asked Jozsef why he decided to open a burger restaurant. Jozsef is a well-travelled man. He has lived in the UK, America, and Australia among others.



During this time, he worked in many restaurants, such as Cipriani, where it was essential that all ingredients were fresh. Nothing frozen.

However, it wasnt until he came back to Budapest that he thought about opening his own restaurant. A burger place. Simply because, like me, he likes burgers. Back in 2011, there werent any quality burger establishments, only MacDonalds or Burger King.

He therefore decided to open his own using high quality ingredients sourced from local suppliers and the lessons he learnt from working in Cipriani. The result is juicy burgers with great chips/fries. Burgers that you can tailor to suit your tastes. Heres mine:

150g of beef, cheddar, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, mayonnaise, tomato, ketchup, and pineapple. The result is a party in your mouth! A good mix of the savoury beef and the sweet pineapple. Yummy! If you dont want to pick your own, you can also choose others from the list.

So, if youre craving for a great burger, then give Black Cab Burger a try. Youll not regret it. Now all Im missing is a decent cheesecake. Anyone have any suggestions?



Where to find them:

1088 Budapest, Rakoczi ut 19.

1095 Budapest, Mester u. 46.



About the author:

I write these reviews for fun and as a hobby. In this particular case I was given free samples, but this does not alter my opinion of the restaurant because Ive been coming here for years. Prices were correct as of time of writing (July 2018).

There are probably grammatical errors in the above, but I got a C for English at GCSE, so what do you expect! My reviews do not reflect the opinion of XpatLoop. Please treat it as a bit of fun and some friendly local advice.

Photo courtesy of the venue



Click here to Share Your Story
Dr Ledia Lazeri is from Albania and is serving in Hungary as the Representative of the World Health Organization. She is a medical doctor by background and was further trained in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

In addition to her mother tongue Albanian she speaks three foreign languages and is struggling to get some familiarity with the Hungarian language, which seems to be quite a task!



1. When did you arrive in Hungary and what brought you here?

I arrived in Hungary in March 2017 as the World Health Organization Representative and Head of the Country Office.



2. Have you ever been an expatriate elsewhere?

Yes, my previous assignment was in Uzbekistan and Turkey before that.



3. What surprised you most about Hungary?

Hungary is already famous of its rich cultural heritage but before starting to live here I would have never imagined how diverse, intensive and fulfilling that is. It is so unique to be able to select, nearly every day, top quality performances of artists from all over the world, in all art categories, both mainstream and experimental art, everywhere in Budapest and not only.



4. Friends are in Budapest for a weekend - what must they absolutely see and do?

They should explore Budapest by roaming through its streets. Of course the main landmarks are a must see (and one finds them in every tourist guide), but one never gets the real Budapest spirit unless one mingles with the locals, goes through the small streets plenty of cafes, small art galleries, vintage bookstores, antique shops, cinemas, music clubs and parks. This is the only way to feel the full extent to which Budapest is a vibrant and generous city.



5. What is your favourite Hungarian food?

All gulyas dumpling plates. And, aubergine based meals of course.



6. What is never missing from your refrigerator?

Hungarian Paprika. Uniquely flavored and unlike anywhere else.



7. What is your favourite Hungarian word?

Egeszseg.



8. What do you miss the most from home?

The sea. Danube and Balaton make up handsomely; I, however miss being able to swim in deep waters, salty enough to help you float peacefully with the current.



9. What career other than yours would you love to pursue?

Being a chef. I am pretty traditional in my cooking habits, selecting dishes from my mother and grandmothers; I believe cooking is a wonderful way to bring people together and make them happy with good food, good company and loyal friendship.



10. What's a job you would definitely never want?

Never thought of that. I believe every job is an experience from which one learns how to go through life.



11. Where did you spend your last vacation?

In my homecountry.



12. Where do you hope to spend your next one?

Travelling a bit here and there, but am reserving a good chunk of my holidays time to my home town again. When one lives the expat life, it is crucial to return to your roots so that all the important relationships one has spent a lifetime of forging are not wasted with the passage of time.



13. What was your favourite band, film, or hobby as a teen?

I was an avid reader as a teen, and went through pretty eclectic selections which I think prepared me for accepting diversity. 'The Diplomat' by James Aldridge had a very profound effect on me. I learned a lot about people whose particular stories one did not randomly encounter in the history books at the time. Little did I know that decades later, the same region would remain so actual and so much at the heart of so many world dynamics.



14. Apart of temptation what can't you resist?

La Traviata. Invariably brings tears to my eyes.



15. Red wine or white?

Red



16. Book or movie?

Book



17. Morning person or night person?

Morning



18. Which social issue do you feel most strongly about?

Inequities and marginalization as the cause of the youth of today missing the potential for personal development and for being part of societal progress.



19. Buda side or Pest side?

Pest. Full of people, events, stories.



20. What would you say is your personal motto?

There is nothing one cannot learn from. Observe and absorb, transform and adjust: this is how one remains interested in and engaged with the world.
Coun Perez reiterates warning to barangay leaders involved in drugs

07 Aug 2017 Hits:37 Comments(0)

Liga ng mga Barangay President, Councilor Jerry Perez yesterday reiterated his warning to all barangay officials from using or selling drugs. Perez said he is closely monitoring the activities of all the barangay officials and vowed sanctions against erring leaders. Aqui gane na mio barangay ya quita ya iyo na puesto cunel dos barangay leaders quien mas temprano ya sale positivo na...
By Benjamin Jumbe.

Police have given the country and Muslim community in the country of Security as they celebrate Eid Al Adha.

It comes as tension remains in various parts of the country following protests over the arrest and alleged torture of Kyadondo East Mp Robert Kyagulanyi and Francis Zaake in Kampala and Mityana respectively among other areas.

Now speaking to Kfm, the police Spokesperson Emilian Kayimahas said there is no need for fear with adequate security to be provided to ensure smooth celebrations.

He however calls on the muslim leaders to ensure they join police in calling for peace in the country for the good of the country
Organizers want at least 1,000 people involved in Philadelphia's start-up community to take the Open Access Diversity, Equity & Inclusion benchmark survey. Read more

Ten months after frustrations that Philadelphia's tech start-up community was paying short shrift to diversity, equity and inclusion exploded in public, a collaborative has been formed to get at the problem with data and determination.

"People got tired of just talking about it," said Tiffanie Stanard, co-organizer and director of marketing for Open Access Philly, or OAx, a nonprofit focused on equal economic opportunity. "We have to make sure there are actions associated with it."

In partnership with Philly Startup Leaders, which provides networking, resources and education services, OAx launched a survey last week to develop what it says will be the first diversity, equity, and inclusion data set for the city's start-up community to identify "the most impactful, actionable issues" and provide resources to "enact meaningful change." Joining OAx and start-up leaders in the initiative are three local start-ups: Guru, Mogulette and Media Bureau Inc.

"We came away from last year's Diversity Dinner with a list of action items, said Robert Moore, a serial entrepreneur and board president of Philly Startup Leaders. "The top item was a call for more frequent opportunities to engage as a community on the subjects of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It was also clear that better data would be helpful in making these conversations as productive and action-oriented as possible."

Stanard said the goal is to get at least 1,000 founders, executives/team leaders, employees, investors, board members, advisers and vendors to take a survey on attitudes about diversity, equity and inclusion at their companies at http://bit.ly/PHLDEISurvey. Survey takers are being encouraged to share it on social media using #PHLDEISurvey.

Additional input will be gathered at a series of workshops expected to begin in the fall targeting founders, leaders, board members and investors.

"It will take a while  analyzing data and then making recommendations," Stanard said.

But it's a concrete step toward addressing a serious issue that has fomented hostility and divisiveness since a controversial panel discussion last October at the Black & Brown Founders Conference over the lack of diversity in Philadelphia's tech start-up community. It led to the resignation of startup leaders' then executive director, Yuval Yarden.

>> READ MORE: Philly Startup Leaders exec steps down; group pledges more diversity

Hired as the group's first full-time employee in March 2016, Yarden, who is white, and African American panel member Tayyib Smith got into a tense exchange at the conference with Smith, cofounder of Little Giant Creative and Pipeline Philly, at one point accusing Yarden of "whitesplaining" diversity shortcomings in the tech community. Yarden, who grew tearful at one point, further offended those in the predominantly minority audience with a comment that, as one of the few white people there, she felt "like I'm walking on such thin ice because anything I say or anything that I plan to be helpful, the response is that I don't get it."

Later that month, tensions remained high at the Annual Philly Startup Leaders Diversity Dinner, an event billed as "an opportunity to talk about the challenges, share best practices, and celebrate the positive aspects of being an underrepresented group in the tech world."

"It was a lot of frustration, a lot of trying to understand everyone's feelings of diversity and inclusion," said Stanard, who spoke at the event. Aggravation and exasperation was expressed not only by people of color but by women and members of the LGBTQ community.

"There was a lot of stuff in the air that we said we actually have to do something," Stanard said, referring also to her co-organizers at OAx, Paul Wright and Jeff Friedman, as well as Moore and others from start-up leaders.

>> READ MORE: What was lacking at Philly's Angel Venture Fair? Women

But before they could, she said, they had "to first know where we are. Nobody has ever really collected data." Why not is not clear, she said.

"We're such a diverse city, we should have a lot of those answers," Stanard said.

Their goal is to ensure all groups feeling marginalized in the city's start-up community  black, brown, LGBTQ, immigrants, veterans and people with disabilities  have equal opportunities to successfully grow their businesses, said Wright, Stanard's partner at OAx.

"Through the combination of data and context, we can identify actionable items to ensure that all companies, regardless of the background of their founder, have an equal opportunity for economic success," Wright said.

The analysis, along with workshop notes and anonymized transcripts, resources and subsequent feedback, will be shared on a dedicated website at http://openaccessphilly.com/.

Asked what success in this undertaking will look like, Stanard said that will be accomplished when events such as the Diversity Dinner are no longer considered necessary, when members of groups currently feeling overlooked  such as African Americans, women, and LGBTQs  are regular speakers at start-up events such as Philly Tech Week, and the start-up community is "focused on everybody, regardless of your color."
In this June 6, 2017 file photo, a reporter holds up an example of the amount of fentanyl that can be deadly after a news conference about deaths from fentanyl exposure, at The Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters in Arlington, Va. Read more

Just as it is in Philadelphia, the synthetic opioid fentanyl is driving the overdose crisis throughout Pennsylvania, new data from the Drug Enforcement Administration show.

Fentanyl was present in 67 percent of the state's 5,456 overdose deaths in 2017  up from 52 percent of overdose deaths in 2016, when 4,642 people died.

Since 2015, overdose deaths across the state have risen by 64 percent, the DEA said. But the rate of that increase slowed last year: from 2015 to 2016, deaths rose by 38 percent; from 2016 to 2017, deaths rose by 18 percent.

In Philadelphia, which has the worst opioid death rate of any major city in the country, 1,217 people died of a drug overdose in 2017  about 22 percent of the state's total overdose deaths. Fentanyl was present in 84 percent of those cases.

Thomas Farley, Philadelphia's health commissioner, said the new state-level data suggest that Pennsylvania's opioid crisis is no longer confined to urban areas.

"We've always had a bigger heroin problem than the rest of the state," he said. "What I'm struck by is how much of a problem we have in the rural areas that were previously untouched by this. The opioid crisis is raging through Pennsylvania like the wildfires are raging through California."

He said the rise in fentanyl-related overdoses was particularly concerning.

"That's the top drug here  and it's 50 times as potent as heroin, much more likely to get people addicted, much more likely to cause an overdose," he said. "It's changed the entire nature of the problem."

The DEA will issue a more detailed report on the state's overdose death rate this month. But it released these preliminary numbers as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its own provisional data on the overdose crisis nationwide, predicting data will show 71,568 overdose deaths between January 2017 and January 2018.

It's difficult to say what's driving the national spike in overdoses  up from 64,000 overdose deaths in 2016  because county coroners often don't report the types of drugs that killed overdose victims on death certificates, which is the only way for the CDC to track such information, said Bob Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

Still, he said, the increases since 2016 were alarming, although some states in the West and New England reported declines in overdose deaths.

"The fact that we are seeing some declines in some states is certainly encouraging," Anderson said. "But the numbers continue to rise in several of the other areas. I'm hopeful that what we're seeing here in the most recent months is kind of a peak in the problem for the nation, and we'll start to see some declines here. But it's impossible to know for sure until we get some more data. It could be just a stall and then start going up again."

Farley said the statewide data show the enormity of the task ahead for local health departments.

"Now every small town and every city in Pennsylvania need to do all the steps that are important: reduce overprescribing of opioids, make drug treatment available, and distribute naloxone," the overdose-reversing drug, he said.
People dread dementia, but new research finds it may not be as bad from a psychological standpoint as many of us would guess.

Anthony Bardo, a sociologist at the University of Kentucky, looked at the relationship between happiness and cognitive health in people 65 and older. He found that most people were happy during most of their senior years, whether or not their cognitive functioning was good.

"I was really surprised to see the vast majority of impaired years are happy ones," Bardo said. The question of how brain health relates to happiness is important, he said, because people are living longer, with physical problems compressed into fewer years at the end of life. That shifts the spotlight to brain functioning, which also tends to decline in later life, and how that affects the quality of life in those extra years.

Bardo, who worked with Scott Lynch at Duke University on the project, started with the idea of "cognitive life expectancy," or how long people can expect to live with good brain health. He then analyzed how cognitive impairment affected happiness. The research has been presented at a professional conference but has not yet been published.

The study analyzed responses from 15,000 people who participated in the Health and Retirement Study from 1998 to 2014. There were measures of brain function, and people were asked whether they had been happy all or most of the time in the last week, or only some or none of the time. Bardo said this measure of happiness is widely used in research, and the questions can be answered even by people with cognitive impairment.

In the study, people were either happy or not, or impaired or not. Bardo did not attempt to compare degrees of happiness with severity of impairment. While we often picture people in the final throes of Alzheimer's disease when we imagine dementia, he said, most people have more minor cognitive impairment in their final years. Those with severe dementia tend to die fairly quickly.

The results were surprisingly positive, although some of the numbers can be sobering if you're around retirement age. Things look considerably better for whites, especially white women, than for blacks and Hispanics. Whites live longer, and with fewer years of cognitive impairment. Still, the period when people were both impaired and unhappy was about a year or less for all groups, Bardo's analysis showed.

>>READ MORE: many people with dementia don't know it. Here's who's most at risk.

Overall, of the respondents who completed all study questions, more than 80 percent were happy into their 90s. When questions went unanswered, possibly because study participants could no longer answer them, that number dipped only to 75 percent if Bardo assumed non-answerers in their 80s were unhappy.

Bardo's analysis found that at age 65, a white woman can expect to live about 19 more years. Of those years, she will be cognitively sharp and happy for about 13 and sharp and unhappy for about a year and a half. She'll be cognitively impaired for a little over five years. Four of those will be happy. Those numbers are based on averages for the group, not on how individuals actually progress, Bardo said.

Black and Hispanic women lived a year or two less than white women with more years of cognitive impairment. They, too, were happy most of those years.

Men in all racial groups lived two to three fewer years than women. They also had less time with cognitive impairment and most of it was happy.

Bardo has previously studied happiness throughout the lifespan and found that it tends to increase from the late teens to the early 60s, when it begins to level off. It starts to curve downward in the late 70s.

>>READ MORE: How to know when it's time for hospice.

Amy Yotopoulos, director of the Mind Division of the Stanford Center for Longevity, said the study resonated with her because of what she has witnessed in her father-in-law, who has dementia. "He is much happier now with the disease than he ever was without it," she said.

Shana Stites, a Penn Medicine psychologist who has studied how Alzheimer's disease affects quality of life, said people with dementia often say they are happy if cognitive impairment is not keeping them from doing things they want to do or causing friction in relationships. People may have a "surge of anxiety" when they first experience symptoms, but they "sort of adapt to this new way of life and anxiety goes down."

In one study comparing quality of life in people with normal cognition, mild cognitive impairment, and early Alzheimer's disease, she said, it was those in the middle  the ones with mild cognitive impairment  who had the most trouble.

>>READ MORE: This is what Shana Stites learned about the psychological impact of a dementia diagnosis.

Depression can be among the earliest symptoms of dementia, but becomes less common as the disease progresses, she said.

People with cognitive impairment are most likely to be happy when others accept them as they are and urge them to live in the moment or reminisce about happy times, said Stites, who is also a member of the medical and science committee of the Alzheimer's Association Delaware Valley Chapter.

Even if Bardo's study shows older people with cognitive impairment are happy, there's reason to wonder whether their caregivers are doing equally well. It is stressful to care for someone who is losing independence and emotionally wrenching to watch a family member decline. Families can help caregivers by working together so the burdens are shared. Caregivers also should seek out groups where they can talk about their experiences. "Social engagement's really important," Stites said.
An electric scooter from Lime, one of several companies crowding into cities around the country, often without permission. Read more

I'm not sure I'm ready for Philly to be covered in dockless anything, let alone dockless electric scooters. But it seems the next hot thing in transportation could be invading our sidewalks any day now. Luckily, according to a new report, the city is working on smoothing the transition. Speaking of smoothing transitions, both Philly's Mazzoni Center and the Atlantic City-based Miss America Organization are struggling with their new leadership after a year of scandal. We've got new developments on both this morning.

Reading this online? Sign up here to get this newsletter delivered to your inbox every morning.

 Aubrey Nagle (@aubsn, morningnewsletter@philly.com)

 READ MORE: Beware: Philly could be next city inundated by electric scooters

In recent years, tech companies like Airbnb and Uber rolled into U.S. cities before they could be regulated, causing consternation as they "disrupted" industries first and asked permission later.

Dockless electric scooters have been making similar inroads in cities around the country. So far, they've often been met with bans, cease-and-desist orders, and vandalism.

Philly could easily be next, so the city is trying to get ahead of the chaos.

 READ MORE: Gretchen Carlson under new fire for reckless Miss America statements

Last week, current Miss America Cara Mund sent a letter to her "Miss America Sisters" accusing chairwoman of the organization's board of directors Gretchen Carlson of belittling, silencing and bullying her on the job.

Carlson is under fire for her response to Mund, a lengthy statement released on Twitter Sunday night in which she denies the accusations, which one former Miss America called "reckless."

The organization has had a rough year after an email scandal ousted the former leadership. Now, Carlson and CEO Regina Hopper face calls for them to step down, too.

 READ MORE: Mazzoni Center staffers walk out to protest firing of diversity director

Nearly 50 staffers of the Mazzoni Center, Philly's largest LGBTQ health-care provider, walked out of work Monday to protest the firing of the center's director of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Kay Martinez, 32, a queer transgender person of color, described being dismissed without explanation and accused Mazzoni's CEO, Lydia Gonzalez Sciarrino, of trying to silence staffers of color.

The protest follows a tumultuous year for the center, which saw the controversial hiring of Gonzalez Sciarrino, a straight Latina woman, after former CEO Nurit Shein was forced out and former interim CEO Stephen Glassman was accused of sexually harassing employees.

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"If Linda Rios-Neuby, a woman who worked with 17 of the most powerful people in Philadelphia and the mayor suffered in silence and couldn't ask for help, where does that leave all the other girls?" Patty-Pat Kozlowski on  the last time she saw friend and former co-worker Linda Rios-Neuby before she was killed by her husband in a murder-suicide.

The slickly produced press conference Attorney General Josh Shapiro's office held for the release of the grand jury report on clergy sex abuse stepped on his message, writes national news organization marketing director Richard Lavinthal.

Following the grand jury report, staff writer Abraham Gutman has collected reflections on faith and insights on how the church might move forward.

What were reading

Your Daily Dose of | Elmo

The man in the Elmo suit whose dance at a Kensington junkyard fire confused and delighted the internet never got to enjoy his viral fame. He got locked up the next day.
An anti-ICE protest marches from the Liberty Bell to City Hall, passing the ICE office at 8th and Arch Streets on their way on Saturday, August 4, 2018. Their next goal is to shut down Berks Detention Center. Read more

The horrific seizures of children at the southern border have stopped, but the conditions faced by the 39,000 migrant detainees, including asylum seekers, held in U.S. detention facilities on any given day are often dire.

Most detainees are held in county jails, federal prisons, and private prisons with Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts under the same harsh conditions as convicted felons.

Abuse of detainees is so rampant, it seems to border on policy.

One private migrant detention facility in Tacoma, Wash., sits in the middle of a toxic, sludge-filled Superfund site, and has been the subject of a particularly large number of complaints against its staff for physical and sexual assault. At facilities in California, sexual abuse is widespread; in Arizona, the molestation of migrant teens has been reported.

Nationwide, more than half of those who have been accused of sexual abuse, including gang rape, have been ICE employees. LGBTQ detainees are particularly susceptible to abuse, experiencing 97 times more sexual assault than other detainees. One well-documented report speculates that sexual assault and harassment in immigration detention "are not only widespread but systemic, and enabled by an agency [ICE] that regularly fails to hold itself accountable."

Elsewhere, at a Staunton, Va., facility for juveniles, migrant teens were routinely beaten while handcuffed. In Georgia, another form of abuse prevails: The Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, a 1,700-bed private prison, forces detainees to cook, clean and perform other tasks for as little as $1 a day (and no more than $4 for a double shift), maximizing profits for the owner.

Conditions for migrant detainees are so bad at the U.S. penitentiary in Victorville, Calif., that the American Civil Liberties Union and two other organizations have filed a lawsuit and called the situation there a "human rights crisis." At other facilities, detainees have been put in solitary confinement for praying. Medical care is often delayed or denied. Some detainees die while in custody.

Adding to this litany of horror stories, the three detention centers in New Jersey are a microcosm of everything that's gone wrong. According to a report by Human Rights First, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group, detainees at the facilities are being given "food with maggots, dirty drinking waterand shoddy medical and mental health care." The report also documented the use of solitary confinement to penalize inmates for, among other things, "filing grievances or requesting medical attention."

Several members of the New Jersey and New York congressional delegations visited the privately operated Elizabeth facility in June to attend a protest and conduct a surprise inspection. When they emerged, some of the lawmakers were visibly shaken, with Rep. Bill Pascrell (D., N.J.) declaring, "What is happening to [the detainees] is despicable. It's a sin."

President Trump has said that migrants are "animals" and has repeatedly cast them as gang members, drug dealers, and rapists who will usher in a tidal wave of crime if allowed into the country.

He's got his facts wrong, and he surely knows it. The libertarian Cato Institute said in June that "the vast majority of research finds that immigrants [in Texas] do not increase local crime rates and are less likely to cause crime and less likely to be incarcerated than their native-born peers." The New York Times, in conjunction with the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization, reported that crime "fell more often than it rose" in areas with a heavy influx of immigrants.

Trump has created a climate that has encouraged the mistreatment of migrants for his own political gain, and he's done it, mostly, with impunity. That may be changing as reports of abuse come to light despite the administration's best efforts: It's seeking permission from the National Archives and Records Administration to destroy official records related to its treatment of migrant detainees.

History is filled with stories of tyrants who have debased minorities, often with catastrophic results. We need to set Trump straight and tell him that he's not going to get away with it here. Too many people are watching.

Martin W.G. King is the former senior writer at the National Crime Prevention Council in Washington.
By Ritah Kemigisa.

President Yoweri Museveni has revealed that Mityana Municipalitys Francis Zaake will be charged upon recovery.

Zaake who was allegedly dumped at the Rubaga hospital is currently receiving medical treatment and yesterday he had his spinal cord scanned.

On Sunday, the president issued a statement saying Zaake escaped from police custody and they are currently searching for him.

In another statement issued last evening, Museveni said Zaake conspired with nurses to escape from the hospital in Arua where he had been taken after the Violence.

Museveni says police has since not arrested after he went missing because he resurfaced in a hospital in Kampala insisting he will be charged after recovery.
New Delhi: The Bihar Police arrested at least 15 persons for allegedly stripping, thrashing and parading a woman in Bihiya town of Bhojpur. The mob fury was triggered by the death of a 16-year-old boy, who was found dead under mysterious circumstances. The woman was suspected to be involved in the death of the boy.

The incident happened in Bihiya police station area, where the body of Vimalesh Sah, who had gone missing on Sunday, was found near a railway track in the wee hours on August 20.

Soon after the victim's family came to know about the death, they rushed to the spot and stormed the place, setting on fire almost half a dozen shops and beating up several residents. They even dragged out a woman, ripped off her clothes and paraded her naked while kicking and slapping her repeatedly.

A report stated that the family members believed the woman to be involved in the boy's murder as the deceased had gone to meet her in the area and was last seen with her.

Confirming the news, Bhojpur Superintendent of Police Avakash Kumar said that the mob also hurled stones at a train passing through the area. The police had to fire in the air to disperse the mob, the SP said, adding, a few rounds were also fired by the villagers.

A heavy deployment of police personnel was made in the area after the incident.
PATNA: A woman was allegedly set ablaze by three men after she resisted their gangrape attempt. The incident took place in Bihar's Nalanda district on Monday.

The woman has been admitted to the hospital with severe burn injuries.

According to reports, the accused persons were harassing the victim for some time.

Last week, the victim's husband went to Tamil Nadu for some work. Taking advantage of the situation, the men forcibly entered her home and tried to rape her.

However, the woman resisted this rape attempt. Angered by this, the accused persons poured kerosene oil and set her ablaze.

The neighbours immediately rescued the woman and took her to the hospital.

The woman is currently admitted in Patna Medical College.
Mumbai: Jet Airways on Tuesday announced the expansion of existing codeshare agreement with Bangkok Airways to provide more choice and convenient travel options.

Guests travelling between key destinations across Thailand, Vietnam, and India, will benefit from this alignment between the two airlines, a company statement said



Under the expanded codeshare agreement, Jet Airways will place its marketing code on Bangkok Airways flights beyond Bangkok to Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Koh Samui, Krabi, Phuket, Sukhothai and Trat in Thailand and Da Nang, Phu Quoc in Vietnam.



The codeshare flights have been opened for sale for travel starting from August 23, 2018.



Subsequently, Bangkok Airways will place its marketing code on Jet Airways flights beyond Mumbai to key destinations like Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Delhi, Goa and Chennai; as well as beyond Delhi to Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Chennai.



Currently, Jet Airways places its code on Bangkok Airways flights between Mumbai and Bangkok while Bangkok Airways places its codes on Jet Airways flights between Bangkok-Mumbai and Bangkok-Delhi.



Gaurang Shetty, Whole-time Director, Jet Airways, said, "This codeshare agreement will further lead to a boost in tourism and trade between India and these Asian nations.



Puttipong Prasarttong-Osoth, President of Bangkok Airways said We are pleased to expand cooperation with Jet Airways to strengthen our respective route networks and offer business and leisure travelers.
New Delhi: The Delhi government on Monday alleged that Food Commissioner Mohanjeet Singh has decided to cancel more than 2.9 lakh ration cards without proper inspection, setting the stage for another round of tussle between the AAP dispensation and the bureaucracy.

Rejecting the government's allegation, Singh said 2.48 lakh "ineligible" ration card holders have been deleted after following "due process of law".

The cancellation of ration cards has remained a thorny issue between the political leadership and the bureaucracy for some time.

In April, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Imran Hussain alleged Singh was "bent on" cancelling three lakh ration cards without proper verification.

In May, Hussain wrote to Singh, directing him to restore supply of ration to those who have not received it from January to March. The department had stopped distribution of ration to people who had not gotten themselves verified by food and supplies officers by then.

Today, Singh said the exercise undertaken by his department "must be one of its kind" and the Public Distribution System has been "cleansed and sanitised". He said ration "worth crores were saved from pilferage".

Singh also said he has recommended to the government for restoration of the E-POS (electronic point of sale) system, which the government had put on hold.

The government said Singh took the decision despite "strong objection" from Hussain.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took strong exception to the food commissioner's decision, and his government has warned disciplinary action would be taken against the officers concerned.

In a statement the government said, "Since these officers do not report to the elected government, therefore they are working against the interests of the people of Delhi, which is a very serious matter."

It stated that the department's officers have "failed" to appreciate the adverse social impact of cancellation of 2.93 lakh ration cards covering more than 10 lakh beneficiaries. "All such families and members in one go would be rendered hungry because of the insensitive, apathetic, hostile, inhuman attitude of the officers," it stated.

It has been been informed that the cancellation process has been undertaken without door-to-door survey of households, the government said. "The cancellation is being done by officers sitting in their offices without any field inspection and without following due process of law. Such acts of commission or omission make the acts of public servants suspicious. Their conduct may invite disciplinary action against the concerned officers," it added.
New Delhi: The Delhi court on Tuesday sent two persons detained in connection with an alleged attack on Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Umar Khalid to two-day police custody

A special cell of Delhi Police detained two people in connection with a shooting incident during a programme of Umar Khalid. The two suspects detained by the police in connection with the August 13 shooting incident had claimed responsibility for the attack in a video.

In the video, the duo had identified themselves as Darwesh Shahpur and Naveen Dalal, claiming that the attack was supposed to be an Independence Day gift to the citizens. The police had launched an investigation into the claims and tried to verify the authenticity of the video, tracing the IP address from where it was uploaded.

"We respect our Constitution. But there is no provision in our Constitution to punish mad dogs. By mad dogs, we mean the JNU gang that is making the country weaker and their number is increasing. Our elders in Haryana have taught us that such people should be taught a lesson," one of the suspects had said in the video message.

The police had earlier released a picture of the shooting suspect, captured from CCTV footage. The picture was extracted from the footage of CCTV installed at the Vittalbhai Patel Road in New Delhi.

The man had reportedly fired the shot in the air at the Constitution Club. In his statement to the police, Umar Khalid had on Monday said that the accused first pounced on him, and then pushed him as he fired in the air.
LUCKNOW/HYDERABAD: Clarifying his statement on bringing a bill in Parliament to build the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on Tuesday said they are waiting for the Supreme Court's judgement on the matter.

We're waiting for SC's judgement. We've majority in Lok Sabha, but we don't have the numbers in Rajya Sabha to pass a bill. This is not the time to select this option and we don't have the numbers either, said Maurya.

The UP Deputy CM's comment came a day after All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi criticised him for the remarks on Ram Mandir.

"Under what provision of the Constitution can a law be made when the matter is pending in the Supreme Court?" Owaisi asked.

"This is a clear sign that BJP is losing immense ground. How can a responsible Deputy Chief Minister of a state government make such sort of atrocious and obnoxious statements? When the matter is pending in the Supreme Court, the minister has no right to talk in this language," he added.

On August 19, Maurya had said he was hopeful that if the need arose and there was no way out, the Centre could opt for the legislative route in Parliament for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya, when it has adequate numbers in both Houses.

"When such a need arises that there is no way out except bringing a Bill, I am fully confident that in such a situation and when we have adequate strength (in both Houses of Parliament), remember these two things", he said without elaborating.

"At present, in Parliament, we do not have adequate strength. Because even if we bring the matter in Lok Sabha, our strength in the Rajya Sabha is less, and it will definitely be defeated. Every devotee of Lord Ram knows this. The court will soon give its judgement.

"The day we have the strength, it will be constructively used and not misused (Lekin Jis din hamare paas takat hogaa, uss takat ka sadpuyog hoga, durpayog nahi hoga)," Maurya told PTI.

With agency inputs
New Delhi: Reliance Group today said its Chairman Anil Ambani has written to Congress president Rahul Gandhi on the Rafale fighter jet deal saying his party has been "misinformed, misdirected and misled" by "malicious vested interests and corporate rivals" on the issue.

Ambani, who had first written to Gandhi on the issue in December, last week again wrote to him saying not a single component worth a single rupee is to be manufactured by his group for the 36 Rafale jets India is buying from France, the company said in a statement here.

Gandhi has been attacking the government for inking the deal at a much higher price than the one the previous UPA regime had negotiated. While he has accused the government of changing the deal to benefit "one businessman", his party has demanded a JPC probe into the deal.

"Allegations of Reliance benefitting by thousands of crores is a figment of imagination, promoted by vested interests," the company statement said, quoting from Ambani's letter. "Simply put, no contract exists with the Government of India."

French company Dassault, which is supplying the fighter jets, has entered into a joint venture with Reliance Group to meet its offset requirement of the contract.

Under defence offset, a foreign supplier of equipment agrees to manufacture a given percent of his product (in terms of value) in the buying country. Sometimes this may take place with technology transfer.

While direct offsets are linked to the original defence contact where companies often agree to transfer relevant technological know-how or use local suppliers to build the equipment they are selling to the government, indirect offsets have nothing to do with the deal and can include the company making up investments in local industries.

In case of Rafale deal, which will give new comer Reliance Group a foothold in the defence industry, the companies have not specified what components will they manufacturer in India.

Ambani in the letter expressed "deep anguish over continued personal attacks by Rahul Gandhi on him", the statement said. He termed all allegations as "baseless, ill-informed and unfortunate"

Explaining the role of Reliance in offset exports/ work share with Dassault, he said: "The Congress has been misinformed, misdirected and misled by malicious vested interests and corporate rivals."

He said Rafale fighter jets are not being manufactured by Reliance of the Dassault Reliance joint venture. "All 36 planes are to be 100 per cent manufactured in France, and exported from France to India."

"There is no contract from the Ministry of Defence to any Reliance Group company related to 36 Rafale aircraft," the statement said.

Ambani said his group's "role is limited to offset/ export obligations. More than 100 medium, small and micro enterprises (MSMEs) will participate in this, along with public sector undertakings like BEL and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

"This role strengthens Indian manufacturing capabilities, and is in pursuance of the Offsets Policy introduced by the Congress-led UPA government itself from 2005 onwards."

He said Reliance Group announced its decision to enter the defence manufacturing sector in December 2014-January 2015, "months before the intention for the purchase of Rafale aircraft".
"New place, new environment, different language," the Indian Air Force tweeted as it reached Russia to take part in the historic Peace Mission Exercise. The joint exercise is being conducted by Central Military Commission of Russia from 22 August to 29 August at Chebarkul town in Chelyabinsk in Russia.

#ExercisePeaceMission: New place, new environment, different language. But it took just a few moments to start understanding each other. Conversation between Constantine and the Indian Air Force crew very quickly dispensed with the need for interpreters. pic.twitter.com/13p7q59b2L  Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) August 20, 2018

The Indian contingent of 200 personnel primarily includes troops from infantry and affiliated arms and services along with Indian Air Force. Ahead of the staff phase of the drill that begins on Wednesday, the IAF tweeted: "Even though the aircraft are resting, the maintenance crew can't afford to slacken their vigil. Air-warriors tend to the Mighty Jet at Shagol Russia and got an opportunity to exchange ideas."

#ExercisePeaceMission: Even though the aircraft are resting, the maintenance crew can't afford to slacken their vigil. Air-warriors tend to the Mighty Jet at Shagol Russia and got an opportunity to exchange ideas pic.twitter.com/5oekiLyP7p  Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) August 20, 2018

Peace Mission Exercise is conducted biennially for member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). India's participation in the exercise is a historic occasion as this is the first time that the country is taking part after becoming a full member of the SCO in June 2017. This exercise marks a major milestone in the multilateral relations of SCO member nations.

The exercise will involve tactical level operations in an international counter-insurgency or counter-terrorism environment under SCO Charter.

To prepare the Indian contingent for the exercise, the personnel have been put through a strenuous training schedule which included firing, heliborne operations, combat conditioning, tactical operations and house intervention drills.

During the staff phase of the exercise which will be conducted from 22 August to 28 August, the Indian contingent will establish a Joint Staff Headquarters and conduct a staff exercise prior to the evolution of a joint operational plan.

The field training phase of the exercise will be conducted on 29 August which will encompass live firing by air, attack helicopters, artillery, infantry combat vehicles and infantry weapons. The closing ceremony will be conducted on 29 August 2018.

The joint exercise aims at strengthening mutual confidence, interoperability and enabling the exchange of best practices among armed forces of SCO nations.
NEW DELHI: In his first visit to India following the 73-day Doklam standoff last year, Chinese Defence Minister Lt Gen Wei Fenghe will hold crucial talks with his Indian counterpart Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday. The meeting comes in the backdrop of Chinas Peoples Liberation Army reported instance of incursion in the Indian territory earlier this month.

Considered to be an important meet by officials on both sides, the bilateral talks between the two defence ministers will focus on improving relations in all areas including the military sphere.

This is their second meeting this year as Sitharaman met him during her visit to Beijing in April to take part in the defence ministers' meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Gen Wei's visit is regarded as a full-fledged bilateral visit aimed at solidifying military ties in the larger improvement of relations after this year's informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping, reported news agency PTI.

"For some time, you would have noticed that China-India relations are improving steadily. Exchanges and cooperation in all areas have moved forward including the military to military exchanges," said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang while briefing the media about Gen Wei's four-day visit to India.

While no agreements are expected during Gen Wei's visit, officials said that it is aimed at improving communication between the two militaries at the highest level as well as the atmospherics which would send a positive signal to the troops on the ground along the 3,488-km Line of Actual Control.

Last month, a top US official said that China has quietly resumed its activities in the Doklam area and neither Bhutan nor India has sought to dissuade it.

Alice G Wells, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, said Beijing has resumed actions in the Himalayan region with its manoeuvres in the disputed South China Sea. China claims sovereignty over all of the South China Sea. Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims.

With PTI inputs
Tuesdays Google Doodle is celebrating the 107th birth anniversary of Ismat Chughtai, a significant voice in the world of Urdu literature in the 20th century. The noted Urdu writer, who wrote on subjects like female sexuality and femininity, was honoured with the Padma Shri in 1976.

An alma mater of the Aligarh Muslim University, Ismat Chughtai excelled in the genres of short stories and novels. Her writing journey began when she got associated with the Progressive Writers Association while pursuing Bachelor of Education from the Aligarh Muslim University.

Her most talked about works include Lihaaf, a short story published in 1942. The story revolved around a begum who shared a sexual relationship with her masseuse. Ismat Chughtai was dragged to court for her story. She was charged with obscenity.

Another popular work of the Urdu literary genius was Terhi Lakeer, a quasi-autobiographical novel released in 1943. The novel was also translated in English.

She also had her stint in Bollywood as she worked as a screenwriter for films like Ziddi, Arzoo. She made her directorial debut in 1953 with a movie, Faraib, which starred Kishore Kumar, Lalit Pawar and Zohra Sehgal, among others.

Ismat Chughtai went on to become a filmmaker along with her husband Latif. The first in the line was Sone ki Chidiya, starring Nutan and Talat Mahmood.

She breathed her last at the age of 76 on October 24, 1991.
In the wake of the row over Congress party leader Navjot Singh Sidhu hugging Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the father of deceased rifleman Aurangzeb, who was killed by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, conveyed a message on Tuesday telling Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan that if they take a single step towards India then Pakistan will get a hundred steps towards them.

Aurangzeb's father Mohammad Hanif also requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to meet PM Khan. He said, "I'd like to say to Imran Khan that if they take a step forward towards us we'll take 100 steps towards them. I request PM Modi to meet Imran Khan. There should be such an understanding between the two countries that no person should be killed and both the countries should develop. Sidhu Saab met Pak Army Chief, I think he (Pak Army Chief) should also meet us."

The Congress leader had hugged General Bajwa at Imran Khan's swearing-in ceremony in Islamabad's President House on August 18.

Reacting to the incident, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh said that Sidhu did wrong by hugging the Pakistan Army Chief General. "As far as hugging the Pakistan Army Chief is concerned I am not in its favour. It was wrong for him to have shown the affection towards the Pakistan Army Chief," said the CM.

However, opposing the controversy surrounding him, Sidhu said, Nobody tells me what to do. I act as per my conscience. Sidhu said that he was hurt with the controversy over his hug saying, It was just a moment with General Bajwa as he came to me when I was sitting in the front row. I never interacted with him after that.
At least one terrorist was gunned down on Tuesday in an encounter that broke out with security forces at Handwara in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir.

The body of the terrorist is yet to be recovered. According to news agency ANI, the operation is underway.

A brief exchange of gunfight took place between militants and security forces at Yaroo area of Langate, Handwara late in the afternoon.

Earlier, two incidents of ceasefire violation were also reported. An Army jawan was injured in an unprovoked firing from Pakistan in Tangdhar sector of the district.

The Pakistani forces were also engaged in another ceasefire violation along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kamalkote village in Baramulla district's Uri.

Nearly a month ago on July 26, a terrorist was neutralised in an encounter with the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Handwara. An encounter broke out between terrorists and security forces in Handwara area of Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district, police had said.

Security forces launched a search operation in Check Sodul village in Handwara area following information about the presence of terrorists in the area. The official had said the search operation turned into a gun battle when the hiding militants opened fire on the security forces.

On July 25, two terrorists were gunned down in an encounter in Anantnag. In a separate incident in Jammu and Kashmir, an encounter took place between terrorists and security personnel in Kupwara district.
New Delhi: The government is unlikely to accept any foreign financial assistance for flood relief operations in Kerala, official sources said. They said the government has taken a considered decision to rely solely on domestic efforts to tide over the situation.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has offered USD 100 million (around Rs 700 crore) as financial assistance for flood relief operation in Kerala.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, called up Prime Minister Modi and made the offer for assistance, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in Thiruvananthapuram.

Around three million Indians live and work in the UAE out of which 80 per cent are from Kerala.

The government of Maldives has also decided to donate USD 50,000 (Rs 35 lakh) for flood-affected people in Kerala. It is understood that the UN is also offering some assistance for Kerala. However, sources said India is unlikely to accept the assistance.

The floods in Kerala, worst in a century, have claimed lives of 231 people besides rendering over 14 lakh people homeless.
Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu on Tuesday issued a clarification on his visit to Pakistan for the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan, saying he was overwhelmed with the love he received in the neighbouring country. The Congress leader remained defiant over the controversy surrounding him hugging Pakistani Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. He said, Nobody tells me what to do. I act as per my conscience.

Sidhu said that he was hurt with the controversy over his hug to General Bajwa, saying, It was just a moment with General Bajwa as he came to me when I was sitting in the front row. I never interacted with him after that.

The Punjab minister said that Pakistan was not a no mans land, pointing that several people go from India to Pakistan and vice versa on a daily basis. He added that Pakistani journalists, politicians and other people gave me immense love.

Justifying his decision to visit the neighbouring country for the swearing-in ceremony of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief as Prime Minister, Sidhu said that even Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Lahore.

In the past also efforts for peace have been made. The late Vajpayee ji had taken 'dosti bus' to Lahore, invited Musharraf. Prime Minister Modi invited Nawaz Sharif to his oath-taking ceremony, he also went suddenly to Lahore, said Sidhu.

According to Sidhu, the only way forward to ensure peace and stability in the region is to send goodwill messages across the border. He said, We need peace and only then we can prevent our soldiers from getting martyred. Goodwill messages are important to ensure peace and stability.

He added that the newly-elected Pakistan Prime Minister, and his friend Imran Khan, had clearly said in his speech that his government would talk to all neigbouring countries to ensure peace in the region.

When asked about the criticism by Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, Sidhu said, Many people from Congress have spoken on this including Captain Sahab. Its a democracy and everyone has the right to their opinion. It is not necessary that I also speak against captain sahab if he has spoken against me.

Responding to query on the attack by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the former cricketer, who started his political career with the saffron party, said he won't function as per the wishes of the BJP.
New Delhi: In his first visit to India following the Doklam standoff last year, China's Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday and discussed several important issues.

PM Modi said the maintenance of peace in the border areas is indicative of the maturity with which the two neighbours have handled their differences and did not allow them to become disputes. Modi appreciated the increased momentum of high-level contacts between India and China in all spheres, including in the areas of defence and military exchanges.

"Terming India-China relations as a factor of stability in the world, the prime minister said that maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas is indicative of the sensitivity and maturity with which India and China handle their differences, not allowing them to become disputes," the statement said.

PM Modi also warmly recalled his recent meetings with President Xi Jinping in Wuhan, Qingdao and Johannesburg.

Fenghe will also hold crucial talks with his Indian counterpart Nirmala Sitharaman. The meeting comes in the backdrop of Chinas Peoples Liberation Army reported instance of incursion in the Indian territory earlier in August.

Considered to be an important meet by officials on both sides, the bilateral talks between the two defence ministers will focus on improving relations in all areas including the military sphere.

This is their second meeting this year as Sitharaman met him during her visit to Beijing in April to take part in the defence ministers' meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Gen Wei's visit is regarded as a full-fledged bilateral visit aimed at solidifying military ties in the larger improvement of relations after this year's informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping, reported news agency PTI.

"For some time, you would have noticed that China-India relations are improving steadily. Exchanges and cooperation in all areas have moved forward including the military to military exchanges," said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang while briefing the media about Gen Wei's four-day visit to India.

While no agreements are expected during Gen Wei's visit, officials said that it is aimed at improving communication between the two militaries at the highest level as well as the atmospherics which would send a positive signal to the troops on the ground along the 3,488-km Line of Actual Control.

Last month, a top US official said that China has quietly resumed its activities in the Doklam area and neither Bhutan nor India has sought to dissuade it.

Alice G Wells, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, said Beijing has resumed actions in the Himalayan region with its manoeuvres in the disputed South China Sea. China claims sovereignty over all of the South China Sea. Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims.
NEW DELHI: Amid the fake news controversy and instances of mob lynching across the country, the Centre on Tuesday asked WhatsApp to set up a local entity with a grievance officer and find a technical solution to trace the origin of fake messages

Briefing media about the meeting with Whatsapp CEO Chris Daniels, Union Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, I had a very productive meeting. I complimented him for extraordinary technological awakening that WhatsApp has led in the country, for education, healthcare, relief in Kerala. These are positive developments.

Prasad went on to add that the cross-platform messaging and Voice over IP (VoIP) service provider has also contributed in provoking crimes.

There are also very sinister developments, that provokes crime like mob lynching, revenge porn, and you must find solutions to these challenges which are a downright criminal violation of Indian laws. I suggested three points.

One, WhatsApp must have a grievance officer in India.

Second, you (WhatsApp) must have a proper compliance of Indian laws. We won't appreciate a scenario where any problem will have to be answered in America.

Third, WhatsApp has become an important component of India's digital storage and must have a proper corporate entity located in India, said Prasad.

WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels is currently on a four-day visit to India.

Last month, WhatsApp top executives including COO Matthew Idema had met IT Secretary and other Indian government officials to outline various steps being taken by the company to tackle fake news in India.

Over the past few months, fake messages circulating on WhatsApp have incited incidents of mob fury across parts of India. The government has sent out two notices to the Facebook-owned company directing it to take urgent measures to curb false information and rumours being spread on the messaging platform.

The IT ministry has, in the past, said that the platform cannot escape its responsibility for such rampant abuse and needed to find originators of provocative messages. It had also warned that in the absence of adequate checks, it will treat the messaging platform as abettor of rumour propagation and legal consequences will follow.

In its response, WhatsApp has informed the government that it is building a local team, including India head, as part of steps to check fake news circulation even as it did not meet the key demand of identifying message originators.

Apart from education and advocacy programmes, WhatsApp has also introduced new features to let its users identify forwarded messages, restricted number of forwards at a time, and brought out full-page ads giving "easy tips" to spot fake news.

With agency inputs
A personal assistant of Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Narendra Singh Tomar, allegedly committed suicide at his residence on August 20. The man, identified as Kundan Singh, allegedly took the extreme step by hanging himself at his residence.

The 31-year-old personal assistant to the Union Minister was found hanging at his residence at around 2 am on Monday. He lived in Laxmibai Nagar near Sarojini Nagar in south Delhi.

The body was taken for post-mortem, following which it was handed over to the family. An investigation has been launched by the police, which is yet to ascertain the reason behind the man taking the extreme step.

Kundan Singh, who hailed from Bihar, has not left any suicide note behind. The police is also questioning his family members.

News agency IANS quoted a police official as saying that they were informed by the family about the incident after 2 am on Monday. They told the police that Kundan had hanged himself from a ceiling fan in his room.

According to the report, after returning from his office on Sunday, Kundan had dinner with his family members, following which he went to his room. The family members later found him dead.
Bengaluru: BJP's Karnataka chief B S Yeddyurappa on Tuesday said he would meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday and discuss with him the situation in rain-ravaged Kodagu district. Yeddyurappa said he had already spoken to Modi, who has assured chief minister H D Kumaraswamy all necessary help.

"I will speak to the Prime Minister on the situation in Kodagu and request him for adequate financial assistance and cooperation. I will also request him to conduct an aerial survey of the region if possible," Yeddyurappa told reporters.

Relief and rehabilitation operations are on in Kodagu after torrential rains left a huge trail of destruction which has claimed at least 12 lives and rendered thousands homeless.

BJP MPs and legislators have decided to donate their one-month salary towards relief work in Kodagu district, Yeddyurappa said. The cheque would be sent to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund, he said.

About his recent visit to Kodagu, he said each person affected by the rains there had a painful story to tell. "Things are in a very bad state, many have been rendered homeless," he said.

BJP MPs Shobha Karandlaje and Prathap Simha, party legislators, along with Sangh Parivar workers are helping in providing necessary assistance to the needy, Yeddyurappa said, adding that 20-truckloads of necessary items were sent to the district on Tuesday. He also asked people to extend their support by generously contributing to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund, as many in Kodagu are to be provided with permanent houses and facilities to rebuild their lives once again.

"Leaving party differences behind, we should all work together to help people of Kodagu," Yeddyurappa said.
KODAGU: As Karnataka battles rain and flood fury, people from all across the country have been extending their help in the relief operations by sending food items and other essentials. However, the state government has urged people not to send any more relief materials but instead extend monetary assistance.

Kodagu district-in-charge Minister SR Mahesh has requested people to not to send more relief food material and instead transfer money to the Chief Minister's fund. He said that there is already enough food material and there is no space left to store more retail stuff.

Floods in Karnataka have claimed at least 12 lives so far and hundreds have been rendered homeless. Rescue and relief operations have intensified in rain-ravaged Kodagu.

Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy had on Monday said that the situation was "under control" and assured the people battered by floods and landslips of a "new life" with fair rehabilitation. The state government also announced Rs 2.2 crore interim relief for 5,800 people rescued from Kodagu.

"The government has initiated steps to pay interim relief of Rs 3,800 per family to 5,800 distressed people in the relief camps," Kumaraswamy said.

A total of 5,618 people have been sheltered at 41 relief camps in Kodagu and 340 in three camps in Dakshina Kannada district, which has also received heavy rains.

Cut off by landslides and damaged roads, the coffee-growing Kodagu district, located in the Western Ghats, has been the worst affected in the state due to southwest monsoon since June first week.

As per government`s estimates, 845 houses, 123 km of roads, 58 bridges, 278 state-owned buildings and 3,800 electric poles have been destroyed. The district administration has been directed to distribute new uniform and text books to the students.

Around 1,725 personnel from the Indian Army, Navy, Indian Air Force (IAF), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), state police, National Cadet Corps (NCC), Home Guards and district officials were involved in the relief operations.

On a request from the state government, the IAF training command in Bengaluru rushed on August 17 one Mi-17 helicopter for rescue and relief operations.
Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy has urged the Centre to provide Rs 100 crore relief fund for rain-ravaged state`s Kodagu district.

Addressing the media, the chief minister said, "The Prime Minister has announced relief of Rs 500 Crore for Kerala, we expect at least Rs 100 Crore for Kodagu. We will request the central government for it. We have to repair roads for connectivity. We are taking help of the Army and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF)," Kumaraswamy said.

He added, "We conducted an aerial survey in Kodagu to review the flood situation. In all, 12 people have lost their lives. 845 houses have been damaged out of which 773 houses are partially damaged.

"Kumaraswamy stated that a total of 6620 people have been rehabilitated in the relief camps. He said, "41 relief camps in Kodagu and nine relief camps in Dakshina Kannada have been set up and a total of 6620 people are sheltered in these relief camps. An adequate supply of drinking water and milk is being ensured in these camps."

On August 20, Karnataka`s Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara stated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government should allocate adequate financial aid for relief efforts in the Kodagu district.

While on August 19 Kumaraswamy conducted an aerial survey of landslides and flood-affected areas in Kodagu district. The Chief Minister also presented cheques to the families of Avarthi village who lost their houses in floods. He also inspected rain-affected areas in Somawarpet and adjacent areas.

Kumaraswamy on Saturday announced an ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh for the families which were rendered homeless.
MANDSAUR: Two convicts have been sentenced to death for raping an eight-year-old girl in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh city on June 26. The verdict was pronounced on Tuesday by a local court.

In a 35-page-chargesheet, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case had named Irfan alias Bhaiyu (20) and Asif (24) as the two accused in the horrendous rape case. It had details of 100 documents and statements of 92 witnesses, including doctors.

At least 50 different objects, including a knife were used by the convicts to slit the throat of the victim in an attempt to kill her after abducting and raping her. The convicts had been charge-sheeted under IPC sections 376 (d) (gangrape), 366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her marriage), 363 (kidnapping) and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

The victim was abducted from outside her school and raped by the duo. They also tried to kill her by slitting her throat.
New Delhi: The fairytale love story of Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma is perfect for setting high relationship goals. The duo never misses an opportunity to sneak out time from their busy schedules to be with each other. Virat, who scored his 23rd Test century against England on August 20, 2018, gave a flying kiss to wifey Anushka and raised the bat for her.

Anushka, who was cheering for her man from the stands stood up after Virat hit it off with a 100 and sent him love from there. She acknowledged his 'flying kisses' and the crowd went berserk.

A fan club shared the video on Instagram.

A post shared by VIRAT AND ANUSHKA (@virushkafangirl) on Aug 20, 2018 at 10:10am PDT

The duo got married in Tuscany, Italy on December 11, 2017. The wedding was attended by family and close friends. It was a hush-hush affair and kept the paparazzi on their toes.

Soon after the wedding, the couple hosted two grand receptionsin Delhi and Mumbai respectively for their friends and other dignitaries. Virushka wedding was seen as the topmost trends that whole month on several social media platforms.

Well, they certainly send out some warm couple vibes!
Washington: New British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Tuesday will urge the United States and European countries to do more to call out Russia's "malign behavior" and keep Vladimir Putin in check, notably by implementing tough sanctions.

"The established rules of international conduct are repeatedly being flouted by major countries like Russia," Hunt was to say in Washington, in his first major policy speech since succeeding Boris Johnson in July.

"Such aggressive and malign behavior undermines the international order that keeps us safe," Hunt was to tell an audience at the US Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan think tank, according to excerpts provided by the Foreign Office.

"Of course we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt: Russia's foreign policy under President Putin has made the world a more dangerous place."

London has blamed the March poisoning in southwestern England of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia -- using a Soviet-made nerve agent -- on Moscow, plunging the two countries into a diplomatic crisis.

A number of Western countries have punished Moscow by expelling Russian diplomats in a coordinated manner, and some have gone further with other punitive measures.

Those come on top on sanctions already in place over Russia's annexation of Crimea or Moscow's interference in foreign elections, notably in the 2016 presidential vote in the United States.

Hunt, who is to meet on Wednesday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, will ask London's allies to do more.

"Today, the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US," Hunt will say, according to the excerpts.

"That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea."

The administration of US President Donald Trump has been firm with Moscow, regularly announcing new sanctions over the Skripal case, but that message is sometimes muddied by Trump's willingness to improve ties with Putin.

At his July summit with the Russian leader in Helsinki, Trump appeared to be rather conciliatory towards his counterpart, shortly after raising hackles at a NATO summit in Brussels with his contrarian stance.

That earned the president widespread criticism at home, even angering many in his own Republican Party.

For Hunt, NATO's "credibility" has taken a hit.
New Delhi: Millions of Muslim pilgrims across the globe started to ascend Mount Arafat for the climax of the annual hajj. A sea of worshippers scaled the rocky hill southeast of the holy city of Mecca for a day of prayers and reflection where Muslims believe Prophet Mohammed delivered his final sermon.

The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam which every Muslim is required to complete at least once in their lifetime if they are healthy enough and have the means to do so.

The live streaming began on Monday evening, i.e. on August 20 and will end on Tuesday evening, i.e. on August 21. The live stream shows millions of Muslims converging on Mount Arafat, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of the holy city of Mecca. At dawn, Muslim pilgrims will make their way from Mina to a plain called Mount Arafah and the Plain of Arafah.

Watch live streaming of Hajj online here

The Day of Arafat falls on the 9th day of Dhul al-Hijjah and is considered to be the pinnacle of the annual Hajj. On the Day of Arafat, Muslims recite the Arafah prayer from Zuhr prayer to sunset.

Some of the pilgrims -- men in white seamless garments and women in loose dresses -- pushed elderly relatives in wheelchairs on the second day of the hajj, one of the world's largest annual gatherings.

A hot wind blew across the hill, also known as Jabal al-Rahma (Mount of Mercy), and the surrounding plain after a downpour late Sunday. Many faithful could be seen sipping from bottles of water.

After sunset, the pilgrims will leave for nearby Muzdalifah where they will gather pebbles to perform the symbolic 'stoning of the devil'.

The ritual begins in earnest tomorrow as Muslims observe the first day of Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, which marks the end of the hajj.

Muslims traditionally slaughter sheep for the three-day Eid al-Adha, a tribute to the prophet Abraham's sacrifice of a lamb after God spared Ishmael, his son.

They will consume some of the meat and give the rest to poor people unable to buy food.
Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Sharif and son-in-law Captain Mohammad Safdar will stay in Adiala jail in Rawalpindi during Eid ul Adha. They will have to spend Eid in jail itself as Islamabad High Court has postpone a decision on petitions for their release.

According to Pakistan-based The Express Tribune, Islamabad High Court bench comprising Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb said that the petitions would remain pending and would be taken up along with appeals in the Avenfield properties money laundering case.

The bench, however, added that the defence can push for the petitions to be heard if there is a delay in hearing the appeals against the conviction of Nawaz Sharif, his daughter and his son-in-law.

Sharif, 68, daughter Maryam, 44, and his son-in-law were arrested in Lahore on July 13 soon after they arrived in Pakistan from London. An accountability court had found them guilty over his family's ownership of four luxury flats in London.

The Sharifs were taken to Adiala jail in Rawalpindi. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has alleged that Sharif has been kept in abysmal condition in the jail and deprived of even the basic facilities.

The health condition of the former Pakistan prime minister deteriorated in the jail, following which he was admitted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) due to cardiac complications. The floor where Sharif was admitted was declared a sub-jail and no one was allowed to meet him. He was later moved back to Adiala jail after his medical condition improved.
The enemy conducted adjusted fire from the grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms and in separate sectors  from 82-mm mortars

Over the past 24 hours on August 20 the militants opened fire 23 times in Donbas conflict zone, from the heavy weapon in particular. Two Ukrainian soldiers were injured, as the JFO HQ reported on Facebook.

It was noted that the enemy conducted adjusted fire from the grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms and in separate sectors  from 82-mm mortars.

The battle actions were carried out near Krymske, Svitlodarsk, Popasna, Marinka, Hnutove, Pavlopil, Lebedynske, Vodyane and Shyrokyne.

Attacks were recorded near Lebedynske from 82-mm mortars and from 120-mm  near Novoluhanske.

During today, Russian occupation troops shot at the positions of the Ukrainian defenders from infantry fighting vehicles and heavy machine guns near Lebedynske and Vodyane twice, the message says.

No casualties among the Ukrainian soldiers reported. Two got wounds.
According to the Bureau, the corruption schemes involving foreign businesses have caused UAH 1.84 billion in losses to the Ukrainian state.

Half of suspects that are hiding from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, are reportedly doing so in Russian Federation at the moment. The press service of the institution has informed about that, based on the results of its semi-annual report, 112.ua reports.

Some 30 individuals that are considered by the Bureaus detectives to have been involved in acts of corruption, are hiding from law enforcement agencies overseas. According to the investigation, almost half of them are believed to be located in Russia.

As of 30 June 2018, the NABU detectives have put 21 names on the international wanted list. Requests regarding 16 of those have been filed to other nations.

"In the spring of this year, the respective law enforcement authorities of Germany received a request to extradict the chairman of the board of Energoset', who was detained in the country in April 2018. According to the investigation, the person is the perpetrator of a corrupt scheme that caused UAH 346 million in losses to the Ukrainian state.

According to the data from the NABU, a significant portion of corrupt operations tend to engage businesses registered abroad.

"The detectives are convinced that Ukrainian crooks are choosing their location based on where it is less difficult to get registration, more difficult to obtain information for the general public and a high degree of confidentiality. The losses concurred by the state are believed to be in the neighborhood of UAH 1.84 billion as of right now, - the Bureau added.

Earlier it has been reported that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau is currenctly investigating some 683 cases related to corruption schemes that caused a total of over UAH 196.6 billion in losses to the Ukrainian state.
Open source

Most of the specialists of the Ukrainian labor market and many university professors usually do not realize the scale of the problems of labor migration from Ukraine. When they are in the relevant positions, they are analyzing the situation with labor migration only in one plane: how much money labor migrants bring to Ukraine.

Speaking about my own experience, for the first time I have faced this problem in 1994, when I went to Washington, at the invitation of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to attend specialized training courses. One American professor has stated that it was not the Soviet Union that collapsed at the very beginning of the 1990s, but rather the system of division of labor, created by the Soviet Union since the late 1940s, has been ruined. Then he showed us, people from Ukraine, a special causal chain  the Soviet Union has lost markets, then the incomes of enterprises, because of this, social and economic problems began and the Union has finally disintegrated.

And today, amidst the incitement of trade wars, increased protectionism, and the aggravation of problems with labor migration, the American professor's lectures, and his prophetic warnings began to recollect increasingly that these factors will be harbingers of another and more powerful crisis wave in the labor division market. However, in today's world, the system of division of labor is global, there is no division into zones that existed until the end of the 1980s, but in recent years its functioning has been very difficult. And so now there are at least two key questions.

First, is the disintegration of this unified system of the world division of labor inevitable? Secondly, if it is inevitable, what new system should we build taking into account the growing labor migration from Ukraine? After all, according to various studies, the number of labor migrants from our country reached 4 million, or 16% of the able-bodied population. Of particular concern are the following impartial figures: in 2002-2017, the aggregate net departure of Ukrainians outside Ukraine, that is, those who left and did not return, amounted to 6.3 million people. And this is our national human capital.

The division of labor system is based on the competitive advantages. And those states that are able to increase their competitive advantages in high-yielding sectors of the economy get a better position in the markets, dominate over the other countries in terms of trade and economic relations. I recall the words of the American professor again, then the Soviet Union has lost its markets, now Ukraine similarly is losing its markets quite quickly. Our politicians, unfortunately, do not think about the new industrialization, taking into account the fourth industrial revolution and the next technological order, respectively, we have almost completely lost the markets of science-intensive products.

General designer of the world famous Ukrainian aviation concern Antonov Dmytro Kiva has moved to Baku to deal with the creation of the Azerbaijani aviation industry. And yet, a couple of decades ago, we were traditionally and rightfully considered a scientifically and technically powerful state, which was successfully controlling the markets of high-tech products. In recent years, we have actually left these profitable markets. Before 1990, 40% of the world's aircraft fleet was produced in the Soviet Union, the great share of which was produced by the Ukrainian aircraft manufacturers.

If our developers and manufacturers of passenger and military transport planes had a national program for aircraft construction, and leading designers and engineers have not gone abroad for work, then we would have had a colossal locomotive of Ukraine's economic growth today. For example, we would not face such a large-scale unemployment. In this regard, the head of the National Bank Council Bohdan Danylyshyn said: "The unemployment rate among the economically active population in the first quarter of this year was 9.7%, and among the working-age population - 10%... Thus, the current wave of labor migration of Ukrainians, in fact, is a kind of safety valve in conditions of low job opportunities for decent jobs."

Danylyshyn just banally voices this very disturbing indicator. And what did they and his team do to create our national competitive advantages in the world division of labor system? Why do not we even try to study, in particular, China's experience in implementing the strategy of advanced development, placing a stake on science-intensive technologies? Look at the potential of the Ukrainian economy: we have huge natural resources and many talented people (almost 100% of high school graduates want to get the higher education).

However, Ukrainians continue to actively move abroad for work. The reason is simple and it connected with the economy. For example, in neighboring Poland or the Czech Republic, there is a high level of wages and available jobs. Someone might think that the European Union, the United States, and China needs only the hands of our compatriots. More and more foreign employers are looking for Ukrainians to be involved in the IT industry and high-tech production. Accordingly, about 2.6-2.7 million people might be outside of Ukraine, they successfully and zealously work for the GDP of the other countries.

And if in the short term the state does not raise the quality of the services provided and create conditions when our local employers can raise the level of remuneration to the European, American, and Chinese level with an adequate increase in labor productivity, then the number of migrant workers will continue to grow uncontrollably.

Yes, many of our officials did not have opportunities to listen to lectures in Washington, but I think they could have thought about such eloquent statistics: 92% (!) of those polled on the HeadHunter portal would like to work abroad. The majority (37% and 34% respectively) consider foreign work a chance to earn money or stay there, considering that work in another state is paid much better than the similar one in Ukraine.

And finally, we came to the main question: what are our potential opportunities and actions to revive our system of the division of labor and jump into a new long wave of economic growth and sustainable development?

Read the original text at 112.ua.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or 112.International and its owners.
Since the collapse of communism, Romania has lost 1/6 of its population, Bulgaria -1/5, Lithuania - 1/4, and Latvia - 1/3. In part, this is the consequence of European integration

Open source

Since the collapse of communism, Romania has lost 1/6 of its population, Bulgaria -1/5, Lithuania - 1/4, and Latvia - 1/3. In part, this is the consequence of European integration. More than ten years ago, Poland has also faced this phenomenon. After its accession to the EU, more than a million Poles left for the UK, Ireland, and Sweden. Three years later, the wave has weakened, and later the place was taken by visitors from the east, primarily from Ukraine. Therefore, according to a recent report from the statistical agency Eurostat, the size of the population of Poland has practically not changed since 1989 (38 million people).

Otherwise, the situation in several other countries of Central Europe looks different. Luxembourg's statistics report that the population of Lithuania is rapidly declining and then go Croatia, Latvia, Bulgaria, and Romania. The situation looks very worrisome not only on the continent's scale but also on the world scale, because, according to the UN, the same countries top the list of countries with the worst demographic balance. Moreover, in modern times, such a sharp decrease in the population is often associated with wars or epidemics.

"The situation is alarming: there are already 2,000 villages in Lithuania, universities close their departments, there is a shortage of labor," says the director of the Lithuanian Center for Social Research Sarmine Mikulioniene. At the time of the Soviet Union collapse the population of the country reached 3.7 million inhabitants, now this figure is a quarter less. Entire regions are turning into a desert, and the density of the population has decreased to 44 people per square kilometer (this is three times less than in Poland). In Latvia and Estonia, it is still worse (35 and 29 people per square kilometer, respectively).

"First of all, this is the effect of emigration, which we encountered after 2004. Most of the young people leave, the population is getting old. If this continues, our pension system will just collapse," Sarmine Mikulioniene notes with concern.

To what extent has this phenomenon become a side effect of the EU enlargement? In 2004, the European community was joined by the poorest state in its history. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, trying to prevent an economic shock, proposed to establish a seven-year transition period and open the "old EU" labor market for citizens of new member countries only when it ends. However, at the initiative of Tony Blair, the UK, Ireland, Sweden, and the other states began to lift the restrictions. At this step, Poland and its neighbors in the region also insisted, apparently mistakenly believing that we would benefit from this.

"It served as a catalyst for mass emigration, but the root causes just the other thing. It should be considered why young people in Lithuania still do not see prospects at home," Mikulioniene stressed.

The same problem can also be seen on the Balkan Peninsula.

"Everyone who has an opportunity to leave leaves the country. I do not believe that the existing corrupt system can be destroyed," says Monica Lupu, a programmer who plans to move to Holland. After the end of the communist era, Romania has already lost 3.5 million inhabitants, and there are signals that the outflow of a population has not stopped.

Delft Technical University expert Martin Van Ham notes in a conversation with Rzeczpospolita that the reasons for mass emigration are not limited to integration with the EU.

The Soviet Union tried to keep the population in the village since the task of Lithuania was to create the products for the whole country. Under capitalism, such a system became useless, there was no work outside Vilnius, Kaunas, and Klaipeda, so people began to emigrate," the expert explains. Ukraine and Belarus, which are not part of the EU, are also experiencing a demographic crisis due to the out-migration. he integration was supposed to promote rapid economic growth that would keep people in their homeland, however, due to the painful crisis encountered, in particular, by Lithuania or Romania, expectations were not justified.

"It's a vicious circle, it becomes harder to break away from it. When young people leave, fewer children grow up, and it aggravates demographic problems. Lithuania's accession to the Eurozone process did not stop," Mikulioniene claims.

Some countries of Central Europe, for example, the Czech Republic, managed to avoid falling into this trap: they managed to reach a sufficient level of development in order to prevent people from moving.

"Sweden has faced with this phenomenon at the beginning of the 20th century, when we have lost one-third of the population, as a result, wages in our country increased, and immigrants began to return. This will happen to Central Europe too. Currently, emigration is beneficial to the countries of this region, because it allows reducing the unemployment rate and gives a significant funds inflow," says Pieter Belevander, an expert on migration from the University of Malmo.

Despite the fact that the Polish economy is doing very well, we still do not witness a mass return of emigrants; it is difficult to expect this process to begin in Romania or even in Lithuania.

The Baltic States are experiencing a real race against time. "Reducing the population is a blow to our security, and Russia can take advantage of this situation. The tension is mounting in society. Recently we had a discussion over whether to allow a Russian-registered corporation that is engaged in taxi transportation and collects data about its customers work in our country. There are also discussions on the issue about whether to accept Ukrainian migrants, many of whom speak Russian," Mikulioniene explains.

The new number of the onboard magazine "Aeroflot" is full of advertisements for the luxury real estate: most of all offers come from Sochi, then Latvia - Riga and Jurmala come. This is one of the many signals showing that Russia has not forgotten about its former possessions.

Jedrzej Bielecki

Read the original text at Rzeczpospolita
According to the U.S. President, he would consider this if Moscow takes some actions in return

The U.S. President Donald Trump in the interview for Reuters stated that he would consider the question of removal of anti-Russian sanctions if it took steps on such areas as Syria or Ukraine.

Trump said Putin did not raise with him the issue of U.S. sanctions on Russia but that he would consider lifting them if Russia took steps on such areas as Syria or Ukraine, the news agency reports.

I would consider it if they do something that would be good for us. But I wouldnt consider it without that, Trump said.

Additionally, Trump ticked off areas that he discussed privately with Putin  security in Israel and Syria, Crimeas annexation and incursion into eastern Ukraine, the message says.

Earlier, the U.S. imposed anti-Russian sanctions due to Skripals case. The sanctions are expected to come into force on August 22.
The authority rebuked the piece of information, insisting that the political prisoner would be transferred to a state hospital

The Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia retracted the information about possible forced feeding of Ukraine's Oleg Sentsov. The authority's press service in Yamalo-Nenetsky district of the Russian Federation reported this on Tuesday evening.

'The information about possible forced feeding of inmate Oleg Sentsov, spread by a representative of the Civil Observation Mission in Moscow, is untrue', the message said.

The Service added that ever since Sentsov went on hunger strike, he was under constant dynamic medical surveillance. According to the authority, his health conditions remain satisfactory.

Earlier, Ivan Melnikov, the secretary of Moscow's Civil Observation Mission said that workers of Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service would begin to feed Oleg Sentsov by force, if a direct threat to his life emerges. '100 days of hunger strike - it is exremely difficult to pass; of course, Sentsov must be taking nutrition mixtures, otherwise he would have deceased by now. The Federal Penitentiary Service has its own regulations, and if his life is in danger, they will feed him forcefully,' Melnikov said.

As is known, Oleg Sentsov, the Ukrainian political prisoner, has been starving in Russia penal colony of Labytnangi for 100 days now. He annoiunched hunger strike in May 2014, demanding to release him and the rest of Ukrainian political prisoners illegally held by the Kremlin. Sentsov already survived three health crises; the medics warn that the fourth one, which might involve the breakdown of the body's internal organs, could begin anytime.

The native of Crimea, film director and political activist, Sentsov was illegally detained in Crimea in 2014, then taken to Russia. They judged him and sentenced him to 20 years of imprisonment at a high-security penal colony. The prosecutors charged Sentsov with preparing terrorist acts in the occupied Crimea. Sentsov denies his guilt. Ukraine's government, common citizens and the international society - politicians, artists, public figures - urge the Kremlin to release him.
Open source

The Ukrainian government will offer Moldova to construct the bridge over Dnister river not far from the town of Yampil, Vinnytsia region, southwestern Ukraine. The Cabinet's press service reported that on Tuesday.

'The local authorities of Vinnytsia region came up with the initiative to build the bridge over Dnister river to Moldova - as the shortest way from the Baltic States to the Balkans. This project is economically beneficial not only for Ukraine and Moldova, but also the entire EU. SO the Ukrainian government intends to make a proposal to the Moldovan side - to sign the respective intergovernmental agreement in the near future, and to begin the construction process', the message says.

The press service added that the direct shortest way from the Baltic States to Bucharest, Sofia, Athens or Istanbul lies across Kyiv and Kishinev. In turn, the shortest way from Kyiv to Kishinev lies across Yampil.

'However, the connection between the two European countries in the borderline areas near the towns of Yampil and Koseuts on the 100-kilometers-long distance is still provided by ferry. That is way out of date, and does not meet the requirements of the time and the actual needs of the states. The construction of the said bridge is mentioned in the Transport Strategy of Ukraine until 2030', Vice Prime Minister Volodymyr Kistion said as quoted by his press service.
In Lviv region, a woman will be judged for the attempt of the illegal export of the military goods from Ukraine as Lviv Prosecutor's Office reported.

The indictment against the citizen of Kyiv region was sent to Yavorivsky district court for the consideration of the case.

It was established during the pretrial investigation that in February 2018, a Ukrainian attempted to export the night vision attachments PDS-1 for the use as a part of the night vision device of the ground artillery, night observation devices NNO-21 and theodolite RT to France for the private gain.

The mentioned goods were confiscated at the checkpoint "Krakovets".

The prosecutor's office finished the pretrial investigation due to the violation of the order of the international pass of the goods subjected to be under export control.

The suspect can be fined or arrested up to three years.

Ukraine exported the largest number of small arms to the US in 2017. Uzbekistan is in the second place. The data was published on the website of State Export Control Service of Ukraine.
Most of them are ATO participants

Five people are considered suspects in the case of the attack on Kateryna Handziuk, Administrator of the Executive Committee of the Kherson City Council, as Serhiy Knyazev, the Head of National Police, said, Ukrainian News report.

For now, five people are prosecuted for involvement and participation in this crime, he stated.

Knyazev has also noted that the majority of the suspects has earlier participated in the Anti-terrorist operation.

For now, they are all detained.

As we reported earlier, Kateryna Handziuk, Adviser of Kherson's Mayor was attacked near her place. The attacker soaked her with acid. the woman was hospitalized.

30 percent of her body was burned: head, arms, legs, chest and left eye.

Related: Wife of Kharkiv shooter found dead

It was stated that the doctors of the burn department of the Kyiv hospital where Kateryna was delivered to, claimed that she is in a stable serious condition.

The attack on the employee of the City Council of Kherson was reclassified from "Hooliganism" to "Serious physical injuries committed with the aim of intimidation", and after a while - on "Attempted murder with a special cruelty."

Yuriy Lutsenko took the case under his own control.
In Odesa, the law enforcers have detained a killer from the unrecognized Transnistrian Republic. Viacheslav Abroskin, the First Deputy Head of the National Police of Ukraine reported this on Facebook.

A man was detained in Kyiv district of Odesa. A perpetrator drew the attention of the police patrol by an unstuck beard. A Makarov Pistol with bullets was confiscated during the inspection of a man.

Also, it was established that the detained came from the unrecognized Transnistrian Republic and he enters the criminal grouping headed by Oleg Reniysky.

"It is possible to confirm that the police officers saved the life of the local entrepreneur by the detaining of the regular foreign killer who came to Odesa by order of Oleg Reniysky. The restrictive measure for the killer was also chosen; it is the arrest," Abroskin said.

As we reported the Police and the Security Service of Ukraine detained two people on August 17. They are probably involved into the organization of the attack on Kateryna Handziuk, Official of Kherson City Council. The attacker soaked her with acid. the woman was hospitalized. 30 percent of her body was burned: head, arms, legs, chest and left eye.
The law #2508-VII that releases the enterprises of the defense-industry complex of the strategic nature for Ukraine from the payment of the penalties to the companies from the country-aggressor was published in "Holos Ukrayiny". The document will come into force tomorrow.

The law bans the forcible implementation of the decision of the foreign courts on the recovering of the money from the Ukrainian of the defense-industry complex in favor of the enterprises of the state-occupant. Particularly, if the company is registered in such country or its executive body is there or the enterprise is ruled from the country-aggressor.

Moreover, it obliges to stop already opened proceeding and to not open new. According to the document, it is forbidden to open the proceeding on the case of the bankruptcy of the enterprises of the defense-industry complex.

The restrictions applied also to the commitments where one of the sides was replaced; however, first of all, the debt of the enterprises of the defense-industry complex appeared toward the legal unity of the state-aggressor.

The necessity of the adoption of such decision was explained by the fact that the Ukrainian the enterprises of the defense-industry complex could not fulfill their commitments and supply Russia with the military and dual-use goods due to the restriction imposed by the president of Ukraine due to the armed Russian aggression in Donbas. The companies from Russia began to appeal to the Russian courts to recover the money, penalties and other fines despite the reference of the Ukrainian enterprises on the force majeure.

As we reported Ukrainian parliament signed a bill to a law, releasing the defense enterprises of strategic importance for Ukraine from payment of the penalty to the companies from the aggressor-state. 244 MPs voted in support of the bill.
"So that the special forces would enter the territory of Russia and bring him to Ukraine," Kravchenko, the Prosecutor, who represents prosecution in state treason case, explained

Open source

Ukraines Chief Military Prosecutors Office suggests creating a special subdivision to detain Viktor Yanukovych, ex-President of Ukraine, in Russia, as Ruslan Kravchenko, the Prosecutor, who represents prosecution in state treason case, told in the interview for Hromadske.

I think that the law enforcement agencies should do everything to make this decision (court hearings on Yanukovych case, - ed.) implemented, the Prosecutor said.

Answering the clarifying question, Kravchenko explained the scheme of implementation of the decision: Probably, to create a unit like Mossad, for instance. So that the special forces would enter the territory of Russia and bring him to Ukraine.

As it is known, Mossad is a political intelligence of Israel. Its main tasks are gathering of information and analysis of surveillance information along with conduction of special operations outside of Israel.

As it was reported earlier, the Chief Military Prosecutors Office asks the court to sentence ex-President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych to 15 years of imprisonment in the case on state treason, as Prosecutor Maksym Krym said during the debates in the court on Thursday, August 16.

Reportedly, fee-based lawyers of Viktor Yanukovych started a skirmish with police in the building of Obolon District Court of Kyiv, where the next court hearing in the case of treason against former Ukrainian President takes place today.

The reason for the conflict is the denial of access to the Aver Lex lawyers to the court hearing. The latest has also made a stand against Yuriy Ryabovol, Yanukovychs state attorney, and his participation in the court hearing. The security officers refused to let Vitaly Serdyuk and his colleagues into the courtroom, the mix-up with security officers and policemen began after that.
Two rehearsals of the parade were held in Kyiv, the dress rehearsal is planned for 22 August

The military parade dedicated to the 27th anniversary of the Independence Day of Ukraine will begin at 10:00 a.m. on August 24 as the press service of the Ukrainian president reported.

The soldiers will march on Kreshchatyk and will also show the military hardware. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will deliver a speech at Maidan Nezalezhnosti.

Earlier two rehearsals of the parade were held in Kyiv on August 18 and August 20. The dress rehearsal is planned for 22 August.

As we reported soldiers from 18 countries will participate in the parade for the Independence Day. The crews who have participated and are participating in the hostilities in the east of Ukraine will be given and awarded honorary titles and combat flags.

Also, the security measures will be enhanced at the state border and the demarcation line with the occupied territories on the State Flag Day and Independence Day. As well as the National Police, National Guard, the State Border Guard Service and the workers of the Emergency Service switch to the enhanced working regime due to the holding of the events dedicated to the 27th anniversary of the independence of Ukraine on August 24.

Independence Day of Ukraine is the day when the state commemorates the Declaration of Independence of 1991. It is traditionally celebrated on August 24.
Social media

Zamosc District Prosecutors Office in Poland opened a criminal proceeding against Grigory Kupriyanovich, a Ukrainian historian, because of his speech in Sahryniu on the opening of the memorial to local Ukrainians who became victims of a punitive action conducted by Armia Krajowa in 1944. Ukraines Foreign Ministry stood against applying a judicial mechanism to prosecute one of the prominent figures of the Ukrainian community in Poland, as Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraines Foreign Minister, wrote on Facebook.

After all, a criminal proceeding against one of the leaders of the Ukrainian community, famous historian Grigory Kupriyanovich began in Poland. Przemysaw Czarnuch, Lublin Governor, filed a lawsuit against the historian because on July 8 he delivered a speech in Sahryniu on the opening of a memorial to the Ukrainian peasants, who became victims of a punitive action conducted by Armia Krajowa in 1944. As far as I understood, he is guilty because he was brave enough to say who was the victim and who committed the crime, which means he pronounced well-known facts, which nobody even though to object before. However, the situation changed with the adoption of a new amendment to the Act on National Remembrance, Klimkin wrote.

The historian faces imprisonment for up to three years.

We are totally against applying a judicial mechanism to prosecute one of the prominent figure of the Ukrainian community in Poland, who, by the way, is doing a lot for Ukrainian-Polish historical reconciliation, Klimkin said.

The Minister stated that the Polish community had to react decisively on such speculations.

This particular situation is rather an attempt of a local politician to make cheap popularity on creating a cross-national scandal. Anyway, I am convinced that the Polish community had to decisively react on such speculations. I sincerely hope that the democratic community will realize all the importance of the situation around the Ukrainian historian and will have their say on his defence, Klimkin stated.

Reportedly, the Senate of Poland adopted a law without amendments on Institute of National Remembrance on February 1, 2018. The law was providing a criminal responsibility for the attribution of Nazi crimes to Poland, in particular for using the designation of Polish Death Camps. In response, Israel condemned the Polish Government in Holocaust denial.

Articles of the law providing a criminal responsibility for denial the massacre of Poles in Volhynia and propaganda of Bandera ideology remained in force.

As it was reported earlier, Ukraine canceled the permission of Polish Institute of National Remembrance to search and exhume Polish, buried in Ukraine, and did not agree to restore them. This worsened relations between two countries. It happened in April after the monument to Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Hruszowice (Poland) was toppled. Countries discussed the issue a few times, though unsuccessfully  the sides were just trading accusations.

Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraines Foreign Minister said that Ukraine and Poland had to cooperate on the question on the exhumation of the citizens who died in the World War II and during the post-war period. He noted this answering the question about the results of the Polish-Ukrainian excavations in Hruszowice in the place of the destroyed monument to Ukrainian Insurgent Army officers in Poland.
The investigation have a new information in the case of murder of the journalist Pavlo Sheremet, which could possibly point to the performers and customers. This was announced by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukrainian Truth reports.

"Over the past month, we have found one lead that could help us find an answer in this matter, I'm keeping it under my control. The investigation is going on actively. I will not say anything else," he said.

He also noted that this information is likely to bring the investigation to the executors of murder, and then to its customers.

"There are no suspects in this case, but I can not say more in the interests of the investigation. We now have information that could lead us to at least the executors, and then to the customers. However, I'll emphasize that its only probable. I have a personal motive for effective control of this case," he said.

As we reported, Ukrainian journalist Pavlo Sheremet was killed in Kyiv in the morning of July 20, 2016. The car he was driving exploded in the citys downtown. The vehicle belonged to his civilian wife, Editor-in-Chief of Ukrainska Pravda outlet Olena Prytula; she was not in the car at the moment. The Ukrainian police qualified the explosion as intentional homicide. Ukraines Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko assumed the murder could be the part of some greater plan, perhaps designed by the Kremlin. The key version of Sheremets murder was his professional activity.

Beyond that, joint investigation of OCCRP and Slidstvo.Info portal has recently established that Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) could be following journalist Pavlo Sheremet a night before he was killed.
According to Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, the deal was not drawn up formally in court

The suspect in the organization of murder of the journalist Arkadiy Babchenko Borys Herman is ready to conclude a deal with the investigation, but it has not been drawn up formally yet. This was reported by Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko during the briefing on Tuesday on air of 112 Ukraine TV channel.

"I consulted with the investigator and the prosecutor in this matter ... Yes, indeed, Herman and his defense agreed to prepare the agreement and work in this context with our employees. But the court has not yet confirmed yet. In his testimony, Herman actually confirms the version that was put forward by our investigation, including directly points to the representative of the Russian Federation, who provided funds and instructed how to use them on the territory of Ukraine," Lutsenko said.

He called to wait for the deal to be confirmed in the court.

"Another month after that, it will become available to the public," the Prosecutor General said.

Arkadiy Babchenko is the Russian journalist, war-time correspondent and the writer. He served with the Russian regular army, surviving the combat action in both Chechen wars (the 1990s and 2000). Later, he prepared a number of reports during the armed conflict in South Ossetia in 2008. Since 2012, the Russian government has been prosecuting him for critical reports against the incumbent authority.

As it was reported earlier, Shevchenkivsky district court in Kyiv arrested Borys Herman, the suspect in the organization of the attempt on the life of Arkadiy Babchenko, the Russian opposition reporter who lives in Kyiv.

Herman insists he never ordered or prepared the murder; according to him, he was involved in the secret operation of Ukraine's special services, which was supposed to reveal the supply channels of Russian saboteurs and influence agents in Ukraine.
It is noted that the growth of the level of the incidence was predicted, the epidemiologists reported

Open source

There is no epidemic of the measles in Ukraine but the occasional outbreaks are observed. Viktor Liashko, the First Deputy Director-General of Public Health Center claimed this as Ukrinform reported.

"We do not call the situation with the spread of the measles in Ukraine epidemic. These are outbreaks, as we spot the increase of the incidence. We have the unstable epidemic situation toward the measles but it is a predicted five-year cyclical growth of the measles' incidence. All epidemiologists of Ukraine warned about this: if Ukrainians are not vaccinated, the cyclical outbreaks will grow and cover the population more and more," Liashko noted.

According to him, 2017 became the first year in the decade, when they succeeded to cover 90% of the children under a year by the MMR vaccine and 93% of the children under six years by the re-vaccination. Before this, since 2008, the index of the cover by the vaccine did not surpass 90%.

He noted that this year a positive dynamics of the MMR vaccination among the planned immunization is observed.

"However, the Ukrainians continue to get sick with measles: not vaccinated children also have begun to get ill as well as the adults. Ukraine is a leader in the European region concerning the spread of the measles. If there are no changes in cover of vaccination in our country, it is a threat for the country as diphtheria and poliomyelitis can be next after the measles," he noted.

Viktor Liashko added that the Health Ministry assume the decisive measures for the deterrence of the spread of the measles.

"The three-years planning is implemented, which will allow us to place the order for three years beforehand, plan the supplies and solve the issues of the presence of the vaccines at the vaccination rooms. Also, it allowed us to vaccinate with the remnants of the vaccines bought last year, adults who were in the contact with the ill-people and groups of risks," he noted.

Liashko emphasized that necessary management decisions were made, "the talks with people to make the necessary vaccinations left".

Earlier Moldova imposed the orange threat level on the results of the session of the national emergency commission for public health. It is noted that the most of the cases were spotted in the southern regions of Moldova.

Also, the European Health Security Agency reported that Ukraine was the third in Europe on the number of people infected with measles in 2017. The leaders are Romania and Italy.

Related video:
The American company intends to place such production in two countries, particularly India

Open source

Ukraine holds the negotiations with the American Holtec Company on the production of the small nuclear reactors at its territory. Valery Chaly, the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. claimed this as 112 Ukraine reported.

"I talked with the Holtec president and he said he is ready to place the production of the small nuclear reactors in two countries of the world. One country is India and he was searching the second country. So that's, among all countries we won this right, I talk about this as not about the committed act of the production but the process has begun and we plan to produce the small nuclear reactor together in the future," Chaly said.

He emphasized that it is a multi-billion project at the territory of Ukraine that will give the working places and high level of the cooperation in this sphere.

American Company Holtec International constructs the central storage of the spent nuclear fuel.

As we reported Head of the administration of Ukraine's president Ihor Rainin and Ecology Minister of Israel Ze'ev Elkin have discussed the practical step for the acceleration of the signing of the agreement for the free trade between two states.

Also, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko met with General Curtis Scaporotti the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the US in Europe and discussed cooperation issues.
The First Lady Marina Poroshenko presented a project World Book in Croatia and met with the Ukrainian military who are undertaking rehabilitation in Split, as the Presidents Administration reports.

Within a working visit to Republic of Croatia Marina Poroshenko, the Presidents wife met with children of the Ukrainian community. Together they have created and filled new pages of a national project World Book, the message says.

For more than four years our home state had to protect the borders. Brave Ukrainian soldiers are doing everything to return peace on motherland  for the sake of the future of the Ukrainian children, Marina Poroshenko stated.

24 Ukraines regions have joined the project already along with the representatives of the diaspora in the U.S., Canada, Turkey, Portugal and Spain. On August 23, on the Day of Ukraines National Flag, a solemn presentation of this photo album will take place in Kyiv.

Ukrainian military from Ternopil region, who participated in the Anti-terrorist operation in the east of Ukraine, also joined the meeting. They are undertaking rehabilitation in Split now.

This year they became the first ones who visited Croatia thanks to the program established by Poroshenkos fund in cooperation with Ivica Piric, Honorary Consul of Ukraine in Croatia. Next group of the Ukrainian defenders comes to Split in December.

The Presidents wife congratulated the Ukrainian defenders and thanked them for their heroism, bravery and love to Ukraine. She also wished them a quick recovery and return home.

On August 20, an Honorary Consular of Ukraine was opened in Croatia.
I ve wandered so far off the island, at this point, for those of you who are still stopping by, here goes nothing. Im fixated on this rel...
Editors Note: Aateka Rajab is a grant consultant in Canada with RDP Associates, an international innovation funding organization headquartered in Canada. Here she lays out the available grants for agrifood startups in Canada.

The government of Canada has a strategic approach to the agriculture and agrifood industries. Currently, Ottawa is investing C$3 billion over a five-year period through federal and federal-provincial/territorial initiatives. They will be available until March 2023. One billion dollars of federally funded programs are available to non-profit and for-profit agricultural businesses with a focus on trade growth, market expansion, innovation and sustainable growth, diversity, public trust, and collaboration. The remaining C$2 billion is allocated in a 60:40 partnership between the federal government and provinces as detailed further below.

The following federal programs focus on innovation, marketing, and science:

Agri-Innovate: It is a C$128 million program that offers a maximum of $10 million for companies developing, commercializing or adopting innovative technologies or processes for increased productivity, development of world-leading precision agriculture, and expanding to export markets.

Agri-Marketing: It is a C$121 million program that offers C$50,000 annually for projects that increase and diversify exports through industry-led promotional activities. Including, but not limited to, marketing and advertising, trade seminars, and food service promotions.

Agri-Science: This C$338 million program offers a maximum of C$5 million to companies to help them accelerate the pace of innovation by investing in cutting-edge research. Key funding areas are: knowledge transfer activities for value-added transformation, pre-commercialization research, or discovery and applied science for agricultural productivity.

The Canadian Agriculture Partnership (CAP) Program: This is a Canada-wide C$2 billion dollar 60:40 partnership between the federal government and provinces/territories, including Quebec. It is aimed at enhancing the agriculture sector. Each province/territory is administering the program so that the program streams reflect regional priorities. Each province will have streams that fall under the following themes: Science research and innovation, environmental sustainability and climate change, value-added agriculture and agri-food processing, market growth and trade expansion, public trust, and risk management. Currently, all provinces and territories have bilateral agreements, but not all CAP programs have been activated at this time. The following provinces have their own open streams:

Alberta

Currently, the province has a C$406 million investment with 15 programs that will be phased out from spring to fall 2018. The open streams in this program are market growth, public trust, environmental sustainability, and climate change.

British Columbia

This program is focused on innovation, market development, food safety, and environmental sustainability. At present, this program has rolling deadlines for open calls while the remaining streams will open this Fall (2018).

Manitoba

Ag Action Manitoba is a C$176 million program consolidated with CAP that offers farmers, processors, researchers and industry service providers with numerous funding streams. All streams are currently open with variable deadlines, while few streams including market development accept applications continuously.

New Brunswick

This provincial program has opened all of the streams under its umbrella which includes over 20 streams. This increases the opportunity to receive funding for agri-clients. The largest stream available is the Advanced Agri-food Processing, which offers C$100,000 to those businesses that undertake product development activities.

Ontario

This program has open calls throughout the year, whereby all the streams open and close within a three-week period. The largest program available is the C$250,000 technology and equipment to improve labour productivity. The latter offers funding to implement novel technological and equipment upgrades.

Prince Edward Island

This CAP program is similar to the Growing Forward 2 Program with many small streams and added activities to promote food security and environmental sustainability. The most lucrative stream the province offers is the agriculture research and innovation program that C$40,000 to C$80,000 under the applied research sub-program.

Saskatchewan

This C$388 million program offers significant investments in the research and value-added agri-food processing streams. Almost all of the streams have open calls, fall deadlines for spring projects, and the largest stream available is the agriculture development fund, which previously funded over C$7 million to support a sustainable agriculture solution for emerging problems.

If you operate an agricultural business in any of these provinces, we strongly recommend that you look into the many opportunities available to fund your growth. Our experienced grant consultants are available to guide you through the processes required to obtain funding.
A hybrid form of yoga that combines traditional yoga postures with modern yoga moves and a silk hammock. Pre-registration required.

Please note: Aerial Yoga at the Yoga Art Space studio requires pre-registration through our website at www.YogaArtSpace.com/calendar. If no one registers for a class, the class may be cancelled between 6-12 hours prior to the class start time. Though this event is shown as a regular, weekly class each week on the Alabi calendar, there are occasionally times when the class will be cancelled in advance such as for certain holidays. All updates and cancellations are on the studio calendar at www.YogaArtSpace.com/calendar.

What is Aerial yoga?

Aerial Yoga is a hybrid form of yoga that combines traditional yoga postures infused with modern yoga moves and an silk fabric hammock.

Do I need Previous Yoga Experience?

No previous yoga experience is not necessary to enjoy an Aerial yoga class. In fact it can be easier than normal yoga! The silk hammock acts like a support whenever you require it, almost like having your own personal yoga teacher giving you assistance throughout the entire yoga class! Another advantage of having the support of the hammock is that 90% of students are able to complete more challenging poses, such as handstands!

Can Everybody do Aerial Yoga?

Yes and no. Students who have had a previous injury can find Aerial yoga much easier to participate in then normal yoga. This is due to the the weight being evenly distributed between your body, the hammock and the earth.

People who suffer any of following contraindications are advised NOT to participate in an Aerial yoga class: if you have had recent surgery of any sort, if you suffer glaucoma, if you are pregnant, if you suffer a heart condition (including very high or low blow pressure), if you get vertigo, if you have had a recent stroke or a hernia, if you have osteoporosis or any bone weakness, if you have carpal tunnel syndrome, or if you have had botox in the last six hours.

What Should I Wear?

All jewellery items must be removed before participating, a t-shirt must be worn to cover the armpit area and leggings are advised to avoid the silk rubbing on the skin and creating irritation. Please have clean feet or, alternatively, bring a pair of socks with you.
The International Tournament Denis Ten Memorial Challenge 2021 is taking place in Nur-Sultan city

The tournament runs on October 28-31 at Barys Arena in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan. It brough together over 100 athletes from 20 countries.

Kazakhstan is represented by Rakhat Bralin, Mikhail Shaidorov, and Diyas Zhirenbayev in the mens singles, whereas Anastasiya Lobanova, Yasmina Tekik in womens singles.

Figure skaters Gaukhar Nauryzova and Boyansangur Datiyev, Maksin Uezerbi and Temirlan Yerzhanov represent Kazakhstan in pair skating.

Russian figure skater Petr Gumennik takes the lead after the short program of the International Tournament Denis Ten Memorial Challenge 2021. Russian Mark Kondratiuk is second and Mihhail Selevko of Estonia is third.

Belarusian Viktoriia Safonova skated to the lead in the womens short program. Ukrainian Anastasiia Shabotova is second, followed by Azerbaijani Ekaterina Ryabova.




W. Bradley Wendel (Cornell University - School of Law) has posted Autonomy Isnt Everything: Some Cautionary Notes on Mccoy v. Louisiana on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The Supreme Courts May 2018 decision in McCoy v. Louisiana has been hailed as a decisive statement of the priority of the value of a criminal defendants autonomy over the fairness and reliability interests that also inform both the Sixth Amendment and the ethical obligations of defense counsel. It also appears to be a victory for the vision of client-centered representation and the humanistic value of the inherent dignity of the accused. However the decision is susceptible to being read too broadly in ways that harm certain categories of defendants. This paper offers a couple of cautionary notes, in response to McCoy, regarding the ethical obligations of defense counsel. The most important caution is that, as a matter of constitutional law and professional ethics, the preference for autonomy and the standard allocation of decision making authority presupposes a fully competent client, not a client who merely passes the extremely low constitutional bar of competency to stand trial. A client capable of participating in a fully autonomous way in the representation is far more than minimally competent. Where the client has diminished capacity to make adequately considered decisions in connection with a representation, the usual division of decision making authority within the lawyer-client relationship breaks down. The Supreme Courts 2008 decision in Indiana v. Edwards muddles the issue considerably by recognizing a gray area between competency to stand trial and entitlement to self-representation under Faretta v. California. The self-representation right in Faretta is based on the same autonomy interests that animate McCoy. Autonomy is a capacity, and the Edwards decision questions whether a client lacking this capacity can participate in the representation in the usual way. Edwards therefore casts considerable doubt on whether autonomy should have the same priority over fairness and reliability interests in a representation involving a borderline-competent defendant. Observing that a lawyers decision has the effect of limiting the clients autonomy is the beginning of the recognition of a complicated issue, not the end of the analysis. In many cases the lawyer should respect a clients fully-informed decision regarding the representation. There will be other cases, including the representation of questionably competent clients, in which the clients autonomy interest must be subordinated to other legal values. This ranking should not be conducted on an ad hoc basis but in a principled way. This paper therefore proposes a sliding-scale approach to autonomy and other professional values, in which the most important consideration is a balance between the importance of the decision and the clients capacity to participate in a meaningful way in the representation. A clearly competent, well-informed client still has the right to make what a lawyer believes to be unreasonable decisions regarding the representation. However, the threshold for concluding that a client is competent and a decision is fully informed should be set sufficiently high to ensure the protection of gray area client and also to provide appropriate incentives to trial counsel to conduct a thorough investigation and mount an effective defense.
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Post: #1 Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

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Aboriginal Disenfranchisement: In colonial times Aboriginals were denied the vote. Following Confederation, Aboriginals could vote on the condition they give up their treaty rights and status under the Indian Act. The conditional voting restriction for First Nations was removed in 1960.



Enslavement of Africans: During Canada's early periods of French and British colonial rule, slave trading and slavery were lawful.



The Chinese head tax. The first federal anti-Chinese bill was passed in 1885. All immigrants from China were asked to pay $50 per person upon entering the country. The fee eventually rose to $500 per person in 1903. No other group was targeted in this way (until the privilege was extended to Black Americans).



In 1890, Manitoba makes English the only official language in the Province, despite the protests of French-Canadians who had first settled the territory. The Manitoba Legislature systematically eradicated the bilingual nature of the province over the next 25 years by de-funding (French)-Catholic schools, then later removing French instruction rights all together.



Forbidding immigration from India (1906): The restriction of immigration from the Orient, in particular British East Indians: "Experience has shown that immigrants of this class, having been accustomed to the conditions of a tropical climate, are wholly unsuited to this country".



Ban on Black immigrants (1911): African-Americans trying to enter Canada there were strict regulations on health, literacy, and financial support. These regulations were set up on the assumption that most African-Americans would never meet them and thus would not be allowed to enter the country. When a party of 200 Blacks, adhering to all rules, arrived in Manitoba in 1911, the federal government decided to ban black immigrants outright.



In 1912, the Ontario government attempted to force the assimilation of Franco-Ontarians by banning French language in francophone schools. One might say the measure was intended to impose dominant British-language values to a minority group.



Indian Residential Schools (1920): The Canadian government developed a policy called "aggressive assimilation" to be taught at church-run, government-funded residential schools. Attendance was mandatory and federal agents ensured all native children attended. In all, about 150,000 Aboriginal children were removed from their communities and forced to attend the boarding schools.



The Chinese Exclusion Act (1923). Following a 1914 judgement in the Court of Appeal which stipulated "[Asiatic] customs are not in vogue and their adherence to them here only gives rise to disturbances destructive to the well being of society", the Chinese workers who had, with their bare hands and for half the pay of white workers, built Canada's economic gateway were formally excluded from immigrating Canada.



The Person's Case. Until 1929, the legal definition of a person excluded females. If women were not legally persons, then they had no rights.



Internment of Italian-Canadians: There were 26 internment camps in Canada during World War II. Italian-Canadian men were interned in three of them. German-Canadians were also interned.

The Colour Bar in the Canadian Forces. In 1939, recruits to the Royal Canadian Navy had to be "of pure European descent and of the white race." The Royal Canadian Air Force demanded candidates who were "British subjects and of pure European descent."



Internment of Japanese-Canadians: Within days of the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, Canadian Pacific Railways fired all its Japanese workers, and most other industries followed suit. Japanese fishermen in British Columbia were ordered to stay in port, and 1,200 fishing boats were seized by the Canadian navy. The movement of 23,000 Japanese Canadians during the war the largest mass exodus in Canadian history. After the war, the federal government forced all Japanese-Canadians out of British Columbia.

Civil Rights for the Coloured. In 1936, Fred Christie was refused service in the Montreal Forum on account of his race. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. He lost. In 1940, the Supreme Court of Canada did not find the "no service for coloreds" rule to be "contrary to good morals or public order".



In 1943, Ontario-native Hugh Burnett wrote to federal Justice Minister Louis St. Laurent, informing him that even in uniform, a black man could not be served in any Dresden, Ontario restaurant. He was shocked to receive a reply from the Deputy Minister stating that racial discrimination was not illegal in Canada.



Voting Rights for Visible Minorities (1948): Chinese-Canadians and Indo-Canadians were excluded from voting until 1947. Japanese-Canadians had to wait another year.



Racially segregated schools: the last segregated Black school in Ontario was closed in 1965. The last segregated school in Canada, which was in Nova Scotia, closed in 1983. Here are some low-lights of Canadian historyAboriginal Disenfranchisement: In colonial times Aboriginals were denied the vote. Following Confederation, Aboriginals could vote on the condition they give up their treaty rights and status under the Indian Act. The conditional voting restriction for First Nations was removed in 1960.Enslavement of Africans: During Canada's early periods of French and British colonial rule, slave trading and slavery were lawful.The Chinese head tax. The first federal anti-Chinese bill was passed in 1885. All immigrants from China were asked to pay $50 per person upon entering the country. The fee eventually rose to $500 per person in 1903. No other group was targeted in this way (until the privilege was extended to Black Americans).In 1890, Manitoba makes English the only official language in the Province, despite the protests of French-Canadians who had first settled the territory. The Manitoba Legislature systematically eradicated the bilingual nature of the province over the next 25 years by de-funding (French)-Catholic schools, then later removing French instruction rights all together.Forbidding immigration from India (1906): The restriction of immigration from the Orient, in particular British East Indians: "Experience has shown that immigrants of this class, having been accustomed to the conditions of a tropical climate, are wholly unsuited to this country".Ban on Black immigrants (1911): African-Americans trying to enter Canada there were strict regulations on health, literacy, and financial support. These regulations were set up on the assumption that most African-Americans would never meet them and thus would not be allowed to enter the country. When a party of 200 Blacks, adhering to all rules, arrived in Manitoba in 1911, the federal government decided to ban black immigrants outright.In 1912, the Ontario government attempted to force the assimilation of Franco-Ontarians by banning French language in francophone schools. One might say the measure was intended to impose dominant British-language values to a minority group.Indian Residential Schools (1920): The Canadian government developed a policy called "aggressive assimilation" to be taught at church-run, government-funded residential schools. Attendance was mandatory and federal agents ensured all native children attended. In all, about 150,000 Aboriginal children were removed from their communities and forced to attend the boarding schools.The Chinese Exclusion Act (1923). Following a 1914 judgement in the Court of Appeal which stipulated "[Asiatic] customs are not in vogue and their adherence to them here only gives rise to disturbances destructive to the well being of society", the Chinese workers who had, with their bare hands and for half the pay of white workers, built Canada's economic gateway were formally excluded from immigrating Canada.The Person's Case. Until 1929, the legal definition of a person excluded females. If women were not legally persons, then they had no rights.Internment of Italian-Canadians: There were 26 internment camps in Canada during World War II. Italian-Canadian men were interned in three of them. German-Canadians were also interned.The Colour Bar in the Canadian Forces. In 1939, recruits to the Royal Canadian Navy had to be "of pure European descent and of the white race." The Royal Canadian Air Force demanded candidates who were "British subjects and of pure European descent."Internment of Japanese-Canadians: Within days of the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, Canadian Pacific Railways fired all its Japanese workers, and most other industries followed suit. Japanese fishermen in British Columbia were ordered to stay in port, and 1,200 fishing boats were seized by the Canadian navy. The movement of 23,000 Japanese Canadians during the war the largest mass exodus in Canadian history. After the war, the federal government forced all Japanese-Canadians out of British Columbia.Civil Rights for the Coloured. In 1936, Fred Christie was refused service in the Montreal Forum on account of his race. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. He lost. In 1940, the Supreme Court of Canada did not find the "no service for coloreds" rule to be "contrary to good morals or public order".In 1943, Ontario-native Hugh Burnett wrote to federal Justice Minister Louis St. Laurent, informing him that even in uniform, a black man could not be served in any Dresden, Ontario restaurant. He was shocked to receive a reply from the Deputy Minister stating that racial discrimination was not illegal in Canada.Voting Rights for Visible Minorities (1948): Chinese-Canadians and Indo-Canadians were excluded from voting until 1947. Japanese-Canadians had to wait another year.Racially segregated schools: the last segregated Black school in Ontario was closed in 1965. The last segregated school in Canada, which was in Nova Scotia, closed in 1983. Travel assistant

lop guest

User ID: 444938

08-21-2018 07:21 AM











Post: #2 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

Awesome Canucks for acknowledgement give er . Travel assistant

lop guest

User ID: 444938

08-21-2018 07:29 AM











Post: #3 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

Used to ride BC ferries remember 30 years ago a berth tween decks , lying in a bunk with another atop of me some one had written on the Formica undersurface " in the early 70 ees I was sent to the port Alberni residential school the first thing they taught me was how to give Head ,they called it nature studies,".... I experienced this person's witness over 30 years ago .

I am honored to be able to replicate it here . LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 441972

08-21-2018 07:31 AM











Post: #4 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

http://lunaticoutpost.com/thread-53232.html Travel assistant

lop guest

User ID: 444938

08-21-2018 07:35 AM











Post: #5 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

2 out of 95bad stats and we know most of the anonymous viewers have to be Canadians .Unless we can acknowledge our forefathers sins we cannot move forward.We are only responsible for our forefathers sins if we do not acknowledge them!!!! Travel assistant

lop guest

User ID: 444938

08-21-2018 07:40 AM











Post: #6 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

Come on we know it is not yanks who are interested in this thread it is a call to Canadians to speak!! LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 445976

08-21-2018 07:43 AM











Post: #7 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

Don't worry watch SA implode over the next few months.

You will see how they kill their minorities. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 441972

08-21-2018 07:47 AM











Post: #8 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history







https://youtu.be/J0R5DTHcmGU



Dirty f**kers Dirty f**kers LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 372620

08-21-2018 07:56 AM











Post: #9 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

the Trudeau pms really messed Canada up. Travel assistant

lop guest

User ID: 440064

08-21-2018 08:30 AM











Post: #10 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

Come on everyone we all.know we are run by puppets there is and has always been a force behind these talking heads .To believe otherwise is just wishful thinking and at some time that all ways collapses. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 445976

08-21-2018 08:32 AM











Post: #11 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

I think the current Prime minister is the low..

Who could become a joke in India?

Yup, That man. Travel assistant

lop guest

User ID: 440064

08-21-2018 08:37 AM











Post: #12 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

Canadian Bacon John Candy's last movie The first 5 minutes have to be the funniest thing ever.

What I have found travelling the world as a Canuck ,is the rest has a deep sympathy for us having to live beside the US.!!!

PS I used to take a vhs copy of this movie with me as John was our ambassador!!! LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 439384

08-21-2018 08:37 AM











Post: #13 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

Travel assistant Wrote: (08-21-2018 07:40 AM) Come on we know it is not yanks who are interested in this thread it is a call to Canadians to speak!!

History is good to know but not to dwell on..



Meaning.. I give zerofucks abkut this shit History is good to know but not to dwell on..Meaning.. I give zerofucks abkut this shit Travel assistant

lop guest

User ID: 440064

08-21-2018 08:47 AM











Post: #14 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.What part of acknowledgeing your forefathers sins do you not understand! Travel assistant

lop guest

User ID: 440064

08-21-2018 08:48 AM











Post: #15 RE: Here are some low-lights of Canadian history

Pearls before Swine. Advertisement


















The assault took place Aug. 16 near the village of Pundanhar in Cabo Delgado province, close to the Rovuma river that separates Mozambique from Tanzania. Photo courtesy: Pinnacle News

Mozambican security forces carried out a major attack on a base of an Islamist militant group in the gas-rich north last week, killing at least four fighters and capturing a suspected rebel leader, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The assault took place Aug. 16 near the village of Pundanhar in Cabo Delgado province, close to the Rovuma river that separates Mozambique from Tanzania, the people said, asking not to be identified because theyre not authorised to comment publicly on an ongoing operation. Government forces caught a man named Abdul Raim, who police identified this month as a suspected leader of the group, they said.

Known as Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jama, which means followers of the prophetic tradition in Arabic, the group has been carrying out attacks in the north of Cabo Delgado since October, killing dozens of people, burning hundreds of houses, and forcing thousands to flee their villages. The raids have created security concerns for companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp., which plan to develop natural gas projects worth tens of billions of dollars in the region.
The Independent Philippine Petroleum Companies Association asked the Energy Department to reconsider its plan to import Euro 2 diesel and consult with the Bureau of Customs if such shipments would be allowed. IPPCA president Bong Suntay met with Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi on Monday to air their concerns against making Euro 2 diesel available in their retail stations. IPPCA gave our side and explained to him why they should consider other means of lowering the cost of diesel other than by reintroducing Euro 2 diesel back to the market, Suntay said. IPPCA informed Cusi that making available Euro 2 would take time and could not be done immediately even if the oil players wanted to do so. Oil importers are already finished with their fuel requirement procurement based on their actual volume. Adding a new product at this point was not considered in that volume requirement, Suntay said. He said fuel stations would require retrofitting and would take time and money.Suntay said savings from Euro 2 would be negligible representing a reduction of only P0.28 per liter. He said Euro 2 no longer had a Philippine National Standard after the government required oil companies to shift to Euro 4. Suntay said Cusi agreed that the reintroduction of Euro 2 diesel would only be optional to those who would want to sell it. But if he truly wants an immediate and doable way of reducing the price of fuel, our suggestion is to revisit the mandatory purchase of locally sourced ethanol which is more expensive than imported ethanol and reducing the CME [coco methyl ester] from 2 percent to 1 percent,  he said. Sources, however, the 2-percent CME price impact on diesel pump price was only P0.30 per liter based on current market prices.
Jennylyn Mercado (third from left) with Rustan Marketing Corporation general manager Francesca Colayco, president Anton Huang, and division manager Audrey Canta.

Jennylyn Mercado has been named the new brand ambassador of global makeup brand Max Factor.

Filipino actress Jennylyn Mercado proves one does not have to conform to traditional definitions and standards of beauty. At 31, she says authenticity trumps unrealistic beauty expectations.In my own journey, what Im aspiring now is to be real. And in that sense, we must be fearless, shares Mercado. And it was her individuality that earned her the title as the new brand ambassador of global makeup brand Max Factor.Shes beautiful inside and out, and this is because she is unburdened by the expectations of others. She lives by her own rules and leads life with such focus and gratitude, says Rustan Marketing Corporation president Anton Huang. I feel honored, surprised, and happy to be chosen as the brand ambassador of a global makeup brand. Im very grateful for this opportunity to share my story, serve as an inspiration, and help other women discover their most beautiful self, beams Mercado.Mercado stars in the YOU X MAX FACTOR campaign, which conveys the message to move away from unrealistic standards of beauty and find muses in real women such as Jennylyn Mercado.

Through this empowering movement, Max Factor Philippines not only brings to light the diverse beauties of women across ages, countries, and cultures, but also celebrates their beautiful journeys. For us, real beauty starts from within, and that there is no one way to describe it. As we go through our life experiences, both the struggles and the triumphs, our true beauty becomes uniquely defined. We are all beautiful in our own right and we should proudly put our best face forward in everything we do, says Audrey Canta, Division Manager.
Presidente @MartinVizcarraC: Continuaremos trabajando en los proyectos de la region con ustedes, recibiendo las denuncias de malos manejos que exista y haciendo el seguimiento que corresponda. pic.twitter.com/nCY2bjyj67
The 17 Chinese nationals who have been arrested in Nueva Ecija for making and selling counterfeit cigarettes valued at P200 million will be deported and banned from returning to the Philippines, the Bureau of Immigration said Tuesday. Customs and immigration authorities raided a warehouse in Gapan City, Nueva Ecija on Aug. 17 after weeks of surveillance, and caught 17 Chinese nationals caught making fake cigarettes. Confiscated during the raid were fake cigarettes of assorted brands, six cigarette-making machines, cigarette raw materials, and fake Bureau of Internal Revenue tax stamps stacked inside three boxes. The government authorities raided the warehouse owned by a Chinese national after receiving an intelligence report that the warehouse was being used to make counterfeit cigarettes. It was subjected to a three-week surveillance by our customs police following a tip from a reliable source that counterfeit cigarettes are manufactured inside the warehouse, Commissioner Isidro Lapena said. Arrested were 16 males and a female, from Hu Bei, Fu Jian, An Hui, and Xi An, China.They will be turned over to the Immigration for deportation after serving their jail term for committing crimes which include the manufacture of fake products. We are still conducting follow-up investigation to confirm the identities of the suspects and the origin of the raw materials and cigarette-making machine, the Commissioner said. The owner still has (sic) 15 days from the date of inspection to produce evidence of payment on the imported items, otherwise, a warrant of seizure and detention will be issued by the Bureau, the Customs chief explained. After inventory by the Customs authorities, the fake cigarettes and fake tax stamps will undergo outright seizure.
Presidente @MartinVizcarraC entrega la obra de ampliacion y mejoramiento de los servicios de agua potable y alcantarillado del sector oeste de Sullana, la cual cuenta con una inversion aproximada de S/ 55 millones y beneficiara a mas de 16 mil ciudadanos de la localidad. pic.twitter.com/o1VOU3xXUH
Presidente @MartinVizcarraC: El principal problema de nuestro pais es la corrupcion, pero no solo en el Poder Judicial. Para combatirla tenemos que tener dirigentes, alcaldes y gobernadores honestos.
Familiar Face

A Borders reunion at Literati

by Eve Silberman

From the August, 2018 issue

"Tom Borders!" exclaimed Carla Bayha, as she was about to ring up a purchase at Literati bookstore. The trim, silver-haired man seemed taken aback until Bayha reintroduced herself: she started at Borders Books as a clerk when it was still owned by Borders and his brother, Louis. She eventually rose to buyer and stayed on till the company folded in 2011. Another Borders grad, Jean Joesten, was also working that day--and showed up wearing a limited-edition Borders T-shirt displaying an image of Elvis. The three shared memories dating back more than a quarter of a century to "Store Number One" on State St.



Since Literati opened in 2013, owners Mike and Hilary Gustafson have hired half a dozen former Borders employees. Longtime Store Number One manager Joe Gable lent books from his own vast collection to fill vacant shelf space in the early days and remains a regular customer. Literati's glass-doored bookcases came from Borders' liquidation sale, and if Tom Borders had ventured into the basement, he might also have recognized a handsome wood bench that once furnished Store Number One. When the store moved to East Liberty, employees were allowed to take unwanted items. Joesten claimed the bench, and it followed her to Literati.



After the brothers sold the company in 1992, Tom and his wife, Carmel, moved to Austin, Texas. Bayha says he told her it was his first visit to Literati and "how great it was" to see it.



She rang up his purchase: a copy of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient.



[Originally published in August, 2018.]








YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENPRESS. Police Chief of Armenia Valeri Osipyan assures that there are no corruption manifestations in the police system, reports Armenpress.

During todays press conference Osipyan told reporters that the corruption manifestations are totally eliminated in the police. I assure our society, officially announce that there are no corruption manifestations in the police. Although I dont rule out that at the moment any police officer is trying to do something in conditions incomprehensible for me, but I assure you that maybe he will succeed for the first and second times, but after the third attempt he will be jailed, the Police Chief said.

Commenting on the possibility of wage increase in the police, he said he had a discussion in the government concerning this issue. The Armenian Prime Minister is well familiar with this issue, and he is very interested in the increase of the salaries of the police officers, but this is linked with the economic situation of our country. Lets hope that we will have an economic growth, and in that case I am convinced the salaries of the police officers will increase, the Police Chief said.

He didnt agree with the view according to which many police officers, who are not involved in corruption manifestations, will leave the system due to the current salaries. Its not like that the entire police system has been involved in corruption. There are serious specialists among us, honest police officers who are ready to serve for the benefit of our people, citizen and state, Valeri Osipyan said.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENPRESS. Justice minister of Armenia Artak Zeynalyan agreed to lead the list of the Bright Armenia and Republic parties alliance in the upcoming Yerevan City Council elections, reports Armenpress.

As a minister of justice I will submit an application for vacation and will participate in the campaign. I will not combine the position of the minister with the candidate status, the minister told reporters during todays press conference.

He said the name of the new alliance is still being discussed.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENPRESS. Alexander Ben-Zvi, deputy director general of the foreign ministry of Israel, visited the Tsitsernakaberd memorial in Yerevan to pay tribute to the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims, reports Armenpress.

The Israeli official laid flowers at the Eternal Flame.

The tragedy of the Armenian people has never been questioned. There is a historical question how to call it, but what had happened is a fact that is accepted by all. This is not a matter of making it a topic for political discussions, let the historians decide what name to give to this tragedy, he said.

He also toured the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Greece Alexis Tsipras announced that the 8-year financial crisis is over; Greece has reached its goals and will not return back, RIA Novosti reports.

Today is a new day for our homeland. The memoranda of tough economy, decline and social collapse are finally over. Our country regains its right to determine its fate and future as a normal European country without any foreign coercion, blackmail and new victims of our nation, the Greek PM said.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan




YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of the Parliament Ara Babloyan on August 21 received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Switzerland to Armenia Lukas Gasser, the Parliament told Armenpress.

During the meeting the Parliament Speaker highly appreciated the Ambassadors mission in Armenia, stating that dynamically developing relations exist between the two countries not only in political, but also economic, cultural, educational and healthcare sectors.

The Speaker expressed hope that Armenia and Switzerland will not be satisfied with the existing results and will continue to further deepen and develop the relations. In this sense he in particularly attached importance to the role of the inter-parliamentary cooperation.

Coming to the ongoing domestic events in Armenia, Ara Babloyan highlighted the importance of reforms to be implemented by the legislative and executive powers.

In his turn the Swiss Ambassador stated that the years of his diplomatic mission in Armenia were interesting and with full agenda. He reaffirmed the readiness and practical support of the Swiss side aimed at further developing and deepening the Armenian-Swiss relations.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, 21 AUGUST, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 21 August, USD exchange rate is down by 0.34 drams to 482.76 drams. EUR exchange rate is up by 5.02 drams to 556.14 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate is down by 0.03 drams to 7.17 drams. GBP exchange rate is up by 3.53 drams to 618.95 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price is up by 79.47 drams to 18382.41 drams. Silver price is up by 1.31 drams to 229.01 drams. Platinum price is up by 193.26 drams to 12292.71 drams.
The Department of Justice on Tuesday warned the public against doing a transaction with a website masquerading as the procurement agency of the Philippine government. In an advisory, the DoJ cautioned anyone against doing business with Philippines Project Award Commission, which maintains a website called and is claiming to be the governments central procurement agency to defraud the public. According to the advisory, the fraudulent website also claimed to have the Champs Court and Champion Court Business Consulting Agency as its authorized agents. The Justice department said that PPAC is neither a recognized state agency nor a legally registered corporation listed in the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fake PPAC website reportedly conducts online public bidding, makes solicitation from foreign entities aside from issuing fake official receipts that are allegedly coming from Philippine government agencies, among other illegal activities.The DoJ thus called on the public to be cautious in doing business online to prevent being victimized by unscrupulous websites. The public is advised to report transaction attempts by the mentioned website to the DoJ Office of Cybercrime ( [email protected] ); the National Bureau of Investigation (526-1294); and the Philippine National Police-Anti-Cybercrime Group (723-0401 local 5313). The DoJ advisory added that the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System is the sole centralized electronic portal that serves as the official source of information regarding government procurement.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENPRESS. Efforts to get an entry visa for German Bundestag member, Vice chairman of Germany-South Caucasus friendship group, member of the Christian Democratic Union Albert Weiler have been failed. ARMENPRESS reports the Azerbaijani Ambassador to Germany has been summoned to the foreign ministry of Germany for explanations. The latter said that the decision has already been made at the top level in Azerbaijan and the MP has been declared persona non grata in Azerbaijan.

Before this, according to it tradition, the Azerbaijani side had offered the MP to officially apologize in order not to be included in the black list. But Albert Weiler refused to do so, explaining that he continues to hold the opinion that as the Vice chairman of Germany-South Caucasus friendship group its his mission to get acquainted to the situation in the region and therefore, its necessary to personally visit Nagorno Karabakh and talk to the locals.

German daily BILD writes that Albert Weiler visited in 2014 and 2016 Nagorno Karabakh that strives for independence, but Azerbaijan has territorial ambitions from the country which is under Armenian patronage.

Edited and translate by Tigran Sirekanyan
YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan received on August 21 the family members of the servicemen killed during the 4-day war in April, 2016 and listened to the problems raised by them, ARMENPRESS was informed from the official website of the Prime Minister of Armenia.

Its an honor for me to meet with you. I want to thank you on behalf of the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian people for the bravery and self-sacrifice of your children. I believe that their behavior and courage was first of all due to the upbringing they received in the families. Frankly speaking, I planned to meet you earlier, but I also wanted to postpone the meeting in order to manage to make some comforting decision and that decision was made two weeks ago, Pashinyan said, adding that the decision is about expanding the number of beneficiaries of the Soldier Insurance Fund, which will give an opportunity for servicemen injured or the families of servicemen killed after January 2015 to become beneficiaries of the Fund.

This means that the families of the servicemen killed during the April war and the servicemen disabled as a result of the war will receive continuous state assistance. We hope that this will somehow ease your troubles, Pashinyan said, emphasizing that this is a very important moral issues aiming to show the protectors of the motherland that the public and the state stand with them.

The parents of the killed servicemen thanked the PM for receiving them and listening to their troubles. They expressed confidence that as a result of the velvet revolution and the ongoing changes it will be possible to reveal a number of criminal cases, including the one committed during the 4-day war.

Edited and translate by Tigran Sirekanyan
If youve ever seen pictures of Jennifer Aniston living her best life in a tiny bikini and sipping on frosty margaritas by the pool, theres every chance shes soaking up the sun in Los Cabos.

Notorious for returning to the luxe getaway year after year  Jen even rang in the New Year there surrounded by her loved ones  shes just one of the hordes of stars who cant get enough of the dream Mexican destination that boasts 350 days of sunshine (no, thats not a typo) a year.

Jennifer has spent countless holidays soaking up the sun in Los Cabos. Photo: Splash

So what is it about Los Cabos that has the picky A-listers including the Kardashians, Reese Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow, George Clooney and his wife Amal so hooked?

Colour, charm and ice-cold beers  Los Cabos has everything you need. Photo: Be

Made up two separate towns Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, which are 33 kilometres apart and connected by a strip of over-the-top hotels, this idyllic spot is all about the luxe things in life. From mind-blowingly delicious food to outrageously decadent hotels, this sun-drenched hotspot is all about treating yourself.

But its not all about sipping cocktails by the perfectly manicured pools. Here are six of the best luxe ways to check out Los Cabos.

Take in the famed Arch

Its the most iconic tourist sites in Los Cabos, so splurge on a private water taxi to take you out to the Arch of Los Cabos, or as the locals call it, El Arco.

Be surrounded by shades of blue as you head to the famous Arch. Photo: Instagram/loscabostourism

Bright blue skies, teeming tropical fish and if youre lucky a sunbaking sea lion will all be on show, and for those keen to spend some time in the water, get your driver to drop you off at Lovers Beach for a dip.

Check out the outrageous hotels

Think youve seen a 5-star hotel? Think again. Home to some of the biggest, most spectacular and ultra-glamorous stays around, theres something for every traveller when it comes to accommodation in Los Cabos.

Food almost too pretty to eat at Cocina de Autor at the luxury Grand Velas hotel. Photo: Be

From incredible degustation dinners at the opulent Grand Velas to checking out quirky eye-catching art at the boutique Hotel El Ganzo, one thing is the same  the scenery and service are out of this world.

Story continues

Jump in a private jeep tour

Home to some of the most ruggedly beautiful landscape, Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park is a must for any nature lover.

See another side to Mexico by taking a jeep tour. Photo: Be

Explore in the comfort of a private jeep tour like we did with Hightide and keep an eye out for real life road runners as you cruise along dirt roads with crashing waves on the horizon. Ask your guide nicely and they might stop at a hidden local eatery for the best fish tacos youve ever eaten in your life.

Let loose with the famous nightlife

Nothing screams holiday like cocktails by sunset, and youll be spoilt for choice in Los Cabos.

One of the best places to sip cocktails would have to be at The Cape hotel. Photo: Be

Manta at the Cape offers up some of the best views in town, but for those who want to really let their hair down, skip the luxe for just one night and let loose at the infamous Cabo San Lucas bars.

Iconic nightclub El Squid Roe is three-levels of poles, cages and double decker buses and be warned  you will be forced to have fun if you step through its neon flashing doors.

Brunch at an organic farm

Its the lush desert oasis Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine chose as his wedding venue when he tied to knot to Victorias Secret model Behati Prinsloo, and luckily for us non-celebs, Flora Farm is open to everyone and all about celebrating fresh produce.

Who knew you could eat cactus? Photo: Be

From wandering the cactus-laden farms to cooking classes, those keen to treat their tastebuds should book for their famed Sunday brunch. Trust us, the breakfast pizza from the wood oven is life-changing.

Spectacular snorkeling

Youll feel like youre in a real-life aquarium thanks to incredible snorkeling in Los Cabos.

Escape the crowds and jet skis at Medano Beach and drive 15 minutes out of town to local favourite Chileno Beach, or if you really want to swim uninterrupted, head to Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park which is the only living coral reef in the Sea of Cortez.

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At first glance this piece of art looks like a black spot on the floor, but one museum goer found out the hard way that its actually a hole  and a 2.5m deep one at that.

Descent Into Limbo by Anish Kapoor is a piece of artwork currently on exhibit at the Serralves Museum in Porto, Portugal, and is essentially a hole painted black so that it looks flat.

Apparently many had been questioning whether there really was a hole in the floor, according to Britains Times.

Is it a black spot or hole? Photo: Youtube

One museum goer, described as a 60-year-old man from Italy, decided to ignore a host of warning signs saying not to step too close, and actually fell into the hole, injuring himself and the sculpture in the process.

Its unclear how exactly he fell in, given how many other visitors and museum staff would have been present at the time. A museum spokesperson said their are staff members constantly monitoring the installation.

Descent Into Limbo by Anish Kapoor is on exhibit at the Serralves Museum in Porto. Photo: W

While the man spent some days in hospital, he is reportedly recovering and almost ready to return home, The Art Newspaper reports.

The Descent Into Limbo instillation is also almost ready to be reopened.

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Indonesian aid agencies and officials rushed Tuesday to help survivors after the third quake disaster in less than a month on Lombok island, where some 500 people have died and hundreds of thousands are homeless. The picturesque island next to holiday hotspot Bali was hit by two deadly quakes on July 29 and August 5. On Sunday it was shaken again by a string of fresh tremors and aftershocks, with the strongest measuring 6.9 magnitude. At least 13 people were killed on Sunday on Lombok and the neighbouring island of Sumbawa, mostly by falling debris, according to the national disaster agency. Drone footage from the village of Sugian, on the hard-hit eastern part of Lombok, showed streets lined with rubble, caved-in roofs and a collapsed mosque. Aid organisations have vowed to step up humanitarian assistance on the island as devastated residents struggle in makeshift displacement camps. "We are focusing on the basics, provision of shelter materials -- tarpaulins, shelter kits, hygiene kits," said Tom Howells from Save the Children. "We have shipped enough for about 20,000 people over the past two weeks," he told AFP. Indonesia's disaster agency said it was also accelerating efforts to rebuild destroyed homes, hospitals and schools. However, relief agencies fret that access to food, shelter and clean water is insufficient for some of the more than 430,000 displaced by the disaster. "There has been damage to the water infrastructure, which is already quite poor in Lombok due to a lack of ground supply and drought conditions," Howells said. - 'Cracking sound' - Tens of thousands of homes, mosques and businesses across Lombok had already been destroyed by the 6.9-magnitude quake on August 5 that killed at least 481 people. A week before that quake, a tremor surged through the island and killed 17. Some 150 patients at a hospital in Lombok's capital Mataram were being treated in tents after they were taken out of the damaged building Sunday over safety fears. "We heard a sound like the building was cracking and everyone panicked, so all the patients were taken outside," said Andre, a relative of a patient. The hospital had already been damaged in the early August tremor. Most people caught in the latest quake had been outside their homes or at shelters when it struck, a fact which limited casualties, authorities have said. Rebuilding costs are estimated to top seven trillion rupiah ($480 million). However, the disaster agency said Tuesday that the quakes would not be labelled a national emergency, which would unlock the central government's four trillion-rupiah disaster relief fund. While the idea was gaining support in some quarters, the agency's spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said it would "show weakness" from a country regularly hit by natural disasters. "We want to show the world that we are capable in handling the quakes -- we are strong in responding to disasters," he told reporters in Jakarta. Indonesia sits on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire", where tectonic plates collide and many of the world's volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur. The Australian and Eurasian plates, which sit under the archipelago, have been colliding and putting stress on key area fault lines, according to geologists. A series of deadly quakes have killed hundreds on Indonesia's Lombok island in recent weeks Aid agencies are concerned that food and water supplies may be insufficient for those affected by the quakes Aid agencies are concerned that food and water supplies may be insufficient for those affected by the quakes The quakes have left hundreds of thousands homeless on Lombok
China and El Salvador established diplomatic relations Tuesday as the Central American nation ditched Taiwan in yet another victory for Beijing in its campaign to isolate the island. Beijing has been using its economic clout to peel away international support for the democratically-ruled island, leaving it with only 17 diplomatic allies around the world. Speaking in Beijing at the Diaoyutai Guest House, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised El Salvador's decision to "recognise there is one China in the world". "This further goes to show the One China policy is in line with international norms, is the correct choice... and is the basis of China's relation with any country," he said. Salvadoran Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, after signing a document with Wang establishing relations, said his country had made a "strategic decision" and taken the "correct and beneficial path for the people of both nations". The president of El Salvador, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, said in an address on national television Monday night: "We are convinced that this is a step in the right direction, which corresponds to the principles of international law, international relations and the inevitable trends of our day." The announcement in Beijing followed a decision by Taiwan to sever its ties with El Salvador after it learnt the country was planning on recognising Beijing. "Losing (a) diplomatic ally is not an isolated incident. It is part of China's string of sabre rattling and intimidation," Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said at a press conference in Taipei. The news came just after Tsai, who is trying to raise Taiwan's international profile, wrapped up a Latin American tour which included stops in the United States, which drew criticism from China. She visited allies Belize and Paraguay during the trip. Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu said Taipei "will not engage in dollar diplomacy with China", adding that El Salvador had been asking for "huge funding" for a port development project, which Taiwan was unwilling to give because it would leave both countries in debt. - 'No pre-conditions' - El Salvador's move leaves Taiwan with a dwindling number of allies around the world as more countries switch recognition to China, which sees the self-ruling democratic island as a renegade part of its territory. "El Salvador has made the choice to commit itself to one China with no pre-conditions, thus standing with most countries in the world," Wang said in comments that seemed intended to pre-empt Taiwanese accusations that China had bought the small Latin American nation's loyalty. But, he added, the country "will get tangible gains from its partnership with China". Tsai said this was a clear sign of China's continuing pressure, and had moved beyond being just a cross-strait issue. "China's intention in the Asian region (is evident), especially to challenge or even replace (the) international order led by traditional powers," Tsai said. "China intends to highlight its influence and power in the region through intensifying pressure on Taiwan." Relations between Taipei and Beijing have worsened since Tsai came to power as her government refuses to acknowledge that Taiwan is part of "one China". China has stepped up its poaching of Taiwan's allies since Tsai became leader in 2016. El Salvador is the fifth diplomatic loss under her presidency and the third this year, following Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic. The small African nation of Sao Tome switched recognition to Beijing in late 2016, followed by Panama in June last year. Taiwan and China have been engaged for years in a diplomatic tug-of-war in developing countries. Economic support and other aid are often used as bargaining chips for diplomatic recognition. Tsai's government is trying to enhance Taiwan's international profile but faces a concerted attempt by Beijing to shrink its space on global platforms. Beijing has stepped up pressure on her government by blocking Taiwan from attending a growing list of international events and staging a string of military drills around the island. burs-el/lth/fa El Salvador's Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, left, and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi drink a toast during a signing ceremony to establish diplomatic relations, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing Countries that have direct diplomatic ties with Taiwan Speaking in Taipei, foreign minister Joseph Wu, right, condemned China's "crude actions"
A drunk passenger spent two days in lock-up but escaped a jail sentence after he tried to open a planes emergency exit door mid-flight.

New Zealand restaurant manager Harry Frazer Cranwell, 32, was flying from Auckland to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, when a Malaysia Airlines flight attendant spotted him trying to open the handle of the emergency door, the New Zealand Herald reported.

She made him move to another seat away from the door and informed the head of the cabin crew and the captain of the plane, who notified security at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Harry Frazer Cranwell, spent two days in a police cell but escaped a jail sentence after he tried to open a planes emergency exit door mid-flight while drunk. Source: TVNZ

Cranwell was flying with friends and had drunk several glasses of beer and spirits during the flight.

They were on their way to go on holiday in Vietnam, via Kuala Lumpur, but Cranwells journey ended prematurely at Kuala Lumpur.

He was later fined $2000 after pleading guilty to endangering an aircraft and the lives of those on board in court.

He could have been jailed for up to three years and fined up to $16,600 for the breach of the Civil Aviation Regulations.

Magistrate Mohamad Izwan Mohamed Noh warned Cranwell to not repeat his actions.

I promise, sir, Cranwell, wearing an orange prison uniform, replied with tears rolling down his cheeks.

His lawyer, Zaflee Pakwanteh, said the two days spent in a police cell had taught Cranwell a lesson he was unlikely to forget.

 Australscope
Ecuador will organize a meeting of 13 Latin American countries to discuss the Venezuelan migrant crisis, Quito's top diplomat said on Tuesday. More than two million people have fled economic collapse in Venezuela during a four-year recession, according to the United Nations, piling pressure on neighboring countries as well as others further afield. Ecuador and Peru have announced tighter entry measures to control the influx of Venezuelans, leaving many stranded on those countries' northern borders with Colombia. The latter's migration director, Christian Kruger, on Tuesday called on Colombia's southern neighbors to agree on a common strategy to address the problem. Last week, both Ecuador and Peru announced they would require Venezuelans to show passports to enter their countries, but Kruger said he was "worried about the consequences" as around half of Venezuelans heading south through Colombia are carrying only ID cards. Kruger told W Radio that while the migrant crisis "isn't Peru, Ecuador and Colombia's responsibility" he wants the three to "work together in a coordinated manner, employing similar policies to address this phenomenon." Regional giants Brazil, Argentina and Mexico were among the invitees to the Ecuador meeting, as well as Venezuela itself. Others include impacted countries such as Colombia, Peru and Chile. Ecuador's deputy migration minister, Santiago Chavez said it was important to establish policies to "confront in the best manner and most responsible way, the unusual flux of Venezuelan citizens." Colombia has been flooded by more than a million Venezuelans over the last 16 months and Kruger was critical of the Peruvian and Ecuadoran moves last week. "Asking for a passport isn't going to stop migration because they're leaving their country not out of choice but out of necessity," he said. But Chavez insisted that "the worst thing that can happen to the country is migratory chaos in which no one knows what happens to the foreign citizens that enter." The UN's Refugee Agency says almost 550,000 Venezuelans have entered Ecuador since the start of the year but claims that only 20 percent of those remain, with the rest continuing on to Peru and Chile. Kruger, though, said the "worst thing that can happen to a country is having an undocumented foreign population. "We want this migration to take place in an orderly and secure fashion and the way to do this is to identify this population." More than 800,000 Venezuelans have been given temporary residency in Colombia since the migrant crisis began, which Kruger blames on Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro practising a deliberate "policy of expulsion" towards his own people in order to reduce the country's population and "improve the distribution of resources." Venezuelan migrants are bearing precarious conditions often on foot to flee their country and head for safer pastures to the south Ecuador and Peru's measures to slow the influx of Venezuelan migrants have worried Colombia which is already saturated
The friend who reported murdered Colorado woman Shanann Watts missing before she and her two little girls were found dead last week, says she was not shocked the womans husband was arrested in connection to the shocking crimes.

Nickole Atkinson, who dropped the pregnant mother home on Monday last week following a business trip, said she knew something was not right when her friends husband Christopher Watts appeared unconcerned his family was missing.

Nickole Atkinson (left) believes she was the last friend to have seen murdered Colorado mum Shanann Watts alive. Source: Good Morning America

He was defending himself, but it just didnt make sense. Like in that moment it is kind of surreal, Ms Atkinson told Good Morning America a week after Mrs Watts, 34, and her two young daughters Celeste, 3, and Bella, 4 seemingly vanished.

He was just sitting there waiting for something to happen; it just didnt seem right to me.

Ms Atkinson added that she wasnt shocked when Watts, 33, was arrested in connection with his familys murder a few days later.

Ms Atkinson said she dropped Mrs Watts off at her home in Frederick, Colorado, after a business trip at around 2am Monday last week. When she didnt hear back from her friend later that day, and realised she had missed a doctors appointment, the friend alerted authorities.

She told Good Morning America she was likely the last person, other than the accused, to have seen the murdered mum alive.

Nickole Atkinson, who reported Shanann Watts missing, said she was not shocked the womans husband was arrested in connection to the shocking murders. Source: Good Morning America

On Thursday police said they had discovered the bodies of Mrs Watts and her two daughters on a property owned by Anadarko Petroleum Corp, where her husband worked. The womans body was found in a shallow grave and the childrens bodies were found in nearby oil tanks, according to court documents.

It was one of my worst nightmares. I didnt know what to say or do, Mrs Atkinson said of hearing the tragic news.

Story continues

I sat on our bed for, I dont know how long, and didnt move because I didnt want to think that they werent coming back.

Christopher Watts is accused of murdering his pregnant wife Shanann Watts and the couples two girls Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3. Source: Yahoo Magazines

Colorado prosecutors set to charge husband for murdering family

Colorado prosecutors said they plan to formally file murder charges on Monday (local time) against Watts, accused of killing his wife and their two young daughters, days after he told police they went missing and pleaded on TV for their safe return.

Watts has been held without bond in the Weld County jail since his arrest last week for the murders.

Colorado prosecutors plan to formally file murder charges against Christopher Watts today. Source: Weld County Sheriffs Office via AP

Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke will formally file charges against Watts within hours and seek the release of an arrest affidavit, which has been under seal, that lays out details of the crime, his spokeswoman Krista Henery said in a telephone interview.

Neither Watts, nor his court-appointed attorney, have commented on the incident since his arrest.

Authorities have not confirmed local media reports that Watts confessed to killing his family, or speculation that he strangled the two girls.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called Tuesday a "day of redemption" as he hailed the end of his country's eight-year "Odyssey" of painful bailouts. "Today is a day of redemption, but it is also the start of a new era," Tsipras said in a pre-recorded televised speech from the Ionian island of Ithaca, believed to be the home of Homer's hero Ulysses. And his speech was packed with references to the monsters and perils of the Homeric epic. Speaking a day after Greece's third and final bailout ended, Tsipras said the country had "won back the right to determine its own fortunes and future" after living through a "modern-day Odyssey" during the crisis. Standing on a cliff overlooking the island harbour in an open-necked white shirt, he said Greece had adopted 65 billion euros ($75 billion) worth of austerity measures and had lived in a "constant state of emergency". The embattled 44-year-old PM is seeking to rebound from poor ratings exacerbated by last month's wildfires near Athens that have left nearly 100 people dead. Ithaca has a mayor supported by Tsipras' Syriza party, and the PM enjoyed a brief stroll in the island town, his first outing with a friendly crowd since the fires. "These are the first post-bailout strolls so it is pleasant, everything is pleasant. But we have a lot of work ahead of us," he told a reporter. Trailing the conservative opposition by over 10 points, Tsipras is now rumoured to be planning a cabinet reshuffle. Elections are still over a year away, but there is speculation Tsipras may call them early in 2019. Although Greece's final bailout officially ended Monday, experts warn that the country's challenges are far from over. - High cost of bailouts - The European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund loaned debt-wracked Greece a total of 289 billion euros ($330 billion) in three successive programmes in 2010, 2012 and 2015. The country may have achieved budget surpluses excluding debt repayments of around four percent in 2016 and 2017, but that came at the cost of crippling taxation, and its hands remain tied on social welfare spending. Greece has already legislated new pension and tax break cuts for 2019 and 2020 and will remain under international supervision for several years. The country has regained some credibility, but Greek households continue to feel the effects of unpopular and damaging austerity. Unemployment has fallen, but still hovers around 20 percent. On Twitter, a new tag of 'Paramithaki' swiftly emerged, Greek for 'fairytale'. Tsipras on Tuesday noted that the sacrifices of the bailout years had put Greece's democracy to the test and bolstered the far-right. He vowed that Greece would "never return to deficits and bankruptcy" and to continue fighting against corruption and nepotism. Tsipras' decision to hold his speech on the island of Ithaca was a throwback to Greece's first bailout announcement in 2010 by then prime minister George Papandreou. At the time, Papandreou had spoken of a "new Odyssey for Greeks. But now we know the way back to Ithaca, and we have charted the waters." Archaeologists and even ancient chroniclers do not actually agree over whether modern-day Ithaca is really the home island of Ulysses as cited in the Homeric epic. The neighbouring islands of Cephalonia and Lefkada have also been suggested as alternative locations. First composed orally around the 8th century BC, the Odyssey -- which is attributed to Homer but may have been penned by more than one author -- was later transcribed during the Christian era onto parchment of which only a few fragments have been discovered in Egypt. A handout picture made available by the office of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras shows him addressing the nation from Ithaca, the home island of Homer's hero Ulysses, as he hailed the end of his country's eight-year "Odyssey" of painful bailouts
The Commission on Human Rights hit President Rodrigo Duterte for offering a P5-million bounty to anyone who could bring to him a dead ninja cop. CHR lawyer-spokesperson Jacqueline de Guia said even ninja cops do not deserve to die despite their wrongdoing. Ninja cops or scalawags in the police force, the Commission agrees, are a disgrace to the institution and therefore, must be removed from the service, she said. However, like any human being, their lives are priceless too and should not be equated to any amount, however low or exorbitant it may be. Their removal from service must not be by death which promotes vigilantism and perpetuates the cycle of violence, worse the breakdown of the rule of law but by a due process which will afford them recognition of their rights, she added.She said erring police officers should be afforded due process and their constitutional rights. By doing so, it does not mean tolerance of their wrongdoings nor acquiescence but rather adhering to time-honored principles of respect for human rights and the rule of law, she said. Last Aug. 17, the President offered a bounty of P5 million to anyone who could take to him a dead scalawag cop after he expressed his disappointment over the number of bad police officers at the Philippine National Police.
A woman in Muslim-majority Indonesia was sentenced to 18 months in jail Tuesday for complaining about the volume of a mosque's call to prayer -- the latest conviction under a controversial blasphemy law. Meiliana, 44, an ethnic Chinese Buddhist, was found guilty of insulting Islam for asking her neighbourhood mosque to lower its sound system because it was too loud and "hurt" her ears. There are some 800,000 mosques across the archipelago, with the five-times-a-day call to prayer heard everywhere in the biggest cities and smallest towns. Tuesday's verdict will likely fuel fears that Indonesia's moderate brand of Islam is coming under threat from increasingly influential radicals. The court in the city of Medan on Sumatra island said the woman's comments two years ago triggered riots that saw angry Muslim mobs ransack Buddhist temples. Some ethnic Chinese in the area fled in fear. The defendant's lawyer said his client would appeal the decision while Amnesty International urged a higher court to quash the sentence. "This ludicrous decision is a flagrant violation of freedom of expression," said its Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid in a statement. "Sentencing someone to 18 months in prison for something so trivial is a stark illustration of the increasingly arbitrary and repressive application of the blasphemy law in the country." Indonesia, which has the world's biggest Muslim population, is officially pluralist with six major religions recognised, including Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism. Freedom of expression is supposed to be guaranteed by law. But criticising religion -- particularly Islam, which is followed by nearly 90 percent of Indonesia's 260 million citizens -- can land offenders in jail. Rights groups have long campaigned against the nation's blasphemy laws, which they say are frequently misused to target minorities. Last year Jakarta's former governor -- the city's first Christian leader of Chinese descent -- was sentenced to two years in jail for blasphemy. Vice President Jusuf Kalla made a plea in 2015 for places of worship to turn down the volume slightly to placate nearby residents. Loudspeakers used to call the faithful to prayer are pictured atop a tower at a Jakarta mosque: a woman in Medan has landed in jail for complaining about the noise
Iran unveiled its first domestic fighter jet on Tuesday, with President Hassan Rouhani insisting that Tehran's military strength was only designed to deter enemies and create "lasting peace". Images on state television showed Rouhani sitting in the cockpit of the new "Kowsar" fourth-generation fighter at the National Defence Industry exhibition in Tehran. State media said it had "advanced avionics" and multi-purpose radar, and that it was "100-percent indigenously made" for the first time. Footage of the Kowsar's test flights was circulated by various official media. But live footage of the plane taxiing along a runway at the defence show was cut before it could take off. "When I speak of our readiness to defend, it means we seek lasting peace. If we lack readiness, we welcome war," Rouhani said in a televised speech shortly after. "Some think when we increase our military power, this means we seek war. (But) this is peace-seeking because we don't want war to happen," he added. "If we don't have a deterrent... it gives a green light for others to enter this country." The plane was first publicly announced on Saturday by Defence Minister Amir Hatami, who had said it would be unveiled on Wednesday. He gave few details of the project, focusing instead on Iran's efforts to upgrade its missile defences. - 'Fix our weak points' - Hatami said the defence programme was motivated by memories of the missile attacks Iran suffered during its eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, and by repeated threats from Israel and the United States that "all options are on the table" in dealing with the Islamic republic. "We have learned in the (Iran-Iraq) war that we cannot rely on anyone but ourselves," he said in a televised interview. The US has sold hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons to Iran's regional rivals, but has demanded that Tehran curb its defence programmes, and is in the process of reimposing crippling sanctions in a bid to force its capitulation. Rouhani said Iran must show restraint as well as deterrence, in an apparent swipe at his hardline opponents who seek to provoke the US with aggressive slogans. "With a couple of sentences one can start a fight. With a couple of military moves one can enter confrontation. But then it will be costly," he said. "The skill is to protect the country with minimum cost," he said. That mirrored a line from the defence minister, who said on Saturday: "Our resources are limited and we are committed to establishing security at a minimum cost." Following the withdrawal of the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal in May, Iran has avoided an aggressive response and sought to maintain its good will with other international partners who oppose Washington's move. Rouhani said US pressure was also a spur to action. "Why does America impose economic sanctions on us? Why does it impose them on Turkey? Why does it drag China into an economic war? Because it feels each one of them has a weak point. We must fix our weak points." Israel, Iran's arch-foe and whose prime minister on Monday called on European nations to do more to pressure Tehran, mocked the unveiling of the fighter jet. "It is a natural reaction to the economic difficulties," Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman. "They are under pressure because of the American sanctions and react by inventing stories," he told reporters in Israel, adding however: "But it should not be taken lightly." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman for Arab affairs, Ofir Gendleman, went further and tweeted that the aircraft unveiled Tuesday by Iran was an old American model. "The Iranian regime unveils the Kowsar aircraft and pretends that it is '100 percent indigenously made'... but I immediately saw that it is a very old American military plane... of the F-5 type," he wrote. Israel and the United States have been closely aligned on their approach to Iran since Trump took office. President Hassan Rouhani sits in the cockpit of Iran's new "Kowsar" domestic fighter jet A handout picture released by Iran's Defence Ministry on August 21, 2018, shows the new "Kowsar" domestic fighter jet A handout picture released by Iran's Defence Ministry on August 21, 2018, shows the "Kowsar" domestic fighter jet
After a fortnight sunning himself in the south, French President Emmanuel Macron returns to work in Paris on Wednesday looking to dispel the clouds of a damaging summer scandal and push through a new set of reforms. The 40-year-old has spent his vacation largely out of the public eye with his wife Brigitte at a presidential retreat on the Riviera, emerging only a handful of times looking tanned and relaxed. In between dips in his new swimming pool -- built at the medieval Bregancon fort at his request -- Macron has also been making calls to fellow world leaders Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But it is likely to be domestic, rather than foreign, matters that have weighed on his mind during the languid summer holiday season in France after the first major crisis of his 15-month presidency. Macron was embroiled in July in a scandal involving his one-time bodyguard and senior security aide Alexandre Benalla who was has been charged with assault and impersonating a police officer. Amid suspicions the presidential office hushed up the incident in which Benalla was filmed manhandling May Day protesters, media revelations forced Macron to fire him. But the president then refused to answer questions about what has become a criminal investigation. With his approval ratings already falling, the political opposition sprang into life, using the episode to question Macron's judgement and hammer away at one of his weaknesses: a view among many voters that he is aloof and arrogant. "The impact will depend on how he manages the aftermath, the back-to-work period from now on," said Chloe Morin, a public opinion expert at polling company Ipsos and the Jean Jaures Foundation think-tank. The "Benalla affair" has already sapped goodwill towards the centrist, however, at a time when his government is gearing up for its latest reform push after twice battling -- and overcoming -- resistance from France's trade unions. Labour law was overhauled in the face of protests in October last year, while changes to the state railways were forced through before the summer break despite the longest strike sequence in the network's history. The next struggles will be over other sensitive areas of the French economy and state. A reform of the highly unionised public sector is on the cards, with the government seeking to make greater use of private contractors and raising the prospect of cuts and voluntary redundancies as it looks to make savings. Negotiations will also begin on what could be the most difficult reform of Macron's presidency: an overhaul of the pension system that could see privileges for some sectors of the economy reduced. "The message is 'don't think I'm going to give up on anything," Macron told well-wishers during a holiday walkabout in a southern village. "Don't think for second that I'm going to slow down or change course." - Lower growth - The backdrop to the new potentially explosive changes has become more challenging, however, because of weakening economic growth. While the French economy expanded 2.2 percent last year, forecasts have been gradually revised down for 2018, with GDP now expected to grow somewhere between 1.6 percent and 1.8 percent. "The heart of his programme has been developing France and getting the economy going again," said Morin. "That's how he has managed to push through some of his reforms so far." If the promised economic growth and new jobs do not materialise -- the unemployment rate has dipped only slightly since Macron's victory in May 2017 -- "then how is he going to explain it?", asked Morin. Trade restrictions imposed by the US adminstration, higher oil prices, and China's slowing economy have taken a toll on the global economy, but questions are growing about whether Macron's pro-business medicine is working enough at home. Lower-than-expected growth would hit tax income and present the government with a major dilemma as it prepares the 2019 budget: should it deepen controversial cuts in public spending, or borrow more? Borrowing more would undercut Macron's promises to restore order to France's chronically over-stretched public finances and cause problems at the European level. For the first time in a decade, France's budget deficit last year fell below the 3.0-percent limit set by EU law, and Macron has promised to balance the books for the first time since the 1970s by the end of his term in 2022. "Last year, spending cuts, to the housing budget in particular, created controversy and it will be the same this year," business newspaper Les Echos predicted on Monday. After two weeks in the southern sun, French President Emmanuel Macron (centre) returns to Paris Wednesday to press ahead with his programme despite a damaging scandal over a close aide
Mali's Constitutional Court on Monday declared Ibrahim Boubacar Keita president after the 73-year-old incumbent won elections that his opponent, former minister Soumaila Cisse, said were marred by fraud. Keita was victor in a runoff on August 12 that, according to official results issued by the court after a one-hour session, gave him 67.16 percent of the vote. He will begin his second five-year term on September 4. "I will serve Mali according to republican principles," Keita said in his first comment since his election victory was confirmed. He also said he "extends a hand" to help the country to his opponent Cisse, 68, who picked up 32.84 percent of the vote, according to the official results. Keita's re-election came despite fierce criticism of failures to tackle jihadist violence and ethnic tensions that have rocked the impoverished Sahel state. His major challenge as he starts the new term will be to strengthen a 2015 peace accord between the government, government-allied groups and former Tuareg rebels that the government sees as a cornerstone of peace. In congratulating Keita, the European Union stressed the need for a rapid implementation of the peace accord -- as did the United States -- to meet the challenges of security and improved living conditions for the population. "These challenges need more than ever an inclusive and constructive dialogue between all the political and social forces in Mali," an EU spokesperson said in a statement. But Cisse had filed a petition with the Constitutional Court to say that that some of the results were rigged. By his calculation he won the election with 51.75 percent of the vote. The court rejected his petition as being inadmissible or unsupported by evidence. Cisse's campaign chief, Tiebile Drame told AFP, however, that "the Constitutional Court has issued a ruling that confirms the fraudulent nature and manipulation of the results." "There's no need for transparent and credible elections in Mali any more," he added. Observer missions sent by the EU and the African Union (AU) have said the election was not badly impaired. Mali, a landlocked nation home to at least 20 ethnic groups where the majority of people live on less than $2 (1.76 euros) a day, has battled jihadist attacks and intercommunal violence for years. Islamist attacks have spread from the north to the centre and south of the vast country and spilled into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, often inflaming communal conflicts. France, which intervened to root out jihadists in northern Mali in 2013, still has 4,500 troops in the country. They are deployed alongside the UN's 15,000 peacekeepers and a regional G5 Sahel force, aimed at fighting the insurgents and restoring the authority of the state in the lawless north. The economy, alongside security, is the other major challenge facing Keita. Income per capita has fallen since 2014, according to the World Bank, and nearly half of the 18 million population live in poverty. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (L) won a landslide victory against opposition leader Soumaila Cisse (R), according to official results Map of Mali showing its main ethnic groups, refugees and conflict zones
More than one million people have swarmed relief camps in India's Kerala state to escape devastating monsoon floods that have killed about 420 people, officials said Tuesday as a huge international aid offers poured in. People are flocking to camps as the scale of the desolation is revealed by receding waters and the military rescues more people each day. The state government said 1,028,000 people are now in about 3,200 relief camps across the southern state. Officials said at least eight more bodies were recovered Tuesday taking the death toll to some 420 since the monsoon started in June. Keralan authorities say they are desperate for funds and the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday promised $100 million in aid, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced after telephone talks with UAE leaders. The amount is more than the $97 million so far promised by India's central government. Vijayan asked for a $375 million package from the government, saying the state must confront more than $3 billion in devastation. Millions of dollars in donations have poured into Kerala from the rest of India and abroad in recent days. Other state governments have promised more than $50 million while Mukesh Ambani -- Asia's richest man according to Forbes -- gave $10 million through his Reliance Industries group. - Desperate journey - Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama sent $15,000, according to the Kerala government and even India's Supreme Court judges have donated $360 each. The British-based Sikh group Khalsa Aid International has set up its own relief camp in Kochi, Kerala's main city, to provide meals for 3,000 people a day. The rescue operation is now focused on the worst-hit areas such as Chengannur, where more than 60 centimetres (two feet) of water blocked many roads as more rain fell Tuesday. Army teams said several thousand people in the town remained in homes inundated by 10 days of torrential downpours. Relief teams reached the house of retired army officer K.G. Pillai, who said up to 2.4 metres (eight feet) of water had engulfed the house where his family had lived since 1952. "Around 26 people moved into the first floor of our home" to take refuge, he said. In nearby Pandanad, locals said there was a desperate shortage of drinking water and dry clothes and people implored drivers of passing vehicles for supplies. Next to an inundated road, army major Jingy Joseph sat barefoot with her four-year-old daughter Angelina, gazing at an overflowing river. "My daughter is safe -- and that is all that matters," Joseph told AFP. She was on duty in Punjab when her parents' house, where her daughter was staying, was inundated last week. "I lost all contact with them for around four days and literally had to make an appeal on Facebook for any update," she added. Her video became one of the most widely shared distress appeals on Indian social media. "I can talk about it now but they were the most anxious hours. I was strong but broke when I heard my daughter was crying for milk and water at the time," Joseph added. She took a train ride and a flight and travelled several hours in a car to reach her parents and move them to a safe place. - Relief efforts - Thousands of army, navy and air force personnel have fanned out across the state to help those stranded in remote and hilly areas. Dozens of helicopters and even drones have been dropping food, medicine and water to cut-off villages. Tens of thousands of people in Chengannur and surrounding towns and villages are relying on community kitchens for meals, after water from hilly districts poured down into lowland regions. The government says that more than 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) of roads have been destroyed or damaged while a legislator said 50,000 houses had been wiped out. Shashi Tharoor, a deputy from Kerala and former UN official, estimated that 50,000 houses had been destroyed. Indian rescue workers transport a bed with an elderly sick woman as she is moved from her home in a waterlogged area to a relief camp in Chengannur Kerala and Tamil Nadu Fire Force personnel carry children on their shoulders through flood waters during a rescue operation in Annamanada village in Thrissur District Volunteers carry boxes of food aid at a relief camp for families displaced by flooding in Aluva on the outskirts of Kochi
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has denounced his own country's health services, state media reported Tuesday, criticising officials for being "very idle and irresponsible". Impoverished and isolated North Korea, which is subject to multiple sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its pursuit of nuclear weapons, suffers from chronic food shortages and inadequate health services according to international aid agencies. Hospitals lack medicines, equipment, and trained staff. While Pyongyang regularly proclaims its desire to provide its people with a better life, Kim roundly condemned its health system on a visit to a medical devices factory. Some sectors "have made remarkable leaps forward in recent years" Kim said according to the official Korean Central News Agency, "but the public health sector has never done so and become more and more passive". "There is no unit keeping its environment well in the public health sector, to say nothing of equipment modernisation," he added at the Myohyangsan Medical Appliances Factory. Such "field guidance" visits by the leader are the mainstay of the North's state media output, and a key part of the authorities' domestic messaging, sometimes lauding the quality of projects and sometimes criticising officials. The ruling Workers' Party had stressed the need to improve health services, but "officials are very idle and irresponsible in doing so", Kim said according to KCNA. In the Korean-language version, he berated them for "hibernating for a long time", adding: "Animals only hibernate once a year but the health sector has been holed up and hibernating for years and shouting empty slogans." Since his summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June, Kim has stressed a focus on economic development, visiting industrial sites and factories across the nation. In this year's "needs and priorities" assessment of North Korea, the UN Development Programme described its healthcare services as "inadequate", with a "lack of essential medical equipment, pharmaceutical remedies, appropriate referral systems, therapeutic equipment and assistive devices, as well as limited professional capacity". "Furthermore, health infrastructure is poor with many [facilities] having inconsistent water, electricity and heating," it added. North Korea has called for an end to sanctions against it, while the US has urged the international community to maintain a tough approach until its complete denuclearisation. Following several ballistic missile launches and by far the North's most powerful nuclear test last year, Kim declared the development of its atomic capabilities complete and said economic development was the new priority. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un denounced his own country's health services as he toured visiting the Myohyangsan Medical Appliances Factory While Pyongyang regularly proclaims its desire to provide its people with a better life, Kim roundly condemned its health system on a visit to a medical devices factory
Italian rescuers continued their search Tuesday for possible survivors of deadly flash flooding in the Calabria region's Pollino national park, described by hikers as an "avalanche of water". Several hiking groups were caught Monday afternoon by the torrential deluge in the Raganello river gorge in southern Cosenza province. It is unclear whether any people are still unaccounted for, with a spokeswoman for the country's Civil Protection service telling AFP three people who were reported missing had now been found. The death toll has been revised down to 10, as opposed to 11 as previously reported, she added. There was a mistake in the earlier death toll of Monday's flooding due to "overlapping reports over the course of the night", the head of Calabria's civil protection unit Carlo Tansi told local media. Local authorities say 23 people were rescued from the flooding. They said the incident involved two groups of 18 hikers each, with powerful floodlights brought up to allow rescuers to work through the night. Environment Minister Sergio Costa also travelled to the region on Tuesday and told journalists: "We want to know who was meant to do what. The government stands with the families but we want to know within two or three days... what didn't work and for this reason we have asked for a report from the Cosenza prefecture." A Dutch hiker, quoted in local media, said: "A real avalanche of water came unexpectedly. We did not have time to do anything. I was lucky, it was an incredible thing." According to Corriere della Sera, among the 23 people rescued were two children. One of them was a girl taken to hospital by helicopter with hypothermia. On Monday, this part of Calabria experienced several hours of heavy rain and strong winds although conditions began to improve during the evening. Authorities have warned there is a possibility of storms in the region on Tuesday as well. The dramatic gorges carved by the Raganello river are only recommended for experienced hikers due to the many challenges posed by the route, which at certain times of the year is rendered off-limits, the AGI news agency reported. Les sauveteurs italiens regroups dans le village de Civita en Calabre, le 20 aot 2018
Three people have died after a crash between two cars and a fuel tanker in North Queensland.

Debris was strewn across the bitumen of the Bruce Highway and into a neighbouring paddock, 4km north of Bowen, after the crash about 2.20pm on Tuesday.

The ute tried to overtake but smashed head-on into the tanker, killing the ute driver instantly.

The tanker then jack-knifed into the path of a 4WD and rolled on top of it killing the two occupants in the car.

Three people have died after two cars and a fuel tanker crashed on the Bruce Highway near Bowen in North Queensland. Source: 7 News

Footage from the scene shows the tankers upturned fuel trailer jutting into the air and blocking the roadway, while its still-attached front lay on its side in grass nearby.

The truck driver was uninjured in the accident, Queensland Ambulance said.

Fuel spilled across the highway following the crash but a large percentage of the 11,000 litres of diesel needed to be pumped out before the truck can be removed, police said.

The highway is expected to remain closed for seven hours.

The ute crashed into a tanker with the roadway set to be closed long into the night. Source: 7 News

The traffic artery is the only coastal road in the area and not easily bypassed, police said.

Forensic crash investigators are travelling to the site.

A Queensland Police spokesman told Yahoo7 the crash had been fatal but could not confirm the number of deaths.

With AAP
Filipino workers will now have safer and healthier workplaces as President Rodrigo Duterte has signed into law Republic Act 11058, An Act Strengthening Compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Standards. Various labor groups welcomed the new law that will protect workers nationwide as hundreds of workers have died due to the poor enforcement of occupational safety and health standards. Senator Joel Villanueva also welcomed the signing of the new law which, he said, amended the 41-year-old Labor Code of the Philippines and represented a resounding victory for Filipino workers. He said the Labor Code does not impose a fine for OSHS violations. With this law, he said, the Labor department should be able to raise the OSH standards compliance than just the 67 percent compliance rate in 2017, with 72 workplace accidents causing fatal injuries to 95 workers and non-fatal injuries to 117. One death or one injury due to a workplace accident is far too many. This should stop, said Villanueva, author of the measure and chairman of the Senate committee on labor, employment, and human resources development.The new law says it is the duty of employers, to furnish the workers a place of employment free from hazardous conditions. The law also says all safety and health personnel are required to undergo the mandatory training on basic occupational safety and health for safety officers as prescribed by the Labor department. An amount up to P100,000 will serve as an administrative penalty for the erring employer for every day of the non-correction of a violation, counted from the date the employer or contractor is notified of the violation or the date the compliance order is duly served on the employer. The amount of fine imposed will depend on the frequency or gravity of the violation committed or the damage caused, provided the maximum amount is imposed only when the violation exposes the workers to a risk of death, serious injury or serious illness.
Turkey is ramping up pressure worldwide to shut down schools close to a network that it accuses of terrorism. But it is facing unusual resistance in the Central African Republic (CAR), one of the poorest and most vulnerable countries in the world. The Galaxy school, in the capital Bangui, is close to Hizmet, the group run by US-based Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen, whose supporters say he promotes a progressive form of Islam. But Turkey blames Gulen for the attempted coup in 2016 against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It has vowed to root out his influence, at home and abroad. Its intelligence agency MIT has staged several operations, whose nature remains mysterious, to "bring back" suspects as far afield as Kosovo, Ukraine and Gabon, where three Turks working in education were apprehended in April. "We will never allow these vile people to walk freely," Erdogan said after the Gabon operation. As a result, the Turkish headmaster of the Galaxy school is living as a fugitive and an exile. "On July 15, 2016, they named me personally as belonging to the Gulen movement," said the headmaster during a tour of the premises, who asked to be identified by the pseudonym "Emre" to avoid any repercussions for his family back home. "We're accused of being a terrorist group when what we are doing is education and humanitarian work," he said. The school boasts equipment worthy of a well-funded facility in Europe -- a modern digital smart board and a video projector, as well as a classroom devoted to information technology. The school, which also has playing fields and a canteen, is private. And with fees just over 100 euros ($115) per month, it caters mostly to the upper classes. The rate of pupils passing the high school exam stands at 83 percent, compared with a national average of 12 percent. The Islamic component in its curriculum is very small, although students can ask to have additional classes. - 17 African nations closed schools - Turkey's efforts have brought about the closure of such schools in at least 17 African countries -- which have either been nationalised or taken over by the Maarif foundation that is close to the authorities in Ankara. Given CAR's vulnerability, the survival of the Galaxy school so far appears remarkable. The country has been ravaged by rival armed groups and bandit gangs since 2013, ranking last of the 188 countries in the UN's 2016 Human Development Index. CAR's institutions of state are feeble and the country has the entrenched reputation of being a place where pretty much anything can be bought. It ranked 156th out of 180 countries in Transparency International's 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index. For one staff member at the school, "the Central Africans have upheld their dignity", in being a country that has not ceded to Turkish pressure. Jean Serge Bokassa, a former minister of security and territorial administration, said Turkish diplomats visited him in March last year, dangling a mixture of "verbal intimidation and promises" if he conceded to Ankara's demands. A second minister said he too was approached and offered "presents" and trips to Turkey. "I told them, 'If you want to help us, build an establishment instead of closing one down'," that minister said. "They said that if I accepted, I wouldn't regret it." - No diplomatic ties - The school's survival "is above all because there is no Turkish embassy in the country, with few economic and diplomatic ties," according to an expert in the case. "Moreover, the management of the school has very good relations with the government -- the deputy director is the prime minister's wife -- and the academic level is very high." Although Bokassa says he is a political foe of President Faustin-Archange Touadera, he commends him for standing firm against Ankara. "For the moment, I'm delighted that the president has conceded nothing." Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, exiled head of the Islamic social movement that promotes schools like the Galaxy in Bangui. Living in the Unted States, he firmly rejects "terrorist" allegations of being behind a 2016 coup bid in Turkey.
Western governments and activists on Tuesday stepped up pressure on Russia to free jailed Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov as he reached day 100 of a hunger strike. Ten protesters were also arrested by Russian police in Moscow on Tuesday in a demonstration to show support for Sentsov, according to the independent monitor OVD-Info. The 42-year-old Kremlin opponent was arrested in Crimea after Moscow's 2014 annexation of the peninsula and has been languishing in a Russian Artic prison with little hope of release. He announced the hunger strike in May demanding the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners being held in Russia. Sentsov's cousin Natalia Kaplan was among several dozen people demonstrating in front of the Russian embassy in Kiev Tuesday. Sentsov "does not intend to give up his strike, nor ask (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to pardon him," she told protesters, some of whom were carrying signs that read "Free Sentsov" and "Stop Putin". "Oleg is hanging in there... He is not broken," she added. But in an interview with AFP last week, Kaplan painted a gloomy picture of her relative's health and state of mind. "He wrote to me that we mustn't tell him any more that freedom is coming. He doesn't believe it any more," she said. "He has a very weak heartbeat of 40 beats per minute. He complains that his heart hurts, that he's weak, and he tries to not get up too often to preserve his strength." - 'Could die any minute' - In the Czech Republic, filmmakers said they were launching a rotating hunger strike in solidarity with the director. The French newspaper Le Monde carried a plea signed by dozens of figures from the world of culture calling for his release, saying "Oleg Sentsov could die any minute". Ukrainian foreign ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa also demanded that Sentsov be freed. "We call on our partners and international organisations to increase pressure on Russia to #SaveOlegSentsov and free Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia," she wrote on Twitter. The father of two is receiving supplements in a drip usually meant for people who are unable to eat. Russian rights ombudswoman Tatiana Moskalkova said doctors had found that Sentsov's condition was "satisfactory", adding "he moves, gets up, and gets a special diet". She also said Sentsov could not be part of a prisoner-swap with Ukraine because he was automatically given Russian nationality when Crimea was annexed. "We must look for a new legal way" for such an exchange, she said. Vice speaker of the Ukrainian parliament Iryna Gerashchenko called the statements a "farce" and "blackmail", saying the only thing needed to free Sentsov was "Putin's political will". Sentsov was convicted of planning arson attacks on pro-Moscow party offices in Crimea after Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. He had also taken part in the Maidan protests in Kiev during the winter of 2013-2014 that culminated in Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovych fleeing the country. - 'Stalinist' trial - Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for terrorism and arms trafficking after a trial denounced as "Stalinist" by Amnesty International and criticised by Kiev, the EU and the US. US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Tuesday said the US was "deeply concerned" by Sentsov's deteriorating health, adding: "We renew our demand that Russia immediately release him and all Ukrainian citizens unlawfully imprisoned in Russia and on the Crimean peninsula." "His conviction on charges of plotting terrorist acts is widely regarded to be without merit and a cynical reprisal for his opposition to Russia's occupation of Crimea." British junior foreign minister Alan Duncan said Tuesday the charges against Sentsov had been "fabricated," adding: "No one should be imprisoned for opposing the illegal annexation of Crimea." Journalist and activist Zoya Svetova said the prisoner told her during a visit last week he had lost 17 kilograms (38 pounds), while prison medics said he had lost 11. Sentsov was working on his second film when he was arrested. His first film "Gamer" is about a young video game player, and was shown at several European festivals in 2012. G7 ambassadors as well as major figures from the world of cinema, from director Jean-Luc Godard to Hollywood star Johnny Depp, have previously called for Sentsov's release. The Kremlin has so far remained unresponsive to requests for him to be freed, saying that a request for a pardon can only be filed by the prisoner himself, which Sentsov has refused to do. In a rare public intervention on the subject in early June, Putin showed little sympathy towards Sentsov's plight. Sentsov was arrested because "he was planning a terrorist attack" rather than because of opposition or artistic activities, the Russian president said. burs-ia/mtp Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov's cousin Natalia Kaplan at a demonstration in front of the Russian embassy in Kiev on Tuesday The location of the penal colony where Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov has been on a hunger strike for 100 days Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov announced his hunger strike in May A man holds a placard reading "Free Sentsov" during a rally in front of the Russian embassy in Kiev
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday said he planned to discuss ways to encourage denuclearization of the Korean peninsula during next month's gathering of world leaders at the United Nations. Guterres welcomed the inter-Korean family reunions that began on Monday, the first held in three years which follows a diplomatic thaw on the peninsula. The UN chief "hopes that such reunion events will become routine," said a statement from his spokesman, welcoming "efforts by both Koreas to continue their engagement and to take steps to build confidence and trust." Guterres said he "looks forward to discussing how he can further support the parties in their diplomatic efforts to bring sustainable peace, security, and complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula during the upcoming high-level week of the United Nations General Assembly." President Donald Trump is set to attend the gathering of world leaders at UN headquarters in New York beginning September 26 as will South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho. Guterres welcomed the inter-Korean family reunions that began on Monday, the first held in three years which follows a diplomatic thaw on the peninsula
The United States is holding off on a final decision on whether to impose tariffs on auto imports as trade talks with Mexico, Canada and Europe are ongoing, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Monday, he said it is "not clear the report will be out at the end of the month ... in view of the negotiations" to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Washington also is in talks with the European Union after President Donald Trump reached an agreement with EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker in late July to avoid the auto tariffs in exchange for a new deal on duty free trade between the two economies. Citing national security concerns, Trump in May had ordered Commerce to investigate the possibility of imposing tariffs of up to 25 percent on foreign autos and auto parts, a prospect that alarmed the industry. The department collected over 2,000 written comments from diverse industry representatives and car enthusiasts calling on the administration to scrap the tariff plan, and dozens more testified at a public hearing in late July. Ross told the Wall Street Journal the volume of comments also is a factor delaying the final report, saying the department received "zillions of pages" from car companies and "We're running out of August." Despite the administration's rush to impose tariffs in other cases, including against China, Ross declined to set a new deadline for releasing the findings on the auto sector, saying the department is not required to issue its report until next year. Trump also invoked national security concerns when he imposed steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, angering key allies and prompting retaliation against US products like soybeans and motorcycles. The US imported $212 billion in autos last year, $151 billion more than it exported, a deficit that has risen 29 percent since 2013, according to Commerce Department figures. Autos are a key sticking point in negotiations to revamp the nearly 25-year-old NAFTA, and Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo is due to arrive in Washington later Tuesday to continue efforts to reach an agreement. He said last week he was hopeful officials would be able to wrap up the issues affecting Mexico this week, after which Canada would rejoin the talks. US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, seen here at a Cabinet meeting at the White House August 16, 2018, says the US is holding off for now on auto tariffs on Mexico, Canada and Europe
The US Navy is sending a hospital ship to Colombia on a mission to assist in the humanitarian crisis in neighboring Venezuela, a defense official said Tuesday. The USNS Comfort hospital ship "will return to South America this fall," Pentagon spokeswoman Commander Sarah Higgins said. "We are working the details in close coordination with our Colombian partners." Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, while on a trip to South America last week, said the deployment is "an effort to deal with the human cost of (Venezuelan President Nicolas) Maduro, and his increasingly isolated regime." "This is a very specific effort to try to help our neighbors, who are doing their best, I think, to help these refugees," he added. According to Pentagon spokesman Colonel Rob Manning, the hospital ship will provide life-saving treatment and medical care to thousands of people. "Our service members and medical professionals, doctors and nurses, will work alongside regional partners to support ongoing humanitarian response efforts to include addressing the impact of the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis," he said. The mission marks the sixth hospital ship deployment to the region since 2007. The United Nations estimates that 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled an economic and political crisis looking for work and to escape poverty, and Colombia has given temporary residence to more than 800,000 Venezuelans. The USNS Comfort hospital ship while docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico last year


A woman is recovering in hospital after becoming the victim of a brutal assault at the hostel where she was staying in Spain.

According to a Givealittle page for Agnes Wong, she has no memory of what happened in the port city of Malaga last week, but witnesses claim she was kicked and hit over the head.

The fundraising page was set up by Ms Wongs friend Erike Ng who describes the woman, originally from Auckland, as selfless and one of the most beautiful people on Earth.

Ms Ng said that her friend now has a serious head injury, with skull fracture, brain bleeding and clots.

She has been recovering each day, and is now regaining some of her sass and stubbornness!

A fundraising page has been set up to support Ms Wong during her recovery. Source: givealittle.co.nz

Ms Wongs family have travelled from New Zealand over the past week to be by her side.

If insurance allows it, it is hoped she can be transferred to London for further treatment and rehabilitation when her condition has improved.

The Givealittle page explains that Ms Wong was a charity volunteer and is now asking that people support her during this difficult time.

She was a St John Youth volunteer during her time in New Zealand where she has impacted so many youths lives.

And she carries on doing this with the fire brigade youth services during her time in London, it reads.

The money raised will be used for her recovery and associated costs, and to help with her familys travel expenses.
A 45-year-old woman trying to protect her her dog from a 2.44 metre alligator has died after she was snatched and dragged underwater.

A witness called police to report an alligator was attacking a woman at a lagoon on Hilton Head Island, a popular tourist destination in South Carolina, US.

Police recovered her body and identified the victim as Cassandra Cline of Hilton Head Island.

It appears the alligator went after her dog and she tried to protect it, Sam Chappalear of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources told local media.

The alligator believed to be responsible for the attack was captured and killed, said Robert McCullough, a captain for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

Authorities believe the 45-year-old was trying to protect her dog from the alligator when she was attacked. Source: Getty (file image)

Authorities said the dog was not harmed.

Alligators typically roll their victim beneath the waters surface until their prey stops breathing, before stashing the body to eat later.

Alligator attacks are uncommon in the United States, where the majority of animal-related deaths are caused by farm animals, hornets, wasps, bees and dogs, according to a study published in March.

In June, a nearly four-metre alligator in Florida killed a woman in an attack, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said.

Two years ago, an alligator snatched a two-year-old boy from the edge of a lake at the Walt Disney World resort in Florida. His parents tried to save the child but were unable to free him.
Democratic challenger Dana Balter is accusing U.S. Rep. John Katko of misleading voters with a new television commercial and billboard that claims Balter supports raising taxes.

The 30-second ad, which began airing Tuesday on Syracuse-area broadcast and cable stations, refers to Balter's appearance on a podcast in January. She was asked about her support of Medicare for all, a proposal to establish a single-payer health insurance system that's supported by several Democrats.

During the podcast interview, Balter said she would pay for Medicare for all by increasing the Medicare payroll tax. She added later, "While you would have an increase in taxes, you would no longer have out-of-pocket medical expenses."

Katko's campaign used that clip against Balter. But in the ad and accompanying billboard, which will be displayed near the New York State Fairgrounds for the duration of the state fair, the Democratic challenger is quoted as saying, "Um, well, you would have an increase in taxes."

"Congressman Katko edited my words out of context and he knows it," Balter said in a statement. "This is what desperate politicians do when they run out of ideas. The truth is, I want you to pay less for health care, not more."

Balter criticized his vote for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a Republican-backed tax overhaul that Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed last year.

Katko was one of four New York Republicans who voted for the legislation. At the time of his vote, he said the measure would benefit a "vast majority" of his constituents. He reiterated his support for the tax plan in interviews this summer.

The tax law slashes income tax rates for millions of Americans and reduced the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent. It also eliminated many deductions while doubling the standard deduction for individuals and couples.

Balter's campaign claims the tax overhaul largely benefits the wealthy and that a majority of Americans will pay more in taxes. However, independent analyses of the tax plan found that most Americans will pay less in taxes, at least until 2026, when the income tax cuts are set to expire.

The television commercial released by Katko is his third of the 2018 campaign. He released a 30-second commercial in early July that focused on his record of bipartisanship in Congress. His second ad, which came out last week, features Teresa Woolson, an Oswego woman who has advocated for tougher synthetic drug laws.

Balter hasn't released an ad since winning the Democratic primary in June.

The Democratic candidate said she is "eager" to debate Katko on tax policy. Earlier this month, Katko's campaign proposed four debates in the final full week before the Nov. 6 election.

As of Tuesday, an agreement hasn't been reached on a final debate schedule.

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In a win for criminal justice advocates and retiring state Sen. John DeFrancisco, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation Monday that will create the first state-level commission on prosecutorial conduct in the country.

The panel, which will launch in January 2019, will be modeled after the state Commission on Judicial Conduct. It will consist of 11 members appointed by the governor and state legislative leaders. The commission will review complaints of prosecutorial misconduct.

An agreement between Cuomo and state lawmakers will address what the governor views as "flaws" with the measure. The chapter amendment will alter the bill to eliminate a requirement that active judges serve on the commission and shift the review of findings from the state Court of Appeals to the Appellate Division.

The problems with the bill were also raised by the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York, which opposes the creation of the commission. Cayuga County District Attorney Jon Budelmann spoke out against the bill earlier this month. He believes the panel is unnecessary because there is already a process in place to discipline prosecutors guilty of misconduct.

Despite some concerns with the bill, Cuomo said it would provide checks and balances in the criminal justice system.

"When any prosecutor consciously disregards that fundamental duty, communities suffer and lose faith in the system, and they must have a forum to be heard and seek justice," he said.

The bill sponsored by DeFrancisco, R-DeWitt, and Assemblyman Nick Perry received bipartisan support in the state Legislature. The Assembly passed it by a 98-46 vote in June. It cleared the Senate by a 45-12 margin.

The commission's annual operating costs will total $5.5 million, according to the legislation.

In a statement Monday, DeFrancisco cited a report published by the Innocence Project which found that more than 60 percent of the exonerations in New York involved prosecutorial misconduct or improper behavior by investigators.

"Prosecutors have substantial discretion over how to prosecute cases," DeFrancisco said. "This commission will serve as an impartial forum for reviewing allegations made against prosecutors to determine whether they acted property in certain criminal cases."

Cuomo's decision to sign the bill gives DeFrancisco a legislative victory as he closes out his government career. He announced earlier this year that he will not seek re-election. He has represented the Syracuse area in the state Senate since 1993.

Online producer Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding.

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Congressional Leadership Fund, a super political action committee endorsed by House GOP leaders, released a new television commercial Tuesday tying Democratic candidate Anthony Brindisi to former state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

The ad, which is airing in the Binghamton and Utica media markets and on digital platforms in the 22nd Congressional District, notes that Brindisi, a Utica assemblyman, voted with Silver more than 90 percent of the time.

"One of the most corrupt politicians in New York history," a narrator says of Silver, "and Anthony Brindisi was his go-to-guy in Albany."

Silver was convicted of federal corruption charges and sentenced to seven years in prison. He served as state Assembly speaker for 21 years.

Brindisi has been a member of the state Assembly since 2011.

Michael Byerly, a spokesman for the Congressional Leadership Fund, also sought to link Brindisi to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

"After backing Silver's liberal agenda over 90 percent of the time in Albany, it's clear that Brindisi would back Nancy Pelosi's extreme agenda in Washington  New York taxpayers deserve better than a big government politician with bad judgment," Byerly said.

Brindisi has said that he won't support Pelosi as House Democratic leader if he's elected to Congress.

The Utica Democrat is challenging U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney in the 22nd district. The race is a top target for Democrats. NY-22 has been rated as a toss up by some political forecasters, including Cook Political Report.

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The Department of Justice will continue its investigation into the alleged smuggling of a ton of shabu worth P6.8 billion that slipped past Customs despite President Rodrigo Dutertes doubts on the report of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra on Monday said the National Bureau of Investigations parallel probe will proceed even after the President has said that PDEAs claims could be mere speculation as there was no evidence to back its suspicions. I have not revoked my directive to the NBI to do its own probe. We leave no stone unturned when it comes to cases involving illegal drugs, Guevarra said, in a text message. PDEA agents recently seized four magnetic lifters believed to have contained the smuggled shabu at a warehouse in General Mariano Alvarez, Cavite. Drug-sniffing dogs detected traces of narcotics in the empty magnetic lifters, but President Duterte was not convinced. In a speech last week, Duterte branded as pure speculation the claim of PDEA chief Aaron Aquino that the shabu shipment may have already made its way to the market. There was nothing there. They presumed it was filled with shabu and made assumption on the prices. You do not go into speculative content. You must be very sure that you have the goods, Duterte said. Despite this, the Justice secretary said that the NBI would pursue its investigation to verify PDEAs report, trace how the latest shabu shipment was able to pass through the BoC and pinpoint who were the officials and personalities responsible for it. If warranted, he ordered the bureau to file charges against those who will be found criminally liable for the drug smuggling. Guevarra said he would await the initial report of the NBI to determine if theres need to take further actions. We will wait for an update from the NBI to know if theres need to take more actions, he said. The DoJ chief said he may order the NBI to hunt down 11 Chinese nationals led by a certain Chao Yue Wah, alias KC Chan, Albert Chan or Tony Chan and to also secure a precautionary hold departure order against them. Aquino said he believed that some officials in BoC could be responsible for the smuggling and were in cahoots with drug syndicate.The PDEA chief pointed that the same type of magnetic lifters were used to smuggle P4.3 billion worth of shabu seized at the Port of Manila last week. He said dogs detected traces of illegal drugs in the empty magnetic lifters, similar to the two seized at the Manila International Container Terminal also last week, which contained an estimated 500 kilograms of shabu. Drug rings operating in the Golden Triangle in the shared borders of Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand are believed to be behind the multibillion-peso shabu shipments. According to PDEA, the shipment was sourced from Taiwan with Malaysia as a transshipment point before entering the country. It reportedly came into the country at the end of June and was dispatched to the warehouse, rented at P150,000 per month for a year. Several men unloaded the illicit shipment on the night of July 15, taking three to four hours to load the drugs into an estimated 17 luggage trolley bags. The Philippine National Police on Monday said it has yet to validate the names which have been added to the watchlist of high-value target personalities involved in illegal drugs. PNP chief Director General Oscar Albayalde said the list of HVTs as of Aug. 15, based on new information and continuing validation, has increased to 9,972 from 9,866 listed as of June 30. With this new working figure, we are setting our sights on 1,003 high-value targets as subjects of police interdiction operations through buy-bust operations and service of warrants of arrest and search warrants, Albayalde said. He said the names will be subject to validation by police anti-drug units, adding that the aggressive war on illegal drugs had the overall net effect of reducing the incidence of other crimes in the country. As of Aug. 15, the PNP chief said a total of 4,959 HVT personalities have surrendered and are now under monitoring and evaluation, while 2,825 others or 28.32 percent were arrested and charged. Only 258 HVT personalities died in police operations or 2.58 percent out of the 9,972 target personalities, he said. The PNP chief said there are 654 HVT personalities who can no longer be located in their last known addresses and areas of operation, while 322 other HVT personalities had become victims of homicide cases under investigation.
On the same day a Republican super PAC released an ad linking him to disgraced ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Democratic congressional candidate Anthony Brindisi unveiled his own commercial touting his role in Silver's ouster.

Brindisi, D-Utica, released the ad titled, "Anyone," which details his role in pushing Silver to resign after the former Assembly speaker was indicted on federal corruption charges.

The ad will air in the Binghamton and Utica media markets, both of which are within the 22nd Congressional District.

A 2015 Wall Street Journal story named Brindisi as one of six Assembly Democratic members who called for the leadership change.

"It did matter that it was my own party. The corruption had to stop," Brindisi said in his new ad. "In Congress, I'll work with anyone who wants to get things done. But I'll also stand up to anyone who wants to hurt New York."

Brindisi, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney in the 22nd district, has been linked to Silver by Republicans. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC endorsed by House Republican leaders, released an ad Tuesday that calls Brindisi Silver's "go-to-guy" in Albany.

The commercial also claims that Brindisi voted with Silver more than 90 percent of the time.

The 22nd district race is expected to be one of the most competitive House contests in the country. President Donald Trump visited Utica last week to headline a fundraiser for Tenney, a freshman Republican who has worked closely with the president.

Political forecasters rate the race as a toss up.

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U.S. Rep. John Katko's campaign is using Democratic challenger Dana Balter's own words against her in the first critical television commercial of the 24th Congressional District race.

The 30-second ad, which begins airing Tuesday on Syracuse-area broadcast and cable stations, includes a clip from Balter's appearance on the Radical Bureaucrats Podcast in January. During the interview, Balter, D-Syracuse, was asked about her support for Medicare for all and how a single-payer health insurance system should be funded.

When asked by the host if she would support an expansion of the existing Medicare payroll tax, Balter responds, "Yes, I think that would be how we would have to pay for it."

But it's what Balter said moments later that Katko's campaign used in the TV ad. The commercial quotes Balter as saying, "Um, well, you would have an increase in taxes." A review of the podcast found she actually said, "While you would have an increase in taxes, you would no longer have out-of-pocket medical expenses."

The TV ad also identifies Balter as "the visiting assistant professor from Connecticut." She grew up in Connecticut, but said last year that she has lived in Syracuse since 2003. In 2017, she was named a visiting assistant teaching professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

The ad concludes with another clip from the podcast. Balter said of the proposed tax hike, "And I know that makes people nervous, because people don't want increased taxes."

Her quote is followed by a narrator saying, "That's right, Visiting Assistant Professor Balter, we don't want increased taxes. And we can't afford Dana Balter."

In addition to the commercial, Katko's campaign has paid for a billboard that will be posted off Interstate 690 and State Fair Boulevard across from the New York State Fairgrounds. The billboard will be in place for the duration of the fair, which runs from Wednesday, Aug. 22 through Monday, Sept. 3.

The TV ad is the third released by Katko's campaign. Last week, he released a commercial featuring Teresa Woolson, an Oswego woman who advocates for tougher synthetic drug laws. Woolson's son, Victor, drowned in 2012 after a fatal reaction to synthetic marijuana.

The volume of TV ads at this stage of the race is a show of one of Katko's strengths: His fundraising. At the beginning of July, he had more than $1.6 million in the bank. Balter, who won the Democratic primary in June, had more than $113,000 cash on hand.

Balter released two television commercials during the primary campaign, but she hasn't unveiled a new ad since becoming the Democratic nominee.

Katko is considered the favorite to win the 24th district race. Despite one poll showing Balter leading by four points, internal polls reportedly show him with a sizable lead over his Democratic challenger.

Despite Democrats being in a position to win several House races this year, political forecasters rate the 24th district contest as "likely Republican."

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With Auburn being named one of this years winners of the state Downtown Revitalization Initiative award, I would like to congratulate the mayor, city councilors, Cayuga Economic Development Agency and, most importantly, the residents of the city of Auburn. I would also like to extend my sincere appreciation for offering East Hill the opportunity to submit a project as part of the DRI application.

East Hill Family Medical is a federally qualified health center, and as such receives federal funding annually to ensure that everyone, regardless of ability to pay, has access to high-quality primary medical and dental care. Community health centers use a holistic approach to patient care, treating the entire person by integrating mental health, oral health, substance use disorder and primary medical care services. Today, nearly 1,400 health centers are funded, operating more than 11,000 service delivery sites in communities across the country.

East Hill, your community health center, began as the Cayuga Family Planning Center in 1971 and has grown to include pediatrics, adult primary care, dentistry and family planning and reproductive health. More than 10,000 families receive care from East Hill each year, rendering more than 30,000 patient visits annually. Those patients who require specialized testing, surgery or visits to a specialist are referred almost exclusively to Auburn Community Hospital and its associated physician group, keeping health care local as much as possible.

Over the past two years, East Hill has rededicated itself to the provision of high quality health care. Each day, staff and clinicians work hard to create an exceptional patient experience for all  because everyone deserves great health care. Recently, East Hill achieved certification as an Advanced Primary Care Center, a designation bestowed upon health care providers in New York state with excellent quality measures and systems. Achieving this designation normally takes more than a year, but East Hills team was able to accomplish that goal in just five months.

Auburn's $10M downtown revitalization: What happens next? Gov. Andrew Cuomo came to Auburn less than two weeks ago to announce the city was the latest

Located in the heart of downtown, the Metcalf Plaza, East Hills headquarters, is an aging infrastructure. The $1.5 million project that was included in Auburns Downtown Revitalization Initiative application envisions more modern clinical spaces, equipment, furnishings and a more inviting exterior. Auburn is fortunate to have a downtown medical center providing day and evening access to health care within a short distance of the homes of a large portion of the population. The downtown revitalization award will supplement a larger, proposed multi-million-dollar reconstruction project that will transform the 52,000-square-foot Metcalf Plaza into a modern, upscale and inviting mixed-use facility, contributing meaningfully to the resurgence already underway in downtown Auburn.

In small cities and communities across the country, health care centers are often major economic drivers. Beyond bolstering the workforce with good-paying jobs, they contribute substantially to healthier communities, fighting every day to ensure that friends and neighbors get well and stay well. Health is a vital part of any successful community.

With 47 years under its belt, East Hill Family Medical is focused on a bright future, and is recommitted to ensuring the best health care possible for anyone in the community.

Keith Cuttler is the CEO of East Hill Family Medical, a federally qualified health center offering dental, reproductive health, internal medicine and pediatric services. Located at 144 Genesee St., Auburn, the center can be contacted at easthillmedical.com or (315) 253-8477.

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AUBURN  After traveling the world as an architect, Arthur Hutchinson found his way back to his hometown of Auburn to debut  and continue to discover himself through  his artwork.

As the featured artist for a month in the Cayuga Museum of History & Art's Emerging Artist series, Hutchinson showed his artwork for the first time at an opening reception on Thursday. He explained that his exhibit, "Arthur the Artist & The Highcrafter," chronicles his life over the past several years and tells the story of how he journeyed out of depression to find a life of purpose.

Showing his work to the public for the first time felt natural to Hutchinson, who said he's always wanted to create images and inspire people. To describe his work and who he is, he wove a narrative into the exhibit that takes the form of framed writings scattered throughout.

"We all need to speak our truth to show who we are," Hutchinson said. "Now everyone knows who I am. And I like that feeling."

However, Hutchinson described getting to this point in his life as a bumpy road. Born and raised in Auburn, he attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he graduated in 2005 as an architect. His first job was with Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, a large corporate firm where he worked on large mixed-use projects in Asia.

Soon, however, Hutchinson observed others further along in the industry who were "burnt out," and realized that being an architect wasn't in the cards for him long-term. In 2010, Hutchinson was laid off. It "was actually a great thing," he said, as he had the opportunity to make changes that eventually allowed him to begin creating art.

Although he worked in architecture on and off for a few more years, traveling as far as Abu Dhabi and India, Hutchinson soon discovered that he wanted to do more purposeful work that made a difference. He realized he was spending exorbitant amounts of time on things that he didn't think were important in life.

"It was all brain and no heart," Hutchinson said of his experience as an architect. "I feel like if I'm not creating, I'm not using all my skills."

Hutchinson said he wanted a job where his mind could be more at ease, and he loved the idea of working in a beautiful, open space. With the help of friends and connections, Hutchinson got a job as a security guard at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

"It gave me time to just figure things out," he said. "Finally, I had peace of mind."

Hutchinson said the Met "felt like a temple." He practiced mindfulness while working there, especially in the mornings when it was quiet.

People travel from all over the world to view the museum's paintings, Hutchinson explained, and he wanted to know, find and feel the power of art. Although he still wasn't making art at the time, he said he inexplicably began buying art supplies.

"I didn't know what to buy, I just gravitated toward paper because I liked the way it looked," Hutchinson said. "So I bought every color they had."

Then, around 2014, he began to create during the evenings.

His work, now printed on canvases at the Cayuga Museum, begins as drawings and then becomes paper sculptures that Hutchinson uses as a map to create a digital version.

"I use all the same tools that I used (for architecture) for drawing my images," Hutchinson said. He explained that when he sits down, he often never knows what he will draw.

"Architecture is a language of space," he said. "I always think about space in my drawings."

Now, instead of drafting a building that creates spaces by constructing walls, Hutchinson said he tries to map out his mind.

"Our mind is also a space," he said, explaining that images and feelings in one's mind are like objects in space. And that's what he hopes his artwork captures.

"The Cloisters," one of Hutchinson's pieces on display in his debut exhibit, encapsulates his creative process. The piece was a result of a year of mediation, planning and drawing. It began with a drawing of a structure, then he layered pieces of paper  deciding how to stack structures on a grid  and tried to look inward and project what he was feeling onto the image.

Hutchinson said he created the piece at a time when he was stressed out, ill and broke. For him, the piece portrays different memories and feelings, and answers questions he had in life, such as "How did I get here?" He has found that even at times when nothing else in his life seemed right, his art brought him through.

"It seemed the harder things got, the better my art got," Hutchinson said. "Passion isn't always a pleasant thing, it can be painful. ... I would do it all again if I had to."

In the past, Hutchinson said, he often felt like he was a character in someone else's dream  such as when he was in Abu Dhabi building things that the king had dreamed.

"I want to have my dream, I want to have my story and I want to choose it," Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson moved back to Auburn about a year ago, and quit a job he had at a Rochester architectural firm about a month ago so he could learn how to work as an artist full-time. When he chose to be an architect years ago, he said, he did so largely for stability.

"I want to prove myself wrong. I think I would've chosen art if it was about what I wanted," Hutchinson said.

Although Hutchinson is hesitant to describe his artwork, as he's not sure if he wants or needs to, he said it often defines himself, as he is trying to map out his own persona.

"It's almost like a mirror in a lot of ways," he said of his work. "It's almost like I'm in the story now ... it's creating me at this point."

Hutchinson hopes his work both inspires people and help start conversations about mental illness, depression and other obstacles people struggle with.

"I think everyone has one change they want to make, but they're afraid for some reason," he said, adding that he hopes others don't take as long to make the change as he did.

Staff writer Megan Ehrhart can be reached at (315) 282-2244 or megan.ehrhart@lee.net. Follow her on Twitter @MeganEhrhart.

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The American Red Cross of Central New York seeks nominations for its 20th annual Real Heroes Breakfast, which will be held Wednesday, Dec. 5, at The Oncenter in Syracuse.

Nominees can be ordinary people who make extraordinary contributions by putting their needs aside to help others in the community. Proceeds from the breakfast support the Red Cross of Central New York, which serves Cayuga, Cortland, Madison, Onondaga and Oswego counties.
The Human Services Coalition of Cayuga County and the Cayuga County Office for the Aging invite you to attend our third annual Senior Moments Resource Fair! The fair will be held at Fingerlakes Mall from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 14. Stop by to grab a goodie bag and some refreshments and spend time learning about a wide variety of organizations that provide services, information and assistance to senior citizens, their caregivers and family members. Our goal is to educate the community about the importance of planning for the care of elderly family members by providing the necessary information and resources at a convenient, one-stop-shop event.

The annual Office for the Aging public hearing will be held at the mall from 9:30 to 10 a.m. during the fair. This is an opportunity for you to offer your input on how we can help the older citizens in our community and their families meet the challenges of aging in the coming years.

Ann Costa from Aurora of Central New York will speak from 10:30 to 11:15 a.m. about practical help for vision and hearing Loss. Come hear about strategies and information on how to cope and manage with vision or hearing loss so that you can feel confident and lessen the impact it may have on your life. Aurora offers a variety of equipment and services that can be used at home to remain independent.

Our second presentation, from 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., will feature Trudy Scarr, a geriatric care manager from Inspire Care of CNY home care agency. She will talk about how to become your own best self-care advocate. Learn how to prepare for doctor appointments ahead of time, and ask the right questions to have a more meaningful interaction with your practitioner. She will offer ways to organize and maintain your own health records.

All our Cayuga County Office for the Aging staff will be present at the fair to provide information about our services for seniors age 60 and over, and their families. This includes home-delivered meals, home care aid service, respite and caregiver support, health insurance counseling and assistance with applying for benefits. A Cayuga County Sheriff's Office representative will be present to show equipment from our Project Lifesaver program, a tracking device that locates wandering individuals.

We will be offering one-on-one Medicare consultations to review the effectiveness of your Medicare plans, as well as screening to see if you may be eligible for benefits such as food or heating financial assistance, the Medicare Savings Program, home repair programs, Medicaid or other discount programs. It would be helpful to bring Medicare and other insurance info, a list of prescriptions, and income and resource amounts, depending on your need, so that staff can better assist you. There will also be elder care lawyers on hand to offer information and advice about future planning including wills, health care proxies and power of attorney.

If you are interested in applying for a passport, two items are needed: A certified birth certificate that includes your parents' names on it, and either a valid drivers license or a valid government-issued ID. Acceptable forms of payment are either two separate checks or two separate money orders, one for $110 and one for $50, which includes the cost of a passport photo. If the person is a veteran, the second check should be for $45 instead of $50, because we offer a veteran discount. We encourage people to call the Cayuga County Clerks Office at (315) 253-1271 for more details.

The veterans' office will also be available to distribute discount cards and provide information about a variety of services for veterans. It would be helpful to bring your service records.

Wegmans Pharmacy will have a table offering flu shots, as well as promoting health and wellness. They will be able to bill your health insurance.

We are excited to announce that we have some new and interesting organizations coming this year for the first time, and all are looking forward to seeing you at the Senior Moments Resource Fair!

Janet L. Taylor is an aging services specialist with the Cayuga County Office for the Aging.

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AUBURN  An Auburn man accused of assaulting a woman and injuring two police officers will remain in jail after a Cayuga County judge denied his request to have his bail reduced.

Justin Tillmon, 32, was in Cayuga County Court Tuesday morning for a pre-trial conference. His defense attorney, Rome Canzano, asked Judge Mark Fandrich to lower Tillmon's bail to $20,000 cash or $40,000 bond. Fandrich denied the request. Tillmon is currently being held on bail at the Cayuga County Jail on $50,000 cash or $100,000 bond.

Tillmon's trial is scheduled to begin on Oct. 15 and will center around the events that occurred on the night of Jan. 24. According to information released by the Auburn Police Department at the time, officers responded to a domestic incident at Tillmon's home at 144 Washington St. in Auburn where the victim, a 27-year-old woman, told police that Tillmon had assaulted her and thrown her down a flight of stairs into the basement of the Washington Street apartment building.

While in the basement, Tillmon assaulted her again and then forced her into a seperate room, where he locked the door from the outside, according to the victim. The room contained a breaker panel, so police said the woman turned off the breaker in an attempt to get help. Tillmon then released her from the room.

Officers located Tillmon in the building and attempted to arrest him, but he resisted and injured two officers. The officers and victim were all transported to Auburn Community Hospital for treatment. specifics about the extent of the injuries was not released by the APD.

Tillmon was charged with second-degree kidnapping, second-degree strangulation and two count of second-degree assault, all felonies, and third-degree assault, resisting arrest and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, according to court records.

Staff writer Natalie Brophy can be reached at (315)282-2239 or natalie.brophy@lee.net. Follow her on Twitter @brophy_natalie.

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HIT: To another successful Back to School/Stay in School, School Supply Give-Away in the Auburn Enlarged City School District on Saturday.

Children get school supplies at Auburn school giveaway AUBURN  Ayden Choate grimaced as he pulled pink scissors out of his new backpack, while Elixie Choate said "Ooh!" as she showed her brother h

The event held at Genesee Elementary School came together through a generous amount of community donations and the coordination, promotional efforts and volunteer work put together by the school district, the Auburn/Cayuga Branch of the NAACP and the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Auburn. Several other community businesses chipped in to make the day special for all involved.

About 400 families were served by this giveaway, and that makes a huge impact on hundreds of students who will have the materials they need as they head to school next month.

MISS: To an Auburn man who has admitted resisting arrest and in the process causing serious injuries to a city police officer.

Auburn man pleads guilty to assaulting, injuring police officer AUBURN  When the Auburn Police Department was called to Justin Gervais' Wall Street apartment for a second noise complaint in December, the 2

The defendant pleaded guilty last week in Cayuga County Court in a case in which he tried to flee when an Auburn Police Department officer who was attempting to place him under arrest at a Wall Street apartment. The man attempted to push the officer down a flight of stairs, and in the struggle, the officer's head hit the stairs and she was seriously injured.

HIT: To the Skaneateles Festival, which is bringing another month's worth of world-class music to the Cayuga County area.

Skaneateles Festival hosts KidsFest with Grammy-nominated orchestra SKANEATELES  The Knights, a Grammy-nominated orchestra from Brooklyn, led an interactive program with children and families for the KidsFest 

The festival over the years has evolved into a concert series that showcases a wide variety of musical styles. And that variety includes performances that are geared toward children.

Sunday was such an event with a KidsFest featuring the Knights, a Grammy-nominated orchestra, that had its youngest audience members moving to the music.

The festival continues through Sept. 1. Check out skanfest.org to find a show or two you'd like to attend.

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This blog is totally independent, unpaid and has only three major objectives.

The first is to inform readers of news and happenings in the e-Health domain, both here in Australia and world-wide.

The second is to provide commentary on e-Health in Australia and to foster improvement where I can.

The third is to encourage discussion of the matters raised in the blog so hopefully readers can get a balanced view of what is really happening and what successes are being achieved.


LOS ANGELESAnother announcement is out now from the Str8UpGayPorn Awards crew, revealing more details about the second annual ceremony. Adult stars Boomer Banks and Blake Mitchell have been announced as co-hosts for the show, which will take place Oct. 21 in Hollywood, Calif.

Banks and Mitchell will appear throughout the night, along with host Bianca Del Rio.

Str8UpGayPorn co-owner and editor Zach Sire said, Boomer and Blake have transcended the adult film space and developed well-earned names in gay mainstream media for their performances, their personalities, and their pursuits outside of the industry, so having them as co-hosts at the show makes perfect sense.

He added, On top of all that, they are two of the most genuine and hardworking performers in the business today. Were so grateful to have them taking the stage in October."

Banks said of co-hosting the show, Its an honor by itself to co-host the Str8UpGayPorn Awards, but sharing the stage with Blake Mitchell and the incomparable Bianca Del Rio makes it all the more magical. I cant wait to show fans another side of me that they dont really get to see on camera. Its gonna be an unforgettable night for sure!

Mitchell echoed his co-hosts enthusiasm, saying, I couldnt be more excited to co-host the second annual Str8upGayPorn Awards. The show reaches a huge audience of fans around the world, and I look it as a chance to entertain them in a whole new way. The fact that I get to do it with Boomer Banks and Bianca Del Rio makes it even better!

Tickets for the second annual show are on sale now at Str8UpGayPornAwards.com, with 2018 nominations for the show being announced tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. PT on Str8UpGayPorn.com.
It was right after the successful premiere of Goyo: Ang Batang Henerala film about the life and times of General Gregorio del Pilar who held off American forces pursuing then General Emilio Aguinaldo, the President of the newly declared Philippine Republic  which was jointly sponsored by the Ateneo de Manila High School Class 68/College 72 and Assumption College High School Class 69 that the trip to Hong Kong was finalized. At the instance of Gaudencio Goody Hernandez, joint HS 68/College 72 Treasurer, members of the class(es) decided to pay a visit to Hong Kong to meet up with Eli Remolona, Resident Representative of the Bank of International Settlements for Asia-Pacific, and his wife, Marie. Goody, who was the countrys Representative to the Asian Development Bank during the PNoy administration, promised it was going to be a memorable trip or else he will reimburse all expenses. With that generous offer complete with promises of a gastronomic feast from no less than the lady host, Marie Remolona, and, of course, incessant pressure from the wives, we finally got together in Hong Kong last Monday, Aug. 20. Lahat naman kayo retired or pa-retire na so whats wrong with doing this one trip on weekdays, was the ladies chant that got 10 of us going after that nightmarish airport bedlam caused by the skidding Xiamen Airlines plane stranding thousands of travelers from late Thursday night to Sunday morning. That 48-hour nightmare was more than enough to setback our dream of a break out from our sluggish two million to three million foreign tourist arrival this year and probably up to the end of this administrationunless Transportation Secretary Art Tugade and his senior executives can find a way to fast-track the opening of a new airport with all the needed facilities to make our connections to the world a little more accomplished and proper. Perhaps he can begin that process by asking for the resignation of MIAA GM Ed Montreal and his crew as well as getting the airlines to a no-holds barred meeting just to find out why they allowed such a bedlam to happen at all. Why did they not declare Manila a no go zone after that Xiamen Airlines incident, say for 24 hours, knowing fully well that they could not get the airport back on track just like that instead of giving travelers all the promises and BS they could muster to the utter disgust of the thousands who had to agonize for hours only to be told a day or so after that they could not proceed. Or even those hied off to other airports like Clark and Cebu without the needed ground support. Mea culpas and all kinds of apologies cannot compensate for this grand brouhaha. But that is another story. *** Back to our Hongkong sojourn. So, the 10 of us: Goody, me and Emily, Mike and Annie Molina, Dads and Techie Capellan Lito Bauza, Meenow Nivera and Benjie Atilano, got together with Eli and Marie for our first gastronomic work out at dinner in MAMA SAN, a hip Indo/Malay resto in what Hong Kongers claim was the original HK Red District. It was a hit, a truly memorable four-course dinner, made even livelier with tales of old, i.e., Loyola and martial law days, and new, work, travels and grandchildren.Before that we had to pass by Elis office at the IFC Tower with views of the famous Hong Kong Harbor and, PCC, the tallest building in the city. Eli who is retiring this October after six years with the BIS, the so-called bank of central banks, showed us around and we had time to quiz (actually kid) him about the effect of the devaluation of the Turkish lira and the Venezuelan bolivar, among other serious monetary and economic concerns. Of course, we got the answers deemed proper not to rock the international monetary system. And the insights too on the cycles, moves and intrigues circling the all too hyperventilated world of global finance. Thats all that I can share for now on pain of opening up conversations about matters which may cause my friends, specially those left behind trying to make sense out of the developments the world over, hours of tension and aches. All I can say for now is try to relax, take the long view and have time with family and friends like what we are into. Life goes on and while there are troubles everywhere, the world is not falling apart as we have memories to make and moments to remember. In any event, even as we are off talking about what might-have-beens we continue to discuss what could still be done as we enter the lastquarter of our lives. Having struggled through college and immediately after, the martial law years, there is a sense of giving backas in are we going to just let the country slid back into the chaos and ultra democratic ways of old where the class divide got even worse as the 1-percent rich got richer as the 99-percent poor got poorer in a country that has reached the 100-million population mark. Are there things we can do to make life a little better for the great unwashed and things a little brighter for those, our children, who are themselves making a go in another plane of struggle? These times are made even more complex with technological advancement, climate change and political-cum-economic warfare. Is there a way to fast-track our countrys way to mid-level economy status before we all retire and reminisce on what might should have beens? There is hope, I believe. If only because even as we enjoy each others company and walk through the byzantine streets of this ever-busy city we are still dreaming of organizing farming communities to plant coffee and cacao and assisting them to level up and supply the needs of the Starbucks of the world or of tapping the artisans of Mt. Province, Betis, Ilocos and Sulu to make the labels, maligns, furnitures and cravings which we believe will be treasured by generations yet to come. There is hope. After all, despite all the worries and apprehensions not knowing fully whats going on we are talking about President Dutertes frustrations and about Strumms almost at the same breath. Life goes on and we will make the most and best of what the world we live in will offer.
MIAMI/DADE, Fla.For only the second time during the entire 30-year existence of the federal record-keeping and labeling law, 18 U.S.C. 2257, someone will be brought to trial for violating it. That person is Bryan Deneumostierand a recitation of those charges seems simply weird.

According to the five-count indictment filed against him on June 19 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Deneumostier is charged with two counts of "us[ing] any electronic, mechanical, and other device, including an Apple iphone [sic] and ipad [sic], to intercept any oral communication, as detailed below, when defendant knew, and had reason to know, that such device and any component of such device had been sent through the mail and transported in interstate and foreign commerce."

Hunh? Pretty much everyone knows that iPhones and iPads aren't made in the U.S., so of course its components "had been sent through the mail and transported in interstate and foreign commerce." What's the big deal?

Well, because of one of those "intrusive" federal laws that Trump hasn't gotten around to voiding yet, the fact that those iPhone/iPad components traveled across state lines in interstate commerce makes Deneumostier federally liable for the offenses he did commit: Violation of 18 U.S.C. 2511: "Unlawful Recordings of Individuals." Or in real-life terms, using a now-defunct website, StraightBoyz.com, to "con real straight men" into performing gay sex acts while blindfolded or wearing blacked-out goggles with Deneumostier himself in drag, and then posting videos of those sex acts on that website.

And oh, by the way, strange as it may seem, none of those straight guys provided any government-issued photo ID to Deneumostier, nor did Deneumostier keep copies of any of those IDs on file anywhere. Guess what law that failure to act breaks? (We won't keep you in suspense: It's 2257and is responsible for the other three counts of the indictment.)

Although Free Speech Coalition largely won its case against 2257 in federal district court in Philadelphia earlier this month, both sides still have about six weeks within which to file an appeal of the judge's ruling, so the 2257 statute is still on the books, and people can still be charged under it.

"According to a law-enforcement document obtained by the Miami Herald, agents believe Deneumostier posed as a 'real, heterosexual female' and posted ads on Craigslist seeking flings at her house near the Homestead Reserve Air Base," the Herald's David Ovalle reported. "'When the men ask for assurances that there are no cameras, he assured them that "shes" married to someone in the army and she would never photograph or video them', the document reads. In actuality, however, 'Deneumostier is video and audio taping the entire sexual encounter.'"

So Bryan Deneumostier finds himself in the same august company as former Girls Gone Wild owner Joe Francis, who in 2006 was sentenced by a federal court to community service for failing to have kept 2257 records on two 17-year-old girls who had appeared in one of Francis' topless videos in 2003, and whom Francis claimed told him they were over 18. Francis' company, Mantra Films, Inc., paid $1.6 million in fines over the same incident. Francis later paid a $500,000 fine in state court for related charges.

(We should note that just about every person the Justice Department busts for creating, selling and/or possessing child pornography is also at least threatened with 2257 violations, because as AVN pointed out in 2005, child pornographers don't keep 2257 records, but those charges are mainly used as a bargaining chip to get the perps to cop to the child porn offenses, and are usually dropped once a plea to the child porn is entered.)

Another interesting aspect to the case is that the Justice Department had asked for, and received, a Protective Order in the case to prevent the disclosure of "sensitive information" to the defense during the run-up to the trial. Such "sensitive information" includes "the audio-video recordings at issue, text messages between Defendant and certain victims, along with personal identification information about some of the subjects who went to Defendants residence or are otherwise portrayed on" StraightBoyz.com.

The Deneumostier case has been assigned to Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga, who presided over a status conference held earlier today. At that time, the judge recognized that both sides had agreed to waive "speedy trial" requirements, and ordered that the case be placed on the court calendar on September 25, and that trial commence on or shortly after October 1. If Deneumostier decides to plead guilty, however, his plea would be due by September 27, though of course, he could plead guilty at any point thereafter if he so chose.

Pictured: Bryan Deneumostier as he appeared in a police mugshot.
LOS ANGELESMens lifestyle site Sugarcookie.com found that squirting liquid is definitely not just pee. Four girls, including site founder Harriet Sugarcookie, porn star Shona River and sex educators, Lola Jean and Kaia compared both liquids in a new YouTube video.



Lola Jean provided a sample of both liquids for the girls to analyze.



The differences between the liquids were rather pronounced. It was really obvious they were different liquids. The squirting liquid was a lighter colour and it was cloudy. While the pee, well it looked like pee. I think everyone knows what pee looks like, said Harriet Sugarcookie.



The girls also smelled both liquids. Sugarcookie said, None of us could handle the smell of the pee. Its strong and acid. Theres a natural gag factor when you smell it.



But the squirting liquid was different. The smell of pee was there. But very mild. It was more like an essence of peebut not unpleasant.



After comparing both liquids it was unanimously decided that squirt is not pee, although it does contain traces of pee, both coming from the urethra.



Sugarcookie said, I was firmly in the squirting is just peeing camp before this experiment so the thought of squirting has always seemed a bit grim to me. But I can say for sure that its not pee.



Lets stop questioning squirting and accept that both guys and girls can ejaculate. Just enjoy it for what it is, a fun and natural part of sex.



In the video the girls also give their unique perspectives on squirting. Shona River explains how squirting is often faked in porn and Lola Jean explains how her body feels different when she squirts or pees. Read the article or watch the full video here.



Embeddable YouTube video available here.
MAINHAUSEN, GermanyThe Frankfurt Summit 2018 celebrated its premiere last weekend in tranquil Mainhausen near Frankfurt with the theme of networking, meeting old and new friends combined with an informal outdoor atmosphere.

The high expectations were fullfilled, organizers said. Numerous webmasters, traffic providers, portals, amateurs and more enjoyed the relaxed ambience on the grounds of the SV Zellhausen. Guests celebrated into the early morning hours as the band "The Party Devils" played.

The event started on Friday with an exclusive evening, which was limited to only 150 guests.

On Saturday, more beautiful weather made for a pleasant experience, organizers said.

"The feedback from the participants was very positive and the event was well accepted," said organizers Walter Hasenclever and Detlef Hauth. "It was important to us that the adult industry could meet and share in a relaxed atmosphere. It felt a bit like a big family reunion."

Of course the organizers owe this to the numerous sponsors and the energetic support of SV Zellhausen. "We would like to sincerely thank everyone involved," the organizers said, revealing, "After the successful premiere we are definitely planning a sequel."
Baking cases and muffin wraps manufacturer Chevler has secured funding from the Development Bank of Wales.

The six-figure loan is the fifth investment in the Hengoed-based company since its first in 2009, which funded a buyout by the current management team.

Since then, the companys turnover has more than doubled, and Chevler said the new investment will enable it to build on last years record sales and fund its expansion programme.

The money will be used to help buy equipment in our recently refurbished unit, allowing the company to meet the demands posed by a changing, challenging and competitive marketplace, said Chevler finance director David Anthony.

These funds will enable us to invest in new baking cup machinery and launch a range of new shapes and designs. The backing we have received from the Development Bank of Wales has been vital in helping us build our product range and move into new markets.

Funding for the deal came from the Wales Business Fund, which is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government.
Northern Irish firm McErlains Bakery  producer of the Genesis Crafty range and own-label cakes and breads  has been sold as a private investment to the boss of snacks supplier Tayto Group.

The pre-pack deal follows a difficult trading period for the business, which resulted in Andrew Dolliver and Luke Charleton of EY being appointed administrators of McErlains today (21 August).

McErlains had worked with the administrators ahead of entering administration to find a buyer, and the business has continued to trade as normal, with the 260-plus jobs at its factory being saved.

Brian McErlain (pictured above) will continue as managing director of the Magherafelt-based business, which makes cakes and breads for retailers including Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and Tesco.

Im delighted the jobs at the factory have been secured and that Brian will be staying on as MD, said new owner Paul Allen, who is CEO of Tayto Group. I see this as a very sound business with great potential.

Allen will remain chief executive of Tayto, with the acquisition a private investment by him and his family.

The McErlain family have built a great business, with excellent products which have national markets. Im hoping that, in my non-executive role with the company, I will be able to use my experience in the industry to help guide the growth of both the Genesis Crafty brand and the overall business.

McErlain described this as a time of mixed emotions: Sadness that it is now a different family who own the business, but hope for the future and the growth of the Genesis Crafty brand.

He added that Allens ability was very well respected in the business community in Northern Ireland and further afield, and said he believed his involvement would be of benefit to the company.

Id like to pay tribute to all our staff, customers and suppliers, who have been through some difficult times with us and whose support we have really appreciated.
King Mohammed VI has urged the Government to take as soon as possible a series of measures to address the thorny issue of unemployment among young people, deemed as the countrys true wealth.

In a speech to the Nation broadcast Monday on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the Revolution of the King and the People, the Moroccan Sovereign called for a comprehensive review of public mechanisms and programs for youth employment so as to make them more effective and ensure they meet young peoples aspirations.

I have decided that a national meeting on employment and training should be convened before the end of the year with a view to making practical decisions, devising new solutions, launching initiatives and charting a specific roadmap to improve the employment situation, said the Monarch.

He stressed the need to give priority to specialties which create jobs and develop an effective means of giving students career guidance two or three years before the baccalaureate to help them choose between academic studies and vocational training, depending on their abilities and personal preference.

King Mohammed VI also called for the adoption of a framework agreement, involving the government and the private sector, to give a strong impetus to the re-training of students who drop out of school to give them a second chance at professional and social integration.

He stressed the need for a thorough review of vocational training programs to align them with the needs of businesses and the public sector, and to make sure they are adapted to changes in industry and trades in general, thereby increasing the chances of graduates to access professional life.

We must give our young people what they need in the areas of education, employment, health and so on. More importantly, we must enhance their confidence and give them hope in the future underlined the Sovereign, noting that every citizen is entitled to the same opportunities, to a good education and to a decent job.

It pains me to see that the unemployment rate among young people remains high. It is not right that one in four youths should be unemployed, despite Moroccos overall economic growth record. The figures are even more disturbing in urban areas, deplored the King of Morocco.

Despite the efforts made, the major economic projects launched, and the social programs being implemented, the results achieved do not measure up to my ambitions in this regard, he said.

We cannot let our education system continue to produce unemployed people, especially in certain branches of study, where graduates  as everyone knows  find it extremely hard to access the job market, said King Mohammed VI, stressing this is not only waste of public resources and of young peoples energies, but it also hinders development and affects the living conditions of many Moroccans.

In his speech, the King deplored that many young Moroccans, especially those with advanced university degrees, are considering leaving the country, not just because of attractive incentives abroad, but also because they do not find the right environment and conditions at home for employment, career advancement, creativity and scientific research.

Generally, the same reasons discourage a number of Moroccan students abroad from coming back home to work once they finish their studies, explained the Moroccan Sovereign, calling for a serious, responsible approach to deal with the issue and to offer the attractive incentives needed as well as the appropriate inducements to encourage qualified people to settle and work in Morocco.
No Georgians among Victims of Bridge Collapse in Italy

By Gvantsa Gabekhadze

No Georgians have been reported among the dead or injured in the fatal collapse of the bridge in the Italian city of Genoa on Tuesday, claiming 39 lives and leaving more than a dozen injured.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia has addressed the citizens of Georgia living in Italy and published a hotline number.Hundreds of Georgian citizens live and work in Italy.At this stage, the identification of victims of the accident has not been completed, and there is no information that the citizens of Georgia are among the dead and injured, the ministry reported.The citizens of Georgia can get additional information via the hotline: +39 333 8879123, the ministry said.Grief in Italy for the 39 victims of a collapsed motorway bridge in Genoa has been mixed with anger that such a vital structure could have simply given way, BBC reported.Rescuers have little hope of finding more survivors underneath the Morandi bridge, where almost 40 vehicles fell 45m (148ft) in Tuesday's collapse.The cause remains unknown for now. There have been calls for the heads of the company operating the bridge to resign.This was the fifth bridge collapse in Italy in five years, Corriere Della Sera media reported.There have been previous reports and comments questioning how the Morandi bridge was built and how long it could last.
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Mikheil Saakashvili - I must save Georgia

By Vladimer Napetvaridze

Ex-president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili in his interview with Ukrainian news agency Novoe Vremia, stated that he is preparing to return in Georgia and save the country. Mikheil Saakashvili talked about upcoming presidential elections in Georgia and noted that his supporters would not allow anyone to manipulate with election results."As soon as the Georgian Dream loses, and they will lose, they will try to manipulate with the election results, but we will not allow them to do it. That's why I'm preparing to go to Georgia. I must save my country, "said the former president of Georgia.Besides, Mikheil Saakashvili spoke about returning to Ukraine. According to him, as soon as Petro Poroshenko leaves the presidency, he will restore Ukrainian citizenship through court and go back to Ukraine to restore justice.Mikheil Saakashvili made a similar statement several months earlier. In April 2018 he announced that the change of power in Georgia would be through revolution and after this change he would have made immediate reforms in several directions:He stated that because of the catastrophic economic situation the number of citizens with a bank has increased from 110,000 to 250,000. Only in 2017 over 600 000 citizens addressed a pawnshop and according to this statistic, every fifth of them has discussed the pawnshop.As for the second part of the statement, where Saakashvili spoke about a possible way how to deal with the difficult economic situation, the ex-president did not specify any details. He said that after defeating the business mafia would be transferred to small and medium business and this will support the economic growth.Saakashvili also spoke about increasing the state pension and salaries of teachers, and police officers. He also mentioned that the government must change this year and since the next parliamentary elections in Georgia are due in 2020, the only way to change the government is a revolution.As announced in the previous statement, Saakashvili once again repeated that he is preparing to return and save the country, but at this time, he didn't specify any details, except his plan not to allow Georgian dream to falsify the upcoming elections. However, Georgian Dream has not yet nominated its candidate nor has stated its position to which candidate they might support.Saakashvili is wanted by Georgia's new government on multiple criminal charges, which he decries as politically motivated. On 2 October 2012, Saakashvili admitted his party's defeat in Georgia's parliamentary election against the Georgian Dream coalition led by Bidzina Ivanishvili. The constitution of Georgia barred him from seeking a third term in the 2013 presidential election, which Georgian Dream's candidate Giorgi Margvelashvili won. Shortly after the election, Saakashvili left Georgia.
Many animal advocates are aware of the suffering in puppy mills and the neglect sometimes experienced in pet stores, but there is less awareness about the transport involved in getting puppies from mills to retail outlets or directly to consumers. Photo by Diane Lewis

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Sweltering heat. Cramped, filthy crates. Days of confinement. These are the conditions puppies caught up in the puppy-mill-to-retail-sale pipeline often experience.

Last month, a Texas Department of Public Safety officer found 28 French bulldog puppies packed tightly in plastic crates in a moving van in Texarkana, Texas. It was 121 degrees inside the back of the van, where the puppies had no access to food and water. Tragically, one puppy was already dead when help arrived, and four more puppies died in the days that followed their rescue.

The two drivers of the van were charged with 28 counts of cruelty.

The puppies were about 800 miles into a more-than-1,000-mile drive from Chicago to Houston. Theyd arrived in Chicago by air, from a breeder in Ukraine. It isnt clear whether these puppies were destined to be sold online or in a pet store, but in either event this is another tragic example of profiteers in the pet industry putting animal welfare last.

Many animal advocates are aware of the suffering in puppy mills and the neglect sometimes experienced in pet stores, but there is less awareness about the transport involved in getting puppies from mills to retail outlets or directly to consumers. Puppies are often taken from the puppy mills at which theyre born to a midwestern brokerthere are some major brokers in Missouri and Iowawho may transport them in a cargo van with more than 100 other puppies. If the destination is a store in some distant location, the puppies may be in these vehicles for several days. With no opportunity to get out of their crates, their own waste builds up right underneath them.

Puppies are baby animals with immature immune systems, and they suffer greatly in these conditions. Extreme heat is especially dangerous for dogs with short flat snouts who are prone to brachycephalic airway syndrome, a condition that causes inefficient breathing and cooling.

In the case of the French Bulldogs, the Humane Society of the United States reached out to local law enforcement to offer our assistance. Our team stepped in to find a placement partner for the puppies. We helped provide financial support for their medical care while placement was secured, and the 23 puppies who survived the ordeal are thankfully receiving the care and love that they deserve at Chicago French Bulldog Rescue.

Our Stop Puppy Mills campaign is working to end this cycle of cruelty. We have helped California and Maryland ban the sale of commercially raised puppies in pet stores, and we hope to make Pennsylvania the next. Ohio recently passed some of the most comprehensive protections for puppy mills dogs in the country.

But the votes that really count are the ones we cast in the marketplace. People can help put a stop to this cruel industry by adopting their next pets from a shelter or rescue group, or by purchasing them from responsible breeders who they meet in person. Theres no reason for animals to suffer the way these puppies did.
New Tesla Whistleblower Claims Spying, Drug Dealing at Nevada Plant

Tesla is on a good run of bad luck in the public relations department.

In June, whistleblower Martin Tripp alleged that Tesla manufactured batteries with puncture holes and systematically used waste material in vehicles to chase production goals. Tesla responded with a $1 million lawsuit for hacking and stealing trade secrets.

Two weeks ago, Elon Musk almost broke the internet over his tweet to re-privitize the company, which resulted in an SEC investigation.

Last week, in an interview with the New York Times, Musk broke down in tears, saying his work/life balance is "excruciatingly" out of whack, and offered anyone that wanted to take a crack at running the company to give him a call.

Spies, Drugs, and Thievery: a John le Carre Novel? Or Tesla Gigafactory?

Now, Karl Hansen, the latest whistleblower, has accused Tesla of spying on employees' cell phone communication and computer usage through surveillance equipment, and failing to act after learning that a Mexican cartel had been dealing "significant quantities" of cocaine and crystal methamphetamine through its Nevada Gigafactory battery manufacturing plant. Hansen also alleges that Tesla didn't disclose to investors that it had been robbed of $37 million worth of copper and other raw materials earlier this year. Hansen claims that he brought all of these issues to Tesla's attention during his employment on the internal investigation team, but was subsequently retaliated against, and fired on July 16.

Hansen filed a tip with the SEC on August 9. The tip has not been published, but details have been released through Hansen's attorney, Stuart Meissner. Tesla claims it is taking this seriously, but has no further comment. Hansen can't be reached for comment. The SEC is declining to comment. The DEA is declining to comment. And Sheriff Gerald Antinoro of Storey County, where the Gigafactory is located, declined to comment on the drug dealing, but did state that regarding the theft, Tesla had disclosed that there had been a theft, but not what was taken.

Whistleblowers as Heroes

Whistleblowers have served our country well over the last decade, and have had a profound influence on both government and corporate dealings. Notable past whistleblowers include:

Mark Felt (Deep Throat/Watergate)

Linda Tripp (Clinton/Lewinsky affair)

Jeffrey Wigand (Big Tobacco)

Time will tell if Hansen will join the ranks of these great whistleblowers, or found to be merely a disgruntled employee. If you feel that you have been the victim of retaliatory termination due to whistleblowing, contact a local discrimination lawyer, who can review the facts of your case and see if you have a claim.

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Have you ever wanted to talk with the Electronic Frontier Foundation about the risks of talking in public about security issues, especially in connected Internet of Things devices? Today, you'll get your chance.

Information security has never been more important: now that everything from a car to a voting machine is just a computer in a fancy case, being able to tell the difference between secure systems and insecure ones is a literal life-or-death matter.

But security researchers have never faced more threats. When security researchers divulge flaws in computers, the companies that make those computers are often tempted to shoot the messenger, threatening civil and criminal retaliation against their critics.

Over the course of decades, short-sighted IT companies and federal prosecutors have twisted the law, especially a quasi-copyright law designed to prop up Digital Rights Management (DRM), so that factual disclosures about defects in widely used systems can result in researchers being sued, or even threatened with jail time.

This year, we asked the US Copyright Office and the Librarian of Congress to make a rule clarifying the right of security researchers to discover when devices contain dangerous defects. It's part of a wider project to overturn Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act so it can't be abused to suppress legitimate research and speech.

We are hosting a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) from 12-3PM Pacific (3-6PM Eastern); we hope you'll come and discuss the issue with us!
It's about damn time.

Nick Lyon, Michigan's health director, has been ordered to stand trial on involuntary manslaughter charges after the deaths of two men were linked to an outbreak of Legionnaire's disease in Flint. 90 cases of Legionnaire's were reported in Genesee County, resulting in 12 deaths.

Flint still does not have clean drinking water.

State official ordered to trial on Flint charges[WOOD-TV]

Image by Ildar Sagdejev (Specious)  Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
Evan Greer from Fight for the Future writes, "At this moment in history, it's just not okay for tech companies to support government agencies that are openly violating human rights. But while Salesforce's executives have been speaking out against US immigration policies, the company is maintaining a multimillion dollar contract with US Border Patrol. We just launched DropSalesforce.com, an open letter from tons of organizations threatening to boycott Salesforce (and Heroku) if they don't cancel the contract. We're also crowdfunding BART bus ads to run near Salesforce HQ in San Fransisco during their big yearly conference. Lots of big tech companies have contracts with ICE and Border Patrol. Salesforce could be the first domino to fall."
Paul Hansmeier pleaded guilty to of wire fraud and money laundering today for his role in the Prenda Law copyright scam. Prenda uploaded porn movies to download sites, got the IP addresses of users accessing the files, then shook them down for settlements with the threat of exposing them to their families and the public through court action.

Later on, it made its own pornographic films and put these on pirate sites so it could gather more cash. The documents suggest Prenda set up shell companies to gather the "settlement" fees and hide its involvement. The settlement scheme was uncovered by an investigation into Prenda Law, which saw both Hansmeier and Steele charged with fraud in 2016. Steele pleaded guilty in early 2017 to seven charges including mail and wire fraud. He also agreed to help prosecutors investigating the case.

He lost his law license in 2016. Cory:
President Donald Trump's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen surrendered to the FBI today, and admitted to violating campaign finance laws in relation to payments made to porn performer Stormy Daniels on Donald Trump's orders.

Michael Cohen, who once imagined himself as chief of staff or White House counsel, became a felon in the last hour, and implicated the president in the process.  Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) August 21, 2018

In his guilty plea, Michael Cohen said the hush money payments to various women were made "at the direction" of Trump.

Michael Cohen in a courtroom in SDNY, under oath, declared that the President directed him to commit a federal crime.  Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) August 21, 2018

Cohen's plea deal includes a possible prison sentence of up to 5 years and 3 months.

Cohen will be walking out today on $500,000 bond.

Sentencing set for December 12. It's over.  Stephen Brown (@PPVSRB) August 21, 2018

And no mention of a cooperation agreement so far.  Stephen Brown (@PPVSRB) August 21, 2018

Cohen admits to working "at direction of the candidate" Trump and national enquirer to silence Karen McDougal. He also admits to Stormy Daniels payment that he made "with and at direction of the same candidate."  Stephen Brown (@PPVSRB) August 21, 2018

"For the first time, a Trump aide has been found guilty of an offense directly related to the campaign," points out TheFix's Aaron Blake.

Michael Cohen agreed to a deal after prosecutors claimed he risked more than a dozen years in prison, one person told the Washington Post.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami on Cohen charges: "These are very serious charges, and reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over an extended period of time." "Mr. Cohendecided that he was above the law, and for that he is going to pay a very, very serious price." pic.twitter.com/6ZNyAb4Wdi  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 21, 2018

A legal & political bombshell. The Michael Cohen plea agreement names a "candidate for federal office" who directed him to violate campaign finance law. There is no other reading: President Trump is an unindicted criminal co-conspirator.  Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) August 21, 2018

COHEN DETAILS. NEW. Prosecutors say he failed to report over $4 million in income on taxes. (Over five years.) And that he pleaded guilty to lying about bank loan applications, hiding $14 million in debt. Also, pleaded guilty to two cmpgn finance violations re: 2016 elex.  Lisa Desjardins (@LisaDNews) August 21, 2018

COHEN, prosecutors say:  He submitted false invoices to Trump Org. for "personal services" when it was really for the hush money he paid to women.

 He performed no legal services (for Trump) in 2017, though was paid as if he did.  Lisa Desjardins (@LisaDNews) August 21, 2018

*COHEN SAYS HE VIOLATED CAMPAIGN LAW AT DIRECTION OF CANDIDATE

*COHEN DOESN'T NAME CANDIDATE WHO DIRECTED CAMPAIGN VIOLATION hint: it's @realDonaldTrump  Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) August 21, 2018

Cohen shaking his head as he signs some papers. Taking deep breaths and winking at a few reporters.  Stephen Brown (@PPVSRB) August 21, 2018

Plea agreement is regarding 8 counts.  Stephen Brown (@PPVSRB) August 21, 2018

Cohen says he had a glass of Glenlivet 12 on the rocks last night. He's sober now tho and says he knows what's he's doing.  Stephen Brown (@PPVSRB) August 21, 2018

Per CNN's @LauraAJarrett  the IRS and the tax division at the Justice Department both had to sign off on Michael Cohen's plea deal. The public integrity division at the Justice Department was consulted on the plea deal as well.  Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) August 21, 2018

That is a lot of counts for a plea agreement. Usually federal prosecutors don't require a defendant to plead to more counts than is necessary to cover the sentence they intend to recommend. https://t.co/gYcV0JyaFn  Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 21, 2018

Cohen is in the courtroom. Looks surprisingly calm and confident.  Benjamin Adams (@BenAdamsO_O) August 21, 2018

UPDATE: Cohen in court was asked "how are you?" to which he responded with a loud sigh as he reviewed and signed paperwork https://t.co/U8zlPnGMR3  The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) August 21, 2018

Wow. Michael Cohen just stated, under oath, that he committed a crime at the direction of Donald Trump. https://t.co/Cb9R8ijJdX  Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 21, 2018

On Stormy Daniels, Michael pleaded guilty to making an excessive campaign contribution of $130k in coordination with and at the direction of a federal candidate in October 2016; "Money that was later paid back by the same candidate."  Ali Velshi (@AliVelshi) August 21, 2018

Prosecutor: Michael Cohen submitted fake invoices for non-existent legal services to the Trump Organization for reimbursement of hush money payments  Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) August 21, 2018
Anti-vaccine shenanigans have lowered Europe's average vaccination rate below the threshold to adequately provide for herd immunity. Following the decade's lowest year of measles cases in 2016, the rate of measles cases in Europe in 2018 is already headed for the stars.

Reports Al-Jazeera:

A record number of measles cases has been recorded in Europe, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

More than 41,000 people have been infected and at least 37 have died as a result of the contagious disease in 2018 so far.

It is the highest number of infections this decade, beating last year's number of 23,927.

"Following the decade's lowest number of cases in 2016, we are seeing a dramatic increase in infections and extended outbreaks," Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO Regional Director for Europe, said in a statement.

"Good health for all starts with immunisation, and as long as this disease is not eliminated we are failing to live up to our Sustainable Development Goal commitments," Jakab added.
The Santa Clara County Fire Department had its Verizon wireless access throttled to 0.5% of normal, in the midst of its fight against the California wildfires; Verizon said that the firefighters had been using too much bandwidth while they risked their lives racing to save the county from being engulfed in flames.



Verizon demanded significant cash payment to restore the firefighters' service and would not do so until the paperwork had been signed. The action by Verizon has been appended to the states' lawsuit against the FCC over its dismantling of Net Neutrality rules. The fire department says that the delay created by Verizon's demand put lives at risk. Verizon has apologized, saying it mishandled the incident.



"In the midst of our response to the Mendocino Complex Fire, County Fire discovered the data connection for OES 5262 was being throttled by Verizon, and data rates had been reduced to 1/200, or less, than the previous speeds," Bowden wrote. "These reduced speeds severely interfered with the OES 5262's ability to function effectively. My Information Technology staff communicated directly with Verizon via email about the throttling, requesting it be immediately lifted for public safety purposes." Verizon did not immediately restore full speeds to the device, however. "Verizon representatives confirmed the throttling, but rather than restoring us to an essential data transfer speed, they indicated that County Fire would have to switch to a new data plan at more than twice the cost, and they would only remove throttling after we contacted the Department that handles billing and switched to the new data plan," Bowden wrote.

Verizon throttled fire department's "unlimited" data during Calif. wildfire [Jon Brodkin/Ars Technica]
Actually, it's about ethics in purchasing videogames with campaign funds.

In other totally huge criminal political news today, "Republican congressman Duncan Hunter and his wife have been indicted by DOJ for allegedly using $250,000 in campaign money for their own personal expenses, including trips to Italy and Hawaii, and dental work," reports Mike Levine of ABC News.

California congressman Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) and wife Margaret spent over $1,500 of that campaign money on Steam games.

They initially blamed their son.

Nice parents.

The weird gaming connection in the case was reported back in 2016, but  now the guy is probably going to prison. For games, in part. Pretty wild.

Rep. Duncan Hunter spent over $1,500 of campaign funds on @steam_games according to a copy of the indictment. pic.twitter.com/DJsthprm8w  Jeff Landa (@JeffLanda) August 21, 2018

The first Congressman to go to jail for gaming pic.twitter.com/Sak83ytwf2  lib crusher (@lib_crusher) August 21, 2018

what the hell kind of luxury gaming keyboard was this pic.twitter.com/QGvnJIg8gG  lib crusher (@lib_crusher) August 21, 2018

From today's report in the San Diego Union-Tribune (Alpine isn't far from San Diego):

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, and his wife, Margaret, were indicted Tuesday on charges including wire fraud and campaign finance crimes, according to a federal indictment. The document, filed Tuesday in federal court, accuses the couple of converting more than $250,000 in campaign funds to pay for personal expenses and filing false campaign finance records with the Federal Election Commission. The indictment accuses the couple of crimes including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, falsification of records and aiding and abetting prohibited use of campaign contributions. The crimes date back to 2009, according to the indictment. Hunter has been under scrutiny since April 2016, when the FEC and then The San Diego Union-Tribune began questioning expenses of campaign funds including video games, private school tuition, oral surgery and a garage door for the couple's Alpine home. Spending of campaign funds for personal use is banned by law, to protect against undue influence by donors who might benefit from congressional actions.

And from the archival 2016 San Diego Union-Tribune report:

The Federal Election Commission is questioning Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, for his use of campaign funds to pay for video games on 68 separate occasions  something the congressman is attributing to a mistake by his son, followed by several unauthorized charges. Hunter listed the $1,302 of Steam Games expenses on his campaign finance disclosure for 2015 year-end, with the notation "personal expense  to be paid back." The expenses run from Oct. 13 through Dec. 16, and no payback is listed during the time period of the report. Hunter's spokesman, Joe Kasper, said the congressman's teenage son used his father's credit card for one game, and then several unauthorized charges resulted after the father tried to close access to the website. Kasper said that Hunter is trying to have the unauthorized charges reversed before repaying his campaign account. "There won't be any paying anything back there, pending the outcome of the fraud investigation, depending on how long that takes," Kasper said.

note that in first @sdut story on Hunter's misappropriation of campaign funds (https://t.co/uzLnfOVv7L), his spokesman said Hunter was trying to get the money back by  filing chargebacks against Valve for the Steam purchases https://t.co/51CzWNmhfe  Samit Sarkar (@SamitSarkar) August 21, 2018

chef kissing fingers dot gif pic.twitter.com/fWJLn2DRad  Xeni Jardin ??? (@xeni) August 21, 2018

surprise but the guy who used Wounded Warriors as a front to buy golf gear for himself had some really loud thoughts on Colin Kaepernick pic.twitter.com/EUpVCgWuyh  Tim Murphy Premium for subscribers only (@timothypmurphy) August 21, 2018
As the Cohen and Manafort news blows up, we've got Jackhammer Jill watching the Orange Menace's twitter feed like a hawk. When the blowhard begins to melt down, we'll post tweets and analysis here.

Earlier this afternoon, Michael Cohen, in a courtroom in New York, under oath, declared that President Donald Trump "directed" him to commit a federal crime. Within an hour, Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort was found guilty on 8 felony charges.

When Donald Trump landed in West Virginia, he told press as he exited AF1 that he felt sorry for Paul Manafort, and believed the (partly) guilty verdict Manafort received was "sad."

It's sad things have to "end this way," said Trump, referring to Manafort's life and career. One imagines Manafort wouldn't appreciate hearing this as much as he'd appreciate a presidential pardon.

Trump waxed on about Manafort:

"He worked for Bob Dole, he worked for many people, it had nothing to do with Russian collusion, they continue the witch hunt."

He said nothing about Michael Cohen.

But we're pretty sure a storm is a'coming!
In the trial of U.S. vs. Paul Manafort, a jury has found Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort guilty on 8 counts. He faces a maximum of 80 years in prison. Judge T.S. Ellis declared a mistrial on 10 counts for which the jury couldn't reach consensus.

The jury previously told the judge they are able to come to unanimous consensus on 8 counts, but that they cannot reach consensus on 10 counts.

The 8 felony counts for which Manafort has been found guilty:

 5 counts of tax fraud

 1 of hiding foreign bank accounts

 2 counts of bank fraud.

These 8 guilty counts carry a combined maximum sentence of 80 years in prison. Manafort is 69 years old. He is now looking at the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison.

Judge T.S. Ellis read out the verdict on Tuesday afternoon.

Earlier the jury asked Ellis what would happen if they can't reach a verdict on a count, and Ellis said to keep working on it.

"It is your duty to agree upon a verdict if you can do so," Ellis said.

This throws a new layer of complexity into the case of Donald Trump's former campaign manager, whose past work for Ukrainian Putin-linked strongman Viktor Yanukovych.

Paul Manafort's lawyer, Kevin Downing, says Manafort is 'disappointed' and is evaluating his options.

This is only part of the scene outside the courthouse in Alexandria after the Manafort verdict. pic.twitter.com/V1FWqfgNsC  Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) August 21, 2018
Argentinian police officer Celeste Jaqueline Ayala was on duty at a Buenos Aires hospital when she heard the incessant cries of a baby there.

She went to investigate and learned that the infant was malnourished. Officer Ayala is the mother of an infant herself, so she sat down and breastfed the hungry baby. Now she is now a hero in the eye of the police department and the public.

From WGNTV:

Days after the photo went viral, Cristian Ritondo, Vice President of the legislature of Buenos Aires, met with Ayala and promoted her from officer to sergeant. Ritondo took to Twitter to publicly thank Ayala, writing: "We wanted to thank you in person for that gesture of spontaneous love that managed to calm the baby's cry."

Hoy recibimos a Celeste, la oficial que amamanto a un bebe en el Hospital de Ninos de #LaPlata para notificarle su ascenso. Queriamos agradecerle en persona ese gesto de amor espontaneo que logro calmar el llanto del bebe. La policia que nos enorgullece, la policia que queremos. pic.twitter.com/8aBp0Xj4Zj  Cristian Ritondo (@cristianritondo) August 17, 2018

Image: FamVeld/Shutterstock
Holy crap! There's a toilet plunger that looks like a poop emoji on a stick.

This smiling anthropomorphic plunger is the work of Squatty Potty, the folks who really know how to market toilet stools.

Need it? (Don't kid yourself, you do.) It's available for ~$15.

Previously: Poop-themed toys rule New York Toy Fair

Thanks, Howie!
Muslims in South Africa and the world are set to celebrate the Eid Al Adha festival on Tuesday, 21 August.

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For non-Muslims, a recurrent question is what's Eid Al Adha's meaning, how do Muslims celebrate it, and whether or not it's a holiday.

What is Eid Al Adha?

According to Saman Javed, an Islamic scholar writing on independent.co.uk, Eid Al Adha is the holiest festival in the Islamic calendar.

It is known as the "Feast of Sacrifice" and commemorates the story of prophet Ibrahim as narrated in the Holy Qur'an.

Ibrahim was prepared to sacrifice his son at God's request to prove his faith. However, God gave him a lamb to sacrifice instead.

READ ALSO: Pupil believed to be part of alleged gang saved from mob justice

When is Eid Al Adha?

The festival has no fixed date because Islam is based on the lunar calendar. It falls on 10th day of the 12th month of the Islamic year, depending on the approximate sighting of the moon.

It also coincides with the annual Hajj pilgrimage, Briefly.co.za learned. Eid Al Adha in 2018 in South Africa will be held from August 22 to August 25, together with the rest of the Muslim world.

How do Muslims celebrate Eid Al Adha?

On the morning of Eid, Muslims hold Eid prayers at designated mosques. Families then often gather to make animal sacrifices and prepare food from the animals.

In many cases, Muslims also make charitable donations to the less privileged in society.

Eid Al Adha holiday

In South Africa, the festival is usually not a public holiday. However, in countries where Islam is the main religion, Eid Al Adha is normally declared a public holiday lasting several days.

How to greet a Muslim on Eid Al Adha

The most common greeting is simply "Eid Mubarak." It translates to "Blessed Eid."

READ ALSO: House of Mandela's first wife has fallen into ruin since her passing

Watch a funny animated joke in the video below from our Briefly - South Africa YouTube channel.

Do you have a story to share with us? Inbox us on our Facebook page and we could feature your story.

To stay up to date with the latest news, download our news app on Google Play or iTunes today.

Source: Briefly.co.za
More than two million Muslims from all over the world began the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, over the weekend.

PAY ATTENTION: Click "See first" under the "Following" tab to see Briefly News on your newsfeed!

Briefly.co.za looks at the importance of Hajj, when it is usually held, and what Muslims do during the pilgrimage.

READ ALSO: This is the DA video SABC "refused" to show South Africans

What is Hajj?

The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. It is an annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

Islam requires all Muslims to make the pilgrimage at least once in their lives if they are financially and physically able.

Why is it important?

According to the Qur'an, the Hajj originates from the story of prophet Ibrahim (Abraham). God asked him to leave his wife and baby son in the desert in what is now Mecca.

God miraculously created a fresh spring when Ibrahim wife had almost given up. When Ibrahim returned, he constructed the Kaaba, to which Muslims turn to when they pray.

Later, prophet Muhammad liberated the Kaaba from pagan idols. The Hajj therefore commemorates these events.

When is Hajj 2018?

The Hajj is held over a period of five days. This year, it began on Sunday, 19 August and will end on Friday, 24 August.

It takes place between the eighth and 13th day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the 12 month of the Islamic calendar. Eid Al Adha is held on the 10th day of this month.

Preparation for Hajj

Muslims begin preparing for Hajj soon after the Eid Al Fitr festival, or the end of the month of Ramadan.

Muslims leave behind their material possessions once they get to Mecca and dress in light robes to signify equality.

Rituals of Hajj

Hajj involves prayers in Mecca, where Muslims circle the Kaaba. After the prayers, they head to Mount Arafat, where Prophet Muhammad delivered his final sermon.

Pilgrims then symbolically stone the devil using small pebbles at Muzdalifa. They also make animal sacrifices during Eid Al Adha.

Once the Hajj is complete, they shave their hair to signify renewal. Women however cut only a lock of their hair.

Greetings for Hajj

Muslims often greet each other during the Hajj with the simple phrase, "Hajj Mubarak". This means "Blessed Hajj".

READ ALSO: Kind police officers hand out donations at Free State township

Watch a hilarious animated video below from our Briefly - South Africa YouTube channel.

Do you have a story to share with us? Inbox us on our Facebook page and we could feature your story.

To stay up to date with the latest news, download our news app on Google Play or iTunes today.

Source: Briefly.co.za
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About Censored News Censored News is published by Brenda Norrell. Since 2006, Censored News has received more than 20 million pageviews. As a collective of writers, photographers and broadcasters, we publish news of Indigenous Peoples and human rights. Contact publisher Brenda Norrell: brendanorrell@gmail.com

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Entertainment / Music

by Staff reporter

THE Voice UK star Donel Mangena wants to be an inspiration to a generation through his music career and has set his sights on surpassing global super stars such as Chris Brown and Usher.In doing that, Donel says he wants Zimbabweans to be proud of their country wherever they are in the world.Speaking from his grandmother, Nita Mangena's home in Bulawayo's Old Luveve suburb, Donel -who is in the country to visit family  said coming second in the highly rated The Voice UK only gave him the drive to be a better musician and performer.He said he sees himself being better than global superstars such as Usher and Chris Brown and wants to be like the late pop star Michael Jackson."I want them to say it not only on a small scale but on a global scale, like a Michael Jackson scale. In my head I want to be better than Chris Brown and Usher. I know I can get there through prayer and support and everything. I have a drive that I want to prove something. Even if I came second on The Voice UK, I want to prove that you will always come up top in the end. I want to be an inspiration and an icon that people can look up to. I want to be the best that anyone has ever seen. I want someone who's at school and they are asked who they want to be and they say Donel," he said.Donel said his other desire was for the people of Zimbabwe to be proud of where they come from regardless of where they are in the world."Not many Zimbabweans in the UK are proud to be Zimbabwean, but when I came up on The Voice, that's when they came out and said they are from Zimbabwe. So I said to myself, if I carry on doing this and on a bigger scale, more people will be proud to be Zimbabwean and more people will be proud and inspired. I want to make Zimbabwe a place that people aspire to come to. There's amazing music and wonderful food," said Donel.After blazing the stage on The Voice UK and impressing the world, Donel was asked to perform for Queen Elizabeth II during her 93rd birthday celebrations.For Donel, this shows how far God has taken him."Seeing how far God has taken me in life has made me appreciate what I have because sometimes you can take things for granted. After I finished performing for the Queen, that was when I said wow, I just did that. It doesn't kick in until afterwards when you start reliving it. And you start thinking, wow this actually happened," he said.At the age of 16, Donel has had his fair bit of fame in a short space of time but his family keeps him grounded."My family and God help me handle fame. I'm a strong believer in Christ and I feel that it is what's keeping me on my feet. Also the friends that I have as well. I don't have useless friends, I have ones who actually care about me and wish me well," said Donel.He said he met Nasty C in the UK and South Africa last week and admired how women were screaming the SA rapper's name.Although Donel is grounded, the young man said he would like to enjoy the perks of being famous and wants a slice of that once in a while. When Donel landed at the Joshua Mqabuko International Airport last week, fans who recognised him took time to take selfies with him and get autographs."I'm walking in town and people notice me with a hat on. I'm thinking, I'm in a different country and people notice me and in less than a year. I want to be the person all over the world that young kids look up to. I met Nasty C when I was coming here. I saw girls screaming for him and I was like, I want girls from all over the world to scream for me too," said Donel.Being back home for Donel is a time for him to reconnect with his grandmother who was all smiles during Chronicle Showbiz's visit.It's been 10 years since he was at the Old Luveve home and Donel said it was good to be home and seeing his grandmother."In the UK everyone thinks it's amazing for my grandmother and I to have such a connection, but when you come to Zimbabwe, it's a relationship that every grandchild has. It's be good to come back and it's nice to see that people appreciate her as well," said Donel.During his visit, Donel was spotted at Red Cafe with his father Nkosana Mangena.He also appeared on Sky Metro FM's Vuka Vuka breakfast show yesterday.
Via @lmower3

A recent pamphlet sponsored by Jeff Greene's PAC is being blasted for being misleading, prompting the Palm Beach County Democratic Party to issue a notice that it has not endorsed anyone in next week's primary.

The pamphlets were placed on the cars of people parked at black churches in Palm Beach County, state Sen. Bobby Powell posted on Facebook on Sunday.

On one side, the pamphlet appeared as if it was a neutral "voter guide," with one side listing various early voting sites in Palm Beach County.

"This voter guide is provided for educational purposes and is not to be construed as an endorsement of any candidate or political party," the fine print states on the bottom.

Below that, it reads, "Sponsored by Florida Defense Fund." That's a PAC being run by Greene's campaign.

But on the other side of the pamphlet, it showed 10 members of the supposed "Palm Beach County Democratic Ticket," which included Greene, Attorney General candidate Sean Shaw, state Sen. Bobby Powell and Congressman Alcee Hastings.

With the exception of Greene, all of the candidates listed on the "ticket" are black.

Powell, who has endorsed one of Greene's opponents, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, called the pamphlets "disrespectful" on Facebook.

"This is not official at all and it is disrespectful," Powell wrote on Sunday. "This is going on cars at Black Churches. As a Democrat I can assure you that the party has not endorsed in the primary."

A few of the candidates on the pamphlet aren't even on next week's primary ballot, including state Rep. Al Jacquet and school board candidate Marcia Andrews.

About an hour and a half after Powell's Facebook post, the Palm Beach County Democratic Party said it had not issued any "slate cards" for the primary.

"Palm Beach County Democratic Party did not endorse or print slate cards for the August 28th Primary," the party posted on Facebook.

It was shared by Florida Democratic Party chair Terrie Rizzo. The post does not mention Greene's campaign or the pamphlet directly.

Greene's campaign said the pamphlets were not an endorsement, and were "developed and distributed by local community organizers."

"These cards were developed by Jeff Greene organizers in local communities and contain no express advocacy, nor suggestion or statement of endorsement," campaign spokeswoman Claire VanSusteren said.
News / National

by Staff reporter

PAPERS for the four South Africa-based lawyers intending to represent MDC Alliance leader Mr Nelson Chamisa are not in order and the legal practitioners will not make it for tomorrow's presidential election petition hearing at the Constitutional Court if they do not sort out their documentation.Government, in line with the Legal Practitioners Act, yesterday requested detailed documentation from the lawyers to support an application for an exemption certificate they made last Friday.The detailed documentation will be vital for Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi to begin processes needed to be fulfilled before an exemption certificate is issued.With only a day left before the Constitutional Court sits, the four advocates are likely not to be part of the proceedings.Advocates Daluxolo Mpofu, Jeremy Gauntlett, Tapiwa Shumba and Ngcukaitobi Thembeka Nicholas were set to lead Mr Chamisa's legal team contesting President Mnangagwa's victory in the July 30 harmonised elections.It is not permissible at law for them to argue for MDC Alliance without the requisite authority from Government.Minister Ziyambi yesterday said Government also needed clarity on who was acting on behalf of Advocate Ngcukaitobi after Artherstone and Cook legal practitioners and Mafume Law Chambers both wrote to him requesting for an exemption certificate.The clarification is needed before the Minister takes the first step towards the issuance of an exemption certificate.The first step involves consulting the Council for Legal Education, a statutory body that regulates legal education and training in Zimbabwe.Minister Ziyambi yesterday responded to the application made by the four lawyers last Friday saying he could not use a mere averment by the lawyers' legal practitioners to issue an exemption certificate."I acknowledge receipt of your letters dated 17 August 2018 received on the same date around 1400 hours wherein you are applying for the Ministerial Certificates for the above named Advocates to represent Honourable Nelson Chamisa, the applicant in the Case of Nelson Chamisa and Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa plus 24 others, Case No. CCZ 42/2018," he wrote to Artherstone and Cook Legal practitioners ."Section 7 (1) of the Legal Practitioners Act (Chapter 27:07) stipulates that the Minister, after consultation with the Council for Legal Education is satisfied that, having regard to the importance, complexity or special circumstances of the matter, it is just and reasonable for a person to obtain the services of a legal practitioner who has special or particular experience relating to such matter and that such legal practitioner is not normally resident in Zimbabwe but is from a reciprocating country, he may grant a certificate exempting the legal practitioner concerned from satisfying the requirement of subparagraph (iii) of paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of Section Five of being normally resident in Zimbabwe or a reciprocating country."Minister Ziyambi added: "In order to enable me to consult Council for Legal Education urgently furnish me with supporting documents showing that the legal practitioners concerned have special or particular experience relating to the matter and that they are not normally resident in Zimbabwe, as said in terms of the said provision."Responding to Mafume Law Chambers who were also requesting an exemption certificate for Advocate Ngcukaitobi, Minister Ziyambi said: "I have received an application from Artherstone and Cook Legal Practitioners for a Ministerial Certificate on behalf of Advocate Thembeka Ngcukaitobi Nicholas. May I be advised as to which law firm is acting on his behalf in respect of the application before I consult Council for Legal Education?"In an interview, Minister Ziyambi said: "The law requires that they attach supporting evidence with things like educational qualifications, experience, where one is registered among other things."It is this documentation that we use to write to Council for Legal Education seeking for advice. This is what the law says. If the response is positive, the Ministry then writes to the Law Society and if it gives a greenlight, the High Court will register them to appear."President Mnangagwa won the elections with 50,8 percent of the total vote cast while Mr Chamisa managed 44,3 percent.Mr Chamisa wants the Constitutional Court to set aside President Mnangagwa victory, claiming that the official presidential results announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) were not credible.He cited alleged electoral fraud and malpractices during the elections in which Zanu-PF romped to victory, claiming two-thirds parliamentary majority, with President Mnangagwa taking a 6,5 percent lead.President Mnangagwa, along with 21 losing presidential candidates and Zec, were all cited as respondents in the high-profile petition.In his response, President Mnangagwa argued that there was no valid election petition before the courts challenging his victory.He wants the apex court to dismiss the petition and confirm him the winner of the presidential poll held on July 30, arguing the petition was plagued with flagrant procedural irregularities.President Mnangagwa contends that Mr Chamisa's petition is premised on alleged mathematical anomalies which have no factual basis. Zec on the other hand has also filed its response arguing that Mr Chamisa's petition as "fatally and incurably defective" to nullify the results.Mr Chamisa, Zec argued, not only failed to comply with the court rules, but filed an uncompleted record to render his petition invalid.
News / National

by Staff reporter

One of the lawyers representing MDC Alliance senior official Tendai Biti was allegedly tortured by police as he tried to pursue State agents who had seized the former Finance minister.Unite Saizi of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights had his car tyres deflated, cell phone confiscated and assaulted by State security agents who did not want him to keep track of the police convoy that was transporting Biti.This was revealed by Biti's lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa who appeared together with Alec Muchadehama and Gift Mtisi during continuation of a court challenge, in which Biti is arguing that the court has no authority to prosecute him.Harare magistrate Francis Mapfumo will hand down the ruling on August 30."Is it not true that a team of police officers that you travelled with intercepted Biti's lawyer, punctured his tyres, disposed his cell phone and assaulted him to stop him from following the convoy you were travelling on?," Mtetwa posed questions to investigating officer Jealous Nyabasa."so it would be correct to say that police were involved in the raids at his residence and that of his mother, brother and friend such that the accused person perceived his life to be in danger and sought to apply for asylum in Zambia".Mtetwa added that Biti feared that he could be abducted and disappear, citing previous cases relating to Jestina Mukoko and missing activist Itai Dzamara.Nyabasa disputed this, arguing that he was not aware of such violations.He told the court that police's conduct during the operation was lawful.Mtetwa has already proved that Nyabasa had no deportation documentation authorising the extradition of Biti from Zambia more than a fortnight ago and had ignored the court order which showed that Lusaka High Court was due to hear the former Finance minister's petition on August 8.According to Mtetwa, a preamble to the warned and cautioned statement compiled by Nyabasa was dated August 8 to purport as though it had been issued before the Zambian order since Biti only signed it on August 9.Nyabasa told the court that the date was a mistake and that he had not breached any deportation laws because he arrested Biti on Zimbabwean soil.He claimed that Zimbabwean Immigration officials were the ones who handed Biti over to him and said he was not bound by any Zambian law or court order issued beyond Zimbabwe's jurisdiction.He then said he had a handover document which Mtetwa disputed saying it was endorsed as a handover document of "items" not people.Biti is arguing that Zimbabwean courts do not have authority to prosecute him arguing that he was "abducted" from the Zambian government where he sought asylum under unconstitutional means.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Opposition leader Nelson Chamisa yesterday hailed southern African leaders for not congratulating President-elect Emmerson Mnangagwa at a summit in Namibia held last week.Heads of State from the 16-nation Sadc met for its 38th summit in Windhoek and in a communique, ignored Mnangagwa's victory despite congratulating Angolan President Joao Lourenco and his Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party's recent electoral victory."To our colleagues in Sadc, I want to really appreciate the position that they took. They did not congratulate Zanu PF, they did not congratulate Mnangagwa because they know he has not won," Chamisa told a news conference at the party's HQ in central Harare yesterday."I am really happy with that position. Some may want to say Mnangagwa was given the position of deputy chairperson of Sadc Organ Troika.That position is given to a country; it is not Mnangagwa's position."I will take up that position as head of State once the process is confirmed."We don't want people who celebrate nothing and want to make it something."He has not been not been appointed, there is no confidence in him even from Sadc."That's why he came back empty-handed. (Angola) President Joao Lourenco and MPLA were congratulated not Mnangagwa because they know that he has not won this election. The people have voted and they cheated."Sadc, however, urged Zimbabweans to remain calm while the legal process regarding the outcome of the elections that are being considered by the courts continues."To Sadc, please help us to heal the division in the country to cure the illegitimacy, crisis that we have," Chamisa said."Sadc must come in and we start to negotiate a respectable exit of Mnangagwa and respectable exit of those who were voted out."
News / National

by Staff reporter

This is not about Chamisa & Mnangagwa. It's about Zimbabwe & our future. The future of this country is being shaped.

We must make it a point to pray for the judges presiding over the Presidential results court challenge. Justice must be delivered & Zimbabwe shall be saved.  Patson Dzamara (@PatsonDzamara) August 20, 2018

When will dictatorship end in Zimbabwe? When will zim have a responsible gvt that respects human life? When will the judiciary be impartial? When will judges stop rubber stamping coups??? When will Zim rise from the doldrums of oppression??? #When?  Zvichanaka Mkhza (@drmakhuza) August 20, 2018

I hear the Zimbabwean government Mafia is already harassing judges and Zimbabwe Electoral Commission officers to influence them or prevent them from testifying ahead of Wednesday's election petition. @edmnangagwa @PatsonDzamara @SADC_News @hrw @DavidColtart  Thembie (@Thembie24313506) August 19, 2018

The decision that will made by our judges will be a test of our judicial system. The capture of the state by the military has to come to an end. Justice may be detlayed but never denied. #Handeitione #Zimbabwe #ElectionPetitionZW pic.twitter.com/Yldyy367vW  Kumagumo Kunenyaya (@Tatendagakanje1) August 20, 2018

Mass prayer in Domboshawa. Praying for a new Zimbabwe ahead of Wednesday's ConCourt hearing! pic.twitter.com/SLcP2aNNIi  Prof Jonathan Moyo (@ProfJNMoyo) August 20, 2018

Anxiety has reportedly gripped Zimbabweans as the southern African country awaits the verdict of the Constitutional Court following the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa's petition over President Emmerson Mnangagwa's election victory.Zimbabwe's Constitutional Court is set to hear the opposition's challenge on August 22.The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader narrowly lost to Mnangagwa but his party alleges "gross mathematical errors".The MDC seeks a fresh election or a declaration of Chamisa as the winner of the July 30 vote, according to AP.A Daily News report says that Zimbabweans are now eager to know who their next leader would be.The report quotes law expert Alex Magaisa as saying that the law governing challenges to an election are provided for under section 93 of the country's constitution.Magaisa says the Constitutional Court's decisions is final and there would be no other court challenge after it makes its decision on Wednesday."This provision states that an aggrieved party may, within seven days after declaration of the election result, challenge the validity of a presidential election at the Con-Court. This is the highest court in the country, its decision is final, which means it cannot be appealed to any other court," Magaisa was quoted as saying.Meanwhile, some Zimbabweans have taken to social media to express their views on the country's historic court challenge.
News / National

by Simbarashe Sithole

Distrust has landed a Chiweshe man in trouble after he was convicted of assaulting another man who parked his car close to his homestead at night.Pasco Madzivanzira (44) of Muroiwa village under Chief Negomo was slapped with $30 fine by Concession resident magistrate Ruth Moyo yesterday for assaulting Francis Nakayi (45).According to state papers Madzivanzira saw Nakayi's vehicle parked close to his house last week Tuesday and he accused him of having an affair with his wife.Madzivanzira assaulted the complainant using plain hands and he sustained a swollen face but was not medically examined.Madzivanzira did not have the fine with him and was told to pay by 31 August 2018.Ms Media Gunda represented the state
News / National

by Simbarashe Sithole

A Concession woman was slapped with community service after using vulgar language to insult her neighbour over a $3 debt.Veronica Simeon (34) will perform 105 hours of community service at Concession court after she was found guilty of criminal insult by Concession resident magistrate Ruth Moyo.According to public prosecutor, Media Gunda, on the 8th day of August Simeon sent her daughter to Chipo Kamutoro to demand her $3 debt, which Kamutoro did not have at that time.Simeon dthen stormed Kamutoro's homestead shouting obscenities.Her actions attracted a huge crowd and Kamutoro filed a police report leading to Simeon's arrest.
News / National

by Thobekile Zhou

President Robert Mugabe has been pictured wrapped in Swaziland traditional attire chatting with King Mswati III of Swaziland.He is currently in Swaziland attending the 36th Sadc Heads of State and Government Summit which opens at Lozitha Royal Palace today.However, last year in October, Mugabe 'refused" to wear India's traditional gear.As part of the pomp and circumstance at the India-Africa Forum Summit in Delhi, African leaders were invited to kit out in colorful traditional Indian attire for a group photo.All the visiting African leaders complied, except one Mugabe who wore his light blue western suit.
Opinion / Columnist

Bid to get ex-wife's husband caged hit the brick wall for a Mvurwi man at Guruve magistrate court yesterday.Raymond Moesi of Tara store farm in Mvurwi could not stomach seeing his ex-wife in the company of another man White White.According to court papers on the 10th of January 2018 the complainant met White with his wife who was not mentioned in the papers but is an ex-wife to Moesi walking in a bushy area of Tara store farm, Mvurwi.Moesi allegedly accused White of snatching his beloved wife after bearing three children together, The accused allegedly flew into a rage and assaulted the complainant with open hands.Guruve resident magistrate Shingirai Mutiro acquitted White after Moesi failed to provide evidence of the assault.Public prosecutor Miss Spiwe Makarichi represented the state.
Opinion / Columnist

There are those who wanted to believe that the removal of Mugabe from office last November transformed Zanu PF from a party of thugs into a party of democrats. It was none other than President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his fellow coup leaders who led from the front in the drive to rebrand Zanu PF as a democratic party. Many doubted the sincerity of the transformation, since Mnangagwa and the same thugs who had done Mugabe's dirty bidding all the tyrant's 37 years is power. Eight months since the coup the doubters have already been proven right!The real big test of whether President Mnangagwa and his junta's 'new democratic dispensation' was for real was to see if they would deliver free, fair and credible elections. They failed to do so. Even from the early weeks after the coup, it was clear the junta was nothing but a wolf wearing a sheep coat. President Mnangagwa has all along pointedly refused to implement the democratic reforms everyone had agreed at the onset of the 2008 GNU were necessary for free and fair elections. (None of the reforms were implemented during the GNU to this day.)With not even one reform in place the Zanu PF junta blatantly rigged these elections. How can these elections be judged free, fair and credible when there was no free media, 2 to 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the vote, ZEC failed to produce a clean and verified voters' roll, etc., etc.When it became clear that Zanu PF had blatantly rigged the elections some people went on streets to protest the results. The junta, no doubt, fearful of the street protests spreading, descended on the protestors like a tonne of bricks. The Army was send to quail the protest with instruction to shoot to kill.Right up to the day of the street protests the elections had passed off as very peaceful compared to the wanton violence of past elections, notably the 2008 elections when Mnangagwa and his junta friends had spearheaded the violence to stop MDC assuming power. "Zanu PF has declared war on the people!" said Morgan Tsvangirai as he announce his withdrawal from the elections.The street protest had forced President Mnangagwa to cast off his sheep coat disguise and he unleashed his thugs. They not only quashed the street protests but for the next few days the party thugs terrorised the nation punishing opposition supporters. In typical Zanu PF style, President Mnangagwa is now denying the violence ever happened."Let me assure you, the best thing to do is get the list of 150 cases and pass it onto us. This is fake news and it's flying left, right and centre. We were told (of these cases) by Philippe van Damme, the EU ambassador here, and we took him to task and said let's go around all the hospitals in Harare and see if there is any record of people in hospitals. He had to later apologise as this was not true," Mnangagwa reportedly said, according to a NewsDay report. But Van Damme took exception to the remarks and hit back on micro blogging site, Twitter, saying he did not apologise for raising concern over the post-election violence targeted at opposition activists. "Not sure where you get that from. Ridiculous. Civil society has documented cases of human rights abuses and retribution. We do not apologise, but on the contrary, urge authorities to take these cases seriously. Police has to enquire and protect victims and witnesses," Van Damme.Just a few weeks before this year's elections President Mnangagwa denied that Zanu PF had used violence in the 2008 election. "Where is the evidence of violence and vote rigging!" he told the UK Economist reporter.Most of the western election observers have yet to pronounce their judgement on Zimbabwe's elections. Whilst there elections had been peaceful right up to voting day 30th July 2018, still the elections were not free, fair and credible because there were glaring irregularities such as the failure to produce a clean and verified voters' roll. The peace was shattered in what was a pre-emptive move by the regime to cow the people into accepting the rigged elections.The EU, USA and other western election observer teams are yet to report on Zimbabwe's elections. There are some people who would still want to believe in the mythical Zanu PF democratic transformation, they would want to falsify the facts and pretend these elections were free, fair and credible. That would be ridiculous as both the ordinary people in Zimbabwe and President Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta already know that these elections were not free, fair and credible.Zimbabwe is in a serious economic and political mess following 38 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule. The only way out for the country is for these elections to be declared null and void and thus open the door for the appointment of an interim administration that will be tasked to implement the democratic reforms and the hold free, fair and credible elections.
Thanks to a little help from a helicopter and a horse trailer, the second wild plains bison that wandered out of Banff National Park is alive, well  and living in Waterton Lakes National Park.

That was the news late Monday afternoon, when Bill Hunt, resource conservation manager with the park, revealed in a conference call that the second wandering plains bison had been captured and relocated.

"The large bull was successfully immobilized, and flown into a horse trailer, which allowed us to transport it to a bison paddock in Waterton Lakes National Park," Hunt said.

"The bull is in the winter pasture in that park, and is not visible to the public."

The news came days after two bison wandered out of Banff, resulting in one being euthanized Saturday.

"We had the necessary support in terms of helicopters and capture expertise, and we had slightly improved visibility, making the operation safer and more effective," Hunt added.

That wasn't the case Saturday, Hunt said, when the decision was made to euthanize the first bison.

"Wildfires burning in the immediate area and throughout Western Canada left limited availability of helicopters and smoke reduced visibility and makes telemetry more difficult. These factors also presented a risk to staff safety," he said.

He said the decision was made to relocate the second bison to Waterton rather than return it to Banff.

"Primarily, putting a bull in an area he had already shown he wants to leave was something we didn't want to do, in case he tried to leave again and convince others to go with him," he said.

A third bull has separated from the herd and wandered about five kilometres away, but hasn't left the park boundaries. Hunt said they aren't concerned as the animal is remaining in an area they remain comfortable with.

The remaining members of the Banff herd remain well within park boundaries, he said.

"We are pleased that the remaining bison have settled back within the heart of the reintroduction zone in Banff National Park's backcountry and we will continue to monitor their behaviour and movements."

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Legislative gap

The weekend incident prompted the Alberta Wilderness Association to point out a legislative gap that has left wild plains bison with no status, which they say needs to be addressed by the government.

"Wild plains bison are not recognized in Alberta," said Cliff Wallis, the secretary treasurer of the Alberta Wilderness Association.

"They have no status. They're not wildlife, they're not domesticated animals  they're basically nothing," he said.

"And so nothing means  if somebody wants to shoot them, they're allowed to."

Wallis said that political pressure from ranchers is keeping the federal government from designating wild plains bison an endangered species, even though scientists already have.

"It's a political decision, because of pushback from the ranching community, the livestock industry, and because of the confusion  because we now have domestic bison as well as the wild version," Wallis said.

"They just don't know how to handle it, politically, legally, whatever. But we need a solution.

"There's a vacuum in our legislation," Wallis said.

Plains bison are considered wildlife in B.C. and Saskatchewan, but in Alberta are classified as livestock and not protected under the Alberta Wildlife Act.

Bison outside protected areas

Wallis said that as a result, we can expect to see more incidents like the one that resulted in a bison being euthanized and another being relocated to Waterton.

"We have to start learning to live with these animals on the landscape, outside protected areas, but it's probably a reality we're going to have to live with just because of the political and social situation regarding wild bison," he said.

"We live with deer. We live with elk. Cattle get out of their fences as domesticated animals, but for some reason, we still vilify bison.

"There's been this tension for a long time between the ranching community and people who love wild animals."

Not a threat

Wallis disagreed that the bison was a threat to the public, but added he could understand the rationale for thinking it was.

"That is wrong quite frankly," he said, adding people live with wild bison in the Hay-Zama Lakes and Ronald Lakes areas of Alberta.

"They come on the highway. They are a threat to public safety just like moose are  so are we going to kill all the moose? Or kill all the elk? No. We don't."

Wallis said parks staff were being overly cautious, but he said he understands why the decision was made and sympathizes with Parks Canada.

"They have some difficult decisions here, trying to keep the ranchers outside the park happy.

"They're trying to find that middle ground, in the absence of a good regulatory and policy framework."

Wallis said there are lessons to be taken from the experiences other places have had with reintroducing wild buffalo back into their environment.

"They're not awful animals. They play a really important role in the ecosystem that we want to get back into the ecosystem  and they play a really important role in the cultural and spiritual life of First Nations people."

- MORE CALGARY NEWS | Calgary could record its smokiest year ever by Monday evening

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With files from Radio-Canada's Audrey Neveu
@doug_hanks

Where does Miami-Dade commission candidate Alfred Santamaria live? That's an official county secret, but one the candidate says he's happy to reveal.

A private elections lawyer who has tangled with Santamaria in the past over campaign-finance violations is asking a judge to lift the redaction of Santamaria's home address in the papers he filed to run against District 10 commissioner Javier Souto. Local governments keep home addresses confidential for people who hold certain positions perceived as sensitive, including police officers, prison guards, tax collectors an even administrators who supervise personnel decisions for local governments.

Santamaria, 38, once worked in the mayor's office when Carlos Alvarez held the position, and that's apparently the basis for the confidentiality of the candidate's home address. Santamaria said the confidentiality was granted when he first registered to vote in 2008, and has continued since, including for his failed mayoral bid in 2016.
Dominic Raab meets Michel Barnier for the first time (Getty)

Whatever the outcome of the latest round of Brexit negotiations being held in Brussels today, Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has reached a landmark simply by turning up.

This is the third time that Raab will have met the EUs chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, since replacing David Davis in the wake of the Cabinet walkout by opponents of the Chequers plan.

That means hes met his EU counterpart as many times as his predecessor managed in 2018  but in a much shorter time.

Raab and Barnier held an introductory meeting on July 19, where they exchanged books as well as the predictable platitudes about negotiations.

The Conservative MP was back in Brussels for a second meeting just a week later on July 26.

MORE: Brexit can still be reversed in theory  but its highly unlikely in practice

And, with both sides wanting to prove theyre working hard on a Brexit deal over the summer, Raab arrived today for his third meeting with Barnier in the space of just 34 days.

By contrast, David Davis managed three meetings with Barnier in the first six months  or to be precise 189 days  of 2018.

The first of those meetings, on February 5, required Barnier to travel to London.

Davis made it to Brussels for the first time in 2018 on March 19 for a meeting over breakfast that lasted less than an hour.

Daviss third and final meeting with Barnier before his departure came on June 9  shortly before the Chequers summit which sparked his resignation.

David Davis at a joint press conference with Michel Barnier in March 2018 (Getty)

The Financial Times calculated that Davis spent just four hours in talks with Barnier this year.

The government insisted Davis was in regular contact with his counterpart, but also had to oversee domestic preparations for Brexit as well as visiting other EU member states.

That didnt stop complaints about his lack of one-to-one engagement with Barnier on both sides of the Channel though.

In Westminster, pro-Brexit politicians worried that the talks were being led by civil servants  specifically Theresa Mays Brexit advisor Olly Robbins.

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In Brussels, the European Commissions chief spokesperson Margaritis Schinas told Yahoo UK: Experience shows that commitment at political level facilitates the process.

MORE: No deal Brexit a 50-50 chance, says Danish minister after meeting Hunt

The paucity of contact under Davis has only been further highlighted by the quickening pace of top-level talks since Raab took over as Brexit Secretary.

Raab has met Barnier on average around once every 11 days this year, while Davis met him once every 63 days.

Yahoo UK asked the European Commission today what lay behind the huge disparity in the frequency of talks under Davis and Raab.

Had the Commission simply not asked for this level of engagement under Davis or are the talks picking up the pace naturally as the deadline for a deal approached?

A spokesperson said pointedly: The chief negotiator and his team have always been fully available and ready here in Brussels every single day since day one.

MORE: Revealed: The full list of gifts given to EU Brexit chief Michel Barnier




A Saskatchewan karate teacher has adapted his classes to work for people with physical and intellectual disabilities, creating a charity that is the first of its kind in Canada.

Brendan Breen said that when he began teaching martial arts three years ago he noticed his class was attracting students of all abilities. He taught children who were on the autism spectrum alongside some with ADHD, cerebral palsy or Down syndrome. The students were happy to be there.

Breen now uses a system created by the Belgium-based Inclusive Karate Federation to teach people with a range of abilities. He is the first Canadian representative for the IKF.

He said the classes help with inclusion, social acceptance and self confidence.

"It requires a lot of coordination, concentration, focus, but they're getting all these benefits out of it and they're enjoying it," Breen said.

Martial Arts Abilities Canada, created by Breen, is unique among 85,000 registered charities in Canada,.

He runs a class at Deer Park Villas in Ituna, a care facility for people with intellectual disabilities. Those with special needs are accompanied by family, friends and healthcare workers in the class.

"We specifically want caregivers and physiotherapists and other professionals to join alongside those athletes," Breen said. "They act as 'buddies.' They train among the athletes which promotes inclusion."

Breen and his wife run the non-profit themselves, volunteering their time to run the class in Ituna. Everything is by-donation and students only have to pay what they can afford.

"If they can pay, then great, it helps keep it sustainable," Breen said. "And if they can't, then it's 100 per cent free. Free gradings, free belt tests, everything."

"I don't want cost to be a barrier to this."

Adapting the classes

Owen Reid, 35, lives at Deer Park Villas and attends the class.



"It's a good learning experience for everyone involved," he said. "It's important for people with disabilities to be included in a class like that. I think it's also important for people to be included in society."



Reid has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair. He said he didn't think he'd ever be able to do karate.



"Anything can be possible, so just try it," he said. "You'll get rewarded for it."

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Modifications to the classes include students wearing coloured armbands so Breen can instruct them to punch with their red arm rather than their right. He wears them as well so they can mirror him as he stands in front of the class.

"If they see the colours, they copy. So that's one way we adapt. And that's worked fantastic," he said.

He also lays down movement mats with feet positions in different colours. Coloured placards around the class help the students determine which way they should be facing.

"I adapt it only as much as I need to based on the individual," said Breen.

The classes are open to those age seven and older.

Breen said he hopes to partner with the Special Olympics one day. He has also reached out to the Invictus Games, which asked him to write a letter to Prince Harry about including karate.

"It's just all about inclusion. We want to offer this up as something different, that individuals with physical or intellectual challenges can do and we're just hoping for the people's support in Saskatchewan, and really in Canada," he said.
The thick smoke that's blanketed much of B.C. in recent days has grounded firefighting aircraft and made it difficult to detect new wildfires, officials say.

Kyla Fraser, a public information officer with the B.C. Wildfire Service, said that despite a relatively lightning-free weekend with few new fire starts, firefighters continue to be extremely busy battling about 545 wildfires.

The smoke that's choked the sky in many communities isn't making things any easier for crews.

"We have had to ground aircraft in some instances just because visibility was too poor, unsafe to fly," Fraser told CBC. "Smoky conditions also can pose a problem with detection and discovering new wildfires."

In terms of area burned, this is already the third-worst wildfire season on record in B.C., with more than 6,000 square kilometres scorched across the province as of Sunday.

Premier John Horgan will be flying to Prince George and Burns Lake on Tuesday to tour wildfire operations in some of the hardest hit parts of the province.

'We'll just have to cross our fingers'

The forecast for this week isn't promising much relief in the way of precipitation, either.

"It looks like we're continuing to see some dry conditions right across the province. Most of B.C. is in a high to extreme fire danger rating," Fraser said.

"Going into next week, we may start to see some patchy precipitation in the south and northeastern B.C., but this could be accompanied by some wind and lightning potential, so we'll just have to cross our fingers."

The largest fire continues to be the 850-square-kilometre Shovel Lake blaze moving north from Fraser Lake toward Fort St. James.

Officials say an increase in wildfire activity in southeastern B.C. is also a concern. In Kimberley, thousands of people are still on evacuation alert.

The air-quality health index released by the B.C. government shows a very high health risk in areas from Whistler, Squamish and Nanaimo to the Fraser Valley, the Okanagan, Castlegar and parts of Metro Vancouver.

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The elderly, children and people with pre-existing health conditions in those areas are advised to stay inside.

Air travel disrupted

A grey haze cut visibility and disrupted air traffic in Kamloops and Kelowna on the weekend, but Transport Canada said most flight issues were cleared up by Monday morning.

The conditions motivated some people to change their plans, such as not spending the weekend outdoors or cutting short camping trips.

That's what Anita Sparrow and her family did at Golden Ears Provincial Park east of Vancouver on Sunday.

"It's supposed to be 33 C, clear skies," she said about the cool temperatures due to hazy conditions.

She said the conditions made her feel like she had a cold. One of her children has had to use an inhaler.

Still, she said it could be worse, considering the South Coast is mostly suffering from smoke and not flames.

"We're lucky here, so even for us to say, 'Oh it ruined our vacation,' well it's ruining people's homes, it's ruining wildlife, it's ruining full communities, so I feel blessed living in this part of B.C."

More fire information:

- B.C. is in its sixth day of a provincewide state of emergency.

- On Friday, the province announced it would match donations to the Red Cross for people affected by wildfires, up to $20 million.

- The B.C. Wildfire Service said its cost for fighting fires so far this season has topped $242 million.

- More than 100 Canadian Armed Forces personnel have been deployed to help B.C. personnel.

- Wildfire smoke over Western Canada is visible from NASA's DSCOVR satellite  about 1.6 million kilometres away.

- As of Sunday, about 27 evacuation orders were in effect for approximately 2,410 properties.

B.C. wildfire map:

B.C. evacuation map:

With files from The Canadian Press and CBC's Anis Heydari, Allison Dempster, Zahra Premji and Amy O'Brian

Read more from CBC British Columbia
PATTAYA, Thailand (AP)  A model and escort from Belarus who caused a sensation by claiming to have information linking Russian interference to the election of President Donald Trump said Monday that she no longer has the evidence and will not talk about it.

Anastasia Vashukevich, who also uses the name Nastya Rybka, pleaded not guilty to charges of soliciting and conspiracy to solicit in a court appearance in the Thai resort city of Pattaya to prepare for her trial along with seven co-defendants. Lawyers will submit legal submissions at another hearing next week at which the court is expected to set a date for testimony to begin.

Vashukevich, Russian self-styled sex guru Alexander Kirillov and six other people were arrested at a sex training seminar in Pattaya in February and have been in custody ever since. All the defendants, who could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, pleaded not guilty.

Vashukevich told The Associated Press that she had turned over audio recordings to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, whose conversations about election interference she claimed to have taped.

She has said she provided "escort" services to Deripaska, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and who has links to Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager now being tried in the United States on money laundering and other charges.

Speaking to an AP reporter in the courtroom in Pattaya, Vashukevich said she had promised Deripaska she would no longer speak on the matter, and that he had already promised her something in return for not making that evidence public.

"He promised me a little something already," Vashukevich said. "If he do that then there will be no problem, but if he don't ..." she said with a shrug and a smile.

She also shrugged and smiled when asked if she had kept her own copies of the information she recorded, which she said comprised "some audio, some video."

Story continues

Asked what the material showed, she said, "You'd have to ask Deripaska."

Vashukevich created world headlines when she was first detained because she claimed to have audio recordings of Deripaska that provided evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

She appealed to America for help and for asylum, through a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, but provided no proof of her claims. At a hearing in April, she seemed to switch allegiances, making a public apology to Deripaska and saying it was the Americans, not the Russians, who were persecuting her.

A judge at the Pattaya Provincial Court declared Monday that if the seminar included people having sexual intercourse or arranged for people to have sex, it would be considered illegal by Thai law even if there was mutual consent.

Pattaya is internationally notorious as a destination for sex tourists.

Kirillov, who led the seminar in a meeting room at a Pattaya hotel, told the judge that the seminar taught the art of seduction and did not include sex or make any arrangements for sexual partners.

He said the course taught its students "how to impress girls" and "how to get girls' numbers," and did not involve sexual arrangements.

"We are not sure about Thai law, but in Russia this is not a criminal case," he told the judge.

The prosecutor showed the defendants a photo that he said showed some of the students having sex as part of the course.

Kirillov's response was that the photos were "private" and taken after the seminar, when a group of students went to a bar in Pattaya to put their lessons to the test.
CBC

Shreyas Vasudevareddy Movva, 28, may be the new face of an emerging cricket scene in Quebec. The software engineer got the call recently telling him he had made the cut for a T-20 Cricket World Cup qualifying tournament, coming up in Antigua & Barbuda Nov. 7-15. "When I came to Canada, I had two goals. One is to get a masters from (Concordia) University and another one is to get selected for Cricket Canada. So I would say the hunger to achieve the goal was within me," Movva said. Movva immigrate
Inspectors with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans seized more than $50,000 worth of lobster from a seafood distributor in New Edinburgh, N.S., earlier this month.

The department says fisheries officers from the Meteghan detachment inspected the fish distribution facility on Aug. 9 and seized more than 100 crates of lobster.

A spokesperson for the department said the officers believed the lobsters were caught and retained under an Indigenous food, social and ceremonial fisheries licence.

"The lobsters were seized based on the belief that they were purchased and sold without authorization, in violation of the fisheries general regulations," wrote Debbie Buott-Matheson in an email.

"At this time, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard has not authorized the sale of FSC-harvested fish."

The department wouldn't identify the business since the matter is now under investigation.

Lobster seized from restaurant

The seizure is one of several that were recently conducted by fisheries officers in southwestern Nova Scotia.

On Monday, the department tweeted about seizing lobster meat from two restaurants in Yarmouth after they couldn't prove to inspectors that the seafood was legally purchased.

Officers also seized lobster gear after identifying violations including the illegal use of bait and untagged or invalid tags on traps.

The department tweeted that vessel patrols seized 47 of the 128 traps they inspected, and released 774 lobsters in those seized traps back into the ocean.

Read more articles from CBC Nova Scotia
Paul Manafort, the campaign manager for Donald Trump when the reality TV star and businessman accepted the Republican nomination for U.S. president, has been found guilty of eight out of 18 charges in his financial fraud trial.

The judge declared a mistrial on the 10 other counts after jurors were unable to reach a unanimous consensus.

Manafort stood accused of hiding about $16 million US in income from the Internal Revenue Service between 2010 and 2014 by allegedly disguising the money he earned advising pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine as loans and hiding it in foreign banks.

He was charged with a total of 18 counts of bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy, failing to file foreign bank account reports and subscribing to false income tax returns.

Jurors were in their fourth day of deliberations in Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday before advising U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III they had reached a partial verdict.

The trial was the first related to the special counsel investigation led by former FBI director Robert Mueller, although his probe has also secured guilty pleas from a number of individuals, including former longtime Manafort aide Rick Gates, who co-operated with prosecutors.

One of Manafort's lawyers, Kevin Downing, told reporters outside the courthouse Tuesday that his client is disappointed in the conviction and is evaluating all his options.

No sentencing date has been set. Prosecutors have until Aug. 29 to decide whether they will seek a retrial on the 10 counts where the jury hung.

The verdict Tuesday was part of a stunning one-two punch of bad news for the White House, coming as the U.S. president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty in New York to campaign-finance charges arising from hush money payments made to two women who say they had sexual relationships with Trump.

Tales of wealth and deceit

The jury of six men and six women heard tales of ostentatious displays of wealth and deceit at the trial in Virginia. That included the testimony of Gates, who admitted to an extramarital affair and stealing money, unbeknownst to Manafort.

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The defence tried to attack the credibility of Gates, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. It also argued that Manafort couldn't have committed bank fraud, as Federal Savings Bank officials who signed off on his loans were well aware of the shaky state of his financing.

Trump defended Manafort as recently as Aug. 17, when the jury was already deliberating. The president's public statements have raised the spectre he might try to issue a pardon for the longtime Republican operative.

The president said the prosecution was a "sad day for our country."

Asked if he would consider a pardon if Manafort is convicted, Trump said: "I don't talk about that."

As Trump arrived in West Virginia for a rally Tuesday evening, he appeared to distance himself from Manafort's conviction. "I feel very badly for Paul Manafort. It has nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with Russia collusion," the U.S. president said.

During a one-hour, 15-minute speech at the rally, Trump mentioned neither Manafort nor Cohen, though he briefly referenced the Mueller probe into Russian election interference. "Where is the collusion?  You know, they're still looking for collusion! Find some collusion!"

But outside of friendly territory like West Virginia, Trump may have to work double time to manage messages around the company he has kept during the campaign and while in office.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, said Tuesday that the White House "looks increasingly like a criminal enterprise" after the conviction of Manafort and a guilty plea from Cohen.



The verdicts show the Mueller probe is "not a witch hunt or hoax" as Trump has claimed, Blumenthal said, and Mueller's team will continue following the facts as the investigation "circles ever closer to the Oval Office."

Pardon would have 'Watergate written all over it'

Blumenthal also said any talk of a pardon for Manafort or Cohen "should end now," calling it an abuse of power and possible obstruction of justice.

Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, of Vermont, said a Manafort pardon would create a backlash in Congress and "have Watergate written all over it."

Manafort joined the Trump campaign in March 2016 and was elevated to chair in May.

He left the campaign in August that year  days after the New York Times reported a Ukraine investigation had uncovered $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments involving Manafort from 2007 to 2012. The money, the newspaper reported, came from the pro-Russian party of Viktor Yanukovych, the one-time Ukraine president.

But the court was given an indication that Manafort was not necessarily shut out from the Trump team when he was let go.

Evidence at the trial included a November 2016 email sent by Manafort to Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, after Trump won the presidential election. In the email, Manafort recommended three candidates for administration posts, including Stephen Calk, chairman of the Federal Savings Bank, where Manafort was able to arrange millions in loans.

Kushner enthusiastically responded to Manafort's recommendations by email: "On it!"

Manafort's prominence in D.C. lobbying circles extends back nearly four decades, when he helped found a firm along with individuals including Roger Stone, another former Trump campaign adviser who has testified to congressional committees examining Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The Manafort trial came about as Mueller was given the authority as of May 2017 to investigate any links and/or co-ordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Trump, as well as any potentially criminal matters that arose directly from the investigation.

Present at controversial Trump Tower meeting

Trump has repeatedly denied colluding with Russia, although there is no such federal crime of collusion. The president could be damaged politically should there be findings of conspiracy or obstruction of justice in a report Mueller is expected to deliver at the conclusion of the investigation.

Manafort succeeded Corey Lewandowski in directing Trump's campaign, and was essentially replaced in that role by Steve Bannon. Manafort was present, along with Kushner and Donald Trump Jr., at a controversial Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 with Russian figures that has been a subject of inquiry in the congressional intelligence, judiciary and oversight committees.

Mueller's indictments have included some two dozen Russians for alleged cyber-intrusions designed to disrupt the 2016 election and roil the U.S. political debate.

Russia has denied the allegations, although at a joint news conference with Trump in July in Helsinki, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted he wanted the Republican to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.




If youve felt lately like forest fires in Ontario are becoming more frequent and more intense, its not your imagination.

Federal scientist Lynn Johnston warns summers like this one will be increasingly more common in the future, and says the people in charge of putting out fires in Ontario and across the country lack the resources to deal with this potential new reality.

After what the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources refers to as a 10-year interlude of fewer forest fires and less land burned, this years intense fire season reminds Ontarians seasonal weather patterns, human activity and climate change can come together to turn a trend on its head.

This fire season has been pretty crazy, confirmed Johnston, a forest fire research specialist with the Canadian Fire Service, adding that more fires than usual have burned closer to towns and roads, exposing more people to danger.

A forest fire burns in Ontario. (Photo from Natural Resources Canada)

Its more prominent this year, Johnston said. Theres also more people living where fires are happening. So more people are at risk.

The province has seen a 72 per cent increase in forest fires this year over the 10-year average, recording 1,118 fires as of Aug. 21.

As firefighters in British Columbia battled more than 500 forest fires, their counterparts in Ontario were finally able to hold the Parry Sound 33 fire at 11,362 hectares on Aug. 20 after it burned out of control in the northern part of the province for over a month.

On the day Parry Sound 33 started, there were 66 active forest fires in northeastern Ontario, 28 of which were out of control.

Johnston said Ontarios trouble this year began during the spring thaw, when snow melted suddenly, the ground dried quickly, and little rain fell.

Maps spanning from 2004 to 2016 show the concentration of forest fires across Canada. (Maps supplied by Natural Resources Canada)

It was so dry our fire danger for the spring and early summer was not normal at all, she said.

Add lightning storms, windy conditions and a hot summer to that mix and you get the recipe for an intense fire season.

And Johnston says Ontarians should get used to the idea of more summers like this one

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The quote thats been going around lately is the new normal, she said. So more hot, dry, windy conditions, more storms, more lightning. Our fuels are going to be dry and ready to burn.

Data from both the Canadian National Fire Database (CNFDB) and the National Forestry Database (NFD) show an overall increase in the area burned in forest fires in Canada since 1970.

And the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources warns that while low 10-year averages can suggest fire activity is trending downward, climate change might be increasing forest fire variability  or intense fluctuations.

Johnston agrees. While each years forest fire patterns see fires concentrated in different parts of the country  from southern B.C. to northern Ontario to the Yukon, for example  Johnston said climate change is intensifying those patterns.

With climate change, its hotter and drier, were seeing more extremes in winds and really, really dry fuels producing really extreme fire behaviour, she said.

Ontario, in particular, is getting more fires and more area burned.

The Ontario government appeared to acknowledge this when it announced on Aug. 8 it would spend an additional $100 million to fight the 120 forest fires burning across the province.





This money will pay for continued fire response efforts, which includes supplies and equipment used to suppress the fire and the work of support personnel and MNRF fire rangers, said Jeff Yurek, Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry.

At that time, the province said, the efforts of almost 1,000 firefighters from Ontario were being boosted by aircraft, firefighting equipment and about 480 firefighters and support staff from other provinces, Parks Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

The announcement said some of the new funds would go to paying for more out-of-province and international help.

The future may be fiery

But if climate change does fuel more forest fire seasons like this one, itll take more than the traditional methods and resources to maintain an edge over fires in Ontario and across the country, Johnston warned. Itll take resources we dont have yet.

We are not equipped to deal with the future in fire management, she said. We have kind of reached a point where we have diminishing returns for any investment in fire suppression.

To illustrate her point, she compared throwing resources at existing fires to chasing a rabbit that always runs a bit faster.

It doesnt really matter how many resources you throw at it, she said. Once you start spending a certain amount of money and have a certain amount of water bombers, theres only so much more you can do and theres only so much more benefit you get for every million dollars you spend.

Resource sharing like the kind the province just increased funding for is a good way to balance demand, she agreed, but she said governments will need to invest in scientific research and technology to stay on top of fire suppression in the future.

Without continued, significant research funding for new tools, new innovations, new ways to approach fire management, its going to be very difficult to even keep pace with what were doing now.

The provincial government could not be reached for comment by publication deadline.
Don't look for the Quebec Solidaire bus on the campaign trail Aug. 23  it will be parked.

Although campaigning begins Thursday, the QS bus is set to take off days later, after the other parties have hit the road.

A spokesperson for QS said everything's going according to plan.

"Our strategy is to start on the ground in Montreal," Stephanie Guevremont said.

With events planned in Montreal for those first few days of campaigning, she said keeping the bus parked is "economical and ecological."

Even before Philippe Couillard announced the election campaign would kick off on Aug. 23 instead of Aug. 29, QS was already planning on hopping on the bus later.

"Our bus was always booked for Aug. 31," Guevremont said. "It was part of our strategy,"

Guevremont said she isn't worried that staying in Montreal for the first few days of campaigning will hurt QS.

Laval University political science professor Thierry Giasson agrees that QS staying put at the onset of campaigning isn't a misstep.

"There are serious gains to be made in Montreal," he said.

He said Rosemont and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve are two constituencies where the party will want to make gains.

The departure of Amir Khadir in Mercier means the party will need to mount "a more sustained campaign" there to retain the seat, he said. New candidate Ruba Ghazal is being introduced as part of that effort.

According to Giasson, the only thing QS will miss is the photo opportunity of getting on its bus on Aug. 23, when the other parties intend to.

Translated from a text by Radio-Canada's Alexandre Duval
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will help Lebanon return refugees to neighboring Syria, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday, accusing the United States of impeding the general repatriation process by declining to assist in Syria's reconstruction. Lavrov also called on opposition groups in the rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib to distance themselves from the Nusra Front group, formerly the local branch of al Qaeda. The province was hit by a wave of air strikes and shelling earlier this month, in a possible prelude to a government offensive to regain control. "We agreed that Lebanon should not be the subject of foreign interference, a pawn in geopolitical games, or a hostage of the Syrian crisis and its negative consequences such as the problem of Syrian refugees," Lavrov said after talks with his visiting Lebanese counterpart, Gebran Bassil. According to the U.N.s refugee agency, nearly 5.5 million Syrians have fled abroad to escape the country's war. Lebanon hosts more than 1 million Syrian refugees, equal to more than a quarter of its population, and Bassil told reporters Beirut saw no reason for refugees to remain on its territory. Lavrov accused Washington of being interested in rebuilding only parts of Syria where the opposition to Russia's ally, President Bashar al-Assad, was active. Acting U.S. Assistant Secretary David Satterfield has said the United States and other countries would not contribute to Syria's full reconstruction until there was a "credible and irreversible" political process underway to end the conflict. On Idlib, Lavrov said Russia wanted rebels to separate themselves from groups Moscow regards as extremists. Idlib in northern Syria is part of the last significant rebel-held area in Syria and Assad, who is backed by Moscow, has said his forces will recapture the region. (Reporting by Polina Ivanova and Andrew Osborn; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Andrew Heavens and David Stamp)
By Samantha Vadas, Adam Jourdan and Anne Marie Roantree SHENZHEN, China/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Larry Sloven arrived in southern China three decades ago, just as the region was taking off as the low-cost manufacturing center of the world. Since then, he has exported millions of dollars of goods, ranging from power tools to LED lights, to some of America's biggest retailers. That era may now be coming to an end. For years, Sloven has seen profits whittled away by rising costs, tighter regulations and Chinese government policies aimed at building a more sustainable and services-oriented economy that have squeezed lower-end manufacturers. But the final straw may be the prospect of tariffs stemming from a trade war between the United States and China, and a world of more protectionism. "It's been step, by step, by step. And it's been getting more and more expensive to produce products in China," said Sloven, president of Capstone International HK Ltd, a division of Capstone Companies, from Deerfield Beach, Florida, a maker of consumer electronics goods. Manufacturers have been feeling the squeeze as China shifts its priorities from lower-end manufacturing to high technology industries as part of a broader bid to upgrade its economy. But with tariffs looming, "everybody finally woke up to the extent that 'maybe I should face reality'," he said. Manufacturers were increasingly worried that "the next group of tariffs would be the killer". Sloven is now stepping up efforts to trim his exposure to China, diversifying into growing manufacturing centers like Thailand. "Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia are countries that have potential opportunities," he said. "However, it's not going to be as easy as many may think. And you don't know what's coming next in China." Interviews with over a dozen manufacturers from medical device makers to agricultural equipment firms illustrate how companies exporting to the United States are now rethinking their calculations about making goods in China. "Before the tariffs came on board, we were looking to move about 30 percent of our production from China to the United States," said Charles M. Hubbs, European director at Premier Guard, a medical products manufacturer, citing reasons such as rising wages, a shrinking workforce and soaring costs. "With the latest tariff development, assuming those tariffs will go into effect, we'll probably be moving about 60 percent of our manufacturing out of China to the United States." Other companies are closely reviewing their options. "In the current tariff environment, it's only natural for companies like ours and others to be internally reassessing the impact and taking steps to mitigate that," said a senior China-based executive with a major U.S. manufacturer. Moves could include "limiting additional sourcing from China, shifting sourcing to other countries, or bringing work back to the United States". SUPPLY CHAIN THREAT The escalating tit-for-tat trade war between the United States and China, with President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on Chinese-made goods, could have huge implications for heavily integrated and globalized supply chains. For some, the impact has been obvious and direct. Georgia-based AGCO Corp told the United States Trade Representative that tariffs would make the farm equipment it makes in Changzhou, a city in China's Jiangsu province, "price uncompetitive" in the United States. Maroon Group, a chemical maker from North America said it would be "priced out of the market", a concern echoed by Goodman Global, which assembles air conditioners in Houston from Chinese-made parts. Some firms have already made their moves. The furniture makers At Home Group Inc and RH have said they will cut back production in China. Others are trying to adjust supply chains. DSM China Ltd, part of the Dutch nutrition firm Royal DSM, is looking to replace U.S. soybeans with new ingredients such as pea powder it can source locally to avoid Beijing's retaliatory import duties. Rising risk from the trade tensions "gave us good impetus to check out how we look at the whole business", said Bernard Cheung, director of global strategic marketing at DSM China. For some, the response has been dictated by where they sit in the supply chain. U.S.-based GMM Nonstick Coatings has moved some production to India after a 30-40 percent drop-off in China orders for advanced chemicals used to coat American household kitchenware brands such as George Foreman and Baker's Secret as those clients move some production out of China. "This tariff thing is adding extra friction to being in China and it's making the decision" to shift production "quite easy for U.S. sourcing departments," said Ravin Gandhi, GMM's chief executive. $2 TRILLION QUESTION There are still plenty of manufacturers staying in China for now, especially those targeting the huge domestic or regional market, Gandhi said. China still has the best infrastructure, supply chain networks and engineering talent, a major hurdle for potential rivals seeking to lure firms away with lower costs, according executives interviewed by Reuters. In terms of scale, China cannot be easily replaced: it has a manufacturing output of around $2 trillion, according to a Brookings Institution report in July, the world's largest. Bird, a Santa Monica, California-based scooter start-up, wrote in a submission to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in June that it was "unaware of any U.S. producer of electric scooters that can manufacture to Bird's scale and needs". Keith Siilats, the head of Bytelogics, another U.S.-based scooter start-up that manufactures in China, said it was hard to shift production from China. Instead, he expects to absorb the higher costs for the moment and plans to develop European operations less vulnerable to tariff pressure. China's manufacturing sector will not vanish overnight, but a shift is inevitable, said Dan Krassenstein, Shanghai-based director of Asia operations at ProconPacific, which makes around 3 million specialized industrial shipment bags. He said manufacturing was moving to South Asia and Southeast Asia in search of cheaper labor costs and as Beijing discourages polluting, lower-margin sectors. The tariff escalation "is just going to accelerate it", he said. Five years ago his company made all its products in China. Now, a quarter are made in India and 5-10 percent in Vietnam. DOING THE SUMS In Southern China's Pearl River Delta, the cost of renting industrial and commercial space has surged around 80 percent in the past eight years, while companies have complained of soaring labor costs. "Production costs are cheaper in the U.S. than in China," said Yuan Juyou, deputy head of marketing at Wonderful Group, a ceramics maker. "Even though labor costs are more expensive, we have automated a lot of processes. Plus electricity, land, these kinds of costs are cheaper than China." Wonderful, a unit of the Chinese manufacturer Marco Polo, began shipping products from its new factory in Tennessee in June. Regional rivals are also starting to sense an opportunity to step up and into China's competitive space. Thailand is actively promoting itself as a regional manufacturing hub, offering incentives such as an exemption of up to eight years on corporate income tax for certain industries and exemptions on import duties for some raw materials. The country's corporate income tax rate of 20 percent also ranks it as the second-lowest among countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, according to Thailand's Board of Investment. Thailand is already a major center for some electronics and components, and the government plans a series of industrial zones to push development of target industries. A China-ASEAN free trade deal also helps mitigate the trade-war risk for companies trading with both the United States and China. "The Thai government is making it very easy now to move down there," said Sloven. "The Chinese government embraced manufacturing back in the day. But now, they're not looking for growth in the product business. They're looking for high-tech," he said. "It's a bit like when a wife comes to a husband and says, 'I don't love you anymore'." (Reporting by Samantha Vadas in SHENZHEN, Anne Marie Roantree in HONG KONG, Adam Jourdan, David Stanway, Brenda Goh, John Ruwitch in SHANGHAI, Elias Glenn in BEIJING and Holly Chik and Maggie Liu, Sue-Lin Wong in DONGGUAN; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Philip McClellan)
By Karen Freifeld, Nathan Layne and Ginger Gibson ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted on Tuesday of eight counts of financial wrongdoing, giving Special Counsel Robert Mueller a victory in the first trial arising from his investigation of Russia's role in the 2016 U.S. election. After almost four days of deliberations, a 12-member jury found Manafort guilty on two counts of bank fraud, five counts of tax fraud and one charge of failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. The jury in U.S. federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, said it could not reach a verdict on 10 of the 18 counts with which Manafort was charged. Judge T.S. Ellis declared a mistrial on those counts. While the charges against Manafort mostly predate his work on President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign, legal analysts said the verdict was largely a victory for Mueller. Trump has repeatedly denounced the special counsel's investigation. Trump, arriving in West Virginia for a rally on Tuesday night, tried to distance himself from Manafort's conviction, saying it did not involve him. "Paul Manafort is a good man. ... It doesn't involve me, but I still feel - you know, it's a very sad thing that happened," Trump said. "This has nothing to do with Russian collusion. This started as Russian collusion; this has absolutely nothing to do - this is a witch hunt and it's a disgrace." Manafort's conviction on the eight counts came in the same hour that Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty in New York to campaign finance violations and other charges. Manafort stood quietly while the verdict was being read by the clerk. It represented a stunning fall for Manafort, a well-known figure in Republican politics for decades. Manafort's lawyer, Kevin Downing, told reporters afterward that his client was disappointed in the verdict and was evaluating his options. Mueller's office declined comment on the verdict. Prosecutors accused Manafort of hiding from U.S. tax authorities $16 million he earned as a political consultant for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine to fund an opulent lifestyle and then lying to banks to secure $20 million in loans after his Ukrainian income dried up and he needed cash. The two bank fraud charges on which he was convicted each carry a potential prison term of up to 30 years. But several sentencing experts predicted Manafort, 69, would receive a prison term of about 10 years. 'IMPORTANT TO LET PROCESS CONTINUE' Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that the Manafort verdict refuted Trumps repeated charge that the Mueller investigation was a witch hunt. He warned that any attempt by Trump to use his presidential powers to pardon Manafort or interfere in Muellers probe "would be a gross abuse of power and require immediate action by Congress." Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said in a statement that the Manafort and Cohen cases showed the "American legal system is working its will." He added that "there have yet to be any charges or convictions for colluding with the Russian government by any member of the Trump campaign in the 2016 election." Graham issued what appeared to be a caution to Trump against meddling in Mueller's investigation, saying: "Its important to let this process continue without interference." Moscow has denied interfering in the 2016 election and Trump has said there was no collusion. David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor in Miami, said the guilty verdict on eight of 18 counts was "a significant victory" for Mueller. "The mistrial on the remaining 10 counts is a shallow victory for the defense," said Weinstein, now a partner at Hinshaw & Culbertson. Ellis gave the prosecution until Aug. 29 to decide whether to retry Manafort on the charges on which the jury deadlocked. As a result, the judge did not set a sentencing date for the other charges. Manafort now faces a second trial on Sept. 17 in Washington in which he is charged with money laundering, failing to register as a lobbyist in the United States for his work for pro-Kremlin politicians in Ukraine, and obstruction of justice. The second trial promises to delve deeper into Manaforts Russian connections, including his relationship with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Ukranian-Russian political consultant who was indicted along with Manafort and who Mueller says has ties to Russian intelligence. (Reporting by Karen Freifeld, Nathan Layne and Ginger Gibson in Alexandria, Va.; Additional reporting by Pete Schroeder and Katanga Johnson in Alexandria and Jonathan Landay in Washington; Writing by Warren Strobel and Alistair Bell; Editing by Bill Trott and Peter Cooney)
Ever since her accusations of being raped by disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein went public last fall, Asia Argento has been one of the most prominent faces of the #MeToo movement. On Sunday, however, the Italian actress and director was the subject of her own New York Times investigation, with the paper reporting that she paid actor and musician Jimmy Bennett $380,000 after he accused her of sexual assault. Bennett, now 22, was 17 and below the legal age of consent at the time of the alleged 2013 incident.

Asia Argento poses with a 7-year-old Jimmy Bennett, center, and co-stars Cole and Dylan Sprouse at a 2003 wrap party for their film, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. (Photo: Jeff Vespa/WireImage)

The Times reports that Bennett, who was 7 years old when he was cast as Argentos son in the 2004 film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, reportedly pursued legal action after his former co-star emerged as an advocate for survivors of sexual assault following her revelations about Weinstein.

Argento has been a prominent voice of the #MeToo movement following her revelations about Harvey Weinstein. (Photo: Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images)

Documents obtained by the Times allege that the former child star met with Argento in a California hotel room on May 9, 2013, where he says she performed oral sex on him before initiating intercourse. Bennett said the incident, which took place three months after his 17th birthday, left him feeling extremely confused, mortified, and disgusted.

His legal team reportedly sought $3.5 million for intentional infliction of emotional distress, lost wages, assault, and battery, though it appears that a settlement of $380,000 was agreed upon. A letter addressed to Argento from her lawyer, Carrie Goldberg, in April acknowledges the payment and refers to s***ty individuals whove preyed on her.

We hope nothing like this ever happens to you again, Goldberg is said to have written to the 42-year-old Argento. You are a powerful and inspiring creator and it is a miserable condition of life that you live among s***ty individuals whove preyed on both your strengths and your weaknesses.

While neither Bennett nor Argento and her legal team have publicly responded to the allegations, social media shows that they did in fact meet on May 9, 2013. Argento, who was the girlfriend of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain until his death by suicide in June, posted several Instagram photos at their reunion, calling it the happiest day of my life. She also referred to Bennett as my son, my love until I live. In one caption, she thanks Bennett for the sunshine you gave to me.

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Argento took a selfie with Bennett on the day he claims she sexually assaulted him. (Photo: Asia Argento via Instagram)

The photos have been flooded with comments attacking Argento since the Times report broke Sunday night.

Dio-God @jimmymbennett my son A post shared by asiaargento (@asiaargento) on May 9, 2013 at 1:10pm PDT

Meanwhile, the accusations against Argento have sparked major controversy, with some blasting her as a hypocrite and others arguing that her own history shouldnt be used to discount #MeToo or her alleged experience with Weinstein.

Whatever happens in the Asia Argento case doesnt take away from the fact Harvey Weinstein and many powerful men have preyed upon women, abused them, exploited them and have had their sins covered and buried, but now society is waking up and saying no more.  Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) August 20, 2018

There are two types of dudebros: those who will mock Jimmy Bennett for being sexually-assaulted by Asia Argento ("why didn't he enjoy it?") and those who will use this to erroneously claim feminists are hypocrites. However, they both share a violent misogyny.  Charlotte Clymer (@cmclymer) August 20, 2018

This is awful, but I don't see any conclusion to draw from it besides "Two things can be true at once." https://t.co/4mi3zQPUmv  Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) August 20, 2018

Actress Rose McGowan, another Weinstein accuser who had befriended Argento after their stories went public, has also addressed the report.

I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere.  rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) August 20, 2018

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:




His uncles fought alongside Australia in the Vietnam War, for the freedom of their country from communist rule and therefore they were persecuted. There was threat of being captured and entered into "re-education camps" as many militants, police officers, civil servants and non-communist politicians experienced. The extended family sold all they had to buy a boat and flee the communist rule.

Two pirate attacks and dehydration threatened their very existence (one family member did not make the trip). They spent time in a Malaysian Refugee Camp until Australia offered the family sanctuary. The story doesn't end there. The settling process into Australian life was not easy.

"When my parents got us into the school (a catholic college in NSW) they were doing well because Dad was still around," Anh explains. "About a year in is when Dad left, and suddenly Mum was in a situation where she just couldn't afford the school fees, the books, the uniform. And the school did right by us; they really looked after us."

"Mum was behind in the school fees by about three years. And the school let her pay it off slowly, they never threatened to kick us out or anything like that. They really

showed wonderful Christian values, looking after the needy." (www.catholicweekly.com.au)

Anh uses all his life's experiences in his comedy shows and also as a keynote speaker for large companies, businesses and events. He gives the audience tools to turn hard times into bottom line results. He addresses themes of; teamwork, leadership, goal setting and change management, with a mix of appropriate comedic humour, intermingled with serious inspiration.

He is described, on his website, as being 'the perfect speaker for the current economic climate'. Anh says, "These uncertain times we face are actually an invitation to grow". (www.anhdo.com)

The Happiest Refugee

Anh is currently on tour in Australia to promote his best-selling book 'The Happiest Refugee'. It has made readers laugh and cry. The stage show combines stand-up comedy with real life stories, photos and filmed pieces to retell his amazing story.

Bookseller and Publisher magazine B.Owen Baxter gave the book the following 5 star review: "The way Do approaches his story is witty, charming, and heart-warming. This book has everything: war, escape, pirates, love, courage, racism, alcoholism, comedy, tragedy and hope. Above all, this book radiates hope."

Anh and his wife Suzanne have also written a children's version of his award winning book titled, 'The Little Refugee'. It is also available as a teaching tool for schools with the invaluable first-hand account of a child refugee.

"Many people told me not to call the book ' Refugee' because Aussies won't buy it,'' Do says. ''I told them I have faith in Aussies, and it makes me a proud Aussie to see that the title hasn't hurt the book.'' (www.smh.com.au)

Anh has pledged profits from 'The Little Refugee' to an Australian charity based in Vietnam. Profits go to Victorian nun Trish Franklin's Loreto Vietnam-Australia Program, based in Ho Chi Minh City, which provides shelter, food and education for disabled and destitute children.

1.67 million viewers

Recently, Channel Seven aired his show "Anh Does Vietnam". It was a ratings smash with a massive 1.678 million viewers nationwide. It follows Anh journeying Vietnam to see how life could have been if his family had stayed there in the 1970's.

In part one of the two-part series Anh visits the program that he has chosen to support. Handing a cheque over to Sister Trish who runs the program, they shed tears and shared a special moment of connection, evidently very moving for the audience also (I joined in with some tears). It showed Anh's heart for his birth country and his desire to change the lives of the disadvantaged children in Vietnam. Sister Trish explained that not only do the children receive an education and shelter, but they are fed two nutritious meals each day and receive care and love.

For Anh, the continuing media focus on Australia's refugee policy is a reminder of what his family has endured.

"We really should have died out at sea," he says. "And because we didn't, Mum and Dad taught us, 'Kids, we're lucky to be here. Let's do something with our life to justify the fact that we are alive. Let's not waste this chance that God's given us'."

"I realised that if you follow your heart, and you do what you know deep down in your heart is right, God will take care of the rest." (www.catholicweekly.com.au)

I have a new found respect for Anh. I have always observed him as a funny man. Through the telling of his personal story, partnered with raw honesty, both heart-warming and heart-wrenching accounts of his life and his passion for making a difference, I value and respect the impact he is making on our world. When people stand up and make a difference with their story and their passion, God takes care of the rest.

If I was to ask five people to dinner...along with Jesus, Mother Theresa, David (from the Bible), and my husband - Mr Anh Do would be the fifth.

Belinda Croft is married to Russell and she has a son BJ, 12 years. Currently Belinda is studying a Bachelor Degree in Journalism. She has a passion for God, writing, creativity, mission and social justice.

Belinda Croft's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/belinda-croft.html
Christian Aid is providing practical assistance to victims of the Kerala floods (Photo: Christian Aid)

Christian Aid has launched an emergency appeal to support victims of widespread flooding in India's Kerala state.

Extensive flooding across the region has left more than 350 people dead and another 20,000 without homes.

Christian Aid is working to provide practical assistance to some of the poorest and most vulnerable villages in the state, where it is supplying safe drinking water, sanitation supplies, hygiene products and materials for shelter.

Ram Kishan, Christian Aid's Regional Emergency Manager, said: 'What I have seen and been hearing here is on a scale not seen for a hundred years.'

The floods were triggered by heavy monsoon rains over the summer. Although the rains have started to ease off in the last few days, thousands are unable to return to their homes and are seeking shelter in camps.

Christian Aid's Emergency Programme Officer Shivani Rana said the full extent of the damage is not yet known as many areas are still out of reach due to the high water levels.

She said it will be hard for people to rebuild their livelihoods once the flood waters have receded: 'Many people are currently sheltering in camps and one major worry is how they're going to recover their lives when they try to go home. For some families, everything they had has been washed away or ruined.'

Christian Aid will focus funds raised through the appeal on the Wayanad district, in the north of the state, and Idukki district in central Kerala. It aims to support 10,000 people across the two districts, particularly the Dalits and 'Tribals,' who are among the most marginalised people groups in India.

The UK government-backed Start Fund has already given a 77,000 grant to the Christian Aid appeal but the charity is seeking more donations to scale up its emergency response.

Kishan said: 'Christian Aid's appeal for support is needed to help us provide clean water, shelter and emergency food supplies and more important livelihood support for people who have been forced to flee their homes.'

People can donate to the Christian Aid Kerala Floods Appeal by visiting www.caid.org.uk/kerala

This article was originally published in Christian Today and is re-published here with permission.
Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Marise Payne, and the Minister for Defence Industry, the Hon Christopher Pyne MP, announced the handover of the P-8A Poseidon simulator and training systems at RAAF Base Edinburgh. Minister Payne said the advanced P-8A Training System would better prepare Australian Defence Force pilots and maintenance crews for their demanding roles.

Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Marise Payne, and the Minister for Defence Industry, the Hon Christopher Pyne MP, announced the handover of the P-8A Poseidon simulator and training systems at RAAF Base Edinburgh. Minister Payne said the advanced P-8A Training System would better prepare Australian Defence Force pilots and maintenance crews for their demanding roles.

RAAF P-8A Poseidon MPA. RAAF picture.



This $470 million facility marks the beginning of a transformation of our training that will support Air Forces ability to meet emerging threats and future challenges, Minister Payne said.

The facility will deliver over 39 separate training courses which will minimise training demands on the P-8A Poseidon aircraft, reducing aircraft fatigue, increasing safety and improving availability for higher priority tasking.

The facility is part of the governments $5.2 billion investment in our new P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft. These cutting edge aircraft conduct a range of tasks including anti-submarine warfare; maritime and overland intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; electronic support; as well as supporting search and rescue missions.

The facility is being constructed under contract with Australian industry with an estimated workforce of up to 700 personnel during peak construction and 2,200 employees over the course of construction.

Minister Pyne said the partnerships between Defence, the United States Navy, Boeing and Boeing Defence Australia have enabled this to be delivered on time and on budget.

The training system will be maintained and supported by Boeing Defence Australia, creating up to 30 jobs, Minister Pyne said.

The project is part of a broader Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance hub being developed at RAAF Base Edinburgh, which will support and create highly skilled jobs in South Australia."

Australias P-8A Poseidon achieved Initial Operating Capability (IOC) in March this year. To date, six of Australias 12 P-8As have arrived in Australia, operated by Number 11 Squadron from RAAF Base Edinburgh in South Australia.
"Ye shalt locate false teachers from online evidence or in person whilst they preacheth and drive public campaigns against them. Making sure everyone knows just how shocking they are, thou shalt pick at the teaching of others and bring to light their heretic ways. Attack their theology in any way it does not align with thine own personal theology. Ye are free to call them names, label them and destroy their ministries. This is pleasing to me." Said God, never.

The internet is full of articles and videos of preachers and teachers. With the growth of online information and access, grows the online presence of trolls, haters, and those who believe it is their calling to discredit others based on their own personal interpretation of the Bible quoting "obvious verses" to back their case.

Named and labelled

I carried out my own 'false teacher' search. Included in one website, Brian Houston is accused of 'Pleasure Christianity'. He and his wife are labelled "unBiblical" as leaders because there were no married leaders serving together in the Bible. He is also listed because 'fun' is unbiblical.

The same website named Oral Roberts, Benny Hinn, Bill Johnson and Kenneth Copeland. These men are labelled "Bottom of the Barrel  A motley crew of demonic mockers". thepathoftruth.com

The next website I found explains that Joel Osteen "is a pretty-boy philosopher who rarely teaches the Bible" and Rick Warren "teaches lukewarm, sour milk to his sycophantic parasites". freeworldfilmworks.com

I also found many a website that labels CS Lewis an antichrist, pagan mythologist and heretic.

Such kind words.

In Biblical times, if it were available, Jesus, Peter and Paul would have been the subjects of many 'FALSE TEACHER EXPOSED!' websites. (With all probability the sites would have been managed and funded by Pharisees.)

What is a false teacher?

The Bible says; they hold you back from the truth by teaching the Law, their intentions are not good, they have evil teaching and shameful immorality, they are greedy, are like unthinking animals and they brag about themselves and lure those free from sin right back into it.

Freedom

In Galatians 5 Paul speaks about freedom, "Freedom is what we haveChrist has set us free! Stand, then, as free people, and do not allow yourselves to become slaves again" (verse 1). He then speaks about the Law in verse 4, "Those of you who try to be put right with God by obeying the Law have cut yourselves off from Christ. You are outside God's grace."

That's a big statement right there. One we easily read and pass by. God's Grace is a gift, so in effect we are saying no to a gift to be distracted by the Law.

So, what then is the Law?

Paul says, "For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the lawI stopped trying to meet all its requirementsso that I might live for God." (Galatians 2 verse 19) "For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die." (Galatians 2 verse 21)

In Paul's time the false teachers were hindering the Christians from obeying the truth of the gospel with all their talk about joining the Jewish people and keeping the law. All those who take the church off on a tangent, away from the clear direction given by the central truth of the gospel, are like these false teachers.

Anything we need to DO in order to; get closer, go higher, strive further and push in through our own strength and determination to get something spiritually that has already been freely given to us through Christ, is essentially, 'Law'.

My brush with the Law

I gasp in my heart thinking that we are missing the real freedom Jesus has for us. The true message of freedom.

In my life I have been burdened with the Law of false teachers. You've probably heard the teaching. "Your Christian walk will always be a battle." "You will always 'struggle' with sin." "You constantly need to cleanse, purge, seek forgiveness and plead with God to take away your sin." "You need to dig deeper with God." "You need to satisfy this 5 point plan sermon to get closer to God." "The next step for you is learning to speak in tongues, now go and practise in the shower." "Apologise for what Great Uncle Harold did in 1937 and you will be free."

When I hear these things now, I feel like I should go pick up a bucket of Law and drag it round with me, living a suffering burdensome Christian life of pleading with God not to hate me and allowing me just one step closer to Him. When I heard those things back then? Eventually a spiritual depression set in. It makes you tired.

People who teach the Law are the false teachers. And sadly, many don't even realise they are teaching it. It generally sounds 'good'.

Incorrectly accusing

Can we all live alongside one another with the central truth of the gospel as our one uniting cord tying us together? We feel the need to incorrectly label those who are preaching the central truth of the gospel, while overlooking the Law Teaching which is so prevalent in the church.

Bishop TD Jakes says, "We are taught in our society that if we disagree within a movement, we leave ... we sever." "I believe that until we bridge the gap between our thinking, and humble both sides and say 'we're both attempting to describe a God we love, that we serve and that we have not seen, and that we are viewing Him through the context of the Scriptures but that with a glass darkly'  why should I fall out and hate and throw names at you when all that I know and understand, be it very Orthodox, is still through a glass darkly?" (christianpost.com)

Respect

We should be discussing, sharing, challenging thinking (hopefully with respect) and being open to changing our own view or understanding. This is the organic nature of Scripture and God and our lives intertwined.

Our personal theology is continually moulding and forming. If we look back on our lives, we can see that some of our thoughts and understandings of the past differs quite a lot with todays. Realising this about ourselves may give us some insight and grace knowing that everyone is on this moulding journey.

Belinda Croft has been writing for Press Service International since 2010. She lives in Melbourne with her husband Russell and their three children. Her passion for understanding the things of God in simple ways, social justice and news issues influence her writing style.

Belinda Croft's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/belinda-croft.html
The former pastor, who had led the 15,000-member congregation for the past 11 years, has not yet made any public remarks on his firing nor the affair. The FBI reportedly has launched an investigation into Schaap's involvement with the young girl  although the age of consent in Indiana is 16, so it is unclear if the married father of two will face any criminal charges.

According to Trisha Kae, a former church member who maintains a Facebook page for ex-congregants, Schaap had forgotten his phone one night at the pulpit, and a deacon who saw it picked it up to return it to the pastor.

"From what we understand, the deacon then saw a text come through from a teenage girl in the church, and it was a picture of Jack Schaap and this girl making out," Kae claims.

The Board of Deacons explained the situation on Wednesday to the congregation, and asked for members to stick with them and offer their prayers for the church and the families of all involved.

When First Baptist Church of Hammond first released news of the firing, officials said they were assisting the sheriff's department in the case, but declined to specify why exactly Schaap was fired and instead said the dismissal was for a "sin."

"At this time, we deeply regret the need to announce that First Baptist Church has dismissed our pastor, Dr. Jack Schaap, due to a sin that has caused him to forfeit his right to be our pastor. First Baptist Church is in full cooperation with our local authorities in their investigation of this matter. Our church grieves over the need to take this action and the impact it will have on our people," the church stated in a press release.

Lake County Sheriff John Buncich added that Schaap was being investigated along with Hyles-Anderson College, where the former pastor was once a vice president, and where it is believed the teenage girl took classes.

Eddie Wilson, director of public relations for FBC of Hammond, had said that the church did not believe Schaap would face criminal charges, but noted that adultery is a serious moral transgression.

The public relations director revealed that Schaap had been trying to reconcile his marriage to Cindy Schaap, the daughter of the Rev. Hyles, the pastor who built First Baptist Church and helped found Hyles-Anderson College.

"The church will move on and begin the process of calling a new pastor," Wilson added.
Rev Richard Johnson and his wife Mary arrived in Botany Bay with the First fleet in 1788. They faced precarious challenges. In letters to London Johnson often shared his heartfelt concerns. Two years after arrival the confronting circumstances remained.

On August 21, 1790 Johnson wrote: Have been very much employed since the arrival of this last fleet. These came in here in a most deplorable situation. Near 300 died upon the passage, & since their arrival I have buried above 100 more. Numbers yet sick, some likely to die, & others never to appearance will be fit for any employment. Never did I see such a scene of Misery in my days, in every sense truly wretched, naked, filthy, dirty, louzy, & many of them unable to stand, to creep, or even to stir hand or foot. Have been a great deal amongst them, till I have come home quite ill.

Twenties years earlier discoveries by Captain James Cook unleashed exciting expectations for empire-builders and the church. With great and dedicated energy Christian leaders planned and prepared for mission activity. Among the pioneers was John Newton the former slave trader who became a gospel minister after his conversion.

He wrote Amazing Grace and spoke for many Christians with his heartfelt lyrics. Newton led a fellowship of clergy and laymen from various denominations, the Eclectic Society. They met fortnightly to discuss practical ways of propagating the Christian faith. His friend, evangelical William Wilberforce was a zealous anti-slavery campaigner. Newton and Wilberforce searched beyond the hometown stereotype for the unique chaplain needed for New South Wales.

They settled on 31 year-old Rev Richard Johnson, a Yorkshireman. Johnson had studied at Cambridge from 1780 and was ordained in 1783.

Through the personal friendship shared by Wilberforce and the newly elected, 25 year-old Prime Minister William Pitt, Richard Johnson was proposed for the post. Wilberforce lightheartedly, called him the Bishop of Botany Bay. In October 1786, Johnson received the royal warrant as Chaplain to the New South Wales colony.

Married

In 1786, Johnson married Mary Burton, a woman who shared his religious fervor. Mary needed her Christian fortitude. On the voyage to NSW, illness threatened her life. Library reports record Richard and Mary were at one point washed out of their cabins.

Rev. Richard Johnson was multi-talented having spent some time farming in England. Those skills were described as valuable to the new settlement. Johnson supplied grain, vegetables, and meat to Sydney from the lands he cultivated around Brickfield, Canterbury and Ryde, says a State Library report. (Richard Johnson, www2.sl.nsw.gov.au)

Interesting to note, when the First Fleet stayed at Rio de Janeiro, the chaplain, considered oranges might grow well in Botany Bay. He obtained seeds and after the successful planting, he became the father of the Australian citrus industry.

Mary was an outstanding support for her husband. Their daughter Melba Maria was born March, 1790. A son Henry Martin followed 19th July, 1792. Mary also cared for an aboriginal orphan girl for several years.

Shepherd

Has a shepherd ever served such a unique flock? There were eleven ships in all: Two Naval Ships, HMS Sirius commanded by the Captain of the Fleet Arthur Phillip, HMS Supply, six transport ships, three store ships, on the Golden Grove were Rev Johnson and his wife Mary. The community totaled 756 souls.

To prepare himself for his role, Johnson visited the Leviathan in Woolwich before departure. There he met 250 members of his future congregation. He was overwhelmed by the stench, filth, obscenity and degradation. He complained to his mentor Newton who responded: It will be madness for you to risk your health by going into the breaths of a crowd of passengers in chains. If they are sick and want you, let them be brought up on deck.

Dr George Mackaness compiled Australian Historical Monographs. He wrote: And so the young parson and his wife, Mary, came to the new convict settlement of Botany Bay. So great were the bustle, excitement and confusion when the vessels reached Port Jackson and anchored in Sydney Cove on 26th January, 1788, and began to unload their cargo, human and material, on the following day, which was a Sunday, that no religious service could be held ashore.

It was not until the following Sunday, therefore, February 3, 1788, that the first divine service was held on Australian soil, with Johnson officiating and the congregation made up of officers, marines and convicts, male and female, all assembled under some trees, as Johnsons register has it, or under a great tree as Captain Tench asserts.

It is recorded that on this momentous occasion the behaviour of the convicts was regular and attentive, to which Lieutenant Ralph Clark, whose informative journal is in the Mitchell Library, though still unpublished, adds: We had a very good sermon, the text being taken from the 116th Psalm, and the 12th verse, What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me?.

Before leaving England Captain Phillip had instructed Rev Johnson to focus his sermons on issues of morality. What shall I render unto the Lord must directly reflect on the amazing result of their survival through a long and tempestuous voyage. They arrived safely. Even in the face of huge difficulties and challenges they have the opportunity to start a new life. It was a message of hope to be grasped with serious commitment and tenacity.

Surely that message rings true today. Who faces a challenge like this? Australia grew from those heady days and as surely as the orange seeds, grew, blossomed and produced fruit, so this nation has been blessed. We owe much to the faith, courage and tenacity of Rev Johnson.

Ron Ross is a Middle East consultant for United Christian Broadcasters (Vision FM). Previously he was radio news editor for Bridges for Peace in Jerusalem, Israel.

His career started at WINTV (Email: ronandyvonne@mac.com)

Ron Ross previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/ron-ross.html
At the moment the public spotlight is on the Catholic Church, with revelations of what has transpired in Pennsylvania. In this latest case some 300 priests are said to have abused some 1,000 children over many decades. Before looking at the details, let me say a few necessary things first. All child sex abuse is evil, end of story.

And when it happens in churches, it is even more evil. Child sexual abuse of course can and does happen in non-religious places, such as schools, etc., so we are amiss to single out the church. And Protestants have had their fair share of cases of this as well, so we are amiss to single out the Catholic Church.

I will not engage in any excuse-making here. I hate to see the name of Christ tarnished, regardless of where it is happening, be it Orthodox, Protestant or Catholic. Here I want to let a number of others speak, most of them Catholics, but a few Protestants as well.

Obviously Catholics who are involved in defending their church full time will want to offer their own take on the Pennsylvania situation. And some already have. Whether they were right to be so quick to speak to the situation is already a moot point, with Catholics on both sides of the issue.

For example, one key defender of Catholicism in the public arena is Bill Donahue. He came out rather quickly with a column seeking to debunk some myths here. Yes, given his role, he would be expected to do this I suppose, and he was right to point out a few truths, such as the fact that no one has been found guilty as yet.

www.cnsnews.com/commentary/bill-donohue/catholic-leagues-bill-donohue-debunks-pennsylvania-report-clergy-sex-abuse

But of course the media was quick to selectively pick up on things he said which seemed helpful, such as Most of the alleged victims were not raped: they were groped or otherwise abused, but not penetrated, which is what the word rape means.

Sure, the MSM did not quote his very next line: This is not a defenseit is meant to set the record straight and debunk the worst case scenarios attributed to the offenders. But in such a hostile climate, no matter what one says in seeking to offer a different point of view, it may in fact cause real damage nonetheless.

And I am not here speaking as a Protestant attacking Catholics. I actually have some of Donahues books and have quoted him at various times over the years. And his piece is worth reading to see how the media is often twisting and distorting things. But consider what another Catholic has just said about him. On her social media page Jennifer Roback Morse of the Ruth Institute said this:

I will eventually read Bill Donahues statements about the PA Grand Jury Report, but I must say this before I do. Even if I turn out to agree completely with his analysis, he is completely wrong to be talking about this at this moment. Here is why: This is the Catholic moment to face facts, take our lumps, and make amends. We can talk about other peoples mistakes and problems after that. Nearly 40 years of marriage has convinced me of this. If my husband tells me I did something that hurt him, that is exactly NOT the moment to start talking about all the times he has hurt me, all his flaws, etc. To do so, is to change the subject. At that moment, the subject is me and what I did and how I can make amends. If I dont listen to him, precisely at that terribly uncomfortable moment, I am setting us up for tit-for-tat, back and forth recriminations and vendetta. There will be another time to talk about what he does that I dont like. At that moment, my responsibility is to listen to him, take him and his concerns seriously. Not to put too fine a point on it, that is the moment for me to suck it up. That is, assuming I want to remain in relationship with him. And I most emphatically do want to remain in relationship with the culture around me, including the Attorney General of PA and the members of the Grand Jury and the media and all the rest. I will listen to what Bill Donohue has to say, some other time, once I feel sure that I have exhausted my capacity for making things right within the Body of Christ.

I think she is taking a wise and helpful approach here. Even if only a fraction of the allegations are true, it is still horrific, still indefensible, and still must be completely rooted out and repented of. And of course many Catholics have themselves pointed out that there is a real problem with homosexuality in the Catholic Church.

But of course it is not PC to say so. Most of these assaults by male clergy have been on males. That may or may not be paedophilia, depending on the age, but it is certainly homosexual in nature. Many have pointed this out over many years, and Catholics are saying the same about the Pennsylvania situation. Just recently attorney and child rights advocate Liz Yore, along with Brad Miner, editor of The Catholic Thing, made these points.

They refer to a 2004 report on sexual abuse by Catholic leaders in the US known as the John Jay Report. As Yore said: Largely its not a pedophile crisis. We know from the John Jay report, 81-percent of the victims were males, mostly teens. And we know because our subclass of predators are all male, this is a male-on-male crime, and primarily with teens between the ages of 14 to 17. Those are the victims. www.lifesitenews.com/news/sex-abuse-crisis-in-us-catholic-church-is-about-homosexuality-not-pedophili

Last month Catholic blogger Matt Walsh also repeated this fact:

As Rod Dreher has been reporting, and liberal publications agree, homosexuality runs rampant in the modern priesthood. Sexual activity between priests, and between priests and seminarians, is not uncommon. I think it is rather difficult to separate these facts from the fact that teen boys were so often sexually victimized. Is it just a coincidence that gay priests exist in such large numbers, protected by gay cabals within the Church, and at the same time there happen to be a bunch of priests molesting pubescent boys? Are these two realities entirely separate from one another?

He continues:

80% of the victims in the Church have been males. Is it difficult to see how thousands of boys may have been spared this experience if there had not been so many homosexuals in the priesthood? Or are we going to pretend that even a heterosexual may attempt to get his thrills by molesting a 15 year old boy? If so, I have no idea what the words heterosexual and homosexual mean anymore. www.dailywire.com/news/33364/walsh-matt-walsh

Speaking of Dreher, the Orthodox commentator has been resisted by some Catholic leaders, including Austin Ruse, for highlighting such abuse. But just recently he has come out saying that Dreher was right and he was wrong. See here:

www.crisismagazine.com/2018/rod-right-wrong

Fr. Paul Sullins, also of the Ruth Institute, has spoken of the homosexual subculture within the Catholic church as well:

Is the current Catholic sex abuse scandal related to homosexuality? Yes. The current scandal includes mostly revelations about male on male sexual abuse of seminarians, where the victims are adults. These kinds of cases were not even considered in the responses to the 2002 scandal, which was about the criminal abuse of minors. Was the 2002 scandal also related to homosexuality? The US Conference of Catholic Bishops commissioned two reports, one in 2004 and in 2011, by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to study the reported cases of clerical sex abuse from 1950 through 2002 and 2010 respectively. Both reports found that over 80% of the victims were neither girls, nor pre-pubescent children (true pedophilia), but pre-teen and teenage boys. These results clearly indicate that the problem was male on male predation by priests against under-aged boys. Is there a homosexual subculture which exists within certain Catholic institutions? Yes. In a 2002 survey of a national sample of 1,852 Catholic priests by the Los Angeles Times, 44% responded yes when asked if there was a homosexual subculture in your diocese or religious institute. To the question, In the seminary you attended, was there a homosexual subculture at the time? 53% of recently-ordained priests responded Yes (reported in Hoge and Wenger, Evolving Visions of the Priesthood, p. 102. Their own concurrent survey yielded 55% Yes to the identical question.) www.ruthinstitute.org/ruth-speaks-out/ruth-institute-on-clergy-sex-abuse-scandal

Donahue of course has also made this point, as have others. Protestant commentator Michael Brown has taken this view in his brand-new article. In it he asks, Does the Catholic Church Have a Homosexual Problem?

askdrbrown.org/library/does-catholic-church-have-homosexual-problem

And some candid Catholics are saying much the same. In the Catholic journal First Things a same-sex attracted man says people like him should NOT be made priests:

I am the sort of man the Catholic Church says shouldnt be a priest. I experience what the Vatican calls deep-seated homosexual tendencies, which, according to the Church, make me an unsuitable candidate for the priesthood. The 2005 Vatican instruction on the question of homosexuality and the priesthood states this clearly: The Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture. This teaching wasnt new. In 1961, the Vatican declared that men with homosexual inclinations couldnt be ordained. Seminarians who sinned gravely against the sixth commandment with a person of the same or opposite sex were to be dismissed immediately. I take no offense at this teaching. In fact, I agree with it. Im convinced that if the Church had heeded its own counsel from 1961 and 2005, we wouldnt be reeling from the shocking headlines of today www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/08/why-men-like-me-should-not-be-priests

Protestant commentator Rob Gagnon suggested that the way forward for the RCC to address the scandal of clerical sexual misconduct, particularly the persistent homosexual subculture network, [would be] for the Pope to appoint a commission, consisting of people like Robert George, Andrew Comiskey, Paul McHugh, Paul Sullins, Ryan Anderson, Jennifer Roback Morse, Francis Beckwith, Joseph Sciambra, and others who have taken the strongest public stance supporting Catholic sexual ethics.

A newer piece by Matt Walsh calls for the need of some radical reform:

The good priests and bishops must come out and rebuke with righteous fury. Statements of sadness and grief will not do. Cardinal Wuerls limp-wristed lament about the tragedy of sexual abuse is insufficient. It is not just a tragedy. It is wickedness straight from the pit of Hell. That is what needs to be said. We dont want to hear about tragedies anymore. We want to hear the wrath of God called down upon the heads of the perpetrators. We want you to show us that you are disgusted and enraged, or else we will suspect that you dont care  or worse. And names must be named. For every priest who raped a boy, there could well be at least one more priest who knew about it and remained silent. And those priests are almost as guilty as the rapist. Cowardice is a moral evil. And there has been quite a lot of that kind of evil  and many other kinds of evil  infecting the hierarchy of the Church. So all of the evildoers must be purged. Exposed. Shamed. Thrown out. Imprisoned. All of them. That is the only way forward now. There is no other way. And every Catholic who loves God and truth and justice must demand it. www.dailywire.com/news/34503/walsh-there-must-be-purge-catholic-church-and-it-matt-walsh?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=062316-news&utm_campaign=benshapiro

One Protestant critic replied to this saying that a massive reform already did take place  it is called the Reformation. While there may be something to this, this is not the place for such a mega-debate. Nor is the long-standing issue of whether clergy should be able to marry to be resolved here.

And as a reminder: my longstanding policy still stands: no sectarian bashing thanks. Catholics who want to attack Catholics, or Protestants who want to attack Catholics, are advised to do it to their hearts content, but elsewhere please.

Suffice it to say that anyone who names the name of Christ must be held to the highest of standards  and especially its leadership. Whenever such horrific acts take place, it does tremendous damage of course to the victims, but also to the cause of Christ.

Regardless of who is doing it, and in what denomination, radical and heart-felt repentance is the main way forward, along with some other much-needed reforms.
2018 is a big year for Joya de Nicaragua as the company celebrates 50 years in business. Joya de Nicaragua owns and operates the oldest factory in Nicaragua, and a lot of the companys history is tied to the history of Nicaragua this past half-century. While this past year Joya de Nicaragua has celebrated its people and accomplishments, it has also been challenged by the civil unrest that has been going on in Nicaragua for the past four months.

There are many important points in the history of Joya de Nicaragua tied to the history of the country. At one time the company was partially owned by dictator Anastasio Somoza. The factory was burned down during the Nicaragua revolution and years later was reconstructed by the people who worked at Joya de Nicaragua. The company has seen growth as the Nicaraguan cigar industry as grown. Now the company perseveres in the challenges the country faces with the civil unrest.

Joya de Nicaragua has decided to use all of 2018 to celebrate its 50th anniversary. This year, the company had two releases at the IPCPR Trade Show coinciding with the celebration.

Joya de Nicaragua Cinco Decadas is the companys signature release for its 50th anniversary. It stands for five decades. Its a blend that is shrouded in mystery other than it utilizes extra vintage tobaccos in the blend. The blend comes in special sizes: Diadema (6 x 54) and El General (a Double Corona measuring 7 x 50). These sizes represent the first formats rolled at the Joya de Nicaragua factory back when it opened its doors in 1968.

Cinco Decadas is an ongoing limited production cigar. 5,000 ten-count boxes were initially produced with 3,000 boxes going to Drew Diplomat preferred retailers in the U.S. This will be an ultra-premium offering with the El General priced at $18.95 and the Diadema priced at $19.00.

The cigar was one of the most-talked-about cigars at the 2018 IPCPR. It was the best cigar this author smoked during the time of the trade show.

While not officially branded a 50th-anniversary cigar, the company showcased the Joya Silver. Its the fourth installment in Joya de Nicaraguas Joya series  aimed at the more contemporary smokers. Joya Silver is an all-box-pressed line available in four sizes: Corona (5 1/4 x 42), Ultra (6 1/4 x 46), Robusto (5 x 50), and Toro (6 x 52). As for the blend, it consists of an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper, a San Andres binder, and all-Nicaraguan fillers. Each size is presented in 20-count boxes.

Earlier this year, Joya de Nicaragua announced two other cigars, the re-packaged Joya de Nicaragua Clasico and Joya de Nicaragua Antano Gran Reserva Presidente for the TAA. These cigars were not showcased at the booth, but the Clasico was showcased at the Santa Clara Cigars booth. This is because Santa Clara will be handling distribution for the Clasico. Clasico represents the oldest brand in the Joya de Nicaragua portfolio.

2018 Product Reports
TUESDAY, Aug. 21, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- An enzyme found in gut bacteria could convert type A blood into universal type O blood, a scientific feat that would significantly boost blood supplies, a new study suggests.

This enzyme converts A blood into O blood approximately 30 times faster than any enzyme on record, and it appears to do it in a safe and effective manner, said lead researcher Stephen Withers, a professor of biochemistry with the University of British Columbia.

"It looks like it completely converted to O," Withers said. "I'm imagining adding the enzyme to A blood, letting it sit there for 24 hours, and then spin down the red blood cells and wash them and they would be ready to go."

Withers reported his findings this week at the American Chemical Society's annual meeting, in Boston. Such research is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

People with A, B and AB blood should receive donations that match their blood type, lest they suffer a severe and potentially fatal immune reaction. However, any of them can receive type O blood.

That's because of antigens located on the surface of everyone's red blood cells, Withers explained. Antigens signal to the immune system whether organisms detected in the body are native cells to be tolerated or foreign invaders to be attacked.

"The O antigen has a certain sugar structure on the surface. A and B have that sugar, but they have one additional sugar attached to it in each case," Withers said. "You've got a base sugar structure on the O blood and there's an additional sugar attached to that to make it A or B."

"The idea is if you could cut that additional sugar off the A or B, you would convert it into O because it would come back to that base structure," Withers said.

The thought of using biochemicals called enzymes to snip off those sugars is not a new one.

"The idea was demonstrated for B blood back in 1982, but the enzymes they had available then were so slow and inefficient it was never going to be a practical approach," Withers said.

But in the intervening decades, new genetic technology has made it easier to look for enzymes that would more effectively and efficiently convert A or B blood to O, Withers said.

He and his colleagues looked at enzymes created by gut bacteria because the sort of sugars that define A and B blood are present on the gut wall. Gut bacteria are known to derive some of their energy from breaking down these sugars, Withers said.

The research team found one enzyme that appears to cut the A-type sugar in a "highly specific" way, he said.

Specificity is important because if the enzyme makes other changes to the cell, it could create an immune reaction in recipients, Withers said.

"We don't seem to see any other sugars cut off by this enzyme. That's really important because we don't want to modify the red blood cell in some way that might compromise it," Withers said. "As far as we can tell, we're only cutting off the A antigen."

The researchers have applied for a patent, and are loath to talk about which specific gut bacteria creates the enzyme until it is approved, he said.

The next step is to use a protein engineering technique called "directed evolution" to simulate speeded-up natural evolution in the bacteria, with the goal of creating the most efficient sugar-removing enzyme, Withers said.

Dr. Pampee Young, chief medical officer of the American Red Cross, said this sort of innovation, if it proves effective, would help bolster the "constant" need for blood.

"Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood," Young said. "The Red Cross must collect more than 13,000 blood and platelet donations each day to meet the needs of accident victims, people undergoing heart surgery, cancer patients, people with blood disorders and others.

"The approach presented is innovative and of interest," Young said of Withers' technique. "We are hopeful that technology can support in alleviating many of the issues around blood shortages faced by blood collection centers such as Red Cross and others to meet patient needs.

"We follow the progress of innovations as they are validated, prepared for clinical use and as safety and efficacy are established," Young concluded.

More information

The American Red Cross has more about the national blood supply.
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Bangkok, August 21, 2018Two former Radio Free Asia journalists were granted bail in Cambodia today by Phnom Penhs Municipal Court, according to news reports. Uon Chhin, a videographer, and Yeang Sothearin, previously a news editor at the U.S. Congress-funded station, were arrested on November 14, 2017 and held in pre-trial detention until their release today. The court denied previous requests for bail.

Both journalists are charged with espionage under Article 445 of the criminal code, for allegedly providing information that is destructive to national defense to a foreign state, and with producing pornography. They denied both charges, the reports said.

CPJ welcomes todays release on bail of Cambodian journalists Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin, but they never should have been detained in the first place, said Shawn Crispin, CPJs Southeast Asia representative. Authorities should drop these bogus charges and stop harassing journalists with frivolous accusations.

Court spokesman Y Rin said today that the charges against the journalists would remain and that they would be required to appear in court for hearings, according to reports. It wasnt immediately clear when court proceedings would begin.
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New York, August 21, 2018 Egyptian national security prosecutors ordered four more journalists to be detained as part of a case in which more than a dozen journalists, along with academics and activists, are charged with belonging to a banned group and with spreading false news. The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on authorities to immediately release the journalists and end their crackdown on the press.

Since August 14, prosecutors have ordered Al-Shaab news website photojournalist Mervet al-Hosiny, Veto news website photojournalist Islam Gomaa, satirical blogger Islam al-Refai, known as Khorm, and freelance photojournalist Zeinab Abu Ouna, to be detained for 15 days each, according to the local press freedom groups the Arab Network for Human Rights Information and the Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression, and news reports.

Khorm was due to be released on bail in a separate case when new charges were brought, according to the reports.

Even when the hand of justice finally reaches for a journalist, Egypts national security prosecutors bat it away and put forward a new excuse to keep the journalist in jail, said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour. We call on authorities to immediately free all journalists who were arrested arbitrarily.

Khorm, who ran a satirical Twitter account with 75,000 followers, was due to be released after nine months detention in a separate case when he was detained on the new charges, the independent news website Mada Masr reported.

A Giza Criminal Court on August 16 had upheld a decision to release Khorm on bail of 2,000 Egyptian pounds (US$112) in the earlier case in which he was charged with belonging to a banned group and spreading false news, despite the prosecutions appeal, the Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression reported.

Fatma Serag, a lawyer for Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression who is representing Khorm, told Mada Masr that a national security investigation alleged that the journalist communicated with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which were described as hostile to Egypt. The journalist denied the allegation, according to Serag. The lawyer told Mada Masr it was the first time the prosecution defined those two organizations as being anti-state and classed communication with them as a crime.

Ouna, who most recently covered medical stories for the pro-government daily, Al-Watan, was arrested on August 17 at Cairos international airport as she was about to board a flight to Lebanon, Serag told Mada Masr. The lawyer said that she only learned of the journalists detention order on August 19, when she attended a hearing for Khorm as part of the same trial.

Nour Fahmy, a lawyer for Gomaa, told the local news website Katib that on August 14, Cairos national security prosecutor ordered the journalists detention to be renewed for 15 days. Gomaa, who covered public funerals for Veto, was arrested on June 29 and appeared in front of the prosecutor for the first time on August 7, his lawyer said.

Prosecutors on August 18 extended the detention period for al-Hosiny, who covered protests and was arrested at her Cairo home on July 5, her outlet reported. The journalists lawyer, Amr Mohamed, told Katib she was taken to the hospital on August 19 after her health deteriorated following the prosecutors decision.

The prosecutor generals office did not immediately respond to CPJs email requesting comment.
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Beirut, August 21, 2018The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed concern about Israels arrest and ongoing detention of Ali Dar Ali, a reporter for the Palestinian Authoritys official broadcaster Palestine TV.

In a dawn raid on August 15, Israeli troops stormed into the Dar Ali family house in the West Bank village of Burham, 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) northwest of Ramallah, and arrested Dar Ali, according to news reports, Ali Dar Alis official Facebook page, and the SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom.

Ali Dar Alis father was cited by SKeyes as saying that a large number of Israeli soldiers raided the family house, seized Alis cell phone and computer, and arrested him without informing them of any charges.

According to Adnan Abdel Jawad, a producer for Palestine TV who has been updating Ali Dar Alis official Facebook page since his arrest, Dar Ali was taken to the Binyamin police station immediately after his detention and then transferred few hours later to Ofer Prison.

News reports and Adnan Abdel Jawad said that Israel accuses Dar Ali of inciting violence against Israeli soldiers.

An unidentified spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was cited by The Times of Israel as saying that Dar Ali had been arrested for allegedly inciting violence against Israeli soldiers in videos he published of them while they were operating. The IDF spokesperson neither mentioned that the detainee was a journalist, nor disclosed his identity, according to The Times of Israel.

Israel is using every legal measure at its disposal, including accusations of incitement, to thwart critical reporting of its policies and activities in the West Bank and keep journalists like Ali Dar Ali in jail, said CPJs Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, Sherif Mansour, from New York. We call on the Israeli authorities to release Ali Dar Ali immediately and let him work freely.

According to the news reports, authorities accuse Ali of incitement over a video he posted on his official Facebook page of Israeli security forces operating in the Al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah and allegedly mapping the house of a Palestinian who was arrested on suspicion of killing an IDF soldier earlier this year. No specific calls for violence against Israeli soldiers are made in that video, according to CPJs review of the video and news reports. The army typically maps homes in advance of demolishing them, The Times of Israel reported.

News reports and Abdel Jawad said that the Ofer military court on August 16 extended Dar Alis detention for five days. The same court on August 20 extended Alis detention until September 4, according to Abdel Jawad, who also posted pictures of Ali at the hearing.

On June 17, an Israeli ministerial committee for legislation approved a bill outlawing the filming of IDF soldiers and calling for a five-year prison term for anyone filming or distributing footage on social media that documents confrontations between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians with the intent to break the spirit of Israeli soldiers and inhabitants, according to news reports. The bill passed its first reading out of three in the Israeli parliament on June 20, news reports said.
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Nairobi, August 21, 2018Police in Tanzania should drop allegations of illegal assembly against Sitta Tumma, a journalist who was arrested on August 8 and detained overnight, and investigate allegations that he was assaulted by security personnel, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Tumma, a print reporter and regional bureau chief for the privately owned Tanzania Daima newspaper, told CPJ that on August 8 he was arrested while covering an opposition campaign rally in Tarime District, northern Tanzania, ahead of a local authority by-election, even though he repeatedly identified himself as a journalist. He said he was assaulted during the arrest, held overnight at a police station in Tarime, and released on August 9 on bond. Police accuse him of unlawful assembly and have told him he may be required to appear at any time to assist in their investigations, according to Tumma and his lawyer Ernest Mhagama. The lawyer told CPJ that police claimed they could not identify Tumma as a journalist because he was not dressed as one.

Tanzanian authorities should investigate those who arrested and assaulted journalist Sitta Tumma, instead of intimidating him with a bogus investigation into his reporting at a political event, said CPJs sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo. The idea that journalists should dress a certain way is a joke, but the grim state of press freedom in Tanzania isnt at all funny.

Police came to the opposition rally with a notice from election officials declaring the meeting illegal, and ordered politicians and crowds to disperse, according to media reports. Tumma said that he was documenting this operation, taking pictures of officers using tear gas to disperse the crowd and arresting people, including opposition Member of Parliament Esther Matiko, when he noticed three anti-riot police officers following him. Tumma told CPJ that he verbally identified himself as a journalist three times to the officers, while also lifting his camera above his head for them to see. When they were close enough, he said he showed them his work identification but they arrested him nonetheless. He told CPJ that he was taken to a waiting police truck where two police officers kicked him, causing minor injury to his back, and tried to take away his camera, which he refused to let go.

Tumma told CPJ that while he and the other arrested individuals were waiting to be booked at the police station, Matiko called an acquaintance who came and took the journalists camera for safekeeping. Tumma told CPJ that at the station he once more informed police that he was a journalist. He was detained overnight and released on August 9 on a bond with terms that indicate police may call him any time to answer questions in connection to investigations into the allegations of unlawful assembly, according to Mhagama.

The lawyer told CPJ that when he asked police why they had arrested Tumma, they told him that they had no way of identifying him as a journalist since he was not wearing the appropriate uniform. Mhagama said that Tanzanian law does not require journalists to wear specific clothes, and even so, Tumma had repeatedly identified himself as a journalist during and after the arrest.

I heard that they said I was not wearing a uniform. But it is funny because as a journalist I do not have a uniform. My uniform is the pen, notebook, and camera. I am not a soldier, I dont wear uniform, said Tumma.

Tanzanias inspector general of police, Simon Sirro, and Tarime-Rorya special zone police commander Henry Mwaibambe did not respond to CPJs calls and text messages yesterday. However, Mwaibambe has said previously that police are going to arraign the people arrested during the protest in court on charges of illegal assembly, according to an August 10 report by IPP Media. Mwaibambe further denied that Tumma had been targeted for arrest because he was a journalist and said that his case would be treated like any other, according to the same report.
00:12

The Congress on Tuesday expressed serious concern over India's defence preparedness, claiming the country was at its weakest under the Narendra Modi government due to its "wrong policies".

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari asked Prime Minister Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as to why the country's defence expenditure as a percentage of India's GDP is at its lowest since 1962, as pointed out by a parliamentary panel report.

He cited the reports of parliamentary committees on Public Undertakings and the Public Accounts Committee to target the government, saying the reports pointing out the shortcomings in the defence budgets and expediencies were adopted unanimously.

He said the committees have BJP members in majority and the panel on public enterprises is headed by former BJP chief Murli Manohar Joshi.

He recalled that in the run-up to 2014 general elections, Modi had questioned UPA's track record on defence preparedness and national security.

"In 2018, the track record of the NDA-BJP Government speaks for itself. This country is perhaps, unfortunately, at its weakest because of the wrong policies which have been pursued by the NDA-BJP Government in both the foreign policy realm and in the realm of defence preparedness," he said.

The Congress leader asked why the defence expenditure as a percent of GDP constantly declined since 2014-15, as it was 2.06 pc in 2014-15 and came down to 1.96 pc in 2015-16.

It further came down to 1.5 pc in 2016-17 and down to 1.56 pc in 2017-18, which is below the pre-1962 level.

"The question to you Mr. Prime Minister and Madam Defence Minister is - does this make India stronger or does this make India weaker?

Tewari also questioned the decline in capital expenditure as a percentage of the defence budget from 39 pc to 34 pc in the last four years.

"Does this make India strong or does it make India weak? And the most important question is Mr Prime Minister and Madam Defence Minister has the Government junked the proposal cleared by the previous UPA Government with regard to the raising of the 17 Strike Corps which is also called the Mountain Strike Corp," he asked.

He said the country would like to know "if it is true, why it has been done and under whose pressure has this decision been taken".

The Congress leader alleged that the NDA Government which claims to be "muscular" on national security has dismantled Mountain Strike Corp, which was a counter force posture to China.

Tewari also expressed concern over the scenario in India's neighbourhood, with "Pakistan indemnified by China, Nepal pushed into the Chinese corner by ill-conceived economic blockade of Modi government, the Yameen Government in Maldives threatening India regularly and a Chinese port in Sri Lanka's Hambantota". -- PTI
Chandigarh: Fish seed farms rejuvenated, investing Rs 24 65 cr: Balbir Sidhu

August 21,2018 | Source: Uni India

To lend the much-needed helping hand to the farmers associated with the fish farming, the Punjab government has resuscitated various 'Fish Seed Farms' with the cost of Rs 24. 65 crore.



Stating this here on Monday, Animal Husbandry, Dairy Development and Fisheries Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said the motive behind this exercise was to encourage the farmers to opt for fish farming under the agricultural diversification programme. He said the initiative of the government in this direction has borne fruits as 3449. 23 acres of additional area has been brought under fish farming in 2017-18, whereas 35882.
Bangladesh: Chandpur markets abuzz with fishermen amid huge hilsa catches

August 21,2018 | Source: New Age BD

Huge hilsa netted from the Bay of Bengal and the Meghna estuary have flooded the biggest wholesale fish market of the country at Chandpur Bara Station in the town, bringing down the prices. Visiting the market on Wednesday morning, the UNB correspondent found a large number of fishing trawlers and pickup vans coming to the Fisheries Ghat carrying Hilsa netted from the coastal areas of Bhola, Char Fassion, Ramgati, Swandwip and the adjacent areas.



But, around 90 per centof the mouthwatering fish was filled with huge eggs and around 50 per centof those were of 500/600 grams in weight and the rest are even smaller. Small hilsaswere selling at Tk 200/250 per kg while that of 500 grams at Tk 350.00 per kg in retail markets. The hilsas, weighing around one kg, were selling at Tk 700.00 to 800.00 and the bigger ones, weighing 1.5 to 1.6 kg, at Tk 1300.00 to Tk 1500.00.



Most of the fishermen prefer carrying their catches in pickup vans as it takes lesser time than carrying in boats. Another reason to avoid the waterways is that the fishermen have to pay tolls at different points to extortionists, said some fishermen.



On Thursday afternoon, more than a thousand workers and fish traders were seen busy handling hilsa at Chandpur fisheries. Asked about the market condition, Biplob Das, a tea stall owner, said, Were now getting a greater number of customers because of big catches. Ali Hossain, a thermal box trader, told the UNB correspondent, Were getting more customers buying packs to load hilsas for sending to Dhaka and other places for their relatives.



With constant smiles on their faces, day-labourers  Khokan, Nazrul, Mizan, Monir, Rahman and Mezba-told the correspondent that they have been passing a very busy time in handling hilsa as plenty of this delicious fish is being netted. Fish trader Mizanur Rahman KaluBhuiyan said some 3,500 maunds of hilsa were traded at Bara Station market in just three days. In the last couple of days, weve sent thousands of cartons of hilsa to different markets of the country, including Dhakas Kawran Bazar, Abdullahpur, Baipail as well as Kishoreganj, Mymensingh, Sylhet, Jamalpur, Narayanganj and some other places of northern districts, he said.



According to him, hilsa is also found in plenty at small markets set up along the Meghna River at Horina Ferry Ghat, Hanarchar, Haimchar, Idgah Bazar, Ananda Bazar and some other places. Contacted, researcher Anisur Rahman of Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute, said, As this years ban on fishing jatka has been successful, were hopeful of getting greater catches this time than last years.
Tamil Nadu: Kanyakumari fishers rescue 126 stranded in Kerala

by M K Ananth

August 21,2018 | Source: The Times of India

In just nine hours after they began rescue operations, fishermen from Eraiviputhenthurai coastal fishing hamlet in Kanyakumari district evacuated 126 residents of Chengannur town in Alappuzha district on Sunday. Their delight was, however, overshadowed by the death of an aged woman, whose body they retrieved and sent to the government hospital for postmortem.



Twenty fishermen of the village led by S Justin started to the flood-hit district on the request of fisheries officials from Kerala. We were ready to go there but did not know whom to contact. So we informed fisheries officials in Kanyakumari district to let us know if we were needed. Late on Saturday night, we got a call from officials that we should go to Ernakulam as that region was badly affected and inundated, he said. Talking to TOI during a short break between rescue operations on Sunday evening, he said that they started from Eraiviputhenthurai at 1 am on Sunday, equipped with three motorised fibre boats, 700 litres of kerosene for the boats, supplies worth Rs. 50,000, for the recued people, 5,000 water bottles and power banks for their mobile phones in four vans.



They had to pay Rs. 12,000 towards transport for each boat. They were around 110km from Thiruvananthapuram and heading to Aluva around 8am on Sunday, when some people from Alappuzha stopped them and said that many were still stranded at Chengannur. There was difficulty in connecting with officials, as there was no cellular network. The team split into three and went in search of victims stranded in their houses in many directions. Each team took one or two locals.
Christopher Watts faces nine felony charges including first degree murder and unlawful termination of pregnancy





GREELEY  Weld County prosecutors charged a 33-year-old Frederick man Monday with first-degree murder in the deaths of his pregnant wife and two preschool-aged daughters, whose bodies he allegedly put in a shallow grave and an oil tank, according to authorities and court documents.





Christopher Watts was charged with nine counts in the deaths of his 34-year-old wife, Shanann, and two daughters, 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste.





The criminal charges include five counts of first-degree murder, one count of unlawful termination of pregnancy in the first degree and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.





During a 4 p.m. news conference, Shananns father, Frank Rzucek, spoke to the public and media, thanking law enforcement and the community for coming out to a Friday vigil commemorating his pregnant daughter and granddaughters.





Keep the prayers coming for our family, Rzucek said.





Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke was tight-lipped during the news conference, citing the ongoing investigation. Rourke said it was too early to say whether hell consider the death penalty in this case, to which he has assigned three prosecutors.





In Colorado, district attorneys cant charge murder over the death of a fetus. Dynel Lane, who cut an unborn child out of Longmont woman Michelle Wilkins womb in 2015, was charged and convicted of unlawful termination of a pregnancy along with attempted first-degree murder and four counts of assault.





Watts charges will be read at his next court hearing 10 a.m. Tuesday. Watts has been held without bond in the Weld County Jail since his arrest.





An arrest-warrant affidavit that likely will provide more insights into the killings will be unsealed later Monday, officials confirmed.





The affidavit could explain how and why Shanann Watts was killed and where the three bodies were found.





Christopher Watts worked for Anadarko Petroleum Company until Wednesday, when he was fired.





Authorities said the bodies were recovered on an Anadarko property.





The Weld County Coroners Office completed autopsies on the three bodies Friday and confirmed that they were those of the mother and the two girls.





A family friend reported on the afternoon of Aug. 13 that she hadnt heard from Shanann. Police responded at 1:40 p.m. to the Watts home in the 2800 block of Saratoga Trail in Frederick to check on the family, but did not find Shanann or her daughters.





Christopher Watts went on TV pleading that if anyone took his family that they return them to him. Swaying back and forth as he stood during the interviews, he told reporters he didnt know where they were.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
A Chinese-Indonesian woman of the Buddhist faith has been sentenced to 1.5 years in prison for complaining about the volume of the azan (Islamic call to prayer) that was blasted from a speaker of a mosque near her house.





Meiliana, 44, a resident of Tanjung Balai, North Sumatra, was found guilty of blasphemy as stipulated under articles 156 and 156A of the Criminal Code on blasphemy, the Medan District Court said on Tuesday.





[We] declare that the defendant is legally and compellingly proven guilty of [] committing blasphemy against a certain religion that is professed in Indonesia, presiding judge Wahyu Prasetyo Wibowo said.





[We] sentenced the defendant to one and a half years in prison.





Meiliana is one of the first people to have been sentenced to prison for complaining about the volume of a mosque's speakers, despite a plea from the Indonesian Mosque Council, now led by Vice President Jusuf Kalla, for mosque staff to use loudspeakers wisely.





Meiliana reportedly said the azan was too loud and hurt her ears, and asked a neighbor to lower the speakers volume.





Her remark, made in 2016, is believed to have triggered the worst anti-Chinese riot in the country since 1998, with Muslims who claimed to have been offended by her words burning several Buddhist temples.





During the riot, the angry mob destroyed prayer equipment, Buddha statues, tables, chairs, lamps and several cars and motorbikes, the police said.





The police arrested 19 people for their role in the riot. Eight were charged with looting, nine with malicious destruction of property and two with inciting violence. All were given one to four month jail sentences.





Meiliana's lawyer, Ranto Sibarani, said they would appeal the verdict.





"We will appeal the verdict because the judges could not prove that our client has committed blasphemy," he told The Jakarta Post over the phone.





Human rights activists have criticized the law enforcers for prosecuting Meiliana, saying that the case should have been settled out of court.





This is an old case that was brought up again, M. Isnur from the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI) told the Post recently, adding that public pressure was likely the main driver of her prosecution.





In a blasphemy case like this, [law enforcement officials] often listen to the MUIs fatwas.





Meiliana is the latest individual prosecuted under the nations controversial blasphemy laws, under which dozens of people have been sent to prison, including former Jakarta governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama.

Meilianas blasphemy conviction ludicrous: Amnesty International

The blasphemy conviction of Meliana, a resident of Tanjung Balai, North Sumatra, for complaining about the volume of adzan (a call to prayer) was ludicrous and should be overturned, a human rights group has said.





Amnesty International Indonesia has demanded that the Chinese-Indonesian woman be immediately released from prison, saying that complaining about the volume of a loudspeaker was not a criminal offense.





This ludicrous decision is a flagrant violation of freedom of expression, Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid said in a statement released on Tuesday.





The Medan District Court ruled on Tuesday Meiliana guilty of blasphemy as stipulated under articles 156 and 156A of the Criminal Code.





Usman said the verdict was a stark illustration of the increasingly arbitrary and repressive application of the law on blasphemy in the country.





The higher court in North Sumatra must reverse this injustice by quashing Meilianas sentence and ensuring her immediate and unconditional release.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Eyal Bokel and Dolev Zuarez convicted of killing the Israeli criminal Maor Malul in the island of Ko Samui in January in a sentence considered mild in Thailand, which has capital punishment for premeditated murder.





A court in Thailand sentenced two Israelis, Eyal Bokelbrother of Baruch Bokel, who heads a crime syndicate in Netanyaand Dolev Zuarez, to 25 years in prison for the murder of Israeli criminal Maor Malul in the island of Ko Samui, an inside source said Monday.





The two ran Malul over with a jeep and then stabbed him multiple times in January of this year.





This sentence is considered mild in Thailand, as the two could have gotten the death penalty for premeditated murder.





Video documenting the murder shows a car hitting the moped Malul and his wife were driving. Malul is then seen getting up to help his wife, but then he runs back when the car reverses. A few seconds later, the car hits Malul, who is trying to escape.





Then a man wearing all black is seen coming out of the car with a knife, chasing him. This was likely the point Malul was stabbed. The attacker is then seen entering the car and escaping the scene.





Thai media reported that the two suspects abandoned their vehicle three kilometers from the scene, near Bophut Beach on the northern part of the island, and fled into a wooded area. The Thai press added that the police questioned two Israelis who were staying at the Ark Bar hotel, since the car was registered in one of their names.





Thai media further reported that Bokel and Zuarez had managed to take a motor boat from Ko Samui to Surat Thani, where they took a Thai Airways flight to Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok. There they were arrested by Thai immigration police at around 10:30pm that same day.





A day later, the two were seen handcuffed and surrounded by Thai police officers. A video showed all their luggage spread out, while police forces surrounding them are being briefed. Another video showed three kitchen knives stained with blood, and another plastic knife.





Jacky Sagroun, the lawyer who represented Bokel and Zuarez in Israel, refused to comment.





In August 2015, Malul and an accomplice, Ron Shevach, attempted to assassinate Baruch Bokel, a Netanya criminal.





According to an indictment filed against them, Malul and Shevach ambushed Bokel as he headed home on his motorbike. Malul, who was driving a Toyota, accelerated and hit Bokel. Shevach, who was in the back seat, got out of the car with a loaded gun and wearing a mask.





Shevach and Bokel fought over control of the gun, which went off, with a bullet hitting Bokel in his left thigh. Still, Bokel managed to wrestle the gun away and remove Shevach's mask.





Bokel also fired a shot at the road "to make sure the gun worked" in case the two attacked him again, before being taken to the hospital in serious condition.





A few months before that assassination attempt, Avi Malul, the brother of Maor, was shot and killed in Kfar Yona.





Bokel's brother was also targeted by an explosive device, which seriously injured him. His Netanya business was also a target of arson.





In a plea bargain, Malul was convicted of assisting in aggravated battery and sentenced to only 20 months in prison. The case was lacking in critical evidence and the prosecutor was concerned the police's methods would be exposed during the trial.

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
In the darkness of an execution chamber in the Walls Unit in Huntsville one night last month a moment of clarity shone through.





As inmate Chris Young died at the hands of the state on July 17, one thing, even in that dimly lit observation room bordering the actual execution chamber, was blazingly clear.





Mercy in Texas exists only for the few, the privileged, the white and the wealthy.





The truth is that the process of clemency in Texas is so random and isolated that it effectively does not exist. Pardon and commutation exist only if the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles executive clemency section votes to recommend relief to the governor, and the governor agrees. No one knows what rules board members follow because they are not published. No one knows what things move the board or fail to move it because it issues no opinions or statements. It keeps no records. It does not even publish minutes of members' discussions or debates. It has nothing to say to the world when members deny a recommendation to a soul hoping for life over death, for a pardon to forgive past mistakes or for a person hoping for a chance to go home. Nothing the board does, says or discusses, other than the final vote, is recorded.





Under our law, the governor can do nothing without a favorable recommendation, and no one in this state has any idea how to persuade the board because the members operate in complete secrecy behind closed doors. With due respect to those who say this is the way things are, this needs to change.





In contrast, on the same week in Ohio, Republican Gov. John Kasich commuted the death sentence of a condemned killer when some old documents in a file kept by the Ohio Board of Pardons and Paroles showed that Raymond Tibbetts had one of the most horrific childhoods imaginable. According to the records, discovered by a juror in the actual capital murder trial, Tibbetts had been tied to his bed, starved, beaten and burned at the hands of his parents. None of this was ever presented to the jury. Instead, the prosecution actually painted an apparently false picture of a normal childhood. While none of that information excused the crime, the juror who stepped forward stated that the jury would likely have voted differently on death had this information come out at trial.





So there you have it. Imagine a state where the grants of clemency and pardon actually function as they should. The records kept by the very Board of Pardons and Parole were used to correct an improper decision about imposing the death penalty. The state actually had a pardon and commutation system that worked. Mercy could actually be granted, and the public could see it work as it was meant to be, as a final safety net for a trial court and appellate system that all too often gets things wrong because it is made up of human beings.





In Texas, where our system is cloaked in mystery and outright refusal to open up, we can continue to deny mercy based upon race, religion, class, gender, laziness and whim. Yes, here, where we lead the nation in wrongful convictions and death sentences, we can continue to rest easy knowing that our broken system of clemency will continue to keep our mistakes in the courtroom locked away or buried deep in the ground. God bless the Texas clemency system. This is especially reassuring when one considers the recent report issued by the University of Houston Law Review, which shows that in death penalty cases in Harris County for the last 2 decades the reviewing trial judges simply rubber stamped the state's findings, effectively ending any meaningful review of the condemned in the biggest executioner in the country. In 95 % of the cases, the judges just asked where their pen was when the state came calling. Why worry about justice when we have such a well-oiled clemency review, right?





Texas needs an open, reviewable pardon and commutation process. It should require simple easy forms so that inmates can understand them, clear rules as to what factors the Board of Pardons and Paroles will consider when reviewing an application, open hearings, and written opinions issued by a Board that ought to have the guts to say why they let a man or woman die or rot away. Texans deserve no less.





Source: Houston Chronicle , Opinion; Patrick McCann, August 15, 2018. Patrick McCann is a local death penalty attorney and a past President of the Harris County and Fort Bend criminal bar associations.

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
The 2013 law was credited with stopping Robert Roberson's execution 2 years ago, and his conviction is now under review in county court.





Robert Roberson shuffled into a courtroom this week wearing a striped gray jumpsuit and handcuffs, his life once again hanging in the balance.





After 15 years on death row, his face has grown gaunt, and patches of dark hair shoot up from his balding head. But he has maintained during his time in prison that he didn't kill his sickly 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, though he was convicted of that crime.





He says that Nikki fell from the bed where they were sleeping in their home in this small East Texas town, and he awoke hours later to find her unresponsive. But as doctors and nurses struggled to revive her blue, limp body in the emergency room that morning, suspicions of child abuse quickly arose - they said a short fall wouldn't have caused such damage.





At his trial, doctors testified that her injuries were consistent with what is often referred to as "shaken baby syndrome," a now-questionably diagnosed condition his attorneys say helped jurors opt for the death penalty.





But instead of facing the state's death chamber - which he narrowly avoided 2 years ago - Roberson was back in court Tuesday, again fighting against his conviction and for his life, thanks largely to a relatively new state law that allows courts to overturn a conviction when the scientific evidence that originally led to the verdict has since changed or been discredited.





"The only reason Mr. Roberson is still alive today is because the state of Texas passed a rather trailblazing statute," his attorney, Gretchen Sween, declared to the courtroom.





The law, often referred to as the "junk science law," was the 1st of its kind in the nation and passed with scant opposition in 2013. In pushing for its passage, state Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, listed infant trauma as one of several examples of faulty science the bill was meant to target.





Since its passage, multiple death penalty cases have been sent back to court for further review, and it has been cited in cases like that of the "San Antonio 4," where women convicted on faulty sexual assault evidence were exonerated after nearly 15 years in prison.





In June 2016, Roberson became one of the first death row inmates to have his conviction set for reviewed under the law - a decision the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals made just days before his scheduled execution. The court was instructed to decide whether Roberson would have been convicted if new scientific evidence - like new views on fatal short-distance falls and shaken baby syndrome injuries - were available at his original trial.





In the last decade, experts have become divided on shaken baby syndrome, where an infant is killed from being violently shaken back and forth. Many doctors strongly stand by the diagnoses, but others, including the doctor who is first credited with observing the condition, think it is used too liberally in criminal cases - that deaths are labeled as murder without considering other possibilities and medical histories. The Washington Post reported in 2015 that 16 shaken baby syndrome convictions had been overturned since 2001.





Roberson's attorneys argue in part that new scientific evidence has suggested it is impossible to shake a toddler to death without causing serious neck injuries, which Nikki did not have, and has linked the symptoms used to diagnose shaken baby syndrome to other conditions as well, including short-distance falls.





"There has been a tremendous amount of new scientific evidence," said Gary Udashen, board president of the Innocence Project of Texas. "Biomechanical engineering studies have shown that you can generate enough force from a short-distance fall to cause serious head injuries."





"A watershed moment"





Over time, science has become an increasingly present part of criminal proceedings, but it's always evolving - what may have been thought of as irrefutable scientific evidence 15 years ago could be balked at today. And scientific "experts" who testify in cases sometimes lack any true expertise.





The origins of the junk science law, and Roberson's renewed chance at an appeal, began to take form as the state's skepticism of forensic science grew with the science's prevalence - think DNA - and after several high-profile cases involving "bad science" emerged.





Perhaps the most well-known is the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, a Corsicana man executed in 2004 for the deaths of his 3 young daughters, despite scientists discrediting the earlier fire examination and finding no reason to call the house fire that killed his children arson.





But while state lawmakers passed other bills related to forensic science, like creating a statewide investigatory commission, it took several tries for the junk science law to make it out of the Capitol in Austin. Whitmire filed similar bills in 2009 and 2011, but neither piqued much interest, and some prosecutors said an already well-established appeals process made the bill unnecessary.





That changed with Neal Robbins and Cathy Henderson. Both were convicted in infant deaths after the medical examiners who testified at their trials later recanted their certainty that the deaths were homicides. But their appeals based on those recantations produced opposite results.





In 2011, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Robbins' appeal on the claim that his conviction and life sentence were based on bad scientific testimony - the medical examiner had changed her original conclusion that said his daughter's death could only be murder. Though she originally thought the child's injuries couldn't have been caused by the reported attempts at CPR, she later said her increased knowledge made her unable to determine a cause of death.





The next year, the same court tossed out Henderson's conviction and death sentence after scientific advancements conflicted with the medical examiner's original testimony that dropping a baby from her arms onto the floor couldn't have caused the fatal brain injury.





"In Robbins, this Court chose finality over accuracy; in Henderson we did the opposite, and in 2013, the Texas Legislature also chose accuracy over finality," wrote then-Judge Cathy Cochran in 2014 after the court, under the new law, overturned Robbins' conviction. He was released from prison in 2016.





Robbins' appellate attorney, Brian Wice, said the blowback from the court's 1st ruling created the support to eventually pass the bill.





"It was a watershed moment, not just in Texas but nationally, because Texas was really the 1st state to enact a provision that was able to unlock the courthouse door to defendants like Neal Robbins," he said.





Another delay of justice





For Roberson, the junk science law has extended his life, but it hasn't saved him yet. His court-ordered examination finally began in what was assumed to be at least a week-long hearing Tuesday. But it was again delayed after several hours when it was announced that long-lost evidence, including Nikki's brain scans, was suddenly found in the basement of the local district clerk's office.





Sween, his attorney, said in court that they ultimately want a new trial for Roberson, one that would include the changes in science on shaken baby syndrome and short-distance falls, as well as a deeper look into Nikki's previous illnesses and history of breathing problems. The child had previously suffered spells where she'd stop breathing and turn blue, and she had been at the hospital only days before with a violent illness that included a 104.5-degree temperature, according to court documents. The review is also looking at whether the original accusation that Roberson sexually assaulted Nikki, which was dropped mid-trial when the evidence couldn't be corroborated, affected his conviction. She said she's optimistic Roberson can be given a fair shot.





"All we have to do is show that the science that was presented at trial and the science that was available now ... has changed in ways that more likely than not, might have changed the jury's verdict," she said in court.





But the prosecution said it isn't conceding anything, saying in court that the evidence was "clear and convincing" that Roberson killed his daughter.





"The science has not changed as much as [Roberson's attorneys] say," said Anderson County Assistant District Attorney Scott Holden in his opening statement. "There was no explanation except for the intentional death of Nikki Curtis."





For now, Roberson's case is up in the air. With the discovery of the lost evidence Tuesday, the judge put it up to the county and Roberson's attorneys to let her know after they've properly evaluated it. After the court does reconvene again, the judge will make a recommendation to the Court of Criminal Appeals on whether a new trial should be granted, which the higher court can either order or reject.





Likely, it will be a lengthy delay, and the wait isn't welcome news for Nikki's older half-brother, Matthew Bowman. He still carries the weight of his sister's death and has no doubt that Roberson killed her. He was 4 when she died, and the 20-year-old sitting in the courtroom Tuesday was in visible anguish listening to Sween proclaim Roberson's innocence, often shaking his head with a clenched jaw. He shook and wiped tears from his eyes when an emergency room nurse on the witness stand described her lifeless body.





"I do believe that all the science that's coming up is B.S., and we shouldn't even be here right now," he said during a break outside the courtroom. "I think everything should have been done and taken care of a long time ago."

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
PM Modi wrote to his newly-elected Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan, conveying India's commitment to pursue 'meaningful' and 'constructive' engagement with Islamabad. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: After Pakistans newly-appointed foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed dialogue in his congratulatory letter to Imran Khan, Pakistan has now denied any such remark.

A statement from the Pakistani government said, Foreign Minister hadn't stated Indian Prime Minister had made offer of dialogue, but had said that Indian PM in his letter to PM Imran Khan, had also mentioned something similar to what the Foreign Minister elucidated earlier, i.e. the way forward was only through constructive engagement.

Qureshi had claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote a letter to Imran Khan and indicated a beginning of talks between the two countries.

However, India rejected the claims and said the letter by PM Modi did not state anything about a new proposal for dialogue with Pakistan, official sources told news agency ANI.

Also Read: Modi's 'congratulatory' letter to Imran Khan didn't propose dialogue: India

PM Modi wrote to his newly-elected Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan, conveying New Delhi's commitment to pursue "meaningful" and "constructive" engagement with Islamabad and emphasising the need to work for a terror-free South Asia, official sources said on Monday.

In a letter to Khan on August 18, the day he was sworn in as Pakistan's 22nd prime minister, PM Modi also expressed India's commitment to building good neighbourly relations between the two countries while congratulating him, the sources said.

Following Imran Khan and his partys victory in Pakistan polls, Prime Minister Modi had telephoned Khan to congratulate him and expressed hope that both countries will work to open a new chapter in bilateral ties.

Days before PM Modi's phone call, Khan said he wanted to improve ties with India and resolve all the issues through talks.

"If India takes one step towards us, we will take two," he said.
BENGALURU: A speeding BMW, driven by an inebriated surgeon, knocked down a 17-year-old flower vendor on the pot-holed ridden Domlur-Indiranagar flyover on Sunday night. The doctor, Ravi Teja, 30, who is a surgeon at Manipal Hospital, has been arrested by the Ulsoor traffic police. The deceased has been identified as Kevin, a resident of Domlur. The police said that around 12.30 am early Monday morning, Dr Teja was driving back home in an inebriated state, failed to notice Kevin crossing the road and knocked him down.

Dr Teja immediately got down from the car and rushed him to a nearby hospital, where he was declared brought dead. The Ulsoor traffic police registered a case however and produced Dr Teja before the court on Monday. The flyover, used by thousands everyday has five speed-breakers which have deteriorated into craters and is extremely poorly-lit and has no divider which is high enough to prevent jay-walkers and vendors from crossing from one side to the other. Both approaches to the flyover are poorly policed and sees even motorcyclists crossing with impunity as well as autorickshaws and motorbikes being driven against incoming traffic post-midnight.
Overcoming vaccination myths: Could addressing the facts during prenatal visits help?

A UF Ph.D. candidate in advertising suggests that doctors could help better educate pregnant women who often get medical information from social media and websites, many of which contain misleading and false information about vaccination.

Studies suggest that pregnant women might be influenced by medical myths on social media. Antonio Guillem/Shutterstock.com

During pregnancy, expectant parents spend countless hours sifting through online resources to make the right medical choices for their baby. In addition to decorating a nursery and playing baby shower games, pregnant women often are glued to their smartphones, seeking advice from friends and strangers.

A pregnant womans Facebook news feed provides one window into motherhood, and the connections, articles and advice delivered by a Facebook news feed offer suggestions  both wanted and unwanted.

Despite expressing skepticism of the accuracy of digital resources and a pervasive fear of fake news, pregnant women Google it up to gain information and health advice. Mothers-to-be have been found to rely on social media more frequently and with greater intensity at the transition to parenthood.

However, the internet has been dubbed a postmodern Pandoras box. Misinformation and rumors abound on many health topics, but particularly in regards to childhood vaccinations. False claims and widely perpetuated myths, such as the discredited assertion that vaccinations cause autism, have been declared a threat to modern society. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, community immunity requires that a certain percentage of the population be vaccinated to maintain coverage against dangerous diseases for all.

I study health communication, and I have analyzed some of these trends. I see problems when expectant parents accept medical myths. I also see opportunities to change the narrative to an accurate one.

Persistent falsehoods

Although overall vaccination rates in the United States remain high, social networks sometimes support grassroots mobilization of mothers against childhood vaccines. This allows personal narratives to take root and be shared more.

My recent study, not yet published, found that more than 30,000 members in the largest closed anti-vaccination Facebook group influence first-time, pregnant and new mothers in their decision-making process for their own children. In some instances, I found that a mothers expressed concern would transition from fear of protecting her child from measles to a more intense fear of more than 200 alleged side effects.

Another recent study analyzed 2.6 million Facebook users interactions over more than seven years, identifying distinct, opposing pro- and anti-vaccination narratives. Users self-select the content they wish to view based on their own belief systems, ignoring all other content. Researchers found that posts from anti-vaccination advocates received more user comments. And anti-vaccination groups are growing more rapidly in comparison to pro-vaccination groups.

Similarly, another study identified that the majority of YouTube videos about infant vaccination showed babies in pain and distress. Videos that disapprove of vaccinations received the most likes, views and shares. In contrast, pro-vaccination YouTube videos received far fewer likes, shares and views.

Put simply, anti-vax videos are increasingly playing up the risks of vaccination, which mainly include redness and swelling where the shot is given and, in very rare cases, other side effects. These anti-vax videos consistently downplay the benefit of protection from life-threatening diseases.

A large study in New York state identified one in four students following an alternate, nonscientifically based vaccination schedule. An alternate schedule may include selectively vaccinating or delaying certain vaccines. Essentially, parents of these children are following their own schedule, or a schedule found in a book or magazine, but not the CDC recommended schedule. Students in private schools, or those who come from more affluent families with parents who have received higher levels of education, are more likely to opt out.

Physicians such as Robert Sears provide advice contrary to consensus by the medical community and use digital channels, including propaganda videos, to raise concerns about the safety of vaccinations. The Medical Board of California recently placed Sears on probation for allegedly writing inappropriate medical exemptions for vaccinations.

Causing a cluster

Parental refusal to vaccinate typically increases in geographic clusters, and when that happens, outbreaks of once-eliminated diseases, such as measles, occur. In 11 states, the number of kids not being vaccinated for nonmedical reasons has exceeded any point in the past five years. Infants, the elderly and immuno-compromised individuals are particularly vulnerable.

While women get a lot of information on birth plans and breastfeeding during standard prenatal care, my qualitative research suggests that they do not get much information about childhood vaccinations. In interviews and focus groups with more than 20 expectant mothers, some in their third trimester, all reported that providers had not initiated dialogue about childhood vaccinations. For first-time mothers, they reported our conversation was the first they had formally discussed this particular issue. Yet the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that the first dose of the hepatitis B vaccination be administered within the first 24 hours of life.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives do not recommend that practitioners broach the subject of childhood vaccinations during pregnancy, focusing instead on maternal vaccinations during pregnancy and referring any childhood vaccination dialogue to the childs pediatrician.

But what might happen if this changed? Could this be a solution? I strongly believe it could.

A full-term medical press

Even though 90 percent of expectant mothers report making childhood vaccination decisions before the birth of the baby, a full one-third of expectant mothers expressed feeling uninformed, with first-time mothers identifying as more vaccine hesitant.

As one expectant mother in her third trimester in Gainesville, Florida recently said in an interview with me:

I think that theres extreme lack of communication. I think that childhood vaccination information should be relayed. That way you have the information you need before something happens, and then its too late to make an informed decision.

In a survey, 98 percent of OB-GYNs revealed they believe childhood vaccinations to be important, but less than half believed they could influence expectant mothers.

In an interview, a midwife in Gainesville stated childhood vaccination discussions are not in her standard scope of practice, explaining that beyond a basic handout, she typically refers questioning mothers-to-be to a pediatrician.

Although the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends finding a pediatrician during the third trimester of pregnancy, a 2018 survey showed that only 5 to 39 percent of first-time parents actually attend a prenatal visit with their babys chosen pediatrician. Urban poor pregnant women and pregnant women in rural areas are less likely to attend a prenatal pediatric visit.

In the absence of comprehensive information about childhood vaccinations, Dr. Google may take over.

I believe the following things would help to get the truth out:

A more active physician voice on social networking sites, connecting patients with evidence-based sources as opposed to anti-vaccination propaganda.

Standard policy by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommending childhood vaccination discussions to occur during the third trimester of pregnancy, particularly surrounding the first vaccine. Research has suggested that this could help educate parents.

Standard policy by National Association of Certified Professional Midwives to include more information about childhood vaccinations during prenatal care.

Increased efforts to orchestrate prenatal pediatricians visits to connect mothers-to-be with their childs future doctor to discuss vaccination, with a special emphasis on connecting first-time mothers with a pediatrician during the third trimester.

Amanda Sams Bradshaw, Ph.D. candidate in advertising, University of Florida

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
I am a retired newspaperman. I live in Poca, WV, with my wife of 44 years, Lou Ann. I grew up in Cleveland. Three kids. Grandfather.



Report all errors to DonSurber@GMail.com
Vietnam has said the Japanese insistence that its official development assistance (ODA) consultants should be paid $30,000 a month is unreasonably high.

This is 20-25 percent higher than the average foreign consultants salary for projects funded by ODA loans and government preferential loans, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said in a recent report to the government.

This is twice as much as the average income declared by taxpayers with Japanese nationality working in Vietnam in 2016.

Consultancy accounts for 5-8 percent of the total cost of projects funded by Japanese loans compared to 4.5-6.5 percent in other cases, it said.

There are no regulations related to international salary scales for projects funded by foreign loans, it added.

Japan is the largest provider of ODA loans to Vietnam. According to MOF figures, the country had provided $23.76 billion as of June 30, or 26.5 percent of the total funds borrowed by the Vietnamese government.

In the last few years Vietnam has been borrowing $1.5-1.7 billion a year from Japan, accounting for 37 percent of the total foreign borrowing.

The ministry acknowledged that Japanese ODA has provided Vietnam with large, long-term funds for infrastructure development.

But Japan also imposes conditions that heavily benefits Japan companies, it said. They include tax policies to benefit Japanese contractors and consultants.

MOF said these practices are not in accordance with the provisions of Vietnamese law."

In the report, the ministry also raised the issue of lack of equitability in the appraisal and negotiations for loans, saying Japan frequently changes the borrowing conditions -- once a year -- and only announces the change at the time of signing a loans agreement. Meanwhile, Vietnam has to assess and agree to all the conditions right from the loan proposal stage, it said.

MOF also sought assistance from other ministries of construction, and labor, invalids and social affairs to resolve the problems.

In a report to the government last Thursday the Ministry of Planning and Investment said Vietnams public debt is likely to reach 63.92 percent of GDP, or VND3,530 trillion ($151 billion) by the end of this year.

It increased by 6.8 percentage points between 2013 and 2017.
PAN to sell over 14.86 million shares to Japans Sojitz

One of the products made by PAN Group, a leading Vietnamese agriculture company

Vietnams agriculture company PAN Group has sought shareholder approval to offer 14.86 million shares to Sojitz Group.

The sale will make the Japanese firm a major shareholder with a 11 percent stake.

PAN has sent voting ballots to shareholders and asked for their submission by September 4.

If approved, the stake sale is likely to take place between quarters three and four this year.

According to PAN, the price of a share will be negotiated but not lower than VND55,000 ($2.4). This means the firm planned to raise at least VND817.3 billion ($35.09 million) from the private placement deal.

There will be a lock-up period of one year from the date of the deal within which Sojitz cannot sell the shares.

The stake sale - and more are likely - will help PAN acquire a strategic shareholder and have resources to acquire stakes in agricultural, materials, food and nutrition, packaged foods, and beverages companies.

Established in 1998 and rapidly expanding in recent years through M&A deals, PAN Group is a leading Vietnamese player in agriculture and food.

It had consolidated assets of over VND 7.6 trillion ($337.8 million) as of June 30 this year.

Its subsidiaries include leading companies like Vinaseed, PAN-SALADBOWL, Fimex, Bibica, Lafooco, AquatexBentre, 584 Nha Trang Seaproduct.

Its shareholders include NDH Invest, SSI, CSC Vietnam, The Asian Entrepreneur Legacy (TAEL) Partners, GIC, and PYN.

Sojitz Group has around 400 subsidiaries and affiliates in Japan and around the world, most of them in general trading.

The strategic deal with Sojitz was mentioned by PAN chairman Nguyen Duy Hung last April when he said the company needed funds to develop hi-tech products.

This year PAN targets a net profit of VND538 billion($23.9 million) on revenues of VND8.7 trillion ($366.6 million).

In the first half its net sales and consolidated profit both grew in double-digits to VND3.5 trillion ($155.5 million) and VND205 billion($9.1 million).

On August 21, each PAN share closed at VND58,700 ($2.6) on the Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange.
An employee works at a foreign-owned company which produces car and motorcycle parts in Vinh Yen, outside Hanoi. Photo by Reuters/Kham

Vietnam enjoys a trade surplus in the auto parts industry, but domestic firms play no role in this success.

The reason for this strange situation is that the market is dominated by export-oriented foreign invested enterprises, while domestic firms are shackled by a lack of policy and regulatory support, both officials and industry insiders say.

Last year, the country exported $4.4 billion worth of auto parts and imported the same $3.5 billion, said Nguyen Thi Xuan Thuy, head of research at the Institute of Strategic Research and Policy under the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

This trade surplus of $900 million mostly came from foreign direct investment (FDI) businesses, not local firms, she said at a recent conference.

The FDI businesses, including Nissei, Furukawa, MTEX, FAPV and Pronics, produce in Vietnam and export auto parts to major auto makers in China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and the U.S, she added.

Meanwhile, for the automakers in Vietnam, 90 percent of the 30,000-40,000 parts to make a car are imported, said Pham Tuan Anh, deputy head of the Department of Industry under the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

There is a lack of suppliers in Vietnam compared to other countries in the region, he added.

Echoing Anh, Thuy said that Vietnam has 20 auto assemblers, but only 226 parts suppliers. Neighboring Thailand, meanwhile, has 16 auto assemblers and 2,390 suppliers.

Many constraints

Vietnamese companies in the auto parts industry face many challenges, and one of them is the lack of assistance in terms of legal framework, said Do Huu Hao, chairman of the Vietnam Society of Automotive Engineers.

Regulations concerning parts suppliers are changed often and the tax policies are also unsuitable for the industry, he told the Voice of Vietnam online.

Another reason is that local manufacturers have limited financial capacity to compete with their foreign counterparts.

The auto part industry is heavily dependent on imported material, but the low financial capacities of local suppliers prevent them from buying more of it, Hao said.

These factors make cars made in Vietnam 10-20 percent more expensive that of Thailand or Indonesia.

Vietnams total vehicle sales increased 3.9 percent to 21,466 units in July from a year ago, according to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers' Association (VAMA).

Total vehicle sales in the first seven months of 2018 dropped 4.1 percent from the same period last year to 148,536 units, VAMA said.
The $12 million rhino horn bust at Kuala Lumpur airport is the biggest ever in Malaysia's history. Photo by AFP/Manan Vatsyayana

Malaysia has made a record seizure of 50 rhino horns worth an estimated $12 million at Kuala Lumpur airport.

Authorities said Monday they believe the horns were being flown to Vietnam.

Customs officials found the parts in cardboard boxes on August 13 in the cargo terminal of the capital's airport, said Abdul Kadir Abu Hashim, head of Malaysia's wildlife department.

The 50 rhino horns weighed 116 kilograms (256 pounds) and are worth about 50 million ringgit ($12 million), he told AFP, adding that the seizure was "the biggest ever in (Malaysia's) history in terms of the number of horns and value."

Vietnam is a hot market for rhino horn, which is believed to have medicinal properties and is in high demand among the communist nation's growing middle class.

Trade in rhino horn was banned globally in 1977 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), but illegal hunters have decimated rhino populations to sate rampant demand in East Asia.

A single kilo of rhino horn can fetch tens of thousands of dollars in the region, where many falsely believe it can cure cancer.

All rhino species are under threat of extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Abdul Kadir said authorities were unable to identify the origin of the animal parts. Rhino horn sent to Asia typically comes from Africa.

Officials also found a huge stash of animal bones -- believed to be from tigers and leopards -- in the same shipment, with an estimated value of 500,000 ringgit.

Authorities have not made any arrests over the seizures.

Elizabeth John, from wildlife trade watchdog Traffic, described the rhino horn seizure as "staggering" and urged authorities to track down the people behind the smuggling attempt.

Kuala Lumpur is a hub for cheap flights around Southeast Asia, and has become a key transit point in the smuggling of rare animal parts.
Typically very narrow minded in judging the value of intangible assets, an economist makes a value judgment.

Martin Rama, Chief Economist for South Asia at the World Bank

Last month, the urban authorities of HCMC opened a consultation on whether Thuong Tho Palace should be included in the citys heritage list.

This decision was an important milestone in the history of urban development policy in Vietnam. But it also raised difficult questions on how to think about preservation going forward.

The debate about the demolition of Thuong Tho Palace was a historic turning point for two reasons. First, it showed that many people in Vietnam were concerned about the possible disappearance of this magnificent building. Experts wrote newspaper articles about its architectural features, citizens uploaded posts in social media expressing their dismay about the possible loss, signed petitions calling for the palaces preservation, and so on.

At a time when the drive for prosperity is so understandably important for the Vietnamese people, there was a risk that nobody would care about protecting the heritage of the city. Old bricks, plaster and stuccos could be easily dismissed as a thing of the past, or even as a scar from colonialist oppression. But the popular response showed that the Vietnamese care about the history and the identity of their cities.

In advanced economies, this kind of urban consciousness arose much later in the development process, at a time when the countries were already rich. Since Vietnam is not a rich country yet, it is heartening that the public got so involved in trying to save the Thuong Tho Palace. The 130-year-old building was used for the management and operations of all civil and judicial activities during colonial times and it is facing demolition to make way for the city's admin center expansion.

The decision by the urban authorities of HCMC to stop the palaces demolition was also important for another reason. It showed a government that listens to the people, and reacts positively to its concerns. Newspaper articles, social media postings and signed petitions could have been easily ignored.

Instead, the local authorities took action and opened a consultation. This is the way urban development policy should be conducted and Vietnam can feel proud of it.

At the same time, the decision to take urban heritage seriously raises a difficult question, namely: what is heritage? There is no easy answer to this question. We usually check whether a site is truly outstanding from an architectural or historic point of view, but this is a narrow definition that falls frustratingly short.

To be part of the UNESCO World Heritage List, a cultural site needs to meet at least one of six criteria. Simplifying a bit, the site should: (i) represent a masterpiece of human creative genius, (ii) be important in terms of architecture, technology, town-planning or landscape design, (iii) be a unique testimony of a cultural tradition, (iv) be an outstanding example of a type of building, (v) be an outstanding example of a human settlement, or (vi) be directly associated with significant events.

Countries and cities use less restrictive criteria than the UNESCO World Heritage List. And I have little doubt that Thuong Tho Palace will qualify as being part of HCMCs heritage list, as it is just one of a few dozen outstanding colonial buildings still standing in the city.

Thuong Tho Palace, the old French government building at 59-61 Ly Tu Trong in Saigon, is earmarked for destruction under a plan to build a new city administration center. Photo by Tim Doling

But as an economist who often works on urban issues I cannot be satisfied with the standard definitions of heritage.

Economists are narrow-minded people. They care about value, of the sort that can be measured in dollars or in dong. And they believe that the governments objective should be to maximize the value of cities, because that ensures higher wellbeing for the country. From that point of view, what really matters is whether preservation will make citizens better off. This can happen in two different ways.

First, heritage can have direct economic value, similar to the value we derive from consuming goods. For example, many Vietnamese are willing to spend money (sometimes a lot of money!) to travel abroad and enjoy the charm and vibrancy of great foreign cities. Therefore, one could expect them to also be willing to sacrifice some resources to ensure that their own cities are charming and vibrant, and that they feel well even when they do not travel abroad.

Take Hanoi for example. Its ancient trees, its adorable French villas, the vitality of its sidewalk food stalls, or even the social life of its KTTs (residential complex built in the 1990s), all have direct economic value. Hanoians would experience a loss in wellbeing if these key references in their personal histories were to disappear. But ancient trees, ordinary French villas, sidewalk food stalls and the social life of KTTs would never qualify for a standard heritage list.

Heritage can also have an indirect economic value. The vibrancy of a city critically depends on the talent it attracts. Inventors who are at the forefront of research, entrepreneurs who develop new products and management techniques, artists who create value with their works, communicators who enrich the exchange of ideas... these are the people who make a city great. And rich. But these people tend to be sophisticated and they can choose where to live.

Distinct heritage increases the character of a city and helps attract top talent. So even if citizens did not care at all about trees and villas, or about sidewalk food and KTTs, it would be in their interest to protect these intangible forms of heritage.

Hanoi and HCMC have more character than most other big cities in East Asia. Their heritage is an asset in the global competition for talent. Losing this intangible asset would be as damaging for Vietnam as losing a key brand would be for a firm.

In sum, for a narrow-minded economist like me the question is not whether the heritage of Vietnams urban centers should be preserved. The answer is a resounding yes. The question is rather how to decide what exactly is worth preserving, how to assess how much money it is worth sacrificing to preservation, and how to use this money most efficiently.

Some of the answers to these questions are technical. For example, by now there are tested techniques to determine how much the value of a property increases when heritage around it is well preserved. But technical answers are only part of the solution, as there is still quite a lot of uncertainty and judgment involved.

And this is why consultation is so important in supporting good urban development policies. And this is why an economist like me is thrilled that this is taking place.

*Martin Rama is Chief Economist for South Asia at the World Bank and Project Director at the Center for Sustainable Urban Development, under the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences. The views expressed are his own.
A gritty comeback victory against Indonesia on Monday helped Vietnam enter the womens rattan ball semifinals at Asiad 2018.

This victory helped Vietnam finish the group stage unbeaten.

In the last game of womens rattan ball group stage, Vietnam clashed with Indonesia on the opponents home grown, backed by hundreds of raucous fans. With the home advantage, Indonesia started strong and won the first set.

But Vietnam asserted itself firmly to win the next two sets for a 2-1 victory.

With no third place playoff, this victory assures Vietnam of a bronze medal. They will face South Korea in the semi-finals, while top gold medal contender Thailand will clash with Myanmar.

Bui Thi Hai Yen serving the ball. Photo by VnExpress/Xuan Binh

When Indonesia took the lead, we held each others hands and shouted, we can do this, we can do this until we lost our voice, and we made it, rattan ball player Bui Thi Hai Yen told VnExpress.

We want to beat Thailand in the final. We came here with no other goal than winning the shiny gold medal, Yen said.

Nine countries participating in the Asian Games 2018 rattan ball competition were divided into two groups. Vietnam topped group B, beating Malaysia, Myanmar, Japan and Indonesia.
Multiple attacks claimed by IS on police in Chechnya

Photo released by the Investigative Committee of Russia via AFP shows Chechen police officers working at the site of an attack in Grozny on August 20, 2018

Armed assailants injured several policemen in attacks in the Russian republic of Chechnya on Monday, as the Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

Russia's Investigative Committee said it had launched probes into three separate attacks against police, including a failed suicide bombing.

In the first attack on Monday morning, two men entered the district police department in the town of Shali and wounded a pair of policemen with knives, investigators said in a statement.

The two assailants were shot dead, Chechnya's interior ministry said.

In the village of Mesker-Yurt north of Shali, a man with a backpack attempted a suicide bombing near a police post but "police officers and civilians were not harmed by the blast," the Investigative Committee said.

The third incident occurred on the outskirts of the Chechen capital Grozny, where a man attempted to run over a traffic policeman in his car and subsequently hit two more officers as he was chased.

"The criminals were neutralised," the Investigative Committee said.

IS claimed responsibility for the attacks, the SITE monitoring group reported, citing the jihadists' main propaganda agency Amaq

"Fighters from the Islamic State attacked Chechen police officers and elements in Grozny and Shali in Mesker-Yurt," Amaq said, according to SITE.

Chechnya's strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who was visiting Saudi Arabia on Monday, said extremist propaganda that "confuses the young men" was to blame for the assaults.

He said the attacks were staged on Monday to "darken" the festivities ahead of Tuesday, when Muslims begin to celebrate the Islamic Eid al-Adha holiday.

He said the man who attempted to stage the suicide bombing was injured and was in hospital.

"The situation in Grozny and Chechnya is absolutely calm," he said.

Chechnya's interior minister Ruslan Alkhanov said the assailants "attempted to destabilise the situation in Chechnya" but have been stopped. He said no officers were killed.

Moscow battled separatists in two brutal wars in the 1990s in Chechnya and has since installed Kadyrov, a former separatist turned Kremlin loyalist, to rule the republic with an iron fist.

After the defeat of Chechen insurgents, Russian authorities have been locked in a simmering conflict with Islamist militants from across the North Caucasus that has killed scores of civilians and police.
Flour exports from Ukraine soar to record highs in MY 2017/2018

Over the period under review, flour exports to China and UAE increased significantly.

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In 2017, Ukraine's fourteen ports on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov posted a net profit of $129.3 million.

Ukraine's seaports posted a decline in profits in the first half of 2018 due to lower port fees and decreased freight turnover, the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority (USPA) said in a report on Monday.

According to the report, in January-June this year, the consolidated net profit of Ukrainian seaports was down by 27.8% year on year to US$46.9 million, according to Xinhua.

In the corresponding period, the total cargo throughput of the Ukrainian seaports declined 3.1 percent to 63.8 million tons, the USPA said.

Since Jan 1, port fees in Ukraine went down 20% to attract more customers.

In 2017, Ukraine's fourteen ports on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov posted a net profit of $129.3 million, handling together some 133 million tonnes of cargo.

As UNIAN reported earlier, because of the groundless increase in the number of inspections of ships by Russian coast guards in the Sea of Azov following the illegal construction of the Kerch Strait Bridge, there has been a 10% decrease in calls to the ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk.

"Now various scenarios to counteract Russia are being worked out, up to the restriction of calls to Russian ports for vessels with European registration," said Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan.

In turn, Ukrainian Deputy Minister for temporarily occupied territories and internally displaced persons George Tuka said the use of force to unlock the situation around Ukrainian navigation in the Sea of Azov was among the possible scenarios.
NABU identifies 23 countries used by Ukraine's corrupt officials to conceal money

As of June 30, 2018, some 21 people had been put on the international wanted list at the initiative of NABU.

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According to Human Rights Watch, a person is considered to have disappeared when he or she is last seen in the custody of government forces, but state authorities refuse to admit they have detained the person or to offer any information of the detainees fate.

And that is what has been happening in Syria since the uprising began in early 2011. Thousands of people have disappeared into government prisons, and most of them were never heard from again. Yet despite repeated requests for information by families of the disappeared, Syrian authorities consistently denied having any knowledge of those detained or those who were last seen in their custody.

Until May of this year, that is. Thats when Syrian authorities began to update civil registries, indicating that thousands of people detained or disappeared since 2011 have died. Frequently, the cause of death is listed as a heart attack.

The Syrian regimes recent notices confirming the deaths of thousands of political prisoners in its custody affirms what the international community has long suspected and can never forget: the regime has systematically arrested, tortured, and murdered tens of thousands of Syrian civilians in response to their legitimate and nonviolent calls for their freedom, rights, and political reforms, said State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert in a written statement.

Human Rights organizations report that at least 117,000 Syrians have been detained or forcibly disappeared since the uprising began, she said.The vast majority of them are believed to be in regime custody, across a network of prisons where regime officials torture and murder civilians to intimidate and silence any opposition to Assads rule. Extensive documentation and other evidence of this torture and murder is being collected by international organizations, and support the worlds continued condemnation of the Syrian regime and prosecution of culpable officials in various courts, said Heather Nauert.

The United States strongly reiterates its condemnation of the Assad regimes cruel actions and calls on it to adhere to international laws and norms pertaining to the treatment of prisoners, including by allowing access for independent monitors. We will continue to work with the international community to investigate and shed light on these nefarious activities and work to hold those responsible accountable.
In July 1995, near the end of the Yugoslav civil war, Bosnian-Serb troops overran the town of Srebrenica, a United Nations-designated protected area packed with tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims who had sought shelter there. The troops rounded up the population, deported the women and youngest children, and then systematically massacred all males over the age of 15.

The 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group". And that is what happened in Srebrenica, according to a report issued in 2004 by the Commission for Investigation of the Events in and around Srebrenica. Later that year, the government of Republika Srpska, an autonomous region within Bosnia and Herzegovina, issued an official apology.

But on August 14, 2018, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, headed by ultra-nationalist President Milorad Dodik, rejected the 2004 report, calling it biased and untrue, and claiming that many of the nearly 8,400 victims are still alive.

The Republika Srpska Governments adoption of the 2004 report on the Srebrenica genocide was an important step in Bosnia and Herzegovinas reconciliation and in facing the difficult facts of the past, said State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert in a written statement.

The August 14 session of the Republika Srpska National Assembly is a step in the wrong direction. Attempts to reject or amend the report on Srebrenica are part of wider efforts to revise the facts of the past war, to deny history, and to politicize tragedy. It is in the interest of the citizens of Republika Srpska to reverse the trend of revering convicted war criminals as heroes, and to ensure their crimes continue to be publicly rejected, she said.

The United States remains fully committed to assisting authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the state, entity, and cantonal levels, to investigate and prosecute individuals responsible for crimes against all ethnic groups. The denial of established facts of prior wars will in no way advance these objectives or assist the countrys citizens, she said.The United States continues to firmly support peace, stability, and reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
UNIGHT TO UNITE. UCOM CELEBRATED ITS REBIRTH

Ameriabank and HSBC Armenia to provide their customers access to each others ATMs without additional fees

Ameriabank. 62.5% Growth in Taxes YOY

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans have provided 300 million AMD to overcome the infertility in Armenia

UCOM has officially launched the sale of IPHONE 13

Six servicemen were wounded by the attack of the Azerbaijani armed forces in Artsakh, two of them in critical condition

S&P Improved the Outlook on Ameriabank to Positive

Ararat Mirzoyan to visit to Minsk

Foreign Minister of India visits the Memorial of Armenian Genocide

1217 new cases

Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group

At UCOM only: Tv sets at 10% discount + 1 month free UMIX package + 4k tv channel

Ameriabanks Special Offer for New Clients of Hrazdan Branch

"Fall forward": Gurgen Khachatryan, the Co-Founder of the Galaxy Group of Companies, addressed a message to young people in Armenia

UCOM hosted interns of Russian CBOSS corporation for a month

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The 20-episode Bloody bet thriller to be broadcast on Ucom's Armenia Premium TV channel

Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group

UCOM offers affordable gadgets at bigger discount

Foreign Minister of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan will pay a working visit to New York

Governments preventing publication of Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper during state of emergency

UCOM prolongs the unlimited internet offer for the level up 4700 and level up 5500 subscribers

Ucom employees received recognition for their services to the homeland

Karen Vardanyan has allocated 105 million AMD to rescue the Yerevan Botanical Garden.

"The Power of One Dram" to overcome childhood cancer

Generation A 13  your chance to be the change

President of the Artsakh Republic Arayik Harutyunyan met with Russian Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Igor Khovayev

"uDays" special offer at Ucom: discounts for all smartphones and accessories for 2 days only

For more than 3 hours, 50 or more Azerbaijani servicemen have blocked the interstate road
Ararat Zurabyan: The money allocated to the capital is too small to solve problems (video)

According to Ararat Zurabyan, a member of the Tsarukyan Bloc faction, the Armenian society will manage to restore the constitutional order twenty years later. "A serious and new process has started in Armenia, there are results, a great deal has been done to reveal March 1." According to him, Nikol Pashinyan has much more information about the March 1 case than ordinary citizens. Ararat Zurabyan is a candidate for mayor. According to him, the chances of all the candidates are equal. "I have headed the community center for six years, I know the problems." Ararat Zurabyan considers it wrong to separate urban problems from others. "They speak about the elevators, but I will start from pre-school institutions, the noise of the youth during the hours of the night in the city, all of them are equally important." Ararat Zurabyan highlits the primary issue. "They are the city's revenues, Yerevan has budget of eighty billion drams, almost half of Armenia's population is centralized in Yerevan, the money allocated to the capital is too small to solve problems." According to him, he respects other candidates but he has one argument. "I know one thing, if I take my relative to a doctor, I try to find someone who can cure him." Ararat Zurabyan is convinced that he will win the elections.
Diaspora Minister: Diaspora is not an automated teller machine

Diaspora Minister Mkhitar Hayrapetyan expresses an opinion that the Diaspora should not be regarded as an automated teller machine. According to him, our relations should be mutually beneficial: Armenia cares about the Diaspora, the Diaspora cares about Armenia. "The Ministry of Diaspora aims to work with everyone who thinks about the strong link between Armenia-Diaspora-Artsakh. There will be no privileges when working with us." According to the minister, 100 households in the United States have resettled homes for sale and want to come to Armenia. "Repatriates are interested in two factors: the legality in the country and the availability of jobs. There is no longer any problem for the first point, they trust the current government, and the creation of jobs requires time. And integration, language issues cannot cause serious problems," he said. Touching upon the possible optimization of the Ministry of Diaspora, the minister said: "At the moment, there is no such issue on the agenda. Any decision that the government will make will be in the interests of the RA citizen," the minister concluded.
Exports of Ukrainian agrarian products to European countries in January-June of 2018 amounted to $2.6 billion compared to $2.774 billion in the same period in 2017, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food for European integration Olha Trofimtseva has said.

"In the six months this year, agri-export to the EU countries amounted to $2.6 billion. Thus, the EU is still the second largest exporter region of our agri-food [Asian countries were first and African countries ranked third]. Total trade turnover in the agribusiness sector for this period amounted to $3.9 billion. That is, Ukraine sees a trade surplus," she wrote on Facebook on Monday.

According to the official, the Netherlands is a leading importer, its share in total exports to the EU is 16.1%. It is followed by Italy with 14.4%, Poland with 14.2%, Spain with 13.7%, Germany with 9.3%, France with 6.6%, Great Britain with 3%, Hungary with 2.9%, Belgium with 2.8%, and Portugal with 2.6%.

Cereals (maize, wheat, barley, etc.) account for the largest share in the structure of Ukrainian exports to the EU, being estimated at $975.2 million, she said. Then goes vegetable oil (sunflower, soybean, burdock or rapeseed) with $559.4 million, food industry residues and waste with $256.5 million, oilseeds with $224.7 million, meat and by-products of poultry with $127.1 million.

The largest increase in shipments to the EU in the first half of 2018 was registered in the export of apples, pears and quince (by $2.3 million, or 17.6 times); birds' eggs without shell and egg yolks (by $6.9 million, or 16.6 times); ethyl alcohol (by $1.9 million, or 10.5 times); fresh, boiled or frozen vegetables (by $2.4 million, or 7.6 times); dried beans and other leguminous vegetables (by $9.3 million, or 2.8 times); meat and by-products of poultry (by $69.9 million, or 2.2 times). Other groups of farm produce also demonstrated growth: juices by $11 million, or 89.5%; nuts by $16.7 million, or 83.6%; chocolate and other products with cocoa by $7.5 million, or 66.7%; creamery butter by $2.3 million, or 42.8%.

Imports from the EU countries over the period under review amounted to $1.29 billion, Trofimtseva said.

"We mainly imported various miscellaneous products (food products that are not included in the groups, extracts and concentrates from coffee, tea, sauces, etc.) from the EU to the tune of $135.7 million, animal feeds worth $80.4 million, maize worth $80.3 million, chocolate and products from cocoa beans (cocoa butter, cocoa powder, cocoa paste) worth $79.1 million, oilseeds (mainly sunflower seeds) worth $75.4 million, tobacco and its products worth $73.1 million, meat and offal (poultry, lard, by-products of cattle and other animals) worth $64.3 million," Trofimtseva added.

As reported, agri-exports from Ukraine to the EU amounted to $5.8 billion in 2017, which was 37.1% up on 2016.
Anthracite supplies from U.S. to Ukraine help reduce dependence on imports from Russia - Chaly

Supplies of power-generating coal from the United States to Ukraine makes it possible to reduce dependence on imports of energy resources from Russia, Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Valeriy Chaly has said.

"Deliveries of anthracite coal and other components [...] mean diversification, a decrease in dependence on Russia. This is a commercial project, this is profit, so I think it will continue to develop as normal," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.

Ukraine in 2018 plans to increase imports of power-generating coal by 11.3% (by 573,900 tonnes) compared to 2017, to 5.669 million tonnes. It is planned to import 4.882 million tonnes from Russia (up 29.6% from 2017), 664,000 from the United States (up 47.7%), and 123,000 tonnes (down 83.8%) from South Africa.
Ukraine should negotiate with the International Monetary Fund on the possibility of writing off at least part of its debts.

This opinion was expressed by Ukrainian businessman and philanthropist Pavel Fuks on his Telegram microblog.

"I believe that Ukraine should negotiate with the IMF on the possibility of writing off at least part of our debts, of course, under the specific obligations of carrying out reforms that Ukraine is already implementing. Our country has shown to international partners that it is capable of changing and is a reliable partner. Writing off even a part of the debts will benefit not only Ukraine, but also our partners and potential investors, "the businessman said.

As an example, he cited the situation in Poland, which managed to negotiate with western creditors to write off 50% of its debts.

"Studying the information that Ukraine's national debt is $ 76.3 billion as of June 2018, I recall Poland's experience, during which Western creditors wrote off 50% of the debts. This allowed Poland to attract new loans and ensure significant economic growth," Fuks said.

The businessman also recalled Poland's ex Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Grzegorz Koodko.

"In September 1994, I signed an agreement with the London Club (the organization of private lenders and private banks) and they wrote off 50% of our debts to private banks. Without writing off these debts there would be no success story, but it was based on very harsh conditions agreed with IMF and creditor countries, starting with the US, ending with France and Germany. W followed these tips and conditions, sometimes they could be discussed, but the partners had the strength to insist and say: 'Okay, we will reduce the next part of your debt if you spend this and this reform and so on.' Undoubtedly, the West used this process of writing off debts from Poland as an instrument of pressure to quickly open up our economy in order to speed up the privatization and denationalization of the banking sector. And today I say the same thing I said at the time - it's not was only a humanitarian gesture on the part of the West It was the best investment they made because it helped turn Poland into an open, prosperous, market economy that created a lot of opportunities for Western capital to invest in the country to obtain profits by both parties, " Fuks said, quoting former Polish officials.
The Kyiv Economic Court of Appeals has postponed until February 19, 2019 consideration of the appeal of the Prosecutor General's Office, which seeks to invalidate the contracts of January 20, 2009 for the purchase by Gazprom from Naftogaz Ukrainy of 11 billion cubic meters of gas belonging to RosUkrEnergo (RUE, Switzerland) for $1.7 billion.

According to the materials of the case posted in the court rulings system, the Prosecutor General's Office appealed promptly against the decision of the Kyiv Economic Court of July 23, 2015, but its consideration was repeatedly postponed.

The next petition to postpone consideration of the case on June 11, 2018 was made by Naftogaz Ukrainy due to the fact that the decision of the Stockholm Arbitration in the dispute with Gazprom was appealed by the latter, thus preserving the "factual circumstances that served as the basis for the previous adjournment of the case."

The Economic Court of Appeals also obliged Naftogaz and Gazprom to provide normatively substantiated written explanations on the grounds for the conclusion on the contested gas purchase and sale agreements in January 2009.

As reported, in early 2009 Naftogaz Ukrainy won the rights to RosUkrEnergo worth $1.7 billion from Gazprom in exchange for gas supplied to the trader by the Russian company, unilaterally taking 11 billion cubic meters of gas held in Ukrainian storage facilities. This was the reason why RUE filed a claim with the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.
Militants in Donbas have fired at the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces 23 times over the past 24 hours, wounding two Ukrainian servicemen, the press service of the headquarters of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) has reported.

"The enemy opened fire on the positions of our troops 23 times, including with the use of proscribed heavy weapons. Russian occupation forces fired from grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms, using 82mm mortars in some areas [...] Two of our servicemen were wounded in shelling. There are no losses among the personnel of the Joint Forces during the current day," the JFO HQ said in a report on its Facebook page.

Militants fired at the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Krymske, Svitlodarsk, Popasna, Maryinka, Hnutove, Pavlopil, Lebedynske, Vodiane, and Shyrokyne. The enemy used 82mm mortars near Lebedynske. Militants also fired 120mm mortar shells on the outskirts of Novoluhanske.

During the current day, militants used weapons of armored personnel carriers and large-caliber machine guns to fire at the positions of Ukrainian defenders in the vicinity of Lebedynske and Vodiane.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, three invaders were killed, and two more were injured.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has once again called on foreign partners and international organizations to increase pressure on Russia with the goal of freeing Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, who has been on hunger strike for a hundred days, and other Ukrainian political prisoners.

"Sentsov has been on hunger strike for 100 days. A terrible figure. Human life is the highest value. We demand that Russia immediately release Oleh," Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa wrote in her Twitter microblog on Tuesday.

"We appeal to our partners and international organizations to increase pressure on Russia for #SaveOlegSentsov and the release of Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia," she said.

The North Caucasus District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don ruled in August 2015 to sentence Sentsov, who was detained in Crimea in 2014, to 20 years in a high-security penitentiary for plotting a terrorist attack there.

Sentsov declared a hunger strike on May 14, 2018 to demand that all Ukrainians held in Russia "on political motives" be freed. Sentsov's relatives said that his condition had seriously deteriorated.
The man who on the night of August 20, 2018 shot dead a patrol policeman near the Kharkiv City Council building murdered his wife before the killing. The killer was intoxicated, Kharkiv region's Police Chief Oleh Bekh said.

"Oleksandr Poliakov, born in 1971. We understand he was intoxicated, stressed out and that he shot his wife. The lenses matching those found at the city council building were found at the scene," Bekh said during a briefing in Kharkiv on Tuesday.

According to the police, the shooter was a military serviceman with no prior arrest record. Police are now checking whether he served in "hot spots" and whether he was a sniper.

"His military records have been found. He served in Soviet times. We are determining where," Bekh said, adding that neighbors said the shooter's family was normal and did not have arguments.

"People say Oleksandr was introverted," Bekh said.

As reported, in the early hours of Monday an unidentified man fired near the Kharkiv City Council and wounded a security guard, and then one of the policemen who came on call. The policeman died, despite the efforts of physicians. The employee of the Municipal Protection company is in intensive care at the emergency hospital. His condition is assessed as extremely difficult.

Policemen wounded the gunman from service weapon. He died as a result of injuries.

Criminal proceedings were opened on this fact under Part 2 of Article 115 (premeditated murder) and Article 348 (encroachment on the life of a member of the law enforcement body, a member of the public order for the protection of public order and the state border or a serviceman) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president's permanent representation in Crimea supports the selection on a competitive basis of a company for legal passenger transportation to the administrative border of Kherson region and the Crimean peninsula, the president's first deputy representative in Crimea, Izet Gdanov, has said.

"Our citizens in Crimea pay attention to the absence of legal passenger transportation with operating entry and exit checkpoints. I want to remind you that there are three of them - Kalanchak, Chonhar, Chaplynka. So far people don't have documents there. So far the issue of legal transportation is not being decided," Gdanov said at a press conference in Kyiv on Monday.

According to him, the issue of transportation lies in the competence of district and regional state administrations, as well as the State Service of Ukraine for Transport Safety.

Gdanov noted that there is a transport hub in the village of Novooleksiyivka and the president's permanent representation had repeatedly drawn attention to the need to hold a tender and appoint a transport carrier according to Ukrainian legislation.

"We hope that this issue will be resolved in the near future," he said.

At the same time, he said that it would be possible to liquidate illegal carriers after the legal ones appear.

"The issue of illegal transportation, illegal and semi-legal business near the administrative board is gaining momentum. We cannot state the improvement of the situation. Even in some localities, for example, transportation from the Kalanchak checkpoint, the situation there has only worsened," the president's permanent representative in Crimea, Borys Babin, said.
The case of ex 2016 presidential campaign manager Paul Manafort will not affect U.S.-Ukraine relations, Ukraine's Ambassador to the U.S. Valeriy Chaly has said.

"How can it impact our bilateral ties? Let me be honest with you. If we, our politicians don't try to use Washington for our political battles based on this case, then it will not have any negative effect," Chaly said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday, when asked whether the Manafort case will affect Ukraine-U.S. relations.

Chaly said that if political experts want to play around with the subject, "I warn you, you may fall under a serious attack, at least an attack from mass media."

The ambassador emphasized that the Manafort case is an internal affair of the United States.

"As for processes taking place in the United States, various court proceedings, Russian interference in the elections, this is a U.S. domestic issue. I, as ambassador, do not meddle. We are monitoring the situation, tracking events," the diplomat said.

As earlier reported, a criminal case against Manafort for tax and bank fraud is currently in progress in Alexandria, Virginia. Another case against Manafort, involving money-laundering and obstruction of justice, is scheduled to be held in Washington in September.

Charges against Manafort were put forward in the framework of the investigation headed by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has been tasked with investigating Russia's possible meddling in the U.S. 2016 presidential election and other crimes.
Ukrainian filmmaker Sentsov, on hunger strike in Russian prison, to be force-fed if there's threat to life - public supervisory commission

The hunger strike being staged by Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov, who has been convicted of terrorism in Russia, is not an effective way of defending his rights, Moscow's Public Monitoring Commission secretary Ivan Melnikov told Interfax.

"The 100-day-long hunger strike is very difficult. He [Sentsov] must be taking some nutritional mixes, otherwise he would have been dead now. The Federal Penitentiary Service has its own regulations, and if there is a threat to his life, he will be force-fed," Melnikov said.

Sentsov started his hunger strike on May 14, 2018, demanding that all Ukrainians being held in Russia be freed.

"I don't think that a hunger strike is an effective method of defending one's rights. It only harms one's health. But it is necessary to understand that it is already a matter of principle for Sentsov," Melnikov said.
Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has publicly called on Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman to change the team at the customs, which are now part of the State Fiscal Service, to restore the State Customs Service as a legal entity and appoint its chief by means of a competition.

"I've called on him informally to reshuffle the customs team. Now I am doing it publicly. I think that there cannot be any order at the customs in this country where there has been no customs service chief for three years. I think if we appoint another acting chief, nothing will be solved. Because that day when he was appointed millions of contraband items were found at his customs," Lutsenko said in an interview with the Kyiv-based Ukrainska Pravda online newspaper.

According to Lutsenko, customs remains one of the three main sources of corruption, along with licensing of mineral deposits and management of state-owned enterprises.

"In my opinion, the government should restore the State Customs Service as a legal entity and call a tender, appoint a person who enjoys public trust. The next step is to do what was done with the National Police of Ukraine  hire a new customs team," he said.

Lutsenko said new customs service leaders should be selected by competition and judged by the public.

"The fourth step," Lutsenko said, "is restoring analytical centers, which have simply disappeared. The fifth step is to deal seriously with well-known smuggling clans."

The prosecutor general said he has complaints about acting State Fiscal Service head Myroslav Prodan.

"Yes, I have complaints about Prodan. For now, I am complaining about many smuggling cases his subordinates allowed to happen. But now I am working on a case in which I have complaints against him personally. After I gather enough evidence, I will make a decision on procedure," Lutsenko said in the interview.

As earlier reported, at the start of July, Ukraine's Cabinet appointed acting State Fiscal Service (SFS) head Viktor Kryvitsky, who earlier headed the State Fiscal Service's branch in Volyn region.

Lutsenko said earlier that there were major violations made by Prodan as acting SFS chief, adding that an investigation had been underway since February 2018. The SFS in response said it was ready to answer any questions law-enforcement agencies might have.
Ukraine entering level of strategic partnership with U.S. for first time - Ambassador Chaly

Ukraine and the United States have reached an new level of cooperation in the field of security and defense, Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States Valeriy Chaly has said.

"I believe that today Ukraine, for the first time in all years of cooperation with the U.S., is entering the level of strategic partnership," Chaly said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.

The ambassador said that Ukraine was in the top ten of priority countries in matters of U.S. foreign policy.

"We are in the top ten of the U.S. attention as a priority in foreign policy," he said.

According to Chaly, keeping the U.S. attention to Europe is "the number one task."

He noted that the strategic partnership was not only U.S. statements on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. He stressed that Ukraine and the U.S. had reached an "entirely new level" of cooperation in the field of security and defense. According to the ambassador, an increase in U.S. support for Ukraine's security and defense should remain a priority of cooperation.

"Today, Ukraine [received] about 620 million dollars in terms of direct financial aid, without any return. It is one of the largest levels of assistance provided by Americans around the world," Chaly said.

He also noted that the Pentagon was increasing annual financial assistance to Ukraine.

"This year it is 200 million [U.S. dollars], next year it will 250 million [U.S. dollars]. In general, including the reforms, we have 620 million dollars," the ambassador said.

Chaly expressed hope that the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Partnership Commission would resume its work in the near future.
Russia detains more than 150 ships heading for Ukrainian ports in Sea of Azov - Slobodian

Russia has detained more than 150 foreign vessels heading for Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov, Oleh Slobodian, assistant to Ukraine's State Border Guard Service chief, has said.

"I don't have exact data, but it seems that more than 150 vessels heading for Ukrainian ports have been detained. The trend is stable: Russian border guards continue to inspect those vessels that are heading to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov," Slobodian told the 112 Ukraine TV channel on Tuesday.

He added that vessels heading toward Russian ports are not detained.

"They [the Russians] spend a lot of time issuing permits for crossing the Kerch Strait to the vessels heading to Ukrainian ports. The ships have to wait several days before crossing. Sometimes, Russian vessels heading to Russian ports are not delayed at all," he said.

Slobodian said inspects of ships heading to Ukrainian ports are usually carried out when they are in areas not accessible to Ukrainian sea patrol boats.

He said Ukrainian vessels heading for Ukrainian ports are stopped in remote areas not accessible to Ukrainian border guards.

"The vessels stopped are mostly those heading to Ukrainian ports. They are stopped in the most remote areas. Their tactics, again, change. The Russians feel free to act where our [border service] vessels are not present," Slobodian said.

As earlier reported, Ukraine's Infrastructure Ministry said that Russia detained 93 vessels from April 29 through July 9, 2018 without providing any reasons.

Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said Russia is deliberately creating impediments for vessels heading to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov and called on Ukraine to impose tit for tat sanctions as well as initiating international sanctions against Russia.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko on July 17 tasked Ukraine's Defense Ministry to take measures in connection with the illegal stopping and checks of Ukrainian and foreign vessels heading to ports in the Sea of Azov.
Commissioner for Human Rights of the Europe Council, Dunja Mijatovic, has issued letters addressed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin regarding the situation with persons who were detained and/or imprisoned in these two countries.

Mijatovic urged the authorities of the Russian Federation and Ukraine to do everything possible and urgently consider the most urgent needs of these people in order to prevent further deterioration of their situation, which can lead to irreversible consequences, the website of the Council of Europe reported on Tuesday.

The CoE Commissioner for Human Rights also confirmed her willingness to assist in overcoming the impasse and in assisting in the settlement of the situation of detained persons, including by way of their release on humanitarian grounds.

In her letters addressed to Lavrov and Klimkin, Mijatovic expressed her support for the cooperation of the Ombudswomen of Ukraine and Russia on the issue of the situation of the detained persons, which the presidents of the two countries agreed during a telephone conversation in June this year.

I continued to monitor the situation closely, and I regret to note the lack of any progress in meeting the most urgent humanitarian needs of prisoners and detainees, as the condition of some of them continues to deteriorate. It is critically important to make tangible progress in settling this matter. Urgently, I would like to ask you and your authorities to do everything possible and everything necessary to avoid further damage to health and the threat to the lives of prisoners and detainees, Mijatovic said.
The health of Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov, who is on hunger strike in a Russian penitentiary, is acceptable, Russian ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova said.

"Today I talked to a penitentiary system representative and the human rights commissioner in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. There was a meeting of doctors in Sentsov's penitentiary yesterday. Doctors from both the FSIN [Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service] and the city hospital in Salekhard gathered to determine what his current health condition is," Moskalkova told reporters on Tuesday.

"Currently, it is acceptable: he's moving around, getting out of bed, and receiving Nutridrink as special nourishment," Moskalkova said.
More than 30 people hiding from NABU abroad, half of them in Russian Federation, three more in occupied territories

According to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), over 30 people, involved in the organization of corruption schemes, are hiding abroad, about half of them are in the territory of the Russian Federation.

"As of June 30, 2013, more than 30 people, who are under investigation by the NABU, and, according to the detectives involved in abuses, are hiding from the investigation abroad. And about half of them, according to the investigation, are hiding in the territory of the Russian Federation. Another three, are probably hiding in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk region and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea," the report on the activities of the NABU for the first half of 2018, released on the website of the Bureau on Tuesday, says.

In the context of the international activities of the NABU related to the extradition of persons suspected of corruption crimes to Ukraine, out of 30 people who are hiding abroad, 21 persons have been declared internationally wanted. "Requests have been sent to other states in regard to 16 people, because of their detention or establishment of a place of stay," the report says.

In turn, the press service of NABU notes that many corruption schemes are implemented with the participation of companies registered abroad. The geography of these business entities covers at least 23 countries on three continents.

"According to detectives, Ukrainian corrupt officials choose places for "registration" of illegally received funds in states with a simplified registration system, complicated information disclosure procedures and a high degree of confidentiality. The damage to state interests with the participation of foreign counterparties is calculated at UAH 1.84 billion, $22.07 million and EUR 12.03 million," the press service of the Bureau said.

To obtain information on the ultimate beneficiaries of such structures and on the movement of funds withdrawn from Ukraine, NABU sends requests for international legal assistance to the competent authorities of other states. Since the beginning of the investigations, the National Bureau sent 371 requests to 61 countries for international legal assistance and 182 requests have already been fulfilled.
The Supreme Court of Ukraine has refused to open proceedings on the suit of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) on the abolition of the decision of the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors to impose disciplinary punishment on head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) Nazar Kholodnytsky.

"On August 21, 2018, the Supreme Court of the Cassation Administrative Court adopted a decision that refused to open proceedings in the suit of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine against the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission on recognizing unlawful and repealing the decision to impose a disciplinary penalty on Kholodnytsky," the press service of the Supreme Court said on Facebook on Tuesday evening.
Interfax-Ukraine announces press conference titled 'Who will Be in Charge for Forceful Dispersal of Students of Bohomolets National Medical University'

On Wednesday, August 22, at 13.00, the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency's press center will host a press conference titled "Who will Be in Charge for Forceful Dispersal of Students of Bohomolets National Medical University." Participants will include chairman of the student parliament of the Bohomolets National Medical University Serhiy Surovtsev, 4th year student Nazar Tiutkalo, chairman of the Human Rights Committee of the National Association of Ukraine's Barristers Hanna Kolesnyk (8/5a Reitarska Street). Admission requires press accreditation by phone: (096) 042 44 79 (Serhiy Surovtsev).
A heated debate has been triggered over Chinese ships fishing in Irans territorial waters.

While the deputy head of the Iranian Fisheries Organization, Shapour Kashkooli, has rejected claims that the organization has issued long-term licenses to Chinese fishermen to work in the Persian Gulf waters, deputy of Irans Ports & Maritime Organization (PMO) insists that, based on long-term permits, Chinese vessels are authorized to fish in Iranian waters.

Chinese ships are legally permitted to fish at a depth of 200 meters (656 feet) in Iranian territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, PMOs deputy, Mohammad Ali Hassanzadeh told IRGC-run Tasnim news agency, Saturday, August 18.

Hours later, Tasnim cited deputy head of the Iranian Fisheries Organization, Shapoor Kashkooli as saying, The Iranian Fisheries Organization has not issued a license to the Chinese to catch fish (in Iranian waters).

The Chinese nationals present in Iranian territorial waters in the Persian Gulf work for Iranian ships, he added.

The official further said that Iranian fishermen have rented Chinese ships or purchased them on installment plans, adding that these ships and their crew are hired but Iranian companies own the fish caught in the waters, Tasnim reported.

Nevertheless, several news outlets in Iran have repeatedly reported that the Chinese vessels are involved in excessive fishing operation in the Persian Gulf waters.

A member of the Supreme Council of Provinces in Iran has also lamented that overfishing by Chinese ships in waters off the southern Iranian coasts in the Persian Gulf has put seafood resources at risk.

Excessive fishing by huge and industrial Chinese ships (in the Persian Gulf) has endangered species of aquatic animals, state-run Iran Students News Agency, ISNA, quoted Kianoush Jahanbakhsh as saying, on August 10.

What I am saying is what Iranian fishermen, locals and eyewitnesses (in Hormozgan province) say.

He insisted that this has affected local fishermen's livelihoods.

Meanwhile, city of Bandar Abbas (Hormozgan province) representative to parliament, Ahmad Moradi said, Overfishing by Chinese vessels in Iran's southern waters has enraged local fishermen whose livelihoods have been affected by the practice.

Industrial vessels must not be authorized to fish in Iranian territorial waters, pro-President Rouhani MP added.

Furthermore, Moradi accused unidentified individuals of using legal loopholes and profiteering through arranging excessive fishing by Chinese vessels.

Traditional fishermen have no way to make a living other than fishing, but industrial ships disrupt local fishermen's economic situation by catching small and big fish, Bandar Abbas MP affirmed.

Reacting to the news, another compared fishing licenses with the recent controversial Convention inked by Iran and four other littoral countries of the Caspian Sea.

Pro-reform MP, Bahram Parsaei sarcastically twitted, While we were expecting the Caspian Sea Convention to be presented to parliament, we received the news that Irans share in Sea of Oman has also been let to Chinese fishing vessels for long term.

Furthermore, Parsaei lamented, I do not know whether to mourn [the death of] Articles 77 and 78 of the Constitution or be ashamed of facing fishermen whose nets and dining tables are empty and are mortified in front of their families.

The Articles Parsaei has referred to stipulate: International treaties, protocols, contracts, and agreements must be approved by the Islamic Consultative Assembly; as well as; All changes in the boundaries of the country are forbidden, with the exception of minor amendments in keeping with the interests of the country, on condition that they are not unilateral, do not encroach on the independence and territorial integrity of the country, and receive the approval of four-fifths of the total members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly.
Insisting that boosting Irans military power is for peaceful purposes, the Islamic Republics President Hassan Rouhani warned the enemies on Tuesday that any military action against the country will be costly.

Irans military power is meant for defense, but any hostile move against it would cost the aggressors dearly, so-called moderate mid-ranking cleric cautioned.

Rouhani, who was speaking to a group of defense ministry officials said, History has taught Iran to grow stronger and insist on pursuing its goals, otherwise other countries would try to bring Iran to its knees.

The Iranian president made the remarks in a ceremony marking the National Day of Defense Industry. The event also featured the unveiling of the latest achievements in the defense sector, including the first homegrown fighter/trainer jet Kosar which presumably underwent its successful flight-tests today in the presence of President Rouhani, according to state-run Mehr News Agency (MNA).

Referring directly to Washington, Rouhani claimed that the reason behind keeping US back from launching a military attack against Iran is the Islamic Republic's defense capabilities.

"They know that attacking Iran would have great consequences for the U.S., Rouhani said.

Rouhani praised the existing unity among the Iranian people, leadership and the armed forces, while he had earlier repeatedly accused the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) of meddling in his governments affairs.

During his second presidential campaign in May 2017, Rouhani bitterly criticized IRGC for attempting to abort his Administrations efforts toward achieving a nuclear deal with world powers.

He singled out an incident where IRGC publicly displayed missiles with the sign 'Death to Israel' in Hebrew attached to them.

The cleric turned politician went even further by describing IRGC as an armed institute interfering in Irans economy where the private sector dares not to compete with it.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Matanat Nasibova  Trend:

Azerbaijans AZERSTAR Manufacturing and Trading Company intends to increase export volume to the markets of European countries, Zulfugar Gurbanov, executive director of the company, told Trend.

AZERSTAR is considered one of the biggest national companies processing and exporting hazelnuts. The company produces peeled, crushed, fried and blanched nuts, as well as walnut flour.

To date, about 3,000 tons of finished products are annually exported, he said. "Our products have been exported to the international markets since 2006. Our company produces and exports up to 25 percent of the total volume of Azerbaijani hazelnuts, while the annual sales volume in 2017 amounted to $22 million."

At the end of 2017, 45,500 tons of hazelnuts were produced in the country, which is by 32.9 percent more than in 2016. Approximately 18,000-20,000 tons of processed hazelnuts have been produced over the past year. Over 60,000 tons of hazelnuts are planned to be produced in the country in 2018, which is much more than in 2017.

Gurbanov also touched upon the plans for export of products, stressing that the company has begun to supply products to many more CIS countries and a number of European countries.

"Our products are exported to a number of European countries, mainly to Germany, Italy, France, England and the Baltic countries, he said. As the company focuses on the expansion of sales markets, hazelnuts from Azerbaijans Zagatala district are already available in most of the outlets of the EU countries."
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

Trend:

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 79 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said August 21.

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, Aug. 21

By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend:

The Member of German Parliament Albert Weiler made illegal visits to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan in 2014 and 2016, and therefore his name has been included in the list of "undesirable persons" since that period, the Spokesman of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmet Hajiyev told Trend Aug. 21.

He was commenting on the reports in the "Bild" newspaper about the ban on the entry of the German MP into the territory of Azerbaijan.

"It has been noted in some foreign media that as if his name were included in this list as late as now. This is incorrect information, as Albert Weiler has been in the list of "undesirable persons" since 2014. This man has made illegal visits to the territory of Azerbaijan, occupied by the armed forces of Armenia," Hajiyev said.

The spokesman stressed that it is necessary to respect the territorial integrity, sovereignty, laws of other countries, and in this context, the illegal visits to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan are unacceptable.

Hajiyev added that at the same time Azerbaijan takes a constructive position on this issue, and if the persons who do not conduct activities directly against Azerbaijan, send letters of apology and express respect for the territorial integrity and laws of Azerbaijan, the exclusion of their names from the list of "undesirable persons" may be considered.

"If this person will address us, we can consider this case, but such addresses from him havent been received so far. Therefore, a ban has been applied on his entry into the territory of Azerbaijan," the spokesman of the foreign ministry said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend:

An open confrontation started in Armenia between parliament speaker and prime minister, Aydin Guliyev, an expert, editor-in-chief of the Baki Khabar newspaper, told Trend.

Guliyev noted that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan openly acknowledged the existence of a constitutional crisis in Armenia.

However, the crisis is much sharper and is about to deepen, Guliyev said. The number one goal for Pashinyan is holding early parliamentary election on condition that he remains prime minister. Otherwise it is impossible to get a majority in the new parliament. If he doesnt retain the post of prime minister, he wont be able to win the election.

Guliyev noted that early parliamentary election is possible in the conditions of the resignation of the prime minister, in case of failure of the two-time attempt of the current parliament to elect a new prime minister of Armenia.

The expert added that Pashinyan fully understands how dangerous these conditions are for him.

He is trying to make the current parliament amend the constitution, so that the parliament would have the power to self-dissolve, the Azerbaijani expert added. Only in this case Pashinyan will retain the post of prime minister, and at the same time he will be able to hold early parliamentary election.

The expert also noted that Pashinyan wants to bring hundreds of thousands of people to the streets again and force the parliament to amend the constitution under the pressure of street protests.

This is his serious plan, there is no other way, and in the coming weeks we will see hundreds of thousands of people who came to peaceful protests in Yerevan, Guliyev said.

He noted that two focuses of resistance arose regarding Pashinyans plan.

Former Armenian President Robert Kocharyan called on all pro-Russian forces to unite against Pashinyan, the expert said. Commenting on Pashinyans statements, the former president noted that Russia is not the country to be spoken about in this way, and such an assessment by Kocharyan can be considered as a call. The Armenian parliaments chairman Ara Babloyan opened the second front of resistance by his tough statement. The parliament headed by Babloyan is preparing to confront Pashinyans policy aimed at amending the constitution.

Guliyev also quoted the chairman of the Armenian parliament as saying that the public solidarity in Armenia is under threat, and this makes it possible to say that the country is on the verge of civil confrontation.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

Trend:

The First Deputy Minister of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan  Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Colonel General Najmeddin Sadikov has begun an official visit to the Republic of Belarus on August 21, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said.

First, a delegation led by Colonel General N. Sadikov laid a wreath at the Eternal Flame near the "Brest Fortress Hero" memorial complex.

Within the framework of the visit, the prospects of development of military cooperation between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Belarus will be discussed.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Matanat Nasibova  Trend:

Latvias textile manufacturers intend to create joint production in Azerbaijan to further export products to the markets of the CIS countries, Head of the Association of Textile Producers and Exporters of Azerbaijan, head of Gilan Textile Park Mehriban Akhundova told Trend.

"Currently, negotiations are underway," she said. "In particular, Latvia's underwear manufacturers are interested in that because it is currently unprofitable for them to enter CIS markets because of existing customs duties and taxes for the European countries."

"Taking into account that Azerbaijan has bilateral agreements on the free trade zone with the CIS countries, the creation of joint production in our country will exempt the export of finished products to these countries from customs payments," Akhundova said.

"The negotiations have already been held with the Association of Latvian Lingerie Manufacturers and perhaps, the corresponding agreements will be reached this autumn," she said.

"Moreover, a meeting with the chairman of the Russian Association of Textile Producers is expected to be held in early autumn, during which the time-frame for the implementation of joint plans in this sphere will be determined," Akhundova said.

"Azerbaijani textile products are in great demand abroad and "Made in Azerbaijan" brand is gaining popularity not only in Turkey, but also in the CIS and Baltic countries," she said.

"Presently, there are domestic textile products in Azerbaijan's trade houses in Latvia, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus," Akhundova added. "The products produced at the Baku Textile Factory and Gilan Textile Park are available at those trade houses."

"Domestic textile products can be competitive in the foreign market, primarily due to high quality, meeting the standards of environmental safety and international standards," she said.

The Association of Textile Producers and Exporters was established to support the development of this sector in Azerbaijan. The initiative on the establishment of this association was put forward by entrepreneurs involved in the textile sector. In general, such associations serve to improve relations between the state and the private sector.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Ali Mohammadi - Trend:

Iran's non-oil exports to Germany witnessed a 275.32 percent and 0.63 percent rise in weight and value, respectively, in the first four months of the current Iranian fiscal year (started March 21).

The exports rose to 53,198 tons worth $94.1 million during the four months, IRNA reported.

Saffron, date, pistachio, jam, jelly, and watermelon were among the main exported commodities to the European country.

Iran exported 274 tons of pistachio, 155 tons of date, 3.705 kg of jam and 393 tons of watermelon to Germany during the period.

Germany and Iran have a long history of friendly relations.

Before the sanctions in 2005, bilateral trade amounted to almost 5 billion, while in 2015, only half was left. It did not come to a standstill, even in periods of sanctions, because not all goods were subject to sanctions.

After 2016, numerous German companies have reopened their representative offices in Iran, selling their products in the Iranian market, and plan investments with Iranian partners.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

Trend:

Kazakhstan's Eurasian Bank JSC plans to increase the share of retail lending in its portfolio, the bank's Chairman Pavel Loginov said in an interview with Trend.

"We are planning to change the bank's balance structurally - retail and corporate businesses should be at 60 and 40 percent respectively by 2020," Loginov said. "A year ago the ratio was 40 and 60 percent, but in 2018 the share of retail business has already reached 54 percent. We will grow in the retail business, but reduce the corporate business by writing off bad loans."

"Presently, the bank's task is not to increase the indicators, but to improve the quality of assets. Their volume, according to forecasts, should remain at the level of one trillion tenges," he said.

Nevertheless, Loginov does not rule out their slight decrease, due to the fact that the bank is carrying out large-scale work on reserving bad assets.

"When it comes to the authorized capital, the bank currently does not see the need for its increase. Although the shareholders expressed their readiness to contribute if necessary. Last year, as part of the Kazakh National Bank's Program (Increasing financial sustainability of banking sector) our shareholders contributed 23.8 billion tenges and we received 150 billion tenges from the state within the framework of the Program. Not to forget that these are paid and repayable funds. Currently the bank does not need additional capitalization," the chairman of Eurasian Bank added.

Based in Kazakhstan, "Eurasian Bank" has been operating since 1994. The bank is one of the largest in the country and it holds ninth place in the country in terms of assets (about $2.69 billion) as of July 1, 2018.

Some 30 banks are functioning in Azerbaijan, 15 of which have foreign capital.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:

At present, the intellectual property insurance in Azerbaijan has not gained the expected momentum, the expert in the field of insurance Vugar Huseynli believes.

The expert noted that this product, the sales of which started last year, has not yet gained popularity.

"The fact is that very few companies know about this product and face it only when preparing documents for the customs authorities in the framework of trademark registration in Azerbaijan and the fight against counterfeit products. Given the fact that the State Customs Committee requires this insurance as part of the registration of a trademark, the unpopularity of the product can be explained by the fact that companies do not exhibit activity in this matter," Huseynli told Trend Aug. 21.

The expert believes that currently the product may be of interest mainly to large foreign companies.

"Large foreign companies are seriously engaged in the fight against counterfeit products. Therefore, this product may arouse their interest. I know that some companies operating in the territory of Azerbaijan, for example, Unilever, have already purchased this insurance product. As for Azerbaijani companies, first of all, it is necessary to simplify the process of obtaining patents, which will increase the number of intellectual property in the country. And, afterwards, it will already become possible to think about its insurance," Huseynli said.

Azerbaijan has started to insure intellectual property since last year. The product is intended for international companies exporting various products to Azerbaijan.

The formation of insurance coverage and insurance premiums for this product depends on how popular a particular brand is and how often it is forged. The trade turnover of the company in Azerbaijan and the list of distributors of this company in the country are also considered. As for coverage, it also varies depending on the risks and ranges from5,000 to 5 million manats.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Anvar Mammadov  Trend:

In January-July 2018, the PASHA Capital investment company led the ranking of brokers in the Azerbaijani market of state and corporate securities, the Baku Stock Exchange (BSE) said on Aug. 21.

During the reporting period, the investment company rendered brokerage services worth 4.19 billion manats.

Unicapital took the second place with the rendered services worth a total of 3.22 billion manats.

Unicapital is followed by Invest-AZ with 2.87 billion manats worth of rendered services.

Below is the ranking of brokers in Azerbaijans securities market in terms of services rendered in January-July 2018:

Brokers name Value of brokerage services (AZN) Current place by the volume of services PASHA Capital 4,168,252,001.36 1 Unicapital 3,215,646,244.88 2 Invest-AZ 2,872,241,250.21 3 AzFinance 2,844,466,444.86 4 Xalq Kapital 903,213,606.71 5 PSG Kapital 354,341,800.97 6 Capital Management - 7

(1.7 manats = $1 on Aug. 21)

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Anvar_Mammadov
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Aug. 21

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Turkmenistan held a seminar in Ashgabat city on the preliminary passenger information systems, the State Migration Service of Turkmenistan said in a message.

The event was attended by representatives of companies offering communication services for preliminary passenger information systems, such as SITA, EDIFLY, Rockwell Collins and WCC.

Employees of relevant ministries and departments, military and law enforcement bodies of Turkmenistan were the participants of the seminar.

At the seminar, the implementation of this system in Turkmenistan and best practices were discussed.

Participants noted the importance of holding regular training seminars to further expand interaction and study best practices, the message said.

Turkmenistan joined the IOM as a full member in 2013.

In June 1998, an agreement on cooperation was signed between the government of Turkmenistan and IOM. The IOM mission started its work in Turkmenistan in 2005.

The main program directions of joint work include counteracting human trafficking and assistance to migrants, technical cooperation and border management, management of emergency situations, as well as reduction of the risk of natural disasters.

As part of joint programs, information and educational events are being held, and the institutional and professional capacity of the relevant structures of Turkmenistan is growing.

Turkmenistan borders with Kazakhstan, Iran, Russia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan on land, and with Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Iran on the Caspian Sea.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Ilkin Shafiyev - Trend:

The export of products of Belarusian State Concern for Oil and Chemistry (Belneftekhim Concern) to Azerbaijan amounted to $2.2 million in the first half of 2018, which is 14.1 percent more than in the same period last year, the state concern told Trend Aug. 21 with reference to the National Statistical Committee of Belarus.

Close cooperation has been established between Belneftekhim and Azerbaijan, the state concern said. Belarus oil products, in particular, motor and lubricating oils, as well as AI 98 gasoline, were supplied to the Azerbaijani market. Tires for cars and light trucks, agricultural machinery and other production vehicles were shipped for exclusive dealer of Belshina OJSC - Azbelshin LLC. However, the Azerbaijani tire market is unattractive to the Belarus producer in terms of price.

Gomel Chemical Plant OJSC also supplied aluminum fluoride for the DETAL Aluminium LLC, while the SvetlogorskHimvolokno LLC supplied textured polyester yarns for XANNI-2017 LLC, the Belneftekhim state concern noted.

The concern added that in 2018 no deliveries of Azerbaijani oil were carried out to Belarus. Oil swap operations werent conducted, either.

Earlier, Azerbaijan exported oil to Belarus, but later the sides didnt agree on the crude's price. Azerbaijan sent the last cargo of about 500,000 tons of oil to Belarus in 2016.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @IlkinShafiyev
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Ali Gasimov - Trend:

Germany interested to develop further the Southern Gas Corridor project, which provides for the transportation of gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field to Europe, a German government official told press ahead of an upcoming visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the South Caucasus countries - Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia.

"We are interested in construction of a new alternative pipeline network to transport Caspian natural gas via Turkey to Europe. We have a considerable interest in further development of the Southern Gas Corridor," he said.

He noted that connecting European gas networks to the TANAP and TAP pipelines is part of the EU's diversification strategy.

"Azerbaijan is a country of high geo-political significance for global energy supply. Berlin is open to importing natural gas from other countries such as Turkmenistan, Iran, and Iraq," he said.

A ceremony to launch Phase 0 of TANAP took place June 12 in the Turkish city of Eskisehir.

TANAP, together with Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), is a part of the Southern Gas Corridor, which provides for the transportation of gas from the Azerbaijani field Shah Deniz to Europe.

The initial capacity of TANAP is expected to be 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year. About six billion cubic meters will be supplied to Turkey, and the rest to Europe. After completion of the TAP, the gas will reach Europe in early 2020.

The share distribution in TANAP is as follows: Southern Gas Corridor CJSC - 51 percent, SOCAR Turkey Enerji - 7 percent, Botas - 30 percent, and BP - 12 percent.

The launching ceremony of the first stage of the Southern Gas Corridor project was held in Baku on May 29.

The gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field has already gone through the first segment of the Southern Gas Corridor - from the Sangachal terminal to the expanded South Caucasus Pipeline.

The Southern Gas Corridor, which costs more than $40 billion, is one of the priority projects for the EU and provides for the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Fikret Dolukhanov - Trend:

Uzbek technological company Innovo Tech will install the first free public Internet system in Uzbekistan on Sailgoh street in Tashkent, better known as "Broadway", the Public Council under the capital city administration said in a statement.

The project is implemented with the support of the Tourism Development Department, as well as the Public Council under the capital city administration.

"The project is fully implemented at the expense of the company's own funds in an experimental manner. It has been planned to gain revenues through the sale of advertising when users connect to the Internet. If the experiment is successful, free Wi-Fi can appear in all other public spaces of our capital, from the sights of the city to the bazaars and parks", the Public Council noted on its page on Facebook.

The project has been named as TasNet.uz and will be deployed on the basis of advanced equipment of the American Ubiquity company, including the user identification system that meets the new requirements of the legislation adopted in July this year.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @FDolukhanov
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Fikret Dolukhanov - Trend:

Russian developer of service robots "Promobot" may supply robotic police officers for service in Uzbekistan in 2019-2020, the Uzbek media quoted the companys Development Director Oleg Kivokurtsev.

He noted that in July 2018, the robot policeman has already been enlisted in the Department of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, and the company plans to extend this project to other countries, in particular, to Uzbekistan and the countries of Middle East region.

The main task of the robot is to warn law enforcement agencies when it detects danger, Kivokurtsev said.

"The robot will patrol an area 24 hours a day, conduct video shooting, recognize faces, by integrating with the police database of record-keeping of criminals. It will also reveal such key words as "terrorism", "bomb" and others, and send alerts to the service. There is also a function of reading of fingerprints to ensure that in case of detection of a suspicious person his identity could be verified on the spot", he added.

Kivokurtsev said this project may be interesting for China as well, where a large-scale surveillance program is carried out to prevent cases of order violation.

Promobot signed in 2015 a partnership agreement with a Chinese company, which became its official distributor in the country. During this time, about 10 robots were delivered to China. In the future, Promobot plans to expand its presence in China.

Kivokurtsev noted that the market of industrial robots is developed in China, while the direction of service robots, in which Promobot is specialized, is just starting up.

The Promobot company was founded in 2015. Today, it is the largest manufacturer of autonomous service robots in Russia, Northern and Eastern Europe. Headquarters and production facilities of the company are situated in Perm city. The company conducts its own developments in the field of mechatronics, electronics, face and speech recognition. The company's products are supplied to 25 countries.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @FDolukhanov
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Aug. 21

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

The Ministry of Industry of Turkmenistan has extended the investment tender for the construction of a plant for the production of ceramic and sanitary faience tiles in the Bakharden district of the Akhal region.

The companies with the capacity to fully invest the project are invited to participate in the tender.

All interested persons are invited to contact the Ministry of Industry of Turkmenistan at the following address: Ashgabat, Archabil Avenue, 132.

Payment for participation - $500 or 1750 Turkmen manats (payment for participation is not refundable).

Tender proposals will be accepted until August 28, 2018.

For more information, please call: (+993 12) 39-00-17/19/21.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

Parliaments of Uzbekistan and the EU will develop cooperation within the Uzbekistan-EU format, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry said in a message Aug. 21.

Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov has recently met with a delegation of the European Peoples Party faction in the European Parliament.

During the conversation, the sides noted with satisfaction the strengthening of cooperation and the positive dynamics of interaction in the Uzbekistan-EU format.

In 2018 alone, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini visited Uzbekistan twice and held talks with the leadership of the republic.

At the meeting, concrete proposals to hold bilateral events were voiced, as well as an exchange of views took place on other issues of the joint agenda, international and regional issues.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @FDolukhanov
Baku, Azerbaijan, August 21

Trend

The head of Crisis Management Office in Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan province said massive storms and rising amount of suspended solids and dirt have sent 95 people to hospitals across the southeastern province.

The storm, which swept over the province last night, has so far sent 95 people to hospitals, Abdurrahman Shahnawazi told Tasnim on August 21.

He added that they have been all taken to hospitals due to respiratory problems, sore eyes and cardiovascular diseases.

Some 68 (out of 95) of the individuals are receiving outpatient treatment and the rest are hospitalized, the official said.

An official with Iran Meteorological Department also said the concentration of fine dust in the province currently stands at 4444 micrograms per cubic meter, while the normal volume of fine particles concentration is 150 micrograms per cubic meter.

Dust concentration in the southeastern provinces air is around 30 times higher than the standard level, Ali Mollashahi said.

Iranian residents in the western and southwestern provinces that border Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are facing a growing trend in the influx of fine particles, which are generated by drought-hit marshlands in neighboring countries.

In recent years, sand and dust storms in parts of southwestern Iran have caused periodic closures of schools, government offices, and businesses, bringing life to a standstill for residents. Many also fear the impact on their health.

Sand and dust storms have increasingly plagued countries across the Middle East. Though the exact cause of the increase in storms is not known, accelerated dam construction and diversion of water resources for agriculture throughout the region is thought to be the main culprit.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Matanat Nasibova - Trend:

The willingness of the parties to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to establish a bilateral dialogue, hear the opponent and make compromises remain the main factors that would allow stimulating the negotiation process on the conflicts settlement, Georgy Fedorov, Russian expert, president of the Aspect Center for Social and Political Studies, said in an interview with Trend and Azernews.

He was commenting on the intensification of the negotiation process on Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts settlement.

There is no need to change the existing format of the OSCE Minsk Group (Russia-US-France), he added.

The existing format remains the most appropriate one, he said.

Fedorov noted that many regional powers have their own interests in the concrete outcome of the talks on Nagorno-Karabakh, or, on the contrary, in the deliberate prolongation of the conflict.

As for the internal situation in Armenia, Pashinyans government will be concerned over domestic problems, the economic situation and other pressing issues in the next few months, according to the experts forecast.

Armenia, despite the changes in the political leadership of the country, remains economically dependent on Russia in many respects, Fedorov said. Therefore, no sharp steps, at least in the near future, will happen in Armenias foreign policy. Nevertheless, the overall foreign policy course in the future will be rather guided by Europe and the West as a whole.

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, August 21

By Azer Ahmadbayli  Trend:

It seems that the White House is very serious in its intention to strangle Iran's economy, and President Trump's words that the new sanctions imposed on Tehran are the toughest sanctions that have ever been imposed, is not an empty rhetoric.

For the fear of losing huge US market, many major European companies have already halted their activities in the Islamic Republic. The EUs trade with Iran will, at best, continue at the level of small and medium-sized businesses, which for Iran means the actual loss of the European market.

Apart from the goal of zeroing Iranian oil exports, Washington has also taken on Iran's immediate neighbors, including Turkey and Iraq, which are among Tehran's top trade partners, in an effort to block their trade ties with Tehran as much as possible.

A week ago, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had to demonstrate the art of compromise, after the representative of the US state Department Heather Nauert warned him against violating the sanctions regime against Iran and that otherwise Iraq itself risks falling under sanctions.

Considering what's currently going on, this could have grave consequences for Iraq.

Despite the small volume of trade between Armenia and Iran, it also received a message from Washington.

One of these days, the US Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills notified Armenian businessmen intending to do business with Iran that they should check with the US Embassy before concluding any deals with Iranian companies in order not to fall under the effect of secondary sanctions, Armenian media reported.

Furthermore, the Armenian Foreign Ministry stated that the specific dates of the official visit of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to Tehran had not been determined yet.

This is anything but good news for Armenia, the local media outlets have claimed.

Meanwhile, not so long ago both officials and local media were vying with one another to say that he would go to Iran in the shortest possible time, and that the program of the visit would include economic issues.

Turkey has also been subjected to strong pressure from the US. Washington insists that Turkey should join the broad sanctions against Iran.

Ankara has rejected the American demands: Iran is both our neighbor and our strategic partner and severing ties with Tehran on Americas whim goes against Turkeys understanding of sovereignty, Turkish President Erdogan said in late July.

Turkey's refusal to join the anti-Iranian sanctions caused a wave of rage in Washington, followed by attempts to apply punitive measures against Ankara.

Finally, few days ago Iranian Financial Tribune, referring to Al Bawaba, reported that the latest US sanctions against Iran are forcing many Iranian businesses in the United Arab Emirates, which has recently become a major trade hub of Iranian goods, to move to other countries, and that trade between the UAE and Iran is slowing down.

The experience of the previous US sanctions has shown that neighboring countries, especially Turkey and the UAE, played an important if not a savior role in the most critical times for the Iranian economy (2011-2014).

It is not a secret that Turkey and the UAE acted as re-exporting intermediary countries to Iran during the pre-JCPOA sanctions.

Iran successfully used different ways to bypass the previous sanctions regime by using its numerous subsidiaries in Turkey and Emirates for payment and delivery of goods, arranging cash movement to and from Iran through money-exchange houses in Istanbul and Dubai, and even carrying large amounts of cash in suitcases.

Statistical data from Irans Trade Promotion Organization show that the countrys import and export with Turkey was almost continually growing within years of the toughest sanctions. As for trade with the UAE at that period, the picture is not so obvious.

After it has become clear that the nuclear agreement would be signed, the trade indicators with Turkey and the UAE went down as Iran was getting the opportunity to trade directly with the countries that had previously complied with the sanctions regime.

Today, Washington is trying to learn from the recent past, limiting Iran's trade relations with neighboring countries by any means possible. If it succeeds, Tehran will fall on harsh times.
The United Arab of Emirates (UAE) has pledged $100 million to India's flood-ravaged state of Kerala. Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan told the media that he was grateful to the UAE for this humanitarian gesture, Sputnik reported.

"Sheik Mohammed has communicated to the prime minister about their decision to help. They have decided to give $100 million as assistance, that would be 700 crore in Indian rupees. I would like to express my gratitude to UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the vice president and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid on behalf of Malayalis (the people of Kerala)," Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said.

The amount pledged by the UAE is more than that offered by India's central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While the government of Kerala has estimated the total loss to be around $2.8 billion, the central government has announced $85 million in assistance.
The government of the northern Brazilian state of Roraima on Monday asked the countrys supreme court to halt the entry of Venezuelan immigrants, increasing pressure on the federal government to resolve a growing regional crisis, Reuters reported.

Roraimas request followed a weekend of violence in the state, where tens of thousands of Venezuelans have arrived in recent years, fleeing economic and political turmoil in their country.

As a result of the grave conflicts over the weekend, the state of Roraima submitted a fastrack request ... seeking the temporary suspension of Venezuelan immigration through the border, the state government said in a statement.

The supreme court rejected a previous request by Roraima, as the Brazilian constitution mandates an open border.

The court is unlikely to agree to the new request.

Still, local tensions have been mounting in the growing Latin American crisis, with countries across the region taking a tougher line against fleeing Venezuelans.

For instance, Venezuelans entering Ecuador and Peru will soon be required to show hard-to-get passports, rather than the more ubiquitous national identity cards, governments of both countries announced last week.

This weekend in the Roraima border city of Pacaraima, four people beat a shop owner and some locals said the assailants were Venezuelans, which prompted a mob to destroy the tents of immigrants camped in the streets and set fire to the belongings they left behind. Some 1,200 Venezuelans retreated back over the border, local officials said.

President Michel Temer on Sunday announced an increase from 31 to 151 in the contingent of soldiers helping keep order at the border, while also pledging to speed the relocation of Venezuelan immigrants to other Brazilian states. Temer has repeatedly refused to close the border.
The government of Ghana seeks partners to establish a home-based international airline, Minister for Aviation Cecilia Abena Dapaah has said.

"Cabinet gave approval in October 2017 for the Ministry of Aviation to start the necessary process for the establishment of a home-based carrier with private sector participation," the minister told the media on Monday.

"The establishment of the carrier has the potential to generate financial and economic benefits with its multiplier effect on Ghana and within the west African sub-region," the minister said.

The previous national carrier, Ghana Airways, was established in 1958, but was liquidated in 2004 by the government of former President John Kufuor. Its last aircraft, a DC-10, has become a restaurant, sitting close to the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).

The cabinet has also given approval for the ministry to enter into negotiations with Air Mauritius and Abu Dhabi Aviation while continuing with discussions with Ethiopian Airlines and other strategic investors to help establish the home-based carrier.

There have been different attempts at securing a new home-based carrier for the west African country, where international passenger numbers grew 3.71 percent to 1,811,428 last year, from 2016's 1,746,699.

Domestic traffic also surged, rising 14.5 percent to reach 483,261 last year, up from 421,261 recorded in 2016.

After the liquidation of Ghana Airways in 2004, Ghana entered into a partnership with a group of international private investors to set up Ghana International Airlines (GIA) in 2005.

However, due to liquidity challenges and a protracted legal battle among the shareholders, the airline, which operated scheduled, charter passenger and cargo services, had to fold up five years later in 2010.

Ghana has expanded the capacity of its international airport with the construction of a third terminal, which experts see as a great opportunity for the country to be able to facilitate larger numbers of international passenger movement.
The US Department of Treasury announced expansion of sanction lists related to North Korea and sanctions linked to cyberspace actions on Tuesday, TASS reported.

Sanctions related to North Korea are introduced sanctions against two companies based in Russia and six vessels under the Russian flag, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) reports.

Cyberspace-related sanctions are imposed against two Russian individuals, one Russian company and one company from Slovakia.

The strictest regime of sanctions is currently in effect against North Korea, providing for financial sanctions, the ban on supplies of rocket fuel and dual-purpose equipment and materials, and exports of coal, iron, lead and other products from the country. Sanctions were toughened last time on December 22 of the last year.
KYODO NEWS - Aug 21, 2018 - 16:45 | World, All

El Salvador on Tuesday established diplomatic ties with China while severing its relations with Taiwan, the Chinese and Taiwanese governments said, the latest blow to the self-governed island's quest for international recognition.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Salvadoran counterpart Carlos Castaneda signed a document in Beijing on Tuesday to build diplomatic ties between the two nations.

"El Salvador has acknowledged that there is one China in the world and that Taiwan is China's territory," Wang told reporters.

(Salvadoran Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, left, and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi)

Castaneda, meanwhile, said the purpose of establishing diplomatic relations with China is "to upgrade the living standard of the people," expressing hopes for cooperation with the Asian superpower in trade, investment and infrastructure fields.

The move reduces the number of countries maintaining full diplomatic ties with Taipei to just 17.

El Salvador is the third country to break off diplomatic ties with Taiwan this year in favor of China, following the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean and Burkina Faso, a West African country, in May. It is also the fifth country to do so since President Tsai Ing-wen came to power in Taiwan in May 2016.

Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu revealed in the morning that El Salvador had sought "huge funding" for a port development project, but that Taiwan was reluctant to respond to the request.

"Our government is unwilling to use dollar diplomacy to compete with China," Wu said, indicating that Beijing's ample financial resources played a role in luring away El Salvador. "It is irresponsible and impossible."

He added that El Salvador's ruling party, which is trailing the opposition in opinion polls, desperately needs funding for its campaign for February's presidential election.

(Joseph Wu)

Tsai, who just returned from a state visit to Paraguay and Belize Monday night, told an emergency press conference Tuesday that the more China suppresses Taiwan, the more unified the island will become and the more determined it will be to play a role in the international arena.

Saying the incident was not an isolated case, Tsai called on all parties to work together to safeguard Taiwan's sovereignty and dignity.

To the international community, Tsai said the problems Taiwan has with China are similar to those faced by the Asian region and the world as China is attempting to challenge and even reconstruct the current international order.

"The situation is so bad that we cannot appease China any further," Tsai said.

Taiwan and mainland China have been governed separately since they split amid a civil war in 1949. Beijing has since then endeavored to diplomatically isolate Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province awaiting reunification.

China has stepped up such efforts, particularly since Tsai, who belongs to the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, assumed office.

Taiwan and El Salvador established diplomatic ties in 1941. Tsai visited the Central American country in January 2017.
The Minister said 2,974 cubic feet of water is currently flowing through the spillway and 2,360 cubic feet of water is being carried to Tamil Nadu and as a result, the water level has dropped to 138.85 feet.
Watts was charged Monday with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife and young daughters.

The 33-year-old father also faces three counts of tampering with a body, and a count of first-degree unlawful termination of a pregnancy, said Weld County District Attorney Michael J. Rourke, who did not reveal a motive.

Prosecutors held a press conference on Monday afternoon to announce what charges will be filed in the deaths of Shanann Watts and her two daughters.

Watts fronted cameras for a number of local TV stations and pleaded for his wife to come home.

"After returning to the couple's bedroom, he told police that he looked at a baby monitor he saw Bella "'sprawled' out on her bed and blue and Shanann actively strangling Celeste", a detective wrote in the affidavit.

She said she knew something was amiss when Chris Watts appeared unconcerned.

Family and friends said they were shocked by the slayings, saying the family seemed happy and Christopher Watts appeared to be a good father.

Early on the morning of August 13, Watts said he told his wife he wanted to separate, and then the killings took place, court papers said. Later it was confirmed to be that of Shanann Watt.

According to the affidavit, investigators discovered that Mr Watts was having an affair with a work colleague, which he had denied to police.

Shannan Watts and the two girls were reported missing by a family friend on Tuesday from their home in Frederick, about 50 km north of Denver.

Because if they are safe, they're coming back. "She very much loved her family and wanted to be a family", Atkinson said.

Their bodies were found Thursday at the site of the petroleum company where Chris Watts once worked, authorities said.

Shanann Watts' body was found on the property of Anadarko Petroleum, authorities said. She was also 15 weeks pregnant with a son the couple planned to name Niko, her brother, Frankie Rzucek, posted on Facebook.

On Monday, a judge denied several defense motions, including a request to require pathologists to swab the little girls' necks, throats and hands for DNA.

Atkinson said she contacted Chris Watts, but he didn't seem as anxious as she thought he should be.

Asked if he had argued with his wife before her disappearance, he cryptically replied, "We had an emotional conversation", and declined to elaborate further. A neighbor's surveillance footage confirms that the only traffic by the Watts' home that day was Shanann Watts' friend dropping her off at 2 a.m., and Christopher Watts backing his truck into the garage around 5:30 a.m. before leaving. "I just want them to come back".

But he grew anxious, he said, when one of her friends contacted him around noon and said she wasn't responding to messages.

A June 2015 bankruptcy filing showed that the family was dealing with financial strain, including tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, student loans and medical bills totaling $70,000 in unsecured claims along with a sizable mortgage.

"She said she was going to a friend's house with the kids and that's the last thing I heard, and that was it", he said. The bodies of the girls were found inside tanks of crude oil.
An international team, including researchers at Stony Brook University and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, has found the earliest and largest monumental cemetery in eastern Africa. The Lothagam North Pillar Site was built 5,000 years ago by early pastoralists living around Lake Turkana, Kenya. This group is believed to have had an egalitarian society, without a stratified social hierarchy. Thus their construction of such a large public project contradicts long-standing narratives about early complex societies, which suggest that a stratified social structure is necessary to enable the construction of large public buildings or monuments. The study, led by Elisabeth Hildebrand, of Stony Brook University, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Lothagam North Pillar Site was a communal cemetery constructed and used over a period of several centuries, between about 5,000 and 4,300 years ago. Early herders built a platform approximately 30 meters in diameter and excavated a large cavity in the center to bury their dead. After the cavity was filled and capped with stones, the builders placed large, megalith pillars, some sourced from as much as a kilometer away, on top. Stone circles and cairns were added nearby. An estimated minimum of 580 individuals were densely buried within the central platform cavity of the site. Men, women, and children of different ages, from infants to the elderly, were all buried in the same area, without any particular burials being singled out with special treatment. Additionally, essentially all individuals were buried with personal ornaments and the distribution of ornaments was approximately equal throughout the cemetery. These factors indicate a relatively egalitarian society without strong social stratification.

Historically, archeologists have theorized that people built permanent monuments as reminders of shared history, ideals and culture, when they had established a settled, socially stratified agriculture society with abundant resources and strong leadership. It was believed that a political structure and the resources for specialization were prerequisites to engaging in monument building. Ancient monuments have thus previously been regarded as reliable indicators of complex societies with differentiated social classes. However, the Lothagam North cemetery was constructed by mobile pastoralists who show no evidence of a rigid social hierarchy. "This discovery challenges earlier ideas about monumentality," explains Elizabeth Sawchuk of Stony Brook University and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. "Absent other evidence, Lothagam North provides an example of monumentality that is not demonstrably linked to the emergence of hierarchy, forcing us to consider other narratives of social change."

The discovery is consistent with similar examples elsewhere in Africa and on other continents in which large, monumental structures have been built by groups thought to be egalitarian in their social organization. This research has the potential to reshape global perspectives on how - and why - large groups of people come together to form complex societies. In this case, it appears that Lothagam North was built during a period of profound change. Pastoralism had just been introduced to the Turkana Basin and newcomers arriving with sheep, goats, and cattle would have encountered diverse groups of fisher-hunter-gatherers already living around the lake. Additionally, newcomers and locals faced a difficult environmental situation, as annual rainfall decreased during this period and Lake Turkana shrunk by as much as fifty percent. Early herders may have constructed the cemetery as a place for people to come together to form and maintain social networks to cope with major economic and environmental change.

"The monuments may have served as a place for people to congregate, renew social ties, and reinforce community identity," states Anneke Janzen also of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. "Information exchange and interaction through shared ritual may have helped mobile herders navigate a rapidly changing physical landscape." After several centuries, pastoralism became entrenched and lake levels stabilized. It was around this time that the cemetery ceased to be used.

"The Lothagam North Pillar Site is the earliest known monumental site in eastern Africa, built by the region's first herders," states Hildebrand. "This finding makes us reconsider how we define social complexity, and the kinds of motives that lead groups of people to create public architecture."

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PRINCETON, N.J.--This month marks the four-year anniversary of protests over the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, an incident met with a heavily armed police response that stoked widespread concern.

While proponents say militarized police units enhance officer safety and prevent violence, critics argue these tactics are targeted at racial minorities, and diminish trust between citizens and law enforcement.

A study published by Jonathan Mummolo, assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University, reveals that militarized policing is ineffective in decreasing crime and protecting police, and may actually weaken the public's image of the police.

Mummolo tested several claims about the costs and benefits of militarized policing using a combination of administrative crime and officer safety data, records of when and where militarized police units were created and deployed, and survey experiments.

He found that militarized policing does not lead to less violent crime or less violence against police officers. Seeing militarized police in the news also may harm police reputation, which prior work shows can create obstacles for police efficacy. The study also shows that militarized police units are more often deployed in communities of color.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), suggest that curtailing militarized policing may be in the interest of both the police and citizens.

"The routine use of militarized police tactics by local agencies threatens to further the historic tensions between marginalized groups and the state with no detectable public safety benefit," said Mummolo, who is on the faculty at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Department of Politics.

In recent decades, police units have grown more militarized in part due to the "War on Drugs" campaign as well as federal initiatives that supplied neighborhoods with excess military equipment and funds to purchase arms. To understand the effects this has had on policing, Mummolo investigated Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) deployments, as the formation of SWAT teams represent an increased commitment to the use of militarized equipment and tactics.

For the study, Mummolo built a nationwide panel measuring whether and when roughly 9,000 law enforcement agencies obtained a SWAT team between 2000 and 2008. He also obtained data on every SWAT team deployment in Maryland over a five-year period through a public records request. He chose Maryland as a test case because, unlike other states, Maryland has a statute requiring every agency to record all SWAT activity.

Mummolo also wanted to test whether militarized tactics occur more frequently in communities of color. To do this, he analyzed the relationship between the percentage of black residents in a particular geographic area with the volume of SWAT deployments per 100,000 residents.

After controlling for social factors and local crime rates, he found that black residents face a more pronounced risk of experiencing militarized policing. However, Mummolo suggests caution in generalizing this analysis beyond the state of Maryland.

To estimate the effects of police militarization on crime and officer safety, he returned to the nationwide panel he had built. He compared the deployments of SWAT teams with the number of violent crimes and officers who were killed or injured.

On average, the results show that creating more SWAT teams and increasing SWAT deployments had little to no benefits in terms of crime reduction or officer safety. Again, he cautions against overgeneralizing this finding, as it may not apply to each agency.

Finally, Mummolo conducted two survey experiments to assess the effect on the public's perception of police when they see militarized police in news reports. First, respondents read a mock news article about a police chief seeking a budget increase, accompanied by a randomly assigned image with either militarized police or traditionally equipped officers. Respondents then answered questions related to perceived crime levels, support for police spending and confidence in police.

The results show that citizens react negatively to the appearance of militarized police units in news reports and become less willing to fund police or want police patrols in their neighborhoods.

"These results come after a single exposure to militarized images. Repeated public exposure to news items featuring militarized policing may amplify negative views of law enforcement among citizens," Mummolo said. "This is concerning because past research indicates that negative views of the police hinder criminal investigations and are associated with stunted civic participation."

While his study found no firm evidence that SWAT teams lower violent crime rates or the rates at which officers are killed or assaulted, the teams are arguably an important tool for violent, emergency situations. "Restricting their use to those situations may improve perceptions of the police among citizens," Mummolo said.

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The study first appeared online Aug. 20 in PNAS. It was funded by Princeton University, Stanford University and the National Science Foundation.
Damage caused by natural disasters and recovery efforts launched in their aftermaths have increased wealth inequality between races in the United States, according to new research from Rice University and the University of Pittsburgh.

"Damages Done: The Longitudinal Impacts of Natural Hazards on Wealth Inequality in the United States" will appear in an upcoming edition of Social Problems. A supplement to the paper highlights the wealth gap between whites and blacks attributable to natural disaster damage from 1999 through 2013 in 20 U.S. counties.

Researchers Junia Howell, a scholar at Rice's Kinder Institute for Urban Research and an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh and Jim Elliott, a professor of sociology at Rice and fellow at Rice's Kinder Institute combined longitudinal data from nearly 3,500 families across the U.S. with governmental data on local natural disaster damages, FEMA aid and demographics. They followed these people from 1999 through 2013 as disaster damage of varying scale struck counties where they lived, and examined how their personal wealth was impacted.

"Last year the United States suffered more than $260 billion in direct damages from natural disasters --mainly from hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria," said Howell, who was the study's lead author. "And there were also numerous wildfires, floods and tornadoes. Data show that since 2000, approximately 99 percent of counties in the U.S. have experienced significant damage from some type of natural disaster, with costs expected to increase significantly over coming years. We wanted to investigate how these damages impact wealth inequality and accumulation."

Whites who lived in counties with only $100,000 in damage from 1999 to 2013 gained an average of approximately $26,000 in wealth. However, those who lived in counties with at least $10 billion in damage during the same time period gained nearly $126,000, the paper said.

"In other words, whites living in counties with considerable damage from natural disasters accumulate more wealth than their white counterparts living in counties without major natural disaster damage," Howell said.

However, among blacks, Latinos and Asians, the results went the other direction. Blacks who lived in counties with just $100,000 in damage gained an estimated $19,000 in wealth on average, while those living in counties with at least $10 billion in damage lost an estimated $27,000. Latinos in counties with $100,000 in damage gained $72,000 on average, and those in areas with at least $10 billion in damage lost an estimated $29,000. And Asians gained $21,000 on average and lost $10,000, respectively. These differences occurred even after the researchers controlled for a wide range of factors including age, education, homeownership, family status, residential mobility, neighborhood status and county population.

"Put another way, whites accumulate more wealth after natural disasters while residents of color accumulate less," Elliott said. "What this means is wealth inequality is increasing in counties that are hit by more disasters."

The researchers were able to estimate by county how much of the inequality is attributed to natural disasters. In Harris County, Texas, the disaster-related increase in the black-white wealth gap, on average, was $87,000.

The story does not stop there, Howell and Elliott said. Counties that received more aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) saw additional increases in wealth inequality beyond that attributed to the natural disasters themselves. For example, whites living in counties that received at least $900 million in FEMA aid from 1999 to 2013 accumulated $55,000 more wealth on average than otherwise similar whites living in counties that received only $1,000 in aid. Conversely, blacks living in counties that received at least $900 million in FEMA aid accumulated $82,000 less wealth on average than otherwise similar blacks living in counties that received only $1,000 in FEMA aid. Similarly, Latinos accumulated $65,000 less on average, and other races (majority Asians) accumulated $51,000 less.

"It's unclear why more FEMA aid is exacerbating inequality," Howell said. "More research is clearly needed. However, based on previous work on disasters such as hurricanes Katrina and Harvey, we know FEMA aid is not equitably distributed across communities. This is particularly true when it comes to infrastructural redevelopment, which often has profound effects on residents' property appreciation and business vitality. When certain areas receive more redevelopment aid and those neighborhoods also are primarily white, racial inequality is going to be amplified."

In addition to exacerbating racial wealth gaps, the researchers found that after natural disasters wealth inequality also increases based on home ownership. Individuals who owned homes in counties that experienced high levels of natural disaster damage accumulated $72,000 more wealth on average than their counterparts in counties with few disasters. Renters, on the other hand, lost $61,000 in wealth on average relative to renters in counties with few natural disasters.

"Put another way, natural disasters were responsible for a $133,000 increase in inequality between homeowners and renters in the hardest hit counties," Elliott said.

Similarly, college-educated residents accumulated $111,000 more on average if they lived in a county that experienced extreme disasters compared to their counterparts who did not live through disasters. Conversely, those with only a 10th-grade education who lived in counties that experienced extreme disasters lost $48,000 from natural disaster damages on average when compared to counterparts who did not live through disasters.

"In other words, in the counties with the most damage, natural disasters are responsible for a $159,000 increase in the educational wealth gap," Howell said.

Howell and Elliott said the results indicate that two major social challenges of our age - wealth inequality and rising costs of natural disasters - are increasingly and dynamically connected. They hope the research will encourage further examination of wealth inequality in the U.S. and development of solutions to address the problem.

"The good news is that if we develop more equitable approaches to disaster recovery, we can not only better tackle that problem but also help build a more just and resilient society," Howell and Elliott concluded.

The researchers are now building on this work by examining how local for-profit and nonprofit organizations influence social inequality after natural disasters.

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For more information, or to request a copy of the paper, contact Amy McCaig, senior media relations specialist at Rice, at 713-348-6777 or amym@rice.edu.

This news release can be found online at http://news.rice.edu/.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Related Materials:

Supplemental document highlighting wealth gap between whites and blacks attributable to natural disaster damage from 1999 through 2013 in 20 U.S. counties: https://bit.ly/2PmKpcJ

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,970 undergraduates and 2,934 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 2 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversityoverview.
For stink bugs to attract a mate or to communicate that they have found food, they use their own chemical language: pheromones.

Virginia Tech researchers have discovered insights into this chemical language, which can be used to develop alternative pest controls.

"We have gained a deeper understanding of how stink bugs synthesize pheromones, and this knowledge may allow us to produce pheromones in expendable food crops - also called 'trap crops' - to lure the bugs away from cash crops," said Dorothea Tholl, a professor of biological sciences in the College of Science and a Fralin Life Science Institute affiliate.

These new environmentally friendly and sustainable alternatives to insecticides could save farmers millions of dollars.

In Virginia, crops such as grapes, sweet corn, and apples, have been under attack by the invasive brown marmorated stink bug since 2004; cabbage has also been affected, but by the harlequin stink bug. A relative, the southern green stinkbug is also a severe pest worldwide and attacks many different crops including beans and soybeans.

Tholl is interested in the chemical communication of organisms and studies how this chemical language has evolved in insects. With support by a grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, her lab investigates the enzymes that produce stinkbug pheromones in an interdisciplinary collaboration with colleagues at Virginia Tech and national and international institutions.

Her team's research has recently been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, or PNAS.

"Our recent paper provides valuable insight into our understanding of how insects synthesize complex sesquiterpene compounds that are typically used as pheromones. The work could pave the way in the future for plants to manufacture insect pheromones, which could be utilized in pest surveillance and pest management strategies, such as attract and kill," said Thomas Kuhar, a professor of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a Virginia Cooperative Extension specialist.

Very little was known about the biosynthetic evolution of these insect pheromones, and the research of Tholl's team has shown that stink bugs have their own enzymatic machinery to make pheromones without receiving them from symbiotic microbes or the host plant, as was previously thought.

Jason Lancaster of Knoxville, Tennessee, a recent biological sciences Ph.D. graduate from Tholl's lab, used next-generation sequencing to identify and functionally characterize the first enzyme in the biosynthetic pathway of the harlequin bug pheromone compound.

"Pheromones for thousands of insects are known, but very little is known about the synthesis of the pheromones. This paper focuses on terpene derived pheromones from the harlequin stink bug Murgantia histrionica and encompasses many years of research. Besides the development of dead-end trap crops, this research may allow establishing "RNAi interference" type gene silencing mechanisms to disrupt the pheromone production of the insect," said Lancaster.

Lancaster also found that other stink bugs such as the brown marmorated stink bug use enzymes in pheromone biosynthesis similar to that identified in the harlequin bug. Beyond the team's current study on stink bug pheromones, the research may allow for exciting future discoveries in the biosynthesis of pheromones of other insects and their application in pest management.

Two of Tholl's graduate students, Andrew Muchlinski and Bryan Lehner, are co-authors on the paper and contributed substantially to this research.

There is commercial interest in using the genetic tools developed by Tholl's team to produce the pheromones via synthetic biology for application in the field to promote pest mating disruption.

"Overall, we are excited about the prospect that our research has the potential to develop new pest management techniques," says Tholl.

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Description

Telephone Company Retirees Gathering in Hauppauge

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The Association of BellTel Retirees is hosting a meeting August 21st to discuss important retirement concernsincluding protecting pensions and health benefitsof fellow retirees

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Meeting at Hauppauge Public Library - Classroom A & B - 1373 Veterans Memorial Highway

Telephone company retirees from throughout Long Island and New York City will gather for an open discussion about key issues that impact their collective retirement futures. The event is sponsored by the Association of BellTel Retirees, a non-profit group that works to protect the pensions and benefits of over 134,000 Verizon retirees, many of which live in the greater New York City area.

The event is free and will take place Tuesday, August 21,2018 at 11 am at the Hauppauge Public Library , 1373 Veterans Memorial Highway, Hauppauge NY 11788. To RSVP, email association@belltelretirees.org or call the Association of BellTel Retirees office toll free at 1-800-261-9222 . Seating may be limited, so please RSVP as soon as possible.

The meeting will address several salient issues relating to retirement benefits, including: pension protection; the dangerous trend of companies selling off or de-risking retirees pension assets; retiree health benefit reductions; important retiree legislation in Albany and Washington, DC; shareholder proxy proposals; sickness/death benefits and more.

Recent and longtime Verizon retirees alike, are welcomed and encouraged to participate.

Founded in 1996, the Association of BellTel Retirees has over 134,000 members from across the nation, many in the local area. It fights to protect retirees earned pensions and health care benefits. Members include both union and former managers from Verizon and the old Bell System companies, including NYNEX, Bell Atlantic, New England Telephone, New York Telephone, MCI, GTE, Verizon Directory Operations (now IDEARC/Supermedia) and more. For more information about the Association of BellTel Retirees call (800) 261-9222 or www.BellTelRetirees.org
If you are interested in cashing in on HollyFrontier Corporations (NYSE:HFC) upcoming dividend of US$0.33 per share, you only have 2 days left to buy the shares before its ex-dividend date, 22 August 2018, in time for dividends payable on the 20 September 2018. Is this future income a persuasive enough catalyst for investors to think about HollyFrontier as an investment today? Below, Im going to look at the latest data and analyze the stock and its dividend property in further detail.

Check out our latest analysis for HollyFrontier

5 questions I ask before picking a dividend stock

When researching a dividend stock, I always follow the following screening criteria:

Is it the top 25% annual dividend yield payer?

Has it consistently paid a stable dividend without missing a payment or drastically cutting payout?

Has it increased its dividend per share amount over the past?

Is is able to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings?

Will it have the ability to keep paying its dividends going forward?

NYSE:HFC Historical Dividend Yield August 19th 18

How does HollyFrontier fare?

The company currently pays out 16.61% of its earnings as a dividend, according to its trailing twelve-month data, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. Going forward, analysts expect HFCs payout to increase to 20.32% of its earnings, which leads to a dividend yield of 1.99%. However, EPS is forecasted to fall to $6.33 in the upcoming year. Therefore, although payout is expected to increase, the fall in earnings may not equate to higher dividend income.

If dividend is a key criteria in your investment consideration, then you need to make sure the dividend stock youre eyeing out is reliable in its payments. Although HFCs per share payments have increased in the past 10 years, it has not been a completely smooth ride. Shareholders would have seen a few years of reduced payments in this time.

In terms of its peers, HollyFrontier generates a yield of 1.92%, which is on the low-side for Oil and Gas stocks.

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Next Steps:

Keeping in mind the dividend characteristics above, HollyFrontier is definitely worth considering for investors looking to build a dedicated income portfolio. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, you should always research extensively before deciding whether or not a stock is an appropriate investment for you. I always recommend analysing the companys fundamentals and underlying business before making an investment decision. There are three pertinent aspects you should further research:

Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for HFCs future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for HFCs outlook. Valuation: What is HFC worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, its not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether HFC is currently mispriced by the market. Other Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
China insists that Taiwan acknowledge the existence of the consensus, under which the two sides notionally agreed that there is "one China" though it is now ruled from different seats of power in Beijing and Taipei, as the foundation of cross-Strait relations.

El Salvador is the fifth diplomatic loss under her presidency and the third this year, following Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic.

"We think this is an inappropriate development plan that risks causing both countries to fall into great debt", Wu said, noting that some developing countries were increasingly concerned about the risks of unsustainable debt linked to Chinese investments.

During a visit to Texas Tsai became the first Taiwanese president to be given a tour of Nasa's mission control - which is off-limits to mainland China officials because of espionage fears.

Wu again accused China's government of engaging in money diplomacy to brutally lure away Taiwan's allies but stressed Taiwan will not back down from Beijing's pressure.

El Salvador's Salvador Sanchez Ceren & Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen in 2017.

"Pressure from China would only make Taiwan more determined to continue our path of democracy and freedom", he said.

At a meeting with his Salvadoran counterpart in Beijing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised the Latin American state's decision to "recognise there is one China in the world".

The Government of the People's Republic of China appreciates this position of the Government of the Republic of El Salvador.

"We are convinced this is a step in the right direction that corresponds to the principles of worldwide law of global relations and the inevitable trends of our time", he said.

El Salvador has cut its so-called "diplomatic ties" with Taiwan, and it will no longer have any official relations or any official exchanges with Taiwan in any form, he pledged.

The Central American country of El Salvador has severed ties with Taipei and established diplomatic relations with Beijing, leaving the Republic of China with only 17 allies left in the world, a number that is swiftly shrinking down to zero.

Last week Tsai traveled to Latin America where she sought to shore up support among Taiwan's remaining allies, Belize and Paraguay.

China, which claims Taiwan as its territory, has ramped up military and diplomatic pressure in an attempt to assert Chinese sovereignty over the island, even as the United States government makes fresh overtures to it.

In Beijing, Castaneda said it was a strategic decision his government made to "create conditions to change the historical standing of our country and to really elevate the livelihood of our people".

Tsai's refusal to accept this agreement, which was undertaken by representative of the opposition Kuomintang party, reflects her Democratic Progressive Party's desire to maintain the status quo when it comes to relations between Beijing and Taipei. "It would only boost our determination to go overseas", she said on her return to Taiwan on Monday.

Tsai urged the island's people to unite despite the pressure the government was facing diplomatically.

Democratic Taiwan is one of China's most sensitive territorial issues and Tsai's U.S. stopovers in the United States, a customary practice for Taiwanese presidents, came amid an increasingly bitter trade war between Beijing and Washington.
Steve Wozniak

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak discussed his involvement in a new crypto startup company and his interest in blockchain in general in a NullTx interview earlier this week.

The tech prodigy became interested in Bitcoin after learning about the potential of decentralized ledgers and becoming intrigued by the mystery of who invented it, also impressed with the fact that the cryptocurrency has a finite supply, unlike the US dollar. While The Woz quickly became a Bitcoin evangelist and stated that he hoped Bitcoin would become the worlds first global currency, he took a surprising view on blockchain  Wozniak stated that while Bitcoin was valuable, blockchain was merely a bubble.

This is, of course, contrary to the often repeated view that blockchain is useful technology but crypto is a fad or a bubble, but Wozniak didnt budge on his views  until recently. He did admit to not understanding the ins and outs of blockchain at first, which speaks volumes about the complex nature of the technology given that Wozniaks technical expertise enabled him to play an enormous role in the development of the personal computer and even invented the worlds first universal remote.

At first I kept hearing [about blockchain], and I didnt understand it. Its not something you understand in a day. You think about it, read more about it and how it works, and then you see how people actually start to use it, through the mining process and also the verification and, aha! It all adds up! said Wozniak, before reflecting on early conceptions of crypto.

Two months ago Wozniak drew parallels between the early days of the internet and the current blockchain landscape, stating that the hyped up and experimental nature of the internet space was a bubble, and I feel that way about blockchain.

However, despite his previously stated views, Wozniak is now taking the plunge and becoming directly involved in blockchain himself, something many tech enthusiasts around the world will likely take a keen interest in.

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Im involved with, very soon, my first time being involved in a blockchain company. [Its] called Equi Our approach is not like a new currency, or something phony where an event will make it go up in value. Its a share of stock, in a company.

Wozniak says that the company is dealing with major investors with a successful track record of infrastructural investments in Dubai and other areas. He listed Malta as a potential location for the company HQ which he stated may be launching in November to coincide with the islands blockchain summit.

Featured image from Shutterstock.



The post Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Flip-Flops on Blockchain, Joins Crypto Startup appeared first on CCN.


Britains Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Photo: David Cheskin/Pool via Reuters.

The UK has made it very clear that it intends to leverage its special relationship and turn towards the US for a trade deal after Brexit. It perhaps comes as no surprise then that it has taken sides with the worlds biggest economy when it comes to supporting the USs tough sanctions on Russia.

Britains foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt will visit Washington later this week and at the top of his agenda is publicly declaring to president Donald Trumps administration that he believes that the European Union should replicate the USs comprehensive response to the poisoning of the former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, which caused a global diplomatic fallout.

During this three-day trip, Hunt will call on the EU to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive and we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US. That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea.

Former Russian spy Skripal and his daughter Yulia were hospitalised and treated for a military-grade nerve agent, Novichok, poisoning in March earlier this year. A month later Yulia was discharged from hospital while Sergei was discharged in May. The UK government blamed Russia for the attack and it led to a tit-for-tat diplomat expulsion.

This month the US State Department accused Russia of violating international law and it will impose more sanctions on Moscow, in line with the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991. It notified Congress that unless Russia takes certain steps, Russia will face a second set of penalties.





Hunt will meet US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and will address the United Nations Security Council about the international fight Islamist terror groups.

Those who do not share our values need to know that there will always be a serious price to pay if red lines are crossed  whether territorial incursions, the use of banned weapons or, increasingly, cyber-attacks, Hunt will add in his speech during his visit.
Celebrities and activists are responding to a New York Times report alleging that Italian actress Asia Argento made arrangements to pay off a young actor who accused Argento of sexual assault. According to the report, Argento arranged to pay the actor and musician Jimmy Bennett $380,000 after he said Argento sexually assaulted him in a hotel room in California.

Argento was one of the first women to come forward with public accusations of sexual assault against producer Harvey Weinstein. At least 87 people have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, including actress Rose McGowan, who has been an outspoken critic of Weinstein and an advocate of the #MeToo movement. McGowan has since responded to the accusations against Argento on Twitter.

My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere, the actress wrote in a tweet. None of us know the truth of the situation and Im sure more will be revealed. Be gentle.

Rosanna Arquette, who also accused Weinstein of sexual abuse, called the timing of the story suspect, but added that it does not take away the fact that Asia was still raped by Harvey Weinstein.

I know many many rape and trauma survivors who act out sexually The wounds they carry run deep. I pray for them. the timing of this story is suspect. Asia was still raped by Harvey Weinstein.  Rosanna Arquette (@RoArquette) August 20, 2018

In a Twitter thread on Monday morning, #MeToo founder and organizer Tarana Burke warned that allegations against Argento should not discredit the movement as a whole. Burke detailed some of the complexities of sexual violence, and wrote, Sexual violence is about power and privilege. That doesnt change if the perpetrator is your favorite actress, activist, or professor of any gender.

Burke continued, This movement is making space for possibility, and explained, there is no one way to be a perpetrator. Similarly, she said, There is no model survivor. We are imperfectly human and we all have to be accountable for our individual behavior.

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People will use these recent news stories to try and discredit this movement - dont let that happen. This is what Movement is about. Its not a spectator sport. It is people generated. We get to say this is/isnt what this movement is about!  Tarana (@TaranaBurke) August 20, 2018

Writer and activist Sil Lai Abrams, who accused Russell Simmons of rape, also wrote about the complexities of the accusations against Argento in a Twitter thread. She wrote that she was both angry at the allegations, and also concerned about the possibility that it would derail the movement.

Last night when I saw the news about Asia Argento I felt like I had been sucker punched. I was shaking with anger at what she did to her victim and frightened about the potential implications her actions have for the #MeToo movement overall.  Sil Lai Abrams (@Sil_Lai) August 20, 2018

However, an individual can be both a perpetrator and a victim, Abrams explained. One fact does not erase the other, she wrote. Irrespective of their gender, perpetrators must be held accountable.
Nissan (NSANY) to Augment Vehicle Production in China by 40% With an aim to gain the majority of market share in China, Nissan (NSANY) plans to expand the production capacity in China by investing $900 million over the next few years.

By 2021, Nissan Motor Company NSANY plans to expand its vehicle manufacturing capacity in China by 40%, per Reuters. For this, the company will invest $900 million, part of $8.73 billion allocated to expand its footprint in China.



Over the next few years, Nissan, along with its joint-venture (JV) partner, DongFeng Motor Group Co., Ltd. (Dongfeng), aims to invest approximately $900 million for capacity expansion. Except for manufacturing Nissans passenger cars at its two existing facilities, the JV is expected to create a new manufacturing hub at Wuhan, where Dongfeng is headquartered. If construction of the planned hub gets approved from Chinas regulators, the plant is likely to produce around 300,000 vehicles per year.



The expanded capacities will be used to manufacture Nissan and its China-only Venucia brands electric vehicles (EVs) as well as cars with gasoline engines.

Nissan Motor Co. Price and Consensus

Nissan Motor Co. Price and Consensus | Nissan Motor Co. Quote

The site expansion will facilitate Nissan to reach its production target of 2.1 million vehicles per year in China. Earlier, in 2017, the company sold 1.5 million units. It aims to reach a yearly target of 2.6 million vehicles by 2022.



Over the past 20 years, the majority of Chinas market share has been held by General Motors Company and Volkswagen AG, each selling roughly 4 million vehicles in 2017.



Earlier, in February, Nissan strategized a five-year plan, known as Triple One, to raise its market share in the worlds largest automotive market by focusing on EVs and Venucia. Additionally, the company aims to improve its light commercial vans and trucks sales. Per Nissan Chinas management, the company aspires to gain a position in the top 3 automakers of China.



A few days back, another Japanese automaker, Toyota Motor Corporation announced its plan to expand capacity at its Tianjin and Guangzhou plants in China. (Read more: Toyota to Expand Guangzhou & Tianjin Hubs' Capacity in China)



Price Performance



In the past six months, Nissans stock has lost 8.6%, outperforming 11.1% decline recorded by the industry it belongs to.

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Zacks Rank & Other Key Picks



Nissan currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Some other top-ranked stocks in the auto space are Fox Factory Holding Corporation FOXF, Allison Transmission Holdings, Inc. ALSN and PACCAR Inc. PCAR. Fox Factory and Allison Transmission sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) while PACCAR carries a Zacks Rank of 2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



Fox Factory has an expected long-term growth rate of 16.8%. Shares of the company have risen 65.6% in the past three months.



Allison Transmission has an expected long-term growth rate of 10%. Over the past three months, shares of the company have gained 10.4%.



PACCAR has an expected long-term growth rate of 11.6%. Over the past three months, shares of the company have gained 3.8%.



The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All



Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.



See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >>





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PACCAR Inc. (PCAR) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Fox Factory Holding Corp. (FOXF) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY) : Free Stock Analysis Report



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- The last Nazi war crimes suspect facing deportation from the USA was taken from his New York City home and spirited early Tuesday morning to Germany, following years of efforts to remove him from the United States.

A 95-year-old former Nazi guard who served at a labour camp where more than 6,000 people were killed has arrived in Germany, after being stripped of his USA citizenship.

Palij was finally deported thanks to the work of Justice Department "Nazi hunter" Eli Rosenbaum, whose efforts have been praised by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Palij admitted to Justice Department officials in 2001 that he had trained at the SS training camp in Trawniki, in Nazi-occupied Poland, in the spring of 1943.

The Trawniki camp was dissolved by the Nazis in 1944, the Holocaust Museum says.

Later that year, roughly 6,000 Jewish men, women and children held captive at Trawniki were shot to death - one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust. But he concealed his Nazi service when he immigrated, the statement said.

A federal judge revoked Pajil's U.S. citizenship in August 2003 and a year later, a U.S. immigration judge ordered his deportation to Ukraine for working at the Trawniki forced-labour camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Jakiw Palij, a former concentration camp guard, was removed from the country a quarter century after immigration authorities first approached him about his activities in World War II and more than a decade after he was ordered deported.

A statement released by the White House after Palij landed in Germany early Tuesday commended President Trump commended the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for "removing this war criminal from United States soil".

A deportation order was issued in 2004, but he was never deported, even though, according to the German Foreign Ministry, "The US has constantly been urgently demanding Palij's return to Germany".

US President Donald Trump ordered Jakiw Palij, 95, be evicted from his home in Queens, New York, in a dawn raid this morning.

This document, photographed July 16, 2018 at the National Archives at New York City, shows the Petition for Naturalization of Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard whose citizenship has been revoked. The local government in Warendorf county, near Muenster, indicated that Palij would be taken to a care facility in the town of Ahlen.

According to AFP news agency, Palij confessed when investigators arrived at his door in 1993, saying: "I would never have received my visa if I told the truth".

The US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who has clashed repeatedly with Berlin officials over transatlantic policy differences since his arrival in May, welcomed Palij's arrival. Palij has denied participating in any war crimes.

His deportation is the first for a Nazi war crimes suspect in the USA since 2009 when Germany agreed to take John Demjanjuk, a retired autoworker living in OH, who was accused of serving as a Nazi guard.

After falsely telling authorities he spent the war at his hometown in Germany, Palij gained entry into the U.S.in 1949.

Efraim Zuroff, chief Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, praised the "perseverance and dedication" of United States authorities in their efforts to have Palij removed.

Palij's fate in Germany is unclear because there may not be enough evidence against him to bring wartime charges. It would take another 14 years of United States diplomatic efforts before Berlin consented.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Monday in Cologne, Germany.

After a two-year wait, Nvidia (NVDA) on Monday offered an in-depth look at its next-generation graphics cards, which the company claims will reinvent computer graphics.

When the chipmakers new GeForce RTX line of graphics cards launches on September 20, starting at $499, computer graphics should see a huge boost in sharpness and realism. The GeForce RTX cards biggest draw: the Turing chip, which does on-the-fly ray tracing, an intensive computer graphics technique that creates a photorealistic scene by tracing light and accurately rendering reflections in light  shading objects and shadows to a degree previous graphics chips could not. Ray-tracing previously required a supercomputer to crunch all that data to render a scene. That took some time. But with Turing, Nvidia is promising ray tracing in real-time, so theres no wait.

Over two dozen companies have announced support for Nvidias GeForce RTX platform, including Adobe (ADBE), Pixar, EA (EA), and Autodesk (ADSK).

Computer graphics will never be the same again, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said onstage during the Turing demonstration at the annual Gamescom conference in Cologne, Germany.

Nvidia on Monday showed off a video project called Project Sol with real-time ray tracing, to stunning effect.

Story continues

Although Huangs commentary sounds hyperbolic, he may well be right. As it stands now, the vast majority of computer graphics are rendered with a more traditional technique that uses shaders to handle different levels of light, color, and darkness. Huang compared different scenes in side-by-side comparisons on Monday between traditional shading and real-time ray-tracing via Turing, indicating a huge leap in photorealism for computer graphics.

The Turing chip demo comes days after Nvidia reported earnings for the second quarter of its 2019 fiscal year. The chipmaker disclosed better-than-expected earnings of $1.76 per share on revenues of $3.12 billion  up 40% year-over-year  compared with Wall Street analysts estimates of $1.66 earnings per share on revenues of $3.1 billion. However, the chipmaker also reported lower-than-expected guidance for its fiscal third quarter and mediocre sales of graphics chips to cryptocurrency miners, with cryptocurrency-specific product revenue coming in at just $18 million versus Nvidias estimated $100 million.

Although cryptocurrency was a financial drag on Nvidia for the second quarter, the chipmakers other bets are paying off. Second quarter revenues for several of its other business segments, including PC gaming, data centers and automotive, all beat estimates. Nvidias new graphics could also represent an inflection point for gaming, with cutting-edge graphics that could translate to a significant revenue boost for the chipmaker in the short- to medium-term.



JP Mangalindan is the Chief Tech Correspondent for Yahoo Finance covering the intersection of tech and business. Email story tips and musings to jpm@oath.com. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.

More from JP:
Attention dividend hunters! Pitney Bowes Inc (NYSE:PBI) will be distributing its dividend of US$0.19 per share on the 11 September 2018, and will start trading ex-dividend in 2 days time on the 23 August 2018. Is this future income stream a compelling catalyst for dividend investors to think about the stock as an investment today? Lets take a look at Pitney Bowess most recent financial data to examine its dividend characteristics in more detail.

Check out our latest analysis for Pitney Bowes

5 checks you should use to assess a dividend stock

If you are a dividend investor, you should always assess these five key metrics:

Is it the top 25% annual dividend yield payer?

Has it paid dividend every year without dramatically reducing payout in the past?

Has the amount of dividend per share grown over the past?

Is its earnings sufficient to payout dividend at the current rate?

Will it have the ability to keep paying its dividends going forward?

NYSE:PBI Historical Dividend Yield August 20th 18

Does Pitney Bowes pass our checks?

The current trailing twelve-month payout ratio for the stock is 55.05%, meaning the dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Furthermore, analysts have not forecasted a dividends per share for the future, which makes it hard to determine the yield shareholders should expect, and whether the current payout is sustainable, moving forward.

If theres one type of stock you want to be reliable, its dividend stocks and their stable income-generating ability. Not only have dividend payouts from Pitney Bowes fallen over the past 10 years, it has also been highly volatile during this time, with drops of over 25% in some years. This means that dividend hunters should probably steer clear of the stock, at least for now until the track record improves.

Compared to its peers, Pitney Bowes produces a yield of 9.28%, which is high for Commercial Services stocks.

Next Steps:

If Pitney Bowes is in your portfolio for cash-generating reasons, there may be better alternatives out there. However, if you are not strictly just a dividend investor, the stock could still offer some interesting investment opportunities. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, I recommend taking sufficient time to understand its core business and determine whether the company and its investment properties suit your overall goals. There are three key aspects you should further research:

Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for PBIs future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for PBIs outlook. Valuation: What is PBI worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, its not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether PBI is currently mispriced by the market. Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Aug 21 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

- ConocoPhillips said on Monday that Venezuela state oil company PDVSA had agreed to a $2 billion judgment handed down by an International Chamber of Commerce tribunal that arbitrated a dispute between the two companies. https://nyti.ms/2MDs1h9

- PepsiCo Inc said on Monday that it planned to buy SodaStream International Ltd, the popular maker of home-carbonation machines, for $3.2 billion, as the beverage giant extends its bet on products that are not sugary sodas. https://nyti.ms/2MLSGbX (Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom)
South Korea ICO Crypto

South Korea has commenced an extraordinary session in the National Assembly to discuss regulation and measures to promote the cryptocurrency industry alongside ICO guidelines to eventually overturn the ongoing ban.

According to a Business Korea report on Monday, the short session  extraordinary sessions cannot exceed 30 days  in South Koreas National Assembly will see relevant standing committees and lawmakers from parties across the political spectrum discuss measures to promote the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry and create a guideline on initial coin offerings (ICOs).

The developments come at a time when lawmakers hasten to fast-track domestic regulations for the cryptocurrency sector with draft bills expected to be submitted during the session.

The session has seen lawmakers call on the Ministry of Science and the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Ministry to prepare ICO guidelines for investor protections. The sessions are expected to field discussions calling for ICOs to be allowed in South Korea, with relevant investor protection safeguards in place.

As reported in May, the National Assemblys Special Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution called on the government to allow domestic ICOs, accusing authorities of neglecting duty following a sweeping, knee-jerk ICO ban that followed Chinas lead nearly a year ago.

The session will also hear and deliberate the recent proposal from Jeju Islands governor in seeking to create a special zone for the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector wherein fundraising through ICOs will be permitted despite the current ban in the mainland.

Jeju Island, Koreas most popular tourist island that sees a large number of domestic visitors, made the proposal to become a designated special zone for the industry in a meeting with senior government figures that included Kim Dong-yeon, Koreas finance minister, earlier this month.

Entrepreneurs looking to innovate should be allowed to raise funds through cryptocurrency, Jeju Island governor Won Hee-ryong was quoted as stating in his call to allow ICOs on the island.

National Assembly image from Shutterstock.



The post South Korea Lawmakers Discuss ICO, Cryptos During Extraordinary Session: Report appeared first on CCN.


Is the Options Market Predicting a Spike in Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ) Stock? Investors need to pay close attention to Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ) stock based on the movements in the options market lately.

Ventas, Inc. VTR announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire an independent seniors housing community  Battery Park  for nearly $194 million Brookdale Senior Living (BKD). The acquisition positions the company to better serve in the prime Manhattan market as a market leader in senior housing.

The best-in-class community is attractively located in the Battery Park City neighborhood of downtown Manhattan. With well-established retail, residential and commercial spaces, along with convenient access to notable neighborhoods of Tribeca, SoHo and the Financial District, downtown Manhattan offers growth opportunities for the senior residential asset.

In fact, with scope for future redevelopment, the campus carries additional upside potential. Also, this buyout is a strategic fit for Ventas as it is priced below the replacement cost. Furthermore, it indicates a going-in yield on net operating income (NOI) of nearly 5%.

Ventas has chosen to Brookdale to manage the property under a separate management agreement. Notably, Brookdale has successfully managed the property for nearly 20 years. The transaction, subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

Per management, the distinctive community complements Ventas high-quality seniors housing portfolio. Further, it is anticipated that the campus will favorably benefit from the strong demographics of New York City.

Previously, Ventas entered into mutually beneficial agreements with Brookdale to restructure Ventas wholly owned Brookdale communities  128 senior living communities under triple-net leases  into one master lease and security agreement.

Further, expansion of the companys senior housing operating portfolio bodes well as this segment generates 32% of the companys NOI. Additionally, the fragmented market for seniors housing real estate offers consolidation opportunities. Hence, the acquisition can be deemed strategic.

Story continues

Also, shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have outperformed its industry over the past three months. While its shares have rallied 12.8%, the industry gained 8.2% during the same time frame.

Nevertheless, Ventas operates in a cut-throat market, and competes with national and local healthcare operators on a number of factors, including quality, price and range of services provided, reputation, location and demographics of the population in the surrounding area, as well as the financial condition of its tenants and operators. This significantly limits its power to drive revenues, as well as crack deals at attractive rates.

Key Picks

Better-ranked stocks from the REIT space include NorthStar Realty Europe Corp. NRE, W.P. Carey, Inc. WPC and PS Business Parks, Inc. PSB. NorthStar Realty sports a Zacks Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), while W.P. Carey and PS Business Parks carry a Zacks rank of 2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

NorthStar Realtys Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2018 FFO per share has been revised 5.5% upward over the past 30 days. Its shares have returned 34.1% in the past six months.

W.P. Careys FFO per share estimates for 2018 remined unchanged at $5.12 in 60 days time. Its shares have appreciated 10.9% in the past six months.

PS Business Parks FFO per share estimates for the current year moved up marginally in the past 30 days to $6.39. Its shares have rallied 18.3% in six months time.

The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All



Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.



See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >>



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Ventas, Inc. (VTR) : Free Stock Analysis Report



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Lio Ortega had to be coaxed by his father to step into the batters box. It took a little redirecting from the third base coach to keep him from running into the dugout. It remains questionable that he touched all four bases. Yes, this home run trot for the 4-year-old cancer patient on Saturday at Falcon Field was adorably flawed. And it was absolutely perfect. As a parent, you never feel sad, youre just thinking, What great memory can I give him? Lios father, Manny Fred Ortega said. At the end of the day, you never know. In the back of our heads is always, what happens if it ends? Can we give him as much experience, as much love...
In this Thursday, May 24, 2018 photo, Adine Usher, 78, meets with breast cancer study leader Dr. Joseph Sparano at the Montefiore and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx borough of New York. Usher was one of about 10,000 participants in the study which shows women at low or intermediate risk for breast cancer recurrence may safely skip chemotherapy without hurting their chances of survival. (AP Photo/Kathy Young)
How to choose the best sunscreen for your skin - and the Earth
Prosecutors decision to seek the death penalty for suspects in the execution-style killings of two Coronado High School students could add two to three years of delays to their cases, their attorneys said Tuesday.

The question of when Diego Chacon and Marco Garcia-Bravo will get their day in court was left open as a judge agreed to postpone back-to-back trials in October.

Among issues that must be addressed before new dates are set is whether they will be tried separately or together, as prosecutors have requested, said 4th Judicial District Judge David A. Shakes, who set a hearing on the issue for Nov. 18.

The judge said he also wanted to rule, by January at the earliest, on defense motions challenging the constitutionality of potential death penalties for defendants who both were under age 21 at the time of the March 2017 crimes.

Dont think that anything Ive said means that I agree with a two-year continuance, Shakes told prosecutors after they objected to the defense teams estimates.

Chacon, 20, and Garcia-Bravo, 21, are accused of carrying out an abduction plot that led to the deaths of 16-year-old Natalie Cano-Partida and 15-year-old Derek Greer. Cano-Partida was the target over suspicions she was an informant for the mens gang rivals, authorities have said. Derek allegedly was killed for being with her.

The postponements came at the request of both defendants, who surrendered their speedy trial rights.

The defense teams insisted on sticking with October trials until it became clear they couldnt be ready.

More time is needed to pore through more than 100,000 pages of reports and dozens of media files while preparing for what promise to be exhaustive pretrial battles, the court-appointed defense attorneys said.

Lawyers for Garcia-Bravo, a Mexican national, say their investigators must travel to Mexico to begin probing his past in preparing to argue he shouldnt be put to death in the event of convictions. Both defense teams say they must complete more legal training on the death penalty.

Shakes was appointed to the case this month after Judge Larry E. Schwartz recused himself, citing his retirement plans. Schwartz didnt give a date for his retirement, saying he planned to provide notice within the next several months.

Within days of Shakes appointment, attorneys for Chacon sought to get him kicked off the case, citing his ties to two interns on their team.

Both are students at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, and they said in affidavits they saw Shakes, a part-time instructor, as a personal mentor.

Shakes denied the motion, saying he could set aside his prior relationships with the students. He announced Tuesday that the Colorado Supreme Court had declined to take up an appeal by Chacons team, letting his ruling stand.

Prosecutors previously asked for separate trials but later said Chacon and Garcia-Bravo should be tried together.

Im willing to consider that, but its going to take time, Shakes said.

The judge also ordered extra security measures in court. For the first time since the cases began, spectators were forced to go through a metal detector outside the courtroom. They also were barred from bringing in laptops or cell phones.

Attorneys for Garcia-Bravo objected, saying the measures create a fearful environment, potentially introducing bias. Shakes batted down the argument, saying jurors wouldnt be subjected to the measures.

The judge didnt mention threats, saying only that the measures were deemed necessary because the cases involve murders with gang overtones.

The defendants, who are jailed without bond pending trial, are expected to return to court Oct. 3.
Wearing a tiara and posing for a camera, El Paso County sheriffs Deputy Sandra Rincon smiled next to a cake with two candles on top displaying the number 50.

It wasnt her birthday.

Instead, the Sheriffs Office has confirmed, Rincon was being crowned champion of what one county jailer dubbed the fight club  an off-the-books contest in which deputies at the jail tracked each time they used force against an inmate, ranging from handcuffing to punching and kicking, and awarded bragging rights to the winners.

Rincon, a deputy since 2007, won top honors in 2014 for more than four dozen such encounters, said Darold Killmer, a Denver civil rights lawyer who revealed the practice as part of a lawsuit alleging excessive force by jailers. Along with Rincons cake came a gift bag and paper plate that read Princess, court records show.

This exposed an entire culture of violence, said Killmer, who credits the photo for helping to pave the way toward a $675,000 settlement for his client, Philippa McCully. It would be the countys largest payout on record.

Allegations of the so-called deputy fight club spurred a short-lived kerfuffle for Sheriff Bill Elder last year, when the Colorado Springs Independent reported on his agencys investigation, which chalked up the comparisons to deputies trying to monitor their own performances under an internal reporting system.

Use-of-force case at El Paso County jail settled for $675,000 El Paso Countys largest settlement in memory will go to a woman who sued over injuries she says she sustained when deputies pulled her legs o

But sheriffs staff depositions and an internal memo detailing that investigation  now part of a public court record  reveal a previously unknown level of dysfunction at the understaffed and overpopulated jail.

The documents also raise questions about the sheriffs handling of the internal probe and steps the office took to shore up safeguards ensuring that deputies are appropriate in their use of force, a primary source of inmate complaints and lawsuits.

The tallying spanned four years, from 2012 to 2016, and involved nearly a dozen deputies, the investigation and staff depositions show.

In the wake of the probe, six Sheriffs Office staff received letters of counseling and four received written reprimands, one of the lowest forms of disciplinary action. No one was demoted or transferred, and no salaries were docked, sheriffs officials confirmed.

Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, said hes not convinced that the Sheriffs Office has taken the necessary steps to change a culture where use of force once merited praise.

It just cries out for further investigation for what is going on in the El Paso County jail, Silverstein said after reviewing the memo detailing the investigation. Officers pick up attitudes like that because of the culture of the institution. And the culture of the institution is not changed by handing out a few reprimands.

The revelations come as Elder heads toward re-election in November, with a GOP primary win under his belt in a heavily Republican county.

Undersheriff Joe Breister said the disciplinary actions were punishment enough for the bad judgment of those deputies who chose to participate in the competition as a way to build esprit de corps among one of the shifts working the jails Intake and Release section.

Nobody used force when it wasnt warranted. Nobody baited an inmate into using force. They were doing their job and using force within the guidelines of the office, Breister said. Nothing in the investigation ever proved or ever showed that there was any type of force use that wasnt reasonable or wasnt necessary given the circumstances that they faced at that time.

He downplayed the competition, saying the title of fight club gives the perception this was something a lot worse than it was, and that the moniker wasnt used to describe the comparisons until another deputy complained to supervisors about it in April 2016, giving rise to the investigation.

In a memo documenting the investigation, a sergeant wrote that the use of force rankings began as one deputys seemingly harmless habit of checking an internal report and became unhealthy and unsavory competition that created a culture where it seemed OK for deputies to embrace use of force as a badge of honor and a part of everyday conversation.

Gordon Vaughan, a Colorado Springs attorney retained by the countys insurance carrier to represent deputies involved, echoed those arguments, conceding that while the deputies engaged in inappropriate humor, at no time were they motivated to be more forceful than necessary.

These are good officers who work hard and put their safety on the line every day they go to work, he said.  There was no fight and there was no club.

A few of the deputies who were investigated might have received points in the competition for the incident over which McCully sued, former detention Bureau Chief Mitch Lincoln said in his deposition for the case.

Deputies yanked McCullys legs out from under her and shoved her to the floor, leaving the then Colorado College junior with a torn ACL, fractured knee and body covered in bruises, according to the lawsuit, filed two years later in 2016 in U.S. District Court in Denver.

The county undoubtedly became more fearful that their ship was sinking when the fight club allegations became public, Killmer said. I think once it became clear that there was a fight club that had been run for years in the jail, they knew they would lose this case.

Vaughan said McCullys injuries were the result of a miscommunication among deputies involved in restraining her. The deputy who swept her legs from under her believed that two others would catch her and lower her to the floor, but those deputies werent prepared to assist in the maneuver.

The other thing I would say is that McCullys conduct, which led her to incarceration and need to take her to floor and handcuff her, is a matter of record that speaks for itself, Vaughan said.

McCully was arrested on suspicion of felony menacing, vehicular assault and reckless driving. However, all but one of the charges  felony menacing  were eventually dismissed. According to an arrest affidavit, she told an officer that she sped up and tried to hit four classmates who she suspected were making fun of her. She denies telling police this.

The countys excess insurance carrier, OneBeacon, will pay the $675,000 settlement, set to be finalized later this month. Under the countys insurance policy, once legal costs for a case surpass $250,000  a limit reached early in litigating McCullys claims  that case is referred to the insurance group and the county no longer has any say in the outcome, according to Senior Assistant County Attorney Lisa Kirkman.

The settlement does not resolve allegations against another defendant in the case, the countys former jail health care provider, Correct Care Solutions, which is accused of failing to provide McCully with medical attention for her injuries.

The hefty $675,000 sum is more than half the roughly $1.1 million the county has paid out in the past five years to settle lawsuits or other claims. Included in that $1.1 million is nearly $35,000 in settlements to former inmates who alleged that they were victims of excessive use of force by jail staff.

Under the sheriffs policy, deputies are required to record every time they use force via a software program, and those reports are regularly reviewed by supervisors to ensure that the actions were justified.

Records show that the number of incidents in which jail staff used force rose during the first two years of the competition, increasing from 261 in 2011 to 458 in 2014, according to a 2015 assessment prepared for the jail by a consulting firm. Sheriffs officials say that in recent years theyve bolstered training efforts for deputies related to use of force and de-escalation techniques and introduced new programs to provide staff guidance on handling inmates with mental health issues.

Data obtained by The Gazette show those measures have not diminished deputies use of force at the jail.

Nearly 900 uses of force were recorded at the jail in 2016, and that figure more than doubled in 2017, when nearly 2,400 uses of force were reported. Through July of this year, jail staff had logged more than 800 uses of force. Breister attributed the rise to a number of factors, including the jails growing population, as well as changes to what is considered a use of force and how those reports are counted.

Since the beginning of 2016, the Sheriffs Office Internal Affairs Unit investigated 16 of those reports to determine if the force used was excessive. Of those 16, nine were sustained and resulted in a range of consequences for the staff member involved, from a letter of counseling or written reprimand to a week-long suspension. In two cases, staff members resigned to avoid further disciplinary measures.

The sergeant who investigated the use-of-force competition, whose name is redacted from the memo, said it arose from deputies checking a report that catalogs the names of some sheriffs employees and the number of incidents in which theyve used force. The document, which is now only available to supervisors, was part of a Sheriffs Office system meant to provide officers who might have behavior problems with additional training or supervision before resorting to formal discipline. Deputies names were added to the list if they were involved in a certain number of use of force incidents in a given period of time.

The competition began with deputies who were curious about where they stood, and supervisors knew  to some extent  about the rankings that the report spawned, the sergeant said in the memo.

Three Sheriffs Office personnel who were investigated for policy violations related to the use-of-force competition  Rincon, Deputy Sean Grady and Lt. Lari Hanenberg  were named as defendants in the McCully case.

Grady said in his deposition in the McCully case that he was the one who began monitoring the document, and that he sent an email at the end of 2014 saying that Rincon was in the lead. Rincon denied in her deposition that it was a fight club or competition, instead calling it a simple monitoring the use-of-force report.
Charges wont be filed in the Feb. 5 shootout in which El Paso County sheriffs Deputy Micah Flick and suspected car thief Manuel Zetina were killed and bystander Thomas Villanueva was partially paralyzed, the 4th Judicial District Attorneys Office announced Tuesday.

The DAs Office said the officers acted reasonably when they shot Zetina after he unleashed a hail of bullets, wounding four officers and Villanueva, all before any member of law enforcement fired their weapons.

The report recounts for the first time the harrowing last moments of Flicks life and what District Attorney Dan May called the horrible tragedy that struck our community.

The DAs report gives this account:

The Beat Auto Theft Through Law Enforcement task force, including Colorado Springs police, county sheriffs deputies and the Colorado State Patrol, were tracking a stolen green Saturn about 8 a.m. Feb. 5.

They hadnt yet identified Zetina, 19, as the driver, but they followed him as he drove across the city, stopping a few times to retrieve items from the trunk or spray-paint the car blue. His last stop would be the Murray Hill Apartments, 4225 Galley Road, where his family lives.

Zetina sat in the parking lot, smoking what later was determined to be meth, and making calls. Then he went into an apartment. When he walked out and headed toward the stolen car, officers decided to arrest him, noticing at the last minute that Zetinas right hand was in his pocket, apparently clasping an object.

Deputies Scott Stone and Flick approached Zetina as he walked toward them. Stone grabbed Zetina in a bear hug and yelled police. Zetina had his gun in hand and started firing, striking Stone in the left hip.

Task force members saw Flick struggling with Zetina. Some think they were fighting over a gun. Seconds later, Flick was motionless on the ground. The investigation later would reveal hed been shot once, in the throat.

With two officers down, Zetina began to spray the parking lot with gunfire, moving in a circle as he fired, striking police Detective Marcus Yanez in the groin and Villanueva in the spine. Bullets also struck a nearby apartment building, and sheriffs Sgt. Jacob Abendschan was hit by shrapnel.

Three officers returned fire, striking Zetina in the torso and back and grazing his left arm. When he fell, he still had the gun in his hand and his finger on the trigger.

The event lasted about 10 seconds, May said.

The bullet that punctured Flicks throat was never found, May said, but the DAs Office determined that Zetina shot him because autopsy records indicated Flick was hit at close range, and because no other officers had fired their weapons by then.

Zetina was using 9mm full-metal jacket rounds designed to go through and through, which is why some of the rounds were not recovered, May said. Zetinas gun held nine rounds, but the report didnt say how many were fired. Only six shell casings were recovered.

The DAs investigation indicated Zetina knew he was attacking law enforcement even before Stone yelled police.

Earlier, while officers were tracking him, Zetina made numerous evasive maneuvers in an apparent effort to identify (and throw off) any vehicle that might be following him, the report said. Zetina had been monitoring police scanner websites on his cell phone days earlier, it said, indicating that he knew police were following him.

We dont know for sure whether or not he knew, said Margaret Vellar, lead investigator and chief deputy district attorney. It looks like he probably did know.

But Villanueva was simply walking back to his apartment after lunch when Zetina started shooting. Villanueva was struck in the spine and is paralyzed from the chest down.

He was among the first to assert that officers did not identify themselves before the shooting, allowing him to walk unknowingly into danger. Instead, Villanueva thought the officers were possibly gangsters, contradicting statements by Sheriff Bill Elder that the officers, though in plain clothes, were clearly identified by appropriate insignia and announced themselves.

The District Attorneys Office supported Villanuevas account, saying officers wore badges and protective gear only beneath their undercover clothing and did not identify themselves until Stone grabbed Zetina. At that point, Villanueva was nearby, and police were just noticing him, the report said.

Some of the 10 officers at the scene said Villanueva did not appear to be with Zetina and were asking where he came from, Vellar said. In seconds, bullets were flying, she said.

The Sheriffs Office declined to comment on the insignia discrepancy or the ruling, citing Villanuevas notice of claim, a precursor to a lawsuit. Villanueva filed the claim as a placeholder to possible litigation, depending on the results of Tuesdays ruling.

His attorneys previously said Villanueva would sue agencies for his serious physical injuries requiring hospitalization and surgeries if officers were found to have acted inappropriately in the shooting. Attorney Russell Araya with Ramos Law did not return a call Tuesday.

Villanuevas father, Tom Villanueva, has questioned whether the ruling and other public records would reveal violations or deficiencies in law enforcement policies or protocols, such as conducting arrests in highly populated areas with children and oblivious residents nearby. Could they lead to changes, he asked, to make sure this doesnt happen again?

But the DAs report said officers did not try to arrest Zetina at earlier locations for tactical reasons and because team members hadnt arrived.

May said his office does not scrutinize tactics used or any events after an officers decision to use deadly force. It focuses solely on the shooting, though he noted that many of the tactics officers employed had been used successfully over and over again.

Unfortunately, law enforcement is a dangerous job, and this is an example of that. You try to take all of the precautions you can in the world, but in the end its a dangerous job, May said, his voice choked by emotion.

Whether the DAs conclusion will spur release of the county coroners autopsy reports remains to be seen. Coroner Robert Bux has petitioned to seal the autopsy reports for Flick and Zetina, records that could help verify the district attorneys account. Bux said releasing the reports  with details on where the two were shot, how many times, the trajectory of bullets and possibly the types of bullets  will harm the public interest and cause additional stress and grief to Flicks family.

Flicks widow, Rachael Flick, also opposes release of the records, the request said.

The Gazette and the Colorado Springs Independent have hired legal counsel to fight for the autopsy reports. A court date is expected to be scheduled Friday.

Villanueva and his family also protested last week for the release of the records. The family did not return calls for comment Tuesday.

Contact the writer at 719-636-0362 or find her on Twitter: @njKaitlinDurbin.
Inmates aren't sleeping on the floor, meals still come three times a day and no nook or cranny inside the El Paso County jail is left unwatched by cameras or staff. Even as those signs of normality remain, Sheriff Bill Elder described conditions in the lockup as "critical" and "bursting at the seams" last week after the inmate population surged to a record high of 1,791. Staff is pulling additional beds from other county facilities and squeezing them into jammed living spaces. Assaults are becoming more frequent among inmates and on deputies. And, for the first time, the jail is as close as it has been to turning away new arrestees, according to Detention Bureau Chief Mitch Lincoln.
A knife-wielding man aboard a Greyhound bus was arrested Monday, suspected of deliberately causing the bus to crash into a guardrail on Interstate 25, authorities say.

The wreck was reported at 6:34 p.m. on northbound I-25 near South Academy Boulevard, said Colorado State Trooper Josh Lewis.

The bus was headed to Denver, said Fountain police spokeswoman Lisa Schneider. She said she didn't know where it originated or how many passengers were aboard.

While police were responding to the crash, they were told that a man with a knife had been threatening other passengers, Schneider said. Neither the man's name nor his alleged crimes were released.

Several passengers had minor injuries, evidently from the crash, she said.

Several lanes of I-25 closed Monday evening. Another bus was en route to pick up the stranded passengers, Lewis said.

Anyone with information is asked to call Fountain police at 382-8555 or, to remain anonymous, call the Crime Stoppers Tip Line at 634-7867.
Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell may continue jailing suspected undocumented immigrants if federal immigration authorities ask them to do so, a judge ruled Sunday in tossing out a motion by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado.

The ruling by 4th Judicial District Judge Lin Billings-Vela frees the Sheriffs Office to continue to comply with the requests from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pending the outcome of an ACLU lawsuit filed over the practice last month.

We won the right to continue to protect our citizens, Mikesell said at a news conference in Woodland Park on Monday, adding that the decision lets his agency continue cooperating with federal partners.

The ACLU had petitioned for a preliminary injunction this month, asking that the jail be barred from holding inmates on ICE requests if theyre otherwise eligible for release.

The civil liberties group argued that the ICE detainments lack authority under Colorado law, which they say mandates that inmates be released if they post bond.

The groups bid for a preliminary injunction came as part of a lawsuit it filed in July for the release of Leonardo Canseco Salinas, who is being held at the Teller County jail in Divide on an $800 bond over two misdemeanors involving the alleged theft of $8 from a fellow gambler at a casino. Salinas can pay his bail, but jailers have said they will not release him because ICE wants him held for a future transfer to federal custody.

Billings-Vela wrote in her ruling that the ACLU failed to cite a specific statute that prohibits the sheriff from cooperating with the federal government or to prove that Canseco would suffer irreparable damage if he posted bond and was held up to two more days in accordance with the sheriffs policy.

She said there is a legitimate public interest in not obstructing the federal government from enforcing immigration law.

The ruling highlights what Billings-Vela called an area of continuously developing law and legal uncertainty in Colorado, where the only other sheriff known to honor such detainment requests has been ordered to halt the practice pending a similar lawsuit.

In March, 4th Judicial District Judge Eric Bentley granted a preliminary injunction for the ACLU, forcing El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder to stop honoring the requests, which are not signed by a judge, as are typical arrest warrants.

The ACLU sued Elder this year, alleging that the practice had kept people in jail for days, weeks, even months after they posted bond or resolved their cases.

The ACLU of Colorado is undeterred by the new ruling, said Legal Director Mark Silverstein.

We are disappointed with the courts initial finding in the Canseco case, with which we fundamentally disagree, Silverstein said. We are confident that the higher courts will ultimately agree with our position, and we will continue to work toward that result.

As immigration issues attract attention nationwide, the two pending lawsuits have made the Pikes Peak region a focal point in a clash over how far Colorados local law enforcement agencies may go to help the federal agencies charged with keeping U.S. borders secure.

Mikesell said the decision to honor the detainer requests is not a political agenda, but a public safety measure.

Time and time again, when sheriffs or other agencies have released someone without contacting ICE, we see crimes that have occurred. We see people that have died from those acts, the sheriff said.

In a past news release expressing support for Mikesell, ICE cited the case of Mexican citizen Ever Andres Valles, who was sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison after he was found guilty of robbing and fatally shooting a man at a light rail station.

Months before the shooting, the agency had asked that Valles be detained by the Denver County jail, but authorities released him without notifying the federal agency.

But the ACLU and other critics of ICE detainers have said a criminal justice system already is in place to punish those guilty of heinous crimes, and different standards should not be applied to those who the government suspects might have entered the country illegally.

We won the right to continue to protect our citizens. Jason Mikesell, Teller County sheriff
-Expands Tyson Foods value-added protein capabilities serving key foodservice customers



-Strengthens global presence in high growth international markets

SPRINGDALE, Ark., Aug. 20, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE: TSN) today announced it has reached a definitive agreement to buy the Keystone Foods business from Marfrig Global Foods for $2.16 billion in cash. The acquisition of Keystone, a major supplier to the growing global foodservice industry, is Tyson Foods latest investment in furtherance of its growth strategy and expansion of its value-added protein capabilities.

Headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Keystone supplies chicken, beef, fish and pork to some of the worlds leading quick-service restaurant chains, as well as retail and convenience store channels. Its value-added product portfolio includes chicken nuggets, wings and tenders; beef patties; and breaded fish fillets.

The acquisition includes six processing plants and an innovation center in the U.S. with locations in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. (It does not include the beef patty processing plant in Ohio.) It also includes eight plants and three innovation centers in China, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Australia.

Keystone is a leading global protein company and will be a great addition to Tyson Foods, said Tom Hayes, president and CEO of Tyson Foods. This acquisition will expand our international presence and value-added production capabilities and help us deliver more value to our foodservice customers. Keystone provides a significant foundation for international growth with its in-country operations, sales and distribution network in high growth markets in the Asia Pacific region as well as exports to key markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. We look forward to serving customers with these additional capabilities and to welcoming Keystones dedicated team members to the Tyson Foods family.

Keystone, which employs approximately 11,000 people, generated annual revenue of $2.5 billion and Adjusted EBITDA of $211 million in the last 12 months ending June 30, 2018, excluding non-controlling interest and other adjustments1. During the same period, the company generated approximately 65 percent of its revenue from U.S.-based production and the remaining 35 percent from its Asia Pacific plants.

1Please see the Keystone Foods Adjusted EBITDA reconciliation at the end of this release.

Tyson Foods expects the acquisition to be accretive to GAAP EPS in the third year and accretive to adjusted EPS in the first year excluding transaction-related costs as well as the incremental depreciation and amortization associated with the transaction. It also expects to generate annual synergies of approximately $50 million by the third year of the acquisition, driven by operational efficiencies, procurement savings, distribution and supply network optimization and other opportunities.

Terms and Closing

The acquisition will be funded through a combination of existing liquidity and proceeds from the issuance of new debt. Initial leverage metrics are expected to be well within levels appropriate for the companys existing investment-grade credit ratings. The company plans to use its cash flows to pay down debt to continue to support its credit ratings and to strengthen its balance sheet.

The transaction, which has been approved by Tyson Foods board of directors, is expected to close in mid-fiscal 2019. It is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC is acting as exclusive financial adviser to Tyson Foods on the acquisition, and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP is acting as its legal counsel.

A conference call will be held at 9 a.m. Eastern on Monday, Aug. 20. Participants may pre-register for the call at http://dpregister.com/10123208 . Callers who pre-register will be given a conference passcode and unique PIN to gain immediate access to the call and bypass the operator. Participants may pre-register at any time, including up to and after the call has started. Those without internet access or who are unable to pre-register may dial in by calling toll free 1-844-890-1795, international toll 1-412-717-9589.

A live webcast will be available on the Tyson Foods Investor Relations website at http://ir.tyson.com . The webcast also can be accessed with the URL https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1812837/239811CF7649EF0868EC3463B2940FA5 .

A replay of the call will be available until Sept. 20 toll free at 1-877-344-7529, international toll 1-412-317-0088 or Canada toll free 855-669-9658. The replay access code is 10123208.





Keystone Foods Adjusted EBITDA Reconciliation (In millions) (Unaudited) Twelve Months Ended June 30, 2018 Profit from continuing operations $ 119 (+) Parent company fees 5 (+) Non-recurring expenses 13 (+) Amortization of biological assets 21 (+) Depreciation and other amortization 43 (+) Finance expense 37 (+) Finance income (10 ) (+) Foreign currency and bank fees 3 (+) Tax expense 14 (+) Share of post-tax losses of equity-accounted associates and joint ventures 3 Adjusted EBITDA $ 248 Additional adjustments to Adjusted EBITDA: Less: Amortization of biological assets $ (21 ) Less: Non-controlling interest (16 ) Adjusted EBITDA excluding amortization of biological assets and non-controlling assets $ 211

Keystone Foods prepares its consolidated financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (collectively, IFRS). Keystone Foods provided Tyson Foods with this reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA, which was derived from Keystone Foods historical unaudited financial statements for the twelve months ended June 30, 2018. Adjusted EBITDA is a non-IFRS measure used by Keystone Foods. Keystone Foods defined Adjusted EBITDA as profit from continuing operations, as adjusted for parent company fees, non-recurring expenses, amortization of biological assets, depreciation of tangible fixed assets and amortization of finite lived intangibles, finance expense, finance income, foreign currency and bank fees, tax expense and share of post-tax losses of equity accounted associates and joint ventures. Additionally, Keystone Foods provided Tyson Foods with further adjustments to its Adjusted EBITDA to eliminate the add-back of amortization of biological assets as well as deduct the proportionate share of Adjusted EBITDA attributable to minority interest holders (i.e. non-controlling interest). In accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (in accordance with which Tyson Foods prepares its consolidated financial statements), biological assets and the related expenses are not characterized as intangible assets or amortization expense. Additionally, several of Keystone Foods foreign consolidated subsidiaries are partially owned by minority interest holders. As a result, these adjustments have been eliminated in the above presentation of Adjusted EBITDA, and these adjustments are intended to provide investors with an understanding of the proportionate Adjusted EBITDA attributable to the interests being acquired by Tyson Foods.

Keystone Foods Adjusted EBITDA is not a measure defined under IFRS, should not be considered in isolation and should not be regarded as an alternative to profit/(loss) from continuing operations as a measure of operational performance or cash flows provided by operating activities as a measure of liquidity, or any other performance measure derived in accordance with IFRS.

Tyson Foods believes this presentation of Keystone Foods Adjusted EBITDA (as adjusted as described above) is useful and helps management, investors and rating agencies enhance their understanding of the expected impact of the Keystone Foods acquisition on Tyson Foods financial performance. However, Adjusted EBITDA does not have a standardized meaning, and different companies may use different Adjusted EBITDA definitions. Therefore, Keystone Foods definition of Adjusted EBITDA may not be comparable to the definitions used by other companies.

About Tyson Foods

Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE: TSN) is one of the worlds largest food companies and a recognized leader in protein. Founded in 1935 by John W. Tyson and grown under three generations of family leadership, the company has a broad portfolio of products and brands like Tyson, Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Ball Park, Wright,

Aidells, ibp and State Fair. Tyson Foods innovates continually to make protein more sustainable, tailor food for everywhere its available and raise the worlds expectations for how much good food can do. Headquartered in Springdale, Arkansas, the company has 122,000 team members at Sept. 30, 2017. Through its Core Values, Tyson Foods strives to operate with integrity, create value for its shareholders, customers, communities and team members and serve as a steward of the animals, land and environment entrusted to it. Visit www.tysonfoods.com

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This communication contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the expected consummation of the acquisition, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including the satisfaction of closing conditions for the acquisition (such as regulatory approval for the transaction); the possibility that some or all of the transaction will not be completed; the impact of general economic, industry, market or political conditions; risks related to the ultimate outcome and results of integrating the Keystone Foods operations; the ultimate ability to realize synergies; the effects of the business combination on Tyson Foods and the Keystone Foods operations, including on the combined companys future financial condition and performance, operating results, strategy and plans. These statements constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The words will, should, estimate, expect, intend, believe and other similar expressions (or the negative of such terms) are intended to identify forward-looking statements. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results and the timing of events may differ materially from the results and/or timing discussed in the forward-looking statements, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this communication, and Tyson Foods does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement except as required by law.
English French

MONTREAL, Aug. 20, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SEMAFO Inc. (TSX, OMX: SMF) announces an update on its security measures in Burkina Faso following two armed incidents last week. The Mana and Boungou Mines continue to operate without interruption.



Boungou Mine

The transport of personnel and supplies has resumed between the Boungou Mine and Ouagadougou under our adjusted security protocol. All expatriate employees are now being transported by helicopter between the two locations. In addition, a ground military force has been deployed on the route between the mine and the capital city. These measures, combined with a heightened escort presence, will ensure transportation of national employees to and from the mine to their villages.

Mana Mine

Further investigation into Fridays incident revealed that our employee bus had the misfortune of driving into an ongoing hold-up by bandits on the main Bobo road. This led to an exchange of gunfire, as previously reported. As part of our new security measures, all expatriate employees will also travel by helicopter between the mine and Ouagadougou. Furthermore, we have reinforced escorts for transportation of national employees to and from the Mana Mine.

Senior management, including the CEO, are in the country to ensure that all necessary measures are being taken to ensure the safety of all SEMAFO personnel.

The Corporation acknowledges the support from employees, communities and the government as it continues normal operations at both mines.

About SEMAFO

SEMAFO is a Canadian-based mining company with gold production and exploration activities in West Africa. The Corporation operates the Mana Mine in Burkina Faso, which includes the high-grade satellite deposit of Siou, and is targeting commercial production at the Boungou Mine in the third quarter of 2018. SEMAFOs strategic focus is to maximize shareholder value by effectively managing its existing assets as well as pursuing organic and strategic growth opportunities.

For more information, contact

John Jentz

Vice-President, Corporate Development & Investor Relations

Email: John.Jentz@semafo.com



Ruth Hanna

Analyst, Investor Relations

Email: Ruth.Hanna@semafo.com



Tel. local & overseas: +1 (514) 744 4408

North America Toll-Free: 1 (888) 744 4408

Website: www.semafo.com
Montreal, Quebec, August 20, 2018 - SEMAFO Inc. (TSX, OMX: SMF) announces an update on its security measures in Burkina Faso following two armed incidents last week. The Mana and Boungou Mines continue to operate without interruption.

Boungou Mine

The transport of personnel and supplies has resumed between the Boungou Mine and Ouagadougou under our adjusted security protocol. All expatriate employees are now being transported by helicopter between the two locations. In addition, a ground military force has been deployed on the route between the mine and the capital city. These measures, combined with a heightened escort presence, will ensure transportation of national employees to and from the mine to their villages.

Mana Mine

Further investigation into Friday's incident revealed that our employee bus had the misfortune of driving into an ongoing hold-up by bandits on the main Bobo road. This led to an exchange of gunfire, as previously reported. As part of our new security measures, all expatriate employees will also travel by helicopter between the mine and Ouagadougou. Furthermore, we have reinforced escorts for transportation of national employees to and from the Mana Mine.

Senior management, including the CEO, are in the country to ensure that all necessary measures are being taken to ensure the safety of all SEMAFO personnel.

The Corporation acknowledges the support from employees, communities and the government as it continues normal operations at both mines.

About SEMAFO

SEMAFO is a Canadian-based mining company with gold production and exploration activities in West Africa. The Corporation operates the Mana Mine in Burkina Faso, which includes the high-grade satellite deposit of Siou, and is targeting commercial production at the Boungou Mine in the third quarter of 2018. SEMAFO's strategic focus is to maximize shareholder value by effectively managing its existing assets as well as pursuing organic and strategic growth opportunities.

For more information, contact

John Jentz

Vice-President, Corporate Development & Investor Relations

Email: John.Jentz@semafo.com

Ruth Hanna

Analyst, Investor Relations

Email: Ruth.Hanna@semafo.com

Tel. local & overseas: +1 (514) 744 4408

North America Toll-Free: 1 (888) 744 4408

Website: www.semafo.com

Attachment
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- East Africa Metals Inc. (TSX Venture: EAM) (East Africa or the Company) would like to provide an update on the development of its Ethiopian Projects in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (Ethiopia) and the arbitration hearing related to its Tanzanian assets.



Financing

With the completion of the Preliminary Economic Assessments for the Terakimti Gold Heap Leach project (Terakimti HL), Mato Bula Gold Copper and Da Tambuk Gold projects, East Africa is now focused on arranging the pre-production capital financing required to develop the Terakimti HL project and commence production.

East Africa is in discussions with several groups located in North America, Europe, China and Hong Kong in providing project financing. Currently the discussions with the groups have identified a number of financing alternatives including debt (from private lenders and merchant banks), metal streams, joint venture arrangement and/or a strategic investment either at the Company or the project level. The Company will continue to engage in discussions with the objective to secure a binding letter of intent or a binding financing offer.

Harvest Development

Access Roads:

East Africa has commenced discussions with Ethiopian Road Authority (ERA) for survey and design of the seven (7) kilometre access road from the paved highway to the Terakimti HL project area. The ERA is preparing a term of reference for the upgrade of the access road to the proposed Terakimti HL mine site.

Power:

East Africa has commenced discussions with a district branch of the Power Authority to provide a formal proposal for construction and connection of a power line to the high-tension power corridor seven (7) kilometres west of the Terakimti Heap Leach project area.

Relocation Action Program (RAP):

As previously disclosed (see news release dated June 29, 2016) an independent Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) study was approved by the Ethiopian Ministry of Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoMPNG) as part of the Terakimti HL mining application process. The ESIA concluded that the local population is in favour of the project, and the anticipated benefits would be important to the local community and to the local and regional governments. The study identified a small number of local farmers within the Terakimti HL mining licence area that would require relocation so as not to be directly impacted by the mining activities.

The Company has been in communication with Ethiopian Authorities on the next stage of the RAP. The Ethiopian Authorities have instructed the Company to commence the formal valuation of the cost of the RAP. Following this development the Company has engaged an Ethiopian based social consulting firm with expertise in relocation to conduct the valuation report.

Mato Bula and Da Tambuk Permitting

As announced in East Africas news release dated August 16, 2018, the Company received MoMPNG approval for the ESIAs for the Mato Bula Gold Copper and Da Tambuk Gold Projects. The next step in the mining licence application process is the preparation of the model mining agreement for the Companys review.

East Africa management is scheduled to meet with the MoMPNG Minister in Addis Ababa this week to review the status of the mining licence applications. The Mato Bula gold-copper and Da Tambuk gold projects are both part of the company's 100% Adyabo project, located in the Tigray national regional state of Ethiopia.

Arbitration update

Canaco Tanzania Ltd (CTL), a subsidiary of East Africa, has received a default notice from the Tanzanian Government advising of certain issues attributed to development and operational actions that are non-compliant with the Tanzanian Mining Act. CTL has been given 45 days to initiate action to address matters of non-compliance.

The Company expects to submit the default notice as evidence in the on-going arbitration. The default notice may have an impact on the arbitration, and, if the arbitration is ultimately decided in favour of East Africa, the Company will re-initiate management of the project and will look for strategic alternatives to address the development requirements. To that end, East Africa is currently developing a plan for submission to the Tanzanian government to address the issues identified in the notice and restore compliance to the project.

More information on the Company can be viewed at the Companys website: www.eastafricametals.com

On behalf of the Board of Directors:

Andrew Lee Smith, P.Geo., CEO





For further information contact:

Nick Watters, Business Development Telephone +1 (604) 488-0822 Email investors@eastafricametals.com Website www.eastafricametals.com



Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as anticipate, believe, plan, expect, intend, estimate, forecast, project, budget, schedule, may, will, could, might, should or variations of such words or similar words or expressions. Forward-looking information is based on reasonable assumptions that have been made by the Company as at the date of such information and is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: risks associated with mineral exploration and development; metal and mineral prices; availability of capital; accuracy of the Companys projections and estimates; ability to obtain financing for the Ethiopian projects; interest and exchange rates; competition; stock price fluctuations; availability of drilling equipment and access; successfully complete the RAP; timing of the draft mining model agreement; actual results of current exploration activities; government regulation; political or economic developments; environmental risks; insurance risks; capital expenditures; operating or technical difficulties in connection with development activities; successful completion of the arbitration process; the ability for the Company to obtain a fair and reasonable result to the arbitration process; the ability of the Company to identify a new development partner or the sale of the Tanzanian Assets to advance the Magambazi Project or identify any other corporate opportunities for the Company; successfully manage the environmental and social impacts; the speculative nature of strategic metal exploration and development including the risks of diminishing quantities of grades of reserves; contests over title to properties; and changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, as well as those risk factors set out in East Africas managements discussion and analysis for the year end December 31, 2017 and for the three months ended March 31, 2018, and East Africas listing application dated July 8, 2013. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions management believes to be reasonable, including but not limited to the price of gold, copper, and silver; the demand for gold, copper and silver; the ability to carry on exploration and development activities; availability of financing to fund working capital, development and legal matters; favorable outcome of the arbitration hearing; the ability to locate a replacement buyer or strategic partner for the Magambazi project; the timely receipt of any required approvals; expediting the mine licence application process; support of the local community of the Terakimti HL Project based on the ESIA; the ability to obtain qualified personnel, equipment and services in a timely and cost-efficient manner; the ability to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner; the expected burn rate; ability to obtain financing for the Ethiopian projects, the regulatory framework regarding environmental matters, and such other assumptions and factors as set out herein. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information contained herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.




HOUSTON, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Harvest Oil & Gas Corp. (Harvest or the Company) today announced results for the second quarter of 2018 and the filing of its Form 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on August 20, 2018. In addition, Harvest has entered into definitive agreements to sell substantially all of its interests in its Central Texas and Karnes County, Texas properties. Also, the Company has provided estimated net proved reserves as of May 31, 2018 and commodity hedges entered into subsequent to June 4, 2018. Further, Harvest announced the resignation of its Vice President and Chief Financial Officer effective September 30, 2018.

Key Highlights

Successfully completed financial restructuring as of June 4, 2018 and reduced total debt from $640 million, as of March 31, 2018, to $280 million, as of June 30, 2018

Entered into a definitive agreement to sell certain interests in its Central Texas and Karnes County, Texas properties to Magnolia Oil & Gas Corporation (Magnolia) for a total consideration of $135 million in cash and 4.2 million shares of Magnolia stock (NYSE: MGY)

Entered into a definitive agreement to sell certain Eagle Ford formation rights and existing production in Lee County, Texas for $3.5 million

Average daily production was 181.8 MMcfe for the second quarter of 2018, a 1 percent increase over the prior quarter

Generated a net loss of $595.6 million (which includes $588.1 million of reorganization items, net); and Adjusted EBITDAX of $28.0 million for the second quarter of 2018, a 7.4 percent increase over the prior quarter

OTCQX market listing process continues to progress and the Company expects the listing to go effective during the third quarter of 2018

Sale of Central Texas and Karnes County Properties

On August 20, 2018, subsequent to filing its Form 10-Q, Harvest signed a definitive agreement to sell certain interests in its Central Texas and Karnes County, Texas properties to Magnolia. Total consideration at closing will consist of $135 million in cash (subject to purchase price adjustments) and 4.2 million shares of Magnolia stock. Based on the closing price on August 17, 2018 of $13.10, total consideration would be $190 million. The transaction is expected to close on August 31, 2018 and has an effective date of July 1, 2018. The Company plans initially to use net proceeds to reduce outstanding borrowings under the Companys revolving credit facility. Intrepid Partners, LLC is acting as strategic advisor to Harvest and its board of directors.

In addition, Harvest signed a definitive agreement to sell certain Eagle Ford formation rights and existing production in Lee County, Texas to a third party for $3.5 million of cash consideration (subject to purchase price adjustments).

These divestures represent estimated proved reserves of 104.1 Bcfe (17.4 MMBoe) based on May 31, 2018 SEC prices, and 29.9 MMcfe/d (5.0 MBoe/d) of production for the first half of 2018. The divested properties represent all of Harvests interests in the Austin Chalk and Eagle Ford formations.





Production SEC Reserves (as of May 31, 2018) (Unit) 1H 2018 (Unit) PDP PDNP PUD Total Proved Oil MBbls 339 MMBbls 2.4 0.0 4.0 6.4 Natural gas liquids MBbls 195 MMBbls 2.2 0.0 2.4 4.5 Natural gas MMcf 2,208 Bcf 23.0 0.0 15.2 38.3 Total MMcfe 5,411 Bcfe 50.5 0.2 53.4 104.1 Total MMcfe/d 29.9



Second Quarter 2018 Financial Results

Second Quarter (1) First Quarter $ in thousands unless noted otherwise 2018 2018 Average daily production (MMcfe/d) 181.8 180.0 Total revenues 64.8 67.9 Total assets 689.5 1,458.2 Net loss (2) (595.6 ) (15.4 ) Adjusted EBITDAX (a non-GAAP financial measure) (3) 28.0 26.1 Total debt (4) 280.0 639.7 Total debt / Adjusted EBITDAX (3) (5) 2.5 x 6.1 x Net cash provided by operating activities 8.5 10.9 Total capital expenditures 17.5 19.5





(1) All amounts reflect the combined results of two months ended May 31, 2018 (Predecessor) and one month ended June 30, 2018 (Successor) (2) Includes $588.1 million of reorganization items, net in the second quarter of 2018 (3) Adjusted EBITDAX is a Non-GAAP financial measure and is described in the attached table under Non-GAAP Measures (4) As of June 30, 2018 and March 31, 2018 (5) Adjusted EBITDAX annualized for the respective quarter ended

Fresh Start Accounting and Factors Affecting the Comparability of the Results

Upon emergence from Chapter 11 proceedings on June 4, Harvest adopted fresh start accounting as required by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). As a result of adopting fresh start accounting, the Companys condensed consolidated financial statements and certain presentations are separated into two distinct periods, the period before the convenience date of May 31, 2018 (labeled Predecessor) and the period after the convenience date (labeled Successor), to indicate the application of different basis of accounting between the periods presented. Despite the separate presentation, there was continuity of the Companys operations.

Harvest is the successor reporting company to EV Energy Partners, L.P. pursuant to Rule 15d-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended; however, the impact to the comparability of the results is generally limited to those areas associated with the basis in and accounting for oil and gas properties (specifically depreciation, depletion and amortization (DD&A) and impairments), exploration expense and income taxes (due to the change from a limited partnership to a corporation that occurred in connection with the Companys emergence from bankruptcy). Accordingly, the Company believes that describing certain year-over-year variances and trends in its production, revenue and expenses for the three and six months ended June 30, 2018 and 2017 without regard to the concept of Successor and Predecessor (i.e. on a combined basis) facilitates a meaningful analysis of the results of operations. The results of operations have been derived from the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements.

Revolving Credit Facility and Liquidity

On June 4, 2018, upon emergence from the Chapter 11 proceedings, the borrowing base under the Company's new credit facility (the Exit Credit Facility) was $325 million. As of August 10, 2018, the Company had approximately $278 million outstanding under the Exit Credit Facility, and liquidity from borrowing base capacity and cash on hand was over $50 million. The Company believes that cash on hand, proceeds from sales of assets, net cash flows generated from operations and borrowings under the Exit Credit Facility will be adequate to fund the capital budget and satisfy shortterm liquidity needs. Upon closing of the sale of Central Texas and Karnes County, Texas properties to Magnolia, Harvest expects that its borrowing base will be reduced by $60 million to $265 million. Harvest's next semi-annual borrowing base redetermination is scheduled for April 2019.

For more information regarding Harvest's debt and liquidity, please review Harvest's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed on August 20, 2018, with the SEC.

Reserves

The following reserves are an estimate of Harvests net proved reserves. The net proved reserves were determined using fresh start accounting guidelines and SEC prices as of May 31, 2018.





Estimated Net Proved Reserves Crude Oil

(MMBbls) Natural Gas

(Bcf) NGLs

(MMBbls) Natural Gas

Equivalents

(Bcfe) PV 10 ($mm) Barnett Shale 0.3 195.9 18.0 305.7 $195.8 San Juan Basin 1.4 106.1 8.1 163.2 87.9 Appalachia Basin 6.8 96.0 0.5 139.9 140.3 Central Texas (1) 3.5 32.6 3.7 75.4 95.3 Michigan 0.1 67.2 0.3 69.5 34.3 Mid-Continent area 1.4 20.7 0.6 32.8 33.0 Karnes County, Texas (1) 3.3 6.1 0.9 31.3 78.8 Monroe Field - 28.8 - 28.8 1.1 Permian Basin 0.4 9.7 2.5 27.2 19.4 Total 17.2 563.1 34.5 873.8 685.9





(1) Reserves associated with the announced divestitures are included in this table under Central Texas and Karnes County, Texas.

Commodity Hedges

Subsequent to its emergence from Chapter 11 proceedings on June 4, 2018, Harvest has entered into the following commodity hedges.





Swap Swap Period Index Volume Price Natural Gas (MmmBtus): Jul - Aug 2018 NYMEX 3,720.0 2.94 Sep - Dec 2018 NYMEX 10,980.0 2.91 Jan - Dec 2019 NYMEX 31,025.0 2.77 Crude (MBbls): Jul - Aug 2018 WTI 124.0 66.61 Sep - Dec 2018 WTI 366.0 66.34 Jan - Dec 2019 WTI 1,022.0 63.02 Jan - Dec 2020 WTI 732.0 60.51 Ethane (MBbls): Jul - Dec 2018 Mt Belvieu 368.0 12.51 Jan - Dec 2019 Mt Belvieu 730.0 11.50 Jan - Dec 2020 Mt Belvieu 512.4 11.91 Propane (MBbls): Jul - Dec 2018 Mt Belvieu 184.0 37.44 Jan - Dec 2019 Mt Belvieu 365.0 32.76 Jan - Dec 2020 Mt Belvieu 256.2 29.23

Planned Senior Management Changes

Harvest announced today the resignation of its Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Nicholas Bobrowski, effective September 30, 2018. This resignation is for personal reasons and not the result of any disagreement with Harvest or its board of directors. The Company has initiated a search for Mr. Bobrowskis successor.

Public Common Stock and Warrant Listing Update

The Company is in the process of applying to list its common shares and warrants to be traded and quoted on the OTCQX market. The Company expects the new listing to go effective during the third quarter of 2018. The Company plans to issue a press release prior to the start of trading to announce that the shares and warrants have been listed.

Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q

Harvest financial statements and related footnotes are available in the Form 10-Q, which was filed on August 20, 2018, and is available through the Investor Relations/SEC Filings section of the Harvest website at http://www.hvstog.com .

EV Energy Partners Unitholders Schedule K-1

EV Energy Partners, L.P. (EVEP) unitholders Schedule K-1s for the 2018 tax year will be available for download at https://www.taxpackagesupport.com/evenergy in the first quarter of 2019. For any questions regarding their Schedule K-1, previous unitholders of EVEP are invited to call the Tax Package Support helpline at 1-800-973-7551.

About Harvest Oil & Gas Corp.

Harvest is an independent oil and gas company engaged in the acquisition, efficient operation and development of onshore oil and gas properties in the continental United States. The Companys assets consist primarily of producing and non-producing properties in the Barnett Shale, the San Juan Basin, the Appalachian Basin (which includes the Utica Shale), Michigan, Central Texas (which includes the Austin Chalk area), the Mid-Continent areas in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Kansas and Louisiana, the Permian Basin, the Monroe Field in Northern Louisiana, and Karnes County, Texas. More information about Harvest is available on the internet at https://www.hvstog.com .

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains certain statements that are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Exchange Act. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that the Company expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. The Company has based these forward-looking statements largely on its current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends affecting the financial condition of its business. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, most of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond its control. Please read the Companys filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Risk Factors in its Annual Report on Form 10-K and its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and, if applicable, its Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other public filings and press releases for a discussion of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those in such forward-looking statements. The words believe, may, estimate, continue, anticipate, intend, plan, expect, indicate and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of current or historical fact contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based upon reasonable assumptions, the forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this press release may not occur and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements.

Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which such statement is made and the Company undertakes no obligation to correct or update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Operating Statistics



Successor Predecessor Predecessor Combined One Month Two Months Three Months Three Months Ended Ended Ended Ended June 30, 2018 May 31, 2018 June 30, 2018 June 30, 2017 Production data: Oil (MBbls) 107 261 368 372 Natural gas liquids (MBbls) 215 405 620 528 Natural gas (MMcf) 3,612 7,001 10,613 10,241 Net production (MMcfe) 5,548 10,994 16,542 15,640 Average sales price per unit: (1) Oil (Bbl) $ 66.53 $ 67.31 $ 67.08 $ 44.06 Natural gas liquids (Bbl) 26.55 26.27 26.37 18.26 Natural gas (Mcf) 2.40 2.08 2.19 2.87 Mcfe 3.88 3.89 3.89 3.54 Average unit cost per Mcfe: Production costs: Lease operating expenses $ 1.69 $ 1.62 $ 1.64 $ 1.68 Production taxes 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.16 Total 1.86 1.79 1.81 1.84 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 0.49 1.75 1.33 1.38 General and administrative expenses 0.37 0.72 0.60 0.45 Successor Predecessor Predecessor Combined One Month Five Months Six Months Six Months Ended Ended Ended Ended June 30, 2018 May 31, 2018 June 30, 2018 June 30, 2017 Production data: Oil (MBbls) 107 662 769 707 Natural gas liquids (MBbls) 215 1,040 1,255 1,039 Natural gas (MMcf) 3,612 16,982 20,594 20,607 Net production (MMcfe) 5,548 27,193 32,741 31,087 Average sales price per unit: (1) Oil (Bbl) $ 66.53 $ 64.14 $ 64.47 $ 45.48 Natural gas liquids (Bbl) 26.55 25.86 25.98 19.57 Natural gas (Mcf) 2.40 2.41 2.41 2.87 Mcfe 3.88 4.06 4.03 3.59 Average unit cost per Mcfe: Production costs: Lease operating expenses $ 1.69 $ 1.67 $ 1.67 $ 1.61 Production taxes 0.17 0.20 0.19 0.17 Total 1.86 1.87 1.86 1.78 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 0.49 1.70 1.49 1.56 General and administrative expenses 0.37 0.58 0.54 0.44





(1) Prior to $0.4 million of net hedge losses on settlements of commodity derivatives for the three months ended June 30, 2017, and $1.6 million of net hedge gains and $2.9 million of net hedge losses on settlements of commodity derivatives for the six months ended June 30, 2018 and 2017, respectively.

Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets

(In $ thousands, except number of shares/units)

Successor Predecessor June 30, December 31, 2018 2017 ASSETS Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 5,354 $ 4,896 Restricted cash 7,650 - Accounts receivable: Oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids revenues 48,794 47,694 Other 1,377 78 Derivative asset - 3,052 Other current assets 2,628 5,713 Total current assets 65,803 61,433 Oil and natural gas properties, net of accumulated depreciation, depletion and amortization; June 30, 2018, $2,730; December 31, 2017, $1,191,559 617,327 1,375,527 Long-term derivative assets 232 - Other assets 6,164 4,845 Total assets $ 689,526 $ 1,441,805 LIABILITIES AND EQUITY Current liabilities: Accounts payable and accrued liabilities: Third party $ 35,303 $ 43,817 Related party - 4,194 Derivative liability 4,184 396 Current portion of long-term debt - 605,549 Total current liabilities 39,487 653,956 Asset retirement obligations 120,598 158,793 Longterm debt, net 280,000 - Longterm derivative liability 280 - Other longterm liabilities 1,021 1,044 Commitments and contingencies Stockholders' / owners equity: Predecessor common unitholders  49,368,869 units issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2017 - 648,371 Predecessor general partner interest - (20,359 ) Successor common stock  $0.01 par value; 65,000,000 shares authorized; 10,000,016 shares issued and outstanding as of June 30, 2018 100 - Successor additional paid-in capital 248,578 - Successor retained earnings (accumulated deficit) (538 ) - Total stockholders' / owners equity 248,140 628,012 Total liabilities and equity $ 689,526 $ 1,441,805



Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations

(In $ thousands, except per share/unit data)

Successor Predecessor Predecessor Combined One Month Two Months Three Months Three Months Ended Ended Ended Ended June 30, 2018 May 31, 2018 June 30, 2018 June 30, 2017 Revenues: Oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids revenues $ 21,535 $ 42,749 $ 64,284 $ 55,404 Transportation and marketingrelated revenues 185 340 525 648 Total revenues 21,720 43,089 64,809 56,052 Operating costs and expenses: Lease operating expenses $ 9,375 $ 17,828 $ 27,203 $ 26,235 Cost of purchased natural gas 129 242 371 460 Dry hole and exploration costs 43 40 83 75 Production taxes 970 1,818 2,788 2,496 Accretion expense on obligations 789 1,279 2,068 1,870 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 2,730 19,194 21,924 21,531 General and administrative expenses 2,029 7,923 9,952 7,023 Impairment of oil and natural gas properties - - - 18,397 (Gain) loss on sales of oil and natural gas properties (19 ) 7 (12 ) (9 ) Total operating costs and expenses 16,046 48,331 64,377 78,078 Operating income (loss) 5,674 (5,242 ) 432 (22,026 ) Other income (expense), net: Gain (loss) on derivatives, net (4,232 ) 45 (4,187 ) 6,511 Interest expense (1,199 ) (3,176 ) (4,375 ) (10,435 ) Other income, net 27 474 501 723 Total other income (expense), net (5,404 ) (2,657 ) (8,061 ) (3,201 ) Reorganization items, net (808 ) (587,325 ) (588,133 ) - Loss before income taxes (538 ) (595,224 ) (595,762 ) (25,227 ) Income tax benefit - 148 148 66 Net loss $ (538 ) $ (595,076 ) $ (595,614 ) $ (25,161 ) Basic and diluted earnings per share/unit: Net loss $ (0.05 ) $ (11.81 ) $ (0.50 ) Weighted average common shares/units outstanding (basic and diluted) 10,000 49,369 49,369





Successor Predecessor Predecessor Combined One Month Five Months Six Months Six Months Ended Ended Ended Ended June 30, 2018 May 31, 2018 June 30, 2018 June 30, 2017 Revenues: Oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids revenues $ 21,535 $ 110,307 $ 131,842 $ 111,723 Transportation and marketingrelated revenues 185 724 909 1,316 Total revenues 21,720 111,031 132,751 113,039 Operating costs and expenses: Lease operating expenses $ 9,375 $ 45,372 $ 54,747 $ 50,174 Cost of purchased natural gas 129 557 686 940 Dry hole and exploration costs 43 122 165 55 Production taxes 970 5,343 6,313 5,255 Accretion expense on obligations 789 3,176 3,965 3,869 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 2,730 46,196 48,926 48,511 General and administrative expenses 2,029 15,648 17,677 13,719 Restructuring costs - 5,211 5,211 - Impairment of oil and natural gas properties - 3 3 67,984 (Gain) loss on sales of oil and natural gas properties (19 ) 5 (14 ) (35 ) Total operating costs and expenses 16,046 121,633 137,679 190,472 Operating income (loss) 5,674 (10,602 ) (4,928 ) (77,433 ) Other income (expense), net: Gain (loss) on derivatives, net (4,232 ) 444 (3,788 ) 20,740 Interest expense (1,199 ) (13,652 ) (14,851 ) (20,409 ) Other income, net 27 776 803 1,081 Total other income (expense), net (5,404 ) (12,432 ) (17,836 ) 1,412 Reorganization items, net (808 ) (587,325 ) (588,133 ) - Loss before income taxes (538 ) (610,359 ) (610,897 ) (76,021 ) Income tax (expense) benefit - (166 ) (166 ) 29 Net loss $ (538 ) $ (610,525 ) $ (611,063 ) $ (75,992 ) Basic and diluted earnings per share/unit: Net loss $ (0.05 ) $ (12.12 ) $ (1.51 ) Weighted average common shares/units outstanding (basic and diluted) 10,000 49,369 49,345



Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows

(In $ thousands)

Successor Predecessor One Month Five Months Six Months Ended Ended Ended June 30, 2018 May 31, 2018 June 30, 2017 Cash flows from operating activities: Net loss $ (538 ) $ (610,525 ) $ (75,992 ) Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash flows provided by operating activities: Accretion expense on obligations 789 3,176 3,869 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 2,730 46,196 48,511 Sharebased compensation cost - 3,784 2,204 Impairment of oil and natural gas properties - 3 67,984 (Gain) loss on sales of oil and natural gas properties (19 ) 5 (35 ) (Gain) loss on derivatives, net 4,232 (444 ) (20,740 ) Cash settlements of matured derivative contracts - 3,099 (2,929 ) Reorganization items, net - 573,304 - Other 60 248 523 Changes in operating assets and liabilities: Accounts receivable 876 (3,518 ) (7,859 ) Other current assets (354 ) 1,853 847 Accounts payable and accrued liabilities 1,490 4,405 (5,967 ) Other, net (790 ) 69 (217 ) Net cash flows provided by operating activities 8,476 21,655 10,199 Cash flows from investing activities: Acquisition of oil and natural gas properties - - (58,651 ) Additions to oil and natural gas properties (7,220 ) (29,727 ) (3,635 ) Reimbursements related to oil and natural gas properties - 652 - Proceeds from sale of oil and natural gas properties 16 3 1,989 Other - 26 17 Net cash flows used in investing activities (7,204 ) (29,046 ) (60,280 ) Cash flows from financing activities: Repayment of long-term debt borrowings (17,000 ) - (21,000 ) Long-term debt borrowings - 34,000 17,000 Loan costs incurred - (2,813 ) - Contributions from general partner - 40 - Net cash flows provided by (used in) financing activities (17,000 ) 31,227 (4,000 ) Increase (decrease) in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash (15,728 ) 23,836 (54,081 ) Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash  beginning of period 28,732 4,896 57,633 Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash  end of period $ 13,004 $ 28,732 $ 3,552



Non-GAAP Measures

The Company defines Adjusted EBITDAX as net loss plus income taxes, interest expense, net, depreciation, depletion and amortization, accretion expense on obligations, (gain) loss on derivatives, net, cash settlements of matured commodity derivative contracts, non-cash equity-based compensation, impairment of oil and natural gas properties, non-cash oil inventory adjustment, dry hole and exploration costs, gain on sales of oil and natural gas properties, reorganization items, net, and other income, net.

Adjusted EBITDAX is used by the Companys management to provide additional information and statistics relative to the performance of the business, including (prior to the creation of any reserves) the cash return on investment. The Company believes this financial measure may indicate to investors whether or not it is generating cash flow at a level that can support or sustain quarterly interest expense and capital expenditures. Adjusted EBITDAX should not be considered as an alternative to net income, operating income, cash flows from operating activities or any other measure of financial performance or liquidity presented in accordance with GAAP. Adjusted EBITDAX excludes some, but not all, items that affect net income and operating income and this measure may vary among companies. Therefore, Harvests Adjusted EBITDAX may not be comparable to similarly titled measures of other companies.





Reconciliation of Net Loss to Adjusted EBITDAX

(In $ thousands)

Three Months Ended Six Months Ended Combined Predecessor Combined Predecessor Jun 30, 2018 Jun 30, 2017 Mar 31, 2018 Jun 30, 2018 Jun 30, 2017 Net loss $ (595,614 ) $ (25,161 ) $ (15,449 ) $ (611,063 ) $ (75,992 ) Add: Income taxes (148 ) (66 ) 314 166 (29 ) Interest expense, net 4,375 10,435 10,475 14,850 20,409 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 21,924 21,531 27,002 48,926 48,511 Accretion expense on obligations 2,068 1,870 1,897 3,965 3,869 (Gain) loss on derivatives, net 4,187 (6,511 ) (399 ) 3,788 (20,740 ) Cash settlements of matured commodity - (404 ) 1,559 1,559 (2,858 ) derivative contracts Non-cash equity-based compensation 3,197 1,019 587 3,784 2,204 Impairment of oil and natural gas properties - 18,397 3 3 67,984 Non-cash oil inventory adjustment (204 ) 424 - (204 ) 424 Dry hole and exploration costs 83 75 82 165 55 Gain on sales of oil and natural gas properties (12 ) (9 ) (2 ) (14 ) (35 ) Reorganization items, net (1) 588,133 - - 588,133 - Other income, net - - - - (197 ) Adjusted EBITDAX 27,989 21,600 26,069 54,058 43,605





(1) Represent costs, gains and losses directly associated with the Companys filing for voluntary reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code since the petition date, and also include adjustments to reflect the carrying value of certain liabilities subject to compromise at their estimated allowed claim amounts, as such adjustments are determined.
TORONTO, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Green Organic Dutchman Holdings Ltd. (the Company or TGOD) (TSX:TGOD) (US:TGODF) is pleased to announce it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of the issued and outstanding shares of privately-held HemPoland in an immediately accretive cash and share transaction.



Transaction Highlights:

Acquisition cost of US$7.75 million in cash and 1,968,323 restricted TGOD shares currently worth US$7.75 million (~CAD$20.4 million combined) with an additional US$10.3 million (CAD$13.5 million) cash investment for rapid European expansion

Additional performance based incentives of up to US$12 million (CAD$15.8 million) for delivery of US$32 million (CAD$42.1 million) of EBITDA in fiscal 2021

European gateway with distribution channels to over 750 million people and sales in over 700 locations across 13 countries

Premier selling CBD oil brand Cannabigold, a recognized leader in the EU

32,000 kgs of dried flower production from 1,250 acres of cultivation

Leading innovative organic brand with diverse, novel product offerings and unique IP

HemPoland is a leading European manufacturer and marketer of premium organic CBD oils led by founder and CEO, Maciej Kowalski, one of Europes most widely recognized CBD experts. This strategic acquisition provides access to HemPolands vast distribution network, premium Cannabigold brand, state-of-the-art hemp oil extraction technologies, and provides a strategic pathway into the European market for TGODs medical & recreational products and licensing deals.

Founded in 2014, HemPoland was the first company in Poland to obtain a state licence allowing the company to grow hemp and manufacture CBD oil products. HemPolands management is comprised of experts in cultivation, oil extraction, and marketing of high-quality organic CBD oil. The company is vertically integrated, with over 1,250 acres of cultivation leveraging third parties, multiple commercial scale extraction units, local distributors in Poland, Austria, Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Ireland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and product sales in over 700 locations. With a robust ecommerce platform, diverse wholesale model, and over 60 employees, HemPoland has proven the ability to execute by rapidly scaling across the European Union in a short timeframe. In 2017, the company produced over 32,000 kgs of organic dried flower and 310 kgs of organic CBD oils.

The financial terms of the transaction are US$7.75 million (CAD$10.2 million) cash and 1,968,323 restricted TGOD shares currently worth US$7.75 million (CAD$10.2 million), which will be escrowed for a term of three years from closing. In addition, there is contingent consideration of up to 3,047,722 shares of TGOD currently worth US$12 million (CAD$15.8 million) based on delivery of US$32 million (CAD$42.1 million) EBITDA in the 2021 fiscal year. TGOD will invest a further US$10.3 million (CAD$13.5 million) in HemPoland to fund product development, R&D, drug development and continue global expansion initiatives.

HemPoland is a key component to a number of strategic acquisitions and planned partnerships focused on expanding our global distribution network. This acquisition will significantly add to the Companys top and bottom line, said Brian Athaide, CEO of TGOD. Gaining market share with CBD products now, in the EU, with over 700 locations allows TGOD to establish immediate brand awareness across all verticals including infused beverages. This is an accretive acquisition and gateway to Europes 750 million people accelerating our plan of becoming the world's largest organic cannabis brand, continued Athaide.

We are pleased to join forces with the premier brand in organic cannabis, TGOD, to scale the growth of our business both domestically and internationally, said Maciej Kowalski, Founder and CEO of HemPoland. The market and demand for premium organic cannabis and CBD oil is just the beginning, ultimately leading to a variety of higher margin products. Having access to TGODs capital, licensing deals, experienced leadership team, and intellectual property will significantly drive momentum for our brand and our company. We are proud to be part of the TGOD family and look forward to becoming the global leaders in organic cannabis.

Closing of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and the approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors,

The Green Organic Dutchman Holdings Ltd.

ABOUT THE GREEN ORGANIC DUTCHMAN HOLDINGS LTD.

The Green Organic Dutchman Holdings Ltd. is a research & development company licensed under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR) to cultivate medical cannabis. The Company carries out its principal activities producing cannabis from its facilities in Ancaster, Ont., pursuant to the provisions of the ACMPR and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Canada) and its regulations.

The Company grows high quality, organic cannabis with sustainable, all-natural principles. TGOD's products are laboratory tested to ensure patients have access to a standardized, safe and consistent product. TGOD has a funded capacity of 170,000 kg and is building 1,382,000 sq. ft. of cultivation facilities in Ontario, Quebec and Jamaica.

The Company has developed a strategic partnership with Aurora Cannabis Inc. (TSX:ACB) whereby Aurora has invested approximately C$78.1 million for an approximate 17.5% stake in TGOD. In addition, the Company has raised approximately C$350 million and has over 20,000 shareholders.

TGODs Common Shares and warrants issued under the indenture dated November 1, 2017 trade on the TSX under the symbol "TGOD" and TGOD.WT, respectively.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Investor Relations

Email: invest@tgod.ca

Phone: 1 (416) 900-7621

www.tgod.ca

Forward-Looking Information Cautionary Statement

This news release includes statements containing certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law ("forward-looking statements"). Forward looking statements in this release includes, but is not limited to, statements about the future legalization of recreational cannabis and cannabis-infused products in Canada, statements about future research, development and innovation by the Company, statements about the offering of any particular products by the Company in any jurisdiction and statements regarding the future performance of the Company. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. Various assumptions were used in drawing the conclusions or making the projections contained in the forward-looking statements throughout this news release. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. The Company is under no obligation, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable law.

Neither TSX nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of Toronto Stock Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lumina Gold Corp. (TSXV: LUM) (OTC: LUMAF) (Lumina or the Company) announces the results of its annual general and special meeting of shareholders held on August 21, 2018 in Vancouver (the Meeting). At the Meeting, shareholders voted in favour of the spin-out of Luminex Resources Corp. (Luminex) pursuant to a statutory plan of arrangement (the Arrangement) under Section 288 of the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia).



Under the Arrangement, Luminas current shareholders will receive common shares of Luminex by way of a share exchange, pursuant to which each existing common share of Lumina is exchanged for one new common share of Lumina and 0.15 of a common share of Luminex. Optionholders of Lumina will receive replacement options of Lumina and options of Luminex which are proportionate to, and reflective of, the terms of their existing options.

Luminex will hold all of the concessions and properties previously held by Lumina with the exception of the Cangrejos Project and will be capitalized with approximately US$5 million raised from Luminas C$7 million financing that closed on July 26, 2018.

The Arrangement remains subject to final approval of the Supreme Court of British Columbia and acceptance from the TSX Venture Exchange, and is expected to be completed on or about August 31, 2018. Luminex has applied to list its common shares on the TSX Venture Exchange.

Luminas shareholders also voted in favour of each of the other matters considered at the Meeting, including voting in favour of electing each of Marshall Koval, Lyle Braaten, Donald Shumka, Michael Steinmann, Stephen Stow and Heye Daun as directors of the Company to hold office for the ensuing year, appointing auditors for the ensuing year and authorizing the board of directors to set their remuneration, approving Luminas 10% Rolling Stock Option Plan, and approving Luminexs Stock Option Plan.

About Lumina Gold

Lumina Gold Corp. (TSXV: LUM) is a Vancouver, Canada based precious and base metals exploration and development company focused on gold and copper projects in Ecuador. The Companys Cangrejos Gold-Copper project is located in El Oro Province, southwest Ecuador, and its Condor Gold-Copper project is located in Zamora-Chinchipe Province, southeast Ecuador. The Company also holds a large and highly prospective land package in Ecuador consisting of 135 thousand hectares. The Company has an experienced management team with a successful track record of advancing and monetizing exploration projects.

Further details are available on the Companys website at https://luminagold.com/ .

LUMINA GOLD CORP. For further information contact: Signed: Marshall Koval Scott Hicks shicks@luminagold.com Marshall Koval, President & CEO, Director T: +1 604 646 1890

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release



Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements and information herein, including all statements that are not historical facts, contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements or information include but are not limited to statements or information with respect to the securities shareholders and optionholders will receive under the Arrangement; the concessions, properties and capitalization of Luminex after completion of the Arrangement; and completion and timing of completion of the Arrangement.

Often, but not always, forward-looking statements or information can be identified by the use of words such as will, expected or variations of that word and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "will" be taken, occur or be achieved.

With respect to forward-looking statements and information contained herein, the Company has made numerous assumptions including among other things, assumptions about obtaining approval of the Supreme Court of British Columbia and acceptance from the TSX Venture Exchange for the Arrangement, general business and economic conditions, the prices of gold and copper, and anticipated costs and expenditures. The foregoing list of assumptions is not exhaustive.

Although management of the Company believes that the assumptions made and the expectations represented by such statements or information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that a forward-looking statement or information herein will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking statements and information by their nature are based on assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the Companys actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. These factors include, but are not limited to: risks associated with the business of the Company; business and economic conditions in the mining industry generally; the supply and demand for labour and other project inputs; changes in commodity prices; changes in interest and currency exchange rates; risks relating to inaccurate geological and engineering assumptions (including with respect to the tonnage, grade and recoverability of reserves and resources); risks relating to unanticipated operational difficulties (including failure of equipment or processes to operate in accordance with specifications or expectations, cost escalation, unavailability of materials and equipment, government action or delays in the receipt of government approvals, industrial disturbances or other job action, and unanticipated events related to health, safety and environmental matters); risks relating to adverse weather conditions; political risk and social unrest; changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets; and other risk factors as detailed from time to time in the Companys continuous disclosure documents filed with Canadian securities administrators. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
Re: In no other circumstance did Mount Tambora cause such a global disaste [ #permalink

1 Kudos

In no other circumstance did Mount Tambora cause such a global disaster as did its eruption in 1815.

Explaination: This question requires understanding of multiple concepts such as:

1. Parallelism-- Elements in the sentence must be parallel to each other.

2. Correct Comparison-- Comparison must be within same forms of elements.



A. did its eruption in 1815 // Wrong comparison: In first part it is stating the function of mount tambora in some circumstances but in second part it start talking about its eruption//

B. had its 1815 eruption // Same as A: Talking about eruption and not about mount tambora in other circumstances//

C. in its eruption of 1815 // Correct: Parallelism is correct as well as Comparison is correct.//

D. its eruption of 1815 did // Same as A//

E. its eruption in 1815//Same as A//



Hope this helps...
jasukhera wrote:

Hi



My name is Junaid. I am 38 years old and I would appreciate your input on the below:



1. Choice of schools

2. Next steps



My brief background is as below:



Undergrad: LUMS Pakistan (B.Sc. (Hons) Economics): GPA: 3.07/4.00

Graduate: LUMS Pakistan (MS Computer Science): GPA: 3.59/4.00

Graduate: Johns Hopkins USA (Masters in Finance): GPA: 3.86/4.00 - Went on a Fulbright scholarship



Professional Experience



3 years: Entry-level Investment banking in Pakistan

8 years: Private Equity: Currently heading the private equity portfolio (USD 1 billion + size) of a large family office in UAE. Global investment mandate. Report directly to CEO. Title: Manager Investments.



Certifications:

CFA charterholder



GMAT score: Will be re-taking 1st week of October and targeting around 730. 1st attempt was very low. 660 (Q 48: V 34). I had 730 in GMAT Prep practice test.



Schools considered:



Wharton (My ex boss is a Wharton alum and has good insights on the process)

NYU

Chicago

Columbia

Stanford (Chairman of one of the companies I invested in sits on the Graduate School Board. I know him well so will use him for one of the recommendations)

Darmouth/Cornell



Why I want to do an MBA now?



I want to relocate geographies and continue in the same career path. Most of my peers in I-banking/PE have Ivy league MBAs so I think it will matter a lot going forward.



I am not keen on an executive MBA. I am aware I am at the upper end of the age bracket and it might be a long shot in some schools.



Any advice/feedback will be greatly appreciated.



mbaMission Senior Admissions Consultant

Chicago Booth Alum, 60 5-star reviews on GMAT Club

Sign up for a free 30-minute consultation at https://www.mbamission.com/consult/mba-admissions/

Read our Insider's Guides to the top b-schools: http://www.mbamission.com/guides.php?category=insiders



Kate RichardsonmbaMission Senior Admissions ConsultantChicago Booth Alum, 60 5-star reviews on GMAT ClubSign up for a free 30-minute consultation at https://www.mbamission.com/consult/mba-admissions/Read our Insider's Guides to the top b-schools: http://www.mbamission.com/guides.php?category=insiders Signature Read More

Hi there,You definitely have an uphill battle given your experience level and existing MS Finance degree. You'll need to make a strong case for why you need a full-time MBA now. Have you considered options like Stanford MSX or MIT Sloan Fellows? These are full-time, one-year programs geared towards mid to senior management level. Highly recommend you consider those two. Otherwise focus on schools with a pretty wide age range in their class -- Tuck is a great one for that, as is NYU, UCLA.Given that challenge, and the fact that you are aiming for top schools, GMAT is very important. If you continue to struggle to raise your score after the 2nd attempt, it's worth considering switching to take the GRE instead (schools accept both and average GREs tend to run a little lower).Otherwise, your work experience sounds very strong with executive exposure, work in UAE, plus strong academic background including the Fulbright.Best of luck!Kate_________________
Official Explanation

Split #1

Split #2:

: the pronoun problem. Whose "long term vision"? It's the corporation's long term vision. First of all, "corporation" is singular, so the plural pronoun "their" is wrong. Though "its" in (D) is singular, it is not entirely clear what that pronoun would be referring to. Thus, it would be clearest to use "corporation's", and only choices (B) & (E) do this.missing verb mistake. Except for the first three words, the entire sentence is part of a gigantic "that" clause. The subject of the "that" clause is the gerund phrase begin with "opening." This subject needs a verb. Choices (A) & (B) follow this long subject and modifiers with the word "and", and start a new clause. The subject never gets a verbthis is the famous missing verb mistake. Choices (A) & (B) are not correct. Choices (C) through (E) rectify this, by giving the subject "opening" a form of the verb "to give."

The only possible answer is (E).

Q: The CEO said something in the past. I thought that when we have something said in the past we have to change the verbs, maybe using a hypothetical "would" instead.



Frequently Asked QuestionsA: When you are quoting someone or saying "what they said," you are not required to adjust their verbs into a different tense even though the event of them speaking occurred in the past. Your goal is to actually repeat what they said. This is a tricky concept. But, in general, if you are quoting someone or attempting to paraphrase them, you can use the same verb tenses they used at the time they were speaking._________________
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**This will be a lot of information on Tricare. Feel free to scroll through and find the links/info you are most interested in.

If you're an active military service member, retired from the military, in the reserves or national guard, or you are a family member to anyone in any of those situations, this forum is to help you with Tricare, the US government run health care program for military members and their families.

Tricare offers several programs depending on what your enrollment status in the military is, and what type of coverage you want. So I decided to put all this information here below, as Tricare can be a pretty confusing subject and it might be helpful to have all these resources in one spot.

All the links take you to pages that include eligibility requirements, how the program works, and how to enroll. All are official Military.com or Tricare.mil resources. Hope this helps.



First off, Tricare's official site has a quick questionnaire that should narrow down exactly what plan you need/qualify for, as well as walk you through everything you need to know for registration and eligibility and documentation, etc:

TRICARE Plan Finder



Breaking Tricare Options Down

So, the main 2 health insurance options for active service members and their families are:

TRICARE Prime

TRICARE Select

The main difference here is 'Prime' plans are managed completely by the military health care system, meaning you can only use military doctors and military hospitals. It's all 'in network'.

The 'Select' plan allows you to see any doctor that accepts the program, so you can use both military and civilian doctors.

Choosing between the two depends heavily on where you live, as 'in network' military options for Prime plans might not be as widely available in certain parts of the country. Also, consider if you need to use a certain out of network doctor, or not.

If you are retired from the military, in the reserves or National Guard, overseas, or you are a family member to someone that is, use one of these resources:

TRICARE for Retirees

TRICARE for Reserve & Guard

TRICARE Overseas

TRICARE Young Adult Program



There are also Special Programs with Tricare, and even plans for former family members of military personnel, transitioning into normal civilian health care enrollment status.





Lastly of note, you are allowed to have other health insurance plans along with being enrolled in Tricare, whether it be Medicare, Medicaid, or any employer offered health insurance program.

Tricare has been very competitive in price and (usually) those that can take advantage of the program do so, over other options. Although 2018 has brought several changes to the program, making drug costs and deductibles go up, and making it more difficult to find doctors that accept Tricare.

As such, Tricare And Other Health Insurance details how it works if you have multiple kinds of insurance. It's worth looking into ALL your health care options and keep up to date with all the changes, as well as you can anyways.

Official Sites:

TriCare.mil

Military.com - TriCare
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.
The August Hoards Dairyman webinar looked at the top-producing Jersey herds in the country by analyzing nutrition and production performance data. The American Jersey Cattle Association supplied the contact information for the Jersey herd owners. The University of Illinois and two graduate students worked on the project in 2017. The universitys Mike Hutjens led the study, and Jim Baltz prepared all the communications to the herds and compiled the teams findings.

Bunk space, housing style, and stocking density were all evaluated. The feed additives used in the rations were also listed by usage. About two-thirds of herds were milked twice a day; 18.9 percent were milked three times; and the remainder were a combination of 2x/3x, a combination of 3x/4x, and robots.





In regard to feeding, 42 percent of the herds fed cows just once per day, but there were multiple feed pushups daily, as often as 12 times. Sixteen percent of the herds fed to an empty feedbunk. The upside is that only 5 percent of the herds had 5 percent weigh backs or more. The weigh backs were fed to heifers, discarded, remixed in a lower-producing group, or fed to dry cows. Hutjens recommended feeding it to steers as the best option if that is a possibility.





It was equally split between farms with a separate fresh cow group to those with a hospital/fresh cow group. Those with a special fresh cow group kept cows in that pen for an average of 30 days. Hutjens suggested that rather than using days in milk as a criteria for a pen move, instead evaluate milk production, feed intake, and overall animal health to make that determination.





These top herds were also segmented into small and large herds, with 200 cows being the divider. Their study showed no difference in milk production. They did see more aggressive feed pushing in larger herds, but saw no real distinguishable differences between the two groups.





When Jersey-only and mixed herds were evaluated, more mixed herds were milked 3x, and more weigh backs were fed in this group. Meanwhile there was more ketosis and higher somatic cell counts (SCC) in Jersey herds. This led to the conclusion that mixed herds may be more aggressive in feeding management.





Hutjens was excited about conducting the study but stated that there were some limitations. His team was unable to collect the actual dry matter of the fed as the financing to travel to all 38 herds spread across the county was far greater than the grant allowed. He also stated that the multiple TMRs were difficult to interpret, and he wished he had more data on close-up rations.





As for his final thoughts on the study he said, There is still money being left on the table in the first 100 days of milk. This is true, even in top-producing herds. These top herds have high nutrient-dense rations, enabling high production. But, where he saw room for advancement was with the use of inoculants and the feeding of monensin, as well as managing fresh cow groups and weigh backs.





This webinar has been archived (link to:on.hoards.com/WB_081318) and was sponsored by Custom Dairy Performance/KTG North America . You can review the data in more detail and hear Hutjens comments as he shared the information. Past webinars can be found here
Did South African politician Julius Malema say white people should not be allowed in shopping malls? No, that's not true: the story was published by a satire website but the satire disclaimer of the site is hidden away on a different page so it wasn't immediately obvious to readers of the story that the entire thing was made up. It is not real.

The story originated from an article published by News Updates South Africa on August 21, 2018 titled "'Whites should not be allowed in Shopping Malls' , Malema - News Updates South Africa" (archived here) which opened:

A resident from Centurion sent a frantic warning to fellow residents in Centurion warning them about EFF thugs chasing white shoppers away from a shopping mall. Apparently white privilege is the reason why white people are not allowed to visit a shopping mall.

Users on social media would only see this title, description and thumbnail, with no hint the story was satirical in nature:

'Whites should not be allowed in Shopping Malls' , Malema - News Updates South Africa A resident from Centurion sent a frantic warning to fellow residents in Centurion warning them about EFF thugs chasing white shoppers away from a shopping mall. Apparently white privilege is the reason why white people are not allowed to visit a shopping mall.

However the site comes with an "About Us" page that says:

News Updates South Africa is South Africa's number 1 news satire website.

This indicates the story is not true. No other reputable news sources in South Africa reported on the quote either.

We wrote about newsupdatessa.site before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
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
Last springs teacher strike in Arizona forced some concessions from the states Republican governor and legislature, but education is definitely on the ballot in November. Photo: Ralph Freso/Getty Images

Arizona was one of the states that experienced serious teacher unrest last spring, with a six-day teachers strike that forced the Republican governor and legislature to make major concessions on pay and education funding. But in part because these wins did not satisfy all the strikers demands, the fight over public education in Arizona is (as is the case in other states) spilling over into the midterm elections. It is the central issue in the governors race where incumbent Doug Ducey faces both primary and general election opposition, and will feature heavily in many legislative contests as well. But beyond that, Arizona voters will have two major education-related measures on the ballot in November.

The one gaining headlines right now (because of an unsuccessful effort by conservative groups to keep it off the ballot because of allegedly misleading language) is called the Invest in Education Act, as explained by the Arizona Capitol Times:

The proposal, dubbed the Invest in Education Act, would increase the states 4.54-percent personal income tax rate to 8 percent for those who earn more than $250,000 or whose household income reaches more than $500,000, and would double the rate to 9 percent for individuals who earn more than $500,000 or whose household income is greater than $1 million 

The measure would also designate 60 percent of the revenue from the tax hike for teacher salaries and the remaining 40 percent for operations, including full-day kindergarten and pay raises for student support employees as applicable uses for the funds.

The idea of highly targeted taxes on the very wealthy to fund education is getting traction in a lot of places, among them Arizona. A June poll showed 65 percent of likely voters  including 43 percent of Republicans supporting Invest in Education, although Republican politicians  notably Ducey  and business groups are opposing it on the usual anti-tax grounds. But opponents havent come up with any alternative ways to fund the teacher pay raises and other educational improvements the governor and legislature did accept earlier this year, which makes the tax measure look fiscally prudent by comparison.

There will be another measure on the ballot in Arizona this year that could be even more significant as a national precedent: a referendum on Republican-sponsored legislation that made the states no-strings-attached empowerment scholarship accounts available (in theory, at least) to the entire student population, instead of just students with disabilities. Ballotpedia explains:

In 2011, Arizona became the first state to establish an Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program. The original program allowed parents or guardians of students with disabilities to sign a contract to opt out of the public school system and instead receive an ESA from the Arizona Department of Education (DEP). An ESA is funded at 90 percent of what the state would have paid for the student in a district or charter school. Parents or guardians use a prepaid bank card to pay for education-related tuition and fees, textbooks, tutoring, educational therapies, and curriculum.

This referendum was initiated to overturn Senate Bill 1431 (SB 1431), which was designed to make all K-12 students eligible to apply for an ESA.

The new law caps the number of ESA beneficiaries, but firmly plants the idea that parents can and should directly receive education funding and make a largely unconditional decision about where to spend it, at the expense of public schools. Its the most aggressive step any state has taken to extend the national GOPs efforts (strongly supported by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos) to bypass schools with backpack funding that can follows kids wherever their parents choose to send them. The virtually complete lack of accountability for the educational results these private school (and homeschool) subsidies produce is another crucial feature of Arizonas system.

The Republicans who have created and expanded the ESA program are defending it in this referendum fight, and there are rumors of a forthcoming Koch Network investment on their behalf. But so far the most visible activity has been by an anti-ESA-expansion group called Save Our Schools Arizona, which got the referendum on the ballot and protected it from efforts in the courts and the legislature to stop it.

Given Arizonas status as an increasingly purple state, with a key Senate race this year and a potentially competitive presidential contest in 2020, the fight over these education initiatives could cast a long shadow over the states politics for some time to come. If the momentum teachers achieved during the spring strike continues through November, it could produce a reminder that even in a senior-heavy and tax-sensitive state with a strong conservative tradition, public education is one government service that people will vote to defend and improve.
Not the presidents favorite person at the moment. Photo: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images

Michael Cohen said in district court on Tuesday that he had committed campaign-finance violations at the direction of President Trump, an enormously significant disclosure that could spell major legal trouble for the president.

Specifically, Cohen said that he had paid hush money to two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, to buy their silence in the run-up to the 2016 election in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office referred to as Individual 1 in the governments charges. These payments were made, according to the plea deal, for the principal purpose of influencing the election.

The Cohen information does not leave any doubt that Individual-1 is President Trump. pic.twitter.com/ZswNFXr52b  southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) August 21, 2018

Cohen, a former lawyer and fixer for Trump, had surrendered to federal authorities earlier in the day after reaching a plea deal on eight federal charges. He pleaded guilty in a Manhattan courtroom to charges that encompassed bank fraud, tax fraud, and most importantly from the presidents point of view, the campaign-finance violations. The tax-fraud accusations includes possibly fraudulent loans that Cohen obtained during his shady years in the New York City taxi business. Sentencing will take place on December 12.

Cohens jaw-dropping disclosure came at around the same time as ex-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted on eight charges at his fraud trial Virginia.

Speaking to the press before a well-timed rally in West Virginia, Trump said he felt very badly about the Manafort verdict, but did not comment on Cohen.

Current Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said, puzzlingly, There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the governments charges against Mr. Cohen. It is clear that as the prosecutor noted Mr. Cohens actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.

Cohen is likely to face some prison time  CNN reports that Cohen is pressing for three years but prosecutors are seeking 50 months  and pay a hefty fine. But pleading guilty means that he will avoid a possibly lengthy and expensive trial. Politico reports that Cohen gave himself up to save millions of dollars, protect his family, and limit his exposure.

Things had been looking ominous for Cohen since the FBI raided his office over the campaign payments in April, hauling off reams of evidence that could be used against him and the president. Though he had been seen as the ultimate Trump loyalist (despite years of disdainful treatment from the president), he soon broke from his hero, presenting a major problem for the White House. Trumps lawyers have reportedly viewed the Cohen case as more threatening to his position than Special Counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation.

Whatever his future holds, the Michael Cohen appearing in court on Tuesday is a long way from the swaggering macher who used to threaten reporters and taunt certain other prominent people about the prospect of prison.
Authorities say two Chicago boys died after they were pulled from Lake Michigan at Indiana Dunes State Park in separate incidents.

The Porter County coroner's office on Saturday identified one of the deceased as 10-year-old Joshua Torres. He was found face down in the water Saturday afternoon about 40 yards from the shoreline.

The second boy, a 14-year-old, was found in the water in the same area about an hour later.

The older boy was taken to Porter Regional Hospital and later airlifted to a children's hospital at the University of Chicago.

Indiana's Department of Natural Resources said he died early Sunday morning. His name was not immediately released.

Officials are investigating.
The US presidents withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, combined with the persistent domestic unrest within the Islamic Republic, has reinforced many hardliners rejections of the sort of negotiation and outreach with Western enemies that enabled President Hassan Rouhani to realize the nuclear deal. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who had previously signed off on Rouhanis strategy, appeared to disavow that decision last week, saying that it was a mistake to trust the US as a negotiating partner. He also downplayed the prospective impact of newly re-imposed and forthcoming US sanctions, intimating that the recent, severe problems in Irans economy were more attributable to government mismanagement under Rouhanis nominal leadership.

These criticisms and reassertions of hardline authority were on display against the backdrop of a protest in the city of Qom, which is the center of theological scholarship in Iran and thus a sort of power base for the theocratic leadership. RFE/RL indicated that the protest was staged by a group of clerics who have joined Khamenei in blaming the economic situation upon Rouhani. They were reportedly accompanied by at least one official in the hardline Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, who addressed the event in which participants cheered and held placards.

Among those placards was one that was widely shared on social media because of the implied threat of violence. It said that those who advocate for negotiation should expect to end up in Farrahs swimming pool, a reference to the place in which the dead body of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was allegedly found last year. Apart from pointing to death as the outcome for Rouhani and his political allies, the message may have intended to imply the possibility of assassination, since some Iranians believe that Rafsanjani was killed by hardliners.

The potential significance of the threat is amplified by reports that the protest may have been organized by, and the placards provided by a highly influential political group. The RFE/RL article characterizes the Qom protest as seemingly having close connections to the principalist faction of mainstream Iranian politics, as well as to the principalist-aligned IRGC. It quotes the reformist cleric Ahmad Montazeri as attributing the protest to certain groups that believe they own the country. They feel they represent Islam, they are in military bodies as well security bodies. They can do whatever they want.

Such comments place the Qom protest in clear contrast to the largely spontaneous and grassroots protests that have been springing up in various cities and towns ever since the nationwide uprising in late December and early January. Some of the latest such demonstrations began on July 31 and continued for upwards of 10 days, thereby coinciding with the return, on August 7, of some of the economic sanctions that were suspended under the nuclear deal. In some of the dozen-or-so cities that participated in that movement, participants reportedly clashed with security forces, even forcing their withdrawal in some cases while chanting provocative slogans that became familiar during the December-January uprising.

Tehran has predictably attempted to downplay the seriousness and the popularity of these sorts of protests, as well as using state media to blame them on foreign infiltrators and a US plot to engineer regime change. Although Trump administration officials including the president himself have repeatedly voiced support for the Iranian people and their developing conflict with the clerical regime, they have steadfastly denied that their policy is oriented toward regime change.

This has, of course, not stopped Irans leadership from presenting the Islamic Republic as under threat from a foreign conspiracy rather than from spontaneous domestic unrest. And Foreign Minister Javad Zarif reiterated the official narrative on Sunday as he marked the 65th anniversary of the British-American coup that removed Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and reinforced the dictatorship of the Shah. Zarif said via Twitter that the US now dreams of doing the same through pressure, misinformation & demagoguery. To support this, he pointed to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeos announcement last week that he was forming an Iran Action Group to take charge of Iran policy, with the stated goal of compelling the Iranian government to change its behavior.

As well as overstating the purpose of the IAG, Zarifs comments sought to contribute to the familiar practice of projecting an image of strength in the face of largely imagined threats. Any effort to undermine the clerical regime would be doomed to failure, he said, according to Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, other Iranian political and military officials continued to push the narrative of rapidly growing Iranian military strength, thereby implying that the regime is capable of confronting the US directly or closing off the Strait of Hormuz to regional oil exports, as it has threatened to do at various times in the past.

The Algemeiner reported on Monday that a leading Iranian official had repeated Tehrans declaration that its ballistic missile program is non-negotiable and entirely separate from the nuclear deal that European officials are attempted to keep in force despite the American withdrawal. This comes shortly after the IRGC performed its first test-launch of a ballistic missile in over a year, thereby resuming one of the key behaviors that had been cited by critics of the nuclear deal as evidence that Tehran was not honoring its commitments. Although ballistic missiles were indeed kept separate from the nuclear deal itself, a concurrent United Nations Security Council resolution declared that Iran was expected to refrain from the development or testing of such nuclear-capable weapons.

The latest ballistic missile test was performed in the midst of Iranian naval exercises that were originally scheduled to take place months later. The accelerated drill was characterized as a test of the swarm tactics that the IRGC naval forces would theoretically employ to combat larger navies and close of the Strait of Hormuz. And at the same time that these tactics are being highlighted, the regular Iranian Navy is apparently striving to present itself as further closing the gap with foreign powers by increasing the pace of domestic military development.

As an example of this, Reuters reported on Monday that naval officials claimed to have installed and successfully tested a new weapons system on one Iranian warship. The Kamand system was reportedly compared to the American automated machine gun known as Phalanx, which is capable of destroying incoming missiles. The report notes that Iran has indeed developed a large domestic weapons industry in order to compensate for the fact that it is barred from importing military hardware. But Iranian authorities frequently exaggerate that industrys accomplishments, relying on non-functional mockups or outmoded equipment with superficial modifications to give the impression that their military has not been seriously affected by economic sanctions.

Now, those sanctions are set to increase as the US re-imposes its measures and maintains pressure on the Europeans to do the same. European businesses have largely been unwilling to risk US penalties by remaining in the Iranian market, even as European authorities try to keep the nuclear deal alive. This was made evident once again on Monday when the Associated Press reported that the French energy giant Total had pulled out of Iran after cancelling a five billion dollar, 20 year agreement to aid in the development of the South Pars oil field. According to the report, Total had only spent 40 million Euros to date since returning to Iranian market following the conclusion of nuclear negotiations.

At the same time, the White House and other opponents of the Iranian regime are seemingly stepping up their efforts to convince European leaders to abandon their policy of trying to protect Iran from US-led pressure. It remains to be seen whether the belligerent Iranian response to that pressure will help the American case, but it goes without saying that it will only reinforce the positions of those countries that are already lined up against Iran.

Indeed, Iran seemingly embraced renewed tensions with its regional adversaries on Monday, when, according to UPI, it accused other member states in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries of violating the cartels protocol by exerting control over fellow members production or export quotas. The relevant remarks, expressed in a letter to OPEC and in a statement to the Iranian Oil Ministrys official news outlet, evidently referred to an agreement that was made last year to limit oil production in order to buttress falling prices. The agreement had already been a source of worse tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, but Iran ultimately signed onto the agreement after fellow OPEC members agreed to allow Iran to increase its own output until it reached self-described pre-sanctions levels.

Now, Iran appears to be disavowing the agreement in much the same way Khamenei disavowed negotiations with the US after previously approving them. Iranian envoy Kazem Gharibabadi was quoted as saying, Iran believes that OPEC should support its members firmly under the current conditions and prevent other countries that are seeking to politicize the organization. Such statements seem to urge multilateral defiance of Western interests and can easily be regarded as veiled insults to close US allies like Saudi Arabia.

If Iran continues along these lines, it may stoke further escalation in the multifaceted conflicts between Iran and Saudi Arabia. September 23 may provide a testing ground for this when Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh attends a conference in Algeria meant to monitor compliance with the OPEC agreement. As UPI notes, the meeting comes at a crucial time, only about six weeks before the re-imposition of the rest of the US sanctions that were suspended under the nuclear deal.
IOM spokeswoman Eva Schwoerer said: The number of Afghan returnees from Iran in 2018 has been unprecedented.

These migrant workers and refugees had originally left their war-torn homeland, where the Taliban is still present, in order to earn more money to support their families, but the economic crisis in Iran has caused a massive devaluation of the rial, which has wiped out their earnings.

So far, 191,056 returned voluntarily, while 251,288 were deported as Iran toughens its border controls.

This economic crisis, caused by the mullahs corruption and mismanagement of the Iranian people s money, has been exacerbated over the past year due to the USs tough policy on Iran and especially in the last few months as Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal and vowed to re-impose sanctions on Iran. Indeed, the rial has lost half its value in the past three months.

This meant that Afghan migrants, who typically work in less secure jobs, have become so desperate for work that they have to return to a country facing its worst drought in living memory and still heavily affected by a 17-year-long war.

Abdul Mussawir, 22, is one of those Afghan migrants. When he originally went to Iran in 2015, he earned about $260 a month working in an auto factory in Isfahan. His wages have since dropped to about a third of that because of the rials devaluation, so he has returned to Afghanistan.

He said: It doesnt make sense to come back here but I have to.

Abdullah Wasi Zahariyan, who spent a year working on a cucumber farm in Isfahan, explained that he returned home after his wages dropped by 60% due to the devaluation of the rial.

While Aleem Mohmini, 17, who was deported after Iranian police caught him illegally working on a tomato farm, is pondering his future in a country with high unemployment.

He said: I dont know what I should do. Theres no one in my family to earn money.

One thing is clear from this. The Iranian economic collapse is spreading far and wide. This is yet another reason why the region will be better off, when the mullahs are removed from power.
In an article for Arab News, Dr. Majid Rafizadeh wrote: Despite the Iranian leaders hyperbole and threats of all-out war against Washington, Tehrans military is literally no match for that of the US. In addition, Iranian leaders must stop threatening other countries, including the US, with war because any conflict would be devastating for millions of people in the region.

But how did he come to this conclusion? A simple comparison of the US and Iranian militaries, which does not end up with Iran on top. Lets look at this comparison.

Budget

The US military budget is the highest in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, with over $600 billion (roughly 4% of GDP). Irans is only $14 billion (or 3% of GDP). That means the USs military budget is about 40 times higher than Irans.

Personnel and weaponry

The US currently has 1.3 million active, 811,000 reserve, and 73 million available personnel for war. Iran, by comparison, has 550,000 active, 1.8 million reserve and 23 million available. Anyone can see that the US would be able to crush Iran with sheer numbers alone.

The US military personnel are also better trained and using better equipment than the Iranians.

Land forces: The US roughly 60,000 tanks, total artillery, and armoured fighting vehicles, compared with Irans 8,000, meaning the US has eight times as many vehicles. Plus, much of Irans weaponry is outdated.

Air forces: The US has about fifteen times more aircraft than Iran (12,000 versus 800) and the US fleet is top of the range

Nuclear: While Iran undoubtedly has a nuclear weapons programme, it does not yet have any warheads, but the US has over 7,000 nuclear warheads.

Rankings and History

In fact, according to the 2018 Global Fire Power report, the US has the most powerful military in the world.

If we look back at previous wars, the US was able to defeat Saddam Husseins Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan in just a few weeks, something that Iran was unable to do in lengthy wars.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh wrote: In other words, in spite of the threats from Qassem Soleimani, Irans Quds Force chief, that the Iranian military is capable of destroying all that the US owns, if the regime went to war with Washington, the US would most likely paralyze various parts of Irans military in a matter of weeks.
The Russians are still at it. Photo: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Over the weekend, the White House suggested all the focus on Russias interference in U.S. politics is deeply misguided. Trump tweeted on Saturday that all of the fools worrying about Russia should be looking at China too. A day later, National Security Adviser John Bolton said the administration is looking into possible Russian meddling in the midterms, as well as attempts by three other nations.

I can say definitively that its a sufficient national security concern about Chinese meddling, Iranian meddling, and North Korean meddling that were taking steps to try and prevent it, Bolton said on ABCs This Week. So all four of those countries, really.

But the latest news on foreign attempts to infiltrate U.S. politics confirms why Russia remains such a concern. Microsoft said on Tuesday that its detected and seized six websites targeting the U.S. Senate and conservative think tanks, which were created by hackers linked to the Russian military intelligence unit that tried to influence the 2016 election. Other nations may be making similar cyberattacks on the U.S., but Microsoft and other tech firms have only reported evidence of Russias election-meddling efforts.

For the past two years, Microsoft has been waging a legal battle against the Russian hacking group that targeted Democrats in the 2016 election, which is known as Strontium, Fancy Bear, or APT28. Last year the company obtained court approval to seize fake domains created by the Russians, going on to shut down 78 of these sites.

Last week Microsoft took over six more: three fake domains mimicking the Senate, one modeled after a generic Microsoft site, and two meant to look like conservative think tanks the Hudson Institute or the International Republican Institute.

The site could have been used to trick people working at those institutions to click on the fake links, which would redirect them to a page where hackers would attempt to steal their passwords and other information.

Microsoft has been able to take control of these domains days after theyre created, and theres no evidence that the hackers were successful in their latest effort to trick someone into giving away their credentials. But keeping up with Russias hackers is exceedingly difficult.

Microsoft is playing whack-a-mole here, Thomas Rid, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University, told the New York Times. These sites are easy to register and bring back up, and so they will keep doing so.

As the Times notes, the targeting of the conservative think tanks shows how Russian intelligence is going after institutions that challenge Moscow and President Vladimir Putin. The Hudson Institute promotes programs that examine the rise of kleptocracy worldwide, and while addressing the group last month, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats called Russia the most aggressive foreign actor working to divide Americans. The International Republican Institutes board of directors includes several Republicans who have been very critical of Trump and Russia, including John McCain and Mitt Romney. Russian hackers were caught spoofing several think tanks, such as the Council on Foreign Relations, during the 2016 election as well.

Microsofts disclosure is far from the first indication that Russia is still at it. A few weeks ago, Democratic senator Claire McCaskill said Russians had unsuccessfully attempted to hack her computer network. At last months Aspen Security Forum, Tom Burt, Microsofts vice-president of customer security and trust, revealed that the company had tracked Strontiums attempts to hack three congressional candidates, whom he did not name.

Earlier this year, we did discover that a fake Microsoft domain had been established as the landing page for phishing attacks, and we saw metadata that suggested those phishing attacks were being directed at three candidates who were all standing for election in the midterm elections, Burt said.

For months, senior U.S. intelligence officials have been warning of Russian attempts to interfere in the midterm elections. We continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told reporters earlier this month.

Were throwing everything at it, Coats said, adding that the U.S. is doing everything we can to have a legitimate election that the American people can have trust in.
A man outside the courthouse where Paul Manafort was convicted Tuesday. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Paul Manafort is now, officially, a white-collar criminal. On Tuesday, a federal jury found the presidents former campaign manager guilty on 8 of the 18 counts that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had brought against him. The jurors were unable to reach a verdict on the ten other counts, and Judge T.S. Ellis declared a mistrial on those charges.

None of Manaforts crimes were related to Russian interference in the 2016 election (as the presidents stalwart supporters will eagerly inform you). Rather, in the course of investigating such interference, Mueller uncovered evidence that Manafort had committed a wide variety of financial crimes  including the five counts of tax fraud, one of hiding foreign bank accounts, and two of bank fraud that the jury convicted Manafort of on Tuesday (the jury was unable to agree about whether Manafort was guilty of three other charges of failing to report foreign bank accounts and seven other counts of bank fraud or conspiracy to commit bank fraud). Although the convictions have no direct bearing on Muellers broader investigation, they serve to legitimize his probe  and could also, theoretically, loosen Paul Manaforts lips. If the former Trump aide does not talk (and doesnt recieve a presidential pardon) he could face as many as 80 years in prison.

Trumps former attorney John Dowd reportedly floated the possibility of a pardon to Manaforts attorneys last summer. The president, for his part, has given indications that he regards Manafort as an innocent man who has been railroaded by a corrupt investigation. Last week, Trump said that it was very sad what theyve done to Paul Manafort, insisting that his former campaign manager was a very good person. On Tuesday afternoon, Trump called Manaforts conviction a disgrace.

BREAKING: Trump says Manafort conviction `has nothing to do with Russian collusion,' calls it `a disgrace'  The Associated Press (@AP) August 21, 2018

The prosecution built its case around the testimony of Manaforts longtime business partner  and Trumps 2016 deputy campaign manager  Rick Gates. Gates pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and lying to the FBI, thereby securing leniency in exchange for his cooperation in the Manafort case. Gates testified that Manafort had directed him to help falsify Manaforts tax returns, leave 15 of Manaforts bank accounts unreported, and leave the U.S. government unaware of his bosss status as a foreign agent (in defiance of federal law). The defense argued that Gates had committed such crimes without Manaforts awareness. In its bid to compromise the witnesss credibility, Manaforts attorneys confronted Gates with (among other things) his alleged four extramarital affairs. The defense believed that its cross-examinations had proven that the prosecution could not meet its burden of proof, and opted to call no witnesses of its own.

During his campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump insisted that his exceptional taste in personnel would compensate for his political inexperience, saying, repeatedly, that he hires the best people. Since taking office, Trumps first national security adviser, campaign chairman, campaign foreign policy adviser, deputy campaign manager, and personal attorney have all been convicted of federal crimes.
When I arrived the contractions were not strong and I allowed the woman to continue.

After a quick shower and having advised Sr Tina Swokin to rupture the membranes I made my way to the ward.

At nine in the morning, I was buzzed that the mum had been pushing for 20 minutes with no progress of the baby through the birth canal.

Lorna sounded worried on the radio but I assured her that as long as the first twin was cephalic and the membranes were intact, this was not going to turn into a serious situation. It was safe to allow labour to continue.

It's my policy to be present for the delivery of all women having twins so it was probably about 3am but I didn't look at the clock as Im used to being woken at all manner of times.

The mother had just walked in, so it was too late for the normal process of arranging a blood donor. All mums with twins need to have blood cross-matched as they have a higher incidence of post-partum haemorrhage (bleeding).

RUMGINAE - I was sleeping when the buzzer on the two-way radio from Mid-Ward jerked me awake. It was community health worker Lorna calling to say there was a mother in labour and she was carrying twins.

Dr Kevin Pondikou nurses two of Papua New Guineas newest citizens: the twins born at Rumginae on Friday 17 August

After an hour, I determined it was time to intervene. I augmented the labour with oxytocin to strengthen the contractions. Before the delivery I did an episiotomy, where the vaginal wall is cut to make it bigger.

About 30 minutes later the first twin, a male weighing 2.5kg, was born. The second twin was born after a few more minutes, also a boy and weighing 2.45kg.

After the delivery, I checked for tears to the vaginal walls and found one that had to be sutured. Having done that, I left to attend a staff in-service session.

An hour later, after the in-service, I came to check the mother. Sr Swokin said she had been about to buzz me because the mother was still bleeding.

I rechecked the vaginal canal and sutured again. She had lost at least a litre of blood and thankfully Sr Maggie Parila had done a haemoglobin check and cross-match.

As the mother was now stable I returned to my other duties.

At the end of the day a unit of whole blood was available, so the mother was transfused. It was a great effort by the staff members to find the blood so quickly.

In the evening I was in my office compiling my HIV drug inventory with community health worker Mubbie.

After completing it at 8pm, I made my way to the MAF shed next to the airstrip to get some internet coverage to email my HIV report.

At 9pm community health worker Ori buzzed me to say the mother was bleeding. Community health worker student Kivence arrived at the shed and we went to the maternity ward.

When I assessed the situation, I was certain the mother would require another blood transfusion so, while checking the vaginal canal for the cause of the bleeding,I asked Kivence to find the on-call pathology officer to do a cross-match.

It was now 10pm and I knew it would be a frantic search for a blood donor at such an odd time.

Kivence walked to the two pathology laboratory officers residence on the station to locate the one on call. He came with Mr Dusi.

By this stage total blood loss was approaching 2.5 litres and I wanted two bags of Group O. I desperately asked Kivence to check if the students sleeping in the men's dorm could donate a bag. Kivence found one student, Nason, who was Group O and he agreed to donate.

It being after lights out, Nason also helped community health worker student Florence hold a torch while I conducted an examination.

The patients mother, a village woman, was present and requested that the mother be left alone and given tablets:- she thought the bleeding would settle.

But I was adamant that this mother needed medical intervention because maternal mortality in Papua New Guinea is the highest in the world second only to Afghanistan.

Women usually die due to haemorrhage or sepsis associated with child birth. Alarm bells were ringing in my head.

I asked community health worker Epami to ask the patients mother to check relatives on the station for a compatible blood donor. By now it was midnight. Thankfully a donor was found at this ungodly hour.

But there were still hurdles to jump. Dusi didn't have his key to the lab which meant Nason had to use my keys to open the pharmacy, scale a high wall and climb into the lab to open it.

All was done in record time.

By this stage I had diagnosed the cause of bleeding as lack of thrombin (needed for blood to clot). The patient had bled so much she didn't have any clotting factors.

Dusi came with Nason's blood which I transfused, followed by transfusion of the relatives blood. It was 1am.

When I heard the blood was ready I raised my arms in victory and shouted "Yes!".

We transfused the blood and continued the antibiotics. The bleeding had subsided and I planned to review her later in the morning.

At the review, there was no more bleeding.

I was still in shock from having walked a precipice. I had never been so close to losing a woman after delivery.

I have known women in remote aid posts who have died during child birth but this was the first time I had come so close to a woman dying in front of me.

Pregnant women in remote Papua New Guinea should not have to fear death during labour. Pregnancy should not be a death sentence.

As I write this I am so glad to have been supported by the community health worker staff and students and lab and nursing officers.

The twins are absolutely gorgeous and doing well and mum is out of deaths clutches but still being closely monitored

She will survive.
An iceberg stranded near the village of Innaarsuit, in the Avannaata Municipality, northwestern Greenland. Photo: Karl Petersen/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Everyone thought that the sea ice off Greenlands north coast would stay together forever  or, at least, for as long as such things ever last.

And it wasnt hard to see why: That stretch of Arctic sea ice was the oldest and strongest that anyone had ever known. Through thick and thin, summer and winter, the ice had held together. And its bond appeared to be growing stronger with the years, as the Transpolar Drift Stream brought more and more chunks of Siberian ice into its family. Climate scientists took to calling it the last ice area  on the assumption that, when all other sea ice had drifted apart, Greenlands north coast would be the last one keeping it together.

But time changes a sea ice. And none of us are immune to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune  nor those of anthropogenic carbon emissions. Extraordinary spikes in Arctic temperatures in February and early August of this year left the ice vulnerable to winds, which have now begun blowing them apart. As the Guardian reports:

Ice is easier to blow around as a result of a warming trend, which has accelerated over the past 15 years. The thinning is reaching even the coldest part of the Arctic with the thickest ice. So its a pretty dramatic indication of the transformation of the Arctic sea ice and Arctic climate[,] [said Walt Meier of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.]

Scary, wrote Thomas Lavergne, a scientist at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, in a retweet of a satellite-gif of the blue water penetrating white ice and exposing hundreds of miles of the Greenland coastline.

He said this would flush chunks of thicker ice out through the Fram or Nares Straits into warmer southern waters.

I cannot tell how long this open water patch will remain open, but even if it closes in few days from now, the harm will be done: the thick old sea ice will have been pushed away from the coast, to an area where it will melt more easily, he added.

Those who know the coastal sea ice best expect it to get back together eventually. But that reconciliation could be delayed by the forces unleashed by their separation. Specifically, the gap thats opened up between the ice will increase solar heating of the water column, pushing it further apart.

But the breakup is most alarming for its broader implications. The revelation of the famously solid sea ices fragility lends credence to the idea that man-made warming will unleash reinforcing climate feedbacks that could tip the planet into a hothouse state.

In other words: If the oldest, thickest sea ice in the Arctic cant stay together, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Best known for an open wallet that kept Rick Santorum in the 2012 presidential race, Foster Friess is being rewarded by Trump for his steady loyalty. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images; Brooks Kraft/Corbis via Getty Images

President Trump continued his pattern of very late interventions in Republican primaries with an endorsement in todays Wyoming gubernatorial primary:

To the incredible people of the Great State of Wyoming: Go VOTE TODAY for Foster Friess - He will be a fantastic Governor! Strong on Crime, Borders & 2nd Amendment. Loves our Military & our Vets. He has my complete and total Endorsement!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2018

That tweet didnt come out until after the polls had been open for an hour or so, but presumably a majority of Election Day voters will hear about it. At the beginning of the Wyoming gubernatorial contest (incumbent Republican Matt Meade is term-limited), Friess (a 78-year-old billionaire investment manager) might have been better known nationally than in Wyoming, thanks to his notoriety as a major conservative donor. He personally bankrolled much of Rick Santorums 2012 presidential campaign, which posed the one major threat to Mitt Romneys nomination in the GOP primaries. And his Christian right cultural views got some unsavory publicity for him when he made this comment about contraception to MSNBCs Andrea Mitchell:

Back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives  The gals put it between their knees, and it wasnt that costly.

A real knee-slapper, eh?

Friess got on the 2016 Trump bandwagon shortly before his fellow-mogul secured the GOP nomination, and has gone out of his way to express support for him in some of his most difficult moments, like the presidents terrible handling of the white riot in Charlottesville. The POTUS endorsement was foreshadowed by an op-ed on Friesss behalf by Donald Trump Jr., who noted his usefulness in opening checkbooks for Trump among other big donors. And he also obtained support from the venerable Christian right group the Family Research Council, from Rand Paul, and of course from Rick Santorum.

But Friesss best friend has been his own wallet. Hes invested well over $2 million in his campaign, which goes a long way in low-cost Wyoming. Another self-funder, Sam Galeotos, has put about a million into his own campaign. And water rights attorney Harriet Hageman, a proud anti-environmentalist, is trying to flank the whole field on the right. All three of these candidates have been chasing the early front-runner, State Treasurer Mark Gordon, who has been endorsed by much of the states GOP Establishment. According to the limited public polling in Wyoming, any of the four of the above-named candidates could win.

But in other primaries this year (notably Georgia, Kansas, and Michigan), late Trump endorsements have tilted the balance to his favorites. Well soon know if his winning streak continues.

Trump also endorsed Wyoming U.S. senator John Barrasso several weeks ago. The incumbent is facing a long-shot primary challenge from self-funding businessman Dave Dodson, whos deploying a Trumpian outsider drain the swamp message against Trumps own choice. An unlikely loss by Barrasso would be a shocker to the White House and to Wyomings political class.
Legendary Evangelist Morris Cerullo Holds Los Angeles Crusade

International evangelist Dr. Morris Cerullo will hold a two-day crusade in Los Angeles on Friday, August 24, and Saturday, August 25. The free services will take place at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., at the historic Angelus Temple, 1100 Glendale Blvd., in Los Angeles.

The crusade, one of four that Cerullo will conduct across the nation, will mark several milestones in the heralded preachers life including 72-years of worldwide ministry, 67-years of marriage, 87th birthday and one-year anniversary of his healing from paralyzing vasculitis.

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God said, America needs to experience once more my supernatural powerjust like I healed you, I want you to take My healing power to Los Angeles, Toronto, New York and Washington, DC. I must be faithful to the Lord! I am calling on friends and those in need everywhere to stand with me, to pray with me, mark these dates down and make your plans to join me, said Cerullo.

Appearing with Cerullo are former MLB player Darryl Strawberry, Phoenix First Assembly of God Pastor Tommy Barnett, Cornerstone Church of San Diego Pastor Sergio De La Mora, Victory Christian Fellowship in New Castle, Delaware Pastor Gary Whetstone, the Rev. Greg Mauro of Morris Cerullo Ministries and vocalist Judy Jacobs.

The Final Los Angeles Crusade will feature two, great, historic, power-packed days of impartation, salvation, healing, teaching, miracles, special music and the old-fashioned power of God, added Cerullo.

To request complimentary commemorative tickets, visit mcwe.com/events or for more information, call 1-858-633-4885.

Christian leaders from around the world have sent kind words of honor and tribute to Dr. Cerullo on the historic occasion of these final crusades:

Bishop Kenneth Ulmer: Dr. Morris Cerullo, on behalf of countless millions who have been blessed and inspired by your life, by your ministry, we pray Gods blessings upon you. May these final crusades be covered in prayer by believers, by those who have been healed, those who have been blessed, those who have been inspired around the world by all that God has done through you! As you go on this last journey, it really wont be the last because God still has a lot to do through you!

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Pastor Brian Houston: Praise God for the life and the ministry of Dr. Morris Cerullo. So many multitudes have been impacted over all these years with the gospel and the power of God. Dr. Cerullo, thank you for a life well lived! We believe the days ahead for you are days of great strength and victory  as well as those who will be a part of this North American tour, where the needy cities of the US are being reached. Thank God for you and lets all together be inspired by a life well lived like that of Dr. Morris Cerullo.

Dr. Bill Winston: Whatever you do, get to one of these final crusades! You will be abundantly blessed and become part of history. Great ready to experience an outpouring of Gods anointing. When you do, you will never be the same!

Pastor Miles McPherson: Over the last few years Ive had the privilege and honor of ministering with Dr. Cerullo. After 72 years of ministry his energy  his anointing  his stamina is absolutely amazing and incredible! I know God will bless you when you attend one of these final crusades. Prepare your hearts to receive everything Gods going to bring through Dr. Morris Cerullo. God bless you!

Marcus and Joni Lamb: Dr. Morris Cerullo, what a great man of God! You are in store for an anointed, impactful service! What a legacy! We celebrate you, we honor you, and I know that those of you that will attend one of these final crusades will be mightily blessed. We love you Morris and Theresa Cerullo!

Rod Parsley: I am so proud to call Dr. Morris Cerullo my dear friend and one of the greatest apostles of any generation. I thank God for your truly remarkable legacy of 72 years of worldwide ministry. At 86 years young, hes not finished yet! Hes taking a victory lap, conducting four historic farewell crusades. One in New York, one in Washington, DC, another in Los Angeles and then in Toronto. I want to encourage you  do whatever you have to do to join one of these truly historic crusades. Youll never ever have an opportunity again to be in the presence of one of Gods greatest generals operating with such power and anointing. Dont dare miss it! In order not to miss it, make your plans and make them today!

Kenneth Copeland: Morris Cerullo is one of my great gospel heroes that I have known and been closely associated with for nearly 40 years. Hes blessed my life. Hes blessed this ministry. I want to encourage you to be at one of these final, historic crusades. You dont want to miss this! Not only that, you need to support this giant in these meetings. Add your faith to his. Youll be glad you did. You know why? Jesus is Lord!

Perry Stone: As of today, practically every man from the healing revival era  Dr. T.L. Lowery  Oral Roberts  and even Billy Graham (who was not known for a healing ministry, but had a great salvation ministry), have all gone to be with the Lord. There is only one five-star general from the healing revival era that remains among us  Dr. Morris Cerullo. As Dr. Cerullo receives this mandate from God in his Caleb years, and travels to New York  Los Angeles  Toronto  Washington DC  to present the gospel, I ask you to pray for him and support him. God bless you, Dr. Cerullo! I admire you, I love you, and I appreciate you very much!

Cindy Jacobs: Morris Cerullo has changed the face of the planet over these past 72 years. Millions have come to Christ through his ministry. I want to encourage you  the same miracle-working God that raised up Morris Cerullo will be present in New York  Los Angeles  Washington DC  Toronto! I encourage you to pray  be there  and receive your miracle!

John Bevere: I can remember when I was in my early twenties attending Dr. Cerullos meetings, being so impacted by the presence of God and by the Word of God that came from your lips. Thank you for being such a great ambassador for the Kingdom your entire life. You have impacted our nation and the nations of the world in a profound way.

Sam Rodriguez: There are people who have participated in history and then there are those who have literally made history. We have one of Gods generals about to impart the Word and unleash an anointing that will do nothing less than change lives and release God-ordained destiny. Daddy Morris Cerullo is a spiritual father in the Kingdom, a friend  one of my heroes that I admire and love very much. Dont miss these crusades in New York  Los Angeles  Washington DC  Toronto. There will be 72 years of anointing released in each crusade  a life-changing impartation. Dont miss it!

Creflo Dollar: Dr. Cerullo never quits  he allows dreams and visions to come to pass. He has made a huge difference and mark in the lives of people all around the world. His anointing is needed right now!

Jentezen Franklin: He is a living legend, a difference maker that has touched the entire planet with his ministry. I want to be like him! He is my hero for modelling a beautiful ministry to the world.

Joel Osteen: Dr. Morris Cerullo is truly a legend among legends in the Body of Christ. His teachings are inspired, his dedication undeniable, and his influence global. His legacy will live for generations to come.

Franklin Graham: Incredible Morris Cerullo has done so much! We thank him for his faithfulness to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. All that matters is that a soul is saved!

Tommy Barnett: For seven decades, Dr. Cerullo has touched the world like no other man I know. Not only has he preached to many of the largest crowds in history and seen incredible miracles, but he has trained an army of millions of ministers worldwide- men who have built some of the great churches in their nations.

Dr. Pat Robertson: God has always looked for a man. He found that man in Morris Cerullo, who has been used mightily to take the Gospel around the world. Morris is a man of great faith, and the power of the Lord has been mightily evidenced in his life!
This is Whats Trending Today

Italian actor Asia Argento is among the leading activists of the #MeToo movement against sexual abuse in Hollywood. She was one of the first women to publicly accuse film producer Harvey Weinstein of abuse.

Now, a young actor and musician says Argento sexually assaulted him.

The New York Times reports that Argento recently reached a financial settlement with the accuser, Jimmy Bennett.

Bennett, who is 22, reportedly had filed documents describing the claim of assault and his plan to sue Argento.

Bennet says Argento had sex with him in a California hotel in 2013. He had just turned 17 years old. Argento was 37 at the time. The age of sexual consent in California is 18.

The documents say the experience harmed Bennett mentally and hurt his career, the Times reported.

The New York Times says it received court documents that included a picture of Argento and Bennett in bed together. Three people close to the case said the documents were real, the Times reported.

Argento reportedly agreed to pay Bennett $380,000.

Argento and Bennett co-starred in a 2004 film called "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things." In the movie, Argento played a sex worker who was Bennett's mother.

Argento is one of the best-known activists of the #MeToo movement. Last year, she told the New Yorker magazine that Weinstein raped her at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 when she was 21 years old.

Argento told the magazine that she continued to have a relationship with Weinstein because she was afraid of angering him.

Weinstein has been charged with sex crimes against three women. Argento is not one of them.

And thats Whats Trending Today.

Im Ashley Thompson

The Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

assault - v. to violently attack (someone or something)

file - v. to give (something, such as an official form or a legal document) to someone in authority so that it can be considered, dealt with, approved, etc.

sue - v. to use a legal process by which you try to get a court of law to force a person, company, or organization that has treated you unfairly or hurt you in some way to give you something or to do something : to bring a lawsuit against someone or something

consent - n. permission for something to happen or be done


El Salvador has broken off ties with Taiwan and established relations with China.

President Salvador Sanchez Ceren announced the change late Monday in a nationwide address. He said the Central American nations decision was made after careful study.

Taiwan split from mainland China as part of a civil war in 1949. China still considers self-ruled Taiwan a part of Chinese territory, not an independent state with rights to establish foreign relations. The Chinese government bars countries it has diplomatic relations with from having official ties with Taiwan.

El Salvador is the fifth country to drop Taiwan as a diplomatic ally since 2016. Taiwan currently has official diplomatic ties with just 17 small, developing nations.

In Taipei, President Tsai Ing-wen blamed the decision on China. She promised to keep resisting efforts she said are clearly aimed at further pressuring Taiwan diplomatically.

We will turn to countries with similar values to fight together against Chinas increasingly out-of-control international behavior, Tsai said.

Taiwans Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told reporters Taiwan had not been willing to get involved in a money competition with China.

He said El Salvador had repeatedly sought massive funding support since last year for a port development. But in the end, Taiwan decided not to assist with the project. Wu said El Salvadors ruling party had also asked Taiwan to provide money to help it win in elections, but Taiwan refused.

In Beijing, the Chinese governments top diplomat, Wang Yi, said El Salvador had made the right decision.

Im confident that the people of El Salvador will feel the warmth and friendship of the Chinese people and derive tangible benefits from its cooperation with China, Wang told reporters.

The U.S. government expressed concern about El Salvadors decision to split diplomatically with Taiwan.

U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Jean Manes wrote in a tweet late Monday the decision was worrisome for many reasons. She added that the decision would without a doubt affect the U.S. relationship with El Salvadors government.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Bryan Lynn adapted this story for VOA Learning English from reports from the Associated Press and Reuters. Hai Do 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

derive  v. come from or be developed from something

tangible  adj. something real that can be seen, touched or measured

benefit  n. something that helps you or provides an advantage

doubt  n. feeling of not being sure about something


More than two million Muslims from 165 countries gathered to throw stones at a large wall near the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. The event shows the believers rejection of the devil. It is part of the yearly pilgrimage to Islams holy sites known as hajj.

But the number of pilgrims in the hajj can make the event risky. In 2015, at least 800 people died when two large groups arrived at the road to the stoning site at the same time. The crush was the worst hajj-related disaster in at least 25 years.

Officials in Saudi Arabia have taken several steps to make sure the situation does not happen again. They have created a bridge to ease crowding, and they are using security forces and drones to keep order. Medical workers are also at the scene.

Pilgrimage and Saudi Arabia

Providing for the safety of pilgrims is important to the Saudi Arabian government. King Salman tweeted on Monday, Our countrys greatest honor is to serve Gods guests.

Pilgrimage is also critical to a Saudi plan to expand tourism and move the economy away from oil. Every year, religious visitors spend billions of dollars on hotels, transportation, fees and gifts.

One pilgrim from Jordan told a reporter that he was very pleased with this years event. Firas al-Khashani said, The police assistance and the services were all extraordinary. Praise God, I am very happy and God willing our Lord will provide for us again.

Almost 2.5 million pilgrims are attending the hajj this year. The five-day ritual is a religious duty that all Muslims are expected to perform at least once in their lives, if they are physically able and can afford the trip.

Im Kelly Jean Kelly.

Kelly Jean Kelly adapted this story for VOA Learning English from a report by Reuters. Hai Do was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

pilgrimage  n. a journey to a holy place

crush - n. a crowd of people who are pressed close together

drone - n. a type of small aircraft that flies without a pilot

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.


Software maker Microsoft says that hackers linked to Russias government tried to launch computer attacks on United States websites. The websites belonged to the U.S. Senate and to some conservative American research groups known as think tanks.

Microsoft warned that Russia is expanding its attacks before U.S. congressional elections in November.

The worlds biggest software company said late on Monday that last week it took control of six web domains that hackers had created to look like websites belonging to the Senate and the think tanks. Users who visited the false websites were asked to enter information to log in to them.

Microsofts action is its latest effort to stop what it says are Russian government hacking attempts. The company said it has shut down 84 false websites in 12 court-approved actions over the past two years.

The attacks are believed to have come from APT28, a group under the Russian military intelligence agency GRU. It is believed to be the same group that interfered with the 2016 U.S. election. Microsoft did not blame the group directly, but named them in their statement.

Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote about the hacking incident in a blog post. He said he was concerned that the hacking attempts are a security risk to American political parties as they near the 2018 election.

Microsoft said it had no evidence that the hackers had been able to use any of the login information before the sites were removed from the web.

This kind of attack is known as spear fishing. Spear fishing describes an operation in which hackers trick people into entering their username and password into a false site in order to steal their login information.

Gaining login information would permit the hackers to get emails, contact lists and other information of important individuals.

Reuters news service reported that Russia rejected the Microsoft accusations and said there was no evidence to support them.

We dont know what hackers they are talking about, Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Who exactly are they talking about? He added that Microsoft did not show any real evidence to support their accusations.

Russia has denied that it used hackers to effect U.S. elections and political opinion.

The targets, Microsoft said, included the International Republican Institute. Its Republican members include Senator John McCain of Arizona.

The Hudson Institute, another target, has held discussions on cyber security, Microsoft noted. It also explored the rise of government corruption and theft in Russia, and has been critical of the Russian government.

Other false domains were used to look like real websites used by the U.S. Senate and Microsofts Office software, the company said.

Microsofts report came as tensions between Russia and the U.S have grown.

In July, a U.S. federal grand jury charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking into the computer networks of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party in 2016.

Im Susan Shand.

Reuters and the Associated Press reported this story. Susan Shand adapted the story for Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

hacker  n. person who secretly gets access to a computer system in order to get information, cause damage, etc.


Pope Francis released a letter to Roman Catholics around the world Monday condemning sexual abuse by Church officials and efforts to hide it. He demanded responsibility be taken but he did not say how he might punish those involved. He also did not propose a plan to stop such wrongdoing.

Francis asked forgiveness for the suffering of victims. He said all Catholics must be involved in the effort to stop abuse and attempts to hide abuse. He denounced the clergy culture that has been blamed for the crisis. Church leaders are accused of being more concerned with their self-image than the safety of children.

With shame and repentance, Francis wrote, we admit we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives.

He added, We showed no care for the little ones.

The Vatican released the three-page letter before Francis' trip to Ireland Saturday.

Francis letter was a reaction to American and Irish pressure that he takes a strong position on the worldwide abuse crisis. That pressure increased after he traveled to Chile in January. There he dismissed victims' accusations of abuse as calumny, meaning lies to hurt someones image.

The pope's trip to Ireland was expected to deal with sex abuse in the Church. However, it became an even bigger issue following reports about one of the popes most trusted Church officials in the U.S.

Several people have accused the retired archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, of sexually abusing young people and adults in training to enter the clergy.

In addition, a Pennsylvania grand jury last week reported that at least 1,000 children were victims of about 300 clergymen over the past 70 years. The report said generations of high-level church officials repeatedly failed to take measures to protect children or punish suspects.

Also, investigations into sex abuse continue to grow in Chile. Chilean police have raided Church records to try to learn what it has known about its abusive clergy.

In his letter, which was released in seven languages, Francis spoke about the Pennsylvania report. But, Church officials said the message was meant for people around the world.

Francis wrote, No effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up

Some supporters of victims said the letter was not enough.

Anne Barrett Doyle is with the research group Bishop Accountability. On Monday, the group released information on Irish clergy accused or found guilty of sex abuse.

Mere words at this point deepen the insult and the pain, she said of the popes letter. She also said, Francis should order the release of names of all priests who have been found guilty under Church law of abusing young people.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro praised the pope's letter. He also urged local Church officials to cease their denials and deflections'' and accept the grand jury terms. Those include changing limits on the amount of time people have to bring a legal case against a person or a group.

Im Caty Weaver.

Nicole Winfield reported this story for the Associated Press. Caty Weaver adapted it for VOA Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

shame - n. a feeling of guilt, regret, or sadness that you have because you know you have done something wrong

repentance - n. the act of feeling or showing you are sorry for something bad or wrong that you did and that you want to do what is right

magnitude - n. the size, extent, or importance of something

gravity - n. a very serious quality or condition: the condition of being grave or serious

grand jury - n. (U.S. law) a group of people who look at the evidence against someone who has been accused of a crime in order to decide if there should be a trial

mere - adj. used to say that something or someone is small, unimportant, etc.

deflection - n.the act of changing or causing something to change direction


From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report.

Drinking enough water is important to our health. If we want to operate at our highest level and feel great both mentally and physically, we need to stay hydrated throughout the day.

But often  we dont.

People may go through their days dehydrated and not even know it.

Dehydration can make you sick. Extreme dehydration can lead to death.

However, many side effects of dehydration are not life-threatening. But they can still affect your health. In fact, you may be suffering from some of these side effects without knowing that dehydration is the cause.

First: What is dehydration?

Dehydration happens when you use or lose more fluid than you take in. Your body doesn't have enough water and other fluids to carry out its normal functions.

On the U.S. Geological Survey Water Science School website , experts explain how much of our bodies are made of water.

Jeffrey Utz is a doctor of neuroscience and childrens medicine at Allegheny University in Pennsylvania. He writes that different bodies have different amounts of water in them. And that amount changes throughout our lives.

Babies have the highest percentage of water in their bodies. When we are born our bodies are about 78 percent water. By the time we turn one year old, that amount drops to about 65 percent.

Adult men are about 60 percent water, while adult women are about 55 percent.

Your body type matters, too.

The amount of muscle or fat you have affects the percentage of water in your body. People with more fatty tissue have less water than people with less fatty tissue.

Now, lets talk about how dehydration affects the body. Experts on the website Health.com explain the signs of dehydration.

Here are the top five:

You have bad breath and bad skin

Bad breath is a sign that the mouth does not have enough saliva. This increases bacteria and results in bad breath.

And for healthy skin, it is important to drink a lot of water. Skin doctors warn that skin creams only do so much. The best way to hydrate your skin is from the inside out.

You feel tired

If you feel tired during the day, your body may be telling you to drink some water. One doctor on Health.com explains that, when you are dehydrated, your blood pressure drops, your heart rate increases and blood flow to the brain slows. These can all make you feel tired. This doctor adds that when your muscles dont get enough water, physical work can be more difficult and tiring.

Your workout could be affected.

Our bodies often do not know the difference between hunger and thirst. One of the experts on Health.com advises high-level athletes on kinds of foods to eat. That expert is Amy Goodson. She explains that when you exercise while dehydrated, your body uses stored carbohydrates faster than if you were fully hydrated. She adds that once you finish exercising, your body will want those carbohydrates back. This, she warns, may lead to overeating.

Your brain works poorly

When our bodies do not get enough water, blood flow to the brain slows. This can cause several problems. You may get in a bad mood. Every little thing gets on your nerves, or angers you. You may have a difficult time focusing. You may not be able to think clearly about a problem. Dehydration can also cause headaches.

You suffer from muscle cramps

When your body does not get enough water, it sends out an emergency signal to protect the most important organs. So, the body sends the fluids in the body away from non-important parts of the body like the muscles. This can lead to painful muscle cramps.

Okay. So, how much water do you need?

The amount of water you need to stay hydrated depends on many conditions.

On average, an adult male needs about 3 liters of water every day. An adult female needs to get about 2.2 liters of water every day. Keep in mind, this doesnt have to come only from drinking. We also get water from the foods we eat, especially from fruits and some vegetables.

However, some people need to drink more than others.

Those who exercise every day should drink more water. Anyone who drinks a lot caffeine or alcohol in a day should drink extra water, as well.

If you are recovering from a sickness, you should drink more water than usual. And if you work outside or in hot conditions, make sure you drink enough water.

And thats the Health & Lifestyle Report.

Im Anna Matteo 

and Im Bryan Lynn.

Anna Matteo wrote this story for VOA Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Quiz

Quiz - Signs You May Be Dehydrated Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

hydrated  v. to supply (something) with water  adj. to drink enough water : Remember to stay hydrated.

dehydrated  v. to lose too much water

saliva  n. the liquid produced in your mouth that keeps your mouth moist and makes it easier to swallow food

thirst  n. an uncomfortable feeling that is caused by the need for something to drink

athlete  n. a person who is trained in or good at sports, games, or exercises that require physical skill and strength

carbohydrate  n. any one of various substances found in certain foods (such as bread, rice, and potatoes) that provide your body with heat and energy and are made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen

mood  n. the way someone feels : a person's emotional state

focus  v. to direct your attention or effort at something specific

fluid  n. capable of flowing freely like water

muscle cramp  medical noun A muscle cramp is a strong, painful contraction or tightening of a muscle that comes on suddenly and lasts from a few seconds to several minutes. It often occurs in the legs.
Rick Scott, governor of Florida, smiles during a campaign event with his Cuban-American constituents. Photo: Scott McIntyre/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Republican Party is supposed to be caught in an intractable dilemma: To mobilize its current base, the party must give voice to (reactionary) white Americas fears of demographic change  but to survive that change, it must make inroads with nonwhite voters.

According to this conventional wisdom, Donald Trumps garish brand of white identity politics might have been potent enough to win the Electoral College in 2016  but as the electorate grows progressively browner, Trumpism will prove untenable: A party whose standard-bearer calls immigrants animals, developing countries shitholes, and neo-Nazis, very fine people, will not be able to win a sufficient share of the nonwhite vote to remain a force in national politics. Republicans can try to delay the reckoning with voter-suppression tactics and racial gerrymanders. But eventually, change is gonna come.

This narrative still has much to recommend it. The Trump-era GOP does rely on outsize support from baby boomers (who are gradually dying) and white Americans (who are gradually becoming a smaller share of the electorate). And even today, the Republican coalition isnt a majority one; the party owes its grip on power to our political systems anti-majoritarian features.

And yet, the ascent of Trumpism has nevertheless challenged an assumption that few pundits ever found cause to question: That it would be impossible for the Republican Party to become more overtly racist  and more popular with nonwhite voters in key regions  at the same time.

The first challenge to this premise came on the day of Trumps election, when exit polls suggested that the Republican nominee (who had argued that Mexican-American federal judges are inherently biased and that Latino immigrants are largely criminal) won a higher share of the nonwhite vote than Mitt Romney had in 2012. Still, exit polls are notoriously imprecise, and Trumps margin of improvement with those demographics was small enough to be potentially illusory.

But the stability of president Trumps job-approval numbers with black and Latino voters  in the face of his myriad racially charged remarks and policy proposals  lends credence to the idea that he isnt actually any more toxic to nonwhite voters than Romney was  and might even be less so. Further, depending on how one reads the data, Trump might actually have become more popular with both black and Latino voters since taking office.

None of this would mean much in isolation. Trumps xenophobic nationalism might not alienate as many nonwhite voters as many would have anticipated  but it still alienates enough to be a profound medium-term problem for his party.

The more promising development for Republicans (and thus, concerning one for Democrats) is how little Trumps toxicity has impaired the GOPs minority-outreach efforts at the state level.

The current Republican president botched the federal governments response to a hurricane in Puerto Rico, thereby exacerbating a calamity that killed more than 1,000 American citizens. In the aftermath of that disaster, Trump told the Puerto Rican people that they should be thankful they hadnt suffered a real catastrophe like Katrina; feuded with the mayor of San Juan; and privileged Texas over Puerto Rico in the distribution of emergency resources, despite the islands far graver conditions.

And none of this has prevented the Republican Partys Senate candidate in Florida from outpolling his Democratic rival with Puerto Rican voters. In June, a Florida International University poll of Puerto Ricans living in the Sunshine State found 55 percent had a positive view of current GOP governor (and Senate nominee) Rick Scott, a figure significantly higher than that of incumbent Democratic senator Bill Nelson.

More recent internal polling from Democratic organizations has found Scotts approval rating with Latino Floridians to be 12 points higher than Nelsons. Crucially, the GOP candidates strength in that polling is not limited to the states conservative Cuban community  Scott also leads among male and non-college-educated Puerto Ricans.

Meanwhile, in Maryland, Republican governor Larry Hogan is poised to win reelection this fall  on the strength of his support among African-American Democrats. As the Baltimore Sun reports:

A survey of 802 primary voters conducted for The Baltimore Sun and the University of Baltimore this month found what several other polls have also concluded: Hogan is pretty popular among voters of both parties.

But a close look at his approval ratings among the 402 Democratic primary voters surveyed reveals Hogan is significantly more popular among some of the demographic groups he least resembles.

The poll found Democrats who identify themselves as African-American back the governor by 6 percentage points more than their white counterparts - 61 percent versus 55 percent.

In Nevada, Republican governor Brian Sandoval has retained significant support among that states Latino voters, and Massachusetts Republican governor Charlie Baker appears to be solidly popular with just about all of the Bay States demographic groups.

To be sure, partisanship has long played less of a role in gubernatorial elections than in federal races. GOP governors durable support among nonwhite constituencies is therefore less surprising than Rick Scotts strength among Puerto Ricans. But both phenomena testify to the Republican Partys success in cultivating distinct (and distinctly, racially inclusive) regional identities, even as it embraces increasingly overt racism in its national messaging.

A recent Washington Post report on Scotts popularity with Florida voters offers some insight into how the GOP is pulling this off:

Scott has also benefited from extensive outreach efforts by Republicans in Florida, including workshops for newly arriving Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens and can register to vote in Florida after the move, about how to navigate the basics of living in the state. Similar efforts are being made among Latinos in Nevada.

Organizers on the ground admit that the political environment sometimes makes persuading Latinos difficult.

It was very emotional, said Gary Berrios, the partys director of Puerto Rican engagement in Florida, when asked about the Trump administrations former zero tolerance policy that led to the separation of thousands of parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border this summer. But he said his team often tries to direct the discussion away from immigration policies.

For Puerto Ricans, the important issues are a job, education and housing their families, he said.

One potential lesson from this: There are a lot of voters in the U.S. who do not spend much time and energy following national politics. And if a state-level Republican Party organizes in their communities, and provides some basic services, many will be open to giving its local candidates their support  no matter their ethnicity.

Thus, local Democratic Parties must ensure that they are doing everything in their power to make such communities feel Team Blues investment in their well-being; making voters resent the GOPs national leadership will not compensate for failing to make them admire the Democratic Partys local one.

The stakes of fortifying the partys natural advantage with these constituencies are high. After all, if Rick Scott can win a majority of the Puerto Rican vote  when the most prominent Republican in the country is a xenophobic demagogue who abetted the greatest disaster in Puerto Ricos modern history  then whos to say that the Republican Party cant significantly diversify its voting base under the leadership of a kinder, gentler proto-fascist?
Deal? What deal? Photo: KCNA/AFP/Getty Images

Shortly after his June meeting with Kim Jong-un in Singapore, President Trump declared victory in his mission to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons.

Just landed - a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018

Shockingly, that boast may have been just a bit on the premature side.

In a report released Monday night, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that it found no evidence that the hermit kingdom had ceased any of its nuclear production at all. The continuation and further development of the DPRKs nuclear program and related statements by the DPRK are a cause for grave concern, the report read. The agency, which reports to the United Nations, warned that it only had limited knowledge of the countrys nuclear activities, since international inspectors have not been given access to key sites.

The report comes on the heels of similar, ominous signs over the last two months that North Korea is not exactly going all-in on pacifism in the wake of the Singapore summit. Mondays news is particularly alarming, though, because the country vowed to suspend the countrys nuclear developments indefinitely back in April.

None of this is likely to come as a surprise to the chorus of foreign-policy voices who predicted from the beginning that Trumps plan to achieve a North Korea breakthrough  which consisted of threatening nuclear war, then agreeing to a meeting and hoping that the pairs personal chemistry would overcome any other obstacle  was not very well thought out.

Trump and Kims Singapore meeting produced only a vague commitment to peace, and was not undergirded by any of the traditional diplomacy that typically goes into such negotiations. (Like, oh, the Iran Deal, which President Trump gleefully ripped up despite its efficacy.) North Korea has an extensive history of promising to denuclearize and then promptly going back on its word. And, as many have pointed out, it makes little strategic sense for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, which constitute its main source of international leverage  especially since the U.S. wont ease punishing sanctions first.

In an interview with Reuters Monday, Trump insisted that many good things are happening with North Korea, and said he would likely meet with Kim again. Perhaps they can discuss the biggest outstanding question: Wheres Trumps Nobel Peace Prize?
Photo: OMG/Getty Images

Combining the snug fit of briefs with the coverage of boxers, the boxer brief, for many men, represents the best of both worlds. They were invented in the early 1990s when designer John Varvatos, who was then at Calvin Klein, cut a pair of long johns and managed to create what is now the most popular kind of underwear for men. Or at least the many weve spoken to: Whenever we ask guys what type of underwear they wear, the boxer brief always dominates the conversation.

Theyre infinitely better than boxers, says Derek Guy, editor at mens style site Put This On and blogger at Die, Workwear. They give you support. They dont bunch up in your pants. And when theyre made from good materials, they just feel nice. Today, there are hundreds of styles of boxer briefs to choose from, so to sort through all the options, we asked a range of fabric-conscious folks for their favorites. We also looked back through our archives to make sure we werent missing anything  say, for example, Neil Patrick Harris favorite non-squishy pair. The 10 best styles are below, including a barely-there pair, some classic Calvin Kleins, and one boxer brief that no less than six guys swear by.

Best overall boxer briefs

Best less-expensive boxer briefs

Softest boxer briefs

MeUndies Boxer Briefs $24 Photo: retailer Both Melideo and actor-slash-model Kyle Andrew are fans of MeUndies for the same reason: their feel. Melidio describes them as SUPER soft and Andrew agrees that the brands fabrics are oddly soft. One of the writers of this piece (Louis Cheslaw) also wears MeUndies boxer briefs, not only because of their aforementioned softness, but also because they never ride up, fray, or tighten at the waistband, no matter how many NYC-laundromat drying cycles you blast them with, he says. A la carte, theyre $24 per pair, which is comparable with most premium brands. But if you sign up for the companys subscription service, that price per pair drops to $16. $24 at MeUndies Buy

Best boxer briefs with a pouch for the family jewels

Saxx Underwear Ultra 2-Pack $57 for 2 $57 for 2 I purchased my first pair of Saxx mens underwear six years ago, and I havent worn anything else since, says Andrew. He appreciates Saxxs ballpark pouch design, which he explains keeps things separated for maximum comfort. Andrews favorite style is the Ultra, which is made primarily of viscose fabric, a moisture-wicking cotton alternative similar to modal. And hes not the only fan of the Ultra: Dashboard Confessional front man Chris Carrabba also loves the style, for the same reasons. Things are situated in a more pleasant way than when I wear other brands on the market, Carrabba told us. Imagine summertime on the road in, say, Texas  that little bit of separation helps a lot. They have another celebrity fan in Neil Patrick Harris, who told us that after doing some deep dives into mens under britches, he also chose the Ultra boxer briefs because they provide comfort and stability in a way that no other underpants do. Its all about the pouch. Harris adds: Neil-y no like-y smashie. $57 for 2 at Saxx Buy

Best longer boxer briefs

Tommy John Second Skin Boxer Brief $36 Photo: retailer Tommy John, one of the older underwear start-ups, also makes the favorite boxer brief of several folks we talked to. Guy is a big fan of the micro-modal fabric used in these Second Skin boxer briefs, which have an eight-inch inseam that stops a few inches above the knee. The non-pilling blend wicks moisture away from the skin better than pure cotton, which means you feel drier and more comfortable throughout the day, he says. Guy went on to tell us that he bought a pair of boxer briefs from Zimmerli, widely regarded as the best maker in the world, for $150  and that his Tommy Johns have proven even better than those over time. Barron Cuadro, founding editor of Effortless Gent, also wears Tommy John and likes the brand for its fit, wide waistband, and ultrasoft fabric that he says hasnt pilled over the course of many years and washes. While she doesnt wear them, Megan Collins, founder of menswear site Style Girlfriend, notes that the company designs its underwear with a unique, horizontal quick draw fly. I was skeptical when I first heard about it, she says. Like, how much better can that really be? But then I gave a pair to my best friends husband to try out, and to this day he still will text me saying how much he loves them. $36 at Tommy John Buy

Best even-longer boxer briefs

Under Armour Mens UA Tech 9 Boxerjock $20 Photo: retailer During the colder months, Peter Hunsinger, founder of sock brand Kane 11, says us he wears these even longer 9-inch-inseam boxer briefs from Under Armour for the extra warmth. He describes them as supportive, stylish, and super-comfortable, with a fit thats second to none. Andrew also wears Under Armour Boxerjocks and says that on top of their seamless design, they also hold their shape and are great for both daily wear and working out. $20 at Under Armour Buy

Best ultra-thin boxer briefs

Uniqlo Mens Airism Boxer Briefs $15 Photo: retailer According to the two guys who raved to us about Uniqlos Airism boxer briefs, theyre basically the next best thing to going commando. Nicolas Lazaro, a community specialist at menswear resale platform Grailed, says hes never looked back since switching from regular cotton boxer briefs to Uniqlos Airism ones, adding that the feel is so ultra-lightweight, breathable, and moisture-wicking that he forgets hes even wearing them. (It also makes them dry so quickly that he says he can easily hand wash and dry them overnight if needed.) Their second fan is publicist Nick Roberts, the founder of Lawrence & Co., who says the Airism boxer briefs are extremely comfortable and, at $15 apiece, I can stock up knowing Im getting good quality for the price point. $15 at Uniqlo Buy

Best classic boxer briefs

Best performance boxer briefs

ExOfficio Mens Give-n-go Sport Mesh 2.0 Boxer Brief 6 $32 now 13% off From $28 Photo: retailer Cuadro says that, in addition to his Tommy Johns, another long-term favorite boxer brief of his is this pair designed with more rigorous activities in mind. They are designed for outdoorsman so theyre anti-microbial and they dry super fast, Cuadro tells us, adding that hes been wearing his pairs for six years. Beyond being super breathable, he says that these have a good rise that doesnt feel too low and that, because theyre quick-drying, they can be washed by hand in a pinch. From $28 at Amazon Buy From $28 at Amazon Buy

Best boxer briefs with personality

Urban Outfitters Basic Boxer Brief $14 Photo: retailer For those who like to have fun with their underwear, fashion and branding consultant Ronny Opong says that surprisingly, Urban Outfitters makes some great boxer briefs. He likes their more playful prints, which currently include this on-trend mushroom design. While single pairs go for $14 each, you can save a bit if you buy in bulk: A three-pack of the same style goes for $33. $14 at Urban Outfitters Buy

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Trump said in an interview with Reuters news agency on Monday he believed North Korea had taken specific steps towards denuclearisation and he would "most likely" meet again with Kim. Japan is thrilled. What's going to happen?

Given the alarming and unprecedented nature of these revelations - and the high-level position of trust Mr. Bolton now holds - we request that you produce documents relating to whether Mr. Bolton reported his previous work with this alleged Russian spy on his security clearance forms or other White House vetting materials prior to President TrumpDonald John TrumpArizona GOP Senate candidate defends bus tour with far-right activist Alyssa Milano protests Kavanaugh in "Handmaid's Tale" costume Bomb in deadly Yemen school bus attack was manufactured by U.S. firm: "report MORE appointing him to his current position", the lawmakers wrote.

Trump has hailed the Singapore summit as a success and went as far as saying North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat.

There is a committee of Beijing officials now coordinating Xi's visit to North Korea and his next summit with Kim Jong Un, according to reports.

Seoul officials see the UN General Assembly in NY next month as a desirable venue for the declaration but said they are flexible about its formality.

Jesus and Marcelo out of Brazil's 1st post-World Cup squad

Teenage Flamengo goalkeeper Hugo Souza was also selected despite having never played for the Rio de Janeiro club's first team. Pereira played for the Belgium under-15s, U16s and U17s before opting to represent Brazil at the U-20 World Cup in 2015.

Bolton was quoted by Israeli media as having told Netanyahu that Iran's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs were "right at the top of the list" of issues to discuss.

However, several members of the US negotiating team, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they had seen no progress toward denuclearisation and no sign that North Korea was prepared to negotiate seriously until the United States promised relief from sanctions in return.

"President Trump raised it with President Putin".

This picture taken on July 4, 2017 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on July 5, 2017 shows the successful test-fire of the intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14 at an undisclosed location. "I have very good personal relations with Chairman Kim, and I think that's what holds it together".

IAEA inspectors are not allowed into North Korea, but they have been monitoring the country via satellites and other available information. The IAEA has said it is best placed to verify a deal. But he did not elaborate.
Battling its worst flood in nearly a century, Kerala is planning to raise an additional Rs 10,500 crore debt for rehabilitation and rebuilding. To achieve this, the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan today said that his government will ask Centre to raise the ceiling on borrowing for the state to 4.5 per cent of the GDP. The borrowing limit is currently capped at 3 per cent.

Calling for mobilisation of resources in a large way, Kerala CM said, "Cabinet decided to submit to the Central Govt a comprehensive plan that will enable the rehabilitation of the affected people and the rebuilding of Kerala. Our aim is not merely a restoration of the state to pre-flood times but the creation of a new Kerala."

With several roads and highways facing the brunt of flooding, Kerala CM said the state needs a special package for central schemes. "The State will demand Centre for a Rs 2,600 crore MGNREGA special package," the chief minister said.

The state will also request NABARD for a special scheme to implement long-term projects for infrastructure development in agriculture, irrigation and associated areas and social sectors, tweeted the chief minister's official Twitter handle.

To facilitate rehabilitation efforts, the CM said he will request the Hon'ble Governor to call a special session of the assembly on August 30 to discuss on relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction.

The Kerala government also announced a moratorium for bank loans in the flood affected areas, which will be applicable to both commercial and cooperative banks.
An old gas mask lies abandoned on the ground. Credit: By Khamidulin Sergey / shutterstock.com

Terror on a Tokyo subway, 1995; attacks on Syrian civilians, 2013 and 2017; assassinations in an airport in Kuala Lumpur, 2017; attempted assassination in London, 2018. Tremors, foaming at the mouth, seizures, respiratory shutdown, sometimes death. What do these events have in common? Poisoning via a nerve agent  a chemical warfare substance that disrupts communication between the nervous system and muscles and organs.

A major concern for survivors of nerve agent poisoning is the potential for permanent brain damage caused by seizures. Because the brain cannot easily repair such damage, there is a critical need for an antidote that can enter the brain and reverse the early biochemicial effects before harm occurs. Current antidotes, such as 2-PAM, the only FDA-approved reactivator drug in the U.S., cannot do this because it is unable to cross the blood-brain barrier, a layer of cells between the blood and the brain which prevents many chemicals, such as some drugs, from moving from the blood into the brain.

I am a toxicologist in the Center for Environmental Health Sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Mississippi State University (MSU) where I initially worked on toxic responses in laboratory animals to organophosphate insecticides, a widely used class of crop protection chemicals. Organophosphate insecticides have a similar mechanism of action to nerve agents, but are much less toxic and are only approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for uses that are not going to be harmful to humans or the ecosystem.

For the past eight years, my team has been developing antidotes that improve survival rates after nerve agent exposure, and we've shown the potential of our new molecules to enter the brain in tests with animals. If approved, these antidotes would give more confidence to both warfighters and civilians that not only could their lives be saved but also their brain function could be preserved.

From insecticides to chemical warfare

Because pesticides are so important to successful agriculture, my group was initially interested in toxic responses to organophosphate insecticides (OPs). My lab focused on the more biological effects, while my husband, Howard Chambers, synthesized chemicals useful to study the toxic effects of these insecticides.

OPs were originally developed as insecticides in Germany prior to World War II. This agricultural effort was co-opted by the Nazis to create the first nerve agents: tabun and sarin. Although these agents were not used during World War II and were banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, they have been used occasionally in conflicts such as in the Iran-Iraq war.

Salisbury, UK  July 6, 2018: An army officer searches a hostel in the city center, as investigations continue after local residents Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess fall ill from a nerve agent poisoning. Credit: By 1000 Words / shutterstock.com

However, scientists in some countries have continued to design even more dangerous OP compounds. The Novichok agents, suspected of being used in the attempted poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, for example, are estimated to be between eight and 10 times more potent than VX, one of the most toxic of the traditional nerve agents. These highly toxic chemicals are a danger not only to the military but also to civilians who may be exposed during terrorist attacks, by assassins or rogue governments.

In 2010, the direction of my research changed course when one of my former Ph.D. students, who then worked in the Department of Defense's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), returned to MSU for a visit and mentioned that one of the military's most pressing needs in warfighter defense was a brain-penetrating AChE reactivator. During that conversation in a local sandwich shop, Howard pulled out his ever-present mechanical pencil and sketched out an oxime  a molecule that could "grab" the nerve agent and remove it from its target  that he thought would be able to cross the blood-brain barrier. The blood-brain barrier is an almost impenetrable layer of cells that make up the brain capillaries that prevent many foreign chemicals from entering the brain, particularly if they are electrically charged.

The former student was impressed and encouraged us to apply for funding from DTRA for synthesizing and testing a platform of novel oximes, based on the structure on that napkin. The oximes that we have invented in our lab are positively charged, like 2-PAM, but are less water soluble, which may prevent the brain's transporters from exporting them out of the brain once they enter. After initial successes, we are now supported by the National Institutes of Health's CounterACT program, whose goal is protecting civilians from terrorist attacks or chemical accidents.

Nerve agent effects

Nerve agents like sarin, VX and Novichok are organophosphate chemicals, and they wreak havoc by inhibiting a critical enzyme in the nervous system called acetylcholinesterase (AChE). What AChE does for a living, so to speak, is to rapidly degrade acetylcholine (ACh), an important chemical that mediates precise and rapid information flow within the brain and to muscles and glands. When AChE is inhibited, acetylcholine builds up and leads to inappropriate and massive stimulation within the nervous system, resulting in life-threatening symptoms: paralysis of the respiratory muscles, narrowing of the trachea and excessive mucus production throughout the respiratory tract so that air cannot pass through. This causes the foaming at the mouth that we see in news coverage of chemical attacks. Death usually results from respiratory failure. The incredible potency of the nerve agents makes them among the most poisonous synthetic chemicals ever produced.

In survivors, prolonged and repeated seizures caused by high quantities of ACh in the brain can cause permanent brain damage.

The antidote for OP poisoning has traditionally included artificial respiration and injections of the drug atropine, which helps the victim to keep breathing. In the U.S., medics also use an oxime reactivator  called 2-PAM  which restores AChE activity by removing the nerve agent; and benzodiazepine is used to suppress seizures.

Normal action: A neuron releases ACh which activates its receptor (orange) on receiving cell  a neuron, muscle or gland  triggering the movement of a muscle, the release of a hormone or some type of behavior (yellow arrow). The ACh is then split into its two components by AChE (green) to prevent it from overstimulating the system. OP poisoning: The OP nerve agent (red) binds to AChE and prevents AChE from breaking down ACh, which then builds up, activating more of its receptors which leads to seizures, breathing trouble and brain damage. Oxime antidote: Oxime (light blue) binds to OP, pulling it off AChE, and restores AChEs action, allowing the receiving cell to return to normal level of activity. Credit: Janice Chambers, CC BY-ND

The most effective oxime reactivators have a positive charge. But the blood-brain barrier which exists between brain cells and blood capillaries does a good job of blocking these charged chemicals from infiltrating the brain, either by preventing entry or escorting them out once they enter. Therefore, 2-PAM and other approved oximes do not reach high enough levels in the brain to reverse the deadly grasp of OP nerve agent.

A promising new antidote

To protect people from nerve agent poisoning, we need a brain-penetrating molecule to reverse the AChE inhibition. Our lab group and several others worldwide are attempting to create such an antidote that restores AChE activity in the brain following severe OP poisoning.

To date, several of our oxime drugs have been as good as or more effective than 2-PAM for increasing 24-hour survival for animals exposed to lethal doses of OPs, using highly relevant mimics of two nerve agents sarin and VX, as well as an insecticidal chemical in a laboratory animal model.

We have convincing evidence that our oximes can get through the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain after OP exposure, and that our laboratory animals show more normal activity of AChE with our novel oximes but not with 2-PAM. Our animals also recovered more quickly from seizure-like behavior with our oxime antidote compared to 2-PAM. Our lead oxime seems likely to remain in the brain, and it has prevented some damage to brain structures, while 2-PAM did not  a finding we describe in an upcoming publication.

This oxime platform has been patented by MSU and licensed by Defender Pharmaceuticals. Sadly, my long-term collaborator, Howard, passed away in December 2016; my team continues to pursue the research needed to develop his novel oximes into antidotes.

What value could these novel oximes bring to the arsenal of chemical weapon antidotes? Either alone, or in combination with 2-PAM, they could contribute to survival and, uniquely, they could reduce or prevent the brain damage caused by the prolonged seizures induced by OPs.

In other words, with our novel antidotes we could save lives and save brains.

Explore further Can you recover from nerve gas poisoning?

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Researchers unearth a natural clay deposit with antibacterial activity. Credit: Lynda Williams, ASU

The use of mud or wet clay as a topical skin treatment, or poultice, is a common practice in many cultures. In fact, the concept of using mud as medicine goes back to the earliest times.

Now, Arizona State University (ASU) and Mayo Clinic researchers have found that one type of clay, Oregon blue clay, may help fight disease-causing bacteria in wounds, including treatment-resistant bacteria. Their findings appear in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents.

"The study is an important advance in understanding how clays, specifically blue clay from Oregon, have shown medicinal properties by attaching to pathogenic bacteria," says Enriqueta Barrera, a program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research.

The scientists identified certain clays that kill bacteria, including many drug-resistant pathogens.

"Working with Mayo Clinic, we showed that these clays also diminish populations of bacterial biofilms, as well as bacteria common in wounds that are more resistant to drugs," says biogeochemist Lynda Williams of ASU, a co-author of the study. "The results support our efforts to design new antibacterial drugs using natural clays."

Blue clay in an open pit mine near Crater Lake, Oregon. Credit: Stan Williams

Biofilms occur when bacteria attach to surfaces and develop a film or protective coating, making them relatively resistant to antibiotics. The biofilms appear in two-thirds of the infections seen by health care providers.

"We showed, however, that this reduced iron-bearing clay can kill some strains of bacteria under the laboratory conditions used, including bacteria grown as biofilms, which can be particularly challenging to treat," says Robin Patel, an infectious disease physician and clinical microbiologist at the Mayo Clinic, and lead author of the study.

In laboratory tests, the researchers found that the clay has antibacterial effects against bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, including strains such as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Blue and white clay zones in the Oregon deposit, separated by a vein of rock containing sulfur. Credit: Lynda Williams, ASU

The clay suspension was effective against several bacteria in their biofilm states.

The research is preliminary, and the scientists caution that only one concentration of the clay suspension was tested. They also say that not all types of clay are beneficial.

The lab tests are a step in simulating the complex environment of an infected wound. More research is needed to identify and reproduce the properties of clays that are antibacterial, with the goal of synthesizing a consistent compound of the clay minerals under quality control.

Nodule of Oregon blue clay, coated with red clay and sulfur crystals encased in white clay. Credit: Lynda Williams, ASU

Explore further Scientists discover how blue and green clays kill bacteria

More information: Katherine M. Caflisch et al. Antibacterial Activity of Reduced Iron Clay Against Pathogenic Bacteria Associated With Wound Infections, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents (2018). Katherine M. Caflisch et al. Antibacterial Activity of Reduced Iron Clay Against Pathogenic Bacteria Associated With Wound Infections,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2018.07.018
Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

Recent findings from formative research conducted with rural, non-Hispanic White males aged 12-17 years informed the development of health messaging for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) first nationwide smokeless tobacco (SLT) public education campaign. The youth were receptive to messaging that conveyed authenticity and contained straightforward facts about the health consequences of SLT use. Messages which portrayed the progression from familiar short-term health effects to more serious long-term consequences of SLT use, also resonated with the youth. The findings are described in detail in an article published in Health Equity.

The study included rural, white male youth at risk for initiating or already experimenting with SLT as they are affected disproportionately by SLT use and reflect the target audience of the FDA's campaign. SLT had strong cultural significance and was perceived as safe among these youth. In the article, entitled " Developing Smokeless Tobacco Prevention Messaging for At-Risk Youth: Early Lessons from "The Real Cost" Smokeless Campaign," the researchers suggest that the findings could be leveraged in the development of other educational materials and messages to address SLT use among rural at-risk youth. Matthew Walker, DrPH and colleagues from the FDA (Silver Spring, MD), Squared Research (Fairfax, VA), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA), and Battelle (Washington, DC) coauthored the article.

"Optimally in addressing health disparities, we strive to improve quality and quantity of years of life. The rise in mortality rates of rural, non-Hispanic white men has been influenced by the opiate epidemic but is also influenced by cancer rates. Effective outreach that resonates with rural youth can help in efforts to mitigate this." states Health Equity Editor-in-Chief Ana E. Nunez, MD, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Professor of Medicine, Drexel University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA.

Explore further FDA campaign takes aim at chewing tobacco use by rural teens

More information: Matthew W. Walker et al, Developing Smokeless Tobacco Prevention Messaging for At-Risk Youth: Early Lessons from "The Real Cost" Smokeless Campaign, Health Equity (2018). Matthew W. Walker et al, Developing Smokeless Tobacco Prevention Messaging for At-Risk Youth: Early Lessons from "The Real Cost" Smokeless Campaign,(2018). DOI: 10.1089/heq.2018.0029
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Christina Pearson was 14 years old when she started pulling out her hair, creating bald patches on her head. She was taken to a psychiatrist, but in 1970 there was no name for her disorder, and certainly no treatment.

The doctor issued a psychiatric discharge that removed Pearson from high school. In that moment, she felt relief. Going to high school meant that somebody might pull off her hat and reveal that her head was mostly bare  a possibility she found "so frightening that anything was better than that."

In the ensuing months, Pearson holed up at home, pulling out her hair and feeling, she says, like a monster. Scared and searching for relief, she eventually decided to leave. "I hitchhiked across Mexico at 14 and was doing peyote out in the desert, all kinds of things," she says. "I really lived a very fringe life." At 15, she started picking her skin, her body frequently covered with open sores. By 20, she was addicted to drugs and alcohol.

At the age of 30, Pearson "finally got sober." She had started a small telecommunications business with a friend in Santa Cruz, California. In 1989, she received a phone call from her mother, who had just listened to a story on the radio about a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. "There's a name for what you used to do," Pearson's mother told her, not knowing that Pearson still pulled her hair. The news that there was a name  trichotillomania  "rocked my world," she says.

After decades of feeling shame and isolation, she began to feel hope: there were others out there living with the same condition. Pearson started a support group. A Seattle news network invited Pearson to appear on air, where she spoke about her life and provided a number for a trichotillomania hotline that she planned to operate herself.

She returned home to over 600 messages.

"People were crying and sobbing and begging for help," says Pearson, who spent a week calling each person back. "It was the best therapy I ever had, because I heard my life coming out of other people's mouths."

One night in bed she had what she calls a peak experience, or spiritual vision. Pearson decided to walk away from her business and devote her life to improving public awareness of trichotillomania. "I was scared shitless. Me: I'm a drug addict, I'm a small-business person, I'm in sobriety, I have an eighth grade education, and I'm going to get out there and change the world and some weird pathological disorder?" says Pearson. "I just was terrified."

But then she adds: "When we receive that kind of inspiration, what I'll say is this: We are called all the time. Rarely do we choose to respond."

Step into any classroom or coffee shop and, the odds are, at least one person in the room has a body-focused repetitive behaviour (BFRB), such as trichotillomania or skin picking disorder.

People with BFRBs perform repetitive self-grooming activities such as picking, pulling or biting. These can cause emotional distress and damage to the body, but the people performing the behaviours can't stop. At their most extreme, these conditions are life-threatening.

A significant minority of people with trichotillomania (commonly called 'trich') ingest their pulled hairs. Over time, the hair can block the intestine and require surgical removal. Skin picking can lead to infections that require intravenous antibiotics and skin grafting.

More commonly, BFRBs take an emotional and social toll. They often begin in late childhood or early adolescence, making kids vulnerable to bullies. Echoing the experiences of many, a man in his late 20s described middle school as "absolute hell" because kids perceived him as "the weird kid with missing eyelashes." Another woman, now 30, recalled watching her classmates play keep-away with the wig they had snatched off her head. Furthermore, BFRBs are often a source of conflict between child and parent, which can heighten a child's feelings of shame and isolation. Meanwhile, in adults the condition can lead to fear of intimacy, missed job interviews, and hours lost each day to picking and pulling.

Individuals living with BFRBs often keep their condition a secret, hiding the physical effects with make-up, wigs and layers of clothing.

As a result, many are surprised to learn just how common these disorders are. Some experts estimate that 25 per cent of people have trich and roughly 5 per cent of people have skin picking disorder, also referred to as 'dermatillomania' or 'excoriation disorder." Precise numbers are not available, however, because there has been no large-scale global study of BFRBs.

Although trich has appeared in the medical literature for over a century, it was not officially included in the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published periodically by the American Psychiatric Association) until 1987  a full 17 years after Pearson made her first visit to a psychiatrist, and six years after I entered the first grade and started pulling my hair too.

My mother took me to a dermatologist, who didn't offer any advice. As it turned out, I was part of a subset of kids  including toddlers and even babies  whose symptoms simply go away without any kind of treatment. By the end of the school year, my hair pulling had stopped. For most individuals, BFRBs are chronic, lasting years, even decades.

Skin picking disorder was added to the DSM in 2013. "We were over-the-moon ecstatic when it was given its own diagnostic label," says Nancy Keuthen, director of the Trichotillomania Clinic and Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. A diagnostic label validates people's experiences and encourages them to seek treatment, she says. In the absence of a name, the tendency had been to think, "I don't know anybody else who has this, I must be really weird," explains Keuthen.

Now, both disorders are included in the chapter on obsessivecompulsive and related disorders. On the surface, OCD and BFRBs share similar characteristics: both involve strong urges to perform repetitive behaviours. But unlike OCD compulsions, BFRBs are soothing, even pleasurable. And the behaviours are rarely the result of the specific obsessions that characterise OCD.

This distinction matters because the conditions benefit from different kinds of behavioural therapies; and whereas medication is a first-line treatment for OCD in the USA, for example, there currently is no Food and Drug Administration-approved medication to treat BFRBs.

In fact, compared with better-known psychiatric conditions such as OCD, BFRBs remain markedly under-researched. "Historically, there has been almost no funding for these disorders," says Keuthen. Funding usually goes to conditions that are seen as significantly affecting quality of life or that make it difficult to function in the workplace.

BFRBs can do both, but, says Keuthen, they have been misunderstood as "bad habits that lazy people have." This obscures the critical distinction between ordinary self-grooming (who doesn't occasionally pick a scab or pluck a hair?) and the clinical case where the behaviour goes on and on, causing significant distress or impairment, while the person feels wholly unable to stop.

Christina Pearson founded the Trichotillomania Learning Center (since renamed the TLC Foundation for Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors) in 1991. Her goal was to help people, especially kids, avoid the fear and secrecy she had lived with for so long.

She wanted to offer authoritative information that could help people. There was just one problem: that information didn't exist.

There was also an incredible amount of stigma. At least some of this can be traced back to the medical literature of the 1950s and 60s, which tended to blame the parents, particularly mothers, of individuals who pulled their hair.

One report from that period examined 11 children with trich. The authors, professionals at the US National Institute of Mental Health, concluded that the children's behaviour stemmed from intense conflict "between the child and the original love object, the mother." The children, they wrote, pulled their hair "with large amounts of libido" and used hair pulling as a substitute for an emotionally unavailable mother.

About the fathers, they wrote: "[They] can best be described as passive-aggressive individuals, mostly of a passive type who were persistently controlled by their spouses."

Perhaps this is why when Pearson was taken for treatment, the psychiatrist asked her mother, "What are you doing to [your daughter]?" The question caused her mother to cry. "It was not good. It was very shaming," says Pearson.

This judgement and blame continued even after trichotillomania was added to the DSM. Pearson began renting booths at professional conferences. In the early years, psychologists would walk by and actually make fun of her, pulling their own hair. Pearson says that one dermatologist warned her that people who pick their skin and pull their hair are "often psychotic."

She recalls one young man who had been told by a mental health professional that pulling out his hair was like public masturbation and he needed to stop. In another conversation, a Swedish doctor insisted that Swedes don't get trich. Pearson suspects that some of the stigma stems from the fact that grooming is associated with other animals  cats, dogs, mice  and people don't want to acknowledge humans' connection to the animal kingdom.

Something else that contributed to the misunderstanding was that trich was considered an exceedingly rare disorder. The first prevalence study wasn't published until 1991, and at the time, the DSM criteria for trich were more stringent than they are today. In addition to having a strong impulse to pull hair resulting in hair loss, individuals needed to experience tension prior to pulling and "gratification or relief" while pulling.

Consequently, researchers found that 0.6 per cent of the general US college population had met the DSM criteria at some point in their lives, but noted that among the college population, pulling leading to visible hair loss was reported by 1.5 per cent of men and 3.5 per cent of women.

In 1990, Pearson attended one of the first-ever professional talks about trichotillomania, given by a psychologist called Charles Mansueto. There, she met a number of interested clinicians, including Carol Novak, a psychiatrist from Minnesota who had written a pamphlet about trich.

"Back in those days, we had no internet. Nobody knew the word trichotillomania," says Novak, who went on to become the founding director of the TLC Foundation's scientific advisory board. Around that time, Novak, Mansueto and Richard O"Sullivan, a psychiatrist who currently practises in Madison, Connecticut, attended a retreat that Pearson had organised for people with trich. Novak remembers the participants expressing frustration and anger with the mental health field "because they had been so mistreated by professionals." Soon thereafter, more professionals agreed to join the board and conduct research in the field.

The causes of BFRBs are still poorly understood, though individuals' responses to different medications may provide clues to BFRBs' biological underpinnings. For example, medications such as Prozac, which target the neurotransmitter serotonin, have not proven effective in reducing BFRBs for most people  though experts note that some individuals may benefit.

Two small randomised controlled trials testing N-acetylcysteine (NAC), an amino acid that can be purchased in health food stores, resulted in marked reductions in both hair pulling and skin picking for roughly half of study participants (though some receiving placebo also showed improvements  16 per cent demonstrating reduced hair pulling, 19 per cent reduced skin picking). NAC influences glutamate, a neurotransmitter involved in reward pathways. A small neuroimaging study also showed impairment of reward pathways in people with trich, but larger studies are needed to confirm these findings.

One such study currently underway is the BFRB Precision Medicine Initiative, which has been funded by TLC donors. It's taking place at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Chicago Medicine, and Massachusetts General Hospital, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School. The goal is to test up to 300 participants using a variety of methods, including interviews, imaging and bloodwork.

Nancy Keuthen is the principal investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital. She notes that up until now, researchers have tended to study BFRBs in narrow slices. For example, a research team might run a small brain-imaging study. While this approach could uncover an interesting abnormality, it isn't especially helpful without a broader network of data to illuminate the abnormality's cause and effects. Additionally, larger sample sizes are needed to ensure that study results are generalisable to a wider population.

Liz Atkin, a British artist with skin picking disorder, is at the front of the room, setting hand wipes on tables. She wears a red cardigan over a T-shirt sporting splotches of orange, yellow, green. "We're going to get messy!" she says to four girls sitting in the front row. Her enthusiasm seems entirely genuine yet impossible for 8.30am.

It's a Saturday in April, and I'm attending the 25th annual TLC conference for BFRBs. This year, it's in San Francisco. The conference is just one of the ways that TLC aims to help people directly. I'm here with nearly 500 others, including individuals with BFRBs, their families, clinicians and researchers. This session is an art class for kids aged 11 and under.

"What we're going to do is make our marks," says Atkin after roughly a dozen kids have taken seats and introduced themselves. She holds up a stick of charcoal and explains it's a piece of wood that's been burned. "I have compulsive skin picking, and charcoal really helps me."

Atkin distributes the charcoal and paper and asks the kids to make a dot.

"Paul Klee said "A line is a dot taking a walk,"" she says, holding up her own sheet of paper and making a black spot. From there, she demonstrates various rubbing and smudging techniques, before bringing out pastels so the kids can add colour.

"I think my drawing's going to end up looking like my cat," says the girl sitting next to me, wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs sweatshirt. Her picture does indeed resemble a calico cat with patches of black and orange.

Atkin asks if anyone wants music, and someone requests Prince.

Above the music, Atkin asks, "Is drawing a nice thing to do? Why do we like drawing?"

The group offers varying responses: Drawing calms your mind. You can express yourself. There's no wrong way to do it.

"Why are we working with stuff that's messy? Why is that useful? We're using materials that have a texture to them." Later, she'll explain to me that for many, BFRBs are texture-based disorders. Art engages the body and mind, giving the person a focus other than the BFRB.

I'm sitting in a row with a boy and a girl. I overhear the boy ask, "What's your thing? Mine's skin picking." The girl says matter-of-factly, "Mine's trichotillomania."

They fall back into silence, drawing on the black paper.

It's taken science some time to catch up with what people with BFRBs have known for years: for many, there's a strong sensory component to the disorder.

A pair of studies published in 2017 and 2018 were the first to report that individuals with BFRBs have higher rates of sensory over-responsivity to external sensations than the general population. In other words, they respond intensely to things like sounds and textures. The phenomenon  also sometimes referred to as 'sensory integration dysfunction' or 'sensory processing disorder'  was first described in the 1970s by the occupational therapist Jean Ayres. Since then, sensory over-responsivity has been most frequently studied in association with autism, and more recently in OCD.

In one of the studies, people with trich were twice as likely to have severe to extreme sensory over-responsivity to touch and sound. One study participant described her struggle with clothing: "My tactile discomfort lies in how I feel in clothes. They always feel too tight and uncomfortable as soon as I step out of the house. For this reason, I only go out when absolutely necessary  school or work."

Later that day, it occurred to me that I have had my own experiences with sensory over-responsivity. As a child, I found almost any type of clothing itchy: tights, cardigans, sweaters, sleeves that tapered into elasticated cuffs (as seemingly all kids' clothes did in the late Seventies). I have a vague memory of being left standing in a department store after my mother had walked away, exasperated with trying to find me a winter coat.

Others at the conference share similar experiences: "I used to throw things at my brother, who was just regularly playing. I'd throw books at him because noises were too much," says one woman who still struggles with high-pitched sounds. Like many others with trich, when she pulls her hair, she's looking for a certain type.

"I'm looking for coarseness in those hairs I'm looking for hairs that aren't straight, hairs that are curly, hairs that don't feel right  that are too long or too short. For me, it's a very tactile disorder," she says.

When researchers talk about BFRBs, they often speak of 'subtypes' to acknowledge, among other things, that people with BFRBs may pick and pull for very different reasons.

One person might pull her hair at night as a way of winding down for sleep. Another might pick his skin out of boredom. Another might pull out his eyelashes under stress. For some people, all these things and more might be triggers. Why? No one can say for sure, but many of my conversations with affected individuals included mention of the work of a psychologist named Fred Penzel.

In the early 2000s, Penzel introduced the stimulus regulation model of trichotillomania, based on his work with patients.

"It would appear that pulling might therefore be an external attempt on the part of a genetically prone individual to regulate an internal state of sensory imbalance," he writes.

According to this model, a person with a BFRB is exposed to the same levels of environmental stimulation as others, but their nervous system is unable to easily manage it. "It is as if the person is standing in the centre of a seesaw, or on a high-wire, with overstimulation on one side, and understimulation on the other, and must lean in either direction (by pulling) at different times, to remain balanced," he writes.

"Picking or pulling adds or subtracts stimulation," says Karen Pickett, an Ohio-based therapist. "I have yet to find someone that this [model] doesn't apply to, to some degree." Why does this matter? Because the picking and pulling actually serve a purpose. This is why the behaviours can be so difficult to stop.

A number of studies have found that some individuals with BFRBs have difficulty regulating their emotions. A 2013 review notes that as a group, people with BFRBs have higher rates of psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety than the general population. In addition, many report that their BFRBs provide relief from negative emotions, including boredom, tension, anxiety and frustration.

Several of the people I interviewed told me their BFRBs started during a period of negative emotion. Aneela Idnani started pulling her eyebrows and eyelashes as an adolescent, after moving to a new town where she felt like an outsider and was bullied at school. For her, pulling served as a coping mechanism.

A couple of years later, Idnani's father died of cancer. "I didn't know how to deal with it," she says. "[As a society] we don't talk about uncomfortable things, and so we have to find ways to deal with them." She hid her condition into adulthood. Three years ago, she started seeing a psychologist, who helped her unpack some of her emotions.

Haley O"Sullivan started picking her skin at the age of 20, a year after a traumatic sexual experience. "It started with two hours in the mirror picking at ingrown hairs like on my armpits or my bikini line," she recalls. "It was also picking at zits on my face and other places on my body." For several years, O"Sullivan led a support group in Boston, and she's working on starting a group in New Hampshire, where she lives now. She is careful to point out that not everyone with a BFRB has experienced trauma. In her case, however, skin picking is "my body's way of trying to say, "Hey, I'm not OK."" Skin picking creates a positive sensation for her, at least in the short term: "Obviously it doesn't feel good emotionally afterwards when you're like, "Oh man, look at this damage I caused.""

O"Sullivan has seen several therapists and been successfully treated for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. But she says she feels a little stuck in her BFRB recovery. She has done a lot of research, but lacks access to a specialised clinician. There simply aren't enough therapists with expertise, she says. And even once you find someone, the clinician may have a long waiting list and insurance might only cover a handful of sessions. "It's not really conducive to a full recovery," she says.

Currently, the treatment for BFRBs with the most empirical support is a type of cognitive behavioural therapy called habit reversal training, developed in the 1970s as a treatment for tics. During this therapy, a person learns to recognise the context in which pulling or picking is most likely to occur. With this awareness, people can then plan to substitute a competing response. For example, when faced with an urge to pick, someone might instead make a fist, or play with a fidget toy. In some studies, more than half of adults with trich achieve short-term improvement. However, some find it difficult to maintain the results over time.

Psychologist Omar Rahman recently conducted a promising study of habit reversal training in kids with trich. He says that the goal of the therapy is to give the brain an opportunity to become habituated to the urge, meaning you can ignore it or respond with a substitute behaviour.

Over the years, Rahman has come to believe that there's really no real way around this if you can't learn to manage the urge, which may explain why habit reversal training doesn't help everyone, or why improvement doesn't always last.

For this reason, researchers and clinicians have increasingly sought to augment habit reversal training with other means of helping people with their urges. For example, mindfulness-based strategies can help a person observe and accept negative emotions, sensations and urges without needing to act on them by pulling or picking.

Christina Pearson stumbled into mindfulness in the early 1990s after a series of therapists and medications were unable to help her. "Nobody knew what to do," she says. So she started paying attention, observing her thoughts, feelings and muscle movements. "I'd been always seeking higher awareness," she says, "but now I wanted to identify the roadmap that would free me from a behavioural prison."

She notes that the kids who get BFRBs are sensitive and smart. "Do you want to drug that away? No. What you want to do is say, "Hey, how do I create the psychological trellis for this being to evolve and be of service to the world?""

Around this time, the psychologist Charles Mansueto had been seeing BFRB clients and developed the Comprehensive Model for Behavioral Treatment (ComB). This model recognises that a variety of triggers may cause someone to want to pick or pull: thoughts, emotions, sensory experiences, specific body movements (such as stroking one's hair) and environment. Today, Mansueto and his colleagues are in the process of running a randomised controlled trial to test the approach.

"We may seem like we have it together now, but we haven't always," says Bridget Perez. She and her 19-year-old daughter Gessie are leading a conference session titled "Parent/Child Journey: Building a relationship and finding acceptance." They're both wearing T-shirts that Gessie designed that say "Trichster" on the front. The room is packed.

Bridget recalls one morning when Gessie was 14 and sitting at the table eating breakfast. "I'm standing over her, and I go, "Oh my God!", because there was a huge bald spot in the back of her head." Gessie had always had very long curly hair. But over the ensuing years, she went from a "gorgeous long-curly-haired girl to having bald spots, to hiding the bald spots, to the hair thinning out and just kind of hanging."

"I screamed, I cried. I yelled. I mourned the loss of her hair," says Bridget. Like many parents, her first response was to want to fix the problem.

Unlike an earlier generation of parents, Bridget knew the word trichotillomania and was able to use the internet to find out information. They attended their first TLC conference several years ago, says Bridget. She realised: "It's not about the hair. It's about being there for your children. Supporting them, loving them, no matter what they look like."

Gessie agrees the first conference was life-changing. Living with trich had been hard. Even today, she has no eyebrows and keeps her hair short, but she considers herself in recovery "because trich doesn't control my life any more." The pulling comes and goes, but she doesn't focus on stopping.

"For me, cutting my hair, shaving my head, realising that I'm not defined by my appearance was"

"Was pivotal," offers her mother.

They both agree that trich has made them stronger, individually and together.

Gessie says that after the first conference, she used social media to share her story. People from all over the world have reached out to ask her questions and offer their support.

"I can honestly say that I am thankful for this journey," she says. "These friends are so much better than having hair."

For all the obvious good that the TLC conference does, it's important to note that it isn't necessarily easy to attend, especially for first-timers. One mother I spoke with described her first conference as overwhelming. "I cried a lot," she says. "You think you're going to come and fix it, and then you realise that you're in it for the long haul."

And that long haul is not clearly mapped. After all, when children are sick, you take them to a doctor. But when your child is performing an unusual yet soothing behaviour that lacks a simple cure, the choice of how to move forward is not clear cut. Parents may feel torn about how much financial and emotional energy to invest in treatment compared to accepting the condition and supporting their child in other ways.

These tensions can play out in adults, too.

For example, many people with BFRBs say that complete abstinence from picking or pulling is an unhelpful goal that may magnify self-criticism and frustration. Yet, one woman spoke positively about her experiences in Hair Pullers Anonymous, based on Alcoholics Anonymous. "We celebrate abstinence. Just think of any AA programme," she says. They use the same literature and spiritual tools. She joined the support group in January and says in the three months since that, "My hair pulling is down so much  you wouldn't even believe it." She has a sponsor she can call if she feels like she wants to pull her hair. And she's also working on self-care, a big emphasis of TLC. "Maybe that's why I'm having success," she speculates, "because I'm hitting all these things."

At the conference, the last session I go to is "Standing Tall in Our Awesomeness." It's led by Christina Pearson, who left TLC in 2013 and founded the Heart and Soul Academy in 2014. Roughly 20 kids are sitting in chairs in a horseshoe shape. I take a seat next to the girl with the Maple Leafs sweatshirt. She's here, along with the rest of the kids from the charcoal drawing session as well as others up to the age of 14.

Pearson comes in with a pink fascinator atop her head, holding feathery string puppets. "I'm the lady who grew up just like you, and I started TLC," she says. She greets each child individually.

Then she asks each kid what they liked most about the conference. Among the most common answers: making friends, everything, all of it. To one girl, whom Pearson seems to have spoken with before, she says, "You have a huge heart and a sensitive nervous system." The girl appears to be holding back tears.

Next, Pearson pulls out a ribbon, gives the end to a child at the front of the horseshoe, then asks her to hold it and pass the rest around.

"Feel the ribbon in your hands. It is connected to each one of you." I close my eyes. The ribbon is smooth. I'm thinking of the girl in the Maple Leafs sweatshirt, just a bit older than I was when I started pulling. Unexpectedly, I find myself holding back tears.

Pearson leads us up out of our chairs, towards the door: "This is your world," she says, as we leave the conference room. I'm walking, holding on to the ribbon, surrounded on either side by kids who are three-quarters my height. Surrounded by kids in hats, with bald heads, kids who pick their skin. We walk out through the hotel lobby, past the people dining and reading. And outside the hotel, to a startling view of the San Francisco Bay.

Pearson turns her back to the water to face us. The sun is slowly climbing. Planes are taking off from the nearby airport. She asks us to stand on the earth. Then she asks us to wiggle our bodies. "Close your eyes. What do you smell?" Then we do a wiggle again: "What do you hear?" We can do this any time, she tells us. Baby steps toward mindfulness.

Once we're back in the room, Pearson asks the kids to write something that they like about themselves on a triangle of felt. Each goes around and says something.

One says, "Compassion."

Pearson: "We develop incredibly deep compassion. Why? Because we know what it's like to suffer. We know what it's like to be different. And we can see that in other people."

They start gluing sequins, puffy hearts, strips of ribbon on to their pennants.

Persistent. Wild. Compassionate. Brave.

"Here's the thing about bravery," says Pearson. "It doesn't mean you're not scared. It means you do something anyway."

Explore further Boredom and frustration trigger skin-picking and other compulsive behaviors

More information: Susan E. Swedo et al. A Double-Blind Comparison of Clomipramine and Desipramine in the Treatment of Trichotillomania (Hair Pulling), New England Journal of Medicine (2010). Journal information: New England Journal of Medicine Susan E. Swedo et al. A Double-Blind Comparison of Clomipramine and Desipramine in the Treatment of Trichotillomania (Hair Pulling),(2010). DOI: 10.1056/NEJM198908243210803

Provided by Mosaic

This article first appeared on Mosaic and is republished here under a Creative Commons licence.


The government on Monday released two new sets of images of specified health warnings for all cigarettes and tobacco product packs. In the new pictorial warnings, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has come out with 'Quit Today' tagline with helpline number 1800-11-2356 printed at the bottom of the images.

First image will be valid for a period of twelve months following its commencement from September 1, 2018. And the second image will come into effect following the end of twelve months from the date of commencement of first image.

In a statement issued on Monday, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said: "All tobacco products manufactured or imported or packaged on or after 1st September, 2018 shall display Image -1 and those manufactured or imported or packaged on or after 1st September, 2019 shall display Image-2."

It further said that any person engaged directly or indirectly in the production, supply, import or distribution of cigarettes or any tobacco products shall ensure that all tobacco product packages shall have the specified health warnings exactly as prescribed.

"Violation of the above mentioned provision is a punishable offence with imprisonment or fine as prescribed in Section 20 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003"," the Ministry said.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled that tobacco products would continue to carry pictorial warning covering 85 per cent of the packaging space. The apex court in January had stayed the Karnataka High Court order quashing the 2014 government regulation that packets of tobacco products must carry pictorial warning covering 85 per cent of the packaging space.

However, a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A M Khanwilkar said: "Keeping in view the objects and reasons of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 and the measures taken by the state, we think it appropriate to direct stay of operation of the judgement and order passed by the High Court of Karnataka."

The bench was unimpressed with the submissions of the Tobacco Institute of India that the interim stay would harm the fundamental right to do business of tobacco manufacturers. Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, had said that the high court judgement needed to be stayed and 85 per cent pictorial warning on packaging space of tobacco products be allowed to remain as a large section of the population is not educated.

Last year in December, the High Court had struck down the 2014 amendment rules that mandated pictorial health warnings to cover 85 per cent of packaging space of tobacco products, holding that they were unconstitutional as they violated fundamental rights like the right to equality and the right to trade.
(HealthDay)Play is a child's most important work, preschool teachers like to say, and a new American Academy of Pediatrics report wholeheartedly agrees.

Play is a crucial way for kids to develop social and mental skills, head off stress and build a healthy bond with parents, the child health experts say.

"We're recommending that doctors write a prescription for play, because it's so important," said the report's lead author, Dr. Michael Yogman. He's an assistant clinical professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a pediatrician in Cambridge, Mass.

Play hones kids' social, emotional, language and thinking skillsones the next generation will need to compete in a world that requires collaboration and innovation, he said in an American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) news release.

"The benefits of play cannot really be overstated in terms of mitigating stress, improving academic skills and helping to build the safe, stable and nurturing relationships that buffer against toxic stress and build social-emotional resilience," Yogman added.

The report was published online Aug. 20 in the journal Pediatrics. It updates a 2007 clinical report with new research underscoring the importance of play.

One study, for example, found that stress levels in 3- and 4-year-olds who were anxious about starting preschool were twice as low among kids who spent 15 minutes playing than for those who simply listened to the teacher read a story.

Researchers also found that disruptive preschoolers were better behaved when their teacher played with them regularly one-on-one over the course of a year.

Unfortunately, studies show most kids today play less than ever. Between 1981 and 1997, children's playtime decreased by 25 percent. And 30 percent of kindergarteners no longer have recess, research shows.

A survey of nearly 9,000 U.S. preschoolers and parents found that only about half of the kids went outside to walk or play with a parent once a day.

What's more, nine out of 10 parents express safety concerns about their kids playing outdoors, and a typical preschooler watches 4.5 hours of TV every day, other surveys have found.

According to pediatrician Dr. Jeffrey Hutchinson, "Media use such as television, video games, smartphone and tablet apps are increasingly distracting children from play. It's concerning when immersion in electronic media takes away time for real play, either outdoors or indoors." Hutchinson co-authored the new report.

"Although active engagement with age-appropriate media can be beneficial for older children, especially if supported by co-watching or co-play with peers or parents, real-time social interactions and play are superior to digital media for learning," he said in the news release.

The AAP said doctors should encourage parents to play with their youngsters by writing a "prescription for play" at every well-child visit in the first two years of life. New parents should respond to baby's nonverbal cues during their first few months of life. For example, when a baby smiles at you, smile back. Peek-a-boo is also important play.

Teachers, pediatricians and parents should support unstructured play and playful learning in preschools and schools, the report stated. Teachers should focus on playful learning by allowing kids to take the lead and follow their own curiosity.

It's also important to promote recess and daily physical activity for children, the AAP report said.

Yogman suggested that "the next time your child wants to play with you, say yes. It's one of the best parts of being a parent, and one of the best things you can do for your child. Play is important both for children and their parents since sharing joyful moments together during play can only enhance their relationship."

More information: The American Academy of Pediatrics has more on Journal information: Pediatrics The American Academy of Pediatrics has more on play

Copyright  2018 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
(HealthDay)A large percentage of deaths attributed to cardiac arrest are neither sudden nor unexpected, according to a study published recently in Circulation.

Zian H. Tseng, M.D., from the University of California in San Francisco, and colleagues identified all incident deaths attributed to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (patients between 18 and 90 years of age in San Francisco County) based on autopsy, toxicology, and histology via medical examiner surveillance of consecutive out-of-hospital deaths. Deaths were assessed using World Health Organization (WHO) criteria for sudden cardiac death (SCD), and death certificates were reviewed for missed cases of SCD.

The researchers identified 12,671 unattended deaths that were reported to the medical examiner, of which 912 were out-of-hospital cardiac arrest deaths. In addition, there were 89 WHO-defined SCDs that occurred within three weeks of active medical care with the death certificate signed by the attending physician that were ineligible for autopsy. Black men had the highest WHO-defined SCD incidence. Of the 525 WHO-defined SCDs, 57 percent had no cardiac history. Only 55.8 percent of SCDs were autopsy-defined sudden arrhythmic deaths. The vast majority of autopsy-defined sudden arrhythmic deaths (98 percent) had structural cardiac disease. Leading causes of death were coronary disease (32 percent), occult overdose (13.5 percent), cardiomyopathy (10 percent), cardiac hypertrophy (8 percent), and neurological (5.5 percent).

"These findings have implications for the accuracy of SCDs as defined by WHO criteria or emergency medical services records in aggregate mortality data, clinical trials, and cohort studies," the authors write.

Several authors disclosed financial ties to the medical device industry.

Explore further Deaths from cardiac arrest are misclassified, overestimated

Copyright  2018 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
The circadian clock of muscle cells (shown here is the transverse section of a muscle fiber) controls an entire metabolic network. Credit: Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen

How do muscle cells prepare for the particular metabolic challenges of the day? Scientists at Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen (LMU), members of the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), have investigated this question and published their results in PLOS Biology. The study has uncovered a metabolic network which is, contrary to expectations, not controlled by the brain but rather by the 'circadian clock' of muscle cells.

Circadian clocks are present in all cells of the body, and have a pervasive influence on all aspects of human physiology. This is because they regulate homeostasis by anticipating rhythmic changes in behavior and nutritional state, and by compartmentalizing incompatible metabolic pathways within precise temporal windows. "This applies, for example, to the use of nutrients such as fats and carbohydrates," explains Professor Henriette Uhlenhaut. She is group leader at the Institute for Diabetes and Obesity of Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen (IDO) and the Gene Center of LMU. "If the body's internal clock gets out of synch, however, it can have serious consequences for the body's metabolism. For example, it is known that shift workers are particularly susceptible to metabolic diseases such as diabetes."

In their recent work, the team led by Uhlenhaut turned their attention to the 24-hour metabolic rhythm of muscles. "We focused specifically on two proteins that act as master regulators, positive and negative arms of the circadian clock," says Kenneth Dyar, a scientist at the IDO and lead author of the study. "These two opposing molecules bind to DNA and trigger expression of additional proteins known to regulate lipid and protein metabolism." Using muscle cells from mice, the scientists determined the activity of the two proteins over the course of the day and night. "We measured everything, from DNA binding to gene expression and metabolites," says Kenneth Dyar, explaining the researchers' comprehensive approach. Building upon previous studies, the scientists studied the synthesis and breakdown of fats and proteins over 24 hours  an approach that might also be interesting for athletes.

Uncovering a metabolic network

In collaboration with Italian and Austrian colleagues (from the Venetian Institute of Molecular Medicine and the Universities of Padua, Graz, and Trieste) the researchers identified certain processes that are switched on at night by the regulators of the internal clock: "They include, for example, fat storage, glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity," explains Henriette Uhlenhaut. At the same time, opposing processes such as fatty acid oxidation and protein breakdown are throttled down, according the authors. These patterns are especially pronounced in the hours before awakening and are thought to prepare the muscles for the day ahead.

In the final step, the scientists investigated possible ways to intervene in these processes. To this end, they examined mice lacking these master regulators. Without a circadian clock, the animals were leaner, with less fat and more muscle mass. "Taken together, our work has revealed an entire metabolic network at multiple levels," Uhlenhaut explains. "Another biologically exciting finding is that, contrary to expectations, the key regulator is not centrally located in the brain, but is in fact the internal clock of the muscle cells themselves." In the long term, the authors will investigate the mechanisms also in humans and try to find a way for therapeutic interventions. Their hope is that it might be possible to counteract insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes or to stimulate energy use to combat obesity.

Explore further Our circadian clock sets the rhythm for our cells' powerhouses

More information: Kenneth Allen Dyar et al. Transcriptional programming of lipid and amino acid metabolism by the skeletal muscle circadian clock, PLOS Biology (2018). Journal information: PLoS Biology Kenneth Allen Dyar et al. Transcriptional programming of lipid and amino acid metabolism by the skeletal muscle circadian clock,(2018). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2005886
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

While the rich get thinner, the poorest pile on the pounds. What accounts for this "social gradient," which results in obesity being most prevalent among the least well-off? The pleasure  tinged with guilt and anxiety  that they take in overeating is an explanation explored by a University of Huddersfield professor and his colleagues.

The term "discordant pleasure" has been coined by the team. For less affluent people, "food pleasure is affordable, accessible, immediate and reliable in a way that other pleasures are not," states an article in the journal Social Science and Medicine that is one of the outputs of the ongoing research. But, at the same time, overeating is "accompanied by feelings of frustration, sadness and shame as they struggled to lose weight."

Now Professor Paul Bissell, who has headed the research project, alongside Dr. Christine Smith, Dr. Joanna Blackburn and Dr. Marian Peacock, is calling for health professionals to lessen the stigma that has grown around obesity.

"You need to get over the shame and humiliation before you can do anything about it," he says.

Professor Bissell and his colleagues carried out a series of in-depth interviews with 45 people in South Yorkshire, who were both obese and materially-deprived and spoke frankly about the dilemmas they faced.

The project originated, said Professor Bissell  who is Dean of the University of Huddersfield's School of Human and Health Sciences  when he and his collaborators wanted to find reasons for the "social gradient" that has seen a shift from the richest to the poorest being the most obese members of society.

The interviews led to deeper insights into some of the anxieties, sadnesses and shaming experiences of participants, added Professor Bissell, who recently delivered a keynote lecture, titled The missing discourse of pleasure in obesity science research: sociological reflections, at the latest conference organised by the University of Copenhagen's Lifestyle, Obesity and Metabolic Research Group.

"Twenty or 30 years ago, we would be more forgiving about people who are obese. Now, there is a discourse that health is entirely your own responsibility and we also view obesity in that light," said Professor Bissell.

"There is now much more fat shaming, stigma and hatred around obesity. If you ally that with social class, then it is people who are poor and obese who can be publically laughed at. Many of our participants experience extremely high levels of shame and humiliation because they are obese. And one of the things they do to manage their unhappiness is to eat more.

"So they are stuck in a cycle, and it is tougher for poorer people to cope with the stigma of obesity and indeed cope with losing weight, because of their material circumstances and the fact that they have got less cultural capital," continued Professor Bissell.

The researchers have also linked the issue of obesity to neo-liberal economic policies, alleging that these have led to greater inequality and to welfare cuts.

"If we did something about the social gradient in income and wealth, we would also be able to do something meaningful about the social gradient in obesity," said Professor Bissell.

Explore further Weight loss study finds rich more likely to join clubs, while poor more likely to take pills

More information: Paul Bissell et al. The discordant pleasures of everyday eating: Reflections on the social gradient in obesity under neo-liberalism, Social Science & Medicine (2016). Journal information: Social Science & Medicine Paul Bissell et al. The discordant pleasures of everyday eating: Reflections on the social gradient in obesity under neo-liberalism,(2016). DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.04.026
(HealthDay)There is a lack of correlation between physician scores and those of others for physician-patient communication, according to a study published in the July/August issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.

Jenni Burt, Ph.D., from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and colleagues analyzed survey data from patients attending face-to-face appointments with 45 family physicians at 13 practices. Patients and physicians independently completed a questionnaire including seven items assessing communication quality immediately post-appointment. Using the same seven communication items, a sample of videotaped appointments was assessed by trained clinical raters. Data were included for 503 physician-patient pairs; 55 appointments were assessed by trained clinician raters.

The researchers found that physicians scored themselves lower than patients on average (mean physician score, 74.5; mean patient score, 94.4); 63.4 percent of patient-reported scores were 100. From 55 appointments, the mean of rater scores was 57.3. A near-zero correlation coefficient was seen between physician- and patient-reported communication scores (0.009; P = 0.854) and between physician- and trained rater-reported communication scores (0.006; P = 0.69). A moderate and statistically significant correlation was seen between patient and trained-rater scores (0.35; P = 0.042).

"Physicians may not be aware of how patients experience their communication practices; peer assessment of communication skills is an important approach in identifying areas for improvement," the authors write.

Two authors disclosed financial ties to Ipsos MORI; several authors were involved in developing the English GP Patient Survey.

Explore further Patients prefer doctors who engage in face-to-face visits

Copyright  2018 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
The Ibadan research team in the laboratory. Credit: University of Ibadan

For the first time, DNA contributed by Sub-Saharan African women has been thoroughly evaluated with innovative genomics technology in an effort to understand the genetic bases for breast cancer in African populations.

African and African American women are more likely than women of other ancestries to develop and to die from triple-negative breast cancer. In the August 21, 2018 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a multinational research team identifies the genes responsible for inherited breast cancer in Nigerian women.

The Nigerian Breast Cancer Study, based in Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria, has been in the field for more than 20 years. During this period, breast cancer incidence throughout the country has steadily increased.

"This is the first study to use high-throughput genomic analysis of African women," said study author Olufunmilayo Olopade, MD, Walter L. Palmer Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Human Genetics, director of the Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics and associate dean for Global Health at the University of Chicago.

"Based on state-of-the-art genomic technologies, two things were clear," added co-author Mary-Claire King, Ph.D., American Cancer Society Professor of Medicine and Genome Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. "Risks to Nigerian women who carry mutations in breast cancer genes are higher than risks to women in the U.S. with mutations in the same genes. And inherited breast cancer plays a bigger role in the total occurrence of breast cancer in Nigeria compared to the U.S."

The study enrolled 1,136 women with invasive breast cancer and 997 controlswomen of similar ages and heritage who did not have breast cancer. Disease was far more advanced at diagnosis than in the U.S., with 86 percent of the patients who were fully evaluated diagnosed at either stage 3 or stage 4.

Almost half (46 percent) of the patients were diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer (tumors that lack estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and human epidermal growth factor receptors). This is an aggressive breast cancer subtype, likely to have with a poor prognosis, even in wealthy countries.

For their study of "Inherited Breast Cancer in Nigerian Women," the authors sequenced 25 genes associated with increased risk of breast cancer and identified all damaging mutations in each of those genes.

Dr. Olopade (left) with colleagues from US and Nigeria. Credit: University of Ibadan

They found that one out of eight breast cancers in the study was caused by an inherited mutation in one of four of these genes. Mutations in BRCA1 (7 percent of patients) and BRCA2 (4 percent) were the most common, followed by PALB2 (1 percent) and TP53 (0.4 percent).

Patients with BRCA1 or TP53 mutations were diagnosed at younger ages than women with other mutations. The mean age at diagnosis for all cases in the study was 47.5 years, but the BRCA1 carriers were diagnosed at an average age of 42.6 years. Patients with TP53 mutations were diagnosed even earlier, at an average age of 32.8 years.

"Genomic sequencing to identify women at extremely high risk of breast cancer could be a highly innovative approach to tailored risk management and life-saving interventions," the authors wrote. Given the limited treatment resources available in this setting, "prevention and early detection services should target these highest-risk women."

Following up on the study, the Chicago-Ibadan team has already developed a risk-prediction model for breast cancer in Nigerian and other Sub-Saharan African women, who are, on average, more than 10 years younger when diagnosed than American women. This predictive model can identify individuals at high risk of breast cancer, tailor surveillance and suggest risk-reduction strategies.

There is an urgent need to address "widening global disparities in breast cancer mortality that disproportionately impact women of African ancestry," the authors wrote. Breast cancer among both African American and Nigerian women is more frequently triple-negative than in other populations for complex reasons that remain poorly understood. Given the young ages at diagnosis in Nigeria, focusing on genetically high-risk women could, the authors suggest, "substantially reduce premature mortality from breast cancer."

"It may seem paradoxical to apply the most recent technology in severely resource-limited settings," the authors add, "but in fact the solution fits the problem... Women with extremely high risk of breast cancer due to mutations in these genes can be identified inexpensively and unambiguously, and offered interventions to reduce cancer risk."

"Coordinating our team of clinicians and scientists and community elders in Nigeria was no small feat, but we got the job done despite resource constraints," said Adeyinka Falusi, Ph.D., Professor of Hematology and L'OREAL/UNESCO Laureate, Institute for Advanced Medical Research and Training in the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan.

"As the premier institution in Nigeria, the University of Ibadan remains committed to deploying science and technology to improve the health of Africans on the continent and throughout the diaspora," she said. "Lessons learned in Nigeria can be transferred back to low resource settings in the U.S. and other countries."

Explore further Paper identifies genes associated with risk for aggressive breast cancer
Professor Florian Kern, Chair of Immunology at BSMS. Credit: Brighton and Sussex Medical School.

Patients who are unlikely to benefit from a commonly used immunotherapy for bladder cancer could be identified by a simple blood test, according to researchers at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS).

This could potentially save months of unnecessary and ineffective treatment.

Currently, 30-40% of individuals have no benefit from the standard immunotherapy treatment, and they are only identified once therapy has failed, which often takes six months or longer to find out.

The pilot study, conducted under the supervision of Professor Florian Kern, Chair of Immunology at BSMS, shows that a test measuring the release of the pro-inflammatory molecule, Interleukin-2, from immune cells performed before therapy appears to immediately identify about 50% of the patients who will not benefit from the treatment.

Overall, the test correctly predicted therapy outcome in almost 80% of cases.

Bladder cancer is among the top most common cancers worldwide and predominantly affects older men, with hundreds of thousands of cases every year.

The majority present with early bladder cancer that has not yet infiltrated the muscular layer of the bladder, and this is treated by removing the tumour.

Subsequent instillation of live bacteria, Bacille Calmette-Guerin(BCG), which is also used in the tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, given in several cycles over one year, reduces the otherwise high recurrence and progression rates.

This report suggests that the immune response to Tuberculin, widely used in TB testing, may help identify those who will benefit or not from BCG immunotherapy.

The lead author, Dr. Samer Jallad, Urologist previously at Brighton and Sussex University HospitalsTrust, now working at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London said: "Our results suggest that a test predicting the outcome of BCG immunotherapy may be within reach. This would be extremely useful for making the best choices for our patients and using alternative treatments for those who are unlikely to benefit. If confirmed in a larger study, this test could save tens of thousands of patients valuable time and the negative experience of undergoing eventually unsuccessful therapy."

Professor Kern added: "The simplicity of our new test makes it very attractive as a clinical test. There are several tests for tuberculosis that are ultimately based on the same test principle and have been rolled out across the world in recent times."

Explore further PPD skin test enhances bacillus Calmette-Guerin Tx in bladder CA

More information: Samer Jallad et al. Baseline cytokine profiles of tuberculin-specific CD4+ T-cells in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer may predict outcomes of BCG immunotherapy, Cancer Immunology Research (2018). Samer Jallad et al. Baseline cytokine profiles of tuberculin-specific CD4+ T-cells in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer may predict outcomes of BCG immunotherapy,(2018). DOI: 10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-18-0046
People who hide their autism by 'camouflaging' to try to fit into society, or who don't receive correct support are at higher risk of suicide, according to new research.

Researchers from the University of Nottingham's School of Psychology and the Universities of Coventry and Cambridge worked closely with a group of autistic people who had experienced mental health problems, self-injury or thoughts of ending life, to design a new innovative study that has just been published in the journal Molecular Autism.

The survey-style study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), found there were important factors that are unique to being autistic which explain why autistic people may be at higher risk of suicide, including; unmet support needs, and 'camouflaging' or 'masking' autism to try and 'fit in' in social situations. Other factors found were similar to those experienced by the general population such as self-injury, depression, and dissatisfaction with living arrangements.

Although there has been a growing amount of research showing that autistic people are more likely than people in the general population to take their own lives, until now there has been a lack of research exploring the reasons why.

Camouflaging to fit in

Dr. Sarah Cassidy led the study at the University of Nottingham and said: "To understand and prevent death by suicide in the autistic community, we must work with autistic people as equal partners in research, to ensure it is relevant and benefits those involved. Growing research is showing that mental health services are failing autistic people, even when they are feeling suicidal. Our research suggests that this lack of support can also increase suicidal feelings. An urgent priority is to address this gap in service provision."

Jon Adams, a mental health champion involved in the study said: "I've had to live breathe and navigate a society that has often been without informed understanding towards autistic people. All my life in order to survive I've had to 'be someone I'm not' and this effort takes a toll on your inner being and confidence. We don't want to 'leave', for us it's not a statement or a cry for help, we just desire fulfilled lives as ourselves, but we are abraded to the point of absolute despair feeling 'leaving' has become the only option. Then in our 'hours of need' we find the system meant to support us makes 'staying' harder by adding to the misunderstanding or are just absent. This has to change especially for the next generations of autistic people, so they don't accumulate the hurt we older autistic people have. This research is so vital for our survival and if actioned with appropriate support would bring both richness and worth to all of us, autistic and non-autistic alike"

Dr. Rebecca Shaw, a collaborator on the study at Coventry University and Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Partnership Trust, said "Autistic people are encouraged from an early age to 'camouflage' their difficulties, to fit in better with others. Although these efforts of researchers and clinicians are well meaning, we must be careful of the message we are sending autistic people, that their true self is not acceptable in society. We must work with the autistic community to build a more compassionate society that is more accepting of neurodiversity, so autistic people feel that they belong."

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen at the University of Cambridge was also a collaborator and commented: "It is totally unacceptable that autistic people are born into our society as happy individuals and that by the time they reach adolescence or adulthood many of them have felt so battered by society that they no longer see any point in living. It is not for autistic people to change: it is for society to change, to become more welcoming to people who are neurologically different, neurologically more sensitive, and who struggle with disabilities related to socialising, communication, and coping with unexpected change. This urgent change has to start from preschool onwards. A single death by suicide of an autistic person is a tragedy and is one too many."

Explore further Better tools needed to diagnose depression in people with autism

More information: Sarah Cassidy et al. Risk markers for suicidality in autistic adults, Molecular Autism (2018). Journal information: Molecular Autism Sarah Cassidy et al. Risk markers for suicidality in autistic adults,(2018). DOI: 10.1186/s13229-018-0226-4
Like Eidul Fitr Afghanistan need ceasefire during Eidul Azha: US Secretary of State

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said on Monday that the United States wanted a ceasefire in Afghanistan during Eidul Azha because this was also the desire of the Afghan people.



The Afghan government announced on Sunday that it wanted a ceasefire in the country during this Eid like the one that was observed during Eidul Fitr, which allowed rival Afghan factions, particularly the Taliban, to celebrate the religious festival peacefully with their families.



But Mr Pompeo and Afghan officials both said that for this ceasefire to happen, it was necessary for the Taliban to desire it as well.



This plan responds to the clear and continued call of the Afghan people for peace, Mr Pompeo said.



He noted that the last ceasefire in Afghanistan revealed the deep desire of the Afghan people to end the conflict. And we hope another ceasefire will move the country closer to sustainable security, the chief US diplomat said.



The United States and our international partners support this initiative by the Afghan people and the Afghan government, and we call on the Taliban to participate.



Mr Pompeo said the US supported this initiative because it is our hope and that of the international community that the Afghan people may celebrate Eidul Azha this year in peace, free from fear. He said the US also supported Afghan President Ashraf Ghanis offer for comprehensive negotiations with the Taliban on a mutually agreed agenda. We remain ready to support, facilitate, and participate in direct negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban, said the US diplomat.



Earlier this week, Mr Pompeo telephoned the Saudi crown prince and also asked him to help arrange a ceasefire during Eidul Azha. The United States hopes that the ceasefire will enable the Taliban to experience the blessings of peace while celebrating the festival with their families.



Mr Pompeo, who will be arriving in Islamabad after the ceasefire, is expected to urge the new Pakistani government to back its efforts for bringing a durable peace in Afghanistan. In return for Pakistans support in Afghanistan, Washington may drop its opposition to a $12 billion aid package with the IMF and consider restoring its security assistance to Pakistan.



Afghanistan was on Monday awaiting the Talibans response to President Ghanis proposal for a three-month ceasefire, an offer welcomed by the US and Nato after nearly 17 years of war, according to AFP.



The president said his office had cleared all obstacles to peace with the announcement following consultations with religious scholars, political parties and civil society groups.



The Taliban did not immediately respond to President Ghanis truce offer, but vowed to release hundreds of enemy prisoners to mark the Eidul Azha holiday. A Taliban member told AFP that the leadership had yet to issue a formal response to the ceasefire, but suggested fighting might be restrained during Eid even if no announcement was made.
Nawaz Sharif-Maryam Nawaz name to be put on ECL: Cabinat meeting

ISLAMABAD: The newly inducted federal cabinet in its maiden meeting on Monday decided to place imprisoned former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam on the Exit Control List (ECL).



The meeting was held in Islamabad following the swearing-in ceremony of its members. Prime Minister Imran Khan chaired the cabinet meeting, which also discussed economic challenges and austerity measures, among other matters.



President Mamnoon Hussain administered oath to the 16 ministers who, along with five advisers, make up PM Imrans cabinet.



Speaking to the media shortly after the meeting, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said that Nawaz and his daughter Maryams names would be placed on the no-fly list.



The cabinet also directed the law and interior ministries to implement red warrants against Nawazs sons, Hassan and Hussain, and former finance minister Ishaq Dar and bring them back to Pakistan, Chaudhry told the media.



The Law Ministry has been directed to contact the British government over the Avenfield properties, he added.



Avenfield properties belong to Pakistan, the information minister said, referring to one of the corruption cases against the Sharif family in which Nawaz was sentenced to a total of 11 years in prison while his daughter Maryam was given eight years sentence by an accountability court earlier in July.



It has been decided that the process of accountability will start from the prime minister and the cabinet members for which they will again declare their assets before the people of Pakistan, Chaudhry said.



Eliminating corruption is an important part of our policy, Chaudhry continued, adding that there will be no political appointments in Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insafs government.



The meeting also focused on implementation of the policy measures announced by PM Imran in his address to the nation on Sunday.



The minister said the cabinet had decided to withdraw medical facility for ministers and members of the parliament abroad and gave approval for auction of 88 luxury vehicles of the Prime Ministers House.



He said two committees had been formed to review heritage and general property of the state in order to make them beneficial for the common people.



He said that the committee headed by Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood would decide the use of historical buildings while the other committee led by Finance Minister Asad Umar would approve measures for use of general government property.



He said that foreign trips of ministers would be curtailed and the prime minister wont go foreign visits in the next three months until absolute necessary.



Chaudhry also commented on the governments stance on relations with neighbouring countries, saying talks with China and India would continue. He said that relations with India would be based on state-level instead of personal relations.



He added that the foreign missions would be directed to help Pakistanis abroad and if someone failed to do so he would be recalled.



The cabinet did not discuss anything regarding former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, he said.



Fawad further expressed hope that the party would also win the presidential election, scheduled for September 4. The minister added that the PTI would fully participate in the by-elections.
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Anderson, IN  Four people have been arrested in connection with a homicide investigation following the discovery of two bodies in Madison and Grant counties.

The body of the first murder victim was found at a nature preserve on the east side of Anderson around 9 a.m. Monday. Deputies were looking for evidence in a different case when they discovered the remains.

The man was reported missing a few days ago, and detectives were later told he was murdered. The Madison County coroner has identified him as 36-year-old David Lamar Phillips II. Investigators say Phillips was shot twice in the head.

Authorities say the second body, a missing woman, was found in southern Grant County and the discovery is connected to the first homicide investigation. Family members have identified her as 40-year-old Trinity Parker.

Tuesday morning, the Madison County Sheriffs Office said Taylor Wheeler, Jordan Zirkle and Brittney Vontress were taken into custody around 4 a.m. All three face preliminary murder charges. Later in the afternoon, Sheriff Scott Mellinger said a fourth suspect named Daniel Jones was being charged in the case.

FOX59 spoke with Zirkle and Wheeler from jail. During the interview, they said didnt shoot anyone but they know who did, they were just threatened if they spoke up.

I wont lie. Im not completely 100 percent innocent, said Zirkle. I did go with them. I did walk through the woods, but it was all under fear. I was threatened to be shot in the head if I did not go through and do this.

We got innocent people about to go down for this that do not need to be going down, said Wheeler.

Officers believe they have the murder weapon and all suspects in custody.
Gainesville, FL - A 75-year-old man has been arrested on hate crime charges after Gainesville police say he threatened to lynch the president of the Alachua County NAACP chapter.

Ronald Morris Wadford, listed as a homeless Gainesville man, was arrested Thursday on a warrant for two counts of aggravated stalking, according to jail and court records.

In November 2016, police say, Wadford called NAACP President Evelyn Foxx six times from Nov. 9, 2016 to Nov. 21, 2016. He said he was with the Ku Klux Klan and was going to her house to lynch her, according to a sworn complaint from the Gainesville Police Department filed Dec. 30, 2016.

The affidavit says that, during these calls, Wadford threatened Foxx by stating, Im going to hang your (racial slur) ass.

Out of fear following the threats, police say, Foxx went out of state to stay with family for a few weeks. Then she lived out of the county when she returned to Florida because she was afraid of staying at her home.

Foxx told The Sun she went to Wadfords first court appearance Friday morning.

I had to see this man, she said. Hes been looking over my shoulder for almost two years. Foxx called the last two years torture and recalled being afraid to sit on her back porch at night.

The person she saw Friday morning was a disturbed man, Foxx said.

I could see the hate and bigotry in his eyes, she said. It was not a big deal to him.

Foxx said Wadford being behind bars has made her feel more comfortable, but if he is deemed mentally ill by a judge, she said she still hopes he can get the help he needs.

Im just glad this part of it is over. If I ever have the opportunity, I would ask him why, and I would tell him I love him, Foxx said. Love conquers hate and thats the only way were going to change our society for the better.

According to the police affidavit, a witness said Wadford was very racist and has a lot of hate and violence in his heart. The witness said that Wadford collects knives and machetes and has spoken about going out in a blaze of glory.

Wadford has an extensive criminal history in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina, according to the affidavit. His charges include multiple counts of cocaine and narcotics possessions and sales, weapons possession and maiming.

An email from GPD spokesman Ben Tobias says that on July 3, 2017, someone threw a Confederate flag in Foxxs front yard. The person or people who did that have not been identified.

Wadford, who was wanted for the threats, was spotted by a police detective in downtown Gainesville and arrested. His bail was set at $500,000.
The Samsung Pay app has officially launched in South Africa after a brief early access period.

Speaking at a launch event in Sandton, Johannesburg, Samsung Africa president Sung Yoon announced that Samsung Pay has officially rolled out and was being well received.

The application is available for download from the Google Play Store and is compatible with the following devices:

Samsung Galaxy Note 9

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+

Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge

Samsung Galaxy A8

Samsung has not confirmed whether Samsung Pay app is now available on the Galaxy A5 and A7 2017 smartphones.

Samsung Pay lets customers make card payments using their smartphones instead of their physical bank card by mimicking physical magnetic card stips using Magnetic Secure Transmission technology. The application is also compatible with NFC contactless payment terminals.

This allows users to make payments by tapping their smartphone against a card machine.

Currently, Standard Bank and Absa bank cards support Samsung Pay locally.

Local rollout

Yoon noted that the acceptance of Samsung Pay in South Africa is much better than that of the apps US launch in 2013.

It took three years to bring Samsung Pay to South Africa because we ran extensive tests together with local banks and credit card providers, he said.

He said that the rollout to the rest of Africa depends on the adoption of credit and debit cards, with South Africa the only country on the continent to receive support for Samsung Pay this year.
There is tremendous opportunity in the data centre space in South Africa, particularly when it comes to distributed, smaller-scale deployments for businesses.

This is according to Schneider Electric, which said that renewed focus on server rooms in companies and similarly-sized micro data centres is being driven by the current trend towards edge computing and the Internet of Things.

Widespread adoption of the Internet brought with it cloud computing, enabling technologies in such as voice assistants and integrated online backups in mobile phones.

While many applications can benefit from cloud computing, this comes with drawbacks  such as latency and downtime when an Internet connection is not available. Latency  often referred to as ping  is the time it takes for a packet of data to travel from your computer, to another device on a network, and back again.

Typical latencies from South Africa to services in Europe can range between 160 milliseconds and 250 milliseconds. Connecting to a server in the United States may result in latencies of between 230 milliseconds and 400 milliseconds.

Moving computing of certain critical applications to the edge, however, such as to a server room located in an office or factory, addresses these drawbacks of cloud computing. Reducing the latency can then increase the performance of certain applications, and an Internet outage will not bring productivity to a halt.

Some applications that are bandwidth intensive, such as video streaming, benefit from the edge when they are closer to the users rather than in the cloud.

The rise of Internet of Things applications, where many sensors are all connected to a system which may need to respond quickly to those inputs, will also drive the adoption of edge computing, said Schneider Electric.

Data centre builds

As a result, Schneider Electric said that we will see an increase in data centre builds around the world, including South Africa. While the demand for large data centres will continue to grow, but there will also be a demand for smaller builds.

Small data centres are becoming just as important, if not more important, than big data centres, said the company.

Currently, smaller data centres are not paying much attention to the details of power distribution and cooling, but this is also changing as companies realise the benefits of making their loose-standing servers and racks more efficient.

All of this adds up to a huge opportunity, said Schneider Electric  not only in building and retro-fitting small data centres for companies, but also in managing them.

As the model of using smaller data centres distributed across an organisation starts becoming more important, management systems need to be designed to look after multiple facilities.

IT administrators and outsource IT management companies will need systems that can not only monitor a single data centre or server room, but ones that might be installed in remote locations.

This will be especially important in markets like South Africa, where the country is large and the population more dispersed, said Schneider Electric.

For more information, visit the Schneider Electric website.
A memorial service for former Calistogan, Phyllis Margaret White Dearing, 87, will be held at 1 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 25 at St. Lukes Episcopal Church, Calistoga.

The Rev. Deacon Susan Napoliello said she and her husband, Ed, have been members of St. Lukes for about three years. Of Dearing, she said, She was one of the very first people that we met, she greeted us at the door, welcomed us and made us feel like we were part of the family.

What did Dearing mean to the church? Napoliello answered, I would say that Phyllis is a person whose heart and soul were in the brick and mortar (of the church) because in the short time that I knew her, there wasnt anything that she hadnt done in the church.

Dearing was a member of St. Lukes for 43 years and during that time, she was an elected member of the churchs governing body, the Parish Vestry, a lector and prayer leader during Sunday services and church treasurer for 10 years. Millie Pease, a longtime church member with her husband, Bill, said Dearing also served on the board of the Hearts and Hands Preschool for 12 years, almost since its inception in 2004. The church founded the preschool.

You always knew that Phyllis would do what she said she would do, Pease said. She was just true blue, that is the way to put it. You could rely on her. She was very cheerful and her husband, David, was a jokester and always had a joke ready.

Officiating at Saturdays service will be the Rev. William Father Mac McIlmoyl, the churchs current priest in charge and the Rev. Canon Mary L. Goshert, St. Lukes former priest in charge.

Napoliello said Father Mac didnt know Dearing and wanted to invite both Goshert and Lucretia Jevne, who was also a priest in charge at the church. She added that Mac knew how important it is for the family to know that the people leading the service knew their loved ones. In fact, Goshert was the officiant for Phyllis husband, David, when his memorial was held at St. Lukes. Dearing had selected the hymns and the scripture for her husbands service, Napoliello said, so Goshert used parts of that service and wove them into the service for Phyllis Dearing.

During that Saturday service, the eulogy will be given by her sister, Mary Anne White Perry; and her son, Larry, also will participate.

During her years in Calistoga and at St. Lukes Episcopal Church, Phyllis Dearing was an active member of the Silverado Chapter of Eastern Star, she was a deputy Grand Matron between 2003-2004 and held several other responsible posts from 1987 through 2008, according to her memorial service bulletin. She and David also enjoyed activities with the Masonic Order and Eastern Star. Dearing was a volunteer at Calistogas Sharpsteen Museum and she and her husband enjoyed traveling in the United States and on many vacation cruises as well. She and David were married for 57 years.

Pease remembers she also made jams for Calistogas Christmas Bazaar and during the summer, she would go out and buy fresh strawberries and have them ready for the bazaar in December. She also embroidered dish towels for the bazaar.

She really worked for the betterment of the church and congregation, Pease said.

Napoliello adds, She was always willing to step forward and do something. She was one of those people that would come up and always know about the missing piece that needed to be taken care of. Dearing would follow through on projects, and if somebody was missing that was a critical person in the service, she would step in.

A few years ago, Dearing had to leave Calistoga and St. Lukes, to move to be nearer to her son, Larry, who lives in Rohnert Park. Before she left St. Lukes the church held a special service for Dearing. Napoliello said the church had just decided to buy a traveling communion kit and dedicated it in Dearings honor. We were able to tell her we were buying this communion kit, so we could spread the love outside the church walls that she had given us inside, Napoliello said.

David and Phyllis raised two children and according to the service bulletin, Phyllis adored her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and was always ready to share their exploits and accomplishments. Family was central to Phyllis and she made sure that all were together for holidays and family events.

Phyllis Dearing was born Feb. 17, 1931 in Fort Dodge, Iowa and died July 16, 2018.

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19292018

LOCAL AUTHOR DIES AT 89

Elsebeth Nielsen Schoenberger, author of acclaimed novel, Brigittes War, A novel of the Danish Resistance, succumbed suddenly to lymphonic cancer August 12th.

Her novel was based on her life as a teenager with guns and bombs fighting Nazis.

The book was nominated for a prestigious European literary award and she and her husband, Louis Kaplan attended the ceremony in Denmark where she was awarded second prize in a field of fifty.

With masters degrees in English and literature she taught on a college level, wrote and lectured at UCLA and other local schools. Later in life she conducted wine tours in Napa Valley.

She is survived by her Husband Louis ,her sons Steven and Thomas and grandsons Max and Wolfgang.

A service is scheduled for 11am Friday, August 24 at Tulocay Funeral Home , 411 coombsville road in Napa.
After an earlier run-in with unscrupulous authorities, Albert Schram returned triumphantly to Lae. But it was too much for those he'd caught cheating the system. They successfully plotted his arrest on trumped up charges and he was forced to flee PNG

ALBERT SCHRAM

VERONA - It is clear that the university councils of the PNG University of Technology (UNITECH) and the University of Resources and Environment (UNRE) are unable to govern.

It is also clear that in both cases, the management and senior staff colluded with council to chase expatriate vice chancellors out of the country.

Meanwhile, at UNITECH, the University of PNG and the University of Goroka, the student representative councils remain suspended.

At UNITECH, the facts demonstrate that management is no longer complying with the law and is negligent in many ways.

For example, students were promised elections for their council (SRC) in February 2018 based on a modified constitution to be approved by university council. Silence.

UNITECH management has known for about a year that providing a 15% allowance instead of leave fares is illegal. This is no small amount. Senior staff and the whole management team receive in excess of K5,000 per year, some even K10,000. Non-academic staff receives a pittance.
No employees of PIA-Pak Steel Mills to loose job: Asad Umer

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Asad Umar has said that the priority of the new government is to repatriate the huge amount of funds transferred abroad through the illegal practice of money laundering.



Speaking to the media after he was given his first briefing as the minister for finance by the secretary, Mr Umar said that the government would soon decide whether to present a fresh federal budget or come up with some other way to lay out the actual economic situation in parliament.



Responding to a question, the minister said employees would not be laid off. Instead, he added, the current staff will be reoriented to work towards delivering public service  and not just continue to serve the few at the expense of the many. We are not going to sack or send home any labour. We are not going to create unemployment, he said.



The finance minister said that it is a misnomer that thousands of laborers inducted into the public sector was the cause of the downfall of public sector entities like the Pakistan Steel Mill and Pakistan International Airlines.



He said that there might be people who were not utilised or those who should not have been inducted in the first place, but it was the ineffectual management and the incompetence of past governments that was the underlying cause of the unprofitability of the public sector.



Mr Umar added that nobody, including himself, knew exactly how much wealth Pakistanis had stashed abroad, except the $8bn invested in the Dubai real estate market, as stated by the Dubai Real Estate Authority. Clearly, he said, they were huge amounts and since we have been talking about this, the first decision of the cabinet under Prime Minister Imran Khan was to constitute a task force, which has been given two weeks to formulate a strategy to repatriate the looted money that has been filtered out of Pakistan thanks to years of corruption.



Mr Umar said that the former finance minister, Ishaq Dar, had stated on the floor of the National Assembly that $200bn had been stashed abroad. But, he added, the previous government had failed to take any concrete measures to repatriate the money.



The government, Mr Umar said, had not yet taken a final decision about issuing bonds to overseas Pakistanis, but decided, in principle, to offer bonds and sukuk to expatriates.



He said he had been given a broad review of the economic situation during his visit to the ministry, and that there were several daunting challenges, but there were also many opportunities.



Mr Umar said that the previous government had rolled out an unrealistic budget that had nothing to do with the realities on the ground. He said that the prime minister had decided to lay out the dire circumstances and actual realities before parliament. The finance minister said that the position of the fiscal deficit and the steps required to remedy the colossal problems would also be presented on the floor of the house.



We will formulate a comprehensive and integrated economic strategy to address all the challenges we face today, Mr Umar said, adding that the plan to save the economy would involve raising funds by reaching out to expatriates.



Earlier in the day, the minister chaired a meeting of senior officials in the finance ministry, where he was briefed on the overall working of the department, its different wings and sub-ordinate offices. The minister on the occasion reiterated the governments resolve to take concrete steps to strengthen the economy.
19222018

Ruth Jayne-Mize died peacefully on August 15 in Napa, CA at the age of 95. Ruth is survived by her children, Don and Bob, and her granddaughters, Katy and Jessie. She is preceded in death by her husband of 54 years, Stuart, and her second husband of 10 years, Clayton Mize.

Ruth was born in 1922 in Magdeburg, Germany, to Leo and Elizabeth Dyga. She emigrated to the U.S. in 1929, becoming a citizen 10 years later. She married Stuart in 1943, and graduated from Columbia Union College a year later. Ruth later earned a Masters degree at San Francisco State in 1970, and enjoyed a lengthy career teaching school full and part-time and continuing as a substitute teacher well into her retirement.

Ruth was an avid reader, played the piano, enjoyed bird watching, and traveled extensively all over the world, visiting 72 countries. She was an active and dedicated member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church who volunteered frequently and traveled to other countries to help in the construction of schools and churches.

A graveside service is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Wednesday at Tulocay Cemetery, 411 Coombsville Rd, in Napa. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Maranatha Volunteers Intl. at 990 Reserve Drive, Suite 100, Roseville, CA 95678-1387.

The family would like to extend their gratitude to Ruths friends and neighbors for their many kindnesses, as well as the staff at the Meadows and Continuum Hospice for their care. Memories and notes of sympathy may be shared at claffeyandrota.com.
Jesse Unruh, the legendary speaker of the state Assembly during the 1960s, was fond of pithy quips, and one of his more enduring is that money is the mothers milk of politics.

Before Unruh became the Assemblys leader in 1961, the financing of legislative campaigns was largely controlled by Capitol lobbyists, who adhered to the select and elect philosophy of the lobbying trades most famous  or infamous  practitioner, Artie Samish.

Unruh maintained Samishs process of selecting candidates for the Assembly, but sought, successfully, to transfer it into his hands.

For the next three-plus decades, legislative leaders  particularly long-time Assembly Speaker Willie Brown  leveraged their power over legislation to compel special interest groups to funnel money through their hands. Thus, they wielded almost hegemonic control over which Democrats could aspire to legislative careers. Brown could boast, accurately, of being the Ayatollah of the Legislature.

The system broke down in the 1990s after voters passed legislative term limits. Long-term legislative and leadership careers became obsolete and eventually, interest groups and their lobbyists filled the power vacuum, resuming a Samish-like role of grooming and financing candidates.

Political reform groups such as Common Cause reacted by sponsoring a 1996 ballot measure, Proposition 208, that imposed tight limits on campaign contributions.

The political professionals didnt like it for obvious reasons and challenged it in court. And as the legal battle was being waged, the Legislature, with little warning, placed another measure, Proposition 34, on the 2000 ballot to succeed it.

It purported to be a reform, but actually made it easier for big money to flow indirectly into campaigns via independent expenditures and through political parties, thus protecting candidates from accountability for its source.

As I observed in a 2010 Sacramento Bee column,  laundering campaign money to disguise its source is exactly what state legislators intended when they wrote Proposition 34 a decade ago.

Term limits were modified a few years ago, and one effect is that legislative leaders, such as current Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, can hold their offices longer.

They clearly aspire to re-establish the centralized legislative leadership that had been eroded by term limits, and to do so, they want bigger roles in amassing and dispensing campaign funds to their favored legislators and candidates, ala Unruh and Brown.

A late-blooming bill, Assembly Bill 84, would do exactly that, giving leadership campaign organizations the same status as political parties, and thus allowing them to raise and spend much more money.

Political reform groups oppose it, of course. AB 84 would be the biggest rollback of Californias campaign finance law in at least a decade, Nicolas Heidorn of California Common Cause told the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee before it voted to approve the measure last week.

Interestingly, however, AB 84 also draws opposition from the California Democratic Party even though Rendon and Atkins are high-ranking leaders of the party, apparently because it would erode the partys powerful role in financing campaigns provided by Proposition 34.

Theres too much money in politics. This bill is a step backward. California politics simply does not need more opportunities for big checks to go to campaigns, Daraka Larimore-Hall, Democratic Party vice chairman, told the committee.

If nothing else, the split is another indication that despite its political dominance of California  or perhaps because of it  the party is fragmenting into sub-factions and additional evidence that money is, indeed, the mothers milk of political power.

CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how Californias state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary.
Suppose for a moment that your favorite relative  father, mother, aunt, uncle, brother or sister  were getting urgently needed cancer treatment and Californias government suddenly decreed the doctor could not include his assistants pay in any fees he charged. So he fires his assistant and then has less time to devote to caring for your loved one.

Would that constitute interference with the doctor-patient relationship, an act no sane politician would ever want to be accused of?

And yet  well over 569,000 Californians signed off on an initiative that would do essentially the same thing to the 139,000 patients now getting treatment at the states more than 550 dialysis clinics. These are places where people whose kidneys have failed get their blood cleansed of toxic substances several times weekly, the only way they can survive more than a few weeks.

This initiative will be on the November ballot as Proposition 8, and its almost a sure thing that dialysis patients will get lower quality care than they do today if it passes.

Yes, there are flaws in todays system. For one example, two multinational companies  the German-based Fresenius Medical Care and the Denver-based DaVita Corp.  operate 70 percent of California dialysis centers, places where patients are hooked up to blood-cleansing machines via large needles inserted into their arms or chests.

That creates a non-competitive situation and most likely drives up the cost of dialysis treatment, from which a kidney transplant is the only way to escape alive. There are legitimate complaints about staffing levels and the fact that some patients must drive many miles to get treatments.

But Prop. 8 could make a flawed situation much worse.

Sponsored primarily by the Service Employees International Union, which would like to recruit most dialysis technicians, it would forbid clinics from charging insurance companies for the work of physician medical directors vital to maintaining quality care. It would not allow clinics to charge for the work of facility administrators, security personnel and professional services like accounting, payroll and legal expenses.

It does this not by naming specific areas where payments are banned, but by listing classes of work where payment is allowed. The measure does not cover the substantial percentage of California patients whose treatments are covered under Medicare and Medi-Cal.

It also limits what clinics can charge to 15 percent above what is spent directly for patient care by nurses and technicians and the equipment and supplies they use. Clinic directors and the doctors who oversee operations would have to be paid from that 15 percent, leaving almost no room for profits.

If Prop. 8 passes, Fresenius and DaVita, both very profit-conscious companies that have bought up many previously doctor-owned dialysis clinics, might sell off many of their facilities to buyers with unknown qualifications.

So its no wonder most physician groups oppose the measure, for which the SEIU had already spent more than $5 million as of early August. They contend Prop. 8s strict rules would force clinics to cut back staff, including supervising nurses who often are vital to solving patients problems. And that, they say, could reduce access to dialysis centers.

Said Dr. Aimee Moulin, president of the California chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, This proposition will leave this fragile population no choice but to go to the emergency room for treatment, or increase their threat of life-threatening complications. Treating dialysis patients in the emergency room is more expensive and drives up the cost ofthe entire health care system.

Added kidney specialist Dr. Byron Wong of Berkeley in an essay, The (payments allowed) would not cover the cost of providing high-quality care.  Patients would have to travel farther  and chances would increase that they will miss a treatment.

In short, no previous ballot measure has ever attempted to interfere so strongly with the medical care of any one patient group. That makes Prop. 8 a bad precedent that could lead to more interference in other types of care. It deserves a strong no vote.

(Full disclosure: Columnist Elias has had a kidney transplant since 1997. He underwent regular dialysis treatments for many months prior to his transplant.)

Thomas D. Elias writes the syndicated California Focus column. He is author of the book, The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Governments Campaign to Squelch It.
Over the past year and a half, life in politics has often felt like an ongoing circus in which the madness never ceases. But for all that, the next 11 weeks could be the most intense and consequential of Donald Trump's presidency.

Let's begin with a report in the New York Times that the case against Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal lawyer, might be coming to a head:

"Federal authorities investigating whether President Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, committed bank and tax fraud have zeroed in on well over $20 million in loans obtained by taxi businesses that he and his family own, according to people familiar with the matter.

"Investigators are also examining whether Mr. Cohen violated campaign finance or other laws by helping to arrange financial deals to secure the silence of women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump. The inquiry has entered the final stage and prosecutors are considering filing charges by the end of August, two of the people said."

There's a serious possibility that Cohen will cooperate with prosecutors in order to obtain leniency, and there's no telling what he might be able to reveal about the Trump Organization, the president himself and the president's children, with whom he worked closely. The company has a history of deals with questionable characters in questionable circumstances, including many that went south amid accusations of misconduct. If Cohen chooses to sing, he might have a thick libretto to work from.

Needless to say, if Cohen were to implicate the president or his family in some kind of criminal wrongdoing, it would be a political earthquake. But even if he doesn't cooperate, if he is indicted in the coming weeks, that would itself be a serious blow to Trump's presidency. Even if much of what Cohen is accused of doesn't have to do directly with his former boss, it would contribute to the growing impression that Trump is a corrupt man who surrounds himself with other corrupt men.

And here are some other things that could or, in some cases, will happen between now and the first week in November:

- Paul Manafort will either be convicted or acquitted in his first trial, presumably this week (the jury is currently deliberating). And his second trial - which will deal more directly with his work in the former Soviet Union and the ways it may have affected his actions as Trump campaign chairman - will begin in mid-September.

- Special counsel Robert Mueller could hand down more indictments, or even release a final report on all that he has learned in his investigation.

- Trump will likely continue to revoke the security clearances of his critics in the intelligence community, which will generate more bipartisan condemnation and comparisons to Richard Nixon.

- Omarosa Manigault Newman will release more tapes she recorded of conversations with people in the White House.

- A lawsuit will begin in Texas in which Republican states and the administration will be arguing for the entire Affordable Care Act to be struck down, handing Democrats a priceless campaign issue.

- Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings will take place. Even if the process ends with a win for Trump, it will also likely generate an immediate backlash, a wave of fear and opposition from Democrats as they realize the implications of an intensely partisan, intensely conservative Supreme Court.

That's just what we know about. There are other things, both foreseeable and not, that could increase the president's stress during this period.

We recently learned that White House counsel Donald McGahn was interviewed for 30 hours by Mueller's team, interviews that were initially approved by Trump as part of a strategy of cooperation but might well have turned into a way for McGahn to protect himself.

We have no idea what McGahn told them about Trump's actions or how it might relate to Russia and contribute to a case of obstruction of justice.

Trump's trade war has so far seemed to generate nothing but job losses and uncertainty. There could be international crises and more conflict with our allies. And if history is any guide, Trump will react to all of it with petulance and resentment, occasionally boiling over into outright rage.

The culmination of this intense period is, of course, the November elections. The wave of scandal news will only increase the likelihood that Democrats will win control of the House, and as much as we've talked about that possibility, we haven't fully reckoned with how transformative it would be.

Right now Congress is all but nonexistent as a force in our political life; having passed a tax cut for corporations and the wealthy, Republicans have given up on any serious legislating, and certainly aren't exercising anything resembling oversight of the administration.

But if Democrats have control, they'll begin holding hearings and mounting investigations of all the Trump scandals. Russia will be just the beginning; they'll use their subpoena power and ability to create news events to probe the president himself, possible misconduct committed by other members of his administration (of which there is a nearly inexhaustible supply) and various policy outrages. It will be a ceaseless drumbeat of Trump scandal for the next two years.

For a president who is unendingly frustrated by the constraints put upon him and the criticism he gets even when his party controls all the centers of power in Washington, it will be a nightmare. And it all starts now.

Paul Waldman is an opinion writer for the Plum Line blog. He wrote this for The Washington Post.
Several readers have commented that they question the appropriateness of choosing a grizzly bear as the new Napa High School mascot, complaining a lack of connection to the Napa Valley. They couldn't be more wrong.

George Yount reported in the 1830s that grizzly bears were everywhere in the valley and that he personally had killed as many as five or six in a single day. Grizzlies were such a common sight in the valley that when American insurgents rode from here to Sonoma in 1846, to liberate Northern California from Mexico, they brought with them a homemade flag with a picture of a grizzly on it.

This, of course, has come to be known as the Bear Flag Revolt and a version of that flag has been our state flag since 1911.

I can understand the fondness that former Napa High students have for the Indian mascot of their school days. But I can think of no more appropriate symbol than the grizzly for future Napa Valley High students to take pride in going forward.

Richard Aldrich

Napa
Winston Churchill is credited with saying that the best argument against a democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. Below-average voters take even less time to convince us that the fate of our democracy may be in jeopardy.

That the common man might be susceptible to the persuasive arguments of men with less than honorable intentions was a concern of our Founding Fathers. Most of us accept without question the premise that the Founding Fathers were honest men with honorable intentions. Giving the vote to all was a gamble the founders of our country took. The hope, and the gamble remain; that in time, truth, or at least common sense, will prevail.

It can be difficult to determine the truth of a matter. This is due in part to our limited access to accurate information. In our attempts to separate truth from fiction, we gather information, analyze it and reach a conclusion. At least, this is what we should do.

When we gather information, the source of our information is critical. This speaks to the fear of some Founding Fathers that voters could be manipulated by dishonest people. Dishonest people can make very convincing arguments that are completely false.

Or, put another way, dishonest people can make fake news seem so real. The task of dishonest people is made easier when people fail to investigate.

When the Fox News Channel is declared to be the only channel that attempts to provide some honesty, backed-up truth and facts, we are left to wonder what led to this conclusion. Perhaps it is not possible or practical to determine if this statement is in fact true. But, if it is true, then when Fox News says something, we should accept it shouldnt we?

But the real issue is not if Fox News is the only channel telling us the truth. The real issue is can we trust the source of information that is telling us that Fox News is telling us the truth. This claim must be tested, right?

We are told Fox News tells us facts and truth. The same source that says this, also says.President Trump is a tell-it-like-it-is guy and has fulfilled the promises he has made to date. Is this true?

Three promises come quickly to mind. President Trump promised to build a border wall and have Mexico pay for it. President Trump promised to repeal Obamacare on Day 1. President Trump promised to make his tax returns available for inspection.

Given that these promises have not yet been kept and seem unlikely to be kept in the foreseeable future, maybe President Trump is not the tell-it-like-it-is guy he was thought to be by the source telling us Fox News tells the truth. Why, then, should we take seriously the claim that Fox News tells us the truth?

Trusting and relying on only one source of information is dangerous. Considering other sources of information filtered through the biased view that other sources are lying only reinforces the bias that Fox News tells the truth. This reinforces the bias that others stretch the truth, use vague reporting of invisible sources, whispers, downright lies, and so on.

Listening to views that contradict each other or provide alternate interpretations of facts should drive one to investigate, shouldnt it? If instead of investigation, one chooses to accept one view over another only because a source is trusted, then it is bias and not good decision making that is the driving force.

How do we know Fox News, or any other source of news, is telling us the truth? We probably cant know for certain all the time. But we must make our best judgment and we can do that only if we consider all the information that comes to us without having a biased filter declaring information to be true or false based only on our trust in the source of information. We all have biases. We all, therefore, must make a conscious effort not to let our biases be our test for truth.

Winston Churchill was correct. So were the Founding Fathers. If we divide ourselves based on the cable news we trust, the radio commentators we trust, the information sources we trust -- and do not trust -- then the hope that common sense will prevail is a false hope. It is a false hope because we have let others think for us.

Perhaps we should consider the possibility that at least some news outlets and some radio talk show hosts are recruiting us rather than informing us. Armed with that assumption we will likely be more cautious about proclamations we make regarding what is true and what is false.

Richard Cannon

Napa
Wednesday, Aug. 15

0920 -- A drivers license was found on Main Street.

1035 -- Lift assist for a man whod fallen and scraped himself on Redondo Court.

1344 -- Police took a report on altered currency found on Charter Oak Avenue.

1356 -- Report of possible child abuse on Pope Street.

1408 -- An officer conducted a traffic stop on Main Street and warned the driver about using a cell phone while driving.

1421 -- Police were asked to check on a young girl who was holding her head at a bus stop on Grayson Avenue.

1524 -- Medical aid for a possible heart attack victim on Spring Mountain Road.

1704 -- Report of a drunk person leaving a Hunt Avenue store and driving away in a car. Police arrested the 63-year-old St. Helena man on suspicion of DUI.

1907 -- A brown and white dog found near McCorkle/Allison was reunited with her owners.

Thursday, Aug. 16

0143 -- Medical aid for a man having a dental emergency at a Main Street inn.

0358 -- Police were asked to check on a suspicious person using a phone or computer in a car on Del Monte Court. It turned out to be a newspaper delivery person.

1009 -- Non-injury accident in a parking lot on Railroad Avenue.

1110 -- Report of a man urinating on Money Way.

1136 -- Report of a loud leaf blower on Dean York Lane.

1229 -- An outboard boat motor was abandoned on College Avenue.

1310 -- Report of drivers speeding down Edwards Street and using it as a shortcut. The caller almost got hit by several cars.

1351 -- A little brown chihuahua found on Chablis Circle was returned to its owner.

1509 -- Report of a truck traveling with an unsecured load near Main/Vidovich. Police cited the driver for not carrying a license.

1621 -- A suspicious man had been asked to leave a Main Street property at about 8 a.m., but he kept returning. He was washing his feet and seemed a little confused.

1637 -- Medical aid for a woman who fell near the piano at Lyman Park.

1957 -- Medical aid on Hunt Avenue.

2050 -- Flashlights were seen on Church Street.

2352 -- A woman was seen going back and forth from her red Explorer on Main Street. It appeared she had removed coins from a newsrack.

Friday, Aug. 17

0257 -- Report of an unattended fire in a barbecue area on Main Street. Police contacted the chef, who said he would be there all night roasting pigs that would take 24 hours to cook.

0702 -- A man asked for police to give him a ride to Glass Mountain Road and stand by while he retrieved items from his ex-girlfriends home. His request was passed to the sheriffs office.

0855 -- A Dean York Lane resident found a dead dove in her back yard. She wasnt sure if it had some sort of disease, so she wanted help removing it. Wildlife services said it was OK for her to dispose of it herself.

1035 -- A man asked for a peddlers permit, but police said he didnt need one because he was representing a nonprofit organization. He and another person would be stationed on the street Saturday and Sunday.

1456 -- A white SUV had been sitting in a parking lot on Inglewood Avenue for about seven weeks.

Saturday, Aug. 18

0227 -- Medical aid on Voorhees Circle.

0833 -- Dudley, a white Maltese wearing a collar and tag, was reported missing from San Ardo Court.

1122 -- Medical aid for an elderly woman having difficulty breathing on Pope Street.

1202 -- A pair of Prada sunglasses were found at the Crane Park bocce courts on Thursday night.

1251 -- Non-injury accident at Adams/Main.

1312 -- A car with expired registration was towed from Meadowcreek/Starr.

1504 -- An out-of-town couple brought in an old chihuahua/dachshund cross that they said had been abandoned by his owner near Main/Charter Oak. They said the dog had wandered away from its owner once and she retrieved him, but after he wandered away again she didnt retrieve him and drove away. Later, the dogs owner called inquiring about the dog, whod been forgotten in the chaos of getting six kids loaded into the car. The owners hadnt realized the dog was missing until they got home.

1811 -- Report of three young men, possibly underage, drinking beer in a pool area near Mitchell/Saint James.

1901 -- A wallet was found near Charter Oak/Allison.

Sunday, Aug. 19

0352 -- Report of a possible drunk driver in a Prius speeding and crossing in to the oncoming lane on Highway 29 near Mee Lane.

0853 -- Medical aid for a fall victim on Voorhees Circle.

1308 -- Two bicycles were left on someones front lawn on Pratt Avenue. They were gone when police arrived.

1800 -- Medical aid for a woman feeling ill on Hunt Avenue.

2233 -- Police arrested a 53-year-old St. Helena/Napa man for an outstanding felony warrant.

Monday, Aug. 20

1109 -- A Doris Court resident asked police to do extra patrol, with the patrol cars windows down, due to a continual problem with barking dogs. The dogs were quiet at the moment, but the caller was certain they would start up again.

1535 -- Non-injury accident at Main/Pope.

1637 -- A large rectangular sidewalk drain cover had been removed at Pope/Paulson, posing a hazard to pedestrians and animals.

1808 -- Police were asked to check on a vacant house on Scott Street that appeared to have been disturbed or damaged.

1856 -- Report of a possible drunk driver on Silverado Trail near Rutherford.

2131 -- Police were asked to check on people who were using a ladder and flashlights to enter an apartment on Railroad Avenue. They told a witness theyd locked themselves out.

2325 -- Medical aid and lift assist on Park Street.

2337 -- Report of a possible fluid or water leak on Charter Oak Avenue.

2338 -- Report of a scooter sitting in front of the PD.

Tuesday, Aug. 21

0311 -- Neighbors were reportedly yelling at each other on Pope Street.




It also does not reflect the views of the Firm of which the Author is working for.





Since the inception of this blog, the Author has avoided writing views and opinions of his clients or views and opinions which third parties has paid him to write.





The Author has maintained editorial independence since Day One.





Any individual or group affected by the opinions and views of the Author can write the author thru mangubat.patricio@gmail.com.

Opinions and views expressed in this blog are personal views of the Author and does not involve organisations and companies being serviced by the Author as part of his profession as a Strategic Communications professional.
With the start of classes Monday, students at the University of Miami fanned out across campus, some lounging outside the Shalala Student Center or waiting in line at Starbucks for a Caramel Cocoa Cluster Frappuccino. Others loaded up on UM gear from the University Bookstore or rushed from the residence halls to their first morning class.

More than 2,300 students make up this years freshman class, coming from 47 states and more than 80 countries. Its one of the largest freshman classes in UMs history.

UM News spoke to students across the Coral Gables campus about their experiences:

Divina Chandiramani, junior marketing major, and Ariana Madan, junior psychology major:

Divina Chandiramani and Ariana Madan took selfies to post on social media Monday, marking the start of the fall semester. This time last week, Chandiramani was back in her home country of Paraguay. On Monday morning, she was in front of the Merrick Building with Orlando native Ariana Madan, whom she met two years ago in the lobby of Mahoney-Pearson. The pair said they are most looking forward to classes becoming more concentrated in their majors. Also, Chandiramani said she's hoping she'll have more time and energy to dedicate to extracurricular activities this semester.

Milena Pak, freshman biomedical engineering major:

Although she has been living in the United States for a few years now, Milena Pak was unprepared for the humidity and heat that confronted her as she walked to her first class as a freshman. Fanning herself, Pak, a native of Moscow, was making her way along Lake Osceola toward her first class Monday, a psychology class. The biomedical engineering major said she did not realize the weather conditions would be so different when she made the choice to attend UM. I really liked the location, even though now Im dying from this heat, said Pak, who attended three years of high school in Wisconsin. Regardless, Pak was still optimistic about starting college and is looking forward to the start of her college years. Im excited about being a part of campus life and meeting people from around the U.S. and the world, she said, adding that she looks forward to studying abroad, hopefully in Germany (she is also a German minor).

Obi Okolo, senior biochemistry major:

Obi Okolo, a senior biochemistry major who hails from New York, was in the University Bookstore Monday morning stocking up on school supplies for the semester. He spent his summer break preparing for the Medical College Admission Test. As president of the African Students Union, Okolo is looking forward to welcoming and connecting with new students this semester. I am really looking forward to our clubs family bonding events and end of the semester banquet, he said.

Kyle Russo, freshman business major:

Freshman Kyle Russo, was getting prepared for his second class while sitting outside the Shalala Student Center early Monday. Russo hails from Hauppague, New York on Long Island and had just attended Math 107, a pre-calculus course. I took pre-calc already, so it was not too bad, but its only the first day, he said. Later Monday, Russo, a business major, would be attending English 105 and Marketing 201. He said UMs cognate system, which allows students to take classes not traditionally acknowledged as part of their major, really attracted him to UM.

Caleb Sun, sophomore psychology major:

Caleb Sun, of Barrington, Rhode Island, is happy to be back on campus. UM has become a safe place for him to be himself and he has been welcomed with open arms. I feel more normal here than at home because I see more people who are like me, Sun said. I come from a very small town where I was one of three who identified as LGBTQ. I havent had any racial or homophobic slurs thrown at me, but back home I did. Everyone is really chill about having us on campus.

Nikhil Sikha, senior neuroscience major:

Nikhil Sikha, a Fort Lauderdale native and neuroscience major, was trying to ease into his senior year with a philosophy class. The first day was pretty slow, so it was not too bad, he said. Its my first philosophy class, so I dont really know what to expect. With some of his medical school applications already complete, Sikha said this year he wants to take advantage of all that the U can offer. He said living on campus his freshman year was an extremely positive experience and he still has many of the friends he made from his dorm floor that year. This year, I want to raise my GPA, have a lot of fun, and make new memories, he said, adding that he hopes to continue his education at the Miller School of Medicine.

Amy Grace Humber, junior political science, sociology and African studies major:

Junior Amy Grace Humber was excited about starting classes again but nervous about juggling the coursework with her two jobs  as a resident assistant (RA) and an assistant in the School of Laws registrar department. Humber has three majors: political science, sociology and African studies. She has scheduled her classes all on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, but knows that scheduling may get tricky at times. I really like my class schedule this year, but I am a little apprehensive because I have two jobs, so balancing that with my classes will be interesting, the Memphis, Tennessee, native said. But I am excited because of the classes Im taking and because my people are here and we will be back in classes together.

Jordan Basco, freshman electrical engineering major:

Jordan Basco, a freshman from New York majoring in electrical engineering, said he chose UM because of its diversity, culture and swag. To make himself feel at home, he brought along a photo of his family to display in his Hecht dorm room. Cane Kickoff made me feel welcomed, he said. Looking at the schedule was a bit overwhelming but once I got into the swing of things it all became so exciting.

Nicole Newton and Lauren Tortorice, senior accounting majors:

Senior accounting majors Nicole Newton and Lauren Tortorice were both impressed by their first class of the yearInternal Auditing, taught by Lecturer Blanca Malagon. It was a lot better than I thought it would be, said Tortorice, a Massapequa, New York native. She was able to keep me awake at 8 a.m., and it was nice coming out of an internship this summer and actually understanding what she was saying. She made the information relatable to the real world, added Newton, a Fort Lauderdale native.
Pakistan to work with international community to eradicate terrorism: Imran Khan

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that Pakistan will work with the international community to eradicate terrorism. On the first International day to remember the victims of terrorism, the PM said that he salutes the brave people who have suffered the losses and continued the fight against terrorism, especially mentioning the security forces and the Pakistan Army.



The PM further said that Pakistan is one of those countries which has suffered the most at the behest of terrorism and thousands of civilians and security personnel have lost their lives in the ongoing fight against extremism.



He also remembered the victims of the APS attack and said that the 130 martyrs of the attack can never be forgotten.



He also cited the Pakistani governments efforts to help the victims of terrorism.




Sindh to install desalination plant in Karachi

KARACHI: The Sindh cabinet has decided to install a desalination plant in Karachi to overcome the water crisis. The cabinet also declared some areas of Umerkot and Thar drought stricken and has also decided to reserve some space in the city for graveyards.



The meeting was chaired by CM Murad Ali Shah and in attendance were the newly-appointed eight ministers, two advisors, the chief secretary, Sindh police IG and other provincial secretaries.



The CM also directed the secretary to put the suo motice on luxury cars on the agenda in the next meeting so that decisive action can be taken and instructed the provincial minister of municipality to initiate the construction of the desalination plant on immediate basis.



The Interior Secretary and IG police gave the cabinet a briefing regarding law and order in the city, assuring the law makers that the city is under control.



They also informed the cabinet that instructions regarding goat skins and cleanliness were dispatched in both English and Urdu.



The CM further instructed the IG to enhance security measures in Shikarpur, Dadu and Jacobabad as last year on the occasion of Eid, there was a terror attack in Shikarpur.
Security analyst Adam Bonah has called on government to establish special galamsey courts to hear and prosecute persons found mining illegally.



According to him, the lack of such courts has contributed to a lot of offenders being left off the hook.



Speaking on TV3s New Day on Saturday, Adam Bonah said he was hopeful government would have put in place long-term measures to deal with the issue of illegal mining prior to placing a ban on those activities.



I was expecting that over the period, we should have put in structures to ensure that before the ban is lifted certain structures would have been put in place, but Im yet to see that.



I was expecting to see a galamsey court, for instance, he stated, you know we have the motor court, and it is swift. But we are still putting these suspected galamseyers who are arrested through the normal court, and so we dont normally have judges who are trained to deal with these issues, we dont have them, Mr. Bonah complained.



This, he further stated, has in one way or the other made the work of Operation Vanguard, the task force established to arrest offenders, difficult.



You hear statements from the Operation Vanguard team that we have arrested 1,000 so and so, and less than 10% has been prosecuted.



He suggested that proper structures should have been established while the ban on illegal mining is still ongoing.



Government placed a ban on illegal mining activities in 2017 when the Akufo-Addo-led government took office.



Despite calls from some persons for the ban to be lifted, then Minister of Lands and Natural Resources John Peter Amewu postponed the lifting of the ban, stating that there were still people engaged in the act.



On Thursday, August 16, 2018, Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining, Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng said there are plans to lift the ban soon.



Speaking on the issue of the lifting of the ban, Adam Bonah said government ought to embark on proper consultation before lifting the ban.



We need a lot of consultation. What sort of device are we putting in? What sort of monitoring are we doing? There is mining in the US, but you see, what you go through to mine, the regimeIf government wants to do proper work, a lot of consultation ought to be done.



When we talk about using drones, I will want to know what type of drones we [will be] using because we are talking about drones that we can probably not buy, he said.



According to him, government ought to get the public involved in the fight against illegal mining.



He further urged government to ensure that the right structures and measures are established to clamp down on illegal mining permanently.







Source: 3news









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Chavez Cuanto te queremos!



Por culpa de Chavez



Cerveza Polar







Algun dia Colombia volvera a la ideologia de Bolivar







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LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares?



























Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano...



Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos:



Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias.



Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera.



No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje.



En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio.



Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida.



Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella.



Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal.



Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista.



Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen.



Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che?



Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio.



Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora.



Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo.



Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo.



Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania.



No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar.



Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga.





Alguna duda?



Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino



Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia.



OZ1



OZ2



OZ3



OZ4



Homenaje a Jason Galarraga



La Victoria de Samotracia



Odalisca



Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008



























La Sierra Nevada de Merida



Nuestro precioso Churum Meru



Homenaje a Picasso



Autoretrato



Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola?

La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.

Mi profesion?

Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.

Sal en la Coca Cola?

A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.

De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:

Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto

Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)

azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)

Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas

Mucha Cafeina

Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio

Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe

Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion

El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.

Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.

Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.

En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).

Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.

La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.

Bebidas Light?

Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el

Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.



Publicado por loretahur



En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur

MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina:

1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias.

2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina.

3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard.

4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos.

5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla.

6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos.

Ahora... sobre la margarina:

1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) .

2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias.

3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno).

4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer.

5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna.

6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo.

7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina.

Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas:

* No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo).

* No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!!



No a la guerra, Si a la Paz



Misterios de la ciencia...



Los costos de la guerra



medicos y capitalismo...



Capitalismo...



medicos (2)



Quien educa a nuestros hijos?



Los Medios...



Sin Palabras...



Chistes feministas

- Cual es el problema, Eva?

- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz...

- Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.

- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...

- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.

- Que es un hombre?

- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.

- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.

- Cual es el truco?.

- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.

- Cual?

- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.





Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Ellas...



Ellas (2)...



Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1

Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije:

-Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro.

Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria.

Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre?

-Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa!



VENGANZA NUMERO 2

Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris.

A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita:

- Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!!

Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta.

La mujer paso quince dias en Francia.

El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla.

Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es:

- Y amor me trajiste mi francesita??

- Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina.



VENGANZA NUMERO 3

El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion.

- No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo.

- Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz.

Te quiero confesar algo.

- Esta bien, esta bien. Habla!

- He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga.

- Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!!



machismo y cibernetica



Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston.

-Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide.

-Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!.



.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.

Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos.

Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco.

Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas



Gol !!!!



Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso!



Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy!


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


Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have donated $100,000 to help struggling farmers in Australia.

The 51-year-old actress - who grew up in Sydney, New South Wales - and her husband have begged their fans to dig deep and donate as much as possible to Nine's Fighting For Our Farmers Drought Relief Appeal, which aims to support farmers who have fallen victim to the country's devastating drought, after they parted with an eye-watering lump sum for the cause.

Speaking in a video message played during Today's Farm Aid Telethon on Monday (20.08.18), Keith, 51, said: "We wish we could be with you today but I'm on tour, but it's very important for us to be a part of this today and do our bit for the farmers."

Nicole, 50, added: "We love Australia and we realise there's been a crippling drought crisis and the rural communities are doing it really, really hard right now so we want to do our bit.

"We would like to donate $100,000 to the Farm Aid Teletphon and we're asking anybody else out there that would like to do anything, this is how you can do it."

The couple were overcome with emotion as they asked viewers to do all they can to help the appeal, which has so far raised $4,340,021 for suffering farmers across New South Wales.

The pair - who have daughters Sunday, 11, and Faith, seven, together - spend the majority of their time in the US for their respected careers but they regularly return to Australia over the summer and festive period in order to escape the hustle and bustle of Hollywood.

Nicole said recently: "My big passion is just my family; my love. My daughter said to me, 'You and Daddy kiss all the time.' I thought, 'That's such a fantastic thing for your daughter to say to you.' And that's my passion. I know it's a simple answer, but I'm deeply passionate about raising my children and being with my husband."
Many years ago, every home had a granary where excess food during bumper harvests would be stored.

It was a taboo not to have one and village chiefs checked on families regularly to ensure they didnt just have granaries, but there was also food stored in them.

In some communities, you will still find granaries today but they will be most likely empty. I was in Akwang in Agago district over the weekend to check on our Rotary project there and I visited a community near the school that we support. There were granaries but people didnt keep any food there; it would be stolen, they told me.

Of course, these granaries are very old-fashioned and I dont even think they can hold food safely today even if it wasnt stolen. They are baskets smeared with mud, in the same way a mud-and-wattle hut is built, sitting on three pegs. They are grass-thatched. Better technologies exist today.

A farmer with his bumper maize harvest. A kilo has plummeted from Shs 900 to as low as Shs 200

Anyway, as we drove down along the Kampala-Gulu highway, I saw many people drying their maize. Uganda has had such a bumper maize harvest that a kilo has plummeted from Shs 900 to Shs 200.

And even at Shs 200, there is nobody buying. According to media reports, Uganda produces five million tonnes of maize every year and half of it is sold to Kenya and Rwanda, who also had their own bumper harvests this year. That led to the collapse of the maize market.

The smart guys at the ministry of Finance have acted fast and approved Shs 100 billion to be available as credit to grain traders willing to buy the same maize at Shs 500 per kilo. There was never lack of money by grain traders to purchase maize, even at Shs 900.

Anyway, Shs 100bn, which is approximately $27m, may not be a lot of money but it would be a good start to reopen the now defunct Produce Marketing Board (PMB).

That would be long-term and better than providing money to traders at 15 per cent interest, who may not even use it to buy maize anyway.

The role of PMB was to buy maize and other such crops from farmers at fair prices, store them, and then sell whenever the market stabilized. We killed it and left the farmers in the cold.

What is happening in the maize sector today has been a long time coming and next time, it might be beans or some other crop. In the end, people who were returning to agriculture in the last few years will abandon it for boda boda business and/or sitting in trading centres waiting for a truck of goods to have an accident so that they become rich instantly.

However, even without reopening PMB, the ministry of Finance could have used the Shs 100bn to make modern silos affordable to individual households and communities. I was once at an agricultural conference in Munyonyo and companies like Crest Tank and Steel & Tube were exhibiting (I think in partnership with World Food Programme) small silos for households.

The prices of these silos were the same as your home water tank. So, a family could save money and buy themselves a silo they can have in their home. A family with few acres of maize could buy a silo of maybe two tonnes and keep it at home. It would enable them store their crop until when the prices have stabilized.

Alternatively, 10 households could come together and buy a 20-tonne silo and have it installed in a home of somebody they can trust. They could create different padlocks to ensure no single person can open it in the absence of other members.

That is how saving groups in the villages keep money in improvised safes  metal trunks similar to those children go with to boarding school.

In fact, many communities which have water shortages are doing this with water tanks. They can do the same with silos. The silos would replace the old-fashioned granaries made out of mud and wattle. Farmers would keep their maize in these silos instead of selling their crops on the cheap.

There are also bags that are on the market today that work as silos. They are made or sold by Bukoola Chemical Industries and cost a mere Shs 10,000. Each bag has a capacity of 100kg. Once you put your produce in these bags and seal them properly, your maize or beans would be stored safely for up to 10 years.

The technology is simple; the bags, which have two layers of polythene liners and one of woven polypropylene, create a hermetically sealed environment that deprives oxygen to any insect that may wish to enjoy the grain.

Such airtight bags could help farmers avoid selling their produce cheaply in fear of post-harvest losses. The smart guys at the ministry of Finance could have thought about such before coming up with the Shs 100bn idea.

djjuuko@gmail.com

The writer is a communication and visibility consultant
I had a dream last night that Nicole and I sang a duet of elephant love medley but we sang both parts together, it was lovely

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amazing

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AWWWWW

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That wig is tragic omw.

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Honestly she's such a phenomal actress and *always has been* so I'm just pretty thrilled she's getting such great parts (except for Boy Erased, I'm not here for that).

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Really? Im reading the book right now and its heartbreakingly gripping

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Tbh I couldn't get into it and I never finished it. I wasn't a fan of the writing.

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I just wanna talk to the person that's picking her wigs

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Were they given a brief like Jill Taylor if she actually had to be married to Tim Allen for 40 years?



Maybe the trauma meant that shes kept 90s mom hair for 20 years?

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LMFAO WHEEZING

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lmao that actually makes sense tho! (the trauma part obvs lol)

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lmaooo her best wig this movie season is in goddamn Aquaman.

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Hollywood always rewards beautiful women for being brave enough to be ugly. All while reminding you how beautiful they are. Its frankly annoying as fuck

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But men can't fap to this!

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Shes putting in WORK.





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Excited for this! Nicole's a great actress, the premise sounds intriguing, and I really liked Jennifer's Body. Maybe the wig doesn't look the best, but that's not gonna kill it for me.

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ahahaha, I didn't even notice!! love it.

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I'm PUMPED for this, but have a feeling no matter what, I'm not gonna root for the cops. I'll be like "Yeah that's real sad boo fucking hoo."



Also I love this cast, I can't believe Toby might actually be in a good movie???????? In MY 2018?????? It's more likely than you think.

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Yessss, more movies like this.

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Nicole, Tatiana AND SebStan?! Sign me up

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she's going for that second oscar

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between this and her wig for boy erased. what are they doing with her hair?

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Indonesia recorded a substantial decline in crude oil imports in June, official statistical data quoted by S&P Global Platts showed, as the country boosted domestic production.

At 833,630 metric tons, the June crude oil imports were 48.8 percent lower than the amount imported in May, as local state energy company Pertamina focused its efforts on growing domestic production amid a falling rupiah that made imports costlier, S&P Global Platts notes.

Earlier this month Reuters reported that Pertamina will get access to an additional 225,000 bpd of crude as part of a government plan seeking to reduce its dependence on imports. The plan involves foreign oil field operators in Indonesia selling all their production to the state.

Indonesia, which is the biggest energy consumer in Southeast Asia, and also the biggest oil producer in the region, pumps about 775,000 bpd, of which Pertamina currently receives 550,000 bpd, while the rest is sold abroad. Now, with all local production going to the state company, Pertamina will be able to reduce its crude imports by 60 percent. Related: Oil Markets Are In For A Bumpy Ride

At the same time, the state company is tryingand being encouraged by the governmentto expand its local operations by replacing foreign operators as part of a growing resource nationalism drive in the region and elsewhere. In early August, Pertamina took over one of Indonesias largest oil blocks, in Sumatra, from Chevron, whose contract expires in 2021.

The state company outbid the supermajor, which had offered US$88 billion in investments through 2041, although the exact size of its better proposal as quoted by the Nikkei Asian Review was not revealed. According to a statement from the energy ministry at the time, Pertaminas takeover of the Rokan field will increase its share in domestic oil production from 23 percent to 60 percent in 2021.

Earlier this year, Pertamina took over a major gas block previously operated by Total and Inpex.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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The Texas Gulf Coast oil terminals sent abroad more crude than they received in April, the Energy Information Administration said this week. During that month, crude oil exports from the Houston-Galveston port district exceeded imports by 15,000 bpd. Over the next month, the advantage of exports over imports welled further, to an impressive 470,000 bpd.

Total U.S. oil exports in may hit a record of 2 million bpd, with Houston-Galvestons share of the total at a record-breaking 70 percent, from an average of about 50 percent since the middle of 2017, the EIA said.

The bulk of crude oil exports from the Houston-Galveston area went to China, Canada, Italy, and the UK, with exports to China averaging 300,000 bpd in both June and July. This month, however, not a single crude oil cargo has been loaded for China, according to media reports, amid growing trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Meanwhile, however, Texas is on track to become the biggest oil producer after Russia and Saudi Arabia, according to production estimates by HSBC, quoted by CNN. If the estimates turn out to be correct, the Lone Star State will be pumping almost 6 million bpd in 2019.

RBC goes further, expecting production in Texas to boom to more than 6.5 million barrels daily over the next seven to ten years. Not everyone is so optimistic, however. Skeptics believe the shale oil boom in Texas led by the Permian Basin, will peak at much lower levels than 6 million bpd, not least because of the substantial debt loads of many shale drillers in the area.

Until this happens, oil production in the state is growing: over the 12 months to June it added 27 percent to 4.3 million bpd, according to the latest report from the Texas Alliance of Energy producers. This represented 40 percent of the U.S. total for that month.

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The next challenge for Norways oil industry may not come from another oil price crash. It could come from a political uncertainty over which new areas Western Europes biggest oil and gas producer should open up for drilling to stem an expected decline in production after the mid-2020s.

Norway has a temporary ban in place for petroleum activity off the scenic Lofoten archipelago of the Lofoten, Vesteralen, and Senja islands. The two biggest parties, howeverthe Conservative and Labor partieshave been in favor of conducting an environmental impact study in those areas, in what would be a first step toward studying possible oil and gas exploration in the area.

For years, those parties have compromised with their smaller junior partnerswho firmly oppose drilling off Lofotenin various coalition governments to keep the area off limits to the petroleum industry.

In recent months, though, signs emerged that the Lofoten chapters of the Labor party, the party currently in opposition and on friendly terms with the oil industry, are now opposing an environmental impact study for the picturesque island area in Norways Arctic Circle.

If Labor gives in to pressure from environmentalists and demands a permanent off-limits ban for the Lofoten islands, environmentalists could start asking for bans in the Barents Sea, Norways Petroleum and Energy Minister Terje Sviknes told Bloomberg in an interview last week.

If the environmentalists win this one, the focus will quickly move to the Barents Sea, Sviknes told Bloomberg.

If the Labor party were to flip on this issue, it could also send a mixed message to the oil industry by undermining Norways image as a country with a stable and predictable oil policy, according to the minister. Related: Venezuela Takes Unprecedented Action To Stabilize Currency

That rocks whats perhaps been the most important competitive advantage for the Norwegian oil industry: that weve had stable framework conditions regardless of political changes, said Sviknes, a member of the Progress Party that governs a coalition led by the Conservative Party, and also consisting of a junior partner, the Liberal Party.



The Liberal Partys participation in the coalition came at a price for the parties wanting to start an impact study in Lofotenthe Liberals had demanded that the area stay off limits for consideration for exploration.

In its political platform signed in January 2018, the coalition government vowed to not allow petroleum activities or investigate the impact of such activities in maritime areas outside Lofoten, Vesteralen and Senja from 2017-2021.

Labor still firmly supports exploration in the Barents Sea, the partys spokesman on energy policy, Espen Barth Eide, told Bloomberg in response to the ministers comments.

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has estimated that the Lofoten, Vesteralen, and Senja areas could hold 1.3 billion barrels equivalent of oil and gas resources.

While it has kept this area off limits so farand at least until 2021 as the current government has promisedNorway bets on expanding exploration in the Barents Sea, where most of its yet-to-be discovered oil lies.

There is still a lot of oil to be discovered on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, the NPD says, estimating that the undiscovered resources are equal to around 40 Johan Castberg fields. Johan Castberg in the Barents Sea is estimated to have recoverable resources of 450-650 million barrels of oil equivalent, field operator Equinor says.

Another Equinor-developed field, the giant Johan Sverdrup in the North Sea, is slated to start production in late 2019 and will be the main contributor to Norways rising oil production until 2023. Related: What Caused Oils Longest Losing Streak In Years?

But from the mid-2020s onward, production offshore Norway will start to decline so making new and large discoveries quickly is necessary for maintaining production at the same level from the mid-2020s, Torgeir Stordal, Director exploration at the NPD, said in the directorates 2018 resource and exploration report in June.

In July, the NPD said that exploration and development activity is currently high and recovered from the oil price slump, but warned that Norway would need additional large discoveries.

If production is to be maintained at a high level, there must be larger discoveries than what has been the average over the last ten years. The possibility of making large discoveries is greatest in areas that have not been explored much, Stordal said.

While the industry is exploring the areas that Norway is opening in the Barents Sea, the scenic Lofoten archipelago may be permanently spared the scene of oil rigs. In 2021, the environmental opposition, the advance of renewables, and the price of oil, would likely be very different from what they are now, but Norways biggest parties may still have to rely on smaller parties coalition support, and those junior partners want the Lofoten area untouched by oil drilling.

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Indias government has asked its largest state-held firm Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) to seek the listing of its overseas operations unit ONGC Videsh, in a bid to raise funds from selling state assets, Reuters reported on Tuesday, quoting a letter it has seen.

According to the letter from the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management sent to ONGC last week, India is looking to unlock the value of the overseas unit of ONGC, in which the government holds 67.452 percent. ONGC Videsh, a wholly owned subsidiary of ONGC, owns participating interests in 41 oil and gas assets in 20 countries.

Any government-held entity with positive net worth and no losses should be listed in order to unlock more value, according to the letter to ONGC that Reuters has seen. The document didnt specify what percentage of ONGC Videsh should be sold to investors.

A possible listing of ONGCs overseas arm would help India to reach its ambitious government target to raise the equivalent of around US$14.37 billion (1 trillion Indian rupees) from proceeds of state asset sales during its current fiscal year through March 31, 2019.

According to Reuters estimates, ONGC Videsh booked a net profit of the equivalent of US$152 million and contributed 5 percent to ONGCs total net profit in the latest FY 2018 fiscal year that ended in March.



Related: Trump Administration Embraces Energy Dominance Agenda

Following a loss in the financial year 2016, and a return to profit in FY 2017, ONGC Videsh further raised its profit after tax (PAT) in FY 2018. The overseas unit of ONGC booked its highest ever production in the latest fiscal year, raising output by 11 percent compared to the previous fiscal year, according to an ONGC presentation in May. ONGC Videsh holds interest in 15 producing assets outside India. In FY 2018, the biggest share of its production came from Russia: 56 percent of its total overseas production.

In one of its latest overseas acquisitions, ONGC Videsh led an Indian consortium of ONGC Videsh, Indian Oil Corporation, and Bharat Petro Resources, which signed in February this year a deal to buy 10 percent in the Lower Zakum Concession offshore Abu Dhabithe first time that Indian oil and gas firms have been given a stake in the development of Abu Dhabis oil and gas resources.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Iraqs oil exports from its southern ports are heading for a new record this month if they continue the pace set so far in August, which would be the second consecutive month of setting records in southern oil exports, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing industry sources who have been tracking shipment data.

Between August 1 and 19, Iraqs southern oil exports averaged 3.7 million bpd, an increase of 160,000 bpd from the previous record of 3.54 million bpd set in July, an industry source who has compiled ship-tracking data told Reuters.

According to a second source, the oil exports from Iraqs south have been at least 3.6 million bpd on average so far in August.

In July, Iraqs exports from the south averaged 3.543 million bpd, slightly up from the June exports of 3.521 million bpd.

If the pace of exports continues this month, Iraq will set a new record in its exports from the south in Augusta sign that the OPECs second-largest producer is following through the cartels decision to ease compliance rates, or in other words, to boost oil supply and offset production losses.

Before OPECs decision in June to increase supply, Iraq had been ramping up exports from its southern ports to compensate for lost exports in the north. Around 300,000 bpd of crude oil previously pumped and exported in the Kirkuk province have been shut in since the Iraqi federal government moved in October to take control over the oil fields in Kirkuk from Kurdish forces.



Related: Venezuela Takes Unprecedented Action To Stabilize Currency

According to shipping data obtained by Reuters, exports from the north have averaged 350,000 bpd so far in August, up from 300,000 bpd in July, but still well below the 500,000 bpd in early 2017.

Iraqs crude oil production rose to its highest level in 13 months in Julyto 4.46 million bpd, Platts quoted the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) as saying earlier this month. Thats the same number that Iraq reported to OPEC for its July production, but according to OPECs secondary sources, Iraqs production in July was 4.556 million bpd, up by 24,100 bpd from June.

Iraq is also seeking to attract more clients in Asia and it has reduced the official selling price (OSP) for its flagship Basrah Light grade for September loadings to less than the rival Saudi Arab Medium grade for the first time in five months, Platts reported earlier this month.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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The worlds biggest sovereign wealth fund, Norways US$1-trillion Government Pension Fund Global, can remain a shareholder in Tesla under the funds governing rules if the EV maker becomes private, the Norwegian funds deputy CEO Trond Grande told Reuters on Tuesday.

The biggest wealth fund in the worldwhich holds 1.4 percent of all listed companies worldwideowned 0.48 percent in Tesla at the end of 2017, valued at US$253 million.

Generally, the funds practice would be to divest its stake in a company that is being delisted, or shortly after, Grande told Reuters, but noted that the rules governing the funds investment choices allow it to continue to be a shareholder in a listed firm that goes private.

Earlier this month, Elon Musk shocked Wall Street and investors by tweeting that he would take Tesla private at $420 a share, sparking a lot of speculation whether the funding for doing so is really secured as he said in his tweet, and who is stepping in to raise the funding.

A week later, Musk revealed that he had been in talks with the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund about taking Tesla private for a few years now. Musks plans for Tesla are reportedly being scrutinized by the SEC, especially in the funding secured part of his shock announcement on Twitter.

The fact that Musk revealed he had been talking to the Saudi fund, which has amassed its wealth from oil, prompted questions directed at the Norwegian wealth fund, also known as the oil fund in Norway, whether it could be part of the taking-Tesla-private deal. Asked by Reuters, the Norwegian funds deputy CEO Grande declined to say on Tuesday if the EV maker had approached it about that. The manager noted that the funds main priority is preserving value.

If that means that the fund will be invested in a company that has been delisted for a period of time, that could happen, Grande told Reuters.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Venezuelas state-owned oil company, PDVSA, has struck an agreement with oil storage facilities operator NuStar to resume the use of a terminal on the Caribbean island of St. Eustatius, Reuters reports, quoting NuStar.

The news comes on the heels of another report: yesterday PDVSA also reached a settlement with ConocoPhillips to pay the U.S. company US$2 billion, awarded to it by an international court for the forced privatization of two projects in Venezuela in the early 2000s.

The St. Eustatius terminal was one of the PDVSA owned or used assets in the Caribbean that Conoco earlier this year seized in an effort to force the Venezuelan company to pay its dues. PDVSA resisted as long as it could, but apparently push came to shove and PDVSA found the money to settle with both companies.

In an email to Reuters, NuStar said We can confirm that we have signed an agreement with PDVSA, which brings their account current. This agreement improves the earnings outlook for our St Eustatius terminal for the remainder of 2018.

The news will probably also improve PDVSAs performance outlook for the rest of the year: Conocos asset seizure severely challenged the Venezuelan companys ability to fulfill its oil cargo delivery commitments. But NuStar has also made life difficult for the company on several occasions when it suspended its access to the St. Eustatius terminals because of millions in missed payments. The NuStar dispute made it more difficult for Conoco to seize PDVSAs oil stored on the island.

The Caribbean assets that Conoco seized earlier this year to make PDVSA pay up were two tankers with a combined load of 800,000 barrels of crude and oil products, a 10-million-barrel oil storage facility, and fuel inventory at a 335,000 bpd refinery.

Conoco is one of several companies suing Venezuela for the nationalization of assets by the Chavez government. Another one, Canadian miner Crystallex, earlier this month won approval from a U.S. judge to go after PDVSAs U.S. subsidiary Citgo to recover the damages it claimed from the nationalization of its Venezuelan operations.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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TransCanada has filed eminent domain petitions for two private land parcels along the route of its Keystone XL pipeline, South Dakota daily Rapid City Journal reported, adding that at least one of the families owning the land will challenge the company in court.

Jeffrey Jensen, the owner who plans to fight the petition, told the local daily that TransCanada is offering less money now than it offered the landowners last time, when Jensen signed a five-year easement for his land. But this figure expired when President Obama vetoed the project and banned the pipeline from entering U.S. territory.

Now that President Trump has reversed the veto, TransCanada is once again working on Keystone XL even though the controversy around the pipeline has not been quashed. Native American communities and environmentalists are still trying to stop the pipeline through lawsuits, but it looks like the project is moving ahead slowly but surely.

The latest update from the court is a Montana judges order for the State Department to review the new route for Keystone XL, which it last month approved. The review could delay the project, although TransCanada said it did not expect any delays as a result of the judges order.

Earlier, in June, a South Dakota judge dismissed an opponents appeal against the environmental approval of the project produced by state regulators and upheld by another judge, the Associated Press recalls in a recent update on the Keystone XL saga.

The US$8-billion project will see heavy crude transported from Albertas oil sands through Montana, South Dakota, and into Nebraska, where the pipeline will connect to the original Keystone, boosting its transportation capacity in a move much needed by Albertan oil producers.

TransCanada has yet to make the final investment decision on Keystone XL, after it spent four months in open season to see if there was sufficient interest from potential buyers of the crude that the pipeline will transport. At the same time, TransCanada is being pressured by Albertan oil producers to make up its mind.

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Japan has pledged to help strengthen Sri Lanka's maritime security, authorities said Tuesday, in a new sign of efforts to counter China's strategic grip on the Indian Ocean island. President Maithripala Sirisena thanked Japan's Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera for donating two coast guard patrol craft costing over $11 million in total, his office said in a statement after talks in Colombo. "Attention has been drawn to further strengthening maritime security cooperation between Japan and Sri Lanka," the statement said. The visit came a week after the US State Department gave $39 million to strengthen the island's naval capabilities. Sirisena said he was happy that Onodera, the first Japanese defence minister to visit, was travelling to two strategic ports on the island. Onodera will visit Hambantota, which Colombo in December 2017 leased to a Chinese state-owned company for 99 years. The government said it was forced to lease the port for $1.1 billion because it could not service loans from Beijing to build the white-elephant facility agreed by former president Mahinda Rajapakse. Hambantota, 230 kilometres (143 miles) from Colombo, straddles the world's busiest east-west shipping route and gives China a foothold in a region long dominated by India. The Japanese minister will also visit Trincomalee, a natural harbour that was the target of Japanese bombing during World War II. China has edged out Japan as a key funder of ports and other projects in the island in recent years. Sri Lanka has become a key link in its ambitious "Belt and Road" international infrastructure initiative. China has also vowed to keep providing financial help to Sri Lanka. The International Monetary Fund, which bailed out Sri Lanka in 2016 with a $1.5 billion loan, has warned Colombo over its debt.
Malaysia will shelve three China-backed projects worth a total $22 billion until the debt-laden Southeast Asian nation can afford to pay for them, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Tuesday during a visit to Beijing. The projects include a railway connecting Malaysia's east coast to southern Thailand and Kuala Lumpur, and two gas pipelines. "I explained to (the Chinese leaders) why we can't have the ECRL (East Coast Rail Link)," Mahathir told Malaysian reporters at the end of his five-day visit, saying the project "will be deferred until such time when we can afford (it)". "It's about borrowing too much money, which we cannot afford, we cannot repay, and also because we don't need those projects for Malaysia at this moment... our problem now is how to solve our financial deficit." Mahathir is trying to reduce Malaysia's national debt, which has ballooned to some $250 billion. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang acknowledged that "any cooperation between the two countries will inevitably lead to problems of one kind or another". "We take a long-term view of the relationship between our two countries and will resolve the issue through dialogue and negotiation," Lu told a regular press briefing. After meeting Premier Li Keqiang on Monday, Mahathir said he believed China would help Malaysia resolve its fiscal problems. The Malaysian leader also warned against "a new version of colonialism happening because poor countries are unable to compete with rich countries just in terms of open free trade". - Lack of transparency - The $20-billion rail project was given to China's largest engineering firm, the China Communications Construction Company, and mostly financed by a loan from the Export-Import Bank of China. Malaysia's finance ministry said in July that 88 percent of the cost of the two gas pipelines worth 9.4 billion ringgit ($2.32 billion) had been paid to their Chinese contractor despite only 13 percent of the work being completed. One pipeline is in Malaysia's Sabah state on Borneo island and the other runs from Malacca in peninsular Malaysia to the northern state of Kedah. "We do not find the need for... (the pipeline projects)," Mahathir said. "It costs too much money. And we have to cancel or defer it to a later stage." In May, Mahathir shelved separate plans to build a high-speed railway between Singapore and Malaysia which had been agreed several years ago, saying it was too costly. Despite the threat to revise China-linked contracts, Mahathir sought to strengthen business ties with Beijing during the trip. China is the top trading partner of Malaysia, which is home to a substantial ethnic Chinese minority. Relations were warm under the previous government of Prime Minister Najib Razak, and Chinese investment in the country surged as Beijing signed deals for major infrastructure and construction projects. The projects shelved by Mahathir are part of China's ambitious Belt and Road initiative, an international trade infrastructure programme aimed at reviving Silk Road routes across the globe. China's financial largesse has raised concerns over the vulnerability of poorer nations to such massive debt. Last year, Sri Lanka was forced to hand over majority control of its Hambantota port to China after failing to repay its loans.
Pangolin scales are widely used in traditional Chinese medicine

Police in Cameroon have shut down an international poaching gang after catching six traffickers carrying more than 700 kilos of pangolin scales, a conservation group said Tuesday.

Pangolins, or scaly anteaters, are one of the world's most trafficked species and are threatened with extinction. Their scales are widely used in traditional Chinese medicine and their meat is a delicacy in many Asian and African countries.

The six poachersfive Cameroonians and one from the Central African Republicwere arrested on August 18 in Douala, a coastal city in southwest Cameroon, according to the Last Great Ape Organisation (LAGA).

Most of the 718 kilos (1,600 pounds) of scales they were carrying were from the Democratic Republic of Congo, it said.

The gang bought pangolins from smaller traffickers in Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo before sending them to Nigeria, where they were prepared for export to Asia, it said.

The pangolin scales were said to be destined for Asia

Explore further Pangolins at huge risk as study shows dramatic increases in hunting across Central Africa

 2018 AFP
University of Illinois sociology professor Tom VanHeuvelen focuses on the rise in inequality as a key part of his research. His recent study found a 'robust' link between the decline of unions and the growth of wage inequality. Credit: L. Brian Stauffer

Numerous studies have linked the decline of unions with the rise in wage inequality, but some prominent ones have come with questions.

The questions arose because those studies relied on cross-sectional snapshots of the population, which could not follow individuals or their careers over time. That meant they could not account for how individual worker characteristicsthings like talents, family background, schooling and intelligencemight explain some of the unionization-inequality connection.

University of Illinois sociology professor Tom VanHeuvelen sought to address that issue in a new study that tracked individual workers over the period 1973-2015, using data from the country's longest-running longitudinal survey on household income. The study was published online by the journal Social Forces.

VanHeuvelen found that the magnitude of association between unionization and wage inequality in those previous studies is cut by about half once those worker characteristics are taken into account. What remains, however, is "remarkably robust," he said.

"I find that both the direct and indirect effects of union decline are just really robust as you track people along their careers. It means that if unions had stayed strong, it's likely the typical wage attainment of people would have been higher, and it's likely that wages would have been more predictable and less volatile."

The unionization-inequality connection remains even when looking only at nonunion members, or at union members in only public or only private sectors, VanHeuvelen said. For instance, the study suggests that nonunion workers would have seen 3 to 7 percent higher wage growth over their careers if not for the decline in the indirect power of unions.

The connection also remains when looking only at workers who have movedor only those who have not movedbetween either industries or regions of the country. It also remains when looking only at the last three decades or only at workers born since 1960.

"It's the same takeaway message in every case," he said. "The bottom line is that paychecks would probably be bigger, and paychecks would probably be more secure and reliable, if unions hadn't declined over time."

In speaking of the direct effects of union decline, VanHeuvelen is referring to unions' ability to bargain and advocate for their members. The indirect effects are those coming from the unions' influence in building social networks and in advocating for public policies or programswork hour restrictions, job security, health care access, food stamps, etc. - that benefit all worker households, both union and nonunion.

These indirect effects make unions an anchor in what other researchers have called the "moral economy," VanHeuvelen said, defined as broadly shared norms of fairness that have been institutionalized in market rules and customs and that can reduce inequality in pay, even among nonunionized firms and workers.

The principal data set for the study came from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, based at the University of Michigan. Begun in 1968, "it's considered one of the gold standards of inequality data and longitudinal studies," collecting extensive data on individual households over time, he said.

VanHeuvelen said he was very surprised by the results, which ran counter to his expectations when he started the research. He assumed that there would be little effect after accounting for individual worker characteristics, or what researchers call "unobserved heterogeneity."

"I thought I would find a solid effect of union membership, but not an effect of this broader contextual importance."

Explore further Labor union decline also drives down wages for nonunion workers, study finds

More information: Tom VanHeuvelen, Moral Economies or Hidden Talents? A Longitudinal Analysis of Union Decline and Wage Inequality, 19732015, Social Forces (2018). Tom VanHeuvelen, Moral Economies or Hidden Talents? A Longitudinal Analysis of Union Decline and Wage Inequality, 19732015,(2018). DOI: 10.1093/sf/soy045
Credit: 3-D microCT scans and animation generated at Duke SMIF

Discovered more than half a century ago in Kenya and sitting in museum storage ever since, the roughly 20-million-year-old fossil Propotto leakeyi was long classified as a fruit bat.

Now, it's helping researchers rethink the early evolution of lemurs, distant primate cousins of humans that today are only found on the island of Madagascar, some 250 miles off the eastern coast of Africa. The findings could rewrite the story of just when and how they got to the island.

In a study to be published August 21 in the journal Nature Communications, researchers have re-examined Propotto's fossilized remains and suggest that the strange creature wasn't a bat, but an ancient relative of the aye-aye, the bucktoothed nocturnal primate that represents one of the earliest branches of the lemur family tree.

The reassessment challenges a long-held view that today's 100-some lemur species descended from ancestors that made their way to Madagascar in a single wave more than 60 million years ago, becoming some of the first mammals to colonize the island.

Instead, the study lends support to the idea that two lineages of lemurs split in Africa before coming to Madagascar. One lineage eventually led to the aye-aye, and the other to all other lemurs. There are no lemurs left on mainland Africa. These ancestors then colonized Madagascar independently, and millions of years later than once believed.

"One implication is that lemurs have had a much less extensive evolutionary history on Madagascar than was previously thought," said study co-author Erik Seiffert, professor of anatomy at the University of Southern California.

When Propotto was first described in the 1960s, experts didn't agree about what they were looking at. They didn't have a lot to go on: just three lower jaw bones, each barely an inch long, and a handful of teeth less than three millimeters across.

Fossilized fragments of primate jaws and teeth from Africa are changing what researchers thought they knew about when lemurs made it to Madagascar. Shown here is Propotto leakeyi, which lived roughly 20 million years ago in Kenya. Original housed in the National Museums of Kenya. Credit: 3-D microCT scans and animation generated at Duke SMIF

In 1967, paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson inspected the fragments and classified the specimen as a previously unknown member of the loris family, nocturnal primates with enormous eyes. But a colleague named Alan Walker took a look and thought otherwise, eventually convincing Simpson that the bones belonged to a bat.

For nearly half a century the creature's identity appeared to have been settled, until 2016, when another paleontologist, the late Gregg Gunnell of Duke University, began taking a fresh look at the fossil. To Gunnell's eye, the creature's hind teeth were more reminiscent of a primate than a bat. He also noted the stump of a broken front tooth, just visible in cross section, which would have jutted out from its mouth like a daggera trait only known in aye-ayes, the only living primates with rodent-like teeth.

"Gregg wrote to us and said, 'Tell me I'm crazy,'" Seiffert said.

To verify Propotto's place in the primate family tree, Seiffert and Steven Heritage of Duke's Division of Fossil Primates analyzed more than 395 anatomical features and 79 genes for 125 mammal species, living and extinct.

With help from Doug Boyer, associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke, the team also compiled microCT scans of the lower molars of 42 living and extinct mammal groups, including bats, treeshrews and primates. They then used a computer program to compare the bumps, pits and ridges on the scans of Propotto's teeth to those of other animals.

The researchers found that Propotto shared a number of features with a similarly buck-toothed primate that lived 34 million years ago in Egypt called Plesiopithecus, and that both were ancient relatives of the aye-aye.

In the new study, Seiffert, Gunnell and colleagues propose that the ancestors of aye-ayes split from the rest of the lemur family tree roughly 40 million years ago, while still on the African continent, and the resulting two lineages didn't make their separate ways to Madagascar until later.

Fossilized fragments of primate jaws and teeth from Africa are changing what researchers thought they knew about when lemurs made it to Madagascar. Shown here is Plesiopithecus teras, which lived roughly 34 million years ago in Egypt. Housed in the Duke Division of Fossil Primates. Credit: 3-D microCT scans and animation generated at Duke SMIF

The findings suggest they arrived around the same time as other mammals, such as rodents, Malagasy mongooses and hedgehog- and shrew-like animals called tenrecs. Frogs, snakes and lizards may have made the trip around the same time.

Lemurs can't swim, so some scientists hypothesize that the small-bodied creatures crossed the 250-mile-wide channel that lies between Africa and Madagascar after being swept out to sea in a storm, by holding on to tree limbs or floating mats of vegetation before finally washing ashore.

But if the arrival were more recent, they might have had a shorter distance to travel, thanks to lower sea levels when the Antarctic ice sheet was much larger.

"It's possible that lemurs weren't in Madagascar at all until maybe the Miocene," as recently as 23 million years ago, Boyer said.

"Some of the lowest sea levels were also during this time," Heritage said.

Either way, "the fossils tell us something we never could have guessed from the DNA evidence about the history of lemurs on Madagascar," Boyer said.

More information: Gregg F. Gunnell et al, Fossil lemurs from Egypt and Kenya suggest an African origin for Madagascar's aye-aye, Nature Communications (2018). Journal information: Nature Communications Gregg F. Gunnell et al, Fossil lemurs from Egypt and Kenya suggest an African origin for Madagascar's aye-aye,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05648-w
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

More than one-third of farmed fruit and vegetables never reaches supermarket shelves because it is misshapen or the wrong size, research suggests.

More than 50 million tonnes of fruit and vegetables grown across Europe are discarded each year, largely because they do not meet supermarkets and consumers' standards of how they should look, the study showed.

The climate change impact of growing the wasted food  some of which may be ploughed back into fields, used in animal feed or otherwise reused  is equivalent to the carbon emissions of almost 400,000 cars.

Farm losses

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh examined details of food loss and waste within the European Economic Area.

They studied how much food is discarded each year before it reaches the point of being sold.

They found that strict government regulations, supermarkets' high standards and consumers' expectations of how fruit and vegetables should look in combination led to the loss of more than one-third of produce before the point of sale.

Farmers who are contracted to supermarkets typically grow more food than they are obliged to supply, to allow for a proportion that will not be deemed fit to sell.

Consumer habits

Scientists suggest that greater awareness among consumers, and a movement towards shopping sustainably, could encourage the sale of more ugly vegetables.

They also suggest a greater use of misshapen produce, for example in chopped, processed or picked goods, or for sale at a discount to charities.

The study is published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

"The scale of food that is wasted when it is perfectly safe to eat is shocking at a time when one-tenth of the world's population is perpetually underfed," says Professor David Reay

"Encouraging people to be less picky about how their fruit and vegetables look could go a long way to cutting waste, reducing the impact of food production on the climate, and easing the food supply chain," says Stephen Porter.

Explore further EU households waste over 17 billion kg of fresh fruit and vegetables a year
Effects on smoldering speed (propagation velocity) and extinction condition against the pressure at various adopted O 2 conditions. Credit: (C) Toyohashi University Of Technology.

Toyohashi University of Technology researchers have discovered that non-flaming combustion (smoldering) of a porous specimen can be sustained, even under nearly 1 percent of atmospheric pressure. The thermal structure of a 2-mm-diameter burning specimen at very near extinction condition was successfully measured using an embedded ultra-fine thermocouple, clarifying the key issues that lead to fire extinction at low pressures. The outcome of this research will contribute to improved space exploration fire safety strategies.

Non-flaming combustion (i.e., smoldering) is an extremely slow-burning process that emits toxic gas and white smoke. This corresponds to the pre-flaming stage of burning a porous specimen, during which the blackened part grows, continuing the slow exothermic process. It eventually generates a flame that quickly accelerates the fire damage. Flaming combustion can be suppressed by reducing the pressure to nearly 1/3 of standard pressure (~30 kPa). Nevertheless, non-flaming combustion can be sustained even at 1/100 of standard pressure (~1 kPa) if the ambient gas is fully-oxygenated. Extension of the critical pressure has been proven experimentally; however, the actual reason is not known because it is extremely difficult to investigate the thermo-chemical status of near-critical conditions. Because the combustion intensity is very weak, sensor insertion may affect the status, resulting in failure to capture the actual physics.

A research group led by Professor Yuji Nakamura from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology took on the challenge of measuring the temperature distribution of a smoldering thin rod in a pressure-controlled chamber at near-critical conditions. To make this possible, special care was taken to adjust the sensor while avoiding the potential failure described above. A 0.2 mm diameter hole was drilled through the fragile specimen. Then a 50-micron R-type thermocouple was embedded into the hole. By achieving steady-state burning, even near the critical conditions under a well-controlled experimental environment, a repeatable 1-D temperature profile was obtained along the axis.

Temperature measurement device: fine thermocouple installed in 0.2-mm diameter hole in the specimen. Credit: (C) Toyohashi University Of Technology.

The first author, Takuya Yamazaki, a Ph.D. candidate, said, "No one could even consider drilling such a tiny hole into the 2-mm scale of the fragile specimen that we used, and then manually inserting the tiny thermocouple in it. Of course, no one has tried this before, since it is clearly extremely difficult, and requires considerable patience and effort. In fact, I must admit, it was really exhausting to complete this task. Nevertheless, this provided us insight on the thermal status near the critical condition to thoroughly understand the extinction mechanism. For instance, combustion heat is first transferred along the axis by radiation, then part of the transferred heat is lost to ambient via natural convection when the total pressure is in the order of tens of kilo-pascals. Because the convective heat loss tends to be suppressed when the total pressure decreases, the heat transferred by radiation could remain in the specimen to avoid extinction. This fact has been demonstrated by this work for the first time everwe are the first group to take on the major challenge of measuring the precise temperature distribution of a smoldering specimen at near extinction."

Professor Yuji Nakamura says, "The present results are opened to the fire society simply owing to Takuya's personal devotion. This outcome suggests that the vacuumed operation to extinguish fire in space may fail unless the proper condition is achieved. Otherwise, smoldering would survive, and it would cause the fire to result in secondary damage to the cabin. This work is just the first step to propose a fire safety strategy (regulation) in outer space habitats to privatize space development."

Though the word "smoldering" is commonplace, no one knows how a specimen burns to generate heat locally. It has been considered that surface oxidation is the source of heat generation, and that gas-phase reaction is not required. However, recent numerical predictions by a Chinese research team found that a gas-phase gentle heat generation can support or promote surface oxidation.

Thermal status during smoldering under low pressure: radiation heat transfer becomes significant, whereas convective cooling (i.e., heat loss) to ambient is negligible in the preheat zone. Credit: (C) Toyohashi University Of Technology.

To understand smoldering at low pressure, another international collaboration team in the United States, led by Prof. Nakamura, will assume the challenge of experimentally identifying the reactivity in the gas phase. This is a very important endeavor, because scant attention has been paid to the reaction status of the micro-pores of a burning specimen.

Explore further Emission characteristics of refractory black carbon aerosols from fresh biomass burning

More information: Takuya Yamazaki et al, Near-extinction behavior of smoldering combustion under highly vacuumed environment, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute (2018). Takuya Yamazaki et al, Near-extinction behavior of smoldering combustion under highly vacuumed environment,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.proci.2018.06.200
Two examples of Dorset culture spun yarn from the Nanook Site. The study shows that the ancient Arctic peoples developed yarn spinning technology independently. Credit: Brown University

A new study by Brown University researchers shows that the Dorset and Thule peopleancestors of today's Inuitcreated spun yarn some 500 to 1,000 years before Vikings arrived in North America. The finding, made possible in part by a new method for dating fiber artifacts contaminated with oil, is evidence of independent, homegrown indigenous fiber technology rather than a transfer of knowledge from Viking settlers.

The study was led by Michele Hayeur Smith, a research associate at Brown's Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, who focused on artifacts from five Dorset and Thule archaeological sites in the eastern Canadian Arctic held in the Canadian Museum of History's collections. Co-authored with Kevin P. Smith, deputy director and chief curator of the Haffenreffer Museum, and Grill Nilsen of the Arctic University of Norway, the research is changing the understanding of indigenous textile technology as well as the nature of the contact between Dorset and Thule peoples and the earliest European explorers of the eastern Canadian Arctic.

Here, Hayeur Smith and Smith discuss the study, published in Journal of Archaeological Science, and what it means for understanding the history of the high Canadian Arctic.

Q: What was the impetus for undertaking this study?

Michele Hayeur Smith (MHS): I am a specialist in Norse textiles, and I was researching the production and circulation of textiles from the Viking age to the 19th century. I started this project because it came to my attention that there were huge collections of pre-modern textiles in Iceland, which is where I started out. I was also interested in looking at women. Textiles happen to be a very gendered activity in Norse societymen had no involvement whatsoever with it. In Iceland, it became very important because it was a form of currency for almost 800 years: Everything was based on the value of cloth.

I eventually expanded my research to the rest of the North Atlantic to see what was going on in the other Norse colonies in terms of textiles. There were some fragments of cloth and yarn that had been found in the Canadian High Arctic, and there was an assumption that it came from the Norse. I went through the collections at Canadian Museum of Historya sizeable collection of pieces of yarn that had been claimed to be Norse. The assumption was that Norse had taught the Inuit how to spin, that it was a cultural transfer.

Q: What did you discover?

MHS: I went in thinking it was an interesting hypothesis that there was a Norse trading post in Baffin Island. First, I performed an initial physical analysis of the material, which included spun sinew, spun yarn, woven textiles and raw wool of unknown species. Second, I needed to date it. And third, I got permission to sample the pieces and do some DNA analysis to identify the animal fibers in them.

One textile piece from the high north was Norse, and several others from a site called Okivilialuk were also clearly fragments of woven European cloth, but not Norse. However, strands of yarn from southern Baffin Island, at sites called Nanook, Nunguvik and Willows Island 4, were obviously different, and not Norse. This yarn, when I analyzed it, immediately struck me as distinct. The materials were wrong for Norse textiles, made of maybe musk ox or arctic hare rather than sheep or goat. The fibers were very tightly spun, very consistent, with very little variation in how it was made, which is not what you see in Norse textiles.

At that point, we worked with a commercial laboratory, Beta Analytic, using the protocol Grill Nilsen developed, which is critical in accurately dating textiles contaminated with marine mammal oils. In the high Canadian Arctic, people live predominantly off marine mammals. They would hunt seals, whales and other animals and use the fats for a range of purposes. The oils from these mammals permeate archaeological sites and artifacts, including textiles. Because of what is known as the marine reservoir effect, in which sea mammals absorb ancient marine carbon, the radiocarbon date of artifacts with marine oil on them can be thrown off by 400 to 800 years. Nilsen's method essentially "shampoos" out the oils so Beta Analytic could use Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating to give us an accurate age.

Michele Hayeur Smith's research on textiles spanning the North Atlantic region has been supported by three major grants from the National Science Foundation's Arctic Social Science Program. Credit: Brown University

Q: And you used this new method to date the yarn and textile samples?

Kevin P. Smith (KPS): First, we tested Grill's method on two pieces of clothwe split one piece of yarn and tested it without using her method. The date came back older than any known date for human occupation in the Arctic, so we knew it was contaminated; but after we used her method to clean the sample, we re-dated it and it fit other evidence from the site beautifully. Then we tested her method on another piece of cloth whose age we already knew and received an identical date. These tests showed us that the method could remove contaminants without damaging the cloth and affecting dates on it.

Then, we applied her method to one piece of spun sinew and seven pieces of spun yarn from Dorset culture sites, to one piece of Norse textile from an ancestral Inuit, Thule culture site, and to two of those mysterious pieces of European cloth from Okivilialuk.

Q: What did the AMS date tell you about the yarn and textile samples?

KPS: The results were jaw-dropping.

The oldest Dorset pieces were made almost 1,000 years before the Vikings settled in Greenland, around 1000 AD. In fact, the oldest piece of yarn, from a site on Willows Island, was dated to between 15 B.C. and 50 A.D. And the most recent piece of Dorset culture yarn was spun around 725 A.D. We knew then that the Dorset had been spinning yarn for more than a thousand years before the Vikings arrived in Greenland and was a consistent part of their culture for at least 800 years! It's also interesting that there appears to be no evidence that the Dorset people shared this technology with the Thule people, ancestors of today's Inuit, who migrated across the Canadian Arctic and eventually to Greenland, in the late 1200s A.D.

However, when we turned to the piece of woven cloth from an ancestral Inuit site called Skraeling Island, we confirmed that those Thule ancestors of today's Inuit were in contact with Norse explorers in the High Arctic during the late around 1275 A.D., almost 300 years after the Vikings had tried, unsuccessfully, to establish a colony in North America.

Finally, those pieces from Okivilialuk were both woven in the 1500s, suggesting that the Inuit there were in contact with some of the earliest post-medieval explorers of the Arctic, including Martin Frobisher [an English navigator who reached Labrador and Baffin Island in 1576].

Q: In the study, you note that archaeologists have been somewhat reluctant to acknowledge the possibility of an indigenous fiber technology. Why do you think that is?

MHS: I would say that the assumption that indigenous people did not know how to spin is ethnocentric. This is a problem in our field. The sewing skills and abilities of Arctic peoples is unbelievable. They are able to stitch garments made out of gut that are entirely waterproof because the stitching they're using is so sealed and so tight. If you're already spinning sinew because you're making thread out of it, and you happen to come across a piece of musk ox hair on the ground, you know how to spin. It's a very intuitive technique. I've also seen baskets made with Thule material. If you know how to make baskets, you know how to weave. Why is the idea of indigenous fiber technology shocking, surprising people so much? I don't know.

Q: What other questions do your findings raise?

KPS: One of the big questions that it raises is, what is the fiber technology of the Dorset? It also shows that the history of contact between various Indigenous cultures of the North (the Dorset and the Thule) with one another and with different European explorers was more complex than expectedand can be unraveled with such unexpected artifacts as yarn and cloth. But I think the most important finding is that the analyses document nearly 1,500 years of creativity, innovation, selective acquisition and use of textiles by the Indigenous people of the Arctic rather than forcing us to believe that spinning yarn and other cultural changes in the North required a brief period of technological transfer from Europeans.

Explore further Knitting electronics with yarn batteries

More information: Michele Hayeur Smith et al. Dorset, Norse, or Thule? Technological transfers, marine mammal contamination, and AMS dating of spun yarn and textiles from the Eastern Canadian Arctic, Journal of Archaeological Science (2018). Journal information: Journal of Archaeological Science Michele Hayeur Smith et al. Dorset, Norse, or Thule? Technological transfers, marine mammal contamination, and AMS dating of spun yarn and textiles from the Eastern Canadian Arctic,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2018.06.005
The planet Beta Pictoris b is visible orbiting its host star in this composite image from the European Southern Observatorys (ESO) 3.6-m telescope and the NACO instrument on ESOs 8.2-m Very Large Telescope. The Beta Pictoris system is only about 20 million years old, roughly 225 times younger than the Solar System. Observing this dynamic and rapidly evolving system can help astronomers shed light on the processes of planet formation and early evolution. Credit: ESO/A-M. Lagrange et al.

The mass of a very young exoplanet has been revealed for the first time using data from ESA's star mapping spacecraft Gaia and its predecessor, the quarter-century retired Hipparcos satellite.

Astronomers Ignas Snellen and Anthony Brown from Leiden University, the Netherlands, deduced the mass of the planet Beta Pictoris b from the motion of its host star over a long period of time as captured by both Gaia and Hipparcos.

The planet is a gas giant similar to Jupiter but, according to the new estimate, is 9 to 13 times more massive. It orbits the star Beta Pictoris, the second brightest star in the constellation Pictor.

The planet was only discovered in 2008 in images captured by the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. Both the planet and the star are only about 20 million years old  roughly 225 times younger than the Solar System. Its young age makes the system intriguing but also difficult to study using conventional methods.

"In the Beta Pictoris system, the planet has essentially just formed," says Ignas. "Therefore we can get a picture of how planets form and how they behave in the early stages of their evolution. On the other hand, the star is very hot, rotates fast, and it pulsates."

This behaviour makes it difficult for astronomers to accurately measure the star's radial velocity  the speed at which it appears to periodically move towards and away from the Earth. Tiny changes in the radial velocity of a star, caused by the gravitational pull of planets in its vicinity, are commonly used to estimate masses of exoplanets. But this method mainly works for systems that have already gone through the fiery early stages of their evolution.

In the case of Beta Pictoris b, upper limits of the planet's mass range had been arrived at before using the radial velocity method. To obtain a better estimate, the astronomers used a different method, taking advantage of Hipparcos' and Gaia's measurements that reveal the precise position and motion of the planet's host star in the sky over time.

"The star moves for different reasons," says Ignas. "First, the star circles around the centre of the Milky Way, just as the Sun does. That appears from the Earth as a linear motion projected on the sky. We call it proper motion. And then there is the parallax effect, which is caused by the Earth orbiting around the Sun. Because of this, over the year, we see the star from slightly different angles."

And then there is something that the astronomers describe as 'tiny wobbles' in the trajectory of the star across the sky  minuscule deviations from the expected course caused by the gravitational pull of the planet in the star's orbit. This is the same wobble that can be measured via changes in the radial velocity, but along a different direction  on the plane of the sky, rather than along the line of sight.

Astronomers can measure the mass of exoplanets by looking at tiny deviations in the trajectories of their host stars caused by the gravitational pull of the orbiting planets. These can be observed either along the line of sight, looking for small changes in a stars radial velocity, or on the plane of the sky, using astrometric measurements. To be able to make accurate assessments, the astrometric observations need to cover a period of many years. In this picture, the white dashed spiral shows the evolution of a stars trajectory observable from the Earth, caused by the combination of parallax and proper motion. The brown band shows the range of deviations of the stars trajectory caused by a possible planet orbiting it. Credit: European Space Agency

"We are looking at the deviation from what you expect if there was no planet and then we measure the mass of the planet from the significance of this deviation," says Anthony. "The more massive the planet, the more significant the deviation."

To be able to make such an assessment, astronomers need to observe the trajectory of the star for a long period of time to properly understand the proper motion and the parallax effect.

The Gaia mission, designed to observe more than one billion stars in our Galaxy, will eventually be able to provide information about a large amount of exoplanets. In the 22 months of observations included in Gaia's second data release, published in April, the satellite has recorded the star Beta Pictoris about thirty times. That, however, is not enough.

"Gaia will find thousands of exoplanets, that's still on our to-do list," says Timo Prusti, ESA's Gaia project scientist. "The reason that the exoplanets can be expected only late in the mission is the fact that to measure the tiny wobble that the exoplanets are causing, we need to trace the position of stars for several years."

Combining the Gaia measurements with those from ESA's Hipparcos mission, which observed Beta Pictoris 111 times between 1990 and 1993, enabled Ignas and Anthony to get their result much faster. This led to the first successful estimate of a young planet's mass using astrometric measurements.

"By combining data from Hipparcos and Gaia, which have a time difference of about 25 years, you get a very long term proper motion," says Anthony.

"This proper motion also contains the component caused by the orbiting planet. Hipparcos on its own would not have been able to find this planet because it would look like a perfectly normal single star unless we had measured it for a much longer time.

"Now, by combining Gaia and Hipparcos and looking at the difference in the long term and the short term proper motion, we can see the effect of the planet on the star."

The result represents an important step towards better understanding the processes involved in planet formation, and anticipates the exciting exoplanet discoveries that will be unleashed by Gaia's future data releases.

"The mass of the young planet Beta Pictoris b through the astrometric motion of its host star," by I. Snellen and A. Brown is published in Nature Astronomy, 20 August 2018.

Explore further The longest period transiting planet candidate from K2

More information: I. A. G. Snellen et al. The mass of the young planet Beta Pictoris b through the astrometric motion of its host star, Nature Astronomy (2018). Journal information: Nature Astronomy I. A. G. Snellen et al. The mass of the young planet Beta Pictoris b through the astrometric motion of its host star,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-018-0561-6
The habenaria orchid: wild type (A) and the greenish flower mutant (B). Credit: Mai Mitoma

Researchers at Tohoku University in Japan have identified the gene related to the greenish flower mutation in the Habenaria orchid. Associate Professor Akira Kanno and Ph.D. candidate Mai Mitoma have discovered that the greenish flower mutation is caused by a retrotransposon insertion in one of the floral homeotic genes in the Habenaria orchid. The modification of this gene by a genetic transformation system enables the development of greenish flowers in orchids and other plant species.

Orchids are important ornamental plants with high commercial value. The orchid lip, which acts as a landing platform for pollinators (insects) can vary in shape, form and color. At the center of the flower, an orchid has a unique reproductive organ called a column. Botanists have been interested in the shape of the orchid flower for a long time, however, until now the molecular mechanism of the orchid flower development has been largely unclear. Being able to modify orchid floral structures through genetic engineering would be very valuable for orchid breeders allowing for an increase in orchid production.

Kanno explained the process, which was undertaken to reveal the mechanism: "first, we used a mutant orchid cultivar with greenish flowers to analyze the important genes related to flower development in orchids. Then we found the retrotransposon insertion in one of the floral homeotic genes called the SEPALLATA-like gene in the mutant orchid cultivar."

This mutant cultivar has greenish flowers. The loss-of-function of the SEPALLATA-like gene transformed the white petals to greenish organs and the column was converted into greenish leaf-like organs; revealing that the SEPALLATA-like gene is essential for petal, lip and column development in orchids.

In the future, the team aims to modify the SEPALLATA-like gene in other orchid species. It is thought that the reduced expression of the SEPALLATA-like gene may produce greenish flowers. These transgenic plants may help us to better understand the molecular mechanism of floral development in orchids.

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More information: Mai Mitoma et al, The Greenish Flower Phenotype of Habenaria radiata (Orchidaceae) Is Caused by a Mutation in the SEPALLATA-Like MADS-Box Gene HrSEP-1, Frontiers in Plant Science (2018). Mai Mitoma et al, The Greenish Flower Phenotype of Habenaria radiata (Orchidaceae) Is Caused by a Mutation in the SEPALLATA-Like MADS-Box Gene HrSEP-1,(2018). DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2018.00831
American eels are slimy, sinuous creatures that slither their slender, scaled bodies through water both fresh and salty.

But not much is known about this elusive eel, found in nearly every aquatic habitat in North Carolinafrom the cold mountain streams and lakes of the Smoky Mountains to the marshes of the Outer Banks and beyond.

Lewis C. Naisbett-Jones, a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is working at the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City to change that.

The American eel is a mysterious creature, Naisbett-Jones told The News & Observer in an interview. The snakelike creatures annually travel thousands of miles across featureless Atlantic Ocean depths of more than 6,500 feet in complete darkness in order to breed, but no one knows how they accomplish this feat.

"Not only do we not know where it is they go, we still don't know how they accomplish this journey," Naisbett-Jones said. "Unlike humans, they don't have a GPS to guide them and the ocean has very few signposts."

No one has ever witnessed eels spawning in the wild, nor have eel eggs ever been collected.

"I think in this day and age there are very few species as widespread as eels that we know so little about," he said.

Naisbett-Jones is researching whether adult eels use the Earth's magnetic field to guide their journey, the same way research shows sea turtles and migratory birds can.

To conduct his experiments, Naisbett-Jones built a large magnetic coil he and his team use to create magnetic fields similar to those that exist at different locations in the ocean.

"By placing eels inside this coil, we can observe how they behave and see whether they use information from Earth's magnetic field to navigate," he said.

American eels have been on the decline in recent years, and no one knows exactly why, Naisbett-Jones said.

Despite once being highly abundant, their future is "hanging in the balance," he said. In some areas, eel populations have declined as much as 99 percent.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature considers the American eel "endangered."

"Earth's magnetic field changes through time due to a natural phenomenon known as geomagnetic drift. This phenomenon may have contributed to the decline of American eel populations, making it harder for them to navigate," Naisbett-Jones said. "We need to understand what magnetic fields are important to eels during their migrations before we can investigate how geomagnetic drift affects eels."

And better understanding how eels use the Earth's magnetic field could help better improve human navigational technology, too, he said, especially in areas where satellites are less effective.

Like many fisherman, Naisbett-Jones said he used to think of eels as "somewhat of a nuisance." But he says they're "underappreciated."

"American eels undertake this incredibly long migration across vast expanses of featureless ocean," he said. "This fascinated me, particularly from a navigational perspective and after realizing that we still don't know how these eels achieve this journey.

"Who doesn't like a good mystery?"

Naisbett-Jones shared some facts about American eels:

- Live about 15 yearsCan grow up to 3 feet long and weigh about 17 pounds (females are usually larger than males)

- Live in areas from Greenland to VenezuelaSpend most of their life in freshwater or areas where fresh water and the ocean meetTravel thousands of miles across the Atlantic to mate and dieAre born and then travel back to where their parents grew up, without ever having been there beforeAre one of few fish that can swim backwardAre an important food source for animals including otters, turtles, larger fish and birds

Naisbett-Jones already showed during his master's degree research in the U.K. that juvenile European eels, a cousin to American eels that also breed in the Atlantic, use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate.

"Extending this research to American eels and adult eels in general is the next piece of the puzzle and that's what I'm doing right now, although it's too early to say what we've found yet," he said.

Increasing understanding of how the eels navigate is essential to successfully managing eel fisheries, designing marine protected areas, restoring and protecting critical eel habitat and predicting how the eels will respond to stressors such as climate change, Naisbett-Jones said.

"I believe they have an incredible story to tell and that this is something that can help change their perception and encourage their conservation," Naisbett-Jones said.

2018 The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
A close encounter with Greenland ice during a 2017 OMG field campaign. Credit: NASA

With a new research plane and a new base to improve its chances of outsmarting Atlantic hurricanes, NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland campaign takes to the sky this week for its third year of gathering data on how the ocean around Greenland is melting its glaciers.

OMG's first two years of operations already collected the most comprehensive data available on the subject, but OMG Principal Investigator Josh Willis of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, is hungry for more. "We're beginning to see some surprising changes in the ocean, just since the start of OMG in 2016, that are affecting the ice," said Willis, an oceanographer at JPL. "We want to see if those changes are still there after two years, and if they're spreading farther along the Greenland coast."

Willis and Project Manager Steve Dinardo, also of JPL, are leaving for Greenland this week on an airborne campaign to do just that. For the third year in a row, they will drop about 250 probes just offshore all around the island, with some drops close to the fronts of ocean-terminating glaciers. The probes sink 3,000 feet (1,000 meters) into the seawater, recording temperature and salinity as they go. The researchers hope to make their first flight on Aug 22 and complete the work in two to three weeks, depending on weather.

Beating the Weather

Unfortunately for OMG, the best time to drop probes into the ocean around Greenlandthe time with the most open wateris during hurricane season. "Hurricanes go up to Greenland to die," said Dinardo. "In 2016, there were days the winds were so strong we couldn't even open the hangar doors." Weather groundings stretched the planned three-week deployment to five weeks.

In 2017, weather struck closer to home: Hurricane Harvey sidelined the Houston-based plane and crew just days before the campaign was scheduled to begin. Dinardo managed to locate a viable alternative aircraft and get the OMG team airborne within a month of the originally planned start.

This year's new plane and new base should improve OMG's weather odds. The plane, a Basler BT-67 operated by NASA contractor Airtec, can take off and land on a shorter runway than either of the planes OMG previously used. That allows the team to base their east coast operations in Kulusuk, a small airport in southeastern Greenland, rather than a larger airport in Iceland. The lengthy "commute" from Iceland cut into the time available for research on each flight, and the longer flight path meant more places where there might be bad weather.

A pod of narwhals, with some tusks visible as white streaks. Credit: University of Washington/K. Laidre

When they complete the east coast drops, the team will move to Thule, a U.S. air base in northwestern Greenland, for drops on the western side of the island.

"Being in Greenland the whole time, we can get a little more up close and personal with the ice sheet and glaciers," Willis said.

OMG and Narwhals

The changing ocean around Greenland affects living creatures as well as glaciers. Narwhalssmallish whales with long single tusksare uniquely adapted to Arctic waters, moving seasonally from the open ocean to the glacier fronts of Greenland and Canada. Kristin Laidre, a research scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, studies these elusive mammals and their habitats. She quickly saw the value of OMG's observations, publishing the first peer-reviewed paper to use OMG data.

Laidre and Ian Fenty of JPL, an OMG co-principal investigator, are on the west side of Greenland from the airborne OMG team this week, on a six-day research cruise. Their team will place moorings in front of three important glaciers in northwestern Greenland, with acoustic recorders and OMG data loggers attached to the mooring chains. These instruments will log ocean temperature and conductivity (used to calculate salinity) and detections of narwhals.

This intensive local data set is likely to add new insights into OMG's larger-scale measurements, Fenty said. "Because the instruments will take measurements every hour for two years, we will get a totally new understanding of the changing ocean close to the ice," he noted. "These data will help us interpret our OMG probe data and allow us to evaluate and improve our [computer] simulations of the ocean currents in the area."

Laidre said, "We don't know a lot about what's important to narwhalshow physical oceanography influences their habitat preferences. OMG is collecting really detailed information on the physics of the system. For us, having access to those data and working with the OMG investigators can bring us a long way in studying these animals."

Explore further Research uncovers the mysterious lives of narwhals
On Aug. 21 at 7:15 a.m. EDT (1115 UTC) NASA's Terra satellite found coldest temperatures of strongest thunderstorms (yellow) in Hurricane Lane were as cold as or colder than minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 62.2 Celsius) in the eyewall. They were surrounded by a larger area of storms with cloud tops as cold as minus 70 degrees (red) Fahrenheit (minus 56.6 degrees Celsius). Credit: NRL/NASA

While passing over the Central Pacific Ocean, NASA's Terra satellite stared Hurricane Lane in the eye. Hurricane Lane continued to show a large eye surrounded by powerful storms. An infrared look by NASA's Terra satellite provided temperatures of those storms, confirming strong, high thunderstorms capable of very heavy rainfall.

NOAA's Central Pacific Hurricane Center or CPHC cautioned on Tuesday, August 21, 2018, "Major Hurricane Lane expected to make a turn toward the Hawaiian Islands later this week." Interests in the main Hawaiian Islands and across the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands should continue to closely monitor the progress of Hurricane Lane. A Hurricane Watch may be required for portions of the main Hawaiian Islands on Tuesday.

On Aug. 21 at 7:15 a.m. EDT (1115 UTC) the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite analyzed Lane's cloud top temperatures in infrared light. MODIS found cloud top temperatures of strongest thunderstorms in the eyewall were as cold as or colder than minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 62.2 Celsius). They were surrounded by a larger area of storms with cloud tops as cold as minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.6 degrees Celsius).Cloud top temperatures that cold indicate strong storms that have the capability to create heavy rain.

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) on Aug. 21 or 11 p.m. HST on Aug. 21, the eye of Hurricane Lane was located by aircraft near latitude 14.0 degrees north and longitude 151.2 degrees west. Lane is moving toward the west near 12 mph (19 kph) and this motion is expected to continue through Tuesday, with some slowing in forward speed. A gradual turn toward the northwest is expected Wednesday into Thursday, Aug. 23. Maximum sustained winds are near 150 mph (240 kph) with higher gusts. Lane is a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Slight weakening is forecast over the next couple of days.

CPHC said "Large swells generated by Lane will impact the Hawaiian Islands this week. These swells will produce large and potentially damaging surf along exposed shorelines. Excessive rainfall associated with Lane could affect portions of the Hawaiian Islands from Wednesday into the weekend, leading to flash flooding and mud slides."

Explore further GPM satellite finds heavy rainfall in powerful Hurricane Lane
H image of the dwarf galaxy candidate. Credit: Stein et al., 2018.

European astronomers have recently conducted a study of a star-forming dwarf galaxy candidate located in the halo of the galaxy NGC 4634. The new research, presented in a paper published August 8 on the arXiv pre-print server, provides insights into the nature and origin of this peculiar object.

Located around 62.3 million light years away from the Earth, the spiral galaxy NGC 4634 is a member of the Virgo Cluster. It has the dynamical galaxy mass of about 27 billion solar masses and exhibits an enhanced star-forming activity. Its halo shows diffuse X-ray emission and has a bright diffuse ionized gas component.

In 2008, a dwarf galaxy candidate was found by astronomers in the halo of NGC 4634, some 4,600 light years from the spiral galaxy's midplane. First observations of this object revealed that it could be a star-forming, gas-rich dwarf irregular galaxy that has been tidally disrupted by the gravitational forces of NGC 4634. However, more studies of this candidate were required in order to determine its real nature.

Now, new research conducted by a team of scientists led by Yelena Stein of the Observatory of Strasbourg, France, reveals more details about the nature of the peculiar object in NGC 4634's halo. The study is based on analysis of spectroscopic data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), and European Southern Observatory's (ESO) 3.6 m Telescope, as well as photometry from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) database.

"In this paper, we present multi-frequency data of a dwarf galaxy candidate and its edge-on host NGC 4634," the researchers wrote in the paper.

According to the study, the images of r-band, B-band, and the hydrogen-alpha luminosity show that the dwarf galaxy candidate is approximately 1,800 light years in diameter and confirm its star-forming activity. The researchers detected a high oxygen abundance of the dwarf galaxy candidate, which suggests that it was formed from pre-enriched material. They added that the material from which the dwarf galaxy candidate was created came from the disk of NGC 4634, or is at least equally chemically enriched.

Furthermore, the study reveals that heliocentric velocities of the dwarf galaxy candidate and its host are similar, indicating that they are connected.

The results of their research confirm that the halo of NGC 4634 contains a star-forming object of significant size that is formed from gas stripped from the spiral galaxy. This, according to the authors of the paper, makes NGC 4634 an excellent laboratory to study galaxy evolution.

The researchers noted that the most plausible hypothesis explaining the origin of the star-forming object is the tidal dwarf scenario, in which the candidate formed in the spur of NGC 4634 from disk material. However, further observations are needed in order to determine whether this peculiar object is a dwarf galaxy or just a star-forming patch.

More information: A star-forming dwarf galaxy candidate in the halo of NGC 4634, arXiv:1808.02801 [astro-ph.GA] A star-forming dwarf galaxy candidate in the halo of NGC 4634, arXiv:1808.02801 [astro-ph.GA] arxiv.org/abs/1808.02801 Abstract

The halos of disk galaxies form a crucial connection between the galaxy disk and the intergalactic medium. Massive stars, HII regions, or dwarf galaxies located in the halos of galaxies are potential tracers of recent accretion and/or outflows of gas, and are additional contributors to the photon field and the gas phase metallicity. We investigate the nature and origin of a star-forming dwarf galaxy candidate located in the halo of the edge-on Virgo galaxy NGC 4634 with a projected distance of 1.4 kpc and a H star formation rate of 4.7103Myr1 in order to increase our understanding of these disk-halo processes. With optical long-slit spectra we measured fluxes of optical nebula emission lines to derive the oxygen abundance 12 + log(O/H) of an HII region in the disk of NGC 4634 and in the star-forming dwarf galaxy candidate. Abundances derived from optical long-slit data and from Hubble Space Telescope (HST) r-band data, H data, Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) HI data, and photometry of SDSS and GALEX data were used for further analysis. With additional probes of the luminosity-metallicity relation in the B-band from the H-luminosity, the HI map, and the relative velocities, we are able to constrain a possible origin of the dwarf galaxy candidate. The high oxygen abundance (12 + log(O/H)  8.72) of the dwarf galaxy candidate leads to the conclusion that it was formed from pre-enriched material. Analysis of auxiliary data shows that the dwarf galaxy candidate is composed of material originating from NGC 4634. We cannot determine whether this material has been ejected tidally or through other processes, which makes the system highly interesting for follow up observations.

 2018 Phys.org
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Researchers who study urban areas have long observed a connection between size and proximitynamely, that cities become more dense as they gain in population. The more people live in a place, the closer together they live and work.

This closeness is important: It likely accelerates learning and facilitates the sharing of ideas. It's readily demonstrated by data on civilizations separated by time and space, from pre-conquest Central Mexico to Medieval European cities to present-day metropolises.

But some societies buck the trend. Archaeologists have found evidence of "low-density urbanism" around the globe, including Maya sites in Mesoamerica. These populous areas didn't undergo a density increase as their numbers swelled; in some cases, they followed an inverse correlation.

"The existing data we have for Maya society shows the opposite pattern," says anthropologist and SFI External Professor Scott Ortman (University of Colorado-Boulder). As the Maya population rose, the city spread out, and the density fell. People didn't live closer together; they spread out.

Together with External Professor Jose Lobo at Arizona State University, Ortman leads the Social Reactors Project. At a working group at SFI this August, Lobo and Ortman will bring together a group of early career scholars to examine the challenge posed by low-density Maya settlements to the idea that density increases with population.

In recent years, scholars' abilities to probe Maya history and culture have increased thanks to LiDAR surveying technology. LiDAR, a remote- sensing tool, is particularly useful in mapping rugged terrain. It works by ring laser pulses over an area from above, then measuring the return time of the pulses to produce a three- dimensional map of landforms and buildings, including those that might be hidden by jungle. Many scholars who will attend the August working group have expertise in using LiDAR on Maya sites.

Ortman says that by revealing the hidden boundaries of settlements, LiDAR might help scholars understand how low-density societies align with the general scaling framework observed in other civilizations, old and new. The data from Maya studies challenge not only the correlation between population and density, but also the very idea of what it means to be a city.

"What we're not sure about is whether the difference we see implies that Maya society worked in a different way," says Ortman, "or if it's just a function of the way Maya archaeology has been done."

Explore further Experts discover hidden ancient Maya structures in Guatemala
Time sequence of a growing pollen tube pushing against a PDMS cantilever. The tube from a trapped pollen grain emerges from a microchannel at the top of the image, touches the microcantilever at point A near the tip, gets caught in a nudge designed to prevent slippage, and deflects the perpendicularly oriented cantilever. Credit: Anja Geitmann

In a paper to be published in the September 2018 issue of TECHNOLOGY, the thrust produced by the microscopic organ delivering sperm cells in plants has now been measured using microfluidic technology. A team of nano and microsystems engineers and plant biologists at the University of Montreal (now known as Universite de Montreal), McGill University and Concordia University devised a microchip that enabled the researchers to measure how much force the sperm delivery tools used by plants exert when negotiating the female flower tissues to accomplish fertilization.

The fabrication of the lab-on-a-chip used to measure the growth force of the pollen tubes was highly complex, involving the assembly of multiple layers of precisely designed elastomer material with a precision in the micrometer range. Reproduction in plants is crucial for human survival, since most of the calories we consume depend on it. Successful plant fertilization is at the basis of the formation of seeds such as rice, corn and wheat, as well as fruits and numerous vegetables. Failure to fertilize can therefore have dramatic economic and humanitarian consequences.

To mimic the biological maze of the flower tissue, the pollen tubes were strategically guided into the microdevice and exposed to miniature force balances. When the tubes interacted with the gauge, they deflected the device and the stalling force provided information on the amount of thrust the tiny cells were able to exert. The magnitude of this force suggests that the cellular pressure driving the invasion process corresponds to that of a typical car tire. Curiously, the pollen tubes changed the frequency or their oscillatory growth pattern, suggesting that the cells "feel" and respond to the physical resistance of the environment.

Scanning electron micrograph of the PDMS cantilever in the Lab-on-Chip device used to measure pollen tube invasive force. Credit: Anja Geitmann and Mahmood Ghanbari

Sperm cell delivery in plants has many similarities with the analogous process in humans and animals. The egg cell in plants is deeply embedded in the female tissues, and hence, the delivery of the sperm cells by the male partner, the pollen grain, requires the formation of a protuberance that invades the female tissues. Contrary to the human counterpart, each plant male only delivers two sperm cells, and the process ends with its death. "This is the reason that flowers form so many pollen grains" says senior author of the study, Anja Geitmann. The biological purpose of these microscopic spheres is the delivery of sperm cells from one flower to the next.

Unlike animal sperm cells, plant sperm cells are not motile, and therefore they have to be delivered directly to the egg cell for fertilization to occur. The growth of the delivery organ is therefore crucial. The female flower tissues represent a maze of formidable complexity through which the pollen tubes have to manoeuvre. Essential for targeting, the pollen tube is able to follow the guidance cues emitted by the female partner. "We have long suspected that the process requires not only a sophisticated navigation system, but also substantial forces," explains Geitmann, "but just how much force this single cell can produce was unknown."

Scanning electron micrograph of two germinated Camellia pollen grains. Credit: Anja Geitmann

Concordia University Professor Muthukumaran Packirisamy adds, "From a mechanical point of view, the process of pollen tube elongation is similar to that of a balloon catheter used for angioplastyforces are generated based on the principle of a hydroskeleton, or fluid under pressure. We designed a microscopic cantilever-based gauge against which the pollen tubes had to forcefully push in order to continue their elongation."

Microsystems technology was required for this experiment due to the tiny size of pollen tubes and the consequently minute amount of force they exert to accomplish penetration. In big flowers, pollen tubes can become many centimeters long, but independently of flower size, the tubes are only between five and 20 micrometres wide. By way of comparison, a human hair is typically 100 micrometres thick.

The study was designed not only to quantitatively determine the invasive force of the pollen tube, but also to closely monitor its behavior upon the encounter with the physical object. The researchers observed that the characteristic oscillatory growth pattern of the cell was markedly altered by contact with the physical obstacle leading them to suspect that the tube perceives and is able to adapt its growth force depending on the mechanical impedance it encounters. Such tunable and sophisticated behavior by a single cell is fascinating and illustrates the complexity of the reproductive process, even in plants.

The team from McGill University is working now to further characterize the invasive behavior of the pollen tube to understand how the cellular growth machinery steers the growth direction toward its target, and how the cell interacts with the female tissues while the team at Concordia University continues the development of lab-on-a-chip for studying varying cellular behavior and properties.

Explore further Microchip proves tightness provokes precocious sperm release

More information: Mahmood Ghanbari et al, Measuring the growth force of invasive plant cells using Flexure integrated Lab-on-a-Chip (FiLoC), TECHNOLOGY (2018). Mahmood Ghanbari et al, Measuring the growth force of invasive plant cells using Flexure integrated Lab-on-a-Chip (FiLoC),(2018). DOI: 10.1142/S2339547818500061
Stalagmites in southern China preserve detailed geomagnetic oscillations and centennial geomagnetic reversal events. Credit: PNAS

A large team of researchers from China, Taiwan and Australia has found evidence of faster-than-expected shifts in Earth's magnetic polarity several thousand years ago. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study of stalagmites found in a cave in China and what they found.

Prior research has shown that the Earth's magnetic field sometimes reverses polaritysuch an event has been experienced only once by modern humans, but that was long before the age of satellites and electronics. In the modern age, such a reversal could spell trouble for many devices that we have come to rely on. For that reason, scientists study past reversals in the hope of predicting when the next might occur. In this new effort, the researchers traveled to the Sanxing Cave in Guizhou Province in southern China. There, they obtained samples of stalagmites (columns of calcium salts that rise from the floor of caves, caused by dripping water), which hold evidence of changes to the magnetic field going back thousands of years.

The Earth's magnetic field is generated by liquid metal churning at depths 1,700 miles below the surface. But sometimes, that churning can change slightly, affecting the magnetic field. Prior research has suggested that a full reversal would likely take thousands of years, but this new research suggests it can happen in as few as 100.

The researchers report that the stalagmite sample taken from the cave showed evidence of magnetic field changes from 107,000 to 91,000 years agoa span of 16,000 years. By studying the sample very precisely using a high-resolution cryogenic magnetometer, the researchers were able to trace changes in the magnetic field more precisely than has ever been done before. In so doing, they discovered that approximately 98,000 years ago, a magnetic reversal occurred over just a century and a half, approximately 10 times faster than had been believed possible. The researchers found several other phase changes, as well, with various degrees of fluctuation strength. They also found that when the magnetic field was weaker than normal, more fluctuations in strength occurred. They suggest such fluctuations likely caused some instability in convection in the planet's outer core.

The geomagnetic field shields Earth from the direct impact of solar wind and cosmic radiation. Credit: PNAS

More information: * Yu-Min Chou et al. Multidecadally resolved polarity oscillations during a geomagnetic excursion, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2018). * Yu-Min Chou et al. Multidecadally resolved polarity oscillations during a geomagnetic excursion,(2018). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1720404115 Abstract

Polarity reversals of the geomagnetic field have occurred through billions of years of Earth history and were first revealed in the early 20th century. Almost a century later, details of transitional field behavior during geomagnetic reversals and excursions remain poorly known. Here, we present a multidecadally resolved geomagnetic excursion record from a radioisotopically dated Chinese stalagmite at 10791 thousand years before present with age precision of several decades. The duration of geomagnetic directional oscillations ranged from several centuries at 106103 thousand years before present to millennia at 9892 thousand years before present, with one abrupt reversal transition occurring in one to two centuries when the field was weakest. These features indicate prolonged geodynamo instability. Repeated asymmetrical interhemispheric polarity drifts associated with weak dipole fields likely originated in Earth's deep interior. If such rapid polarity changes occurred in future, they could severely affect satellites and human society. * Press release Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

 2018 Phys.org
Image of the sub-7-nm nanomagnets. Inset shows bright and dark colors that indicate two distinctive magnetization switching states. Credit: Hong et al. 2018 American Institute of Physics

Scientists have developed some of the tiniest magnets to date, just 3-7 nanometers (nm) in size. Due to their small dimensions and high thermal stability, as well as the simple self-assembly process used to make them, the nanomagnets represent an important step toward designing next-generation memory devices with ultra-high densities and low power consumption.

The researchers, Jeongmin Hong and Long You at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, along with K. Dong at the China University of Geosciences and Jeffrey Bokor at the University of California-Berkeley, have published a paper on the new memory cells in a recent issue of Applied Physics Letters.

Previous research has already demonstrated several different varieties of single-digit-nanometer structures. So far, however, all of the techniques used to fabricate these structures involve complex and expensive patterning processes, such as lithography and ion beam etching. In the new study, the nanomagnets are self-assembled, which involves only a simple sputtering process and does not require any nanofabrication patterning processes.

"The most significant part of this research is that we showed sub-5-nm memory cell with good thermal stability," Hong told Phys.org. "The study is a key component for future STT MRAM [spin transfer torque magnetic random access memory] applications. We used a self-assembly method to make 5-nm nanomaget grains for information storage without the necessity of nanofabrication."

The nanomagnets consist of iron-platinum grains with an average diameter of 5 nm. Each nanomagnet has two magnetization directions, which are determined by the nanomagnets' orientations. The two magnetization directions correspond to two states (parallel and anti-parallel) of a magnetic tunnel junction, which forms the basic building block of a nonvolatile memory cell.

Using a state-of-the-art highly focused spin probe, the researchers demonstrated that an applied current switches the magnetization of individual nanomagnets due to spin transfer torque. The ultra-small nanomagnets exhibit a high thermal stability that corresponds to a data retention time of more than 10 years.

"Currently, we are working on how to control device size for an immediate system integration in a reliable way," You said. "In parallel, we will study thermal effects caused by a high-density spin probe."

Explore further Unprecedented single-digit-nanometer magnetic tunnel junction demonstrated

More information: J. Hong et al. "Self-assembled single-digit nanometer memory cells." Applied Physics Letters. DOI: Journal information: Applied Physics Letters J. Hong et al. "Self-assembled single-digit nanometer memory cells.". DOI: 10.1063/1.5033972

 2018 Phys.org
The Ali Observatory is situated on the Tibetan Plateau over 5100 metres above sea level and the potential site of a new telescope. Credit: Colin Bonner

It is a tale of North and South with an astronomical twist, with a UNSW astronomer and a UNSW PhD alumnus heading from Antarctica to the Tibetan Plateau to help find the best site for a new, 12-metre optical telescope.

This year, Professor Michael Ashley from the School of Physics and alumnus Dr Colin Bonner travelled to Ali Observatory in western Tibet to lead the testing and installation of SODAR (Sound Detection and Ranging), a device the astronomers will use to decide where a new telescope is best located.

The road to Tibet was a journey from one extreme to another. Before Tibet, Professor Ashley and Dr Bonner had been on scientific expeditions deploying telescopes in some of the most remote locations of Antartica, including the South Pole itself at latitude 90S. To reach Ali Observatory, the pair had to travel from Tibet's capital Lhasa to Nagari Gunsa airport, the fourth highest altitude airport in the world.

Ali Observatory is situated on the Tibetan Plateau, at more than 5100 metres above sea level. It's a good location for studying the night sky, due to the combination of its high altitude and predominantly dry seasonal conditions in the region.

"In astronomy you want to be as high as you can be because it gets you above some of the atmosphere, where it is nice and cold and there is not much water vapour," says Professor Ashley.

"It's an amazing location. Antarctica is amazing in more ways than one, but the Tibetan Plateau is like the surface of the moon, albeit with some tufts of hardy grass and a few yaks."

The pair limited their time at Ali Observatory to a few hours at a time, however, to reduce the risk of altitude sickness.

Fulcrum 3Ds sonar radar (cone-shaped object in the centre) installed onsite at Ali Observatory. Credit: Colin Bonner

"The photos don't capture the feeling of being there  you really notice the difficulty of breathing," says Professor Ashley.

Ashley and Bonner travelled to Tibet to install a SODAR to help evaluate the stability of the atmosphere at the location. Atmosphere stability is critical for astronomers: tens of metres difference between where a telescope is placed can make the difference between a blurry image of a star and a clear high-resolution one.

Astronomers are acutely aware of turbulence because it causes stars to twinkle, affecting the clarity of any image they want to take. When light travels down from space towards Earth, it exists as a straight beam until it hits the atmosphere on its way down to the ground. Any interference encountered on the way causes the once straight beam of light to be deflected. The higher the levels of atmospheric interference, the greater the obstacle for astronomers to observe and take images of the night sky

Fulcrum3D's SODAR aims to help minimise this risk. It is designed to detect minute changes in the atmosphere from turbulence. It sends an acoustic signal into the atmosphere and the sound waves scatter off any turbulence to create an echo. A computer processes the intensity of the echo to help determine what portion of the atmosphere can potentially interfere with any studies of the night sky.

The device is based on an original design by Dr Bonner that he started during his PhD. Dr Bonner is also the founder and Technical Director of Fulcrum3D, a technology development and services company that provides solutions and technical support for the renewable energy sector.

"What sets Fulcrum3D apart is that we have unique technical side points from the SODAR. We are also one of the few companies who not only have a very strong R&D stream, but also do the full service from manufacture, support and ongoing data services," says Dr Bonner.

"A SODAR is very similar to a submarine sonar but instead of bouncing sound from fish and rocks, we bounce off turbulence in the air."

Dr Colin Bonner (left) and Professor Michael Ashley on location at Ali Observatory. Credit: Colin Bonner

Original versions of the SODAR were put through their paces in Antarctica, where Professor Ashley and Dr Bonner previously worked at an international observatory.

Chinese astronomer collaborators onsite in Antarctica saw the SODAR's effectiveness and called on the combined expertise of Professor Ashley and Dr Bonner to apply it at Ali Observatory.

There are now plans to construct a 12-metre optical telescope in Tibet. This will be the latest addition to an international cluster of smaller telescopes from the United States and Japan.

"A big part of the visit was assessing locations  there is no point in having a Ferrari-style telescope put on a site that would not produce optimal conditions for astronomers," says Dr Bonner.

"If you are going to put in money to build a telescope, you need to be absolutely sure it is the best location."

The device will remain at Ali Observatory for at least a couple of years to collect seasonal atmospheric data. The information will then be analysed by Fulcrum3D and astronomers at the National Astronomical Observatory of China and UNSW to determine the best location for the new telescope.

Explore further Supersharp images from new VLT adaptive optics
Snapshot of video image showing chemical weapons attack in Syria. Chemical plume rises from the ground and disperses into the atmosphere. Credit: Dawa al-Haq News Agency, Syria

On April 4, 2017, the town of Khan Sheikhoun in northwest Syria experienced one of the worst chemical attacks in recent history. A plume of sarin gas spread more than 10 kilometers (about six miles), carried by buoyant turbulence, killing more than 80 people and injuring hundreds.

Horrified by the attack, but also inspired to do something useful, Kiran Bhaganagar, professor of mechanical engineering at The University of Texas at San Antonio, and her team from Laboratory of Turbulence Sensing and Intelligence Systems, used computer models to replicate the dispersal of the chemical gas. Results were published in Natural Hazards in May 2017. The accuracy of her simulations showed the ability to capture real world conditions despite a scarcity of information.

"If there is a sudden a chemical attack, questions that are important are: 'how far does it go' and 'what direction does it go,'" Bhaganagar said. "This is critical for evacuations."

Bhaganagar's research is supported by the U.S. Department of Army Edgewood Chemical and Biological Center (ECBC), who hope to adopt her models to assist in the case of an attack on American soil.

Chemicals, whether toxic agents like sarin gas or exhaust from vehicles, travel differently from other particulates in the atmosphere. Like wildfires, which can move incredibly fast, chemicals create their own micro-conditions, depending on the density of the material and how it mixes with the atmosphere. This phenomenon is known as buoyant turbulence and it leads to notable differences in how chemicals travel during the day or at night, and during different seasons.

"In the nighttime and early morning, even when you have calm winds, the gradients are very sharp, which means chemicals travel faster," Bhaganagar explained.

Even ordinary turbulence is difficult to mathematically model and predict. It functions on a range of scales, each interacting with the others, and disperses energy as it moves to the smallest levels. Modeling buoyant turbulence is even harder. To predict the effects of turbulence on the dispersal of chemical particles, Bhaganagar's team ran computer simulations on the Stampede2 supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), the largest system at any U.S. university.

"We go into the physics of it and try to understand what the vertices are and where the energy is," Bhaganagar said. "We decompose the problem and each processor solves for a small portion. Then we put everything back together to visualize and analyze the results."

Plume development in time. Credit: Suddher BhimiReddy and Kiran Bhaganagar

Bhaganagar used TACC's supercomputers through the University of Texas Research Cyberinfrastructure (UTRC) initiative, which, since 2007, has provided researchers at any of the University of Texas System's 14 institutions access to TACC's resources, expertise and training.

The background atmosphere and time of day play a big role in the dispersal. In the case of the Syria attacks, Bhaganagar first had to determine the wind speeds, temperature, and the kinds of chemicals involved. With that information in hand, her high resolution model was able to predict how far and in what direction chemical plumes travelled.

"In Syria, it was very bad because the timing caused it to be ideal conditions to spread very fast," she said. "We ran the actual case of Syria on the TACC supercomputer, got all of the background information and added it to the models, and our models captured the boundaries of the plume and which cities it spread to. We saw it was very similar to what was reported in the news. That gave us confidence that our system works and that we could use it as an evacuation tool."

The research is targeted to short-term predictions: understanding in what direction chemicals will propagate within a four-hour window and working with first responders to deploy personnel appropriately.

However, running the high-resolution model takes time. In the case of the Syria simulation, it required five full days of number crunching on Stampede2 to complete. During a real attack, such time wouldn't be available. Consequently, Bhaganagar also developed a coarser model that uses a database of seasonal conditions as background information to speed up the calculations.

For this purpose, Bhaganagar's team has introduced a novel mobile sensing protocol where they deploy low-cost mobile sensors consisting of aerial drones and ground-based sensors to gather the local wind data and use the courser model to predict the plume transport.

Using this method, the four-hour predictions can be computed in as little as 30 minutes. She is working to bring the time down even further, to 10 minutes. This would allow officials to rapidly issue accurate evacuation orders, or place personnel where they are needed to assist in protecting citizens.

"There are hardly any models that can predict to this level of accuracy," Bhaganagar said. "The Army uses trucks with mobile sensors, which they send into a circle around the source. But it's very expensive and they have to send soldiers, which is a danger to them." In the future, the army hopes to combine computer simulations and live monitoring in the case of a chemical attack.

Conceptual schematic of using UAVs to track plume Credit: Suddher BhimiReddy and Kiran Bhaganagar

Bhaganagar will conduct tests in the coming months at the U.S. Army experimental facility in Maryland to determine how well drones can predict wind conditions accurately.

"The higher the accuracy of the datathe wind speed, wind direction, local temperaturethe better the prediction," she explained. "We use drones to give us additional data. If you can feed this data into the model, the accuracy for the four-hour window is much higher."

Most recently, she and her graduate student, who is a Ph.D. candidate, Sudheer Bhimireddy, integrated their buoyant turbulence model with the high-resolution Advanced Research Weather Research and Forecast model to understand the role of atmospheric stability on the short-term transport of chemical plumes.The research appears in the September 2018 edition of Atmospheric Pollution Research

Developing Tools to Detect Pollution in Your Community

In related work funded by the National Science Foundation, Bhaganagar has adopted her chemical plume model to do pollution tracking. She hopes her code can help communities predict local pollution conditions.

According to Bhaganagar, low-cost wind and gas sensors purchased by a community could help produce daily forecasts so individuals can take the proper precautions when pollution levels are concentrated in an area. Recent efforts have tried to determine how many sensors are needed to allow accurate local predictions.

"Can we detect zones of pollution and take effective measures to avoid pollution?" Bhaganagar asked. "If we had our own small-scale models that we could use in our communities that would have a big impact on pollution."

Though community pollution forecasts would ultimately run on consumer-grade computers, such predictions would not be possible without access to supercomputers to test the models and generate a database of background conditions.

"TACC resources are so valuable," she said. "I wouldn't have even attempted these research projects if I wasn't able to access TACC supercomputers. They're absolutely necessary for developing new turbulence models that can save lives in the future."

Explore further New study describes method to save lives in chemical attacks

More information: Sudheer R. Bhimireddy et al, Short-term passive tracer plume dispersion in convective boundary layer using a high-resolution WRF-ARW model, Atmospheric Pollution Research (2018). Sudheer R. Bhimireddy et al, Short-term passive tracer plume dispersion in convective boundary layer using a high-resolution WRF-ARW model,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.apr.2018.02.010 Kiran Bhaganagar et al. Assessment of the plume dispersion due to chemical attack on April 4, 2017, in Syria, Natural Hazards (2017). DOI: 10.1007/s11069-017-2936-x
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Curtin researchers using 'stunt spiders' found male trapdoor spiders leaving their burrows to mate faced predators such as birds, lizards and rodents all year round while wasps posed a threat only in summer.

Explaining the research, published overnight in Scientific Reports, lead author Ph.D. student Leanda Mason, from Curtin University's School of Molecular and Life Sciences, said about 14 species of trapdoor spiders inhabited bushland around Perth, but each species had a different time of year when males left their burrows to mate.

"Trapdoor spiders spend most of their lives in their burrows, and it seems to be a tactic that works  the oldest-known trapdoor spider, found in WA, lived until she was 43 years old. But it's not a tactic that helps spiders meet mates, which is why males must emerge from the safety of their burrows," Ms Mason said.

"Trapdoor spider males do not return to their burrows after mating and are thought to die not long after mating. The threat posed by predators though is that they may never reach their mate and without spiderlings being recruited for future generations, the populations are at risk of extinction."

Ms Mason said trapdoor spider populations in Perth's urban areas are already highly fragmented due to habitat loss.

She said the research examined if different predators, including introduced species such as rats and mice, posed a threat to trapdoor spiders by hunting the males when they left their burrow.

"The most interesting finding we found was that wasps displayed extreme seasonal exclusivity, attacking only in summer months," Ms Mason said.

Co-author Dr. Bill Bateman, also from Curtin's School of Molecular and Life Sciences, said that clay spider models are useful surrogates for understanding potential predators.

"We used 'stunt spiders'  accurate plasticine models which we put in different bushland areas at different times of the year  to see if spider predators would be fooled into attacking them. If they did, they left distinctive marks of teeth and claws on the plasticine that allowed us to identify the predator," Dr. Bateman said.

"We concluded that, overall, introduced predators like mice and rats were still more of a threat to trapdoor spider males because they are novel to the ecosystem and likely to have greater negative impacts than wasps who have co-evolved with spiders for millions of years."

Explore further Trapdoor spiders of Perth

More information: L. D. Mason et al. Predators Show Seasonal Predilections for Model Clay Spiders in an Urban Environment, Scientific Reports (2018). Journal information: Scientific Reports L. D. Mason et al. Predators Show Seasonal Predilections for Model Clay Spiders in an Urban Environment,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-30778-y
The top figure shows the percentage of students who, between 1986 and 2017, choose one of four options in relation to the human evolution: (1) humans were created by God within the last 10,000 years (green); (2) humans evolved over millions of years with the whole process guided by God (blue); (3) humans evolved over millions of years but God had no part in this process (red); or (4) they are uncertain what they think (yellow). Figures include lines of best fit from linear and quadratic regressions with 95% confidence intervals. The bottom figure shows the percentage of the wider Australian public who have declared in national censuses between the years 1986 and 2016 that they have no religion. Credit: UNSW

Australian university students give far more credit than the previous generation to the science of human evolution and far less to creationism or divine guidance, according to a landmark new study.

In an overview of the last 32 years of annually-assessed student opinions, it is clear that belief among students that a god is the ultimate or contributing cause of human origins has steeply declined from being a majority view in 1986 to being a small minority view in 2017. Conversely, conviction that humans evolved without divine involvement of any kind rose steeply over the same period to become the dominant view among students.

Every year since 1986, the researchers polled first-year biology students at UNSW Sydney about their views on evolution and creationism. In 1986, 60% of students believed a god had something to do with the origin of humans, while only 29% held this view in 2017. In contrast, the percentage of students convinced that a god had nothing to do with the origin of humans increased from 25% in 1986 to 62% in 2017.

The findingspublished today in Evolution: Education and Outreach - are the longest continuous annual survey of opinions about creationism versus evolution among first-year university students world-wide.

Professor Michael Archer, lead study author and Professor at UNSW Science's School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, says the original intent of the poll was to assess the level of commitment among incoming students to supernatural explanations for our origins.

"Given that the creationist view (that humans were created by God within the last 10,000 years, rather than evolved naturally over millions of years without the involvement of God) is common among American students, we wanted to know how much of a challenge introducing the evidence for evolution to first-year students would be for us in Australia," Archer said.

"We also wanted to know if Australian student views about this key issue were changing over time."

From 1986 to 2017, every student attending the first-year biology course was invited to complete a one-item poll on a strictly anonymous basis. An average of 530 students a year participated in the survey. The results of the relevant year's surveyand of all previous yearswere always openly presented to the class in the following lecture.

Each student was handed a slip of paper and asked to circle one of the following four options, the one with which they most agreed:

God created people (Homo sapiens) pretty much in their present form at sometime within the last 10,000 years. People developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided the whole process, including our development. People developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. God had no part in this process. I honestly have no opinion about this matter.

Analysing the survey results from the 32 years (Fig. 1a), the researchers identified two main findings.

"First, the percentage of our Australian students endorsing the creationist option (the first one of the four) has been consistently small, averaging 10.4%, and slowly declining to less than 5%," Professor Archer says.

"Second, there has been a striking cross-over in the opinions of the successive cohorts of students. In 1986, 60% of the students endorsed either the creationist option or the theistic, god-guided evolution option (the second of the four above). By 2017, the proportion of students endorsing either of these theistic options had fallen to 28.8%.

"Conversely, endorsement of the non-theistic option rose from 25.1% to 62.2%. This rise appears to mirror the fall in endorsement of the theistic options."

Reports of long-term trends in views about the origins of humans are rare and, in most cases, limited to surveys of adult populations in the USA and, more rarely, other areas of the world.

The extent and pace of decline in the Australian students' commitment to religious views about divine creation, especially creationism, is in distinct contrast to the corresponding beliefs among American students and the American public.

"In the USA, belief in creationism, while slowly declining, appears to have remained in the 40% range, four times that seen in our Australian survey," Professor Archer says.

The fact that commitment among Australian students to this view, the only one that involves refusal to accept evidence that humans have evolved from other animals, has always been lowand declining, suggested to Archer's team that no extra effort was needed to communicate to first year students the scientific evidence for human evolution.

The team has proposed additional strategies to better understand these long-term changes in student viewpoints. "There may be value in running a similar annual survey in some of the high schools that contribute to a majority of the incoming students to this university," Archer says.

"Slight changes to the national census questionnaire to enable a more detailed assessment of long-term changes in public opinions about these issues would be valuable, too, although already it is clear (Fig. 1b) that a steep decline in religious commitment has been occurring in the general public as well."

The authors also suggest that to assess the potential impact of university education on the opinions expressed by students, it might be useful to run the same survey with as many as possible of the same cohort of students over their next three years of their undergraduate education.

More information: Michael Archer et al, Thirty two years of continuous assessment reveal first year university biology students in Australia are rapidly abandoning beliefs in theistic involvement in human origins, Evolution: Education and Outreach (2018). Michael Archer et al, Thirty two years of continuous assessment reveal first year university biology students in Australia are rapidly abandoning beliefs in theistic involvement in human origins,(2018). DOI: 10.1186/s12052-018-0083-9
11 hours ago

US, EU reach agreement to settle rift over Trump-era tariffs

ROME (AP)  The U.S. and European Union have reached an agreement to settle their diplomatic rift over Trump-era steel and aluminum tariffs, the White House announced Saturday, as President Joe Biden is in Rome attending the Group of 20 summit. The Trump administration had placed taxes on EU steel and aluminum in 2018 on the claim that the foreign products produced by American allies were a threat to U.S.

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By George Hammond

Built at the intersection of two rivers, Kuala Lumpur (literally muddy confluence) is a modern city of gleaming towers. That is a far cry from the boggy encampment established by Chinese tin prospectors in the middle of the 19th century.

Foreign prospectors in the Malaysian capital today are more likely to be seeking their fortune in oil and gas, but a decline in that sector has hit the citys property market  just one of a muddy confluence of factors behind the fall in local prices over the past few years.

Malaysias oil and gas sector has been in decline

Asking prices in Kuala Lumpur  Malaysias largest city  came down 2.3 per cent in the year to October 2017, according to Malaysian property portal PropertyGuru, even as the national economy picked up overall. The contraction of the oil and gas sector has caused a tightening of housing allowances for expatriates, and therefore the luxury segment is presently not in high demand, says Amy Wong, head of real estate research at estate agent Savills Kuala Lumpur office.

That sector, which is the dominant office space occupier [and has] driven demand for rentals of luxury condominium units in Kuala Lumpur city centre . . . has been relatively quiet in 2018, and for the past three years, she adds.

Falling prices are also a result of the slew of cooling measures implemented to curb speculative activities in the local property market since 2012 has met its objective, says Judy Ong, executive director at estate agent Knight Frank Malaysia. Government measures included increasing capital gains tax and raising the minimum price of property available to foreign buyers.

In addition to those measures, an oversupply of condominiums is hitting the top end of the market. At the end of last year, 14 per cent of residential units in Kuala Lumpur were unsold, according to a report from rating agency Moodys. The majority of new units were priced over RM250,000 ($62,000), the threshold to qualify as affordable, according to the Central Bank of Malaysia.

Responding to the glut of unsold properties, last November the Malaysian government introduced a freeze on new developments of condos priced above RM1m, although the measure will be applied on a case-by-case basis and is temporary.

An oversupply of condos is hitting the top end of the market

Tough conditions and the imposition of capital controls in China (Malaysias largest foreign market) have seen developers diversifying their target market to other countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong to boost sales, says Ong.

But while property values have held steady or fallen over the past few years, for many in Kuala Lumpur, prices remain unaffordable. In 2016, median annual income in the city was RM108,876, against a median house price of RM620,000, according to the Central Bank of Malaysia.

The ratio of prices to earnings has made ownership challenging for many but, says Wong, the mass and affordable housing segment has been active, with well-priced starter homes in good locations enjoying brisk sales rates.

According to PropertyGuru, however, transaction volumes took a significant hit last year. The portals analysis, which covers a snapshot of the market, shows volumes down dramatically year on year. Sellers in Kuala Lumpur have been reported to drop their asking prices by as much as 20 to 30 per cent, it says.

Kuala Lumpur still represents value compared with other south-east Asian capitals: a square foot in the city trades for $400-$700, against $900-$1,000 in Bangkok and $2,000 or more in Singapore, according to property consultants Rahim & Co. But uncertainty prevails about where the market will go  or perhaps how much further downward it will trend. The surprise election this May of 93-year old Mahathir Mohamad as prime minister has only made it harder to divine the future of the citys property market.

Supporters of the newly elected Mahathir Mohamad

Photographs: Dreamstime; Getty Images; Alamy
Fewer iPhone users are expected to upgrade to new phones next year because they like the iPhone X so much, but its a situation thats led one analyst to downgrade the stock for 2019, citing expectations of a material disappointment.

As cited by CNBC, New Street Research analyst Pierre Ferragu told clients in a note Monday that investors should sell Apple stock because a major gap in sales is looming for next year.

In fact, theres future demand looks bleak because the majority of those who wanted the best-of-the-bestthe iPhone Xalready have it.

"The iPhone X has been very successful and well received by consumers. It has been so successful, that we think it has brought forward demand, CNBC quoted Ferragu as saying.

So far, Ferragu doesnt see how Apple is going to recoup the loss, and new plans for a lower-priced OLED phone on the portfolio isnt likely to cut it, with fewer people opting for a change-out.

The analyst is projecting that Apples iPhone revenues for 2019 will come in 10 percent lower than Wall Street expectations, with earnings per share over next year and the following coming in well below projections.

"History shows the stock suffers materially when iPhone revenues disappoint," Ferragu said. "This may sound insane, but fits our thesis: iPhone shipments are on a multiple-year decline trend, as refresh cycles elongate, and 2018 was a bump in the trend, as 2016 was."

New Research has put a $165 price target on Apple, down from the stocks current (as of $9:09 am EST) price of $216.50, against its Monday close of $215.46. Related: Venezuela Undergoes One Of The Greatest Currency Devaluations Ever

But does this gloomy revenue picture account for Apples other ambitions?

After all, Apple made history on August 2, hitting $207.05 in a bump that made it the first $1-trillion publicly listed U.S. company ever. That was two days after the company posted impressive Q2 2018 earnings showing a robust 17.4 percent year-over-year expansion during the quarter with strong growth across revenue segments, including its legacy iPhone line and Services business.

So, yes, the iPhone was the momentum behind this push, leading to sales that surged 11-fold to $229 billion and net income that grew at nearly 50 times to reach $48.4 billion.

But its not just about the iPhone anymoreand Apple knows this. The companys services segment is now in clear focus. This segment includes revenue from Apple Music, App Store, and iTunes for starters, and the last quarter saw it generate $9.55 billion.

For Q2, services accounted for 17.9 percent of total revenue, so the question now is will Services be able to pick up the pace and make up for the vacuum in iPhone X revenue?

Some think so, even if Ferragu isnt a believer.

The markets are starting to recognize the value of its platform and services more and more, and thats what is being reflected in the increase in market capitalization, Brad Neuman, Director of Market Strategy at New York-based Alger, a growth equity asset management firm, told Reuters.

By Tom Kool for Safehaven.com

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Mind Cage's Amit Dubey is working on his new horror film The Spell, preparing for its local release on October 5th. He released a teaser and passed it along to share with you. Check it out below.

A young wife Thida moves to a new home with her husband in countryside Cambodia. Thida starts to notice water puddles creeping out of nowhere in her new home, and is terrified seeing her own dead body floating in the pool. She finds an old letter that reveals her husband's secretive past.

A mysterious illness paralyzes her husband, and when the Doctor is unable to help she consults a Monk. The Monk warns her of the dark spirit that shadows her husband. Thida battles to protect her husband from the relentless dark spirit. She finds strength in her immense love for her husband, but will she succeed in saving him?
Anonymous targeted many governments websites in Spain to protest against the Governments efforts to block Catalonia s separatist wave.

Members of the notorious Anonymous collective claimed responsibility for bringing down several government websites in Spain on Monday to protest against the decision of the government to block Catalonias separatist drive.

Anonymous brought down the websites of the Constitutional Court and the economy and foreign ministries on Monday as part of an operation called # OpCatalunya.

Hey Spain, we see that you are still hurting the Catalan people. This is not a joke. We will hurt your government as well!, reads a message published by Anonymous on Twitter.

This isnt the first time that the collective target the Constitutional Courts website, in October 2017 while Spains government was announcing the seizure of powers from Catalonias regional government due to the separatist movements in the region.

Pierluigi Paganini

( Security Affairs  Anonymous, Catalonia)

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The very rich in Singapore has gotten even richer, according to the 2018 Forbes Singapore Rich List.

The combined wealth of the top 50 tycoons on the list rose 11% to nearly US$116 billion, up from $104.6 billion last year.

This years biggest gainers were property siblings Robert and Philip Ng, who retained their number one spot for the ninth year with US$11.9 billion (S$16.32 billion). The Ngs enjoyed a whooping US$2.5 billion (S$3.43 billion) boost from last year.

In this article, we round up 10 Singapore tycoons who made their fortune from real estate.

Source: Forbes

1) Robert & Philip Ng

Net worth: US$11.9 billion (S$16.32 billion)

Brothers Robert and Philip Ng control Far East Organization, the largest private landlord and property developer in Singapore. The group was founded by their father Ng Teng Fong, who moved to Singapore from China in 1934 and came to be known as "The King of Orchard Road".

This year, the Ng siblings enjoyed a tremendous $2.5 billion (S$3.43 billion) boost to their net worth, partly on new information about their private assets. Their Far East-led consortium scored a victory in May by clinching a hotly-contested commercial and residential mixed-use site in Holland Village with a winning bid of S$1.213 billion. They beat out a total of 15 other aspirants.

However, the brothers, who retained their No. 1 spot with US$11.9 billion (S$16.32 billion), must now contend with the new property cooling measures.

2) Kwek Leng Beng

Net worth: US$7.6 billion (S$10.42 billion)

Kwek Leng Beng is the executive chairman of Singapores Hong Leong Group, which was founded by his father in 1941.

The 77-year old Kwek is also the executive chairman of City Developments, Singapores second-largest property developer.

Amid the new cooling measures, Kwek has been on an overseas expansion drive, acquiring assets in overseas markets such as the UK, China and Australia.

3) Kwee family

Net worth: US$5.4 billion (S$7.41 billion)

Story continues

The four Kwee siblings control the privately held Pontiac Land, renowned for building high-end condos and luxury hotels under the Ritz-Carlton and Conrad brands.

Pontiac Land was founded by their father Henry Kwee, a textile trader and a real estate developer from Indonesia who migrated to Singapore in 1958.

Last year, the brothers reportedly reached an agreement to buy the Cappella Hotel group from luxury hotelier Horst Schulze for an undisclosed sum. One of their hotels, The Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island was the site of the U.S.-North Korea summit in Singapore in June 2018.

Outside of the city-state, the Singapore-based Kwees have also developed projects in New York, Sydney and the Maldives.

4) Raj Kumar & Kishin RK

Net worth: US$2.7 billion (S$3.7 billion)

Dynamic father-and-son pair, Raj Kumar and Kishin RK, are among the nations leading landlords with their Royal Holdings/RB Capital property empire.

Their prize holdings include the 442-room Holiday Inn Express at Clarke Quay and the five-star Hotel Intercontinental at Robertson Quay.

According to Forbes, the duo has been on a deal-making spree following a 2011 family settlement between Raj and his younger sibling Asok Kumar Hiranandani, also a billionaire on this list. That year, Raj and Asok divided their property empire to go their separate ways.

5) Choo Chong Ngen

Net worth: US$2.6 billion (S$3.57 billion)

This hotel tycoon first made his fortune in textiles before launching the Hotel 81 budget chain in Singapore.

Since 2017, Choo has expanded into overseas markets such as Thailand, Malaysia and Australia with four hotels managed by Travelodge and Holiday Inn.

Today, his privately-held hotel empire, which his daughter Carolyn has been helping him run since 2002, has over 6,500 rooms across Singapore. His group was also recently rebranded as Worldwide Hotels.

According to Forbes, Choo is currently expanding in the mid-tier market, where he has introduced five new hotel brands since 2009.

6) Sheng Jian Zhong

Net worth: US$1.7 billion (S$2.33 billion)

Zhong Sheng Jian is a mainland native who moved to Singapore in 1988. He is the chairman and CEO of Yanlord Land Group one of the largest non-government-owned real estate developers in China.

Yanlord's shares are publicly traded in Singapore. The groups prominent China partners include Ping An Insurance, China Merchants Property Development and Poly Real Estate Group.

In July 2017, Yanlord and partners announced plans to invest $531 million for stakes in Singapore real estate companies.

7) Asok Kumar Hiranandani

Net worth: US$1.6 billion (S$2.19 billion)

Asok Kumar Hiranandani is the co-founder of the erstwhile Royal Brothers property group. He separated from his older brother, Raj Kumar in 2011 after dividing their property empire.

Asoks Royal Group, now run by his son Bobby, owns the 215-room Sofitel Singapore Sentosa Resort and the So Sofitel Hotel in Tanjong Pagar. In 2017, the group sold their iconic Intercontinental Hotel in Sydney for $112 million.

8) Chua Thian Poh

Net worth: US$1.45 billion (S$1.99 billion)

Chua Thian Poh was a high school dropout who got his start making hooks and spikes for the logging industry.

Chua went on to found luxury property developer Ho Bee Land, best known for building high-end condos in Sentosa.

Ho Bee Land has a diversified portfolio that includes commercial property overseas, notably in London and Munich. In June 2013, Ho Bee Land purchased a London office block, Ropemaker place, for $1.16 billion.

9) Koh Wee Meng

Net worth: US$1.29 billion (S$1.77 billion)

Son of a jeweller and school teacher, Koh Wee Meng broke away from Aspial, his family's successful jewellery business to start his own property venture in the 1990s.

Today, the property magnate and hotelier controls Singapore-listed Fragrance Group with interests extending to Australia and the U.K.

Koh, who was known as the Geylang King for Fragrance's beginnings in the Geylang area, also has a majority stake in education provider TMC Education.

Earlier this year, Fragrance Group bought the 107-unit, freehold Eunos Mansion at Jalan Eunos, off Bedok Reservoir Road for S$220 million.

10) Gordon Tang

Net worth: US$1 billion (S$1.37 billion)

Gordon Tang owns a controlling stake in Singapore-listed property developer SingHaiyi along with his wife Celine Tang, who runs it. Neil Bush, brother of former US president George W. Bush, chairs the company.

Tang, a non-executive director at SingHaiyi, relinquished his role as managing director to spend more time developing townships in Shantou, China.

His other interests include stakes in Singapore listed Suntec Reit, OKH Global and OUE Hospitality.

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Reuters

As abortion providers backed by President Joe Biden's administration prepare for Monday's U.S. Supreme Court arguments in their challenge to a near-total ban on the procedure in Texas, they have found an unlikely ally: a right-leaning gun rights group. A "friend of the court" brief filed in the case by the Firearms Policy Coalition against Republican-governed Texas illustrates how the law's unique structure - enforcement by private individuals, not the state - has alarmed advocates for all kinds of constitutionally protected rights. A law written like the one in Texas to impede courts from ruling on constitutionality before it takes effect could be used, for example, to take aim at constitutionally protected activities including gun rights, religious practice or free speech.
SINGAPORE, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Accounting firm EY has hired Mah Kah Loon, CIMB Bank's former co-head of wholesale banking, Singapore, as a partner for its Asia M&A team, sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Mah, an industry veteran of more than 20 years, is joining EY at a time when the Big Four accounting firms are expanding their M&A teams and competing with boutique and global investment banks on small and mid-tier deals.

During his 16-year stint at CIMB, Mah headed up the Singapore corporate and investment banking unit and the corporate finance team, among other roles.

CIMB Bank confirmed Mah's departure and EY said he would join the company in October as a partner in its Asia-Pacific M&A and Deal Origination team, focused on Southeast Asia.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach Mah. (Reporting by Anshuman Daga; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
To date, the Beijing First Intermediate Peoples Court has found 26 individuals guilty of fraud. (File photo: Reuters/Jason Lee)

More than $27 million in illicit proceeds have been seized by the authorities in Singapore, in connection with a large-scale Ponzi scheme in China.

In a statement on Tuesday (21 August), the police said the seizure resulted from Singapores Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) assisting Chinese authorities with its probe into Ezubao, a large-scale Ponzi scheme. The scheme involved about 1.15 million investors with an estimated loss of 38 billion yuan (S$7.59 billion).

According to financial education website Investopedia, a Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investing scam promising high rates of return with little risk to investors. In reality, it generates returns for older investors by acquiring new investors.

In May 2016, CAD helped the Chinese authorities to trace assets in Singapore in relation to the investigation. It found that more than S$27 million in ill-gotten gains had been transferred to the Republic. The assets were seized that same month.

CAD and the Economic Crime Investigation Department (ECID) of Chinas Ministry of Public Security then conducted a joint investigation on this matter in China and Singapore concurrently, with the assistance of the Chinese embassy here.

CAD investigations also established that no local entities were involved in money laundering activities in Singapore.

To date, the Beijing First Intermediate Peoples Court has found 26 individuals guilty of fraud and other offences. They were sentenced to a range of three years and life in prison.

Following the sentencing of the defendants in China, CAD and ECID arranged for the seized monies to be returned to China this month. This was done to facilitate the restitution to the respective investors, in accordance with the Chinese legal framework.

More Singapore stories

Two money mules jailed 44 months each over $5.5M fake notes scam
Two journalists were freed from jail in Cambodia on Tuesday, a day after a prominent land rights activist was pardoned, as the government loosens its grip on dissenters in the wake of a flawed election victory last month. Cambodia's king pardoned land campaigner Tep Vanny late Monday at the request of strongman prime minister Hun Sen, days after he officially extended his 33-year grip on power. And on Tuesday, two journalists who had worked for the US-backed broadcaster Radio Free Asia received bail and were released, ten months after they were detained on espionage charges in a case slammed by rights groups. Analysts have said Hun Sen could use pardons and the kingdom's pliant courts to help deflect criticism, as he has in the past, amid questions of legitimacy after July's vote was widely decried as a sham. Vanny has long been a thorn in the side of authorities for advocating on behalf of Phnom Penh communities displaced by unchecked development, and has been in and out of jail. Last arrested in August 2016, she was hit with an additional two-and-a-half-year jail term just as her sentence was due to expire. Vanny told AFP on Tuesday while picking up her belongings at Phnom Penh's Prey Sar prison that she was surprised by the pardon, which cut short her time behind bars by about a year. "I was reluctant to believe it when prison guards told me to prepare myself for the release, so I asked them: 'Are you joking with me?'" she said. Three other activists who were already out on bail were also included in the pardon signed by King Norodom Sihamoni. - Joyful reunion - The journalists -- Oun Chhin and Yeang Sothearin -- were arrested last November for allegedly running an illegal media studio and filing reports from a guesthouse in the capital. Their arrest came after Radio Free Asia, a popular source of Khmer-language news, suspended its operations in Cambodia, citing the government's "increasingly threatening and intimidating rhetoric about RFA". Phnom Penh municipal court spokesperson Y Rin told AFP they received bail based on the decision of an investigating judge. The two were released later Tuesday from Prey Sar, where they greeted family and friends at the prison gates in a joyful reunion. Sothearin said he was happy to be let go but that his legal troubles were not over. "We call on the court to drop all charges against us so that we can have full freedom," he told reporters. Hun Sen backed a crackdown on perceived threats in the run-up to the election, which included the shuttering of media outlets and the expulsion of foreign staff from a prominent pro-democracy NGO. The main opposition party was dissolved and one of its leaders arrested, clearing the way for Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party to grab all seats in parliament in the vote -- turning the country into a one-party state. Vanny said she would continue her work but suggested she would dial down her activism as it had taken a toll on her family. "I was in jail four times," she said. "So it affects my family, especially my children, and I lost my job and livelihood."
Chinas ambassador to Washington had a Twitter account? No, turns out it was fake

A new Twitter account attributed to Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, was abruptly suspended after the embassy said it was fake and warned of legal action.

Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai has never opened an account with Twitter, the embassy said in a statement on Sunday. Any current Twitter accounts opened in the Ambassador's name or with his photo are fake.

The embassy added that it might pursue legal actions against the counterfeiters.

The fake account was started last week with the handle @CTiankai and carried the ambassadors full name under his photo. It also included a profile biography saying: Chinese diplomat and currently the Chinese ambassador to the United States, although it did not link to the embassys website.

A screen shot of the account showed that in about one week it had attracted nearly 700 followers and included several general comments about US-China relations attributed to Cui.

An embassy spokeswoman told the South China Morning Post on Monday that any unauthenticated accounts are all fake. The embassy declined to say whether its personnel or Cui himself asked Twitter to take down the account, which was suspended as of Monday.

Twitter shares slump on report user metrics will be hurt by fake account suspensions

No Chinese government officials have authenticated accounts on Twitter, which is blocked in China along with Facebook and other US social media platforms.

The latest tweet, dated on Friday, said: I am hopeful that the Chinese delegation to visit US this August will have a positive outcome #trade talks, referring to the visit this week by a negotiating team headed by Commerce Vice-Minister Wang Shouwen aimed at restarting trade talks.

It will mark the first formal talks since June as the worlds two largest economies try to end a trade war that began on July 6, when the US imposed a 25 per cent tax on US$34 billion of Chinese goods and Beijing retaliated with equivalent tariffs on US imports.

Story continues

Negotiators are reportedly seeking a resolution before Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, take part in the G20 summit meetings beginning on November 30 in Argentina.

Chinas US envoy says it is dangerous to advocate confrontation

A second account under a different username, @AmbCuiTiankai, which was created in February 2016, has also been confirmed as fake by the Chinese embassy. The account publishes under Twitters protected mode, meaning that tweets from the account can be seen only by its followers, which must be approved by the owner.

The Chinese embassy in Washington has an official authenticated Facebook account created in January this year as a part of its public diplomacy efforts.

The embassy said on the Facebook account that it features information about China and the China-US relationship and is committed to promoting friendship and cooperation between our two countries.

A Twitter spokesman said in an email that the company did not comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons.



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China and El Salvador established diplomatic relations Tuesday as the Central American nation ditched Taiwan in yet another victory for Beijing in its campaign to isolate the island. Beijing has been using its economic clout to peel away international support for the democratically-ruled island, leaving it with only 17 diplomatic allies around the world. Speaking in Beijing at the Diaoyutai Guest House, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised El Salvador's decision to "recognise there is one China in the world". "This further goes to show the One China policy is in line with international norms, is the correct choice... and is the basis of China's relation with any country," he said. Salvadoran Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, after signing a document with Wang establishing relations, said his country had made a "strategic decision" and taken the "correct and beneficial path for the people of both nations". The president of El Salvador, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, said in an address on national television Monday night: "We are convinced that this is a step in the right direction, which corresponds to the principles of international law, international relations and the inevitable trends of our day." The announcement in Beijing followed a decision by Taiwan to sever its ties with El Salvador after it learnt the country was planning on recognising Beijing. "Losing (a) diplomatic ally is not an isolated incident. It is part of China's string of sabre rattling and intimidation," Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said at a press conference in Taipei. The news came just after Tsai, who is trying to raise Taiwan's international profile, wrapped up a Latin American tour which included stops in the United States, which drew criticism from China. She visited allies Belize and Paraguay during the trip. Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu said Taipei "will not engage in dollar diplomacy with China", adding that El Salvador had been asking for "huge funding" for a port development project, which Taiwan was unwilling to give because it would leave both countries in debt. - 'No pre-conditions' - El Salvador's move leaves Taiwan with a dwindling number of allies around the world as more countries switch recognition to China, which sees the self-ruling democratic island as a renegade part of its territory. "El Salvador has made the choice to commit itself to one China with no pre-conditions, thus standing with most countries in the world," Wang said in comments that seemed intended to pre-empt Taiwanese accusations that China had bought the small Latin American nation's loyalty. But, he added, the country "will get tangible gains from its partnership with China". Tsai said this was a clear sign of China's continuing pressure, and had moved beyond being just a cross-strait issue. "China's intention in the Asian region (is evident), especially to challenge or even replace (the) international order led by traditional powers," Tsai said. "China intends to highlight its influence and power in the region through intensifying pressure on Taiwan." Relations between Taipei and Beijing have worsened since Tsai came to power as her government refuses to acknowledge that Taiwan is part of "one China". China has stepped up its poaching of Taiwan's allies since Tsai became leader in 2016. El Salvador is the fifth diplomatic loss under her presidency and the third this year, following Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic. The small African nation of Sao Tome switched recognition to Beijing in late 2016, followed by Panama in June last year. Taiwan and China have been engaged for years in a diplomatic tug-of-war in developing countries. Economic support and other aid are often used as bargaining chips for diplomatic recognition. Tsai's government is trying to enhance Taiwan's international profile but faces a concerted attempt by Beijing to shrink its space on global platforms. Beijing has stepped up pressure on her government by blocking Taiwan from attending a growing list of international events and staging a string of military drills around the island. burs-el/lth/fa
Beijing did not ask for anything in return for releasing artist and poet Liu Xia and allowing her to go to Berlin last month, according to the German ambassador to China.

The 57-year-old widow of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and prominent political prisoner Liu Xiaobo arrived in Germany last month after spending nearly eight years under house arrest in China. Her release prompted speculation over whether any political concessions had been made for her freedom at a time when Beijing is locked in a trade war with Washington and could use a strong European ally.

Liu Xias release coincided with Premier Li Keqiangs visit to Germany last month, but ambassador Michael Clauss, who is nearing the end of a five-year posting in China, dismissed the idea that any deal was made.

There was some speculation in the media about a possible political or business deal related to Liu Xias release. I can confirm there were absolutely no such deals, Clauss said.

He added that the pivotal moment which turned around Liu Xias situation came after German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited China in May.

Merkel again raised the case with President Xi Jinping during that trip, which led to steps that saw her eventual release last month, the South China Morning Post has learned.

Katrin Kinzelbach, associate director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin, shared the view that Germany did not make concessions for Liu Xias freedom.

Germany does not have a history of offering concessions for the release of political prisoners, and it is implausible that Berlin changed course in the case of Liu Xia, she said.

Liu Xias release was a political gesture, but she was not a bargaining chip in the sense that she was exchanged to facilitate a trade deal, Kinzelbach said. People who make that argument misunderstand the type of negotiations that are taking place between Germany and China as well as the present power dynamic.

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She added that Beijing had a very strong interest in the principle of free trade and was in a difficult economic face-off with Washington. The German government also experiences difficulties in the relationship with the [Donald] Trump administration  this undoubtedly strengthens Beijings position. The power dynamic has fundamentally shifted, she said.

Liu Xia made international headlines when she was finally given a passport and could leave Beijing on July 10, taking 14 pieces of luggage with her that contained mostly books, camera gear and sentimental items.

But her brothers remain in China. Her younger brother, Liu Hui, was sentenced to 11 years jail for fraud in 2013 and later released on parole and is not allowed to leave the country.

Liu Xias older brother, Liu Tong, said he was not even aware that she had gone to Germany until after she had left. Sources with knowledge of the matter told the Post that the decision had even been kept from some Chinese officials. They included those from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who had often been pressed by media for updates on the case and were not immediately notified about the development.

It is the Ministry of Public Security that issues travel and identification documents for Chinese citizens.

One of the sources said Liu Xia had been so preoccupied with packing and bidding farewell to a limited list of close friends approved by [the Chinese] security apparatus that she barely slept for days in the lead-up to her departure.

She arrived in Berlin three days before the first anniversary of her husbands death in custody from liver cancer, her release made possible after years of diplomatic efforts.

Clauss was one of the diplomats involved. Recalling his exchanges with Liu Xia over the years, he said seeing her being released was one of the most joyful moments in my five years of tenure here.

The embassy established direct contact with Liu Xia at the beginning of my tenure. Sometimes our contact was interrupted for periods of two to three months, said Clauss, who has been ambassador since August 2013.

There were many touching and dramatic moments during my phone conversations with Liu Xia. I knew that she occasionally played badminton with the few people she was allowed to see while being under house arrest, he said.

In order to cheer her up, I told her that both of us would be playing badminton too one day. Thats how we created this running gag  in every phone conversation I would tell her that I had been practising with my kids to prepare for our match.

Clauss will leave Beijing on Wednesday. We are in contact and we will see each other soon, he said.

The ambassador also recalled how difficult it had been to establish and maintain a line of communication with the competent authorities about Liu Xia.

I got the impression that decisions in such cases are taken at a very high level, he said.

The Post has learned that officials from the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission  which is under the powerful Central Committee and oversees policing and other work to do with maintaining social stability  as well as higher level officials were involved in both Liu Xias case and that of her husband.

Clauss, who has travelled to every province and autonomous region in China, including Tibet, during his time as ambassador, also expressed concern about the deteriorating human rights situation in the country.

Human rights is and will be a cornerstone of German foreign policy  this is in Germanys DNA. We are very much concerned about the fate of the 709 lawyers. Also the case of Gui Minhai is a big worry to us, Clauss said. We will continue to raise individual cases of the 709 lawyers and their dependants.

He was referring to a crackdown on July 9 three years ago that saw some 300 lawyers and activists detained across the country, some of whom are still behind bars, as well as the case of detained Hong Kong-based bookseller Gui.

Clauss will take up a new role in Brussels as Germanys envoy to the European Union and will be replaced in Beijing next month by Clemens von Goetze, who is currently the German ambassador to Israel.

Liu Xia was placed under house arrest in 2010  when Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while in jail  but was never charged with any offence by the Chinese authorities. Liu Xiaobo was jailed for 11 years in 2009 on subversion charges after co-authoring a petition known as Charter 08 calling for sweeping political reforms in China.

This article China made absolutely no deals for Liu Xias release, German envoy says first appeared on South China Morning Post

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A Pakistani held at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba told a sentencing jury how he was raped, beaten and waterboarded by CIA interrogators in the first-ever public account of torture by someone detained in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
Czechs and Slovaks on Tuesday marked 50 years since Soviet tanks crushed the "Prague Spring" democratic reform drive, as protesters used the anniversary to rail against the current Czech government's ties to the Communist Party. Hundreds paid tribute to the victims of the 1968 crackdown at ceremonies in Prague that also drew demonstrators chanting "Shame!" as populist billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babis spoke. His minority coalition is the first government since the 1989 collapse of communism to rely on backing from the Communist Party to survive in parliament. A party member in the 1980s, Babis has denied allegations that he served as a regime secret police agent before 1989. "He who governs with the Communists disrespects the victims of the occupation of 1968!" read posters held by protesters in front of the radio station in downtown Prague where around 15 unarmed people, mostly youths, died trying to prevent the Soviets from taking the building. The burgeoning "Prague Spring" movement, led by Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek, had tried to put "a human face on socialism" through democratic reforms to Czechoslovakia's totalitarian regime. But on the night of August 20-21, 1968, Soviet soldiers backed by Bulgarian, east German, Hungarian and Polish units brutally put an end to the movement. Around 50 Czechs and Slovaks were killed on the first day alone, while the total number of victims of the Soviet occupation was 402. The last Soviet soldier left Czechoslovakia only in 1991, two years after the Velvet Revolution that toppled totalitarian communist rule -- and two years before the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. - 'Essence of what unites Europe' - EU Council President Donald Tusk said on Twitter that while the Soviet invasion crushed the Prague Spring, "the desire for freedom and democracy survived and is the essence of what unites Europe today". At night, local pop stars such as Marta Kubisova performed an outdoor concert at Wenceslas Square in Prague. In 1968, Kubisova openly took part in the Prague Spring and later sang the era's most famous song "Prayer for Marta," whose lyrics include: "Let peace remain with this country / Malice, envy, hate, fear and contention / Let these pass away." With the country back in the grip of loyal communist leaders who followed Moscow's line, the song was banned and Kubisova silenced. Kubisova joined the dissident movement and became close with playwright Vaclav Havel who headed a human rights group and later became the country's first post-communist president. - One president speaks, one's absent - Slovak President Andrej Kiska used the occasion to talk about democratic values and the importance of belonging to European institutions. "Democratic political leaders have the duty today to defend our freedom, our possibility of making decisions about our future without fearing that these decisions will be suppressed by brute force," Kiska said in a statement, also aired on Czech television. "That is why we need allies with the same values and the same respect for freedom, human rights and democracy. We have such allies and partners in the European Union and NATO, two pillars of our prosperity and security." But Czech President Milos Zeman, an ex-communist who is known for his pro-Russian views, decided not to attend the commemoration ceremonies -- a move slammed by rightwing opposition parties. His spokesman Jiri Ovcacek replied that Zeman already "showed his courage by publicly opposing the occupation in 1968". "It's a crucial subject for us: the pro-Russian president, the populists' electoral win, the government backed by communists," said Tomasz Peszynski, an activist from the pro-EU citizen's initiative "Pulse of Europe". "We can see the harmful effect of Russian propaganda, which there is a lot of in the Czech Republic." While nearly all Czechs and Slovaks condemn the Soviet crackdown, nearly 40 percent of Russians see it as a necessary defensive measure, according to a recent survey by Russia's independent Levada think tank. The proportion of Russians condemning the invasion dropped to 19 percent this year, down from 29 in 2013, according to the survey. "The poll results suggest that Russia is returning to propaganda in the spirit of the era of (former Soviet leader Leonid) Brezhnev," Levada centre director Lev Gudkov said, quoted by the Czech press.
El Salvador has cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan, just hours after the islands President Tsai Ing-wen returned from a nine-day state visit including two US transit stops that gave Washington relations a boost.

The Central American nation was the fifth country to end its alliance with Taiwan since Tsai took office in May 2016, leaving the self-ruled island with only 17 countries that formally recognise it.

In a televised address, El Salvador President Salvador Sanchez Ceren said his government had switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. Soon after, Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda signed a document with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Tuesday to establish formal ties, vowing that San Salvador would abide by the one-China policy, media reports said.

Taiwan accused Beijing of pursuing dollar diplomacy to lure away its ally, saying El Salvador had maintained ties with Taipei for 85 years. It also said mainland Chinas repeated attempts to poach the islands allies were no longer just between Taipei and Beijing, but had become an issue for the whole region.

China is trying to use its increased suppression against Taiwan to showcase its influence and strength in the region, Tsai said in a brief news conference in Taipei, less than 12 hours after she returned from a state visit to two of the islands last Latin American allies  Paraguay and Belize  to shore up ties.

Her stopovers in Los Angeles and Houston  where she was given a tour of Nasas mission control, which is off-limits to mainland China officials because of espionage fears  have been seen by her government and local media as a breakthrough in Taiwans ties with the US, which formally recognises Beijing instead of Taipei.

Beijing regards Taiwan as a breakaway province that must eventually be reunited with the mainland and has not renounced the use of force to do so. It has stepped up pressure against the island since Tsai, from the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, became president and refused to accept the one-China principle, suspending all official exchanges and staging military exercises near the island, as well as putting the squeeze on Taipei on the international stage.

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Tsai urged all political parties and Taiwanese to stand united against Beijing, saying the island would never bow to its pressure and that the more it was suppressed, the more determined Taipei would be to build up its international status.

Taiwans Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said El Salvador had asked many times in the past year for funding to develop a harbour in the east of the country, but Taipei had rejected the request after a professional team concluded the site was unsuitable for development.

He also suggested there were domestic political reasons for the switch.

El Salvador will elect a new government next February, he said. The ruling party is lagging behind in the opinion polls, and they wish to receive funding for the campaign.

This is against our democratic principles and therefore we were certainly not able to oblige, Wu said.

Ding Shu-fan, a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations at Chengchi University in Taipei, said the diplomatic break was timed to embarrass Tsai after she returned from her high-profile trip.

Beijing is using various measures to try to force the DPP government to accept the 1992 consensus, Ding said, referring to the understanding reached by the two sides in 1992 that they both recognised there was only one China, but each could have its own interpretation of what China stood for.

Haiti may be the next country to break ties as it needs aid from the United Nations, he said, adding that as a Security Council member, Beijing could apply pressure on the UN to cut aid to Haiti.

Edward Chen I-hsin, a professor of political science at Chinese Culture University in Taipei, said Beijing was likely to continue applying diplomatic pressure on Taiwan.

Since May 2016, Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Sao Tome and Principe have all switched their recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

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A father who repeatedly raped his daughter over the course of 12 years  starting when she was 10 years old  and later blaming a lack of intimacy with his wife, was jailed for more than a decade on Tuesday.

Sentencing the man to 13 years and nine months, Mr Justice Albert Wong Sung-hau said A  whose identity cannot be revealed to protect his victims anonymity  treated his daughter as a sex toy for years.

The judge said the evil act did not stop even after the girl grew up because the man continued to think of her as submissive. The last assault took place when the daughter was 22.

The man, 50, previously pleaded guilty to five counts of rape before he was sentenced by the High Court on Tuesday. Between 2005 and 2017, he raped his daughter, X, five times. During four of the attacks he did not wear a condom.

Most of the offences were at the expense of the growth and development of X, the judge said on Tuesday, calling it a serious and shameful case.

Officer held over rape of girl, 14, while facing other sex assault cases

In mitigation, his lawyers said A had had an unsatisfactory sex life with his wife, in part because of her ill health. The series of attacks came after he was aroused one time when he hugged his daughter.

The sexual relations between him and his wife is no excuse, the judge said.

The man, a hotel chef, kept his head low in the dock as he heard the post-traumatic symptoms he had inflicted on his daughter, including suicidal thoughts which required further psychological treatment.

The court heard the first assault took place in July 2005 at the family home, on a public housing estate. While Xs mother was sleeping in her bedroom, A raped X on the living room sofa. Three more assaults followed while X was between the ages of 13 and 16 years old.

Julian Cheungs former manager jailed for two years over fraud cases

The judge said that, just as X hoped it was all over, the defendant raped her again when she was 22 years old in 2017, some seven years after the previous attack.

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The mother eventually found out and reported the matter to the police.

On Tuesday, Wong also heard A had since become a Christian, prompting him to read A a verse from the bible.

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness, he said, quoting from Ephesians.

This article Father who repeatedly raped daughter jailed for 13 years by Hong Kong court first appeared on South China Morning Post

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Navers direct investment comes only three months after iPrice raised an undisclosed in Series B round led by LINE Ventures

David Chmelar, Co-founder, CEO, iPrice Group

Naver Corp, South Koreas leading search engine and parent company of mobile messenger app LINE, has invested an undisclosed sum in iPrice Group, which operates product discovery and comparison sites across Southeast Asia.

Navers direct investment comes only three months after Kuala Lumpur-headquartered iPrice Group raised an undisclosed in Series B round led by LINE Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Japans LINE Corporation.

Also Read: Future Flows cap table helps founders easily monitor the evolution of their stake, equity dilution

Commenting on the new investment, iPrice Groups CEO and Co-founder David Chmelar, said: Naver doesnt only operate the leading search engine in South Korea but has been also able to build an impressive shopping and price comparison engine in its domestic market.

Founded in October 2014, iPrice operates in seven markets  Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Hong Kong. Over the past 15 months, iPrice secured strategic business-to-business partnerships with some of the biggest media groups and brands in the region, including Mediacorp in Singapore, Thairath in Thailand, and Samsung in Indonesia.

Since its Series B funding, iPrice claims to have grown the number of monthly users to a further 50 per cent, mainly driven by its Indonesian market.

Previously, in December 2016, iPrice secured a US$4 million Series A funding led by Asia Venture Group and Venturra Capital. Prior to this, it has raised two round of funding  US$1.2 million in 2015 and a US$550,000 seed investment.

The post LINEs parent Naver invests in Southeast Asias product discovery and comparison platform iPrice appeared first on e27.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (C) speaks to Chinese President Xi Jinping (not pictured) during their meeting at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, 20 August 2018. Roman Pilipey/Pool via REUTERS

KUALA LUMPUR/BEIJING (Reuters) - Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Tuesday that the Chinese-funded $20 billion East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project and a natural gas pipeline project in Sabah will be cancelled for now, according to media reports.

Mahathir made the comments while addressing the media in Beijing during his five-day trip to China. He said the projects, would be cancelled until such time as Malaysia can afford it.

The Prime Minister's office confirmed the comments Mahathir made to reporters in Beijing.

Prior to his China visit, Mahathir had vowed repeatedly to discuss what he called "unfair" Chinese infrastructure deals authorised by his predecessor Najib Razak, whose near-decade long rule ended in electoral defeat in May amid a massive financial scandal.

Mahathir said he relayed the matter to China and they understood the problems faced by Malaysia, the New Straits Times (NST) reported.

"I believe China itself does not want to see Malaysia become a bankrupt country," the NST quoted him as saying during a press conference marking the end of his China trip.

The ECRL project was the centrepiece of China's infrastructure push in Malaysia but work has been suspended pending discussions over pricing and graft accusations.

Project contractor, China Communications Construction Co Ltd told Reuters that more than 1,800 of the 2,250 people hired for the ECRL project had been laid off since the suspension.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a daily news briefing in Beijing that Mahathir had said during his visit that China's development was an opportunity for Malaysia.

Both countries' peoples benefit from their trade and business relations, Lu said on Tuesday.

"But in the cooperation between any two countries, it can't be avoided that there may be various kinds of problems, and different views at different times."

Lu said such differences should be "appropriately resolved by friendly consultations", and that it was an important consensus reached by both countries.

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Mahathir said in a joint press conference with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday that he believed China would sympathise with Malaysia's "internal fiscal problems".

Mahathir also told the press on Tuesday that he did not bring up Low Taek Jho, the Malaysian financier wanted for his role in the multi-billion-dollar scandal at state fund 1MDB, in his dialogue with the Chinese leaders, local reports said.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Malaysia believed Low was being harboured in China and that a request to extradite him would be high on Mahathir's agenda.

Mahathir's predecessor Najib Razak is set to stand trial in February next year on charges linked to a multi-billion-dollar scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Najib has consistently denied any wrongdoing related to 1MDB.

(Reporting by Liz Lee and Rozanna Latiff in KUALA LUMPUR; Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; writing by Praveen Menon; editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
Americans who doubt that marijuana has medicinal benefits are now  squarely  in the minority. According to a Healthday/Harris Poll released this July, nearly 9 in 10 Americans now support legalizing the drug for medicinal use (compared to just 57 percent for recreational).

This sentiment is reflected in the nations legal landscape, where 31 states (plus D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico) have legalized it for medical use. But with a Schedule I classification remaining from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the drug remains federally illegal  making it difficult to track down information about its benefits and dangers.

Part of this stems from researchers inability to study the drugs effects on humans, since the DEA considers Schedule I substances as having no currently accepted medical use. So how does medical marijuana work to treat various ailments in the body?

Medical marijuana can help treat everything from Crohns disease to multiple sclerosis. Heres what it does to your body. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Understanding marijuanas medical value starts with getting a clear picture of what it is. Marijuana  sometimes referred to as cannabis  is a part of a family of flowering plants that includes hemp. The plant has 100 different substances called cannabinoids, which are active chemicals that can alter the body and mind.

Two cannabinoids in particular have proven beneficial in medical ways  tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). THC is a psychoactive ingredient (it contains the mind-altering properties associated with feeling high), but CBD offers health benefits without causing a high. But how do they work exactly?



According to Caroline Hartridge, a medical cannabis expert and doctor of osteopathic medicine, these ingredients revolve around our nervous system. The CBD and THC operate within our endocannabinoid system  the largest neurotransmitter system within the body  which helps regulate or modulate our homeostasis, everything from temperature to appetite to reproduction to sleep/wake cycles, she tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Those two chemicals in particular work in a lock-and-key mechanism where receptors are the lock and CBD and THC are the different keys. Once the CBD and the THC interact with that receptor, they can stimulate bone health, they can decrease blood pressure, and they can modulate your perception of pain and even your memory of an unfavorable event.

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Through this complicated lock-and-key model, THC and CBD offer relief from symptoms caused by conditions like multiple sclerosis, cancer, HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, and Crohns disease. In particular, THC can help reduce nausea, increase appetite, decrease pain and inflammation, and help with muscle-control problems. CBD has benefits including pain reduction, controlling epileptic seizures, and potentially reducing the effects of mental illness such as anxiety.

As far as accessing the drug in your state, Hartridge recommends checking the health departments website in your state first and then checking in with your doctor. I would book an appointment and have an open and honest conversation with your primary care provider, Hartridge says. For more information about medical marijuanas benefits and where it is legal, go to Norml.com.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

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Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.
By Gwladys Fouche OSLO (Reuters) - Rules governing Norway's $1 trillion wealth fund would allow it to stay on as an investor in Tesla if the electric carmaker goes private, its deputy CEO said on Tuesday. Tesla CEO Elon Musk stunned financial markets this month when he revealed on Twitter he was considering a $420 per share take-private deal for the money-losing carmaker. Norway is Tesla's third-biggest market and the country's wealth fund, the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund, had a 0.48 percent stake in Tesla worth about $253 million as of the start of 2018, according to the latest data from the fund. Tesla shares have been hit by investor concerns about Musk's plan, and doubts about whether the company has secured the funding to go private, and the SEC has opened an inquiry related to Musk's tweets, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Trond Grande, deputy CEO of the Norwegian fund, declined to say whether Tesla had approached the fund about going private. However, he said that although the fund's main practice is to sell its stake when a company leaves an exchange, or soon after, rules regulating the fund set by the Norwegian Finance Ministry and parliament do allow it to stay on in a listed company that goes private. "The priority is to try to preserve the value for the fund. That is the priority," Grande told Reuters on the sidelines of an earnings presentation. "If that means that the fund will be invested in a company that has been delisted for a period of time, that could happen." "But as a main rule, we will exit the investments as and when, or soon after, it has been taken off an exchange," he said. CRITICAL OF TESLA This year the fund has been critical of Tesla's approach on several issues. In March it voted against Musk's potential $2.6 billion payout. Then in June it backed an initiative to wrest the role of chairman away from CEO Musk, and another that would have allowed investors to nominate their own directors. Grande declined to speak specifically about the situation at Tesla. Generally speaking, he said the fund sees the importance of separating the roles of CEO and chairman and to allow independent directors on boards. "We acknowledge some companies do not operate ... in that sense, but we will not change our stance with regards to that," he said. The fund owns 1.4 percent of all globally listed shares. It invests in stocks, bonds and real estate worldwide. In the second quarter, the fund made a return of 1.8 percent, it said on Tuesday, helped by a rise in global equity markets, although it still underperformed the index it is benchmarked against. "North American and European stocks had a positive development in the quarter despite the prospect of increased trade barriers," Grande told a news conference. The fund returned 0.2 percentage points less than a benchmark index set by the Norwegian Finance Ministry. (Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Ole Petter Skonnord and Susan Fenton)
WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. service member was killed and several other people were injured when a military helicopter on a mission against Islamic State militants crashed in Iraq late on Sunday, the Pentagon said.

There were no indications the crash was caused by hostile fire and the incident was being investigated, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning told reporters on Monday.

Three personnel had been evacuated for medical treatment, Manning said, but he did not disclose their nationalities. He also did not identify the name of the service member who was killed.

"The aircraft was conducting a partnered counter-terrorism mission against ISIS in support of Operation Inherent Resolve," he added, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Earlier on Monday, Colonel Sean Ryan, a spokesman for the U.S.-led international coalition fighting Islamic State, said on Twitter the crash was of a military helicopter.

On March 15, all seven personnel aboard a U.S. military helicopter carrying American service members were killed in a crash in western Iraq.

The United States says it has about 5,200 troops in Iraq that are part of a coalition fighting Islamic State militants.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Ahmed Rasheed; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Janet Lawrence and Frances Kerry)
Singapore startup Waitrr lets diners order and pay for their food all on one app

Todays restaurant industry faces manpower shortage; can technology alleviate understaffing issues?

Waitrr app interface

Imagine scoring a date with your biggest crush. You want to make a stellar impression on them, so you book a table at one of the citys most frequented upper-class restaurants.

On the day of the date, however, you notice that the restaurant is packed to the brim. Nervously, you look around the establishment and realise there are only three staff waiting 40 tables. They shuffle around the place in a constant frantic rush. One of them hurriedly brings you a menu, a basket of bread and a glass of water and tells you he will be back to take your order.

Its ok, you think. Ill just make small talk and munch on some bread. But time goes by and the waiter has not returned. Your date is getting noticeably irritable and keeps calling for the waiter. An hour later, the bread basket is left with crumbs, the water bottle is depleted, and still, no order has been taken. Looks like there would not be a second date.

This frustrating scenario is one many diners have had to face. The restaurant industry is facing a labour crunch. Restaurateurs burden with these problems need to look away from quick fixes such as simply bringing on more hires to more efficient and permanent solutions.

Tim Wekezer is a Singapore-based entrepreneur who is developing such a product. It is, in his own words, an application-based platform for users to take the dining experience into their own hands.

Optimising eating out

The platform, called Waitrr, essentially allows diners to take their orders, get their bills, and make their payments all on a single app. This is, in turn, allows restaurateurs to optimize their operational efficiency by automating most of the ordering process.

The staff only needs to prepare and serve the food, thus saving them a lot of time; time that can be better focussed on providing good customer service, he says.

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Deploying such a platform also allows restaurants to cater to customers who prefer the take-out option.

In the first few months of our operations, we found that many restaurants were missing out on potential customers who want to order takeaway from the restaurant. Since the staff are generally too busy to pick up the phone, these customers take their business elsewhere. As such, Waitrr developed a new Takeaway function that allows the restaurant to capture these potential customers, says Wekezer.

Additionally, restaurants without an existing loyalty programme can latch on to Waitrrs own initiative.

Also Read: Filipino foodtech company BigDish acquires restaurant and travel discovery platform Looloo

Restaurants can choose to adopt the programme with us, whereby their customers get to win a stamp for every certain amount spent in their restaurant. Customers who earn up to 5 stamps get to redeem their rewards from their favourite restaurant, says Wekezer.

Waitrr has also recently launched an in-app credit system  this feature allows users to collect points every time they order at any

restaurant. These points will go straight to the users Waitrr Wallet in the app. Once they hit a target number of points, they can redeem a discount, he adds.

Waitrr is free for users who order from the restaurants, the company monetises by charging the restaurants. We have a pretty standardized pricing which depends on the volume of orders that the restaurant processes, says Wekezer.

Growing up in the restaurant business

Although Wekezers prior career was in the corporate finance industry, working as an analyst handling M&A for private equity firm Apollo Management for five years, he is no stranger to the restaurant industry. His family managed 5 small traditional restaurants across Germany, Poland and Ireland.

I was participating in the business since I was 12 years old, starting with serving

tables at my parents restaurant, he says.

At 15 Id be managing the bar and being a team leader to many of the newcomers in the business. With 8 years of F&B operations experience when I was 20 years old, I was

actually managing an entire 300-seat restaurant for my parents.

This is when I had a glimpse into the management and strategy side of the F&B industry. Ive now worked in F&B in 8 different countries and staffing is the number 1 problem in all the countries Ive worked in, which we are now solving with Waitrr, says Wekezer.

Wekezer started working on the concept of Waitrr while pursuing his MBA at INSEAD in Singapore. He showcased his idea at the INSEAD Venture Competition in June 2015 and beat 58 other teams to win the top prize of 10,000 (US$11,600), which went in the building the Waitrr app prototype.

Also Read: Lemonilo, a curated marketplace for healthy food and cosmetics, raises new funding

Waitrr also raised funding from crowdfunding platform FundedHere. Its campaign was funded by 12 registered FundedHere investors including Singaporean investors Andy Lim,

Founder and Chairman of private equity firm Tembusu Partners, and Steve Kek, CEO of OMG Venture.

We have also received fundings from early-stage investors in Dubai from Jisr Venture Partners. Their investment in us was in line with their strategic intent to improve automation in F&B businesses, says Wekezer.

Waitrr isnt the first tech solution built for the FnB industry, for sure. There are perhaps dozens of restaurant manager platforms, such as FoodZaps, that offer a myriad of similar features such as self-ordering stations. But many of these platforms are built solely as enterprise tools, with no consumer-facing apps.

The common solution found at most restaurants would be iPads or other tablets, which

are used to take orders. These tablets cant be used to take payments, so customers still have to flag a staff member down to make payments, says Wekezer.

He also cites the platforms advantages, including a quick integration process that can be as short as 24 hours; ability to manage fully customisable menu items, like salad bowls; no start-up cost for the restaurant, unlike other solutions such as ordering kiosks.

Waitrrs target market is mostly office workers who are aged 25-34, working in the CBD area where most of our restaurants are located, Wekezer explains. A check through the app also revealed locations in non-CBD areas such as Changi and Tampines.

The platform has already signed up over 200 clients in Singapore including Guzman y Gomez, Fun Toast, A Poke Theory, Urban Mix, The Daily Cut, and Paul Bakery. For now, Waitrr is focussed on working with middle-ranged restaurants, which Wekezer says are the best fit.

Also Read: Meituan Dianping launches autonomous food delivery system

Those [eateries] having a thin margin would not immediately see how Waitrr could support their revenues, Wekezer explains.

Since Waitrrs official launch in 2017, tens of thousands of diners have signed up and used the app, Wekezer says this figure represents a 40 per cent Month-over-Month (MoM) growth since January 2018. With regards to the companys revenue, it has been growing at a rate of 50 per cent over the same period.

By 2019, Waitrr is looking bringing the platform to overseas markets in the region and beyond.

By 2019, Waitrr will be hoping to expand our operations overseas. Namely to Dubai, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia and in the Philippines  Our model is very lean and designed to be easy to expand to other markets. Were already in talks with local partners around the region, concludes Wekezer.



Image Credit: Waitrr

The post Singapore startup Waitrr lets diners order and pay for their food all on one app appeared first on e27.
By Yimou Lee and Philip Wen

TAIPEI/BEIJING (Reuters) - Taiwan vowed on Tuesday to fight China's "increasingly out of control" behaviour after Taipei lost another ally to Beijing when El Salvador became the third country to switch allegiances to China this year.

Taiwan now has formal relations with only 17 countries worldwide, many of them small, less developed nations in Central America and the Pacific, including Belize and Nauru.

Speaking in Taipei, President Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan would not bow to pressure, describing El Salvador's decision as further evidence of China's efforts to squeeze the island, which have included regular Chinese bomber patrols around Taiwan.

"We will turn to countries with similar values to fight together against China's increasingly out-of-control international behaviour," Tsai said.

Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told reporters earlier that Taipei was not willing to engage in "money competition" with its giant neighbour.

He said El Salvador had been continuously asking for "massive funding support" since last year for a port development, but Taiwan was unable to assist with the "unsuitable project" after assessment.

"Pressure from China would only make Taiwan more determined to continue our path of democracy and freedom," he said.

"China's rude and unreasonable behaviour will certainly have negative impact to cross-strait relations. This is also not how a responsible country should behave."

Beijing considers Taiwan to be a wayward province of one China, ineligible for state-to-state relations, and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.

GRAPHIC: Taiwan's political allies http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/CHINA-TAIWAN-SAOTOME/0100313T2G9/TAIWAN-ALLY.jpg

In Beijing, the Chinese government's top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, said El Salvador had made the right decision.

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"I'm confident that the people of El Salvador will feel the warmth and friendship of the Chinese people and derive tangible benefits from its cooperation with China," Wang told reporters alongside his El Salvador counterpart, Carlos Castaneda, shortly after the pair signed an agreement establishing ties.

"EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITIES"

El Salvador's president, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, announced in a nationally televised speech that his government had broken off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and instead established ties with China.

Sanchez Ceren said the central American country, which built ties with the Republic of China government in 1933, would see "great benefits" and "extraordinary opportunities" in the new relationship with Beijing.

Taiwan's formal name is the Republic of China, whose government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists.

"We are convinced this is a step in the right direction that corresponds to the principles of international law of international relations and the inevitable trends of our time," Sanchez Ceren said.

In Beijing, Castaneda said it was a strategic decision his government made to "create conditions to change the historical standing of our country and to really elevate the livelihood of our people".

Taiwan has accused China of luring its friends away with offers of generous aid packages. China denies that.

The news comes as Tsai wrapped up a high-profile trip to Latin America, including stops in the United States, that drew anger from China.

"China will not get unification with Taiwan by luring away our allies. What China did was to humiliate Taiwan repeatedly without getting any respect from Taiwan's people," Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party wrote in a statement.

El Salvador is the fifth country Taiwan will lose as a diplomatic ally since Tsai came to office in 2016, following Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic, Sao Tome and Principe and Panama.

Amanda Mansour, spokeswoman of the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan, told Reuters in a written statement late on Tuesday that China's efforts were "harmful" and had undermined "the framework that has enabled peace, stability, and development for decades".

"The United States urges China to abstain from coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan," she wrote.

The U.S. ambassador in El Salvador, Jean Manes, wrote in a Twitter post on Tuesday the United States was analysing El Salvador's "worrisome" decision to break ties with Taiwan.

"Without a doubt, this will impact our relationship with the (Salvadoran) government. We continue supporting the Salvadoran people," she wrote without elaborating.

Ahead of next month's summit between China and African leaders in Beijing, China has also been upping the pressure on Taiwan's last remaining ally on the continent, eSwatini, formerly known as Swaziland, to come over to China's side, diplomatic sources say.

"We hope the relevant country can see clearly the world's trend," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a daily news briefing, when asked whether eSwatini would attend the summit.

China's hostility to Taiwan has grown since Tsai's election as Beijing fears she wishes to push for the island's formal independence, a red line for China. She says she wants to maintain the status quo but will defend Taiwan's democracy.

(Reporting By Jessica Macy Yu, Yimou Lee in Taipei, Philip Wen and Ben Blanchard in Beijing and Nelson Renteria in San Salvador; Editing by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel and Alison Williams)
Last November, Vntrip secured an undisclosed sum in funding from late-stage investment company Hendale Capital

Vntrip, an online travel agency in Vietnam, announced today it has raised an undisclosed sum in strategic investment from Swiss investor IHAG Holding at a US$45 million valuation.

The details of the transaction were not disclosed.

We are excited at the prospect of working with IHAG as they bring additional perspective into the travel market in Vietnam through their experience within the industry. IHAGs involvement broadens our investor base and positions the company well for our next round of financing, said Lam Le Dac, Co-founder and CEO of Vntrip.

Headquartered in Hanoi, Vntrip an online platform to book for hotels rooms. The firm claims to be offering the best prices, free airport shuttle services, convenient payment methods and customer service.

Also Read: O2O is the future of automotive retail

Last November, Vntrip secured an undisclosed sum in funding from late-stage investment company Hendale Capital. Previously, the OTA had raised US$3 million in Series A from a consortium of investors, led by former Alibaba veteran John Wu.

Based in Switzerland, IHAG is an independent, family-owned group of companies. IHAG has a long history of supporting companies in a variety of industries and countries. According to IHAG, Vntrip has a successful and highly scalable business model well suited to the fast-growing Vietnamese travel market.

The post Vietnams online travel booking startup Vntrip raises funding from Swiss investor appeared first on e27.
(Photo: Pixabay)

In his National Day Rally speech on Sunday (19 August), Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong outlined the fundamental reason why HDB flats are sold on a 99-year leasehold basis: To be fair to future generations.

He explained: This is the only way to recycle the land and ensure that all our descendants can buy new BTO (built-to-order) flats of their own.

Without the 99-year leasehold mechanism, he added, society would become unequal and split into property owners and those who cannot afford a property.

Furthermore, buildings deteriorate over time, and thus it is better to let the leases expire, take the blocks back, demolish them and rebuild afresh.

However, detractors say this finite lifespan has financial implications for owners of older flats who find themselves unable to sell.

What do you think? Should HDB flats be freehold, or would this indeed be impractical? Have your say in our poll, and sound off in the comments below.

Related stories:

NDR 2018: HDB flats leased for 99 years to prevent social division, says PM Lee

PM Lee delivers National Day Rally 2018 speech

The ticking time bomb of the 99-year-leasehold HDB flats
The worlds No. 2 soda giant is trying to save itself by buying a company whose main purpose is to get people to buy less soda. PepsiCo announced Monday that it had agreed to buy SodaStream for $3.2 billion, a more than 10 percent premium on the Israeli-based companys stock price at the end of last week. This is the biggest PepsiCo acquisition in almost a decade, according to data collected by Bloomberg.

The SodaStream deal is, in many ways, the ideal capstone to the beverage-and-snack giants departing chief executive Indra Nooyis 12-year reign as chief executive. Nooyi spent much of her time at the top trying to convince the worldand the worlds governmentsthat PepsiCo is more than the second best purveyor of sugar-water that also has a massive snacks business. This was Nooyis mission because she was convinced, and not without evidence, that consumer tastes were shifting away from Pepsis core products and toward healthier drinks. The acquisition is, then, the perfect example of Pepsis dilemma.

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If Nooyi was right about a massive transformation in consumer taste, then paying a modest premium for SodaStream makes perfect sense. The companys revenue has grown more than 30 percent in the past year, and it tamped down its lingering controversy over goods produced in the occupied territories when it abandoned its production facilities in the West Bank in 2015. But if the future really is SodaStreampeople making their own sodas and sparkling water using home-equipment and refills bought directly from the companythen there doesnt seem to be much for PepsiCo or any major soda company to look forward to, other than paying more and more money for brands that undercut its core business.

For instance: When revenue in its workhorse segment, North America beverages, which makes up about a third of its total revenue, fell 3 percent in the third quarter of last year, the company explained the decline by saying it had directed too much of our media spending and shelf space to new low-calorie, much smaller brands at the expense of our Pepsi and Mountain Dew trademarks. This decline would be fine if the healthier brands were making up for it, but Pepsis transformation into a healthier company has been slow-going. While it has both launched and bought brands devoted to healthier snacks and drinks, its list of Top Global Brandsa list that includes Pepsi, Gatorade, Doritos, Mountain Dew, Lays, Cheetosboasts only one, Aquafina, that can reasonably be considered healthy, and thats with the known waste and sustainability issues inherent to bottling and selling water. Pepsi has already had to scale back its ambition to hit $30 billion in revenue from healthy products by the end of this decade to merely having its healthy brands grow faster than its legacy ones by 2025. (If there really is a massive shift in consumer taste happening, this new goal should occur more or less on its own.)

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While the company assures analysts that some of its healthier drinks are doing greatPepsi Zero Sugar is doing exceedingly well, Nooyi said on a recent conference calltheres little direct evidence that any newly launched or acquired brands have a chance of knocking off the myriad seltzer and water brands that dont have the Pepsi-stench. (Just think of which fizzy drink youve heard of: LaCroix or PepsiCos Lemon Lemon?) And the only one of Pepsis flagship drink brands thats close to exclusively healthyAquafinais in a segment, bottled water, thats growing much slower than sparkling beverages, according to consumer data cited by the Wall Street Journal.

As for SodaStream: The Israeli company has based its marketing around the wastefulness of massive soda and sparkling water companies like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. The company has an ingenious business strategy similar to how Gillette sells razors and blades: Once you get a SodaStream, you are locked into getting more carbonization cylinders and, if you like flavored carbonated water, you can buy syrup directly from the company. In its most recent quarter, 38 percent of its revenue came from its starter kits, and the rest came from refills and flavors.

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Pepsi is not the first massive beverage company to get in bed with make-at-home drink company. Coca-Cola ended its disastrous crossover with Keurig in 2016 , abandoning the Kold, a specially-built and expensive Keurig machine for making soda at home. While Pepsi does not appear to be on the verge of investing in a white-elephant hardware project with its new Israeli partners, the Coke-Keurig experience is still a cautionary tale: If someone is willing to go through the trouble of making soda at home, they dont want what they can get on the shelvesespecially if its not even Coke.
The MTV Video Music Awards are underway in New York City Monday night, as the worlds hottest new artists give breathtaking performances of the songs that have defined the year. The Radio City Music Hall stage is the hottest venue in the world right now, at this very moment, and inside the theater, lucky ticket-holders are watching their favorite musicians, actors, and all-purpose celebrities celebrate videos, music, and awards. Meanwhile, a live television audience of millions is engrossed in the telecast, soaking up the amazing energy that forms whenever so many brilliantly talented people gather in a single place at a single time.

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But if youre reading this, you probably werent invited. So to help you combat the fear of missing out, heres some British Pathe silent newsreel footage of the exterior of Radio City Music Hall in the 1940s, mere decades before it would become the hottest place in the world to be:

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Maybe you can hook your computer up to your television and pretend you never cut the cable cord, and also the audio is broken for some reason, and also your TV is black and white, and also it is the 1940s, and also instead of the MTV Video Music Awards theyre showing The Bells of St. Marys, but nevertheless, there you are, right in the middle of everything! Or you can put on your favorite record while you watch it and pretend Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots are sweeping the awards. Or you can sing softly to yourself, and then youre the nights big winner. Whatever you choose, one thing is certain: They were wrong about you, and one day youll make them eat their words. But not tonight. Tonight is the MTV Video Music Awards!
Never has capitalism been honored more deeply, never has its essence been more fully expressed, than it was in Oklahoma City in the late 1970s. The city had long been a place of booms and busts, and now it was booming harder than ever. A new oil reserve had been tapped in the Anadarko Basin, and local energy companies were swarming all over it, sucking up the wealth. In downtown OKC, they competed to build increasingly grand headquarters. Out on the fringes of town, formerly empty patches of prairie fizzed with new construction. The citys infinite roads filled up with Cadillacs. Oilmen traversed the region on private jets like kids riding bicycles. Helicopters whisked people off for quick lunches in Dallas. Local banks gushed loans toward anyone who happened to glance in their directionprivate or corporate, rich or poor, qualified or not. Everyone was suddenly investing in everyone elses investments. From all over the world, fortune hunters streamed to Oklahoma City. It seemed like more than a normal boom this timeit seemed like an everlasting bonanza. Adam Smiths invisible hand wore gold rings on every finger.

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Capitalism had blessed Oklahoma City, and the city wanted to express its thanks. It did so by constructing probably the most elaborate interactive tribute to an economic system the world has ever seen: a high-tech museum of capitalist propaganda called Enterprise Square, USA. The place was funded by OKCs business elite and housed on the campus of Oklahoma Christian University. It was designed to make visitors, especially children, really feel the sanctity of the free market. For generations of Oklahoma elementary school students, the capitalism museum would become a staple on the field-trip circuit.

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Inside Enterprise Square, USA, the indoctrination was blunt and relentlessas blatant as anything going on in the USSR. Visitors rode up a huge glass elevator that showered them with financial advice: Spend! Save! Buy! They proceeded through the Hall of Giants, among effigies of great capitalist heroes such as Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, and Sam Walton. In the course of researching Boom Town, my new book about Oklahoma City, I spoke with a resident who told me he grew up believing these capitalist heroes actually founded America. Next to the worlds largest cash register, four enormous paper bills hung on the wall; inside were the animatronic heads of four Founding Fathers, whose faces jerked around like figures in a Chuck E. Cheeses band as they sang a barbershop quartet about freedom. (Freedom, thats the key/ We said freedom, yes sirree.) Unfortunately, the museum wasnt all fun: At a certain point, visitors were accosted by the Talking Face of Government, a creepy giant head covered with flashing TV screens programmed to terrify everyone about taxation and regulation. Futuristic touch-screen games allowed visitors to compete for profits as ranchers or bankers or oil magnates. One particularly elaborate exhibit involved a pair of stranded aliens; kids had to help them earn money for spaceship repairs by establishing a profitable donut business.

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Many of the museums exhibits were sponsored by local corporationsdairies, energy companiesand nakedly designed to promote their products. At the gift shop, you could buy bumper stickers that said, I LOVE CAPITALISM.

Enterprise Square, USA, opened in November 1982. Ronald Reagan himself sent a statement to be read aloud. On its editorial page, the Oklahoman published a touching cartoon in which a man labeled John Q. USA realizes, with a smile, that American free enterprise is a good thing!!

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The celebration, however, was not quite the full-throated triumph its organizers might have expected. Enterprise Square, USA, launched four months too late. Although the capitalism museum was built at the height of the boom, it opened in the depths of a bust. In July 1982, OKCs banking economy, with its house-of-cards loans, finally collapsed. Customers lined up, by the hundreds, to get their moneybut the money, insofar as it had ever existed, was gone. OKCs bank failures set off bank failures across the United States, and eventuallycontrary to everything preached so fervently inside of Enterprise Square, USAthe federal government had to step in with a multibillion-dollar bailout to keep the blight from destroying the national economy. All over Oklahoma City, companies crashed and folded. CEOs had their Cadillacs seized and auctioned off. Oil executives found themselves mowing lawns. Construction projects went quiet. Downtown OKC was largely abandoned; for years, it would have only one functioning hotel. Energy companies started to sneak off to Houston. The chamber of commerce polled the citizens and found that 65 percent did not think Oklahoma City was a good place to live. You could shoot a cannon through the middle of downtown, the mayor said, and it wouldnt hurt anybody.

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Meanwhile, Enterprise Square, USA, soldiered on, proselytizingagainst all available evidenceabout the panacea of supply-side economics. As the years passed, the touch screens and talking robots began to break down, and capitalism provided no money for repairs. Like the rest of Oklahoma City, the museum grew shabby and sad. Although the field trips continued, soon children were learning different lessons than the ones the museum intended to teach. The place managed to straggle on into the 1990s, but eventually all its equipment was wrecked and obsolete, and it was forced to close. (Today, the building is used for storagethe old glass elevator, according to the Oklahoman, is now little more than a cavernous cement shaft surrounded with a plywood railing.) Meanwhile, all over OKCs deteriorating roads, cars sported a new bumper sticker: PLEASE GOD JUST ONE MORE BOOM. I PROMISE NOT TO PISS IT AWAY THIS TIME.

Excerpted with permission from Boom Town by Sam Anderson. Published by Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright 2018 by Sam Anderson.

Slate is an Amazon affiliate and may receive a commission from purchases you make through our links.
This post was published in partnership with Wirecutter, the site devoted to finding the best gear and gadgets. Every product is independently selected by the Wirecutter team. We update links when possible, but note that deals may expire and are subject to change. If you buy something through our links, Slate and Wirecutter may earn an affiliate commission.

To find the best electric toothbrush, we put in almost 100 total hours of research, interviewing experts, evaluating every model on the market, and testing 12 toothbrushes ourselves in hundreds of trials at the bathroom sink. We found that the best toothbrush for most people is a simple model called the Oral-B Pro 1000. It has the fewest fancy features of the models we tested, but it does have the most important things experts recommenda built-in two-minute timer and access to one of the most extensive and affordable lines of replaceable toothbrush heads availablefor the lowest price. That, according to the experts we spoke to, is as much as an electric toothbrush can or should do for you. The extras available in electric toothbrushes that cost $150 more dont make them any more effective than the Pro 1000.

Our Pick: Oral-B Pro 1000

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The Oral-B Pro 1000 brush comes with a minimal charging pedestal that simply requires dropping the brush onto a peg. Fully charged, it lasts for at least a week of twice-daily two-minute brushing sessions before needing a recharge, which is on a par with the other toothbrushes we tested in this price range and plenty for most people.

BUY: Oral-B Pro 1000

$50, Amazon

Runner-Up: Philips Sonicare 2 Series

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If you cant find the Oral-B Pro 1000, get the runner-up, the Philips Sonicare 2 Series. Like the Pro 1000, the 2 Series is not trumped up with unproven features and includes everything you need in an electric toothbrush. The 2 Series runs much more quietly, but unlike the Pro 1000, it comes to a full stop after two minutes of brushing (rather than restarting the cycle as the Pro 1000 does) and has a less diverse, more expensive range of brush heads, giving you fewer options for texture and shape.

BUY: Philips Sonicare 2 Series

$40, Amazon

Also Great: Goby Toothbrush

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If a subscription service will help you replace your brush heads regularly, Goby has all the features we look for in a brush: a 30-second quadrant timer that stops after two minutes and a rechargeable battery. The Goby has only one type of brush head available (rotating), so if you like to customize your brush this service may not be for you.

BUY: Goby Toothbrush

$50, Goby

Why you should trust us

During the research process, we spoke with several experts on the subject of dentistry, including dental school faculty at leading research universities, a professional dentist, and a consumer advisor appointed by the American Dental Association (ADA), which confers a Seal of Acceptance on dental care products that seek the certification and meet a set of agreed-upon criteria.

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In addition, we invested over 50 hours in researching, evaluating, and testing the best powered toothbrushes widely available to find the best one. (On a personal note, the last time I went to get my teeth cleaned, both the dentist and hygienist tripped over themselves to compliment the condition of my teeth, even though I hadnt gotten a cleaning in three years, drink coffee every day, and eat healthy sums of candy.)

Should you upgrade?

Per the ADAs recommendations, the only necessary thing in toothbrushing is a basic toothbrush that you use properly. As of September 2017, five models from Oral-B have received the ADA Seal of Acceptance (including our pick).1 But regardless of the manufacturer, powered electric toothbrushes have been shown to provide superior dental care to manual toothbrushingthey remove more plaque and reduce gingivitis at statistically significant rates.2 If you find yourself struggling to meet two minutes, if you tend to brush unevenly, or if you find manual brushing to be too much labor, upgrading from a manual toothbrush to an electric one that automates these elements would make sense.

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If you already have an electric toothbrush that performs these services, theres no need to consider upgrading. If you use a manual brush and dont struggle to maintain good habits, theres little reason to consider upgrading in that case, either.

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One thing worth pointing out about electric toothbrushes is that they are not cheaper in the long run. Electric toothbrushes cost about 10 times as much as manual toothbrushes, and you have to replace the brush heads at the same frequency (every three months), each for about the same cost as a manual brush. What you get for the higher cost is less friction in achieving good brushing habits, and, according to research, a significant reduction in plaque and gingivitis, even if that reduction may come only from having a brush that encourages good habits, like a full two minutes of brushing for each session.

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How we picked and tested

After sorting through the dental care research, which is littered with (unusable) clinical studies sponsored by the companies that make the toothbrushes being tested, weve learned that all you really need out of an electric toothbrush is a two-minute timer to make sure you brush your teeth for the right amount of time. Manufacturers have blown up the high end with scientific-sounding features like cleaning modes and UV lights; nothing proves these other features work, let alone that they are necessary (see The features you dont need). All an electric toothbrush can really offer is automation of the brushing process by adding a timer and easing some of the physical labor, according to the professors and dentist we spoke to.

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Average folks brush 46 seconds. With timers people will go to at least the two minutes, said Dr. Joan Gluch, an adjunct associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania Dental School. Clinically, we see patients do better with powered toothbrushes. Dr. Mark Wolff, a professor at NYU Dental School and chair of the Cariology and Comprehensive Care department, agreed: It helps people that dont brush well, he said. If you need the guidance, invest in the guidance.

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To begin the search, we trawled the manufacturer websites of the highest-rated brands and looked at the recommendations of Consumer Reports and the Good Housekeeping Institute for toothbrush models as well as their replacement or substitution toothbrush heads, an important factor in choosing a best toothbrush.

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Back in March 2010, Consumer Reports performed its own tests for plaque removal and concluded, [T]he two priciest brushes removed 75 percent or more of plaque in our tests, on average. In the years following those tests, two of the top models have been discontinued and replaced by similar ones, and one has been recalled; as of May 2016, CR no longer tests toothbrushes at all. GHIs recommendations dont say much and do not explain whether expensive features are really necessary.

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Aside from these older tests, we didnt find any independently conducted research that both draws the conclusion that one model or type is better than another and explains the process and results. And none of our experts differentiated between the plaque removal ability in any of the types or models of brushes available.

So we looked for, at minimum, brushes with a two-minute timer, but still wanted to test higher-end brushes to compare their usability against that of the simplest models. We eliminated brushes without rechargeable batteries because loose batteries are a hassle and a waste. We also eliminated models that were reviewed as loud or having either short battery life or a too-small range of compatible brush heads. If a brush was compatible with a wide range of brush heads, that was a small point in its favor.

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Both Oral-B and Sonicare make extensive lines of brushes and dont exactly go to pains to make it clear what the difference is between all of them. Although the Oral-B 7000 costs more than the Oral-B 1000 because of added, unnecessary features, such as additional cleaning modes, we chose to test it to see if the user experience was better. It wasnt.

We applied the same buying model to the Sonicare line and tried not to buy brushes that were differentiated only by their unnecessary features. We also bought one high-end brush, the DiamondClean, to assess if the cleaning experience was $120 better. It was not.

Once we understood the features of all the products, it was a matter of getting them in hand and seeing what it was like to hold them, charge them, use them, replace their heads, and have our brushing sessions timed and monitored. To stress-test them, we also dropped our picks onto a tile floor from chest height to test for durability and submerged them in water while they were running for a full two-minute brushing cycle to test for water resistance. We compared the brushes on all these usability points to arrive at our conclusion.

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In our experience, all of these brushes, even the top-end ones, did the same thingmoved toothpaste around in your mouth. Toothbrushes that identify as sonic like Philips and Waterpik models tend to be quieter and have a vibration-like movement, and oscillating brushes are louder. But this is a distinction between different types of brushes made by different manufacturers, not expensive brushes versus cheap ones.

The features you dont need (what you get if you spend more)

The funny thing about electric toothbrushes is how similar a $70 model is to a $200 one. Once we get past the features mentioned above, there are precious few necessary value-adds to an expensive electric toothbrush: a travel case, a UV sanitizer (which is of negligible use), maybe a couple extra heads, a slightly sleeker body, a longer-lasting battery, auto-syncing with an app (See What about smart toothbrushes?). As for sonic cleaning, different cleaning modes, or pressure sensors, experts tell us they are not necessary.

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We broke down the features that come with each general price range for electric toothbrushes from the main two brands (Oral-B and Philips Sonicare). See the table in Wirecutters original article.

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All of these brushes come with a two-minute timer. Thats the main benefit of having an electric toothbrush.

Spend more than $30 or so, and you typically get a quadrant timer. This element, though a nice option, isnt strictly necessary unless you like that style of brushing or your dentist has noticed that you struggle with brushing evenness. The time spent in each quadrant is just an aid to help ensure that you brush long enough to remove plaque on every tooth at the gum line and chewing surfaces, assuming youre brushing properly, said dentist Matthew Messina, a consumer advisor for the ADA. Plus, we are not aware of studies that show brushing longer in smaller areas has an added beneficial effect in removing plaque.

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Spend about $70, and your brush comes with a travel case and a few extra cleaning modes, which vibrate the brush at different patterns or frequencies. These brushes also tend to move at a higher frequency, to the tune of 30,000 to 40,000 movements per minute, as opposed to a lower-end brushs 8,000 to 20,000 movements per minute. There isnt a proven difference in effectiveness between faster and slower brush movements in existing independent research. We found only one small, old, imperfect study that compared brushes with 2,100, 2,500, and 3,500 brushstrokes per minute and found that the middle frequency was the most effective at removing plaque (at most 1.5 times better than the other frequencies and yielded about 50 percent fewer plaque sites than the highest frequency). Respondents also said it was the most comfortable frequency. However, there were only 10 participants, they brushed under supervision only some of the time, and they used each toothbrush for only three days.

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Cleaning modes dont matter, according to experts we spoke to and research weve seen. The only one that might help is sensitive mode for people who find the brushs normal oscillations too jarring. People with sensitive teeth may find that their teeth are less sensitive when the brush head moves slower or less pressure is applied, said Dr. Messina. The average person doesnt need it, though. As far as whitening goes, all toothbrushes help remove surface stains when used with a toothpaste because toothpastes contain mild abrasives and detergents for this purpose, said Dr. Messina.

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In this price range, youll also get a small boost in battery life. That doesnt matter much, as its easy to have your brush live on its charger in your bathroom.

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Over $100 will get you a couple more modes on your brush, a travel case that can charge the brush on the go, and perhaps a pressure sensor that lights up once activated.

The pressure sensor is meant to alert the user when they are brushing too hard, something that dentists and experts agree is a bad thing. In theory, then, a pressure sensor can be good. However, in our testing, we found that some brushes with pressure sensors required the user to bear down very hard on their teeth before the alert would trigger. The amount of pressure a user can apply before the sensor discourages them suggests the available pressure sensors are more of a gimmick than an actual useful feature.

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Around $150 puts you in the realm of Bluetooth brushes (and a dip in battery life). These typically come with several brush heads, in addition to a charging travel case, and even more cleaning modes. Oral-Bs offerings stop there, but for over $200 you can get a brush from Philips Sonicare that comes with a glass charger that looks sort of fancy.

Is sonic brushing better?

A point of order about the word sonic: Per advertising from Sonicare that is now close to two decades old, some people take this to mean that sonic toothbrushes knock off plaque with sound waves. This is not an effect proven in any research.

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However, sonic toothbrushes can produce a secondary effect described in a handful of studies involving fluid dynamics. Independent research does show that the fluid dynamics generated by a toothbrush moving at high frequency can remove bacteria in vitro even at distances up to 4 mm beyond the tips of the bristles (Stanford, 1997). The efficacy of this movement varied depending on the distance and time spent, and nothing will remove 100 percent of the bacteria/plaque all the time, but this is a significant, if secondary, effect generated by a sonic toothbrush.

We could not find any independent studies comparing toothbrush models or brands, and all the ones tested for the fluid dynamics aspect are Sonicare brushes, which are all 31,000 movements-per-minute brushes. Other brands have toothbrushes that move faster, slower, and at roughly the same speed as this. Though the fluid dynamics effect exists, remember that its secondary to actual bristles scrubbing your teeth and gums.

Our pick: Oral-B Pro 1000

The Pro 1000 is among Oral-Bs least expensive models, but it comes with all the features most of our experts recommended, for the lowest pricea two-minute timer (with a nice-to-have quadrant alert) and a wide selection of compatible and affordable brush heads. And recently the Pro 1000 was among the first five electric toothbrushes to receive the ADA Seal of Acceptance. The Pro 1000 has comfortable-feeling oscillating bristles, a simple one-button interface, and a battery that lasted 11 days with twice-daily use in our tests. The body survived drop tests on the floor and into water. Best of all, youre not getting overcharged for features like digital monitors, travel cases, or inductive chargersnone of which will actually get your teeth any cleaner than the Pro 1000 can.

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The one-button simplicity is a great featurethere are no useless cleaning modes. The Pro 1000s timer goes off every 30 seconds, alerting the user of the time by briefly pausing. After two minutes, the brush pulses three times to signal that a full cycle is up, but will continue brushing after if the user wants to keep brushing; it must always be manually turned off. This is nice for touching up on areas of your mouth you may not have given enough attention to. On many more expensive brushes, like the Philips Sonicare DiamondClean, pushing the button more than once activates different cleaning modes, forcing you to cycle through every option to get back to the simple default cleaning mode.

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Using the right brush head for your teeth and gums matters, and we like that the Pro 1000 can take advantage of Oral-Bs brush head line. The range is the widest of all toothbrush lines, making it easier to customize the brush for one users preferences and recommendations from their dentist. Bruce Schechner, a New York-based general and cosmetic dentist, said that everyone reacts differently to different brush shapes and sizes, and those factors dont matter as long as youre using one you feel comfortable with. Wolff said that whether a brush includes elements like rubber flaps doesnt matter, but brushes should be soft to medium, at hardest.

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Oral-Bs brushes are also, on average, less expensive than replacement heads for other brushes. Dentists recommend getting a new toothbrush every three months, so these cost savings can add up over time. The Sonicare brush heads tend to be more expensive, but brands like the Waterpik and Dazzlepro have heads that are roughly the same price.

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Higher-priced Oral-B models dont have much more to offer than our pick. Investing $50 into the Pro 1000 gets you access to the same set of brush heads as buying the $150 Oral-B Black 7000 model (with the exception of a couple of less widely available models).

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The Pro 1000 is rated to last for seven days of brushing sessions on one charge; in our real-world testing, it lasted for 11 days, which is average for a brush in this price range. Like the more expensive models we tested, the brush survived its drop test, fits in its charging cradle well, and can switch out brush heads easily. Oral-B changes the name of this brush about once a year, but functionally the entire series remains pretty much the same.

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The Pro 1000 was also quite comfortable to use. Oral-B models use rotation and pulsation, so its brushes dont buzz as intensely when the brushs head touches your other teeth. All Sonicares vibrate at the same (high) frequency and produce a more jarring sensation when the back of the brush collides with other teeth.

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It is worth noting that our previous pick, named the Oral-B Pro 1000 (also known in some contexts as the Healthy Clean Precision 1000), is still available and is functionally identical to the current Pro 1000. At the time of our last review, the Healthy Clean Precision 1000 included one of the pressure sensors we mentioned earlier, but despite what the Amazon listing says, the model we tested did not include it. The Healthy Clean Precision, therefore, is essentially the same toothbrush; it just comes in a different color and with a different brush head. Online pricing can be fluid and seems to be influenced by the popularity of an item, so get the one you can find cheaper.

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The Oral-B Pro 1000 has a limited two-year warranty that requires the buyer to retain the receipt and ship the product to an authorized service center if it needs fixing. This is typical for a product in this price range and category.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Overall, we found the oscillating-format Oral-B toothbrushes to be louder and more sonically grating than the vibrating format of the Sonicare brushes we tested. Without a point of comparison, its possible our slight annoyance would go away as we got used to it.

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The other major flaw of the Pro 1000 is that its head is a departure from the usual rotating/pulsating motion of most powered Oral-B brushes. The head it comes with has two moving parts: one that moves up and down vertically and a longer set of bristles at the top that flop back and forth. Compared with other toothbrushes, the motion was a little violent.

Fortunately, due to the aforementioned large range of brush heads, you can buy another type that feels better if you do not like the Pro 1000. Toothbrushes are meant to be replaced every three months anyway, so buying new brush heads is an inevitability; you just have to eat the cost of the two Pro heads that come with the brush.

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As with most of the toothbrush models we tested, the battery life indicator on the Pro 1000 is vague: It lets you know when the battery is full (a continuous green light for five seconds after you remove it from the charging base) and when it is low (a red flashing light after turning the brush off). Oral-B does not specify how long it takes to get the brush to a full charge, but you can charge it every day without significantly affecting the batterys capacity as long as you deplete it fully once every six months.

Long-term test notes

The most significant thing about a powered toothbrush that might change over the course of its lifetime is the battery life; over the years, rechargeable batteries tend to lose capacity. In the case of a toothbrush, this might mean it becomes less powerful or not lasting as long while traveling.

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BUY: Oral-B Pro 1000

$50, Amazon

Runner-up: Philips Sonicare 2 Series

The Philips Sonicare 2 Series is one of the least expensive Sonicare brushes, at around $50. This brush is quieter than our recommended Oral-B model, with a more subtle motion (though the vibrations can feel slightly more uncomfortable when the back of the brush knocks against your other teeth). The 2 Series also has twice the battery life of the Oral-B, lasting two weeks on a single charge instead of one week (in our tests it lasted for 16 days of use), so it might be a better choice for travelers.

A nice perk of all Sonicare brushes, including the 2 Series, is that the brush heads come with a tiny plastic hood you can snap off and on to guard against the coliform sprays flying around ones bathroom if you store your toothbrush in open air. The cap is easy to lose, but its a nice touch.

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The Sonicare 2 includes the two-minute timer and rechargeable battery. When we first tested this model, it did not have the 30-second pacing timer, but we recently confirmed with Philips that current Series 2 handles now come with a quadrant timer. We dont think the pacing timer is absolutely necessary, but its nice that the line now has this feature.

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The replacement brush heads for the 2 Series are slightly more expensive at $27 for three ($9 each); the Oral-Bs replacement heads can be as cheap as $5 to $6 each, making the Oral-Bs expenses a little lower in the long run. Per our testing, Sonicare brush heads are interchangeable, and all the Sonicare brushes we tested were able to accommodate each others heads. Sonicare does not make this explicit anywhere in its product materials. Most of Sonicares brush heads are oblong with soft bristles and lack options for additional structural elements, like rubber flaps or polishing cups, so you get fewer options than you do with Oral-B.

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Like the Oral-B model, the 2 Series comes with a limited two-year warranty (PDF) that requires you to retain the receipt and ship the brush out if it needs service.

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The 2 Series is about the same price as the Oral-B Pro 1000, but online prices can fluctuate.

BUY: Philips Sonicare 2 Series

$40, Amazon

Best online subscription toothbrush: Goby

The Goby Electric Toothbrush is only a few dollars more than our other picks and comes with the same no-frills features: a two-minute timer that shuts the brush off at the end, plus a quadrant timer to prompt you to switch areas every 30 seconds. Goby offers an optional brush head subscription servicehowever, keep in mind that you cant get new brush heads anywhere else and there is only one kind available. Unlike the Sonicare, there is no travel case to stash your brush head.

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To brush your teeth, The Goby uses a rotating brush head similar to the Oral-Bs rather than an oscillating head like youd find on the Philips Sonicare, and it feels like our top picks. Though a rotating brush head can produce some vibrations, weve found that the Goby is not uncomfortable to use. Goby says its rechargeable, induction-based battery will last two weeks, or 28 cycles, on a single charge. In our testing, a new unit lasted a little longer than that, running for 33 cycles. However, an earlier production model we tested, which may have been defective, lasted only 14 cycles. We prefer the Goby over the weaker Quip subscription brushes, which only vibrate softly like cheaper Oral-B Pulsar disposables.

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The Gobys subscription can be set up to send new brush heads every one to three months. (Dentists recommend that you replace your brush every three months, so the more frequent options are not very necessary for a single user.) Amazon does offer subscription deliveries for its products, too, but only for Prime members. The replacement brush heads for the Goby cost $6 with $3 shipping, about the same as the 2 Series replacements and a little more expensive than the Oral-Bs heads.

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One interesting design feature we appreciated: The USB charge cord and the base stand are separable, which means you can charge either with the base stand or directly from the power cable.

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The Goby is a brand-new product without the track record of Philips or Oral-B. Though were impressed by the Goby for its simplicity and efficacy, we cant say yet how long it will last with daily use. It is simply too new a product and too new a company to know. Goby offers a lifetime warranty on its brush, but, as of now, its unclear if the company will outlive your brush.

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BUY: Goby Toothbrush

$50, Goby

Care and maintenance

The only downside of our Oral-B pick is that it comes with a somewhat strange and overactive brush head with two moving parts. Fortunately, Oral-B offers a wide variety of brush heads that are generally more affordable than those from Sonicare. If you choose to buy the Pro 1000 brush, we suggest planning on buying a different set of brush heads in the very near term, even before you will naturally need a replacement. (Brush heads should be replaced every three months.)

As we noted earlier in this guide, brush heads are a matter of personal preference of size, shape, and material. A number of third-party brands make replacement heads for Oral-B toothbrushes that tend to be much cheaper. There are some reports in user reviews that these aftermarket brushes sometimes do not fit or are of a lower quality than branded brushes, and the heads tend to be rated lower. Pay close attention when shopping for brush heads to what is Oral-B vs. Oral-B compatible.

What about smart toothbrushes?

Its been a couple years since the first app-connected, or smart, electric toothbrushes became available, but they still dont offer enough capabilities for their added cost for us to recommend them for most people. (Theyre at least double the price of a standard electric toothbrush.) Smart brush capabilities vary widely, but mainly these devices automate the process of tracking your brushing habits, typically by connecting to your phone or tablet via Bluetooth. The most expensive smart models, like the Oral-B Genius and Philips Sonicare FlexCare Platinum Connected can track where the brush is in your mouth.

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I think that one of the things that people look for with Bluetooth connectionor anything that connects to their phoneis confirmation that what theyre doing is enough, or good, or better than what they were doing before, Dr. Maria Lopez-Howell, a dentist and ADA spokesperson told us. And I think that, if this gives the patient information that theyre brushing enough time, [and] if this is encouraging a patient to brushthis is something that the American Dental Association is wanting.

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There are plenty of free appsincluding Oral-Bs for Android and iOSthat can be used with non-smart brushes, powered or manual, to help you time and track your toothbrushing, remind you to clean your tongue and floss, and so on. Dr. Lopez-Howell pointed to The Childrens Oral Health campaigns 2min2xwebsite, produced in collaboration with the Ad Council, which offers a series of two-minute videos kids can watch while brushing.

Truthfully, at the end of the day, for pennies and minutesyou dont need all of these more costly brushesyou can choose oral health, Dr. Lopez-Howell said. No matter the toothbrush (manual or powered, smart or not), brush twice a day for two minutes with a fluoride toothpaste, floss once daily, and visit your dentist to make sure that youre doing the right thing.

The competition

One of the fancier brushes in the Sonicare line, the Philips Sonicare FlexCare Platinum Connected not only has far more cleaning settings than you need (three total, each with multiple speeds), it can connect to an app on your phone via Bluetooth thats meant to track if youre adequately brushing every part of your mouth. (See the What about smart toothbrushes? section) The app shows an illustration of a mouth that starts out tinged yellow, and it gets whiter as you brush your teeth over the course of two minutes. The areas of your mouth that you fail to brush well enough will stay yellow, in theory. In reality, the location tracking wasnt accurate enough to give us much useful information about this. The app divides the mouth into six areas, and it could reliably tell if I was neglecting either the front or back of teeth, but not if I was missing one specific tooth. The app also expects you to brush the areas of your mouth in a specific order, and if I moved the brush to a part of my mouth where the app wasnt expecting it to be, it didnt pick up on that. When a brush like this costs about as much as an uninsured office visit to a dentist, Im going to stick to getting brushing advice from a professional.

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The Oral-B Pro 3000 3D White Smart Series is another smart brush. The least expensive of all Bluetooth models weve considered, this brush is part of the Oral-B line of electric toothbrushes that have earned the ADA Seal of Acceptance. It is similar to our top pick in form and function, except it has three cleaning modes (two more than necessary), and connects to an app via Bluetooth. Its also twice the price. Though this model does not offer position detection, it stores brushing time and pressure data from the 30 most recent brushing sessions, which you can sync to the app later, should you prefer not to bring your phone or tablet into the bathroom every time you clean your mouth. If you find reviewing your basic brushing performance motivational, and would rather not need an app or pen and paper handy each time you brush, consider the Pro 3000 Smart Series.

The Oral-B Genius 8000 can track the brushs position in your mouth, thanks to on-board location sensors and access to your phones front-facing camera. (For more on our experience with the Genius, see Oral-B Genius Pro 8000 Review: Who Needs a Smart Toothbrush?) Smart capabilities aside, the brush itself, like our pick, is a reliable tool. Like other models in the Oral-B line, it has more cleaning modes than necessary and is compatible with any of the companys replacement heads. And like the Pro 3000, the Genius has an on-board pressure sensor that flashes red when you brush too hard (no app necessary). If you travel with an electric toothbrush, youll appreciate the included case, which can charge the brush handle and a phone. Still, unless you find that being watched helps motivate you to thoroughly brush regions in your mouth youd usually miss, you could spend half the cost of this brush for another habit-tracking smart model, such as the Pro 3000, or less than a quarter of the cost for an equally great clean with our pick.

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The Colgate Smart Electronic Toothbrush E1 uses on-board sensors and artificial intelligence to track the brush heads location as you move it around your mouth. (For more on our experience with the smart capabilities of the E1, see Oral-B Genius Pro 8000 Review: Who Needs a Smart Toothbrush?) The E1 vibrates but does not oscillate, and does so more quietly than most electric toothbrushes weve tested. Although it does have an on-board two-minute timer with quadrant pacing, this device lacks a pressure sensor (a possible dealbreaker for some), and it is compatible with only a single style of replacement brush heads, which can be purchased only from the Colgate website. Factoring in shipping costs, these replacement heads are among the most expensive weve considered, by far (a definite dealbreaker, in our opinion). The handle itself is among the lightest and most streamlined weve tested, featuring a single on-off button (Colgate doesnt offer superfluous cleaning modes). As with other smart toothbrushes, we believe the E1 is overkill for most. However, if youre interested in accurate brush head position detection along with automated habit-tracking, and would prefer not to grant another app access to your phones camera and/or microphone, the E1 performs well in these respects (andreplacement brush heads excludedgenerally costs less than its closest competitors, the Oral-B Genius 8000 and the Philips Sonicare FlexCare Platinum Connected).

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Greater Goodss Sonic Electric Toothbrush costs less than any brush weve considered so far. However, the replacement heads come in only one style. And though heads are about half the price of those that accompany our top pick, I found myself needing to replace them in about half the time (the bristles got smashed down), virtually negating the long-term savings for this brush.

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The Quip is a no-frills toothbrush with a single brush head style and a simple timer that indicates each 30-second interval, shutting off at the two-minute mark. This is the only brush we tested that uses replaceable batteries instead of a built-in rechargeable battery. Quip has an unusual business modelthe only way to get a new brush head is through the companys website, which encourages a subscription that sends a replacement every three months. Though you can purchase individual brush heads separately for $5 with free shipping, if you need a spare head you cant just run to the store to get a new one. (And youd better keep spare or rechargeable AAAs around.) The overall pricing structure is a bit confusing, and the store page defaults to the more expensive metal brushes, but toggling the interface gives you access to the slightly less expensive plastic brushes. Although the stylish design (of the more expensive metal model) and the quiet operation are both impressive, we found the vibrations to be weak. The Quip could be a nice option for someone who travels a lot and prefers the freedom of no charger, but it doesnt have the brush head options or wide availability of our main pick.

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Philips Sonicare 3 Series Gum Health feels and works very similarly to the 2 Series, with a glossy plastic handle and minimal gripping ridges. Now that our runner-up comes with a quadrant timer, this toothbrush has no features that we think are worth spending extra on.

Waterpik Sonic Toothbrush Sensonic Professional Plus (SR-3000) is from a newer brand and has a bulky base with grippy rubber panels, a single button, and smaller range of heads than Oral-B or Philips. This brushs higher price gets you one extra cleaning mode, two extra battery level indicator lights, and a travel case. It claims to give better results by moving the brush head faster than Sonicare models do, but according to all the research we could find, faster doesnt mean better.

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The battery in the Oral-B Healthy Clean + Pro White Precision 4000 lasts about three days longer than that of the Pro 1000, and the base is a bit chunkier than our picks. The brush has four cleaning modes (programmed to a separate button) and includes a pressure sensor, though to activate it you have to really cram the brush into your teeth, making it ineffective. The additional cleaning modes are extraneous, so theres no reason to pay for them.

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The Dazzlepro Advanced Sonics handle is a little large and unwieldy, a satiny plastic tapered toward the middle of the handle, and the charging base is hefty, but this brush does a reasonable approximation of the Sonicare brushes motion. The Dazzlepro brush has a separate sensitive cleaning mode. However, the company has a lower profile, and the warranty lasts only one year (compared with Sonicare and Oral-Bs two years), so if you need support you may be left wanting. This brush is currently unavailable on Amazon and Overstock.

The very expensive Oral-B SmartSeries Black 7000 comes with a digital guide, another (unnecessary) abstraction of a timer, and six brushing modes programmed to a separate power button. The base is very heavy, with large rubber panels in black and silver plastic, and weighted toward the bottom, with the same light-up pressure sensor as the 4000 model. The 7000 comes with a travel case and a charging stand that can hold four extra brush heads encased in a little plastic dome.

The Philips Sonicare DiamondClean is pretty sleek with a matte plastic finish, and it has some real luxury features, like an inductive charging glass and travel case, but its price is a lot to spend for those items. The DiamondClean has five cleaning modes (four too many) that you must manually cycle through if you need to turn the brush off before reaching two minutes. It also has some of the most expensive brush heads, at around $11 apiece.

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The Conair Opti-Clean was cheap for a rechargeable brush, but it did not survive a dunk in the water.

We also eliminated a few other models without testing:

The Foreo Issa is a silicone brush with a sleek and unusual look, but owner reviews on the Sephora site suggest that the all-silicone brush tips lack the ability to clean as thoroughly as plastic bristles. A second model that integrates bristles, the Issa Hybrid, is also available, but per our reasoning above, we dont need to test this model to know that there is nothing aside from the unusual look to justify its $200 price tag.

CVS Rechargeable Sonic (discontinued): Not too expensive as brushes go, but requires users to press the power button multiple times to cycle through the superfluous brushing modes to turn the brush off.

The Cybersonic 3 Complete Sonic and Cybersonic Classic came up in our product searches, but we decided not to test them because they have a very limited selection of brush head options (with an optional and dubious-looking free replacement program that winds up costing $8 in shipping per brush head).

The ToiletTree Rechargeable seemed like a good value prospect, as it comes with a free secondary travel toothbrush, but reviews report that it is very loud and stops working after a short period of time. It is no longer available on Amazon.

Wrapping it up

The affordable Oral-B Pro 1000 makes taking good care of your teeth easy. You can pay more for additional features, but according to the experts, theres no need tothis simple, entry-level brush cleans your teeth as well as any of the many more expensive brushes.

Footnotes

The American Dental Association has a set of criteria to give products its Seal of Acceptance. Many products dont seek this certification, but a product cant receive the recognition unless the ADA has independently verified and approved its claims. In 2017, Oral-B became the first electric toothbrush brand to receive the ADA seal, with five series of the Oscillating-Rotating-Pulsating Power Toothbrush receiving the seal. However, the only factors that the ADA has found necessary to mouth health are brushing for two minutes with a reasonably soft brush and using proper technique. Jump back.

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This was the conclusion of the study published in 2003 and its iterations since then. But there are two caveats to this conclusion. One is that a powered toothbrush is equipped to make brushing easier, and therefore good dental health easier to achievethey require less physical labor to use, and can have built-in mechanisms, like a timer, to make good habits more concrete. Another is that the Cochrane report, which is a survey of randomized controlled trials, also specifies that the studies used were reporting on unsupervised brushing sessionsessentially, participants were sent a toothbrush, either manual or powered, and expected to report back on results. Self-reporting of habits in scientific studies, as a type of information is not as high-quality as observations by scientists in a lab setting, but so far science has not compelled people to quarantine themselves for observations of their toothbrushing habits, nor has the funding materialized to compensate them for their time. Hence, self-reporting is as good as its going to get on this scale of habit studying, but its far from perfect.

The other problem with the Cochrane report is that though its conducted by a nonprofit, it includes in its survey studies that are conducted by companies testing their own toothbrush products. Unsurprisingly, weve never found a study published by P&Gs Oral-B that has found its electric toothbrushes inferior to another brand; the same goes for Philipss Sonicare. This doesnt necessarily apply to every study, but it applies to a gross majority of the toothbrush research available. But caveats about biased research aside, scientists do consistently find that an electric toothbrush is significantly better at removing plaque and reducing gingivitis in the average persons mouth. Jump back.

Sources

1. Toothbrush Buying Guide, Consumer Reports, May 1, 2016

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2. M. Kuhner and P. Raetzke, Relative effectiveness of various alternating frequencies of a power toothbrush., Journal of Clinical Periodontology, February 1, 1993

3. M. Yaacob, et. al., Powered/electric toothbrushes compared to manual toothbrushes for maintaining oral health, Cochrane, June 17, 2014

4. Learn more about toothbrushes, ADA

5. Acceptance Program Guidelines, ADA

6. ADA Seal Product Category, ADA

7. CM Stanford, et. al., Efficacy of the Sonicare toothbrush fluid dynamic action on removal of human supragingival plaque, Journal of Clinical Dentistry, January 8, 1997

8. CK Hope, et. al., Effects of dynamic fluid activity from an electric toothbrush on invitro oral biofilms, Journal of Clinical Periodontalogy, July 1, 2003

Maria Lopez-Howell, ADA spokesperson, phone interview, September 21, 2017

Read the original article on The Best Electric Toothbrush
Thousands of prisoners around the country are launching a 19-day strike on Tuesday to protest ultra-low pay, forced labor, and otherwise poor conditions in prisons across the U.S.

The strike, which was organized by a group of incarcerated prisoner rights advocates, is planned to conclude on the 47th anniversary of the 1971 Attica prison riot in upstate New York that ended with the deaths of 29 inmates and 10 hostages. Inmates plan to refuse to work, and a smaller number plan to go on hunger strikes and conduct sit-ins. Organizers expect prisoners in at least 17 states will participate, according to Vox.

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The prisoner rights advocates speaking out against what they see as exploitative labor practices have gained attention in recent weeks as thousands of California inmates were sent off to fight what has become the largest wildfire in the states history for just $1 an hour. These firefighters, who volunteered for a vocational training program offered by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, are often disqualified from the work after release because a required credential is denied to anyone with a criminal record.

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Hundreds of thousands of prisoners are also employed in jobs outside and inside the prisons, most commonly doing work to maintain the prisons. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the average prison worker makes around 85 cents an hour. In 2017, inmates in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, and Texas were not paid for most of their work. Proponents of these low-paying jobs have argued that inmates benefit from the work experience and that prisons, which are already often cash-strapped, cannot afford to pay more; opponents have argued that prisoners do need real wages to be able to buy basic necessities other than food in the prisons.

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The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution bans slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. This explicit reference to forced labor for prisoners in an amendment banning slavery has led advocates to feel justified in arguing much of the billion-dollar prison industry is reliant on slave labor. The strike is calling for a public boycott of companies, such as Victorias Secret, Starbucks, Microsoft, and JC Penney, that have benefited from prison labor

On top of their labor complaints, prisoners are also protesting what they describe as poor prison conditions, often arising from overcrowding and underfunding. Earlier this year, a prison riot in South Carolina that caused seven inmate deaths sparked protests by those who partially blamed understaffing for the violence.

The group organizing the protests has released a set of 10 demands, including improvements to prison conditions, an end to unpaid or underpaid labor, and an increase in rehabilitation programs. Fundamentally, its a human rights issue, the group said in a statement. Every day prisoners are harmed due to conditions of confinement. For some of us its as if we are already dead. So what do we have to lose?
Not just polite: Sure, some of Sacha Baron Cohens marks are being courteous to a weirdo, Lili Loofbourow writes. But othersgiven permission by his brasher charactersare pushing the limits of their own awfulness.

Misplaced money: NYU is going to put any and all accepted students through its medical school for free. Yay? No. Jordan Weissmann points out that the decision will likely benefit people who will make tons of money later on in life and dont need the help.

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In mourning: Catholic intellectual Paul Elie tells Isaac Chotiner that Catholics should use discernment to process the latest abuse revelations: What does it mean for me? What does it mean for the victims? What does it mean for us as a Catholic people? What does it mean for our society if Catholic Christianity were sort of amputated from the body politic? We have to think about all those things and then try to look backward and forward at the same time.

Nightmare fuel: The worst boss stories Alison Green has ever heard.

For fun: How this Slate post happened.

Quite the tale,

Rebecca
After a two-hour meeting with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanuagh in her Senate office on Tuesday morning, Maine Sen. Susan Collins emerged into the Dirksen hallway to a mob of reporters and cameras to render a few important words. A Senate vote had been kept open for her, so she didnt have much time. Just enough to answer the important question: What words did this guy have to offer on Roe v. Wade that might satisfy this pro-choice Republican senator?

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We talked about whether he considered Roe to be settled law, Collins said. He said that he agreed with what Justice Roberts said at his nomination hearing, in which he said that it was settled law. Collins did not say whether she asked him if he intends to unsettle it.

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We had a very good, thorough discussion about that issue, and many other such matters, she concluded.

This, presumably, is what Kavanaugh will also tell Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, with whom he meets on Thursday. Both senators have been looking for language they could live with to support his nomination.

Collins was not, however, ready to come out in support of Kavanaugh just yet.

I have always waited until after the Judiciary Committee hearings before rendering a final decision on a Supreme Court nominee, she said. You never know what questions are going to come up at a Judiciary Committee hearing where 21 individuals will be questioning him.

Taking her at her word, You never know seems to be the most generous answer to the question of whether shed ever be willing to take down Kavanaugh.

But we sort of know.
A 95-year-old man named Jakiw Palij, who worked as a guard during the Second World War at a labor camp in occupied Poland that imprisoned 6,000 Jews who were later shot, was deported from the United States overnight.

Palij, the Justice Department said, had emigrated to the United States after the war and told immigration officials that he had worked on his fathers farm in what was then Poland and is now part of Ukraine. He later lived in Queens, New York.

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More than 50 years later, and after becoming a citizen in 1957, Palij told the Justice Department that he had trained at the camp, and in 2002, the Department filed a complaint to revoke Palijs citizenship because he had lied in his original application, winning the case in 2003. A year later, an immigration judge ordered his removal.

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The Justice Department never found that he had participated directly in the killing of Jews held at Trawniki, an SS training camp, but instead that by helping to prevent the escape of these prisoners during his service at Trawniki, Palij played an indispensable role in ensuring that they later met their tragic fate at the hands of the Nazis.

Palij has disputed his complicity in the later deaths of Jews held at Trawniki. He told the New York Times in 2003 that he was forced by occupying troops to serve as a guard at the camp. We knew they would kill me and my family if I refused. I did it to save their lives, and I never even wore a Nazi uniform. They made us wear gray guards uniforms and had us guarding bridges and rivers, he said in 2003.

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A Justice Department official said at the time, however, that Palij was very loyal and very capable and served until April 1945, the last weeks of the war, while other soldiers were deserting right and left, and that, by working as a guard, he was an essential component in the machinery of annihilation at the camp.

For more than a decade, U.S. authorities were unable to find a country to deport him to. The White House was finally able to negotiate a deal with Germany in which they would accept him, even though he was not and is not a German citizen.

The US administration, senators, Members of Congress, and representatives of the Jewish community in the US stress that persons who have served the [Nazi] rogue regime should not spend the twilight of their lives undisturbed in the country of their choice  the US, the German foreign office told Bild.
NBC News reported on Tuesday that Michael Cohen, the presidents former personal lawyer, might plead guilty as early as Tuesday to charges stemming from a federal case in the Southern District of New York. Perhaps in a further indication that there might soon be some movement in the case, barriers were erected in front of the federal courthouse in Manhattan.

Barricades were just put up outside the Manhattan federal courthouse at 500 Pearl Street pic.twitter.com/FlhfdTci6K  erica orden (@eorden) August 21, 2018

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(Update, 2:30 p.m.: Cohen is scheduled to appear at 4 p.m. for a hearing in Manhattan federal court, NBC News reported.) Cohens legal travails have been in the spotlight since April, when his office and the hotel room where he was living were raided by federal investigators. Prosecutors were reportedly looking for information concerning his $130,000 payoff to and nondisclosure agreement with adult film performer Stormy Daniels before the presidential election in 2016, as well as as another similar deal with Playboy model Karen McDougal. Both women have claimed to have had a sexual relationship with Trump. Its possible the payments could be violations of campaign finance law.

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the payment to Daniels occurred only after the release of the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump can be heard talking about sexual affairs and about grabbing women by the pussy without consent. As election expert Richard Hasen wrote in Slate, that timing would indicate that the payment to Daniels was related to the campaign, rather than being of a personal nature, which would indicate campaign finance laws may have been violated.

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Federal investigators are also closely examining Cohens finances, and specifically his New York City taxi medallion business. The New York Times reported on Sunday that investigators are looking at $20 million worth of loans to taxi businesses owned by Cohen and Cohens family, and whether Cohen misrepresented the value of his assets to get banks to open up their vaults to him. The Times said that if prosecutors were to press charges, they would try to do so well before the midterm elections, and that they would try to finalize a guilty plea or charges by the end of this month.

CNN further reported on Tuesday that, according to one unnamed source, Cohen was not expected to cooperate with the government as part of the deal, but that both sides were hoping to avoid the spectacle and uncertainty of a trial through a guilty plea.
The Russian group behind the 2016 election meddling appears to have recently targeted conservative think tanks critical of Russia and President Trumps interactions with Russia, Microsoft said Monday night.

According to Microsoft, the company seized websites created in recent weeks by the group APT28also known as Strontium or Fancy Bearwhich is associated with the Russian military intelligence agency formerly known as the GRU. The sites were meant to look as if they were managed by the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute but redirected instead to imitation pages for hackers to steal passwords and credentials.

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According to the New York Times, the Hudson Institute targets Russia in programs it promotes to study global corruption. The International Republican Institute, which has ties to Republicans such as Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney, works to promote democracy abroad and is also critical of Russia.

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The group APT28 has been blamed for a phishing attack used to hack into the emails of John Podesta, who was then the campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton. While Microsoft did not blame Russian intelligence directly for the more recent attacks, it did name APT28 in its report, according to the Washington Post.

Apart from the two think tanks, the Russian hackers also are said to have created pages related to public policy, the U.S. Senate and, in one case, Microsoft itself. Microsoft says it caught the pages early, as they were being set up.

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After the 2016 election, cybersecurity companies found similar sites created by Russians. Microsoft announced on Monday that it was launching an effort to expand its protections for campaigns and election agencies using its products before the midterm elections. Last month, Microsoft said it had found similar attacks against Sen. Claire McCaskill, who is up for re-election in Missouri.

The FBI has warned that it expects to see Russian campaigns to spread both malware and divisiveness among the American public. In July, Facebook announced it had removed a rash of bad actor accounts and pages working together as part of a disinformation campaign on that platform and on Instagram. Facebook did not blame Russia, but it noted the similarities to the Russian manipulation operation on social media that used thousands of fake accounts before and in the months after the 2016 election.
It all makes sense once you realize they want to kill us, by Mike Whitney - The Unz Review : 'It is now apparent that these products in ...
Austria welcomed tens of thousands of Czechs and Slovaks, but only very few of them remained.

Before 1989 Austria was a gate to the western world, particularly for Slovaks, with Bratislava and Vienna being practically two neighbouring towns.

Thus, when Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Austria was one of the first countries to deal with the wave of people who decided to flee the occupation. But not many stayed.

From Austrias perspective, the memory of the 1968 immigration prompted by the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops minus Romania to Czechoslovakia is also a reminder that 2015 was not the only year when the country faced migration for economic reasons, said Sarah Knoll, a historian from the Institute of Contemporary History in Vienna.

Read also:

Read also: Our emigrants stories: lessons in humanity Read more

But in contrast to recent migration issues, people thought favourably of immigrants coming from eastern Europe. Since western countries resented the Soviet Union and condemned the invasion, they solidarised with the refugees, especially since very few of those who came also stayed in the country. According to the Media Service Center of New Austrians a total of 162,000 Czechoslovaks fled to Austria in 1968. In the end, only around 12,000 of them stayed.

Good Austrian tradition

Many people who ended up in Austria were not coming directly from Czechoslovakia. At that time, Yugoslavia and Hungary belonged among the popular holiday destinations for people from Czechoslovakia, whose holiday possibilities were mostly restrained to the Eastern Bloc.

21. Aug 2018 at 16:13 | Laura Fischer
Tim Wade visited Czechoslovakia in 1968 as a 12-year-old boy. Here are his memories from the invasion in Prague.

We were on our way to see our friends that we had met the previous year in Dubrovnik. We stayed in a campsite south of Prague for a few days to visit the beautiful city. On the morning of August 21, I woke up very early to see lots of tanks and soldiers in the distance, which prompted me to wake my parents. They told me to go back to sleep, saying it was normal to see soldiers in a socialist country.

When we all surfaced, my father tuned into the World Service to find out that the invasion of Czechoslovakia had started the night before. Loudspeakers in the campsite were telling foreign campers to leave the country. We had hardly any petrol in our VW camper and realised there would be too many people and campers going the same way out of the country, so we headed east towards Brno and then to the rural garrison town of Jihlava.

Luckily, we found petrol on a small back road, but encountered a long , tiring and hazardous journey, meeting tanks and soldiers.

One week in Jihlava

We finally got to our destination of Jihlava and met our friends Jiri, Mila & Dana, who hid our campervan in a secret yard. They swiftly took us to the safety of their apartment above the town. At night, my father and I would join Jiri and his friends in turning signposts around so the invaders would get lost. We even painted signs on walls pointing to Moscow.

The Russians surrounded the town of Jihlava, which had a Czech army garrison, and demanded their surrender and fuel. It was very frightening with large tanks, field guns and snipers pointing at the town from the surrounding hills.

Tanks and guns surrounding Jihlava, August 24, 1968. (Source: Archive of Tim Wade)

At night, tanks rumbled through the streets crushing everything in their way. There was the sound of a short burst of automatic gun fire, the roar of tanks and angry people shouting at their invaders.

We spent another week in Jihlava , visiting the zoo ( ironically the Russian bear had escaped on the night of the invasion). We witnessed a 13-year-old boy being shot for throwing stones at the passing tanks and one man being crushed by a tank. My father wanted to get out of the country to safety as soon as possible.

Our friends had managed to get black market petrol for us and we drove towards the border near Brno, but we were turned back by the Russian soldiers. Jiri found a way through small roads to the Austrian border, and we got across after being questioned by some Russian officers who realised that we were just tourists, not Czechs fleeing the country.

In Austria, there were lots of soldiers and army intelligence who questioned my father at length of any military movements we had seen on our journey.

Back at school in England, my teacher asked me if I wanted a penfriend in Czechoslovakia. I got two penfriends; Janetta from Bratislava and Pavel from Sumperk, who I wrote to with difficulty over the years as all our correspondence was edited by the police!

Continued relationship with Czechoslovakia

In 1978, I managed to get a travel visa to visit Czechoslovakia. It was very hard to get the permission. I travelled across Europe on my old two stroke James motorcycle, visiting my penfriends and my old friends in Jihlava. Everything had changed- there was tight control of the people, food shortages and a lot of suspicion. However, you can't change people's beliefs, even if you suppress and control them.

I visited Czechoslovakia 10 times during the next six years until I was arrested and deported in August 1984. I think it happened when I was drinking in a beer cellar in Prague with friends and we were joking about socialism. It was a frightening experience, and it meant I wasn't able to visit again and communication with my friends in Czechoslovakia was very difficult.

By the end of 1989 after the Velvet Revolution, I drove to Bratislava and met my friends in the Castle of Devin on the banks of the Danube for a joyous reunion and celebration of their long-awaited freedom and independence.

In 1995, I was awarded a Winston Churchill travelling fellowship and visited the Czech & Slovak republics, Poland and Hungary, looking at Timber, trade and tourism. The following year, I was given a Queen Elizabeth craft scholarship, which allowed me to work and learn from one the best Slovak wood carvers in central Europe.

I have many close and lifelong friends, a love and understanding about the history, culture, arts and crafts in central Europe. I even met my future Hungarian wife Zsuzsanna in Slovakia at an international crafts festival.

50 years later

It's the 21st of August, 2018. I am living in central Europe with my wife Zsuzsanna, working in our own craft business with wood and leather arts & crafts.

I worry that we are once again in very unstable times in Europe, full of nationalism, migration, racism, Brexit and wars. I fear that people have forgotten what it was like to be controlled under socialism with the iron curtain. I hope people learn from history and don't repeat these events again.

21. Aug 2018 at 9:37 | Tim Wade
Ernest Valko murder case closed

The famous lawyer was killed in his house back in 2010.

... there were several theories concerning the murder of Ernest Valko. (Source: TASR)

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The murder investigation of famous Slovak lawyer Ernest Valko was officially concluded by police on August 16, with two men  Jozef R. and Jaroslav K.  being accused by police, the SITA newswire wrote. The new head of the national anti-crime unit of the National Criminal Agency (NAKA), Branislav Zurian, thus informed the media on August 21.

Currently, the investigation file is at the General Prosecutors Office (GPO), which will decide on further steps.

What happened in 2010?

Valko was allegedly shot at by Jozef R., who hit him with a single bullet  in the chest. Investigators found the gun in a water reservoir close to the town of Pezinok in 2017.

Zurian praised the work of the police. He also ruled out any other motive than robbery: We checked on several versions, but the most probable one was confirmed: violent robbery, Zurian noted, as quoted by SITA.

The two robbers to be tried

If convicted, the murderer faces 20 to 25 years in prison, while Jaroslav K. would go to prison for up to 12 years for robbery.

The two defendants claim that they had agreed on robbing Valkos house in the village of Limbach in October 2010 and planned to commit it in his presence. They subsequently watched the lawyers house and his daily routine.

Read also:

Read also: Police solve the murder of prominent lawyer Read more

On November 9, 2010, they first let an unknown chemical substance through the window frame, and after Valko returned home and opened the windows to air out the smell, they entered the house.

Jozef R. then shot Valko in the chest, both criminals searching the house, briefcase, took lawyers legally possessed gun and left.

Read also:

Read also: Lawyer's murder still unsolved Read more

Ernest Valko was former chair of the Slovak Constitutional Court, and one of the most influential lawyers who worked on several sensitive cases, according to SITA.

21. Aug 2018 at 14:12 | Compiled by Spectator staff
By Bhim Bhurtel

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to arrive in Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, a Himalayan nation sandwiched between the two Asian giants China and India, on August 30 for a two-day visit. It will be Modis fourth visit to Nepal since his accession to the office of prime minister in May 2014 and the second visit after the backlash from the Indian economic blockade on Nepal as the country promulgated its constitution in defiance of New Delhi on September 20, 2015. Some 2,500 or more people lost their lives because of the extreme shortage of fuel and medicines due to the Indian-sponsored carnage in the cold winter of 2015-16 in Nepal.





Modi will become the first Indian prime minister to visit Nepal for a fourth time in a five-year tenure since Indias independence in 1947. By so doing, he is also abiding by the promise he made in Nepals Constituent Assembly in 2014 that he would continue visiting Nepal, unlike his predecessors.





However, Modis stopover in Kathmandu this time is not a formal visit. Instead his main purpose is to join in the fourth summit of the Bay of Bengal Initiatives for Multi-Sectoral, Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) that is to be held in Kathmandu on August 30-31.





Modi is striving to keep his Hindu-nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in power in upcoming Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) election to be held next May. His strategy constitutes two parts: consolidating domestic politics and restoring international relations in Indias neighborhood.





Indias relations with its immediate neighbors are at a post- independence nadir, and it could be that the BJPs inability to handle the neighborhood will be the most pressing agenda in the general election. Therefore, it may be a part of Modis plans to use BIMSTEC summit to pacify the immense criticisms from the opposition parties in Parliament along with credible and sensible foreign-policy experts in the media over one diplomatic debacle after another and to overhaul the trust of the Indian voters in 2019.





BIMSTEC is a Dhaka-based regional initiative established on June 6, 1997, that comprises Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. India naturally tries to use this forum as a substitute for the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to engage with its neighbors and seclude Pakistan in the region.





Pakistan was scheduled to host the 19th SAARC summit in Islamabad on November 15-16, 2016. However, Modi decided to boycott the summit in the aftermath of the Pathankot terrorist attack in January 2016 and the Uri attack the following September. India not only pulled out of the summit itself but also put diplomatic pressure on Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka to drop out as well. These countries canceled their participation in the summit as India wanted, but Nepal remained in because of its ongoing chairmanship of SAARC.





Later, Pakistan announced the postponement of the summit for the time being based on the provision in the SAARC Charter that the summit can be held only with the participation of all eight member countries. Pakistan said a new date would be rescheduled soon, but that has not happened to date.

Coincidentally, Nepal has been the chair of both regional initiatives, BIMSTEC and SAARC, since 2015, and it wants summits of both to go ahead, but the SAARC process has ceased as India continues to halt the process to seclude Pakistan as far as it can in regional and international forums because of the ongoing India-Pakistan tensions.





Interim Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi visited Kathmandu after K P Sharm Oli became the prime minister of Nepal to congratulate him on March 5 this year and discussed the resuscitation of the SAARC process. Both prime ministers agreed that the summit should be held in Pakistan as soon as possible. As the chairman of SAARC, Oli tried to cajole Modi into reviving the SAARC process, but Modi rejected Olis overture in a plainspoken way at the joint press conference of the two prime ministers in New Delhi during Olis formal trip to India on April 6-8.





India adopted the policy to isolate Pakistan in every regional and international forum that India can influence after the Uri attack, and its boycott of the SAARC summit in Islamabad was part of Indias strategy to disengage Pakistan in the region. India wants to cultivate the opportunity to continue the tough line against Pakistan by sequestering it in the region while engaging with other South Asian countries through BIMSTEC.





However, Indian policy toward Pakistan is contradictory, since India shared the forum with Pakistan at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit on June 9-10 in Qingdao, China. Both India and Pakistan became full members of the Eurasian political, economic and security alliance on June 9, 2017, at the summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, after India had already started isolating Pakistan in the South Asian region.





Many diplomatic pundits think the reason for this double standard is either Indias big brother attitude toward its neighbors or that New Delhi has an asymmetric relationship with Beijing, as there is also an asymmetric relationship that persists between New Delhi and other South Asian capitals except Islamabad.





The paradoxical regional diplomacy of India has two possible outcomes in the future.





First, India is under an illusion that it has gained something by isolating Pakistan in the short term; however, in the long term, India will lose its whole grounding in the region. India has been miscalculating its actual position, ability, strength, and its responsibility in the region and has been losing its position as the regional rule-maker in South Asia.





Second, if Indias procrastination on SAARC continues, that forum will vanish and its current member countries will become members of the SCO. For instance, Afghanistan had already obtained observer status in the SCO, in 2012. Nepal and Sri Lanka are currently dialogue partners and they along with Bangladesh have applied for observer status. Maldives has also applied for dialogue-partner status.





If all of the South Asian countries are members of the SCO, then naturally there will be no need for a separate South Asia regional forum. The attraction of Indias immediate neighboring countries to the SCO indicates room for Chinas consolidation of further influence and presence in the region. Consequently, India will ultimately lose its legitimate influence in South Asia if it continues to hold up the SAARC process indefinitely.





SAARC is the best platform for India leading subcontinental issues, as it can set the precedence of regional rule-making and can gain leverage for Indian ambitions to be the part of current global governance. However, because of Indias myopic diplomacy to seclude Pakistan, it has been losing its regional constituency.





If India continues to overlook SAARC and tries to use BIMSTEC as an alternative, its claim on global governance wont be heard seriously within and outside of the region. India needs to realize the price of its greatness in the region, which means realizing its responsibilities to lead the region. The Indian foreign-policy regime seems oblivious to the fact that double standards and the contradictory position on Pakistan in SAARC and the SCO will be counterproductive in the long run.




New Delhis concerns are growing, and perhaps understandably so.

By Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan





There has been no shortage of references recently to the fact that China and Nepal are about to conduct a second round of joint military exercises, titled Sagarmatha, in Chengdu in Sichuan, China, next month. The two countries held their first joint military exercise, Sagarmatha Friendship 2017, for 10 days in Kathmandu in April last year.





Often neglected in a focus on headlines alone is the fact that it has been reported that there will be no more than 15 personnel taking part in this edition of the exercise. Nonetheless, even as the scale and sophistication of the China-Nepal joint military exercise is nowhere comparable to the kind that India holds with Nepal, it still raises hackles in New Delhi.





India does the Surya Kiran series of military exercise with Nepal twice a year, alternating between India and Nepal. The last one, SURYA KIRAN-XIII, was held in June this year. Reportedly, this series of military exercise with Nepal remains the largest military exercise in terms of troop participation that the Indian army undertakes with any other country. A press statement noted that that the focus of the exercise was on counterterrorism operations.





While India can find some solace in the depth of New Delhis relations with Nepal, Indias concerns nonetheless have been growing about this new facet of the China-Nepal relationship that has seen an uptick, particularly in recent years.

That concern is not entirely without reason. Indias own relations with Nepal have seen some testing times. More generally, Beijings proactive diplomacy in South Asia and the Indian Ocean remains particularly sensitive to New Delhi. While these are not new manifestations to be sure, Chinas outreach has indeed picked up the pace in recent years.





The growing security ties between China and Nepal also comes in the wake of growing commercial and economic linkages as well. China pumped in more than $8 billion in investments in Nepal last year and overtook India as the biggest foreign investor three years ago. That is no small feat.





To be sure, it has not all been smooth sailing for China. For example, Nepal recently cancelled two massive hydroelectric projects those Chinese firms were contracted to build. Furthermore, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been stepping up his outreach to Nepal as well, making his third visit to Kathmandu in just four years.

But, for perspective, Modis latest visit was also to repair the damage done by the two-month long Indian economic blockade of Nepal in 2015, a move that had caused serious hardships for ordinary Nepalese. Everything from fuel to medicines and earthquake relief supplies were affected, resulting in a huge backlash against India in Nepal. This had happened in the backdrop of Nepals efforts to amend its Constitution and Indias efforts at championing the case of the Madhesi people, which made India a villain in the eyes of ordinary Nepalese. Following these events, Nepals outreach to China grew even as the Himalayan Kingdom attempts to maintain a balance in its relationship with these two giants on its border.





That balance appears set to continue. For example, former Prime Minister of Nepal and alliance partner of the Oli Government, P K Dahal Prachanda, is slated to visit India next month from September 7 to 12, a few days before he travels to China. Prime Minister Oli too had done this balancing act earlier this year, when he travelled to India first before he headed to Beijing.

All of this indicates that the Oli government is possibly just keeping its options open, and that there are really no major or dramatic changes to Nepals foreign policy in spite of individual moves that might be taken.

Yet Indias fears about Chinas encirclement in the neighborhood are not without any basis. Chinese President Xi Jinpings aggressive strategic pitches through his Belt and Road Initiative and debt trap diplomacy have seen the strengthening of Chinas footprint in the Indian neighborhood.





The case of Sri Lankas Hambantota port is the oft-cited case in point. But the Maldivian governments approach toward India is another instance of how the traditionally pro-India Maldives has turned against New Delhi, with support from China.





To be sure, India must shoulder its own share of blame for not managing these relations well. But the fact also is that for the smaller countries in the region, the economic incentives offered by China have been critical. Nepals decision to join the BRI will beef up Beijings role and presence in Kathmandu manifold. Similarly, Modis efforts to stem Chinas influence in Nepal would depend on Indias ability to deliver on the promises made during Olis visit to India earlier this year, apart from any wider geopolitical calculations or moves.

It is worth keeping in mind that the fact that India and China are competing on similar projects including infrastructure development means this competition is likely to be lopsided. India does not enjoy a good track record in completing such ventures on time. The India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral way is a case in point, with the project, initially conceptualized in 2002, seeing many delays and the latest update suggests 2021 as the completion date.





Certainly, in an election year, Modi will want to show clear successes in his neighborhood-first approach. But unless India strengthens its delivery capacity, New Delhi is bound to continue to lose to China. Ultimately, irrespective of what Indias neighbors do with China in the economic or military domains, New Delhis surest bet to shore up ties with these countries is to focus on shoring up its own reputation as a provider of security and prosperity. Nepal is no exception to this rule.








Guwahati : The Indian Army on Monday had rescued eight civilians when a vehicle met an accident in Arunachal Pradeshs Tawang region.





According to the reports, the vehicle met an accident, where the eight persons were travelling from Holy Water Falls (Damteng) to Tawang.





The vehicle was skidded off from the road and fell into a 300 meters deep gorge.





Following the incident, the jawans of Indian Army's East Tawang Brigade under the aegis of Blazing Sword Division from a nearby camp had immediately rushed to the accident site and extricated the passengers.





Tezpur based Defence PRO Harsh Wardhan said that, their timely act prevented loss of any life.





"All the rescued persons were provided with immediate medical aid at the Army Camp," the Defence PRO said.





These devotees were grateful to the Indian Army soldiers for this timely assistance and saving their lives.




1. C&C  This part of the malware manages communication between the infected computer and the command and control (C&C) server and also responsible for monitoring man-in-the-middle attacks to defend against malware analysis. 2. CleanUp  While performing evasion techniques, if the malware detects any 'suspicious' activitylike running on a virtual machine or debugging toolsit performs a full cleanup of the infected system, removing the persistence service as well as forensic evidence of its presence. 3. Keylogger  This module has been designed to monitor the system and logs keystrokes to steal login credentials for a preloaded list of websitesboth banking as well as other popular sites. 4. Information Stealer  This password stealing module extracts saved passwords from email and FTP clients, as well as browsers. 5. The USB Infector  This module replicates itself and infects additional computers via USB drives. It copies an executable file to a removable drive that runs automatically when plugged to other systems. 6. Service Watchdog  This module is responsible for making sure that the malware is running properly.

Security researchers at Kaspersky Labs have uncovered a new, complex malware campaign that has been targeting customers of several Mexican banking institutions since at least 2013.Dubbed, the campaign delivers an advanced keylogger malware that managed to stay under the radar for five years due to its highly targeted nature and a few evasion techniques.Dark Tequila has primarily been designed to steal victims' financial information from a long list of online banking sites, as well as login credentials to popular websites, ranging from code versioning repositories to public file storage accounts and domain registrars.The list of targeted sites includes "Cpanels, Plesk, online flight reservation systems, Microsoft Office 365, IBM Lotus Notes clients, Zimbra email, Bitbucket, Amazon, GoDaddy, Register, Namecheap, Dropbox, Softlayer, Rackspace, and other services," the researchers say in a blog post The malware gets delivered to the victims' computers in the first place either via spear-phishing or infected USB devices.Once executed, a multi-stage payload infects the victim's computer only after certain conditions are met, which includes checking if the infected computer has any antivirus or security suite installed or is running in an analysis environment.Besides this, "the threat actor behind it strictly monitors and controls all operations. If there is a casual infection, which is not in Mexico or is not of interest, the malware is uninstalled remotely from the victim's machine," the researchers say.The Dark Tequila malware basically includes 6 primary modules, as follows:According to the researchers, the Dark Tequila campaign is still active and can be deployed in any part of the world to attack any target "according to the interests of the threat actor behind it."To protect yourself, you are recommended to always be vigilant of suspicious emails and keep a good antivirus solution to protect against such threats before they infect you or your network.Most importantly, avoid connecting untrusted removable and USB devices to your computer, and consider disabling auto-run on USB devices.
Sagarmatha Network Pvt. Ltd. is the organization dedicated in the field of printing, publishing service since 2001. As part of media, we've been publishing Review Nepal, an English medium weekly registered at District Administration Office (DAO) Kathmandu with registration number 130-162-163 and reviewnepal.com as an online digital newspaper, with registration number 849-075-076 at Department of Informational and Broadcasting (DIB) from Kathmandu, Nepal since 2003.
When I was a kid, growing up in a house with Cat Stevens, Neil Diamond and Simon and Garfunkel, the first time I ever heard Kiss' "Detroit Rock City," it was a moment of musical epiphany. It was just so vicious, aggressive and mean. It changed the way I listened to music. I've had a few minor epiphany's since then, when you come across a band that just brings something new and revolutionary to your ears.





What have been your musical epiphany moments?





When I was younger, I grew up as a missionarys kid in Paraguay, Chile and then Bangkok, Thailand, so access to music was very limited. Even the stuff you could get was sort of off limits to most my friends because of the religious parents. My dad had sort of come out of being a grass-smoking, jazz-playing hippy into the Jesus freak thing, so he was more hip to the whole deal. He had a leftover cassette collection, but had omitted a lot of the hard stuff. When I was 12, they did a 30 year anniversary release of all the Hendrix albums as a tribute. My dad gave me three dollars when we were at the record store in Bangkok and told me I could get a cassette. I saw the album cover for Axis Bold As Love and bought it on a whim. That was my first musical epiphany. I would sit in the closet under the stairs and flip the tape over and over in the dark just soaking it in. First time I felt high in my life.





That led me down the road to blues and blues-based rock. I saw some Vanilla Fudge, The Stones and Cream TV performances on a Thai TV throwback show around the same time. I was immediately like This is it. That was the main stuff because I was 12 and heavily impressionable, so my mind was just straight blown. My dad played guitar, so after that I would just steal his guitar and go try to play with the albums.





Talk to us about the song-writing process for you. What comes first, the idea? A riff? The lyrics? How does it all fall into place?





Its different every time. I started out as a guitar player and moved more into writing melodies, so most of the time the guitar riff is the muse. Now that Ive been melody writing for a long time, they start that way every once in awhile. The lyrics will just pop in my head. A lot of times they just hit all at once and leave me scrambling for a guitar and recording device to get it down.





Who has influenced you the most?





At an early age, definitely Hendrix as far as musicianship. Just an all-around musician. A lot of people miss out on how good of a songwriter he was and just see the flashy guitar stuff. The Rolling Stones have always been there as far as arrangements and how to work a song.





When I was in high school in the early 2000s there was a lot of plastic, overblown rock music. It was almost like a parody of what Rock used to be. I heard the White Stripes De Stijl album and it was like fresh air. Just super simple and raw blues rock. It was like the opposite of the over-produced, big label, cock-rock of the time.





Later on in life I was super into James Brown and MC5. Lots of high energy performance based stuff. I always loved studio records that sound like people are performing in the studio. When there is an undeniable force on the record.





Where do you look for continuing inspiration? New ideas, new motivation?





In some ways I still am exploring old music. I try to dig deep when it comes to records now. I listen to a lot of simplistic blues stuff like Jimmy Reid and Slim Harpo. I also love the complex song construction and production on a lot of 60s psych stuff like Pretty Things S.F. Sorrow.





A lot of my inspiration lately comes from just walking around in the woods or reading books, strangely enough.





We're all a product of our environment. Tell us about the band's hometown and how that reflects in the music?





I think the strongest influence the area has had on our music is just in the influence of the groove. A lot of music that comes from this area has a strong swing to it rhythmically. Memphis is famous for STAX, and you hear a lot of comparing and contrasting against Motown in Detroit. To me the biggest difference is that Memphis grooves were always hard, almost heavy, in a way. That sort of thing still sticks around here more than other places.





The other influence is just rawness. There are very limited resources here, but what you dont have physically, you have to compensate with spiritually. People here appreciate authenticity. I feel like we have made a lot of decisions based on that.





Where'd the band name come from?





Its hard to remember, because it was so long ago. We had already jammed a lot before coming up with the name. So we were shooting names out non-stop trying to see if something stuck. Dirty Streets just seemed to fit the sound the most at the time. I cant help but think that it also had to do with the industrial areas we all had to drive through to get to practice three times a week.





You have one chance, what movie are you going to write the soundtrack for?





I would probably want to write an all instrumental soundtrack for a re-boot of Carlitos Way and recruit a bunch of friends that are musicians. Sounds fun.





You now write for a music publication (The Ripple Effect?). You're going to write a 1,000 word essay on one song. Which would it be and why?





Off the top of my head, probably Freelance Fiend by Leafhound. The straight and direct power of that song lyrically and musically is something that I could probably explore for 1,000 words. Its almost an anthem to me for generations of people who dedicated their life to the arts. There is something about the fact that the band broke up shortly after recording it that brings a weird sort of purity to it. So incredible that in the song he says Build all my castles on top of my dreams with sort of a carelessness for outcome that comes across as completely authentic.





Come on, share with us a couple of your great, Spinal Tap, rock and roll moments?





On our last European tour we played a state-sponsored venue in the Netherlands. Since it was state sponsored we got paid well and it was fully staffed, but nobody promoted the show. We got there and it was this gigantic venue with two light guys and front of house/back of house sound guys. We set up and sound checked and it sounded incredible. The opening band had to work early, so they left when we played. We ended up playing this huge show with tons of production to 0 people. The light guy still went all out. It was super comical.





Tell us about playing live and the live experience for you and for your fans?





We really started out as a live band. The early focus of the band was to put on the best live show possible. That is probably why our first independently released album has nine minute long songs on it. We just were doing it like we did live. I love the idea of shared experience live. Every crowd is different, and that used to frustrate me. Then I started to appreciate that every time you share a show with a crowd, you learn something new or explore a different nuance of the songs you have played thousands of times and thats incredible. Its like the song youve played for years can be a different song in San Francisco on a Tuesday then it is in Fargo on a Friday. Thats one of the only times in my life when Ive experienced living truly in the moment.





What makes a great song?





Thats a hard question for me because my taste runs the gamut of super accessible pop to weirdo shit nobody likes. For me though, its the same as the live experience. If a song can bring you into the moment where you live in the song and dont think about anything else then its good. I like songs that are experiences within themselves. A lot of music is made to be background that runs while you live your life. I like the music that you want to turn up and focus on.





Tell us about the first song you ever wrote?





I wrote a lot of instrumental stuff as a kid when I started playing guitar. The first song I wrote lyrics for was when I was when I was in 8th grade and it was called When You Dumped Me. Terrible, self-loathing nightmare of a song. I thought of the song as a joke at the time though, and it opened me up to the concept of being able to finish a song so I could get on to more serious stuff.





What piece of your music are particularly proud of?





If I had to pick one, it would probably be On the Way from our new record thats coming out. Its a softer track with just acoustic. It was something Ive never done on an album. Ive never done acoustic guitar with no accompaniment. Lyrically the song is sort of a biography of my life simplified. Not sure if its accessible for most people, but it felt good.





Who today, writes great songs? Who just kicks your ass? Why?





In recent years there have been a few that really hit me. I recently saw Queens of the Stone Age, and it was undeniably like seeing something or someone Iconic. Josh Homme just has a very different way of writing. Im also a huge Jack White fan, sometimes his stuff doesnt resonate, but overall Im into it. One of the greatest up and coming bands to me is All Them Witches. Those guys are incredibly dynamic song writers and ridiculous live performers. One last one would be Charles Bradley who recently passed away. Thats one of those where its just about pure feeling. No bullshit.





Vinyl, CD, or digital? What's your format of choice?





Vinyl for me all the way. Nothing feels better than purchasing something that weighs a lot with a gigantic piece of art on the cover. It also demands your attention because you have to flip the record half way through.





Whiskey or beer? And defend your choice





Whiskey. Its like you are cutting the bullshit and getting straight to the point.





We, at the Ripple Effect, are constantly looking for new music. What's your home town, and when we get there, what's the best record store to lose ourselves in?





Shangrila Records. The place is incredible. I have to stagger my visits because the records that come through are so good and so well priced that Ill spend my whole paycheck.





Whats next for the band?





Touring, more touring and continuous writing. Im already writing the next one. Pretty excited about it.





Any final comments or thoughts you'd like to share with our readers, the waveriders?

Thanks to everyone that read this, and to everyone that buys our records and comes to our shows. Support The Ripple Effect!
 Paul Manafort found guilty of 8 of 18 counts ... and now faces real possibility of spending many years in federal prison | Main | What might and will nationwide prisoner strike achieve? 

August 21, 2018

Michael Cohen, Prez Trump's fixer, cuts a plea deal to fix his federal sentence between 46 to 63 months in federal prison

As reported here by USA Today, "Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and 'fixer' Michael Cohen, has pleaded guilty to charges including campaign finance fraud stemming from hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal." Here is more (with a little sentencing emphasis):

The 51-year-old Cohen entered the plea in federal court in New York on Tuesday. The other charges involve bank fraud and income tax evasion. As part of his plea agreement, Cohen agreed not to challenge any sentence from 46 to 63 months. Cohen's plea follows months of scrutiny from federal investigations and a falling out with the president, whom he previously said he'd "take a bullet" for. FBI raids in April sought bank records, communications with Trump's campaign and information on payments to Daniels and McDougal. Both women claimed Trump had affairs with them, which he denies. The deal comes after reports that federal investigators were looking into whether Cohen committed bank and tax fraud worth more than $20 million, according to a media report. The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, said authorities were focusing on loans obtained for taxi businesses owned by Cohen and his family. Investigators were also considering whether Cohen had violated campaign finance and other laws when he made financial arrangements to pay women to stay silent about alleged affairs with then-candidate Trump back in 2016.... Prosecutors had reportedly considered filing charges against Cohen by the end of August.

I have not yet seen the plea agreement (which I hope will soon be publicly available), but I assume from the line stressed above that the guideline calculation puts Cohen's offense level at least 23 under the federal sentencing guidelines. The guideline range for a first offender is 46-57 months at level 23 and is 51-63 months at level 24. The bottom and top of these ranges seem to be the basis for the range reportedly in Cohen's plea deal (and this shows, yet again, how the guidelines are always an integral part of plea negotiations and why I consider every federal sentence to be "based on" the guidelines in some way or another).

UPDATE : The folks at Lawfare now have collected here the criminal information, waiver of indictment and plea agreement in US v. Michael Cohen. The eight-page plea agreement has lots of interesting sentencing elements, and here is language (from pp. 4-5) confirming my speculations above and highlighting why there will be no departure discussions but lots of 3553(a) discussion as sentencing approaches:

Based upon the calculations set forth above, the defendant's Guidelines range is either 51 to 63 months' imprisonment under the Government's calculations, or 46 to 57 months' imprisonment under the defendant's calculations. Accordingly, the stipulated Guidelines range is 46 to 63 months' imprisonment (the "Stipulated Guidelines Range").... The parties agree that neither a downward nor an upward departure from the Stipulated Guidelines Range set forth above is warranted. Accordingly, neither party will seek any departure or adjustment pursuant to the Guidelines that is not set forth herein. Nor will either party in any way suggest that the Probation Office or the Court consider such a departure or adjustment under the Guidelines. The parties agree that either party may seek a sentence outside of the Stipulated Guidelines Range based upon the factors to be considered in imposing a sentence pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 3553(a).

August 21, 2018 at 05:39 PM | Permalink

Comments

OTOH, I expect Cohen to get a full pardon.

Posted by: Daniel | Aug 21, 2018 9:40:32 PM

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said in a statement that the White House was looking "increasingly like a criminal enterprise."

Nailed it!!

Posted by: Dave from Texas | Aug 22, 2018 1:24:03 AM

Trump is clearly an unindicted co-conspirator at this time. He's also impeachment proof now (with holy-roller Pence in the wings), but the day after Trump leaves office, we cann change "unindcited" to "indicted."

Posted by: Emily | Aug 22, 2018 1:26:19 AM

From today's New York Times editorial:

"On Tuesday afternoon, the American public was treated to an astonishing split-screen moment involving two of those people, as Mr. Trumps former campaign chief was convicted by a federal jury in Virginia of multiple crimes carrying years in prison at the same time that his longtime personal lawyer pleaded guilty in federal court in New York to his own lengthy trail of criminality, and confessed that he had committed at least some of the crimes at the direction of Mr. Trump himself.

Let that sink in: Mr. Trumps own lawyer has now accused him, under oath, of committing a felony.

Only a complete fantasist  that is, only President Trump and his cult  could continue to claim that this investigation of foreign subversion of an American election, which has already yielded dozens of other indictments and several guilty pleas, is a hoax or scam or rigged witch hunt.

Posted by: Dave from Texas | Aug 22, 2018 12:56:38 PM

"On Tuesday afternoon, the American public was treated to an astonishing split-screen moment involving two of those people, as Mr. Trumps former campaign chief was convicted by a federal jury in Virginia of multiple crimes carrying years in prison at the same time that his longtime personal lawyer pleaded guilty in federal court in New York to his own lengthy trail of criminality, and confessed that he had committed at least some of the crimes at the direction of Mr. Trump himself."

Honestly. I hope true sues them for libel. The indictment alleges no such thing.

Posted by: Dabiel | Aug 22, 2018 8:35:55 PM

Sigh, auto correct..

I hope he sues them...

Posted by: Dabiel | Aug 22, 2018 8:36:28 PM

Observation: The agreement seems to prohibit a 5K departure for cooperation from being filed, even by the government.

Question: What is the point of prohibiting departures while allowing variances? That makes no sense. Why do that? What's the significance of prohibiting departures and then allowing a variance argument on similar (or even identical) grounds?

Posted by: Dave | Aug 22, 2018 11:15:41 PM

From experience, often the reason they prohibit departures in a plea agreement is that any departure - whether upward or downward, requires notice. Eg. either party must file notice in court (through cm-ecf) or through the USPO and the PSR that they intend to seek a higher or lower sentence based upon a guideline departure. In essence, it's telegraphed. There is no notice requirement for a variance so at sentencing. Both parties have more ability to seek a higher or lower sentence for any reason based upon the 3553(a) factors at sentencing by arguing for a variance.

Posted by: atomicfrog | Aug 23, 2018 2:30:50 PM

How can Trump sue the media for libel. They didn't state that Cohen was charged with acting at the direction of Trump; they reported that Cohen confessed that he had committed the crimes at the direction of Trump. While Cohen did not expressly state Trump, the language that he used clearly implied Trump such that the media companies will be able to fairly state that they reasonably believed that Cohen meant Trump. And given the tapes that have already been released in which Trump and Cohen discussed those payments, the media should be able to show that they did not act for reckless disregard of the truth.

If Trump sues Cohen, he would have a more colorable argument. Not sure any person has ever been subjected to libel (or more accurately slander or defamation of character) for statements made during a guilty plea. Additionally, Trump would bear the burden of proving that Cohen's statements are false. And if Trump did file such a lawsuit, he would be subject to a deposition in which he would be asked what he told Cohen about those payments. If (when) Trump does not honestly answer that question, he could be facing a perjury charge, especially if Cohen has additional tapes of their conversations.

I am sure a lot of folks hope that Trump does file such a suit; most of those folks do not like Trump.

Posted by: tmm | Aug 23, 2018 4:32:16 PM

I am truly sorry to say that we are experiencing the most corrupt administration since that of Richard Nixon.

Posted by: anon1 | Aug 23, 2018 7:43:07 PM

Trump's next cabinet meeting will be at the visiting room of Leavenworth.

Posted by: Nancy | Aug 25, 2018 12:05:15 AM

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 "Punishing Criminals for Their Conduct: A Return to Reason for the Armed Career Criminal Act" | Main | Paul Manafort found guilty of 8 of 18 counts ... and now faces real possibility of spending many years in federal prison 

In posts late last week here and here, I noted the commentary from Senator Tom Cotton attacking the federal criminal justice reform bills moving through Congress and some responses it has already engendered. Now Politico has this new article on this beat headlined "Sentencing reform tests Cottons sway with Trump." Here are a few highlights from a lengthy article:

Tom Cotton is going all out to defeat a last-ditch effort to pass sentencing reform before this years midterm elections, hoping to win a high-stakes influence campaign over President Donald Trump on the issue.

Cotton is lambasting the proposal as a jailbreak that would let serious felons back on the streets, taking on a daunting coalition fighting for the package that includes the Koch political operation, White House adviser Jared Kushner and a number of powerful GOP senators. But Cotton believes that, in the end, President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will side with him.

The president went to Singapore and agreed with the Singaporeans that we should give the death penalty to drug dealers. I cant imagine the president wants to reduce mandatory minimum sentences for drug dealers, the Arkansas Republican said in an interview. I believe Sen. McConnell shares my view that we should not let serious felons out of jail and we should not shorten the sentences for drug dealers.

Even opponents of sentencing reform will privately admit it would likely pass if McConnell brings it up. But Cottons loud opposition may determine whether or not McConnell even allows a vote given his reluctance to summon up legislation that divides the conference  right before the election, no less....

The conflict is pitting some of Trumps closest allies against each other. On one side are Cotton and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), who calls the sentencing component troubling and wants to concentrate on prison reform. On the other are Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who wants to go even further on criminal justice reform but would be willing to accept the slimmed-down proposal, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who supports it....

Though the president supports the standalone prison reform effort, no one is quite sure where exactly Trump is going to come down on the sentencing piece thats being added by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). Advocates for sentencing reform are hoping the president will offer a crucial endorsement to get the legislation across the finish line after commuting the sentence of Alice Johnson for drug offenses, while opponents say hes unlikely to undercut his law-and-order persona....

There is not a constituency, certainly among Republican voters, to let serious felons out of prison or slash their prison sentences, Cotton said in the interview. Its ill-advised policy and even more ill-advised timing. Countered Paul, another close Trump ally with opposing views: We have a lot of non-violent criminals in our prison and theyre taking up space that could be better put to use for violent criminals."

Cotton also has strong allies, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has long opposed sweeping sentencing reforms. The two have frustrated people working on the bill.

Yet many on the law enforcement side, a key Trump constituency, are working with Cotton. Jonathan Thompson, the National Sheriff Association's executive director, has spoken to the president twice about sentencing reform in the past year and half: The president knows were concerned. We think what hes doing is terrific. Sen. Cotton recognizes that its a very flawed bill, said Larry Leiser, president of the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Were hopeful the president wont [endorse it].

Unless Trump makes a major push for the legislation and takes on his critics like Cotton, there are many reasons for McConnell not to bring up the bill before the election. It would likely take at least a week for the Senate to process, time that McConnell might think is better spent processing lifetime judicial appointments ahead of an uncertain midterm outcome. Plus it would invoke an ugly intraparty foodfight, squaring Cotton off with proponents of sentencing reform like Grassley, who has been tweeting that the president wants something done on prison/crim justice reform. So do I.

The consensus is the prison reform stuff, said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). There are people who want to do more, but its the usual issue: Do you want try and do more and fail, or do you want to do whats possible?

Despite the long odds, the battle is raging behind the scenes. Internal discussions of the subject at Senate lunches have been heated, according to Republican sources, a preview of what might happen on the Senate floor if the chamber takes it up. Its the same dynamic that kept McConnell from bringing up a larger criminal justice reform package in 2016 as Cotton railed against it and declared the United States has an "under-incarceration problem.

Trumps for prison reform, Im for prison reform. What I dont support is sentencing reductions under the guise of prison reforms, and thats unfortunately what many senators are moving towards, Cotton said in the interview. A number of conservative senators have quietly expressed their opposition to the sentencing reform component, according to groups working to defeat it. But Cotton's taken a bigger gamble by getting out front to stop a bill that hasnt even produced yet.
After 30 years of comedy, television, radio, film and books Dave ONeil finally decided it was high time he wrote his own sitcom.

But after a first attempt at an idea around a detective, it took Glenn Robbins to convince him to write about his own life.

But I thought whats so funny or interesting about my life? Glenn said, Every time I ring you, you are doing some rubbish gig and there is some disaster at your house with your kids,' ONeil recalls.

So I said If I write it you have to be in it.

That was some two years ago. Fast forward to Friday and Dave will finally see the light of day, with ONeil -and pal Glenn Robbins- playing himself in the sitcom pilot.

They are joined by Dave Hughes and Brendan Fevola (also as themselves) with Emily Taheny, Dave Thornton, Geraldine Hickey and Dilruk Jayasinha also appearing.

The buck stops with me!

So confident in his concept, ONeil self-funded and produced the pilot, originally at 18 minutes long.

Before I even heard about TENs Pilot Week I went off and made it myself. I found a director, producer, and chose all the locations which are local to where I live, he explains.

Its different from the other pilots because it was already finished. They gave me some money to film 2 extra scenes to make it longer.

So Im happy to cop any criticism or platitudes. The buck stops with me!

Over the period between shooting and airing, ONeil struggled to find a home for the comedy, with no luck from ABC.

ABC is where I became known doing Spicks & Specks, Good News Week, Adam Hills, Randling and all sorts of stuff. But if you are a white middle-aged man they dont want to see you, basically, he says.

They are doing all sorts of diversity, which is great.

Its a funny show with a bit of heart

ONeil has developed 7 other episodes should the comedy proceed from Pilot to series, which he says has family appeal.

Its a sitcom based on the life of a comic who is struggling with his career, and struggling to keep his family together. So its work-life balance! Its a funny show with a bit of heart, he continues.

It wont make people angry or start swearing on the internet! You can watch it with kids because its not really rude.

People say its like Curb Your Enthusiasm but more Australian.

TENs Pilot Week is testing shows based on audience feedback, social media and ratings. But ONeils comedy is on a traditionally-quiet Friday night.

Im just happy for it to be seen by people.

In Melbourne & Adelaide you are up against the footy. So when I was told Friday night I just thought Oh no. But it is what it is. Im just happy for it to be seen by people.

I guess the argument is most people will watch it on catch-up.

Meanwhile his other gig include more stand-up comedy and another season writing for Hughesy, We Have a Problem. That leaves plenty of time for more domestic disasters to be repurposed for the passion project that is Dave.

I want everyone to know, I wrote it, I paid for it and got my friends to do it for little or no money. I just want it to be given a go, basically.

Dave airs 8:30pm Friday on TEN.
Former Studio 10 executive producer Rob McKnight has weighed in on the drama surrounding Denise Drysdale and former co-presenter Ita Buttrose.

McKnight, who is currently locked in a legal battle with the network over salaries, opened up on the (non) departure of Drysdale from the show during a TV Blackbox podcast.

But he went back to the fall-out during filming late last year, which was followed by his dismissal.

There is something about all this that has really upset me. I know the Brussels Sprouts incident is a joke to everyone, McKnight said.

Ita Buttrose was assaulted at that shoot. It wasnt a Christmas party, it was a shoot, we were in a professional situation recording a Christmas video clip.

Denise has admitted she was drinking, he stated . I think the amount will come out in the court case and to make light of this situation.

Ita is horrified by this. She is embarrassed by it. She is a victim here and she has become the butt of jokes.

What did Ita Buttrose ever do to deserve this amount of hatred from Studio 10 and this lack of respect? I really dont understand it.

Jessica Rowe was given a three and a half hour bon voyage by Studio 10, and Ita was given a dont let the door hit your arse on the way out. The whole show was built around Ita Buttrose. She was the face of it. How TEN and the people at Studio 10 have treated her I cant reconcile in my head. She doesnt deserve this.

Drysdale has previously conceded, I was in a jovial mood. The Christmas party was that night and I could not go, so I had a couple of glasses of champagne towards the end of the day and I threw the brussels sprout and I shouldnt have.

In April Buttrose said, I didnt throw any sprouts. I was working. This was our Christmas shoot and I was working.

Now thats all I want to say about it because its a long time ago and Im tired of it coming up. I know you all love to ask about it but Im over it.

McKnights legal case with TEN is due to return to court on November 1 after mediation failed.

TEN has been contacted for comment.
Bring me your unemployed, your disabled, over-50s, Stolen Generation, refugees, ex-prisoners and transgenders. they all come before self-made entrepreneur Creel Price with a business idea they hope will turn their life around.

There are no sharks and shiny studios in the 3 part SBS documentary series The Employables, but 50 people who represent the marginalised job seekers will pitch an idea for a business start-up.

Creel Price retired on a $109m fortune but wants to give something back. Aided by three business assistants, Michelle Duval, Ben Reid and Shammah Dhall, he hears a variety of ideas from those who are long-term unemployed.

They include an amputee who wants to open an online store selling single shoes for other amputees, a single mum with an eco-fashion concept, a Muslim man from Pakistan who dreams of a mobile fast food van with healthy foods, and a young man who has battled depression with an idea for live battle games.

But Creel is infinitely more interested in the individuals behind the concepts than business sharks on other reality television.

His team choose 12 to join him on a boot camp on the NSW South Coast, roughing it together without luxury accommodation for 3 days. All of his challenges are designed to identify skills needed in business, starting with tents.

If you can build a tent together, you can build a business together, he explains.

The doco profiles its various participants from a man who is legally blind to a young mother of 3 who was homeless to a young woman battling long-term unemployment in regional Australia.

Character and spirit is sorely tested by a gruelling hike to the summit of Pigeon House Mountain, but as Price explains, whilst not everyone will make it, sometimes it is about helping the team make it to the top.

If this were reality TV, this would highlight personality clashes and milk the boot camp tears for drama. But this is SBS and together with sympathetic narration from Tara Morice, the bigger themes are about highlighting deeper societal problems and extending a helping hand.

As the second of some very worthy television this week (Taboo being another), this production by Eureka may be low budget and without the shiny floors primetime loves. But you cant helped but be drawn in by its uplifting stories.

The Employables airs 8:30pm Wednesdays on SBS.
This week on The Living Room Dr Chris Brown visits some Brumbies in the snowy Mountains, and Amanda Keller sits down with English comedian and actor Eddie Izzard.

Take Home Barry with Barry Du Bois: Outdoor Blinds and Lattice

DIY king Barry Du Bois shows single mum Veronika some handy tricks that will help revamp her rundown veranda. With a back deck thats completely exposed, Veronika and her 10 year old daughter find escaping the glaring afternoon sun impossible. Baz calls in handyman extraordinaire Kyal to create an outdoor space thats perfect for entertaining and family time.

Travel with Chris Brown: Snowy Mountains Brumbies

At the Mt. Kosciusko National Park, Dr Chris Brown meets up with the owner of the Snowy Wilderness retreat who has created a safe haven for a mob of Snowy Mountain Brumbies. Deemed a pest to local ecosystems but recognised as a valuable part of Australias heritage, Chris learns how the retreat is helping to restore balance and then sets out to photograph some of the Brumby mobs.

Food with Miguel Maestre: Mudgee Food Safari

Miguel heads off to the laidback town of Mudgee in rural New South Wales. Once known for sheep, cattle and gold-mining, today it is one of NSWs premier food destinations with a wide range of locally grown produce. Miguel gathers some of Mudgees finest produce from some passionate locals and whips up a tasty, simple dish that showcases the amazing quality of his ingredients.

Celebrity with Amanda Keller: Eddie Izzard

English comedian and actor Eddie Izzard is in town to promote his new Australian film The Flip Side. Eddie chats to Amanda Keller about the film and running marathons and running for parliament.

7:30pm Friday on TEN.
Chairman of the municipal chapter of the Vietnam-Hungary Friendship Association, Le Minh Triet sent congratulations to the Hungarian people on National Day.



He highlighted the friendly and cooperative bonds between the two countries. The bilateral cooperation has been strengthened in recent years, especially Ho Chi Minh City and Budapest.



Hungarian Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City Baloghdi Tibor expressed his joy at the Vietnam-Hungary strategic partnership since the Hungarian President Viktor Orban's visit to Vietnam in 2017.

He said that Huangrian businesses are interested in investment opportunity in Vietnam and HCM City. Many cooperation projects of education , training and health between the two sides will be carried on in coming time.





By VAN DO  Translated by Kim Khanh
Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis (Getty)

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varousfakis has accused the EU of employing North Korean levels of propaganda over the effect of its economic policies on the country.

Varoufakis made the claim in response to a video published by Eurogroup president Mario Centeno to mark the end of Greeces final, three-year bailout programme.

In the video, Centeno says Greece has regained the control it fought for and is now reaping the rewards of the economic reforms imposed on the country in exchange for loans.

I know these benefits are not yet felt in all quarters of the population but gradually, they will, says Centeno in a nod to unpopular austerity measures which were the price of the loans.

Varoufakis wrote on Twitter that the EU was adding insult to Greeces unbearable misery with a video of North Korean propaganda machine aesthetics/ immorality.

The EU Commission adding insult to Greeces unbearable misery with a video of North Korean propaganda machine aesthetics/ immorality  Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis) August 20, 2018

Centeno wasnt the only EU leader to misjudge the tone of their comments about an eight year programme which has had profound effects on Greeces economy and society.

EU Council president Donald Tusk was also criticised for a celebratory tweet reading You did it! Congratulations to Greece and its people.

The European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund has lent Greece 289 billion since 2010  the biggest bailout in history.

In exchange, the Troika imposed austerity measures and tax rises which shrank the countrys economy by a quarter and sent overall unemployment to 28% and youth unemployment to 58%.

Poverty rates soared as wages, pensions and social benefits like healthcare were slashed.

Hundreds of thousands of Greeks, especially the young, emigrated in search of a better quality of life.

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EU economic commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, insisted austerity was not the fault of Brussels (Reuters)

Varoufakis said today: The bankrupt Greek state was given more loans that were impossible and remain impossible to repay under conditions of harsh austerity that guaranteed the diminution of the GDP of the country from which those loans would be repaid.

Europe committed a major crime against logic, against itself, against the people of Europe.

Exciting the bailout programme means there will be no new austerity measures, but the Greek government will be forced to continuing the delivery of those its already signed up to.

Pierre Moscovici, the European commissioner for economics, said today he felt an emotional solidarity with Greek people who have paid the price of the financial crisis.

But he insisted it was Greeces failings that were responsible for austerity rather than the EU.

He said: Greece will emerge stronger from the crisis and the programmes and the reforms will have strengthened the structures of the Greek economy to make it possible to improve the lives of Greeks. At the end of the day, they are measures which had to be taken.




The last Nazi war crimes suspect living in the US has been deported to Germany 14 years after a judge ordered his expulsion, the White House said on Tuesday.

Jakiw Palij, 95, hid his involvement in the slaughter of Jews at the Trawniki concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and gained entry to the US in 1949 by claiming he was a farmer and factory worker.

Born in an area of Poland which is now Ukraine, Palij became a US citizen in 1957.

In 1993, he told justice department investigators who showed up at his door after his name appeared in an old Nazi roster and a former colleague revealed he was "living somewhere in America".

He told investigators that: "I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied."

He continued to live in limbo in his two-storey red brick home in Queens, New York, despite a judge ordering him to be deported in 2004. Several protests calling for his deportation were held outside his home.

But countries including Germany, Poland and Ukraine refused to take him.

Palij served at Trawniki in 1943, the same year 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of others held in occupied Poland were rounded up and killed.

He has admitted serving at the camp, but denied any involvement in war crimes.

In September last year, all 29 members of New York's congressional delegation signed a letter urging the state department to follow through on Palij's deportation.

Richard Grenell, US ambassador to Germany, said President Donald Trump had instructed him to ensure the deportation was a priority.

He said the new German government, formed in March, brought "new energy" to the case.

The deportation came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations.

Prosecutors have previously indicated there does not appear to be enough evidence to bring wartime charges against Palij.

He was flown to Germany on a chartered air ambulance on Tuesday and arrived in Dusseldorf.

The deportation is the first since Germany agreed in 2009 to take John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio autoworker who was accused of serving as a Nazi guard.

He was convicted in 2011 of being an accessory to more than 28,000 killings and died 10 months later, aged 91, with his appeal still pending.
The US has been in the grips of an opioid epidemic since the 1990s, with massive rises in the use  and misuse  of opioids such as morphine and codeine. There has also been a parallel rise in the number of opioid-related deaths, from 8,048 in 1999 to 42,249 in 2016. Now, there are signs that the problem is spreading to other nations  including the UK.

The current epidemic in the US is thought to have begun with the over-prescription of opioids for pain relief: in 1991, 76m opioid prescriptions were dispensed by US retail pharmacies. By 2011, this figure was 219m. The overall rate of death from drug overdose more than trebled in the US between 1999 and 2016.

In 2017, president Trump officially declared the US epidemic a public health emergency, establishing a presidential commission to combat the crisis and introducing the death penalty for drug traffickers.

The US has 5% of the worlds population and 80% of the worlds opioid use. But there is growing evidence that the rest of the world is following suit. Researchers found that in the 10-year period to 2013, the number of opioid doses prescribed in the US rose from 16,046 to 31,453 per million people per day, while in Western and Central Europe it rose from 3,079 to 9,320. Germany had the closest rates to those in the US (23,352 doses per million people per day), while in the UK doses rose from 1,658 to 5,227 per million people per day.

Prescriptions on the rise

With colleagues from Scottish universities, we published research exploring the factors associated with the rates of opioid prescribing in Scotland. We looked at a record of every prescription for opioid medicine dispensed in Scotland between 2003 and 2012. The trend we uncovered was startling.

We found that the number of prescriptions of strong opioids (including morphine, fentanyl, oxycodone and others) more than doubled from 474,385 to 1,036,446 per year. A full 18% of people in Scotland received at least one opioid prescription in 2012.

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Women were more likely to receive a weak opioid (such as codeine or tramadol), but there was no gender difference in the prescription of strong opioids. There were also clear social divisions in opioid prescriptions: prescribing rates rose with age, and there were four times more prescriptions for strong opioids dispensed to people in the most deprived areas, than to those in the most affluent areas.

Geography was also important, as prescribing rates differed between regions. This pattern was partly  though not wholly  associated with areas of relative deprivation. A recent study in England also found geographical variation in opioid prescribing rates, with a clear north-south divide, and London having the lowest rates.

Its also worth noting that although the rates of opioid prescribing in Scotland are following the upward trends seen elsewhere, most of the prescribing seems to be appropriate. We found that it was related to the presence and severity of pain, and there remain many people who have significant pain but have not received an opioid.

Can opioids work?

Theres good evidence to suggest that opioids are effective at relieving pain in the short term. But few studies have gauged their benefits for more than 12 weeks treatment  despite the high numbers of patients who take them for many months and years. By contrast, there is clear evidence that they cause widespread and potentially serious harms, when taken long term.

Common side effects include constipation and sedation, but opioids can also have a bad impact on the respiratory, central nervous, cardiovascular, endocrine and immune systems. Whether opioids are used illicitly for recreation, or taken legitimately for pain, they can lead to misuse, addiction and  as demonstrated in the US  death.

In our other recent study, we found through systematic analysis of previous research that 4.7% of people who were prescribed opioids for pain went on to develop formally diagnosed misuse or addiction. Its possible that more cases went undiagnosed.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, longer-term opioid exposure, and prescription of strong rather than weak opioids, were associated with lower incidences of opioid dependence or abuse. Individual factors, such as depression, anxiety and previous substance misuse, increase the risk of addiction. It is possible to use validated screening questionnaires to detect people who are at high risk of addiction before treatment is started.

Given the harms to individuals and societies, its fair to ask whether we should be prescribing opioids at all. The answer to this is definitely yes  for short-term pain, and with caution. For long-term pain, its essential to recognise the risk of developing side effects while not necessarily easing pain. Prescribed appropriately, however, opioids can make life better for people experiencing pain.

Clear guidelines for doctors and screening processes could help reduce the harm caused by opioids. But we must also address the causes of long-term pain, which drives their use. Most importantly, these include deprivation, and the ageing demography of our society. Without investment to address these, the opioid epidemic is set to spread globally.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Blair H. Smith receives funding from European Commission (Horizon 2020) for research into neuropathic pain. He has recently received research funding from other organizations including the Medical Research Council, the Chief Scientist Office (Scottish Government) and Tenovus Scotland. He is National Lead Clinician for Scotland, and a member of the Scottish National Advisory Committee on Chronic Pain. He is a member of the Scottish National Party.
A police officer in Argentina has been praised for stepping in to breastfeed a malnourished baby brought in to a hospital where she was on guard duty.

Celeste Ayala was working at the Sor Maria Ludovica children's hospital in Buenos Aires when six children arrived, having been taken in by social services.

The youngest, a six-month-old boy, was described as "dirty" and crying.

Ms Ayala offered to breastfeed him, as she was told the baby was malnourished.

One of the social workers agreed and Ms Ayala took the child in her arms.

She told local media: "I noticed that he was hungry, as he was putting his hand into his mouth. So I asked to hug him and breastfeed him.

"It was a sad moment, it broke my soul seeing him like this.

"Society should be sensitive to the issues affecting children, it cannot keep happening."

The moment was captured in a photo by another police officer and posted on Facebook, where it has been shared over 100,000 times.

They said they wanted to "make public this great gesture of love".

"You don't care about filth and smell," the post added.

"Things like that are not seen every day."

Ms Ayala, who reportedly has a one-year-old child, was promoted by Buenos Aires' police chief Cristian Ritondo days after the picture surfaced.

"We wanted to thank you in person for that gesture of spontaneous love that managed to calm the baby's cry," he said.

The Bomberos Voluntarios Berisso fire brigade, where Ms Ayala volunteers, paid their own tribute.

"Actions like these fill us with pride and obligate us to redouble the effort, the work and the solidarity with our community," they said.
A group of students have toppled a controversial century-old statue of a Confederate soldier at a US university.

"Silent Sam", a monument at the University of North Carolina (UNC), was brought down amid a high-energy protest.

Around 250 demonstrators initially covered the figure with grey sheets and hung a sign around it "dedicated to those who fight white supremacy".

Video footage then shows a large circle of students jostling to unseat the 105-year-old statue, which falls to the ground.

Students can be seen hugging and cheering, with one placing a cap on the sculpture dedicated to Confederate-supporting alumni of the university killed in the American civil war.

Another protester is seen throwing chunks of dirt at its head.

Chancellor Carol L Folt said in a statement that the statue had been "divisive for years" and that its presence "has been a source of frustration for many people".

But she called the action to remove it "unlawful and dangerous", adding "we are very fortunate no-one was injured".

Police are investigating and assessing the extent of the damage.

Social media users highlighted the statue's controversy by sharing a speech from its unveilling by UNC trustee Julian Carr.

He had said: "100 yards from where we stand, less than 90 days perhaps after my return from Appomattox, I horse-whipped a negro wench, until her skirts hung in shreds.

"Because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted and maligned a Southern lady."

Other social media users protested the statue being pulled down, one writing: "A mob decided what everyone else is allowed to see."

In April 2018, the statue was targeted by another protester who daubed red paint on it.

It comes amid a movement in the US to tear down statues dedicated to Confederate leaders and soldiers .

The violent scenes in Charlottesville last year came when white supremacists held a rally around the statue of Robert E Lee.

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Donald Trump said in the aftermath that US history and culture was being "ripped apart" by the removal of statues.

Civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson has called for all Confederate status to be removed and described them as "unfinished business in our country".

He told Sky News: "There are no Hitler statues in Germany today or neo-Nazi material flying around."
By Yimou Lee and Philip Wen

TAIPEI/BEIJING (Reuters) - Taiwan vowed on Tuesday to fight China's "increasingly out of control" behaviour after Taipei lost another ally to Beijing when El Salvador became the third country to switch allegiances to China this year.

Taiwan now has formal relations with only 17 countries worldwide, many of them small, less developed nations in Central America and the Pacific, including Belize and Nauru.

Speaking in Taipei, President Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan would not bow to pressure, describing El Salvador's decision as further evidence of China's efforts to squeeze the island, which have included regular Chinese bomber patrols around Taiwan.

"We will turn to countries with similar values to fight together against China's increasingly out-of-control international behaviour," Tsai said.

Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told reporters earlier that Taipei was not willing to engage in "money competition" with its giant neighbour.

He said El Salvador had been continuously asking for "massive funding support" since last year for a port development, but Taiwan was unable to assist with the "unsuitable project" after assessment.

"Pressure from China would only make Taiwan more determined to continue our path of democracy and freedom," he said.

"China's rude and unreasonable behaviour will certainly have negative impact to cross-strait relations. This is also not how a responsible country should behave."

Beijing considers Taiwan to be a wayward province of one China, ineligible for state-to-state relations, and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.

In Beijing, the Chinese government's top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, said El Salvador had made the right decision.

"I'm confident that the people of El Salvador will feel the warmth and friendship of the Chinese people and derive tangible benefits from its cooperation with China," Wang told reporters alongside his El Salvador counterpart, Carlos Castaneda, shortly after the pair signed an agreement establishing ties.

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"EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITIES"

El Salvador's president, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, announced in a nationally televised speech that his government had broken off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and instead established ties with China.

Sanchez Ceren said the central American country, which built ties with the Republic of China government in 1933, would see "great benefits" and "extraordinary opportunities" in the new relationship with Beijing.

Taiwan's formal name is the Republic of China, whose government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists.

"We are convinced this is a step in the right direction that corresponds to the principles of international law of international relations and the inevitable trends of our time," Sanchez Ceren said.

In Beijing, Castaneda said it was a strategic decision his government made to "create conditions to change the historical standing of our country and to really elevate the livelihood of our people".

Taiwan has accused China of luring its friends away with offers of generous aid packages. China denies that.

Graphic showing Taiwan's political allies - http://tmsnrt.rs/2hpQ0xx

The news comes as Tsai wrapped up a high-profile trip to Latin America, including stops in the United States, that drew anger from China.

"China will not get unification with Taiwan by luring away our allies. What China did was to humiliate Taiwan repeatedly without getting any respect from Taiwan's people," Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party wrote in a statement.

El Salvador is the fifth country Taiwan will lose as a diplomatic ally since Tsai came to office in 2016, following Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic, Sao Tome and Principe and Panama.

Amanda Mansour, spokeswoman of the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan, told Reuters in a written statement late on Tuesday that China's efforts were "harmful" and had undermined "the framework that has enabled peace, stability, and development for decades".

"The United States urges China to abstain from coercion that would jeopardise the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan," she wrote.

The U.S. ambassador in El Salvador, Jean Manes, wrote in a Twitter post on Tuesday the United States was analysing El Salvador's "worrisome" decision to break ties with Taiwan.

"Without a doubt, this will impact our relationship with the (Salvadoran) government. We continue supporting the Salvadoran people," she wrote without elaborating.

Ahead of next month's summit between China and African leaders in Beijing, China has also been upping the pressure on Taiwan's last remaining ally on the continent, eSwatini, formerly known as Swaziland, to come over to China's side, diplomatic sources say.

"We hope the relevant country can see clearly the world's trend," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a daily news briefing, when asked whether eSwatini would attend the summit.

China's hostility to Taiwan has grown since Tsai's election as Beijing fears she wishes to push for the island's formal independence, a red line for China. She says she wants to maintain the status quo but will defend Taiwan's democracy.

(Reporting By Jessica Macy Yu, Yimou Lee in Taipei, Philip Wen and Ben Blanchard in Beijing and Nelson Renteria in San Salvador; Editing by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel and Alison Williams)
Trevor Noah joins stellar line-up of hosts at Global Citizen Festival to be held in SA

Cape Town - International advocacy organisation Global Citizen announced on Tuesday that Trevor Noah will host the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100, the free-ticketed event on Sunday, 2 December 2018 at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg.

The festival will be headlined by Beyonce & Jay-Z, Cassper Nyovest, D'banj, Ed Sheeran, Eddie Vedder, Femi Kuti, Pharrell Williams & Chris Martin, Sho Madjozi, Kacey Musgraves, Tiwa Savage, Usher, and Wizkid.

The event will also be hosted by Bonang Matheba, Naomi Campbell, Gayle King, Bob Geldof, Tyler Perry and Forest Whitaker.

Oprah Winfrey also will be giving a special keynote address at the event.

About his hosting duties at the global event Trevor Noah said: "It is an honour to be a part of the Global Citizen Festival event celebrating the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela. I am where I am today living as a free South African because of much of what he did and so I'm beyond excited to be teaming up with so many others to pay tribute to the man in his home country."

MORE ABOUT THE GOALS OF THE EVENT:

The organisation also announced plans for a skills training project that will empower the next generation of South Africans to gain essential work experience and training, by offering year-long paid fellowships to young South Africans to gain valuable work experience. Read more about that here.

This announcement kicks off Action Journey 1, the first opportunity for fans and activists to earn their tickets to the event.

Actions global citizens can take include:

Ask Nigerias State Governors to invest in water and sanitation.

Urge Zambia to help children live free from hunger and malnutrition.

Call on the Finance Ministers of Ghana, Tanzania, and Kenya to lift millions from poverty by raising the agriculture budget.



Ask Rwanda to help end neglected tropical diseases and improve nutrition across Africa.

READ NEXT: How to sign up for Global Citizen Festival tickets in 5 easy steps
FILE PHOTO: National flags of Russia and the U.S. fly at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on two Russians, one Russian company and one Slovakian company for what Washington said were their actions to help another Russian company avoid sanctions over the country's malicious cyber-related activities.

The U.S. Treasury said in a statement that the sanctioned companies, Saint Petersburg-based Vela-Marine Ltd and Slovakia-based Lacno S.R.O., and the two individuals helped Divetechnoservices evade previously imposed sanctions.

In June, the United States sanctioned Divetechnoservices, also based in Saint Petersburg, for procuring underwater equipment and diving systems for Russian government agencies, including Russia's FSB intelligence agency.

The Obama administration sanctioned the FSB in December 2016, citing the Russian government's aggressive harassment of U.S. officials and cyber operations aimed at the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In a statement on the Russian foreign ministry's website, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called the latest sanctions groundless and promised a response from Moscow.

Ryabkov's criticism extended to separate sanctions Washington imposed on Tuesday on two Russian shipping companies that it said were involved in transferring refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels in violation of Unite Nations restrictions.

The U.S. Treasury said the two individuals targeted on Tuesday under the cyber-related sanctions program, Marina Igorevna Tsareva and Anton Aleksandrovich Nagibin, had both helped Divetechnoservices attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions.

The head of Vela-Marine told Reuters he did not understand why his company was being designated. Speaking by telephone, Andrei Kuklin, head of the company, said, "Unfortunately I cannot comment. I don't understand what the problem is."

Reuters was unable to immediately determine contact information for Lacno, which does not have its own website and which does not list any contact number on the Slovak finance ministry registry of firms website.

Nagibin did not answer a call seeking comment. Reuters was not immediately able to identify contact information for Tsareva.

(Reporting by Tim Ahmann; Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber in Moscow, and Tatiana Jancarikova in Bratislava; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)
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.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday announced sanctions on two Russian shipping companies and six vessels it said were involved in the transfer of refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels in violation of United Nations. restrictions.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called the sanctions as well as other U.S. steps over alleged hacking, groundless, and promised a response.

The U.S. Treasury identified the shipping firms as Vladivostok-based shipping companies Primorye Maritime Logistics Co Ltd (Primorye) and Gudzon Shipping Co LLC (Gudzon). It also named six Russian-flagged vessels: Bella, Bogatyr, Neptun, Partizan, Patriot and Sevastopol.

"Ship-to-ship transfers with North Korea-flagged vessels from Russia or elsewhere of any goods being supplied, sold, or transferred to or from (North Korea) are prohibited under the U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea and are sanctionable under U.S. law," U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

"Consequences for violating these sanctions will remain in place until we have achieved the final, fully verified denuclearisation of North Korea," Mnuchin added.

The United States has been pressuring North Korea via sanctions to give up its nuclear weapons program.

The Treasury statement said Russian ship Patriot conducted two ship-to-ship transfers of oil in early 2018 - 1,500 tons to the North Korea-flagged Chong Rim 2 and 2,000 tons to the North Korea-flagged Chon Ma San.

It said the buyer was the Taesong Bank, a North Korean entity subordinate to the Workers' Party of Korea Office 39, "which engages in illicit economic activities for North Korean leadership."

Taesong Bank has already been slapped with both U.N. and U.S. sanctions.

In a statement published on the Russian Foreign Ministry website, Ryabkov said the latest sanctions were introduced under a "false pretence."

Tuesday's announcement came just days after Washington imposed sanctions on a Russian port service agency as well as Chinese companies for aiding North Korean ships and selling alcohol and tobacco to Pyongyang in breach of U.S. sanctions.

After last week's announcement, Russia said the United States had acted without evidence on the basis of groundless accusations and said it was working on retaliatory measures.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin in MOSCOW; editing by G Crosse)
Online marketing and operating company for the gaming industry Veltyco Group announced on Tuesday that its wholly-owned subsidiary Sheltyco Enterprises has agreed with Betsson Services , the sports book operator, to renew its marketing agreement until May 2021.

The AIM-traded firm said that under to the new agreement, it would continue to exclusively market Betsson's Betsafe brand in Germany on broadly similar terms as the previous agreement.

Betsson is part of the Betsson AB group - a Sweden-quoted investor and manager of companies in the online gaming industry, with a market capitalisation of around 885m.

Veltyco said Betsafe is one of the leading global online gaming brands with more than 450,000 customers from over 100 countries.

There was an increasing global recognition of the Betsafe brand, it claimed, as demonstrated by Betsson's sponsorship of London-based Saracens Rugby Club and boxer Tony Bellew.

Veltyco had been working with Betsson since March 2012 as its exclusive marketing partner for the German-speaking market, receiving a share of all revenues generated from the Betsafe brand in German-speaking countries, in recognition of its marketing activities.

Historically, Veltyco had increased the visibility and recognition of the Betsafe brand through premium marketing partnerships with top German Bundesliga clubs, and other high-profile sporting events.

The renewal of the marketing agreement with Betsson was further to the disclosure in Veltyco's 2017 annual report, in which it confirmed that it had - subject to documentation - reached agreement with Betsson to further extend its existing marketing agreement.

If Veltyco's relationship with Betsson was expanded beyond the current geographic arrangement, that would be subject to further agreement and further announcements would be made as appropriate, the board added.

Since inception, Betsafe has formed a core part of the group's operations, said Veltyco chairman Gilles Ohana.

The partnership jointly leverages both companies' respective strengths including Betsson's and Betsafe's clear operational excellence and Veltyco's core expertise in Germany.

Betsson's confidence in Veltyco in extending its marketing agreement in Germany through to 2021, further strengthens our relationship and we very much look forward to continuing the expansion of the Betsafe brand in Germany to the benefit of all parties.
Greece will have to wait at least a bit more before it can access global capital markets on its own again, even after exiting its third rescue programme the day before.

After more than eight years of financial turmoil, the country's Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras said on Tuesday that Greece had managed to bring its 'Odyssey' to a close.

True up to a point perhaps, but if in May it was the uncertainty around the new Italian government which forced Greece to abandon plans for a debt sale, now it would be the currency crisis in Turkey, Reuters reported, citing bankers working with some of Athens's three primary dealers.

"I think we need to see the Turkey situation calm down and the Italy political scene become a bit stable," one of those dealers said.

According to those bankers, the Treasury in Athens would need to offer a premium of between 25 and 40 basis points in order to successfully sell 10-year debt, implying that the new issue would trade at around 5.0%.

As of 1609 BST, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Greek government bond was ten basis points lower at 4.24%.
Stockmarkets across the Continent are broadly higher, tracking gains overnight on Wall Street and in Asia ahead of the start of two days of trade talks between US and Chinese negotiators, on Wednesday.

Thus, and with US futures pointing to a higher start for stocks in the US, the spotlight on Tuesday was on a Reuters interview with the US President, in which Donald Trump indicated he did not expect much from the upcoming trade talks.

He also said he would rather the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, be more "accommodative" in its policy.

In a wide ranging interview, Trump also accused China and Europe of manipulating their currencies.

As of 1235 BST, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was ahead by 0.34% or 1.31 points at 384.54, alongside a rise of 0.61% or 75.77 points to 12,406.96 for the German Dax, while the FTSE Mibtel was ahead by 1.28% or 261.09 points to 20,732.72.

Boosting Italian stocks, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Italian government bond was retracing part of the previous day's gains, retreating by six basis points to 2.95%.

Meanwhile, and reacting to Trump's remarks, euro/dollar was gaining 0.34% to 1.1521 and the yield on the benchmark 10-year Bund by three basis points to 0.33%.

In the background, the US S&P 500 was set to move into its longest bull-market in history on the next day, extending its current stretch of gains to 3,453 days or nearly nine-and-a-half years, thus beating its previous record, which began in October 1990.

Commenting on that milestone, Tom Stevenson at Fidelity International was telling clients: "With earnings having been boosted by tax cuts, valuations are high but not excessively so.

"Meanwhile, this most unloved of all bull markets has left sentiment relatively subdued. The euphoria which typically marks the end of a bull market is notably absent this time."

On the economic front meanwhile, the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics's consumer confidence index slipped from a reading of 23.0 for July to 21.0 in August.

No economic releases were scheduled in the States on Tuesday.

Shares of French oil major Total were edging higher after the company said it had notified Iranian officials on Monday of its plans to to pull-out of the South Pars gas project.

Another French outfit in the headlines was Airbus, after America's Spirit Airlines said it was mulling the A320 as its choice for a future fleet order.
The government has posted its biggest July budget surplus for 18 years, giving Philip Hammond room for spending within his self-imposed fiscal constraints as the chancellor prepares his annual budget.

Public sector net borrowing, excluding public sector banks, showed a surplus of 2.0bn for July  1bn more than a year earlier, official figures showed. The result was the biggest surplus for July since 2000 and beat than the 1.1bn average surplus forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.

The surplus took net borrowing for the first four months of the current financial year to 12.8bn  a reduction of 8.5bn from a year earlier and the lowest net borrowing at this point since 2002.

The governments finances were boosted by record tax receipts from self-assessment of 9.0bn  1bn more than a year earlier and the highest figure for self-assessed taxes since records began in 1999.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has predicted 37.1bn of public sector net borrowing for the current financial year. Capital Economics said if the rate of reduction holds up then borrowing would undershoot the OBRs forecast by about 13bn  though the consultancy said this was unlikely.

Ruth Gregory, Capital Economics senior UK economist, said: As things stand, the chancellor should have some extra money to play with in the autumn budget  on top of the scope already contained within his fiscal mandate. And he should be able to deliver the extra funds for the NHS without compromising his fiscal target or having to find savings elsewhere.

Hammond will report his annual budget in November. He is under pressure from some Conservative cabinet ministers to loosen spending constraints in pursuit of growth as the economy slows and Britons grow weary of the austerity measures Conservative chancellors have dealt out for more than eight years. In June the prime minister pledge an extra 20bn a year for the National Health Service by 2023 but Hammond is resisting calls for spending increases at other departments.
BHP Billiton declared a record final dividend as higher prices and volumes sent the world's biggest miners underlying annual profit up by a third, though some investors still managed to find the results a disappointment.

Underlying attributable profit for the year to the end of June rose to $8.9bn (6.9bn) from $6.7bn a year earlier, below the average analyst forecast of $9.27bn collated by Reuters. The FTSE 100 company's final dividend rose to 63 cents a share from 43 cents a share, taking the 2018 annual payout to 118 cents a share.

BHPs chief executive Andrew Mackenzie said: "We have announced a record final dividend for shareholders which reflects strong operating performance, solid prices and capital discipline  Our balance sheet is strong, with net debt now at the lower end of our target range, and our investment plans on track across iron ore, copper, coal and petroleum.

The Anglo-Australian miner has announced or completed the sale of more than $18bn of assets in the past six years, largely in response to tumbling commodity prices in 2015. The sales have helped reduce BHP's net debt to $10.9bn from $26.1bn two years ago. In July the company announced the sale of US oil and natural gas assets for $10.8bn to BP.

Commodity prices have recovered from their lows, prompting a more than doubling of BHPs share price since early 2016. The company said its 2018 performance was driven by rising prices and an increase in volumes, partly offset by higher costs.

Mackenzie said he expected strong momentum to continue in the companys dramatically simplified portfolio. But the strong dollar, weak Chinese data and concerns about emerging markets have weighed on the shares of BHP and other miners in recent days. BHP warned over the potential impact of the trade wars on global growth, predicting the US would lose out in terms of its international competitiveness.

BHP recorded an exceptional loss of $650m last year linked to the failure of the Samarco dam in Brazil. The disaster at the Samarco iron ore operation in Brazil, a joint venture between BHP and the Brazilian miner Vale, killed 19 people and flooded three communities leaving people homeless. BHP has said it will defend a class action brought by investors over the disaster.

Another disappointment was a halving of the $2bn of productivity gains expected in the new fiscal year, although BHP pledged to make additional savings in 2020.

Shares in BHP fell 2% to 1,610p by mid afternoon on Tuesday.

The financials were "strong but slightly behind our expectations," said broker Shore Capital, "particularly in relation to the bottom line", while others said the US-China trade skirmish was weighing on the shares.

ShoreCap analyst Yuen Low also noted that BHPs potential ultimate liability for the burst Samarco dam in Brazil remains unclear, with the company recording a $650m post-tax hit in the results. However, Low reminded clients that there is still no provision related to the governance agreement outlined in June 2018, "so we would not be surprised to see further significant impairments come through in FY2019".

Analysts at BMO Capital Markets said the results were "a touch light" versus estimates and flagged rising costs.
Leeds, Manchester, Scotland and London property investor and car park operator Town Centre Securities announced the appointment of Lynda Shillaw as its new property director on Tuesday, to join the board on 5 November.

The London-listed firm said its existing property director Richard Lewis would retire as planned from the board and the company.

It said Shillaw was joining Town Centre Securities from Manchester Airports Group, where she served as the divisional chief executive officer of property since June 2014.

She was a member of the MAG executive committee, responsible for the airport operators 525m Investment portfolio and 1,000 acre development land bank across its UK airports, and also its interest in the 1bn Airport City joint venture.

Prior to MAG, Shillaw was director of real estate at Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, managing director and global head of corporate real estate for Lloyds Banking Group, managing director of Co-Operative Estates, and director of property at BT.

She held non-executive director positions on the board of the Crown Estate and VIVID housing association.

Town Centre said Richard Lewis had a long and distinguished career at the firm, having joined the Company in 2000 and appointed to the board in 2001.

We are delighted to have recruited someone with the calibre and reputation of Lynda Shillaw to join Town Centre Securities, said chairman and chief executive officer Edward Ziff.

We believe that Lynda's breadth of investment and development experience, combined with her past involvement in real estate financing will be invaluable as we embark on the next stage of the company's growth, including undertaking the most significant development pipeline in TCS's history.

We are confident that Lynda's passion for delivery combined with her reputation and knowledge will make her a powerful new addition to the TCS team.

Ziff also personally thanked Lewis for his long-standing commitment to Town Centre Securities.

Richard's contribution has been invaluable, notably with some of our most significant schemes, beginning with the construction and sale of No1 Whitehall Riverside in Leeds, the continued development of Piccadilly Basin in Manchester, and most recently the re-development of Merrion House in Leeds.

We wish Richard a long, happy, and healthy retirement.
The European Union should strengthen sanctions against Russia and the countrys malign operations around the world, foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt is expected to say on a trip to Washington.

On his first visit to the US as foreign secretary, Hunt will urge the EU to follow Washingtons response to the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, which the UK has attributed to Russia.

In a speech, Hunt will stress the need for Russia to understand there is a serious price to pay for repeated violations of international behaviour.

He will call on the EU to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive and stand alongside the US, which is banning Russian exports of security-sensitive goods, the BBC reported.

"That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea," Hunt will say.

Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in March. The UK accused Russia of using a nerve agent for the attack, a charge Moscow has denied. In June two people fell ill after being exposed to the same nerve agent. Dawn Sturgess died aged 44.

Hunt will say confidence in Western democracy has been undermined by foreign attempts to manipulate elections. He will call on European governments to get their houses in order" by addressing the reasons for the rise in resentment and populism.

EU nations have shown little appetite for taking further economic sanctions against Russia.
The partnership forged between the University of North Georgia (UNG) and Junior Achievement (JA) of Georgia years ago has grown stronger in the past year as both institutions committed to building a brick-and-mortar Career Exploration Center inside the newly constructed Mike and Lynn Cottrell JA Discovery Center at North Georgia.

The community will see their collaborative efforts, along with many other businesses and agencies, at the grand opening of the newest JA Discovery Center, set for Thursday, Aug. 23, at 1100 Lanier 400 Parkway, in Cumming, Georgia.

"We felt that we could have the biggest impact on middle-school students by sponsoring the career center to give students the opportunity to explore different career options and the education programs available at UNG to help them to reach that career goal," said Dr. Richard Oates, vice president of UNG's Gainesville Campus.

Oates, who is on the JA Discovery Center advisory board, is anticipating the grand opening event, which is by invitation only. However, he is looking forward to the first time sixth- and eighth-graders step inside the center to take advantage of the experiential learning environment.

"They get to apply the concepts and ideas that they have talked about in the classroom," he said. "That's where education comes to life."

Lee Highsmith, executive director of the North Georgia District of JA of Georgia, said the center will serve 15,000-plus middle-school students from Forsyth, Hall, Lumpkin, and Dawson counties, along with students from the cities of Gainesville and Calhoun, Georgia.

In the center, sixth-graders will participate in JA BizTown, which teaches the students about running a business. Eighth-graders will participate in JA Finance Park, which teaches them about personal financial literacy. Before they arrive, students will perform in-class lessons to prepare them, followed by a half-day simulation at the center.

UNG's Career Exploration Center will welcome students with its interactive board at the center's entrance. Using an iPad or a computer tablet, students will hold the device over a picture and a person with connections to UNG appears on the screen to talk about a specific career pathway such as nursing, business or one of 15 others.

"It's an augmented reality experience," Highsmith said. "Students can ask questions and get answers from UNG students, faculty, staff, or alumni."

Oates said the interactive Career Exploration Center encourages the students to ponder their future.

"It gets students thinking about 'What can I do after high school?'" he said, adding the career center is accessible to all. "It will be constantly accessible when the center is open. Students, parents and adults can explore the options UNG has."

Oates and Highsmith said this partnership is one of many future collaborations. Both are hopeful to utilize the JA Discovery Center to suit arising needs, especially since it is across the street from UNG's Cumming Campus.

"We hope to have several students, faculty and alumni from UNG volunteer here," Highsmith said.

Oates agreed, saying it would provide the ideal outreach effort for UNG to the Cumming and Forsyth County community.

"These volunteer opportunities are encouraged, because it gives us a chance to interact with the community," he said. "We can ask them 'What can we do to improve the community and create a better workforce? Because we want them to think of UNG as their university."

Jason Pruitt, executive director of UNG's Cumming Campus, said he is working with Junior Achievement's director of volunteer partnerships to create a process allowing UNG faculty, staff and students to sign up to volunteer.

Sponsored by lead investors Mike and Lynn Cottrell, the JA Discovery Center is attached to the Alliance Academy for Innovation. The newest magnet school in Forsyth County has partnered with UNG to allow students access to the university's programs and dual-enrollment option.

The JA Discovery Center also will be an integral facility for the Cumming Campus as it continues to grow. Highsmith explained the center has a classroom and conference room space available to UNG.

Oates said he also could envision UNG students participating in a modified version of the JA Finance Park experience, which is similar to the personal finance simulation by UNG's Student Money Management Center.

"We look forward to expanding the opportunities, because I don't think we have yet begun to realize the potential of this symbiotic relationship of the center being there," Oates said.
When most of us think about disasters involving ships, we think about the Titanic or the U.S.S Indianapolis. We know the Titanic struck an iceberg and a Japanese submarine sank the Indianapolis. Fortunately, both misfortunes had survivors who provided details about their doomed vessels.

But what happens when a ship is found floating in the ocean with no surviving crew or any documents to confirm the ships existence? So let me tell you about a ghost ship you have probably never heard of until now.

This is the legend of the S.S. Ourang Medan. Many years ago, several British and Dutch outposts received an S.O.S.

from a Dutch Freightliner called the S.S. Ourang Medan, which was sailing through the Straits of Malacca. The message was simple:

All officers including captain are dead, lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead.

Then a final transmissionI die.

The Silver Star ship attempts a rescue

The Silver Star, an American ship was closest to the Ourang Medan. The captain agreed to find the Ourang Medan and offer help. Upon finding the ship, crew members of the Silver Star called out to the disabled ship. No one responded. The ship was silent. It didnt appear that anyone was on the ship.

A rescue crew from the Silver Star boarded the Ourang Medan to investigate. What the crew saw next would become one of the strangest unsolved mysteries of our time.

Including the ship's captain, the entire crew was dead. Corpses littered the ship. The sailor who sent the SOS was also found dead with his finger on the telegraph. Even the ships dog didnt survive.

The crew looked as if something had terrified them to death. Their eyeballs bulged from the sockets and their mouths were wide open as if they tried to release a final scream.

Discuss this news on Eunomia

Many of the bodies also had outstretched arms as if they were trying to grab something.

Survivors attached a line to the Ourang Medan to tow it. Moments after the rescue crew had returned to the Silver Star, smoke billowed from the lower part of the Ourang Medan. With minutes to spare, the Silver Star crew cut the towline. The Ourang Medan exploded and sank to the bottom of the ocean.

The explosion led to one of the strangest unsolved mysteries of our time.

Conspiracy theorists believe several countries worked together to cover up the Ourang Medan incident. For instance, this story happened in either June 1947 or February 1948. No one is sure when. And then the Coast Guard didnt report the Ourang Medan story until May 1954. However, there were earlier references in newspapers but they withheld information.

Its believed the Ourang Medan was transporting a top-secret chemical weapon

Historians and conspiracy theorists have researched this incident extensively. Basically, the mystery ship never existed because there isnt any proof of its existence. And the logs of the Silver Star omit any records of the attempted rescue.

No crew members of the Silver Star ever shared any relevant information with the media. So if the Ourang Medan never existed, then why did the Coast Guard reference the story in 1954? And then the CIA in 1959? For a ship that never existed, it has been the subject of many unanswered questions.

Other theories are that either pirates or aliens killed the ship's crew. I have even seen carbon monoxide poisoning or some other chemical poisoning listed as the killer. But if true, wouldnt the crew from the Silver Star have also been poisoned? Another oddity was that crew members of the Silver Star said they felt cold chills aboard the Ourang Medan. Cold chills on a day with a temperature over 100 degrees? This is another mystery that will stay unsolved. Answers to any questions about the ship's crew rest somewhere on the bottom of the Straits of Malacca.
President Donald Trump has said he is worried he might face perjury charges if he gives statements under oath to the investigation into Russia's alleged role in his election victory. He told Reuters news agency he feared any "discrepancies" between his account and others could be used against him.

Trump renewed his attacks on Mueller in one of his regular morning tweet-storms. He described the former FBI director as disgraced and discredited and repeated claims that the investigation was a Rigged Witch Hunt while calling it a National Disgrace.

Disgraced and discredited Bob Mueller and his whole group of Angry Democrat Thugs spent over 30 hours with the White House Councel, only with my approval, for purposes of transparency. Anybody needing that much time when they know there is no Russian Collusion is just someone....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2018

McGahn was questioned

On the other hand, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, has cooperated extensively in the special counsel investigation, sharing detailed accounts about the episodes at the heart of the inquiry into whether President Trump obstructed justice.

McGahns cooperation is historically unique because President Trump waived both executive privilege and attorney-client privilege.

President Trump was so confident of his innocence that he waived both of these protections to allow the Special Counsel to thoroughly question the White House attorney.

Trump says he could run Mueller probe

Donald Trump also said that he could run a probe into the special counsels Russia investigation if he wanted to, but that he had decided to stay out for now.

Discuss this news on Eunomia

Trumps comments to Reuters come as jurors continue to deliberate charges against one of his former campaign managers, Paul Manafort, who is facing charges of bank and tax fraud.

Calls for Congress to step in will no doubt grow larger in the wake of Mr. Trump's latest comments on Twitter. The president went as far as claiming Mr.

Mueller and his team are a national disgrace who are looking to impact November's crucial midterm elections. In the interview, Trump also blamed the investigation for hampering his efforts to strengthen the countrys relationship with Russia and for sowing discord among the American public.

Trump did not say whether he would ultimately agree to be interviewed by Mueller. Trumps legal team, led by Rudy Giuliani, expressed reservations about allowing their client to sit down with the veteran prosecutor. However, they continue to negotiate with Muellers team over whether and how investigators can question Trump about possible obstruction of justice in the Russian investigation.

Check out this space for more interesting updates on Mueller inquiry.
An award-winning journalist whose reporting on racial segregation in housing and schools has received wide acclaim will speak this Sunday for an annual Virginia Tech address to kick off the school year.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, an investigative reporter who covers racial injustice for the New York Times Magazine, will give the Aims of Education address on Aug. 26 at 2 p.m. at the Lyric Theatre in downtown Blacksburg. The event is organized by the Residential College at West Ambler Johnston, a community of more than 850 Virginia Tech students of all years and academic disciplines who live together on campus.

The address is open to the public, and it will conclude with an audience question-and-answer period with Hannah-Jones.

The event, now in its seventh year, is meant to inspire the university community to consider the meaning of education. Past speakers have included Dinaw Mengestu, an Ethiopian novelist who writes about the African diaspora in America, and Arun Gandhi, an author and activist and the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi.

The key ambition of the Aims of Education address is to remind the students that they are here to stretch their minds, said Danna Agmon, faculty principal for the Residential College at West Ambler Johnston and an associate professor of history in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech. They are here to be challenged and learn how to challenge the world around them.

Hannah-Jones brings a unique perspective to Virginia Tech. For much of her journalistic career, she has chronicled ways that U.S. policy is created to maintain racial segregation in education and housing.

From detailing the hunt for a school for her daughter in segregated New York City to chronicling the decades-long failure of the federal government to enforce the 1968 Fair Housing Act, Hannah-Jones sheds light on deeply personal and timely topics, revealing certain inequities.

Her work has been widely recognized with numerous national awards, including the Peabody Award, the George Polk Award, and the 2015 Journalist of the Year for the National Association of Black Journalists. Last year, Hannah-Jones was one of 24 people across the globe chosen as a MacArthur Genius Grant Fellow. She also is writing a book about school segregation, called The Problem We All Live With.

Hannah-Jones helped found the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which aims to increase the ranks, retention, and profile of reporters and editors of color in investigative reporting.

Her reporting demonstrates a profound commitment to justice that I want all of our students to learn from, Agmon said. Her visit is a phenomenal learning opportunity for all of us.

Written by Jenny Kincaid Boone


Physicists have provided strong support for quantum entanglement, the seemingly far-out idea that two particles, no matter how distant from each other in space and time, can be inextricably linked, in a way that defies the rules of classical physics.



Take, for instance, two particles sitting on opposite edges of the universe. If they are truly entangled, then according to the theory of quantum mechanics their physical properties should be related in such a way that any measurement made on one particle should instantly convey information about any future measurement outcome of the other particle -- correlations that Einstein skeptically saw as "spooky action at a distance."

In the 1960s, the physicist John Bell calculated a theoretical limit beyond which such correlations must have a quantum, rather than a classical, explanation.

But what if such correlations were the result not of quantum entanglement, but of some other hidden, classical explanation? Such "what-ifs" are known to physicists as loopholes to tests of Bell's inequality, the most stubborn of which is the "freedom-of-choice" loophole: the possibility that some hidden, classical variable may influence the measurement that an experimenter chooses to perform on an entangled particle, making the outcome look quantumly correlated when in fact it isn't.

Last February, the MIT team and their colleagues significantly constrained the freedom-of-choice loophole, by using 600-year-old starlight to decide what properties of two entangled photons to measure. Their experiment proved that, if a classical mechanism caused the correlations they observed, it would have to have been set in motion more than 600 years ago, before the stars' light was first emitted and long before the actual experiment was even conceived.

Now, in a paper published today in Physical Review Letters, the same team has vastly extended the case for quantum entanglement and further restricted the options for the freedom-of-choice loophole. The researchers used distant quasars, one of which emitted its light 7.8 billion years ago and the other 12.2 billion years ago, to determine the measurements to be made on pairs of entangled photons. They found correlations among more than 30,000 pairs of photons, to a degree that far exceeded the limit that Bell originally calculated for a classically based mechanism.

"If some conspiracy is happening to simulate quantum mechanics by a mechanism that is actually classical, that mechanism would have had to begin its operations -- somehow knowing exactly when, where, and how this experiment was going to be done -- at least 7.8 billion years ago. That seems incredibly implausible, so we have very strong evidence that quantum mechanics is the right explanation," says co-author Alan Guth, the Victor F. Weisskopf Professor of Physics at MIT.

"The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, so any alternative mechanism -- different from quantum mechanics -- that might have produced our results by exploiting this loophole would've had to be in place long before even there was a planet Earth, let alone an MIT," adds David Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and professor of physics at MIT. "So we've pushed any alternative explanations back to very early in cosmic history."

Guth and Kaiser's co-authors include Anton Zeilinger and members of his group at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna, as well as physicists at Harvey Mudd College and the University of California at San Diego.

A Decision, Made Billions of Years Ago

In 2014, Kaiser and two members of the current team, Jason Gallicchio and Andrew Friedman, proposed an experiment to produce entangled photons on Earth -- a process that is fairly standard in studies of quantum mechanics. They planned to shoot each member of the entangled pair in opposite directions, toward light detectors that would also make a measurement of each photon using a polarizer. Researchers would measure the polarization, or orientation, of each incoming photon's electric field, by setting the polarizer at various angles and observing whether the photons passed through -- an outcome for each photon that researchers could compare to determine whether the particles showed the hallmark correlations predicted by quantum mechanics.

The team added a unique step to the proposed experiment, which was to use light from ancient, distant astronomical sources, such as stars and quasars, to determine the angle at which to set each respective polarizer. As each entangled photon was in flight, heading toward its detector at the speed of light, researchers would use a telescope located at each detector site to measure the wavelength of a quasar's incoming light. If that light was redder than some reference wavelength, the polarizer would tilt at a certain angle to make a specific measurement of the incoming entangled photon -- a measurement choice that was determined by the quasar. If the quasar's light was bluer than the reference wavelength, the polarizer would tilt at a different angle, performing a different measurement of the entangled photon.

In their previous experiment, the team used small backyard telescopes to measure the light from stars as close as 600 light-years away. In their new study, the researchers used much larger, more powerful telescopes to catch the incoming light from even more ancient, distant astrophysical sources: quasars whose light has been traveling toward the Earth for at least 7.8 billion years -- objects that are incredibly far away and yet are so luminous that their light can be observed from Earth.

Tricky Timing

On Jan. 11, 2018, "the clock had just ticked past midnight local time," as Kaiser recalls, when about a dozen members of the team gathered on a mountaintop in the Canary Islands and began collecting data from two large, 4-meter-wide telescopes: the William Herschel Telescope and the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, both situated on the same mountain and separated by about a kilometer.

One telescope focused on a particular quasar, while the other telescope looked at another quasar in a different patch of the night sky. Meanwhile, researchers at a station located between the two telescopes created pairs of entangled photons and beamed particles from each pair in opposite directions toward each telescope.

In the fraction of a second before each entangled photon reached its detector, the instrumentation determined whether a single photon arriving from the quasar was more red or blue, a measurement that then automatically adjusted the angle of a polarizer that ultimately received and detected the incoming entangled photon.

"The timing is very tricky," Kaiser says. "Everything has to happen within very tight windows, updating every microsecond or so."

Demystifying a Mirage

The researchers ran their experiment twice, each for around 15 minutes and with two different pairs of quasars. For each run, they measured 17,663 and 12,420 pairs of entangled photons, respectively. Within hours of closing the telescope domes and looking through preliminary data, the team could tell there were strong correlations among the photon pairs, beyond the limit that Bell calculated, indicating that the photons were correlated in a quantum-mechanical manner.

Guth led a more detailed analysis to calculate the chance, however slight, that a classical mechanism might have produced the correlations the team observed.

He calculated that, for the best of the two runs, the probability that a mechanism based on classical physics could have achieved the observed correlation was about 10 to the minus 20 -- that is, about one part in one hundred billion billion, "outrageously small," Guth says. For comparison, researchers have estimated the probability that the discovery of the Higgs boson was just a chance fluke to be about one in a billion.

"We certainly made it unbelievably implausible that a local realistic theory could be underlying the physics of the universe," Guth says.

And yet, there is still a small opening for the freedom-of-choice loophole. To limit it even further, the team is entertaining ideas of looking even further back in time, to use sources such as cosmic microwave background photons that were emitted as leftover radiation immediately following the Big Bang, though such experiments would present a host of new technical challenges.

"It is fun to think about new types of experiments we can design in the future, but for now, we are very pleased that we were able to address this particular loophole so dramatically. Our experiment with quasars puts extremely tight constraints on various alternatives to quantum mechanics. As strange as quantum mechanics may seem, it continues to match every experimental test we can devise," Kaiser says.

Reference: "Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars," Dominik Rauch et al., 2018 Aug. 20, Physical Review Letters [https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.080403, preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.06985]. This research was supported in part by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Austrian Science Fund, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy.



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MEEDER, Okla.  Police rescued an emaciated 15-year-old male, JJ, from an Oklahoma farm on July 12. It appears that the boys father and stepmother, who have been charged with a number of counts of abuse and neglect, are Pagan.

Prosecutors have made multiple allegations of abuse and neglect. JJ weighed just 80 pounds, and had a scalp wound and several broken bones. Despite a reported well-stocked refrigerator and pantry, JJ allegedly had to forage for his own food . His caretakers only allowed him inside the farmhouse to use the bathroom, according to reports. The boy was forced to sleep in the barn with the farm animals.

Prosecutors also allege that, when doctors examined JJ, they found twigs in his stomach, and shotgun pellets in his leg.

JJ lived on the farm with his father, Jimmy L. Jones Sr., 34, and stepmother, Amy A. Jones, 46, as well as his four-year old half-sister and two stepbrothers, Jonathan Plank, 20, and Tyler Adkins, 24. Reports say that all five appeared healthy and well-fed, as did the farm animals.

When news broke, some regional papers reported on how the story was playing out on social media.

Several local people found Amy Jones Facebook profile. According to press reports, she posted at the top of her Facebook page, Always believe in majik. I am proud to be a Wiccan. Some amount of vitriol ensued in comments to her posts.

This reporter was unable to locate Amy Jones Facebook profile, but did locate Jimmie Jones. It shows that he has liked 30-plus Pagan Facebook pages.

Police have placed JJ and his half-sister in protective custody. At press time, JJ has been in the hospital for over a month. Assistant District Attorney Adam Panter reported, Doctors stated that he was likely going to die within a week if he had not been found.

Panter has charged the four adults with varying counts of child abuse and neglect.

Background

A passerby saw JJ in the field outside the home, eating berries; he appeared emaciated. The passerby notified authorities of suspected child abuse. A neighbor, Zach Guy, reported that he had seen JJ but thought he was just a scrawny eight-year-old.

A female neighbor told a reporter for the Oklahoman that she had known the Jones family for over 20 years, but did not describe them as friends. Neighbor X did not give her name. She said that Amy Jones still lived in the house in which she had grown up, and made her living breeding, raising, and selling Arabian horses.

Neighbor X estimated that Amy Jones currently had 15 to 20 Arabian horses on the property. She described the Jones home as gorgeous.

Neighbor X also reported that about 10 years ago Jimmy and Amy Jones had married. Amy Jones had two sons, Adkins and Plank, by previous marriages, while JJ is Jimmie Jones son. The four-year-old girl is the couples child. Neighbor X could not fathom the charges of abuse; her perception was that they spoiled their children.

About four years ago, Neighbor X overheard the Joneses talking about having problems with JJ. Neighbor X reported that she had last seen JJ two years ago. At that time, he appeared healthy and normal. Her last sighting of the boy is consistent with other factors. Two years ago, the parents pulled JJ out of school and began to home-school him. Prosecutors allege JJ was not allowed to leave the Jones farm since he began home school.

Neighbor X reported that most people in Meeker did not know the Jones family, as they kept to themselves. Meeker, population 1,145, forms part of the Oklahoma metropolitan area.

Local papers reported that the father worked as a prison guard from November, 2017 to July 11, 2018, one day prior to JJs rescue.

Analysis of media coverage

The Wild Hunt found 27 online news stories on line about this case. Of those articles only two mentioned Wicca.

The first article quoted Assistant District Attorney Panter denying that Wicca had anything to do with this case. That article quoted Wiccan high priestess Emmah Eastwind. The paper devoted four paragraphs to her response. Eastwind stressed the common Wiccan belief that all magical actions return to the magician threefold.

The second article reported that Wicca is a religion associated with pagan beliefs, magic, nature worship and witchcraft. Prosecutors at this point dont believe the religion played a part in the abuse.

Fox News Oklahoma and Fox News national also reported on this story. Neither story mentioned anything about Wicca.

Those 27 stories contained 10,770 words, only 77 of which  0.71 percent  expressed negative attitudes towards Wicca. In contrast 249 words, or 2.3 percent, of all words in these stories expressed neutral or positive attitudes towards Wicca.

Local law enforcement denied any links between this case and Wiccan beliefs. The local media of a small town in the Bible Belt discussed Wicca in a respectful and honest way. They downplayed prejudice and fear in an emotionally charged case.

Current status of the case

This case has already resulted in calls to revise Oklahomas home-schooling policy. Stacy McNeiland of the Care Center has charged that Oklahoma fails to provide any monitoring of home-schooling. Advocates with the Coalition of Responsible Home Education alleged that Oklahoma has had 13 other known cases of serious or fatal child abuse among home-schooled children.

District Attorney Panter said that JJ was recovering but would remain hospitalized for a few more weeks.

Jimmy Jones is charged with felony child neglect and child abuse by injury. Amy Jones is charged with enabling child abuse and permitting the willful abuse of a child. JJs two stepbrothers, Jonathan Plank and Tyler Adkins, are charged with child neglect.

All four adults are out on bond. Preliminary hearings are scheduled for October.
The eagle-eyed among you will immediately notice that there havent been any blogs from the Rainforest team for more than three years. For this we can only apologise! After the brief suspension of activities in Gola during the Ebola outbreak that started in 2014, our work resumed in full in the summer of 2015 and the team has been busy getting back on track ever since.

Over the next few months, well be sharing the latest developments and newest streams of our Rainforest work with you, but for now, heres a little taster of some of the exciting activities that we have been developing in Gola.

Candid Camera

The field team have been working hard as ever using a variety of techniques to monitor all the different species in Gola. Camera traps are proving a particularly useful tool in the dense forest habitat.

This chimpanzee certainly isn't camera-shy!

Through funding from our partners at Zoo Basel, we have been able to invest in more cameras which this year will be used to establish the areas of forest most important for those ever-elusive pygmy hippos.

Focusing on Forest Communities

The GolaMA project in Liberia has been progressing nicely, working with the Government and local communities to sustainably manage community forest areas in ways that not only enhance their value for biodiversity but also help improve the wellbeing of the people who rely on the forest for their livelihoods.

'Lead Beekeeper' from the GolaMA project with one of his beehives.

This project is now complemented by the USAID funded WABiCC (West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change) project, which is working across both Liberia and Sierra Leone. The WABiCC project is also looking at forest friendly ways of improving community livelihoods. This approach simultaneously benefits communities, supports biodiversity, and increases forest cover in the remaining unprotected forest areas in the Greater Gola Landscape.

Going Green with Gola Cocoa

One of the priority livelihoods projects has been cocoa farming. Cocoa is a commodity that can be grown sustainably within the existing forest habitat, thus providing valuable income for farmers without the need for clearing forest. A Green Cocoa feasibility assessment is currently underway in Liberia, and in Sierra Leone the Gola Cocoa Project is already well under development with almost 40 tonnes of forest-friendly Gola Rainforest Cocoa having already been sold into the international market.

Gola cocoa farmers showing off their cocoa pods

The RSPB has also purchased some of the cocoa and we will be launching our own Gola Rainforest Cocoa chocolate bars in early 2019! Keep an eye on our blogs for the launch and where to buy so you dont miss your chance to taste this special chocolate, that protects forests and empowers people, for yourself.

Gola Rainforest Chocolate Samples

Landscape-scale conservation in action

With all the projects combined, the Gola partnerships in Sierra Leone and Liberia are now working collaboratively to protect neighbouring blocks of forest habitat amounting to around 400,000ha in area.

Greater Gola Landscape project areas

Theres so much more as well, from ground-breaking research on the Gola malimbe and white-necked picathartes, to Gola Rainforest National Park becoming the first certified REDD+ project in West Africa, showing Sierra Leones commitment to climate change mitigation and adaptation.

We are looking forward to sharing all our stories with you, so watch this space! And dont forget you can follow Gola Rainforest on Twitter @golarainforest.
Alaska and Wyoming hold primaries on Tuesday. Polls close at 7:00 PM Mountain Time (9:00 PM Eastern) in Wyoming, with Alaska polls following at 8:00 PM local time (midnight Eastern for most of the state). Wyoming has a Senate election, while both states have primaries for gubernatorial elections and their single, at-large congressional district.

Mostly Useless Trivia: Alaska and Wyoming are the largest and 3rd largest states by area, and thus their single congressional districts are two of the three largest in the country. The combined area of these two districts is about 669,000 sq. miles. This is larger than the combined land area of the smallest 334* districts.

An overview of the races follows. Live results will be available after the polls close; reload this page for the latest.

Wyoming Primaries

Live there and not sure where to vote? Look up your polling place.

Wyoming Gubernatorial Primaries

Incumbent Gov. Matt Mead cannot run for a third term. The GOP primary looks like the most interesting race of the day here, both for its competitiveness and the fact that the winner will almost certainly be the next governor of this deep red state. There are six candidates on the ballot. Limited polling indicates a tight three-way race between Wyoming State Treasurer Mark Gordon, Businessman Foster Friess and attorney Harriet Hageman, all near 20%. Two other candidates, Sam Galeotos and Taylor Haynes are closer to 10%. On Election Day, President Trump tweeted an endorsement of Friess.

Wyoming Senate Primary

Republican Sen. John Barrasso is seeking a third term in 2018. Barrasso is being challenged by a political newcomer, businessman Dave Dodson who has been able to self-fund to get his message out. Another candidate, former Catholic priest Charlie Hardy, dropped out Monday and endorsed Dodson. There's no polling here, so it is unclear how much of a threat Dodson is to the incumbent. Assuming Barrasso prevails, he'll be a heavy favorite against Gary Trauner in November. Trauner is unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Should there be an upset, the race could be a little more interesting. As the AP notes, "Wyoming hasn't had a Democratic U.S. representative since 1978, but Trauner came within half a percentage point of beating Republican Rep. Barbara Cubin in 2006."

Wyoming House Primaries

Republican Liz Cheney is expected to win today and in November.

Alaska Primaries

Live there and not sure where to vote? Look up your polling place.

Alaska Gubernatorial Primaries

The state's independent Gov. Bill Walker is not on the ballot today. His path to reelection has been complicated by the last-minute entry of former Sen. Mark Begich into the Democratic primary. Former State Sen. Mike Dunleavy is expected to win the Republican nomination. This will set up a competitive three-way battle for governor in November; several polls conducted in June gave Dunleavy a small lead.

Alaska House Primaries

Incumbent Don Young - the longest-serving current member of the House - will be seeking a 24th term this November. Democrats are expected to nominate either Alyse Galvin or Dimitri Shein. Galvin is actually an independent who is able to run in the Democratic primary due to a court ruling earlier this year. (A third Democrat, Carol Hafner, has never been to the state.) Regardless of who emerges, Young will be favored for reelection.

* Based on current Pennsylvania district boundaries, which will change as of January, 2019. This might change the number slightly.
NSU football holds off late surge from MSU Moorhead to win 33-27 on the road

Northern State kept their playoff hopes alive on Saturday, when they defeated MSU Moorhead 33-27 to improve to 3-1 in the NSIC North Division.
The SunZia Southwest Transmission Project is appealing directly to the five-member state Public Regulation Commission to reject a hearing examiners recommendation to deny location permits to build two high-voltage lines across 320 miles of land in New Mexico.

The project, which would carry up to 3,000 megawatts of renewable energy from central New Mexico to Arizona, underwent a week of public hearings in June on SunZias request for right of way and location permits.

At the hearings, opponents testified against the project because of potentially far-reaching environmental impacts on rangeland and ranches, native vegetation, cultural sites and wetlands that support thousands of migratory birds along the central Rio Grande.

In response, hearing examiner Ashley Schannauer has recommended that commissioners approve SunZias request for 200-foot rights of way around each line but deny location permits until SunZia provides more information on precise placement of transmission infrastructure to better assess environmental impacts. Schannauer also wants SunZia to obtain other pending approvals from federal, state and local agencies to provide more detailed information on the project before re-applying for PRC location permits.

SunZia, however, filed a counter brief on Aug. 10 saying Schannauer wrongly relied on lay opinions that are inadmissible in his recommended decision regarding environmental impacts, rather than use expert testimony from SunZia witnesses and federal reviews of the project, such as the U.S. Bureau of Land Managements environmental impact statement that paved the way for BLM right-of-way approval for SunZia in 2015.

SunZia said pending permits from other agencies  including the State Land Office, the Army Corp. of Engineers and BLM approval to alter some rights of way  are not prerequisites for the PRC to approve its permits. Other projects, such as a 240-mile Southland Transmission Project in southern New Mexico, received PRC approval on condition that developers submit final permits from other agencies to the commission before beginning construction.

There is no legal basis to treat SunZia differently, SunZia said.

A SunZia proposal to retain a 1,000-foot corridor around its transmission lines for developers to alter locations slightly if necessary during construction also led to confusion during the hearings, SunZia said. Some intervenors mistakenly believe SunZia is seeking more than 200-foot rights of way around its lines, and the issue may have influenced Schannauers recommendation for more precise definition of line locations before approving permits.

To ease those concerns, SunZia now wants commissioners to only approve location permits for its first line, allowing it to re-apply for the second line at a later date.

Given the complexity of the issues, commissioners voted last week to postpone a final decision on SunZia until late September.

We needed more time for discovery, said Commissioner Valerie Espinoza. Its a complicated caseand we have a lot to consider and contemplate because this project will have long-term impacts.
The Expedition 56 crew members explored using algorithms to remotely control a robot on the ground and satellites from the International Space Station today.

The orbital residents are also cleaning up after a Russian spacewalk while preparing for a pair of upcoming U.S. spacewalks and a Japanese cargo mission.

Astronaut Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency is testing the ability to control a robot on a planetary surface from an orbiting spacecraft. The study seeks to bolster the success and safety of future space missions with astronauts and robots sharing decision-making responsibilities.

Commander Drew Feustel joined Flight Engineer Ricky Arnold in the Japanese Kibo lab module monitoring a pair of tiny internal satellites, also known as SPHERES. They are evaluating an algorithm that controls the operation of the SPHERES in formation using six degrees of freedom.

Cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Prokopyev are cleaning up after Wednesday's spacewalk enabling new science outside of the space station. The two dried out their Russian Orlan spacesuits and water feed lines then began stowing spacewalk tools and gear.

At the end of the day, Gerst started charging U.S. spacesuit batteries ahead of two maintenance spacewalks planned for Sept. 20 and 26. Gerst and fellow spacewalkers Feustel and Arnold will replace batteries on the Port 4 truss structure's power channels. The Japanese "Kounotori" HTV-7 cargo ship is targeted to deliver the new batteries ahead of the two spacewalks on Sept. 14.

On-Orbit Status Report

SUPVIS-JUSTIN: The crew set up and performed protocol operations for ESA's SUPVIS-Justin investigation today. SUPVIS-Justin, part of the Meteron program, aims to demonstrate that an astronaut on an orbiting space station can command a robot via a tablet PC to perform complex tasks on a planetary surface. The SUPVIS-Justin experiment includes an extended supervised autonomy concept: the crew gives high-level commands to the robot, which then uses its local intelligence and decision-making capability to execute a task independently, according to pre-programmed algorithms. In this sense, the responsibility of decision-making is shared between the crew and the robot.

Manufacturing Device Granular Damping: The crew assembled the hardware for Manufacturing Device Granular Damping this morning. The Granular Damping experiment displays the damping mechanism of granular material, which can be made more effectively in microgravity than on ground. For this demonstration, three-dimensional printed granular shells were produced on-orbit. Small particles (granules) are packed inside a larger shell (damper) that is either spherical or cylindrical. The experiment demonstrates how the different amount of filling material affects the amount of dissipation upon collision, using shells of spherical and cylindrical forms filled with different amounts of granules.

Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) ReSwarm: The crew performed the inaugural run for the SPHERES ReSwarm investigation today. This run will be used to evaluate the six-degrees of freedom (dof) performance of a swarm control algorithm that distinguishes the tasks of formation keeping and governance; provide an initial evaluation of the integration and performance of a more advanced formation controller to adapt formation planning to model uncertainties; and evaluate the robustness of the algorithms for six-dof dynamics, being an evaluation of scalability to a large number of agents easily achievable in a ground setting. Swarms of small spacecraft are expected to become feasible in the near future, creating a new range of capabilities for Earth and space observation missions. The ReSwarm control algorithms are applicable to swarms of small to femto-spacecraft. They scale easily with the formation size and remain applicable to multiple mission scenarios.

Barrios Protein Crystal Growth (PCG): Today the crew used the NanoRacks microscope to take photographs of samples on a Barrios PCG microplate that they removed from the Space Automated Bioproduct Laboratory (SABL). The Barrios PCG investigation focuses on the successful transfer and mixing of different solutions into commercial off-the-shelf multiwell plates.

Binary Colloidal Alloy Test - Cohesive Sediment (BCAT-CS): The crew checked the camera alignment and focus by viewing the latest BCAT images on laptop and then re-set the intervalometer as needed. The BCAT-CS investigation studies the forces between particles that cluster together by using sediments of quartz and clay particles. Conducting the research in the microgravity environment of the ISS makes it possible to separate the forces acting on the particles over a short range (adhesive forces) versus those acting over a long range (cohesive forces). The quartz/clay system is commonly found in a wide variety of environmental settings (such as rivers, lakes, and oceans) and plays an important role in technological efforts related to deep-sea hydrocarbon drilling and carbon dioxide sequestration.

Story Time From Space: A crewmember participated in the Story Time from Space project this morning by reading from "If I Were anAstronaut" while being videotaped and photographed. The recording will be downlinked and used for educational purposes. Story Time From Space combines science literacy outreach with simple demonstrations recorded onboard the ISS. Crewmembers read science, technology, engineering and mathematics-related children's books on orbit, and complete simple science concept experiments. Video and data collected during the demonstrations are downlinked to the ground and posted in a video library with accompanying educational materials.

ExtraVehicular Activity (EVA) Battery Charging: The crew configured the lithium-ion battery charger to initiate an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Long Life Battery (LLB) charge Autocycle on two new EMU batteries. These batteries are needed to support the upcoming H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV)-7 Battery R&R EVAs scheduled in September.

Treadmill 2 (T2): T2 rack experienced a false fire alarm this morning during crew use. Activity was stopped. Troubleshooting was attempted and resulted in an additional false fire alarm. T2 is currently NO GO for use. Team is investigating the cause.

Today's Planned Activities:

All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

Payload Control Box (S/N001) Checkout

MWA Preparation for Manufacturing Device Operations

Recycle Tank Drain

Manufacturing Device Granular Damping Assemble

Camcorder deinstallation in MRM2

High Definition Video Camera Assembly 2 Activation in High Definition Mode

Drying Orlan-MKS No.4 and No.5 Water Feed Line

Supvis-Justin Setup for Operations

Story Time Book If I Were an Astronaut Read

Story Time Historical Photo Documentation

Haptics Software Update

Refill of water tank in Orlan-MKS No.4 and No.5

Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Long Life Battery (LLB) Initiate

SUPVIS-JUSTIN Protocol Operation

Photo/TV EVA GOPRO Card Transfer - RS CREW

Photo/TV EVA GoPRO Stow

Drying Orlan-MKS No.4 and No.5, start

NanoRacks Barrios PCG Sample Removal from SABL

Surface Tension Containment Data Transfer

Post-EVA Orlan Debrief With Specialists

NanoRacks Barrios Protein Crystal Growth Microscope Ops

Post-EVA Glisser-M cameras Ops.

Haptics Operations Conclude

High Definition Video Camera Assembly 2 Switch to SD Mode

Drying Orlan-MKS No.4 and No.5 (switchover to a backup fan)

Binary Colloidal Alloy Test - Cohesive Sedimentation Camera Activities

Wastewater Storage Tank Assembly (WSTA) Fill

SPHERES Crew Conference

Battery Charge Deactivation for MetabolicSpace

Charging of Light Field Camera

SPHERES Test Session Setup

Removal of Portable Repress Tank in SM [] and stowage in MRM2 ()

Combustion Integrated Rack FOMA Calibration Valve Open

SPHERES Reswarm Run

 maintenance

Preparation of HRM Bluetooth Transmitter for Spacetex-2 experiment

Drying Orlan-MKS No.4, No.5 end

Orlan No.4 and  storage mode operation

Orlan No.5 Storage Mode Operation

RESTOW 1.0 CTB and PWD Filter

Ultrasound 2 HRF Rack 1 Setup And Power On Alternate

US Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Tools Stow

Orlan Equipment pre-pack for stowage and disposal after EVA

Health Maintenance System (HMS) Ultrasound 2 Scan

 1 outage

MELFI3 2 Icebrick Insertion

Ultrasound 2 HRF Rack 1 Stow Alternate

INTERACTION-2. Experiment Ops

Sextant Navigation Session 3 Operations [Deferred]

ISS Food Intake Tracker (ISS FIT)

SPHERES Test Session Shutdown

Inventory Management System (IMS) Conference

Completed Task List Activities:

None

Ground Activities:

All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

Routine commanding

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Saturday, 08/18: Weekly Housekeeping, Crew Off Duty

Sunday, 08/19: Crew Off Duty

Monday, 08/20: JSSOD/MPEP removal, DESIS install, CIR Valve Timer, ACE-T2 config, BPC, Cobalt Brick teardown, BEST, LLB Ops, METEOR HD swap, PGT TAK, ZeroG Battery test, Metabolic Space/SpaceTEX2, ESA EPO Granular Damping

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status

Elektron - Off

Vozdukh - Manual

[] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - Off

[] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - On

Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Operate

Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Standby

Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Operate

Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Idle

Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Process

Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Process

Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Full Up

Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Off

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WASHINGTON  President Donald Trumps personal attorney says he wasnt trying to make an existential point about the meaning of veracity when he declared truth isnt truth.

Rudy Giulianis puzzling statement on NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday, following one by another Trump aide last year about alternative facts, suggested that people in Trumps orbit might be denying the existence of reality.

Giuliani says his intent was more mundane: to make the case that having Trump sit down for an interview with special counsel Robert Muellers team wouldnt accomplish much because of the conflicting nature of witnesses recollections.

My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology, he tweeted, but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic he said, she said puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesnt.

Giuliani had told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd that Trump might get trapped into perjury if he were interviewed by the special counsels Russia investigation. You tell me that, you know, he should testify because hes going to tell the truth and he shouldnt worry, well, thats so silly because its somebodys version of the truth. Not the truth.

When Todd replied: Truth is truth, Giuliani responded: No, it isnt truth. Truth isnt truth.
Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

Standing before hundreds of business leaders, Republican Steve Pearce and Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham clashed Monday over whether right-to-work legislation banning compulsory union fees should be part of New Mexicos economic development strategy.

The two gubernatorial candidates  both of whom are giving up safe seats in Congress  also sparred over whether the Republican tax cuts passed last year are promoting economic growth in the country.

But Pearce and Lujan Grisham also treated each other with respect and avoided personal jabs. They hugged after the one-hour forum, sponsored by a coalition of 21 real estate, construction and business groups.

Responding to a question, Pearce said right-to-work legislation passed in other states has helped them recruit new companies. And businesses considering a move to New Mexico, he said, are targeting counties that have adopted similar ordinances.

Right-to-work simply means we give the workers choice, Pearce said in a packed ballroom at the Albuquerque Marriott.

Lujan Grisham, in turn, said she absolutely disagrees, describing the legislation as one of the most divisive partisan issues, not just in our state, but in the country. She then switched gears and used much of her time for the right-to-work question to speak about the need for an overhaul of the state tax system.

The New Mexico Legislature, where Democrats hold majorities in both chambers, has repeatedly rejected proposals that would end the practice of allowing union fees to be required as a condition of employment in unionized workplaces. But some counties have taken up the issue themselves and passed local ordinances.

Lujan Grisham and Pearce are competing in the Nov. 6 election to succeed Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, who cannot run this year because of term limits.

Mondays forum focused on the economy and business issues. About 520 people attended, including business leaders and elected officials.

The sponsors of the event crafted the questions, and Journal Senior Editor Kent Walz served as moderator. Art Tatum, representing NAIOP, the commercial real estate development association, welcomed the audience and started the program with announcements.

It was the first forum for Lujan Grisham and Pearce since the primary election in June.

Lujan Grisham and Pearce each pitched themselves as leaders who would seek bipartisan solutions to improve the economy. The unemployment rate in New Mexico fell to 4.7 percent in July, but its still among the highest in the country. Only four states and Washington, D.C., had higher unemployment rates, according to figures released this month.

Pearce, who owned an oil field services company in Hobbs, said he grew up in poverty and understands firsthand the dignity that comes with working hard to succeed. The state, he said, needs to reduce unnecessary regulation, train high school graduates for jobs and make other changes to improve the economic environment.

New Mexico has an extremely hostile attitude toward businesses, Pearce said.

He also floated the idea of toll roads in the southeastern part of the state to help handle industrial traffic triggered by the oil boom. Non-toll roads would remain to handle local, non-industrial traffic.

Lujan Grisham, a former state Cabinet secretary and health care consultant, described herself as an engaged leader who has the experience to cut through bureaucracy. She said she would pursue changes to the states procurement code to help local companies win state contracts, and she vowed to support construction of a new University of New Mexico hospital to provide more beds for patients who need them.

Today we need a leader whos tough, tenacious and pragmatic, Lujan Grisham said.

The candidates disagreed over the tax cuts backed by President Donald Trump and passed by Congress last year.

Lujan Grisham described the cuts as irresponsible. Pearce said the cuts had resulted in a growing, dynamic economy.

They also offered different philosophies on minimum wage ordinances and requirements for employers to provide paid sick leave.

Pearce suggested allowing young people to start working at less than the minimum wage, saying hed started work at just 9 years old. Lujan Grisham, in turn, said the lack of paid time off can force young workers to seek jobs outside the state.

They concluded the forum on friendly terms.

Pearce praised Lujan Grishams willingness to run and her public service. She clapped after his closing remarks, and initiated the hug instead of shaking hands.
Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

Former state Sen. Phil Griego, whose long political career ended in 2015 under the cloud of a public corruption scandal, was sentenced Monday to an additional year in prison after pleading guilty to charges of pocketing money from his campaign account.

The ex-lawmaker is already in prison after being convicted last year of separate charges. He appeared in court in Downtown Albuquerque in an orange prison jumpsuit and handcuffs  a far cry from his usual suit and cowboy hat attire.

District Judge Brett Loveless signed off on the plea deal prosecutors reached with Griegos attorney and then imposed an additional year of prison time, which will be served after his current sentence ends later this year.

Mr. Griego was trying to use the rules for his own financial benefit, said Loveless, who said Griegos acts had also undercut public trust in government.

Attorney General Hector Balderas office had asked the judge to impose an additional 18-month sentence on Griego, while the ex-lawmakers attorney had asked the judge to suspend the sentence.

The state has already taken its pound of flesh, said attorney Tom Clark, who suggested the Attorney Generals Office was seeking a stiffer sentence for Griego than it would have for an ordinary defendant.

He also said Griego would likely end up serving only six months of the additional sentence under day-for-day good time incentives. That could put his release date at sometime in May.

Griego, 70, a Democrat from rural San Miguel County, was sentenced in February to 18 months in prison and more than $47,000 in fines after being convicted of fraud, bribery and other corruption-related charges.

He is incarcerated at the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility in Los Lunas, which has special units for elderly inmates and those in poor health.

Griegos son died while he was in state custody, and his wife testified Monday that the ex-lawmaker decided not to attend the funeral service because he did not want to cause a spectacle.

All we want is for this nightmare to end and for us to spend what time we have left together, a tearful Janie Griego told the judge.

But prosecutors said Griego has never shown real remorse for his crimes, while describing the newer charges as proof of a calculated pattern of nefarious conduct.

None of these crimes occurred in a vacuum, said Assistant Attorney General Zach Jones. He is singularly motivated by his own financial self-interest.

The charges of perjury and embezzlement that Griego pleaded guilty to stem from his allegedly pocketing money from his campaign account and lying about it on campaign finance reports that are required by state law to be filed periodically by candidates.

Specifically, Griego is accused of improperly pocketing roughly $9,137 in campaign funds from 2012 through 2014 and lying about it repeatedly on the mandatory reports. In at least one instance, the AGs Office believes, Griego got money from his campaign account by setting up a political committee to serve as a slush fund of sorts.

Meanwhile, another misdemeanor charge alleges he spent $1,400 in campaign funds on vehicle maintenance  five months after he resigned from the Senate.

As part of the judges order, Griego will have to repay the money in question, along with $2,500 in fines.

The Attorney Generals Office had investigated the allegations after receiving a 2016 referral from then-Secretary of State Brad Winter.

During Mondays hearing, the judge asked Griego what advice he would give to aspiring public servants.

Griego said he would tell future lawmakers not to assume they know the rules and to reach out for guidance before acting.

Make sure your constituents are proud of you, and you dont damage your name or your familys name, Griego told the court. Youve got to remember one thing: You dont own that seat.

He also compared prison to a near-death experience, telling the judge: You will never ever see my name or my face  in your courtroom again.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump on Monday offered robust praise of federal immigration officers, touting them as heroes at a White House event aimed at drawing a sharp contrast with Democrats over the enforcement of border control laws.

In a speech, Trump called a crowd of 150 officers and agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection great patriots who have sought to protect the nation against crimes by undocumented immigrants.

The president also denounced Democrats who have called for the abolition of ICE over concerns that the agency has acted recklessly and cruelly in its efforts to round up and deport those living here illegally.

For you having to be demeaned by people who have no idea what strength is is really very sad, Trump said. They have no courage; they have no guts. They just have big, loud mouths. We dont want to put up with that. I just want to know you are loved and respected.

The Salute to the Heroes event was the latest sign that the president is eager to elevate ICE as a campaign issue ahead of the midterm elections. Trump has sought to use calls from a small number of high-profile Democrats to abolish the agency to paint his political rivals as weak on enforcement, which the White House believes will be a potent political message in the fall.

Trump has also blamed Democrats for opposing funding for his border wall as well as proposals to enact deep cuts in legal immigration levels.

Obviously, the president views immigration as a wedge issue that plays to his advantage, said John Sandweg, who served as acting ICE director in the Obama administration.

Sandweg acknowledged that Trumps event could help boost spirits at ICE, which traditionally has reported low morale among rank-and-file agents. But he cautioned that thrusting an agency with 20,000 employees into the political spotlight could make it harder for ICE to be effective, noting that a growing number of cities have limited cooperation with federal immigration operations.

There are lots of folks at ICE and CBP that deserve praise, but this is all designed to be political, Sandweg said. In the long run, it hurts because it further politicizes the issue and the agency itself.

Congressional Democrats predicted that immigration will be a losing issue for Trump, who faced international backlash over his administrations short-lived policy to separate immigrant families at the border this year.

Thats bad for Republicans, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said. On the question of ICE, Menendez said the focus of Democrats is on getting the policy of the president changed because thats always going to be the irritant, the problem here.

The crowd at the White House greeted Trump, Vice President Pence and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen with standing ovations. Ahead of the presidents remarks, a group of state and local officials who share hard-line immigration views, including Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and the attorney general of Alabama, Steve Marshall, participated in a panel discussion.

Perdue said calls to abolish the ICE are downright unpatriotic and treasonous.

Can I just say amen to what the senator said? Marshall added.

ICE is a relatively new federal agency. It was formed as part of a bureaucratic reshuffling when Congress created the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

ICE, and to a lesser extent CBP, have been the targets of fierce criticism for years from immigrant rights groups.

The complaints have intensified under the Trump administration after the president signed an executive action in his first week to broaden the scope of ICEs enforcement efforts, after President Barack Obama had focused operations on criminals and terrorists.

Arrests of immigrants without criminal records has spiked under Trump, although deportations are still lagging behind the peak rates of Obamas tenure.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old who upset Rep. Joseph Crowley of New York, in a primary election in June, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio are among the Democrats who have proposed abolishing the agency.

Other Democrats have resisted that message, calling it simplistic and extreme and suggesting that reforms to the agency would be more prudent.

As he has done consistently, Trump used his remarks Monday to cast undocumented immigrants as dangerous, even though studies have shown that they commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans.

The president hailed Operation Matador, a federal initiative targeting the transnational MS-13 gang on Long Island and in other New York jurisdictions, and he honored the families of four border officers killed on duty between 2008 and 2017.

What you hear in newspapers and on the news is nothing compared to what it really is, Trump said.

In late June, a senior Trump administration official said the Democrats were on a political suicide march over ICE and vowed the president would aggressively engage in the debate.

Trump has embraced ICE in ways past presidents have not.

Thomas Homan, who served as acting ICE director until resigning in the spring, flew with the president on Air Force One last year to join him at an event on Long Island focused on gang violence. Homan also attended the White House event on Monday.

The agency has continued to make headlines over sensational cases that have been highlighted by immigrant rights groups as examples of abuses of power.

Last week, the agency arrested a Los Angeles man who was driving with his wife to the hospital to deliver a baby boy, leading him away in handcuffs.

The case drew national attention after the wife described her ordeal over the weekend. An ICE spokesperson said Saturday that the man, Joel Arrona-Lara is a Mexican national wanted in that country under a warrant issued for homicide charges. The agency said the man is in custody pending removal proceedings.

Sandweg said current and former ICE officials are generally appreciative of Trumps support.

They rolled out the red carpet for ICE, and there is something to be said for morale, he said. But youre doing it in a way that politicizes it. Its going to take years of work to reform ICEs reputation. They could be tarnished forever as a tool of the far right.
Authorities in Wisconsin believe a young woman found dead there in 2008 may have had ties to New Mexico, according to Albuquerque police.

Officer Simon Drobik said forensic testing showed the woman could have been from Albuquerque, or may have traveled through.

Her body was found Nov. 23, 2008, in a secluded and wooded area of Fond du Lac County, Wis.

She is estimated to be between 15 and 21 years old, 110 to 135 pounds, between 4 feet 10 inches and 5 feet 4 inches tall with long light brown or dark blond hair, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She may have been knock kneed or pigeon toed.

She was wearing size 3 light blue jeans and a size small black strapless shirt with a hot pink band and bow.

Anyone with information about her identity is asked to call Crime Stoppers 843-STOP.
Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

An Edgewood man has filed a lawsuit against the city of Albuquerque after he spent 11 months in jail awaiting trial in a double-murder case only to be acquitted.

In a federal lawsuit filed last month, Anthony Kapinski says Albuquerque police deliberately ignored and withheld video footage that would prove his innocence.

Kapinski was charged with two counts of murder after he shot and killed two men in a church parking lot near Carlisle and Montgomery in June 2017, according to court documents. Kapinski was acquitted after a six-day trial in state District Court in April. At trial, his attorney argued hed fired in self-defense after Paul Francia and Jordan Mucher attacked him.

Kapinski alleges in his lawsuit that he attempted to de-escalate things by backing away from the duo. But the men followed him to his car and attacked him.

Because plaintiff was trapped against the car, he had nowhere to run, the lawsuit says. Acting in self-defense, plaintiff picked up a gun in his car and shot both Francia and Mucher with one bullet each, causing their deaths.

Surveillance cameras recorded the entire incident, and the footage, the lawsuit states, unambiguously shows that (Kapinski) withdrew from the argument in an attempt to de-escalate the situation, and that Francia and Mucher then attacked him without provocation.

Kapinski argues that Detective Terra Juarez, who is named as a defendant in the case, had seen that footage, but ignored it when she made the decision to arrest him. Her arrest warrant affidavit, he says, made no reference to the surveillance video. If it had included an accurate description of the video, the affidavit would have lacked probable cause.

Because of Juarezs profoundly illegal and unprofessional decisions to arrest Plaintiff despite having surveillance video that unambiguously exculpated him, to withhold the critical exculpatory evidence from the magistrate issuing the warrant, and to withhold the video from the Grand Jury, (Kapinski) was imprisoned without probable cause for 11 months, Kapinskis attorney, Andrew Indahl, wrote in the lawsuit.

Kapinski is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, and attorneys fees, among other things.

Alicia Manzano, a city spokeswoman, said in a statement that the Legal Department is reviewing the lawsuit about the incident that occurred under the previous administration and will file a response when the review is complete. Gilbert Gallegos, spokesman for APD, did not respond to a request for comment.
Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Veronica Garcia said she believes the state education department is retaliating against her  and her district  after she spoke out against it.

Garcia says the Public Education Department is disparaging her districts school grades because of her public support for a judges blistering, landmark decision that New Mexico is violating the constitutional rights of at-risk students  a lawsuit for which she was a lead witness. And she has also spoken out against PEDs decision to appeal the ruling.

Garcia criticized Secretary-designate Christopher Ruszkowskis comments when he announced school grades last week. Ruszkowski said at the time Santa Fe is the most concerning among the states largest school districts and highlighted 56 percent of Santa Fes schools received either a D or F grade.

Garcia said this is a first.

I have never seen a secretary single out a school district in this manner, she said, calling it an abuse of Ruszkowskis authority.

Garcia, who herself served as state education secretary from 2003 to 2010, pointed to a PARCC proficiency report from last month  before the lawsuit ruling  where PED said Santa Fe was starting to show meaningful academic progress.

She said that directly contradicts last weeks comments by Ruszkowski that Santa Fe was a district in crisis, emphasizing she feels his comments were a result of her stance on the court ruling.

Its too much of a coincidence that earlier in July we are making meaningful academic progress and then I make those comments, school grades come out and Im a district in crisis,  she told the Journal.

When the lawsuit ruling was announced, Garcia had said the case was about basic classroom needs and stressed schools werent asking for bells and whistles.

Ruszkowski sent a statement to the Journal, but didnt directly address Garcias accusations.

The leadership of Santa Fe Public Schools should be asking themselves why the Gadsden Independent School District  which has about the same number of students and schools and a higher percentages of students from low-income backgrounds  is earning better School Grades than SFPS, he wrote.

Garcia told the Journal that she believes Gadsden has had more consistent funding from PED, adding Santa Fe has received sporadic funding for PED programs such as Principals Pursuing Excellence and ultimately feels the state department should still address her concerns.

My issue is not with other schools beating the odds, she said. I feel like they are creating a straw-man argument and not addressing the real issue: that we were singled out.

Garcia also said Ruszkowski hadnt communicated his concern to her before talking to the press about it.

I didnt receive a letter. I didnt receive a phone call that this was coming, she said. I was totally shocked when I saw Santa Fe Public Schools targeted in (PEDs) press release. But she hoped he would have meaningful dialogue with her going forward.

SFPS board president Steven Carrillo also took offense to Ruszkowski singling out Garcia when talking to the media.

To attack Dr. Garcia in that way, given the stature of his office, I think was wholly inappropriate, he said.

Carrillo also said he felt school grades should emphasize proficiency scores more.

Garcia said PEDs unfair and irresponsible comments have been disruptive to the staff and principals, adding it has affected the community, too. She said she is sending parents a letter addressing his comments.

PED said in its statement Monday after Garcias comments that school grades are primarily measuring student growth and not solely proficiency, which is what the PARCC report did. The departments statement said school grades showed Santa Fe is really struggling at growing all children, even while making some important gains in students reading and doing math on grade-level.

Garcia said she doesnt even feel school grades are an accurate measure of how a school is doing and SFPS will continue to focus on other measures, including proficiency, truancy and graduation rates.

But she said she does agree with Ruszkowski on the proficiency report. We are moving in the right direction and making meaningful progress in academic achievement, she told the Journal.

SFPS had 48 percent D and F schools in 2017 and 56 percent this year.

Journal staff writer T.S. Last contributed to this report.
I really was hoping that this administration would (compensate farmers) because they seem to be a lot more friendly toward righting government wrongs, and I have really been disappointed that has not been the case.

 Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye

On Aug. 5, 2015, a team from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency removed a dirt-and-rock plug from the Gold King Mine in southwest Colorado and dumped 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater, laden with more than 880,000 pounds of metals, into Four Corners waterways, including the Animas River. In 2017, government investigators revealed the EPA had no rules for working around old mines.

The EPA under President Barack Obama did accept responsibility for the spill, and Utah is seeking $1.9 billion, the Navajo Nation $162 million and New Mexico $130 million for cleanup costs. Hundreds of Navajo farmers and ranchers filed suit this month seeking compensation for their losses  everything from lost crops to dead livestock. And many residents and companies have filed claims seeking compensation for losses including fouled wells and loss of recreational outfitter income.

Yet the same EPA that took responsibility and encouraged those affected to file claims determined in January 2017 the law would not allow it to pay out. And now the EPA wants a federal court to toss that lawsuit from the states and Navajo Nation seeking repayment of cleanup costs. To date, there has not been claims payment to those affected by the EPAs incompetence.

In other words, too bad, so sad.

It shouldnt be a big surprise to anyone who has followed this orange-sludge drama flowing downstream from D.C.

 In 2016, that same EPA claimed there was no reason to monitor river water quality for more than a year or to make sure its safe for more than recreation. Thats the same EPA that had no rules for working around old mines, then said its folks were up to that one-year monitoring task.

 That same EPA had people filling out claim forms for 16 months to show how the aftermath of a toxic orange stew caused loss of employment, loss of income, loss or damage to property, or other claims, then said it couldnt legally pay.

 That same EPA prompted Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., to introduce legislation in 2016 to help expedite claims for parties injured as a result of the spill (as well as prevent) a clear conflict of interest by allowing the state, instead of the EPA, to carry out a long-term water quality monitoring plan.

 That same EPA prompted Gov. Susana Martinez to observe in 2017 that if a private company had caused this massive environmental disaster, the EPA would have gone all-out to hold them accountable. But when the federal government dumps millions of gallons of toxic sludge into our rivers, they shirk their responsibility and leave it up to the states to mop up the mess they created.

 And that same EPA as recently as last year had its administrator say it would reconsider paying farmers, business owners and tribes for economic losses attributable to the spill. Thats right. Then-administrator Scott Pruitt said just last year, I think the agencys response to the Gold King spill  shirked its response to help compensate claimants that were injured. He then sent letters telling people to resubmit claims because the EPA should be held to the same standard as those we regulate. The previous administration failed those who counted on them to protect the environment.

Yet now it is requesting the court dismiss lawsuits seeking cleanup reimbursement?

So much for the EPA digging out of its hole in public confidence.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
Albuquerque city councilors on Monday confirmed Katy Duhigg as city clerk.

The vote was 8-0, with Councilor Don Harris unable to attend the meeting.

Duhigg will serve as the citys chief records custodian, conduct municipal elections, and manage administrative hearings related to vehicle seizures, animal appeals, handicapped parking and personnel matters.

With more than a decade working to make government more open and responsive, our new city clerk, Katy Duhigg, has the experience to take the clerks office to the next level, Mayor Tim Keller said in a statement released after Mondays vote. Now that Katy Duhigg is confirmed by Council, we will be working together to improve processes that promote transparency at the city.

Duhigg told the Journal that, if confirmed, she would resign duties as vice president of Common Cause New Mexico, a nonpartisan, grass-roots organization dedicated to fair elections, and as a member of the Bernalillo County Code of Conduct Review Board.

She will also resign from positions on the Bernalillo County Valuation Protest Board, and as governance council member and executive board secretary with RFK Charter School.

Duhigg is a graduate of the University of Oregon and the University of New Mexico School of Law. She was born and raised in Albuquerque.

She is managing partner of the Duhigg Law Firm, where she focuses on election law and consumer protection cases.

Katy Duhigg will serve as citys chief records custodian, conduct municipal elections, manage administrative hearings
Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

For the first time in several years, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District is about to run out of water it stores for irrigating farmlands.

David Gensler, water operations manager for the district, said he anticipates the last drops of irrigation water stored in Heron, El Vado and Abiquiu reservoirs in northern New Mexico will be used up by the end of this week. The scheduled end of irrigation season is Oct. 31.

It could be Friday or Saturday. Maybe well coast into Monday, but its coming up fast, he said.

After that, the amount of water the district is able to deliver to the 60,000 acres of cropland it serves in the Middle Rio Grande Valley will depend on rain and how much or how little water is being used upstream on the Rio Chama in Colorado and northern New Mexico.

Running out of stored water isnt the end of the irrigation season, Gensler said. Weve been in this position in the past, and everyone pulls together to make the most of whatever natural flow is available.

Gensler said the district also ran short of water in 2013 and 2014. He said in one of those years, storage water was depleted by Sept. 15 and in the other year, the district did a voluntary stoppage after Labor Day to conserve some water.

The difference this year is that the natural flow is so low, Gensler said. We just hope there will be something to work with.

John Stomp, chief operating officer of the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, said a proposal up for approval at Wednesdays meeting of the authoritys governing board would lease up to 20,000 acre-feet of the authoritys San Juan-Chama water, stored at Abiquiu, to the Bureau of Reclamation for release into the Rio Grande. An acre-foot is the amount of water necessary to cover an acre to a depth of one foot.

The key issue is to keep the Albuquerque stretch of the Rio Grande from going dry, Stomp said. That would help endangered species (such as the silvery minnow) and increase everyones supply.

The conservancy district had 130,000 acre-feet of water in storage at the start of the irrigation season on March 1. But an especially puny snowpack in the mountains, resulting in a next-to-nothing spring runoff, and a severe lack of precipitation between October and July combined to put an exceptional strain on stored waters.

Usually, the conservancy district does not tap into reservoir waters until the summer and early fall. But this year, Gensler said the district was forced to start pulling water out of the reservoirs on about April 29.

Last year, we released our first water about Aug. 15, he said.

Gensler said rains since the monsoon season kicked off in July have helped to some degree, but those rains have been spotty and, combined with continuing high temperatures, made the use of the dwindling supply of stored water necessary.

Its always hard for farmers when they dont have the water when they need it, he said. Maybe corn kernels will not fill out as full this year as they would with one more irrigation, but they will get a harvest and we are grateful for that. The biggest impact will be for farmers planting (winter crops and perennials such as alfalfa) in the fall. We cant guarantee them water.

To make things even more challenging, the combined waters in Elephant Butte Reservoir, five miles north of Truth or Consequences, and Caballo Reservoir, 16 miles south of TorC, dropped to less than 400,000 acre-feet in late May. That triggered Article VII of the Rio Grande Compact, which governs the distribution of water among Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.

According to Article VII, when the water levels at Elephant Butte and Caballo dip below 400,000 acre-feet, the storage of additional waters in upstream reservoirs is prohibited. That means the conservancy district has not been able to replenish water stored in Heron, El Vado and Abiquiu reservoirs since Article VII went into effect.

The situation also means the conservancy district will be delivering what water there is available to the 8,847 acres of land belonging to the six middle Rio Grande Pueblos before it sends water to other irrigators. The pueblos Prior and Paramount water rights are protected by a 1928 act of Congress.

Gensler said the conservancy district has about 6,000 acre-feet of water set aside to help meet its responsibility to the pueblos.

And, then, theres next year.

At the moment, we are looking at starting with nothing (in storage), Gensler said. But you never know what will happen over the winter. We need a good snowpack. We got to have something to work with.
The trotters will own the spotlight at the Hippodrome 3R on Tuesday evening (Aug. 21), as five divisions of the Quebec Series for two and three-year-old trotters are scheduled to face the starter.

The action will begin in Race 3 with the Breeders Cup for three-year-old trotting fillies.

Montanaalaska will be seeking her third consecutive victory and will start from Post 2 for driver Guy Gagnon. The daughter of Angus Hall wired the field in 2:00.2 last week at Rideau Carleton Raceway, and in the second round of the Breeders Cup Series won at H3R in 2:02.4. She is trained by Alain Martin and owned by Michel Grenier of Gatineau.

The colts in the second round of the Breeders Cup Series will get underway in Race 6 where Johnnys Revenge (Post 3) will take on Sir Chopin (Post 1) and Sombre (Post 5).

The second division for colts has been carded as Race 8. SG Goliath King will be looking to extend his two-race winning streak for Sylvain Grenier of Saint-Rene. Grenier not only bred and owns the gelded son of Lucky Fool, but is also the trainer and driver. SG Goliath King has now won three of his last four starts and has finished first or second in his last six starts, the fastest of which was a 2:01.2 performance at H3R. The duo will start from Post 6 and will face off against return winner Yankee Photo (Post 5) and Nobodynojustice (Post 3), all of whom have won prior legs of the series.

The two-year-old trotters will be featured first in the Future Stars Series (Race 4) for the fillies.

A newcomer to H3R will be Kenogami Darling, who will ship in from the Greater Toronto Area off of a very impressive victory at Woodbine Mohawk Park. The daughter of Justice Hall came from off the tempo in a $19,500 Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots contest and won going away by six lengths in 1:59.2. She is trained by Dany Fontaine for breeder Jean Francois of Anjou, who co-owns the filly with Claude Reid of Jonquiere. She will start from Post 6.

Kenogami Darling will be taking on return series winners The Only Somolie (Post 7) and My Lady Hall (Post 5), who is part of an entry with Claudi P V (Post 2).

The Future Stars Series dash for the colts has been carded as Race 9, which will feature a field of nine. The early favourite is trainer/driver Yves Filions Money Hill, who will start from Post 7. The Muscle Hill colt won a qualifier at Woodbine Mohawk Park in 2:00.3, and in his first start (in the Define The World series) he finished fourth and was race-timed in 1:58.4. He was bred and is owned by R L Belanger of Laval.

Money Hill will face off against opening-round winner El Bleu (Post 9) and the Dany Fontaine entry of Only For Justice (Post 1) and Clevisse (Post 8). The latter pair was both bred and are owned by Gaston Bono, Inc. of Montreal.

First-race post time for H3Rs Tuesday program will be at 6:30 p.m.

Anyone wishing to get a free race program can visit quebecjockeyclub.com.

To view the harness racing entries for Tuesday at H3R, click the following link: Tuesday Entries  Hippodrome 3R.

(Quebec Jockey Club)
SANTA FE  The state Attorney Generals Office is getting involved in fighting a judges controversial ruling that allows defendants arrested at a remote Taos County compound  and accused of training children to carry out armed attacks  to get out of jail pending trial.

The Muslim defendants remained behind bars Monday, as finding them a place to stay in Taos area is proving to be difficult.

In response to questions from the Journal, AGs Office spokesman David Carl said in an email that the office is collaborating with the Taos District Attorneys Office related to options to challenge state District Judge Susan Backus order rejecting a prosecutors motion to hold the compound defendants until trial.

Claire C. Welch of the AGs Criminal Appeals Division has filed a request for an audio recording of the Aug. 6 pretrial detention hearing for all five defendants.

The five adults  Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40, Lucas Morton, 40, Hujrah Wahhaj, 37, Subhanah Wahhaj, 35 and Jany Leveille, 35  were charged with 11 counts of child abuse after Taos County deputies and other officers raided the makeshift compound near Amalia on Aug. 3 and found 11 children, ages 1 to 15, who appeared to be malnourished.

The remains of 3-year-old Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj  who was allegedly abducted by his father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, in Georgia in December  were found at the compound three days later. The cause of death has not been determined.

In her Aug. 13 ruling after a four-hour hearing, Backus authorized the defendants release and said prosecutors hadnt met the standard of clear and convincing evidence to prove they would be dangerous if released from jail. The ruling set off a firestorm on social media, and threats against the judge caused the Taos courthouse to close for an afternoon.

Prosecution witnesses testified that children taken into custody from the compound said they were being trained to use the adults guns to shoot up corrupt educational, government and law enforcement institutions that would be identified by the dead boy when he was resurrected as Jesus.

Despite Backus ruling, two of the defendants cant be released for now  Siraj Ibn Wahhaj is being held on a Georgia warrant, and Leveille, who is originally from Haiti, has been taken into custody by federal immigration authorities.

The three remaining defendants are still in jail because they havent found new places to live, part of their conditions of release. Marie Legrand Miller, Hujrah Wahhajs attorney, said Monday that ongoing hostility toward the Muslim defendants and to Judge Backus are factors. It has been (an ongoing issue) since everything blew up after court last week, Legrand Miller said.

But Megan Mitsunaga, Subhanah Wahhajs attorney, said he believes that her client will be safe in Taos County. My impression of a lot of the vitriol she has been exposed to hasnt been from people in Taos, Mitsunaga said. It seems to be mostly from out of state, from what Ive seen.

Michael Weinman, a member of Taos small Muslim community, said Friday that arrangements had been made for a motel room for defendant Lucas Morton, but the motel backed out. He said hes concerned thats going to be the story everywhere in Taos.

He said word had been sent to Taos-area churches to ask if they could help find accommodations.I think helping prisoners is an obligation of all religions, he said.
Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

Albuquerque city councilors on Monday were tasked with an unenviable job.

Like recent meetings on the city and Bernalillo Countys proposed tiny home village project, another large gathering of residents participated in another conversation about the citys homeless challenges.

And after more than two hours of public comment and deliberation, councilors voted 5-3 to award $2 million to St. Martins Hopeworks/YES Housing Inc. for the proposed Hopeworks Village, a 42-unit supportive housing multifamily development for those suffering from behavioral health issues and who are in need of shelter.

Councilors Pat Davis, Trudy Jones and Brad Winter cast dissenting votes. Councilor Don Harris was unable to attend the meeting.

Many spoke supporting the project, with its proposed site near St. Martins Hospitality Center on Third Street NW. Others spoke in opposition, with subjects ranging from negative impacts on area business to neighborhood safety to cost justification.

The Rev. Vincent Chavez, pastor of St. Therese Parish and Catholic School, told councilors that the proposal will not solve this serious issue.

We the residents and businesses of North Downtown, Wells Park and near North Valley are overstressed and are at wits end, Chavez said. None of us, the deprived neighbor or our residents with an actual roof over their heads has a quality of life, security and well-being as long as the homeless issue has no real permanent solution.

St. Martins was the sole bidder on the project, whose scope includes purchasing land and property, planning, designing, constructing and improving a single-site behavioral health services center with associated supportive and transitional affordable housing.

The Department of Family and Community Services issued a notice of award to St. Martins in June and is in negotiations on a development agreement with the project team.

Councilor Isaac Benton, who sponsored the appropriation bill, said the council will consider approval of that development agreement at a later date.

There is a road map before us, Benton said. This is a top priority  this type of project, and no one is saying this is the only project. In fact, given the population, eventually there should be more of these projects. What this project is intended to do is to serve the most severely threatened people in the homeless community.

The proposed Hopeworks Village will include one-bedroom units, designed to be both ADA accessible and contain universal design features. The building would include a management office, a maintenance room, a central front lobby, a social services providers office and additional service space, as well as public gathering spaces and laundry areas on the second and third floors.

About $3 million in Bernalillo County funding and housing vouchers and about $4 million from the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority is also available for the proposed project.
Microsoft has uncovered new Russian hacking efforts targeting U.S. political groups ahead of the midterm elections.

The company said Tuesday that a group tied to the Russian government created fake websites that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. Three other fake sites were designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate.

Microsoft didnt offer any further description of the fake sites, although it has previously outlined in court filings how this hacking group operated a network of fake sites designed to trick victims into installing malicious software.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Microsofts report reflects a witch hunt in the U.S. The ministry said Tuesday that Microsofts statement lacked any proof of Russian involvement because there cant be any.

The revelation of new hacking efforts arrives just weeks after a similar Microsoft discovery led Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who is running for re-election, to reveal that Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate her Senate computer network.

The hacking mirrors similar Russian attacks ahead of the 2016 election, which U.S. intelligence officials have said were focused on helping to elect Republican Donald Trump to the presidency by hurting his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

This time, more than helping one political party over another, this activity is most fundamentally focused on disrupting democracy, Brad Smith, Microsofts president and chief legal officer, said in an interview this week. The FBI said Tuesday its aware of Microsofts actions to disrupt the sites but the agency wouldnt provide details about whether its working with the company to combat the hacking group.

Microsofts court filing last week said the hackers registered or used the fake domains at some point after April 20.

Smith said there is no sign the hackers were successful in persuading anyone to click on the fake websites, which could have exposed a target victim to computer infiltration, hidden surveillance and data theft. Both conservative think tanks said they have tried to be vigilant about spear-phishing email attacks because their global pro-democracy work has frequently drawn the ire of authoritarian governments.

Were glad that our work is attracting the attention of bad actors, said Hudson Institute spokesman David Tell. It means were having an effect, presumably.

The Hudson Institute, which promotes American global leadership on multiple fronts, doesnt always see eye-to-eye with President Donald Trump, particularly with respect to Russia. In April, the institute published a report entitled Countering Russian Kleptocracy that laid out a blueprint for punishing Russian corruption and discouraging it through sanctions, including on Russias sovereign debt.

The International Republican Institute, the GOP counterpart to the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, trains foreign political operatives and parties on how to run elections and govern. Its members help political parties organize campaigns and observe election processes with the aim of fixing flaws and improving public confidence in elections.

It is led by a board that includes six Republican senators, and one prominent Russia critic and Senate hopeful, Mitt Romney, who is running for a Utah seat this fall.

The groups president, Daniel Twining, said in a statement that the apparent hacking is consistent with the campaign of meddling that the Kremlin has waged against organizations that support democracy and human rights.

It is clearly designed to sow confusion, conflict and fear among those who criticize (Vladimir) Putins authoritarian regime, Twining wrote.

But Thomas Rid, a cybersecurity expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said he thought the Microsoft finding as presented were nothing particularly extraordinary.

This looks like run-of-the-mill espionage to me, something that happens all the time, he said. Think tanks in rival nations are generally fair game for cyberspies, including for U.S. and other Western intelligence agencies, he said.

Microsoft calls the hacking group Strontium; others call it Fancy Bear or APT28. An indictment from U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller has tied it to Russians main intelligence agency, known as the GRU, and to the 2016 email hacking of both the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

We have no doubt in our minds who is responsible, Smith said.

Microsoft has waged a legal battle with Strontium since suing it in a Virginia federal court in summer 2016. The company obtained court approval last year allowing it to seize certain fake domains created by the group. It has so far used the courts to shut down 84 fake websites created by the group, including the most recent six announced Tuesday.

Microsoft has argued in court that by setting up fake but realistic-looking domains, the hackers were misusing Microsoft trademarks and services to hack into targeted computer networks, install malware and steal sensitive emails and other data.

Smith also announced Tuesday that the company is offering free cybersecurity protection to all U.S. political candidates, campaigns and other political organizations, at least so long as theyre already using Microsofts Office 365 productivity software. Facebook and Google have also promoted similar tools to combat campaign interference.

___

AP political reporter Matthew Lee in Washington and AP technology reporter Frank Bajak in Boston contributed to this article.
LAS CRUCES  Annual school report cards released by the New Mexico Public Education Department on Friday issued grades of D or F to 40 percent of Las Cruces public schools, slightly below the state average, with five A grades compared to four last year.

PED issued grades to 40 schools in the district. B grades decreased to 8 from 11 last year and C grades remained flat at 11. Ds were up slightly at 11 compared to nine last year. Schools receiving failing grades remained flat with five, and one school, Mesilla Valley Alternative Middle School, received its third consecutive F.

Responding to the report cards, Las Cruces Public Schools Superintendent Greg Ewing noted that four schools improved by one grade, and two  Cesar Chavez and MacArthur Elementary  went up by two grades.

No schools dropped by more than one grade, and 19 (nearly half of the 40 district schools) repeated their grade from last year.

More: Results show grades for New Mexico schools remain flat

Data provided by the district indicate the percentage of Las Cruces schools earning As closely mirrors the statewide trend, while a lower percentage of district schools earned failing grades:12.5 percent in Las Cruces compared to 14.59 percent across New Mexico.

In a statement, Education Secretary-designate Christopher Ruszkowski said the statewide trend indicates the states plan for compliance with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is working. Ruszkowski said, Its harder to earn an A than ever before and our students and schools are rising to the challenge.

Ewing argued that the formula used to assess the grades, including scores on the annual PARCC exam, is opaque.

Since we dont fully understand how the states value-added model plays into the overall calculation of school grades, its difficult for schools to predict their grades, Ewing said in a written statement. As a result, its also difficult for schools to know what they need to do in order to improve them.

Algernon DAmmassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonActor on Twitter.

Las Cruces Public School Grades

Elementary schools

ALAMEDA

2017 B

2018 C

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

2017 D

2018 C

CENTRAL

2017 C

2018 D

COLUMBIA ELEMENTARY

2017 B

2018 B

CONLEE

2017 D

2018 F

DESERT HILLS

2017 A

2018 A

DONA ANA

2017 C

2018 C

EAST PICACHO

2017 C

2018 C

FAIRACRES

2017 B

2018 C

HERMOSA HEIGHTS

2017 D

2018 D

HIGHLAND

2017 B

2018 B

HILLRISE

2017 C

2018 C

JORNADA

2017 B

2018 B

LOMA HEIGHTS

2017 C

2018 B

MACARTHUR

2017 F

2018 C

MESILLA

2017 C

2018 D

MESILLA PARK

2017 B

2018 B

MONTE VISTA

2017 B

2018 A

SONOMA

2017 C

2018 C

SUNRISE

2017 F

2018 F

TOMBAUGH

2017 D

2018 D

UNIVERSITY HILLS

2017 B

2018 B

VALLEY VIEW

2017 F

2018 F

K-8 school

WHITE SANDS

2017 A

2018 A

Middle schools

CAMINO REAL

2017 B

2018 C

LYNN

2017 F

2018 D

MESA

2017 D

2018 D

PICACHO

2017 C

2018 D

SIERRA

2017 D

2018 F

VISTA

2017 C

2018 D

ZIA

2017 D

2018 D

High schools

ARROWHEAD PARK EARLY COLLEGE

2017 A

2018 A

ARROWHEAD PARK MEDICAL ACADEMY

2017 A

2018 B

CENTENNIAL

2017 A

2018 B

LAS CRUCES

2017 C

2018 C

MAYFIELD

2017 C

2018 D

ONATE

2017 B

2018 C



2018 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)

Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com

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NEW YORK  Michael Cohen, President Donald Trumps former personal lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty Tuesday to campaign-finance violations and other charges, saying Trump directed him to arrange the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy model to fend off damage to his White House bid.

Cohens extraordinary account marks the first time that any Trump associate has gone into open court and implicated Trump himself in a crime, though whether  or when  a president can be prosecuted remains a matter of legal dispute.

The guilty plea was part of a double dose of bad news for Trump: It came at almost the same moment his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted in Alexandria, Virginia, of eight financial crimes in the first trial to come out of special counsel Robert Muellers sprawling Russia investigation.

In a deal reached with federal prosecutors, Cohen, 51, pleaded guilty to eight counts , including tax evasion. He could get about four to five years in prison at sentencing Dec. 12.

In entering the plea, Cohen did not name the two women or even Trump, recounting instead that he worked with an unnamed candidate to influence the election.

But the amounts and the dates all lined up with the $130,000 paid to Daniels and the $150,000 that went to Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to buy their silence in the weeks and months leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Both women claimed to have had affairs with Trump, which he denies.

Cohen, his voice shaky as he answered questions from a federal judge, said one payment was in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office, and the other was made under direction of the same candidate.

However, in the charging documents, a news release and comments outside the courthouse, prosecutors did not go as far as Cohen did in open court in pointing the finger at the president. Prosecutors said Cohen acted in coordination with a candidate or campaign for federal office for purposes of influencing the election.

As cable networks were showing split-screen coverage of the conviction and plea bargain by two of his former loyalists, Trump himself boarded Air Force One on his way to a rally in West Virginia and ignored shouted questions about the men.

Trumps personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, noted in a statement that there is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the governments charges against Mr. Cohen.

Daniel Petalas, a former prosecutor in the Justice Departments public integrity section, said, This brings President Trump closer into the criminal conduct.

The president has certain protections while a sitting president, but if it were true, and he was aware and tried to influence an election, that could be a federal felony offense, Petalas said. This strikes close to home.

After the court hearing, which ended with Cohen released on $500,000 bail, the lawyer wiped away tears as he gazed out a courthouse window. He left the building and headed straight for a black SUV with tinted windows. A couple of people outside chanted, Lock him up! as they recorded the scene with their phones.

Under federal law, expenditures to protect a candidates political fortunes can be construed to be campaign contributions, subject to federal laws that bar donations from corporations and set limits on how much can be given.

If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldnt they be a crime for Donald Trump? Cohens lawyer, Lanny Davis, tweeted.

Cohens plea follows months of scrutiny from federal investigations and a falling-out with the president, for whom Cohen once said he would take a bullet.

The FBI raided Cohens hotel room, home and office in April and seized more than 4 million items. The search sought bank records, communications with Trumps campaign and information on the payments to the two women.

According to prosecutors, the payment to McDougal was made through the parent company of the National Enquirer. Cohen made the payment to Daniels through his own company and then was reimbursed by Trump, he said.

Trump denied to reporters in April that he knew anything about Cohens payments to Daniels, but the explanations from him and Giuliani have shifted multiple times since.

The president has fumed publicly about the raid, branding it a witch hunt, an assault on attorney-client privilege and a politically motivated attack by enemies in the FBI. But privately he has worried about what information Cohen may have after working for the Trump Organization for a decade.

Obviously its not good for Trump, Sol Wisenberg, who conducted grand jury questioning of President Bill Clinton during the Whitewater investigation, said of the plea bargain.

Im assuming hes not going to be indicted because hes a sitting president, Wisenberg added. But it leads him closer to ultimate impeachment proceedings, particularly if the Democrats take back the House.

The Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel has held that a president cannot be indicted while in office. Trumps lawyers have said that Mueller plans to adhere to that guidance, though Muellers office has never confirmed that. There would presumably be no bar against charging a president after he leaves the White House.

Daniels said Tuesday that she and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, feel vindicated and look forward to apologies from the people who claimed we were wrong.

Nothing made public so far indicates Cohen has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, but Avenatti said he is certain that is happening.

Muellers team, which is looking into Russian interference in the presidential election, came across some of the evidence against Cohen in the course of its investigation and referred the matter to federal prosecutors in New York.

Late Tuesday, Cohens lawyer told MSNBCs Rachel Maddow that Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to Mueller and is more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami said that in addition to the campaign finance violations, Cohen failed to report more than $4 million in income between 2012 and 2016, including $1.3 million from his taxi medallion holdings.

Cohen also lied to a financial institution by failing to disclose more than $14 million in debt and obtaining a $500,000 home equity line of credit he wasnt entitled to, Khuzami said. Cohen used that credit line to fund the Daniels payment, prosecutors said.

After making the hush money payments, Cohen submitted phony invoices to Trumps company, ostensibly for services rendered in 2017, the prosecutor said.

Those involves were a sham, Khuzami said. He provided no legal services for the year 2017. It was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful contributions.

Before the election, Cohen had been a trusted member of the Trump organization, working out of an office in Trump Tower next to one used by his boss. He raised millions for Trumps campaign.

The presidents initial support for Cohen after the raid soon degenerated into a public feud, with Cohen hinting he might cut a deal with prosecutors.

When Cohens team produced a recording he had made of Trump discussing one of the hush-money payments, Trump tweeted: What kind of lawyer would tape a client? So sad!

___

Associated Press writers Tom Hays, Stephen R. Groves and Michael R. Sisak in New York; Jonathan Lemire and Catherine Lucey in Washington; and Michael Balsamo in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
A guard at the West Side jail is accused of raping a female inmate early Monday, and has now gone from overseeing inmates to being one of them.

The guard, 22-year-old Johnny Reveles, is charged with criminal sexual penetration.

MDC spokeswoman Candace Hopkins confirmed that Reveles was fired Tuesday.

Due to the ongoing investigations, no further details can be released at this time, Hopkins said.

According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, the inmate reported the rape during a hearing in District Court on Monday.

The inmate told deputies that Reveles went to her cell around 1 a.m. Monday and told her she had left something in the shower.

Deputies say the inmate went with Reveles, believing maybe it was drugs because she knows sometimes the (corrections officer) will smuggle the inmates narcotics.

The inmate told deputies that Reveles encouraged her into a closet, near the showers, and the two had sex.

Deputies say surveillance tapes show Reveles and the inmate going into the closet for approximately five minutes.

During questioning, Reveles told deputies the sex was consensual.

I asked (Reveles) if relations between a corrections officer and inmate could be consensual and he stated it could not, a deputy wrote in the complaint.

Because Reveles is a former jail guard, Hopkins said he is being held in a medical unit used for high-profile inmates that limits interactions with other inmates.

She said Reveles had worked as a guard since October but couldnt say whether any prior complaints had been filed against him.
A proposal to lease University of New Mexico land at the South Campus to a convenience store chain is on hold over questions about alcohol sales and whether the store fits with the universitys larger property development vision.

Maverik Inc., a Utah-based convenience store chain, wants to lease 1.5 acres of UNM land on Avenida Cesar Chavez near the Pit. It plans to build a gas station and convenience store that would sell fresh food, beer and wine, according to information UNMs real estate director presented this week to the board of Lobo Development Corp. It would pay $95,000 annually in rent with 10-percent increases every five years.

But the Lobo Development board, which includes UNM administrators and members of the public, voted to table the long-term ground lease request. Members wanted more information about the plan, including whether the store would operate 24 hours a day and what impact that could have on area crime. Some also cited concerns about allowing beer and wine sales next to the Lobo Village student housing development.

I think what were trying to do is make a business case and I get that, but I think we have responsibility from a moral perspective (about what we are) doing adjacent to where were housing our students, board member Maria Griego-Raby said.

Board member David Harris, UNMs executive vice president for administration, said he had mixed feelings about the idea but noted that Lobo Village residents currently lack access to services the store could bring.

Weve talked for a long time since we brought in Lobo Village that we have absolutely no services there available to the residents  we have no food, no gasoline, things that they need, he said.

Maverik has over 300 stores in 11 western states, according to its website.

Tom Neale, UNMs real estate director, told the Lobo Development board that the South Campus site is part of the companys larger plans to expand into the New Mexico market.

The company did not respond to emailed Journal questions about its plans.

Neale told the board he would discuss its questions with Maverik and report back at a future meeting.
SANTA FE  New Mexico residents who want a drivers authorization card  not a license issued under the U.S. Real ID Act  should have it easier next time they head to the Motor Vehicle Division.

SANTA FE  New Mexico residents who want a drivers authorization card  not a license issued under the U.S. Real ID Act  should have it easier next time they head to the Motor Vehicle Division.

A coalition of community groups has reached a settlement with the state Taxation and Revenue Department that expands the list of acceptable documents for proving age, identity and New Mexico residency.

It also ensures that applicants dont have to take a Social Security card to get the drivers authorization card.

The settlement resolves a class-action lawsuit that accused the state of illegally denying the authorization cards and similar IDs to New Mexicans who couldnt or didnt want to provide the documents required for a federally compliant drivers license.

Under a 2016 law, New Mexico has a two-tiered system for drivers licenses  one that complies with the Real ID Act and one that doesnt. The less-stringent option is particularly important, advocates say, for homeless people, the elderly and immigrants. It allows people to drive but is not good for federal purposes, such as boarding airliners.

Former Santa Fe Mayor David Coss, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, said he was improperly turned away when trying to get a drivers authorization card. The denial meant he couldnt drive legally, he said, which interfered with his caretaking responsibilities for relatives.

It hurt my family. It hurt me, Coss told a news conference Tuesday. But as I pursued this, I found it was hurting lots of New Mexicans all over New Mexico.

State District Judge David Thomson approved the settlement late Friday. The state Motor Vehicle Division agreed to new training for employees, an appeals process for applicants who are denied a credential in certain circumstances and an expansion of acceptable documents.

The state also dropped a requirement to show proof of an identification number  such as a Social Security card  for applicants who want the drivers authorization card.

Coss is one of seven plaintiffs identified by name in the lawsuit, filed in January. The New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness and Somos un Pueblo Unido, a group that advocates for immigrants rights, are also plaintiffs.

Marcela Diaz, executive director of Somos un Pueblo Unido, said the settlement is a sensible solution to help people who need access to the drivers authorization card.

Even for people who dont drive, an ID of some kind is needed to cash a check, open a bank account or rent a hotel room  critical tools for residents to navigate everyday life, Diaz said.

The lawsuit doesnt affect drivers licenses issued to comply with the Real ID Act.

A spokesman for the MVD said the agency is committed to helping New Mexico residents obtain either the authorization card or the drivers license.
SANTA TERESA International trade has never been more important to New Mexico and nobody knows this better than Jerry Pacheco, president of the Border Industrial Association.

This is an exciting place, said Pacheco sitting in a conference room in his office building surrounded by four industrial parks near the bustling Santa Teresa border crossing.

Pacheco has played a key role in expanding cross-border trade in New Mexico for more than 25 years. Hell share his insights Friday at the UNM Continuing Education Auditorium. His talk, New Mexicos Booming Trade with Mexico  A view from the Border,is part of the Albuquerque International Associations lecture series.

Pacheco, a native New Mexican, started working on border affairs after graduating from UNM. He was a kid out of college when he joined Gov. Bruce Kings international team in 1991 and started as a gofer.

The experience gave Pacheco a front row seat in cross border negotiations at a time when New Mexico was pushing to open a new port of entry. He was an early believer in Santa Teresa.

Fifteen years ago I felt like John the Baptist, like a crazy man out in the middle desert with a camel hair coat. And Im saying, Mexicos the future. Mexicos the future And nobody would listen, said Pacheco.

Goods going through the Santa Teresa border crossing now account for more than half of all global trade for New Mexico, according to the Department of Commerce. The region is poised to surpass Albuquerque metro area as exports from Intel decline and trade with Mexico ramps up.

The Santa Teresa crossing is among the top five ports of entry on the Mexican border in terms of exports, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures cited by Pacheco.

Our natural resource is our proximity to Mexico and that huge industrial base on the other side of the border and were mining that for our own good for the state, said Pacheco.

Santa Teresa is home to 60 companies that employ 5,000 people.

New Mexicos trade with Mexico is growing, at the same time the Trump administration is threatening to scrap NAFTA if efforts to renegotiate the trade pact fail. The administration has also imposed a series of tariffs on a range of products from NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada. The administrations biggest target for tariffs is China.

Pacheco will discuss the impact of the Trumps tough trade policies on New Mexico. He hopes his lecture will help New Mexicans who dont live on the border understand how trade with Mexico impacts the entire state.

That country on the other side of the border is not a problem for us. Its an ally for us. Its a friend. Its our future, said Pacheco.

If you go

What: NMs Booming Trade with Mexico: A View from the Border

Who: Jerry Pacheco, president Border Industrial Association

When: Friday, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Where: UNM Continuing Education Conference Center, 1634 University Blvd NE

How much: $15/AIA members; $20/non-members; students (under 30) with ID  free
SANTA FE  An outside group has stirred up New Mexicos gubernatorial race, as a political committee affiliated with the Democratic Governors Association on Tuesday launched a $275,000 television ad buy targeting Republican Steve Pearce.

The 30-second ad, which will air in the Albuquerque market for the next several weeks, is paid for by Stronger New Mexico, an independent expenditure group that was created in February and has received funding from the DGA.

The national Democratic group has identified New Mexicos governors race  which pits Pearce against Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham  as a priority in this years election cycle as it seeks to chisel into Republicans big advantage in governors mansions held.

There are now 33 GOP governors  compared with 16 Democratic governors and one independent.

The ad marks the first outside attack ad in this years New Mexico race. It claims Pearce is in the pocket of Big Oil and describes him as being named one of the most corrupt members of Congress a decade ago by an independent watchdog group.

Pearce, a Hobbs resident, has received hefty campaign contributions from oil and natural gas executives  including millions of dollars in the current campaign cycle  but the corruption allegation was based at least in part on the 2003 sale of his oil field service companys assets to a different company.

A House ethics panel later determined that Pearce did not violate any rules during that transaction, according to FactCheck.org, a nonprofit group.

Michelle Lujan Grisham and her special interest allies are panicking and now running knowingly false ads, Pearce campaign adviser Kevin Sheridan said Tuesday.

Pearces campaign sent out a fundraising appeal Tuesday that expressed concern the negative ads would hurt the campaigns momentum if allowed to go unanswered.

And state Republican Party Chairman Ryan Cangiolosi said in a statement that the allegations amount to outright lies.

Both Lujan Grisham and Pearce have also launched television ads of their own in recent weeks, but the ads have largely focused on policy issues, and the candidates have largely refrained from attacking each other.

The head of the Republican Governors Association hosted a fundraising event for Pearce last month in Santa Fe during a meeting of the National Governors Association, but the RGA has not aired any television ads in New Mexicos governors race.

The general election is set for Nov. 6.
Woodbine Mohawk Park would like to inform horsepeople of the cancellation to Tuesday mornings qualifiers.

The four-race qualifying session has been cancelled due to pending inclement weather.

The next qualifying session at Woodbine Mohawk Park is scheduled for Friday, August 24.
SANTA FE  New Mexicos commuter rail system has pieced together enough funding to complete a $60 million safety upgrade required by the federal government.

The states congressional delegation announced Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded a $29.4 million grant to the Rail Runner Express, the last piece of financing needed for the project.

The upgrades are expected to be completed by the end of 2020, well after this years federal deadline for installation.

But Terry Doyle, transportation director for the Rio Metro Regional Transit District, which runs the rail service, said the Rail Runner is seeking federal approval to keep operating under its current schedule until the work is completed.

Were already probably the safest mode of surface transportation in New Mexico, Doyle said, but this will make us safer.

The project, known as Positive Train Control, involves the installation of equipment designed to automatically slow trains when they reach unsafe speeds and prevent them from crashing into each other.

Its expected to cost about $55 million to $60 million altogether, Doyle said. About 80 percent of the money comes from federal sources, he said, and the rest will come from revenue generated by a gross receipts tax that supports operation of the train.

Tuesdays grant was announced jointly by U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich and Reps. Ben Ray Lujan, Steve Pearce and Michelle Lujan Grisham.

While Positive Train Control represents a critical safety upgrade, Udall said in a written statement, it also carries with it a high price tag that threatened to limit the essential service the Rail Runner provides to Central New Mexico. Im proud to have fought for this major investment, which keeps the Rail Runner running while ensuring the safety of those who ride it.

The Rail Runner connects Belen, Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Its ridership has been decreasing.
Honda Jazz in collaboration with its creative agency Dentsu One, has launched a new campaign for its latest upgrade. With a combination of strong marketing strategy and creative expertise, the YouTube Masthead for the campaign alone garnered a whopping 27 Million views in one day.

In a market satiated with choices for the sub 4 meter premium hatchback car category, the Jazz comes with world class legacy, looks, features and most importantly a fresh and vibrant attitude. With the lineage of Honda, the product is assured to offer best in technology and stand differentiated from the competition. So with the latest upgrade, the challenge was to make the communication just as unique and differentiated. This is precisely what inspired an entirely different perspective for the new campaign  Sexy in a new light.

The tagline itself serves a dual purpose, at one hand connoting the new take on last years Sexy And I Know It campaign, and on the other highlighting a key new feature.

Staying true to the quirky brand personality, the films attempt to break clutter by using the idea of a Cat personified as a difficult to please snob, scoffing at lesser mortals (read humans) but all the while thoroughly impressed with the New Jazz to navigate human chaos and deliver a stellar experience.

Talking about the campaign, Titus Upputuru, National Creative Director, Dentsu One said, A lot of brands employ celebrities to endorse their products. We thought lets get the coolest them of all - Billi Jean! Jokes apart, we thought a cat was a good idea to launch the quirky attitude of the new Jazz. We are pleased that the communication has been received so well. We look forward to many more Jazz cars on road soon

Abhinav Kaushik, Executive Vice President, Dentsu One said, In a category full of models that sell on bells and whistles, the new Honda Jazz with its anti-ordinary personality has used the CAT to mock the set conventions and notions with an execution that is memorable and uncharacteristic.

Marketing mix for the campaign included a combination of Press, Outdoor, Online and Social Media push.

Campaign Summary
Max Fashion, Indias leading fashion brand today inaugurated its 25th store at RMZ Galleria Mall, Yelhanka. The store was inaugurated by NGO kids.With the addition of the new store, Max has 36 stores in Karnataka. Spread across 8392sq ft. The new store assures international shopping experience and one-stop destination for contemporary fashion for its customers.

Commenting on the launch, Mr. Piyush Sharma, AVP Max Fashion said, We are very excited to launch our 25th store in the city. The city has shown tremendous love for our varied collections. We hope to serve more and more fashion conscious Bangaloreans. We are thankful to all our customers who have accepted Max as their fashion consultant. Keep loving and supporting us!

Collection at the Store

Max Fashion presents an exclusive Back to College Collection 2018 to celebrate some of the best days in life. The collection reflects an attitude which is urban with nuances of free-spiritedness, a breaking free of set moorings.

With the emphasis on grunge and athleisure look, the brand silhouettes executed in modern fabrics and minimal texture-play gives the ensembles a peppy look. The design focus is kept simple and functional. College and comfort go hand in hand, so easy high-street styles take center-stage. Shades of red capture the mood perfectly while athleisure collection evokes the athlete in you. Get your fill of shift dresses, boxy tees, choker-neck tops, long-line tees and badge-tees paired with biker denims and paper-bag shorts.

There is an exciting inaugural offer for the consumers; they can get a pudding set worth Rs 799 free on shopping of Rs 2999.
Following a competitive multi-agency pitch, GroupMs media agency MediaCom has been awarded the media mandate for Vivo, one of the largest mobile phone brand - in India.

As the full form AOR for VIVO in India, MediaCom will be responsible for the media strategy, planning, buying and implementation for all mass media. This big win follows MediaComs stellar showing at the Cannes Lions 2018.

Commenting on the partnership, Jerome Chen, CMO, Vivo India said, We understand that being creative is as important for a brand as its product innovation. MediaComs creative ideas and approach resonate with Vivos ethos as an innovation-driven brand. As we continue to grow stronger in India, we believe this partnership will enable us to step up our engagement with the consumers even more. We look forward to a long and mutually successful partnership with MediaCom.

Commenting on the win, Navin Khemka, CEO, MediaCom South Asia, adds, The growth of the telecom industry in India is unprecedented and the smartphone adoption brings exciting opportunities. Vivo is one of the leading and innovative players in this space. We are delighted to partner with Vivo and looking forward to creating unmatched brand value and innovative solutions for our consumers."

The account will be managed and supervised from the MediaCom Gurgaon office.
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President Donald Trump used his controversial summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland last month to discuss Moscows role in facilitating the removal of Iranian forces from Syria. Putin reportedly told Trump that this would be a tough sell  and Congress agrees.

Now lawmakers are teeing up a new batch of wide-ranging Russia sanctions in a bill that highlights Moscows support for Iran and the Bashar al-Assad regime while repudiating Trumps plan to cooperate with the Russians in Syria.

A bipartisan group of six senators led by Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., introduced the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act earlier this month.

Building upon sanctions legislation Congress passed last year, the new bill requires the Trump administration to submit an assessment of whether Russia belongs on the State Departments infamous state sponsors of terrorism list, in part because of its actions in Syria. The bill would also require a report on the feasibility of Moscows willingness and capacity to remove Iran from the war-torn country.

I think the administration should speak to some of its own intelligence and State Department members who have seriously questioned the ability of Russia to just get Iran out at its whim, Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Al-Monitor. I dont think that Iran is simply an agent of Russia. I think they had an unholy marriage and now it would be very difficult to get Iran out just because Russia asked them to.

Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., one of the bills co-sponsors, also told Al-Monitor that he views the gambit to use Russia to drive a wedge between Assad and Iran as aspirational.

The new sanctions push reflects the bipartisan backlash against Trumps cozy relationship with Putin and lawmakers inability to get details about the two leaders discussions at the Helsinki summit. The frustration was on full display during two simultaneous Senate hearings today as lawmakers grilled representatives from the State and Treasury departments over the Trump administrations implementation of sanctions on Russia.

Menendez formally requested all classified and unclassified cable traffic related to the Helsinki meeting, memorandums and policy directives during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on US-Russia relations.

Congress is also seeking more clarity on the administrations diplomatic strategy by asking for an extensive report on Moscows support for Assad and Iranian forces in Syria.

Specifically, the pending bill requires an assessment of weapons, technologies and knowledge that Russia has transferred to Assad, Iran or Iran-aligned forces such as Hezbollah that threaten the security and qualitative military edge of Israel. It also asks for an assessment of the specific commitments Russia has made to Israel regarding the occupied Golan Heights.

While the United States and Israel have pushed for the full removal of Iranian forces from Syria, Russia has reportedly agreed to keep Iran-backed forces about 60 miles from the Golan.

The report also takes aim at Russian mercenaries operating in Syria by requiring an assessment of whether the presence of Russian forces and Russian contractors in Syria limits the options of the Government of Israel in taking steps to ensure its security from threats emanating out of Syria. US forces clashed with Russian military contractors and other pro-Assad forces earlier this year.

Menendez and others also believe that Moscows support for Iranian, Assad regime and Hezbollah forces could constitute another reason for placing Moscow on the State Departments state sponsors of terrorism list, which would result in even more stringent sanctions. Syria and Iran are already on the list alongside North Korea and Sudan.

While Menendez raised particular concerns over a March chemical weapons attack against a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain, he also pointed to their involvement in Syria since 2015.

Its the totality of their actions  including whats happened in Syria, Menendez told Al-Monitor. Theres a deeper set of circumstances that would clearly fall in line for Russia to be subject to that.

Gardner has also called on the Trump administration to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

In addition to the attack on British soil, the bill also points to Moscows successful efforts to water down the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) mandate to apportion blame for chemical weapons attacks. It also accuses Russia of being unwilling or incapable of compelling the Assad regime to cease chemical weapons attacks. The bill would authorize the United States to provide $30 million in funding for the OPCW through 2023.

Menendez and other Democrats have also accused the Trump administration of failing to implement many provisions from the first round of sanctions Congress approved last year, including sanctions on individuals who aid the Assad regime in obtaining chemical and conventional weapons. But in a concurrent hearing, administration officials maintained that they have already made good use of those authorities.

We used our Syria authorities to sanction Russias primary state-owned defense firm and its bank subsidiary for supplying Russian military equipment to the Assad regime, hindering the firms ability to receive payments from existing contracts with other countries, Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury Departments under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, testified before the Senate banking committee.
Top Egyptian health officials recently triggered a public row following their remarks that give the green light for the removal of deceased persons' corneas without their families' consent. This issue has rekindled a years-old broader debate over organ donation in Egypt.

The debate stemmed from a video posted on social media July 30 by an Egyptian citizen showing his dead brother with bloody eye sockets amid allegations that Kasr al-Ainy Hospital in Cairo extracted the corneas without his familys consent. The video went viral within a few hours, coupled with many questions simmering in Egyptians minds regarding the potential abuse of the sacredness of the human body  especially without the family's approval.

On July 31, the head of Kasr al-Ainy Hospital, Fathy Khodeir, further fueled the debate after telling local media that taking a dead person's corneas with the aim of saving patients who are receiving free treatment in public hospitals is in compliance with the provisions of a law issued in 2003. This law allows authorized hospitals to extract the outer surface of a deceased person's corneas without the approval of the family to treat urgent cases.

Kasr al-Ainy Hospital is affiliated with Cairo University's faculty of medicine. Both Kasr al-Ainy and Ain Shams public hospitals in Cairo have their own eye banks that are grappling with a lack of corneas due to the hefty cost of importing them from abroad.

Moreover, the head of parliament's Health Affairs Committee, Abdel Hamed Abaza, said in a TV interview July 31 with TEN TV that corneas are not organs, but rather tissue. Thus, their removal without consent is not at odds with the 2010 law regulating organ transplant issues.

Shadia Thabet, a member of parliament's Health Committee, told Al-Monitor that she has renewed an old proposal to establish an organ bank in Egypt. Thabet said the proposed organ bank would store and distribute organs from deceased donors who give their consent. The bank would be affiliated with the Ministry of Health; she said this connection would help curb illegal organ transplants in Egypt.

Meanwhile, legislator Elham el-Menshawy, another Health Committee member, voiced her doubts regarding the possibility of establishing an organ bank in Egypt at the moment. Only corneas can be saved in eye banks, but the other vital organs such as kidneys and liver are harder to be preserved in organ banks, she told Al-Monitor.

This move is inapplicable in Egypt, as there is no solid health system qualified for such operations and society is not ready to accept the idea in general right now, Menshawy said.

Although the Ministry of Health declared in October 2017 that it had begun accepting registrations from people willing to donate their organs after their deaths, Egyptian patients still prefer to receive a donation from a living family member rather than from a deceased person.

What also compounds the problem is that the culture of postmortem organ donation in Egypt still faces many hurdles due to religious and social factors. For instance, in 2017, two young Egyptian men  Karim Kamel and Youssef Hanna  came under fire after recording in their wills that they wanted to donate some of their organs after they die.

My father would have never accepted to take an organ of a deceased person even with his consent and approval, said Ali Atef, 23, who donated half of his liver to save his father in July 2017. Atef told Al-Monitor that a dead body is sacred and the act of donating organs is religiously forbidden.

We consulted many Islamic scholars who stressed that organ donation is only unforbidden if its voluntary and without any compulsion. In Islam, it is prohibited to sell organs for donation, and, consequently, buying them is also against Islamic law, Atef said. I was lucky enough that my liver matched with my father as there was no other choice for him, he said.

Many initiatives for organ donation awareness have been launched to change the mindset and deeply rooted beliefs of Egyptian citizens. In May, 12 Egyptian students at the Canadian University in Cairo selected postmortem organ donation as the theme of their graduation project, which they named Eisha Martein  Arabic for Live twice. The students aim to bring society around to accepting the idea of postmortem organ donation.

Cairo University is organizing an event to spread the culture of donation among students and encourage them to record in their wills that they want their organs donated after their deaths through Kasr al-Ainy Hospital, university official Awad Abbas was quoted as telling Al-Masry al-Youm newspaper Aug. 2. Abbas is the director of the university's Center for Open Education.

Moderate religious scholars also welcomed postmortem organ donation, but only under extreme circumstances, in life-saving cases or under the direct supervision of the Ministry of Health to prevent the issue from becoming a backdoor for illegal organ transplant operations in the country.

Saad al-Hilali, a professor of comparative jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University, said Islam completely permits postmortem organ donation to serve the interest of another patient.

It will take dozens of years to change cultural and religious deeply rooted beliefs of Egyptians on postmortem organ donation. Some even reject forensic autopsy to determine the cause of death in the case of a suspicious death, Sarah Zaki, a doctor at Benha University Hospital, told Al-Monitor.
BASRA, Iraq  The area surrounding the long border between Iraq and Iran conceals much of the tragedy of the eight-year war the two countries fought from 1980 to 1988. Beneath the ground where tens of thousands of people cross in both directions lie more than 20 million landmines, most of them in Iraq. They pose a serious threat to the lives of those who survived the war and those born after it.

Ammar, who recently celebrated his 10th birthday, lost the sight in one of his eyes, while his brother Hasan suffered an even worse fate near their house near Shalamja.

The boys wanted to go play after coming home from school, Said Ali, their older brother, told Al-Monitor. They walked a few meters, and something went off. They had no idea there were mines and cluster bombs in the vicinity.

We were later told by authorities that they were from the Iraq-Iran War, Said Ali stated. Ammar lost one eye, and Hasan, whos older, lost both. We tried to treat them here in Iraq, but it wasnt possible. We had to take them to India, but we didnt continue the treatment, because we didnt have enough money.

Indeed, money is a big problem for the people of Basra.

We see the flames coming out of the oil fields since forever, said Mustafa, an unemployed man from the city who has taken part in the demonstrations that erupted in July to protest the lack of jobs and services. The only thing we get from the flames is heat. The money goes to Iran and America.

According to Mustafa, Iran has power over oil prices.

Iran doesnt want us to progress, he claimed. Its the revenge of the war in the eighties. We are not allowed to have factories so that they sell their products here. They work behind the scenes with the US to share our wealth.

The bitterness of the Iran-Iraq War remains alive in Mustafa, who had been 20 when the conflict ended. I went to the army when I was 18 and was lucky enough not to be killed in the war, he said. Many of my friends lost their lives to keep Iran [at bay]. It was an absurd war. Saddam is gone, and Iran is now in Iraq.

According to Amin, a young man in his twenties, Mustafas negative sentiments toward Iran are common here in Basra, but some regard Iran as a savior.

The older generation still lives in the shadows of the war, he said. They cant forget what happened, but for us, we only know about the US invasion and later the Islamic State war. The only side we saw helping us was Iran. We know that they have interests in Iraq, but who doesnt? At least they are helping!

The Iran-Iraq War ended on Aug. 20, 1988, with a cease-fire and both countries forces withdrawing to their original positions. In their wake, they left behind some 1 million people dead and more than 350,000 injured or disabled.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, tens of thousands of soldiers remain missing. The fate of tens of people was discovered in 2018, when their corpses were found along the border and repatriated. The body of Hadi Abd Alis father wasnt among them, or so Abd Ali says.

Abd Ali was three years old when his father disappeared while fighting Iran. Al-Monitor heard from one of his family members that his body had been recovered, returned to the family and buried, despite not being able to recognize him from his face.

There were no DNA tests at that time, Abd Ali remarked. It wasnt his body. My mother always said it was another person, but my grandfather was forced to sign the papers and take the body to close the file.

Abd Alis story isnt rare. Many families believe the body of their lost loved one is still missing, creating a sense of uncertainty in their lives.

I know my father was just another soldier, Abd Ali said. He was not going to change anything in the course of the war, but we have the right to get his body and bury it instead of the false body we have.

The war to an orphan like Abd Ali, and likely others, wasnt worth the numbers who died. Saddam wanted to fight Iran, Abd Ali observed. Saddam fell, and Iran is in Iraq. People today can see pictures of Iranian leaders in some Iraqi cities, while Saddams picture cant be hung inside a house in Iraq. Who do you think won the war?

Thirty years after the war's conclusion, some issues between Iran and Iraq are yet to be settled. Following the Aug. 7 statement by Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi that Iraq would comply with US sanctions imposed on Iran, members among Tehrans political elite called on Baghdad to compensate Iran for the war with $1.1 billion. Among them was Heshmatollah Falahat Pisheh, head of the parliaments Foreign Relations and National Security Committee, who said, Iraq can afford to pay war reparations to Iran. So, we expect this to be done according to Article 10 of UN Security Council Resolution 598.

The issue of compensation is controversial, with some Iranians demanding it, but Iraqis believing that their country has no such obligation under UN resolutions. Iran has never officially sought compensation from Iraq.
The organizers of the Aug. 16 rally at the iconic Feizieh Seminary in the holy city of Qom would have probably not anticipated such a widespread backlash. Their event was meant to be a gathering for economic justice in Iran, with a large banner reading Clerical community in solidarity with the people. Little seemed out of the ordinary.

The controversy arose after a photo showed one participant holding a placard that seemed to reflect a threat against President Hassan Rouhani while also raising suspicion surrounding the death of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. It read, "Oh you, whose slogan is negotiations, Farah's pool is awaiting you," referring to Rouhanis rhetoric about the need for constructive engagement with the world. Some hard-liners have alleged that Rafsanjani died in a swimming pool on premises previously belonging to the shahs regime. The reference to Farah is Farah Pahlavi, the widow of late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The official line about Rafsanjani is that he died of a heart attack.

Still, ever since Rafsanjanis death in January 2017, rumors and speculation have resurfaced every now and then. Some have claimed that he was killed by extremist elements within the Islamic Republic in a plot to annihilate a close ally of moderate President Rouhani. Mindful of these claims, many are now reading the placard as a confirmation of those reports.

Some believe that such slogans  include an indirect confession, wrote the pro-Rouhani newspaper Arman. The first senior cleric to strongly criticize the rally was Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, who described it as a tragedy. He also called for clarifications from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which later issued a statement slamming the event and calling it spontaneous. The statement also stressed that the IRGC will continue to throw its weight behind the Rouhani administration.

Perhaps in response to this statement, Ebtekar  another pro-Reform paper  expressed dismay at the fact that no one shows accountability for what happened in the Qom gathering. The article quotes a university professor as saying that those at the gathering were, in a way, confessing to having killed Rafsanjani. With that slogan, they unintentionally admitted to the murder of Mr. Rafsanjani, Ayatollah Hashem Bathaee, a member of the Assembly of Experts, told Jamaran News Agency. Even the conservative Society of Seminary Teachers slammed the rally, saying that whether intentionally or not, it harmed the reputation of the seminary and the clerical community.

Feizieh has been the traditional epicenter of official Shiite preaching in Iran, nurturing numerous heavyweight religious scholars. It is also where the founder of the Islamic Republic, late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, delivered his most heated speeches against the authoritarian rule of the shah in 1963. It was after one of those sermons in Feizieh that Khomeini was arrested and later exiled, remaining abroad until his return in 1979.

But now, according to deputy parliament Speaker Ali Motahari, the recent rally showed that at least a section of the clerical community is suffering from degeneration in social and political views.

One of those who addressed the Qom gathering was Rahim Pour-Azghadi, a harsh critic of the Rouhani administration and known for his bold and extremist philosophical thinking. The editorial in Reformist daily Ghanoon demanded that anyone behind the rally should be brought to justice so that reactionaries would not think they can enjoy immunity. Javan, affiliated with the IRGC, offered only a brief review of the condemnations. Vatan-e Emrouz and Kayhan, two major conservative papers, remained silent.

Also silent on the matter has been the highly conservative member of the seminary, Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, known as the ideological father and influential supporter of Irans new generation of fundamentalist clerics.
On Aug. 12, Haaretz reported that Israel had planned in recent months to kill senior Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip in response to the Great March of Return protests at the border fence that started on March 30.

According to the report, the Israeli army and the Shin Bet security service believe that assassinating Hamas leaders is a better option than a wide-scale attack on Gaza, which would most likely entail ground troops.

The reports and threats sparked an online response by Hussam Badran, a senior Hamas official and spokesman. Badran posted on Facebook, Israels rhetoric and threats to return to the policy of assassinating Hamas leaders is ludicrous and points to their dilemma and confusion.

Those threats dont scare a Palestinian child, let alone the leaders of the resistance. All of the Palestinian peoples blood is precious, and the days where Israel spills the Palestinians blood without receiving response to its crimes are long gone, Badran added.

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas military wing, issued a Hebrew statement in response to the reports, that read, Its preferable for the enemy not be carried away by illusions; any stupid act that will come from its direction will result in destruction and an unbearable pain. It will be something the enemy has never experienced before in terms of both quantity and quality.

Hussam al-Dajani, a political science professor at Al-Ummah University in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, The policy of the Israeli assassination of the Palestinian factions leaders, if implemented, will drag the region toward a new vicious cycle of violence and instability that will affect regional and international security and peace.

The Palestinian resistance will feel obliged to defend itself and its people, so this assassination policy will surely take the scene between Israel and Hamas into a full military confrontation scenario that will result in massive human and material losses, he added.

Theres a precedent for this. In the 2012 war, when an Israeli strike killed al-Qassam Brigades chief Ahmed al-Jabari, Hamas retaliated harshly and struck Tel Aviv with multiple rockets for the first time since the Gulf War in 1991. Unlike previous escalations when Hamas rockets reached only as far as Ashkelon and Ashdod, Hamas struck the heart of Israel.

In that war, Hamas made a considerable effort to deter Israel from targeting its leaders. The movement sent the message that a comprehensive military escalation would follow every time Israel targeted a Hamas leader.

Prior to 2005, Israels assassination of Palestinian resistance leaders, especially Hamas leaders, was a recurring event. The most notable assassinations were al-Qassam Brigades head Salah Shehada with an F-16 bomb in July 2002, Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in March 2004 with an Apache missile, and Yassins deputy leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi a month later also with an Apache missile.

But this is not 2004, political commentator Ibrahim Madhoun told Al-Monitor, adding, Hamas now has the capacity to strike back as it did in 2012 in a way that would complicate the calculations of Israels decision-makers. Israel realizes that the costs of such a decision will far outweigh any achievements, if it does achieve anything at all.

Hamas is a hierarchical organization.  If Israel assassinated a Hamas senior, another one would just take his place, without any significant change to the movement as a whole, its ideology and the way it operates, Madhoun added.

It is widely believed among Palestinian analysts that Hamas would retaliate with a full military escalation if Israel assassinated any of its leaders. However, in October 2015, the content of a secret meeting between senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar and Marwan Issa, the head of Hamas military wing, was revealed to the public. According to the report, Issa told Zahar that al-Qassam Brigades will not respond to any Israeli escalation no matter what, even if Israel targeted Hamas leaders.

Issa said, We have fought three wars, and we have not achieved anything, to which al-Zahar concurred.

But that was 2015, only one year after Operation Protective Edge, which was a traumatic experience for Hamas due to the massive destruction that befell Gaza along with the lack of achievements on Hamas part. The situation in 2018 may be different. Hamas showed a willingness to retaliate when it recently launched 180 rockets into southern Israel in answer to Israel targeting two of their combatants. But the 2015 secret meeting suggests that the situation may not be as black and white as saying that Hamas will surely retaliate.

The defense sources quoted in the abovementioned Haaretz article said that the assassination of a senior Hamas figure could trigger a harsh response by Hamas and a military campaign.

The report also added that, up till now, Israel has decided not to carry out these assassinations in order to exhaust the efforts by Egypt and the United Nations to broker a political arrangement instead.

Despite the escalations on the borders and heated rhetoric in recent months between Hamas and Israel, Hamas No. 1 priority now remains reaching a long-term cease-fire that includes reinvigorating Gaza and easing the pressure on its caged population.

Since the start of the March of Return protests, Hamas goal throughout the protests has been to put the issue of Gaza back on the international agenda and put pressure on Israel to lift the blockade, which devastated all aspects of life in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas efforts have partially paid off, as there have been indirect talks in recent weeks between the Islamic movement and Israel with the mediation of Egypt and the UN to reach a long-term truce. The truce would include ending the March of Return protests in exchange for a significant alleviation of the siege along with humanitarian gestures.

The Palestinian resistance factions have unilaterally agreed and made it clear that their strategy is defensive. As long as Israel does not target their leaders, combatants and the population, any potential cease-fire and calm will hold, and the opposite is true as well, Dajani said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and army generals view the truce as an opportunity to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which they view as detrimental to Israels security. Also, a truce with the Gaza Strip is viewed by Israel as an opportunity to focus on the threat in the north: Irans presence in Syria along Israels northern border.
A controversy is escalating in Israel after recent publications suggested that a long-term arrangement between Israel and Hamas could soon be signed. And while Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman defends this approach, he is also making a point to clarify his stance on Hamas.

In a particularly long and detailed Facebook post on Aug. 19, Liberman laid out his strategy for Gaza. Liberman explained that Israels endgame is toppling the Hamas regime and that there are two ways to achieve it. The first is reconquering and destroying Gaza in a devastating military assault, which would come with a steep cost in Israeli troops. The second approach, which Liberman prefers, is creating conditions in which the average resident of Gaza will take steps to replace the Hamas regime with a more pragmatic government.

Liberman ended his post with, We are operating and will continue to operate with force, but also with wisdom.  This is intended for everyone who claims that the defense establishment is operating without any policy and without any strategy.

This comment was aimed at HaBayit HaYehudi's chairman, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who is also a member of the Security Cabinet. He has been waging a vicious campaign against Liberman with negotiations over an arrangement in Gaza in the background. Bennett accuses Liberman of surrendering to terrorism and claims that his policies will only lead to war. This clash between Liberman and Bennett, in the highest echelons of the right, may be politically motivated, but it also reflects a significant political and security debate.

Israel and Hamas discussing how they might reach an arrangement in Gaza is a refreshing development after years of diplomatic stalemate. Something is finally taking place that will encourage the players to really think about the problem and put clear and unequivocal positions on the table.

Israeli politicians have not been forced to tackle the problem of Gaza directly since the 2014 Operation Protective Edge. The 2016 election of Donald Trump as president of the United States contributed to the diplomatic stalemate, since Israel was no longer being pressured to restart negotiations with the Palestinians. It was not presented with any diplomatic plan, nor did it face any ultimatum. In sharp contrast, during the Obama administration, Secretary of State John Kerry shuttled back and forth to apply pressure on the parties amid demands that Israel cease construction in the West Bank and constant friction with the administration. In the Trump era, the situation is the exact opposite.

Israel's center left has no fresh ideas, either, since its leaders have a hard time presenting a position to Trump. They had gotten used to blasting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for allegedly destroying Israels relationship with the United States. Now, they are suddenly faced with a relationship between the United States and Israel that couldnt be better.

The negotiations that have been taking place over the last few weeks through Egyptian mediators are intended to restore calm between Israel and Hamas. It is the first diplomatic effort after many long years of stalemate. The public and political debate over the arrangement, which obviously involves maintaining (indirect) contacts with Hamas, allows the different players on the right to present the public with their solution to the Gaza problem. The approaching elections, which most observers believe will be moved up to the first few months of 2019, have made the debate over this issue into a political campaign.

It is obvious that Bennett is trying to position himself to his base on the hard right as the most militant extreme of the Security Cabinet, while presenting Liberman and Netanyahu as being so weak that they are surrendering to Hamas.

Libermans position is interesting. He presented a coherent and detailed exposition on Facebook Aug. 19. Liberman is offering a moderate position, very unlike his statements during Operation Protective Edge about the need to topple Hamas. He now says that steady and ongoing dialogue with the people of Gaza while circumventing the Hamas leadership will result in the collapse of the regime without a war or loss of troops.

In contrast, Netanyahu has hardly brought up the latest round of fighting in Gaza, nor the contacts underway. He realizes that he could lose points on the right for negotiating with Hamas, so when he addresses the issue, he mimics Liberman by targeting the soft underbelly of Israeli society and emphasizing that preventing war means that fewer families will lose their children to violence.

Speaking at a ceremony in his office on Aug. 15 on the backdrop of reports on Israel-Hamas Egypt-mediated talks and an imminent arrangement, Netanyahu commented from that angle. He said, I think that anyone who was a fighter will always be sensitive to the cost of war. The cost of war is heavy. It is terrible, and knowing that we have no choice but to pay that price  always convinces us to find ways to reduce it.  We must be firm. We must be determined. And we must always be aware of the price of war.

Netanyahu made no mention of Gaza, Hamas or an arrangement, but his message was clear. While Bennett and others on the right might prefer a more bellicose approach, he is the more thoughtful and responsible leader. Most importantly, he is very careful when it comes to sending soldiers to war.

These remarks are intended to neutralize the sharp criticism Netanyahu faces from the right that will certainly increase if and when an arrangement is reached. The recent words of Simcha Goldin illustrates this perfectly. Goldin is the father of Lt. Hadar Goldin, who was killed during Protective Edge and whose body is still held by Hamas. On Aug. 17, the bereaved father lashed out at Netanyahu for surrendering to Hamas without demanding that the soldiers bodies first be returned. Netanyahu turned all Israelis into the suckers of the Middle East, he said, and we will pay for it in blood.  The Israeli government has been feeding the monster for the past four years and will now bring about the next war.

Netanyahu and Liberman are aware that they will both have to work hard to convince the public that they did not negotiate with Hamas. In contrast to the bitter conflict on the right, the center left supports the arrangement and backs Netanyahu and Libermans efforts. To distinguish themselves from Netanyahu, they attack the lack of a comprehensive government strategy in dealing with Gaza instead.

Meanwhile, even if the arrangement is on hold, at least it has reinvigorated an important political debate. It is finally forcing the major Israeli political players to present their positions, strategies and solutions for Gaza.
The Hebrew-language headline "The Abbas Obstacle" blared on the front page of Israel Hayom, the pro-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu newspaper. The article itself reported that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was "trying to torpedo" the emerging Israel-Hamas truce agreement on the Gaza Strip. Indeed, Abbas is refusing to go along with what Israel euphemistically dubs the "arrangement" with Hamas. However, contrary to the impression government mouthpieces are trying to make, the Palestinian president is not a pyromaniac. On the contrary.

In his Aug. 18 speech, Abbas declared for the umpteenth time that he would reject any plan not based on the principle of one state, one government, one law and one weapon  in other words, his adamant insistence on one unified government for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In a tragic paradox, while Abbas is demanding one sole, united security force and adhering strictly to the security coordination arrangements with Israel in the West Bank, Israel is willing to accept continued terrorism on the part of the Hamas rulers of Gaza. Instead of cheering Abbas for his determined stand vis-a-vis Hamas, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman accused the Palestinian leader of trying to drag us into a clash with Hamas so that he can take control of Gaza. Would Liberman rather Hamas exploit its entrenchment in Gaza under Israeli auspices, and of Abbas weakness, to take control of the West Bank?

Abbas objections to the so-called arrangement on Gaza does not reflect any desire to walk away from the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords. At an Aug. 13 meeting with Israeli Arab leaders, he was critical of the Palestinian flags some Israeli Arab activists carried at a recent rally in Tel Aviv against the Nationality Law. As he explained, he was seeking to remove the Israeli flag from the West Bank  not to hang a Palestinian one in the heart of Tel Aviv.

It does not take the head of the Shin Bet security service to understand that negotiations with Hamas, and more so an agreement with the organization, strengthen the ruler of Gaza and hurt its rivals from the pragmatic camp led by Abbas. There is no better proof of this than Israels 2005 unilateral pullout from the Gaza Strip, which marks its 13th anniversary this week. Israels evacuation of its Gaza settlements effectively scuttled the roadmap drawn by the Middle East Quartet  the United States, Russia, the UN and the EU  that set out a timetable and agenda for the evacuation of Israeli settlements and negotiations on ending its 51-year occupation of Palestinian territory. The Israeli pullout played into Hamas' hands and contributed to its election victory a year later and its de facto ousting of the Palestinian Authority from the Strip.

Khaled Meshaal, then head of the Hamas political bureau, tried to provoke Abbas at the time by crowing that Gaza was freed by the weapon of resistance and not by futile negotiations with Israel. Other Hamas officials called for the resistance to shift its focus to the West Bank and liberate Jerusalem, Acre, Haifa, Safed, Nazareth, Ashkelon and all the areas considered by them as Palestine. Senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar noted, We wish to spread the culture of resistance [of armed struggle]. On the other hand, Abbas said the PA was seeking to instill a culture of peace. And so ever since the 2005 disengagement, Israelis are under the impression that, despite exiting Gaza, they are still under attack. The Israeli conscious is focused on pictures of Israeli children frightened by shelling from Gaza and on the sounds of the sirens warning of another rocket fired from the Strip. Their conclusion: Israel does not have a partner for peace.

Although the writing has been large on the wall since the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman recently took the trouble to warn Israeli politicians of the ramifications of a deal with Hamas. At one of the recent Cabinet sessions on the subject, Argaman pointed out that pushing Abbas out of the Egyptian-mediated Israel-Hamas negotiations would boost Hamas standing in the West Bank and prove to the Palestinian people that violence is the only way. The warnings by the senior security official went unheeded. The contacts with Hamas proceeded at an accelerated pace.

Liberman even went so far as to address the Palestinian public behind Abbas back. In a clip posted over the weekend on the Facebook page of the Government Coordinator of Activities in the Territories, Liberman said, We can be your greatest partners in the effort to turn the refugee camps into the Singapore of the Middle East. And what do the Palestinians have to do to turn into Singaporeans? Recognition of the right of Israel to exist in peace, demilitarization, and resolution of the issue of the captives and MIAs, said Liberman, referring to Israels demand for a return of Israeli civilians and soldiers remains held by Hamas. And what should they do if their leadership refuses? Replace your leadership, advised the man from the West Bank settlement of Nokdim.

Expecting Hamas to recognize Israels right to exist is about as realistic as expecting Liberman to join the Israeli-Arab Balad Party. And why would they, the 2 million Palestinian residents of Gaza, replace Hamas with a more moderate leadership? What has the PLO gained by its recognition of Israels right to exist in peace within the 1967 borders? To what extent did the ongoing PA security coordination with Israel bring residents of the West Bank any closer to Singapore-style independence? Gilad Erdan, Israels minister of public security, declared that he was not ashamed to say that the main goal of a cease-fire with Hamas was calm and security for Israelis  not a word about an agreement on ending Israels occupation and regional peace.

Abbas is the stronghold of sanity here, but he is portrayed as the biggest obstacle  perhaps even the final one  to the burial of the Oslo Accords and their proscribed two-state solution. Arrangement is synonymous with status quo  the strategic enemy of the paradigm for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The arrangement between the Netanyahu government and Hamas is a tried and tested way of managing the conflict in the manner espoused by Israels political right and the rejectionist Palestinian organizations  managing, instead of resolving.

This is the way to achieve a respite for residents of Israels south, to draw praise from the international community and the Israeli left for opening the crossings into Gaza, to divide the various Palestinian factions and to portray Netanyahu as a levelheaded leader wary of war. Most importantly, this is the way to ensure that the people forcibly ruling millions of Palestinians and turning Israel into an apartheid state maintain control of the biblically inspired Greater Land of Israel.
Russias Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hosted his Lebanese counterpart Gebran Bassil in Moscow Aug. 20. The agenda of the talks included economic partnership, military-technical cooperation, protection of religious and ethnic groups, the situation in Gaza and the relationships between Russia and the Mashriq countries. The main item, however, was Russias initiative to return Syrian refugees home from neighboring countries.

During the final press conference, Lavrov said that Lebanon should not become a hostage to the Syrian crisis and the problem of refugees.

We have discussed in detail the prospects for strengthening our cooperation on issues related to the safe and dignified return of Syrian citizens home, those who have found temporary refuge on Lebanese soil, Lavrov said. Conditions for this have been created and will continue to improve.

He added that the Centre for the Reception, Allocation and Accommodation of Refugees that Russia established in Syria has been distributing information on the localities that are ready to receive people who wish to come back to their homes. According to Lavrov, nearly 7,000 refugees have returned from Lebanon during the last month alone.

Bassil noted that Lebanon supports Russias project and is willing to cooperate with Moscow and other parties. He argued, The conditions in Syria have changed. Currently we see more and more areas where stability and safety have been established. So we do not see any reasons why Syrian refugees should stay in Lebanon.

In late July, Putins special envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev visited Beirut to discuss repatriation. On Aug. 18, during bilateral talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Meseberg, Putin emphasized the humanitarian aspect of the Syrian conflict, pointing out that the return of the refugees would lift a weight off Europes shoulders and to make it happen, European countries must help restore the water supplies, sewage systems, healthcare, the most basic things.

Later, German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert stated that Berlin considers the discussion over reconstruction of Syria's devastated areas premature, as political peace is required first. However, Moscow is unlikely to give up on its project of repatriation because it both showcases Syrias seeming stability and disguises regimes numerous political problems.

In this sense, Bassil is quite well suited to negotiate with Russia. In June, during the visit of Lebanons Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Moscow, he criticized the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), accusing it of preventing Syrian refugees from returning home and declaring that an international conspiracy designed to weaken Lebanon is holding them there.

During the latest meeting, Lavrov basically repeated Bassils claims. He noted that European countries are coming to understand that precisely defined measures are needed to repatriate Syrians, but Washington is impeding the repatriation process by refusing to take part in rebuilding infrastructure in government-controlled regions.

It turns out that the Political Department of the UN Secretariat issued and circulated throughout the UN system in October 2017 a secret directive prohibiting organizations that are part of this system to participate in any projects to restore the Syrian economy, limiting their involvement to humanitarian aid and nothing more, he complained.

Interestingly, Lavrov repeated the words of his predecessor, Igor Ivanov. In 2007, discussing the crisis in Lebanon after the murder of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, Ivanov warned that Lebanon should not become a hostage of outside interests. The overlap in rhetoric means that Russias position remains unchanged and shows the meaningless formality of diplomatic exchanges.

As a result, Bassil has predictably supported the Russian initiative for repatriation, although Lebanon does not have any official contacts with the Syrian regime and the country's new government still has not reached a consensus on the issue.

Hariri and other anti-Syria parties object to this measure. On the same day the talks in Moscow took place, Minister of State for Refugees Mouin Merehbi stated that his office is not working with the Russians on repatriation. Earlier he had said that he was going to make the Russians guarantee that refugees would be returned to safe areas.

However, Hezbollah and its allies, such as Shiite Amal Movement and particularly the Christian Free Patriotic Movement created by President Michel Aoun and led by Aouns son-in-law Bassil, have repeatedly encouraged the return of Syrians, the majority of whom are Sunnis. The General Security directorate has declared that it was working with Syrian intelligence to organize repatriation and had already opened 17 centers all over the country do so. Lebanon's Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim and Syrian National Security chief Ali Mamlouk are both part of the Russian-Syrian-Lebanese Committee for Repatriation.

Lebanons fragmented and sectarian-based policies can be hardly called comprehensive and effective. Taking geographic and political realities into account, Hariri is likely to soften his position on the Syrian regime. In theory, foreign contribution to the repatriation process and investments is possible, yet Russia is unlikely to accept the West as a moderator in this process. At the same time, it is naive to think that Damascus sincerely cares for its citizens and is not just trying to project an image of a compassionate government for the sake of foreign policy goals. The media has already spread the words of Jamil al-Hassan, intelligence head of the Syrian Air Force, who claimed that dissent would be crushed and supporters of the rebellion punished.

In February the UNHCR published a list of conditions for repatriation such as a benign environment, guaranteed safety and amnesty for former refugees, including those who avoided military service. However, the UNs latest reports show that these conditions are still not met and the regime continues to pit the remaining residents against the rebels.
Sweet and refreshing, Turkish gazoz  a light, carbonated soft drink in a variety of colors and flavors  became a symbol of reckless, Westernized youth in the mid-1940s. This fizzy concoction, first produced during Ottoman times, had fallen out of favor in the late 20th century, but it is unexpectedly back. Reflecting Turkey's regional complexities through its variations, gazoz is stiff competition for anise-flavored raki and ayran (yoghurt mixed with water) in laying claim to being Turkey's true and timeless national beverage.

Gazoz, from the French eau gazeuse for sparkling water, became so popular in the 1960s and 1970s that it continues to creep into novels and films set in those bygone decades. The Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk conveyed the nations affection for these fruit-infused sodas in Museum of Innocence, a nostalgic novel on love, and exhibits replicas of the iconic Meltem bottles in the actual Museum of Innocence, in memory of our optimism and the happy-go-lucky spirit of the day. The filmmaker and actor Cem Yilmaz uses it as a symbol of tolerance and adolescent idealism in his 2016 movie Gazoz for Iftar.

Traditionally, gazoz has been produced and consumed locally, creating and evoking strong connections to its place of origin. In the drink's heyday, every town of Anatolia had a brand or two of its own, made distinctively unique by an original mix of mineral water from its soil and flavors and smells from lemon, ginger, raspberry, gum mastic, and bitter almond, and other edibles. Locally made gazoz eventually came face-to-face with national and international competition.

A handful of national producers, among them Uludag Icecek, Nigde, and Camlica, emerged, selling the drink everywhere, including abroad, while popular foreign brands also found their way onto supermarkets shelves and into corner grocers. The competition was ultimately a losing one for everyone, as gazoz fell victim to carbonated drinks sold around the world.

Uludag Icecek was one of the first companies to recognize the nostalgic value of gazoz. In 2003, it brought back its old, stylish bottle, with a campaign recalling the first mass-produced gazoz from 1932 and its special formula. According to Uludag, gazoz consumption in Turkey totals 483.4 million liters a year, excluding orange gazoz (an Orangina equivalent), which stands at 792.6 million liters. Combined total consumption thus exceeds a remarkable 1 billion liters. Meanwhile Uludag Icecek exports around 33 million liters of gazoz a year.

The wave of nostalgia hit Istanbul around the early 2000s, when a few boutique cafes  Avam in central Beyoglu and Hurma and Kibrit Kutusu on the Asian side of the Bosphorus  began offering a small assortment of obscure artisanal product brands from the Aegean region and southeastern Anatolia. Since 2015, that first drop of local gazoz has become a deluge of more than 100 incarnations in new, hip spots around the city.

Two friends, Anil Karacaer and Mahmut Sakli, jumped on the trend, opening Sevda Gazozcusu, first in Vefa and then in Balat. We chose these historical neighborhoods because they are in line with our concept based on reviving traditions and on our past, Karacaer told Al-Monitor.

Ecstatic fanatics and curious passersby at Sevda Gazozcusu request drinks with savors associated with particular localities. For those with a sense of adventure, Anil and Mahmut are happy to oblige, leading them on a journey of discovery that starts in their fridge. Always drink cold! Their mini-shops are stocked with more than 130 varieties of gazoz from every corner of Turkey, half of them personally selected. Among some of the more unusual flavors are coconut, chocolate and dates.

Unlike Sevda Gazozcusu, where there is no place to sit and sip, Gazoz Kapaa, in downtown Capa, offers a more relaxed tasting session. Owner Tansel Cuneyt Guler is enthusiastic about some of the new brands his shop offers.

The ingredients they use are natural and of better quality than in the past, such as beetroot sugar, he told Al-Monitor, explaining that he travels around Anatolia in pursuit of deserving novelties.

Kapaa offers an extensive selection and proposes pairings with food, catering mostly to students. They are not well informed about gazoz, he remarked. They usually drink those of their hometown. They identify with it.

Meanwhile, Ahmet Sav of Gazozname, told Al-Monitor, Gazoz is in my family and in my veins. Sav became a distributor in 2014, initially by bringing local drinks to a few, select cafes in Istanbul. There are now more than 100 cafes on his client list, a few in other cities as well.

The grandson of a gazoz maker, Sav was convinced that demand would take off. I knew that the craving for gazoz was already there, in the subconscious of many people, he said. He was proved right.

In 2015, Sav opened his own unassuming cafe to sell gazoz in Uskudar and observe the reactions and preferences of his customers. He also now sells to businesses and individuals online.

The main problem with gazoz is that distribution of local production is a complicated and expensive business. Big names dominate the market, leaving only 7-8% to all the others, Sav said.

His personal objectives are to push artisans to experiment and refine their gazoz  the healthier the better  and to provide a connection between them, their signature flavors and supermarkets. He offered his prize product to savor  a homemade gazoz with black mulberry juice that was not too sweet and immensely refreshing.
Hallie Ringle is the Birmingham Museum of Art's new Hugh Kaul Curator for Contemporary Art.

Coming from the curatorial team at The Studio Museum in Harlem following a national search, Ringle will join the BMA Nov. 1. Ringle was at The Studio Museum for five years.

Ringle said she wants to further community dialogue, enhance the museum's collection and tell stories through contemporary art.

"I am delighted to join the BMA at an exciting time in a dynamic city when the museum is increasingly using contemporary art to help shape critical conversations happening locally and nationally," Ringle said.

Director Graham Boettcher said Ringle is a highly regarded curator of contemporary art.

"Hallie brings with her an impressive record of groundbreaking exhibitions--working with both emerging and established artists--and a deep commitment to community engagement," he said.

Ringle will oversee the BMA's permanent collection of more than 3,000 American and European works of art dating from about 1970 to the present, with paintings, works on paper, photography, sculpture, and videos. She will be responsible for the development of exhibitions, publications, lectures, and other content related to the Museum's collection of contemporary art.

Ringle will also lead the Museum's Collectors' Circle for Contemporary Art, a group overseeing growth and development of the Museum's

permanent collection, aimed at educating its members about contemporary art.

Beginning as the senior curatorial assistant at the Studio Museum in

2013, Ringle became their assistant curator in 2016. She produced exhibitions of modern and contemporary artists and managed the museum's signature artist-in-residence program. She has written extensively about artists of African descent and has contributed to several publications.

She earned her bachelor's degree in art history and history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her master's in art history with a concentration in contemporary African art from the University of Texas at Austin.
Bishop Robert J. Baker, head of the Diocese of Birmingham, has issued a formal response to the Pennsylvania grand jury report released last week detailing sexual abuse committed by 301 priests.

"The evil committed and the evil inflicted is horrific, excruciating, and absolutely intolerable," Baker said in the statement released Monday, Aug. 20.

"We are forced today to face the tragic revelation of scores of accusations of predominately homosexual behavior and abuse," he wrote.

He noted that the church is taking steps to protect against clerical abuse.

"As your bishop, I share your pain," he wrote. "Please know, too, that through our Youth Protection Program, background checks, and lay-member Diocesan Review Board, we have been vigilant in our efforts to protect our children."

Baker also stressed that there are "many faithful and dedicated priests who share the same outrage and are suffering greatly by these revelations. Some have even been unjustly attacked while wearing their clerical collars in public places. We have all endured more than enough of this evil, and it is time we join forces against it."

Here is the full text of Baker's public letter:

To The Clergy and Lay Faithful of the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Little in this world can elicit a greater sense of visceral pain, righteous anger, staggering frustration, or paralyzing despair than the sudden unveiling of decades of serious, gut-wrenching betrayal by those in ordained ministry.

From the moment a man is ordained a deacon, priest, or bishop, he stands in the person of Christ for the Church and the world. While no human is worthy of such a high calling, and without extraordinary holiness no man can fulfill his vocation to perfection, each is anointed for the sacred duty of faithfully celebrating the Sacraments and imitating the mystery they celebrate by modeling their lives on the sacrificial mystery of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Yet again in recent weeks, the Church is thrust deep into the throes of shocking and unanticipated betrayal by the revelations of the sinful, egregious actions of those in positions of power, by those whose lives were meant, through Christ, to be lived sacrificially for others. Whether the acts committed were by hierarchs, priests, or deacons, the evil committed and the evil inflicted is horrific, excruciating, and absolutely intolerable.

While most of the scandalous behaviors recently reported occurred decades ago, even before the Dallas Charter was instituted in 2002, there is in this current spate of dreadful news enormous challenges we must face and publicly address. The Dallas Charter offered much that was helpful in dealing with the issue of the sexual abuse of minors, but it did not deal clearly and decisively with the greatest issues we are facing in this newest round of reports.

I find it no coincidence that these reports arrived on the heels of the 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI's encyclical, dated July 25, 1968. We know that Humanae Vitae addresses the regulation of birth, and the sacredness, dignity, and life-affirming nature of conjugal love shared within the Sacrament of Marriage. The question might arise, "How does that relate to the scandals of the day?" The answer is quite simple and something we don't hear often enough: Virtue. More specifically, and something we hear of even less: Chastity.

Sadly, chastity is not a word that is highly utilized in common parlance, nor is it a concept that is highly valued or understood in our culture. Even more sadly, it is a virtue that obviously has been too frequently lost to the powers of the world, the flesh, and the devil within the ordained ministry of our Church. This is the greatest sadness of all; and when you combine this with narcissism, pride, and abuse of power, you elicit the perfect storm that we see today.

St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) was no stranger to a Church that shared the similar ingredients of lust, narcissism, pride, power, and greed, as he devoted his priestly ministry, often at times of great risk to his life, to bringing some 40,000 Calvinists back to the Catholic faith post-Reformation. In short, Francis ministered to the souls who departed the faith in part because of the scandalous reign of Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia 1431-1503) and the immoral behaviors of ordained clergy across Europe. Pope Alexander VI was known to have fathered numerous children by various concubines, as well as to have had criminal involvement in the Italian underworld. Similarly, it was not uncommon to find priests in open relationships with their mistresses and fathering children on the side. These scandals, along with others, scattered the seeds of contempt that helped lay the foundation for the Protestant Reformation.

At the time, St. Francis de Sales uttered these prophetic words, that are as relevant today as they were during his priestly ministry, "Those who commit these types of scandals are guilty of the spiritual equivalent of murder, but I'm here among you to prevent something far worse for you. While those who give scandal are guilty of the spiritual equivalent of murder, those who take scandal--who allow scandals to destroy their faith--are guilty of spiritual suicide."

What is the difference between the scandals of the Church of the 16th and 17th centuries and the Church of today? The lust, narcissism, pride, and abuse of power are pretty much the same. The difference we see now lies in the nature of the lust. We are forced today to face the tragic revelation of scores of accusations of predominately homosexual behavior and abuse.

The Pennsylvania grand jury has not euphemized the quasi-pornographic details of the acts committed by the clergy; and these bring us all to tears of repentance and to prayer, which is not a bad place to be in the darkness of grave evil.

As your bishop, I share your pain. Please know, too, that through our Youth Protection Program, background checks, and lay-member Diocesan Review Board, we have been vigilant in our efforts to protect our children.

We are indeed blessed with so many faithful and dedicated priests who share the same outrage and are suffering greatly by these revelations. Some have even been unjustly attacked while wearing their clerical collars in public places. We have all endured more than enough of this evil, and it is time we join forces against it. We are stronger together than we could ever be apart.

Allow me momentarily to return to the quote from St. Francis de Sales:

"While those who give scandal are guilty of the spiritual equivalent of murder, those who take scandal -- who allow scandals to destroy their faith -- are guilty of spiritual suicide."

This is where we all have our part in the solution. We cannot allow these scandals to destroy our faith. We, as a diocese, cannot be guilty of spiritual suicide any more than I and my brother priests can be guilty of spiritual murder. We all must turn to the Bread of Life for our sustenance. Only by turning to prayer and penance, and by living a life of sacrificial virtue, steeped in the Sacraments of the Church, does any one of us stand a chance against the great evils of our time. Please consider giving at least an hour a week of Eucharistic Adoration, or more, to pray for our Church and its clergy.

On a practical note, you have received a Pastoral Letter from me entitled "Called, Formed, Sent: Missionary Discipleship and its Consequences for Ministry in the Diocese of Birmingham."

As you know, next year we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama with a Eucharistic Congress.

This Eucharistic Congress, on June 28th and 29th of 2019, will take place at the end of ten months of preparation, based on reflections using this Pastoral Letter as a guide-book for all in our diocese. What we are looking toward is renewal and conversion, a deeper understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and a missionary, what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be committed to Jesus Christ, centering our lives totally around him, what it means to fix our eyes only on the Lord Jesus Christ--because taking our eyes off Jesus leads to selfishness, sin, and scandal.

There is so much good in the people I encounter daily in our diocese, and in all its manifold ministries and apostolates. And yet there is so much in need of reform and renewal. All the apostolates and ministries are open to the review and scrutiny of everyone in the diocese, especially in our efforts to protect our children and youth.

With the help of our Pastoral Letter, "Called, Formed, Sent: Missionary Discipleship and its Consequences for Ministry in the Diocese of Birmingham," released officially on the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, August 15th, I invite everyone to review carefully our diocesan efforts for child and youth protection and all our apostolates and ministries through the lens of "missionary discipleship" to determine how and whether all we do as a diocesan Church conforms to the mind and heart of Jesus Christ.

Further, I invite you to invoke with me the intercession of St. Joseph, the Spouse of the Blessed Mother, and Patron of the Universal Church, in this Diocesan "Year of St. Joseph," for his guidance, protection, and pastoral care in all we do in preparation for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of our diocese on June 28, 2019.

Praying for our hearts and minds to be centered around our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, during this time of reflection and conversion, I am

Respectfully yours in Christ,

Most Rev. Robert J. Baker, S.T.D

Bishop of Birmingham in Alabama
The Jefferson County Department of Health is accepting public comments on a proposed air pollution permit renewal for the ABC Coke plant in Tarrant.

The Drummond Company, which owns ABC Coke, has applied for a renewal of the plant's Title V operating permit, which regulates air emissions from the facility, located just north of Birmingham.

ABC Coke is one of several nearby industrial operations in north Birmingham or Tarrant, including another coking plant. Air pollution has been a concern in the area for decades, culminating in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposing to list areas near the plant as a Superfund site in 2014. Drummond was named as one of five potentially responsible parties for pollution at the site, though the ABC Coke plant is not located within the site.

The Drummond Company web site describes ABC Coke as "the largest merchant producer of foundry coke in the United States," capable of producing 730,000 tons of coke annually.

Birmingham-based environmental group Gasp contested the renewal of the ABC Coke permit in 2014, asking for information sessions with residents and public meetings, and ultimately requesting a hearing before the Board of Health, which oversees the JCDH. The request for hearing was denied, leading to legal battles that are still not fully resolved.

Gasp executive director Michael Hansen said the group is reviewing the 390-page permit application and 90-page draft permit, which were published Friday. He expects the group will oppose the permit as it has previously, and the group has published an online petition page to gather signatures of those opposing the renewal of the permit.

"The reason we're so interested in the ABC Coke permit is that the facility emits a number of carcinogens, including benzene, naphthalene, and arsenic," Hansen said. "It's also important to recognize that ABC Coke's toxic emissions disproportionately affect African-American families and low-income households."

According to the permit application, the plant creates coke by superheating coal in a no-oxygen environment to remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other impurities. The resulting coke is a high-carbon fuel used in the steel-making process. Coking operations have been ongoing at the current ABC Coke site for more than 100 years.

The facility uses a byproducts plant to recover the VOCs to create sellable products including coal tar and coke oven gas, some of which is used to heat the plant's coke ovens.

However, Hansen and Gasp say those devices aren't enough to reduce the emission of potentially hazardous substances into the environment.

"We believe ABC Coke needs to dramatically enhance its pollution control technology to reduce emissions, especially when it comes to air toxics and particulate matter," Hansen said. "There is no safe level of exposure to particulate matter.

"We also believe that everyone deserves to breathe clean air no matter where they live, how much money they make, or what color their skin is. This is an opportunity to protect the health and well-being of the residents of Tarrant and northern Birmingham."

The draft permit and permit application are available on the Jefferson County Department of Health web site. The Department is accepting comments through Sept. 21. Comments can be submitted by email to airpermitcomments@jcdh.org, or mailed to:

Corey Masuca, Principal Air Pollution Control Engineer

Environmental Health Services

Air and Radiation Protection Division

Jefferson County Department of Health

P.O. Box 2648

Birmingham, AL 35202
The attorney for a man charged with fatally shooting his longtime girlfriend and wounding four of his children said his client snapped when he found her in bed with another woman.

Prosecutors though, and the other woman, deny that claim.

Sedrick Letzie Norris, 39, is on trial this week in Jefferson County Circuit Judge Laura Petro's court for one count of capital murder and four counts of attempted murder for an incident in 2016 that left his longtime girlfriend Coral Anita Wilson dead, and four of their young children injured.

Opening statements were held Tuesday morning. "You're going to hear a terribly sad case," Deputy District Attorney Neal Zarzour said. "A case that is an epitome of that cycle of violence... it's a pattern."

Birmingham police responded to the 1400 block of 21st Street North on the evening of May 11, 2016 after receiving several calls about gunshots in the area. Wilson was found dead on her living room floor, and the four wounded children were found outside and at a neighbor's apartment. The couple had eight children together--three others at the house weren't hurt, and one wasn't home.

Zarzour said Norris and Wilson had previous incidents of domestic violence, and police had been called to Wilson's Druid Hills home several times. Court records show Wilson filed for, and was granted, a protection from abuse order against Norris just two months before the shooting--both for her and their children. According to court documents, one of the abuse incidents happened on Valentine's Day when Wilson said her boyfriend pushed her over a table.

"Unfortunately though, that piece of paper wasn't enough," Zarzour said.

He talked about LaShundra Guss, a neighbor and friend of Wilson's who came over twice daily to help take care of the eight children. Wilson had lupus and was often exhausted when the kids got home from school, Zarzour said, so Guss would help make dinner and get the kids ready for bed.

That evening, Zarzour said, Norris came over twice--once while Guss was there, and then again after Guss had left. When he came over the second time, Zarzour said Norris grabbed an AK-47 he kept in the closet there and shot Wilson close-range in the neck while she held their infant son. "He made that decision," Zarzour said.

He said Norris also wildly fired, shooting and injuring four of the seven children in the house. The children ran, some to a neighbor's house and others outside where other neighbors grabbed them until police arrived. The four children shot were ages 5, 8, 11 and 12. The four children not wounded are ages 13, 9, 6 and 8 months. He said it was a "miracle" all the children survived the shooting.

"But, they will forever be scarred physically and emotionally by what they witnessed that night," Zarzour said.

Michael Blalock, Norris' attorney, said during his opening statement that Norris did shoot his girlfriend of 14 years and their children. "There's no doubt a sad and tragic incident occurred," he said. "He snapped."

Blalock said Norris and Wilson had an on-again, off-again relationship and he had spent the night in Wilson's home on May 10, the night before the shooting. He came over earlier on the evening of May 11, and saw Guss in bed with Wilson. "It's what's called a heat of passion case," Blalock said.

Blalock said after Guss had left and Norris came back, Wilson told him that their relationship was over and she was dating Guss. "He snapped... he got [the gun] and shot," Blalock said, stating that Norris thought his life was over. "Plain and simple."

"He saw what he saw and he did what he did. Is it right? No," Blalock said. He asked jurors to convict Norris of a lesser offense of a "quick, heat of passion" killing, and not capital murder.

Guss testified after opening statements. She said she was not romantically involved with Wilson and was dating a man at the time. She said she was once married to a man and has never dated a woman.

She had been living with her mother, in an apartment next door to Wilson's house. Her mother had cancer and Guss was a home health care nurse. He was introduced to Wilson when she moved in with her mom, because Wilson would often help Guss' mother and sit with her to keep her company.

Guss said she didn't know Norris well, but she knew Wilson had a protection order against him. Guss said she felt like Norris didn't like her because of the time Guss spent with the children. "He had a problem with me," she said.

Every day, Guss came over to get the kids ready for school and on the bus. Then she would go home, wait on her mom's daily nurse, and go to work. When Guss got home, she would check on her mom and then go to Wilson's and help the children with homework, make dinner, do laundry, or whatever Wilson needed.

May 11, 2016 was no different, Guss said. After work, she made lasagna for the kids and started braiding their hair, preparing them for an awards ceremony at school the next day. The show Empire came on that evening, so everyone gathered in Wilson's bedroom to watch. Some of the kids were sitting on the bed, and Guss was in the bed braiding one of the girl's hair. She said Wilson was in the laundry room nearby.

Suddenly, Guss said, Norris kicked in the back door. The kids were afraid, and he was yelling, arguing with Wilson. Guss said she got between the couple and told Norris he needed to leave. "I didn't want them arguing in front of those babies," she said.

After a few minutes, he left. Guss said then, she and Wilson tried to repair the now-broken lock on the back door and barricaded it with furniture.

Guss said she needed to go check on her mother next door and give her medicine, so she told the kids and Wilson she would be right back. Guss said Wilson responded, "Please come on back because I don't want him to come back and kill me."

While Guss was giving her mom shots and getting her oxygen tank prepared, she heard gunshots. As she ran to her front door, two of the injured children came running inside her apartment. Guss said one of the children, who had two bullet holes and was bleeding profusely, fell into her arms and said, "TT, I'm hit. TT, my daddy shot me."

Guss called police, put pressure on the child's wounds, and made him keep talking while he dipped in and out of consciousness, she said. When emergency responders arrived, she let them take the wounded children and she ran outside, seeing two others wounded in an ambulance. Four of the children weren't hurt but were outside, and she brought them to her apartment. She got everyone cleaned up and changed their clothes, and then went back outside.

She wasn't allowed inside Wilson's home, Guss said, but she saw past police and spotted Wilson lying dead on the living room floor.

The Department of Human Resources came later that night and took the children.

If convicted of capital murder, court records show Norris will not be eligible for the death penalty under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that states execution is not an option for people with intellectual disabilities.

The trial will continue Tuesday afternoon. Deputy District Attorney Joe Roberts is also prosecuting the case.
A 27-year-old door-to-door vacuum salesman said he was shocked to find himself the subject of a Facebook post shared thousands of times after one Jefferson County city warned people not to open the door for him.

Greg Nevels, who works for LWA Inc. in Tuscaloosa, was featured Monday on the City of Adamsville Facebook page, where he was said to be a convicted burglar and robber. This is what was posted:

"Gregory George Nevels going door to door and states that he/they are selling Kirby Vacuums or Alarm Systems in Graysville. He made a mistake and went to a Police Officer's home. This man is wanted for questioning according to the Jefferson County Deputy we spoke with. He has previously been convicted of burglary, robbery and several other convictions. Do not open the door for him. If you see him or his vehicle, call the Jefferson County Sheriff's office or if you see him in Adamsville then call the Adamsville Police Department ASAP. The vehicle is a silver or gray Dodge Grand Caravan with tag number 4446AW5. We do not allow door to door sales in Adamsville for this reason! Additional information coming in. There is a black female with dreads with him. She has also been going to some doors. They are also saying that they are selling Cable or Direct T.V. We believe they may be casing homes to come back to. If you have spotted him in Jefferson County, outside of Adamsville, please call Jefferson County at 325-1450 or 911 if he is at your home."

Nevels, who was in Jefferson County Monday selling vacuums, said he got home Monday night and a friend then sent him a copy of the post. "I'm not a murderer or a robber or a burglar,'' he said. "Greg isn't that kind of guy. He's not going around casing out houses to rob," Nevels said, speaking of himself in third person.

Court records show Nevels was convicted of second-degree theft of property in Tuscaloosa County in 2011 - before he was working for LWA - and given a suspended sentence. Alabama records do not show any convictions for burglary or robbery.

Tony Bryan, the owner of LWA Inc., said Nevels joined the company as a subcontractor in about 2012 and is a great man and great worker. "We are active in the community, we are members of the Better Business Bureau and have an A-plus rating. We have an impeccable reputation and I would say he's a great representative of our company,'' Bryan said. "He's been a model member of my team."

Bryan also said he ran a complete background check on Nevels, as he does with all potential employees, and said he was aware of the theft issue before hiring him. "Young people make mistakes,'' Bryan said, "and he's spent many, many years showing me his character. He one of my hardest workers, and he knows his product."

Nevels said he awoke Tuesday morning to find he was the subject of a news story on at least one Birmingham television station. That's when he said he drove back to Jefferson County to speak with Adamsville police and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. He said he was told he was not wanted for questioning and not accused of any crimes. Sheriff's officials also confirmed Nevels isn't wanted in connection with any crimes.

Nevels and Adamsville police Det. Chris Shaw met, and Shaw says they discussed where Nevels could and could not, sell vacuums. Adamsville has a no-soliciting ordinance and Shaw said Nevels still could be cited for violation of that ordinance. Nevels has a valid business license in Jefferson County.

"We're kind of used to going through stuff like that,'' Nevels said. "I'm not trying to sue anybody. I just want the post taken down."

The Adamsville Police Department, which shared the City of Adamsville's post about Nevils, updated it to say, "In follow up to the recent post on the Kirby Vacuum salesman, we have investigated and found that this indeed is a legitimate company and Gregory Nevels is a current employee with this company. The City of Adamsville has a no solicitation policy as stated before. Mr. Nevels has a current business license purchased through Jefferson County that allows him to go door to door in areas where it is allowed."

Though shocked by the post, Nevels said he's not angry. "That's one emotion I've gotten rid of,'' he said.

Nor will the post deter him from doing what loves. "That's the thing about it - as long as I'm legitimate, I can go to somebody's door,'' Nevels said. "I just need to clear my name before I get back out there."

His boss called the post a "gross report of misinformation."

"He has a young daughter he takes care of and he's a great father,'' Bryan said. "It's a detriment to his career."
Alabama utilities and coal industry groups say they are still assessing potential implications of a new rule proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding emissions from coal-fired power plants, but most say they are not anticipating major changes for electricity generation or coal mining in the state.

The proposed rule, called the Affordable Clean Energy rule, is the Trump administration's replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which set strict emissions limits by state for electric generating plants. The Obama-era rule was challenged in court by several states as violating the Clean Air Act and never went into effect.

Nationally, the new rule hands more power and flexibility to the states to meet emissions reduction targets, and gives them the ability to allow older coal-fired power plants to make smaller on-site emissions improvements rather than force retirement or conversion to renewables or natural gas, which generates fewer carbon emissions than coal.

In Alabama, the potential impacts of the rule are not yet clear.

Southern Company, the parent group which owns Alabama Power and other utilities throughout the Southeast, said it is still studying the new rule, but touted emissions reductions it has already made. The company has pledged to transition to low- or no-carbon operations by 2050.

"Southern Company supports a constructive and durable rule to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that is consistent with the Clean Air Act," Southern Company spokesperson Schuyler Baehman said. "Southern Company is committed to providing clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy, while transitioning towards low- to no-carbon operations by 2050.

"Since 2007, Southern Company has reduced CO2 emissions by 36 percent."

Emissions from electric power plants across the country have fallen in recent years, as natural gas and renewables gained popularity over coal, including in Alabama.

Alabama Power says its carbon emissions decreased nearly 33 percent from 2007-2017, and that about 30 percent of its current generation came from zero-emission sources like nuclear plants, hydroelectric dams and renewable sources like wind and solar.

Alabama Power got about half of its electricity from coal in 2017, down from nearly 80 percent in the late 1990s. Alabama Power provides electric service directly or through electric co-ops to roughly two thirds of the state.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electric service to north Alabama, said it is expecting minimal impact to its customers.

"Based on our initial review, TVA does not expect Valley state standards resulting from the proposed rule will significantly impact our emission reduction plans or power rates," TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said.

"TVA has reduced CO2 emissions nearly 50 percent below 2005 levels, and with added nuclear power capacity at Watts Bar and Browns Ferry nuclear plants, as well as other improvements to our system, we are on track to be about 60 percent below 2005 carbon levels before 2020."

TVA does not have any active coal-fired units left in Alabama.

According to the 2016 data from the Energy Information Administration, Alabama is the 15th largest producer of coal in the United States, with Alabama mines producing about 9.6 million tons of coal that year.

Alabama Coal Association president Patrick Cagle said about 2 million tons per year of Alabama coal is burned to generate electricity in the state.

"Generating power from a local fuel source provides Alabama with greater energy security, a key factor that would not have been considered by the Obama Administration's overreaching, one-size-fits-all plan," Cagle said.

"We commend the Trump Administration for drafting a rule that reflects the boundaries clearly established in the Clean Air Act by regulating individual sources, not the entire electric grid. It also returns flexibility to the states to determine how to implement the rule as required by the CAA."

A larger percentage of the coal mined in Alabama is metallurgical coal, used not for electricity, but for steelmaking, largely overseas.

The Alabama State Port Authority said it does not expect the new rule to have much impact on operations at the Port of Mobile, a major coal export terminal.

"The Alabama State Port Authority does not anticipate any impact from today's ruling, because most of the coal handled at the port is metallurgical coal - not thermal coal," said Judith Adams, vice president of marketing for the Alabama State Port Authority. "Most of the region's utilities, who once used thermal coal as a fuel source, have already invested in natural gas or renewable fuel technologies."

The new rule is projected to decrease power sector emissions through 2030 by about 0.7 to 1.5 percent more than if there were no regulation. The Obama rules were estimated to cut emissions by 19 percent vs. taking no action. The EPA acknowledged that it expects between 470 and 1400 more premature deaths annually due to increased particulate air pollution compared to projections under the Obama plan. Small particulate air pollution has been linked to heart and lung disease and can also trigger asthma or other breathing ailments.
A South Carolina woman was killed in an alligator attack while walking her dog on Hilton Head Island in what authorities say is an "extremely uncommon" attack.



Officials with the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office said the woman, identified by authorities as Cassandra Cline, 45, was pulled her into a lagoon Monday morning by the eight-foot-long reptile. Deputies responded to the scene near Wood Duck Road about 9:30 a.m. and pulled her body from the water, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.



Authorities said Cline's dog was not harmed.

Deceased woman in alligator attack identified as 45-year-old Cassandra Cline of Hilton Head Island. https://t.co/swravYNDFL  BCSO EMD Traffic & Weather (@BCSOTraffic) August 20, 2018



South Carolina Department of Natural Resources spokesman David Lucas said fatal alligator attacks are "extremely uncommon," especially in South Carolina.



The state has recorded only one death from an alligator encounter over the past four decades, Lucas said. In 2016, a 90-year-old woman found dead in a pond in Charleston was believed to have been killed by an alligator, according to the Post and Courier. Lucas said that since 1976, there have about 20 non-fatal encounters with alligators in the state.



Following Monday's incident, authorities captured the alligator and euthanized it, Lucas said.



Authorities are still awaiting an autopsy to determine the exact cause of death, according to a statement from the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office.

Law enforcement with Sea Pines Security, S.C. Department of Natural Resources and the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office stand near where authorities say Cassandra Cline was dragged into a lagoon by an alligator and killed while trying to save her dog on Monday, Aug. 20, 2018, on Hilton Head Island, S.C. (Drew Martin/The Island Packet via AP)



The sheriff's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment and the county coroner's office said no information was further available on the incident.



A spokeswoman with Sea Pines Community Services Associates called it a "tragedy," saying the homeowners association is working with the sheriff's office and South Carolina Department of Natural Resources during the investigation.



The state's Department of Natural Resources has previously warned residents and visitors to be aware that alligators may be hiding in bodies of water and never to approach the animals.



Officials also said people should avoid swimming in water or allowing pets to swim in water where alligators are known to be and urged "never" feeding the animals because it can make them aggressive toward humans.



"Not only is it illegal in South Carolina to feed alligators, it also teaches them to associate people with food," according to a 2016 news release. "This can cause alligators to lose their natural fear of humans. In many cases, fed alligators will begin to approach at the sight of people and may become aggressive in seeking a handout. These animals will be euthanized to prevent unwanted alligator interactions.



"Also, don't dispose of fish scraps or crab bait in the water at boat ramps, docks, swimming, or camping areas. You can inadvertently be feeding alligators."

(c) 2018, The Washington Post. Written by Lindsey Bever


CORINTH, Mississippi -- Eberlene King remembers her 15-year-old brother as he lay dying, after white teenagers cruised through their black neighborhood in a pickup on Halloween night 1959 and shot him in the face.

"His eyes ... were hanging out," King recalled. "His head was full of pellets."

William Roy Prather died the next morning in their hometown of Corinth, Mississippi, a few miles south of the Tennessee line.

Eight white teens were charged with murder, but only one was convicted. Jerry Darnell Glidewell, then 16, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in January 1960 and served less than a year in state prison. Six of the seven others in the truck got a year's probation through youth court, and an 18-year-old walked free.

The black teen's slaying has never drawn much attention, even as federal and state authorities in the past 15 years have re-opened investigations of racially motivated killings from the civil rights era.

Now, the U.S. Justice Department says it has referred Prather's killing to the state of Mississippi "for potential prosecution." The Associated Press dug into the case to reveal information not previously reported, including details about the Justice Department's investigation and AP interviews with King and Glidewell.

It's unclear whether a district attorney will pursue charges against any aging defendant in a decades-old case where witnesses' memories may be fading and some pieces of evidence, including the truck and the shotgun, have disappeared.

The case is briefly mentioned in a report the department filed in March -- the same one that said the department is reviving its investigation into the brutal 1955 killing of another black teenager in Mississippi, Emmett Till.

"Although prosecution of some of the subjects may be barred by double jeopardy and other subjects are deceased, the Department referred the matter to the state of Mississippi to determine whether any state prosecutions might be appropriate," the Justice Department said of the Prather case.

The state prosecutor whose territory includes Corinth, District Attorney John Weddle, did not return multiple calls seeking comment.

King said FBI agents knocked on her door a few years ago and hand-delivered a letter from the Justice Department. It said no federal charges could be brought in the killing of her brother, based on laws that existed in 1959. It said "the only possible prosecution" would be for the state to bring unspecified charges against one suspect who was 18 at the time of the crime.

Corinth -- pronounced coh-RINTH by locals -- is home to about 14,600 people, 70 percent of them white and 24 percent black.

In the city, once besieged during the Civil War, schools and neighborhoods remained segregated through the 1960s. While some black residents remember fear and violence, others say the town was quiet as long as everyone, in the language of the times, "remembered their place."

The 1950s and '60s saw racial strife throughout the South, as whites resisted racial integration. Prather's slaying came four years after Till's brutal killing galvanized the civil rights movement and three years before violence erupted about 80 miles (129 kilometers) southwest of Corinth at the University of Mississippi when the first black student enrolled.

A Confederate soldier still statue stands sentinel outside the courthouse on Corinth's town square.

Inside the courthouse, old handwritten records show that on Jan. 26, 1960, Glidewell pleaded guilty to manslaughter: "Ordered to serve 5 yrs. in State Penitentiary, the last 4 yrs. of which suspended on good behavior."

Glidewell, who goes by his middle name Darnell, now lives off a hilly country road north of Corinth. He answered the phone on a recent morning, and an Associated Press reporter asked about Prather's killing.

"They charged me with that, yeah," said Glidewell, now in his mid-70s.

As to what happened that Halloween night, he said: "I'd rather not talk to you on the phone."

But Glidewell responded to a few more questions. He said investigators spoke to him about the case several ago, and one said: "'Don't worry about it.'"

"It's all over with, you know?" Glidewell said. "But I ain't heard any more from it. ... That's over 50 year ago."

Glidewell said "four or five" of the people with him that night are still alive. "I don't know where they live right now," he said. "I don't ever see them."

Their names don't appear in court records near Glidewell's, but they are listed in the Justice Department letter.

After the phone conversation, an AP reporter and photographer drove to Glidewell's house and knocked on the door. His wife said he has liver cancer, his memory is failing and he did not want to talk.

The Justice Department letter says that, based on investigators' interviews with witnesses, a group of white teens drove through a black neighborhood of Corinth on Halloween night 1959. Black witnesses said they saw the white teens throwing firecrackers at the black teens, and some young black people threw rocks and bricks at the truck. Investigators were told the white teenagers got a shotgun and shells from a home of one person in their group, then returned to the black part of town, where Glidewell shot Prather.

"Glidewell reported to police that before he fired the shotgun several of the subjects said, 'There they are, shoot,'" the Justice Department letter said.

News reports from the time said Prather was not among those who had thrown rocks or bricks at the truck.

"Although Glidewell and some of the subjects contended that Glidewell had shot straight up in the air, the autopsy report indicated that Glidewell had aimed the shotgun dead-straight at your brother's face," the Justice Department letter said.

King, now 73, said her older brother was "a real quiet person" who had helped his friends clean up a church on Halloween night.

"He didn't deserve what happened to him. ... Well, nobody deserves that," King said in a phone interview from her home near Atlanta. "He would just go to school, go back and do his chores at home."

The Justice Department letter says the all-white grand jury that indicted Glidewell recommended he be treated with "leniency." The grand jury recommended that six of the remaining white teens have their cases sent to youth court, and that the one 18-year-old in the group have his case sent to a July 1960 grand jury; investigators found no record indicating any indictment against him.

A judge put the younger teens on probation and released them from that by March 1961, writing that each "'would make a good citizen,'" according to the Justice Department letter.

Johnnie Sue Johnson, a second cousin of Prather, lived near the funeral home and went to view his body; she was 13. She said his face was swollen from being shot. "He looked like he was 90-something years old," Johnson said from her home in Champaign, Illinois. "It was just awful."

One of Johnson's nieces, Gennella Graham, was born in 1974 and grew up in Corinth but had never heard of Prather's death until the summer of 2017, when she took a course at Tougaloo College in Jackson and was assigned to write about her hometown's "hidden history." Graham, who teaches English at Corinth High School, was given Prather's name and called her aunt. Johnson told her about the killing and about their kinship to Prather. Johnson also told her that Prather's friend who was with him that night, Lavelle Powell, survived but lost hearing in one ear because of the shooting. Powell later moved away from Mississippi, and he died a few years ago.

Graham wrote a poem about Prather, which says, in part:

"Write that I,

"Wanted to fight,

"Wanted to live,

"But no one asked what I thought,

"What I wanted."

This school year, Graham will teach her 11th grade students about William Roy Prather.

"I know he just lived 15 years on this earth. But I would like to know -- what was he interested in? Did he have a girlfriend? ... Did he have a job somewhere? Where did he attend church?" Graham said. "I just want them to know that he was important. When you die, that's not the end of your story."
Hoover City Council President Gene Smith and Mayor Frank Brocato engaged in a war of words during the council's scheduled meeting Tuesday after Smith accused the mayor's office of going behind the council's back and cutting retirement contributions for city public safety employees.

Brocato said Smith was "grandstanding" and argued that the city readjusted how it calculated overtime for such employees following a 2017 Alabama Supreme Court decision.

Smith referenced a June 29th memo from human resources to the Hoover Police Department about changes in the city's Retirement Systems of Alabama policy that he claimed "significantly reduced" retirement contributions for law enforcement. He said only the council has the authority to adjust pay schedules and retirement benefits but that the mayor did not consult the body.

The council president accused the mayor's office of demonstrating a "serious lack of judgment that exposes the city to litigation. I see this as an unconscionable action taken by a few people...directly targeted toward our police officers and certain 911 communicators." He also called on the mayor to hire a third-party investigator "to determine who was involved in this cruel targeting..of these public safety employees."

Brocato, who was the city's longtime fire marshall of 42 years before being elected mayor, dismissed Smith's claims.

"I have never seen such grandstanding in my entire life ...and it's very unfortunate that you would do something like this," the mayor told Smith. "It's unfortunate that you would do that, and I'm ashamed that our citizens have to see that type of conversation going on from our council president -- to accuse people of wrongdoing maliciously. It's something in my 43 years [in city employment] I've never seen."

Allan Rice, the city administrator, said the city only adjusted how it calculated overtime "to be in compliance with RSA regulations," suggesting that such a move did not require council approval. But he said Hoover is waiting for clarification on the issue from the city attorney and will fully restore benefits to the affected employees if it's warranted.

"There were nuances to that court ruling," which directly applied only to state law enforcement, Rice said. "We were not looking for ways to compromise our employees ... certainly not trying to target out employees, certainly not being malicious," Rice said.
Mollie Tibbets, a University of Iowa student whose disappearance a month ago triggered a massive search, has been found dead, according to multiple news sources.

Tibbets, 20, went missing more than a month ago after she went out for an evening jog. Fox News is reporting the body was found in Iowa but no other details were released.

A press conference with law enforcement will be held today at 5 p.m. CT. No arrests have been announced in connection to her disappearance and police will not confirm if the body found is indeed Tibbets.

Law enforcement have followed hundreds of tips in the search for Tibbets, with as much as $400,000 in rewards offered for her discovery. Dozens of people, including a local hog farmer, were interviewed during the search. The reward money is now expected to go to anyone with information leading to the arrest of suspects in Tibbets' death.

Tibbets was last seen jogging near her home in Brooklyn, Iowa home. Her family reported her missing the next day when she didn't arrive at work.
This is an opinion column.

Recently, President Donald Trump panned Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation as a modern incarnation of McCarthyism. Trump begged his Twitter followers to learn about former Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his grandiose inquisition into alleged communists who infiltrated American society. It's been a while since I learned about the "Red Scare," so I took the president up on his request. If Mueller is supposed to make McCarthy "look like a baby," he's doing a terrible job.

The president's request for our collective historical edification was clear: "Study the late Joseph McCarthy, because we are now in period with Mueller and his gang that make Joseph McCarthy look like a baby! Rigged Witch Hunt!"

Trump suggests that Mueller is some sort of super-McCarthy. Historical context is helpful in understanding the comparison between McCarthy and Mueller.

On February 9, 1950, McCarthy delivered a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia where he claimed to have knowledge about communist infiltration at the State Department. "I have here in my hand a list of 205," McCarthy claimed, "a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."

Mueller, on the other hand, was tasked by the Department of Justice with investigating "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump." The Justice Department also authorized him to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation.

McCarthy created a vast conspiracy himself; the Department of Justice assigned Mueller a job. The respective professional paths don't have much in common.

The number of communists McCarthy "discovered" in the state department fluctuated for weeks after his initial claim, but that wasn't the point. He expertly capitalized on American fears.

When pressed by Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas about his claimed number of communists in the State Department, McCarthy stated, "There are at least 57 Communists in the State Department. I think, without any trouble at all, with sufficient investigation, we can find the 205 for the Senator."

For McCarthy, truth and facts were less important than his narrative. What he lacked in hard information, he made up with insinuation, conjecture and suspicion.

On June 14, 1951 he blistered General George C. Marshall for "implementing the will of Stalin" with respect to Eastern Europe and "deliver[ing] China into the hands of the Kremlin acting through Mao Tse-tung." In doing so, McCarthy claimed to be "uncovering a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man."

Such fantastic hyperbole certainly isn't a hallmark of Robert Mueller. In fact, Mueller has remained remarkably tight-lipped about his investigation. Where McCarthy played the public's fears like a fiddle, Mueller doesn't even really speak publicly about his work.

McCarthy was a publicity master. He shredded his opponents as weak, unwitting tools of the communists. He conveniently wove his conspiracies between actual instances of Soviet espionage and genuine communist threats. His grand schemes weren't accurate, but events of the time gave them a sufficient color of truth to demand the media spotlight. Reporters quoted McCarthy even when they were deeply suspicious of his claims.

The only way Mueller makes McCarthy even possibly look like a baby is by his refusal to engage in McCarthy's childish speculation, unfounded allegations and wild conspiracies. If Mueller were some sort of demagogue, he's the worst one in history.

I appreciate the President's suggestion to more closely consider McCarthy as a manipulator of historic proportions, but the comparison to Mueller simply doesn't fit. Thankfully it wasn't a fool's errand. I now have a much clearer picture of what a real demagogue looks like should I ever come across another one in American politics.

Cameron Smith is a regular columnist for AL.com and vice president for the R Street Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C.
The US and Iran have just lost two towering icons of their respective art and culture in span of one day.

Their rulers at each others throat, the United States and Iran have just lost two towering icons of their respective art and culture scenes in the span of one day. On August 16, 2018, Aretha Franklin passed away, and a day later died Ezzatolah Entezami. Chances are, for every 10 people the world over who know who Aretha Franklin was, one would not know who Ezzatolah Entezami was. Oh, the mixed blessings of those who knew them both!

Where do we stand, we to whom both Aretha Franklin and Ezzatolah Entezami mattered, next to those who knew one and not the other?

What do Aretha Franklin and Ezzatolah Entezami have in common? A shared history of artistic defiance separated by a military coup in Iran and a Civil Rights Movement in the US.

The Queen of Soul, Aretha Louise Franklin (1942-2018) joined eternity on August 16, 2018. Agha-ye Bazigar, (Master Actor) Ezzatolah Entezami (1924-2018) died a day later on August 17, 2018. Aretha Franklin was called the Queen of Soul because of her unsurpassed power and presence in American soul and pop music. Ezzatolah Entezami was called Agha-e Bazigar because in a career that spanned some 80 years he commanded a towering persona on stage and screen.

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It is the strange fortune of a person born and raised in the Shahs Iran, mourning two towering icons of his life in Trumps America, to bear witness to the passing of two pillars of his public memory in his twin homelands seemingly forever poised as each others bitter enemies. If the US and Iran are perennial enemies, why do I sit mourning Aretha Franklin and Ezzatolah Entezami at one and the same time?

What does Ayatollah Khamenei know of Aretha Franklin  did Donald Trump ever heard of Ezzatolah Entezami? The two militant warlords are dumb as two doornails when it comes to any knowledge, love, respect, or admiration for anything in their enemys camp. Theirs is a false and falsifying divide. Ours is the veritable truth of a common heritage. But where is that common heritage located  in Iran, in the US, or somewhere entirely different  somewhere beyond the fictive frontiers of here and there?

Caught between the insanities of two bitter enemies, it is the fate of my generation to sit elsewhere and mourn the passing of two constellations of bright hope that once catapulted me and thousands more like me from Iran to Emreeka. On that catapult, we have been the sojourners of a truth hidden to the provincial fanaticism on both sides.

Like the Twin Towers  but far apart

Like the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, or the twin Buddhas of Bamiyan, Aretha Franklin and Ezzatolah Entezami were two totem poles of grace and elegance, poetry and performance  now in our mourning souls.

Since her passing I have been listening to Aretha Franklins I Say a Little Prayer for You and, like magic, shoot back to my late teens in the late 1960s  a provincial boy, an undergraduate student in Tehran  mesmerized by the anti-Vietnam War and Civil Rights movements in the US. We were not there, but in their towering voices, we heard their cries.

My generation was drawn to the US by the best of the US, by the music and the cry for freedom of Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin  by the fierce defiance of Mohammad Ali and Malcolm X  and by the prose and poetry of James Baldwin and Langston Hughes. We were not there to join the rallies and marches in person. We could only be there by listening to the music and reading the poetry that graced their revolt.

I read the name of Langston Hughes for the first time in a poem by one of our own greatest poets Ahmad Shamlou. Our Ahmad Shamlou, Mahmoud Darwish from Palestine, Faiz Ahmad Faiz from Pakistan, Nazim Hikmet from Turkey, Vladimir Mayakovski from Russia, Pablo Neruda from Chile, and Langston Hughes from the US sang similar songs in different poetic dictions. We knew them all. We loved them in the same breath.

I am now convinced that my generation grew up to the core of our moral convictions and the cadence of our political imagination in an aesthetic sphere beyond the banalities of borders and above the reach of false civilizational divides.

When she died, in my solemn remembrances I thanked Aretha Franklin for all her glorious songs with which I uttered my first English sentences, thanked her for being one among a constellation of beautiful stars that had guided me to her homeland! I bid her farewell and thanked her for her wondrous voice, for the joyous melodies  and I thanked her for making us more human by trying to be worthy of her songs.

The world of our own

For us Aretha Franklin was indeed a Queen of Soul, standing right next to many other such queens that graced our lives. The American rhythm of Aretha Franklins music was made meaningful to us with the Arabic poetry of Umm Kulthum and Fairuz, with the French lyricism of Edith Piaf, and of course with the Persian poetry of our own Delkash and Marziyeh. Aretha Franklin sang from the depth of her African American pain and glory and her voice reached our ears already trained by equally beautiful voices closer at home.

All of these musical harmonies happened at the time of the rise of Iranian cinema in the 1960s with Dariush Mehrjuis film, Cow (1969), as the seminal event that revolutionised the Iranian New Wave. Though his theatrical career long preceded this film by about two decades, Ezzatolah Entezami became a household name with his miraculous performance in that seminal film  the story of a village man so devoted to his cow that he metamorphoses into his beloved animal when the cow dies.

The rise of Iranian cinema in the 1960s followed the effervescence of New Poetry (Sher-e No) in the 1950s as the first two artistic responses to the trauma of the CIA military coup against our freedom. The same racist forces that in 1953 conspired against our freedom in Iran were the ruling elite against whom the Civil Right movement was launched in the US. In black liberation in the US and our own struggle for freedom we saw a common cause  for racism and militarism (as now best evident in the occupation and theft of Palestine) are intertwined.

In the context of the rise of Iranian New Wave, Ezzatolah Entezami was an artist of transformative power and an unsurpassed gift for acting, with immense power and presence in his artistry. In his person, he connected the two disparate histories of Iran before and after the 1977-1979 revolution with a grace and a panache only an artist of his mastery could have done. Before doing so he had crossed another critical barrier between theatre and cinema when, decades into his career as a theatre actor, he mastered the art of cinematic presence.

The question today is the sense of aesthetic in those of us who are the beneficiaries of not just one but multiple artistic adventures  one in Iran and the other around the globe. To say we were richer in our aesthetic experiences is both a truism and an understatement. The experience was far more serious than that. Our sense of aesthetics was in and of itself intertextual, cross-culturally syncopated in its pulses and beats, contrapuntal in its poetic rhythms.

In our minds and in our souls, we variedly interpolated what we heard and what we saw and what we read  with an innate intersectionality definitive to the very cast of our minds. We were polyvocal in our sense of beauty and the sublime, we could hear a distant African pain in the English phrasing of a jazz composition, and we could speak Persian with a fluent Turkish or Urdu poetry.

This was of course not just between Persian and English, Iran and the US. This was translucent in multiple directions, from our immediate surroundings in Hindi, Urdu, Turkish, Russian, and Arabic extended into Latin American and African sights and sounds of our defiant and hopeful times. Europe and the US were neither shunned nor privileged. We went where the life of real people resonated with ours.

My elder daughter Pardis once in her teenage years asked me (with the sarcasm of the Persian soul in her Yankee spirit) how come I was not at Woodstock with all your radicalism thingamajig.

I was in Woodstock my sweet, I said, but only halfway around the globe on the mirror side of your American imagination.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.


Rockets were fired towards the presidential palace in Kabul as the Afghan president delivered a message of peace for Muslim celebrations of Eid al-Adha, with helicopter gunships destroying buildings from where the projectiles were launched.

An official at the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan said nine attackers launched about 30 mortar rounds from two separate locations in Kabul.

It was unclear who carried out the attack. Police initially blamed the Taliban, but Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) later issued a statement saying it fired mortars at the presidential palace. There was no immediate comment from the Taliban.

The mortar barrage came two days after President Ashraf Ghani offered the Taliban a three-month ceasefire.

The boom of the rockets was heard in the live broadcast of Ghanis speech. He interrupted his message to say: If they are thinking the rocket attack will keep Afghans down, they are wrong.

The area where the rockets struck is one of the most secure in the Afghan capital, where embassies and government buildings are surrounded by high cement blast walls and coils of razor wire.

Afghan police cordoned off two locations and military helicopters destroyed two firing positions.

In total four of the nine insurgents were killed. The other five insurgents surrendered to Afghan forces, US Forces-Afghanistan spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Martin ODonnell said in a statement.

Analyst Nazar Sarmachar said the proximity of the attack to the presidential palace highlighted glaring security shortcomings in the capital. It could have killed or wounded the president, he said.

ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack [Rahmat Gul/AP Photo]

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Police were combing the area in the heart of Kabul, where crowded open-air markets intrude on old residential areas of mostly poor, mud-brick homes.

It was another blow to Ghanis efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiation table and hold peace talks to end the countrys 17-year war.

On Sunday, Ghani offered a conditional ceasefire to last during the holiday, saying it would only take effect if the Taliban reciprocated.

Meanwhile, Russias foreign minister said on Tuesday the Taliban accepted an invitation to attend peace talks in Moscow next month. Sergey Lavrov said Russia invited the Taliban to the September 4 talks and received a positive response, voicing hope for productive negotiations.

Lavrov reaffirmed Russias contacts with the Taliban aim to ensure the safety of Russian citizens in Afghanistan and encourage the Taliban to abandon hostilities and engage in a dialogue with the government.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks in recent months, seizing rural districts and carrying out major assaults against security forces and government compounds on an almost daily basis.

Wave of attacks

Two Taliban commanders said their leader had rejected Ghanis offer of a three-month ceasefire, beginning with this weeks Eid, Reuters reported.

In June, the Taliban observed a government ceasefireover the three-day Eid al-Fitr festival, leading to unprecedented scenes of government soldiers and Taliban fighters embracing on front lines, and raising hopes for talks.

But one of the Taliban commanders said the June ceasefire had helped US forces, who the Taliban are trying to drive out of the country.

Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada rejected the new offer on the grounds it too would only help the American-led mission.

The Taliban have launched a wave of attacks in recent weeks, including storming the city of Ghazni, where more than 200 people were killed in the fighting.

Blasts, suicide attacks and clashes between the Taliban and Afghan forces killed more than 1,600 civilians in the first six months of the year, the highest number in the past decade, the United Nations says.

Afghan security forces have struggled to battle the Taliban and ISIL since the US and NATO formally concluded their combat mission in the country in 2014 and shifted their focus to a support and counter-terrorism role.
Inmates in 17 states are due to strike until September 9 to protest living conditions and the end to modern slavery.

An uprising in South Carolinas Lee Correctional Facility in April ended with seven people dead.

The uprising was sparked by gang-related tensions, which were fuelled by poor living conditions and prolonged due to under-staffing. At the time, a witness told the Associated Press that bodies were literally stacked on top of each other.

Now, four months on, prisoners in 17 US states are slated to launch a weeks-long strike on Tuesday in response to the deadly uprising.

It is unclear in which states and facilities the strikes will take place.

Jailhouse Lawyers Speak (JLS), a prisoner support group that endorsed Tuesdays strike, said in a press release that the decision to launch the upcoming strike was taken after the deaths in South Carolina.

Seven comrades lost their lives in a senseless uprising that could have been avoided had the prison not been so overcrowded from the greed wrought by mass incarceration and a lack of respect for human life that is embedded in our nations penal ideology, that statement read.

The wide-reaching strike will include commissary boycotts, protests, sit-ins and work stoppages, among other forms of direct action  and could be larger than a historic prison strike that gripped detention facilities across the country in 2016.

Launched on September 9, the anniversary of the deadly 1971 Attica prison, the 2016 strike was one of the largest prison actions in US history, drawing the participation of an estimated 24,000 prisoners in 20 facilities across two dozen states.

Kevin Steele, a 25-year-old who was released in January after spending eight years behind bars in several facilities in New York state, said peaceful protests inside prisons often fail to garner attention among the general public.

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There are a lot of peaceful protests that go unspoken outside the prison walls, said Steele, who is now the spokesperson for the New York chapter of Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), a group that has endorsed the upcoming strike.

Thats something a lot of people out here dont expect because of the stigma that incarcerated people are violent, he added.

Shouldnt be treated as animals

At the time of publication, the Federal Bureau of Prisons had not replied to Al Jazeeras request for a comment, though some inmates in federal facilities are expected to participate in Tuesdays strike.

The National Lawyers Guild, the New York-based Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council, several chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America, and other advocacy groups have also endorsed the strike.

In a press released posted on Twitter, the JLS said: Fundamentally, its a human rights issue.

The demands of the strikers, who hope to carry on until September 9, include improving living conditions, reinstating their voting rights, reforming laws that lead to the disproportionate incarceration of people of colour and an end to life imprisonment without parole, among others.

The strikers also call for an end to prison slavery, demanding compensation equal to the normal wages outside the prisons in the states where they are located.

Nearly 2.3 million people are held in federal facilities, state prisons, local jails, juvenile correctional facilities, immigrant detention centres and other facilities across the country, according to the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) nonprofit group.

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According to an April 2017 PPI report, prisoners who work in state-owned industries earn between $0.33 and $1.41 an hour on average, while those employed in regular jobs earn between $0.14 and $0.63 an hour.

Prisoner work assignments can include anything from custodial and grounds keeping at a prison facility to work-release programmes for public or nonprofit agencies, according to PPI.

Steele hopes Tuesdays protests could contribute to far-reaching change in the countrys judicial system as well as public perception of imprisoned people.

The message that they are trying to send out is that they are human beings, that they also have human rights, too, and they shouldnt be treated as animals, he said.

They just want a voice an opportunity to be treated equally as everyone else is.
Scores of Czechoslovakians were killed in Prague after Soviet Union cracked down on anti-communist protesters in 1968.

Prague, Czech Republic  Fifty years ago Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to violently quash the democratic reform movement against communism known as the Prague Spring.

Led by Alexander Dubcek, then-newly elected Communist Party leader, Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1968 initiated a process of liberalising a communist regime that had seized power 20 years earlier.

Offering more press freedom, freedom of movement and economic openness, Dubcek served up what was famously coined socialism with a human face.

In Moscow, the reforms were viewed as a threat to the Soviet Unions iron grip on the eastern bloc of satellite states firmly in their control.

On the night of August 20, 1968, thousands of tanks accompanied by 200,000 Warsaw Pact soldiers from Russia, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany and Poland invaded Czechoslovakia.

By the next morning, scores of Czechoslovakians had been killed and the Soviets had occupied the country.

The Prague Spring was probably the only genuine attempt of liberalisation of the Soviet-style socialism before Mikhail Gorbachevs Perestroika, said Matej Bily, a researcher with the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes in Prague.

The fact that the reform process began in one of the Soviet satellites, and not in Moscow, is also very important.

The Prague Spring is a defining moment in modern Czech history [Libor Hajsky/CTK/AP]

At the same time, the invasion served as a turning point for Slavic attitudes towards Russia that has endured ever since.

Fifty years later, many Czechs are extremely suspicious about Russia and the anti-Russian moods are widespread, said Bily.

Today, the Prague Spring stands as one of the defining moments in contemporary Czech history.

Still, while Czechs reflect on what transpired 50 years ago, many are worried their fallen oppressor may be back to haunt them as a resurgent communist political party has found its way back into the political mainstream.

After winning Octobers parliamentary elections, populist billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babis was forced to seek the approval of the Communist Party in order to establish a government after most other parties refused to back him.

The move brought the communists, who remained only in the shadows of national politics since their rule ended, back to power.

Very important days and anniversaries like this are full of purpose and reminds us how fragile our democracy really is, said Ivan Bartos, chairman of the upstart Czech Pirate Party.

Andrej Babis was the one who introduced them back to power. [The communists] requested positions in state-controlled companies in exchange for their support so now you are paying with something that is not yours for political support, he said.

We voted against it and now we have to fight every day.

Making matters worse, the prime minister has been dogged by a long-running dispute with Slovakia over his registration as an agent of the StB, Czechoslovakias communist-era police.

Earlier this year, a Slovak court rejected a demand by Babis to be cleared of his alleged cooperation with the organisation.

Jeering protesters

Delivering a speech on Tuesday to commemorate the occasion of the invasion, Babis was greeted by dozens of jeering protesters.

Blowing whistles and holding placards, demonstrators chanted shame as the prime minister struggled to deliver his address.

It is very ironic and in fact it is dangerous as well. He is trying to capture even more powers in next elections pretending that he is not dangerous for democracy, said Michal Majzner, a political activist.

But he already has almost everything  huge fortunes, [control of the] media, intelligence, politics powers  and he has no problems to be supported by extremists.

Scores of Czechoslovakians were killed in the Soviet invasion in 1968 [Libor Hajsky/CTK/AP]

But Babis was not the only one to draw criticism as Czech President Milos Zeman, an ardent supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, refused to make a speech on what for many Czechs is the most important day in modern Czech history.

The move underscores a growing discord between traditional democratic institutions and illiberal factions looking to move away from progressive Western politics.

We are lucky that the dissidents who wrote our constitution after 1989 were very wise and established an upper chamber of parliament. The upper chamber can effectively block any changes of constitution towards illiberal democracy, said Majzner.

That is our big advantage and we need to use it.

Still, while many opponents are quick to criticise Babis and his allies for elevating the communists in 2018, other analysts warn it is dangerous to compare the situation with what occurred in 1968 while the Czech Republic today maintains a strong rule of law as well as functional democratic institutions.

It is visible that the communists are growing their political power and have an agreement with the government, but this is not something that is the same as 1968, said Lubomir Kopecek, a professor of political sciences at Masaryk University in Brno.
Jakiw Palij, who was living in Queens, New York, was a guard at Trawniki concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

United States immigration officials have arrested and deported a former Nazi concentration camp guard who lived in New York, according to government officials.

Acting on a 2004 deportation order, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took Jakiw Palij, 95, into custody on Tuesday morning and sent him to Germany, the White House said in a statement.

Palij, who served as an armed guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II, was arrested at his home in Queens.

He emigrated to the US in 1949 and became a US citizen eight years later and worked as a draughtsman before retiring.

Palijs removal sends a strong message: The United States will not tolerate those who facilitated Nazi crimes and other human rights violations, and they will not find a safe haven on American soil, the statement read.

Investigators first confronted Palij about his wartime activities 25 years ago after finding his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard revealing that he was living somewhere in America.

Palij admitted lying to get into the US, claiming that he spent the war as a farm and factory worker.

According to AFP news agency, Palij confessed when investigators arrived at his door in 1993, saying: I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied.

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In 2003, a federal judge revoked Palijs US citizenship for participation in acts against Jewish civilians. He was ordered deported in 2004 and his appeal was rejected the following year.

Several countries, including Germany, Poland and Ukraine, refused to take Palij so he continued living at home with his wife, Maria, 86, where his presence attracted protests and outraged the local Jewish community.

Last September, all 29 members of New Yorks congressional delegation signed a letter urging the State Department to carry out the deportation, which eventually came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations.

It is not clear what will happen to Palij once he arrives in Germany. Prosecutors there have previously said that there does not appear to be enough evidence to charge him with wartime crimes.

Palijs ongoing presence in his Queens home drew protests from the local Jewish community [Mike Segar/Reuters]

Horrific fate

Palij was born in 1923 in what was then Poland and is now Ukraine.

He told US Department of Justice officials that he trained at the Nazi SS Training Camp in Trawniki in 1943, before becoming a guard at the adjacent forced-labour camp.

It was the site of one of the largest single massacres of the holocaust, when 6,000 Jewish men, women and children were shot dead on November 3 1943, during Palijs time at the camp.

By serving as an armed guard at the Trawniki Labor Camp and preventing the escape of Jewish prisoners during his Nazi service, Palij played an indispensable role in ensuring that the Trawniki Jewish victims met their horrific fate at the hands of the Nazis, the White House statement read.

Palij has admitted serving at Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

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His deportation is the first for a Nazi war crimes suspect in the US since 2009 when Germany agreed to take John Demjanjuk, a retired autoworker living in Ohio, who was accused of serving as a Nazi guard.

In 2011, he was convicted of being an accessory to more than 28,000 killings and died 10 months later with his appeal pending.

According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the majority of officials who ran Trawniki did not survive the war, but a number have faced prosecution in Germany and the Soviet Union.

The US has initiated successful denaturalisation proceedings against 16 former Trawniki guards, according to the museum.
El Salvador has formally broken off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and established full ties with China, leaving Taipei with a dwindling list of allies.

At a meeting with his Salvadoran counterpart in Beijing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised the Latin American states decision to recognise there is one China in the world.





This further goes to show the One China policy is in line with international norms, is the correct choice and is the basis of Chinas relation with any country, he said.

After signing a document with Wang establishing relations, Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda said his country had made a strategic decision and took the correct and beneficial path for the people of both nations.

The decision leaves the number of states that recognise Taiwan at just 17.

Taiwan broke off ties before the signing ceremony, when El Salvadors intentions became clear.

Losing (a) diplomatic ally is not an isolated incident. It is part of Chinas string of sabre rattling and intimidation, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said at a press conference in Taipei.

The news came just after Tsai, who is trying to raise Taiwans international profile, wrapped up a Latin American tour which included stops in the United States, which drew criticism from China. She visited allies Belize and Paraguay during the trip.

Taiwans foreign minister Joseph Wu said Taipei will not engage in dollar diplomacy with China, adding that El Salvador had been asking for huge funding for a port development project, which Taiwan was unwilling to give because it would leave both countries in debt.

El Salvadors decision comes amid a drive by Beijing to cut off diplomatic support for Taiwan.

In the past year Burkina Faso and the Dominican joined Chinas side, and in previous years Panama and the tiny African state of Sao Tome have also done the same.

Taiwan and China have been engaged for years in a diplomatic tug-of-war in developing countries.

Economic support and other incentives are often used as bargaining chips for diplomatic recognition
Attackers of 8-year-old girl still fighting for life will be the first convicts executed for rape since 2004.

An Indian court sentenced two men to death for the gang rape of an eight-year-old girl that sparked angry protests.

The death sentences ordered on Tuesday were the first under a new law allowing for fast-track trials and capital punishment for child rapists.

Crowds chanted Death to rapists! after the brutal attack on the child in the central state of Madhya Pradesh two months ago. The victim is still in hospital with critical injuries.





The suspects picked up the child outside her school in Mandsaur as she waited for her father.

They took her to a secluded spot where they raped her, slashed her neck and left her to die. Her life was saved by locals who found her and rushed her to hospital.

A court in Mandsaur handed the sentences to the men, aged 20 and 24.

In April, India made the rape of children aged up to eight a capital offence following widespread outrage over earlier cases.

In January, an eight-year-old Muslim nomadic girl was raped and killed in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The last execution for rape was 14 years ago in Kolkata in eastern India. Dhananjay Chatterjee, a building guard, was hanged for the 1990 rape and murder of an 18-year-old.

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India has been the focus of international attention since the 2012 gang rape and murder of a student on a New Delhi bus sparked nationwide protests and highlighted its poor record on sexual violence.

A child is sexually abused every 15 minutes in India, according to the NGO Child Rights and You.

Crimes against minors have risen more than 500 percent over the past decade, the non-profit organisation said.

In 2016, police in India received 38,947 reports of rape compared with almost 35,000 in 2015, according to National Crime Records Bureau data. Activists say the actual figure is likely much higher as many such crimes go unreported because of the stigma of reporting sexual violence.
Images released by state media show President Hassan Rouhani sitting in the cockpit of the aircraft named Kowsar.

Iran unveiled a new domestic fighter jet with President Hassan Rouhani saying Tehrans military strength was only designed to deter enemies and aimed at creating lasting peace.

Images broadcast on state television on Tuesday showed Rouhani sitting in the cockpit of the new Kowsar fourth-generation fighter at the National Defence Industry exhibition in Tehran.

State media said it had advanced avionics and multi-purpose radar, and it was 100-percent indigenously made for the first time.





Footage of the Kowsars test flights was circulated by various official media.

But live footage of the plane taxiing along a runway at the defence show was cut before it took off.

When I speak of our readiness to defend, it means we seek lasting peace. If we lack readiness, we welcome war, Rouhani said in a televised speech shortly after.

Some think when we increase our military power, this means we seek war. [But] this is peace-seeking because we dont war to happen, he added.

If we dont have a deterrent  it gives a green light for others to enter this country.

We have learned

Defence Minister Amir Hatami said the aircraft programme was motivated by memories of air strikes Iran suffered during its eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, and by repeated threats from Israel and the United States that all options are on the table in dealing with Iran.

We have learned in the [Iran-Iraq] war that we cannot rely on anyone but ourselves. Our resources are limited and we are committed to establishing security at a minimum cost, he said in a televised interview.

The US has sold hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons to Irans regional rivals, but has demanded that Tehran curb its defence programmes, and is in the process of reimposing crippling sanctions in a bid to force its capitulation.

Rouhani said Iran must show restraint as well as deterrence, in an apparent swipe at his hardline opponents who seek to provoke the US with aggressive slogans.

With a couple of sentences one can start a fight. With a couple of military moves one can enter confrontation. But then it will be costly, he said. The skill is to protect the country with minimum cost.

Following the withdrawal of the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal in May, Iran has avoided an aggressive response and sought to maintain its good will with other international partners who oppose Washingtons move.

Rouhani said US pressure was also a spur to action.

Why does America impose economic sanctions on us? Why does it impose them on Turkey? Why does it drag China into an economic war? Because it feels each one of them has a weak point. We must fix our weak points.
Malaysian police said disappearance of an item containing radioactive material appeared to have no link to terrorism.

Malaysian police have said the disappearance of an industrial item containing radioactive material more than a week ago appeared to have no link to terrorism.

At this stage, there are no signs at all to link the loss of the [radioactive] device with any terrorist activity, said Selangor police chief Mazlan Mansor in a statement on Tuesday.

Authorities have been hunting for an industrial device containing radioactive material that is reported to have gone missing from a pick-up truck on August 10.

Two technicians reported the device missing while they were transporting it from the southern Negeri Sembilan state to their companys office in Shah Alam outside Kuala Lumpur, police said in a statement.

Authorities fear the device, can cause radiation exposure or be used as a weapon, the New Straits Times daily said on Monday, citing unnamed sources.

Not the first time

Police detained the two workers for a week to assist in the investigation but released them on bond as no evidence linked them to the devices disappearance.

Local reports have said the two claimed they did not stop during the trip and feared the device fell off the truck.

Authorities are working with the Atomic Energy Licensing Board to find the device and track the culprits.

Police did not say what they believe was the reason for the devices disappearance except to rule out terrorism.

However, while this event has created commotion among authorities, this is not the first time that such an incident takes place.

This incident is not the first and it is understood that it also happened last year, Mohamad Fuzi, Inspector General of Police told reporters on Monday.

Police said the 23kg device was supposed to be used in industrial radiography, and it contains 50 curies of radioactive iridium that can cause health problems depending on the level of exposure.

Local media said the device was reportedly used to detect cracks in metals in the energy, power and transportation sectors.
Six fake websites linked to hacker group associated with Russia shut down by software giants digital crimes unit.

Microsofts digital crimes unit shut down six websites belonging to hackers who attempted to interfere with Novembers United States midterm elections, the company said.

The sites, closed last week, specifically targeted two Republican think-thanks, the International Republican Institute and the Hudson Institute, according to a Microsoft statement.

Were concerned that these and other attempts pose security threats to a broadening array of groups connected with both American political parties in the run-up to the 2018 elections, it said.

Russias foreign ministry denounced Microsofts accusations on Tuesday.

It is regrettable that a large international company, which has been working in the Russian market for a long time, quite actively and successfully, has to take part in a witch-hunt that has engulfed Washington, it said in a statement.

Continued activity

According to Microsoft, the six websites were linked to a group of hackers given the names Fancy Bear, APT-28 and Strontium.

Using a technique called spear phishing, targets would be sent to fake login pages that record their username and passwords.

Microsoft said the latest activity showed a widening of the groups targets.

Despite last weeks steps, we are concerned by the continued activity targeting these and other sites and directed towards elected officials, politicians, political groups and think-tanks across the political spectrum in the United States, the company said.

Taken together, this pattern mirrors the type of activity we saw prior to the 2016 election in the United States and the 2017 election in France.

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The International Republican Institute has several members on its board of directors that have been critical of US President Donald Trump, including Governor Mitt Romney and Senator John McCain.

The Hudson Institute has hosted talks on cybersecurity and the rise of kleptocracy in Russia.

Last month, Microsoft said Russian hackers targeted the staff of several US senators using similar techniques.

Over the last two years, 84 websites have been taken down by the companys digital crimes unit.

Indictments over meddling

The US is still embroiled in an official investigation into Russian election meddling in the 2016 Presidential elections. In July, the country indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officers for alleged interference in the vote.

The 12 individuals hacked into computer systems of 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, stole information, and then made the obtained documents public while working for the Russian GRU military intelligence service, according to the indictment.

The US has also accused Russian operatives of using fake personas to buy online advertisements aimed at spreading divisive messages, including ads focused on racial tensions.

Russia has denied all allegations of any involvement in the US election process.
Demonstrators say the statue is a symbol of the state and countrys racist heritage.

Protesters have toppled a Confederate statue in the US state of North Carolina during a rally decrying the monument as a symbol of racist heritage.

The statue, known as Silent Sam, was brought down Monday night on the University of North Carolina  Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill) campus, as protesters rallied against the monument, which has been at the centre of controversy for years.

The bronze figure of a southern soldier atop a tall stone pedestal, erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1913, had been vandalised in recent months and was under constant police surveillance, costing the unversity hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Protesters on Monday night appeared to outwit officers by splitting into two groups. Most marched away from the statue while a smaller group surrounded it with banners on bamboo poles, concealing efforts to tie ropes around it. Then the groups converged and pulled it down, according to videos shared online.

Demonstrators kicked the toppled statue, chanting Whose campus? Our campus!. Others who were present during the protest tweeted images of the toppled monument.

Sam is silenced

Sam Siddiqui, a PhD student at UNC-Chapel Hill, tweeted euphoric scenes here at Silent Sam. Hugs and kisses.

Silent Sam is down pic.twitter.com/mUqf7NkS0A  Samee Siddiqui (@ssiddiqui83) August 21, 2018

Others shared photos of the toppled statue, saying Sam is silenced and Silent Sam taking a dirt nap.



https://twitter.com/Miles_SarahK/status/1031717871636893696?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

Carol Folt, the chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill, called the action unlawful and dangerous.

The police are investigating the vandalism and assessing the full extent of the damage, she said in a statement on Twitter.

The monument has been divisive for years, and its presence has been a source of frustration for many people not only on our campus but throughout the community, she added.

Banners are used to cover the Confederate statue known as Silent Sam as people gather during a rally to remove it [Gerry Broome/AP Photo]

Many students, faculty and alumni had called the statue a racist image and asked officials to take it down. Others argued that it should remain as a tribute to fallen ancestors.

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Protesters responded to the assertion that the statue wasnt a symbol of white power by reading from its 1913 dedication speech by tobacco magnate Julian Carr, which praised Confederate veterans for terrorising former slaves and making sure the purest strain of the Anglo Saxon is to be found in the 13 Southern States.

University of North Carolina leaders, including Folt, had previously said state law prevented the school from removing it.

While North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper had called for the removal of Silent Sam and similar symbols on public land, his office said on Twitter Monday night that the protesters had taken the wrong approach.

The Governor understands that many people are frustrated by the pace of change and he shares their frustration, but violent destruction of public property has no place in our communities, said a tweet from Coopers official account.

A state historic panel is set to meet this week to debate Coopers request to remove other Confederate monuments on the state Capitol.

More than 1,700 Confederate symbols remain

North Carolina ranks among the handful of Southern states with the most Confederate monuments and has been a focal point in the national debate over them following a deadly white supremacist protest a year ago in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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At that protest, white supremacists and other members of the far right rallied against the citys decision to remove a statue of Confederate leader Robert E Lee. As the rally and counterprotest were ending, James Alex Fields allegedly drove his car into a crowd of anti-racist protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of others.

Protests over the UNC statue have flared in the past year, and another Confederate monument in nearby Durham was torn down shortly after the Virginia protest.

The debate over Confederate symbols has been ongoing for years, but it came to the forefront in 2015 after Dylann Roof, who posed in a picture with a Confederate flag, entered a church in Charleston, South Carolina and shot dead nine black worshipers.

In the weeks and months following the shooting, protests took places in cities across the country, calling for the removal of the symbols.

According to the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), at least 110 Confederate symbols have been removed since 2015. But the watchdog found that more than 1,720 Confederate monuments, place names and other symbols remained nationwide.
Legends talked of an ancient Indian metropolis, where ancestors of todays Wichita Nation lived. Now, in Arkansas City, south-central Kansas, where the Walnut and Arkansas rivers meet, visitors are getting a glimpse of Etzanoa, one of the largest prehistoric Native American towns in the United States, that hasnt been seen since the 1600s but was once home to 20,000 Native Americans.

A university professor believes he has found the lost city of Etzanoa in Arkansas City, Kansas. For generations, the locals had been finding flint tools, arrowheads, cooking utensils and pottery shards in the area. Legends talked of an ancient Indian metropolis, where ancestors of todays Wichita Nation lived. Now, in Arkansas City, south-central Kansas, where the Walnut and Arkansas rivers meet, visitors are getting a glimpse of Etzanoa, one of the largest prehistoric Native American towns in the United States.

The first written tales of Etzanoa came from Spanish soldiers looking for gold. However, historians treated the city where tens of thousands of people were said to live between 1450 and 1700 like a disputed myth.

In 2013, scholars at the University of California, Berkeley retranslated Spanish accounts of Juan de Onates 1601 expedition to the Great Plains, where Onate and 70 conquistadors came across a city of 2,000 houses, each holding eight to 10 people. A tribe Onate and his men met called it Etzanoa.

Using the more precise translations, Donald Blakeslee, an anthropologist and archaeology professor at Wichita State University, was able to use to match geographical details with archaeological evidence. But it was a high school students discovery that provided the best evidence Etzanoa had been found.

Three years ago, Adam Ziegler, a Lawrence Free-State High School freshman, was helping Professor Blakeslee search the site with a metal detector. They couldnt find anything that day and Dr. Blakeslee gave him his metal detector. An hour or two later, he found the little ball, a half-inch iron ball, the kind fired from a 17th-century Spanish cannon, buried four inches deep.

For Blakeslee, this was proof he had found the lost city.

A bit more about Etzanoa

In 1541, Francisco Vazquez de Coronado traveled to what is now Kansas looking for gold. He didnt find any. What he did find was Native Americans in settlements he called Quivira.

Sixty years later, Onate, who was the founding governor of the colony of New Mexico, led his men in search of Quivira. They wanted to find gold and converts for their Catholic faith.

When the Spanish got to Etzanoa, everyone seemed to be getting along. The Native Americans even broke out some corn cakes. Then, the conquistadors decided to take hostages and that caused everyone in the city to run away.

Walking around the empty settlement, Onates soldiers counted 2,000 houses shaped like big beehives. Corn, pumpkins, and sunflowers grew between the homes. The men began to worry that the Etzanoans would come back, so they tried to hightail it out of there.

Instead they ran into the Escanxaques, who had come to attack Etzanoa. Now they attacked the Spanish, who responded with four cannons. The cannons fired clusters of iron bullets, something like a cannon-sized shotgun shell.

So what happened to Etzanoa and the 20,000 who lived there?

When French explorers came in the 1700s, there was no city. They met migratory bands of Kanza, Wichita, Pawnee, Kiowa, Cheyenne and Apache tribes. Blakeslee says smallpox and other diseases probably killed tens of thousands after 1600. Time will tell!

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Etzanoa  The lost city rediscovered

Kansas  Mysterious Lost City of Etzanoa in south-central Kansas now open to tours

NPR  Kansas Archaeologist Rediscovers Lost Native American City

LA Times  Archaeologists explore a rural field in Kansas, and a lost city emerges

Kansas City Star  Its location a mystery for centuries, huge Indian city may have been found in Kansas
Verdict comes as Trumps ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen, admits to breaking campaign finance laws, implicates the president.

US President Donald Trump has been dealt a double blow after developments in two separate cases involving his former close associates.

Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign manager, was found guilty on Tuesday of eight financial crimes in the first trial victory of the special counsel investigation into the presidents associates.

The verdict came as the presidents former lawyer, Michael Cohen, separately pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other charges, saying he made payments to influence the 2016 election at the direction of a candidate for federal office.

In Manaforts case, the jury found Manafort guilty on eight counts, including tax fraud, bank fraud and failure to declare foreign bank accounts. The federal judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts the jury could not agree on after deliberating for four days.

Tuesdays decision almost certainly guarantees years of prison for Manafort and established the ability of special counsel Robert Muellers team to persuade a jury of average citizens despite months of partisan attacks  including from Trump  on the investigations integrity.

Kevin Downing, Manaforts lawyer, said his client was disappointed and was evaluating his options.

Legitimises Mueller investigation

The charges against Manafort were among the first stemming from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

The verdict raised immediate questions of whether the president would seek to pardon Manafort, the lone American charged by Mueller to opt for trial instead of cooperate. The president has not revealed his thinking but spoke sympathetically throughout the trial of his onetime aide.

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After Tuesdays verdict, Trump told reporters that Manafort is a good man.

Its a very sad thing that happened, Trump said as he arrived for a rally in West Virginia. It does not involve me, he said. It has nothing to do with Russian collusion  this is a witch-hunt and its a disgrace.

Al Jazeeras Andy Gallacher, reporting from outside the court in Alexandria, Virginia, said that no matter what the president says, this case has been seen as an important test for the Mueller investigation.

While the charges against Manafort largely predate his work on Trumps campaign, the verdict is being seen as legitimising Muellers investigation into collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign in 2016, Gallacher said.

Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the US Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that the Manafort verdict refuted Trumps repeated charge that the Mueller investigation was a witch hunt.

He warned that any attempt by Trump to use his presidential powers to pardon Manafort or interfere in Muellers probe would be a gross abuse of power and require immediate action by Congress.

Trump and his campaign were only a small part of Manaforts trial, as jurors instead heard days of testimony about Manaforts finances and what prosecutors say was a years-long tax-evasion and fraud scheme.

Overall, prosecutors say Manafort avoided paying more than $16m in taxes over several years.

The judge gave until August 29 to decide whether to retry Manafort on charges on which the jury was deadlocked. As a result, he did not set a sentencing date on the other charges.

The trial in Virginia, is the first of two for Manafort. He faces a trial later this year in the District of Columbia on charges of conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, making false statements and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Ukrainian interests. He is also accused of witness tampering in that case.

Cohen pleads guilty

In Cohens case, the former Trump lawyer, said he made payments to influence the 2016 presidential election at the direction of a candidate for federal office.

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Cohen, 51, pleaded guilty to five counts of tax fraud, one of bank fraud and two counts of violating campaign finance laws. He could get about four to five years in prison at the sentencing on December 12.

Questioned by the federal judge, Cohen said he had paid sums of $130,000 and $150,000 each to two women who claimed they had affairs with Trump, acting at his bosss request, in a bid to buy their silence with the purpose of influencing the election.

Cohen did not specify the womens names, but the sums correspond to a payment known to have been made to adult film star Stormy Daniels just before the election to silence her claims of a one-night stand with Trump  and another destined for former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

He also did not name Trump, but said was in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office, and the other was made under direction of the same candidate.

Under federal law, an expenditure to protect a candidates political fortunes can be construed as a campaign contribution, subject to federal laws that bar contributions from corporations and set limits on how much can be donated.

Cohens admission appears to implicate Trump himself in a crime, though whether  or when  a president can be prosecuted remains a matter of legal dispute.

The Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal advice and guidance to executive branch agencies, has held that a president cannot be indicted while in office. Trumps lawyers have said that Mueller plans to adhere to that guidance, though Muellers office has never confirmed that. There would presumably be no bar against charging a president after he leaves the White House.

Trumps personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, noted in a statement on Tuesday that there is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the governments charges against Mr Cohen.
Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pleads guilty, saying he broke the law at the direction of a candidate for federal office.

Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer of US President Donald Trump, has pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations and other charges, saying he made payments to influence the 2016 election at the direction of a candidate for federal office.

Cohen, 51, appearing in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday, pleaded guilty to five counts of tax fraud, one of bank fraud and two counts of violating campaign finance laws. He could get about four to five years in prison at the sentencing on December 12.

The guilty plea came almost at the same time as former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was found guilty of eight financial crimes, including tax evasion and bank fraud.

Questioned by the federal judge, Cohen said he had paid sums of $130,000 and $150,000 each to two women who claimed they had affairs with Trump, acting at his bosss request, in a bid to buy their silence with the purpose of influencing the election.

Cohen did not specify the womens names, but the sums correspond to a payment known to have been made to adult film star Stormy Daniels just before the election to silence her claims of a one-night stand with Trump  and another destined for former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

He also did not name Trump, but said was in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office, and the other was made under direction of the same candidate.

In the charging documents, a press release and comments outside the court, prosecutors did not go as far as Cohen did in open court in pointing the finger at the president. Prosecutors said Cohen acted in coordination with a candidate or campaign for federal office for purposes of influencing the election.

Under federal law, an expenditure to protect a candidates political fortunes can be construed as a campaign contribution, subject to federal laws that bar contributions from corporations and set limits on how much can be donated.

After the court hearing, which ended with Cohen released on $500,000 bail, the lawyer wiped away tears as he gazed out a court window.

Major implications for president

Al Jazeeras Kristen Saloomey, reporting from New York, said Tuesdays guilty plea was a dramatic moment in the court.

This is obviously a huge admission with major implications for Trump, Saloomey said.

Cohens account appears to implicate Trump himself in a crime, though whether  or when  a president can be prosecuted remains a matter of legal dispute.

Trump denied to reporters in April that he knew anything about Cohens payments to Daniels, though the explanation from the president and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani have shifted multiples times since. In May, Trump tweeted that Cohen was paid back through a monthly retainer, not campaign funds, for the Daniels payment. He also denied ever having an affair with the adult film star.

The president has fumed publicly about what he felt was government overreach.

Trumps personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, noted in a statement on Tuesday that there is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the governments charges against Mr Cohen.

The Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal advice and guidance to executive branch agencies, has held that a president cannot be indicted while in office. There would presumably be no bar against charging a president after he leaves the White House.

Al Jazeeras Saloomey noted that nothing at this point indicates that Cohen has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

Investigating for months

Federal prosecutors in New York began investigating Cohen after a referral from US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has been investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign.

The FBI raided his hotel room, home and office on April 9, seizing more than four million items.

The search of Cohens files sought bank records, communications with the Trump campaign and information on money payments made in 2016 to McDougal and Daniels.

The lawyer had gained notoriety as Trumps loyal fixer before the FBI raid. Trump has branded the investigation a witch-hunt, an assault on attorney-client privilege and a politically motivated attack by enemies within the FBI. But the presidents initial support for Cohen, who had previously said he would take a bullet for Trump, eventually degenerated into a public feud.

Deputy US Attorney Robert Khuzami said that in addition to the campaign finance violations, Cohen failed to report more than $4m in income between 2012 and 2016, including about $2.5m from interest payments on a personal loan and $1.3m from his taxi medallion holdings.

Cohen also lied to a financial institution by failing to disclose more than $14m in debt and obtaining a $500,000 home equity line of credit he wasnt entitled to, Khuzami said.
EPA proposes new rules that would relax coal pollution standards, a move critics say would worsen global warming.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has proposed new rules that would scale back limits on coal-fired power plants, a move critics said would have dire environmental and health consequences.

The proposal, announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday, would broadly increase the leeway given to states to decide how much to regulate coal power plants.

The EPA said it empowers states, promotes energy independence, and facilitates economic growth and job creation.

Tuesdays proposal is the latest move by the current administration to roll back environmental protections put in place by Trumps predecessor, President Barack Obama.

Combined with the EPAs proposal earlier this month to ease mileage requirements for vehicles, the move could increase the countrys climate-changing emissions, according to some former top EPA officials, environmental groups, and other opponents.

The Natural Resources Defense Council called the replacement proposal Trumps Dirty Power Plan.

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Democratic Congressman Frank Pallone of New Jersey cited this summers wildfires, increasing droughts and coastal flooding as evidence that man-made climate change from burning coal and other fossil fuels is already happening.

Once again, this administration is choosing polluters profits over public health and safety, he said.

Scientists said that without extensive study they cannot directly link a single weather event to climate change, but climate change is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme events such as storms, droughts, floods and wildfires.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised the coal industry he would change Obama-era rules in its favour [File: AP Photo]

In a statement, Republican Senator John Barrasso from the coal state of Wyoming welcomed the overhaul of the Obama administrations 2015 regulations, called the Clean Power Plan.

Reviving the coal industry

Trump is expected to promote the new plan at an appearance in West Virginia, a top coal-producing state, on Tuesday.

Trump has already vowed to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement as he pushes to revive the coal industry.

The Obama administration had worked to nudge the countrys power producers towards less-polluting energy from natural gas, wind and solar power, among others.





Meanwhile, Trump also directed Energy Secretary Rick Perry to bolster struggling coal-fired and nuclear power plants to keep them open, warning that impending retirements of fuel-secure power plants that rely on coal and nuclear power are harming the nations power grid and reducing its resilience.

Obamas plan was designed to cut US carbon dioxide emissions to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

The Supreme Court put Obamas plan on hold in 2016 following a legal challenge by industry and coal-friendly states, an order that remains in effect.

The Trump administration is emphasizing coal at all costs, said Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator when the Obama plan was developed.

They are continuing to play to their base and following industrys lead, she said.

The EPAs proposal is open for a public comment period, with a final ruling expected later this year.

Environmental groups are likely to mount a court fight against the provision that would allow states to opt out.
President Museveni has taken to social media to justify the detention of opposition politicians and their backers.

Live rounds and tear gas have been fired sporadically in Ugandas capital Kampala and other areas as military units and anti-riot police try to disperse demonstrations.

Protesters are unhappy about the arrests and alleged beatings of detained opposition legislators critical of President Yoweri Museveni.

Video footage showed demonstrators setting bonfires and barricades on Kampalas streets on Monday, and police and soldiers trying to remove the roadblocks.

Among those demonstrating were supporters of Robert Kyagulanyi, a pop star turned opposition parliamentarian, who goes by the stage name Bobi Wine. Kyagulanyi was arrested in the northwestern town of Arua last week.

Tensions have simmered in Uganda since Kyagulanyi and his colleagues were detained.

He was taken into custody on suspicion of taking part in the pelting of the presidential convoy with stones. The incident, which occurred during a parliamentary by-election campaign, left car windows smashed.

Museveni posted a statement on his Facebook page on Tuesday to justify the detention of the opposition politicians and their supporters.

The problem in Arua was caused by Bobi Wines group together with Kassiano Wadri, who attacked me, a useless action because I am protected and I can defend myself, Museveni said.

The more serious issue is these chronically indisciplined people attacking women and children, destroying peoples property, etc. Who is Bobi Wine or anybody to beat our people and for what?

Security forces have tried to contain demonstrations over the detention of opposition MPs [Ronald Kabuubi/AP]

Rising opposition

Kyagulanyi is seen by many as the new face of the opposition, barely a year after his entry into politics.

He has built a large youth following through his often biting criticism of Musevenis government, which he sometimes expresses through his music.

Kyagulanyi, 36, was elected to parliament last year and has since emerged as a powerful voice with his calls for young people to stand up and take over the East African country from what he calls the governments failed leadership.

Officials see his appeal as a threat to Musevenis hold on power, which is waning because of public anger over deteriorating public services, corruption, and rights abuses.

Many Ugandans have expressed concern for Kyagulanyis safety after the countrys deputy prime minister told legislators he had been hospitalised while in custody, without giving further details.

He has not been seen in public since he was detained, and the absence of news has spurred social media campaigns calling for his release.

Only a few members of his family and a handful of colleagues have been able to see him in custody. His brother Eddy Yawe told Al Jazeera the opposition politician is in bad health.

When I met my brother, he could not walk, he was lifted up by two guys. He could not stand. He could barely breathe. He could not sit on his own, Yawe said.

He had pain everywhere He had lots of complications from [the] pains he was having in his stomach. He told me that they used an iron bar to hit his head, which made him fall down.

He said as one man was breaking his finger, one was breaking a toe, another one was trying to extract his lips manually, one was pulling his ears and another one was holding his private parts and squeezing them to death.

He collapsed and when he regained consciousness, he found himself locked up in some kind of container, chained up He was all bloody and helpless.

The government has denied allegations of torture.

Dozens of people have been arrested for protesting Bobi Wines arrest [AP]

Trumped-up charges?

The Ugandan government has been accused of stifling dissent through intimidation, beatings, detentions and prosecutions on trumped-up charges.

Kyagulanyi, who is being held at a military prison near Kampala, will appear in court on Thursday.

He, several MPs, and dozens of others have been charged with treason and illegal possession of firearms over their alleged role in the stoning of the presidents convoy.

Medard Sseggona, a lawyer for the defendants, told Al Jazeera the politicians are innocent.

The charges are not only laughable but ridiculous, Sseggona said.

Another 68 suspects arrested during two days of demonstrations across the country are also expected to appear in court, with the government not backing down on plans to proceed with prosecutions.

Museveni said the trial should send a warning to those who are in the habit of miscalculating.

Repression

Opposition supporters see the alleged mistreatment of the detained as part of a pattern of repression by Musevenis security forces, an allegation the government denies.

A man was shot dead and five others wounded in anti-government protests in the town of Mityana.

The police can use live bullets if they are not equipped with anti-riot equipment and the rioters are on the verge of killing innocent people. That is also possible, Museveni said.

But Kyagulanyi and his supporters are not giving up.

He remains unshaken. He remains very strong in spirit, but weak in body. The body is definitely weak because he was really tortured but his spirit and will remain unshaken, Sseggona said.

When you know that you are fighting corruption, you are fighting maladministration in your own country, you want to set the country free. It is quite a painful experience to be tortured for what you believe in, he added.

President Museveni has been elected five times since he took power by force in 1986 [File: AP]

President for life

Museveni seized power in 1986 and has since been elected five times. The last vote in 2016 was marred by allegations of fraud.

Critics say he is set to rule Uganda for life after parliament passed legislation last year removing a clause in the constitution that had prevented anyone over 75 from holding the presidency.

Museveni, 73, is now able to seek re-election in 2021. His supporters say he has held power for so long because of genuine mass support.

Although Museveni campaigned on his record of establishing peace and stability, some worry that is being eroded the longer he stays in power.

Previous attempts by an opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, to remove him from power were unsuccessful.

Museveni said any attempt by the opposition to cause further unrest will be stopped.

Those who pretend to support the opposition are misleading them by failing to advise them to stop intimidating and attacking Ugandans. The Ugandans, led by us, will resist them, he said.

While Kyagulanyi has not made a public statement about his alleged abuse, his brother is convinced his position has not changed.

He has already paid the cost of freedom. He told me he can die for this country, Yawe said.
Civilian casualties continue to fill up hospitals days after fighters defeated by Afghan troops.

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Moscow gave the secondhand aircraft to Serbia for free after they underwent extensive overhauls.

Serbias air force received two Russian MiG-29 fighter jets as part of an arms purchase that could heighten tensions in the Balkans and increase Moscows influence in the region.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic attended the ceremony on Tuesday at a military airport close to the Serbian capital, Belgrade, thanking Russian President Vladimir Putin for helping make Serbias armed forces stronger.

In October, Serbia received six MiG-29s from Russia, which has also promised the delivery of 30 battle tanks and 30 armoured vehicles. Serbia, a Russian ally, was at war with neighbours Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s during the bloody break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

Moscow gave the secondhand jets to Serbia for free and the two that flew in on Tuesday underwent extensive overhauls. Repairs on the six other fighters will cost Serbia about $213m.

Vucic, a former ultranationalist, said the repaired MiGs should be named after Serbian pilots and other heroes who died during the NATO aggression in 1999, when Serbias air force was depleted during the alliances 78-day air war against the Balkan state because of its bloody crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists.

Vucic also said Serbia might reintroduce compulsory military service, nine years after abolishing it, to help improve the combat readiness of its army in the Balkans, where tensions occasionally flare.

Serbia, which claims military neutrality, is negotiating additional arms purchases from Russia, including attack and transport helicopters and air defence systems.

Vucic said he expects the eight refurbished MiGs to fly at a military parade that Putin is expected to attend in Belgrade in November.

Serbia faces a mini arms race with NATO-member Croatia, which in March agreed to buy 12 used F-16 fighter aircraft from Israel for $500m.
Hamas and Israel have discussed easing the devastating blockade but not a complete lifting of it.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniya said an end to Israels decade-long blockade of Gaza was around the corner as talk of a possible truce deal intensifies.

Indirect negotiations between Gazas Hamas rulers and Israel brokered by Egyptian and UN officials have reportedly included discussion on easing the blockade, but by no means a complete lifting of it.

Speaking to thousands of Palestinians during prayers for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday on Tuesday, Haniya, head of Hamas political bureau, did not directly address the possibility of a truce, mooted in Israeli and Palestinian media for weeks.

Thanks to these marches and resistance, we are just around the corner from closing the page on this unjust blockade, Haniya said. We are on our way to ending this unjust blockade of Gaza.

Protests have taken place in Gaza every Friday along Israels fence since March 30 against the Israeli blockade and for UN Resolution 194, which defines Palestinians right to return to their homes they were expelled from in 1948 with the creation of the state of Israel.

The Israeli army has responded to the protests by killing 170 Palestinian demonstrators and wounding more than 18,000.





Two Palestinians were shot dead during protests on Friday. One Israeli soldier has been killed by a Palestinian sniper.

Haniya said any agreement would come with a national consensus and an Arab safety net in order to establish the necessary safeguards to implement what is agreed upon.

He seemed to refer to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas concerns over a truce that does not include his Palestinian Authority, based in the occupied West Bank.

Abbas Fatah political party and Hamas have been deeply divided for more than a decade.

Long-term truce

Israel accuses Hamas of being behind the protests and encouraging Gazans to attempt to breach the heavily guarded fence.

UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov and Egyptian officials have attempted to broker a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas. Israel has launched three bloody military offensives on the Gaza Strip since 2008.

Israeli media have speculated it could involve an easing of Israels crippling blockade of Gaza in exchange for calm on the border and the return of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed in 2014.





Israel is also seeking the return of two Israeli citizens believed held by Hamas.

The Gaza border has been notably calmer in recent days as speculation over the indirect negotiations has intensified.

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said while visiting a military drill on Tuesday there had been a dramatic decrease in incidents on the border.

We are indeed speaking with the Egyptians, the UN and officials in the international arena, Lieberman said.

As far as Im concerned theres only one arrangement and that is the reality on the ground, he said, meaning Israel wants Gaza along Israels fence to be calm.

If you want to reach some sort of general arrangement, the condition is the agreement on the captives and MIAs, or those who have gone missing, he added.
The Czech state has agreed to reparations for some victims of forced sterilisation, but does the move go far enough?
A CABINET approved Service Charge Bill that restores 100 percent service charge to hospitality workers will soon head to the House of Assembly for debate.





Deputy Premier Sean Astwood told Weekly News on Wednesday (August 15) that the bill - a draft copy of which is already in the public domain - has been approved by Cabinet with slight modifications.





He said it is set to be placed on the Order Paper of the House of Assembly in very short order - either late this month or next month.





During solicited comments in the interest of clarity, Astwood explained that the bill indeed allows the full 100 percent of the service charge imposed on guests by employers to be paid to hospitality workers  not 60 percent as previously reported.





His explanations cleared up misconceptions arising out of comments made by Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson last month during a press conference where she was asked about the issue.





During that time, the premier answered that the workers will get their service charge, while also stating that she never tried to get the then PNP government to reinstate the full 100 percent to the workers, even though that was their intent.





For years the workers have only been collecting 60 percent of what was charged to guests by establishments.





The bill, which seeks to replace the old law, now imposes a flat 10 percent to be charged by employers, whereas before it allowed businesses to charge as much as 15 percent.





For those workers whose employers were charging guests a 10 percent service charge, they will see an increase in their take home pay when the full 100 percent is paid to them.





Meanwhile, the Facility Fee which the bill first set at three percent has now been increased, allowing establishments the leeway to charge guests up to five percent, the deputy premier said.





The facility fee while be wholly retained by the business.





"The bill that is around says three percent, but we have moved it up while it was being passed in Cabinet up to five percent, Astwood explained.





"The concern that we are getting from some hoteliers in the industry is that the 15 percent together could potentially raise the pricing level, which they still have some control over if they decide to charge the full five percent facility fee, but we are pretty much committed to ensuring that the employees get their 10 percent.





He said the facility fee was reintroduced to replace the 40 percent hoteliers were getting as part of the service charge, now that they will not be getting any of it.




Eyewitness to the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia

Half a century ago today, I watched as Soviet tanks rolled into my native Czechoslovakia to suppress the slight relaxing of the odious repression that was necessary to maintain a purported socialist paradise. Prague Spring, as the loosening of tyranny was called, ended before the summer was over. The seeds of the Prague Spring 1968 sprouted at the Expo67 in Montreal. The Czech Pavilion was exquisite with long lines the entire time of the fair. The Czech artists, engineers and builders brought back the infectious freedom-bug to Prague at the end of 1967. The dawn of the New Year 1968 came in subdued pastel colors over the permanent gray in the Red paradise. Suddenly, there were changes in the dark Kafkaesque corridors of the still Stalinist Nomenklatura in Prague. The liberal communist A. Dubcek and his team came to power. The people woke up from the imposed stupor and embraced the dystopian "Socialism with a Human Face." Very few people saw through it  though our family did, but our warnings were ignored in the general mass euphoria. The voices calling for Swiss-like neutrality were unrealistic utopians.

The Prague Spring of 1968 turned blue very quickly, though. Leonid Brezhnev and the ageing Kremlin Politburo were livid when Dubcek's team opened the Iron Curtain a bit and allowed some freedom of the press and of assembly -- previously unheard of! My father, who had been sentenced to menial labor in 1958 as an Enemy of the State and the People for defiantly riding a 750 cc Knucklehead Harley Davidson through Prague, openly listening to Elvis when everything American including jeans and Mickey Mouse, was forbidden/verboten, received a passport. He traveled all over Western Europe and chose Switzerland chose as our goal for escape. After his return in June, he began to plan our exile. Yours truly was then a student at the College of Geology and Mines, so I worked in August 1968 with several buddies at a stone-quarry east of Prague. During the night of August 20th, we were entertaining the locals with music during drinks and dinner. Around midnight, a loud banging on the cabin door and a hysterical voice shook us out of our sleep. It was the local girlfriend of my buddy: "The Soviet tanks are here!" In an instant, we were cold sober and ran the half mile to the main highway leading to Prague. Before getting there, we could hear the low rumble of the tracks piercing the dark and shaking the ground. The stunned silent villagers lined the road as an endless iron caterpillar rattled West; a procession of tanks with the blood-stained red star on the turrets. About every ten tanks a sentry wearing a leather helmet stood in the hatch with a deadpan stare into the dark. I couldn't help it with all the rage and fear boiling over and raised my fist. My buddy's petite gal hung on my biceps: "Are you crazy, they will shoot you!" I didn't feel her weight at all. Early next morning we took the bus to Prague and talked about how we could poke the Russian bear in the eye. It was already happening all over the country. People along the main highways were taking down or switching the road signs; the same was done in Prague, plus taking down the metal plaques with the street names high on the walls. Young and old, when asked by the ignorant Russkies, sent them the wrong way. It was delicious to see the ensuing chaos, the invaders riding in circles in the countryside or in the narrow, cobblestone streets in Prague. Alas, it lasted but a week. Very few people anywhere know the following. We were forced to learn Russian from 4th grade on. We hated it but it backfired in 1968. The Soviet soldiers were told by the Kremlin that there is an anti-Soviet, anti-socialism uprising in the CSSR instigated by the CIA. We told them the truth in Russian: "Can't you see the entire country is peaceful?" The soldiers were our age, about 19 years old. Many told us this: "Going through the bigger cities, especially, Prague, we thought we had pushed too far west and were in West Germany." We kept demoralizing them thusly: "Hey, Ivan, you're 2000 miles from home, are you sure your Natasha is faithful?" All this worked like a charm. A young Prague resident talks to a Soviet Soldier Photo credit: National Archives) Then, we saw the raw power of Big Brother. The Central Committee got wind of it and pulled out the roughly 100 000 mostly European troops and sent in about 300 000 mostly Asian brutal Soviets; all within 24 hours! These new guys didn't talk to us and shot everything that moved. The stone-quarry workers used the same WWII Russian ZIL truck as the invaders and we were stuck in the endless columns of the same trucks, tanks and armor; one heading east, the other west. In the middle of the road were MPs, and the soldiers weren't allowed to even look at each other. The Red Army was based on brutal terror, and it fell apart ten years later in Afghanistan. In a week, Prague, a city the size of San Diego, CA, was surrounded by tanks; downtown the bridges were blocked by tanks and armored vehicles as well. The Soviets burnt city buses, shot into apartments from the tanks or ran over the kids waving the Czech flag (Tiananmen Square 1989, anyone?)! However, when they shot up the facade of the National Museum with M50 machine guns, thinking it was the CZ Radio, we let them have it in Russian: "Can't you tell, you barbarians, that it is a museum?" The Radio building still is standing just a couple of blocks away from Wenceslas Square. We began to fight back with Molotov cocktails, big construction machinery, and anything else at hand. (Photo credit: Central Intelligence Agency) (Photo credit: National Archives) My then-13 year-old brother blew up a tank with a Molotov cocktail. He got caught, locked up beaten up. Within a week, he escaped from the juvenile reeducation prison. But he was caught within a week, put in a dungeon for incorrigible youth and brutally beaten. In a month, he escaped again. The Czech KGB caught him in three months, threw him into an adult criminals prison and tortured him. He escaped within a week. It went on for two years, but then he escaped from a top security prison and got caught in six months. The torture was so brutal (It was said that the KGB trained the Gestapo before WWII), they broke him; he was but a shell. It took him 15 years to drink himself to death. The buddy whose gal hung on my bicep that fateful night was shot to pieces two weeks later by a machine gun on a tank for waving the Czech flag. Another friend was shot at close range by a soldier with a Kalashnikov on a crowded commuter bus; his girl next to him almost had a heart attack. The reason: he refused to take down from his lapel the red-blue-white tricolor with a black beam across. Three more friends were murdered in a like fashion for similar high crimes against the Big Red Brother. The Soviet government called the invasion "fraternal assistance" against the efforts of the evil CIA and subversive Czech elements trying to overthrow the peace-loving Red dictatorship! My father escaped to Switzerland via Austria in May 1969. I followed in June 1970, five days after my graduation in geology, through Yugoslavia. The entire '1970s were an era of repression, called Normalization. People who didn't sign their fealty to the brotherly help of 1968 lost their jobs or were thrown into prison. A friend of mine, who got 20 years in the uranium mines, survived. Lastly, a memo to the foolish misguided Millennials following as if in a trance the old greedy crook Bernie (who never had a real job in his life!), the supremely ignorant and vacuous Ocasio-Cortez airhead: Communism and socialism murdered 100 - 200 million innocent civilians in peace time; only God knows the exact number! Do you really want to live like this or be a part of the elite doing the killing? The choice is yours, for now, because you live in the greatest, most generous and brave nation ever! Better dead than Red -- take my word for it. We have the graves and the scars. Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill Robert of Prague "Rather Free in Want than Rich in Servitude" is a grateful, proud and un-hyphenated US citizen
Whatever the merits of these arguments, the case for capital punishment transcends them. But before examining it, let us consider the points above.

The popes recent declaration that the death penalty is inadmissible reflects received wisdom today. Capital punishment, conventional thinking goes, not only fails to deter crime, but puts innocent people to death; inflicts cruel and unusual punishment; and, as the pope explained, attacks the dignity of the person.

First, does the death penalty deter crime? While scholars disagree about the evidence, common sense would have us believe it does. As Ernest van den Haag hypothesized, imagine that those who murder on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday receive life imprisonment, while those who murder on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday receive the death penalty. On which days are murders more likely to be committed? This thought experiment ought to give us pause when we are told that cost is irrelevant to those who pay it, which is in effect what is being said by those who insist capital punishment has zero impact on deterrence.

Second, does capital punishment put innocent people to death? Any honest person must admit there is no way to completely eliminate the risk that a non-guilty person may be executed. That it has happened is morally horrific. However, that merely reinforces why the death penalty should be reserved for the worst murderers, and only where evidence is incontrovertible. In other words, it should be used for cases like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy.

Moreover, abolishing the death penalty would result in more innocent people being killed than if it were kept. It is far from uncommon for murderers to continue murdering both while in prison and upon release , yet it is quite rare that an innocent person is mistakenly executed. Thus, the unfortunate choice we face is whether more innocents are killed by eliminating the death penalty or fewer are killed by keeping it.

On a related note, it is often asked how one can be pro-life but also pro-death penalty. The answer is that the term pro-life means pro-innocent-life. By taking innocent life, the murderer forfeits the right to his own. Thus, there is no inconsistency in being anti-abortion and pro-capital punishment.

Third, does the death penalty inflict cruel and unusual punishment? The argument here often retreats to pointing out the disparities between the races afflicted by the death penalty. Because blacks are disproportionately executed, this argument maintains, capital punishment is ipso facto racist and must be abolished. But this thinking is highly dubious. First, men are vastly disproportionately executed compared to women, so is capital punishment also sexist? Surely not. It so happens that men commit the vast majority of crime worthy of the death sentence. It also so happens that the men who commit the most serious crimes are disproportionately

black. As a study by the nonpartisan RAND Corporation concluded, the death penalty is decided by the gravity of the crime, not by race:

When we look at the raw data and make no adjustment for case characteristics, we find the large race effects noted previously -- namely, a decision to seek the death penalty is more likely to occur when the defendants are white and when the victims are white. However, these disparities disappear when the data coded from the AGs case files are used to adjust for the heinousness of the crime. (emphasis added)

Still, even if it were true that blacks are more often punished for their crimes, that would mean whites should be punished equally for theirs, not that punishment itself should be abolished.

Fourth, many believe, as the pope says, that capital punishment is an attack the dignity of the person. Why? Because it diminishes the value of the human being . As one article put it, Reliance on the death penalty diminishes us and is a sign of growing disrespect for human life.

On the contrary, the death penalty elevates the human being. What better reflects the value we place on human life than the punishment we apply for extinguishing it? It is precisely our disapproval of capital punishment that reflects a softening attitude toward the evil of murder and a cheapening of human life. As A.L Goodhart put it, Retribution in punishment is an expression of the communitys disapproval of crime, and if this retribution is not given recognition then the disapproval of crime may also disappear. A community which is too ready to forgive the wrongdoer may end up condoning the crime.

That is why, even if every other argument against it were valid, justice alone demands that we keep the death penalty. For it is the only just and compassionate response to murder. As Dennis Prager points out , nearly all people would deem it terribly unfair if I were to steal my neighbors car and be allowed to go on using my car while he is deprived of his. Why does this fundamental tenet of fairness not hold true concerning life? On grounds of justice and fairness alone, why should I be allowed to keep my life after I have deliberately taken someone elses away?

Consider Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM), the mastermind of 9/11 and the executioner who sawed the head off of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl on camera. He's been kept alive for 17 years after he orchestrated the murder of nearly three thousand Americans. While the victims families suffer, he's been held at Guantanamo Bay, where prisoners enjoy watching movies and news programs, and often relax in cushy recliners while doing so . Furthermore, hes been given access to platforms that have allowed him to arrogantly taunt his victims and their families. I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan, he bragged to a reporter. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head."

Ask yourself, does KSM deserve to be alive? What about his victims? Keeping him alive out of a misplaced sense of compassion inflicts cruelty on his victims and their families. As Talmudic wisdom says, being kind to the cruel ends up being cruel to the kind.

Furthermore, failure to enact justice diminishes goodness. Conversely, as Walter Berns explained, Punishment... makes the criminal unhappy and it makes the law-abiding person happy. It rewards the law-abiding by satisfying the anger he feels at the sight of a crime. It rewards, and by rewarding, teaches law-abidingness. In other words, achieving justice rewards goodness.

But indifference to justice is apathy toward goodness, and a society unwilling to execute those who deserve it shows disrespect to the latter and disregard for the former. Therefore, for the sake of a good and just society, capital punishment ought to be maintained.

David formerly worked at a public policy institution and is currently a freelance writer. Hes written for The Federalist, The Hill, The Washington Times, The Daily Caller and other outlets. Email him at dwdweinberger@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @DWeinberger03.
Iran is on the brink of revolution as tensions escalate with thousands flooding city streets and chanting 'death to the dictator,' an expert has warned. ...

Videos shared online showed furious Iranians burning tyres and setting fire to police vehicles as demonstrations spun out of control. ...

Hanif Jazayeri, of the National Council of Resistance of Iran said: 'We had protests in 2009 [the "Green Revolution that President Obama did not support T.L.] but these are different because people are calling for the death of the President and the Supreme Leader. They have broken a lot of taboos.

'The demonstrations are not just over economic issues but very quickly turned political due to the regime's repression of the Iranian people with regard to women's rights, freedom of speech and other basic freedoms.

'The chants are directed at the entirety of the regime and protesters are demanding regime change.'

He added: 'The rial has lost 99 per cent of its value and people know the regime will not have a better situation to offer the people because of the new sanctions from the US.

'People are starting to wake up and see that revolution is a real possibility. I think there will be one.'
Last week, President Trump revoked John Brennan's security clearance. Brennan immediately declared that it was "part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech and punish critics." Moments later, over a dozen former intelligence officials denounced the president's action as "suppressing free speech." Somehow, the ability to see highly sensitive information is "speech." That's curious. I thought speech was something that came out of you, not something you took in.

By now, we're all familiar with former CIA director John Brennan's unhinged tirades against President Trump. But in that activity, he simply joins the chorus of Jimmy Kimmel, Maxine Waters, and others too numerous to mention. Each of these loudly and continually announces one Trump sin or another, always without evidence.

Since the First Amendment is so critical to our freedom, it's necessary to revisit what it says.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That's it. Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech. In short, you can say anything you want, short of inciting a riot or the famously misquoted "shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theater." That is, you cannot say things that would commonly be expected to cause physical harm to others. You also cannot say things that are deliberately defamatory, since libel and slander cause harm to reputations.

Curiously, I didn't read anything there that has anything to do with access to information. Hmmm... A free press is necessary to our freedoms, since it can expose malfeasance in government that would potentially harm us. That's why we have the Freedom of Information Act. It allows citizens to pry out information that the swamp would rather conceal, much as Judicial Watch and the American Center for Law and Justice do. But there are limits on what the public is allowed to know.

Certain information can be restricted if releasing it will cause harm greater than the value of the public's interest in knowing. For example, doxxing the jury in Paul Manafort's trial would place the jury members at risk. There is also a lot of properly restricted information in the national security arena. One critical injury resulted when WikiLeaks dumped the code of the CIA's hacking tools on March 6. We can disagree on how those tools were used, but it's clear that the disclosure resulted in hostile actors learning ways to protect their data from our spies. A former CIA employee was charged for leaking that information.

How did that employee get the information in the first place? He was granted a security clearance. That allowed him to see information that must not be seen by the public. He was allowed to see it in order to do his job. He violated the terms of the privilege.

John Brennan was granted the highest-level security clearance because, as CIA director, he had to be privy to a vast array of highly sensitive information in order to do his job. But it also imposed a serious gag on him. Anything he learned must not be disclosed to anyone who was not entitled to learn it from him. In short, his security clearance had nothing to do with free speech. It had everything to do with restricting his ability to speak on sensitive matters.

In some cases, there is a governmental interest in keeping specific security clearances alive. From time to time, former intel officers can be recalled to confer with sitting officers. Their experience can be valuable.

Does Brennan's security clearance touch on speech at all? There the answer must be a qualified "yes." But it is not a direct restraint. As long as Brennan uses his specialized and sensitive knowledge as background to frame public statements without revealing any sensitive information, he can use that material. He can attend events where others with that knowledge speak together. He can work for companies that need his expertise and access to guide the company's interaction with the government. This is for the government's benefit. But unless he is speaking to someone with an equivalent level of clearance who has a need to know, he has to keep his mouth shut.

It's pretty easy to see how a high-level security clearance would allow John Brennan to make money. He can serve on the board of a defense contractor. He can schmooze with friends in high places, gaining information that might make him a better pundit. CNN MSNBC obviously thought so when it hired him.

President Trump's action came as a result of Brennan's indefensible behavior. He has been vitriolic toward the president, making all sorts of unhinged accusations. This sort of activity would result in a person being denied a new clearance, because access to sensitive information requires careful decorum in the person learning it. As the White House put it, "[t]he President has a Constitutional responsibility to protect classified information and who has access to it."

John Brennan leaked operational information about a spy in the al-Qaeda operation. Those acts alone should have resulted in the immediate revocation of his clearance. This brings us to a key point.

Security clearances are issued for the benefit of the government. They are completely discretionary, and the holder (Brennan) has no right to the privilege. The moment the government finds you "not useful," your clearance can be pulled. In Brennan's case, due to the very high level at which he had been cleared, his value in the private sector would be great. But the moment the clearance disappeared, his financial prospects diminished. It's not hard to see a motive for Brennan's fury. As for the others who joined that chorus, we should invoke Sutton's Law: Follow the Money. How many of them would lose cushy financial situations if they lost their clearances?

No, Martha, security clearances have nothing directly to do with free speech. But when they are held outside a government job, they are a tool for fattening wallets.

John Brennan has not lost one syllable of his free speech by losing his security clearance. What he has lost is an inside track with those in the know. He has also lost a nice retirement income. How deserving.

Caricature by Donkey Hotey.
GOP hanging Keith Ellison's #MeToo problem around the necks of Dem House candidates in Minnesota

Control of the House of Representatives next term may well hinge on Minnesota, where the GOP has a rare opportunity to pick up some seats. Minnesota Democrats have just chosen to embrace Keith Ellison, the nation's first Muslim congressman, former acolyte of Louis Farrakhan, and DNC deputy chairman, even in the face of credible and corroborated accusations of domestic violence by his former girlfriend. The DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor Party  the state's version of the national Democrats) voters primary and the party regulars meeting in convention both endorsed Ellison as their candidate for statewide office as attorney general. Now they are stuck with him. This implicit rebuke of the #MeToo movement should cost them dearly, if the GOP plays its cards skillfully. And we have seen the first sign that the "stupid party" has wised up. This ad from the Congressional Leadership Fund super-PAC targets the state's Second Congressional District, where one-term incumbent Republican former talk show host Jason Lewis faces Democrat Angie Craig, whom he narrowly defeated in the 2016 election.

Minnesota is notable for a high percentage of women, including mothers, in the workforce and is generally in the progressive camp, so this issue could resonate with voters in the Second District, which includes southern suburbs of the Twin Cities and also some rural territory, including the very liberal college town of Northfield, home to Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges. The same approach could well apply to the three other swing districts. At the root of this is the Democrats' attachment to identity politics and the consequent necessity to rank identity groups when inevitable clashes in the interests of groups surface. The DFL has chosen Muslims and African-Americans over women, and the Republicans have every incentive to make this choice evident to the state's voters. In the event that Minnesota makes the difference in keeping a GOP majority, stand by for accusations of racism and Islamophobia.
More fake news falls apart: Mexico produces murder warrant for sob-story illegal busted taking wife to hospital

The media had a good run in the past few days, piously painting ICE as heartless again for detaining an illegal on the way to the hospital for the sake of his pregnant wife, in what they thought would be a rerun of their separation-of-children spectacular. Just listen to this CBS report and feel free to gross out. ICE came out and said the man was wanted on a murder warrant after the first weepy headlines. That concrete official declaration drew skepticism from the press, which cited the wan statements about not knowing anything about no warrant from the man's lawyer, often in its headlines, as its authority. Now we have the total collapse of the press narrative with the appearance of the Mexican warrant, and here is the real story, as reported by the Los Angeles Times:

An immigrant [sic] in the U.S. illegally who was detained by federal officers in San Bernardino last week while heading to the hospital with his pregnant wife is one of three men listed in an arrest warrant for a 2006 murder in Mexico. Joel Arrona-Lara is wanted in connection with the killing of Miguel Angel Morales Rodriguez, alias "El Garcia," according to the arrest warrant, which was provided by a law enforcement official who is not authorized to speak publicly about the case. Well, scratch that: Mexico has produced the murder warrant the ICE agents picked up Joel Arrona-Lara for, and it turns out he is accused of stomping a man known as "El Garcia" to death, along with two confederates named "El Chiko" and "El Rigo," in what sounds like gang activity. Like someone like that running around on your streets? Does someone like that sound as if he belongs here? It's so bad that even the Mexicans are after him, because he's obviously a menace to society. What's more, the warrant says the man's wife was involved. If that's the same woman who sobbed for the cameras about being pregnant and driving herself to the hospital for her scheduled C-section (likely at public expense), then it looks as though two arrests were actually in order. It's possible they let her off because she was obviously pregnant. It's also possible that, given this thug's morals, he had more than one "wife." As for the sobbing woman, her husband's lawyer says she's also in the country illegally, and it's notable that she speaks no English for the cameras, signaling she's someone who's been here a while yet isn't here to be American. What we have here is the real face of illegal immigration  not valedictorians and overachievers, but the kind of people President Trump took his poll lead (and was excoriated in the press) for describing: When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. This charmer fits the description to a T. Yet the press was so willing to take up his case as its latest sob story, the one it keeps flinging at us to tell us we are bad people for wanting immigration law to mean what it says. That very attitude is what enables a guy like Arrona-Lara to skip off scot-free from a Mexican murder warrant and live the welfare life over in the U.S. as the left cheers. Any questions as to why the press is so distrusted?
The pope rightly condemned the abuses by priests of minors and seminarians, criticized the bishops who covered it up, and condemned the culture of "clericalism"  that weird belief among some clerics that they can do anything they like and get away with it, simply because they are clerics entrusted with powers from God. He made it clear enough that that was what he meant by the academic-sounding term in the letter: a license to be bad, with God a guy who can be fooled. I was pleased that he invoked the Song of Mary about the lowly crushing enemies and uplifting the weak, because this has the right sound to it.

I am sure the holy father means well, and I am sure he is doing the best he can with his limited socialist background. But his letter to the faithful on the massive Church scandal out of Pennsylvania alone leaves a lot to be desired.

But then his socialist orientation got the better of him. He made it a matter not of individual guilt, but of collective guilt, societal guilt, something we all are part of and must atone for. This is a big tenet of liberation theology and similar lines of lefty thought. Society is guilty. This has sometimes been correct  we can look at racism in the South or Naziism. I don't see how it applies to the clerical scandal. Yet the pope issued an "invitation" for the entire Church to turn to prayer and fasting, since this was obviously something we all did.

It is essential that we, as a Church, be able to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities perpetrated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all those entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for those most vulnerable. Let us beg forgiveness for our own sins and the sins of others. An awareness of sin helps us to acknowledge the errors, the crimes and the wounds caused in the past and allows us, in the present, to be more open and committed along a journey of renewed conversion. Likewise, penance and prayer will help us to open our eyes and our hearts to other people's sufferings and to overcome the thirst for power and possessions that are so often the root of those evils. May fasting and prayer open our ears to the hushed pain felt by children, young people and the disabled. A fasting that can make us hunger and thirst for justice and impel us to walk in the truth, supporting all the judicial measures that may be necessary. A fasting that shakes us up and leads us to be committed in truth and charity with all men and women of good will, and with society in general, to combatting all forms of the abuse of power, sexual abuse and the abuse of conscience.

Actually, not "us." We never liked this stuff; just some bad priests did. What happened was something a bunch of bad priests did, people who've separated themselves from both their mission and from their flock, all in the name of power and what they perversely consider pleasure. It was the doing of particular individual people, not the collective flock, that caused this problem. The rest of us are just suffering. We suffer as Margaret Carlson described here (surprisingly worthwhile coming from her)  a realistic account of how kids deal with pervert priests in their midst and how powerless they are to stop it  and we suffer as fewer people want to come to the Church, and we suffer as we get to listen to all the catcalls about the Church from the left, making us unjustly feel bad about being members of the Church, and we suffer as our church collection donations get drained in legal payouts to victims, leaving less for church upkeep, missionary work, pensions, and service to the poor. Thanxalot.

No, actually, we're not the guilty ones in a collective guilt. We are the victims. The problem was They. And while the left yells about people who say "them," "them" in this case is the best way to put it.

So calling on us to pray and fast to atone comes off as a little rich, a little spread-the-blame-y. After all, when everyone is guilty, no one is guilty. Speaking as one member, I'll be glad to help out with the prayer and fasting since the pope asked. I'll do it out of the goodness of my heart. But cripes, to mush the whole monstrous thing over as collective guilt, when the time calls for bony fingers to be pointed at individual miscreants, is where the pope's message comes off as falling short.

Unfortunately, he's a collectivist, not an individualist, so that seems to affect even a problem like this one.

That connects to how the pope is being criticized by victims and others for not paying that much attention to getting these bad guys punished. In the case of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, he had the guy come on over to the Vatican to engage in a life of prayer and penitence. This is baloney. This is a guy who belongs in jail, atoning alongside the other convicts  mug shots, prison stripes, breaking rocks in the hot sun, body cavity searches, top bunk, prison yard, mackerel currency, the hole, and all  here in the states. That's what the other perverts get here, and McCarrick should be not at all different.

The pope made a big deal earlier about his respect for secular power, back when he opted not to give up his Argentine passport and advised us he remained a simple citizen subject to his home country's laws. Well, what happened? Is it too much to ask of him to go back to that and hand a guy like McCarrick over to U.S. lawmen to get what other citizens of the U.S. get when they go abusing children? Or what? The other option is to set up a good prison in the Vatican system for guys like McCarrick if going into the jail-keeping business is what he wants.

Either-or.

While we always have to account for the pope's Argentine background (which, after all, seems to have taught him economics), as Americans, we do see some better responses among the U.S. bishops. Believe it or not, lefty archbishop of Los Angeles Jose Gomez came up with a far better response that resonates better with Americans in this letter here. He pointed to the problem of it being the job of priests to represent Christ and points out that the bad ones didn't. That works. He also outlined the work the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has been doing to ensure that no child is ever harmed in connection with his experience with the Church. Since I worked on those committees when I lived in Los Angeles, I can tell you they were thorough, and they were well policed by the diocese to make sure stuff was getting done. Protection of safe spaces for little ones, research from the best practices of lawmen who catch miscreants, forcing even unwilling people who have minimal contact with kids to take certified child protection training and learn how to be on the lookout for perverts  all very effective, and that is what has been going on in Los Angeles for several years. Concrete action and harsh words for the bad guys is what resonates.

The big weakness in the pope's statement is a failure to point a finger and call for righteous punishment for bad guys. Instead, we get pablumy stuff about all of us being guilty and needing to atone. No, throwing bad guys in jail and holding them up to shame works better. I know he tries, but his approach so far leaves me a little cold.
Fans of the dime-a-dozen televised superhero dramas may be in for some unfortunate news. The actress tapped to play Batwoman in the latest installment of The CW's seriate "Arrowverse" has been determined not to be gay enough for the role. That is, the actress is gay, but she doesn't prefer women enough  or enough to silence her critics, at least.

DC Comics re-established the character of Batwoman as a Jewish lesbian back in 2006, just before it became fashionable to recreate classic heroes as some mix of sexual minority X and racial minority Y. To stay true to form, Australian actress Ruby Rose, an out lesbian, was cast to play the nocturnal crime-fighter. Little did Rose know her Sapphic tastes wouldn't cut the intersectional mustard.

Social media outrage over Rose's casting pushed the blindsided actress into leaving Twitter. The mob's point of contention: Rose has a history of identifying as "gender-fluid," not strictly lesbian. What's the difference? Beats me; keeping up with the sexual dialectic of the left is like knowing the differences among regional Chinese dialects.

Rose's final Twitter messages provide a clue as to the nature of the debate. She reportedly wrote before kicking the platform: "Where on earth did 'Ruby is not a lesbian therefore she can't be batwoman' come from  has to be the funniest most ridiculous thing I've ever read. I came out at 12? And have for the past 5 years had to deal with 'she's too gay' how do y'all flip it like that? I didn't change."

She didn't change anything, indeed. The pace at which the social-justice left has altered the terms of proper debate is dizzying. Mere toleration of deviant lifestyles is not sufficient; now a new vocabulary must be employed with a surgeon's precision.

Rose doesn't meet the strict definition of a lesbian. She's also not Jewish. Thus, she's disbarred from playing a Jewish lesbian who dresses up like a humanoid bat to beat evildoers to a bruised and bloody pulp.

This raises all types of questions of what is theatrically permissible to the social justice warrior. Must straight men always play straight men? Must Asian women always play Asian women? Must gay black men with erotic asphyxiation fetishes always be played by gay black men with erotic asphyxiation fetishes?

And why limit ourselves to just race and sex, or even human performance? Must Superman be played by a real Kryptonian? Must Spock be played by a real Vulcan? Must Juliet always be played by an Italian virgin who, halfway through Scene III, is deflowered? Must Nick Bottom always be played by a half-donkey under Puck's mischievous spell?

Surely, anything but the strictest adherence to the author's original conception won't do  except, of course, when it does. The rumor that black actor Idris Elba could be playing the next James Bond was revived last week. Ian Fleming, Bond's creator, based his secret spy character off officers he knew in the Naval Intelligence Division. It's unlikely he pictured 007 as anything other than a martini-enjoying, woman-seducing white Scottish cove.

And yet, many of the same leftists who denounce the casting of Rose as Batwoman are cheering Bond's sudden change in skin tone. Liberal publications are encouraging the switch, singing hosannas to diversity. "Every Argument Against Idris Elba Playing James Bond Is [BS]," squealed an angry mole at Esquire.

Back in 2014, Rush Limbaugh had the temerity to use the left's racial casting logic against Elba, citing Fleming's vision of the world-saving secret agent. He was panned as a racist and bigot  not uncommon territory for the king of talk radio.

Two things can't be true at the same time. Ruby Rose can't be unfit to don Batwoman's leotard while Idris Elba can be right at home in James Bond's patented tuxedo.

The matter is made worse by the stakes, which are extremely low. Batwoman is a television show about a vigilante on a basic cable station. We aren't talking Macbeth at the Globe Theater. To give over so much time and energy to perfect a depiction of Batman's female alternative is an exercise in listlessness. Basically: who really cares?

Does the left's intersectional world have room for the concept of acting? Clearly not. What a painfully trite existence the race-and-sex-obsessed progressive must have. It's bad enough to have to look over your shoulder and check your vocabulary after every breath. Not even to be comfortable with the simplest of forms of escapism because they don't comport exactly with reality is a bore.

"I love acting. It is so much more real than life," said Lord Henry. That sentiment is being taken quite literally by unimaginative leftists who care everything for sexual and racial politics and nothing for drama, or its more comprehensive title: life.
Huh?

The Hill:

"We have a lot to lose right now," Manigault Newman said on MSNBC's "Politics Nation," referencing Trump's appeal to African-American voters during the 2016 campaign.

"I believe he wants to start a race war in this country," she added.

Manigault Newman has made a flurry of media appearances over the last week to promote her new book, "Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House." In the book, she recounts her time in the White House and on the Trump campaign, and accuses the president of being a racist.

Manigault Newman, who rose to fame on "The Apprentice" and was fired from the administration in December, argued she was as an advocate for the black community during her time in the White House.

"Every single time he had some type of issue with the community, I was there," she said. "The one thing I realized once I was there was he was disingenuous to his commitment to diversity."

Manigault Newman said Trump is a "performer," and that he's more interested in using minority leaders as props than for in-depth conversations.
By Olivia Rose

FIRST responders have completed a rigorous mass casualty training exercise to ensure the TCI is in a state of readiness to respond to natural, manmade, chemical or radioactive disasters.





The mass casualty workshop was hosted by the Ministry of Health through its National Health Emergency Management Unit.





Police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, healthcare workers, environmental health officers and other critical agency staff took part.





Attendees underwent an intensive five day didactic training course consisting of lectures, field exercises, role playing and a final written desktop and field exercise.





It was all designed to sharpen the response skills of mass casualty responders to effectively manage events.





Speaking to the Weekly News, Charlene Higgs, Director of Health Disaster, Education and Training within the Ministry of Health, said the aim of the workshop was to ensure a comprehensive approach is taken to health emergency management in response to public health threats.





She stressed that the TCI must be prepared on all fronts to respond to disasters of any nature or magnitude.





Thirty-three participants were drawn from among the various response agencies to attend the seminar which concluded on July 28.





The Pan American Health Organisation in partnership with the Ministry of Health also hosted a Train the trainer workshop from July 18 to 20 to retool mass casualty trainers.




Googles mobile augmented reality platform ARCore received support for Samsungs newly announced Galaxy Note 9, as well as a number of other contemporary Android devices. The latest expansion of the companys AR ecosystem happened earlier this week but wasnt announced in any highly public capacity on Googles part, with the change only being communicated on ARCores official support page. Samsungs Galaxy Tab S4 is also supported as of the latest version of the service, together with HMDs Nokia 6.1 Plus and Sonys Xperia XZ2 handsets  the regular Xperia XZ2, Xperia XZ2 Compact, and the Xperia XZ2 Premium.

As evidenced by the example of the Galaxy S9 series, the fact that ARCore technically already supports the Galaxy Note 9 and Galaxy Tab S4 doesnt guarantee the two Android devices will be compatible with the AR solution out of the box. Both Samsung and Google must do their part in ensuring the tool is compatible with the upcoming flagships and in the case of the Galaxy S9 line, Google took nearly two months after its commercial release to activate the framework. No specific software requirements for ARCore have been outlined in the context of Samsung and HMDs products, though Sonys smartphones must run Android 8.0 Oreo with the August security update or a later patch in order for the feature to be used, with the main implication here being that ARCore support is being bundled with the latest firmware package for the Xperia XZ2 family.

ARCore is presently available on the vast majority of contemporary Android flagships, as well as a number of mid-rangers. Googles platform has been envisioned as a comprehensive solution for standardizing mobile AR applications, both in terms of user experiences and development. The upcoming Pixel 3 handsets are expected to offer ARCore support out of the box, with the ecosystem itself being likely to continue expanding beyond them over the course of the final quarter of the year.
Googles experimental workshop, Area 120, appears to be working on its own audio playback software called Shortwave, which could be similar to Google Podcasts. Thats partially based on a newly-discovered U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) document reserving the word SHORTWAVE for the search giant, first filed back in July. The government listing classifies the trademark as being applicable to software used on computers, tablets, and mobile phones, which allows users to search, access, and play audio files. Meanwhile, representatives from the company have also reportedly clarified matters further, indicating that the software itself is intended to give users new ways to consume, discover, and share spoken-word audio.

Bearing that in mind, Google also says that Shortwave is currently in very early development and still experimental. So there are several directions Google could be headed the software it has now officially trademarked. Some form of podcast application would make some sense. Historically, the search giant has not been at all shy about launching multiple products which ultimately accomplish the same task. One prominent example of that can be found with its Hangouts and Allo application, which effectively served the same purpose up until Google shifted the former in a more enterprise-specific direction. On the other hand, the company only recently launched its own dedicated Podcasts application, shortly after debuting similar features in its Google app on Android. That means it already effectively has two applications available for listening to podcasts, without taking into consideration those found on Google Play Music or YouTube.

Having said that, the company could be looking into ways to bring all of its podcast-based offerings under a single trademarked branding. While representatives of the company strongly suggest that Shortwave will be very different and is deliberately being engineered for that purpose, that doesnt necessarily rule out the possibility. Conversely, the software may have nothing to do with podcasts at all since it was actually filed after the release of the podcast features and Podcasts application. It could, in fact, be related to other types of content centered around the spoken word. For example, Shortwave could be closer in relation to something like Googles endeavors in the audiobook segment or any number of other services.
LG Electronics has recently announced two new wireless wearable audio products, the LG TONE Platinum SE and the TONE Ultra SE. These two devices are among the audio products that the South Korean tech firm will showcase during the IFA 2018. One of the key features of the TONE Platinum SE earbuds is its out-of-the-box support for the Google Assistant. Even though this is not the first time that LG launched an audio product with Google Assistant support, the company emphasized that this wearable is the first TONE device that will ship with Googles virtual assistant out-of-the-box. The Google Assistant integration will allow users to quickly activate the virtual assistant by pressing a hardware button, rather than having to speak the trigger phrase OK Google. In addition, the earphone can also be used to communicate with another individual in a foreign language with the help of Google Translate. LG also highlighted the hybrid unit design of the TONE Platinum SE, which is comprised of a balanced armature and the dynamic driver. According to the manufacturer, the balanced armature will provide high-frequency sound while the dynamic driver will generate bass for the wearable. The TONE Platinum SE earphones will be available in three color options, namely black, blue, and gold.

Meanwhile, another audio product that LG Electronics has recently announced is the TONE Ultra SE. Aside from including earbuds, this device also contains an external mono speaker, which is useful when having to answer calls or listen to music without the need to block ambient audio from the surroundings. Both the TONE Ultra SE and the Tone Platinum SE include dual MEMS microphones, which LG claims should result in improved call quality, and they will also support the Tone & Talk application, which will allow the user to adjust the settings of the audio devices as well as read messages from a number of supported chat and email applications.

LG will showcase its latest audio products in its IFA Booth from August 31 to September 5. The manufacturer also mentioned that the details regarding the pricing and availability of the devices will be revealed once it launches its wearables in specific local markets.
Lyft announced that it has officially reached the 5,000 ride mark in its self-driving car venture with Aptiv. Currently, the service only operates in Las Vegas, Nevada, but Lyft wants to expand it in the near future. To that end, Lyft is currently encouraging customers in Las Vegas who decide to take a self-driving Aptiv ride to give the company feedback on their experiences. The response thus far has been overwhelmingly positive, according to Lyft. The company made sure to point out that customers have stated that they felt comfortable during their rides, and many were surprised at the technological marvel of the whole experience.

To put numbers to the response that Lyft experienced, 96% of customers who took an autonomous ride in a Lyft Aptiv vehicle said that they wanted to eventually ride again. 20% of passengers actually did so, with some coming back for multiple rides. On average, passengers rated their autonomous rides 4.96 out of 5 stars. To be clear, this means that a small number of riders may have experienced some real issues. Lyfts deactivation number for drivers is a 4.6 rating, so people tend to rate Lyft rides at 5 stars as a base and deduct for issues, rather than only rating the best rides with 5 stars. Even so, achieving a rating like that over the course of 5,000 rides, given how the populace at large tends to feel about self-driving cars, is certainly impressive.

The ridesharing industry as a whole seems to be moving in the direction of depending on self-driving cars. Lyft signed a deal with Google-owned Waymo a while back, but that may manifest in another form later on. The companys deal with Aptiv, meanwhile, started at CES and became a full-time affair in Las Vegas back in May. Lyfts direct competitor, Uber, is actually scaling operations back due to a fatal crash in Arizona not long ago, giving Lyft a chance to seize the upper hand. Being the first to mass market with a self-driving taxi solution will build valuable consumer mindshare that may well be insurmountable, depending on just how much clout is built up and whos trying to challenge it. Uber could spring back into action, or either Lyft or Waymo could begin expanding at just about any time. Thats to say nothing of the countless other players waiting in the wings. The first strike in the larger and longer-term self-driving taxi game could come from just about anybody at this point.
OnePlus is looking for individuals to join its Closed Beta Program, which will give them access to early OxygenOS builds and in return requires them to provide their feedback on experimental features and report bugs. Any individual who owns a OnePlus 6 device, is active on OnePlus community platforms, and is willing to work closely with the OnePlus team to communicate issues on Slack is eligible to sign up for the program. From all the applications that the company receives, a hundred candidates will be chosen to be a part of what the company considers to be an elite crew of its community members. The participants will be given access to unreleased software and features much before theyre made available publicly as final builds to help make OxygenOS more stable for the next testing stage.

Given the need for secrecy at this early stage, the selected candidates will be asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with OnePlus. Once selected for the program, the individuals will be issued unstable alpha builds several times in a month which theyll be required to flash on their OnePlus 6 units, and in certain cases, a clean flash must be performed, resulting in data loss. If the OnePlus 6 is your primary phone then opting for the Closed Beta Program is not recommended since the builds released to its participants will most likely include major bugs that can severely hamper your user experience. Having said that, the signup process includes filling up a simple form that will help the Chinese company better understand your usage pattern and if youre fit for the task.

After the Closed Beta Testers approve an OxygenOS build, it is released to a much wider group of Open Beta Testers to iron out any minor bug or issue before it is released as an official update to the public. Now that Android 9 Pie is out, the OnePlus team must be planning to push an OxygenOS update based on the latest Android release sometime in the near future to its handful of smartphones, hence the Closed Beta Program, though no official announcement has been made yet.
Samsung announced the Galaxy Watch at its Unpacked event earlier this month, but did not mention pricing for the LTE model of its new smartwatch. With pre-orders for the Galaxy Watch LTE going live today, we now know the price and when to expect it in our hands. The Galaxy Watch LTE is going to be $379 for the smaller 42mm size, and $399 for the larger 46mm size. Additionally, right now there is only a T-Mobile model available for pre-order. Its unclear if that is the only carrier supporting the Galaxy Watch LTE, or if the other carrier models will appear once shipments arrive on September 2.

The Galaxy Watch is the newest smartwatch from Samsung, and despite the change in its name, it is still running on Samsungs Tizen operating system, instead of WearOS. It will still work with any Android smartphone running Android 4.2 or later, as well as iOS devices running iOS 10 and later. So virtually any newer smartphone will work with this smartwatch. Samsung decided to offer it in two sizes this year, with a 42mm available for those with smaller wrists. It also has a larger battery that should last for a few days on a single charge. The Galaxy Watch is able to track your fitness throughout the day  all the steps you take, calories burned, exercises and much more  as well as work as a regular smartwatch. Itll deliver notifications on your wrist, and there are also a ton of apps that work with the Galaxy Watch. Including the likes of Samsung Health, Twitter, Uber and many more.

According to Samsungs website, the 4G LTE models of the Galaxy Watch will begin arriving on September 2. Which is a little more than a week after the Galaxy Note 9 launches. Since September 2 is the Sunday before Labor Day, most pre-orderers probably wont get their Galaxy Watch until September 4 at the very earliest. If you want to pre-order the Galaxy Watch LTE, you can do so by hitting the links down below.
Samsung Electronics has no plans to become a car manufacturer at any point in the future, the company said earlier today, The Korea Heralds Investor reports. The Seoul-based conglomerate hence dismissed a number of recent rumors about its supposedly growing ambitions in the transportation segment, categorically denying any effort aimed at developing electric or self-driving vehicles, or acquiring firms that would allow it to gain a foothold in either market.

The latest rumors suggesting Samsung is eyeing an automotive push emerged after the company announced intentions to invest an extra $22 billion into emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and 5G over the course of the next three years. While some industry watchers speculated that fund may also end up backing new transportation solutions, Samsung now clarified that any ambitions in the automotive segment it might pursue moving forward will be solely tied to connectivity technologies and chips designed for contemporary navigation and autonomous driving, not vehicles themselves. One source close to the company claims Samsungs public statement on the matter was meant to ease concerns among its major automaker clients that the chaebol is eyeing a move into their territory, suggesting car manufacturing may not be outside of the realm of the tech giants ambitions in the long term.

For the time being, the firms mobility plans remain tied to computing hardware such as the 256GB UFS 3.0 chip thats been in flow production since February. A more comprehensive push into transportation could allow Samsung to diversify its operations and make them more sustainable, consequently unlocking additional shareholder value for investors, something it has repeatedly been asked to do over the last several years. One of Samsungs newest major partnerships in the automotive industry was announced in early 2017 after Volkswagens Audi started ordering Exynos chipsets for its contemporary vehicles. The collaboration in question is being expanded this year, with a wider variety of 2019 VW models being expected to feature Samsung-made silicon.
Samsung Pay is officially three years old now. It launched back in 2015 with the Galaxy Note 5  though it was announced with the Galaxy S6 launch, but it wasnt actually available until later that year with the Galaxy Note 5. And in that three years, it has really taken off. Samsung is celebrating the fact that Samsung Pay is available on all inhabitable continents  North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. It has also launched in 25 markets and has also been used for a whopping 1.3 billion transactions worldwide.

In addition to those numbers, Samsung Pay is also highlighting the fact that it is compatible with around 2,000 banking and financial institutions around the world. Online payments are available in about 15 markets, Transit cards are in five markets and Loyalty and Membership cards are available in 20 markets. Samsung Rewards, which offers points for purchasing from specific merchants, is available in 10 markets, which includes the US, India, Malaysia and Spain. Finally, Samsung has added Bixby support to help make it easier to make payments with Samsung Pay.

Over the three years since launch, Samsung Pay has greatly expanded. It has continued to add more banks and financial institutions as well as adding more features. Though the big reason for Samsung Pay being so successful in these three years is arguably because of the fact that it uses MST technology. That means that Samsung Pay will work with any terminal that takes credit or debit cards. Effectively making almost every merchant in the world compatible with Samsung Pay. Now Samsung still only has its mobile payment service available on its flagship smartphones, including the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy Note 9, and a few other big smartphones like the Galaxy J7 Pro. Unfortunately it still has not launched on all Samsung smartphones or all Android devices. Hopefully that changes in the next three years for Samsung Pay.
Microsoft has just launched end-to-end encryption for calls and texts to its Skype app, and that goes for both Android and iOS, while desktop users can also take advantage of this new feature. This feature may be better known as private conversations, and it had been announced quite some time ago, that feature has been in testing for a while, as the company was preparing it for a release to everyone.

So, how does this work? Well, if youve been using private conversations on other platforms, you have a pretty good idea as to what this is, though its possible it works a bit differently on Skype, depending on what app you used it in before. If the person you want to chat with accepts your invitation for a private chat, Microsofts technology will better protect that conversation. For example, if you activate private calls, eavesdroppers will find it hard to do anything, same goes for chats. If you activate this new feature, specific content will even be hidden from the notification shade, messages from private chats, for example. This feature does come with a catch, though, you can only activate a private conversation on one device at a time. Skype gives you an option to switch conversations to some other device, but do keep in mind that you can only see private messages on one device at a time.

As youve probably already realized, this option is completely optional, and you cannot set Skype to default to private conversations and calls, while WhatsApp, for example, is a completely different story. In any case, if youd like to try out this feature on your smartphone, all you need to do is make sure that your Skype app is up-to-date. Once you do that, you can tap the New Chat icon, and select Private Conversation, in order to initiate it.
Uber seems to be narrowing the scope of operations related to its development and deployment of self-driving technology. The company and its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, were completely committed to the idea that self-driving technology was Ubers future not too long ago, but a fatal crash involving a jaywalking pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona seems to have changed everything. The company has since scaled back testing and shut down in many areas, gotten rid of its self-driving truck division, and opened itself to hardware and software partnerships. Just a few months ago, Khosrowshahi was talking about the benefits the company could reap from owning and operating both the software and hardware ends of its self-driving business.

In the current state of affairs, the company is looking to break back into previous testing areas, with a more tentative eye on new markets. As a result pf Uber shutting down self-driving truck operations to focus on the core technology, Don Burnett, a key member of that department and a co-founder of Otto, left to start his own self-driving truck company, called Kodiak. Ubers vehicles, meanwhile, carry all of the usual sensors, but have a human in control behind the wheel. This means that the cars will be getting data on what its like to navigate the roadways and will be able to make predictions and observations based off of that, but they wont get the same training that they would get if they were making the decisions themselves. The cars are still getting trained to think and act for themselves in simulations, which reportedly are being used on an increased scale since the fatal crash.

Recent developments seem to imply that Uber has all but lost its original vision and set of goals for self-driving cars, and is currently hard at work figuring out how to get past obstacles to research, development and testing. The company is more open than ever to all sorts of outside interference and input in its operations, though its worth noting that Khosrowshahi has outright discounted the possibility of selling Advanced Technologies Group, the arm of Uber thats responsible for self-driving technology development. The company has made a large amount of layoffs and cuts in recent months, and has also seen some of its top talent walk away. At this point, Ubers prospects of keeping up with the fierce competition in the self-driving space seem dubious, and only time will tell if the company can pull itself out of this rut.
By Olivia Rose

LEADER of the Opposition Hon. Washington Misick is concerned that the growing migration issue facing the territory could lead to the indigenous population being outnumbered and marginalised.





Misick made these remarks at the TCIs first Illegal Migration Summit which brought together former and current chief ministers, premiers and ministers of border control in a think tank fashion to discuss security issues facing the territory.





The summit, which was held on Thursday, August 9, at the Shore Club Resort in Providenciales saw more than 50 politicians pooling ideas, best practices and strategies in an effort to curb the high sloop arrival rate.





Misick told media that he is very concerned with the prospects of the territory becoming overpopulated and native Turks and Caicos Islanders being outnumbered and disenfranchised.





"In terms of what happens to Turks and Caicos 20 years from now, Im more concerned with how my kids and grandkids, your kids and grandkids how will theyll fit into this society.





Earlier this year Misick expressed grave concern after data emerged from the National Skills Audit 2017 showing that Turks and Caicos Islanders are having fewer children.





The recorded trends revealed that if fertility among indigenous women does not increase soon, the native population will be outnumbered.





Misick said his hope is that the summit will lead to the Government crafting policies that will preserve the rights, livelihood and future of native population.





"Im ultimately interested in making sure that we have an immigration and a population policy that takes into consideration the security of Turks and Caicos border.





"I see it as a problem thats not going to go away so it has to be managed, which means potentially putting more money behind it as well.





The summit also saw leaders putting aside their political differences to find amicable solutions to curb the incessant illegal migration issue plaguing the country.





Speaking at the meeting Minister of Border Control Hon. Sean Astwood said it is necessary for both sides of the political divide to meet in the middle on the issue of illegal migration.





He stressed that although a summit of this nature is long overdue for the territory, he is happy that it has come

to fruition.





"One of the things that weve committed to during the election cycle and even coming in is that we would keep immigration as a bipartisan issue and focus on how we deal with the issues the country face but also how we move the country forward through immigration.





"This summit is really a manifestation and continuation of that commitment.





Minister Astwood underscored that the summit was intended to give key stakeholders an opportunity to work together to effectively curtail the unrelenting migration problem.





"Im hoping to tap into their minds, really to get examples of experiences, what they did in certain situations, policies theyve passed in the past that worked and didnt work and that type of general discussion.





"Were definitely not focusing on criticising or saying who did it better or who did it worse but really just to pull that information out of everyone.





"And thats the reason I didnt invite the political parties at this point but the individuals in their own capacity that they maybe would have held before.





"We have all seen and heard various comments, suggestions and proposals through social media and otherwise on ways to deal with this onslaught of illegal migration and the domino effects it has on all aspects of our beloved country.





Other pertinent issues such as combating the problem of over-stays and regularisation of children born in the TCI to illegal parents were also discussed.




Marysville, CA (95901)

Today

Sun and clouds mixed. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 66F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 54F. Winds light and variable.
By Gemma Handy

A GREATER degree of autonomy for the TCI could result from the latest probe by Britain into the governance of its overseas territories.





Thats according to PDM chairman Doug Parnell who said it was important Islanders "voices are heard during the inquiry by Londons Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) announced last month.





Members of the public have just over a fortnight left to send written submissions on everything from how territories are financed to their relationship with the UK.





"This is timely given the fact the UK is preparing to exit the European Union. That has brought up so many questions regarding how this will affect us, Parnell told the Weekly News.





"It is time to review the relationship we have with Britain and we hope this will mean an advancement to a new, more modern one with more autonomy.





TC Islanders should seize the opportunity to decide what that marriage looks like, he continued.





"It could mean territories have official representation in the UK parliament. We have seen just recently what happens when decisions are taken that directly affect us with no one speaking on our behalf, the chairman said.





Fury erupted in May following an announcement that OTs would be forced to adopt public registers of company ownership by the end of 2020 in a bid to curtail money laundering.





The move by the House of Commons threatens to put the boot into the TCIs financial services industry, said to account for around 12 percent of its GDP.





"They served notice on us that it will happen, whether we like it or not. The way the UK imposes laws on the territories is one of the areas of concern, Parnell explained.





The inquiry comes 11 years after the last of its kind which paved the way for the TCIs Commission of Inquiry and, ultimately, the dissolution of its government.





Nonetheless, most people "welcome a fresh probe as a vehicle to examine the role of the governor along with non-elected members of the House of Assembly, the PDM chairman believes.





While London has gradually relaxed its grip on the territory since the return to elected rule in 2012, it still retains tighter controls than before the suspension of the constitution, most notably with regard to its finances.





"People are likely to rally against what they see as any further constraints on the Islands; that has to be a thing of the past, Parnell added.





"We need to be taking steps towards the advancement, development and progression of our people. And they want a greater say.





The FAC, headed by Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, will scrutinise how effectively London ensures the "security and stability of its 14 remaining territories.





It may hone in on individual countries where appropriate, the announcement said.





The inquiry has been largely welcomed by fellow territories across the region.





The deadline for written submissions is September 3. Areas under consideration also include OTs adherence to human rights, their international representation, their assets and natural resources, and the impact of extreme weather.





Further details can be found at www.parliament.uk




1st-line Tagrisso offers a potential new standard of care for Japanese lung cancer patients



AstraZeneca today announced that the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) has approved Tagrisso (osimertinib) for the 1st-line treatment of patients with inoperable or recurrent epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), following priority review. The approval is based on results from the global Phase III FLAURA trial which included Japanese patients and which were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dave Fredrickson, Executive Vice President, Head of the Oncology Business Unit, said: Tagrisso is already approved in Japan for the treatment of patients with EGFR T790M mutation-positive inoperable or recurrent NSCLC that is resistant to existing 1st-line EGFR-inhibitor medicines. Todays approval moves the use of Tagrisso to the 1st-line setting, replacing older medicines which, given the high prevalence of the EGFR mutation in Japan, offers an important new treatment option for these patients.

The FLAURA trial compared Tagrisso to current 1st-line EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), erlotinib or gefitinib in previously-untreated patients with locally-advanced or metastatic EGFR-mutated (EGFRm) NSCLC. In the trial, Tagrisso demonstrated superior progression-free survival (PFS) of 18.9 months compared with 10.2 months for the comparator arm (see table below), and this benefit was consistent across all subgroups including in patients with or without central nervous system (CNS) metastases, an important benefit for lung cancer patients.

FLAURA trial efficacy results according to investigator assessment

Efficacy parameter Tagrisso

(N=279) EGFR-TKI comparator (gefitinib or erlotinib) (N=277) PFS Number of events (62% maturity) 136 (49) 206 (74) Median PFS (95% confidence interval [CI]) 18.9 months (15.2, 21.4) 10.2 months (9.6, 11.1) Hazard ratio (HR [95% CI]); p-value 0.46 (0.37, 0.57); p < 0.0001 Objective response rate (ORR) Response rate (95% CI) 80% (75, 85) 76% (70, 81) Odds ratio (95% CI); p-value 1.3 (0.9, 1.9); p=0.2421 Duration of response (DoR) Median DoR (95% CI) 17.2 months (13.8, 22.0) 8.5 months (7.3, 9.8)

Safety data for Tagrisso in the FLAURA trial were in line with those observed in prior clinical trials. Tagrisso was generally well tolerated, with Grade 3 or higher adverse events (AEs) occurring in 34% of patients taking Tagrisso and 45% in the comparator arm. The most common adverse reactions in patients treated with Tagrisso were rash/acne (54.5%), diarrhoea (49.5%), dry skin/eczema (33.3%) and nail disorder including paronychia (32.6%) (at the time of supplementary approval).

Tagrisso has now received approval in 40 countries for the 1st-line treatment of patients with metastatic EGFRm NSCLC, including the US, Japan and in Europe. Other global health authority reviews and submissions are ongoing.

About EGFRm NSCLC

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women, accounting for about one-fifth of all cancer deaths, more than breast, prostate and colorectal cancers combined. Lung cancer is broadly split into NSCLC and small cell lung cancer (SCLC), with 80-85% classified as NSCLC. Approximately 10-15% of NSCLC patients in the US and Europe, and 30-40% of patients in Asia have EGFRm NSCLC. These patients are particularly sensitive to treatment with EGFR-TKIs which block the cell-signalling pathways that drive the growth of tumour cells. Approximately 25% of patients with EGFRm NSCLC have brain metastases at diagnosis, increasing to approximately 40% within two years of diagnosis. The presence of brain metastases often reduces median survival to less than 8 months.

About Tagrisso

Tagrisso (osimertinib) is a third-generation, irreversible EGFR-TKI designed to inhibit both EGFR-sensitising and EGFR T790M-resistance mutations, with clinical activity against CNS metastases. Tagrisso 40mg and 80mg once-daily oral tablets have now received approval in 40 countries, including the US, Japan and in Europe, for 1st-line EGFRm advanced NSCLC, and more than 75 countries, including the US, Japan, China and in Europe, for 2nd-line use in patients with EGFR T790M mutation-positive advanced NSCLC. Tagrisso is also being developed in the adjuvant setting (ADAURA), in the locally-advanced unresectable setting (LAURA), and in combination with other treatments.

About the FLAURA trial

The FLAURA trial assessed the efficacy and safety of Tagrisso 80mg orally once daily vs. standard-of-care EGFR-TKIs (either erlotinib [150mg orally, once daily] or gefitinib [250mg orally, once daily]) in previously-untreated patients with locally-advanced or metastatic EGFRm NSCLC. The trial was double-blinded and randomised, with 556 patients across 29 countries.

About AstraZeneca in Lung Cancer

AstraZeneca has a comprehensive portfolio of approved and potential new medicines in late-stage clinical development for the treatment of lung cancer across all stages of disease and lines of therapy. We aim to address the unmet needs of patients with EGFRm NSCLC with our approved medicines, Iressa and Tagrisso, and with the Phase III ADAURA and LAURA trials.

Our Immuno-Oncology portfolio includes Imfinzi, an anti-PDL1 antibody, which is in development as monotherapy (ADJUVANT, PACIFIC2, MYSTIC and PEARL trials) and in combination with tremelimumab and/or chemotherapy (MYSTIC, NEPTUNE, CASPIAN, and POSEIDON trials).

About AstraZeneca in Oncology

AstraZeneca has a deep-rooted heritage in oncology and offers a quickly-growing portfolio of new medicines that has the potential to transform patients lives and the Companys future. With at least six new medicines to be launched between 2014 and 2020, and a broad pipeline of small molecules and biologics in development, we are committed to advance oncology as a key growth driver for AstraZeneca focused on lung, ovarian, breast and blood cancers. In addition to our core capabilities, we actively pursue innovative partnerships and investments that accelerate the delivery of our strategy, as illustrated by our investment in Acerta Pharma in haematology.

By harnessing the power of four scientific platforms  Immuno-Oncology, Tumour Drivers and Resistance, DNA Damage Response and Antibody Drug Conjugates  and by championing the development of precision combinations, AstraZeneca has the vision to redefine cancer treatment and one day eliminate cancer as a cause of death.

About AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca is a global, science-led biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialisation of prescription medicines, primarily for the treatment of diseases in three therapy areas - Oncology, Cardiovascular, Renal & Metabolism and Respiratory. AstraZeneca operates in over 100 countries and its innovative medicines are used by millions of patients worldwide.

For more information, please visit www.astrazeneca.com and follow us on Twitter @AstraZeneca.
By Olivia Rose

TURKS and Caicos Community College is looking to strengthen its relationship with the University of the West Indies (UWI) in an effort to broaden the scope of tertiary learning in the TCI.





The TCICC is seeking to establish an open campus in collaboration with the university where residents can further their education in various fields.





This was revealed by Dr Hubert Fulford, president of the community college, at a press conference on Thursday, August 9, held at the Hilly Ewing building in Providenciales.





He said: "The University of the West Indies especially the Mona campus and St Augustine are not new names to the Turks and Caicos and many of us as Turks and Caicos Islanders would have studied at these institutions.





He added: "We have had the privilege of having lecturers and teachers coming to us here in the Turks and Caicos from these institutions.





He said in the last 20 years the University of the West Indies has been a presence in the TCI with a dedicated centre erected at the Grand Turk college campus.





"The purpose for that was the ability for the university to reach into the island of Grand Turk to facilitate those persons who are unable to leave home and to study abroad, Fulford said.





He stressed that over the last few months the college has extensively engaged with the UWI to foster greater collaboration with hopes of establishing an open campus in the TCI.





"The thing about the open campus is that it is available to all persons and it provides for us several modalities of learning, several opportunities for us to engage in education.





"Through the open campus we can have face to face contact as we would in a regular classroom. We could do it by internet.





He said the opportunity it offers for graduate and post graduate students is of complementing what is already available at the college.





"We can take students to a particular level but then the continuing education aspect for them stops because we dont go further than the certificate, associate and the bachelors degrees.





On Friday, April 25, 2014 a motion for the Turks and Caicos Islands to become a full contributing country of the UWI was carried unanimously at the annual business meeting of the university council held in Nassau, Bahamas.





This motion followed a unanimous resolution by the TCI Government to make the territory a full contributing member of the UWI.




On Tuesday, on the eve of the National Day of Defense Industry which will take place in the nations capital, Tehran, the Iranians pulled the wraps off what is hailed to be the first-ever, 100 percent Iranian-built, state-of-the-art fighter jet.The unveiling ceremony was held in the presence of the republics president, Hassan Rouhani, who praised it as a deterrent meant to stop giving the green light for others to enter this country."The jet is called Kowsar, according to Iranian news agency Tasnim , and has been built in the wake of extensive research conducted by the defense ministry.Theres literally no details available about the fighter jet, being the secretive project that it is.Tasnim describes it in very vague terms, saying it can carry various weapons and is to be used for short aerial support missions. It has an integrated architecture and a fire control system using the fourth generation of the digital data networks, whatever that means.There are not many details publicly available about the size and force of the Iranian Air Force either, but the general consensus is that it lacks any chance of making a potential enemy run for serious cover.The lineup of aircraft is a mess of machines, mostly Russian-built, but also western. The backbone of the airforce are the Sukhoi Su-24s and Su-22s, the MIG-29s, and even Chinese versions of the MIG-21.There are a number of American-built planes currently in service, supplied by the United States and purchased by Iran during the reign of the last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi: F-4 Phantom, Grumman F-14, P-3 Orion or Northrop F-5.
SUV

Then the Kodiaq, Karoq, and Kamiq entered the scene, adding 215,700, 87,800, and 12,000 units to the tally. Thats right, ladies and gents; the Volkswagen Group-owned company is celebrating the 1,000,000thproduced, coming in the form of this Emerald Green-painted Karoq.Manufactured at the Kvasiny plant in the Czech Republic, the one-millionth model is an Ambition with the 150-horsepower TSI turbocharged four-cylinder engine and the dual-clutch transmission with seven forward gears.It is a great achievement to have produced 1,000,000 SUVs, said Michael Oeljeklaus, board member for Production and Logistics. We are currently taking the necessary measures to continue meeting the growing demand for vehicles in this segment in the future. For example, we are expanding our Kvasiny plant into a center of excellence for SUV production.Excluding the Trekka from the 1960s and 1970s, every Skoda utility vehicle uses Volkswagen Group-sourced platforms, engines, transmissions, switchgear, and interior trim. Despite this lack of personality, the value-oriented character of the Karoq, Kodiaq, and China-built Kamiq helps the automaker sell SUVs by the bucketload.Skoda is also embracing its sporting roots with SUVs such as the Kodiaq RS, though there are sportier alternatives out there. Hyundai is one of them, with the N performance division working on a front-wheel-drive Kona N that promises to be every bit as fun as the i30 N and Veloster N. Cupra, on the other hand, prepares to roll out a coupe-styled SUV in 2020 Last, but certainly not least, dont forget that Audi has been spied testing the RS Q3 on the Nurburgring at the beginning of August 2018. Expected to roll out next year, the range-topping model will pack close to 400 horsepower from a five-cylinder turbocharged engine.
The machine is to represent the companys first ever vehicle as the worlds newest car brand, as it was announced in April by its owner, Mahindra. Since the goal of the new brand is to create fully-electric, ultra-luxury cars, its safe to assume the PF0 previews exactly that.There are little details available on the car until its official unveiling at the end of the week. What we do know is that it can reach 62 mph in less than two seconds, on its way to the limited top speed of 250 mph (402 kph). As for the range of the PF0, Pininfarina eyes a maximum drive on a single charge of about 300 miles (482 km).Hopefully, well get some more details and possibly a few more photos at the end of this week. At Pebble Beach, the car will only be shown to prospective owners, while the public debut is expected to take place next year at the Geneva Motor Show.The PF0 concept previews a limited-production run of the car that will be manufactured starting 2020. Only 150 units of it will ever be made, each hand-crafted in Cambiano, Italy.We are looking forward to presenting the PF0 design model created by Pininfarina SpA to clients and specialist retailers over the coming days, said in a statement company CEO Michael Perschke.But our time at the Pebble Beach Concours dElegance and in the Monterey auction houses will also be a highlight. We will celebrate Pininfarinas unique place in automotive history and undoubtedly pick up further inspiration for our future range of cars from these Italian masterpieces.
Known generically as the Qatar Amiri fleet, it includes, in addition to the two Boeing 747-8 in a business jet configuration, more than a dozen other planes. If you travel a lot, especially to cities known for their luxury shops, youve probably seen them parked at the airport.For whatever reason, the family has decided to part ways with one of the Boeings. It has gone up for sale on specialized listing sites  no sale price is given, but if youre interested, you can place a call to the AMAC Aerospace in Switzerland to make an offer.For the record, the starting price of a naked Boeing 747-8 without the customizations is around $370 million. So be prepared to dig deeper than that in your pockets if you want this one.Built in 2012 on the Boeing assembly line in Everett, the plane was fitted with a VVIP interior by Boeing San Antonio in 2014, and was ready for its first flight in January 2015. Speaking of flying, it hasnt done much of that: this aircraft has only 436 flight hours for 200 cycles, which is almost nothing at all.Initially meant to carry 467 people, the modified plane can seat 76 passengers and an 18-people crew, and is decorated in blue, gold and white.It includes a total of 10 bathrooms on both floors, a large master bedroom with a kingsize bed, and a luxurious dining room that doubles as a conference room. In addition to several lounges (staterooms and meeting rooms), it also includes an actual miniature hospital, where surgeries can be performed. You know, should the situation arise.Not a bad deal for this kind of money.
Vehicles of past Presidents and historical figures now on display Inigo S. Roces August 21, 2018 09:27

The cars that carried our pasts Presidents now have a permanent home. Inaugurated yesterday on Quezon City day was the Museo ng Pampangulong Sasakyan (Presidential Cars Museum)

The museum is a project of the National Historic Commission of the Philippines and is one that has been several years in the making.

The museum was inaugurated on Quezon City day, attended by Quezon City Mayor, Herbert Bautista, and with Guest of Honor, Harry Roque, as well as NHCP Chair, Dr. Rene Escalante, and executive director, Ludovico Badoy. The opening also saw the attendance of the families of the past Presidents.

The 2,000 square meter building is located in the Quezon City Memorial Circle Park. On display are 14 vehicles used by the Presidents and historical figures in the countrys history.

Among the highlights are 1924 Packard Single-6 Touring used by the President after his term, Manuel Roxass Cadillac Fleetwood Series 75 Limousine, Manuel Quezons 1937 Chrysler Airflow Custom Imperial, and a replica of Diosdado Macapagals 1959 Cadillac Sedan DeVille.

Among the cars of historical figures are General Douglas MacArthurs 1934 Cadillac V16 Transformable Town Cabriolet, Ramon Magsaysays 1934 Willys MB Jeep, and Imelda Marcoss 1960 Rolls-Royce Phantom V.

The museum hopes to expand the collection too, hoping to acquire the Presidential car of Carlos P. Garcia, and that of President Benigno Aquino III, soon.

Besides the vehicles on display, the museum also boasts of an interactive projection mapping wall, a meeting room, the curators office, as well as a souvenir shop, which sells various items including the special PHLPost commemorative presidential car stamps.

The Presidential Cars Museum is now open to the public. Admission is free.
As soon as Hurricane Irma had moved inland north of Florida, there was a lot of traffic heading east back into the Florida panhandle from the Gulf Coast; you could see the line of traffic on ADSB stretching for miles. ATC called each aircraft in sequence:

ATC: Cessna 123, you get a reroute. Advise ready to copy.

ATC: Bonanza 456, you get a reroute! (This was said in an Oprah voice.)

ATC: Piper 789, and you get a reroute! (Continued in Oprah voice.)

Piper 789: Uh, well, OK. I was hoping for a new car.

Tom Leffingwell

Fort Lauderdale, FL
Al-Qaeda's chief bomb maker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, was reportedly killed last year in Yemen in an American airstrike, according to CBS News  but neither the Pentagon nor al-Qaeda are commenting.

Why it matters: Al-Asiri was credited with creating "miniaturized bombs with little or no metal content" that could pass airport security, CNN reports. Per CBS, he was considered "the single most dangerous terrorist in the world" after Osama bin Laden was killed.
The Aquarius migrant rescue ship made headlines across Europe in June when Italy refused entry to it and the 630 rescued migrants on board. Now, it's back.

The bottom line: The Aquarius, the only rescue ship now patrolling the waters off Libya, will keep returning to a continent that's still in search of a burden-sharing solution on migration. Its both a moral dilemma and a serious political problem.

In June, Spains newly elected government came to the rescue by opening a port and accepting the passengers. The story was a political winner at home for both Italys Interior Minister Salvini, who said no, and Spains new prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, who said yes.

Spains newly elected government came to the rescue by opening a port and accepting the passengers. The story was a political winner at home for both Italys Interior Minister Salvini, who said no, and Spains new prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, who said yes. Last week, the ship run by humanitarian organizations Doctors Without Borders and SOS Mediterranee was carrying 141 migrants, including 67 unaccompanied children, rescued in international waters. Italy and Libya again refused entry, and this time Spain also said no. After a four-day standoff, Malta accepted the ship, but only after France, Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain agreed to accept a share of the 141 rescued passengers.

What to watch: With Italy literally offering radio silence in response to requests for help, Spain will again be in the spotlight. Does Sanchez want Spain to become the haven that accepts the rescued migrants that other EU countries reject? If not, what happens to these people?

Sign up for Signal, a thrice-weekly newsletter from GZERO Media, a Eurasia Group company.
The Environmental Protection Agency's proposal this morning to weaken climate rules for power plants will do little to blunt the forces undercutting coal in electricity markets, several analysts tell Axios.

Expand chart Share of electricity: EIA, Production: EIA; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios

Why it matters: President Trump has made efforts to cut regulations on coal  the most carbon-intensive power source  a centerpiece of his energy agenda, but the administration has few tools make substantial changes to the trajectory of the once-dominant fuel's declining share of power markets.

"With [natural] gas prices looking low for the foreseeable future and now unsubsidized renewables starting to look attractive, it is just too little too late for coal."

 University of Texas energy expert Joshua Rhodes

Driving the news: The EPA will unveil draft rules today that would replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. The 2015 plan never kicked in, but would have set standards that sought to cut nationwide power-sector carbon emissions by 32% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Via press reports and a summary obtained by E&E News, the replacement basically abandons the prior rule's effort to hasten the transition to other sources, and instead calls on states to make efficiency improvements to coal plants.

It would also ease regulations that govern when coal plant owners can make upgrades to plants without triggering mandates to install new pollution controls.

Reality check: "Most coal plant retirements have been based on poor economics, not on smokestack limitations," electricity consultant Alison Silverstein said.

"Coal is still going to be more expensive per kilowatt-hour than gas, wind, solar PV, so that coal will still be higher on the dispatch stack and wont be dispatched more," she said, referring to the way power market regulators order which generation sources are used to meet demand.

However, she does expect that the new plan could aid a subset of municipally-owned and cooperative coal plants that are more insulated from competition.

Between the lines: John Larsen of the Rhodium Group consultancy is skeptical that the weaker regulation will do much to hinder the what has been a downward trend in power sector greenhouse gas emissions.

His group sees a huge amount of coal coming offline over the next decade  essentially no matter what.

In a recent note to clients, Rhodium forecasts 71 to 124 gigawatts worth of coal plant retirements by 2030, depending on several variables like gas costs, power demand and economic growth.

In an interview, Larsen said that the Obama rule was not going to be the main driver. In fact, he said that combining the Clean Power Plan rollback with steps the Trump administration has taken to pare other regulations, the effect is still limited.

"All of it might make a marginal difference for a handful of plants," he said.

The intrigue: Per The Wall Street Journal, the administration sees the plan only slowing the decline of coal in power markets.

But it arrives as the White House is weighing much more aggressive moves, via other agencies, that would use sweeping emergency powers to keep economically struggling coal and nuclear plants in operation.

Larsen calls that a "wildcard" regarding whether coal's decline will be stemmed. "If you inject billions of dollars into the coal and nuclear fleet to keep them afloat, thats a different story," he tells Axios.

The big picture: Even if Obama's initiatives survived unscathed, the U.S would still not be on pace to meet its Paris agreement targets for economy-wide emissions cuts, a recent Rhodium analysis shows.

Go deeper: The New York Times explores the upcoming EPA plan here.

This story has been updated to note that the proposal has been released.
An Iraqi delegation will travel to Washington to ask the Trump administration to allow it to ignore some sanctions against Iran, its neighbor and close trading partner, Reuters reports.

Why it matters: In addition to being a strategic U.S. ally, Iraq imports about $12 billion in oil and $6 billion in goods from Iran, including food and agricultural products crucial to its political stability. The U.S. has said it will offer limited exemptions only for human rights and national security reasons, having previously rejected a joint European request for exemptions in July.
The United States deported Jakiw Palij, 95, one of the last known former Nazi war crimes suspects on American soil, back to Germany on Tuesday, per the AP.

The details: Palij admitted to being a guard at the Trawniki camp during World War II, but denied having participated in any war crimes  though thousands of prisoners died there. He was granted U.S. citizenship after lying about his past, but it was stripped by a judge in 2003 when his true identity was revealed. Though a judge first ordered his deportation in 2004, it first required intense negotiations with Germany, led behind-the-scenes by the U.S Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, per reporting from Axios' Jonathan Swan.

A Trump administration statement, per ABC News:

"President Trump commends his Administrations comprehensive actions, especially ICEs actions, in removing this war criminal from United States soil. Despite a court ordering his deportation in 2004, past administrations were unsuccessful in removing Palij. To protect the promise of freedom for Holocaust survivors and their families, President Trump prioritized the removal of Palij. Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palijs deportation to Germany and advanced the United States collaborative efforts with a key European ally."

And from Attorney General Jeff Sessions:

"Jakiw Palij lied about his Nazi past to immigrate to this country and then fraudulently become an American citizen. He had no right to citizenship or to even be in this country. Today, the Justice Department  led by Eli Rosenbaum and our fabulous team in the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, formerly the Office of Special Investigations  successfully helped remove him from the United States, as we have done with 67 other Nazis in the past."
Microsoft last week seized six potential phishing domains associated with the Kremlin-backed hackers Fancy Bear, who tampered with the 2016 election and likely intended to target two conservative groups and the U.S. Senate. It appears Microsoft shut down the domains before they were ever actively used. Microsoft announced the move in a blog post early Tuesday morning.

Why it matters: Spies have infiltrated legislative bodies and political groups from time immemorial, usually for boring reasons, like getting an edge in trade negotiations. But Russia's mass public dumping of stolen documents in 2016 broke the norms of espionage. Whatever the motivation for Russian attempts to hack influential political figures' emails in 2018, the current climate will lead people to assume the worst.

Microsoft targeted six domains Fancy Bear registered to use in phishing attacks:

my-iri.org, meant to look like International Republican Institute, a pro-democracy group with multiple sitting and former Republican officials on its board

hudsonorg-my-sharepoint.com, which was meant to look like the conservative Hudson Institute think tank's Sharepoint document storage system

Three domains targeting the Senate, including its email servers, and one targeting users of Office 365

This undercuts a narrative: Prior to the 2016 elections, Russia hacked both Democrats and Republicans, yet only released files that harmed Democrats. Microsoft's moves suggest that Russia continues to hack both sides of the aisle.

Be smart: "Russians are hacking the GOP" doesn't necessarily equal "Russians are hacking Trump." Both Hudson and IRI are well known conservative groups. Neither is closely identified with Trump administration policies.

Microsoft has waged a years-long battle with Fancy Bear over phishing sites sites that appear to be legitimate Microsoft sites. The company use civil courts to take control control of the look-alike website names the Russians have registered.

At the Aspen Security Forum in July, Microsoft announced it had dismantled a similar site targeting a senatorial candidate  later discovered to be Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri).

Microsoft made this announcement as it launches new security measures for campaigns, NGOs and other groups involved in elections.

The new AccountGuard program will provide:
The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked Julian Assange to testify regarding its probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to WikiLeaks.

Why it matters: Assange is currently facing expulsion from the Ecuadorian embassy in London and could be extradited to the U.S. if his asylum status there is withdrawn. He is a person of interest in the Russia probe because of WikiLeaks' role in publishing hacked DNC emails and claims by Roger Stone that he was in touch with Assange during the 2016 campaign. Per WikiLeaks, Assange is considering the offer, but only if the testimony conforms to a "high ethical standard."
With Chinas economy cooling, President Trump and his aides are emboldened on the hardline tariffs strategy that they increasingly believe is jamming President Xi Jinping, officials tell Axios.

Why it matters: For West Wing policy advisers, China has become a rare unifying issue, while deep rifts remain on other trade issues, especially the wisdom of Trumps plan to impose massive tariffs on car imports.

The Wall Street Journal reports in today's lead story: "The Trump administration is moving closer ... to levying tariffs on nearly half of Chinese imports despite broad opposition from U.S. business."

Here's why:

A member of Congress who recently spoke at length with Trump about trade said: "He thinks hes right and he thinks hes winning."

"He's resolved to be the guy that changes the world trading system. ... He's willing to take some pain to do it."

to be the guy that changes the world trading system. ... He's willing to take some to do it." "Trade is the one policy issue he feels comfortable with: He owns it, and he's 100 percent convinced he's right."

he feels comfortable with: He owns it, and he's 100 percent convinced he's right." Most administration aides and congressional Republicans oppose the imposition of auto tariffs, although Trump remains warm to the idea.

and congressional Republicans oppose the imposition of auto tariffs, although Trump remains warm to the idea. But no one is pushing back on China.

Based on news reports out of China (Wall Street Journal, Aug. 14, from Beijing: "Chinas Growth Engine Sputters as It Battles U.S. Over Trade"), some administration officials believe Trump is winning his fight with Beijing.

"They're shaken up," one senior official told us.

one senior official told us. Sources who have spoken to White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow marvel that the famous free-trader is an unapologetic "China hawk" (although he has been confrontational with China going back to his CNBC days).

to White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow marvel that the famous free-trader is an unapologetic "China hawk" (although he has been confrontational with China going back to his CNBC days). A senior administration official said: "The president is all-in, 100 percent on China."

said: "The president is all-in, 100 percent on China." After an administration negotiating trip to China, there was internal speculation that there might be what the hawks called "an appeasement deal" where China bought off Trump with an agreement to buy more soybeans and other American products.

to China, there was internal speculation that there might be what the hawks called "an appeasement deal" where China bought off Trump with an agreement to buy more soybeans and other American products. But that's now off the table, in part because the White House feels China has made no changes in practices the U.S. objects to, including its theft and heavy-handed acquisition of American companies' intellectual property and technology.

The member of Congress said: "They think internally that because China sells so much more to the U.S. than the U.S. sells to China, this is a war they can win."

However, many economists remain skeptical. And the administration has little true visibility into what Xi thinks.

many economists remain skeptical. And the administration has little true visibility into what Xi thinks. One Trump adviser told us that they urged the president to limit the number of trade fights he picks around the world: "The goal is to isolate China."

told us that they urged the president to limit the number of trade fights he picks around the world: "The goal is to isolate China." So fights over NAFTA and Europe become a distraction.

Most of Trumps top economic and trade officials adamantly oppose these auto tariffs. Trade adviser Peter Navarro is a lonely internal advocate alongside the president.

Two sources who recently spoke to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis came away thinking that he would not support a national security argument for the imposition of auto tariffs.

Be smart: If Trump carries out his threats on auto tariffs, it could be the act that provokes a Republican rebellion on Capitol Hill.
To kick off his first visit to the U.S. Tuesday, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt will call on Europe to match the Trump administration's freshly imposed sanctions on Russia in response to the Novichok poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the U.K., per the BBC.

What we're watching: Hunt's speech will emphasize Western solidarity against Russia's "malign behavior" around the world, including its attempts to interfere in foreign elections. According to prepared remarks, he will say: "Russias foreign policy under President Putin has made the world a more dangerous place." Hunt will also meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the UN Security Council during his three-day visit.
Verizon said Tuesday that it made a customer service mistake by not quickly restoring high-speed wireless service to a fire truck that had gone over its data cap, but insists net neutrality is not to blame.

Why it matters: The Santa Clara, Calif. Fire Department said that during the effort to fight the recent Mendocino Complex fire, one of its trucks, equipped with Verizon wireless service, had its connection speeds dramatically slowed, and was unable to restore full-speed service until it agreed to take out a higher-speed plan.

The allegations, reported earlier Tuesday by Ars Technica, were made as part of a suit by a number of states and other entities to reverse the FCC's move to end net neutrality.

"This throttling has had a significant impact on our ability to provide emergency services. Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire's ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services," Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden wrote in a declaration, per Ars Technica.

Verizon issued the following statement in response:

"This situation has nothing to do with net neutrality or the current proceeding in court.

We made a mistake in how we communicated with our customer about the terms of its plan. Like all customers, fire departments choose service plans that are best for them. This customer purchased a government contract plan for a high-speed wireless data allotment at a set monthly cost. Under this plan, users get an unlimited amount of data but speeds are reduced when they exceed their allotment until the next billing cycle. Regardless of the plan emergency responders choose, we have a practice to remove data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations. We have done that many times, including for emergency personnel responding to these tragic fires. In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restriction when our customer reached out to us. This was a customer support mistake. We are reviewing the situation and will fix any issues going forward."

 Verizon
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinians plans to set up bodies of transitional justice do not run counter to Armenias constitution or threaten judicial independence, Justice Minister Artak Zeynalian insisted on Tuesday.

Pashinian made a case for such bodies when he lambasted Armenian judges at a rally held in Yerevan on Friday. He said they may be necessary because many corrupt figures of our judicial system have still not grasped the popular revolution that brought him to power in May.

Pashinian did not specify what concrete forms transitional justice in the country could take. Nor did he name any of the judges who he said are still taking orders from representatives of the former corrupt authorities. Come to your senses and dont mess with the people, he warned them.

The remarks prompted serious concern from political allies of former President Serzh Sarkisian and other critics. Some of them accused Pashinian of seeking to gain control over courts through new and unconstitutional bodies. Parliament speaker Ara Babloyan suggested on Monday that the premier hinted at illegal retroactive enforcement of new and punitive laws under the guise of transitional justice.

Zeynalian dismissed those concerns, saying that the possible introduction of new legal mechanisms would not contradict the Armenian constitutional or international conventions signed by Armenia.

No courts will be dissolved and no courts of courts will be set up, he told a news conference. Our constitution and international obligations will not be breached. No special courts will be created. Everything will be legal and aimed at restoring human rights.

The minister too did not explain what exactly transitional justice could mean in practice in Armenia. He said only that the government is looking into the experience of Georgia and other nations that have applied that concept. We will also learn from their mistakes, he said.

The idea of transitional justice is meant to address large-scale or systematic human rights violations in countries emerging from periods of conflict and repression. It involves a range of judicial and non-judicial measures, including criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, and reparation programs.

Armenian courts have long been known for their lack of independence from the government and the law-enforcement apparatus. In the last three months, some of them have made decisions strongly criticized by Pashinian and his allies.
By Rashid Shirinov

The main factor that will allow to stimulate the negotiation process on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the willingness of the parties to the conflict to establish a bilateral dialogue, hear the opponent and make compromises, Russian expert Georgy Fyodorov, President of the Aspect Center for Social and Political Studies, told Azernews on August 20.

The expert does not believe that the position of the new Armenian government on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will be very different from the position of the former authorities.

In general, the situation will remain the same. At least in the next few months Pashinyan and his team will be busy with internal problems, economic situation and other relevant issues. Thus, a radical change of Armenias course regarding the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not expected for now, Fyodorov noted.

The expert also shared his view on whether there is a need to change the composition of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries  Russia, the U. S. and France  who deal with the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.

In my opinion, there is no such a need for now. The current format remains the most appropriate, while many regional powers have their own interests in a particular outcome of the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations or, on the contrary, in the deliberate prolongation of the conflict, Fyodorov mentioned.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Until now, Armenia controls fifth part of Azerbaijans territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions.

In the interview, Fyodorov also spoke of the foreign policy of Armenia after Pashinyans coming to power and his attempts of its reorientation.

Armenia, despite the changes in its political leadership, remains largely economically dependent on Russia. That is why there will be no drastic steps in Armenias foreign policy at least in the near future, the expert said. Nevertheless, the overall foreign policy in the future is likely to be reoriented to Europe and the West in general.

--

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Rashid Shirinov

The facts of arbitrariness regarding army service continue to emerge in Armenia. A large-scale corruption deal on evasion from military service has been revealed by law enforcement agencies of the country.

The Prosecutor Generals Office has filed a criminal suit on the abuse of official power, illegal release and bribe-taking in the amount of $15,000. It was established that a former employee of the National Security Service (NSS) assisted an official in his illegal actions.

In particular, with the aim of releasing a conscript from army service, the former employee of NSS and the official demanded $15,000 from his father, after which the conscript received a draft deferment for 2017-2018. On August 13, the former employee was detained, and the next day the father of the conscript was detained too.

During the preliminary investigation it was also revealed that the head of department of a military commissariat demanded and received $19,000 from the father of another conscript in order to release his son from army service. As a result, the conscript received a draft deferment for 2018. The head of department was detained, and the former employee of the NSS was also involved in this corruption deal.

The same person was involved in yet another corruption story. With his assistance, an official demanded and received $2,000 from a young man to release him from service.

These stories are only a drop in the ocean of corruption deals related to evasion of Armenian young men from military service. It is easy to guess what is their cause  the poor state of the Armenian armed forces.

First, soldiers of many military units do not receive even the minimum of the necessary ration. They are fed with poor-quality food, while unsanitary conditions prevail in military units, and contagious diseases, especially the infectious ones, are wide-spread there.

Secondly, the Armenian army officers often abuse their soldiers, as well as steal and sell their clothes and food. There are also many death cases when Armenian soldiers die in mysterious circumstances in non-combat conditions.

It is worth noting that at the beginning of the year, the Dialogue for Peace organization prepared a report on the deaths in the Armenian army in 2010-2017. It revealed that while 235 Armenian servicemen died as a result of violations of the ceasefire, the death of 296 servicemen was mainly due to internal factors. They included the climate of impunity in military units, murders and suicides as a result of arbitrariness, as well as accidents and conscription of young men having health problems.

These statistics scare Armenian parents and therefore they try to find any opportunity to keep their sons far from that horror. Many youth flee abroad so that not to serve in the Armenian army, while others pay bribes in order to evade from military service.

Therefore, it seems that the new Armenian authorities will be long surprised by the huge scale of corruption in the armed forces of the country. The most effective way to eradicate it is to put in order the situation of the army, which, of course, will take a long time.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Trend

The Kazakh "Eurasian Bank" JSC is interested in entering the Azerbaijani market, Chairman of the Management Board of the Bank Pavel Loginov said in an interview with Trend.

At the same time, the development in the Kazakhstan market and the speedy implementation of the conditions under the program of recovery are the priority tasks for the "Eurasian Bank" at the moment, Loginov said.

"Last year we adopted a new development strategy, according to which we shifted the focus to the retail business. We see great potential in the development of this direction, therefore, first of all, we want to put the new model "on the rails" within the country and only then will be able to conquer new markets", said Loginov.

Loginov noted that among foreign countries, the bank is seriously studying the prospect of entering the market of Uzbekistan and the business model with which it will enter this country.

The bank wants to understand in what form it will enter this market, he said.

"Later, we will begin to study the possibilities of entering the markets of Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan. We have not abandoned our plans to expand into these markets, but it is important to understand that these are investments that should pay off in certain period of time. Therefore, we are looking at these markets with great interest, but we will enter them only after studying the possibilities of development in these regions," Loginov stressed.

Based in Kazakhstan, "Eurasian Bank" has been operating since 1994. The bank is one of the largest in the country and it occupies the ninth place in the country in terms of assets (about $2.69 billion) as of July 1, 2018.

Some 30 banks are functioning in Azerbaijan, 15 of which have foreign capital.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Sara Israfilbayova

Latvias textile manufacturers are keen to create joint production in Azerbaijan to further export products to the CIS countries.

Head of the Association of Textile Producers and Exporters of Azerbaijan, head of Gilan Textile Park Mehriban Akhundova told Trend that currently, negotiations are underway, adding that Latvias underwear manufacturers interest in it. "It is currently unprofitable for them to enter CIS markets because of existing customs duties and taxes for the European countries," she added.

Given that Azerbaijan has bilateral agreements on the free trade zone with the CIS countries, joint production of finished products in Azerbaijan will be exempt from customs duties to these countries, Akhundova believes.

The negotiations have already been held with the Association of Latvian Lingerie Manufacturers and perhaps, the corresponding agreements will be achieved this autumn, she said.

She went on to say that Azerbaijani textile products are in great demand abroad and Made in Azerbaijan brand is gaining popularity not only in Turkey, but also in the CIS and Baltic countries.

Presently, there are domestic textile products in Azerbaijans trade houses in Latvia, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and Belarus. The products produced at the Baku Textile Factory and Gilan Textile Park are available at those trade houses, she mentioned.

Latvia considers Azerbaijan an important partner in the field of transit and logistics in the South Caucasus region.

Priority areas of cooperation between the two countries include joint investment projects, effective use of international transportation corridors, education, agriculture, construction, tourism and health.

The trade turnover between the countries in the first half of the year amounted to $15.1 million, $1.1 of which fell to the share of the export of Azerbaijani products, according to the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan.

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Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Sara Israfilbayova

Azerbaijan is interested in the establishment of joint ventures with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the fields of industry, logistics and transport.

Trade representative of Azerbaijan in Dubai Elnur Aliyev told Trend that Azerbaijan also eyes to attract a big number of Arab companies to the country, because it is an ideal market for foreign investors.

In general, Azerbaijan and the UAE have great potential for cooperation and may successfully develop cooperation in the spheres of industry, transport, trade, investment, agriculture, tourism and high technologies, he noted.

He went on to say that currently, the work is being carried out to accelerate the dynamics of trade turnover between the countries. The main share of export of Azerbaijani products to the UAE accounts for Dubai, to which mainly agricultural products are supplied, Aliyev mentioned.

The UAE has a big potential for re-export. The supply of Azerbaijani goods to the UAE market may contribute to the supply of our domestic products to the markets of other countries of the Persian Gulf in the future, he said, further adding that besides agricultural products, Azerbaijan intends to increase supplies of various types of industrial goods, namely, aluminum plates, and pipes to the UAE.

Azerbaijan and the UAE enjoy friendly relations and are keen to deepen economic cooperation.

To date, more than 250 companies from the UAE work in Azerbaijan.

The UAE-Azerbaijan Joint Economic Committee previously said both countries were to focus on nine key areas for bilateral cooperation, including air transport, tourism, communications, environment, water, agriculture, renewable energy, modern technology and industry.

Azerbaijan mainly imports high-tech products, electronics, industrial goods and building materials from the UAE and exports to the UAE fruits, juices, nuts, metal semi-finished products and so on.

According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the UAE amounted to $28.457 million in January-July 2018, which is 67 percent more than in the same period of 2017.

At the same time, exports from Azerbaijan to the UAE amounted to $12.317 million (an increase of 58.8 percent), while imports - $16.139 million (by 73.8 percent).

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Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijan plans to increase its exports to the countries of Central Europe, namely Poland, by the end of this year, trade representative of Azerbaijan in Poland Nemat Nagdaliyev told Trend on August 21.

He noted that the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Poland amounted to $50,137 million in January-July this year. Of this amount, $4,435 million accounted for exports from Azerbaijan to Poland, and $45,702 million fell on imports.

Given that the trade turnover between the two countries was $37.06 million in the first seven months of 2017, the growth of trade turnover amounted to 35.3 percent this year.

The dynamics of growth of trade turnover in the last five years is at roughly the same level, so a serious growth in trade is not yet expected. Nevertheless, we are working in this direction, Nagdaliyev said.

He further noted that today the main share in the export of Azerbaijani products to China and Central Europe falls on alcoholic beverages, juices and compotes.

In the future, Azerbaijan intends to focus on developing cooperation with Poland in such areas as agriculture, transport, chemical industry, information technology, tourism and small electronics. Today there are all the prerequisites for this, the trade representative said.

He also mentioned that last year Polish Economic Development Ministry defined Azerbaijan as one of the 22 most promising markets around the world for Polish companies. Nagdaliyev added that Poland became the 4th largest trade partner of Azerbaijan in 2017.

It is noteworthy that Poland is the 6th largest market in the European Union, and its economy is fast-growing. Last year, the countrys GDP growth was 4.6 percent, and the forecast for 2018 is 3.8 percent.

As for Azerbaijan, the countrys trade turnover amounted to $22.59 billion last year: the exports made up $13.81 billion and the imports  $8.78 billion. Thus, the foreign trade turnover of Azerbaijan grew by 27.8 percent last year, with exports growing by 51.1 percent.

The main export operations were carried out to Italy (31.9 percent of total exports), Turkey (9.89 percent), Israel (4.63 percent), Russia (4.25 percent), Czech Republic (4.03 percent), Canada (3.87 percent) and Georgia (3.41 percent). To date, the largest trading partners of Azerbaijan are Russia, Italy, Turkey, Israel, Germany and China.

--

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Sara Israfilbayova

The Kazakh Eurasian Bank JSC is interested in entering the Azerbaijani market.

Chairman of the Management Board of the Bank Pavel Loginov told Trend that the speedy implementation of the conditions under the program of recovery are the priority tasks for the Eurasian Bank at the moment.

Last year we adopted a new development strategy, according to which we shifted the focus to the retail business. We see great potential in the development of this direction, therefore, first of all, we want to put the new model on the rails within the country and only then will be able to conquer new markets, said Loginov.

Loginov noted that among foreign countries, the bank is seriously studying the prospect of entering the market of Uzbekistan and the business model with which it will enter this country, adding that the bank wants to understand in what form it will enter this market.

Later, we will begin to study the possibilities of entering the markets of Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan. We have not abandoned our plans to expand into these markets, but it is important to understand that these are investments that should pay off in certain period of time. Therefore, we are looking at these markets with great interest, but we will enter them only after studying the possibilities of development in these regions, Loginov stressed.

Today, there is a fairly well-developed legal framework between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in the field of economic relations, more than 25 agreements signed on investment protection, avoidance of double taxation and a host of other contracts that have a positive impact on the development of mutual trade.

Kazakhstan sells Azerbaijan mostly grain, barley, tobacco, electric equipment, rolled steel carbide, oil and hydrocarbons and natural chemical compounds. Kazakhstan plays an important role in Azerbaijans food security.

Meanwhile, major exports from Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan include oil products from bituminous materials, polymers of ethylene, car and machinery components, pumps and hoists of fluids, combined building construction.

Investments by Azerbaijani companies in Kazakh economy exceeded $168 million during the last 10 years.

The trade turnover between the states amounted to $116.5 million in the first half of the year, according to the State Customs of Azerbaijan.

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Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Laman Ismayilova

Renowned Azerbaijani violinist Nazrin Rashidova will attend the 3rd festival conference of music performance and artistic research "Doctors in Performance".

The festival will take place in Vilnius on September 46, Azertag reported.

The Azerbaijani violinist will give a concert on September 6 as part of the festival.

Rashidova, who is the graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, gave concerts in many countries around the world and won international competitions .

Nazrin's extensive repertoire encompasses almost 40 Concertos and over 300 Chamber and Virtuoso works.

Nazrin Rashidova is the founder of the FeMusa orchestra. The team consists of representatives from 11 countries.

Founded in 2008, FeMusa is a professional chamber orchestra of talented female international musicians, the first of its kind in Britain since the 1950's.

Britain's first female chamber orchestra performed at the 9th International Gabala Music Festival this year.

In Gabala, British musicians performed works by A.Vivaldi, E.Elgar, P.Worlok, P.Levis, E.Blog, K.Jenkins, F.Amirov and G.Garaev on the stage.

Doctors in Performance 2018 aims to bring together doctoral candidates and post-doctoral researchers working in the fields of musical performance and practice-based or artistic research in music.

The festival places the emphasis on the music itself with the majority of presentations consisting principally of a musical performance in the form of a recital or a lecture recital related to the research.

Doctors in Performance 2018 is co-organized by HARPS, Hub for Artistic Research and Performance Studies at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Rashid Shirinov

German MP Albert Weiler made illegal visits to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan in 2014 and 2016, and therefore his name has been included in the list of undesirable persons since that period, Spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmat Hajiyev told Trend on August 21.

He was commenting on reports in the Bild newspaper about the ban on the German MPs entry into the territory of Azerbaijan.

Some foreign media noted that as if his name was included in this list only now. This is incorrect information, as the name of Weiler has been in the list of undesirable persons since 2014. This man made illegal visits to the territory of Azerbaijan occupied by the armed forces of Armenia, the spokesman noted.

Hajiyev stressed that it is necessary to respect the territorial integrity, sovereignty and laws of other countries, and in this context illegal visits to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan are unacceptable.

He added that at the same time Azerbaijan takes a constructive position on this issue, and if the persons who do not conduct activities directly against Azerbaijan send letters of apology and express respect for the territorial integrity and laws of Azerbaijan, the exclusion of their names from the list of undesirable persons may be considered and such experience already exists.

If this person addresses us, we can consider this case, but such appeals from him have not been received so far. Therefore, there is a ban on his entry into the territory of Azerbaijan, Hajiyev said.

Names of any individuals paying unauthorized visits to Nagorno-Karabakh and other regions of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia are included in the Foreign Ministrys list of undesirable persons. The ministry and diplomatic missions pay special attention to the illegal activity in the occupied areas of the country.

Baku has repeatedly warned foreign officials and diplomats of illegality of visits to its territories that are occupied by Armenia, calling them contradictory to international law. The work is constantly carried out to prevent such illegal actions.

--

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Trend

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has sent a letter of condolence to his Indian counterpart Ram Nath Kovind.

I was deeply saddened by the news of heavy casualties caused by large-scale floods in your country, Ilham Aliyev said in his letter.

On the occasion of this tragedy, on my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I extend my deepest condolences to you, families and loved ones of those who were killed, and all the people of India.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Kamila Aliyeva

Today, Muslims around the world are celebrating the sacred Eid al-Adha (Gurban Bayram) - Islams most important religious holiday.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev congratulated all Azerbaijani people on the occasion of this sacred holiday.

I extend my heartfelt congratulations and sincerest wishes to you and all our compatriots living outside Azerbaijan on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, which symbolizes moral unity, solidarity and brotherhood, he said.

Sacrifice ceremony is remarkable for the fact that Islam, which encourages love for and obedience to the Most High, respect for high moral values, mercy and tolerance, was chosen as the way of truth for people, Ilham Aliyev noted.

This blessed holiday embodies spiritual and moral unity of Muslims around the world, pious people's love for the Almighty and readiness for dedication in the name of justice. Being devoted to progressive Islamic values, the people of Azerbaijan have cherished Eid al-Adha as one of the blessed days since ancient times, even during the most difficult periods. Millions of Muslims, including thousands of our fellow countrymen, who now demonstrate great solidarity as they preform Hajj, express their gratitude to the Almighty and pray for peace and tranquility in our country and in the world, he said.

In his congratulatory letter, the head of state emphasized that every such festive occasion becomes a triumph of benevolence, unity and equality, devotion to the Motherland and national statehood in our society.

I do believe that this blessed holiday will boost our peoples heroism and devotion for the progress of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan and will further strengthen civil peace and national and moral solidarity in our country, President Aliyev concluded.

Eid al-Adha is one of the holiest celebrations in the Islamic Calendar. Eid al-Adha, which is known as the festival of sacrifice, marks the end of the Muslim pilgrimage of Hajj. It is also referred to as the Gurban Bayram in Turkic languages.

This year Azerbaijan will celebrate Eid al-Adha on Wednesday and Thursday, August 22-23. The holiday begins in Muslim world on the sunset of the previous day. The date of Eid al-Adha may also vary from country to country depending on whether the moon has been sighted or not.

Eid al-Adha keeps the date on the Islamic calendar, whilst the holiday shifts on the Gregorian calendar from year to year, since the Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar and the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar. This difference means Eid al-Adha moves in the Gregorian calendar approximately 11 days every year.

The story of Kurban bayram came from the remembrance of the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to follow God's command to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, as a sign of his faith. As Ibrahim prepared to sacrifice his son, God stopped him and gave him a sheep to sacrifice instead. The festival reminds every one of the mercy and benefits bestowed upon mankind by God.

To this day, Muslims around the world sacrifice cows, goats, lambs, sheep, and camels, all in the name of God, as they honour Prophet Ibrahims tradition.

Gurban Bayram celebration in Azerbaijan

Eid al-Adha is officially celebrated in Azerbaijan after independence in accordance with the law adopted by Parliament on The holidays of the Republic of Azerbaijan, dated October 27, 1992.

People in Muslim-majority Azerbaijan celebrate Eid al-Adha by slaughtering domestic animals such as a sheep and goat. Islamic rules state that the animal must be healthy and adult.

According to the rules, the meat of the sacrificed animal is divided into three parts. Then, 1/3 of the meat should go to the needy people, 1/3 is given to neighbors and family friends, and the remaining part stays with the family. The people who are away from the Hajj pilgrimage, also carry out this traditional sacrifice. This act also reminds the pilgrim to share worldly goods with those who are less fortunate, and serves as an offer of thanksgiving to God. People visit each other's homes and traditionally Muslim families make efforts to pray and listen to the ceremony in the Mosque. This holiday reminds the importance of charity work in the Muslim world. People also present money grants to those in need.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Trend

Uzbekistan has invited the Indian IT companies to participate in investment projects in the country, the Ministry for Development of Information and Communication Technologies of Uzbekistan announced.

The Uzbek side also stated that the government has introduced unprecedented tax benefits and preferences to support IT companies.

For the purpose of increased use of the potential of the Jawaharlal Nehru India-Uzbekistan Center for Information and Technology, which operates at the Tashkent University of Information Technologies, it was proposed to strengthen cooperation with the Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) of India.

It was also proposed to expand the academic cooperation between the specialized universities of the two countries: Tashkent University of Information Technologies with the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and Delhi Technological University.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Trend

Russias Volgograd and Irans Mazandaran province signed a memorandum of understanding for boosting economic cooperation, Irans IRNA news agency reported Aug. 21.

The document was signed today during the visit of a 40-member economic and commercial board, headed by the governor of Volgograd Oblast, Andrey Bocharov to Mazandaran province, northern Iran.

The two sides eye that the MoU will pave path for reaching an annual trade turnover target of $200 million in the near future.

Under the deal, the deputy governors of Mazandaran and Volgograd will monitor the development of the economic cooperation and submit a report on possible obstacles and problems to the two governors on a monthly basis.

During the Russian delegation's visit, also a cooperation document was signed between the Chamber of Commerce of the two sides.

Merchants of the Volgograd, at a joint meeting with their Mazandaran counterparts in Sari, the capital city of the province, called for the expansion of economic exchanges and the reduction of restrictions in this area.

The head of the Volgograd Chamber of Commerce, Vladimir Kashchenko, at the meeting, announced the readiness of Russian businessmen to export goods and buy Mazandaran products, saying there are many capacities between the two sides to develop relations in this regard.

Russian businessmen are ready to buy Mazandaran products, and there is a readiness to form joint ventures, he added.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
If you watched local dancer Jordan Nata'e Wandick on "So You Think You Can Dance" and couldn't wait to see her become a star, she's well on he
Even Oregon Coast Under Air Quality Advisory; Portland at 'Unhealthy'

Published 08/20/2018 at 4:47 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff





(Oregon Coast)  Essentially every part of the state of Oregon is under one kind of air quality alert or another, including almost all of the Oregon coast. (Above: Angi Wildt caught this photo of Seaside today: part of it is smoke and part of it is overcast clouds).

The National Weather Service (NWS) and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issued an air quality advisory for all of the Oregon coast, in effect until noon Wednesday. Coastal residents had been complaining of smoky conditions on the beaches for a few days, which is rare and unusual, but now its reached a stage where even DEQ is warning people in that area.

Today (Monday) is expected to be the worst. The Portland area just reached an index number of 165 this afternoon, which is the unhealthy category for any individual.

The advisory is for all counties and cities on the upper half of the Oregon coast: this includes Yahcats, Newport, Lincoln City, Pacific City, Manzanita, Cannon Beach, Seaside and Astoria. Coastal towns just a little farther inland like Toledo, Wheeler or Tillamook may experience harsher conditions.

Only the southern Oregon coast is in the clear. See DEQ`s Air Quality Index https://oraqi.deq.state.or.us/home/map.

The NWS said you can take the following precautions:

Be aware of smoke concentrations in your area and avoid the places with highest concentrations, the agency said. Avoid strenuous outdoor activity in smoky conditions. If you have heart disease, asthma or other respiratory ailments, or are over 65, you have a higher risk of illness from wildfire smoke.

Small children and pregnant women are also at increased risk, and they are encouraged to stay indoors.

People suffering from asthma or other respiratory problems should follow their breathing management plans or contact their healthcare providers, the NWS said.

The NWS said Oregons monitoring network is not present in all towns, and that shows on the DEQ website. There is no data from the Oregon coast.

It is important for residents to gauge air quality conditions where they live and take appropriate actions to protect themselves, the NWS said.

Conditions are expected to improve Tuesday and drastically improve by Thursday. Oregon Coast Lodgings in this area - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours

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California is ready to remake the U.S. West -- or at least its power grid.

The legislature is considering a plan to expand a grid serving 30 million Californians to encompass as many as 13 other Western states, if they choose to join the effort. The California Independent System Operator, which manages a $9.3 billion wholesale market, would cede authority to a regional body under the proposal, which requires federal approval.

It's an idea that has been discussed in the past but never managed to get beyond the planning stage. Proponents like California Gov. Jerry Brown, D, say an expanded grid would help lower power costs and boost the use of renewable resources. But consumer advocates and the Sierra Club warn that expanding the grid would leave California and its neighbors vulnerable to another energy crisis -- think Enron Corp. -- and lead to increased oversight from the pro-coal Trump administration.

"We are worried that California would have to give up its climate leadership in order to form a regional grid," said Matthew Freedman, a lawyer for the Utility Reform Network. Under a regional system, the state would give up its right to appoint all of the grid manager's board members.

As state legislators consider whether to pass the bill by the end of next week, here's a look at the challenges to making it happen.

Enron's ghost

A regional system could give way to the kind of market manipulations that Enron was infamous for in the early 2000s, exposing consumers to soaring energy costs, critics say.

"The ghost of the energy crisis is definitely haunting the whole conversation," said Rick Umoff, the California director of state affairs for the Solar Energy Industries Association, which supports the regional grid bill. "There's a fear of losing control."

Consumer advocates warn that a single market could stick California's electricity customers with the bill for an entire region if something goes awry.

"We are going to have a lot more of an opportunity for speculation and it is going to come at the expense of California consumers," Consumer Watchdog's Liza Tucker said.

The California Independent System Operator says the regional grid could actually save consumers as much as $1.5 billion a year by 2030, according to a report it commissioned that also indicated pollution could be reduced.

Federal rule

Another worry is the feds -- whether a multistate system would leave California at the mercy of Trump administration appointees by increasing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's oversight.

"Our concern is that the federal government could say, 'We are going to put a thumb on the scale and make sure coal wins,'" said Travis Ritchie, an attorney for the Sierra Club, "because that's what we are seeing in other parts of the country."

The bill's sponsor, Assemblymember Chris Holden, and the Natural Resources Defense Council say those fears are overblown. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission already oversees California's grid.

Conflicting policies

But would greater federal involvement tether environmentally friendly California to policies designed to help coal states that don't share Western clean-energy ambitions?

Some green-energy advocates like the Sierra Club think so, though Holden says the way it's written ensures that the state will be able to pursue its own climate goals.

The governor of Utah -- a coal-heavy state -- has worried the opposite would happen, saying his state would be subject to California's green energy mandates.

Who joins?

Even if all the kinks get sorted out, the benefits of a regional grid could ultimately be limited if there aren't enough participants or too many conditions are set.

For example, the Bonneville Power Administration, the giant Northwest hydropower marketer for the federal government that also operates transmission ties between California and Oregon, says it wouldn't participate.

"A lot of folks are saying, 'I don't know if I'd want to join,'" said Dave Cherney, an energy policy expert for PA Consulting Group.
A crowd toppled a Confederate statue at the University of North Carolina on Monday night, with cheers and smoke bombs filling the air.

The monument - called Silent Sam - had long been a target of students and others, a symbol of a once-honored past that many wanted to demolish. This spring, a graduate student splashed a mixture of ink and her own blood on the statue. On the night before classes began this year, a crowd gathered to demonstrate at the statue and, using ropes, pulled it down.

The scene was loud and tense, said Heather Redding, a community activist who has supported the students' efforts. When two members of a local group that defends Confederate monuments angrily confronted her, someone stepped between them to give her space.

She was worried the situation would turn violent. But she said police stood aside when the crowd moved in toward the statue, which they had covered with large banners, chanting, "Take it down!"

"As it came crashing down it just hit me - this was it," Redding said. "This was the moment the students worked so hard for."

The student newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel, and others covered the gathering protest on social media, and the elation once the monument was taken down:

Across the country, people have debated whether Confederate monuments are symbols of a racist past that must be removed, or if efforts to tear them down amount to whitewashing history. Those arguments turned deadly a year ago in Virginia, when white supremacists and others rallied to oppose the removal of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee from a Charlottesville park.

In the days that followed, monuments elsewhere in the country toppled or were vandalized, including a bronze Confederate statue in Durham, North Carolina, two statues in Wilmington, North Carolina, and another in Knoxville, Tennessee. In Baltimore, Los Angeles and San Diego last summer, city officials removed Confederate monuments and a plaque. At the time, President Trump tweeted that removing "beautiful statues and monuments" was "so foolish."

In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the bronze and marble "Silent Sam" monument was commissioned by the Daughters of the Confederacy and erected in 1913 to honor UNC alumni who died for the Confederacy.

It is known as "Silent Sam" because the soldier holds a gun but no ammunition. A panel on the side shows a woman, symbolizing the state, urging a student to drop his books to take up arms for the fight.

In 2005, the state's flagship public university added a sculpture nearby honoring enslaved African Americans. But the first statue has continued to be polarizing. In 2015, someone painted "KKK" and "MURDERER" on it. After the violence following a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville last year, hundreds of people in North Carolina chanted, "Take it down!"

Over the years, university officials had acknowledged that the statue elicited strong feelings, but said they didn't have the unilateral authority to remove the historical monument.

On Monday night, university officials said that a group from among an estimated crowd of 250 protesters brought down the Confederate monument. "Tonight's actions were dangerous, and we are very fortunate that no one was injured. We are investigating the vandalism and assessing the full extent of the damage. "

North Carolina's governor, Roy Cooper, wrote on Twitter that he had been in contact with law enforcement and university officials about the rally and appreciated their efforts to keep people safe. "The Governor understands that many people are frustrated by the pace of change and he shares their frustration," he wrote, "but violent destruction of public property has no place in our communities."

Many welcomed the action.

"This is more than just a statue or a memorial," Redding said. "Silent Sam is a piece of lost-cause propaganda." She said the statue doesn't honor UNC's sons who died in the war but is a symbol of a "white-supremacist group co-opting public space at a public university."

It was inevitable it would come down, Redding said.

Others were dismayed, writing on social media that statues of all the country's Founding Fathers would be the next targets of politically correct mobs.

"There is no place for the destruction of property on our college campuses or in any North Carolina community," North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, a Republican, said in a statement Tuesday. "The perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted by public safety officials to make clear that mob rule and acts of violence will not be tolerated in our state."

Carol Folt, chancellor of the university, sent a message to the campus overnight. "The monument has been divisive for years, and its presence has been a source of frustration for many people not only on our campus but throughout the community," she wrote. "However, last night's actions were unlawful and dangerous, and we are very fortunate that no one was injured." She said she appreciated the actions of police in keeping people safe and said they are "investigating the vandalism and assessing the full extent of the damage."

A group that has fought to remove the statue questioned her reaction.

Hampton Dellinger, a former North Carolina deputy attorney general who helped UNC students by writing to university and system leaders about legal issues last year, said Tuesday morning, "Whether there will be any legal consequences for those involved in the toppling remains unclear, but I'm certain that Silent Sam stood illegally.

"Because Silent Sam violates the rights guaranteed by federal laws - particularly the right to pursue studies on a campus without a racially hostile learning environment - UNC officials were duty-bound to remove it," he said. "They failed to do their duty, and that's a shame.

"It is hard to imagine in 2018 that an institution of higher learning would stoop so low as to host a Civil War monument in the middle of campus featuring a towering Confederate soldier with his rifle raised and his finger on the trigger. But that's exactly what UNC was doing. It was not only wrong, it violated controlling federal law."

Altha Cravey, an associate professor at UNC who has been involved with the effort to move the statue, said: "Our campus looks a lot better now that the monument to white supremacy has been taken down from its pedestal. It was a joyful celebratory evening and rain started pouring after Silent Sam fell as if to cleanse and renew the campus."
A Cypress Springs High School teacher faces the possibility of 20 years in prison for having sex and smoking marijuana with a 15-year-old student when she goes before a Houston judge Tuesday.

Michelle Schiffer, 24, pleaded guilty in May to one charge of improper relationship with a student and is scheduled to be sentenced by state District Judge Robert Johnson.

We are hoping for a fair outcome, taking into account that Michelle has a clean criminal record and is very remorseful about what shes done, said her attorney Grant Scheiner.

Cases of teachers being arrested for improper relationships appear to be on the rise in Houston and across the state, according to recent media reports.

In April 2017, the Texas Education Agency had opened at least 150 investigations into possible teacher-student sex across the state during the 2016-2017 school year, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

The Austin-American Statesman reported that from January 2010 through December 2016, the TEA recorded 686 teachers in Texas permanently losing their teaching licenses following allegations of impropriety with a student.

LOOKING FOR 'SAFEGUARDS': Judge urges area superintendents to step up efforts to end teacher-student sex

Scheiner said the former teacher plans to publicly apologize to the complaining student and his family, as well as everyone affected.

Schiffer, who taught world history, admitted to meeting with a former student for sex at least twice during the summer of 2017, according to court records.

The teacher and student first met up at a Chick-Fil-A in Cypress, then went to a friend's apartment to have sex, court records show.

During their second encounter, Schiffer picked up the student in a park and drove around smoking marijuana. She pulled over on a neighborhood street and the two had sex.

Another student made an anonymous complaint about the relationship to school officials in November. Schiffer and the student both admitted to the allegations after police interviewed both.

Following the criminal complaint, Cypress-Fairbanks ISD removed Schiffer from campus and placed her on administrative leave.

Schiffers case is similar to that of 24-year-old Alexandria Vera, a former Aldine ISD middle school teacher. Vera was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to a first-degree felony for having a long-term sexual relationship with a 13-year-old student. During that relationship, she got pregnant and had an abortion.

In that case, Vera admitted to the relationship in exchange for a sentence decided by the judge with cap of 30 years in prison. Her attorney had argued for probation in the notorious case.

In a separate Houston case, a former counselor at a KIPP school faces three charges of indecency with three different girls that came to light last year.

GAINED TRUST: Police charge former KIPP counselor with abusing two more young students

Brandon McElveen, 34, was charged with three counts of indecency with a child, and investigators have said they believe there may be more victims at the KIPP Explorer Academy on Lawndale. The former counselor was initially arrested in October following accusations that he'd molested an 8-year-old girl under the guise of checking her for lice, according to court documents.

After those alleged misdeeds came to light when KIPP Houston Public Schools released a statement announcing his termination in light of a pending investigation, two other victims came forward.

Those additional students told authorities of a pattern of abuse, and one said it went on once or twice a week from the time she was in kindergarten to fourth grade.
Here are seven updates on ASC companies and industry-relevant companies to note:

Spring Hill (Tenn.) Surgery Center, Omaha, Neb.-based Advanced Surgery Center and Houma, La.-based Gulf Coast Surgery Center joined Brentwood, Tenn.-based Surgery Partner's network.

Surgery Partners affiliate Durango, Colo.-based Animas Surgical Hospital is planning a 73,125-square-foot expansion to accommodate growth.

Construction is underway on the Fort Myers, Fla.-based Performance Health Surgery Center, a joint venture between Raleigh, N.C.-based Compass Surgical Partners and five surgeons.

Fairfax, Va.-based Gastroenterology Associates of Northern Virginia and Gastroenterology Associates of Fredericksburg (Va.) left the Advanced Digestive Care network.

Atlanta-based Eye Health America, an eye care practice management company, acquired Clinton, S.C.-based Montgomery & Riddle Eyecare.

Huntington Beach, Calif.-based Beach Eye Medical Group opened an office in Irvine, Calif.

The U.S. Attorney's Offices for the District of New Jersey and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania formed the Newark/Philadelphia Regional Medicare Fraud Strike Force to closely target healthcare fraud in the region.

To learn about the high-quality care ASCs provide, Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y. 1st district, visited Port Jefferson Station, N.Y.-based Advanced Surgery Center of Long Island.
Joseph F. Hacker III, MD, is a gastroenterologist at Newark-based Delaware Gastroenterology Associates.

Dr. Hacker joined Delaware Gastroenterology Associates in 1988 after serving as a physician in the U.S. Navy.

He received his medical degree from the Philadelphia-based Hahnemann Medical College.

Dr. Hacker completed his residency and fellowship at the Bethesda, Md.-based Naval Hospital.

He is board-certified in gastroenterology.

To nominate a gastroenterologist to be featured, please email Rachel Popa at rpopa@beckershealthcare.com.
Chief executives of Massachusetts' largest hospitals and health systems saw significant pay raises in 2016, with David Torchiana, MD, CEO of Boston-based Partners HealthCare, topping the list for total compensation, according to federal tax filings cited by The Boston Globe.

In 2016, Dr. Torchiana's first full year as CEO of Partners, he earned total compensation of $4.7 million, including a base salary of $2.1 million. Total compensation includes base salary, bonuses, retirement benefits and other pay.

Partners, Massachusetts' largest hospital system, uses a performance-based compensation system "that is competitive with other academic medical centers here in Boston and across the nation," board chairman Scott Sperling told the Globe. "The competition for excellent managers and leaders is especially strong at this time."

Here are compensation statistics for 11 Massachusetts hospital and health system executives:

1. David Torchiana, MD, CEO of Partners HealthCare:

2015 total compensation: $4,264,976

2016 total compensation: $4,723,847

2. Elizabeth Nabel, MD, president of Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital:

2015 total compensation: $2,106,269

2016 total compensation: $3,649,084

3. Peter Slavin, MD, president of Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital:

2015 total compensation: $2,004,094

2016 total compensation: $3,629,616

4. Mark Keroack, MD, CEO of Springfield-based Baystate Health:

2015 total compensation: $1,472,006

2016 total compensation: $2,220,707

5. Sandra Fenwick, CEO of Boston Children's Hospital:

2015 total compensation: $1,852,169

2016 total compensation: $2,184,021

6. Eric Dickson, MD, CEO of Worcester-based UMass Memorial Health Care:

2015 total compensation: $1,834,131

2016 total compensation: $2,012,426

7. Howard Grant, MD, CEO of Burlington-based Lahey Health:

2015 total compensation: $1,641,336

2016 total compensation: $1,368,927

8. Kevin Tabb, MD, CEO of Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center:

2015 total compensation: $1,637,639

2016 total compensation: $1,616,327

9. Kate Walsh, CEO of Boston Medical Center:

2015 total compensation: $1,507,750

2016 total compensation: $1,729,874

10. Edward Benz Jr., MD, CEO of Boston-based Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (left job in September 2016):

2015 total compensation: $1,551,407

2016 total compensation: $1,503,221

11. Michael Wagner, MD, CEO of Boston-based Tufts Medical Center (left job in April):

2015 total compensation: $932,101

2016 total compensation: $1,180,579
From reimbursement landscape challenges to dwindling inpatient volumes, many factors lead hospitals to file for bankruptcy.

Here are six hospitals that have filed for bankruptcy protection since Jan. 1:

1. Rockdale, Texas-based Little River Healthcare, its parent company and several of its affiliated entities entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy July 24. One of the hospitals included in the bankruptcy filing, Crockett, Texas-based Timberlands Hospital, closed in 2017.

2. Florence (Ariz.) Hospital at Anthem entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late May after it failed to contest an involuntary bankruptcy petition from creditors within the required 21-day timeline.

3. Gilbert (Ariz.) Hospital, which is affiliated with Florence Hospital at Anthem, entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy May 24.

4. The Miami Medical Center, a 67-bed hospital that suspended services in October 2017, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection March 9. The hospital was sold in auction in late June.

5. Iron County Medical Center, a critical access hospital in Pilot Knob, Mo., filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy Feb. 21. The hospital is owned by the Iron County Hospital District.

6. Surprise Valley Health Care District, which operates 26-bed Surprise Valley Hospital in Cedarville, Calif., filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy Jan. 4.

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Several factors, including changes in reimbursement, have motivated some hospitals to invest in community housing projects, according to NPR.

In the 1990s, 50 percent of the children in Southern Orchards  near Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide Children's Hospital  lived in poverty. Through a partnership called the Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Families initiative, Columbus, community groups like United Way, and Nationwide Children's began to invest in the neighborhood's homes. In 2008, the organizations started renovating vacant homes for resale, building affordable housing and funding renovations for homeowners.



With a $6.6 million infusion from Nationwide Children's, the $22 million project led to the construction of 58 affordable housing units, 71 renovated homes and 15 new homes. The organizations also gave out 149 home improvement grants from 2008 to 2018, according to the report, which cites Pediatrics.

Kelly Kelleher, MD, director of the Center for Innovation in Pediatric Practice at Nationwide Children's, writes in Pediatrics that Nationwide Children's is treating "the neighborhood as a patient." The hospital is attempting to mend harmful socio-economic and physical environments in the hope it will lower the prevalence of health issues caused by those conditions. The investment could pay for itself if the number of hospital visits from Southern Orchards neighborhood falls, said Dr. Kelleher.

Hospitals across the country are taking similar approaches, though not as direct as owning and operating housing in a certain neighborhood, according to Megan Sandel, MD, who helps direct Boston Medical Center's housing initiative. Dr. Sandel said Boston Medical Center's projects are owned and operated by other community organizations. Similar projects are off the ground in Seattle, Boston, Atlanta and New York, among other places.



A potential motivator for these projects is a shift from fee-for-service medicine to reimbursement based on improving quality of care, according to the report. Some states are even starting to give healthcare organizations funding to manage populations.



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Dallas-based Complete Care closed its microhospital in El Paso, Texas, Aug. 12, just six months after the facility opened, according to the El Paso Times.

The company closed the microhospital and two freestanding emergency rooms due to reduced reimbursement from insurers, Complete Care CEO Rob Morris told the El Paso Times.

"When we decided to build the hospital two years ago, and before we broke ground, the way claims were processed and paid looked different" than today, Mr. Morris said. "We've had a 30 percent reduction in reimbursements from insurance [carriers] since then."

Complete Care laid off 80 people when the microhospital and freestanding ERs in El Paso closed, according to the report.

Complete Care still operates 20 freestanding ERs in Texas and one in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Read the full El Paso Times article here.

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A Cook County Circuit Court judge has dismissed Chicago-based Saint Anthony Hospital's defamation lawsuit against Leapfrog.

Here are six things to know about the lawsuit:

1. The lawsuit alleged Leapfrog awarded Saint Anthony Hospital letter grades of "A" for patient safety in its fall 2016 and spring 2017 reports, but lowered the hospital's grade to "C" in its fall 2017 report. The hospital claimed Leapfrog lowered its grade for patient safety for allegedly prescribing patient medications electronically only 50 to 74 percent of the time. However, Saint Anthony Hospital said its physicians prescribe medications electronically at least 95 percent of the time, and that data was provided to Leapfrog.

2. The hospital alleged it informed Leapfrog of the error numerous times in October, but Leapfrog never said it would correct the issue before releasing its hospital ratings Oct. 31. Saint Anthony contended Leapfrog's refusal to issue the hospital a higher letter grade and correct the alleged error amounted to defamation.

3. Leapfrog arguedthe hospital's "C" for patient safety was based on self-reported data. The hospital submitted data to the Leapfrog Hospital Survey via Leapfrog's online tool in June 2017, and it reported that approximately 60 percent of inpatient medication orders are processed through its computerized physician order entry, according to Leapfrog. Hospitals graded by Leapfrog could update their responses until Aug. 31, and were able to review their data for three weeks beginning Sept. 13. "During this period, Plaintiff did not review its data and raised no issue regarding the CPOE data Plaintiff provided to Leapfrog," the ratings agency's defense stated.

4. The hospital sued Leapfrog the day before the fall 2017 report was published. In response, Leapfrog agreed not to publish a safety grade for Saint Anthony Hospital and to remove the hospital's original CPOE results. "Despite the fact that the matter has been resolved by the parties, Saint Anthony continues to pursue this lawsuit," Leapfrog said in a motion to dismiss filed in March.

5. In its motion, Leapfrog argued Saint Anthony's claim for defamation is barred because the company didn't publish the hospital's safety grade. "Putting aside the fact that a publication of Saint Anthony's fall 2017 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade would not have been a false statement, Saint Anthony cannot sustain a claim for defamation because legally no publication ever occurred," stated the motion.

6. The court dismissed the hospital's complaint June 25. The complaint "makes no allegation of any Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade that Saint Anthony is currently challenging and therefore cannot challenge the Leapfrog grading system/methodology at this time," Judge Anna Helen Demacopoulos wrote in the order dismissing the case.

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Researchers at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins and UC San Diego are developing mobile technologies that let patients track medication intake on their smartphones a new tool proving useful in fighting tuberculosis, STAT reports.

Encrypted videos taken on smartphones are sent to public health workers who can watch them from work as opposed to traveling to visit patients who are far away.

TB patients must be carefully monitored for a minimum of six months to ensure they don't miss doses that could let the infection survive, mutate into drug-resistant strains and spread in highly populated areas.

"It gives patients a lot more autonomy," said Richard Garfein, PhD, founder of San-Diego-based mobile technology company SureAdhere and a pioneer in using mobile phone technology to monitor TB patients. "It has made their lives a lot easier and illuminated some of the barriers they face."

To address the challenges of controlling TB along the border, where patients with the disease often cross from California into Mexico, Dr. Garfein's team looked to asynchronous observation.

Through this method, patients use phones to record themselves at any time or place and upload the videos to a secure server where a public health worker can view them daily.

Dr. Garfein's group launched a two-year study in 2010 of video-monitored observation of 52 patients in San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. The study found 93 percent and 96 percent of patients in those cities, respectively, adhered to their drug regimens while using video monitoring over an average of 5.5 months.

The rates are comparable to patients monitored through in-person therapy. A different study in New York City reported an adherence rate of 95 percent for patients using video monitoring, compared to 91 percent for patients who had in-person visits.

The video app could prove to be most effective in developing countries with much higher TB incidence rates and governments that lack treatment resources and often can't verify patients are taking medicines.

The CDC and the World Health Organization released handbooks to support using video observation to improve medication adherence, but say its use should be carefully calculated. Video observation may not be a viable solution for transient populations or those in countries that lack access to the technology and reliable internet access.

The technology is spreading in the U.S., where studies found high adherence rates and savings for public health departments by using video observation. Agencies adopted SureAdhere and similar products made by Emocha Mobile Health and AiCure, bringing the technology to San Francisco and New York as well as rural and urban counties in Texas and Colorado.
The California Department of Public Health is investigating Kaiser Permanente's Oakland (Calif.) Medical Center after a patient, Teresa Panepinto, died of a medical overdose in March 2017, according to NBC Bay Area.

Hospital records show Ms. Panepinto received five doses of morphine-based drugs, along with two different sedatives and Ambien, over a 10-hour period. The fifth and final dose of the morphine-based painkiller was administered around 2 a.m. on March 30. Around 7:00 a.m. hospital staff found Ms. Panepinto unresponsive.

Ms. Panepinto was admitted to the hospital for pelvic pain, but also suffered from ongoing pain in her arms and legs. Despite this constant pain, she made an effort to avoid prescription painkillers.

The Alameda County Medical Examiner determined Ms. Panepinto died from a brain injury caused by a lethal mix of drugs. The medical examiner's office found an abdominal mass that likely contributed to Ms. Panepinto's pelvic pain, but did not contribute to her death, according to a coroner's report cited by NBC Bay Area.

NBC Bay Area's investigation found Kaiser did not alert state public health officials about Ms. Panepinto's death, which violates state reporting requirements, prompting the health department's investigation.

Ms. Panepinto's family told NBC Bay Area that their daughter had no monitoringy mechanisms on her in the hospital and no nursing presence in her room, which there would have been if she had been in the ICU, according to the report.

The family's attorney, Jim Keenley, suggests the medical records portray Ms. Panepinto as angry and hostile during her hospital stay.

"This death was caused by relying on the easiest available solution to deal with a frantic, suffering patient, Mr. Keenley told NBC Bay Area. "Which is to give them easily administered medication that will calm them down and make them less of a problem on the emergency room floor."

Kaiser Permanente declined NBC Bay Area's request for an interview due to privacy laws, but shared a written statement with the publication.

"We extend our sympathy for the family on the loss of their loved one," wrote Jeff Collins, senior vice president and area manager for Kaiser Permanente East Bay. "As part of our rigorous quality program we follow up and investigate any unusual or unexpected occurrences in the course of care. We comply with all regulatory reporting requirements and evaluate cases using established standards to determine when it is appropriate to file a report."



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South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster recently signed a law to address the state's primary care physician shortage in rural areas by letting nurse practitioners travel farther to provide care, WSPA reports.

Previous South Carolina law mandated that nurses practice within 45 miles of their supervising physician, but the law no longer requires it, The Post and Courier reports. The law also increased the number of NPs a physician can supervise from three to six.

"We rank F in chronic disease management and primary care access, and we need to do a better job," Columbia-based University of South Carolina nursing educator Stephanie Burgess, PhD, told WSPA.

Since 42 of the state's 46 counties are considered rural, thousands of South Carolina residents are underserved due to a lack of care access.

"Many physicians are located in urban areas, that's just a fact that means when you start drawing that 45-mile radius, other nurses and nurse practitioners can't get into that area," said Sen. Tom Davis, R-S.C., who helped pass the bill.

Under the law, NPs cannot prescribe medicine for chronic pain management, but can treat acute pain, prescribe some medicines and sign handicap placards and student homebound forms.

The state aims to pair this law with telehealth programs to expand care access to all residents.
A CT of the chest, abdomen and pelvis  in place of dedicated spine imaging  can detect any injury needing surgical attention, according to a report published in Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology.

Caitlin Hardy, MD, and her team at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, N.J., looked at 201 patients who had been diagnosed with thoracic or lumbar spine fractures at between 2010 and 2014. Each participant had a thoracic or lumbar spine CT within a month of their injury, as well as a chest, abdomen and pelvic CT.

Results showed 312 total fractures among the patients, and 18 percent of patients had at least one fracture missed on their first visceral CT. Dr. Hardy determined a dedicated spine CT didn't change a patient's course of management in a single case.

"The benefit of a dedicated spine CT in cases where a fracture was found is not entirely clear from this study," the study wrote. "Although it is ideal for all fractures to be identified, the majority of missed fractures were located near more serious fractures and in the transverse process, where surgical intervention was not required."

Other studies suggest visceral CT scans of the chest, abdomen and pelvis are acceptable when reconstructing images of the spine. The American College of Radiology endorses that practice.

Dr. Hardy and her team published their findings in Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology.
Co Antrim manufacturer SDC Trailers has created 50 jobs as part of a 7 million expansion that has boosted production.

The Chinese-owned company said the move had improved production capability and output and had made its Toomebridge operation one of the biggest manufacturing locations in the province.

It added that the recruitment of new painters, welders, engineers and material handlers will bring the workforce at SDC to over 900 people - putting it in the top 50 of Northern Ireland's largest private sector employers.

SDC Trailers chief executive Enda Cushnahan said: "The opening of the new facility at Plant 1 in Toomebridge is an example of SDC's proactive strategy to meet the growing demand for innovative trailers as required by customers in markets at home and abroad.

'The expansion will revolutionise our manufacturing process and gives us the ability to increase output of trailers by 50% on a weekly basis."

He said the move had enabled it to grow in international markets where it previously had only a limited presence.

"The demand in those markets is for tailored transport solutions which have been the cornerstone of the SDC success story," he explained.

"The new facility has the systems installed to meet the additional demand of trailers in the new markets, whilst shortening delivery times.

"In an era where there is uncertainty, this news will be very much welcomed by the surrounding community, cements the firm as market leader in the UK and Ireland and positions it to challenge in markets overseas."

SDC Trailers and its parent company Retlan Manufacturing were taken over by Chinese corporation CIMC Vehicles two years ago.

The Co Antrim firm is the UK and Ireland's top trailer manufacturer. It is marking its 40th anniversary this year.

In its latest accounts, for the year ending March 31, 2017, SDC reported pre-tax profits of 10.6m on sales of 189m. Local clients include McBurney Transport.

Operations officer Cal Carmichael said the company now had one of the best working environments among manufacturers here.

"We completed a lengthy planning process, including visiting manufacturing plants in Ireland, the UK and Europe, to ensure that SDC is now one of the best manufacturing environments to work in," he added.

"The 60,000 sq ft expansion also means that Toomebridge is now one of the largest manufacturing production sites in Northern Ireland."
Two Northern Ireland companies will be involved in the UK production and distribution of a new water brand created by actor and rapper Will Smith and his son Jaden, creating up to 20 new roles.

Just Water, which was founded to help combat ocean plastic pollution, will be packaged at Norbev Ltd in Ballymena, while Belfast-based Red Star Brands will manage the UK distribution of the brand.

Just Water aims to target the growing water segment of the soft drinks industry but minimise pollution with packaging that is made of 82% renewable resources.

The packaging is also recyclable in nine out of 10 UK communities where kerbside or bring bank collecting is available.

It was launched in the UK yesterday through 800 Boots stores retailing at 1.29.

Ciaran Doherty, managing director at Norbev Ltd, which produces the water here, said his firm's spring water source and history of working with US brands helped secure the deal.

He said: "The product's packaging is totally different to what we're traditionally used to and ticks the box in terms of sustainability. We believed in this product as soon as we saw it and had to move very quickly to launch in Boots."

Norbev invested in a new production system to produce the line.

Mr Doherty added: "As a result, we've installed a completely new multi-million pound production line at our Ballymena plant and when fully operational this line will employ a further 20 people."

Clark McIlroy, MD at Red Star Brands, the UK distributor for Just Water, said: "Plastic usage has become a hot topic in recent years, and with six in 10 UK shoppers looking to minimise their own plastic consumption, there is a definite demand for ethical brands like Just Water to disrupt consumer habits.

"More consumers are also demanding brands that enable them to make a difference and Just Water is very well placed to appeal to those ethical consumers.

"Just is already having a positive impact on the environment and we are certain it will continue to drive change here."

Jaden Smith (19) said he had the idea for Just Water when he was 11. The Smiths have already expanded the line in the US by introducing a flavoured water.
A Co Antrim-based crisps manufacturer has struck a deal to supply their products to two supermarkets in Singapore.

Glens of Antrim Crisps (GOA) launched in 2015 and use sweet potatoes as their main ingredient. The deals are with supermarkets Cold Storage and Smartprice.

GOA sales director Michael McKillop said: "The Asia Pacific region is earmarked to be the fastest growing market for savoury snacks."

Flavours such as cheese and sweet onion will be exported.
Darren Ward (left) of First Trust Bank and Darren Johnston from Rossharbour Resort

Tourist destination Rossharbour Resort in Co Fermanagh has completed a 1m expansion.

It included six acres of landscaping and three new self-catering lodges.

It is the first of two phases with the second to include a 'glamping' village.

Darren Johnston, owner and manager of Rossharbour Resort, said: "My vision for Rossharbour was to create a resort that could capture not only the beauty and calmness of the area, but offer adventure and fun in a luxurious setting."

Darren Ward at First Trust Bank said he looked forward to supporting further growth.
The presenters of The Great British Bake Off

An amateur baker from Co Tyrone is hoping to rise to the challenge after being selected as a contestant for this year's The Great British Bake Off.

Fermanagh and Omagh District Council countryside recreation officer Imelda McCarron (33), who learned to cook and bake with her mother, will be among the latest batch of bakers seeking to impress judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith in the hit Channel 4 series.

Imelda will be one of 12 new contestants in the show, hosted by Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig (right), which will return to TV screens next Tuesday.

Ulster Unionist MLA Rosemary Barton said that the entire community here would be backing Imelda to win.

"It's a wonderful achievement to have someone from the area representing Northern Ireland in The Great British Bake Off," said Mrs Barton, who admitted she was "quite a fan" of the programme.

"To get chosen is a real honour, and that shows the wonderful talent that we have here in Northern Ireland," she added.

"Imelda will have the support of the whole community in Co Tyrone and right across the province."

Meanwhile, Ballinamallard councillor Diana Armstrong said elected representatives would be only too happy to sample Imelda's efforts.

"She would be very welcome to try out her goodies in the council buildings," she laughed.

"It's absolutely fantastic she has got through - and she should go out there and do us all proud."
A man caught twice for drink-driving on his mobility scooter has been disqualified from getting behind the wheel for three years.

Belfast Magistrates' Court heard in one incident Malcolm McCormick pulled his trousers down and exposed himself after flagging down police in the city centre.

The 46-year-old was also handed a 12-month probation order.

McCormick, of Brucevale Park in Belfast, admitted driving with excess alcohol, driving when unfit through drink or drugs, disorderly behaviour and indecent behaviour.

He was first arrested after police were alerted to a man driving a mobility scooter at Union Street on June 26.

A prosecution lawyer said officers saw him sitting on the vehicle fitted with indicators and battery-operated.

Positioned in the middle of the road, McCormick informed police he had driven the scooter while under the influence of alcohol.

He was taken into custody after failing a breath-test.

Weeks later, on July 17, he stopped police while travelling on the scooter at Rosemary Street.

He had a two-litre bottle of cider in his hands at the time, according to the prosecution.

When McCormick again failed a breath-test he became aggressive and started shouting at members of the public.

"He was telling passers-by to 'f*** off' and called one man a 'pedo ****'," the lawyer said.

Despite being warned about his behaviour he lay on the ground, pulled his trousers down, exposed himself and attempted to urinate.

Defence solicitor Norman Shannon told the court McCormick suffers from a learning disability.

He recounted a previous incident where his client had a scooter stolen and damaged beyond repair.

Stressing it was the accused who had flagged down police on the second occasion, Mr Shannon added: "He says when he drinks like that he can't remember what he does."

Following his submissions District Judge Fiona Bagnall agreed to impose the three-year driving ban and 12-months probation.
Jeremy Hunt will challenge the EU to stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" with the US and Britain over Russian aggression as he makes his first visit to Washington as Foreign Secretary.

Mr Hunt will use a speech today to urge the bloc's members to ensure the allies speak with "one voice" against transgressions by Moscow "whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea".

EU nations, including Germany and France, were among dozens of countries that expelled Russian diplomats following March's Novichok nerve agent attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, which also resulted in the death of a British woman Dawn Sturgess in June.

But some have since reached out to President Vladimir Putin's regime, with French President Emmanuel Macron travelling to St Petersburg to call on Russia to work "hand-in-hand" with Europe, and Italy questioning whether sanctions imposed over the 2014 annexation of Crimea should continue.

His visit also follows the historic summit between Mr Putin and Donald Trump in Helsinki, which led to widespread criticism of the US President.

In a speech at the US Institute of Peace, Mr Hunt is due to say that under Mr Putin Russia's "aggressive and malign behaviour undermines the international order that keeps us safe".

He will say: "Of course, we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt: Russia's foreign policy under President Putin has made the world a more dangerous place.

"And the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US.

"That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea."

Mr Hunt will also discuss Brexit in his speech, which looks at the raft of challenges to the "international rules-based system that has kept us safe for decades".

The Foreign Secretary's three-day visit to the United States will also see him hold talks with senior Trump administration officials, Downing Street said.

He will then travel to New York, where on Thursday he is due to address the United Nations Security Council and discuss the Islamic State. He is also due to discuss humanitarian issues with UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres.
The widow of an RUC reservist murdered by the IRA in 1991 has said seeing a video of Limericks All-Ireland winning hurling team singing a song which glorifies an IRA man was hurtful.

The video show the players singing the rebel song Sean South of Garryowen, written about one of two IRA men killed during an attack on Brookborough RUC station on New Years Day 1957.

Now living outside Northern Ireland, Brookborough-born Phyllis Carrothers (62), whose husband Douglas (Dougie) died when a bomb exploded under his car as he left work at a timber yard in Lisbellaw, Co Fermanagh on May 17, 1991, criticised the singing of the song.

I have seen the video online, she said.

I have nothing against hurling, I dont follow the sport, but I would congratulate them on their success. They have every right to celebrate their achievement, but this is a song that should not be sung in celebration. Its hurtful.

Its a rebel song and totally out of context for a team who are supposed to be celebrating. A man going to kill people trying to work for a living and support their families is not something to sing about in celebration.

This past two weeks we have watched Omagh and Ballygawley come together to remember those murdered at the hands of similar men.

Sean South was setting out to do something similar. He was a terrorist on a mission and this song needs to be seen for what it is, a glorification of what he wanted to do  murder RUC members.

South, from the Garryowen area of Limerick city, was killed in the 1957 attack on Brookeborough RUC station. Fellow IRA man Fergal OHanlon, from Co Monaghan, also died.

The South East Fermanagh Foundation (SEFF), which provides support to victims and survivors of terrorism across Fermanagh and beyond, said the hurlers should not be engaged in glorifying terrorism.

Its director of services Kenny Donaldson said: Sundays victory will be celebrated across Limerick city and beyond and we too offer them congratulations.

However, what we cannot allow to go unchecked is the singing of an IRA rebel song in the aftermath of that victory by the very players who had just achieved such a sporting achievement.

Sean South and Fergal OHanlon, along with the others within that IRA column that attacked Brookeborough, were terrorists.

They most certainly were not freedom fighters, and what are they martyrs of?

Mr Donaldson called on the GAA to act over the singing.

The GAA said it had received no complaints.

It added: The song was not played over the PA system here and we have not had any other contact on this matter.
A woman who claimed she suffered sex discrimination at the hands of a local council has received a 25,000 payout.

Sharon Douglas (53) left her job at Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council in May after alleging she had been discriminated against in the allocation of overtime and training facilities, and had been subjected to harassment.

She claimed she was told to clean the kitchen and the toilets, and was told the toilets "needed a woman's touch".

Mrs Douglas was awarded 25,000, without admission of liability, after bringing the case.

She said she was left hurt and upset by the initial incident and then by how her complaint was handled.

Mrs Douglas, from Limavady, had been the only female employed in the technical services section of the council's environmental services department.

She was based in the Limavady depot as a yard/storeperson, but resigned in May.

She explained: "Other employees in the yard, all men, were allowed to put themselves forward for overtime on Saturdays and public holidays, but when I asked to be considered in the same way I was refused.

"The reasons given made no sense to me.

"I was told it was because I hadn't been trained on some of the machines, but when I asked for training that was also refused.

'I complained about my treatment and said I thought it was sex discrimination, but that was responded to with abusive language.

"At another time, I was asked to go to a different site, when inspectors were visiting, to clean the kitchen and the toilets, which was not my job.

"I was told that the toilets 'needed a woman's touch'."

Mrs Douglas took a grievance which, after several meetings, was rejected.

In the course of this investigation her colleagues were asked if they would be "okay" working alongside her in another amenity site, and it was reported that they would not be.

The reason given was a fear of the position a man might be in "if she accuses me of something up in that yard".

"The whole thing affected me badly and I was off work with stress," Mrs Douglas added.

"When I raised the issue directly, and flagged up my concern that this was sex discrimination, the first response I got was rude and dismissive.

"Later, when I complained through the council's grievance procedures, I was very dissatisfied with the length of the process and the way it was handled.

"I was hurt and upset by my initial treatment and the way my complaints were dealt with."

Michael Wardlow, chief commissioner of the Equality Commission, said the case raised disturbing questions.

"This is a case in which a woman, in a minority of one in an otherwise male workforce, feels she was excluded from benefits and advantages which were available to her male colleagues, such as training and access to overtime," he said.

"She was only asking to be given the same opportunities as the men working alongside her, but the responses she got worsened, rather than helped, her situation.

"Asking her colleagues whether they would be 'okay' working alongside her was unlikely to have been asked about a male employee.

"And, of course, saying that cleaning the toilets 'needed a woman's touch' was a direct and inappropriate reference to her gender."

In settling the case without admission of liability, the council has agreed to meet with the commission and review its policies, practices and procedures to ensure that they comply in all respects with its obligations.

Mr Wardlow added: "Employers must make sure, not only that they have such policies in place, but all their staff are fully aware of the importance the employer places on implementing them."

The Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council said: "Following this case, the council has met with the Equality Commission and has affirmed its commitment to the principle of equality of opportunity and to ensuring that our policies, practices and procedures conform in all respects with equality legislation.

"The council is committed to promoting equality of opportunity for all employees and further embedding these principles within the organisation through an ongoing programme of training and development.

"The council will continue to liaise with the Equality Commission to ensure best practice is adhered to."
A man aged in his 80s has been charged with sexually abusing a female child nearly 60 years ago

A man aged in his 80s has been charged with sexually abusing a female child nearly 60 years ago.

The defendant, who appeared at Derry Magistrates Court sitting in Omagh yesterday, stands accused of eight counts of indecent assault.

The charges are alleged to have been carried out on dates between October 1961 and June 1963.

During the hearing, reporting restrictions were imposed which prevent the defendant from being identified due to legal reasons.

A defence solicitor told the preliminary enquiry hearing he accepted the defendant had a prima facie case to answer.

District Judge Paul Copeland released the defendant on his own bail of 500 until he's arraigned on the charges before the Crown Court on September 18.
The Police Ombudsman has cleared police officers and custody officers of withholding medication from a man arrested for assault.

The Police Ombudsman has cleared police officers and custody officers of withholding medication from a man arrested for assault.

The incident happened in April of this year after the complainant was arrested in Belfast.

The man claimed his medication was withheld by police and custody officers, and that once it was given to him he received the wrong dosage and was not given adequate refreshments.

He also claimed he was detained for an unreasonable length of time.

After examining relevant documentation including custody and medical records his claim was rejected.

It was found he had been seen by a doctor on three occasions at the request of police and medication had been given as per the doctor's instructions.

Custody records also showed that the man had been given water when required and had refused food when it was offered to him.

The man's claims he was held for longer than necessary was also unsupported as investigators found his detention was necessary to advance the assault investigation.

It was found the man was detained lawfully and his welfare requirements were adhered to in accordance with the PSNI's Codes of Practice, and no failures of duty were identified.
The Pope will be in Ireland later this week.

A Catholic Ulster Unionist councillor has said Arlene Foster's decision not to meet the Pope represents a "lost opportunity" for the DUP.

Stephen McCarthy said it proved that the party's "actions don't match its words" in reaching out to Catholics in Northern Ireland.

The Alliance Party has also criticised the DUP's decision not to send anyone to the event.

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But South Down MLA Jim Wells said he understood the reasons for not attending.

The Irish Government invited Mrs Foster to the address by Pope Francis in Dublin Castle on Saturday.

The DUP leader said she "appreciated the invitation", but regrettably she would be away with her family at the time of the visit.

The DUP is not sending anyone else to represent the party.

UUP leader Robin Swann is also unable to attend as he will be taking part in the annual Black Saturday Parade in Larne. The party will be represented by Lagan Valley MLA Robbie Butler instead.

Mr McCarthy said: "This is an opportunity lost for the DUP. The Ulster Unionists are sending a representative, which is the right and respectful thing to do.

"It is a gesture towards observant Catholics in Northern Ireland and across the UK, who will appreciate a unionist attending an event addressed by the head of their church."

The UUP councillor said the DUP could "easily have sent someone else" to Dublin Castle, and "not having anyone available is peculiar".

Mr McCarthy pointed to previous comments by MPs Jeffrey Donaldson and Ian Paisley that more Catholics were voting DUP due to its stance on same-sex marriage and abortion.

He said: "If the DUP mean what they say, that the Union is for everyone and the future of the Union will be secured by everyone - as we do in the Ulster Unionist Party - they should have accepted the invitation.

"Not attending shows that the party's actions don't match its words."

Mr McCarthy said that if the DUP was looking for support outside its traditional base, observant Catholics would be the most likely targets. "Not attending the papal event flies in the face of the party's potential for electoral growth. It is yet further strategic short-sightedness from the DUP," he added.

Alliance MLA Kellie Armstrong, who will represent her party at the event, said small gestures had helped build peace in Northern Ireland.

"When Paisley and McGuinness laughed together this place warmed up, and we thought, if they can get on, we can get on," she said.

"Other gestures over the years - the Queen speaking Irish, Sinn Fein meeting the royal family, those from parties previously opposed to LGBTQ rights taking part in Pride, among others - have also gone a long way to making this place work better."

Ms Armstrong said the DUP leader was entitled to a holiday, but if she was "truly sincere" in her reasons for not attending, she would have sent someone else from the party. "They are political representatives and should attempt to represent everyone in society," she added.

But Mr Wells said he understood the DUP's position.

"Arlene has had an extraordinarily busy year and nobody could say she doesn't deserve a holiday," he said.

"Most of the leadership will be taking part in Black Saturday, and others may have great difficulty in attending this event."

Mr Wells said he shared such concerns.

He added: "Leaving aside my theological differences with the Catholic Church, I would have difficulty taking part.

"The Pennsylvania report detailing the abuse of 1,000 children by 300 priests makes for grim reading. Even by the standard we are aware of regarding abuse in Ireland, this is in a different league. It is abuse on an industrial scale."

The Pope will deliver a speech at the World Meeting of Families in Dublin on Saturday, followed by Mass in Phoenix Park the following day.

Presbyterian Moderator Dr Charles McMullen will attend Saturday's reception in Dublin Castle alongside other religious and civic leaders.

Dr McMullen and his wife Barbara will attend a concert at Croke Park at the invitation of Archbishop Eamon Martin.

The DUP said Mrs Foster acknowledged "the significance of this event for many Roman Catholics in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland".
A van has been hijacked following an incident in east Belfast.

It happened in the Albertbridge Road area of the city shortly after 12.30pm on Tuesday.

Police receive a report that while a man was sitting in his van an unknown male got into the passenger seat and told him to drive to Witham Street, located nearby just off of the Newtownards Road.

Once there the man demanded money from the driver, which he snatched before taking off on foot.

Detective Sergeant Corrigan said: This man is described as being approximately 6 tall, aged in his 40s of stocky build. He was wearing jeans and a dark designer hoody up around his face. It is believed he spoke with a local accent.

"I would appeal to anyone who has any information that would assist police with their enquiries to contact detectives at Musgrave on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference 520 21/08/18."

Alternatively information can be given to independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
A campaign group has pulled out of co-hosting a 'we deserve better' event in Belfast after it was asked to reconsider inviting LGBT and pro-choice speakers.

The campaign, started by Dylan Quinn from Enniskillen, is using the power of social media to unite people in urging MLAs to restore power sharing at Stormont.

Northern Ireland has been without a functioning Executive since January 2017. Next Tuesday Northern Ireland will pass the milestone of the longest period of any country has spent without a working government- 589 days.

A series of events is planned across Northern Ireland on Tuesday to mark the passing of the record.

However, campaign group Progressive Politics NI has now pulled out of co-hosting an event in Belfast to be held at City Hall.

A statement on why we have to pull our support for co-hosting the Belfast #WeDeserveBetter event pic.twitter.com/8I7YvS3PWo  ProgressivePoliticsNI (@ProgPoliticsNI) August 21, 2018

A Progressive Politics NI spokesperson said: "We had organised three speakers so far, two of them announced; John O'Doherty from The Rainbow Project/Love Equality and Elaine Crory from Belfast Feminist Network/Alliance For Choice.

"Unfortunately when we announced these speakers it became clear that some were upset as they felt this wasn't what the #WeDeserveBetter campaign was about. They felt these are 'agendas' and that this campaign wasn't about them.

"Organisers asked us to rethink these speakers as they wanted their message to be solely about getting the parties back to talk. It is therefore with deep regret that we have decided to pull out of said event."

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The spokesperson added: "We understand wanting to attract as many people as possible and from all corners of Northern Ireland, but we feel the issues of LGBT rights and bodily autonomy are extremely important issues that need addressed and not 'agendas'."

The spokesperson said that money donated for the Belfast event via GoFundMe will be refunded within three to seven working days.

The spokesperson added: "We would like to publicly apologise to John and Elaine. We stand with them, and the organisations they represent, in full solidarity in working to achieve equality for these and other issues."

Dylan Quinn, speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, said each of the 'we deserve better' events are completely independent from each other and that he did not object to the speakers chosen, but that he was concerned the event was being diverted away from the specific aim of putting pressure on political parties to return to Stormont.

He said: "It became apparent that some of the speakers, the things that they were talking about, were resulting in people not focusing on the main aim of the 'we deserve better' but were instead focusing on specific issues, which are important and vital issues, I don't underestimate that. But the whole idea of this is that we don't have a government to deal with any of this."

He added: "Now what we have is people arguing with each other and I am sure some of the political parties are loving it, because we are not focusing on them. It was not that we didn't want certain people to speak. We had a conversation to figure out how we direct the event in Belfast to ensure it really reflects the ultimate aim of 'we deserve Better'."
Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba, who was convicted of the manslaughter of Jack Adcock

The workload of GPs across Northern Ireland is so high they are living in fear of making a mistake that could lead to them being accused of manslaughter, it has been claimed.

Family doctors are working under such intolerable pressure that they are being reduced to tears and it is becoming impossible to find GPs willing to take up permanent jobs.

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It has emerged that one GP practice here has been unable to fill a vacancy despite spending 3,000 on a UK-wide advertising campaign.

A doctor from the practice said: "We advertised for a partner or salaried GP post and we didn't get one application.

"We didn't even get any expressions of interest, and it's the first time that's ever happened.

"I'm not saying we're in an unusual position. From speaking to other practices, this is becoming standard. The workload is becoming so heavy that GPs are finding it really tough.

"We have GPs come to our practice and leave saying they'll never be back, asking how we do it every day. They've even called it a 'hellhole' and it isn't unusual for them to be in tears.

"I actually rang A&E the other day to sort something out for a patient and I spoke to a GP who would actually work there than in a GP surgery.

"More and more are going to Australia or working part-time so they have more time away from work."

The GP, who did not want to be identified, said doctors are also mindful of the controversial case of Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba, a doctor who was struck off after she was convicted of the manslaughter of six-year-old Jack Adcock in 2011. The decision was later overturned on appeal.

"When we come in the morning, we have to deal with dozens of phone calls, dozens of appointments and write hundreds of prescriptions," the GP added.

"Then we have to do house calls at lunchtime and then it's back again to do more appointments and then there are test results and chasing up hospital appointments.

"The pressure is ridiculous and then you look at cases like Bawa-Garba and it's no wonder that it is so difficult to attract younger doctors into general practice.

"GPs are genuinely terrified that they are going to make a serious mistake because of the pressure they're under.

"They are looking at the current situation and thinking if they don't end up in court, it will be the General Medical Council, and if it isn't that it will be the Ombudsman, the complaints system or something else."

The GP said family doctors are being swamped by bureaucracy and blamed the likes of welfare reform and the introduction of general data protection regulation (GDPR).

He said they are frequently contacted by patients wanting an unnecessary appointment regarding their PIP assessments.

He also said an increasing amount of time is being wasted following the introduction of new regulations about personal information.

"Under GDPR patients are entitled to a copy of their notes for free," he explained.

"Now you might think all that we have to do is get someone to photocopy them but it's not as simple as that.

"We have to redact any third party information; so for example if it's written into the notes that the patient said they were abused by their father or that their sister had cancer, that has to be removed.

"That means going through hundreds of pages of notes to make sure information is removed. A GP in England was actually fined 40,000 recently because they left in a telephone number in the notes.

"All of this adds up to make the workplace intolerable."

Chair of the British Medical Association's GP committee in Northern Ireland Dr Tom Black said he wasn't surprised to hear of recruitment issues.

"We warned this would happen years ago," he said.

"While we welcome the moves that have been made recently, we would like more to be done, including the likes of the second medical school.

"Patients need to understand that normal GP services will not be able to continue and we also need for them to make appropriate choices, such as using their pharmacist and not coming to GPs for over-the-counter medication."

The Department of Health said a number of steps have been implemented to address GP shortages and workload issues, including increasing the number of GP training places and the introducing practice-based pharmacists.

It said this year's GP contract investment was the largest since 2004, with nearly 22m made available for GPs and related services.

It also said a second medical school located at the University of Ulster's Magee campus is also under consideration.

However, a final decision on the matter can only be made by a Health Minister.
Former Irish President Mary McAleese is under fire for her unkind and untrue labelling of the World Meeting of Families as a right-wing rally.

Belfast-born Mrs McAleese has been hugely critical of the gathering, which will bring 37,000 people to the RDS in Dublin this week.

She claimed it is designed to rally people to get them motivated to fight against the tide of same-sex marriage, rights for gays, abortion rights, contraceptive rights.

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The World Meeting of Families is the reason Pope Francis is travelling to Ireland, with the Phoenix Park Mass for 500,000 being the official closing ceremony of the festival.

Mrs McAleese is refusing to attend, although she will be in Dublin Castle on Saturday when the Irish Government hosts a State ceremony to welcome the pontiff.

Irish senator Ronan Mullen hit out at the ex-President, suggesting she has offended thousands of grounded and generous people who are coming to celebrate their faith and reflect on what it has to say about their lives as families and their commitment as Christians.

A quick look at the programme for this event and the profile of the people coming will show that Mary McAleese has got these people badly wrong, Mr Mullen said.

In a statement he noted that Mrs McAleese used the theme Building Bridges during her 14 years as President. Building bridges used to mean reaching out to people you knew you might never agree with, but finding out what you had in common and learning to get along with, and eventually loving, each other, he added.

A number of callers to RTEs Liveline programme yesterday also complained about Mrs McAleeses attacks on the Catholic Church. But at an event in Dublin last night she appeared undeterred by the criticism. She told an audience: The future Church must accept and exercise responsibility for the damage it currently causes through its teaching (on homosexuality) to young people, our children, our innocent children.

This synod is an unique opportunity to ensure that the advice given to Pope Francis will help the Church to navigate out of its current untenable teaching which conduce to the evil of homophobia, she said.

And in a documentary due to air on RTE One tomorrow night, Mrs McAleese, the mother of a gay son, will describe how her family feels unwelcome in the Catholic church.

In Mary McAleeses Modern Ireland she tells of her hurt at the airbrushing of same-sex couples from promotional family material for the papal visit.

However, Mr Mullen believes she is feeding a drumbeat of negativity towards the Popes visit. He claims some prominent people feel to chastise the Catholic Church without equally acknowledging the huge force for goodness and love that the Church has been and still is.

They are angry at the mocking disregard some of these churchmen have shown for the civil law and for the Churchs own moral teachings. And many of them believe, as I do, that nobody who kept knowledge of abuse from responsible civil authorities should hold office as a bishop anywhere or have the title of cardinal.
Opening ceremony of the World Meeting of Families at the RDS in Dublin (Niall Carson/PA)

The World Meeting of Families (WMOF) has officially got under way ahead of the Popes visit to Ireland.

Thousands descended on Dublins Royal Dublin Society (RDS) on Tuesday evening to attend the opening ceremony.

Church bells were rung simultaneously across Irelands 26 dioceses to launch the five-day Catholic congress. Prayers were also said throughout the dioceses.

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More than 37,000 people from 116 different countries are expected to attend the RDS for a series of events as part of the Catholic festival.

Hundreds of thousands more will attend the celebrations that will be led by Pope Francis this weekend in Dublin and Knock.

The WMOF will culminate with the closing papal mass in the Phoenix Park on Sunday.

The event has gained huge significance since the Pope made a statement on Monday apologising for the atrocities of clerical sexual abuse.

In a letter to the worlds more than 1 billion Catholics, Pope Francis said the Church needed to move to end the culture of death within it.

The opening ceremony, which was entitled Le Cheile le Criost, or Together with Christ, included hymns, psalms and prayers for the entire human family before God.

In his homily, the Archbishop of Dublin welcomed the thousands of international visitors to the country.

Families and pilgrimage groups will travel from as far as Africa, Canada, Europe, Australia and India to partake.

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Diarmuid Martin said: There are those who would look at the World Meeting as some sort of ideological gathering to celebrate a type of family which probably does not exist.

Whatever of the past, here in Dublin the World Meeting is something much more profound: it is to reflect the opening words of our reading: You are Gods chosen race; he loves you.

Dr Martin added: The family is not a remote ideological notion but the place where compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience and forgiveness are learned, practised and spread.

The archbishop said family life has changed in Ireland.

It may seem a strange thing to say, but we have to find ways of ensuring that these new relationships and challenges in family culture become clothed in love, Dr Martin said.

Only the power of love can purify and restore our Church and us and our society.

He added: We thank God for the at times immense sacrifice that exists in the love within families.

We pray for those who have never experienced such love or from whom such love was stolen through abuse or neglect.
A car that crashed into the gates of Government Buildings in Merrion Street Upper, Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA)

A woman has been arrested after a car crashed into the gate of Dublins Government Buildings.

It is understood the woman, in her 50s, attempted to drive the gold Micra Nissan through the entrance in Merrion Street Upper shortly after 10am on Tuesday.

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No injuries were reported.

Gardai arrested the driver of the car at the scene and she was taken to Pearse Street Garda Station.

Expand Close It is thought the driver had been trying to negotiate the entrance (Brian Lawless/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Inquiries are continuing.
Simonne Kerr with her son, who died from complications of sickle cell disease (NHS Press Office/PA)

An ex-soldier will go on trial in the new year accused of murdering his girlfriend, who performed on Britains Got Talent in an NHS choir.

Desmond Sylva, 40, allegedly stabbed nurse Simonne Kerr at their home in Battersea, south-west London.

Police had been called to the Victorian terrace at 12.40pm on August 15 where they found Ms Kerr, 31, with a deep wound to her neck.

She was pronounced dead at the scene at around 1.45pm.

Sylva, of Grayshott Road, was subsequently arrested and charged with her murder.

The defendant made his first appearance at the Old Bailey via videolink from Wandsworth prison, wearing a grey sweatshirt.

He spoke only to confirm his identity and British nationality during the hearing before Judge Sarah Munro QC.

A provisional two-week trial was set for February 11 next year with a plea hearing on November 6.

Sylva, who sat quietly throughout the short hearing, was then remanded into custody.

Ms Kerr, whose death sparked the 90th homicide investigation in the capital this year, was living in the flat but was originally from Wembley, north-west London.

The nurse at Guys Hospital, near London Bridge, appeared on the talent show with the B Positive Choir to encourage blood donations, after her young son Kavele died from complications of sickle cell disease.

A spokeswoman from NHS Blood and Transplant has described her as a valued and respected member of the B Positive choir.
Swastikas and the letters SRN (System Resistance Network) which were spray painted on a wall by Austin Ross (Crown Prosecution Service/PA)

A far-right group supporter has been jailed for six years after a month-long hate campaign which included spray painting landmarks with swastikas.

Austin Ross, 23, stuck racist posters on buildings around his home town, as well as torching a school and a masonic lodge, causing tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage.

A court heard Ross was both a supporter of Tommy Robinson and far-right group System Resistance Network, and painted their initials SRN, as well as messages such as Free Tommy Robinson on buildings.

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Whatsapp A swastika spray painted on a door in Newport, south Wales by Austin Ross (Crown Prosecution Service/PA)

Between May 2 and May 31 this year he spray painted Nazi symbols and stuck racist propaganda on to landmarks around his hometown of Newport, south Wales.

Prosecutor Jason Howells told Newport Crown Court that Ross first targeted the citys Riverfront Theatre by posting a racially abusive poster on a window pane.

Mr Howells said: The poster was linked to the System Resistance Network, and there were swastikas spray painted next to it.

Ross went on to post racist posters on Bethel Community Church which read Marxist maggots we remember faces, names places. SRN

His next target was Newports multicultural Maindee Primary School, where parents reported seeing racist posters outside it referring to refugees, and the message You have been visited by the SRN.

Ross returned to the school four days later to spray paint several swastikas on its walls.

The slogan 1488 was painted by Ross on to the outside wall of Gwent Probation Services  with 14 being code for We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children coined by white supremacist David Lane, and 88 being code for Heil Hitler.

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Ross also wrote Free Tommy Robinson along with graffiti of swastikas at the University of South Wales campus.

He then caused 38,000 worth of damage by causing a fire at Newports Masonic Lodge, which had a Star of David on the front of the building, and another 20,000 worth of damage by starting another fire at Bassaleg Secondary School, of which he is an ex pupil.

Gwent Police released CCTV recordings to the public which caught Ross in the act of several of the incidents, which resulted in him being identified after an anonymous tip off.

Police raided his home and found stencils of swastikas, and posters which read Keep Britain White and Hitler was right.

His Facebook account contained links to a Hitler Youth account.

Ross was arrested and later pleaded guilty to 15 counts including arson, racially aggravated harassment and racially aggravated damage.

Harry Baker, defending, said: Theres a different side to this young man.

His family are concerned and upset for him.

Judge Jeremy Jenkins told Ross: Your actions were not born out of some mental disorder, but out of sheer hatred and malice, based on a perverse view of race and religion different to your own.

The judge added: People like you have no idea what living under a tyrannical regime is really like.

Ross, from Romney Close, Bettws, Newport, showed no emotion as he was jailed for six years.
Jeremy Corbyn has said he is very confident of gaining Scottish seats in the next general election despite a recent polling slump north of the border.

The Labour leader is on a four-day campaigning visit to Scotland as part of efforts to rebuild momentum following the 2017 snap ballot.

The party gained six seats in Scotland after plummeting to just one Scottish MP in 2015, securing 27% of the vote.

We're very confident that we can gain seats and we can help to deliver a Labour government through Labour gains in ScotlandJeremy Corbyn

However, recent opinion polls show Scottish Labour has slipped back to around 23%, in third place behind the Tories and the SNP.

The party has said gains in Scotland are key to winning the next Westminster election and is targeting a number of SNP-held constituencies where swings of less than 1% would be required to win.

The seats include Glasgow East, Airdrie and Shotts, Lanark and Hamilton East, Motherwell and Wishaw, Inverclyde and Dunfermline and West Fife.

Speaking as he met with Labour candidates in New Lanark, Lanarkshire, Mr Corbyn said: Its very important to win in all parts of the UK.

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Whatsapp Jeremy Corbyn (right) joins Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard (second right) in meeting the partys early selected candidates for Westminster target seats (Lesley Martin/PA)

We want to gain seats in Scotland, we gained some in the general election, we want to gain a lot more.

Were very confident that were getting more and more support, more and more members being very active in the party and lots of campaigning going on.

Were very confident that we can gain seats and we can help to deliver a Labour government through Labour gains in Scotland.

Mr Corbyns tour began on Monday with a visit to a bus firm in Falkirk where he faced questions over the ongoing row over anti-Semitism, followed by an appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, where he said he believes the party is facing greater hostility from the media than weve probably ever had before.

He is also scheduled to visit Glasgow and make an appearance at the Edinburgh Television Festival.
The Mackintosh Building was severely damaged in the June 15 fire (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Residents and business owners who say they have been refused access to their properties following the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) fire are considering legal action.

Lawyers say it is unacceptable those affected have been locked out for almost 10 weeks as efforts continue to stabilise and preserve what is left of the renowned Mackintosh building.

Govan Law Centre (GLC) said is looking to identify public interest litigation against Glasgow City Council, the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) and Kier Construction on behalf of 33 displaced households in Garnethill and 55 Sauchiehall Street businesses over their abysmal treatment.

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Flames tore through the Charles Rennie Mackintosh-designed building on June 15, the second devastating fire to hit the art school.

Since then, residents and business staff have been refused entry to collect items including passports, car keys, medicines or clothes, GLC said.

Mike Dailly, solicitor advocate at GLC, said: Glasgow City Council senior officers, Glasgow School of Art and privileged elites appear more interested in saving the MacKintosh building than saving the community of Sauchiehall Street and Garnethill, which have been around a lot longer and are a special part of our citys heritage.

Ordinary residents and local businesses are suffering and have lost a lot of money. Its unacceptable to be locked out of homes for so long.

Residents and businesses no longer trust that the local authority is putting their needs first.

The local authority exposes itself to judicial review and claims if it places the interests of the GSA before the community, and GLC will explore every avenue of challenge available to the local community.

A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: The council has acted under Section 29 of the Building (Scotland) Act 2003 in order to protect life.

Our priority remains getting residents and businesses back to their property safely.
Sajid Javid has apologised to 18 people who were incorrectly held or removed (PA)

A Windrush man twice wrongfully detained and threatened with deportation from Britain has called for compensation to be paid urgently after Home Secretary Sajid Javid apologised to 18 people who were incorrectly held or removed.

Mr Javid said officials have established that 11 people from the Windrush generation left voluntarily after being unable to prove their right to be in the UK, while a further seven were wrongfully arrested.

The Home Secretary, who replaced Amber Rudd when she stepped down over the scandal that saw heavy criticism of the hostile environment for migrants, said he would be writing to apologise to the 18 who are the most likely to have suffered detriment.

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Anthony Bryan, of Edmonton, north London, was one of those wrongly arrested, having been detained twice in recent years and told to return to Jamaica, which he left in 1965 aged eight.

The apology is all well and good but for me personally Im still going through the Windrush scandal, the 61-year-old said.

Mr Javid said he will use the letters to direct the 18 towards the compensation scheme.

But Mr Bryan said he needed urgent action after accruing significant debts while being unable to work as a painter and decorator for nearly three years because of the scandal.

The three years I didnt work, its been backing up on me. People are asking for their money that I borrowed off them and unfortunately I cant be dealing with that yet, he said.

Something should have been done a long time ago. Its supposed to be up and running. And not just for me alone, Im sure its not just me going through that. Im not just fighting for myself, Im fighting for the 18.

The experiences faced by some members of the Windrush generation are completely unacceptable and I am committed to righting the wrongs of the pastSajid Javid

Mr Bryan said he returned to work last week having got his biometric residence permit after the scandal was made public.

Officials examined nearly 12,000 historical records to establish that 18 people who came to the country from the Caribbean before 1973 and stayed permanently either left the country voluntarily after being unable to establish continuous residence or were wrongly detained.

Mr Javid also said 74 people have been identified who arrived before the crucial date but appear to have spent more than two years overseas, losing their right to remain in the UK.

He apologised to those identified by the review, adding: The experiences faced by some members of the Windrush generation are completely unacceptable and I am committed to righting the wrongs of the past.
At least 11 drug suspects and one soldier have died during shootouts with military personnel and police in greater Rio de Janeiro.

The direct confrontations between soldiers and armed traffickers marked a deepening of the militarys role in Rios security, as violence erupted in several areas of the city that hosted the Olympics two years ago.

Since the military was put in charge of the states security earlier this year, soldiers have mostly played supporting roles to police during operations, such as securing perimeters or setting up checkpoints. On Monday, soldiers were clearly in the lead.

Our goal is only to make arrests. If there are deaths, the criminals are to blame, Carlos Cinelli, a military spokesman, told reporters, adding that military personnel came under fire during operations. The soldiers have a right to defend themselves.

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Mr Cinelli told reporters that five suspects were killed and another 10 were arrested when soldiers stormed the neighbourhoods of Mare, Complexo do Alemao and Penha.

In a press note later in the afternoon, the military command said one soldier had died and another was injured in the operations.

Mr Cinelli said the operations, which involved more than 4,000 military personnel, were aimed at finding wanted traffickers in the areas. The operation netted four pistols, two grenades and 440lb of marijuana paste, he said.

Brazilian news site G1 reported that many residents in the areas stayed at home, skipping work and school.

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Police said they also killed six suspects during confrontations in Niteroi, across the bay from Rio de Janeiro.

Officers said the shootouts happened while pursuing suspects on one of the access points to the bridge that joins the two cities. The bridge, one of the areas most traversed roads, was temporarily shut.

Three suspects and one police officer were injured, according to a police statement.

In February President Michel Temer put the military in charge of security in the state of Rio. He made the decision after muggings and beatings were captured on camera during Rios world-famous Carnival celebrations.

Human rights groups have criticised the intervention, saying it is disproportionately impacting people, particularly blacks, in poor neighbourhoods.
A protester holds a mirror in front of the Czech Republics prime minister Andrej Babis, front left (Petr David Josek/AP)

A ceremony to honour the victims of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia has turned into a protest against Czech prime minister Andrej Babis who has faced claims that he collaborated with Communist-era secret police.

Hundreds jeered and booed Mr Babis arrival for a ceremony in front of the Czech public radio building in Prague, a site of a fierce street battle between unarmed civilians and invading troops in the first hours of occupation where 17 people died.

Shame, shame, the crowd chanted while blowing horns and whistles during his speech.

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Whatsapp Image on top: Youngsters in 1968 holding Czechoslovakian flags stand on top of an overturned vehicle as other Prague residents surround Soviet tanks in Prague (Libor Hajsky/CTK/AP) Bottom image shows a modern-day scene (Petr David Josek/AP)

Mr Babis did not immediately react to the protest.

Mr Babis, a populist billionaire, is a controversial figure because of a power-sharing deal with the maverick Communist Party and fraud charges he is facing.

There have also been claims he cooperated with secret police during Communist rule.

Troops from the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance formed in 1955 between the Soviet Union and seven Eastern European nations, invaded Czechoslovakia on August 20 1968 to crush liberal reforms enacted in the brief era known as the Prague Spring.

The country was subsequently taken over by a hard-line Communist regime fully loyal to Moscow.

In 1968 alone, 137 people were killed by Warsaw Pact soldiers, and a total of more than 400 died during the occupation of Czechoslovakia that ended only after the 1989 anti-communist Velvet Revolution.

In Brussels, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Europe is not divided by an Iron Curtain any more.

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But let us use this day of solemn commemoration to collectively remember that freedom and the respect for human rights can never be taken for granted and need to be fought for every single day, he said.

In another move related to the anniversary, which will likely anger Russia, Prague authorities unveiled a new explanatory text about the role of Soviet Second World War commander Ivan Stepanovic Konev to his monument in Prague.

Marshall Konev led Red Army forces that liberated large parts of Czechoslovakia from Nazi occupation in 1945.

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His monument was unveiled in the Prague Six district in 1980.

On Tuesday, Prague Six mayor Ondrej Kolar said the authorities wanted to give people full information that would not conceal what happened.

The new text describes Marshall Konevs leading role in crushing the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, his contribution to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the preparation of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Russia and four other former Soviet republics had officially protested against that.

A small group of communists condemned at the site what they called the rewriting of history.

Others demanded the monument was completely removed given what Marshall Konev had done.
Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard, is carried on a stretcher from his home in the Queens borough of New York (AP)

Germanys foreign minister has said the country has a moral obligation to seek justice for victims of the Holocaust, after 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard, Jakiw Palij was deported from the US.

Heiko Maas said there is no line under historical responsibility, adding in a comment to German newspaper Bild that doing justice to the memory of Nazi atrocities means standing by our moral obligation to the victims and the subsequent generations.

ICE has deported Jakiw Palij, a Nazi SS labor camp guard living in Queens. President Trump prioritized the removal of Palij, who claimed he spent WWII working on a farm and in a factory. His presence in the U.S. was an insult to the victims of the Holocaust and their families.  The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) August 21, 2018

Palij landed in the western German city of Dusseldorf on Tuesday.

The local government in Warendorf county, near Munster, indicated that Palij would be taken to a care facility in the town of Ahlen.

German prosecutors have previously said it does not appear that there is enough evidence to charge Palij with wartime crimes.

Now that he is in Germany, Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, said he hoped prosecutors would revisit the case.

Palij lived quietly in the US for years, as a draughtsman and then as a pensioner, until nearly three decades ago, when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was living somewhere in America.

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Palij told Justice Department investigators who showed up at his door in 1993: I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied.

A US judge stripped Palij of his citizenship in 2003 for participation in acts against Jewish civilians while an armed guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and was ordered to be deported a year later.

But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-storey, red brick home in Queens he shared with his wife, Maria, now 86.

His continued presence there outraged the Jewish community, attracting frequent protests over the years.

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According to the Justice Department, Palij served at Trawniki in 1943, the same year 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered.

Palij has admitted serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Last September, all 29 members of New Yorks congressional delegation signed a letter urging the US State Department to follow through on his deportation.

The deportation came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations, which the White House said President Donald Trump had made a priority.

Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palijs deportation to Germany and advanced the United States collaborative efforts with a key European ally, the White House said.
Microsoft has blamed Russian hackers for allegedly targeting US political groups ahead of the midterm elections.

The company said a hacking group tied to the Russian government created fake internet domains that appeared to spoof two American conservative organisations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute.

Three other fake domains were designed to look as if they belonged to the US Senate.

Microsoft did not offer any further description of the fake sites.

Its clear that we all need to do more to help protect democracies from cyberthreats. Thats why we are expanding our Defending Democracy Program with a new initiative called Microsoft #AccountGuard. https://t.co/ulh0JJWid8  Brad Smith (@BradSmi) August 21, 2018

The revelation came just weeks after a similar Microsoft discovery led Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who is running for re-election, to reveal that Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate her Senate computer network.

The hacking attempts mirror similar Russian attacks ahead of the 2016 election, which US intelligence officials have said were focused on helping to elect Republican Donald Trump to the presidency by hurting his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

This time, more than helping one political party over another, this activity is most fundamentally focused on disrupting democracy, Brad Smith, Microsofts president and chief legal officer, said in an interview this week.

Mr Smith said there is no sign the hackers were successful in persuading anyone to click on the fake websites, which could have exposed a target victim to computer infiltration, hidden surveillance and data theft.

Both conservative think tanks said they have tried to be vigilant about spear-phishing email attacks because their global pro-democracy work has frequently drawn the ire of authoritarian governments.

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Were glad that our work is attracting the attention of bad actors, said Hudson Institute spokesman David Tell.

It means were having an effect, presumably.

The International Republican Institute is led by a board that includes six Republican senators, and one prominent Russia critic and Senate hopeful, Mitt Romney, who is running for a Utah seat this fall.

Microsoft calls the hacking group Strontium; others call it Fancy Bear or APT28.

An indictment from US special counsel Robert Mueller has tied it to Russians main intelligence agency, known as the GRU, and to the 2016 email hacking of both the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

We have no doubt in our minds who is responsible, Mr Smith said.

Microsoft has waged a legal battle with Strontium since suing it in a Virginia federal court in summer 2016.

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The company obtained court approval last year allowing it to seize certain fake domains created by the group.

It has so far used the courts to shut down 84 fake websites created by the group, including the most recent six announced on Tuesday.

Microsoft has argued in court that by setting up fake but realistic-looking domains, the hackers were misusing Microsoft trademarks and services to hack into targeted computer networks, install malware and steal sensitive emails and other data.

Mr Smith also announced on Tuesday that the company is offering free cybersecurity protection to all US political candidates, campaigns and other political organisations, at least so long as they are already using Microsofts Office 365 productivity software.

Facebook and Google have also promoted similar tools to combat campaign interference.
Syrian President Bashar Assad, second from left, prays on the first day of Eid al-Adha at al-Rawda mosque, in Damascus (Syrian Presidency/AP)

Syrias President Bashar Assad has attended prayers for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha in Damascus, the seat of his power.

State-run television showed Mr Assad saluting worshippers as he arrived at the al-Rawda mosque and various footage of him praying and talking to people following prayers.

It is the first Eid al-Adha since Syrian troops, backed by Russia, recaptured suburbs of Damascus earlier this year and areas in southern Syria previously held by rebels.

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In recent years, Mr Assad has often travelled outside Damascus to towns and villages recaptured from rebels or Islamic State fighters to attend holiday prayers there.

With crucial military support from allies Russia and Iran, Mr Assads troops have recaptured most rebel strongholds across the country.

The northern province of Idlib is the last major remaining opposition bastion.
Arlene Foster has turned down an invitation to an event during the Pope's visit.

Arlene Foster's attempts at bridge-building haven't just hit a bump in the road, there's been a crash landing with the DUP leader's decision not to meet the Pope this weekend.

Listening to Pope Francis deliver an address in Dublin Castle would have been an easy gig.

Attending a GAA match and an LGBTQ reception were far more challenging events for the DUP leader. The pontiff is unlikely to say anything with which Mrs Foster disagrees.

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On the big social issues of the day - same-sex marriage and abortion reform - the Pope and the DUP are singing off the same hymn sheet.

Other political leaders who will gather in Dublin Castle for Saturday's event have diametrically opposed positions to the pontiff on those subjects.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin, Sinn Fein deputy president Michelle O'Neill et al have strongly liberal views.

Pope Francis could have looked around that room and known that in Mrs Foster he had a friend. The DUP dressed up its no show as well as it could with a statement saying Mrs Foster greatly appreciated the invitation but "regretfully" would be away. Yet the fact remains that even arch-moderate Simon Hamilton wasn't drafted in to replace her.

The Pope may still be the anti-Christ for some in the party's ranks - although a dwindling number - but as a member of the Church of Ireland, Mrs Foster holds no such views herself.

Had he been visiting here, the DUP leader would surely have been present.

Amidst speculation in 2016 about such a trip, a DUP spokesman said: "Any potential visit to Northern Ireland by the Pope is a matter for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. Were the Pope to visit Northern Ireland in his capacity as Head of State, then the First Minister would meet him."

But the party's top brass obviously decided that whatever PR would have been gained from crossing the border to meet the pontiff wasn't enough to justify upsetting a section of its base.

That calculation may be logical but it highlights the shallowness of the party's previous claims that more and more conservative Catholics are supporting it. If they were, the electorally savvy DUP would be first in the Dublin Castle VIP queue on Saturday.

Yet the DUP isn't the only party exposed on this one.

Oh the irony of self-proclaimed secular, progressive politicians being so very keen to have an audience with the Pope - especially in the wake of yet another shocking child sex abuse scandal.
The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia began in earnest 50 years ago today, with the intention to destroy the blooming Prague Spring. But today, the truths that invasion revealed have been lost, both in the West and among many young people in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Krassen Stanchev of Bulgaria recounts the invasions history and importance in detail at Actons Religion & Liberty Transatlantic website. In a new essay, he writes:

On this date in 1968, armies of the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia out of fear that the tiny nation might liberate itself from the yoke of Communism. A nascent liberation had begun in the cultural, religious, and social life of the country, if not its economy. By the mid-1960s, the Marxist government had failed to suppress the Church and extinguish the intellectual quest for freedom of expression, a quest that penetrated all walks of society  from pop music to the Scouting movement. A vigorous defense of religious and human rights came from priests, high literary circles, and even supported to a degree by some honest  though naive  individuals in the ranks of the Communist Party. This would-be liberation became known as the Prague Spring. The August 20-21 invasion attempted to obstruct this embryonic thirst for freedom, deferring liberation for 21 years. Yet today, people in former Warsaw Pact nations  including young Czechs and Slovaks  seem to have forgotten the lessons of that Czechoslovak summer invasion.

The invasion produced three major losses. The most obvious is the loss of life, as those trying to build socialism with a human face were considered expendable by the imperialist Marxisms faceless bureaucrats. Religion, too, lost out, as government intervention in the churchs affairs continue to impede the spread of the Gospel. And the nation lost the potential for greater personal and economic liberty that would have made its citizens more prosperous and autonomous  and thus, no longer Communist.

Todays grim memorial reminds us that those three freedoms  religious, economic, and personal  rise, or fall, as one.

Despite the setbacks that liberty experienced, in 1968 and in the many years since the hopeful events of 1989, Krassen suggests that teaching the events of five decades ago might alert people all over the world to jealously guard their freedoms:

As the Prague Spring was suffocated by military force, a generation lost the hope of instant liberation. But the flashes of discontent with the Communist-Soviet rule that sparked across Eastern Europe did not cease to exist. The 1968 generation in Eastern European nations, to which I too belong, put an end to Soviet rule in 1989. Publicly commemorating the invasion of Czechoslovakia and teaching new generations about the misdeeds of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR is necessary to assure we never repeat similar crimes in the future.

You can read his full essay here.
A Myanmar border guard stands near a fence along the no-mans land between Myanmar and Bangladesh, in Maungdaw township, Rakhine state, June 29, 2018.

Myanmar authorities arrested and tortured Rohingya refugees who reentered Rakhine state from Bangladesh for livelihood purposes, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Tuesday in a report that cast doubt over promises by Naypyitaw for the safe repatriation of Rohingya.

The New York-based international rights watchdog interviewed six Rohingya refugees who had fled back to Bangladesh earlier this year after being held and allegedly tortured by security forces in Rakhine, after they returned to their home state to earn money.

The torture of Rohingya returnees puts the lie to Myanmar government promises that refugees who return will be safe and protected, Phil Robertson, HRWs deputy Asia director, said in a statement.

Despite Myanmars rhetoric guaranteeing a safe and dignified return, the reality is that Rohingya who go back still face the persecution and abuses they were forced to flee.

The six  three men and three boys fled to neighboring southeastern Bangladesh last year as part of a massive exodus of Rohingya from Rakhine state amid a crackdown by Myanmar security forces following attacks in August 2017 by a Rohingya insurgent group, according to HRW.

Details of abuse

In interviews conducted with the six at camps in Bangladesh, the refugees told HRW they had been subjected to beatings with fists, sticks and rods, electrical shock as well as interrogations at gunpoint by Myanmar border police and other officials.

The guards tried to force them to confess about their suspected affiliation with the rebel group known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), HRW said.

They burned a plastic bag and let the hot plastic drip onto my body. They also took a heated iron bar and branded my legs, pressed burning cigarettes to my skin, poured hot wax from a burning candle on my skin, scratched my body with blade, and hit me with rod and sticks, a 17-year-old refugee identified as Rahmat told HRW.

At first, they kicked me in my chest and thigh and then they used electric shock to make me tell them I was an ARSA member, but they could not make me give a false confession, said another refugee, Lokhman, 24.

HRW said the six Rohingya were sentenced to four-year prison terms but were among dozens of returnees who received a pardon from Myanmars president on May 27.

The six interviewed by HRW were among two Rohingya groups that fled to Bangladesh after Myanmar authorities had presented them along with dozens of returnees to media organizations visiting Rakhine on June 1.

The mistreatment reinforces the need for international protection, including United Nations monitors on the ground, before Rohingya will be able to return safely to Myanmar, HRW said.

Efforts by Radio Free Asia (RFA), a sister entity of BenarNews, to reach a Myanmar government spokesman for a response to the allegations from HRW were unsuccessful.

Meanwhile in Singapore, Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi defended her government over international criticism of its policies and actions in Rakhine state.

We who are living through the transition in Myanmar view it differently than those who observe it from the outside and who will remain untouched by its outcome, she said during a lecture on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.

Suu Kyi also blamed the ARSA rebels for causing the crisis in Rakhine.

The danger of terrorist activities which was the initial cause of events leading to the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine remains real and present today, she said.

Unless this security challenge is addressed, the risk of intercommunal violence will remain. It is a threat that could have grave consequences, not just for Myanmar but also for other countries in our region and beyond.

Upcoming anniversary

Aug. 25 marks the first anniversary of an unprecedented influx of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh that saw more than 700,000 members of the stateless minority group seek shelter in Coxs Bazar and neighboring districts.

Last November, the Bangladeshi and Myanmar governments signed a bilateral agreement for the voluntary repatriation to Rakhine of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees.

But last week, Habibul Kabir Chowdhury, a senior Bangladeshi government official who accompanied Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali during a visit to Rakhine, said conditions for the safe repatriation of the refugees had yet to be created.

Commenting on the report about the alleged torture of the six Rohingya, a former Bangladeshi ambassador and expert on international affairs said that unless the Rohingya feel safe, they must not return to Rakhine.

The [U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees] and other international organizations have rightly pointed out that the situation in Rakhine is not conducive for Rohingya repatriation, Humayun Kabir, vice president of a local think-tank, the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, told BenarNews.

Myanmars activities substantiate that the Rohingya people are not safe under the Myanmar government.

Kamran Reza Chowdhury in Dhaka contributed to this report.
Meiliana, the accused in a blasphemy case, listens to the verdict at a court in Medan, North Sumatra, Aug. 21, 2018.

A court in Indonesias North Sumatra province on Tuesday sentenced a woman to 18 months after her complaint over noise from a mosque triggered arson attacks on Buddhist temples in 2016.

Meiliana, a 44-year-old Buddhist of Chinese descent who goes by only one name, was found guilty by judges at Medan District Court of showing hostility to religion, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison under Indonesian law.

[The defendant] is proven guilty beyond reasonable doubts of having publicly and deliberately expressed a feeling or carried out acts of hostility, abuse or blasphemy toward a religion in Indonesia, chief judge Wahyu Prasetyo Wibowo said.

Meiliana wept after the verdict was read. Her lawyer Ranto Sibarani said she would appeal.

In 2016, Meiliana came to a neighbor in Tanjung Balai city and complained that the noise from calls to prayers blasted through mosque loudspeakers was hurting her ears and asked that the volume be turned down.

Your mosque is deafening. I have no peace every day, she said, according to the indictment.

Meliana has denied saying those words.

A mosque official later visited Meliana and asked her if she had made a request.

Melianas husband later apologized for his wifes action but rumors soon spread among locals and on social media that she had asked the mosque to stop azan, or calls to prayers.

On July 29, 2016, locals threw rocks at Meilianas house.

A riot then spread across the town, with mobs burning temples and other buildings owned by the local ethnic Chinese.

The North Sumatran branch of the Indonesia Ulema Council (MUI) issued a fatwa in January 2017 that Meilianas words were blasphemous.

At least eight rioters have been sentenced to jail terms of between one and two months in prison.

But pressure from Muslim groups mounted on the police who arrested Meiliana in May.

The head of the Islamic Ummah Forum in North Sumatra, Indra Suhari, said the sentence was too lenient.

We are disappointed, he said.

Bonar Tigor Naipospos, deputy chairman of Setara Institute, a human rights organization based in Jakarta, said Meiliana did not receive a fair trial.

Its similar to the Ahok case. Most blasphemy cases result from a combination of pressure from the public and intolerant groups, and MUI fatwas have been a determining factor, he said, referring to former Jakarta Gov. Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama, who was sentenced to two years for blasphemy for remarks deemed insulting to Islam.

The defendant, her lawyer, judges and prosecutors were subjected to psychological pressure by the presence of members of intolerant groups during the trial, he said.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (left), and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang chat during a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Aug. 20, 2018.

Updated at 4:45 ET on 2018-08-21

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad confirmed to Chinese leaders that he is canceling China-backed multi-billion dollar rail link and gas pipeline projects because Malaysia cannot afford and does not need them now, he told reporters on the final day of a five-day visit to Beijing.

Since taking office after his Pakatan Harapan alliance defeated former Prime Minister Najib Razaks Barisan Nasional coalition in the May general election, Mahathir said his government had inherited a 1 trillion ringgit (U.S. $244 billion) debt.

Mahathir, who returned to Malaysia on Tuesday, said Chinese officials understood his predicament, but he added that shutting down the East Coast Railway Link (ECRL) and the pipelines would not free his country from incurred costs.

With that debt, if we are not careful we can become bankrupt, he said in a video interview posted on the Malaysiakini news site. This is the work of Najib.

China is the contractor and they lent the money and we have explained to them that we cannot afford it and we must find a way to exit this project at the lowest cost possible, Mahathir said.

He added that Malaysia would have to pay compensation and all that, but this is our own peoples stupidity, we cannot blame the Chinese for that.

I dont think China wants us to be bankrupt, the Malaysian state news service Bernama quoted the prime minister as saying.

The projects [will] not go on. Our priority is reducing our debt. For the moment, they are deferred until we can afford," Mahathir said. When asked by journalists, he clarified stating, "Yes, they are cancelled at the moment."

Last month, Malaysian Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng announced that the government had halted the pipeline projects.

He partly justified the move by saying that the China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau, the Chinese state firm awarded with contracts in November 2016, had been paid 85 percent of the projects value despite completing only 13 percent of the work.

Meanwhile, The Star newspaper reported last week that the government had paid 19.68 billion ringgit ($4.8 billion) for the ECRL project and about 15 percent of the work had been completed.

In August 2017, Najib hailed ECRL as a game changer for Malaysia, stating that the 688-km (430-mile) project spanning the states of Selangor, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan, was to be completed in 2024 at a cost of $13 billion and backed mostly by loans from China.

In July, Eng noted that the cost of the project had increased by 26 billion ringgit (U.S. $6.4 billion) to 81 billion ringgit ($20 billion).

Malaysias new government backs Belt, Road Initiative

Before Mahathir left China, the two nations issued a joint statement that included Malaysias support for and participation in the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and plans for a program focusing on economic and trade cooperation through 2022.

The initiative is a grand strategy by Beijing to build a vast network of roads, railway lines and ports in South and South Asia that will allow China to trade more easily with European countries via the Indian Ocean and Central Asia.

Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, who met with Mahathir, said both countries believed in the need to advocate free trade and promote globalization.



Answering a question regarding the prospect of a trade war with the United States, Li stressed that in trade wars there will be no winners.

The whole world is an industrial chain that is interconnected. If there are trade frictions in some areas, people will look for other alternatives, Li said.

Smiling at Lis remarks, Mahathir said free trade is the way to go, but free trade must also be fair trade.



We must always remember that development levels of countries are not always the same, he said.

Meanwhile, Oh Ei Sun, a senior adviser for international affairs at the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute, said Malaysia remained important to China.



Malaysia is strategically located at the crossroads of east and west and is thus crucial for the viability of Belt and Road Initiative, said Oh, adding that the country was one of the more important open economies in the world.



In this increasingly protectionist world, it is important for China to ally itself with more such economies.
A radioactive warning sign is seen on a container carrying nuclear waste as part of a convoy in Valognes, France, Nov. 22, 2011.

Malaysian police confirmed Tuesday that they were searching for a device with radioactive material which went missing 11 days ago, but ruled out that terrorists had laid hands on it.

The Radioactive Dispersal Device (RDD), weighing 23 kilos (50.7 pounds) and belonging to a local company, disappeared on Aug. 10 while being transported in the back of a pickup truck in the Kuala Lumpur area, according to the New Straits Times newspaper, which broke the story on Monday.

We have investigated the case and found no links to terrorism. CID is handling it now, Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, the head of the Malaysian polices counter-terrorist special branch, told BenarNews, referring to the Criminal Investigation Department.

This has happened before, according to Malaysias police chief.

The same thing happened last year, when a similar device went missing. The device is still missing, Police Inspector-General Mohamad Fuzi Harun told reporters on Monday.

Nobody has found it.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, police in Selangor state said they formed a task force of officers and experts from the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) to search for the RDD device, which went missing earlier this month and contained the radioactive isotope Iridium 192.

Selangor Police Chief Mazlan Mansor told BenarNews that his officers were working with the AELB to safeguard people from being exposed to health risks from the radioactive material. Exposure to the isotope within a one-meter (3.2-foot) radius can cause vomiting or skin burns, he said.

Deputy Home Minister Azis Jamman told the public to not panic.

So far, everything is under control. There is nothing to be worried about at this moment, he said in a statement issued Monday.

The missing RDD was used in industrial radiography and belonged to a firm that conducts tests, calibrations and inspections for oil and gas companies and other heavy industry firms, BBC News reported.

Two technicians who transported the device on the night it went missing were released on bail after police held them for questioning in connection with the case, reports said.

A local security expert said Iridium 192 can fetch a good price on the international black market, but the isotope is not in great demand on the domestic market.

We do not have enough knowledge in this field and we do not have groups that want this item for the black market, retired Brig. Gen. Arshad Raji told BenarNews.

It is different in Latin America or Middle East where such an item is expensive as it can be used as a dirty bomb. It is uncommon in Malaysia but I do hope that authorities can quickly retrieve the device, he said.

Radiologist Abdul Nassir Ibrahim, meanwhile, said the missing device did not pose a threat to public health as long as it was not broken or leaking radioactive material.

It was unlikely that the device could be turned into a weapon, he added.

I dont see any possibility that in our country, the device will turn into a dirty bomb. Maybe in Chechnya or in Mindanao, but not here, he told BenarNews.
Across the predominantly Catholic Philippines, Muslims on Tuesday celebrated Eid-ul-Adha as thousands descended on Manilas Golden Mosque to offer prayers.

BenarNews photographers captured the solemn but joyous gatherings in Manila and in the town of Balo-i, just outside the devastated city of Marawi in the southern Philippines, 10 months after the end of a deadly siege by militants linked to the so-called Islamic State. Residents remain displaced as the military has been unable to clear Marawi of all unexploded ordnance and munitions dropped on the city to dislodge the militants.

About 12,000 people are still uprooted and in dire need of assistance, according to Mohammad Agakhan Sharief, president of Khadija Mohammad Islamic Academy in Balo-i. Some of the families helped in preparing meat for distribution to thousands of displaced families, including many living in tents or with relatives.

I am confident that Marawi will rise again in peace, said Hasip Bingol of Turkeys Care Solidarity and Development Association, which supported the local Eid celebration.

Millions of Muslims in the region celebrate Eid-ul-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice that honors Ibrahims willingness to sacrifice his son to God and the end of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. A key part of the celebration is the slaughter of animals for the feast.

In some parts of South and Southeast Asia, Eid was celebrated on Tuesday while the holiday will be observed on Wednesday in other areas.

Luis Liwanag and Froilan Gallardo in Manila and Balo-i contributed to this report.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, the loss of religion in America.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For Immediate Release, August 21, 2018

Contact: Vera Pardee, (858) 717-1488, vpardee@biologicaldiversity.org

Trump Administration Unveils Dirty Power Plan

WASHINGTON The Trump administrations Environmental Protection Agency released today a proposed replacement of the Clean Power Plan that would let states decide whether and how to limit power-plant pollution. It would also incentivize companies to keep aging coal plants in operation rather than replace them with cleaner energy projects.

This plan will unleash massive soot, smog and disease and push us deeper into climate catastrophe, said Vera Pardee, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity. Trump is doubling down on our dirtiest power sources and its going to send polar bears, ice seals and other wildlife over the edge of extinction. But like most of his environmental rollbacks, this proposal mangles the facts, the law and the science, and wont survive in court.

Background

The nations fleet of fossil-fuel power plants is the largest stationary source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The Clean Power Plan, finalized by the Obama administration in 2015, imposed the first-ever nationwide limits on carbon pollution from power plants.

Power plants also emit pollutants that cause asthma and other health problems. According to the Trump EPAs own analysis, the proposed replacement rule would lead to up to 1,400 premature deaths annually by 2030.

In October 2017 then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced a proposal to repeal the rule. Compared to the Clean Power Plan, the proposed replacement would release at least 12 times the amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the next decade.

Todays proposal is the latest in a wave of attacks on climate and wildlife, including efforts to roll back clean car standards and gut the Endangered Species Act.
For Immediate Release, August 21, 2018 Contact: Jenny Loda, (510) 844-7100 x 336, jloda@biologicaldiversity.org Lawsuit Launched to Protect Critical Habitat for Two Threatened Snakes in Arizona, New Mexico PHOENIX The Center for Biological Diversity today filed a formal notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to designate critical habitat for the northern Mexican garter snake and narrow-headed garter snake. Threatened by nonnative species and the loss and degradation of their riverside habitats, these aquatic garter snakes have undergone dramatic, range-wide declines in their native habitats of Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. The snakes are now almost entirely limited to small, isolated populations at risk of being driven extinct. If these unique, beautiful garter snakes are going to survive, federal officials need to start protecting their habitat, said Jenny Loda, a Center biologist and attorney working to protect vulnerable amphibians and reptiles. Delay means death for these extremely vulnerable creatures. Safeguarding the rivers these snakes need to live will also benefit other native species and people. After more than a decade of delay in response to the Centers legal advocacy, the Fish and Wildlife Service protected northern Mexican garter snakes as well as narrow-headed garter snakes as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2014. The agency proposed protecting more than 420,000 acres of critical habitat for the snakes along with the listing proposal in 2013, but failed to finalize those habitat protections. Designating critical habitat is an important step toward ensuring the snakes survival. Their decline has been caused by the destruction of their streamside habitats through livestock grazing, water withdrawal and agricultural and urban sprawl, as well as by the introduction and spread of nonnative species like sunfish, bass and crayfish. The Fish and Wildlife Service found that 83 percent of the northern Mexican garter snakes populations in the United States and 76 percent of the narrow-headed garter snakes populations occur at low densities or may already be gone. Critical habitat designation would help address the numerous threats by requiring federal agencies to consult with the Service when their actions may result in damage or destruction of the snakes habitats. Studies show that species with critical habitat protections are twice as likely to be recovering as those without, said Loda. Its time for the Service to stop dragging its feet and comply with the Endangered Species Act by finalizing habitat protections for these threatened snakes. The Center petitioned for the listing of the Mexican garter snake in 2003. After several lawsuits, the snake was designated a candidate for Endangered Species Act protection in 2008. In 2011 the Center submitted a status report documenting the need for protection of the narrow-headed garter snake. Under the Centers landmark 2011 settlement with the Fish and Wildlife Service, both species were listed as threatened in 2014. Background

The northern Mexican garter snake historically existed in every county in Arizona, with additional populations in New Mexico and Mexico. It ranges from olive to olive-brown in color and has three bright, lateral stripes. The northern Mexican garter snakes habitat requirements include permanent water, vegetative cover and native prey. The narrow-headed garter snake is widely considered one of the most aquatic garter snakes. This small- to medium-sized garter snake is tan or gray-brown, has an unusually elongated head, and has brown, black or reddish spots. It lives in the Mogollon Rim in New Mexico and Arizona, in clear and rocky stream habitats.
CAM has signed a MoU with NHSRC of State Health Society, Gujarat to provide technical support for implementing Ayushman Bharat programme in Dahod district.

Charutar Arogya Mandal (CAM) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC) of State Health Society, Gujarat to provide technical support for implementing Ayushman Bharat programme in Dahod district.

CAMs chief executive officer (CEO) Sandeep Desai, extension programme head Dr Shyamsundar Raithatha and mission director of National Health Mission, Gujarat, Dr Gaurav Dahiya were present during the signing of the agreement.

Earlier, CAM was selected as an innovation and learning centre for providing technical support to the government at national and state level to roll out Ayushman Bharat programmes comprehensive health and wellness centre initiative.
Is There A Common Story Behind Onam & Raksha Bandhan? Faith Mysticism oi-Renu

Onam is the official state festival of Kerala. Games, fairs and competitions are organized on this day by the Malayali Hindus. The boat race is the most popular among these. Similarly, the festival of Raksha Bandhan, mainly celebrated in the northern regions of India, is dedicated to the brother-sister bond. But did you know that the stories of both the festivals are interrelated and these festivals share a common past? Let us explore how.

The Stories Of Onam And Raksha Bandhan

The Powerful King Mahabali

Once there lived a king named Mahabali. Though he was a virtuous human and a responsible ruler, he soon became too confident about his achievements. Overpowered by pride, he decided to establish his supremacy over the universe by defeating all the gods. Being a staunch devotee of Lord Vishnu, he was powerful enough to undertake such battles. Within a few months he conquered the Devloka, where most of the gods lived.

Power and pride become toxic when they overpower the good in a man. This happened with Mahabali too. Gods knew this very well. Fearing the king, they approached Lord Vishnu who lived in Vaikhuntha. They wanted him to kill the king but Lord Vishnu did not want to do so for Mahabali was his devotee. However, he promised to find a remedy, after testing the devotion of Mahabali.

Mahabali Organizes A Feast

On the other hand, Mahabali organized a feast where the prominent saints, priests, kings and intellectuals were invited. To showcase his prowess, the king declared that he would fulfill a wish of each guest. We know Lord Vishnu is known as an intelligent God who has conquered the pride of many whenever he has incarnated on earth. Grabbing the opportunity where he could test Mahabali, he took the form of a dwarf sage, Vaman and presented himself at the meeting.

Vaman's Amusing Wish

The meeting, comprising the most revered personalities of the times, proceeded with Mahabali asking every guest his wish and fulfilling it. When it was Vaman's turn to state his wish, he demanded just three pieces of land, equivalent to three footsteps. A little amused by the wish of the dwarf sage, the king agreed to grant his wish.

As the king consented to it, Lord Vishnu transformed into a giant Vaman. With his incredibly big footsteps, Vaman covered the sky in the first, the earth in the second and asked Mahabali where the third step should be kept. His pride vanished and the king offered his own head to keep the third step on it.

As Lord Vishnu stepped on to the head, the king was sent off to the netherworld (Patalloka). Having been relieved from the king's rule over Devloka, the gods rejoiced. However, Lord Vishnu was pleased with the king's act of offering his head.

Thus Lord Vishnu gave permission to the king to visit his kingdom in present day Kerala, once in a year. This day is today celebrated as Onam when the people of Kerala celebrate the homecoming of their former king Mahabali.

When Mahabali Requested Lord Vishnu To Accompany Him

However, that is just half part of the story. Lord Vishnu, pleased with the king's devotion, agreed to grant a wish to him. So the king took a promise from Lord Vishnu that he should accompany him to his new abode in the netherworld. Having made the promise, the lord had to go along with the king. Goddess Lakshmi got worried when she came to know the whole story.

She was worried as to who would look after the Prithviloka (earth) if Lord Vishnu was to stay in Patalloka (netherworld). However, Narad Muni, the wandering brainy sage, soon appeared there to help her out. He advised she should visit Mahabali and tie a raksha sutra (thread of protection) around the wrist of the king, and thus ask for Lord Vishnu to be relieved of the promise.

Goddess Lakshmi Tied Raksha Sutra Around Mahabali's Wrist

Goddess Lakshmi reached the abode of Mahabali, and told about the thread of protection that she had brought for the king. The king, pleased to have the thread tied around his wrist, asked the Goddess what he should give her in return.

The Goddess said that tying the raksha sutra around his wrist, she had accepted him as his brother and in return she demanded Lord Vishnu to be released of the promise. As the day was a Purnima of Shravana month according to the present day Hindu calendar, every such Purnima of this month is celebrated as Raksha Bandhan.

Story Of Bakrid


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Finnian O Domhnaill was impressed by Zelda Holtzman last week and draws comparisons between post GFA North of Ireland and South Africa after Apartheid.





Unfortunately time did not allow us to hear more about the situation in South Africa. However what we did hear, and the similarities with the North, were striking. Does it serve neo liberalism and colonial ideology for the historic powers to have a stake in the development of new states and governments? Is it the natural corruption that power brings to people that creates such similarities? Or has it been carefully orchestrated by powers which have more to lose in the power balance of capitalism and globalisation?







Finn O'Donnell is the People Before Profit Letterkenny Branch Organiser. He is also a founding member of the Homeless & Housing Coalition, Donegal.



Last week we attended a talk in Derry by Zelda Holtzman, a South African activist and campaigner. Zelda was active in the ANC underground in Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) military structure and in the SA Communist Party. From 1995 to 2003, she served as a high ranking official within the South African Police Service and led the work to transform it. Later, she was head of Parliamentary Protection Services but, after challenging the inappropriate use of state resources was unfairly dismissed. She subsequently challenged her dismissal. Zelda is an active campaigner against state capture (systemic corruption) in South Africa.Zelda spoke honestly about how ANC have evolved from the party symbolizing the revolution in South Africa, to a party riddled with corruption. As she explained this evolution over the years, the similarities with the situation in the North of Ireland were startling. Here I summarize some of her main points.Like here, many in South Africa want to hold on to and preserve their revolutionary legacy, while ignoring the immediate issues of today. This generation of South African young people want answers but those who lived through apartheid often assume the authoritative role and silence any dissent based on the past.Zelda explained that in any revolution the movement exists on the consciousness of oppression. In most instances once the oppressed gain power, and the dynamics change, this is where difficulties arise. Beyond oppression a state needs structural and economic reform. Reconciliation is but one aspect. Without economic reform people continue to divide into their own camps whether thats through race, religion or class. It is all underpinned by economic inequality.South Africa emerged out of apartheid at a time when neo liberal economics were being championed. While many ANC members had misgivings, they went along with adopting this in the belief it would deliver for their people. Like the North, and the promised peace dividends, many in South Africa still await any of the benefits. The trickle down economy only trickles so far.In recent years communities and former members have reached a point where promises are no longer enough. They want delivery. Meanwhile the grand scale corruption within the ANC was being fully realised. The party closed ranks to criticism or dissent. Any critical analysis results in being labelled as the enemy, a counter revolutionary, anti-ANC. The same reaction occurs in nationalist communities when anyone attempts to criticise Sinn Fein and their position within the community and voluntary sector in particular. Its a well known fact that jobs are created and preserved for members and anyone who has criticised them in recent year has been labelled the well known term of dissident. In South Africa the ANC centralised civil society and community sector funding in 1995 as means of silencing the power of the sector.To be clear the definition of dissident is as follows:A person who opposes official policy, especially that of an authoritarian state.In opposition to official policy.So former revolutionaries and dissenters have now abused the word to portray any criticism of their own actions, as the ruling power, as a negative.Zelda explained how the perception exists that the ANC are always right, as historically they were on the right side of history. Their journey from revolutionaries to rule makers has created a disconnect and a disrespect of the working class people. In a position of privilege an abuse of power occurs and principles are lost. A good point was that the vestiges of colonialism still exist in the make up of our parliamentary structures. In many post colonial states the government is based on that of Britain. Why have so many new states held onto this structure?Power gives access to knowledge. It also allows a restriction of knowledge and has led to the ANC operating on a need to know basis. For many revolutionary organisations and parties this is a continuation of how their military operations worked throughout conflict. In a position of power this way of working only serves to stop questions being asked.For those who do speak out there are very serious consequences. These can range from a loss of employment opportunities to the possibility of violence. Zelda reflected on how the party is now made up of many opportunists. Many never fought for liberation. While any party naturally evolves, the core principles should remain. Sadly as can also be seen here, many people participate in the politics of popularity and personal gain. The original values of equality and socialism no longer apply. The ANC are even now against striking workers as many party members have shares in the corporations.As it stands there is currently no political alternative right now, but grassroots organisations are emerging. Young people and students are creating social movements outside of mainstream political structures. They address a range of issue including the environment, employment, education, health and land grabs. However it appears these have been heavily infiltrated in an attempt to turn the community against them. The ANC means to create distortion in social justice movements to minimise their potential power.Like most countries the media is heavily biased. Again many ANC members are a part of the media corporations. We live in a time of social media which allows opportunities to challenge the mainstream narrative and to create and strengthen our own narrative.Zelda ended the talk by reflecting on her own involvement and asking questions of how a revolutionary movement can stay true to its values. She admits that in hindsight she and others may have been naive to assume that the party would be all encompassing, progressive and able to achieves its original aims. That maybe she should have seen the vulnerabilities in gradually falling away from their principles. A good point was that the struggle ahead is harder when it is now a struggle against your own. The community depend on the legacy and still have the hope that the ANC will liberate them. The electorate vote for this legacy time and again instead of their future. 20 years since the GFA and the electorate in the North continue to vote the same parties based on legacy and decades old promises. Yet nothing changes.An interesting question which can be applied globally is whether capitalism kills off revolutionary movements? The growth of neo liberalism has done this to an extent. Zelda re emphasised that continuing to strengthen grassroots movements around human issues, regardless of the capitalist and corrupt state, is the best hope of reclaiming power.
The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now.

Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market.

In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender.

India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex.

Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted.

But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted?

Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner.

If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems.

I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now.

I want more variation in masturbation

I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own.

If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end.

What is sex toys for Indian?

Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation.

It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms.

They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable.

Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner.

The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner.

It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past.

In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping.

Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order.

In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing.

Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome.

Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own.

But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance.

More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around.

Sextoy situation in India

Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years.

In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India.

Mumbai

Kolkata

Bangalore

Delhi

Chennai

Hyderabad

These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India.

In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well.

If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too.

If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it.

What are Sextoys for beginner?

Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms.

Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy.

I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion.

I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy.

If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma.

Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it.

Advantages of using sextoy for Indians

There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians

You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways.

Can have stimulating sex

Can develop new sexual zones

If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern.

However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways.

You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation.

Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever.

There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure.

This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it.

When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems.

It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms).

For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles

[Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou...

Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India.

Sextoy for beginner men in India

So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners.

For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men!

The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men

Masturbator

Cock rings

Love Doll

Sex Lubricants

Toys for the prostate

Lets check each one in detail.

Masturbator

The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products.

It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands.

Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands.

They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.)

Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much.

Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! !

Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa   SEXToys India PR  (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018

Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood.

If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here

Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ...

[For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien...

Cock Ring

A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.

It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.

It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.

In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.

Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.

It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.

Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.

Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.

Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.

You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.

[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...

Love Doll

Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.

There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.

Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.

The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.

You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.

There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.

You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.

If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here

Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to...

Sex lubricants

Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.

It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.

Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.

There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.

Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.

If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.

What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many...

Toys for the Prostate

Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.

The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.

Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.

Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.

What is the prostate?

The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.

You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.

By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.

Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)

The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.

Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.

sextoy for beinner women in India

The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.

The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.

Vibrator.

Dildo

Electric Masserger

Lets check out what each one is in detail.

If you want to check out womens toys, click here.

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Vibrators

A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.

Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.

It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.

Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.

For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.

Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.

Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.

This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.

Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.

When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.

Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most...

Dildo

A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.

It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.

A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.

They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.

It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.

A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.

Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.

For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.

This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.

To learn more about dildo, please click here.

What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th...

Electric Masserger

A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.

It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.

Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.

Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.

It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.

For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.

It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.

If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?

To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.

What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...

How to choose a sextoy for Indian

Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.

Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points:  Does the size fit you (the partner)?

Does the size fit you (your partner)?

Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?

Price range

First of all, the choice of size is quite important.

Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.

For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.

Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.

Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.

If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.

Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.

Finally, there is the price range.

The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.

Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.

Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?

I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.

For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.

If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.

How to buy sextoys in India

The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.

For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.

Sextoy is one of them.

Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.

SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.

They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.

Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card.

To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.

ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.

Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.

Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture.

Cautions for Indians using sextoy

When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind

Keep sex toys clean

Watch out for electrical leakage

Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy

As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.

Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.

It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.

In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.

Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.

If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.

You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.

Summary

What did you think?

In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.

The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.

As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values.

However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health.

If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?

Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women.

I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it.
With just two millimetres of precipitation so far, this month is poised to be the second-driest August on record in Brandon, according to Environment Canada.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/8/2018 (1167 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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With just two millimetres of precipitation so far, this month is poised to be the second-driest August on record in Brandon, according to Environment Canada.

Meteorologist Terri Lang said the driest August was recorded in 1961, with just 1.3 millimetres of precipitation.

"Its been a very, very long dry stretch for a number of communities across the Prairies," she said.

There was a fair amount of precipitation in the area in June (72.4 mm, compared to the average of 80.7 mm). The dry conditions started to become evident in July, with 42.8 mm of precipitation recorded, compared to a 73.4-mm 30-year average.

Lang said there isnt any significant precipitation in the forecast during the next few days. However, the good news is that it appears the current weather pattern is starting to break down.

"I think everybody across Western Canada is going to start seeing cooler temperatures, and a better chance of precipitation," she said. "So it looks like on the weekend will be the first chance of seeing some decent rain for the (Brandon) area."

According to Agriculture Canadas drought monitor, Brandon and the surrounding area is experiencing a "moderate drought." This represents an event that occurs every five to 10 years.

During a recent city council meeting, Coun. Jan Chaboyer (Green Acres) brought up the issue as it relates to the citys drinking water. She requested a report on the status of the citys river water, which is the primary source of drinking water.

City manager Rod Sage explained that staff continue to monitor river water levels at the intake for the supply of the water treatment facility.

"The Assiniboine River is lower than desirable from an operating perspective," he said. "However, there is no immediate risk to the drinking water supply. The lower water levels increase the required maintenance at the intake to ensure screens are kept clean and water can continue to flow into the facility."

Sage said the facility is designed to treat for variabilities in river water quality, and operators continuously monitor to respond to those changes.

"Based on the current river conditions and water demand, more chemical addition has been needed to meet treated water quality requirements in the distribution system," Sage added.

River levels in Brandon are controlled by the flow out of the Shellmouth Dam. Sage said the city has a water conservation plan in place, but it has been determined that a stand-alone drought plan is also necessary. Staff have already begun work on this plan.

Staff are reviewing plans to "ensure that weve got a water supply as the city needs, regardless of wet or dry cycle," Sage said. "Climate change is something that is a fact. Its not a myth and staff are adjusting our operations with those climate changes as a whole."

Water treatment plant manager Rob Smith said they have experienced dry conditions and low river levels before and they are well-prepared to do so again.

"As far as water quality issues, it doesnt create anything thats really any different than what happens normally," he said.

He noted that in the summer, the facility actually uses fewer chemicals because the water is warmer. The only chemical they use in the summer and not in the winter is activated carbon.

"We usually start that up once the river breaks up and well trickle it into the water," he said. "It helps us to remove or eliminate taste and odour out of the water."

Smith added that the dry conditions have not impacted the citys water quality.

 jaustin@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @jillianaustin
The newly placed cameras above the directories board at Shoppers Mall in Brandon are collecting information about people without their knowledge.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/8/2018 (1167 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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The newly placed cameras above the directories board at Shoppers Mall in Brandon are collecting information about people without their knowledge.

"The board attempts to anonymously interpret age and gender in aggregate," said Candace McKenzie, marketing director for Shoppers Mall, adding that no images or videos are captured or stored.

The CBC recently reported that Cadillac Fairview was using facial recognition software in malls across Canada to profile shoppers without notification or consent.

Rather than capture videos, the system at Shoppers Mall  which is operated by Morguard  gathers video analytics, which McKenzie said gather more general data about the people they capture.

Those who were at the mall on Monday had mixed feelings about the cameras.

"I think they should have a sign on there warning people that youre now being watched for who you are. I think they should provide some kind of a warning that youre on camera," shopper Aldin Foy said, adding that he questions whether the information gathered is accurate.

"How can you tell if somebody is not gender-specific, if theyre a female who was once a male, or a male who was once a female?" he asked.

The data will help the mall identify visitor trends so that it can potentially offer new retailers to better suit the community, McKenzie said.

Shopper Angela Johnston said she didnt have a problem with the cameras.

"Theres more cameras than we know around, so it doesnt really bother me," Johnston said, adding that the information gathered might help management improve the mall.

She said that with more data, Shoppers Mall might be able to better cater stores to meet the needs of those who shop there.

McKenzie limited her correspondence with The Brandon Sun on this matter to emailed comments.

"We would prefer to respond by email rather than verbal means if possible," McKenzie said in email correspondence with a party that works closely with Morguard on its network.

 mverge@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @Melverge5
American Airlines have announced a new summer service from Dallas to Dublin beginning next summer.

The new service will commence on June 6, 2019 and will see daily flights from Dublin to Dallas/Fort Worth airport running until September 28.

The move will help to boost tourism from the US market and offer more choice to prospective American visitors living in Texas, according to Tourism Ireland.

"Todays announcement is more good news for tourism to the island of Ireland as we prepare for 2019," said Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland.

"We already work very closely with American Airlines and we look forward to co-operating with them to maximise the promotion of this new service from Dallas.

"As an island, the importance of convenient, direct, non-stop flights cannot be overstated  they are absolutely critical to achieving growth in inbound tourism.

"2018 looks set to be another record year for Irish tourism from North America, with the latest CSO figures showing more than 1 million arrivals from the United States and Canada during the first half of the year  an increase of +10.7% when compared to the same six-month period in 2017.

"Todays announcement is really positive and augurs well for prospects for tourism from North America to Ireland in 2019 and beyond."

Digital Desk
By Trend





Russian company Holding Aqua, a subsidiary of the state-owned company Kavminkurortresursy (KMKR), has started to export mineral water "Essentuki No.4" and "Essentuki No.17" to Azerbaijan, TASS reported referring to KMKR's press service.

"The Russian enterprise has concluded a contract on "Essentuki No.4" and "Essentuki No.17" deliveries to the Republic of Azerbaijan". Azerbaijan will be supplied with mineral water, mined and bottled in the Caucasian Mineralnye Vody city. In the near future, the company's exports to other countries will also be launched," the message said.

Some 48,000 bottles of mineral water have already been shipped to Azerbaijan within the framework of the agreement. The parties plan to expand cooperation and increase the volume of supplies. For the case of export to Azerbaijan, water will be produced with a special label, written in Russian and Azerbaijani.

"Our enterprise not only exports Essentuki to the Azerbaijani market, but also prepares to start deliveries of products to a number of other countries, including Israel, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Essentuki is a brand with a history. I am confident that our Russian brand will have a worthy place on the shelves of foreign stores. However, we firstly need to fully meet the demand within the country," General Director of Holding Aqua Suleyman Vagapov said.

State Company Kavminkurortresursy is the largest subsoil user of the Caucasian Mineral Waters. The company has the right to extract mineral waters from five deposits - Kislovodsk, Yessentuki, Beshtau, Pyatigorsk and Zheleznovodsk. The company owns Tambukan deposit of therapeutic mud, 210 wells of mineral water, more than 50 km of mineral water pipelines.
Brendan Howlin has said that he understood the depth of the crisis that faced the Labour party in the aftermath of the last general election.

Mr Howlin was speaking on Today with Miriam O'Callaghan amid calls from members of his party to step down as party leader.

Mr Howlin said that it is wrong to suggest that switching the name on the Labour leader's door is going to have the impact his critics suggest it will.

He said that he hoped for a very open discussion at the party's two-day think-in, in September.

"We don't have one leader, one voice. Everyone is entitled to an opinion," said Mr Howlin.

"My style of leadership as I laid out from the beginning is not only open but collective."

He said that he would be setting out his stall very vigorously at the two-day party meeting.

Mr Howlin said it is not true that the party had disengaged from its members and he had set out to rebuild the party and reconnect with trade unions.

I know that people were disillusioned by the party after the last general election and I had no illusion that it was going to be a very simple switch.

Mr Howlin said that removing himself as leader of the party would not fix those things saying he thinks he is a good leader, describing himself as a 'serious political thinker' and pointing to his years of experience in politics.

In response to claims that he is "too polite" and should be more strident, Mr Howlin said that although "personality politics" seems to dominate it "doesn't solve the real issues for people who want to work for this country".

He spoke of having had a debate within the parliamentary party when Miriam asks should they not have had an election so that Alan Kelly could be 'put to rest' if he had not won.

In response to poll results, he spoke of having a smaller number of people but that they concentrate on core constituencies and that he is sure that he can double their seats in the next election.

Ahead of the visit of Pope Francis, Mr Howlin said that he will be attending the civic event in Dublin Castle.

Not only does he want to hear what the Pope has to say, but also what our Taoiseach has to say on behalf of the people of Ireland.

When asked what it is he would like to hear the Taoiseach say to the Pope, Brendan Howlin said that Taoiseach Varadkar should say that "no institution is above the law" and that "nobody is immune from the civil law and from an obligation to protect the most vulnerable, and we want to hear from you Holy Father specifically what you intend to do on these matters".

Listen to Brendan Howlin's full interview below:

Digital Desk
Fine Gael is defending plans for a 'Green Week' after environmentalists dismissed it as 'laughable'.

The party says it wants to raise public awareness about ways to go green and convince people why we need to tackle climate change.

But critics say the Government is ignoring its own responsibilities as the country is falling far behind on national carbon emissions targets.

Fine Gael TD Hildegarde Naughton, Chair of a New Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action, says her party is doing its best.

"Ireland's on track to meet 16% of our targets to improve our energy efficiency by 20%, that is by 2030," said the Galway West TD.

"Yes the 2020 targets will be a big challenge for us, but with 22bn - that's 1 in every 5 - invested in tackling climate change I would be very hopeful that we could not only reach our 2030 targets but be leaders in this particular area."

- Digital Desk
The funeral of one of the victims in the Donegal crash is taking place today.

Shiva Devine, who was in her early 20s, was one of two people who died in the collision in Bundoran on Sunday morning.
By Tom Tuite

A 31-year-old man told gardai: He was my dad and I love him very much, and would have done anything for him, after he was charged with murdering his father in a stabbing at their family home in Dublin.

Gerard Fortune, 63, a care worker at St Jamess Hospital, died following an incident at his house at Rutland Grove, Crumlin, on Sunday night.

Shortly after 8pm gardai and emergency services were called to the house and Mr Fortune was removed by ambulance to St James's Hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

His son, David Fortune, also known as David OLeary, with the same address was remanded in custody after appearing before Judge Mary Dorgan at Dublin District Court this afternoon.

He was charged with the murder of his father on August 19, 2018.

In the following days, Gardai had launched a public appeal for information and had issued the description of a car.

The accused was arrested on Sunday and detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984 at Crumlin Garda Station before he was charged and brought before the district court today.

Giving evidence of the arrest, Garda Sergeant Brendan OHalloran told Judge Mary Dorgan he cautioned the accused at 12.52pm yesterday and told him anything he said would be taken down and used in evidence.

After being cautioned David Fortune made no reply, the court heard.

Garda Sergeant OHalloran said he arrested him for the offence of murder of Gerard Fortune on August 19 at Rutland Grove, Crumlin.

The court heard he was charged at 1.55pm and given a copy of the charge sheet.

He replied: I never meant to harm anyone. He was my dad and I love him very much, and would have done anything for him, the court was told.

The unemployed 31-year-old was visibly upset as he sat silently on the defendants bench while the details of his arrest were read out by the Garda sergeant.

The district court cannot adjudicate on bail in murder cases.

The accused used the surnames Fortune and OLeary, the judge heard.

Judge Dorgan agreed to remand him in custody to appear at Cloverhill District Court on August 28 next.

The accused, dressed in a red Addidas T-shirt, grey tracksuit bottoms and black runners, gestured to distraught relatives in the public gallery as he was led away from court.

Judge Dorgan acceded to defence solicitor Brian Coveneys application to grant legal aid to the accused. There was no Garda objection, she noted.

Mr Coveney said his client was unemployed and he furnished the court with a statement of Mr Fortunes means.
Legal proceedings are due to get under way in the High Court in a challenge against the choice for the new Garda chief.

Ciaran MacAirt, whose grandmother Kathleen Irvine was killed during The Troubles, has brought the action in a bid to prevent Police Service of Northern Ireland Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris from being appointed to the role.

Mrs Irvine was one of 15 people killed by loyalists in the bombing of McGurk's Bar in Belfast in 1971.

Mr MacAirt, who is being represented by Kinnear and Co solicitors with the assistance of MacGeehin Toale Solicitors in Dublin, is applying for leave for a judicial review of Mr Harris's appointment.

The PSNI deputy became the first Garda chief appointed from outside the Republic when he was announced as the new commissioner in June.

Mr Harris is a former Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer and his officer father Alwyn was killed by an IRA bomb in 1989.

Drew Harris

Mr MacAirt claims Mr Harris lacks the independence required for the job due to his roles in the PSNI and the RUC.

The McGurk's bar bombing was one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles and the families of those who died have long campaigned for a fresh inquest.

The bombing was carried out by loyalists but at the time security forces blamed the IRA, prompting speculation the dead might have included IRA members who were carrying the device.

Relatives and campaigners discovered a large amount of new evidence not heard at the original inquest held the year after the bombing.

PA
By Tom Tuite

The second 13-year-old boy to be charged with the murder of Kildare schoolgirl Anastasia Kriegel has been granted bail by Mr Justice Robert Eagar in the High Court.

The boy, who cannot be named because he is a minor, is accused of the murder of 14-year-old girl at Glenwood House, Laraghcon, Clonee Road, Lucan on May 14, contrary to common law.

He has been held in custody at the Oberstown detention centre in north Dublin since July 12 when he was charged.

He brought a bail application which came before Mr Justice Eagar at the High Court sitting in Cloverhill today.

The teenager, dressed in a cream hoodie top and black jeans, sat between his parents during the in camera hearing. He was accompanied to court by his barrister Damien Colgan SC (with solicitor David Powderly) who pleaded for bail.

Aideen Collard BL, appeared for the State. Garda Inspector Mark ONeill who is leading the investigation objected to bail.

Reporting restrictions were imposed by the judge who agreed to grant bail subject to strict conditions.

The teenager spoke briefly to confirm he understood the order.

He will face his next hearing at the Childrens Court on August 28 next when it is expected that he will be served with a book of evidence and returned for trial.

Anastasia Kriegel

At his first hearing on July 12 at the Childrens Court, Detective Sergeant Damien Gannon gave evidence of his arrest at the boys home that morning and being charged at Lucan Garda station.

He had said the boy, made no reply to the charge after caution.

Special directions, necessary due to the boys age, had been obtained from the DPP, the court had been told.

Due to the nature of the charge, the Childrens Court does not have jurisdiction to rule on the issue of bail.

Anastasia, known as Ana, who was adopted from Russia at the age of two, left her house in Leixlip, at about 5pm on May 14, however, she did not come home and gardai were alerted. Her body was found at the disused farmhouse three days later.

The co-accused, who was also aged 13, had been remanded in custody on May 25 by the Dublin Childrens Court. He was the first to be charged with her murder.

Bail terms, however, were set by the High Court and he was released at the start this month. He is due to appear again at the Childrens Court on August 30 next.

The court has heard the DPP has consented and has directed trial on indictment in respect of this charge which means the case will be transferred to the Central Criminal Court once the books of evidence have been completed.

There has been no indication yet as to how either boy intends to plead.
The High Court has heard that the choice for Garda Commissioner would be incapable of being independent in the role.

Legal proceedings began in a challenge against PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris being appointed as Garda Commissioner.

Ciaran MacAirt, whose grandmother Kathleen Irvine was killed during The Troubles, brought the action in a bid to stop Mr Harris being appointed to the role.

Mrs Irvine was one of 15 people killed by loyalists in the bombing of McGurk's Bar in Belfast in 1971.

Solicitor for Mr MacAirt, Gerard Humphries SC, said there was a clear conflict of interest in Mr Harris taking the role as he is bound by the Official Secrets Act in Britain through his work for the RUC, later PSNI, and his role in the Historical Enquiries Committee.

Ciaran MacAirt (centre) along with solicitors Rosie Kinnear and Niall O Murchu at the High Court today

They also say the conflict is incompatible with the duties of Section 5 of the Garda Siochana Act, in particular regarding State security and the investigation of crime.

"By his involvement with British state security and the Official Secrets Act, Drew Harris cannot independently fulfil the requirements of Garda Siochana.

"Any information that he would have come into by virtue of position in the PSNI, precludes him from discharging his duties in this role."

Mr MacAirt, who is being represented by Kinnear and Co solicitors with the assistance of MacGeehin Toale Solicitors in Dublin, applied for leave for a judicial review of Mr Harris's appointment.

In reference to Mr Harris's experience in the Historical Enquiries Committee, Mr Humphries added that decisions made under Harris neglected measures set out by the European Convention to adequately address instances of collusion.

"In previous roles, he failed and was found to have failed, and now he could be in control of the Gardai."

File photo of Drew Harris.

The PSNI deputy became the first Garda Commissioner appointed from outside the Republic of Ireland when he was announced as the new chief in June.

He is due to take up the role on September 3.

The challenge is being opposed by the State and An Garda Siochana whose legal team is being led by Reme Farrell SC. They say the application did not meet the required threshold and is a personal gripe by the applicant.

"My submission is quite simply that the application is un-stateable, and amounts to no more than a personal view on behalf of the applicant.

"No attempt has been made to address the judicial review application, this is nothing more than a series of personal views dressed up as something else.

"An applicant is not entitled to come to court to say; 'The government has made the wrong decision and I want my view of matters to be substituted for the view of people in charge of law-making decisions'."

Mr Harris is a former Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer and his officer father Alwyn was killed by an IRA bomb in 1989.

After today's proceedings, Mr MacAirt said it was his right as an Irish citizen to point out flaws in an appointment.

Ciaran MacAirt outside the High Court today.

"I have great fears for the basic human rights of Irish citizens if Harris is placed in charge of An Garda Siochana, because of what he has done in the last 15 years with respect to victims and survivors of the Troubles.

"He has drawn out cases in court, reducing resources for the police ombudsman, stymieing the amount of information families can get from the police."

The McGurk's bar bombing was one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles and the families of those who died have long campaigned for a fresh inquest.

The bombing was carried out by loyalists but at the time security forces blamed the IRA, prompting speculation the dead might have included IRA members who were carrying the device.

Campaigners discovered new evidence not heard at the original inquest held the year after the bombing and have rejected a number of committee reports, which they say ignores the issue of collusion by state forces and loyalist paramilitaries.

Justice Denis McDonald says he hopes to have a decision for the court on Wednesday at 11am.
An Irish bishop has said the World Meeting of Families and Pope's visit are an opportunity for Irish society to reflect on the big questions and decisions it faces.

During his homily to mark the launch of World Meeting of Families 2018 Bishop Donal McKeown also urged Pope Francis to "ask awkward questions and speak the truth in love about how the Church needs to repent and equip itself if it is to be a credible witness of Gods mercy and love in 2018".

Bishop McKeown went on to highlight the key questions he believed face Ireland as a society. They were:

- Why are we losing too many people, young and not so young, for want of a reason for living?

- How do we create a home environment that will help our young people to thrive?

- How do we develop an economy that serves people and not just the system?

- How do we balance the desires and rights of adults with the needs of children?

- How do we provide healthy role models that will inspire society rather than merely boost the egos of the celebrities?

- How do we defend the weakest despite pressure to prioritise the voice of the strong?

Bishop McKeown said: "In the face of these questions, I hope that Pope Francis will place a mirror in front of both Church and State. It is always better to be unhappy with the right questions than happy with the wrong answers.

"I hope he will ask awkward questions and speak the truth in love about how the Church needs to repent and equip itself if it is to be a credible witness of Gods mercy and love in 2018.

"I hope he will encourage civil society to look beyond the gloss and the jingles if it is to cherish all the children of the country equally.

"I hope and pray that Church and state learn from the mistakes of the past but not be trapped by only looking backwards.

"The blame game always seeks the fault in somebody else. The uncomfortable Gospel asks leaders of all sorts in society to take the plank out of their own eyes first so that they can see where the uncomfortable truth lies."

The Bishop said he did not want the World Meeting of Families and the visit of Pope Francis to be seen as an opportunity to strengthen the Church as an organisation.

"Power corrupts and nourishes arrogance. But I do pray that this week will inspire dioceses, parishes and families to build community in the face of an epidemic of loneliness. I pray that faith communities will be places of Gods hope in a frightened world.

"I pray that churches will promote a gracious way of having difficult conversations in a world where harsh words often seem to dominate. The Church does not exist for its own sake. It exists only to continue the mission of Jesus in the service of finding peace with the past so that we can create a hope-filled future.

"Like Jesus, the Church of Christ exists not to be served but to serve. I am sure that Pope Francis will call us to that."

Bishop Donal McKeown

Bishop McKeown said he recognised that the call to sanctity and to self-sacrificing heroism, to chastity and faithfulness is not a welcome one "in some quarters where the logic of the self-indulgent market dominates" and that as a result "some will seek to criticise the messenger in order to avoid engagement with the message.

"But as we approach important decisions about the future of this island, this World Meeting will challenge us all to prioritise building a healthy society and not just growing market share, to inspire a new generation of Irish people with a vision for the future as we learn from the past.

"Changing hard borders will not heal hard hearts. Tired, hollow mantras and self-righteous condemnations serve no-one. Young people are not inspired by angry adults.

"This weeks events in Dublin are an invitation for us all to reflect. It is not a time for quick, smart answers but for thoughtful listening. It is a moment of divine grace where we can together seek the truth that alone can set us free.

"It is a precious God-given opportunity that we waste at our peril. It is an important stage in an adult conversation about what a new Ireland would look like. It is a key moment in discerning what a renewed Irish Church will look like as it seeks to play a positive and prophetic role in civic society.

"The Gospel of the Family is still joy for the world," he concluded.
By Azernews





By Laman Ismayilova

Renowned Azerbaijani violinist Nazrin Rashidova will attend the 3rd festival conference of music performance and artistic research "Doctors in Performance".

The festival will take place in Vilnius on September 46, Azertag reported.

The Azerbaijani violinist will give a concert on September 6 as part of the festival.

Rashidova, who is the graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, gave concerts in many countries around the world and won international competitions .

Nazrin's extensive repertoire encompasses almost 40 Concertos and over 300 Chamber and Virtuoso works.

Nazrin Rashidova is the founder of the FeMusa orchestra. The team consists of representatives from 11 countries.

Founded in 2008, FeMusa is a professional chamber orchestra of talented female international musicians, the first of its kind in Britain since the 1950's.

Britain's first female chamber orchestra performed at the 9th International Gabala Music Festival this year.

In Gabala, British musicians performed works by A.Vivaldi, E.Elgar, P.Worlok, P.Levis, E.Blog, K.Jenkins, F.Amirov and G.Garaev on the stage.

Doctors in Performance 2018 aims to bring together doctoral candidates and post-doctoral researchers working in the fields of musical performance and practice-based or artistic research in music.

The festival places the emphasis on the music itself with the majority of presentations consisting principally of a musical performance in the form of a recital or a lecture recital related to the research.

Doctors in Performance 2018 is co-organized by HARPS, Hub for Artistic Research and Performance Studies at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.
Two people have been injured in a single-vehicle crash on the Dundalk to Castleblaney Road.

It happened at Rassan on the N53, just before 7pm this evening.
They might have fallen at the final hurdle for an All-Ireland in 2017, but Waterfords Kirsten Mate Maher was crowned the Rose of Tralee for 2018.

One of the favourites to win the crown, Kirsten was nonetheless lost for words when her name was called.

"I'm speechless, oh my God," she said.

"I just want to say a massive thank you to these girls standing behind me and in front of me.

"I am overwhelmed at the amount of friends that I've just made - they're friends for life."

The 21-year-old student is the first woman of colour to win the annual competition.

The Waterford Rose, Kirsten Mate Maher sings Feeling Good.

Amazing performance. #RoseofTralee pic.twitter.com/1aHhtewrP3  RTE One (@RTEOne) August 20, 2018

The Rose of Tralee is always a bit of a marathon. It might not be everybodys cup of tea but its as Irish as rain. Like proper tea and Taytos, its the type of thing you miss when youre away from home. Its a reminder of a simpler Ireland, one that doesnt exist, but that many people wish did.

However, recent years have shown that the competition has moved with the times and reflects a more modern view of Ireland and of Irish women. This year has been no different.

Monday nights standout Rose was Carlows Shauna Ray Lacey, a bookie with a baby, whose parents had both been heroin addicts. Her story was fascinating and unlikely to be one youd have heard in Rose of Tralees of years gone by.

Two years ago, Sydney Rose Brianna Parkins blazed a trail by calling for a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment  a pretty ballsy move by Rose of Tralees standards.

However, despite all the high-brow talk of a changing competition for a changing Ireland, ultimately many of us tune in for the somewhat cringe-worthy banter that comes with Daithi O Se interviewing a succession of Roses for hours on end.

It came thick and fast on day two of the competition. Nothing tells you more about how far the Rose of Tralee has blasted into the 21st century as anecdotes about nudity and coin swallowing.

First out of the traps was Mayo Rose Rachel Gibbons. From the small but famous village of Carnacon  which produced the legendary Cora Staunton for you GAA fans  Rachel said where she grew up was so remote that if you had come up the boithrin to her house, you were probably lost.

As a result, things like blinds and curtains werent used very often. This led to a post-shower incident where the local postman saw poor ould Rachel as naked as the day I was born. Full blown on nudity on the Rose of Tralee  changed times indeed.

The Perth Rose Laura Cannon from Donegal gave us one of the anecdotes of the night and one of the

Daithi quotes for the ages.

After learning about how she met her boyfriend Charlie and that there are nine GAA clubs in Perth, we also learned about a coin swallowing incident as a child. Alls well that ends well, however, as the offending coin came out the way we expected after nine days.

For Daithi, thats the way to keep a man.

He has a Rose that poops money, hes going nowhere, he said. And so said all of us.

We had a Rose who worked for Obama, a Rose who Irish danced to R and B star Usher, a Rose who moved to become an actor in Hollywood, Dads crying, mothers crying, escorts looking both embarrassed and frightened. We had Daithi being Daithi. Even Jerry Springer made an appearance via video link.

Slag it all you want but deep down, like proper tea and Taytos, you know you love it.

Additional reporting by Digital Desk
Update 9.25pm: A woman in her 50s has been released without charge after a car crashed into the gates of Government buildings in Dublin this morning.

It happened shortly after 10am when the Nissan Micra hit the gates on Merrion Street.

No one was injured in the incident.

A file is on its way to the DPP.

Update 2.30pm: Gardai have ruled out any terror link after a car crashed into the gates of Government Buildings. However, it is unclear what caused the crash.

A woman, in her 50s, was arrested after driving into the entrance gates to the Department of Taoiseach in Merrion Street Upper in Dublin.

She was taken to Pearse Street Garda Station, where she is being questioned under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act.

A civil servant who witnessed the incident said she heard a bang before seeing the gold Nissan Micra at the main steel gate.

The woman, who did not want to be named, said: There was confusion over what happened. I thought she lost control and crashed into the gate but Im not sure any more .

There was a bit of commotion as people didnt know what happened. A few people went to the driver to see if she was OK but she didnt seem to be injured.

There was only minor damage to the car, and there were no reports of any injuries.

It was thought the driver might have been trying to negotiate the entrance (Brian Lawless/PA)

Gardai are still investigating the circumstances of the crash, but they have ruled out any link to terrorism.

The vehicle remained at the scene for some time while officers investigated, but was later been removed.

Gardai are able to hold and question the arrested woman for up to 24 hours.

A spokesman for the Department of Taoiseach said: We understand this matter is now under investigation by the Gardai and therefore it would not be appropriate to comment further.

- Press Association

Update 11.55am: Video: Woman (50s) arrested after car crashes into gates of Government Buildings

A woman in her 50s has been arrested after a car crashed into the gate of Government Buildings.

It is understood the woman, who is an Irish national, attempted to drive the gold Micra Nissan through the entrance in Merrion Street Upper shortly after 10am on Tuesday.

Damage to the front of the Nissan Micra after the crash (Niall Carson/PA)

No injuries were reported.

Gardai arrested the driver of the car at the scene and she was taken to Pearse Street Garda Station.

Gardai say their investigation is ongoing however they have ruled out terrorism as a possible motive.

- Digital Desk & PA

Earlier: Woman arrested after car crashes into gates of Government Buildings

A woman has been arrested after a car crashed through the gates of Government Buildings this morning.

The woman in her 50s was arrested at the scene on Merrion Street in Dublin City Centre.

She is being questioned at Pearse Street Garda station.

No one was injured in the incident.

- Digital Desk
Update - 3.07pm: The Dublin Region Homeless Executive says it has sourced a large number of additional emergency accommodation to cater for families during the Pope visit.

It says it has been working closely with private accommodation providers to ensure existing hotel and B&B bookings will not be adversely affected.

It has also increased staffing of its freephone number, 1800 707 707, on Saturday and Sunday and its outreach teams will be on the streets engaging with those at risk of sleeping rough.

The organisation said: "The DRHE is aware of the difficult circumstances that families experiencing homelessness have to face and we will continue to monitor the demand for emergency accommodation during this time.

"We will endeavour in the first instance, to accommodate any families that newly present during the Papal visit within the Dublin Region.

"However as part of our additional contingency measures, a certain number of spaces are located outside of the Dublin Region, these will be utilised only when absolutely necessary."

6.50am: World Meeting of Families officially opens today

The World Meeting of Families officially opens today.

Bells will ring this evening in Catholic cathedrals across Ireland's 26 dioceses to mark the start of the gathering.

Pope Francis will join the event on Saturday, and will celebrate its closing mass in the Phoenix Park in Dublin on Sunday.

Preparations have been overshadowed by revelations about the church's handling of clerical sex abuse.

Maeve Lewis from campaign group One in Four says the celebration will ring hollow for many abuse victims.

"I'm sure people who are attending the mass in the Park or the other events do not mean in any way to add to the suffering of the survivors," said Ms Lewis.

"But in many ways, that is what's happening because people feel that their suffering is just being ignored in the middle of this big international celebration."

Yesterday, Pope Francis

Read More:

- Digital Desk
Johnny Mr Eurovision Logan has been announced to play at this years Electric Picnic.

Setting the scene for Johnnys hotly anticipated arrival the festival will host its first ever slow set.

Once a staple in nightclubs and discos across Ireland, the slow set has virtually disappeared from Irish culture.

Back in the day, as an evening drew towards a close, the rhythm would slow, and the DJ would spin some romantics songs  perfect for sparking electricity with a potential mate.

From slow songs and power ballads to golden oldies, the slow set at Electric Picnic will get festival revellers in the mood before King of the slow set Johnny Logan, takes to the stage.

Delighted to be announced for the festival Logan said:

So many people share their memories of dancing to some of my songs, during the slow set back in the day. I really hope people get into the spirit and enjoy the slow set, a novel thing in the middle of a festival Im sure.

Logan won the Eurovision song contest for Ireland in 1980 and 1987

Logan will be joining some familiar faces as part of the Electric Ireland Throwback Stage line-up, which takes places in Stradbally, Co. Laois from August 31 to September 2.
By Azernews





By Laman Ismayilova

Nothing so brings peoples and countries closer, like humanitarian ties, the Russian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Mikhail Bocharnikov said at a press conference on August 20.

"Humanitarian cooperation is the most important part of our relations with Azerbaijan," he stressed.

He noted that formats have already been established in which countries work in this direction and expressed hope for further development of humanitarian cooperation in the future, Report.az informed.

Mikhail Bocharnikov noted that the Week of Russian films will be held in Azerbaijan in September.

It is also planned to hold an international theater festival in Azerbaijan in November with the participation of Russian theater groups.

"Speaking more broadly, we have a roadmap for humanitarian cooperation, which includes education, Bocharnikov added.

Notably, Azerbaijan hosted the Week of Russian films in October, 2015. The program of the shows included modern Russian films of various genres. The festival program featured such films as "Dawns Here Are Quiet" directed by Renat Davletyarov, "Battalion" by Dmitry Meskhiev, "Green Carriage" by Oleg Asadulin, "Elusive" by Artem Aksenenko and other works.

People's Artist of Russia Boris Shcherbakov, actors Olga Lomonosova, Valeria Shkirando, Alexandra Rozovskaya, Denis Shvedov, producer and screenwriter Ivan Kapitonov, producers Ekaterina Filippova, director general of the Kinofest Producer Center Sergey Bragin took part in the event.
Staff of Woolworths-owned pubs are still facing intense pressure to encourage pokies players to gamble so venues can meet revenue targets, despite the companys promises to reform its practices, a former gambling room attendant has told Fairfax Media.

Emma Pearson, who worked at the Colyton Hotel, one of 323 pubs owned by the Woolworths subsidiary ALH, said that an internal initiative known as the "Walk the Floor" competition began from July 2 this year for six weeks.

Whistleblower Emma Pearson has recently resigned from her job at Colyton Hotel. Credit:Wolter Peeters

During the competition, staff visit other ALH pubs and rate them on how quickly they are offered food and drink and even on whether or not the gambling room is the right temperature. Ms Pearson said the food and drinks given to gamblers during this period, which is timed to coincide with the tax return period, is greatly improved and that staffing level are increased.

According to Ms Pearson, already intense pressure to increase gambling revenues is ramped up even further during the competition.
The retail group that owns Rebel Sports, Supercheap Auto and Macpac has admitted to underpaying workers by almost $8 million after incorrectly calculating overtime pay and allowances.

Super Retail Group on Tuesday said it was booking provisions in its full-year accounts of $7.9 million in anticipation of back payments to workers who were underpaid since 2010.

Super Retail Group said it underpaid staff working on its store fit-out team. Credit:Bloomberg

The underpayments, uncovered by an internal review, relate to workers who were either seconded to or worked permanently in its "set-up" team, which fits-out or refurbishes the group's more than 600 stores.

Super Retail said it incorrectly applied time in lieu, penalty rates and allowances to overtime hours.
The Rotary Club of Melbournes focus on the moral improvement of its members has ruled it out from being eligible for stamp duty exemptions as a charity, a tribunal has found.

The club applied for a stamp duty exemption on its new head administrative office suite at 15 Collins Street, which it purchased several years ago for $770,196.37.

The Rotary Club will have to pay stamp duty on its Collins Street office. Credit:Wayne Taylor

But it will have to pay the State Revenue Office $41,270 after the tribunal ruled the club did not fit within the definition of corporation or body of persons established for ... charitable purposes.

Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal member Reynah Tang said knowledgeable judges had in the past admitted the law on charitable institutions was "difficult", "very artificial", noted for its "illogicalities" and "full ... of anomalies".
Where are the headlines about stock markets plunging or the Australian dollar crashing? We are in the middle of a national political crisis and a policy vacuum but business and financial markets have become immune to the chaos in Canberra. Same drama, different day.

Make no mistake, big and small business alike are appalled at the circus in parliament house.

But they are not about to talk publicly about what they really think.

There is no upside for individual executives in picking a fight with the government - even (as they do) believe this is a lame-duck administration and Turnbull is a dead man walking.
Developer Steller Group is building a pipeline of aged care and retirement living assets in Melbournes south-east suburbs, recently picking up Healthscope's redundant Parkdale hospital for about $11 million.

Managing director Nicholas Smedley said Steller, which has gained accreditation as an aged care operator, has put its foot on about 14 aged-related assets in various stages of development.

Weve had a five year strategy of entering into independent living units and aged care retirement, Mr Smedley said.

The Cotham private hospital in Kew is being readied for sale. Credit:Chris Hopkins

The purchase of Healthscope's former hospital at 153 Como Parade West was made with the intention of turning it into a 120-bed, high-care, aged facility, he said.
Petrol prices rose almost 10 per cent to a four-year high across Australia's five major cities last financial year, with the average price at the bowser hitting $1.35 a litre.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commissions latest petrol monitoring report found the average annual petrol price had jumped from an average $1.22 a litre in 2016-17.

Last financial year's $1.35 a litre is the highest average petrol price since 2014-15, when prices reached $1.40 a litre.

Brisbane had the highest petrol prices over the year, at an average of $1.37 a litre. Melbourne was the second most expensive city for petrol at $1.36, while Sydney had the cheapest petrol for all capital cities at $1.32.

During the June quarter, average prices fluctuated from a low of $1.38 a litre up to $1.54 a litre.
Ian Edwards thought his career as a chef was over after he lost his sight three years ago.

"There were weeks and weeks of feeling lost and confused," he said. "Every day I sat at home, and what do you do, I couldn't do anything."

But he knew he wasn't ready to give up the job he loved.

Ian Edwards, owner of The Blind Chef Bistro at Boolaroo Bowling Club. Credit:Simone De Peak

Eventually, Mr Edwards contacted the disability service Ability Links NSW which helped him make connections in the local community which led to him setting up his own restaurant.
Actress Asia Argento gestures on stage during the closing ceremony of the 71st international film festival, Cannes. It has since been revealed she is under investigation for the sexual assault of a minor. Credit:Invision

Harris said that enforcement officials had not yet "located any police report alleging criminal activity" in connection to it. But he said they were reaching out to the young actor, Jimmy Bennett, and his representatives in order to document any possible criminal activity.

In a brief statement, Darren Harris, a captain with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, said the agency was aware of the alleged 2013 episode, which was the subject of a report in The New York Times.

Authorities in California said they were looking into allegations that actress and director Asia Argento had sexually assaulted a young man in a hotel room when he was 17.

A lawyer for Bennett said late Monday that he had still not been contacted by law enforcement officials; the lawyer, Gordon K. Sattro, would not comment further.

The announcement came just a day after The Times reported that Argento  a leader of the #MeToo movement who was among the first women to publicly accuse producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault  arranged to pay $380,000 to Bennett, who said she had sexually assaulted him in a hotel room in Marina del Rey, California, a unincorporated, upscale harbor community on the west side of Los Angeles County.

Documents obtained by The Times outline the allegations and the subsequent arrangement for payments. The documents include a selfie dated May 9, 2013, of Argento, who was 37 at the time, lying in bed with Bennett, who was 10 months shy of being 18, the age of consent in California. On that day, the pair, who had acted together, met for a reunion in Argento's room at a Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey.

This combination photo shows actresses, top row from left, Gwyneth Paltrow, Rosanna Arquette, Mira Sorvino and bottom row from left, Rose McGowan, Angelina Jolie Pitt, Asia Argento and Ashley Judd, who are among the many women who spoke out against Harvey Weinstein in on-the-record reports that detailed claims of sexual abuse. Credit:AP

A notice of intent to sue said that after Argento was left alone with Bennett, she gave him alcohol to drink and showed him a series of notes she had written to him on hotel stationery. Then she kissed him, pushed him back on the bed, removed his pants and performed oral sex, the document says. She climbed on top of him and the two had intercourse, the document also says.
Guitarist, songwriter and storyteller Spencer P. Jones, who forged his name in Australia and overseas with rock n roll bands the Johnnys and Beasts of Bourbon, has died.

Jones was born in 1956 on the North Island town of Te Awamutu in New Zealand and moved to Australia in his late teens - pursuing a life in music from which he never wavered over the next four decades. He died on August 21.

Spencer P. Jones Credit:Carbie Warbie

The laconic, self-taught musician was diagnosed with liver cancer in June after fighting poor health since 2015. In March, Jones and longtime friend and collaborator Brian Henry Hooper performed on stage together in Melbourne with their band Beasts of Bourbon, just a week before Hooper died from lung cancer.

Spencer was very ill at Brians benefit gig, said Jones wife, Angie Jones, in June. So to watch them both get up and smash out some Beasts Of Bourbon songs was a miracle in itself.
Slipping on a pair of high heels is a powerful act of rebellion for Lauren Butterly.

She was 25 when she lost all feeling in her right arm. As she sat in a hospital emergency department, a procession of doctors delivered blow after awful blow.

Ms Butterly was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). The first neurologist told her to forget about her legal career. She would need to give up her prestigious position at one of Australias top-tier firms at the University of NSW.

'Because of the medication I'm on, I'm able to work and earn a good salary, pay my taxes and university debt and contribute to society in broader ways': Lauren Butterly. Credit:Louise Kennerley

The second told her she would never wear high heels again.
News and more about African American entrepreneurs and Black-owned businesses. Also features a directory of events, publications, organizations, and more.
By Trend





The Member of German Parliament Albert Weiler made illegal visits to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan in 2014 and 2016, and therefore his name has been included in the list of "undesirable persons" since that period, the Spokesman of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmet Hajiyev told Trend Aug. 21.

He was commenting on the reports in the "Bild" newspaper about the ban on the entry of the German MP into the territory of Azerbaijan.

"It has been noted in some foreign media that as if his name were included in this list as late as now. This is incorrect information, as Albert Weiler has been in the list of "undesirable persons" since 2014. This man has made illegal visits to the territory of Azerbaijan, occupied by the armed forces of Armenia," Hajiyev said.

The spokesman stressed that it is necessary to respect the territorial integrity, sovereignty, laws of other countries, and in this context, the illegal visits to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan are unacceptable.

Hajiyev added that at the same time Azerbaijan takes a constructive position on this issue, and if the persons who do not conduct activities directly against Azerbaijan, send letters of apology and express respect for the territorial integrity and laws of Azerbaijan, the exclusion of their names from the list of "undesirable persons" may be considered.

"If this person will address us, we can consider this case, but such addresses from him havent been received so far. Therefore, a ban has been applied on his entry into the territory of Azerbaijan," the spokesman of the foreign ministry said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
If someone's heart stops beating and they collapse, you know what to do  call triple zero. But doctors in Australia's hospital system face a dizzying array of emergency "cardiac arrest" numbers, such as 3111, 333 and 33#.

Doctors are calling on state and federal governments to cut the 51 different in-hospital emergency numbers found around the country down to one  2222  saying this will reduce confusion and delays, ultimately saving lives.

Doctors are calling for all hospitals to have the same emergency number. Right now, there's no consistency. Credit:Robert Hackett

In the event of a cardiac arrest, a patient's chance of survival is halved in two minutes, meaning every passing second is extremely precious.

"It will make a difference; it's obvious the sooner we get help in these acute situations, the better," Dr Robert Hackett, who's leading the push, said.
"PSA to girls under 18: there is no reason for an adult man to be romantically or sexually interested in you." Credit:Stocksy

Clearly, it was a message that resonated with a lot of people  and most of them seemed to be adult women who were finally old enough to reflect on the massive gap in power between their adolescent selves and the older men who pursued them.

So tweeted Megan V (@herbivorist) earlier this month, in a tweet that has since racked up more than 18,000 shares and almost 50,000 likes.

PSA to girls under 18: there is no reason for an adult man to be romantically or sexually interested in you. It isnt because youre mature. Its because they have enough of an issue that women their own age are refusing to date them. Trust those women and stay away.

The trope of the teenage girl and her older boyfriend has a solid place in pop culture. In fictional settings, girls with older boyfriends are generally depicted as glamorous and worldly, advanced beyond the limiting scope of high school environments and sexually attractive enough to be desired by adult men.

Girls are told we mature faster and that this is what accounts for romantic age gaps that should, in any normal scenario, be questioned vigorously. Its part of the double bind we face when we reach the precipice of adulthood: we have to be simultaneously responsible for keeping ourselves "safe" from predatory men yet also work hard at cultivating the ingenue within.

I learned these lessons in the movies I watched as a kid, and I applied them in turn to the girls whose lives I coveted in high school. I was desperate to grow up and be seen as a worthy, attractive adult woman but, because I was still a child, I was unable to properly judge the inappropriate attention I received from men, some of them old enough to be my father.

One of the conflicts prompted by Megan Vs tweet is that of agency in young girls. Some respondents rejected the idea they were preyed on by older men, claiming they were either equal participants in the relationship or active pursuers of it. Its a tricky one because, of course, adolescent girls should be in charge of their own bodies and sexual desires. But there is an imbalance of power delivered not just by age but also status in the world, and that cant be ignored.

But this, like girls faster maturation process, is explained away with the tenuous argument of "biology".
Justine Saunders has quit her role as ACT chief police officer and will take a new job with the Australian Border Force.

On Tuesday afternoon Minister for Police and Emergency Services Mick Gentleman announced Ms Saunders had informed him of her decision.

Assistant Commissioner Justine Saunders quits role as ACT chief police officer. Credit:Karleen Minney

Ms Saunders will join Mandy Newton as a deputy commissioner for the Australian Border Force under the command of commissioner Michael Outram.

Mr Gentleman thanked Ms Saunders for her work.
The ACT's largest community housing provider has been awarded $230,000 to establish a scheme aimed at tackling the territory's rental housing affordability crisis.

Community Housing Canberra will use the territory government funding to develop a program that encourages landlords to rent their properties out to low-income households at below market rates.

The approach is modelled on the one used by Melbourne not-for-profit organisation HomeGround Real Estate, which recently branched into Sydney.

Community Housing Canberra chief executive Andrew Hannan said the scheme was "not a silver bullet", but a positive step that had the potential to make a dent in the territory's rental housing affordability crisis.

Mr Hannan said he hoped the scheme would start early next year, and that the territory government could inventivise landlords to take part by adopting an ACT Greens proposal raised in the Legislative Assembly last month.
He didn't know it at the time, but James Line was preparing for his next career while on a tour of duty in Afghanistan as an intelligence analyst.

Deployed to the country's long-running war, he spent his days working out how buildings were being used, spotting changes in patterns.

Returning home, a back injury forced him out of the army but any questions Mr Line had about fitting back into civilian life were quickly answered.

"You leave with these fantastic skills that are not necessarily relatable for civilian employers," he said.
Legislation to dissolve Ipswich City Council is being rushed through Queensland Parliament on Tuesday in an emergency motion.

The 10 councillors at the Ipswich council will have days to clear out their desks.

Minister for Local Government Stirling Hinchliffe. Credit:AAP

Local Government Minister Stirling Hinchliffe tabled the bill just after 11.15am, then asked the bill be debated in full on Tuesday, because of the extraordinary circumstances in which 15 people face serious criminal charges.

In my capacity as Local Government Minister I have been assailed by emails, letters, documents and reports of investigations into the operation of the Ipswich City Council, Mr Hinchliffe said.
Queensland Police have arrested and charged another man over the alleged "hoon cartel" on the Gold Coast.

A 21-year-old man was arrested at a Reedy Creek Road business in Burleigh Waters on Tuesday afternoon following an investigation into an alleged traffic incident at Mudgeeraba on January 1.

A screenshot from a video posted to Facebook by the so-called Mexican Hoon Cartel before their page was deleted. Credit:Facebook - Mexican Hoon Cartel

The man was charged with one count each of improper use of emergency call service, unlawful stalking, wilfully making unnecessary noise or smoke and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.

Police have been investigating a "hoon cartel" alleged to have been causing havoc on Gold Coast roads in recent months.
Cr Quirk was quick to respond and said the council did not support harassment, sexism or anything that belittled another human being. In terms of this morning, I was not in attendance at the meeting. I understand that in the committee meeting, however, there was a suggestion by Cr Johnston in a form which took this kind of thing ... mmm, well Im going to be taking that to the CCC ... to the words to that effect, he said. Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said the council did not support anything that belittled another human being. Credit:Michelle Smith An emotional Cr Johnston interjected and refuted Cr Quirks claim. Cr Johnston: "Point of order. That is a flat-out lie. It is defamatory. I did not make any such gesture and if you continue to do this I will take legal action against you."

Angela Owen [council chairman]: "Cr Johnston, that is not an appropriate point of order." Cr Quirk: "I have had that confirmed by several people at the meeting. I preface my remarks by saying I was not there, but a claim has been made which I have been asked to comment about a meeting I was not at. I can only go today on the reports that I have been given. "Now, Cr Johnston, you apparently said on some pod that council is a place of theatre and I would regard if Cr Johnston has done that this morning indicated to me... Cr Johnston: "Point of order. Let me be very clear. I am going to get this on the record and you can kick me out. I will not be called a witch by Cr McLachlan, I will not have rude hand gestures made about me like the lord layor has done, like Cr McLachlan has done, like Cr [Ian] McKenzie has done. It would not happen in any other workplace and I am not going to put up with it. I asked Cr McLachlan a question about the Oxley Creek transformation project and he refused to answer. Calling me a witch, quoting from plays, rubbing your hands together is not OK. Do you understand? I find it offensive, it is wrong and the lord mayor is doing it, you are doing it and others have done it and I have had enough of it." Cr Owen repeatedly asked Cr Johnston to calm down through the objections.

Cr Quirk: "Its my understanding that the only people that have used the word witch here today is Cr Cook and Cr Johnston. Cr Cook and Cr Johnston, its my understanding that that word was never used in committee. I would like Cr Cook to deny that, please, as part of the question. Cr Johnston: "Let me be clear, madam chairman. Cr McLachlan rubbed his hands together and he said 'toil, toil and trouble' and repeatedly said it. It is a mocking and belittling gesture implying that I am a witch. It has been done by this chairman, only weeks after the lord mayor implied I was catty in this place as well. They are sexist, inappropriate remarks." Cr Owen: "Cr Johnston, I can appreciate that you may be upset because Cr Cook has asked this question and it has ..." Cr Johnston: "I am upset because of Cr McLachlan's actions and the lord mayor trying to imply this is my fault somehow. I asked a question about the Oxley Creek transformation project  let me be clear, your verballing me will not go unchallenged on the record and you will have to eject me today unless you withdraw what you are saying. I am not upset by Cr Cook. I want it on the record, I am upset by Cr McLachlan's actions in committee today." LNP councillor Fiona King (Marchant), who was present at Tuesdays environment park and sustainability committee meeting, said the incident started with Cr Johnston making a rude gesture towards the chairman, Cr McLachlan, while asking questions about the councils Oxley Creek Transformation Project.

[Cr Johnston] threatened to take him to the CCC and make a formal complaint to the ombudsman, she said. It was something with her hand under her chin, like she was quite happy to back up her threat she made. Cr McLachlan repeated that gesture, copying what she had done to him. Cr Johnston wrote to the councils chief executive, Colin Jensen, after the committee meeting to report the incident. Councillor David McLachlans behaviour in committee today, physically and verbally mocking me and repeating a witches song, 'toil and trouble', while rubbing his fingers together at me, implying Im a witch, is nasty, bullying and inappropriate behaviour, she said. I simply asked him a question about the Oxley Creek Transformation Company, which he said he didnt know the answer to.
Melbourne's new archbishop has encouraged victims of abuse by members of the Catholic Church to report it to police, saying he had already exercised that duty in reporting abuse that has occurred in his archdiocese.

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Peter Comensoli issued the directive on Tuesday in response to a rare letter issued Monday night by Pope Francis to the worlds 1.2 billion Catholics demanding accountability for the "crime" of sexual abuse committed by priests and its subsequent cover-up.

Archbishop Comensoli's letter revealed the Melbourne archdiocese had paid out almost $35 million in redress and substantiated close to 500 allegations against clergy or other people who worked for the church.

"To date, 469 people have come forward with substantiated allegations against a priest or religious or lay person who has been under the jurisdiction of the archdiocese - 90 priests, 22 religious and 19 lay workers have had findings made against them," he said.
The boss of a company that made the hyperbaric chamber where a man had a fatal seizure has told a court that the units are no longer for sale as "we don't trust people who want them".

Former chiropractor Malcolm Hooper and his South Yarra clinic, Oxymed Australia, face a series of workplace safety charges over the death of Craig Dawson in 2016.

Former chiropractor Malcolm Hooper (right) outside court on Monday. Credit:AAP

Mr Dawson, a wheelchair-bound sufferer of multiple sclerosis who also had epilepsy, had a seizure in the unit and died a few days later in hospital.

Mr Hooper and Oxymed are accused of failing to notify WorkCover of the incident, failing to ensure the workplace was safe, and engaging in reckless conduct that placed others in danger.
By Trend





Uzbekistan has invited the Indian IT companies to participate in investment projects in the country, the Ministry for Development of Information and Communication Technologies of Uzbekistan announced.

The Uzbek side also stated that the government has introduced unprecedented tax benefits and preferences to support IT companies.

For the purpose of increased use of the potential of the Jawaharlal Nehru India-Uzbekistan Center for Information and Technology, which operates at the Tashkent University of Information Technologies, it was proposed to strengthen cooperation with the Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) of India.

It was also proposed to expand the academic cooperation between the specialized universities of the two countries: Tashkent University of Information Technologies with the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and Delhi Technological University.
Four Labor backbenchers remain in contention to become the ACT's next minister, after one publicly withdrew soon after the reshuffle was announced.

Labor backbencher Chris Steel is a hot favourite for the new ministry spot. Credit:Karleen Minney

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr revealed his cabinet would expand by one on Monday, citing a growing workload with the city's population soon to hit half a million people.

The new minister will be announced on Thursday, while their portfolios will be announced on Friday.

Tara Cheyne ruled herself out of the contest early, saying she wanted to focus on being a local member.
Section 44 of the constitution has struck down many a politician in the past year  but is it powerful enough to take down Peter Dutton? This time it is not dual citizenship under section 44(i) that is at issue. Instead, it is the more obscure section 44(v) in the spotlight.

Section 44(v) says that any person who has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the public service of the Commonwealth is disqualified from sitting as a member of Parliament.

Dutton, as recorded in the parliamentary register of interests, is the beneficiary of a discretionary family trust. The trust, through its trustee, apparently owns two childcare centres in Queensland. The allegation is that since July 2, the trust, through its childcare centres, has agreements with the public service to provide childcare services in exchange for childcare subsidies.

Dutton may argue the childcare centres merely receive the subsidy on behalf of the parents and do not have an agreement with the public service. But if it is found there is such an agreement, it would appear Dutton has a beneficial interest in a trust that has an agreement with the public service, potentially triggering the application of section 44(v).
The Labor opposition has quietly prepared for an early election as soon as September, booking bank loans and war-gaming the campaign's opening salvos amid the Coalition's leadership disarray.

While Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's office played down talk of a snap poll following his 48-35 defeat of former home affairs minister Peter Dutton at a leadership ballot on Tuesday, both sides are mindful of paths to an early election.

Mr Dutton did not rule out a second challenge, but indicated he would use his backbench freedom to prosecute an alternative policy agenda. If successful in a second spill, he could call an immediate poll - or be forced to go early in the face of uncertain numbers in the lower house.

Labor leader Bill Shorten in Question Time on Tuesday. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

Crossbenchers were split on giving confidence and supply to a potential Dutton government. While Bob Katter endorsed Mr Dutton wholeheartedly, Greens MP Adam Bandt and Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie were less certain, saying they would make a decision on supply if the issue arose.
The uncomfortably close vote in the Liberal Party room yesterday almost certainly means that while Malcolm Turnbull has survived the day, his prime ministership is effectively doomed, and along with it probably the government itself, already falling well behind Labor in the polls.

But it is not just Malcolm Turnbull and the government that are the losers in this latest political spat, it also signals the end of any hope for a national interest-focused political consensus emerging to address a range of critical issues, of which climate change is just one.

And the greatest enemy of consensus politics in Australia is the key figure behind yesterdays leadership challenge, former prime minister Tony Abbott. While Peter Dutton was the challenger, it was Abbott, deposed by Turnbull in 2015, who prepared the ground, publicly criticising Turnbulls leadership and policy.

It needs to be remembered that it was Tony Abbott who triggered a revolt in 2009 that ended Malcolm Turnbulls first term as party leader over Turnbulls bipartisan support for the Rudd governments Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
Bruce Paine, Red Hill Expose the lot Whatever anyone may say about Tony Abbotts crew of political thugs, you must admit that they have the courage of their convictions. They believe so strongly in their own twisted madness that they will bring down their partys prime minister. They know they can do this because once they get one of their own into the prime ministership, their opponents in the party will be loyal enough not to do the same to them.

Its time for Malcolm Turnbull and his supporters to stop letting themselves be blackmailed by these bullies. Its time for them to call the Abbottites bluff  declare that if there is a change of leadership that they will cross the floor and vote against every Abbottite thing until Malcolm Turnbull is restored. And they have to start by saying, in public, that the NEG bill as agreed by the Liberal party room is to be put the House of Representatives and passed by the whole Coalition government. If it isnt, then there has to an election, right now, this instant, so that the Abbottites can face the people. G. Agnew, Coopers Plains, Qld Threat to peace

It would be a tragedy for Australia to allow Peter Dutton to become prime minister. Dutton already exudes a tendency to authoritarianism. Australia has a multi-race population and a record of peaceful coexistence among the people of those many cultures. Our peaceful approach is learnt from the example we see as children: we learn English, make friends with people of a colour different to ours and let others live their lives as they chose, within broad limits. Our disgraceful treatment of our Indigenous people and the war against Iraq are mistakes for which we will be paying for many years. We do not deserve the extreme control Dutton would introduce in the name of fighting terrorism, or the favoured immigration status already sought for chosen peoples: the white South African farmers have no greater claim to a place in Australia than those already in the queue.

We must devote our efforts to achieving equality for the Indigenous population, rather than see them take up arms in order to forcibly take their rights. We whites are invaders, and immigrants ourselves. If we maintain the little humility many of us have, we can maintain our peaceful record. Once authoritarian control is imposed, it is hard to remove. Our larrikin approach to authority would not survive. Warwick Davis, Isaacs

Greene candidate Thank goodness for Rake (Cleaver Greene goes to Canberra, The Guide, August 21, page 4). He provides us with a revitalising gobsmacking piece of politically incorrect humour that is both refreshing and desperately needed. I loved it to pieces. Apart from Batman and Robin (the original 1960s show on SBS Viceland) and Rake (ABC) if I bother to switch on a TV now I feel as if I am being lectured by North Korean television.

This is particularly the case with the commercial stations and their news and promos up your nose every time you bother to look. Then there is the ABC: probing and probing all day and night and as invasive as a proctologist. If Cleaver Greene were a genuine candidate running for the job of PM, I would have no hesitation in voting for him. At least he is genuine. Cleaver with the assistance of Barnaby Joyce as his deputy would fit like a glove and do Australia proud. Cmon Australia, lets reflect the globalised mood  lets do it.

Wayne Grant, Swinger Hill Anning far from alone Fraser Annings appalling maiden speech deserved all the condemnation it got and more. But it needs to be put in context. Anning is the direct beneficiary of John Howards reign, during which he dismantled the growing Australian consensus around tolerance, fairness and social progress. He opened Pandoras box and all the poisons hatched out (with apologies to Robert Graves). Fraser Anning may be at the more extreme end of Howards legacy, but hes far from alone. Successive governments have done nothing to reverse the decline in public discourse that Howard engendered and LNP governments, in particular, have enthusiastically embraced and extended it.

Fred Pilcher, Kaleen Home owners gouged There has been a lot of discussion about housing affordability as it focuses on the cost of purchasing a property. What is not discussed as much is the cost of being a home owner. Not only have house prices skyrocketed, utilities have grown well above the income of most people. Since mid-2011 (when I became the recipient of superannuation fixed income), my household bills have increased by the following: electricity (usage) 39per cent, electricity (supply) 102per cent, gas (usage) 76per cent, gas (supply) 41per cent, water (usage) 47per cent, water (supply) 5per cent, and finally rates (Dunlop) 65per cent. Rates in the more prestigious areas of Canberra are thousands of dollars per year more expensive than at Dunlop. To add even more pressure on the cost of living, during the same time frame, the single old age pension has increased by 23 per cent, Comsuper pensions by 20per cent (taxable in my case, so less in the pocket) and the AWOTE by 20 per cent.

Is this a scheme by the Greens to make it so expensive to live in Canberra that new home owners cant afford a car and will be forced to buy a smaller than desired flat (but environmentally sounder) next to the light rail, so they can get to work and back without the use of a car? This government is not taxpayer friendly, given the increases over the past seven years. Lets hope the government does not introduce death duties, as that would gouge the inheritance of many Millennials who are probably relying on an inheritance to get into the property market. Stephen Petersen, Dunlop Misuse of the sin-bin The NRL game between Penrith and Newcastle turned out to be a hard, physical affair with plenty of vim and vigour in the tackles. So much so that I was not surprised to see an all-in brawl develop late in the second half that resulted in four players  two from each side  being banished to the sin-bin.

I recall a similar situation occurring at a recent game between the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles and Melbourne Storm. One player was sent from the field while two others were given 10 minutes in the sin-bin.

Referees do have the power to use the sin-bin for minor offences and send-offs for foul play. The problem appears to come from what constitutes foul play and an apparent reluctance on the part of referees to send players from the field rather than simply reporting the player and allowing the judiciary to formally punish the transgressor. Perhaps we need some clear guidelines and to ask referees to continue to use their discretion but to be prepared to take sterner action should the circumstances demand. Why the sin-bin? Why were they not all sent off? The sin-bin was introduced many years ago to allow referees to deal with relatively minor breaches of the rules, including defenders crowding the rucks to slow down opposition passages of play, incorrect scrum feeds and hookers placing their feet over the tunnel to ensure and secure possession of the ball.

It was not, however, the intention of the sin-bin to punish instances of foul play, including physical violence. Andrew Rowe, Florey Democracy at stake There is a fundamental issue at stake in the move by the Labor-Green alliance to take control of community contributions[ generated from poker machines in clubs. It is the right of groups to assemble, generate capital and promote by public actions an activity, cause or belief that they value. This might be a sporting activity, a charitable work, a political party or a religion. Since it is impractical, because of the surrounding state of NSW, to effectively ban poker machines in the ACT, we have to learn how to live with them.

I am only familiar with the community contributions made by the Southern Cross Club. I could not imagine a wider cross-section and more admirable group of charitable and community activities than those it funds. It is only a few years since Andrew Barr attended the annual occasion to hand out the cheques. I have sympathy for the many sporting clubs as they attempt to build up their facilities and often promote childrens sport. Democracy is at stake here. If Barr and Rattenbury want to form a club that donates its community contributions to the Communist Party, then they should not be dictated by government. John L. Smith, Farrer Long commutes

If we are to have a sensible, probing, analytical solution-oriented discussion about this countrys population, please do not base it on one persons story of it taking an hour or so to get to work (Lets talk immigration and population ..., August18). Because such work journeys are not necessarily due to population growth and have never been unusual. Go back 50 or more years in Sydney, we were starting out on our work life. Some of us came from places like Fairfield in the western suburbs, some of us from StIves on the north shore. We worked in the CBD because that is where most of the promising jobs were and there were very few jobs in outer areas. We had to start work at 8.45am. To get there we took the bus and train and walked; to get to work on time we left home around 7.20am. Ajourney of more than an hour. And that timing was not due to big population, nor infrequent trains and buses. That is how it was. We did not whinge. So drop the whingeing stories and get serious about analysing how this country has to get smart about population distribution, growth, ageing, infrastructure and more. Marguerite Castello, Griffith Time servers rule

As a traditional Labor voter who is wanting to see a traditional Labor candidate in the new seat of Bean, I do not want to see a staffer preselected. The Labor Party should preselect someone with a strong record of community involvement. He or she should have a strong commitment to helping the homeless get a better deal. At the moment in the ACT and the federal Labor ranks, time servers rule. As far as social commitment goes, ACT Labor and the ACT Liberal Party are so much alike that they might as well form a coalition. Howard Carew, Isaacs

Running out of time Turnbull is terminal. Thos Puckett, Ashgrove TO THE POINT MISSING BACKBONE

When I was at university half a century ago one of my zoology textbooks was Animals Without Backbones by Ralph Buchsbaum. I dont know if its still in print but if it is it needs an additional chapter to describe the new invertebrate species that has rapidly evolved in the precincts of Capital Hill here in Canberra. Ed Highley, Kambah DUTTONS MILITIA It seems an excellent idea to make Peter Dutton Prime Minister. He already has his own militia. H. Simon, Watson

CHILDCARE LINKS Does anyone else find it abhorrent that Dutton has a financial interest in childcare centres? Bob Gardiner, Isabella Plains KIDS HELD ON NAURU Peter Dutton still lies about offshore detention of children. There are still 119 children [who have been] on Nauru for five years or more. They are suffering. Stop indefinite detention.

Sue Cory, Edge Hill, Qld STABBED FROM BEHIND Malcolm Turnbull keeps the big seat with 48 people standing behind him. Perhaps he should remember that in order to stab someone in the back you have to stand behind them. Dennis Fitzgerald, Box Hill, Vic TURNBULLS VOTE

I have a way for Turnbull to deal with the far right wing of his party  and get climate change policy at the same time. Simply take his one vote to the Opposition and form a new government. Karl Goiser, Griffith DUNNES NEWS SENSE I didnt see Vicki Dunne leap in front of a TV camera to congratulate the Canberra Hospital on its accreditation.

(Canberra Hospital get standards tick, August 21, p.7). Perhaps she only likes to amplify bad news stories. Jeff Bradley, Isaacs

PARTIES COMPLICIT Will we see Turnbull and Shorten shaking hands across the party divide, vowing to end the disgraceful detention in Nauru and Manus Island of hapless refugees in which both their parties have been complicit? Bishop Pat Power, Campbell NOT ENOUGH FIBRE Malcolm seeded his political troubles with his NBN approach. Not enough fibre. Back to the copper.

Chris Klootwijk, Macarthur CAN IT GET WORSE? Just when you think politics cannot get worse Peter Potato Head is put forward for PM. Mary Wahren, Aranda SICKEST JOKE
The dismal cycle of government leadership challenges has resumed.

Once 40 per cent of a political partys parliamentarians have voted to remove a prime minister, the Australian people are grimly familiar with the inevitable outcome.

But the overarching question is why? Whats so momentous that the country must discard its prime minister, disrupt its parliament, confound its people and unsettle its business community partway through a term?

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addresses the media after his party room win on Tuesday. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

Malcolm Turnbull is widely considered in the electorate to be a disappointment but not a disaster. And he remains less unpopular than the Labor leader, Bill Shorten. And Tuesday in Parliament was big on movement but small on meaning.
NSW Labor may have to parachute in a candidate or draft a high-profile MP to run in the western Sydney seat of Lindsay as it struggles to find a replacement for Emma Husar.

The party is yet to find a candidate for Lindsay, after Ms Husar confirmed she would not recontest the seat following allegations of bullying and misconduct levelled at her by former staff.

It is understood Labor head office is keen to speed-up the process after Tuesday's federal leadership challenge, which some believe could prompt an election to be called earlier than expected.

Emma Husar has announced she would not recontest the next election. Credit:Wolter Peeters

Party officials are also urgently trying to finish all the background checks on candidates so Labor's senate ticket can be finalised in the event a federal election is called this year.
A Chinese telecommunications giant awarded a $136 million contract to build a 4G radio and data network for Perth's passenger trains will collect an additional $80 million in maintenance fees, the government revealed in parliament on Tuesday.

In answers to questions asked in WA's upper house, Transport Minister Rita Saffioiti said a total of $205.7 million would be paid to Huawei and its joint venture partner UGL to design, build and maintain for five years the high-tech communications system.

She also did not rule out using the Huawei-built network, which would include the construction of 80 mobile towers along the city's rail corridors, for a future automatic train control system.

The government was considering using it for a public emergency messaging system, Ms Saffioti revealed.
Western Australia's Liberal MPs could hold the balance of power between Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Queensland MP Peter Dutton if another leadership challenge emerges in coming days or weeks.

It is understood that even though a majority of the state's Liberal MPs  including most cabinet ministers  supported the Prime Minister during Tuesday morning's leadership ballot, a number threw their support behind Mr Dutton.

Mr Dutton needs just seven MPs to switch sides to successfully defeat Mr Turnbull in the party room.

If WA's federal contingent shift en bloc behind Mr Dutton, it would be enough to get him across the line.
Taipei: Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen has visited the US space agency's Texas base, in a move expected to infuriate Beijing as it indicates deepening ties between Taipei and Washington.

Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen Credit:AP

The trip to NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston on Sunday marked the first time a sitting leader from the self-ruling island had entered a US federal building in an official capacity, although her presence there, and in Los Angeles a week ago, were only brief stopovers en route to Paraguay and Belize. Even short stops on US soil have traditionally provoked a sharp response from China, which claims Taiwan as its territory.

The US has not officially recognised Taiwan since 1979, when it imposed restrictions on senior Taiwanese officials to keep Beijing on side.
Dubai Exports, the export promotion agency of the Department of Economic Development (DED), recently concluded a visit to Hong Kong, attracting buyers and importers eager to source products from Dubai to Far Eastern markets.



The visit, led by Mohammed Al Kamali, deputy chief executive officer of Dubai Exports, marked the first anniversary of the Overseas Trade Office (OTO) of Dubai Exports opened in Hong Kong and was meant to strengthen relations with key stakeholders as part of enabling UAE-based companies to expand their international collaboration and presence in the Far East.



"Dubai Exports has already received enquiries from 71 buyers in Hong Kong interested in sourcing products from Dubai while 17 of our local companies have also sought our assistance in exporting to Hong Kong, Dubai Exports has been able to establish and develop strong relations with business and government decision makers in Hong Kong, largely because of the groundwork done by the OTO since its opening in August 2017," said Al Kamali.



The OTO has proactively reached out to the local business community, industrial associations, and importers in order to promote the benefits and competitiveness of products and services from Dubai. The office has also played a pivotal role in assisting UAE companies successfully penetrating Far Eastern markets as well as across local tradeshows, seminars and workshops.



Al Kamali and his team met with traders and industry associations, including the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce (HKGCC); Chinese Manufactures' Association of Hong Kong (CGCC); Hong Kong Chinese Importers' & Exporters' Association (HKCIEA); Commerce and Economic Development Bureau (CEDB); Office of Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), and Trade & Industry Department (TID), in addition to local companies like China Resources Vanguard (HK) Co. Ltd, HKTV Mall, and Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd.



"Dubai is viewed by people in Hong Kong mainly as a tourist and oil-exporting region. However, with the emirate's strategic plan for 2021, we aim to show that Dubai is much more and indeed a highly diversified economy," Al Kamali said. "Dubai is a global exporter and manufacturer of a diverse range of products, from porcelain to caviar and tea. Dubai also shares a similar DNA as Hong Kong and both regions can work closer across re-exports, trading, logistics, and more".



According to the Trade & Industry Department of Hong Kong, the UAE was the 15th largest trading partner for Hong Kong and their most important partner in Middle East in 2017. With initiatives like the 'Belt & Road' there are more opportunities for stronger bilateral engagement.



The Dubai Exports office in Hong Kong is working on sector-level outreach to enterprises and associations to promote its services as well as products and services from Dubai. Varied programmes will be rolled out for the benefit the importers in the host country, such as the Elite Buyers Programmes, and representatives of supermarkets in Dubai have been invited to join the Business-to-Business programmes being held in Dubai this month.  TradeArabia News Service
His wife, Sotiria, went unpaid for almost a year in 2013, after the Greek supermarket chain where she worked declared bankruptcy. Another company bought it, and her monthly salary of 1100 was cut to 800. She was eventually paid about half of what she was owed. But Zafiriou said he never received nearly 13,000 in back pay from his old firm. The family's bills quickly became insurmountable. They could no longer pay for electricity or a loan on their modest two-bedroom apartment in Keratsini, a working-class suburb of Piraeus, near Athens. The only thing shielding them from eviction  along with thousands of Greeks in similar straits  was a law forbidding banks from repossessing most borrowers' primary homes. Tourists sit under the Parthenon and watch the sunset over Athens. Credit:New York Times The family slashed spending on clothing and groceries, and halted therapy for their daughter, Anamaria, 13, who has dyslexia. Low on cash, Zafiriou sold all of their gold jewellery, except for the cross used at Anamaria's christening. With his new job, things are looking up. The couple has rehired a tutor for Anamaria, and Sotiria Zafiriou no longer needs to shop for the very cheapest produce or meat. The primary aim is to pay down all the family's debts as quickly as possible, even if that leaves nothing at the end of the month.

"Greece is getting better," Zafiriou said. "But that doesn't mean things have turned around." Even after the bailout, Greece must continue belt-tightening for years, while creditors monitor its fiscal discipline and progress on structural reforms. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has promised to ease up on those most affected with better social support and wages, and spoken of a possible reduction in steep business taxes to spur hiring. Unemployment has fallen to 19.5 per cent from 28 per cent, but remains the highest in the eurozone. Nikos Vasiliou, owner of Bright Special Lighting said he turned a profit last year for the first time since the debt crisis. Credit:New York Times Tsipras wants to build momentum after the economy grew 1.4 per cent last year, slowly recovering from a contraction reminiscent of the Great Depression. Greece is running a budget surplus, minus interest payments on its still mountainous debt. Tsipras is aiming to start selling Greek bonds again on financial markets within two years.

That outlook has lent a sense that the crisis may at last be fading. At the port of Piraeus, near the Zafiriou family's home, thousands of tourists board hulking ferry boats for holidays on the sunny Greek islands after visiting the Acropolis. Tourism has been surging, helping to reinvigorate growth. Small businesses have sprung up to cater to the crowds, and construction-related activity is resuming. Other jobs are being created as manufacturers shift sales outside the Greek market, stoking a rise in exports, which now make up a third of economic activity, up from a quarter before the crisis. At Bright Special Lighting, a mid-size maker of industrial and home lighting systems, the owner, Nikos Vasiliou, tilted half his production toward clients who can afford it, including Google's European headquarters in Ireland and Vodafone stores in Paris. Vasiliou said he turned a profit last year for the first time since the crisis, and added 25 employees to his 143-person workforce. All but 10 are on permanent contracts, averaging 1100 a month  a decent salary in today's economy.

Yet for the vast majority of workers, Greece's labour market remains a rough-and-tumble landscape. Georgia Pavlioti lost her job during the debt crisis. Credit:New York Times To make the economy more competitive, Greece's creditors  the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission  set austerity terms that included suspending collective bargaining and easing conditions for firing. Salaries in the public and private sectors fell more than 20 per cent. The monthly minimum wage was cut to 586 in 2012, the second-lowest in the eurozone, from 751. Today, a growing share of jobs are minimum wage. At least half involve temporary or part-time contracts. While that helps lower unemployment figures, many private-sector employees now earn less-than-poverty wages, according to the OECD, as do nearly half of Greek households with two children. Others work even more precariously with no contract at all, as employers seek to evade paying overtime and social security charges.

It is a sign of the uneasy nature of Greece's recovery that, even with a coveted full-time contract, Zafiriou, the construction worker, remains wary. He has been working since June, but many companies have shed employees just before their work anniversary, after which they would have become harder to fire. For those who fell further during the crisis, even getting to that point seems out of reach. On a recent weekday, Georgia Pavlioti, 50, a single mother, sat down with a social worker at Praksis, a humanitarian organisation that supports Greeks who have fallen into hardship. Pavlioti, a former supervisor at a Greek polling company, never dreamed she would need social assistance. Her daughter was born at the start of the crisis, but by the time her maternity leave ended, the company had downsized and she could not find other work. Her husband lost his job as a security guard. The financial loss strained their marriage, and she filed for divorce  something increasing numbers of Greeks are resorting to since the crisis began. Eventually, she found informal work cleaning houses and caring for the elderly, including changing their adult diapers. "I couldn't believe I had fallen so far," Pavlioti said, fighting back tears. "It shook my self-image and confidence."
New York: In one of the most dramatic days of the Trump presidency, the President's former campaign chief was found guilty of eight charges including bank fraud and filing false tax returns while, in a separate case, Donald Trump's former lawyer and personal fixer pleaded guilty to eight charges including breaking campaign finance rules.

The shock plea deal agreed to by Trump's long-time personal lawyer Michael Cohen will most likely have the most significant ramifications for the President, given the charges relate directly to efforts to shut down damaging stories about Trump's alleged extra-marital affairs.

Cohen told a New York courtroom that, during the 2016 election campaign, he violated federal law "in co-ordination with and at the direction of a federal candidate for office" - a reference to Trump.

Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis tweeted that Cohen had "stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election".
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Call them camera ready.

A new poll shows that the majority of state Sen. Marty Goldens constituents support preserving and expanding the citys school-zone speed-camera program that expired on July 25. The results prove that most locals consider the cameras to be lifesavers that Golden should pressure Senate Republicans to re-activate before the citys more than 1.1 million schoolchildren head back to class in September, according to a spokesman for Transportation Alternatives, the organization that commissioned the poll from polling firm Public Policy Polling.

This poll further reinforces what weve already heard from local volunteers that have been knocking on thousands of doors and speaking at numerous senior centers in [Goldens] Senate District 22: residents of the district overwhelmingly support the speed safety camera program because they know it saves lives, said Jack Davies. As the beginning of the school year rapidly approaches, these residents are more anxious than ever to get the cameras back on.

Public Policy Polling surveyed 515 random registered voters in Goldens district  which encompasses Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Fort Hamilton, Marine Park, Manhattan Beach, Gerritsen Beach, and parts of Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, Mapleton, Gravesend, Midwood, and Sheepshead Bay  via automated phone calls during a three-day period beginning two days after the cameras stopped ticketing drivers, from July 27 until July 29.

The firm found that 82 percent of the respondents support the speed camera program, and 65 percent also want to see it expanded. Support for the cameras is even stronger among senior citizens, with 84 percent of the 133 respondents more than 65 years old supporting the cameras, and 69 percent of them wanting to see the program expanded.

The firm called a list of registered voters in the district several times over the three days, according to a polling analyst at the firm, who said that the breakdown of respondents based on neighborhood and party affiliation mirrored that of the district, which has more than 76,000 registered Democrats and about 33,000 registered Republicans, according to the most recent data from the New York State Board of Elections.

State Sen. Simcha Felder (DMidwood) blocked the bill from exiting the Cities Committee, which he chairs, to go to the floor for a vote while the upper chamber was still in session. But since the session ended on June 20, protesters have demanded Golden do more to pressure Majority Leader John Flanagan (RLong Island) to bring the bill to a floor for a vote.

Statistics prove that the cameras  which photograph drivers license plates and automatically issue $50 fines to speeders  do slow drivers down and improve safety. There were more than 60-percent fewer speeding violations in school zones with speed cameras in the two years after they were first installed in 2014, and a nearly 15-percent reduction in injuries in school zones with the cameras, according to a transportation agency report published last year.

A Park Slope mom who protested Goldens lack of action on the speed cameras this summer said she was not at all surprised to hear that the vast majority of Goldens constituents support the cameras, because theyre a common-sense way to save lives and make pedestrians  children and seniors especially  safer on the streets.

Its not a surprise, because the bill is really a no-brainer, said Amy Cohen, whose 12-year-old son Samuel Cohen Eckstein was killed by a speeding driver near his Prospect Park West home in 2013. Weve spent a lot of time in his community, and everyone is supportive. Weve heard from a lot of seniors and they expressed that they feel really in danger just crossing the street.

A spokesman for Golden, James McClelland, said the pol was not surprised that the majority of his constituents agree with him regarding the speed camera issue, pointing to both Goldens call for Flanagan to reconvene the Senate to address speed cameras his co-sponsoring the bill that would preserve and double the number of speed cameras citywide over the next four years.

But a month after Golden announced his support for the speed-cam expansion bill, he co-sponsored a different bill that wouldnt expand the program, would extend the current speed camera program only for another six months, and require the city to install signs notifying drivers where the cameras are, leading critics to charge that Golden was purposefully undermining efforts to preserve and expand the program.

Davies at TransAlt said that showed Golden didnt actually to want to get the original speed camera bill passed, and that he was backtracking on a personal promise Cohen said he made to her that he would leverage his power as the most senior Republican in the state Senate to pressure Flanagan to reconvene the Senate to vote on the bill.

Sen. Marty Golden made a promise to his constituents that he would use his senior leadership position with Republicans to pass this legislation and protect NYC kids. He has failed to live up to that promise. In fact, theres no sign hes even made any real effort, Davies said.

The citys 140 cameras stopped doling out tickets on July 25, when the original 2013 authorization expired, but a spokesman at the mayors office said the city planned to keep the cameras on to collect speed data, which it would compile and make available in a report in the coming weeks.

The mayors office announced on Aug. 13 that the cameras caught 132,253 drivers speeding through school zones citywide during school hours between July 26 and Aug. 10 and 67 percent of those were in 42 school zones across Brooklyn, according to a spokesman from the mayors office, which comes out to an average of 5,570 speeding drivers in Kings County during school hours each day during the 16-day period.
The 39th Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) 2018 closed yesterday (August 20) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia having addressed some of the most important issues challenging the petrochemical industry in Asia.



Movements in the oil price resulting from a potential trade war between the US and China was a topic very much on the minds of over 2,000 delegates attending the conference.



Industry players were also actively seeking new ways to deliver consumer and industrial products, on the back of Asias continued economic and population growth. As many as 2.5 billion people, with an estimated 450 million newly urbanised, are expected to be placed in Asia over the next 20 years.



In order to meet rising demand, major petrochemical companies in Asia are building supply capacity. According to IHS Markit, Asia (excluding China) is predicted to have an increase in chemical capacity from 137 million tonnes to 153 million tonnes in the next five years.



Malaysia, for example, will shortly be adding capacity in 2019 when the Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development project (RAPID) comes on-line boosting production from the current 16.3 million tonnes per annum to 23.1 million tonnes per annum. RAPID is just one of six petrochemical plants planned in the South East Asia (SEA) region to meet future demand. Petrochemical exports in the SEA region alone is expected to increase by 55 per cent to 7.5 million tonnes per annum by 2020 while imports will decrease by 28 per cent.



Tan Sri Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin, President and Group CEO, PETRONAS said, With the completion of our Pengerang Integrated Complex (PIC) by 2019 and RAPID complex, we are set to add a further 3.3 mtpa of commodity and differentiated petrochemical products into the market.



According to President of the Malaysian Petrochemicals Association (MPA) Akbar Md Thayoob, Collaboration at a governmental level is required to fine-tune policies and incentives to enhance long-term capital investment and provide a stable business environment conducive to business growth.



In his address, Deputy Minister of International Trade & Industry, Y.B. Dr Ong Kian Ming said, Challenges industry faces cannot be answered by the solutions of yesterday. Malaysia is looking for good investment and collaboration, he hoped that the ideas exchanged at APIC 2018 would allow the industry to create mutually beneficial partnerships to unlock greater potential for the industry.  TradeArabia News Service
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The company, which had made its India foray in May 2018 with an exclusive e-commerce tie-up with Flipkart, is increasing its offline retail presence with a focus on the sub-Rs 10,000 smartphone category. UP is an important market and we are looking at a network of 80 distributors and 8,000 retailers in the state, Mobiistar co-founder and CEO Carl Ngo said in Lucknow on Tuesday. The company targets to figure among ...

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

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Dr Shamsheer Vayalil, chairman and managing director of UAE-based VPS Healthcare, has donated Dh26 million ($7 million) towards the relief campaign for Kerala as the most devastating floods in over a century hit the South Indian state.



The floods have so far led to hundreds of deaths and the displacement of thousands of people. The extremely heavy rainfall has also caused unprecedented loss to property, with considerable damage to the infrastructure across the state.



Dr Vayalils generous contribution comes as part of the emergency relief campaign launched by the Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation (KBZF) in line with the directives of the UAE President His Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.



Mohammed Hajji Al Khouri, general manager of KBZF, commended Dr Vayalils efforts to help the residents of Kerala overcome the tragic impact of the floods as soon as possible. He stressed that the donations of UAE-based Indian businessmen highlight the vital role that individuals play in the charity, development and humanitarian fields.



He also praised the donors for contributing to the UAEs humanitarian endeavours and reinforcing the countrys status as the worlds top donor of development aid- the result of the combined efforts of the countrys government entities and the tireless work of its citizens and residents.  TradeArabia News Service
The Union government is likely to take a stand of politely refusing any help from foreign governments as relief to the flood-affected state of Kerala. This comes on the back of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government offering Rs 7 billion to the Kerala flood relief fund. The central government is of the stand that Kerala can take help from individuals abroad.

But if any government is ready to help, we should not take it, said a senior official from the finance ministry of Kerala. He added that even though the UAE government has offered ...
The index will be based on six parameters that include fiscal deficit, revenue deficit, revenue expenditure, capital expenditure, tax revenues and debt payment or servicing. The index, expected to be readied over next few months, will be finalised after extensive consultation with economists. . In these indicators, there are few perceived to be good for the quality of fiscal deficit, while others are not, an official remarked.

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Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

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What is the case all about? The case was about the applicability of GST on the transactions/services provided by the head office to manage its branch offices located in other states. Bengaluru-based Columbia Asia Hospitals sought advance ruling on whether the activities performed by its employees at the corporate office  such as accounting, IT or other administrative duties  for the units located in other ...

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

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India offers the best economic growth potential for Australia and not China over the next 20 years, a report supported by the Australian government has pointed out. An India Economic Strategy to 2035, penned by former Australian High Commissioner to India Peter N Varghese, bats for more economic linkages between the nations at a time Indian businesses have been scouting for newer overseas markets, egged on by the government. "If you look globally at where the best prospects for growth in trade and investment relations are, India stands out as the single most ...

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

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London-based World Franchise Associates (WFA), a franchise development consultancy and media company, has signed an agreement to exclusively represent Bombay Borough (India) for development opportunities in the GCC, UK, and SE Asia.



World Franchise Associates expertly assists franchisors to enter new international markets and provide international franchise advisory services to corporate and private investors who wish to expand their franchise portfolios or enter the franchise market, a statement said.



Bombay Borough offers customers a direct route to re-discover India through an explosion of avour and a showcase of hyper-local Indian ingredients. Customers can sample small plates or indulge in large ones, from an eclectic selection of ingredients and pairings that infuse the familiar with the unexpected. The brand satisfies the cravings for good conversation and great food, through an exciting adventure that serves up the very best of India's ingredients and dishes for the armchair traveller.



Bombay Borough dining experience is inspired by a fusion of modern French and British-era old bungalows of India, infusing the west with India into a space where people can gather over good conversation and great food.



The brand uses a melange of unique ingredients sourced from the far corners of the country and hand-picked and sourced from local farms and suppliers. Its unique list of ingredients includes: the Bhoot Jolokia, one of the hottest chillies in the world that comes from North East India, the sundried Mango Aam Papad from Amritsar in the North, Pink Salt from the Himalayas, and the unique South Indian Podi Masala.



Paul Cairnie, chief executive officer World Franchise Associates said, Bombay Borough offers investors an original and unique culinary experience of India. The brands experimental Indian Cuisine and ingredient inspired menu, using only the finest ingredients to be found globally, creates a rst of its kind serving up the very best of India in the fast-casual dining space.  TradeArabia News Service
Daniels, who took over as the boss of WhatsApp in May, on Tuesday told the government it would work out a technological solution to trace the origin of fake messages. The Facebook-owned firm, with more than 200 million active subscribers in India, also committed to complying with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) rules relating to local storage of financial data by having servers in ...

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The Government of Kerala will ask the Centre to raise the state's borrowing limit from three per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) to 4.5 per cent, along with a special package of Rs 26 billion.

A special session of the Legislative Assembly will be called on August 30 to discuss the relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction work to be taken up. "Today, the Cabinet has met and decided to submit a comprehensive plan to the central government for rehabilitation of the affected people and the rebuilding of the state. Our plan is not to restore the state to the ...
The Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode is set to become the first among IIMs to allot 60 additional seats in its post-graduate programme (PGP) exclusively for women. These 60 women-only seats will be effective from the next academic year, the Economic Times reported.

With this move, IIM Kozhikode becomes the first IIM to follow the footsteps of IITs that have created an additional 800 supernumerary seats in 2018. This step was taken according to the directives of the HRD ministry, in a move to improve the low gender ratio across its various campuses. According to the ...
The on Monday ordered the Central Board of Secondary to publicise in media that stringent action would be taken against institutes not following the board's 'no homework' rule for class 1 and 2 students.

Justice N Kirubakaran passed the order on a plea by advocate M Purushothaman seeking direction to the to follow only syllabus and books prescribed by the National Council Of Educational Research and Training.

When the plea came up for hearing before Justice Kirubakaran, the produced a copy of the circular which said it had issued similar circulars on September 15, 2004, and on September 12, 2016, saying there should not be any homework assigned to students of classes 1 and 2.

According to affiliation bylaws, schools affiliated to the board must satisfy its advisory saying no school bag and no homework for students up to class 2.

The board also stated that in compliance of the directions of the "it is once again reiterated that schools may ensure that no homework is given in class 3."



"It is also reiterated that since is an academic authority for classes 1 to 8, all schools may ensure that CBSE circular dated April 17, 2007, on reducing the satchel load and homework for children, is scrupulously followed," it said.

Recording the submission, the judge asked the counsel for CBSE on the mechanism it has to ensure that all the institutes implement the rule.

To this, the counsel said that CBSE would act whenever they are "put to notice of such violation."



Refusing to accept the contention, the judge said "People are considering CBSE as a premier board, but it is unfortunate that you do not even have a system to check such violations."



"As you said there were over 18,000 schools affiliated to CBSE, but the board has a staff strength of only 1,200. With such a low staff how could you ensure implementation of rules," the judge asked.
Describing India as an "all-weather partner", the US has said the first with it next month is an important opportunity to enhance engagement on a range of diplomatic and security issues and discuss how to operationalise India's status as a 'Major Defence Partner'.

US Secretary of State Micheal Pompeo and Secretary of Defence James Mattis will travel to New Delhi on September 6 for the 2+2 Dialogue, the format of which was agreed upon between the two sides during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington in June 2017.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman were to travel to Washington to take part in the meeting with their US counterparts in July.

But the US had postponed the dialogue citing "unavoidable reasons." After June last year, the two countries have tried to schedule the dialogue many times with several dates having been considered. Earlier this year also, the '2+2 Dialogue' had been postponed due to uncertainty over the confirmation of Pompeo as President Donald Trump's new Secretary of State.

"With India, we are looking forward to the inaugural with Secretaries Pompeo and Mattis travelling for these meetings in New Delhi on September 6," Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Alice Wells told reporters on Monday.

"It is an important opportunity to discuss and enhance our engagement on a range of diplomatic and security priorities and really is an indication of the deepening strategic partnership that we enjoy with India," she said.

Wells was addressing a Foreign Press Centre video conference from Washington on "US Policy in the Indian Ocean Region" during which she previewed her upcoming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference hosted by the India Foundation in Hanoi on August 27-28.

She said India plays a central role in US national security adding that it is "enshrined in the President's national security strategy as well as the administration's South Asia and Indo-Pacific strategies."



She said at the upcoming 2+2 ministerial, the US is looking to discuss "how do we operationalise India's status as a major defense partner."



India has said the 2+2 meeting will cover a broad range of bilateral, regional and global issues of shared interest, with a view to strengthening strategic and security ties between the two countries.

The US designated India as a Major Defence Partner in 2016. The new status is expected to enable easier procurement of American weapons and the transfer of sophisticated technologies.

Defence cooperation between India and the US has grown from "essentially zero dollars" in 2008 to $18 billion on Tuesday, Wells said.

The US does more military exercises with India than with any other country in the world "but how do we take this partnership to a new level so that it is not just going to be defense acquisitions but really a way of framing how we see challenges and how we want to be able to respond together to address these challenges," she said.

Highlighting that the India-US partnership is rooted in shared democratic values and commitment to rules-based order, Wells said the two nations are going to be able to demonstrate at the the facts of this maturing partnership.

On a question about trade relations with India, Wells said opening up trade with India is a "key strategic objective" for the Trump administration.

Bilateral trade currently stands at about $126 billion, an increase of more than $10 billion from last year and there have been critical purchases by Indian firms in the commercial aviation, energy as well as the defense sectors. She, however, added that impediments do remain between the two countries on trade.

"Tariff and non-tariff barriers have been a subject of longstanding concern and intellectual property rights as well. So we are continuing a very intensive dialogue with the Indian government on how do we address these irritants and unlock the trade that is of great interest to US firms when they look at the Indian market and its potential," she said.

Wells added that looking outside of India, Washington wants to work together with New Delhi and identify projects whether they be in Sri Lanka or Nepal.

"One of the great new elements of our relationship with India is that we are working in third countries," she said as she cited the example of the assistance and developmental level work with India in Africa on health-related issues and peacekeeping training. She said India and the US worked together in programmes that involved bringing Afghans to India for cost-effective training.

"India really is an all-weather partner as we look ahead to how to ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains free and open."



During the press briefing, Wells previewed her upcoming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference and how it supports the Trump administration's Indo-Pacific strategy.

The annual conference, hosted by the India Foundation along with its partners from Singapore, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, will focus on the theme of 'Building Regional Architectures'.
Since it first became clear that Russian agents spent thousands of dollars a month on political advertising on social media in the runup to the 2016 presidential election, Americans have been asking how the powerful advertising infrastructure run by Google and Facebook could have been thrown open to foreign agents.

But fewer have stopped to ask whether there is a good reason for this infrastructure to exist at all. Why, exactly, is it a good thing for Facebook and Google to be selling advertising to anyone, let alone Russian agents? The obvious answer seems to be so that ...
Saudi Arabias General Authority of Civil Aviation (Gaca) has selected global IT provider Sita to support the modernisation of the countrys biggest airports, implementing a sweeping transformation of airport and communication technology across 26 airports.



The new implementation marks another major milestone in the decade-long partnership between Gaca and Sita.



The new technology is vital to improving the overall passenger experience while preparing the airports for an expected surge in passenger numbers over the next few years. Passenger traffic across all Saudi airports climbed to 92 million in 2017, a 7.7 per cent increase compared with the previous year.



Abdulhakim bin Muhammad Al-Tamimi, president of Gaca, said: Gaca has mapped out a clear future for Saudi airports, enabling us to meet our continued passenger growth while maintaining the worlds best airport facilities. We recognised that Sita was best suited to support this transformation. They have worked closely with us to implement our requirements for each airport and provide the right solution.



As part of the technology upgrade, Sita is implementing its AirportConnect Open platform which allows airlines to work seamlessly at airports using common facilities while delivering a smooth self-service experience from check-in to boarding. AirportConnect Open provides future-proof infrastructure which will enable the implementation of cutting-edge solutions such as biometric single-token travel and common-use payment systems. It is also supported by the introduction of new Wide Area Network (WAN) and Local Area Network (LAN) connectivity across all airports.



In addition, Sita is providing Gaca with a state-of-the-art baggage management solution in line with industry standards, enabling Gaca airports to meet the baggage tracking requirements of Iatas Resolution 753. Sita will help airlines track and capture baggage data at check-in, loading onto the aircraft, transfer and on arrival.



At the same time, Sitas Airport Management solution and Flight Information Display System is being deployed in Jeddahs King Abdulaziz International Airport, providing real-time information critical in helping Gaca proactively manage their resources across the airport. This will also empower the operations teams to plan for events before they happen, while ensuring that they have the right people and equipment in place at all times. The Airport Management solution is being rolled out in an additional 21 GACA airports before the end of the year.



Sita has also introduced Airport iValidate gates at Jeddahs King Abdulaziz International Airport and Riyadhs King Khalid International Airport. IValidate is a traveller document authentication system that enhances security and accelerates passenger processing by automatically verifying all types of boarding passes, including mobile boarding and home-printed passes.



Engineer Suleiman Al Bassam, vice president for Information Technology and Telecommunications at GACA, said: Our investment in new technology underpins the development of smart airport infrastructure across Saudi Arabia and is an important part in realising Gacas long-term strategy of improving the passenger experience across its airport network. It also supports the objectives of Saudi Vision 2030, which includes the development of our national airport and wider aviation infrastructure.



Hani El-Assaad, Sita president, Middle East, India and Africa, said: Time and again we have seen how technology can transform an airport, improving the flow of passengers through the airport and therefore elevating the whole airport experience. Our solutions will help Gaca reap the full benefit of the tremendous growth they have experienced across all Saudi Arabian airports in the past few years. - TradeArabia News Service
Oil prices edged up on Tuesday, supported by expectations of supply cuts once US sanctions against Iran bite in November, but capped by worries a Sino-US trade dispute will drag on fuel demand growth. Brent crude oil futures were at $72.24 per barrel at 0104 GMT, up 3 cents from their last close. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 24 cents, or 0.4 per cent, at $66.67 per barrel. Traders said prices were lifted by expectations of a drop in supply once US sanctions against major oil exporter Iran take effect from November. In an attempt to ...
Uber Technologies Inc has hired a chief financial officer, the ride-services company said on Tuesday, filling a long-standing vacancy and clearing the way for a much-anticipated initial public offering next year. Uber said it had hired Nelson Chai, a financial services veteran with deep connections to the banks and deal-makers Uber must impress ahead of what is expected to be a large, complicated IPO. Uber lost more than $1 billion per quarter in three of the last six quarters. Still, it hopes its growth potential will attract investors. Uber must meet its self-imposed deadline ...
Can a ban be flouted without the rules explicitly being broken? Is it possible for a central regulator to ban a completely decentralised currency, created with the objective of making the formal financial system irrelevant? It may be hard to believe that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) the banking regulator with an iron hand  would fail to enforce its own regulations, but thats pretty much what happened when it tried to ban cryptocurrency in India.

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Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday announced that his government is extending an assistance of 2000 tonnes of rice for the aid of Kerala flood victims. He has formally flagged off three lorries.

The District collectors led the event at respective district headquarters. Andhra Pradesh, Social welfare Minister, Transport Minister Kinjarapu Atchannaidu and Anand Babu accompanied the Chief Minister in this program.

The collected material will be distributed to various districts and towns of Kerala.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The officials of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Tuesday said that they may summon Jayant Athawale, the chief of the Hindu right-wing group Sanatan Sanstha, in a terror conspiracy case investigation.

"If needed, we will call Dr. Jayant Athawale, who is the chief of Sanatan Sanstha for joining the investigation," ATS sources revealed. The agency, however, made it clear that the investigations are not being carried out on the lines of any organisational linkages and till now no connection of the arrested accused persons have been established with Maratha Kranti Morcha.

"We are not investigating on the lines of any organisation but you are aware of their connections with organisations according to their social media profile," sources said.

The Mumbai ATS has arrested Shiv Sena ex-corporator Shrikant Pangarkar and three more persons -- Sharad Kalaskar, Vaibhav Raut and Sudhanwa Gondhalekar -- for allegedly plotting terror attacks in Maharashtra. The agency has interrogated around two dozen people during the course of investigation. Pangarkar, who has been sent to police custody till August 28, is being investigated by the ATS for his alleged role in 'harbouring and funding' men accused of conspiring terror attacks in Maharashtra.

"We have also investigated around two dozen people in our ongoing investigation. Besides, we have seized weapons, ammunition and other articles that have been sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL). We are waiting for the reports," sources said.

Giving details of the terror attacks case, sources said that Pangarkar was in touch with Kalaskar, Raut and Gondhalekar for the past five-six years. "They are all highly trained and know how to make IEDs. They also used to communicate in code languages. There are hundreds of code words which we are trying to crack. They used to work in Silos small groups which works separately and are not in touch with each other. We are still to find out their chief operative, their targets, and how they procured the ammunitions etc," sources said.

Pangarkar has been active in programmes of right wing organisations like the Hindu Jan Jagruti Samiti and others. The Sanatan Sanstha in a statement has denied any kind of association with all these accused persons.

ATS sources further said that the agency had sent recommendations to the Maharashtra Government long back to ban the Sanatan Sanstha, which was forwarded to the Central Government in 2011-12.

"We have sent our recommendation long back to the state government and that was forwarded to the Central Government in 2011-12. After that a query was raised on our report which was duly responded in 2015....If asked again, we will send our report about the Sanatan Sanstha," sources said.

Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation during interrogation of one Sachin Andure, arrested in the Dabholkar murder case, got hints of Pangarkar's role in the killing of the rationalist in 2013.

The CBI along with the ATS, on Tuesday, recovered weapons including a country-made pistol and live cartridges during a raid in Aurangabad in Maharashtra, that were allegedly used to kill Dabholkar five years back. The CBI is investigating the Dabholkar murder case. The ATS is providing assistance to the CBI as and when needed.

"In our investigation till now, we don't have anything about murders of other rationalists like Kalburgi, Pansare and Gauri Lankesh, etc. What we got to know about Dabholkar case we shared that with CBI ," ATS source said.

The ATS is also likely to interrogate Amol Kale, one of the prime accused of murdering journalist Gauri Lankesh. Kale was recently arrested by the Special Investigation team in Karnataka and the ATS wants to probe if his threads are also connected with terror case.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two days after Afghanistan announced conditional ceasefire with the Taliban, several rockets landed in Kabul city on Tuesday morning during President Ashraf Ghani's Eid prayer ceremony.

The attack took place when Ghani was addressing a gathering during the ceremony at around 9 am (local time), reported Tolo news.

Responding to the attack, the Afghan President said, "There are groups that continuing the violence and with the firing of rockets they cannot stop the people of Afghanistan's development."

According to the reports, the rockets were fired at the Presidential Palace and around the Green Zone.

Earlier on Sunday, Ghani declared a conditional ceasefire with the Taliban for a period of three months to mark the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday. The military operations will, however, continue against the Taliban, until it announces a formal ceasefire.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Police in Bihar have arrested 15 people after a woman in the state's Bihiya town was beaten up and stripped by a mob over a suspicion of a youth's murder.

The man, identified as Vimlesh Sav, was found dead on railway tracks on Monday morning. The woman, who is currently under police custody and undergoing medical tests, has denied the allegations that she killed the youth.

The murder angered the villagers, who were already upset with the spike in crime in the Bhojpur district. The angry mob burnt down shops and torched vehicles including police cars on Monday.

Following that, eight police officials were suspended, including the Station House Officer, Bahiya, and station in-charge Government Railway Police. The investigation was led by Awkash Kumar, the Superintendent of Police, Bhojpur.

Meanwhile, Inspector General of Patna Zone, Naiyar Hasain Khan assured that the culprits would not be spared, and strict action will be taken against them.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Citing bankruptcy and current fiscal issues, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Tuesday announced cancellation of the China-funded East Coast Rail Link and two gas pipelines projects. The rail project was key to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Mahathir is on a five-day visit to China. In a press conference, Mahathir expressed concerns about the project saying: "I believe China itself does not want to see Malaysia become a bankrupt country," reported the Sydney Morning Herald.

In another press conference held earlier with his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang, Mahathir called for 'fair trade', and warned China against the new form of 'colonialism' which was a reference to the debts garnered by the countries after accepting Chinese investment under the BRI.

"The projects will not go on. At the moment, the priority is reducing our debt . it will be deferred until such time when we can afford, then maybe we will reduce the cost...If we have to pay compensation, we have to pay. This is the stupidity of the negotiations before. We must find a way to exit these projects . this is our own people's stupidity," South China Morning Post (SCMP) quoted Mahathir before his departure for Kuala Lumpur.

Mahathir put the blame on his predecessor Najib for the economic crisis in the country. "We had no problems with foreign direct investment before. But this happened because the government of Dato Seri Najib overlooked all the previous practices and entered into agreements which are very detrimental to our interests," Mahathir said according to SCMP. According to media reports from Malaysia, the country is currently facing a debt of about 1 Trillion Ringgit.

The cancellation comes following a joint statement released on Monday night in which Mahathir and Chinese President Xi Jinping refrained from commenting on the rail link and the two gas pipelines, amid the speculations that Mahathir would seek a better deal.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
"On August 20th, the price of the Turkish Lira fell after US President Donald Trump declared that there would be no concessions with Turkey over the detained US Pastor.

In an interview with Reuters on August 20th, Donald Trump rejected agreeing to any demands from Turkey to gain the release of Andrew Brunson. He also said that he wasnt concerned that his tough stance could end up hurting European and emerging market economies.

Trump also claimed that he thought he and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a deal after he helped persuade Israel to release a detained Turkish citizen. He thought that Erdogan would reciprocate his actions and release Andrew Brunson, who denies all allegations that he was involved in the failed coup attempt of 2016.

I think its very sad what Turkey is doing. I think theyre making a terrible mistake. There will be no concessions, Donald Trump said.

Turkeys demands include the US to hand over Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric in the United States suspected in the coup plot against Erdogan, however that request has been refused." SF

-----------

This seems to me to be a "Mexican Standoff."

Turkish/Erdogan pride is heavily involved as well as what IMO is his deeply held anti-Christian/anti-Western bias.

At the same time the US is denying Turkey previously agreed on sales of F-35 even though most of the aircraft have been delivered. This denial is in retaliation for the deal the Turks have made for the Russian built S-400 air defense system. The Russian system is operationally incompatible with NATO systems and is, of course, incompatible with the anti-Russian purpose of NATO as it is seen by American politicians and generals who share a view of Russia as a thinly disguised continuation of the Soviet Union and a threat needed to justify and maintain the force structure they want in their imagined role as world gendarme.

Brunson is the pastor of one of the several small Protestant churches in Izmir City. These churches serve the expatriate business and consular communities there and have only a few hundred congregants. When I lived in Izmir I produced amateur theatricals in the parish hall of the Anglican Church. These churches were even then often vandalized by Turks who saw them as both infidel and alien.

Trump is IMO unlikely to back away from this confrontation which he sees as part of the process of imposing his will on just about everyone. At the same time the Turks are clearly intent on expanding their territory at the expense of Syria even though the Russians have cautioned them that Russia will stand by its Syrian ally.

A major diplomatic and military clash among these various interests seems inevitable. pl

https://southfront.org/trump-there-would-be-no-concessions-with-turkey/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_standoff

https://www.businessinsider.com/r-russia-to-start-delivering-s-400-defense-system-to-turkey-in-2019-ifax-2018-8
Businesswoman, philanthropist, and Founder and CEO of Christel House International, Christel DeHaan, was honored with the inaugural "Indiana Ratna" (Jewel of Indiana) award at the 1st annual "Indiana India Celebrating Our Impact Gala".

Hundreds of guests, including current and past mayors of Indianapolis, the Governor of Indiana, leaders and friends, and family attended the event.

"Christel DeHaan has been a trailblazer in creating a bridge between Indiana and India. She has shown leadership during her career, her support of the arts, and her philanthropic vision of helping impoverished children through Christel House, transforming their lives and breaking the cycle of poverty. She is the perfect recipient for the very first Indiana Ratna award," said founder & president of the Indiana India Council, Raju Chinthala.

Christel House, India is currently educating over 1,700 children through their Bengaluru and Naya-Raipur Learning Centers. Over 500 students have successfully graduated from Christel House India and are now either pursuing higher education with Christel House's financial support or are employed at reputed organizations, across the world.

Commenting on receiving this prestigious award, Christel DeHaan, Founder and CEO, of Christel House International said, "The children of India have a very special place in my heart. The country and its people hold extraordinary promise and both Christel House and the IIBC contribute in unleashing their potential. Our two organizations work to foster mutual understanding. I am honored to be recognized with the Indiana Ratna award, and proud that Christel House has been part of nurturing this relationship between India and Indiana."

"It is wonderful to see the connections being formed between India and Indiana. And IIBC could not have picked a better recipient for the Indiana Ratna Award than Christel DeHaan - a philanthropist from Indiana who is changing the lives of several hundreds of impoverished children in India, giving wings to their dreams and its multiplying impact will benefit generations to come." said Jasion C. Mathew, CEO, Christel House India.

Christel House India, a secular Not-for-Profit, strives to help underprivileged children break the vicious cycle of poverty through high quality education, nutrition and healthcare model. Through this initiative, they are not only transforming the lives of the impoverished children, but also creating a multiplier effect by helping them uplift the whole family and the community at large, ensuring upward Social Mobility.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With growing global support towards an anthem for the planet, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has also backed the Earth Anthem.

In a letter of support, Mauricio Dionisio de Souza, the National Representative of IUCN in Brazil, has called Earth Anthem- a global and important initiative to promote the conservation of nature among nations.

IUCN was created in 1948 and has since evolved into the world's largest environmental network.

Earth Anthem is a poem-song penned by Indian poet-diplomat Abhay K. in 2008 and was launched in 2013 on World Environment Day. It has been translated into over 30 languages worldwide, spoken by over 90 percent of the humanity.

World known violinist Dr. L. Subramaniam composed music for the anthem in June 2017 and the Symphonic Orchestra of Brasilia performed it in February 2018.

UNESCO has called Earth Anthem 'a creative and inspiring thought which would help in bringing the world together.'

Earth Anthem is supported by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, Bollywood actor Manisha Koirala, Dada Saheb Phalke award-winning director Shyam Benegal, Oscar award-winning director Jefferey D. Brown, among other prominent personalities across the world.

Thousands of schools spread over the globe use Earth Anthem to celebrate Earth Day and World Environment Day. Earth Anthem is also supported by Habitat for Humanity.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Ecogreen Energy, the company responsible for the integrated solid waste management in the city, has achieved significant progress towards making the city garbage free. Over 1200 tons of waste is being generated in Gurugram every day and considering the rain condition in Gurugram, the situation of garbage even worsens.

Ecogreen Energy has changed the condition considerably by ensuring that the garbage is properly dumped in dustbins and then taken to transfer stations for segregation.

Major steps taken till date by Ecogreen Energy:

-Appointed ward managers in all 35 wards

-Three transfer stations already operational in the city, three under process, to be commissioned soon

-Closes 2 open dump yards in Gurugram in Sector 17 and near Old MCG Office

City's waste predicament presents numerous health and environmental challenges. A noteworthy step has been taken by Ecogreen of door to door garbage collection. Ecogreen has deployed total 430 vehicles including 170 rickshaws to ensure 100% collection efficiency in the city. The garbage is collected and then taken to designated transfer stations.

Cleanliness is not the only agenda of the company. The organization has also appointed ward managers in all the 35 wards to hear the plight of locals and resolve their issues in no time. These Ward Managers are facilitating better communication and complaint resolution through a toll free helpline number provided to residents.

"We are trying to adopt an engaging approach to local waste management and better door to door collection service. All vehicles and door to door collection will be managed by respective ward managers in a decentralized manner for better efficiency and performance hence, better control and efficiency of operations," said Ankit Agarwal, CEO - Ecogreen Energy.

"As we are trying to work towards the betterment of the city, it is natural for some vested interests to oppose it. From last few months, people with malafide intention have tried to defame us. In such situation, it is necessary for us to focus on making a world class city by giving its citizens a clean and healthy city. We at Ecogreen Energy are committed to serve people," added Agarwal.

"We have been fighting for closing the open dump for years. The open dump was close to a school and a temple, thus it was necessary to close it on priority basis. I am glad that Ecogreen took the effort which will provide a big relief to the people belonging there. We are also planning to build a proper road to further beautify the area," said Regional Councilor - Ward 18, Gurugram, Subhash Singla.

Taking its commitment to a new height, Ecogreen Energy is also planning to close all the open dump yards in its function area. It has already closed 2 open dump yards in Gurugram and 1 in Faridabad. The beautification of these areas has also begun. Further in it's endeavor to reach out to people, a campaign called "Sath Karenge, Saaf Karenge" has been embarked upon under which 30,000 students from different schools in Gurugram will be sensitized about the good practices of waste management.

Three Transfer Stations at Beriwala Bagh (Near Rajiv Chowk), Atul Kataria Chowk and one opposite Paras Hospital in Gurugram has been set up by Ecogreen Energy. The transfer stations are designed with an aim to ensure no garbage is left in the open which leads to minimal exposure to citizens. This new waste management facility is set to provide the city with advanced mechanized means of transferring municipal solid waste in covered condition. All the three transfer stations have a combined capacity of transferring 300 tons solid waste every day. Three more Transfer Stations are under construction. All garbage from these stations will be sent to Bandhwari where the state of the art waste to energy plant is being developed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached properties worth Rs. 6.875 crore of Jain Brothers under the provision of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.

These properties belong to the companies, M/s Utsav Securities Pvt Ltd, M/s Avail Financial Services Ltd and M/s Sital Leasing and Finance Ltd., all controlled by Jain Brothers.

Earlier, Serious Fraud Investigating Office (SFIO) had filed a criminal complaint against Jain Brothers and others in a Delhi court in connection with the case.

The SFIO investigated the affairs of M/s NKS Holdings Pvt. Ltd. and other 10 group of companies, controlled by Jain Brothers and found that in eight of these companies, approximately, an amount of Rs. 8000 crore was created as credits in the bank accounts through a rotational transfer of funds amongst these companies, which was eventually used for inflating the balance sheet.

Thus, huge accumulations of credits and debits have been achieved in these accounts with the help of rotation of funds amongst these accounts without there being actual movement of cash.

During the investigation, it was also revealed that the initial infusion of funds (Seed Money) for circular transactions in the bank accounts of these companies was Rs. 6.875 crore.

The other modus operandi of Jain Brothers was to launder the unaccounted money through the process of placement of funds, layering of transactions and the final integration of laundering money into the banking channel camouflaged as legitimate share premium transactions. Funds in cash were brought in by the mediators on behalf of the beneficiaries through the mediators.

The prosecution complaints against people involved in money laundering have already been filed before the Special Court, PMLA, Patiala House Courts, New Delhi.

Surendra Kumar Jain, Virendra Jain, and Rajesh Kumar Agarwal were also arrested by the ED during the course of investigations. The total attachment of properties made in this case so far is worth Rs. 73.895 Crore. Further investigation is in progress.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An exchange of fire is underway between the security forces and terrorists in Handwara town of Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district.

More details are awaited.

Earlier in the day, two incidents of ceasefire violation were reported. An army jawan was injured in an unprovoked firing from Pakistan in Tangdhar sector of the district.

The Pakistani forces also engaged in another ceasefire violation along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kamalkote village in Baramulla district's Uri.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Finance Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said that the last date of filing the GSTR 3B has been extended to October 5 for Kerala and for other states, it will be August 24.

"Due to flood situation in Kerala, the last date of filling GSTR 3B has been extended to October 5 in the state," said Piyush Goyal while addressing the media.

Adding to this he said that the relief material coming from foreign countries for flood-hit Kerala has been exempted from the custom duty and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

"The government is committed to help Kerala in this time of devastation," he said, adding, "We have decided that all the relief materials coming from foreign countries for the Kerala Relief Funds are exempted from the custom duty as well as GST."

Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed Insurance Companies to hold special camps for assessment and timely release of compensation to the affected families and beneficiaries, under Social Security Schemes. Directions have also been issued for early clearance of claims under Fasal Bima Yojna to agriculturists.

He further directed National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to repair main national highways, damaged due to floods, on priority. Central Public Sector like NTPC and Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) have also been directed to be available to render all possible assistance to the State Government in restoring power lines.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that maintenance of peace and tranquility on the India-China border indicates "sensitivity and maturity" with which the two countries handle their differences.

Earlier today, Gen. Wei Fenghe, State Councillor and Defence Minister of China, called on Prime Minister Modi.

During the meeting, Prime Minister Modi appreciated the increased momentum of high-level contacts between India and China in all spheres, including in the areas of defence and military exchanges.

Prime Minister Modi also warmly recalled his recent meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan, Qingdao and Johannesburg.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy has urged the Centre to provide Rs 100 crore relief fund for rain-ravaged state's Kodagu district.

Addressing the media, the chief minister said, "The Prime Minister has announced relief of Rs 500 Crore for Kerala, we expect at least Rs 100 Crore for Kodagu. We will request the central government for it. We have to repair roads for connectivity. We are taking help of the Army and the Disaster Response Force (NDRF)," Kumaraswamy said.

He added, "We conducted an aerial survey in Kodagu to review the flood situation. In all, 12 people have lost their lives. 845 houses have been damaged out of which 773 houses are partially damaged."

Kumaraswamy stated that a total of 6620 people have been rehabilitated in the relief camps. He said, "41 relief camps in Kodagu and nine relief camps in Dakshina Kannada have been set up and a total of 6620 people are sheltered in these relief camps. An adequate supply of drinking water and milk is being ensured in these camps."

On August 20, Karnataka's Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara stated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government should allocate adequate financial aid for relief efforts in the Kodagu district.

While on August 19 Kumaraswamy conducted an aerial survey of landslides and flood-affected areas in Kodagu district. The Chief Minister also presented cheques to the families of Avarthi village who lost their houses in floods. He also inspected rain-affected areas in Somawarpet and adjacent areas.

Kumaraswamy on Saturday announced an ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh for the families which were rendered homeless.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday announced that his government has decided to convene a Special Assembly Session on August 30 to discuss relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction of Kerala after floods. Vijayan said a letter will be sent shortly to the Governor urging him to convene a Special Assembly Session next week.

The Chief Minister also asserted that the Kerala cabinet has decided to submit a comprehensive plan to the Centre for rehabilitation and rebuilding of Kerala.

While addressing the media here, Vijayan said that "Our aim is not merely a restoration of the state to pre-flood times but the creation of a new Kerala."

"The reconstruction demands mobilisation of resources in a large way. The state will demand Centre to raise the ceiling on borrowing for the state to 4.5 per cent of the GDP, which is pegged at 3 per cent now. This will help to raise an additional Rs 10,500 crore from the market. The state will request NABARD for a special scheme to implement long-term projects for infrastructure development in agriculture, irrigation and associated areas and social sectors," the Chief Minister said.

Highlighting the need for a special package from the central schemes, Vijayan demanded a package to the tune of Rs 2600 crore from MGNREGA.

"A moratorium was announced for bank loans in the flood-affected areas, which will be applicable to both commercial and cooperative banks. However, the behaviour of some private financial institutions is disturbing. Some have even approached people living in relief camps for collecting interests. Such appalling practices must be stopped," he added.

The Kerala Chief Minister also informed that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government has offered a financial assistance of Rs 700 crore for the relief work following the destruction. Russian President Vladimir Putin in a message to India also expressed condolences over the devastating floods in the state.

The Madhya Pradesh Police has donated Rs. 1.31 crore to Kerala Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund. In addition, all police personnel of the state would donate their one day's salary for the same.

Various NGOs have also started mobilising funds for relief and rehabilitation of the flood victims. ActionAid announced it is rolling out interventions in Alappuzha, Idduki, Pathanamthitta and Wayanad districts by distributing water tanks, water purifying systems and tablets, food, dry rations, material for temporary shelter and shelter cleaning support.

Kerala faced the worst flooding in a century this monsoon season. The death toll due to the deluge has increased to 357, while the state has suffered a loss of Rs 19,512 crore.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge has decided to boycott the meeting of the Lokpal Selection Committee for the fourth time in a row.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kharge said, "I would not be able to attend the meeting of the Selection Committee until the leader of the single largest opposition party is conferred the status of a full-fledged member as envisioned in the Lokpal Act, 2013."

Raising objection on being invited to the meeting, the Congress leader argued that he will not have the right to participate, record an opinion or vote.

Drawing attention to his three earlier letters where he rejected government's previous invitations , Kharge said, "Despite these earlier letters of mine, the government continues to me as a special invitee to the Selection Committee knowing very well what would be the outcome. Perhaps, the government intends this outcome in order to create another strawman to attack by suggesting that the opposition is not cooperating in implementing the Lokpal Act."

He further highlighted that there is no provision in the Lokpal Act for a special invitee.

The Lokpal Selection Committee meeting, headed by Prime Minister Modi is to meet today in order to set up a search committee that will be mandated to recommend a panel to appoint a Lokpal and its members.

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Indian Railways has restored all major tracks that were damaged due to Kerala floods, informed an official on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Union Minister Suresh Prabhu told that commercial flight operation from Kochi Naval Airport have started after war-footing efforts.

A senior official from Railway Ministry said, "Torrential rains in Kerala, consequent flooding and landslide had severely affected the three divisions of Southern Railway."

Giving details of the three railway divisions, the official said, "On the Thiruvananthapuram division, 11 bridges witnessed water level rising over danger level where at three locations tracks got submerged in water. In Palakkad division, the water level rose above the danger level in 10 bridges while one got submerged. Similarly, Madurai division was also badly affected due to earth slip and falling of boulders. The railway team worked round the clock to do the repairs and all sections in the main route of Kerala were opened."

The routes that have been declared fit after repairs include, Thiruvananthapuram and Nagarcoil section, Ernakulam and Kottayam, Ernakulam and Shoranur, Palakkad and Shoranur, Shoranur and Kozhikkode, Kollam and Punalur section.

However, the Punalur-Senkottai-Thrissur-Gururvayur branch lines are still under repair due to heavy damage.

Meanwhile, Union Minister Suresh Prabhu said that operations at Kochi Naval Airport have started and flights have already started landing. He said, "We have geared up over selves to face this challenge. As Aviation Ministry we immediately started mounting more flights when the Airport of Cochin became non-operational because of flooding at the runway. We started getting more flights in-to Thiruvananthapuram and Calicut. A delegation has been sent to start work for resuming commercial flight operations from Kochi naval airport."

The Union Minister also informed that free of cost service to deliver relief material for Kerala has been started. As Minister of Commerce and Industries, he has also informed industrialists and large donors that whatever relief material will be provided by them, in cash or kind will be directly sent to state government without any interference.

Earlier on Monday, Alliance Air made first landing at Kochi Naval base with relief materials. Alliance has announced for donating relief material. The Airline has also decided to waive-off charges for changing dates or cancelling tickets.

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Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on Tuesday clarified his previous statement on Ramjnamabhoomi dispute and said that even majority of Muslims want Ram temple to be built in Ayodhya.

Speaking to ANI, Maurya criticised the Congress party for looking at Ayodhya dispute as a political issue.

"Just like other devotees of Lord Ram, I also want that Ram temple should be constructed in Ayodhya at the earliest. Currently, the matter is being heard in the Supreme Court. We are waiting for its judgement. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has always been in favour of the construction of Ram temple. It's not a political issue, rather it's about our faith," Maurya said.

"We have a majority in Lok Sabha, but we don't have the numbers in Rajya Sabha to pass a bill for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. Majority of Muslims also want Ram temple to be made, but due to some political reasons, especially the Congress party does not want consecutive hearings in the Supreme Court. They do not want Ram temple to be built in Ayodhya," he added.

Earlier on Monday, Maurya suggested two options to resolve the dispute. He said either a dialogue process can be started among the stakeholders or a law can be passed in Parliament to resolve it.

"There is demand from saints to resolve the issue at the earliest. If there is any delay in the judgement, there are other options, such as dialogue or passing a law in Parliament. But the signals we are getting indicate that there would not be any delay," he had said.

The Babri Masjid, built by Mughal emperor Babur in Ayodhya in 1528, was, on December 6, 1992, razed to the ground allegedly by Hindu activists, claiming that the mosque was constructed after demolishing a Ram temple that originally stood there. Since then, several hearings have been held in the Supreme Court regarding this matter.

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A special court in the Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh awarded death sentence to the two men, convicted of raping and murdering a minor earlier this year.

Irfan and Asif abducted a seven-year-old girl from her school in Hafiz colony in Mandsaur in June. The duo then tortured and raped the girl before killing her and throwing her body at a secluded spot in the city. Following the incident, the two men were arrested, while a Special Investigation Team was set up to investigate the matter with utmost priority.

Protest burst out in the city following the incident, with the state Opposition party mounting an attack on the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government.

Demanding a speedy trial, the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister pitched for a death penalty to the culprits. He also wrote a letter to the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and sought his intervention for the timely disposal of such cases in the Supreme Court.

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Myanmar's deputy Minister of Finance Set Aung recently announced the downsizing of the Kyaukpyu Deepwater Port project, a part of China's One Belt One Road programme over concerns about falling into a debt trap.

Originally, around $7.3 billion was slated to be invested in the project, with the scope now reduced to $1.3 billion, with China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating that negotiations were still ongoing, Chinascope cited Chinese media house Sina as reporting.

China's CITIC Group, which is the primary developer of the port, suggested that the $1.3 billion investment was for the "initial phase", one of the four phases of the project.

The project was slated to build as many as 10 berths for large oil tankers in the deep-water port, with that number now being curtailed to two.

Myanmar's government had earlier clarified that it will not grant sovereign guarantees for loans to the project and that a third-party independent audit on the project spending was prerequisite for the project.

The Port of Kyaukpyu is situated at the entry point of the China-Myanmar Oil and Gas Pipeline.

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In a statement on Tuesday, White House announced the deportation of a former Nazi labour camp guard from his home in Queens, New York.

Jakiw Palij, who immigrated to the United States in 1949 and became a citizen in 1957 after concealing his Nazi background, was deported following the implementation of a 2004 deportation order by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as reported by Fox News.

"Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palij's deportation to Germany and advanced the United States' collaborative efforts with a key European ally," read the statement.

In 2003, Palij admitted to Department of Justice officials about his training at the Nazi camp in German-occupied Poland.

The statement further read that, he served as an armed guard at the adjacent Trawniki Labor Camp - where roughly 6,000 Jews were shot to death.

The U.S. citizenship for the 95-year-old was revoked in 2003 by a federal judge and was supposed to be deported in 2004.

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Taking note of the Bihar incident, where a woman was allegedly thrashed and stripped by a mob, the Commission for Women (NCW) on Tuesday asked the state police to inform about the action taken in the matter.

The NCW has asked the Deputy General Police (DGP) of Bihar, Krishna Swaroop Dwivedi to apprise the commission of concrete action taken in the matter at the earliest.

On Monday, the woman was allegedly beaten up in Bihar's Bhojpur district on the suspicion of being involved in the murder of a youth, Vimlesh Sav. However, the woman who is under the police custody, denied the allegations.

In view of the incident, eight police officials including the Station House Officer, Bahiya, and station in-charge Government Railway Police have been suspended.

The state of Bihar has lately been witnessing a surge in violent crimes against women. It was around a couple of months back, a shelter home rape scandal in the city of Muzaffarpur rocked the nation following an audit by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai.

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The lower house of Nepal's Parliament on Monday endorsed a tabled proposal of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) convention focusing on key security issues such as combating terrorism and controlling organised crimes and illicit drug trafficking.

The proposal titled "BIMSTEC Convention on Cooperation in Combating International Terrorism, Transnational Organised Crime and Illicit Drug Trafficking" was tabled in the parliament by Nepal Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa.

The Home Minister asserted on the importance of the proposal to combat terrorism which is gaining a foothold across the and a cooperative effort is required for tackling it.

"The motive of the cooperation amongst the BIMSTEC nations now is aimed to extend further in the field of 'International Terrorism, Transnational Organised Crime and Illicit Drug Trafficking' by this convention. With the advancement in science and technology, it is now being globalised with the being fragmented into small groups or segments. This has brought forward new problems in front of all the nations which now has resulted in the rise of terrorism, organised crimes and drug trafficking," Thapa said.

He added, "The nature of these issues also is being internationalised and all the nations are now facing the problem of defending, weakening and controlling such issues. In order to tackle it in the international or regional level, cooperation is a 'must' for which this convention is being presented forward."

Though the convention had been approved by all the BIMSTEC member countries, Nepal was the only country that did not give its nod. Being the host nation of the fourth BIMSTEC summit, the parliament on Monday agreed over it.

The convention was made about a decade ago and was required to curb organised crime and drug smuggling and there remained a compulsion for endorsing the document ahead of the summit, which is slated to take place on August 30 to 31.

Founded in 1997, the BIMSTEC has seven member states - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand.

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The Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJP-N) claimed that Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli lied about not being present during the police firing that took place in Maleth in March last year.

Speaking to ANI, RJP-N General Secretary Keshav Jha praised Prime Minister Oli's address in Provincial Assembly of Province no. 2 on Saturday, but claimed that it was marred by false statements.

"During the CPN-UML (Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxists Leninist) government's program, KP Oli was present and addressed the cadres when shots were fired. But he falsified the incident claiming he had finished the program and reached the highway when the firing began. He blamed the government, which was completely false as the shots were fired while he was present there. The then government should take responsibility."

Jha further questioned the reliability of the state head and claimed that Oli's denial of being present at the time of firing had saddened the party.

"If a Prime Minister can lie then whom can we trust in such a country? This was a great blunder which he made during the address and this has saddened us. He should not have given this sort of false statements," he said.

Summarising the performance of the incumbent government in the last six months, Jha said, "From every angle, we have seen the government be helpless; it only has the arrogance of securing a two-thirds majority. The main thing is that development is not possible without political stability."

In March last year, five people were allegedly killed after police opened fire amid clashes in Maleth of Saptari district.

The National Human Rights Commission's investigation into the event concluded that the condition worsened because of the mass meeting despite being aware of the circumstance.

Oli, while addressing the Provincial Assembly of Province No. 2 on Saturday, claimed that he was not present at the time of firing.

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Pakistan's newly sworn-in federal cabinet has taken a decision to put jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz on the Exit Control List (ECL).

The cabinet held its first meeting on Monday and asked the law and interior ministries to issue red warrants against Sharif's sons, Hussain Nawaz and Hassan Nawaz and former Pakistan finance minister Ishaq Dar and bring them back to the country, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said, Geo News reported.

He added that the law ministry has been asked to get in touch with the British government over the Avenfield properties in London. Chaudhry remarked that "Avenfield properties belonged to Pakistan."

Vowing to root out corruption from Pakistan, the minister continued, "Eliminating corruption is an important part of our [government's] policy."

Asked whether the cabinet discussed on former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, Chaudhry further said that the issue was not brought up during the meeting.

On July 6, Sharif and Maryam were convicted in absentia in the Avenfield reference case by the Accountability Court. While the former was given ten years of imprisonment and slapped with a fine of eight million pounds, Maryam was awarded eight years in jail and fined two million pounds. The case pertained to Sharif family's purchase of the upscale Avenfield apartments in London.

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Mohammad Hanif, the father of slain rifleman Aurangzeb, on Tuesday called upon Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and resolve the age-old disputes between the two nations.

Speaking to ANI about Congress leader Navot Singh Sidhu's meeting with Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa during Imran Khan's swearing-in ceremony, Hanif said, "It was good that Sidhu saab met the Army chief. I think they should also meet us. Our children are being martyred, I want that to stop. If Imran Khan takes one step forward towards us, we will take 100 steps towards them."

He further stated that Imran Khan should take the initiative and meet with Indian authorities to advance peace talks. "I appeal to him to come and meet us. If he doesn't, that means he is scared, and only thieves are scared. If he is not a thief, he should come and meet us. I request Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji to meet him if he comes," Hanif said.

"There should be an understanding between the two countries. No person should be killed, and both the countries should develop," Hanif added.

Aurangzeb was a member of the 44 Rashtriya Rifles and was posted in Shopian district. He was returning home for the festival of Eid when he was abducted from a vehicle in Pulwama. His bullet-ridden body was recovered on June 14 this year.

He was posthumously conferred the Shaurya Chakra, third highest gallantry award on the 72nd Independence Day.

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South Africa on Monday started to investigate the corruption charges levelled against former president Jacob Zuma.

The former South African president is accused of overseeing widespread graft during his nine-year reign. The probe's focal point would be Zuma's alleged relationship with the Guptas, a wealthy Indian business family accused of wielding undue political influence.

The Zondo Commission, helmed by Deputy Justice Ray Zondo, was formed in March and will investigate the accusations that whether the Gupta brothers had influenced Zuma to award them government contracts.

Former South African finance minister Mcebisi Jonas had alleged that the Guptas attempted to bribe him for both personal and business interests in 2015. The family has denied such claims, Anadolu News Agency reported.

Jonas claimed that the Gupta brothers had vowed to make him the finance minister if he had paid the money.

The Gupta brothers- Ajay, Atul and Rajesh, had migrated from Uttar Pradesh to South Africa in the 1990s and own a business empire spanning from computer equipment, media and mining in South Africa.

The scandal-hit Zuma had resigned in February after he faced massive furore from his own ruling African National Congress (ANC) lawmakers over corruption charges. The former South African president also faces more than 780 allegations of corruption relating to a 1990s arms deal.

Following Zuma's resignation, the Gupta brothers fled the country in April and have been absconding.

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The Supreme Court, on Tuesday, sought an affidavit from the Central government to track down the number of special courts that have been set up to deal with criminal cases that involve the lawmakers.

A five-judge constitution bench of the top court, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, noted a batch of petitions seeking a direction to the Central Government.

The petitions claimed that the persons and especially the Members of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies, charged with cognizable offences, shall be debarred from contesting the elections, at the stage when the charges are framed by the court- provided the offence is punishable by imprisonment of five years or more, and the case is registered six months prior to the election notification.

Appearing for the Union of India, Attorney General KK Venugopal, opposed the PILs.

He stated that no one can be disqualified before his or her conviction and it is the Parliament that amends or makes any law.

The apex court also asked about the details of the case, types of these special courts and the plan to set up more, if any, in future.

The Supreme Court will examine the Center's affidavit on August 28, the next date of hearing in the case.

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The judges of the Supreme Court will contribute Rs 25,000 each to the Kerala flood relief fund, informed Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on Monday.

The apex court bench helmed by the CJI and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud made the observation while hearing a Public Interest litigation (PIL) that sought barring of lawmakers from practising in courts across the country.

The top court bench made the observation after Attorney General K K Venugopal referred to the tragedy that has hit southern state.

According to media reports, the AG had earlier donated Rs one crore to the flood relief fund.

The calamity has also grabbed global attention.

Kerala has been facing the worst flooding in a century. Kerala Chief Minister confirmed on Saturday that the death toll due to the floods has increased to 357. He added that the state has suffered a loss of Rs 19,512 crore due to the deluge.

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A security guard of a nationalised bank in Delhi's Defence Colony area allegedly opened fire inside the premises on Tuesday, injuring a customer.

The guard has been apprehended by the police also recovered the weapon used during the attack. The accused, identified as Rudra Pal Singh, is a resident of Delhi.

A case under Sections 336 and 337 of the Indian Penal Code and 30 Arms Acts has been registered at the Defence Colony Police Station, and the probe is underway.

The injured customer, identified as Rajender Singh has been taken to a hospital for treatment.

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Pakistan Prime Minister of, Imran Khan on Tuesday thanked Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu for attending his oath-taking ceremony.

Terming the Punjab cabinet minister "an ambassador of peace", Khan said, Sidhu was given amazing love and affection by people of Pakistan during his visit.

"I want to thank Sidhu for coming to Pakistan for my oath taking. He was an ambassador of peace and was given amazing love & affection by ppl of Pakistan. Those in India who targeted him are doing a gt disservice to peace in the subcontinent - without peace, our ppl cannot progress," tweeted Khan.

The Pakistan Prime Minister, in another tweet, said that India and Islamabad must initiate dialogue and resolve conflicts in order to move forward.

"To move forward Pakistan and India must dialogue and resolve their conflicts incl Kashmir: The best way to alleviate poverty and uplift the people of the subcontinent is to resolve our differences through dialogue and start trading," he added.

Sidhu visited Pakistan on August 18 after Khan's party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) invited him to attend the swearing-in ceremony of the 22nd Prime Minister of the country.

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Fans can't contain their excitement after Megastar Chiranjeevi treated his fans with the teaser of his movie 'Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy' ahead of his birthday. The hashtag #SyeRaaNarasimhaReddyTeaser is trending on Twitter post release of the much-awaited teaser.

Fans of the actor are immensely praising the teaser on the micro-blogging website.

An excited user tweeted, "Whattt aa teaser man thanks for d share @SatyaPrakassh #SyeRaaNarasimhaReddyTeaser"

Another user complimented the actor saying he can speak with eyes, "Years passed yet his intensity in eyes remained the very same shining and glorifying the man who can speak a lot with eyes MEGASTAR CHIRANJEEVI"

"Impressive teaser with rich production values. Looking forward to this great story of #SyeRaaNarasimhaReddy enacted by Megastar on the big screen. #SyeRaaTeaser", tweeted a fan appreciating the teaser.

Calling it the most awaited teaser, another user said, "Perfect MEGA treat for all MEGASTAR fans!! Here's comes the most awaited #SyeRaaNarasimhaReddyTeaser #SyeRaaJourneyBegins #SyeRaaNarasimhaReddy"

The teaser tells the story of an unsung hero and shows Reddy's struggle during India's first civil rebellion against the British rule.

The movie is a period drama based on the life of Telugu freedom fighter Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy, who rebelled against the British rule 10 years before than the First War of Independence in 1857. Superstar Chiranjeevi will be seen playing the titular role.

The film, which is directed by Surender Reddy, also stars Nayanthara and Amitabh Bachchan.

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The United States of America welcomed newly-elected Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, and highlighted that the relationship between the two countries was always 'a vital one'.

The US further expressed keenness in working with the new civilian government 'to promote peace and prosperity in Pakistan and the region.'

On Monday, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Wells acknowledged the new government's intent to establish peace on both sides of the border.

"We encourage Pakistan to take stronger steps to ensure that the Taliban comes to the negotiating table, rather than enjoying safe havens in the country. Both Pakistan and Afghanistan embarked an effort to improve their ties for negotiating a solidarity document which we strongly support," Wells said in a press briefing.

"We look forward to working with new government (in Pakistan). We are urging them to do more and bring pressure to these terrorist organisations. We welcome (Pakistan Prime Minister) Imran Khan's words when he discussed the importance of having peace on both sides of the border," she added.

Khan was sworn in as the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan at the President House in Islamabad.

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The President of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DGMC) Manjit Singh GK, who was attacked last night in New York, said that his voice can not not be suppressed.

The Akalo Dal leader was attacked by a group of suspected pro-Khalistani Sikhs.

Describing the attack in a video, which he posted on his Twitter handle, Singh revealed, "When I was coming out after giving an interview to Jus Punjabi for the show 'Ajj Da Mudda', my brother and sister-in-law were with me. There were around 7-8 youths in an inebriated state, under the influence of alcohol or some drugs. They were wearing ear-rings and had hairs shorn. Out of those, 1-2 boys were Sikhs, who were wearing patkas."

"A group of people attacked me & my relatives in #NewYork. This will not scare me away from my path to serve the community. I have fought & I will fight till my last breath.Such cowardly incidents do not scare me," read the tweet.

He further said that he was verbally abused and attacked and so were his brother and sister-in-law.

Singh asserted that he won't be scared, saying, "I did not run, I confronted you.

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Anil D Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Group, in a letter last week to Rahul Gandhi, said the Congress has been misinformed, misdirected and misled by malicious vested interests and corporate rivals on the Rafale offset exports / work share.

Some highlights from the said letter:

- Anil Ambani expresses deep anguish over continued personal attacks by Rahul Gandhi on him, and terms all allegations as baseless, ill-informed and unfortunate

- Anil Ambani explains to Rahul Gandhi the role of Reliance in offset exports / work share with Dassault

- Anil Ambani clarifies to Rahul Gandhi that Rafale fighter jets are not being manufactured by Reliance or the Dassault Reliance Joint Venture. All 36 planes are to be 100% manufactured in France, and exported from France to India

- Anil Ambani clarifies that not a single component worth a single rupee is to be manufactured by Reliance for these 36 Rafale jets. The allegations relating to lack of experience are, thus, irrelevant

- Anil Ambani, in his letter to Rahul Gandhi, says: There is no contract from the MoD to any Reliance Group company related to 36 Rafale aircraft

- Anil Ambani says allegations of Reliance benefitting by thousands of crores is a figment of imagination, promoted by vested interests.

Simply put, no contract exists with the Government of India

- Anil Ambani says: Our role is limited to offset exports / export obligations. More than 100 medium, small and micro enterprises (MSMEs) will participate in this, along with public sector undertakings like BEL and Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO). This role strengthens Indian manufacturing capabilities, and is in pursuance of the Offsets Policy introduced by the Congress-led UPA Government itself from 2005 onwards

- Anil Ambani says Rahul Gandhi's allegation that Reliance Defence was set up 10 days before the 10 April 2015 announcement in Paris by both Governmentsof the intention to purchase 36 French-manufactured Rafale jetslinks factually incorrect information, and is thus irrelevant and completely false

- Anil Ambani says: The Reliance Group announced its decision to enter the defence manufacturing sector in December 2014-January 2015, months before the intention for purchase of Rafale aircraft. In February 2015, we informed the Indian Stock Exchanges of the companies we have incorporated.

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FDC announced that Company's sterile ophthalmic manufacturing facility located at B-8, MIDC Industrial Area, Waluj, Aurangabad, Maharashtra had recently undergone following inspections:-

1. PIC/S Malaysia inspection started from 07 August 2018 and was completed successfully on 10 August2018. The inspection was carried out with respect to the oral liquids and oral powders for the ROW markets and;

2.

During the above PIC/S inspection, there was also an un-announced inspection by the US FDA which started on 08 August 18. Further, there was a civil unrest on 09 August 2018. However, the US FDA inspection continued from the next day i.e 10 August 2018 and was completed on 16 August 2018.

The US FDA inspection was carried out in relation to the Ophthalmics products being exported to USA market. The US FDA has made 8 observations ( 483's) for which appropriate response shall be submitted by the Company.

However, the Company continues to export its Ophthalmics products to USA market.

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OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi -- Four suspects have been arrested following a dispute over a dog which led to one man being shot.

Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell said Tuesday the shooting happened Monday afternoon at a residence at 5511 Derry Lane, just off Ocean Springs Road.

The four in custody are:

Tyler Ladner, 20, of Ocean Springs, charged with home invasion, aggravated assault and two counts of directing a minor to commit a felony.

Kaitlyn Valladarez, 18, of Ocean Springs, charged with directing a minor to commit a felony and accessory after the fact.

Robert Beauvais, 17, of Ocean Springs, charged with home invasion.

Steven Bartholomew, 16, of Pascagoula, charged with home invasion, aggravated assault, and discharging a firearm in a vehicle.

Beauvais and Bartholomew are being charged as adults.

Ezell said the shooting took place after an argument between Ladner and his neighbor over the neighbor's dog. Ladner reportedly went back to his house, retrieved a gun and then, along with Beauvais and Bartholomew, returned to the neighbor's house.

The three barged into the neighbor's home to continue the argument, Ezell said, prompting the neighbor to leave in his vehicle. Bartholomew used the gun Ladner had obtained and fired a shot through the neighbor's vehicle rear window, striking the man in the shoulder.

The victim was transported to Ocean Springs Hospital, where he was treated and released.

Contrary to earlier erroneous reports, there was no "chase" connected to the case, according to Jackson County Sheriff Office spokesperson Marcia Hill.

The four suspects made their initial appearance in court Tuesday afternoon. During the hearing, prosecutors announced the aggravated assault charged against Ladner had been dropped. Bond was set for the four as follows:
Stocks once again regained positive zone in morning trade soon after reversing intraday gains in early trade. At 10:18 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 20.51 points or 0.05% at 38,299.26. The Nifty 50 index was up 12.25 points or 0.11% at 11,564. IT stocks gained.

Domestic stocks reversed intraday gains soon after a gap-up opening pushed the Sensex and the Nifty to record high.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was up 0.3%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.25%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was positive. On the BSE, 1128 shares rose and 908 shares fell. A total of 119 shares were unchanged.

Overseas, Asian stocks rose on optimism over trade talks between the United States and China. Immediate focus was on the lower-level trade talks due to start this week between the United States and China. However, this week will also see the imposition of 25% tariffs on $16 billion worth of Chinese imports, an action by the Trump administration that China has said it would retaliate against.

US stocks closed higher for a third session Monday as a pair of billion-dollar deals reaffirmed confidence that the US economy continues its steady expansion. Meanwhile, the minutes from the Federal Reserve's most recent meeting will be released later in the global day today, which could provide insight into the central bank's thinking in terms of policy changes.

Back home, HCL Technologies rose 1.42% after the company fixed Friday, 31 August 2018 as the record date for the purpose of determining the entitlement and the names of the equity shareholders who shall be eligible to participate in the buyback. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 20 August 2018.

IT stocks gained. Wipro (up 2.92%), TCS (up 0.41%), Infosys (up 0.23%), Tech Mahindra (up 3.48%), MindTree (up 1.24%) and Hexaware Technologies (up 1.12%) rose. Oracle Financial Services Software (down 0.09%) and Mphasis (down 0.17%) fell.

CG Power and Industrial Solutions rose 1.9% after the company said that inauguration of Indonesia's first High Voltage (HV) and Extra High Voltage (EHV) factory owned by PT CPSI was held yesterday, 20 August 2018 at the Modern Cikande Industrial Estate, Banten (Indonesia). The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 20 August 2018.

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Key indices gyrated in a small range near the flat line in mid-afternoon trade. At 14:20 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 15.65 points or 0.04% at 38,294.40. The Nifty 50 index was up 13.75 points or 0.12% at 11,565.50.

Domestic stocks reversed intraday gains soon after a gap-up opening pushed the Sensex and the Nifty to record high. Stocks once again regained positive zone in morning trade. A divergent trend was witnessed in mid-morning trade as the Sensex was trading with small losses while the Nifty was trading with small gains. Key benchmark indices were trading a tad below the flat line in early afternoon trade. Stocks hovered in a small range near the flat line in afternoon trade.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was up 0.54%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.37%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was positive. On the BSE, 1322 shares rose and 1315 shares fell. A total of 168 shares were unchanged.

Coal India (up 2.66%), Wipro (up 2.08%), and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (up 1.85%) edged higher from the Sensex pack.

Pharma stocks gained. Cadila Healthcare (up 1.99%), Cipla (up 0.93%), Dr Reddy's Laboratories (up 1.5%), Glenmark Pharmaceuticals (up 3.92%), Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (up 1.79%), Aurobindo Pharma (up 0.58%) and Wockhardt (up 0.78%) rose. Alkem Laboratories (down 1.11%) and GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (down 0.77%) fell.

Pharma major Lupin rose 1.16%. Lupin announced that it has received final approval for its Hydrocortisone Butyrate Lotion, 0.1% from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market a generic version of PreCision Dermatology, Inc.'s (PreCision) Locoid Lotion, 0.1%. The announcement was made during market hours today, 21 August 2018.

Lupin's Hydrocortisone Butyrate Lotion, 0.1% is the generic version of PreCision's Locoid Lotion, 0.1%. It is a corticosteroid indicated for the topical treatment of mild to moderate atopic dermatitis in patients 3 months of age and older. Hydrocortisone Butyrate Lotion, 0.1% had annual sales of approximately USD 13.8 million in the US (IQVIA MAT April 2018).

Overseas, Asian and European shares rose on optimism over trade talks between the United States and China. Immediate focus was on the lower-level trade talks due to start this week between the United States and China. However, this week will also see the imposition of 25% tariffs on $16 billion worth of Chinese imports, an action by the Trump administration that China has said it would retaliate against.

US stocks closed higher for a third session Monday as a pair of billion-dollar deals reaffirmed confidence that the US economy continues its steady expansion. Meanwhile, the minutes from the Federal Reserve's most recent meeting will be released later in the global day today, which could provide insight into the central bank's thinking in terms of policy changes.

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A man was killed and six others were critically injured early on Tuesday in Uttar Pradesh' Mathura district after being hit by a train, police said.

The incident occurred at the Kosi Kalan railway station when the speeding Chhattisgarh Sampark Kranti express hit them.

"The passengers were trying to board the train from the off-side, when they were hit," Railway Ministry Media Director Rajesh Dutt Bajpai said.

All injured are men between the age group of 20-25 years. One belongs to Rithora, two are from Surwari and four from Nagariya in Mathura district.

--IANS

aks-md/in

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A day after a woman was thrashed and paraded naked by a mob in Bihar's Bihiya town in Bhojpur district, the police arrested 15 suspects, but denied that it was a case of mob lynching.

S.K. Singhal, Additional Director General (police headquarters), said 15 persons have been arrested on the basis of video footage of the incident.

"It was not a case of mob lynching at all. The police have been investigating it. None of the culprits would be spared," Singhal said.

The ADG said the incident took place after the body of a youth was found on railway track in Bihiya town in Bhojpur district, about 90 km from Patna, on Monday.

"The cause of his death will be known after post-mortem," Singhal said.

Bhojpur superintendent of police Avakash Kumar has suspended the police station officer on charge of negligence of duty.

The local police said soon after the body of 19-year-old Bimlesh, who had been reported missing, was found on the railway track, a mob from his village first staged a protest and then attacked a few people living in the adjoining red light area.

Some people blamed a woman for the death, police sources said.

They said the mob rushed to her house and dragged her to the street. She was beaten up and paraded naked, they said.

A police team that reached the spot hours later was attacked by the mob. The police had to open fire to save the woman. Later she was admitted to a local hospital, police sources said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two soldiers and five civilians have been killed in a military raid here in Brazil.

Around 4,200 soldiers, supported by 70 policemen with the aid of armoured vehicles and helicopters carried out the searches in the congested neighbourhoods called favelas.

According to the Joint Command of the military seven were killed in the operation in three favelas in the north of Rio (Alemao, Penha and La Mare), home to more than 500,000 people.

The operation is part of President Michel Temer's military intervention ordered in February to deal with security and violence that plagues the Rio de Janeiro State, Efe news reported.

On August 17 and 19 the military carried out an anti-narcotics operation in the favela of Alemao.

Violence in Rio is endemic and claimed 6,731 lives in 2017.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After suffering a shock defeat to South Korea in the last match, the Indian kabaddi team bounced back in style as they defeated Thailand 49-30 in their fourth match of the Asian Games here on Tuesday.

Rahul Chaudhari was the standout raider in a match which saw Thailand giving a fight in patches.

Right from the start, India started puting pressure on their opponents. Pareep Narwal opened the account for India and soon swelled their lead to eight points (11-3) thanks to a brilliant all-out.

With seven minutes remaining in the first half, Thailand regrouped their strategy and started attacking. They were not fully sucessfull as after taking points Thailand's defence lacked the sharpness.

The first half ended with India maintaining a healthy 21-12 lead.

In the second half, after a few minutes, India inflicted an all-out to take their lead to 32-15 and then made it 41-16 through another all-out.

With less than five minutes remaining, the Thailand raiders and defenders started the counter attack and took a few points but that was not enough as India already maintained a healthy lead to clinch the issue.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former Punjab Chief Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patron Parkash Singh Badal on Tuesday visited the residence of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and expressed his condolences with his family. He described the late leader as a friend of Punjab and Punjabis.

While interacting with the late PM's family members, the SAD patron said Punjabis would never forget the generosity shown to the state by the late PM.

Giving two examples, he said during the run-up to the 350th anniversary of the birth of Khalsa, Vajpayee not only asked the state what it wanted, but also allocated Rs 100 crore to celebrate the occasion in a befitting manner.

Badal said similarly when he approached the late PM and pleaded for allocation of a refinery to the state, Vajpayee took a decision within five days and allocated Punjab Rs 16,000-crore Bathinda refinery project.

The former CM, who is still recovering from viral fever due to which he could not participate in the last rites of Vajpayee, was accompanied by her daughter-in-law and Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Rajya Sabha member Naresh Gujral.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bahrain authorities on Tuesday announced they were suspending issuance of entry visas for Qataris.

"The decision wasn't taken because of Qatari nationals who share brotherly ties with Bahrainis, but as a result of irresponsible acts of Qatari authorities that don't consider the rights of neighbouring countries or the principles of the international law," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The Ministry said Qatari students in Bahrain were excluded along with those with valid visas.

The Arab Quartet consisting of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt severed all ties with Doha last year for "supporting terror groups".

The Quartet issued a list of 13 demands presented to Doha through Kuwait to resolve the crisis that is still not addressed. The demands included closing a Turkish military base in Qatar and shutting the Al Jazeera pan-Arab television network.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
Bihar has cancelled the selection of 50 NGOs for running shelter homes across the state and announced that the government will run them instead, an official said on Tuesday.

The Social Welfare Department will replace the non-government organisations (NGOs) in running all such short stay homes in the state, he added.

The state government took the decision keeping in view the over 30 rape cases and death of two women inmates at the Muzaffarpur home.

The Muzaffarpur horror came to the fore following a social audit by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) from Mumbai that pointed at the sorry state of shelter homes run by NGOs in Bihar.

"The government has cancelled NGOs selected recently for running the shelter homes. The Social Welfare Department will take over the management in the next three months," the department official said.

Till then the NGOs will continue to run these shelter homes.

Earlier in August, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had announced this. Nearly 100 NGOs continue to run such homes across the state.

A 100-page report by TISS had stated that sexual abuse -- varying in forms and degrees -- was prevalent in almost all shelter homes in Bihar.

The audit was commissioned by the state government in 2017.

It was the TISS report that pointed a finger at Balika Grih in Muzaffarpur run by Brajesh Thakur where 34 of the 41 minor girls housed were raped.

Thakur was named the main accused, arrested and jailed along with nine others. State Social Welfare Minister Manju Verma had to resign.

The Patna High Court is monitoring the Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the incident.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a joint operation, the CBI and Maharashtra ATS on Tuesday raided premises in Aurangabad and seized among other things a firearm suspected to be used in the killing of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in 2013, officials said.

The seizure includes a countrymade 7.65-bore pistol and three cartridges, same as the one used in the Dabholkar murder, a sword and a 'khukri'. The team did not identify the premises where the seizure was effected.

The firearm will be sent for forensics analysis to see if it was the murder weapon in the Dabholkar case.

Following information provided by one of the prime accused, Sachin Prakashrao Andure, who was arrested on August 18 in connection with the killing, the CBI-Anti-Terrorism Squad team raided the residential premises of his cousin and a friend early Tuesday.

Andure is allegedly one of the two persons riding a motorbike who shot dead Dabholkar near the Omkareshwar Temple close to his Pune residence on August 20, 2013. Andure was arrested after a tip-off by three persons already arrested in the Palghar arms haul case.

The Central Bureau of Investigation and ATS are now probing the links among various right-wing organisations suspected to be involved in the killing of Dabholkar and others like Govind Pansare, M.M. Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh, unravel their contacts elsewhere in the country, their other targets and the modus operandi.

All major political parties have sought a ban on various Hindutva organisations like the Sanatan Sanstha following the developments in the wake of the August 10 arms haul in Palghar, around 90 km from Mumbai.

--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 has decided to send an additional 89,540 tonnes of food grains to the flood-battered Kerala, Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Tuesday.

Under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) scheme, Kerala gets 1,18,000 tonnes of food grains per month but it does not cover the entire population.

"We want food grains to reach every person in the state. So, we are sending additional 89,540 tonnes. In addition, we have sent 100 tonnes of pulses, with 80 tonnes to be supplied daily henceforth," Paswan told reporters here.

Under the NFSA, 75 per cent of the rural population and up to 50 per cent of the urban population receive subsidised food grains -- 5 kg per person per month at Rs 3, Rs 2, Re 1 per kg of rice, wheat, and coarse grains respectively.

Paswan said that the Ministry had not decided on who would incur the expenses on the supply of additional food grains.

"It is in the initial stage. The issue of who pays the bill is not a matter of concern now. The food grain supply can be done for three months," Paswan said.

The central government will provide as much help as possible to Kerala, 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.)
Terming Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu's visit to Pakistan a non-issue since he went there in his personal capacity, the party on Tuesday turned to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him as to what happened to the red lines of 'no-talks' till terror from Pakistan stops.

It said the PM's letter to his newly elected counterpart Imran Khan was to "obfuscate this government's lack of policy."

Modi has written to Khan saying India desires "constructive engagement" with Islamabad. The Congress has demanded that the Prime Minister should make the letter public to clear the air about multiple narratives about 'resumtion of dialogue' with Pakistan.

The party said India and Pakistan relations are extremely complicated. "Navjot Singh Sidhu is not the issue," it emphasized.

"The real issue is the relationship between India and Pakistan, the impact of the India-Pakistan stand-off on South Asia and the complete absence of the NDA-BJP government's policy towards Pakistan," said Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari.

"There seems to be a suggestion of resumption of a dialogue despite all the red lines," he said. "These lines mean that there will be no talks till terror from Pakistan stops, till the trial of the 26/11 perpetrators is not resumed, till Lakhvi is not put back in the prison, till Hafiz Saeed, who heads the Jamat-ud-Dawa, is not incarcerated," he said.

"So there has been a concerted attempt by the government to try and obfuscate this. That is the real issue," he added.

On government contradicting Pakistan's foreign minister's claim on PM's offer on India's overtures for talks with Pakistan, Tewari said: "The difficulty with this government is, it only speaks through sources on uncomfortable questions."

"You have a second narrative on 'sources in India' which says that no such offer has been made. So why does not the Prime minister make the letter public, which he has written to Prime Minister Imran Khan?" he asked.

"I think, it would be appropriate that the letter be put it in the public space so that the whole thing can be clarified. And may I also add, I don't see the government doing so," he added.

Tewai said it was not the responsibility of the Congress to suggest a policy. "We conceptualized policy and implemented it for 10 years while we were in government," he said.

"The NDA-BJP government has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous on their Pakistan policy," 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.)
Gujarat Leader of the Opposition Paresh Dhanani on Tuesday said the state governments ordering a one-man inquiry committee into the alleged groundnut procurement scam was to cover up its own "wrong-doings".

"This is the eleventh such commission ordered by state government, which I believe will yield nothing. Instead of our demands of ordering a probe headed by a sitting high court judge, the government has entrusted this to a retired judge H.K. Rathod," Dhanani told reporters here.

He was referring to the alleged scam where huge groundnut stocks procured by the state government were adulterated with gravel and dust after the good quality grains were removed from it. In at least four such cases where this was detected, the godowns where the groundnut was stocked were set on fire.

After a state-wide hue and cry by the opposition Congress, over 3o persons were arrested and later on Saturday evening the government constituted a one-man committee under a retired high court judge.

However, according to Dhanani who is leading the Congres charge against the scam, this was not enough.

"Why isn't the government complying with our demands?" he wondered. There are lots of other questions which need answers. Why isn't the government acting against the members of the (agriculture) cooperative, who are moving about freely, headed by former agriculture minister Chimanbhai Saparia," he said.

Dhanani said it was clear the government had accepted the scam in groundnut procurement, so "the chief minister should immediately resign on moral grounds".

Doubting the scope of the judicial probe ordered by the state government, the opposition leader said, "This commission has been constituted just to save the tainted skin of the BJP."

"There is no clarification by the government on the fire that engulfed the warehouses where the groundnut was stored, the procurement process, who and how the selection of the cooperatives and the agencies (for procurement) was carried out, how was the storage done and the how was the rent decided. All such questions are not addressed in the terms of reference of the commission," he added.

"So it is clear commission's probe is just to save the skin of the real culprits behind the scam," he went on.

Dhanani wondered why was the probe limited to only five warehouses where the fire took place and not to all 279 where the groundnut was stocked, why was it that the fires in five godowns were of similar in nature, why have the FSL reports still not obtained, even after seven months.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress leader Paresh Dhanani on Tuesday said the Gujarat governments move to order a one-man inquiry committee into the alleged groundnut procurement scam was meant to cover up its own "wrongdoing".

"This is the eleventh such commission ordered by the state government, which I believe will yield nothing. Instead of our demands for a probe headed by a high court judge, the government has entrusted this to a retired judge H.K. Rathod," Dhanani told reporters here.

He was referring to the alleged scam where huge groundnut stocks procured by the government were adulterated with gravel and dust after the good quality grains were removed from it.

In at least four such cases where this was detected, the godowns where the groundnut was stocked were set on fire.

After a state-wide hue and cry by the Congress, over 30 persons were arrested. On Saturday evening, the government constituted a one-man committee under a retired high court judge.

Dhanani said this was not enough.

"Why isn't the government complying with our demands?" he wondered. "There are lots of other questions which need answers. Why isn't the government acting against the members of the (agriculture) cooperative who are moving about freely, headed by former Agriculture Minister Chimanbhai Saparia," he said.

Dhanani said it was clear the government had accepted the scam in groundnut procurement. So the Chief Minister should immediately resign on moral grounds.

He added: "This commission has been constituted just to save the tainted skin of the BJP."

Dhanani wondered why the probe was limited to only five warehouses where the fire took place and not to all 279 where the groundnut was stocked, and why the fires in the five godowns were of similar nature.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said the contest in the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha polls will be between the AAP and the BJP in Delhi as the Congress will only get nine per cent of the total votes.

"Direct fight is between the Aam Aadmi Party and Bharatiya Janata Party. The Congress will only get nine per cent votes," he said in a tweet in Hindi.

He also said that people have a general feeling that if all the seven MPs in Delhi were from AAP, the metro fare would not have gone up.

"People think: Only AAP is fighting for the rights of people. The MPs from the BJP/Congress never think about the people of Delhi and no sealing and hike in metro fare would have occurred if all the seven MPs were from AAP," he added.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had bagged all the seven seats in Delhi.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 19-year-old man out on bail in a case registered under the Arms Act was found shot dead here, police said on Tuesday.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Rajneesh Gupta said Armaan was arrested under the Arms Act in June. He was released from jail a few days ago.

He was found dead with gunshot injuries in Narela around 8.15 p.m. on Monday.

A liquor bottle and two plastic glasses were found at the spot. Police were working on certain clues it had gathered, the officer said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said that his government will call a summit of NRI teachers to help make Delhi educational institutions world-class and the capital a "knowledge centre".

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo, who was accompanied by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, was speaking at the inauguration of the second phase of Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Delhi campus in Okhla.

Addressing the students and faculty of IIIT-Delhi, Kejriwal said he wants at least one of Delhi's higher institution to be counted among the best universities or colleges in the world.

He then presented a challenge to all the universities in Delhi and IIIT-Delhi to make it to the "top universities in the world" and said that the Delhi government will support the universities in reaching the list.

He assured the students his government will increase the capacity of higher institutes in Delhi so that more students from the city could get admission here.

"In Delhi, we have a shortage of higher institutions. Almost 2.5 lakh pass 12th standard every year and our higher education institutes only have the capacity of 1.25 lakh. This is a severe capacity shortage which even renders the toppers helpless. This is not acceptable and we are trying to fix this," 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.)
A man working as the food and events manager of a luxury hotel here has been arrested along with a friend on charges of stealing a car, police said on Tuesday.

Ishit Monga, 21, along with his friend Akshay Arora, 25, stole a Ford Eco from the parking space of Connaught Place's PVR Plaza on August 15, Deputy Commissioner of Police Madhur Verma said.

When the car owner reached there around 7.45 p.m., he was told by the parking attendant that someone had driven away his vehicle by producing a parking slip, Verma said.

On August 18, the car was found abandoned near the Safdarjung flyover at Lodhi Colony. In it the police found a letter-head of the hotel which led to the the accused.

The two men confessed to their involvement in the crime. After being refused the use of a car by his father, Monga took away the vehicle from the parking lot.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
El Salvador on Tuesday became the latest country to cut ties with Taiwan and establish diplomatic relations with China, acceding that the self-ruled island is not a country.

El Salvador is the third country in a few months to sever ties with Taiwan, a self-ruled island which China considers a breakaway province and has vowed to reunite with the mainland one day.

Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Salvadorean Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda signed a joint communique in Beijing establishing diplomatic relations.

The communique said that the El Salvador government severs "diplomatic relations" with Taiwan as of this day and undertakes not to have any more official relations or official exchanges with Taiwan.

With this, the number of countries recognizing Taiwan as a country has come down to 17.

"The El Salvador government has recognized and promised to abide by one-China principle. It severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan and established diplomatic relations with People's Republic of China," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said at a press conference.

"This is a right choice that corresponds with the trend of times and the will of people. China highly appreciates this."

Taiwan has been a self-ruled island since 1949 where the Nationalists fled after being defeated by the Communists in the civil war in China.

The ties between Taipei and Beijing soured after the island elected Tsai-Ing wen as its President in 2016.

Tsai, the leader of a pro-independence party, has never acknowledged that Taiwan is a part of China, keeping Beijing on edge.

However, more and more countries are joining the Chinese side and breaking off formal ties with Taiwan.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the police to file a status report on a plea for cancellation of the anticipatory bail granted to Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in a January 2014 case pertaining to the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar.

Justice R.K. Gauba's direction came on advocate Deepak Anand's plea for cancellation of the anticipatory bail granted by a sessions court on July 5 to Tharoor, who is accused of abetment to suicide.

The petitioner pleaded that the anticipatory bail application of the Congress leader was premature and not maintainable since it was not in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and also in violation of the law laid down by the Supreme Court.

He said that Tharoor's anticipatory bail application was filed to bypass the procedure laid down in the CrPC.

Citing a top court judgment, Anand said that anticipatory bail plea can only be filed during investigation or prior to investigation but not after the issuance of summons.

On June 5, the trial court had taken cognisance of the police charge sheet and issued summons to Tharoor.

On May 14, police charge-sheeted Tharoor under Sections 306 and 498A of the Indian Penal Code, pertaining to abetment to suicide and cruelty to wife, which entails a jail term of up to 10 years.

Pushkar, 51, was found dead under mysterious circumstances in a hotel room in south Delhi on January 17, 2014, days after she alleged that Tharoor was having an affair with a Pakistani journalist.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least 11 hikers were killed in flooding caused by heavy rain in the southern Italian region of Calabria, officials said on Tuesday.

The hikers were walking in the Raganello Gorge in Pollino National Park in the region when they were hit by a torrent swollen by heavy rain. The Civil Protection Department said that 10 bodies were found on Monday, including that of a 14-year-old girl, while another person died in hospital.

Another five people were still missing. Rescue operations started immediately after a small stream near the village of Civita overflowed, the BBC reported.

Eleven people were injured in the flash floods, out of whom those with serious injuries were admitted to hospitals in Cosenza and the rest in the city of Castrovillari, officials said.

Search and rescue teams were able to save 23 people, including several children. However, more people might be missing as several groups were visiting the area, according to authorities.

Carlo Tansi, head of civil protection, told reporters that when the hikers were hit by the water they were "catapulted out like bullets" and were washed down the valley for about 3 kilometres.

"The Raganello Gorge is narrow and tall, it can get up to 1 kilometre high," he said. "The gorge filled up with water in a really short time."

Luca Franzese of the alpine rescue squad in Calabria said the height of the flood waters was some eight feet deep.

"The wave of flooding of the Raganello stream happens often in the winter, but it has never happened in the summer, when the stream is very popular among tourists," he told the news agency ANSA.

The nationalities of the hikers were not immediately known, although the Corriere della Sera newspaper said one of the injured was Dutch.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Finance, Coal and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said the relief material coming from foreign countries for distribution in flood-ravaged Kerala have been exempted from the customs duty and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

"The government is committed to help Kerala in this time of devastation," Goyal told the media here.

"...we have made all the relief materials coming from foreign countries for the Kerala flood relief exempt from customs duty as well as GST," he said.

On August 18, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Rs 500-crore financial assistance to the state.

Earlier, Home Minister Rajnath Singh during his visit to state also announced a financial assistance of Rs 100 crore.

Following the devastating floods, over one million people are now sheltered in 3,274 relief camps in the state. The death toll during this monsoon season is estimated at around 370.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Relief operations were in full swing in Karnataka's flood-hit Kodagu district as rains abated and life limped back to normal, an official said on Tuesday.

"We are concentrating on providing shelter and other relief to the people evacuated from towns and villages in the hilly areas flooded by rains and blocked by landslides," Kodagu Deputy Commissioner P. Sreevidya told reporters at Madikeri, about 270 km from here.

Though rescue operations slowed down as flood waters receded, the administration is using drones to look for people reported missing or stranded in remote areas or villages where landslips were witnessed.

"We are receiving huge quantities of relief material, especially food items, drinking water, clothes, utensils, mats and tarpaulin from Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Udupi and other places in the state.

"Food, warm clothing, medical care, baby feed, bedsheets and other essential items have been distributed in the relief camps.

"Essential items, including medicines, have been rushed to 51 relief camps housing 7,594 people across the district," said Sreevidya.

The administration has also rushed food grains and other provisions to towns and villages across the district, as heavy rains and floods disrupted supplies over the last 10 days due to landslides and roadblocks.

"Besides state officials, hundreds of volunteers from non-government organisations are helping us in looking after those staying in the relief camps. It will take a week before they can return to their homes as restoration works are slow due to extensive damage caused by floodwaters," the officer said.

According to initial estimates, the cumulative loss in the ravaged district is said to be about Rs 2,000-Rs 3,000 crore due to heavy damage to infrastructure like roads, bridges, power lines, apart from houses and agricultural crops.

Two MI-17 helicopters of the Indian Air Force (IAF) took off for relief work in Kodagu, operating from Kushalnagar, Periapatna and Harangi.

"Helicopters undertook aerial recce and rescue missions in flood-affected areas of Monnangeri and Jodupala to identify ground rescue in coordination with district officials," the IAF training command said in a statement here.

The choppers were also used in airlifting essentials to the affected areas.

State Relief Commissioner Gangaram Baderiya said here later that the joint rescue operation was in the last leg, as rainfall had considerably reduced.

"No distress call was received since Monday. Rescuers are trekking and screening other villages. Till Tuesday, 4,390 people were rescued and brought to safety by NGOs and local communities," said Baderiya in the statement.

The Border Road Organisation has deputed engineers and army engineering task force to assist in clearing debris and restoration work.

Temporary structures using 2,000 aluminium sheets to house about 10,000 homeless people displaced due to landslides will be built on priority.

"Besides Rs 3,800 relief amount per family for subsistence, 10 kg rice, 1 litre oil, 1 kg sugar, 1 kg salt, 1 kg dal (lentil) are being supplied to the affected families," added Baderiya.

The district administration has also ordered hotels, resorts, homestays and guesthouses to cancel bookings till August 31 due to the havoc wrought by heavy rains in the hilly region.

Meanwhile, the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit has rushed 10 tonnes of food grains and other relief material to the affected in Kodagu in trucks from Bengaluru.

The Commissioner has also requested the public, philanthropists, NGOs and companies to contribute money to the Chief Minister's Calamity Relief Fund through cheque or draft.

--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.)
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday condemned the rocket attack in Kabul during a speech by Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani to mark Eid-ul-Zuha.

Afghan media reported that nearly 10 rockets landed in different parts of the Afghan capital when people were offering prayers.

Reports also suggested that at least three gunmen fired rockets on the Presidential Palace when Ghani was offering prayers there. No group claimed responsibility for the attacks.

"Targeting innocent civilians on religious festivals shows the defeated mindset. We stand with Afghan people and the government to defeat this coward mentality," Khan said in a statement.

The Pakistan Foreign Ministry also condemned the rocket attacks.

Rockets were fired two days after Ghani proposed a three-month conditional ceasefire with Taliban insurgents. However, it remains in limbo pending a response from the militant group.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that India and China handle their differences "with sensitivity and maturity," not allowing them to snowball into disputes.

The Prime Minister's observation came during a meeting with Chinese Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe who called on Modi.

"Terming India-China relations as a factor of stability in the world, the Prime Minister said that maintenance of peace and tranquility in the border areas is indicative of the sensitivity and maturity with which India and China handle their differences, not allowing them to become disputes," a release from the PMO said.

Modi also appreciated the "increased momentum" of high-level contacts between India and China in all spheres, including in areas of defence and military exchanges.

"The Prime Minister also warmly recalled his recent meetings with President Xi Jinping in Wuhan, Qingdao and Johannesburg," it said.

The Indian and Chinese troops were locked in a 73-day-long stand-off at Doklam tri-junction in the Sikkim sector between June 16 and August 28 last year when the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China tried to build a road in the region.

Amidst apprehensions, the stand-off was finally resolved through diplomatic efforts.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indian private shipbuilders have called for a level playing field in the country, failing which they risk going under jeopardizing the livelihood of more than 11.5 lakh families, the Shipyards Association of India (SAI) said.

Briefing reporters here on Monday following a meeting with Road Transport and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari, SAI said it had urged the Minister to create an atmosphere of inclusive growth between public and private sector companies operating in the field.

"The Indian private shipbuilding industry appealed for a speedy resolution of critical areas of concern and sought a level playing field between the public sector undertakings(PSUs) and private shipyards," SAI President V. Kumar told reporters.

"The Indian government is directing and awarding most of its orders today, worth around Rs 2 lakh crore, to PSU shipyards. Cases in point of the impact of this are of two big private sector shipyards shutting down, and other major shipyards are being financially stressed."

SAI said the Minister gave a patient hearing to their appeal for a review of policies and for removing bottlenecks in the shipbuilding industry, which is the only one not given any protection in the way of domestic tariff barriers via customs duties.

The private shipbuilders pointed out that between 2002 and 2007, the government had declared a subsidy scheme for all shipbuilding contracts made during the period.

"The majority of contracts, however, were signed at the fag end of the period as it took considerable time for Indian shipyards to market their capabilities in the international arena and convert them into orders," Kumar said.

In addition, there are outstanding dues that the government needs to pay to shipyards.

"Put together, the total subsidy claims pending with the government under the 2002-2007 subsidy scheme are more than Rs 900 crore," he said, adding that at the meeting SAI urged the Minister to expedite the release of long overdue subsidy amounts.

He said the stressed shipyards are facing a situation where assets of Rs 25,000-30,000 crore are under insolvency proceedings under the new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

"Others, financially stressed, account for another Rs 20,000-25,000 crore worth of stressed assets," the SAI President said.

In this scenario, while private shipbuilders find it very difficult to raise capital from the banks, Kumar pointed out that financial assistance worth Rs 5,000 crore of working capital would be sufficient to help revive the industry.

Among SAI's demands is the creation of a separate shipbuilding division within the ministry to handle the issue of assets.

According to SAI, private sector shipyards currently face extreme hardship and a starvation of orders due to the global meltdown of the shipbuilding market over the past 7-8 years, and deprivation of domestic orders on account of favouring PSU shipyards.

--IANS

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Indian expats enthusiasm to help flood victims in Kerala should not lead them to the wrong side of the law on fund raising in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), India's Ambassador warned here.

"The feedback received from the UAE government suggested that some individuals and organisations are involved in fund raising. I have to draw the attention of fellow Indians to the local laws (on fund raising)," Navdeep Singh Suri told the media on Monday.

He said only organisations that have special permission from the UAE's Community Development authorities can collect money and remit it abroad, the Gulf News reported on Tuesday.

Suri said the UAE authorities, including the Central Bank, have given the clearance for sending money directly to the Kerala Chief Minister's Disaster Relief Fund (CMDRF), which Suri said was the best way to help the flood victims.

"We don't want well-meaning efforts for the flood victims ending up in trouble. We are very mindful and respectful of local laws," the Ambassador said.

Suri also advised community organisations not to open temporary money exchange counters at their premises since the local laws do not permit it.

Al Ansari Exchange, the UAE Exchange and Lulu Exchange are facilitating free-of-cost remittance to the CMDRF, said the Gulf News.

Urging people to refrain from sending relief materials, the Ambassador said he had discouraged people who offered to send large amount of mineral water and medicines to Kerala.

"First of all sending medicines needs special permission. Moreover, India is the pharmacy of the world. You can get medicines in India at one tenth cost in the UAE," he explained.

Following the worst flooding in a century, over one million people are now sheltered in 3,274 relief camps in Kerala. The death toll since the monsoon rains began on May 29 has been estimated at around 370.

--IANS

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Energy major Indian Oil Corp (IOC) is meeting the entire aviation fuel needs of the Indian Air Force (IAF) flights in Kerala, moving the fuel from other southern states, said a senior official.

"The aviation fuel demand at Thiruvananthapuram airport has shot up drastically from about 180 kilo litres (KL) per day to about 550 KL/per day. We are moving the fuel from Coimbatore, Bengaluru, Mengaluru and even from Hyderabad," Sabitha Natraj, General Manager (Corporate Communications) South Zone, told IANS.

She said the fuel needs of civilian flights were also met by IOC at the Thiruvananthapuram airport.

Natraj said the IOC's aviation team reached the aviation turbine fuel to upcountry locations like Palakkad where IAF choppers operated rescue efforts.

From refuelling 8-10 flights per day, the flight numbers in the Kerala capital had shot up to 80-90 a day due to relief work post floods, she said.

According to her, IOC has also moved 1,816 KL of petrol and 1,913 KL of diesel from Madurai and Coimbatore and 4,297 KL of aviation fuel from Sankari, Madurai, Coimbatore and Chennai to Kerala between August 17 and 20.

--IANS

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Iran unveiled its first fighter jet "Kowsar" at a ceremony marking the National Defence Day here on Tuesday.

The fighter jet has been designed and manufactured by Iranian engineers and will be used as a defensive tool for the country, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said. The jet, however, was by no means a threat to the region but for sustainable peace, he was quoted as saying by official news agency IRNA.

"Iran's preparedness for defence does not mean warmongering but signifies a durable peace," he said, adding that Tehran never invaded its regional neighbours and will never do so.

The Kowsar fighter jet made its first flight during the ceremony, marking the anniversary of Iran's military industry in the presence of Rouhani, Defence Minister Brig. Gen. Amir Hatami and other senior military officials.

The jet features multi-purpose digital monitor technology, computerized ballistic calculations of weaponry and the HUD system to provide precise guidance, as well as advanced multi-objective fire control radar to improve threats detection.

Hitting out at the US, the Iranian President said: "Washington imposes sanctions on Iran, but refrains from taking military action against the Islamic republic, since it is aware of the heavy costs of aggression."

"Any hostile move against Iran would cost the aggressors dearly," he said, according to Tasnim news agency.

--IANS

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The Kerala Police on Tuesday took over the security of all the relief camps in the flood-battered state, police chief Loknath Behra said.

Over a million people are now housed in more than 3,000 relief camps that have been set up across the state. The maximum number of people are in Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Pathanamthitta and Idukki districts.

"As part of the security arrangements due to the presence of a huge number of women and children, there will be strict screening of people who visit the camps," Behra told the media.

Behra also said that appropriate action would be taken against all traders who jack up prices of essential commodities. Several complaints have started to come in.

"There will be no leniency shown to such people and those who engage in spreading fake messages and news. Already a few are behind the bars."

He said the Kerala Police will donate Rs 10 crore for the rehabilitation of the flood victims.

--IANS

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Global technology brand Lenovo India on Tuesday announced the appointment of Shailendra Katyal as Executive Director and India PC and Smart Devices Business Group (PCSD) Consumer Leader.

Based in Bengaluru, Katyal will report to Rahul Agarwal, Managing Director and CEO, Lenovo India.

"He played a pivotal role in the organisation during his earlier stint and understands the pulse of the consumer business. This appointment is in line with our growth strategy, as we continue to strengthen our position in the PC market," Agarwal said in a statement.

Katyal, who has held leadership roles at Wipro, Marico and Lenovo, will focus on driving sustainable, profitable growth across multiple routes-to-market for the consumer business and build a more consumer-centric organisation.

In his previous stint at Lenovo, Katyal started as chief marketing officer for the India region and launched the tablet business in the country.

"We see a lot of headroom for growth for us in the country given the strong technology and product innovation that Lenovo brings to the table as a global technology leader," said Katyal.

--IANS

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'Chhari Mubarak' (lord Shiva's mace) reached south Kashmir's Mattan town on Monday on way to the cave shrine.

Swami Deepinder Giri, the custodian of the Chhari Mubarak along with other priests, carried it to Mattan ahead of Pahalgam town for prayers.

Mattan town is near the Martand ruins near Anantnag. World's only sun temple whose dome is still intact is located at Martand.

Mattan town has a Shiva temple and a holy spring. Prayers are held in the temple and the spring before Chhari's onward passage to Pahalgam town.

"Praying at Mattan gives me special joy as local Muslims and members of the Sikh community always welcome us and identity with the sanctity of the Chhari's journey," says Deepinder Giri, custodian of the holy mace.

"Such examples prove that the roots of amity, tolerance and communal harmony are so deep and historic that nobody can uproot this great legacy," Giri added.

Chhari Mubarak will reach the cave shrine on August 26 after completing its journey through Pahalgam, Chandanwari, Sheshnag and Panchtarni.

Over 2.82 lakh pilgrims have so far performed this year's Amarnath Yatra.

--IANS

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American hospitality major Marriott International sees good market potential for beach resorts on the East Coast Road (ECR) here from the leisure, corporate and wedding segments despite the existence of 750 rooms on the stretch, said a senior official on Tuesday.

Launching the new 125-room Sheraton Grand Chennai Resort & Spa near here, Shibil Malik, General Manager, said there is room for more rooms under the beach resort category on the ECR stretch up to Puducherry.

According to him the resorts on the ECR at an average have an occupancy of about 63 per cent.

For Marriott International, Sheraton Grand Chennai Resort & Spa is the first beach resort property under its Sheraton Grand brand.

"Our pricing is 15-20 per cent higher than that of competing properties like Fishermen's Cove (Taj Group), Intercontinental Chennai Mahabalipuram Resort and Radisson Blu Temple Bay Resort," Malik added.

According to Amarnath Reddy, Managing Director and the property owner, a sum of Rs 200 crore has gone into the hotel.

Reddy said he is also looking at putting up another resort property on the ECR or a boutique hotel in the city.

For Mariott International, this will be second resort property near here. The first one is the Four Points by Sheraton formerly known as Confluence Banquets and Resorts.

--IANS

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A group affiliated with the Russian government created phony versions of six websites, including some related to the US Senate, with an aim to hack into the computers of people who were tricked into visiting, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft on Monday night said that it has discovered and disabled the fake sites, reports The Washington Post.

The effort by the notorious APT28 hacking group, which has been publicly linked to a Russian intelligence agency and actively interfered in the American 2016 presidential election, underscores the aggressive role Russian operatives are playing ahead of the midterm congressional elections in the US.

APT28 specialises in information warfare or hacking and disinformation operations. "APT" refers to "advanced persistent threat" in cybersecurity circles.

US officials have repeatedly warned that the November vote is a major focus for interference efforts.

Microsoft said the sites were created over the past several months but did not go into more specifics.

Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, which is responsible for the company's response to email phishing schemes, took the lead role in finding and disabling the sites, and the company is launching an effort to provide expanded cybersecurity protection for campaigns and election agencies that use Microsoft products.

Among those targeted were the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think-tank active in investigations of corruption in Russia, and the International Republican Institute (IRI), a non-profit group that promotes democracy worldwide.

Three other fake sites were crafted to appear as though they were affiliated with the Senate, and one non-political site spoofed Microsoft's own online products.

"This apparent spear-phishing attempt against the International Republican Institute and other organisations is consistent with the campaign of meddling that the Kremlin has waged against organizations that support democracy and human rights," The Washington Post quoted Daniel Twining, IRI's president, as saying who put blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"It is clearly designed to sow confusion, conflict and fear among those who criticise Putin's authoritarian regime."

The move by Microsoft is the latest effort by Silicon Valley to address Russian threats to the upcoming election more aggressively than the technology industry did in 2016.

Companies and US officials have vowed to work together more closely this year.

Facebook recently disclosed that the company had taken down 32 fake accounts and pages that were tied to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian disinformation operation active before and after the 2016 election.

--IANS

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Rabat, Aug 21 (IANS/MAP) Moroccan King Mohammed VI granted pardon to 450 prisoners, including 22 convicted in extremism and cases, the Justice Ministry announced.

The move came after pardon requests by the prisoners. The royal approval was obtained after the prisoners officially announced their rejection of all forms of extremism and terrorism, as well as their firm adherence to the nation and to national institutions, MAP news agency said.

Of the 22 inmates who were convicted in cases, 17 had their remaining prison terms pardoned, sentences of three were commuted from life imprisonment to fixed prison terms, while two had their prison terms reduced.

The pardon came on the occasion of the anniversary of the Revolution of the King and the People, which is held on August 20 to mark the movement launched by the Moroccan people on this day in 1953 after French colonial authorities exiled the late king, Mohammed V, and the royal family.

The 22 persons granted pardon in extremism and cases had participated in the second edition of the 'Reconciliation' or Moussalaha programme organised by the jail administration.

The programme, which involves the participation of human rights experts and radicalism experts, provides psychological support and rehabilitation to inmates involved in cases of extremism and terrorism to help them reintegrate with society.

Of those pardoned by the King, 325 prisoners had their prison terms reduced, four had their sentences commuted from life imprisonment to fixed prison terms, while 29 prisoners had their remaining terms pardoned.

--IANS

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Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi said on Tuesday that her country was working with the UN to allow the safe return of the minority Rohingya refugees who fled to neighbouring Bangladesh following Army offensives in 2017.

In a televised conference in Singapore, Suu Kyi said that Myanmar had given UN officials access to more than 30 villages that they were preparing for the return of the Rohingyas following a repatriation agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar in November.

According to the agreement, the repatriation process would be completed within a period of two years after the signing of the deal.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, once seen as the face of Myanmar's struggle for democracy, has been criticised worldwide for her failure to speak out against a military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine that the UN called "ethnic cleansing".

During the conference, Suu Kyi said that the country was ready to receive the refugees in the Rakhine state, although she did not mention any specific date for the return, Efe news reported.

She added that terror activities in Rakhine remained persistent, referring to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an insurgent group of Rohingya rebels that was formed in 2013.

"It is a threat that could have grave consequences, not just for Myanmar but also for other countries in our region and beyond," Suu Kyi said.

ARSA had carried out a series of attacks on government posts in northern Rakhine in August 2017 in protest against the persecution of the Rohingyas.

The attacks led to the military crackdown that caused the exodus of 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh, where they currently live in overcrowded refugee camps.

The Army offensive was globally condemned for its rights abuses, including killings, rapes and torching down of villages.

Human Rights Watch reported that at least six out of the 60 Rohingya refugees, who had returned to Myanmar in the last few months were detained and tortured by the Border Guard Police.

"Despite Myanmar's rhetoric guaranteeing a safe and dignified return, the reality is that the Rohingyas who go back still face persecution and abuses," said Phil Robertson, deputy director of HRW's Asia chapter.

--IANS

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Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on Tuesday announced that Naya Raipur smart city, will be renamed as "Atal Nagar" in honour of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who passed away on August 16 in New Delhi.

After a cabinet meeting here, Singh announced that along with renaming of Naya Raipur, the Bilaspur University, a medical college, state capital expressway and the under-construction Central Park will be named after Vajpayee.

On November 1, which is observed as the foundation day of the state, the government will also give awards to honour people who have rendered service to the society. The awards will be called as ' Atal Sushashan Awards'.

--IANS

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The National Commission for Women (NCW) on Tuesday directed the Bihar police chief to investigate an incident in which a woman was assaulted and stripped by a mob suspecting that she was involved in the murder of a youth.

"The Commission has written to the DGP, Bihar for investigation. The NCW has also directed him to apprise the Commission of detailed action taken in the matter at the earliest," an official statement said.

The Commission said it has also taken cognizance of the fact that no arrest has been made by the police till now even after many photos and videos have been circulated on social media.

The incident which happened in Bihiya town surfaced on Monday. The woman has been taken under police custody and is undergoing medical tests. However, she denied the allegations against her.

--IANS

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Nepals new Criminal Codes Act curtails freedom of expression and restricts press freedom, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said on Tuesday.

The IFJ and its affiliates -- the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) and the Nepal Press Union (NPU) -- expressed concern over the restrictive provisions and demanded immediate amendments to the Act to ensure that they met the globally accepted standards of freedom of expression.

The new act along with the Civil Codes Act 2018 became law on August 17, replacing 15 laws including 55-year-old civil and criminal laws.

The international journalist body said that certain provisions of the Act, especially Sections 293 to 308 relating to privacy and defamation, were restrictive to the press freedom and criminalize expression.

These sections had provisions such as listening or recording conversations without consent, publicizing private information without consent, taking photos without consent, selling or publishing of photos for commercial purpose without the consent of the subject, and receiving/sending or publishing unauthorized information on an electronic medium.

Violations were punishable between one and three years in prison and Rs 10,000 to Rs 30,000 ($100 to 300) in fines.

"More than 80 journalists faced criminal cases and harassment due to one provision in the Electronic Transaction Act for their news. The new act has dozens of such provisions that criminalizes written or spoken expression, and journalists face imprisonment up to three years for merely writing news," said FNJ President Govinda Acharya.

"This is against the international standards and principles of press freedom as well as the Constitution of Nepal."

The FNJ announced nationwide protests from August 28 to September 7.

--IANS

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The UAE has pledged $100 million for flood-battered Kerala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced on Tuesday, adding "a new Kerala" needed to be built following the widespread destruction.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), home to hundreds of thousands of Keralites, has informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi that it would be providing $100 million for Kerala, Vijayan told the media.

"A new Kerala has to be built. At today's cabinet meeting, it has been decided to submit a detailed list to the Centre," he said.

"Funds are the prime requisite for this. This will be raised by us through various sources besides getting it from the Centre and other agencies," he said.

"The Kerala diaspora has been a huge source of help for us. Since they have done tremendous service in the Middle East, it has helped build good relations with the governments there.

"Today morning, the UAE rulers informed our Prime Minister about their contribution for Kerala and this was conveyed to me by M.A. Yusuf Ali (who owns Lulu Supermarkets)," he said, thanking the Emirate for the timely help.

Vijayan said they would ask the Centre to allow Kerala to increase the market borrowings from 3 per cent of the state's total revenue to 4.5 per cent. As a result an additional Rs 10,000 crore can be raised.

"We have decided to approach agencies like NABARD whose mandate includes providing for infrastructure and drinking water.

"We will demand a special package for the state," said Vijayan.

Following the devastating floods, over one million people are now sheltered in 3,274 relief camps in the state. The death toll since the monsoon rains began on May 29 has been estimated at around 370.

Till Monday, the total contributions received to the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund was Rs 210 crore while another Rs 160 crore has been pledged.

A special session of the Kerala Assembly has been called from August 30 to discuss the huge destruction caused by the worst flooding in nearly a century and to chart the future course of action.

--IANS

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North Korea seemingly hasn't abandoned its nuclear programme despite its pledge to denuclearize, according to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency released on Tuesday.

The UN nuclear watchdog said there were no signs the country had stopped its activities geared towards the development of atomic weaponry, instead finding indications consistent with the ongoing operation of certain radiochemical sites.

"The continuation and further development of the DPRK's (referring to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the nation's official name) nuclear programme and related statements by the DPRK are a cause for grave concern," the IAEA was cited as saying by Efe news.

In June, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump had held a summit in Singapore in which the former had promised the latter -- without providing any specifics -- to work towards the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The IAEA offered to verify any future nuclear agreements between Pyongyang and Washington, although North Korea refused to allow the agency's inspectors into the country since 2009.

The agency had to resort to satellite imagery and other alternative sources of information in order to monitor Pyongyang's nuclear movements.

"As the agency remains unable to carry out verification activities in the DPRK, its knowledge of the DPRK's nuclear program is limited and, as further nuclear activities take place in the country, this knowledge is declining," the agency explained in the report.

--IANS

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Slamming those who criticised him for hugging the Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, Punjab Cabinet minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Tuesday said that no one had raised questions about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's unscheduled visit to Pakistan.

Defending his visit, he said: "My visit was not about but on a warm invite from an old friend. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had travelled on the bus to Lahore and Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an unscheduled trip to Lahore in 2015, on his way back from an official visit to Afghanistan."

During that surprise stopover, Modi had hugged then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, he said.

"No one is questioning Prime Minister Modi," he added.

Sidhu said his seating at the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan as Pakistan's Prime Minister in Islamabad on August 18 was changed at the last minute and he did not know who sat next to him.

He was responding to the criticism for sitting next to Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir President Masood Khan at the ceremony.

Without mincing words, he said his visit to Pakistan was a tribute to Vajpayee, who wanted peace between the two countries.

Sidhu said he received a lot of love and affection in Pakistan and was disappointed by some of the reactions in India. He said he had received the invitation for the ceremony 10 times.

Sidhu said he went to Pakistan at the invitation and repeated reminders from Khan.

"Even our government gave permission to me to visit Pakistan. Two days after Pakistan gave him the visa, our External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called me and said that I had been given permission (to go)," Sidhu said.

Two days earlier Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said Sidhu's hug with Bajwa was "not a nice gesture and was completely avoidable".

Sidhu should have avoided indulging in such a gesture when Indian soldiers are getting killed everyday on the borders, the Chief Minister told reporters here.

At this Sidhu replied: "I was criticised by the Captain (Amarinder Singh), by top Congress leaders. It is not necessary that if the Captain has spoken against me, I should too."

"Many people from Congress have spoken on this, including Captain Sahab. It's a democracy and everyone has the right to have an opinion," Sidhu said.

--IANS

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A bank customer was injured at a bank in south Delhi on Tuesday after the bank guard's service weapon went off accidentally.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Romil Baaniya said guard Rudra Pal Singh, a retired Army man, posted at the Vijaya Bank's Defence Colony branch negligently fired a shot around 1.30 p.m., injuring Rajender Singh from Mithapur in Badarpur area.

Rajender is undergoing treatment at a hospital. The firearm and five cartridges have been seized by police.

"The guard was taken into custody and booked under Sections 336 and 337 of the Indian Penal Code for endangering the lives and personal safety of others and Section 30 of the Arms Act," the officer said.

--IANS

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Slamming those who criticized him for hugging the Pakistan Army chief, Punjab cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Tuesday said that Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa met him barely for a minute before the swearing-in of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

"I did not meet him later," he told reporters.

Defending his action, Sidhu also said that his seating at the swearing-in in Islamabad on August 18 was changed at the last minute and he did not know who sat next to him.

Without mincing words, he said his visit to Pakistan was a tribute to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who wanted peace between the two countries.

Sidhu said he received a lot of love and affection in Pakistan and was disappointed by some of the reactions in India.

He said he went to Pakistan at the invitation and repeated reminders from Imran Khan.

"Even our government gave permission to me to visit Pakistan. Two days after Pakistan gave him the visa, our External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called me and said that I had been given permission (to go)," Sidhu said.

--IANS

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Pakistan's Information Minister Fawad Hussain Chaudhry on Tuesday announced that the PTI government has lifted all political censorship in state-run outlets.

The minister tweeted that Pakistan Television (PTV) and Radio Pakistan will now enjoy complete editorial independence over the content they produce.

"As per vision of Imran Khan, PTI ended political censorship on PTV. Clear instructions issued for a complete editorial independence on PTV and Radio Pakistan. Drastic changes will be visible in the Information Department in coming 3 months," he wrote.

Newly-elected Prime Minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan in his first public speech after the July 25 election, had promised wide-ranging reforms in government institutions with a view to making them independent and free from political corruption.

--IANS

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Fill up your autumn-winter closet with Kashmiri fashion pieces like pheran and pashmina to stay warm and chic, say experts.

Wills Lifestyle has launched its Kashmir Collection, marking it as its entry into autumn-winter 2018. From white, black and navy to a trendy colour palette consisting of teal, lemon, violet and brick, the collection of shirts and blouses is rooted in nature.

The collection showcases its Kashmiri roots through motifs in traditional aari kari and crewel embroidery.

Apart from this, designer Gautam Gupta has suggested pashmina.

"It is mostly used for scarves, shawl and jackets and comes in variable styles, patterns and design for one to choose," Gupta said in a statement to IANS.

He pointed out that Kashida from Kashmir is one of the most recognised embroideries of India and can be included in the autumn-winter wardrobe.

"Pheran -- the traditional dress of Kashmir -- is an interesting silhouette and we can alter it a bit and make it apt for autumn-winter considering it's long and is perfect for winter," he added.

Designer Reynu Taandon agreed that pheran forms an important part of autumn-winter collection as it is a knee-length baggy coat. "It's very much in trend these days in cities like Delhi and other north Indian states," she said.

"The same can be experimented a lot with the use of embroidered form of the pheran. You can also do silver embroidery on the pheran."

A headscarf also plays an important role during winter. "You can do beautiful golden embroidery or floral embroidery on the scarf," she suggested.

Gurgabis or mojris can be worn in different styles while you are out during autumn-winter. "Turbans too mostly worn by men can be paired with pashmina shawl while you are at a party in the cold night. It also symbolises royalty," she said.

--IANS

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The Central government plans to transfer the debt and non-core assets of the financially-strained national passenger carrier Air India to a special purpose vehicle (SPV), a senior Finance Ministry official said on Tuesday.

Accordingly, the proposal is expected to financially revive the debt-ridden airline through the sale of its non-core assets.

"What they (Air India Board) have suggested is ... a proposal ... for making a special purpose vehicle, transferring its non-core assets and the unsustainable debt to that SPV and then encashing through sale or divestment of those assets," the ministry official said.

"That process is what we had proposed potential bidding for sale of Air India. They have suggested that the same thing may be done now so that Air India can stand on its own feet and start turning around."

Further, the official said: "As of now, as stated in the budget that capital infusion will be made... Other than that there is no such plan for fresh capital infusion."

On August 7, Parliament had approved the additional gross additional expenditure of Rs 980 crore for equity infusion into the heavily indebted airline.

The Central government had invited Expression of Interest (EoI) on March 28 this year for disinvestment of Air India including the national carrier's share-holding interest in the Air India Express Ltd and Air India SATS. But, it received no responses till May 31, the closing day.

However, the government afterwards stated that it is still committed to the idea of Air India's strategic divestment.

The government had on May 1 released a detailed document on clarifications sought by interested bidders regarding the divestment process. This had outlined that net current liabilities are Rs 88.16 billion (Rs 8,816 crore) and "these will remain with AI and AIXL (Air India Express) as these have been incurred in the course of business".

"After deducting Rs 88,160 mn from Rs 333,920 mn, the remaining figure of Rs 245,760 mn is the debt and liability quantum that will remain with AI and AIXL," the document said.

The Central government owns 100 per cent equity of Air India. In turn, the airline holds full stake in Air India Express, while it holds 50 per cent stake in the joint venture AISATS.

Accordingly, it has been planned to divest 76 per cent government stake in AI, 100 per cent in AIXL and 50 per cent in AISATS.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Train traffic on all major routes earlier disrupted due to damage to tracks by floods in Kerala has been restored, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday.

"The traffic between Thiruvananthapuram and Nagercoil, Ernakulam and Kottayam, Ernakulam and Shoranur, Palakkad and Shoranur, Shoranur and Kozhikode, and Kollam and Punalur has been resumed after completion of repairs," Goyal said.

The Indian Railways staff is still working to restore traffic on the Punalur-Senkottai-Thrissur-Gururvayur tracks, which were heavily damaged.

"The work on this section is going on at a war footing, and the route is likely to be ready for trains within two-three days," the Minister said.

Almost all train services, except for a few for want of pairing rakes, have been restored in the state.

"Due to unprecedented monsoon rains and consequent opening of dams in Kerala, three divisions of Southern Railway were severely affected due to heavy floods, landslips and boulders on tracks," the Minister said.

Goyal said that in the Thiruvananthapuram division, the flood water had risen above the danger mark beneath 11 rail bridges while tracks were submerged at three locations. Even track embankments were washed away at three places with earth slips reported from seven locations on various sections.

"The tracks were damaged on the Palakkad division of the Southern Railway as water level rose to dangerous level near 10 rail bridges and track got submerged at one location. In Madurai Division, earth slip and falling of boulders was reported from six locations, he said.

A senior Ministry official said that the Railways will ferry relief material from across the country to Kerala free of cost till August 31.

--IANS

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The Indian Railways has appealed to its employees to donate one day's salary each towards the Kerala relief fund, an official said on Tuesday.

The official said the move will help collect around Rs 200 crore since the Railways has around 12.5 lakh employees.

The official said that railway officials in Kerala have already donated Rs 65 lakh for relief work.

Following the devastating floods, over one million people are now sheltered in 3,274 relief camps in Kerala. The death toll since the monsoon rains began in the state on May 29 is around 370.

--IANS

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A series titled "Women Fighter Pilots" exploring the lives of India's female combat aircraft pilots will soon beam on Indian television.

Discovery, an infotainment channel, will bring forward the story of the first batch of three women fighter pilots -- Avani Chaturvedi, Bhawana Kanth and Mohana Singh.

"I am doing my job; something which I have always wanted to do -- serving the nation as a fighter pilot. If people are getting inspired; why should I feel any pressure, I am still doing my thing," Kanth said in a statement to IANS.

To this, Singh, added: "The development of women opting for the fighter stream has been highlighted to create awareness and to inspire more women to join the forces."

Chaturvedi said "being famous made it a little difficult to adjust in the squadron initially".

"This popularity and over appreciation of things was a little difficult for us, because fauj (army) is all about working in a team. So, if entire team is not getting highlighted then why only three of us?"

"The women fighters have become a modern symbol of women empowerment -- they have broken the last of all barriers by becoming a fighter pilot. We are excited to showcase this amazing story to our viewers," said, Zulfia Waris, Vice President and Digital Networks, Discovery Communications India.

The two-part series will premiere on Friday on Discovery Channel and Discovery World HD.

"We have explored this captivating human story of ambition, of not saying no, in a manner that has not been done before," Waris added.

--IANS

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Indian shooter Sanjeev Rajput clinched a silver medal in the men's 50 metre Rifle 3 Positions event at the 18th Asian Games here on Tuesday.

Sanjeev scored 452.7 in the final. The 37-year-old had earlier bagged bronze in the same category at the 2006 Doha Asian Games.

China's Hui Zicheng secured the gold medal after scoring 453.3, while Japan's Takayuki Matsumoto settled for bronze with a score of 441.4.

The 37-year old Rajput gave a good account of himself in the keeling and prone positions, although he struggled in the standing round which eventually stood in the way of him winning the gold.

Rajput rallied to recover from 7.8 in the third series of the kneeling position to finish in the top position with a score of 151.2.

In prone, Rajput consistently shot 10s and was ahead of the pack from start to finish. He had a total score of 307.1 after 30 shots.

In the standing position, Rajput led after the first series with a score of 355.6. But as Zicheng fought to catch up with him, Rajput lost his spark and ended second best.

--IANS

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Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder-starrer "Destination Wedding" wrapped up its shoot in a span of nine days at Dubost Winery in Paso Robles, California.

Written and directed by Victor Levin, the film is being brought to India by PVR Pictures. Reeves says Levin never rushed when it came to getting the most out of his actors.

"Vic was especially concerned with pacing," Reeves said in a statement to IANS.

"He wanted us to almost talk over each other and then find the moments where we could both be still. He worked like a really good orchestra conductor, trying to find the music of the scene, the tempo and the physicality."

"It was an extremely busy nine days," added producer Gail Lyon.

The movie showcases both the actors as socially awkward guests who develop an unlikely romance at a destination wedding in California's wine country.

"Destination Wedding" reunites Reeves and Ryder -- who first worked together in Bram Stoker's "Dracula" in 1992. The film is slated to open in India on September 7.

--IANS

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Amidst the ongoing crackdown on right-wing activists by the CBI and ATS, the Samajwadi Party on Tuesday demanded a ban on the Sanatan Sanstha and its leaders.

Maharashtra SP President Abu Asim Azmi also asked the Centre and the state government to ensure adequate security at various mosques ahead of the Eid Al Adha festival.

"The ATS has said there was a major plan to foment communal disturbances and made terror strikes in different cities of Maharashtra. It has also seized large quantities of arms and explosives from Palghar," Azmi pointed out.

In the wake of these seizures, Maharashtra ATS chief Atulchandra Kulkarni should also be provided strong security, he said.

Congress leader Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil asked Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to immediately arrest the Sanatan Sanstha founder-chief Jayant B. Athavale.

He alleged that the activities of the organisation were nothing short of 'terror' and sought a ban on the outfit.

Referring to the recent police actions, Vikhe-Patil said he had specific information that nearly 500 youths have been trained to use firearms and they must be tracked.

For this, it was imperative to arrest Athavale, which would help unravel Sanatan Sansthan's modus operandi and plans, he said.

A Sanatan Sanstha spokesperson has dismissed all charges against it and said no such training was imparted to any youth and that it was a spiritual organization.

On Tuesday, a large of Sanstha and Hindu Janjagran Samiti activists took out a procession in Pune protesting what they termed attempts by various organisations and political leaders to defame them.

They carried banners, posters and placards with slogans of Hindu unity and flaying organisations like the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS), headed by the slain rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.

HJS convenor Parag Gokhale said neither his organization nor the Sanstha were in any manner involved in the killing of rationalists like Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M.M. Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh.

--IANS

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The BJP-led government in Tripura will donate Rs 1 crore for the relief work in the flood-ravaged state of Kerala.

A day after the opposition CPI-M urged the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to contribute funds to the flood-ravaged Kerala, the Tripura government on Monday night said that it will donate Rs 1 crore.

"The council of ministers in its meeting today (Monday) decided to donate Rs one crore for the relief of the flood-affected people of Kerala," Education and Law Minister Ratan Lal Nath told the media .

Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb chaired the cabinet meeting, which also formally adopted a condolence resolution for the demise of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) on Sunday urged the BJP-led government in Tripura to donate funds to the flood-hit people in Kerala, pointing out that no saffron party-ruled state has yet donated any amount to the southern state.

CPI-M central committee member Bijan Dhar said: "Some non-BJP ruled states and many organisations and individuals have come forward to help the state (Kerala), which was hit by one of the worst natural catastrophes of the century."

Dhar, also the secretary of the Tripura state committee of the Left party, said that the CPI-M would launch an 11-day long fund collection drive on Tuesday across the state to help the affected people of Kerala.

--IANS

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Having Donald Trump as President is a "drastic experiment" and a "sign of despair" for a powerful nation like the US, says Australian filmmaker Geoffrey Wright.

Wright's conviction about bringing alive a "Romper Stomper" mini-series 25 years after the cult film on racism stormed its way across Australian cinema screens, strengthened, he says, with Trump's political ascent.

"Trump is a sign of despair in a very powerful nation. It's difficult to admire someone like Trump, it's not possible for me," Wright told IANS in an interview here as he agreed that when Trump emerged as US President, he wanted to revisit the Russell Crowe-starrer "Romper Stomper" all the more.

"This is a sign of a country that is experimenting in an unfortunate way, and I hope they come back on track. You're not going to have a brilliant President every time, India or Australia, but you don't want such a drastic, dire kind of experiment. You want something that is a bit more optimistic."

While not wanting to "demonise" Trump, Wright explained: "It's not as simple as that because it represents a block of the public that voted for him and they have got their issues with how things have panned out for them. There are parts (of the US) where there's too much unemployment," he said.

"The people who were empowered before Trump, possibly overlooked them, and the country has paid a price, the world has paid a price because of a group of people," he added.

As a film, the high-on-violence "Romper Stomper" followed a neo-Nazi group which spent their time attacking Asian immigrants in suburban Melbourne. In its mini-series avatar, which came out earlier this year, anti-Muslim immigration came in focus.

"It's strange that I could take a story that is 25 years old and bring it back into focus because, unfortunately, the issues haven't gone away. The perpetrators, faces and the actors involved in the story... changed, but the fundamentals don't. And in the last few years, the whole planet has had a bit of a confrontation with coping with the clash of civilisations.

"I think we are out of the worst of it, but it got scary for a while... But I don't want to speak... because who knows what atrocity could be, what could happen in terms of global affairs, clash of nations, armies," said Wright on the sidelines of the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) where he was part of the jury.

Having watched a variety of Indian films via the gala, Wright was particularly impressed by Tabrez Noorani's treatment of sex trafficking in "Love Sonia".

Raising issues through the medium of cinema is a culture that must be promoted the world over, especially on issues pertaining to the socio-political milieu of a nation, he says.

"It's really important because governments have their limitations, but individuals don't. And individuals make up the film industry. And the film industry is all over the world. Every country has one -- a tiny one, a major one or something in between.

"But every country has something, and it's made up of individuals who can make a difference and be passionate about telling a true story or something that reflects the truth. I am not talking about documentaries, but those based on the truth or something they have observed," said the silver-haired filmmaker, whose "Romper Stomper" script was inspired by the crimes of leading Melbourne Neo-Nazi skinhead Dane Sweetman.

"Governments can only go so far, individuals are limitless," Wright added.

And what about the censorship that can come along with political movies, at least in the Indian context?

"You've got to keep pushing. You might take the ground by only a few centimetres first, but on other days you will take it by metres and there will be a day when you will take it by kilometres. But you will take ground every day you push... Five years from now, 10 years from now, when you look back, you'll say you've come a distance," he says.

"You're not going to win every battle. No one does. But you've got to try and win as often as you can," he adds.

(Radhika Bhirani was in Melbourne on an invitation by IFFM organisers. She can be contacted at radhika.b@ians.in)

--IANS

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HMD Global, that sells Nokia smartphones, on Tuesday launched Nokia 6.1 Plus and Nokia 5.1 Plus smartphones with smart Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities in India.

Nokia 6.1 Plus costs Rs 15,999 while the price of Nokia 5.1 Plus will be announced in September.

Both Nokia 6.1 Plus and Nokia 5.1 Plus are online exclusive and will be available on Flipkart and the company's own platform Nokia.com/Phones.

"Since the beginning of our journey, we've focused on delivering an experience that you would expect from a Nokia phone -- design and craftsmanship that stands out, technology that helps you get more out of your day, and our focus on pure, secure, up-to-date Android," Juho Sarvikas, Chief Product Officer at HMD Global, told reporters here.

"Today, we are building further on our promise by offering two new smartphones Nokia 6.1 Plus and Nokia 5.1 Plus and offering the latest innovations such as an all-screen design with the quality you can only expect from a Nokia smartphone," he added.

Nokia 6.1 Plus is the first smartphone under the Nokia brand to come with a display notch.

Powered by the latest chipsets and joining the Android One family, both phones deliver a great performance, as well as smart AI imaging features, you would expect from a premium smartphone, the company claimed.

Nokia 6.1 Plus comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor, 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage and MicroSD support.

The phone is powered by a 3,060 mAh battery which supports Quick Charge 3.0 technology.

Its primary camera has a 16MP and a secondary 5MP sensor.

It is an Android One smartphone, which means it will the latest Android version and regular security updates.

The device comes with Android Oreo 8.1 OS.

Nokia 5.1 Plus comes with a glass body, dual-lens camera, and a notched display as well.

The device features a 5.9-inch IPS LCD display with an aspect ratio of 19:9.

It is powered by a Mediatek Helio P60 chip and comes equipped with either 3GB or 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage. The device is powered by a 3,060mAh battery.

Its dual-lens camera set-up on the back includes a 13MP + 5MP lens.

--IANS

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The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday handed over a bank draft of Rs 15 crore to a representative of the Kerala government as its contribution for relief work in the flood-ravaged state, a government spokesman said.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had last week announced a sum of Rs 15 crore as Uttar Pradesh's donation to the coastal state which has been devastated by unprecedented floods triggered by heavy rains.

On Tuesday, Additional Resident Commissioner of Uttar Pradesh Dhanalaxmi K. handed over the bank draft for the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund to Kerala Resident Commissioner Puneet Kumar, at Kerala Bhawan in the national capital.

The Kerala official extended gratitude on behalf of his government for the donation, which he added would go a long way in helping the flood-hit people of the state. Other than this, the UP government has also pledged relief materials including medicines for Kerala.

Vehicles carrying this relief material was to be flagged off by Adityanath from his official residence on Tuesday but has since been put off citing "unforeseen reasons".

--IANS

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Henceforth, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are strategic partners. The corresponding agreement was signed following the talks between Presidents Emomali Rahmon and Shavkat Mirziyoyev on August 17 in Tashkent. This was the first visit of the Tajik leader to Uzbekistan in 17 years. The parties also agreed on the joint construction of two hydroelectric power stations on the Tajik part of the Zarafshan River. Meanwhile, the main controversial issue - the Rogun hydropower station - remains unresolved.

This was the return visit of President Emomali Rahmon to Uzbekistan. Recall that in March this year Uzbek leader Shavkat Mirziyoyev visited Dushanbe. "I cordially recollect your state visit to Tajikistan in March of this year. Due to it, the relations between our countries were restored. Your visit gave a powerful impetus to the development of cooperation in various spheres. Thanks to your effective foreign policy, Uzbekistan's authority in the international community is growing more and more. People in your country are also undergoing great changes. I think my state visit is very important for our peoples, " Rahmon said during the talks at the Kuksaroy residence in Tashkent.

As Shavkat Mirziyoyev noted, Uzbekistan considers the visit of the head of the neighboring state as an important political event in the new history of the Uzbek-Tajik relations. According to him, today the countries have great opportunities to fully realize the trade, economic and transport-communication potential of the states. "The main task for Uzbekistan and, it seems, personally for President Mirziyoyev, is a dynamic development of the region on the basis of good neighborliness and close mutually beneficial cooperation, capable of independently providing adequate answers to the modern threats and challenges, while ensuring its security and development not as a junior partner of any non-regional power or military-political bloc, but as an equal partner able to defend its vision of the regional problems, Ph.D. in Political Sciences, the member of the Scientific Council of the Institute for Central Asia and Afghanistan Studies Iran-East (Iran), Igor Pankratenko told Vestnik Kavkaza.

The changes that have occurred over the past year between the countries are indeed significant. An issue of visa-free regime extremely painful for the bilateral relations was resolved, demarcation and delimitation of borders were introduced, the new railway and bus routes were launched, the additional checkpoints were opened. A free trade regime is established between the countries. The volume of mutual trade is growing. In the first half of this year, the bilateral trade turnover increased by 35.1%. Uzbekistan expected to increase trade to $ 500 billion by 2020.

A decision made on n the Farhad hydropower station at the border of the two countries became extremely important. It creates the prerequisites for resolving the issue of the Rogun hydroelectric power station, the construction of which is being actively pursued in Tajikistan. However, based on the fact that the issue was not raised during the current visit, the parties could not find a mutually acceptable solution.

Nevertheless, several leading experts and specialists in the field of the hydropower generation and the use of water and energy resources are confident that the policy has collided with the economy long ago and the cooperation of the two countries in the use of the flow of Vakhsh would be beneficial to both of them. "The Rogun hydroelectric project was developed during the Soviet period in Tashkent, in the Central Asian branch of the Hydroproject Institute. In addition to supplying water to turbines for generating electricity, the 13-cubic-meter hydroelectric reservoir provided for the accumulation of water for irrigation of tens of thousands of hectares of new land in Uzbekistan, in the lower reaches of the Amu-Darya, " the expert on Tajikistan, Andrei Zakhvatov told Vestnik Kavkaza. In his opinion, this topic could be discussed at the talks in Tashkent. As a result of the discussion, the sides will be able to relief the fears of Uzbekistan that filling the reservoir will deprive the lower reaches of irrigation water by creating a small joint monitoring group of hydrologists controlling the flow of water into the reservoir and dropping of water from it. Tajikistan has repeatedly stated that it will not leave its neighbors without water. It is also possible that having weighed all the pros and cons, Uzbekistan will not only agree on Rogun's project but also offer its participation in financing the completion of the Rogun hydroelectric power station.

"Obviously, the unresolved issues in this area will not lead to anything good: the fact is that the populations of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have already exceeded 40 million people and continue to grow by about 800 thousand people a year, and the area of irrigated arable land per one a person is at a precritical level already. The social explosions associated with the population growth are not welcomed by anyone and the leadership of the two countries understands this well. There are the examples of achieving agreements on the division of water resources in the world practice - 10 countries on the banks of the European river Danube were able to agree. So, to expect that the parties can reach agreements on the subject is not a fantasy, Zakhvatov said.

It is not yet known whether the heads of the two states managed to remove the trade and economic barriers. While in Dushanbe, Mirziyoyev said that "the current trade turnover indicator does not match the potential of the two countries, there are wide unused opportunities for bringing it to $ 1 billion." Tashkent, within the framework of pre-export financing, allocated $ 100 million to Dushanbe to ensure that Tajik importers purchase Uzbek products. However, Tajik customs is on the way of the entrepreneurs from Uzbekistan - it limits the import of food products. The Ministry of Foreign Trade of Uzbekistan named the restriction of Uzbek imports a violation of the free trade agreement between the countries. The parties decided neither to apply customs duties, taxes and charges, nor to impose quantitative restrictions on the export/import of goods passing from the customs territory of one of the contracting countries. Therefore, the optimistic expectations of the Uzbek authorities to increase the trade turnover this year are not justified. According to the forecast of experts, the trade turnover for the year will amount about $ 140 million in the best case scenario. In the realistic one - $ 120-125 million.

"Tashkent has repeatedly expressed its interest in a more active presence in the markets of Tajikistan, including the creation of joint ventures and the expansion of the commodity assortment of its imports, but Dushanbe artificially inhibits this process by preventing the penetration of Uzbek business into the country. The officials of Tajikistan openly make it clear, that they are ready to encourage the economic relations with Tashkent only in the agro-industrial sphere and tourism, Pankratenko told Vestnik Kavkaza. In particular, in Uzbekistan, there are 39 enterprises with the participation of Tajik capital, and in Tajikistan - eight enterprises created by Uzbek investors. Perhaps, the situation will change after the business forum held in Tashkent, following which the export contracts for $ 103 million were signed.

Experts believe that Dushanbe continues to maintain an extremely cautious attitude towards Tashkent and the policy of Shavkat Mirziyoyev in the region. The country does not express readiness for expanding the bilateral relations. Therefore, the Strategic Partnership Agreement between the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Republic of Tajikistan signed during the current visit of Rahmon is rather declarative in nature. The more optimistic assessment was made by the head of an analytical group at the Center for Caucasian and Central Asian Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies of Russian Academy of Sciences, Stanislav Pritchin. He called the visit of President Emomali Rahmon to Tashkent "historical" and the merit of Shavkat Mirzieev." "Everything, beginning with the meeting of the Tajik president at the Tashkent airport, constructive negotiations and friendly atmosphere and ending with the signing of the package of documents, was made possible due to the new policy of Uzbekistan. Shavkat Mirziyoyev headed for the constructive cooperation with neighbors, even though there was a number of difficulties between the countries. However, some unresolved issues remain. For example, the construction of the Rogun hydroelectric power station in Tajikistan, but in general, the atmosphere that developed between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan is important for the regional cooperation ", Stanislav Pritchin told Vestnik Kavkaza.
Banning the Sanatan Sanstha in Goa, whose members have allegedly been linked to the murders of rationalists Gauri Lankesh and Narendra Dabholkar, is the responsibility of the Central government and the state authorities in Maharashtra, state BJP president Vinay Tendulkar told reporters here on Tuesday.

"That is the Central government's responsibility or the Maharashtra government will look at it," Tendulkar said, when asked whether the Sanstha, which is headquartered in Goa's Ramnathi village, should be banned after some of its members were arrested for their alleged links to the murders of the rationalists.

Asked for his personal opinion on the issue of banning the Sanstha, Tendulkar said: "What I feel or what anybody feels, it does not make a difference".

He added that the truth about the links of Sanatan members would come out when the courts begin to try the cases filed against members of the sect.

In 2015, Tendulkar had likened the demand to ban the Sanatan Sanstha to demands for banning the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

"If there are charges (against Sanatan Sanstha members), they have not been proven... Earlier, such demands were made against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The Congress was in power for several years, but they did not have courage to ban RSS," Tendulkar had said, when asked for his party's view on demands to ban the Sanstha.

--IANS

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The US has charged two people acting as agents for the Iranian government, according to an official statement.

Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar and Majid Ghorbani, who were arrested on August 9, had allegedly been monitoring Israeli and Jewish facilities in the US, while also gathering information on individuals in Washington who were part of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, CNN quoted the statement from the D.C. US Attorney's Office as saying on Monday.

"The indictment charged Doostdar and Ghorbani with knowingly acting as agents of the government of Iran without prior notification to the Attorney General, providing services to Iran in violation of US sanctions, and conspiracy," it said.

The statement said that Doostdar had photographed security features as part of a surveillance effort on a Jewish facility in Chicago on or around July 21, 2017.

Additionally, on or near September 20, 2017, Ghorbani allegedly took photos of individuals at an event in New York where people were protesting the Iranian regime

"This alleged activity demonstrates a continued interest in targeting the US, as well as potential opposition groups located in the US," said Acting Executive Assistant Director Michael McGarrity in Monday's statement.

"The FBI will continue to identify and disrupt those individuals who seek to engage in unlawful activity, on behalf of Iran, on US soil."

Ghorbani is set to appear in DC District Court on Tuesday morning for a detention hearing.

There was no further information on Doostdar.

--IANS

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A 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard was deported to Germany from the US on Tuesday after years of diplomatic wrangling over his status.

Jakiw Palij landed at Dusseldorf airport in the morning. He has been stateless since a federal judge revoked his US citizenship in 2003. Germany refused to accept him for years as he never had German nationality, the BBC reported.

After his arrival in Germany, he was taken to a care home for the elderly. The US Ambassador in Berlin, Richard Grenell, praised Germany's new government for resolving the case.

Palij is accused of having lied to gain entry to the US almost 70 years ago, claiming he was a Polish farmer. Almost 20 years ago, the US authorities determined that he had been a member of the SS, the elite corps of the Nazi party, and had worked at the Trawniki concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, the Guardian reported.

The camp trained soldiers to round up Jews for extermination. In 2005, a US judge ordered his expulsion.

However, German authorities resisted taking him, saying the crimes he was alleged to have carried out took place on foreign soil. He was believed to be the last Nazi collaborator still living in the US. His residence in the Queens area of New York City attracted protests from residents.

A White House statement said Palij served as an armed guard and had played an "indispensable role" in ensuring Jews were killed. He arrived in the US in 1949 and was given citizenship in 1957.

Although a US court had ruled that he assisted in the persecution of prisoners, he was not found personally responsible for deaths. Palij himself has denied collaborating with the Nazis.

The US authorities were unable to persuade Germany, Ukraine or Poland to take him in. He never had German citizenship and originated from an area of Poland that is now Ukraine.

The US Ambassador said a change of heart came with the advent of Chancellor Angela Merkel's new Cabinet earlier this year.

Centre-left Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper that Germany had a "moral duty" to "come to terms with and face up to the crimes of the Nazi reign of terror".

--IANS

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US Under Secretary of Treasury Sigal Mandelker has said Washington will impose "much more economic pain" to Russia if it does not change its global behaviours significantly.

Speaking on Tuesday before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Mandelker said, "Though Russia's malign activities continue, we believe its adventurism undoubtedly has been checked by the knowledge that we can bring much more economic pain to bear using our powerful range of authorities - and that we will not hesitate to do so if its conduct does not demonstrably and significantly change," Xinhua reported.

She said the Treasury's actions have caused "extensive consequences" in Russia in such areas as domestic and foreign private investment, energy and money laundering.

"The significance of our actions and other financial measures must ultimately be measured in terms of their strategic impacts," she added.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Treasury announced to sanction several Russia-related individuals and entities over their involvement in actions against the US sanctions.

The US State Department said earlier this month that the country will impose new sanctions on Russia in two phases, and the first batch will take effect around August 22.

Russia and the US have been waging sanctions against each other as bilateral relations continue to worsen over recent years.

Moscow has repeatedly said that it reserves the right to take additional countermeasures against US diplomatic properties in Russia if Washington continues hostility.

--IANS

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The US has welcomed newly-elected Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khans statement emphasising the importance of peace with India and Afghanistan, a key official said here.

"We welcome the words of Prime Minister Imran Khan in which he discussed the importance of peace on both sides of Pakistan's borders," Alice Wells, who heads the Bureau for South and Central Asian affairs at the US State Department, said on Monday at a press briefing.

Wells is expected to accompany US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo when he visits Islamabad in the first week of September for talks with the new Pakistani leadership following which he will make stopovers in New Delhi and Kabul, reports Dawn news.

Wells said that America's South Asia strategy was "obviously pointed to the role India can and should play" in supporting the stabilisation of Afghanistan.

"We want to see Afghanistan stitched back into the region," said the US diplomat while clarifying that this integration does not have to come at the expense of any other country in the region.

Without mentioning the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the US official expressed concerns over projects in countries where governments involved had not been able to sustain the repayment schedules, which "resulted in the loss of sovereignty over key infrastructures" that they have had to turn over to their lenders.

Wells said that if China stopped pursuing the policy of mortgaging the future of such countries to "unrealistic and unsustainable loan terms, Washington and Beijing could work together on many issues.

--IANS

ksk

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WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels on Tuesday met Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and promised to step up action to prevent the circulation of fake news and misinformation on its platform.

In a meeting here, Prasad reportedly told Daniels to appoint an officer for grievance redressal, comply with Indian laws and establish a proper corporate entity in the country.

"We had a productive meeting. WhatsApp is being misused to create misinformation and the social media platform has assured prompt action," Prasad told the media after the meeting.

Daniels' meeting with the IT Minister came in the backdrop of several incidents of mob lynchings across India owing to circulation of fake messages and misinformation on the instant messaging platform.

To tackle the spread of false information, the Facebook-owned platform has limited forward messaging to five chats for over 200 million users in India.

--IANS

gb/na/bg

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the government if it can direct the Election Commission to include in the symbol order a clause that a political party is liable to lose its recognition if it fields candidates with criminal antecedents.

"Why can't we exhort Parliament like the Law Commission does to address the problem? Why can't we take clue from Section 33A of the Representation of People Act and direct the Election Commission to include in Symbol order a stipulation to bar people with criminal antecedents from electoral fray?" the court asked.

"Without asking the legislature (to make a law), you are asking the Election Commission (to insert addition qualifications)," Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said.

The top court, he said, could exhort Parliament to enact a law to bar the people with criminal background from the electoral fray, but any expansion of the Symbols Order that would have a bearing on the recognition of political parties would be ultra vires.

The five-judge constitution bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Fali Nariman, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice Indu Malhotra is hearing a plea by NGO Public Interest Foundation seeking to bar people from electoral politics against whom charges have been framed by trial courts for heinous offences.

The Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 says that a party would be recognized as a national party if it has fielded candidates in any four or more states, in the last general election to Lok Sabha or the legislative assembly and has secured 6% of the valid votes polled in each of the four states.

Besides this, the party has to secure four seats in the Lok Sabha from either one state or all the four states.

Informing the court about the presumption of innocence till an accused is convicted, Venugopal said excluding a person, charged with a criminal offence yet not convicted from the election fray would amount to adding another disqualification.

"It will be ultra vires," Attorney General said as Justice Chandrachud asked: "Is there anything that prevents the Election Commission from introducing additional qualifications? Can't EC incorporate such provisions in its rules?"

The constitution bench is hearing a reference by a three-judge bench on the question "whether disqualification for membership can be laid down by the court beyond Article 102(a) to (d) and the law made by Parliament under Article 120(e)?"

--IANS

pk/prs

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CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Tuesday demanded hiking of monetary central assistance to Rs 2,000 crore for rehabilitation work in Kerala post devastating floods besides seeking relaxation in the GST in order to allow the state to raise more funds on its own.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Yechury said with their homes and possessions gone, lakhs of people are staring at an uncertain future in Kerala and that "massive resources" would be required for the rehabilitation of these people.

"You have sanctioned Rs 500 crore central assistance, but this is grossly inadequate in the light of the extensive damage that has been caused. I would request you to increase this amount to Rs 2,000 crore," Yechury said in the letter.

He also reminded the Pirme Minister of the assurance given in Parliament that provisions in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) would be made for states facing natural calamities.

"You will recollect that during the discussion on the GST Bill, I had raised concerns in Parliament on how the state government could raise resources required to meet such natural disasters. The Central government had then assured that such provisions would be made when such circumstances arise," he said.

"Though no such provisions were provided, now is the time to redeem the assurance from the government on the floor of the House and allow the state government of Kerala to take required measures by relaxing the concerned GST provisions," he added.

The CPI-M leader also asked the Prime Minister to waive the duties on the relief materials/ money being sent by various Malayalee organisations from abroad.

Yechury also urged Modi to release funds under various central schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana for building homes, and asked the Indian Army's Engineering Corps and the Border Roads Organisation to assist the state government in reconstructing bridges and roads.

"In order to rebuild the communication networks, it is urged that the Central government agencies like the National Highway Authority of India and other central agencies be asked to deploy their resources and personnel," Yechury said, urging the Prime Minister to consider his proposals "with the seriousness that they merit".

--IANS

mak/nir

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A vehicle carrying pilgrims to a temple, skidded off the road and fell into the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir's Kishtwar district, killing 11 people with a five-year-old child being the only survivor, police said.

The incident took place when they were going to the Mata Machail temple in the district.

"A vehicle carrying pilgrims to the Machail Mata temple rolled down and fell into the Chenab river, around 28 km from Kishtwar, in the Padder belt area today," Jammu and Kashmir DGP S P Vaid told PTI.

During the rescue operation 11 bodies were recovered. The only survivor is a five-year-old child, he said, adding that the child is undergoing treatment at a hospital.

The description of the vehicle and the gender of the child are yet to be known.

This is the second major accident in Kishtwar district in the past 24 hours.

Yesterday, seven people, including a policeman, were killed and 12 others injured after two vehicles came under a landslide in the district.

The incident took place at Kulligad on the Doda-Kishtwar road.

Huge boulders and debris suddenly came down from a hill burying a mini-bus and a car plying on the Doda-Kishtwar road, Senior Superintendent of Police Rajinder Kumar Gupta had said.

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A van carrying pilgrims to a temple skidded off the road and fell into the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir's Kishtwar district today, killing all 13 occupants of the vehicle, including a five-year-old girl, police said.

The incident took place around 7:30 am when they were going to the Mata Machail temple in the district, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rajinder Kumar Gupta told PTI.

He said 13 people, including 11 pilgrims, were killed. The deceased included the driver and conductor of the van, he said.

The girl died due to injuries while she was being taken to a hospital, the SSP said.

Gupta, who supervised the rescue operations, said police and locals launched the operation as soon as information was received, and all the bodies have been recovered.

Jammu and Kashmir DGP S P Vaid said, "A vehicle carrying pilgrims to the Machail Mata temple rolled down and fell into the Chenab river, around 28 km from Kishtwar, in the Padder belt area today,"



Earlier, Vaid had said 11 people were killed and the child was the lone survivor.

Over one lakh pilgrims have visited mountain shrine of Machain Mata in Paddar hills of Kishtwar till now.

This is the second major accident in Kishtwar district in the past 24 hours.

Yesterday, seven people, including a policeman, were killed and 12 others injured after two vehicles came under a landslide in the district.

The incident took place at Kulligad on the Doda-Kishtwar road. Huge boulders and debris suddenly came down from a hill burying a mini-bus and a car plying on the Doda-Kishtwar road, the SSP had said.

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Armenias Ministry of Justice received about 160 pardon petitions, the country's Justice Minister Artak Zeynalyan said at a press conference.

According to the minister, some 115 applications had been processed and submitted to the office of Prime Minister, who is expected to make relevant decisions.

In the near future, the prime minister will set up a pardon commission, which is most likely to be headed by the Minister of Justice.

Zeynalyan added that the ministry received many parole petitions. "So far 387 such petitions were processed, 228 cases were considered by courts and 84 petitions were satisfied and another 144 were rejected," ARKA cited him as saying.

Zeynalyan said that the figures were unprecedented, adding that documents on conditional parole of several life prisoners will be prepared for consideration.
A 14-year-old boy was sent to reform home for two years by a juvenile board here for raping a four-year-old girl, with the entire process of the case being completed in just five days.

Juvenile Justice Board Judge Tripti Pande pronounced the sentence yesterday after wrapping up the trial in seven hours, government advocate Deependra Malu said today.

The crime took place on August 15 and the entire process, from registration of the case to pronouncement of judgement, was completed in five days.

"The case diary was submitted in the court at 10.45 am yesterday and the judgement, after trial, was pronounced around 6 pm," Malu said.

"This is probably for the first time, after the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act came into effect in 2012, that a judgement in a rape case of a minor has been given in such a short duration," he said.

While pronouncing the sentence, Malu said, the judge observed, "The tendency of sexual offences against children is rising at a fast pace in society. To correct such a perverted psychological condition, this boy needs to be sent to two years' imprisonment."



The court ordered to send the boy to a remand home in MP's Seoni district for serving the sentence.

The girl was playing with other children on August 15 at the residence of the accused at Ghatiya village in the district. Taking advantage of the situation, the boy raped her, Ujjain Superintendent of Police Sachin Atulkar said.

The victim later disclosed the incident to her parents who filed a complaint at the Ghatiya police station.

Atulkar formed a team to probe the case and the boy was subsequently nabbed from his relative's place in Rajasthan and brought back to Ujjain.

"The entire process, from registration of the case, investigation, trial and awarding of the sentence was, completed in just five days, which is a record," Atulkar claimed.

The sentence was awarded under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the POCSO Act, he said.

Atulkar said the judgement will send a positive message among citizens.

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Police in Tibet had arrested 16 people, alleged to be the members of a gang of tomb-raiders, and recovered 53 cultural relics, including Buddha statue stolen by them from the ruins of a temple in Lhasa, according to a media report today.

The gang had raided the ruins of a temple in Paggarxoi Village of Dagze District, the regional capital Lhasa, between June and July this year, the state-run Xinhua agency reported.

Some of the accused were arrested from the site while others were apprehended later, it said, adding that the police recovered 53 relics, including Buddha statues and bronzeware.

Local police are searching for other accused, and efforts are on to retrieve cultural relics that have been sold, the report said.

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Opposition Congress in Madhya Pradesh alleged here today that over 17 lakh fake voters were found during a scrutiny of electoral rolls across 53 assembly constituencies in the state.

The state Congress also submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission today, urging it to remove the names of these voters from the electoral rolls.

Shobha Oza, chairperson of MP Congress's media cell, told reporters that the scrutiny done by a private agency hired by the party, found 17.15 lakh duplicate and fake voters across 53 assembly seats in the state.

"In the memorandum submitted to Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), the state Congress urged him to remove the names of these duplicate and fake voters. We have also submitted a CD comprising the names of these duplicate and fake voters," she said.

Final publication of the electoral rolls in Madhya Pradesh is scheduled on September 27. People can submit their objections and suggestions about the voters' list till August 31.

Elections to the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly are scheduled to be held by the end of this year.

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Union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Piyush Goyal and Suresh Prabhu will attend the two-day banking conclave beginning Thursday to dwell on issues including bad loans, plaguing the Indian banks.

Government think-tank Niti Aayog and the Centre for Economic Policy Research are the host of India Banking Conclave 2018 in which almost all public sector as well as private banks will participate.

The programme will see panel discussions on NPAs, development of banks with changing times, privatisation versus merger and the future of banking, among other issues.

ICICI Bank Chairman Girish Chandra Chaturvedi will take part in the first panel discussion of the conference on 'Indian Debt, Indian problem, Indian Solution'.

Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar; former SBI Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya; IDBI Bank CEO B Sriram; SBI MD Arijit Basu; Yes Bank Group President Nikhil Sahani, will also grace the conclave.

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In separate cases in the past one week, the city police have arrested two men for allegedly appearing as dummy candidates in the railway recruitment exam, an officer said today.

The accused, identified as Dhiraj Kumar (21) and Ranjit Prasad (22), hail from Nalanda district of Bihar, Palasia Police Station in-charge Ajit Singh Bais said.

"Both the accused were arrested in connection with ongoing Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) exam," he said.

Dhiraj Kumar was arrested on August 20 after he was found appearing for the exam in place of Abhimanyu Kumar at RRB examination centre at Islamia Karimiya College in Palasia area, he said.

Before that, police had caught Ranjit Prasad from the same centre on August 14 for giving the exam in place of Santosh Kumar, Bais added.

"A detailed probe is on to find out if there is any big racket behind this. We have also sent our team to Bihar to arrest the candidates for whom these accused were appearing in the examination," he said.

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A 50-year-old homeless woman was mowed to death by a speeding SUV, allegedly being driven by a young woman, and dragged her for close to 300 meters in posh Connaught Place area in Lutyens' Delhi, police said today.

The incident took place on Sunday night when the old woman was crossing the road, they said.

The accused, who was driving the SUV (Jeep Compass) was identified as Shreya Aggarwal (20), a resident of Bareilly. She was accompanied by friends, the police said.

Aggarwal is pursuing a fashion designing course at an institute in Mumbai, they said.

The homeless woman, later identified as Phoolwati, was sent to a hospital where she was declared brought dead, police said.

The accused who earlier tried to escape was arrested from the spot, police said.

However, she was released later on bail.

A case has been registered against her and further investigation was underway, the police said.

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A 30-year-old woman, on way to the Kashi Vishwanath temple, was allegedly gang-raped in Alinagar area here, police said today.

The woman, hailing from Satna in Madhya Pradesh, arrived on Sunday night by train at the Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Railway station and hired a taxi to reach the temple in Varanasi district to offer prayers on the last Monday of the holy month of 'Shravan', SP Santosh Kumar Singh said.

The taxi drivers, identified as Sonu and Jitendra,instead of driving her to Varanasi took her to a house in Alinagar area and allegedly raped her during the night hours, he said.

The woman somehow informed the police next morning after which both the accused were arrested, the SP said adding that efforts were on to trace the house owner.

The woman was sent for medical examination, the SP added.

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Rains, floods and landslides in Kerala have killed 373 people since May 30, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said today.

Altogether 87 people were injured and 32 others went missing in the deluge which hit all the 14 districts of the southern state.

A total of 373 people have lost their lives and 32 others went missing in Kerala since May 30 following monsoon rainfall, the NDMA said in a statement.

Over 54.11 lakh people in Kerala were affected in the massive floods of which 12.47 lakh inmates have taken shelter in 5,645 relief camps since May 30, it said.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has deployed 59 teams and 207 boats, the Army has deployed 23 teams and 104 boats, the Navy has deployed 94 teams for the rescue and relief operations.

The Navy has also deployed one medical team, nine helicopters, two fixed wing aircraft, 94 boats, the Coast Guard has deployed 36 teams, 49 boats, two helicopters, 23 fixed wing helicopters, two fixed wing aircraft and 27 hired boats.

The Air Force has deployed 22 helicopters, 23 fixed wing aircraft while the Central Reserve Police Force has deployed 10 teams and the Border Security Force has deployed three company comprising 300 personnel.

The water level at the Mullaperiyar dam is at 140 feet, Idukki dam is at 2402.18 feet, Banasura Sagar dam is at 775.2 metre, Karapuzha dam is at 758.2 metre, Thenmala dam is at 114.80 metre, Idamalayar dam is at 168.86 metre and Pazhassi dam is at 16.9 metre.

The Centre has already declared the devastating floods in Kerala a "calamity of severe nature" as the state braced for the gigantic task of reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure and rehabilitation lakhs of people rendered homeless.

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Five persons were injured in firing by BSF personnel during an altercation with villagers in Malda district after they tried to stop smuggling of cough syrup to Bangladesh from Malda district, police said today.

Three Border Security Force (BSF) personnel were also injured in the brickbatting by the smugglers.

A group of people were trying to smuggle to Bangladesh a particular brand of cough syrup which is used by some people as an intoxicant, at Par Baidyanathpur village yesterday night.

Police said a group of people was trying to smuggle the cough syrup and the BSF personnel of Shobhapur border outpost (BOP) challenged them. The smugglers pelted stones to the border guards injuring three of them.

The men in uniform then chased the smugglers who fled to Par Baidyanathpur village.

When the BSF men captured one alleged smuggler from the village, an altercation began with local people who claimed that man was innocent, police said adding that the BSF personnel then fired in the air and five persons were injured.

The condition of one of them was serious and he was admitted to the Malda Medical College and Hospital. Others were under treatment at a rural hospital, police said.

The BSF personnel seized an unspecified amount of cough syrup from the border but none of the accused could be arrested.

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At least seven persons, including a woman, were injured in a group clash over the beating of a dog at Kakrala village under Khatauli police station here, police said today.

Circle Officer Rajive Kumar Singh said Rinu singh and Kapil Balmiki were confronted by locals yesterday evening for thrashing a dog belonging to one Ritu Singh.

However, the confrontation soon turned into a violent clash in which lathies were used. Police rushed to the spot and brought the situation under control.

The clash was between two groups of the same community, said a police official, adding that one person was arrested in this connection.

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All participants in the recent attacks on police in Chechnya were teenagers, Chechnyas Nationalities Policy, External Relations, and Press and Information Affairs Minister Jambulat Umarov said.

"The oldest of those who steered a motor vehicle into traffic police was under 17 years of age. According to information available at this point the youngest person in the car was 11," TASS cited the official as saying.

According to him, the ISIS (terrorist organization outlawed in Russia) had developed "special programs to brainwash teenagers," and the attackers average age tended to go down.

"Among the militants we often see boys aged 11-12. As for older ones, those who have brains, are far less frequent," Umarov added.
The All Arunachal Pradesh Students Union (AAPSU) today said it has detected over 2000 Inner Line Permit (ILP) violators across the state during a drive taken up after publication of the complete draft of the NRC in neighbouring Assam on July 30.

The list of such violators was given to the police in various districts, following which they have been taken out of the Arunachal Pradesh's boundary into Assam, AAPSU general secretary Tabom Dai claimed.

Admitting that they have received such lists from the apex body of students' associations in the state, police sources said, without elaborating, that they were on the job.

"Altogether 2205 ILP violators were detected during the two-day Operation Clean Drive from August 17. The drive has been suspended temporarily and it will resume soon," the AAPSU general secretary said.

Dai said these people were staying in the state without valid ILP which is mandatory for outsiders for entry into Arunachal Pradesh.

When contacted, Capital SP Harsh Vardhan said,"We are on the job. The police are checking the ILP documents of the people after the (complete draft of the) NRC was published. We are taking action."



The Arunachal Pradesh Police have also detected 2,333 ILP violators across the state since the publication of the complete draft of the NRC in Assam. Papum Pare district accounted for the maximum number of 663 violators, police sources said.

These figures were shared by the Director General of Police S B K Singh in the state cabinet meeting on August 10.

The students's body, however, expressed disappointment with the government over the ILP.

"The state government has failed to detect ILP violators. They act only when they are detected by the AAPSU," Dai alleged.

Chief Secretary Satya Gopal said the state government has issued directives to the SPs to remain alert on possible infiltration of illegal migrants into the state.

The police have started rigorous ILP checking in the state, Gopal said.

AAPSU president Hawa Bagang said its members would soon launch house to house drive in the state to detect illegal migrants and ILP violators.

"Our move is not to harass any innocent person but to detect illegal migrants who are staying in the state without valid documents. We urge the state government to initiate action against such people," Bagang said.

Bagang said, "There are reports from various districts that ILP violators caught during the Operation Clean Drive are being let off without action. This should be looked into."



The Operation Clean Drive was launched as the AAPSU has apprehended that illegal migrants from Assam might sneak into the tribal state to evade deportation.

Serving a 15-day deadline, the AAPSU had on August 1 warned all illegal migrants to leave the state and asked those who did not have valid ILP to procure the same within 15 days.

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Payment solutions provider AGS Transact Technologies has filed preliminary papers with capital markets regulator Sebi to mop-up Rs 1,000 crore through an initial public offer.

In addition, another firm Harsha Engineers, manufacturer of precision bearing cages, has also approached Sebi to float an IPO.

AGS' initial share-sale comprises fresh issue of equity shares aggregating up to Rs 400 crore, besides, an offer for sale worth up to Rs 600 crore by the existing shareholders, draft papers filed with Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) showed.

Besides, the company plans a pre-IPO placement of up to 50 lakh equity shares for up to Rs 125 crore.

Funds raised through the issue will be used for payment of certain loans and other general corporate purposes.

This is the company's third attempt to hit the capital market.

Earlier, AGS had filed initial papers with Sebi in 2015 to raise up to Rs 1,350 crore through an initial public offer (IPO). It had secured the regulator's go ahead too but did not go ahead with the plan.

Prior to that, the firm had filed draft papers with the markets watchdog in 2010 but did not launch the public issue.

ICICI Securities, Axis Capital, HDFC Bank, IIFL Holdings, IndusInd Bank and Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Pvt Ltd will manage the company's issue.

Harsha Engineers' IPO comprises fresh issuance of shares worth up to Rs 370 crore, and an offer for sale of up to 3,31,250 equity shares each by Rajendra Shantilal Shah, Harish Ranjit Rangwala, Charusheela Harish Rangwala and Nirmala Rajendra Shah.

Proceeds of the issue will be utilised towards purchase of machinery in the country; investment in Harsha Engineers Europe SRL by ways of equity infusion; investment in Harsha Precision Bearing Components (China) Company in the form of debt capital; infrastructure development for existing facilities in the country and for other general corporate purposes.

Axis Capital and Edelweiss Financial Services are the merchant bankers of the issue.

The equity shares of both the companies will be listed on BSE and NSE.

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Indonesian aid agencies and government officials rushed today to help survivors after another series of powerful quakes rattled Lombok island, killing at least 10 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

The picturesque island next to holiday hotspot Bali was hit by two deadly quakes on July 29 and August 5. On Sunday it was shaken again by a string of fresh tremors and aftershocks, with the strongest measuring 6.9 magnitude.

At least ten people were killed on Sunday, mostly by falling debris, but authorities said the death toll would likely rise.

"The number of victims continues to increase," said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, without elaborating. "Aftershocks are still ongoing." Aid organisations have vowed to boost humanitarian assistance on the island as devastated residents struggle in makeshift displacement camps.

"We are focussing on the basics, provision of shelter materials -- tarpaulins, shelter kits, hygiene kits," said Tom Howells from Save the Children.

"We have shipped enough for about 20,000 people over the past two weeks," he told AFP.

Indonesia's disaster agency said it was also accelerating efforts to rebuild destroyed homes, hospitals and schools.

However, relief agencies fret that access to food, shelter and clean water is insufficient for some of the more than 430,000 displaced by the disaster.

"There has been damage to the water infrastructure which is already quite poor in Lombok due to a lack of ground supply and drought conditions," Howells said.

Tens of thousands of homes, mosques and businesses across Lombok had already been destroyed by the 6.9-magnitude quake on August 5 that killed at least 481 people.

A week before that quake, a tremor surged through the island and killed 17.

Most people caught in the latest tremor had been outside their homes or at shelters when it struck which limited casualties, authorities have said.

Rebuilding costs are estimated to top 7.0 trillion rupiah ($480 million).

Authorities are considering whether to designate the quakes as a national emergency, which would unlock the central government's 4.0 trillion rupiah disaster relief fund.

Indonesia sits on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire", where tectonic plates collide and many of the world's volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.

The Australian and Eurasian plates, which sit under the archipelago, have been colliding and putting stress on key area fault lines, according geologists.

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Taking serious note of the recent seizure of spurious milk and dairy products from a Patiala factory, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh



today directed officers to explore ways to strengthen the law on food adulteration.

The directive came at a meeting of the state cabinet here, which took serious note of the seizure of adulterated food in Patiala and other places, and mooted stringent punishment for such offences.

Noting that the subject of food adulteration was covered by a central legislation, the chief minister asked the officers concerned to work out best possible ways to deal more strictly with such cases, an official spokesperson said.

The state should find its own ways of ensuring stricter punishment for those playing with the lives of people, especially children, through adulteration of milk, milk products and other food items, the chief minister said during an informal discussion on the issue.

Cabinet members unanimously underlined the need for strong measures to check such offences, the official said.

On Sunday, Punjab Health minister Brahm Mohindra too had warned those indulging in making spurious and adulterated milk and milk products in the state.

He had ordered district health officers and assistant food commissioners to take stern action against the culprits under the provisions of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.

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The ashes of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be immersed at six locations in Tamil Nadu, including river Cauvery, on August 26, the BJP state unit said today.

BJP state President Tamilisai Soundararajan said the ashes would be immersed in the sea at Chennai, Rameswaram and Kanniyakumari.

They would also be immersed in the Kaveri at Srirangam, besides Vaigai and Bhavani rivers in Madurai and Erode respectively, Soundararajan told PTI.

Soundararajan will bring the funerary urn here from New Delhi tomorrow and it will be taken in a procession to the party office Kamalalayam in T Nagar.

The ashes will be kept there for the public to pay homage on Thursday. A number of political leaders are expected to pay homage, party sources said.

The ashes will be later taken to various regions of the state before being immersed on Sunday morning.

The BJP had earlier decided that the ashes of its stalwart would be immersed in rivers across the country, starting with the Ganga in Haridwar on Sunday.

The 93 year-old BJP patriarch died in New Delhi on August 16 following prolonged illness.

He was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on June 11 with a kidney tract infection, urinary tract infection, low urine output and chest congestion.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The ashes of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be immersed at six locations in Tamil Nadu, including the Cauvery, on August 26, the BJP state unit said today.

BJP state president Tamilisai Soundararajan said the ashes would be immersed in the sea at Chennai, Rameswaram and Kanniyakumari.

They would also be immersed in the Cauvery at Srirangam, besides Vaigai and Bhavani rivers in Madurai and Erode respectively, Soundararajan told PTI.

Soundararajan will bring the funerary urn here from New Delhi tomorrow and it will be taken in a procession to the party office Kamalalayam in T Nagar.

The ashes will be kept there for the public to pay homage on Thursday. A number of political leaders are expected to pay homage, party sources said.

The ashes will be later taken to various regions of the state before being immersed on Sunday simultaneously at 11 AM at all the designated locations, a party release said.

Prior to that, it will be taken in a procession in different regions of the state.

The processions in the respective regions will be led by Soundararajan, union minister Pon Radhakrishnan, former MP La.Ganesan, BJP national secretary H Raja, party's national executive committee member CP Radhakrishnan and former state unit chief and former MLA KN Lakshmanan, it said.

The BJP had earlier decided that the ashes would be immersed in rivers across the country, starting with the Ganga in Haridwar on Sunday.

The 93 year-old BJP patriarch died in New Delhi on August 16 following prolonged illness.

He was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on June 11 with a kidney tract infection, urinary tract infection, low urine output and chest congestion.

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The Assamese community in London has submitted a memorandum to the Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, a press release of the community said.

"The Assamese community in London is deeply concerned by the Indian Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. If the bill passes through, it will have a serious implication on the people of Assam regarding the demography, culture and Assamese language", said an emailed press release of the community today.

"Our identity is at threat and our safety as an NRA (Non-Resident Assamese)", the release claimed.

A delegation of the members of Assamese Community in London led by Dr Benu Kakati had met the Indian High Commissioner to United Kingdom, Y K Sinha last month to express their concern, it said.

The delegation requested Sinha to convey their concern to the appropriate government departments in New Delhi, notably to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee, it added.

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"Xhoixobote Dhemalite" (Rainbow fields), an Assamese film dealing with the sensitive issue of children growing up in violent times, has won another award - this time for screenplay at a US festival.

The Bidyut Kotoky-directed film bagged the best screenplay award at Treasure Coast International Film Festival in Florida. It received nominations in five categories.

"The film's story is based in Assam but people from halfway across the globe are relating to it. This goes to show that emotions across the globe are same. In 'Xhoihobote Dhemlite', we always believed that we are making a film for in Assamese language for the global audience," said Mumbai-based Kotoky.

Last month, "Xhoixobote Dhemalite" became the first Assamese film to be commercially released in the US. Besides, it won three awards, including that of best film, in the Love international Film Festival, Los Angeles.

Based on true events, the film also features seasoned actors like Victor Banerjee, Nakul Vaid, Naved Aslam, Nipon Goswami and Nikumoni Barua.

The film is produced by 'India Stories', a Mumbai-based production house and co-produced by Kotoky's Dhruv Creative Productions and US-based Kurmasana Kreates.

The Treasure Coast International Film Festival (TCIFF) is dedicated to the promotion of independent and foreign films as an art form.

This year, the TCIFF Lifetime Achievement Award was given to director and industry veteran Isaac Florentine. The inaugural film of the festival was Florentine's "Acts of Vengeance", starring Antonio Banderas.

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Rio de Janeiro's drug war hit a bloody crescendo when at least 11 suspected criminals and two soldiers were reported killed in a huge military sweep through impoverished favelas and during a rush-hour police car chase.

The military command heading security in Brazil's second biggest city said the two troops killed yesterday were the first lost since conservative President Michel Temer sent them in to protect Rio.

The military command said 4,200 soldiers, backed by armoured vehicles and aircraft, entered the Penha neighbourhood and the Alemao and Mare favela complexes -- poor, densely populated swaths of city in large part run by heavily armed drug traffickers.

Only 70 police officers were said to be involved, suggesting a turnaround from previous operations into the dangerous favelas where police have taken the lead and soldiers provided backup.

According to the Rio police force, 948 pounds (430 kg) of drugs were seized in the Mare, a far bigger amount than usual in such operations, which often end with few concrete results.

Troops removed roadblocks erected by drug gangs, followed up on tipoffs against suspected traffickers, and checked vehicles and residents, the military said in a statement.

In addition, "troops distributed leaflets asking for cooperation from the population," it said.

The military said the incursion brought "positive effects" to some 550,000 residents.

However, human rights activists worried that the deaths and the overwhelming role of soldiers, as opposed to police, signalled a concerning development in Rio's unending crime wars.

"We think this is very serious. If there is confirmation that the dead were executed by officers of the armed forces, it would be a troubling change," said Silvia Ramos, from the Observatory of the Intervention, which monitors the security forces in Rio.

"The armed forces cannot enter this logic of useless confrontations and unacceptable killings that are the hallmark of the Rio police."



In a separate incident in the Rio suburb of Niteroi, six suspected armed criminals were shot dead by police after a rush-hour car chase that briefly caused traffic snarls near one of Rio's main bridges.

Police said in a statement that "four died on the spot and two died in hospital, and three were taken prisoner."



Four assault rifles, four pistols, four grenades and seven radios were seized from two cars, police said.

A commuter bus carrying 38 people was caught in the crossfire during the shootout and hit by 14 bullets, although just one passenger was slightly injured, Globo site reported.

Rio de Janeiro hosted the Olympics two years ago, winning widespread praise for a smoothly run games.

However, corruption, budget problems and spiralling crime have cast a shadow over a city that has long veered between the extremes of joyful carnivals or beach life and shocking violence.

Six months ago, Brazil's military took over all security in Rio, following the government's decision that the local police are incapable of combatting the well-armed drug gangs.

While police still perform all their normal duties, their top commanders are now military officers.

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. PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same).

This is the story of 3 women - pioneers of our time, fighting the odds and changing mindsets



New Delhi, Delhi, India (NewsVoir) Aug 21 2018 Discovery, India's leading infotainment channel, will give an all-access pass to the viewers to delve deep into the lives of India's first generation of female combat aircraft pilots with its new series - Women Fighter Pilots. It is a fascinating story of 3 women - Avani Chaturvedi, Bhawana Kanth and Mohana Singh - pioneers of our time, fighting the odds and changing mindsets.

The 2-part series premiers August 24 at 21:00 hrs on Discovery Channel and Discovery World HD. Veer by Discovery, India's leading dedicated military channel on YouTube, will also showcase short stories on Women Fighter Pilots.The on-air broadcast of the show is Co-Presented by Flipkart while Kirloskar and Airtel have come on board as Co Powered by Sponsors.

Till 2015, the flight cadets of the Air Force Academy were given a choice between three flying streams - Helicopters, Transport and Fighters. Fighter flying being the only stream reserved for men. Then, the Indian Air Force made a landmark decision to open the fighter flying program for its female cadets on an experimental basis for a period of five years. Creating history, the first batch of three women fighter pilots - Avani Chaturvedi, Bhawana Kanth and Mohana Singh were inducted in Indian Air Force fighter squadron. A significant milestone for the Indian Air Force, as this marked the first time it permitted women in combat roles.

"The women fighters have become a modern symbol of women empowerment - they have broken the last of all barriers by becoming a fighter pilot. We are excited to showcase this amazing story to our viewers. Such purpose led content excites us," said, Zulfia Waris, Vice President - Premium & Digital Networks, Discovery Communications India. "These Women Fighter Pilots have given wings to the ambitions of Indian Women who want to don the G-Suit and defend the country as a part of Indian Air Force. We have explored this captivating human story of ambition, of not saying no, in a manner that has not been done before."



The Women Fighter Pilot series captures the emotions of the 3 pilots, their families, colleagues in their squadron et al to delayer all aspects of their life. During the show, the 3 Fighter Pilots discuss about whether the media glare that followed them has created extra pressure. Bhawana Kanth, says, "I don't think that there is pressure. I am doing my job; something which I have always wanted to do - serving the nation as a fighter pilot. If people are getting inspired; why should I feel any pressure, I am still doing my thing."Mohana Singh, adds, "I won't say that it is about pressure, but yes, it is about performing in such a way that you can justify the people who are looking up to you. The development of Women opting for the Fighter stream has been highlighted to create awareness and to inspire more women to join the forces.

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The First Congress of Azerbaijani cooks will take place at Baku Boulevard Hotel on August 21.

The main purpose of the congress is to create a platform for sharing experiences and ideas, gathering cooks and food producers.

Several presentations will be held within the congress, one of which will be the presentation of Chefs.az, the first site dedicated to chefs. The site provides cookbooks, vacations, news and other useful information.

There will also be a presentation of the "First Step" charity project which aims to help young people in children's homes and low-income families learn the basics of cooking art, AzerTAg reported.

Besides, the foundation of the Guild of Azerbaijan Cooks and its future prospects will also be discussed as part of the congress.

About 200 guests from Azerbaijan and abroad are expected to attend the event.
Embattled Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull survived a leadership challenge from within his own party today as discontent with his rule boiled over less than a year before national elections.

Turnbull, considered a moderate, declared his position vacant at a Liberal party meeting to force the issue after rampant speculation that the more hardline Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton wanted his job, with the government consistently trailing the Labor opposition in opinion polls.

The disunity came to a head on Monday when Turnbull was forced to shelve plans to embed carbon emissions targets in law after a revolt by fellow Liberal politicians.

Party whip Nola Marino told reporters Dutton challenged but Turnbull won 48-35.

"The result of that ballot was Malcolm Turnbull was elected leader of the Liberal Party by a margin of 48-35, with Peter Dutton as the other candidate," she said.

"There was also an election for the deputy leader. [Foreign Minister] Julie Bishop was the one person who nominated for that role and she's the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party."



Asked what Turnbull said after winning, she replied: "This was conducted by way of precedent and he thanked his colleagues for their support and will get on with the business now of governing in the interests of all Australians."



Yesterday Turnbull had declared he had Dutton's "full support".

After losing Dutton, a former police officer who ran a powerful department that oversees the country's domestic spy service, border force and national police, quit and moved to the backbench, broadcaster ABC reported.

It is the latest chapter in a turbulent period for Australian

Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted by his deputy Julia Gillard in 2010.

He later returned the favour and stormed back to power in 2013 shortly before losing the election to Tony Abbott's Liberal/National coalition.

Abbott was then unseated in a party coup by Turnbull in 2015.

Abbott is now a vocal backbencher and is widely seen as a key instigator of the move against the prime minister this week, which has left Turnbull heading a party where 35 people do not want him as leader.

Abbott was in charge when Canberra agreed to cut emissions by 26 percent by 2030 as part of the so-called Paris Agreement.

But he has since railed against the commitment he made. He argued it should not be enshrined in law as part of the government's new energy policy, known as the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), with consumers facing soaring electricity prices.

Disquiet with Turnbull has been building in recent months, with the government trailing Labor in 38 consecutive opinion polls.

The latest yesterday showed it lagging even further behind -- 45 to 55 percent on a two-party basis -- with national elections due by the middle of next year.

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Bihar Governor Satya Pal Mallik and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today greeted the people of the state on the eve of Eid-ul-Adha festival.

In his message, the governor described the festival as one which "inspires us for sacrifice and renunciation and awakens in us values like tolerance, goodwill, love and a feeling of brotherhood".

Kumar said the festival "underscores the importance of the ideal of sacrifice" and urged the people of the state to celebrate the festival in a spirit of "fraternity and harmony".

Leaders of the opposition in the assembly and the legislative council, Tejashwi Yadav and Rabri Devi respectively, besides former chief minister Lalu Prasad were among others who greeted the people of the state on the eve of the festival.

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Bihar Governor Satya Pal Malik was today shifted to militancy-hit Jammu and Kashmir in a gubernatorial reshuffle that marked the end of over a 10-year tenure of N N Vohra and also the appointment of a politician to the crucial post in more than five decades.

The announcement of the appointment of Malik, 72, in a Rashtrapati Bhavan communique appeared to indicate a change in the Kashmir strategy of the Modi government. The Centre had chosen since 1967 retired civil servants, diplomats, police officers and Army generals for the post of Governor of J and K.

J and K is currently under Governor's rule after the BJP pulled out of the ruling coalition with the PDP in June this year.

President Ram Nath Kovind also appointed Lal Ji Tandon, a BJP stalwart from Uttar Pradesh and a close confidant of late former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Satyadev Narayan Arya and Baby Rani Maurya as governors of Bihar, Haryana and Uttarakhand respectively, according to the Rashtrapati Bhavan statement. Arya and Rani Maurya are also from the BJP and hail from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh respectively.

Karan Singh was the last Governor of J and K with a political background. He served from 1965 to 1967.

The appointment of Malik, who will head the administration in the border state, also comes against the backdrop of the changing political scenario amid speculation of the possibility of some disgruntled MLAs in the Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP joining hands with the BJP.

Malik's appointment brings to an end the tenure of Vohra, a former civil servant who took over as Governor of



J and K on June 25, 2008 at a difficult time when the state was facing the Amarnath land row agitation.

Malik, who has been associated with almost all political parties, started as a socialist leader in Meerut University during his student days to finally become the vice president of the BJP before being appointed as the Bihar governor last year.

Malik was with the Bhartiya Kranti Dal, Lok Dal, Congress and Janata Dal and the BJP during his long political career.

He became the MLA of Charan Singh's Bhartiya Kranti Dal from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh in 1974.

He joined the Congress in 1984 and became its Rajya Sabha MP but resigned three years later in the background of Bofors scam. He switched to the V P Singh-led Janata Dal in 1988 and became an MP from Aligarh on its ticket in 1989.

In 2004, Malik joined the BJP and unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha elections, losing to Charan Singh's son Ajit Singh.

Before taking oath as Bihar governor on October 4, 2017, he was in-charge of the BJP's Kisan Morcha.

Malik had served as the Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Tourism and held many important positions at the central and Uttar Pradesh government.

The 61-year-old Baby Rani Maurya, who goes to Uttarakhand, is a BJP leader from Agra. She replaces former Delhi Police Commissioner K K Paul on the completion of his tenure.

Arya, 73, is an eight-term MLA from Bihar. He was a minister in the 2010 BJP-JDU government in the state.

As part of the reshuffle, Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki has been transferred to Tripura replacing Tathagata Roy who is shifted to Meghalaya, according to the Rashtrapati Bhavan communique.

Ganga Prasad, the Governor of Meghalaya, has been transferred to Sikkim, it said.

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The BJP will take out yatras with urns carrying ashes of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in all districts and immerse those in rivers across the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with BJP chief Amit Shah, will hand over the ashes of the late leader to the party's state unit presidents, according to a statement.

The BJP said since all party workers and people across the country want to pay tributes to Vajpayee, it has decided to take out 'asthi kalash yatras' in all states.

Processions will start from state capitals and will pass through all blocks, the BJP said, adding the ashes of the BJP stalwart will be immersed in rivers across the country.

A similar procession was taken out in Haridwar on August 19, where Shah along with Union minister Rajnath Singh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his Uttrakhand counterpart Trivendra Singh were present to bid farewell to the departed leader.

Later, the ashes were immersed in the Ganga river by Vajpayee's family members and BJP leaders.

The former prime minister died in the national capital on August 16 at the age of 93. His death was announced by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital, where he was admitted on June 11 with a variety of ailments.

His mortal remains were consigned to the flames at the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal on the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi the next day.

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Pakistan's Finance Minister Asad Umar has said that the priority of the new government is to bring back the "huge" amount of funds transferred abroad through the illegal practice of money laundering, amid reports that $200 billion had been stashed abroad by Pakistanis.

Umar said that nobody, including himself, knew exactly how much wealth Pakistanis had stashed abroad, except the $8 billion invested in the Dubai real estate market, as stated by the Dubai Real Estate Authority, Dawn reported.

They were "huge amounts and since we have been talking about this, the first decision of the cabinet under Prime Minister Imran Khan was to constitute a task force, which has been given two weeks to formulate a strategy to repatriate the looted money that has been filtered out of thanks to years of corruption," the paper quoted Umar as saying.

Talking to the media after he was given his first briefing as the minister for finance by the secretary, Umar said that the former finance minister, Ishaq Dar, had stated on the floor of the National Assembly that $200 billion had been stashed abroad, the paper reported.

But, Umar said, the previous government had failed to take any concrete measures to repatriate the money, the paper reported.
New British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt today will urge the United States and European countries to do more to call out Russia's "malign behavior" and keep Vladimir Putin in check, notably by implementing tough sanctions.

"The established rules of international conduct are repeatedly being flouted by major countries like Russia," Hunt was to say in Washington, in his first major policy speech since succeeding Boris Johnson in July.

"Such aggressive and malign behavior undermines the international order that keeps us safe," Hunt was to tell an audience at the US Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan think tank, according to excerpts provided by the Foreign Office.

"Of course we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt: Russia's foreign policy under President Putin has made the world a more dangerous place."



London has blamed the March poisoning in southwestern England of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia -- using a Soviet-made nerve agent -- on Moscow, plunging the two countries into a diplomatic crisis.

A number of Western countries have punished Moscow by expelling Russian diplomats in a coordinated manner, and some have gone further with other punitive measures.

Those come on top on sanctions already in place over Russia's annexation of Crimea or Moscow's interference in foreign elections, notably in the 2016 presidential vote in the United States.

Hunt, who is to meet on Wednesday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, will ask London's allies to do more.

"Today, the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US," Hunt will say, according to the excerpts.

"That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea."



The administration of US President Donald Trump has been firm with Moscow, regularly announcing new sanctions over the Skripal case, but that message is sometimes muddied by Trump's willingness to improve ties with Putin.

At his July summit with the Russian leader in Helsinki, Trump appeared to be rather conciliatory towards his counterpart, shortly after raising hackles at a NATO summit in Brussels with his contrarian stance.

That earned the president widespread criticism at home, even angering many in his own Republican Party.

For Hunt, NATO's "credibility" has taken a hit.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Britain's new Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt today urged the United States and European countries to do more to call out Russia's "malign behaviour" and keep Vladimir Putin in check, notably by implementing tough sanctions.

"The established rules of international conduct are repeatedly being flouted by major countries like Russia," Hunt said in Washington, in his first major policy speech since succeeding Boris Johnson in July.

London has blamed Moscow for the March poisoning in southwestern England of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia -- using a Soviet-made nerve agent -- plunging the two countries into a diplomatic crisis.

"Such aggressive and malign behavior undermines the international order that keeps us safe," Hunt told an audience at the US Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan think tank.

He added that, while engagement with Moscow remains vital, Russia's foreign policy under Putin has made the world "a more dangerous place."



A number of Western countries have punished Moscow by expelling Russian diplomats in a coordinated manner. Some have gone further, with other punitive measures.

Those come on top on sanctions already in place over Russia's annexation of Crimea or Moscow's interference in foreign elections, notably in the 2016 presidential vote in the United States.

Hunt, who is to meet Wednesday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, asked London's allies to take additional action.

"The United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US," Hunt said.

"That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea."



President Donald Trump's administration has been firm with Moscow, regularly announcing new sanctions over the Skripal case, but that message is often muddied by the American leader's eagerness to improve ties with Putin.

At his July summit with the Russian leader in Helsinki, Trump appeared conciliatory towards his counterpart and failed to call him out over Moscow's alleged subversion of the 2016 presidential election, shortly after blasting allies at a NATO summit in Brussels.

That earned the president widespread criticism at home, even angering many in his own Republican Party.

For Hunt, NATO's "credibility" has taken a hit.

"Those who do not share our values need to know that there will always be a serious price to pay if red lines are crossed -- whether territorial incursions, the use of banned weapons or, increasingly, cyber attacks," he warned.

Hunt also sought to carry a tough message to Europe on Brexit, warning that a no-deal departure could threaten the continent's unity for a generation. "One of the biggest threats to European unity would be a chaotic no-deal Brexit," he said.

Hunt, who replaced Johnson last month amid discord over how London should handle Brexit, said Britain would manage -- "we have faced many greater challenges in our history" -- but the European Union would suffer a serious blow.

"The risk of a messy divorce ... would be a fissure in relations between European allies that would take a generation to heal -- a geostrategic error for Europe at an extremely vulnerable time in our history," he said.

A deal on Britain's divorce from the bloc -- which both sides want to strike by late October, with an eye towards a formal separation on March 29, 2019 -- is still up in the air, with Brussels sticking to its own red lines.

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A 70-year-old villager was allegedly hacked to death by naxals in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon district, the police said today.

The incident occurred on Sunday (August 19) night in Dabba village, around 200 kms from state capital Raipur, a local police official said.

A group of armed naxals, belonging to Mohla LOS (local organisation squad) called Chaituram Tulavi out of his house and attacked him with sharp-edged weapons, the official said, adding that Tulavi died on the spot.

The official denied that Tulavi was associated with the police.

"According to villagers, Tulavi was active in cultural and religious activities in the area," he said.

Police have registered a case and a search operation is on to trace the ultras.

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A local court today refused to grant bail to a 19-year-old man accused of being part of the mob that allegedly lynched a woman, saying that such cases are "too serious to merit any consideration of bail".

Shanta Devi, a beggar, was lynched on June 26 on the suspicion of being a child lifter. The incident took place at Juna Vadaj locality when she was travelling in an autorikshaw.

The police had arrested Hasmukh Solanki on July 2, after the CCTV footage of the incident purportedly showed him to be the part of the lynch mob.

However, Solanki had moved the court seeking bail, saying he was being falsely implicated. He said he was a resident of the area where the incident took place.

The accused said he was a vegetable vendor and his antecedents were clean, therefore he should be granted bail.

The prosecution, however, opposed his application saying that granting bail to him would send a wrong signal to the society, as the CCTV footage and video that went viral shows the accused to be a part of the mob.

Ahmedabad city sessions court judge Suchit Dave today denied bail to him, saying no case for grant of bail was made out.

"The woman who died was a beggar, yet a human being. Her poverty does not denigrate her human dignity and right to live even an ounce to that of the richest man in the city. The case of mob lynching is too serious to merit any consideration of bail," the court said.

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Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Chamling has said that during the Doklam stand-off with China, the state government was kept in the dark by the Centre.

He said neither the central government nor the Army had informed him anything about the situation.

"Even during such tense times, whatever I heard and saw on the stand-off was from television and newspapers," Chamling told a group of visiting journalists from West Bengal here yesterday.

He said that there was a fear psychosis among the people of Sikkim on the Doklam issue.

The Sikkim government's stand was to do everything in its capacity to uphold the sanctity and security of the nation, the chief minister said.

Troops of India and China were locked in a 73-day stand-off in Doklam from June 16 last year, after the Indian side stopped building of a road in the disputed area by the Chinese Army. The stalemate ended on August 28.

Responding to a question about Sikkim-West Bengal relations in the context of separate statehood demand in Darjeeling, Chamling said he had spoken to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on more than one occasions and assured her of working together to maintain peace in the hills.

Chamling, the longest serving chief minister in the country, said the two states have agreed to share each other's resources in sectors such as tourism and industry.

He said the focus of his government is to ensure qualitative development through scientific, environment-friendly and sustainable methods.

Some of the steps taken by the Sikkim government towards environment conservation has resulted in a four per cent increase in forest cover, the chief minister said.

Chamling also said the state is working towards enhancing the quality of education in Sikkim.

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Watching to see if a blue wave helps Democrats take control of one chamber of Congress next year? Dont expect a lot of education talk to wash up on shore.

Last week, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report worked with CMAG Kantar Media to study how often different issues like education, health care, immigration, and taxes , as well as President Donald Trump, were mentioned in House and Senate campaign ads from the start of 2018 through July. Heres how often they came up, and which party has brought them up most frequently:

Mentioned by just 31,582 ads in 2018, education appeared in the second-fewest ads among the 11 issues and people Cook and CMAG Kantar studied. In fact, only House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi got fewer mentions in ads. By contrast, more than five times as many ads mentioned health care than the number that mentioned education.

And Amy Walter, Cooks national editor, said she expects the number of ads mentioning Pelosispecifically anti-Pelosi adsto skyrocket as the general election creeps closer. So education might soon slide into last place.

Its not a surprise that education is getting snubbed on the political airwaves. The Affordable Care Act, the GOP-backed changes to the tax code, and President Trump himself are much more obvious and potent political weapons in appeals to voters. Even Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos position as perhaps the most prominent and controversial federal education chief in history hasnt advanced the issue much, relative to other policy concerns.

It also doesnt help educations profile that lawmakers who oversee the issue in Congress mostly arent involved in competitive races this year. Leaving aside the Education Departments annual budget, theres no urgent education issue with momentum on Capitol Hill that would easily fire up activists, ads, and voters. And with DeVos push to increase school choice falling short, it becomes less potent as a wedge issue for Democrats.

Even where education does rate some attention in these ads, elementary and secondary education arent necessarily the focus. Perhaps the most high-profile House candidate whos not an incumbent, Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York states 14th congressional district, called for tuition-free public college in one of her campaign ads.

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 . And follow the Andrew Ujifusa half of Politics K-12 @AndrewUjifusa .
Crimean ports will trade with Iran through a Caspian Sea route, Russian Presidential Envoy to Crimea Georgy Muradov said.

According to him, several Iranian businessmen have already expressed readiness to develop a trade route between Crimean ports and Iran via the Volga River and the Caspian Sea, Izvestia reported.

"This will be the shortest route, and the most cost-effective," Muradov explained.

"It will be easier to trade once rail service is launched. The route will start in Crimea, pass through the North Caucasus and Azerbaijan and end in Iran," the presidential envoy said, adding that there were plans to develop rail and road transport, which became possible with the unveiling of the Kerch Strait Bridge.
Chairman and information secretary of Manipur based militant outfit Zeliangrong United Front were arrested from Meghalaya's West Jaintia Hills district, police said today.

Chairman Raitu Chawang and information secretary G P Namthuiyang, both wanted for their crimes in Manipur, were taken into custody yesterday when they were going to Guwahati in a bus.

"We have arrested the two militant leaders from a bus. The bus was on its way to Guwahati," district SP Vivek Syiem told PTI.

The 66-year-old chairman and the information secretary would be handed over to the Manipur police, he said.

The two were wanted by the Manipur police in at least five cases, the SP said.

From their possession, four mobile phones were seized and certain documents.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Actor Josie Totah, who has featured in shows like "Champions" and "Jessie", has come out as transgender.

In an essay for Time magazine, Josie opened up publicly about her gender identity for the first time.

"When I was on the show 'Glee,' I'd stand back and watch Lea Michele. She was fabulous. And it was fun to see her and the other girls wear dresses and put on lavish musical numbers. But it was also hard, because I wanted that to be me," Josie wrote.

"My pronouns are she, her and hers. I identify as female, specifically as a transgender female. And my name is Josie Totah," she added.

Josie said that even before she knew the meaning of word "gender," she "always knew on some level that (she) was female" and asked to wear dresses as soon as she could speak full sentences.

But it was after she saw the documentary series "I Am Jazz," about transgender activist Jazz Jennings, that she decided to pursue hormone replacement therapy.

Now, as she prepares for college, Josie wrote that she is excited to represent transgender people on the big screen, and in real life.

"I plan to play roles I haven't had the opportunity to play. And I can only imagine how much more fun it's going to be to play someone who shares my identity, rather than having to contort myself to play a boy. I'm going to gun for those roles, be it a transgender female or a cisgender female. Because it's a clean slate and a new world."



Mindy Kaling, who starred in "Champions" alongside Josie, took to Twitter to praise the actor.

"I love you, Josie. I'm so glad you're able to speak your truth and live as your authentic self.

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All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC) today protested against plans to make changes to Article 35-A of the constitution, which guarantees special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

The APSCC activists led by chairman Jagmohan Singh Raina assembled at Pratap Park here to register their protest.

Talking to reporters, Raina claimed that the demand for abrogation of Article 35-A was "closely linked" to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to derive mileage out of the abrogation of Article 35-A, so that BJP emerges victorious in 2019 parliamentary elections," he added.

"It is unfortunate that BJP and more so the prime minister is concerned about electoral gains rather than the consequences that would emerge if Article 35-A is abrogated. People of the state are united and won't allow such a thing to happen," Raina said.

He said the APSCC has extended support to the two-day protest programme of separatist Joint Resistance Leadership on August 26 and 27.

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The crime branch of Odisha police has submitted in court the preliminary charge sheet in the sensational Patnagarh wedding gift blast in which two persons, including the groom were killed on February 23.

The 300-page charge sheet has been submitted at the sub-divisional judicial magistrate court at Patnagarh in Bolangir district yesterday, ADG, Crime Branch, S K Upadhay told reporters here today.

The blast had taken place when the the groom opened a gift pack and he was among the two who were killed in it. Following a request by the new bride Reema Sahu and her family, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had ordered the crime branch to probe into the incident.

The charge sheet has accused Punjilal Meher, an English lecturer at Jyoti Vikas College where the victim Soumya Sekhar's mother Sanjukta Sahu is the principal. The investigating agency has said that revenge was the motive behind the crime.

It is alleged that Meher had sent the parcel bomb to the house of Sanjukta Sahu to eliminate her and the family members. However, Sahu's son Soumya Sekhar, who was married four days ago, and her mother-in-law Jemamani, died in the blast.

Reema too had sustained burn injuries in the blast.

The crime branch has included statement of 72 witnesses and eyewitnesses, said government pleader Basudev Padhi.

However, as the investigators could not arrange three principal witnesses and the two forensic reports it has appealed to the court to keep the case open.

The 72 witnesses include Rabindra Kumar Sahu and Sanjukta Sahu, parents of late Soumya Sekhar Sahu, and 12 lecturers and employees of the Jyoti Bikash College, Bhainsa.

The crime branch also mentioned the list of the seized items, including the letter sent by Meher to the Balangir SP, the receipt book of the vehicle parking stand at Kantabanjhi railway station, three mobile phones, pen drive, external hard disk and a CCTV hard disk of the DTDC courier in Raipur.

The investigating agency informed the court that it will soon visit Raipur in Chhattishgarh to trace the three prime witnesses, an auto-rickshaw driver and two rickshaw- pullers with whom Meher had gone to courier agencies on February 16 to send the parcel bomb.

The crime branch took over the investigation on March 23 and arrested Meher on April 25. He was arrested on May 8 and is currently lodged in the Patnagarh sub-jail.

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A 62-year-old professor of a government college in Bilaspur district has been arrested for allegedly molesting a 20-year-old tribal student in his cabin earlier this month, the police said today.

The accused Roop Chandra Agrawal is a professor of Sociology in the Government Agrasen College in Bilha near Bilaspur.

On a tip-off, police traced the accused to the residence of his relative in Shakti town in neighbouring Janjgir-Champa district last night and apprehended him, a local police official said.

Agrawal was absconding since August 8, after he was booked under section 354-A (sexual harassment) of the IPC and provisions of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act on the complaint of the student, he said.

The alleged incident had taken place on August 4 in the cabin of the professor in the college, the official said.

"The professor had asked the student to come to his cabin and touched her inappropriately while asking her to become his friend," the official said quoting the complaint.

The victim somehow managed to run away from the cabin, he said.

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Almost 50 women trafficked through underground tunnels to work as nightclub "sex slaves" were rescued from the tourism hotspot Cartagena, Colombian prosecutors said.

The victims -- 26 Colombians and 23 Venezuelans -- were allegedly forced into working as prostitutes in nightclub basements connected by a series of tunnels.

They were tricked with false promises of work before being held captive in "precarious conditions," Attorney General Mario Gomez said in a press conference.

The victims were relieved of their passports and identity cards by a network of pimps engaged in the "sexual exploitation of women."



A series of raids linked to the Operation Vesta launched several weeks ago resulted in 18 arrests last month.

Gomez said police were hot on the heels of the pimps' headquarters and said they would be tried for "trafficking people for sexual slavery."



Gomez said the "geographical corridors close to the Caribbean coast," including Cartagena, provided the "majority of sexual tourism" in Colombia.

The US State Department has described Colombia as a "source and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex and labor trafficking.

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As part of its election campaign in poll-bound Rajasthan, the Indian National Congress will begin its 'sankalp' rallies from August 24.

The sankalp rallies will be organised in various districts and our leaders will participate in them. Party president Rahul Gandhi will also visit the state next month but the location has not been finalised, Pradesh Congress Committee president Sachin Pilot said.

We will begin our sankalp rallies from August 24 during which we will take the pledge to not let farmers commit suicide, to throw this government out of power and to create job opportunities for the youths in the state, Pilot told reporters.

Pilot informed that the party has already started mass contact programme and road shows, public meetings and other activities will be carried out.

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The opposition Congress in Gujarat has thrown its weight behind Patidar leader Hardik Patel who has announced to sit on an indefinite hunger strike for the quota demand from August 25.

A delegation of 21 MLAs of the Congress today called on Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel in Gandhinagar in this regard.

"Gujarat is the land of Mahatma Gandhi. We urged the government to give Hardik permission to sit on fast. The government cannot deny him permission. Not just Hardik, anyone who wants to protest in a peaceful manner should be allowed to do so," Congress MLA Lalit Kagathara told reporters after the meeting.

Hardik had on August 16 announced that he would sit on an indefinite fast for the quota demand from August 25.

He had announced to hold the protest in Ahmedabad, but was denied permission by local authorities.

Hardik yesterday sought permission from authorities to allow him to sit on the indefinite fast at Satyagrah Chhavni in Gandhinagar, after Ahmedabad district collector imposed section 144 of the CrPC in the city, which prohibits assembly of more than four persons in an area.

Hardik-led Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) has been demanding quota for Patidars under the OBC category in education and jobs.

Hardik and members of the PAAS had tried to hold a symbolic fast on a ground in Nikol area of Ahmedabad on August 19 seeking allocation of a ground for the August 25 programme.

Meanwhile, senior Congress MLA Virji Thummar alleged today that the BJP government was refusing permission to Hardik because it is "scared".

"Hardik is fighting for the rights of his community and we firmly believe that he must be allowed to hold the fast. Since the government has not taken any decision yet, it seems that it is scared. The government is trying to derail the agitation," he alleged.

Pratap Dudhat, who was also part of the delegation, said, "By denying permission to Hardik, the state government has proved that it is worse than the Britishers".

He said Nitin Patel assured the MLAs today to convey their "feelings" to Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.

The ruling BJP had termed Hardik as an agent of the Congress, an allegation denied by the opposition party.

Largescale protests were held across Gujarat in 2015 for the Patidar quota demand. The protests were marred by violence in many parts of the state.

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A Chhattisgarh police constable allegedly pushed the body of an accident victim with his foot, prompting authorities to suspend him.

A video which purportedly showed constable Neeraj Sahu pushing the body with his foot inside a police vehicle at the accident spot in Bemetara district was widely shared on social media.

Bemetara Senior Superintendent of Police H R Manhar told PTI the constable's act was highly condemnable and he was suspended yesterday with immediate effect.

Sunil Kurre (18), hailing from Nawagadh town of the district, was killed yesterday after a truck hit his motorcycle on Bemetara-Kawardha road, around 70 km from here, he said.

The accident took place when he was near Pikri village along with his sister who was riding pillion.

Kurre, who was crushed by the truck, died on the spot, but his sister escaped unhurt, Manhar said.

On getting information about the accident, a Bemetara Police team reached the spot to take the body to hospital in their patrol vehicle, he said.

Sahu, who was part of the team, allegedly used his foot to push the body inside the police vehicle, the SP said.

The constable's act amounted to serious negligence, he added.

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A Delhi court today sent two persons, who had allegedly attacked JNU student leader Umar Khalid in front of the Constitution Club here, to two-day police custody.

The incident took place on August 13 and they were arrested from Haryana a week later.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sherawat allowed the plea of the Delhi Police after it said their custodial interrogation was required.

The two men, who were arrested on August 20 from Fatehabad in Haryana's Hisar district, had claimed that they were cow vigilantes who wanted to draw attention towards protection of cows.

The duo, Darwesh Shahpur and Naveen Dalal, told the police that they had planned to disrupt the event 'Khauff se Azaadi' (Freedom from Fear) that was being held at the Constitution Club on August 13.

When Dalal reached the Constitution Club, he found Khalid outside the venue and attacked him.

Dalal claimed he did not fire from the weapon he was carrying and it fell down while he was fleeing the spot.

However, police are probing Khalid's allegations about the weapon being pointed towards him.

Shahpur was also present at the spot, but did not attack Khalid. After the attack, they both fled separately. One of them took a bus and then a metro, according to police,.

The two men told police they wanted to draw attention towards the issue of cow protection and thought targeting the event would highlight their cause, police said.

In a video uploaded on Facebook on August 15, they claimed the attack on Khalid was supposed to be an "Independence Day gift" to citizens.

"We respect our Constitution. But there is no provision in our Constitution to punish mad dogs. By mad dogs, we mean the JNU gang that is making the country weaker and their number is increasing.

"Our elders in Haryana have taught us that such people should be taught a lesson," Shahpur had said in the video message.

Khalid was attacked when he was on his way to take part at the event. He escaped unhurt.

The Delhi Police had handed over the case to its Special Cell, which incidentally is already probing a sedition case against Khalid and two other JNU students.

A case of attempt to murder was registered by the police in connection with the incident.

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Iran has unveiled its first domestically designed and manufactured fighter jet named 'Kowsar' during a defense show in Tehran.

The aircraft conducted its first public display flight during Tuesdays ceremony in the presence of President Hassan Rouhani, Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami and other senior military officials.

The fourth-generation Iranian fighter jet is equipped with "advanced avionics and fire control systems" and can be used for short aerial support missions, Tasnim news agency reported

It also uses digital military data networks, multi-purpose digital monitors, ballistic calculation computers and smart mobile mapping systems.

The jet has an advanced radar system, enabling it to detect enemy targets. It is also equipped with a head-up display or HUD, which promotes precision targeting.

The plane can be manufactured in both single- and double-cockpit types, the latter of which can be used for advanced pilot training missions in addition to its combat capability, Fars news agency reported.
Czechs and Slovaks today marked 50 years since Soviet tanks crushed the "Prague Spring" democratic reform drive, while protesters used the anniversary to rail against the current Czech government's ties to the Communist Party.

Hundreds paid tribute to the victims of the 1968 crackdown at noon ceremonies in central Prague that also drew demonstrators chanting "Shame!" as populist billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babis spoke.

His minority coalition is the first government since the 1989 collapse of communism to rely on backing from the Communist Party to survive in parliament.

A Communist Party member in the 1980s, Babis has denied allegations that he served as a regime secret police agent before 1989.

"He who governs with the Communists disrespects the victims of the occupation of 1968!" read posters held by protesters in front of the radio station in downtown Prague where around 15 unarmed people, mostly youths, died trying to prevent the Soviets from taking the building 50 years ago.

The burgeoning "Prague Spring" movement, led by Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek, had tried to put "a human face on socialism" through democratic reforms to Czechoslovakia's totalitarian regime.

But on the night of August 20-21, 1968, Soviet soldiers backed by Bulgarian, east German, Hungarian and Polish units brutally put an end to the movement.

Around 50 Czechs and Slovaks were killed on the first day alone, while the total number of victims of the Soviet occupation is 402, according to historians.

The last Soviet soldier left Czechoslovakia only in 1991, two years after the Velvet Revolution that toppled totalitarian communist rule -- and two years before the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

"Let us use this day of solemn commemoration to collectively remember that freedom and the respect for human rights can never be taken for granted and need to be fought for every single day," European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said in a statement today.

EU Council President Donald Tusk said on Twitter that while the Soviet invasion crushed the Prague Spring, "the desire for freedom and democracy survived and is the essence of what unites Europe today".

Concerts and other gatherings were also planned on Tuesday across the Czech Republic.

At night, local pop stars such as Marta Kubisova will perform an outdoor concert at Wenceslas Square in Prague.

In 1968, Kubisova openly took part in the Prague Spring and later sang the era's most famous song "Prayer for Marta," whose lyrics include: "Let peace remain with this country / Malice, envy, hate, fear and contention / Let these pass away."



With the country back in the grip of loyal communist leaders who followed Moscow's line, the powerful song was banned and Kubisova silenced -- until the regime was brought down in 1989.

Kubisova joined the dissident movement and became close with playwright Vaclav Havel who headed a human rights group and later became the country's first post-communist president.

Czech public television was airing special programmes about the events of August 21, 1968 all day Tuesday. At night the station will broadcast a speech by Slovak President Andrej Kiska.

His Czech counterpart Milos Zeman, an ex-communist who is known for his pro-Russian views, has however decided to stay silent on the occasion. Zeman's decision not to attend the commemoration ceremonies has been strongly criticised by rightwing opposition parties.

The president's spokesman Jiri Ovcacek has replied that Zeman already "showed his courage by publicly opposing the occupation in 1968".

"It's a crucial subject for us: the pro-Russian president, the populists' electoral win, the government backed by communists," said Tomasz Peszynski, an activist from the pro-EU citizen's initiative "Pulse of Europe".

"We can see the harmful effect of Russian propaganda, which there is a lot of in the Czech Republic.

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One person was today arrested in a village of Nalanda district in Bihar for allegedly setting a dalit woman on fire for trying to resist sexual assault bid.

However, Superintendent of Police, Nalanda, Sudhir Kumar Podika said the arrest was made based on the statement given by the woman, who has been admitted to a Patna hospital in a critical condition while investigations were on in view of submissions to the contrary by residents of her village.

The matter relates to Puran Bigaha village under Giriyak police station of the district.

According to the villagers, the woman - Puniya Devi - reportedly had a fight with her husband Shankar Manjhi last night after which she poured kerosene on herself and lit a fire.

Her husband had gone out of home by the time and a neighbour Ranjit Chaudhary rushed inside hearing her screams and doused the flames by covering her body with a blanket, the SP said - quoting the villagers' version.

Chaudhary also sustained burned injuries on his hands in the process, the SP said adding, however, that the woman gave a statement at the hospital that the neighbour had been making advances to her and her refusal to indulge enraged him following which he tried to burn her alive.

The woman has also alleged that four other persons - Dina Manjhi, Sunaina Devi, Ram Dev Manjhi and Guddu Manjhi - had assisted Chaudhary in the crime and they have been named as accused in the FIR, the SP said.

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Decks have been cleared for the construction of an elevated railway line in Kurukshetra city to decongest the traffic, an official spokesperson said here today.

The proposal was cleared after Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar gave in-principle approval to the project recently, he said.

Construction of this elevated track on Kurukshetra-Narwana Railway Line would be undertaken by the Haryana Rail Infrastructure Development Corporation (HRIDC) at a cost of Rs 224.58 crore.

Out of the total cost, Rs 100 crore is to be provided by the Ministry of Railways. The elevated track would do away with five level crossings in Kurukshetra city, reducing traffic jams, the spokesperson said.

He said there would be no acquisition of land and the whole work would be carried out on the existing railway land.

The total length of the project would be 5.18 kilometers with 4.511 kilometers of elevated track length.

The spokesman said this would be the second elevated railway line in the state after work on a similar project in Rohtak-Gohana-Panipat section in Rohtak city was launched by the chief minister recently.

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The Delhi High Court today suggested to DU's Law Faculty to declare the results of students who were allowed to sit for their semester exams on court orders due to shortage of attendance, and said those who have failed can take supplementary examinations to be conducted soon.

A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao gave the suggestion during the hearing of Delhi University's appeal against a single judge order asking the law faculty members to conduct at least 139 hours of extra classes or tutorials for those students who are desirous to attend the lectures to make up for attendance shortage.

Senior advocate Arvind Nigam, appearing for the varsity and law faculty, said he will take instructions from his client on the suggestion given by the bench and the matter was listed for further hearing on August 24.

During the hearing, the law faculty said even if the classes were held as ordered by the court, a majority of the students would still be unable to make-up for the shortage in attendance.

It also said that those students who have more than the minimum requirement of 70 per cent attendance would fall short if the additional classes were held, since the number of classes for all students would increase.

The bench, however, did not accept the contention and said there was no need to include the students, who have already met the attendance requirement, in the new parameters connected to the additional classes.

It also said that the law faculty was required to have 30 hours of classes, according to Bar Council of India rules, and not 25 hours each week as was being practiced.

"You have given a go-bye to the Rule 10 (on 30 hours of classes each week) of BCI Rules. Can you ignore it? That is why the single judge said you were not adhering to the rules," the bench said.

The students, represented by senior advocate Kirti Uppal and advocates Himanshu Dhuper and Samarendra Kumar, argued that the law faculty was in contempt of the high court's direction to conduct the classes.

They also agreed with the court's suggestion to declare their results.

The law faculty said it has not compiled the results of the students who sat for the exams on the single judge's orders.

The single judge had come down heavily on DU for "illegally" detaining around 500 students for lack of attendance and ordered holding of supplementary exams, saying it was a "failure" of the law faculty.

In its appeal, the varsity has contended that the single judge in her July 6 order had ignored the fact that all the three law centres had completed the course within the total number of lectures held.

The university has contended in the appeal that the single judge had "over-stressed" the rule that 450 class hours have to be conducted irrespective of the fact that the syllabus for all the subjects for the respective semesters was already completed as planned.

It has said no syllabus remained that may be taught to the detained students in these additional classes.

The single judge, while granting relief to law students, had said the shortfall of attendance was caused due to "failure of faculty of law to conduct minimum classes as prescribed under the Bar Council of India rules".

The court had passed a slew of directions and directed law faculty members to conduct, within eight weeks, at least 139 hours of extra classes/tutorials for students who are desirous to attend lectures to make up for the shortage of attendance.

The court had issued the directions while disposing 21 separate petitions filed by 53 students, challenging the memorandum issued by the law faculty on May 7 and May 8 and May 10, detaining several students of fourth and sixth semester from appearing in exams for not having an aggregate attendance of 70 per cent in the semesters, as required by the BCI Rules.

It had also said there were "glaring discrepancies" in the attendance record and it was maintained in the "most archaic fashion" by the authorities.

As an interim relief, the high court had ordered that the students, who have approached the court after being detained by the DU due to lack of attendance, be allowed to sit for their ongoing examinations subject to final outcome of the petitions.

The court had said the faculty must allow those students, who were detained due to shortage of attendance and could not be granted the interim relief, to take their supplementary examinations for the semester concerned.

In the pleas filed on behalf of the detained law students, it was claimed that DU Law Faculty's three centres - Campus Law Centre, Law Centre 1 and Law Centre 2 - have arbitrarily, illegally and without issuing any show-cause notice detained hundreds of them.

The single judge had quashed the detention lists issued by the law faculty regarding students who could not meet the prescribed attendance criteria due to the faculty of law's failure to hold the prescribed mandatory minimum number of class hours during the concerned semester.

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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today said higher educational institutions in the city should strive to be among the top 10 institutes in the world and that his government would provide them the funds required to achieve the goal.

He also said his government would organise a summit and invite teaching professionals of Indian origin from across the world to discuss ways to improve the system in Delhi.

"We will do it soon," he said at the inauguration function of Phase II of IIIT-Delhi campus here.

"No Indian institute figures among the top 10 institutions in the world. It is our dream that at least one college or university from Delhi make it to the top-10 list," he said.

"I can assure you there will be no shortage of money," Kejriwal added.

The chief minister rued that only 1.25 lakh of the total around 2.5 lakh students clearing the Class 12 exams every year get admissions to colleges and universities in the national capital.

"Even those scoring up to 97 per cent marks do not get admission. This is not acceptable. Our government is working to remove this shortage," he said.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the Phase II of Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IIIT-D) campus was completed in about 2.5 years and it was testament to government's commitment towards

The Phase II expansion of IIIT-D will enhance its students uptake from over 1,800 to 3,000.

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The Delhi High Court today asked the Delhi Police to file a status report on a plea challenging anticipatory bail given to Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in a case related to his wife Sunanda Pushkar's death.

Justice R K Gauba asked the Delhi Police's standing counsel (criminal) Rahul Mehra to appear in the matter and listed the plea on September 25.

"The state shall file a status report inspecting the case against the backdrop of which the present controversy is raised," the court said.

The court was hearing the petition filed by a Delhi-based lawyer Deepak Anand challenging a trial court's July 5 order granting anticipatory bail to Tharoor in the matter.

The petitioner argued that after filing of charge sheet, the trial court took cognisance and issued summons to Tharoor.

Instead of appearing before the court concerned, the Congress leader moved the court of an additional sessions judge which "erroneously" granted him bail, he said.

Pushkar was found dead in a suite of a luxury hotel in the city on the night of January 17, 2014. The couple was staying in the hotel, as the official bungalow of Shashi Tharoor was being renovated at that time.

Tharoor has been charged under sections 498A (husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), but has not been arrested in the case.

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The Kerala police, which had come under attack recently for alleged high-handedness, played a key role in rescuing thousands of people affected by the devastating floods that has left 223 people dead in a fortnight.

More than 40,000 police personnel were deployed in the rain-hit areas across the state and they saved about 53,000 lives, state police chief Loknath Behra said today.

They also assisted defence personnel and volunteers in rescuing 10 lakh stranded people, he said.

Hailing the force, Behra said: "You deserve a big hand after all the hard work you have done as part of our rescue operations during the unprecedented floods in the state."



It may be recalled that the state police had come under attack due to some incidents after the CPI-M led LDF government came to power in 2016.

This included 'high-handedness' against a mother seeking justice for her son who had allegedly killed himself following harassment by college authorities; handling of a case connected with 'honour killing' and death of a man allegedly in custody at Varapuzha in Kochi.

Behra said the state police also played a vital role in getting many people evacuated prior to the deluge.

"All police personnel have demonstrated the potential, strength and the camaraderie of the Kerala police," he said.

Some police personnel carried out their duty 24x7 even when their own houses were found submerged and family members helplessly stranded in water-logged areas, Behra said.

The police force had managed to secure about 400 boats, including fishing boats transported from the coast, to facilitate rescue operations.

They had also carried relief materials on their shoulders to take it to relief camps.

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The CAG today told the Supreme Court that it had no objection in making public its report on the Noida Toll Bridge Company's claim that the total cost of the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway project has not been recovered.

The report is currently in a sealed cover.

"Is there any objection in making the report public," a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur, S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta asked the counsel for the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

The lawyer said they had no objection if the report was made public.

"You file an affidavit saying so," the bench said and posted the matter for hearing next week.

The top court was hearing the Noida Toll Bridge Company Ltd's (NTBCL) challenge to Allahabad High Court's October 26, 2016 order which had said that no toll would be collected henceforth from the commuters using the 9.2 km-long eight-lane flyway.

During the hearing, the NTBCL counsel referred to the top court's order of April 3 this year and contended that court had observed that the CAG's report should be kept in a sealed cover.

"You (NTBCL) are not giving full information to the CAG," the bench observed, adding "You have not given all the information which the CAG wants. What is to be done?"



The counsel said they have provided all information to the CAG in the matter and if more details were needed, the company would provide it.

The Allahabad high court's order had allowed a plea by the Federation of Noida Residents Welfare Association challenging the "levy and collection of toll in the name of user fee" by the NTBCL.

The firm had challenged the high court's verdict in the top court, saying it had not taken into account all aspects and factors such as interest on construction cost, depreciation and maintenance expenses, which came to around Rs 12.5 lakh per day.

The apex court had in November last year asked the CAG to assist in the matter and verify the company's claim that the total cost of the project has not been recovered.

The counsel for NTBCL had earlier told the apex court that following the high court's order, the company was not getting anything but its obligation to maintain the flyway stood.

On November 11, 2016, the apex court had said that the flyway would remain toll- free for commuters while disagreeing with the contention of NTBCL that its refusal to stay the high court verdict would cause irreparable loss to the firm.

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The Maharashtra Police is probing whether the four men arrested on terror charges recently have links with any radical Hindu outfits, and it may question the head of one such organisation, Sanatan Sanstha, a senior official today said.

Vaibhav Raut, who runs a cow protection outfit and was first to be arrested, claimed on his purported social media account that he was associated with the Sanatan Sanstha.

The Hindu organisation, whose headquarters is in Goa, has denied that he was its member.

The probe has shown that the arrested men have visited different parts of the country, including Goa, the senior police official said.

The ATS is probing their links with radical Hindu organisations, their masterminds and their motives, he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

When asked if Jayant Athawale, the head of the Sanatan Sanstha, would be questioned, the official said, "If necessary, we will call him for questioning."



Raut, Sharad Kalaskar, Sudhanwa Gondhalekar and Shrikant Pangarkar were arrested by the Anti-Terrorism Squad of Maharashtra Police over the last ten days, and explosives and firearms seized from Nallasopara, Pune and Solapur.

The ATS had said they were planning to carry out blasts ahead of Independence Day and Bakri Eid.

The official said the accused operated "in silos", communicating with each other in code words. Everybody had a specific role which others in the group did not know, he said.

They may have received training in bomb-making through the Internet, and further training in handling of arms and explosives in neighbouring states, said the official.

Pangarkar, who was arrested two days ago, allegedly played the role of "facilitator and provider", he said.

The ATS is also probing financial trails of the accused and analysing their bank accounts for the last six years, he said.

After his arrest by the ATS, Kalaskar allegedly revealed that he and his friend Sachin Andure were involved in the killing of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar following which the CBI arrested Andure.

Asked about the state's earlier proposal to ban the Sanatan Sanstha, another official said the state government had sent the proposal to the Centre in 2011, following which the Union government sought more information.

A fresh report proposing a ban was submitted again to the Centre in 2015. "If the state government asks, we will add details of the present case to the earlier proposal," said the police official.

Following the arrests in the present case, opposition Congress and NCP had demanded a ban on the Sanstha.

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A father and son were on the loggerheads today in the Supreme Court on the issue of disqualification of a lawmaker facing criminal charges, with the former saying the matter fell in the domain of the legislature and the latter insisting that the court should issue directions in this regard to the poll panel.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, which is hearing PILs seeking to bar persons facing serious criminal charges from electoral politics, heard the arguments by Attorney General K K Venugopal, representing the Centre, and his son and senior lawyer Krishnan Venugopal and senior advocate Dinesh Dwivedi appearing for the petitioners.

Senior advocate Krishnan Venugopal, who is fighting the case against his father, suggested that to deal with the issue of decriminalising politics, either a law may be passed or the court can direct the poll panel to ask political parties not to give tickets to persons with criminal records.

He also suggested that the fixed election symbol of a national or state level recognised political parties may be cancelled if they gave tickets to such candidates.

He also said that the EC can ask the political parties to insert by-laws in their constitutions that they will not allow persons facing trial in cases, where minimum sentence prescribed is five years jail term, to fight elections on their tickets. It would serve the "larger good of the society", he added.

The Attorney General vehemently opposed the submissions of his son and Dinesh Dwivedi, saying they were trying to achieve a "particular result indirectly" which they cannot achieve "directly".

"The question is whether it is the matter to be dealt by the legislature or it can be dealt by the judiciary... can the five judges sitting in the constitution bench decide the disqualification," the top law officer said.

He said that considering the concept of separation of power, the issue of disqualification of lawmakers should not be dealt with by the judiciary.

When the AG asked "Can the judiciary decide the disqualification aspect", the bench said "we have no doubt in our mind that we cannot make the law."



"Everybody understands that (doctrine of separation of powers among Executive, Legislature and Judiciary) we cannot direct Parliament to make a law. The question is what can we do to contain the rot," the top court said.

When the bench said the political parties shall disclose the facts regarding the involvement of candidates in criminal cases, the AG said the background of a candidate becomes relevant only at the time of elections.

He also referred to the bitter background in which elections were being fought and asked the court not remain oblivious of the facts that persons are also framed in cases ahead of polls.

"On the eve of elections, Your lordships would find that cases are filed against political opponents," he said, adding that judicial intervention would create a big problem.

Why cannot the court exhort Parliament to make the law and for the interregnum period, it can pass some directions to the election commission to deal with the issue of criminalisation of politics, the bench asked.

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The new Armenian authorities put the country's former Defense Minister Mikael Harutyunyan on the international wanted list, police chief Valery Osipyan said today at the news conference.

"Harutyunyan was put on the international wanted list," RIA Novosti cited Osipyan as saying.

Earlier, chief of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Yuri Khachaturov was charged with overthrowing Armenia's constitutional order amid a probe into Yerevan's 2008 postelection crackdown, but was released on bail later. The SIS leveled the same charges against former President Robert Kocharian, but later he was also released. The ruling of the Armenian Court of Appeals was based on the presidential immunity.

Former Armenian president Serzh Sargsyans nephew Narek Sargsyan was also put on the international wanted list today. He is accused of committing crimes stemming from points 1, 2 and 7 of the second part of Article 131 of the Criminal Code of Armenia (kidnapping committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy with the use of violence dangerous to life or health, or threats to use violence and for mercenary motives.

Earlier, Armenian court issued arrest warrant for ex-president's brother Levon Sargsyan and his daughter. In addition, the head of the Special Investigation Service (SIS), Sasun Khachatryan, said that Sargsyan will be interrogated regarding the March 1 case.

Ex-mayor of Yerevan Vahagn Khachatryan, speaking with Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the struggle of Nikol Pashinyan's team against former corrupt officials and the investigation of March 1, 2008 crimes is being hampered by the Karabakh clan's influence in the judicial branch.

"In general, the new authorities' actions with regard to the investigation of the March 1, 2008 case and corruption, are quite satisfactory in my opinion. But their actions are resisted by the former authorities staying in parliament. The big problem for Armenia in this struggle is that members of the judiciary were appointed by the former authorities and continue to support them," he pointed out.

"If the judiciary acted in accordance with the law, the corruption struggle and the March 1 cases, would probably approached the final in the form of sentences. Now the new executive power headed by Nikol Pashinyan is trying to remove this obstacle," Vahagn Khachatryan said.

"I think that Pashinyan's team has developed a strategy to cope with it, and now they are carrying out tactical steps, such as putting on the international wanted list, which should reveal all the people guilty of killing 10 people on March 1, 2008. I I think that, in the end, the investigation will reach both Serzh Sargsyan and other people involved in these crimes," the former mayor of Yerevan concluded.

Robert Kocharyan completed his second term as Armenian president on February 2008. Kocharyan's Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan had Kocharyan's backing for his candidacy as the next president. The election was held on February 19, 2008 and Sargsyan won the election with 52% of the vote, with Ter-Petrosyan in second place with 22% of the vote. The protests initiated by Ter-Petrosyan's supporters began in the country on 20 February 20. On March 1-2, 10 people were killed and more than 200 injured in overnight clashes between police and opposition protesters in Yerevan.
The FBI says a Chinese man was kidnapped after a business meeting in the Los Angeles-area last month, but authorities haven't heard from the kidnappers since they demanded a USD 2 million ransom.

Officials today said 28-year-old Ruochen "Tony" Liao was abducted by three men on July 16.

He owned a Southern California car dealership that sold high-end cars, such as Porches and Bentleys.

Gene Kowel, an assistant special agent in charge at the FBI's office in Los Angeles, said investigators are examining several theories, including that Liao was involved in a business dispute.

He said Liao had been involved with business deals with individuals who "were not the most reputable".

Yesterday the FBI released a sketch of one of the men they believed was involved in the kidnapping.

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Shares of drug firm FDC Ltd settled with losses of nearly 4 per cent today following USFDA's inspection at the company's manufacturing facility in Aurangabad.

FDC had said in a regulatory filing yesterday that its sterile ophthalmic facility located MIDC Industrial Area in Waluj, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, had recently undergone inspections.

"However, the company continues to export its Ophthalmic products to USA market," it said.

The FDC stock opened at Rs 242, then lost further ground and fell to a low of Rs 232.30, down 7.74 per cent over its previous closing price.

At close, the stock was quoted at Rs 241.70, down 4.01 per cent.

On NSE, the stock opened at Rs 238, then fell to a low of Rs 232 and finally settled for the day at Rs 242.80, down 3.86 per cent.

The USFDA inspection was carried out in relation to the Ophthalmic products being exported to USA market. The USFDA has made 8 observations (483's) for which appropriate response will be submitted by the company, the FDC filing said.

As per the USFDA, an FDA Form 483 is issued to firm management at the conclusion of an inspection when investigators have observed any conditions that in their judgement may constitute violations of the Food Drug and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act and related Acts.

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Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu today urged students to lead an Indian way of life and feel proud to be calledn a 'bharatiya'.

He said, "share and care" are the core values of Indian philosophy, and asked students to develop the feeling of oneness and be empathetic to the needs and sufferings of fellow citizens.

Naidu was addressing students from different centres of Jawaharlal Nehru University. More than 250 students from JNU participated in the interaction at his official residence.

A statement quoting the vice president said, he asked the students to be proud to be called 'bharatiya' "and live as bharatiya."



With more than 65 per cent of the population below the age of 35, it is essential for a country like India to realise its demographic dividend to become an economic superpower, he said.

The vice president asked the students to develop the habit of living with the nature. "We need to protect nature and culture for a better future," the statement quoting him as saying.

Naidu asked them to take an active role in the welfare of their native places, and said one should never forget their Janmabhoomi (birth place). He also asked the students to remember their mother, mother tongue and guru (teacher).

The vice president said a leader should possess four Cs character, calibre, capacity and conduct. The youth should possess four Ds discipline, determination, dedication and devotion to the cause of national development, he added.

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Five people were injured in a clash between two groups of transgenders outside a police station over the issue of money collection in South West Delhi's Najafgarh area, the police said.

The transgender groups based in Uttam Nagar and Palam, respectively, clashed on August 16 outside the Najafgarh police station, they said.

The Palam-based group allegedly stopped the Uttam Nagar-based group from collecting 'dakshina' (donation) in Najafgarh area, leading to a brawl, a senior police officer said.

Both the groups lodged cross-complaints alleging that they were being threatened by the other, the officer said.

In the meantime, the Uttam Nagar-based transgenders group called the other group and soon after they entered into a brawl, leading to a clash outside the police station, he said.

The police pacified the members of both groups but by then, four transgenders of the Palam-based group and a driver were already injured in the scuffle, he said, adding that they were rushed to a nearby hospital and their statements recorded later.

Subsequently, the members of the Uttam Nagar-based group were detained, the officer said.

During investigation, it surfaced that the two groups had altercated with each other in Uttam Nagar over the issue of money collection on August 12.

They had quarrelled over the issue on earlier occasions too in Ranhola and Baba Hari Das Nagar, he said.

A case was registered in connection with the incident, he added.

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A five member family from Tamil Nadu, including a woman, were killed after their car collided with a speeding lorry today at Kadapalli, about 160 km from here, police said.

Three persons died on the spot and two more breathed their last on way to a hospital, police said.

The mishap took place when the family was on their way back home to Dharmapuri after visiting a naturopathy hospital in Virupakshapuram, 70 km from here, police said.

The truck driver was arrested, police said.

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With over 10 lakh people still in relief camps in Kerala, their homes devastated by the savage monsoon that has claimed 223 lives since August 8, 'Onam' and Bakrid are going to be a subdued affair this year in the state.

While 'Onam' falls on August 25, Bakrid is being observed in the southern state tomorrow.

Considered the state's harvest festival, 'Onam' falls in the beginning of Chingam, the first month of Malayalam Calendar and is celebrated with joy and enthusiasm all over the state by people across communities.

Elaborate feasts, folk songs, elegant dances and energetic games mark the annual festival.

But this time, many families have decided against any festivities.

Sixty two-year-old Sister Christabelle, former Principal of St Teresa's college in Kochi, said there will be no onam celebration for the regular and retired staff this year and the money will be used for relief works for flood victims.

Mariamma Varghese, President of the Elders Forum in Panampilly Nagar in Kochi, said onam celebrations have been cancelled due to floods.

Onam commemorates the return of a mythical, righteous king, Mahabali and brings together communities across the state in unified revelry probably unheard of in any other part of the country or outside.

Elaborate, sumptuous feasts of 'Onam sadya,' with at least 10-15 side dishes, are served in houses, with the feast ending with delicious payasam (Kerala dessert), which ensures that the message of oneness and hope is spread far and wide.

Due to floods, there have been several cancellations for 'Onamsadya' as well.

Caterers have said there have been heavy cancellations from various offices and organisations, which have decided to do away with any celebrations.

The state government has also cancelled Onam celebrations.

The Kerala Tourism's decision to organise Champions Boat League on the lines of Indian Premier League (IPL) from this year starting with Nehru Trophy boat race also took a beating due to the flooding.

Pulikali (Tiger Dance), among the folk art forms of Kerala, which is held in Thrissur with artisans donning tiger masks and sporting the painted stripes of the big cat and dancing to the rhythm of traditional percussion instruments on August 28 is also likely to be cancelled.

Expressing her dismay over the unexpected cancellation of Onam celebration in the state, Juli, a German tourist told PTI: "I was waiting to see the Onam festivities about which I have heard a lot. But, I am saddened by the turn of events due to floods. I am cutting short my Kerala trip and moving to Goa."



The Cochin Port Trust said its employees have



contributed Rs 65,000, which they had collected for their Onam celebrations, for the relief work.

Meanwhie, many muslims in the state have also decided to keep Bakrid celebration a low key affair this year in the backdrop of the sufferings of the people in the flood-hit state.

According to C Rahim, a senior journalist with a gulf-based newspaper, the Muslim community has not yet recovered from the shock of the floods to celebrate any festival.

"Houses of many of the people where the community lives in large numbers in Thrissur, Kozhikode and Malappuram districts are still under water. Many of them have not gone back to their homes," he told PTI.

People who have gone for Haj are also much worried about the relatives at home, he said.

This year, the murderous monsoon has left the state's economy in shambles, many are penniless and the people of the state are in no mood to celebrate.

Ammini, a 55-year-old in a relief camp, said she and her family had to rush out with only the clothes they wore



'Everything is lost. We do not have anything left. There is nothing to look forward to."



"My son is bedridden.. I do not know where to go from the camp with my son, daughter-in-law and their child as there is no home left," she said.

"We do not know how to take our life forward. Onam is not now in our minds...," she said unable to hold back tears.

After Nipah, the Ramzan sales were affected in Malabar (north Kerala) areas.

Now with unprecedented floods, there is no sales at all in the region.

In normal course, during onam and Bakrid there is good sale in the state, a small trader in Kozhikode said.

In Kozhikode, a group of policemen have come together and prepared 1000 kits of essential items like sugar, pulses, rice etc to be distributed to the most needy who return home from camps.

"Over 90 per cent people have gone back from camps in the district to their homes.

There are many people who are in a very bad state and so it was decided to distribute kits to them as the festivals are just round the corner even though there may be no celebrations," a police official said.

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The Maharashtra government today decided to introduce a foreign scholarship scheme for the 'open' (general) category and other backward class (OBC).

Students from the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) already get scholarship for studying in foreign varsities.

The new scheme will cover the open category students, OBCs, as well as those from 'Vimukt Jaati and Bhatkya Jamati' (nomadic and denotified tribes), said an official from the Chief Minister's Office.

Every year, 20 students will get the scholarship. Ten of them will be from the open category.

The announcement comes against the backdrop of Maratha community's agitation for quota. The politically influential community falls in the Open category.

The selected students will get funding for taking admission to 200 leading foreign universities, said the official.

"The students will also have a special fee rebate in top 25 universities," he said, adding that the emphasis will be on courses related to artificial intelligence, climate change, energy conservation, data analytics and nano-technology.

Thirty per cent of the scholarships will be reserved for women students.

The official added that Rs 20 crore would be made available for the scheme.

In today's meeting chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the cabinet also gave nod for the formation of "Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Mission" for encouragement to organic farming.

"The aim is to stop excessive use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Also, it will focus on creating a mechanism for sale of organic produce," said the official.

In the first phase, the programme would be implemented in Buldhana, Akola, Washim, Amravati, Yavatmal and Wardha districts.

The cabinet also paid homage to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who died in New Delhi on August 16.

The resolution moved by Fadnavis said the country has lost "a far-sighted, large-hearted and sensitive leader", and making India a great nation would be the real tribute to him.

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Former Odisha Minister and eminent writer Jadunath Das Mohapatra passed away here today following a brief illness. He was 90.

Das Mohapatra had been admitted to a private hospital here two days ago and breathed his last during treatment, family sources said.

He is survived by a son and daughter, they said.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has condoled the demise of Das Mohapatra and described the late leader as an "astute politician and prolific writer." Patnaik also conveyed his deep sympathy to the bereaved family.

The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) also condoled his death and described the late leader as a political stalwart and distinguished writer.

Having begun his political career as a student leader, Das Mohapatra had joined Congress in early sixties and was the general secretary of Balasore District Congress Committee from 1964 to 1967.

A multi-faceted personality and three-time MLA, Das Mohapatra was a minister in the ministries of Nandini Satpathy J B Patnaik.

He had also authored a number of Odia novels and won several awards.

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Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME) -- a consortium of public and private organisations -- today said it aims to facilitate creation of 10 million new entrepreneurs and 50 million jobs by 2030, with a special focus on opportunities for women.

GAME has also received initial funding commitment of Rs 100 crore over three years from several Indian and global donors.

Speaking to PTI, former Microsoft India Chairman and GAME founder Ravi Venkatesan said job creation is a global challenge and given the size of the Indian market, the problem is of a higher magnitude for the country.

"It involves lots of stakeholders, and is interconnected with many other issues, ranging from infrastructure and access to finance to ease of doing business. It cannot be solved by government or corporates alone, it requires working together," he added.

Venkatesan said the alliance aims to catalyse a mass entrepreneurship movement in India, and aims to create 10 million new entrepreneurs, with at least half of these being women, and 50 million new jobs by 2030.

He said GAME has received initial funding commitment of Rs 100 crore over three years from several Indian and global donors.

GAME also organised a day-long workshop, along with The Rockefeller Foundation and Dalberg Advisors, as the first step in identifying a collective vision, driving commitment from interested organisations and defining concrete action plan for the proposed alliance.

The event saw participation from nearly 50 organisations, including the Ministry of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), state governments of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and Meghalaya, Tata Trusts, UNICEF, World Bank, Omidyar Network and Facebook India, among others.

"India has a major challenge when it comes to creating enough jobs. With nearly one million young people entering the working age population every month, India needs new engines of job creation. It was IT a decade back, we need a new wave," Venkatesan said.

He added that entrepreneurship is a critical lever of job creation at a large scale.

GAME will work with partners to enable "mass entrepreneurship", creating millions of local businesses that typically hire five or more people, use local inputs and serve local needs in every community.

These range from a beauty salon or food caterer, to a motorbike repair shop or artisan collective. In most thriving economies, such businesses form the backbone of the economy and employment, he said.

"We have identified three pathways of intervention: nurturing entrepreneurial mindsets early; converting job seekers to entrepreneurs by creating opportunities and reducing risks associated with becoming an entrepreneur; and helping micro-entrepreneurs to grow and aspire for more by providing services like training, advisory/mentoring as well as access to finance," he said.

Venkatesan added that GAME will be like a platform enabling its partners to engage closely and carry out more effectively initiatives in this direction.

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A six-member delegation of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha today met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and apprised him about the long pending demand of the Gorkhas living in West Bengal and northeastern states for granting the Scheduled Tribe status.

The delegation, led by Darjeeling MP and Minister of State for Electronics S S Ahluwalia, apprised him about the long pending demands of 11 Gorkha communities living in West Bengal, Sikkim and other northeastern states for granting of the ST status, a release issued by the GJM said.

Ahluwalia also requested the home minister to immediately convene an official meeting, as promised last year, to consider the pending issues and address the grievances of people in Darjeeling and neighbouring regions.

Ahluwalia recalled that the agitating members of the GJM had withdrawn their 104-day long agitation on September 26, 2017, following an appeal from the home minister.

The minister informed Singh that there was an urgent need to look into the long pending demands of the local people, who faced acute hardship during the last year's agitation.

The home minister has assured the delegation that a meeting will be convened soon, the release said.

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Today Muslims around the world are celebrating the Festival of the Sacrifice, Eid al-Adha, one of the most important holidays in the Muslim calendar. On this day Muslims gather at a mosque for a common prayer and sacrifice an animal to honor the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his only son.

The holiday is marked on the 10th day of the Zul Hijjah month and marks the end of the fifth pillar of Islam. According to a tradition, every Muslim is obligated to sacrifice a lamb or a cow, or other livestock animal. Eid al-Adha is celebrated for three days.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated the Muslims of Russia on the Eid al-Adha Islamic holiday, the Kremlin press service reported.

"Eid al-Adha calls for kindness and justice, mercy and piety, careful and cordial attitude towards those around us, our fellow human beings. These lofty humanistic ideals are the solid foundation for a persons moral upbringing," the message says.

Putin pointed to the importance of the fact that "today the true values of Islam continue to serve as the basis for the spiritual life of the Muslim community of Russia" and "help unite people and follow the traditions of good-neighborliness between representatives of different ethnic groups, religions and cultures," which have deep historical roots in Russia.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has congratulated the Azerbaijanis on the occasion of Eid al-Adha.

"I extend my heartfelt congratulations and sincerest wishes to you and all our compatriots living outside Azerbaijan on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, which symbolizes moral unity, solidarity and brotherhood," the president said in the message.

"Sacrifice ceremony is remarkable for the fact that Islam, which encourages love for and obedience to the Most High, respect for high moral values, mercy and tolerance, was chosen as the way of truth for people. This blessed holiday embodies spiritual and moral unity of Muslims around the world, pious people's love for the Almighty and readiness for dedication in the name of justice," President Aliyev said.

"Being devoted to progressive Islamic values, the people of Azerbaijan have cherished Eid al-Adha as one of the blessed days since ancient times, even during the most difficult periods," he added. "Millions of Muslims, including thousands of our fellow countrymen, who now demonstrate great solidarity as they perform Hajj, express their gratitude to the Almighty and pray for peace and tranquility in our country and in the world."

"On these festive days, Muslims do their sacred duty for Allah and religion, make sacrifices, help the poor and needy, pay tribute to the undying memory of our martyrs. It is with great satisfaction that I want to emphasize that every such festive occasion becomes a triumph of benevolence, unity and equality, devotion to the Motherland and national statehood in our society," he stressed.

"I do believe that this blessed holiday will boost our people's heroism and devotion for the progress of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan and will further strengthen civil peace and national and moral solidarity in our country. May Allah accept the sacrifices you make and bless each of you with the best of health, your families with happiness and your homes with abundance," the Azerbaijani president concluded.

"(Eid) prayers in mosques and communities in our country traditionally bring together representatives of various ethnic groups from Russia and even from around the world of any age, both young and old. Our state has historically been based on such unshakable foundations as faith, moral principles, family values, which in their entirety determine the way of life of the countrys population with its ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity," the chairman of the Council of Muftis and the Religious Board of Muslims of Russia, Mufti Ravil Gainutdin said.

He called on all Muslims during the Eid al-Adha festival not just to take care of themselves and their next of kin but also of their neighbors.

Muslims gathered at the Moscow Cathedral Mosque and started prayers at 7.00am. The Eid al-Adha festival will be celebrated in five mosques and at three additional sites in Moscow, while another 39 sites located in the Moscow region will be able to hold about 100,000 people.

Vestnik Kavkaza congratulates all the Muslims on this great holiday.
Streaming giant Netflix has renewed its Emmy nominated show "Glow" for third season.

Season one of "GLOW" has been nominated for eight Primetime Emmy Awards, including outstanding comedy series.

The renewal comes nearly two months after the series' second season premiered, reported Variety.

Netflix has not yet announced a return date, but the series has bowed in summer its first two seasons.

"Glow", featuring Alison Brie in the lead, is set in 1985 Hollywood and was inspired by the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling syndicated series of the 1980s.

It tells the fictional story of Brie's Ruth Wilder, an out-of-work actor who finds herself in an upstart women's wrestling circuit. The series is created by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch. Jenji Kohan, Tara Herrmann and Mark Burley serve as executive producers alongside showrunners Flahive and Mensch.

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The government has asked ONGC to list its overseas investment arm, ONGC Videsh Ltd on stock exchanges and transfer proceeds to it in the form of a special dividend, helping meet its disinvestment target, according to a letter written by DIPAM.

According to a letter the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) wrote to ONGC management last week, the listing of ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) would help unlock value by improving its corporate governance and efficiency.

ONGC had helped the government meet its disinvestment target last fiscal when it bought a 51.11 per cent stake in state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) for Rs 36,915 crore.

After failing to find a buyer for Air India, DIPAM is again looking at ONGC to meet the Rs 80,000 crore revenue mobilisation target set out for it in the Budget for 2018-19 from the sale of government stake in PSUs.

As on July 5, 2018, the government has realised Rs 9,219.91 crore as disinvestment proceeds against the budgetary target of Rs 80,000 crore, according to DIPAM.

OVL, which is 100 per cent owned by ONGC, has so far invested Rs 1.5 lakh crore (USD 28.36 billion) in 41 projects it has across 20 countries.

In the letter, DIPAM said PSUs with a positive network and no accumulated losses should be listed to unlock value.

It, however, did not state how much stake in OVL should be sold for its listing.

Market regulator Sebi calls for a minimum 25 per cent public float for a listed company.

Officials said, proceeds of the listing of OVL would accrue to its parent ONGC but the government would seek a special dividend to reap that.

The government owns 67.45 per cent in ONGC. If ONGC were to declare entire proceeds of OVL listing as a special dividend, the government would get 67.45 per cent of it.

The government had in 2015 as well asked ONGC to list OVL. But the state-owned firm had at that time told the government that it was not the right time to list as oil prices were subdued and the company would not get the right value.

Oil prices have since rebounded and the government is looking to cash in on that.

Under its portfolio, OVL has reserves of 711 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent natural gas.

In 2017-18, it produced 9.35 million tonnes of crude oil, up from 8.43 million tonnes in the previous year. Together with natural gas, the output was 14.16 million tonnes of oil equivalent, up from 12.80 million tonnes in the previous year.

It reported a net profit of Rs 981 crore on a turnover of Rs 10,418 crore in 2017-18 fiscal. This compared with a net profit of Rs 701 crore on a turnover of Rs 10,080 crore in the previous fiscal.

It had reported a net loss of Rs 3,633 crore in 2015-16 due to a sharp drop in oil prices.

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Power Secretary A K Bhalla today said the government is considering providing subsidy for encouraging setting up of e-vehicle charging infrastructure under a policy, to be unveiled in coming days.

Bhalla was of the view that it is a chicken and egg story because charging stations would not be set up without enough e-vehicles and e-vehicles sales would not pick up unless there is enough facility to charge these vehicles.

"We are bringing a policy in consultation with heavy industries ministry that how these chargers can be established. Whether we need to support that with subsidy to begin with," he said speaking at the launch of "#InnovateToINSPIRE: Creating Future Energy Solutions" by the World Bank, World Resources Institute (WRI), and Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL).

He further said, "E-mobility is an area where government has been working. We have clarified that for (setting up) charging infra does not need a licence as it is service oriented activity. In draft tariff policy, we have put certain policy statement for encouraging power supply to these charging stations. We have notified technical standards for charging infrastructure."



Talking about UJALA scheme, he said it has led to huge savings as against the target to distribute 77 crore LED bulbs, 118 crore have already been distributed.

Bhalla expressed concerns over increasing gap between energy requirement and supply in view of more and more induction of renewables like wind and solar in the system.

He said, "The gap is increasing and it is a big challenge. We are setting up renewable energy management centres. We have sanctioned 11 such centres. We are heading much ahead of time of our target of generation installed capacity of more than 40 per cent from non-fossil fuels. We will definitely be achieving this ahead of 2030 deadline."



The 'innovate to inspire' challenge is open to participants across the world and aims to address specific issues inhibiting grid stability and adoption of e-mobility, while also endeavouring to expand the markets and applications for energy efficiency interventions across India.

The registration and application submissions for the challenge are open to participants from August 21 to October 12, 2018.

The challenge invites participants to submit sustainable and scalable solutions to seven specific challenges spanning grid management, e-mobility, energy efficiency and energy market transformation.

These challenges include development of weather and wind forecasting tools to assist renewable energy generation, economically-viable energy storage systems, devices for minimising standby energy losses, business models for driving energy efficiency in cold storage, cheaper and higher-range electric vehicles than those currently available in market, financial instruments for sustainable funding and securitising energy-related innovations.

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The government is looking at transferring Air India's non-core assets and "unsustainable debt" to a special purpose vehicle (SPV) as part of measures to revive the national carrier, a top official said on Tuesday.

After the proposed strategic disinvestment of Air India failed to take off in May, the government has been looking at ways to bolster the carrier.

Against this backdrop, the official at the Finance Ministry said that efforts are on to sell non-core assets of Air India.

As part of the disinvestment process, which has been shelved for now, the government had proposed creating a special purpose vehicle wherein the non-core assets and "unsustainable debt" would be transferred there.



The official said that proposal and encashing the non-core assets are being pursued as it would also help the airline stand on its feet.

"This was also proposed for Air India when we had gone for hunting of proposed bidder for Air India," the official added.

The national carrier's debt burden was more than Rs 480 billion (Rs 48,000 crore) at the end of March 2017.

It is staying afloat on a bailout package extended by the previous UPA regime in 2012.



In the current financial year, the airline has received an equity infusion of Rs 6.5 billion (Rs 650 crore) up to June. TAP and a Financial Restructuring Plan (FRP) were approved for Air India by the previous UPA regime in 2012.

Last month, the government sought Parliament's nod for Rs 9.8 billion (Rs 980 crore) as supplementary grants for equity infusion into the airline.



According to the official, there is no plan "as of now" to make additional capital infusion into Air India.
The Centre on Tuesday unveiled a draft scheme for extending the affordable air travel programme to international circuits, with state governments identifying the routes for operation.

The draft International Air Connectivity (IAC) scheme envisages to increase the international ticketing to 200 million by 2027.

"The scheme is to be made operational only for states, which demonstrate their commitment to implement and provide the requisite support for promoting operations under the scheme," the draft reads.

Stakeholders inputs and comment have been sought till September 4.

was launched in 2016 to make air travel affordable for people through subsidised ticket rates and to provide air connectivity to smaller towns.

Some states and aviation leaders had earlier suggested to expand the scheme overseas.

The Assam government has, in fact, announced Rs 1 billion as viability gap funding to promote international air connectivity from Guwahati.

SpiceJet chairman Ajay Singh had earlier this year pitched for an initiative on the lines of the regional connectivity scheme UDAN that can encourage Indian airlines to fly overseas.

According to the draft scheme, state governments will identify the routes to be connected, and airline operators will assess demand on the identified routes and submit proposals for providing connectivity.

Operations under the scheme will be permitted through fixed-wing aircraft only with more than 70 seats.

The scheme has proposed to set up an International Air Connectivity Fund (IACF) -- a dedicated fund for providing subsidy support under the scheme. It will be created through the contributions of state governments.

"The subsidy support shall be provided to selected airlines only for the passenger seats, which remain unsold at the time of IAC flight operation, from the total number of passenger seats for which subsidy has been requested by the selected airline as part of its proposal," the draft said.

The subsidy support will be extended only up to three years.

The Airport Authority of India will be the implementing agency of the scheme.
The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has operationalised an eco-friendly cremation system at Green Park and Dwarka, which uses less wood than needed in a traditional pyre, officials said.

South Delhi Mayor Narendra Chawla has urged families to use this new facility as it helps in checking pollution.

The 'Mokshda green cremation system' gives control over the temperature and circulation of the air around the flames.

"The SDMC has made functional two units each of Mokshda green cremation system at Green Park and Dwarka Sector-24. This green facility consumes only around 150 kg wood instead of 450 Kg wood being used in the traditional pyre," he said.

Under Mokshda system, wood is still required, hence it is like the traditional system of cremation. So, the last rites are performed by igniting fire to a pyre, Chawla said.

The mayor, yesterday said, the Mokshda green cremation system has been installed and commissioned with the help of an energy PSU.

The SDMC staff is operating the new system, though the PSU has been requested to deploy at least one of its employees daily for smooth operation, he added.

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Union ministers and top officials met here today to discuss the problem of unabated uploading of pornographic materials on YouTube and some social media sites using laptops and smartphones, and ways to check them, officials said.

The discussion came following a Supreme Court directive on the subject in response to a writ petition filed by a Hyderabad-based NGO.

The meeting was attended by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, besides others, a Home Ministry official said.

The government will have to file an affidavit soon, giving details of the action taken by it in this regard.

It has already set up an online cybercrime-reporting portal to block videos of sexual offences on social sites.

The apex court was earlier informed that the Ministry of Home Affairs had identified keywords for child pornography, rape and gang rape content search, and a list of keywords in English language had been compiled and circulated among content providers for further action.

The court was hearing the matter after a letter and a pen-drive, containing two rape videos, were sent to then Chief Justice of India H L Dattu by Hyderabad-based NGO Prajwala in 2015. The court had on its own taken cognisance of the letter and asked the CBI to launch a probe and apprehend the culprits.

The NGO's letter had also mooted the idea of maintaining a national sex offenders register, which would contain details of persons convicted of offences like eve-teasing, stalking, molestation and other sexual assaults.

A bench of justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit is currently hearing the case.

Today's meeting was also attended by Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Director of Intelligence Bureau, Rajiv Jain, senior officials of the Home Ministry, IT Ministry and security agencies.

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The wholesale gur (jaggery) market ruled steady in the national capital today with prices by and large after moving in a limited range on small bouts of buying and selling, ended same on last levels.

Meanwhile, gur Chakku prices dropped by Rs 200 per quintal in Muzaffarnagar gur markets due to paucity of demand.

Marketmen said thin demand due to off-season amid fresh supplies mainly pulled down gur chakku in Muzaffarnagar.

In Muzaffarnagar gur Chakku prices dipped by Rs 200 to settle the day at Rs 2,900-3,000 per quintal.

Following are today's rates (in Rs per quintal):



Gur chakku Rs 3,400-3,500, pedi Rs 3,600-3,700, dhayya Rs 3,700-3,800 and shakkar Rs 3,800-3,900.

Muzaffarnagar: Rasket Rs 2,650-2,700, chakku Rs 2,900-3,000, khurpa NA and Ladoo NA.

Muradnagar: Pedi Rs 3,250-3,350 and dhayya NA.

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HAM radio operators are helping in rescue operations in flood-devastated Kerala by tracing stranded people through their last mobile phone location and sharing information with officials as most communication services remain hit in the state.

The HAM or amateur radio operators are licenced to conduct such communications under specific radio frequencies by the Union Ministry of Communications.

Over 300 HAM radio operators are working round-the-clock in Kerala and are helping the administration in rescue operations, Director of the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Amateur Radio, Ram Mohan Suri, said.

"Hundreds of HAM operators in Kerala have worked against all odds to rescue people. They are in touch not only with HAM operators in the state but also with their counterparts across the country as people from various parts of the country are also stranded in Kerala," he told PTI over phone.

Suri said 1,650 people were rescued based on HAM radio support from the Thiruvananthapuram centre from August 16 to August 19.

"We had received 7,400 wireless messages during that period. Whatever information we are getting we are sharing it with district officials and rescue teams.

"We are giving them the location. Nearly 22 HAM Radio operators are using VHF (Very High Frequency) and HF (High Frequency) spectrum here," Thampi, convenor of HAM radio in Kerala's Wayanad district, told PTI over phone.

In places where people are stranded and cannot communicate as their mobile phones are not working, HAM radio operators are tracking the last location of their phone's signal. Based on it, they are trying to locate the person, another HAM operator said.

"By using this method we have rescued several people who are trapped in various buildings and cannot communicate," he said.

HAM radio uses radio frequency spectrum to exchange messages with other radio operators. Each one of them are assigned a call sign for identity.

The flood in Kerala has claimed 216 lives so far while over 7.24 lakh displaced people have been sheltered in 5,645 relief camps dotting the state.

Not only have the HAM operators helped in rescuing and locating residents of Kerala, but also people from other parts of the country stranded in the state.

Shankar Satyapal, Director of Indian Institute of HAMs (IIH), Bengaluru, said HAM operators from across the country are passing on information to IIH, which in turn is passing it on to their counterparts in Kerala and vice-versa.

"The success rate is 70 per cent where we have been able to rescue people from other states stranded in Kerala," he said.

Five labourers of Murshidabad district in West Bengal, were rescued with the help of HAM radio operators, according to Ambarish Nag Biswas, secretary of the West Bengal Amateur Radio Club.

The labourers from Murshidabad district were stranded in a three storey under-construction building in the Ernakulam area and could not call for help as their mobiles were out of charge, he said.

Biswas said the Murshidabad district administration called HAM Radio operators after the family members of the labourers got in touch with them.

"We got in touch with HAM radio operators in Kerala they tracked their last mobile signals and were later on rescued by the officials. We are now looking into three youths from North Bengal who are still stranded in Kerala," Biswas said about the successful operation.

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The father of the Mandsaur gangrape victim today expressed satisfaction over the special court verdict handing down capital punishment to two men in the case that had caused a huge public outrage.

The eight-year-old girl was abducted when she was waiting outside her school by Irfan alias Bhaiyu (20) and Asif (24) on June 26 and was raped by them.

They had also tried to kill her by slitting her throat and inflicted injuries on her neck, face, head and private parts, but she survived.

Earlier in the day, Mandsaur special court judge Nisha Gupta held them guilty and sentenced them to death under the newly-introduced IPC section 376 DB (punishment for rape of a woman under 12 years of age by one or more persons).

Speaking with PTI, the victim's father hoped that the verdict would send a strong message and act as a deterrent.

The man, a resident of Mandsaur, is currently staying in Indore, as the victim is undergoing treatment at a city hospital.

"My daughter and my family have been under stress since the past two months. Since the beginning, we wanted them to be hanged. Finally, justice has been delivered today," he said.

He said the verdict was delivered in time because the trial was conducted in a fast track court.

"The court judgement would send a strong message in the society and (hopefully) such crimes against minors would be reduced," he said.

The man, around 45 years of age, said his daughter underwent a surgery at the Maharaja Yeshwant Rao Hospital (MYH) in Indore for the second time recently and is doing well.

She was admitted in the MYH here, about 200 kms from Mandsaur, on the night of June 27, a day after the incident.

"Doctors told me that they would consider discharging my daughter from the hospital after her injuries get healed," he said.

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Its very unlikely that Russia's economy can grow above 1.5% to 2% a year, the Russian Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina said in the interview with The Wall Street Journal.

The official said her focus has been on improving the health of Russias banking sector. "It became obvious to everyone that something had to be done," she noted. "In the circumstances when we started facing external challenges and geopolitical risks, the financial system had to become very strong and very stable," Nabiullina stressed.

The Russian Central Bank chief said the same regulatory rules apply to all banks, adding that she has shut down several regional state-owned lenders.

While the cleanup of the financial sector is nearly finished, Nabiullina said, she sees bigger problems for Russias economy as a whole. "The previous model of [consumer-led] economic growth has been drained," she said.

According to Nabiullina, even if the price of oil rose to $100, from around $65 today, she said, "its very unlikely that our economy can grow above 1.5% to 2%" a year.
The Bombay High Court directed the Mumbai civic body today to prepare a regulatory mechanism to streamline the process of granting permission for animal slaughter for Bakr-Eid from the next year, days after the authorities were forced to temporarily suspend the system for online permission following glaring errors.

A bench led by acting Chief Justice Naresh Patil said such mechanism will not only regulate and simplify the process of granting permission, but, it will also put an end to the last minute litigations that courts witnesses each year before the Muslim festival.

"The rule of law is applicable for each religious festival. We understand that it is not easy for the state administration to regulate religious activities in accordance with the legal framework. That is why you (state) must have uniform policies to deal not just with permission for animal slaughter, but also with permissions for other religious activities.

"This will also reduce litigation ahead of various religious festivals every year," the bench said.

The directions came while the bench was hearing a writ petition filed by a local NGO -- the Jiv Maitri Trust.

The NGO claimed that there were errors in the online system of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for granting permission for animal slaughter this Bakr-Eid, which would be celebrated tomorrow.

The NGO had filed the plea through advocates Sujay Kantawala and Ashish Mehta.

The NGO told the HC that the BMC had been granting permission for slaughter via an online mechanism that generated permission receipts in a PDF format without verifying the details submitted by the applicants.

On a previous hearing last week, Kantawala had told the high court that several lawyers had submitted fictitious names and addresses and secured permission for slaughter of goats inside the courtroom of the Bombay HC, through the online mechanism.

The BMC then temporarily stopped granting online permissions for slaughter.

BMC counsel Anil Sakhre today told the HC that the civic body had revised its online mechanism and made it more stringent.

"Henceforth, all applicants would be required to submit copies of valid ID cards and address proof etc. to seek such permission," he said.

The counsel said the applicant would also have to comply with the BMC's conditions on marinating hygiene, carrying out the slaughter within a confined space, and following civic body's directions on waste collection, and disposal.

The corporation has so far granted online permission for slaughter of 1,60,000 goats in Mumbai this Bakr-Eid, he said.

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The Madras High Court today dismissed a habeas corpus petition seeking the release of pro-Tamil activist Thirumurugan Gandhi, noting that it was not maintainable as he had been remanded in judicial custody by a competent court after being arrested recently.

A division bench comprising Justice C T Selvam and Justice Nirmalkumar directed Gandhi to approach the appropriate court for regular bail.

The habeas corpus petition, usually filed to set at liberty a person in illegal detention, was moved by the father of Gandhi, who is the coordinator of the May 17 Movement, a rights group.

The petitioner alleged that his son had been kept under illegal detention by the police even after refusal of a magistrate to remand him in police custody after his arrest on August 9 at Bengaluru airport.

He sought a direction to the police to produce his son in the court and set him at liberty.

In its order, the bench noted that the activist had been arrested by police again on August 11 in connection with a case registered in September last year and produced before a metropolitan magistrate's court in the city which remanded him in judicial custody.

The case was related to a rally taken out by Gandhi and his supporters in the city on September 20 last year.

"Writ of habeas corpus is not to be entertained when a person is committed to judicial or police custody by the competent court by an order which prima facie does not appear to have been passed without jurisdiction or in an absolutely mechanical manner or wholly illegal," the bench said.

The order noted that Gandhi was arrested on August 9 at Bengaluru airport based on a lookout circular issued by the Chennai police over a Facebook post about his speech at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The speech in which he had raised the issue of police firing during the protest against Sterlite copper plant in Tuticorin that left 13 people dead was translated and posted on Facebook with an intention to cause riot and fear among the public, it was stated.

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The Delhi High Court today expressed dissatisfaction over reports filed by the Delhi Police in a case relating to a major fire at a rubber godown in South Delhi in May this year.

A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao said the status report and enquiry report filed the Delhi Police Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of Police (South district) have not given the details of the FIR lodged in the incident and the "proposed accused".

The bench said the reports only point out that statements of several persons were recorded by the police.

It said the reports do not indicate whether any FIR was lodged, the sections invoked, offence and details of the accused.

"Except for recording statements of certain persons, no details have been given by Delhi Police regarding FIR and the provisions invoked. We are not satisfied," the bench said.

When the court was informed that an FIR has been registered in the incident, the bench directed the police to bring on record the details of the FIR nd listed the matter for further hearing on September 28.

The court had earlier taken cognisance, on its own, of reports of the fire in a rubber godown in South Delhi's Malviya Nagar on May 29. The fire started in a truck loaded with inflammable rubber sheets and spread to the godown in the congested locality.

The massive fire was controlled after 20 hours when up to 90 fire tenders were pressed into action along with a helicopter of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and 8,000 litres of water was used to douse it of.

Regarding reimbursement of the expenses incurred by the IAF for using its helicopter to douse of the fire, the court said this aspect will be considered after completion of pleadings in the matter.

The high court had earlier said imperiling human life due to extreme congestion and pollution, generation of hazardous affluence and extreme pressure on fire services and police cannot be tolerated.

The court had issued show cause notices to South Delhi Municipal Corporation, Delhi Fire Services, Delhi Police and owner of the property where the fire incident happened.

It directed the Delhi Police commissioner to call for an inquiry and place complete information about the property owner, occupiers, dates of its construction and when commercial use commenced and whether it has a sanctioned plan.

The bench also directed the chief fire officer, Delhi Police and Indian Air Force to place before it the details of expenditure in facilitating the operation of extinguishing the fire.

The fire was brought under control on May 30 with the help of the IAF, which conducted a 'Bambi Bucket' operation. It was the first time that a Bambi Bucket operation was carried out by the Air Force in an urban setting, the IAF had said in a statement.

The police has arrested Sanjay Saini, owner of the godown. It was found that he was storing inflammable materials without proper permission from the MCD and there were no fire safety measures in place at the godown, police had said.

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The Madras High Court today asked the Tamil Nadu government to inform it about the status of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa's petition in the Supreme Court seeking retrieval of Katchatheevu islet ceded by India to Sri Lanka in the 1970s.

It gave the directive during a hearing of a petition by Fishermen Care, an NGO, seeking to refer the matter of alleged human rights violations of Indian fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy for the past 34 to the International Court of Justice for 'breach' of the Indo-Sri Lanka agreement.

Jayalalithaa had in 2008 moved the apex court in her capacity as the AIADMK general secretary, seeking a direction to the Union government to declare as null and void the 1974 and 1976 agreements under which Katchatheevu was ceded, saying the accords were the root cause of the untold misery suffered by the state's fishermen.

When the petition by Fishermen Care came up for hearing, a division bench comprising justices S Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad ordered the government to submit within 10 days the status about Jayalalithaa's plea.

Meanwhile, in a counter affidavit, the Additional Director of Fisheries detailed steps taken by the state government on the issue of arrests and attacks on the fishermen in the Palk Bay.

It said 85 Indian fishermen had been killed and 180 others injured in 168 incidents of firing by Lankan Naval personnel from 1991 to 2013. Thereafter, in a stray incident of shooting, 21-year-old fisherman Bridgo died and two others were injured.

The counter affidavit said the agreement signed between India and Sri Lanka on June 28, 1974 had determined Katchatheevu as a part of Sri Lanka and the islet was ceded by the Indian government "unilaterally" without obtaining the consent of both houses of Parliament.

The Tamil Nadu government was neither consulted nor taken into confidence before signing the 1974 agreement. It had later taken proactive steps for retrieving the islet and to protect the traditional fishing rights of the state fishermen in the Palk Bay.

Following an assembly resolution in June, 2011, the state revenue department, the custodian of the records pertaining to the ownership of Katchatheevu, had been impleaded in the petition filed by Jayalalithaa, the counter affidavit said.

The state assembly passed another resolution in March 2013, urging the Centre to take steps to get Katchatheevu back.

It was also submitted that as of August 16 this year, a total of 3,033 fishermen and 393 fishing boats, detained by the Sri Lankan Navy from 2011, had been released and brought back to the state.

At present, 29 fishermen and 177 boats were still in Sri Lankan custody.

The state chief minister had brought each and every incident of arrest of fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy to the notice of the prime minister and sought action to secure the release of all those in Lankan custody, the counter affidavit added.

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The Allahabad High Courttoday sought response of the Uttar Pradesh government on a PIL urging the court to intervene in the allegedconstitution of Hindu courts on pattern of Sharia courts by an organisation in several western districts of the state.

A bench comprising Chief Justice DB Bhosale and Justice Yashwant Varma asked the petitioner, Ankit Singh, to implead Puja Sakun Pandey, a judge of the purported "Hindu Court".

It asked counsel for the state government to apprise it of their stand on September 11, the next date of hearing of the PIL filed against the alleged constitution of Hindu courts.

Singh, a resident of Kanpur district, has filed the Public Interest Litigation citing media reports that claimed a decision was taken by a Hindu organisation to constitute Hindu courts in every district on the pattern of Sharia courts of Islam and urged the high court to intervene.

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Honda Cars India (HCIL) today said its newly launched compact sedan Amaze has clocked over 30,000 unit sales in the first three months of launch, thus becoming its best-selling new model ever.

The car has recorded over 30,000 sales in the first three months of launch, which is the highest sales number recorded by any new model launched by HCIL in its 20-year history, the company said in a statement.

HCIL Director, Sales and Marketing, Makoto Hyoda said the new Amaze has been built on all new platform and developed as a proper sedan from ground-up, helping it stand apart from the rest.

"The customers have really appreciated this aspect and accepted the car very well," he said.

The robust response to the new Amaze has driven up the company's cumulative sales in the April-July period, which grew by 12.5 per cent to 62,579 units as against 55,647 units in the year-ago period, HCIL said.

India is the first country where Honda has launched the all-new Amaze, which also has the first diesel automatic transmission (CVT) variant.

The petrol CVT (continuously variable transmission) and diesel CVT have accounted for more than 30 per cent of the total Amaze sales since its launch in May this year, it said.

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The Himachal Pradesh government has decided to recommend a CBI probe into the alleged frauds in disbursal of scholarship to students in the state, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said.

The government decided to go in for a CBI probe into the alleged frauds and irregularities in disbursal of the scholarships, being investigated by the state agencies since 2013-14.

The decision was taken during a meeting of senior officers, convened by the chief minister to review the implementation of the scholarship schemes of the state and the Centre.

The meeting was convened days after the Centre reportedly sought the status of the state's ongoing probe into the irregularities in disbursal of the scholarship to students.

A racket of embezzlement of scholarship funds worth crores of rupees on the basis of allegedly fake admissions in Himachal's private educational institution had been reported earlier.

During the meeting to review the implementation of the scholarship schemes, Chief Minister Thakur sought to stem the rot in it and ordered that no scholarship should be given to a student unless he provides his Aadhar number.

He also ordered to ensure that the scholarship of only one student should be credited to his duly verified bank account.

Thakur warned that no lapse or irregularity would be tolerated in implementation of the scholarship schemes, which are meant to benefit the students belonging to the schedule castes, scheduled tribes, backward classes and minority communities of the society.

Education Minister Suresh Bhardwaj, Chief Secretary Vineet Chawdhry and other senior officers of the state government were present in the meeting.

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Employees of the Puducherry government working in Puducherry region would get 16 per cent of their basic pay as House Rent Allowance as recommended by the Seventh Pay Commission.

Chief Minister V Narayanasamy in a release today said the government had decided to enforce the allowance as per the Commission report and the staff would get the new pattern of HRA from the current month.

He said employees in the other regions of Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam would get eight per cent of the basic pay as HRA as per the commission's recommendation.

The chief minister said although the territorial government was reeling under fiscal crisis, the role played by the government staff in taking benefits of various welfare schemes to the people "is laudable."



It was therefore decided to ensure that the HRA as recommended by the Seventh Pay commission is implemented, he said.

The new HRA would entail an expenditure of around Rs 6 crore every month.

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran had to develop its military forces to prevent other states taking over its territory and resources.

"We should make ourselves ready to fight against the military powers who want to take over our territory and our resources," Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live on state television on National Defence Industry Day.

He said Iran's military prowess was what deterred Washington from attacking it, adding that under President Donald Trump the United States was becoming isolated even from its own allies.

"Why does the United States not attack us? Because of our power, because it knows the consequences," Reuters cited Rouhani as saying.
Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki flagged off trucks carrying relief material worth over Rs one crore for the flood victims of Kerala from here today.

An estimated 223 people have lost their lives since August 8 in Kerala's worst floods in nearly a century which also forced more than 10 lakh people out of their homes.

"The relief material worth over Rs 1 crore being sent for the relief and rehabilitation of flood victims of Kerala is donated by the Indian Red Cross Society, Haryana Branch.

"The material includes blankets, bed sheets, clothes, washing powder, sugar, toothpaste etc. Along with this one ambulance, two officers of the Red Cross and five volunteers have also gone to help the flood victims in Kerala," an official spokesman said here.

The spokesman said that the governor appreciated the efforts done by the District Red Cross Society Kurukshetra, Panchkula, Yamunanagar, Faridabad and Panipat for collecting the relief material.

On the occasion, the governor said the people of Haryana and Haryana Red Cross Society always remain ready to help the victims of any calamity in any area of the country.

He expressed his deep grief over the loss of life and property due to floods in Kerala and wished that the people who have suffered from this disaster soon return to their homes and lead a normal life.

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The Hyderabad High Court today stayed all further proceedings, including the direction for appearing in person by a single judge, in a contempt plea filed by two Congress MLAs over non-restoration of their membership despite the court's order.

On August 14, Justice B Siva Sankara Rao, while dealing with a contempt plea filed by expelled Congress lawmakers Komatireddy Venkata Reddy and S A Sampath Kumar, against the Telangana Legislative Assembly secretary and law secretary, had also issued notices to the two officials.

The judge also issued notice under Form 1 of the Contempt of Courts Act, directing them to respond as to why they should not be punished for contempt of the court.

The judge also directed them to appear before the court on September 17.

A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Thottathil Bhaskaran Nair Radhakrishnan and Justice V Ramasubramanian, today observed that the appeals filed by the secretary, state legislature and the law secretary raised many important questions in constitutional interpretation on the power of judicial review in matters concerning the proceedings of the House.

The bench directed the appeals to be posted after four weeks.

On March 13, the two MLAs were expelled from the Telangana Legislative Assembly, a day after "unruly" incidents during the Governor's address to the joint sitting of legislature.

Subsequently, the two had jointly filed a petition in the High Court, challenging their expulsion from the Assembly.

On April 17, the High Court quashed the notification issued by the Legislature Secretary expelling the two MLAs.

Again in June this year, the two expelled Congress MLAs had filed a contempt plea against the Telangana legislature secretary and law secretary for not restoring their membership.

They had also complained that police have not restored their security which they were enjoying prior to their expulsion.

Justice Sankara Rao also impleaded the Telangana director general of police and superintendents' of police of Nalgonda and Jogulamba Gadwal districts, asking them why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against them for their 'failure' to provide police security to them (Reddy and Kumar).

The judge had last week also issued a show cause notice to the speaker of the legislative Assembly directing him to explain as to why action cannot be initiated against him for Contempt of Court.

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His upcoming Uttar Pradesh-set satire "Hotel Milan" deals with anti-Romeo squads but director Vishal Mishra says he doesn't expect any protests over the film.

Starring Kunal Roy Kapur, Jaideep Ahlawat and Zeeshan Qadri in pivotal roles, the film chronicles the story of two friends who decide to run 'Hotel Milan', a destination for lovers to meet.

Things change when they are attacked by the anti-Romeo squad and political hooligans.

When asked if he fears that the criticism of anti-Romeo squad will lead to protests or banning of the film, the director told reporters, "I am not expecting anything so immature. There's no issue with them (the UP government).

"They have 1000 types of policies, and out of those this is one (anti-Romeo squad), with which we have a major issue with so, we have highlighted this," he said at the trailer launch of the film here.

The trailer of the comedy-drama begins with a visual of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath along with a voice over which describes the objectives of the anti-Romeo squad.

"There's no message for the young people. The message is for people above them, they who come in the first 10-12 seconds of the trailer, the message is for them. Young couples are sorted," Mishra said.

The film is scheduled to be released on September 14.

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Swedish furniture retail company IKEA has evinced interest in sourcing products from West Bengal, state Finance Minister Amit Mitra today said.

The multinational retail chain recently opened its first store in India at Hyderabad.

Mitra, addressing the concluding session of a two-day MSME conclave, said IKEA has decided to source Rs 2,000-crore worth bamboo and natural fibre from India.

"West Bengal is a big producer of bamboo. People from IKEA came to meet me and had detailed discussions on their interest in the state," he said, without divulging details.

The minister said the state government has set a target for creating one lakh entrepreneurs in the next two years.

Talking of bank finance to MSMEs, Mitra said the aim is to provide loans worth Rs 80,000 crore to the segment in the next two years, adding, the government would explore the possibility of roping in state cooperative banks for this purpose.

The target set for the current fiscal is Rs 50,000 crore, he said.

The West Bengal government has earmarked 2,000 acres of land for setting up 30 MSME industrial parks across the state.

During the conclave, entrepreneurs were able to clinch export orders worth Rs 113 crore, Mitra said.

Several MoUs were signed for promotion and export of handicraft, leather, apparel, and gem and jewellery products of the state, he said.

The government has also inked two MoUs with the NSE and the BSE to help MSMEs migrate to the IPO level.

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The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has extended financial and material assistance to Kerala which is struggling to find its feet after the devastating deluge that left 223 dead in a fortnight and forced over 10 lakh people out of their homes.

More than Rs one crore has been handed over to the state, along with relief materials sent from regional branches, IMA president Dr Ravi Wankhedkar said.

A national coordination committee, under the leadership former chief of IMA Dr Vinay Aggarwal, has been formed, while the rescue and relief operations were being monitored by Dr Wankhedkar.

"The committee's focus is on providing immediate medical assistance to those rescued from the flooded areas.

"Over 500 rescue camps with medical professionals have been deployed for this purpose and the IMA has instructed all private hospitals to provide free consultation services to flood affected people," the IMA president said.

"To rescue them, we have also arranged for a free ambulance service throughout the state and medicines worth over Rs 50 Lakh have been distributed," Dr Wankhedkar said.

The IMA State Research Cell, in association with government agencies was preparing a document on the impact of flood on the health of people, and possible avenues of managing the same. It would be finalised by the first week of September.

"We believe that the rescue work will be completed soon and the next focus will be on relief and rehabilitation. Manpower will be mobilized to over 1800 rescue camps and ambulance network will continue to provide its free services.

"Over 1,000 medical students have volunteered to assist in providing medical services," Dr Aggarwal said.

Moreover, the national coordination committee of the IMA has ensured safe drinking water, proper hand hygiene and waste management to curb the threat of spread of infectious diseases.

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The inclement weather and heavy rains in Kerala have hit the tourism sector in the neighbouring state, a senior industry official said.

Places like Kottayam and Kumarakom have been largely impacted since these places see large number of international tourist arrivals, SOTC Travel Head-Sales, India and NRI markets, Daniel D'Souza, told PTI.

"Impact of floods is there (in Kerala). Actually, tourist arrivals for Onam celebrations is a complete wash out (this time)," he said.

To a query, he said, if the rains had occurred during December, it would have had larger impact on tourism because of Christmas and New year celebrations.

Responding to a query whether the tourism sector would be affected due to the fluctuation of Indian rupee over USD, he said, "it may be a concern on the long run."



"From a customer point of view, if it (INR) continues to be volatile, then he may change (tour) plans. Instead of doing a 10-day tour, he may go for eight-days," he said.

D'Souza claimed the SOTC witnessed a 25-30 per cent growth in the number of tourists visiting South India following tailored packages offered for travellers last year.

"Cities like Salem, Coimbatore, Chennai, Erode and Puducherry continue to show impressive growth," he said, adding that his company would set up an office in Andaman shortly as it was offering huge potential.

An estimated 223 people have lost their lives since August 8 in Kerala's worst floods in decades which also forced more than 10 lakh people out of their homes.

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CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury today urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to increase the central assistance for flood-ravaged Kerala to Rs. 2,000 crore and to seek help from United Nations aid agencies to rebuild houses in the state.

In a letter to Modi, he thanked the prime minister for announcing a flood relief of Rs. 500 crore to Kerala but said the amount was "inadequate" considering the scale of damage caused in the southern state.

"I would request you to increase this amount to Rs. 2,000 crore. New homes will have to be built for lakhs of people. Under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, funds must be released for this purpose. I would also urge the central government to take up this matter with UN agencies, seeking assistance for building new homes," Yechury wrote in the letter.

He said that help is pouring in from various quarters and Malayalee organisations abroad have been sending medical equipment to Kerala.

"I request you to waive the duties on such materials, as they are being sent for urgent relief and rehabilitation work," he appealed to the prime minister.

The CPI(M) leader said the unprecedented floods have destroyed hundreds of bridges and roads in the state. He urged central government agencies such as the National Highway Authority to deploy their resources and personnel in the state.

The Indian Army's Engineering Corps and the Border Roads Organisation that have rich experience in building roads and bridges under difficult circumstances must be asked to assist the state government, he said.

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Prime Minister on Tuesday said India and China are handling their differences with "sensitivity and maturity" by not allowing them to become disputes and this was evident from peace in border areas.

Modi also termed India-China relations as a factor of stability in the world and appreciated the increased momentum of high-level contacts between the two countries across all spheres, including in areas of defence and military exchanges.

He made these remarks when State Councillor and Defence Minister of China General Wei Fenghe called on him here on Tuesday, according to a statement from the Prime Minister's Office.

"Terming India-China relations as a factor of stability in the world, the prime minister said that maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas is indicative of the sensitivity and maturity with which India and China handle their differences, not allowing them to become disputes," the PMO said.

Prime Minister Modi also warmly recalled his recent meetings with President in Wuhan, Qingdao and Johannesburg.

The Chinese defence minister's four-day visit to India, beginning today, is being seen as a significant development by officials on both sides to improve communications and atmospherics between militaries of the two countries after last year's 73-day Doklam standoff.

According to official sources here, the primary objective of Wei's visit is to deliberate with Indian defence establishment on implementation of decisions taken by Modi and Xi in their informal summit in Wuhan in April, including for improving mutual trust and avoid repeat of any Doklam-like face-offs.

In the summit, Modi and Xi had resolved to open a new chapter in ties and had directed their militaries to boost coordination along the border, months after the most serious military faceoff in decades between the two nuclear-armed neighbours in Doklam triggered fears of a war.

Wei, who is a key member in China's State Council -- the executive organ of China's central government -- is scheduled to hold restricted as well as delegation-level talks with Sitharaman tomorrow.
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe will hold extensive talks on Thursday, focus of which will be to remove distrust and boost coordination between the armies of the two neighbours guarding their disputed border, official sources said.

Wei arrived here today on a four-day visit, nearly three-and-half months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that strategic communication between the two armies should be enhanced to avoid Doklam-like standoffs.

The Chinese defence minister met Modi today during which the PM said both the countries are handling their differences with "sensitivity and maturity" by not allowing them to become disputes.

Sources said the primary objective of Wei's visit is to deliberate with Indian defence establishment on implementation of decisions taken by Modi and Xi during the informal summit in Wuhan in April.

In the delegation level talks, the Indian side is likely to raise the issue of presence of sizeable number of Chinese troops in North Doklam.

Doklam, in the Sikkim sector, is a strategically important area which is claimed by Bhutan. India has been acting as security guarantor to the tiny country in the sensitive region.

The two sides are likely to deliberate on a mechanism under which troops from both sides will inform each other before carrying out any patrolling on the disputed areas along the nearly 4,000-km border.

The sources said both sides will also attempt to resolve differences in setting up of a hotline between the armies of the two countries.

After the Wuhan summit, both sides revived the long-pending proposal to set up the hotline so as to avoid flare-ups along the disputed border. But, the initiative hit roadblocks over differences on issues relating to protocol and technical aspect of the hotline.

The Indian Army has been maintaining that the hotline should be between its Director General of Military Operations (DGMOs) and his equivalent official in Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). However, Beijing proposed that the deputy commander of its Chengdu-based Western Theatre Command would engage with the Indian DGMO.

The Indian Army is opposed to the Chinese proposal, insisting that an officer equivalent to Indian DGMO at PLA's headquarters should be deputed for the communication through the hotline.

Currently, India and Pakistan have a hotline between their DGMOs.The hotline between India and China was first mooted by the two countries in 2013.

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India is expected to resume 4-5 lakh tonnes of rapeseed meal exports to China after a gap of nearly six years, a senior industry official said.

"Following the meeting of commerce ministry officials, Indian ambassador to China and industry members, we expect the rapeseed meal exports to China is expected to resume soon. The export of rapeseed to China was banned in 2012. We have enough stocks and industry can export 4-5 lakh tonnes of rapeseed meal to China," the Solvent Extractors' Association (SEA) executive director B V Mehta told reporters here.

India's exports of rapeseed meal to China was suspended by the Chinese government in 2012 over quality issues.

The trade war between US and China has opened the avenues for export and China is looking at India for rapeseed meal supply that will fulfil Chinese standards. Before 2012, India exported 4 lakh tonnes of oilmeals (1 lakh tonnes soymeal and 3 lakh tonnes rapeseed meal) to China worth about Rs 600-700 crore, Mehta said.

The Chinese government also recently announced that it will reduce tariffs on soybean imported from India, South Korea, Bangladesh, Laos, and Sri Lanka from the current three per cent to zero amidst a looming trade war with the US.

SEA noted that the import of vegetable oils during July 2018 is reported at 1,119,538 tonnes compared to 1,524,724 tonnes in July 2017. This consists of 1,053,713 tonnes of edible oils and 65,825 tonnes of non-edible oils, which is down by 27 pe cent.

The overall import of vegetable oils during November 2017 to July 2018 is reported at 10,766,076 tonnes compared to 11,392,296 tonnes, down by 5.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, in view of boosting the trade, Globoil India - the international conference on vegetable oil, feed and feed ingredients, oilseeds and oleo chemicals will be organised between September, 26-28 in Mumbai.

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Russia and Egypt have discussed ways to expand their military ties and boost anti-terrorism cooperation, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said during Mondays talks with his Egyptian counterpart, Mohamed Zaki.

According to Shoigu, Moscow strongly supports Egypts efforts to combat militants in the Sinai Peninsula. He said the Russian military is ready to share the experience of its military campaign in Syria with Egypt, TASS reported.

Zaki, in turn, noted that Moscow and Cairo have a shared view of current security challenges.
The government is unlikely to accept any foreign financial assistance for flood relief operations in Kerala, official sources said.

They said government has taken a considered decision to rely solely on domestic efforts to tide over the situation.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has offered $100 million (around Rs 700 crore) as financial assistance for flood relief operation in Kerala.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, called up Prime Minister Modi and made the offer for assistance, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in Thiruvananthapuram.

Around three million Indians live and work in the UAE out of which 80 per cent are from Kerala.

The government of Maldives has also decided to donate $50,000 (Rs 35 lakh) for flood affected people in Kerala.

It is understood that the UN is also offering some assistance for Kerala.

However, sources said India is unlikely to accept the assistance.

The floods in Kerala, worst in a century, have claimed lives of 231 people besides rendering over 14 lakh people homeless.
An Indian students' group in Britain today called for action to support members who had been subjected to a fake calls scam, which involves fraudsters claiming to be from the UK Home Office and threatening innocent students with deportation.

Indian National Students Association (INSA) UK resolved at its annual National Executive meeting in London over the weekend to provide support to students affected by the scam.

"At the meeting, representatives from Westminster University and King's College London chapters highlighted the issue of fake calls being made to Indian students and resolved to provide support to those affected," INSA UK said in a statement.

The case of Hardik Somani, from Westminster University, emerged as a case study after he was targeted by fraudsters posing as "officials of the Home Office".

He was threatened with immediate deportation for failing to fill out paperwork "correctly" and was warned he faced a 10-year ban from the UK unless he paid a "fine" of up to 6,500 pounds. INSA UK said it supported him through the process of alerting the UK authorities.

Shweta Kulkarni, President of the students' body, said: "INSA UK was set up to speak up on behalf of Indian students and we are keen to address all issues of concern, including such fake calls and visa hurdles.

"We urge the authorities to take action against the fraudsters and increase the level of support for the targeted students."



A Home Office spokesperson said: "Legitimate Home Office officials will never contact individuals to demand payment over the phone for visa fees or fines.

"Anyone who thinks they have been a victim of fraud should contact the police."



Earlier this month, another Indian students' body the National Indian Students and Alumni Union (NISAU) UK and the University of Manchester had issued alerts directed at Indian students, warning them to be wary of such scam phone calls.

It called on students not to engage with such callers, who use software to create "spoof" numbers that may seem legitimate.

"The fraudster may use the terms 'deportation notice', 'alien registration form' and 'late fee charges'... Do not make any payment... Report the matter to Action Fraud," the advisory said.

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The Indian women's volleyball team slumped to its second consecutive defeat at the Asian Games, losing 0-3 to Vietnam in a Pool B preliminary match here today.

The Indians gave a good fight to their opponents in the first two sets before losing the encounter 18-25 22-25 13-25 that lasted an over and six minutes.

India had earlier lost by the same 0-3 margin against Korea in their opening fixture on August 19.

The Indians are lying at the bottom of six-team Pool B and will next play Kazakhstan on Thursday.

The two defeats have made life difficult for the Indian women and they would look to return to winning ways for harbouring hopes of progressing to the knockout stages of the competition.

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The Delhi High Court today directed the Centre to indicate in two weeks the timeframe within which it will put in place regulations to deal with the problem posed by e-cigarettes, which have been banned by several states and Union territories, including the national capital.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had told the court that e-cigarettes was an emerging threat and nicotine addiction among young people through such devices may lead them to trying conventional tobacco products.

The central government today told the court that it was still "deliberating" on the issue of banning e-cigarettes, prompting a bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao to ask for a timeframe within which the regulations would be put in place and implemented.

"You (ministry) have been deliberating since 2017. What do you propose to do? It is an important issue with regard to schools and educational institutions. There was a particular timeframe within which it (regulations) should have been put in place," it said.

The bench warned the central government that if the court was not satisfied by the affidavit, indicating the timeframe, it would be constrained to take action against the officials concerned.

With the warning, the court listed the matter for further hearing on September 7.

The Delhi government recently told the court that it has initiated steps to completely ban the production, sale and supply of e-cigarettes and steps were being taken to create public awareness.

In an affidavit, the Directorate General of Health Services said preparation of e-cigarettes and e-liquids containing nicotine was contrary to the provisions of Drugs and Cosmetics Act (DCA).

The DGHS had said in the affidavit that only a certain kind of nicotine preparation is allowed under the DCA.

Electronic, vapour, electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), e-cigarettes and e-liquids do not fall in the categories of preparations that are allowed under the Act.

E-cigarettes are hand-held devices which help to create the feeling of tobacco smoking. Various manufacturers of the device say the e-liquid inside the device heats up when activated and creates an aerosolised vapour which provides a flavour similar to tobacco.

The court was hearing a plea filed by Seema Sehgal, a homemaker, who has sought directions to the governments to formulate a policy and guidelines for advertisements and regulation of sale, production and supply of the product.

The plea has sought directions to authorities to inform the public about the harmful effects of e-cigarettes. It has claimed that e-liquids comprise a solution of liquid nicotine.

The petition has said the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003, which governs the tobacco consumption law, does not provide for the use of e-liquids containing nicotine.

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An Indonesian court has sentenced a woman who complained about a noisy mosque to 18 months in prison for blasphemy.

The ethnic Chinese woman, Meiliana, burst into tears as a judge announced the sentence Tuesday. She was taken from the court in handcuffs.

Prosecutors said the 44-year-old defendant violated Indonesia's criminal code by committing blasphemy against Islam, the dominant faith in Indonesia.

Mobs burned and ransacked at least 14 Buddhist temples throughout Tanjung Balai, a port town on Sumatra, in a July 2016 riot following reports of Meiliana's complaint about a mosque's noisy loudspeakers.

The woman's lawyer said the sentence would be appealed.

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A woman in Muslim-majority Indonesia was sentenced to 18 months in jail today for complaining about the volume of a mosque's call to prayer -- the latest conviction under a controversial blasphemy law.

Meiliana, 44, an ethnic Chinese Buddhist, was found guilty of insulting Islam for asking her neighbourhood mosque to lower its sound system because it was too loud and "hurt" her ears.

There are some 800,000 mosques across the archipelago, with the five-times-a-day call to prayer heard everywhere in the biggest cities and smallest towns.

Today's verdict will likely fuel fears that Indonesia's moderate brand of Islam is coming under threat from increasingly influential radicals.

The court in the city of Medan on Sumatra island said the woman's comments two years ago triggered riots that saw angry Muslim mobs ransack Buddhist temples.

Some ethnic Chinese in the area fled in fear.

The defendant's lawyer said his client would appeal the decision.

Indonesia, which has the world's biggest Muslim population, is officially pluralist with six major religions recognised, including Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism.

Freedom of expression is supposed to be guaranteed by law. But criticising religion -- particularly Islam, which is followed by nearly 90 percent of Indonesia's 260 million citizens -- can land offenders in jail.

Rights groups have long campaigned against the nation's blasphemy laws, which they say are frequently misused to target minorities.

Last year Jakarta's former governor -- the city's first Christian leader of Chinese descent -- was sentenced to two years in jail for blasphemy.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla made a plea in 2015 for places of worship to turn down the volume slightly to placate nearby residents.

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Tehelka magazine's founder Tarun Tejpal, accused in a case of alleged rape lodged by a former woman colleague, today told the Supreme Court that the police officer who was investigating the case against him was also the informant.

A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan was told by senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Tejpal, that the apex court had recently ruled that informant and investigator cannot be the same person.

The bench said it will go through the verdict delivered on August 16, which said that "justice must not only be done, but must appear to be done also. Any possibility of bias or a predetermined conclusion has to be excluded".

It adjourned the matter for further hearing for next week.

The verdict delivered by a bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi had held that "a fair investigation, which is but the very foundation of fair trial, necessarily postulates that the informant and the investigator must not be the same person".

On April 9, the apex court had directed a Goa court to complete the trial against Tejpal within a year.

Tejpal had challenged the Bombay High Court's December 20, 2017 order dismissing his plea for quashing of rape charges.

He had argued that there were several inconsistencies in the statements recorded by the victim and the CCTV footage but the trial court has not considered it.

He had contended when the proceedings had started, the police had not given him the clone copy of cell phone saying there was no such technology available.

Tejpal is alleged to have sexually assaulted a former colleague inside the elevator of a five-star hotel in Goa in 2013. He has denied all allegations levelled against him. He was arrested on November 30, 2013 by the Crime Branch after his anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the court. He has been out on bail since May 2014.

Earlier, Tejpal had claimed there were certain inconsistencies in the video recordings and the statements of the victim recorded under section 164 of CrPC before the magistrate.

The Bombay High Court bench in Goa had on December 20 last year dismissed Tejpal's plea seeking quashing of charges against him.

The trial court in Mapusa town of Goa had framed charges against Tejpal under various sections of IPC, including alleged sexual harassment and provisions related to rape.

On December 6 last year, the apex court had asked the lower court to start examining witnesses in the 2013 case, saying there would be no stay of the trial.

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Iran unveiled its first domestic fighter jet at a defence show in Tehran today.

Images on state television showed President Hassan Rouhani sitting in the cockpit of the new "Kowsar" plane at the National Defence Industry exhibition.

It is a fourth-generation fighter, with "advanced avionics" and multi-purpose radar, the Tasnim agency said, adding that it was "100-percent indigenously made".

State TV said the plane had already been through successful testing and showed it waiting on a runway for its first public display flight.

The plane was first publicly announced on Saturday by Defence Minister Amir Hatami, who had said it would be unveiled on Wednesday.

He gave few details of the project, focusing instead on Iran's efforts to upgrade its missile defences.

Hatami said the defence programme was motivated by memories of the missile attacks Iran suffered during its eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, and by repeated threats from Israel and the United States that "all options are on the table" in dealing with the Islamic republic.

"We have learned in the (Iran-Iraq) war that we cannot rely on anyone but ourselves. Our resources are limited and we are committed to establishing security at a minimum cost," he said in a televised interview.

The US has sold hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons to Iran's regional rivals, but has demanded that Tehran curb its defence programmes, and is in the process of reimposing crippling sanctions in a bid to force its capitulation.

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The staff of J&K Bank will contribute Rs 11 crore to help the flood-affected people of Kerala, a spokesperson for the bank said today.

While most of the staffers are donating their six days' salary towards the relief fund in the southern state, the top executives helped enhance the scale of contribution with their salary of up to two months.

The staff of the bank has decided to donate six days of their salary to the flood victims in Kerala, a spokesperson for the leading bank of the state said.

The Chairman and CEO of the bank, Parvez Ahmed, shall be contributing two months' salary while the executive presidents will donate their one month salary towards the cause, he said.

Expressing solidarity with the flood-affected people, Ahmed said "natural disasters of this proportion leave a trail of devastation. They destroy people's homes and crops, lives, bankrupt businesses, and shatter the sense of safety we enjoy as humans.

"Having experienced devastating deluge only a few years back, we understand the miseries and are deeply saddened at the unprecedented destruction and hardship that the people of Kerala have been facing in the wake of worst ever floods in the state," he said.

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Jammu and Kashmir BJP president Ravinder Raina today said all 41 lawmakers of the party from the state, including four members of Parliament and 26 MLAs, will donate their one month's salary to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund (PMRF) for flood victims in Kerala.

As many as 500 full time party workers have also come forward to work as volunteers in the flood-affected areas of the coastal state and are waiting for a nod from the party's central leadership, Raina told reporters here.

Three BJP members of the Lok Sabha from the state, including Union Minister Jitendra Singh, one Rajya Sabha member, 26 members of the Legislative Assembly and 11 members of the Legislative Council would donate one month's salary to the PMRF, he said.

He requested people of the state to donate generously for the flood affected state.

The BJP leader said it was the duty of every citizen of the country to come forward and contribute towards re-development of the flood-hit state.

"We faced a similar situation in 2014, and the whole nation stood with us. Today, they need our help and so we should offer every possible financial and other assistance for the people of Kerala, lakhs of whom have been rendered homeless," he said.

Raina said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was monitoring the rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts.

Meanwhile, he said the 'Asthi Kalash' of former prime minister A B Vajpayee would be brought to the party headquarters from Delhi tomorrow, and subsequently immersed in the Tawi, Jhelum and Sindhu rivers.

"A part of the Asthi Kalash of the departed leader is reaching party headquarters from Delhi tomorrow. We appeal nationalists, including leaders of political parties, to come and pay their tributes to the great leader," he said.

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U.S. President Donald Trump's statement that he would be ready to consider the possibility of lifting the US sanctions on Russia, is of a declarative nature and can be a deliberate deception, the chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on International Affairs, Leonid Slutsky said.

Earlier, Trump said that the question of lifting US sanctions on Russia was not brought up during his recent meeting with Vladimir Putin, however, he stated a condition for its possible withdrawal. "I would consider it if they do something that would be good for us. But I wouldnt consider it without that," he said.

Trump added that at the meeting the parties talked about Israel, Syria, Ukraine, Crimea, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project.
Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra today expressed grief over the loss of lives in an accident in the state's Kishtwar district.

In the tragic accident, a van carrying pilgrims to the Mata Machail temple skidded off the road and fell into the Chenab river in Kishtwar, killing all 13 occupants of the vehicle.

The deceased included 11 pilgrims and the driver and conductor of the van.

The Governor conveyed his sympathy to the next of kin of the deceased passengers, a Raj Bhawan spokesperson said.

Vohra, who has repeatedly expressed concern over the recurring road accidents, directed the Divisional Commissioners of Jammu and Kashmir to ensure that the Deputy Commissioners convene immediate meetings of the District Road Safety Committees, the spokesperson said.

The Governor will chair a meeting on Saturday to review the causes of the recurring fatal accidents, he said.

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Remembering the inundation of Srinagar when heavy rains lashed the Valley in 2014, some people here have decided to reach out to the victims of the floods in Kerala.

"We have collected donations from local people, including businessmen, and are dispatching food packets to Kerala for the flood victims," said Zubair Ahmad, who has organising a fund-raising drive.

Similarly, the staff at J&K Bank will contribute Rs 11 crore to help Kerala, a spokesperson said.

The BJP's Jammu and Kashmir unit today said all its 41 lawmakers from the state, including four MPs, will donate a month's salary to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund to help the flood victims in Kerala.

Zubair Ahmad's group is sending food packets to Kerala.

Its volunteers have so far focused on raising funds in Srinagar city but would expand their efforts to other parts of the Valley in the coming days, he said.

"These food packets will suffice for 2,000 people. We will be doing more in the coming days," he said.

At J&K Bank, most staffers are donating six days' salary while chairman Parvez Ahmed will contribute his two months' salary.

He said having experienced the deluge in Srinagar only a few years back, the bank employees understood the misery faced by the people of Kerala.

Jammu and Kashmir BJP president Ravinder Raina today said 26 BJP members of the J&K Legislative Assembly, 11 Legislative Council members and four party MPs will donate one month's salary.

Five hundred party workers have also come forward to work as volunteers in Kerala and are waiting for a nod from the party's central leadership, he told reporters in Jammu.

"We faced a similar situation in 2014, and the whole nation stood with us. Today, they need our help and so we should offer every possible financial and other assistance for the people of Kerala, lakhs of whom have been rendered homeless," he said.

The rains in Kerala have left 231 dead in a fortnight and displaced over 14 lakh people, officials said.

Srinagar and other parts of the Valley had suffered a similar calamity in September 2014.

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Jharkhand government today decided to roll out Ayushman Bharat insurance scheme on September 25 as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech.

The scheme would provide up to Rs five lakh to 57 lakh families, an official release said.

Chief Minister Raghubar Das told a high-level meeting that no person should face any problem in getting the health facility.

As per the government decision, Rs one lakh would be provided through the insurance company and the rest Rs four lakh will be provided through Health Facility Society, the release said.

Das directed the health department to prepare a detailed proposal to be placed before the cabinet.

He also asked to introduce the scheme in any hospital as a pilot project so that there is no problem when it is implemented on September 25.

The prime minister had on August 15 announced that the insurance scheme would roll out on September 25, the birth anniversary of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhaya.

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Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's key aide, Jabir Moti, appeared in a London court today for his bail hearing on money laundering charges during which the judge turned down his counsel's request to ban the media from the hearing.

During today's hearing, Moti's counsel requested the judge to ban the media from the court over safety concerns due to "reports appearing in the Indian media".

Judge Coleman, hearing the case at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, turned down his request.

"We have open justice in this country," the judge said, adding that she may consider allowing Moti to not to have his UK address aired in open court.

Moti, who had been arrested by Scotland Yard's Extradition Unit on Friday on suspicion of conspiracy to commit blackmail, import illegal drugs and money laundering in the US, appeared in the docks wearing jeans and T-shirt.

He was represented in court by his defence attorney Toby Cadman, from the law firm Guernica, who raised some issues with the charges listed in the provisional warrant and those is a "diplomatic note" seeking his extradition to the US.

The court was told that the "criminality is vague" as the warrant and the diplomatic note have some differences and should be deemed invalid.

"This is just a provisional warrant, which allows for 65 days to present the paperwork to back up the charges," the judge said, allowing for the hearing to go ahead.

The hearing, which was to begin this morning, was adjourned for post-lunch as the judge decided that any "inconsistencies" between the provisional warrant and the diplomatic note can be dealt with over the 65-day period available for extradition matters.

Moti, referred to as Jabir Motiwala in the Metropolitan Police warrant, is believed to be the right-hand man of Dawood, managing his investments in the UK, the UAE and around the world.

The Pakistani national, reportedly in the UK on a 10-year visa, has been described as the financial manager of Dawood the key accused in the Mumbai serial bomb blasts in 1993.

His extradition to the US is being sought in relation to an allegation of "conspiracy to commit blackmail, import class A drugs and money laundering", the Met Police said after his arrest from a hotel in the Paddington area on August 17.

Dawood remains on the UK government's recently-updated financial sanctions list.

Financial sanctions in force in the UK could apply to individuals, entities and governments who may be resident in the UK or abroad.

The measures include prohibiting the transfer of funds to a sanctioned country and freezing the assets of a government, the corporate entities and residents of the target country to targeted asset freezes on individuals or entities.

The UK Treasury department's 'Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets in the UK', updated on August 16, records Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar as the only "Indian" on its annually updated asset freeze list.

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The residents of Jalandhar in Punjab have contributed around Rs 30 lakh for the flood-affected people of Kerala, after Chief Minister Amarinder Singh made an appeal for help.

Jalandhar Deputy Commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma called a meeting of social workers and entrepreneurs to seek their help.

President of Gurdwara Singh Sabha Model Town Ajit Singh Sethi announced that they would provide more than 10,000 blankets for the people of the flood-affected state.

CBSE-affiliated schools management association announced cash aid of Rs one lakh, besides one-day salary of all employees of schools and two trucks of essential commodities.

Director of Savi International Mukul Verma also announced an assistance of Rs 2 lakh and clothes for babies worth Rs 50,000.

Several businessmen also contributed wholeheartedly for the people of Kerala.

The Deputy Commissioner said that the state government as already sent relief worth Rs 10 crore to Kerala.

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Japan has pledged to help strengthen Sri Lanka's maritime security, authorities said today, in a new sign of efforts to counter China's strategic grip on the Indian Ocean island.

President Maithripala Sirisena thanked Japan's Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera for donating two coast guard patrol craft costing over USD 11 million in total, his office said in a statement after talks in Colombo.

"Attention has been drawn to further strengthening maritime security cooperation between Japan and Sri Lanka," the statement said.

The visit came a week after the US State Department gave USD 39 million to strengthen the island's naval capabilities.

Sirisena said he was happy that Onodera, the first Japanese defence minister to visit, was travelling to two strategic ports on the island.

Onodera will visit Hambantota, which Colombo in December 2017 leased to a Chinese state-owned company for 99 years.

The government said it was forced to lease the port for USD 1.1 billion because it could not service loans from Beijing to build the white-elephant facility agreed by former president Mahinda Rajapakse.

Hambantota, 230 kilometres from Colombo, straddles the world's busiest east-west shipping route and gives China a foothold in a region long dominated by India.

The Japanese minister will also visit Trincomalee, a natural harbour that was the target of Japanese bombing during World War II.

China has edged out Japan as a key funder of ports and other projects in the island in recent years. Sri Lanka has become a key link in its ambitious "Belt and Road" international infrastructure initiative.

China has also vowed to keep providing financial help to Sri Lanka. The International Monetary Fund, which bailed out Sri Lanka in 2016 with a USD 1.5 billion loan, has warned Colombo over its debt.

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Tokyo's famous Tsukiji fish market will stop admitting tourists to watch its pre-dawn tuna auctions next month, as it prepares to move locations on October 11, a spokeswoman said today.

After more than 80 years in operation Tsukiji, the world's largest fish market and a popular tourist attraction in an area packed with restaurants and shops, will move east to Toyosu, the site of a former gas plant.

The market, which opened in 1935, is best known for its pre-dawn daily auctions of tuna, caught from around the world, for use by everyone from top Michelin-star sushi chefs to ordinary grocery stores.

The lively tuna auctions are considered a must-see for visitors to the Japanese capital -- despite starting at 5:30 am -- and daily tourist numbers are capped at 120 people.

The early hour does not seem to put off the tourist crowds and "some tourists start lining up at around 2 am", the spokeswoman from the Tokyo metropolitan government told AFP.

But access to the tuna auction will end on September 15, as preparatory work for the move gets underway, she added.

Viewing wholesale markets for marine products and vegetables will end on September 29, before the complete Tsukiji market closure on October 6, she said.

"In Toyosu, too, we plan to open a deck for visitors, and also there will be a special aisle for viewers where tourists will be able to watch the tuna auction through a glass wall," the Tokyo spokeswoman said.

The Tsukiji market handles 480 kinds of seafood worth USD 14 million daily -- as well as 270 types of fruits and vegetables -- and has fed Japan's hunger for fresh seafood since its opening.

But in recent years the antiquated facility has prompted users to voice concerns about its earthquake resistance, sanitation and fire safety, among others.

Plans to move Tsukiji were originally scheduled for 2016, but several delays have set back the timeline, including the discovery of soil contamination at Toyosu.

Tsukiji will be transformed into a transport hub during the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, with its long-term future still up in the air.

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The Jharkhand Cabinet today passed a resolution condoling the death of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Chaired by Chief Minister Raghubar Das, the Cabinet meeting expressed deep condolences on behalf of the 3.25 crore people of the state, according to an official release.

The resolution said the passing away of Vajpayee had hurt the people of the state and the country.

Recalling Vajpayees achievements and contribution, it said Jharkhand "would forever remain indebted to him as he was the creator of Jharkhand," which was carved out of Bihar on November 15, 2000, the release said.

The resolution extended sincere condolences to the family of Vajpayee, who passed away on August 16, the release added.

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A Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader has been arrested for alleged derogatory social media post against BJP MP and party state unit president Laxman Gilua, police said today.

JMM West Singhbhum district secretary Raghunath Tiu allegedly posted the derogatory remarks on his Facebook page three days ago.

In his post, Tiu had allegedly accused Gilua, a tribal, of being "anti-Adivasi", officer-in-charge of Chakradharpur police station Gopinath Tiwary said today.

BJP councillor Ratan Lal Bodra filed a complaint against the JMM leader for his post, the police said.

Following investigation, police arrested Tiu, who was then produced before a court on Monday which remanded him in jail custody, Tiwary said.

Tiu is the second JMM leader to be arrested in recent months.

The JMM MLA from Chakradharpur, Shashi Bhusan Samad, was arrested in July and is languishing in jail for allegedly assaulting a handicapped school teacher during the Jharkhand bandh called by the party in protest against the amendment in the Land Acquisition Act.

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The jury adjourned without reaching a verdict in the trial of President Donald Trump's former campaign chief Paul Manafort, the first resulting from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

The jurors deliberated for more than eight hours yesterday during their third day weighing the fate of Manafort, 69, who is accused of providing fraudulent statements to secure bank loans and failing to pay taxes on tens of millions of dollars he earned while advising Russian-backed politicians in Ukraine between 2006 and 2015.

Manafort "thinks it was a very good day," his lawyer Kevin Downing told journalists.

The jury will reconvene today at 1430 GMT, Judge TS Ellis said.

The case stems from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election -- and possible collusion between the Trump campaign team and Moscow.

While Manafort is not charged with any crimes related to his brief time as Trump's campaign chairman, the trial is seen as an important test for the Mueller probe, which Trump has repeatedly denounced as a "witch hunt".

"Where's the Collusion? They made up a phony crime called Collusion, and when there was no Collusion they say there was Obstruction (of a phony crime that never existed)," the president tweeted yesterday, referring to Mueller's investigators as "Angry Democrat Thugs".

Trump views the probe as a stain on his presidency, and frequently calls for its end.

He weighed in on the case Friday in an extraordinary commentary by a sitting president about an ongoing trial.

Asked if he would pardon his former campaign chief if he is convicted, Trump declined to comment.

But he went on to say: "I think the whole Manafort trial is very sad." "He worked for me for a very short period of time. But you know what? He happens to be a very good person," Trump said.

"I think it's very sad what they've done to Paul Manafort.

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Damascus has expressed its desire to open a trading house in Crimea, Russian Presidential Envoy to Crimea Georgy Muradov said.

According to the official, Crimean lawmakers intended to discuss bilateral trade with Syrian authorities on the sidelines of the Damascus International Fair.

"In September, our delegation will visit Syria and we will establish a joint Crimean-Syrian working group. We plan to create a joint shipping company," TASS cited him as saying.

"Besides, Syria has expressed its desire to open a trading house in Crimea, so it will be one of the things we will discuss at the Damascus meeting," the presidential envoy said, adding that Syrian goods planned to be provided to the Crimean Peninsula would be destined for all of Russias regions.
A civil society group from Kashmir, which faced widespread destruction in the 2014 floods, will dispatch food packets for the flood-affected people of Kerala.

"We have collected donations from local people including businessmen and are dispatching food packets to Kerala for the flood victims," said Zubair Ahmad, the organiser of the effort.

Ahmad said the volunteers have focussed their efforts on raising funds in Srinagar city but would expand their endeavour to other parts of the valley in the coming days.

"These food packets will suffice for 2000 people. We will be doing more in the coming days," he said.

Ahmad said the people of Kashmir can understand the situation of the people in Kerala as they themselves had suffered due to floods in September 2014.

"This is our token of concern for the people affected by the floods in Kerala," he added.

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The Telangana State IAS Officers Association today decided to contribute one day's salary of serving IAS officers in the state towards relief and rehabilitation efforts in rain-ravaged Kerala.

The Association today submitted a letter to the Chief Secretary to deduct one day salary from the August 2018 salary, official sources said.

The Telangana government had earlier contributed Rs 25 crore for the relief efforts in Kerala.

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Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today wrote to Lt Governor Anil Baijal urging him to direct the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to participate in "mega plantation drive" to be conducted on September 8 as it had "refused" to do so.

The chief minister shot off the letter to the Lieutenant Governor after he held a review meeting where a junior level officer from DDA participated, according to Kejriwal.

In his letter to Baijal, Kejriwal alleged that the DDA refused to participate in the Delhi government's plantation drive.

A senior DDA official rejected the allegation, saying, "a top official of its landscape department, of the rank of additional commissioner, attended the meeting on behalf of the urban body."



"Our representative in the meeting did not say that we won't participate," he said.

"We already have a target of planting 5,000 trees on September 8, and therefore our manpower will be engaged in that work. Also, it doesn't make sense to devote manpower towards planting trees in areas which fall under the Delhi government's jurisdiction," he said.

Kejriwal said that Delhi is facing huge air pollution and to tackle that, Delhi government is conducting a mega tree plantation drive on September 8.

In the letter, Kejriwal said that on August 18, a meeting was called to plan plantation drive, but DDA did not participate in this meeting.

"When I called you (LG) and informed you, you were kind enough to say that you would ensure participation of VC, DDA in the next meeting.

"It pains me to inform that today, a junior level officer from DDA came to the meeting and informed that DDA has already planted 3 lakh trees and will not participate in this tree plantation drive," he said.

The chief minister claimed that when DDA official was informed that DDA had a target of 10 lakh trees during this year, the official of land-owning agency still refused to participate in tree plantation drive.

"I am writing this to request you to direct DDA to participate in this noble effort in which large number of Delhi citizens are expected to participate. This is an important effort in tackling pollution in Delhi," Kejriwal added.

Meanwhile, during the review, all the greening agencies presented their preparations for the mega plantation drive in September.

Most of the greening agencies were close to their target and seemed to be on the mark.

"However, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) was the only agency which was short of answers and was trailing by 70% of its greening target for the current year.

"The DDA refused to participate in the mega plantation drive," government said in a statement.

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Insurance companies expect claims in flood ravaged Kerala to cross Rs 1,000 crore as the government declares the deluge as 'calamity of severe nature'.

Assessment of claims will take place with situation moving to normal, a senior official of an insurance firm said, adding clear picture will emerge in the next 4-5 days when claims are received.

Given the magnitude, preliminary assessment points that claims for car, home and industry will be upwards Rs 1,000 crore, the official said.

Yesterday, the central government exempted customs duty and inter-state taxes on relief material for Kerala.

Oriental Insurance Company Chairman and Managing Director A V Girijakumar said it is too pre-mature to guess any number on the expected claims.

It will be clear in the next 4-5 days when the situation would improve, he added.

Public sector general insurance companies -- National Insurance, New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance and United India Insurance -- under the aegis of GIPSA has geared up to settle claims in flood-hit Kerala.

These companies have system in place and they will also make insurance claim form simple, Girijakumar said.

It was decided that on August 22, technical department heads and general managers will be meeting to align the existing guidelines and make suitable adjustments to fit into the requirements and context of Kerala floods, he added.

Monitoring will be done on continuous basis at the regional level, corporate office level, General Insurers Public Sector Association of India (GIPSA) and Department of Financial Services.

LIC said it is working in coordination with the partner banks for the expeditious settlement of claims for the people covered under Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY).

"Instructions have been issued to set up Special Help Desk at Divisional and Branch Offices to respond to policy enquiries and assist in expeditious settlement of claim. Special Task Force has been created to ensure that concessions and benefits are reaching the needy Policy Holders," LIC said in a statement.

According to IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Executive Director (Claims) R Kannan, the company has mobilised over 100 in-house and external surveyors for quick claim assessment and payments.

"We have taken steps to release on-account payments and will also explore the use of drones to survey the inaccessible areas. We will take all steps to ensure that our customers get back to their normal life as quickly as possible," Kannan said.

According to brokerage firm Emkay, the main impact could be in the form of accretion in fresh slippages and rise in credit costs especially for SME/MSME/retail along with weakening of credit growth.

Concern to be raised for Federal Bank, South Indian Bank, Muthoot Finance and Manappuram, it said.

When a calamity is declared to be of 'rare severity' / 'severe nature', support to the state government is provided at the national level. The Centre also considers additional assistance from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF).

A Calamity Relief Fund (CRF) has been set up, with the corpus shared 3:1 between the Centre and state. When resources in the CRF are inadequate, additional assistance is considered from the National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF), 100 per cent funded by the Centre. Relief in repayment of loans or for grant of fresh loans to the persons affected on concessional terms too are considered once a calamity is declared 'severe'.

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The Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) has suffered an estimated loss of over Rs 2.2 billion in the floods, an official said in Kochi on Tuesday.

He said the CIAL management has launched rebuilding of the damaged infrastructure including 2.5 km long airport walls that collapsed after Periyar river overflowed.

The runway, taxi bay, duty free shops and other areas of international and domestic terminals were also submerged, causing damage to electrical equipment including runway lights, the official noted.

He said the solar power system of the world's first solar-powered airport has also suffered damage in the floods.

"We have launched efforts on a war-footing to rebuild the damaged infrastructure. Our initial assessment is that we have suffered an estimated loss of Rs 2.2 billion in the floods," the official said, adding around 200 workers have been engaged to clean up the terminal building.

The airport is expected to be reopened next week.

Meanwhile, the Naval Air Station, INS Garuda, has commenced civil aircraft operations from Monday.

Alliance Air (a subsidiary of Air India) was able to operate two flights to Bangalore and one flight to Coimbatore.

An Indigo flight also did a trial landing and will be undertaking flying operations from Tuesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his condolences over the loss of lives and property in Kerala floods and said his country shares the grief with the "friendly people of India".

In a letter dated August 20, addressed to President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Putin said, "Kindly accept the deepest condolences over numerous human casualties caused by the devastating floods in Kerala. Russia shares grief with the friendly people of India and hopes for a speedy recovery to all those injured from this natural disaster."



Russian Ambassador to India Nikolay Kudashev praised the measures taken by the Centre and the state government in conducting rescue operations and countering the effects of this calamity.

"I hope that with the rains stopped and floodwater started receding, the soonest recovery is expected. The (Russian) embassy (in India) conveys the words of sincere sympathy and support to the families and friends of all those suffered," Kudashev said in a statement.

The devastating floods in Kerala has left 223 dead in a fortnight and forced more than 10 lakh people out of their homes.

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Extending help to flood-ravaged Kerala, full service airline Vistara will fly doctors, nurses, disaster management experts and skilled volunteers from accredited institutions and relief organisations to Thiruvananthapuram.

The airline today said it will fly such people "free of cost" from the national capital and Chennai.

In a tweet, the airline also said it will "fly them back at the conclusion of their missions".

Due to limited availability of seats, Vistara said it will accommodate such requests on a first come, first serve basis.

Many airlines, including Vistara, have initiated measures such as additional flights to Kerala against the backdrop of heavy rains and floods hitting the state.

Vistara said it is also partnering with Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), India to carry relief material from corporates and accredited NGOs to Kerala.

In a release, Jet Airways said it has airlifted over three tonnes of medicines and other relief material to Kerala and is facilitating transfer of additional supplies to the state in conjunction with several NGOs.

"On humanitarian grounds, the airline has also waived off air freight charges on all domestic cargo shipments of relief material to Kerala," it added.

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Kerala today sought a Rs 2,600 crore special package from the Centre even as the state struggled to find its feet after the devastating deluge that left 223 dead in a fortnight and forced over 10 lakh people out of their homes.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan chaired a meeting of the state cabinet, which decided to seek a special package from the Centre under the centrally-sponsored schemes including the latter's flagship rural employment programme MNREGS.

Vijayan said a special session of the state assembly has been convened on August 30 to discuss the situation arising from the calamitous floods, the worst in a century.

The chief minister had earlier said the state had suffered damages of about Rs 20,000 crore. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and two other union ministers have collectively announced interim assistance of Rs 680 crore for the state so far.

Vijayan said Kerala would also ask the Centre to hike the limit of loan it can secure from the open market for the massive rebuilding exercise after 13 of the state's 14 districts were savaged by floods, traumatising people and devastating its infrastructure.

Under the present arrangement, Kerala can obtain three per cent of its gross state domestic product (GSDP) as loans and wants it to be raised to 4.5 per cent so the state can mobilise an additional Rs 10,500 crore from the open market, he said.

As the massive humanitarian tragedy unfolded in the picturesque state, relief poured in. Governments of other states, corporate entities and individuals, including small children, have loosened their purse strings.

Vijayan said the United Arab Emirates has promised an assistance of USD 100 million (About Rs 700 crore) for the state's reconstruction.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, called up prime minister Modi and made the offer for assistance, Vijayan said.

The state-level bankers committee has also decided to declare a moratorium on repayment of agricultural loan for a year.

Over 10.78 lakh people, including 2.12 lakh women and 1 lakh children below 12 years of age, are taking shelter in as many as 3,200 relief camps a fortnight after a murderous monsoon rampaged through the state in its second spell that began on August 8.

Though rains have eased over the last two days, vast swathes of land remain under a seemingly endless sheet of water in Ernakulam, Thrissur, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha and Kollam districts.

Though most of those marooned have been evacuated, the state government and defence forces said rescue efforts will continue till the last person was brought to safety. Over 1.63 lakh people were rescued in the last five days alone.

As the state drowned in unprecedented misery, the Onam festival that brings together people of all religious faiths, castes and creed in celebration of a good harvest, too has been washed away, with the government and other entities cancelling the events scheduled for August 25. The money collected for the celebrations will now be spent on flood relief.

The Muslim festival of Bakrid tomorrow will also be low key.

"Houses of many people of the community in Thrissur, Kozhikode and Malappuram districts are still under water. Many of them have not gone back to their homes," said senior journalist C Rahim, adding people were yet to recover from the shock of the floods to be in a celebratory frame of mind.

For people like Ammini, who had to rush to relief camps with only their clothes on, celebrating Onam is the last thing on their mind.

"We don't have anything left, everything has been lost. There is nothing to look forward to. My son is bedridden....I don't know where to go from the camp with my son, daughter-in-law and their child. We have no home left," said the 55-year-old.

"We don't know how to take our life forward. Onam is not on our minds now," she said fighting back tears.

Road and rail services have resumed in most parts of the state but clearing houses of the debris washed up by surging flood water is a daunting task. Vijayan said a massive action plan is being put in place for that.

The state government, he said, is also preparing a comprehensive health action programme to prevent outbreak of water-borne diseases.

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Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday accused her predecessor and her "fugitive son Tarique Rahman of being directly involved in the 2004 grenade attack on an Awami League rally in which 24 people were killed and she narrowly escaped.

Her comments came as the belated and protracted trial of the attack neared completion.

"There is no doubt that the Nationalist Party (BNP), (the then prime minister) and her son (Tarique Rahman) were directly involved in the gruesome grenade attack on the Awami League rally," she said commemorating the 14th anniversary of the assault in Dhaka.

While Zia is currently serving a jail term in a corruption case, Rahman is residing in the UK under political asylum.

On August 24, 2004, militants lobbed 13 grenades on a peaceful rally of the Awami League (AL) in front of its Bangabandhu Avenue central office here. Twenty-four leaders and workers of AL and its associate bodies, including wife of late president Zillur Rahman, were killed and over 500 others suffered splinter injuries in the attack and many of them became crippled for life.

Though Hasina narrowly escaped the attack, she lost her hearing ability due to the impact of the repeated grenade blasts near the truck-dais of the huge public rally.

Hasina claimed ahead of the attack, Zia had said that Awami will not be able to come to power in 100 years and that she would never be the prime minister or even the Leader of the Opposition in future.

In Bangladeshi media, Zia, 72, and Hasina, 70, are known as the 'Battling Begums' for their bitter rivalry going on for nearly four decades.

Prosecutors said the evidence and testimonies of key accused and crucial witnesses, including the then Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) chief gradually unfolded the plot.

Retired major general Sadik Hassan Rumi, former DGFI chief, earlier appeared as a crucial prosecution witness in the court and said perpetrators of the attack targeting the incumbent premier were protected under higher political authority's directives.

"I was asked not to catch them (culprits)...There was no dearth of efforts on my part to unearth the plot but I was repeatedly obstructed," Rumi told the court as the belated trial of several high-profile suspects of the attack was underway.

Rumi claimed the ex-premier appeared annoyed and rebuked him when he wanted to talk to her on the attack issue and subsequent investigations.

"From where did you gather the ridiculous information...what is your headache if Tajuddin (a key suspect) goes to Pakistan or anywhere else?" Rumi recalled Zia as telling him, confirming a report that the ex-premier herself had ordered the safe passage of his son abroad.

Mufti Abdul Hannan, the chief of the banned Harkatul Jihad (HuJI) militant outfit and a key accused in case, in his confessional statement before the trial court had given a detailed description of how the plot was orchestrated and his outfit was entrusted with the task to kill Hasina and other front-ranking AL leaders.

Hannan along with his two associates were executed last year for a separate attack in 2004 on a shrine that killed three people and wounded the then British high commissioner Anwar Chowdhury.

In his statement Hannan had said Rahman was directly involved in the attack along with the then junior home minister Lutfozzaman Babar and deputy education minister Abdus Salam Pintu.

"Tarique Zia (Rahman) assured us of giving all kinds of cooperation... then we held a series of secret meetings at several places, including Mohammadpur, to kill Sheikh Hasina and Awami League leaders," Hannan had deposed before a magistrate in his confessional statement.

Three former police chiefs and some military officials who were posted at DGFI at that time are among 17 people facing trial in the case.
Two women who allegedly kidnapped a boy from Secunderabad Railway Station, were arrested and the lad along with two other children abducted earlier were rescued, police said today.

Five teams formed to trace the kidnappers nabbed M Yadamma (21) and M Jaya (18) after examining CCTV footage at the station, police said.

The women, both daily wage labourers, allegedly kidnapped the four-year-old boy from the waiting hall of the railway station yesterday when his mother went out to get breakfast, Deputy Commissioner of Police B Sumathi said.

Investigations are on to find out how the two other children - a six-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl - were abducted from different railway stations a year ago, the police official said.

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U.S. President Donald Trump ruled out agreeing to any demands from Turkey to gain the release of a detained American pastor Andrew Brunson and said he was not concerned that his tough stance could end up hurting European and emerging market economies.

Trump said he thought he had a deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan when he helped persuade Israel to free a detained Turkish citizen. He had thought Erdogan would then release pastor, who denies Turkeys allegations that he was involved in a plot against Erdogan two years ago.

"I think its very sad what Turkey is doing. I think theyre making a terrible mistake. There will be no concessions," he said in an Oval Office interview with Reuters.

Turkey has demanded that the United States hand over Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric in the United States suspected in the coup plot against Erdogan, but the United States has balked at this.

"Im not concerned at all. Im not concerned. This is the proper thing to do," Trump stressed, when asked about the potential damage to other economies.

Trump has imposed tariffs on imports of Turkish steel and aluminum in response to Erdogans refusal to free Brunson, raising concerns of economic damage in Europe and in emerging market economies.
Six people were killed after a man went on a killing spree in southern China, stabbing his girlfriend and her relatives, ploughing a car into pedestrians and attacking passersby.

The 54-year-old man surnamed Huang had been having relationship problems and decided to take it out on his girlfriend and her family in Monday's attack, Liuzhou police said in a statement.

He stabbed the woman and her relatives at their home -- killing all four of them -- and fled in a black SUV.

"When driving on the Wenchang Bridge, (Huang) got agitated by the traffic and took it out on passersby, killing two and injuring 12," the Monday statement said.

Police said he ploughed the vehicle into several motorists on electric bicycles, then got out of the car and stabbed pedestrians with a knife before he was arrested.

Knife attacks are not uncommon in China.

In July, a man who stabbed nine children to death and wounded another 11 in northern China was sentenced to death.

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Eminent Kolkata chronicler and writer P T Nair today expressed worry over the flooding of his house in Ernakulam in Kerala where he has stored archival records of the city's rich past.

The ground floor of his house at Chandamangalam in Ernakulam district of Kerala, where he had stored his rich collection of old newspaper clippings and other papers on the city, is still submerged and cannot be reached as all the approach roads are still flooded.

His family members had, however, escaped in the nick of time.

"As the flood waters approached my son Manoj, daughter-in-law Seema and my grandchildren quickly got into their vehicle and rushed to their sister Maya's residence in Ernakulam town, which is around 15 km from the Chandamangalam house on August 16," Nair told PTI here.

Nair stays in the city with his wife Sitha.

Stating that he is now in regular contact with his family over phone, the 85-year-old said "I had never heard about any calamity of this magnitude in Kerala in my life time.

Nair, who has archived Kolkatas history for the last 63 years, is worried about the fate of the old newspaper clippings stored in the ground floor of his house.

"I do not know what happened to the records which I had collected so painstakingly over the decades and preserved them. I would like to retrieve whatever remains once the water level recedes and I can visit our house," said the author of over 50 books on Kolkata.

Meanwhile, e-commerce giant Amazon and many others are utilising the technology platform of Goodera that connects companies with non-profit organisations to provide immediate relief to come to the aid of the flood-hit in Kerala, a statement by Goodera said.

A donation link https://giving.goodera.com/campaign/2/opportunity/44 has been launched for the cause.

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North and South Korea have agreed to close some guard posts along their border on a trial basis, Seoul's defence minister told parliament Tuesday amid a rapid diplomatic thaw.

The Demilitarized Zone that has divided the peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953 is, despite its name, one of the most fortified places on earth, with the areas on either side of it bristling with minefields and barbed-wire fences.

Song Young-moo said the South would withdraw around 10 guard posts as part of confidence-building measures following the landmark summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the South's President Moon Jae-in in April.

"What it means is that we will first withdraw one or two guard posts and gradually expand it," Song told lawmakers, adding the North would take reciprocal measures.

"The North and South agreed to withdraw guard posts that are closest to each other," he added.

"The closest is about 700 metres away and we will begin withdrawing guard posts that are within one kilometre." A defence ministry official told AFP the issue was still being discussed and declined to clarify whether the posts would be physically removed.

The 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically at war.

The DMZ, designated as a buffer zone, bisects the Korean peninsula and is about four kilometres wide. It includes a Joint Security Area around the truce village of Panmunjom, where negotiations take place.

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Japan today pledged to strengthen its maritime defence cooperation with Sri Lanka and donated two coast guard patrol vessel costing over USD 11 million, a move by Tokyo to counter China's grip over the strategic Indian Ocean island.

The announcement was made following a meeting between Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena and visiting Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onedera.

"Sri Lanka and Japan are looking for closer maritime defense cooperation," a statement from President Sirisena's office said.

Onedera, who is the first Japanese defence minister to visit Sri Lanka, will also visit the Hambantota port which Colombo was forced to lease to a Chinese state-owned company for 99 years in December 2017 after it failed to service loans from Beijing to build the USD 1.1 billion facility.

Hambantota, about 230-km south of Colombo, is situated on the world's busiest east-west shipping route and gives China a foothold in a region which was said to be long dominated by India.

The Japanese minister will also visit Trincomalee, a natural harbour that was the target of Japan's bombing during World War II.

In the recent years, China has edged out Japan as a key fund provider of ports and other projects in the island. Sri Lanka has become a key link in its ambitious "Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)".

Western nations, alongside India and Japan, have also expressed concerns over China's extensive interests in Sri Lanka.

Sirisena also thanked Onodera for donating two coast guard patrol craft costing over USD 11 million, the statement said.

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A large number of people from Odisha who were stranded in Kerala due to the floods today returned to the state by train and many more are expected to reach tomorrow, officials said.

A large number of people from Ganjam, Nayagarh and Kandhamal districts of Odisha returned from Kerala by train today, they said.

According to an East Coast Railway (ECoR) official, the passengers who returned from Kerala were mostly labourers from Odisha.

"We were kept at a shelter home in Kerala before being carried to railway station. We are happy that we reached Odisha safely," said Simanchal Patra, a youth at the Berhampur railway station.

A special train from Thiruvananthapuram left for Silchar at 2 pm today in which a number of Odia people are travelling and is expected to reach Bhubaneswar tomorrow morning, they said.

The members of Self Help Groups (SHGs) including weavers from Odisha who are reportedly stranded in flood-hit Kerala during their visit to attend a fair at Chengannur town are safe, said Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society (ORMAS) director, Biranchi Das.

"Twenty one artisans including five women had gone to Kerala and got stranded due to heavy rains. All their products have been damaged. As the fair was insured, there will be no problem in getting compensation," Das said.

A special train will leave for Ernakulam from Bhubaneswar via Visakhapatnam on August 23 for evacuating more people stranded in deluge-hit southern state, railway officials said.

According to ECoR sources, 08463 Bhubaneswar-Ernakulam Special Train will leave Bhubaneswar at 0400 hours on August 23 and and will reach at Ernakulam at 1230 hours on August 24.

In the return direction, 08464 Ernakulam-Bhubaneswar Special Train will leave Ernakulam at 1730 hours on August 24 and will arrive at Bhubaneswar at 0545 hours on August 26.

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Cutting across party affiliations, political heavyweights of Bihar attended an all-faith prayer congregation held here today in the memory of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Vajpayee, who served as India's prime minister three times, breathed his last on August 16. He was 93.

Priests and clerics from Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jain and Arya Samaj communities offered prayers for the departed soul at the congregation which was held at the S K Memorial Hall.

It was attended by Bihar Governor Satya Pal Malik, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi and Union ministers Radha Mohan Singh, Upendra Kushwaha and Ram Kripal Yadav, among others.

Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Choudhary, state BJP chief Nityanand Rai and Bihar Cabinet ministers paid floral tributes to a portrait of Vajpayee.

Opposition leaders like Bihar Congress working president Kaukab Qadri and RJD's state president Ram Chandra Purbey, among others, also attended the prayers.

Meanwhile, a BJP release here said as part of the party's decision to immerse Vajpayee's ashes in 100 rivers across the country, Bihar unit chief Nityanand Rai will bring his 'asthi kalash' (urn of ashes) to Patna from New Delhi on August 22.

BJP leaders, including Union ministers, state ministers, legislators, office-bearers and workers will take part in the procession from the airport to the party office, it said.

The urn will be kept at the BJP's state unit headquarters and on the following day, 'asthi kalash yatras' will be taken out in 11 districts of the state to enable people in different corners to pay their homage, it added.

According to the release, the ashes will be immersed in prominent rivers of Bihar like Ganga, Sone, Punpun, Kosi, Baghmati, Kosi, Mahananda and Gandak over a three-day period from August 23-25.

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The Maharashtra government today approved construction of a memorial for Balshastri Jambhekar, considered pioneer of Marathi journalism, at his native place in the coastal Konkan region.

Jambhekar had started the Marathi newspaper "Darpan" in 1832.

The state government has also accorded an in-principle approval for constructing memorial of Baburao Vishnu Paradkar, eminent Hindi editor and journalist, in his native village in Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra, an official said.

A pioneer of Hindi journalism, Paradkar (1883-1955) hailed from Parad village in Sindhudurg district and chose Varanasi as his workplace.

While working in the holy city of Uttar Pradesh, he became editor of Hindi daily 'Aaj' and coined hundreds of Hindi words which were not in existence during the British rule in India.

The decisions were taken at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis here, the official said.

Mumbai Press Club, which had been demanding such a measure and had met the chief minister in this regard, expressed happiness over the decision.

"We thank Fadnavis for taking a positive decision and expect him to expedite the two projects," Press Club chairman Dharmendra Jore said.

In the monsoon session of the state legislature held at Nagpur last month, the state government had tabled supplementary demand of Rs 15 crore for the implementation of a pension scheme, called Acharya Balshastri Jambhekar Sanman Yojana, for senior journalists in the state.

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The Maharashtra government will set up a study chair in the name of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in each of the 13 universities in the state, Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar announced here today.

The Maharashtra unit of the BJP will pay rich tributes to Vajpayee at a function to be held in Mumbai tomorrow and in 13 other cities in coming days.

Mungantiwar told reporters that Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Prakash Javadekar and Maharashtra BJP chief Raosaheb Danve will arrive with a urn containing ashes of Vajpayee in a flight tomorrow.

The urn will be taken to the NCPA (National Centre for the Performing Arts) in south Mumbai where tributes will be paid to the BJP patriarch at a function being organised by the state BJP unit at 6 PM.

"Leaders of other parties can also join us in offering their tributes to Atalji," the minister said.

Mungantiwar said the ashes of Vajpayee will be immersed into 11 rivers in 13 cities including Mumbai and Pune across Maharashtra in coming days.

The ashes will be immersed while adhering to the norms of the National Green Tribunal, the minister said.

He said the state government has created a corpus of Rs 20 crore for setting up the study chair in the name of Vajpayee in 11 state universities and two private varsities.

Munagntiwar said the state unit of the BJP has also decided to fund research on the life and works of Vajpayee by paying Rs 3 lakh each to ten students who wish to pursue a doctorate on the former premier.

The students can pursue their doctorate in any university, he added.

Vajpayee, 93, died at the AIIMS hospital in Delhi on August 16 following a prolonged illness.

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The Bombay High Court today asked the Maharashtra government to take all necessary steps to ensure safety on beaches in the city ahead of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival.

Thousands of people throng the beaches in Mumbai on the last day of the festival, which will commence on September 13, for immersion of Ganesh idols.

A division bench of Justices S M Kemkar and S V Kotwal was hearing a public interest litigation filed by NGO Janhit Manch on the issue of beach safety.

The PIL was filed in 2016 after 14 college students drowned at the Murud-Janjira beach in the neighbouring Raigad district.

"The state government must coordinate with local authorities and ensure that all necessary steps are taken to safeguard beaches ahead of the Ganesh festival," the court said.

The court also directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to seek permission from the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) to erect temporary watch towers at the Girgaum Chowpatty beach in south Mumbai.

"The MCZMA shall take (a) decision on it by September 10. The BMC shall also seek permission to erect permanent watch towers which the MCZMA shall decide expeditiously," the court said.

The BMC lawyer informed the court that the civic body had recently appointed over 90 lifeguards who will be deployed on the beaches. Besides, there would be patrolling jeeps, he said.

"The jeeps should not be stationary. They should be moving up and down the beach. Haven't you watched Baywatch?" Justice Kemkar asked, referring to the popular American TV series.

"Use modern means," he added.

The court posted the petition for further hearing on October 16.

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Ahead of the commencement of the monsoon session of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly, the state Congress today asked Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur to bring in a stringent law to check drug abuse, with the provision of confiscating property of drug peddlers.

A 15-member delegation of the state Congress led by its president Sukhvinder Singh Thakur submitted a memorandum to the chief minister in this regard here.

The delegation also demanded to make the provision of making drug peddling a non-bailable offence at least for one year. It expressed concern over synthetic drug and sought immediate steps, including bringing stringent law to check increasing drug abuse in the state.

Former minister Ram Lal Thakur, ex-chief parliamentary Secretaries Rohit Thakur, Sohan Lal Thakur and Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, former MLAs and other Congress leaders were part of the delegation.

The chief minister assured the delegation that the state government was committed to make Himachal Pradesh a drug-free state.

It is due the initiatives of the state government that a meeting of seven neighbouring states was held in Chandigarh on Monday, in which the chief ministers of four northern states participated, Jai Ram Thakur said.

He said it has been decided that a joint strategy would be chalked out by these states to check drug abuse.

Himachal Pradesh government would also take up the matter to check drug abuse and peddling of synthetic drugs by conducting regular check on pharmaceutical industries, the chief minister said.

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Recess provides more than a quarter of the physical activity students get at school, and a new study suggests tweaks to its structure can ensure students get the most exercise for their recess time .

In particular, students got moving more vigorously when they had longer recess and more adults involved in their play, according to the new study in the journal Preventative Medicine Reports.

Researchers from Oregon State University attached fitness trackers to 146 4th to 6th graders to record their activity throughout the school day, and conducted separate recess observations of more than 8,300 students in nine schools.

Recess made up less than 6 percent of the students day, but the fitness tracker data showed it accounted for 27 percent of their daily stepsroughly 42 steps per minute, and even more for boys.

While recess averaged about 23 minutes across schools, Massey and his colleagues found that when students had recess periods closer to 30 minutes, they were more physically active throughout the period than students with shorter recess.

Interestingly, our data suggest that if you give children more time, they are more active with the time they have, said William Massey, Oregon State assistant professor and lead author of the study, in a statement.

The findings come as several groups of parents and educators around the country have begun to successfully advocate for longer recess time:

Importance of Adult Engagement

Yet the researchers also observed how students interacted on the playground: Fighting might be active, for example, but its hardly conducive to healthy behaviors in school.

In prior research, Massey and his colleagues have developed a tool to help school administrators evaluate their social and physical recess environments . The current study found the strongest predictor of how much students got involved in healthy physical activity was the level of adult involvement at recessnot directing games, but participating, sharing out equipment, and helping to resolve arguments.

While recess is often perceived as a break for students and teachers alike, Massey said, recess can also be an opportunity for teachers and students to interact in more informal settings, for teachers to model healthy behavior and appropriate social skills, and for students and teachers to develop stronger relationships.

Photo: Shameela Dewage plays on the swings with her classmates during recess at a preschool in Mississippi. Source: Andrea Morales for Education Week.

Related:

Want more research news? Get the latest studies and join the conversation.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said that she has spoken to her Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan over phone about the safety of the relatives of Malayalees residing in the city and the Bengalis living in the flood-ravaged state.

Banerjee said this when members of the Confederation of Kolkata Malayalee Organisation (COKMO) called on her at her residence today.

She also assured the COKMO members of all cooperation and also assured them of making arrangement for special trains to ferry their relatives, Bengali tourists and other Bengalis living there to their homes.

COKMO general secretary K Nandakumar told PTI that he had informed Banerjee that there are 25 lakh Bengalis living in Kerala and they are facing problem in returning for want of trains.

She assured to arrange for special trains and buses for those stranded and assured the city Malayalees to monitor the situation and take requisite steps, he added.

"We thanked Mamata Banerjee for her kind support. She gave enough time and patient hearing. We submitted our memorandum personally. She assured us of all coperation," Nandakumar said.

Expressing concern over the situation in Kerala, Banerjee said that though a lot of relief materials and money was being sent to it the situation needs more support.

The West Bengal chief minister had earlier announced that the state would donate Rs 10 crore as flood relief to Kerala.

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Functioning at the state-run Jawarharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS) was affected after over 100 senior resident doctors (SRs) today launched an indefinite ceasework over "anomalies" in rules.

A senior official of the hospital, who refused to be quoted, said the normal functioning of the hospital was affected by the ceasework and admitted patients were being looked after by nurses.

The doctors did not attend the Out Patient Department clinics and patients had to return, the official said.

The anomalies in rules are depriving the SRs from being promoted to Assistant Professors as the administration is going for direct recruitment to those posts, Resident Welfare Committee Spokesperson S Bikramaditya said.

There were at least 77 SRs who are being deprived, he said claiming that there is no established scheme for career advancement of the SRs and the JNIMS authorities had repeatedly been ignoring their demand on this.

What triggered the doctors' agitation appeared to be an advertisement for direct recruitment of Assistant Professors.

Terming this as "unacceptable", Bikramaditya demanded cancellation of the advertisement.

JNIMS Director Bhimo said as per existing rules, recruitment should be based through open advertisement and the question of giving preferences to SRs is not included in the rules.

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India said on Tuesday that the company along with its employees will donate Rs 35 million as relief effort.

It has donated Rs 20 million towards the Prime Minister's Relief Fund to strengthen relief, rebuilding and rehabilitation efforts of the government, India said in a statement.

In addition, employees of the company will make a contribution amounting to Rs 15 million, it added.

Earlier in the day, Bajaj Auto also announced a contribution of Rs 20 million in aid of flood-hit Kerala.

While Rs 10 million is being contributed directly to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund, the balance Rs 10 million will be deployed by Jankidevi Bajaj Gram Vikas Sanstha (JBGVS), for distribution of survival kits, Bajaj Auto said in a statement.

Hyundai Motor India Ltd. (HMIL) and TVS Motor Company too have announced contribution of Rs 10 million each to the state Chief Minister relief fund.

Other companies such as Tata Motors, Nissan India and BWM have announced service support to customers in the state.
Scientists have discovered the earliest and largest monumental cemetery in eastern Africa built 5,000 years ago by early pastoralists.

The Lothagam North Pillar Site was built around Lake Turkana in Kenya by a group believed to have had an egalitarian society, without a stratified social hierarchy.

The construction of such a large public project contradicts long-standing narratives about early complex societies, which suggest that a stratified social structure is necessary to enable the construction of large public buildings or monuments.

The Lothagam North Pillar Site was a communal cemetery constructed and used over a period of several centuries, between about 5,000 and 4,300 years ago.

According to the researchers at Stony Brook University in the US and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, early herders built a platform approximately 30 metres in diameter and excavated a large cavity in the centre to bury their dead.

After the cavity was filled and capped with stones, the builders placed large, megalith pillars, some sourced from as much as a kilometer away, on top. Stone circles and cairns were added nearby.

An estimated minimum of 580 individuals were densely buried within the central platform cavity of the site. Men, women, and children of different ages, from infants to the elderly, were all buried in the same area, without any particular burials being singled out with special treatment.

All individuals were buried with personal ornaments and the distribution of ornaments was approximately equal throughout the cemetery, according to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

These factors indicate a relatively egalitarian society without strong social stratification.

Historically, archeologists have theorised that people built permanent monuments as reminders of shared history, ideals and culture, when they had established a settled, socially stratified agriculture society with abundant resources and strong leadership.

It was believed that a political structure and the resources for specialisation were prerequisites to engaging in monument building.

Ancient monuments have thus previously been regarded as reliable indicators of complex societies with differentiated social classes.

However, the Lothagam North cemetery was constructed by mobile pastoralists who show no evidence of a rigid social hierarchy.

"This discovery challenges earlier ideas about monumentality," said Elizabeth Sawchuk of Stony Brook University.

"Absent other evidence, Lothagam North provides an example of monumentality that is not demonstrably linked to the emergence of hierarchy, forcing us to consider other narratives of social change," Sawchuk said.

The discovery is consistent with similar examples elsewhere in Africa and on other continents in which large, monumental structures have been built by groups thought to be egalitarian in their social organisation.

"The monuments may have served as a place for people to congregate, renew social ties, and reinforce community identity," said Anneke Janzen of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

"Information exchange and interaction through shared ritual may have helped mobile herders navigate a rapidly changing physical landscape," Janzen said.

After several centuries, pastoralism became entrenched and lake levels stabilised. It was around this time that the cemetery ceased to be used.

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The Ministry of Corporate Affairs is seeking clarifications from the auditors of Jet Airways on the airline deferring announcement of its June quarter results, sources said.

The board of crisis-hit Jet Airways -- which is working on ways to reduce costs amid financial woes -- on August 9 deferred the matter of consideration of the unaudited financial results for the June quarter.

Sources said the ministry is seeking clarifications from the auditors of Jet Airways on delay in announcement of results.

The auditors are believed to have issues regarding the airline being a going concern, they added.

In accounting parlance, the going concern assumption means that the company would remain in business for the foreseeable future without being forced to halt operations and liquidate its assets.

Markets regulator Sebi is also looking into the airline delaying the June quarter results.

The airline's board is scheduled to meet on August 27 to consider and approve the unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended June 30.

Earlier this month, sources said that Sebi is looking into the airline delaying June quarter results after the carrier's audit committee expressed reservations.

Shares of Jet Airways dropped nearly 3 per cent to close at Rs 292.35 on BSE.

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Campaigning for the August 23 bye-elections to the South-Tura seat in West Garo Hills District and Ranikor in South West Khasi Hills District ended today.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma is contesting from the South-Tura seat on ruling National People's Party (NPP) ticket to enter the state Assembly.

Voting to the two Assembly constituencies will take place on Thursday from 7 am to 5 pm. The counting of votes will be held on August 27, an election official said.

State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Frederick R Kharkongor said that the election campaign in both the constituencies ended on a peaceful note with no untoward incidents.

South Tura constituency has a total of 30,231 voters including 14,846 males and 15,351 females, 33 service voters and one NRI, in 36 polling stations.

The Ranikor constituency has 65 polling stations with a total of 29,685 eligible voters including 15,183 males and 14,487 females.

The bye-elections in the two seats were necessitated following the resignation of former five-time Ranikor MLA Martin M Danggo, who joined the NPP, and former MLA of South Tura, Agatha K Sangma.

In South Tura, Sangma is pitted against the Congress' Charlotte W Momin and Independents John Leslee K Sangma and Chris Kabul A Sangma.

In Ranikor, NPP's Martin M Danggo will face UDP candidate Pius Marwein, PDF chairman P N Syiem and Congress candidate Jackiush Sangma.

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A four-year-old girl died and 10 others of her family fell ill today in a suspected food poisoning case in Vikas Nagar village of Rajasthan's Dungarpur district, an official said.

After the family members complained of vomiting and loose motion today, they were admitted to a hospital.

A team was sent to Vikas Nagar village to take samples of the food and water, Dungarpur CMHO Mahendra Kumar Parmar said.

He said the deceased was identified as Maya Varhat.

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Mizoram government would contribute Rs 2 crore to the Kerala Chief Minister's Relief Fund in the wake of the recent rain-fed floods in the southern state, an official said today.

Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla today wrote to his Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan expressing his solidarity with the people of Kerala and informed him that the Mizoram government would contribute Rs 2 crore towards disaster relief efforts, press secretary to the chief minister L R Sailo said.

Lal Thanhawla in a separate letter also informed Vijayan that all the 34 legislators of the ruling Congress in the Mizoram have decided to contribute Rs 1 lakh each, totaling Rs 34 lakh for flood relief in Kerala, Sailo said.

Earlier, Mizoram Govenor Kummanam Rajasekharan and Lal Thanhawla had sent condolence messages to the government of Kerala for immense sufferings of the people of the state due to the unprecedented flood.

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More than two million Muslims from around the world, including India, took part in the symbolic stoning of the devil Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, the last major ritual of the hajj pilgrimage that heralds the start of the Eid al-Adha feast.

Muslims on the annual hajj pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam, made their way across the Mina valley of the western Saudi Arabian Mecca province, many carrying pebbles in plastic bottles.

Pilgrims clad in white threw seven stones each at a pillar symbolising satan, shouting "Allahu akbar" ("God is greatest") under the watchful eyes of security forces.

Large fans sprayed water over the crowd as temperatures climbed to 44 degrees Celsius.

"Thank God it hasn't been too crowded this year. There hasn't been a big rush," said Mohammed Osman, 27, who regularly attends hajj.

Mina was the site of a 2015 stampede which saw more than 2,300 pilgrims crushed or suffocated to death. Authorities have since reinforced safety and security measures.

"We are under God's protection," said May Khalifa, a 37-year-old Egyptian Muslim living in Riyadh.

"Despite the exhaustion, I'm enjoying my first hajj," she said, lifting her small bag of stones.

The hajj is one of the world's largest Muslim gatherings and drew this year nearly 2.4 million pilgrims to Saudi holy sites.

Roads from Muzdalifah -- another holy site where pilgrims spent Monday night -- to Mina were littered with plastic water bottles as sanitation workers scrambled to remove them.

Bangladeshi Moueeneddine Ahmed, 35, complained of the scorching heat but said he was "very excited" to take part in the stoning of the devil ritual.

In keeping with customs he said he would then "shave his head" and trade the white seamless robe he wore for the hajj for his "normal clothes".

Ahmed also praised the Saudi government for keeping the peace throughout the hajj. "There's a lot of security. Very disciplined," he said.

Tens of thousands of security forces, including police and civil defence, have been deployed for hajj, according to Saudi authorities.

Saudi Arabia's King Salman made the trip to Mina on Tuesday and was seen on state-run television observing worshippers from the window of a high-rise.

And in a rare move he took to Twitter to say it was a "great honour" to welcome the pilgrims to Saudi Arabia.

The hajj retraces the steps of the Prophet Mohammed on his last pilgrimage to Mecca.

It is one of the five pillars of Islam which every Muslim is required to complete at least once in their lifetime if they are healthy enough and have the means to do so.

Muslim tradition holds that pilgrims must throw seven stones at a pillar representing satan on the first day of Eid al-Adha, which comes after two days of prayer and meditation.

The stoning ritual is not without risk, as millions of pilgrims converge on a tight space.

Since 2004, authorities have expanded the site and replaced the pillar by walls to accommodate the growing number of pilgrims, who can now reach Mina via multiple bridges.

Muslims traditionally slaughter sheep for the three-day Eid al-Adha, a tribute to the prophet Abraham's sacrifice of a lamb after God spared Ishmael, his son.

They will consume some of the meat and give the rest to poor people unable to buy food.

Pilgrims can purchase coupons from the Saudi government, which organises the slaughter and freezing of the meat to avoid public health problems.

Revenues from the coupons are considered "zakat", or a charity donation, another pillar of Islam.

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Moscow and the Central African Republic signed a military cooperation agreement today, less than a month after three Russian journalists were killed in the strife-torn CAR while probing alleged Russian mercenaries.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and his CAR counterpart Marie-Noelle Koyara signed the document on the sidelines of defense expo Army-2018 outside Moscow, Russian agencies reported.

The deal "will help strengthen ties in the defence sphere," Shoigu was quoted as saying after the ceremony.

There were no immediate details.

The agreement is set to deepen Moscow's involvement in the impoverished CAR, where the government is desperate to boost its armed forces in the fight against militias which control most of the country.

A UN arms embargo imposed in 2013 was last year lifted exclusively for Moscow.

It has since then sent instructors and some equipment and now provides security for President Faustin-Archange Touadera.

The deal follows the murder in late July of three Russian journalists who were ambushed in CAR while investigating a shadowy Russian mercenary group called Wagner and its possible relation to both government and rebel forces.

The investigation was funded by ex-oil tycoon Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Both CAR authorities and Moscow have labeled the killings a robbery, but Khodorkovsky's own inquiry claimed this argument "does not stand up to scrutiny".

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In an extra-ordinarily fast-paced trial, a juvenile court here convicted and sentenced within seven hours a 14-year-old boy on charges of raping a minor girl.

Juvenile Justice Board Judge Tripti Pande awarded two years' imprisonment to the accused yesterday after wrapping up the trial in seven hours, government advocate Deependra Malu said today.

The crime took place on August 15 and the entire process, from registration of the case to pronouncement of judgement, was completed in five days, police said.

"The case diary was submitted in the court at 10.45 am yesterday and the judgement, after trial, was pronounced around 6 pm," Malu said.

"This is probably for the first time, after the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act came into effect in 2012, that a judgement in a rape case of a minor has been given in such a short duration," he said.

While pronouncing the sentence, Malu said, the judge observed, "The tendency of sexual offences against children is rising at a fast pace in society. To correct such a perverted psychological condition, this boy needs to be sent to two years' imprisonment."



The court ordered sending the boy to a remand home in Madhya Pradesh's Seoni district for serving the sentence.

Ujjain Superintendent of Police Sachin Atulkar said the girl was playing with other children on August 15 at the residence of the accused at Ghatiya village in the district when the boy, taking advantage of the situation, raped her,



The victim later disclosed the incident to her parents who filed a complaint at the Ghatiya police station.

Atulkar formed a team to probe the case and the boy was subsequently nabbed from his relative's place in Rajasthan and brought back to Ujjain.

The sentence was awarded under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the POCSO Act, he said.

Atulkar said the judgement will send a positive message among citizens.

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The Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) has given cash rewards worth Rs 41 lakh to people who informed it about power thefts in the last three years.

The reward is part of an initiative of the MSEDCL to check power thefts following several such complaints, a release from the state-run power utility said yesterday.

In the last three years, some alert citizens informed the electricity company, also known as 'Mahavitaran', about power thefts at 36 places in the state, it said.

Subsequently, the MSEDCL recovered Rs 4.1 crore from the offenders and 10 per cent of the amount was given as the prize money to power theft informers, the release said.

After the consumer pays the total amount along with the penalty, the reward is given to the informer without revealing his name, it added.

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Muslims are celebrating Eid al-Adha as over 2 million pilgrims from around the world, including India, carry out the final rites of the hajj in Saudi Arabia.

Pilgrims walked to a complex in Mina on Tuesday to throw pebbles at three columns. Muslims believe the devil tried to talk the Prophet Ibrahim out of submitting to God's will there.

Muslims believe Ibrahim's faith was tested when God commanded him to sacrifice his only son Ismail. God stayed his hand, sparing his son. In the Christian and Jewish version of the story, Abraham is ordered to kill his other son, Isaac.

The final days of hajj coincide with the Eid al-Adha holiday, or "Feast of Sacrifice," to commemorate Ibrahim's test of faith. Muslims slaughter livestock and distribute the meat to the poor.

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Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP) or Mizo students federation today said that it has sent activists to Mizoram-Assam border villages to ensure that people whose names are not in Assam's NRC list do not enter Mizoram.

MZP president L Ramdinliana Renthlei claimed that they had already detected and pushed back 204 non-tribals whose names were not included in Assam's NRC list and tried to enter Mizoram from Assam since Thursday (August 16).

Renthlei told PTI over phone that MZP activists began checking people entering the state from neighbouring Assam at the border check points from Thursday.

The Mizoram government said that additional police personnel were deployed in the border areas.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has denounced his own country's health services, state media reported today, criticising officials for being "very idle and irresponsible".

Impoverished and isolated North Korea, which is subject to multiple sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its pursuit of nuclear weapons, suffers from chronic food shortages and inadequate health services according to international aid agencies.

Hospitals lack medicines, equipment, and trained staff.

While Pyongyang regularly proclaims its desire to provide its people with a better life, Kim roundly condemned its health system on a visit to a medical devices factory.

Some sectors "have made remarkable leaps forward in recent years" Kim said according to the official Korean Central Agency, "but the public health sector has never done so and become more and more passive".

"There is no unit keeping its environment well in the public health sector, to say nothing of equipment modernisation," he added at the Myohyangsan Medical Appliances Factory.

Such "field guidance" visits by the leader are the mainstay of the North's state media output, and a key part of the authorities' domestic messaging, sometimes lauding the quality of projects and sometimes criticising officials.

The ruling Workers' Party had stressed the need to improve health services, but "officials are very idle and irresponsible in doing so", Kim said according to KCNA.

In the Korean-language version, he berated them for "hibernating for a long time", adding: "Animals only hibernate once a year but the health sector has been holed up and hibernating for years and shouting empty slogans."



Since his summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June, Kim has stressed a focus on economic development, visiting industrial sites and factories across the nation.

In this year's "needs and priorities" assessment of North Korea, the UN Development Programme described its healthcare services as "inadequate", with a "lack of essential medical equipment, pharmaceutical remedies, appropriate referral systems, therapeutic equipment and assistive devices, as well as limited professional capacity".

"Furthermore, health infrastructure is poor with many [facilities] having inconsistent water, electricity and heating," it added.

North Korea has called for an end to sanctions against it, while the US has urged the international community to maintain a tough approach until its complete denuclearisation.

Following several ballistic missile launches and by far the North's most powerful nuclear test last year, Kim declared the development of its atomic capabilities complete and said economic development was the new priority.

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A Shiv Sena corporator from Navi Mumbai has been booked on charges of molesting a 19-year-old college student after promising to help her financially, said police today.

Namdeo Bhagat, a Shiv Sena member of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC), allegedly molested the woman at his farmhouse in Dighode village near the coastal town of Uran in adjoining Raigad district on Sunday last, a police official said.

The 51-year-old corporator, who is also a member of the NMC standing committee, had called the victim to his farmhouse on the pretext of helping her financially, he said.

The woman filed a complaint after which an offence under IPC section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) was registered against the corporator yesterday at the Uran police station, the official said.

Bhagat is absconding, he said, adding further probe is underway.

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The Navy today said it is presently involved in air dropping relief material such as food and has scaled down operations further in view of flood waters receding from many waterlogged areas to manageable levels.

The Southern Naval Command (SNC) said no requests for rescue, either by boat or airlift were received and so it has recalled 30 teams deployed for rescue operations.

"The total number of diving teams deployed has now been reduced to 21, with 30 teams having returned after completing their rescue mission", an SNC release said here.

The SNC, which announced scaling down of the operation yesterday, said a total of16,005 persons were rescued.

It said eight sorties,amounting to 10 hours of flying,were undertaken by various naval aircraft, mainly for air dropping relief material especially food and medicines.

All SNC rescue teams are being used by district administrations for transferring relief material and medicines and to provide assurance of presence.

On a request from Kerala Water Authority for help to rectify defectivetransformers at Aluva water pumping station, an engineeringteam from Naval Ship Repair Yard were sent there to repair transformers on a war footing, it said.

The services of thesetransformers are critical to feed power to restore water supply to most of Kochi region.

The Naval Air Station, Garuda continued facilitating civil aircraft operations in addition to military flying requirements.

Alliance Air (a subsidiary of Air India) and Indigo operated as per their schedules, the release said.

The Air Station is also extensively utilised to airlift medical teams, food and medicines to facilitate the State Government in speeding up the relief work, the release said.

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The jailed son-in-law of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Captain (retd) Muhammad Safdar, was today rushed to hospital from the high-security Adiala Jail after he complained of chest pain, his second hospitalisation within this month, media reports said.

Safdar, along with Sharif and his daughter Maryam are lodged in the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi after an accountability court sentenced the trio in one of the threee corruption cases against the former prime minister.

He was taken to the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology after complaining of chest pain, the Express reported.

Last night, Safdar's condition deteriorated and was given medical attention inside the jail, Geo reported.

Safdar, 55, will undergo a medical examination at the hosptial. Doctors would take a call on whether he needs to be hospitalised, the reports said.

Sources at Adiala Jail said Safdar has been complaining of stomach and chest pain. He is said to be vomiting frequently too.

On August 9, Safdar was shifted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad from the prison after his condition worsened. He had a stomach condition and his sugar level was also high at that time.

Safdar was sentenced to a year in jail by an accountability court in connection with the Avenfield flats corruption case on July 6. He was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau on July 8.

Sharif was handed down a 10-year term. Safdar's wife Maryam Nawaz was sentenced to seven years.

The accused were also disqualified to contest elections or to hold public office for a period of 10 years from the date they are released.

Yesterday, the new Pakistan government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan decided to include the names of Sharif, Safdar and Mariam in the Exit Control List, barring them from leaving the country.

The Sharif family bought four posh Avenfield flats in London through money laundering, a Pakistani anti-corruption court had found.

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The BJP government in Chhattisgarh today decided to name Naya Raipur, the upcoming capital city of the state, as 'Atal Nagar' in memory of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Besides the capital, several other government institutions and projects will be named after Vajpayee, who died last week.

These decisions were taken during the cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Raman Singh at Mantralaya (state secretariat) here today.

"Acknowledging the historic contribution of Atal ji in the formation of the state in 2000, Naya Raipur will be named as 'Atal Nagar' and a memorial of Atal ji will be built there," Singh told reporters after the meeting.

The cabinet passed a resolution condoling the death of the former PM and founder of Chhattisgarh state, he said.

The cabinet also approved a proposal asking the panchyat bodies, urban civic bodies, corporations and mandals (boards) to pass a resolution condoling the death of Vajpayee.

Vajpayee's statue will be installed at Naya Raipur as well as in all 27 district headquarters of the state. The Central Park to be developed in Naya Raipur, will also be named after him, Singh said.

As per the cabinet decision, Bilaspur University, newly-built medical college in Rajnandgaon, Marwa Thermal Power Plant (Janjgir-Champa district), an under-construction expressway in Raipur, a park being developed near Raipur Collectorate will be named after Vajpayee, he said.

The cabinet has also named second phase of Singh's 'Vikas Yatra' to be launched from the next month in view of the upcoming assembly polls as 'Atal Vikas Yatra'.

A national-level award in the name of Vajpayee will be given to poets by the state government, the CM said.

"Moreover, on November 1, the statehood day, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Sushasan award' will be given to panchayats and urban bodies for good governance," he said.

"The biography of Atal ji will also be included in textbooks of Chhattisgarh board of school education so that the future generation could draw inspiration from him," he said.

To keep alive the memory ofVajpayee's contribution in historic nuclear test in Pokhran, one battalion of Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) will be named as 'Pokhran Battalion', Singh said.

The cabinet also took some other decisions during the meeting.

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The (NCLT) in Hyderabad is likely to deliver its judgment on August 27, on the application filed by the Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) of Infratech Limited for the liquidation of the company.

The IRP had earlier filed a petition before the Hyderabad bench of NCLTfor the liquidation of the company as the Committee of Creditors (CoC) rejected the revised bid by Thriveni Earthmovers, a Tamil Nadu-based infra and mining firm.

According to a regulatory filing by Lanco, Employee Welfare Association of also filed a petition before the tribunal seeking to know why the resolution plan was rejected.

The Hyderabad bench of the tribunal will also take up, on August 23, an application of by Power Mech Projects Limited, a potential bidder which had submitted an 'Expression of Interest.'



"The bench heard the arguments of both the parties and posted the matter for pronouncement of Orders on the Liquidation Application on August 27, 2018," said.

"As the CoC rejected the resolution plan submitted by Thriveni, the IRP has no choice but to approach the NCLT for the liquidation of the company," sources close to the development told PTI.

is part of the first 12 accounts that was listed by the

It owes over Rs 440 billion to an IDBI Bank-led lenders consortium.

The CoC of had twice rejected the resolution plan submitted by Thriveni Earthmovers.
The National Commission for Women has directed the Bihar DGP to apprise it of the detailed action being taken in a case in which a woman was allegedly beaten and stripped by a mob in Bhojpur district, an official said.

The woman was beaten up, stripped and paraded naked yesterday on the streets by an irate mob which suspected her of being involved in the killing of a 19-year-old man.

Taking suo motu congnisance in the case, the NCW directed Bihar DGP K S Dwivedi to apprise it of the detailed action being taken in the matter at the earliest, the official said.

The commission took cognizance of the incident and serious note of the fact that no arrests were made by the police even after several photos and videos had been circulated on social media, she said.

The incident occurred in the Bihiya police station area, where the body of Vimalesh Sah, who went missing on Sunday, was found near a railway track yesterday, Bhojpur Superintendent of Police Avakash Kumar said.

He said the residents of Sah's native village Damodarpur rushed to the spot after they came to know about his death and some of them suspected that those living in a red-light area nearby strangled him to death.

The villagers stormed the place, setting afire a number of shops and beating up several residents. They dragged out the woman on the street, ripped off her clothes and paraded her naked while kicking and slapping her, the SP said.

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The National Commission for Women (NCW) has asked state commissions to contribute towards relief funds for flood-hit Kerala that is witnessing its worst deluge in nearly a century, chairperson Rekha Sharma said today.

The NCW staffers have also decided to donate their one day's salary towards relief operations in Kerala and Sharma and other senior officials have decided to donate a fraction of their one-month salary to relief operations.

"I appeal to all my colleagues in the State Commissions for Women across the country to do their bit to help Kerala in their time of need," Sharma said.

Yesterday, employees of the Delhi Commission for Women pledged to donate their one-day salary for relief operations.

Rains, floods and landslides in Kerala have killed 373 people since May 30, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has today.

Altogether 87 people were injured and 32 others went missing in the deluge which hit all the 14 districts of the southern state.

Over 54.11 lakh people in Kerala were affected in the massive floods of which 12.47 lakh inmates have taken shelter in 5,645 relief camps since May 30.

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The Delhi High Court today said there was a need to frame guidelines to bring in greater uniformity and transparency in evaluating the working of judicial officers in the subordinate judiciary.

The high court said in the present evaluation system, the judicial officers' work and performance is supervised and graded by a committee, comprising of three high court judges. However, it has a drawback of not having any uniform set of rules or guidelines that all appraisal committees have to follow.

A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sunil Gaur said the directions passed by it regarding formulation of criteria for uniform grading of judicial officers should be suitably incorporated in the form of guidelines for future implementation and the registrar general of the high court take appropriate action to place the papers before the Chief Justice in this regard.

The court's directions came in a judgement on a plea of Additional District and Sessions Judge Sujata Kohli, whose petition has reflected long-standing grievances of many senior judges in subordinate judiciary who felt that the promotion policies for lower court judges adopted by various high courts including the Delhi HC were "arbitrary and non-transparent".

The bench held that the Full Court resolutions of April 28, 2009, which was modified on January 15, 2010, and the later resolution of January 27, 2011, in which they prescribe that for appointment to the post of district judge, the judicial officer concerned should have been graded 'A' in the preceding five years, is "not arbitrary".

It said Kohli's grievance that she was arbitrarily denied knowledge of the annual confidential report (ACR) grading of other officers, is also without merit.

The bench said it was of the opinion that to inject greater uniformity, objectivity and some measure of transparency and predictability in the ACR grading and several issues should be kept in mind by the appraisal evaluation authorities.

It said the judicial officer concerned should be awarded marks or points, maximum of 100, which would include 20 per cent for quality of judgements, 25 per cent for disposal ratio, 20 per cent for total number of final judgments delivered in contested matters.

It said every judicial officer claiming disposal targets, based on a maximum of 10 per cent may be awarded for timeliness, promptness in delivery of judgments, disposal of old cases, not taking leave or clubbing leave with vacations and the balance 25 per cent may be awarded by the appraising high court judge/committee on the basis of interaction/inspection.

The bench said no officer should be subject to appraisal of any one judge or committee for more than two consecutive years as this would eliminate unconscious biases in favour and against the officers.

The high court establishment, through the registrar general, had earlier said that the high court has to fix criteria for appointments in the subordinate judiciary as it is the "best judge" to evaluate the working of an officer.

It had also "vehemently denied that criteria for promotion to the post of District and Sessions Judge adversely affected progression of many Additional District Judges as alleged".

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A 35-year-old Nigerian man was arrested today for allegedly molesting a woman inside a lift at a society area in Sector 134 here, police said.

The man - Eibeh Celestine - is on a medical visa in India for getting a treatment done at a private hospital here, they said.

"The man got into a lift of the building in the society at around 10 pm last night in which a woman was also present. Inside the lift, he attempted to molest her, used indecent words and asked for the woman's phone number. She gave him a wrong phone number and soon alerted the police," a police official said citing the first information report (FIR) lodged at Sector 20 Police Station.

They said Celestine was held last night on the basis of a complaint filed by the woman, but her family initially did not want any case registered.

"But today they got the case registered and Celestine was arrested under Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 354 (molestation)," the official said.

The police said they are yet to recover the Nigerian's passport and visa documents.

"Information about his arrest has been conveyed to the Nigeria Embassy via appropriate channel. We are waiting for more details about Celestine from there," they said.

The accused will be produced in court tomorrow, they said.

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Punjab Police have arrested a Nigerian drug smuggler with two kilograms of heroin worth Rs 1.8 crore, and tightened the noose around foreign nationals, especially from Africa, engaged in smuggling of narcotics, a senior police officer said today.

Police described Frank Margin, 27, as a big fish, who was in touch with several Afghan nationals in Delhi and Afghanistan for supply of contraband to drug smugglers in the national capital and Punjab.

Currently residing in Delhi, Margin headed a gang of drug smugglers, who were all African nationals, said SSP Rupnagar, Swapan Sharma, adding that police were now trailing other gang members.

Investigations revealed that Margin was in regular touch with more than 25 drug peddlers in various districts of Punjab, and had, in the July alone, sold nearly 3.5 kg of heroin and 60 gm of drug ice in the state.

Sharma said the police investigations were now focused on cracking the modus operandi of the gang headed by Margin, whose main area of operation had been Chander Vihara, Uttam Nagar and Dwarka areas of Delhi.

Amid reports of foreign nationals indulging in large-scale smuggling of drugs, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had issued strict directives to the police to trace and nab all such foreigners.

The issue had also been discussed yesterday at the regional conference of chief ministers to draw up a joint strategy against drugs in northern states.

While Haryana was in favour of verification of foreign students before grant of study visa, Uttarakhand had noted during the meeting that schools in Doon were hesitant about taking in foreign students due to the increasing number of cases of involvement of such students in drugs.

Data available with Punjab Police shows that in 2017, as many as 39 cases were registered against foreigners under the NDPS Act, with 50 Africans arrested in these cases.

Of these, 42 were from Nigeria. A total of 6.38 kg of heroin had been seized from the suspects in these cases.

In 2018 so far, 20 cases have been registered, with arrest of 24 Africans, including 42 Nigerians, with a total seizure of 21.55 kg of heroin and 6 kg of opium, Sharma said.

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Authorities have been directed to demolish "illegal" bungalows of fugitive diamond traders and accused Nirav Modi and situated in Raigad district, a Maharashtra minister said on Tuesday, days after the Mumbai High Court pulled up the state government for not taking action against the buildings.

Environment Minister Ramdas Kadam gave the demolition orders after presiding over a review meeting on illegal bungalows built in the adjoining coastal district with Raigad collector Vijay Suryawanshi at the state secretariat.

After the meeting, Kadam told reporters that 121 "illegal" bungalows, including those built by Modi and Choksi, were identified in Alibaug, a coastal town popular as a weekend getaway for Mumbai residents.

Similarly, 151 unauthorised bungalows have been built in Murud area of the district, he said.



All these bungalows have come up allegedly in violation of Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms and also do not conform to their sanctioned plans, Kadam said.

"Some of these illegal bungalows belong to Nirav Modi, and others. Today, I have asked the Raigad Collector to demolish the illegal bungalows of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi," said Kadam.

An official from the district collector's office said Modi's bungalow is located in Kihim village, while that of Choksi is in Awas village.

In case of other illegal bungalows, there are stays granted either by district courts or the Bombay High Court, Kadam said.

"So, we have now transferred the cases to the Green Tribunal. The Raigad police will conduct verification of documents in a month. All the cases in the NGT are likely to be cleared in the next 2-3 months," he said.



As of now, action would not be taken against illegal bungalows built by local residents, the minister said.

The number of unauthorised bungalows built by local residents in Alibaug and Murud stood at 61 and 50, respectively, Kadam said.

Suryawanshi said the government will go ahead with the demolition process after taking permission from the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which has attached the bungalows of Modi and Choksi as part of its probe into the multi-billion which came to light in February this year.

Both the diamond traders, key accused in the mega banking scam, have fled India.

"The demolition action will happen after we get a go-ahead from the ED," said Suryawanshi.



On August 14, the High Court, while hearing a petition, had pulled up Maharashtra government officials for not taking action against the illegal bungalow of Nirav Modi.

The HC had said it will direct the state government to initiate an inquiry into the issue.
Authorities have been directed to demolish the "illegal" bungalow of fugitive diamond trader and PNB scam accused Nirav Modi situated in Raigad district, a Maharashtra minister said today, days after the High Court here pulled up the state government for not taking action against it.

Environment Minister Ramdas Kadam gave the demolition order after presiding over a review meeting on illegal bungalows built in the adjoining coastal district with Raigad collector Vijay Suryawanshi at the state secretariat here.

Suryawanshi said one of the "illegal" bungalows in the district belongs to Mehul Choksi, a diamond trader and co-accused in the PNB scam, but there was a court stay on its demolition, along with some other unauthorised buildings.

"The government will request the court to vacate the stay granted on the demolition of illegal bungalows of Choksi and others so that we go ahead and raze them too," the collector told PTI.

The minister gave details of unauthorised bungalows.

"In all, there are total 121 illegal bungalow in Alibaug and 151 illegal bungalows at Murud in Raigad district.

"Some of these bungalows belong to filmstars and industrialists. Today, I have asked the district collector of Raigad to demolish the illegal bungalow of Nirav Modi, who has looted India and fled," said Kadam.

He was addressing the media after the review meeting held at Mantralaya (state secretariat).

An official from the district collector's office said Nirav Modi's bungalow is in Kihim village, while that of Choksi is in Awas village in Alibaug, a coastal town popular as a weekend gateway for Mumbai residents.

"The illegalities of these bungalows include the violation of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms and additional construction," the official said.

Of the 121 illegal bungalows in Alibaug, there is a court stay on 101 of them. Likewise, of the 151 illegal bungalows in Murud, there is a court stay on 61, the official from the collector's office added.

As of now, no action would be taken against illegal bungalows built by local residents, the minister said.

The number of unauthorised bungalows built by local residents in Alibaug and Murud stood at 61 and 50 respectively, Kadam said.

Suryawanshi said the government will be writing to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which has attached Nirav Modi's bungalow as part of its probe into the PNB scam, seeking permission for its demolition.

The bureaucrat said the earlier notices for demolition of illegal bungalows were issued under the Maharashtra Region Town Planning Act in 2015.

"However, we are now requesting the court to vacate the stay as fresh notices have been issued (for their demolition) under the (more stringent) Environment Protection Act," he said.

Both the diamond traders, key accused in the mega banking scam, have fled India.

On August 14, the High Court, while hearing a petition, had pulled up Maharashtra government officials for not taking action against the illegal bungalow of Nirav Modi.

The HC had said it would direct the state government to initiate an inquiry into the issue.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Authorities have been directed to demolish the "illegal" bungalow of fugitive diamond trader and PNB scam accused Nirav Modi situated in Raigad district, a Maharashtra minister said today, days after the High Court here pulled up state government for not taking action against the building.

Environment Minister Ramdas Kadam gave the demolition order after presiding over a review meeting on illegal bungalows built in the adjoining coastal district with Raigad collector Vijay Suryawanshi at the state secretariat here.

After the meeting, Kadam told reporters that 121 "illegal" bungalows, including those built by Modi and Mehul Choksi, a diamond trader and PNB scam co-accused, were identified in Alibaug, a coastal town popular as weekend gateway for Mumbai residents.

Similarly, 151 unauthorised bungalows have been built in Murud area of the district, he said.

All these bungalows have come up allegedly in violation of Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms and also do not conform to their sanctioned plans, Kadam said.

"Some of these illegal bungalows belong to Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and others. Today, I have asked the Raigad Collector to demolish the illegal bungalow of Nirav Modi," said Kadam.

An official from the district collector's office said Modi's bungalow is located in Kihim village, while that of Choksi is in Awas village.

In case of other illegal bungalows, including that of Choksi, there are stays granted either by district courts or the Bombay High Court, Kadam said.

"So, we have now transferred the cases to the National Green Tribunal. The Raigad police will conduct verification of documents in a month. All the cases in the NGT are likely to be cleared in the next 2-3 months," he said.

As of now, action would not be taken against illegal bungalows built by local residents, the minister said.

The number of unauthorised bungalows built by local residents in Alibaug and Murud stood at 61 and 50 respectively, Kadam said.

Suryawanshi said the government will go ahead with the demolition process after taking permission from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) which has attached the bungalow of Modi as part of its probe into the multi-crore PNB scam which came to light in February this year.

Both the diamond traders, key accused in the mega banking scam, have fled India.

"The demolition action will happen after we get a go ahead from the ED," said Suryawanshi.

On August 14, the High Court, while hearing a petition, had pulled up Maharashtra government officials for not taking action against the illegal bungalow of Nirav Modi.

The HC had said it will direct the state government to initiate an inquiry into the issue.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The director of Dehradun's National Institute for Visually Handicapped, Anuradha Dalmia, resigned following allegations of sexual harassment against a music teacher of the institute by girl students, officials said today.

She resigned last evening after the Uttarakhand Commission for Protection of Child Rights Chairperson Usha Negi visited the institute to conduct an investigation.

The resignation comes nearly a week after the students began an agitation accusing their music teacher of touching them improperly and demanding his arrest. They also sought the director's removal whom they charged with protecting the accused.

The UCPCR chairperson, in whose presence the NIVH director submitted her resignation, said Dalmiya had done it of her own accord.

"There was no pressure on her from us. She resigned on her own as she felt it was pointless continuing in office when the children had lost confidence in her," Negi said replying to a question.

Asked about her findings, the UCPCR chairperson refused to divulge any details.

"It would be too early to say anything in definite terms. The allegations are of a sensitive nature and still under probe. We have to get to their root. All I can say at the moment is there is certainly something wrong somewhere," she said.

Negi, who spent about 10 hours talking to students and the director, said there was a communication gap between the students and the institute's administration as the children had a number of complaints which need to be addressed.

The commission recommended constitution of a coordination committee which would work as a bridge between the institute's administration and its pupils, the UCPCR chairperson said.

However, the agitation by the NIVH students continued and they said they would not withdraw it until she was replaced.

They also expressed dissatisfaction with the accused music teacher's suspension, saying it was not enough.

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The UN's nuclear watchdog said it had not seen any indication that nuclear activities in North Korea have stopped despite its pledges to denuclearise.

"The continuation and further development of the DPRK's nuclear programme and related statements by the DPRK are a cause for grave concern," said a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), referring to North Korea's official name.

The report, published late yesterday, by the director general of Yukiya Amano is to be submitted to an IAEA board meeting in September.

In 2009 Pyongyang expelled IAEA inspectors from its Yongbyon nuclear site and has since refused to allow IAEA inspections on its territory.

The watchdog has stepped up monitoring through open source information and satellite imagery, it said.

"As the Agency remains unable to carry out verification activities in the DPRK, its knowledge of the DPRK's nuclear programme is limited and, as further nuclear activities take place in the country, this knowledge is declining," it said.

Between late-April and early-May, there were indications of the operation of the steam plant that serves the radiochemical laboratory at the Yongbyon site, according to the report.

However, the duration of the steam plant's operation was not sufficient to have supported the reprocessing of a complete core from the experimental nuclear power plant reactor, it added.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump held a groundbreaking summit in Singapore in June.

At the meeting the pair struck a vague agreement to denuclearise the Korean peninsula, but there has been little movement since.

Before this, Kim met South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April for their first summit. They agreed to push for a declaration of an end to the Korean War this year.

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Union Health Minister J P Nadda today said no outbreak of communicable disease has been reported from the flood-ravaged districts of Kerala so far.

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has issued health advisories to support the state in meeting with post-flood public health management challenges when the threat of water borne, vector borne and viral hepatitis diseases becomes potent.

According to a health ministry statement, NCDC teams are ready for deployment to support the state in preventing outbreak of diseases.

Though rains have eased in Kerala over the last two days, the state struggled to find its feet after the devastating deluge that left 223 dead in a fortnight and forced over 10 lakh people out of their homes.

According to the health ministry statement, since the flood situation at Kodagu district in Karnataka is worsening, one medical team from Bengaluru has been dispatched there to provide necessary support.

The Union health minister held a high-level meeting to review the relief measures in Kerala.

"The outbreak (of disease) situation is being monitored on a daily basis and the strategic health operation centre has been activated.

No outbreak of communicable disease has been reported yet," Nadda said, adding that he was personally monitoring the situation and was in regular communication with Kerala health minister K K Shailaja.

According to the statement, 65 metric tonnes of emergency drugs for flood situation have been airlifted by the IAF to Thiruvananthapuram today, while one crore chlorine tablets have been sent and another one crore are in transit.

The total request of four crore chlorine tablets will be met in phases, it said.

The health ministry has further mobilized 20 MT of bleaching powder which is being sent by road. Of this, 10 MT would reach today and another 10 MT would arrive there tomorrow.

Additionally, 12 public health teams have already been constituted, one each for all the worst-affected districts, and they are ready for deployment on request of the state.

Ten specialist medical teams have been constituted, and psycho-social teams from NIMHANS are ready for deployment as and when requested by the state government, the statement said.

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People with HIV infection can now look for a marriage partner on a web portal specially designed for them.

The portal -- matrimonial.gnspplus.org -- was launched today at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) to address the confidentiality concerns of people infected by HIV (human immunodeficiency virus).

The online platform has been created by Gujarat State Network of Positive People (GSNP+), a non-profit organisation, with the technical support of the IIMA's Centre for Management of Health Services.

The Surat-based Sri Rama Krishna (SRK) Knowledge Foundation has offered financial support.

Daksha Patel, the president of GSNP+, said the concern of such people is how to approach a matrimonial platform without disclosing their health status.

"When we met HIV positive people, we found some of them had no families and social support. It was difficult for them to find a life partner," she said.

This led to the NGO earlier launching a marriage bureau for HIV-positive people, with the help of which 245 couples have so far tied the knot, she claimed.

The web portal is the outcome of the NGO's experience with the marriage bureau, Patel said.

IIMA Director Errol D'souza termed it as a "very progressive step".

He said the field surveys reveal that the number of people infected by HIV is higher than the official estimates.

"A research is needed on what is possible to contain the disease before it becomes endemic," D'souza said.

"The web portal dedicated to the HIV-infected people to come together in matrimony is a very progressive step. We should treat these people as normal human beings," he said.

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The members of Assam Nagarik Mancha today accused the BJP government in the state of being "anti-Bengali" and demanded that a new NRC be published with the voter list of 2014 being the bench mark.

The complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), touted as a document of Assamese identity, was published last month and excluded the names of over 40 lakh people of the state.

"The BJP government in Assam is anti-Bengali. It wants to remove Bengalis from Assam," Bijay Chakraborty, general secretary of the Mancha, told newsmen here.

"The BJP came to power with the votes of these people and now all of a sudden they have become foreigners. We will never allow BJP to divide India on the basis of communal lines," he said.

Chakraborty said in the name of NRC the BJP is targeting Bengalis who have been living in Assam for the last several decades. "We demand that a new NRC should be published with the voter list of 2014 being the bench mark, he said.

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One person was killed when a truck hit a stationary lorry in West Bengal's Bankura district today, a senior police officer said.

Superintendent of Police, Sukhendu Hira said the truck hit the stationary lorry on Durgapur-Bankura Road in which the helper of the truck was killed.

Both the truck and the lorry were damaged in the accident, he added.

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Over 400 buses remained off the roads across the state as a section of employees of the Odisha State Road Transport Corporation (OSRTC) today launched a three-day agitation to press for their demands.

As part of the strike, the agitating employees of the state-owned transport corporation are holding demonstrations at different places throughout Odisha.

The demands include regularisation of contractual service, reinstating employees disengaged by the corporation, same wage for same work and upgradation in salary as per the 7th Pay Commission.

"We will intensify the strike if the state government do not fulfil our demands," a member of the agitating All Odisha State Road Transport Corporation Association said.

The association, however, is not recognised by the OSRTC.

As most OSRTC buses ply in remote areas, road communication has taken a hit in Koraput, Malkangiri, Rayagada, Gajapati, Nabarangpur and other districts.

Around 60 buses remained stranded at Badambadi bus terminal in Cuttack, adding to the woes of commuters.

The OSRTC has termed the agitation as "illegal" and "unlawful."



"We have appealed to the agitating employees to return to work... The corporation had recently hiked the remuneration of contractual employees by 20 per cent. As such, OSTRC is a loss-making undertaking," General Manager R P Sahu told PTI.

Sahu said that the strike is not legal as it is being organised by an employee body not recognised by the corporation.

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Over 24,000 people have been evacuated till now from the flood affected regions of Kerala till now even as 41 NDRF teams are still undertaking relief and rescue operations in the state, a force spokesperson said today.

Flood waters were receding in most of the affected areas and there are no alerts for heavy rainfall for the next few days.

"The force has rescued 535 people and evacuated 24,616 marooned people to safer places. 119 animals were also evacuated and pre-hospital treatment was provided to 4,908 people till now," he said.

At least 41 teams of the federal disaster contingency force are still deployed in Kerala to assist the state administration in rescue, relief and rehabilitation work and to respond in case of any eventuality, the spokesperson said.

A National Disaster Response Force team has about 35-40 personnel.

An estimated 223 people have lost their lives since August 8 in Kerala's worst floods in nearly a century which also forced more than 10 lakh people out of their homes.

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Over a dozen FMCG firms, including ITC, Coca Cola, Pepsi and Hindustan Unilever, have pledged to supply water bottle, food and necessary items to flood-hit areas of Kerala in the next two days, Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said today.

In a late evening meeting yesterday with the representatives of leading food processing companies, Badal discussed a plan to strategise assistance to Kerala in the coming days.

"It is time to work as a cohesive unit and make a coordinated effort to help the people of Kerala, instead of separate entities making individual efforts," said the minister of food processing industries.

The companies have pledged full support to the endeavour of reaching out to the people hit by the floods, she said in a statement.

Hindustan Unilever said it has already supplied 9,500 cases of salt, 29,000 cases of wheat products, 1,000 cases of Ketchup, 250 cases of spices mix masala and other products across the state.

Nestle said it has supplied 90,000 packets of Maggi, 2,00,000 packets of Munch, 1,100 packets of coffee and UHT milk.

The company said it will supply additional 40,000 packets of Maggi, 1 lakh Munch, 1,100 packs of coffee and UHT milk will be supplied along with 30,000 packs of ready-to-drink Milo and 10,000 packs of Serigo.

ITC has promised to supply 3.30 lakh packets of biscuits, 2,000 bottles of Savlon, 3,000 packets of dairy whitener, 9,000 packets of liquid hand wash and 7,000 soaps, the statement said.

Coca Cola India has already supplied 1.4 lakh litres of packaged drinking water and the company has committed to supply additional 1 lakh litres of packaged drinking water in next two days including 20,000 bottles tomorrow.

Pepsico has promised to supply 6.78 lakh litres of packaged drinking water and 10,000 kg Quaker Oats.

Among others, Britannia has already delivered 2.10 lakh packets of biscuits (6.5 Tonnes) at Kochi and 1.25 lakh packets at Malapuram and Wayanad.

The company will deliver additional 1.25 lakh packets of biscuits in next two days, 3,000 buns and 10,000 packets of biscuits to be supplied from Madurai.

MTR Food has delivered 35,000 ready-to-eat packets to Wayanad, while Bikanervala has decided to send one tonne of namkeen in coordination with industry body CII.

Dabur has promised to deliver 30,000 to 40,000 litres tetra-packed juices and 10,000 tubes of Odomos, while GSK India will sent relief material worth Rs 10 Lakhs, 1 million packets of Horlicks and 1 million Crocin tablets.

Marico has committed to supply 30 tonnes of Oats, while Bagrrys India has promised to supply 2 tonnes of oats.

Pernard Ricord and Cargill have assured to coordinate with dairy cooperative Amul for supply of milk powder and baby foods.

Mondelez India Foods has decided to give cash contribution of Rs 10 lakh to the CM relief fund.

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Sponsorship plays a vital role in keeping the lights on at any aviation magazine, and its no different for us here at Warbirds Digest. That being said, its important to choose partnerships with companies which fit closely with the interests of our audience, whether it be those with a general interest in aviation and aviation history, or those who actually fly warbirds on a regular basis. As such we have formed relationships with some significant businesses, and all of them have a direct link to our shared passion for flight. One such company which joined the fold in recent months is Lift Aviation, which offers a range of high quality, cutting edge flight gear for the discerning aviator, whether they are flying a vintage warbird or a something more modern. Their range of products includes flying helmets, flight caps, knee pads, shoes, eyewear and other accessories

One of Lift Aviations more innovative products is their line of flight shoes which integrate a device they dub a Rudder Control Heel Slider at the back end of the sole which greatly reduces the chances of a pilot catching their shoe on the cockpit floor when applying rudder inputs. This will resonate with anyone whos ever flown an aircraft in traditional sneakers before, as the rubber heels can easily grab at the cockpit floor, making smooth rudder movements significantly harder. AOPA Pilot magazine labeled these shoes the best accessory you never knew you wanted, and its easy to see why!

These are just some of Lift Aviations clever ideas, in just one of their products It is clear that the company has carefully considered the design and manufacture of their merchandise, with safety, comfort and ease-of-use being paramount to their ethos. For a little detail on the companys background and the merits of the brand, we thought these words from Lift Aviations owner, Guido Rietdyk would be of interest.

LIFT Aviation was born out of the desire to provide modern technology in the cockpit environment that would match the unbelievable technological advances weve seen in GPS, Engine Monitoring, and generally the glass panel movement. Folks in the warbird community, including myself, are largely stuck with really dated technology in terms of pilot gear, including helmets, footwear, knee boards, flight caps  where for decades nobody has cared to do anything in terms of science and technology. Our military pilots fly around with 1955 technology helmets which is really astounding if you think about it. A bit frustrated by this, we set out to change all of that, and mixed in our 30 years of applied science experience in the personal safety industry into a product line that aimed to move the quality of the products that pilots use in and around the cockpit lightyears forward. We came up with some innovative and patented products that are starting to resonate with the warbird community all over the world now, and were being encouraged by the response. LIFT Aviation products are high on technical innovation, solid in terms of quality, offer no-nonsense pure pilot performance by enhancing cockpit safety, and dont break the bank  because we agree everyones money is best spent on fuel and maintenance after all!

These are clearly important aims, and just one reason why we are proud to have Lift Aviation as a sponsor!
The Punjab Cabinet today approved amendments to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as well as the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to make sacrilege of religious texts punishable with life imprisonment.

The government has taken a major step towards curbing such incidents and maintaining communal harmony in the state, an official spokesperson said.

The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, he said.

"The Cabinet has approved insertion of section 295AA to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to provide that - whoever causes injury, damage or sacrilege to Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Srimad Bhagwad Geeta, Holy Quran and Holy Bible with the intention to hurt the religious feelings of the people, shall be punished with imprisonment for life," the spokesperson said



The Cabinet has okayed the withdrawal of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2016 and the Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2016, passed in the 12th Session of 14th Vidhan Sabha, 2016, he said.

It has given its nod to the introduction of 'The Code of Criminal Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2018 and the Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2018, in the ensuing session of Punjab Vidhan Sabha, the spokesperson said.

The Cabinet also approved a series of other bills to be tabled before the Assembly in the forthcoming session, he added.

Significantly, the Punjab Assembly in 2016, when the previous SAD-BJP government was in power, had passed the Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2016 and Code of Criminal Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2016. The amendments at that time were brought to seek life imprisonment for sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib.

However, later, the Centre reportedly raised objection to the amendment, asking the state that the punishment of life imprisonment could not be limited to desecration of holy book of just one religion instead it should be for all religions.

Punjab witnessed some incidents of sacrilege in recent years and it also became and election issue in the Assembly polls last year.

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PC Jeweller has cut its net debt by about 10 per cent during the first quarter of the current fiscal to Rs 4,064 crore and targets to bring it down to less than Rs 3,000 crore by September.

In an analyst presentation, the company said it has "voluntarily repaid bank debt of Rs 426 crores in Q1 FY19".

After the repayment, the company's net debt declined to Rs 4,064 crore as on June 30, from Rs 4,490 crore as on March 31, 2018.

PC Jeweller said it has reduced bank liabilities from internal accruals and better realisations from inventory.

The company said it has Rs 1,162 crore as cash balance in books of accounts.

This fund would be utilised "to further reduce our bank liabilities to less than Rs 3,000 crore by September end", the company said.

PC Jeweller has posted 4.5 per cent growth in its net profit at Rs 142 crore during the first quarter of this fiscal.

Its sales rose by 14.4 per cent to Rs 2,423 crore for the quarter ended June. Out of total sales, domestic market contributed Rs 1,616 crore while exports were to the tune of Rs 807 crore.

The company said it will focus on stronger branding, customer acquisition and same store sales growth along with expansion of franchisee network.

Established in 2005, PC Jeweller is engaged in the business of manufacturing, sale and trading of gold jewellery, diamond studded jewellery and silver items. It currently has nearly 100 stores in 75 cities.

"The company operates through its retail stores and there is a constant monitoring of individual store performance," the presentation said.

It has changed the store format from small to large at some location, while reducing the store size and shifted to a different market in some other markets. Stores at Bengaluru and Kolkata have been closed.

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The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may not have taken action against its 'rebel' members after they raised a banner of revolt against the party leadership, but its official Twitter handle has un-followed some of them, a party leader said.

The move is being seen as a sign of no reconciliation between the 'rebels' and the party leadership, a PDP leader said.

PDP's official twitter handle, @jkpdp, has over 23000 followers and follows 17 accounts.

Some of the Twitter accounts the PDP follows include party leaders, legislators, journalists and even actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha.

However, the list does not include any of the PDP's seven rebel legislators -- five MLAs and two MLCs -- led by the influential Shia leader Imran Ansari a former minister and MLA Pattan.

Soon after the BJP ended its coalition with the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir, Ansari led a revolt against Mehbooba Mufti's leadership accusing her of nepotism.

He was joined by his uncle and MLA, Zadibal, Abid Ansari, Baramulla MLA Javaid Baig, Tangmarg MLA Abbas Wani, Noorabad MLA Abdul Majid Padder, MLC Yasir Reshi and MLC Saifuddin Bhat.

The party's Twitter handle follows MLAs Raja Manzoor Khan (MLA Karnah), Haseeb Drabu (MLA Rajpora), Aijaz Ahmad Mir (MLA Wachi), Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali (MLA Darhal) and Abdul Haq Khan (MLA Lolab), and also Naeem Akhtar (MLC) and Firdous Tak (MLC) apart from party president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.

"The Twitter handle used to follow few of the rebel party leaders - like Ansari and Reshi - who were active on the social media and the handle would often retweet their tweets. However, after the revolt in the party, the handle not only stopped retweeting Ansari's tweets, but also unfollowed him," a party leader said.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, he told PTI that 'unfollowing' the rebel leaders on Twitter "was a beginning" and more steps were likely to be taken.

"This is just the beginning. More steps are in the pipeline," he said.

Asked if the party would suspend the rebels, the PDP leader said "That option is open for us. We have gone a bit slow and are waiting to see the situation."



When contacted, a party spokesperson declined to comment on the issue.

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Actor Maniesh Paul, who will be playing a dark character in short film "Black Briefcase", believes it is wrong to slot actors.

Paul, who is considered one of the most successful show hosts, says it becomes difficult for an actor to break from an image.

"People should stop slotting actors as a comedian, action star or a romantic hero, an actor is an actor and he/she can do everything. I think I am actor, an entertainer and I want to do films that excite me," Maniesh told PTI.

"As an actor I want to do different stuff. People know I host shows. I do lot of comedy and the films that I have done have been in comic (space) so I wanted to offer something new to them," he added.

Paul said doing "Black Briefcase" was an attempt to do something that would appeal him as an artiste.

"It is not that I was running away from comedy. It becomes difficult to break an image but I don't focus on things. I look at what I want to come out with different films. I don't want to do films just because it is coming from a good banner or has stars in it. I want to do film in which I have something to do as an actor."



In the film, produced by his brother, Vevek Paul, the actor plays the role of a terrorist.

"It is a short film of 15 minutes. It is a dark character, which I have not done earlier. It was challenging as I was entering into new zone.

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In 1897, soon after discovering that malaria parasite is carried by mosquito, British doctor Sir Ronald Ross had in a poem expressed optimism about the fight against this health menace, not knowing then that it would still be one of the dreaded diseases 120 years later.

Ross, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1902 for his work on malaria transmission, besides being a scientist, wore several other hats, one of them being of a poet.

Born in Almora in India in 1857, he had confirmed the presence of the malarial parasite inside the gut of mosquito, which he originally identified as "dappled-wings" (which turned out to be species of the genus Anopheles).

August 20 is observed as World Mosquito Day to commemorate his groundbreaking discovery and also to raise awareness about malaria and the ways to prevent its spread.

On August 21, 1897, shortly after discovering malaria parasites in mosquitoes, Ross had penned an optimistic poem, according to a paper -- Developmental genomics of the most dangerous animal -- by Matthew P Scott.

The paper was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) in 2007.

A few lines of the poem read -- "With tears and toiling breath, I find thy cunning seeds, O million-murdering Death. I know this little thing, A myriad men will save. O Death, where is thy sting? Thy victory, O Grave!"



But, in the 21st century, malaria continues to affect millions of people worldwide, including India, where Ross had made the discovery while working.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), malaria killed 5,84,000 people across the world in 2013, with children under five accounting for at least three-fourths of those deaths.

WHO statistics for 2013 states that the working number for deaths due to malaria in India was 28,000 but could be as high as 46,000 per year.

Malaria was long thought to be caused by miasma from rotting vegetation and foul waters, and considered to be a particular risk in hot and humid climates.

"Earlier records contain Medical Topographies prepared by Indian Medical Officers to designate 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' areas to inform the construction of hospitals and barracks," according to the British Library.

The name malaria, comes from Italian words 'male' which means bad and 'aria' which means air. It was coined so, as the disease was then associated with odorous marshy land.

Malaria is caused by infection with protozoan parasites belonging to the genus Plasmodium transmitted by female Anopheles mosquitoes.

While in popular culture, an act of mosquito bite may have been treated with humour, the disease malaria still sends shivers down people's spines, quite literally.

Besides, malaria, mosquitoes can cause a host of other diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and Zika. Dengue and Zika are potentially life-threatening in nature.

"While Ross is remembered for his malaria work, this remarkable man was also a mathematician, epidemiologist, sanitarian, editor, novelist, dramatist, poet, amateur musician, composer, and artist. He died, after a long illness, at the Ross Institute on 16 September, 1932," according to a short biography on him, published on the website of US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi and Chief Minister V Narayanasamy extended their greetings to people of Muslim community on the eve of Bakrid.

In her message, Bedi said, "true spirit of celebration of Bakrid (Eid Ul Zuha) is to follow and propagate principles of compassion, peace, sacrifice and brotherhood."



The former IPS officer also said she wished that the festival bestowed happiness and prosperity in the lives of the people.

"I extend my greetings and best wishes to Muslim brethren and people of Union Territory of Puducherry on the happy occasion," she added.

Greeting the members of Islamic community, Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said the territorial administration has provided Rs 20.48 lakhsto 128 pilgrims to undertake Hajj pilgrimage this year.

He also highlighted the significance of Bakrid festival, particularly the principles of sacrifice and extending help to the have-nots.

Assembly Speaker V Vaithilingam, Ministers, leaders of various parties and MLAs were among those who extended the greetings.

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President Ram Nath Kovind today greeted the nation on the eve of Id-ul-Zuha and asked citizens to work together for unity and fraternity.

"On the occasion of Id-ul-Zuha, I extend my greetings and good wishes to fellow citizens and especially to our Muslim brothers and sisters in India and abroad.

"On this special day, we celebrate the spirit of sacrifice. Let us resolve to work together for unity and fraternity in our shared society," he said in his message.

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The prime accused in the rape and killing of a minor girl in Uttarkashi, which had led to a wave of protests across Uttarakhand, has been arrested, police said today.

The main accused Mukesh alias Bunty was picked up yesterday from Dunda Devidhar in the district and he has confessed to the crime, DIG Ajay Rautela told reporters here today.

To ward of suspicion, the accused who was known to the victim's family, even participated in protests against the incident, the officer said.

A case has been registered against the accused under sections 302 (murder) , 376 (rape) and 363 (kidnapping)of the IPC and the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, he said.

Hailing from Lambgaon in Tehri district, the accused who worked as a mule operator in the victim's village, police said.

He disclosed during interrogation that he knew the victim's family who were residents of the same village and would often look for excuses to engage her or her elder sister in a conversation, Rautela said.

He even arrived at their home in an inebriated state at night on a couple of occasions but the girls' mother woke up and turned him out.

On the night of August 17, when the victim aged 11 was sleeping with her parents at home, the accused entered into the house after snapping the house's power connection and kidnapped her, the officer said.

He took her to another location and raped her, Rautela said.

He then killed the girl and ran away after dumping her body on a bridge near the village, the DIG said. The body of the victim in blood-stained clothes was found the following morning by villagers.

It was on the basis of a statement given by the victim's elder sister that the police team led by IG Sanjay Gunjyal could reach the accused, Rautela said.

Initial reports suggested it was a case of gangrape but the medical report of the girl indicated the crime was committed by one person, he said.

The accused even tried to mislead the investigators by joining the protesters seeking that the culprits be brought to book, police.

The incident had sparked protests in Uttarakhand with the markets in Uttarkashi and Chinyalisaur keeping their shutters down yesterday. Even the priests at the Himalayan shrine of Gangotri had registered their protest yesterday by not performing any 'pujas' on the banks of the Ganga till 1 PM.

Opposition Congress had threatened to hit the streets if the guilty were not brought to justice within a week.

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A senior officer of the Higher department today conducted a day-long inquiry into the alleged irregularities in Ravenshaw University here, officials said.

Additional secretary in the Higher department, P K Das examined the universitys audit reports of last two years with reference to the allegations of misappropriation of funds and faulty purchases made by the varsity during the past two years, they said.

Das also examined the mode of recruitment of permanent, contract and guest faculties of the university.

"I will submit a consolidated report to the Higher secretary soon as per the government direction," Das said.

Allegations of misappropriation of funds, faulty recruitment of teachers as well as guest faculties and unfair mode of promotions under career advancement scheme (CAS) were leveled against the university authorities by the students and various other people.

Taking cognizance of the allegations, the Higher Education secretary last month had ordered for an administrative inquiry into the matter, they added.

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The Punjab government today decided to amend a law on the office of profit to exclude several posts from its ambit, and shield MLAs from disqualification for holding them.

The decision was taken by the state Cabinet in a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.

The move follows Punjab Governor V P Singh Badnore's refusal last month to give assent to an ordinance, amending the law, which would have enabled the MLAs to become chairpersons of various boards and corporations without facing disqualification on the grounds of holding offices of profit'.

The governor had asked the government to take the assembly route to amend it.

With the fresh amendments, the Punjab government will be able to appoint MLAs as chairpersons, vice chairpersons or directors of various boards or corporations.

After the Cabinet expansion in April, several ruling party MLAs including Sangat Singh Gilzian, Nathu Ram, Surjit Singh Dhiman, Navtej Singh Cheema had expressed disappointment over not being inducted as ministers.

"The Punjab State Legislature (Prevention of Disqualification) (Amendment) Bill, 2018 will be tabled in the forthcoming session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha following the Cabinet nod to the new legislation," said an official spokesperson.

As per the proposed amendments, various categories of offices would be added to the current list of positions and offices which the MLAs can hold without inviting disqualification, the spokesperson added.

He said the Bill seeks to amend Section 2 of the present Act, which excludes various offices from the ambit of the office of profit law.

Accordingly, the bill proposes to add some new offices to the exclusion list under section 2 of the Act to shield MLAs from disqualification for holding them.

He said the Bill would amend section 2 to include in its exclusion list the chairmen or the members of a committee, set up temporarily for advising the government on a matter of public importance or for making an inquiry.

The holders of such offices, however, will not be entitled to any remuneration other than compensatory allowances to stay out of the ambit of the office of profit law, he said.

He said it would also exempt from the ambit of the office of profit law the chairmen, directors or the members of any statutory or non-statutory body, but they would not be entitled to any remuneration except compensatory allowance.

He said the Section 2 of the present Act includes only the offices of ministers, including the chief minister, the minister of state or the deputy minister as being out of the ambit of the office of profit law.

The other offices presently included in the exclusion list under section 2, he said, are those of chairman, vice chairman, deputy chairman of the state planning board, besides the offices of the leader and deputy leader of a recognised party or a recognised group in the Vidhan Sabha.

The posts of the chief whip, deputy chief whip and other whips of various legislature party too are presently out of the ambit of the office of profit law, he added.

The spokesperson said the amendments are aimed at addressing the complexities of modern-day governance and include incorporation of a new Section 1A to provide for the definitions of the terms like "compensatory allowance", "statutory body" and "non-statutory body".

As per Section 1A, "compensatory allowance" would mean any sum of money payable to the holder of an office by way of daily allowance, conveyance allowance, hose-rent allowance or travelling allowance as reimbursement to his expenditures incurred in performing the functions of that office.

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The Congress today stepped up attack on the BJP-led NDA government, accusing it of trying to cover up an alleged scam in the Rafale jet deal and said it will hit the streets to press for a JPC probe into the issue.

"We will press for a transparent, fair and independent probe through a JPC," Congress leader and former Minister of State for Defence Jitendra Singh told reporters here.

He said the party would launch a countrywide agitation to "expose the scam".

"The Narendra Modi government is indulging in a brazen cover-up exercise to deceive people on the Rafale deal in which national interest was compromised causing loss to public exchequer," Singh said.

Claiming that the deal caused a Rs 41,205-crore loss of public money, he said that purchase of 36 Rafale jets was done at a price of Rs 1670.70 crore per aircraft compared with Rs 526.10 crore per aircraft, as per the international bid opened on December 12, 2012 during the previous UPA government.

"While 36 aircraft would have cost Rs 18,940 crore, the amount shot up to Rs 60,145 crore," he said, adding, as per the earlier arrangement, 108 aircraft were to be made in India by the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) with transfer of technology.

Slamming the Centre for refusing to divulge "inflated prices" of the aircraft citing a "secrecy clause", the Congress leader claimed that the agreement between India and France has no such clause on non-disclosure of commercial purchase price.

Singh, who is also AICC Odisha In-Charge, sought to know as to why the number of fighter jets required for the Indian Air Force was "reduced from 126 to 36".

He also accused the BJP-led government of having by-passed the defence acquisition council and cabinet committee on security (CCS), and alleged that defence procurement procedure was violated and transfer of technology surrendered.

Singh further alleged that Rs 36,000 crore offset contract was "snatched" from HAL, as a private company got 'Defence Offset Contract' of Rs 30,000 crore and 'Life Cycle Contract' of Rs 1 lakh crore.

He wondered as to why the government allowed the offset contract to be given to a company that has "zero experience" of manufacturing fighter aircraft, bypassing the public sector HAL.

The Congress leader claimed that the private company had been registered just 12 days prior to clinching the deal, and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being a "partner" in gross irregularities.

"Has the 'Chowkidar' become 'Bhagidar' in the whole episode? This unusual act of benevolence tells a unique story of PM Modi's crony capitalism," Singh said.

He said had HAL bagged the offset contract, around 50,000 youths of Odisha would have got employment opportunities, as the company has a key plant in Sunabeda in the state.

Singh also criticised the Centre for "deliberately ignoring" a 20-per cent price reduction offer by Eurofighter Typhoon. "In the original invited tender by the previous UPA government, two fighter aircraft were found equal on all technical fronts - Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon," he said.

Both the Central government and the BJP have dismissed as false the allegations levelled by the Congress on the Rafale deal.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Flood-hit Kerala is likely to get around Rs 200 crore from railways for rehabilitation works, after Railway Minister Piyush Goyal today appealed to the national transporter's 13 lakh employees across 16 zones to voluntarily donate a day's salary for the cause.

Goyal said he was confident of a positive response from the employees as their contribution will help bring relief to the thousands rendered homeless in the state.

"Employees of southern railways have already contributed Rs 65 lakh to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund without us even asking them to do so. We will send out the notice today," the minister told reporters.

Railway Board officials said that the aid would amount to Rs 200 crore.

Goyal also said that railways has run as many as 61 special trains in Thiruvanathapuram and Palakkad divisions to connect stranded passengers.

"In particular, Thiruvananthapuram- Ernakulam section was connected by passenger Special Trains via Alleppey, which was not affected during the flood period every three hours, helping all for the movement of people, rescue and relief team," he said.

While three lakh Rail Neer Bottles from IRCTC plants in Southern Railway have been dispatched to the flood ravaged state, another one lakh bottles are getting ready to be delivered.

Even as Union Tourism Minister K J Alphons today appealed for more packed food for the people of the state, the railways, in a statement, said that its catering operations were working round the clock at all major stations like Trivandrum and Palakkad and food was being supplied to the needy on payment basis.

He said that arrangements were also being made to supply food packets through NGOs for stranded passengers in AluvaWadakkanchery section of Trivandrum and Shoranur in Palakkad division.

"Food packets were distributed to staff working in the section Shoranur Calicut section. 12,000 food packets were arranged at Chalakkudi and Aluva during August 16-18 August, 2018. The staff of divisional office collected relief materials worth Rs 4 lakh which was also handed over to the district administration," the statement said.

An estimated 223 people have lost their lives since August 8 in Kerala's worst floods in decades which also forced more than 10 lakh people out of their homes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With rains easing and water receding in some areas of flood-ravaged Kerala, people started returning to their homes as Union Ministrer K J Alphons today appealed for cooked food and skilled workers to rehabilitate more than 10 lakh displaced people.

Though there has been some respite from the rain in the last two days, the water level has not come down in several areas of the worst-hit Ernakulam, Thrissur, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha and Kollam districts, the officials said, a day after the Union Home Ministry declared the flood a 'calamity of severe nature'.

An estimated 223 people have lost their lives since August 8 in Kerala's worst floods in decades that has caused damage worth more than Rs 20,000 crore. About 10.78 lakh people, including 2.12 lakh women and one lakh children under 12, have been sheltered in 3,200 relief camps, officials said.

Rail and road traffic services have been restored in most places, they said.

As relief agencies, local governments and people across the country banded together to put together relief supplies, the flood-hit in several parts of Kerala began returning home.

Many people found their electrical appliances and furniture ruined and a thick layers of sludge and slime.

Incidents of snake bites were reported from Ernakulam and Thrissur districts.

"As the flood is receding in Kerala people have to move to whatever is left of their homes. Need ready to eat cooked food, clothes and an army of electricians, plumbers and carpenters," Alphons said on Twitter, tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.

The minister, who belongs to Kerala, also issued an appeal to skilled workers like plumbers, electricians and carpenters to come to the state to make homes livable and help in the task of restoring normalcy.

Flagging the immediate needs of the people, he tweeted, "Doctors and nurses who can go down to the villages as there is apprehension about the possibility of outbreak of deceases. New clothes, if it can be distributed through NGOs," he said.

The minister also thanked the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) for providing the state huge quantities of tetra pack milk and public sector oil companies which came together and handed Rs 25 crore to the Kerala chief minister for flood relief.

As the state began the task of recovering from the disaster, one small step at a time, more relief material arrived at the Cochin port.

The Cochin Port Trust has earmarked two warehouses for free storage of relief materials, arriving from across the country, for people affected by the unprecedented floods, a port trust official said.

The first truck carrying relief materials, mobilised by all major ports under the Union Shipping Ministry, was dispatched through the VOC Port Trust in Tuticorin and will be arriving at the port here today, he said.

Four containers of relief material sent by the shipping fraternity from Tuticorin under the initiative of the ministry was delivered for distribution yesterday, the official said.

More relief material from different parts of India have started arriving at the Cochin port through coastal shipping.

The state government and the Army have made it clear that rescue operations will continue till the last person stranded is brought to safety.

Over the last four days, more than 1.63 lakh stranded people were rescued in a joint operation conducted by police, National Disaster Response Team, Army, Navy, Air Force and a large number of volunteers.

The state government, which has called for an all-party meeting later in the day to elicit views on the package for rehabilitation, has decided to honour the fishermen community that played a vital role in rescuing people.

The state cabinet will meet today to take stock of the situation and work out a rehabilitation package for those affected.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told reporters last night the focus of the government will be on rehabilitation.

The first priority will be to clear the houses.

The government will also prepare a comprehensive health action programme to prevent the outbreak of any water borne diseases.

The Southern Air Command has said the Indian Air Force (IAF) will continue all out efforts in coordination with the civil administration to ensure that the people of the Kerala recover quickly from the calamity.

It has dispatched four medical teams to Thiruvalla and Chengannur for setting up medical facilities.

A total of 364 helicopter sorties were flown, 1.25 lakh kg of supplies dropped and 574 people rescued, a release said.

The state level bankers committee has also decided to declare a moratorium on agriculture loan for one year.

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The office of state chief electoral officer (CEO) will keep a close eye on paid news, fake and advertisements influencing voters ahead of assembly election 2018, said an official today.

CEO of Rajasthan Ashwani Bhagat said media certification and monitoring committees (MCMC) have been constituted in all districts of the state as per the directions and action plan of the chief election commission.

The committee will begin operations after election announcement and nomination filing. The committees will keep a strict eye on reports published or broadcasted by candidates in electronic, print and social media, he said.

Bhagat said training related to media management, paid news, advertisement certification was given to the information and public relations officer and district-level nodal officers. Review of the preparation done by MCMC members will be done via video conferencing on August 28.

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Bollywood star Rani Mukerji's critically acclaimed film "Hichki" is set to release in Kazakhstan on September 20.

The film had a successful run in Russia and now a version with Russian voice over will release in Kazakhstan. Russian is one of the country's official languages.

"It's truly amazing that films can cross over to different cultures and languages because of its universal story. 'Hichki' is a reflection of society, a reflection of how we all have weaknesses and we need to overcome them to make the world a better place.

"It talks about every person's determination, focus and positive spirit to win over obstacles. I'm happy that Hichki's core message is resonating with audiences across the globe. I am proud of the film, and grateful that people are enjoying it," Rani said in a statement.

Directed by Siddharth P Malhotra and produced by Maneesh Sharma, "Hichki" will be screened across 15 screens in Kazakhstan, which makes it the biggest release for a Hindi feature film in this nation since 2015.

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The ruling AAP in Delhi and the opposition BJP locked horns today over the cancellation of 2.9 lakh ration cards, alleging one another of "corruption" and trying to benefit vested interests.

BJP legislator and Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta alleged that the Delhi government was trying to hand over ration distribution to private companies to benefit AAP and its workers.

"It is a deep-rooted conspiracy of corruption to help AAP and its workers by giving ration distribution rights to some private company."



He claimed that the identification of fake ration card holders has resulted in saving of 58,000 quintal of wheat and rice, leading to a saving of Rs 7-8 crore per month.

"The aggressive opposition by Kejriwal shows that his party and partymen will be denied benefit due to cancellation of bogus ration cards," he charged.

The Delhi government yesterday alleged that Food Commissioner Mohanjeet Singh has decided to cancel more than 2.9 lakh ration cards without proper inspection.

Rejecting the government's allegation, Singh had said 2.48 lakh "ineligible" ration card holders have been deleted after following "due process of law".

Aam Aadmi Party spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj accused BJP of being "hand-in-glove" with the ration mafia and adopting "anti poor" character.

It is extremely shocking that the BJP is defending the officers responsible for "large-scale corruption" in ration distribution system in Delhi, he accused.

He claimed that in the month of April, the Delhi government had detected a scam and had asked the lieutenant governor for a probe into it.

"AAP challenges the BJP and their LG to make public what action was taken on the evidence provided by the elected government of Delhi," he said.

A large number of people faced problems in getting their ration due to use of electronic point of sale (e-PoS) machines and the "scam" was detected by the government, he said.

Bhardwaj claimed poor people faced hardships due to failures of e-PoS and charged BJP of "senselessly" favouring it.

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Reliance Foundation today said it has taken a multi-pronged rescue, relief and rehabilitation programme for the flood-affected people in Kerala, donating Rs 21 crore to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund and supplying relief material worth Rs 50 crore.

Reliance Foundation (RF), along with Reliance Industries and its group companies, has been since August 14 carrying out rescue and relief operations in the six worst affected districts of Ernakulam, Wayanad, Alappuzuha, Thrissur, Idukki and Pathanamthitta.

"RF has identified 15,000 affected families who would be provided dry ration kits, utensils, shelter, shoes and clothes in the coming days. The bulk of the material will be supplied by Reliance Retail," it said in a statement here.

Through Reliance Retail, supplies such as ready-to-eat food, glucose, and sanitary napkins have been provided to 160 government-run relief camps, sheltering about 50,000 people.

A large consignment of relief material, weighing about 2.6 tonnes, has been handed over to the Maharashtra government. It will be transported by air to Kerala.

Also, 7.5 lakh units of apparel, 1.5 lakh pairs of footwear and dry grocery are being mobilised for distribution.

"The assistance from Reliance Retail for the flood relief activities is worth close to Rs 50 crore," the statement said.

The foundation will also set up medical camps with Malayalam-speaking doctors and paramedical staff in three districts and supply medicines to the government for use by district authorities.

Besides, RF team is identifying the damaged schools and primary health care centres and will undertake reconstruction and repair work of some of these public institutions.

"The foundation stands firmly with the people of Kerala in this hour of need. It will remain committed to its relief and rehabilitation efforts and continue its operations in Kerala until normalcy is restored in the state," said Nita Ambani, Chairperson, Reliance Foundation.

Since 2013, RF has carried similar operations in Jammu & Kashmir (floods, 2014), Nepal (earthquake, 2015), Tamil Nadu (floods, 2015), Gujarat (floods, 2015) and Maharashtra (drought in Marathwada, 2016), she said. "We will stay engaged in Kerala and keep up our efforts until the situation returns to normalcy.

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The Uttarakhand High Court today directed the state government to remove all permanent structures from the alpine meadows, sub-alpine meadows and grasslands of the state within three months.

Quoting a verse from a revered Sikh scripture according to which air, water, earth and sky are the God's abode, the division bench of Justices Rajiv Sharma and Lokpal Singh ordered the state government to remove all permanent structures from alpine meadows, sub-alpine meadows and grasslands of the state including Aali-Bedini-Bagzi Bugyals (grasslands) within a period of three months.

The state government was also asked by the high court to constitute eco-development committees within six weeks in eco-sensitive zones to protect and preserve nature, and ecology.

Quoting the Guru Granth Saheb which says, "Pavan paani dharati aakas ghar mandar har bani", (Air, water, earth and sky are God's home and temple), the bench put a cap of a maximum of 200 tourists visiting the alpine meadows, sub-alpine meadows, and bugyals (grasslands) with a complete ban on night stays.

Further no construction whatsoever is to be done on such sites, it said.

The commercial grazing of cattle is banned on alpine meadows, sub-alpine meadows and bugyals forthwith, it said.

The local shepherds alone will be permitted to graze their cattle within reasonable restriction on the number of cattle.

All the district magistrates across Uttarakhand are directed to ensure removal of plastic water bottles, cans etc. from the alpine meadows, sub-alpine meadows and bugyals within six weeks from today, the high court said.

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Markets in Kashmir valley, particularly in the summer capital, wore a festive look today as residents went on a shopping spree, including for sacrificial animals, to prepare for Eid-ul-Azha which would be celebrated here tomorrow.

Sheep and goats worth crores would be sacrificed over the next three days to mark the tradition of Prophet Ibrahim, in which he had offered to sacrifice his only son, Prophet Ismail, as an act of obedience for Allah.

The meat of the sacrificial animals would then be distributed among relatives, friends and needy people.

The Consumer Affairs Department fixed a ceiling of Rs 210 per kilogram of live animal but the rate list was being observed in breach, indicating a higher demand for the animals this year.

"The rate list issued by the government departments exists only on paper as the animals are sold at the rate of Rs 240 to Rs 260 per kilogram," Mohammad Ishaq, a city resident, said.

A mutton dealer has brought in camels from Rajasthan to be sacrificed this Eid. While few people showed interest in buying these animals, a large crowd gathered at places where these are put on sale.

Some animals are fetching the mutton dealers three to four times the actual value.

"We are selling the live animals at Rs 220 per kg but there are some sheep and goats which have higher price. The customers are willing to pay more for animals which look beautiful," Mohammad Ayoub, a mutton dealer, said.

Elsewhere, bakeries, confectioneries and ready-made garment showrooms witnessed heavy footfall over the past few days as people made purchases for Eid.

However, the business community claimed that the sales were not as good as they had expected.

We have had a tough decade with agitations claiming three seasons in 2008, 2010 and 2016. Then we had 2014 floods which have badly affected the financial condition of the people," Sajad Ahmad, a shopkeeper, said.

He said extension of GST to Jammu and Kashmir preceded by demonetisation in 2016 also had adverse effect on business in Kashmir.

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RUJ Group plans to invest Rs 700 crore for expansion of its business activities in the capital city of Rajasthan.

"Rs 700 crore will be invested for setting up a dairy plant, furniture plant and a hospital in Jaipur in coming two years and job opportunities for 1,000 persons will be created through these projects by the year 2020," a company release said today.

Indian Origin Swiss scientist Rajendra Kumar Joshi, founder of the Jaipur-headquartered group, said the group has already invested Rs 800 crore in setting up of both Bhartiya Skill Development University and RS India (Swiss precision and assembly plant) in Mahindra world city here.

"The Bhartiya Skill Development University is enhancing the scope of skill development by not only providing skilling programmes but also enterprise development by courses like B.Voc. in Entrepreneurship, which are in-trend and industry-synced courses," he said.

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New Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satyapal Malik will be the first career politician to be appointed to the position in the last 51 years, indicating a change in the strategy of the Centre which has so far relied on ex-babus to run show in the troubled state.

The 72-year-old Malik has been associated with almost all political hues, starting as a socialist student leader to the vice president of the BJP, before being appointed as the Bihar governor last year.

He will be the first career politician to be appointed as the governor of Jammu and Kashmir in 51 years after Karan Singh whose term had ended in 1967.

Since 1967, the post has been occupied only by retired civil servants, diplomats, police officers and Army generals.

His appointment may also been seen in the light of the changing political scenario with talks doing rounds about disgruntled elements in the PDP joining hands with the BJP.

Inspired by Ram Manohar Lohia, Malik started his political career as a student leader in Meerut University and became MLA of Charan Singh's Bhartiya Kranti Dal from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh in 1974.

He joined the Congress in 1984 and became its Rajya Sabha MP but resigned three years later in the background of Bofors scam. He switched to the V P Singh-led Janta Dal in 1988 and became an MP from Aligarh on its ticket in 1989.

In 2004, Malik joined the BJP and unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha elections, losing to former prime minister Charan Singh's son Ajit Singh.

Before taking oath as Bihar governor on October 4, 2017, he was in-charge of the BJP's Kisan Morcha.

He was the Union minister of state, parliamentary affairs and tourism from April 21, 1990 to November 10, 1990.

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The Supreme Court today directed the Centre to file a status report in two weeks on the existing vacancies and the stage of the selection process for appointment of chairpersons and members of various tribunals.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud also clarified that Members of the Armed Forces Tribunal shall hold office until the attainment of the age of 65 years.

It said that Chairpersons who have been former judges of the Supreme Court shall hold office until the attainment of the age of 70 years.

In the case of the Central Administrative Tribunal, the apex court clarified that the old rules would continue to apply.

It also said that a person selected as Member of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal will continue until the age of 62 years while a person holding the post of President shall continue until the age of 65 years.

The appointments in various tribunals were stalled due to the pendency of the petitions in the apex court challenging the Finance Act and the Tribunal, Appellate and other Authorities (Qualifications, Experience and other conditions of Service of Members) Rules, which dealt with appointments, tenure and other service conditions of office-bearers of such panels.

A batch of pleas, including from the National Green Tribunal Bar Association, Employees Provident Fund Tribunal Bar Association and one Kudrat Sandhu, have alleged that the newly-amended Finance Act had changed the search, selection and removal process of members and presiding officers of tribunals.

The pleas have challenged the constitutional validity of certain provisions of the 'Tribunals, Appellate Tribunals and Other Authorities (qualifications, experience and other conditions of service of members) Rules, 2017'.

The petitions have also sought an interim stay on the provisions of the new Act and the Rules, under which a new Search-cum-Selection Committee for the post of Administrative Member would be set up.

The Finance Act, which came into effect from April 1, led to the framing of the 2017 Rules which gave "unbridled" powers to the Executive to decide on the qualification of the members, their appointment and removal among other issues, one of the petitions alleged.

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The on Tuesday directed a panel headed by former Delhi High Court judge Justice S N Dhingra to go ahead with sale of unencumbered assets of the directors of real estate major Unitech Ltd to refund money to hassled home buyers.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra asked the panel to proceed with the sale of the firm's properties in Kolkata.

The bench, also comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, directed the committee to disburse Rs 250 million (Rs 25 crore) to home buyers on pro rata basis and allowed lawyer Pawanshree Agarwal, who is assisting the court as an amicus curiae, to appoint two more persons to help him in the process.

"The committee may proceed with the sale/auction of unencumbered assets of the directors (of Unitech Ltd)," the bench said, and posted the matter for further hearing on September 11.



The court had on July 5 asked the Justice Dhingra panel to proceed with auction of Unitech Ltd's unencumbered properties at Agra and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu to refund money to home buyers.

The top court had earlier set up the three-member panel for "expeditious" auction of over 600 acres of land of the real estate firm for refunding money to home buyers who do not want possession of their homes or flats.

The Income Tax department had also moved the apex court for making itself a party in the ongoing litigation claiming that the real estate firm owed it Rs 9.5 billion (Rs 950 crore) as tax.



ALSO READ: SC orders auction of Unitech properties to refund money to homebuyers

Sanjay Chandra, the MD of the firm and his brother Ajay Chandra are in jail.

The apex court had asked all directors of Unitech Ltd and its subsidiaries to furnish details of their personal assets and warned them that if Rs 1 billion (Rs 100 crore) was not deposited by May 11, their assets would be auctioned.

Sanjay Chandra, the MD, is seeking interim bail from the apex court after the Delhi High Court on August 11 last year had rejected the plea in a criminal case lodged in 2015 by 158 home buyers of Unitech projects -- 'Wild Flower Country' and 'Anthea Project' -- situated at Gurgaon in Haryana.
The Supreme Court today pulled up the West Bengal government for having only two child welfare committees (CWCs) working in 23 districts with reports suggesting that children were being sold and trafficked in the state.

Having only two CWCs operational in 23 districts of West Bengal is "not fair" to the children, the top court said and asked why it had not taken steps to fill up the vacancies in the CWCs.

"You have issues of babies being sold in West Bengal. You see how serious this problem is. Babies are being sold there. It is a very, very serious problem. Somebody has to wake up at some point of time," a bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur told the counsel appearing for West Bengal.

"Reports say that there is trafficking of children in West Bengal. If trafficking is going on, these children need to be looked after," the bench, also comprising Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta, said.

When the counsel for the state said interviews were going on to fill up the vacancies in CWCs, the bench asked why was it not done earlier. "It is not that this has suddenly came out of the blue. This is absolutely wrong," the bench retorted.

The issue cropped up when the bench was hearing a matter relating to exploitation of children living in orphanages.

The bench asked the counsel for the Centre it appeared that not a single CWC was operational in some districts of West Bengal.

Responding to the query, the Centre's counsel said that CWCs were working in only two out of the 23 districts there.

"How can only two CWCs look after 23 districts," the bench shot back.

The West Bengal counsel said that process of interviews for CWCs was going on and within a week or two, some more CWCs would become operational in the state.

"You cannot say that it will be done within one or two weeks. We do not know how many children will be trafficked by then," the bench said.

When the state's counsel said other agencies were also there to look into the issue, the bench asked, "Why do you have other committees when the law does not permit it? It is not fair to the children. The responsibility is of the CWC and not of other agencies".

During the hearing, the bench also expressed shock over the discrepancy in two surveys showing a difference of around two lakh minors residing in child care institutions (CCIs) across the country.

The top court was told that as per the survey conducted by an organisation in 2016-17 on the direction of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the number of children living in CCIs was around 4.73 lakh while the data filed in the court by the government in March this year says that the number was about 2.61 lakh.

An advocate, assisting the court as an amicus curiae, while referring to a matter related to condition of widow homes at Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh which was disposed of recently by the apex court, said that somebody was asking her as to why the top court took around 10 years to decide the case.

"What about separation of powers in the Constitution of India. You tell them about it," the bench observed and posted the matter for further hearing on August 28.

The bench noted the submissions of the amicus that committees at the national and state level could deal with the issue of CCIs so as to prevent recurrence of incidents like alleged rape and sexual abuse of minor girls and women at shelter homes in Muzaffarpur in Bihar and Deoria in Uttar Pradesh.

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The Supreme Court today expressed shock at the discrepancy in two surveys reflecting a difference of around two lakh children staying in child care institutions and said it was "very, very disturbing" that such children were being "treated" as mere numbers.

The top court was shocked when it was told that as per a 2016-17 survey carried out at the directions of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the number of children living in child care institutions (CCIs) was around 4.73 lakh, while the data filed in the court by the government this March says it was about 2.61 lakh.

"It is not clear what has happened to the balance of around two lakh children. These children appear to be missing from the statistics," a bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur said.

It also asked the Centre "how many children are missing in this country besides these two lakh" and said if the provisions of law were being implemented in "letter and spirit", then child abuse incidents like those in Muzaffarpur and Deoria would not have happened.

The bench, which also included Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta, observed that there was a possibility that the CCIs may have given "inflated figures" to state governments to get more funds. This serious issue needs to be looked into, it said.

The counsel representing the Centre told the court that the government had compiled the data supplied by states and union territories about the number of children living in CCIs and filed the report in this regard in March.

"We rely on figures provided by states. The states have to say how there is such a variation. We will get back to the states as to which figure is correct," the Centre's counsel told the bench, adding "if these children are missing, it is a cause of serious concern and this is very, very alarming."



The bench referred to the suggestions given by advocate Aparna Bhat, who is assisting the court as an amicus curiae in the matter, and said it was contemplating setting up of a national level and state level committees to monitor the CCIs.

It noted the submissions of amicus that committees at the national and state levels could deal with the issue of CCIs so that recent incidents like alleged rape and sexual abuse of minor girls and women at shelter homes in Muzaffarpur in Bihar and Deoria in Uttar Pradesh were prevented.

The Centre's counsel told the court that he would take instructions whether the government was prepared to have such a committee at the national level in this regard.

The bench posted the matter for hearing on August 28.

At the outset, the amicus told the bench that the Centre has filed an affidavit in the matter and pointed out the "shocking" detail about the discrepancy in the data on the number of children living in CCIs across the country.

She told the top court that one of the surveys says there were around 4.73 lakh children residing in CCIs, while the other put the number at only 2.61 lakh.

"It shows how serious the problem is. What is to be done? It makes us feel very sad that children are treated only as numbers. They too have soul, they too have heart. How long can we continue like this? It is very very disturbing," Justice Lokur observed.

The amicus told the court that one of the positive things that has happened was that number of unregistered CCIs have gone down.

She also raised the issue of waiting period of around 3-4 years in the adoption process of such children and said this delay made the chances of adoption bleak.

The amicus said that out of 9,589 CCIs across the country, there was problem of overcrowding of children in 1,596 homes and no CCI existed in 97 districts. She also referred to the issue of corporal punishments and other abuses meted out to the children living in CCIs.

The bench suggested creation of a mechanism, where cases of abuse in CCIs must be reported to the concerned authorities within 24 hours so that action could be taken.

The counsel for the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) told the bench that they had written to the Ministry of Women and Child Development on the issue, but no data was shared with them.

During the hearing, the Centre's counsel told the bench that discrepancy about the number of children living in CCIs could be due to error in statistics or states might not have given the correct details to the government.

The bench shot back, "whom do we trust then? Nobody knows where are they (these two lakh children)". It also told the Centre that they must look into the matter seriously as such error in statistics was not acceptable.

The Centre's counsel said that states should be called upon in the matter since the government was only providing funds to the states.

"Law is made by Parliament. You have to tell us. It is one thing that law is made by Parliament, but states will say we do not bother. What should we do? You must have the overall picture," the bench observed.

On May 5 last year, the apex court had passed a slew of directions including setting up of a data base of children living in orphanages and CCIs to ensure their safety and welfare.

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Sex workers in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district have donated Rs 21,000 for Kerala flood victims and they will be raising another Rs 1 lakh by the end of this month.

A group of sex workers presented a cheque of Rs 21,000 drawn in favour of the Prime Minister's Relief Fund for Kerala flood victims to Resident Deputy Collector Prashant Patil here yesterday, said a functionary of an NGO working for them.

Dipak Buram of the city-based NGO Snehalaya said sex workers will raise another Rs 1 lakh by the month-end for Kerala flood victims.

Buram is coordinator of Snehjyot, a project run by Snehalaya, which is working for the welfare of sex workers for the last 30 years.

In the past too, sex workers have contributed for helping the victims of natural calamities in various parts of the country, he said.

In December 2015, they had donated Rs 1 lakh for relief work in rain-ravaged Chennai, Buram said.

Till date, they have contributed nearly Rs 27 lakh for various causes, including for the victims of earthquake in Gujrat (2001), tsunami (2004), Kashmir and Bihar floods, drought relief in Maharashtra and families of Kargil war heroes, he said.

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For the second time in his political career, Pakistan's jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif will celebrate Eid in a jail after a top court deferred the decision on a petition seeking his release.

The Islamabad High Court's judgement yesterday would mean that Sharif's daughter Maryam Nawaz and his son-in-law Capt (retd) Muhammad Safdar will also celebrate Eid-ul Azha in the high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.

However, Safdar was today rushed to a hospital after he fell sick in the jail.

Three corruption cases were filed against Sharif and his family last year following a decision by the Supreme Court on July 28 of the same year.

Sharif, 68, along with his daughter Maryam, 44 and son-in-law Safdar, 54, are serving jail terms of 10-years, seven years and one year respectively in the Adiala Jail after the accountability court convicted them on July 6 over the family's ownership of four luxury flats in London through illegal means.

Sharif yesterday appeared before the Islamabad-based High Court for hearing in the remaining Al-Azizia Steel Mills and the Hill Metal Establishment cases.

The three appealed in the Islamabad court against the conviction on July 16. They also petitioned for suspension of the sentence and immediate release.

A two-member bench after hearing the arguments in the petitions seeking their release and suspension of the sentence yesterday deferred the case and announced to take it up with the hearing of appeals against conviction.

Last week, it appeared due to the remarks of the judges during the proceedings that the court will give verdict in the petition seeking their release separately, raising hopes of Sharifs' release.

But yesterday the bench announced that decision on petitions will be deferred.

Now they will be heard with the appeals that are set to be heard next month and the bench directed the registrar to fix them immediately after the summer vacations of the courts ending on September 11, indicating that they will spend Eid in jail tomorrow.

It is for the second time that Sharif will celebrate Eid in jail.

Earlier, after the October 1999 coup, he was taken into custody and spent two Eids in detention when Gen Pervez Musharraf was ruler of the country.

Former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the first former prime minister who spent Eids in jail while being under arrest after the July 1977 coup.

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Pakistan's jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter and son-in law will celebrate Eidul Azha in the high-security Adiala Jail after a high court deferred decision on petitions seeking their release.

Three corruption cases were filed against Sharif and family last year following a decision by Supreme Court on July 28 of the same year.

The 68-year-old PML-N leader yesterday appeared before the Islamabad-based High Court for hearing in the remaining Al-Azizia Steel Mills and the Hill Metal Establishment cases.

Sharif, along with his daughter Maryam, 44 and his son-in-law Capt (retd) Muhammad Safdar, 54, are already serving jail terms of 10-years, seven years and one year respectively in the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, after the accountability court convicted them on July 6 over the family's ownership of four luxury flats in London through illegal means.

The three appealed in the Islamabad court against the conviction on July 16. They also petitioned for suspension of the sentence and immediate release.

A two-member bench after hearing the arguments in the petitions seeking their release and suspension of the sentence yesterday deferred the case and announced to take it up with the hearing of appeals against conviction.

Last week, it appeared due to the remarks of the judges during the proceedings that the court will give verdict in the petition seeking their release separately, raising hopes of Sharifs' release.

But yesterday the bench announced that decision on petitions will be deferred.

Now they will be heard with the appeals that are set to be heard next month and the bench directed the registrar to fix them immediately after the summer vacations of the courts ending on September 11, indicating that they will spend Eid in jail tomorrow.

It is for the second time that Sharif will celebrate Eid in jail.

Earlier, after the October 1999 coup, he was taken into custody and spent two Eids in detention when Pervez Musharraf was ruler of the country.

Former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the first former prime minister who spent Eids in jail while being under arrest after the July 1977 coup. He was hanged in 1979 in an alleged murder case.

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The Punjab government will develop Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu's village Kakarwal in Sangrur district as a model village, a minister said here today.

Rural Development Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa said it after handing over a cheque of Rs 55 lakh to Sidhu for laying a sewerage system in his village, falling in Dhuri assembly constituency.

The government will lay sewerage system and set up water treatment plants in villages to end the problem of sewage and water logging, the minister said.

He said the first installment of Rs 55 lakh of the total cost of Rs 1.5 crore for the project to develop Kakarwal as a model village has been handed over to Sidhu.

Sidhu had submitted a detailed project report for laying the sewerage system and water treatment plant in his native village.

Bajwa assured that this project would be completed by the end of this year.

He said the Punjab Rural Development and Panchayat Department has decided to go for the all-round development of the villages in the state by laying sewerage system and water treatment plants.

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The stand-off between artistes and producers of Bengali TV serials here continued for the fourth day today with no shooting taking place in any of the eight studios.

None of the two warring sides, the Artists Forum and the Welfare Association of Television Producers (WATP), refused to budge from their stands on the issue of regularisation of pay.

The Forum was ready for talks with the WATP but the producers should initiate the process and write a letter to the Forum at the earliest, its General Secretary Arindam Ganguly told reporters after an internal meeting.

"We do not have any closed mind-set. In the interest of everyone concerned, we are ready to start shooting at any moment but that has to be preceded by a discussion with the WATP that must send us a letter inviting us for talks," said Ganguly, also an actor.

He said the Forum was not budging from its demand for payment of the salaries of every artiste within the 15th of the next month and hourly basis of payment if the shooting schedule of an artiste exceeded 10 hours.

This arrangement has been agreed upon in the July 8 meeting between the Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of East India, the Forum and the producers, he said.

Ganguly said many producers paid the salary of the artistes in the given time, but many did not and the Forum took up the agitation in the interest of every artiste.

The WATP yesterday said the July 8 meeting did not pass any resolution about the payment system and only recorded the minutes.

Ganguly, however, said this was not true and alleged that the producers did not show any initiative to resolve the impasse.

Due to the disruption of the shooting schedule, the channels were forced to go for repeat telecast of the episodes aired earlier, a spokesman of the WATP said.

The Star Jalsha channel said in a statement, "In West Bengal the shooting of all television shows has presently been stalled due to an ongoing standoff between the Artists Forum and the WATP."



This development "caused an undesirable disruption of supply of fresh episodes of the daily fictional programmes," it said.

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To ensure hassle-free delivery of relief materials to flood-ravaged Kerala, Cochin Port, one of the top 12 major ports in the country, has earmarked two berths for priority berthing of vessels carrying such items, the government said today.

Naval Ship INS Deepak from Mumbai has brought in about 800 tonnes of fresh water and 18 tonnes of provisions to Cochin.

"In the calamity-hit state of Kerala, the Ministry of Shipping has taken the initiative to reach relief material from various parts of the country to Cochin Port through coastal shipping," the Ministry of Shipping said in a statement.

The Cochin Port Trust has earmarked two berths at Mattancherry and Ernakulam wharfs for priority berthing of vessels bringing flood relief materials to Kerala, it said adding, two warehouses have been especially earmarked for storage of relief materials and medicines.

The relief material from the major ports at Tuticorin (VO Chidambaranar Port), Cochin, New Mangalore, Chennai and Kamaraj is being aggregated at VOC Port in Tuticorin before being sent to Cochin Port via coastal shipping, it said.

The statement said fresh water is being discharged to two barges for supply to the affected areas and naval ship INS Deepak will make another call at Cochin Port with relief material tomorrow.

"A coastal crude oil vessel Swarna Godavari from Mumbai with 50,000 MT Crude oil by BPCL has been received at Cochin Port to meet the fuel requirement inthe state," the statement said.

Earlier, five containers of relief material comprising clothes, eatables and other basic requirements were received at Cochin Port.

The government said various port stakeholders have joined hands to provide help in the relief operations in the state and trade bodies have offered special coastal shipping services between Cochin and ports at Hazira, Mundra, Kattupalli, Tuticorin, Pipavav, Kandla for carrying relief material from different parts of the country.

A relief camp for a group of affected people has been set up by Cochin Port at Sir Robert Bristow Memorial School, Willingdon Island & KV Port Trust School, the statement said.

About 50 people from different areas near Cochin have been accommodated in the camp, it said adding, doctors from Port Trust hospital are providing medical services while volunteer teams comprising staff and family members of Cochin Port, Customs and CISF and medical team are assisting in the camp and extending necessary support.

The statement said transport minister Nitin Gadkari hailed the role of shipping fraternity in reaching out to the people in time of the calamity.

The employees from Cochin Port trust have decided to contribute their one day's salary amounting to Rs 31 lakh and an equal amount from Cochin Port Trust fund to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund.

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Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi today congratulated veteran BJP leader Lalji Tandon on his appointment as the state's new governor.

In a statement issued here, Sushil Modi recalled his "long and close" association with Tandon, whom he called "an active social and political worker from Uttar Pradesh who has close ties with Bihar.

The deputy chief minister also welcomed the incumbent Satyapal Mallik's selection for the gubernatorial assignment in "an important state like Jammu and Kashmir" and recalled his "administrative capabilities, acquired over a long political career, which were on display during his stint as the governor of Bihar".

He also congratulated veteran BJP leader from Bihar Satya Narayan Arya, who has been appointed as the Governor of Haryana, and expressed delight that Ganga Prasad - Meghalaya Governor who hails from Bihar - will now be occupying Raj Bhavan in Sikkim.

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Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi says it is difficult to put a time frame on the return to Rakhine state of ethnic Muslim Rohingya because her nation needs the cooperation of the country to where they fled, Bangladesh.

Suu Kyi gave her views in a lecture Tuesday during a four-day working visit to Singapore. The lecture was a review of her two years in power and touched on subjects including the growth of democracy as well as the Rakhine crisis, which saw 700,000 Rohingya flee brutal counterinsurgency operations by Myanmar's army.

Suu Kyi said Myanmar is working with Bangladesh, and has already mapped out general sites for the resettlement of returning Rohingya. She said the timing of the move also depends on Bangladesh.

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A Swedish jet fighter crashed after colliding with a bird in southern Sweden today, authorities said, adding the pilot ejected safely.

"It was a bird collision and the pilot had to eject," Johan Lundgren, spokesman at the Swedish Armed Forces told AFP.

The pilot was on a training mission in a Jas Gripen aircraft manufactured by Swedish aerospace company Saab.

The accident happened eight kilometres (five miles) north of a military air base near the southern Swedish city of Ronneby.

The pilot was taken to a hospital for a check-up.

Authorities said the accident happened in a remote area and no casualties were reported.

Sweden reports about 400 such incidents a year, Charlotte Billgren at the Swedish Transport Agency told the TT .

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The BJP's Tamil Nadu unit today suggested that the state government take the disaster wrought by the rains and floods in Kerala as a warning and evolve a proper water management policy.

The government should convene a meeting of domestic and international experts before framing such a policy, BJP state unit president Tamilisai Soundararajan told reporters here.

She suggested that the government concentrate on desilting canals and ponds to conserve water for the benefit of the people.

The BJP on its part was already consulting experts, she said, adding that the outcome of the talks would be forwarded to the government.

She said though the NDA government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been extending all help to flood ravaged Kerala without any partiality, some people were trying to play politics over it.

Tamilisai Soundararajan later left for Palakkad to distribute relief material to the flood-hit.

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A DMK member and Tamil litterateur has lodged a police complaint against BJP national secretary H Raja, claiming he has been receiving threats after the latter's alleged libellous posts in social media against him.

Manushya Puthiran alias S Abdul Hamed Sheik Mohamed Puthiran alleged that Raja had made derogatory remarks against him in the social media for writing a poem titled 'Uzhiyin Nadanam' over natural calamities like floods.

The poet said he used a common name for a woman in the poem to describe the calamities.

However, Raja defamed him by alleging in the social media that it was against a Hindu goddess, Puthiran claimed.

A DMK member who is often seen in television debates, he alleged that Raja was instigating violence against him and he has been receiving threats.

"Police Commissioner A K Viswanathan received my complaint and assured that steps would be taken. I have submitted screen shots of intimidating posts and phone numbers of those who threatened me over phone," Puthiran said in a Facebook post.

Police declined to comment on the matter.

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A tanker is missing off the coast of Gabon with 17 Georgian sailors onboard, officials said Tuesday.

The ship "disappeared" from tracking screens on August 14, the source said, while regional military officials said the potential search area was between the Gabonese coast and the Sao Tome and Principe archipelago.

Specialist websites list the 121-metre (396-feet) ship, the Pantelena, as a 7,000-tonne, 12-year-old dual-purpose oil or chemical tanker.

The vessel is Panamanian-flagged and owned by a Greek company, Lotus Shipping Co. Ltd.

The Georgian foreign ministry in Tbilissi, in a statement issued last Friday, said there were concerns for 17 Georgian sailors onboard and a search operation was being conducted with the help of the British maritime authorities.

Gabon lies on the southern part of the Gulf of Guinea -- the great bend in the coastline of West African -- where pirates are a notorious problem for shipping.

The Pantelena "turned off its locator beacon," a device that tracks a vessel's position by satellite, a regional military official said.

"The first thing that pirates do when they board a ship is to cut off this beacon."



A crew member aboard a ship sailing between Libreville and Port-Gentil, Gabon's economic hub, told AFP: "We received a distress message over the radio and we alerted the Gabonese navy."



A Gabonese navy official confirmed, "We received an alert... about the Pantelena, but we didn't have enough information to intervene." In Sao Tome and Principe, which is located about 260 kilometres from Gabon, the commander of the local coastguard, Joao Idalecio, said it had dispatched a patrol vessel with a crew of 30 to search for the tanker.

In February, a Panama-registered tanker, the MT Marine Express with 13,500 tonnes of gasoline was seized with its crew as it was anchored off Benin. The ship and crew were freed several days later.

Last month, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said that its specialist piracy reporting centre had recorded 107 incidents worldwide in the first six months of 2018.

"All 25 crew kidnappings reported this year have occurred over six incidents in the Gulf of Guinea, highlighting the higher risks in this area," the IMB said.

However, the true number of incidents in the Gulf of Guinea is believed to be "significantly higher," its report added.

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Tata Motors today said it has launched its compact SUV Nexon in Sri Lanka priced between 1.99 million and 4.6 million Sri Lankan rupees.

The Nexon in Sri Lanka will be available in six variants and will be for sale in 15 outlets across Colombo, the company said in a statement.

It is priced Sri Lankan Rs 1.99 million for petrol and Sri Lankan Rs 4.6 million for diesel (permit holder prices) for the top variant, it said.

The company has launched the vehicle in the island nation in partnership with its distributor Diesel & Motors Engineering PLC (DIMO).

"With the introduction of this entire range (in Sri Lanka), we aim to tap a larger market and increase our market share in not only the compact SUV segment but also the AMT segment," Tata Motors President, Passenger Vehicle Business Unit, Mayank Pareek said.

DIMO Chairman & MD Ranjith Pandithage said the launch marks the company's first big step into the compact SUV segment with Tata Motors.

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The Telangana government today took serious note of the nearly three-week-long statewide 20-day-old strike by a section of workers of gram panchayats demanding wage hike, among others.

Out of the 33,534 workers, 19,852 workers have not been reporting for duty, said an official press release here.

The Chief Secretary Shailendra Kumar Joshi has asked all the Collectors and District Magistrates to get the list of absentees who have not reported for the duty by 5 pm tomorrow, the release said.

The special officers of Gram Panchayats are directed to make alternative arrangements from August 23 in the wake of the absenteeism for the past 20 days .

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Symbolising the spirit of communal harmony in times of distress, this small town in Karnataka has turned its church, temple and madrasa, into relief camps to help flood victims in Kodagu district.

Many videos have gone viral depicting inhabitants of Suntikoppa in the rain-ravaged Kodagu district turning a Shiva temple, St Mary's church and a madrasa, nearby one another, into relief camps in which around 600 affected people are sheltered.

Food was also being cooked in a common place at the community kitchen in the madrasa and being provided to the sheltered people in the temple and the church, residents said.

This act, testifying to the spirit of communal harmony, has prompted many leaders including Congress president Rahul Gandhi to lavish praise on Suntikoppa inhabitants.

In a tweet posted today, Gandhi said, "In Kodagu, Karnataka, massive floods have unleashed a trail of devastation.

But amidst the gloom, here's a great story about an oasis of hope, a small town, Suntikoppa, where Shiv, Ram, Christ, Allah and the Buddha are working together to help those in need.

This is India!"



Speaking to the media,a priest at St Marys church said more than 200 marooned people have been accommodated in church premises.

"We have collected the details of flood victims staying with us. We will prepare a list and submit it to the stategovernment for providing help to them," he said.

Tibetan monks have also chipped in providing relief materials, including water.

Bylakuppe in Kodagu district houses a large Tibetan settlement.

Not far behind from the rest, RSS workers also have been actively participating in reliefwork.

The Sangh has formed volunteer groups helping set up relief camps and evacuating distressed people caught in the rain fury by constructing makeshift wooden pathways, videos of which also have gone viral on social media.

"We are providing food and helping people to reach reliefcamps set up in flood-hit areas of Kodagu. We are also evacuating people by braving flood water.It is a risky job," RSS leader Rajesh Padmar said.

Even political parties are not far behind with BJP flagging off a convoy of over 15 truck loads of relief material collected and contributed by their workers.

Union minister and BJP leader Ananth Kumar said he would talk to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to request him to announce a relief package to the marooned.

"I will try my best to seek funds from the central government to rebuild destroyed homes and infrastructure," he said.

Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy yesterday had urged the Centre to provide Rs 100 crore relief fund forKodagu district.

On August 19, Kumaraswamy conducted an aerial survey of flood-affected areas in Kodagu district.

He had earlier announced an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh for thefamilies which were rendered homeless.

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A former temple priest accused of molesting two women surrendered before a court in Goa today and was arrested by the police, an official said.

Dhananjay Bhave, 51, formerly attached to a famous temple in Mangueshi village, around 15 km from here in North Goa district, turned himself in before the judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) at Ponda town, he said.

The two women, hailing from Mumbai and currently studying in the US, had filed complaints last month with the Ponda police against the priest, accusing him of molesting them in the temple on separate occasions during their visit to the place in the last two months.

The priest, who was subsequently dismissed from the temple's services, was missing since then.

He had filed an anticipatory bail petition before the district court which rejected the plea.

He later moved the Bombay High Court at Goa which also rejected his petition last week.

"The priest surrendered himself before the JMFC this morning and was subsequently placed under arrest," a senior official at the Ponda police station said.

The accused has been booked under IPC section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), he said.

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Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit and Chief Minister K Palaniswami today extended their greetings to Muslims on the eve of Bakrid.

The Governor said the festival marked the supreme sacrifice in obedience to God.

"Let us all on this holy day resolve to shed our ego and arrogance and practice the path of prayer, kindness and generosity," he said in his message.

Palaniswami said people should uphold the spirit of sacrifice and live in harmony by following the ideals preached by Islam.

DMK working President M K Stalin and leaders of MDMK, DMDK and PMK also greeted Muslims.

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A woman police superintendent has accused an Inspector General rank officer of sexual harassment and acting on her complaint, authorities have set up an Internal Complaints Committee which would meet on August 23, police said today.

Alleging sexual advances by her superior, an officer of the rank of IG, the woman SP has lodged a written complaint to top authorities, police sources said.

"The Internal Complaints Committee set up as per the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 will look into the woman officer's complaint on August 23," a top state police official told PTI.

The meeting of the ICC, the first after it was re-constituted on August 17 will look into the plaint and go forward in accordance with the harassment prevention law, the official said.

TN DGP T K Rajendran has named ADGPs Seema Aggarwal, Su Arunachalam, and Deputy Inspector General of Police, Thenmozhi and two retired officials as members of the ICC.

In her complaint, the woman officer said she rejected the sexual advances of the senior officer.

She has alleged that she had been subjected to sexual harassment for months and the recent episode happened during the first week of this month.

DMK Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi, in a tweet said, "though it is a welcome move from TN govt to form a Vishaka Committee for Police Department, govt's failure to transfer or suspend the officer against whom allegations are made is shocking."



The continuance of the officer in the same post, would lead to "destruction of evidence and derail the Vishaka probe," she said.

The Supreme Court had in a landmark judgment in 1997 in the "Vishakha vs State of Rajasthan," case issued guidelines to prevent sexual harassment of women in work places.

Incorporating the guidelines, known as 'Vishakha guidelines," the 2013 law was adopted by Parliament with added provisions to prevent harassment of women at workplace.

CPI (M) and All India Democratic Women's Association leader Vasuki Umanatha said the composition of the ICC should reflect the spirit of the Vishaka judgment.

In a Facebook post, she said independent women members with experience in handling such issues should be included under the "third party representation," slot of the ICC rather than nominating retired officials.

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Union Tourism Minister K J Alphons today flagged the need for ready-to-eat cooked food, doctors and nurses in flood ravaged Kerala, saying people are now getting back to whatever is left of their homes with the waters receding.

The minister also issued an appeal to skilled workers like plumbers, electricians and carpenters to come to make homes livable and help the state regain normalcy.

At least 216 people have lost their lives in the rains, floods and landslides and over 7.24 lakh people been displaced.

"As the flood is receding in Kerala people have to move to whatever is left of their homes. Need ready to eat cooked food, clothes and an army of electricians, plumbers and carpenters," Alphons said on Twitter today, tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.

He issued a series of tweets highlighting the requirements of the people.

"I appeal to General Public: What Kerala requires... - pre cooked individually packed dry food, an army of electricians, plumbers, carpenters to make homes livable.

"Doctors and nurses who can go down to the villages as there is apprehension about the possibility of outbreak of deceases. New clothes, if it can be distributed through NGOs," he said.

The minister also thanked the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) for providing the state huge quantities of tetra pack milk and public sector oil companies which came together and handed Rs 25 crore to the Kerala chief minister for flood relief.

The massive flood in Kerala has been declared a calamity of severe nature, the Union Home Ministry has said.

The lakhs of displaced have been sheltered in 5,645 relief camps.

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The head of South Korea's biggest Buddhist denomination stepped down today amid allegations that he forged his academic credentials, amassed vast wealth and fathered a child in breach of celibacy rules.

With more than 3,000 temples, 13,000 monks and seven million followers, the Jogye Order is followed by most of South Korea's Buddhists and is highly influential in a country where religion remains a powerful social force.

But it has long been dogged by corruption allegations and factional feuds that often spill over into the headlines.

The resignation of Jogye president Seoljeong came days after he lost an unprecedented vote of no confidence by the order's governing committee.

The 76-year-old bid farewell to the followers and officials at the the order's headquarters in Seoul and left for another temple south of Seoul where he had previously served for years.

"I joined this religious sect to bring changes to the flawed Korean Buddhism but will have to return to the mountain having failed to fulfil my wish," he said in a press conference.

Seoljeong would likely have been forced out of the job at a tomorrow's meeting of the order's elders.

Pressure had mounted on the monk since an investigative TV programme claimed in May that he had fathered a daughter in breach of celibacy rules, and secretly owned vast real estate holdings despite taking a vow of poverty.

The investigation also revealed that the nation's top university denied Seoljeong had graduated from the institution, contradicting a claim made in his autobiography.

Many rank and file members and civic groups staged months-long protests demanding his resignation, and a senior reform-minded monk was recently hospitalised after a conducting 41-day hunger strike against the monk.

Seoljeong, who took office last November, has denied all the allegations, accusing an "old guard" within the order's leadership of derailing his reform drive by framing him.

He repeated the denial today claiming that "a handful of politically-minded monks are destroying the order".

A 2014 survey by Korea Gallup showed 22 per cent of South Koreans identify themselves as Buddhist, while nearly 30 per cent are Christian.

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Politicians of various hues in Gujarat, religious heads and industrialists paid rich tributes today to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at a condolence meet held in Ahmedabad.

Apart from politicians of the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress, Governor O P Kohli, professionals as well as people from various walks of life attended the all-party prayer meet held at the Gujarat University auditorium.

Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani remembered Vajpayee as the true "Lok Hriday Samrat" (ruler of hearts) who was loved by all.

He said Vajpayee had dedicated every moment of his life for the country.

"With new zeal and open heart, Atalji guided everybody and kept all political parties together," Rupani said.

He said Vajpayee displayed strong resolve and love for the country by conducting nuclear tests in Pokhran when he was prime minister.

Governor Kohli said Vajpayee's death marked the end of an era.

"Vajpayee took initiatives to improve ties with neighbouring Pakistan and won the hearts of Kashmiris," he said.

Paresh Dhanani, Leader of Opposition in the Gujarat Legislative Assembly, spoke about "trusting" relations between Vajpayee and the leaders of Congress, which he said was a great example of leadership.

Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel recalled the contributions made by Vajpayee in "bringing Kutch district back to life after a devastating earthquake had hit the region".

"Vajpayee, who was the prime minister at the time of the calamity, had announced a special package for investment in Kutch and had offered Excise duty waiver to the Indian industry, which brought in huge investment and jobs in the district," he said.

Former chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela recalled Vajpayee as a "true champion of 'Akhand Bharat' (united India)" and "a true humanist".

Among others, former chief minister Suresh Mehta, industrialists Parimal Nathwani and Karsan Patel also attended the programme.

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The Tripura government will donate Rs 1 crore for flood relief in Kerala, a state minister said today.

The decision was taken in the meeting of the council of ministers held at the civil secretariat here yesterday, the state's Law and Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath said.

"We are deeply shocked at the loss of life and immense suffering of the people of Kerala, due to the ongoing flood situation. We have decided to donate Rs 1 crore towards flood relief in Kerala," he told reporters.

The Chief Justice, judges of the Tripura High Court and all its judicial officers and staff members will also contribute one day's salary to the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund of Kerala.

The entire contribution is likely to amount to Rs 16 lakh, the Registrar of the High Court, S G Chattopadhyay said in a release.

Meanwhile, activists of the opposition Left Front have started collecting donations from different parts of the state from today to support the flood victims of Kerala, former deputy speaker and CPI(M) leader Pabitra Kar said, adding, the drive would go on till Aug 31.

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US President Donald Trump expressed worry that talking under oath to special counsel Robert Mueller about the Russia probe could lead to his being charged with perjury.

In an interview with Reuters yesterday, Trump also declined to say if he will actually sit down to be interviewed by Mueller.

Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election to help Trump win and whether his campaign colluded in that effort and tried to obstruct the probe.

The president said he was concerned that anything he told Mueller under oath might be compared to statements by others, such as former FBI director James Comey, whom Trump fired, and that any discrepancies could be used against the US leader to charge him with perjury.

"So if I say something and he (Comey) says something, and it's my word against his, and he's best friends with Mueller, so Mueller might say: 'Well, I believe Comey,' and even if I'm telling the truth, that makes me a liar. That's no good," Trump said, according to Reuters.

As he often does, Trump criticised the probe as biased and asserted that he had the right to intervene in it if he wishes.

"I can go in, and I could do whatever - I could run it if I want. But I decided to stay out," Trump said . "I'm totally allowed to be involved if I wanted to be. So far, I haven't chosen to be involved. I'll stay out.

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A 21-year-old hotel management graduate and his friend have been arrested for allegedly stealing a car from the parking lot of a multiplex in Connaught Place on Independence Day, the police said today.

The accused, identified as Ishit Monga and Akshay Arora (25), were arrested yesterday, they said.

On August 15, Nischal Jain, a Gurgaon resident who had come to watch a movie at PVR Plaza with his family, found his car missing from the parking lot of the multiplex, the police said.

Jain had handed his car's keys to the parking attendant.

However, when he came back after the movie and asked for the keys, the attendant told him that someone had taken his vehicle by producing the parking slip, the police said.

During investigation, the parking attendant revealed that somebody had stolen his parking slip machine on the day of the incident, Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) Madhur Verma said.

Thereafter, one person came to the attendant and produced the parking slip for Jain's car and demanded the keys of his vehicle, he added.

The accused even made a call to someone who claimed to be the owner of the vehicle and asked the parking attendant to hand over the keys, the DCP said.

On August 18, the police were informed that the vehicle was found abandoned in a damaged condition near the Safdarjung flyover in Lodhi Colony.

A letterhead of ITC Maurya Hotel and the stolen parking slip machine were found from the car during a search, the police said.

A woman, whose name was stamped on the letterhead, was contacted by the police and she turned out to be the girlfriend of one of the accused.

Subsequently, the police traced Monga and Arora and called them for questioning, during which they confessed to have stolen the car.

The accused told the police that they are residents of Paharganj and had planned to go for an outing on Independence Day and needed a car for that.

Monga had first tried getting his father's car on the pretext of going to Gurgaon for an interview. Aware of his habits, Monga's father refused, the police said.

Monga and Arora then came to Connaught Place and decided to steal a car from the parking lot of the multiplex, they said.

When they saw the parking slip machine had been left unattended, they stole it and generated a parking slip, they added.

Monga graduated from Institute of Hotel Management Lajpat Nagar and was the topper of his batch. He was employed with a reputed hotel in Raipur as assistant food and beverages manager and event manager, the police said.

He is proficient in three foreign languages -- French, Spanish and English -- and does not have a criminal record, the police said.

Arora, who was working as an event manager in Okhla, also does not have a criminal record, they said.

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Two separate FIRs have been lodged against the assistant professor of Mahatma Gandhi Central University (MGCU),who was badly beaten up by a mob for sharing a Facebook post critical to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

One FIR has been lodged against assistant professor Sanjay Kumar by an university colleague under SC & ST Act while another one by a local resident for hurting his and others sentiment by posting critical comment on Vajpayee.

One Ranjit Yadav, a resident of Lakshmipur village lodged an FIR yesterday against the assistant professor with the town police station for hurting his and others sentiment by making adverse comment on his Facebook on the former PM, town police station SHO Anand Kumar said.

The FIR was lodged under two sections of IPC-- 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief), the SHO said.

An another FIR has been lodged against him on Sunday last with scheduled caste police station by a MGCU professor Dinesh Vyas. Name of an another university colleague Shashikant Rai been added in the second FIR.

The FIR was registered under the provisions of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Act in addition to various sections of IPC that included- 341, 504 and 506.

Vyas, a resident of Jaipur in Rajasthan and the complainant, alleged that both Sanjay Kumar and Shashikant Rai used to make uncharitable comments in order to mentally harass him, scheduled caste police station SHO Krishnadeo Khatait said.

The assistant professor was beaten up by a group of people on August 17 over sharing comment criticising former prime minister Vajpayee on Facebook a day after his death on August 16.

The professor was allegedly dragged out of his residence by the mob in Azad Nagar locality of Motihari town, stripped down to his undergarments and thrashed.

According to media reports, Kumar had shared a post on Facebook questioning Vajpayee's political ideology. Subsequently, he had lodged an FIR at the town police station against 12 persons in connection with assault on him. The assistant professor



The University, which came into functional existence in 2016, was closed on August 19 for an indefinite period over tension prevailing in the campus after a professor was beaten up.

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A special court here convicted two men today in the



rape case of an eight-year-old girl here.

Special Judge Nisha Gupta held the two accused - Irfan alias Bhaiyu (20) and Asif (24) - guilty under relevant sections, public prosecutor B S Thakur said.

The court will pronounce the quantum of sentence later in the day, he said.

The girl was gang-raped on June 26 in Mandsaur after the accused abducted her while she was waiting for her father outside her school.

The accused had also tried to kill her by slitting her throat.

The minor, who suffered severe injuries to her neck, face, head and private parts in the incident, is undergoing treatment in Indore.

Relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act were invoked against the accused.

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Two months after an eight-year-old girl was raped in Madhya Pradesh's Madsaur, a special court awarded death sentence to two men for the crime today, saying they deserved no leniency.

The girl was abducted and later gang-raped on June 26, an incident which had triggered widespread outrage and led to protests for several days with demands for capital punishment for the culprits.

In what could possibly be one of the speediest trials in such crimes, Additional District and Sessions Judge Nisha Gupta today convicted Irfan Mewati alias Bhaiyu (20) and Asif Mewati (24) and sentenced them to death, saying the case fell under the "rarest of the rare" category.

"The act of the two accused was of cruel and gruesome nature. The duo raped a hapless girl who was anxious to return home after her school was over," the judge was quoted as saying by assistant district prosecution officer Nitesh Krishnan, who spoke to PTI over phone.

The court noted that the convicts savagely attacked the minor girl and the victim could not defend herself as she was a minor.

"The accused not only raped her, but they attacked and injured her private parts and other delicate body parts with a knife," the special judge observed, the prosecutor said.

"So, they do not deserve leniency. Therefore, treating the incident as rarest of the rare case, as pleaded by the prosecution, death was only way out to punish them under section 376DB of the IPC," the judge remarked, Krishnan added.

The newly-introduced section deals with cases where femles under 12 years of age is raped by one or more persons.

The girl was abducted while she was waiting for her father outside her school in Mandsaur and was later gang- raped. The rapists had also tried to kill her by slitting her throat.

The girl had suffered severe injuries on her neck, face, head and private parts in the incident and is undergoing treatment in Indore.

Following the gruesome incident, local Muslims in Mandsaur district had taken out a rally, demanding the culprits be hanged.

The district remained on the boil for many days and protests were organised in several parts of western Madhya Pradesh, demanding capital punishment for the culprits.

Judge Gupta also awarded life imprisonment to the two under section 307 (attempt to murder), 10 years imprisonment with a fine of Rs 10,000 and seven years imprisonment and fine of Rs 10,000 under sections 366 (kidnapping to rape) and 363 (kidnapping) of the IPC, Deputy Director of Prosecution (DDP) B S Thakur said.

After the pronouncement of the judgement, one of the convicts, Asif Mewati, was slapped by an unidentified man while he was being taken out of the court this afternoon.

Earlier, Thakur and Krishnan pleaded with the court that the accused be given capital punishment taking into account the seriousness of the crime they have committed.

The defence pleaded for leniency, saying the convicts should not be hanged as they were in their 20s.

Countering the defence argument, the prosecution said the crime committed by the duo was so grave and cruel that the girl has still not overcome the trauma.

The prosecutors told the court the girl's throat was slit to kill her. In fact, the accused left the spot after being convinced that she was dead.

The duo inflicted such serious injuries to her that she regained consciousness after 18 hours, they told the court.

Thakur and Krishnan cited a Supreme Court ruling contending that only death would deliver justice in the case.

The Judge delivered the verdict after examining 37 witnesses, 195 documents and 50 articles connected to the crime.

The prosecution also placed on record the positive DNA report of the girl's blood stain on the vest and shirt of Irfan Mewati. It also submitted the DNA report of hair of the two convicts recovered from the crime spot.

With this, 14 rapists, most of them who committed the crime against girls below 12, have been awarded capital punishment in MP in the last six months.

Madhya Pradesh was the first state to enact a law in December last year providing for death penalty for rapists of minor girls below 12.

The Centre brought an amendment in the IPC to punish the rapists of minor girls below 12 with death on April 21.

Madhya Pradesh accounted for the highest 4,882 rape cases, out of the 38,947 recorded across the country in 2016, according to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB)'s last report.

The state recorded 2,479 rape cases of minor girls, followed by Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh with 2,310 and 2,115 such cases respectively, the NCRB report said.

Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest number of rape cases (4,391) in 2015 too, according to the report.

Rajendra Kumar, director of prosecution, in a press release, said both the public prosecutors in the case will be felicitated.

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Two Muslim youths were beaten up and paraded by a cow vigilante group under Adarsh Mandi police station in Shamli here, police said today.

Police yesterday registered a case against twenty activists of the cow protection group and also arrestedtheir chief, said circle officer Ashok Kumar. Police are trying to identify the remaining accused persons using a video which was shot when the two youths were being thrashed.

Later police rescued them and booked them under Prevention of Cow Slaughtering Act.

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The United Kingdom is asking the Trump administration to impose further sanctions on Russia in response to accusations Moscow used a nerve agent to poison a former Russian spy in Britain.

In advance excerpts from his first speech in the US as the UK's foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt says Russia's foreign policy under President Vladimir Putin "has made the world a more dangerous place." Hunt is speaking today at the US Institute of Peace. The British Embassy previewed his speech yesterday.

Earlier this month the Trump administration announced new export restrictions on Russia in response to the poisoning.

The move was the latest in a slew of U.S. sanctions on Russia for human rights abuses, meddling in the U.S. election and military aggression in Ukraine and Syria.

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Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's key aide Jabir Moti, a Pakistani national arrested on money laundering charges, was denied bail today by a UK court which also turned down his request to ban the media from the hearing.

During today's hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court here, Moti was described as a key official of D-company.

Judge Coleman denied the bail and asked Moti to reappear on August 28.

Moti's counsel requested the judge to ban the media from the court over safety concerns due to "reports appearing in the Indian media".

The judge turned down his request.

"We have open justice in this country," the judge said, adding that she may consider allowing Moti to not to have his UK address aired in open court.

Moti, who had been arrested by Scotland Yard's Extradition Unit on Friday on suspicion of conspiracy to commit blackmail, import illegal drugs and money laundering in the US, appeared in the docks wearing jeans and T-shirt.

He was represented in court by his defence attorney Toby Cadman, from the law firm Guernica, who raised some issues with the charges listed in the provisional warrant and those is a "diplomatic note" seeking his extradition to the US.

The court was told that the "criminality is vague" as the warrant and the diplomatic note have some differences and should be deemed invalid.

"This is just a provisional warrant, which allows for 65 days to present the paperwork to back up the charges," the judge said, allowing for the hearing to go ahead.

Moti, referred to as Jabir Motiwala in the Metropolitan Police warrant, is believed to be the right-hand man of Dawood, managing his investments in the UK, the UAE and around the world.

The Pakistani national, reportedly in the UK on a 10-year visa, has been described as the financial manager of Dawood the key accused in the Mumbai serial bomb blasts in 1993.

His extradition to the US is being sought in relation to an allegation of "conspiracy to commit blackmail, import class A drugs and money laundering", the Met Police said after his arrest from a hotel in the Paddington area on August 17.

Dawood remains on the UK government's recently-updated financial sanctions list.

Financial sanctions in force in the UK could apply to individuals, entities and governments who may be resident in the UK or abroad.

The measures include prohibiting the transfer of funds to a sanctioned country and freezing the assets of a government, the corporate entities and residents of the target country to targeted asset freezes on individuals or entities.

The UK Treasury department's 'Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets in the UK', updated on August 16, records Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar as the only "Indian" on its annually updated asset freeze list.

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Jabir Moti, described as a "senior member" and "top lieutenant" of organised crime and terror network D-Company, was today denied bail on charges of money laundering and extortion by a UK court after the judge concluded that he was a flight risk.

The 51-year-old Pakistani national, who appeared in the dock at Westminster Magistrates' Court here today after being arrested by Scotland Yard's Extradition Unit last week, faces extradition to the US following an FBI investigation dating back to 2005, the court was told.

The D Company refers to the network of the underworld don and India's one of the most wanted terrorists Dawood Ibrahim.

The UK's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Moti faces allegations of conspiracy to launder money and extortion that link up to terrorist offences as well as charges of drug trafficking, which carries a maximum sentence of 25 years behind bars.

The accused, referred to in court as Jabir Siddiq Moti, was remanded in custody to appear before the same court via video link from jail next Tuesday, when he can make a further application for bail.

"I am not persuaded to grant you bail. These are very, very serious allegations there are substantial grounds to believe you will fail to appear before the court or commit further offences, Judge Margot Coleman said in her ruling.

"The US is a democracy, which runs on the rule of law and we function on a system of mutual trust between our countries. So, if they say there is evidence to support the allegations, I am entitled to take that at face value," she said, in reference to the US authorities' extradition request.

The court was told that Moti had been under investigation by the FBI as a key aide of D-Company, "named after the leader of the company based in Pakistan", associated with trafficking and money laundering through international smuggling routes across South Asia that were also linked to terrorist funding.

"For a fee, D Company uses the power of violence for debt collection and has a reputation of intimidating members of the family of its debtors in India and Pakistan," the prosecution said in its case summary.

In his interactions with undercover agents in the US and Pakistan, Moti allegedly admitted to being involved with narcotics and dealing with large amounts of cash and the court was told that it is believed he is behind nearly USD 1.4 million laundered to date.

Moti's defence attorney, Toby Cadman from the law firm Guernica, disputed the charges as unsubstantiated, describing his client as a businessman from Karachi who has been resident in Dubai for many years.

"His father established the stock exchange in Karachi in 1953 and that is the basis of his successful and wealthy business," Cadman said, adding that his client "protests strongly" to the claims of his involvement with any organised crime group.

He said that Moti was willing to be subjected to stringent bail conditions, with his son offering a "significant amount" as security, because it is in his interest to remain in UK to challenge extradition to the US and clear his name.

Cadman also stressed that his client had never been arrested or charged in any jurisdiction and did not have citizenship or travel documents from any other country besides Pakistan - a document which remains in the custody of the UK police.

According to details that emerged in court, Moti arrived in the UK on business on a 10-year visa and was due to leave the UK this week on August 22.

Earlier today, before the judge began hearing the application for Moti's bail, his defence team had asked for the media to be banned from the hearing over safety concerns due to "reports appearing in the Indian media".

Judge Coleman had turned down the request, saying: "We have open justice in this country."



A bearded Moti, who had been arrested by Scotland Yard's Extradition Unit on Friday on suspicion of conspiracy to commit blackmail, import illegal drugs and money laundering in the US, appeared in the docks wearing jeans and T-shirt.

The court was told that the "criminality is vague" as the warrant and the diplomatic note have some differences and should be deemed invalid.

"This is just a provisional warrant, which allows for 65 days to present the paperwork to back up the charges," the judge said, allowing for the hearing to go ahead.

The hearing, which was to begin this morning, was adjourned briefly as the judge decided that any "inconsistencies" between the provisional warrant and the diplomatic note can be dealt with over the 65-day period available for extradition matters.

Moti, referred to as Jabir Motiwala in the Metropolitan Police warrant, has been widely referred to as the financial manager of Dawood Ibrahim - the key accused in the Mumbai serial bomb blasts in 1993.

Dawood remains on the UK government's recently-updated financial sanctions list.

Financial sanctions in force in the UK could apply to individuals, entities and governments who may be resident in the UK or abroad.

The UK Treasury department's 'Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets in the UK', updated on August 16, records Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar as the only "Indian" on its annually updated asset freeze list.

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A group that represents UK hospitals has warned that its members may run out of drugs if Britain leaves the European Union without an agreement on future relations.

NHS Providers says a lack of "visible and appropriate communication" from the government is hampering preparations for a so-called no-deal Brexit.

In a letter to National Health Service bosses that was leaked to the Times of London today, the group's chief executive says it would be more efficient to develop contingency plans nationally rather than "have to reinvent the wheel 229 times".

Chris Hopson says "the entire supply chain of pharmaceuticals" could be affected by the failure to reach a deal, adding that it could also "jeopardize" the EU workforce "on which the NHS relies".

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Union minister and BJP leader Uma Bharti today expressed "regret" for "not apologising" to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who she said might have been hurt by her unknowingly.

Speaking at a prayer meeting held at the Motilal Nehru stadium in the Madhya Pradesh capital to pay tribute to the BJP patriarch, Bharti went down the memory lane to recall her association with Vajpayee.

"Atalji was a humorous person. I used to get angry when he used to speak humorously. I think I might have told him something which might have hurt him. I will always feel regret in my life that I couldn't say sorry to him," the Sanitation and Water Supplies Minister said.

Bharti, 59, recalled that she had first met Vajpayee when she was just eight years old in Gwalior where she had gone to deliver a religious discourse at a programme organised by late Vijaya Raje Scindia.

Vajpayee, 93, died at AIIMS hospital in Delhi on August 16 due to prolonged illness.

Paying homage to the departed leader, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan remembered him as a "stalwart politician of many qualities" and a multi-faceted personality.

"This generation would thank their luck because they could see Atal ji. Becoming like Atalji would be a true tribute to him," he said.

Leaders of various political parties like the Congress, AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) and Samajwadi Party (SP) participated in the prayer meet.

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The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet today paid glowing tributes to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and observed a two minute silence as a mark of respect to the departed leader.

The Cabinet meeting was presided over by Chief Minister Yogi Adityaraj, who condoled the death of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, government spokesman and minister Shrikant Sharma told reporters.

Uttar Pradesh is the birthplace and 'karmabhumi' of Atalji and the cabinet paid its homage to him and prayed for peace for his soul, he said.

The Cabinet also approved a draft bill proposing amending section 438 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) to restore certain provisions related to anticipatory bail in the state.

The cabinet approved the draft of the bill which will be tabled in the coming monsoon session of the Assembly, Sharma said, adding that certain anticipatory bill provisions were withdrawn in 1976.

Under the proposed provisions, the sessions courts will also be able to give anticipatory bail while earlier only the High Court could hear and grant them, the minister said adding that anticipatory bail will not be granted in cases where the maximum punishment is death sentence.

The proposed amendment will lower the burden on the High Court and Supreme Court, he said.

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By Guest Blogger Sasha Jones

Teens are experiencing cyberbullying on Instagram more than on any other social media platform, a study has found.

Ditch the Label, an international anti-bullying organization, surveyed over 10,000 young adults based in the United Kingdom, ages 12 to 20, on their experiences with bullying, both online and in person.

Fifty-four percent of respondents said they had been bullied at some point, while 17 percent said they had experienced cyberbullying. Of those who have been cyberbullied, 42 percent have experienced cyberbullying on Instagram. The results suggest that Instagram has replaced Facebook as the medium of choice for cyberbullies.

Still, most participants disagreed with the statement Im scared of being bullied or trolled online, and 23 percent said yes when asked Is cyberbullying just part of growing up? Additionally, 69 percent of all respondents admitted that they have done something abusive towards another person online.

A different survey by the Royal Society for Public Health, an independent health education charity in the UK, found that Instagram is the most negative of all social media sites, resulting in users increased feelings of anxiety, depression, loneliness, and unhappiness with their body image.

According to the survey of more than 1,400 14- to 24-year-olds, the only major social media platform that was ranked by young adults as having a positive impact on health and wellbeing was YouTube, which was rated high for enabling a sense of awareness, emotional support, self-expression, and community building.

Ditch the Label credits some of the negative impact of Instagram and other social media networks with encouraging the habit of presenting oneself differently online and offline. Twenty percent of participants said that the content they post online made their life look more exciting than it actually is, and 50 percent said that they are more confident online.

The findings come as cyberbullying draws increasing attention on both sides of the Atlantic. Earlier this year, first lady Melania Trump launched the Be Best campaign, which aims to teach children about the importance of social, emotional, and physical health, with a concentration on social media, as well as well-being and opioid abuse.

Addressing a cyberbullying conference on Monday, the first lady spoke about how social media is an inevitable part of our childrens daily lives.

"[Social media] can be used in many positive ways, but can also be destructive and harmful when used incorrectly, she said. This is why Be Best chooses to focus on the importance of teaching our next generation how to conduct themselves safely and in a positive manner in an online setting.

Photo by Getty
Celebrated Urdu author Ismat Chughtai, known for her literary works exploring free speech, social liberation, and gender equality, was today paid homage by search engine giant Google with a colourful doodle on her 107th birthday.

Padma Shri awardee Chughtai was critical of the common outlook towards women's place in the society.

Chughtai's work faced criticism from conservatives and many of her writings were banned in South Asia because of their reformist and feminist content.

She began writing at an early age, inspired by her elder brother Mirza Azim Beg Chughtai, a novelist known for his playful humorous works.

The author courted extreme controversy for her story, "Lihaaf" in particular, which touches upon the themes of homosexuality.

Narrated in the voice of a young girl, "Lihaf" was viewed as controversial given its portrayal of a relationship between an upper class woman and her servant.

"This was also the case for another of her famous stories, "Gainda" (Marigold), which told the tale of a domestic worker who falls in love outside the caste system.

"Chughtai's character violated the rules prohibiting different castes from associating with one another, as well as the social custom forbidding widows from pursuing a second love," Google said in a blogpost.

Through her work she also talked about other sensitive topics such as middle-class gentility, partition, and class-conflict, among others.

Her works included stories like "Kafir" (Infidel), "Mera Baccha" (My Child), "Jarein" (Roots), "Hindustan Chod Do" (Quit India), and "Kacche Dhaage" (Fragile Threads).

Widely translated into English and other languages, Chughtai also penned scripts for Bollywood movies and made her debut with the 1948 commercially successful drama film Ziddi.

Later, she also tried her hand in direction and production with films like "Faraib" and "Sone ki Chidiya", respectively.

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Two Iranians who collected information on opponents of Tehran and took covert pictures of Jewish institutions in the United States were charged with spying for the Iranian government.

The Justice Department unsealed charges against Iranian-US dual citizen Mohammadi Doostdar and Majid Ghorbani, an Iranian resident of California, alleging they worked together on surveillance of the Jewish sites and aimed to penetrate the Mujahedin-e Khalq (the People's Mujahedin of Iran or MEK), a group of Iranian dissidents in exile.

The two were arrested on August 9 but the charges were not unsealed by a Washington court until yesterday.

They said that Doostdar, 38, who resides in Iran, traveled to Chicago in July 2017 where agents watched him take pictures of Hillel Center and Rohr Chabad House, both Jewish community centers, near the University of Chicago.

The indictment did not explain why he took the pictures. He then traveled to California where he met Ghorbani, apparently for the first time, according to the indictment.

Two months later Ghorbani, 59, flew to New York for one day where he attended an MEK rally and took photographs of people in attendance.

Then in December Doostdar travelled back to California to get the MEK information.

In conversations between them recorded by the FBI, Ghorbani mentioned trying to "penetrate" the group, while Doostdar spoke of being directed by others to collect the information.

"I will give it to the guys to do their research," he said of the photographs.

The indictment says he paid USD 2,000 to Ghorbani in their meetings.

In March and April this year, Ghorbani went to Iran where, according to the indictment, he briefed government officials on his information on MEK and received a list of "taskings" for infiltrating the dissident group.

In May, Ghorbani attended the MEK-supported Iran Freedom Convention for Human Rights in Washington as part of the California delegation, where he also took pictures of attendees, including while posing in front of the White House.

Doostdar and Ghorbani were both charged with acting as unregistered agents of the Iranian government and providing the Iran government with services in violation of sanctions.

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The United States is holding off on a final decision on whether to impose tariffs on auto imports as trade talks with Mexico, Canada and Europe are ongoing, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Monday, he said it is "not clear the report will be out at the end of the month ... in view of the negotiations" to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Washington also is in talks with the European Union after President Donald Trump reached an agreement with EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker in late July to avoid the auto tariffs in exchange for a new deal on duty free trade between the two economies.

Citing national security concerns, Trump in May had ordered Commerce to investigate the possibility of imposing tariffs of up to 25 per cent on foreign autos and auto parts, a prospect that alarmed the industry.

The department collected over 2,000 written comments from diverse industry representatives and car enthusiasts calling on the administration to scrap the tariff plan, and dozens more testified at a public hearing in late July.

Ross told the Wall Street Journal the volume of comments also is a factor delaying the final report, saying the department received "zillions of pages" from car companies and "We're running out of August."



Despite the administration's rush to impose tariffs in other cases, including against China, Ross declined to set a new deadline for releasing the findings on the auto sector, saying the department is not required to issue its report until next year.

Trump also invoked national security concerns when he imposed steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, angering key allies and prompting retaliation against US products like soybeans and motorcycles.

The US imported USD 212 billion in autos last year, USD 151 billion more than it exported, a deficit that has risen 29 per cent since 2013, according to Commerce Department figures.

Autos are a key sticking point in negotiations to revamp the nearly 25-year-old NAFTA, and Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo is due to arrive in Washington later Tuesday to continue efforts to reach an agreement. He said last week he was hopeful officials would be able to wrap up the issues affecting Mexico this week, after which Canada would rejoin the talks.

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: US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster called on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu here today as part of his day-long visit to the state capital Amaravati.

The chief minister briefed the Ambassador about the Real-Time Governance system, e-Pragati and other information technology-enabled initiatives being used for governance in the state, a release from the chief minister's office said.

Naidu also explained about infrastructure development in the state, particularly solar power, and the states top ranking in Ease of Doing Business, it said.

The Ambassador, the release said, informed the chief minister that US companies were looking towards Andhra Pradesh with interest because of the prevailing "good environment."



"You created a good ecosystem in the state.You created a multi-player effect providing good aspirations among people of Andhra Pradesh in employment opportunities. You are good people to work with," the Ambassador was quoted as saying.

Later, accompanied by the US Consul General Katherine Hadda, the Ambassador visit Amaravati village and went round the museum and the 'Maha Chaitchya Sthupa,' a Buddhist relic.

Juster also visited the famous Undavalli Caves in the capital region.

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The US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) has inducted three prominent executives to its board, continuing its goal to strengthen business ties across the two nations at the highest level.

XCoal Founder and CEO Ernie Thrasher, Bank of the West CEO Nandita Bakhshi and Varian Medical Systems President and CEO Dow Wilson will be the three new board members at USISPF.

"With the addition of these three business leaders, USISPF continues its goal to strengthen business ties across the two nations at the highest level by attracting high caliber board members. USISPF's board members are prominent business leaders and global influencers who possess an ability to impact international relations and corporate affairs worldwide," the organisation said.

Welcoming the new board members, USISPF President Mukesh Aghi said the three leaders have already made a tremendous impact on US-India relations.

"Their knowledgeable backgrounds and distinct interests bring even greater value to the strong Board of Directors that leads The Forum's strategic goals. With the most valuable leadership team for US-India relations, we look to bring the two countries closer together than ever before," Aghi said.

Thrasher served as the President of the AMCI Export Corporation and EVP of Marketing for AMCI International from 1997 to 2003, where he was responsible for the international marketing and trading of coals produced by AMCI Group, and has had over 34 years of experience in the coal mining industry.

"India has become a vital country for the US in coal and LNG trade. I'm proud to join the USISPF Board and work to further strengthen the US-India energy partnership," Thrasher said.

Bakhshi is CEO of BancWest Corporation and is Co-Chief Executive Officer of BNP Paribas USA. She joins the USISPF Board with a nearly 30-year long career in the banking industry. She previously was an Executive Vice President and Head of North American Direct Channels at TD Bank, and served in leadership positions at Washington Mutual.

On her appointment to the Board, Bakhshi said as a native of India, she has seen the country grow and believe in its potential.

Wilson joined Varian in 2005 and had previously served as Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, and President of Varian's Oncology Systems business.

"Varian has been working with USISPF on a number of issues, and I'm excited to join the Board of Directors. USISPF has brought together an impressive group of business leaders to help people globally and further strengthen this important partnership," he said.

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The Uttarakhand High Court today imposed a ban on slaughter of goats in the open or in public on the occasion of Bakr-Eid.

Taking suo motu cognisance of the matter, the division bench of Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Manoj Tiwari ordered that the slaughter of goats will not take place in the open or in public during the festival and must be done in slaughter houses only.

The Court also directed that the blood should not flow in open drains and nullahs.

The order is directed towards one and all irrespective of any religion, the court said.

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The Uttarakhand High Court today imposed a ban on slaughter of goats, sheep or buffaloes in the open or in public on the occasion of Eid-ul-Juha directing authorities to ensure it is done only in abattoirs.

Making it clear that the order applied to one and all irrespective of religion, the court also imposed a ban on animal sacrifice inside Hindu temples.

Taking 'suo motu' cognisance of large-scale slaughter of goats and other animals as part of Eid-ul-Juha celebrations, the division bench of Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Manoj Tiwari ordered that the slaughter of goats, sheep or buffaloes not take place in the open or in public and must be done in slaughter houses only.

The court also directed that the blood and offal should not flow into open drains and nullahs.

The order is directed towards one and all irrespective of any religion, the court said.

"It is directed that on the day of Eid-ul-Juha (Bakr- Eid) no animals including goat/sheep/buffalo shall be sacrificed in an open space, on any public street or any thoroughfare in front of any place of worship," the high court said.

No cow or cow's progeny or any camel shall be slaughtered on the day of Eid-ul-Juha, as per the law, it added.

"It is also directed that blood of animals shall not be permitted to go into drains. The blood and offal shall not be dumped in any open space throughout the state of Uttarakhand," the court order said.

Municipal corporations, municipal bodies as well as rural and local bodies in the state are directed to remove the remains of sacrificed animals, if any, with due promptitude, it said.

It is clarified that prohibited animals, as defined under Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, shall not be sacrificed, the court asserted.

The court also put a ban on animal sacrifice inside Hindu temples.

"No animal shall be sacrificed inside any temple, or in an open space or any public street or thoroughfare by the Hindus," it said.

It ordered that in the larger public interest, prayers shall be made only at the places earmarked by district magistrates or sub-divisional magistrates throughout Uttarakhand.

The state administration is directed to ensure proper safety around the places where prayers are to be offered, it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A portion of ashes of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would be immersed in 10 main rivers of Madhya Pradesh after taking out processions with urns containing the ashes in his home state.

Ten "Kalash Yatras", processions on vehicles with urns containing Vajpayee's ashes, will be taken out in different parts of the state before the ashes are immersed in rivers across Madhya Pradesh, the BJP said today.

Nine of the yatras would commence from the BJP state headquarters in Bhopal, while the tenth one would begin from Gwalior, Vajpayee's birthplace, said state BJP media cell in- charge Lokendra Parashar.

The ashes from one of the 10 urns would be immersed in the Narmada, MP's most sacred river, tomorrow, while the rest would be immersed on Thursday, he said.

"The urns would reach Bhopal on Wednesday and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and state BJP president Rakesh Singh would leave for Hoshangabad from party headquarters with one of the urns for immersion of the ashes in the Narmada in the afternoon," he said.

Both the leaders along with other party leaders and workers would immerse the ashes in the Narmada river on Wednesday evening, he said.

On Thursday, the processions for immersion of the ashes in eight rivers would start from the state BJP headquarters - Deendayal Parisar - in Bhopal. Another yatra would start from Gwalior for the immersion of ashes in the Chambal river, Parashar said.

After the end of processions, the ashes would be immersed in the Parvati river at Chanchoda (Guna district), the Kshipra river in Ujjain, the Tapti in Burhanpur, the Son in Rewa, the Betwa in Orchha, the Pench in Chhindwara, the Sindh in Datia and the Ken river in Panna, he added.

The BJP plans to immerse Vajpayee's ashes in 100 rivers across the country.

The 93-year-old BJP stalwart died on August 16 in New Delhi after a prolonged illness and he was cremated the next day in the national capital.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The ashes of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would be immersed in eight rivers in Karnataka, including the Cauvery, state BJP B S Yeddyurappa said today.

He would travel to Delhi to collect the ashes and they would be brought to the city tomorrow.

"Tomorrow morning in Delhi, BJP president Amit Shah has called a meeting of state unit chiefs and other leaders, I'm leaving for Delhi. The meeting is about immersing Vajpayee's ashes in holy rivers across the country," the former chief minister said.

Speaking to reporters, he said a "sacred urn" containing the ashes would be received by party workers and leaders at Kempegowda International Airport around 3.30 pm.

The BJP leader said the urn would be brought in a procession to the party's state office here, where arrangements had been made for thousands of admirers to pay floral tribute to the departed leader.

"The asthi visarjan (immersion of ashes) will take place on August 23 at Triveni Sangama on the banks of the Cauvery in the holy temple town of Srirangapatna in which I along with Union minister Ananth Kumar and other party leaders will take part," Yeddyurappa said.

On August 25, the BJP has organised the 'asthi visarjan' event at seven places across Karnataka.

In Mangaluru-Udupi region, the ashes would be immersed in Netravathy River at Uppinangadi, where MPs Shobha Karandlaje and Nalin Kumar Kateel along with MLA C T Ravi would be present.

In Hubli-Dharwad, Haveri and Gadag region, the immersion would take place in Malaprabha river, while in the Bijapur-Bagalkot region, it would be immersed in Krishna river.

The ashes would be immersed in Karanja river in Bidar and Kalaburagi region while in Ballari and Koppal region, it would be immersed in Tungabhadra River.

They would also be immersed in Sharavati River (Honnavar) in Uttara Kannada district and in Tunga River in Shivamogga district.

Several party state leaders would be present at these events, Yeddyurappa said, adding that on August 26 a condolence meeting would be held in Bengaluru.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The ashes of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would be immersed in Godavari and Musi rivers in Telangana, the BJP state unit said today.

The ashes would be brought to the BJP's Telangana headquarters here tomorrow evening from the international airport, party unit general secretary Chinta Samba Murthy said.

The ashes would be kept at the party office for people to pay their respects to the departed leader on August 23.

On the same day, the ashes would be taken to Basar near Nizamabad, where a Saraswathi temple is situated, for immersion in the Godavari by a team led by state BJP president K Laxman, Samba Murthy was quoted as saying in a party release.

Another team led by former Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya would go to Ananthagiri near here the same day for immersing the ashes in Musi river.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The ashes of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would be immersed in the Mandovi and Zuari rivers of Goa on August 24, a senior BJP official said today.

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar will immerse the ashes in the Mandovi river while South Goa BJP MP Narendra Sawaikar will do the same in the Zuari river, state party president Vinay Tendulkar told reporters here.

Parrikar, who is in the US for a medical check-up, is scheduled to return to Goa on August 23.

Tendulkar said he would go to New Delhi to collect the 'kalash' (urn containing the ashes), which would be taken around the state before immersing the ashes in the two prominent rivers of Goa.

"The ashes will be brought to Goa tomorrow evening and will be be kept at BJP state head office here so that the party workers and others can pay their tributes," he said.

Vajpayee was a great leader and many would like to pay their tributes to him, Goa BJP general secretary Sadanand Tanavade said.

The BJP will hold a 'kalash yatra' across the state on August 23 and 24 before immersion of the ashes, he said.

The BJP had said earlier that Vajpayee's ashes will be immersed in various rivers across the country.

One of the most charismatic leaders in independent India, Vajpayee died in Delhi on August 16 at the age of 93. He was cremated with full state honours at the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal in the national capital on August 17.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
People marooned by the fierce monsoon rains in Kerala have been returning home to the frightening sights of deadly cobras and venomous Russell vipers slithering around in their bathrooms, and coiling in cupboards and washbasins.

Incidents of snake bites have been reported from various parts of the state in the last five days, prompting authorities to seek the assistance of wildlife conservationist and snake expert Vava Suresh.

Authorities of a private hospital at nearby Angamaly said doctors had attended to 53 cases of snake bites from August 15 to August 20.

A doctor at the Angamaly Little Flower Hospital said cobras, the Indian krait and Russell's viper have found their way into abandoned, marooned houses from the forests, along with the floodwaters.

"These reptiles have entered flooded homes and other structures. So those who step into their houses for cleaning after receding of floodwaters should be very careful," the doctor said.

The public relations wing of the state government has launched a social media campaign against the snake menace.

In one such campaign, Suresh, who has captured more than 140 king cobras over the years, has been roped in and he has advised people not to panic on seeing the reptiles.

"The snakes could be hiding in cupboards, under carpets, in clothes, near doors, in wash basins, closets, shoes and electronic items like washing machines and refrigerators.

"One should not touch the household appliances with bare hands. Instead they hold a stick to shift through their belongings," he said.

One more tip he offered to people was to wipe floors and articles in the house using water mixed with kerosene or diesel after cleaning, as this is believed to keep the snakes away.

Suresh, who has been bitten several times by venomous snakes, also advised people to properly check their cars and two-wheelers parked in porches as the reptiles might be in them too.

The heavy rains and floods over the past fortnight in Kerala have left 223 dead and forced over 10 lakh people out of their homes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A court in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City has begun the trial of 12 people, including two American citizens, on subversion charges as government authorities step up a crackdown on dissent.

The official Vietnam Agency said the defendants are accused of attempting to overthrow the government by recruiting members for a US-based exile group called the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam and by engaging in anti-state activities.

Vietnam's government has labeled the little-known group a terrorist organization.

The agency said two Vietnam-born American citizens are accused of ordering other members of the group to distribute anti-state leaflets, take over state radio stations to broadcast anti-government messages, and participate in anti-government protests. It said most of the plans were thwarted. The trial is scheduled to last three days.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Vitamin B3 has the potential to prevent acute kidney injury, an often fatal condition without a specific treatment, a study has found.

The condition causes a build-up of waste products in the blood and an imbalance of fluids throughout the body.

Acute kidney injury, which affects up to 30-40 per cent of all hospitalised adults in low-income countries, can occur from ailments that place the body into extreme stress -- putting patients, particularly those in intensive care units, at risk.

Researchers led by Samir M Parikh from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the US discovered that levels of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) -- the end result of vitamin B3 after it is ingested-declines in cases of acute kidney injury.

"We were able to detect a drop in NAD+ in the urine of high-risk patients who were either in an intensive care unit or undergoing a major surgery and found that oral vitamin B3 could safely elevate NAD+ in high-risk patients," said Parikh, who is also an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in the US.

"These findings are very early, but the results suggest that we could one day have a non-invasive test for NAD+ status and perhaps even treat acute kidney injury by boosting NAD+ levels," said Parikh.

Researchers made the discovery by studying the metabolic changes associated with acute kidney injury in a mouse model.

In subsequent human studies, the team found high urinary quinolinate in patients undergoing major surgery at risk for acute kidney injury and confirmed this metabolite pattern in a separate study of 329 intensive care unit patients also at risk for acute kidney injury.

The team then gave large doses of oral vitamin B3 to 41 cardiac surgery patients enrolled in a Phase 1 pilot study.

"Our results suggest that NAD+ biosynthesis becomes impaired during human acute kidney injury and that augmenting vitamin B3 levels may be safe and potentially beneficial to patients." said Kamal Khabbaz of BIDMC, who co-led the clinical trial.

"We showed that urinary measurements in at-risk patients can indicate this impairment and, furthermore, predict adverse outcomes. Restoring NAD+ could constitute and important advance for patients at risk for acute kidney injury, though further studies are needed to verify these findings," Khabbaz said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Colleges in West Bengal can extend the date for admission to undergraduate courses beyond the deadline of August 20 if there are vacant seats, state Minister Partha Chatterjee has said.

Asked about reports of hundreds seats lying vacant in several colleges in the city and all over the state, Chatterjee told reporters yesterday that it would have to be looked on a case-by-case basis.

"If the concerned college has the required infrastructure, if the governing body of the concerned college seeks extension of deadline for admission owing to some seats still lying vacant, they can still continue with the admission process, on a case-by-case basis," the minister said.

On July 17, the state government had extended the last date for admission to undergraduate streams in colleges from mid-July to August 20.

Asked about reports of hundreds seats lying vacant in several colleges in the city and all over the state, Chatterjee told reporters yesterday, it would have to be looked on a case-by-case basis.

"If the concerned college has the required infrastructure, if the governing body of the concerned college seeks extension of deadline for admission owing to some seats still lying vacant, they can still continue with the admission process, on a case-by-case basis," the minister said.

Chatterjee said the admission quota stipulated by the university, with which the concerned college is affiliated to, should be adhered to.

The minister had earlier said that students should not crowd a few educational institutions for admission.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sixteen persons, including a local RJD activist, have been arrested and eight policemen suspended after a women was assaulted and paraded naked in the state's Bhojpur district by a mob on suspicion of her involvement in alleged murder of a man, officials said today.

Violence had rocked the main market area of Bihiya block of the district, about 60 km from the state capital, after the body of 19-year-old Vimalesh Sah, who had gone missing on Sunday, was found adjacent to a railway track yesterday morning, Bhojpur Superintendent of Police Avakash Kumar said.

Residents of Sah's native village Damodarpur had rushed to the spot upon hearing the and some of them suspected that those living in a red light area nearby could have strangled the youth to death, police said.

The villagers set ablaze a number of shops in the market area and assaulted many local residents, police said.

As the mob frenzy continued, one of them dragged the woman out on street, ripped off her clothes and paraded her naked while kicking and slapping her and hurling abuses, the SP said.

He said those arrested include a local RJD activist Kaushal Kishore Yadav, who was allegedly leading he mob.

Those placed under suspension are the SHO of Bihiya police station and the inspector in-charge of GRP police station, the SP said.

The frenzied mob had also hurled stones at a train that was passing through the area, before a police team arrived and quelled the violence.

The SP said FIRs have been lodged at the Bihiya police station in connection with Sah's murder, the arson and vandalism by the mob and outraging of the women's modesty.

The incident also triggered sharp reactions from the opposition parties with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav demanding resignation of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar alleging lawlessness in the state. He also demanded immediate measures to improve law and order situation in the state and to ensure safety and security of women.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) ally Hindustani Awam Morcha's chief and former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi also alleged law and order has collapsed in Bihar and said the state deserved President's Rule.

Ruling party Janata Dal (United) MLC and spokesman Neeraj Kumar hit back by alleging involvement of RJD leaders in a number of heinous incidents in the recent past, including the one at Bihiya.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
World number one Simona Halep withdrew from the WTA Connecticut Open with a leg injury, the day after losing the Cincinnati final to Kiki Bertens.

The Romanian, who cited soreness in her right Achilles, said she still plans to take part in the upcoming US Open.

"I need to recover in time for the US Open," she said.

This would have been Halep's third tournament in as many weeks. She won the WTA Montreal event before being runner-up in Cincinnati, losing in three sets to Dutchwoman Bertens on Sunday.

"I really wanted to play it (Connecticut) and I saw that many fans bought tickets to see me here, but I feel very sore with my Achilles, and I need some rest," she added.

"I had so many matches in the last two weeks, so it's tough. See you next year, and all the best."



The 26-year-old Halep will be replaced in the draw by lucky loser Belinda Bencic of Switzerland.

American CoCo Vandeweghe also pulled out of the hardcourt tournament in New Haven on Sunday with a sore right ankle.

In Monday action, two-time Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova overpowered 2016 champion Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1, 7-6 (7/3) and fourth-seeded Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic was knocked out by Russian Ekaterina Makarova 6-1, 6-3.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Huw JonesLONDON (Reuters) - Britain is expected to keep the door open for European Union banks and investors after Brexit to try to preserve London's global financial clout, irrespective of whether it gets a good trade deal from the bloc, bankers and industry officials say.Nerves in the City of London financial district were rattled last month when the UK government proposed future financial services trade with the EU based on "reciprocal" arrangements.Bankers worried this meant that if the EU did not give Britain broad market access, London would impose tit-for-tat restrictions on EU ...
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China has drawn up new guidelines on measuring and controlling "hidden" local government debt, the official China Daily said on Tuesday, citing senior government sources.The new policy document calls on local governments to find out how much off-budget debt has been accumulated over the last three years and to draw up risk control plans, the newspaper said.Off-budget debt is raised through non-bond channels and is also outside the annual debt quota approved by the central government.China vowed last week to keep debt levels under control even as it rolls out new economic ...
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said it would formally apologise to 18 members of the "Windrush generation" who were forced to leave or detained because they were not issued with documents when they came to the country from the Caribbean after World War Two.The scandal damaged the authority of Prime Minister Theresa May, who had led efforts to tackle illegal immigration when she led the Home Office, and resulted in the resignation of her interior minister Amber Rudd.May said earlier this year that the treatment of thousands of migrants who were invited to fill labour shortages in post-war Britain ...
By William JamesLONDON (Reuters) - Britain pressed the European Union on Tuesday to increase sanctions against Russia, saying it should stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the United States, which hit Moscow with new economic restrictions this month. Britain's foreign minister, Jeremy Hunt, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the world "a more dangerous place", and that after a chemical weapons attack in the English city of Salisbury, the EU should apply more pressure to ensure Russia sticks to international rules."Today the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by ...
By Ahmed Rasheed and Ahmed AbouleneinBAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's economy is so closely linked to Iran that Baghdad is going to ask Washington for permission to ignore some U.S. sanctions on its neighbour, Iraqi government and central bank officials said.U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from an international deal aimed at limiting Iran's nuclear programme earlier this year and reimposed trade sanctions. Washington has said there will be consequences for countries that do not respect the sanctions. Baghdad is in a difficult position. Iraq imports crucial supplies from ally ...
By Jeff Mason and Steve HollandWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump does not expect much progress from trade talks with China this week in Washington, he told Reuters on Monday.Trump said in an interview that he had "no time frame" for ending the trade dispute with China. "I'm like them, I have a long horizon," he added. The talks this week come as new U.S. tariffs on $16 billion of Chinese goods take effect, along with retaliatory tariffs from Beijing on an equal amount of U.S. goods. The U.S. Trade Representative's Office also is holding hearings this week on proposals for ...
US President Donald Trump does not expect much progress from trade talks with China this week in Washington, he told Reuters on Monday. Trump said in an interview that he had "no time frame" for ending the trade dispute with China, which threatens to impose tariffs on virtually all goods traded between the world's two largest economies. "I'm like them; I have a long horizon," he added. The talks this week come as new US tariffs on $16 billion of Chinese goods take effect at 12:01 a.m. (0401 GMT) on Thursday, along with retaliatory tariffs from ...
By David Shepardson and David LawderWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Foreign-brand automakers with U.S. plants do not support Trump administration rules to raise the amount of local content in North American-made vehicles, a group representing companies including Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen AG and Hyundai Motor Co has told key U.S. lawmakers.Talks between Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer are due to resume on Tuesday in Washington to try to resolve remaining bilateral issues so that Canada, which has been sidelined for weeks from the ...
By Promit Mukherjee and Nidhi VermaMUMBAI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The Indian government has asked its biggest state-owned firm, Oil and Natural Gas, to list its overseas unit ONGC Videsh, according to a letter seen by Reuters.The move to float the unit - which has investments in 11 producing assets in countries including Russia, Brazil and Iran - is part of a government push to sell state-assets to raise funds.A listing would also help unlock value in the unit by improving its corporate governance and efficiency, the letter from the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management to ONGC ...
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The government has asked its biggest state-owned firm, Oil and Natural Gas, to list its overseas unit ONGC Videsh, according to a letter seen by Reuters.The move to float the unit - which has investments in 11 producing assets in countries including Russia, Brazil and Iran - is part of a government push to sell state-assets to raise funds.A listing would also help unlock value in the unit by improving its corporate governance and efficiency, the letter from the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management to ONGC said.The letter, sent last week, did not ...
By Makiko Yamazaki and Yoshiyasu ShidaTOKYO (Reuters) - Daikin Industries, the world's largest maker of air conditioning equipment, is turning to Africa for further expansion, 10 years after a successful gamble on sharing its key technology with a Chinese company.As Japanese manufacturers such as Panasonic stepped back from home appliances over a decade ago to avoid price wars with Asian rivals, Daikin did the opposite, going head-to-head with the likes of South Korea's LG.Fighting off low-cost competitors through local partnerships and acquisitions, Daikin grabbed top share in markets such ...
By Abhinav Ramnarayan and Virginia FurnessLONDON (Reuters) - Greece celebrated the end of eight years of bailouts on Monday, but expectations that it will mark its new-found fiscal independence with a much-anticipated bond sale next month may be dashed as wider tensions play out.Having exited its third international rescue package, the debt-laden nation has been widely tipped to return to market with a benchmark 10-year issue as early as September, as it seeks to rebuild its bond curve and re-establish itself as a regular borrower. Market tensions over a new government on Italy forced it to ...
(Reuters) - Brokerage Morgan Stanley has halted equity coverage on Tesla Inc, potentially a sign the U.S. bank may be doing business directly with the electric carmaker as it explores options to go private. Goldman Sachs dropped its coverage of Tesla last week shortly before confirming it was acting as a financial adviser on a matter related to the automaker.Morgan Stanley's website showed Tesla had been moved to "Not Rated" from "Equal-weight" on Tuesday. (Reporting by Sonam Rai in Bengaluru; editing by Patrick Graham)(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is ...
Russian potash producer Uralkali has questioned the process behind the sale of the Force India Formula One team after losing out in a battle between billionaire fathers of young racing drivers. Uralkali co-owner Dmitry Mazepin is the father of 19-year-old Nikita, who races in the junior GP3 series and is a development driver for Force India. The team were put into administration at the end of July with a rescue deal led by Canadian Lawrence Stroll, the father of 19-year-old Williams F1 racer Lance, announced on August 7. Uralkali, whose shares are quoted on the Moscow stock ...
By Amanda CooperLONDON (Reuters) - Oil rose on Tuesday, buoyed by the prospect of price support from U.S. sanctions on Iran, although with concern brewing about the outlook for demand, particularly in light of the trade dispute between Washington and Beijing, gains were limited.Brent crude futures were last up 49 cents on the day at $72.70 a barrel by 1230 GMT, while the most active October U.S. crude futures contract rose 43 cents from its last close to $65.85 a barrel."Prices are being supported by the prospect of lower oil supply from Iran," Commerzbank said in a note.The full impact of ...
By Stephanie KellyNEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil rose to its highest level in a week on Tuesday, buoyed by the prospect of U.S. sanctions on Iran, though the trade dispute between Washington and Beijing kept traders and analysts cautious.Oil futures extended gains in post-settlement trade after data from industry group the American Petroleum Institute showed that U.S. crude stockpiles fell 5.2 million barrels last week, more than three times analysts' forecasts, as imports fell and refinery runs rose. Official data is due on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT)Brent crude futures for October ...
By Henning GloysteinSINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices were mixed on Tuesday, with U.S. fuel markets seen to be tightening while the Sino-U.S. trade dispute dragged on international crude contracts.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures for September delivery were up 27 cents, or 0.4 percent, at 0306 GMT, at $66.70 per barrel. The contract expires on Tuesday. The more active October futures were up 7 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $65.49 a barrel. Traders said U.S. markets were lifted by a tightening outlook for fuel markets in the coming months.Inventories in the United States for refined ...
By Amanda CooperLONDON (Reuters) - Oil held steady on Tuesday, as the prospect of price support from U.S. sanctions on Iran was offset by concern about the outlook for demand, particularly in light of the trade dispute between Washington and Beijing.Brent crude futures were down 2 cents at $72.19 a barrel at 0928 GMT, while the most-active October U.S. crude futures contract was down 7 cents at $65.35 a barrel."Prices are being supported by the prospect of lower oil supply from Iran," Commerzbank said in a note.The full impact of the Iran sanctions is not yet clear. While most of Europe's ...
By Patricia Zengerle and Doina ChiacuWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington is prepared to impose more economic pain on Russia if it does not change its behavior, Trump administration officials said on Tuesday, as U.S. lawmakers pushed for stronger measures to counteract "malign" Russian activities. "Though Russia's malign activities continue, we believe its adventurism undoubtedly has been checked by the knowledge that we can bring much more economic pain to bear using our powerful range of authorities - and that we will not hesitate to do so if its conduct does not demonstrably and significantly ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday announced sanctions on two Russian shipping companies and six vessels it said were involved in the transfer of refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels in violation of U.N. restrictions.The U.S. Treasury identified the firms as Vladivostok-based shipping companies Primorye Maritime Logistics Co Ltd (Primorye) and Gudzon Shipping Co LLC (Gudzon). It also named six Russian-flagged vessels: Bella, Bogatyr, Neptun, Partizan, Patriot and Sevastopol."Ship-to-ship transfers with North Korea-flagged vessels from Russia or elsewhere of any ...
LONDON (Reuters) - The British government will set out a new export strategy on Tuesday aimed at boosting exports to 35 percent of gross domestic product, as it looks to increase trade ties with the rest of the world after leaving the European Union.The Department for International Trade, set up after the 2016 Brexit vote, estimates that 400,000 businesses believe they could export but don't. It said last year goods and services exported by British companies accounted for 30 percent of GDP."We are determined to support, connect and grow UK companies on the world stage through our ...
(Reuters) - Britain recorded its biggest budget surplus for the month of July in 18 years, official data showed on Tuesday, helping finance minister Philip Hammond as he prepares his annual budget statement later this year.The surplus last month, excluding state-controlled banks, stood at 2.0 billion pounds, more than double the figure in July last year and well above a median forecast of 1.1 billion pounds in a Reuters poll of economists.The improvement, which was driven by strong seasonal inflows of income tax receipts, took the deficit for the first four months of the 2018/19 financial ...
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Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led telecom startup Reliance Jio has been ranked number one on Fortune's global list for rapidly expanding access to the Internet.

The 'Change the World' list, which includes for-profit companies that help tackle social problems, was released on Monday. It ranked Jio ahead of pharma giant Merck and Bank of America and Chinese billionaire Jack Ma-led Alibaba.

"If access to the Internet is a basic human right -- and the United Nations declared it one in the summer of 2016 -- then Reliance Jio deserves more credit than most for expanding access to it," Fortune said.

Reliance Jio stormed the sector with free calls and data forcing rivals to merge or exit in September 2016 and has amassed 215 million subscribers since then and says it is profitable.

Fortune said Ambani likes to say it provides the public with 'digital oxygen' but two years ago there wasn't much oxygen to go around in the world's second-most-populous country.

Mobile phones crawled on 2G networks, and consumers typically paid more than Rs 200 for one gigabyte of data.

India had just 153 million mobile Internet subscribers among its population of 1.3 billion. Enter Jio, with a speedy 4G network (which it spent billions building out), free calls, and dirt-cheap data (as low as 4 per GB). It has since issued a superlow-cost smartphone and is rolling out fixed broadband service as well, it said.

The resulting 'Jio-fication' has been nothing short of revolutionary. With data use surging and Jio's competitors scrambling to match its offerings, the development has jump-started India's digital economy.

Alibaba is ranked 5th on the list that has food and drug stores Kroger at number six, industrial machinery firm ABB at number 8, and network and communications giant Hughes Network System at number 10.
The government has asked the Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp to comply with certain guidelines to minimise the spreading of fake news. In a meeting with WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels, Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the company has to find out solutions to the challenges that are downright criminal violation of Indian laws.

Prasad said the company will need to have a local grievance officer in India and a system to trace the origin of fake messages. After the meeting, the IT Minister appreciated WhatsApp for carrying out "extraordinary technological awakening", especially in education, healthcare, and in flood-ravaged Kerala.

He said apart from these positive developments, there are certain developments that are in total violation of Indian laws. "There are also very sinister developments, that provokes crime like mob lynching, revenge porn. You must find solutions to these challenges which are downright criminal violation of Indian laws," he said.

CEO of Whatsapp Chris Daniels met me today. I appreciated the role of Whatsapp in empowering people and also shared country's concerns about misuse of #Whatsapp and requested him to take suitable steps to address those concerns. pic.twitter.com/SciU23wX7O - Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) August 21, 2018

The minister suggested three major points that the company must work on to address such problems. "1- WhatsApp must have a grievance officer in India. 2nd-you must have a proper compliance of Indian laws. We won't appreciate a scenario where any problem will have to be answered in America. 3rd- WhatsApp has become an important component of India's digital storage & must have a proper corporate entity located in India," he said.

He also asked the Whtaspp CEO to work closely with law enforcement agencies in India and create public awareness campaign to prevent misuse of Whatsapp. "...I flagged in particular, which I had said earlier also, it does not take rocket science to locate a message being circulated in hundreds and thousands... you must have a mechanism to find a solution," he said, reported ANI, adding that Whatsapp could face abetment charges if no action is taken.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp has assured the government that it would soon take steps on all these counts. In the past three months, India has seen 39 incidents of lynching due to mass misinformation spread on WhatsApp. The government has also come under pressure to take steps to stop such incidents from happening. In July, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had also sent out a letter to the telecom companies, asking them to explore various possible options and confirm how social media networks like Instagram or Facebook or WhatsApp or Telegram, etc, can be blocked on the internet.

(Edited by Manoj Sharma)
Budget airline IndiGo on Monday informed that it would operate flights from the Kochi naval base to provide more air connectivity to flood-hit Kerala. The state has been hit by the worst-ever floods in a century. A senior official at the Civil Aviation Ministry said that Jet Airways was also planning to start operations from the naval base.

Air India Group's Alliance Air yesterday started operations from the naval base. The base is being used for commercial flights as Cochin International Airport is shut till August 26 due to flooding of the runway. Alliance Air yesterday operated four flights to and from the naval base and ferried around 256 passengers.

In a statement issued on Monday, IndiGo said that it would continue to operate eight round-trip relief flights from Kozhikode, Bengaluru, Coimbatore and Trivandrum. This would be in addition to "flying three daily additional relief flights (round trip) from Kochi naval base effective August 21, 2018 to August 26, 2018", the airline added.

Last week, aviation regulator DGCA had asked scheduled domestic airlines to mount additional flights in view of the closure of the Cochin airport.

Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu said that the regulator was also monitoring airfares for flights connecting Kerala as this was a unique situation of 'humanitarian crisis'. The move came after concerns were raised on social media about the steep fluctuations in air ticket prices to and from Kerala.

"Over 10.78 lakh displaced people, including 2.12 lakh women and one lakh children below 12 years of age, have been sheltered in 3,200 relief camps. Today, 602 persons were rescued from various places as the rains receded," Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan yesterday said.

So far, over 350 people have lost their lives in the floods and landslides in the state where over 10.78 lakh people have been displaced since August 8.

(With inputs from PTI)
It's not just the expat Indian community in the United Arab Emirates - a big chunk of whom have roots in Kerala - that have donated generously to help the crisis-hit state. Their adopted country has whole-heartedly chipped in, too. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced today that the UAE has offered assistance of Rs 700 crore ($100 million) to aid relief efforts in the state ravaged worst monsoon in close to a century.

Vijayan informed the media about the UAE's overture and thanked them for their "timely" help. "Today morning, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, informed our Prime Minister about their contribution for Kerala and this was conveyed to me by M.A. Yusuf Ali (who owns Lulu Supermarkets)," he said. "The Kerala diaspora has been a huge source of help for us. Since they have done tremendous service in the Middle East, it has helped build good relations with the governments there."

"We also express the gratitude of Kerala to HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE and the Emir of Abu Dhabi, and HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister of UAE and Emir of Dubai," tweeted Vijayan.

Depending on whom you ask, 6-8 lakh people are stuck in 3,000-5,000 relief camps set up across the rain-battered state. The death toll has crossed 300 and the Chief Minister recently pegged the overall damage caused in the state at over Rs 19,500 crore. That's just the initial assessment.

Last week, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and the vice president of the UAE, took to Twitter to announce the formation of a committee to extend emergency help to the state. "UAE and the Indian community will unite to offer relief to those affected. We have formed a committee to start immediately. We urge everyone to contribute generously towards this initiative," he tweeted.

In a subsequent post he said: "The people of Kerala had always been successful in the success of the UAE. We have a special responsibility to support and assist the flood victims. Especially in this epic and blessing of Eid al-Adha."

In response, Vijayan had thanked him for his "concern, generosity and large heart" on the social media platform. "People of Kerala will not forget this kind gesture shown in our time of need," he had tweeted.

The state is now reportedly preparing to rebuilt itself and rehabilitate the victims with the weather finally showing improvement. "A new Kerala has to be built. At today's cabinet meeting, it has been decided to submit a detailed list to the Centre," he reportedly said. "Funds are the prime requisite for this. This will be raised by us through various sources besides getting it from the Centre and other agencies."

The news agency added that the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund had received Rs 210 crore as contributions till Monday, while another Rs 160 crore had been pledged.

Vijayan has reportedly called an all-party meeting at 4 pm today to chart out the future course of action. A special session of the Kerala Assembly has been called from August 30 to discuss Kerala's rehabilitation and reconstruction.

With agency inputs
The shipping ministry has banned the export of livestock indefinitely from all ports through a notification last week. The decision was taken amidst complaints made by animal rights activists and jivdaya premis (people advocating compassion for all living beings) against cruelty faced by such exported livestock. The two most prominent states from where most livestock exports are carried out via waterways are Gujarat and Rajasthan. Over 40,000 families earn their daily bread through livestock exports, which has now been banned.

Until now, India was a big exporter of livestock. There has been 493 per cent jump in livestock exports since 2013. By value the livestock exports stood at Rs 411.02 crore in FY 2017-18.

Approximately 97 per cent of the livestock demand comes from United Arab Emirates (UAE) followed by Nepal.

Livestock exports to UAE take place mainly before Eid Al-Adha and Bakr-Id, which is marked by the sacrificing animals such as goats and sheep. Bakr-Id is expected to fall this year on August 22.

The livestock export were valued at Rs 460.78 crore in 2015-16, Rs 519.03 crore in 2016-17 and Rs 401.64 crore in 2017-18. India exported livestock worth Rs 336.20 crore to UAE in FY16, Rs 369.50 crore in FY17, and Rs 211 crore in FY 18, while it exported livestock worth Rs 107.97 crore to Nepal in FY16, Rs 147.37 crore in FY17, and Rs 187.83 crore in FY18.

Live goat is the most exported livestock. In total, 322.49 crore worth of goats were exported in FY2017, which represents a 450 per cent increase in goat exports since 2013. Live goat is mostly exported during the festival of Bakr-Id, a Muslim festival in which religious sacrifices are made.

With increasing trade deficit, banning livestock exports, which had the potential to increase manifold, is a questionable decision, say experts
Within two years of launching the Nokia brand in the smartphone category, HMD Global is focusing on expanding its market share in 25 key countries. According to Counterpoint Research, Nokia has been gaining ground, and has been ranked among top 10 smartphone companies globally in terms of having shipments of around a percent share. Florian Seiche, Chief Executive Officer, HMD Global talks about the comeback story of the Nokia-branded phones and the challenges that the brand faces in India, in a conversation with Business Today's Manu Kaushik. Edited excerpts:

Nokia handsets are strong in markets like UK, Russia and some parts of Middle East. What's the reason you picked up well in these markets? Also, what is your strategy for other markets?

The markets where we have been more successful have a strong Nokia heritage from the past. But we also have our own team, capability on the ground and channel partner network. Russia is a good example where there is a strong Nokia heritage from the past - both in smartphones and feature phones, many channel partners in a retail-driven environment, and a lot of consumer engagement. Then, we have other markets like Middle East and South Africa, where we are seeing strong momentum.

We had made it among the top five smartphone players in 15 markets in just three quarters by Q4 of last year. In Q1, it went up to 20 markets, and in Q2, we managed to feature among the top five players in 25 markets.

We have a so-called focused market strategy, and India is definitely at the centre of our global growth ambitions because there are only a few markets with the same size and opportunity as India. If we look at our own capability to execute and to support the market, we already have a good infrastructure in place in India. In addition to this more traditional execution capability that we have built over many years, we are now aggressive in building the online and digital angle which goes across the sales like the partnership with Flipkart. The traditional way of marketing smartphones is changing rapidly from talking to consumers directly to enabling them to get excited and share their excitement with their friends. We need to be extremely consumer-centric in how we talk about the benefits of our product so that they can feel it's something that gives them value every day.

We are also focusing on starting the sales immediately at the time of the launch. We don't want to build excitement in advance, though.

What's going to be your way of capturing the market? Are you going to be launching phones frequently or stick to limited phones and invest in those devices?

In the last year-and-a-half, we have been building a core portfolio. We have launched quite a wide portfolio because we wanted to make sure that we are present at key price points - from Nokia 1 to all the way up to Nokia 8 Sirocco. Going forward, we would like to be present in the major price points but our focus now is more on creating hit models where we have a chance to have a big seller across many markets with big volumes. We believe Nokia 5.1 Plus and Nokia 6.1 Plus have that opportunity. We can already see the results in China. These smartphones have been received well in China, which is one of the toughest markets. India has a challenging environment too, but we believe we have a great formula for these phones and this is what we would like to roll out globally.

What are the challenges in the Indian market?

The consumers are already very sophisticated, therefore, they are really demanding on specifications. Our challenge is mainly to communicate the unique value they are getting from Nokia phones. We have talked a lot about the Android One, which means the upgrade promise for our phones, the quality, the consumer satisfaction, the care, and all the quality things that we are bringing in. We are seeing extremely positive impact with those fans who are buying Nokia phones.

Do you plan to ramp up your production capacity in India?

In India, we are doubling our manufacturing capacity by the end of the year. Globally, we are expected to grow significantly by the end of this year. We are focusing on the key markets. It's about 25-35 key countries globally where we have doubled our efforts.

What's your big picture view of the global smartphones market?

There is a big trend in the emerging markets to upgrade. Price points are going up. We have already seen that in China. In India, we are seeing the same. I am just coming from a tour from Asia Pacific. In every market - Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand - the volume segment is going slightly up on the price point. The $150-$250 retail pricing is a big segment in many markets. We believe this is an opportunity for us.
Aug 21, 2018 | By Thomas

A team of U.S. Marines in Maryland 3D printed landing gear component that attached to the door of the F-35 stealth fighter aircraft. The Marines were able to replicate it for 9 cents, and it will save $70,000 in costs per jet.

Sam Pratt, an engineer with Naval Sea Systems Command, discusses the capabilities of 3-D printing with service members aboard the USS Wasp (LHD-1) while underway in the Pacific Ocean, April 7, 2018. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Bernadette Wildes/Released)

The aerospace and defense industry is increasingly using additive manufacturing to reduce material costs, decrease labor content, and increase availability of parts at point of use. The part in question was a small landing gear component that mounts on the landing gear door; as the landing gear door closes it presses the landing gear into the latch. Though a small and simple part, the only conventional means of replacing the part was to order the entire landing gear door - a process thats time-consuming and expensive. Using 3D printing, a team of engineers from Combat Logistics Battalion 31 (CLB-31) in Carderock Division of Naval Surface Warfare Center was able to have the part printed, approved for use and installed within a matter of days.

You cant buy the piece separate from the landing gear door which is a cost of $70,000," said Sam Pratt, Mechanical Engineer at the Carderock Additive Manufacturing Project Office who provided the technical support to the team. "By having the capabilities to print in the field, we were able to replicate the part for a cost of roughly 9 cents."

Pratt was assigned to analyze how 3D printers performed in shipboard conditions and also to train CLB-31 Marines on Solidworks, when he was asked by the maintenance platoon officer to help create a replacement part for a landing gear door.

I was with the maintenance platoon in South Korea training Marines from CLB-31 on the processes of drafting a design and how to apply it to printed items, Pratt said. I was told they were having issues with printing a part needed to get the F-35 operational again. Their officer suggested teaming up to see what we could come up with as a whole, which turned out to be a great opportunity for collaboration.

Sgt. Adrian Willis, a computer and telephone technician with Combat Logistics Battalion 31, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, prepares to print a 3-D model aboard the USS Wasp (LHD-1) while underway in the Pacific Ocean, April 7, 2018. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Bernadette Wildes/Released)

The team designed the part before Pratt arrived, but were having sizing issues. "The 3D printer they had bought was a machine used primarily by hobbyists, which wasnt ideal for this type of project, but they were also using a free software tool called Blender, which is more typically used for special effects work to design movie and game characters," Pratt explained. "The software tool isnt really built for the types of accurate measurements needed for engineering since it is focused on artistic designs. I thought about how to design the part so it would fit and function properly."

The original part was plastic; the replacement part was made of a material called Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol (PETG), a tough, high-strength material with low shrinkage and a beautiful finish.

A 3D printer belonging to Combat Logistics Battalion 31, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, prints tangible objects aboard the USS Wasp (LHD-1) while underway in the Pacific Ocean, March 22, 2018. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Stormy Mendez/Released)

Marines have created a new policy for 3D printed parts authorized to be installed on on-ground vehicles, and each each new 3D printed part is approved by the Marine Systems Command (MSC).

On ground vehicles the policies are pretty straight forward," Pratt said. "If it is not a critical part that will break the vehicle, then try to print an adequate replacement part for it. Aircrafts by nature are a lot more restrictive. There are airworthiness concerns, so when trying to print a part, you really have to know that the part is good so you dont put your pilots and flight crews in danger.

Pratt believes additive manufacturing will be used more often to make replacement parts. There are already about 85-90 parts currently approved to print for ground vehicles, so it is as easy as going online, downloading the file and printing the part.

We are working on getting more material capabilities out to the field, in particular the ability to print metal, Pratt said. We can use it in a laboratory setting, but the machines arent ready for the field yet. They are fragile, the materials are dangerous and its generally challenging. Once this is possible it opens up a huge opportunity to print functional parts for vehicles.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Jon Bourgeois wrote at 8/28/2018 7:35:13 PM:Mr. Marnin, You ever went to a car dealer and they told you you couldn't get a replacement part for whatever it was, but instead you had to buy the whole assembly? That is what is happening here. The real story is that the Marines are finding innovative uses for 3D printing. The military also has a suggestion system and if these maintainers submitted this idea they will probably get a nice check out of it!!!!




Billionaire brothers Sunil Wadhwani and Romesh Wadhwani have funded several high-profile not for profit initiatives that utilise innovation and technology to solve social problems in India. The most recent one, inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi early this year, was the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence (WIAI), a research institution that aims to harness the power of AI to address challenges in healthcare, agriculture and skilling among others. In an interview with Business Today, Sunil Wadhwani, who in his individual capacity also funds four-year-old Wadhwani Institute for Sustainable Healthcare (WISH Foundation) in India, explains the significance of both the initiatives, and the progress made so far. Excerpts:

BT: Prime Minister Modi had launched your AI institute in February. What has been the progress?

Wadhwani: It's still early; only a couple of months. We are building our team. We have started identifying specific research areas, where we will develop solutions in the next four to six months. One of these areas include AI for frontline health; to make frontline health workers more productive, second is AI in tuberculosis, very specific areas where AI can help in detection, treatment etc. And third is in farming. How do we help small farmers become more productive, especially in cotton, because there are large numbers of suicides among cotton farmers. AI could also potentially be used in several areas to help farmers increase their crop yields, to get higher prices.

BT: Do we have AI research capabilities?

Wadhwani: From an AI stand point, India is quite far behind. Two countries that are extremely far ahead are -- the US and China. Then there are others like Japan, Germany, UK etc. India is really far behind and one of the reasons is that we don't have a robust educational system, which would give us the talent pool that can develop AI tools. You need people to be trained in data sciences. We have virtually no master's level programmes in data sciences. So, that's the starting point. Because we haven't had that, we have a very small number of researchers in India. I was reading somewhere that the number was less than 50 while in the US and China, such researchers are in thousands.

BT: How will you carry out research in India if we are so short of talent?

Wadhwani: We have found good people in India as well as people overseas, who are open to come back and work with us. We have partnerships with leading AI institutes globally. This includes Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, MIT, University of Washington, and University of Southern California etc. They will be sending faculty members and doctoral students to work with us in Mumbai. That will expand our talent pool further. We are also starting to work with universities in India to set up Masters in Data science programme. Mumbai University is the first such university. We help them in curriculum development, faculty training, and will also provide some funding. Over the next 3 to 7 years, we will develop sufficient AI talent pool in India. The other aspect is developing the research ecosystem for AI in India. Two months ago Niti Aayog released India's first AI strategy. We were honoured to work with Niti Aayog on this and if you look at their plan, they have a very robust strategy for developing an ecosystem. So for the next three to four years, you will see a lot more talent developing in the AI space in India.

BT: What has been the progress so far?

Wadhwani: We have an office already in Mumbai and the team is growing. This will be the first AI institute globally for social causes. This initiative along with the efforts of Niti Aayog, can turn India into a global leader in AI for social good. Even US and China with all the talent they have, most of it is used either for commercial purposes or for security purposes and very little is going into helping the bottom 2 billion people.

BT: So AI Institute is more oriented towards research, while your own initiative, the WISH Foundation is more of healthcare service?

Wadhwani: Correct. AI institute will be developing solutions, but not directly implementing it. They will be working with partners starting with government, and other civil society partners. At WISH foundation, we work on innovation, we work with innovators, and we also want to see how it actually works. And then we work with government to see how we can scale up. So the two organizations are already working together. AI in Mumbai and WISH in Delhi are working closely to come out with AI solutions in healthcare.

BT: How critical is AI as a healthcare tool?

Wadhwani: Artificial intelligence, which is again technology and innovation at a higher level, can help across the board. By implementing Ayushman Bharat the government is planning to provide insurance coverage to 500 million people. The programme will also generate huge amount of data and if it is analysed very rapidly, it can provide tremendous value to the government. For example, if someone goes to a facility in India today, let's say in Madhya Pradesh with dengue, AI algorithms can analyse that real time and provide data to the government instantaneously and say look dengue breaking out over here, this is what it looks like, and this is where it is likely to go next, so that the government can then take preventive action to stop the spread. This is just one example. There are many ways it can be utilised.
21 Aug 2018, 7:11 PM

Reliance Jio adds over 9.71 million subscribers in June

The mobile subscriber base in the country increased to 114.65 crore with net addition of 1.55 crore in the reported month. Reliance Jio led the growth in mobile segment by adding over 97 lakh new connections during the month. It was followed by Idea Cellular which added over 63 lakh new connections. Vodafone saw an addition of over 2.75 lakh new mobile connections, BSNL 2.44 lakh and Airtel 10,689. Tata Teleservices, which is in process of merging mobile services business with Airtel, lost over 1 million mobile service customers. Reliance Communications lost 1.08 lakh mobile customers and state-run MTNL 9,615.

Sensex and Nifty scale fresh highs

The Sensex and Nifty scaled fresh peaks in early trade today on gains in big cap stocks such as Bajaj Auto, ITC, Asian Paints and Adani Ports. While the Sensex hit an all time high of 38,402 rising 124 points from yesterday's close, the Nifty rose 30 points to new peak of 11,581 after climbing 30 points from its previous close. The BSE midcap and small cap indices were trading 0.40% and 0.26% higher, respectively. Auto stocks led the gains with BSE auto index rising 184 points at 24,804 level. Bajaj Auto (1.06%), Hero MotoCorp (0.95%) and Tata Motors (0.70%) were the top Sensex gainers. Bharti Airtel was the top Sensex loser post dismal subscriber data for the Month of June. The firm added a paltry 10,689 customers in June, the least compared to its peers. The stock was down 0.94% at 366.90 level.

Nirav Modi is in the UK, CBI moves extradition request

The Interpol has confirmed that jeweller Nirav Modi, accused in the Rs 13,578 crore Punjab National Bank scam, is in the United Kingdom, following which CBI has despatched an extradition request to the UK seeking his return to India. In a mail, the UK authorities confirmed his presence after the CBI sent a diffusion notice to the Interpol regarding the celebrity jeweller. There are chances that the UK might accept India's extradition request as the UK's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had informed India in June that it could initiate extradition proceedings against Nirav Modi. Nirav Modi and his uncle and partner Mehul Choksi are being investigated by the ED and the CBI after it was detected that they allegedly cheated the Punjab National Bank of over Rs 13,700 crore with the purported involvement of a few of its employees.

Coca-Cola India restructures leadership team in India

Beverage company Coca Cola has announced the restructuring of its leadership team in India. The new structure has been announced keeping in mind the company's India and South West Asia business. Chandrasekar Radhakrishnan has been roped in as vice-president, strategy and insights, for the company's India operations, and Sundeep Bajoria as vice president for its south west Asia operations. The development comes at a time when the local unit of the American beverages company has been trying to make fresh attempts to crack the Indian dairy market with a new set of products .

Govt, judiciary responsible for NPA pile up, too: SBI MD

State Bank of India chairman Rajnish Kumar said apart from banks and borrowers, the government and judiciary too had a role to play in India's bad loan crisis. Speaking at a banking conference on Monday, Kumar said while many people ask him, who is responsible for the current pile of non-performing assets, it was not so simple to answer and pinpoint one person. He said delayed response by bankers has also contributed towards the aggravated NPA situation.

EPFO revises payroll figures down by 12% for Sep-May

Retirement fund body EPFO's payroll data suggests that as many as 47.13 lakh jobs were created during September 2017 to June this year. According to the payroll data released by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) for September-May, as many as 44.74 lakh new member were enrolled for its social security schemes to provide benefits, including provident fund, insurance and pension. The retirement body though lowered earlier estimate of new members enrolment by 12.38%, from 44.74 lakh to 39.20 lakh member for September 2017-May 2018 period.
Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan may have been denied a second term - political parties and the media alike claim that the RSS had played a significantly role in the decision - but the BJP government sees no irony in still wanting to pick his brains two years on.

In fact, the 30-member Lok Sabha Committee on Estimates, headed by BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi, has asked Rajan to appear before it for a briefing on the banking sector's mounting non-performing assets (NPAs). The committee examines the estimates included in the budget. It reports on the efficiency of the policy underlying the estimates and entities which are audited by the CAG.

A member of the committee told India Today that Joshi wrote a letter to Rajan on August 7, where he said that the "committee admires his experience and knowledge and if he is unable to testify to the summons in person, the committee would like a written testimony of his expert view on the NPA crisis, how it has been created and how India should tackle it".

When his term ended in September 2016, Rajan returned to academics and is currently the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Murli dashed off the letter to Rajan after former Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramaniam made a presentation on the bad loan problem before the parliamentary committee. During his deposition last month, Subramaniam is said to have told the members that the credit for pinpointing the causes for the mounting NPAs and launching serious efforts to resolve them ought to go to Rajan.

Indeed, the former RBI chief had taken an aggressive stand against stressed assets of large corporates and had faced resistance from powerful corporate lobbies as he had mooted confiscating personal assets of promoters of companies who emerged as wilful defaulters.

During his submission, the former CEA also expressed scepticism over the handling of the NPAs, flagging off the role of bank management. Moreover, he hinted that big-ticket loans by the public sector banks were issued under various kinds of influences, without elaborating further.

Subramaniam, who decided to quit last month before the end of his term, had significantly claimed that there was an environment of fear among the bankers due to the ongoing action against bad loans, which was making them reluctant to lend.

He was not the only authority to be quizzed by the Estimates Committee. The panel has already questioned senior finance ministry officials, including finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia and senior management of banks, on the issue. Members further demanded various documents, including minutes of the board meetings of the state-run banks in which high-ticket value loans were approved to eventual defaulters. Clearly, bank approval processes are under the scanner.

While nobody can deny the need to examine the toxic loan problem - which touched Rs 8.99 lakh crore as of December 31, 2017, with PSBs accounting for over 86% of the pie - the timing might raise eyebrows. General elections are coming up next year and it's no secret that Joshi, who has been chairing the Estimates Committee since August 2014, is none too happy with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his closest aide BJP president Amit Shah for being sidelined.

To begin with, Joshi was asked to vacate the Varanasi seat for Modi in the 2014 elections, a seat he had represented for a long time. Making matters worse, there was no place for him in the cabinet and he was instead pushed into the newly set up Marg Darshak Mandal along with similarly sidelined LK Advani. The mandal is reportedly yet to meet even once.

After the BJP's defeat in the 2015 Bihar elections, Joshi, currently MP from Kanpur, Advani, Shanta Kumar and Yashwant Sinha, who recently quit the party - had aired their disgruntlement in a printed joint statement. "To say that everyone is responsible for the defeat in Bihar is to ensure that no one is held responsible. It shows that those who would have appropriated credit if the party had won are bent on shrugging off responsibility for disastrous showing in Bihar," read the statement. "The principal reason for latest defeat is the way the party has been emasculated in the last year. A thorough review must be done of the reasons for the defeat as well as of the way party is being forced to kow-tow to a handful and how its consensual character has been destroyed."

More recently, Joshi took another potshot at the government when journalists asked him to rate its performance over the past four years. "Marks can be given only when something is written in the answer-sheet," The Citizen quoted the MP as saying.

One thing is for sure: The Modi government, already backed into the corner over unemployment, absconding defaulters, rupee depreciation, fuel prices and more, would not want more bad news on the NPA front at this juncture.

With PTI inputs

Edited By Sushmita Choudhury Agarwal
It was announced today that Uninest has officially opened a new student accommodation scheme, The Tannery in Dublin 8. Bank of Ireland Corporate Banking funded the building of the residence for Uninest, which is part of Global Student Accommodation Group (GSA).



The new building comprises 296 student beds and adjoins the current New Mill student accommodation scheme, a 400 bedroom complex which is also funded by Bank of Ireland and opened last summer.

Students who will be moving into The Tannery next month can look forward to on-site laundry facilities, a cinema room, an arcade room, high-speed broadband and WiFi, study areas and all utility bills are included.



Speaking at the official opening of The Tannery, GSAs Development Director UK & Ireland, Aaron Bailey said, "As Ireland maintains its reputation for having some of the worlds best academic institutions there is continued demand for high-quality purpose-built student accommodation in the region. The construction of The Tannery has extended our student accommodation offering to 696 beds in the popular Liberties area, and along with our brand new Ardcairn House development we now have a total of 1,861 operational beds in Dublin with a further 190 in Cork - helping to alleviate some of the pressures of the current housing crisis."

Head of Property Finance Group at Bank of Ireland Corporate Banking, Paul McDonnell added, "GSA has an excellent track-record in the student accommodation sector and this development further highlights our ongoing commitment to that sector. As with all of our customers, weve fostered a longstanding relationship with GSA and continue to work very closely with the team to support their ambitious plans in Ireland. This transaction is the latest in a number of major financings Bank of Ireland has completed over the last 24 months for many of Irelands leading names in real estate, and we look forward to continuing this support long into the future."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
BIG TECH COMPANIES

1. Apple Removes Illegal Lottery Apps From China Store

What: Apple confirmed it has recently removed gambling apps from its store to cooperate with regulators. According to state media, around 25,000 gambling apps were pulled.

Why it's important: Apple has been subject to increasingly strict rules regarding its content in China amid a wider effort by regulators to create a clean cyberspace, which includes enhanced censorship policies, Reuters reported.

Big picture: In February, Apple moved its Chinese iCloud operations to China in order to comply with new legal requirements. (Source: Reuters)

2. Alipay Launches Online Tax Refund in South Korea

What: Alipay is tying up with Seoul-headquartered Global Tax Free to launch a paperless mobile tax refund function in South Korea, Chinas largest online payment service provider announced Monday. It added the two firms plan to expand the tax refund service to other countries in Asia in the future.

Why it's important: The service will allow Chinese tourists to apply for and claim tax rebates on purchases made in South Korea on their mobile phone app, skipping in-city and airport tax refund counters altogether, the Chinese company said in a statement. (Source: Caixin)

3. Chinese Investors Protest in Shanghai's Financial District Over P2P Woes

What: About 300 investors in collapsed peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform PPMiao protested at the office of HuaAn Future Asset, one of PPMiaos shareholders, in Shanghai on Monday. PPMiao earlier said it was shutting down because investors had withdrawn funds and some of its debtors were unable to pay back loans.

Why it's important: The protest is the latest sign of trouble for Chinas P2P industry, which has seen 243 companies collapse since June.

Big picture: P2P platforms gather funds from retail investors and lend to small corporate and individual borrowers, promising high returns. They started flourishing nearly unregulated in China in 2011. At a peak in 2015, there were about 3,500 such businesses. (Source: Reuters)

DEALS & FUNDRAISING

4. SoftBank Invests in Chinese Online Insurer ZhongAn

What: Chinese online insurer ZhongAn International announced it will receive a strategic investment from SoftBank Vision Fund and start a new operating entity in partnership with the fund. ZhongAn, which did not specify the size of the investment, will use the investment in the fields of insurance, fintech and other technology businesses in overseas markets.

Why it's important: Founded in 2017 to explore international business development, ZhongAn International is a subsidiary of Chinas first internet-only insurer ZhongAn Online Property & Casualty Insurance Co. Ltd. (Source: Securities Lending Times, link in Chinese)

POLICY

5. Malaysian Leader Gets Close Look at Chinas Technology

What: Technology cooperation has been high on the agenda of Mahathirs five-day visit to China. The Malaysian leader visited the offices of DJI, the worlds leading drone-maker, and e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. He also witnessed the inking of a joint venture deal on new-energy cars between Chinas Geely Automobile Holdings and Malaysian national car brand Proton.

Why it's important: Mahathir is on his first state visit to China after resuming power in May. The closely-watched visit could determine the fate of a number of China-Malaysia deals, which Mahathir has said he may postpone or scrap. (Source: Caixin)

6. Chinese Internet Users Exceed 800 Million

What: The number of Chinese internet users has exceeded 800 million, with mobile internet users accounting for 98.3% of all users at 788 million, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. Mobile payment app growth has stabilized, while short video application and sharing-economy transport apps are growing rapidly.

Big picture: Internet usage in the worlds most populous nation still has room to grow. The latest figures put Chinas internet penetration rate at 57.7%, which is higher than the world internet penetration rate of 45.8% as of 2016, but lower than rates in the U.S. and Europe, which were at least 75% as of 2016, according to data from the International Telecommunication Union. (Source: Caixin, link in Chinese)

Compiled by Hou Qijiang and Qian Tong
Fast-growing UK-based customer engagement consultancy Ember Group has opened its first overseas office, in the heart of Torontos financial district.

The office will be home to a small team of consultants and analysts working with North American clients, including a major global financial services organisation for whom Ember has already delivered a series of consultancy projects.

The projects that Ember have helped to deliver include creating a review of the customer engagement operating model and, more recently, voice of the customer analytics initiatives.

Services Across the Customer Experience

The team will offer a range of Embers core services focused on enhancing the customer experience.

These include insight and analytics, digital customer engagement strategy and optimising customer journeys and processes  plus wider services available through the Ember Group, such as learning and development solutions and search and recruitment.

Michael Anderson, respected industry figure and a senior Consulting Director for Ember in the UK, has been appointed as VP Canada and will be based in Toronto.

Explaining how Embers experience working in Canada led to the decision to open the office, Michael says: While supporting our major client here, it became apparent that there was a broad interest in digital transformation and customer engagement amongst Canadian companies and in the public sector.

In particular, our ability to provide strategic guidance based on hard data from analytics captured a lot of interest. Were looking forward to turning that interest into results.

Seeking to Build a Local Team and Local Partners

Several members of Embers UK team are currently working on projects in Canada, but Michael has also made his first local appointment and is seeking to build a strong team in Toronto.

Michael says: Of course, we will be able to augment our local skills and capacity with the wider Ember group, but its important that we have people with a real insight into Canadian working culture and practice who can be long-term advisors to our clients.

Ember will also seek to partner with technology businesses that offer products related to customer experience but dont have their own professional services capability.

As a company, were proudly technology-agnostic, because that enables us to offer the best service to our clients, Michael says.

However, we have a long track record of working with tech vendors to help their clients maximise ROI on solutions and build internal capability.

Opportunities to Meet Ember

Ember Group chief executive David Leedham is excited at the opportunities for expansion, saying: Weve explored the Canadian market and our research indicates there is an unmet demand for the services we can provide  particularly around insight and analytics.

Were delighted to be able to put those opportunities in the hands of someone as experienced as Michael, who has already built strong relationships with key individuals in Canada and has the global outlook and agile approach to become a trusted advisor to North American clients.

Over the coming months, as well as meeting prospective clients, partners and stakeholders  predominantly in the eastern region of Canada and the northeast of the US  Michael will also be attending industry events.

He will be at the CX Week Canada, in Toronto on the 1214th September, and is speaking at an invitation-only event in Austin, Texas, later in the month.

This news story has been re-published by kind permission of Ember Group  View the original post

To find out more about Ember Group, visit their website .
news, latest-news

I read the saddest thing the other day. Ive been doing a little research about the single life of late, rather than indulging myself in my own rambling nonsense. Clare Paynes insightful book One: Valuing the single life, Jane Mathews practical The Art of Living Alone and Loving It, and going back to Hugh Mackays Australia Reimagined to see what one of Australias best social researchers had to say about the power of one. I cant remember where I read what Im about to reveal, it wasnt in one of those books, probably on some Google search late at night, on some website written by some other loner. This pearl of wisdom suggested that if you missed holding hands with someone - and I do - then you should hold your own hand. Oh god, is that what my life has become? Could there be anything sadder? A while ago I was at the Australian War Memorial for work and stuck around to watch the Last Post ceremony which is held every afternoon. While the ceremony was going on I was standing behind an elderly couple and when the bugler started playing, the man reached down and held his wife's hand. I posted on social media about the simple gesture. How for the rest of the ceremony they linked fingers, rubbing each other's palms, as he stood behind her, his belly pressing into her back, her leaning against him occasionally. I started to cry. Not because the Last Post is one of the saddest pieces of music ever written but because I wondered whether I would ever find someone to hold my hand again. Close to 130 of my lovely friends liked my post, with 56 comments, but none of that mattered. What mattered was the connection of these two strangers connected with a lot of people. And I miss that connection. A hand held out to help me over a rock on a bushwalk, fingers entwined above our heads while were making love, hands on a lap during a long drive, just touching during an afternoon on the couch while the footys on. Touching myself, if you know what I mean, isnt quite the same thing. But then someone started flicking the lights, metaphorically speaking, to indicate the end of my pity party. And that someone was me. I guess I do have to hold my own hand because the only person to help me up out of this place Im in at the moment is me. Its a place where Im reading Mathews book and shes reminding me to start Pinterest boards and take long baths and remember colour when it comes to decorating my home and Im thinking is the life of a single person really that sad? Do we have to be urged to find a health mantra, to join a dance class. Do we? Dont get me wrong, there were plenty of takeaways from Mathews book and I thoroughly enjoyed our chat and plan to catch up when shes in town for the Canberra Writers Festival. But is single life really that sad? And then I catch myself drinking too much on a Tuesday. Or downloading Tinder for the 542nd time, then deleting it before the app has even fully formed. Or looking at my kitchen floor and thinking why should I even bother mopping it because Im the only one looking at it. Or filling myself with self-doubt, believing all the naysayers who say the reason Im still single is because Im actually a horrible person. And I think yes, this single life is terrible and I am miserable and I am that horrible person. And I hate it all. Thats the place I get trapped in at times. People who arent alone arent always lonely, all the research tells me again, and again. But sometimes we are, so terribly lonely, and its okay for us to admit that. But its what we do next that matters. If you find yourself curled up in the foetal position on your bathroom floor, and I have, get up. Thats the only advice I have. Reach out your own hand and pull yourself up off that floor. I guess the saddest thing is not that you have to hold your own hand, but that you might not have the courage to take it and get up.

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The Barr government has been urged to consider outsourcing the management of Canberra's National Multicultural Festival, after years of budget blowouts. The annual festival has run at least $100,000 over budget over the last four years, not including the estimated $370,000 worth of work Community Services Directorate staff did in the lead up to and during the 2017 festival. In 2013, the event only ran $13,013 over budget but by 2014, that operating deficit had blown out to $137,929. In 2015, it was $107,973, $254,554 in 2016 and $128,892 in 2017. An analysis of the operational costs, economic benefits and options for management handed to government in June by consulting firm Oakden found the operational deficit for the festival was increasing while government funding had been cut. Management within the directorate told Oakden they had been unable to secure extra funding of $100,000 for the past two festivals when requested, despite consistent blowouts. Oakden found the spend was likely to increase, given heightened national security concerns. They assessed the risk of the event as very high, as the unfenced footprint made it impossible to search bags or screen visitors. The lack of ticketing also made it impossible to estimate visitor numbers and the placement of stages next to exits increased the likelihood of choke points if there was an emergency. Oakden found revenue from stallholders has been limited because of the restrictions on the footprint, although there was community support to keep the event in the CBD. It concluded unless extra government funding or sponsorship was secured, the blowouts were likely to continue - and worsen. A separate review of the 2018 event by Spring-Green handed to government this month found the risk of a "hostile vehicle event" had increased over time and improving security was a "costly investment that deserved "priority consideration". Spring-Green also singled out the staffing costs, saying these figures alone should encourage alternative delivery methods to be explored. They found while the Community Services Directorate brought "resilient, long-term community relationships and confidence to the event", it should consider ceding control of the logistics to "more qualified professionals". "There is possible benefit in seeking collaborative working arrangements, or formalised partnerships, between specialist event management organisations and providers," they said. The reviews come after separate probe into a $1.2 million overspend at last year's Floriade festival. The previous Floriade also ran $940,000 over budget. An external events manager has been hired for this year's Floriade, and a new senior executive position created within Events ACT as a result of the blowout. The government has formally responded to the Spring-Green report, but not the Oakden report. In anticipation of the reviews' findings, the government set aside an extra $100,000 per year in June budget to address the known shortfall in operational funding and another $150,000 for staff. Multicultural Affairs Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the government would consider the recommendation to look to outsource the management of the event or find a professional event manager as part of future budgets. The Spring-Green review was commissioned after the government received blowback for restricting the sale of alcohol at the 2018 festival. The number of liquor licences were slashed from 65 to 21 after cultural clubs were banned from selling booze, reportedly due to concerns about drunken behaviour from patrons at past festivals. Ms Stephen-Smith said the 2019 festival guidelines had been revised to allow cultural clubs to sell relevant alcohol. This means meaning the Polish community can sell Polish vodka. Commercial sales will be restricted to local producers like Capital Brewing or Bentspoke while community clubs can continue to sell alcohol. Canberra Liberals' multicultural affairs spokeswoman Elizabeth Kikkert welcomed the changed alcohol policy, saying banning alcohol sales from ethnic stakeholders was "plain wrong" and "defied the spirit" of the festival.

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Clubs in Canberra will get cash or a discount for each poker machine they voluntarily surrender before next February, under a new plan to reduce the number of gaming machines in the city to 4000. Labor and the Greens agreed to cut the number of electronic gaming machine licences by July 2020 as part of their power-sharing deal struck in 2016. As of April, there were 4981 licences in circulation, although only 4498 machines were in use. A review by former Commonwealth departmental secretary Neville Stevens found the current trading scheme had failed to cut the number of pokies in part due to the uncertainty in the industry and the casino development. Mr Stevens found a number of clubs had been holding onto their authorisations because they might need them in future, or because their value may go up with the casino now able to buy licences for 200 machines and 60 automated table games. He said clubs "broadly acknowledged" the need to diversify away from gaming machine revenue, with a number of venues already looking at alternate business models. However Mr Stevens found even underperforming machines still made a difference to a club's bottom line. He found it difficult to pin down how the reduction of licences would affect clubs' profits in the short term, but said it would vary from club to club and was not necessarily related to club size. Therefore diversification had to be considered "on a club by club basis, depending on the available expertise and club assets", Mr Stevens said. Under the plan, small to medium sized clubs would get $12,000 per authorisation they applied to surrender by January 31, 2019. Smaller clubs could also get a discount of $25,000 per licence on lease variation charges and planning fees, while larger clubs would get a $15,000 discount per authorisation. In limiting the cash incentive to smaller clubs, Mr Stevens said the smaller venues in many cases lacked both the significant cash reserves and land suitable for redevelopment available to bigger clubs. "Larger clubs have both more financial capacity and more expertise to undertake diversification through land redevelopment," Mr Stevens wrote. The five hotels in Canberra that have gaming machines would also get $6000 in cash for each authorisation they surrendered, but would be ineligible for the planning discounts. Hotels hold a total of 50 gaming machine authorisations. Venues that gave up all of their machines would be eligible for a 25 per cent bonus on top, so long as they remained a community facility for at least five years. Clubs would be forced to surrender their machines in two tranches - April 2019 and April 2020 - if the 4000 cap was not reached. Hotels would not be forced to surrender their machines. Mr Stevens said it was "not possible" to place an accurate value on a gaming machine authorisation, although the clubs sector had told him they'd gone for between $6000 and $20,000 in the past. The price of $12,000 "provides a balance between cost to government revenue, the value of an authorisation to a club and a sufficient amount that can make a difference to the ongoing viability of a small to medium sized club", Mr Stevens said. If all eligible clubs surrendered one in five of their licences, the cost would be about $1.8 million. The government also agreed to levy clubs to create a diversification fund, with the government matching the amount levied  although it only agreed to match funding for three years. No levy has been announced, but Mr Stevens suggested a monthly levy of $20 a machine for the first 99 machines a $30 a machine over that. The levy would provide $1.08 million by the time the number of machines reached 4000, plus matched funding from the government. The money could be used to train club directors and staff and provide grants for planning, development and diversification studies. Mr Stevens report shows that Canberra clubs pay the lowest tax of any jurisdiction, paying 20 per cent of poker machine spending in tax, behind NSW on about 23 per cent, and Victoria and South Australia at well over 35 per cent. But over the past decade, the number of clubs had shrunk from 62 in 2009 to 44 now, with smaller clubs closing or merging with bigger clubs. Numbers would continue to fall, he predicted, and clubs must significantly diversify to stay in business. A 2015 report by KPMG found Canberra clubs were more likely to be financially stable, solid, or flourishing than their counterparts interstate (77 per cent of Canberra clubs in those categories, compared with 59 per cent nationally). But Mr Stevens said those figures should be treated with caution and a number of clubs, especially small and medium-sized clubs, were only just covering their costs and at risk of falling into financial distress. The union for clubs workers, United Voice had called for an Industry Transition Board to be set up to develop a transition package for workers impacted by the reduction. However Mr Stevens said it was unlikely the number of workers employed by clubs would be impacted by the reduction, and he did not believe a transition package for workers wasnecessary at this time.
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.
Assam Petro-Chemicals Limited has released an employment notification calling out aspirants to apply for the post of Deputy General Manager. Those interested can check out the eligibility, salary scale, how to apply and the complete details of the government job here. Selected candidates can earn up to INR 40000 per month. The last date to apply for the government job is Sep 9, 2018.

APSC Recruitment 2018 For Finance And Accounts Officers: Earn Up To INR 137000

APC Recruitment 2018 Vacancy Details

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Deputy General Manager Organisation Assam Petro-Chemicals Limited Educational Qualification Graduate degree in science, commerce or engineering with full-time MBA Experience 20 years Skills Required Managerial skills Job Location Assam Salary Scale INR 40000 per month Industry Petrol Application Start Date August 21, 2018 Application End Date September 9, 2018

Maximum Age Limit: 50 years

Also Read: Quench Your Passion For Chemistry As A Lab Assistant For Telangana Dairy Development

How To Apply For APC Recruitment 2018

In order to apply for APC Recruitment 2018, follow these steps:

Step 1: Log on to the Assam Petro-Chemicals Limited official website.

Step 2: Click on the CAREERS tab on the right-hand side of the page.

Step 3: The list of notifications will be displayed on the screen. Click on the link that reads, Advertisement for the Post of Deputy General Manager (Marketing) under Advt. No. APL/HRM/Con/Adv-53(Pt-II)/369.

Step 4: The detailed advertisement will be loaded. Read the details carefully.

Step 5: Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the application form.

Step 6: Save it to your computer and take a printout of it.

Step 7: Send the applications to APC.

APC Recruitment 2018 Application Format And Mailing Address

Superscribe on the envelope, "Application for the post of Deputy General Manager" and send it to:

General Manager (HR) Assam Petro-Chemicals Limited P.O. Parbatpur, Namrup Dist. Dibrugarh, Pin- 786 623 (Assam).

Follow the link - http://assampetrochemicals.co.in/pdf/adv_170818.pdf to read the detailed official notification.
Unable to fetch a seat in the IITs or NITs? There is another doorway which ensures your success in engineering - IISER. This is an institute which is primarily focused on research and was established by MHRD and Govt of India on the recommendation of Scientific Advisory Council to the prime minister. The expectation level of research is sought to be top-class and the alumni status is quite remarkable.

About IISER

The Indian Institute of Science Education and Research or IISER is a group of premier science and research institutes in India. The institute has been declared as the "Institute of National Importance" and is the leading institute in the field of pure science.

Image credits: IISER Mohali

The undergraduate programme offered at IISER includes BS-MS Dual Degree Course. Students can apply for the course after class 12th. Each IISER has the academic autonomy to design their courses and curriculum to cater to the dynamic industry needs.

The core idea behind the IISERs was to provide a platform to the students who are interested in becoming scientists rather than engineers. They are quite popular amongst engineering aspirants, especially IIT aspirants. The annual placement at IISER attracts recruiters from reputed companies such as Ranbaxy, Unilever, GE Healthcare, Dr. Reddy's, Shell, L'Oreal, Glenmark, etc.

IISERs - Number Of Seats On Offer

There are total 7 IISER institutes in India which offer a total of 1325 seats:

S.No. City / Town State No. of Seats in BS-MS 1

Berhampur Odisha 100

2 Bhopal Madhya Pradesh 250

3

Kalyani West Bengal 200

4

Mohali Punjab 200

5

Pune Maharashtra 225

6

Thiruvananthapuram Kerala 200 7

Tirupati Andhra Pradesh 150

About BS-MS Dual Degree Programme at IISER

The total course duration is of 5 years in which the first 2 years consist of key courses in basic science; the next 2 years are dedicated to specialisation in the chosen science subject; and, the last year is focused on a research project.

Who Can Join IISER?

1. KVPY - Candidates having a KVPY fellowship are eligible to apply for an admission.

2. JEE - In 2018, as per the official website of IISER, candidates securing a rank within 10000 in JEE Advanced are eligible to apply for an admission.

3. State and Central Board - Science students who have cleared 12th with a score equal to or above the cut-off percentage in their respective boards are eligible to apply. These students also need to appear for the IISER Aptitude Test.

IISER Aptitude Test Details

The IISER aptitude test is an OMR-based exam. The question paper includes 15 questions each from physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology, taking the total to 60 questions. The exam duration is 180 minutes.

For the last academic session, this test was conducted on 24th June 2018 and the result was declared on 03rd July 2018.

What after IISER?

1. Teaching (Academic): People who are interested in teaching can appear for BEd, NET, etc. and join any school/university in a teaching role.

2. Research: Post BS-MS, one can take up PhD and can join a research lab or university as a staff scientist or principal invigilator.

3. Research & Development: Nowadays, every major organisation has their own R&D department and they look for scientists who can join their research division. This creates another opportunity for the students after completing their PhD post BS-MS.

Scientific Writing: IISER graduates can also build their career as an editor in various scientific journals.

4. Government Services: One can apply for government jobs in different ministries as various bodies recognise the degree given by IISERs.

Job opportunities for IISER graduates are numerous, both in the public and private sectors. The best career choice would be R&D. The only thing it involves is a great amount of dedication and passion for research.

Photo: Alanna Kelly

UPDATE: 3 p.m.

Kelowna International Airport is operating normally and visibility has improved on Monday.

YLW spokesperson Jessica Hewitt said there were a few delays to in-bound flights earlier in the day, but these were due to other airports.

"Before any flight, we advise passengers to check their flight status with their airline before arriving at YLW," she said.

Conditions may change so travellers should continue to monitor their flights status online.

ORIGINAL: 10:35 a.m.

Flights arriving and departing at Kelowna International Airport appear to be running smoothly Monday morning.

There have been no cancelations as of 10 a.m., and multiple flights from Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto have been flying in and out.

Smoke/visibility has improved at #YLW, however, we suggest passengers continue to check and monitor their flight status with their airline, as visibility/conditions may change, YLW posted on Twitter.

Smoky skies forced over 30 flights to be cancelled over the weekend, stranding almost 1,000 people.

Air quality in Kelowna is currently very unhealthy, and the main pollutant is PM 2.5

Travellers can check their flight status online here.
RCMP in Surrey arrested eight people and seized a huge quantity of drugs, a cache of firearms, several motorcycles and a high-end vehicle as a result of a stolen vehicle investigation.

The Surrey RCMP Auto Crime Target Team began its investigation August 15 after spotting a stolen 2018 Audi Q7 in the 10600-block of 137A Street in Surrey.

Air surveillance was used to track the vehicle to a nearby parking garage where the alleged driver and an accomplice were tracked to a home in the 10600 block of 137A Street.

RCMP were able to arrest eight people associated with the home; three of whom were held in custody for a court appearance.



The following day, ACTT executed a search warrant at the home with the assistance of the Surrey Drug Unit, and the Surrey Gang Enforcement Team.



As a result of this investigation, police seized:



6 firearms

2 loaded sawed-off shotguns

2 sawed-off rifles

2 handguns

4 stolen motorcycles

1 stolen Audi Q7

1 crossbow

Hundreds of rounds of various firearms ammunition

Body armour

A variety of swords and knives

1744 doses of suspected heroin

636 doses of suspected cocaine

45 doses of suspected crack cocaine

34 doses of suspected methamphetamine

302 doses of suspected marijuana

92 doses of suspected marijuana shatter



Robert Leo Jones, 37, of Richmond has been charged with possession of stolen property over $5000, driving while disqualified and breaching court-imposed conditions.



No other charges have been laid at this time as the investigation is on-going.



"This investigation and seizure highlight the importance of reporting property crime," stated Cpl. Chris Kajan. "In this case, a reported stolen vehicle was the catalyst which allowed us to remove six guns from the street, and gather valuable evidence and information for our continued efforts to address criminal activity in Surrey."
Photo: Contributed

Perhaps no one was more surprised than the police themselves when an alleged drunk driver tried to park in the Kamloops detachment parking lot.

Cpl. Jodi Shelkie said the out-of-town visitor received a 90-day Immediate Roadside Prohibition and had his vehicle impounded after making the blunder.

Shelkie said just after midnight on Aug. 18, a police officer saw a male was having difficulty trying to park a Ford F350 pickup truck behind the police station.

When questioned by the officer as to why he drove into a secure parking lot with visible signs saying it was closed to the public, the driver said he had no idea had pulled into a police station, said Shelkie. Since the driver had an over-powering odour of liquor coming from his breath and showed other signs of impairment, the officer used a road-side screening device to determine his level of impairment. It showed that the driver was, in fact, impaired.

The driver, who is from Northern British Columbia, stated that he was just looking for a place to park so he could make a phone call.

Kamloops RCMP remind motorists that it is never safe to drink and drive  on roads, highways or in police parking lots, said Shelkie.
What Do the Numbers Tell Us?

Evidence-based hospital practices are important for establishing breastfeeding. Individualized support in the first few hours and days is critical to help mothers meet their breastfeeding goals. Although most infants born in 2017 started breastfeeding (84.1%), only 58.3% of infants were breastfeeding at 6 months (Table 1). The percentage of breastfed infants supplemented with infant formula before 2 days of age was 19.2% among infants born in 2017, an increase from 16.9% among infants born in 2016. Comprehensive hospital practices and policies that support breastfeeding have been shown to reduce medically unnecessary formula supplementation, reduce disparities in breastfeeding, and help give infants the best start in life.

CDCs national mPINC survey assesses maternity care practices that affect how babies are fed. About every 2 years, all maternity care hospitals in the United States and US territories are invited to participate. In 2018, 2,045 hospitals participated and were asked about early postpartum care practices, feeding practices, education and support of mothers and caregivers, staff and provider responsibilities and training, and hospital policies and procedures. These policies and practices are organized into six main areas of care called subdomains that are scored and comprise each states total mPINC score (Table 2). Data can be used to monitor and improve evidence-based maternity care practices and policies. The national total mPINC score was 79 out of 100 and state total mPINC scores ranged from 68 to 96.

Figure 1 represents the range of scores from the highest state score to the lowest state score for each of the 6 mPINC subdomains across 50 states and Puerto Rico. The horizontal bar represents the national average score for each subdomain. States are performing well in the area of Feeding Education and Support with state scores ranging from 83 to 99 and a national score of 92. This domain includes teaching mothers to position and latch their newborn, assessing effective breastfeeding, hand expressing milk, recognizing and responding to feeding cues, breastfeeding on demand, and understanding the risks of using artificial nipples and pacifiers. This subdomain also assesses whether mothers whose newborns are fed any formula are taught feeding techniques and how to safely prepare and feed a baby formula. There is a wide range of scores for the other 5 subdomains, indicating room for improvement.
The content on the Web page you requested is currently under review. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Please contact the Superintendents Initiatives Office to request information regarding the page you are trying to access.

Page Title: 2019 United States Senate Youth Program

Web Address: http://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/el/le/yr18ltr0816.asp

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When youre stuck in the daily grind from working in the office to getting right back to family matters, you might find yourself dreaming about the perfect vacation. Perhaps the local beach is where you want to go  or if youre someone whos into snow sports, the mountains. But if youre willing to think bigger, theres an entire world of natural wonders out there that you probably had no idea existed.

Here are the most beautiful natural sights in the world that you need to see for yourself.

1. Angel Falls, Venezuela

There are many beautiful waterfalls in the world, but few are as awe-inspiring as the Angel Falls in Canaima National Park, Venezuela. Beautiful World notes its the worlds highest uninterrupted waterfall, and most of the world didnt even know it existed until the 60s.

Nowadays, if youre looking to see the Angel Falls, youll have to take a flight, as the UNESCO World Heritage Site can only be accessed by air. Once youre in the park, however, you can reach the falls by boat  and also admire the beautiful tropical atmosphere around the falls, too.

Next: If you like the sea, youll have to see this.

2. Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Youve certainly seen photos of this unique natural wonder before, but its absolutely worth making a trip for. Its the worlds largest coral reef, boasting over 3,000 reef systems and hundreds of tropical islands with beautiful beaches. The Great Barrier Reef is also the only living thing on earth that you can see from space.

In terms of tourism, its the perfect place to plan a vacation around as well. Not only can you check out the reef, but you can also snorkel, scuba dive, sail, cruise, whale watch, or swim with dolphins.

Next: It may be difficult to see, but its beautiful when you do.

3. Aurora Borealis, Alaska and northern Canada

Better known as the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis is truly a wonder that many wont get to see in their lifetime. Aurora Service explains the dancing lights occur when electrically charged particles from the sun enter the earths atmosphere and mix with natural gases present on our planet. This creates the brilliant blues, greens, reds, and purples youll see in the sky.

You can actually view the lights from multiple countries depending on the time of year and day, but the best places to see them are in Alaska and northern Canada.

Next: You probably never knew a salt flat could be so beautiful.

4. Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

National Geographic explains Salar de Uyuni is known as one of the worlds most remarkable salt flats. It spans over 4,050 square miles and was created by prehistoric lakes that have since evaporated. And though the flat is amazing to look at when its dry, it becomes an even more sensational wonder when nearby lakes overflow on to it. Then, a thin layer of water rests over the flat and reflects the sky perfectly.

If youre interested in visiting Salar de Uyuni but are concerned about accommodations, dont worry  you can stay at the worlds first salt hotel.

Next: Its well worth a visit to Argentina just to see these falls.

5. Iguazu Falls, Argentina

You may think the Iguazu Falls are just another waterfall to mark off the bucket list, but theyre truly an amazing sight. CNN notes the entire landscape here is made up of falls both huge and dainty  and it extends as far as the eye can see. The whole system is made up of 275 waterfalls or cataracts and extends over a mile and a half in length. When Eleanor Roosevelt saw them, she reportedly was so taken aback that she said, Poor Niagra.

Next: If youre taking a trip east, make sure to stop in this beautiful country.

6. Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

Vietnam is well known for its beautiful landscapes, and Ha Long Bay is one area that cant be missed. Lonely Planet explains the bay is known for its impressive limestone pillars and small islands that populate it. And of course, the waters are gorgeous, as they shine a beautiful emerald color. Ha Long Bay has been a World Heritage Site since 1994, and it stands as one of the biggest tourist hubs in Vietnam.

Next: You never knew you needed to see a giant rock until now.

7. Uluru, Australia

If youre taking a trip down under, you definitely dont want to miss seeing the gigantic sandstone monolith known as Uluru. Located in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Uluru stands 348 meters above the plain, which is taller than the Eiffel Tower or the Chrysler Building. As far as width is concerned, this huge rock is around 5.8 miles.

If you go to visit Uluru, you also wont miss the incredible wildlife and Kata Tjuta, the tallest dome.

Next: You should see this before climate change takes it away for good.

8. The Amazon rainforest, Brazil

Plant enthusiasts need to take a trip to see this rainforest in their lifetime. Right in the heart of Brazil, the Amazon covers seven square miles of landscape. Not only it is a huge asset to the environment by providing oxygen and consuming carbon dioxide, but the sheer volume of plant life and various species of animals is absolutely breathtaking.

Surprisingly, its not as big of a tourist destination as you think. Its recommended that you hire a trained guide who can help you navigate the rainforest.

Next: You need to see this volcano.

9. Mount Bromo, Indonesia

It may be one of the most active volcanoes in the world, but that doesnt mean you should miss an opportunity to see Mount Bromo for yourself. Tourists love to hike the mountain, which is nearly a mile and a half. At the top, youll see the white smoke flowing freely from the crater covering an ethereal and desolate landscape below.

And dont worry too much about it being an active volcano. Due to its status, certain areas of Mount Bromo are blocked off as to put you out of danger.

Next: This landlocked salt lake is unlike anything youve ever seen.

10. The Dead Sea, southwestern Asia

Located between Israel and Jordan in southwestern Asia, the Dead Sea is known for its high salt content. Encyclopedia Brittanica explains it also stands as the lowest body of water on earth  and because it sits in the middle of the desert, it doesnt get much help from rainwater. In any case, this truly unique sea is an exquisite sight and a completely rare phenomenon that tourists love visiting. Go for a few days to bask in its beauty, cover yourself in mineral-rich mud, and float effortlessly in the salty water.

Next: If youre looking to stay in the U.S., head here.

11. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Millions of people visit Yellowstone every year  and its no wonder why. Known as the worlds first national park, its known for its unique geological features and one of the worlds largest calderas. It also houses over 300 geysers, 10,000 thermal features, over 290 waterfalls, and plenty of unique wildlife youd be hardpressed to find anywhere else.

Yellowstone is extremely tourist-friendly  and if youre so inclined, you can even camp on one of the 12 campgrounds available.

Next: This fjord is one of the most beautiful in the world.

12. Geirangerfjord, Norway

If bodies of water between cliffs intrigue you, then the Geirangerfjord in Norway is an absolute must-see. Fjord Tours notes this one stands as a hugely popular one with tourists, as it includes several beautiful waterfalls, quaint abandoned farms, and high mountains. Youll be most astonished by the striking blues of the water in contrast with the mountains when you go hiking, kayaking, or rafting in the fjord area. For nature lovers, its an absolute must-see.

Next: Egypts most famous structure is truly magnificent.

13. Pyramids of Giza, Egypt

They may not stand as the most natural on the list, but these ancient monuments fit so perfectly with the surrounding atmosphere that they barely look manmade. The giant Sphinx seemingly oversees a landscape populated with ancient tombs in the desert, providing an awe-inspiring glimpse of the past for visitors. PlanetWare notes the pyramids are a great reminder of Egypts pharaohs who once ruled.

The tourism in Egypt has taken a hit over the years, but if you so choose, there are fantastic tours that will take you all around the pyramids.

Next: Those looking for a peaceful place on earth will need to see this.

14. Tegallalang rice terrace, Indonesia

If Bali is on your bucket list, make sure you add the Tegallalang rice terraces on your trip, too. The gorgeous landscapes here offer a serene look into life in Indonesia. Hotels.com says theres even a local elderly farmer who offers his famous green coconut drink to visitors as they pass through.

In addition to the views, theres also a small, local village where you can view carvings, woodworking, and sculptures from the locals. Its truly a tropical paradise you cant miss.

Next: It may not seem like much of a destination, but if youre headed to Africa, you must go.

15. Sahara Desert, Africa

The desert certainly isnt a thriving metropolis, but when it comes to pure beauty, the Sahara cant be beat. The majestic sand dunes offer a quiet, calming atmosphere to tour  and you dont even have to do it on foot. Take a camel trek for a totally unique experience you cant get anywhere else. Or, you can even opt for eight-day excursions that will take you to local villages, valleys, and everywhere you had no idea you needed to see.

Next: These caves are some of the most fabulous in the world.

16. Marble Caves, Chile

You may not see the Marble Caves on every tourism website for Chile, and thats because theyre not the easiest to access. Judging from the beauty of the caves, though, theyre certainly worth it. Atlas Obscura notes theyre located on a marble peninsula in a remote glacial lake near the Chile-Argentina border.

Since the caves are on a lake, you can only reach them by boat. Luckily, there are ferries that will take you to the caves  and certain tours will even take you through them.

Next: This Scottish landscape looks like it was taken from a childrens book.

17. Fairy Pools, Isle of Skye, Scotland

These natural pools look as majestic as they sound. Atlas Obscura explains the Fairy Pools are a series of small waterfalls that are accessible only if you walk through the Glen Brittle forest. For adventurous travelers who do make the trek, theyre rewarded with turquoise pools surrounded by moss-covered mountains. Many note it looks like something straight out of The Lord of the Rings.

Next: Theres no better place in the world for a photo op.

18. Kjeragbolten, Norway

Want one of the best photographs ever? Youll have to head to one specific boulder in Norway to get it. Fjord Norway notes roughly a half mile above Lysefjord lies a gigantic boulder wedged between two huge mountain rocks.

Many choose to hike up the mountain just to get to this boulder, as its a unique spot for photos and sightseeing. Its also a common spot for BASE jumping if youre in for an even bolder adventure. Otherwise, for the more conservative traveler, theres a marked trail you can follow to find your way there.

Next: This cotton castle looks like layers of clouds instead of a town.

19. Pamukkale, Turkey

Its part natural, part manmade, and completely awe-inspiring (its no wonder its Turkeys top destination). Pamukkale is known for its bright white limestone terraces and warm mineral pools  and its even nicknamed the cotton castle thanks to its looks. The Telegraph notes it also holds the ruins of the Greek-Roman city Hierapolis, which is extremely well-preserved.

Because its a popular tourist spot, its wise to spend the night in Pamukkale village and get a head-start on the travelers by visiting the sights in the morning.

Next: These black-sand beaches are unlike anything youve ever seen.

20. Reynisfjara Beach, Iceland

Iceland is known for its gorgeous and unique landscapes, but youll have to head out of the city center to experience this specific phenomenon. Reynisfjara Beach is located near the fishing village of Vik i Myrdal. While its not a super common tourist destination, youre well-advised to get out there to see the black-sand beaches and surrounding basalt stacks at Reynisfjara. Guide to Iceland notes if you plan on touring the south coast of the country, its the perfect opportunity to stop here.

Next: This bay is one of the most impressive and groundbreaking in the world.

21. Guanabara Bay at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Rio de Janeiro is an impressive natural wonder anyone traveling to Brazil should seek out. And while youre in the area, make sure to take in the sights around the Guanabara Bay. Culture Trip explains the bay is the result of thousands of years worth of erosion from the Atlantic, which also helped shape Rio de Janeiros famous Sugarloaf Mountain. Overall, the bay holds around 100 islands and is known for giving this seaside city its gorgeous look.

Next: You wont believe how blue the sea is in this cave.

22. Blue Grotto, Italy

The Italian island of Capri is home to one of the most gorgeous sea caves in the world. The Blue Grotto is nearly 200 feet long and 80 feet wide  but to get inside, you have to squeeze through a cave opening thats a mere 6 feet wide and 3 feet high. For this reason, visitors must enter via small rowboats that only bring four people in at a time.

Its surely worth it, though. The blue water is just as gorgeous in real life as it is in photos.

Next: Disney loved this mountain so much that they named a ride after it.

23. Matterhorn, Switzerland

When it comes to gorgeous Swiss mountains, there are few as iconic as the Matterhorn. Today, expert mountaineers still attempt to ascend this behemoth of a natural wonder  but for the rest of us, were content staring up at it from the ground or funicular. Its supposedly the most photographed mountain the world thanks to its signature shape.

If you want to visit the Matterhorn, you can do so by boarding the aerial cable car in Zermatt, which is the highest cable car station in the Alps.

Next: Head to China to see this unique geological landform.

24. Zhangye Danxia Landform Geological Park, China

If geological landforms are what interest you most in the natural world, you have to get yourself to the Zhangye Danxia Landford Geological Park. Travel China Guide explains you can see the colorful Danxia landforms best here, which look like mountains that have been layered with multicolored rock over the years. In reality, they were formed from billions of years worth of weathering and erosion with the help of climate change, wind, and other factors. Theyre known as Chinas Rainbow Mountain due to their unique beauty.

Next: These falls are one of the greatest attractions in all of Africa.

25. Victoria Falls, Zambia

The Victoria Falls are absolutely massive, as they form the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, Zambia Tourism notes. You can see them from miles away, too, as over 500 million cubic meters of water plummets to the ground per minute from this fall. Its not only impressive in sheer size, either, as its also surrounded by basalt cliffs to make for an even more dramatic view. Like the other falls on the list, Niagara just cant compare.

Next: U.S. citizens know this next site.

26. Grand Canyon, Arizona

Those in the U.S. are lucky to have so many natural wonders right in their own country, and the Grand Canyon in Arizona certainly stands as one of them. Thanks to the Colorado Rivers erosion over the years, theres a seriously huge and gorgeous hole in the ground. Live Science notes this canyon is 277 miles long and spans 18 miles wide in some areas. Additionally, its over a mile deep. This canyon is extremely tourist-friendly, too, so feel free to visit.

Next: Youll probably never be in this icy country, but this phenomenon is gorgeous.

27. Ice Canyon, Greenland

There arent too many tourists who choose to take a trip to Greenland, as its barely habitable. Even so, its home to the Ice Canyon, which Travel Corner calls the Grand Canyon of Greenland.

The canyon itself has yet to receive an official name, as it was discovered by scientists more recently. But it is clear thats huge, icy, and showcases beautiful blue water in the center, making it stand apart from the rest of the barren landscape. Its also the longest canyon on earth at over 460 miles.

Next: The cliffs in Greece have been put to good use.

28. Cliffs of Meteora, Greece

The Greek Orthodox Church put these gorgeous cliffs to good use. Atlas Obscura notes these sandstone rock pillars in central Greece extend 1,300 feet above the ground, creating a gorgeous landscape. And now, you can find six Eastern Orthodox monasteries sitting on top of them  and theyre open to visitors, too.

Steps and bridges were added in the 20s for visitors, but it can still be a challenge to ascend. Even so, if you can get yourself to the Great Meteron Monastery, which stands as the highest and oldest, you wont be disappointed.

Next: Traveling to Peru? You need to see this iconic site.

29. Machu Picchu, Peru

Theres a reason Machu Picchu is one of Perus top tourist destinations. Not only does this site offer breathtaking views of the Andes and the Urubamba River below, but its also rich in history. Machu Picchu was originally a 15th-century Inca location, and it has been excellently preserved through the years, Live Science notes.

The most beautiful aspect of Machu Picchu is the mixture of natural wonder and manmade temples. If you pay it a visit, make sure to see the Temple of the Sun.

Next: Many mountain climbers have died trying to ascend this monster of a natural wonder.

30. Mount Everest, Tibet and Nepal

No natural wonder list would be complete without Everest. You may never see the top of this mountain (very few have), but it offers incredible views from below as well. It stands as the highest mountain in the world at over five miles above sea level and borders both Tibet and Nepal. And thanks to the rise of technology, Google was also able to put the surrounding area of Everest on Google Street View  so feel free to explore that way.

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Even before she became the First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump was one of the most famous women in America. She was married to Donald Trump, perhaps the most recognizable billionaire in the country, and she seemed to be living a charmed life raising her son Barron and running her own jewelry line.

Obviously, a lot has changed for Melania over the past couple of years. But despite a move to Washington and a prominent role speaking out against cyberbullying  one of her pet causes as first lady  she remains something of a mystery to many Americans. (GQ called her alluringly opaque in a 2016 profile.)

Melania Trump is worth $50 million

One thing we do know: Melania Trump is one of the wealthiest first ladies in history. She has a net worth of about $50 million, according to estimates from Celebrity Net Worth. Thats on part with Jackie Kennedy, who was worth roughly $50 million when she died in 1994.

While being married to a billionaire certainly helps Melanias bottom line, her riches dont come solely from her husband. She had a relatively privileged childhood in Slovenia (then part of communist Yugoslavia). Later, she embarked on a successful career as a model  one of her more prominent gigs was modeling for a huge Camel cigarettes billboard in Times Square  before she met and married Donald Trump.

Melania and Donald, who met in 1998, got married in 2005 in a lavish wedding that cost about $1 million. Her dress alone  a custom Dior gown with a 13-foot train  cost $100,000. The 200-pound wedding cake rang in at $50,000.

Melanias career and businesses

Melanias modeling career continued after she married. She was on the cover of magazines like Avenue, InStyle Weddings, Philadelphia Style, and Vogue. In 2005, she appeared in a Frankenstein-inspired Aflac commercial.

Her husbands career as a businessman seemed to rub off on Melania. In 2010, she launched a jewelry line, sold on QVC. The line sold out in just 45 minutes, and Donald was the first caller. (The line is no longer sold by QVC.)

By the time Melania launched her jewelry line, she was a mom, and like many parents, she had to work to balance the demands of her career with those of being a mother.

I am a full time mom; that is my first job. The most important job ever, she told Parents magazine. I started my business when he started school. When he is in school I do my meetings, my sketches, and everything else. I cook him breakfast. Bring him to school. Pick him up. Prepare his lunch. I spend the afternoon with him.

Jewelry wasnt Melanias only business venture. Around 2012, she also prepared to launch a skincare line, a project shed been working on for roughly a decade. Developing a marketing campaign for the line was even a challenge on a 2013 episode of Celebrity Apprentice.

But the skincare line never materialized. Conflicts within the company that was supposed to produce the products doomed it almost before it got off the ground. The issues werent Melanias fault, but the end result was that the line never had a chance to succeed.

Her job as first lady

As first lady, Melania has stepped away from her business ventures and is concentrating on other projects. Most of her causes have to do with children. In addition to raising awareness of cyberbullying, shes delivered valentines and Easter baskets to hospitalized children and had visited schools across the United States and around the world, according to her White House biography.

Melania has also worked to raise awareness of opioid abuse, particularly its affects on infants and unborn children. In May 2018, she launched the BE BEST campaign. The three-pronged campaign focuses on well-being, social media use, and opioid abuse.
"Our signatures below do not necessarily mean that we concur with the opinions expressed by former CIA Director Brennan or the way in which he expressed them," the latest statement says. "What they do represent, however, is our firm belief that the country will be weakened if there is a political litmus test applied before seasoned experts are allowed to share their views."
Public Utilities Commission hears concern over nuclear energy

A Colorado Public Utilities Commission hearing was held at the El Pueblo Museum Oct. 28 where activists opposed the possibility of a nuclear power plant.


Drilling Confirms High Grade Gold Zones at Livingstone

Sydney, Aug 21, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Kingston Resources Limited ( ASX:KSN ) (Kingston or the Company) is pleased to report final assay results from the recently completed air-core drilling at the 75% owned Livingstone Gold Project in Western Australia.Highlights- Final assays from drill program confirm broad gold zones at Livingstone. Intersections include:o 5m @ 6.56g/t Au from 49m in KLAC008o 3m @ 5.82g/t Au from 8m in KLAC006o 5m @ 2.73g/t au from 13m in KLAC030- Two mineralised structures identified at Kingsley - 2km long and open along strike- New RC and air-core drill program to commence in September across broader project areaThe Kingsley Prospect is 2 km long and currently has 900m of defined mineralisation (see Figure 1 in link below), the prospect is open along strike to the west. Intersections such as 5m @ 6.56g/t Au including 1m at 21.8 g/t Au (KLAC008) and 3m @ 5.82g/t Au (KLAC006) highlight the potential of this structure, with the current broad-spaced drilling suggesting it sits parallel to and south of the western-most line of old workings previously known as Mt Seabrook 1 & 2. The significance of parallel lodes is that they have not been previously identified or developed by the old workings nearby.Hole KLAC030 (5m @ 2.73g/t Au, including 2m @ 5.27g/t Au) drilled mid-way between the two groups of old workings suggests there may be potential for additional mineralisation linking the groups of shafts together. The two zones of mineralisation now span over 2km of known strike and are open to the east and west. The interpreted trends of mineralisation at Kingsley are shown in Figure 2 (see link below).The final assay results also confirm mineralisation on several holes at the Dampier, Drake and Stanley prospects. Initial results at these prospects are encouraging and the Company will continue work to determine the size and scale of each prospect.Kingston Resources Limited Managing Director, Andrew Corbett said:"The assay results from the drill program at Livingstone are encouraging as the project continues to provide the Company with highly prospective areas of mineralisation.Assays from the Livingstone's Find area continue to show significant grade, thickness and continuity. Gold mineralisation occurs at multiple prospects within the area. Further drilling will commence in September.Livingstone is proving to be a valuable asset with real upside potential. The Board and management also look forward to updating shareholders on results from drilling at our flagship Misima Gold Project and the commencement of additional drilling at Livingstone in the coming weeks."To view tables and figures, please visit:About Kingston Resources Limited

Kingston (ASX:KSN) is a metals exploration company. Currently the Company's priority is the world-class Misima Gold Project in PNG, which contains a JORC resource of 2.8Moz Au, a production history of over 3.7Moz and outstanding potential for additional resource growth through exploration success. Kingston currently owns 70% of the Misima Gold Project.

In addition, Kingston owns 75% of the Livingstone Gold Project, WA which holds a 50koz resource and is the site of ongoing exploration and a number of high-grade historic intersections.


Outstanding Drilling Results from the Anthill Gold Project

Perth, Aug 21, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Intermin Resources Limited ( ASX:IRC ) ("Intermin" or the "Company") is pleased to announce reverse circulation ("RC") drilling results from the 100% owned Anthill gold project located 54km northwest of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in Western Australia. The project comprises granted Mining Lease M16/531 over Greenstone rocks situated within the highly prospective Zuleika Shear Zone, which hosts numerous high-grade gold deposits (see Figure 1 & 2 in link below).HIGHLIGHTS- Resource extension drilling commenced in June 2018 at the 100% owned Anthill gold project on the Zuleika Shear, 45km north-west of Kalgoorlie - Boulder in the Western Australian goldfields- Current Mineral Resource (JORC 2012) stands at 1.42Mt @ 1.72g/t Au for 78,000oz Au at a 1 g/t cut off grade(see Note 1 below)- Over 10,000m of RC drilling to a maximum depth of 200m now completed at Anthill as part of the self-funded 55,000m 2018 program- Initial results received with significant mineralisation intercepted including(see Note 2 below):o 81m @ 1.48g/t Au from 119m including 2m @ 11.90g/t Au from 132m and 15m @ 2.24g/t Au from 139m (AHRC18017)o 26m @ 2.96g/t Au from 174m including 1m @ 17.9g/t Au from 194m (AHRC18018)o 4m @ 15.5g/t Au from 56m (AHRC18057)(see Note 3 below)o 15m @ 1.79g/t Au from 48m and 4m @ 1.91g/t Au from 80m (AHRC18004)o 16m @ 1.32g/t Au and 24m @ 1.28g/t Au 56m (AHRC18069) (see Note 3 below)o 20m @ 1.35g/t Au from 28m (AHRC18036) (see Note 3 below)o 4m @ 7.65g/t Au from 52m (AHRC18068) (see Note 3 below)o 3m @ 2.30g/t Au from 37m, 2m @ 2.79g/t Au from 48m, 20m @ 1.62g/t Au from 57m and 10m @ 1.27g/t Au from 81m (AHRC18002)o 4m @ 1.36g/t Au from surface, 1m @ 2.23g/t Au from 43m, 1m @ 6.07g/t Au from 121m, 2m @ 7.08g/t Au from 130m and 10m @ 1.11g/t Au from 143m (AHRC18001)- Initial drilling focussed on extending mineralisation beyond the current resource envelope to the north and south for open pit mine development studies- Strike length at Anthill increased from 150m to over 350m and remains open in all directions- A 4,000m follow up program and 1,000m regional new discovery program has now commenced with further results expected in the current September Quarter- An updated Mineral Resource for Anthill is expected in the December QuarterCommenting on the results of the Anthill program, Intermin Managing Director Mr Jon Price said:"These initial results from Anthill are now clearly demonstrating the potential scale and quality of the orebody that continues to grow with each drilling campaign and certainly justifies our belief that the Zuleika shear can deliver new large scale open cut and underground gold deposits.""The Company will continue aggressive extension and new discovery drilling at Anthill and looks forward to releasing an updated resource and continuing mine development studies."OverviewIn February 2018, Intermin commenced a self-funded $4M, 55,000m drilling program across its 100% owned Kalgoorlie gold projects. The major drill program is focussed on new discoveries and resource extensions at the key Teal, Anthill, Binduli and Blister Dam gold projects.Drilling at Anthill commenced in the June Quarter with 70 angled RC holes for approximately 10,000m now completed to an average depth of 140m and maximum depth of 200m. The drilling focussed initially on resource extensions to the north and south of the current resource envelope which contains a JORC 2012 Mineral Resource Estimate of 1.42Mt @ 1.72g/t Au for 78,000oz Au at a 1 g/t cut off grade(see Note 4 below).The geology at Anthill is dominated by a variolitic basalt with lesser amounts of porphyry and ultramafic rocks observed. At least two mineralised trends are evident and add to the geological complexity at Anthill. The sequence sits within a synclinal structure. The gold mineralisation is pervasive and occurs in a number of settings, the most important being a quartz stock work or thin veins with carbonate-sericite-silica-sulphide alteration. Some of the gold is coarse and is easily visible in panned RC chips.New high grade, mineralisation outside of the current resource envelope has now been discovered and is aligned with the dominant NW "Zuleika Shear" stratigraphy confirming drilling orientation and increasing strike length to the north and south by over 200m. Mineralisation remains open in all directions (see Figure 3 in link below).To the north AHRC18001 (best result 2m @ 7.08g/t Au and 10m @ 1.11 g/t Au), AHRC18002 (best result 20m @ 1.62g/t Au and 10m @ 1.27g/t Au) and AHRC18004 (best result 15m @ 1.79g/t Au) all intersected significant mineralisation where historic holes were drilled at opposite angles or were drilled too shallow(see Note 5 below).To the south, AHRC18068 (4m @ 7.65g/t Au), AHRC18057 (best result 4m @ 15.5g/t Au) and AHRC18069 (best result 16m @ 1.32g/t Au and 24m @ 1.28g/t Au) cover an additional 150m strike length(see Note 5 below). There is no drilling to the south of these intercepts and further step out drilling has commenced.AHRC18017 (81m @ 1.48g/t Au) and AHRC18018 (best result 26m @ 2.96g/t Au) (see Note 5 below) were step out holes in the central core area of Anthill where high grade ore is consistently found to about 200m depth. The impressive 81m width on AHRC1801 is found within a deep zone of stockwork ore. Low grade mineralisation was noted on the adjacent sections (at >200m depth) which suggests that this stockwork emplacement is also possibly controlled by a SW/NE structure.Cross sections (4 x 20m) in this area are shown in figures 4-7(see link below). They show a series of stacked lodes variably dipping to the north east.Another step out hole AHRC18010 has been drilled directly behind AHRC18018 with results expected in the current September Quarter.To the west of Anthill, several holes discovered up-dip mineralisation from one of the deeper (stacked) low grade lodes as defined by mostly historic drilling. AHRC18019 (best result 12m @ 1.17 g/t Au) and AHRC18023 (best result 5m @ 4.55 g/t Au and 9m @ 1.08 g/t Au)(see Note 5 below). Further drilling to the west is planned.Next StepsGiven the excellent results from the initial drilling, Intermin plans to complete a further 4,000m of resource extension drilling with the aim of extending the strike length further to grow the mineralised envelope ahead of a resource update and open pit optimisation studies.In addition, over 1,000m of drilling has commenced on high priority new discovery targets including Fire Ant (see Figure 2 in link below) testing for repeat structures along the Zuleika shear zone.Further assay results are expected in the current September Quarter, an updated Mineral Resource estimate in the December Quarter and a development scoping study in the March Quarter 2019.Notes:1 as announced to the ASX on 13 March 2018,2 see Table 1 on Page 8, Competent Persons Statements on Page 11, Forward Looking Statement on Page 12 and JORC Tables on Page 133 denotes 4m composites only with 1m split assays yet to be received4 as announced to the ASX on 10 July 2018,5 see Table 1 on Page 5, Competent Persons Statements on Page 7, Forward Looking Statement on Page 9 and JORC Tables on Page 10To view tables and figures, please visit:About Horizon Minerals Limited

Horizon Minerals Limited (ASX:HRZ) is a gold exploration and mining company focussed on the Kalgoorlie and Menzies areas of Western Australia which are host to some of Australia's richest gold deposits. The Company is developing a mining pipeline of projects to generate cash and self-fund aggressive exploration, mine developments and further acquisitions. The Teal gold mine has been recently completed.

Horizon is aiming to significantly grow its JORC-Compliant Mineral Resources, complete definitive feasibility studies on core high grade open cut and underground projects and build a sustainable development pipeline.

Horizon has a number of joint ventures in place across multiple commodities and regions of Australia providing exposure to Vanadium, Copper, PGE's, Gold and Nickel/Cobalt. Our quality joint venture partners are earning in to our project areas by spending over $20 million over 5 years enabling focus on the gold business while maintaining upside leverage.


Geophysics Shows Extension into Cauchari Project from Adjoining World Class Lithium Resources

ASX:ORE

Brisbane, Aug 21, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Argentine-focused lithium exploration / development company Lake Resources NL ( ASX:LKE ) is pleased to announce that recent passive seismic geophysics show a likely extension of high-grade lithium brine sequences from adjoining world-class lithium resources into Lake's 100%-owned Cauchari Lithium Brine Project (see Figure 1 in link below).- Recent seismic lines show a likely extension of the high grade lithium brine sequence from adjoining world-class lithium resources into Lake's Cauchari Lithium Project (see area in green - Figure 2) (see link below).- Brines are estimated to extend to 300-400 metres deep on Lake's leases, adjacent to third party drill results on the adjoining project which included 600mg/L lithium and high flow rates (*2).- LKE has a drilling rig secured to demonstrate that similar lithium brine aquifers are present in Lake's Cauchari leases.- Brine aquifers considered an extension of permeable gravels and sands intersected in the adjoining project.Brines in adjacent properties are high grade (see Figure 1,2 in link below). The adjacent third party drill results on the adjoining project include 600mg/L lithium with high flow rates and 470mg/L close to the lease boundary (*2). Lake expects these high grade lithium brines to extend into its leases and brine bearing sediments are estimated to extend to 300-400 metres deep, based on the interpretation of the seismic line (see figure 2 in link below) completed by Lake.Lake will shortly commence drilling now that a drilling rig has been secured and barring any unforeseen delays, drilling is targeted to commence at the end of next month.Lake's Cauchari Lithium Brine Project adjoins the world-class Cauchari lithium brine projects of SQM/Lithium Americas (soon to be Gangfeng/Lithium Americas), with an indicated resource of 8.7 Mt lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) and an additional measured resource of 3 Mt LCE and the Cauchari resource of Orocobre/Advantage Lithium with an inferred resource of 3.0 Mt LCE (*1), in the process of being upgraded to measured and indicated classification. Lake originally secured the 18,000 hectare Olaroz-Cauchari leases in early 2016 and is the only ASX junior exploration company with a large lease portfolio in this world class lithium brine province.Lake will commence drilling at its Cauchari West project (see Figures 1,2 in link below) with drill locations on the margins of SQM/Lithium Americas project and Orocobre/Advantage Lithium's project.Managing Director Steve Promnitz said: "Lake's Cauchari leases show an extension from the adjoining world-class lithium brine project - where Gangfeng Lithium has just increased its ownership in a major $237 million transaction - acquiring SQM's stake in the project, aimed for production in two years.High grade lithium brine results are reported in holes drilled between 350m - 450m from our lease boundary and our geophysics shows its likely to extend into our leases. This is great news just before the drilling starts."Footnotes:(*1): The Cauchari project resource estimates of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) are from SQM/Lithium Americas (11.8 Mt LCE) and Orocobre/Advantage Lithium (3.0 Mt LCE). Lithium Americas Corp (LAC:TSX) updated their Cauchari indicated resource estimate of 8.7 Mt of Lithium Carbonate Equivalent (LCE) at an average grade of 570 mg/L lithium with an additional measured resource of 3 Mt LCE at 630 mg/L lithium in a release dated 18 June 2012 and 24 July 2012 prepared by their Qualified Persons Mark King, Roger Kelley and Daron Abbey, as defined in the NI 43-101 technical report. Orocobre/Advantage Lithium announced their updated Cauchari inferred resource estimate of 3 Mt of Lithium Carbonate Equivalent (LCE) at an average grade of 450 mg/L lithium, dated 29 June 2018 on the TSX (AAL:TSX-V) and dated 2 July 2018 on the ASX ( ASX:ORE ), prepared by Mr Frits Reidel, a "Qualified Person" as defined in the NI 43-101 technical report.(*2): Drill results released by Orocobre ( ASX:ORE ) from their market releases on the ASX on 18 April 2018 and 29 June 2018.(*3): from Reidel & Ehren, 2018, dated 29 June 2018 on the TSX (AAL:TSX-V) and dated 2 July 2018 on the ASX (Geophysical SurveyFigures 2 and 3 (see link below) shows detail of Lake Resources passive seismic survey line A-A'. The seismic geophysical survey was initiated using passive seismic techniques, with the aim of understanding the basin geometry and thickness of the sediments hosting the brine. This method distinguishes lithologies with highly contrasting seismic velocities such as unconsolidated sediments and harder cemented sediments or basement rocks and has been used very successfully on a number of salt lake projects in South America and Australia. The seismic line was run down a provincial road along the eastern side of the Lake leases, as logistically this allowed the easiest access to the area. This line passes out of the Lake leases to the south, with similar conditions likely within the southern part of the Lake leases with 18 stations processed.Figure 2 (see link below) also shows key interpreted structures with basin bounding reverse faults within Lake's lease area which provides a sharp contrast in basement profile with this area of the basin, with coarse sediments and brine extending to these faults adjoining the West Fan Unit which has been presented in third party reporting. It is likely that this unit will host permeable brine bearing sediments of significant depth similar to that seen in adjacent properties.Lithium grades intercepted in sandy sediments of West Fan Unit from Orocobre and Advantage Lithium announcements of 2017 and 2018 are also shown in Figure 2 (see link below) with high grades indicated in areas of close proximity to Lake's leases. The West Fan Unit has high permeabilities and pumping rates which is encouraging for lithium brine development. Drilling will target the areas within the interpreted West Fan Unit.Figure 2 and 3 (see link below) shows Lake Resources passive seismic profile A-A'. The distinct reflectors identified in the survey show low velocity material such as sandy sediments or salt lake sediments to 400 metres that appears to correlate well with the brine bearing sequences exhibited in the adjacent projects of third parties. The passive seismic results fits well with the interpretation of brine bearing sequences of sandy material with significant depths suggested above. Addition seismic lines are planned to identify the deepest sedimentary centres within the structurally complex margin of the basin on Lake's leases.Other Substantive Exploration DataFigures 2 and 3 (see link below) also shows an interpreted cross section adjacent to Lake's lease boundary (*3). The interpreted cross section shows the sand unit (West Fan Unit) which is inferred to extend into Lake's leases from the adjoining Orocobre / Advantage Lithium resource and SQM / Lithium Americas resource. Lake's drilling will target areas with interpreted thicker unconsolidated sediments within the West Fan Unit.To view figures, please visit:About Lake Resources NL

Lake Resources NL (ASX:LKE) (OTCMKTS:LLKKF) is a clean lithium developer utilising clean, direct extraction technology for the development of sustainable, high purity lithium from its flagship Kachi Project, as well as three other lithium brine projects in Argentina. The projects are in a prime location within the Lithium Triangle, where 40% of the world's lithium is produced at the lowest cost.



This method will enable Lake Resources to be an efficient, responsibly-sourced, environmentally friendly and cost competitive supplier of high-purity lithium, which is readily scalable, and in demand from Tier 1 electric vehicle makers and battery makers.
9,200 Make Decisions for Christ at Greg Laurie's SoCal Harvest Amid Billboard Controversy Christian Post Contributor | 21 August, 2018 by Samuel Smith

Over 9,000 people made professions of faith at evangelist Greg Laurie's Southern California Harvest this past weekend even after billboards advertising the event were taken down over complaints about the Bible.

In its 29th year, SoCal Harvest went off without a hitch at Angel Stadium in Anaheim as over 100,000 people attended the three-night evangelism crusade and were treated to performances from top Christian music stars, stunts by motocross riders and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

However, the staple event of Laurie's Harvest Ministries faced some resistance in the weeks leading up after billboards promoting the event were removed because they featured Laurie holding up a Bible.

In response, Laurie called on attendees to bring their Bibles in order to devote time each night for everyone to hold up the holy book and proclaim their belief in the Word of God.

Laurie began his Friday night sermon by holding up his Bible to the crowd and proclaiming, "This is the book."

"How many of you brought a Bible with you tonight? Grab your Bible. Hold your Bible up," Laurie told the crowd. "We are not ashamed of the Word of God. This message has been sent to us from Heaven, given to us in a book and everything you need to know about God is right here in the Bible. No wonder people don't want it displayed on a billboard or anywhere else."

"But here is the bottom line," the 65-year-old pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship continued. "God has given us a message that we all need to hear tonight that we are going to get from this book."

As Laurie always ends each night of Harvest with an invitation for those who want to accept Christ in their lives to walk down to the field, as many as 9,260 people made professions of faith during the weekend.

By comparison, just over 10,000 people made professions of faith at last year's SoCal Harvest, which was attended by 92,000 across three nights.

"It has been amazing to see God work so powerfully all these years, with over half a million people making professions of faith to follow Christ," Laurie wrote in a tweet Monday. "This weekend was no exception either. ... To God be the Glory!"

On Facebook, Laurie shared a photograph of one man who gave his life to Christ on Friday night after he preached a sermon on the "power of the Bible." The man had a tattoo across his head that reads "F*** Love."

"Wow! Here's a photo of a man who gave his life to Jesus last night at #HarvestSoCal, and it completely encapsulates WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO!" Laurie wrote. "Guess what? He just accepted TRUE LOVE into his heart!!!"

During his Friday sermon, Laurie recalled the first time he witnessed the power of the Bible firsthand. It came when he was a "brand new Christian" in high school.

"The fact that people say the image of the Bible is offensive speaks to the power of the Bible," Laurie said. "The fact that someone would say that you can't hold that book up to me, is an acknowledgement of the power of the message that is in this book."

He described the first Bible that he was given by one of his classmates just after he had accepted Christ as his savior on his high school campus. It was a beat-up Bible that had two popsicle sticks glued to the front in the shape of a cross.

Laurie admitted that he was a bit embarrassed of the Bible at first. He recalled that when he later went to meet with his old friends who he used to do drugs with at one of their homes, he threw the Bible into the bushes so that his friends wouldn't see him with it.

However, he was forced to claim the Bible when the mother of one of his friends walked in the home and held up the Bible and asked "Who does this belong to?"

"They all began to make fun of me and laugh at me," Laurie said. "I realized right there that I didn't want to hang out with these guys anymore and I also realized the power of the Word of God. From that day forward, I proudly carried this Bible and I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ."

The Bible, he stressed, is a "book like no other."

"Millions of people will attest to the fact that the Scripture has changed their lives. These words have brought hope to the hopeless, perspective to the hurting, comfort to the bereaved. These words found in the Bible have healed marriages, they have cured the addicted, but why are these words so powerful?"

The reason is because "these are the very words of God," he said.

"Imagine if you got a text on your phone from God. Would you read it? Would you respond? I think so. A text from Jesus? Yeah, I would look at that. Listen, God has sent you a text and it is called the Bible. In fact, we even call it 'the text.' He'll speak to you through this book. Nothing touches the Bible and maybe that is why it is the best-selling book of all time."

Read more about Greg Laurie's Southern California Harvest on The Christian Post.
Christians Drowning in Debt; Should they File Bankruptcy? Christian Examiner Contributor | 21 August, 2018 by Van Richards

Some Christians who are facing significant financial difficulties ask the question, "does filing bankruptcy conflict with the teachings of the Bible?" Faith affects every aspect of your life; personal finances are no exception. When debt becomes so overwhelming that it paralyzes a person's ability to function, bankruptcy may be an option.

Bankruptcy is a legal process of discharging debt or making alternative arrangements for repayment. If you are looking for a direct reference from the Bible for acceptance of modern-day bankruptcy, you will not find it, but do not lose hope. The concept of bankruptcy did not exist in biblical times. However, that does not mean that bankruptcy is wrong for Christians. The closest things to bankruptcy mentioned in the Bible were general debt and slavery. If you owed someone and could not pay, you worked your debt off as a slave. In Deuteronomy, chapter 15, Moses the Prophet writes specifically about debts of the Israelites.

At the end of every seventh year you must cancel the debts of everyone who owes you money. This is how it must be done. Everyone must cancel the loans they have made to their fellow Israelites. They must not demand payment from their neighbors or relatives, for the Lord's time of release has arrived. This release from debt, however, applies only to your fellow Israelitesnot to the foreigners living among you. (Deuteronomy 15:1-3, NLT)

Metaphorically, Jesus talks about debt when he teaches the Lord's Prayer, "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" (Matthew, 6:12, KJV). You can find many other Bible verses that relate to the forgiveness of debt because many times in the Bible debt is analogous to sin. However, never does the Bible directly state that to borrow money is a sin. What we are warned against is the bad behavior of some past debtors, such as in this verse from Psalms: "the wicked borrows and does not pay back, But the righteous is gracious and gives" (Psalms 37:21, NLT).

When Jesus tells the Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor, it is the reprehensible behavior of the greedy slave that is sinful; the debt is not the sin. In this parable, Jesus tells the story of a king who is collecting a debt from a man that owed ten thousand talents. That would be 375 tons of silver, and in today's dollars, it would be $178,560,000! The man could not pay, so the king ordered the man sold into slavery along with his wife and children. The man pleaded with the king to have mercy on him.

The king did pity the man and forgave him of his entire debt. However, the sinful behavior comes later when the forgiven man seeks to collect a debt that is owed to him. The forgiven man refuses to give extra time to someone that owes him money, and he has his debtor thrown into prison. The king hears of this selfish behavior and revokes the pardoned debt. "Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt" (Matthew 18:34, NLT).

In her book, Forgive Us Our Debts, attorney Anne-Marie Bowen tells of the many ways she has seen people get into financial trouble. She tells of one widower in his 90's who lived on Social Security and had a massive credit card debt that he could not pay. After the death of the man's wife, he found out that she had charged $50,000 to a credit card that he now owed (Bowen, 2018).

A problem that I commonly see when discussing financial planning with people is credit card debt. Too many times, if a person has difficulty keeping up with their debt, they say there is no other way to make ends meet other than making purchases on their credit card. If you are at the point where you see no other alternative to surviving than charging more to your credit cards, you should pause. There are different ways to solve your financial problems! Pray to God for the wisdom to make good choices and look for alternatives. When credit card overcharging continues, it leads to even worse financial trouble.

No matter how moral it seems to be to repay debt, life does not always work out the way it is expected to. Some people end up not being able to pay their debts. Sometimes debt problems happen because of poor financial choices, and sometimes debt problems occur because of unforeseen events. Whether debt problems occur because of poor choices or unexpected events, many people who cannot repay their debts will look for a legal way to either discharge their indebtedness or renegotiate their paymentsand this is when bankruptcy should be considered.

If you are looking for biblical justification for using bankruptcy today, here is one way to look at the situation. Paul the Apostle told us in his letter to the Romans to follow the law, "Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God (Romans 13:1, NLT). Our country's founders saw the importance of allowing people the right to seek financial relief from debts. That right for citizens to use bankruptcy is in the United States Constitution, "The Congress shall have power... to establish... uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States" (U.S. Const. art. I,  3, cl. 4).

Yet bankruptcy does carry a stigma for some people. Over the past few centuries, our society has developed a moral compass that points toward honesty, and fairness. Benjamin Franklin exemplified our country's early debt morality when he wrote in Poor Richard's Almanac, "If you would know the value of money, go out and borrow some; for he that goes borrowing goes a sorrowing," and "Creditors have better memories than debtors." (Franklin, 1758). And, more recently, President Ronald Reagan saw the ills of debt in society too: "For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present" (Ronald Reagan Presidential Library).The sentiment of our society is that repayment of debt is a significant responsibility. Moreover, that morality is common among Christians too.

Nonetheless, if you are a Christian that is anguishing over your debts and you cannot find a way out of your financial dilemma, you may consider bankruptcy. However, bankruptcy is very complicated and something you shouldn't tackle alone. You need to consult with an attorney who specializes in bankruptcy.

There are other alternative debt repayment programs you can investigate instead of turning to bankruptcyhowever, I would strongly encourage you to meet with a bankruptcy attorney before paying any money to anyone else who claims they can help you with your debt, since there are many debt-relief plans that prey upon peoples' desperate financial situations. Consult with a bankruptcy attorney, even if you must pay for an hour of their time. The attorney is obligated to be your advocate. Ask them about the other debt repayment options available as well as bankruptcy.

As you prayerfully consider how to turn your finances around, meditate on the words of Paul the Apostle, "We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation" (Romans 5:3-4, NLT).

 Van Richards is a Christian financial advisor as well as the founder of https://www.Advice4LifeInsurance.com and http://www.Advice4Retirement.com. Van draws from his 30 years as a financial advisor to write about financial issues from a Christian perspective. You can contact him at van@advice4lifeinsurance.com.
Religion in North Korea: How Dwindling Christian Practice Leads to Oppressive Dictatorship Christian Examiner Contributor | 21 August, 2018 by Ken Lambert

What happens when a nation has less than 2% of its population identified as being "Christian"? What if that same nation has almost two-thirds of its citizens living as atheist, agnostic, or "irreligious"? The answer is all over the daily news headlines all across the world: North Korea, and its maniacal and repressive dictator Kim Jung Un.

North Korea, with its totalitarian regime, is teetering on the brink of war, a potentially nuclear war. They have provoked much of the region and the world for the past fifty years. It is currently under the leadership of Kim Jung Un, who followed his like-minded father and grandfather.

At one time North Korea looked very different, especially prior to the Korean War of the early 1950?s. Christianity first entered the Korean peninsula in the late 18th century, and had expanded significantly by the 1880?s. Both Protestants and Catholics achieved larger presences as the decades wore onleading up to the war which further split the north from the south. After the war, Christianity (and capitalism) continued to expand in the Southbut came to a dramatic halt in the North. The communist-type government in the North viewed Christians as a group at odds with their strong central rule, and began direct and indirect persecution of those who followed Christ.

Year after year, the Christian non-profit organization Open Doors announces North Korea as the "#1 country" for persecution of Christians.

According to Religious Intelligence UK, the current religious breakdown in North Korea is:

 Irreligion: 64.3% of populationthe vast majority of which believe in a "self-reliance" philosophy

 Korean Shamanism: 16% of population

 Cheondoism: 13.5% of population

 Buddhism: 4.5% of population

 Christianity: 1.7% of population (though the official data from the State-run media notes a much smaller Christian sector)

This is in contrast to South Korea which is a democracy and is one of the richest countries in the world:

According to figures compiled by the South Korean National Statistical Office in 2005, 46.5% of the population were classified as Irreligious, compared to 22.8% Buddhists, and 29.2% Christian.

What difference does this all make?

Dictators, monarchs, and other authoritarians have always known Christianity as averse to the agenda and goals of oppressive governments. Situations like that in North Korea have been seen in other historical governments and nations as well: communist Russia, communist China, and Saddam Hussein's Iraq are some examples. Nazi Germany is another: Hitler was an atheist who knew that the Church would not allow him to do as he pleased.

When citizens have no hope in Christ, or in Heaven or in an eternal life, they typically have no hope at all and are easier to control. The only hope they may have is in salvation via the State, or via their exalted leader. Today in North Korea, that person is Kim Jung Un. Millions of people worship him, similar to how a Christian would worship and honor Christ. Countries with a majority Christian populace understand that only one man, or being, is to be followed and exalted, and that is Jesus Christ. Strong and practicing Christians simply will not allow one man to govern and order every part of their lives and thoughts.

Here in the United States we have a shrinking Christian population, and more and more citizens identifying themselves as atheist or agnostic. Coincidentally (or not?) we seem to have more people relying on the federal government for their happiness, their wealth, and their life direction. In time, with more corruption, greed, and ego from whomever our President might be, this will lead to major problems and a very different way of life for all of us. It happens gradually, and all it takes is one or two men to implement a dramatic shift in the direction of a country. Today, for North Koreans, it would be extremely difficult to overthrow Un and his posse. But maybe if the North Koreans stood strong for freedom and individualism decades ago, they would not be in the same position.

As focus on Christ diminishes, a vacuum is created in the mindset of individuals. Something must enter and fill that vacuum, and in most cases what fills the void is at a detriment to society and to the person. This is the case in every country, in every State, and in each nation. Should the United States further develop into a country with a minority Christian population, maybe it will not be possible to protect ourselves from the potential of a dictator that does not have our best interests in mind. Ask the native Korean War veterans, from the North. If you can find one that is living that also is willing to speak the truth.

 Ken Lambert has been writing for both secular and religious publications for several years. He co-authored the book "Top 10 Most Influential Christians Since the Apostles" and holds a Doctorate in Ministry. He resides in southern New Hampshire.
All must be sacrificed for the demon-gods autonomy and choice. This is why they are killing children in Belgium.

In 2014, Belgium, which already had perhaps the most permissive euthanasia laws in the world, amended those laws to permit doctors to euthanize children.

As is always the case, the rationale was a mixture of wooly thinking: a professed desire to alleviate suffering and a belief that children, some as young as nine, have the requisite emotional and intellectual capacity to choose to end their lives.

This is lethal nonsense, as Charles Lane of the Washington Post has repeatedly pointed out.

Lanes most recent column on the subject was prompted by a July report issued by the Belgian agency that regulates euthanasia.

According to the report, between the start of 2016 and the end of 2017, Belgian doctors euthanized three children, one of them only nine years old and another eleven years old.

A member of the commission told Lane the law was strictly followed. He said, I saw mental and physical suffering so overwhelming that I thought we did a good thing.

Actually, as Lane pointed out, the gentleman didnt see anything. He was relying on reports by the anonymous physicians who participated in the euthanasias. The simple fact is theres no way to independently verify the physicians assertions about the hopelessness of these childrens conditions, or how close they were to natural death. We simply have to take their word for it.

In Belgium, euthanasia is, to borrow an expression from science, a black box. We can see what it doeskill people, old and youngbut we have no real idea about how it really works.

There are several things that make euthanizing children especially repugnant. As Lane writes, Everywhere else in the world, the law reflects powerful human intuitions, moral and practical: that it is wrong to abandon hope for a person so early in life, no matter the illness . . .

This is why the death of a child is so devastating, spiritually as well as emotionally. Its why the parents of children with disabilities, both cognitive and physical, are fierce advocates for their children and those like them.

The 2016 book, In a Different Key: The Story of Autism is filled with stories about the parents of autistic children who refused to abandon hope for their children and instead persuaded the rest of society not to abandon hope, either.

But not only is Belgium turning its back on this noblest of human intuitions, its also turning its back on the responsibility to protect children from themselves. As Lanes writes, it is absurd to grant ultimate medical autonomy to someone too young to vote or legally consent to sex.

Think about it: In Belgium if a fifteen-year-old girl expresses a desire to have sex with a 20-year-old boy, the answer is no! Her parents cant write her a note exempting the relationship from the country laws against statutory rape. They cant consent on her behalf.

And yet, in Belgium a request from a nine-year-old to end his life is taken seriously. While his parents can intervene and veto the request, absent such a veto, the same black box that has ended the life of more than four thousand adults will consider his request.

An analogous dynamic is on display here in the U.S. Children who cant legally consent to having sex under any circumstances, somehow are still taken seriously when it comes to the life-changing decision to begin taking puberty blockers. Theres even legal advice about how to get around recalcitrant parents, by invoking whats called the mature minor doctrine.

All of this is an assault on the highest calling parents have: to protect and cherish our children. But this is what happens when people make autonomy their god: They end up sacrificing children on its altar.

When Children Choose to Die: Sacrificing Babes on the Altar of Autonomy

As John highlights, the cost we pay for our cultures choice of autonomy is paid by the next generation in a chilling way. Pray for Gods mercy to be poured out and for Christian voices to be His advocates, calling societies back to protecting and cherishing our children.

BreakPoint is a Christian worldview ministry that seeks to build and resource a movement of Christians committed to living and defending Christian worldview in all areas of life. Begun by Chuck Colson in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on todays news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print. Today BreakPoint commentaries, co-hosted by Eric Metaxas and John Stonestreet, air daily on more than 1,200 outlets with an estimated weekly listening audience of eight million people. Feel free to contact us at BreakPoint.org where you can read and search answers to common questions.

John Stonestreet, the host of The Point, a daily national radio program, provides thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.

Publication date: August 21st, 2018

Photo courtesy: Unsplash/Jonatan Moerman


Former Westfield and Suncorp Exec Appointed to Board

Sydney, Aug 21, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Collaborate Corporation Limited ( ASX:CL8 ) (Collaborate or the Company) is pleased to welcome Ms Michelle Vanzella to the Board of Collaborate, effective from 1 September 2018.Michelle has an extensive combination of customer, marketing, digital, commercial and legal skills built up across multiple industries including technology, retail, property and financial services. Michelle practiced corporate and commercial law at Allens and has held senior executive marketing and business development positions with iconic Australian brands including Westfield, Suncorp and AAMI. She is currently a non-executive Director of Hunter Water and a member of the Capital Works and Science, Environment & Human Health committees.Michelle brings to the Board expertise in strategic growth and innovation, customer strategy and analytics, consumer marketing and the application of emerging technologies to business growth at an ideal time for Collaborate as it leverages strategic partnerships and a unique business model to accelerate growth.The Company also announces that Mr Joshua (Jim) Landau is stepping down as nonexecutive director of Collaborate, effective from 1 September 2018. Mr Landau was appointed as an alternate director in October 2015 and transitioned to the role of nonexecutive director in May 2016."It is with great pleasure that I welcome Michelle to the Board of Collaborate. I look forward to working with Michelle to harness her extensive marketing and business growth skills to assist Collaborate achieve its significant growth potential. It has been a great pleasure working with Jim Landau on the Board of Collaborate and, on behalf of my fellow directors, I thank him for the guidance and significant contribution that he has provided to the Company", said Mr Chris Noone, CEO of Collaborate.About Collaborate Corporation Ltd

Collaborate Corporation Limited is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX:CL8). It is Australia's leading listed company focused on 'collaborative consumption', 'peer-to-peer' or 'sharing economy' businesses. Collaborate currently has three core business segments: www.DriveMyCar.com.au Australia's leading peer-to-peer car rental business; www.MyCaravan.com.au Australia's leading peer-to-peer caravan rental business; and www.Mobilise.com an online hire marketplace to unlock the enormous potential of under-utilised assets. Through our proprietary trust and reputation platform, www.peerpass.com.au we create 'trust' between individuals and make it possible for people to safely transact with each other in the sharing economy.
William is a member of the Tutsi  a minority people group in Rwanda -- and hes on the run. The year is 1994, and militia from the Hutu major government are roaming the countryside, killing as many Tutsi as they can find.

If he is caught, he will be slaughtered.

Then he is given a lifeline. The United States will accept him as a refugee, although his wife and daughter will be forced to stay behind at a camp until he gets settled. Its not a perfect solution, but its their best hope. Will they survive long enough to be reunited?

The faith-based film Beautifully Broken (PG-13) opens this weekend, telling the story of how the lives of three families intersected in a marvelous example of Gods sovereignty.

Once hes in America, William meets a Christian businessman named Randy who also has a daughter and whose family life is crumbling. Though worlds apart in their upbringing, the two men encourage one another and even open an outreach center for other refugees.

Here are seven things you should know about the film:

1. Its based on a true story.The movies backdrop is the Rwandan Genocide, which resulted in the killing of more than 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus in 100 days. But the specifics of the film  a man named William flying to Nashville, Tenn., and meeting Randy  are also true. All the main characters are based on real people in real life.

2. It gives a balanced view of the controversy. I remember the Rwandan Genocide and the debate over whether the U.S. should get involved, but many moviegoers wont. Back then, lots of Americans assumed that all Hutus were bad. The movie, though, shows a Hutu family trying to remain at peace with both sides. The Tutsis that we know are like us Hutus  good, hard-working people, a Hutu mother tells her family. Hutu-on-Hutu violence was common.

3. It features several musical artists. Michael W. Smith plays Randys pastor, Henry. The film shows Toby Mac in concert and discussing the need to sponsor children in other countries  something that Randys daughter, Andrea, does in the film. Plumbs song Beautifully Broken is part of the soundtrack, and she sings it with country artist John Berry and gospel artist CeCe Winans.

4. It has actors from Toy Story 3 and 24. Remember the little girl who was given Andys toys at the end of Toy Story 3? The character, Bonnie, was voiced by Emily Hahn, who plays Andrea in Beautifully Broken. Randy is played by Scott William Winters, who was Agent Samuels in the television hit series 24 and also had roles in the Lethal Weapon TV series and Good Will Hunting. Benjamin A. Onyango (Gods Not Dead series) plays William. It was filmed in South Africa and Louisiana.

5. It spotlights forgiveness and reconciliation. Im giving away the ending, but the final scenes put the power of the gospel on display when one person forgives another person for the Rwandan Genocide. As one character says: If everyone sought revenge with an eye for an eye theology, the whole world would be blind.

6. It contrasts American wealth with Rwandan poverty. William writes his wife and tells her of the many blessings in America. So much food! he says. We then see plates of food being tossed in the trashcan and down the sink. It can be convicting to watch. His favorite American food? A corndog (which he eats sideways, like corn on the cob).

7. It may not be for young children. Its rated PG-13 for mature thematic content involving violence and disturbing images, and some drug material. It features no coarse language or sexuality but deals with several adult themes, including rape. We see a man put his hand over a teen girls mouth in a bathroom. The genocide angle includes scenes of men with guns and the implied hacking of people to death.

Visit BeautifullyBroken.com

Michael Foust is a freelance writer. Visit his blog, MichaelFoust.com .

Photo courtesy: Big Film Factory
In 2020, we were the church on our heels. A global pandemic shut down much of our world. But the church has been on the move since it was birthed; it will continue to be on the move until God makes all things new.
In the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America, the countries of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala form a violent triad. The murder rate is higher in this region than in most active war zones. Gangs, cartels, and vigilantes impose their will, taking over or co-opting legitimate police forces and routinely terrorizing average citizens. A recent study identified 54 separate criminal groups in Guatemala alone. For many citizens of this region, fleeing north through Mexico to the US border is a less risky proposition than dealing with daily life in their hometown.

In the middle of this violence sits the town of San Cristobal Acasaguastlan, a picturesque oasis of calm with a population of about 6,000 people. What sets this place apart are the efforts of Jeaneth Ordonez, the Christian mayor who has united the townspeople in their quest to keep the municipality free of the violence and upheaval that surrounds them.

This is a very special place, says Eduardo Gallo, a Cuban-born medical doctor whom Ordonez brought to town to help with health care. We have the opportunity to improve peoples lives and to do it with love. The mayor has created a remarkable environment.

Ordonezs motivation to protect and provide for her people comes directly from her faith. God has put me in this place and given me a love and desire to serve my people and make their lives better, she says. I have faith in God and I love the people.

About two hours outside of Guatemala City, the municipality encompasses a small town and a large rural area where high unemployment means poverty is all too common, as it is throughout the country. But Ordonez casts a big vision and has already made huge strides in improving health, education, sanitation, and clean water.

San Cristobal Acasaguastlan is the only town in Guatemala with 100 percent literacy. Edna Galicia, a local teacher, reports that many families here are living in poverty, but they know education is important so they make it a priority for their children.

On the health front, the mayor convinced Gallo to come for a year to help set up a more effective health care system. (When his contract ended, he chose to stay on.) San Cristobal Acasaguastlan was also recently chosen as a pilot site for a Pediatric Antibiotic Initiative, a partnership between MAP International and Food for the Poor that supplies free pediatric antibiotics to patients in need. The program requires careful record-keeping and follow up with patients, something the towns clinic is able to provide.

We believe that supplying pediatric antibiotics to this municipality can help them improve the health of their children and provide even more excellent care, says Steve Stirling, president and CEO of MAP International.

Mayor Jeaneth, as she prefers to be called, regularly walks around town and is embraced by young and old as she stops to listen to a story or a request from one of her citizens. I know most of the people and they know me. We are building a better life together.

When asked how she works so tirelessly, she says simply, God gives me the strength.

Of the 340 mayors in Guatemala, Ordonez is one of just 11 women. In the male-dominated culture of her country, many women to this day must ask their husbands permission to leave home or allow visitors to enter, so her female leadership stands out. As a woman, I have passion and capacity to see the needs of people, says Ordonez. But I know I have to work extra hard because there are many who expect a woman to fail at doing a job that is traditionally a mans.

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As a young adult, Ordonez had ambitions to leave her small town behind and head to the capital of Guatemala City. But, as she says now with a big smile, God had his plans. After leaving San Cristobal Acasaguastlan, she attended university and then worked in business. After some years, she felt drawn back to her hometown by the tranquility of life there and by her family. When she returned, she also met a man named Samuel Arroyo, who had grown up in a town nearby but came to San Cristobal Acasaguastlan to teach.

Twenty-five years later, Arroyo now works alongside his wife, helping implement her initiatives and supporting her in every way. God has given us this platform to help people and to fight injustice, he says. Its a privilege to help my wife and to serve God this way.

Ordonezs road to the mayors office was itself an act of God, she says. While pregnant with her third child, she lost her sight. I had swelling that put pressure on my optic nerve and took away my sight. When the people of the town heard about my condition, they came to pray for me.

The outpouring of love and support was so great that I was overwhelmed. I vowed to find a way to give back to the people, says Ordonez.

After delivering her baby, her sight was mostly restored and she took a job in the municipal government. I simply wanted to help the people of my town. I had no intention of trying to become mayor.

In 2007, when the current mayor of the town was running for re-election, she helped lead his campaign. Weeks before the election, he was murdered while visiting a nearby town.

We were all devastated, says Ordonez. And then I was shocked because the people of San Cristobal Acasaguastlan asked me to become the candidate. Samuel and I prayed and thought about it, knowing it was not an easy job and it was also dangerous. We knew our lives would change forever if we said yes.

Ordonez agreed to run for office and the people elected her with an overwhelming vote.

After being elected, then re-elected, she has implemented various initiatives to help the townspeople and also to draw interest from tourists and outside business. Unemployment continues to be a challenge, she admits.

Image: Dale Hanson Bourke

Security also poses a significant challenge. Being a mayor of any town in Guatemala means being the target of criminal factions and cartels that are constantly vying for control of the region. In San Cristobal Acasaguastlan, Ordonez and her husband have had their house sprayed with bullets. She now walks around town with an armed security team and admits that her life is often in danger.

The US Embassy in Guatemala has helped by supporting a model police precinct and providing security cameras at the entrance and throughout the city as part of the US State Departments Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).

For Mayor Jeaneth, the help from outside organizations is an amazing blessing for which we are so very grateful. But she emphasizes that she and the citizens of San Cristobal Acasaguastlan know that their ultimate support comes from God.

If we are a success, it is because we bend our knees to God and he has blessed us, she says. We must never forget that he is the source of all good things.

Dale Hanson Bourke is the author of The Skeptics Guide series (IVPress) including Immigration: Tough Questions, Direct Answers. She lives with her husband just outside Washington, DC. You can find her at DaleHansonBourke.com and on Twitter.
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Christians often debate about contemporary worship vs. conservative worship, but often there is little understanding as to exactly what these philosophies entail. I'd like to briefly explain in this post how I would define a conservative philosophy.

I'd encourage you to take a look at A Conservative Christian Declaration or David de Bruyn's book The Conservative Church for a much more thorough explanation. However, this post is meant to be a simple summary of a robust, consistent conservative philosophy of culture and worship.

Conservatism has, of course, a long tradition in the history of Western philosophy. From the perspective of the history of Western thought, Christian conservatism might be considered a subset of classical conservatism or "Realist Conservatism." Classical conservatism is built upon two core pillars, which provides a helpful structure through which to explore Christian conservatism.

Belief in Transcendent Absolute Principles

First, Realist Conservatism holds that there is an absolute order of universals that defines the nature of things and exists apart from human perception. Defined this way, Christianity can be no less than Realist, affirming an absolute and unchanging reality that governs all nature and reveals its meaning and value. Generally speaking, classical conservatives divide the absolute order of universals into three "Great Ideas" by which we judge meaning and value in the world: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Where Christian realism progresses further is in rooting such transcendent, absolute principles in the sovereign will of the self-existent Creator. These principles are revealed to us in creation (Ps 19), in our consciences (Rom 1), and mostly perfectly in the written Word of God (2 Tim 3:1617.

God as the source. Belief in these transcendent principles is rooted in a conviction that God is the source, sustainer, and end of all things. The Bible clearly proclaims that God is self-existent and self-sustaining, and all things come from him (Rom 11:36). There are no such things as brute facts apart from God; they are facts because God determined them to be so. Moral standards are not merely conceived out of convention apart from God; actions are moral or immoral based on how they compare to the moral character of God. And in the same way, beauty is not in the eye of the beholder; something is beautiful because it reflects God's own beauty. With this in mind, Christians as image-bearers of God must be committed to thinking God's thoughts after him, to behaving in certain ways that conform to God's moral will, and to loving those things that God calls lovely. Conservative Christians are therefore concerned with orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and orthopathy.

Scripture as the expression. Conservative Christians also believe that Scripture itself communicates absolute truth, goodness, and beauty, not just discursively, but aesthetically through its various literary forms and devices. This belief is rooted in the doctrine of verbal-plenary inspiration. The Holy Spirit of God inspired every word in the original autographs of Scripture. This implies that while the word choices, grammar, syntax, poetic language, and literary forms were products of the human author's writing style, culture, and experiences, we must also affirm that these aspects of the form of Scripture are exactly how God desired his truth to be communicated.

Those who hold to verbal-plenary inspiration rightly insist that what words biblical authors chose are important, as are how those words were put together into sentences and paragraphs, as well as literary forms, and how we interpret the meaning of biblical passages is directly dependent upon our understanding of the historical, grammatical, and cultural context. Verbal-plenary inspiration, therefore, requires that we understand the nature of truth expressed in Scripture as more than correct doctrinal statements condensed from God's Word. Rather, truth includes particular sentiments, affections, moods, and imaginations that God communicates through the aesthetic forms he inspired.

These aesthetic forms of Scripture provide a way of communicating God's truth that would be impossible with systematic statements of fact alone. Since God is a spirit and does not have a body like man, since he is infinite, eternal, and totally other than us, God chose to use particular aesthetic forms (to the exclusion of others) to communicate truth about himself that would not have been possible otherwise. These aesthetic forms are essential to the truth itself since God's inspired Word is exactly the best way that truth could be presented. Thus, the truths of Scripture are not Scripture's propositional content that just happens to be contextualized in certain aesthetic forms. Truth in Scripture is content plus form, considered as an indivisible whole.

To reduce God's truth, then, only to doctrinal statements does great injustice to the way God himself has chosen to reveal truth to us. The Bible itself uses forms of beauty to express God's truth and moral standards in a manner that accurately shapes the way in which people perceive the truth. Most true Christians desire to preserve God's truth and moral standards as expressly stated in the Word of God. Where conservative Christianity goes a step further is to also commit to preserving the way in which the Bible expresses truth and moral standardsin other words, conservative Christians do not consider the aesthetic aspects of Scripture as merely decorative or simply cultural contextualizations; rather, the aesthetic forms of Scripture are just as inspired and authoritative as the theological ideas contained therein, and thus they, too, must be conserved as the truth of Scripture is translated and re-expressed in new cultural forms.

How do conservative Christians propose to preserve the way the Bible has expressed God's truth? This leads to the second pillar of conservative Christianity.

The Importance of Form and Tradition

The second pillar of conservatism is a commitment to conserve those cultural institutions and aesthetic forms that best reflect a recognition and respect for the universal, transcendent order.

Affirmation of this second pillar is why conservative Christianity places a weighty emphasis upon tradition and insists on discernment when employing cultural forms from outside Christian tradition to express biblical truth. Conservative Christianity recognizes some forms of expression were designed to communicate transcendent truth, goodness, and beauty, while other forms were by nature designed to do something entirely opposite. What art forms are chosen to express God's truthin corporate worship or in other contextsare of utmost importance since they express not just theological facts, but those facts imagined in certain ways. What is at stake here is the very knowledge and worship of God. If works of art express particular ways of imagining God, then it is quite possible to express through art an imagination of God that does not correspond to how he chose to communicate himself in Scripture, even if the propositional content of the work of art is technically accurate.

Thus, the kinds of imaginative forms God chose to communicate his truth should shape our cultural forms. Choices of what cultural forms we will use to express God's truth and worship him are not merely about what is pleasing, authentic, or engaging; what forms we choose for our worship must be based on the criterion of whether they are truewhether they correspond to God's reality as it is imagined in his Word. Conservative worship is essentially a desire to preserve the kinds of aesthetic forms contained in Scripture in our worship. We accomplish this goal by fostering the cultural traditions God's people have modeled on Scripture and nurtured through the centuries rather than simplistically adopting the cultural traditions of the unbelieving world in the name of relevance, contextualization, or authenticity.

So, at the core of conservative Christianity is a belief in absolute, transcendent principles of truth, goodness, and beauty and a commitment to preserve those values and pass them on to future generations. And it is a recognition that certain ways of expressing those transcendent principles are better at preserving and accurately passing them on than others, particularly those forms nurtured within Christian tradition, which most correspond to the kinds of aesthetic expressions that God inspired in his Word.
Christian Aid launches appeal as Kerala floods leave hundreds dead and a million people homeless

Christian Aid has launched an emergency appeal to support victims of widespread flooding in India's Kerala state.

Extensive flooding across the region has left more than 350 people dead and another million without homes.

Christian Aid is working to provide practical assistance to 20,000 of the poorest and most vulnerable people by supplying safe drinking water, sanitation supplies, hygiene products and materials for shelter.

Ram Kishan, Christian Aid's Regional Emergency Manager, said: 'What I have seen and been hearing here is on a scale not seen for a hundred years.'

The floods were triggered by heavy monsoon rains over the summer. Although the rains have started to ease off in the last few days, thousands are unable to return to their homes and are seeking shelter in camps.

Christian Aid's Emergency Programme Officer Shivani Rana said the full extent of the damage is not yet known as many areas are still out of reach due to the high water levels.

She said it will be hard for people to rebuild their livelihoods once the flood waters have receded: 'Many people are currently sheltering in camps and one major worry is how they're going to recover their lives when they try to go home. For some families, everything they had has been washed away or ruined.'

Christian Aid will focus funds raised through the appeal on the Wayanad district, in the north of the state, and Idukki district in central Kerala. It aims to support 10,000 people across the two districts, particularly the Dalits and 'Tribals,' who are among the most marginalised people groups in India.

The UK government-backed Start Fund has already given a 77,000 grant to the Christian Aid appeal but the charity is seeking more donations to scale up its emergency response.

Kishan said: 'Christian Aid's appeal for support is needed to help us provide clean water, shelter and emergency food supplies and more important livelihood support for people who have been forced to flee their homes.'

People can donate to the Christian Aid Kerala Floods Appeal by visiting www.caid.org.uk/kerala
Franklin Graham and other pro-lifers rail against Chelsea Clinton after suggesting abortion contributed to U.S. economic growth

Evangelist Franklin Graham and other pro-life conservatives are denouncing Chelsea Clinton's claim that abortion has led to economic growth in the U.S.

Clinton's comments were condemned as being like those who defend slavery or the killing of Jews by the Nazis.

"Chelsea Clinton claims that legalizing abortion added trillions of dollars to the economy. What a lie," Graham wrote on Facebook Wednesday. "Hitler probably also claimed that killing the Jews would be good for their economy. Legalizing abortion hasn't added anything to our country, it has only taken away. It has cost this nation more than 60 million lives  lives precious to God.

"Just think of the contribution these people would have made. There will be another high cost. I believe God will judge America for allowing the heinous murder of our own children in the womb," he added before assuring women who've had abortions that God will forgive them and help to alleviate their guilt. "Not only will He forgive you, He will save you for eternity  and you will be reunited one day in Heaven with that child," Graham added.

Speaking at the pro-abortion event "Rise Up for Roe" in New York City on Aug. 11  which is part of a 10-city tour sponsored by Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and the Demand Justice Initiative to rally against Judge Bret Kavanaugh, President Trump's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court  Clinton said:

Whether you fundamentally care about reproductive rights and access right, because these are not the same thing, if you care about social justice or economic justice, agency  you have to care about this.

It is not a disconnected fact  to address this T-shirt of 1973  that American women entering the labor force from 1973 to 2009 added three-and-a-half trillion dollars to our economy. Right?

The net, new entrance of women  that is not disconnected from the fact that Roe became the law of the land in January of 1973. So I think, whatever it is that people say they care about, I think that you can connect to this issue.

In response, the Susan B. Anthony List, a nonprofit that seeks to advance pro-life women in politics, said Clinton "couldn't be more wrong" and tweeted a link to its partner, Life Issues Institute, which noted:

"She should consider the 60 million aborted babies who won't enter the labor force or pay into Social Security. Their parents won't purchase diapers, clothing, toys, cars or houses to accommodate them. ... Yes, abortion's had a huge impact on America's economy and it hasn't been good. Not only are we hurting economically, we're missing 60 million blessings from God and the good they would have contributed," Brad Mattes of the institute said.

Many others, such as the National Right to Life organization, also condemned Clinton for suggesting that the "dismemberment" of 60 million babies is great for Americans' pocketbooks.

Clinton, the daughter for former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said in a tweet Tuesday that her words have been misrepresented. In defense of her argument, she highlighted a study published in the American Journal of Public Health by Diana Greene Foster, a professor and researcher at UC San Francisco, who advocates for abortion rights.

The study, which Foster wrote about in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, argues that women who seek and obtain an abortion are better off financially than those who are unable to obtain an abortion in states where late-second or third-trimester abortions are restricted.

"Reproductive rights have always been economic rights," Clinton tweeted. "A recent study found denying women  often already mothers  a wanted abortion results in years of less employment & more family poverty."

The study's conclusion states: "Women denied an abortion were more likely than were women who received an abortion to experience economic hardship and insecurity lasting years. Laws that restrict access to abortion may result in worsened economic outcomes for women."

Researchers did not interview women who originally sought an abortion but subsequently decided they wanted to carry their babies to term to find out their socioeconomic status in the years that followed.

Foster notes in her op-ed that for pro-lifers, "... science that shows the economic harms to women who are denied access to abortion is heartless, overlooking the obvious loss of life to put a crude monetary value on the natural sacrifices of motherhood."

Among its list of 10 reasons why women should decide against abortion, the pro-life group Live Action says women shouldn't be made to feel as though they're incapable of caring for a baby while continuing to work or finishing their degree. Similarly, it adds that some pro-life pregnancy centers help women who are struggling financially to get out of debt and achieve their education and career goals.

Conservative commentator Erick Erickson also engaged Clinton on Twitter and compared her comments to the Confederacy's defense of salvery.

"In the 1800's [sic], slave owners said slavery was about economic rights," Erickson said. "Always and without fail the arguments of the abortion movement in the United States mirror the arguments of slave owners. Both are grave evils."

Clinton responded to Erickson by saying her comments were "not the same at all."

"Hi Erick  protecting reproductive health rights is first about protecting women's human rights and health," she tweeted on Wednesday. "From 1973-1985, American women's deaths from abortion declined 5-fold. And, reproductive rights are about women's economic rights and agency. It's ... not the same at all."

Over 340 women have died from legal abortions in the U.S., according to Life Dynamics, a Texas-based pro-life group that tracks reported deaths of women following an abortion.

This article was originally published in The Christian Post and is re-published here with permission
Vatican says Pope will meet victims of sexual abuse during Ireland visit

Pope Francis will meet victims of clergy sexual abuse during his visit to Ireland this weekend, the Vatican said on Tuesday.

Spokesman Greg Burke told reporters at a briefing on the Aug. 25-26 trip that the meeting will not be announced until after it is over and that it will be up to the victims if they want to speak afterwards.

It comes a day after Pope Francis, facing sexual abuse crises in several countries, wrote an unprecedented letter to all Catholics on Monday, asking each one of them to help root out "this culture of death" and vowing there would be no more cover ups.

In a highly personal letter addressed to "the people of God," Church language for all members, the pope appeared to be launching an appeal for all Catholics to face the crisis together and not let it tear the Church apart.

The Catholic Church in the United States, Chile, Australia, and Ireland - where the pope is making a two-day visit this weekend - are reeling from crises involving sexual abuse of minors.

Numerous surveys have pointed to plummeting confidence in the Church in those countries and elsewhere.

In his letter, the pope referred to the suffering endured by minors due to sexual abuse at the hands of a "significant number of clerics and consecrated persons."

The Vatican said it was the first time a pope had written to all of the world's some 1.2 billion Catholics about sexual abuse. Past letters on sexual abuse scandals have been addressed to bishops and faithful of individual countries.

"We have realized that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death," he said.

Quoting a Gospel passage that says "If one member suffers, all suffer together," Francis added:

"(Those words) forcefully echo in my heart as I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons."

"With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the

gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them," Francis wrote.

Advocates for victims of clergy sexual abuse expressed disappointment. "More actions, less words," said Anne Barrett-Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a U.S.-based resource centre that tracks cases of clerical abuse worldwide.

"He needs an effective discipline process for bishops and religious superiors who are known to have enabled abuse," she said.

Last week a grand jury in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania released the findings of the largest-ever investigation of sex abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church, finding that 301 priests in the state had sexually abused minors over the past 70 years.

He acknowledged that "the heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced".

"Looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated," he said.

He also acknowledged that the implementation of a zero tolerance had been "delayed" in some places.

Victims groups have said that while new policies have been put into place in several countries to alert civil authorities about cases of abuse, the pope still needed to do more to hold accountable bishops who covered it up, mostly by moving priests from parish to parish.

In his first direct response to the U.S. grand jury report, Francis said that while most cases it listed "belong to the past," it was clear that the abuse cited "was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced".

Last month, Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., and one of the U.S. Church's most prominent figures, stepped down as a cardinal after accusations that he abused two minors about 50 years ago and later abused adult seminarians.

He was believed to be the first cardinal to lose his red hat in nearly a century and the first ever for alleged sexual abuse.

In May, all 34 of Chile's bishops offered their resignation to the pope over a widening sexual abuse crisis there. He has so far accepted five of the resignations.
President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday unveiled its plan to dramatically weaken carbon dioxide limits on coal-fired power plants by shifting most of the regulatory burden to states in a further assault on the Obama climate legacy.

The Environmental Protection Agency's "Affordable Clean Energy" proposal would replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan's sweeping changes in the U.S. electricity mix with more modest emissions curbs at individual power plants. It would set pollution guidelines based on assumptions about what improvements could be eked out through efficiency upgrades at the facilities, then give states the latitude to design their own plans for paring carbon dioxide emissions at the sites.

EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the proposal "would restore the rule of law and empower states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions" while providing "modern, reliable, and affordable energy for all Americans."

"Today's proposal provides the states and regulated community the certainty they need to continue environmental progress while fulfilling President Trump's goal of energy dominance," Wheeler said in a news release.

The EPA estimates its proposal could pare carbon dioxide emissions as much as 1.5 percent from projected levels without the Obama plan in place.

The move represents the latest bid by Trump to fulfill campaign promises to revive the coal industry and restore mining jobs. Although it is unlikely to dramatically alter the U.S. power mix -- or give a big boost to domestic coal demand, which has flagged amid competition from cheap natural gas and renewables -- industry advocates hailed the effort as curbing federal government overreach and leveling the playing field.

"The policy put forward by the previous administration was an illegal attempt to impose a political agenda on the country's power system," Hal Quinn, president of the National Mining Association said in an emailed statement. "The replacement rule respects the infrastructure and economic realities that are unique to each state, allowing for state-driven solutions, as intended by the Clean Air Act, rather than top down mandates."

Trump is set to hold back-to-back campaign events Tuesday in West Virginia, the No. 2 coal-producing state, where in 2016 he pledged to "get those mines open" and told miners to "get ready, because you're going to be working your asses off."

Shares of U.S. coal miners rose modestly Tuesday. Peabody Energy Corp. rose almost 2 percent and Arch Coal Inc. climbed 1.3 percent at 11:18 a.m. in New York.

Environmental advocates and the architects of former President Barack Obama's ambitious plan derided the Trump administration's proposed replacement as political pandering and said it represented a U.S. retreat from the global fight against climate change. The move dovetails with a separate administration proposal to relax Obama-era greenhouse gas emission limits on vehicles and coming efforts to ease restrictions on the amount of methane that can escape from oil wells.

"The world's on fire and the Trump administration wants to make it worse," said Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "This dirty power plan is riddled with gimmicks and giveaways. It would mean more climate-changing pollution from power plants."

The Trump proposal may open a small window for a revival of coal even as it prolongs uncertainty over the U.S. electricity mix and casts doubt on investments by utilities making decades-long choices about new plants and upgrades.

Administration officials are on track to finalize the new regulation next year, following a 60-day public comment period on Tuesday's proposal, but critics have already vowed to battle the effort in federal court and the legal disputes could take years to resolve. As it stands, Obama's Clean Power Plan never went into effect; amid legal challenges from opponents who said it overstepped the EPA's authority under federal law, the U.S. Supreme Court put the initiative on hold in February 2016.

Critics are already vowing to fight Trump's replacement.

"If the Trump administration's proposal to dismantle the Clean Power Plan is adopted, we will work with our state and local partners to file suit to block it, in order to protect New Yorkers, and all Americans, from the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change," said New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood.

According to the EPA, once the plan is fully implemented, power sector emissions could fall 33 to 34 percent below 2005 levels -- roughly mirroring the same target as Obama's initiative, which sought to cut those greenhouse gas emissions 32 percent relative to 2005.

Trump's EPA says its replacement would be cheaper too, costing some $400 million less each year than Obama's carbon dioxide curbs. The agency also forecasts a modest, potentially 0.5 percent reduction in retail electricity prices.

'Best System'

The approach shows the Trump administration abandoning Obama's expansive view of what constitutes the "best system of emission reductions" for a more narrow, facility-focused interpretation that conservatives say is within the bounds of the Clean Air Act that provides the framework for air pollution regulations.

"The announcement of a replacement rule may largely represent a political milestone for a president who promised to end his predecessor's 'war on coal,' but we also view it as a significant policy action that could to make it difficult for a differently oriented successor to establish greenhouse gas limits on any stationary sector via executive discretion," ClearView Energy Partners managing director Kevin Book said in a research note to clients.

Under the Trump plan, the EPA would establish broad guidelines on the technologies that can be used to pare carbon dioxide emissions and then give states three years to develop their own plans for paring that pollution.

Permit Reviews

It also would overhaul the triggers that prompt new permit reviews -- and potentially expensive new pollution controls -- that have been criticized as onerous by owners of power plants, refineries and other industrial sites. The changes, aimed at power plants, would better enable the kind of efficiency upgrades envisioned under the Trump proposal, EPA Assistant Administrator Bill Wehrum told reporters on a conference call.

It might not be enough to dramatically alter the landscape for U.S. coal, which is losing U.S. customers as utilities increasingly turn to natural gas and renewable power to generate electricity. Although the Trump administration forecasts a 4.5 percent to 5.8 percent increase in the production of coal for generating electricity under its proposal, analysts say the shift is unlikely to reverse a spate of already announced closures of coal-fired power plants.

"We won't see any new coal plants but it could help some units for a few years," said Kit Konolige, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. "Coal plants keep closing even though we knew something like this was coming from the Trump administration."

The proposal might have the most impact in the Midwest and Southeast, where aging coal power plants continue to be profitable for utilities, and state regulations are less likely to punish emissions, Konolige said.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said in a statement that the replacement rule would reverse "years of havoc on coal mining in the Mountain State."

Since 2010, power plant owners have either retired or announced plans to retire 630 coal-fired facilities in 43 states -- nearly 40 percent of the U.S. coal fleet, according to data by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a trade group representing utilities such as Southern Co. and producers such as Peabody Energy.

The EPA is not altering its landmark 2009 conclusion that greenhouse gases threaten health and human welfare -- a finding underpinning the power plant regulation and compelling the Trump's move Tuesday. Conservatives have filed a half dozen petitions challenging the endangerment finding, though Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler has signaled he is not eager to reconsider the issue.

Efficiency Improvements

Trump's proposal for modest efficiency improvements at power plants falls far short of what's needed to combat climate change, environmentalists said. Such changes "will barely make a dent in cutting heat-trapping emissions from the electricity sector, and could even, under some circumstances, lead to increased emissions depending on how much the plants are run," Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in an emailed statement. "The law could not be more clear: It requires EPA to adopt the 'best system of emissions reduction,' but the EPA has instead opted for the 'lamest system of emissions reduction."'

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, said the Trump proposal "guts a solid and sensible plan" to fight climate change and aims to replace it "with a fossil fuel handout."

"This craven obedience to polluting interests will lead to serious consequences for American communities and our economy, as well as for the planet we call home," Whitehouse said by email. "Economists, scientists, central bankers, and real estate insurance and finance professionals are all warning of dire consequences of climate change, and we get this?"

The Trump administration proposal was cheered by business leaders and conservatives who said the Obama initiative illegally sought to compel more renewable power and quash coal. The proposed replacement rightly restores regulatory power to states, they said.

"Today's announcement is an important step toward a more collaborative process that fits within EPA's statutory authority and will result in achievable progress through more practical, state-driven programs," said Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Energy Institute. "This revised approach will help continue the trend of lower electric power sector emissions while preserving America's energy edge and respecting environmental law."

Jim Matheson, head of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, said the Trump proposal is more workable. "The Clean Power Plan would have resulted in stranded assets and stranded debt, significantly increasing electricity costs for many consumers," Matheson said by email.
In the wake of the Catholic church's latest sex abuse scandal, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston has outlined actions that can be taken by the church to prevent similar crises in the future.

Last week, a grand jury report found that Roman Catholic leaders in Pennsylvania had been covering up child sex abuse committed by more than 300 priests over seven decades. It amounts to what DiNardo calls a "moral catastrophe" in which "scores of beloved children of God were abandoned to face an abuse of power alone."

As president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, DiNardo spent much of last week meeting with his contemporaries, and began drafting a plan to combat similar instances in the future. While the full plan will be presented at a general assembly of bishops in November, DiNardo released snippets of what he hopes this plan will entail, including three goals developed by the USCCB's executive committee.

EDITORIAL: No sanctuary for pedophile priests; give Texas victims more time to sue

The goals include a full investigation of questions surrounding Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, who has been accused of sexually abusing minors and young priests; making it easier to report abuse and misconduct committed by bishops; and advocating for transparent, fair and more prompt resolutions to complaints against bishops.

The current document the church relies upon to guide people through the reporting process "does not make clear what avenue victims themselves should follow in reporting abuse or other sexual misconduct by bishops," DiNardo said in a statement. "We need to update this document. We also need to develop and widely promote reliable third-party reporting mechanisms. Such tools already exist in many dioceses and in the public sector and we are already examining specific options."

While DiNardo did not touch on local implications for these latest findings out of Pennsylvania in his statements, he did say, "I apologize and humbly ask your forgiveness for what my brother bishops and I have done and failed to do."

IN DALLAS: Priest accused of molesting teens goes missing

DiNardo also asked members of the church to do as Pope Francis suggested earlier this week.

"The Holy Father is also inviting, and I am asking this as well, that all the faithful join in prayer and fasting as a way to help foster conversion and genuine change of life wherever it is needed, even in the shepherds of the Church. Jesus remarked once, 'This kind can only come out through prayer and fasting' (Mark 9:29); a humble reminder that such acts of faith can move mountains and can even bring about true healing and conversion," he said in a second statement.

"On behalf of my brother bishops, I offer that only by confronting our own failure in the face of crimes against those we are charged to protect can the church resurrect a culture of life where the culture of death has prevailed."
Contributed Photo / Contributed Photo

STRATFORD  A 23-year-old man wanted for an Aug. 12 murder in South Carolina was taken into custody Tuesday morning by the U.S. Marshals Violent Fugitive Task Force and Stratford Police.

Andrew Maxswane Evins, 23, is a suspect in the fatal shooting death of Jervaughn McKins, 23, in Eutawville, S.C.
CBRE Hotels

Houston-based Energy Corridor Hotels has purchased the 116-room Hyatt House Houston Energy Corridor from Florida-based Driftwood Hospitality. The extended stay hotel is at 15405 Katy Freeway.

Michael Yu, Rahul Bijlani and Agrama Mannapperuma of CBRE Hotels arranged the sale through Ten-X Commercial's online managed bid process.
With dry conditions reaching high Keetch-Byram Drought Index numbers, County Judge Jay Knight has issued an order prohibiting or restricting outdoor burning for the next 60 days. The ban was issued Monday after consulting with County Fire Marshal Bill Hergemueller.

Weve got drying conditions going on and our KBDI is elevated, Hergemueller said.

The morning number average is at 587, still an elevated number, but by the time the suns rays hit their peak in mid-afternoon, the number reaches a dangerous 720 on a scale of 800.

The dew pattern we have in the morning is drying out and raising our index up to the raised numbers, he said.

Those numbers were as of Sunday, Aug. 20.

Were way over the index mark for calling for a burn ban, Hergemueller said. Well typically call for one when we start averaging in the high 500s.

It couldnt be too soon for firemen who are already battling fires.

Weve been experiencing some brush fires around the county, the fire marshal said. Not a large amount but enough to be concerned about, he said.

A fire on Sunday afternoon burned approximately 30 acres of land in the Kenefick area.

Were concerned about people setting fire to their burn pile and the wind picking it up and spreading it, he added.

Hergemueller said theyve been monitoring the conditions the last few days and he and the judge decided to issue the burn ban.

The afternoon showers, he said, are drying out pretty fast, and theres plenty of ground fuel to ignite a large fire.

Everything is playing a factor, he said, including the wind.

The fire marshal said it wasnt just individual residents, but even developers.

We have to put them in a hold pattern until we get better conditions, he said.

According to the Texas A&M website, KBDI is an index used to determining forest fire potential. The drought index is based on a daily water balance, where a drought factor is balanced with precipitation and soil moisture (assumed to have a maximum storage capacity of 8-inches) and is expressed in hundredths of an inch of soil moisture depletion.

The drought index ranges from 0 to 800, where a drought index of 0 represents no moisture depletion, and an index of 800 represents absolutely dry conditions. Presently, this index is derived from ground-based estimates of temperature and precipitation derived from weather stations and interpolated manually by experts at the Texas Forest Service (TFS) for counties across the state.

Meteorologist Molly Merrifield with the National Weather Service said its the dog days of August.

Its summertime in Southeast Texas. We are unusually hot right now, however, we do have a weak cold front pushing in today [Monday], but its not going to drop temperatures that much, she said.

Ridging is expected to build in behind that and it will get hotter.

Were predicting temperatures in the 100s, but it will be a little bit dryer and the heat index values wont be quite as bad because it wont be as humid, she said.

Merrifield said not to expect any real relief until mid-September and October when better cold fronts start coming through.

The fire marshal warned that fines could be hefty ranging from $200 to $500 depending on the situation. If it crosses onto someone elses property, Hergemueller would only say, Its not going to be a good day for them.

The order is expected to last for the next 60 days unless the restrictions are terminated based on the Texas Forest Service or the Court.

dtaylor@hcnonline.com
The Fandemic Tour, a mobile fan/comic convention set to make its debut in Houston next month, has added Chuck Norris.

Norris joins a lineup that includes stars from "The Walking Dead" (Norman Reedus, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Steven Yeun) as well as a few Superman stars (Dean Cain, Tom Welling) and stars from fan favorites ranging from adventure (John Schneider from "The Dukes of Hazzard") to horror (Bruce Campbell from "Evil Dead").
A new day, a new taco opportunity. That might sum up the news from the owners of the Original Ninfa's on Navigation, who are planning to take Mama Ninfa's legacy in a new direction.

Legacy Restaurants, which operates the Original Ninfa's as well as Antone's Famous Po'Boys, announced Tuesday that it is launching a new concept, Mama Ninfa's Tacos y Tortas, in the tunnel-level Understory culinary market below Skansa's new Capitol Tower at 800 Capitol in downtown Houston. It is expected to open in 2019.
Harveys impact on the small business community was far and wide, local officials said.

According to Lake Houston Chamber of Commerce president Jenna Armstrong, about 3,500 businesses in the Lake Houston area were designated as damaged by the Small Business Administration due to the flood waters from Hurricane Harvey.

Over 300 of those businesses had to close. Armstrong said that about 80 percent of area businesses that sustained flood damage did not have flood insurance.

When I think of recovery from natural disasters now, its shocking how little assistance there is out there for businesses. That was and still remains an uphill battle, just because there is no FEMA for business, she said.

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, estimates that only about 60 percent of businesses will rebuild and reopen following a natural disaster.

We saw FEMA estimates that 40 percent of businesses wont come back after a natural disaster which is a scary statistic, and that launched us into action, Armstrong said.

While the water was still high, the Lake Houston Area Economic Development Partnership (which is part of the Lake Houston Chamber of Commerce) created the Lake Houston Area Relief Fund. In the first three months after the hurricane, the partnership raised and dispersed around $1.6 million to local businesses to help them recover.

We worked hard and did everything we could to help businesses get back going again, so were very proud that were sitting around 85 percent.

The Lake Houston areas business community and residents have proved resilient, officials said.

Humble sales tax revenue was down 7 percent in September 2017, the month after Harvey struck, according to Humble City Manager Jason Stuebe. After September, Humble sales tax revenue returned to normal levels.

I think we had a strong economy to begin with before Harvey even came in here, so the decline that we saw was just that one little blip as a direct impact of Harvey, said Stuebe, though he did acknowledge that the economy was likely somewhat artificially boosted by business that had to do with the recovery.

Most of the 85 percent of Lake Houston Area businesses that planned to reopen have already done so, according to Armstrong, and almost all will have reopened by Jan. 1, 2019.

Stuebe said the city of Humble is projected to have higher sales tax revenue in the fiscal year after Harvey than it did the previous year.

I think the lasting effect quite frankly is the fear of something like that ever happening again, he warned though. Almost everybody that we talked to said that they would not return if this happens ever again, and we have to take that very seriously. That puts the onus back on the greater community to support initiatives like whats in the bond referendum thats coming up on August 25 to help fix these issues so that we never have to face something like this again.

Armstrong acknowledged that the journey over this past year has been an uphill struggle for many businesses, but she has also seen the strength of the community during that time.

Seeing businesses reopen means a lot, Armstrong said. When you see anybody move back into their home, and you see business that reopened again after being closed for so long, it just gives you such pride and hope that we are going to recover, and we are going to come back and be stronger.


Pilot Evaporation Pond Network Update

Perth, Aug 22, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Australian Potash Limited ( ASX:APC ) (Company) is pleased to advise the successful transfer of brine from the pre-concentration pond into the first harvest pond at the Lake Wells Sulphate of Potash project pilot evaporation pond network.Highlights:- Successful Initial Brine Transfer from Pre-Concentration Pond to First Harvest Pond (H1)- 110 tonnes of pre-concentrated brine transferred into H1- From this evaporation cycle, 22 tonnes of harvested potassium salts will be produced yielding 2 tonnes of SOP- APC will produce 250 kilograms of SOP trade samples in an initial production run for delivery to MOU Offtake Partners Q4 2018The pilot pond network at Lake Wells comprises 1 large pre-concentration pond and 3 smaller, harvest ponds. The raw, hypersaline brine was pumped into the pre-concentration pond using one of the five (5) already installed production bores at the project.As the brine evaporates further through the harvest ponds, various sodium and magnesium salts are crystallised out of it until it becomes highly concentrated with potassium bearing salts. It is anticipated that the final transfer of brine into the final harvest pond will occur within the next 4 - 6 weeks, resulting in the crystallisation of 'feeder' or harvest salts in the harvest ponds. It is from these blended harvest salts that SOP is processed and refined.The pilot evaporation pond program is anticipated to produce approximately 22 tonnes of harvest salts, from which an estimated 2 tonnes of SOP can eventually be refined. In the initial production run, approximately 250 kilograms of trade samples of SOP will be produced. The Company's processing consultants, Novopro will manage the production of SOP over the final stages of the process, with that company's lead expert being present in Perth for the duration.Managing Director Matt Shackleton commented: "Across the four major work streams we are progressing through the definitive feasibility study, the pilot ponds generate data essential to our understanding of the climatic-evaporation conditions, and the quality and amount of potassium salts we are able to produce. This successful initial transfer of pre-concentrated brine into H1 represents a major step in these areas."Based on modelled average daily evaporation rates, we anticipate the evaporation process will be finished in the next 4 - 6 weeks. As evaporation rates are heavily correlated to daily temperatures, this process will speed up as we head into the hot part of the year."With the expected 250 kilograms of trade samples of SOP we will produce from the initial production run, we will look to continue our engagement with our MOU partners in China. Our aim through Q4 2018 is to move these MOU positions to formal, offtake discussions."To view figures, please visit:About Australian Potash Ltd

Australian Potash Limited (ASX:APC) is an ASX-listed Sulphate of Potash (SOP) developer. The Company holds a 100% interest in the Lake Wells Potash Project located approximately 500kms northeast of Kalgoorlie, in Western Australia's Eastern Goldfields.

Following the release of a Scoping Study in 2017, APC has been conducting a Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) into the development of the Lake Wells Potash Project. The Company is aiming to release the findings of the DFS in H2 2019.

The Lake Wells Potash Project is a palaeochannel brine hosted sulphate of potash project. Palaeochannel bore fields supply large volumes of brine to many existing mining operations throughout Western Australia, and this technique is a well understood and proven method for extracting brine. APC will use this technically low-risk and commonly used brine extraction model to further develop a bore-field into the palaeochannel hosting the Lake Wells SOP resource.

A Scoping Study on the Lake Wells Potash Project was completed and released on 23 March 2017. The Scoping Study exceeded expectations and confirmed that the Project's economic and technical aspects are all exceptionally strong, and highlights APC's potential to become a significant long-life, low capital and high margin sulphate of potash (SOP) producer.
This August marks one year since Hurricane Harvey devastated the Houston area, and even now, many people are still feeling the toll the storm has taken on their mental health. Baylor College of Medicine expert Dr. Asim Shah discusses mental health one year after the storm.

The first month after Harvey, we saw a lot of anxiety and insomnia. Close to a year after Harvey, we are still seeing depression and anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder as well. We arent seeing insomnia as much anymore, said Shah, professor and executive vice chair in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor.

The storm triggered these issues for some people who had not experienced them in a significant way previously. But Harvey also triggered a return of anxiety, depression and PTSD symptoms in many people who had previously dealt with these disorders but had improved, Shah said.

Symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD

The key symptom of anxiety is worry that impacts day-to-day functioning and lasts over six months, he said.

Major signs of depression are loss of interest in activities that previously were enjoyable and feeling hopeless and helpless. People who are dealing with depression are not able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, Shah explained. Eating too much or not enough and sleeping too much or not enough also can be a symptom of depression.

Post-traumatic stress disorder can occur after a life-threatening trauma like Harvey, Shah said. People with PTSD can experience hypervigilance, suffer from flashbacks and have nightmares, and they often avoid situations that caused the trauma. People with PTSD due to Harvey often avoid going out in the rain and become extremely worried when rain is in the forecast.

How to cope with anxiety, depression, and PTSD

To help cope with anxiety, depression and PTSD, it is important to figure out ways to reduce stress. For example, some people are experiencing financial strain from Harvey so a way to ease this stress is to access resources to help find or maintain a job. Anxiety over rain and potential storms can be managed using biofeedback techniques. Biofeedback is used to teach patients how to properly respond to their anxiety and learn how to manage and control it without the use of medications. They also learn relaxation skills, ways to manage an anxiety attack and how to recognize, reduce and control stress responses. Cognitive behavioral therapy is used to help manage depression.

If you are experiencing symptoms of anxiety, depression or PTSD, the best first step is to reach out to a mental health professional, Shah said. Dont be afraid to take this step. Just because you see a mental health professional does not mean that you will be put on medication or that you will be in therapy for a long time.
Surviving a disaster like Hurricane Harvey can be hard not only physically and mentally but financially as well.

Claudia Mollerup-Madsen, vice president and financial advisor with the wealth management division of Morgan Stanley in Houston, offered Houston-area residents tips to financially prepare for emergencies, so they can recover more quickly when disaster strikes and keep their credit strong.

Very few people who lost their homes during Hurricane Harvey were prepared for such large losses, Mollerup-Madsen said. Many did not have flood insurance or an adequate home insurance policy to cover the contents.

She said setting aside an emergency fund with three to six months of expenses can help toward getting back on your feet after facing a flood, fire or other disaster.

Cut back in areas of your discretionary income to allow you to start or grow your emergency fund. Having an emergency fund can go a long way toward helping a victim of a natural disaster get through the first few days, Mollerup-Madsen said.

If having three to six months of savings sounds like an overwhelming objective, she said a goal of saving $500 is a good place to start.

Mollerup-Madsen encouraged disaster victims to immediately let their creditors where they can be reached once they land at their temporary shelters and to stay on top of their larger bills to avoid consequences.

While emotions of fear are high, its easy to forget that bills still must be paid and creditors must know where to find you if you are late on payments, she said. If a mortgage does not get paid, the house can be foreclosed on. If a car note is not paid, the car can be repossessed.

She said homeowners affected by disaster can also reach out to their mortgage companies for help with their payments.

Some mortgage companies will offer relief by putting payments on hold, freezing foreclosures and offering special financing to rebuild, Mollerup-Madsen said. After Hurricane Harvey, many companies offered forbearance, which means the lender suspended payments for a period of time. However, it is important to note, interest is still accruing during this period.

Mollerup-Madsen said disaster victims should get all negotiations and new terms with their creditors in writing in case disputes come up later.

Smaller bills like cable, internet and gym memberships that are set up on auto-pay will still take money from accounts even if a home is destroyed or damaged, so Mollerup-Madsen said residents should make sure to call their bank to get the payments turned off.

Some disaster victims use retirement savings accounts to cover their recovery expenses. Mollerup-Madsen said some 401(k) plans allow people to give themselves a loan, paid back in monthly installments with interest that goes back into the account. She said with individual retirement accounts or IRAs, there are penalties for taking out the money before the age of 59 and a half years, plus the normal income taxes for the amount they take out.

If you do indeed withdraw money from your retirement savings, do so conservatively so that you are not taking out too much, Mollerup-Madsen said. To help minimize penalties, minimize the amount you are taking out. Make a plan to replenish your retirement savings accounts, so you can still retire comfortably when you come of age.

Drew Szilagyi is the home builder finance  eastern region manager for Flagstar Bank. His Memorial home was completely destroyed after it took on six feet of water. The home was recently torn down, and Szilagyi said he hopes to be in a new home rebuilt at a higher elevation at the same location by this time next year.

He recommends people keep track of their important documents and that they store additional copies elsewhere.

Store them high up in a moveable fireproof and waterproof container. Have a duplicate set kept in a safe place elsewhere  be it at work, or at a family members or friends house, Szilagyi. If at all possible, have all important items saved digitally on a portable hard drive as well.

Looking back, he said one thing he would have done differently is take out the maximum coverage on the contents of his house on his flood insurance.

Im ashamed to admit that I completely underestimated just how much stuff we had and should have taken the time to do an inventory compilation. Filling out the insurance claim forms and listing our possessions lost room by room was eye-opening and depressing, Szilagyi said.

Mollerup-Madsen said making plans prior to when disaster strikes is key to doing well with your money despite the hardship.

Having a financial plan is necessary to avoid falling into debt during an emergency, she said. More than 60 percent of Americans do not have even $1,000 saved in an emergency fund to cover an unexpected situation. Dont be a statistic.

tracy.maness@hcnonline.com
A 40-year-old man accused in Tuesday's robbery of a Conroe CVS pharmacy is suspected in the robberies of more than 15 stores and pharmacies in three states.

Conroe police arrested Patrick Daniel Glavin, 40, on several felony charges including five counts of robbery, evading arrest in a vehicle, tampering with physical evidence, and two motions to revoke his probation for a misdemeanor and felony charge.

Law enforcement authorities expect additional charges stemming from other alleged robberies in Montgomery and Harris counties.

Glavin, whose last known address is in Dayton, remains in the Montgomery County Jail on a roughly $500,000 bond as the investigation continues.

On Tuesday, Conroe officers were called to a robbery in progress at the CVS Pharmacy located at 910 W. Davis at approximately 3 a.m. on Tuesday.

"As officers approached the store, a witness was able to provide a description of a vehicle, a white Chevy Impala, that was traveling toward Interstate 45," Conroe Police Sgt. Jeff Smith said. "Officers were able to react quickly, locate the vehicle traveling south on I-45, got behind the vehicle and initiated a traffic stop."

Glavin turned himself in after allegedly leading officers on a high-speed chase that traveled south, then north and ended in a business parking lot in the 26900 block of Interstate 45.

"Officers were able to locate items in the car that allegedly connected Glavin to the robbery at the CVS pharmacy," Smith said. "During the pursuit, Glavin did throw items out of the car's windows."

After his arrest, officers determined Glavin had outstanding warrants from Montgomery, Harris and Liberty counties and Calcasieu Parish in Louisiana.

Glavin is accused of several robberies in Montgomery County cities, including Shenandoah, New Caney and Porter.

According to Harris County court documents, Glavin is allegedly connected to four similar robberies at Walgreens pharmacies in the city of Houston, two robberies in Harris County, one in Baytown and one in League City.

"Glavin allegedly had his face covered, made contact with the pharmacist, demanding narcotics and medication and was able to obtain those requested items," Smith said. "Luckily, the pharmacist was able to contact an employee up front who was able to provide police with a description. Conroe Police officers did a great job to apprehend Glavin."

Police said Glavin used the same method in multiple other alleged robberies.

Previously, Glavin was charged with robbery by threat in Harris County and received six years of probation in June. His probation was set to end in 2024.

According to Harris County court documents, Glavin was released from the Harris County Jail on July 26 and allegedly committed a robbery at the CVS at 6011 Kirby Road approximately 11 hours after being released. Glavin is also a suspect in a robbery that took place at a Walgreens in Missouri City on that same day.

Glavin's previous arrests include:

Dec. 22, 2017 - Glavin entered the Academy Store in New Caney where he stole a hoverboard, knee pads and a helmet valued at over $750. He was given 15 months of deferred adjudication on June 13.

Feb. 16, 2018 - Glavin arrested for misdemeanor theft by the Pasadena Police Department for stealing a chainsaw. He was sentenced to 50 days in the Harris County Jail on July 25, receiving 18 days of credit.

March 2, 2018 - Glavin was identified as the suspect in a theft from Home Depot at Research Forest and I-45. He was arrested by the Shenandoah Police Department on June 2.

May 5, 2018 - Glavin was found guilty of the robbery at the Walgreens at 2240 Northpark Drive in Kingwood. He received deferred adjudication for six years for an earlier robbery at Dick's sporting goods store in March; this charge and the Lowe's robbery below were dismissed in Harris County.

May 18, 2018 - The Houston Police Department met with a loss prevention officer at the Lowe's located near Kingwood at 22600 Eastex Freeway where they were advised a suspect matching Glavin's description was observed allegedly stealing items from the store before fleeing in a white Nissan Rouge which was used in the previous robbery at the Walgreens.

May 31, 2018 - Glavin allegedly stole a Samsung television from the Walmart located at 155 E. Louetta Drive.

June 4, 2018 - Glavin allegedly entered a Walgreens store located at 510 Chimney Rock where he presented a note, reading "no alarms no calls give me oxycodone 30 MG."

As the investigation continues, this article will be updated with new charges.

jennifer.summer@hcnonline.com
Its no secret the contributions of oilman George Strake had a tremendous impact on shaping Conroes path.

But in recent years, it has come to light just how much Strake helped change the history of the world as well.

On Tuesday morning, best-selling author John ONeill spoke at a breakfast hosted by the Conroe Lake Conroe Chamber at the Top of the Tower in Conroes City Hall. ONeill spoke on his book The Fishermans Tomb: The True Story of the Vaticans Secret Search.

The book, which was released earlier in the year, is about Strakes involvement in funding an archaeological dig in the Vatican lead by the Catholic church. This important dig resulted in the remains of St. Peter being recovered and they are now on display in the Vatican.

Strakes son, George Strake Jr. and his wife, Annette, were in attendance with other members of the Strake family on Tuesday morning. Also present were members of the family of W.T. Moran  who had Morans Oil and Gas business in Conroe. Moran was a business partner of Strakes when Strake hit his first well in Conroe.

Conroe Mayor Toby Powell declared Aug. 21, 2018 George W. Strake Day in Conroe and gave a copy of the proclamation to George Strake Jr. and Annette Strake at the breakfast.

ONeills interest in the subject began when he went on the Scavi Tour of St. Peters tomb in the Vatican and then he came back to share his experiences with his friends the Strakes who in turn told him of Strake Sr.s secret funding of the dig.

ONeill took his talk all the way back to the story of how the Conroe oilfield came about.

He explained that there was a layer of iridium dust found in the area of the Conroe oilfield that is only present when a meteor has struck the area.

Scientists thought a meteor had struck in the vicinity, but they werent sure where he said.

A group of geologists studies the sands around the Texas Gulf Coast, he said. What they found was that the meteor created a wave 5,000 feet high. That wave left sands along the Texas Gulf Coast. Those sands formed the bottom sands of the Conroe oilfield.

In the 1870s, people began exploring for oil and gas.

He said it became an axiom in the oil and gas business not to search for oil and gas in the southeast area of Conroe.

One company after another went bankrupt in pursuit of any oil in the Conroe area.

Then enter a crazy wildcatter named George Strake.

Strake was born Nov. 9, 1894 in St. Louis, the 10th child of 10 children. He lost his parents and his sisters raised him.

According to ONeill, despite not attending high school because he didnt have the money to go, he applied to St. Louis University and passed the entrance exam. They learned of his story and let him in on a full scholarship.

After college, he served in the United States Army Air Corps in World War I.

He then worked in oil in Mexico from 1919 to 1925. He met and married his wife, Susan, there.

Then he had a failed attempt in the car business in Cuba.

As the couple returned to the U.S., they had plans to go to Oregon and become involved in the timber industry, according to ONeill.

But in a twist of fate, Susan Strakes mother was ill in Houston so they came to Houston instead.

A man of exploration with a spirit for adventure, Strake began to examine the Conroe area.

He found that all the creeks flowed the wrong way (in the area of the oilfield), ONeill said. And the deer and other animals wouldnt drink the water in the creeks.

From this hunch, with $1,000 he leased 10,000 acres in the Conroe oil field.

His first well was only a gas well. He struck a deal with W.T. Moran who was in the gas business in Conroe that Moran would get the gas from his first well.

The second well he struck was the one that changed history. It lead to Conroe becoming the third largest oilfield in the U.S..

Strakes theory was that God had given him the oilfield and his job was to give away the proceeds of the oilfield secretly, ONeill said. He believed that the money should be given away while he was alive and not after his death. He believed that you should receive credit not in this world but in the next.

He funded schools, hospitals and a variety of projects from the Catholic church and a Boy Scout camp in Conroe.

This combination made him the perfect donor for a project Pope Pius XII had in mind.

When preparations were being made to bury Pope Pius XI beneath St. Peters Basilica, a worker fell through a floor.

He fell 30 feet down into a room that no one had any idea was below the Vatican, ONeill said.

What they found was the grave of a Christian woman. This along with several other clues lead Pope Pius XII to believe that St. Peter may be buried underneath St. Peters Basilica  but he needed a financial backer due to the Catholic church being in poor shape due to the impending World War II.

Monsignor Walter Carroll was sent to speak to Strake in Houston. He carried the word from the Vatican that the pope would like Strake to finance the most secret and most important project of the Catholic church. But Strake would never able to tell anyone what he did.

The secret dig began under the supervision of priests using hand tools.

According to ONeill, Antonio Ferrua took charge of the excavation.

However, by the 1950s, the work hit a snag.

The site was struck by a flood and the dig was problematic because there were priests doing the work not professional excavators.

ONeill told the group he likes to imagine Strake advising Monsignor Montini who would later become Pope Paul VI to get the best man in the world to do this.

Except the best man in the world was a woman  Margherita Guarducci  an Italian archaeologist, classical scholar and epigrapher.

Guarducci studied the epigraphs for 25 years. She was finally able to determine a piece of the artifacts said Peter is here.

This lead her back to some bones that were taken from the site in 1940 that had been stored.

Those bones were tested again and again and were eventually determined to be consistent with a man of 60 or 70 who was crucified upside down as Peter was.

Guarducci spoke on her findings at a symposium at the University of Milan in the mid-1990s.

In 2013, Pope Francis held a public mass that acknowledged that they believed the remains they had were the remains of St. Peter.

Today, the Scavi Tour offers a look at the tombs below St. Peters Basilica and St. Peters remains.

ONeill said its known as the hottest tour in town.

The book is available for purchase on Amazon.com.

For more about the Conroe Lake Conroe Chamber, visit www.conroe.org.
As the Montgomery County Internet Crimes Against Children task forces continue to crack down on crimes against children, two men were recently sentenced after their victims said they were abused.

The Montgomery County Precinct 5 Constables Office originally arrested Magnolia resident Douglas Michael Mitchell II, 28, in July 2016 on three charges of indecency with a child.

On Friday, Mitchell was sentenced to 17 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice after being found guilty in Judge Kathleen Hamiltons 359th District Court on Thursday.

Precinct 5 Chief Chris Jones said indecency with a child is a third-degree felony, but in this case, was enhanced to a second degree because the victim was younger than 14.

Mitchell was arrested after the child made an outcry to the parents and they contacted the Montgomery County Precinct 5 ICAC division, Jones said.

According to Montgomery County court documents, the offenses occurred in Mitchells truck as he was taking the victim fishing. Mitchell will have to serve half of the sentence before he becomes eligible for parole.

A few days before Mitchells trial began, Cleveland resident Concepcion Lara, 34, was sentenced to 10 years in TDCJ on one charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child on Monday. He originally pleaded guilty to the charge on Aug. 7.

The victim stated she was sexually assaulted by Lara numerous times and was threatened with violence if she ever told anyone what was going on, court documents stated. During one of the assaults, a young witness asked Lara what he was doing. He advised that he was in the room to try and scare the kids.

After the victim was interviewed at Childrens Safe Harbor in Conroe, Lara was arrested and later released on a $50,000 bond in February. He was remanded into custody on Aug. 13 where he must serve at least five years before he is eligible for parole.

jennifer.summer@hcnonline.com
Richmond Fire Department / Richmond Fire Department

Being able to communicate with the public in times of emergency can be critical to quality care. The Richmond Fire Department recently collaborated with a team of young people who are helping fire departments understand how to enhance communication with members of their community who are hearing impaired.

The team, led by Megan Welty who is working on obtaining The Gold Award in Girl Scouts (comparable to the achievement of Eagle Scouts in the Boy Scouts), is working with fire departments in the Fort Bend County area to learn about American Sign Language (ASL). The team, also made up of Ruth Murray, Cameron Grant and Eugene Penzien, instructed members of the department about the basics of sign language. They also provided study material that will allow fire department instructors to continue educating the remaining department members on the importance of being familiar with sign language.
A pregnant teen accused of being the getaway driver in a fatal shooting of a man at an Alief restaurant has been charged with murder.

Elida Lucia Jovel Medrano, a 17-year-old high school senior, was charged on Friday and is being held in Harris County Jail on $50,000 bond. An arrest report read in Harris County Probable Cause Court on Saturday detailed Jovel Medranos account of the shooting, which she said was gang-related.

The shooting outside of the La Union restaurant on Aug. 4 left Johnny Paramo Torres, 25, dead.

Jovel Medrano and two others were arguing with members of a rival gang inside the restaurant at 9575 Wilcrest just before the shooting. The trio left and returned with a fourth person, although Jovel Medrano stayed inside the car, she told police.

The three men who were with Jovel Medrano walked into the restaurant and got in a verbal altercation with Torres. He followed the three men outside around 7:45 p.m., and one of them fired multiple shots, striking Torres more than once, police said.

Investigators said that Jovel Medranos car was positioned in a way that would provide a quick escape.

FOURTH OF JULY: Woman shot at Alief apartment complex

Jovel Medrano told investigators that the suspected shooter put a pistol to her side and told her to get him out of there or he would kill her, according to the arrest report. Jovel Medrano sped off and left the location with all three suspects, police said.

Jovel Medrano, who is from El Salvador, has been placed on an immigration hold, according to court records.

On Aug. 15, Medrano was seen leaving her home with luggage, a state prosecutor read in Harris County Probable Cause Court.

A state trooper stopped the car she was in because of traffic violations, and police said she appeared to be trying to flee the jurisdiction, according to the prosecutor.

Jovel Medrano, who is five months pregnant, said she didnt know Torres. Defense attorneys said she appeared to be the getaway driver out of duress.

In Probable Cause Court, Jovel Medrano's defense attorney said she is a senior at Sharpstown High School, where she sings in the choir and is a member of the junior ROTC. She has lived in Houston for the past four or five years and hopes to study nursing after high school, the attorney said.
A young girl was hospitalized Monday afternoon after being locked inside her father's vehicle outside a Mexican eatery in Braeburn since morning, police said.

The 3-year-old child was trapped in a car behind the Don Rey Mexican Restaurant in the 8700 block of South Gessner Road around 4:30 p.m. and rushed to Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital.

She appeared to have suffered from dehydration but is expected to survive, according to police.

The father, wearing a Don Rey employee shirt, called 911 after discovering his child was still in the vehicle as temperatures reached the low 90s. He was being questioned by police outside the Tex-Mex chain.

No charges have been filed against the father, who is 32, at this time, according to the Houston Police Department.

RENEWED WARNINGS: Death of infant in hot car prompts calls for safety measures

The issue of children left in hot vehicles has been highlighted this summer. For example, the parents of Raymond Pryer Jr. last week alleged that staff at a Houston day care facility were "grossly negligent" when they left their 3-year-old boy in a sweltering school van following a field trip last month, according to a lawsuit filed last week in Harris County District Court.

So far in 2018, the National Safety Council has recorded at least 35 incidents of children dying in broiling vehicles. Texas has topped the nation with at least 117 hot car deaths since 1998, according to its records.

Nicole Hensley contributed to this report.
A second robbery suspect is in custody Monday after allegedly running over two victims and trying to steal $75,000 in cash days earlier.

Travonn Johnson, 27, joins Davis Dowell Mitchell, 31, behind bars for their alleged role in the violent heist on Friday.

The would-be thieves struck around 9:30 a.m., when they zeroed in on a woman who had just withdrawn $75,000 in cash from a bank and was pulling into a location in the 23200 block of Northwest Freeway.

As she got out of the car and went in the building, another vehicle pulled up. A man - later identified as Mitchell - jumped out and tackled the woman, pulling her to the ground, pummeling her and yanking at her purse. Her husband spotted the attack and ran outside to help.

Then, another car - a black Chrysler 300 - pulled up. A man later identified as Johnson hopped out and began stomping and beating the woman and her husband, authorities said.

EARLY-MORNING HEIST: Houston man's robbery at gun point caught on camera

As the struggle continued, Johnson allegedly got back in his car and video footage shows the vehicle backing up over the couple before fleeing.

The woman managed to hold onto her purse but was critically injured. She was taken to the hospital for surgery and is expected to live.

Afterward, a Harris County Precinct 4 constable deputy who drove up during the attack arrested Mitchell. He's facing aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon charges and is not cooperating with the investigation, authorities said.

Johnson was arrested sometime Monday, authorities said. There could be other charges filed against additional suspects, police said.

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Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com
Spring ISD will begin work soon to beautify and maintain mechanical systems at four campuses at Link Elementary and Wells, Dueitt and Twin Creeks middle schools.

Earlier this month, Spring ISD trustees approved a $6.39 million package for maintenance projects at Link Elementary School and Wells Middle School.

A second package of $10.5 million will go to maintaining Dueitt Middle School and Twin Creeks Middle School.

Both packages are part of the $330 million bond passed in 2016 that pledged $40 million toward maintaining campuses.

These are some of the older campuses we have and its just age. This is the maintenance just like you would do on a car to keep it running in top condition, said Gary Hutton, executive director of planning and construction.

Originally opened in 1982, Link Elementary School will have new flooring and new paint job as well as beautification on the exterior of the building that will cost about $2.6 million.

Wells Middle School, which opened in 1977, will have mostly electrical and plumbing work on the campus with a $3.7 million cost.

The front entrance is getting a facelift, its kind of difficult to tell where the front entry is if you come to the campus is if you come to the campus. Were trying to make a focal point at the front entry, Hutton said.

Dueitt Middle School, which opened in 1980, and Twin Creeks Middle School, which opened in 1984, will have new carpet, paint, lighting, plumbing and repair work done.

Maintenance projects at four Spring ISD campuses The Spring ISD board of trustees approved more than $16 million toward maintenance projects at four of its campuses as part of its $330 million bond approved by voters in 2016. Link Elementary School: $2.6 million Wells Middle School: $3.7 million Dueitt Middle School: $5.6 million Twin Creeks Middle School: $4.8 million See More Collapse

Twin Creeks will also have the roof replaced.

Dueitt will have $5.6 million in maintenance costs while Twin Creeks will cost $4.8 million.

Hutton said the district will be contractors finalized in September and have the work completed in all four campuses by January.

Over the summer, the district began work remodeling its new police station and tax office at 420 Lockhaven Drive in north Houston, which will cost $1.8 million.

The district also announced it would be breaking ground on its $38 million stadium on Saturday, Sept. 8 at 9:30 a.m.

mayra.cruz@chron.com
Here's a look at Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti makes up the western one-third of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. The eastern two-thirds of the island is the Dominican Republic.

About Haiti:

(from the CIA World Factbook)

Area: 27,750 sq km (slightly smaller than Maryland)

Accidents, disasters and safety Caribbean Diseases and disorders Earthquakes Elections and campaigns Haiti Health and medical Infectious diseases Jean-Bertrand Aristide Latin America Michel Martelly Natural disasters North America Politics Runoff elections United Nations United States Laurent Lamothe Government and public administration Political Figures - Intl Fast Facts Government bodies and offices US federal government Military Peacekeeping Unrest, conflicts and war Political candidates US Federal elections US Presidential elections White House Continents and regions Elections (by type) Government organizations - Intl Protests and demonstrations Resignations The Americas

Population: 10,646,714 (July 2017 est.)

Median age: 23 years

Capital: Port-au-Prince

Ethnic Groups: Black 95%, mixed and white 5%

Religion: Roman Catholic 54.7%, Protestant 28.5% (Baptist 15.4%, Pentecostal 7.9%, Adventist 3%, Methodist 1.5%, other .7%), voodoo 2.1%, other 4.6%, none 10.2%

GDP (purchasing power parity): $19.93 billion (2017 est.)

GDP per capita: $1,800 (2017 est.)

Unemployment: 40.6% (2010 est.)

Timeline:

1492 - Christopher Columbus lands on the island and names it Hispaniola.

1697 - Spain recognizes France's claim to the western third of the island.

1791 - Slaves rebel against plantation owners. Toussaint L'Ouverture, a former slave, takes control and writes a constitution.

January 1, 1804 - Haiti gains independence from France. Haiti is the second oldest independent nation in the Western Hemisphere after the United States.

1804-1915 - Over 70 different dictators rule Haiti.

1915 - US President Woodrow Wilson sends Marines to Haiti to restore order. The United States occupies Haiti until 1934.

1946 - Army officers take control of Haiti's government.

1949 - Army officers take control of the government again after rioting breaks out.

1950 - Army officer Paul Magloire is elected president.

1956 - Magloire resigns after rioting breaks out; the army takes control of the government again.

1957 - Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, a doctor, is elected president.

1964 - Duvalier declares himself president for life and rules as a dictator.

1971 - Haiti amends their constitution to allow the president to choose his successor. Duvalier chooses his son, Jean-Claude, who is 19.

April 1971 - After his father dies, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier declares himself president for life. He uses a secret police force called "Tontons Macoutes" (bogeymen) to enforce his policies.

1986 - Duvalier flees the country after a revolt. Lieutenant General Henri Namphy runs the country and tries, but fails, to get rid of the Tontons Macoutes.

March 1987 - Haiti adopts a new constitution that calls for presidential and national assembly elections by the people.

November 29, 1987 - Elections are canceled after terrorist attacks on polling places. They are rescheduled for January 1988, and the people elect a civilian president and a parliament.

June 1988 - Namphy overthrows the new government and declares himself the president of the military government.

September 1988 - Officers of the Presidential Guard seize power from Namphy. Lieutenant General Prosper Avril declares himself president.

March 1990 - Avril resigns due to protests.

December 1990 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide wins Haiti's first free election.

September 1991 - Aristide is ousted in a military coup and flees the country. The Organization of American States and the United Nations lead trade boycotts to force Aristide's return to power. Many Haitians try to flee to the United States but are forced back to Haiti. Later the refugees are sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

July 3, 1993 - The military government agrees to allow Aristide to return and restore his government by October 30. They later back out of the agreement and do not allow Aristide to return.

September 17, 1994 - US President Bill Clinton sends a delegation to Haiti in hopes of avoiding a military conflict. The team includes former US President Jimmy Carter, General Colin L. Powell, and Senator Sam Nunn. A peace deal prevents an outbreak of fighting.

September 18, 1994 - The United States sends troops to Haiti to maintain order. The first 3,000 troops land on September 19 in Port-au-Prince and are from the Army's 10th Mountain Division, based in Fort Drum, New York.

October 1994 - Aristide is restored to power, while US troops stay in Haiti to maintain order. The United Nations and OAS boycotts end, and the refugees at Guantanamo Bay return to Haiti.

March 1995 - Most US troops leave Haiti.

Late 1995 - Rene Preval, a member of Aristide's Lavalas coalition, is elected president.

April 1996 - The last of the US troops leave.

December 1998 - UN peacekeepers withdraw.

November 2000 - Aristide is elected president again; most other parties boycott the elections and claim they are fraudulent.

February 2004 - Rebels and political opposition leaders oppose Aristide's leadership and methods and want him to be removed from power. Aristide says he will remain in office until the last day of his term, February 7, 2006.

February 8, 2004 - Looting and violence spread throughout Haiti.

February 21, 2004 - An International assessment team made up of officials from the United States, France, Canada, Caricom (the Caribbean Community) and the Organization of American States arrive in Haiti to present Aristide with a peace plan. He accepts the terms of the plan, which include the appointment of a new prime minister, the establishment of a bipartisan cabinet, the holding of new elections to be overseen by international observers and the disarmament of militias, stationed in much of the north. The opposition leaders announce the rejection of any plan that does not include the immediate resignation of Aristide.

February 25, 2004 - President George W. Bush states that any Haitians attempting to enter the United States will be turned back by the Coast Guard, and urges the United Nations to compile an international security presence there.

February 29, 2004 - President Aristide leaves for the Central African Republic. Supreme Court Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre replaces him as the nation's president in a transitional government, as mandated by Haiti's constitution.

March 2004 - American and French troops deploy as part of a multinational peacekeeping force.

March 2, 2004 - Haitian rebel leader Guy Philippe declares himself the country's new police chief and calls for the re-establishment of Haiti's army, which Aristide disbanded in 1991. The United States does not recognize Philippe as the head of the Haitian police.

March 9, 2004 - Gerard Latortue, a 69-year-old international business consultant, is named the new prime minister of Haiti by the US-backed Council of Sages.

April 2004 - The UN Secretary-General recommends the creation of a multidimensional stabilization operation to assist with the situation in Haiti. The operation is called the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

June 2004 - A US-led multinational force turns over authority in Port-au-Prince to UN peacekeepers.

February 7, 2006 - After multiple scheduling delays and allegations of election fraud, Rene Preval is elected president of Haiti.

February 2007 - President Preval has the force of 8,000 UN peacekeepers in Haiti begin an offensive against the street gangs in Port-au-Prince.

January 12, 2010 - A 7.0 magnitude earthquake strikes 14 miles west of Haiti, destroying most of the capital of Port-au-Prince. The earthquake killed an estimated 217,000 people and left more than two million homeless.

October 2010 - Cholera breaks out in Haiti, and more than 6,600 die within a year. As of February 2016, Haiti has reported 771,000 cases of cholera and 9,082 deaths attributed to cholera since the beginning of the 2010 outbreak.

November 28, 2010 - The presidential election is held.

December 2010 - The electoral council announces that former first lady Mirlande Manigat has won but lacks the majority of votes needed for an outright victory. The runoff is scheduled for March 20, 2011.

January 16, 2011 - Former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier unexpectedly returns to Haiti after almost 25 years in exile.

March 20, 2011 - The second round of presidential elections takes place.

April 4, 2011 - Preliminary results in the presidential runoff election show musician Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly with 67.6% of the vote compared to former Haitian first lady Mirlande Manigat's 31.5%.

April 20, 2011 - Martelly is officially declared the president of Haiti by the country's electoral council.

May 14, 2011 - Martelly is sworn in as the president of Haiti.

June 8, 2011 - Heavy rain in Haiti leads to an increase in reported cases of cholera.

July 2011 - According to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, UN peacekeepers from Nepal most likely caused the October 2010 cholera epidemic.

October 2011 - A CDC report details improvements made in sanitation and education that lowered the mortality rate from cholera in Haiti from four percent to below one percent. Since December 2010, fewer people are dying from the disease despite an increase in number of cases reported.

November 8, 2011 - Haitian cholera victims have filed a petition with the United Nations demanding compensation for their suffering, the victims' lawyers announced. Haitians who were sickened are demanding $50,000 each; families of those who died are seeking $100,000.

April 14, 2012 - The Haitian government and the World Health Organization launch a cholera vaccination program targeting 100,000 people.

October 2012 - Dozens die in floods and landslides due to Hurricane Sandy.

December 2014 - After days of anti-government protests in Haiti, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe announces his resignation.

January 9, 2015 - A US federal judge in Manhattan rules that the Haitian victims of the 2010 cholera outbreak cannot sue the United Nations, as it has legal immunity.

January 16, 2015 - Former Port-au-Prince mayor Evans Paul is sworn-in as prime minister.

January 22, 2016 - The presidential election is canceled indefinitely due to alleged fraud, threats and widespread protests.

February 7, 2016 - After five years in office, President Martelly steps down, leaving Haiti with no successor after elections marred by allegations of fraud were postponed twice. Under the terms of an agreement for a transitional government, Haiti's parliament will elect an interim president for a term of 120 days and confirm a consensus prime minister.

February 14, 2016 - The Haitian Parliament elects a new interim president, former head of Parliament Jocelerme Privert.

August 18, 2016 - For the first time, the United Nations acknowledges its own involvement in the cholera outbreak in Haiti in 2010.

November 20, 2016 - A presidential election is held, with 27 candidates competing.

January 3, 2017 - Jovenel Moise is officially declared the new president of Haiti. He nominates Jack Guy Lafontant prime minister the following month.

July 14, 2018 - Prime Minister Lafontant resigns amid violent and deadly protests sparked by a proposed plan to raise fuel prices.

August 5, 2018 - President Moise announces that Jean-Henry Ceant will be the nation's new prime minister.
Conroe Independent School District officials seem to have recognized that students are more willing to text than they are to call, especially when it comes to alerting police officers of a dangerous situation.

This month, just in time for the start of the school year, the Conroe ISD Police Department rolled out a new application called Anonymous Alerts.

If students download the app, they can text tips 24/7 to the districts dispatch office if they see bullying incidents or safety issues such as unusual behavior or weapons on campus.

CISD Police Chief Bill Harness said all commanders receive a text message and email containing submitted tip information, and they then assign an officer or administrator to look into it.

Its working. Even before school started, we had notifications that someone was talking about suicide, and we did what we needed to do to make sure that they got assistance quickly, Harness said.

For more than 20 years, the district has had a school crime-stopper program. Officials still offer the use of Kid Chat, which allows students to make a phone call and report a tip.

Safety is not just a law enforcement issue. We need our students and parents to be our eyes and ears out there in the community, Harness said. Its important to work together to determine what we need to be looking at.

CISD police Sgt. Matt Blakelock said while the department is still working on officially presenting the app to parents and the community via various marketing methods, officials have already been advertising it on posters around the districts dozens of schools.

Blakelock said the posters have basic information about the app, as well as a code that the students can scan to download the app. According to Blakelock, the signs havent gone unnoticed.

Kids text more than they talk. Within the first two hours of school (on the first day), there was a student who sent a tip in, Blakelock said.

Harness said the first day of school, which was Wednesday, Aug. 15, could have brought other security challenges with the opening of two new schools, Grand Oaks High School and Katherine J. Clark Intermediate School, but aside from the congested traffic that ensued as parents dropped their children off, he said that he felt comfortable watching students enter the new campuses.

All of our officers in the area have gone through the buildings as they were built, and have been watching them at night and responding to calls, Harness said.

Harness also said that many administrators and teachers are not brand new on campus. They have experience, so theyre informed when it comes to safety protocol.

In addition, both schools have the districts visitor check-in system, security cameras and entry vestibules. Other CISD schools have been retrofitted with cameras and vestibules as part of the districts 2015 bond package.

While the district now employs more than 75 officers and prevention control monitors, officials and members of the district Board of Trustees in the past few months have discussed adding 46 district police officers to their force over the next two school years. The proposal, which is scheduled to be discussed during an Aug. 21 CISD board meeting, could cost $3.2 million in total if all 46 officers were hired. That cost estimate would also include training as well as new equipment and vehicles.

In the projected 2018-19 CISD budget, set to be voted on Aug. 21, about $1.2 million is allotted to begin this process.

The department isnt just inwardly focused as the school year begins, though.

Throughout the first part of August, officials have had meetings with other law enforcement entities, such as officials with the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office, Montgomery County Commissioners Court Precinct 3, and the Texas Department of Public Safety, to discuss how the entities can work together.

Safe schools dont just happen. Its a total community effort, Harness said.

jane.stueckemann@chron.com
NEW HAVEN  By fall, Audubon Street will be bookmarked at either end with almost matching traffic calming components as the city gets ready for the addition of hundreds of apartments in the mini-city that Spinnaker Real Estate Partners is constructing.

Neighborhood residents attended a meeting Monday at City Hall where the particulars of the design were explained by City Engineer Giovanni Zinn.

At Audubon and Orange streets, the city will add a 30-foot-by-30-foot raised table to slow traffic at an intersection that will see increased pedestrian and vehicular traffic as 269 apartments populate the block bound by Orange, Audubon, State and Grove streets, as well as wrap and hide a 716-car garage.

The project also will include 5,000 square feet of retail on the Orange Street side.

Already at the site is McQueeney Towers, a Housing Authority property, and the Educational Center for the Arts, while the Creative Arts Center is in the middle of the block.

Audubon also leads to the train station on State Street, which is much more prominent now that trains are running to Hartford on a regular basis.

More for you New Haven condo development going before planners

The traffic calming design at Whitney Avenue and Audubon Street, a block away, is wider than Orange Street as it has two traveling lanes and two parking lanes as well as a bumpout.

Both feature, at the corners, bollards connected to chains that direct the pedestrian traffic to the right crossings. The dimensions of the streets are not changed, they are only raised about six inches, Zinn said, but it will be a gentle rise.

The Orange and Audubon street intersection will be closed for two days for paving, while there will be lane closures throughout the two- to three-week construction sometime between September and December.

The project will cost close to $120,000 with Spinnaker volunteering to cover half.

The surface will be asphalt with red thermal plastic crosswalks. Zinn said the material is melted into the asphalt and becomes part of it. It is very survivable and doesnt have the issue with bricks lifting out or a plow catching a brick, Zinn said. It enhances visibility.

It is attractive. We use it all over town the engineer said. New Haven has many raised tables around town, including Clinton Avenue and Edwards Street. Zinn said the Orange Street raised table was designed by Chris Flanagan.

We are pretty innovative in what we do in traffic calming, Zinn said, particularly since 2010 and the complete streets legislation and manual.

mary.oleary@hearstmediact.com
NEW HAVEN  An aldermanic committee Monday took another look at creating laws on controlling dangerous dogs.

Members of the alders Legislation Committee approved amendments to the citys animal ordinance that focus on defining vicious or dangerous dogs and leash laws, among other issues.

The additions to the ordinance include new language on dangerous and vicious dogs, breeders permits, requirements for parvovirus vaccinations and leash laws that clarify current language about animals roaming at large.

Unfortunately sometimes things happen through tragedy and this ordinance before (us) is part of that, Alder Brian Wingate, D-29, said. Wingate was spurred to created legislation about vicious dogs after witnessing the fatal mauling of Jocelyn Winfrey a little more than two years ago.

The city has been working since then on legislation to address issues surrounding dangerous dogs. The Public Safety Committee in June drafted language specific to vicious or dangerous dogs to amend the citys animal ordinance, pulling language from New Britains and Windsors existing laws that already have been vetted and are compliant with state law.

According to the revised draft, Dangerous or vicious dogs means dogs that have attacked, bitten, or otherwise injured humans without provocation, or dogs that present an unacceptably high risk of causing serious injury, even before causing any such injury. Snarling, showing of teeth, and lunging without provocation can be considered signs of unacceptable high-risk behavior.

Related video: Dallas to vote on dangerous dog ordinance

Currently, animal control officers use state statutes to deal with incidents of dogs that have attacked or bitten people, said Animal Control Officer Joseph Manganiello, but they dont have the power to take action before a dog hurts somebody. Animal control officers would be able to designate a dangerous or vicious dog in active situations, which is a new section being proposed.

Under the proposed amendment, once a dog is determined to be vicious or dangerous, it would need to be registered with animal control at the shelter as a dangerous dog; given a microchip registered with the owner; muzzled whenever its not inside; not be left outside unattended, even if its fenced in or tethered to the property; and not be allowed left alone with children. Also, signs would need to be posted visible to the street warning people about the dog.

This ordinance creates a legal framework to empower the city to protect animals from people and protect people from animals, and we need that regulation,Alder Adam Marchand, D-25, said. The ordinance is long overdue in being updated and the Public Safety Committee have done a really good job.

The amendment also includes new leash laws, which require dogs to be kept on a leash in streets, in public spaces, or any property that doesnt belong to the dog owner, according to the proposed ordinance. The leashes wouldnt be allowed any longer than six feet, including extendable ones, and the law doesnt apply to public safety dogs while on duty or duly certified service dogs guiding the blind or guiding other physically disabled persons.

But several committee members questioned the leash length requirement. Alder Richard Furlow, D-27, said it would be hard to determine how long a leash actually is if a person had a rope or chain wrapped around their hand, and suggested setting a limited distance a dog could be from an owner. Manganiello said the most important part is that dog owners are able to control their animals. The committee wanted to change the exact language before the legislation went for final vote.

Manganiello said an equally important part of the ordinance is the regulations on breeding, which currently dont exist in any capacity in the city. The only restriction in place to control breeding lies in state statutes, which control the number of times a person is allowed to breed the same dog, he said. Not only does uncontrolled breeding create dangerous situations with the animals, its also medically dangerous for them, he said. With the added language to the ordinance, anyone wanting to breed their dogs in the city would require a permit, even if it were only one litter.

The committee is looking to modify language in the proposed amendments before the issue goes for a second reading at the next full Board of Alders meeting. Particularly, Alder Charles Decker, D-9, was concerned that the leash law could be enforced in a dog park and alder Darryl Brackeen Jr., D-26, wanted new language for the leash requirements. The amendments have not gone through the citys corporation counsel yet to be determined lawful for New Haven.

This ordinance is actually urgent, Marchand said. We need to empower public safety to empower and protect people.  The clock is ticking on this.

mdignan@hearstmediact.com
A Colorado man told police that he killed his pregnant wife in a "rage" after she strangled their two daughters, according to an affidavit released by police on Monday after prosecutors formally charged Christopher Lee Watts with the murder of his entire family.

The bodies of Watts' wife and children were found last week on the property of the oil and gas company he worked for near Denver.

According to the new documents released by Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke, Watts, 33, told detectives that he and his wife, Shanann, 34, discussed ending their marriage on Aug. 13. Watts, who was having an affair with a co-worker, claimed that by the end of the conversation, both were "upset and crying." He told investigators that he went downstairs, then returned to speak with Shanann. He looked at the baby monitor in their bedroom and what he saw threw him "into a rage": His older daughter, Bella, 4, was "sprawled out on her bed," and Shannon Watts was strangling their younger daughter Celeste, 3, he said.

After a multiday investigation, Christopher Watts confessed to killing his wife, loading the bodies into his truck and driving to an oil work site, where he left them.

Watts has been held without bail since his arrest Wednesday. He is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday morning, when he will be informed of the charges against him.

He faces five counts of first-degree murder, one count of unlawful termination of pregnancy and two counts of tampering with a deceased human body.

The first three charges of murder in the first degree accuse Watts of killing his wife, who was 15 weeks pregnant, and his daughters "after deliberation." Under Colorado law, "after deliberation" means that Watts not only intended to kill his family, but opted to commit the homicides after he took time to reflect on his decision to do so. "An act committed after deliberation is never one which has been committed in a hasty or impulsive manner," according to the state statute.

The district attorney's office also filed two additional counts of first-degree murder for Bella and Celeste. To convict Watts on these counts, prosecutors must prove that the children were younger than 12 at the time, and that Watts was "in a position of trust." As their father, Watts fits Colorado's definition of the latter.

A motion that Watts' attorneys filed Friday suggested that the two children may have been strangled and stated that their bodies had been submerged in crude oil for four days. The attorneys had asked to obtain DNA samples from the children's necks, as well as from their mother's hands and nails, arguing that DNA would still be present on the bodies. A Weld County judge, however, denied the request.

Authorities have not said how the victims died. James Mason, a deputy state public defender in rural Weld County, did not respond to a request for comment.

Although the couple led what appeared to be an idyllic life, in 2015, two years after buying their big two-story house, the Wattses filed for bankruptcy, The Washington Post previously reported. They were under pressure from a $400,000 mortgage and more than $50,000 in credit card debt, bankruptcy court documents show.
(CNN) -- [Breaking news update, posted at 7:20 p.m. ET]

Chris Watts told Colorado police he strangled his pregnant wife, Shanann, in a rage after he saw her strangling their daughter, Celeste, 3.

The Weld County arrest affidavit from police in Frederick claims the other daughter, Bella, 4, was "sprawled out" on her bed and blue.

[Previous update, published at 7:01 p.m. ET]

A Colorado man was charged Monday with first-degree murder in the killings of his pregnant wife and their two young daughters days after their bodies were found discovered in a shallow grave and inside oil tanks.

Chris Watts is being held in the deaths of Shanann Watts, 34, and daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3. Two additional first-degree murder charges accuse him of causing the death of a child under age 12.

Watts also faces three counts of tampering with a body, and a count of first-degree unlawful termination of a pregnancy, Weld County District Attorney Michael J. Rourke told reporters. He did not provide a motive in the case.

Watts, 33, is being held without bond, with his next court appearance scheduled for Tuesday morning.

Shanann's father, Frank Rzucek Sr., said the family appreciates those who attended a candlelight vigil and expressed support.

"Keep the prayers coming for our family," he said holding back tears.

Shanann, Bella and Celeste were reported missing August 13 from their home in Frederick, a town of about 8,600 people 30 miles north of Denver.

Their bodies were found Thursday at the site of a petroleum and natural gas company where Chris Watts had worked, authorities said.

A court filing by prosecutors says Shanann Watts' body was "recovered from a shallow grave near an oil tank," and that "law enforcement recovered the bodies of defendant's two daughters from inside oil tanks located near the grave of their mother."

A judge unsealed the arrest affidavit, which might provide information about why Chris Watts was arrested and other details.

Autopsy results have not been released, but documents filed Friday in Chris Watts' arrest reveal some of the victims may have been strangled, along with other grim details.

Judge Marcelo Kopcow denied several motions from defense attorneys, including a request to require pathologists to swab the little girls' necks, throats and hands for DNA. Watt's attorneys have not commented on the case.

Friend recalls last time she saw Shanann

In a Monday interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," friend Nicole Atkinson said she dropped Shanann off at home about 2 a.m. August 13 after they finished a business trip.

"She went inside, turned around and waved at me and shut the door," Atkinson said.

Shanann didn't return calls later that day and missed a medical appointment at which she was expected to hear her unborn child's heartbeat, Atkinson said. Shanann was 15 weeks pregnant.

Atkinson said she contacted Chris Watts, but he didn't seem as worried as she thought he should be. Atkinson said she then contacted police.

In an interview with a local news station Tuesday -- after his family disappeared but before his arrest -- Chris Watts also said his wife got home around 2 a.m.

"We had an emotional conversation, I'll leave it at that," Watts told a reporter who asked whether they'd argued. "I just want them back. I just want them to come back."

Watts said he left for work about 5:15 a.m. that day and wasn't concerned when his wife didn't respond to his texts and phone calls since she'd just returned from being out of town.

But he grew worried, he said, when one of her friends contacted him around noon and said she wasn't responding to messages.

"I walked in the house and -- nothing," Chris Watts told KMGH. "She wasn't here. The kids weren't here."

Bodies found at petroleum facility

Shanann Watts' body was found on the property of Anadarko Petroleum, authorities said. The girls' bodies were in an "oil well filled with crude oil for several days," Chris Watts' attorneys indicated in a court filing.

Chris Watts was terminated from Anadarko Petroleum on August 15, company communications manager Jennifer Brice said. Watts was taken into custody late that day by the Frederick Police Department.

Chris and Shanann Watts faced financial problems in recent years and filed for bankruptcy in 2015. Their homeowners association, Wyndham Hill Master Association, recently sued the couple, saying they owed $1,533.80, according to a civil suit obtained by CNN.
MOSCOW - Members of the Taliban are expected to come to Russia in early September for talks on the future of Afghanistan, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, announcing a visit that would mark a turning point in global attempts to publicly bring the insurgents to the negotiating table.

"Representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban movement have been invited," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, adding that "the initial response has been positive."

Moscow has invited delegates from 11 countries, including regional heavyweights China, Iran and Pakistan, which border Afghanistan, to attend the Sept. 4 talks in the Russian capital. If the Taliban does come, it would mark its first attendance at such an event.

The radical Islamist movement rejected an offer to attend a similar meeting in Moscow last year, as did Washington.

The United States indicated Tuesday that it would not attend. "We support Afghan-owned and -led initiatives to advance a peace settlement in Afghanistan," a State Department spokesman said. "We believe this initiative is unlikely to yield any progress toward that end."

Back-channel diplomacy between the Taliban and a range of countries, from the United States to Turkey and Saudi Arabia, has taken place over a number of years, often under the shroud of secrecy, aimed at ending the crippling and costly 17-year war.

Taliban representatives said they held private talks last month with American diplomats, with no members of the Afghan government present, in the Qatari capital of Doha, where the group maintains a political office, the only one of its kind.

The Afghan leadership is not always consulted and included in talks, even though the Taliban and the government in Kabul held a maiden round of peace talks three years ago in Pakistan. Kabul's ambassador to Russia, Abdul Qayyum Kochai, told reporters Monday that he often learned of Moscow's interactions with the Taliban through media reports.

A brief cease-fire in June between the Taliban and the U.S.-supported Afghan armed forces injected a dose of rare optimism into the weary populace of Afghanistan, where a homegrown peace activist movement has strengthened in recent months.

Following that success, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani proposed a three-month, conditional truce on Sunday, but the Taliban has since sent out conflicting signals in response. As Ghani delivered a speech Tuesday marking the beginning of the important Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, a sustained rocket attack shook Kabul. No casualties were reported, and the Taliban denied involvement.

A visit to Moscow by the Taliban for talks would be a major coup for Russia, coming as the country regains influence on the global stage. Nearly 40 years have passed since Moscow sent its own troops into Afghanistan, beginning a decade-long, disastrous war that is seen as the precursor to the country's endemic violence today.

Moscow has long maintained that instability in Afghanistan, which bordered the former Soviet Union and is still seen by Russia as well within its sphere of influence, poses a threat at home.

Engaging with the Taliban is necessary "in order to ensure the security of Russian citizens and also to encourage Taliban members to forgo the armed struggle and join the nationwide dialogue with the government," Lavrov told reporters.

To its north, Afghanistan is bordered by the Muslim-majority countries of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan - former Soviet republics with which Russia maintains close ties. The Kremlin worries that violence can spill over into Central Asia from Afghanistan, especially with the emergence there of the Islamic State.

Those fears were realized last month when four cyclists, two of whom were American, were killed in Tajikistan in an attack claimed by the Islamic State. It was the extremist group's first deadly assault in Central Asia.
Firefighters continue to battle the Hirz Fire burning north of Redding.

Most of the southeast side of the fire along the McCloud arm of the lake has been contained.

But firefighters are focusing their efforts on the south and southwest parts of the fire.

We have a great dozer line, fire information specialist with the US Forest Service Daniel Ramey said. It's about two to six blades thick. It's a really really strong line. Firefighters have put a lot of good work into it. And we want to hold it there.

Firefighters are conducting prescribed burns along those dozer lines as well when weather permits.

And what you're doing is you're taking away some of that high fuels long that line, Ramey said. As the fire creeps and it moves it's way towards the line, we're taking away that fuel as the weather allows us to.

And while the fire is burning away from the lake at this point, the smoke is causing some problems for local businesses along the lake.

The fire has approached some of the shoreline, but in perspective it's a very very small sections of the shoreline, Shasta Caverns general manager Matt Doyle said. The largest impact that we have right now is the smoke.

Doyle says theres also been some confusion as to where the fire is actually burning.

We're leading right up to Labor Day weekend, Doyle said. It's the last big holiday weekend for summer right here on Shasta Lake. If people continuously think that we have smoke up here, the lake is engulfed with flames and all the resorts are closed, that is going to have a huge economic impact for entire Northern California.

Doyle says before the Carr and Hirz fires, they were on track to have one of their busiest years ever, but now theyre actually 75 percent down where they were at this time last year.

And even though the smoke is a problem for now, firefighters estimate the fire to be 100 percent contained by September 1 just in time for the Labor Day weekend.

It is concerning, Ramey said. But that's why getting the word out there that this is a controlled burn and it's doing what we want and there's good progress. The firefighters are doing some excellent work out there.

For latest information on Hirz Fire acreage and containment, click here.
The deaths of two foreign visitors amid a growing crime wave has left Costa Rica fearing for its tourism-dependent economy.

The reputation of the most-visited Central American country took a hit earlier in the month when two female foreign visitors were killed in the span of two days and a third was reportedly raped a week later. The crimes took place near the Tortuguero National Park, where a 31-year-old woman was found dead with strangle marks around her neck, and at El Carmen beach in Santa Teresa, a popular holiday spot on the Pacific coast, where a 25-year-old woman drowned when two men attacked her and a friend.

Murders in Costa Rica have been on the rise since 2012, with a record 603 people killed in 2017. Authorities forecast an even higher number this year.

"We are very worried, the situation we are witnessing is critical," Tourism Minister Maria Amalia Revelo said after the crimes happened. "We'd all like more police, but we all know the government's fiscal situation."

With a ballooning spending gap, Costa Rica's government relies on tourism as its main source of income. Its fiscal deficit is forecast to reach 7.5 percent of GDP next year, the widest in at least three decades. Interest payments are eating up more of the budget every year due to the government's reliance on short-term debt. A tax reform aimed boosting revenues has stalled in Congress.

Nearly three million tourists visited the Central American nation last year, roughly half from the U.S. and Canada, bringing $3.9 billion for the economy, according to the tourism chamber. Growth in tourist visits started to slow in 2017 as the number of American visitors declined for the first time since 2009.

"There has already been damage done to the country's image," Security minister Michael Soto said.

The government said it will use $4 million from the Costa Rica Tourism Institute to increase police presence in tourist areas, conduct more "mega-operations" to catch criminals attacking travelers and launch a mobile phone application for tourists that contains crime data on areas they plan to visit.

"These incidents infuriate us," President Carlos Alvarado has said, promising "intense work" to reverse the situation.
RICHMOND, Va. - Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, D, is calling the General Assembly into special session on Aug. 30 to redraw legislative districts that a federal court decided had been racially gerrymandered.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled on June 26 that the lines for 11 House of Delegates districts had been drawn with the purpose of concentrating black voters.

The 2-to-1 ruling was a victory for Democrats, who hope that new district boundaries will help them retake control of the House for the first time in nearly two decades. Last year's elections wiped out a 2-to-1 GOP advantage in the 100-seat House, leaving Republicans with a narrow 51-to-49 majority.

The court ordered that new boundaries be drawn by Oct. 30 for use in next year's state elections.

"It is in the public interest for the General Assembly to finalize constitutional maps as soon as possible - Virginians deserve that clarity," Northam wrote in the proclamation he signed Monday to call the legislature back to Richmond. "I am calling a special session so we can focus our collective attention on doing what's right: working together to draw lines that represent Virginians fairly."

But Republicans who control the General Assembly have appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, and they have asked the District Court to suspend the deadline, arguing that the lower court erred in finding the districts to be discriminatory against African Americans.

"We fully intend to continue to pursue both our request for a stay from the Eastern District Court and our appeal to the United States Supreme Court," House Speaker Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, said in an emailed response to Northam's action.

The 11 districts are in Hampton Roads and greater Richmond. But changes to those districts could have a cascading effect, altering the demographics of some of the 22 adjacent districts.

The boundaries were drawn after the 2010 Census, when Republicans controlled the House and Democrats controlled the Senate. With new boundaries, Republicans took control of the Senate and extended their majority in the House - until last year's wave of Democratic victories in reaction to an unpopular President Donald Trump.

Cox said the legislature would convene as mandated by the governor but noted that Republicans will file a response this week to a request for more information by the court as it considers postponing the deadline.

"Drawing a map that can withstand legal scrutiny is neither a quick nor simple process," Cox said, adding that it will require holding committee meetings and seeking input around the state.

The August special session, Cox said, gives Northam and Democratic House leaders a chance to "demonstrate a willingness to engage in a good-faith effort. We look forward to reviewing their proposal."

Republican leaders were peeved by Northam's insistence on a special session while the case is on appeal. It's the second issue in as many weeks to create partisan friction, after Northam earlier proposed using a windfall from federal tax cuts to provide tax relief to low-income Virginians.

Cox and other GOP lawmakers accused the governor of neglecting middle-class taxpayers. On Monday in a Twitter post, Cox's spokesman drew a connection between the tax proposal and the announcement of a special session for redistricting: "Given how @GovernorVA's tax plan has been received, I would want to change the subject too," Parker Slaybaugh wrote.

Northam campaigned for governor on a pledge to seek nonpartisan redistricting maps, but he is not advocating for an outside body to draw the lines this time. Instead, he is calling on the General Assembly to work across the aisle to approve a plan.

There is no time frame on the special session called by Northam, but it would be working under the Oct. 30 deadline unless Republicans succeed in getting that date suspended.

"The governor's hope is always that we can do this the Virginia way and sit down at the table and do this right," spokeswoman Ofirah Yheskel said. "And the right thing to do is to come up with constitutional districts."

Virginia legislators do not have a good recent record on the topic. When federal courts found three congressional districts to be unconstitutional in 2015, lawmakers in the General Assembly were unable to establish new lines. A panel of judges wound up imposing its own redistricting plan.
HARWINTON  Fresh produce from Litchfield County farms is reaching more customers this summer with the help of the Northwest Connecticut Regional Food Hub.

The project is operated by the Partners for Sustainable Healthy Communities Inc., a nonprofit group, with support from the Northwest Hills Council of Governments.

The food hub program buys produce from participating farms and distributes it to clients, including restaurants, natural food stores and a private school.

It lets farmers stay on the farm and not drive produce around. They grow beautiful produce, and can concentrate on that, said Jocelyn Ayer, community and economic development director for the council.

The idea is working. Last year, the programs first summer, 10 farms sold produce to the food hub. This year, the number has grown to 16. The client base has nearly doubled, from 10 to 18.

Its a wholesale project for produce, said Mark Gauger, owner of Maple View Farm in Harwinton. They buy up surplus items. We have sold potatoes, onions and carrots.

Gauger and his wife, Carole, have owned the farm since 1990 and operate a Community Supported Agriculture site, which allows members to buy shares of the farms weekly produce harvest.

The food hub offers to buy produce on a weekly basis, Gauger said. They send a text, What do you have? Any of this? he said.

If he has a surplus of specific vegetables the food hub needs, a worker will pick up the produce at the farm and pay a negotiated price.

It makes life simple for us so we dont have to go out and sell, said Jon Sederquist of Deeply Rooted Farms in Harwinton.

He said small farms cant grow enough produce to sell at wholesale markets. Driving to Kent with two flats of strawberries doesnt make sense, Sederquist said.

He and his wife, Patti, plant 1.5 acres of day neutral strawberries, also known as everbearing. The plants flower based on temperature, and can be harvested as late as September. The farm also grows gourds and Christmas trees.

Sederquest sold four flats of strawberries to the food hub this week, he said, adding that the familys involvement in the program has been very positive.

It could be a material contributor (of income), Sederquest said. Its a good chance for smaller farms to get a good price at a wholesale quantity. I was surprised by the price point.

This is a huge advantage for small farmers, said food hub operator Kay Carroll.

If they grow it well, they will be able to sell it and the client will have food to provide, Caroll said.

Carroll said the organizations clients include Ore Hill & Swyft restaurant in Kent, Community Table restaurant in Washington, The Watermark at East Hill in Southbury, a senior living facility, the Forman School in Litchfield and New Morning Market in Woodbury.

They are all interested in local, sustainable food, she said.

To operate the program this year, the food hub received grants and donations of nearly $108,000, from a variety of sources, Ayer wrote in a statement. (The funds were) managed and secured by Partners for Sustainable Healthy Communities, she wrote.

A small portion of the funding pays to rent a warehouse on Broad Street in Torrington, where the food hub produce is delivered and packaged for distribution.

The distribution process begins with a list of whats available from farmers, Carroll said. The client orders from the list and the produce is picked up from farms and delivered to the client locations. The list for the Aug. 12 distribution, for example, offered the clients more than 20 kinds of produce. The choices of vegetables included Green Slicer cucumbers, Chocolate Pear tomatoes, pea shoots, orange carrots and mixed edible flowers.

Our goal is to have more places available (to purchase produce) and more people involved, in selling it, Carroll said. We have doubled business this year. Our producers are very happy.

I expect to continue with the food hub, Gauger said. I want to keep the relationship going and work on the list of what works for them.
KABUL, Afghanistan - A sustained rocket attack shook the Afghan capital Tuesday morning just as President Ashraf Ghani was delivering a speech marking the beginning of Eid al-Adha, the most important holiday in the Muslim calendar.

There were no reports of casualties from the dozen short range rockets fired, and no group claimed immediate responsibility, but the high-profile assault appeared to be a rejection by Taliban insurgents of Ghani's offer Sunday for a conditional three-month truce.

Some Taliban leaders said Monday they were still discussing the matter.

As Ghani spoke from his palace Tuesday, the rocket fire could be heard across the city, and the president calmly acknowledged the threat of violence and made it clear that the government was expecting insurgent attacks during Eid.

"We announced a cease-fire providing it is bilateral," he said. But all were ready to believe that some groups and individuals who believe in plots and bloodletting will resort today to acts that would jeopardize the tranquility of the Afghan nation."

"If they believe they can subdue this nation with this rocketing, they should rethink that. This nation has the resolve and courage to defend its independence, freedom and religious customs," he added.

The Interior Minister later said that three attackers were killed by a helicopter gunship that bombed the warehouse they were holed up in near the Ministry of Defense, several blocks from the presidential palace.

The Afghan public and the government's international backers, led by the United States, have been hoping that the successful cease-fire in June, followed by first-ever private talks between Taliban representatives and U.S. diplomats, would lead to a second and more extended truce and a revival of long-abandoned peace talks for the grueling and costly 17-year war.

But some analysts expressed skepticism after the insurgents launched an ambitious attack this month on the strategic city of Ghazni, leaving 120 people dead and buildings destroyed during a four-day siege before they were finally driven out by Afghan ground forces and U.S. air attacks.

Since Ghani's offer on Sunday, the insurgents have sent mixed signals. On the same day the group issued a statement saying it intended to release 300 prisoners, but on Monday, Taliban fighters kidnapped some 150 bus passengers in the northern city of Kunduz, a reminder of the militants' ferocious assault on that strategic city in 2015.

The bus passengers were later rescued unharmed by Afghan security forces.

In a lengthy written Eid message to the nation, released Sunday, the top Taliban leader, Maulvi Hibatullah Akundhzada, appeared to reject the possibility of a truce or peace talks, asserting that the insurgents would continue fighting and insisting that the "lone option" for ending the conflict would be the complete withdrawal of U.S. and foreign troops.

"May God bestow victory on the mujahideen . . . our jihadi struggle against the American occupation is on the threshold of victory," Akundhzada said. He asserted that "bringing peace and security is among the highest priorities of the Islamic Emirate, but peace will remain elusive during an occupation, and no salvation is possible without the establishment of an Islamic authority."

---

The Washington Post's Sayed Salahuddin contributed to this report
South Korean President Moon Jae-in will likely visit Japan to hold a summit meeting with the prime minister by the end of this year.

The Japanese and South Korean governments are believed to be working out the schedule with an eye on October, as the month will mark the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Japan-South Korea Joint Declaration in 1998, which stipulated that the two countries would build a future-oriented relationship, according to sources.
Orland, Calif. - The Orland Police Department is hosting its 6th annual Laws and Paws Live Music Festival to raise money for the Orland PD k9 Unit.

This year's headliners are Mckenna Faith and Heartstealer with special guest Off The Record.

Admission to the event is $5 and all proceeds will go to the Orland PD k9 Unit. Larger donations are accepted and encouraged.

WHEN: Saturday, August 25 from 4 - 10 p.m.

WHERE: Glenn County Fairgrounds located at 221 E. Yolo Street, Orland.
CHICO, Calif. - The Chico Peace and Justice Center invited Shepard Fairey and his company, "Obey Giant," to paint a mural in downtown Chico.

The Chico Peace and Justice Center contacted Shepard Fairey about two-and-a-half years ago about this project.

Shepard and his team began painting the mural on Sunday morning, and plan to finish by Tuesday.

Shepard is most commonly known for his tribute to former President Barack Obama. He created his "Hope" poster for the presidential election back in 2012.

Robert Zagula, Shepard's art assistant, said the project in Chico was right up his alley, "Shepards aesthetic is about peace and justice and harmony so it fit perfectly for him."

Shepard used something called a "stencil process" to create the mural.

Robert said they start off by creating the image on a computer screen. They size-up the image to the wall, and then using an oversized copier print out the image.

From there, using an X-Acto blade, slice pieces out and color them to the wall with spray paint.

Robert explained where Shepard gets his inspiration, "He's a propaganda artist so he usually uses red black and creme because those are the most shocking colors, and Russian propaganda from back in the day used to use those colors."

The mural stretches 20-feet-tall and 60-feet-wide. It is located on the Chico Peace and Justic Center wall on Broadway Street, facing the Jack In The Box restaurant.

Robert said the community has expressed a lot of excitement about the new mural, "A bunch of people came by and they've been really happy they dropped off some sunflowers and a bunch of shirts and coffees, so every body's been really great."

Everyone involved in the mural planning, as well as those who helped support the project, are invited to a party in celebration of the mural at 6:30 Tuesday night, at the Chico Peace and Justice Center.
SHASTA COUNTY, Calif. - A Shasta County woman has pleaded guilty to a fatal head-on crash on the I5 in January.

Prosecutors say that Grace Elizabeth Ward, 28, of Shasta County, was trying to kill herself by intentionally driving the wrong way on the freeway in Tehama County. She crashed into a car driven by Ryan Folsom, 29, of Oregon, who was on his way to Sacramento for a job interview.

Folsom died as a result of the crash, and is survived by his wife and three children.

Prosecutors say that Ward is expected to serve a life sentence in prison for second degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon.
A man has been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of a security guard in north Houston.

Courtney Chatmon, 20, is accused of shooting and killing Robert Marquez, 55, on June 9 while he was patrolling a neighborhood near Rushcreek and Ella.
An open garage door at Madge and Don Blanzs house has become a sign to neighbors  a welcoming sign.

If the door is open, that means were available, Madge said.

Since Harvey, the garage has served as part coffee shop, part command central. As residents returned to the neighborhood to rebuild, the Blanz home became a safe haven. The couple offered space to anyone who needed a place to stop, to sit, to use electricity, to chat or to ask for advice. At night, the neighbors call the space Dons Garage Bar. A sign reads Sip Happens.

Even months after the storm, this neighborhood in Katy is still rebuilding after the hurricane  and the garage is still a hotspot. They still come, Madge said. They keep coming.

Some come early to drink coffee with Madge. Shes up at 6 a.m. usually, with a cup of joe, no cream or sugar. Others prefer to stop by in the evening for wine and conversation.

Most of the neighbors did not have flood insurance, Madge explained. After all, the subdivision had never flooded before.

Madge remembers watching the rains stop and thinking it was over. On Sunday morning, however, it began to rise again.

It was the release that got us, Madge said. All of the homes in our subdivision had water.

When she saw the floods circling the house, she knew it was time to leave. People in boats came into the community. We packed a bag thinking wed be gone for two days, Madge recalled.

Instead, she and Don stayed at their daughter Jennifer Gonzales home for five weeks. They returned around Labor Day. Almost two feet of water had coursed through their house, and the couple had to tear apart their floor and walls. Don, who is 83, joined the volunteers who helped them muck out the house and rebuild. They pulled a travel trailer into the driveway and lived there while crews worked on their house.

The Blanzes had a jump on rebuilding, thanks to the help of their six adult children. They were the first family in the neighborhood to return. And they were perfectly positioned to help, as others followed suit.

People would check on their houses and stop by, Madge said. We ended up sitting and talking. It was group therapy more or less.

Neighbors would come over and use the washing machine or the Wi-Fi, charge their phones, send emails, have a glass of water or coffee, put food in the fridge, use the restroom. Madge and Don even hosted a Halloween Party; 35 people showed up, standing in the rain just to be together, happy to attain a sense of community.

One neighbor, Laura Mendenhall said it was reassuring when Don and Madge checked on each resident who returned to the street.

Whenever a neighbor needed a break, no matter the time of day, it was understood to mean, Im going to Madges, she said.
Mary Kay Guidry was watching a movie with her 8-year-old grandson, Lane, on Saturday evening when Hurricane Harveys rains reached her Friendswood home. She kept getting up to look out the back windows, where her property meets Clear Creek. The back yard seemed fine.

An hour later, Guidry and her husband were stunned to see water coming in from the front. Within 30 minutes, it had reached their waists.

Away from his mom to spend the night with his grandparents for the night, Lane was scared.

The family moved to the garage to seek refuge in the bed of their pickup truck, and Guidry called the deacons at her church who were rescuing members from flooded homes by boat. She learned a boat could no longer reach them because the creeks waters had trapped the homes on her block. The option to leave was gone, Guidry said. There was no way out.

Around this time, Michael Brandt, 40, was returning to his parents home, next door to the Guidrys. Because the creekside homes had flooded during Tropical Storm Allison, Brandt who works in safety and rescue at refineries and chemical plants  had spent the day helping neighbors move to higher ground. He was making his final trip to retrieve a hamster a friend had forgotten.

Thats when he spotted the Guidrys, who were huddled with three more neighbors in the truck bed. The truck was rocking from the waters current, Brandt recalled. Everyone was crying. It was like a bad dream.

Brandt reacted quickly, borrowing a flashlight and telling them about a canoe he had seen tied up in a neighbors yard.

He didnt seem afraid at all, Guidry said. There was no fear. No hesitance.

It took Brandt, who is 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, 40 minutes to return with the aluminum dinghy he found three doors down.

The water was moving deadly fast and was up to his neck, Brandt said. He steadied the dingy while the Guidrys put their grandson in. The group parted ways with Brandt and made their way with the boat to Wedgewood Elementary, where they stayed for the night. Brandt went back for the hamster.

Without the boat, there was no way, Guidry said. He truly saved our lives.

Five days later, the Guidrys reunited with Brandt. They tearfully hugged and thanked him.

Our whole street was like a family, said Brandt, who misses the camaraderie. Many of the families - including his parents and the Guidrys - have moved because of the damage to their homes and fear of future flooding.

Theres no way in hell I would have left anybody behind, he said.

The hamster that led to the Guidrys rescue survived, too.

houstonheroes@chron.com
The UN secretary-generals personal envoy for Western Sahara has briefed the UN Security Council on the situation in Western Sahara.

The personal envoy, Horst Kohler, expressed Wednesday his gratitude to the Moroccan authorities for facilitating his visit to the southern provinces and enabling him to have access to several people he wished to meet. He was also grateful he could witness directly the economic and social development of the region, according to state-owned news agency MAP.

Several members of the council welcomed the atmosphere in which the regional tour of the personal envoy took place, particularly his visit to the Moroccan Sahara.

The majority of the council members also expressed their satisfaction with the results of the various meetings and visits undertaken by the personal envoy. They called on Kohler to continue working with all parties to maintain the momentum and resume the process to find a solution to the conflict.

In its Resolution 2414 of April 27, 2018, the Security Council called on neighboring states, including Algeria, to contribute to the political process and to engage further in the negotiations.

UN observers said Moroccan authorities have always shown their full cooperation with the UN to relaunch the political process.

MAP noted that many members of the Security Council emphasized, during Wednesdays briefing, the need to tread carefully to relaunch negotiations in consultation with the parties, and in particular Morocco.

Kohlers Wednesdays briefing emphatically called on all involved parties to make compromises to ease the way towards finding a lasting political settlement to the conflict in Western Sahara.

Negotiations for a mutually acceptable solution hit a wall in 2008, and the Sahara issue has since then been locked in a diplomatic stalemate.

A decade after the failed UN-led attempts at peace, Kohler suggested a resumption of negotiations in hopes of making up for the decade-long diplomatic failure.

But in addition to the UN Security Councils newfound resolve to finally commit all stakeholdersincluding AlgeriaKohlers move comes at an especially propitious moment in continental politics.

During the 31st AU Heads of State Summit on July 1 in Nouakchott, Mauritania, the continental organization unveiled its latest report on the Sahara question.

The much-anticipated report acknowledgedfor the first timethe prominence of the UN-led negotiation process in Western Sahara, pledging total allegiance to the UN Security Councils agenda and priorities.

It noted that Africa will no longer have a parallel agenda on Western Sahara, and the AU will limit its involvement in the conflict to supporting and accompanying UN efforts.

Moroccan authorities, while nodding at Kohlers resolve to resume peace talks, are adamant that Algeria take full part in negotiations.

Rabat insists on the precondition of a comprehensive assessment of the discussions between the personal envoy and the parties in conflict during Kohlers last regional tour.

Calling for the need of a transparent, responsible, and peaceful dialogue to resume negotiations, Moroccan authorities also asserted that there can be no solution to the regional dispute over Western Sahara without consulting Morocco and without the involvement of Algeria, which they say is the main party responsible for the beginning and maintenance of the dispute.
'Ghost consultants' have bilked people in Turkey and Lebanon of thousands of dollars

IRCC warns of social media scams 'Ghost consultants' have bilked people in Turkey and Lebanon of thousands of dollars

IRCC warns of social media scams 'Ghost consultants' have bilked people in Turkey and Lebanon of thousands of dollars

IRCC warns of social media scams 'Ghost consultants' have bilked people in Turkey and Lebanon of thousands of dollars CIC News Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif

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The Government of Canada is warning of a scam by individuals posing as immigration consultants on Facebook.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said a number of Facebook pages are claiming to be those of immigration consultants affiliated with the Government of Canada and promise successful immigration to Canada.

IRCC said the pages are primarily in Arabic and some are illegally using Government of Canada official marks and images to appear as though they connected to Canada when they are not.

The government also reported that some scammers are using social media to contact individuals in Turkey and Lebanon directly with the promise of immigration to Canada. Some individuals have been defrauded of thousands of dollars by such ghost consultants, IRCC reported.

IRCC issued the following reminder to anyone who comes into contact with such pages:

IRCC never uses social media to provide resettlement services.

To resettle in Canada as a refugee, you must be referred through the United Nations Refugee Agency, a designated referral organization or a private sponsorship group.

IRCC will never request documents or payments through social media platforms such as Facebook or WhatsApp.

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King Mohammed VI Pardons 450 Inmates, Including 22 Convicted in Terrorism Cases and benefited from the program Mosalaha

On the occasion of the anniversary of the Revolution of the King and the People, HM King Mohammed VI granted his pardon to 428 inmates sentenced by the different Moroccan courts, as well as to 22 individuals convicted in extremism and terrorism cases, said a statement by the Justice ministry.

The detained beneficiaries of the pardon are 329 and are divided into:

 325 prisoners who had their prison terms reduced.

 04 inmates who had their prison sentences commuted from life imprisonment to fixed prison terms.

The free beneficiaries of the pardon are 99 and are divided into:

 29 prisoners who benefited from pardon over their remaining prison terms.

 02 inmates who benefited from pardon over their imprisonment terms while their fines were maintained.

 04 inmates who benefited from pardon over their prison terms and fines as well.

 64 prisoners had their fines annulled.

On the same occasion, and as a concrete expression of the Sovereigns high benevolence towards the inmates without discrimination or exception, HM the king, Commander of the Faithful, also granted his pardon to 22 persons convicted in extremism and terrorism cases, who participated in the second edition of the program Reconciliation (Moussalaha), aiming at the reintegration of these inmates and their reconciliation with society.

The program was established in partnership between the General Delegation for Prison Administration and Reintegration, the State ministry for Human Rights, the ministry of Justice, the ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, the Supreme Council of the Judiciary, the Presidency of the Public Prosecutors Office, the National Human Rights Council, the Rabita Mohammedia des Oulemas (Mohammadia League of Scholars) and the Mohammed VI Foundation for the Reintegration of Inmates.

This noble royal initiative comes in response to the pardon requests submitted by these prisoners to HM the king, and which only obtained royal approval after having revised their ideological orientations and officially announced their rejection of all forms of extremism and terrorism, as well as their firm attachment to the constants and sacredness of the Nation and to national institutions.

The beneficiaries of this high royal initiative are divided into:

 17 prisoners who benefited from pardon over their remaining prison terms.

 03 inmates who had their prison sentences commuted from life imprisonment to fixed prison terms.

 02 prisoners who had their prison terms reduced.
The first Asian-American to represent New York in Congress, Grace Mengs influence extends beyond the boundaries of her eastern Queens district. The Democratic National Committee saw this and elected her as a vice chair in 2017. Now shes focused on helping Democrats win seats  nationally and in her own backyard. She talked to City & State about changes in Queens politics, her role with the DNC and who shes backing for the state Senate.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Rep. Joe Crowley has lost his seat, and some are calling for him to step down as chairman of the Queens Democratic Party as well. Would you be interested in the job?

Im really flattered that some people have mentioned my name. Joe Crowley is still our chairperson right now and that will be a decision that he will have to make later on. Im willing to play whatever part I can to make the Queens Democratic organization a stronger organization and one that has even better outreach. And whatever role that is in, I will be happy to be involved.

Youre a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. What have you been doing in that role ahead of the midterms?

Everyone who is an officer, from the Chairman Tom Perez on down, we all travel around the country. We sort of all have different portfolios. I work a lot with womens groups, communities of color, rural communities and millennial voters. Those are sort of my focus areas.  What I talk about a lot in Democratic politics is the importance of reaching out to underrepresented communities. And I think whether you are talking about minority communities, the millennial voters or rural communities, there are many pieces that they have in common with each (other) and that Ive tried to work hard to make sure the Democratic Party is doing better outreach among those groups and areas. My district is not rural at all, but there are many underlying feelings that are similar between these groups.

Democrats are hoping to win control of the state Senate, the U.S. Senate and the House this year. Are you confident theyll win all three?

I am very, very cautiously optimistic. I think yes, as weve seen from results in special elections, whether its (Pennsylvania Rep.) Conor Lambs victory (in a district) where Trump won by about 20 points to (U.S. Sen.) Doug Jones victory in Alabama, weve seen that the Democrats are super motivated and turning out at record numbers to vote. However I am very cautiously optimistic. I think that we have a great chance at winning back the House. We only need to win back 23 seats. However I believe that the Democratic Party has much work to do, even beyond just winning back the House in 2018. We are in a situation where we lost about 1,000 seats in the last 10 years. And weve won back about 47 of them locally (laughs) but we have a lot more to go. As a party, we have to continue to do the hard work. There are no shortcuts in making sure that were reaching out  just to make sure that people feel like the Democratic Party is listening and paying attention to their concerns.

What about the state Senate? Is that a focus or yours, or are you looking more nationally?

Im focused more nationally, but we have realized at the DNC that its important to make sure that our races up and down the ballot are focused on  New York, obviously, is in a very unique situation when I tell my colleagues about the IDC, people are very surprised that that has been happening. Its not a new problem; this is a situation that has been going on for years in New York and I think in this era of Donald Trump, people have realized how detrimental a situation it is in terms of passing legislation.

So yes, Im working  Ill give you one example of how Im working in conjunction with state races and federal. In New York state, we have about five top priority congressional seats to flip from red to blue. In these five districts, we have about 23 college campuses. So Ive invested a decent amount of money in the state party not just to register young voters for the congressional races purposes, but there are also state and local races going on in those areas, and so Ive invested money to hire an organizer in each of those five districts to solely focus on millenial and college-age voters because I do believe that registering them and increasing the turnout will be helpful for races, whether youre talking about the state Senate or Congress.

Your congressional district overlaps with two former IDCs members Senate districts, Tony Avella and Jose Peralta. Are you getting involved with either of those races?

I have endorsed (Avella challenger) John Liu. Ive worked closely with him in the past when he was an elected official. Ive stayed out so far of the (Jessica) Ramos-Peralta race. I have a little less of that district, but Ive stayed out of that one.

The state Legislature hasnt made any changes to the admission process to New York Citys specialized high schools yet, which is a big topic in Asian-American communities. What are you hoping happens with that debate?

This issue has always been an important issue. All of us, regardless of which side of the issue youve been on in recent months, we all agree that increasing diversity in these schools is important. However the way that the city went about it  pushing legislation in the last week or two of session  is not the most effective way to get something done. This is something thats in the jurisdiction of the state Legislature. I know that (Assembly) Speaker Carl Heastie and Gov. (Andrew) Cuomo have been working with various community leaders and elected officials in making sure that all voices are included in this discussion in how to implement change, but also making sure that the Asian communities voices are heard. Because comments made by the city and excluding the Asian community in these discussions in how to make change has not been productive at all.
The Times has accused the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) of funding groups with links to terrorism in Northern Ireland for the second time in recent weeks.

The front page of the Times reported that the trust has given more than 385,000 to Conflict Resolution Services Ireland (CRSI), a charity registered in Northern Ireland that has close ties to the suspected leaders of a dissident terrorist group responsible for multiple recent gun and bomb attacks in Northern Ireland.

However JRCT has defended funding CRSI, saying that the trust has no relationship with any armed groups or proscribed organisations, but that its work to end violence in Northern Ireland has required engaging with those previously involved in conflict and now committed to peace.

In July, the Times reported that JRCT had funded a charity with alleged links to a terrorist organisation in Northern Ireland and a Yorkshire charity that has accused an MP of racism. This prompted the Charity Commission to ask JRCT to explain its decision.

The Commission has today confirmed that it is still engaging with JRCT, and that it will will pick up any residual matters about the charitys monitoring of existing grant arrangements and decisions, but added we do not provide running updates on live cases.

The Times reported that CRSIs Belfast offices had twice been raided by counterterrorism police.

It also said that one of the charitys employees lost his job after he was arrested and charged with directing terrorism; that a present staff member was jailed in 2012 for a botched attempt to kneecap a teenager; and that its chair of trustees said that the assassination of a Conservative MP was a legitimate exercise.

It said that the charity has been under investigation by the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland for the past 16 months.



No relationship with any armed groups

In a statement, JRCT said that it had no relationship with any armed groups or proscribed organisation" and that it had worked to end violence in Northern Ireland for more than 40 years.

It added that its demilitarisation funding is only for those organisations which are committed to tackling the legacy of conflict-related violence and are seeking ways to bring about positive change in their communities.

Engaging with those previously involved in conflict

JRCT said that the ongoing peace process in Northern Ireland has required engaging with those previously involved in conflict and now committed to peace, in order to facilitate a transition to purely democratic and peaceful society.

It added that such work has been supported by many funders. To criticise the principle of this work is to criticise the foundations on which the peace process has been built.

It said in the statement: During a two-year period leading up to their most recent grant, CRSI sought to mediate on behalf of 704 individuals who felt they were under threat of paramilitary violence. CRSI were able to successfully resolve almost all of these cases: protecting lives and reducing harm.

CRSI have also made a significant contribution by their engagement with republicans who are outside of the peace process in efforts to reduce conflict. They have used a variety of peacebuilding methods to work towards this goal.

JRCT confirmed it had made a total of four grants to CRSI between 2012 and 2018, totalling 388,741, but added that the grants are paid in quarterly instalments and, to date, none of the 2018 grant (120,621) has been paid.

Charities should be able to justify funding decisions

The full statement from the Charity Commission on its work with JRCT said: As we have previously confirmed, we have current regulatory engagement with JRCT, as part of which we are looking to ensure that the charity has addressed the issues we identified in our previous engagement with the charity between 2013 and 2016.

At that time, we identified that improvements to the charitys processes and procedures were needed to ensure robust scrutiny and control of funds, particularly when giving grants to non-charitable bodies. The charity showed a willingness at that time to improve aspects of its processes, and indeed our report recognised steps the charity had taken to do so.

As part of our current regulatory engagement with JRCT we will pick up any residual matters about the charitys monitoring of existing grant arrangements and decisions; we do not provide running updates on live cases.

Our guidance makes clear that charities need to carry out appropriate due diligence on organisations applying for grants and that trustees must ensure that grants awarded are only for activities that further the charitys purposes. Charities should be able to explain and justify their funding decisions if concerns are raised with them and we would expect JRCT to be able to do so.

The CRSI had not responded to an invitation to comment at the time of publication.
Liz Tait is to join Teenage Cancer Trust as its director of fundraising after nearly eight years in the same role at animal charity Battersea.

At Battersea she has overseen the growth of its income from 10m in 2010 to 40m this year. This year she came sixth in Fundraising Magazine's Most Influential poll.

Tait is a trustee of the Institute of Fundraising and chairs its Standards Advisory Board. She has previously chaired the IoF Convention board.

She previously held senior fundraising roles at the British Red Cross, Sense and Plan UK. Until recently she was a trustee at Action on Hearing Loss.

Tait, who will join Teenage Cancer Trust on 12 November, said: Im thrilled to be joining Teenage Cancer Trust at a very exciting time. I greatly admire their amazing work supporting young people with cancer and their families. I am committed to doing all I can to help increase their impact and look forward to working with their fantastic fundraising team.

She takes over the role from Kate Collins who was promoted to chief executive earlier this year.

Collins said: We are delighted Liz will be joining Teenage Cancer Trust. She is a talented, dynamic and people-driven fundraising leader who has achieved fantastic results throughout her career. I am thrilled that she is bringing her skills, passion and experience to Teenage Cancer Trust and am confident that, under Lizs leadership our fundraising will go from strength to strength so we can expand our work and support every young person who needs us.




The Charity Tribunal has upheld the Charity Commissions decision to remove a trustee after charity funds were forfeited when he was stopped from leaving the country under terrorism laws.

In September 2015 the Commission had carried out an inspection visit at Save the Needy Worldwide because the charity was newly registered and operating in high-risk areas. Oguz had also previously been the chair of another charity, Worldwide Ummah Aid, that had been the subject of a statutory inquiry.

After the inspection visit the Commission identified regulatory concerns over due diligence about partner agencies, poor financial management, lack of records and general poor governance. It issued the charity with an action plan, later opening a statutory inquiry and ordering the removal of founding trustee Yusuf Kenan Oguz.

Oguz had appealed the decision, but the Tribunal decided in favour of the Commission and has now published its ruling.

The decision means that Oguz is disqualified from being a trustee and holding a senior management position at a charity without obtaining a waiver from the Commission.

Stopped by police in 2016

In July 2016 Oguz was stopped by police on his way to Turkey and questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Some 3,260 in cash that he described as charitable funds intended for a Syrian refugee school in Turkey were seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 because the investigator was not satisfied.

In January 2018 this sum was forfeited under the Proceeds of Crime Act after a hearing at Bedfordshire Magistrates Court.

Oguz told the Charity Tribunal hearing that the charity was not able to make electronic payments and needed cash to pay contractors.

But the Tribunal decision said that this led to the permanent loss of the money and noted that the charity had made an electronic payment a few days later.

Mr Oguz has not offered a credible explanation as to why the initial payment could not have been transferred in the same way, the decision said.

It added that Oguz should have been aware this could be a problem as when he was a trustee of WUA he had 12,000 was seized when he was stopped in similar circumstances.

The tribunal described him as taking unjustified risks with the charitys money.

It also heard that between January 2015 and September 2016 almost 44,000 was withdrawn from the charitys accounts without the knowledge of other trustees.

Commission investigation

The Commission was notified by police in October prompting it to open a statutory inquiry and take action to prevent the trustees. In January 2017 the Commission ordered trustees to explain how they had complied with the action plan and explain why they had not filed their annual return. In February the regulator met with trustees.

In November the Commission suspended Oguz as a trustee and issued a removal order in December.

He lodged an appeal with the Charity Tribunal and the case was heard in June. Judgment was reserved and was published by the court this week.

The Commission told the tribunal hearing that it believed the charitys failure to comply with its requests, the attempt to take money to Turkey, lack of financial controls within the charity and its inability to file its annual return meant it was correct to remove Oguz as a trustee.

Oguz told the hearing that he disputes that wrongdoing and mismanagement took place. He also told the hearing that the charity had complied with the action plan, but the judge said there was no documentary evidence of this.

Mr Oguzs assertion that the charity was still in its infancy provides no justification for this failure, particularly given the nature of the Charity Commissions concerns about the management of the charitys finances (which had previously been communicated to the trustees). We do not agree that the charity was still in its infancy anyway, and we observe that charity trustees are not excused from the duty to abide by basic principles of good governance just because a charity is newly established, the ruling said.

Michelle Russell, director of investigations, monitoring and enforcement at the Commission said: We welcome this important decision which supports our work to safeguard charitable assets and to take action to prevent and remedy the abuse of charity.

The Commissions inquiry is ongoing and it will publish a report once it has concluded.

Spent substantial sums on good causes

The tribunal said that there was evidence of money being spent on good causes, but it had not been accounted for properly.

We accept that the charity has spent substantial sums on good causes  and Mr Oguz offered photographic evidence of examples of the charitys work. Nevertheless, the maintenance of adequate and transparent accounting records to show what has become of the charitys money is a fundamental plank of good governance and it goes to the heart of the functions of a charity trustee, it said.

But it concluded that the need to protect the charity outweighed the personal impact on Oguz.

Mr Oguzs continuing apparent failure to recognise the risks to which his favoured ways of working expose the Charity is such that, notwithstanding his many years of involvement in the charity sector, he should not be permitted to act as a trustee of the Charity or to hold another senior position of responsibility in relation to it, it said.




In 2014, Chris McDaniel was investigating whether Missouri was injecting inmates with a particular sedative, midazolam, before executing them. While under oath, the state had previously said it would not use the drug in its executions. McDaniel, a death-penalty reporter, needed to find out crucial details for his story, so he applied to be a witness of executions in the state. On his application, he wrote that he wanted to ensure that this solemn task is carried out constitutionally. More than four years and 17 executions later, he has published multiple high-impact investigations uncovering Missouris lethal-injection secrets. He has never been allowed to witness an execution, however, and has yet to hear back about his application.

In the same year in which McDaniel submitted his application, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the Missouri Department of Corrections to obtain copies of witness applications. After a judge ordered the department to release the documents in 2016, the ACLU found that the agency had not approved dozens of applications from people wanting to witness executions to make sure they were carried out constitutionally. McDaniel was one of them, and the ACLU, which had worked with him on a previous case, asked if he would join a federal lawsuit.

ICYMI: Conveyor belt of killing: Covering Arkansas rush of executions

McDaniela BuzzFeed investigative reporter who formerly worked for St. Louis Public Radioand the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Corrections in 2016 alleging that the state is barring him from being an execution witness because of his critical coverage of the states lethal-injection protocol. This is a violation of his constitutional rights, his attorney argues, because the witness-selection policy allows for discrimination based on reporting protected by the First Amendment. The suit demanded that Missouri come up with a policy for how witnesses are selected. The Department of Corrections moved to dismiss the case, but on July 28 of this year, a federal appellate court ruled that McDaniel may proceed with the suit.

I think its a very important press-access issue, McDaniel tells CJR. Prisons are notoriously difficult to report on because we dont get access. the biggest power a government can have is taking the life of someone, and its also the thing thats carried out with the most secrecy at the state level.

In active death-penalty states, secrecy around executions is the normand botched executions are far from rare. As pharmaceutical companies increasingly refuse to sell their drugs for the purposes of killing people, states have begun exploring new, sometimes dangerous avenues to procure drugs, some of which have never been used in executions before. These untested methods, and other issues, can result in botched executions that may violate the Eighth Amendments prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. By witnessing and reporting on executions, reporters act as an important link between the execution chamber and the public, relaying information that few have access to.

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The biggest power a government can have is taking the life of someone, and its also the thing thats carried out with the most secrecy at the state level.

In 1982, there were no journalists present to witness Virginias execution of Frank J. Coppola by electric chair. According to an attorney who was there, Coppola was jolted for nearly two minutes with electricity, which eventually set his head and leg on fire. And in March 2018, journalists looked on in horror as executioners tried for hours to locate a vein of Doyle Lee Hamms to pump lethal injection drugs into, stabbing him a dozen times. By the time they gave up, Hamm was soaked with blood, and he urinated blood the next day, his attorney said. And even when journalists are present, that doesnt mean they are able to see the entire execution.. States have been known to close the curtains when something has gone wrong.

Hamms case is just one of many that have shown the importance of journalists being present for executions. Their presence holds states accountable, an important task as death row inmates continue to fight their cases and cite botched executions as proof of cruel and unusual punishment to do so. After Hamms execution attempt made headlines across the country, Alabama agreed that it would not try to kill him again.

But stories often do not go deep enough to provide the public with a clear picture of whats happening when someone is executed, McDaniel says, attributing the issue to several factors, including secrecy and the complexity of the death penalty. A June Washington Post article on the Texas execution of Danny Bible, who was likely to experience a botched execution due to several medical issues, his attorneys argued, reported that it had occurred without complications despite revealing that after the drugs were administered, he muttered that it was burning and that it hurt.

I sort of view my reporting on this as a government-accountability reporting position and this is like the biggest responsibility that the government has, McDaniel says. And its kind of of a weird thing where this is the biggest power that the government has, but its also a thing that they receive shockingly little press oversight for.

In Missouri, the power to select at least eight reputable citizens to be witnesses, a requirement for every execution, lies with just one person: the director of the Missouri Department of Corrections. At least one media witness is chosen from in-state, according to a corrections department spokeswoman. Missouris legislature grants this discretion, but doesnt provide any criteria for how they will be chosen, according to Anthony Rothert, who is McDaniels attorney and the legal director of the ACLU of Missouri. This is highly unusual, he says; every other death-penalty state has a procedure for choosing witnesses.

Its important for members of the press to be there to honestly and accurately tell the public what is going on at this very secret thing.

The director of Missouris corrections department, George Lombardi, was choosing people who would be favorable to his agency, such as detectives, students, or former corrections department employees, to be witnesses, Rothert says. The media witnesses were from outlets who were generally on the states good side, according to Rothert.

People who do more in-depth reporting on the various aspects of the death penalty and how its carried out and have made the Department of Corrections look bad are not selected, Rothert says.

Rothert argues that regardless of McDaniels coverage, denying him the opportunity to witness executions because of his stories violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

This case is about whether or not the policy, the complete discretion given to choose witnesses, is allowing the government to engage in viewpoint discrimination and punish those who might report critically on how the death penalty is carried out, Rothert says.

Prior to applying to become a press witness, McDaniel revealed in a 2013 investigation for St. Louis Public Radio that Missouris execution-drug supplier was not licensed to sell in Missouri. As a result, the pharmacy supplying the drugs agreed to no longer sell them in the state, a huge blow to the corrections department, which then had to find a new supplier, no easy task. But the hurdles McDaniel created through his reporting should not be a reason for the corrections department to shut him, and the public, out, he argues. I dont think their dislike of me making their job more difficult should impact my ability to reportthe publics ability to know about what is taking place, he says.

As McDaniel continued to report on the use of a controversial sedative, midazolam, in executions without being able to actually witness the executions themselves, he relied on accounts from people who were there. By speaking to press witnesses, he was able to find out that inmates being executed were likely sedated, but these witnesses didnt have the detailed notes McDaniel needed to create a timeline of specifics such as when a persons eyes were open. He depended heavily on chemical logs of drugs in the states possession he had obtained via public records requests to find out which drugs were being used.

After his story was published in September 2014, McDaniel wrote two more pieces critical of lethal injection in Missouri. A 2016 BuzzFeed investigation revealed that an Oklahoma pharmacy supplying lethal injection drugs to Missouri had committed nearly 1,900 pharmacy regulation violations. And in March 2018, another BuzzFeed investigation found the compounding pharmacy the Missouri had been using for its lethal injection drugs was deemed high risk by the Food and Drug Administration. In light of these facts, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled in his favor in July, finding it probable enough that McDaniel had been harmed by the lack of protocol for selecting witnesses that the case could move forward.

McDaniels allegations that the Directors policies provide an opportunity to exclude McDaniel based on his viewpoint and that the Director has excluded McDaniel and all applicants sharing his particular viewpoint are sufficient to give him standing to press the claim, the court wrote.

Now that the appeals court has ruled, the case will likely return to the trial court, Rothert says. He expects it to be decided in about a year.

Ideally, the corrections department wouldnt be able to decide who gets to be a witness, and reporters would choose among themselves, McDaniel says, noting that the reporting on an execution can have an impact that extends far beyond the time in the witness gallery.

Its important for members of the press to be there to honestly and accurately tell the public what is going on at this very secret thing, he says. Its important for that specific execution, and its important for things that could be difficult to understand at the time but could be relevant in a longer investigation.

A spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Corrections declined to comment, citing the litigation.

RELATED: Why one reporter is suing Missouri over death-penalty secrecyagain

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Lauren Gill is a New York-based journalist covering criminal justice. Follow her on Twitter @laurenk_gill.
When I visited Kakuma, a large refugee camp in Kenya, in late 2016, it had been over six months since Kanere had published an issueand nearly as long since rain had fallen on the camps cracked soil. Sitting in Francos, a tarpaulin-roofed Ethiopian restaurant so popular it has a second branch in Nairobi, Kaneres assembled journalists told me they were busying themselves with day jobs as interpreters or teachers, reporting for the paper in their spare time. Across a small wooden table, one explained their latest story, about a recent car accident in which a small child had been killed.

Minutes later I followed Qaabata Boru, Kaneres founding editor and a refugee himself, through the busy streets of Kakuma 1, the oldest and most vibrant sector of the camp, to meet the childs family. We took a boda-boda, one of Kakumas ubiquitous motorbike taxis, to the edge of the camp to meet the parents of the young girl, who had been struck and killed instantly, reportedly by a jeep owned by an international NGO. The South Sudanese parents sat arranged on plastic chairs, their younger children rolling behind them as the father spoke, his voice sad but tinged with anger. He had filed a police report over a month ago, he said, but had not yet received a court hearing. A meeting with an official from the NGO which owned the vehicle and employed the driver left him disgusted and intimidated, he said, when they told him he had no right to approach the organization directly.

As night settled, the interview ended with thanks and handshakes. As we returned to the road through a narrow alley flanked by sharp thorn boundaries, Boru expressed his sympathies. He was familiar with the feeling that his voice was ignored because of his refugee status.

Kanere, which Boru began publishing in Kakuma in 2008, says its mission is to create a more open society in refugee camps and to develop a platform for fair public debate on refugee affairs. Primarily a source of news for camp residents, it also strives to be a beacon to the wider world, using refugees own words to reflect the reality of life in Kakuma. A number of academics, lawyers, and aid workers from around the world have also contributed to the project as writers.

Over 2.5 million people now reside in refugee camps worldwide. Once envisioned as temporary sanctuaries, the camps have become places where displaced people can spend their entire lives. There have been attempts to distribute powerthrough the election of refugee councils and rudimentary community courts, for examplebut residents have minimal control over their lives. Kanere has tried to redress this imbalance for almost a decade, and has, at times, come into conflict with the same governments, agencies, and charities that run the camp.

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Boru was just 20 years old when his article about a violent police crackdown on protesters in Ethiopia led to his arrest. Rounded up with thousands of others during the disturbances that followed the countrys 2005 elections, he spent two weeks in jail in Addis Ababa. The second-year journalism student had ambitions of being a political reporter, but with repeated police threats to his safety and the ongoing persecution of his Oromo ethnic group, he weighed his options and fled his home country to seek asylum in neighboring Kenya.

Arriving in Nairobi in 2006, authorities instructed him to move to one of the countrys refugee camps so they could process his asylum case. Kakuma, in the countrys remote north, would become his home for the next 11 years, and is where he would establish Kanere, the worlds first independent refugee camp newspaper. Kakuma is one of the largest refugee camps in the world, a sprawling mass of ramshackle homes spread across the bare and arid expanse of Kenyas Turkana County. It was established in 1992 to accommodate the so-called lost boys of Sudan, but has since grown to house 186,000 people. The majority have fled the ongoing civil war in South Sudan, but the camp now hosts people from over a dozen African countries.

When Boru arrived at Kakuma, he first picked up a job as a head teacher at a NGO-run school and began to adjust to a new routine. In queues for food and firewood, long-time residents of the camp told him stories about violent attacks in their communities, outbreaks of disease, and shortages of food and water.

As a journalism student, I had a perception that there was no avenue to tell [refugee] stories or let the international community or any person know about whats happening in Kakuma, Boru tells CJR from Vancouver, where he was resettled last year.

And the reality is, from my experience, people from outside Kakuma dont know whats really happening, including the Kenyans.

Along with 17 other teachers and friends, some with prior experience as journalists, Boru established Kanere, short for Kakuma News Reflector. After two months of research and reporting, its first issue was published in December 2008. It appeared online and in print, with color copies pressed in Nairobi and transported over 450 miles to the camp.

Since its inception, Kanere has reported on issues as diverse as robberies, community elections, and alleged corruption among NGO staff and police. Coverage is often positive, highlighting improvements to infrastructure or educational achievements, but Kanere does not shy away from the camps darker realities.

When a spate of killings between the Dinka and Nuer groups from South Sudan in 2014 claimed 20 lives and displaced 3,000 from within the camp, Kanere reporters were at the scene to determine the cause of the violence. More recently, in February of this year Kanere reported that an Ethiopian political refugee in the camp had been gunned down by police; they claimed he had been stealing a solar panel. Witnesses and the mans family said it was an extrajudicial killing, and that police warned them of repercussions if they pressed the case.

Resettlement, by which refugees can begin a new life in a host country like the US or Australia, is easily the most common topic of discussion within Kakuma. The process, as they call it, is a recurring feature in Kanere.

A few hundred copies are printed per issue and distributed in restaurants and food collection points, and stapled to noticeboards across the camp. But on its website and social media platforms Kanere is able to reach far beyond Kakuma. The site can receive up to 3,000 views per day when fresh stories are posted, drawing clicks and comments from other African refugee camps and people as far away as the US and Australia.

There has never been a consistent source of funding to support Kaneres reporting. Volunteer journalists contribute their own money from jobs as teachers, interpreters or fixers for foreign media outlets, which sometimes donate towards the paper. Its stock of equipment is a handful of aging laptops, recorders, and cameras. Meetings are held in homes, schools, or restaurants for lack of an office.

But Kanere has retained its editorial independence, insisting that it will remain an uncensored expression of the refugee experience in Kakuma. This stance has not always sat well with other organizations within the camp, including the UNs Refugee Agency, which runs the camp alongside the Kenyan government.

UNHCR personnel were extremely upset that we were publishing articles about events in the camp that were available to an international audience without giving UNHCR the final say in what made it to the blog, says US academic Bethany Ojalehto, who helped establish Kanere while conducting research in the camp. Perhaps their goal was to ensure accuracy, but it felt more like censorship.

Reputation is the currency of the NGO world, and refugee services in Kakuma, from education and healthcare to food provision, are supported by major international donors who need constant assurances their money is wisely spent. Its unsurprising that NGO literature emphasizes narratives of success and resilience. The grittier reality found in the pages of Kanere, of recurring violence and mismanagement, could undermine the inspiring stories that keep cash flowing into the camp.

The world always reads the good things of the aid agencies, says Kaneres current editor, Tolossa Asrat. You or any outsiders, say donors, will not get real information how refugees are living in the refugee camp; how their aid is being used; and how those organisation are treating refugees. But the reality on the ground is different.

One early story discussed the substantial pay disparity between refugee and Kenyan staff in the camp, of which Boru had personal experience. Refugee nurses, teachers, and translators employed by NGOs were often paid less than one-tenth of what Kenyan colleagues took home, though these positions remain much coveted given the near-total lack of jobs in Kakuma. Borus own job as head teacher earned him only $30 per month, a byproduct of Kenyas tight laws on refugee employment. His employer, a major international NGO, took issue with the story and asked the UNHCR to intercede, beginning a protracted dispute that eventually led to his termination, he says.

In response to a request for financial and logistical assistance in 2009, the then-head of the agencys Kakuma office said the paper had not proven that its activities do add value to the refugee programme. Kanere also sought to register as a community business organization, giving it formal legal status. A local government official initially signed the registration documents, but later told Boru that the UNHCR had raised objections and demanded their return, saying the application would not be approved until differences between the two parties were resolved.

In an editorial published by Kanere, Kenyan constitutional law expert Ekuru Aukot said the government did not have grounds to impede its work. I am therefore not satisfied that should refugees choose to exercise the right to a free press through Kanere or any other medium, anyone would be justified in inhibiting this right, he concluded. Only in 2012 would Kanere be registered as a national NGO, allowing it to operate in up to five counties.

In a series of fractious meetings between 2011 and 2012, the agency offered to support Kanere if it was granted editorial oversight, or if the paper would take down its website and exist in print form only; both offers were rejected, with a majority of Kanere volunteers determined to remain fully independent and online, even as the paper struggled financially.

UNHCR Kenya spokesperson Yvonne Ndege said she was not aware of any such proposals, but says the UNHCR supports press freedom, and absolutely supports refugee media and publications.

As of this year, the UNHCR has no formal relationship with Kanere, though it features other refugee organizations on its website. The current UNHCR head of sub-office, Tayyar Sukru Cansizoglu, has not met with any Kanere journalists since his appointment in June last year, but suggests a more cordial relationship is possible.

Today with social media, with Twitter, I believe there is no information that we can say we control or we channel, he tells CJR. I dont see any difference between the US or Kakuma, or anywhere else in the world. People need to report what they think.

Cansizoglu says he has been discussing ways for refugees to contribute to the UNHCR website, which posts occasional news articles, all penned by staff members, about various initiatives and projects. Regarding independent media, he thinks it would not be appropriate for the UN to fund an outlet like Kanere directly, but it could participate in an incubator programme should it prove viable as a small business. I will be the first one who comes as a customer, he says.

At its peak, Kanere had 23 journalists from seven countries, including Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, and Uganda. There was even a correspondent in Dadaab, another camp in eastern Kenya. Back then, Kanere published several issues each year, but since the resettlement of several founding members to the US and Canada, it has struggled to maintain a consistent output. No issue was published in 2017 and only one has been published this year, in February, though social media posts remain more frequent.

Reporters without Borders has twice requested that the UNHCR guarantee the security of Kanere journalists and reassure camp residents that interacting with the paper will not jeopardize their chances of resettlement. One journalist claimed he was attacked by unknown assailants and his house later set on fire, while others say their refugee status has been threatened by government officials. It is not clear whether or not the UNHCR has acted on those requests. Ndege tells CJR, we take such matters extremely seriously and do approach the security services over such allegations.



In the meantime Kanere reporters have also had repeated difficulties with the local police, who manage security in the camp. Several have been detained for short periods or physically assaulted by officers, volunteers say. (Local police declined to speak with CJR.) Harassment and abuse are common for Kanere staff, says Asrat. Several journalists have stopped working due to threats or harassment, diminishing its ability to report. Only eight journalists currently work regularly with the paper.

And the paper has also suffered since Boru was resettled in Canada. Vancouver, Borus home since last July, has proven a welcome change in some respects, but he has struggled to find employment as a journalist, working instead at a restoration firm to make ends meet. He remains dedicated to the project he began almost a decade ago, still editing stories and offering assistance when he finds the time, as do other Kanere founders now in the US and Canada.

Kaneres great challenge now is to continue past its first generation of writers and to uphold the conviction set out in its first editorial: We press for the day when refugee rights are an entitlement rather than a gift. It is a long time coming and we are only one voice, but our vision burns.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Ruairi Casey is a freelance journalist based in London. His work focuses on migration and human rights and his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera English, VICE News, New Statesman, Irish Times, and elsewhere.
As they sit at their screens in a small office outside Pendleton, a group of meteorologists can already tell what the rest of the population is soon going to find out the hard way: its another smoky day in Oregon.

Dan Slagle looks at the high-resolution rapid-refresh smoke map on his screen and laughs.

Its not going anywhere, he said.

While those on the ground fighting fires are most associated with stopping the blaze, local meteorologists from the National Weather Service are busy behind the scenes, communicating with firefighters and emergency agencies to help them anticipate whats coming next.

On a recent day, they go over what theyre expecting that day  deteriorating air quality, smoke pouring in from Canada, and a chance of thunderstorms over the mountains.

Later, meteorologist John Peck will advise fire agencies and other groups about the fire weather forecast, in a series of conference calls.

Theyll go over what they think the concerns are with air quality, how bad they think the smokes going to be, Slagle said.

Meteorologists can also do a forecast report for a specific location, called a spot forecast, to provide specific advice about temperature, moisture and wind  that helps firefighters determine which angles to avoid or focus on when attacking a fire.

Though most meteorologists are not at the scene, there are incident meteorologists who will travel to a fire, giving updates and forecasts for the weather conditions at the site.

Slagle is new a journeyman forecaster at the National Weather Service station for the Pendleton region. The region, or County Warning Area, extends north to Ellensburg, Washington, west to The Dalles, south to Bend, and east to Joseph. Their coverage area includes John Day, Walla Walla, Yakima and the Tri-Cities.

Slagle does the TAF  Terminal Aerodome Forecast  for seven airports in the region. Those forecasts are updated at least four times a day. The NWS updates a seven-day forecast twice a day.

Theyre also in charge of putting out hydrology (rivers) outlooks and aviation forecasts. If theres a low cloud ceiling above one of the airports in the region, the NWS can make the call saying flying conditions are unsafe.

The agency is also the only one authorized to put out watches, warnings and advisories, Slagle said.

Meteorologists develop their forecasts primarily using model runs, or computer-generated maps that simulate future atmospheric conditions. There are hundreds of different models, based on various grid spacings and physical factors. Meteorologists compare the model runs, along with satellite images and radar data. The more consensus there is between the different sources of information, the more confidence with which the meteorologist can put out a forecast.

Mike Vescio, the meteorologist-in-charge at the Pendleton station, said technological advances have been crucial in making forecasts.

When I first started, we only did a five-day forecast, and the model data we had was very limited, he said. We printed it out on facsimile charts, and it was very primitive compared to what we have today.

For most meteorologists, their job changes with the place they live.

This office is pretty into fire weather, Slagle said. Most western offices are.

Moving with the job, and becoming an expert in different kinds of severe weather, is part of the territory.

Vescio, a 28-year veteran of the industry, said he has lived and worked in the Carolinas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and Oregon.

In North Carolina, we had coastal concerns and did a marine forecast, he said. In Fort Worth, Texas, thunderstorms and tornadoes were a big concern.

A Nebraska native, Slagle grew up knowing he was interested in meteorology, and studied it at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

But upon graduation, he found that getting a job in his field wasnt so easy.

It turns out a lot of people got into meteorology after the movie Twister, Slagle joked.

He managed to find work with a private company in Grand Forks, North Dakota, doing a lot of winter forecasts for road companies.

After a few years of trying to get into the National Weather Service, he finally landed an entry-level job in Elko, Nevada, and worked there for three years.

As the industrys reliance on automation grows, Slagle said jobs have become more competitive, as has keeping up with new technologies.

People dont know about us probably as much as they should, he said. As smartphones came around, people start to get weather forecasts from their phone. So how do we adapt?

Some changes have included doing more work with partner agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service, and becoming more visible to the public.

They want us to get away from drawing grids, issuing weather warnings, Slagle said. They want us to get into more outreach, social media.

That has included teaching storm-spotting classes and giving tours, as well as going to career fairs and safety fairs.

Slagle said NWS has also begun to provide support on-site during natural disasters, such as chemical spills or events with large numbers of people, like fairs and concerts. They will be on-site at the Pendleton Round-Up in September.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
AKRON, Ohio - Summit County Community Partnership and its 60 partners have distributed more than 60,000 disposal pouches for prescription drugs in less than two years in the Deterra Project, an addiction-prevention initiative.

The pouches deactivate drugs after water is added and render the mixture safe for normal disposal with residents' trash. Each pouch comes with a returnable postcard to help the organization track the pouches' uses and effectiveness.

SCCP, which works to prevent substance abuse in Summit County, has planned a free community celebration marking the project's success, from 8-10 a.m. on Thursday Oct. 25 at the Ann & David Brennan Critical Care Center on the Summa Health System Akron Campus. The event space and refreshments are being donated by Summa, said Alyce Jennings, SCCP's director of development.

The pouches are distributed to senior centers, and are sent home with patients who have been prescribed opiates at all Summa Heath, Cleveland Clinic Akron General, Children's and Western Reserve hospitals.

Out of more than 1,000 postcards returned, about 70 percent of pouch recipients have reported that they've used their pouch within 30 days to dispose of unused prescription drugs, she said.

"That's encouraging that people are using it quickly," Jennings said. "We're really seeing that the community has embraced it. If everybody's doing their part, that's the way the big changes come."

If each recipient used their pouch to dispose of the maximum capacity of 45 pills, the initiative will have removed more than 2.1 million unused or unneeded prescription pills from falling into the wrong hands since Deterra launched on Aug. 31, 2016, Jennings said.

The pouches, along with other community efforts, appear to be working, as overdoses treated at local hospitals are down from last year.

Jan. 1 through the end of August 2017, Summit County Public Health reported 1,624 overdose cases were treated at local hospitals. As of today, the health department reports 875 overdoses have been treated at hospitals since the beginning of the year.

Staff from Associated Underwriters Insurance recently volunteered to label and tag Deterra drug deactivation pouches for distribution in Summit County.

The Deterra Project was launched to locally combat the growing opiate epidemic through a donation from Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals of an initial 40,000 drug-deactivation pouches.

Acme Fresh Markets partnered with SCCP to distribute the free pouches, which are available at any Acme Fresh Market location.

Many SCCP partner organizations also distribute the pouches, including Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority, Community Health Center, County of Summit ADM Board, Vantage Aging (formerly Mature Services), the Summit County Opiate Task Force and Summit County Public Health.

Prior to receiving the pouches, many residents didn't know how to dispose of unwanted pills, had no transportation to deliver them to a drop location or were too busy, Jennings said.

In the 1990s, when SCCP was launched, most organizations handled drug addiction prevention and addiction treatment as separate efforts, said SCCP Executive Director Darryl Brake. Now, through research and evidence-based studies, it is understood that prevention, which the pouches address, is a critical step that leads to addiction.

Safe storage of drugs is another of the organization's goals for helping people, he said.

"It's not putting them in the back of your pajamas drawer," Brake said. "It's locking them up and keeping them away from anybody other than you."

To that end, SCCP wants residents to sign up free to become Summit County Defenders, to learn more about safe medicine use, storage and disposal. Defenders will receive free disposal pouches, monthly information on eliminating drug addiction and notification of local events.

"It's everybody's role to be involved in this," Brake said. "Summit County Defenders are boots on the ground spreading the message."

Because of the success of the Deterra Project, Safe RX was formed from a consortium of Summit County and the six counties that border Summit -- Cuyahoga, Medina, Wayne, Stark, Portage and Geauga counties.

In addition to modelling similar drug-disposal projects after Summit County's Deterra project, consortium members are working to make the project sustainable through grants and other types of funding to buy disposal pouches, Brake said.

The Deterra Project is intended to supplement other safe-disposal programs, such as Project D.U.M.P., which provides Summit County residents with drug deposit boxes around the community, and national Prescription Take Back Days at local police stations.

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AKRON, Ohio - Akron City Council voted down two pieces of legislation at a special meeting Monday night. One would have allowed voters to decide in the November general election whether to move Akron's September primary election to May and the other would have eliminated it completely.

Both measures would have appeared in November and both require a super majority of nine rather than seven affirming votes to pass, because they would be a change to the city's charter.

Instead, those on either side will rely on petitions that are circulating to get enough signatures to place the suggested changes to Akron's charter on the ballot for citizens to approve. Both measures will require more than 42,000 signatures from registered Akron voters.

The special meeting was called by Ward 4 Councilman Russel Neal Jr. and Ward 2 Councilman Bruce Kilby who supported the legislation that would eliminate the primary elections, and instead have all municipal candidates run in a nonpartisan general election in November.

The other measure, submitted by Margo Sommerville and Jeff Fusco, council president and vice president, and Mayor Dan Horrigan, would let voters decide in November whether to move Akron's September primary election to May.

Council members voting at the special election to approve putting the legislation to move the primary to May on ballots were council members Fusco and Sommerville, along with Mike Freeman, Ward 9, Donnie Kammer, Ward 7, Bob Hoch, Ward 6, Marilyn Keith, Ward 8, Rich Swirsky, Ward 1, and Tara Samples, Ward 5.

Voting to put on November ballots eliminating the primary altogether were Neal and Kilby, joined by Zach Milkovich, Ward 10, Linda Omobien, at-large, Veronica Sims, at-large, and Samples who voted affirmatively for both measures.

Neither measure received the nine affirmative votes required to put it before Akron voters.

Summit County is one of three of Ohio's 88 counties, along with Cuyahoga and Lucas, that still hold September primaries. Cuyahoga Falls, Tallmadge, New Franklin, Green, Norton and Barberton are currently considering making the move to May, which, if approved by their councils, would mean all Summit County cities hold primaries in May.

The city submitted the legislation in July to move the primary to May, but began circulating a petition a few weeks later to have the issue put on the ballot when it became clear five of the 13 council members opposed the move.

Those opposed have said a May primary works against candidates who need the summer months to campaign. Neal has said it allows candidates with more funding to have an advantage, because they can't afford expensive marketing and advertising and instead rely on door-to-door campaigning.

The city and the Summit County Board of Elections want the primary moved from September because it reduces what the city pays the BOE and increases voter turnout, the city has said.

It also brings the elections board into compliance with state law by allowing it enough time to get complete ballots to overseas voters after a primary. With a 45-day deadline to get ballots out before a race, the BOE now sends partial ballots to overseas voters until races are certified, when complete ballots are mailed.

At the special meeting, Kilby said a petition is already circulating to have the issue put before voters to eliminate the primary altogether.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio - Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today launched his formal attempt to recover about $60 million in overpayments to the ECOT online charter school, from its founder William Lager, from companies owned by Lager and from several former officials of the now-closed school.

At the center of the case are two companies Lager founded and owns that did about $200 million in business with the school over the years, Altair Learning Management and IQ Innovations.

The filing argues that Lager was an officer and agent of ECOT, so it was illegal for the school to hire companies he owns. Because that would be a conflict of interest, the filing asks that "Lager be ordered to disgorge all profits he received from the Altair License Agreements and the IQ Contracts."

Damages could be tripled if the state proves Lager violated the corrupt practices act, best known for civil action against organized crime.

In addition, it also suggests that multiple properties owned by Lager - including a $3.7 million home in the center of Key West, Florida, and a $433,000 lakefront house along Seneca lake, about an hour east of Columbus - could be taken if DeWine proves his case.

"To the extent that any profits he received from the Altair License Agreements and the IQ Contracts can be traced into any other property owned by Lager, that other property be declared to be held in constructive trust for the benefit of ECOT," the filing also asks.

Lager would only lose those homes if DeWine can show Lager bought them with improper money from the IQ and Altair contracts - a case DeWine has not even tried to prove yet, beyond seeking to declare all IQ and Altair profits illegal.

See the full filing below.

Karl Schneider, a lawyer for Lager and the companies, could not be reached for comment. But Schneider told the Associated Press that he and Lager "look forward to finally setting the record straight regarding all of the facts, many of which have been repeatedly misstated, as well as finally being able to address the misapplication of existing law and legal theories."

DeWine, who is the Republican nominee for governor for this November's election, said that he will keep working to hold school officials accountable.

"I will continue to be aggressive in seeking to recover public funds from ECOT, its affiliates, and Mr. Lager that they improperly received," DeWine said in a press release.

Democrats have criticized DeWine for not acting against ECOT sooner, saying that he could have stopped this alleged conflict of interest several years ago.

"Because public pressure and bad headlines have backed Mike DeWine into the smallest political corner, he has only now felt it important to recover millions of stolen taxpayer dollars," said State Rep. Teresa Fedor, of Toledo, the ranking Democrat on the House Education Committee.

Two recent court rulings cleared the way for today's filing - a procedural one Monday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court and a major Ohio Supreme Court denial earlier this month of ECOT claims that it did not really owe the money back.

The filing in Franklin County Common Pleas Court is nearly 400 pages of legal arguments and previous court rulings. But DeWine and his staff distilled their main argument into two simpler paragraphs at its introduction:

ECOT was a public school and hence a public office. It was entrusted with immense amounts of public money, most of which came from other public schools. Those who operated ECOT were subject to the same fiduciary duties as the trustee of a private trust. The most fundamental of those duties is the duty of loyalty--to avoid any situation where they would be tempted to profit improperly from their position of trust.

The folks who ran ECOT yielded to that temptation. William Lager, ECOT's founder and public face, also founded companies that made millions of dollars doing business with that public school. Other ECOT officials stood by, or actively participated, as ECOT overbilled the public on a massive scale to keep the money flowing.

At its peak, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) was Ohio's largest charter school. With over 15,000 students, it took in more than $100 million a year in state tax money to educate students with classes online.

But the Ohio Department of Education and state school board found that the school could not document enough class participation and sought recovery of $80 million from the school - $60 million for one school year and $20 million for the next.

Unable to stay afloat while repaying that money, the school closed early this year. About $20 million was repaid, leaving $60 million still owed.

The filing targets lists the following officials of ECOT as defendants:

William Lager, of Columbus, Founder of ECOT

Altair Learning Management I, Inc., of Columbus, which served as ECOT's operator and management company

IQ Innovations, LLC, of Columbus, which provided ECOT with curricular materials and related services

Rick Teeters, of Daytona Beach, Florida; Superintendent of ECOT

Michelle Smith, of Bristolville, Treasurer of ECOT

Christopher Meister, of Worthington, Vice President of Accounting for ECOT

Ann Barnes, of Grove City, Education Management Information System (EMIS) Director for ECOT

Regina Lukich, of Upper Arlington, Director of Federal Programs for ECOT

Because all of these employees had control over ECOT money or its representation to the state of its students, the filing claims they are all "strictly liable for all improper disbursements of ECOT's public funds made during the times that they were public officials of ECOT."

The filing also seeks recovery from Travelers insurance, which insured Smith's performance as treasurer of the school.
Algerias President Abdelaziz Bouteflika last weekend dismissed two powerful army generals, the official news agency APS said.

The generals, Said Bey and Lahbib Chentouf, had been in charge of the first and second military regions. Algeria is divided into six military regions. Algerias army has long been considered a behind-the-scene decision-maker.

The presidency did not give a reason for the dismissals, which came two months after Bouteflika sacked the North African nations police chief, Abdelghani Hamel, who was seen as a likely successor to the head of state.

The spring 2019 presidential election has thrown the country into a slow-burning political crisis with the prospect that ailing 81-year-old President Abdelaziz Bouteflika may seek a fifth term.

Bouteflikas health is understood to be a grave concern for those within his inner circle after two severe strokes left him very weak.

The opposition accuses the presidents inner circles, particularly his youngest brother Said and a group of associated moguls, of taking over power and state institutions by taking advantage of Bouteflikas health conditions.

Last May, fourteen Algerian opposition politicians, activists, jurists, and academics, led by former Prime Minister Ahmed bin Beitour, sent a letter to President Bouteflika directly, urging him not to yiel
BRECKSVILLE, Ohio -- It took a little longer than expected, but a unique cafe serving healthy foods has finally opened at the north corner of Brecksville and Mill roads, just north of Ohio 82.

24 Karrot Kitchen celebrated a soft opening Aug. 15 and started keeping regular hours the next day, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Everything here is made from scratch, and the cafe is buying its produce from local farmers.

"We thought we would be open by the beginning of the year," said Kathleen Madden, who co-owns 24 Karrot Kitchen with her husband, Paul Jantzen. "I had no idea what it took to build a commercial kitchen. We had to upgrade our electrical and gas systems and put in a new water line. It was a lot of coordination."

Madden, who with Jantzen recently relocated to Brecksville from Annapolis, Md., said the city of Brecksville has been supportive.

"When we needed an inspection, we called them, and they were here the same day," Madden said. "Nothing was held up because of the city. All of that moved really well."

Madden said she and Jantzen are focused on natural, healthy foods because that's what consumers -- either by choice or due to health conditions -- are demanding. Their menu will include bone broth, specialty soups and small salads topped with nutritious microgreens.

"The vegan community has reached out to me and expressed interest in what I'm doing, and would like to be able to come here," Madden said. "So I've added quite a few vegan entrees to the menu, including soup based on vegetable stock."

Madden and Jantzen are working with about 10 local farmers through Countryside Conservancy, which in partnership with Cuyahoga Valley National Park has been establishing small farms within the park.

"It was farmland once and now they are turning it back into farmland," Madden said. "The soil is rich because it hasn't been farmed in years. The produce they are providing is just wonderful. It's an amazing project they're doing."

The conservancy organizes farmers' markets in various locations, including Highland Square in Akron and Old Trail School in Bath Township. Madden and Jantzen will take part in one at Howe Meadow in Peninsula.

"The farmers grow whatever is best fit for the land," Madden said. "There are fruit farmers, and some are raising grass-fed beef, chickens and pigs. Some are doing mushroom and maple-syrup farming."

Jantzen is supplementing the produce supply with plants and trees he's growing outside the cafe. There are fig, olive and citrus trees, along with turmeric, horseradish, ginger and herbs.

Countryside Conservancy promotes food sustainability, which is in line with Madden's and Jantzen's thinking. At 24 Karrot Kitchen, the couple will manage a "full-cycle-recycle" system, involving composting every unconsumed food scrap. Even their to-go cups and bowls are compostable.

"Whatever we take from the ground we put back into the ground," Madden said.

The cafe will even provide composting "teabags." Customers pour water over them to fertilize their plants.

In addition to weekday hours, 24 Karrot Kitchen will host a "Coffee Plus" event on Sundays after church. Madden and Jantzen will serve coffee and various brunch items, perhaps including pancakes, frittatas, avocado toast, homemade granola and fresh fruit, every week.

All the food is gluten- and dairy-free.

In the fall, Madden will offer cooking classes where students can learn how to prepare healthy but tasty dishes and watch Madden cook a several-course meal while discussing nutritional highlights of each course.

A steady stream of visitors attended the Aug. 15 soft opening.

Inside the cafe, Madden has made room for local artists and photographers to display their work. She said it's the least she can do.

"The community has been amazing," Madden said. "People have been asking what they can do to help me succeed. They want me to stay in the area. It warms my heart to be from out of town and come here and be welcomed."
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Officials from the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. are expected to visit Cleveland Wednesday to talk about law enforcement efforts to combat the nation's opioid epidemic.

A news conference will be held at 12:20 p.m. Wednesday in the U.S. Attorney's Office in downtown Cleveland. The news release announcing the visit only identified those attending as "senior department officials."

It noted that a list of attendees was forthcoming.

The U.S. Attorney's Office had planned for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to visit Cleveland on Wednesday, multiple sources told cleveland.com. It was not immediately clear if the Justice Department's plans changed.

Cleveland and Cuyahoga County have been hit hard by the nation's opioid epidemic. Hundreds have died from overdoses each year for the past few years, with a record-high 727 deaths in 2017. The majority involved fentanyl, according to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office.

A federal judge in Cleveland is also overseeing more than 1,000 federal lawsuits, mostly filed by local and state governments, against the makers and distributers of prescription painkillers.

Sessions and his Justice Department have pushed the idea that increased prosecution will lead to fewer overdoses deaths. While prosecutors brought cases against drug dealers suspected of selling a dose to someone who died during the previous administration, Sessions has talked about wanting to bring more federal cases involving drugs and violent crime.

Many of those priorities, which tend to shift along with presidential administrations, are noticeable in the cases brought by the U.S. Attorney's Office after Sessions took over. Federal prosecutors continue to charge cases involving small and large amounts of opioids, and recently announced a plan to charge every "readily provable" offense involving dealing synthetic opioids in Lorain County.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Bedford alternative school principal who sexually abused a 17-year-old student and targeted female students who took an interest in the boy avoided jail time.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Stuart Friedman sentenced 40-year-old Courtney Alfred to two years of probation. Alfred, who pleaded guilty July 17 to four counts of felony sexual battery, faced up to 20 years in prison.

She will be required to register as a sex offender every 90 days for the rest of her life, turn over her teacher's license and undergo sex-offender counseling.

Alfred could be sentenced to four years in prison if she violates any term of her probation.

Friedman invoked powerful figures who have been accused of sexual abuse, including New York film executive Harvey Weinstein, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and "the President of the United States."

Friedman called Alfred's actions "disturbing," but he cited Alfred's lack of any prior criminal history and no statements that Alfred's actions left any prolonged serious injuries on the boy when he imposed the sentence.

"I suspect that incidents like these, that used to be laughed off, do have an impact on the victim," Friedman said. "But I'm not certain that it would be appropriate at this point, given your lack of any significant history, to order you into prison at this time."

Alfred, who cried throughout much of the hearing, apologized to the boy and his family, her husband and children, and to the community for her actions.

Bedford police arrested her in late March after a student at Education Alternatives came forward and showed officers a cellphone video of the two having sex, according to police. Investigators obtained a search warrant and matched one of Alfred's tattoos to one on the woman seen in the video, police said.

An investigation uncovered several sexual encounters between Alfred and the student during the 2016-17 school year that took place in Alfred's office, in her van, at her home and at two motels, according to court records.

Alfred singled out the 17-year-old student and isolated him, gave him money and gifts, used a school credit card to put him up in a hotel and eventually moved him into her home, Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Aqueelah Jordan told Friedman. She also isolated girl students who took an interest in the boy and had them transferred to other schools, Jordan said.

Education Alternatives, a non-profit organization that its website says provides education to at-risk youth, placed Alfred on administrative leave after learning of the allegations against her. She resigned from the school shortly after she was arrested.

The boy's mother told Friedman that her son was "going through a whole lot" because of the abuse, and said that Alfred denied the relationship when the mother first confronted her.

"I don't feel like she's sorry for what she did," the mother said. "Not at all."

To comment on this story, please visit Tuesday's crime and courts comments page.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - An iconic downtown Cleveland department store has transformed into luxurious apartment spaces.

The Halle Building once housed Halle's department store, selling upscale items to Cleveland's residents for more than 70 years. The building was constructed in 1910, and used for much of its existence as the iconic store.

During the holiday season, Halle's became famous for the character Mr. Jingeling, the keeper of Santa's keys. The popular character would appear in Halle's TV commercials, singing his signature song:

"Mr. Jingeling

How you ting-a-ling

Keeper of the keys

On Halle's 7th floor,

We'll be waiting for

You to turn the key."

Halle's department store shut down in 1982, and then the building was used for retail and offices until 2014. That's when K&D bought the building, to eventually create Residences at Halle in 2017.

Now, Residences at Halle will house 122 fancy apartments, which have move-ins this summer. And though the Halle Building is over 100 years old, the new apartment units are all modernized with high-speed internet, brand-new kitchen appliances and chic design.

The apartments range in size from 865 to 1,535 sq. ft. for one, two and three-bedroom suites, and penthouses get as large as 3,070 sq. ft.

Located in the center of downtown Cleveland, Residences at Halle are just a few minutes' walk away from highlights like Playhouse Square, Public Square and the Cleveland Malls. The building has an underground parking garage for residences.

The apartment has been leasing out its units, but it still has a one-bedroom unit available, at 1,415 sq. ft. Read more at Residences at Halle's full listing.

Residences at Halle
MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS, Ohio - Fat Head's Brewery - all 75,000 square feet of its cavernous space in view of Interstate 71 - is open for business.

The owners of the massive beer production-brewpub-kitchen-gift shop held a ceremonial ribbon-cutting with dignitaries, friends, family and beer-thirsty patrons on Monday, Aug. 20. As soon as the ribbon was sliced the doors opened and the taps began flowing.

"It's a hell of an accomplishment," said Matt Cole, about an hour before he lined up with founder Glenn Benigni and others for the ceremony. "We still have a long way to go."

Cole was referring to fine-tuning a few beers, but in reality it is a big deal - for the brewing community, for economic development in Middleburg Heights, and for tourism in Northeast Ohio.

Middleburg Heights Mayor Gary Starr, Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish and Ohio Rep. Martin J. Sweeney were among those who attended Monday's opening.

Starr credited the "dynamic experience" Fat Head's brings to Middleburg Heights along with job creation. Budish echoed his sentiments.

"I don't know much about beer - I don't drink - but I do know about jobs," he said, stressing Fat Head's is "more than just a beer-manufacturing facility."

With the opening, Fat Head's remains in Middleburg Heights; its former taproom is on Sheldon Road. That will become the home to Rivals Brewing Co.

Fat Head's patio is about three weeks from competition, Cole said, and a whole-hog, 100-percent fire, no-gas smoker is up and running. It can accommodate a 250-pound pig. Inside, self-guided tours are encouraged, with easy-to-understand signage explaining the brewing process.

In addition to its own beers, Fat Head's is serving several guest taps, including Jackie O's, MadTree, Willoughby Brewing and Noble Beast from Ohio and North Coast Brewing Co. of California, 3 Floyds of Indiana and Arsenal Cider of Pittsburgh.

Fat Head's is at 17450 Engle Lake Dr., Middleburg Heights. Hours: 11 a.m.-midnight Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Saturday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Sunday.

Previous coverage
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Bird electric scooters dropped into Cleveland overnight 11 days ago will be temporarily taken out of the city, a company official said Tuesday.

The move comes after Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson ordered that Bird remove the scooters from the city because of safety concerns.

"We are voluntarily pausing our operations in Cleveland," according to an emailed statement from the company. "However, we have had productive conversations with Councilman Kerry McCormack and community members, and are hopeful that we will be able to collaborate with the City on their permitting process so that Bird can be a reliable, affordable, and environmentally friendly transportation option for the community."

Bird drops dozens of the electric scooters without warning in cities across the country, including in Cleveland on Aug. 10. The scooters are unlocked via an app and costs 15 cents per minute of use.

The scooters can go 15 miles on a single charge and the company requires riders to wear a helmet, though there's no one to enforce that.

The scooters immediately caused controversy in Cleveland.

Cleveland State University on Monday banned the scooters on campus. They confiscated three scooters and said they would only release them to company officials.

Significant injuries in Bird scooter crashes have been reported in Nashville, San Diego and Indianapolis since May.

But proponents say the scooters provide an energy-efficient, cheap alternative to traditional transportation in cities.

McCormack, the Cleveland City Councilman-- whose ward includes downtown, Ohio City and Tremont, where most of the scooters were originally dropped -- previously told the Plain Dealer the city should take an open-minded approach to the scooters.

Linda Krecic, the spokeswoman for the Greater Cleveland RTA, previously said the scooters could complement the city's existing public transportation in the first and last mile from bus or rapid stops.

People could be seen riding the scooters in downtown Cleveland on Tuesday morning. A Bird spokeswoman said in an email the scooters would be collected from the city throughout the day on Tuesday.
AKRON, Ohio -- A New York man accused of running over a North Olmsted man at an interstate rest stop and killing him received a multi-million dollar bond during a brief court hearing Tuesday.

Paul D. Randall, Jr., 34, of Dolgeville, New York is charged with murder and aggravated robbery in the death of Scott Reichard, 42, of North Olmsted, according to Akron Municipal Court records.

Municipal Judge Kathryn Michael gave Randall a $2 million bond during an arraignment Tuesday morning in his first court appearance via video from the Summit County Jail, where he is being held.

Randall was also appointed an attorney, records show.

State Highway Patrol were called Friday about 11:15 p.m. to a fatal crash involving a pedestrian at a northbound rest stop on I-77 in Bath Township.

Witnesses told troopers that two men got into an argument before one of the men got in the other's Ford F-350 and ran him over without stopping, troopers have said.

Reichard's truck was later found abandoned in a downtown Cleveland parking lot.

Troopers came across Randall Saturday about 6:45 p.m. during a traffic stop on I-70 in Guernsey County when he was a passenger in a car driven by a woman believed to be his girlfriend. He was arrested without incident.

To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments page.
DAYTON, Ohio -- A 7-week-old baby was taken to the hospital Monday night after being dropped by a man who was trying to run from police, according to reports.

The infant was in stable condition at Dayton Children's Hospital after hitting a metal pipe when dropped, the Dayton Daily News reports.

The suspect, Alvin Thompson Jr., 25, is being held in the Montgomery County Jail, abc22now.com reports. He is being held on suspicion of felonious assault, failure to comply with an order or signal of a police officer, and on a traffic warrant.

Police say Thompson refused to stop during an attempted traffic stop by a police officer early Monday afternoon. It started a chase that lasted about 22 minutes.

The vehicle was stopped when officers used a tire deflation device, the Daily News reports.

Thompson reportedly jumped from the vehicle while carrying the infant and began running. He dropped the child when he jumped a fence.

Police say they found a semiautomatic weapon on Thompson.

The Daily News reports Thompson is set to appear in Dayton Municipal Court on Tuesday.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.
HILTON HEAD, South Carolina -- A woman attempting to protect her dog from an alligator attack near a lagoon Monday ended up being pulled into the water herself and killed, reports say.

The 8-foot-alligator was captured and euthanized, Capt. Robert McCullough of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources tells the Post and Courier.

The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office says Cassandra Cline, 45, was walking her dog along a lagoon in an area known as Sea Pines.

Edward Allen, Beaufort County coroner, tells WSAV Channel 3 that the dog got too close to the lagoon and the alligator attacked.

Cline tried to save her dog and the alligator turned on her. It grabbed the dog's leash and dragged her an estimated 14 feet into the water.

The dog escaped unharmed.

Authorities say Cline was alive when she was removed from the lagoon but died at the scene, ABC News reports.

WSAV reports this is the second fatal alligator attack in South Carolina, the first occurring in 2016 in Charleston.

"It's a very rare occurrence and one we hope we will not witness again," Allen tells WSAV.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Gov. John Kasich said Tuesday he will not attend the Ohio Republican Party's annual dinner where President Donald Trump will speak.

"Now I'm taking my second twin to college, after taking the first one to college," Kasich said at the end of a news conference in which he touted the accomplishments of Medicaid expansion. "And so I'm going to be spending a lot of time with her."

Trump will speak Friday at the fundraiser, which will be at the Columbus Convention Center.

Kasich and Trump, when they both sought the GOP nomination for president in 2016, differed on tone and policy. They continue to disagree - with Kasich, who may be exploring a potential presidential candidacy in 2020 - deriding Trump and his administration on Sunday morning political shows, and Trump hitting back on Twitter.

Last week, Trump blamed Kasich for Republican Troy Balderson's performance in the 12th Congressional District special election. The district was carved out to all but guarantee Republican representation, but Balderson's unofficial victory was slim.

Kasich said he doesn't follow everything Trump says about him on social media.

"I have no animosity," Kasich said. "I disagree with the president's policies. You've never seen me getting into a vicious attack on his personality. I don't like his leadership style. That's pretty darn clear and I speak out because I think it's really important we become a nation of uniters."

Kasich said he doesn't talk much about Trump's legal troubles or the Robert Muller probe, because his differences are more over policy than politics.

"In a funny sort of way for the kid that grew up in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, whose father carried mail on his back, it is pretty amusing to me to have a president of the United States attacking me. OK?" he said. "That doesn't bother me. It's kind, isn't that amazing? Should get a merit badge."

Ohio GOP Chairwoman Jane Timken told the Toledo Blade she wasn't expecting Kasich on Friday.
Dr. Bill Simmons, professor of New Testament and Greek studies at Lee University, was contracted by InterVarsity Press to author a book titled Pentecostal Themes in the New Testament. Dr. Simmons received a six-week summer research grant at Tyndale House, a research center for Evangelical scholars in Cambridge, England, to conduct research for his new book.

While in England, Dr. Simmons had the chance to converse with scholars from Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia.

According to Dr. Simmons, his new book will look at the person and work of the Holy Spirit in each New Testament book. Topics like the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, charismatic gifts, and revelation, among others, will have specific focus. Through these studies of the Holy Spirit, Dr. Simmons hopes this book will provide Pentecostals and Charismatics with a go to source for understanding the Holy Spirit in each book of the New Testament, as well as contributing to the spiritual formation of the reader.

"My goal is to provide sound biblical exegesis together with an emphasis on spiritual formation, said Dr. Simmons.

The emphasis on personal spiritual growth is supplemented with a focus on personal discipleship. Dr. Simmons book accomplishes this by including two distinct sections in each chapter. The first being Pause for Prayer, where a key verse from the chapter is highlighted to prepare the reader spiritually to receive the core message of the book being studied. The second section is What does it mean for me?, which connects the claims of the text to the reader at that moment.

There are two major factors that inspired the book, said Dr. Simmons. One is the state of global Pentecostalism and the other being the state of the modern biblical interpretation in the West.

Despite the exegetical and theological material, Dr. Simmons wrote Pentecostal Themes in the New Testament in non-technical terms to encourage easy reading by the non-specialist.

Pentecostal interpretation does not objectify the Scripture as an ancient artifact to be dissected and analyzed, said Dr. Simmons. Rather, the Word is alive and exacts a more powerful interpretive affect upon us than we upon the Word (Heb 4:12). This means that the Scriptures are to be studied devotionally (2 Tim 3:16?17). They were not given just to be mastered by human reason, but to be obeyed by godly servants (James 1:22, 2:17).

Dr. Simmons has been a member of Lee's faculty since 1986, teaching a wide variety of courses in the School of Religion. These have included Romans and Galatians, First and Second Corinthians, Prison Epistles, New Testament Greek, Luke-Acts, and many others.

Dr. Simmons book is scheduled to be released by summer 2019.
The numbers of terrorist attacks and deaths worldwide declined in 2017 for the third consecutive year, according to latest data released by the University of Marylands National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).

Last year, there were 10,900 terrorist attacks around the world, which killed more than 26,400 people, including 8,075 perpetrators and 18,488 victims, show the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), a compilation of attacks published yearly by the University of Maryland.

Terrorist violence peaked in 2014 to nearly 17,000 attacks and more than 45,000 total deaths.

While three consecutive years of decreases is encouraging, terrorist violence remains extraordinarily high compared to historical trends, said Dr. Erin Miller, GTD program manager.

In the decade prior to the September 11th attacks, the frequency and lethality of terrorist violence worldwide each year was less than one-third of what we saw last year, he added.

In 2017, terrorist violence remained heavily concentrated in certain locations, and coincided with other types of political violence. More than half of all attacks took place in four countries: Iraq (23 pc), Afghanistan (13 pc), India (9 pc) and Pakistan (7 pc). More than half of all deaths took place in three countries: Iraq (24 pc), Afghanistan (23 pc) and Syria (8 pc).

The deadliest terrorist attack in 2017 took place in October, in Mogadishu, Somalia. Assailants detonated explosives in a truck near the Safari Hotel. More than 580 people were killed, and more than 300 others were injured.

The ISIS extremist group was responsible for the most terrorist attacks (1,321) and deaths (7,120) in 2017. The Taliban and al-Shabaab were the next most deadly group with 907 attacks (4,925 deaths) and 573 attacks (1894 deaths).

In the Middle East and North Africa, the number of attacks decreased to 3,780 in 2017, from more than 6,110 the year prior. Thats a decrease of almost 40 pc. And the number of deaths caused by terrorism in the region fell by almost half.

The major drops were recorded in Iraq, Turkey, Libya, Yemen and Syria. ISIS retreat in 2017 contributed to the decline. The terror drop in the Middle East, Asia and Africa has been the main driver of a global decline in terror. Attacks around the world went from about 17,000 three years ago to 10,900 last year.

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) is supported by the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

START uses state of the art theories, methods and data from the social and behavioral sciences to improve understanding of the origins, dynamics and social and psychological impacts of terrorism.
NORTH CANTON, Ohio - The parent company of Ultimate Air Shuttle, which operates the popular Cleveland-to-Cincinnati flights from Burke Lakefront Airport, won't be purchased after all.

The cancellation of the sale of North Canton-based Ultimate Jetcharters to OneJet also negates, at least temporarily, a planned expansion by the two carriers, both of which serve business travelers in medium-sized cities in the Midwest and East.

Rick Pawlak, managing director of Ultimate Air, said he could not discuss the reasons why the sale was called off. But he said Ultimate would continue to look at expansion possibilities in Cleveland and elsewhere.

"We are not going to slow down," said Pawlak. "We are ready to grow."

OneJet, founded in 2015 and headquartered in Massachusetts, has been going through a rough patch of late - recently under fire from Pittsburgh International Airport for cutting routes that the carrier was paid to provide.

The Allegheny County Airport Authority, which operates the Pittsburgh airport, this month sued OneJet to recoup $763,000 it paid the carrier to provide service to 10 markets for five years. The carrier also received $2 million in loans from Allegheny County and the state of Pennsylvania.

OneJet is currently flying only three routes - two from Pittsburgh, to Hartford and Indianapolis; and one between Buffalo and Albany.

As recently as June, OneJet flew from Pittsburgh to Albany, Kansas City, Louisville, Milwaukee, and West Palm Beach.

A spokesman for OneJet could not be reached.

At the time the sale of Ultimate was announced in May, Pawlak and OneJet CEO Matt Maguire extolled the benefits of combining forces. OneJet was expected to provide needed capital to help accelerate the new company's expansion plans; Ultimate, meanwhile, was generally perceived to have a stronger history in aviation services.

OneJet currently is using two Ultimate airplanes on a temporary basis, said Pawlak.

Ultimate Jetcharters owns 10 airplanes, all with 30 seats each. While Ultimate Jetcharters offers traditional charter service, Ultimate Air operates like a commercial airline, with regularly scheduled routes. It's the only commercial service operating out of Burke Lakefront.

Ultimate has provided twice-a-day service from Cleveland to Cincinnati since 2015; a route to Morristown, New Jersey, outside New York City, was canceled in early 2017.

Pawlak said the carrier is looking for ways to fund its expansion in the future.

In the meantime, the carrier continues to have conversations with Cleveland travelers about what routes they'd like to see in the future. Among the top contenders: Indianapolis. "There are no direct flights there," said Pawlak. "And it's a very long drive."

Related: Sale of Ultimate Air Shuttle to OneJet could bring new flights to Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport
According to CNBC's Jim Cramer, companies that don't disrupt their own businesses "end up getting crushed by those who do." He highlighted two companies, and , that are taking steps in the right direction. Constellation Brands, which owns various spirits brands like Corona and Svedka Vodka, invested almost $4 billion in medical marijuana company . With the new investment, Constellation will have a 38 percent stake in Canopy Growth. Cramer commended Constellation CEO Rob Sands for recognizing that "marijuana is going mainstream." Canada, where Canopy Growth is based, is set to legalize recreational marijuana use this fall. "This is the future whether you like it or not," the "Mad Money" host said. Canopy Growth is the largest publicly-traded marijuana company. The stock is up almost 60 percent year to date. "Celebrate these companies that are willing to put their present business at risk in order to own the future," Cramer concluded. Read more about these two disruptors here.

It's not too late to buy Walmart

A Walmart department manager helps stock shelves with school supplies in San Diego. Mike Blake | Reuters

After shares surged almost 10 percent last Thursday thanks to the company's strong second-quarter earnings numbers, investors might be wondering if the stock has reached its peak. CNBC's Jim Cramer doesn't think so. "Don't think it is too late to buy some," the "Mad Money" host said. Cramer traces the stock's rise back to CEO Doug McMillon's turnaround plan for the company, which began three years ago. In McMillon's eyes, Walmart "needed to spend a lot more money to build out its web presence and better compensate its workers," Cramer said. Although the stock initially dropped on the news, McMillon insisted that the plan would pay off in the long run. After a strong 2017, the stock took a hit this February when Walmart reported fourth-quarter earnings that missed expectations. "While McMillon pointed out that the growth would pick up again, by that point investors weren't in the mood for any nuance," said Cramer. Read all of Cramer's reasons why Walmart could go higher here.

Apptio CEO on bringing accountability to the VA

Sunny Gupta, CEO, Apptio Scott Mlyn | CNBC

Apptio CEO Sunny Gupta said the company is planning on bringing greater accountability to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs with its software. The tech company creates cloud-based technology business management software to help companies understand how they are spending their money on technology and to manage transformation into cloud computing. Apptio began by helping large companies like Exxon Mobil, JP Morgan Chase and Cisco but has since expanded to working with smaller companies and the federal government. Among its government clients is the VA. "We plan on delivering great accountability to the spend, so they can shift hundreds of millions of dollars onto modernization efforts like the cloud," Gupta told CNBC's Jim Cramer. Gupta said that the federal government spends $90 billion on technology, the majority of which he said is managed on spreadsheets. Apptio has partnered with the White House to develop a cost model for government agencies to use. Watch the full interview with Apptio CEO Sunny Gupta here.

These stocks are making a comeback

Boxes of Huggies brand diapers move along a conveyor belt at the Kimberly-Clark manufacturing facility in Paris, Texas. Laura Buckman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Don't count out beaten-down stocks just yet. Some of the most maligned names have made a comeback in the last few weeks, according to Cramer. Household staples manufacturer Kimberly-Clark, which owns the Huggies diapers and Kleenex tissue brands, announced a series of price increases last week that caused the stock to jump. "This price increase has a double fold opportunity because these adjustments upward are coming at the exact same time as the actual commodity costs are falling," Cramer pointed out. Other consumer brands, including General Mills and Kellogg, also caught fire. Cramer noted that these comebacks "are signaling that rates are headed lower, perhaps significantly because these stocks are all yielding three or higher." To find out which other stocks have made a comeback, click here.

Cramer's lightning round: Buy Twitter despite imperfect quarter
Morocco has urged the Europol for closer cooperation to monitor radicalized youth in Europe, head of Moroccos counterterrorism agency (BCIJ) Abdelhak Khiame said.

Morocco has established a strategy to protect its large diaspora in Europe from the threat of extremism, he said in an interview with Spanish news agency EFE, urging Europol to give Moroccan services access to its database.

Such access will help Moroccan security services better monitor radicalized youth in Europe, he said.

The interview was carried out on the commemoration of the Barcelona attacks perpetrated by Spanish youth of Moroccan origins.

For Khiame, one of the main lessons learnt of the Barcelona attacks is the need to reinforce the exchange of information between different intelligence services.

He said that cooperation with Spanish intelligence services is excellent, urging other European countries to follow suit.

In this regards, he deplored that French services did not contact Moroccan counterparts concerning the perpetrator of a recent terrorist attack, who was previously flagged by Moroccan services.

Moroccan and Spanish security services have conducted several joint operations to dismantle terrorist cells, the latest was busted last May with its members arrested in the Moroccan northern town of Fnideq and in Bilbao.
Primary care group One Medical is in talks to raise more than $200 million in growth capital from the private equity firm Carlyle Group, according to people with knowledge of the talks. The firm also aims to buy an additional $100 million worth of shares from existing investors.

The company is in the late stages of conversation, the sources say, as the deal is not yet done. The company declined to comment.

One Medical is a primary care group with offices in San Francisco, New York, Seattle and other cities across the country. It accepts insurance from most carriers, and and also lets users without insurance pay out-of-pocket. The company sets itself apart with its technology. In addition to online scheduling, the company offers a virtual medical team, a suite of mobile apps and has built its own electronic medical system rather than relying on a third party vendor.

One Medical in July of 2017 named former UnitedHealth group executive Amir Rubin as its CEO to replace its founder Tom Lee. At that time, Rubin told CNBC that the company had seen "tremendous growth" in its business that sells its primary care clinics into the employer market, and not just with consumers. One Medical in recent years has positioned itself as an on-site or nearby clinic to companies with large campuses, so that employees can access concierge medical care without leaving the office.

The company has raised more than $180 million in capital since it launched in 2007 from investors such as JPMorgan, Alphabet's GV, Benchmark and Maverick. One Medical's most recently reported valuation was more than $1 billion. It's not known where the current round values the company.
(L-R) Mexico's Secretary of Economy Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland, and United States Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer gather for a trilateral meeting at Global Affairs on the final day of the third round of the NAFTA renegotiations in Ottawa, Ontario, September 27, 2017.

"The whole process needs to be started with a notification to Congress," says Bruce Hirsh, former trade official in the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations and founder and principal of Tailwind Global Strategies. "That's a long process and hasn't even been initiated for bilateral talks."

The White House is ebullient about reaching a potential deal as soon as this week  with just Mexico. But that strategy could run into roadblocks thanks to the law that allowed President Donald Trump 's administration to fast-track talks on the 25-year-old deal in the first place, according to trade experts and four congressional aides.

But it had been initiated for a trilateral deal, and talks have been carefully choreographed to comply with that law, known as Trade Promotion Authority. In May 2017, the newly installed U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, told lawmakers the Trump administration would "initiate negotiations with Canada and Mexico regarding modernization of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)." The letter stating the administration's goals references the three-party deal eight times, which congressional aides say binds the administration to that outcome.

When it became clear in March that there would not be a quick conclusion to talks, Trump requested Congress extend his ability to renegotiate NAFTA under the faster track. But since then, he's repeatedly referenced his desire to do a bilateral deal with Mexico, a sentiment echoed by his top economic advisors Larry Kudlow and Kevin Hassett and on display with the frequent visits by Mexican delegations to Lighthizer's office.

"We have had very good sessions with Mexico and with the new president of Mexico, who won overwhelmingly," Trump said at a July 18 Cabinet meeting. "And we're doing really well on our trade agreement. So we'll see what happens. We may do it separately with Mexico, and we'll negotiate with Canada at a later time. But we're having very good discussions with Mexico."

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said later that day that the White House was keeping "both tracks" open.

The problem: The White House would need to ask Congress separately to approve a bilateral track, and once an agreement is reached, it would need to notify Congress again of its intention to send the deal to Capitol Hill for a vote. That process would take, at a minimum, 180 days.

For that reason, lawmakers and U.S. officials point to an eventual strategy of working Canada into the agreement reached with Mexico.

"Even if some elements of agreement are negotiated bilaterally, my expectation is ultimately a trilateral agreement that meets the high standards of Trade Promotion Authority and gains the support of Congress," said Senate Finance chair Orrin Hatch earlier this month.

Hassett signaled that may be the case.

"I think that what's going to happen after we close the Mexico deal is that Canada is going to look at it and see stuff they like and stuff they want to modify," Hassett told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "It's going to make it easier to make a deal with Canada because we have a deal with Mexico."

What it would mean to "close" the Mexico deal, though, is anybody's guess.
An American Airlines aricraft sits at a gate at O'Hare International Airport on May 11, 2018 in Chicago, Illinois.

American Airlines is cutting some of its international flights, including some money-losing service to China, as the world's largest airline faces a profit-crimping surge in fuel prices.

The airline is ending a Chicago-to-Shanghai flight this October along with a previously announced cut of Chicago-to-Beijing service. American is also reducing its daily flight from Chicago to Tokyo's Narita International Airport to three times a week.

"The two China routes, to a lesser degree, Tokyo, have been colossal loss makers for us," said Vasu Raja, American's vice president of network planning said on a company podcast. He said the changes would make the airline's important Chicago hub more profitable than the rest of the network. Earlier this year, the airline announced changes to its Latin American routes.

American is focusing more of its Asia service in Los Angeles and Dallas, Raja said. It is also seeking U.S. government approval to maintain its rights to fly to China.

In total, the airline is cutting 11 routes, which also include service flights from New York's John F. Kennedy International to Ireland and Haiti, as well as Philadelphia to Frankfurt and Munich.

American is adding nine other routes, all to Europe from Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago and Charlotte.

American, like its competitors is facing higher fuel bills that have cut into profits and prompted airlines to cull underperforming routes. American's shares are down more than 22 percent this year, more than other U.S. airlines. Rivals United Airlines and Delta Air Lines have said they would trim their growth plans after the busy summer travel season due to higher fuel costs.
A trader stands outside of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on July 25, 2017 in New York City. Getty Images

J.P. Morgan Chase sent online brokerage stocks into a frenzy on Tuesday, after CNBC reported that the Wall Street bank is about to introduce an app for free and discounted trades. But J.P. Morgan's isn't jumping into a market that's filled just with big publicly traded names like Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade and E-Trade. Over the last several years, numerous start-ups have popped up, catering to younger investors who are much more comfortable buying stocks on their phone than they are setting up a meeting with a financial adviser or even creating portfolios from their desktop. Apps work well if you're just getting started and don't have a lot of money to invest  maybe just a few hundred bucks  or if you don't want to pay the fees it takes for a human to manage your money. These apps are legit, and they're catching the attention of the big banks who need to reach digital audiences. Here's an overview of some of the more popular options.

Wealthfront

What it does: When you set up your Wealthfront account, you'll answer several questions that help the company create a risk profile for you. Then, it creates a custom portfolio and makes recommendations on how and where you should invest your money. The company claims that its software  created by its research experts  can manage money and keep fees lower than services provided by humans. Fees: 0.25% of invested assets. Minimum investment: $500 Unique features: Wealthfront professes "passive investing"  parking your money in index funds and letting it sit  versus active investing that requires frequent trading. The company recommends investing for at least five years and says it uses a "diversified portfolio" of low-cost funds to invest your money. It even has a unique tool that can tell you if you have enough money saved up to quit your job and travel.

Betterment

What it does: Like other options, Betterment helps you manage your money and create savings accounts for retirement, mortgages, college savings, tax planning and investing. Instead of entirely relying on algorithms or the choices you make on a questionnaire, Betterment also lets you reach out to licensed financial experts with questions on your accounts. Fees: 0.25% of invested assets or 0.40% for a premium account with a minimum $100,000 balance. Minimum investment: $0 Unique features: Betterment is similar to Wealthfront but also includes access to human advisers if you want them, either through phone or via online chat. Customers with a premium account can also talk to certified financial planners for help with retirement, college savings and more.

Acorns

Acorns app Source: Acorns

What it does: Acorns puts your money into preconfigured portfolios that it says were created by Nobel Prize-winning economist Harry Markowitz. You can deposit as much as you like, but it also automatically saves your spare change  what it calls microinvesting  and then automatically buys securities once you have enough money. Fees: $1 per month for a standard microinvesting account. $2 per month includes support for retirement savings with a recommended IRA. $3 per month includes a checking account and automatic retirement savings. Minimum investment: $0 to open an account, but you need $5 to start investing. Unique features: You can deposit money directly into Acorns, but you can also automatically round up the money you spend on purchases and have the rest deposited into your account. If you spend $2.55 on a coffee every day, for example, you can have the 45 cents of change put right into your Acorns account. Also if you shop with Acorns partners enough, some of the money you spend with them will be returned to your account. If you buy from Apple, for example, 1.2% of your purchase goes into your Acorns account (after 120 days.)

Robinhood

What it does: Unlike many new tools, with Robinhood you're the investor. That means you need to do your own research before investing. The app provides information, like a news feed on the stocks you follow, which you can use as a guide. Fees: U.S. securities trades are free, but you'll pay regulatory trading activity fees (TAF) up to $5.95. Foreign securities cost $50 per trade. If you need broker assistance on the phone, you'll pay $10 per trade. Minimum investment: $0 minimum deposit. Unique features: Robinhood puts your investments in your hands, so you're the one creating a portfolio. You won't be getting software or human investment advice. Robinhood also includes options trading, so you can bet long on the companies you like or place shorts on the companies you want to bet against, and earlier this year the company introduced a tool for buying cryptocurrencies.

Stash

What it does: Stash offers 30 different investment "themes." If you want to invest in companies that are focused on the environment, you can do that, or you can chose to invest in the "budding legal marijuana industry." You pick your options in a quick starter questionnaire, providing your age, income, saving goals and indicating if you're a conservative, moderate or aggressive investor. In total, there are more than 170 ETFs and stocks to pick from. Fees: Stash charges $1 a month for unlimited trades until you have more than $5,000 in your account, after which you pay $0.25% in fees per year. Minimum investment: $5 Unique features: Stash has a fun approach to its investments that lets you invest in different industries based on your interests, including really unique options like only investing in "companies with a conscience" or those that focus on workplace equality.

Stockpile
The future of banking is a topic close to my heart.

I only realized this earlier this year while chairing a conference on traditional forms of banking versus modern smartphone banking. I constantly find myself trying to engage with older members of my family on the move toward smartphone banking, only to be met with reluctance and apprehension.

For people of my generation, smartphone banking comes naturally. Visiting the bank, standing in long lines, meeting your relationship manager is not something I have ever done in my 33 years of existence. And why should I when I can transfer money with the touch of my finger and make investments through an app.

So, when my parents, who live in India, tell me that they have to go to the bank  a place that has become their second home over the years  to make an investment, it baffles me.

For me, the debate is a conflict between the old and the new. Why is it that people resort to new-age banking? Personally, it is to save time, for a better user experience and integration with other aspects of your life.

Let's not forget that we live in a world where since the 2008 global financial crisis, banks are suffering from a trust deficit. A number of consumers lost a lot of money during the crisis and want to steer clear of more established banks, while also moving toward more favorable rates from smaller operators.

However, technology while being your best friend can also be your worst enemy in the form of cyberattacks  a few of them we have already witnessed. There's also the issue of data privacy.
It's difficult to imagine a worse day in the presidency of Donald Trump than Tuesday, when two gripping legal dramas, one involving his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and the other embroiling his longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, collided in a surreal split screen crescendo.

In New York, Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court to eight felony counts of tax fraud, bank fraud and campaign finance violations.

Two hundred miles south, in Alexandria, Virginia, a jury found Manafort guilty of eight unrelated felonies: Five counts of felony tax fraud, one count of failing to report a foreign bank account, and two counts of bank fraud.

As the parallel dramas unfolded in federal courthouses Tuesday afternoon, Trump was at first uncharacteristically silent as he traveled to a campaign rally in West Virginia. But then he broke his silence after Air Force One landed.

"Paul Manafort is a good man," Trump told reporters after landing in West Virginia for a campaign rally. "I feel very badly for Paul Manafort." While pointedly refusing to comment on Cohen, the president stressed that Manafort's conviction "doesn't involve me," and called it, "a very sad thing is happening."

Trump also emphasized that Manafort's legal woes have "nothing to do with Russian collusion, absolutely nothing." He then segued into familiar criticisms of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, calling it a "witch hunt and a disgrace."
From here, then, "it would take approximately three or four more federal funds rate increases of a quarter of a percent to get into the range of this estimated neutral level," Kaplan said in an essay on conditions in both the Dallas district and the broader U.S. economy.

He said the neutral rate of interest, or one that is neither accommodative nor restrictive, is probably around 2.5 percent to 2.75 percent, compared with the 1.75 percent to 2 percent range where the Fed is currently holding its funds rate.

As the central bank continues to normalize policy, Kaplan said there likely are three or four more increases ahead for the Fed's benchmark rate target until it gets to "neutral." The policymaking Federal Open Market Committee has indicated as many as six more hikes ahead.

The Federal Reserve could be nearing the end of its rate-hiking cycle as headwinds build up to economic growth, Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan said Tuesday.

"At this stage, I believe the Federal Reserve should be gradually raising the fed funds rate until we reach this neutral level," he added. "At that point, I would be inclined to step back and assess the outlook for the economy and look at a range of other factors  including the levels and shape of the Treasury yield curve  before deciding what further actions, if any, might be appropriate."

Kaplan's remarks come as the FOMC is about to release minutes Wednesday from its July 31-Aug. 1 meeting, during which the committee opted against raising rates. However, officials have indicated, and the market expects, that two more increases are likely on the way before the end of the year, followed by three more in 2019 and at least one more in 2020, taking the funds rate to 3.4 percent, well above where Kaplan sees it.

Among his concerns are the yield curve, or the spread between rates on various government bonds. When short-term rates get higher than long-term rates, that has been a reliable recession indicator for the past 50 years.

While some Fed officials have cautioned against reading too much into a possible inversion, Kaplan said it's cause for concern.

"The longer end of the curve is telling me that, while there is substantial global liquidity and a search for safe assets, expectations for future growth are sluggish  and this is consistent with an expectation that U.S. growth will trend back down to potential," he wrote. "I do not discount the significance of an inverted yield curve  I believe it is worth paying attention to given the high historical correlation between inversions and recession."

Kaplan also expressed his concern about the current debt level. At $15.7 trillion, the amount of the national debt held by the public is more than 75 percent of GDP; more than 100 percent is generally considered a crisis level.

While the tax cuts and additional spending over the past year have created "a fiscal tailwind," that could "turn into a headwind if the U.S. takes steps to moderate its historically high expected path of debt growth," he said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to ban members of Congress and the White House staff from owning individual stocks  and replace them with government-managed investment accounts. Those are just two of the dozens of proposals dotting the Massachusetts Democrat's sweeping new legislative package, the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act, which she unveiled Tuesday. Warren said the bill is designed to "eliminate the influence of money in federal government." While the measure is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled Senate, it comes amid speculation that Warren could run for president in 2020. President Donald Trump ran on "draining the swamp," but his administration has been racked with corruption scandals, while many of Trump's private businesses have reaped financial gains during the early stages of his term. Warren's bill would also impose a lifetime ban on lobbying for presidents and federal lawmakers, and would bar U.S. lobbyists from using foreign cash to affect American policy. It would slap new taxes on "excessive lobbying" of more than $500,000 a year. It would bind Supreme Court justices to a code of conduct recognized by other federal judges.

And, in an apparent jab at Trump, the measure would require presidential candidates to share years of previous tax returns and continue doing so every year if they win. Trump broke with tradition and did not release his tax returns during the 2016 campaign. But in remarks she made Tuesday morning at the National Press Club, Warren said that the roots of political corruption, which have eroded Americans' trust in the government, go back decades before Trump took office. "This problem is far bigger than Trump," Warren said. "It is a crisis. A crisis of faith."

Stock rules

Warren's proposal also arrives about two weeks after Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., was indicted and arrested by federal law enforcement officials on insider trading charges related to an Australian biotech company of which he was a board member. Collins suspended his re-election campaign in his Trump-friendly district in upstate New York a few days later. Collins has pleaded not guilty to the charges. In pursuit of ending "both the appearance and the potential for financial conflicts of interest," Warren's bill would prohibit federal lawmakers, judges, Cabinet secretaries and other senior congressional staff from owning individual stocks while in office. It would also bar all government officials from holding stocks the value of which might be influenced by their work in office. "Enough of the spectacle of HHS secretaries and herds of congressmen caught up in insider trading schemes," Warren said in the speech. As an apparent alternative to individual stock ownership, the bill would create "conflict-free investment opportunities for federal officials with new investment accounts," according to a synopsis of the bill obtained by CNBC. "They can put their savings in conflict-free investments like mutual funds or they can pick a different line of work," Warren said. These accounts would be managed by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, an independent agency established during the Reagan administration that boasts fewer than 300 employees. A source familiar with the legislation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said it would establish so-called Federal Employee Investment Accounts for senior officials to maintain their stock and securities investments. They can divest from their conflicted assets, the source said, and "temporarily invest the resulting funds" into the federal accounts. Officials would be able to withdraw their funds from the government accounts "at any time without penalty," the source added.

Accountability and ambition

On Monday, Warren, a longtime critic of Wall Street, teased her new bill by highlighting what she called "examples of how corruption has seeped into Washington" in a series of tweets. Her list of targets included Trump administration officials such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and former EPA chief Scott Pruitt. The latter two left the administration under a cloud of scandal. Warren DeVos tweet She accused Citibank of working to erode financial regulations, and criticized Exxon Mobil, which she said employs nearly two dozen lobbyists who previously worked for Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. Warren Exxon tweet Warren's new push to sever corporate power from the federal government follows another proposal she outlined less than a week earlier called The Accountable Capitalism Act. That bill would establish a system of federal charters requiring company directors to consider the broader impact of their actions beyond solely their own shareholders. "My proposal says, 'Let's get a little accountability into the system,'" Warren said in an interview last week with CNBC's . She was also asked to respond to criticism that her proposals were merely part of a bid to run for president in 2020. "First of all, I am running for Senate," said Warren, who is up for re-election this year but is favored to win easily. "But let me say, these are the things I've worked on all my life." She denied any presidential ambitions once more on Tuesday. "I am not running for president in 2020," Warren said in response to a reporter's question. "I'm running for the Senate in 2018."

While Warren established from the outset that her bill aimed at problems beyond the current administration, Trump was still a central character in the speech. "The truth is, it's insane that we have to beg the president of the United States to put the American people ahead of his own business interests. Insane," she said. Her legislation would require the president and the vice president to place all their conflicted assets  including their businesses  in a blind trust to be sold off. And it would force the IRS to release tax returns from all presidential and vice-presidential candidates stretching back eight years before they launch their campaigns. They would also be required to release their tax returns every year while in office. As a presidential candidate, Trump promised to release his tax returns following a government audit  though there was no law stopping him from releasing those documents regardless of an audit. After Trump won the election, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Trump would not release his tax returns, after all. "We litigated this all through the election," she said in an ABC interview at the time. "People didn't care." Warren also referenced Paul Manafort, Trump's beleaguered ex-campaign chairman, who is currently on trial in Alexandria, Virginia on bank fraud tax crime charges. Manafort's trial, Warren said, "has exposed how foreign governments hide their efforts to influence the American government through lobbying." Her bill would ban Americans from getting paid to lobby for foreign governments. Manafort made millions of dollars as a consultant for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. His charges, brought by special counsel Robert Mueller through an ongoing probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, are related to that Ukraine work. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to all charges in the Virginia case, as well as similar charges lodged by Mueller in a case in Washington, D.C. federal court. "If foreign governments want to express their views, they can use their diplomats," Warren said in her speech.

WATCH: Cramer says don't dismiss Sen. Warrens ideas
The timing of Michael Cohen's plea deal, Microsoft's Russian hacking allegations, and Paul Manafort's alleged ties to Russia raise some serious questions about Russia and the Trump campaign, former Assistant Attorney General of National Security John Carlin told CNBC on Tuesday.

"I don't think there's been a time in American history where we have had this many people this close to a presidential campaign politically tied up with one of our top adversaries," Carlin said on CNBC's "Power Lunch."

Cohen, a former lawyer to President Donald Trump, struck a plea deal in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, following a months-long investigation into campaign finance violations, bank and tax fraud.

During his hearing, Cohen admitted to tax and bank fraud, as well as illegal campaign contributions at the direction of a candidate who was not named  although it was evident that this candidate was Trump.

Carlin, who has served as a top-level official in both Republican and Democratic administrations and now chairs a cybersecurity program at The Aspen Institute, did not assert Cohen's violations are in any way tied to Russia, but he said Trump's former lawyer "is certainly in a position to know a lot of information."

Former federal prosecutor Jacob Frenkel said, inherent to Cohen's guilty plea, will be a government expectation that he will cooperate with any investigations of interest.

"Everything is really going to turn on what Cohen can say about what did the president and people close to him actually know," Frenkel said Tuesday on "Power Lunch." "Fundamentally for Michael Cohen this is about bringing closure. And the government's expectation in that process is going to be his cooperation in whatever investigations may be of continuing interest to the government."

On Tuesday, Microsoft said it uncovered new Russian hacking attempts targeting U.S. political groups ahead of the midterm elections. Microsoft said a hacking group tied to the Russian government created fake internet domains that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations. Russian authorities have denied those allegations.

"The Microsoft report was significant in that it's another data point that shows [Russia doesn't] care if you are a Republican or a Democrat or conservative or liberal think-tank, they are [against] our values and in favor of Putin's values," Carlin said.

Meanwhile, jurors convicted former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort on eight felony charges late Tuesday afternoon. He was accused of hiding income, some of it from pro-Russian political sources.

"This has to do with whether or not Russia is trying to influence our campaign  and everyone agrees that they are  and then, secondly, were they trying to influence certain officials to do it and that Manafort may be one of those people," Carlin said.

Carlin said the timing of all these events is just too convenient.

That Cohen's guilty plea "is occurring at the same time that the former campaign manager is awaiting a jury verdict about his fraud, and interesting news today from Microsoft about Russia's continuing attempts to attack our country ... we have, I think, a confluence of events here of historic proportions," Carlin said.

The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.
President Donald Trump's former longtime personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen is in the process of discussing a potential guilty plea with prosecutors in New York, multiple outlets reported on Tuesday.

No deal had been reached Tuesday afternoon, according to NBC News, which first reported on the negotiations.

Cohen is reportedly under investigation for a number of charges related to tax fraud and other banking-related crimes. Investigators are probing more than $20 million in loans obtained by taxi businesses owned by Cohen and his family, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

Investigators are also reportedly looking into payments Cohen arranged with women who have said they had sexual encounters with the president. Prosecutors are examining whether those payments could amount to campaign finance violations.

Any deal could have dramatic implications for the president, who has worked closely with Cohen for more than a decade. Trump has gone on the offensive against Cohen in recent weeks as Cohen began to signal that he could cooperate with investigators working for special counsel Robert Mueller.

A spokeswoman for Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. Calls to Cohen were not immediately returned on Tuesday.

Long known as one of Trump's most loyal confidantes, Cohen once said he would take a bullet for the president. That tone appeared to shift this summer, with Cohen telling ABC News that "family and country" came before the president in an interview broadcast in July.

Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani has led the push to discredit Cohen. In a July interview on CNN, Giuliani called Cohen "a person who is found to be an incredible liar, who's got a tremendous motive to lie now."

The investigation into Cohen's financial dealings is being led by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. In April, federal investigators raided Cohen's New York hotel and office after receiving a referral from Mueller. A cooperation agreement would likely apply to both investigations, according to NBC News.

The review of the thousands of documents seized during the raid came to an end on Monday, according to court documents filed in New York federal court.

The president and his attorneys have denied that Cohen's cooperation could incriminate the president.

"[Cohen] is not cooperating, nor do we care because the president did nothing wrong," Giuliani said on Fox News in June.

Cohen's business partner Evgeny A. Freidman agreed to cooperate with state and federal investigators in May, a move which was seen as raising the likelihood that Cohen himself would ultimately take a plea deal. Freidman has been accused of failing to pay millions of dollars in taxes.

CNBC's Brian Schwartz contributed to this report.
Paraguay Reiterates Support for Moroccos Sovereignty over the Sahara

Once an ardent Polisario supporter, Paraguay has made a U-turn on its pro-separatist stance in favor of backing international law and Moroccos historic rights over its southern provinces, the Sahara.

Paraguays Foreign Minister Luis Alberto Castiglioni said that his country recognizes Morocco as a united country and backs its territorial integrity.

This is a final and lasting position, Castiglioni told Speaker of the Moroccan Parliament Lahbib el Malki at the investiture of Paraguays new president Mario Abdo Benitez.

The Paraguayan official also commended the reforms launched in Morocco under the leadership of King Mohammed VI saying that they stand as a model to follow.

Last May, Paraguays MPs unanimously adopted a resolution backing Moroccos autonomy initiative to end the Sahara conflict.

The resolution expresses support for Moroccos autonomy initiative, which reflects the serious and credible efforts to prepare conditions propitious for finding a politically acceptable solution to the long-lasting regional dispute.

The Polisario has been dealt severe blows in South America. In August 2017, a Uruguayan court turned down a request to seize a phosphates shipment originating from the Sahara following a similar rejection by Panama to a similar request early June the same year.

In September 2017, Peruvian authorities declared Polisario official Khadijatou El Mokhtar persona non grata and proceeded to her deportation manu military to Madrid
Daniel Becerril | Reuters

Ways to use genetically modified mosquitoes

A worker sprays anti-mosquito fog in an attempt to control dengue fever at a neighborhood in Jakarta, Indonesia. Highly populated areas in the country are often hit with severe outbreaks of the mosquito-borne disease especially during the annual rainy season due to poor health services and unsanitary living conditions. Achmad Ibrahim / AP Photo There are two alternative methods currently used to control mosquito-borne diseases using GM mosquitoes. The first is "population replacement" in which a mosquito population biologically able to transmit pathogens is "replaced" by one that is unable to transmit pathogens. This approach generally relies on a concept known as "gene drive" to spread the anti-pathogen genes. In gene drive, a genetic trait  a gene or group of genes  relies on a quirk on inheritance to spread to more than half of a mosquito's offspring, boosting the frequency of the trait in the population. The second approach is called "population suppression." This strategy reduces mosquito populations so that there are fewer mosquitoes to pass on the pathogen. While the concept of gene drive in mosquitoes is many decades old, the gene-editing technique CRISPR has finally made it possible to easily engineer it in the laboratory. However, CRISPR-based gene drives have not yet been deployed in nature, mostly because they are still a new technology that lacks a firm international regulatory framework, but also due to problems related to the evolution of resistance in mosquito populations that will stop the gene from spreading. It may not be immediately obvious, but the gene in "gene drive" need not be a gene at all  it can be a microbe. All organisms exist not just with their own genomes, but also with the genomes of all their associated microbes  the "hologenome." Spread of a microbial genome through a population by inheritance can also be thought of as gene drive. By this definition, the first gene drive that has been deployed in mosquito populations for disease control is a bacterial symbiont known as Wolbachia. Wolbachia is a bacterium that infects up to 70 percent of all known insect species, where it hijacks the insect reproduction to spread itself through the population. Thus, the Wolbachia itself (with its genome of approximately 1,500 genes) acts as the genetic trait that is driven into the population. When Wolbachia is transferred into a previously uninfected mosquito, it often makes the mosquito more resistant to infection with pathogen that can cause disease in humans, such as multiple viruses (including dengue and Zikaviruses) and malaria parasites.

A bacterium that fights disease

GM mosquitoes that eliminate mosquitoes
Getaround, the car-share company that lets drivers rent their vehicles to strangers, is gearing up for more growth fueled by a new round of funding.

The San Francisco company has raised $300 million in Series D funding led by the SoftBank Vision Fund. Toyota and company insiders also provided money in the latest financing round. Getaround has raised $400 million in total capital so far.

"We are confident in our product, playbook, and team," Sam Zaid, Getaround founder and CEO said in a statement. "We look forward to leading the growth of next-generation carsharing."

Since starting in 2010, Getaround has steadily grown its car-share network to include several thousand vehicles in 66 U.S. cities. In the last year, Getaround has seen a sevenfold Increase in booked hours.

For SoftBank, the investment comes just months after the Japanese company agreed to buy a 20 percent stake in GM's autonomous vehicle subsidiary Cruise Holdings for $2.25 billion. SoftBank also has invested $9.3 billion in Uber, becoming the ride-hailing company's largest investor.

"SoftBank sees carsharing as an accelerating trend that will disrupt car ownership", said Michael Ronen, managing partner of SoftBank Investment Advisers.

Car-sharing, which allows members to rent a vehicle for a few hours or several days, has been around for more than 15 years. Zipcar may be the best-known car-share company with more than 12,000 vehicles available for rent. In recent years the industry has picked up momentum with Daimler subsidiary Car2Go and GM subsidiary Maven both steadily growing their networks.

Questions? Comments? .


Greece lost access to the financial markets in 2010 amid an unfolding sovereign debt crisis and, since then, it has struggled to revamp its economy  relying in the last eight years on creditors' money for financing. But this external help ended Monday, after three consecutive financial programs that imposed tough economic measures, from cuts in salaries and pensions to higher taxes.

"Greece has already undertaken quite a lot of commitments for the next two years that aren't dramatically different from another program," Panos Tsakloglou, an economics professor at Athens University, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe."

European and Greek politicians are in celebratory mode as Athens ended a decade of financial assistance on Monday . But, according to one expert, Greece remains in the hands of its creditors and is under an "informal" fourth bailout program.

Greece has little to cheer despite reaching an end to its third bailout program as austerity measures will remain with the country for at least two more years, one academic told CNBC Tuesday.

However, some of the measures that Greece had to legislate to end the third program only come into effect in the coming months and years, including changes to pensions, which kick in at the start of 2019.

"If you look at the yields of Greek bonds and especially the spreads (difference) from the German bund, they do not seem to guarantee a smooth reintroduction of Greece re-access to the international financial markets," Tsakloglou added.

Looking at the yield on the 10-year Greek government bond, it's still the highest across the euro zone, above 4.32 percent.

"Of course, these things (market conditions) can change in the next month, however as we are at the moment we are not in a celebratory mood here in Greece," he said.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is expected to address the media Tuesday in Ithaca island. Market players are looking for clues on what direction he will take the country now that Greece is no longer getting regular tranches of money from Europe. Instead it will have to use the global financial markets to help with its spending plans.

Athens is sitting on a cash buffer that will allow it sufficient funds for the next 22 months. This cash pile stands at 24.1 billion euros ($27.4 billion), thanks to money that Greece put aside during the third financial program and tranches from European creditors. The amount is expected to cover all sovereign needs in the coming year-and-a-half, unless it thinks there are favorable conditions to do so.

On Monday, European politicians called on Tsipras to continue a sound fiscal policy. However, analysts and investors worry that a general election in 2019 might affect the direction of economic policy in Athens.
President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, admitted guilt on eight counts of financial crimes in federal court Tuesday.

The guilty plea followed months of deliberations in U.S. District Court in lower Manhattan over piles of materials seized in FBI raids from Cohen's office and hotel room in April.

Cohen pleaded guilty to the counts as part of a plea deal, through which he could reportedly receive three to six years in prison.

Bail was set at $500,000 bail and he faces a Dec. 12 sentencing hearing.

Here's what Cohen admitted:
Joe Raedle | Getty Images

As questions swirl about whether President Donald Trump's rollbacks will harm the environment, one crucial factor looms large over the fate of emission standards: consumers' wallets. The Trump administration proposes that a rollback on CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards will produce a $2,340 reduction in overall average vehicle ownership costs for new vehicles and save $500 billion in societal costs over the next 50 years. Yet, auto industry experts warn that the rollback could add thousands to consumers' fuel bills over the lifetime of a car. "Consumers are going to lose," said David Friedman, vice president of advocacy for Consumer Reports. "Consumers are going to end up with cars that they're spending $3,000 more over the lifetime of a car and $5,000 more for the lifetime of an SUV, " he added, referring to greater fuel costs. In 2012 the Obama administration initiated the gradual increase of federal fuel economy standards with the goal of reaching 54.5 mpg for new vehicles by model year 2025. Obama pushed for greater fuel efficiency to combat climate change and to "save consumers more than $1.7 trillion at the gas pump." Instead, the Trump administration is attempting to freeze the standards to 37 mpg by the 2026 model year. Trump contends that the price of new vehicles will quickly become "out of reach for many American families" if CAFE standards continue to rise.

President Donald Trump talks with auto industry leaders, including General Motors CEO Mary Barra (L) and United Auto Workers (UAW) President Dennis Williams (R) at the American Center for Mobility in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan, U.S. March 15, 2017. Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

The auto industry cheered on Trump's proposal. Car manufacturers long argued that adding fuel-saving technology on every single vehicle is overtly expensive and will skyrocket car prices. In May, CEOs and other executives from 10 U.S. and foreign carmakers met with Trump at the White House to push their defense. The administration agreed, saying the Obama-era standards could cause consumers to keep their old cars rather than upgrading to a new model with better fuel economy and pollution control. Those claims are disputed by some industry experts. Experts believe that automakers have the capacity to create new vehicles with greater efficiency without exorbitantly raising the price, but are begrudged to do so. "Anyone who tries to downplay the engineering innovation of the auto industry is selling them short," said Friedman. A recent report by the Consumer Federation of America found that nearly a fourth of "all new 2017 models" were less expensive than their counterparts in 2011, yet all vehicles saw a 1 mpg to 10 mpg increase. It also suggests what experts are arguing today: Even if the costs are greater, the savings in fuel will offset higher prices. The study concludes that rolling back the standards would not only "cause great harm" to consumers but also weaken auto sales because of consumer demand for greater efficiency. Carla Bailo, president and CEO of the Center for Automotive Research, also suggested that the administration's figures are "inflated" and "highly doubtful," because car manufacturers are investing in technology for greater fuel efficiency around the world. The Obama-era standards are actually less stringent than those set by the European Union and South Korea  requiring a fuel economy of 56 mpg in the same time period. Bailo explained that "volume will of course help mitigate" the costs that have carmakers concerned.



If the rollbacks are approved, car manufacturers will produce new vehicles with doddering technology, specifically for the U.S. market, she said. The result would save automakers vast amounts of money necessary to fund for redesigning light and more aerodynamic models to meet 2012 standards. "They want to stretch those investments as long as possible, and American consumers are paying the price," said Friedman.

Consumers are going to end up with cars that they're spending $3,000 more over the lifetime of a car and $5,000 more for the lifetime of an SUV. David Friedman vice president of Consumer Reports
Iran has revealed what it claims is a new domestically-produced fighter jet at a ceremony in Tehran.

On Tuesday, Iranian state television screened images of President Hassan Rouhani sitting in the "Kowsar" fighter aircraft, according to Tasnim News Agency.

Designed and manufactured solely by Iranian military experts, the Kowsar is described as a fourth-generation fighter jet, which classifies it among military fighters in service from approximately 1980 to the present day.

By contrast, Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II, the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and China's Chengdu J-20 are considered fifth generation fighters because of their enhanced stealth abilities and computational power.

Tasnim, citing the state television report, said Iran's new jet had already been through successful test flights and would soon be ready to carry out shorter distance aerial support missions.
California Gov. Jerry Brown blasted the Trump administration's proposal to rewrite Obama-era greenhouse gas rules in favor of coal-fired power plants as "a declaration of war against America and all of humanity."

On Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new rule for greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal-fired electric utility generating units and power plants known as the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, which will give states more power to set their own emission standards at plants.

Trump's EPA criticized the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan as "overly prescriptive and burdensome," adding that the new rule it proposed "instead empowers states, promotes energy independence, and facilitates economic growth and job creation."

Brown almost immediately slammed the Trump administration's move.

"This is a declaration of war against America and all of humanity  it will not stand," Brown said in a statement. "Truth and common sense will triumph over Trump's insanity."

In the United States, power plants represent the second largest share of greenhouse gas emissions after the transportation sector. About two-thirds of the electricity generated at power plants comes burning fossil fuels, mostly coal or natural gas.

The announcement by the EPA had been widely expected ever since President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March 2017 to promote energy independence and promote coal. That executive order called on departments and agencies to review existing regulations "that unduly burden the development of domestic energy resources."

A release issued by the governor said the White House's new plan "encourages the use of coal  and undercuts the nation's commitment to clean energy."

Brown said the state has no plans to roll back its greenhouse gas emissions targets and will instead "exceed the targets" in the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. The Democratic governor has been a frequent critic of Trump's views on climate change and the environment.

Earlier this month, Brown criticized the Trump administration's plan to roll back the nation's clean car standards. "California will fight this stupidity in every conceivable way possible." Brown said at the time.

The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Brown's remarks.

In 2017, the Obama EPA contended that its Clean Power Plan would save annual emissions equal to more than 165 million cars, or about 70 percent of the nation's passenger vehicles.

According to the state, California is on track to produce one-third of its power from renewable energy sources by 2020 and expects to generate half of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.

California relies on coal for slightly more than 4 percent of its power mix, while nationally that figure stands at just over 30 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Renewable energy sources represented 29 percent of the state's power mix last year, with solar and wind accounting for the bulk of it.

Climate change legislation passed by the state two years ago commits California to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.

A key element of the state's program to cut greenhouse gas emissions is a cap-and-trade program, which includes a quarterly auction of carbon allowances. Since 2013, the auctions have raised about $8 billion in proceeds, including revenue to fund the state's high-speed rail project.
Cohen did not name Trump himself Tuesday, when he admitted in court to various crimes , and prosecutors did not mention the president's name in the plea agreement.

Cohen's plea came at the same time a jury in Virginia convicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on eight counts of fraud and other charges. The president, meanwhile, was headed to West Virginia for a campaign rally on what has become one of the most consequential and perhaps catastrophic days of his presidency .

The statement came hours after Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other federal crimes.

However, Cohen said "a candidate" for federal office directed him to make illicit payments to two women meant to influence the 2016 elections.

"If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?" Davis said in a statement. In addition to being Cohen's lawyer, Davis served in the White House under President Bill Clinton.

DAVIS TWEET

Trump has denied involvement with either women, porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.

Rudy Giuliani, Trump's lead outside lawyer in the special counsel's Russia probe, meanwhile, slammed Cohen.

"There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government's charges against Mr. Cohen," Giuliani said in a statement. "It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohen's actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time."

Trump ignored questions about Cohen when he landed in West Virginia, although he weighed in on the Manafort conviction.

"Paul Manafort is a good man. ... It doesn't involve me but it's a very sad thing. ... It had nothing to do with Russian collusion," Trump said.

The president has repeatedly denied collusion or obstruction of justice.
Oil rose to its highest in a week on Tuesday, buoyed by the prospect of price support from U.S. sanctions on Iran, although the trade dispute between Washington and Beijing kept traders and analysts cautious. Brent has rallied more than 3 percent after touching a four-month low last week, while U.S. crude is up nearly 5 percent from last Thursday's eight-week low. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude for delivery in September jumped 92 cents, or 1.4 percent, to end the session at $67.35. The contract expires on Tuesday. Brent crude futures rose 51 cents to $72.72 a barrel by 2:24 p.m. ET. The October WTI contract, the most heavily traded, was up 56 cents, or nearly 1 percent, at $65.98 a barrel. September WTI's premium to the October contract widened to as much as $1.69 a barrel on Tuesday, after narrowing since the beginning of August. The front-month spread widened significantly in July after an unexpected outage at Canada's oil sands facility dented flows of crude into Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for U.S. futures.

The Syncrude facility has since begun ramping up light oil production, a move that surprised market participants as it was earlier than expected and caused them to short the market, said Bob Yawger, director of futures at Mizuho Americas. Total U.S. crude stockpiles, however, were forecast to have drawn down about 1.5 million barrels last week, according to analysts polled ahead of industry data due at 4:30 p.m. EDT (2030 GMT) on Tuesday and government data on Wednesday. Oil prices have gained in the last two sessions following weeks of declines on the prospect of lower oil supply from Iran. The United States is trying to halt Iranian oil exports in an effort to force Tehran to negotiate a new nuclear agreement and to curb its influence in the Middle East. However, the full impact of the Iran sanctions are unclear. While most of Europe's energy firms are likely to fall in line with Washington, China has indicated that it will continue to buy Iranian oil. BNP Paribas said it expected oil production from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, of which Iran is a member, to fall from an average of 32.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2018 to 31.7 million bpd in 2019. However, oil exports from southern Iraq are on course to hit another record high this month, two industry sources said, adding to signs that OPEC's second-largest producer is following through on the group's agreement to raise output.
Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for Donald Trump, exits the District Courthouse after a motion hearing in Alexandria, Virginia, on Friday, May 4, 2018.

President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is evaluating all his options after he was found guilty of eight criminal counts, his lawyer Kevin Downing said Tuesday.

"Mr. Manafort is disappointed of not getting acquittals all the way through or a complete hung jury on all counts," Downing said outside the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia.

He said Manafort thanked U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis for a fair trial and the jury "for their very long and hard fought deliberations."

A jury found Manafort guilty on five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failing to file foreign bank account reports. Ellis declared a mistrial on the 10 remaining counts for which the jurors said they had not reached a consensus.

Tuesday's verdict came after four days of deliberation, which followed a 16-day trial. It also arrived at nearly the same moment that Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to tax fraud and making an excessive campaign contribution.

Manafort's trial was the first borne of charges lodged by special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Manafort, 69, faces another federal trial in September in Washington, D.C., which also stems from the Russia probe.

 CNBC's Dan Mangan and Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.
Shots fired at U.S. embassy in Turkey, no casualties reported

Unidentified assailants fired gun shots at the U.S. embassy in Ankara early Monday, hitting a window of a security cabin but causing no casualties, local media reported.

At least four gunshots were reportedly fired in front of Gate 6 of the embassy from a white car at around 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) local time, broadcaster CNN Turk reported.

Police are searching for the suspects who reportedly fled in a white car before the cars license plate number could be seen.

The embassy is set to close this week for an official public holiday to mark the Eid al-Adha festival.

The attack comes amid high tension between Ankara and Washington over the detention of a U.S. pastor in Turkey. The U.S. diplomatic missions in Turkey have been targeted several times in the past.
President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on Tuesday was found guilty of eight criminal counts, including five counts of tax fraud.

Manafort was also found guilty of two counts of bank fraud and one count of failing to file foreign bank account reports.

In a note to U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis, the jurors said they had not reached a consensus on the 10 remaining counts in the bank fraud and tax crimes trial. Ellis, in turn, declared a mistrial on those 10 counts.

The Alexandria, Virginia criminal trial was the first borne of charges lodged by special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Manafort, 69, faces another federal trial in September in Washington, D.C., which also stems from the Russia probe.

At the end of the 16-day trial, the jury's verdict arrived at nearly the same moment that Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to tax fraud and making an excessive campaign contribution.
News that Cohen implicated the president in his plea deal sent market indicators lower.

Cohen's plea added to a difficult day for the president, coming just as Trump's former campaign boss Paul Manafort was found guilty on eight federal counts.

And you can read the Justice Department's full statement below:

MICHAEL COHEN PLEADS GUILTY IN MANHATTAN FEDERAL COURT TO EIGHT COUNTS, INCLUDING CRIMINAL TAX EVASION AND CAMPAIGN FINANCE VIOLATIONS

Plea Follows Filing of Eight Count Criminal Information Alleging Concealment of More Than $4 Million in Unreported Income, $280,000 in Unlawful Campaign Contributions

Cohen Also Admits to Making False Statements to a Bank to Obtain a $500,000 Line of Credit

NEW YORK, NY  Robert Khuzami, Attorney for the United States, Acting Under Authority Conferred by 28 U.S.C.  515, William F. Sweeney Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and James D. Robnett, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), announced today the guilty plea of Michael Cohen to charges of tax evasion, making false statements to a federally-insured bank, and campaign finance violations. The plea was entered followed the filing of an eight-count criminal information, which alleged that Cohen concealed more than $4 million in personal income from the IRS, made false statements to a federally-insured financial institution in connection with a $500,000 home equity loan, and, in 2016, caused $280,000 in payments to be made to silence two women who otherwise planned to speak publicly about their alleged affairs with a presidential candidate, thereby intending to influence the 2016 presidential election. Cohen pled guilty today before U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III.



Attorney for the United States Robert Khuzami said: "Michael Cohen is a lawyer who, rather than setting an example of respect for the law, instead chose to break the law, repeatedly over many years and in a variety of ways. His day of reckoning serves as a reminder that we are a nation of laws, with one set of rules that applies equally to everyone."



FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. said: "This investigation uncovered crimes of fraud, deception and evasion, conducted through a string of financial transactions that were carefully constructed and concealed to protect a variety of interests. But as we all know, the truth can only remain hidden for so long before the FBI brings it to light. We are all expected to follow the rule of law, and the public expects us - the FBI - to enforce the law equally. Today, Mr. Cohen has been reminded of this important lesson, as he acknowledged with his guilty plea."



IRS-CI Special Agent-in-Charge James D. Robnett said: "Today's guilty plea exemplifies IRS Special Agents' rigorous pursuit of tax evasion and sends the clear message that the tax laws apply to everybody. Mr. Cohen's greed to hide his income from the IRS cheats all the honest taxpayers, and we should not expect law abiding citizens to foot the bill for those who circumvent the system to evade paying their fair share."



According to the allegations in the Information unsealed today as well as statements made in Manhattan federal court:



From 2007 through January 2017, Cohen was an attorney and employee of a Manhattan-based real estate company (the "Company"). Cohen held the title of "Executive Vice President" and "Special Counsel" to the owner of the Company ("Individual-1"). In January 2017, Cohen left the Company and began holding himself out as the "personal attorney" to Individual-1, who by that time had become the President of the United States.



In addition to working for and earning income from the Organization, at all times relevant to this Information, Cohen owned taxi medallions in New York City and Chicago worth millions of dollars. Cohen owned these taxi medallions as investments and leased the medallions to operators who paid Cohen a portion of the operating income.





The Tax Evasion Scheme



In late 2013, Cohen retained an accountant ("Accountant-1") for the purpose of handling Cohen's personal and entity tax returns. After being retained, Accountant-1 filed amended 2011 and 2012 Form 1040 tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS"). For tax years 2013 through 2016, Accountant-1 prepared individual returns for Cohen and returns for Cohen's medallion and real estate entities. To confirm he had reviewed and approved these returns, both Cohen and his wife signed a Form 8879 for tax years 2013 through 2016, and filed manually for tax year 2012. Between 2012 and the end of 2016, Cohen earned more than $2.4 million in income from a series of personal loans made by Cohen to a taxi operator to whom Cohen leased certain of his Chicago taxi medallions ("Taxi Operator-1"), none of which he disclosed to the IRS.



As a further part of the scheme to evade paying income taxes, Cohen also concealed more than $1.3 million in income he received from another taxi operator to whom Cohen leased certain of his New York medallions ("Taxi Operator-2"). This income took two forms. First, Cohen did not report the substantial majority of a bonus payment of at least $870,000, which was made by Taxi Operator-2 in 2012 to induce Cohen to allow Taxi Operator-2 to operate certain of Cohen's medallions. Second, between 2012 and 2016, Cohen concealed nearly $1 million in taxable income he received from Taxi Operator-2's operation of certain of Cohen's taxi medallions.



To ensure the concealment of this additional operator income, Cohen arranged to receive a portion of the medallion income personally, as opposed to having the income paid to Cohen's medallion entities. Paying the medallion entities would have alerted Accountant-1, who prepared the returns for those entities, to the existence of the income such that it would have been included on Cohen's tax returns.



As a further part of his scheme to evade taxes, Cohen also hid the following additional sources of income from Accountant-1 and the IRS:

A $100,000 payment received, in 2014, for brokering the sale of a piece of property in a private aviation community in Ocala, Florida.

Approximately $30,000 in profit made, in 2014, for brokering the sale of a Birkin Bag, a highly coveted French handbag that retails for between $11,900 to $300,000, depending on the type of leather or animal skin used.

More than $200,000 in consulting income earned in 2016 from an assisted living company purportedly for Cohen's "consulting" on real estate and other projects.



In total, Cohen failed to report more than $4 million in income, resulting in the avoidance of taxes of more than $1.4 million due to the IRS.





False Statements to a Bank



In 2010, Cohen, through companies he controlled, executed a $6.4 million promissory note with a bank ("Bank-1"), collateralized by Cohen's taxi medallions and personally guaranteed by Cohen. A year later, in 2011, Cohen personally obtained a $6 million line of credit from Bank-1 (the "Line of Credit"), also collateralized by his taxi medallions. By February 2013, Cohen had increased the Line of Credit from $6 million to $14 million, thereby increasing Cohen's personal medallion liabilities at Bank-1 to more than $20 million.



In November 2014, Cohen refinanced his medallion debt at Bank-1 with another bank ("Bank-2"), who shared the debt with a New York-based credit union (the "Credit Union"). The transaction was structured as a package of individual loans to the entities that owned Cohen's New York medallions. Following the loans' closing, Cohen's medallion debt at Bank-1 was paid off with funds from Bank-2 and the Credit Union, and the Line of Credit with Bank-1 was closed.



In 2013, in connection with a successful application for a mortgage from another Bank ("Bank-3") for his Park Avenue condominium (the "2013 Application"), Cohen disclosed only the $6.4 million medallion loan he had with Bank-1 at the time. As noted above, Cohen also had a larger, $14 million Line of Credit with Bank-1 secured by his medallions, which Cohen did not disclose in the 2013 Application.



In February 2015, Cohen, in an attempt to secure financing from Bank-3 to purchase a summer home for approximately $8.5 million, again concealed the $14 million Line of Credit. Specifically, in connection with this proposed transaction, Bank-3 obtained a 2014 personal financial statement Cohen had provided to Bank-2 while refinancing his medallion debt. Bank-3 questioned Cohen about the $14 million Line of Credit reflected on that personal financial statement, because Cohen had omitted that debt from the 2013 Application to Bank-3. Cohen misled Bank-3, stating, in writing, that the $14 million Line of Credit was undrawn and that he would close it. In truth and in fact, Cohen had effectively overdrawn the Line of Credit, having swapped it out for a fully drawn, larger loan shared by Bank-2 and the Credit Union upon refinancing his medallion debt. When Bank-3 informed Cohen that it would only provide financing if Cohen closed the Line of Credit, Cohen lied again, misleadingly stating in an email: "The medallion line was closed in the middle of November 2014."



In December 2015, Cohen contacted Bank-3 to apply for a home equity line of credit ("HELOC"). In so doing, Cohen again significantly understated his medallion debt. Specifically, in the HELOC application, Cohen, together with his wife, represented a positive net worth of more than $40 million, again omitting the $14 million in medallion debt with Bank-2 and the Credit Union. Because Cohen had previously confirmed in writing to Bank-3 that the $14 million Line of Credit had been closed, Bank-3 had no reason to question Cohen about the omission of this liability on the HELOC application. In addition, in seeking the HELOC, Cohen substantially and materially understated his monthly expenses to Bank-3 by omitting at least $70,000 in monthly interest payments due to Bank-2 on the true amount of his medallion debt.



In April 2016, Bank-3 approved Cohen for a $500,000 HELOC. By fraudulently concealing truthful information about his financial condition, Cohen obtained a HELOC that Bank-3 would otherwise not have approved.





Campaign Finance Violations



The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended, Title 52, United States Code, Section 30101, et seq., (the "Election Act"), regulates the influence of money on politics. At all relevant times, the Election Act set certain limitations and prohibitions, among them: (a) individual contributions to any presidential candidate, including expenditures coordinated with a candidate or his political committee, were limited to $2,700 per election, and presidential candidates and their committees were prohibited from accepting contributions from individuals in excess of this limit; and (b) Corporations were prohibited from making contributions directly to presidential candidates, including expenditures coordinated with candidates or their committees, and candidates were prohibited from accepting corporate contributions.



On June 16, 2015, Individual-1 began his presidential campaign. While Cohen continued to work at the Company and did not have a formal title with the campaign, he had a campaign email address and, at various times, advised the campaign, including on matters of interest to the press, and made televised and media appearances on behalf of the campaign.



In August 2015, the Chairman and Chief Executive of Corporation-1, a media company that owns, among other things, a popular tabloid magazine ("Chairman-1" and "Magazine-1," respectively"), in coordination with Cohen and one or more members of the campaign, offered to help deal with negative stories about Individual-1's relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided. Chairman-1 agreed to keep Cohen apprised of any such negative stories.



Consistent with the agreement described above, Corporation-1 advised Cohen of negative stories during the course of the campaign, and Cohen, with the assistance of Corporation-1, was able to arrange for the purchase of two stories so as to suppress them and prevent them from influencing the election.



First, in June 2016, a model and actress ("Woman-1") began attempting to sell her story of her alleged extramarital affair with Individual-1 that had taken place in 2006 and 2007, knowing the story would be of considerable value because of the election. Woman-1 retained an attorney ("Attorney-1"), who in turn contacted the editor-in-chief of Magazine-1 ("Editor-1"), and offered to sell Woman-1's story to Magazine-1. Chairman-1 and Editor-1 informed Cohen of the story. At Cohen's urging and subject to Cohen's promise that Corporation-1 would be reimbursed, Editor-1 ultimately began negotiating for the purchase of the story.



On August 5, 2016, Corporation-1 entered into an agreement with Woman-1 to acquire her "limited life rights" to the story of her relationship with "any then-married man," in exchange for $150,000 and a commitment to feature her on two magazine covers and publish more than 100 magazine articles authored by her. Despite the cover and article features to the agreement, its principal purpose, as understood by those involved, including Cohen, was to suppress Woman-1's story so as to prevent it from influencing the election.



Between late August 2016 and September 2016, Cohen agreed with Chairman-1 to assign the rights to the non-disclosure portion of Corporation-1's agreement with Woman-1 to Cohen for $125,000. Cohen incorporated a shell entity called "Resolution Consultants LLC" for use in the transaction. Both Chairman-1 and Cohen ultimately signed the agreement, and a consultant for Corporation-1, using his own shell entity, provided Cohen with an invoice for the payment of $125,000. However, in early October 2016, after the assignment agreement was signed but before Cohen had paid the $125,000, Chairman-1 contacted Cohen and told him, in substance, that the deal was off and that Cohen should tear up the assignment agreement.



Second, on October 8, 2016, an agent for an adult film actress ("Woman-2") informed Editor-1 that Woman-2 was willing to make public statements and confirm on the record her alleged past affair with Individual-1. Chairman-1 and Editor-1 then contacted Cohen and put him in touch with Attorney-1, who was also representing Woman-2. Over the course of the next few days, Cohen negotiated a $130,000 agreement with Attorney-1 to himself purchase Woman-2's silence, and received a signed confidential settlement agreement and a separate side letter agreement from Attorney-1.



Cohen did not immediately execute the agreement, nor did he pay Woman-2. On the evening of October 25, 2016, with no deal with Woman-2 finalized, Attorney-1 told Editor-1 that Woman-2 was close to completing a deal with another outlet to make her story public. Editor-1, in turn, texted Cohen that "[w]e have to coordinate something on the matter [Attorney-1 is] calling you about or it could look awfully bad for everyone." Chairman-1 and Editor-1 then called Cohen through an encrypted telephone application. Cohen agreed to make the payment, and then called Attorney-1 to finalize the deal.



The next day, on October 26, 2016, Cohen emailed an incorporating service to obtain the corporate formation documents for another shell corporation, Essential Consultants LLC, which Cohen had incorporated a few days prior. Later that afternoon, Cohen drew down $131,000 from the fraudulently obtained HELOC and requested that it be deposited into a bank account Cohen had just opened in the name of Essential Consultants. The next morning, on October 27, 2016, Cohen went to Bank-3 and wired approximately $130,000 from Essential Consultants to Attorney-1. On the bank form to complete the wire, Cohen falsely indicated that the "purpose of wire being sent" was "retainer." On November 1, 2016, Cohen received from Attorney-1 copies of the final, signed confidential settlement agreement and side letter agreement.



Cohen caused and made the payments described herein in order to influence the 2016 presidential election. In so doing, he coordinated with one or more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls, about the fact, nature, and timing of the payments. As a result of the payments solicited and made by Cohen, neither Woman-1 nor Woman-2 spoke to the press prior to the election.



In January 2017, Cohen in seeking reimbursement for election-related expenses, presented executives of the Company with a copy of a bank statement from the Essential Consultants bank account, which reflected the $130,000 payment Cohen had made to the bank account of Attorney-1 in order to keep Woman-2 silent in advance of the election, plus a $35 wire fee, adding, in handwriting, an additional "$50,000." The $50,000 represented a claimed payment for "tech services," which in fact related to work Cohen had solicited from a technology company during and in connection with the campaign. Cohen added these amounts to a sum of $180,035. After receiving this document, executives of the Company "grossed up" for tax purposes Cohen's requested reimbursement of $180,000 to $360,000, and then added a bonus of $60,000 so that Cohen would be paid $420,000 in total. Executives of the Company also determined that the $420,000 would be paid to Cohen in monthly amounts of $35,000 over the course of 12 months, and that Cohen should send invoices for these payments.



On February 14, 2017, Cohen sent an executive of the Company ("Executive-1") the first of his monthly invoices, requesting "[p]ursuant to [a] retainer agreement, . . . payment for services rendered for the months of January and February, 2017." The invoice listed $35,000 for each of those two months. Executive-1 forwarded the invoice to another executive of the Company ("Executive-2") the same day by email, and it was approved. Executive-1 forwarded that email to another employee at the Company, stating: "Please pay from the Trust. Post to legal expenses. Put 'retainer for the months of January and February 2017' in the description."



Throughout 2017, Cohen sent to one or more representatives of the Company monthly invoices, which stated, "Pursuant to the retainer agreement, kindly remit payment for services rendered for" the relevant month in 2017, and sought $35,000 per month. The Company accounted for these payments as legal expenses. In truth and in fact, there was no such retainer agreement, and the monthly invoices Cohen submitted were not in connection with any legal services he had provided in 2017.



During 2017, pursuant to the invoices described above, Cohen received monthly $35,000 reimbursement checks, totaling $420,000.

* * *

Cohen, 51, of New York, New York, pleaded guilty to five counts of willful tax evasion; one count of making false statements to a bank; one count of causing an unlawful campaign contribution; and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution.



Cohen's sentencing is scheduled for December 12 at 11 a.m.



A chart identifying the charges and the maximum penalties applicable to Cohen is below.

The maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencings of the defendant will be determined by the judge.



Mr. Khuzami praised the work of the FBI, the IRS, and the Special Agents of the U.S. Attorney's Office.



This case is being handled by the Office's Public Corruption Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrea M. Griswold, Rachel Maimin, Thomas McKay, and Nicolas Roos are in charge of the prosecution.
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu as they attend the Navy Day parade in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 30, 2017. Picture taken July 30, 2017. Alexander Zemlianichenko | Reuters

A nuclear-powered Russian missile remains lost at sea after a failed test late last year, and Moscow is preparing to try to recover it, according to people with direct knowledge of a U.S. intelligence report. Crews will attempt to recover a missile that was test launched in November and landed in the Barents Sea, which is located north of Norway and Russia. The operation will include three vessels, one of which is equipped to handle radioactive material from the weapon's nuclear core. There is no timeline for the mission, according to the people with knowledge of the report. The U.S. intelligence report did not mention any potential health or environmental risks posed by possible damage to the missile's nuclear reactor. Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled the new nuclear-powered missile in March, boasting it had unlimited range. Yet, the weapon has yet to be successfully tested over multiple attempts.

Russia tested four of the missiles between November and February, each resulting in a crash, people who spoke on the condition of anonymity previously told CNBC. The U.S. assessed that the longest test flight lasted just more than two minutes, with the missile flying 22 miles before losing control and crashing. The shortest test lasted four seconds and flew for five miles. Russia has denied the missile test failures. If the Russians are able to regain possession of the missile, U.S. intelligence analysts expect Moscow will use the procedure as a blueprint for future recovery operations. It is unclear whether the other missiles are missing at sea, too. While the report didn't address the potential effects of possible damage to the weapon's reactor, there remain concerns that radioactive material could leak. "It goes without saying that if you fire a missile with a nuclear engine or energy source, that nuclear material will end up wherever that missile ends up," said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. Read more: Russia's new hypersonic missile, which can be launched from warplanes, will likely be ready for combat by 2020 "If this missile was lost at sea and recovered in full, then you might hypothetically be able to do it without pollution, I would have my doubts about that because it's a very forceful impact when the missile crashes. I would suspect you would have leaks from it," Kristensen added. The weapon, which has been in development since the early 2000s, is believed to use a gasoline-powered engine for takeoff before switching to a nuclear-powered one for flight, sources have said.
While it's working hard to diversify and modernize its economy, Saudi Arabia is stumbling in its effort to establish a financial center in the kingdom. Emblematic of the problem is the fact that Riyadh's King Abdullah Financial District, begun a decade ago, has more skyscrapers than tenants. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's Vision 2030 plan to turn the kingdom into an investment powerhouse, ballyhooed at first, is meeting more skepticism as MBS, as the crown prince is known, launches ever larger visions. Investors are beginning to question not only the $2 trillion valuation of Saudi Aramco but whether the IPO of 5 percent of the shares of the state-owned oil company will happen at all.

The construction site of the new King Abdullah Financial District on June 20, 2018, in Riyadh. The development is part of the Vision 2030 series of reforms and projects aimed at diversifying the Saudi economy. Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Last year Riyadh fell backward a notch on rankings of global financial centers, according to the London-based Z/Yen Group's Global Financial Centres Index, which is based on surveys of professionals working in the market. What makes the story in Riyadh interesting is why establishing a financial sector is turning into such a struggle. After all, the Kingdom has massive wealth  the most recent display of it being the possibility, reported by Elon Musk, that Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund has approached him to invest enough money to turn Tesla into a private company. A look at the city in the Middle East that has succeeded in establishing a financial center, Dubai, offers some clues to where Riyadh might be falling short. The keys are delivering on the small, steady steps of reform; the changes in tax and legal codes that enable business and finance; and building a culture and society open enough to draw a global expat community.

Top-Ranked financial centers in the Middle East and Africa Location Rank Move up or down in rank/2016-2017 Dubai 18 7 Abu Dhabi 25 3 Tel Aviv 34 (-2) Casablanca 35 (-5) Doha 45 (-6) Johannesburg 48 11 Bahrain 51 6 Mauritius 69 2 Riyadh 77 (-1)

"If I had to sum up in one word what I have learnt about financial centres over the past 15 years of studying them, that word would be 'trust,'" said Mark Yeandle, the lead author of the Financial Centres Index, by email. "Dubai have built up a good track record. Riyadh does not yet have this."

The Saudi stock market is booming

Of course, Saudi Arabia's stumbles may be momentary. The country's financial sector got a boost late this spring when MSCI announced in June that it would include Saudi Arabia in its emerging markets index, which means billions in institutional investors' capital will flow into the stock market, already the region's largest. The change came after Saudi regulators enabled foreign investors to own up to 49 percent of listed securities. The iShares MSCI Saudi Arabia ETF (KSA) is the No. 1 performer among all single-country funds in 2018. Even as the recent slide in crude oil has lowered its year-to-date return from over 20 percent to 12 percent, it remains the top-performing stock market in the world, and one of only about a dozen that are generating positive performance this year. MBS needs to diversify the economy rapidly if the country is to avoid what the World Bank called a "looming poverty crisis" brought on by lingering low oil prices and rich state benefits. The World Bank is forecasting a 1.8 percent growth in GDP this year, with more than 2 percent expected for next year, based on the continuing commitment to reform and a recovery in oil production. More than $1 trillion of the $3.5 trillion GDP comes from the oil sector.

Saudi officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A financial sector that can finance domestic deals and serve as a bridge for external investment is crucial. But Riyadh's path to transformation is seeming much rockier than that of Dubai. In less than two generations, Dubai went from a trading post with no paved roads to the top financial center in Africa and the Middle East. It also became one of the five fastest-growing cities between 2010 and 2015, according to the Brookings Institution. It is still rising in stature as it draws blockchain investment and finishes preparations for the World Expo in 2020.

Whilst Saudi has massive and undisputed wealth, there is a sense of being an untried centre, which in a pretty autocratic country is beholden to their leader. Mark Yeandle lead author of the Financial Centres Index

In some ways, Saudi Arabia is borrowing pages from Dubai's playbook. Both countries, for instance, have been tax havens for foreigners and the native-born population, as neither have personal income taxes. But while Dubai moved aggressively to establish a reputation as a place friendly to foreign businesses by creating dozens of special zones with tax incentives and special regulations, Saudi Arabia has been slower. It has established a bankruptcy law, but not the codes that would lay out how the law will be implemented. In 2015 it was working on about a half-dozen economic zones, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Saudi Arabia this year established a VAT to help make up its budget shortfall. Ten years ago, when Riyadh first started working on diversification, announcing a $10 billion investment in the King Abdullah Financial District, it was envisioned as a sort of mini Dubai. MBS's 2030 plan calls for Riyadh to be an investment powerhouse and, like Dubai, a bridge between three continents. The district was built but has struggled to attract tenants, according to Yeandle and others. PricewaterhouseCoopers, which reportedly was planning to take space in the district, said through a spokeswoman that it couldn't comment on the reports. Dubai has become an expert in guerilla tactics to establish its reputation as a hub for fintech. For instance, it offers targeted investments and government contracts to top start-ups worldwide to lure fast-growth companies to the emirate.

Fintech will be key to the Saudi transformation

Saudi Arabia likewise plans to invest heavily in fintech and innovation, but it is leveraging its own wealth. For instance, state-owned company Alhamrani Group is investing in blockchain and has established a company called Ateon, a solutions provider and systems integrator in the fintech space that focuses on blockchain and cybersecurity. One of the company's initiatives was automating the record-keeping for the VAT, which is designed to be collected in Saudi Arabia at every step of a product's life cycle, said Husam Yaghi, Ateon president. "A big chunk of that Vision 2030 is that digital transformation in fintech," said Yaghi. Saudi Arabia's central bank has also joined Ripple, the cryptocurrency that major banks, including Santander, Bank of America and UBS, are using to make global financial transactions easier. Saudi Arabia is also using a tactic other petrochemical states, like Kuwait, have tried: investing in companies abroad, or becoming a co-investor with leading foreign companies, to spur industry at home. Before the Tesla headlines  which the Saudis have so far been quiet on  MBS announced back in March a deal with SoftBank's Vision Fund to develop a $5 billion solar project, the world's largest, though the fund didn't name a location. The project, for which SoftBank is investing $1 billion, is expected to have the capacity to produce 200 gigawatts of energy by 2030. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, invested $250 million in the Vision Fund from the Saudi Public Investment Fund. (The Financial Times recently reported that the Public Investment Fund may be falling short on some of its infrastructure investment goals, perhaps because of the delay in the Aramco IPO.) What Saudi Arabia hasn't been able to do is establish rapid trust and innovation like Dubai did. It turned itself into a city that tourists wanted to visit, expats wanted to live in and where the native-born population wanted to work. It's estimated that 70 percent of its population is from other countries. To the extent that those transplants were professionals with established networks to their home countries or regions, Dubai has benefited. The emirate has also leveraged its status as an underdog to inspire its native-born population. Dubai is getting set to hold the World Expo in 2020, which is expected to draw more than 17 million people. The leftover infrastructure is expected to offer another economic boost to the city. Siemens, for instance, has committed to moving its global logistics headquarters to office space in the Expo, which will also have a 5G network. The Dubai government is well aware of the well-financed efforts a few hundred miles away. "We look around us every day very carefully," said Marjan Faraidooni, head of legacy at Expo 2020 Dubai. "It just fuels us to be more creative. If other cities want to be more competitive, it will drive us more. Dubai does not have oil reserves. We were driven to be competitive globally."
Serta Simmons Bedding will merge with direct-to-consumer mattress company Tuft & Needle, executives told CNBC on Tuesday.

The deal will be one of the first to combine a legacy mattress company with the upstart online brands that have infiltrated the industry over the past few years. Serta Simmons will seek to take advantage of combining Tuft & Needle's e-commerce infrastructure and capabilities with Serta Simmons' retail reach.

Selling in stores helps to alleviate the cost of customer acquisition, which has grown for digital brands over the past few years as competition for online eyeballs has exploded. It also provides an easier way for customers to test a product. Tuft & Needle, Casper and other online competitors offer 100-night trials for free.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"The merger will change the industry in a significant way," said Serta Simmons CEO Michael Traub. "We will be able to serve consumers unmatched both online and in-store."

Atlanta-based Serta Simmons has roughly $3 billion in revenue and calls itself the largest manufacturer, marketer and supplier of mattresses in North America. Its brands include Serta and Beautyrest, and it distributes its products across more than 10,000 retail storefronts. It was acquired by private equity firm Advent International in 2012 for $3 billion, according to media reports at the time. Serta Simmons declined to comment on that reported valuation.

Tuft & Needle, founded in 2012 by JT Marino and Daehee Park, sells mattresses, bedding and bed furniture. Its mattresses, which it sells under the brand names T&N and Mint, sell for as little as $350 for a twin bed and $750 for a California King size bed.

The company, which doesn't have outside investors, generated $170 million in sales last year. It sells on Amazon and has retail partners that include Crate & Barrel.

It is one of a number of upstart mattress firms to emerge in the last few years, which have grown traction by selling beds at a significant discount to traditional brands, while also emphasizing marketing its products online. Other companies in the industry include Casper and Purple.

"We have realized that over the past few years, the direct-to-consumer [business] has grown drastically," said Traub, who added he expects the market share of such brands to be roughly 20 percent in 2018.

Serta and Tuft & Needle are calling the deal a "merger" to reflect the transformational impact they expect the deal to have on the companies. Tuft & Needle will keep its headquarters in Phoenix, where it will run the e-commerce platform for all of the combined company. Marino and Park will be joining the new company's leadership team.

"Consumers are shifting to finding retail stores on their phones," said Marino, "That's something we've mastered  how to drive traffic into those retail stores. It's probably the most important thing to our retail partners that they haven't figured out."

The deal, meantime, comes as one of Serta Simmons' retail partners, Mattress Firm, is in duress, The retailer rapidly expanded it footprint to take advantage of the historically strong economics of a mattress store. It has struggled, though, amid fractured relations with Tempur Sealy, an accounting scandal engulfing its parent and new competition from upstarts.

"Mattress Firm is an important strategic partner and we will support them through those challenges," said Traub.

For Serta Simmons, the deal comes six years into private equity ownership, at a point at which many are wondering whether an initial public offering is the next logical step. Some companies that are weighing IPOs have sought to bulk up their e-commerce business as means to offer more growth to the public market.

Moody's Investors Service recently downgraded Serta Simmons' corporate rating to B3 from B2, as its leverage has increased due to weak operating performance and high material costs.

"It is a great combined company," said Traub. "We are creating value for customers, consumers and ultimately investors."
Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson sits with his wife Miriam as they await the start of the first debate between Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump Democratic and U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, U.S., September 26, 2016.

Republican megadonors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson combined to give $25 million last month to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC dedicated to protecting the GOP majority in the U.S. Senate.

The Adelsons each gave $12.5 million. Their combined contribution made up nearly all of the $26 million haul that the PAC raised in July, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission.

The donations mark the latest bid by the casino magnate and his wife, a physician, to support Republican candidates during this fall's midterm elections.

In May, the Adelsons dished out $30 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC which aims to keep Republicans in control of the House.

Sheldon Adelson, CEO of casino behemoth Las Vegas Sands, separately has given $371,500 to Republican joint fundraising committee Protect the House. A leading advocate for Israeli interests in the Middle East, Adelson also has given thousands of dollars to GOP candidates who have largely spoken out against the Iran deal.

While Democrats are slightly favored to flip the House this fall, Republicans are widely expected to hold on to the Senate. The GOP only has to defend nine Senate seats in the midterms, compared with the 26 seats up for grabs that are held by Democrats and independents who caucus with Democrats.

Other prominent donors to the Senate Leadership Fund last month include the billionaire Koch brothers' Koch Industries, which gave $500,000; coal miner Murray Energy, which gave $15,000; and former Treasury Secretary and Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson, who gave $30,000.
Tourists take in a cable car take in the sights at Sentosa Island, Singapore Getty Images

Singapore's political opposition does not have a strong track record. The city-state, which celebrated its 53rd birthday this month, has been governed by one political entity, the People's Action Party, since independence. In that time, the former trading outpost has been transformed into an advanced economy  a success story that bolsters the PAP in every election. Singapore is home to multiple opposition parties, with eight to nine regularly contesting general elections. But poorly defined policies, a dearth of public engagement, and disunity have stymied their performance for decades. Now, following a shock election result in neighboring Malaysia, opposition parties say they're trying to change that. Seven parties held a meeting late last month to discuss banding together to contest the next election, which is due by 2021. If a coalition were formed, it would still be unlikely to upset the PAP by then. The near-term goal is targeting the PAP's two-thirds parliamentary majority, so the ruling party can no longer easily change the nation's constitution, opposition leaders told CNBC. "The current lack of debate in parliament is unhealthy," said Goh Meng Seng, secretary general of three-year-old opposition group, the People's Power Party. "There needs to be more diversity of opinions in decision-making processes,  if there isn't a strong contest of ideas, parliament sittings won't be taken seriously."

Biggest opposition party didn't participate

Even if opposition parties are able to unite  a tall order given their disparate interests  it's not certain how successful they would be. The Workers' Party, seen as the most realistic alternative to the PAP, didn't attend July's meeting, leading to speculation that it may not be interested in a coalition. It declined to be interviewed for this story. With or without the Workers' Party, however, any opposition coalition faces obstacles. For one, rules restricting freedom of expression and public assemblies have limited the opposition's engagement with the public. Individuals and media organizations that criticize the government or judiciary have faced civil defamation lawsuits and other restrictions from the government, according to a 2017 report from Human Rights Watch. Opposition leaders blame the government for hindering their respective parties, but some experts say it's not that simple.

Nicky Loh | Getty Images

So far, parties have simply been no match for the PAP in terms of policy or the caliber of candidates, according to Eugene Tan, associate professor of law at Singapore Management University. Most groups except for the Workers' Party "tend to go into political hibernation in between general elections," he said. "Opposition unity is also threadbare, and the ability to pool resources is not their forte either." A deep-rooted fear of disruption associated with a change of government, or what local author Cherian George describes as "the politics of comfort," also obstructs opposition growth. While many Singaporeans, including millennials, aren't particularly loyal to the PAP itself, they worry that no other party is capable of steering the economy and continuing the island's world-class standard of living. To the layperson, a vote for the opposition is often perceived as a threat to their material comfort. "Many people assume we're opposing the success of this country, but that's not at all the case  we simply want to be a meaningful alternative so people have a meaningful choice," said Chee. Poorly defined policies are another major criticism of the opposition. Excluding the Workers Party and the SDP, most party websites lack detailed blueprints on hot-button issues such as health care, housing and population growth. Analysts also caution against any knock-on effects from Malaysia, noting that the opposition's climb to power there was primarily achieved thanks to widespread backlash over former leader Najib Razak  a vastly different context to Singapore.

Rising costs

The island may lack a strong wave of anti-government sentiment, but discontent about rising prices and doubts over the PAP's future leadership could work in the opposition's favor. Despite its electoral mandate, the PAP has been criticized by many citizens for a 30 percent increase in water prices and this year's 16.8 percent increase in electricity tariffs. The country's goods and services tax is also expected to hit 9 percent, from 7 percent currently. The matter is exacerbated by entrenched perceptions of inequality. A government report released earlier this year revealed a slower pace of income growth for the bottom 50 percent households, contributing to a widening gap between rich and poor. A sizable program of transfers, subsidies and assistance exist for low-income Singaporeans, but social imbalances remain.
A pedestrian walks past a Wall Street subway station near the New York Stock Exchange.

Check out the companies making headlines after the bell on Tuesday:

Red Robin Gourmet Burgers fell nearly 3 percent after the closing bell after the company reported earnings and revenue that missed Wall Street expectations. The hamburger restaurant posted adjusted earnings per share of 46 cents versus analyst projections of 48 cents; revenues totaled $315 million compared with $317 million expected.

The Greenwood Village, Colorado-based company also said comparable restaurant revenues declined 2.6 percent versus a decline of 2.3 percent expected.

Urban Outfitters, which also reported quarterly results Tuesday, rose nearly 4 percent after hours. The company, which retails women's and men's fashion apparel, reported adjusted EPS of 84 cents against Wall Street expectations of 77 cents.

The parent of both the Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie brands said that same-store sales of 13 percent helped drive record second-quarter sales and earnings per share. Revenues were $992 million versus $980 million anticipated.

Pure Storage, a data technology company, rallied 9 percent after the bell. The company, which provides enterprise-class storage and protocol services, reported earnings per share of 1 cents versus expectations of a loss of 6 cents. Revenue totaled $309 million.

The company also said it expects third-quarter revenues of $361 million to $369 million versus $363 million expected by Wall Street.

La-Z-Boy's stock rallied nearly 20 percent after the bell after it reported earnings per share of 34 cents, topping expectations of EPS of 25 cents. Revenues at the upholstery furniture retailer leaped to $385 million against expectations of $368 million.

"We had an excellent start to fiscal 2019, with strong results across the business," said La-Z-Boy chairman Kurt Darrow in a press release.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (C) is escorted by security staff before departing from Taoyuan airport on January 7, 2017.

Taiwan vowed on Tuesday to fight China's "increasingly out of control" behavior after Taipei lost another ally to Beijing when El Salvador became the third country to switch allegiances to China this year.

Taiwan now has formal relations with only 17 countries worldwide, many of them small, less developed nations in Central America and the Pacific, including Belize and Nauru.

Speaking in Taipei, President Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan would not bow to pressure, describing El Salvador's decision as further evidence of China's efforts to squeeze the island, which have included regular Chinese bomber patrols around Taiwan.

"We will turn to countries with similar values to fight together against China's increasingly out-of-control international behavior," Tsai said.

Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told reporters earlier that Taipei was not willing to engage in "money competition" with its giant neighbor.

He said El Salvador had been continuously asking for "massive funding support" since last year for a port development, but Taiwan was unable to assist with the "unsuitable project" after assessment.

"Pressure from China would only make Taiwan more determined to continue our path of democracy and freedom," he said.

"China's rude and unreasonable behavior will certainly have negative impact to cross-strait relations. This is also not how a responsible country should behave."

Beijing considers Taiwan to be a wayward province of "one China," ineligible for state-to-state relations, and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.

In Beijing, the Chinese government's top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, said El Salvador had made the right decision.

"I'm confident that the people of El Salvador will feel the warmth and friendship of the Chinese people and derive tangible benefits from its cooperation with China," Wang told reporters alongside his El Salvador counterpart, Carlos Castaneda, shortly after the pair signed an agreement establishing ties.
President Donald Trump spoke in support of Paul Manafort after the former Trump former campaign chief was convicted of fraud charges, but the president was silent about the guilty plea of his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen.

"Paul Manafort is a good man. ... It doesn't involve me but it's a very sad thing. ... It had nothing to do with Russian collusion," Trump told reporters Tuesday during a campaign trip to West Virginia.

Trump pointedly ignored any mention of Cohen, who indirectly implicated Trump in two counts of felony campaign finance violations.

Cohen pleaded guilty to eight felonies in federal court for the Southern District of New York, marking the end of a monthslong saga that burst into public view in early April, when FBI agents raided the attorney's home, office and hotel room, and seized hundreds of thousands of files.

At nearly the same time on Tuesday afternoon, a jury convicted Manafort of eight of 18 counts in a case handled by special counsel Robert Mueller in Alexandria, Virginia.

The legal blows against Trump's former associates landed right before the president was scheduled to whip up a crowd of supporters in a campaign-style rally in West Virginia.
















Ontario's new Premier Ford wants his government will deliver on its pledge to create a regional transportation system, but will first consult with Toronto and other municipalities in the area. Ford says it would be a benefit to Toronto if the province took over the city's transit system, something Premier Doug Ford promised to do during the spring election campaign.



Ford's idea to create an integrate a regional transit system sounds good. Sure, in theory, the idea of commuters being able to travel from Mississauga to Newmarket to Oshawa and back into Toronto sounds like a very forward thinking concept. But Ford's idea of basically destroying and replacing the extremely experienced and North American award-winning Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) with a far less experienced and comparatively incompetent Government of Ontario owed system would be a horrific idea.



I used to live in Thornhill and in Richmond Hill and have travelled on the provincial owned GO system for years. Have you been on a system owned by the Government of Ontario? Horrible and disorganized service - Queen's Park bureaucrats don't know what they're doing.

I wouldn't be surprised if Ford's real agenda is to sell the TTC to one of his friends who then tears up the street cars and then cuts service, and then slap the name of "Ontario Government" on this capitalist venture so Ford can make it look like he fulfilled a campaign promise.



I have a much better idea than Ford's. Tell me what you think.

The TTC has already been forward-thinking enough to extend the subway into Vaughan which is in York Region. If Ford was actually smart and not trying to pull the wool over Greater Toronto Area residents, why not ask the TTC to take over and run a regional transportation system.

Let's replace the "GO Train" and the "GO Bus" which are pathetically inconvenient, along with all those horrible transit systems in Brampton, Mississauga, York Region and in Durham Region. The TTC could create separate departmental structures for each part of the region ie TTC York Region, TTC Mississauga and Peel Region, and TTC Pickering, Durham Region and Oshawa. Each of these regions would benefit from the TTC's many years of experience which would create a regional system which works for everyone in the GTA.
The White House's timetable for a decision on auto tariffs is being pushed back, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had told reporters last month that a report on the implications of auto tariffs and their possible national security threat, would be published sometime in August.

But in a Journal interview published Tuesday, Ross said now it's "not clear the report will be out at the end of the month" and declined to set a new timeline. He said the report was being delayed because of ongoing negotiations with Mexico, Canada, and the European Commission.

Ross also said it was taking longer than anticipated to go through materials submitted by automakers, who are largely against tariffs that critics say would drive up costs to consumers and to their own supply chain.

President Trump has said could impose 20 or 25 percent tariffs on auto imports. He asked the Commerce Department in May to look into whether vehicle imports threaten national security, which is the same argument the White House used to impose steel and aluminum tariffs.

The U.S. has also imposed 25 percent tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese goods, and tariffs on steel. China has retaliated with its own tariffs, including a 40 percent tariff on cars.

Washington has been criticized by automakers and foreign governments as it considers tariffs of up to 25 percent. Critics have warned auto tariffs could boost the cost of cars, and hurt auto sales and jobs in the global industry. Tariffs would hit companies including Germany's BMW, Korea's Hyundai, Japan's Toyota as well as global factories for U.S. brands General Motors, Ford Motor, and Fiat Chrysler.

 Read the entire Wall Street Journal report here.
View down an alley off of the street where Nazi war criminal Jakiw Palij lives in Queens.

The last Nazi war crimes suspect facing deportation from the U.S. was taken from his New York City home and spirited early Tuesday morning to Germany, the White House said Tuesday.

The deportation of the 95-year-old former concentration camp guard, Jakiw Palij, came 25 years after investigators first confronted him about his World War II past and he admitted lying to get into the U.S., claiming he spent the war as a farmer and factory worker.

Palij lived quietly in the U.S. for years, as a draftsman and then as a retiree, until nearly three decades ago when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was "living somewhere in America."

Palij told Justice Department investigators who showed up at his door in 1993: "I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied."

A judge stripped Palij's citizenship in 2003 for "participation in acts against Jewish civilians" while an armed guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and was ordered deported a year later.

But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-story, red brick home in Queens he shared with his wife, Maria, now 86. His continued presence there outraged the Jewish community, attracting frequent protests over the years that featured such chants as "your neighbor is a Nazi!"

According to the Justice Department, Palij served at Trawniki in 1943, the same year 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered. Palij has admitted serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Last September, all 29 members of New York's congressional delegation signed a letter urging the State Department to follow through on his deportation.

The deportation came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations, which the White House said President Donald Trump had made a priority.

"Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palij's deportation to Germany and advanced the United States' collaborative efforts with a key European ally," the White House said.

Germany's Interior Ministry and Justice Ministry and Chancellor Angela Merkel's office did not immediately have a comment on where Palij would be taken in Germany and what exactly would happen to him. Prosecutors there have previously said it does not appear that there's enough evidence to charge him with wartime crimes.

Palij's deportation is the first for a Nazi war crimes suspect since Germany agreed in 2009 to take John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio autoworker who was accused of serving as a Nazi guard. He was convicted in 2011 of being an accessory to more than 28,000 killings and died 10 months later, at age 91, with his appeal pending.
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President Donald Trump is set to lead a campaign-style rally in West Virginia on Tuesday, hours after his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to bank and tax fraud charges lodged by federal officers.

Cohen had struck a deal with U.S. attorneys in Manhattan's southern district after months of court proceedings related to a raft of materials seized in raids on his office and hotel room in April.

Trump's name was not used in the lower Manhattan courtroom, but Cohen made references to an unidentified "candidate," at whose direction Cohen said he paid two women for the purpose of influencing the presidential election.

However, Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, had no reservations about calling out Trump by name in a statement following Cohen's appearance in court.

"Today he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election," Davis said of Trump.

At nearly the same time, Trump's ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort was found guilty on eight out of the 18 criminal counts against him in a federal trial prosecuted by attorneys for special counsel Robert Mueller.

Trump was expected to travel to West Virginia to lead voter turnout efforts against Democratic incumbent Sen. Joe Manchin, who faces re-election in November.

Trump's appearance in Charleston on Tuesday night will mark his sixth visit to West Virginia since taking office.
Many employers appear to be missing the mark when it comes to helping workers prepare for their golden years. While just 16 percent of companies are "very confident" that their employees will be financial secure in retirement, they also often fail to offer the savings tools that their workers actually want, a new study from the nonprofit Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies shows. "There's a basic disconnect related to worker expectations," said Catherine Collison, president and CEO of the center and its parent, the Transamerica Institute. "Even though some employers recognize it, they don't always have the business practices in place to support it."

For example, 81 percent of workers like the idea of companies automatically enrolling workers in their 401(k) plan, the study found. However, just 22 percent of employers provide the feature. The biggest reason cited for not offering it is concern about employee resistance. Additionally, most employers assume that workers don't want to give thought to retirement until they're on the verge of leaving the work force. In contrast, just 40 percent of employees say the same. The study also showed that many employees want to be able to ease into retirement either via part-time work or by shifting to a less demanding position. Yet just 20 percent of companies have a formal program in place to facilitate a phased-in retirement. At the same time, 70 percent of companies consider themselves "aging-friendly," compared with 56 percent of workers who feel that way.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan today came out in support of Navjot Singh Sidhu who is embroiled in a controversy after attending his oath-taking ceremony, saying those who are criticising the Punjab minister are doing a great disservice to peace in the subcontinent.

Sidhu had attended the event in Pakistan on August 18. He was slammed by the Opposition and earned displeasure even from his own chief minister Amarinder Singh over his decision to visit Pakistan and hug its Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

The former cricketer today held a press conference in Chandigarh to defend his decision.

"I want to thank Sidhu for coming to Pakistan for my oath taking. He was an ambassador of peace and was given amazing love and affection by people of Pakistan," Khan tweeted soon after Sidhu's press conference.

"Those in India who targeted him are doing a great disservice to peace in the subcontinent - without peace our people cannot progress," Khan said.

To move forward, Khan said Pakistan and India must engage in dialogue and resolve their conflicts, including the Kashmir issue.

"The best way to alleviate poverty and uplift the people of the subcontinent is to resolve our differences through dialogue and start trading," he said.

Sidhu during the press conference said his visit to Pakistan was not "political" but just on a "warm invitation from a friend".
















America's divorce rate among the 50+ population has roughly doubled since the 1990's, according to the Pew Research Center. Sourcing data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, the non-partisan American fact tank reported that from 1990 to 2015, the divorce rate among the ages 50+ and 65+ tripled  reaching 10 and 6 per 1000 married people, respectively.



"We found that flabbergasting," says Susan L. Brown, professor of sociology and co-director of the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University.



According to Brown, who also conducts research studies about the subject matter  the rise in the so-called "grey divorce" is a product of dramatic changes in the meaning of marriage in America over the last half-century.



"Today, we live in an era of individualized marriage, in which those who wed expect marriage to provide them not simply with stability and security but also with self-fulfillment and personal satisfaction. If a marriage is not achieving these goals, then divorce is an acceptable solution  according to most Americans," she added.



But grey divorce is not solely an American phenomenon.



In fact, countries such as Australia, India, and the United Kingdom have been documented to follow the same trend when a growing number of baby boomers split up later in their silver years. And researchers believe that much the same is going on in Canada.



As per Statistics Canada  a government agency commissioned with producing statistics  there has been an upward shift in the age of people who are divorced or separated of which the share for individuals aged 50+ has been especially increasing.



"In 2011, about one in five people in their late fifties were divorced or separated, the highest among the age groups."



That is, 21.6% of women and 18.9% of men in comparison to 6.9% and 6.2% in 1981 - the largest share from three decades ago, however, came from women in their late 30's and early 40's and from men during their 40's and early 50's.



"In some respects, it's quite shocking when I have somebody the age of 75 or 80 walking into my office and wanting to divorce her husband. I can't help but be floored," says Steven Benmor of Benmor Family Law Group in Toronto.



But concerning more than just the emotional grounds, the divorce rate among the 50+ crowd can mean something far more prosaic: the need to shoulder the aftermath of the divorce.



Grey divorce could hurt  financially speaking.



A research by economists Angela Hung and David Knapp of the RAND Corporation, an American nonprofit global policy think tank, revealed that: "Overall, median wealth for men and women who divorced earlier is greater than median wealth for men and women who divorced later."  clearly matching that of Benmor's experience saying that when people reach their 50's or 60's, "income and assets are cemented."



Devastated retirement plans.



Along with the setback of reduced earnings and increased legal costs that usually comes with any separation, these baby boomers also face retirement which is potentially endangered for both parties as whatever money the divorcing couple has, needs to be divided  often with the pricey legal tab.



Furthermore, the property divisions, unfortunately, "have the same effect as starting to save too late in life for retirement or suffering a major loss in the market," said CNBC. That is, "there are no longer enough working years to make up the loss."



More women are left vulnerable when separation strikes.



However, while receiving half of the income of what both parties expected to have is devastating, it can be nothing compared to losing everything.



For women in particular, of which majority (56%) leave major investing and financial planning decisions to their spouse, could find some nasty surprises after the divorce  such as hidden spending, hidden debts, hidden accounts, and outdated wills that force them for financial reckoning as the need to shoulder big financial decisions becomes heavier.



"Women and divorcees who find themselves alone wish they had been more involved in finances while they were married," chief strategy for UBS Global Wealth Management, Paula Polito, told Bloomberg.



An increased risk of falling into poverty.



Older divorced Americans, on average, have only 20% as much wealth as older married couples  research suggests. Lucky are those with financial resources and are in good health as "grey divorce" could mean freedom and independence. But for others, it could be worse.



If they are not able to afford the level of care that others with more economic resources have and especially if their relationships with their children are compromised as a result of the divorce, who will take care of them as they age and experience health declines?



Fortunately, unlike in the U.S., marriage remains the predominant family structure in Canada. However, as more people continue to age  dropping the percentage of Canadian families down to 67% from 70.5% and 91.6% in 1992 and 1961, respectively  it could be alarming.



"There are a lot of reasons about why this is happening but whatever they are, the retirement years have become undeniably increasingly critical for marriage stability," says Ted Khalaf, a divorce lawyer and family attorney based in Los Angeles.



The aftermath of the rising rate of "grey divorce" is heartbreaking as well as devastating. But researchers hope that "as marriage becomes more selective and more tied to education than in the past", there will be more stable marriages in the future.
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UAE based Indian-origin businessmen donate SGDs 2.5 million for Kerala

Even as rescue operations continue in flood-battered Kerala, Indian-origin billionaire businessmen based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have announced donations amounting to approx. SGD 2.5 million for relief operations.

So far, 400 people have lost their lives since August 8 due to floods caused by rains and landslides in the Indian state which is facing its worst flooding in 100 years.

Indian armymen rescuing an old woman trapped in Kerala floods. Photo courtesy: Twitter@/ADG PI, Indian Army

However, rainfall eased today and flood levels have fallen in many districts after a week of heavy downpours.

Currently, a total of 633,010 people are staying in 2,971 relief camps and around 38,000 flood-affected people have been rescued by different agencies so far.

Yusuff Ali MA, chairman and managing director of Lulu Group, has announced SGD 980K approx. donation for Kerala. He belongs to Kerala.

In addition to this, KP Hussain, chairman of Fathima Healthcare Group, has donated SGD 980K approx..

SGD 196K approx. out of SGD 980K approx. will directly go to the Kerala Chief Minister's relief fund, while the rest will be allocated for medical relief aid.

His group has coordinated with the state's health secretary to send volunteers from its medical faculty. This includes doctors and paramedics being sent to relief camps.

National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) rescuers evacuating people to safer places in Kerala. It is a multi-disciplinary,high-tech specialist force with 12 battalions trained to respond to disasters. Photo courtesy: Twitter/@NDRFHQ

Further, other UAE-based Indian businessmen have also come on the forefront and pledged to give donations for Kerala.

BR Shetty, chairman of Unimoni and UAE Exchange, had pledged SGD 392K apporx.

Azad Moopen, Indian physician and philanthropist, and founder chairman and managing director of Aster DM Healthcare, pledged SGD 98K approx. The group also announced that it had mobilised a disaster support team of over 300 volunteers.

In addition to this, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister of UAE and Dubai ruler has also come out in support of flood-hit Kerala and formed an emergency committee to provide relief to the victims hit by devastating rains and floods in the State.

The Indian community in the UAE, numbering 2.6 million, constitutes 30 per cent of the total population. It is the largest expatriate community in the country.
Fox to set out strategy to make Britain into a 21st-century exporting superpower

Hell call for country to set its sights high  Daily Mail

And raise target to 35 per cent of GDP  FT

Hell say businesses have nothing to fear from Brexit  Daily Telegraph

And promise help to businesses to export, and ask what barriers they face  Guardian

400,000 more firms could be exporting, he will claim  Daily Express

Therell be a new advertising campaign  The Sun

The international trade secretary will pledge today to transform Britain into a 21st-century exporting superpower by persuading hundreds of thousands of new companies to start trading as it leaves the European Union. In a speech to business leaders in London, Liam Fox will announce aspirations to overtake the economies of France and Italy and challenge Germany by selling more British goods and services abroad after Brexit. The strategy is expected to highlight opportunities across Asia and the Middle East, including Chinas $900 billion Belt and Road infrastructure plan and big projects in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.  The Times

Comment:

Its a nice idea, but it wont work  Larry Elliott, Guardian

>Today: Liam Fox in Comment: We must seize our exporting future in a changing world

Hammond was told to change fear-mongering tone of Treasury no deal plans

Philip Hammond was forced to water down Treasury plans for a no-deal Brexit amid concerns that they bore similarities to Project Fear, Government sources have said. Ministers will on Thursday publish the first of 84 technical documents outlining contingency plans in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal next year. However, two Government sources told The Telegraph that concerns were raised in Whitehall about the tone of several of the Treasury documents. The sections on the current status of arrangements with the EU were too upbeat while the implications of a no-deal Brexit were seen as negative.  Daily Telegraph

They were likened to Project Fear  Daily Mail

Meanwhile, NHS trusts fear drug shortages in case of no deal  The Times

Comment:

Brexiters arent being honest about risks of WTO  George Peretz, Daily Telegraph

Rifkind: How come Leavers havent left Farage far behind?

May needs to focus on immigration  Stewart Jackson, The Sun

Nigel Farage is back! Dont take it from me, take it from him. Pretty soon, he may be coming to your town on some manner of battle bus. Will these people still be supporting Leave Means Leave once it has Nigel Farage on a battle bus? Once he is teaching the leader of their party a lesson she will not forget? It is their failure, not hers, that Farage is back in this debate. They have had two years to move the argument for a hard Brexit on from his tub-thumping simplicities about betrayal and elites and the will of the people. Two years to make their case about WTO this and Global Britain that, and to evolve something more than, You lost, we won, get over it. How come Farage still speaks their language? How come they havent left him far, far behind? Shame on them, if this is all theyve got.  The Times

>Today: ToryDiary: Mass infiltration by UKIP activists? Thats not what Conservative MPs are telling us

McKie: A little rally in Edinburgh goes no way to invalidating the biggest popular vote ever

Hundreds rally in Edinburgh, and a millionaire pledges money for a push for a second vote, in the hope that people will change their minds. Polling suggests that rising numbers (48 per cent at the last count) would like another referendum on the final deal.  Even if you calculate that the current Government is bound to mess things up, the solution would not be to reverse a democratic decision before it been implemented; it would be to get rid of the government. A rally of several hundreds of Remainers in Edinburgh at the height of the Festival, and even the 650,000-odd signatures on a petition calling for a Right Kind of Peoples Vote should not invalidate the biggest popular vote for anything ever, and especially not before it has even happened.  Herald

Editorial:

The people havent changed their minds  Daily Express

More from the devolved nations

Heres what gallant servicemen and police officers should do  Tim Collins, Belfast News Letter

New alliance of leave-supporting groups and organisations is launched

Hunt in America calls for EU solidarity over sanctions for Russia

A new Brexit-backing alliance of campaign groups and think tanks is being launched today in a fresh attempt to force Theresa May into changing course and delivering a full break with Brussels. The Brexit Advance Coalition will unite 10 organisations including several with close links to the Conservative Party. Get Britain Out, the Bow Group and the Campaign for Conservative Democracy are among those backing a joint declaration of principles. Supporters are planning a series of high-profile meetings and other campaign events over the coming months to raise the call for shift in Government policy towards a more decisive break with the EU than that promised by the Prime Ministers Brexit plan agreed by ministers last month at her Chequers country retreat.  Daily Express

The European Union should stand shoulder-to-shoulder with America by imposing sanctions on Russia in the wake of Salisbury spy poisoning, the Foreign Secretary will say on Tuesday. Delivering a speech in Washington, Mr Hunt is expected to say Russias aggressive and malign behaviour undermines the international order. It comes as a new round of US sanctions on Russia comes into force on Wednesday. The US already has a more wide-ranging number of sanctions in place against Russia than the UK, including travel bans and asset freezes for hundreds of Russian oligarchs and companies.  Daily Telegraph

This is following Skripal attack  FT

He will ask for new US sanctions too, as well as more regulations for online political advertising  Guardian

Guardian He will also tell EU negotiators to consider Mays deal offer with an open mind  Daily Express

Brummer: The EUs strategy has been catastrophic for Greece  its tragedy is not over

Yesterdays BBC news bulletins carried the wonderfully uplifting story of how after eight years of political upheaval, riots on the streets and extraordinary economic privation, the dark clouds over Greece are finally lifting. After several years in which the country was kept afloat by the munificence of the eurozone countries, they trumpeted, Athens is at last free from an EU bailout programme of 61.9 billion (55billion) in emergency loans. That was part on an eight-year rescue package worth 258billion.Greece is in an armlock it cannot escape because of a combination of its debt burden and the fact that its membership of the eurozone means it can no longer devalue its currency. And the EU and Germans are determined to keep it that way to save their precious euro. So despite the joyous news bulletins about the bailout yesterday morning, be in no doubt that this Greek tragedy is very far from over.  Daily Mail

Editorials:

The effects of austerity on Greece have been punishing  The Times

Its a sick joke that EU is talking of European solidarity  The Sun

>Today: Henry Newmans column: What will the EU look like after we have left it?

Stewart says HMP Birmingham is worst, but that 20 other jails face similar problems

As many as 20 jails are suffering from serious problems like HMP Birmingham, the Prisons Minister admitted as it was revealed the Government knew 13 months ago that the facilitys staff had lost control to inmates. Rory Stewart said HMP Birmingham was the nations worst jail but the Government needed to be realistic about the fact that there are challenges in many prisons. His comments, likely to spark concerns about whether other jails could fail, came as a previously unpublished report into a 14-hour riot at HMP Birmingham in December 2016 revealed prison officers had gradually relinquished authority to the prisoners.  Daily Telegraph

MoJ speaks of wider crisis  Guardian

There are problems at public prisons, too  FT

Ministers ignored report for too long  The Sun

Editorial:

The crisis is driven by privatisation and austerity  Guardian

Comment:

The whole system is flawed  Polly Toynbee, Guardian

No comment from May on likelihood of meeting apprenticeship goal

Hague: The party should stick with the leadership rules I introduced

Theresa May has backed away from her vow to create three million apprenticeships by April 2020 after The Times revealed there was little chance of hitting the target. Asked three times yesterday whether the government would meet its goal, the prime ministers official spokeswoman declined to comment. Research by EEF, the manufacturers association, found there was scant prospect of the target being reached. The pledge was first made by David Cameron at the 2015 election and renewed by Mrs May in last years general election manifesto. Mrs Mays spokeswoman said there had been a 986 per cent increase in people starting apprenticeship schemes in the past year. Our reforms are driving up the quality of apprenticeships and we are continuing to work on increasing them, she said.  The Times

 One grassroots organisation has written to the party board to call for a change in the rules, so that any candidate with the support of 20 other MPs could go forward to the decisive ballot of the membership, rather than only the top two having that privilege. Such a change would be seen as helping my fellow columnist Boris Johnson, who is currently thought to be more popular with the party members than with parliamentarians. I feel a special responsibility for all of this, because it was under my leadership of the party that todays rules were put in place.  Twenty years on I can reflect on this with no axe to grind. I am no longer an MP and am not committed to any future aspirant to lead my party. Having reflected, I really and absolutely would not change the rules to reduce the role of MPs and enhance the power of the general membership.  Daily Telegraph

More Conservatives

Fabricant posts weird video  The Sun

The Care ISA is a great idea  Tim Stanley, Daily Telegraph

>Today: Local Government: State land banking: The Ministry of Defence owns 553,000 acres

Labour

Umunna focuses on youth violence and populism  Guardian

Corbyn teased about omelette  The Sun

He is saluted by Hamas  Daily Mail

Comment:

Thoughts on Butler and cultural appropriation  Brendan ONeill, The Sun

News in Brief
Liam Fox is Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade, and is MP for North Somerset.

Business and enterprise is the lifeblood of our economy, and it must remain that way. We should be giving more credit to our entrepreneurs and start-up champions, our risk-takers and innovators  those who drive our economy and our collective prosperity. These are the wealth creators who ultimately provide the income on which we depend for our public services, from health to defence.

Last year, in 2017, there were an estimated 5.7 million businesses in the UK, up four per cent from the previous year, and an increase of over 1.2 million since 2010. Over 99 per cent of our businesses are small or medium-sized employing between 0-249 people. What is even more astonishing is that 96 per cent of UK businesses are micro-businesses, meaning that they employ fewer than nine people. The continued growth in our business start-ups is clear for all to see. It is therefore the task of government to help them take best advantage of the future economic and trading opportunities that leaving the European Union will present.

Following the British peoples decision to leave the European Union, there were siren voices warning about dire economic consequences of the vote itself. These have not been borne out in the real economy. Instead we have a near-record in employment, the lowest levels of unemployment since the 1970s and we have maintained our position as number one in Europe for inward investment, ahead of Germany and France. Some have expressed doubts about our ability to continue as a heavyweight world economic power, let alone a global trader. The facts tell a different story.

As politicians, we know all too well that for people to hear the message, we must repeat it, hundreds if not thousands of times. This is a message I repeat a lot: in the next 10 to 15 years, around 90 per cent of global economic growth is expected to be outside the EU. This will have profound consequences for the patterns of global trade, including our own.

This is already happening as British businesses large and small look increasingly to the opportunities arising in the fastest growing markets. The UK already sells almost 56 per cent of our exports outside the EU, part of a steady trend over the past decade.

To put this in the global context, the UK should be looking to South Asia, East Asia and Africa for its future prosperity, those regions with the most potential for growth, with rapidly growing economies and a burgeoning middle class that are most likely to buy the high-quality goods and services produced by UK firms. It is predicted that there will be 1.1 billion middle-class Africans by 2060. By 2030, China will have 220 cities with a population of more than a million, when the whole of Europe has just 35. These are the consumers of the tomorrow and our customers of the future.

Clearly, forging a new role for the United Kingdom on the world stage and providing the jobs and prosperity the UK needs means navigating this shift in the global economy successfully. This is an opportunity  not a threat. Free trade has already taken a billion of our fellow human beings out of extreme poverty in just one generation.

There are many reasons to be optimistic. Every day, fantastic UK businesses are seizing new openings in overseas markets. I see the demand for British products everywhere I go. But there are still many opportunities which are not being realised. Of all our businesses who produce a good or service only nine per cent actually export them. The UK is punching above its weight, but is still not reaching its potential.

The Department of International Trade is leading a cross-government exercise to help improve this. Our new Export Strategy, which I am launching today, will put in place the tools businesses have told us they need to help them on their exporting journey. It sets out a national ambition to raise our exports as a proportion of GDP from 30 per cent to 35 per cent, propelling us towards the top of the G7 and above similarly large, advanced economies such as Canada and France.

To achieve this, the strategy sets out a new range of measures to help support UK companies with practical, promotional and financial support.

Every business is different, from our micro-businesses to global companies, across the length and breadth of the UK. No matter how big or small, some firms cannot find finance or lack the information about how to start doing business in a new market. Others simply do not believe they are suited to overseas sales or believe that there is not a market abroad for their product. And there are those who are exporting already, via an online e-commerce site, that do not yet consider themselves exporters or dont know how to export more.

That is why this strategy also creates a network of Export Champions  people in business who are already exporting  to guide their peers and share their expertise. It builds on our digital services to make it as easy as possible for businesses to access the support government can provide. And it paves the way for a better relationship between government and all our business, ensuring that whatever the need and whichever part of government industry goes to for help, there is no wrong door. Because this is the start of our exporting journey, not the end.

I truly believe that Brexit is an opportunity. At Chequers, the Government agreed its proposal for an economic partnership with the EU after the UK leaves on 29 March next year. It confirmed that the UK will leave the Single Market and the Customs Union and will seize new opportunities from trading with the rest of the world. And as we pursue our first independent trade policy in over four decades, we must maximise our global export potential, delivering benefits for business, workers and consumers around the UK. To do this, we must embrace the huge changes underway in global trade patterns, look to the future, and recognise that the time is now to set ourselves on this path to our collective prosperity.

Yet at the same time, while the opportunities of Brexit are there to be grasped, this drive to supercharge our exports would be necessary whether the British people had decided to leave the European Union or not. More than 90 per cent of companies arent currently seizing the opportunities of exporting. My mission is to ensure that more British companies can follow in the footsteps of companies such as Cambridgeshire-based Elgoods Brewery, which is set to export an additional 20,000 pints of beer to Argentina over the next 12 months, or Durham-based educational toy manufacturer Big Little Toys who have secured contracts with distributors in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. These are the real champions of exporting, and we want more companies across the country to be able to enjoy the success theyve seen.

There is a Chinese proverb which says that: the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. If we are to take advantage of the huge potential in the global economy, and meet our exporting ambitions, we need to start planting, today.
Henry Newman is Director of Open Europe.

A huge amount of attention has rightly been focused on what Brexit could mean for the UK. But we tend to spend far less energy considering its effects for the EU. The UK has sometimes been a reluctant player in Brussels (some might even say a truculent one), but we have also had a major impact. What will the Union look like without a British Prime Minister around the table at the European Council for the first time in four and a half decades? This isnt just about the Union Jacks coming down outside the Berlaymont building, or Nigel Farage losing his seat in the European Parliament. Britains exit will fundamentally shift the balance within the EU and potentially alter its future trajectory.

Some sneeringly dismiss Brexit as of limited consequence to the blocs future. They say that the UK is just one member leaving the Union. But, as Ive pointed out before, the UKs departure is the economic equivalent of the smallest 19 members heading for the exit. The Union is losing its third most populous state and a country with a huge reach internationally  from our permanent UN Security Council seat and soft power institutions such as the BBC, to our intelligence agencies, military, and global development expenditure.

At European level, although we didnt always get our way, we made crucial contributions to the shaping of regulations for example on sectors such as aviation and financial services. Although the UK was relatively bad at projecting power inside the EU, there were British officials who reached influential positions within EU institutions, and made a significant impact.

Others will say that Britains absence will allow the EU to press ahead with what its always wanted to do. Perhaps. It will certainly be the case that there will be no major power challenging the dominance of France and Germany. Recently the Franco-German motor for EU reform has largely stalled, as my colleague Leopold Traugott has examined, but theres no doubt that the two countries remain the pre-eminent continental powers. And if the engine does restart, the UK wont be there to slam on the breaks.

For decades, smaller EU powers have relied on the UK to object to, and on occasion block, policies which they also found unacceptable. Our interests have often aligned with those of the smaller North Sea states, which are especially concerned to protect the free trading aspects of the EU. But we have also found common cause with other countries too. As one EU ambassador in London put it to me, his countys biggest concern after Brexit is that they will no longer have a powerful ally around the table.

Continental countries are looking to develop new alliances and deepen existing ones. Theres already the V4 group: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. But newer alliances may develop too  perhaps a Hanseatic League 2.0 will coalesce around Hollands Mark Rutte, with Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania working together as a counter-balance to France and Germany. Theres also the Club Med countries of Southern Europe, as well as countries such as Austria, which are willing to work with different groupings depending on the issue.

But more significant than the exact groups that develop is the question of the direction of the EU itself. Will the union continue to advocate free trade and removing barriers across its internal market and in its trade beyond, or will it take a more protectionist position? Will the EU win greater powers over defence, security and foreign policy? How quickly will expansion into the Balkans proceed? What about its financing? Without the UKs financial contributions, the EU will either have to ask members to pay more or do less. Both are unpalatable options which will need to be addressed during the next budgetary period, just as countries shift from being net recipients of EU funds to net contributors.

The UKs departure will also strengthen the dominance of the Eurozone over the rest, especially if more countries join the Euro (as all other than Denmark are technically obliged to do). By 2019, Poland will be the second biggest non-Eurozone economy. The gap between the Eurozone and the rest will widen if Emmanuel Macron gets his way and the Eurozone integrates further  perhaps with some sort of common budget.

The UKs exit in April 2019 will coincide with a new cycle of European elections in May which will redraw political power in the European Parliament and other EU institutions. The collapse of the centre-left across the Continent  particularly in France, Italy and Germany  will likely mean that the second biggest group of MEPs, the Socialists and Democrats bloc, will lose seats in the upcoming elections (they will also lose the British Labour MEPs). The third biggest bloc, the ECR, will lose their largest group of MEPs  British Conservatives and their chair, the talented MEP Syed Kamall.

This will be the first election contested by Macrons En Marche party, and its been suggested that his MEPs could form a new bloc replacing ALDE, the liberal group. Its pretty certain that so-called populist parties  as well as more extreme parties on the right and left  will significantly gain ground, including for example the League in Italy, and AfD and Die Linke in Germany. Its not yet clear into which group these MEPs will end up.

Soon after the elections a new Commission will be chosen, with the President most probably selected under the system of Spitzenkandidat, meaning that the dominant political faction in the European Parliament will gain control of the Commission. Later in 2019, there will need to be a new President of the European Council to replace Donald Tusk, as well as a President of the European Central Bank.

Without the UK around the table, life on the Continent will of course go on. But the path the EU takes is unclear. This matters for the UK at many levels. Who will gain control of the institutions with which we have to negotiate our future partnership  the Council, the Parliament and the Commission? For those who hope to reverse Brexit  what sort of Union will there be for the UK to (re)join? And for those hopeful of close cooperation in the future, what direction will the EU take without us? All of these questions have uncertain answers but if the EU changes as much in the next decade and a half as it did in the last, it will seem a very different place by 2030.
James Frayne is Director of communications agency Public First and author of Meet the People, a guide to moving public opinion.

The Conservative Party is understandably overwhelmingly focused on meeting immediate policy and campaign challenges posed by Brexit, Labours stubborn poll numbers and the possibility of an early election. As such, worrying about long-term cultural and structural changes that could pose challenges in future elections might seem a luxury. However, politics increasingly resembles culture war as the left chooses to self-define in the manner of the vanguard of the American liberal left. In this climate, cultural and structural changes take on real, near-term importance. Here are four that appear most immediate.

1. UKIPs shift to toxic politics. I recognise Im in a minority here but in the past, Ive generally regarded UKIP as a net-positive for the centre right  mainly because I viewed UKIP as a useful way of attracting Conservative-sceptic, traditional working class voters towards the centre right. People whose families might not have voted Conservative in generations clearly felt more comfortable voting UKIP  and then more comfortable voting Conservative once the Labour-voting habit was broken. This judgement was based on the view that UKIP was ultimately a respectable party. Not to downplay the problem, it clearly always had a minority of unpleasant and extreme supporters and activists but, for the most part, it operated within the bounds of mainstream political discourse. It was a relatively easy jump  politically and culturally  between UKIP and the Conservative Party. Under Gerard Batten, this is no longer the case. It has crossed the line into being an unpleasant, European-style populist party which respectable people should no longer vote for and it can no longer be credibly seen as any sort of ally of the Conservative Party or the wider conservative movement. There is now a less obvious path for voters to move from Labour to the Conservative Party.

2. The Daily Mails likely cultural shift. All the signs are that the Daily Mail is set for a major shift in political and cultural tone in the coming years. Under Paul Dacre, like it or not, the Mail reflected and amplified the authentic voice of ordinary lower middle-class England  and in turn helped to form that voice. But it appears the owners have tired of the Mails combative nature and the hostility it derives from the London Upper Middle Class. Geordie Greigs appointment appears to be a result of this shift from the ownership, not the cause of the shift. In a cultural battle with the new left, The Daily Mail ought to have been the most important weapon in the arsenal of the centre-right but it no longer looks as though it can be relied upon. Time will tell but its not clear raw sales figures will decide on their overall approach.

3. The Guardians massive new influence. Not so long ago, those of us on the centre right might have been irritated by The Guardian, but we told ourselves that no one read it. What a change. The Guardian has turned itself into a vehicle of massive public influence. The Guardian is now the second most-read newspaper in the UK  a huge change over the last 20 years. According to the most recent Ofcom News Consumption Survey (2018), it has 8.01 million weekly readers for print and digital combined, compared with 9.4 million for the Daily Mail and Mail Online combined. This is, of course, because it has invested so heavily online. And with the massive growth in readership has come a radical shift in tone; the paper always leaned left, of course, but it now churns out vast amounts of highly-charged, American-style aggressive liberal content. Im now starting to see the results of this in focus groups, where young people in particular are starting to repeat some of these talking points on a regular basis.

4. The lack of a Conservative grassroots. The Labour Party is paying the price for such huge and active grassroots  with the election of Jeremy Corbyn and the takeover of the party by the hard left. But there are benefits too: the Labour movements grassroots are able to apply pressure online on an array of issues to change the way the media report those issues, or to change the behaviour of less robust players in the debate. Think of how theyve applied pressure on businesses to stop advertising in places like the Mail. The centre-right has no equivalent. It might make it less likely that the Conservatives will be lumbered with someone like Corbyn, which is no small thing, but it makes it difficult to match Labour in the ongoing culture war.

Its not all bad news, of course. The centre rights think tanks are in a good place; theres an emerging politically savvy libertarian movement amongst younger voters; and Brexit continues to offer the Conservatives opportunities to detach the working class from Labour (although not for much longer). But when you look at the likely battleground for the next few years, it feels like the centre right is in a more difficult place.
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New cruise terminals, more ships and a preferential climate is driving growth for cruises in the Canary Islands, as capacity is expected to be up over 10 percent in the region, according to the 2018-2019 Cruise Industry News Annual Report.

The Canary Islands are expected to account for over 550,000 cruise guests, with 59 different ships offering regional itineraries at some point in 2018.

It is the biggest year for the Canaries ever, bypassing the previous record set in 2015 by just under 10 percent.

Like 2017, the German companies lead the way, with AIDA and TUI accounting for just under half of the entire market. Eight AIDA ships will cruise the islands, for a market share of 28.4 percent, while TUI will have four ships, for a market share of 20.8 percent. P&O and Marella are the next largest operators by capacity.

---

About the Annual Report:

The Cruise Industry News Annual Report is the only book of its kind, presenting the worldwide cruise industry through 2027 in 400 pages.

Statistics are independently researched.

See a preview by clicking here.

The report covers everything from new ships on order to supply-and-demand scenarios from 1987 through 2027+. Plus there is a future outlook, complete growth projections for each cruise line, regional market reports, and detailed ship deployment by region and market, covering all the cruise lines.

Order the 2018-2019 edition today.
Is artificial intelligence (AI) a panacea to make work and life nearly effortless  or the first step to a nightmare scenario of self-aware machines?

Theres been both ballyhoo and angst over the prospects of AI, including some that think AI poses a risk to the existence of human civilization.

On the other hand, senior military and national security leaders have asserted that to not pursue AI is the real existential threat, as it can put the country at risk from other nations that dont share the need for caution.

With apologies to those who fear the worst, federal and SLED governments have come down squarely on the side of vigorously pursuing artificial intelligence.

Companies that sell storage solutions, automation, big data, security and data mining tools should be encouraged by all the buzz going on in government about AI. Lets look at some of the underlying drivers behind AI  and reasons why companies with a hand in the AI space should take note.

Dramatic cost savings

The consulting company Deloitte estimates that even low-investment AI, which could improve the speed at which human tasks can be performed by up to 20 percent, could translate to a savings of 96.7 million human hours in government. A high investment in AI, which might speed human tasks by as much as 200 percent, could mean well over one billion human hours saved in government functions.

Thats a clear savings of billions of dollars for the cash-strapped federal budget coffers. The money saved from lifting operational burdens through machine learning can be redirected to even more AI technology, enabling greatly improved government services by collecting shared data and interpreting that information for the greater good.

AI Wars: the new space race

Late last year, Chris Miller, executive director of SPAWAR Atlantic, addressed the Defense Contractors Association of Charleston SC, calling AI the space race of the 21st century.

Whether we want to admit it or not, were in a competitive space to own this technology, Miller said. With other nations, most notably China, emphasizing its own AI development, Miller urged the U.S. to be strategic about the role the technology can play domestically.

China indeed has its sights set on becoming the world leader in AI by 2030. By some reports, that could be an industry worth $150 billion. To get to the leadership position, Chinas central government will be developing new AI theories that could lead to real breakthroughs as early as 2025. Those breakthroughs could reshape Chinese industry altogether.

The potential threat implied in that push for dominance has already prompted the Department of Defense here in the U.S. to establish a joint AI center overseen by DOD CIO Dana Deasy. In an announcement made early in July, DOD said the center will coordinate efforts on AI projects worth more than $15 million annually. The projects that make the cut will get fast-tracked for funding in the fiscal 2018 budget to accelerate their development.

This joint center builds on the Pentagons interest in algorithmic warfare, using machine learning to improve warfighting and decision-making. The trades have already widely reported on DODs Project Maven as an example of how the Pentagon plans to use both AI and machine learning, in this case to assist in the analysis of drone footage.

Even Congress is getting into the act, with the House Armed Services Committee establishing an artificial intelligence commission that will offer recommendations on organizing the federal government to address new and emerging AI threats.

As Francis Bacon said over 400 years ago, knowledge is power. And knowledge, for some in government, is the blockbuster gamechanger in the new millennium.

Colonel Drew Cukor, director of ISR PED at the office of the under secretary of defense for intelligence, told an audience in Washington DC in June that AI is as big as the introduction of nuclear weapons into the Department of Defense." The technology, Cukor said, has the potential to upend the status quo across nearly every aspect of defense, from medicine to operations to logistics.

Changing the conversation  PLUS, not VERSUS

Theres no denying that AI has huge potential. Its not just a buzzword, its an up-and-coming technology thats quickly finding its way into government. Now is the time for companies to start presenting DOD and intel agencies with AI and machine-learning solutions that address cybersecurity challenges.

The implications of AI and machine learning on security are profound. With this technology, it becomes faster and easier to understand what malicious behavior looks like, identify fraud and abuse, and detect both new and familiar patterns much more quickly than human beings ever could on their own.

To that extent, we really are witnessing the earliest days of a sophistication among machines that was only dreamt of in works of science fiction just a few decades ago.

But lets not panic. Theres no need to start planning for the obsolescence of the human race. The key in moving from panic to progress is to change the tenor of the conversation.

Lets stop thinking man versus machine and start thinking man plus machine. AI is giving us the opportunity to automate and streamline our government services at a rate we have never experienced before. By being flexible about it and allowing it to be incorporated into our processes, we will be able to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

That in turn will give our government the flexibility to properly concentrate its resources on frontline priorities.
Fairfield resident Dylan OConnor is looking to rid customers of the legwork associated with renovating their flooring with his new business, Floor Coverings International Greenwich.

He opened the Stamford-based franchise last month at 130 Lenox Ave. to provide mobile flooring services to customers in lower Fairfield County. The franchise works with clients in Greenwich, Stamford, Darien, New Canaan, and more.

Its been a good first month and I think there is a tremendous amount of upside, OConnor said. We ultimately try to make things easier for the customer. Anybody that is doing a home improvement project that requires some type of flooring, we can help them out.

After a 15-year career in sales, the Fairfield resident said he got tired of the corporate grind and opted to go into business for himself. OConnor chose the national flooring company that has over 150 locations.

Floor Coverings International is a part of the FirstService Brands network, which also includes recognizable home improvement brands such as California Closets, CertaPro Painters, Pillar to Post Home Inspectors, and Paul Davis Restoration.

The Stamford-based location is the second in the state of Connecticut, with another in Fairfield.

He and his team travel to customers homes with their mobile showroom vehicles and over 3,000 flooring selections to choose from. From hardwood floors to tile and carpeting, he tries to meet his customers preference.

After finding what a customer wants for their flooring improvements, he shows samples and provides a proposal on the spot. If the customers choose to move forward, OConnor said he can start with a same-day installment, using a team of installers that he subcontracts.

It saves them the hassle of having to call up an installer and then having to source their own materials at either Home Depot or Lowes or a local flooring store, he said. We try to make it nice and easy for them by being a one-stop shop.

Providing an array of products for his customers is important, but OConnor said he prioritizes quality customer service and building rapport with his clients above all else.

Thats really the key piece for me; that were providing this service with this bend towards white glove service, OConnor said. I want people to feel confident that when they call me, we come to them and make the process very easy seamless and they feel like theyve gotten value out of it.

Jordan.grice@hearstmediact.com
WALLINGFORD  Edible Arrangements is relocating its headquarters to the Atlanta area by the end of this year, company officials said Tuesday.

The company will retain a small presence in Wallingford, with about 20 people working there. But what isnt immediately clear in the announcement by Mike Rotondo, the companys new chief executive officer, is how many of the 130 Connecticut headquarters employees will lose their jobs as a result of the decision or if any employees will be offered relocation packages.

Alicia Thompson, a company spokeswoman, said a small percentage of the companys current headquarters staff will be offered jobs in Georgia. She said company officials havent yet determined how many of the remaining employees will be laid off.

The indication is that there will be some layoffs as a result of the move: Company officials say they will issue a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification notice. The WARN Act is a federal law requiring employers of 100 or more full-time workers to give 60 days advance notice of a plant closing or mass layoff, which is defined as 50 or more people.

We are excited to make Atlanta the brands home base as we build a best in class Support Center for our franchise owners, said Rotondo said in a statement. Edibles Wallingford office is an important part of the brands history and heritage, and we will always have a presence in the community. At the same time, the global marketplace is changing at a rapid pace and Atlanta is an attractive location to base much of the team needed to support the companys next phase of growth.

More Business Wallingford-based Edible Arrangements names new chief executive officer

Rotondo became chief executive of the company on July 10 as Edible Arrangements founder and former chief executive Tariq Farid shifted his focus to expanding subsidiaries that service the core business. Edible Arrangements specializes in franchised locations that sell fresh-cut fruit arrangements.

Edible opened an Atlanta office as a second headquarters in March 2018 because of that citys access to major transportation hubs and other resources for services that were previously handled out of Wallingford. When Rotondos hiring was announced, Farid said there were not plans to relocate the headquarters.

Catherine Smith, the commissioner of Connecticuts Department of Economic and Community Development, said in a statement that any time a company announces a headquarter relocation out of state it is disappointing news.

But we have had many more wins than losses in this area, Smith said in a statement. We have successfully recruited more than 90 companiesincluding several FORTUNE 500 companiesto the state and continue to see great interest from corporations looking to expand or relocate here. Todays news, while unfortunate, does not hinder the positive momentum we are seeing on several economic development fronts.

Donald Klepper-Smith, chief economist and director of research for New Haven-based DataCore Partners, said Edible Arrangements move is being driven by a variety of factors.

What we have here are pronounced and profound demographic shifts for one thing, Klepper-Smith said. Census projections through 2030 show significant migration to the Southeast and West.

On average, a net total of 428 people per week move out of Connecticut, he said.

Connecticut has the fifth highest cost in the United States for companies doing business, he said. And a third and equally important factor is likely Rotondos already having a presence in Atlanta, according to Klepper-Smith.

Where a CEO has business contacts is just another piece of the puzzle when it comes to where you locate a company, he said.

Edible Arrangements current Atlanta office office is in the Lakeside Commons buildings in Sandy Springs, a suburb located north of the city. The space will serve as the base of operations for the companys franchise operations, but company officials were not immediately available to sat whether that will be the companys new headquarters.

luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com
STRATFORD  A win by six votes might seem like a real cliffhanger, but its a tall mountain to climb if youre hoping that a recount will change the outcome.

In the August 14 Republican primary in the 23rd state Senate district, John Rodriguez came out ahead over challenger Casmir Caz Mizera 147 to 141. And after a two-day recount, the only change in that tally was one more vote for Rodriguez.

This just goes to show that money isnt everything, said Bridgeport Republican Town Committee Chairman Mike Garrett. This was in reference to Mizeras primary campaign being better-financed. You have to have a message, too.

In the machine-scored ballot system used in Connecticut, its unusual for election results to change much in a recount, officials say.

Bridgeport Republican Registrars of Voters Linda A. Grace said that Rodriguez  the party-endorsed candidate  picked up a vote from one ballot that could not be read by the machine. That made the final tally 148 for Rodriguez and 141 for Mizera.

Now the campaign can begin, said a happy Rodriguez on Tuesday. But it wont be easy  the 23rd is one of the most Democratic senate districts in Connecticut.

The 23rd covers most of Bridgeport and a swath of Stratfords South End, necessitating recounts in in both communities. Bridgeports recount took place Monday and the Stratford votes were looked at again on Tuesday.

In Bridgeport, Rodriguez received 132 votes to 87 for Mizera. In Stratford, Mizera came out ahead with 54 votes to 16 for Rodriguez.

Rodriguez lives in Bridgeport while Mizera lives in Stratford.

In a recount, the paper machine-scored ballots are examined for voter intent by officials if they cant be read by the machine. Ballots that are unintelligible or contradictory arent counted.

Rodriguez will face Democrat Dennis Bradley, a Bridgeport attorney.

jburgeson@ctpost.com
FAIRFIELD  The president of Sacred Heart Universitys has started an online petition standing in solidarity with victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests.

We stand in solidarity with Pope Francis and his letter to all Gods people condemning the atrocities of the abuse of children by priests and cover-ups by the bishops, Petillo, himself a former priest, wrote in a petition shared with the university community on Tuesday.

Petillo said he is joining a grassroots cry for a major paradigm shift in the exercise of power by leaders in the church.

Some have suggested that U.S. bishops should consider submitting their resignations to Pope Francis as was done in Chile, Petillo said in his message that comes as the academic year is about to start at Sacred Heart. Students are in the process of moving back to campus which was founded by the Diocese of Bridgeport in 1963. Classes start next week.

Empowering laity to take greater leadership is central to the role of Sacred Heart, Petillo said.

In a weekly blog normally reserved for talking about campus activities, Petillo focused on recent articles that reported 1,000 children in Pennsylvania were abused by hundreds of priests over decades, while bishops colluded to cover up the crimes.

Even if the documentation for sexual abuse was lacking until now, the abuse of power was apparently discussed openly, Petillo wrote. He said he hopes a November meeting of American bishops will address the issue.

The bishops are quick to voice their opinions on doctrine and justice for others. If they would try this exercise on themselves, we would all benefit from the true power of living as a faith-filled and ethical community, Petillo said.

Petillo has been president at Sacred Heart since 2011 and on the faculty since 2009. He grew up in Newark where he entered the priesthood, leaving in 1989 after being named one of the youngest monsignor in the history of the Newark Archdiocese. He later married and has a daughter.
3 1 of 3 Stamford police / Contributed Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Show More Show Less 3 of 3





STAMFORD  Police say a New York teen was arrested last week when he tried to make a large delivery of antianxiety pills at the East Side McDonalds.

Capt. Richard Conklin said officers in the Narcotics and Organized Crime squad heard there was going to be a large delivery of Xanax in the McDonalds parking lot Friday night.
FAIRFIELD  Police used DNA to solve a 2017 burglary at a Kings Highway deli.

Abdus-Shahid Muhammad, 54, of Madison Avenue, Bridgeport, was arrested on a warrant Friday and charged with third-degree burglary and third-degree criminal mischief.

The owner of the Hungarian Goulash Deli called police after arriving to work on Aug. 9, 2017, to find the front door of the deli smashed with a rock. One of the cash registers was smashed on the floor. It contained about $20 in coins and the money was not taken. The second register, which contained about $80, was not opened.

Police used the DNA from several drops of blood found on the broken glass door to trace the break-in to Muhammad. According to police, he is a convicted felon and had been arrested 31 times in Connecticut since 1986. In 2016, he was charged with burglary by Fairfied police for a break-in at Mancusos Restaurant, down the street from the deli.

Muhmmand was arrested at state Superior Court in Bridgeport and was held in lieu of $30,000 after arraignment.

greilly@ctpost.com; 203-842-2582
In the Women Entrepreneur series My First Moves, we talk to founders about that pivotal moment when they decided to turn their business idea into a realityand the first steps they took to make it happen.

Karen John knew she wanted to start a business and knew she loved design, a discipline shed worked in throughout her career. But she had her a-ha moment at a Dutch design conference, where a discussion of What Design Can Do in various markets helped her target her passion: to create modern, functional furniture and storage for the modern workspace. One of the researchers at the conference had looked into how much time were spending at workspaces, and it just connected the dots between time Id spend in tech cultures and in creative cultures, John says. Companies need to find the balance between design and utility. Her company, Heartwork, launched in 2012, is out to do just that: improve spaces to support todays thoughtful office culture. Heres how she got there.

RELATED: How Two Sisters Turned This Wearable Art Textile Experiment Into a Bustling Global Enterprise.

1: Crunch the numbers.

Johns career history was varied but synergistic: shed studied industrial design, as well as manufacturing and engineering, and worked across those disciplines at big brands, such as Design Within Reach as well as at a small tech startup in Austin. But it was the combination of those experiences that helped her identify a gap in the market: well-designed office furniture for brands that cared about culture and the people who worked for them. I always knew I wanted to start my own business -- if I had to stack rank my own values, freedom would be at the top, she says. When she found herself at a career crossroads in 2012, she knew it was now or never. Starting a business is the fastest path to personal development, because youre always in a bottleneck. But as she put together a business model, she realized that it would cost her more to continue living in her home base of New York City than it would to actually start the company. So she moved across the country and spent the first year of entrepreneurship in Portland, Oregon. It was great in terms of creative community and from a cost of living standpoint, John says. Still, it came with its own set of costs. I did this based on the rational I saw on paper and forgot that I was going to be alone, she says. You leave [behind] your friends and emotional network.

2: Pick a name you believe in (and stick with it).

As John was considering what to call her company, she focused on the problem it was trying to solve for inspiration. I was seeing the gap between these tech companies that had strong cultures but disconnected spaces,' she says. She toyed with Desk and Chair, but ultimately decided it sounded like a retail company. I needed a name that would give me the runway and the room to connect with a broader audience. She thought up Heartwork and immediately fell in love -- though she was the only one. I told my family the name and got this long voicemail from them while I was at the gym, she says. They were like, Karen, we have some concerns, and left me 10 ideas they thought were better. They were worried that Heartwork sounded like a cardiologist. In the end, they came around. You have to hold a vision and talk about something people cant see, John says. The hardest time is that beginning part.

RELATED: In Pitching Your Business, Take Every 'No' and a 'Not Now,' Says This Founder.

3: Develop your debut product -- and get creative about creating revenue streams.

John knew that storage was the first problem shed tackle. It was the one category people treated like a commodity and not a design product, she says. But the development process was longer than she expected, and she needed to find a way to keep the nascent business afloat. On the side, I started working with some facilities managers at tech companies and offered to help them find product that was already on the market, she says. If they needed soundproof booths, Id help them source it. Id get my trade discount, pass that along, and keep 5 percent or something silly. It was a way to learn and understand what people are looking for. Its a move she recommends other entrepreneurs make. I think a lot of entrepreneurs put a wall up when theyre starting companies and want to finish everything before they really launch, but you have to start selling something as soon as possible, she says. And it gave me cash flow.

4: Take the time to get it right.

Finding the right manufacturing partners is a universal challenge for any entrepreneur in the product space, and John was no exception. As she was developing early designs and prototypes, a lot of people were either manufacturing in China or didnt have the flexibility to do the colors we wanted, she says. But rather than accept what was available to her, she pushed. I developed the paint colors myself, she says. She worked with designer Laura Guido-Clark -- a contact from her Design Within Reach days -- and found a small paint manufacturer that could produce the color and get swatches to John much faster than the six-week wait time the big players offered. People who manufacture well are some of the best people out there, John says, appreciative of the partners she now can rely on. Theres a lot of care and integrity.

RELATED: This Millennial Founder Decorated Her Dorm Room Using Product She Created.

5: Find the best path to growth.

Following Heartworks launch, the company was still bootstrapped, so spending big bucks on marketing wasnt an option. But John had another plan. I went out to architects and designers, because they were the ones working on projects with clients who care about design, she says. I needed to align with people who were already interested. In addition to being a smart way of capitalizing on existing relationships and generating business leads, it also proved to be valuable, if not accidental, R&D. Its been one of the most satisfying things, how much time I get to spend working with and listening to our clients, John says. Architects and designers tell me exactly what theyre looking for, so weve built a very responsive product development and supply chain.

Related:

How This Founder Bootstrapped an Office Furniture Company That Targeted What Other Furniture Companies Are Missing

The Founder of Miss Jessie's Got Retail Placement by Asking a Stock Boy for Intel

How a First Date Led to Multimillion-Dollar Confection Company Sugarfina



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
After the first weekend in August, the United States was shaken to its core as every major media outlet reported that 67 people had been shot in Chicago, 12 of them dead in the senseless carnage. Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel pleaded for calm and announced an additional 600 police officers would join other law enforcement in the five most troubled districts.

This past weekend, which contained 60 hours (between noon on Friday until midnight on Sunday,) the thugs in the Windy City blazed bullets like a well-oiled train  60 persons shot (one for every hour) and seven of them dead  again, just this past weekend. Excuse me, this is the United States and the American people are allowing this horror story to keep playing?

Year-to-date there have been 1,970 Americans shot in our third-largest city and, to put it in better perspective, there have been only 2,372 American casualties in Afghanistan in all of the last 18 years combined by our U.S. troops.

Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said at a press conference on Monday it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out why shootings are notorious in Chicago. Too many criminals arent afraid to pull the trigger, because they dont face significant prison time when they do.

Im tired of it, and you all should be tired of it too, Johnson told the same old crowd of reporters in what has become a weekly scenario at Chicago Police Headquarters. People are sick and tired of it, and they should be.

So why does this black-on-black catastrophe continue unbridled week after week? It doesnt take a rocket scientist the chief said and he predicted that with seemingly-toothless prosecution literally letting the gangs get by with murder, a solution will not be found anytime soon.

Johnson repeatedly has called for legislation that would impose more severe prison sentences for repeat gun offenders.

As long as we fail to create repercussions for carrying and using illegal guns, or more importantly hold repeat violent offenders accountable for their actions, were simply going to continue to have these discussions on Monday mornings, Johnson said. Because its the same people who are pulling the triggers in some of these communities, this isnt a widespread issue among Chicagoans, its the same people.

Crime isnt just about what the police do, Johnson responded to questions. Crime is about what the criminals do.

Lets not forget the police arent the ones out there doing it. We can only do so much, Johnson continued. We cannot be on every street corner ... every moment of the day. We just cant. Thats an impossibility. Its unreasonable. Theres no police department in this country that can do that. The Chicago Police Department alone cannot solve the citys violent crime problems.

Mayor Emanuel is now being heavily criticized for what is believed to be his ineptness. "We have a heavy heart," the Democratic mayor said at a news conference Monday. "Our souls are burdened. What happened this weekend did not happen in every neighborhood of Chicago but it is unacceptable to happen in any neighborhood of Chicago. We are a better city 

* * *

According to the website, HeyJackass.com, which is the authoritative source on Chicago crime, consider these figures on the actual cost incurred when there is a shooting within the city limits. Note: almost none of the victims have health insurance

* -- $55,000: Average gunshot victim ER and hospital expenses.

* -- $1000: Average Chicago Fire Department ambulance ride, only applicable to 80% of victims, rest self-transport.

* -- $800: Homicide-related autopsies.

Doesnt include hospice care or ongoing rehabilitation.

* -- Cost estimates (provided by Chicago Killings): $2.5 Billion.

* -- The cost of a gunshot wound is $21,000 for the first 35 minutes.

royexum@aol.com
Assyrian Leader Slams US, European Support to YPG/PKK

Anadolu Agency

The support of YPG/PKK terrorist groups by the U.S. and European countries has led to more deaths and destruction in Syria, head of a Syriac non-governmental organization said. "The time has come for Americans and Europeans to realize that supporting the YPG, with its current separatist agenda, does not lead to peace and security in Syria, but in fact cause more death and destruction, with the potential of a spill-over effect to neighboring regions," said Johny Messo, president of World Council of Assyrians (Syriacs), in an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency. "Among the victims of such an irresponsible policy are Syria's indigenous Assyrian people, who have been and continue to be threatened, intimidated and occasionally even eliminated (intellectually and physically) by the YPG," Messo added. Messo said YPG/PKK terrorists have demanded the closure of Assyrian and Armenian schools in the Derik and Darbasiyah regions of Syria. "Essentially, they do this because the native Assyrians reject their ongoing demands," he said. Messo said these demands include the Kurdish language and textbooks to be incorporated in the school curriculum and YPG/PKK also expect the Assyrians to ask for a permit or license for their schools to exist. "The fact that the Assyrian Christians and other vulnerable minorities in the region do not recognize the separatist PYD/YPG as the rulers of Northeast Syria is a thorn in the eye for them," he said. "Threatening to shut down the schools of the remaining native Assyrians of Northeast Syria is outrageous, scandalous and shameful," Messo stressed. YPG/PKK shutting down schools of Assyrians He said the World Council of Assyrians "strongly condemns such acts of terror", and will do whatever it takes to prevent such developments. "Shutting down independent schools of vulnerable minorities, such as the Assyrians, exposes the exclusivist and destructive ideology, agenda and objectives of the YPG," Messo said. Last week the YPG/PKK terror group shut down three Assyrian schools in parts of northeastern Syria under its control on grounds that the targeted schools did not have a license. Messo said in the recent years, Syria's indigenous Assyrians (Syriacs) were deliberately targeted in a number of ways by the YPG/PKK. He said the terrorists have threatened, intimidated, oppressed and even killed Assyrians in the region. "Forcing the closure of independent intellectual institutions, which had already been recognized by the state, flies by all means in the face of international law and reveals the double-speak of the YPG with regard to human rights, civil liberties and especially a so-called free, democratic and pluralistic region they continue to promote," Messo added. According to map calculations made by Anadolu Agency, the Bashar al-Assad regime controls about 59 percent of Syria, while the YPG/PKK terror group controls 27.7 percent of the country. The YPG/PKK is Syrian branch of the PKK -- recognized as a terror group by the U.S., EU, and Turkey. In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK has claimed some 40,000 lives, including many women and children.
Federal officials are investigating Michael Cohen, President Trumps former personal attorney, for possible bank and tax fraud violations in connection with $20 million in loans he obtained from Melrose Credit Union and Sterling National Bank, The New York Timesreported Sunday.

The probe centers on allegations that Cohen misrepresented his assets when he obtained the loans, the newspaper reported.

Federal investigators also are investigating how he handled income from taxi medallions he owned and whether he failed to report it to the Internal Revenue Service the Times said.

The allegations and investigation of Cohen are not related to the NCUAs decision this month to file an administrative complaint against Alan S. Kaufman, the former CEO of Melrose Credit Union, an agency spokesman said.
Books on the run from Somerset County libraries to just about anywhere
Successes are written in water but it is the spirit that is written in stone.

The Vajpayee-led government had many achievements to its credit from Pokhran to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, to the Golden Triangle, to disinvestment, and more.

Yet today, he is remembered most appreciatively, fondly too, primarily for his overtures to Pakistan, the one area where, paradoxically, he did not have tangible success.

Pakistan backstabbed the Lahore Bus initiative with Kargil, the invitation to Pervez Musharraf was repaid by an attack on our Parliament.

Even so, success or no success, what soared high, in spite of setbacks, was the appreciation of Vajpayees vision.

Petty political calculations could not have prompted him to lean over across the cliff to offer the olive branch to Pakistan. It was a grand gesture, fraught with risks and yet he pressed on with it.

Invitation to Pervez Musharraf was repaid by an attack on our Parliament, but history doesn't forget the gesture (Photo: Reuters)

Popular appreciation

It was the popular appreciation of this spirit that brought thousands to join Vajpayees funeral procession. A new generation of young adult Indians were born around the time, or after, Vajpayee began his five-year term as Prime Minister and hence, too young to have experienced the live passions of those times.

Yet one could hardly tell this from the way they thronged around the cortege carrying Vajpayees body. This was primarily because the spirit behind the Pakistan overture dominates our appreciation of Vajpayee, much more than the many successes of his government.

Commentators across different TV channels covering Vajpayees funeral also expressed the same sentiment.

Time and again the Pakistan peace process was recalled with an occasional aside on Pokhran or the Golden Triangle.

History will steadfastly remember successes and failures, but Vajpayees legacy will primarily pivot around his efforts to bring about better relations with Pakistan. It is the spirit that enabled him to reach out to foes and make friends out of enemies  even in difficult times  that will stand out in our memories of the man.

This is why even those who were fervent, and often harsh, critics of Vajpayee readily accept his exalted status today. It has been well over a decade that he left active politics, yet his impress on our system can still be felt. Obviously, a man like Vajpayee had to take hard decisions, such as whether to start the BJP, or make the Ram Temple, conduct the Pokhran test and, not least of all, on how to calm Kashmir.

On each of these occasions, Vajpayee had to contend against his critics and in the heat of engagements, there was little time to reflect on the totality of the man. Even so, what one cannot help but appreciate is that he broke the mould in every ministerial post he held, whether as foreign minister or Prime Minister.

On each occasion one began by expecting him to perform as expected, along ideological lines, but he invariably surprised us. This happened primarily because he saw his partys fortunes linked with the countrys democratic process, and not in its own orbit.

Pakistan backstabbed the Lahore Bus initiative with Kargil, but could not overshadow the spirit (Photo: Reuters)

Convivial relations

People often remark about his convivial relations with political rivals, but this was largely on account of his commitment to a parliamentarian disposition and not simply generosity, which too must have been present.

It is usually believed that coalition governments dont work. This was a strong opinion among the general public based on the experience Indians have had with such experiments, beginning with the Janata government under Morarji Desai in 1977.

Coalitions are no longer laughable and can be taken seriously largely because of the credibility the Vajpayee government gave it between 1999 and 2004.

Common goal

This brings home how one could straddle political differences and yet work towards a common goal. It is because Vajpayee gave space to divergent political views in his government. He could weld his Cabinet together as a team. The Kargil War took place and so did the dastardly attack on Parliament, but through these very testing times, Vajpayee held true to his temperament and style. He could have been quite easily deflected by partisan passions, because Vajpayee was not ideologically neutral.

He was groomed as an RSS worker, he was the star figure of the Jana Sangh and he also started the BJP.

Yet, there is no doubt that his government achieved a broad and abiding consensus which is why it succeeded on a variety of fronts, ranging from raising our defence capabilities to making progress on fractious issues like Pakistan and Kashmir. On each occasion, Vajpayee came through more as Prime Minister than as a leader of a political party.

(Courtesy of Mail Today)

Also read: How Atal Bihari Vajpayee won over Mamata Banerjee
The Imran Khan government in Pakistan comes with the slogan of 'Naya Pakistan' (a new Pakistan), in order to have a fresh beginning, a fresh start. Somewhere, we all want to believe it  but his administration's actions since August 18, when he took over as Prime Minister, and a few days before that, give out a different message.

One that has the Pakistani establishment's footprints all over it.

Dreaming of a naya Pakistan: The country's old games against India continue. (Source: Reuters)

While Prime Minister Imran Khan in his first address to the nation focused on domestic issues, with no mention of India-Pakistan or Kashmir, Shah Mehmood Qureshi as the foreign minister ensured that the important aspects of Pakistan's India policy were not amiss from his first press interaction.

Keeping it casual: Shah Mehmood Qureshi has gifted Pakistan's new government embarrassment from the word go. (Source: Twitter)

A minister who seemed absolutely unprepared on his first day on the job.

Why? Because why else would a foreign minister deliver his entire statement, without once mentioning the letter from the Indian Prime Minister, only to be handed a slip last minute from his Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua?

Why had he not been told about such an important development before going on and on about "adventurism" and "accidental adventurism"? It is because, as is in the usual course, he did not take a brief from the Foreign Office officials before holding the briefing  which also was not a scheduled one.

The massive confusion in interpreting the first most sensitive piece of news by the Imran Khan administration bordered on "recklessness". While Qureshi is not a greenhorn, he would have to tread very carefully and this casual, nonchalant handling of India is a real "disservice" to ties, quite opposed to Imran Khan and the Pakistani Foreign Office blaming sections of the Indian media for "unnecessarily" creating a controversy.

India and Pakistan, more than understanding each other's concerns and sensitivities, have to be highly aware of each other's red-lines as both these governments ride on, and have come to power, on nationalistic agendas.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, like many world leaders, did send a letter to congratulate Imran Khan and expressed commitment towards "constructive engagement"  but for Pakistan to interpret this even as an "indication" to initiate talks was at best presumptive on Pakistan's part.

Made a pawn? Navjot Singh Sidhu seated next to the president of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir Sardar Masood Khan. (Source: TV grab)

The story of India and Pakistan has and will always be mired with mind games and tactics, but to make a pawn out of Navjot Singh Sidhu by seating him beside Sardar Masood Khan, president of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK), and trying to legitimise the Kashmir issue was churlish, to say the least. There were many layers of messaging. If indeed Pakistan is a democracy, then why did the Pak Army Chief convey the message on the opening up of the Kartarpur border to Sidhu, rather than the civilian dispensation doing so?

Storm in a Hug: Navjot Singh Sidhu hugs Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. (Source: TV grab)

Frankly, much has been made about the hug between Sidhu and General Qamar Bajwa and much more politics has been played on this issue  but the fact is that Prime Minister Modi had also flown down to Lahore. In a first by an Indian Prime Minister, he boarded a Pak Air Force helicopter to go to Raiwind and then, the famous hug between Modi and Nawaz took place there.

When Modi Met Nawaz: The PM's visit to Lahore was followed by the Pathankot attack. (Source: PTI)

So, why the hullabaloo about this hug?

Because Modi might not admit it, but surely some part of him rues the day he decided to go to Lahore since it was followed by the Pathankot attack. Similarly, as much as Sidhu would like to believe that he went as a private citizen, he is an elected leader, he has to cater to a constituency which comprises not only of those who welcomed his earnest action but also those who may have suffered at the hands of Pakistan  like those who lost their loved ones at the border and went seeking answers from Sidhu.

He is a politician and he will have to accept the consequences  a risk that could reap benefits or spell doom.

When it comes to India-Pakistan, what you expect almost never happens  what you don't expect most certainly will happen. And when you are not watching, the worst comes hitting.

More opportunities have been lost in one-upmanship. It is time for a reality check. Imran has won an election decrying India. Modi has one to win in 2019.

At this juncture, to think that there can be a forward movement without accommodation of the other's demand is near-impossible.

Also read: Hated at home, loved across the border: Why Pakistan is all praise for Navjot Singh Sidhu
Pakistan's new foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Monday, August 20, underlined that there was a need for "continued and uninterrupted" dialogue with India.

He also reiterated that the only way forward for the two neighbours was to resolve all outstanding issues through dialogue.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi was sworn-in as Pakistan's new foreign minister on August 20 (Source: AP)

Qureshi was sworn-in on Monday along with 15 other leaders from the newly elected Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's 21-member cabinet. Qureshi is an experienced hand and is currently the ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's vice-chairman.

Speaking about Kashmir, the minister said, "We cannot turn our cheek. Yes, we have outstanding issues. Kashmir is a reality; it is an issue that both our nations acknowledge... We need a continued and uninterrupted dialogue. This is our only way forward."

These comments have made many in Kashmir more anxious.

Kashmir is eagerly waiting to see what the change of guard in Pakistan would mean for the region. Wishing Imran Khan, Hurriyat chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said, "... Pray the new government led by Imran Khan is able to fulfil Jinnah sahibs vision and his dream of a naya Pakistan. People of Kashmir also hope that Mr Khan is instrumental in the resolution of our long-standing dispute and peace in the subcontinent."

Many other leaders, both from the mainstream and separatist camps, voiced similar feelings after Khan formally took over as Prime Minister. Former chief minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti during a recent rally in Srinagar appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to show a positive attitude towards Imran Khan's peace utterances made during his first address to the nation after a resounding win in the elections. She asked Modi to reciprocate to Khan's offer of friendship with positivity.

Kashmiris want India and Pakistan to head to the negotiating table once again (Source: Twitter)

There is no clarity yet on what India's policy towards Pakistan is going to be. People in Kashmir, however, are watching keenly. And there is a reason for it.

The ground situation in the Valley is grim. There has been a spurt in the number of militant attacks. There has also been a steady rise in the number of young Kashmiri men joining militancy despite scores of them getting killed in encounters.

Even after the imposition of governor's rule little has changed on the ground. The hostilities between India and Pakistan have a direct impact on the day-to-day lives of the people living in the Valley. For the past few years, the impact of this has been visible not just in Kashmir but also in several border areas across the state.

There have been a number of casualties  both civilian as well as the military.

There is hardly anyone in the Valley who is not praying for the two countries to once again head towards the dialogue table so that at least a semblance of normality is restored on the ground.

Also read: Why Imran Khan didn't deliver a swearing-in address, he talked to the nation
This series of articles aims to unpack three different aspects of contemporary Muslim identities  Muslims as a population group, the nature of contemporary Indian Islam(s) and the official status of Muslims as a constitutional minority. Instead of offering an opinion or personal view on these issues, the author attempts to bring in an evidence-based narrative for an informed debate on Muslimness in India.

Being a census category  a category that is employed to count people on various bases, including religion  Muslims are predominately addressed as numbers to describe the demographic configuration of the country.

However, unlike other religious communities, Muslims as 'numbers' are always portrayed as an unsolvable national problem.

More than a number, yet described as such: Muslims are predominately addressed as 'numbers', with implications. (Source: Reuters)

Three different, yet connected arguments are often given in this regard.

First of all, there is a popular development-centric argument. It is suggested that the unrestricted growth of the Muslim population affects the equitable and just distribution of national resources in a developing economy like India. This argument relies heavily on the growth rate of the Muslim population  a statistical tool to measure the comparable increase of population in percentage points. The traces of this explanation could easily be found in newspaper reports and prime-time TV discussions.

The English newspapers' headlines of August 25, 2015  the very next day when the government released the latest census statistics on religious communities  is a good example. These demonstrate how the metaphor of Muslims as 'number' is used in public discourse. Being the most accessible form of information about Muslims in India, the population in percentage terms (Muslims constitute 14.22 per cent of India's total population, and their growth rate is 24.60 per cent, which is higher than Hindus) actually becomes a powerful symbol of Muslim identity.

Here are a few examples of how newspapers reported the census data on August 25, 2015:

a) Census 2011: Hindus dip to below 80 per cent of population; Muslim share up, slows down: The Muslim community has registered a moderate 0.8 per cent growth to touch 17.22 crore in the 10-year period between 2001 and 2011, up from 13.8 crore, while Hindu population showed a decline by 0.7 per cent at 96.63 crore during the period, the census data said.

b) Census 2011 shows Islam is the fastest growing religion in India: Proportion of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists shrank, while there was negligible change for Christians and Jains, data shows.

c) Bengal beats India in Muslim growth rate

Muslims as numbers are also used as an explanatory framework to understand the relationship between the Islamic faith and population growth. It is suggested that Muslims are more religious than other religious communities; this faith (read blind faith!) in Islamic scriptures, such as the Quran and Hadith, does not allow Muslims to become truly modern. As a result, an inward-looking Islamic culture of 'having four wives and 16 children' is legitimised. To get rid of this old Islamist mindset, Muslims are advised to embrace modern education in the true sense so that they can understand the significance of birth control.

This stereotypical conclusion is often rejected by professional demographers on the basis of factual inaccuracies. Yet, the belief that the Islamic doctrine is responsible for the Muslim growth rate seems to dominate public imagination.

The faith, the growth rate: Links are frequently made between the Islamic faith and the population of Muslims. (Source: AP)

The third argument is purely political. A section of intellectuals and political elite associated with Hindu nationalist politics invokes the supoosedly separatist tendencies inherent in the Islamic doctrine to argue that the Muslim population growth is an outcome of a planned strategy, a deep-rooted conspiracy to outnumber Hindus. The 1947 Partition of India is referred as a historical metaphor in these explanations to draw a simple conclusion: a stringent law to control Muslim population must be implemented. The resolution passed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in November 2015 illustrates this more sharply. It says: "The share of population of religions of Bharatiya origin, which was 88 per cent, has come down to 83.8 per cent, while the Muslim population, which was 9.8 per cent, has increased to 14.23 per cent during the period 1951-2011 The rate of growth of Muslim population has been higher than the national average in the border districts of states like Assam, West Bengal and Bihar, clearly indicating the unabated infiltration from Bangladesh."

These arguments, nevertheless, are critically evaluated on the basis of facts and statistics. The growth rate of the Muslim population is compared with other factors such as median age, average fertility and infant mortality rate by professional demographers and sociologists to produce a nuanced and informed counter-reading. Abdul Saleh Shariff's thoughtful rejoinder is relevant here. Questioning the 'ready to use political conclusion', Shariff argues: "Muslim population has increased from 13.4 per cent of the population to 14.2 per cent, which is 0.8 percentage points higher. But the rate of growth is considerably lower than in previous decades. Muslims are expected to grow faster than Hindus for a couple of more decades because they have the youngest median age and relatively high fertility among the major religious groups in India. In 2010, the median age of Indian Muslims was 22, compared with 26 for Hindus and 28 for Christians. Muslim women bear an average 3.1 children per head, compared with 2.7 for Hindus and 2.3 for Christians."

Whose beliefs are these anyway? It's widely believed that 'the Muslim population is a threat'. Where do these notions come from? (Source: Reuters)

This counter-reading has an intellectual relevance of its own, especially in the present anti-Muslim context. The hollowness of the popular discourse on the Muslim population, which is systematically used by the political class for its vested interests, is also exposed in these writings.

However, this informed critique of stereotypical imaginations of a Muslim population survives primarily in academic discussions and seminars. It does not affect the popular belief that 'the Muslim population is a threat' to the nation. Even the so-called secular political parties do not show any interest in evolving an alternative political position on Muslims as numbers. The question is why.

The expert view, no doubt, encourages us to make a distinction between data and the meanings/interpretations of data. However, these kinds of overtly academic responses do not help us in unpacking the ways in which popular beliefs and stereotypes are justified by using 'scientific facts'.

This is precisely the reason why there is a need to have a more informed political position on Muslims in India  so that they might not be imagined simply as "numbers".

Also read: A new Independence, and a new partition
Turkey has requested dispute consultations with the United States at the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding the doubling of US Section 232 duties on certain imported steel and aluminium products, the trade group said on Monday August 20.

Turkey claims that the measures are inconsistent with a number of provisions of the WTOs Agreement on Safeguards and the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade [Gatt] 1994, the WTO said.



On August 10, US President Donald Trump authorized higher tariffs on imports from Turkey, doubling them to 20% on aluminium and 50% on steel. Those duties went into effect on August 13.



The increased tariffs on goods from Turkey came amid a dispute between the two countries that was triggered by the countrys detention of a US citizen for alleged links to outlawed political groups in Turkey.



If Turkey and the US fail to resolve the dispute after 60 days, Turkey can request adjudication by a panel, the WTO said.



Members of the WTO have voiced concerns about the US decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from any origin and the effect that these might have on the global trading system.



Several countries have requested WTO dispute consultations with the US since that country imposed import duties of 25% on steel products and 10% on aluminium goods on March 23. The tariffs were imposed under the US Section 232 trading powers and were said to be in the interests of US national security.






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The following companies are subsidiares of Cardinal Health: A+ Secure Packaging LLC, Access Closure, Access Closure Inc., Aero-Med Ltd., Alaris Medical Systems, Allegiance Corporation, Allegiance Healthcare, AssuraMed, AssuraMed Inc., Automatic Liquid Packaging, Bergen Brunswig Corp, Bindley Western Industries, Boron LePore & Associates, Borschow Hospital & Medical Supplies, Cardinal Health 100 Inc., Cardinal Health 104 LP, Cardinal Health 105 Inc., Cardinal Health 107 LLC, Cardinal Health 108 LLC, Cardinal Health 110 LLC, Cardinal Health 112 LLC, Cardinal Health 113 LLC, Cardinal Health 114 Inc., Cardinal Health 115 LLC, Cardinal Health 116 LLC, Cardinal Health 118 LLC, Cardinal Health 119 LLC, Cardinal Health 121 LLC, Cardinal Health 122 LLC, Cardinal Health 123 LLC, Cardinal Health 124 LLC, Cardinal Health 126 LLC, Cardinal Health 127 Inc., Cardinal Health 2 LLC, Cardinal Health 200 LLC, Cardinal Health 201 Inc., Cardinal Health 222 (Thailand) Ltd., Cardinal Health 247 Inc., Cardinal Health 249 LLC, Cardinal Health 3 LLC, Cardinal Health 414 LLC, Cardinal Health 5 LLC, Cardinal Health 6 Inc., Cardinal Health 7 LLC, Cardinal Health Australia 503 Pty. Ltd., Cardinal Health Austria 504 GmbH, Cardinal Health Belgium 505 BVBA, Cardinal Health Canada Holdings Cooperative U.A., Cardinal Health Canada Inc., Cardinal Health Chile Limitada, Cardinal Health Colombia S.A.S., Cardinal Health D.R. 203 II Ltd., Cardinal Health Denmark ApS, Cardinal Health Finland Oy, Cardinal Health Foundation, Cardinal Health France 506 SAS, Cardinal Health Funding LLC, Cardinal Health Germany 507 GmbH, Cardinal Health Germany Manufacturing GmbH, Cardinal Health IPS LLC, Cardinal Health International Philippines Inc., Cardinal Health Ireland 419 Designated Activity Company, Cardinal Health Ireland 508 Limited, Cardinal Health Ireland Unlimited Company, Cardinal Health Italy 509 Srl, Cardinal Health Japan G.K., Cardinal Health Korea Limited, Cardinal Health Malaysia 211 Sdn. Bhd., Cardinal Health Malta 212 Limited, Cardinal Health Managed Care Services LLC, Cardinal Health Medical Equipment Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Cardinal Health Medical Products India Private Limited, Cardinal Health Mexico 244 S. de R.L. de C.V., Cardinal Health Mexico 514 S. de R.L. de C.V., Cardinal Health Middle East FZ-LLC, Cardinal Health Netherlands 502 B.V., Cardinal Health Norway AS, Cardinal Health P.R. 120 Inc., Cardinal Health P.R. 218 Inc., Cardinal Health P.R. 220 LLC, Cardinal Health Pharmaceutical Contracting LLC, Cardinal Health Pharmacy Services LLC, Cardinal Health Poland Spolka z ograniczonaa odpowiedzialnossciaa, Cardinal Health Portugal 513 Unipessoal Lda., Cardinal Health Singapore 225 Pte. Ltd., Cardinal Health Spain 511 S.L., Cardinal Health Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Cardinal Health Sweden 512 A.B., Cardinal Health Switzerland 515 GmbH, Cardinal Health Systems Inc., Cardinal Health Technologies LLC, Cardinal Health Technologies Switzerland GmbH, Cardinal Health U.K. 432 Limited, Cardinal Health do Brasil Ltd., CareFusion, Cirpro de Delicias S.A. de C.V., Convertors de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Cordis, Cordis (Shanghai) Medical Devices Co. Ltd., Cordis Cashel Company Unlimited, Cordis Corporation, Cornerstone Partners G.P.O. L.P., Covidien Manufacturing Solutions S.A., Curaspan Health Group Inc., Denver Biomedical, Dik Drug, EPIC Insurance Company, Emerge Medical, Enturia, Especialidades Medicas Kenmex S.A. de C.V., Futuremed Health Care Products, Gala Biotech, Geodax Technology, Griffin Capital LLC, HLS Freight Services, Healthcare Solutions Holding, Innovative Therapies Inc., Instant Diagnostic Systems Inc., KPR Australia Pty. Ltd., KPR Italia S.r.l., KPR Switzerland Sales Gmbh, KPR U.S. LLC, Kendall Patient Recovery BVBA, Kendall-Gammatron Limited, Kinray, Leader Drugstores Inc., Limited Liability Company "Cardinal Health Russia", Ludlow Technical Products Canada Ltd., MCD, Magellan Laboratories, Marin Apothecaries, MedMined, Medicine Shoppe International Inc., Mediquip Sdn. Bhd., Medtronic - Patient Monitoring & Recovery, Mirixa Corporation, NaviHealth, Nippon Covidien Ltd., One Cloverleaf LLC, Outcomes Incorporated, Owen Healthcare, PCI Pharma Services, ParMed Pharmaceuticals, Pinnacle Intellectual Property Services Inc., Pinnacle Intellectual Property Services-International Inc., Post-Acute Care Center for Research LLC, Pyxis Corporation, Quiroproductos de Cuauhtemoc S. de R.L. de C.V., R Cubed Inc., R.P. Scherer Corporation, RGH Enterprises Inc., RainTree GPO LLC, RainTree Oncology Services, Renal Purchasing Group LLC, Rxealtime Inc., Sonexus Health LLC, Syncor International, TelePharm, TelePharm LLC, The Harvard Drug Group, The Harvard Drug Group L.L.C., Tradex International Inc., Viasys Healthcare, WaveMark Inc., Zuellig Pharma China, mscripts, mscripts LLC, and mscripts Systems India Private Limited.
BNP Paribas SA provides a range of banking and financial services in France and internationally. It operates through two divisions, Retail Banking and Services, and Corporate and Institutional Banking. The company offers long-term corporate vehicle leasing, and rental and other financing solutions; and digital banking and investment services, cash management, and factoring services to corporate clients, as well as wealth management services. It also provides credit solutions for individuals under the Cetelem, Cofinoga, Findomestic, AlphaCredit, and Opel Vauxhall brands; savings and protection solutions, including insuring individuals, and their personal projects and assets; and asset management, private banking, and real estate services. In addition, the company offers global market services, including investment, hedging, financing, research, and market intellingence across asset classes; security services comprising clearing, custody, and asset and fund services, as well as corporate trust, and market and financing services; and corporate trade and treasury, debt financing, specialized financing, strategic advisory, mergers and acquisition, and equity capital market services for institutional and corporate clients. The company was formerly known as Banque Nationale de Paris and changed its name to BNP Paribas SA in May 2000. BNP Paribas SA was founded in 1848 and is headquartered in Paris, France.

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Enbridge Inc. operates as an energy infrastructure company. The company operates through five segments: Liquids Pipelines, Gas Transmission and Midstream, Gas Distribution and Storage, Renewable Power Generation, and Energy Services. The Liquids Pipelines segment operates pipelines and related terminals to transport various grades of crude oil and other liquid hydrocarbons in Canada and the United States. The Gas Transmission and Midstream segment invests in natural gas pipelines, and gathering and processing facilities in Canada and the United States. The Gas Distribution and Storage segment is involved in natural gas utility operations serving residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Ontario, as well as natural gas distribution and energy transportation activities in Quebec. The Renewable Power Generation segment operates power generating assets, such as wind, solar, geothermal, and waste heat recovery facilities; and transmission assets in North America and Europe. The Energy Services segment provides energy marketing services to refiners, producers, and other customers; and physical commodity marketing and logistical services in Canada and the United States. The company was formerly known as IPL Energy Inc. and changed its name to Enbridge Inc. in October 1998. Enbridge Inc. was founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

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The Southern pays an annual dividend of $2.64 per share and currently has a dividend yield of 4.21%. SO has a dividend yield higher than 75% of all dividend-paying stocks, making it a leading dividend payer. The Southern has been increasing its dividend for 20 consecutive years, indicating the company has a strong committment to maintain and grow its dividend. The dividend payout ratio of The Southern is 81.23%. Payout ratios above 75% are not desirable because they may not be sustainable. Based on earnings estimates, The Southern will have a dividend payout ratio of 74.37% next year. This indicates that The Southern will be able to sustain or increase its dividend.

View The Southern's dividend history.
Leidos Holdings, Inc. is a holding company, which engages in the provision of scientific, engineering and information technology services and solutions in the areas of defense, intelligence, civil and health markets. It operates through the following three segments: Defense Solutions, Civil, and Health. The Defense Solutions segment focuses on deploying agile, cost-effective solutions to meet the ever-changing missions of the company's customers in areas of intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, enterprise IT and integrated systems and cybersecurity and global services. The Civil segment focuses on seamlessly integrating and protecting physical, digital and data domains. The Health segment offers solutions to federal and commercial customers that are responsible for the health and wellbeing of people worldwide including service members and veterans. The company was founded by John Robert Beyster on February 3, 1969 and is headquartered in Reston, VA.

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Tallgrass Energy, LP, through its subsidiaries, provides crude oil transportation services to customers in Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and the surrounding regions of the United States. The company operates through three segments: Natural Gas Transportation; Crude Oil Transportation; and Gathering, Processing & Terminalling. It also provides natural gas transportation and storage services for customers in the Rocky Mountain, Midwest, and Appalachian regions; natural gas and crude oil gathering and processing services for customers in Wyoming; and natural gas liquids (NGLs) transportation services in Northeast Colorado and Wyoming. In addition, the company offers water business services, including freshwater transportation, and produced water gathering and disposal in Colorado, Texas, Wyoming, and North Dakota; crude oil storage and terminalling services in Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kansas; and marketing services for NGLs and crude oil. The company was formerly known as Tallgrass Energy GP, LP and changed its name to Tallgrass Energy, LP in June 2018. Tallgrass Energy, LP was founded in 2013 and is based in Leawood, Kansas.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.: 2235158 Alberta Limited, A.J. Amer Agency, AHC Digital LLC, AIX Limited, AJG Coal LLC, AJG Financial Services LLC, AJG Meadows LLC, AJG North America ULC, AJG RCF LLC, AJGRMS of Louisiana LLC, ARM RE Ltda., AVIATION INSURANCE SERVICES, AVRECO, Ace IRM Insurance Broking Group, Acumus Holdings Limited, Acumus Interco Limited, Acumus Ltd, Adams & Associates International, Adaptive Marketing LLC, Adco General Corporation, Advanced Benefit Advisors, Aequus Trade Credit, Affinity Marketing Group, Ahrold Fay Rosenberg, Aires Consulting Group, Alesco Risk Management Services Limited, Alize Limited, Allied Claims Administration Inc., Alternative Market Specialists, Altman & Cronin Benefit Consultants, American Freedom Carriers Inc., American Security Services Corp., American Wholesalers Underwriting Ltd, Andrew-Anthony Insurance Agency, Anthony Hodges Consulting Limited, Antrobus Investments Limited, AquaSurance, Argentis, Argentis Financial Group Limited, Argentis Financial Management Limited, Argus Benefits, Armstrong/Robitaille/Riegle, Artex (SAC) Limited, Artex Cedar Hill, Artex Corporate Services (Malta) Limited, Artex Corporate Services Limited, Artex Holdings (Gibraltar) Limited, Artex Holdings (Malta) Limited, Artex Insurance (Guernsey) PCC Limited, Artex Insurance (Tennessee) PCCIC Inc., Artex Insurance Brokers (Malta) PCC Limited, Artex Insurance ICC Limited, Artex Intermediaries Ltd, Artex Risk Solutions (Bermuda) Ltd, Artex Risk Solutions (Cayman) Limited, Artex Risk Solutions (Gibraltar) Limited, Artex Risk Solutions (Guernsey) Limited, Artex Risk Solutions (International) Ltd, Artex Risk Solutions (Malta) Limited, Artex Risk Solutions (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Artex Risk Solutions (UK) Limited, Artex Risk Solutions Inc., Arthur J Gallagher (Norway) Holdings AS, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (AUS) Ltd, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (Bermuda) Limited, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (Illinois), Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Insurance Brokers of California Inc., Arthur J. Gallagher (Aus) Pty Ltd, Arthur J. Gallagher (Bermuda) Holding Partnership, Arthur J. Gallagher (Life Solutions) Ltd, Arthur J. Gallagher (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Arthur J. Gallagher (U.S.) LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher (UK) Limited, Arthur J. Gallagher Asesoria S.A.C., Arthur J. Gallagher Australasia Holdings Pty Ltd., Arthur J. Gallagher Brokerage & Risk Management Services LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher Broking (NZ) Limited, Arthur J. Gallagher Financial Services Professionals Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher Group Quebec ULC, Arthur J. Gallagher Holdings (UK) Limited, Arthur J. Gallagher Insurance Brokers Limited, Arthur J. Gallagher Latin America LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher Management (Bermuda) Limited, Arthur J. Gallagher Real Estate Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services (Hawaii) Inc., Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services Inc., Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services of Utah Inc., Arthur J. Gallagher School Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher Service Company LLC, Arthur J. Gallagher Services (UK) Ltd, Ashmore & Associates Insurance Agency, Atlantic Risk Management Corp., Atrex Insurance (Cayman) SPC Limited, Avantek Pty Ltd, Axe Insurance PCC Limited, BIS Insurance Services, Baker - Tillys employment benefits solutions, Ballard Benefit Works, Bankers Financial Benefits, Barmore Insurance Agency, Behnke & Co. Inc., Bellisle Pty Ltd, Belmont Associates Consultants, Belmont Insurance Holdings Limited, Belmont International, Belmont International Limited, Benefit Development Group, Benefit Management Group, BenefitLink Resource Group, Benefits Planning & Insurance Agency, Benefits Unlimited, Bennett & Shade Co., Bergvall Marine, Bergvall Marine A.S., Besselman & Little Agency, Big Savings Insurance Agency Inc., Blenheim Park Ltd, Blenheim Park Services Limited, Blue Holdings Pty Ltd, Blue Horizon Insurance Services, Blue Water Benefits, BluePeak Advisors, Blueleaf Consulting Pty Ltd., Bluewater Incorporated Cell Insurance Company, Bollinger Inc., Bollinger Insurance Services Inc., Bowen Miclette Britt & Merry of Arkansas Inc., Brendis & Brendis, Brim AB, Broker Benefit Services, Brokerage Professionals, Brown Hobbs & McMurray Insurance, Bultman/Bell Associates Inc., Burkwald & Associates, Burns-Fazzi Brock & Associates, Bushong Insurance Associates, C&B Consulting Group, CGM Gallagher Insruance Brokers (Trinidad & Tobago) Limited, CJM Solutions Inc., CMA Solutions LLC, Cairnstone Financial, California Insurance Center, Capital Bauer Insurance Agency, Capitol Benefits Group, Capsicum CRLA LLP, Capsicum Re Brasil Participacoes Ltda, Capsicum Re Latin America Corretora De Resseguros Ltda, Capsicum Reinsurance Brokers Bermuda Limited, Capsicum Reinsurance Brokers Miami Inc., Carefree Marketing Inc., Carpenter Cammack & Associates, Cashan & Co., Castle Insurance Associates, Centennial Insurance Agency, Charity First Insurance Services Inc., Charles Allen Agency, Charter Lakes Insurance Agency, Chris Schroeder Insurance, Christie-Phoenix, Cintran Claims Canada Limited, Classic Insurance Services, Cleaveland Insurance Group, Cohen & Lord Insurance Brokers, Cohn Financial Group, Coleman Group Holdings Limited, Coleman Holdings Limited, College and University Scholastic Excess Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Commercial Insurance Brokers, Complete Benefit Alliance, Complete Financial Balance, Complete Financial Balance Pty Ltd, Consolidated Casualty Specialties LLC, Construction Risk Solutions, Contego Underwriting Limited, Contego Underwriting Ltd, Continental Excess & Surplus, Convergence Risk Services Ltd, Copper Mountain Assurance Inc., Cornwall & Stevens Co., Corporate Benefit Advisors, Corporate Life Consultants, Countrywide Accident Assistance Limited, Coverdell & Company Inc., Coverdell Canada Corporation, Cowles and Connell, Craig M. Ferguson & Co., Crist Elliott Machette Insurance Services, Crombie Lockwood (NZ) Limited, Davis-Poston & Associates, Denman Consulting Services, Detlefs Johnson & Partners, DiBrina Group, Dickinson & Associates, Discount Development Services L.L.C., Discovery Benefit Solutions, Dodson-Bateman & Co., Donald P. Pipino Co. Ltd., E. S. Susanin Inc., EHE Holdings LLC, EHS Holdings Limited, Elantis Premium Funding (NZ) Limited, Elantis Premium Funding Limited, Elite Benefits Insurance Marketing Services, Employee Benefits Analysis Corp., Employee Benefits of The Carolinas, Encore Insurance & Bonding, Everett James, Evolution Risk Services Limited, Evolution Technology Services Limited, Evolution Underwriting Group, Evolution Underwriting Group Limited, Evolution Underwriting Limited, Excel Insurance Services, FYI Direct Canada Corporation, FYI Direct LLC, Farallone Pacific Insurance Services, Fenchurch Faris Limited, Fidelity Benefits & Insurance Services, Financial Profiles Inc., Finergy Solutions Pty Ltd, First Agency, First Iowa Insurance Agency, First Premium Inc., First Premium Insurance Group, Fish & Schulkamp, Fishermans Insurance Services, Foley Healthcare Limited, Fortress Financial Solutions Pty Ltd, Fortress Insurance LLC, Foundation Strategies, Fox Lawson & Associates, Franklin-Case Agency LLC, Fraser MacAndrew Ryan Limited, Friary Intermediate Limited, Fuller & O'Brien, G.S. Chapman & Associates Insurance Brokers, G.S. Levine Insurance Services, GBS (Australia) Holdings Pty Ltd, GBS Administrators Inc., GBS Insurance and Financial Services Inc., GBS Retirement Services Inc., GBS Specialty Markets LLC, GGB Finance 1 Limited, GGB Finance 2 Limited, GGB Finance 3 Limited, GGB Finance 4 Limited, GPL Assurance, GPL Assurance Inc., Gabor Insurance Services, Gale Smith & Co. Inc., Gallagher (Bermuda) Insurance Solutions Ltd., Gallagher - Grace/Mayer Insurance Agency, Gallagher Bassett Aires Inc., Gallagher Bassett Canada Inc., Gallagher Bassett Insurance Services Ltd., Gallagher Bassett International Ltd., Gallagher Bassett NZ Pty Ltd., Gallagher Bassett Services Inc. , Gallagher Bassett Services Pty Ltd., Gallagher Bassett Services Workers Compensation Victoria Pty Ltd., Gallagher Benefit Services (Canada) Group Inc., Gallagher Benefit Services (Holdings) Limited, Gallagher Benefit Services Inc., Gallagher Benefit Services Management Company Limited, Gallagher Benefit Services Pty Ltd, Gallagher Benefits Consulting Limited, Gallagher Bomford Couch Wilson, Gallagher Burgess, Gallagher Canada Acquisition Corporation, Gallagher Caribbean Group Limited, Gallagher Clean Energy LLC, Gallagher Communications Limited, Gallagher Community Clinic RPG LLC, Gallagher Consulting Ltda, Gallagher Corporate Services LLC, Gallagher Coyle, Gallagher CyberRisk, Gallagher Energy Risk Services Inc., Gallagher Fiduciary Advisors LLC, Gallagher Holdings (UK) Limited, Gallagher Holdings Bermuda Company Limited, Gallagher Holdings Four (UK) Limited, Gallagher Holdings Three (UK) Limited, Gallagher Insurance Brokers (Barbados) Limited, Gallagher Insurance Brokers (St. Kitts & Nevis) Limited, Gallagher Insurance Brokers (St. Lucia) Limited, Gallagher Insurance Brokers (St. Vincent) Limited, Gallagher Insurance Brokers Jamaica Limited, Gallagher International Cash Management s.r.l., Gallagher International Holdings (US) Inc., Gallagher Investment Advisors LLC, Gallagher Inwest Group, Gallagher Koster, Gallagher Lambert Group, Gallagher Madison Risk & Insurance Services, Gallagher Mauritius Holdings, Gallagher Mississippi Brokerage LLC, Gallagher RE Colombia Ltda Corredores de Reaseguros SA, Gallagher Risk & Reward Limited, Gallagher Risk Group LLC, Gallagher Risk Placements Pty Ltd, Gallagher SKS, Gallagher Service Center LLP, Gallagher-Tarantino, Galtney Group, Game Day Insurance Inc., Gardner & White Corp., Gardner Marine Agency, Garza Long Group, Gatehouse Consulting Limited, Gault Armstrong Kemble Pty Ltd, Gault Armstrong SARL, Giles Group, Giles Holdings Limited, Giles Insurance Brokers, Gillis Ellis & Baker Inc., Goodman Insurance Agency, Grandy Pratt Co., Greenseed Alternative Mangaers Platform Ltd, Grossman & Associates, Group Benefits of Arkansas, Group Insurance Associates, Gruppo Marcucci, HLG Holdings Limited, HMG-PCMS Limited, HPF Investments LLC, HR Owen Insurance Services Limited, Hagan Newkirk Financial Services, Hagedorn & Company, Hardman & Howell Benefits, Harlequin Insurance PCC Limited, Hartstein Associates Inc., Healthcare Professionals Purchasing Group LLC, Healthcare Risk Solutions, Heath Lambert Group Ltd., Heath Lambert Limited, Heath Lambert Overseas Limited, Heiser Insurance Agency, Henderson Phillips Fine Arts Insurance, Herbruck Alder & Co., Heritage Insurance Brokers (CI) Limited, Hesse & Partner AG, Hesse Consulting, Hexagon ICC Limited, Hexagon Insurance PCC Limited, Hill Chesson & Woody, Hogan Insurance Services, Home & Travel Limited, Honour Point Limited, Horseshoe Corporate Services Ltd, Horseshoe Fund Services (Cayman) Ltd, Horseshoe Fund Services Ltd, Horseshoe Fund Services USA Inc., Horseshoe ILS Services UK Ltd, Horseshoe Insurance Advisors US LLC, Horseshoe Insurance Advisory Ltd., Horseshoe Insurance Services Holdings Ltd, Horseshoe Insurance Services Holdings US Inc., Horseshoe Management (Gibraltar) Limited, Horseshoe Management (Ireland) Ltd, Horseshoe Management Ltd., Horseshoe PCC Limited, Horseshoe Re Limited, Horseshoe Services (Cayman) Ltd, Horseshoe Services (Pty) Ltd, Horton Insurance Agency, Housing Authorities Services Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Human Resource Management Systems, I-Protect Underwriting Pty Ltd, IBIS Advisors, IBS Reinsurance Singapore Pte Ltd, ILS Fund Services Ltd., ISG International, ITI Solutions, Igloo Insurance PCC Limited, Independent Benefit Services, Independent Fiduciary Services, Ink Underwriting Agencies Limited, InsSync Group Pty Ltd, Inspire Underwriting Limited, Instrat Insurance Brokers, Instrat Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd, Instrat Integration Holdco Pty Ltd, Insurance Acquisitions Holdings Limited, Insurance Associates Inc., Insurance Dialogue Limited, Insurance Dialogue Ltd., Insurance Plans Agency, Insurance Plus Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Insurance Point, Insurance Risk Managers of Missouri Inc., Insure My Villa Limited, Insure Pty Ltd, Integrated Healthcare Strategies, InterNational Insurance Group, InterPacific Underwriting Agencies, Intermountain Financial Benefits, Interstate Insurance Underwriters, JPGAC LLC, James F. Reda & Associates, James R. Weir Insurance Agency, Jenkins and Associates, Joe E. Martin Inc., John P. Woods Co. Inc., Jones Brown, Jones Brown Group Inc., Jones Brown Insurance Solutions Inc., Joseph Distel, Joseph James & Associates Insurance Agency, Just Landlords Insurance Services Ltd, KDC Associates, KRW Insurance Agency, Kahl Insurance Services, Kaler Carney Liffler & Co. Inc., Kane Group - Insurance Management Operations, Kelly Financial, Kent Kent & Tingle and RBS, Keyser Benefits Corp., Kingspark Enterprises Pty Ltd, L&R Benefits, LSG Insurance Partners, Learn About Money Limited, Lewis & Associates Insurance Brokers, Leystone Insurance & Financial, Life Plans Unlimited, Lincoln Financial Management, Longfellow Financial, Lucas Fettes Limited, Lucas Fettes and Partners Limited, Lutgert Insurance, MA Underwriting Pty Ltd, MDM Insurance Associates, MG Advanced Coal Technologies-1 LLC, MGA Insurance Services, MRS Holdings Ltd., Madison Scott & Associates, Managed Healthcare Solutions, Mannequin Insurance PCC Limited, Marchetti Robertson & Brickell Insurance, Marine Insurance Service, Martin Gordon & Jones Inc., McDowall Associates Human Resource Consultants, McIntyre Risk Management, McLean Insurance Agency, McNeary, McPherson Benefits Group, McRory & Co., Mecacem Insurance SPC Ltd, MedInsights Inc., Melton Insurance Associates, Memberworks Canada LLC, Merit Insurance, Metcom Excess, Metzler Bros. Insurance, Meyers-Reynolds & Associates, Mid America Group, Midwest Surety Services, Mike Henry Insurance Brokers, Mike Henry Insurance Brokers Limited, Mike Henry Insurance Funding Limited, Miller Buettner & Parrott, Miller-Harrison Insurance Services, Milne Alexander Pty Ltd, Minvielle & Chastanet Insurance Brokers, Monument Insurance (NZ) Limited, Monument Llc, Monument Premium Funding Limited, Mortgage Insurance Agency, Murphy Consultants, Mutual Insurance Services, NationAir Aviation Insurance, National Administration Co., National Ethics Association, National Transportation Adjusters, Nelson/Monarch Insurance Services, Nicoud Insurance Services, NiiS/Apex Group Holdings, Nonprofit Insurance Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Noraxis Capital Corp, Nordic Forsakring & Riskhantering AB, North Alabama Insurance, Nourse Insurance Brokers, O'Gorman & Young, OAMPS (UK) Limited, OAMPS Gault Armstrong Pty Ltd, OAMPS Limited, OAMPS Special Risks Ltd, Offshore Market Placements Limited, Optimum Talent, Orb Financial Services, Orb Financial Services Limited, Osprey Insurance Brokers Limited, Oval Group, Oval Healthcare Limited, Oval Insurance Broking Limited, Oval Limited, Oval Management Services Limited, Oxygen Insurance Managers, P2 Group, PEN Insurance Management Advisors Ltd, PT IBS Insurance Broking Service, Pacific Insurance Agency, Palmer Atlantic Insurance, Palmer Atlantic Insurance Ltd, Palmer Atlantic Risk Services Ltd., Park Row Associates, Parkstar Enterprises Pty Ltd, Parmia Pty Ltd, PartnerSource, Pastel Holding (NZ) Company, Pastel Holdings Pty Limited, Pastel Purchaser (NZ) Limited, Pastel Purchaser Pty Limited, Pavey Group Holdings (UK) Limited, Pavey Group Holdings Limited, Pavey Group Limited, Pearson Dunn Insurance Inc., Pen Underwriting Canada Limited, Pen Underwriting Group Pty. Ltd., Pen Underwriting Limited, Pen Underwriting Pty Ltd, Persing Dyckman & Toynbee Inc., Personal Advice Services Pty Ltd, Petty Burton Associates, Pointer Insurance Agency, Portmore Insurance Brokers (Wilshire) Limited, Portmore Insurance Brokers Limited, Potter-Holden & Co., Powell Insurance Agency, Premier Insurance Services Inc., Premier Risk Services, Premium Finance Corporation, Preston-Patterson, ProSource Financial, Professional Agents Risk Purchasing Group LLC, Professional Claims Managers, Proinova AB, Proinova Agency AB, Pronto California Agency LLC, Pronto California General Agency LLC, Pronto Florida Claims LLC, Pronto Florida General Agency LLC, Pronto Franchise LLC, Pronto General Agency Ltd, Pronto General Agency Management LLC, Pronto Holdco Inc., Pronto Holding California LLC, Pronto Holding Florida LLC, Pronto Insurance Agency of Laredo Inc., Pronto Premium Finance LLC, Property & Commercial Ltd., Property Insurance Initatives Limited, Property and Commercial Limited, Protected Insurance Company, Protection Plan Association Inc., Protek Group Limited, Providium Consulting Group, Ptarmigan Underwriting Agency Limited, Ptarmigan Underwriting UK Limited, Purple Bridge Claims Management Limited, Purple Bridge Finance Limited, Purple Bridge Group Limited, Purple Bridge Investments Limited, Purple Bridge Online Services Limited, Purple Bridge Publishing Limited, Quantum Underwriting Solutions Limited, Quillco 226 Limited, Quillco 227 Limited, R. L. Youngdahl & Associates, R.G. Speno Inc., R.W. Scobie, RA Rossborough (Guernsey) Ltd., RA Rossborough (Insurance Brokers) Ltd, REGENCY Group inc., RGA Referencing Limited, RGA Underwriting Limited, RIL Administrators (Guernsey) Ltd., RJ Dutton Inc., RSM Insurance Services Limited, Reassurance Holdings Inc., Rebholz Insurance Agency, Reid Manson Ltd., Reimbursement Services, Rentguard Limited, Reward Management Limited, Reynolds & Rodar Insurance Group, Riley & Associates, Rio 587 Limited, Rio 588 Limited, Risk & Reward Group, Risk Management Partners Limited, Risk Placement Services Inc., Risk Planners, Risk Services (NW) Limited, Risk Services (NW) Ltd., Risk Solutions Group Limited, Robert A. Schneider Agency, Robert Keith & Associates, Roberts & Roberts Insurance Service, Robinson-Adams Insurance, Rossborough Healthcare International Ltd, Rossborough Insurance (IOM) Ltd., Rossborough Insurance Services Ltd. (Jersey), S. A. Freerks & Associates, SEG Insurance Ltd, SGB-NIA Insurance Brokers, SHILLING Ltd, SKANCO International, SMERI AB, SRS Underwriting Pty Ltd, Secure Enterprises Pty Ltd, Securitas Re, Sellers Group, Sentinel Indemnity LLC, Septagon Insurance PCC Limited, Shuford Insurance Agency, Sigma II Insurance Agency, Sinclair Billard and Weld Limited, Sobieski & Bradley, Solid Benefit Guidance, Spanjers Insurance Agency, Spataro Insurance Agency, Specialised Broking Associates, Specialty Risk, Stackhouse Poland, Stackhouse Poland Bidco Limited, Stackhouse Poland Group Limited, Stackhouse Poland Holdings Limited, Stackhouse Poland Midco Limited, Stackouse Poland Limited, Stanton Group, Stark Johnson & Stinson Inc., Steel Agency, Strata Solicitors Ltd, Strategic Health Plans Corp., Strathearn Insurance Brokers, Strathearn Insurance Brokers (Qld) Trading Trust, Strathern Insurance Group Pty Ltd, Strathern Integration Holdco Pty Ltd, Strathern Unit Trust, Strong Financial Resources, Summit Insurance Group, Sunday and Associates, Sunderland Insurance Services, Super Advice Corporate Services Pty Ltd, Taylor Benefits, Texas Insurance Agency, Texas Insurance Managers, The BeneTex Group, The Buchholz Planning, The Chapman Group, The Commonwealth Consulting Group, The Daniels Group Inc., The EHE Group LLC, The EHE Insurance Agency LLC, The Eagle Insurance Agency LLC, The Eriksen Group, The Forker Company, The Gleason Agency, The Great Lakes Agency, The HR Group, The Hawk Agency, The Human Capital Group, The Lance Group, The Levitt/Kristan Co., The MW Bagnall Company, The Old Greenwich Consulting Group, The Parks Johnson Agency, The Plus Companies Inc., The Presidio Group, The Producers Choice, The Rains Group, The Splinter Group, The Titan Group, The Treiber Group, The Woodsmall Companies Inc., Title & Covenant Brokers Ltd., Title Investments Limited, Tom Sherwin Insurance Agency, Total Reward Group, Total Rewards Group (Holdings) Limited, Towle Agency, Transwestern, Tri-State General Insurance Agency, Triad Insurance Agency, Triad USA, Tribeca Strategic Advisors, Trinder & Norwood, Trip Mate, Trissel Graham & Toole, Tropp & Co., Tudor Risk Services, Tyloma Holdings Limited, Uni-Care Inc., Unison Inc., Universico Group, Unoccupied Direct Limited, V2V Holdings LLC, VEBA Service Group, Vasek Insurance Services Limited, Velo ACU LLC, Velo Holdings Inc., Verbag AG., Vertrue LLC, Victory Insurance Agency, Vincent L. Braband Insurance, Vital Benefits, Voluntary Benefits Solutions, W. E. Kingsley Co. Inc., WM. W. George & Associates, Walker Taylor Agency, Welling Associates, Wesfarmers Insurance - Insurance Brokerage Operations, Western Benefit Solutions, White & Company Insurance, Whitehaven Insurance Group, William Gallagher Associates Insurance Brokers, William H. Connolly & Co., Williams Insurance Agency Inc., Williams-Manny Insurance Group, Winn & Company Insurance Brokers, Wischmeyer Benefit Partners, Woodbrook Underwriting Agencies, Woods & Grooms, WorkCare Northwest, Worksite Communications, Y. S. Liedman & Associates, YOA Capsicum Reinsurance Broker Limited, Zenor Limited, Zuber Insurance Agency, and e3 Financial.
Wall Street analysts have given iShares Cohen & Steers REIT 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 Cohen & Steers REIT ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

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Legal & General Group Plc provides various insurance products and services in the United Kingdom, the United States, and internationally. It operates in four segments: Legal & General Retirement (LGR), Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), Legal & General Capital (LGC), and Legal & General Insurance (LGI). The LGR segment offers annuity contracts with guaranteed income for a specified time; longevity insurance products for company pension schemes; lifetime mortgages; lifetime care plans; and retirement interest only mortgages. The LGIM segment provides index fund management; active fixed income funds and liquidity funds; active equity management; solution and liability driven investment; multi-asset funds; corporate pension scheme solutions; and real estate funds. The LGC segment offers investment strategy and implementation, and direct investment and structuring services. The LGI segment provides protection products, such as health, disability, critical illness, and accident; individual term assurance; reinsurance; savings and death benefits; and annuities. The company is also involved in the unit trust and institutional fund management, mortgage finance, treasury, building project and modular housing development, general insurance, and open-ended investment businesses, as well as manufacture of sheds. It also engages in the real estate investment, operation, management, and trading, fund general partner, fund trustee, commercial lending, venture capital investing, contractual scheme, management, pension tracing and transfer, investor alternative investment fund, collective asset-management, and investment management activities; and provision of investment advisory, business information consultancy, and technology services. The company was founded in 1836 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

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Experian plc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a technology company. The company operates through two segments, Business-to-Business and Consumer Services. It provides data services to identify and understand their customers, as well as to manage the risks related with lending. The company also offers analytical and decision tools that enhance businesses to manage their customers, minimize the risk of fraud, comply with legal requirements, and automate decisions and processes. In addition, it provides financial education, free access to Experian credit reports and scores, online educational tools, and applications to manage their financial position, access credit offers, and protect themselves from identity fraud. The company serves customers in financial service, direct-to-consumer, health, retail, automotive, software and professional services, telecommunications and utility, insurance, media and technology, government and public, and other sectors. It operates in North America, Latin America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. Experian plc was formerly known as Experian Group Limited and changed its name to Experian plc in July 2008. Experian plc was founded in 1897 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.

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Principal Financial Group, Inc. is a financial company, which offers financial products and services to businesses, individuals and institutional clients. It specializes in retirement solutions, insurance, and investment products through its diverse family of financial services companies and national network of financial professionals. It operates its business through following segments: Retirement and Income Solutions, Principal Global Investors, Principal International, U.S. Insurance Solutions and Corporate. The Retirement and Income Solutions segment provides retirement and related financial products and services primarily to businesses, their employees and other individuals. The Principal Global Investors segment provides asset management services to asset accumulation business, insurance operations, corporate segment and third party clients and also refers to mutual fund business. The Principal International segment offers pension accumulation products and services, mutual funds, asset management, income annuities and life insurance accumulation products. The U.S. Insurance Solutions segment operates through two divisions. Specialty benefits insurance division consists of gro

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11 hours ago

G-20 endorses global corporate minimum tax at Rome summit

ROME (AP)  Leaders of the world's biggest economies on Saturday endorsed a global minimum tax on corporations, a linchpin of new international tax rules aimed at blunting the edge of fiscal paradises amid skyrocketing profits of some multinational businesses. The move by the Group of 20 summit in Rome was hailed by U.S.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Occidental Petroleum: 1PointFive Inc., 1PointFive P1 LLC, APC Aviation Inc., APC International Holdings LLC, APC Midstream Holdings LLC, APC Venezuela Srl, ARCO Long Beach, Altura Energy, Amarok Gathering LLC, Anadarko 20-25 Company, Anadarko 20-36 Company, Anadarko 20-47 Company, Anadarko 20-48 Company, Anadarko 20-49 Company, Anadarko Algeria Block 403 c/e Company, Anadarko Algeria Block 406B Company, Anadarko Algeria Company LLC, Anadarko Algeria Oil & Gas Company, Anadarko Brazil Investment I LLC, Anadarko Brazil Investment II LLC, Anadarko Canada E&P Limited, Anadarko China Holdings 2 Company, Anadarko Colombia Company, Anadarko Consolidated Holdings LLC, Anadarko Cote d'Ivoire Block 103 Company, Anadarko Cote d'Ivoire Company, Anadarko DBMOS Operator LLC, Anadarko Development Company, Anadarko Development Holding Limited, Anadarko E&P Onshore LLC, Anadarko Egypt Holdings Company, Anadarko Energy Holding Limited, Anadarko Energy Services Company, Anadarko Exploracao e Producao de Petroleo e Gas Natural Ltda., Anadarko Finance Company, Anadarko Gabon Company, Anadarko Ghana Mahogany-1 Company, Anadarko Global Energy S.a.r.l, Anadarko Global Funding 1 Company, Anadarko Global Funding II Ltd., Anadarko Guyana Company, Anadarko Holding Company, Anadarko International Development S.a.r.l, Anadarko International Energy Company, Anadarko International O&G Company, Anadarko International Trading Corporation, Anadarko Jordan Company, Anadarko Kenya Company, Anadarko LMM S.a.r.l, Anadarko Land Corp., Anadarko Mexico B.V., Anadarko Mexico S.a.r.l, Anadarko Midkiff/Chaney Dell BR Corp., Anadarko Midkiff/Chaney Dell LLC, Anadarko Natural Gas Company LLC, Anadarko New Zealand Company, Anadarko OGC Company, Anadarko Offshore Holding Company LLC, Anadarko Offshore Well Containment Company LLC, Anadarko Oil & Gas 5 LLC, Anadarko Peru B.V., Anadarko Petroleum, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Anadarko Realty LLC, Anadarko Rockies LLC, Anadarko Royalty Holdings Company, Anadarko UK Corporate Limited, Anadarko US Offshore LLC, Anadarko USH1 Corporation, Anadarko Venezuela Company, Anadarko Venezuela LLC, Anadarko Venezuela Srl, Anadarko WCTP Company, Anadarko West Texas BR Corp., Anadarko West Texas LLC, Anadarko Worldwide Holdings C.V., Atlantic Rim Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Aventine LLC, Baseball Merger Sub 2 Inc., Bear Branch Exploration LLC, Big Island Trona Company, Bitter Creek Coal Company, Bravo Pipeline Company, Cain Chemical, Cain Chemical Inc., Carbon Finance Labs LLC, Concord Petroleum Corporation, Conn Creek Shale Company, D.S. Ventures LLC, DMM Financial LLC, Deerwood Exploration LLC, Downtown Plaza II, Elk Hills Field, FLAG Development LLC, FP Westport Commodities Limited, FP Westport GmbH, FP Westport LLC, FP Westport Limited, FP Westport Services LLC, FP Westport Trading LLC, Fosters Mill Exploration LLC, Glenn Springs Holdings Inc., Globrep Representaciones S.A., Grand Bassa Tankers Inc., Grupo OxyChem de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Headwater II LLC, Houndstooth Resources LLC, INDSPEC Chemical B.V., INDSPEC Chemical Corporation, INDSPEC Chemical Corporation, INDSPEC Chemical Export Sales LLC, INDSPEC Holding Corporation, Ingleside Cogeneration GP LLC, Ingleside Cogeneration Limited Partnership, Interore Trading Ltd., Joslyn Partnership, KERR-McGEE TT E&P LTD., KM BM-C-Seven Ltd., KM International Insurance Ltd., Kerr-McGee Corporation, Kerr-McGee Natural Gas Company Inc., Kerr-McGee Oil & Gas Onshore LP, Kerr-McGee Shared Services Company LLC, Kerr-McGee Stored Power Corporation, Kerr-McGee U.K. Energy Corporation, Kerr-McGee Worldwide Corporation, Kerr-McGee do Brasil Ltda., Kerr-McGee of Canada Northwest Ltd., Laguna Petroleum Corp., Laguna Petroleum LLC, Liwa Oil & Gas Ltd., MC2 Technologies LLC, Mariana Properties Inc., Marico Exploration Inc., Miller Springs Remediation Management Inc., Moncrief Minerals Partnership L.P., NGL Ventures LLC, Natural Gas Odorizing Inc., New OPL LLC, OEVC Energy LLC, OEVC Midstream Projects LLC, OIH LLC, OLCV CE Holdings ULC, OLCV CE US Holdings Inc., OLCV Net Power LLC, OLCV Services LLC, OOG Partner LLC, OOOI Chem Holdings LLC, OOOI Chem Sub LLC, OOOI Chemical International LLC, OOOI Chile Holder LLC, OOOI Ecuador Management LLC, OOOI Oil and Gas Sub LLC, OOOI South America Management LLC, OPM GP Inc., OPM Holdco LLC, OTCF LLC, OTH LLC, OXY CV Pipeline LLC, OXY Campus LLC, OXY Inc., OXY LPG LLC, OXY Libya E&P Area 103 BR4 B.V., OXY Libya E&P Area 35 Ltd., OXY Libya E&P Concession 103 Ltd., OXY Libya E&P EPSA 102 B.V., OXY Libya E&P EPSA 1981 Ltd., OXY Libya E&P EPSA 1985 Ltd., OXY Libya E&P NC 143 144 145 150 B.V., OXY Libya Exploration SPC, OXY Libya LLC, OXY Little Knife LLC, OXY Mexico Holdings I LLC, OXY Mexico Holdings II LLC, OXY Middle East Holdings Ltd., OXY Oil Partners Inc., OXY PBLP Manager LLC, OXY Support Services LLC, OXY Tulsa Inc., OXY USA Inc., OXY USA WTP LP, OXY VPP Investments LLC, OXY West LLC, OXY of Saudi Arabia Ltd., OXYCHEM (CANADA) INC., OXYMAR, Oakwood Exploration LLC, Occidental (Bermuda) Ltd., Occidental (East Shabwa) LLC, Occidental Advance Sale Finance Inc., Occidental Al Hosn LLC, Occidental Angola Holdings Ltd., Occidental CIS Services Inc., Occidental Canada Holdings Ltd., Occidental Chemical Asia Limited, Occidental Chemical Belgium B.V.B.A., Occidental Chemical Chile Limitada, Occidental Chemical Corporation, Occidental Chemical Export Sales LLC, Occidental Chemical Far East Limited, Occidental Chemical Holding Corporation, Occidental Chemical International LLC, Occidental Chemical Investment (Canada) 1 Inc., Occidental Chemical Receivables LLC, Occidental Chemical de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Occidental Chile Investments LLC, Occidental Chile Minority Holder LLC, Occidental Colombia (Series G) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series J) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series K) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series L) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series M) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series N) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series O) Ltd., Occidental Crude Sales Inc. (Canada), Occidental Crude Sales Inc. (International), Occidental Dolphin Holdings Ltd., Occidental Energy Marketing Inc., Occidental Energy Ventures LLC, Occidental Exploradora del Peru Ltd., Occidental Exploration and Production Company, Occidental Hafar LLC, Occidental International (Libya) Inc., Occidental International Corporation, Occidental International Exploration and Production Company, Occidental International Holdings Ltd., Occidental International Oil and Gas Ltd., Occidental International Services Inc., Occidental Joslyn GP 2 Co., Occidental LNG (Malaysia) Ltd., Occidental Latin America Holdings LLC, Occidental Libya Oil & Gas B.V., Occidental MENA Manager Ltd., Occidental Middle East Development Company, Occidental Midland Basin LLC, Occidental Mukhaizna LLC, Occidental Oil Asia Pte. Ltd., Occidental Oil Shale Inc., Occidental Oil and Gas (Oman) Ltd., Occidental Oil and Gas Corporation, Occidental Oil and Gas International Inc., Occidental Oil and Gas International LLC, Occidental Oil and Gas Pakistan LLC, Occidental Oil and Gas of Peru LLC, Occidental Oman (Block 27) Holdings Ltd., Occidental Oman Block 51 Holding Ltd., Occidental Oman Block 51 LLC, Occidental Oman Block 65 Holding Ltd., Occidental Oman Block 65 LLC, Occidental Oman Block 72 Holding Ltd., Occidental Oman Block 72 LLC, Occidental Oman Gas Company LLC, Occidental Oman Gas Holdings Ltd., Occidental Oman North Holdings Ltd., Occidental Oriente Exploration and Production Ltd., Occidental Overseas Holdings B.V., Occidental PVC LLC, Occidental Peninsula II Inc., Occidental Peninsula LLC, Occidental Permian Ltd., Occidental Permian Manager LLC, Occidental Permian Services Inc., Occidental Peruana Inc., Occidental Petrolera del Peru (Block 101) Inc., Occidental Petrolera del Peru (Block 103) Inc., Occidental Petroleum (Pakistan) Inc., Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Occidental Petroleum Corporation Political Action Committee, Occidental Petroleum de Venezuela S.A., Occidental Petroleum of Nigeria, Occidental Petroleum of Oman Ltd., Occidental Petroleum of Qatar Ltd., Occidental Power Marketing L.P., Occidental Power Services Inc., Occidental Qatar Energy Company LLC, Occidental Red Sea Development LLC, Occidental Research Corporation, Occidental Resource Recovery Systems Inc., Occidental Resources Company, Occidental Shah Gas Holdings Ltd., Occidental South America Finance LLC, Occidental Specialty Marketing Inc., Occidental Tower Corporation, Occidental Transportation Holding Corporation, Occidental West Texas Overthrust Inc., Occidental Yemen Ltd., Occidental Yemen Sabatain Inc., Occidental del Ecuador Inc., Occidental of Abu Dhabi (Bab) Ltd., Occidental of Abu Dhabi (Shah) Ltd., Occidental of Abu Dhabi Holdings Ltd., Occidental of Abu Dhabi LLC, Occidental of Abu Dhabi Ltd., Occidental of Bahrain Ltd., Occidental of Bangladesh Inc., Occidental of Colombia (Chipiron) Inc., Occidental of Colombia (Cosecha) Inc., Occidental of Colombia (Medina) Inc., Occidental of Colombia (Putumayo) Ltd., Occidental of Colombia (Teca) Ltd., Occidental of Colombia PUT-36 LLC, Occidental of Dubai Inc., Occidental of Iraq Holdings Ltd., Occidental of Iraq LLC, Occidental of Oman Inc., Occidental of Russia Ltd., Occidental of South Africa (Offshore) Inc., Occidental of Yemen (Block 75) LLC, Oceanic Marine Transport Ltd., Opcal Insurance Inc., Oryx Crude Trading & Transportation Inc., Oxy BridgeTex Limited Partnership, Oxy C & I Bulk Sales LLC, Oxy Canada Sales Inc., Oxy Carbon Solutions LLC, Oxy Carbon Storage LLC, Oxy Climate Ventures Inc., Oxy Cogeneration Holding Company LLC, Oxy Colombia Holdings LLC, Oxy Colombia TopCo Ltd., Oxy Delaware Basin LLC, Oxy Delaware Basin Plant LLC, Oxy Dolphin E&P LLC, Oxy Dolphin Pipeline LLC, Oxy Energy Canada Inc., Oxy Energy Services LLC, Oxy Expatriate Services Inc., Oxy FFT Holdings Inc., Oxy Holding Company (Pipeline) Inc., Oxy International Ventures Ltd., Oxy LPG Terminal LLC, Oxy Levelland Pipeline Company LLC, Oxy Levelland Terminal Company LLC, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures LLC, Oxy Midstream Strategic Development LLC, Oxy Oleoducto SOP LLC, Oxy Overseas Services Ltd., Oxy Permian Gathering LLC, Oxy Permian Plaza LLC, Oxy Petroleum de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Oxy Renewable Energy LLC, Oxy Salt Creek Pipeline LLC, Oxy TL LLC, Oxy Taft Hub LLC, Oxy Technology Ventures Inc., Oxy Transport I Company LLC, Oxy Vinyls Canada Co., Oxy Vinyls Export Sales LLC, Oxy Vinyls LP, Oxy Westwood Corporation, Oxy Y-1 Company, OxyChem Ingleside Ethylene Holdings Inc., OxyChem do Brasil Ltda., OxyChile Investments LLC, Oxychem Shipping Ltd., Permian Basin JV Tax Matters Member LLC, Permian Basin Limited Partnership, Permian VPP Holder LP, Permian VPP Manager LLC, Phibro, Placid Oil LLC, Ramlat Oxy Ltd., Rio de Viento Inc., Rodeo Midland Basin LLC, San Patricio Pipeline LLC, Scanports Shipping LLC, SequestCo LLC, Stetson Exploration LLC, Sun Offshore Gathering Company, Swiflite Aircraft Corporation, Transok Properties LLC, Troy Potter Inc., Turavent Oil GmbH [in liquidation], Tuscaloosa Holdings Inc., UP Petroleo III Ltd., Upland Industries Corporation, Venezuela US SRL, Vintage Gas Inc., Vintage Petroleum, Vintage Petroleum Argentina Ltd., Vintage Petroleum Boliviana Ltd., Vintage Petroleum International Finance B.V., Vintage Petroleum International Holdings LLC, Vintage Petroleum International LLC, Vintage Petroleum International Ventures Inc., Vintage Petroleum Italy Inc., Vintage Petroleum South America Holdings Inc., Vintage Petroleum South America LLC, Vintage Petroleum Turkey Inc., WGR Asset Holding Company LLC, WGR Canada Inc., Wardner Ranch Inc., Western Gas Resources Inc., Western Gas Resources-Westana Inc., Western Midstream Holdings LLC, Woodlands International Insurance Ltd., and YT Ranch LLC.
Weatherford International plc, an oilfield service company, provides equipment and services for the drilling, evaluation, completion, production, and intervention of oil and natural gas wells worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere. It offers artificial lift systems, including reciprocating rod, progressing cavity pumping, gas, hydraulic, plunger, and hybrid lift systems, as well as related automation and control systems; pressure pumping and reservoir stimulation services, such as acidizing, fracturing and fluid systems, cementing, and coiled-tubing intervention; and drill stem test tools, and surface well testing and multiphase flow measurement services. The company also provides safety, downhole reservoir monitoring, flow control, and multistage fracturing systems, as well as sand-control technologies, and production and isolation packers; liner hangers to suspend a casing string in high-temperature and high-pressure wells; cementing products, including plugs, float and stage equipment, and torque-and-drag reduction technology for zonal isolation; and pre-job planning and installation services. In addition, it offers directional drilling services, and logging and measurement services while drilling; services related to rotary-steerable systems, high-temperature and high-pressure sensors, drilling reamers, and circulation subs; managed pressure drilling, conventional mud-logging, drilling instrumentation, gas analysis, wellsite consultancy, and open hole and cased-hole logging services; reservoir solutions and software products; and intervention and remediation services. Further, the company provides equipment and drilling tools; tubular handling, management, and connection services; equipment rental services; and onshore contract drilling and related services through a fleet of land drilling and workover rigs. Weatherford International plc was incorporated in 1972 and is headquartered in Baar, Switzerland.

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Posted on: August 21, 2018 10:31 AM

Episcopalians in the US-based Episcopal Church will join an interreligious group for a four-day walk across part of New Hampshire, raising awareness for the injustice facing immigrants. The Solidarity Walk for Immigrant Justice begins tomorrow [Wednesday] at the Norris Cotton Federal Building in Manchester, New Hampshire, where the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices are located. Over the next four days, walkers will journey the 40 miles to the Strafford County Jail in Dover, New Hampshire, which holds detained immigrants.

The walk has been organized by several different groups, including the Granite State Organizing Project, the American Friends Service Committee, and the New Hampshire Council of Churches.

The Revd Sarah Rockwell, president of the Granite State Organizing Project Executive Council and a priest at St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Manchester explained that this walk is a way of living the Gospel. I think that the Gospel imperative is to work for the poor, the marginalized, to really point out injustice and work for justice.

President of the New Hampshire Council of Churches and Episcopal priest Revd Jason Well explained the importance of raising awareness in the region. Among all of us there is a desire to keep this awareness in the front of New Hampshire, he said. A lot of news on immigration tends to focus on the border with Mexico, and we lose sight of the fact that these are New Hampshire families.

You can read the full story by the Episcopal News Service here.
Suncor Energy Inc. operates as an integrated energy company. The company primarily focuses on developing petroleum resource basins in Canada's Athabasca oil sands; explores, acquires, develops, produces, transports, refines, and markets crude oil in Canada and internationally; markets petroleum and petrochemical products under the Petro-Canada name primarily in Canada. It operates in Oil Sands; Exploration and Production; Refining and Marketing; and Corporate and Eliminations segments. The Oil Sands segment recovers bitumen from mining and in situ operations, and upgrades it into refinery feedstock and diesel fuel, or blends the bitumen with diluent for direct sale to market. The Exploration and Production segment is involved in offshore operations off the east coast of Canada and in the North Sea; and operating onshore assets in Libya and Syria. The Refining and Marketing segment refines crude oil and intermediate feedstock into various petroleum and petrochemical products; and markets refined petroleum products to retail, commercial, and industrial customers through its other retail sellers. The Corporate and Eliminations segment operates four wind farm operations in Ontario and Western Canada. The company also markets and trades in crude oil, natural gas, byproducts, refined products, and power. The company was formerly known as Suncor Inc. and changed its name to Suncor Energy Inc. in April 1997. Suncor Energy Inc. was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Crown: Adularia Inversiones 2010 S.L., Angleboard Sweden AB, Bates Cargo-Pak ApS, Butimove, CMB Machinery and Technology (Shanghai) Co Ltd, CROWN AP (Thailand) Company Limited, CROWN Aerosols & Promotional Nederland, CROWN Aerosols Italia Srl, CROWN Aerosols Nederland BV, CROWN Aerosols UK Limited, CROWN Americas LLC, CROWN Arabia Can Company Ltd, CROWN Asia Pacific Holdings Pte. Ltd., CROWN Asia Pacific Investments (T) Limited, CROWN Bevcan Espana S.L., CROWN Bevcan France SAS, CROWN Bevcan Slovakia s.r.o., CROWN Bevcan Turkiye Ambalaj Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, CROWN Bevcan and Closures (Thailand) Company Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans (Cambodia) Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans (Dong Nai) Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Beijing Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Changchun Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Danang Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Hangzhou Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Hanoi Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Heshan Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Hong Kong Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Huizhou Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Malaysia Sdn Bhd, CROWN Beverage Cans Nanning Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Putian Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Saigon Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Shanghai Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Sihanoukville Limited, CROWN Beverage Cans Singapore Pte. Ltd., CROWN Beverage Cans Ziyang Limited, CROWN Beverage Packaging LLC, CROWN Beverage Packaging Puerto Rico Inc., CROWN Cans Ghana Limited, CROWN China Holdings (Hong Kong) Limited, CROWN Commercial Belgium BVBA, CROWN Commercial France SAS, CROWN Commercial Germany GmbH & Co. KG, CROWN Commercial Hungary Kft, CROWN Commercial Netherlands B.V., CROWN Commercial Vermogensverwaltung GmbH, CROWN Cork & Seal USA Inc., CROWN Embalagens Metalicas da Amazonia S.A., CROWN Emballage France SAS, CROWN Emirates Company Limited, CROWN Envases Mexico S.A. de C.V., CROWN Famosa S.A. de C.V., CROWN Food Packaging (Thailand) Public Company Limited, CROWN Foodcan (Hat Yai) Company Limited, CROWN Foodcan (Nakhon Pathom) Company Limited, CROWN Foodcan Germany GmbH, CROWN Foodcan GmbH, CROWN Imballaggi Italia Srl, CROWN Imgallaggi Italia Srl, CROWN Italy Finance srl, CROWN Khmer Beverage Cans Limited, CROWN Maghreb Can, CROWN Magyarorszag Csomagoloipari KFT, CROWN Metal Packaging Canada Inc., CROWN Metal Packaging Canada LP, CROWN Middle East Can Co. Ltd., CROWN Packaging (Barbados) Limited, CROWN Packaging Holdings LLC, CROWN Packaging Investment (H.K.) Limited, CROWN Packaging Ireland Ltd, CROWN Packaging Jamaica Limited, CROWN Packaging Polska Sp.z.o.o., CROWN Packaging Technology Inc., CROWN Packaging Trinidad Limited, CROWN Packaging UK Limited, CROWN Promotional Packaging UK Ltd, CROWN SIEM, CROWN Senegal, CROWN Societe Malgache d'Emballages Metalliques, CROWN Speciality Packaging BV, CROWN Speciality Packaging Investment Pte. Ltd., CROWN Specialty Packaging UK Ltd, CROWN TCP Beverage Cans Company Limited, CROWN Verpakking Belgie NV, CROWN Verpakking Nederland B.V., Caretex Asia Ltd., CarnaudMetalbox Engineering Ltd, CarnaudMetalbox Food South Africa (Pty) Limited, CarnaudMetalbox Group UK Limited, CarnaudMetalbox Overeseas Limited, CarnaudMetalbox Overseas Limited, Cierres Hermeticos S.A. DE C.V., Constar International, Crown Americas Capital Corp., Crown Americas Capital Corp. II, Crown Americas Capital Corp. III, Crown Americas Capital Corp. IV, Crown Americas Capital Corp. V, Crown Americas Capital Corp. VI, Crown Brasil Holdings Ltda., Crown Canadian Holdings ULC, Crown Closures Spain S.L., Crown Colombiana S.A., Crown Comercial de Envases S.L., Crown Commercial Italy Srl, Crown Commercial Polska Sp. z.o.o., Crown Consultants Inc., Crown Cork & Seal Company (DE) LLC, Crown Cork & Seal Company Inc., Crown Cork & Seal Deutschland Holdings GmbH, Crown Cork & Seal Receivables (DE) Corporation, Crown Cork & Seal de Portugal Embalagens S.A., Crown Cork Kuban, Crown Cork and Seal Receivables II LLC, Crown Developpement SAS, Crown European Holdings, Crown Food Espana S.A.U., Crown Foodcan Turkey Ambalaj Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Crown Hellas Can Packaging SA, Crown Heshan Trading Company Limited, Crown Holdings Italia Srl, Crown Holdings Spain S.L., Crown International Holdings B.V., Crown International Holdings Inc., Crown Luxembourg Holdings, Crown Mexican Holdings S. de R.L. de C.V., Crown Overseas Investments B.V., Crown Packaging Commercial UK Limited, Crown Packaging Distribution UK Limited, Crown Packaging European Division GmbH, Crown Packaging European Division Services SAS, Crown Packaging European Holdings GmbH, Crown Packaging Lux I S.a.r.l., Crown Packaging Lux II S.a.r.l., Crown Packaging Lux III S.a.r.l., Crown Packaging Manufacturing UK Limited, Crown Packaging Maroc, Crown Receivables III, Crown Services Iberia, Crown UK Holdings Limited, Crownway Insurance Company, Dacro B.V., EMPAQUE, Fabricas Monterrey S.A. de C.V., Form Koruyucu Ambalaj Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Foshan Continental Can Co. Limited, Foshan Crown Easy-Opening End Co. Limited, Glass & Silice S.A. DE C.V., Globoplastt s.r.o., Gunther S.A.S., Haloila Bulgaria EOOD, Interstrap B.V., Josef Kihlberg AB, Kiwiplan GmbH, Kiwiplan Inc, Lachenmeier ApS, Liljendals Bruk AB, Litec France S.A.S., Mezger Heftsysteme GmbH, Mima Films S.a.r.l., Mima Films Sprl, Mima Packaging Systems S.A.S., Mivisa, Nordic S.A.S., Norsk Signode AS, Oy M. Haloila AB, PT CROWN Beverage Cans Indonesia, Package Design and Manufacturing, Prolatamex S.A. DE C.V., Quandel Verpackungs- und Foerdertechnik GmbH, SMB Schwede Maschinenbau GmbH, SMP Schwede Maschinenbau Weischlitz GmbH, SPG Denmark, SPG France Holdings SAS, SPG Germany Service Management GmbH, SPG Industrial Packaging S.a.r.l, SPG Netherlands B.V., SPG Packaging Ireland Limited, SPG Packaging Systems GmbH, SPG Packaging UK Ltd, Scybele S.A.S., Shippers Europe S.p.r.l., Signode BVBA, Signode Brasileira Ltda, Signode Hong Kong Limited, Signode Industrial Group, Signode Industrial Group AB, Signode Industrial Group Colombia S.A.S., Signode Industrial Group GmbH, Signode Industrial Group Holdings Lux S.a.r.l., Signode Industrial Group Holdings US Inc, Signode Industrial Group Lux S.A., Signode Industrial Group Mexico, Signode Industrial Group Sweden AB, Signode International Holdings LLC, Signode International IP Holdings LLC, Signode International Investment LLC, Signode Kabushiki Kaisha, Signode Korea Inc, Signode NZ Limited, Signode Netherlands B.V., Signode Packaging (Qingdao) Co., Signode Packaging (Shanghai) Co., Signode Packaging Espana S.L., Signode Packaging Group (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Signode Packaging Group Australia Pty Ltd, Signode Packaging Group Canada ULC, Signode Packaging Group NZ, Signode Packaging Systems Limited, Signode Pickling Holding LLC, Signode Polska sp. Z.o.o., Signode Singapore Pte. Ltd., Signode Sweden Holdings AB, Signode System GmbH, Signode System Packaging GmbH & Co. KG, Signode Systems (Thailand) Ltd., Signode US IP Holdings LLC, Silice De Veracruz S.A. DE C. V., Silice Del Istmo S.A. DE C.V., Silices De Veracruz, Societe Civile Immobiliere Rousseau-Ivry, Societe Civile Immobiliere des Baquets, Societe de Participations CarnaudMetalbox, Stopak India Pvt. Ltd, Strapex Austria GmbH, Strapex Embalagem L.d.a., Strapex Holdings Limited, Strapex S.A.S., Strapex Srl, Superior Investments Holdings Pte. Ltd., Superior Multi-Packaging Limited, TopFrame LLC, V.A.C. B.V., Vichisa S.A. de C.V., and Warehouse Automation Iberia S.L..
Ashtead Group plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the construction, industrial, and general equipment rental business in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. It offers range of products and services, such as general tools, air compressors and accessories, compaction and earth moving, climate control services, power and HVAC, pump solutions, remediation and restoration, flooring solutions, and lighting and grip. The company also provides power generation, heating, cooling, scaffolding, traffic management, temporary flooring, trench shoring, and lifting services. It offers its products and services for facilities maintenance and municipalities, such as office complexes, apartment complexes, government, hospitals, data centers, parks and recreation departments, schools and universities, shopping centers, pavement/kerb repairs, and golf course maintenance; construction of airports, highways and bridges, office buildings, data centers, schools and universities, shopping centers, residential, and remodeling; emergency response for fire, hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes, winter, storms, residential emergencies, covid-19, alternative care facilities, points of distribution, and mobile testing facilities; and entertainment and special events, including national events, concerts, sporting events, film/TV production, theme parks, festivals farmers' markets, local 5k runs, and cycle races. The company operates 873 stores in the United States, 75 stores in Canada, and 193 stores in the United Kingdom under the Sunbelt Rentals brand. Ashtead Group plc was founded in 1947 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.

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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..
The following companies are subsidiares of UnitedHealth Group: 1031387 B.C. Unlimited Liability Company, 1070715 B.C. Unlimited Liability Company, 1st Avenue Pharmacy Inc., 310 Canyon Medical, 310 Canyon Medical LLC, 4C MSO LLC, 4C Medical Group PLC, 5995 Minnetonka LLC, ABCO International Holdings LLC, ACN Group IPA of New York, ACN Group IPA of New York Inc., ACN Group of California, ACN Group of California Inc., AHJV, AHJV MSO, AHN Accontable Care Organization LLC, AHN Central Services LLC, AHN Target Holdings LLC, AMIL International, AMIL International S.a.r.l., APS  Assistencia Personalizada a Saude Ltda., ARC Infusion, ASC Holdings of New Jersey LLC, ASC Network LLC, ASI Global, ASI Global LLC, Access Administrators Inc., Access HealthSource Administrators Inc., Access HealthSource Inc., Access I.V., Administradora Clinica La Colina S.A.S., Administradora Country S.A., Administradora Medica Centromed S.A., Advanced Care, Advanced Care Pharmacy, Advanced Pharma Inc., Advanced Surgery Center of Clifton LLC, Advanced Surgical Hospital LLC, Advantage Care Network Inc., Advocate Condell Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Advocate Sherman Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Advocate Southwest Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Advocate-SCA Partners LLC, Alere Health, Alere Health Improvement Company, Alere Healthcare of Illinois, Alere Wellbeing, Alere Wellology, Alere of New York, Aliansalud Entidad Promotora de Salud S.A., All Savers Insurance Company, All Savers Life Insurance Company of California, Alliance Surgical Center LLC, Aloha Surgical Center LLC, Ambient Healthcare, Ambient Healthcare Inc., Ambient Healthcare of Central Florida, Ambient Healthcare of Georgia, Ambient Healthcare of Northeast Florida, Ambient Healthcare of S. Florida, Ambient Healthcare of West Florida, Ambient Holdings, Ambient Holdings Inc., Ambient Nursing Services, AmeriChoice, AmeriChoice Corporation, AmeriChoice Health Services, AmeriChoice of Connecticut, AmeriChoice of New Jersey, AmeriChoice of New Jersey Inc., American Health Network of Indiana Care Organization LLC, American Health Network of Indiana II LLC, American Health Network of Indiana LLC, American Health Network of Ohio Care Organization LLC, American Health Network of Ohio II LLC, American Health Network of Ohio LLC, Amico Saude Ltda., Amil, Amil Assistencia Medica Internacional S.A., Amil Lifesciences Participacoes Ltda., Antelope Valley Surgery Center L.P., Analisis Clinicos ML S.A.C., Apothecary Holdings Inc., Apothecary Shop of Phoenix Inc., AppleCare Medical Management, AppleCare Medical Management LLC, Aquitania Chilean Holding SpA, Arise Physician Group, Arizona Physicians IPA, Arizona Physicians IPA Inc., AssuranceRx, AssuranceRx LLC, Athens ASC Holdings LLC, Audax Health Solutions, Audax Health Solutions LLC, Austin Center for Outpatient Surgery L.P., Avella Patient Access Program Inc., Avella Specialty Pharmacy, Avella of Austin Inc., Avella of Columbus Inc., Avella of Deer Valley Inc., Avella of Denver Inc., Avella of Gilbert Inc., Avella of Las Vegas II Inc., Avella of Orlando Inc., Avella of Phoenix III Inc., Avella of Sacramento Inc., Avella of Scottsdale Inc., Avella of St. Louis Inc., Avella of Tampa LLC, Avella of Tucson II Inc., Avella of Tucson Inc., Aveta Arizona, Aveta Health Solutions Inc., Aveta Inc., Aveta Kansas City, Aveta Tennessee, AxelaCare Health Solutions, AxelaCare Intermediate Holdings, AxelaCare Intermediate Holdings LLC, AxelaCare LLC, B.R.A.S.S. Partnership in Commendam, Banmedica Colombia SpA, Banmedica Internacional SpA, Banmedica S.A., Beach Surgical Holdings III LLC, Behavioral Healthcare Options, Behavioral Healthcare Options Inc., Belleville Surgical Center Ltd. an Illinois Limited Partnership, Benefit Administration for the Self Employed L.L.C., Benefitter Insurance Solutions Inc., Birmingham Outpatient Surgical Center LLC, Blackstone Valley Surgicare GP LLC, Blue Ridge GP LLC, Bordeaux (Barbados) Holdings I SRL, Bordeaux (Barbados) Holdings II SRL, Bordeaux (Barbados) Holdings III SRL, Bordeaux Holding SpA, Bordeaux International Holdings Inc., Bordeaux UK Holdings I Limited, Bordeaux UK Holdings II Limited, Bordeaux UK Holdings III Limited, Bosque Medical Center Ltda., Brandon Ambulatory Surgery Center LC, BriovaRx, BriovaRx, BriovaRx Infusion Services, BriovaRx Infusion Services 102 LLC, BriovaRx Infusion Services 200 Inc., BriovaRx Infusion Services 204 Inc., BriovaRx Infusion Services 209 Inc., BriovaRx Infusion Services 305 LLC, BriovaRx Infusion Services 402 LLC, BriovaRx Infusion Services Inc., BriovaRx Specialty LLC, BriovaRx of California, BriovaRx of California Inc., BriovaRx of Florida, BriovaRx of Florida Inc., BriovaRx of Georgia, BriovaRx of Georgia LLC, BriovaRx of Hawaii, BriovaRx of Indiana, BriovaRx of Louisiana, BriovaRx of Louisiana L.L.C., BriovaRx of Maine, BriovaRx of Maine Inc., BriovaRx of Massachusetts, BriovaRx of Massachusetts LLC, BriovaRx of Nevada, BriovaRx of New York, BriovaRx of New York Inc., BriovaRx of Texas, BriovaRx of Texas Inc., CDC Holdings Colombia S.A.S., CLISA  Clinica de Santo Antonio S.A., CMO  Centro Medico de Oftalmologia S/S Ltda., CMS  Central de Manipulacao e Servicos Farmaceuticos S.A., CNIC Health Solutions Inc., COI Participacoes S.A., COI  Clinicas Oncologicas Integradas S.A., Cabin Enterprises LLC, Cabin Holdings LLC, California MedTrans Network IPA LLC, California MedTrans Network MSO LLC, California Medical Group Insurance Company Risk Retention Group, Camp Hill-SCA Centers LLC, Capital City Medical Group L.L.C., Cardio Management, Cardio Management Inc., Care Improvement Plus Group Management, Care Improvement Plus Group Management LLC, Care Improvement Plus South Central Insurance Company, Care Improvement Plus Wisconsin Insurance Company, Care Improvement Plus of Texas Insurance Company, Casa de Saude Santa Therezinha Ltda., Casa de Saude Santa Therezinha S.A., Castle Rock SurgiCenter LLC, Catalyst360, Catalyst360 LLC, Catamaran Finance (Ireland) Unlimited Company, Catamaran Health Solutions, Catamaran Holdings I, Catamaran IPA III, Catamaran Mail, Catamaran PBM of Illinois II, Catamaran PBM of Puerto Rico, Catamaran PD of Pennsylvania, Catamaran PD of Puerto Rico, Catamaran Rebate Management, Catamaran S.a.r.l., Catamaran Senior Services, Catamaran of Pennsylvania, Cedar Park Surgery Center LLC, Cemed Care - Empressa de Atendimento Clinico Geral Ltda., Cemed Care  Empresa de Atendimento Clinico Geral Ltda., Central Indiana Care Organization LLC, Central Ohio Care Organization LLC, Central de Compras SpA, CentriHealth Corporation, CentriHealth UK Limited, CentrifyHealth LLC, Centro Medico Hospitalar Pitangueiras Ltda., Centro Medico Odontologico Americano S.A.C., Centro Medico PJ Ltda., Centro de Entrenamiento en Reanimacion y Prevencion Limitada (CERP), Centro de Servicios Compartidos Banmedica S.A., Centromed Quilpue S.A., Centros Medicos y Dentales Multimed Ltda., Centurion Casualty Company, Channel Islands Surgicenter L.P., Channel Islands Surgicenter Properties LLC, Charleston Surgery Properties LLC, Charlotte-SC LLC, Childrens Surgery Center LLC, ChinaGate (Hong Kong) Limited, ChinaGate Company Limited, Citrus Regional Surgery Center L.P., Clinica Oftalmologica Danilo de Castro Sociedade Simples, Clinical Partners of Colorado Springs LLC, Clinica Alameda S.A., Clinica Bio Bio S.A., Clinica Ciudad del Mar S.A., Clinica Davila y Servicios Medicos S.A., Clinica Medico Cirurgica de Santa Tecla S.A., Clinica San Borja (La Esperanza del Peru S.A.), Clinica San Felipe S.A., Clinica Santa Maria S.A., Clinica Sanchez Ferrer S.A., Clinica Vespucio S.A., Clinica del Country S.A., Coachella Valley Physicians of PrimeCare, Coachella Valley Physicians of PrimeCare Inc., Coalition For Advanced Pharmacy Services, Coalition for Advanced Pharmacy Services Inc., Coastal Physicians Management Inc., Collaborative Care Holdings, Collaborative Care Holdings LLC, Collaborative Care Services, Collaborative Care Services Inc., Collaborative Care Solutions, Collaborative Realty, Collaborative Realty LLC, Colmedica Medicina Prepagada, Colonial Outpatient Surgery Center LLC, Colorado Innovative Physician Solutions Inc., Colorado Springs Surgery Center Ltd., Comfort Care Transportation, Comfort Care Transportation LLC, Commonwealth Administrators, Connecticut Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Connecticut Surgery Properties LLC, Connecticut Surgical Center LLC, Connextions, Connextions HCI, Constructora e Inmobiliaria Magapoq S.A., Consumer Wellness Solutions Inc., Country Scan Ltda., Crescent Drug Corp., Cypress Care, Cypress Care Inc., DBP Services of New York IPA, DBP Services of New York IPA Inc., DTC Surgery Center LLC, DWIC of Tampa Bay, DWIC of Tampa Bay Inc., DaVita Magan Management Inc., Danbury Surgical Center L.P., Day-Op Surgery Consulting Company, Day-Op Surgery Consulting Company LLC, Definity Health, Dental Benefit Providers, Dental Benefit Providers Inc., Dental Benefit Providers of California, Dental Benefit Providers of California Inc., Dental Benefit Providers of Illinois, Dental Benefit Providers of Illinois Inc., Derry Surgical Center LLC, Diagnostico Ecotomografico Centromed Ltda., Diasnostico por Imagenes Centromed Ltda., Dilab Medicina Nuclear Ltda., Diplomat Pharmacy, Distance Learning Network, Distance Learning Network Inc., Doctor + S.A.C., Dry Creek Surgery Center LLC, Dublin Surgery Center LLC, Duncan Printing Services, Duncan Printing Services LLC, E Street Endoscopy LLC, ELG FZE, EP Campus I, EP Campus I LLC, East Brunswick Surgery Center LLC, Electronic Network Systems, Electronic Network Systems Inc., Elual Participacoes S.A., Empire Physician Management Company, Empire Physician Management Company LLC, Employers Health Choice PPO Inc., Empremedica S. A., Endoscopy Center Affiliates Inc., Enterprise Life Insurance Company, Equian, Equian LLC, Equian Parent Corp., Esho  Empresa de Servicos Hospitalares S.A., Etho  Empresa de Tecnologia Hospitalar Ltda., Evercare Collaborative Solutions, Evercare Collaborative Solutions Inc., Everett MSO Inc., Excellion Servicos Biomedicos Ltda., Excellion Servicos Biomedicos S.A., Excelsior Insurance Brokerage Inc., Executive Health Resources, Executive Health Resources Inc., Executive Surgery Center LLC, Eye Clinic Oftalmologia Clinico Cirurgica e Diagnostico Ltda., FMG Holdings, FMG Holdings LLC, FOR HEALTH OF ARIZONA, Family Health Care Services, Family Home Hospice, Family Home Hospice Inc., First Rx Specialty & Mail Services, Florida MedTrans Network LLC, Florida MedTrans Network MSO LLC, For Health, For Health Inc., For Health of Arizona Inc., Fortified Provider Network Inc., Fortify Technologies Asia LLC, Fortify Technologies LLC, Foundation Financial Services Inc., Franklin Surgical Center LLC, Freedom Life Insurance Company of America, Freeway Surgicenter of Houston LLC, Frontier MEDEX Limited, Frontier Medex Tanzania Limited, FrontierMEDEX, FrontierMEDEX (RMS), FrontierMEDEX (RMS) Inc., FrontierMEDEX Government Services, FrontierMEDEX Government Services LLC, FrontierMEDEX Inc., FrontierMEDEX Kenya Limited, FrontierMEDEX US, FrontierMEDEX US Inc., Fundacion Banmedica, GRANTS PASS SURGERY CENTER LLC, Gadsden Surgery Center LLC, Gadsden Surgery Center Ltd., Gainesville Surgery Center L.P., Gainesville Surgery Properties LLC, Genoa, Genoa Healthcare Inc., Genoa Healthcare LLC, Genoa QoL Wholesale LLC, Genoa Technology (Canada) Inc., Genoa Technology Inc., Genoa Telepsychiatry Inc., Genoa of Arkansas LLC, Glenwood Surgical Center L.P., Glenwood-SC Inc., Golden Outlook, Golden Outlook Inc., Golden Rule Financial Corporation, Golden Rule Insurance Company, Golden Triangle Surgicenter L.P., Grapevine Finance LLC, Greater Hartford ASC LLC, Grove Place Surgery Center L.L.C., Guardian Health Systems Limited Partnership, H&W Indemnity (SPC), H&W Indemnity (SPC) Ltd., H.I. Investments Holding Company LLC, HCP ACO California LLC, HCP ACO Nevada LLC, HCentive Technology India Private Limited, HMI NewCo LLC, Harken Health Insurance Company, Hayes-Strub LLC, Health Business Systems, Health Care-ONE Insurance Agency Inc., Health Inventures Employment Solutions LLC, Health Inventures LLC, Health Net Insurance of New York, Health Net Services (Bermuda) Ltd., Health Plan of Nevada, Health Plan of Nevada Inc., Health Technology Analysts Pty Limited, HealthAllies, HealthAllies Inc., HealthCare Partners ASC-LB LLC, HealthCare Partners Management Services California LLC, HealthCare Partners RE LLC, HealthFirst IPA Inc., HealthMarkets Group Inc., HealthMarkets Inc., HealthMarkets Insurance Agency Inc., HealthMarkets LLC, HealthMarkets NewCo Inc., HealthMarkets Services Inc., HealthSCOPE Holdings Inc., HealthScope Benefits Inc., Healthcare Partners Plan of Nevada Inc., Healthcare Solutions Inc., Heartland Heart and Vascular LLC, Help S.A., Help Service S.A., Highlands Ranch Healthcare, Highlands Ranch Healthcare LLC, Home Care I.V. of Bend, Home Infusion With Heart, Home Medical S.A., Hospice Inspiris Holdings, Hospice Inspiris Holdings Inc., Hospitais Associados de Pernambuco Ltda., Hospital Alvorada de Taguatinga Ltda., Hospital Ana Costa S.A., Hospital Maternidade Promater Ltda., Hospital Samaritano de Sao Paulo Ltda., Hospital Santa Helena S.A., Hospital de Clinicas de Jacarepagua Ltda., Humedica, Humedica Inc., Hygeia Corporation, Hygeia Corporation (Canada), Hygeia Corporation (DE), Hygeia Corporation (Ontario), INOV8 Surgical at Memorial City LLC, INSPIRIS of New York IPA, INSPIRIS of New York Management, INSPIRIS of New York Management Inc., INSPIRIS of Texas Physician Group, IRX Financing I LLC, Illinois Independent Care Network, Imed Star  Servicos de Desempenho Organizacional Ltda., Impel Consulting Experts, Impel Consulting Experts L.L.C., Impel Management Services L.L.C., Indian River Surgery Center Ltd., Indian River Surgery Properties LLC, Indiana Care Organization LLC, Infusource, Ingram & Associates, Ingram & Associates LLC, Inmobiliaria Apoquindo 3001 S.A., Inmobiliaria Apoquindo 3600 Ltda., Inmobiliaria Apoquindo S.A., Inmobiliaria Clinica Santa Maria S.A., Inmobiliaria Vinamed Ltda., Inmobiliaria e Inversiones Alameda S.A., Inspiris, Inspiris Inc., Inspiris Services Company, Inspiris of Tennessee, Instituto do Radium de Cammpinas Ltda, International Psychological Services Pty Limited, Inversiones Clinicas Santa Maria S.A., Isapre Banmedica S.A., Isapre Vida Tres S.A., Johnston Surgicare L.P., Joliet Surgery Center Limited Partnership, LHI, Laboratorio ROE S.A., Laboratorios Medicos Amed Quilpue S.A., LifePrint Health, LifePrint Health Inc., LifeStyles Marketing Group Inc., LifeWell Ltd. Co., Lifeprint Accountable Care Organization, Lifeprint Accountable Care Organization LLC, Lifeprint East, Lifeprint East Inc., Logistics Health Inc., Lotten-Eyes Oftalmologia Clinica e Cirurgica Ltda., Louisville S.C. Ltd., Louisville-SC Properties Inc., Loyola Ambulatory Surgery Center at Oakbrook Inc., Lusiadas - Parcerias Cascais S.A., Lusiadas A.C.E., Lusiadas S.A., Lusiadas SGPS S.A., MAMSI Insurance Resources, MAMSI Life and Health Insurance Company, MD Ops, MD Ops Inc., MD-Individual Practice Association, MD-Individual Practice Association Inc., ME AHS UC LLC, MEDEX Insurance Services, MEDEX Insurance Services Inc., MGH/SCA LLC, MHC Real Estate Holdings, MHC Real Estate Holdings LLC, MIAMI SURGERY CENTER LLC, MSLA Management LLC, MXMD Centros De Cancer, Mamoeco  Mamografia e Ecografia Centro de Diagnostico, Managed Physical Network, Managed Physical Network Inc., March Holdings, March Holdings Inc., March Vision Care, March Vision Care Inc., Marin Surgery Holdings Inc., Maryland Ambulatory Centers, Maryland-SCA Centers LLC, Massachusetts Assurance Company Ltd. PIC, Massachusetts Avenue Surgery Center LLC, Mat-Rx Development, Mat-Rx Fort Worth GP, MedExpress Development, MedExpress Development LLC, MedExpress Urgent Care Alabama LLC, MedExpress Urgent Care Inc. - Ohio, MedExpress Urgent Care Maine Inc., MedExpress Urgent Care New Hampshire Inc., MedExpress Urgent Care of Boynton Beach, MedExpress Urgent Care of Boynton Beach LLC, MedSynergies, MedSynergies LLC, MedSynergies North Texas, Medalliance Net Ltda, Medalliance Net Ltda., Medica Health Plans of Florida, Medica Health Plans of Florida Inc., Medica HealthCare Plans, Medica HealthCare Plans Inc., Medical Clinic of North Texas PLLC, Medical Hilfe S.A., Medical Preparatory School of Allied Health, Medical Support Los Angeles Inc., Medical Surgical Centers of America Inc., Medical Transportation Services, Medical Transportation Services LLC, Medication Management Systems Inc., Melbourne Surgery Center LLC, Memorial City Holdings LLC, Memorial City Partners LLC, Memphis-SC LLC, Memphis-SP LLC, Mesquite Liberty LLC, Metro I Stone Management, Metropolitan Medical Partners LLC, Metropolitan Medical Transportation IPA LLC, Mid Atlantic Medical Services, Mid-West National Life Insurance Company of Tennessee, Midwest Center for Day Surgery LLC, Mile High SurgiCenter LLC, Mississippi Surgery Holdings LLC, Mississippi Surgical Center Limited Partnership, Mobile Medical Professionals, Modern Medical Inc., Monarch Management Services, Monarch Management Services Inc., Montgomery Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Mountain View Medical Group LLC, Mt. Pleasant Surgery Center L.P., Multiangio Ltda., Muskogee Surgical Investors LLC, Mustang Razorback Holdings, Mustang Razorback Holdings Inc., My Wellness Solutions LLC, NAMM Holdings, NAMM Holdings Inc., NSC Fayetteville LLC, NSC Greensboro LLC, NSC Lancaster LLC, NSC Seattle Inc., NSC Upland LLC, Nashville-SCA Surgery Centers Inc., National Foundation Life Insurance Company, National MedTrans LLC, National Pacific Dental, National Pacific Dental Inc., National Surgery Centers LLC, Neighborhood Health Partnership, Neighborhood Health Partnership Inc., Netwerkes, Netwerkes LLC, Nevada Medical Services LLC, Nevada Pacific Dental, New Orleans Regional Physician Hospital Organization L.L.C., New West Physicians Inc., Newton Holdings LLC, North American Medical Management - Illinois, North American Medical Management California, North American Medical Management California Inc., North Puget Sound Center for Sleep Disorders LLC, North Puget Sound Oncology Equipment Leasing Company LLC, Northern Nevada Health Network, Northern Nevada Health Network Inc., Northern Rockies Surgicenter Inc., Northwest Surgicare LLC, Northwest Surgicare Ltd., Nutritional/Parenteral Home Care, Nutritional/Parenteral Home Care of Huntsville, OC Cardiology Practice Partners LLC, OSB  Tecnologia e Servicos de Suporte Ltda., Omesa S.A., OmniClaim LLC, Oncocare S.A.C., OneNet PPO, OneNet PPO LLC, Optimum Choice, Optimum Choice Inc., Optum, Optum Bank, Optum Bank Inc., Optum Biometrics, Optum Biometrics Inc., Optum Care Inc., Optum Care Services Company, Optum Clinical Services, Optum Clinics Holdings, Optum Clinics Holdings Inc., Optum Clinics Intermediate Holdings, Optum Clinics Intermediate Holdings Inc., Optum Digital Health Holdings LLC, Optum Finance (Ireland) Unlimited Company, Optum Global Finance (Ireland) Unlimited Company, Optum Global Solutions (India) Private Limited, Optum Global Solutions (Philippines), Optum Global Solutions (Philippines) Inc., Optum Global Solutions International B.V., Optum Government Solutions, Optum Government Solutions Inc., Optum Growth Partners LLC, Optum Health & Technology (Australia) Pty Ltd, Optum Health & Technology (Hong Kong) Limited, Optum Health & Technology (India) Private Limited, Optum Health & Technology (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Optum Health & Technology (UK) Limited, Optum Health & Technology (US), Optum Health & Technology (US) LLC, Optum Health & Technology FZ-LLC, Optum Health & Technology Holdings (US), Optum Health & Technology Holdings (US) Inc., Optum Health & Technology Servicos do Brasil Ltda., Optum Health Services (Canada) Ltd., Optum Health Solutions (Australia) Pty Ltd, Optum Health Solutions (UK) Limited, Optum Health and Technology FZ-LLC, Optum Healthcare of Illinois, Optum Healthcare of Illinois Inc., Optum Hospice Pharmacy Services, Optum Hospice Pharmacy Services LLC, Optum Inc., Optum Infusion Services 100 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 101 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 103 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 201 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 202 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 203 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 205 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 206 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 207 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 208 Inc., Optum Infusion Services 301 LP, Optum Infusion Services 302 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 308 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 401 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 403 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 404 LLC, Optum Infusion Services 501 Inc., Optum Insurance of Ohio, Optum Insurance of Ohio Inc., Optum Labs, Optum Labs Dimensions, Optum Labs Dimensions Inc., Optum Labs Inc., Optum Labs International (UK) Ltd., Optum Life Sciences (Canada) Inc., Optum Management Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Optum Management Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Optum Networks of New Jersey Inc., Optum Nevada Accountable Care Organization LLC, Optum Operations (Ireland) Unlimited Company, Optum Palliative and Hospice Care, Optum Palliative and Hospice Care Inc., Optum Palliative and Hospice Care of Pennsylvania, Optum Palliative and Hospice Care of Pennsylvania Inc., Optum Palliative and Hospice Care of Texas, Optum Palliative and Hospice Care of Texas Inc., Optum Perks LLC, Optum Pharmacy 701 LLC, Optum Pharmacy 702 LLC, Optum Pharmacy 703 LLC, Optum Pharmacy 705 LLC, Optum Public Sector Solutions, Optum Public Sector Solutions Inc., Optum Rocket, Optum Rocket Inc., Optum Senior Services LLC, Optum Services, Optum Services (Ireland) Limited, Optum Services (Puerto Rico) LLC, Optum Services Inc., Optum Solutions UK Holdings Limited, Optum Solutions do Brasil  Tecnologia e Servicos de Suporte Ltda., Optum Technology, Optum Technology LLC, Optum UK Solutions Group Limited, Optum Women's and Children's Health, Optum Women's and Children's Health LLC, Optum of New York Inc., Optum360, Optum360 LLC, Optum360 Services, Optum360 Services Inc., Optum360 Solutions LLC, OptumCare ACO Florida LLC, OptumCare ACO Holdings LLC, OptumCare ACO New Mexico LLC, OptumCare Clinical Trials LLC, OptumCare Colorado ASC LLC, OptumCare Colorado LLC, OptumCare Colorado Springs LLC, OptumCare Endoscopy Center New Mexico LLC, OptumCare Florida CI LLC, OptumCare Florida LLC, OptumCare Health Plan of California Inc., OptumCare Holdings Colorado LLC, OptumCare Holdings LLC, OptumCare Holdings New Mexico LLC, OptumCare Management LLC, OptumCare New Mexico LLC, OptumCare New York IPA Inc., OptumCare South Florida LLC, OptumHealth Care Solutions, OptumHealth Care Solutions LLC, OptumHealth Financial Services, OptumHealth Financial Services Inc., OptumHealth Holdings, OptumHealth Holdings LLC, OptumHealth International B.V., OptumInsight, OptumInsight Holdings, OptumInsight Holdings LLC, OptumInsight Inc., OptumInsight India Private Limited, OptumInsight Life Sciences, OptumInsight Life Sciences Inc., OptumRx, OptumRx Administrative Services, OptumRx Administrative Services LLC, OptumRx Discount Card Services, OptumRx Discount Card Services LLC, OptumRx Group Holdings, OptumRx Group Holdings Inc., OptumRx Health Solutions LLC, OptumRx Holdings, OptumRx Holdings I LLC, OptumRx Holdings LLC, OptumRx Home Delivery of Illinois, OptumRx Home Delivery of Ohio, OptumRx Home Delivery of Ohio LLC, OptumRx IPA III Inc., OptumRx Inc., OptumRx NY IPA, OptumRx NY IPA Inc., OptumRx PBM of Illinois, OptumRx PBM of Illinois Inc., OptumRx PBM of Maryland, OptumRx PBM of Maryland LLC, OptumRx PBM of Pennsylvania, OptumRx PBM of Pennsylvania LLC, OptumRx PBM of Puerto Rico LLC, OptumRx PBM of Wisconsin, OptumRx PBM of Wisconsin LLC, OptumRx PD of Maryland, OptumRx PD of Pennsylvania LLC, OptumRx Pharmacy, OptumRx Pharmacy Inc., OptumRx Pharmacy of Nevada, OptumRx Pharmacy of Nevada Inc., OptumRx of Pennsylvania LLC, OptumServe Technology Services Inc., Orlando Center for Outpatient Surgery L.P., OrthoNet Holdings, OrthoNet Holdings Inc., OrthoNet LLC, OrthoNet New York IPA, OrthoNet New York IPA Inc., OrthoNet Services, OrthoNet Services Inc., OrthoNet West, OrthoNet West Inc., OrthoNet of the Mid-Atlantic, OrthoNet of the South, OrthoNet of the South Inc., Ovations, Ovations Inc., Oxford Benefit Management, Oxford Benefit Management Inc., Oxford Health Insurance, Oxford Health Insurance Inc., Oxford Health Plans (CT), Oxford Health Plans (CT) Inc., Oxford Health Plans (NJ), Oxford Health Plans (NJ) Inc., Oxford Health Plans (NY), Oxford Health Plans (NY) Inc., Oxford Health Plans LLC, P2 Lower Acquisition, P2P Link LLC, PCCCV, PCCCV Inc., PCN DE Corp., PHC Subsidiary Holdings, PHC Subsidiary Holdings LLC, PHYS Holding Corp., PHYSICIANS DAY SURGERY CENTER LLC, PMI Acquisition, PMI Acquisition LLC, PMSI, PMSI Holdco II, PMSI Holdings, PMSI Holdings LLC, PMSI LLC, PMSI Settlement Solutions, PMSI Settlement Solutions LLC, POMCO Inc., POMCO Network Inc., PPH Holdings LLC, PacifiCare Health Systems, PacifiCare Life Assurance Company, PacifiCare Life and Health Insurance Company, PacifiCare of Arizona, PacifiCare of Arizona Inc., PacifiCare of Colorado, PacifiCare of Colorado Inc., PacifiCare of Nevada, PacifiCare of Nevada Inc., Pacific Casualty Company Inc., Pacifico S.A. Entidad Prestadora de Salud, Paoli Ambulatory Surgery Center, Paoli Surgery Center L.P., Parkway Surgery Center LLC, Pasteur Plaza Surgery Center GP Inc., PatientsLikeMe, PatientsLikeMe LLC, Patrimonio Autonomo Nueva Clinica - PANC., Payment Resolution Services, Payment Resolution Services LLC, Peoples Health, Peoples Health Inc., Pharmaceutical Care Network, Pharmacy Review Services, Pharmacy Software Holdco Inc., PhyServe Holdings, Physician Alliance of the Rockies LLC, Physician Care Partners, Physicians Health Choice of Texas, Physicians Health Choice of Texas LLC, Physicians Health Plan of Maryland, Physicians Health Plan of Maryland Inc., Physicians Plaza Holdings LLC, Plano de Saude Ana Costa Ltda., Plus One Health Management Puerto Rico, Plus One Health Management Puerto Rico Inc., Plus One Holdings, Plus One Holdings Inc., Polar II Fundo de Investimento em Participacoes, Polar II Fundo de Investimento em Participacoes Multiestrategia, Polo Holdco, Polo Holdco LLC, Pomerado Outpatient Surgical Center Inc., Pomerado Outpatient Surgical Center L.P., Precision Dialing Services Inc., Preferred Care Partners, Preferred Care Partners Holding, Preferred Care Partners Holding Corp., Preferred Care Partners Inc., Preferred Care Partners Medical Group, Preferred Care Partners Medical Group Inc., Premier Choice ACO, Premier Choice ACO Inc., Premier Surgery Center of Louisville L.P., Prime Health, Prime Health Inc., PrimeCare Medical Network, PrimeCare Medical Network Inc., PrimeCare of Citrus Valley, PrimeCare of Citrus Valley Inc., PrimeCare of Corona, PrimeCare of Corona Inc., PrimeCare of Hemet Valley, PrimeCare of Hemet Valley Inc., PrimeCare of Inland Valley, PrimeCare of Inland Valley Inc., PrimeCare of Moreno Valley, PrimeCare of Moreno Valley Inc., PrimeCare of Redlands, PrimeCare of Redlands Inc., PrimeCare of Riverside, PrimeCare of Riverside Inc., PrimeCare of San Bernardino, PrimeCare of San Bernardino Inc., PrimeCare of Sun City, PrimeCare of Sun City Inc., PrimeCare of Temecula, PrimeCare of Temecula Inc., ProHEALTH Fitness of Lake Success, ProHEALTH Fitness of Lake Success LLC, ProHEALTH Medical Management LLC, ProHealth Medical Management, ProHealth Physicians, ProHealth Physicians ACO, ProHealth Physicians ACO LLC, ProHealth Physicians Inc., ProHealth Proton Center Management, ProHealth Proton Center Management LLC, Procura Management, Procura Management Inc., Progressive Enterprises Holdings, Progressive Enterprises Holdings Inc., Progressive Medical, Progressive Medical LLC, Progressive Solutions, Promotora Country S.A., Pronetics Health Care Group, Pronounced Health Solutions Inc., Prosemedic S.A.C., Prospero Management Services LLC, Pueblo-SCA Surgery Center LLC, Pulse Platform LLC, QoL Acquisition Holdings Corp., Quality Software Services, QuarterMaster Newco LLC, R&H Family Fitness Unlimited LLC, Rally Health, Rally Health Inc., Real Appeal Inc., Recaudacion y Cobranzas Honodav Ltda., Redlands Ambulatory Surgery Center, Redlands-SCA Surgery Centers Inc., Reliant MSO LLC, Research Surgical Center LLC, River Valley ASC LLC, Riverside Electronic Healthcare Resources Inc., Riverside Medical Management, Riverside Medical Management LLC, Riverside Surgical Center of Meadowlands LLC, Riverside Surgical Center of Newark LLC, Rocky Mountain Health Maintenance Organization Incorporated, Rocky Mountain HealthCare Options Inc., SC Affiliates LLC, SCA Alaska Surgery Center inc., SCA Athens LLC, SCA Austin Holdings LLC, SCA BOSC Holdings LLC, SCA California Surgical Holdings LLC, SCA Capital LLC, SCA Cedar Park Holdings LLC, SCA Clifton LLC, SCA Danbury Surgical Center LLC, SCA Development LLC, SCA EHSC Holdings LLC, SCA EWASC Holdings LLC, SCA Hays Holdings LLC, SCA Heartland Holdings LLC, SCA HoldCo Inc., SCA Holding Company Inc., SCA Holdings Inc., SCA IEC Holdings LLC, SCA Indiana Holdings LLC, SCA Nashville ASC LLC, SCA Pacific Holdings Inc., SCA Pennsylvania Holdings LLC, SCA Premier Surgery Center of Louisville LLC, SCA ROCS Holdings LLC, SCA Rockledge JV LLC, SCA SSC Holdings LLC, SCA SSSC Holdings LLC, SCA Sage Medical LLC, SCA Sage Medical MSO LLC, SCA Southwestern PA LLC, SCA Specialists of Florida LLC, SCA Stonegate Holdings LLC, SCA Surgery Center of Cullman LLC, SCA Surgery Holdings LLC, SCA Surgery Partners LLC, SCA Surgicare of Laguna Hills LLC, SCA Teammate Support Network, SCA eCode Solutions Private Limited, SCA of Clarksville Inc., SCA-Albuquerque Surgery Properties Inc., SCA-Alliance LLC, SCA-Anne Arundel LLC, SCA-Applecare Partners LLC, SCA-Bethesda LLC, SCA-Blue Ridge LLC, SCA-Bonita Springs LLC, SCA-Brandon LLC, SCA-Castle Rock LLC, SCA-Central Florida LLC, SCA-Charleston LLC, SCA-Chatham LLC, SCA-Chevy Chase LLC, SCA-Citrus Inc., SCA-Colorado Springs LLC, SCA-Connecticut Partners LLC, SCA-DRY CREEK LLC, SCA-Davenport LLC, SCA-Denver LLC, SCA-Denver Physicians Holdings LLC, SCA-Derry LLC, SCA-Doral LLC, SCA-Downey LLC, SCA-Dublin LLC, SCA-Encinitas Inc., SCA-Eugene Inc., SCA-First Coast LLC, SCA-Florence LLC, SCA-Fort Collins Inc., SCA-Fort Walton Inc., SCA-Franklin LLC, SCA-Frederick LLC, SCA-Freeway Holdings LLC, SCA-Ft. Myers LLC, SCA-GRANTS PASS LLC, SCA-Gainesville LLC, SCA-Gladiolus LLC, SCA-Grove Place LLC, SCA-Hagerstown LLC, SCA-Hamden LLC, SCA-Hilton Head LLC, SCA-Honolulu LLC, SCA-Houston Executive LLC, SCA-IT Holdings LLC, SCA-Illinois LLC, SCA-JPM Holdings LLC, SCA-Kissing Camels Holdings LLC, SCA-MC VBP Inc., SCA-Main Street LLC, SCA-Marina del Rey LLC, SCA-Mecklenburg Development Corp., SCA-Memorial City LLC, SCA-Merritt LLC, SCA-Midlands LLC, SCA-Midway Management LLC, SCA-Mobile LLC, SCA-Mokena LLC, SCA-Mokena Properties LLC, SCA-Morris County LLC, SCA-Mt. Pleasant LLC, SCA-ND VBP Inc., SCA-Naperville LLC, SCA-Naples LLC, SCA-New Jersey LLC, SCA-Newport Beach LLC, SCA-Northeast Georgia Health LLC, SCA-PORTLAND LLC, SCA-Palm Beach LLC, SCA-Palm Beach MSO Holdings LLC, SCA-Paoli LLC, SCA-Phoenix LLC, SCA-Pocono LLC, SCA-Practice Partners Holdings LLC, SCA-River Valley LLC, SCA-Riverside LLC, SCA-Riverside Partners LLC, SCA-Rockville LLC, SCA-Sacred Heart Holdings LLC, SCA-San Diego Inc., SCA-San Luis Obispo LLC, SCA-Sand Lake LLC, SCA-Santa Rosa Inc., SCA-Shelby Development Corp., SCA-Somerset LLC, SCA-South Jersey LLC, SCA-Sparta LLC, SCA-Spartanburg Holdings LLC, SCA-St. Louis LLC, SCA-St. Lucie LLC, SCA-SurgiCare LLC, SCA-Swiftpath LLC, SCA-VERTA LLC, SCA-Wake Forest LLC, SCA-Western Connecticut LLC, SCA-Westover Hills LLC, SCA-Wilmington LLC, SCA-Wilson LLC, SCA-Winchester LLC, SCA-Winter Park Inc., SCA-Woodlands Holdings LLC, SCAI Holdings LLC, SCP Specialty Infusion, SCP Specialty Infusion LLC, SHC Atlanta LLC, SHC Austin Inc., SHC Hawthorn Inc., SHC Melbourne Inc., SPINETRACK 20/20 Inc., SRPS LLC, SXC Comet, Sacred Heart ASC LLC, Saden S.A., Salem Surgery Center LLC, Salveo Specialty Pharmacy, Salveo Specialty Pharmacy Inc., Sand Lake SurgiCenter LLC, Santa Cruz Endoscopy Center LLC, Santa Helena Assistencia Medica S.A., Santos Administracao e Participacoes S.A., Savvysherpa Administrative Services LLC, Savvysherpa Asia Inc., Savvysherpa LLC, Scanner Centromed S.A., ScripNet, ScriptSwitch Limited, Seisa Servicos Integrados de Saude Ltda., Senate Street Surgery Center LLC, Senior Benefits L.L.C., Senior Care Partners, Serquinox Holdings LLC, Serquinox LLC, Servicios Integrados de Salud Ltda., Servicios Medicos Amed Quilpue S.A., Servicios Medicos Bio Bio Limitada, Servicios Medicos Ciudad del Mar Ltda., Servicios Medicos Santa Maria Limitada, Servicios Medicos Vespucio Ltda., Servicios de Entrenamiento en Competencias Clinicas Ltda., SharedClarity LLC, Shelby Surgery Properties Inc., Sierra Health Services, Sierra Health Services Inc, Sierra Health Services Inc., Sierra Health and Life Insurance Company, Sierra Health and Life Insurance Company Inc., Sierra Health-Care Options, Sierra Health-Care Options Inc., Sierra Home Medical Products, Sierra Home Medical Products Inc., Sierra Nevada Administrators, Sierra Nevada Administrators Inc., Sirona Infusion, Sistema de Administracion Hospitalaria S.A.C., Small Business Insurance Advisors Inc., Sobam  Centro Medico Hospitalar S.A., Sociedad Editorial para la Ciencia Limitada., Sociedad de Inversiones Santa Maria S.A., Somerset Outpatient Surgery L.L.C., Southwest Medical Associates, Southwest Medical Associates Inc., Southwest Michigan Health Network Inc., Southwest Surgery Center LLC, Southwest Surgical Center of Bakersfield L.P., Space Coast Surgical Center Ltd., Specialists in Urology Surgery Center LLC, Specialized Pharmaceuticals Inc., Specialty Benefits, Specialty Benefits LLC, Spectera, Spectera Inc., Spectera of New York IPA, Spectera of New York IPA Inc., Spotlite, Spotlite Inc., St. Cloud Surgical Center LLC, StoneRiver P2P Link, StoneRiver Pharmacy Solutions, Stonegate Surgery Center L.P., Streamlines Health LLC, Summit Home Infusion, SunSurgery LLC, Surgery Center Holding LLC, Surgery Center at Cherry Creek LLC, Surgery Center at Kissing Camels LLC, Surgery Center of Boca Raton Inc., Surgery Center of Clarksville L.P., Surgery Center of Colorado Springs LLC, Surgery Center of Des Moines LLC, Surgery Center of Easton LLC, Surgery Center of Ellicott City Inc., Surgery Center of Louisville LLC, Surgery Center of Maui LLC, Surgery Center of Muskogee LLC, Surgery Center of Rockville L.L.C., Surgery Center of Southern Pines LLC, Surgery Center of Spokane LLC, Surgery Center of Summerlin LLC, Surgery Center of The Woodlands LLC, Surgery Center of Vero Beach Inc., Surgery Center of Wilmington LLC, Surgery Center of Wilmington Properties LLC, Surgery Centers of Des Moines Ltd. an Iowa Limited Partnership, Surgery Centers-West Holdings LLC, Surgical Care Affiliates, Surgical Care Affiliates LLC, Surgical Care Affiliates Political Action Committee, Surgical Care Partners of Melbourne LLC, Surgical Center of South Jersey Limited Partnership, Surgical Center of Tuscaloosa Holdings LLC, Surgical Health LLC, Surgical Health of Orlando LLC, Surgical Hospital Holdings of Oklahoma LLC, Surgicare LLC, Surgicare of Belleville LLC, Surgicare of Jackson LLC, Surgicare of Joliet Inc., Surgicare of La Veta Inc., Surgicare of Minneapolis LLC, Surgicare of Mobile LLC, Surgicare of Oceanside Inc., Surgicare of Owensboro LLC, Surgicare of Salem LLC, Surgicenters of Southern California Inc., Symphonix Health Holdings, Symphonix Health Holdings LLC, Symphonix Health Insurance, Symphonix Health Insurance Inc., THE SURGICAL CENTER OF THE TREASURE COAST L.L.C., TeamMD Holdings Inc., TeamMD Iowa Inc., TeamMD Physicians of Texas Inc., TeamUP Insurance Services Inc., Tecnologias de Informacion en Salud S.A., The Advisory Board (Chile) SpA, The Chesapeake Life Insurance Company, The Lewin Group, The Lewin Group Inc., The Magan Medical Group, The Outpatient Surgery Center of Hilton Head LLC, The Polyclinic MSO LLC, Thomas Johnson Surgery Center LLC, Thousand Oaks Endoscopy Center LLC, Three Rivers Holdings, Three Rivers Holdings Inc., Three Rivers Surgical Care L.P., Tmesys, Tmesys LLC, Topimagem Diagnostico por Imagem Ltda., Touchpoint Health Plan, Trails Edge Surgery Center LLC, Travel Express Incorporated, TriMed LLC, Trinity Infusion, Trio Motion LLC, Tucson Arizona Surgical Center LLC, U.S. Behavioral Health Plan, U.S. Behavioral Health Plan California, UHC Finance (Ireland) Unlimited Company, UHC Global Health Services BC Ltd., UHC International Services, UHC International Services Inc., UHC of California, UHCG Holdings (Ireland) Limited, UHCG Services (Ireland) Limited, UHCG  FZE, UHG Brasil Participacoes S.A., UHIC Holdings, UHIC Holdings Inc., UICI Funding Corp. 2, UMR, UMR Inc., USHEALTH Academy Inc., USHEALTH Administrators LLC, USHEALTH Advisors L.L.C., USHEALTH Career Agency Inc., USHEALTH Funding Inc., USHEALTH Group Inc., USMD Administrative Services, USMD Administrative Services L.L.C., USMD Affiliated Services, USMD CT (Mo), USMD Cancer Treatment Centers, USMD Cancer Treatment Centers GP, USMD Diagnostic Services, USMD Holdings, USMD Holdings Inc., USMD Inc., USMD PPM, USMD PPM LLC, USMD of Arlington GP, Ultima Rx, Unidad Medica Diagnostico S.A., Unimerica Insurance Company, Unimerica Life Insurance Company of New York, Unison Administrative Services, Unison Health Plan of Delaware, Unison Health Plan of Delaware Inc., United Behavioral Health, United Behavioral Health of New York I.P.A., United Behavioral Health of New York I.P.A. Inc., United Group Reinsurance Inc., United Health Foundation, United HealthCare, United HealthCare Services Inc., United Management Services Inc., United Resource Networks IPA of New York, United Resource Networks IPA of New York Inc., UnitedHealth Advisors, UnitedHealth Advisors LLC, UnitedHealth Group Finance Inc., UnitedHealth Group Global Healthcare Services Limited, UnitedHealth Group Global Services, UnitedHealth Group Incorporated, UnitedHealth Group Information Services Private Limited, UnitedHealth Group International Finance (Ireland) Unlimited Company, UnitedHealth Group International GP, UnitedHealth Group International L.P., UnitedHealth International, UnitedHealth International Inc., UnitedHealth Military & Veterans Services, UnitedHealth Military & Veterans Services LLC, UnitedHealth UK Limited, UnitedHealthcare, UnitedHealthcare Benefits Plan of California, UnitedHealthcare Benefits of Texas, UnitedHealthcare Benefits of Texas Inc., UnitedHealthcare Children's Foundation Inc., UnitedHealthcare Community Plan, UnitedHealthcare Community Plan Inc., UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of California, UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of California Inc., UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Georgia, UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Georgia Inc., UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Ohio, UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Ohio Inc., UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Texas, UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Texas L.L.C., UnitedHealthcare Consulting & Assistance Service (Beijing) Co., UnitedHealthcare Consulting & Assistance Service (Beijing) Co. Ltd., UnitedHealthcare Europe S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare Europe S.a.r.l., UnitedHealthcare Global Canada Limited, UnitedHealthcare Global Medical (UK) Limited, UnitedHealthcare Inc., UnitedHealthcare India Private Limited, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company of Illinois, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company of New York, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company of the River Valley, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Designated Activity Company, UnitedHealthcare Integrated Services, UnitedHealthcare Integrated Services Inc., UnitedHealthcare International Asia, UnitedHealthcare International Asia LLC, UnitedHealthcare International I B.V., UnitedHealthcare International I S.a.r.l., UnitedHealthcare International II B.V., UnitedHealthcare International II S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare International II S.a.r.l., UnitedHealthcare International III B.V., UnitedHealthcare International III S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare International III S.a.r.l., UnitedHealthcare International IV S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare International IV S.a.r.l., UnitedHealthcare International V S.a.r.l., UnitedHealthcare International VI S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare International VII S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare International VIII S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare International X S.a r.l., UnitedHealthcare Life Insurance Company, UnitedHealthcare Plan of the River Valley, UnitedHealthcare Plan of the River Valley Inc., UnitedHealthcare Service LLC, UnitedHealthcare Services Company of the River Valley, UnitedHealthcare Specialty Benefits, UnitedHealthcare Specialty Benefits LLC, UnitedHealthcare of Alabama, UnitedHealthcare of Alabama Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Arizona, UnitedHealthcare of Arizona Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Arkansas, UnitedHealthcare of Arkansas Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Colorado, UnitedHealthcare of Colorado Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Florida, UnitedHealthcare of Florida Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Georgia, UnitedHealthcare of Georgia Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Illinois, UnitedHealthcare of Illinois Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Kentucky, UnitedHealthcare of Kentucky Ltd., UnitedHealthcare of Louisiana, UnitedHealthcare of Louisiana Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Mississippi, UnitedHealthcare of Mississippi Inc., UnitedHealthcare of New England, UnitedHealthcare of New England Inc., UnitedHealthcare of New Mexico, UnitedHealthcare of New Mexico Inc., UnitedHealthcare of New York, UnitedHealthcare of New York Inc., UnitedHealthcare of North Carolina, UnitedHealthcare of North Carolina Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Ohio, UnitedHealthcare of Ohio Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Oklahoma, UnitedHealthcare of Oklahoma Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Oregon, UnitedHealthcare of Oregon Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Pennsylvania, UnitedHealthcare of Pennsylvania Inc., UnitedHealthcare of South Carolina Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Texas, UnitedHealthcare of Texas Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Utah, UnitedHealthcare of Utah Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Washington, UnitedHealthcare of Washington Inc., UnitedHealthcare of Wisconsin, UnitedHealthcare of Wisconsin Inc., UnitedHealthcare of the Mid-Atlantic, UnitedHealthcare of the Mid-Atlantic Inc., UnitedHealthcare of the Midlands, UnitedHealthcare of the Midlands Inc., UnitedHealthcare of the Midwest, UnitedHealthcare of the Midwest Inc., UpFront Insurance Agency LLC, Upland Holdings LLC, Upland Outpatient Surgical Center L.P., Urgent Care Holdings, Urgent Care Holdings Inc., Urgent Care MSO, Urgent Care MSO LLC, Urology Associates of North Texas, Urology Associates of North Texas P.L.L.C., VERTA MANAGEMENT SERVICES LLC, Valley Hospital L.L.C., Valley Physicians Network, Valley Physicians Network Inc., Vida Tres Internacional S.A., Vidaintegra S.A., Vivify Health Canada Inc., Vivify Health Inc., WESTMED Practice Partners LLC, Wauwatosa Outpatient Surgery Center LLC, Wauwatosa Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Wayland Square Surgicare Acquisition L.P., Wayland Square Surgicare GP Inc., WebInsure Benefits LLC, WellMed Medical Management, WellMed Medical Management Inc., WellMed Medical Management of Florida, WellMed Medical Management of Florida Inc., WellMed Networks  DFW, West Coast Endoscopy Holdings LLC, Western Connecticut Orthopedic Surgical Center LLC, WillowB Labs LLC, Wilmington ASC LLC, Winchester Endoscopy LLC, Winter Park LLC, XLHealth Corporation, XLHealth Corporation India Private Limited, Your Health Options Insurance Services, Your Health Options Insurance Services Inc., Your Partner in Health Services, divvyDOSE, eCode Solutions LLC, gethealthinsurance.com Agency Inc., hCentive Inc., inPharmative, inPharmative Inc., and ppoONE.
New Residential Investment pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and currently has a dividend yield of 8.79%. NRZ has a dividend yield higher than 75% of all dividend-paying stocks, making it a leading dividend payer. New Residential Investment has been increasing its dividend for 2 consecutive year(s), indicating that it does not yet have a strong track record of dividend growth. The dividend payout ratio of New Residential Investment is 68.49%. This payout ratio is at a healthy, sustainable level, below 75%. Based on earnings estimates, New Residential Investment will have a dividend payout ratio of 57.80% next year. This indicates that New Residential Investment will be able to sustain or increase its dividend.

View New Residential Investment's dividend history.
The following companies are subsidiares of Caterpillar: Advanced Tri-Gen Power Systems LLC, Anchor Coupling Inc., Asia Power Systems (Tianjin) Ltd., AsiaTrak (Tianjin) Ltd., Banco Caterpillar S.A., Berg Propulsion International Pte Ltd., Bucyrus, Bucyrus Australia Surface Pty. Ltd., Bucyrus Europe Holdings Ltd., Bucyrus Europe Limited, Bucyrus International (Chile) Limitada, Bucyrus International (Peru) S.A., Bucyrus Mining Australia Pty. Ltd., Bucyrus Mining China LLC, Bucyrus UK Limited, Cat Rental Kyushu LLC, Caterpillar (Africa) (Proprietary) Limited, Caterpillar (China) Financial Leasing Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (China) Machinery Components Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (HK) Limited, Caterpillar (Huainan) Machinery Service Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (Langfang) Mining Equipment Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (Luxembourg) Investment Co. S.a r.l., Caterpillar (NI) Limited, Caterpillar (Newberry) LLC, Caterpillar (Qingzhou) Ltd., Caterpillar (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (Suzhou) Logistics Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (Thailand) Limited, Caterpillar (U.K.) Limited, Caterpillar (Wujiang) Ltd., Caterpillar (Xuzhou) Ltd., Caterpillar (Zhengzhou) Ltd., Caterpillar Acquisition Holding Corp., Caterpillar Americas C.V., Caterpillar Americas Co., Caterpillar Americas Funding Inc., Caterpillar Americas Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Asia Limited, Caterpillar Asia Pacific L.P., Caterpillar Asia Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar Asset Intelligence LLC, Caterpillar Belgium S.A., Caterpillar Brasil Comercio de Maquinas e Pecas Ltda., Caterpillar Brasil Ltda., Caterpillar Brazil LLC, Caterpillar Castings Kiel GmbH, Caterpillar Centro de Formacion S.L., Caterpillar China Limited, Caterpillar Commercial Australia Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar Commercial LLC, Caterpillar Commercial Northern Europe Limited, Caterpillar Commercial S.A., Caterpillar Commercial S.A.R.L., Caterpillar Commercial Services S.A.R.L., Caterpillar Communications LLC, Caterpillar Corporativo Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Cote DIvoire, Caterpillar Credito S.A. de C.V. SOFOM E.N.R., Caterpillar DC Pension Trust Limited, Caterpillar Digital Services & Solutions SARL, Caterpillar Distribution International LLC, Caterpillar Distribution Services Europe B.V.B.A., Caterpillar East Real Estate Holding Ltd., Caterpillar Emissions Solutions Inc., Caterpillar Energy Solutions Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar Energy Solutions GmbH, Caterpillar Energy Solutions Inc., Caterpillar Energy Solutions S.A., Caterpillar Energy System Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Engine Systems Inc., Caterpillar Equipos Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Eurasia LLC, Caterpillar FS (QFC) LLC, Caterpillar Finance France S.A., Caterpillar Finance Kabushiki Kaisha, Caterpillar Financial Acquisition Funding LLC, Caterpillar Financial Aftermarket Solutions Corporation, Caterpillar Financial Australia Leasing Pty Limited, Caterpillar Financial Australia Limited, Caterpillar Financial Commercial Account Corporation, Caterpillar Financial Corporacion Financiera S.A. E.F.C., Caterpillar Financial Dealer Funding LLC, Caterpillar Financial Funding Corporation, Caterpillar Financial Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Caterpillar Financial Leasing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Financial New Zealand Limited, Caterpillar Financial Nordic Services AB, Caterpillar Financial Nova Scotia Corporation, Caterpillar Financial OOO, Caterpillar Financial Receivables Corporation, Caterpillar Financial Renting S.A., Caterpillar Financial SARL, Caterpillar Financial Services (Dubai) Limited, Caterpillar Financial Services (Ireland) plc, Caterpillar Financial Services (UK) Limited, Caterpillar Financial Services Argentina S.A., Caterpillar Financial Services Asia Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar Financial Services Belgium S.P.R.L., Caterpillar Financial Services CR s.r.o., Caterpillar Financial Services Corporation, Caterpillar Financial Services GmbH, Caterpillar Financial Services India Private Limited, Caterpillar Financial Services Leasing ULC, Caterpillar Financial Services Limited Les Services Financiers Caterpillar Limitee, Caterpillar Financial Services Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Caterpillar Financial Services Netherlands B.V., Caterpillar Financial Services Norway AS, Caterpillar Financial Services Philippines Inc., Caterpillar Financial Services Poland Sp. z o.o., Caterpillar Financial Services South Africa (Pty) Limited, Caterpillar Financial UK Acquisition Funding Partners, Caterpillar Financial Ukraine LLC, Caterpillar Fluid Systems S.r.l., Caterpillar Fomento Comercial Ltda., Caterpillar Forest Products Inc., Caterpillar France S.A.S., Caterpillar GB L.L.C., Caterpillar Global Investments S.a r.l., Caterpillar Global Mining America LLC, Caterpillar Global Mining Equipamentos De Mineracao do Brasil Ltda., Caterpillar Global Mining Equipment LLC, Caterpillar Global Mining Europe GmbH, Caterpillar Global Mining Expanded Products Pty Ltd, Caterpillar Global Mining Germany Holdings GmbH, Caterpillar Global Mining HMS GmbH, Caterpillar Global Mining Holdings GmbH, Caterpillar Global Mining Hong Kong AFC Manufacturing Holding Co. Limited, Caterpillar Global Mining Hong Kong Limited, Caterpillar Global Mining LLC, Caterpillar Global Mining Mexico LLC, Caterpillar Global Mining Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar Global Mining SARL, Caterpillar Global Mining U.S. Parts LLC, Caterpillar Global Services LLC, Caterpillar Group Services S.A., Caterpillar Holding (France) S.A.S., Caterpillar Holding Germany GmbH, Caterpillar Holdings Australia Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar Hungary Components Manufacturing Ltd., Caterpillar Hydraulics Italia S.r.l., Caterpillar IPX LLC, Caterpillar IRB LLC, Caterpillar Impact Products Limited, Caterpillar India Private Limited, Caterpillar Industrial Inc., Caterpillar Industrias Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Industries (Pty) Ltd, Caterpillar Insurance Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Insurance Company, Caterpillar Insurance Holdings Inc., Caterpillar Insurance Services Corporation, Caterpillar International Finance Designated Activity Company, Caterpillar International Finance Luxembourg Holding S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Finance Luxembourg S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Holding S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Luxembourg I S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Luxembourg II S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Product SARL, Caterpillar International Services Corporation, Caterpillar International Services del Peru S.A., Caterpillar Investment Limited, Caterpillar Investment One SARL, Caterpillar Investment Two SARL, Caterpillar Investments, Caterpillar Japan LLC, Caterpillar Latin America Services S.R.L., Caterpillar Latin America Services de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Latin America Services de Panama S. de R.L., Caterpillar Latin America Servicios de Chile Limitada, Caterpillar Latin America Support Services S. DE R.L., Caterpillar Leasing (Thailand) Limited, Caterpillar Leasing Chile S.A., Caterpillar Leasing GmbH (Leipzig), Caterpillar Leasing Operativo Limitada, Caterpillar Life Insurance Company, Caterpillar Logistics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Logistics (UK) Limited, Caterpillar Logistics Inc., Caterpillar Logistics ML Services France S.A.S., Caterpillar Logistics Services China Limited, Caterpillar Luxembourg Group S.ar.l., Caterpillar Luxembourg LLC, Caterpillar Luxembourg S.a r.l., Caterpillar Machinery Nantong Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Marine Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar Marine Asset Intelligence, Caterpillar Marine Power UK Limited, Caterpillar Marine Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Maroc SARL, Caterpillar Materiels Routiers SAS, Caterpillar Mexico LLC, Caterpillar Mexico S.A. de C.V., Caterpillar Mining Canada ULC, Caterpillar Mining Chile Servicios Limitada, Caterpillar Motoren (Guangdong) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Motoren GmbH & Co. KG, Caterpillar Motoren Henstedt-Ulzburg GmbH, Caterpillar Motoren Rostock GmbH, Caterpillar Motoren Verwaltungs-GmbH, Caterpillar Netherlands Holding B.V., Caterpillar North America C.V., Caterpillar Operator Training Ltd., Caterpillar Overseas Credit Corporation SARL, Caterpillar Overseas Investment Holding SARL, Caterpillar Overseas Limited, Caterpillar Overseas SARL, Caterpillar Panama Services S.A., Caterpillar Paving Products Inc., Caterpillar Paving Products Xuzhou Ltd., Caterpillar Pension Trust Limited, Caterpillar Poland Sp. z o.o., Caterpillar Power Generation Systems (Bangladesh) Limited, Caterpillar Power Generation Systems L.L.C., Caterpillar Power Systems Inc., Caterpillar Power Ventures International Ltd., Caterpillar Precision Seals Korea, Caterpillar Prodotti Stradali S.r.l., Caterpillar Product Services Corporation, Caterpillar Propulsion AB, Caterpillar Propulsion International Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Propulsion Italy S.R.L., Caterpillar Propulsion Namibia (Proprietary) Limited, Caterpillar Propulsion Production AB, Caterpillar Propulsion Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar Propulsion Singapore Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar R&D Center (China) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Ramos Arizpe LLC, Caterpillar Ramos Arizpe S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Ramos Arizpe Servicios S.A. de C.V., Caterpillar Reman Powertrain Indiana LLC, Caterpillar Remanufacturing Drivetrain LLC, Caterpillar Remanufacturing Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Renting France S.A.S., Caterpillar Reynosa S.A. de C.V., Caterpillar SARL, Caterpillar Services Germany GmbH, Caterpillar Servicios Limitada, Caterpillar Servicios Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Servizi Italia Srl, Caterpillar Shrewsbury Limited, Caterpillar Skinningrove Limited, Caterpillar Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd., Caterpillar Special Services Belgium S.P.R.L., Caterpillar Switchgear Americas LLC, Caterpillar Switchgear Holding Inc., Caterpillar Tianjin Ltd., Caterpillar Torreon S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Tosno L.L.C., Caterpillar Transmissions France S.A.R.L., Caterpillar Tunneling Canada Holdings Ltd., Caterpillar Tunnelling Canada Corporation, Caterpillar Tunnelling Europe Limited, Caterpillar UK Employee Trust Limited, Caterpillar UK Engines Company Limited, Caterpillar UK Group Limited, Caterpillar UK Holdings Limited, Caterpillar Undercarriage (Xuzhou) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Underground Mining Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar Used Equipment Services Inc., Caterpillar Venture Capital Inc., Caterpillar Work Tools B.V., Caterpillar Work Tools Inc., Caterpillar World Trading Corporation, Caterpillar Xuzhou, Caterpillar of Australia Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar of Canada Corporation, Caterpillar of Delaware Inc., Centre de Distribution de Wallonie SPRL, CleanAir Systems, Downer Freight Rail, ECM Railway Evolution Romania s.r.l., ECM S.p.A., EDC European Excavator Design Center GmbH, EMC Holding Corp., EMD International Holdings Inc., ERA Information & Entertainment (BVI) Limited, ERA Mining Machinery Limited, Electro-Motive Diesel Limited, Electro-Motive Locomotive Technologies LLC, Electro-Motive Technical Consulting Co. (Beijing) Ltd., Energy Services International Limited, Equipos de Acuna S.A. de C.V., Eurenov S.A.S., F. G. Wilson (Proprietary) Limited, F. Perkins Limited, FG Wilson (Engineering) Limited, GB Holdco (China) Inc., GFCM Comercial Mexico S.A. de C.V. SOFOM E.N.R., GFCM Servicios S.A. de C.V., Gremada Industries - Assets, Hong Kong Siwei Holdings Limited, Inmobiliaria Conek S.A. de C.V., JCS Co., Kemper Valve & Fittings Corp., Leo Inc., Locomotive Demand Power Pty Ltd., Locomotoras Progress Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Lovat, M2M Data Corporation, MGE Equipamentos & Servicos Ferroviarios, MWM, MWM Austria GmbH, MWM Benelux B.V., MWM Energy Australia Pty Ltd, MWM France S.A.S, MWM Real Estate GmbH, MaK Americas Inc., MaK Americas Inc. (Canada), Magnum Power Products LLC, Marble, Maschinenbau Kiel GmbH, Mec-Track S.r.l., Metalmark Financial Services Limited, Motoren Steffens GmbH, Nippon Caterpillar LLC, P. T. Solar Services Indonesia, PT Caterpillar Finance Indonesia, PT. Bucyrus Indonesia, PT. Caterpillar Indonesia, PT. Caterpillar Indonesia Batam, PT. Caterpillar Remanufacturing Indonesia, Perkins Engines, Perkins Engines (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd, Perkins Engines Group Limited, Perkins Engines Inc., Perkins Group Limited, Perkins Holdings Limited LLC, Perkins India Private Limited, Perkins International Inc., Perkins Japan LLC, Perkins Limited, Perkins Machinery (Changshu) Co. Ltd., Perkins Motores do Brasil Ltda., Perkins Power Systems Technology (Wuxi) Co. Ltd., Perkins Small Engines (Wuxi) Co. Ltd., Perkins Small Engines LLC, Perkins Small Engines Limited, Perkins Technology Inc., Progress Metal Reclamation Company, Progress Rail Arabia Limited Company, Progress Rail Australia Pty Ltd, Progress Rail Canada Corporation, Progress Rail Equipamentos e Servicos Ferroviarios do Brasil Ltda., Progress Rail Equipment Leasing Corporation, Progress Rail Holdings Inc., Progress Rail Innovations Private Limited, Progress Rail Inspection & Information Systems GmbH, Progress Rail Inspection & Information Systems S.r.l., Progress Rail International Corp., Progress Rail Leasing Canada Corporation, Progress Rail Leasing Corporation, Progress Rail Leasing de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Progress Rail Locomotivas (do Brasil) Ltda., Progress Rail Locomotive Canada Co., Progress Rail Locomotive Chile SpA, Progress Rail Locomotive Inc., Progress Rail Maintenance de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Progress Rail Manufacturing Corporation, Progress Rail Raceland Corporation, Progress Rail Rocklin Corporation, Progress Rail SA Proprietary Limited, Progress Rail Services Corporation, Progress Rail Services Holdings Corp., Progress Rail Services LLC, Progress Rail Services UK Limited, Progress Rail Switching Services LLC, Progress Rail Transcanada Corporation, Progress Rail Welding Corporation, Progress Rail Wildwood LLC, Progress Rail de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Pyroban Group, Pyroban Group, Pyrrha Investments B.V., Pyrrha Investments Limited, S&L Railroad LLC, SCM Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd., SPL Software Alliance LLC, Sabre Engines, Servicios de Turbinas Solar S. de R.L. de C.V., Shandong SEM Machinery Co. Ltd., Solar Turbines, Solar Turbines, Solar Turbines (Beijing) Trading Services Co. Ltd., Solar Turbines (Thailand) Ltd., Solar Turbines CIS Limited Liability Company, Solar Turbines Canada Ltd./Ltee., Solar Turbines Central Asia Limited Liability Partnership, Solar Turbines EAME s.r.o., Solar Turbines Egypt Limited Liability Company, Solar Turbines Europe S.A., Solar Turbines India Private Limited, Solar Turbines International Company, Solar Turbines Italy S.R.L., Solar Turbines Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Solar Turbines Middle East Limited, Solar Turbines New Zealand Limited, Solar Turbines Saudi Arabia Limited, Solar Turbines Services Company, Solar Turbines Services Nigeria Limited, Solar Turbines Services of Argentina S.R.L., Solar Turbines Switzerland Sagl, Solar Turbines Trinidad & Tobago Limited, Solar Turbines West-Africa SARL, Tangshan DBT Machinery Co. Ltd., Tecnologia Modificada S.A. de C.V., Towmotor Corporation, Traction & Mining Motor Repairs Pty Ltd, Turbinas Solar S.A. de C.V., Turbinas Solar de Colombia S.A., Turbinas Solar de Venezuela C.A., Turbo Tecnologia de Reparaciones S.A. de C.V., Turbomach, Turbomach Endustriyel Gaz Turbinleri Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited, Turbomach France SARL, Turbomach GmbH, Turbomach Netherlands B.V., Turbomach Pakistan (Private) Limited, Turbomach S.A. Unipersonal, Turbomach Sp. Z o.o., Turner Powertrain Systems Limited, UK Hose Assembly Limited, Underground Imaging Technologies Inc, United Industries LLC, VALA Inc., Vasky Energy Ltd., Wealdstone Engineering, Weir - Oil & Gas Division, West Virginia Auto Shredding Inc., Western Gear Machinery LLC, Wetland Sustainability Fund I LLC, Williams Technologies, Yard Club, Zhengzhou Siwei Mechanical and Electrical Equipment Sales Co. Ltd., and okyo Rental Ltd..
The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation and the City of Dalton are looking for a preservation-minded buyer to purchase and rehabilitate the Dalton Depot, the citys oldest existing commercial building, at

in Dalton, Ga.

The City of Dalton is accepting bids for the purchase of the historic depot, which is being marketed at a suggested sales price of $500,000 through The Georgia Trusts Revolving Fund, a program that provides effective alternatives to demolition or neglect of architecturally and historically significant properties.

Due to the historic significance of the property, buyers are required to submit a written preservation plan, outlining the rehabilitation of the property in accordance with a timeline for completion, with the bid. The Georgia Trust and the City of Dalton will host a tour of the interior of the property on The Georgia Trust and the City of Dalton will host a tour of the interior of the property on

Sept. 6, 2018, 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Bids will be accepted until

Sept. 14, 2018, 4 p.m.

Bids will be opened publicly on

Sept. 17, 2018, 9 a.m.

, at the Dalton City Hall Finance Department Conference Room,

. For complete details and instructions on the bid process, visit

. For general inquiries regarding the Dalton Depot, visit

or contact Ben Sutton at

or 404-885-7819.

The Dalton Depot is 12,000 square feet and located in the heart of the historic downtown commercial district. It is zoned for commercial use, and the interior space provides significant flexibility for potential owners and tenants. Office space, restaurant, microbrewery, or flexible event space are all potential uses. There is ample free parking in the immediate vicinity of the property. The property will require significant investment to upgrade the existing systems, rehabilitate interior public spaces, and rebuild commercial kitchen spaces (if desired). The property is eligible for significant economic incentives, including Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credits, State Rehabilitation Tax Credits, and a Preferential Property Tax Freeze. A Conservation Easement, not currently on the property, can provide additional tax benefits to a potential buyer.

The Dalton Depot is the oldest commercial building still standing in Dalton. It is an antebellum brick building that is individually listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Constructed in 1852 by the Western & Atlantic Railroad to serve as a combination passenger and freight depot, the one-story building features brick masonry construction and large overhanging eaves that are typical of railroad architecture of the era. Built in the Greek Revival style, the Depot still retains much of its original detailing.

The interior of the building still features the freight scale, ticket windows and other original elements but has largely been converted to modern restaurant space. Approximately 2,000 square feet of space on the north end of the building was converted to a modern commercial kitchen, although appliances and equipment have been removed. On the south end of the building, the original passenger waiting rooms remain but have been used recently for storage.

The Dalton Depot played a significant role in one of Georgias most infamous Civil War stories. During the Great Locomotive Chase of 1862 when Union raiders stole the General near Kennesaw with the intent of attacking Confederate troops to the north, a young telegraph operator was dropped off at the Dalton Depot from the pursuing Texas to wire a warning ahead to Chattanooga. The Depot sustained some damage from Union troops later in the War, but most of the building remained intact and was repaired.

110 Depot Street300 West Waugh Street, Dalton, Georgia 30720
Genworth Financial, Inc. is a financial services company, which engages in the provision of insurance, wealth management, investment and financial solutions. It operates through the following segments: U.S. Mortgage Insurance, Australia Mortgage Insurance, U.S. Life Insurance, and Runoff. The U.S. Mortgage Insurance segment offers mortgage insurance products predominantly insuring prime-based, individually underwritten residential mortgage loans. The Australia Mortgage Insurance segment offers flow mortgage insurance and selectively provides bulk mortgage insurance that aids in the sale of mortgages to the capital markets and helps lenders manage capital and risk. The U.S. Life Insurance segment offers long-term care insurance products as well as service traditional life insurance and fixed annuity products in the United States. The Runoff segment includes the results of non-strategic products which are no longer actively sold but continue to service its existing blocks of business. Its non-strategic products primarily include variable annuity, variable life insurance, institutional, corporate-owned life insurance and other accident and health insurance products. The company was fo

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Era Group Inc. provides helicopter transportation services primarily to the oil and gas exploration, development, and production companies. Its helicopter services include emergency response search and rescue; and other services, as well as utility services to support firefighting, mining, power line, and pipeline survey activities. The company also leases helicopters to third parties and foreign affiliates. As of December 31, 2018, it owned a total of 108 helicopters, including 9 heavy helicopters, 46 medium helicopters, 23 light twin engine helicopters, and 30 light single engine helicopters. The company operates in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia. Era Group Inc. was founded in 1948 and is based in Houston, Texas.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Roper Technologies: 3089554 Nova Scotia ULC, AC Analytical Controls B.V., AC Analytical Controls Holding B.V., AC Analytical Controls Services B.V., Acumen PM LLC, Aderant Canada Company, Aderant Company, Aderant Holdings Inc., Aderant International Holdings Inc., Aderant Legal (UK) Limited, Aderant Legal Holdings (AUS) Pty Ltd, Aderant Legal Holdings (NZ) ULC, Aderant Legal Holdings Inc., Aderant North America Inc., Aderant Parent Holdings Inc., Advanced Sensors Limited, Alpha Holdings of Delaware I LLC, Alpha Holdings of Delaware II LLC, Alpha Technologies B.V., Alpha Technologies GmbH, Alpha Technologies Japan LLC, Alpha Technologies Services LLC, Alpha Technologies U.K., Alpha Technologies s.r.o., Alpha Trust Corporation, Alpha UK Holdings LLC, Amot Controls Corporation, Amot Controls GmbH, Amot/Metrix Investment Company Inc., Amphire Solutions Inc., Amtech Systems (Hong Kong) Limited, Amtech Systems LLC, Amtech World Corporation, Aplifi Inc., Ascension Technology Corporation, Assureweb Limited, Atlantic Health Partners Inc., Avitru LLC, Axium Holdco Inc., C/S Solutions Inc., CBORD Holdings Corp., CIVCO Medical Solutions B.V., Centurion Research Solutions LLC, Civco Holding Inc., Civco Medical Instruments Co. Inc., CliniSys Group, CliniSys Group Limited, Clinisys Scotland Limited, Clinisys Solutions Limited, Cointec Ingenieros y Consultores S.L., Compressor Controls (Beijing) Corporation Ltd., Compressor Controls Corporation B.V., Compressor Controls Corporation Middle East, Compressor Controls Corporation S.r.l., Compressor Controls LLC, Compressor Controls Mauritius Ltd., Compressor Controls Pty Ltd., Compressor Controls Saudi Arabia LLC, ConstructConnect, ConstructConnect Canada Inc., ConstructConnect Inc., Cornell Pump Company, DAT Solutions LLC, DATSolutions Private Limited, DCMH Group Holdings Inc., DCMH Group Holdings LLC, DCMH Holdings Inc., DI Acquisition Subsidiary Inc., DI Dutch Holdings LLC, DI Hong Kong Limited, Dash I Inc., Data Innovations, Data Innovations Canada Ltd., Data Innovations Cooperatief U.A., Data Innovations Europe S.A., Data Innovations LLC, Data Innovations Latin America Ltda, Dawning Technologies LLC, Deltek, Deltek Ajera Inc., Deltek Asia Pacific (HK) Limited, Deltek Australia Pty Ltd., Deltek Danmark A/S, Deltek France SAS, Deltek GB Limited, Deltek GmbH, Deltek Inc., Deltek Nederland B.V., Deltek Netherlands B.V., Deltek Norge AS, Deltek Sverige AB, Deltek Systems (Canada) Inc., Deltek Systems (Colorado) Inc., Deltek Systems (Philippines) Ltd., Deltek WST LLC, Dominion I Inc., Dynamic Instruments Inc., Dynisco Enterprises GmbH, Dynisco Enterprises LLC, Dynisco Europe GmbH, Dynisco Holding GmbH, Dynisco Hong Kong Holdings Limited, Dynisco Instruments LLC, Dynisco Instruments S.a.r.l., Dynisco LLC, Dynisco Parent Inc., Dynisco S.r.l., Dynisco Viatran LLC, Dynisco Viatran (M) Sdn Bhd, Dynisco-Viatran Instrument Sdn Bhd, FMS Purchasing & Services Inc., FSI Holdings Inc., FTI Flow Technology Inc., Fluid Metering Inc., Foodlink Holdings Inc., Foodlink IT India Private Limited, Foundry, Foundry Visionmongers (Ireland) Limited, GeneInsight Inc., Getloaded Corporation, HRsmart Canada Inc., HRsmart Czech Republic, HRsmart France SAS, HRsmart Germany GmbH, HRsmart Inc., HRsmart International, HRsmart International Holdings LLC, HRsmart Mexico, HRsmart SA (Pty) Ltd., HRsmart Talent Management Solutions Europe Limited, HRsmart Ventures LLC, Handshake Software Inc., Hansco Automatisering B.V., Hansen Technologies Corporation, Harbour Holding Corp., Hardy Process Solutions, Horizon Software International LLC, INPUT Inc., IPA Acquisition Subsidiary Inc., ISL Finance SAS, ISL Holding SAS, ISL Scientifique de Laboratorie - ISL S.A.S., IT Canada Holdings LLC, Innovative Product Achievements LLC, Inovonics Corporation, Instill Corporation, IntelliTrans Limited, Intellitrans Canada Ltd., Intellitrans LLC, Intellitrans Sweden AB, Job Access LTDA, K/S Roper Holding, K/S Roper Investments, Laser App Inc., Link Logistics Holding LLC, Loadlink Technologies Corporation, Logitech Limited, MED Professional Services LLC, MEDTEC Inc., MHA Long Term Care Network Inc., MHA Long Term Care Services Inc., MIPS Austria GesmbH, MIPS CZ s.r.o, MIPS Deutschland GmbH, MIPS France Sarl, MIPS Nederland B.V., MIPS Schweiz AG, MIPS Software Iberica SL, MPR Readers Inc., Managed Health Care Associates Inc., Marumoto Struers K.K., Medical Information Professional Systems NV, Medina Acquisition LLC, Metrix Instrument Co. L.P., NDI Europe GmbH, Navigator Group Purchasing Inc., Neptune Technology Group (Canada) Co., Neptune Technology Group Inc., Neptune Technology Group Mexico S.de R.L. de C.V., Neptune Technology Group Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Neptune Technology Group Services Inc., Nippon Roper K.K., Northern Digital Inc., Off-Campus Advantage LLC, Omega Legal Systems Inc., PAC (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PAC Denmark ApS, PAC GmbH, PAC Instruments (Thailand) Company Limited, PAC Instruments Asia PTE. Ltd., PB Bidco Limited, PB Holdco Limited, PB Midco Limited, PB Topco Limited, PGP UK Limited, Petroleum Analyzer Company L.P., Phase Analyzer Company Ltd., PowerPlan, PowerPlan Canada ULC, PowerPlan Holdings Inc., PowerPlan Inc., PowerPlan Intermediate Holdings Inc., PowerPlan Operations ANZ Pty Ltd, PowerPlan Operations Ltd., Project Diamond Intermediate Holdings Corporation, Project Torque Intermediate Holdings Inc., Project Viking Holdings Inc., Project Viking Intermediate LLC, QSC 1208 Limited, QSC 1209 Limited, RF IDeas, RF IDeas Inc., RI Marketing India Private Limited, RIL Holding Limited, RMT Inc., RT Merger Sub Inc., Rebate Tracking Group LLC, Resonant Software Inc., Roda Deaco Valve Inc., Roper Acquisitions Holdings Inc., Roper Brasil Comercio E Promocao De Productos E Servicos LTDA, Roper Canada Holdings LP, Roper Canada UK Limited, Roper Denmark UK Limited, Roper EUR Pte. Ltd., Roper Engineering s.r.o., Roper Europe GmbH, Roper GM Denmark Holdings ApS, Roper Germany GmbH, Roper Germany GmbH & Co. KG, Roper Holdings LLC, Roper Holdings Limited, Roper IH LLC, Roper Industrial Products Investment Company, Roper Industries Denmark ApS, Roper Industries Deutschland GmbH, Roper Industries Inc., Roper Industries Limited, Roper Industries Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Roper Industries Mauritius Ltd., Roper Industries UK Limited, Roper International Holding Inc., Roper International Holding Limited, Roper International Holding SCS, Roper LLC, Roper Luxembourg Finance S.a.r.l., Roper Luxembourg Holdings S.a.r.l., Roper Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Roper Middle East Ltd., Roper NL1 UK Limited, Roper NL2 UK Limited, Roper Pte. Ltd., Roper Pump Company, Roper Scientific B.V., Roper Scientific SAS, Roper Scot LP, Roper Southeast Asia LLC, Roper Swiss Finance GmbH, Roper UK Investments Limited, Roper UK Ltd., Roper US Finance I LLC, Roper US Finance II LLC, Roper-Mex L.P., Ropintassco 1 LLC, Ropintassco 2 LLC, Ropintassco 3 LLC, Ropintassco 4 LLC, Ropintassco 5 LLC, Ropintassco 6 LLC, Ropintassco 7 LLC, Ropintassco Holdings L.P., SHP Group Holdings Inc., SIRA LLC, Shanghai Roper Industries Trading Co. Ltd., Sinmed Holding International B.V., Societe de Distribution de Logiciels Medicaux, SoftWriters Inc., Softwriters Holdings, Softwriters Holdings Inc., Sohnar Pty Ltd, Star Purchasing Services LLC, Strata Acquisition Subsidiary Inc., Strata Decision Technology LLC, Strata Parallel II Inc., Strategic Healthcare Programs Blocker 2 Inc., Strategic Healthcare Programs Blocker LLC, Strategic Healthcare Programs Holdings LLC, Strategic Healthcare Programs L.L.C., Struers (Shanghai) International Trading Ltd., Struers A/S, Struers GmbH, Struers Inc., Struers Limited, Struers SAS, Student Advantage LLC, Sunquest Europe Limited, Sunquest Holdings Inc., Sunquest Information Systems (Europe) Limited, Sunquest Information Systems (India) Private Limited, Sunquest Information Systems (International) Limited, Sunquest Information Systems Inc., Sunquest Information Systems Pty Ltd, TLP Holdings LLC, Technolog Group Limited, Technolog Holdings Ltd., Technolog Limited, Technolog SARL, The CBORD Group Inc., The Foundry Bidco Limited, The Foundry Bidco No.2 Limited, The Foundry Holdco Limited, The Foundry Holdings Limited, The Foundry Intermediate Holdings Limited, The Foundry Midco 3 Limited, The Foundry Midco No 1 Limited, The Foundry Midco No 2 Limited, The Foundry Topco Limited, The Foundry Topco No.2 Limited, The Foundry USCo Inc., The Foundry Visionmongers Ltd., The Tidewater Healthcare Shared Services Group Inc., The Washington Management Group Inc., Torque Acquisition Holdco Inc., Transcore Atlantic Inc., Transcore CNUS Inc., Transcore Holdings Inc., Transcore ITS LLC, Transcore LP, Transcore Nova Scotia Corporation, Transcore Partners LLC, Trinity Integrated Systems Limited, UHF Purchasing Services LLC, Union Square Software (International) Limited, Union Square Software Inc., Union Square Software Limited, Union Square Software Pty, Uson L.P., Uson Limited, Utilitec Limited, Utilitec Services Limited, Utility Data Services Limited, Verathon Holdings (Delaware) Inc., Verathon Inc., Verathon Medical (Australia) Pty Limited, Verathon Medical (Canada) ULC, Verathon Medical (Europe) B.V., Verathon Medical (France) SARL, Verathon Medical (Hong Kong) Limited, Verathon Medical (Japan) K.K., Verathon Medical (UK) Ltd., Vertafore, Vertafore Canada Inc., Vertafore Inc., Vertafore India Private Limited, Viastar Services LP, Viatran Corporation, Walter Herzog GmbH, WorkBook APAC Ltd., Workbook Software A/S, Zetec (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zetec France, Zetec Inc., Zetec Korea Inc., Zetec Rental LLC, Zetec Services Inc., iPipeline, iPipeline (TCP) Limited, iPipeline Canada Inc, iPipeline Co. Ltd., iPipeline Holdings Inc, iPipeline Inc, iPipeline Limited, iSqFt Holdings Inc., iSqFt Parent Corporation, iSqFt Sub Inc., iTradeNetwork Inc., and mySBX Corporation.
Wall Street analysts have given Hertz Global 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 Hertz Global wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Illinois Tool Works: A V Co 1 Limited, A V Co 2 Limited, A V Co 3 Limited, ACCU-LUBE Manufacturing GmbH - Schmiermittel und -gerate -, AIP/BI Holdings Inc., Accessories Marketing Holding Corp., Advanced Molding Company Inc., Allen Coding GmbH, Allen France SAS, Alpine Automation Limited, Alpine Engineered Products, Alpine Holdings Inc., Alpine Systems Corporation, Anaerobicos S.r.l., AppliChem GmbH, Arylux Hungary Elektromechanikus Alkatreszgyarto Kft, Avery Berkel France, Avery India Limited, Avery Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avery Weigh Tronix, Avery Weigh-Tronix (Suzhou) Weighing Technology Co. Ltd., Avery Weigh-Tronix Finance Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Holdings Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix International Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix LLC, Avery Weigh-Tronix Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Properties Limited, Azon Limited, B.C. Immo, Beijing Miller Electric Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Berkel (Ireland) Limited, Berrington UK, Brapenta Eletronica Ltda., Brooks Instrument (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Brooks Instrument B.V., Brooks Instrument GmbH, Brooks Instrument KFT, Brooks Instrument Korea Ltd., Brooks Instrument LLC, Buell Industries Inc., CAPMAX Logistica S.A. de C.V., CCI Realty Company, CFC Europe GmbH, CS (Australia) Pty Limited, CS (Finance) Europe S.a.r.l., CS Mexico Holding Company S DE RL DE CV, CSMTS LLC, Calvia Spolka z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnosci, Capital Ventures (Australasia) S.a r.l, Capmax Logistica S.A. de C.V., Celeste Industries Corporation, Coeur, Coeur (Shanghai) Medical Appliance Trading Co. Ltd, Coeur Asia Limited, Coeur Holding Company, Coeur Inc., Compagnie Hobart, Compagnie de Materiel et d'Equipements Techniques-Comet, Constructions Isothermiques Bontami C.I.B., Crane Carrier Company, Despatch Industries, Diagraph Corporation Sdn. Bhd, Diagraph ITW Mexico S. de R.L. De C.V., Diagraph Mexico S.A. DE C.V., Dongguan Ark-Les Electric Components Co. Ltd., Dongguan CK Branding Co. Ltd., Dorbyl U.K. (Holdings) Limited, Duo Fast de Espana S.A.U., Duo-Fast Korea Co. Ltd., Duo-Fast LLC, E.C.S. d.o.o., ECS Cable Protection Sp. Zoo, ELRO (Holding) AG, ELRO Grosskuchen GmbH, ELRO-WERKE AG, Elga Skandinavian AS, Elro Group, Eltex-Elektrostatik-Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Envases Multipac S.A. de C.V., Eurotec Srl, FEG Investments L.L.C., Fasver, Filtertek, Filtertek De Mexico Holding Inc., Filtertek De Mexico S.A. de C.V., GC Financement SA, Gamko B.V., Gun Hwa Platech (Taicang) Co. Ltd., HOBART Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Hartness International, Hobart (Japan) K.K., Hobart Andina S.A.S., Hobart Brothers International Chile Limitada, Hobart Brothers LLC, Hobart Dayton Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Hobart Food Equipment Co. Ltd., Hobart Foster Belgium, Hobart International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Hobart Korea LLC, Hobart LLC, Hobart Nederland B.V., Hobart Sales & Service Inc., Hobart Scandinavia ApS, Hobart Techniek B.V., Horis, ILC Investments Holdings Inc., ITW (China) Investment Company Limited, ITW (Deutschland) GmbH, ITW (EU) Holdings Ltd., ITW (European) Finance Co. Ltd., ITW (European) Finance II Co. Ltd., ITW (European) Finance III Co. Ltd., ITW (Ningbo) Components & Fastenings Systems Co. Ltd., ITW AEP LLC, ITW AOC LLC, ITW Aircraft Investments Inc., ITW Alpha Sarl, ITW Ampang Industries Philippines Inc., ITW Appliance Components EOOD, ITW Appliance Components S.A. de C.V., ITW Appliance Components S.r.l.a, ITW Appliance Components d.o.o., ITW Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, ITW Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd., ITW Australia Pty Ltd, ITW Automotive Components (Chongqing) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Components (Langfang) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Japan K.K., ITW Automotive Korea LLC, ITW Automotive Parts (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Automotive Products GmbH, ITW Automotive Products Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Bailly Comte, ITW Befestigungssysteme GmbH, ITW Belgium, ITW Brazilian Nominee L.L.C., ITW Building Components Group Inc., ITW CER, ITW CP Distribution Center Holland BV, ITW CS (UK) Ltd., ITW Canada Inc., ITW Celeste Inc., ITW Chemical Products Ltda, ITW Chemical Products Scandinavia ApS, ITW Colombia S.A.S., ITW Construction Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Construction Products (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., ITW Construction Products AB, ITW Construction Products AS, ITW Construction Products ApS, ITW Construction Products CZ s.r.o., ITW Construction Products Italy Srl, ITW Construction Products OU, ITW Construction Products OY, ITW Contamination Control (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Contamination Control B.V., ITW Covid Security Group Inc., ITW DS Investments Inc., ITW DelFast do Brasil Ltda., ITW Delta Sarl, ITW Denmark ApS, ITW Dynatec, ITW Dynatec Adhesive Equipment (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Dynatec GmbH, ITW Dynatec Kabushiki Kaisha, ITW EAE B.V., ITW EAE Mexico S de RL de CV, ITW EF&C France SAS, ITW EF&C Selb GmbH, ITW Electronic Business Asia Co. Limited, ITW Electronic Components/Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Electronics (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Epsilon Sarl, ITW Espana S.A., ITW FEG Hong Kong Limited, ITW FEG do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW Fastener Products GmbH, ITW Finance Designated Activity Company, ITW Finance Europe S.A., ITW Fluids and Hygiene Solutions Ltda., ITW Food Equipment Group LLC, ITW France Finance Alpha S.A.S., ITW GH LLC, ITW GSE ApS, ITW GSE Inc., ITW Gamma Sarl, ITW German Management LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings Y Compania Sociedad en Comandita por Acciones, ITW Global Investments II Inc., ITW Global Investments Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Europe GmbH, ITW Global Tire Repair Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Japan K.K., ITW Graphics (Thailand) Ltd., ITW Graphics Asia Limited, ITW Graphics Italy S.R.L. in liquidazione, ITW Great Britain Investment & Licensing Holding Company, ITW Group France (Luxembourg) S.ar.l., ITW HLP Thailand Co. Ltd., ITW Holding Quimica B.C. S.L. Sole Shareholder Company, ITW Holdings Australia L.P., ITW Holdings I Limited, ITW Holdings II Limited, ITW Holdings III Limited, ITW Holdings IV Limited, ITW Holdings IX Limited, ITW Holdings Inc., ITW Holdings UK, ITW Holdings V Limited, ITW Holdings VI Limited, ITW Holdings VII Limited, ITW Holdings VIII Limited, ITW Holdings X Limited, ITW Holdings XI Limited, ITW Hungary Finance Beta Kft, ITW ILC Holdings I Inc., ITW IPG Investments LLC, ITW Imaden Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW India Private Limited, ITW International Holdings LLC, ITW Invest Holding GmbH, ITW Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company, ITW Ireland Unlimited Company, ITW Italy Finance Srl, ITW Italy Holding Srl, ITW Japan Ltd., ITW Korea LLC, ITW LLC & Co. KG, ITW Limited, ITW Lombard Holdings Inc., ITW Lys Fusion S.r.l., ITW M FILMS II LLC, ITW MH LLC, ITW Meritex Sdn. Bhd., ITW Metal Fasteners S.L., ITW Mexico Holding Company S. De R.L. de C.V., ITW Mexico Holdings LLC, ITW Morlock GmbH, ITW Mortgage Investments II Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments III Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments IV Inc., ITW Netherlands Administration BV, ITW Netherlands Beta B.V., ITW Netherlands Finance Alpha BV, ITW New Universal LLC, ITW New Zealand, ITW Novadan Sp. Z.o.o., ITW PPF Brasil Adesivos Ltda., ITW Packaging Technology (China) Co. Ltd., ITW Participations S.a r.l., ITW Pension Funds Trustee Company, ITW Performance Plastic (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Japan Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Korea Limited, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids OOO, ITW Performance Polymers (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers ApS, ITW Performance Polymers and Fluids Group FZE, ITW Peru S.A.C., ITW Philippines Holdings LLC, ITW Poly Mex S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Polymers Sealants North America Inc., ITW Pronovia s.r.o., ITW Pte. Ltd., ITW Qufu Automotive Cooling Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Real Estate Germany GmbH, ITW Residuals III L.L.C., ITW Residuals IV L.L.C., ITW Rivex, ITW SMPI, ITW SPG Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Simco-Ion (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., ITW Slovakia s.r.o., ITW Spain Holdings S.L., ITW Specialty Film LLC, ITW Specialty Films France, ITW Specialty Materials (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Spraytec, ITW Sverige AB, ITW Sweden Holding AB, ITW Test & Measurement Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Test & Measurement GmbH, ITW Test and Measurement Italia Srl, ITW Test and Measurement Services Industry and Trade Ltd., ITW Texwipe Philippines Inc., ITW Thermal Films (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW UK, ITW UK Finance Beta Limited, ITW UK Finance Delta Limited, ITW UK Finance Gamma Limited, ITW UK Finance Limited, ITW UK Finance Zeta Ltd., ITW UK II Limited, ITW Universal II LLC, ITW Welding, ITW Welding AB, ITW Welding GmbH, ITW Welding Products B.V., ITW Welding Products Group FZE, ITW Welding Products Group S. DE R.L. De C.V., ITW Welding Products Italy Srl, ITW Welding Products Limited Liability Company, ITW Welding Produtos Para Solgdagem Ltda., ITW Welding Servicios Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Welding Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW de France, ITW do Brasil Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Ideal Molding Technologies LLC, Illinois Tool Works (Chile) Limitada, Illinois Tool Works (ITW) Nederland B.V., Illinois Tool Works Norway AS, Impar Comercio E Representacoes Ltda., Industrie Plastic Elsasser GmbH, Inmobiliaria Cit. S.A. de C.F., Innova Temperlite Servicios S.A. de C.V., Innovacion y Transformacion Automotriz S.A. de C.V., Instron (Shanghai) Ltd., Instron (Thailand) Limited, Instron Brasil Equipamentos Cientificos Ltda., Instron Foreign Sales Corp. Limited, Instron France S.A.S., Instron GmbH, Instron Holdings Limited, Instron International Limited, Instron Japan Company Ltd., Instron Korea LLC, International Leasing Company LLC, International Truss Systems Proprietary Limited, Isolenge - ITW Sistemas de Isolamento Termico Ltda., KCPL Mauritius Holdings, Kester, Kester Components (M) Sdn. Bhd., Kleinmann GmbH, Krafft S.L., Loma Systems, Loma Systems (Canada) Inc., Loma Systems BV, Loma Systems sro, Lombard Pressings Limited, Lumex Inc., Lys Fusion Poland Sp. z.o.o., M&C Specialties (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., M&C Specialties Co., MAGNAFLUX GmbH, MEHB Holdings Limited, MGHG Property LLC, MOA Enterprises Inc, Manufacturing Avancee S.A., Meritex Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Meurer Verpackungssysteme GmbH, Miller Electric Mfg. LLC, Miller Insurance Ltd., NDT Holding LLC, NOVADAN APS, Norden Olje AB, North Star Imaging Europe, North Star Imaging Inc., Nova Chimica S.r.l., Orbitalum Tools GmbH, PENTA-91 OOO, PR. A. I. Srl, PT ITW Construction Products Indonesia, Pacific Concept Industries Limited (Enping), Panreac Quimica S.L., Paslode Fasteners (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Peerless Machinery Corp., Penta Dnepr LLC, Penta Sever OOO, Penta Volga OOO, Polyrey, Premark FEG L.L.C., Premark HII Holdings LLC, Premark International, Premark International LLC, Prolex Sociedad Anonima, QSA Global Inc., Quimica Industrial Mediterranea S.L., Ramset Fasteners (Hong Kong) Ltd., Rapid Cook LLC, Refrigeration France, S.E.E. Sistemas Industria E Comercio Ltda., ST Mexico Holdings LLC, Sealant Systems International Inc., Sentinel Asia Yuhan Hoesa, Shanghai ITW Plastic & Metal Co. Ltd, Simco (Nederland) B.V., Simco Japan Inc., Societe de Prospection et dInventions Techniques  SPIT, Speedline Holdings I Inc., Speedline Holdings I LLC, Speedline Technologies GmbH, Speedline Technologies Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Speedline Technologies Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Stokvis Celix Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Stokvis Danmark ApS, Stokvis Holdings S.A.R.L., Stokvis Promi s.r.o, Stokvis Prostick Tapes Private Limited, Stokvis Tapes (Hong Kong) Co. Limited, Stokvis Tapes (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Taiwan) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes BVBA, Stokvis Tapes Benelux B.V., Stokvis Tapes Deutschland GmbH, Stokvis Tapes France, Stokvis Tapes Italia s.r.l., Stokvis Tapes Limited, Stokvis Tapes Limited Liability Company, Stokvis Tapes Norge AS, Stokvis Tapes Oy, Stokvis Tapes Polska Sp Z.O.O., Stokvis Tapes Sverige AB, Stolvis Holdings II S.A.R.L., Technopack Industria Comercio Consultoria e Representacoes Ltda., Teknek (China) Limited, Teknek (Japan) Limited, Teksaleco Ltd., The Miller Group Ltd, Thirode Grandes Cuisines Poligny, Tien Tai Electrode (Kunshan) Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode Co. Ltd., Unichemicals Industria e Comercio Ltda., VR-Leasing Sarita GmbH & Co. Immobilien KG, VS European Holdco BV, Valeron Strength Films B.V.B.A., Veneta Decalcogomme S.r.l., Versachem Chile S.A., Vesta, Vesta (Guangzhou) Catering Equipment Co. Ltd, Vesta Global Limited, Viltronics Soltec, Vitronics Soltec B.V., Wachs Canada Ltd., Wachs Subsea LLC, Weigh-Tronix Canada ULC, Weigh-Tronix UK Limited, Wilsonart International Holdings LLC, Wynn Oil (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd., Wynn's Automotive France, Wynn's Belgium BVBA, Wynn's Italia Srl, Wynn's Mekuba India Pvt Ltd, ZF TRW (Engineered Fasteners and Components), and Zip-Pak International B.V..
Giyani Metals Corp., a junior mineral exploration company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, evaluation, and development of gold, manganese, and precious metal mining projects in South Africa and Canada. The company holds interests in the Kgwakgwe Hill manganese mine with six prospecting licenses located in the Kanye Basin, Southeastern Botswana. It also holds interest in the Rock Island gold project located in South Africa; and the Canoe Mining Ventures gold project located in Ontario, Canada. The company was formerly known as Giyani Gold Corp and changed its name to Giyani Metals Corp. in July 2017. Giyani Metals Corp. was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in Oakville, Canada.

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Wall Street analysts have given Invesco S&P 500 Value with Momentum 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 Invesco S&P 500 Value with Momentum ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
Wall Street analysts have given iShares Core MSCI Europe 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 Core MSCI Europe ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
The following companies are subsidiares of Lithia Motors: 797 Valley Street LLC, Albany CJD Fiat, Baierl Auto Group, Baierl Auto Parts LLC, Baierl Automotive Corporation, Baierl Chevrolet Inc., Baierl Holding LLC, Broadway Ford, Buhler Ford Inc, Cadillac of Portland Lloyd Center LLC, Camp Automotive Inc., Carbone Auto Body LLC, Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram Fiat of Morgantown, Cranberry Automotive Inc., Crater Lake Ford Lincoln, Crater Lake Mazda, DCH (Oxnard) Inc., DCH Auto Group, DCH Bloomfield LLC, DCH CA LLC, DCH Calabasas-A LLC, DCH California Investments LLC, DCH California Motors Inc., DCH DMS NJ LLC, DCH Del Norte Inc., DCH Essex Inc., DCH Financial NJ LLC, DCH Freehold - V LLC, DCH Freehold LLC, DCH Holdings LLC, DCH Investments Inc. (New Jersey), DCH Investments Inc. (New York), DCH Korean Imports LLC, DCH Mamaroneck LLC, DCH Mission Valley LLC, DCH Monmouth LLC, DCH Montclair LLC, DCH Motors LLC, DCH NY Motors LLC, DCH Nanuet LLC, DCH North America Inc., DCH Oxnard 1521 Imports Inc., DCH Riverside-S Inc., DCH Simi Valley Inc., DCH Support Services LLC, DCH TL Holdings LLC, DCH TL NY Holdings LLC, DCH Temecula Imports LLC, DCH Temecula Motors LLC, DCH Thousand Oaks-F Inc., DCH Torrance Imports Inc., Dah Chong Hong CA Trading LLC, Dah Chong Hong Trading Corporation, Daron Motors LLC, Day Auto Group, Downtown LA, Driveway Motors LLC, Elizabeth Collision LLC, Florida SS LLC, Ford Lincoln of Morgantown, Freehold Nissan LLC, Fuse Auto Sales LLC, Hamilton Honda, Hazleton Honda, Hutchins Eugene Nissan Inc., Hutchins Imported Motors Inc., Jaguar Landrover Mission Viejo, LA Motors Holding LLC, LAD Advertising Inc., LAD Carson-N LLC, LAD Mission Viejo-JLR Inc., LAD Mobu Inc., LAD-AU LLC, LAD-MB LLC, LAD-N LLC, LAD-P LLC, LAD-T LLC, LAD-V LLC, LBMP LLC, LFKF LLC, LGPAC Inc., LLL Sales Co LLC, LMBB LLC, LMBP LLC, LMOP LLC, LSTAR LLC, Lithia AcDM Inc., Lithia Aircraft Inc., Lithia Anchorage-C LLC, Lithia Anchorage-H LLC, Lithia Armory Garage LLC, Lithia Auction & Recon LLC, Lithia Auto Services Inc., Lithia Automotive Inc., Lithia BA Holding Inc., Lithia BNM Inc. (nonoperating), Lithia Baierl-S LLC, Lithia Bryan Texas Inc., Lithia Buffalo-A LLC, Lithia CCTF Inc., Lithia CDH Inc., Lithia CIMR Inc., Lithia CJDO Inc., Lithia CJDSA Inc., Lithia CJDSF Inc., Lithia CM Inc., Lithia CO Inc., Lithia CSA Inc., Lithia Community Development Company Inc., Lithia Crater Lake-F Inc., Lithia Crater Lake-M Inc., Lithia DE Inc., Lithia DM Inc., Lithia DMID Inc., Lithia Des Moines-VW LLC, Lithia Dodge of Tri-Cities Inc., Lithia Eatontown-F LLC, Lithia FLCC LLC, Lithia FMF Inc., Lithia Financial Corporation (previously Lithia Leasing Inc. and Lithia Credit Inc.), Lithia Florida Holding Inc., Lithia Ford of Boise Inc., Lithia Fresno Inc., Lithia HDM Inc., Lithia HGF Inc., Lithia HMID Inc., Lithia HPI Inc. (nonoperating), Lithia Hamilton-H LLC, Lithia Hazleton-H LLC, Lithia Idaho Falls-F Inc., Lithia Imports of Anchorage Inc., Lithia JEF Inc., Lithia Klamath Inc., Lithia Klamath-T Inc., Lithia LBGGF Inc., Lithia LHGF Inc., Lithia LSGF Inc., Lithia MBDM Inc., Lithia MMF Inc., Lithia MTLM Inc., Lithia McMurray-C LLC, Lithia Medford HON Inc., Lithia Middletown-L LLC, Lithia Monroeville-A LLC, Lithia Monroeville-C LLC, Lithia Monroeville-F LLC, Lithia Monroeville-V LLC, Lithia Moon-S LLC, Lithia Moon-V LLC, Lithia Morgantown-CJD LLC, Lithia Morgantown-F LLC, Lithia Morgantown-S LLC, Lithia Motors Support Services Inc., Lithia NA Inc., Lithia NC Inc., Lithia ND Acquisition Corp. #1, Lithia ND Acquisition Corp. #3, Lithia ND Acquisition Corp. #4, Lithia NDM Inc., Lithia NF Inc., Lithia NSA Inc., Lithia Northeast Real Estate LLC, Lithia Orchard Park-H LLC, Lithia Paramus-M LLC, Lithia Pittsburgh-S LLC, Lithia Ramsey-B LLC, Lithia Ramsey-L LLC, Lithia Ramsey-M LLC, Lithia Ramsey-T LLC, Lithia Real Estate Inc., Lithia Reno Sub-HYUN Inc., Lithia Reno-CJ LLC, Lithia Reno-VW LLC, Lithia Rose-FT Inc., Lithia SOC Inc., Lithia SSP LLC, Lithia Salmir Inc., Lithia Sea P Inc., Lithia Seaside Inc., Lithia Spokane-B LLC, Lithia Spokane-S LLC, Lithia TA Inc., Lithia TO Inc., Lithia TR Inc., Lithia Uniontown-C LLC, Lithia VAuDM Inc., Lithia VF Inc., Lithia Wexford-H LLC, Lithia of Abilene Inc., Lithia of Anchorage Inc., Lithia of Bend #1 LLC, Lithia of Bend #2 LLC, Lithia of Bennington - 1 LLC, Lithia of Bennington - 2 LLC, Lithia of Bennington - 3 LLC, Lithia of Bennington - 4 LLC, Lithia of Billings II LLC, Lithia of Billings Inc., Lithia of Casper LLC, Lithia of Clear Lake LLC, Lithia of Concord I Inc., Lithia of Concord II Inc., Lithia of Corpus Christi Inc., Lithia of Des Moines Inc., Lithia of Eureka Inc., Lithia of Fairbanks Inc., Lithia of Great Falls Inc., Lithia of Helena Inc., Lithia of Honolulu-A Inc., Lithia of Honolulu-BGMCC LLC, Lithia of Honolulu-F LLC, Lithia of Honolulu-V LLC, Lithia of Killeen LLC, Lithia of Lodi Inc., Lithia of Maui-H LLC, Lithia of Missoula II LLC, Lithia of Missoula III Inc., Lithia of Missoula Inc., Lithia of Pocatello Inc., Lithia of Portland I LLC, Lithia of Portland LLC, Lithia of Robstown LLC, Lithia of Roseburg Inc., Lithia of Santa Rosa Inc., Lithia of Seattle Inc., Lithia of South Central AK Inc., Lithia of Spokane II Inc., Lithia of Spokane Inc., Lithia of Stockton Inc., Lithia of Stockton-V Inc., Lithia of TF Inc., Lithia of Troy LLC, Lithia of Utica - 1 LLC, Lithia of Utica - 2 LLC, Lithia of Utica - 3 LLC, Lithia of Utica - 4 LLC, Lithia of Walnut Creek Inc., Lithia of Wasilla LLC, Lithia of Yorkville - 1 LLC, Lithia of Yorkville - 2 LLC, Lithia of Yorkville - 3 LLC, Lithia of Yorkville - 4 LLC, Lithia of Yorkville - 5 LLC, Medford Insurance LLC, Milford DCH Inc., Northland Ford Inc., PA Real Estate LLC, PA Support Services LLC, Paramus Collision LLC, Paramus World Motors LLC, Personalized Marketing LLC, Prestige Auto Group, RFA Holdings LLC, Ray Laks Acura, Ray Laks Honda, Sacramento-L Inc., Salem-B LLC, Salem-H LLC, Salem-V LLC, Sharlene Realty LLC, Shift Portland LLC, Southern Cascades Finance Corporation, Subaru of Morgantown, Tampa-H LLC, Tustin Motors Inc., Wesley Chapel-H LLC, Wesley Chapel-T LLC, Zelienople Real Estate I L.P., and Zelienople Real Estate L.L.C..
Magna International Inc. designs, engineers, and manufactures components, assemblies, systems, subsystems, and modules for original equipment manufacturers of vehicles and light trucks worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Body Exteriors & Structures, Power & Vision, Seating Systems, and Complete Vehicles. Its Body Exteriors & Structures segment provides body and chassis systems, as well as engineering and testing services; exterior systems, including fascia and trims, front end modules, front integration panels, liftgate modules, active aerodynamics, engineered glass, running boards, truck bed access products, and side doors; and roof systems, such as modular and textile folding roofs, and hard and soft tops. The company's Power & Vision segment offers dedicated hybrid, dual and e-clutch, and manual transmissions; engine drive plates and accessories; AWD/4WD products, rear drive modules, and hybrid and battery electric drive systems; transmission, engine, and driveline components; advanced driver assistance systems, camera systems, ultrasonic sensors, and electronic controllers; interior and exterior mirrors, actuators, door handles, overhead consoles, and camera monitoring systems; head, tail, and fog lamps; signal and other lighting products; and latching systems, door modules, window systems, power closure systems, hinges and wire forming, and handle assemblies. Its Seating Systems segment provides seat structures, mechanism and hardware solutions, and foam and trim products. The company's Complete Vehicles segment offers vehicle manufacturing and engineering services. It also designs, engineers, and manufactures tooling products. Magna International Inc. was founded in 1957 and is headquartered in Aurora, Canada.

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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

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Petrus Resources Ltd., an energy company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and exploitation of oil and gas development assets in western Canada. It primarily explores for natural gas, natural gas liquids, and crude oil and condensate. The company primarily holds an average 51% working interest in the Ferrier/Strachan area comprise 43,159 net acres, which include 29,219 net acres of undeveloped and 13,940 net acres of developed land located in west central Alberta near the town of Rocky Mountain House, Alberta. It also has an average of 64% working interest in the Thorsby/Pembina area consisting of 69,042 net acres of land covering 22,135 net acres of undeveloped land and 46,907 net acres of developed land located in the southwest of Edmonton, Alberta; and an average of 50% working interest in the Foothills area that consists of 30,748 net acres of undeveloped land and 6,687 net acres of developed land located northwest of Rocky Mountain House, Alberta. Petrus Resources Ltd. is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Tyson Foods: APF Legacy Subs LLC, Advance Food Company LLC, AdvancePierre Foods, AdvancePierre Foods Holdings Inc., AdvancePierre Foods Inc., Aidells Sausage Company Inc., Allied Specialty Foods Inc., American Proteins Inc, Artisan Bread Co. LLC, Australian Food Corporation Pty Limited, Australian Food Corporation Trust, BRF, Barber Foods LLC, Bosco's Pizza Co., Bryan Foods Inc., C.S. Grain LLC, C.V. Holdings Inc., CBFA Management Corp., Central Industries Inc., Chefs Pantry LLC, Clovervale Farms LLC, Cobb (Hubei) Breeding Co. Ltd., Cobb (Shanghai) Enterprise Management Consulting Co. Ltd., Cobb Ana Damizlik Tavukculuk Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Cobb Columbia S.A.S., Cobb Europe B.V., Cobb Europe Limited, Cobb Peru (Andina) S.A.C., Cobb-Heritage LLC, Cobb-Vantress Brasil Ltda, Cobb-Vantress Inc., Cobb-Vantress New Zealand Limited, Cobb-Vantress Philippines Inc., Coominya AFC Pty Limited, Coominya AFC Trust, DFG Foods Inc., DFG Foods L.L.C., Don Julio, Egbert LLC, Equity Group - Georgia Division LLC, Equity Group - Kentucky Division LLC, Equity Group Eufaula Division LLC, Equity Meat Corp., Flavor Corp., Flavor Holdings Inc., Foodbrands America Inc., Foodbrands Supply Chain Services Inc., Gallo Salame Inc., Global Employment Services Inc., Grow-Out Credit LLC, Grow-Out Holdings LLC, Haimen Tyson Poultry Development Co. Ltd, Hudson Foods Company, Hudson Midwest Foods Inc., Hybro Genetics Brasil Ltda, IBP Caribbean Inc., IBP Foodservice L.L.C., IBP Inc., International Affiliates & Investment LLC, Jiangsu Tyson Foods Co. Ltd, Keydutch Finance B.V., Keydutch Holdings I LLC, Keydutch Holdings II LLC, Keydutch Investments B.V., Keystone CLJV Holdings Limited, Keystone County House Road LLC, Keystone Foods, Keystone Foods (AP) Limited, Keystone Foods Holdco LLC, Keystone Foods Intermediate LLC, Keystone Foods LLC, Keystone Foods Pty Limited, Keystone Management Inc., Keystone Trading (Shanghai) Company Limited, LD Foods LLC, M & M Express LLC, M&M Restaurant Supply (MI/OH) LLC, MFG (USA) Holdings Inc., Mac Food Services (Malaysia) SDN. BHD., Madison Foods Inc., McKey Food Services (Hong Kong) Limited, McKey Food Services (Shandong) Limited, McKey Food Services (Thailand) Limited, McKey Food Services Limited, McKey Luxembourg Holdings APMEA S.a.r.l., McKey Luxembourg Holdings S.a.r.l., McKey Luxembourg S.a.r.l., McKey VI Holdings Limited, Myung Seung Food Company Ltd., National Comp Care Inc., New Canada Holdings Inc., Oaklawn Capital Corporation, Oaklawn IT Solution Private Limited, Original Philly Holdings Inc., PBX inc., Pierre Holdco Inc., River Valley Ingredients LLC, Rizhao Tyson Foods Co. Ltd, Rizhao Tyson Poultry Co. Ltd, Rural Energy Systems Inc., Sara Lee - Kiwi Holdings LLC, Sara Lee Diversified LLC, Sara Lee Foods LLC, Sara Lee Household & Body Care Malawi Ltd., Sara Lee International LLC, Sara Lee International TM Holdings LLC, Sara Lee Mexicana Holdings Investment L.L.C., Sara Lee TM Holdings LLC, Sara Lee Trademark Holdings Australasia LLC, Saramar L.L.C., Shandong Tyson-Da Long Food Company Limited, Smart Chicken, Southern Family Foods L.L.C., Southwest Products LLC, TF 20 B.V., TF 5201 B.V., TFA Leasing LLC, TFA Opportunity Zone Fund LLC, TFI of California Inc., Tecumseh Poultry LLC, Texas Transfer Inc., The Bruss Company, The Hillshire Brands Company, The IBP Foods Co., The Pork Group Inc., TyNet Corporation, Tyson (Shanghai) Enterprise Management Consulting Co. Ltd., Tyson Americas Holding Sarl, Tyson Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Tyson Breeders Inc., Tyson Chicken Inc., Tyson China Holding 2 Limited, Tyson China Holding 3 Limited, Tyson China Holding Limited, Tyson Deli Inc., Tyson Europe Holding Company, Tyson Farms Inc., Tyson Farms QOZB LLC, Tyson Foods Brasil Investimentos Ltda., Tyson Foods Canada Inc., Tyson Foods Europe (Netherlands) B.V., Tyson Foods Europe GmbH, Tyson Foods France S.A.R.L., Tyson Foods Germany GmbH, Tyson Foods Group Limited, Tyson Foods Holland B.V., Tyson Foods Huadong Development Co. Ltd, Tyson Foods Iberia Alimentos S.L.U., Tyson Foods Italia S.p.A., Tyson Foods Korea, Tyson Foods Netherlands B.V., Tyson Foods Products Limited, Tyson Foods Scotland Europe Limited, Tyson Foods Scotland Sales (Europe) Limited, Tyson Foods UK Limited, Tyson Foods Wrexham Limited, Tyson Foods oosterwolde B.V., Tyson Fresh Meats Inc., Tyson Fresh Meats Sales and Distribution LLC, Tyson Global Holding Sarl, Tyson Hog Markets Inc., Tyson India Holdings Ltd., Tyson International APAC Ltd., Tyson International Company Ltd., Tyson International Holding Company, Tyson International Holding Sarl, Tyson International Service Center Inc., Tyson International Service Center Inc. Asia, Tyson International Service Center Inc. Europe, Tyson Mexican Original Inc., Tyson Mexico Trading Company S. de R.L. de CV., Tyson New Ventures LLC, Tyson Opportunity Zone Fund LLC, Tyson Pet Products Inc., Tyson Poultry Inc., Tyson Prepared Foods Inc., Tyson Processing Services Inc., Tyson Refrigerated Processed Meats Inc., Tyson Sales and Distribution Inc., Tyson Service Center Corp., Tyson Shared Services Inc., Tyson Storm Lake Holdings LLC, Tyson Warehousing Services LLC, Tyson of Wisconsin LLC, Uninex SA, Universal Meats (UK) Limited, WBA Analytical Laboratories Inc., Wilton Foods Inc., Xamol Consultores e Servicos, and Zemco Industries Inc..
Wall Street analysts have given SPDR Bloomberg Barclays Convertible Securities 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 SPDR Bloomberg Barclays Convertible Securities ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
TCF Financial Corporation operates as the financial holding company for TCF National Bank that provides various financial products and services in the United States and Canada. It operates through Consumer Banking, Commercial Banking, and Enterprise Services segments. The company offers checking, savings, and money market accounts; certificates of deposit; individual retirement accounts; debit and credit cards; and check cashing and remittance services. It also provides investment management and custodial services, trust services, financial and estate planning, and retirement planning and employee benefit programs; residential, consumer, and small business lending products; and consumer real estate secured lending, consumer loans, loans secured by personal property, and unsecured personal loans. In addition, the company offers loans and lines of credit, deposits, cash management, capital market products, international trade finance, letters of credit, foreign exchange management services, and loan syndication services. Further, it provides commercial and industrial, commercial real estate banking, and lease financing; and treasury services comprising investment and borrowing portfolios, as well as manages capital, debt, and market risks. As of December 31, 2020, the company operated 478 branches, including 373 traditional branches, 102 supermarket branches, and three campus branches located in Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona, and South Dakota; and 1,062 ATMs. TCF Financial Corporation was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Detroit, Michigan.

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Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. The company's personal banking products and services include checking and savings accounts, credit cards, mortgages, and financial and investment advice services; and commercial banking products and services comprise business deposit accounts, commercial credit cards, business loans and commercial mortgages, cash management solutions, foreign exchange, specialized banking programs, treasury and payment solutions, and risk management products for small business and commercial banking customers. It also offers investment and wealth advisory services; digital investing services; financial services and solutions; and investment management, and trust and custody services to institutional, retail, and high net worth investors. In addition, the company provides life insurance, accident and sickness insurance, and annuity products; creditor and travel insurance to bank customers; and reinsurance solutions. Further, it offers client's debt and equity capital-raising services, as well as loan origination and syndication, balance sheet management, and treasury management; strategic advice on mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, and recapitalizations, as well as valuation and fairness opinions; and trade finance, risk mitigation, and other operating services. Additionally, the company provides research and access to markets for institutional, corporate, and retail clients; trading solutions that include debt, foreign exchange, interest rate, credit, equity, securitization and commodities; new product development and origination services, as well as risk management advice and services to hedge against fluctuations; and funding and liquidity management services to its clients. It operates through approximately 1,400 bank branches and 4,800 automated banking machines in Canada and the United States. The company was founded in 1817 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

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Company officials announced that Food City will once again be providing the flu vaccine this immunization season.Food Citys immunizing pharmacists are certified to administer vaccinations in accordance with the standards set forth by the American Pharmacists Association and the corresponding state pharmacy associations. Food City has offered the added convenience of a number of affordable preventative health care options, including the immunization of thousands of patients for over a decade, says Mickey Blazer, Food City executive vice president of pharmacy operations.Seasonal flu vaccine provides protection against the most common strains of influenza. Vaccinations are available on a walk up basis at Food City immunizing pharmacies and will continue throughout flu season, based upon vaccine availability. Visit foodcity.com for a complete list of immunizing locations.Food City Pharmacy will be following the Centers for Disease Control Guidelines. While all individuals are encouraged to receive a flu shot, the CDC classifies the following individuals as High Risk for Influenza: persons 65 or older, residents of long-term care facilities, persons 2-64 years of age with co-morbid (more than one disease) conditions, pregnant women, healthcare personnel who provide direct patient care or household contacts and out-of-home caregivers of children under 6 months of age.The CDC strongly recommends that the High Risk individuals receive a flu shot. Food City Pharmacists can immunize individuals 14 years and older.Flu vaccines are available in Quadravalent or High Dose. Insurance, including Medicare Part B will be accepted, many with a zero copay. Other vaccines, including pneumonia and shingles shots, will be available as well. Consult your local Food City Pharmacy or visit foodcity.com for details.Flu viruses are most common during the fall and winter months. Influenza activity often begins to increase in October and November. Most of the time, flu activity peaks between December and February and can last as late as May.Food City takes pride in serving our community and were proud to once again offer our loyal customers the added convenience of flu vaccinations, said Steven C. Smith, Food City president and chief executive officer.
Hyundai will also offer special discounts on parts and lubricants for flood-affected cars along with a 50 per cent discount on depreciation of insurance claims.

Hyundai has deployed a special task force to support its flood affected customers in Kerala. As part of the task force, the carmaker has stationed a dedicated emergency road service team along with 38 flatbed trucks and 32 towing trucks to assist its customers. Over 100 technicians are said to be assigned to work round the clock to get the affected vehicles back on roads. Customers can also dial a toll-free number mentioned below to intimate Hyundai service executives for assistance and instructions on getting their cars to service stations.

Hyundai will also offer special discounts on parts and lubricants for flood-affected cars along with a 50 per cent discount on depreciation of insurance claims. Moreover, to help the flood affected, Hyundai has also contributed Rs 1 crore towards Kerala Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF).

Hyundai is not the only carmaker to come to the aid of Kerala. Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz have also launched similar initiatives for their customers in the state. Heres what the carmaker had to say about the same:

Official Press Release

Hyundai Creates Relief Task Force to Support Flood Affected

Hyundai Vehicle Owners in Kerala

Contributes Rs 1 crore to Chief Ministers Disaster Relief Fund

More than 38 Flatbed Trucks and 32 Towing Trucks, pressed into action to assist customers

Over 100 technicians assigned to work round the clock to bring vehicles back on roads

78 Emergency Road Assistance (ERS) vehicles on alert in Kerala State

50% discount on depreciation on insurance claim

Special discount on parts and lubricants

To contribute Rs.1 Crore towards Kerala Chief Ministers Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF)

New Delhi, Aug 18, 2018: Hyundai Motor India Ltd. (HMIL), the countrys second largest car manufacturer and the largest car exporter since inception today announced to create Hyundai Relief task Force to enhance the scope of activities and services for vehicle owners affected by the untimely floods in Kerala. Hyundai has stationed dedicated emergency road service team to support the flood affected customers/ vehicles along with 38 flatbed trucks and 32 Towing Trucks to assist customers in Kerala.

In addition, Senior executives of the company, Mr. Stephen Sudhakar J, Sr. Vice President and Mr. Y.S. Chang, Sr. GM (South Zone-Business Head) met the Honorable Chief Minister of Kerala Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan at the secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram today, on behalf of Mr. Mr. Y K Koo, MD & CEO, Hyundai Motor India, to hand over the cheque of Rs. 1 Crore Rupees to towards the Keralas Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF).

On relief efforts for vehicle owners in Kerala, Mr. Y K Koo, MD & CEO Hyundai Motor India said, Hyundai as a responsible corporate citizen has ramped up its service support to customers in Kerala. This contribution is Hyundais way of expressing solidarity with the people of Kerala, as they rebuild their lives in the aftermath of the recent devastating floods. With the vision of being lifetime partners of our customers we will continue to extend support to further strengthen our efforts to create on ground impact.

In order to ensure the availability of services in every part of the city Hyundai has activated a toll free number (0124-4343937) for towing the vehicles and over 100 technicians will assist the vehicle owners by offering timely delivery. Special discounts on parts are being offered on repairs/ restorations of flood affected vehicles along with 50% discount on depreciation on insurance claims.

Disclaimer: This article has not been edited by Deccan Chronicle and is taken from a syndicated feed. Photos: CarDekho.
Mitsubishi has launched the third-gen Outlander in India at a price tag of Rs 31.5 lakh (ex-showroom Mumbai).

Mitsubishi has launched the third-gen Outlander in India at a price tag of Rs 31.5 lakh (ex-showroom Mumbai). Making a comeback after five years, the new SUV is only available in a single variant powered by a petrol engine. The carmaker says the Outlander will make ground in the country thanks to petrol-powered vehicles becoming popular again.

Speaking of petrol power, the Outlander is equipped with a 2.4-litre, 4-cylinder MIVEC petrol engine that pumps out 167PS@6000rpm with 222Nm@4100rpm of torque. Power is sent to all wheels via a 6-speed CVT gearbox and Mitsubishis Super All-Wheel control. Read our first drive review here.

On the features front, the Outlander gets all-LED auto headlamps with LED daytime running lights (DRLs), LED fog lamps, rain-sensing wipers, electric sunroof, paddle shifters and LED taillights. It sits on 16-inch alloy wheels that look a bit small for an SUV of its size. On the inside, it receives a rather subdued all-black dashboard fitted with a 7-inch touchscreen infotainment system coupled with a 710W 8-channel Rockford Fosgate speaker system. It also gets dual-zone climate control. Safety features include seven airbags, ABS with EBD, Active Stability Control (ASC), hill start assist and rear camera.

Also Read: Mitsubishi Lancer Will Be Back As A Crossover

It is available with 7 colour options - black pearl, cosmic blue, orient red, white solid, white pearl and titanium grey.

On the price chart, the Outlander competes against SUVs such as the Toyota Fortuner, Ford Endeavour, Skoda Kodiaq, Volkswagen Tiguan and the Honda CR-V.

Disclaimer: This article has not been edited by Deccan Chronicle and is taken from a syndicated feed. Photos: CarDekho.
The government has asked its biggest state-owned firm, Oil and Natural Gas, to list its overseas unit ONGC Videsh.

Mumbai: The government has asked its biggest state-owned firm, Oil and Natural Gas, to list its overseas unit ONGC Videsh, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

The move to float the unit - which has investments in 11 producing assets in countries including Russia, Brazil and Iran - is part of a government push to sell state-assets to raise funds.

A listing would also help unlock value in the unit by improving its corporate governance and efficiency, the letter from the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management to ONGC said.

The letter, sent last week, did not state how much of ONGC should be offered to outside investors.
Hyderabad: Orient Electric Ltd, part of the diversified $1.8 billion CK Birla Group, has become the first Indian lighting brand to have been awarded 5-Star rating for its 9W LED bulb by BEE (Bureau of Energy Efficiency).

Puneet Dhawan, senior vice-president and business head, lighting, Orient Electric, said, We are proud to be amongst the first to have certified BEE 5-star rated LED bulbs. We have always been a firm supporter of BEE's star labelling for LED bulbs as it helps to assure the consumer in terms of light output and energy savings.

We were the pioneers to introduce and market BEE 3 Star rated bulbs way back in 2016 and this norm has now been made mandatory for all. In our consistent endeavor to provide value to consumers, we have now voluntarily adopted BEE 5-star rating for high demand 9W LED bulbs, Mr Dhawan said.
Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy has urged the Centre to provide Rs 100 crore relief fund for rain-ravaged state's Kodagu district.

Addressing the media, the chief minister said, "The Prime Minister has announced relief of Rs 500 Crore for Kerala, we expect at least Rs 100 Crore for Kodagu. We will request the central government for it. We have to repair roads for connectivity. We are taking help of the Army and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF)," Kumaraswamy said.

He added, "We conducted an aerial survey in Kodagu to review the flood situation. In all, 12 people have lost their lives. 845 houses have been damaged out of which 773 houses are partially damaged."

Kumaraswamy stated that a total of 6620 people have been rehabilitated in the relief camps. He said, "41 relief camps in Kodagu and nine relief camps in Dakshina Kannada have been set up and a total of 6620 people are sheltered in these relief camps. An adequate supply of drinking water and milk is being ensured in these camps."

On August 20, Karnataka's Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara stated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government should allocate adequate financial aid for relief efforts in the Kodagu district.

While on August 19 Kumaraswamy conducted an aerial survey of landslides and flood-affected areas in Kodagu district. The Chief Minister also presented cheques to the families of Avarthi village who lost their houses in floods. He also inspected rain-affected areas in Somawarpet and adjacent areas.

Kumaraswamy on Saturday announced an ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh for the families which were rendered homeless.
An online platform has been launched to help rain-hit victims of Kerala connect with people who are willing to throw open their houses for accommodation. (Photo: PTI)

Chennai: An online platform has been launched to help rain-hit victims of Kerala connect with people who are willing to throw open their houses for accommodation.

The website 'EachOneHostOne.com', which was launched today by five Chennai entrepreneurs, helps the affected relocate to any safer place which has been offered near them.

A person who offers space will simply add his/her location and contact number to the website to help a victim reach him.

"The idea was implemented within week after seeing the plight of the victims. The platform would continue to exist and can be used in the future in other locations too," a team member and founder of a startup, Makesh Gopalakrishnan told reporters here.

The initiative also reduces the burden of the government to find rescue camps to accommodate the displaced, he added. Four others are part of the team.
New Delhi: Niti Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Tuesday that he was more concerned about the rising trade deficit than the falling rupee, and called for efforts to push exports.

He also said that there is a constituency which benefits from strong rupee but it needs to be put on the back foot.

"I don't believe in strong rupee... It will be very difficult for the government to try and push up the rupee," Kumar said at an event organised by industry body CII.

"There is a constituency that benefits from strong rupee...The constituency should be put on back foot," he added.

The rupee on August 16 had slumped to a life-time low of 70.32 on strong demand for the US dollar. Kumar further said that economic policy making should not focus only on fiscal deficit number, arguing that large economies like USA, China and European Union do not give much importance to fiscal deficit.

"We must shift debate out of fiscal deficit. Countries like USA, China and European Union don't give (importance) to it... We need to move from that single, one number (fiscal deficit).

"Nobody is playing by rules, so we should learn to play as it suits our requirements," Kumar insisted.

He said however that some revenue expenditure can be just be brought to zero. The main worry, he added, is trade deficit.

"I think it will be much better to try and push exports," he noted.

Kumar argued that under the current circumstances, tightening fiscal and monetary policy at the same time would be asking for trouble.

He also suggested that India should not boast of being a big economy while negotiating trade deals as the country's per capita income is still low.

He said Niti Aayog will soon come out with development agenda for 'New India 2022'.

"We would like Planning Departments of State governments to work as State Niti Aayog," he said.

Replying to a query, Kumar said nearly all states (excluding four) have signed MoU with the Centre for implementing Ayushman Bharat Healthcare Scheme.

"I met West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, she is also willing to come on board," he said.
(ANSA) - Milan, August 21 - A 23-year-old Albanian man wanted for murder in Germany was stopped at Malpensa Airport Tuesday on his way to Tirana.

He allegedly knifed a woman during a burglary in Aachen.

She later died of her injuries.


Loveratris first song Chogada released a few days back and Aayush Sharma is back in action for another song! He recently shot for his introductory song in Mumbai over the weekend.

Aayush, who plays a boy struggling to get out of college, shot in a college set recreation in Filmistan Studios. The track has been choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant.

Director Abhiraj Minawala revealed, The song marks Aayushs entry in the film. We have made the look and feel of the song of a college fest through which Aayushs introduction will happen in the movie. Its not a Garba based song and will rather have a Pan India appeal. Its an upbeat foot tapping and peppy song with Honey Singhs magic in it. The track includes rap lyrics penned down by Honey Singh which will become a chartbuster for audiences to get hooked onto.

Written by Niren Bhatt, 'Loveratri' is directed by Abhiraj Minawala who will also be making his directorial debut with the film. The romantic drama will mark the next venture of Salman Khan Films.

Loveratri, which is produced by Salman Khan under the banner of Salman Khan Films, is slated to release on 5th October 2018.
My dad always wanted to be a soldier, but he couldnt be one. When I told him that I would be playing a soldier in JP Duttas film Paltan, he was very excited. I wish he were around to see the film, but somewhere up there, he must be happy, says Sonu Sood, who lost his father in January last year.

For the actor, the best part of the Paltan experience was getting to interact with the soldiers stationed at the Khardung La pass in Ladakh. The soldiers would tell us war stories, show us their bullet wounds and their medals. Their experiences seriously inspired us and helped us survive, Sonu says, adding, We used to wake up at 5.30 in the morning, work out and then shoot the whole day. It was really cold up there, nearly -25 degrees, when we were shooting in November and December. But when you get into a soldiers uniform, you dont feel the cold or the need for oxygen.

Sonu, whos known to be one of the fittest actors in the industry, adds that early morning shoots and work out sessions dont bother him because its a schedule hes been used to for nearly his whole life. My mother was a professor and she would wake me up at 5.30 every morning. Ive had that routine since I was a child. So its not tough to wake up and face the camera at any time now, he says.

Sanskriti Media
Tollywood actress Sri Reddy, who created a huge buzz in talking boldly about the existence of the casting couch and dragging many Ttown personalities in the sex racket controversy SriLeaks, has ultimately achieved for what she was reportedly fighting for  a film chance. She has bagged a Tamil film titled Reddy Diary.

The film being produced by Chitthirai Selvan and Ravidevan has Sri Reddy playing the central character and chronicles the struggle an aspiring actress in the film industry. Apparently, the makers are taking a leaf out of Ms Reddys real life journey and the men (film personalities) who used her on the pretext of giving an opportunity in their movies.

Announcing this in the city, Sri Reddy said she has moved out of Hyderabad and settled in Chennai. DC caught up with her for a quick chat. Ask her why she has taken refuge in Chennai, and she shoots back. I dont feel secure in Telengana and I dont want to live among animals. The Telugu film industry is controlled by few families like Suresh Babu (Rama Naidu son), Chiranjeevi family (Pawan Kalyan) and I know I will not get justice from MAA (Movie Artistes Association). They do not want to take up my issue and support me. They banned me at one point of time. After National Human Rights commission (NHRC) intervened, they lifted my ban. There is a threat to my life in in Hyderabad.

Tamil people cried when I cried. They have understood my problem and many have said they would support me in crisis. Hence I am looking out for a house for rent in the city and stay back here, she says.

When probed if her film would have a smooth release considering it would again expose film actors, she says, If any one dares to create havoc for my film release, they would face dire consequences.

She requests Nadigar Sangam to intervene and help her to get justice in the cases relating to Tamil actors like Lawrence and others. I have been trying to reach Vishal garu many times, but in vain! I have full evidence to prove my side. Hope the association would understand my plight and do the needful.

Now that that she has got some respite and signed two more flicks besides Reddy Diary, will she stop her SriLeaks videos? She retorts  No! It will continue if people try to misbehave with me. I am not doing it for the heck of ii and it will be a lesson for girls in future to be cautious.

The dusky girl says that former actress and CM of Tamil Nadu J. Jayalaithaa is her role model. I like her personality and her grittiness in handling issues. I may enter politics if the opportunity knocks, she says even as she signs off with a smile at the Press Club.
The results showed children with experience of parental cancer had a much lower final grade average than children who did not. (Photo: Pixabay)

A new study has now revealed that children whose parents battled cancer have lower grades and earn less money in their chosen careers.

According to researchers, the more severe their mother or fathers cancer is, the greater impact it has on children.

Danish scientists examined data from more than one million people, followed until they were 30, to make the conclusion.

According to the post study analysis, one in three people will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives.

Analysts at Copenhagen University recorded the final grades of the participants at the age of 15. Their teachers were also surveyed.

Disposable income by age 30 was compiled using national data estimates, based on another 360,054 children several years older.

The results showed children with experience of parental cancer had a much lower final grade average than children who did not.

And this risk was 1.5 times higher if their mother or father's chances of surviving five years were poor, and 1.6 times higher if the parent died.

The risk of low attainment was even greater if it was the father who'd been affected.

No such associations were evident if the outlook was good or if the parent was alive by the child's 18th birthday.

There was also a moderately increased risk of lower earnings power by the age of 30 if a parent had had cancer.

Particularly badly affected were children who had been under five when the diagnosis was made.

This suggests that any impact of parental cancer in early childhood may extend across the life course, say the researchers.

The team of researchers published their findings in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
Hyderabad: Around 75 cattle, which were being smuggled to the slaughterhouse in Hyderabad from Kosgi and Vikarabad, were rescued and 17 persons have been arrested by the Moinabad police for illegal transportation of the cattle on Sunday.

According to the police, the cattle were purchased from the markets at Kosgi and Vikarabad and were being smuggled without obtaining their fitness certificate. The vehicles were seized and the cattle were shifted to Gaushala in Goshamahal for care. Police inspector G. Venkateshwarlu said, Cases have been booked against 17 persons under Cow Slaughter Act and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.
The incident took place around noon when the student was walking to the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Government Girls College in Seoni district. (Representational Image)

Seoni (Madhya Pradesh): A 23-year-old student was killed in Madhya Pradesh's Seoni district after she was dragged by her hair while on her way to college and her head smashed with a stone by a man who was allegedly putting pressure on her to withdraw the sexual harassment complaint against him, police said.

The incident took place around noon when the student was walking to the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Government Girls College in Seoni district, around 350 km from Bhopal, police officials said.

Police officials said the accused, 38-year-old Anil Mishra, got down from his motorcycle and dragged the woman to the roadside by her hair. He allegedly pushed the victim to the ground and smashed her head with a big stone lying nearby, said Kotwali police station in-charge Arvind Jain.

Some people rushed to help and overpowered Mishra. The woman, who was seriously injured and bleeding profusely, died while being taken to a hospital, Jain said.

Mishra, who has been arrested, prima facie committed the crime as the victim refused to withdraw the sexual harassment case against him, said KK Verma, Seoni sub-divisional officer (police).

Both are residents of a village in Seoni district, Verma said, adding that further investigation is on.
The girl, a 20-year-old engineering student living in Dilsukhnagar, received a message from one N Vikram Nayak on her Instagram profile on July 3. Initially, the conversations were normal, but gradually, he started showing his lust and desperation by directly asking for sex.(Representational Image)

Hyderabad: A 20-year-old student messaged a girl, his Instagram friend, asking her to have sex with him and that he would pay for it. He did with bruises, because the girl called the boy to an apartment in Madhapur, and got her friends to beat him up badly.

Meanwhile, both the boy and the girl have lodged counter complaints with the Madhapur police, who have registered two cases.

The girl, a 20-year-old engineering student living in Dilsukhnagar, received a message from one N Vikram Nayak on her Instagram profile on July 3. Initially, the conversations were normal, but gradually, he started showing his lust and desperation by directly asking for sex. Vikram told her that he would meet on Saturday (August 18) to have sex, and misbehaved with her, the police, quoting her complaint said.

She also alleged that Vikram was also having similar conversations with other girls on Instagram.

Meanwhile, Vikram who went to meet the girl on Saturday at a flat in Ayyappa Society was beaten by her friends. A native of Warangal district, Vikram said in his complaint, I received a message from the girl to meet her. I rushed to Hyderabad on Saturday and went to the address provided by her. When I entered the flat, some six persons who were present there locked the door and beat me with iron rods.

Madhapur sub-inspector Venkat Reddy said Vikram was asking the girl to have sex with him and was troubling her. A case has been registered against him under section 354 D of IPC (stalking). In order to teach him a lesson, she told her friends, who beat him badly.'

The SI said that the girl should have complained to the police about the harassment, instead she told her friends.

Nobody has the right to take the law into their hands and act violently. If the boy has committed a mistake, they should have approached the police or brought him to the police station, but cannot beat him up, said SI Reddy.

A case has been booked against six persons for illegally confining and causing hurt to Vikram. Both the cases are being investigated and action will be taken against the accused in both the cases.
When Asuka was waiting at the entrance, an unidentified person was lingering near him and stole his wallet containing three credit cards and Rs 6,000 cash.(Representational Image)

Hyderabad: Unidentified miscreant have stolen the wallet of a Japanese national working for a multi-national company in the city outside Paradise.

The Japanese lodged a complaint with the Madhapur police, who are verifying CCTV footage at the restaurant and those installed in the vicinity to identify the suspect.

Asuka Kamijo, an MNC employee from Madhapur came for business and at about 1 pm on Saturday, Asuka and his colleague went to Paradise restaurant located opposite Cyber Towers to have lunch.

When Asuka was waiting at the entrance, an unidentified person was lingering near him and stole his wallet containing three credit cards and Rs 6,000 cash.

The wallet also contained an insurance card and an airport membership lounge.

The techie realised the theft only after finishing his lunch, and complained to the police.

Madhapur sub-inspector Md Alam said, An unidentified person had stolen the mans wallet at Paradise restaurant. We are verifying CCTV footage at the restaurant and other places to help identify the suspect and nab him.
The accused allegedly stuffed the ganja inside Lays and Kurkure packs after emptying them and sold to their contacts.

Bengaluru: The Marathahalli police busted an organised inter-state network of ganja suppliers by arresting all the 12 members of the gang, including the main sources, on Tuesday.

The police had to open fire at two main suppliers in the city, Syed alias Farooq, a resident of Hoskote taluk, and Sadiq Sharif, a resident of KR Puram, who allegedly sourced ganja from their contacts in Yarnagapalli in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh and distributed among the eight peddlers. The two tried to attack the police party which had gone to arrest them.

The police earlier had arrested Nagaraj (68) and Shahbaz (30), both residents of V Kota taluk in Chittoor district, who allegedly sold high-quality ganja to Syed and Sharif after sourcing it from several people in Chittoor district.

It took a lot of time for the police to unearth the network as the accused had adopted a unique modus operandi for transporting and selling ganja. The accused allegedly stuffed the ganja inside Lays and Kurkure packs after emptying them and sold to their contacts.

After the arrest of the main suppliers, Nagaraj and Shahbaz, the police arrested the eight peddlers who bought ganja from Syed and Sharif and sold across the city. Based on inputs, Marathahalli Inspector Sadiq Pasha accompanied by Sub-Inspector Guru Prasad, Head Constable Ravishankar intercepted a Pulsar bike near Borewell junction on which Syed and Sharif were riding.

As SI Guruprasad and HC Ravishankar approached the accused to arrest them, the accused allegedly assaulted the cops in a bid to escape. PI Pasha opened fire at Syed, while SI Guruprasad shot Sharif in the leg. The police claimed to have seized 2 kg of ganja packed in snack packs and recovered a machete from the accused.

DCP (Whitefield) Abdul Ahad said that each drug peddler had 50 addicts to whom they supplied ganja. The police are making efforts to identify the addicts and send them for rehabilitation.
(ANSA) - Brussels, August 21 - A spokesperson for the European Union migration commission said Tuesday that contacts with member States were ongoing on the Italian coast guard ship carrying 177 migrants which Italy says won't be allowed to land at Catania until the EU agrees to redistribute them.

"The contacts are still ongoing, we are working to find a solution as soon as possible," said the spokesperson.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has said he will send the migrants back to Libya unless the EU agrees to redistribute them.


Based on the complaint, the police registered a case and recorded the statement from the victim. Thenamudhan was arrested and was sent to judicial remand. (Representational Image)

Chennai: A 22-year-old man entered a private educational institution in Ramapuram and attacked a BDS student. Royala Nagar police have arrested him and sent to judicial remand.

The staff and students of SRM University in Ramapuram were in a shock after K.Thenamudhan (22) of Rajbai Nagar in Avadi allegedly breached the security of the institution to enter the university and attack Divyadarshini, a dental science (BDS) student, on Tuesday morning.

According to the police, the accused, who has completed catering science course and the victim had got acquainted with each other through social media. They were said to be developed a relationship subsequently and were in the relationship for a few months. However, girl ended talking to the boy citing his behavior recently, police said.

Police added that the boy had allegedly been pestering the girl to continue the relationship to which the girl refused to. On Tuesday at around 8.30 am when the classes were about to commence, Thenamudhan allegedly entered the college and started an argument with the girl. As the girl had refused to talk to him, she avoided him that irked the accused. He pulled her hand and shoved her before giving a few blows, a source said.

Shocked by the incident that happened on the campus, the management of the university lodged a complaint with Royala Nagar police. Based on the complaint, the police registered a case and recorded the statement from the victim. Thenamudhan was arrested and was sent to judicial remand.
Four people were arrested by the city police for their involvement in a series of burgalaries in temples over the past couple of months.

Bengaluru: The city police have arrested a gang of four people for their involvement in a series of burglaries in 17 temples, in and around the city over the past couple of months.

The arrested have been identified as Kumar alias Baajaka (23), Manja alias Sangappa (24), Krishna (40) and Vijaya Kumar (21), all of them hailing from Mysuru.

Police said they were nomads and used to set up tents on the city outskirts and carry out petty businesses such as selling soft toys, sweets and repairing stoves.

The police have seized 55 gm of gold, 1.350 kg of silver and Rs 75,000 in cash and other items from the accused.

According to police, their modus operandi was as follows: they would roam around the city and outskirts in two-wheelers and visit temples under the pretext of offering prayers and observe the hundis and gold ornaments on the idols.

They would identify the target temples and come back in the night to rob them, the police said. They used to break open the temple lock and the hundis to make away with the cash.

In less than two months, the accused robbed over 17 temples which prompted the police to form a special team to go behind this gang.

The police have detected three temple theft cases at Mico Layout, four at Electronic City, two each in Bommanahalli and K.S. Layout, and one each in Tilak Nagar, Jayanagar, J.P. Nagar, and Subramanyapura. The accused have also robbed temples on the city outskirts and in Tumakuru and Sarjapura.

A senior officer said the team of police analysed CCTV footage from a few temples and obtained clues about the gang and learnt that their modus operandi were the same in all cases.

Recently, the Mico Layout police while patrolling their area noticed these men who were trying to break into a temple. During interrogation, they admitted to their involvement in more than a dozen cases of temple thefts.
HYDERABAD: A housewife from Peepalpahad in Choutuppal of Rachakonda has lodged a complaint with the Choutuppal police alleging rape by a villager for three years. The woman told the police that the accused, a 45-year-old stone cutting worker had blackmailed her by threatening to publicise her bathing videos which he captured on his mobile phone. The Choutuppal police on Monday night registered a case against the accused and are searching for him.

The victim, a mother two children, lives with her husband at Peepalpahad village. The blackmailing started about three years ago, when Upputhota Rangaiah (45), a native of the same village had recorded videos of the woman bathing at her home in his mobile phone. The accused is the father of three children including a daughter.

Threatening to share the videos with the villagers, Rangaiah demanded sexual favours from the woman and raped her multiple time in the past three years, said Choutuppal inspector Mr A Venkataiah quoting the complainant.
Bhopal: A fast-track court in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh, on Tuesday, sentenced two youths to death for raping a minor girl a couple of months ago. The fast track court judge pronounced death sentence for the accused  Irfan, 20, and Asif, 24,  after convicting them for the rape and attempt to murder of a seven-year-old girl on June 26, local public prosecutor B.S. Thakur said.

The girl was abducted near her school in Mandsaur, taken to a secluded area and gangraped. The duo then slit her throat and fled the spot thinking that she was dead. The girl who suffered injuries in her neck, face, head and private parts is undergoing treatment in a government hospital in Indore.
Patna: The Nitish Kumar-led NDA government, facing flak over rising incidents of sexual abuse at its shelter homes, was in for a shock when a middle-aged woman was thrashed and paraded naked in Bhojpur district. The incident occurred after local villagers recovered the dead body of a 19-year-old youth Vimlesh Sah from the railway tracks at Bihiya town. Sources from Ara informed this newspaper that a woman was later thrashed and paraded naked on the suspicion of being involved in the murder of the youth.

The violent mob also vandalised the local market and blocked road as well as railway transport for several hours. Security was beefed up in and around Bihiya following violent clashes in which several people sustained injuries. The protesters claimed that the boy was strangled to death by people who were living near a red light area close to the murder site. Sources said that the woman also used to live in the same area.

The woman after being rescued was sent to hospital for treatment under police protection. Seven policemen, including the SHO of the Bihiya police station, were suspected for their failure in controlling the mob. Officials said sixteen persons, including a local RJD activist, was also arrested in connection with the case. The incident later snowballed into a political controversy with opposition parties blaming the state government for deteriorating law and order situation in the state.
The abduction and rape of an 8-year-old girl sparked an outrage across the country. (Photo: File | PTI)

Bhopal: Two men held guilty for raping an eight-year-old girl in Madhya Pradeshs Mandsaur have been awarded death sentence by a local court.

The court, earlier on Tuesday, held the duo -- Irfan and Asif  for raping the minor in June this year.

The verdict comes in less than two months after the crime took place.

An eight-year-old was abducted by Irfan and Asif on June 26 when she was standing outside her school in Mandsaur town, waiting for her parents. The men took her to an isolated spot, raped her and tried to kill her by slitting her throat.

The barbaric crime shocked the state and sparked an outrage across the country.
Rajeev Pillais gesture has impressed Richa Chadha who is his co-stars for his upcoming film Shakeela. (Photo: Instagram | therichachadha)

Mumbai: Kerala has witnessed one of its worst floods in a century. Rescue and relief operations are on in full-swing in the flood-hit state.

Along with Army, Navy, Air Force, NDRF, fishermen and locals have also come in large number to rescue people in various parts of Kerala.

In a bid to help rescue locals in his hometown Nannoor, Malayalam actor Rajeev Pillai postponed his wedding.

Rajeev Pillais gesture has impressed Richa Chadha who is his co-stars for his upcoming film Shakeela.

Moved by Rajeevs determination to help his people, Richa Chadha shared his story on Instagram.

"My friend and costar in Shakeela, Rajeev Pillai, postponed his wedding, which was to happen three days ago, in order to help out in rescue efforts in his hometown of Nannoor, Kerala. They made rafts, carried boats by road to the low lying areas, made good use of all the muscle. Bravo!" she captioned the post, which included pictures of the actor taken during the ongoing rescue mission. The Internet said that he's the 'real hero'.

Rajeev Pillai, who has starred in films Oru Muthassi Gadha and Thalaivaa, shared pictures of the devastation caused by floods in Kerala. "And that behind me is the main road, next to the house... mode of transportation has changed though," he captioned this picture.

Rajeev Pillai is getting married to an engineering student Ajitha and he had planned an intimate wedding ceremony with some 10 guests. The wedding will be rescheduled for next month.

Several celebrities took to social media urging their fans to help those stuck in flood-hit Kerala. South actors such as Dhanush and Suriya have donated to the relief funds set-up to help the people of Kerala for rescue and rehabilitation.
Police say the house in Dhumanganj was bolted from inside and they had to break through the door. (Twitter | @ANINewsUP)

Allahabad: In a shocking incident, five members of a family, including three children, were found dead in a locked house at Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, on Monday.

A man was found hanging from a ceiling fan, his wife's body was found inside a fridge. The bodies of two young girls, believed to be the couple's daughters, were found in a suitcase and in an almirah respectively. The body of a third daughter was found in another room.

Police say the house in Dhumanganj was bolted from inside and they had to break through the door. "It seems that the man, Manoj Kushwaha, killed his wife and three daughters, and later committed suicide," said police officer Nitin Tiwari.

Police say the killings could be because of a family dispute or the man's suspicion that his wife was having an affair.

A similar case from Burari in north Delhi had sent waves of shock across the country when bodies of eleven members of the same family were recovered from their home last month.

A probe into the deaths later revealed that the case was one of mass suicide where the victims were suffering from a condition which is commonly known as a shared psychotic disorder.

Evidence that emerged in this case revealed how all of the family members had actively participated in a superstitious ritual which led to their deaths.
New Delhi: The Australian High Commission on Monday sounded an alarm over an alleged visa scam in New Delhi wherein an employment agency in south-west Delhi has allegedly already duped more than 50 people of lakhs of rupees after promising a work visa. Such was the scale and planning of the alleged fraud that the victims have also had to pay to undergo a medical exam in a medical facility also located in South Delhi besides paying another Rs 50,000 each for a non-existent airfare.

In a statement from New Delhi, Canberra said, The Australian High Commission is warning the public of a new visa scam allegedly perpetrated by an employment agency operating in South-West Delhi. In recent weeks, more than 50 people have approached the High Commission after paying lakhs for a work visa, only to be informed that they have become a victim of a visa scam. The High Commission is concerned about the growing number of victims and advises any potential visa applicants to exercise caution.
Bengaluru: Mr Karun Kalappa, a senior member of Kodava Samaja, is overwhelmed by the support pouring in from across the city. The materials were collected till Monday evening and it has been been stopped officially. Rice, medicines, biscuits, paste, napkins, towels and other materials have been sent, he said.Key members of the Kodava Samaja have been sent to Kodagu to study the situation. As per the teams advice, relief materials have been stopped as Kodagu has it in abundance. There is a habit of sending old and used clothes. They have been segregated and given to orphanages and old age home. There is a requirement for monetary support, and it is coming in extensively in the form of cheques and demand drafts, he said.

Doctors to help distressed

Ramaiah Medical College and Hospital has sent a team of doctors and medical staff to Kodagu. A team of 20, comprising doctors, nurses and technical staff, is waiting for a call from the district health officer to attend to victims in Kodagu and Kerala.

Pourakarmikas lend a helping hand

To restore normal life in flood-affected Kodagu, over 300 civic workers and four BBMP engineers have left the city for Kushalnagar. These workers armed with safety gears, including masks, hand gloves and boots left the city on Monday in seven buses. Along with pourakarmikas, a team of 20 health inspectors and a doctor too have left the city. They will not only treat victims but also take measures to curb the spread of communicable diseases.

Police, KSRTC staff donate

KSRTC employees donated their one days salary and Rs 11.8 crore has been collected from 1.16 lakh employees from four state road transport corporations. Besides, Attibele and Sarjapur police have donated Rs 72,000 to the CM relief fund.
(ANSA) - Vatican City, August 21 - Pope Francis will meet victims of priestly sex abuse on his August 25-26 visit to Ireland, the Vatican said Tuesday. Vatican Press Office chief Greg Burke made the announcement in presenting the pope's pastoral visit to the island, one of the many countries to have been racked by clerical sex abuse.

Francis will also pray for the victims of abuse on Saturday in an Irish cathedral in front of a lamp that has been put there to mark victims' suffering, Burke said.

"It is important for the pope to listen to them", said Burke, who did not give details on where and when the meeting would take place.

He said the victims would decide whether to divulge the contents of the meeting.

The announcement came a day after the pope apologised for being "too late" to stop "atrocities" on children, saying the Church had "abandoned the little ones", in reference to about a thousand kids abused in the latest case in the US.

In an impassioned letter to the People of God, Francis voiced "shame and repentance" on the latest clerical sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church, saying authorities had acted too late.

Francis said "with shame and repentance, as an ecclesiastical community, we admit that we did not go where we should have gone, that we did not act in time recognising the scope and gravity of the damage that was being caused to so many lives".

He said "We neglected and abandoned the little ones".

The pope said priestly sex abuse of children is a crime that "generates deep wounds".

Francis said "we ask forgiveness" for the "atrocities" committed in priestly sex abuse of minors.

The pontiff was forced to apologise earlier this year after dismissing victims' claims that Chilean Bishop Juan Barros witnessed and did nothing about abuse committed by the country's most notorious sexual predator, Father Fernando Karadima.

Victims groups have complained that Francis has not done enough on the issue.


New Delhi: The UK has confirmed to the CBI that fugitive billionaire Nirav Modi, alleged to be the mastermind of Indias biggest banking fraud of over $2 billion, is in their country, officials said on Monday. The Central Bureau of Investigation submitted an extradition request to the home ministry immediately after getting the confirmation, they said.

The request to bring him back will be sent to the United Kingdom through the external affairs ministry. The agency has also requested authorities in the UK to detain him on the basis of the Red Corner Notice issued by the Interpol against him, they said.

The RCN was issued on the request of the CBI in June this year, officials said. In its RCN issued against a fugitive, the Interpol asks its 192 member countries to arrest or detain the person if spotted in their countries after which extradition or deportation proceedings can begin. Nirav Modi, along with his wife Ami Modi, a US citizen, brother Nishal Modi, a Belgian citizen, and uncle Mehul Choksi, all accused in the CBIs FIRs in the case, left the country in the first week of January, weeks before countrys biggest banking scam surfaced.

Choksi has been located in Antigua, where he has taken citizenship, officials said. Nirav Modi and Choksi have refused to return to India to join the probe, citing business and health reasons, they said. After his passport was revoked/cancelled by the external affairs ministry, we had updated this information in the diffusion notice. The information that Nirav Modis passport has been revoked was provided in the Interpol central database, available to all the member countries, on February 24, CBI spokesperson Abhishek Dayal had said.
The Centre said manufacture, sale and use of joined-firecrackers (series crackers) might be banned as the same causes huge air, noise and solid waste problems. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday opposed the plea for a complete ban on the sale of crackers during Diwali across the country and suggested the Supreme Court that certain conditions can be imposed on the manufacture and sale of high-decibel level crackers.

Additional Solicitor General Nadkarni made this submission before a bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan while they were hearing petitions seeking a ban on the sale of crackers as they cause air pollution.

Nadkarni placed on record the Centres affidavit filed in consultation with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, National Environment Engineering Research Institute, Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) and Central Pollution Control Board.

The Centre suggested the use of reduced emission firecrackers and avoidance of the use of ash as desiccant or filler materials in crackers for a reduction in particulate matter by 15 to 20 per cent. It said the PESO would ensure that only those crackers whose decibel levels are within the limits are allowed in the market and will suspend the licences of manufacturers on violations.

It said manufacture, sale and use of joined-firecrackers (series crackers) might be banned as the same causes huge air, noise and solid waste problems.

Major Indian cities may explore the option of community fire cracking with strict time restriction as adopted in some countries. Other restrictions such as the bursting of firecrackers may be allowed only in areas/fields pre-identified and pre-designated by respective state government can be explored.

On behalf of the Tamil Nadu Fireworks and Amorces Manufacturers Association, Sivakasi, it was submitted that fireworks have been an inherent part of Diwali celebrations and not just Hindus, but people of other religions equally take part in this festival.

It was pointed out that the turnover in firecrackers is worth thousands of crores and with 350 units in Sivakasi alone, it provides direct employment to over three lakh people and indirect employment to ten lakh people. Any adverse direction against the use of crackers during Diwali will have a disastrous effect on the entire fireworks industry and on the livelihood of lakhs of people who are dependent solely on this industry.

Senior counsel Shekar Naphade for Tamil Nadu opposed the ban on crackers and said that this is an extreme measure. He said a solution to the problem of pollution should not itself become a problem. He cited the instance of odd and even cars regulation in the capital to check air pollution and said people resorted to buying two cars (one odd and one even) and this became a big problem.

Counsel said cracker industry has contributed a lot for the development of the area. Schools and colleges established by cracker units are providing education to lakhs of students.

Arguments will continue on August 28.
Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewage Board (CMWSSB), State Highways and Public Works Department (PWD) to huddle two years ago for finding out the reasons for floods. (File photo)

Chennai: The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), which started painting yellow colour on many stormwater Drain (SWD) structures to identify them during heavy rains for clearing blocks, on a pilot basis, has left the work halfway through.

However, officials maintain that they will take necessary steps to make such move effective. Sources said that Chennai experienced torrential rains and subsequent floods in December 2015 and lack of stormwater drainage and sewage systems were mainly factored for causing floods. Such issue prompted stakeholders like GCC, Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewage Board (CMWSSB), State Highways and Public Works Department (PWD) to huddle two years ago for finding out the reasons for floods.

"Since stormwater structures in the city are often getting choked during heavy rains, most areas are flooded. So, the GCC formulated a novel mechanism, in which the officials had decided to paint yellow colour on the stormwater structure on a pilot basis in North Chennai," said an official, GCC.

Based on the response, the officials decided to expand such mechanism to other areas, however later on, the officials failed to turn their attention on the expansion, added the official.

Meanwhile, residents said that such plan will not work. "I saw yellow colour at a sizable number of stormwater points one and half years ago, but everything disappeared now. The officials concerned should sense the fact that the city roads are under thick sheet of water and many areas become water-logged even for short and heavy spell of rains and under such circumstances, corporation workers will find it difficult to identify the colour," said K Bala, a resident of New Washermenpet, where the GCC started works in 2016.

When contacted, a GCC senior official, preferring anonymity, maintained that they would continue the pilot project and painting works will continue. "After 2015-flood, city has not recorded heavy rains and we will closely monitor whether such move (painting) works during rainy days, after which we can decide further course of action," the official said.

When asked, inundation would hide such colour during rains, the official's terse reply was "let us not come to any conclusion now."
Supreme Court asked Centre whether EC could be vested with powers to take back reserved symbol allotted to a recognised political party for fielding persons with criminal antecedents to contest polls. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre whether the Election Commission could be vested with powers to take back the reserved symbol allotted to a recognised political party for fielding persons with criminal antecedents to contest elections.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra posed this question to Attorney General K K Venugopal while hearing a batch of petitions raising an important question of law, whether a person facing a criminal case in a heinous crime can be disqualified from contesting Assembly or Parliamentary elections at the stage of filing chargesheet or framing of charges or only after the conviction.

The AG replied that the court could not impose any such condition and it is for the Parliament to provide a ground for disqualification. The court cannot enter the arena of Parliament, which is forbidden for the judiciary, he added. It is the right of the political parties to field candidates on its allotted symbol and this right cannot be denied by the court.

He said vesting any such power on the Election Commission either directly or indirectly would amount to preventing candidates who had done good work in the constituency from contesting the polls merely because the party in power files some case against him on the eve of polls.

The CJI told the AG, We can always direct the Election Commission that persons from a political party should furnish affidavits about their clean record and in case of a criminal charge, the parties be held responsible. It will lose the status of a recognised political party if it fields persons with criminal antecedents.

The bench also included Justices Rohinton Nariman, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra.

Justice Nariman told the AG, We are only making a proposal that at the time of registration of a political party this condition, viz it should not field candidates with criminal antecedents be imposed. The parties should make sure that the alleged crooks are not qualified. Why cant we exhort Parliament to amend the law?

Justice Chandrachud said that for the continuation of registration of political parties, this condition could have a bearing. He said, We are not preventing the candidates with criminal background from contesting but only imposing a condition on a political party. The candidate can still contest without the reserved symbol.

The AG said the Parliament in its wisdom would consider the parliamentary standing committees report, which had rejected the recommendations of the Law Commission to bar those against whom charges were framed from contesting elections. He said a person is presumed to be innocent till convicted by a court of law.

The AG said, We all know that on the eve of elections there is a political vendetta and cases are filed against the proposed candidates, left, right and centre. Imposing new conditions will open the fight between political parties. Vesting powers to the EC to deny reserved symbol to a political party will be ultra vires its powers, whether it is by the court or by the EC on its own. This is democracy and any number of political parties can come and fight elections. How can the reserved symbol be denied to them?

The AG told the court, You cannot paralyse the political parties by saying that it will lose the symbol for fielding a candidate with criminal antecedent. How can this court deny the right of a political party merely on the basis of an allegation? The presumption of innocence will operate. This will result in serious consequences. The EC cannot introduce a new condition to deny the reserved symbol, which has to be done only on the basis of an enquiry for indulging in anti-national activities or for fraud.

Senior counsel Dinesh Diwedi, for one of the petitioners, argued that to protect democracy and the institution of the legislature the court should issue a direction to the Centre and the EC to take necessary steps to debar persons convicted in criminal cases from contesting elections, forming a political party and becoming office-bearers of any party.

He argued that lifetime ban was necessary for convicted lawmakers so that they did not enter electoral politics for life and is necessary to curb corruption and criminalization, the greatest menace to our democracy and development.

He pointed out that the Law Commission in its report said disqualification upon conviction has proved to be incapable of curbing the growing criminalisation politics, owing to long delays in trials and rare convictions. The law needs to evolve to pose an effective deterrence and to prevent subversion of the process of justice. The stage of framing of charges can be a disqualification as it is based on adequate levels of judicial scrutiny.

Senior counsel Krishnan Venugopal quoting figures of the Association of Democratic Rights said that from 2004 the number of elected representatives to Parliament and State legislatures had witnessed a significant increase and 34 per cent of MPs have criminal records.

He said political parties are attracted to persons with such criminal records as they can subsidise the cost of elections and voters are also not bothered about the criminal antecedents of candidates. As the winning percentage of those with criminal records is increasing, the perception among political parties is that they could win and get things done with their influence.

Counsel said criminalisation of politics had resulted in destroying purity in elections and unless lifetime ban was imposed on convicted persons, this trend could not be remedied. He wanted the court to direct the EC to deny the reserved symbol if a political party fielded a person with a criminal background.

The Attorney General will continue his arguments on August 28.
The PIL also requested the court to judicially examine the response of various authorities to the natural calamity so as to assess the lapses and make it swifter in the future. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: A public interest writ petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday asking the court to monitor the flood relief operations in Kerala.

Relief work is being carried out in flood-ravaged Kerala with assistance from Centre and states. The purchase of medicine and food items, rebuilding devastated homes, cleaning up the houses, repairing roads and building infrastructure is currently being undertaken.

In his PIL, petitioner Siji Antony said that the court should oversee the proper implementation of the rehabilitation scheme.

Further, the PIL also requested the court to judicially examine the response of various authorities to the natural calamity so as to assess the lapses and make it swifter in the future.

The petitioner also demanded that the national disaster management plan to be updated with lessons learnt from the Kerala floods.

At the outset, the petitioner submitted that this is not an adversarial litigation, but for judicial review of the administrative measures undertaken by authorities in the aftermath of the natural disaster which claimed over 300 lives and displacement of 7.24 lakh in relief camps.

He said this was necessary for the state of Kerala as well as for more effective implementation of rescue and rehabilitation measures anywhere in the country.

The petitioner submitted that early warnings and timely response would have reduced the casualties in Kerala. Anthony added that if the National Disaster Management Plan been properly implemented, the magnitude and the after effect of natural disaster in the state of Kerala would have been lesser.

He said the people of Kerala in general and those living along the river beds are under constant fear of their Right to Life.

Defective planning, non-existence of any Environment Impact Assessment for any project within Kerala, and the rising water level in the Mullaperiyar dam are worrying factors.

Further, the petition stated, adequate loan waiver or delay in collection of loan amounts was necessary as most people including daily wage employees, salaried employees, professionals and businessmen are all facing a severe financial crunch.
The Kerala Tourism's decision to organise Champions Boat League on the lines of Indian Premier League (IPL) from this year starting with Nehru Trophy boat race also took a beating due to the flooding. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Thiruvananthapuram: There will be no Onam and Bakrid celebrations in many parts of Kerala which is coming to terms with the savage monsoon that has claimed over 300 lives since August 8 and forced over 10 lakh people to take shelter in relief camps.

While Onam falls on August 25, Bakrid is being observed in the southern state tomorrow.

Many Muslims in the state have decided to keep Bakrid celebrations low key this year in the backdrop of the sufferings of the people in the flood-hit state.

Considered the state's harvest festival, Onam falls in the beginning of Chingam, the first month of Malayalam Calendar and is celebrated with joy and enthusiasm all over the state by people across communities.

Also Read: Ravaged by rains, floods, Kerala cancels Onam celebrations this year

Elaborate feasts, folk songs, elegant dances and energetic games mark the annual festival. But this time, many families have decided against any festivities.

Sixty two-year-old Sister Christabelle, former Principal of St Teresa's college in Kochi, said there will be no Onam celebration for the regular and retired staff this year and the money will be used for relief works for flood victims.

Mariamma Varghese, President of the Elders Forum in Panampilly Nagar in Kochi, said Onam celebrations have been cancelled due to floods.

Onam commemorates the return of a mythical, righteous king, Mahabali and brings together communities across the state in unified revelry probably unheard of in any other part of the country or outside.

Elaborate, sumptuous feasts of 'Onam sadya,' with at least 10-15 side dishes, are served in houses, with the feast ending with delicious payasam (Kerala dessert), which ensures that the message of oneness and hope is spread far and wide.

Due to floods, there have been several cancellations for 'Onam sadya' as well.

Caterers have said there have been heavy cancellations from various offices and organisations, which have decided to do away with any celebrations.

The state government has also cancelled Onam celebrations.

The Kerala Tourism's decision to organise Champions Boat League on the lines of Indian Premier League (IPL) from this year starting with Nehru Trophy boat race also took a beating due to the flooding.

Pulikali (Tiger Dance), among the folk art forms of Kerala, which is held in Thrissur with artisans donning tiger masks and sporting the painted stripes of the big cat and dancing to the rhythm of traditional percussion instruments on August 28 is also likely to be cancelled.

Expressing her dismay over the unexpected cancellation of Onam celebration in the state, Juli, a German tourist told PTI: "I was waiting to see the Onam festivities about which I have heard a lot. But, I am saddened by the turn of events due to floods. I am cutting short my Kerala trip and moving to Goa."

The Cochin Port Trust said its employees have contributed Rs 65,000, which they had collected for their Onam celebrations, for the relief work.

According to C Rahim, a senior journalist with a gulf-based newspaper, the Muslim community has not yet recovered from the shock of the floods to celebrate any festival.

"Houses of many of the people where the community lives in large numbers in Thrissur, Kozhikode and Malappuram districts are still under water. Many of them have not gone back to their homes," he told PTI.

People who have gone for Haj are also much worried about the relatives at home, he said.

This year, the murderous monsoon has left the state's economy in shambles, many are penniless and the people of the state are in no mood to celebrate.

Ammini, a 55-year-old in a relief camp, said she and her family had to rush out with only the clothes they wore, "Everything is lost. We do not have anything left. There is nothing to look forward to."

"My son is bedridden. I do not know where to go from the camp with my son, daughter-in-law and their child as there is no home left," she said.

"We do not know how to take our life forward. Onam is not now in our minds...," she said unable to hold back tears.

After Nipah virus, the Ramzan sales were affected in Malabar (north Kerala) areas. Now with unprecedented floods, there is no sales at all in the region.

In normal course, during onam and Bakrid there is s good sale in the state, a small trader in Kozhikode said.

In Kozhikode, a group of policemen have come together and prepared 1,000 kits of essential items like sugar, pulses, rice etc to be distributed to the needy who return home from camps.

"Over 90 per cent people have gone back from camps in the district to their homes.

There are many people who are in a very bad state and so it was decided to distribute kits to them as the festivals are just round the corner even though there may be no celebrations," a police official said.
WARANGAL: Heavy rains lashed several parts of erstwhile Warangal district on Monday disrupting normal life. Warangal city received heavy rainfall from Sunday night till Monday afternoon, flooding some of the low lying colonies. District collector Amrapali Kata said the district administration was on alert and there was no need for citizens to panic. The flood-prone areas have been put under watch and their condition is being monitored round-the-clock.

Though the rain subsided towards the evening, roads in several colonies were flooded. In Jayashankar Bhupalapalli district, the EturnagaramBurgampahad highway got partially washed away due to the heavy flowing Godavari River at Kamalapur in Mangapet mandal. The police immediately put up barricades and danger signs to alert several commuters and to ease the movement of traffic.

The opencast mining was also affected. Rain water flooded the open casts and also damaged the road leading to the quarry. As a result, mining was hampered several times during the last ten days. Singareni incurred a loss of Rs 8 crore. Many streams overflowed with the continuous rainfall and the flood water flowed on to the roads disconnecting interior villages. The Morancha vagu was flowing heavily over the causeway in Mulugu Ghanpur mandal.

In Eturunagarm, the Jeedivagu was overflowing cutting off vehicular movement between Eturunagarm and other interior villages. The movement of people between Wazedu and Kongala was hampered due to the overflowing Kongala vagu. In Chityal mandal, the Kondengala vagu was overflowing since the early hours and the Jadalapet and Kothapeta route was cut off. There was no transport available for 10 villages in the mandal.

In Warangal rural district, the Pakhal Lake in Khanapur mandal received heavy inflows taking the water level to 28.3 feet. The lake's capacity is 30 feet. Deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari asked the collectors of all five districts to be prepared for any kind of emergency with manpower, machinery and rehabilitation centres.
Thiruvananthapuram: As the waters recede, and the horrifying sight of lifeless animal bodies emerge, good Samaritans from Thiruvananthapuram have rushed to other districts to rescue animals that remain.

Hands for Paws, Street Dog Watch and PFA Thiruvananthapuram have come together for the rescue operations, and they call it the Save Animals Kerala campaign.

The animal rescuers are in Chengannur, Kuttanad, Aluva and parts of Kochi to spot the stranded animals. But, they cannot rove constantly in search of ani mals and need the help of people to point them in the right direction. So, to coordinate the rescue calls, the campaigners have formed a core team who sits in Thiruvananthapuram.

Once the animals are rescued, they are taken to shelters. There are two shelters-at Perumbavoor and Cherthala-offered by individuals. Veterinarians stationed at the shelters would administer them medicines.

They were able to save a lot of animals at Veeyapuram bridge in Alappuzha. Soumini R, one of the core coordinators, says "We got a call that many animals are stranded at the bridge, but didn't expect there would be about 200 animals. Someone might have left the animals there, finding the bridge to be at a higher level. But without food for almost a week, the animals were very weak. So we are also arranging for fodder. A load of fodder will be sent to Kollam, today or tomorrow."The rescuers ca nnot locate the animals without the help of local people, as landmarks and boards are submerged in water. The people have been very helpful. But the most challenging part of this is getting the rescue calls, according to Soumini.

They can be reached at 9495610415, 8547686056 or 9567437063 if there are animals to be rescued or relief materials to be donated.
Mr Yusuff Ali has already donated 9.23 million UAE dirhams for relief and rehab in the State.

Thiruvananthapuram: Lulu Group International has sacked Rahul Cheru Palayattu, who was cashier at the company branch in Oman, for making fun of sanitary needs of Keralas flood survivors on Facebook.

This is to inform that we have terminated your service with immediate effect because of your highly insensitive and derogatory comments on social media with regard to current flood situation in Kerala, says the company note, addressed to the employee.

Palayattu later apologised: I am really sorry for what I did. I was in an inebriated state when I posted that message. At that time I did not know what I did was a grave mistake, Khaleej Times quoted his apology video.

Lulu (personnel and admin) manager Prajith Kumar later posted on FB: LuLu Group does not condone this type of behaviour and it does not in any way reflect our views and values. We as an organization and our CMD Yusuffali MA have been in the forefront, helping out the flood-affected people of Kerala.

The move was hailed on social media. One user wrote, Good decision to terminate he deserved it.

Mr Yusuff Ali has already donated 9.23 million UAE dirhams for relief and rehab in the State.
In the past too, sex workers have contributed for helping the victims of natural calamities in various parts of the country. (Photo: File)

Ahmednagar: Sex workers in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district have donated Rs 21,000 for Kerala flood victims and they will be raising another Rs 1 lakh by the end of this month.

A group of sex workers presented a cheque of Rs 21,000 drawn in favour of the Prime Minister's Relief Fund for Kerala flood victims to Resident Deputy Collector Prashant Patil here on Monday, said a functionary of an NGO working for them.

Dipak Buram of the city-based NGO Snehalaya said sex workers will raise another Rs 1 lakh by the month-end for Kerala flood victims.

Buram is coordinator of Snehjyot, a project run by Snehalaya, which is working for the welfare of sex workers for the last 30 years.

In the past too, sex workers have contributed for helping the victims of natural calamities in various parts of the country, he said.

In December 2015, they had donated Rs 1 lakh for relief work in rain-ravaged Chennai, Buram said. Till date, they have contributed nearly Rs 27 lakh for various causes, including for the victims of the earthquake in Gujrat (2001), tsunami (2004), Kashmir and Bihar floods, drought relief in Maharashtra and families of Kargil war heroes, he said.
(ANSA) - Rome, August 21 - Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Tuesday urged the Italian government to let 177 migrants aboard the coast guard ship Diciotti disembark so they can receive urgent psychological and medical attention.

"The Doctors Without Borders team is waiting to give the first psychological help to the people rescued by the Diciotti ship of the coast guard and left for days at sea," the group said in a statement.

"We urge Italian authorities to swiftly allow disembarkation so that treatment may be administered".

Italy says the migrants won't be let off the boat until the EU agrees to redistribute them.

If the EU does not agree to do this they will be sent back to Libya, Interior Minister Matteo salvini says.


Uttar Pradesh Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya said BJP has a majority in Lok Sabha, but don't have the numbers in Rajya Sabha to pass a bill for construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. (Photo: ANI)

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on Tuesday clarified his previous statement on Ramjanmabhoomi dispute and said that even majority of Muslims want Ram temple to be built in Ayodhya.

Maurya criticised the Congress party for looking at Ayodhya dispute as a political issue.

"Just like other devotees of Lord Ram, I also want that Ram temple should be constructed in Ayodhya at the earliest. Currently, the matter is being heard in the Supreme Court. We are waiting for its judgement," Maurya told news agency ANI.

"The Bharatiya Janata Party has always been in favour of the construction of Ram temple. It's not a political issue, rather it's about our faith," he added.

Maurya further said that BJP has a majority in Lok Sabha, but don't have the numbers in Rajya Sabha to pass a bill for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya.

"Majority of Muslims also want Ram temple to be made, but due to some political reasons, especially the Congress party does not want consecutive hearings in the Supreme Court. They do not want Ram temple to be built in Ayodhya," he added.

Earlier on Monday, Maurya suggested two options to resolve the dispute. He said either a dialogue process can be started among the stakeholders or a law can be passed in the Parliament to resolve it.

"There is demand from saints to resolve the issue at the earliest. If there is any delay in the judgement, there are other options, such as dialogue or passing a law in Parliament. But the signals we are getting indicate that there would not be any delay," he had said.

The Babri Masjid, built by Mughal emperor Babur in Ayodhya in 1528, was, on December 6, 1992, razed to the ground allegedly by Hindu activists, claiming that the mosque was constructed after demolishing a Ram temple that originally stood there. Since then, several hearings have been held in the Supreme Court regarding this matter.
Mysuru: The Kodagu and Kerala twin disasters have hit Mysuru's tourism , which has fallen by 40 per cent, according to those involved in the industry. With Kerala accounting for 30 per cent of tourists to Mysuru, the district has seen a sharp fall in arrivals as tourists from that state have stopped coming to it over the last few weeks. And around 40 per cent of tourists from North India too have stopped planning trips to Mysuru as they can no longer head for Kerala or Kodagu as part of their itinerary, according to head of Mysuru travel mart, C A Jayakumar.

As a result hotel occupancy in Mysuru , which is usually 50 per cent on week days and 70 per cent during the weekends in July and August, has fallen to 25 per cent on week days and 40 per cent during the weekends, says Mysuru hotel owners association head, Narayangowda Meanwhile, in distaster -hit Kodagu, the district administration has banned all accommodation of tourists in hotels, home stays and resorts till August 31.
New Delhi: The Union HRD Ministry has dropped its ambitious plan to conduct the NEET medical and dental entrance exam twice a year and in online mode only following Health Ministry's recommendations, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Last month, Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar had announced that the newly-formed National Testing Agency (NTA) would conduct the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, along with the Joint Entrance Examination-Main for admission to engineering colleges, twice a year.

He had also announced that all exams conducted by NTA would be computer-based. The Health Ministry then wrote to the HRD Ministry, raising concerns about conducting NEET twice a year as the examination calendar may put additional pressure on students.

It had also voiced concern about students living in rural areas, who may suffer if the exam is conducted in online mode only.

"The change in the NEET exam pattern as against the statement earlier, which will now be a single exam in pen-and-paper mode and in the same number of languages as has been conducted last year, is on the request of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which wanted the same pattern followed last year to be maintained," the official said.

Subsequent to the tentative schedule released by the ministry last month, the HRD Ministry today made public the final schedule of examinations to be conducted by NTA till May 2019. NEET will be conducted on May 5, 2019.
HYDERABAD: The creation of new municipalities has cost the state government nearly Rs 3,000 crore. Recently, the government merged 230 major gram panchayats to form new municipalities or include them in existing municipalities. The Centre stopped the 14th Finance Commission grants to these panchayats following their merger with urban local bodies. There were 68 municipalities in the state. The government created another 68 municipalities in the state by passing an Act in the legislature in March 2018.

The new municipalities came into effect from August 2. The delay was on account of the 5-year tenure of gram panchayats, which was to end on August 1.

The 14th Finance Commission releases grants to panchayats based on population. There is still two years to go for the tenure of the 14th Finance Commission to end. The Commission is supposed to release Rs 1,209 crore for 2018-19 and Rs 1,628 crore for 2019-20. However, the 230 panchayats that were merged to form municipalities became ineligible to claim grants from the Commission.

Official sources in the Panchayat Raj and Rural Development revealed that on an average each gram panchayat will lose over Rs 20 lakh in grants from the Centre. With the state government not releasing any funds to gram panchayats for development activities for the past few years, the grants coming from the Centre became the only source of revenue for them. Now, with the Centre too stopping the grants, the development activities and sanitation work in panchayats are feared to come to a standstill.

The government, however, claimed that it would compensate such panchayats by sanctioning funds from the municipal administration department. The ground reality remains that the municipalities are already facing a severe fund crunch and not in a position to cater to the needs of more panchayats which have been merged with them.

Minister for PR & RD Jupally Krishna Rao said though gram panchayats may lose Central grants, the state government was contemplating the grant of special funds to develop such panchayats on their own. The government is reviewing the financial condition of each municipality to assess whether they can support the development activities in gram panchayats which are merged into them. If not, the government will allot special funds. Urbanization of villages will result in more development, which will compensate these losses in the long run, Rao added.
New Delhi: Union Health Minister J P Nadda on Tuesday said no outbreak of communicable disease has been reported from the flood-ravaged districts of Kerala so far.

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has issued health advisories to support the state in meeting with post-flood public health management challenges when the threat of water-borne, vector-borne and viral hepatitis diseases becomes potent.

According to a health ministry statement, NCDC teams are ready for deployment to support the state in preventing an outbreak of diseases.

Though rains have eased in Kerala over the last two days, the state struggled to find its feet after the devastating deluge that left over 300 dead and forced over 10 lakh people out of their homes.

According to the health ministry statement, since the flood situation at Kodagu district in Karnataka is worsening, one medical team from Bengaluru has been dispatched there to provide necessary support.

The Union health minister held a high-level meeting to review the relief measures in Kerala.

"The outbreak (of disease) situation is being monitored on a daily basis and the strategic health operation centre has been activated. No outbreak of communicable disease has been reported yet," Nadda said, adding that he was personally monitoring the situation and was in regular communication with Kerala health minister K K Shailaja.

According to the statement, 65 metric tonnes of emergency drugs for flood situation have been airlifted by the IAF to Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday, while one crore chlorine tablets have been sent and another one crore are in transit.

The total request of four crore chlorine tablets will be met in phases, it said. The health ministry has further mobilized 20 MT of bleaching powder which is being sent by road.

Of this, 10 MT would reach today and another 10 MT would arrive there on Wednesday. Additionally, 12 public health teams have already been constituted, one each for all the worst-affected districts, and they are ready for deployment on request of the state.

Ten specialist medical teams have been constituted, and psycho-social teams from NIMHANS are ready for deployment as and when requested by the state government, the statement said.
The Supreme Court had questioned the EC's notification and said that NOTA was meant to be exercised by individual voters in direct polls. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court overruled an Election Commission notification, saying that the option NOTA (None of the Above) cannot be permitted for voting in Rajya Sabha elections on Tuesday.

"It is impermissible for the EC to have prescribed NOTA option in RS elections, it being an indirect means for proportional representation of States in RS," the apex court bench comprising of Chief Justice Dipka Misra and justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud observed.

The top court has set aside the poll panel's notification allowing NOTA option in the ballot papers for Rajya Sabha elections.

The Supreme Court had questioned the EC's notification and said that NOTA was meant to be exercised by individual voters in direct polls.

The verdict came on a plea of Shailesh Manubhai Parmar, who was the Congress's chief whip in the Gujarat Assembly during the 2017 Rajya Sabha elections, in which the party had fielded sitting lawmaker Ahmed Patel.

Parmar had challenged the Election Commission's notification allowing the NOTA option in ballot papers.

The Supreme Court had earlier said by introducing NOTA, the poll panel was legitimising the act of not voting. The Congress leader from Gujarat had alleged that if NOTA provision was allowed in Rajya Sabha polls, it would encourage "horse-trading and corruption".

The Election Commission had said NOTA was first introduced in 2014 following a Supreme Court verdict a year earlier and they (the Congress) did not have any objection in subsequent polls as it suited them.

Option of NOTA for Lok Sabha and assembly elections was prescribed by the Supreme Court in 2013.
The ministry put forth three measures that the platform can take to combat fake news. (Photo: File)

Mumbai: In a bid to curb fake news and rising crime due to the circulation of viral messages on social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Union Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday met Whatsapp CEO Chris Daniels and suggested measures.

Prasad said though WhatsApp has been a boon to citizens of India there are some 'sinister developments' that provoke crimes like mob lynching and revenge porn.

Terming the meeting 'productive', the Union minister said that the widely-used platform needs to 'find solutions to these challenges which are a downright criminal violation of Indian laws'.

The ministry put forth three measures that the platform can take to combat fake news. To begin with, WhatsApp must have a grievance officer in India.

Second, there should be proper compliance of Indian laws.

Prasad said, "We won't appreciate a scenario where any problem will have to be answered in America."

He added, "WhatsApp has become an important component of India's digital storage," and thus a proper corporate entity must be located in India.

Prasad also complimented Daniels for the extraordinary technological awakening that WhatsApp has led in the country. He said that 'positive developments' took place especially in sectors of education, healthcare, and the recent relief work in Kerala.

India is the largest market for WhatsApp with the country accounting for over 200 million of its total 1.3 billion user base.

Earlier, the IT ministry had also made it clear to WhatsApp that the issue of fake news was far more important than other plans in the current circumstances.
Navjot Singh Sidhu was seated next to the President of PoK Masood Khan at Imran Khan's oath-taking ceremony as Pakistan Prime Minister. (Photo: Twitter / ANI)

New Delhi/ Chandigarh/ Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday urged dialogue with India and resolution of all disputes including Kashmir even as he jumped to the defence of beleaguered Congress leader and Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, saying that those targeting him in India were doing a great disservice to peace in the subcontinent.

Sidhu  who visited Pakistan at the invitation of Mr Khan for his oath-taking ceremony  was hailed by the Pakistani PM as an ambassador of peace. Mr Sidhu is under fire from the BJP for hugging Pakistan Army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa at the ceremony.

To move forward Pakistan and India must (have a) dialogue and resolve their conflicts including Kashmir: The best way to alleviate poverty and uplift the people of the subcontinent is to resolve our differences through dialogue and start trading, Mr Khan tweeted.

Sidhu, meanwhile, hit back at the BJP, reminding it of trips to that country by former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee and PM Narendra Modi as Prime Ministers. He defended hugging Gen. Bajwa at the swearing-in ceremony of Mr Khan as an emotional response on learning that Sikh pilgrims may now be allowed to visit the Kartarpur shrine across the border.
Hyderabad: AIMIM party Chief Asaduddin Owaisi criticised the Central government over its financial aid provided to Kerala which has been devastated by floods. He pointed out that Keralalites contributed 40 per cent of foreign remittance in 2017, and despite this the state is being treated unfairly. The barrister, in the same breath, thanked the UAE for announcing relief funds of Rs 700 crore to Kerala.

He said When the Centre can allocate Rs 2,000 crore for the statues of political leaders, it can as will allocate the same amount to Kerala. I appeal to the Centre to drop this step-motherly treatment and come forward to help rebuild Kerala.

He further said, I am thankful to the rulers of UAE for coming forward & giving Rs 700 crore for Kerala. In 2017 , India got $69 billion as foreign remittance and Kerala people contributed 40 per cent to it . Why is that we are not criticising Centres release of Rs 500 crore. It is just pittance, it is shameful. Earlier this week, the AIMIM Chief announced that the party through its Majilis Charitable trust is contributing Rs 16 lakh for Kerala flood relief and this amount will be deposited in the CMO Kerala relief fund.
Chennai: In a setback to the state government, the Madras High court on Tuesday stayed the dispossession of land from farmers and members of the public for the proposed Rs 10,000 crore Salem-Chennai Greenfield Expressway until further orders.

When batch of writ petitions came up for hearing before the division bench comprising Justices T.S. Sivagnanam and V. Bhavani Subbaroyan, the bench has directed the State Government not to dispossess the land owners from the land in question, which they proposed to acquire, until further orders.

The writ petitions were filed seeking to declare that Section 105 and the IVth Schedule of the Right to Fair Compensation in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, and entire land acquisition proceedings initiated under the National Highways Act, for proposed Greenfield Salem-Chennai Highway as unconstitutional, null and void.

Earlier, on July 18, when the matter came up for hearing before the bench, the judges said that it appears that as of now the apprehension in the minds of the land owners is that they will be forcibly dispossessed from their respective lands. In this regard, what has been reported in several Media as well as various television channels is that police force is used on land owners, who have raised their voice protesting against the land acquisition proceedings.

However, Advocate General submitted that the question of taking over possession will arise only after the declaration of acquisition in accordance with Section 3D of the National Highways Act, 1956. The bench said under such circumstances, we fail to understand as to why there should be use of police force etc. This in our considered opinion is avoidable provided the local public are sensitized, as the effect of the proceedings they propose to take is under the provisions of the Act.

When the matter came up for hearing on Tuesday, senior counsel for the petitioners stated that still the landowners have grave apprehension in their minds that they would be forcefully dispossessed from their respective lands. He said local people should be sensitized and counseled by the State government that there is no threat of dispossession.

The advocate general replied that pamphlets have been circulated in the respective areas explaining about the project. He also submitted a copy of the pamphlet and photographs before the bench.

After perusing the pamphlet the bench said, "we have gone through the pamphlets, which have been stated to have been circulated in Kanchipuram district. It largely speaks about the project which is to be implemented, the proposal to plant ten trees for every tree which is to be removed, assuring the public that on account of the formation of the road, mineral deposits in the district will not be affected, the interest of pedestrians will be sufficiently safeguarded by providing adequate barricades, the total extent which has to be acquired, the compensation that would be paid and finally that it is a very special scheme and it would benefit the people.

However, the bench said, "we find that there is absolutely no whisper about the assurance given by the officials to the land owners that they will not be forcibly dispossessed from their respective lands."

Advocate General has reiterates that there is no threat of dispossession of the landowners. The bench said, "considering the fact and the sensitivity of the matter and the category of persons from whom the lands are proposed to be acquired, we deem it appropriate that we clarify the aspect, which has been placed before us by the Advocate General so that it will allay all the fears of the land owners and the challenge to the land acquisition proceedings in whatever manner done could be heard and decided on merits and in accordance with law."

The bench specifically directed the State government not to dispossess the respective land owners from the land in question, which they propose to acquire, until further orders in these writ petitions. After passing the interim order the bench posted the matter for further hearing to September 11.
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A New Mexico man who was a suspect in the shooting death of his ex-girlfriend has been killed in a confrontation with police in West Texas.

Midland police say officers encountered 41-year-old Oscar Gurrola on Thursday just outside the city. Authorities say he brandished a firearm when officers tried to arrest him on a murder warrant, leading the officers to fire on him.

Gurrola, who was believed to be a resident of Carlsbad, New Mexico, died at the scene.

A news release issued by police indicates more than one officer fired on Gurrola but its not clear just how many.

Police had been searching for Gurrola after finding his ex-girlfriend with gunshot wounds hours earlier at a Midland residence.

The 36-year-old woman, Katrina Luna, died after being taken to a hospital.
New Delhi: Debunking Opposition claims that the BJP government was overspending on advertisements, the data accessed by this newspaper shows the Narendra Modi government has released less advertisements than the earlier UPA-2 government.

Official statistics show that while the Congress-led UPA-2 government booked approximately 52 crore sq cm of advertisment space in its five-year tenure, the BJP used approximately 47 crore sq cm in its four and a half years in power. Government sources said the repeated claims by the Congress that the BJP was on a advertisement spending spree was nothing but a misinformation campaign against the Narendra Modi government.

If the rupee spending of the two tenures was converted into todays rates, the UPA eras spending would come out to be more, a source said, adding that advertisement rates have gone up over the past few years. It was also noted that UPA-era government campaigns carried photographs of UPA chief Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and various ministers, and in some cases also photos of the Congress first family.

Under the present NDA government, we have made a conscious effort to use advertisements as a tool for awareness creation and communication. We only print Prime Minister Narendra Modis picture and give details of schemes, their benefits and success stories, the source added. Sources said the misinformation campaign on the huge spending on the Prime Minister Narendra Modis fitness video had also been exposed as an RTI reply by the PMO had revealed that not even a single rupee was spent on the video.
At the same time, around 500 engineering students from CBIT continued their strike on the college campus on Tuesday.(Representational Image)

Hyderabad: Telangana Parents Association (TPA) announced a joint action committee on Tuesday by parents to fight the exorbitant fees and to intervene for the quality of education in engineering colleges. Engineering fees should be reduced and CBIT notice should be withdrawn, demanded the JAC. At the same time, around 500 engineering students from CBIT continued their strike on the college campus on Tuesday.

The JAC said that it supports the students agitations in CBIT and elsewhere and requested the parents to submit a mass representation to the management on August 25 at CBIT. The JAC also demanded that the state government should intervene and control the colleges. Mr N. Narayana, JAC Chief Advisor, said, We will fight the exorbitant fees, we appeal to all engineering colleges to not to insist on additional fees.
Thiruvananthapuram: The UAE government has offered Rs 700 crore for flood relief in the state. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told reporters after the cabinet meeting on Tuesday that the crown prince of UAE and deputy supreme commander of the armed forces, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, had informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi about his governments decision to provide relief to Kerala. This was disclosed by the crown prince to Lulu Group chairman Yusuff Ali when the latter went to wish him on the eve of Eid.

The chief minister said the support offered by the UAE government had given the confidence that people all over the world were with us.

The Gulf countries were the second home for Malayalis and they shared a special relation. The people in Gulf countries were equally concerned and worried about the disaster here, he said.

The UAE government understands that people of Kerala are in deep distress because of the disaster. On behalf of the people of the state, Mr Vijayan thanked UAE president Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan, vice-president and prime minister of UAE Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Meanwhile, the Centre has reportedly expressed its reluctance to accept all foreign aids including the one from the UAE.
Chennai: DMK is all set to elect its working M K Stalin as the party chief at its general council meet on August 28 here. The agenda for the meeting to be held at party headquarters 'Anna Arivalayam,' will be the election of party president and treasurer, a DMK release said.

Days after Stalin's estranged brother Alagiri openly challenged his leadership and claimed that all the "true loyalists" of his father were on his side, DMK has now announced its general council meet for formalising Stalin's defacto control of the party over the last couple of years since his father and DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi took ill. He passed away at the hospital on May 7.

Alagiri's revolt in unlikely to create any problems since Stalin has taken firm grip on all the district units of the party, including those in the south that had been once the domain of the hostile elder brother. DMK district units like Cuddalore-West have already adopted resolutions unanimously proposing Stalin's elevation and at the recent meeting of the party executive at the Anna Arivalayam to condole Karunanidhi's death, senior leader and DMK's principal secretary Durai Murugan addressed Stalin as 'future president'.

Stalin, 65, has recently written in his column in DMK organ, Murasoli, that his father had personally trained and guided him, bestowing responsibilities befitting his toil for the party. Starting his political innings as a school student when barely 14, when he campaigned for the DMK in the 1967 Assembly election, Stalin was incarcerated under the MISA in 1976 during the Emergency. He had held various posts, including the youth wing secretary and treasurer.

Elected as MLA for the first time in 1989 from Thousand Lights constituency-from where he was re-elected thrice-Stalin became the Municipal Administration Minister under his father and went on to become his Deputy CM in 2009.
Going where no US President had gone before, Donald Trump recently signed an executive order to create the sixth branch of the US military the Space Force with the vice-president later giving a deadline of 2020 for it to become operational. Like all Trumpian pronouncements, it was met with groans, jokes, invective and some pretty amazing memes.

There have been complaints that this is an unnecessary waste of money and that the US Air Force already has a Space Command and space force. There has also been much hand-wringing about how this will lead to the militarisation of space, but the fact is that space is already militarised and has been for some time now.

The race started in 1950 with the launch of Sputnik by the USSR, which was quickly followed by the Soviets sending the first dog, and then the first man and woman into space. This threw military planners in the US scrambling to find countermeasures. One proposal was Project Horizon, which envisaged the building of a military base on the moon.

The Soviets took a more pragmatic approach, launching Polyot-1, the first suicide spaceship which was designed to approach enemy spy satellites and explode, destroying them with shrapnel. Even sci-fi genre was the Soviets Almaz space station a habitable space base designed for reconnaissance and surveillance, but that was also equipped with a cannon to fire at enemy satellites. As late as 1987, the USSR tried and failed to launch the unmanned Polyus spacecraft that was equipped with a carbon dioxide laser and designed to destroy Americas anti-missile Strategic Defence Initiative satellites.

Plans were drawn up by both sides to actually place nuclear weapons on select satellites as well but thanks to detente and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, these plans were never realised.

Conventional weapons, however, are another matter and the US starting with the Obama administration has repeatedly refused to back the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space treaty which would ban the placement of conventional weapons in space. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov recently railed against this refusal, accusing the US of nurturing plans to militarise outer space (and deploy) weapons in outer space.

Hes not wrong, given that the US recently launched the secretive X-37B unmanned spaceplane, which can remain in orbit for a year (ironically, the use of orbiting spacecraft as surveillance and weapons platforms was proposed by Soviet scientists decades ago), and that there is a real possibility that conventional hypersonic missiles (currently in development) could be placed on US military satellites. Thats a frightening prospect for any potential target country, given that the speed of these missiles renders them impossible to intercept.

Adding to the potential orbital bombardment arsenal is the modern version of the Cold War Project Thor, which envisaged massive tungsten rods being fired from sub-orbit with devastating velocity. On the ground, these rods from God would impact like a nuclear weapon, without all the pesky fallout.

Given how the US dominates orbital space, it is no surprise that both Russia and China are railing against its refusal to back the treaty, but this does not mean that those nations are not scrambling to develop countermeasures not space weapons per se, but weapons based on earth that can target space platforms. These include ground-based anti-satellite ballistic missiles, and the directed energy weapons (including lasers) which could be used to damage or destroy sensitive space-based equipment.

In order to offset Americas massive satellite surveillance networks, lasers are also being developed to effectively blind those satellites. This doesnt mean that China and Russia are not vying for space-based weapons platforms of their own, but that they are prioritising less expensive countermeasures rather than trying to match the US in a field in which the latter already enjoys a massive lead.

In the event of a conflict, the space theatre will be further complicated by the fact that many space technologies are dual use and that manoeuvrable satellites can easily be fitted with or turned into weapons even if their actual purpose was far more benign. Similarly, advanced ballistic missile defence systems also have the latent ability to target satellites, should the need arise. What this means is that in any future conflict, the lines will be further blurred, thresholds will be lowered and paranoia may lead to disastrous miscalculation.

Its not all doom and gloom though, as advances in space (and military) technology do indeed trickle down to us on earth as well, and the global positioning system that helps us get around is just one such example. And then, of course, theres the promise that if the real khalai makhlooq show up, we may have a surprise or two in store for them.

By arrangement with Dawn
The wheels of justice are known to grind exceedingly slowly in India, where a 2007 hate speech by current UP CM Yogi Adityanath finds mention in the Supreme Court in 2018. A decade has rolled by before judicial intervention was even thought of. A riot in which 10 lives were lost makes the issue serious, indicating this may be a clear case of justice delayed being justice denied. Politicians often bank on systemic delays in law enforcement and the justice system to get away with words and deeds that should invite action. Curiously, those in power are reluctant to act swiftly against their ilk, regardless of political hue, and even if they are polar opposites in ideology.

One of Yogis first acts on coming to power last year was to withdraw all cases registered against himself on the ground that they were politically motivated and unworthy of judicial scrutiny. But it should not be up to an individual to determine what cases should be pursued by the justice system. Such orders are a clear transgression of the balance of powers, but without searching judicial scrutiny, those in power like Yogi can probably get away with it. The Allahabad high court was told the voice in the audio recording was indeed that of Yogi Adityanath; he was the Gorakhpur MP then. Despite that, the court has refused to grant sanction to prosecute the accused. The Supreme Court has opened up the issue, but its hard to predict when the law will catch up with hate speeches and hate crimes by politicians.
Id-ul-Adha (feast of sacrifice) is not just an occasion for slaughtering animals. It is rather a three-day-long spiritual reminder of the true meaning of qurbani sacrifice, submission and supplication to God, evoking deep emotions for the needy and hungry people. It offers Muslims an opportune time for serious reflection on the condition of the poor and the destitute, inculcating the spirit of caring for, and sharing with them.

Prophet Abrahams deeper devotion and complete submission to the will of God are the core values that Muslims celebrate during this festival. Thus, they remind themselves of the Prophets willingness to sacrifice anything for the sake of God. Muslims sacrifice the halal (permissible) animals in remembrance of Ibrahims devotional sacrifice to God and distribute them to the poor who cannot afford their meals. However, animal sacrifice is not the core essence of this festival. God does not actually take pleasure in flesh and blood, as he says: Their meat will not reach Allah, nor will their blood, but what reaches him is piety from you.

Therefore, this solemn occasion should not be confined to animal sacrifice; Muslims must opt for many other ways to express devotion to the will of Allah. Many virtuous and harmonious acts based on kindness and sharing tradition should be performed to achieve the noble objectives of Id-ul-Adha.

Among the various prophetic traditions (sunnats) relating to Id-ul-Adha are greeting and embracing the neighbours, hugging them when meeting or parting, visiting and comforting the sick, offering condolences to the bereaved, exchanging gifts and thus sharing joy and happiness with all means possible. Such acts that strengthen fraternity, brotherhood and charity are greatly valued on the day of Id-ul-Adha.

Id-ul-Adha appears to be a festival for a particular community. But in a broader sense, it is part of the universal celebration of social harmony. The spirit of sharing runs high in this feast and, therefore, Muslims become more generous and eager to share with the brethren of other communities.

Notably, festivals in India look diametrically different in their exterior forms, but, in essence, they remain same in terms of the varied and enriching cultural expressions that promote social harmony. Every fest in this country helps people get together with a mutual feeling of cultural amity and universal brotherhood.

In fact, festivals are often born out of different historical traditions. Since the traditions of different communities pertain to a context, they are bound to differ naturally when they take shape. However, the underlying essence remains the same. It is not possible to bring uniformity in the style of the festivals because of their variance in the external appearance.

If there are 10 members in a family, it is natural that the shape of all members will differ from each other but as part of the family unit, they are all the same. Similarly, each religion has different festivals but they thrive like beads in a rosary.

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi is an alim (classical Islamic scholar) and a Delhi-based writer. He can be contacted at: grdehlavi@gmail.com
Nvidia Corp on Monday released a new generation of gaming chips that combine its latest ray tracing technology and artificial intelligence to give gamers access to more realistic graphics.

At a Gamescom 2018 press conference in Cologne, Germany, Nvidia rolled out its newest generation of gaming chips - the RTX 2070, RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti. They are based on its recently launched chip blueprint called Turing, which Nvidia is also using for higher-priced chips announced last week for game designers, movie makers and other computer graphics professionals.

The chips will range from USD 499 to USD 999 and will be available in retail stores starting Sept. 20, Chief Executive Jensen Huang said at the event.

The biggest selling point of the gaming chips released on Monday is an improvement in so-called real-time ray tracing, or the ability for the chip to simulate how light rays will bounce around in a visual scene, which helps video games and other computer graphics more closely resemble shadows and reflections in the real world.

Part of how the new chip achieves high-resolution graphics quickly is a special section of the chip that finishes most of the image but then uses artificial intelligence to guess what the unfinished pixels should look like. That task was difficult to do well in the past, Huang said in his presentation.

Were using artificial intelligence to generate resolution that we otherwise wouldnt have, Huang said. We can now for the very first time generate missing pixels that are actually right.

Gaming produced USD 5.5 billion of Nvidias USD 9.7 billion in revenue for its most recent fiscal year, up 36 per cent from the year before. Last week, Nvidias largest and oldest business of selling graphical processing units, or GPUs, for video game players beat analyst estimates, bringing in USD 1.8 billion compared with estimates of USD 1.75 billion.

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Trump has made his Twitter account - with more than 53 million followers - an integral and controversial part of his presidency. (Representational Image)

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that it is very dangerous for social media companies like Twitter Inc and Facebook Inc to silence voices on their services.

Trumps comments in an interview with Reuters come as the social media industry faces mounting scrutiny from Congress to police foreign propaganda.

Trump has made his Twitter account - with more than 53 million followers - an integral and controversial part of his presidency, using it to promote his agenda, announce policy and attack critics.

Trump previously criticized the social media industry on Aug. 18, claiming without evidence in a series of tweets that unnamed companies were totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices. In the same post, Trump said: too many voices are being destroyed, some good & some bad.

Those tweets followed actions taken by Apple Inc, Alphabet Incs YouTube and Facebook to remove some content posted by Infowars, a website run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Jones own Twitter account was temporarily suspended on Aug. 15.

I wont mention names but when they take certain people off of Twitter or Facebook and theyre making that decision, that is really a dangerous thing because that could be you tomorrow, said Trump.

Trump appeared on a show produced by Infowars, hosted by Jones, in December 2015 while campaigning for the White House.

In removing Jones content, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook each pointed to specific user agreement violations. For example, Facebook removed several pages associated with Infowars after determining they violated policies concerning hate speech and bullying.

Twitter and Facebook declined to comment on Trumps statement. Apple and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In July, during a House of Representatives Judiciary Committee hearing, executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter testified they did not remove content based on political reasons.

Our purpose is to serve the conversation, not to make value judgments on personal beliefs, Nick Pickles, Twitters senior strategist, said at the time.

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These days affordable yet powerful is a very lucrative smartphone niche and all phone manufacturers are making the run for it. In 2018, budget phones have embraced flagship design and features, such as edge-to-edge notched displays with 19:9 aspect ratios, biometric sensors, dual camera setup and more. Following this trend, Nokia has added yet another smartphone to its affordable mid-range lineup  the Nokia 6.1 Plus.

This year, Nokia launched a range of smartphones with the Nokia's typical strong build quality, adequately powerful specifications coupled with stock Android and a strong focus on timely updates. And to keep up with the competition, the company has now adopted the modern notch trend, which every other phone maker is incorporating in the midrange segment.

The 6.1 Plus is an upgrade to the Nokia 6.1 (2018) launched earlier this year. While the Nokia 6.1 Plus will largely face stiff competition from Xiaomi's Redmi Note 5 Pro, ASUS' ZenFone Max Pro M1, Honor 9N and Motorola's Moto G6, Nokia's new boy may also see some threat from the recently launched Xiaomi Mi A2.

Design:

The Nokia 6.1 Plus stands out from rest of Nokia's midrange stable  thanks to glass panels held together with a metal frame and an almost bezel-less screen with a trendy cutout for the earpiece and a selfie camera. The lightweight construction of the handset, premium aesthetics and its compact form factor help it stand out from most phones in this price category.

While the glossy glass body surely grabs eyeballs, it does not provide the comfortable grip that a metal chassis offers. Glass also makes the device very slippery and prone to fingerprints as well as smudges. Therefore, a case is recommended to keep it at arm's length from scratches. The rear of the phone follows the typical Nokia design language  there's a vertically aligned dual camera module positioned centrally and dual-tone LED flash. Moving ahead, the 3.5mm headphone jack is still there (unlike some recently launched midrange phones). There's also a USB Type-C port alongside the primary microphone and a speaker grille.

Display:

The new 5.8-inch 19:9 FHD+ screen makes up for most of the front  thanks to the notched display. The display seems impressive at first glance, with vivid colours and adequate brightness. Nokia has opted for Gorilla Glass 3 protection, which is less sturdy than Gorilla Glass 5 but is more resistant to scratches in the real world.

Performance:

Moving ahead, the smartphone is powered by the beefier Snapdragon 636 chipset aided by 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, which is expandable up to 400GB. There is no denying that the SD636 chipset is an avid performer, especially with its custom Kryo cores. Along with a stock Android UI, the setup should deliver impressive performance. In our brief time with the phone, the UI appeared to be fluid and we witnessed no lags or stutters while flicking between resource intensive apps. So far, Nokia has not disappointed with its Android One phones this year with regards to delivering the latest Android updates. So things look good here for the Nokia 6.1 Plus as well.

Camera:

Nokia is yet to deliver a great performing camera smartphone  so far, the Nokia 7 Plus and Nokia 6.1 have managed to deliver decent camera experience, yet underwhelming low-light photography performance. The Nokia 6.1 Plus features a dual rear camera setup, consisting of a 16MP sensor and a 5MP sensor, with the former sporting a f/2.0 aperture, and assisted by a dual-tone flash module. For selfies, there is a 16MP sensor with the same f/2.0 aperture and no flash. In our short time with the phone, the photos captured seemed impressive, but we will reserve our verdict for the review.

Battery:

With a 3060mAh battery, the device should stand up to a days requirements. The presence of fast charging should also speed up the filling when the battery meter goes red. However, other rival smartphones in this price segment offer a higher battery capacity.

Initial Impressions:

At Rs 15,999, Nokia is pitting the 6.1 Plus against the high-selling Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro and the ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M1. With its premium and stylish aesthetics, the 6.1 Plus gains a slight advantage over its rivals while still offering a bloat-free stock Android experience, decent specifications and a competitive pricing. Is it the best of its kind? Keep an eye for our review within the next few weeks.

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by

Hedda Sterne is not a name you hear very often, so I was pleased last spring when I learned that the Amon Carter Museum of American Art was giving her a solo exhibition. It would be a small one, and of lithographs, not paintings, but still I wanted to see it. Were in a moment when female artists are getting a bit more museum exposure, and I wondered about her.

At one time Sterne was prominentmostly, though, she was prominent now for having appeared in Life magazines photo of The Irasciblesthe only woman among the artists in the photo, all of whom had signed a letter to the president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May, 1950. As she once explained, she arrived at the staged session late, after photographer Nina Leen had placed everyone, so Sterne was put up on a table, standing, on the right, sticking up like a feather. (Several others, male and female, had signed the letter, but were not in the photo.)

But, according to hearsay, Sterne was the only woman because she invited herself when her husband, Saul Steinberg, was called to be in the photo.

For more information about that letterand the exhibition in questionyou might read a fascinating account by Robert Beverly Hale, then associate curator of American Painting and Sculpture. Its online on the Mets website. Heres an excerpt:

On May 20, 1950, an open letter signed by eighteen painters and ten sculptors was received by the Museum. It stated in substance that they rejected the monster national exhibition to be held at the Metropolitan, that the juries chosen were too conservative to admit a just proportion of advanced art. It called upon all the advanced artists in the country to boycott the exhibition. This letter, which appeared on the front page of The New York Times, stirred up a spirited controversy. On June 12 the Museum received an open letter signed by seventy-five artists expressing confidence in the integrity of the juries appointed, saying that it seemed unfair to attack the juries before they had met and announced their verdicts.

As an aside, its interesting to note some artists who were in that exhibition: Ivan Albright, Andrew Wyeth, Everett Spruce and Mark Tobey are among them.

But back to Sterne: She later blamed the photo for causing her trouble with male artists, but she wanted the attention. Even though she hung around with the art crowd, including Duchamps and Mondrian at first and, later, the guys at the Cedar Tavern, she still, early on, felt that she would be better off signing her work only with a H, to disguise her gender.

That soon ended, but theres no question that her connection with Steinberg aided her.

For me, Sternes work is uneven. She experimented a lotworking in Surrealism, abstraction (both geometric and biomorphic), representation, portraiture. But she never developed a particular signature style or niche.

The works on view at the Amon Carter are from two series (plus four miscellaneous prints)Metaphores and Metamorphoses and The Vertical Horizontalsthat she made in 1967. I reviewed the exhibition for The Wall Street Journal, published in yesterdays paper.

The prints are engaging, interestinga window on her thinking, her working out process. But they didnt leave me asking for more. I have seen her very good painting at the Tate, and a few others. The Met plans to put one of her paintings in Epic Abstraction, coming this fallif it is the one in the museums permanent collection, I dont believe its normally on view.

And so, despite this wide-ranging look at Sternes work, I had to concludefor the show and for her in general:

Hedda Sterne: Printed Variations is a small, attractive show displaying themes that she also explored in painting. It leaves her where she will probably remain in art history, closer to the periphery than the center.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Nina Leen/Time Life Pictures Gallery/Getty Images (top right); Metaphores and Metamorphoses VII, bottom left, courtesy of The Hedda Sterne Foundation.
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Alice Wells at the same time welcomed Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's remarks on the importance of having peace on both sides of the country's borders. (Photo: AP)

Washington: The US has expressed concern over terrorist groups continuing to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan and is asking the country to do more against "externally oriented" extremist outfits, a top official in the Trump administration said.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Alice Wells at the same time welcomed Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's remarks on the importance of having peace on both sides of the country's borders.

"Pakistan has an important role to play in furthering stability in Afghanistan. We have expressed our concern over the fact that terrorist proxy groups continue to be able to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan. We are urging the government to do more to bring pressure to bear against these organisations, externally oriented terrorists groups," Wells told reporters on Monday.

She was asked whether the US has seen any progress in its demand that Pakistan take action against terror groups like the Haqqani network and Taliban.

Wells was addressing a Foreign Press Centre video conference from Washington on 'US Policy in the Indian Ocean Region' during which she previewed her upcoming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference hosted by the India Foundation in Hanoi on August 27-28.

Wells said the US looks forward to working with the new government of Pakistan and "we welcome the words of Prime Minister Imran Khan when he discussed the importance of having peace on both sides of Pakistan's borders."

Responding to questions on Afghanistan and the security situation in the region, she said Pakistan "obviously" has a critical role to play in the stabilization of Afghanistan.

"We have encouraged Pakistan to take stronger steps to ensure that the Taliban either come to the negotiating table or expelled back into Afghanistan rather than enjoy safe haven outside of the country."

She noted that Pakistan and Afghanistan have embarked over the last several months on an effort to improve the bilateral relationship with the negotiation of a solidarity document which the US strongly supports.

"At a time when President Ashraf Ghani has been so forward leaning in putting forward a peace proposal that the international community has rallied around, at a time when the Afghan people are calling for peace...this is the time for all parties to come to the negotiating table and we very much look to Pakistan to reinforce that message," she said.

On a question on President Donald Trump's South Asia Strategy announced last year encompassing Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, the Central Asian nations and extending into Southeast Asia, Wells said the South Asia strategy "obviously pointed to the role that India can and should play in supporting the stabilisation of Afghanistan."

"I think that was one of the key new features of the strategy, tapping what has been India's three billion dollar commitment to date upto 2020 in support of Afghanistan's economic development."

Wells said Afghanistan needs to be "stitched back into the region" and that includes both north-south trade as well as east-west trade.
E-cigarettes -- often touted as a safer alternative to cigarette smoking -- may modify the DNA in the oral cells of users, potentially increasing the risk of cancer.

Introduced to the market in 2004, e-cigarettes are handheld electronic devices that heat a liquid, usually containing nicotine, into an aerosol that the user inhales.

Different flavours of liquids are available, including many that appeal to youth, such as fruit, chocolate and candy.

The popularity of e-cigarettes continues to grow worldwide, but the long-term effects of e-cigarette usage, commonly called "vaping," are unknown.

"We want to characterise the chemicals that vapers are exposed to, as well as any DNA damage they may cause," said Romel Dator, who presented the study in the US at the 256th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

According to a 2016 report by the US Surgeon General, 13.5 per cent of middle school students, 37.7 per cent of high school students and 35.8 per cent of young adults (18 to 24 years of age) have used e-cigarettes, compared with 16.4 per cent of older adults (25 years and up).

"It's clear that more carcinogens arise from the combustion of tobacco in regular cigarettes than from the vapor of e-cigarettes," said Silvia Balbo, from the University of Minnesota in the US.

"However, we don't really know the impact of inhaling the combination of compounds produced by this device. Just because the threats are different doesn't mean that e-cigarettes are completely safe," said Balbo.

To characterise chemical exposures during vaping, researchers recruited five e-cigarette users.

They collected saliva samples before and after a 15-minute vaping session and analysed the samples for chemicals that are known to damage DNA.

To evaluate possible long-term effects of vaping, the team assessed DNA damage in the cells of the volunteers' mouths.

The researchers used mass-spectrometry-based methods they had developed previously for a different study in which they evaluated oral DNA damage caused by alcohol consumption.

Researchers identified three DNA-damaging compounds, formaldehyde, acrolein and methylglyoxal, whose levels increased in the saliva after vaping.

Compared with people who do not vape, four of the five e-cigarette users showed increased DNA damage related to acrolein exposure.

The type of damage, called a DNA adduct, occurs when toxic chemicals, such as acrolein, react with DNA. If the cell does not repair the damage so that normal DNA replication can take place, cancer could result.

The researchers plan to follow up this preliminary study with a larger one involving more e-cigarette users and controls.

They also want to see how the level of DNA adducts differs between e-cigarette users and regular cigarette smokers.

"Comparing e-cigarettes and tobacco cigarettes is really like comparing apples and oranges. The exposures are completely different," Balbo said.

"We still don't know exactly what these e-cigarette devices are doing and what kinds of effects they may have on health, but our findings suggest that a closer look is warranted," he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday virtually dismissed opposition Congress' clamour over reports about China's continued military build-up in and around Doklam in Bhutan.

As Chinese Defence Minister, Gen Wei Fenghe, called on him in New Delhi, Prime Minister noted that peace and tranquillity was prevailing along the disputed India-China border. A press release issued by Prime Minister's Office after his meeting with Chinese Defence Minister quoted him saying that maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas was indicative of the sensitivity and maturity with which India and China handle their differences, not allowing them to become disputes.

Wei arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday. His is the first high-level visit from Beijing to New Delhi after Modi had an informal summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Wuhan in China on April 27 and 28 and agreed on a roadmap to ease strains in bilateral relations, which hit a new low over the military stand-off in Doklam Plateau in western Bhutan last year.

In his meeting with Chinese Defence Minister, Modi termed India-China relations as a factor of stability in the world.

Wei and his host, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, will hold formal talks on Thursday.

Prime Minister's avowal on prevalence of peace and tranquility along the disputed India-China border came weeks after the opposition Congress criticized the Union Government led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for allegedly trying to cover up continued build-up by Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) in and around Doklam near India-China-Bhutan tri-junction boundary point. His comment also came just days after media reported an incursion by Chinese PLA across the Line of Actual Control  the de-facto border between India and China  at Demchok in eastern Ladakh.

India and China had a 72-day-long military face-off at Doklam in Bhutan last year. It started in the middle of June 2017 when Chinese PLA personnel came to the area along the disputed Sino-Bhutan border and started building a road, brushing aside the protests by the Royal Bhutanese Army personnel. The Indian Army soldiers from Sikkim went to the scene on June 18 and stopped the Chinese PLA soldiers from constructing the road, which would have had serious security implications for the Siliguri Corridor linking India's north-eastern States with the rest of the country.

The intervention by Indian Army resulted in a face-off with the Chinese PLA personnel. It ended on August 28 with both sides withdrawing troops from the scene.

Modi Government has since been persistently claiming that the status quo at the scene of the face-off has been restored and prevailing.

The media reports however indicated continued build-up by Chinese PLA in the vicinity. This prompted the opposition Congress to accuse the BJP-led Government of hiding the truth. Congress president Rahul Gandhi earlier this year questioned Prime Minister's silence over media reports on resumption of construction of road and other military infrastructure by Chinese PLA near Doklam. After External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj made a statement in Parliament confirming continuation of status quo at the scene of last year's face-off at Doklam Plateau, Gandhi on August 2 last criticized her for prostrating before China.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs could not finalize and submit its report on India-China military face-off at Doklam Plateau due to differences between the Congress and the BJP MPs over certain parts of it.


Sixteen persons were arrested in Ara on Tuesday where a woman was paraded naked by a mob following the recovery of the body of a teenager near her house.

The deceased Bimlesh Shah, 16, had gone to Bihiya near Ara in Bihars Bhojpur district to take admission in Class XIth. However, his body was found near the railway track on Monday.

Infuriated over the incident, an unruly mob took to streets and burnt shops, kiosks before attacking the woman, who, the locals feel, was responsible for the teenagers death. Though initially it was suspected that the boy died in an accident, the post-mortem report confirmed that he was killed as his neck bone was fractured. There were injury marks on his private parts too.

Shocked over hearing the news of her brothers death, 13-year-old Shobha too died of heart attack. The situation then turned more volatile. Additional police reinforcement was rushed to the place of occurrence as the mob attacked trains passing through Ara.

We have suspended eight cops, including the station house officer (SHO) of Bihiya police station Kunwar Prasad Gupta. The effort is on to identify all those who were part of the mob which thrashed the woman and forced her to parade naked. Till now, 16 persons have been arrested in this case, said Avakash Kumar, Bhojpur SP, who is camping at Bihiya, some 25 km from Ara (the district headquarters of Bhojpur).

The woman, who is said to be a Dalit, is recuperating at a local hospital. She is believed to be part of an orchestra group which was also allegedly into flesh trade business.

Former Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav was quick to launch an offensive against Nitish. In Bihar, a woman is allegedly stripped, thrashed & paraded naked by a mob in a lawless State. I am speechless & numb to see the heart-wrenching videos of that woman. Nitish ji, with folded holds, I request you to fix law and order & ensure women safety and security. Pls. tweeted Tejashwi.
Pakistan has just elected a new prime minister amidst a major realignment in equations between its army, the ISI and the countrys many religio-political groups. Earlier, in mid-July 2018, an Indian news channel reported the likelihood that Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists could target Indian naval ships. In the din of todays polarised domestic

politics, this report seems to have

escaped the nations attention.

Today, the government and the security establishment are focused on Jammu & Kashmir and the North East and appear to have forgotten the 7,516-km coastline. With the Indian Army and BSF on high alert along the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Boundary (IB) respectively, the weakly guarded coastal borders offer greater penetration possibilities to Pakistan-based terrorists.

The reports, quoting naval sources and the Intelligence Bureau-led Multi-Agency Centre, indicated that Pakistan Navys Special Services Group is training JeM terrorists in diving techniques at Bahawalpur, Punjab, for a sea-borne strike.

These terrorists plan to target strategic assets of the Indian Navy, which could mean nuclear submarines such as the INS Chakra and the lone aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya. It could also extend to warships as also assets in the civilian maritime domain. Warships are particularly vulnerable whilst in harbour, due to their size and lack of manoeuvring space in ports.

Among the precedents of earlier attacks, the most high-profile one was in 2000 when an al-Qaeda terrorist rammed an explosive-laden boat into an American warship, the USS Cole, in the port city of Aden, Yemen. The US Navy lost 17 sailors and the warship suffered extensive damage. This was followed by an attack on the French oil tanker MV Limburg, also off Yemen, in October 2002.

In 2011, the Al-Qaeda attacked the PNS Mehran, a Pakistani naval airbase, and destroyed two American-built P3C Orion aircraft. In 2014, the al-Qaeda, with the active support from disgruntled Pakistani naval personnel, stormed the Karachi harbour in an attempt to hijack PNS Zulfiqar, a frigate, but failed to do so. The aim of this attack was reportedly to target US and perhaps Indian warships. If they had been successful, these terrorist attacks would have added a whole new dimension of terrorists in command of war vessels.

The explosion and subsequent sinking of a Pakistani Dhow off Porbander when cornered by the Indian Coast Guard on the night of December 31, 2014, remains a mystery. It might have been involved in drug trafficking or even arms transfer to insurgents, terrorists and Maoist groups. Ever since, there have been intelligence reports from time to time about the threats to assets along Indias west coast from Pakistan-based terrorists.

Clearly, the possibility of sea-borne terrorist attacks should not come as a surprise. After all, the arms and ammunition for the 1993 Mumbai blasts were transported by sea. Similarly, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks in 2008, too, came by sea.

Pakistan, besides sponsoring terrorism in J&K, has also channelled terrorists into India through Maldives, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. There has been, in recent years, increasing radicalisation in the Maldives, mostly engineered by Pakistan, with Saudi Arabia, too, spreading Wahabism in that island nation.

Only a few months ago, Indias National Investigation Agency (NIA) had raised the issue of red-corner notice by Interpol against Pakistani diplomats based in Colombo between 2009 and 2016. These diplomats had reportedly hired Sri Lankan Muslims to attack various high-profile targets which included military establishments and ports in South India. Some of these operatives were reportedly tasked with gaining entry into India from Maldives.

Terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeda, Taliban, LeT which have a strong presence in West Asia and North Africa possess considerable sea-going skills. In any case today, with GPS and satellite communications, no great logistics are necessary and elementary seamanship skills would suffice. All these terrorist organisations could team up with their counterparts in India, such as the Indian Mujahideen, SIMI etc, to carry out attacks within the country. The rise of IS, with a number of Indian youth already having joined its ranks and with some indications that it may already be operational in India, is a cause for worry.

The Pakistan-based terror outfit JeM has reportedly constructed a 15-acre training academy complex in Bahawalpur to train thousands of children to promote Jihad. The JeM had reportedly supported Imran Khan in the recent elections and had openly campaigned against former PM Nawaz Sharif and called him a traitor.

The JeM now looks to Imran Khan to support their mosque-military adventures. With the 10th anniversary of 26/11 round the corner and Imran Khan all set to take over as the new prime minister with the blessings of GHQ Rawalpindi and the infamous ISI, Indias coastal borders will require greater surveillance and vigilance.

(The writer is a former Principal Director, Naval Intelligence, and Director, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India)
SALT LAKE CITY  Cottonwood Heights resident Aimee Christensen said she will never forget the moment she stepped off her travel bus into the remote village of Mwembeshi, Zambia.

It was like out of a movie where you see the kids running through the dust, open arms ready to just hug you and love you, Christensen said. And that's exactly what they did. The moment we got off the bus  they just embraced us and hugged us.

Christensen was one of 45 people who joined Utah natives, travelers, filmmakers and social media influencers Hailey and Brad Devine on a humanitarian trip to Zambia last month. Throughout the trip, the group worked with I Am Zambia, a charity with Utah ties that educates vulnerable girls and creates jobs to break the generational cycle of poverty.

The Zambia trip is the fourth annual Somewhere Devine expedition hosted by the filmmaking couple. Each summer, in a first-come, first-served process, they invite all 292,000 of their combined Instagram followers and 26,000 blog readers to apply for a coveted spot to travel and serve with the Devines.

We initially started as a fun way to connect with our readers in a real-life basis, but then it quickly became something that we realized we wanted to do every year, Hailey Devine told the Deseret News. It became a lot bigger than just an opportunity to connect with our readers. It was to bring together all of these like-minded people to do good in the world.

I Am Zambia

When the Devines learned about I Am Zambia, they immediately knew it was the charity they wanted to partner with this summer. Devine  a young entrepreneur and mother of two girls  said I Am Zambias mission to educate women for future careers strongly resonated with her.

The way that they have their organization set up is for true self-sustainability, which I love, Devine said. Now these girls will be able to grow up and be able to work and provide money and teach the younger generation. Its not just about the handouts anymore, its about education and them lifting themselves out, which is so empowering.

According to Heidi Kiene, secretary and co-founder of I Am Zambia, education is key in Zambia; without it, young girls often turn to prostitution to provide for their families. To battle the problem, I Am Zambia created a technical school in the capital city of Lusaka for girls to learn business skills, and a local bakery to provide a venue to apply those skills.

It felt like there was no hope, and now they feel like there is hope because they're not forgotten and they have opportunities, Kiene said. If there's just one word to emphasize and put in bold and italics, its about the hope.

During their 10-day trip, the Somewhere Devine group met the girls who attend the technical school. The group also helped build the new Harper Anne Medical Clinic in the remote village of Mwembeshi, roughly 28 miles from Lusaka, where I Am Zambia runs a school for younger children.

Diane Terry, the president of I Am Zambia and a Cottonwood Heights resident, said building the clinic was the organizations main goal for the summer. In her words, the group wanted to give their students optimal health so they could optimally learn.

Where our village school is, there is no medical care, and there's no medical care for hours and hours of walking time, Terry said. We wanted to raise the level of health for our own students so they could come to school and they could see a chalkboard and they didn't have respiratory problems.

To build the clinic, volunteers with the Somewhere Devine team carried 35-pound bricks, plastered and painted walls and rolled 100-pound drums of water, Terry said. The council chairperson of Zambias Chibombo District told Terry the clinic will serve 17 villages and over 30,000 people.

They did it all, and that was a significant project, Terry said about the Somewhere Devine group. They got it almost to the finish line. We're just painting inside right now, and then hopefully within a month, itll be open, so that was a huge gift for us.

Somewhere Devine hopes to be the gift that keeps on giving to I Am Zambia. Along with launching a donation campaign in June, the Devines are also selling a Zambia mobile photo preset with the hope to raise enough money to fund the Lusaka technical school for one year.

Cycle-breakers

The Zambian girls pursuing an education to break the cycle of generational poverty proudly refer to themselves as cycle-breakers, a term inspired by a talk Terry gave at graduation.

On the last night of the Somewhere Devine expedition, as the group talked around a campfire, the term cycle-breakers resurfaced  one person pointed out that, by using social media for good and doing service with an online community, the group members act as cycle-breakers in their own right. For Devine, it's a message that hit home.

We can all be the cycle-breakers of our own communities and of social media, to use it for good rather than bad. That was really cool, just to see that come full circle.
PROVO  In 2014, 60-year-old Belen Perez's adult son came home to find his mother strangled to death, with chemicals poured over her upper torso and face in an apparent attempt to destroy evidence.

Four years later, police and prosecutors say they believe they've found her killer.

"The Provo Police Department has not forgotten Belen Perez," said Provo Police Chief Rich Ferguson during a press conference about the investigation Monday in the Provo City Council Chambers.

At the press conference, police and prosecutors announced charges have been filed against a former neighbor of Perez who allegedly killed her and poured bleach over her body to hide his DNA, according to court documents.

Jerad Dale Gourdin, 34, was charged Monday in 4th District Court with homicide committed for pecuniary gain, a first-degree felony.

According to the charges, Gourdin allegedly killed Perez, attempted to cover up the crime and  while in prison on an aggravated assault charge  later told another inmate about the killing in an attempt to join a gang.

"Ultimately, much of what we had in the beginning pointed to Mr. Gourdin, and at this point we're confident to say this is the individual who committed the offense," Deputy Utah County Attorney Lance Bastian said.

On May 21, 2014, Perez was found dead in her home, 1675 W. 50 North, by her son. Police initially called her death a random crime, believing she may have returned home while a burglar was inside.

"That's been the most difficult part of this whole thing, that I really don't have that peace, knowing that the perpetrator is still somewhere out there," Carlos Barcelata said a year after his mother's death. He was not present Monday during the announcement in Provo.

The death was ruled a homicide by strangulation. Since then, Ferguson said Monday, police have "investigated carefully" and "have not stopped working to provide justice for her."

Bastian said police have remained in contact with the son throughout the investigation and that he has been "very supportive."

According to the charges, Perez was found with a power cord tied around her neck and "various chemicals," including drain cleaner and antifreeze, poured over her body. Her purse was sitting on a couch, and police said $350 and an iPod had been taken from it.

Earlier that day, Gourdin, who had been living two doors down from Perez after a recent release from Utah State Prison, "began moving about the neighborhood, knocking on doors and asking about doing odd jobs," charges state.

"Gourdin contacted the neighbor a few doors to the West of Perez's home three separate times, during each of which the neighbor declined his services, but commented to law enforcement that she felt like the entire time she was speaking with him at the door, he appeared to be looking past her into her home," charges state.

Perez went to a Walmart early in the afternoon and surveillance footage from the store would be the last time she was seen alive, according to the charges.

"Gourdin's activities also seemed to stop in the early afternoon, and he was not seen again by neighbors until later in the evening," charges state.

According to police, Gourdin's girlfriend said that when he returned home in the evening, he took two separate showers, one lasting 45 minutes. She also said that he showered while fully clothed and washed his clothes in the shower, charges said.

Gourdin's girlfriend told police that when investigators arrived at Perez's home that evening, Gourdin acted "strangely" and stood on a bed to watch police through a window, according to the charges.

When the girlfriend turned the TV on to a news report about Perez's death, "Gourdin told her to turn it off, and that they would not be watching anything about that," the charges state. Police said the girlfriend noticed that Gourdin appeared to be high on methamphetamine at the time.

When interviewed by police, Gourdin first said the only contact he'd had with Perez was "from the sidewalk while she was working in the yard" and that he'd left because she didn't speak English, according to the charges. In a second interview, he told police that he'd stepped into her home, charges state. And in a third interview, he said he shook hands with Perez and had stepped three or four feet into the home, according to police.

Perez's clothing and the cord used to strangle her were both tested for DNA, but police said the bleach mixture poured over her was "the perfect substance to destroy or degrade DNA."

The day after Perez's murder, Gourdin stabbed another person with a screwdriver, court documents state, and he is currently serving time in Utah State Prison for aggravated assault, a third-degree felony.

His sentence will in expire in May 2019, according to Bastian.

While in prison, according to court documents, Gourdin allegedly approached another inmate asking about "possible initiation into a gang."

"Knowing initiation required a killing, Gourdin asked if a previous incident could satisfy that requirement. The information provided to law enforcement by this inmate would not have been publicly or otherwise available, outside of contact with Gourdin," charges state.

According to Utah court documents, Gourdin has a string of felony convictions dating back several years including theft, a second-degree felony, failure to stop at command of police and possession of a controlled substance, both third-degree felonies, among others.

Correction: A previous version incorrectly said Belen Perez was killed on May 22, 2014. The correct date is May 21, 2014.
SALT LAKE CITY  The Utah Transit Authority has been ordered to reinstate and pay an estimated $300,000 to Michael Clara, who said he was fired because he was a whistleblower.

Clara, who worked for UTA for some 20 years mostly as a transit planner, said he raised concerns about several bus stops being built along 200 South shortly before the November 2015 vote on whether to raise taxes for transit.

"They said they had to put them in before Prop 1," Clara said, despite problems including using federal funds for stops he believed were not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Voters in Salt Lake, Utah and Box Elder counties rejected the tax increase.

The order issued Aug. 13 by U.S. Department of Labor Administrative Law Judge Lee Romero, Jr., requires UTA to reinstate Clara to his former position and pay him back wages, as well as $10,000 in compensatory damages.

Clara, a former Salt Lake City School Board member, said he believes that adds up to some $300,000.

Now a community organizer for Crossroads Urban Center, Clare said he's not sure he wants to return to UTA, after being fired for "job abandonment" because he returned to work after a vacation later than originally scheduled.

UTA spokesman Carl Arky said the decision could be appealed.

"UTA is disappointed with the judge's decision, as it's UTA's position Mr. Clara was appropriately terminated for cause. UTA is currently reviewing the decision in its entirety and evaluating appeal options. UTA has no further comment at this time," Arky said.
PROVO  Monica Brinkerhoff felt overwhelming heartache after her brother was killed fighting California's largest wildfire on record. But a sense of gratitude also settled in quickly, she said at his burial Monday.

"Thank you for showing us how to live," she told her brother, Matt Burchett, the 42-year-old Draper battalion chief known as a hard worker with a mischievous side who led by example.

At his final homecoming, Brinkerhoff said those her brother leaves behind will remember to breathe and hold each other up when grief envelops them like a dark fog. They will serve others and find joy in the ordinary moments, as he did, she said.

"We will feel an ever so subtle sense of peace, of comfort," she said, knowing her brother's presence "will never leave our hearts."

Brinkerhoff joined other family members, friends and Burchett's fellow firefighters in turning her eyes skyward as helicopters flew overhead in her brother's memory and flags flew at half-staff Monday.

Eight of Burchett's colleagues folded an American flag that had been draped over the casket in a solemn ceremony on a Provo hillside at Eastlawn Memorial Hills Cemetery. Burchett's helmet could be seen resting at the foot of the casket.

Though the interment was closed to the public, family members requested it be broadcast so that firefighters in Utah and outside the state could have a chance to watch. Burchett had battled wildland fires in California in the past, before the recent trip that claimed his life, they said.

Earlier in the day, following his funeral at the Maverik Center in West Valley City, hundreds of officers and firefighters from across Utah lined the arena and saluted their colleague's casket as it passed in front of the arena and was placed in a Draper City fire truck. Burchett's family members embraced many of those he worked with before the procession moved south on I-15 Monday afternoon.

Along the route to the ceremony, firefighters and others, many with their hands over their hearts, stood with American flags as they watched the procession from overpasses and on-ramps.

Heatherlyn Lohrke, a detective with Unified Police Department, watched the procession from an overpass at 4100 South in West Valley City. She said Burchett's death was a loss for her agency, too.

"It doesn't matter what badge we wear," Lohrke said. "When they suffer a loss, we suffer, too." She added that Utah's law enforcement community will support Burchett's loved ones.

"We're here whenever they need us," Lohrke said.

Utah Highway Patrol troopers on motorcycles led the procession to Provo, where fire engine ladders draped a giant American flag over the road. Utah Transit Authority busses brought many of Burchett's Unified Fire Authority colleagues the 40 miles to the cemetery.

In interviews shared Monday, friends and colleagues recalled Burchett as a "legend" in the wildland firefighting world.

Jon Finch said he tried to push Burchett's limits when he first went to work for him at Unified. But Finch said he now knows Burchett could read exactly what he was trying to do. He credited his late friend with setting his life on a good course, saying his relationship with his family and wife are so strong because of Burchett's example.

Other friends recalled fond memories of a fishing trip with Burchett, a novice fisherman, and his interactions with their children, who would light up when he spent time with them. Burchett at times wondered aloud whether he had stepped in areas of forests where no other human had ever set foot before during the course of his career fighting wildfires, they said.

"He taught me that respect was the most important thing," Finch said.

Many said it was clear just how much Burchett loved his wife, Heather, and that he had a keen intuition.

Talyse Francisconi, a friend of the family, said Burchett instinctively knew what his wife needed, even when she didn't know. She recalled Burchett taking care of the two friends on a trip they took to Mexico, at one point carrying both women's purses.

"Matt always watched out for you," she said, saying she hopes his young son Griffin knows that "his dad was one in a million."

Contributing: Alex Cabrero, Ladd Egan
SALT LAKE CITY  Amid ongoing fallout from a new report on sexual abuse by clergy, an embattled Catholic leader has cancelled plans to come to Utah next month.

Cardinal Roger Mahony, who led the Archdiocese of Los Angeles from 1985 to 2011, was previously accused of covering up sexual abuse allegations against more than 45 priests. He was supposed to appear at an annual fundraiser for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City on Sept. 6.

"Please note, Cardinal (Mahony) will not be attending the annual Bishop's Dinner for the Cathedral of the Madeleine," the diocese announced Monday night on Twitter.

Catholics around the world are reeling from a grand jury report on clergy sexual abuse in Pennsylvania, which was released last week. It highlighted allegations by more than 1,000 victims, implicating around 300 priests and condemning others for being more interested in protecting the church's reputation than children.

"With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them," Pope Francis said in a statement released Monday.

The Most Rev. Oscar Solis, bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, also released a statement on the report, asking for forgiveness for church leaders and calling for prayers for the people affected by clergy sexual abuse.

"I express my personal shame, distress and anger concerning the sexual abuse committed by some of our priests, bishops and church leaders against our children, young people and adults whom we are supposed to serve and to protect. It is distressing that some leaders have mishandled allegations of abuse, covered up such sinful acts and were not held accountable," he said.

Cardinal Mahony's poor reputation on clergy sexual abuse stems from his time leading the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Documents released in 2013 outlined his efforts to separate abusive priests from children without harming the Catholic Church's reputation, as the Los Angeles Times reported at the time.

"Along with sworn testimony by Mahony and his advisers and interviews with church officials, victims' families and others, the nearly 23,000 pages maintained by the archdiocese and various religious orders suggest a man who was troubled over abuse but more worried about scandal  and how it might derail the agenda he had for himself and his church," the article noted.

His involvement in the scandal soured his relationship to his successor, Archbishop Jose Gomez, who limited the scope of his ongoing service to the Catholic Church.

"My predecessor, retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, has expressed his sorrow for his failure to fully protect young people entrusted to his care. Effective immediately, I have informed Cardinal Mahony that he will no longer have any administrative or public duties," Archbishop Gomez wrote in 2013.

In his statement on the report on clergy sexual abuse in Pennsylvania, Bishop Solis said he will do what he can to protect Catholics in Utah.

"Our Diocese of Salt Lake City pledges to take action to the best of our ability to review our policies and programs, hoping and praying that we can prevent these sins from happening again," Solis statement

The diocese said a new speaker for the annual fundraising dinner will be announced shortly.
SALT LAKE CITY  Heres a look at the news for Aug. 21.

Will the BLM relocate to Ogden?

States across the West are hoping Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke moves the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to their state.

And next week, Utah is up to bat, according to the Deseret News.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, will bring the U.S. Committee on Natural Resources to the Beehive State for a field hearing in Roosevelt and a visit to the Ogden area.

Susan Combs, acting assistant secretary for policy, management and budget for the Department of Interior, will visit the Ogden area, too.

"We will talk about a couple of things," Bishop said. "We want to talk about the overall reorganization to bring all the agencies in an area together, but we specifically wanted to show what kind of opportunities there will be for businesses that are in outdoor recreation. And yes, she will be looking at places."

Read more.

Thousands honor fallen Utah firefighter

Thousands of family members, friends and firefighters attended the funeral of Draper Fire Battalion Chief Matt "Matty" Burchett on Monday, the Deseret News reported.

Burchett died last week in the line of duty as he fought to put out wildfires in California.

Speakers honored Burchett during the funeral, reflecting on the brotherhood they shared with him.

"Matt was a hero. He was a hero son, and a hero brother, a hero husband to Heather, a hero father.  He died a hero doing what he loved. What you all know of him professionally doesnt even compare to what kind of father, husband, son and brother he was," said Dominic Burchett, Matt Burchett's brother, who is also a member of the Unified Fire Authority.

Read more.

First TV commercial airs in Love-McAdams race

The first TV commercial in one of the biggest upcoming elections in Utah aired on Monday, according to the Deseret News.

The commercial featured Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams family, who celebrated the nominee.

"As mayor, Dad brings people together," one of McAdams' four children says during the commercial.

More than $100,000 in airtime has been purchased on the four major TV stations in Utah at least through next weekend, according to records filed with the Federal Communications Commission, the Deseret News reported.

Read more.

Russian hackers targeted conservative think tanks

Microsoft said Monday that Russian hackers created websites that looked like conservative think tanks but ultimately rerouted users to websites that could steal their passwords, according to The New York Times.

The Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute were both targeted by the hackers.

Both of those groups disagreed with Trump on ending Russian sanctions.

To be clear, we currently have no evidence these domains were used in any successful attacks before the DCU (Digital Crime Unit) transferred control of them, nor do we have evidence to indicate the identity of the ultimate targets of any planned attack involving these domains, Microsoft said on its blog.

Read more.

AROUND THE WEB
Editor's note: This commentary by Brigham Young University professor Brett Scharffs is part of an ongoing Deseret News opinion series exploring ideas and issues at the intersection of Faith and Thought.

This week, in an effort to draw attention to his upcoming comedy show, comedian David Cross tweeted out a picture that appeared to mock Latter-day Saint temple garments. When members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expressed discomfort at his provocation, he seemed to revel in their unease.

Do you ever feel  I know I do  that we live in an era characterized by incivility? Do you ever feel tempted  especially on Facebook or worse yet, Twitter  to return incivility with incivility?

Even as we live in an internet era in which responding to offense with offense is common, there are reasons to embrace a better way; a way exemplified by Washington, Lincoln, as well as online Latter-day Saint missionaries.

It's not just irreverent comedians like David Cross who cross lines of incivility. By any reasonable measure, our current president is often bombastic and specializes in labeling opponents. His opponents, in turn, style themselves the resistance, adopting mindsets that treat every fire as warranting five alarms. They too deploy epithets and vulgarities.

But perhaps we need to take a collective deep breath.

Even though social media has the capacity to turn up the volume on controversies, transforming public discourse, ample evidence demonstrates that incivility in American public life is hardly new, or insurmountable.

The presidential election contest between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson was noteworthy for its personal acrimony, including accusations by Adams supporters that Jefferson was an atheist, a weakling, a libertine and a coward. Meanwhile, Jeffersons supporters denounced President Adams as having hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman. But as long as there have been centrifugal forces of incivility that pull us apart as citizens, there have been centripetal forces of civility that have urged us to draw together in a civil center.

For example, at the age of 14, a young George Washington wrote down 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation, which he translated from a French book of maxims. The first maxim states, Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present.

President Abraham Lincoln saw the country through its most difficult and divisive ordeal. We are not enemies, but friends, he insisted at the outset of the Civil War, "We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection." Lincolns heartfelt plea to the better angels of our nature rings all the more poignant four years later, at a time when an estimated 750,000 Americans had lost their lives in battle.

As Lincoln and Washtington understood, respect for others and respect for self are connected. It may be that a comedian's contemptuous disregard for what Latter-day Saints hold sacred reflects not just a lack of respect for others but a lack of self-respect as well.

Recently, in an effort to understand how we might inculcate habits of responding with civility to those who are uncivil, Ive learned from the experience of young Latter-day Saint volunteers who serve as online missionaries at the Missionary Training Center here in Provo. We have invited several companionships to our home for dinner to talk about their experience in the MTC. Most of these young men and women have significant physical disabilities that prevent them from serving missions where being ambulatory is important. Their job is to respond to telephone calls and internet inquiries about the church.

By their estimate, more than half of those who call or start an online chat are hostile. Think about it, these are not people being contacted by missionaries, but people who are initiating conversations. Many call to attack the missionaries, to argue points of doctrine or to denounce the church for various doctrinal or historical practices. Many are argumentative, sarcastic or degrading.

For example, when a Latter-day Saint church leader passed, there was a wave of calls from people with crude and vulgar denunciations, including confident assertions that this leader was burning in hell. Others call claiming to be Jesus, Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. Others call to mock the temple and its sacred ordinances. Some claim to be mystics, sorcerers or magicians. Some are a little funny, demanding to know whether they are going to spirit prison for drinking a cup of coffee. One regular, David from Australia, calls to flirt with the sister missionaries.

My question for these missionaries was, how do you remain civil in the face of a constant barrage of incivility? Their answers have been instructive.

First and most importantly, they emphasize that they are acting as representatives of our Savior Jesus Christ, and so it isnt about them. They try hard to not take the animosity and sarcasm personally. They try to remember that the person they are chatting with is a child of God, created in his image. We try to treat them as Heavenly Father would want them to be treated, one explained. The key here is humility.

Second, they observe that if people are angry, one doesn't really know what they are angry about. They try to listen, to really listen, and understand where people are coming from  what, really, is their concern? The surface reason is often quite different from what is going on below.

Third, they often share scriptures or testimony. They try to speak truth as they understand it. They try to bring the discussion back to basic doctrines and concepts, such as the Restoration, the Book of Mormon, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. As one young elder put it, We always try to avoid being too speculative and abstract.

Fourth, they work hard to prepare themselves for frequent questions, engaging in personal study, district study and discussions. Sometimes you will just disagree, and you can do so politely, one explained. There are often areas of common ground, even with people who disagree on a lot.

Fifth, they try to respond in the manner they want to respond, not in the manner that others are treating them. You try not to stoop to their level. Remember your purpose (to be a representative of Jesus Christ) and try to stick to that purpose. Sometimes, they note, there will be a marked shift in tone; someone who begins as sarcastic or hostile may become more genuine and sincere in their inquiry.

Sixth, if someone is calling just to try to tear them down or waste their time, they will politely end the conversation and hang up. If you dont know the answer, admit it, and try to find someone who does. If someone is rattling your composure, take a break, say a prayer or go on a walk.

Finally, the answer is love. This is not to say it is easy; being loving is hard. As one missionary put it, The Savior could be direct, and sometimes even blunt. But he always acted with love.

Christians are expected to believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that love is the most powerful force in the universe  stronger than enmity and indifference  and that in the end it will prevail. To conclude with a snippet of rock-and-roll wisdom from the band U2: Love is bigger than anything in its way.

In the end, civility is not a stable, steady state of affairs; it is an ongoing struggle, within our culture, and within each of us. It is in the struggle against incivility, in the effort to vindicate the better angels of our individual and collective nature, in the effort to act with malice toward none and with charity for all, that the shape, meaning and contours of civility will be defined anew for our time and place.
SALT LAKE CITY  Utah House Democrats urged President Donald Trump in a letter referencing Mormon pioneers Tuesday to continue to resettle refugees in the United States and honor the 2019 admissions ceiling.

"It is only moral and right that we commit to help newcomers from around the world who have escaped life-threatening circumstances to begin building new lives for themselves and their families," said the letter signed by the 13 Democrats in the House.

The White House is considering another reduction in the number of refugees who can be resettled in the country. Trump set the number for 2019 at 45,000, a historical low. Some in the Trump administration are pushing for a cap of 25,000 refugees, a more than 40 percent cut from this years limit.

Utahns, the letter says, have an exceptional understanding of the importance of welcoming persecuted peoples and offering them safe haven.

"Generations ago, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who also experienced oppression and hardship, sought refuge in what is now Utah," the House Democrats wrote.

Utah has benefited economically and socially by welcoming more than 65,000 refugees over the years. They have proven to be an asset to their new communities but could not have achieved it alone. In the past two years, 5,000 volunteers have stepped up to help new Americans in receiving sanctuary, opportunities to rebuild their lives and thrive, according to the letter.

The letter also mentions the Utah Compact, a document the state's political, business, civic and religious leaders signed in 2010 outlining principles to guide immigration reform, including urging federal solutions, keeping families together and the economic role immigrants play.

"Maintaining our commitments to welcoming a reasonable number of refugees is consistent with these values," House Democrats wrote.

The letter says that the majority of resettled refugees in Utah communities are hardworking, entrepreneurial and family-focused people who share the state's values.

"Like most Utahns, they want safe communities, they are patriotic, they cherish the freedoms and opportunities America provides, and they want the best futures possible for their children," according to House Democrats.

In addition to Trump, the letter is addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielson.
SALT LAKE CITY  Pink is the worlds oldest color, according to a new study.

Researchers discovered ancient pink pigments from rocks that are more than 1.1 billion years old in the Sahara Desert, specifically in the Taoudeni Basin in Mauritania, West Africa.

Those pigments are the oldest known colors on record.

The pigments themselves are roughly 500 million years older than the last previously known pigments, which were discovered in ancient ocean creatures, said Dr. Nur Gueneli in a news release.

The bright pink pigments are the molecular fossils of chlorophyll that were produced by ancient photosynthetic organisms inhabiting an ancient ocean that has long since vanished," Gueneli said in a statement.

According to CNN, researchers discovered the colors by crushing billion-year-old rocks into powder and analyzing them to see which molecules existed inside the powder.

When diluted, the ancient pigments appear bright pink. But when they're concentrated, the fossils can range from a blood red to a deep purple, CNN reported.

Jochen Brocks, an associate professor who works at the Australian National University, told the BBC this is a rather large finding.

"Imagine you could find a fossilized dinosaur skin that still has its original color, green or blue ... that is exactly the type of discovery that we've made," he said.

"These are actual molecules, the oldest coloured molecules in the world. When held against the sunlight, they are actually a neon pink, he added.

The researchers also discovered with this experiment that these pigments confirmed there were ancient ecosystems underwater that were dominated by cyanobacteria, which is a type of bacteria that obtains energy through photosynthesis, according to CNN.

Brocks told BBC the secondary discovery was important because the cyanobacteria dominated the food chain in the world.

"Tiny cyanobacteria dominated the base of the food chain in the oceans a billion years ago, which helps to explain why animals did not exist at the time," he said. "Life only became bigger about 600 million years ago because before that there was no sufficient food source."
WEST VALLEY CITY  A man who allegedly printed and sold fake all-access passes to a recent Utah concert is under investigation for possibly making counterfeit concert tickets to other shows too, police said Tuesday.

The man has not been arrested or formally charged. But West Valley police spokeswoman Roxeanne Vainuku confirmed that charges were being screened against a 40-year-old man who just moved into the area about two weeks ago.

The investigation began July 26 when security at the USANA Amphitheatre began to notice several people trying to get into the G-Eazy and Lil Uzi Vert concert with all-access passes. Those passes, however, turned out to be fake..

"The front had a picture of the four headlining artists and holographic images printed on the front. The rear of the pass had the number '028 AA' with a QR code printed beneath it. The entire pass was encased in laminated plastic and was attached to a plain black lanyard," according to a search arrant affidavit filed in 3rd District Court.

When the venue manager was asked how he knew the passes were fake, he "produced a paper which was provided by the artists management team. This paper had all the valid designs for approved VIP, all-access and backstage passes. None of the valid designs had the image shown on the provided pass," the warrant states.

Thirteen people went to the concert that night believing they had found a great deal on an all-access pass online, but were sold a counterfeit pass instead, according to the affidavit.

A West Valley police officer spoke to one of the concertgoers with the counterfeit passes. He said he found a person on KSL.com who was selling the tickets for $70 each. The man said he communicated with the person selling the tickets through text messages only.

When the man was about to go buy the tickets, the seller told him he had to run an errand and that he would leave two envelopes on top of a mailbox: one with the tickets, and the other for him to leave his money, the warrant states.

Vainuku said investigators later learned that the same person sold all of the fake concert passes, and each time, the seller came up with an excuse not to meet the buyer in person. All transactions were done by dropping off envelopes, she said.

The officer then used the cellphone of the man who had purchased a fake ticket, and texted the seller back saying he needed one more, the warrant states. The detective went to the spot where he was told to put the money in an envelope and collect his ticket. Another officer in an unmarked police car watched the events unfold nearby.

After the detective dropped off the money, the officer holding surveillance observed a man come out of an apartment across the street, walk over and take the money, the affidavit says.

Detectives confronted the man who claimed he had acquired the fake passes from another venue in Seattle but was unaware they were fake, the warrant states. But when police asked how he got the tickets, the man declined to answer any further questions without a lawyer present.

Investigators then obtained a search warrant for the man's apartment. Inside, they found "numerous electronic items including a laptop computer, several external hard drives and thumb drives were found on the kitchen table," the affidavit states.

"Near to the equipment were more fraudulent G-Eazy concert passes and numerous other passes for other artists in various stages of completion. Several envelopes from a Costco photo center were found on the table and contained professionally printed images of QR codes and band logos which were used to create fraudulent passes," according to the warrant.

Vainuku said there was evidence that the man had attempted the same scam in other cities.

Police were prepared to arrest the man at that time, but it was determined he would be refused at the jail because of a recent medical condition, she said. Formal charges were pending Tuesday.
SALT LAKE CITY  A Sandy man has been sentenced to a year in jail for speeding and causing a crash that killed his friend, who was in the passenger seat at the time.

Third District Judge Katie Bernards-Goodman on Monday also ordered the 34-year-old Jeffrey Travis Pettit to treatment and probation.

Pettit admitted in May to driving at a high rate of speed before the crash that led to the death of 38-year-old Clinton Miller, who later succumbed to his injuries at a hospital. Miller was tossed from the car after it hit a tree on Sandy Parkway near 9100 South, police said.

Pettit pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter, a second-degree felony. In exchange for the plea and as part of a deal with prosecutors, another charge of failing to remain at an accident, a third-degree felony, was dropped.

Prosecutors agreed to recommend no prison time, plea documents show, but the deal stipulates he must undergo a two-year treatment program at The Other Side Academy in Salt Lake City. If he fails to complete the program, Pettit could be ordered to serve at least one and up to 15 years in prison. The judge gave him credit for roughly 80 days in jail he has already served.

Prosecutors originally alleged Pettit was drunk as he was behind the wheel of the car about 11 p.m. on Oct. 18, reaching over 100 mph and walking away from the scene of the crash before police arrived.
WEST VALLEY CITY  Joel Ewell hates waste of any kind, routinely trotting after his family to turn off lights  even if they happen to still be in the room.

So when he was taking his kids to school and noticed the idling school buses, he wanted to figure out a way to turn the pollution off, but keep the heat on for the students and bus drivers.

Three years later, at a media briefing on Tuesday, he stood against a backdrop of school buses bearing his Idle Free Heat system outside Granger High School.

The Granite School District had the technology installed on 40 buses in its fleet to save on fuel efficiency, emissions and to make sure bus drivers in their down time can remain warm.

"It gets really cold in those buses," said David Gatti, the district's director of transportation. Drivers between routes are faced with two choices, Gatti said  sitting on a freezing school bus with the ignition off or idling to keep the heat on.

Ewell's invention solves that problem. It captures heat from the engine block and distributes that throughout the bus to keep it warm.

"It is everything that is right about Utah. It is what we do best," Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox said at the briefing.

"This is a big deal, a really big deal, to help clean our air," Cox continued, emphasizing he hopes other districts in the state follow Granite's lead and get the technology.

The installation was made possible with funding from the Utah Clean Air Partnership grant program, with matching money from the school district and Idle Free Heat.

The pilot program is expected to eliminate hundreds of pounds of emissions, said Thom Carter, executive director of the program.

A single school bus idling for an hour will emit 81 grams of nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, PM10, PM2.5 and other pollutants.

Carter said the buses will have an immediate impact on air quality as the state enters the inversion season.

"This type of direct reduction in emissions is the purpose of the UCAIR grant program," he said. "We are putting our money where are mouth is."

Rep. Mike Winder, R-West Valley City, also spoke at the event, praising Ewell's inventiveness and determination.

Winder was a judge at a clean air challenge in which Ewell was the grand prize winner, later helping him make connections to push forward with Idle Free Heat.

"The heat will keep going long after the ignition has been turned off," Winder said. "No student wants to climb aboard a cold bus."

Ewell said he considers the technology a waste elimination system.

"I hate waste," he said, adding that the technology eliminates wasted fuel, wasted air full of smog and wasted memories of children who can't go out to play at recess because of dirty air.

"I am just a normal guy who had an idea, and today that idea is making an impact."
SALT LAKE CITY  President Donald Trump is aggressively campaigning for Republicans around the country, but Utah wasn't named Tuesday as one of the states he's expected to visit through September.

That's despite the hotly contested race between Republican Rep. Mia Love and Democratic Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams in the state's 4th Congressional District.

Trump is expected to hold at least eight rallies and 16 fundraisers in as many as 15 states in support of Republican candidates, according to a person familiar with the president's thinking who spoke to reporters Tuesday, including the Deseret News.

That person said those states could include North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Kentucky and Tennessee.

"The president is his party's best political asset to raise money, unify the base, drive turnout and pass the policies that Americans voted for in 2016. He's prepared to do all he's able to do to help elect more partners this fall," the person said.

While other states are likely to be added to Trump's campaign itinerary, Love's campaign manager, Dave Hansen, said he hasn't heard anything from the White House.

"You never know who's going to come into the state, so you basically plan your campaign without them. That's what we've done," Hansen said, hedging about how helpful a presidential campaign stop in Utah would be.

"Sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn't," he said, describing the decision about a visit as up to the administration. "Have we asked them? No. We haven't discouraged them, either."

Utah may not be part of the president's itinerary because the race isn't that close, Hansen said, describing Love's campaign as in "very good shape. She has a great record. Maybe they don't think they could add to that."

Love is the only member of Utah's all-Republican congressional delegation to face a tough re-election challenge. Her bid for a third term has been labeled a toss-up by RealClear Politics and polling has suggested the race is too close to call.

McAdams' campaign manager, Andrew Roberts, jumped at the opportunity to link Love and Trump, who recorded his lowest margin of victory in strongly Republican Utah in 2016, with just over 45 percent of the vote.

"Is President Trump avoiding Utah because he doesn't endorse Rep. Love or because she thinks his visit will hurt her?" Roberts asked. "As hard as she may pretend otherwise, Trump's agenda is Love's agenda."

Hansen said there's no question that Trump backs Love.

"It's obvious he supports Mia Love for re-election. He's the Republican president. She's the Republican candidate. They have gotten along well even when they've disagreed on things," Hansen said. "She has a great deal of respect for him."

Love agrees with the president on tax cuts, appointments to the federal bench including the U.S. Supreme Court and reducing the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, he said.

Their biggest area of disagreement is over Trump's trade policies, Hansen said, and Love has criticized derogatory comments the president made about Haiti, where her parents are from, and other countries.

Love may share a political affiliation with Trump, but McAdams has worked for former President Bill Clinton and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Hansen said.

"There's a whole lot of difference," he said. "I don't think the majority of people in this state would prefer to have Hillary Clinton as president rather than Donald Trump."
Danny DeVito To Be Honoured At San Sebastian Film Festival

Hollywood lovable actor Danny DeVito will be honoured for his career achievements at the 66th edition of San Sebastian Film Festival. The actor will be awarded on September 22. The actor will also be attending the event to present his new film 'smallfoot'.





Danny DeVito is known for his roles in films like 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest', 'Terms of Endearment', 'Romancing The Stone', 'The War of the Roses', 'Tin Men and Ruthless People'. According to reports, it was quoted and the statement of festival organiser saying that the award recognises a career of about five decades of acting in theatre, film, and television. Also, he will get the award to present stories as an actor, producer and director.





DeVito has also voiced animated characters in films like 'Hercules', 'The Lorax', and 'Space Jam'. The 66th edition of the film festival will be held from September 21-29. Moreover, the festival honoured Ricardo Darin, Monica Bellucci and Agnes Varda last year.





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Source: gettyimages.com
Selfie Maine Le Liya Is The Worst Song I Heard: Ayush Anand, Perfect Pati Lead!

Film Farm India's new show on &TV is gradually getting on to the mass and people are slowly liking the show and the endearing characters. Desimartini.com understands the pulse of the audiemce and hence we did not tqake time to get into a repartee with the lead actor of the show Ayush Anand. The actor shared a lot about his thoughtprocess, his likes, dislikes and weaknesses in a fun question and answer session. Read on -

If you had to swap lives with a Khan, who would it be and why?

With due respect to all individuals I would not swap my life with anyone in this world as I am very grateful for my life, my experiences, people associated with me and around me

A man/woman who has bowled you over.

There are so many people like my dad, Dilip Kumar, SRK, Sridevi, Kangana, APJ Abdul Kalam, mother Teresa..might b more

A myth about six- packs abs are...

It's just a myth..people are realising it now that it's not true fitness

After a long day at work, what do you love to gorge on?

After a long day at work I Would love to gorge on sweets as I have a sweet tooth... Name anything and I would love to have it from ladoos to cakes, from kheer to Gulab Jamun, from fruit cream to custard  anything sweet.

How active are you on social media?

I am active in my own lazy way Depends on my mood. I post when I feel like Sometimes every day sometimes in a month

What's the worst song that's been stuck in your head in recent times?

Selfie Maine le Lia by Dhinchak Pooja (no complaints about her) just because it is repeated so many times on FB

Cheesiest compliment you have received.

I have not come across as a compliment which is cheesy and if it is then I don't consider it as a compliment

A song that you can always dance to.

Dhoom again from Dhoom 2

A crisis situation in real life

When I had to rush my dad to the hospital

A romantic gesture that never goes out of fashion

Looking into the eyes and saying I love you and care for you

One character that you are dying to play?

I am not dying to but enjoying playing the character of Pushkar in Perfect Pati

Your first crush was at the age of?

11

Philosophy of your life ?

Live and let live!
Troubled Indian operator Reliance Communications looks likely to leave the market entirely after receiving two bids of $1.1 billion for its available telecoms assets.

According to the Financial Times, the interested parties are I Squared Capital and a consortium that includes The Blackstone Group, TPG Capital and Varde Partners. RCom is looking to sell off its Indian data centres and fixed-line infrastructure, as well as its international submarine cable operations, as it struggles to avoid being pushed into insolvency proceedings.

In February, RCom reached an agreement to sell its wireless and fibre infrastructure to Reliance Jio in order to lower its debt burden, and recently received clearance to do so from Indias Supreme Court. However, the INR250 billion ($3.6 billion) deal stalled when Ericsson took legal action against the operator over an unpaid debt. The dispute has now been resolved, allowing the Jio deal to go ahead.

RComs decision to sell some of its more valuable telecoms assets to Jio was primarily aimed at lowering its INR450 million debt, but the operator had planned to remain a player in enterprise telecoms. However, after its remaining assets attracted the interest of five potential buyers, it is now considering pulling out of the telecoms sector after 15 years.

In around March this year, I Squared Capital was reportedly the forerunner to acquire RComs remaining assets. However, the delay to Jios acquisition caused by the dispute with Ericsson created an opportunity for the consortium to express an interest.
Union IT Minister of India, Ravi Shankar Prasad, met with WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels today to discuss the recent issue of fake news being spread in the country through the Facebook-owned platform. The minister posted updates from his meeting with Daniels on Twitter, saying that he has advised the WhatsApp CEO to appoint a grievance officer in India.

I requested CEO Whatsapp Chris Daniels to set up a grievance officer in India; establish a corporate entity in India & comply with Indian laws. He assured me that Whatsapp will soon take steps on all these counts, Prasad Tweeted from his official handle. I further asked CEO of Whtaspp, Chris Daniels to work closely with law enforcement agencies of India and create public awareness campaign to prevent misuse of Whatsapp. He assured me that Whatsapp will undertake these initiatives, the minister added.

WhatsApp undertook various initiatives to curb fake news being spread through the platform after multiple incidents of lynching in India were reported owing to fake forwarded messages on WhatsApp. The company announced unrestricted research rewards of up to $50,000 in India for proposals from social scientists and research groups about projects to enrich the companys understanding of the fake news problem.

WhatsApp also limited forwarding messages on the platform and started labelling forwards to help people differentiate between messages that are written by the sender and those that are simply forwarded.

Although there are still loopholes in WhatsApps strategy to mark forwards, we may see continued efforts by the company to curb the issue of fake news in India. Especially because it was recently reported that the Indian government is looking to on devise a way to block social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Telegraph during crisis situations. The Department of Telecom (DoT) has asked Indian telecom service providers to explore and suggest ways to block popular social media apps in the interest of the public during situations when the national security is under threat.
The Nokia 6.1 Plus is a capable mid-ranger that ticks all the boxes when it comes to the trending features in smartphones of 2018. Its closest rival is the Redmi Note 5 Pro which also runs on the same hardware. The choice comes down to whether you prefer a stock Android interface or custom MIUI. However, an underwhelming camera makes it difficult to recommend this phone over other more capable devices in that price range. The 6.1 Plus is a performance enthusiasts phone of choice, one who wants a no-nonsense offering that gets the job done. If you have a knack for photography though, the Redmi Note 5 Pro and the Xiaomi Mi A2 are what you should be looking at.

Nokia 6.1 Plus detailed review

HMD Globals Nokia may be just two years into its reawakening, but its already embracing the latest trends like a bezel-less display and dual cameras. Take the new Nokia 6.1 Plus that launched today in India for instance. Its the first Nokia phone with a notched display, marking a departure from the design cues seen in its predecessors. Theres also a capable mid-range chipset, Android One certification, dual cameras and a compact form factor, that makes it all the more interesting. However, with stalwarts like the Redmi Note 5 Pro ruling the market in that price range, will the Nokia 6.1 Plus be worth your money? Lets find out.





Design and display

The Nokia 6.1 Plus is a departure from the design philosophy Nokia settled into with the previous offerings in the mid-range segment. Gone is the copper lining and the sturdy metal build. Instead, the 6.1 Plus takes inspiration from the Nokia 8 Sirocco to offer a glass sandwich design housed within a thick, sturdy aluminum frame. It isnt the slimmest phone out there, but its comfortably compact. I could almost reach the other end of the display with just one hand, so someone with larger hands will have no problem using it single-handedly. The glass on the back and the front is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Despite that, I would still recommend a case as glass bodies generally tend to crack easily.

On the back, the dual camera unit is centrally placed and has raised contours around it, much like the Nokia 8 Sirocco. The fingerprint sensor is placed right below and I had no problems locating it with my finger. We received the black variant of the phone for review which has stainless steel accents around the camera and the buttons. That renders a premium feel to it.

Up front is an all new notched display. New for Nokia, that is. This is the first time the company is trying out the in-vogue design and depending on which side of the notch debate you are in, you either like it or hate it. The size of the notch is relatively smaller than what other phones have. It houses only the front camera and the ear-piece, which makes me wonder perhaps the notch was simply about trying something new. It doesnt serve a specific purpose other than allowing a 5.8-inch panel fit into a 5.8-inch body. There are also significant bezels on the bottom and thin ones on the sides. I wouldnt call it the most immersive display by any means.

The panel on the Nokia 6.1 Plus seems functional at best. The extra 0.3-inch space is taken by the notched area that houses the notifications icons, clock and the likes. You can, of course, hide the notch in the Settings but that takes away the extra real estate. However, while playing videos on YouTube and Netflix, the content adapted itself to the notch, using only 5.5-inch of space leaving the rest darkened. Since this is an LCD panel, the blacking out of the notch isnt as prominent as phones with AMOLED panels and is quite visible.

The content on the screen is quite bright and vibrant. In fact, thats almost the same with every phone in that price range these days. I streamed a few episodes of the Crown on Netflix and was quite impressed by the colours. While streaming, I realised this isnt a video-consumers phone. The real estate is just too small to enjoy an action-packed episode fully. Although, if you have to watch something on the metro during rush hour, its compact size gives you a good grip.

Nokia gives you the option to turn on night light and adaptive brightness. Theres also the option to turn on ambient display, that discreetly lights up the screen when theres a new notification.

The display is the highlight of the Nokia 6.1 Plus design and while it definitely looks good, the compact size of it may not be up to everyones taste.

Performance and Software

The earlier Nokia 6 phones were criticised for lacking horsepower in the performance segment. The first Nokia 6 came with an entry-level 4-series Snapdragon processor, while the Nokia 6.1 came with a Snapdragon 630 that was easily outperformed by the Snapdragon 636 in the Redmi Note 5 Pro. The Nokia 6.1 Plus, thus, takes no chances. It is also powered by the Snapdragon 636 that uses Kryo cores clocked at 1.8GHz coupled with an Adreno 509 GPU and 4GB of RAM. Theres 64GB of storage to go along with it, with the option to expand it via a microSD card. Although, you have to choose between an expandable storage and a second SIM card.

The point to note in this case is that even though the Nokia 6.1 Plus runs on the Snapdragon 636 which was so far the fastest chipset in the mid-range segment, the Mi A2 and the Honor Play with the top-of-the-line Snapdragon 660 and flagship Kirin 970 SoC sort of spoil the party for Nokia. But thats something only speed enthusiasts will look into. For an average user, the Snapdragon 636 is perfectly capable in handling day-to-day tasks. The benchmark reports confirm that.

On AnTuTu, the Nokia 6.1 Plus scored 116079 against Redmi Note 5 Pros 112652, while on Geekbench Single and Multi Core tests, it received 1330 and 4920 respectively, as against RN5 Pros 1326 and 4971. As for Graphics, the 3D Mark Slingshot test gives a score of 1466. All this show that the Nokia 6.1 Plus is right up there with the best-selling phone in that segment.

Add to that the simplicity of pure, stock Android and the Nokia 6.1 Plus becomes a good alternative to those who dont prefer MIUI. In real world usage, the 6.1 Plus is fast and snappy. There werent any noticeable lags or slowdowns and apps launched with the expected waiting time of around 2-3 seconds. This is an Android One Certified phone which means you will receive regular security updates along with a promised upgrade to Android 9 Pie when it becomes available.

While day-to-day tasks like browsing, shooting, social media and the likes performed without much of a hitch, gaming isnt all that good on this phone. High-end games like PubG Mobile ran on medium graphics with some frame-drops. For a casual gamer though, this shouldnt be a problem.

The Nokia 6.1 Plus comes across as a phone not for enthusiasts, but for those looking for a reliable performer. It certainly wont thrill the speed-seeker, but if you are looking for a well-rounded, dependable, compact performer, the 6.1 is a good option.

Camera

The Nokia 6.1 Plus comes with a dual camera unit at the back. The primary 12MP sensor has an aperture of f/2.0, 1um pixel pitch and PDAF while the secondary 5MP sensor with aperture f/2.4 is used for depth-sensing. Up front is a 16MP camera with f/2.0 aperture for selfies.

Feature wise, the 6.1 Plus can take portrait shots, bothies (of course!), UHD 4K videos and more. However, this does not use the Pro Camera app like the Nokia 6.1 and the 7 Plus does. The camera app on the Nokia 6.1 Plus is quite cluttered as a result, with big icons taking up space in the viewfinder. The options are also quite confusing to search as you only see the icons and no text whatsoever. It has in-built beauty effects powered by machine learning, something that most OEMs have been dabbling with for some time.

Daylight

With ample light, the camera of the Nokia 6.1 Plus gives good results. It focuses quickly but there is a slight shutter lag, which means you have to keep your hands steady. The results come off sharp and saturated. Its not clear whether the AI imaging is working because theres no way to turn it on or off. Like most phones, the Nokia 6.1 Plus is quite capable of shooting pleasing daylight shots.

Indoors

When focus was on the books

When focus was on the light

The weakness becomes apparent when shooting indoors. The camera takes some time to focus and there is significant shutter lag, which combined with a lack of stabilisation, means one needs to have very steady hands. Furthermore, focusing on a source of light will darken the entire frame almost completely. The resulting shot when the exposure is just about right isnt all that desirable though. Its hazy and lacks sharpness.

Low Light

Low-light photography is the most difficult aspect for OEMs to nail and the Nokia 6.1 Plus seems to be no different. An aperture of f/2.0 means the shutter needs to be open for longer and that calls for steady hands again. Theres lesser noise though, but parts of the frame which are dark dont have any detail at all.

Portrait

The portrait mode of the Nokia 6.1 Plus uses the secondary sensor for depth information. You can also control the amount of background blur in the frame while shooting. The camera could detect objects that are behind the object under focus and blur them out accordingly. The bokeh is not as aggressive as we have seen in Honor phones, but the resulting shot lacks the sharpness that one sees in the Redmi Note 5 Pro.

Selfies

The front camera of the phone is the same 16MP sensor at the back. It takes decently well-detailed selfies that are sharp and saturated. Theres a beauty mode that removes marks and blemishes from your face, but I would recommend shooting with that turned off for better results.

Battery

The Nokia 6.1 Plus comes with a 3,060mAh battery that is underwhelming, to say the least. In the mid-range segment, a powerful battery is a big factor in convincing buyers. It seems, in its bid to offer a compact design, Nokia had to sacrifice long battery life from the phone. In our PCMark Work 2.0 test, the phone received a rating of 5 hours 10 minutes, which is just about average. In real life, the phone will last just about a typical work day that starts at 9 AM till 7 PM. During my time with the phone, I used it to take photos, browse social media and play games (for about 30 minutes), after which I had to plug it in for charge.

Bottomline

The Nokia 6.1 Plus comes off as a potential alternative to the best-selling Redmi Note 5 Pro. With similar hardware powering the two, the choice comes down to the software and user interface one is comfortable using. The Nokia 6.1 Plus is also more compact, making it easy to hold and use. Its camera, however, is a tad underwhelming and cannot hold a candle to the likes of the Redmi Note 5 Pro or the Xiaomi Mi A2. The Xiaomi Mi A2, in fact, comes off as a better alternative for stock Android lovers. Get the Nokia 6.1 Plus if the Xiaomi Mi A2 is out of stock, which should happen often considering Xiaomis track record.
Nokia phones are all enrolled in Googles Android One programme, which means that they will be the first to receive new Android OS updates and timely security patches. With Android 9 Pie now official on Google Pixel phones, other phone manufacturers have also started releasing a timeline of when their devices will receive the latest OS update.

At the launch of the Nokia 5.1 Plus and Nokia 6.1 Plus in India, Chief Product Officer of HMD Global, Juho Sarvikas, announced that the Nokia range of devices will soon receive a piece of the pie, namely Android 9 Pie. Although Sarvikas did not announce an exact date for when the update will hit existing Nokia devices, he confirmed that the Nokia 7 Plus will be the first Nokia phone to get the Android Pie update sometime early September, closely followed by other Nokia smartphones. Sarvikas also said that Android Pies Digital Wellbeing feature will first become available on Android One devices, so by design, all Nokia phones will get the feature before other Android devices thanks to their Android One lineage.

The Digital Wellbeing feature was not released with the final build of Android 9 Pie and will be made available later in the fall. Google says that Digital Wellbeing will first officially launch on Pixel phones this fall, with Android One and other devices due to get it later this year. But, the feature is available in beta for Pixel phones running Android 9. Heres what you need to do to try it out:

Make sure youre running Android 9 Pie on your device. Sign up for the beta with the email address you use with Google Play. Accept your invitation to become a beta tester by clicking the link in your welcome email.

Once youve accepted your invitation, Digital Wellbeing will appear in your phones Settings app. It may take up to 24 hours for Digital Wellbeing to appear on your device.

Android 9 Pie also brings a host of other features and changes to the way one uses Android. You can read more about them here.
Taiwan should encourage early-stage investments, says LuxNet chairman Hsing Kung

LuxNet chairman, Hsing Kung, has founded three companies. Among them, SDL was established in 1983, specializing in manufacturing optical communication devices. It was sold for US$41.1 billion 16 years later, awarding early investors a 10,000 times return on their investment. Then, Kung soon started Pine Photonics in 2000, which was acquired four years later. During the same time, Kung also founded LuxNet. Both his own companies and those that Kung had stake in underwent the burst of the Internet and optical communication industry bubble in 2000 and sustained great impact. Kung has tasted both the sweetness of success and the bitterness of failure.

Now as a partner of Acorn Campus Ventures, Kung enjoys sharing his experiences on entrepreneurship. He thinks with a good foundation and system, Taiwan should encourage investors to make early-stage investments in startups to spur a burgeoning startup scene.

Focus on core business and build up corporate value before burning all the cash

The dotcom boom in late 1990s attracted many people to invest in Internet and optical communication businesses. The bubble finally burst in 2000, causing many companies to go out of business. The venture capital community was busy picking up the pieces and stopped making investments. A firm supplying microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) that Kung funded in 1999 was among those that went belly up. The team that started the MEMS firm actually had quite extensive experiences. The firm was even named by a magazine as the private company with the most potential. Kung also held very optimistic outlook for the firm. However, after the startup team received investment from a large venture capital fund, they asked the team to hire an outside CEO. Both the fund and the CEO were eager to prepare the firm for IPO. Unfortunately, with the dotcom bubble bursting, the firm didn't get to go public and couldn't find a buyer, so closure was inevitable in the end.

LuxNet, which Kung established on his own, faced a similar situation at that time. After LuxNet finished the final round of funding in 2001, it encountered the dotcom bubble burst. The startup team decided to move back to Taiwan in 2003 to start all over again. Combining Silicon Valley's R&D strength and Taiwan's manufacturing advantage, not only did LuxNet manage to pull through but it also generated impressive results. Kung said in retrospect that the MEMS firm should have tried to cut down expenses and focus on making core products before it burned all the cash. When a startup gets caught in a difficult situation and the CEO and venture capitalist have different opinions, only the startup team that won't give up can save the day.

Having experienced the bubble burst himself, Kung remarked in earnest that a business must focus on what it does best, rather than follow what others are doing. In the startup stage, it must try its best to build up its value - make the product or find the customer before it uses up all the venture capitalist'smoney or else it won't be able to carry on.

Competence and a little bit of luck will add up to startup success. After Pine Photonics was acquired, Kung chose to retire and join Acorn Campus Ventures to begin angel investing. Some Chinese engineers on the original Pine Photonics team wanted to start their own business and approached Kung. Kung and Acorn Campus Ventures then helped them found InnoLight, specializing in high-speed optical transceivers, in 2008. As there were already firms producing high-speed optical transceivers in the US but not in China, which mostly imported the products from the US, they decided to set up the company in Suzhou, China.

InnoLight got off to a good start. China not only has tremendous market demand but also plenty of engineering talent as well as high-quality and hard-working labor. When Google raised demand for 40Gb/s optical communication devices for its datacenters in 2012, InnoLight was able to beat a dozen competitors and got the project. InnoLight has made itself the world's No. 3 optical communication device supplier in as short as 10 years, with annual revenue reaching US$750 million.

Taiwan should leverage its advantages and encourage entrepreneurship

Drawing on past experiences, Kung thinks entrepreneurs should have a clear idea about his company's competitive edge, which may be certain differentiating technologies or intellectual property. This is also the first question that venture capitalists ask. It is not enough for a startup to succeed if it is only targeting an untapped country or market. If a startup team has extensive experiences in a certain field or specific know-how to solve certain problems, then it has a shot at success. Furthermore, the entrepreneur must be willing to share the fruit of success with his team and angel investors, who have taken risks to help bring dreams to reality. Everyone will be keen to fund an entrepreneur with a competitive edge and willingness to share.

Amid global competition, Kung suggests that Taiwan-based firms should have a clear understanding of their own strength. Taiwan still has many advantages including the business climate and mature governing system. In Taiwan, you don't need government connections to be able to operate a business. The Taiwan government also places importance on intellectual property (IP) and institutes laws for IP protection, which favors the development of high-tech businesses. Moreover, its stock market is open and healthy, where share prices mostly reflect earnings and profitability in the long run, rather than market speculation. As such, the Taiwan government should leverage these advantages to attract investments and particularly make active efforts toward encouraging entrepreneurship and early-stage investments in startups. Most of Taiwan's venture capital firms are rather conservative. However, only investments during early-stage development can drive a burgeoning startup scene. In addition, academic institutions can also provide more entrepreneurship courses to help students bring startup ideas to reality.

With regard to startup ideas, Kung suggests that biotechnologies and medical equipment are suitable areas for Taiwan. Taiwan has many good medical colleges, educating abundant professional talent. Acorn Campus Ventures has stakes in several startups endeavoring in healthcare technologies. Kung, however, focuses his investments in startups specializing in optical communication technology, which is more in line with his own expertise.

According to Kung, widespread popularity of cloud computing and large-scale datacenters in recent years has created a great influence on the development of the optical communication industry. Telecom operators and network companies, such as Cisco, generally require optical networks to provide reliable connection. Datacenters, on the other hand, look to speed up data access and thus have higher demand for bandwidth than before. When market demand changes from reliability to speed, opportunities arise. Optical network data rate has evolved from 2.5Gb/s in 2000, 10Gb/s in 2010 to 100Gb/s at present, possibly reaching 400Gb/s in 2019. Kung thinks the optical communication industry still has plenty of opportunities and a great number of startups will keep endeavoring in innovative R&D of related technologies in this area.

In addition to technological startups, with compassion for humanity, Kung has been investing in social enterprises in recent years. By fueling energy into the development of social entrepreneurship, Kung hopes to engage more efforts to help change the world.

(Editor's note: This is part of a series of interviews focusing on the problems and opportunities that Taiwan-based startups face. The interviewees are venture capitalists and angel investors from Silicon Valley and Taiwan.)

Hsing Kung, LuxNet chairman

Photo: Joseph Tsai, Digitimes, May 2018
SC issues notice to UP govt in case seeking prosecution of CM

The decision of the Allahabad High Court to accept the Uttar Pradesh governments refusal to grant sanction to prosecute Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for an alleged hate speech has been challenged in the Supreme Court.

The apex court issued a notice to the UP government, which has agreed to file a reply in two weeks. The matter will be heard after six weeks by the court.

Parvez Parvaz and Asad Hayat, two residents of the state, filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Allahabad High Courts refusal to grant sanction to prosecute Adityanath.

The petitioners have urged that the investigation relating to the alleged hate speech delivered by Adityanath about 10 years ago  which led to riots  should be probed by the CBI as the local police was deliberately delaying and impeding investigations.

A district magistrate in Gorakhpur had in 2007 directed that Adityanath, who was a BJP leader from the state, should not visit the city, where communal violence had erupted. He had, however, defied the magistrate and had staged a non-violent dharna.

Later, violence broke out in Gorakhpur and trains, buses and other vehicles and religious places were attacked and burnt.

According to the petitioners, with Adityanath as the chief minister and also in-charge of the home department, he should not be allowed to decide on the probe into charges against him.

The Allahabad High Court had, however, had not found any procedural error either in the conduct of the investigation or in the decision making process of refusal to grant sanction, or any other illegality in the order, which may require any interference by this court.
The Chattanooga office of the American Heart Association today announced Vascular Institute of Chattanooga has committed to a multiyear collaboration as the organizations first Life Is Why sponsor. Life is Why encompasses every aspect of the American Heart and American Stroke Association and this collaboration builds on the organizations mantra that everyone deserves to live a longer and healthier life.As a Life is Why sponsor, VIC will be involved in all of the American Heart Associations signature events, including the Heart Ball, the Go Red for Women Luncheon and the Tennessee Valley Heart Walk.In addition, the American Heart Association and VIC will continue to work together to raise awareness about the warning signs of cardiovascular diseases and stroke, as well as prevention education.At the Vascular Institute of Chattanooga, our goals include providing the best patient care in our community. VIC is proud to continue its vital work with the American Heart Association through this partnership which will help bring more public awareness and find better ways to treat and prevent heart disease and stroke. We are excited about this new collaboration with the American Heart Association, said Dr. Christopher J. LeSar, MD, vascular surgeon and founding physician of VIC.The American Heart Association and Vascular Institute of Chattanooga have a long-standing relationship. Several VIC staff and physicians have served on the organizations board and executive teams and led event campaigns, including Tracie LeSar, who is the co-chair of the 2019 Go Red For Women Luncheon. This collaboration will continue to create a culture of health while raising more funds for research, officials said.We are grateful to Vascular Institute of Chattanooga for their support as we work to promote a healthier lifestyle in our community, said Emily Fuller, executive director of the Chattanooga-American Heart Association. We believe that people should experience more of lifes precious moments. Its why weve made improving heart and brain health our mission. Partnering with like-minded organizations like VIC is how we are able to fund crucial research and educational programs that benefit the public.
Kerala floods: Gadgil's worst fears come true

Renowned ecologist Madhav D Gadgils fears have come true, seven years after authorities decided to ignore the Gadgil Committees prescriptions on ways to conserve the fragile ecosystem of the mountain ranges and stonewalled its implementation following political pressure.

Gadgil, who headed the expert panel on Western Ghats Ecology formed by the ministry of environment and forests in 2010, believes the scale of disaster in Kerala would have been much smaller if environmental laws had been followed.

At least part of the problem is man-made, The Indian Express quoted Gadgil as saying. Yes, there is an intense rainfall event which has caused this. But I am quite convinced that the last several years development in the state has materially compromised its ability to deal with events like this and greatly increased the magnitude of suffering, the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Kerala gets heavy rains over long spells like it did this monsoon too. But this is the first time the state experienced such a flood (after 1924). Why? Id blame ecological degradation aided by mindless construction, says Gadgil.

Seven years after he submitted a detailed report in 2011,Gadgil, 76, and living at the northern end of the Western Ghats, in Pune, is a distraught man as the experts work has gone in vain - the southern state is now battling its fiercest floods in a century.

Gadgil had worked intensively for a year as the head of a centrally-constituted committee on environmental protection compiling information on the biodiversity hotspot that is the Ghats, developing a geo-spatial database and interacting with government bodies as well as civil-society groups.

With the authorities at the centre and the states yielding to pressure groups, Gadgil now fears a repeat of Kerala in Goa where destruction of forests and hills are the worst after Kerala.

The nine-member Gadgil panel recommended a regulation on exploitation of natural resources and concrete construction along the Kerala stretch of the Ghats and suggested dividing the Western Ghats into three zones conserved with separate levels of intensity. Tghe government did not heed the panels recommendations. Instead the centre appointed another committee headed by K Kasturirangan to dilute the Gadgil panel recommendations as demanded by the then Oommen Chandy-led government in Kerala and protests by vested interests in 2012.

The governments, however, even sat on the Kasturirangan panel report as it too prescribed some curbs on wanton destruction of forests and over exploitation of the Ghats.

They resorted to false propaganda, says Gadgil, founder of the Centre for Ecological Sciences in Bengaluru. Corrupt netas, hand-in-glove with one mafia or the other, sensed a sure slide in slush money. For instance, we found plenty of illegal mining quarries along the hilly tracts of Kannur and Pathanamthitta. They had the patronage of this political party or that religious group.

They succeeded in effectively muting the Gadgil recommendations by preparing a watered-down version in October 2013 and sitting over that too. The results are clear. Rivers have changed course and entire stretches of hill lands have washed away in the floods, carrying illegal constructions along with.

Almost every political party had interest in scuttling the Gadgil Committee recommendations as groups controlled votes and party strengths in Kerala.

The recent floods caused landslides across the entire belt of high ranges on Keralas eastern side bordering Tamil Nadu, uprooted trees, buried buildings along with people and dumped mounds of earth on to rivers.

Gadgil sees a parallel in 2013 Uttarakhand, when cloudbursts in June led rivers to breach their banks after debris from both sides blocked their course along the Himalayas. Obviously, its human intervention adding to the havoc, he says. On the Western Ghats, stone quarries were polluting the air and water, debilitating the topography. My panel had sought for devolution of power, but they (top rulers) wont permit it.

The present Pinarayi Vijayan regime is quietly making moves to go ahead with a proposed hydel-power project in Thrissur districts Athirappally, famed for its waterfalls, despite widespread resistance from green activists.

A Tribune report quoting Gadgil says Maharastra also suffers from such construction lobbies. A Rs21,000-crore dam was designed by contractors, not engineers!

The ambivalent 163-MW Athirappally project is conceived to come up across the Chalakudy River, which was among the most furious in the present deluge. Wont it be unwise to re-create buildings on floodplains? Oh, wetlands serve as reservoirs, too. One shouldnt tamper with them, the Tribune quoted Gadgil as saying.

A tropical state like Kerala, with sunlight aplenty, can make better use of solar power instead of relying on conventional sources of energy, he agrees. And cites a cruel irony: Most months of a year, the shelved dam-waters simply evaporate. Then, in an emergency, you suddenly open all shutters, and aggravate the floods!
Criticism misinformed on Rafale deal: Anil Ambani

Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group chairman has come out with fresh clarification of Reliance Defences offset participation in French defence firm Dassaults Rafale deal with India, saying that the Congress party has been spreading misinformation on the award of offset contract to his firm.

Addressing a press conference in Mumbai on Friday, RCom chairman Anil Ambani said he has written to Congress president Rahul Gandhi saying that the party has been "misinformed, misdirected and misled" by malicious vested interests and corporate rivals on the offsets related to the Rafale fighter jet deal.

A Reliance Infrastructure Ltd release said that Ambani wrote a letter to Gandhi last week and expressed "deep anguish over continued personal attacks" on him while terming all allegations as "baseless, ill-informed and unfortunate."

Clarifying on the role of Reliance in offset exports / work share, Ambani wrote that Rafale fighter jets are not being manufactured by Reliance or Dassault Reliance Joint Venture.

Ambani said Gandhi's allegation that Reliance Defence was set up 10 days before the announcement on 10 April 2015 of government's decision to purchase 36 French-manufactured Rafale jets links factually incorrect information "and is thus irrelevant and completely false."

"The Reliance Group announced its decision to enter the defence manufacturing sector in December 2014-January 2015, months before the intention for purchase of Rafale aircraft. In February 2015, we informed the Indian Stock Exchanges of the companies we have incorporated," Ambani said.

The release said that all the 36 fighter jets are to be 100 per cent manufactured in France and exported from France to India. Ambani clarified that not a single component worth a single rupee is to be manufactured by Reliance for these 36 Rafale jets.

"The allegations relating to 'lack of experience' are, thus, irrelevant," the release said and added that there is no contract from the Defence Ministry to any Reliance Group company related to 36 Rafale aircraft.

Ambani said allegations of Reliance benefitting by thousands of crores was a "figment of imagination, promoted by vested interests" and put simply, "no contract exists with the government of India."

"Our role is limited to offset exports / export obligations. More than 100 medium, small and micro enterprises (MSMEs) will participate in this along with public sector undertakings like BEL and Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO). This role strengthens Indian manufacturing capabilities and is in pursuance of the Offsets Policy introduced by the Congress-led UPA Government itself from 2005 onwards," the release said.

Rahul has been making allegations against the Modi government that the Rafale fighter jet deal had caused a loss of Rs41,000 crore to the exchequer compared to the price negotiated by the Congress-led UPA government. He has also making allegations about the offsets.

The party also said on Saturday that it will launch a month-long nationwide agitation from next week on what it said was "Rafale scam" of the Modi government and other issues.
China gets Iranian oil on Persian tankers

Even as European oil companies are moving out of Iran, fearing reprisals from the US, China has decided to use tankers from the Persian nation for supplies of the commodity.

China is reported to have started using oil tankers owned by the National Iranian Tanker Co. With the US engaged in a bitter trade war with China, Beijing has had to cut its oil imports from America and increase sourcing from Iran. It is already the largest importer of Iranian oil.

The US has reimposed sanctions against buying of Iranian crude and European nations, which were opposed to the move, are falling in line as their oil MNCs are backing out of Iran.

America has also told other buyers of Iranian oil to stop importing oil from Iran by November. While most European nations have already slashed imports, Japan, South Korea and even India are cutting down imports from Iran.

Indias oil imports from Iran have already dropped by a significant 16 per cent after the US imposed the sanctions. India is currently the second-largest buyer of Iranian oil.

International oil prices have gone up as buyers fear supplies from Iran would come to a halt. Analysts expect a fall in OPECs production from 32.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2018 to 31.7 million bpd next year.

But the cut in Irans oil supplies could result in an increase in supplies from non-OPEC countries over the coming months. A report by BNP Paribas estimates that non-OPEC production could increase by 2 million bpd this year and almost the same quantity in 2019.
Traders plan nationwide bandh against Walmart's Flipkart buy

Traders across the country will go on a Bharat Trade Bandh on 28 September in protest against the government policy of facilitating the merger of US retail giant Walmart and Indian online marketplace Flipkart, which, they say will create an uneven platform for local retailers.

The Confederation of All India Traders (Cait) plans to start a nationwide ''Rath Yatra'' beginning 15 September and a massive traders rally on 16 December at New Delhi.

The move comes after Walmart Inc on Saturday announced the completion of its acquisition of a 77-per cent stake in Indian e-commerce major Flipkart.

CAIT today said it has called a Bharat Bandh on 28 September to oppose US retail major Walmarts acquisition of Flipkart. CAIT secretary general Praveen Khandelwal said the deal has violated Press Note No 3 of 2016 of government and is a combination of a sinister design to control and dominate the retail trade through the passage of e-commerce policy.

The commerce and industry ministry notified FDI policies through Press Note 3, which was released in 2016, enlisting guidelines for foreign direct investment in e-commerce sector. It also claimed that no discounting is allowed and that no inventory ownership directly or indirectly is allowed by e-commerce marketplaces.

"We are organising a 'Bharat Trade Bandh' on September 28 against the Walmart-Flipkart deal. We want the government to nullify the deal as it is against the sector," IANS quoted Khandelwal as saying.

"We have also planned a host of other activities like a mega traders protest march to gain public support against the deal."

Announcing the completion of its acquisition of Flipkart Group on Saturday, Judith McKenna, president and CEO of Walmart International, said, Walmart and Flipkart will achieve more together than each of us could accomplish separately to contribute to the economic growth of India, creating a strong local business powered by Walmart.

In May this year, Walmart agreed to pay $16 billion for a 77-per cent stake in Flipkart, a transaction that valued the homegrown e-commerce company at over $20 billion.

While the deal would pitch Walmart, the worlds largest retailer in direct competition with its US rival Amazon.com in a battle for dominance of Indias online retail market, Cait says it will uproot small traders in the country.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) recently approved Walmarts plan to acquire the majority stake in Flipkart, despite the protests from Indian traders. The government has already given its go-ahead to the deal.

Walmart, meanwhile, said its investment will benefit India by providing quality, affordable goods for customers while creating new skilled jobs and opportunities for suppliers.

Indias e-commerce sales are expected to grow at a 30 per cent CAGR through FY 2027 and touch $200 billion of gross merchandise value, according to financial services firm Morgan Stanley. We are confident that together we can drive the next wave of retail in India, said Binny Bansal, Flipkarts co-founder and group chief executive officer.

Flipkarts existing management team will continue to lead the business. Tencent Holdings Limited and Tiger Global Management LLC will remain represented on the Flipkart board, in addition to independent board members, and will be joined by new members from Walmart.
The funeral of one of the victims of Sunday's crash in Bundoran is taking place today.

Shiva Blue Devine was one of two people who died in the collision in Bundoran on Sunday morning.

The twenty-year-old from Belleek, Co. Fermanagh will be laid to rest following funeral Mass at St. Brigids Church, Ballintra this morning.

Conall McAleer will be laid to rest following requiem Mass in St Joseph's Church, Ederney, at midday tomorrow followed by interment at Edenclaw Cemetery.

Rachel Elliot from Ballinamallard, County Fermanagh, was described as being in a critical condition in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin.

Four rear-seat passengers were thrown from the blue Peugeot 306 car which hit a wall and then a lamp-post at Eastend in Bundoran at approximately 3.25 am on Sunday morning.

There were six occupants of the car.

Two other men, who were also occupants of the car, are being treated in Sligo University Hospital where their condition was described as serious.

Anyone with information in relation to the crash is asked to contact gardai in Ballyshannon Garda Station on 071 - 9858530, the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station.
Holden will become a centre of development for General Motors' next-generation autonomous and electric vehicles sold throughout the world.

Speaking to press at its head office in Port Melbourne this morning, the manufacturer said it will hire a further 150 engineers and increase its budget with funds from parent company General Motors to the tune of $120 million - $28 million more than it previously spent on local engineering.

The increased budget will see local operations expand from 350 to 500 design and engineering employees working on the next generation of GM products worldwide. The American corporation says the majority of that work will focus on autonomous and electric technology.

GM is determined to be the first company to bring safe, autonomous vehicles to market  not within years, but in quarters. Make no mistake, were moving to a driverless future  a future of safer roads and zero crashes, says GM executive vice president and president of global product, Mark Reuss.

At the same time, GM is well on its way to bringing at least 20 new all-electric models to market by 2023, added the former Holden boss.
Chuck Norris has brought criminals to justice, battled Bruce Lee and defended his homeland from invasion. Now, his mission is to sell you a Toyota.

Well, as long as you live in the US, where you'll find a new series of ads featuring the action hero in his latest role.

Toyota recruited Chuck Norris to showcase the Toyota Tacoma - America's version of our Hilux.

The actor and martial artist features in one of four new Toyota ads, "Tough as Chuck". After Norris signs the front guard of a mans Tacoma on the street, the ute takes on Norris's action-packed roles in various movie scenes - surfing waves, winning chess and busting moves on the dance-floor.

Featuring some the most popular vehicles in its range, Toyota aims to show-off its vehicles' performance, capability and style.

The campaign is looking to karate-chop competitors in the new car scene and could deliver a roundhouse kick to America's best-selling car, the Ford F-150.
According to the Fair Work Ombudsman an employer must not request or require a full time employee to work more than 38 hours, unless the additional hours are reasonable. The idea of a 38 hour work week makes some entrepreneurs laugh- as all business owners will tell you- theres no such thing.

Dynamic Business asked experts if the 38-hour work week is preventing businesses from achieving better innovation and productivity outcomes?

Rafael Moyano, CEO, Australia, The Adecco Group:

Its an exciting time for business, as new working structures and management strategies challenge the traditional 38 hour work week.

While there have been some recent positive studies about the four-day week in the past few months, this model will remain impractical for most businesses for the foreseeable future. Most customers and clients still work over five days, and reducing hours could risk losing them to competitors.

Flexible working measures on the other hand, which allow staff to have more control over their working week, are a great alternative. Providing staff with more leeway on start and end times, while allowing them to work from home, can help boost team morale, engagement and productivity without impacting the bottom line.

That is not to say the four-day week should be rejected completely, with some businesses experiencing a more engaged, committed and energised work force. However, there are many strategies that can achieve a similar outcome for less risk.

Jenny Vanderhoek, Founder, Mynder:

Reality: Long hours, stress and physical inactivity are bad for our wellbeing  yet were working harder than ever. What if youre a working mum or parent? Add that to the mix and the strain is elevated to another level.

The key solution here is more flexibility in the workplace. We are all throwing around the buzz word, but are we actually implementing a new flexible working strategy? Business owners should be looking at ways to provide more support to working parents. Lets start going more easy on them. I can guarantee you that the minute you start working closer with them and recognising the need for flexibility, productivity will increase.

In perspective, corporate Australia are constantly talking about how they want to support women returning to work and offering working parents more flexibility. Natalie Mcdonald, from LinkedIn recently spoke about the fact that, 62% of global workforce take advantage of flexible working practices, making it the new norm. Also, a New Zealand company recently trialled a 4 day working week but paid for 5 days. It was a huge success and improved job satisfaction, engagement levels and lowered stress.

Lets all ride this wave and offer more flexibility  a small change can do a world of difference. First step is  talk to your people!

James Campanini, GM, BlueJeans International:

Theres no denying that our lifestyles and work pressures are changing. As we see new generations come up through the workforce, and the world becomes more and more connected, employees are juggling a number of priorities. From the pressures of meeting deadlines, keeping clients happy, ensuring accounts are up-to-date, all while spending quality time with the kids and family or taking them to appointments or other commitments, it feels like there are never enough hours in the day.

So how can the traditional 38-hour work week accommodate, and support the many priorities for employees, all while ensuring better innovation and productivity outcomes? More than ever before, employees are offered flexible work arrangements to ensure theyre able to balance a number of other life priorities. Innovative technology in the workplace is driving this change, and is changing how, where and when we work.

As outlined in the most recent research from The Australian Governments Workplace Gender Equality Agency , benefits to flexible working go beyond employee engagement, and ensure productivity and innovation is maximised. Improved output through quieter work spaces, greater client reach, better services due to a presence in more locations, and increased personal growth through self-management and communication with teams, are just some of the benefits. Of course all of these result in greater customer loyalty  a win-win for employees and employers.

Nicole Gorton, Director, Robert Half Australia:

Tips for encouraging innovation:

Capture ideas: By failing to capture and build on creative ideas as they are formed, businesses risk missing out on highly valuable, innovative solutions. Encourage employees to speak up: Every employee needs to feel encouraged to speak up and contribute their views on how to make innovative improvements to the business. Provide safe and respectful avenues for this  whether in team meetings, an office comments box or an email address Create a culture of innovation: Leaders must foster a culture that supports new ideas. This includes developing clear structures and processes to identify, develop and implement innovative ideas. Develop the talent in your organisation: Staff development is integral to innovation. It promotes key innovation skills like personal responsibility, understanding of errors and visionary thinking. Remove the barriers: Innovation relies on both financial and technological possibilities. IT must support innovation with modern technologies  like data analytics, business intelligence tools and cloud technology  while remaining attractive to the professionals working within the IT department.

SuperEd, Chief Customer Officer, James Coyle:

Yes, I believe we have to look at this from the perspective of achieving a real balance between innovation and productivity. Firstly, I believe it is important to create time to think and reflect. Rigid working hours and expectations dont always allow for that flexibility. George Bernard Shaw once said: Few people think more than two or three time a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week. To achieve true innovation, you need to have time to think and reflect. From that perspective, a typical 38 hour work week could be seen as a limitation to some small businesses and startup founders because it could stifle innovation by not affording these businesses time to consider their product and processes because of the constant production line of administrative tasks and the burden of daily deadlines that they face. True genius is inspiration and being able to have to space to think creatively and differently can make all the difference when it comes to real innovation. On the other hand, the commercialisation of that inspiration is a challenge that many small businesses and startups face. An integral part of startup culture is having highly motivated people who are prepared to do whatever it takes to drive better innovation and productivity outcomes, and do whatever it takes to get a job done. From that perspective, a rigid 38 hour week structure may not be conducive to productivity particularly for high performance cultures where longer or more flexible hours could result in better end outcomes for the business. Ultimately, the challenge for us all is finding the correct balance between inspiration and commercialisation to realise true productivity and innovation.


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Samsung unveiled its much-anticipated Galaxy Note9 Thursday at its Unpacked event in New York City. The company made several other announcements as well, as it presented its vision for a seamlessly connected world.

"We are creating a galaxy of experiences that span not just devices and locations but platforms and brands," said DJ Koh, CEO of Samsung Electronics, at the event. These experiences are "built on a foundation of intelligence that learns, adopts and anticipates -- not to control your choices but to enhance human capabilities and expand human possibilities."

Samsung will share more information at the Samsung developers' conference to be held in San Francisco in November.

The Galaxy Note9

The Galaxy Note9 has a 6.4 inch screen with an end-to-end display, meaning there is no bezel.

It has a 4,000mAh battery, the largest ever on a Note, which lasts all day, according to Samsung.

The Note9 comes in 2 versions, one with 128 GB of storage and 6 GB of RAM, and one with 512 GB of storage and 8 GB of RAM. Both have a microSD card slot. With Samsung's upcoming 512-GB card, the 512-GB Note9 will have 1 TB of storage capacity.

The phone's 10nm processor supports network speeds of up to 1.2Gbps.

Its fingerprint scanner is located on the back below the camera.

The Note9's intelligent camera adapts to ambient light. A super speed dual image sensor lets it offer super slow-motion. The camera automatically notifies users when it detects a flaw in a photo so they can take another shot. It also uses scene recognition to identify different subjects and optimize their color tone.

Samsung built Samsung DeX into the Note9, allowing users to plug the phone into a large display with an HDMI adapter for desktop functionality. While so connected, users can perform normal tasks on the Note9 simultaneously.

Samsung's Bixby personal assistant, which is built into the Galaxy Note9, is more conversational and personal, the company said, and now works with Google Maps.

Samsung has been working with Google to make sure Bixby is compatible with certain Google services, noted Ji Soo Yi, the company's VP of AI strategy. Users also can invoke Google Assistant on the Note9.

The Note9 is available for preorder starting Friday and will be released Aug. 24. Note9 pricing is US$1,000 for the 128-GB version and $1,250 for the 512-GB version.

Samsung offers up to $450 in trade-ins toward the purchase of a Galaxy Note9.

Consumers can redeem preorder bonuses through the Samsung Shop app whether they preorder the Note9 through Samsung or a carrier. The Note9 will be available at Best Buy, Amazon, Costco, Sam's Club, Target and Walmart.

Some consumers can score bonuses -- either a set of AKG noise-canceling headphones or 15,000 V-bucks, Fortnite's in-game currency.

The S Pen

Samsung improved the S Pen for the Galaxy Note9, giving it Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity so it can be used as a remote control for the phone as well as for TVs.

The S Pen can be used to navigate the Note9, translate languages and send messages.

Samsung has been working with "a handful of partners" to provide more functionality on the S Pen and soon will open the SDK, announced Jonathan Wong, director of product marketing.

The S Pen is charged by placing it into its slot on the Galaxy Note9.

Charging takes 40 seconds, and one charge lasts half an hour, Wong said. It doesn't need charging for standard S Pen functions, such as taking notes or drawing on the Note9 screen.

Goodies for Gamers

The Note9 is fine-tuned for gaming, having a water carbon cooling system and a smart performance adjuster algorithm, so "everything is going to run smoothly, even in the most intense gaming sessions," said Drew Blackard, senior director of product marketing at Samsung. It comes with AKG-tuned stereo speakers.

EPIC Games made its Fortnite beta generally available to Android users on Friday, but EPIC CEO Tim Sweeney invited players with Samsung Galaxy to download it "right now" when he made the announcement on Thursday from the Unpacked stage.

Gamers using a Note9 or Samsung Tab S4 will get access to a special skin.

Samsung's New Galaxy Watch

Samsung also unveiled the new Galaxy Watch, with a high-res AMOLED display and integrated touch function; military grade durability; and Corning Gorilla DX+ glass. It's water resistant to 5 atmospheres.

The watch is available in two sizes.

One charge lasts for several days, and the device has an optimized processor created specifically for smartwatches, said Elina Vives, senior director of marketing at Samsung.

The watch works with the Note9 or on its own. It has standalone LTE connectivity, and Samsung has been working with carriers around the world to provide seamless connectivity, she said.

Health-conscious owners can use the Galaxy Watch with the Note9 and the Samsung Health App to keep tabs on their well being.

The Galaxy Watch syncs with the user's calendar when the new MyDay watch face is used. There are more than 60,000 watch faces available in the Galaxy App Store.

Galaxy Home, Spotify

Samsung also unveiled the Galaxy Home, a smart speaker with 6 AKG mid-to-high-range speakers and a subwoofer. It integrates Harman technologies to detect the user's location and beam music directly at the user. It also has eight microphones that can pick up voice commands from across the room.

Samsung has partnered with Spotify, so users can have their music transfer seamlessly from one Samsung device to another. Soon, Galaxy 9 users will be able to use Bixby to link to Spotify.

Samsung's Vision

"Samsung has a better platform to build from than most of its competition," noted Gerritt Schneemann, senior analyst at IHS Markit.

However, "to realize its vision, a user has to completely buy into the Samsung device ecosystem," he told TechNewsWorld. "I don't think that's a universally realistic outcome."

Samsung has been lining up or working with various partners to realize its vision for a seamlessly interconnected world.

That is crucial to its success, suggested Michael Jude, program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan

"So far, Samsung's approach has been to invent the connectivity itself," he told TechNewsWorld. "That hasn't worked well for appliances and its connected home offerings. It needs to use standard OSes and welcome others into its ecosystem."

Samsung's smartphones run Android, but its smartwatches run Tizen, its own operating system. It can run Android apps, but "the developer support for Tizen isn't great, and it competes with development for Google's Wear OS," Schneemann noted. "It's a tough space."

Richard Adhikari has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2008. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, mobile technologies, CRM, databases, software development, mainframe and mid-range computing, and application development. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including Information Week and Computerworld. He is the author of two books on client/server technology. Email Richard.




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No one at Oracle will ever be nominated for sainthood, and that's probably OK with them. Over the years the company has developed a bad boy image that in some cases is richly deserved, while in others it has been embellished by events.

Much derives from the brash doings of founder and longtime CEO (now CTO) Larry Ellison who, from all appearances, may be a charter member of the "never explain, never complain" club.

Ellison does what he does, and the outside world might not fully appreciate it but that's fine. You'll never see him getting all mushy and doing an Elon, as Tesla's CEO did in a recent interview with The New York Times. Business is hard? So what? Push on. It can be refreshingly old school.

The Dastardly Software Audit

Oracle's marketplace actions on more than one occasion have served to give the business a black eye that, in retrospect, might not be fully deserved. For example, Oracle's software audit process recently has come under the microscope.

Oracle exercises its contractual right to audit the use of its software at customer locations. When an audit turns up a violation or potential violation of the license agreement, the sides work out a solution that often involves additional license purchases. No one likes this.

The process makes Oracle look bad in the eyes of the public, who think of licensing as supporting one or a few software deployments. However, although the audits are randomized, they often involve customers with hundreds, or even thousands, of licenses spread across far flung empires.

Rimini Street Ruling

The recent ruling in the seemingly never-ending Rimini Street litigation provides a window into how Oracle's public image gets formed. To recap, Rimini Street in 2015 was found guilty of 93 Oracle patent infringements involving its methods of providing competing services to Oracle customers, often at half the cost of the competing Oracle service.

Rimini Street lost on appeal and had to pay Oracle US$46.2 million in prejudgment interest and attorney's fees. Another $27.7 million fine was added shortly after. Earlier this year the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reduced the fines by $50 million.

However, the court last week issued a permanent injunction against Rimini Street and awarded nearly $30 million in attorney's fees to Oracle. Yet that's not the interesting part of this story regarding Oracle's reputation.

There are many people in the industry who already have a fixed idea about Oracle and often it's not a good one. Take a look at the judgment issued by judge Larry Hicks of the Nevada District Court.

Among other things, Hicks wrote that Rimini was able to sell low-cost service contracts because, unlike Oracle, it didn't have the overhead of developing service documentation and diagnostic software and other things relevant to supporting its products.

Rimini didn't have to "expend significant resources in time and money in developing its own competing software," the judge noted. The cost disparity damaged Oracle's reputation, because it "created the impression that Oracle was overcharging for support and eroded the bonds and trust that Oracle has with its customers."

Rimini has been growing and making money, the exact picture of a startup success story. However, Hicks' ruling reminds everyone that "Rimini Street would not have achieved its current market share and exceptional revenue growth without its infringing conduct." That conduct was "conscious disregard" for Oracle's copyrights.

Last Words

There's a lot of litigation in Silicon Valley that doesn't hit your screen. Often parties settle because there's much more money to be made in the tech market than in court. There are many reasons for the litigation, but at least some of it stems from overly broad patents that typically are granted in the early stages of disruptive innovation.

At some point the industry might benefit from refactoring its patents, which has happened in other fields already. Imagine the Wright Brothers or their descendants owning the rights to "flight," so that every time you boarded a plane the airline had to pay something to the heirs.

Flying machines are more than 100 years old at this point, and any patent has long expired. That's how our system of capitalism works. It enables inventors to stand on the shoulders of previous giants to make the world new again. However, this isn't that. Software support focuses on a particular product down to its version, operating system and other factors. It's a product that takes resources and skill to produce, and taking it constitutes a theft.

There's no way a company like Oracle can defend itself from such theft without appearing in the eyes of some as bullying a much smaller competitor. Still, Oracle has a duty to its stakeholders to defend its property rights. This isn't to say that the company doesn't deserve to be sued now and then, and there are certainly other cases now working their way through the courts that I am not offering an opinion on. Quite possibly, though, the company's reputation could benefit from softening its apparent position about complaining and explaining.

Oracle has a big PR organization that seems focused on getting product information out, which is fine. However, the world has changed. It's not enough just to have good or even great products. Today a vendor needs to be seen as doing the right things for the right reasons, too.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ECT News Network.

Denis Pombriant is a well-known CRM industry analyst, strategist, writer and speaker. His new book, You Can't Buy Customer Loyalty, But You Can Earn It, is now available on Amazon. His 2015 book, Solve for the Customer, is also available there. Email Denis.


State officials plan to appeal a judges ruling that New Mexicos funding for schools is inadequate.

Advocacy groups and school districts sued in 2014, accusing the state of failing to meeting constitutional obligations to provide a sufficient education for all students. The case highlighted the plight of English-language learners, Native American youths, and students from low-income families.

The ruling late last month gives the state 60 days to craft a plan and sets an April 15 deadline for ensuring that schools are adequately funded to provide at-risk students a sufficient education.
This spring, thousands of teachers walked out of their classrooms in a half-dozen states, protesting low salaries and cuts to school funding.

Their activism likely made a difference in boosting support for raising teacher salaries, shows a new poll from the journal Education Next. EdNext surveyed a nationally representative sample of 4,601 adults during the first three weeks of May. The survey included representative oversamples of parents of school-age children and teachers.

In the six states where there were widescale teacher strikes and walkoutsWest Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Colorado63 percent of respondents favored raising teacher pay. Public support in those states jumped by 16 percentage points since last year.

Across the country, nearly half of those provided with information on average teacher salaries in their state said the pay should increasethats 13 percent higher than last year and is the largest change in opinion that EdNext saw on any single policy from last year. Support for teacher pay raises increased among both Democrats and Republicans, although more Democrats are in favor by 21 percentage points.

Enlarge charts.

In fact, public support is the second-highest it has been in the 12-year history of the EdNext survey. The only year with a higher share of Americans supporting raising teacher pay was 2008just before the recession, the researchers noted.

Buoyed by Economy

The fact that the economy is growing ... might have made the public more receptive to increasing salaries, said Martin West, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and an author of the report.

When respondents were not informed of how much teachers earn, they tended to be more supportive of increasing teacher salaries. Among this segment of respondents, about two-thirds said teachers should get a pay raise.

The researchers wrote that this finding shows most Americans believe that teachers are paid much less than they actually arerespondents, when asked to estimate average teacher salaries in their state, made an average guess of $40,181. In reality, the 2016-17 national average salary is $59,660, according to the National Education Association, although that varies widely between states.

Cuts to school spending were another major factor that led to the wave of teacher activism. Perhaps because of that, support for higher school spending strengthened this year, with 47 percent of respondents who were informed about current spending levels saying that more money should go to public schools. Thats an increase of 7 percentage points over the prior year.

Among those who were not informed of current spending levels, 59 percent supported a spending hike. Residents of the six states that experienced teacher walkouts were more likely to be in support of higher school spending than those elsewhere in the country.

Opposition to Required Fees

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to teachers unions by ruling that they could not charge agency or fair share fees to workers who decline to join the union. The fees, which were collected in 22 states, were meant to cover the cost of collective bargaining. But the justices ruled that collecting these fees violated the free speech rights of nonmembers, who may not support union policies.

The EdNext survey, which was conducted before the ruling, found that only 25 percent of the public and 34 percent of teachers support agency fees. Just over half of both groups oppose laws requiring the collection of those fees. The rest of respondents say they neither support nor oppose the compulsory fees.

When the researchers gave respondents the arguments in favor and against agency fees, support for the fees increasedbut the largest portion of the general public, 44 percent, still opposed them. More Republicans than Democrats opposed the fees after hearing the arguments on both sides.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, when given the arguments on both sides, only 16 percent of teachers who dont belong to their union say they are in favor of agency fees, compared to 65 percent of teachers union members.

Still, the opposition to agency fees does not translate into a negative view of teachers unions, the survey found. The public was split almost evenly on whether unions had generally positive or negative effects, with a strong partisan divide. More than half of Republicans said unions had a negative effect, compared to 22 percent of Democrats.

Most public school teachers think that unions have a positive impact on schools, the survey found.

Theres widespread support for teachers unions, even among teachers who dont join the union, said Paul Peterson, a professor of government at Harvard University and one of the authors of the report. At the same time, the public can be very supportive of unions and be quite opposed to some of the unions main policies, including teacher tenure.

The EdNext survey also found that 53 percent of the public supports teachers having the right to strike. Teacher strikes are legal in just 12 states and not covered in statutes or case law in three. But laws prohibiting strikes are rarely enforcedin fact, in almost all of the states with walkouts this spring, striking is illegal.

Theres a partisan divide on the issue: About two-thirds of Democrats support the right to strike, compared to 38 percent of Republicans. The vast majority of teachers support the right to strike.

Support for School Choice Grows

Last year, public support for charter schools plummeted amid high-profile opposition from political leaders and national civil rights groups. This year, charter schools began to regain some support, with 44 percent of the public in approval, up from 39 percent in 2017.

Teachers, however, are more skeptical about charter schools: Only 33 percent support charters, a 7 percentage-point decline from last year.

Public support for school vouchers, which allow parents to use public funding allocated for their childs education toward tuition at a private school of their choice, is on the uptick as well. Americans tended to favor universal vouchers for all families over targeted vouchers for low-income students54 percent approval compared to 43 percent.

However, when the survey used the word vouchers instead of referring to the program as something that gives families a wider choice, support for universal vouchers declined by 10 percentage points. (There was no significant change in opinion when the word was included in the question that referred to vouchers for low-income families.)

Meanwhile, support for tax-credit scholarship programs, which allows individuals and/or corporations to receive a tax credit for donating toward scholarships for low-income students, has remained steady, with 57 percent in approval.

The survey also found that support for the Common Core State Standards has stabilized after falling for the past several years. Support now stands at 45 percent, a slight uptick from last year. Still, when respondents were asked about using standards that are the same across the states, the approval rate was 16 percentage points higher than when the name common core was used.
We have a racial disconnect in American schools. Fifty-one percent of the students in grades K-12 are children of color, yet 80 percent of their teachers are white . White teachers like me have to love our students of color enough to learn how to teach them well.

Race in America often feels like a powder keg. As white teachers who realize how much we dont know about the lived experience of African-American, Asian-American, and Latino students, we can be reluctant to light a single match. My dad is a contractor who has built over 100 buildings. He told me once, Everyone is afraid to start building because theyre so worried about messing up. You just have to begin.

Here are five pieces of advice for white teachers willing to walk that path.

1. Get started. Now. In many classrooms, schools, and districts, were doing so little to make school relevant for our students of color that almost anything is a step forward. A friend who teaches elementary art found an audio clip of an African-American artist narrating a lesson, and she noticed that her African-American students were spellbound by his voice. One of those students said later, He sounded like my dad.

Our students of color are often starved for anything and anyone relevant to their identities and experiences. When I showed a YouTube clip of the Hamilton cast performing at the White House, my 1st graders were enraptured.

These small actions will feel insufficient, because they are. We need to be doing a lot more, from advocating for more teachers and administrators of color to enter the profession to confronting racism in our own schools, neighborhoods, and families. But almost every white teacher I know, myself included, could do a better job of taking small daily actions that make school more welcoming and resonant for our students of color.

2. Get the right books into our students hands. Children of color need books to be mirrors as well as windows. In most classrooms, there arent enough of those mirrors . A survey of childrens literature published in 2015 found that 73.3 percent of the books had a main character who was white, 12.5 percent featured a talking truck or animal, 7.6 percent had an African-American protagonist, and a scant 2.4 percent of the main characters featured were Latino. Still, the right books are out therecheck out Scholastics We Need Diverse Books catalog for a start.

We need an abundance of those books in the classroom library our students browse during independent reading time. We need to feature them during read alouds. We need them in our students hands during guided reading. And while we cant shy away from issues like the enslavement of Africans or the internment of Japanese-Americans, we cant send the message that people of color are defined by oppression, either. At a focus group on equity last month, Afrika Afeni Mills of BetterLesson described her own childrens take on the books they had been reading in school: Its always about slavery and racism. Once in awhile, cant we read about black kids just chillin?

3. Bring in guest speakers of color. The reality right now is that we dont have enough teachers of color, particularly black men . There are certain ways in which, no matter how much I love my students, I cannot be for them what a teacher of color could be. But the torrent of negative media images (a recent analysis found 50 percent of Latino characters on TV were depicted as criminals ) has an antidote. We have to provide our students a constant stream of writers, artists, mathematicians, scientists, engineers, and other competent and caring men and women of color to counter that poisonous programming.

When six first-generation college students, all Latino or African-American, came in to talk to my 2nd graders in small groups about what college is like, my students asked them great questionsDid you miss your parents? How did you save up enough money for college?and the college students gave great answers. When a students mom came in during a unit on historical immigration to talk about why she had moved to the U.S. from Mexico, my 2nd graders immediately made the connection to earlier waves of European immigration through Ellis Island.

Find education videos or performances that feature people of color, too. Think how many children were shaped, like I was, by LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow being the face and voice that introduced them to the first books they loved.

4. When you hear other white peopleincluding fellow teachersmake racist comments, speak up. Its OK if your face turns red, you blurt out something that doesnt quite line up as a sentence, or it takes you 12 hours to come up with the line you wish you had said. The important thing is to make a little gash in that conversation so the comment does not go unnoticed or unchallenged.

Part of white privilege is the ability to speak against racism without being as quickly discounted by white people in power as people of color often are. We have an obligation to speak up.

5. When you get the chance to learn from teachers of color, listen more than you talk. There are only two teachers of color on my entire staff, despite a student population comprised of about 95 percent children of color. I desperately need opportunities like the one I had last month at the National Teacher Leadership Conference to hear from African-American and Latino educators on panels, in keynotes, and through long conversations after the formal sessions had ended for the day.

For white people to get better at meeting the needs of our students of color, we have to learn to talk less and listen more. We have to give more thought to what we want to ask teachers of color than what we want to share.

I continue to marvel at the patience, kindness, and generosity of spirit shown to me by African-American and Latino friends and colleagues. To learn from them, I have to remind myself to stop talking and instead listen deeply to their experiences, perspectives, and advice.

Doing Right By Every Child

None of us want to believe were racist, yet many of us secretly worry that we are. We cant be afraid to shine a light on those shadowed reaches of our souls and examine the biases that shape our interactions with our students of color. We cant be afraid to ask a question of a colleague of color for fear well look foolish or clueless. We cant remain silent when white co-workers make racist remarks.

In our profession, love for our students is deeply intertwined with expertise in teaching. None of us could continue to put in the hours of reflection, preparation, and teaching it takes to become a skilled teacher without the motivation that drives us: to do right by every single child in our class. Lets make sure we include our students of color in that lifelong pursuit.

For a great resource with blunt questions and specific answers, check out So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. Thanks to Ricky Washington and 2014 Texas Teacher of the Year Monica Washington for recommending this book and for their editorial support.
To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020.
The traders' body will also hold a mega rally here on December 16 to protest "discriminatory treatment against traders.

CAIT said it will launch a nation-wide Rath Yatra on September 15 against the deal.

New Delhi: Traders' body CAIT on Monday said it has called a Bharat Bandh on September 28 to oppose US retail major Walmart's acquisition of Flipkart.

CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said the deal has "violated Press Note No 3 of 2016 of Government and is a combination with a sinister design to control and dominate the retail trade through the passage of e-commerce".

He claimed that it will create an uneven level playing field and will wipe out the competition due to their business module, which entails predatory pricing, deep discounting and loss funding.

In a statement, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) also said it will launch a nation-wide Rath Yatra on September 15 against the deal.

The traders' body will also hold a mega rally here on December 16 to protest "discriminatory treatment against traders".

The decisions were taken yesterday at the annual general meeting of CAIT held at Nagpur which was attended by over 200 prominent trade leaders across the country.

Walmart Inc on Saturday said it has completed deal with Flipkart and now holds 77 per cent stake in the Indian e-commerce major.

Besides, the Bentonville giant's investment includes USD 2 billion of new equity funding to help accelerate the growth of the Flipkart business.

"The markets across the country will remain closed on 28 September while observing Bharat Trade Bandh and traders will take out protest march in their respective cities across the Country," CAIT said.

The commerce and industry ministry notifies FDI policies through press notes. Press Note 3, which was released in 2016, enlists guidelines for foreign direct investment in e-commerce sector.

It also claimed that no discounting is allowed and that no inventory ownership directly or indirectly is allowed by e-commerce marketplaces.
2018-08-21

Maeci

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in close coordination with the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, has allocated a 500,000-euro financial contribution to tackle the humanitarian crisis in the regions of Gedeo and West Guji, in Ethiopia. The contribution will mainly be used to provide emergency shelters as well as relief material and support to mobile clinics.

In close coordination with the Government authorities in Ethiopia and OCHA, IOM will use the Italian contribution to scale up the response for internally displaced people in Gedeo and West Guji and to alleviate the critical situation in the state with special attention to the most vulnerable, said Maureen Achieng, IOM Ethiopia Chief of Mission.

According to IOM, since April 2018 some 970,000 people have been displaced from their homes in the area. Thanks to this contribution, which is expected to benefit nearly 100,000 people, Italy confirms its support for the Ethiopian governments action in response to the humanitarian emergency.
BOSTON, Aug. 21, 2018 -- In January, raging storms caused medical emergencies along the U.S. East Coast, prompting the Red Cross to issue an urgent call for blood donations. The nation's blood supply was especially in need of O-type blood that can be universally administered in an emergency. Now, scientists say they have identified enzymes -- from the human gut -- that can turn type A and B blood into O, as much as 30 times more efficiently than previously studied enzymes.

The researchers will present their results today at the 256th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS, the world's largest scientific society, is holding the meeting here through Thursday. It features more than 10,000 presentations on a wide range of science topics.

A brand-new video on the research is available at http://bit.ly/acsblood.

"We have been particularly interested in enzymes that allow us to remove the A or B antigens from red blood cells," Stephen Withers, Ph.D., says. "If you can remove those antigens, which are just simple sugars, then you can convert A or B to O blood." He says scientists have pursued the idea of adjusting donated blood to a common type for a while, but they have yet to find efficient, selective enzymes that are also safe and economical.

To assess potential enzyme candidates more quickly, Withers collaborated with a colleague at his institution, the University of British Columbia (UBC), who uses metagenomics to study ecology. "With metagenomics, you take all of the organisms from an environment and extract the sum total DNA of those organisms all mixed up together," Withers explains. Casting such a wide net allows Withers' team to sample the genes of millions of microorganisms without the need for individual cultures. The researchers then use E. coli to select for DNA containing genes that code for enzymes that can cleave sugar residues. So instead of using metagenomics as a means of learning about microbial ecology, Withers uses it to discover new biocatalysts. "This is a way of getting that genetic information out of the environment and into the laboratory setting and then screening for the activity we are interested in," he says.

Withers' team considered sampling DNA from mosquitoes and leeches, the types of organisms that degrade blood, but ultimately found successful candidate enzymes in the human gut microbiome. Glycosylated proteins called mucins line the gut wall, providing sugars that serve as attachment points for gut bacteria while also feeding them as they assist in digestion. Some of the mucin sugars are similar in structure to the antigens on A- and B-type blood. The researchers homed in on the enzymes the bacteria use to pluck the sugars off mucin and found a new family of enzymes that are 30 times more effective at removing red blood cell antigens than previously reported candidates.

Withers is now working with colleagues at the Centre for Blood Research at UBC to validate these enzymes and test them on a larger scale for potential clinical testing. In addition, he plans to carry out directed evolution, a protein engineering technique that simulates natural evolution, with the goal of creating the most efficient sugar-removing enzyme.

"I am optimistic that we have a very interesting candidate to adjust donated blood to a common type," Withers says. "Of course, it will have to go through lots of clinical trails to make sure that it doesn't have any adverse consequences, but it is looking very promising."

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A press conference on this topic will be held Tuesday, Aug. 21, at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time in the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. Reporters may check-in at t he press center, Room 102A, or watch live on YouTube http://bit.ly/ACSLive_Boston2018. To ask questions, sign in with a Google account.

The researchers acknowledge support and funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

The American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, is a not-for-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. ACS does not conduct research, but publishes and publicizes peer-reviewed scientific studies. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive press releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.

Note to journalists: Please report that this research was presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.

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Title

Discovery of CAZYmes for cell surface glycan removal through metagenomics: Towards universal blood

Abstract

Gaining access to enzymes that are able to optimally degrade glycosides of interest under specific conditions has been achieved using two high-throughput methodologies. One involves the synthesis of libraries of genes from within glycoside hydrolase families that contain the general activity of interest. Representation of specificity diversity within that family is achieved bioinformatically by creating phylogenetically distinct sub-families of genes. Representative genes from each sub-family are then synthesised and expressed in E. coli, and the library is screened.

In the other approach we screen the diverse gene repertoire present within the "silent majority" of microorganisms that have not been cultured through metagenomic approaches. Total DNA from an environment of interest is extracted, fragmented into chunks containing either ~ 1 gene (3-5 kB) or ~30-40 genes (40-50 kB) and transformed into E. coli. After picking colonies into 384 well plates we screen them for the activities of interest using custom-synthesized substrates. After hits are validated we sequence interesting fosmids and clone and express any obvious CAZymes: if not obvious we identify the responsible gene through small insert libraries.

Using this approach we have identified useful glycosidases of novel specificity from environments ranging from forest soils to human and beaver feces. In particular we have screened the human gut metagenomic libraries for enzymes that remove the Gal or GalNAc residues that function as the antigenic determinants from A and B type red blood cells, thereby generating "universal" O type blood. High-throughput screening of libraries for glycoside phosphorylases will also be discussed if time permits.
BOSTON, Aug. 21, 2018 -- Once in the territory of science fiction, "nanobots" are closer than ever to becoming a reality, with possible applications in medicine, manufacturing, robotics and fluidics. Today, scientists report progress in developing the tiny machines: They have made nanobot pumps that destroy nerve agents, while simultaneously administering an antidote.

The researchers will present their results today at the 256th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS, the world's largest scientific society, is holding the meeting here through Thursday. It features more than 10,000 presentations on a wide range of science topics.

According to Ayusman Sen, Ph.D., the project's principal investigator, this study arose from more general research aimed at making nanobots from enzymes. "We have been looking at how to convert chemical energy into motion," he says. "We take the energy that's generated from catalytic reactions to cause the motion of enzymes."

To make his nanobots, Sen and his group at The Pennsylvania State University used enzymes found in nature. These are proteins that help specific chemical reactions occur, converting a reactant (raw material) into a product.

The realization that enzymes can move when catalyzing a reaction is a relatively new discovery. Previously, scientists thought that these proteins drifted along in the cytoplasm of the cell by passive diffusion, encountering their reactants and other enzymes by more-or-less chance interactions. However, Sen and others have recently shown that when enzymes catalyze a reaction, they move. Researchers still aren't sure how this motion occurs, but it likely involves a change in the shape of the enzyme upon catalysis. Sen's group has shown that these proteins can even swim along a path toward higher levels of reactant. These features make enzymes an attractive material for developing nanobots.

"If we take enzymes and anchor them to a surface so they cannot move, and we give them their reactant, they end up pumping the fluid surrounding them," Sen says. "So they act as miniature fluid pumps that can be used for a variety of applications." He notes that the nanobots pump liquid at the rate of several microliters --- or millionths of a liter -- per second.

Sen and his coworkers made nanobots to neutralize organophosphates, a class of nerve agents. Exposure to these chemicals during military combat or terrorist attacks can cause permanent neurological damage, and in some cases, death. An enzyme, called organophosphorus acid anhydrolase, can destroy these nerve agents. The researchers immobilized this enzyme on a gel that also contained an antidote. Exposure to organophosphates activates the enzyme. "The enzyme actively pumps in the organosphosphate compound and destroys it, and at the same time pumps out an antidote," Sen says. Importantly, the system requires no external power source because the enzyme is fueled by the organophosphate reactant.

The nanobot pumps might someday be incorporated into protective clothing for the military or first responders, Sen says. He is also exploring applications for nanobots based on other enzymes, for example, an insulin-pumping device to treat diabetes and an enzyme-powered drug-delivery system. The Pennsylvania State University has filed a patent application on the promising new technology. "If you want to make pumps that will pump very small amounts of liquid in a very precise way, this is one way to do that," Sen says.

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A press conference on this topic will be held on Tuesday, Aug. 21, at 10:30 a.m. Eastern time in the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. Reporters may check-in at the press center, Room 102A, or watch live on Youtube http://bit.ly/ACSLive_Boston2018. To ask questions online, sign in with a Google account.

The researchers acknowledge support and funding from the National Science Foundation and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

The American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, is a not-for-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. ACS does not conduct research, but publishes and publicizes peer-reviewed scientific studies. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive press releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.

Note to journalists: Please report that this research was presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.

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Title

Designing self-powered nanobots

Abstract

Self-powered nano and microscale moving systems are currently the subject of intense interest due in part to their potential applications in nanomachinery, nanoscale assembly, robotics, fluidics, and chemical/biochemical sensing. One of the more interesting recent discoveries has been the ability to design nano/microparticles, including molecules, which catalytically harness the chemical energy in their environment to move autonomously. These "bots" can be directed by chemical and light gradients. Further, our group has developed systems in which chemical secretions from the translating micro/nanomotors initiate long-range, collective interactions among the particles. This behavior is reminiscent of quorum sensing organisms that swarm in response to a minimum threshold concentration of a signaling chemical. In addition, an object that moves by generating a continuous surface force in a fluid can, in principle, be used to pump the fluid by the same catalytic mechanism. Thus, by immobilizing the nano/micromotors, we have developed nano/microfluidic pumps that transduce energy catalytically. These non-mechanical pumps provide precise control over flow rate without the aid of an external power source and are capable of turning on in response to specific analytes in solution.
SpiceJet stock also opened on a strong note and touched a high of Rs 87.20, up 3.01 per cent over its last close.

Airline stocks on Tuesday surged as much as 3 per cent in morning trade after official data showed that domestic passenger traffic grew 21 per cent in July as compared to the year-ago month.

New Delhi: Airline stocks on Tuesday surged as much as 3 per cent in morning trade after official data showed that domestic passenger traffic grew 21 per cent in July as compared to the year-ago month.

According to the data, domestic airlines carried 115.57 lakh passengers in July this year.

Shares of InterGlobe Aviation on Tuesday opened at Rs 1,075, then gained further ground and touched a high of Rs 1,106, up 1.86 per cent over the previous close.

SpiceJet stock also opened on a strong note and touched a high of Rs 87.20, up 3.01 per cent over its last close.

Shares of Jet Airways however fell nearly 4 per cent in morning trade after reports surfaced that the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has opened a preliminary inquiry into the carrier.

Shares of Jet Airways opened on a weak note at Rs 297.80, then fell to a low of Rs 289.95, down 3.73 per cent over its previous closing price.

Budget carrier IndiGo continued to be the largest player with a market share of 42.1 per cent while that of national carrier Air India stood at 12.4 per cent in July.

Last month, the market share of SpiceJet and GoAir stood at 12.3 per cent and 8.9 per cent, respectively. Jet Airways garnered a market share of 13.6 per cent in July.

India is one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world and has been registering double-digit growth for more than three years.
WACO, Texas (Aug. 21, 2018) - Religious people tend to be more charitable than their nonreligious counterparts, but they'll think twice about opening their wallets if it prolongs their next big purchase, according to new research from Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business.

Baylor researchers James A. Roberts, Ph.D., professor of marketing, and Meredith David, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing, partnered on a study that examined the relationship between religiosity and charitable giving, and what drives the latter. They found that religiosity - the way people live out their lives based on their faith - can drive donors to give. But when materialism - that self-serving want for more money or material possessions - enters the equation, giving decreases.

"At once, we want to help others, but at the same time, we desire the money and possessions that we all cherish to a greater or lesser degree," the researchers wrote. "It is the result of such give-and-take between opposing values that drives our behavior as donors to charitable causes."

A total of 180 adults participated in the study, which is published in International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing.

Roberts and David looked specifically at religiosity's effect on peoples' attitudes toward helping others (AHO) and attitudes toward charitable organizations (ACO).

Religiosity, they explained, is different from religious affiliation; it "is something that individuals experience outside of their place of worship and constitutes a way of viewing and experiencing the world that is different from their less religious (or nonreligious) counterparts." They said they approached the study with the idea that helping others is a common rule among major religions.

In general, the research showed that those expressing higher levels of religiosity were found to possess more favorable attitudes toward helping others and to charitable organizations. And those with stronger attitudes toward helping others also expressed a greater breadth in their giving.

But higher levels of religiosity do not guarantee open wallets, David said.

"We can't always assume that religiosity ensures charitable giving," she said. "Our study results suggest that increasing materialism lessened the positive effect of AHO on the breadth of giving."

Roberts, a nationally recognized expert on consumerism, said he and David, a nationally recognized expert on consumer behavior and well-being, weren't too surprised by the study's findings, given a basic understanding of human nature and the self-centeredness that accompanies materialism. However, they believe that understanding these dynamics can benefit charitable organizations as they identify potential donors and prepare for "the ask."

"Although materialism was found to reduce the breadth and likelihood of charitable giving in the present study, it could spur charitable giving if it is driven by self-serving motivations," they wrote in the "managerial implications" section of the study.

In other words, appeal to the donors' inclination to give AND their desire for public acknowledgment.

"Large donations that come with naming rights, spur news coverage or exceed the donations of other prominent individuals are all examples of how materialism can be used to drive charitable donations," they wrote.

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ABOUT THE STUDY

"Holier than thou: Investigating the relationship between religiosity and charitable giving," published in the June 2018 issue of International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, is authored by James A. Roberts, Ph.D., The Ben H. Williams Professor of Marketing, Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University, and Meredith David, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing, Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University.

ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 17,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions.

ABOUT HANKAMER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business provides a rigorous academic experience, consisting of classroom and hands-on learning, guided by Christian commitment and a global perspective. Recognized nationally for several programs, including Entrepreneurship and Accounting, the school offers 24 undergraduate and 13 graduate areas of study. Visit http://www.baylor.edu/business and follow on Twitter at twitter.com/Baylor_Business.
Young female orphan elephants have a tougher social life than non-orphans, a new study suggests, adding to a growing body of evidence of how the impacts of poaching cascade through elephant societies.

The research, part of a wider study by Save The Elephants and Colorado State University into the social impact of adult mortality on orphaned female elephants, shows that orphans receive more aggression from other elephants -- whether overt aggression like pushing or more subtle forms like displacements -- than non-orphans.

Orphans that leave their families and move into another family unit are likely to receive more aggression than those integrated in their natal groups.

The study, conducted over five years and led by CSU postdoctoral researcher Shifra Goldenberg, analyzes the social interaction patterns of juvenile female elephants in Northern Kenya who have lost their mothers to either poaching or natural mortality. The work shows that orphans are resilient, and rebuild their social lives by strengthening relationships in response to maternal mortality.

"Elephants live in matriarchies that facilitate access to limited resources like food, water, and shade," said Goldenberg, who is also a researcher with Save The Elephants. "We found that orphaning and natal group dispersal may trigger resource opportunity costs for young females, as they appear to be subordinate to other group members. What this means for their long-term survival and reproduction remains an open question."

While the research team found that orphans rebuild their social networks, scientists also saw that orphans' social lives do not return to normal. While they maintain rich and varied relationships with other elephants -- relatives and non-relatives -- they have markedly less interaction with adult females. This reduces access to favored foods and resources, as well as to the elders, whose experience is critical to the transmission of information between generations in elephant societies.

The latest findings around elephant aggression shed new light on the substantial indirect impact of poaching on orphan survivors, demonstrating that socially disadvantaged elephant orphans have a tougher life than non-orphans.

Between 2009 and 2013, the population of elephants in Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves in Northern Kenya, where the study was conducted, was hit by increased ivory poaching and a severe drought that left many young elephants orphaned, without mothers or grandmothers.

Some orphans chose to remain with what is left of their disrupted groups, others left their natal group to attach to unrelated individuals. Still others became drifters, showing some social preference but not fully committing to any one group.

The researchers found that only orphans from disrupted families tend to disperse into new social groups but that during feeding, these same elephants receive more aggression than orphans in natal groups.

George Wittemyer, study co-author and an associate professor in the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology at CSU said that the recovery of elephant populations from prolonged ivory poaching will depend largely on the ability of young females to successfully reconstruct their social lives and family groups.

"Deep, life-long bonds are the fundamental component of elephant societies, said Wittemyer, who also serves as chairman of the Scientific Board of Save The Elephants. "Fine resolution studies like these allow us to gauge the response of young females to human driven disruption."

In the coming years the Samburu orphan study will relate the social costs of being an orphan to fitness as this could be important to the recovery of elephant populations affected by the ivory trade and other forms of disruption.

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The study, "Orphaning and natal group dispersal are associated with social costs in female elephants," was recently published in the journal Animal Behaviour.
Specimens suggest Madagascar's lemurs were not the first mammals on the island

DURHAM, N.C. -- Discovered more than half a century ago in Kenya and sitting in museum storage ever since, the roughly 20-million-year-old fossil Propotto leakeyi was long classified as a fruit bat.

Now, it's helping researchers rethink the early evolution of lemurs, distant primate cousins of humans that today are only found on the island of Madagascar, some 250 miles off the eastern coast of Africa. The findings could rewrite the story of just when and how they got to the island.

In a study to be published August 21 in the journal Nature Communications, researchers have re-examined Propotto's fossilized remains and suggest that the strange creature wasn't a bat, but an ancient relative of the aye-aye, the bucktoothed nocturnal primate that represents one of the earliest branches of the lemur family tree.

The reassessment challenges a long-held view that today's 100-some lemur species descended from ancestors that made their way to Madagascar in a single wave more than 60 million years ago, becoming some of the first mammals to colonize the island.

Instead, the study lends support to the idea that two lineages of lemurs split in Africa before coming to Madagascar. One lineage eventually led to the aye-aye, and the other to all other lemurs. There are no lemurs left on mainland Africa. These ancestors then colonized Madagascar independently, and millions of years later than once believed.

"One implication is that lemurs have had a much less extensive evolutionary history on Madagascar than was previously thought," said study co-author Erik Seiffert, professor of anatomy at the University of Southern California.

When Propotto was first described in the 1960s, experts didn't agree about what they were looking at. They didn't have a lot to go on: just three lower jaw bones, each barely an inch long, and a handful of teeth less than three millimeters across.

In 1967, paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson inspected the fragments and classified the specimen as a previously unknown member of the loris family, nocturnal primates with enormous eyes. But a colleague named Alan Walker took a look and thought otherwise, eventually convincing Simpson that the bones belonged to a bat.

For nearly half a century the creature's identity appeared to have been settled, until 2016, when another paleontologist, the late Gregg Gunnell of Duke University, began taking a fresh look at the fossil. To Gunnell's eye, the creature's hind teeth were more reminiscent of a primate than a bat. He also noted the stump of a broken front tooth, just visible in cross section, which would have jutted out from its mouth like a dagger -- a trait only known in aye-ayes, the only living primates with rodent-like teeth.

"Gregg wrote to us and said, 'Tell me I'm crazy,'" Seiffert said.

To verify Propotto's place in the primate family tree, Seiffert and Steven Heritage of Duke's Division of Fossil Primates analyzed more than 395 anatomical features and 79 genes for 125 mammal species, living and extinct.

With help from Doug Boyer, associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke, the team also compiled microCT scans of the lower molars of 42 living and extinct mammal groups, including bats, treeshrews and primates. They then used a computer program to compare the bumps, pits and ridges on the scans of Propotto's teeth to those of other animals.

The researchers found that Propotto shared a number of features with a similarly buck-toothed primate that lived 34 million years ago in Egypt called Plesiopithecus, and that both were ancient relatives of the aye-aye.

In the new study, Seiffert, Gunnell and colleagues propose that the ancestors of aye-ayes split from the rest of the lemur family tree roughly 40 million years ago, while still on the African continent, and the resulting two lineages didn't make their separate ways to Madagascar until later.

The findings suggest they arrived around the same time as other mammals, such as rodents, Malagasy mongooses and hedgehog- and shrew-like animals called tenrecs. Frogs, snakes and lizards may have made the trip around the same time.

Lemurs can't swim, so some scientists hypothesize that the small-bodied creatures crossed the 250-mile-wide channel that lies between Africa and Madagascar after being swept out to sea in a storm, by holding on to tree limbs or floating mats of vegetation before finally washing ashore.

But if the arrival were more recent, they might have had a shorter distance to travel, thanks to lower sea levels when the Antarctic ice sheet was much larger.

"It's possible that lemurs weren't in Madagascar at all until maybe the Miocene," as recently as 23 million years ago, Boyer said.

"Some of the lowest sea levels were also during this time," Heritage said.

Either way, "the fossils tell us something we never could have guessed from the DNA evidence about the history of lemurs on Madagascar," Boyer said.

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See 3-D digital reconstructions of the original Propotto fossils at https://www.morphosource.org/Detail/ProjectDetail/Show/project_id/339.

This research was supported by the Leakey Foundation and grants from the National Science Foundation (BCS-0416164, BCS733 0819186, BCS-1231288, BCS-1440742, DBI-1458192, BCS-1552848, BCS-1127164, BCS-1638796).

CITATION: "Fossil Lemurs From Egypt and Kenya Suggest an African Origin for Madagascar's Aye-Aye," Gregg F. Gunnell, Doug M. Boyer, Anthony R. Friscia, Steven Heritage, Fredrick Kyalo Manthi, Ellen R. Miller, Hesham M. Sallam, Nancy B. Simmons, Nancy J. Stevens, Erik R. Seiffert. Nature Communications, August 21, 2018.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05648-w
How do muscle cells prepare for the particular metabolic challenges of the day? Scientists at Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen (LMU), members of the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), have investigated this question and published their results in 'PLOS Biology'. The study has uncovered a metabolic network which is, contrary to expectations, not controlled by the brain but rather by the 'circadian clock' of muscle cells.

Circadian clocks are present in all cells of the body, and have a pervasive influence on all aspects of human physiology. This is because they regulate homeostasis by anticipating rhythmic changes in behavior and nutritional state, and by compartmentalizing incompatible metabolic pathways within precise temporal windows. "This applies, for example, to the use of nutrients such as fats and carbohydrates," explains Professor Henriette Uhlenhaut. She is group leader at the Institute for Diabetes and Obesity of Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen (IDO) and the Gene Center of LMU. "If the body's internal clock gets out of synch, however, it can have serious consequences for the body's metabolism. For example, it is known that shift workers are particularly susceptible to metabolic diseases such as diabetes."

In their recent work, the team led by Uhlenhaut turned their attention to the 24-hour metabolic rhythm of muscles. "We focused specifically on two proteins that act as master regulators, positive and negative arms of the circadian clock," says Kenneth Dyar, a scientist at the IDO and lead author of the study. "These two opposing molecules bind to DNA and trigger expression of additional proteins known to regulate lipid and protein metabolism." Using muscle cells from mice, the scientists determined the activity of the two proteins over the course of the day and night. "We measured everything, from DNA binding to gene expression and metabolites," says Kenneth Dyar, explaining the researchers' comprehensive approach. Building upon previous studies, the scientists studied the synthesis and breakdown of fats and proteins over 24 hours - an approach that might also be interesting for athletes.

Uncovering a metabolic network

In collaboration with Italian and Austrian colleagues (from the Venetian Institute of Molecular Medicine and the Universities of Padua, Graz, and Trieste) the researchers identified certain processes that are switched on at night by the regulators of the internal clock: "They include, for example, fat storage, glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity," explains Henriette Uhlenhaut. At the same time, opposing processes such as fatty acid oxidation and protein breakdown are throttled down, according the authors. These patterns are especially pronounced in the hours before awakening and are thought to prepare the muscles for the day ahead.

In the final step, the scientists investigated possible ways to intervene in these processes. To this end, they examined mice lacking these master regulators. Without a circadian clock, the animals were leaner, with less fat and more muscle mass. "Taken together, our work has revealed an entire metabolic network at multiple levels," Uhlenhaut explains. "Another biologically exciting finding is that, contrary to expectations, the key regulator is not centrally located in the brain, but is in fact the internal clock of the muscle cells themselves." In the long term, the authors will investigate the mechanisms also in humans and try to find a way for therapeutic interventions. Their hope is that it might be possible to counteract insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes or to stimulate energy use to combat obesity.

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Further Information

Background:

Specifically, the authors compared the genome-wide binding of the two transcription factors BMAL1 and REV-ERB. The authors Michael Hubert and Katrin Fischer are participants in the Helmholtz Graduate School Environmental Health program, or HELENA for short.

Original Publication

Dyar, K. et al. (2018): Transcriptional programming of lipid and amino acid metabolism by the skeletal muscle circadian clock. PLOS Biology, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2005886

The Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, the German Research Center for Environmental Health, pursues the goal of developing personalized medical approaches for the prevention and therapy of major common diseases such as diabetes, allergies and lung diseases. To achieve this, it investigates the interaction of genetics, environmental factors and lifestyle. The Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen is headquartered in Neuherberg in the north of Munich and has about 2,300 staff members. It is a member of the Helmholtz Association, a community of 18 scientific-technical and medical-biological research centers with a total of about 37,000 staff members. http://www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/en

The Institute of Diabetes and Obesity (IDO) studies the diseases of the metabolic syndrome by means of systems biological and translational approaches on the basis of cellular systems, genetically modified mouse models and clinical intervention studies. It seeks to discover new signaling pathways in order to develop innovative therapeutic approaches for the personalized prevention and treatment of obesity, diabetes and their concomitant diseases. IDO is part of the Helmholtz Diabetes Center (HDC). http://www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/ido

The German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD) is a national association that brings together experts in the field of diabetes research and combines basic research, translational research, epidemiology and clinical applications. The aim is to develop novel strategies for personalized prevention and treatment of diabetes. Members are Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen - German Research Center for Environmental Health, the German Diabetes Center in Dusseldorf, the German Institute of Human Nutrition in Potsdam-Rehbrucke, the Paul Langerhans Institute Dresden of the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen at the University Medical Center Carl Gustav Carus of the TU Dresden and the Institute for Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases of the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen at the Eberhard-Karls-University of Tuebingen together with associated partners at the Universities in Heidelberg, Cologne, Leipzig, Lubeck and Munich. http://www.dzd-ev.de/en/index.html

Contact for the media:

Department of Communication, Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Ingolstadter Landstr. 1, 85764 Neuherberg - Tel. +49 89 3187 2238 - E-mail: presse@helmholtz-muenchen.de

Scientific contact:

Prof. Dr. Henriette Uhlenhaut, Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Institute of Diabetes and Obesity, Ingolstadter Landstr. 1, 85764 Neuherberg - Tel. +49 89 3187 2052 - E-mail: henriette.uhlenhaut@helmholtz-muenchen.de
BROOKLYN, New York, Tuesday, August 21, 2018 - For decades, the cybersecurity community has devised protections to fend off malicious software attacks and identify and fix flaws that can disrupt the computing programs that are central to all aspects of life. Now, a team of researchers from New York University Tandon School of Engineering and Columbia University has received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop some of the first tools to bring those same protections to artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

"There are ways to test and debug computer software before you deploy it and methods of verifying that your software works as you expect it to," said Siddharth Garg, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NYU Tandon. "There's nothing analogous for AI systems, and we're developing a tool suite that will lead to safer, more secure deployment of the systems used in autonomous driving, medical imaging, and other applications," he said.

In addition to Garg, the research team includes NYU Tandon assistant professors Anna Choromanska, in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Brendan Dolan-Gavitt, in the Computer Science and Engineering Department, and Suman Jana, an assistant professor of computer science at Columbia University School of Engineering.

The three-year, $900,000 grant will allow the researchers to hone a set of tools that are already in development, each addressing a different aspect of bringing trust and security to AI systems. Garg explained that the team's work will include defensive schemes designed to defend against malicious attacks and detect the presence of "backdoors" that can be exploited, as well as diagnosing unintentional flaws in AI systems that could have safety impacts. Several recent, well-publicized autonomous car crashes are examples.

The artificial neural networks underlying the AI systems that allow for self-driving cars, speech, and facial recognition, as well as the machine learning algorithms that are transforming medical imaging, are so complex and uniquely constructed that the traditional methods used to test, debug, and verify software simply don't apply. "As deep learning is being used in more and more areas, it's critical to develop new ways of identifying vulnerabilities and flaws, and to know when we've tested a system well enough that we're confident to deploy it," Dolan-Gavitt said.

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About the New York University Tandon School of Engineering

The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, the founding date for both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly). A January 2014 merger created a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention and entrepreneurship and dedicated to furthering technology in service to society. In addition to its main location in Brooklyn, NYU Tandon collaborates with other schools within NYU, one of the country's foremost private research universities, and is closely connected to engineering programs at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. It operates Future Labs focused on start-up businesses in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and an award-winning online graduate program. For more information, visit http://engineering.nyu.edu.
Researchers at New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), as part of a multinational consortium to enhance the sustainability of the food/energy/water (FEW) nexus in urban environments, have received a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a 3-D data modeling tool known as IN-SOURCE. The consortium, which includes NYIT, City University of New York (CUNY), and several partner organizations in Germany and Austria, is one of 15 multinational groups that have been awarded more than $26 million for sustainability projects to be carried out between 2018 and 2021. IN-SOURCE has a total budget of about $1.7 million, funded over three years from various European funding agencies in addition to NSF.

The IN-SOURCE European partners include The University of Applied Sciences (HFT) Stuttgart - Centre for Sustainable Energy Technology (Germany); Landkreis Ludwigsburg, a German district; bw engineers, a German engineering firm; Austrian Institute of Technology - Center for Energy; and Alpen-Adria Universitat Klagenfurt - Institute of Social Ecology (Austria).

The effects of climate change are stressing urban infrastructure worldwide: eight of the world's 10 largest cities are near a coast, while many metropolitan areas are growing dramatically. Ongoing sea level rise imperils urban infrastructure such as roads, bridges, subways, power plants, wastewater treatment plants, and oil refineries necessary to support efficient flows of food, energy, and water.

When IN-SOURCE is successfully completed, government agencies, policymakers, utilities, and other stakeholders in cities worldwide will have a software tool to simulate and visualize the impact of various environmental conditions and stressors on FEW distribution networks and urban infrastructure vulnerable to extreme weather and flooding.

NYIT's School of Engineering and Computing Sciences, through its longstanding master's programs in Environmental Technology and Sustainability, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Energy Management, has conducted collaborative sustainability research as well as hosted workshops and conferences on clean energy, water management, the water-energy nexus, the FEW nexus and sustainable megacities, and related topics since 2010. Students and faculty in the master's program in Urban and Regional Design, in NYIT School of Architecture and Design, also play an important role in sustainability research for the world's megacities.

According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 40 percent of the U.S. population resides in coastal areas, where "nuisance flooding" is increasing. Nuisance (or high tide) flooding occurs not because of a strong storm or hurricane, but because the water level is much higher than when the cities were built.

Severe storms are also increasing in both frequency and intensity. Superstorm Sandy (2012) was a wake-up call to the New York City area, and because New York gathers data from many FEW infrastructure types, it is a model megacity for IN-SOURCE. The New York City Mayor's Office of Sustainability, among others, is eager for insights on how to manage limited resources to prevent another Sandy.

With government agencies and utility companies spending billions of dollars to prevent power outages and interruptions in the flow of food and water, policymakers ideally will be able to use IN-SOURCE to visualize outcomes before investing taxpayers' or shareholders' money. Better managing infrastructure investments in the near term ultimately may mean fewer people stranded in upper floors of tall buildings, fewer cars stuck waiting in lines at gas stations, and a more reliable supply of water and food.

"Global warming is not a scarecrow," said NYIT's principal investigator on the project, Ziqian (Cecilia) Dong, Ph.D., associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. "Damage from flooding has already increased noticeably in many coastal regions, and decision-makers need help gathering and interpreting data to allow meaningful, practical interventions as soon as possible. This project responds to that need."

In addition to Dong, NYIT's team includes Jeffrey Raven, FAIA, LEED BD+C, associate professor and director of the master's program in Urban and Regional Design; and Marta Panero, Ph.D., director of strategic partnerships for NYIT School of Engineering and Computing Sciences, and vice president for Strategic Communications and External Affairs Nada M. Anid, Ph.D., who co-authored NSF synthesis reports on FEW workshops in 2014 and 2015. Several undergraduate and graduate students will also contribute to IN-SOURCE.

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About NYIT

NYIT (New York Institute of Technology) offers 90 degree programs, including undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees, in more than 50 fields of study, including architecture and design; arts and sciences; education; engineering and computing sciences; health professions; management; and osteopathic medicine. A non-profit independent, private institution of higher education, NYIT has 9,000 students at campuses in New York City (Manhattan) and Long Island (Old Westbury) in New York; Jonesboro, Arkansas; Vancouver, British Columbia; and in various programs around the world. NYIT sponsors 13 NCAA Division II programs.

NYIT is guided by its mission to provide career-oriented professional education, offer access to opportunity to all qualified students, and support applications-oriented research that benefits the larger world. More than 100,000 graduates have received degrees from NYIT. For more information, visit nyit.edu.
BUFFALO, N.Y. - Kids who faced daunting barriers to success in the classroom had a clear message for University at Buffalo researchers who asked them as young adults to look back on their experiences with maltreatment, homelessness and their time in school: Adults can do better.

"It's as though they're asking us as adults not to give up on them, to stick with them," says Annette Semanchin Jones, an assistant professor in UB's School of Social Work (SSW) and lead author of the paper with colleagues Elizabeth Bowen and Annahita Ball, who are also assistant professors in UB's SSW.

In a novel study that explored the youths' experiences at the intersection of the systems intended to address multiple stressors and adverse experiences, the research team's findings suggest that even the most vulnerable kids could point to specific adults who made a difference in their lives.

"Whatever our roles might be - teacher, social worker or child welfare worker - we have to take that role seriously and understand its importance."

Semanchin Jones says the study's participants spoke often about professional service providers, family members and other adults who fulfilled those important roles and had a positive impact on youth.

"There is room for these systems to identify and mobilize that support in a structured way so adult providers can be there for youth," says Semanchin Jones.

Communication is critical in these cases.

"It wasn't stated explicitly but in the analysis it was obvious that we also need to work better not only within these systems, but across these systems," she says. "We need to find better ways to ensure youth don't fall through the cracks. Improving communication would allow different systems to share goals and data and create teams that include the youths among their members."

The team's study, published in the journal Children and Youth Services Review, began as an informal discussion about various projects involving each of the researchers' work. Semanchin Jones' research focus is child welfare. Bowen is an expert on homelessness and homeless youth. Ball's expertise is in school social work services and positive youth development.

"We realized that in many cases we were talking about the same group of youth," says Semanchin Jones.

Although existing research has frequently examined educational outcomes for youth who experience homelessness and there is a separate body of literature looking at educational outcomes for youth in foster care or who have been maltreated, few studies have examined how all of these obstacles affect school performance.

Since vulnerable youth often interact with multiple systems at once, the researchers combined their areas of expertise and used a cross-systems framework to explore possible protective factors and interventions as well as other elements that might hinder educational outcomes.

They interviewed 20 participants between the ages of 18 and 24. The group was diverse in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Researchers asked them to recall and describe as much as possible their experiences with these various systems.

"Interviewing the participants as young adults provided a unique perspective," explained Bowen. "They were not very far removed from childhood, but they were also able to reflect on their education and earlier experiences in insightful ways as emerging adults."

They noted several key factors as barriers to a good education.

Participants said they often felt completely on their own, as if they had raised themselves.



They felt a lack of control and that the various systems made decisions about them, not with them, like where they could live and go to school.



Instability and mobility across all aspects of their life, including residential, school and placement instability, often caused problematic absenteeism and disrupted social networks.



There was a general lack of trust. Youth stressed the need to have a safe person to discuss maltreatment at home or in a foster home, bullying and other behaviors, but often didn't know what to disclose and with whom they should share the information.

Semanchin Jones says the research team is building knowledge with this initial work. Different areas contributed to the problem's complexity. By combining their different areas of research, the researchers can search for effective ways to address that complexity and work to improve educational outcomes.

In a second paper recently published in the journal Youth & Society, the team explored the participants' transition to adulthood, a crucial time period for seeking stability and pursuing educational, career and relationship goals. The team is also exploring the ways in which schools' existing student support services may be able to intervene differently or earlier to better address youths' needs.

The research team is completing another study examining many of the same questions from the perspective of service providers. They also hope to do larger quantitative studies, but the rich data offered from the youths' perspective is providing concrete strategies and recommendations that can serve as important information for service providers.

"We need to hear from youth who tell us, 'We've been through this and here's how you could have been more helpful,'" Semanchin Jones says.

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For the first time, DNA contributed by Sub-Saharan African women has been thoroughly evaluated with innovative genomics technology in an effort to understand the genetic bases for breast cancer in African populations.

African and African American women are more likely than women of other ancestries to develop and to die from triple-negative breast cancer. In the August 21, 2018 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a multinational research team identifies the genes responsible for inherited breast cancer in Nigerian women.

The Nigerian Breast Cancer Study, based in Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria, has been in the field for more than 20 years. During this period, breast cancer incidence throughout the country has steadily increased.

"This is the first study to use high-throughput genomic analysis of African women," said study author Olufunmilayo Olopade, MD, Walter L. Palmer Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Human Genetics, director of the Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics and associate dean for Global Health at the University of Chicago.

"Based on state-of-the-art genomic technologies, two things were clear," added co-author Mary-Claire King, PhD, American Cancer Society Professor of Medicine and Genome Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. "Risks to Nigerian women who carry mutations in breast cancer genes are higher than risks to women in the U.S. with mutations in the same genes. And inherited breast cancer plays a bigger role in the total occurrence of breast cancer in Nigeria compared to the U.S."

The study enrolled 1,136 women with invasive breast cancer and 997 controls -- women of similar ages and heritage who did not have breast cancer. Disease was far more advanced at diagnosis than in the U.S., with 86 percent of the patients who were fully evaluated diagnosed at either stage 3 or stage 4.

Almost half (46 percent) of the patients were diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer (tumors that lack estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and human epidermal growth factor receptors). This is an aggressive breast cancer subtype, likely to have with a poor prognosis, even in wealthy countries.

For their study of "Inherited Breast Cancer in Nigerian Women," the authors sequenced 25 genes associated with increased risk of breast cancer and identified all damaging mutations in each of those genes.

They found that one out of eight breast cancers in the study was caused by an inherited mutation in one of four of these genes. Mutations in BRCA1 (7 percent of patients) and BRCA2 (4 percent) were the most common, followed by PALB2 (1 percent) and TP53 (0.4 percent).

Patients with BRCA1 or TP53 mutations were diagnosed at younger ages than women with other mutations. The mean age at diagnosis for all cases in the study was 47.5 years, but the BRCA1 carriers were diagnosed at an average age of 42.6 years. Patients with TP53 mutations were diagnosed even earlier, at an average age of 32.8 years.

"Genomic sequencing to identify women at extremely high risk of breast cancer could be a highly innovative approach to tailored risk management and life-saving interventions," the authors wrote. Given the limited treatment resources available in this setting, "prevention and early detection services should target these highest-risk women."

Following up on the study, the Chicago-Ibadan team has already developed a risk-prediction model for breast cancer in Nigerian and other Sub-Saharan African women, who are, on average, more than 10 years younger when diagnosed than American women. This predictive model can identify individuals at high risk of breast cancer, tailor surveillance and suggest risk-reduction strategies.

There is an urgent need to address "widening global disparities in breast cancer mortality that disproportionately impact women of African ancestry," the authors wrote. Breast cancer among both African American and Nigerian women is more frequently triple-negative than in other populations for complex reasons that remain poorly understood. Given the young ages at diagnosis in Nigeria, focusing on genetically high-risk women could, the authors suggest, "substantially reduce premature mortality from breast cancer."

"It may seem paradoxical to apply the most recent technology in severely resource-limited settings," the authors add, "but in fact the solution fits the problem... Women with extremely high risk of breast cancer due to mutations in these genes can be identified inexpensively and unambiguously, and offered interventions to reduce cancer risk."

"Coordinating our team of clinicians and scientists and community elders in Nigeria was no small feat, but we got the job done despite resource constraints," said Adeyinka Falusi, PhD, Professor of Hematology and L'OREAL/UNESCO Laureate, Institute for Advanced Medical Research and Training in the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan.

"As the premier institution in Nigeria, the University of Ibadan remains committed to deploying science and technology to improve the health of Africans on the continent and throughout the diaspora," she said. "Lessons learned in Nigeria can be transferred back to low resource settings in the U.S. and other countries."

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The study was supported the National Cancer Institute, Susan G. Koman for the Cure, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the Ralph and Marion Falk Medical Research Trust and the John and Editha Kapoor Charitable Foundation.

Additional authors include Yonlang Zheng, Dezheng Huo, Toshio Yoshimatsu, Jing Zhang, Shengfeng Wang, and Gabriela Felix from the University of Chicago; Tom Walsh, Suleyman Gulsuner, Silvia Casadei and Ming Lee from the University of Washington; Temidayo Ogundiran, Adeyinka Ademola, Clement Adebamowo, Abideen Oluwasola, Adewumi Adeoye, Abayomi Odetunde, Chinedum Babalola, Oladosu Ojengbede, Stella Odedina and Imaria Anetor from the University of Ibadan.
Baltimore, Md., August 21, 2018 - At a time when drug overdoses are becoming more prevalent and lethal, a new report provides a snapshot of regional illicit drug use and, for the first time, highlights the complexity of detecting and treating patients at hospital emergency departments for a severe drug-related event.

The objective of the study, which began in 2016, was to identify illicit drugs that caused overdoses in patients at two hospital emergency departments in Maryland.

Emergency physicians were battling a spike in accidental drug overdoses and related deaths, thought to be linked to a group of designer drugs called synthetic cannabinoids that mimic the chemicals in marijuana, known on the street as Spice or K2. One doctor described "atypical overdoses," patients with breathing difficulties and constricted pupils who responded well to the opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone, and then required sedation for acute agitation, violence and hyperactivity, all unrelated to opiate withdrawal.

The physicians believed that knowing which drugs were in use might help tailor patient treatment.

At the same time, researchers at the Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR) at the University of Maryland, College Park, with the support of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, were generating a number of reports detailing illicit drug use patterns in criminal justice settings. The researchers used sophisticated analyses of de-identified urine samples to detect drugs.

The substance abuse researchers decided to expand their urine testing technique for the first time to hospital settings, and link the test results to de-identified patient medical records. Hospitals typically use urine tests to detect just a handful of drugs and medical conditions.

The CESAR researchers enlisted the participation of emergency physicians at the University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus (UMMC Midtown) in Baltimore, and the University of Maryland Prince George's Hospital Center in Cheverly, a suburb of Washington, DC.

Test Results

The urine specimens, 106 from Prince George's and 69 from UMMC Midtown, were sent to the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System laboratory in Delaware where they were tested for 26 synthetic cannabinoids, 59 designer drugs and 84 other illicit and prescription drugs.

With the results, the researchers realized the substances used by these emergency department overdose patients were much more complex than anticipated.

"We were thoroughly amazed that in a study where we thought everyone was having a synthetic cannabinoid-related problem, only one specimen tested positive for synthetic cannabinoids," says principal investigator Eric Wish, PhD, Director of CESAR at the University of Maryland, College Park, College of Behavioral & Social Sciences.

It was clear the street drugs had been tweaked into new combinations that weren't being detected. Still, about a year later, after the lab expanded their tests for synthetic cannabinoids from 26 to 46 metabolites, only a quarter of the samples tested positive for synthetic cannabinoids, much smaller than anticipated.

Also clear was the huge mismatch between the drugs patients said they had taken and physician suspicions of drug use, compared to the actual drugs detected. "We had cases where the doctors thought so, the patient thought so, but urinalysis showed no use of synthetic cannabinoids," says Bradford Schwartz, MD, an emergency physician at the University of Maryland Prince George's Hospital Center and an adjunct assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Marijuana was the most common individual drug detected at both hospitals. Moreover, a fifth to a third of specimens at each hospital tested positive for a new psychoactive substance other than synthetic cannabinoids.

Most striking, two-thirds of patients at both hospitals tested positive for multiple substances, and some specimens contained as many as six substances, potentially complicating an overdose diagnosis.

Regional Drug Use Variations

In Baltimore, after marijuana, people tested positive primarily for fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid; in Prince George's County, the drug detected was PCP, an illegal hallucinogenic drug that can trigger aggression and other behavior changes.

The Baltimore region has a long history of opioid-related problems, beginning with heroin, then more recently transitioning to fentanyl and its relatives. At UMMC Midtown, non-fentanyl opioids including morphine and codeine were found in 51 percent of urine samples, while 28 percent tested positive for fentanyl. Midtown emergency physician Zachary D.W. Dezman, MD, says the deaths of nearly 700 people in Baltimore were linked to opioids in 2017.

At UM Prince George's, 47 percent of specimens had PCP and patients were three-to-four times more likely than those at Midtown to show "bizarre or aggressive behavior," according to the physicians.

The study was not designed to determine differences in mortality, but emergency physicians at both hospitals say anecdotally that despite the constantly changing soup of drugs patients take, treating the patient based on their symptoms seemed to work. "These results suggest that supportive care is safe in patients suffering from acute intoxication from synthetic cannabinoids," says Dr. Dezman, also an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

The addition of fentanyl screening to the standard drug tests used in hospitals would be useful, Dr. Dezman says. While the results of the urine drug screen are not critical to the patient's emergency care, "it is important to inform patients of the risks of their substance use once they are stabilized." He says a number of patients have requested substance abuse treatment once they learned they had inadvertently used fentanyl. As well, he says hospital testing could illuminate the bigger fentanyl picture. "Policy makers and public health officials cannot make informed policy decisions about combating fentanyl if we do not know the prevalence of fentanyl use in the community."

"This report underscores one of the benefits of cross-campus collaboration to harness research and clinical synergies that translate to improved patient care," says E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, executive vice president for medical affairs at the University of Maryland, the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

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Wish ED, Billing AS, Artigiani EE, Dezman Z, Schwartz B, Pueschel J. "Drug Early Warning from Re-Testing Biological Samples: Maryland Hospital Study." Office of National Drug Control Policy. Washington, DC: Executive Office of the President. July 2018

For more information about the University of Maryland School of Medicine, visit: medschool.umaryland.edu/

For more information about the University of Maryland Center for Substance Abuse Research, visit: http://www.cesar.umd.edu or http://www.ndews.org

For more information about the University of Maryland Medical Center, visit: http://www.umm.edu.

For more information about the University of Maryland Capital Region Health, visit: http://www.umcapitalregion.org
The CM briefed the Ambassador about Real-Time Governance system, e-Pragati and other information technology-enabled initiatives.

US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster called on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu here on Tuesday as part of his day-long visit to the state capital Amaravati.

Amaravati: US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster called on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu here on Tuesday as part of his day-long visit to the state capital Amaravati.

The chief minister briefed the Ambassador about the Real-Time Governance system, e-Pragati and other information technology-enabled initiatives being used for governance in the state, a release from the chief minister's office said. Naidu also explained about infrastructure development in the state, particularly solar power, and the states top ranking in Ease of Doing Business, it said.

The Ambassador, the release said, informed the chief minister that US companies were looking towards Andhra Pradesh with interest because of the prevailing "good environment."

"You created a good ecosystem in the state.You created a multi-player effect providing good aspirations among people of Andhra Pradesh in employment opportunities. You are good people to work with," the Ambassador was quoted as saying.

Later, accompanied by the US Consul General Katherine Hadda, the Ambassador visit Amaravati village and went round the museum and the 'Maha Chaitchya Sthupa,' a Buddhist relic. Juster also visited the famous Undavalli Caves in the capital region.
PITTSBURGH, Aug. 21, 2018 - Living with HIV often means living with chronic pain, but behavioral therapy could offer an effective alternative to opioids.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a five-year grant totaling more than $3 million to Jessica Merlin, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., visiting associate professor of internal medicine and infectious disease at the University of Pittsburgh Department of Medicine, for the first full-scale trial of behavioral therapy for chronic pain among people living with HIV.

"There aren't a lot of treatments that work very well for chronic pain in the general population, and there is very little that has been tailored to patients with HIV," said Merlin. "When trying to use behavioral interventions to improve health, it's important to consider the unique needs of the patient population."

Often, people with HIV not only have to shoulder the burden of chronic pain, Merlin added, but also social stigma, isolation and mental health issues.

In pilot research for this new grant, Merlin asked people living with HIV and their doctors about what they wanted in a pain management program, and two major themes emerged: peer-led group sessions and sponsorship - similar to the Alcoholics Anonymous model. She incorporated this feedback into a new program called Skills TO Manage Pain (STOMP).

Inspiration for this project came more than a decade earlier when Merlin, a medical student at that time, was caring for patients with HIV in Botswana.

"The psychosocial aspects of HIV and the pain burden that I was seeing were really striking," Merlin said. "I realized I didn't have the appropriate tools to manage those things."

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The NIH grant, R01-MH-115754, will be administered by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

About the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences

The University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences include the schools of Medicine, Nursing, Dental Medicine, Pharmacy, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and the Graduate School of Public Health. The schools serve as the academic partner to the UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center). Together, their combined mission is to train tomorrow's health care specialists and biomedical scientists, engage in groundbreaking research that will advance understanding of the causes and treatments of disease and participate in the delivery of outstanding patient care. Since 1998, Pitt and its affiliated university faculty have ranked among the top 10 educational institutions in grant support from the National Institutes of Health. For additional information about the Schools of the Health Sciences, please visit http://www.health.pitt.edu.

http://www.upmc.com/media

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E-mail: HareE@upmc.edu

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How Einstein's equivalence principle extends to the quantum world has been puzzling physicists for decades, but a team including a University of Queensland researcher has found the key to this question.

UQ physicist, Dr Magdalena Zych from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems, and the University of Vienna's Professor Caslav Brukner have been working to discover if quantum objects interact with gravity only through curved space-time.

"Einstein's equivalence principle contends that the total inertial and gravitational mass of any objects are equivalent, meaning all bodies fall in the same way when subject to gravity," Dr Zych said.

"Physicists have been debating whether the principle applies to quantum particles, so to translate it to the quantum world we needed to find out how quantum particles interact with gravity.

"We realised that to do this we had to look at the mass."

Mass is dynamic quantity and can have different values, and in quantum physics, mass of a particle can be in a quantum 'superposition' of two different values.

According to the famous equation E=MC2, the mass of any object is held together by energy.

In a state unique to quantum physics, energy and mass can exist in a 'quantum superposition' - as if they consisted of two different values 'at the same time'.

"We realised that we had to look how particles in such quantum states of the mass behave in order to understand how a quantum particle sees gravity in general," she said.

"Our research found that for quantum particles in quantum superpositions of different masses, the principle implies additional restrictions that are not present for classical particles -- this hadn't been discovered before.''

"It means that previous studies that attempted to translate the principle to quantum physics were incomplete because they focused on trajectories of the particles but neglected the mass."

The study opens a door for new experiments that are necessary to test if quantum particles obey the additional restrictions that have been found.

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The study has been published in Nature Physics (DOI: 10.1038/s41567-018-0197-6)
A new, comprehensive survey led by USC scientists shows the Southern California coast harbors some of the world's highest concentrations of an algal toxin dangerous to wildlife and people who eat local seafood.

Episodic outbreaks of algae-produced toxins make headlines every few years when stricken marine animals wash ashore between Santa Barbara and San Diego. The USC research is the most thoroughgoing assessment yet and reveals the growing scale of the problem over the last 15 years. The researchers say their findings can help protect human health and environment by improving methods to monitor and manage harmful algal blooms.

The findings are a "smoking gun" linking domoic acid produced by some types of algae to deaths of marine birds and mammals, according to David Caron, a biologist at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and postdoctoral researcher Jayme Smith, the study's main authors.

"We are seeing an increase in harmful algal blooms and an increase in severity," Caron said. "The Southern California coast really is a hot spot and our study also shows that the concentrations of particulate domoic acid measured in the region are some of the highest - if not the highest - ever reported."

The findings appear in Harmful Algae.

Domoic acid is produced by microscopic Pseudo-nitzschia, needle-like diatoms in the water; half of the species in its genus can produce the neurotoxin. It can stain the ocean, a condition generically called "red tide," although this particular toxin is brown. The substance accumulates in shellfish and moves up the food chain, where it attacks the nervous system of fish, birds, seals and sea lions. It can cause amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP) in people. ASP symptoms include rapid onset of headaches, abdominal pain, cramping, nausea or vomiting; severe symptoms include permanent short-term memory loss, seizures, coma or shock in 48 hours. Although human fatalities are rare, the California Department of Public Health monitors coastal waters and shellfish for the toxin.

The research encompasses the years 2003 to 2017 between Santa Barbara and the Mexico border, and includes new samples and tests collected over the past three years to supplement historical data. The study suggests that while natural processes lead to the formation of blooms, they could be exacerbated by nutrients discharged from man-made sources, including runoff and sewage outfalls.

Among the key findings:

Pseudo-nitzschia is the culprit behind domoic acid. It's been present along the Southern California coast for decades, but its role in wildlife mortality is recent and increasing.

The world's highest domoic acid measurement in water occurred near San Pedro in March 2011. It was 52.3 micrograms per liter - about five times higher than a level of concern.

Through the years, researchers found a strong correlation between domoic acid in the water and impaired marine wildlife on shore.

Domoic acid is ever-present offshore, either in shellfish or the water. Some years it's abundant, while other years it's scarce.

Conditions are worse in the spring, due to seasonal upwelling of nutrients that spur plankton growth. The toxin is less abundant in the summer and winter.

Domoic acid in shellfish can occur at high concentrations off the coast of San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties, but it tends to be more prevalent in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties due to local environmental conditions.

Man-made sources of nutrients contribute to algal blooms, but that doesn't explain disparities in time and location of some of the domoic acid outbreaks. Other environmental factors are likely in play.

The algae and its toxin diminish on the West Coast when water temperatures exceed 68 degrees Fahrenheit, apparently due to temperature sensitivity of the microorganisms.

Also, a warming Pacific Ocean appears to be helping spread Pseudo-nitzschia species farther north. For example, harmful algal blooms have been widespread along the west coast of North America from Central California to Alaska in the past two years, according to the study. Separately, harmful algae blooms have been reported along the Gulf Coast this summer and the governor of Florida declared a state of emergency for affected counties last week.

The USC study brings together diverse data and observations that shed light on the environmental conditions that promote harmful algal blooms. Of note, an extreme drought across the U.S. Southwest between 2014 and 2016 resulted in very low concentrations of domoic acid off the Southern California coast. The findings imply a link between surface waters flowing to the ocean, or other drought-related conditions, and coastal algal blooms.

Those nuances and uncertainties need further exploration to explain the regional and year-to-year variations favoring toxic algae - key steps before more reliable health forecasts can occur, the USC scientists say.

"Our findings summarize our present level of understanding with respect to this important animal and human health risk in Southern California waters and identify several avenues of research that might improve understanding, prediction and eventually prevention of these harmful events," Smith said.

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Study authors include Smith as lead and corresponding author, Caron as senior author, as well as Paige Connell, Erica L. Seubert, Avery O. Tatters and Alyssa G. Gellene of USC; Richard H. Evans of the Pacific Marine Mammal Center; Meredith D.A. Howard of the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project; Burton H. Jones of the Red Sea Research Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, in Saudi Arabia; Susan Kaveggia of the International Bird Rescue in Los Angeles; Lauren Palmer of the Marine Mammal Care Center in Los Angeles; Astrid Schnetzer of North Carolina State University; and Bridget N. Seegers of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the GESTAR/Universities Space Research Association.

The research was supported in part by the NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Sciences Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms Program (NA11NOS4780052, NA11NOS4780053, NA11NOS4780030), the Monitoring and Event Response for Harmful Algal Blooms Program (NA05NOS4781228, NA05NOS4781221, NA05NOS4781227 NA15NOS4780177, NA15NOS4780204) and the Harmful Algal Blooms Rapid Event Response Program (publication number ECO923, MER210 and ER25), the EPA [agreement number GAD# R83-1705], and grants and/or material support from the USC Sea Grant Program, the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, the Orange County Sanitation District, the California Department of Public Health, the Hyperion Treatment Plant of the city of Los Angeles and the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System.
UTA Computer Science and Engineering students will be eligible to compete for funding for scholarships and senior design projects because of a new agreement between Sajib Datta, a senior lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Komodo, a leading provider of blockchain technology.

The agreement provides funding for an annual blockchain competition at UTA, funding for two senior design projects, and scholarships for two undergraduate and two graduate students for two semesters. Komodo also will provide a supporting material and resources for a new course on blockchain and cryptocurrency that Datta will teach starting in Spring 2019. These resources will allow UTA students to create apps on the Komodo blockchain as part of course projects.

A blockchain is a growing list of data, arranged in groups called blocks, which are linked using cryptography. It is a highly secure, distributed system, with data stored across millions of computers. A majority of the computers in the system must agree with any changes, so if someone hacks into a single computer in the system and changes something, the change is only made on that computer because the rest of the system will reject bogus information. Blockchains are widely used by cryptocurrencies because of their high level of security.

"I've been investing in cryptocurrency for a while, and as I started to research where blockchain and cryptocurrency technology is going. I saw that some Wall Street firms and big banks were beginning to set up teams to invest in blockchain technology and were developing their own blockchain infrastructures," Datta said. "The more I looked into it, the more I saw potential for widespread use that would impact my students. The technology needs more developers to make it more scalable and affordable, and this is an opportunity to fill a need and give UTA students an edge in the marketplace,"

Blockchains can run apps in a similar manner to those on a typical cell phone. Potential applications of blockchains include creating a transparent, secure election process that makes it easier for the entire U.S. population to participate from their own homes; improving the tax system by creating a cashless society that takes away loopholes and makes it impossible to hide cash-based income; and the secure sharing of medical records among doctors, who could ask for multiple opinions on a diagnosis.

Blockchains also give users control over their own data, so if an individual wants to sell his information, he can control who he sells it to and keep the profits, rather than being unable to benefit or control where the data is sold if an outside company holds the data.

Senior design teams funded by Komodo will develop applications for use in the company's blockchain. The students on the teams will work closely with Komodo representatives to respond to areas of need within the company, such as performance enhancement or testing.

The blockchain competition will be open to local high schools, community colleges, and four-year colleges and universities across North Texas. Students will develop apps in their blockchains to mirror popular apps in mainstream use that will make blockchains more visible and useful to casual users.

Komodo is making this investment as an investment in itself, explained Steve Lee, the company's chief marketing officer.

"Often, when an emerging technology comes to the market, it's extremely difficult to find developers with experience in the field-- it's all brand-new. That's why Komodo believes it's so important to engage the young developer community by focusing on education," Lee said.

"Partnering with UTA will give students the opportunity to gain valuable experience while also allowing Komodo to benefit from the innovative mindset and creative problem-solving skills young developers bring."

Datta's work with blockchain technology is an example of data-driven discovery, one of four themes in UTA's Strategic Plan 2020: Bold Solutions | Global Impact, said Hong Jiang, chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

"Computer Science and Engineering is a constantly changing field, with new technologies emerging all the time. We owe it to our students to keep abreast of these emerging technologies and provide the students with opportunities to learn to use them. I am happy that Sajib pursued this opportunity with Komodo, and that it has turned into a mutually beneficial partnership that could establish us a national leader in blockchain education," Jiang said.

###

Written by Jeremy Agor
Spider silk is among the strongest and toughest materials in the natural world, as strong as some steel alloys with a toughness even greater than bulletproof Kevlar. Spider silk's unmatched combination of strength and toughness have made this protein-based material desirable for many applications ranging from super thin surgical sutures to projectile resistant clothing. Unfortunately, due to spiders' territorial and cannibalistic nature, their silk has been impossible to mass produce, so practical applications have yet to materialize.

Scientists have been able to create some forms of synthetic spider silk, but have been unable to engineer a material that included most if not all of the natural silk's traits.

Until now.

Researchers in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis have engineered bacteria that produce a biosynthetic spider silk with performance on par with its natural counterparts in all of the important measures. And they've discovered something exciting about the possibilities ahead.

The new research, published Monday, Aug. 20 in Biomacromolecules, reveals that the tensile strength and toughness of spider silk remains positively correlated with its molecular weight -- the bigger the molecule, the stronger the silk -- even in synthetic silk with a weight nearly twice that of the previous record-holder.

"People already knew about this correlation, but only with smaller-sized proteins. We found that even at this large size, there is still a very good correlation," said Fuzhong Zhang, associate professor in the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

One of the biggest historical challenges creating a biosynthetic spider silk has been creating a large enough protein. The challenge was so big, in fact, it required a whole new approach.

"We started with what others had done, making a genetically repeated sequence," said Christopher Bowen, a PhD student in Zhang's lab. The DNA sequence was modeled after the sequence in spiders that is responsible for creating the silk protein. In theory, the more repetitions of the sequence, the bigger the resulting protein.

After the DNA sequence reaches a certain size, however, "the bacteria can't handle it, they chop the sequence into smaller pieces," Bowen said. It's a problem has been encountered many times in previous efforts. To get around this long-standing obstacle, Bowen and co-authors added a short genetic sequence to the silk DNA that promotes a chemical reaction between the resulting proteins, fusing them together to form an even bigger protein, bigger than has ever been produced and purified before.

"We made proteins basically twice as large as anyone's been able to make before," Bowen said. Their silk protein chains are 556 kDa. Previously, the largest biosynthetic spider silk protein was 285 kDa. Even natural dragline silk proteins tend be around 370 kDa, although there are a few, bigger outliers.

Bowen and co-authors subsequently spun their exceptionally large biosynthetic silk proteins into fibers about a tenth the diameter of a human hair and tested their mechanical properties. This biosynthetic silk is the first to replicate natural spider silk in terms of: tensile strength (the maximum stress needed to break the fiber), toughness (the total energy absorbed by the fiber before breaking), as well as other mechanical parameters such as elastic modulus and extensibility.

Going forward, Zhang's lab is looking to work toward positioning biosynthetic silk fibers to replace some of the myriad of petroleum-based synthetic fibers used across industry.

"We will continue to work on making the process more scalable and economical by making it easier to handle, reducing the amount of chemicals needed, and increasing the robustness and efficiency," Zhang said.

And the Zhang group also plans to further explore the limits of their new approach. In addition to producing the first biosynthetic silk fibers to fully replicate the performance of natural spider silk, their work strongly suggests that the strength and toughness of these fibers will continue to increase if even larger proteins can be produced.

###

The School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis focuses intellectual efforts through a new convergence paradigm and builds on strengths, particularly as applied to medicine and health, energy and environment, entrepreneurship and security. With 96.5 tenured/tenure-track and 28 additional full-time faculty, 1,300 undergraduate students, 1,200 graduate students and 20,000 alumni, we are working to leverage our partnerships with academic and industry partners -- across disciplines and across the world -- to contribute to solving the greatest global challenges of the 21st century.

This work was supported by a Young Investigator Program from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, grant no. FA95501510174 to FZ; an Early Career Faculty grant from NASA's Space Technology Research Grants Program, grant no. NNX15AU45G to FZ; and the National Institutes of Health, grant no. P41EB002520.
Hi all,



Have been lurking for a while and been doing some researches on this forum (wealth of info here, thanks all!).However, I couldn't find a similar prior case that I am facing now. So I am putting this out there hopefully there's someone here who can chime in.



I did my undergraduate study in Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology (Hons), with minor in Econs, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology back in year 2012. I worked for about 2 years (non-relevant field unfortunately as my country doesn't have much opportunity in that area) before deciding to pursue my PhD.



I have just recently graduated and received my PhD transcript & completion letter. My PhD is from department of Chemical Engineering in an university in Melbourne. My thesis/project is very much related to bio-processing/chemical engineering (can expand if needed). The gist is I am working with extracting and transforming lipids from raw biomaterials using solvent extraction method.



I would love to continue staying here in Australia and so I am in the process of writing my application to Engineers Australia (EA) and to eventually apply for PR.



My question is, based on my qualifications, do I have a chance at all for a positive EA outcome since my degree is not explicitly an Engineering degree?. I read there was a case here where someone was rejected because their degree is not an engineering degree. However, some of the courses I did in undergrad does seem to provide the skills/fundamentals (chemistry, some physics, maths) that I required for my PhD in Chemical Engineering. I also picked up some of the common chemical engineering skills/knowledge along the way in my PhD degree. i.e. via attending classes, tutoring/marking (where I sat in the class for the semester, but not as an enrolled student), or as part of the required skill for my phd projects.



Secondly, if I am putting in my application, should I specify as Professional Chemical Engineer or Engineering Technologist with specialization in Chem Eng? My initial plan was to apply as Engineering Technologist. My thought was - if I applied as Professional Engineer, they might reject me outright since I do not have an explicit engineering bachelor degree. Some of my colleagues said that I should put in my application as a Professional Engineer, as they can still assess you as an Engineering Technologist? Personally, I felt more confident as an Engineering Technologist as my undergrad degree was not in Engineering but the undergrad degree did provide me the prerequisites and the work I've done in PhD is very much Chemical-Engineering (but more on the bio-chemical side rather than conventional chem eng). However, it's worth a try shooting for Chemical Engineer.



Any thought?



Sorry for the long-winded post and many thanks in advance!



Sam
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This contribution will be made by the employees from the salary for the month of August 2018.

Both the officers and staff of the central railway zone with headquarters in Mumbai will contribute to the Kerala Chief Minister's Relief Fund. (Photo: PTI/Representational)

New Delhi: A day after parliamentarians were called upon to give their one day's salary to help the relief and rehabilitation efforts in Kerala, employees of the Central Railway have decided to contribute parts of their salary for the same cause, according to details released by the ministry here today.

Both the officers and staff of the central railway zone with headquarters in Mumbai will contribute to the Kerala Chief Minister's Relief Fund according to their pay grade, it said.

While those in the pay grade of Rs 1,800-2,000 will pay Rs 500 to the fund, those between Rs 2,400-2,800 will contribute Rs 700, those in the pay grade 4,200-4,600 will give Rs 1,000 each, those between Rs 4,800-6,600 will pay Rs 1,500, those earning Rs 7,600 pay grade to pay Rs 2,000, and those in the category of Rs 8,700-10,000 to donate Rs 2,500.

All those in the grade of Rs 10,000 and more will pay Rs 3,000 each. This contribution will be made by the employees from the salary for the month of August 2018.

However, this contribution has been made a voluntary one. As per officials, an estimated 223 people have lost their lives since August 8 in Kerala's worst floods in decades and about 10.78 lakh people, including 2.12 lakh women and one lakh children under 12, have been sheltered in 3,200 relief camps.
Gasoline prices in San Antonio and across the country continued to fall last week alongside crude oil prices on news of higher inventories and concerns about a global economic slowdown.

The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the San Antonio area fell 1.4 cents to $2.48, while the national average dropped by about 3 cents to $2.82 a gallon, according to GasBuddy, which tracks fuel prices nationwide.

In San Antonio, gasoline prices are 44 cents higher than at this time last year. Nationally, prices have increased by nearly 51 cents during the same period.

The average price for a gallon of gas fell to $2.53 in Laredo, down from $2.56 last week. In Corpus Christi prices averaged $2.54 per gallon, unchanged from last week.

In Austin, a gallon of gas cost an average of $2.58 per gallon, down from $2.59 last week.

Early last week, crude oil prices fell when OPEC reported that it had lowered its expectations for oil demand growth next year. The Energy Department then reported a jump in domestic crude inventories, pushing the U.S. and international benchmarks lower.

Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said he expects prices to continue to fall this summer. Labor Day, he added, could prove to be seasons least expensive driving holiday.

As we race towards summer's finish line, we may see more pessimism weigh on oil markets, he said.

Rye Druzin covers energy news in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | rdruzin@express-news.net | Twitter: @druz_journo
Dressed in a white lab coat and protective eyewear and holding a bar of Ivory soap, Ashley Barrera stood before her students Monday morning at Dwight Middle School and proposed a little experiment.

Using the scientific method, the students would predict what would happen if the soap was heated in a microwave for 30 seconds, then put their hypotheses to the test. The 16 students eagerly gathered around a small white microwave perched atop a cart, watching.

Barrera, a sixth-grade advanced STEM science teacher, had decided to start her third-period class on the first day of school for South San Antonio Independent School District with what she dubbed soap souffle. On a disposable plate, the soap rapidly expanded and took on the appearance of a wad of sopping tissues. Surprised, one boy said he wanted to change his prediction.

Minutes earlier, Barrera had told the students to be proud to be sitting where they were.

Today, you are the first ever Dwight STEM Academy students, Barrera said, as some of them quietly cheered. Now, that is a very big deal  very big deal.

The STEM academy at Dwight was one of three new programs that South San ISD debuted for middle school students Monday, along with a revamped health science program at South San High School. Shepard Middle School now is home to a fine arts program, while Zamora Middle School hosts a health science academy.

Related: South San TRE fails to secure voter approval

Its a major step for South San, which is trying to improve academics while fighting declines in enrollment. Until now, it lacked the magnet programs that have long been popular in other Bexar County school districts. The new specialties are paired with a focus on advanced coursework and project-based learning, and families are really excited to see the options and that were going all-in, said Chriselda Bazaldua, director of student empowerment and choice.

Together, the trio of schools within a school have enrolled more than 350 students in the academies first cohort, representing about half the districts 720 incoming sixth-graders, all of whom were eligible to apply. The STEM academy was most popular, enrolling 159 students. The fine arts academy followed with 105 students, and health science attracted 90.

All academy students will learn the same core curriculum but will take elective classes specific to their program. The students will have access to a newly installed smart lab and dance studio, as well as an ambulance simulator.

Their middle school curriculum will be compressed into the sixth and seventh grades so the students will be able to enroll in high school-level classes when they enter eighth grade, said Cindy Bills, director of strategic planning and innovation for South San. Academy students could choose to continue specializing in those subject areas when they reach high school, where there are comparable pathways, or pursue other interests, she said.

We feel like tapping into those students and their talents at this early age will give them more opportunity to explore those, before they hit high school and the demands of deciding what they want to do as a career, Bills said.

Related: Bexar school leaders not happy with state's report card

Last week, all three of South Sans middle schools received failing grades in the states accountability ratings. South Sans chief academic officer, Delinda Castro, told the San Antonio Express-News that the district expected that the academies would improve student performance on state tests in the future. Academy teachers were trained in college preparation, project-based learning and catching up students who have fallen behind.

The district devised the academies last year with community input, as part of a bid to retain students and give them more options within the district. Administrators visited public and charter schools in the area, as well as campuses in North Texas.

South San has struggled with declining enrollment for the past several years and is moving forward with the academies despite a failed election bid last week to raise its property tax rate by 13 cents per $100 in an attempt to close a $6.4 million budget shortfall. South San is expected to make cuts in other areas. Trustees are slated to adopt the budget for the 2018-19 school year when they meet Wednesday.

Lauren Caruba covers several school districts, charter schools and private universities in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | lcaruba@express-news.net | Twitter: @LaurenCaruba
City Councilman Manny Pelaez called for local and state authorities Monday to investigate a Grand Prairie real estate developer whose firm bulldozed possible habitat for endangered species on the Northwest Side.

In blistering letters sent to District Attorney Nico LaHood and the Texas attorney generals office, Pelaez accused developer Matt Hiles of providing false information to the city in August 2016 when he filled out an affidavit claiming that no endangered species would be harmed by his project, a 500-unit apartment complex called the Mansions at La Cantera.

We relied upon the representations made in the affidavit that Mr. Hiles submitted to us, Pelaez wrote. We now know that his representations were demonstrably false.

Pelaez argued that making a false statement in an affidavit connected to an official proceeding  namely, Hiles permit application to proceed with his project  could be a criminal offense of aggravated perjury, which is a felony in Texas.

My constituents and I are furious, and I need your immediate attention to their concerns, Pelaez wrote.

Hiles lawyer, Bebb Francis, said Monday that theres nothing thats been inappropriately done and emphasized that consultants recently hired by Hiles who are experts on the Endangered Species Act concluded that his project likely didnt harm endangered wildlife.

LaHood took a dim view of Pelaezs letter, calling it a bunch of showy stuff to impress his constituents. LaHood said he needs evidence, such as a copy of the affidavit in question, to proceed with any kind of inquiry.

RELATED: City creates task force after developer bulldozed potential habitat for endangered species

This is all politics, LaHood said.

Pelaez also contacted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency that enforces the Endangered Species Act, to complain that the agency isnt doing enough to hold Hiles accountable for bulldozing most of his 46-acre property, which lies in Pelaezs council district.

The response we have received from USFWS is frustrating and deficient, Pelaez wrote.

Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Lesli Gray said Monday that the agency had just received Pelaezs letter and is reviewing it. Gray said the agencys law enforcement arm is investigating whether Hiles violated the Endangered Species Act.

Hiles development firm bulldozed up to 38 acres of trees on a heavily wooded hillside that  according to one of his own studies  was potential habitat for endangered golden-cheeked warbler songbirds and karst invertebrates, which are small arachnids and beetles that live underground.

But city officials say they didnt know that when they approved the project.

In order to obtain city permits to build the apartment complex near La Cantera Parkway, Hiles had filled out a habitat compliance form in August 2016 and signed an affidavit stating that no endangered species would be harmed by his project.

As proof, Hiles wrote in the affidavit that a 2011 study by biologist Valerie Collins had concluded that no species will be impacted.

But a copy of Collins study obtained by the San Antonio Express-News showed that the biologist had looked only for golden-cheeked warblers on the tract of land, not karst invertebrates.

City officials temporarily halted Hiles project July 3. They lifted the stop-work order last week after Hiles consultants argued that he hadnt provided false information to the city and the city has no authority to enforce the Endangered Species Act, a federal law.

There is nothing to be gained for the listed species by stopping the project, wrote environmental consultants Gary Mowad and Alan Glen in an Aug. 14 letter to City Attorney Andrew Segovia. Such an action by the city of San Antonio is purely punitive and wholly outside the bounds of the authority vested in the city of San Antonio.

RELATED: Federal officials investigate loss of potential habitat for endangered species

Mowad, who is a retired deputy chief of Fish and Wildlifes law enforcement arm, told the city that theres no evidence the agency is conducting an investigation of Hiles. Gray said a criminal investigation was launched after multiple complaints were received about Hiles project.

Mowad and Glen also said the facts surrounding the case dont support a legitimate enforcement action. Records show Fish and Wildlife rarely penalizes landowners for destroying golden-cheeked warbler habitat  the last time it happened in Texas was in 2009.

Pelaezs complaint to authorities was prompted in part by frustrated residents who live near Hiles project.

At a heated neighborhood meeting Aug. 9 attended by Pelaez and other city officials, Patrick Filyk, president of Legend Hills Homeowners Association, asked why Hiles isnt facing legal repercussions.

With the magnitude of the loss that we have here, I feel like an incredible theft has taken place, Filyk said.

Maybe habitat for endangered species was lost, Filyk said, and maybe it wasnt. But theyll never know because the damage is done.

I feel very strongly that the strongest possible criminal or civil sanctions should be pursued in this matter, he told city officials.

John Tedesco is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jtedesco@express-news.net | Twitter: @John_Tedesco
The sun will soon set on the Wild West of pay-per-use electric scooters in San Antonio.

City staffers Monday briefed the City Councils Transportation Committee on proposed regulations that could tame the unregulated scooter users currently zipping around downtown.

The suggested regulations include charging operators a permit fee, prohibiting the scooters use in certain areas, such as Alamo Plaza, and banning them from sidewalks  a move that drew immediate criticism from some council members.

Rey Saldana, chairman of the committee, and other officials want to make sure that San Antonio doesnt re-create the restrictive environment that sparked controversy in the early days of ride-hailing, when Uber and Lyft came to town several years ago. After their arrival, the city instituted a policy so restrictive that the companies left San Antonio until the ordinance was recast.

Saldana cautioned city staff at the briefing to develop regulations with a light touch.

Its a tale of two experiences  the first experience was Uber and Lyft. And we knew that not only did we completely scare away new technology that could help with transportation solutions, but it completely upset our consumer and citizen market. If we werent listening to residents ... wed be making the mistakes twice, Saldana said after the meeting. We know that scooters today are popular. Folks are using them, whether you work downtown or youre a visitor or tourists. Its high use, so we dont want to scare away the technology. We want to embrace it.

John Jacks, director of the Center City Development and Operations Department, said his department conducted a public meeting and reviewed other cities regulations as it prepared its own.

He assured Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales, who also shared concerns of stifling innovation, that the citys intention is to not be overly restrictive.

Were trying to be very minimal with it, he said.

The major sticking point with city staffs proposal Monday was a suggested prohibition of riding scooters on sidewalks. Saldana told Jacks its a regulation he wouldnt support.

The councilman has spent some time himself on electric scooters, navigating around downtown, and said hes seen a number of situations where it would be dangerous to ride on the street and not on the sidewalk.

But for that to work, he said, riders need to be courteous to pedestrians. Still, sidewalks should be available for scooter use, he said.

The staff recommendation is that theyre prohibited on sidewalks, Saldana said in an interview. And we tried to give the feedback that thats not exactly where the council feels it should be right off the bat.

For now, San Antonio has no plans to cap the number of scooters allowed, as some cities have. San Francisco has limited its number to 1,250. According to city documents, Bird and Lime  the two major companies currently operating in San Antonio  already have a combined total of about 745 scooters.

The scooter companies have been monitoring the progress of regulations here.

After working with the city for months, partnering in the development of this regulatory proposal, we are excited it has reached this point in the process, said Sam Sadle, Limes director of government relations. We look forward to finalizing the regulations to ensure Lime can continue to serve residents of San Antonio with our convenient, affordable rides in the future.

Five other companies have expressed interest in operating here, including Blue Duck of San Antonio, which would welcome more oversight.

Blue Duck is pleased with the direction of the conversation today at the Transportation Committee and in our conversations with the city of San Antonio, said Casey Whittington, Blue Ducks director of government affairs. Overall, we want to see an age limit requirement, protection of our historic sites with geofencing, and we are very excited about the possible partnership of the (Center City Development and Operations Department) and Centro. Centro San Antonio is a downtown advocacy group.

Under a draft proposal of the regulations, which could take effect as early as Oct. 4 if approved, San Antonio also would require that scooter companies maintain a local fleet manager and share data with San Antonio. The city wouldnt be getting individual rider information but wants the bulk data to study usage and update regulations as necessary, Jacks said.

Riders here would be encouraged, but not required, to wear helmets but would be required to follow all traffic laws. The vehicles, which top out at speeds around 15 mph, would be prohibited on streets that have speed limits exceeding 35 mph.

The Parks and Recreation Department is recommending that a city code ban of electronic motorized vehicles on the River Walk, on trails and in parks be extended to scooters until a transportation mode analysis is complete. Another recommendation would prohibit scooters in plazas, such as Alamo and Main plazas, but would allow use on streets that intersect with the plazas.

Another issue thats arisen is how scooters are parked. The city will likely require that they leave at least a 3-foot berth for pedestrians on sidewalks and not be parked within 8 feet of a bus stop or in commercial or pedestrian loading zones. The prohibition also would include parking within 4 feet of benches, pay stations and other street furniture that people have to access and within 8 feet of a building entrance.

City officials are considering partnering with Centro San Antonio, which employs the yellow-shirted ambassadors, who may end up marshaling rogue scooters. The city would charge the companies for scooters parked in prohibited areas and then reimburse Centro for the time its ambassadors spend addressing issues.

Per vehicle permit fees, permit application fees and relocation fees for scooter companies are also being developed to cover the costs the city expects to incur.

Josh Baugh is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jbaugh@express-news.net | Twitter: @jbaugh
Since news broke months ago about her husbands criminal record, Bexar County Republican Party Chair Cynthia Brehm has tried to suppress the truth about her familys disturbing history even as some in the party have pushed for her ouster.

That history just got even more disturbing.

U.S. Army court documents revealed appalling new details about the governments evidence against Norman Brehm, a retired lieutenant colonel and Cynthia Brehms husband of 22 years. The documents show that Cynthia Brehm was informed about details of her husbands case as it unfolded and benefited from its outcome.

According to the documents, Norman Brehm gave a full confession detailing not only indecent liberties taken in 1999 with Cynthia Brehms then-14-year-old daughter from a previous marriage but also describing more than 10 years of egregious sexual molestation of three young relatives.

These descriptions are horrific.

Norman Brehm began conditioning one girl when she was 5 years old, the documents state.

It began with me exposing myself, and progressed to showing her pornographic magazines, and having her masturbate me and then having her perform oral sex on me, Norman Brehm admitted, according to the documents.

He initiated a similar regimen with a 6-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl, showing them adult and child pornography materials, exposing himself to them while he masturbated and on one occasion rubbing (the girls) breasts.

His stepdaughter  Cynthia Brehms daughter  also testified that Norman Brehm exposed himself to her and asked her to rub his groin and genital area, according to the documents.

Related: SAFA still 'proud' of Brehm

Despite the governments crushing evidence against Norman Brehm, he received an extremely favorable plea agreement, the documents state. After pleading guilty to just two offenses  indecency with a child and making a false statement  he received a sentence of five years confinement, later reduced to just two years.

In his own affidavit, Norman Brehm wrote that his defense counsel informed both me and my wife about details of the case. And Cynthia Brehm benefited financially from her husbands plea deal, which included a promise from the convening authority to  waive automatic forfeitures for a period of six months for the benefit of his wife, according to court records.

After pleading guilty, Norman appealed the case, citing a court ruling on statute of limitations defenses. The documents obtained by the Express-News include briefs filed by the government as it sought to quash his appeal. For unknown reasons, the Army did not forward the charge sheet to prosecutors until 2006. On that basis, the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals set aside the guilty findings in May 2009.

In May, defending her husbands actions to Republican Party officials, Cynthia Brehm mentioned only the indecency charge to which he pleaded guilty: So heres the story, she said. My husband got involved in pornography and he flashed my 14-year-old daughter.

As a fuller account of her husbands behavior has emerged, calls for the chair to step down have only intensified. Brehm did not return a call seeking comment for this column.

This month, precinct Chair Becky Edler wrote a resolution asking the partys executive board to form a committee to investigate rumors and allegations  regarding the conduct of (Cynthia Brehm), which, if true, would tend to injure the good name of this organization, disturb its well-being, hamper its work, violate its bylaws and rules, and that the committee be instructed, if it concludes the rumors and allegations are well-founded, to report resolutions covering its recommendations.

The board refused to take up the resolution, however, thanks in part to Lynette Boggs-Perez, the partys legal counsel, who warned: There is nothing in Texas law to bar Chairman Brehm from seeking injunctive relief against the party or naming the BCRP as a defendant in a lawsuit.

Edler called that a not very well-veiled threat.

The battle against Brehm, though, isnt over.

She didnt commit the crime, but she had full knowledge about it and she lied about it, Edler told me Monday. That shows bad judgment. She does not represent our party values. She told lies about it, and you cant have someone like that representing our party.  I dont feel like she has the moral ground to do that.

bchasnoff@express-news.net
Also starring Salman Khan and directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, the flick is slated to hit theatres on June 5.

New Delhi: Bollywood star Katrina Kaif has treated her fans with a picture from Malta, where she is shooting for her much-anticipated film 'Bharat'.

In the picture she shared on social media, the 35-year-old looks fresh as a daisy with her hair styled into glamorous beachy waves. She captioned the photo, "Malta".

Malta A post shared by Katrina Kaif (@katrinakaif) on Aug 20, 2018 at 8:16am PDT

While 'Bharat' went on floors in July, Katrina began her first schedule last week. Salman Khan had begun shooting for his second schedule of the film in the European island country earlier this month.

After Priyanka Chopra walked out of the film, the 'Zero' star was roped in to play the lead, opposite Salman. The film also stars Tabu and Disha Patani in pivotal roles.

'Bharat' is set to have a character-driven story spanning across many periods and will be shot across exotic locations in Malta and Abu Dhabi, besides Punjab and Delhi in India.

Directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, the flick is slated to hit theatres on June 5, next year.


The national carriers from the former Yugoslavia handled over 2.8 million passengers during the first half of the year, representing an increase of 2.4% on 2017. Croatia Airlines, Adria Airways and Montenegro Airlines all recorded growth when compared to last year, while Air Serbia's figures declined, with the airline also operating fewer flights. The national carriers from the former Yugoslavia handled over 2.8 million passengers during the first half of the year, representing an increase of 2.4% on 2017. Croatia Airlines, Adria Airways and Montenegro Airlines all recorded growth when compared to last year, while Air Serbia's figures declined, with the airline also operating fewer flights.





Air Serbia continues to maintain its position as the busiest national airline in the former Yugoslavia, despite a drop in the number of passengers handled. According to Belgrade Airport's half-yearly report, the airline welcomed roughly 1.076.000 travellers during the first half of the year, representing a decrease of 6%. The number of operated flights was reduced by 5% over the same period. The report suggests that the airline held a passenger share of 43.7% at Belgrade Airport. At the same time, foreign carriers recorded significant passenger growth amounting to 19%. Air Serbia itself is yet to publish any official operational results for the year so far.





Croatia Airlines handled 949.007 passengers on board its aircraft during the January - June period, an increase of 5.1%. Of those, 235.040 travellers were carried on domestic flights, up 5.4%, while 690.709 passengers flew on international services, an improvement of 4.3%. The remaining 23.258 passengers were carried on charter flights, up 30.7% year-on-year. However, charters accounted for only 2% of overall traffic. The airline operated 12.802 flights during the first half of the year, which is up 0.9% compared to the same period in 2017. The average cabin load factor stood at 70.9%, up 1.3 points. Loads improved on international flights by 1.3 points for an average of 71.2%, while on domestic services they were up half a point to 67.9%. Passenger carrying capacity, measured in Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs), stood 992 million, up 2.5% year-on-year.

EX-YU national airlines, passengers carried in H1 2018

Airline PAX (million) Change (%) Air Serbia 1.07  6.0 Croatia Airlines 0.949  5.1 Adria Airways 0.576  8.5 Montenegro Airlines 0.250  9.0

Adria Airways welcomed 576.377 passengers on board its aircraft during the first half of the year, representing an increase of 8.5%. Following a decrease in figures during January and February, the airline returned to growth from March, with double digit growth registered from May onwards. The Slovenian carrier introduced seven new routes this summer, while the number of operated flights grew 2%. Unlike last year, the airline no longer maintains services out of its former base in Lodz in Poland but is gearing up to station an aircraft in Padeborn in Germany in late October. Earlier this year, the carrier said, "Figures show we are on the right track, but there is still a lot of work ahead of us".





Montenegro Airlines handled 250.296 passengers during the first half of the year, representing an increase of 9% on 2017. The number of operated flights grew 6.6% to 3.209. The average cabin load factor improved three points to 65%. "The growth in all of sectors comes as a result of the implementation of the optimal commercial strategy, as well as the responsible planning of resources and costs, which all had a positive impact on our operational results during the first half of the year", the airline said in a statement. Montenegro Airlines accounted for almost a quarter of all passengers passing through the country's two international airports - Podgorica and Tivat.
You can say this for President Donald Trump: When the raids on his attorney Michael Cohen's house, hotel and office occurred, he knew it was trouble, as his slew of tweets at the time showed. About four months after Cohen saw FBI agents cart out boxes of documents, he surrendered to the FBI and entered a plea deal in federal court to a total of eight counts, five for tax evasion, one for a false statement to a bank and two related to campaign-finance charges. Most important, the plea states that Cohen, in committing the campaign-finance violations, acted at the behest of the "candidate." There is only one candidate. The president of the United States has now been implicated in a federal crime by his longtime lawyer. Take that in. The details of those and Cohen's obligations, if any, to cooperate will unfold.

Trump was right to be panicked back in April, and since then we've all learned of more damaging facts that Cohen may substantiate. Cohen is at the intersection of at least three possibly disastrous legal stories.
It said without ILP, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) can only partially safeguard the indigenous people.

The apex students body, which launched the drive on August 17, also had a discussion with the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and apprised them about their drive. (Photo: ANI)

Guwahati: Hundreds of daily wage workers have left Arunachal Pradesh and are returning back to Assam after the All Arunachal Pradesh Students Union (AAPSU) launched the first phase of the statewide Operation Clean Drive against illegal immigrants and inner line permit (ILP) violators in the frontier state.

In a statement, the convener of the the Operation Clean Drive, Tatung Taga said that the operation which was launched on Friday saw the detection of 2,205 ILP violators across the state according to the reports submitted by the federal units of AAPSU in the districts.

Admitting that 80 per cent of such violators have left the state voluntarily, the statement said, These violators should be immediately deported from the state and necessary action should be initiated under the provisions of the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) Act, 1873.

AAPSU president Hawa Bagang told this newspaper that the objective of their drive is to check infiltration of illegal migrants and regulate the ILP system in Arunachal Pradesh effectively. He however clarified that they are not going to harass any Indian citizen.

The apex students body, which launched the drive on August 17, also had a discussion with the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and apprised them about their drive.

The AAPSU leaders reiterated that the drive was solely for ILP violators and no any Indian citizen would be harassed during the exercise. In order to avoid any confusion the leading students body of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh has also decided to extend their constructive support to each other.

It is significant that the AAPSU has also decided to launch agitation in the state to press for preparing the National Register of Citizen in the frontier state of Arunachal Pradesh also.

In this regard the North East Students Organisation (NESO) is contemplating to hold meeting with all its constituent organisations to place the demand to update the National Register of Citizens in all northeastern states.

The Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad, a youth organisation of Assam, on Monday organised a statewide protest to push for introduction of inner-line permit in Assam also.

It said without ILP, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) can only partially safeguard the indigenous people.

The AJYCP, which apprehends a threat to the indigenous people of Assam not only from illegal immigrants but also from people who come from other states and settle here, has been demanding introduction of ILP since its formation in 1978. (EOM)
Wall Street analysts have given HighPoint Resources a "Sell" 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 HighPoint Resources wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
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.

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Wall Street analysts have given iShares Latin America 40 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 Latin America 40 ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

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Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Switzerland 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 Switzerland ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
The practice of serving food in utensils brought by customers is being implemented across districts, he said.

However, polythene sachets used for packing milk, curd, oil and medical utilities would be exempted from the ban. (Representational image)

Chennai: To encourage customers do away with plastic bags for carrying food parcels, hotels in Tamil Nadu have announced discounts to those who bring utensils.

The move by the hospitality industry comes in the backdrop of the state governments decision to ban use of plastic paper, cups, water sachets, straws and carry bags with effect from January 1, 2019.

However, polythene sachets used for packing milk, curd, oil and medical utilities would be exempted from the ban.

The plan is to make them bring utensils and vessels to carry the food. A resolution was passed recently, offering five per cent discount on the bill if customers bring the utensils, president of Chennai Hotels Association M. Ravi said.

The practice of serving food in utensils brought by customers is being implemented across districts, he said.

To a query whether the services offered by some food delivery firms would get affected, Ravi said talks were on with such service providers on how food could be delivered.

Aluminium foils are used during packing instead of plastic bags; banana leaves also come in handy.

The discount offer is to make customers bring their own containers, another official of the association from Vellore said.

In June, chief minister K. Palaniswami had announced in the state Assembly that use of some plastic items, including non-biodegradable bags, would be banned from January 1, 2019 in the interest of the environment and to gift a plastic-free state to the future generations.
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.

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COLUMBUS  The Ohio Department of Natural Resources urges Ohioans to identify and report signs of beech leaf disease to minimize risk of disease spread.

Beech leaf disease (BLD) is a newly observed disease affecting American and possibly non-native beech trees. BLD was first discovered in Lake County in 2012 and has quickly spread across northeastern Ohio.

Infestations have been found in nine Ohio counties and parts of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ontario, Canada.

Learning more

Government and university scientists are currently working to learn more about BLD, but no causal agent has yet been identified for this disease.

The ODNR Division of Forestry has received funding from the U.S. Forest Service to work with various partners within Ohio, other states and Canada to monitor the spread and document the impact of BLD to help inform research efforts and create management tools.

Symptoms of BLD include dark striping or banding on otherwise healthy-looking leaves; shriveled, discolored or deformed leaves; and reduced leaf and bud production.

Disease progression varies with tree size, but BLD appears to kill small trees within several years. No infected tree has ever been known to recover.

BLD is not to be confused with beech blight aphids or eriophyid mites. Reports of BLD will be documented to inform future research and to monitor changes in forest composition and structure.

Report trees

Landowners in northeast Ohio are encouraged to report any signs of BLD and report healthy beech trees.

Additionally, landowners are urged to avoid moving beech trees or tree parts to prevent BLD from potentially spreading to new areas.

To report BLD, contact ODNR Forest Health Program Administrator Tom Macy at thomas.macy@dnr.state.oh.us or use the BLD section of the NE Ohio Parks app available at parkapps.kent.edu.

To learn more about Ohios woodlands, visit forestry.ohiodnr.gov.
Pig farmers and keepers have been reminded not to feed kitchen or catering waste to pigs to help prevent the spread of African swine fever (ASF) in the UK.

It follows news of the Chinese government announcing 88 pigs had died from highly-contagious disease in the eastern city of Lianyungang, the third outbreak this month.

A total of 615 pigs have been infected in China since August 15th.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) stressed that the risk to the UK from ASF in China was negligible.

Currently, China is not approved for the import of fresh or frozen pig meat to the EU. However, some animal feed products are imported from China, and the agency is investigating other possible pathways.

But the overall risk given the current distribution of ASF in the EU and neighbouring countries is low, upgraded last year, following fresh outbreaks in central Europe.

As with ASF in western Russia, Belarus, Moldova and the Ukraine, there are concerns around pork products from non-EU countries entering the EU in passenger luggage and then being discarded in areas where wild boar or domestic pigs are present, the agency said.

The virus does not affect people but severe strains of the virus are often fatal to pigs of any age.

If the disease were to reach the UK it would have a devastating effect on the export market and would also mean the humane culling of pigs on infected premises to prevent further spread.

Farmers and keepers have thus been urged not to feed catering waste of any description, or domestic food waste, to pigs. It is illegal to do so. This is because of the risk of spreading disease.

This includes food from vegetarian kitchens, as there is still a risk of cross contamination from products of animal origin such as milk.

This ban on feeding food waste also helps to protect the UK from diseases such as foot and mouth disease.
New research has found that nearly half of the nation cannot remember the last time they set foot on a farm.

Research commissioned on behalf of Jordans Cereals highlights the extent to which the UK has become an indoor nation.

It shows that Brits spend a staggering 142 hours a week indoors, with 15 percent complaining that they dont have anywhere picturesque nearby that they can visit.

More than one in ten (13 percent) state that they are unable to afford the costs of travelling to the countryside.

According to the new data, the nation spends as little as 26 hours a week outside, which over an adult lifetime (18-81) equates to 53 years spent inside and just one decade outdoors.

85 percent of Brits admitted that they would like to spend more time in the countryside.

'Visiting a farm'

Caroline Drummond, Chief Executive at Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF) said that something as simple as visiting a farm can have a massive impact on mental health wellbeing.

"From nature walks to finding out about why worms, beetles and bees are so important to the fabric of our countryside, as well as our food and farming, this is all key.

"Spending time outdoors benefits our mental and physical health, and wellbeing - important for us all, including young people. Something as simple as going for a walk or visiting a farm can make a massive impact," she said.

LEAF is working with Jordans and others across the industry with initiatives including FaceTime a Farmer and other educational opportunities.

With FaceTime, a farmer is able to talk to a class via real time video from a location on his or her farm  either in the field, the barn, tractor or even a harvester.

Adopting such technology is seen as critical as farmers look to the younger generation to ignite passion for agriculture.
The UK is lagging behind developing countries in the process of making agriculture more sustainable, according to a new global assessment.

The research paper, published in the Nature Sustainability, shows that more than 163 million farms world-wide (29% of all worldwide) are incorporating some form of sustainable intensification on 453 million hectares of agricultural land.

Significantly, the study shows that developing countries such as West Africa, India and Bangladesh are more willing to redesign their systems and adopt sustainable agriculture practices to boost food production and biodiversity.

But it highlights that the UK is lagging behind other countries in terms of introducing more sustainable agricultural practices.

The paper has persuaded the UK government to do more to encourage the farming industry to redesign systems for both environmental and production benefit.

A worldwide example of redesign is organic agriculture, which is showing an increase globally with the largest number of organic farmers in India, Ethiopia, Mexico and Uganda; while the largest organically farmed areas are in Australia and Argentina.

The UK has seen a 6% growth in the organic market, with dairy products and meat taking the lead.

'Tipping point'

Professor Nic Lampkin, Chief Executive of the Organic Research Centre and one of the authors of the report, said the UK has reached a "tipping point" in agricultural production.

"It is evident that we need urgent change to protect our environment as well as providing healthy, nutritious food but Government needs to give farmers the right tools to implement change," he said.

Our research identified that the organic sector is showing positive global growth and now occupies 58 Million ha worldwide representing a 55% increase in the number of organic producers, to 2.7 million, and a doubling of organic area in the last decade."

Although many UK farmers are now investing in some form of sustainable intensification to improve their soil, protect water resources, boost biodiversity and improve production, the study highlights that the UK needs to catch up with developing countries.

Prof Lampkin added: "If we are to remain competitive with the rest of the world, we need urgent action from Government to give farmers the courage to innovate and feel confident that policies are in place to train, support and fund the redesign of agricultural systems."

'Global agricultural challenge'

The global agricultural challenge is significant: world population will continue to grow from 7.6 billion in 2018 to 10 billion by 2050.

The research authors major hope is that system redesign can begin to feed this rapidly growing population.

However, they say it will only commence truly if farmers are given supportive national and international policies to succeed.

The research assessed global progress towards sustainable intensification in areas such as integrated pest management, conservation agriculture, integrated crop and biodiversity, pasture and forage systems, trees and agroforestry, irrigation management and small patch systems such as allotments.

The paper involved leading authors from 17 universities and research institutions in the UK, including the Organic Research Centre, as well as researchers in the USA, Sweden, Ethiopia and New Zealand.
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.
Cleveland Fire Chief Ron Harrison selected Pete VanDusen as the Cleveland Fire Departments Deputy Fire Chief.



"Pete is excited to accept the challenges and responsibilities that accompany his new position. He is responsible for the Operations Division of the department and works closely with the battalion chiefs to better manage stations, assignments and training for the department.



"He will also assist Fire Chief Ron Harrison with the successful addition and implementation of Fire Station #6, at Westland Drive, which includes 12 newly hired firefighters," officials said.



VanDusens primary goals are to help improve the departments service delivery and advance the citys ISO rating of 3 to an ISO rating of 2. A better ISO rating can help reduce homeowners insurance costs.



Deputy Chief VanDusen began his career with the City of Cleveland as a firefighter. He also served as a driver for Engine Company 2 and was a lieutenant for Engine Company 4. In 2014, he was promoted to captain and oversaw the departments training programs.



He attended Chattanooga State Community College, where he received his associates degree in fire science and received his bachelor of science degree in management excellence from Tennessee Wesleyan University.

"Pete is a dedicated employee and has served the Cleveland Fire Department for approximately 20 years," officials said.



Deputy Chief VanDusen is married to Kim Van Dusen and they have two children, Nichole, 17, and Christian, 16. Both children attend Walker Valley High School.
The Maldives has politically moved extremely close to both China and Pakistan, something that New Delhi is viewing with some alarm.

New Delhi: At a time when ties between India and its tiny south-western maritime neighbour the Maldives has sharply deteriorated, the archipelago nation  in a humanitarian gesture in the wake of the floods in Kerala  has announced a contribution of $50,000 as a token contribution in solidarity with the people of India, for the ongoing rescue and relief operations in the flood-hit state of Kerala.

In a statement, the Maldives said, At this time of national distress, the Government of Maldives conveys profound sympathies to the Government and the people of India, in particular to those directly affected by the tragedy, as well as commiserations to the members of the bereaved families.

Relations between the Government of President Abdulla Yameen and India have nose-dived sharply in the past few months especially after the Maldivian President had initially declared a state of emergency. The Maldives has politically moved extremely close to both China and Pakistan, something that New Delhi is viewing with some alarm. India had last month sharpened its criticism on the Maldives Government, urging the archipelago nation to return to the path of democracy and saying the Majlis (Parliament) and the judiciary are not allowed to function in a free and transparent manner.
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Oh That Ring!

The picture features Priyanka looking at a ring with wonder. Her caption reads, "Oh that ring." Is she hinting at her engagement ring? Maybe Nick knows it all!

Papa Jonas Is Still Not Over With His Son's Engagement With PC

After PeeCee-Nick's engagement, the Jonas family flew back to the US. But, Papa Jonas is still not over with the engagement celebrations. He shared a picture on Instagram and captioned it as, "Just arrived back home from our wonderful trip to India. This was the newspaper reading material on the flight! @nickjonas @priyankachopra @mamadjonas @madhumalati @parineetichopra @thetimesofindia."

Alia, Papa Jonas Remembers You As Well

Meanwhile, someone commented on the photo that the actress on the right-hand side of the clipping is Alia Bhatt, who was a part of the engagement bash. To this, Papa Jonas replied, "Thank you for reminding me."

When Priyanka Couldn't Stop Staring At Nick!

Before flying back to the US, Nick visited Andheri's St Catherine's orphanage where he crooned the Love Bug, which was sung by Jonas Brothers in 2008. What made us go all 'awww' was that PeeCee just couldn't take her eyes off him while he was singing.

Priyanka-Nick To Get Married In Los Angeles?

Rumours are rife that Priyanka and Nick will tie the knot in Los Angeles. However, there hasn't been any official confirmation on the same yet.
Over the past few days, amidst the havoc that the floods have created, we have seen people from various strata coming together for the rescue operations in Kerala and rendering their services in the relief camps. Many of the Malayalam actors have been actively doing their bit in the camps across the state, providing the best possible help to all those affected by the Kerala floods.

There is news that one Malayalam actor even postponed his wedding for the cause of the rescue operations in his region. Yes, we are talking about the popular Malayalam actor Rajeev Pillai, who has won the hearts of one and all with his kind gesture.

According to a recent report by Times Of India, Rajeev and Ajitha were supposed to get married a few days ago, but rains wreaked havoc in his native place Nannoor, situated in Thiruvalla. Reportedly, he and a group of other people have been an active participant in the rescue operations.

"Five hundred metres from my home, an entire area came under water. The only bit which was safe in my village was the area where we lived. There was no time to wait for rescue boats and we made a raft with whatever whatever we could get. There were only 10 or 12 of us who were strong enough to pull the raft all the day so for the past 48 hours we have been in the water," the actor was quoted as saying to Times Of India.

According to the report, they had planned for a quiet wedding and reportedly, now the wedding will be postponed to another date and the actor has also stated that the function will be even more quieter with a Thalikettu ceremony alone.
A few months ago, the controversial Sri Reddy grabbed plenty of attention when she stripped in public and made a few shocking claims about the Telugu film industry. During her infamous 'protest', she claimed that several top producers exploit 'local girls' and then show them the door. Post this, the feisty lady made a host of simply scandalous claims about the likes of Nani and Kona Venkat, and this left everyone in a state of shock. She also accused a few big names from Kollywood of 'exploiting' her.

Now, she is in the news for a shocking reason. During a recently held press meet, Sri Reddy said that Tollywood is the 'worst industry', as it is controlled by a few families. She added that it is difficult for new talents to make inroads in the Telugu film industry.

"In Telugu, the audience will watch and encourage the films featuring big heroes. Only four film families are ruling the entire industry. That is the reason why Tollywood is the worst of all. Also, the industry does not encourage any new talent. However, in Chennai, even the small-budget films are getting recognised," she added.

Interestingly, Sri Reddy also confirmed that she has signed a few new films and is set to begin a new chapter in life. However, at the same time, the lady made it clear that she is going to continue her fight against casting couch.

"It will continue if people try to misbehave with me. I am not doing it for the heck of ii and it will be a lesson for girls in future to be cautious," - (sic) added Sri Reddy.

It goes without saying that these are some strong words and they might create a great deal of buzz in the industry.

Sri Reddy Takes A Nasty Dig At Pawan Kalyan, Again!
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 20, 2018) - Roscan Minerals Corporation ("Roscan" or the "Company") (TSXV: ROS) ) is pleased to announce that it has completed the second and final tranche of its previously announced private placement by issuing 2,036,700 units ("Units") at a price of $0.06 per Unit for aggregate gross proceeds of $122,202 (the "Offering").

Each Unit is comprised of one common share ("Common Share") and one Common Share purchase warrant ("Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one additional Common Share at an exercise price of $0.12 for 24 months from the closing of the Offering. The Company reserves the right to accelerate the expiration of the Warrants, if at any time which is more than four months and one day following the closing date of the Offering, the trading price of the Common Shares of the Company on the TSX Venture Exchange is $0.24 or more for at least 20 consecutive trading days, in which case the Company may provide notice to Warrant holders to exercise their Warrants within 10 days following the date of such notice.

The Common Shares and Warrants issued pursuant to the Offering will be subject to a hold period of four months plus a day from the date of issuance and the resale rules of applicable securities legislation.

The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the Offering for exploration and development of the Company's mineral properties and for general corporate and working capital purposes.

Eligible persons (the "Finders") were paid a cash commission of $6,874.14 from the gross proceeds raised from subscribers introduced to the Company by such Finders.

ABOUT ROSCAN

RosCan Minerals Corporation is a Canadian gold exploration company focussed on West Africa. The Company has assembled a land position of 100%-owned permits in an area of large gold deposits for its Kandiole Project in west Mali.

For further information, please contact:

Greg Isenor

President and Chief Executive Officer

Tel: (902) 832-5555 or (416) 293-8437

Email: info@roscan.ca

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

THIS NEWS RELEASE IS INTENDED FOR DISTRIBUTION IN CANADA ONLY AND IS NOT AUTHORIZED FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said defence cooperation was a key pillar of the relationship between India and Japan.

The Prime Minister also appreciated the progress in defence technology cooperation between the two countries. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday welcomed the deepening of the special strategic and global partnership between India and Tokyo and said he was looking forward to visiting Japan later this year.

He also said defence cooperation was a key pillar of the relationship between India and Japan.

Mr Modi made these remarks when Japanese defence minister Itsunori Onodera called on him here, official sources said.

He recalled his long association with Japan, since before assuming office as Prime Minister.

Mr Modi welcomed the strengthening of various defence dialogue mechanisms between the two countries, and the enhanced linkages between the armed forces of India and Japan.

The Prime Minister also appreciated the progress in defence technology cooperation between the two countries.

Mr Modi warmly recalled the successful visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to India last year, and said he was looking forward to visiting Japan later this year.
Regulatory News:

In connection with AP Alternative Assets, L.P.'s ("AAA"; Euronext Amsterdam: AAA) equity investment in Athene Holding Ltd. ("Athene"; NYSE: ATH), AAA informs its investors that Athene announced today it will host an Investor Day on September 20, 2018 starting at 8:00 a.m. ET. The Investor Day will be webcast live and can be accessed by all interested parties through Athene's investor relations website at ir.athene.com. For those unable to join the live webcast, a replay will be available on Athene's investor relations website following the conclusion of the event. For additional details regarding Athene's Investor Day, please visit the investor relations section of Athene's website.

About AP Alternative Assets

AP Alternative Assets was established by Apollo Global Management, LLC and its subsidiaries ("Apollo") and is a closed-end limited partnership established under the laws of Guernsey. Apollo is a leading global alternative investment manager with 28 years of experience investing across the capital structure of leveraged companies. AAA is managed by Apollo Alternative Assets, L.P. For more information about AP Alternative Assets, please visit www.apolloalternativeassets.com.

This announcement does not constitute or form part of an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for securities in the United States or in any other jurisdiction.

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to future events and circumstances. Such statements are based on currently available operating, financial and competitive information and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from the historical experience and expressed or implied expectations of AAA. Undue reliance should not be placed on such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and AAA does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements unless required by law.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180820005628/en/

Contacts:

AP Alternative Assets

Gary Stein (New York), +1 212-822-0467
Washington, DC--(Newsfile Corp. - August 20, 2018) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged five individuals and four companies for unlawfully selling securities of Woodbridge Group of Companies LLC to retail investors. Woodbridge collapsed into bankruptcy in December 2017 and the SEC previously charged the company, its owner, and others with operating a massive $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme.

The Florida-based defendants named in the SEC's complaints, Barry M. Kornfeld, Ferne Kornfeld, Lynette M. Robbins, Andrew G. Costa, Albert D. Klager, and their companies, were among Woodbridge's top revenue producers, selling more than $243 million of its unregistered securities to more than 1,600 retail investors. The complaints allege that defendants reaped millions of dollars in commissions on their sales of Woodbridge securities even though they were not registered as broker-dealers and were not permitted to sell securities. Barry Kornfeld also violated a prior SEC order which barred him from acting as a broker.

"The broker-dealer and securities registration provisions are vital protections for retail investors," said Eric I. Bustillo, Director of the SEC's Miami Regional Office. "Our actions allege the defendants, while not registered as broker-dealers, pocketed millions of dollars in unlawful commissions from their widespread sales of unregistered Woodbridge securities."

According to the SEC's complaints, the defendants touted Woodbridge as a "safe and secure" investment. The Kornfelds allegedly solicited investors at seminars and a "conservative retirement and income planning class" they taught at a Florida university. The SEC alleges that Klager pitched Woodbridge investments in newspaper ads while Costa recommended them during a radio program he hosted and Robbins used radio, television, and internet marketing.

Once Woodbridge filed for bankruptcy, investors stopped receiving monthly interest payments and have not received a return of their investment principal. Woodbridge has since agreed to settle the liability portion of the SEC's charges without admitting or denying the allegations and reached a resolution with the SEC and creditors in a bankruptcy action regarding the ongoing control and management of Woodbridge. The SEC's monetary claims against Woodbridge remain pending.

In its latest actions, the SEC filed charges seeking court-ordered injunctions, return of allegedly ill-gotten gains with interest, and financial penalties against the Kornfelds, Costa, Klager and their companies. Robbins and her company, Knowles Systems Inc., agreed to settle the SEC's charges in a separate action without admitting or denying the allegations and return more than $1 million of allegedly ill-gotten gains plus interest. Robbins also agreed to pay a $100,000 civil penalty and to an industry and penny-stock bar.

The SEC's investigation, which is continuing, has been conducted by Scott A. Lowry, Russell Koonin, Christine Nestor, and Mark Dee in the Miami Regional Office. The case has been supervised by Jason R. Berkowitz and Fernando Torres, and the litigation will be led by Ms. Nestor, Mr. Koonin and Mr. Lowry under the supervision of Andrew O. Schiff. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the State of Florida's Office of Financial Regulation, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and the North American Securities Administrators Association.

The SEC's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy has issued an Investor Alert to help seniors identify signs of investment fraud and, in conjunction with the Division of Enforcement's Retail Strategy Task Force, another Investor Alert about Ponzi schemes targeting seniors. The SEC strongly encourages investors to use the agency's Investor.gov website to check the backgrounds of people selling them investments to quickly identify whether they are registered professionals.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 20, 2018) - Earlston Investments Corp. ("Earlston") announced today that, on August 15th, 2018, it submitted a written proposal to the Board of Directors of Trez Capital Mortgage Investment Corporation ("TZZ") to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of TZZ for cash at 100% of TZZ's net asset value ("NAV"). The proposal is subject to the customary conditions including the completion of due diligence and the execution of a definitive acquisition agreement. The proposal was open for TZZ to accept until the close of business tomorrow, August 21; Earlston has been informed that TZZ will not be able to meet this time frame.

Earlston has a long standing and good working relationship with Trez Capital, the manager of and portfolio advisor to TZZ, and is confident that, if the Board of TZZ permits, a definitive agreement could be prepared forthwith. Earlston believes that, with TZZ's assistance, it can:

complete the requisite due diligence within 3 weeks from the date hereof;

mail a takeover bid circular promptly following execution of a definitive acquisition agreement; and

take up and pay for all of the shares tendered to the takeover bid in as few as 35 days, subject to applicable corporate and securities laws.

Earlston understands that on June 16, 2016 the Shareholders of TZZ overwhelmingly approved the Orderly Wind-Up Plan and the return of capital to TZZ shareholders "through special distributions, the repurchase of shares pursuant to the normal course issuer bid, or otherwise". Earlston believes that a takeover bid at NAV is the most efficient method available to achieve that stated goal. For greater clarity, Earlston is confident that, with TZZ's assistance, shareholders could receive their funds on or about mid November 2018.

Further Details Regarding the Proposal

If the TZZ Board engages with Earlston and Earlston commences a take-over bid, full details of any such offer will be included in a formal offer and the related take-over bid circular to be filed with the securities regulatory authorities and mailed to TZZ shareholders.

This press release does not constitute an offer to buy or an invitation to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy or invitation to sell, any of the securities of TZZ. Such an offer may only be made pursuant to an offer and take-over bid circular filed with the securities regulatory authorities in Canada.

About Earlston

Earlston Investments Corp. is a private merchant bank based in Vancouver, BC., whose primary focus is providing asset-backed loans to the real estate and oil and gas sectors. For more information on Earlston please visit its website at: www.earlston.ca.

For further information regarding the Transaction, please contact:

Michael Atkinson, President & CEO

Telephone: (604) 689-1428

Email: atkinson@earlston.ca

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION:

This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. Such statements include, but are not limited to statements as to whether a takeover bid will be made, if made, certain details such as when it will be made and when it would be completed.
Dow Jones received a payment from EQS/DGAP to publish this press release.

EQS-News / 21/08/2018 / 08:53 UTC+8 *[FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE] / Co-operation between Union Medical Healthcare and Tencent Doctorwork Jointly develop IT System* (21 August 2018, Hong Kong) *Union Medical Healthcare Limited* ("UMH" or the "Company", together with its subsidiaries, the "Group", SEHK stock code: 2138), a leading integrated medical group in Hong Kong, is pleased to announce that the Group has entered into an agreement with Tencent Doctorwork, to jointly establish primary care clinics in Hong Kong and co-invest and develop IT system to connect medical services across the PRC and Hong Kong such as onshore consultation delivered by offshore registered practitioners. Tencent Doctorwork and UMH shall hold as to 55% and 45% of the jointly invested company respectively and it is expected to operate 20 clinics. The current initial capital investment is expected to be no less than HK$10 million, with 2 clinics to be in operation by the end of 2018. *Mr. Wang Shirui, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Tencent Doctorwork* said, "The strategic partnership with UMH marked our debut in Hong Kong, as the first step to go global. We look forward to leverage on the UMH's competitive edge to offer top notch customers experience and aim to bring the best medical services to satisfy the unparallel demand of quality medical services, in particular in the PRC." *Mr. Eddy Tang, Chairman, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Union Medical Healthcare*, said, "We are pleased to ascertaining the co-investment in developing medical management IT system with Tencent Doctorwork. Registered Hong Kong Registered Practitioners will be able to offer online consultation via this system. We are to innovate the consultation mode, enhance the preventive and precision medical services by leveraging on IT management and AI technology, and transform the pattern of medical industry. The Group aspires to become the leader in the medical industry in Asia." - End - *About Union Medical Healthcare Limited* Union Medical Healthcare is principally engaged in the provision of one-stop medical and health care services in the Greater China via its 54 clinics and servicing centres with an aggregate service floor area of 240,000 sq. ft. The Group provides a full range of services and products under our well-recognised brands, including those of its one-stop aesthetic medical solutions provider DR REBORN, chiropractic services centre SPINE Central, health management and vaccination centre re:HEALTH and comprehensive dental centre UMH DENTAL CARE. The Group is the largest aesthetic medical service provider in Hong Kong in terms of revenue and obtained the Hong Kong Top Service Brand in 2016. *For further information, please contact: iPR Ogilvy & Mather* Callis Lau / Molisa Lau / Maggie Chui / Francesca Yeung Tel: (852) 2136 6952 / 2136 6953 / 2136 8059 / 3920 7639 Fax: (852) 3170 6606 Email: umh@iprogilvy.com Document: http://n.eqs.com/c/fncls.ssp?u=BHUNIWFODW [1] Document title: Mr. Eddy Tang, Chairman, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Union Medical Healthcare (left) and Mr. Wang Shirui, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Tencent Doctorwork (right) 21/08/2018 Dissemination of a Financial Press Release, transmitted by EQS Group. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Media archive at www.todayir.com 1: https://link.cockpit.eqs.com/cgi-bin/fncls.ssp?fn=redirect&url=aec711b373e3572dd54cf1b1214df35c&application_id=715819&site_id=vwd&application_name=news

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 20, 2018 20:53 ET (00:53 GMT)
WASHINGTON, DC / ACCESSWIRE / August 20, 2018 / Among the Saudi speakers, journalists, and writers who have recently been expressing open support for Israel, the voice of an intellectual "Abd Al-Hamid Al-Hakim was especially prominent. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has posted excerpts on their site from some of Al-Hakim's recent statements.

Al-Hakim, who was until recently the director of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies in Jeddah, visited Israel in July 2016 as part of a Saudi delegation headed by Major General Anwar Eshki.

Al-Hakim has expressed complete support for the state of Israel, its right to exist and its historical right to Jerusalem. On April 26, he responded to statements made by Dr. Mohammad Al-'Issa, secretary-general of the Saudi-based Muslim World League (MWL), in condemnation of the Holocaust. Al-Hakim tweeted: "Al-Issa's statement expressing sympathy for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and his condemnation of it as a heinous crime against humanity, are a good start for the campaign to uproot the culture of hatred for Jews. The second step should involve the curricula, so as to form societies that believe in the historical right of the Jews in the region and in the culture of peace."

"Stating that Israel is a buffer against the Iranian hostility in the region, he called to make peace with it, and also to eradicate the culture of hatred in the Arab world, including by amending school curricula," said MEMRI.

In another tweet that Al-Hakim posted on April 19, 2018, he even congratulated the people of Israel on their country's 70th independence day: "I congratulate the Israeli public on the occasion of Independence Day and take this opportunity to say to say to the Arab public: the Jews have a historical right to the state of Israel, as proven by the monotheistic scriptures and the history of the region. In 70 years Israel has become a First World country."

About The Antisemitism Documentation Project:

The Antisemitism Documentation Project documents antisemitic themes in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu, and Turkish newspaper reports, editorials, and other media sources. This project maintains the largest archive in the world of translated material from the Middle East from the past decade. In 2009, MEMRI, in conjunction with The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights, dedicated the Lantos Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial Archives, which will be the repository of MEMRI's Antisemitism Documentation Project.

About MEMRI:

Exploring the Middle East and South Asia through their media, MEMRI bridges the language gap between the West and the Middle East and South Asia, providing timely translations of Arabic, Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu, Dari, and Turkish media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends.

Founded in February 1998 to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization. MEMRI's main office is located in Washington, DC, with branch offices in various world capitals. MEMRI research is translated into English, French, Polish, Japanese, Spanish and Hebrew.

MEMRI - Middle East Media Research Institute: https://www.memri.org

MEMRI Highlights One of Its Successes In Work Against Extremism: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/memri-highlights-one-successes-against-013500762.html

MEMRI Posts Video of First Saudi Women Obtaining Driver's Licenses: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/3899337

Contact Information:

MEMRI

media@memri.org

202-955-9070

www.memri.org

SOURCE: MEMRI
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 20, 2018) - Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc. (CSE: LDS) (OTCQX LDSYF) (FSE: LD6) ("LDS" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that Dr. George Taylor, M.D. and Dr. Jonathan Lakey, Ph.D., have agreed to provide the Company with their guidance and expert advice as part of the Company's Scientific Advisory Board.

The Company, Dr. George Taylor, M.D., and Dr. Jonathan Lakey, Ph.D., entered into consulting agreements dated for reference August 15, 2018, and effective May 1, 2018, for an initial period up to December 31, 2018, renewing on a month-to-month basis thereafter. The Company agreed to pay both consultants US$1,000 per month for their contribution. In addition, the Company granted Dr. Taylor and Dr. Lakey options to acquire up to 35,000 of its common shares in aggregate. The options vested on August 15, 2018, and may be exercised at a price of $0.58 per share expiring on August 15, 2020.

In addition, on August 15, 2018, the Company granted an option to acquire up to 2,825,820 common shares to its Chief Executive Officer. The option vested immediately and may be exercised at a price of $0.58 per share expiring on August 15, 2020.

About Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc.

Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc. is a technology company that licenses its technology to a state-of-the-art production and packaging facility located in Southern California. The Company's technology produces infused strips (similar to breath strips) that are not only a safer, healthier option to any other form of delivery, but also allows for inclusion of a wide spectrum of ingredients from over the counter medications to homeopathic, nutraceutical, vitamins and supplements. The technology provides a new way to accurately meter the dosage and assure the purity of selected product. From start to finish, the production process, based on the Company's technology, tests for quality and composition of all the ingredients used in each and every strip which results in a delivery system that is safe, consistent and effective.

On behalf of the board of directors of Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc.

Brad Eckenweiler

CEO & Director

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

investor.relations@lifestyledeliverysystem.com

1-866-347-5058

Cautionary Disclaimer Statement:

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release.

Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of the date of this news release. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations. They are not guarantees of future performance. The Company cautions that all forward looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to the Company's limited operating history and the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations. In addition, marijuana remains a Schedule I drug under the United States Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Although Congress has prohibited the US Justice Department from spending federal funds to interfere with the implementation of state medical marijuana laws, this prohibition must be renewed each year to remain in effect. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.
MC2-01 Cream demonstrates statistically significant superiority in both treatment success and patient reported treatment convenience compared to Taclonex Topical Suspension. Both primary and secondary endpoints were met and a submission of NDA to the FDA is now planned for H1 2019.

MC2 Therapeutics A/S, an emerging pharmaceutical company developing next generation patient-friendly topical therapies for skin and eye diseases, today announced the following top-line data from its US Phase 3 study (n=796) on the company's investigational drug, MC2-01 Cream (calcipotriene and betamethasone dipropionate, w/w 0.005%/0.064%):

Primary end-point

MC2-01 Cream is superior to Taclonex Topical Suspension ("Taclonex") at Week 8 based on treatment success defined as a minimum two-point decrease in the Physician Global Assessment (PGA) score (40.1% versus 24.0%, p 0.0001). Accordingly, the trial met its primary endpoint to demonstrate non-inferiority of MC2-01 Cream to Taclonex

Secondary endpoints

MC2-01 Cream is superior to Taclonex based on percentage reduction in mPASI from baseline to Week 8 (64.8% versus 52.3%, p 0.0001) (MC2-01 Cream demonstrated fast onset of action with superiority (p 0.009) to Taclonex already at Week 1).

based on percentage reduction in mPASI from baseline to Week 8 (64.8% versus 52.3%, p 0.0001) (MC2-01 Cream demonstrated fast onset of action with superiority (p 0.009) to Taclonex already at Week 1). MC2-01 Cream is superior to Taclonex in Patient Treatment Convenience (p 0.0001)

in Patient Treatment Convenience (p 0.0001) MC2-01 Cream provides a robust reduction in itch (60.2% at Week 4) measured by the frequency of a four-grade or greater improvement on an 11-point numeric rating scale of itch severity.

"The significant improvements in both treatment success and patient reported treatment convenience are particularly encouraging," said Linda Stein Gold, MD, Director of Dermatology Clinical Research at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan, and lead investigator in the study. "Enhanced patient satisfaction enabled by the MC2-01 Cream PAD formulation may increase treatment compliance among patients, and positively impact real-life treatment outcomes even further. As such PAD Technology holds the promise of redefining topicals."

The adverse events seen in the trial were predictable pharmacological class effects typically associated with calcipotriene and topical corticosteroids, and the safety profile of MC2-01 cream was similar to that known from Taclonex

MC2 Therapeutics is pursuing a patient-centric approach to treating psoriasis by developing a once-daily, non-greasy topical treatment that can be conveniently applied to a large surface area of the body and absorbs quickly into the skin to provide rapid symptom relief. MC2-01 Cream is designed to allow patients to comfortably wear clothes immediately after application and go about their daily routines.

"We are extremely pleased with these superiority data from the head-to-head study of MC2-01 Cream versus Taclonex, which is widely regarded as a first line topical treatment of psoriasis," stated Jesper J. Lange, President of MC2 Therapeutics. "Psoriasis is a life-long condition that significantly impacts patients'

quality of life. MC2-01 Cream is designed to provide patients a new standard of care for the topical treatment of psoriasis that helps them effectively and conveniently manage their condition and minimize disruption to their daily routine and social interactions."

Lange added, "These data confirm the tremendous potential for PAD Technology as a broad platform for the development of new topical drugs that releases the full potential of the active ingredients, while being very pleasant to use for patients in daily routines. PAD Technology enables an expanded formulation space that opens the door for an array of new topical therapies that might not otherwise be developed e.g. due to challenges with delivery, solubility and stability of active ingredients."

About the MC2-01 Phase 3 Trial

This Phase 3, randomized, multicenter, investigator-blind, parallel-group trial evaluated the efficacy and safety of MC2-01 Cream compared to MC2-01 vehicle and the active comparator (Taclonex) in subjects with psoriasis vulgaris. The trial enrolled 796 patients at 55 dermatologists across the United States. Subjects applied trial medication topically once daily for eight weeks.

The primary objective was to show therapeutic non-inferiority of MC2-01 Cream to the active comparator, as well as to characterize the safety profile of MC2-01 Cream in subjects with psoriasis vulgaris. The primary efficacy endpoint was the proportion of subjects in each treatment group with "treatment success" at week eight, defined as a minimum two-point decrease from baseline in PGA score (i.e., a score of 0 (clear) or 1 (almost clear) disease for subjects with moderate disease at baseline, or a score of 0 (absent) for subjects with mild disease at baseline).

The full data from the trial will be presented at upcoming medical conferences. Global development of MC2- 01 will continue and MC2 Therapeutics plans to submit a New Drug Application (NDA) to FDA in the first half of 2019.

About MC2 Therapeutics A/S

MC2 Therapeutics A/S is a privately held pharmaceutical company that is applying its proprietary PAD Technology as a broad platform to enable the development of a new generation of patient friendly topical prescriptions and consumer healthcare products. The Company is advancing its own portfolio of products to treat skin and eye conditions and is collaborating with other pharmaceutical companies to unlock the full potential of their active pharmaceutical ingredients in new topical drug candidates.

For additional information on MC2 Therapeutics Group, please visit www.mc2therapeutics.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180820005642/en/

Contacts:

MC2 Therapeutics A/S

Investors:

Jesper J. Lange, +45 2018 2222

jjl@mc2therapeutics.com

or

Media Denmark:

Molecule A/S:

Mette Thorn Sorensen, +45 4138 4300

mts@moleculeconsultancy.com

or

Media ex-Denmark:

ICR Healthcare

James Heins, +1 203-682-8512

james.heins@icrinc.com

or

Darcie Robinson, +1 203-682-8379

darcie.robinson@icrinc.com
TEL AVIV, Israel, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Cellect Biotechnology Ltd. is developing a technological platform, the "ApoGraft", which functionally selects stem cells from a mixed population of cells based on their sensitivity to apoptosis. The first product under development is the ApoTainer selection kit. The company is currently conducting a proof-of-concept phase I/II trial with blood cancer patients in Israel, which is expected to be completed by the end of Q3-2018. Based on trial results and safety issues, the company plans to integrate its technology into a range of procedures that utilize stem cells, as well as into the manufacturing process of adult stem cell based products.

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.
GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Capio and Vivalto Sante ("Vivalto") today announce that they have entered into exclusivity regarding the proposed sale of Capio France to Vivalto pending the finalization of the documentation related thereto as is customary in the French market. The consideration for the proposed transaction would be an upfront enterprise value of MEUR 425 plus an earn-out contingent on 2018 financial performance, up to a total enterprise value of MEUR 455. The proposed purchase by Vivalto is binding on Vivalto and fully financed. The proposed transaction would accelerate the positioning towards the less capital intensive Nordic operations and build on Capio's leadership positions to further drive growth and shareholder value. The completion of the transaction would be subject to certain conditions, as further described below, including the approval of Capio's shareholders at an EGM, as required under Swedish takeover regulation, to be convened in due course.

"Under the proposed transaction, we would secure an attractive price for our French operations, allowing Capio to accelerate its focus on the less capital intensive Nordic operations and build on its current leadership positions to drive further growth in a highly fragmented market, aided by specialization and digitalization. The proposed combination of Capio France and Vivalto, also forms a strong healthcare provider positioned as the third largest private operator in France. Capio France, with its leading position in Modern Medicine and Rapid Recovery, will contribute to spread and accelerate its medical know-how for the benefit of the new company," said Thomas Berglund, President and CEO of Capio.

"Capio France and Vivalto share a common understanding of the rapid changes facing the French private hospitals industry and the absolute need to focus on modern medicine, digitalization and innovation. Both groups have a similar philosophy of excellence and of Star hospitals, placing the quality of care and the patient pathway, before and after hospitalization, in center of their strategy. The proposed transaction should strengthen both Capio France and Vivalto to the benefit of all stakeholders and also pave the way for future collaboration between Capio Group and Vivalto within research, digitalization and new services," said Daniel Caille Chairman and CEO of Vivalto.

Transaction details

The consideration for the proposed transaction would be an upfront enterprise value of MEUR 425 plus the earn-out contingent on 2018 financial performance in line with management expectations outlined in the January - June 2018 interim report, up to a total enterprise value of MEUR 455. This would imply an EBITDA multiple range of 9.0-9.6x and an EBITA multiple range of 19.0-20.3x based on Capio France's LTM financials as of June 30, 2018. The proposed purchase by Vivalto is binding on Vivalto and fully financed.

Net proceeds are expected to be between MEUR 400 to 430 after deducting external net debt transferred and other items including customary working capital adjustments estimated at in total MEUR 25. In addition, the deconsolidation of Capio France from Capio Group would also remove the retirement liabilities related to the French business, estimated at MEUR 33, from Capio Group's balance sheet (1). It is anticipated that proceeds from a sale would be used partly to pay down Capio Group debt and partly as a return of cash to shareholders. Capio will provide an update through which mechanisms this will be effected in due course.

Capio France employees' representatives will be consulted as per applicable French law. Vivalto has completed all material commercial/financial due diligence and the enterprise value and related adjustments are agreed upon. Finalization of the transaction would be subject to:

Completion of a confirmatory due diligence (including legal, tax and HR) of Capio France by Vivalto, the outcome of which may give Vivalto the right to terminate the proposed purchase, only if Vivalto were to identify risks (covered by the representations and warranties in the Sale and Purchase Agreement), for an aggregate amount of MEUR 25 or more

The approval of relevant regulatory authorities, and

The approval of the Capio shareholders at an EGM as required under Swedish takeover regulation as a consequence of Capio being subject to a public cash offer, to be convened in due course.

Provided that the conditions are satisfied, the transaction would be expected to close by end of December 2018. Capio has undertaken to cover Vivalto's costs in relation to the proposed transaction by paying Vivalto's actual costs and expenses up to MEUR 5.0 if the Capio board (i) terminates the proposed sale prior to having convened an EGM for approval of the proposed sale; (ii) does not convene or cancels the EGM, (iii) withdraws its proposal or its unanimous support for approval of the proposed sale by the EGM; including recommending the Capio shareholders to accept a public takeover offer for the shares in Capio. This cost-coverage arrangement has been approved by the Swedish Securities Council in AMN 2018:31. If Vivalto would not receive the approval of relevant regulatory authorities, Vivalto is obliged to cover Capio's actual costs and expenses up to MEUR 5.0. Further information will be provided to the Capio shareholders in good time prior to the EGM, including the Board's view of the Nordic market potential going forward. The EGM is expected to be held no later than two weeks before the expiry of the acceptance period under the public cash offer.

Focusing on the Nordics

Proceeds from the transaction will strengthen Capio's capital structure and significantly enhance management's ability to deliver Capio's strategic focus and drive shareholder value across its less capital intensive Nordic operations.

Capio has today an established base in Modern Medicine and the Nordic market provides clear opportunities for continued strong organic growth. Capio's specialized businesses and nationwide presence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark allow the company to rapidly expand tailor-made patient offerings and coherent care chains across the Nordic countries. Capio is at the forefront in driving digitalization in healthcare with its combined digital and physical platform (900,000 listed patients and more than 100 primary care centers), launched in Sweden and Norway to follow. The digital market in Sweden is currently growing at a rate of +100% p.a. and Capio is well positioned to capture growth in this rapidly growing market. In addition there are substantial growth opportunities through further consolidation of a fragmented market with a strengthened balance sheet.

As announced in the interim report January-June 2018, during the second half of 2018 Capio is preparing for a closer coordination of the businesses in Sweden, Norway and Denmark to accelerate growth and streamline offerings both from a medical and operational efficiency perspective. The step-wise implementation of this Nordic cooperation, based on specialization, will start in Q1 2019.

About Capio France

Capio has a strong national presence in seven healthcare regions, including the rapidly growing areas around Paris, Lyon and Toulouse. The segment's 22 hospitals and specialist clinics provide a wide range of treatments, primarily within medicine, surgery and obstetrics. For the rolling twelve month period ending June 30, 2018, Capio France's about 5,400 employees (average FTE) provided healthcare services across 645,000 outpatient visits and 130,000 inpatient visits respectively, generating net sales of MSEK 5,602 representing 35% of total group. The EBITDA of the same period was MSEK 479, representing 43% of total group and the EBITA was MSEK 227, representing 36% of total group. The capital employed of Capio France was MSEK 4,758 as at June 30, 2018.

Other

Capio continues to assess alternatives for its German operations and intend to intensify the process for the divestment of this operation from the beginning of September. Capio will return with more information once available.

PJT Partners is acting as exclusive financial adviser, Mannheimer Swartling and Allen & Overy are acting as legal advisers and Fogel & Partners as communication adviser to Capio on this transaction.

The Board of Directors of Capio AB (publ)

Media and investor call invitation

Media representatives, investors and analysts are invited to participate in telephone conferences as below. CEO Thomas Berglund and CFO Olof Bengtsson will comment on the proposed transaction and answer questions. Prior to the start of the telephone conference, presentation slides will be available at www.capio.com.

Media conference call

Tuesday August 21, 2018 at 09.15 (CET)

To participate in the telephone conference, please register and dial in five minutes prior to the start of the conference call.

Sweden: +46-8-566 426 94

France: +33-170-75-07-12

UK: +44-20-3008-9802

US: +1-855-831-5945

Investor and analyst conference call

Tuesday August 21, 2018 at 10.30 (CET)

To participate in the telephone conference, please register and dial in five minutes prior to the start of the conference call.

Sweden: +46-8-566-426-64

France: +33-170-75-07-25

UK: +44-20-3008-9813

US: +1-855-753-2237

Contact:

Thomas Berglund

President and CEO

Telephone: +46-733-88-86-00

E-mail: thomas.berglund@capio.com



Olof Bengtsson

CFO

Telephone: +46-761-18-74-69

E-mail: olof.bengtsson@capio.com



Henrik Brehmer

SVP Group Communication & Public Affairs

Telephone: +46-761-11-34-14

E-mail: henrik.brehmer@capio.com

This is information that Capio AB (publ) is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above, at 08.45 a.m. (CET) on August 21, 2018.

(1) Estimated adjustments assuming illustrative closing at the end of 2018

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/capio-ab/r/capio-announces-the-proposed-sale-of-capio-france-to-vivalto-sante,c2596537

The following files are available for download:
Fund investors in GLP EIP I and GLP EDP I comprise global sovereign wealth funds, pension plans, property and insurance companies; GLP is the manager and retains a 13% stake across both funds

GLP welcomes several new investors to its fund management platform including Korea Fire Officials Credit Union, Oxford Properties, QuadReal Property Group and Tesco Pension Investment

Demand from institutional investors remains strong; GLP plans to establish additional funds across Europe

LONDON, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- GLP, the leading global provider of modern logistics facilities and technology-led solutions, today announced the close of GLP Europe Income Partners I ("GLP EIP I") and GLP Europe Development Partners I ("GLP EDP I"). Long-term investors, including sovereign wealth funds, pension plans, property and insurance companies from North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, have invested in the funds.

GLP welcomes several new investors to its fund management platform including: Korea Fire Officials Credit Union, the savings fund for Korea's fire service, Oxford Properties, the global real estate arm of OMERS, the defined benefit pension plan for municipal employees, QuadReal Property Group, the global real estate investment arm of BCI, Tesco Pension Investment, one of the largest private sector pension schemes in the UK. QuadReal Property Group has invested in GLP EDP I.

Ming Mei, Co-Founder and CEO of GLP, said: "We are pleased to further grow our fund management platform and welcome new partners while strengthening existing long-term investor relationships. Demand from institutional investors to partner with GLP remains strong and we plan to establish additional funds across Europe."

In December 2017, GLP established US$4.0 billion (EUR3.4 billion) of new funds in conjunction with its acquisition of Gazeley, a premier developer, investor and manager of logistics warehouses and distribution parks in Europe. Gazeley's platform comprises a 1.6 million sqm (17 million square feet) operational portfolio and development pipeline of 1.4 million sqm (16 million square feet) concentrated in the strategic logistics markets of the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands.

About GLP (www.glprop.com)

GLP is the leading global provider of modern logistics facilities and technology-led solutions, with over US$50 billion in assets under management across its real estate and private equity segments. The Company's real estate fund platform is one of the largest in the world, spanning 62 million square meters (667 million square feet) globally.

About Gazeley (www.gazeley.com)

Gazeley is a leading developer, investor and manager of European logistics warehouses and distribution parks with a 17 million square foot portfolio concentrated in the strategic logistics markets of the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands. In addition to its operating portfolio, which is 96% leased to blue chip customers such as Amazon, UPS and Volkswagen, Gazeley has a prime land bank which allows for the development of an additional 16 million square feet. Gazeley is GLP's Europe platform.

Media Contact (GLP):

Ambika Goel, CFA

SVP- Capital Markets

Tel: +65 6643 6372

Email: agoel@glprop.com

Media Contact (Gazeley):

Rob Yates

Smithfield

Tel: +44 (0)20 3047 2546

Email: ryates@smithfieldgroup.com

This press release is not an offer of securities for sale or a solicitation of an offer to purchase securities. The information in this press release may not contain, and you may not rely on this press release as providing, all material information concerning the condition (financial or other), earnings, business affairs, business prospects, properties or results of operations of GLP or its subsidiaries. This release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding the intent, belief and current expectations of GLP or its officers with respect to various matters. When used in this press release, the words "expects," "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "may," "will," "should," "intends," "foresees," "estimates," "projects," and similar expressions, and the negatives thereof, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Similarly, statements that describe objectives, plans or goals also are forward-looking statements. Actual future performance, outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements as a result of a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Representative examples of these factors include (without limitation) general industry and economic conditions, interest rate trends, cost of capital and capital availability, availability of real estate properties, competition from other companies and venues for the sale/distribution of goods and services, shifts in customer demands, customers and partners, changes in operating expenses, including employee wages, benefits and training, governmental and public policy changes, and the continued availability of financing in the amounts and the terms necessary to support future business. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are based on the current view of management on future events and speak only as of the date of this press release. GLP does not undertake to revise forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances. No assurance can be given that future events will occur, that projections will be achieved, or that GLP's assumptions are correct.

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Afghan forces responded quickly and were able to free 149 people and kill at least seven Taliban fighters, he said.

The fate of the abducted in Kunduz province  in an area that has recently fallen under Taliban control  was not immediately known and there was no statement from the insurgents. (Representational | AP)

Kabul: Afghan forces rescued nearly 150 people Monday, including women and children, hours after the Taliban ambushed a convoy of buses and abducted them. The quick response marked a rare if limited battlefield success for the troops after weeks of unrelenting insurgent attacks.

The militants escaped with 21 captives following the battle in Kunduz province, and officials said tribal elders were trying to negotiate their release. Esmatullah Muradi, a spokesman for the governor in the northern province, said the Taliban have demanded the national identifications of the captives to determine their fate.

The identities of the captives have not been made public, but Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, the head of the provincial council, said the insurgents likely targeted the three buses to try to abduct civil servants or members of the security forces.

The Taliban stopped the buses in the Khan Abad district and ordered the passengers to come with them, according to Nasrat Rahimi, deputy spokesman for the interior ministry.

Afghan forces responded quickly and were able to free 149 people and kill at least seven Taliban fighters, he said.
COMMERZBANK AG (London Branch) - Pre Stabilisation - Commerzbank AG dual Snr Pref 5&10yr

Pre-Stabilisation notice

August 21 2018

Not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or any jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful.

Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft

 Benchmark Fixed Rate Senior Preferred due 28 August 2023

 500,000,000 Fixed Rate Senior Preferred due 28 August 2028

Launched pursuant to the Issuer's MTN Programme, dated 16 August 2018

Pre-Stabilisation Notice

Commerzbank AG (contact: Daniela Olt-Farrelly; telephone: +49 69 13623492) hereby announces, as Stabilisation Coordinator, that the Stabilising Managers named below may stabilise the offer of the following securities in accordance with Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052 under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU Regulation 596/2014).

The security to be stabilised: Issuer: Commerzbank AG Guarantor (if any): none Aggregate nominal amount: 5yr EUR benchmark

10yr EUR 500,000,0000 Description: EUR 5 year Benchmark Senior Preferred and EUR 500mil 10yr Senior Preferred Offer price: tbc Other offer terms: Fixed coupon, expected ratings: A1 stbl (Moody's)/A- negative (S&P)/A- (Fitch) Stabilisation: Stabilisation Coordinator:

Stabilising Managers: Commerzbank AG

Barclays Bank plc

BNP Paribas

Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch

UBS AG Stabilisation period expected to start on: 21 August 2018 Stabilisation period expected to end on: no later than 30 days after the proposed issue date of the securities Existence, maximum size and conditions of use of over-allotment facility. The Stabilising Managers may over-allot the securities to the extent permitted in accordance with applicable law. Stabilisation trading venue: Frankfurt regulated market

In connection with the offer of the above securities, the Stabilising Manager(s) may over-allot the securities or effect transactions with a view to supporting the market price of the securities during the stabilisation period at a level higher than that which might otherwise prevail. However, stabilisation may not necessarily occur and any stabilisation action, if begun, may cease at any time Any stabilisation action or over-allotment shall be conducted in accordance with all applicable laws and rules.

This announcement is for information purposes only and does not constitute an invitation or offer to underwrite, subscribe for or otherwise acquire or dispose of any securities of the Issuer in any jurisdiction.

This announcement is not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or any other jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful.
MANCHESTER, England, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

TITUS, a leading provider of data classification and protection solutions, today announced it has signed a distribution agreement with SPECTRAMI for the Netherlands and DACH region.

TITUS' flexible software enables organisations to meet compliance regulations, standards, and frameworks such as the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) in Switzerland, ISO/IEC 27001:2013, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and many more.

Nick Maxwell, EMEA Director at TITUS, said:

"We are excited to work with SPECTRAMI to grow our presence in Netherlands and the DACH region. We understand employees work across platforms, devices, and productivity tools, so they need solutions to help apply the right level of protection at the right time to keep information moving securely. We are looking forward to the opportunity to provide organisations throughout the region with the technology they need to meet regulatory compliance, such as the EU's GDPR, and to enable secure collaboration with best-in-class data protection solutions."

Anas Handous, Managing Director at SPECTRAMI DACH, said:

"The growing risk of advanced threats in the realm of information security has seen organisations willing to invest highly in data protection. We see a tremendous synergy in extending our relationship with TITUS, global leader in data classification and protection, to our customers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Netherlands. With its global presence and extensive customer base across various industries, TITUS adds tremendous value to our existing security portfolio, allowing us to deliver their products to organisations to better manage and protect their data."

About TITUS

TITUS solutions enable organisations to discover, classify, protect, analyse and confidently share information. Organisations use TITUS to meet regulatory compliance requirements by identifying and securing unstructured data - on the desktop, on mobile devices, and in the cloud. Millions of users in over 120 countries trust TITUS to keep their data compliant and secure, including some of the largest financial institutions and manufacturing companies in the world, government and military organisations across the G-7 and Australia, and Fortune 2000 companies. Additional information is available at http://www.TITUS.com.

About SPECTRAMI

SPECTRAMI is one of the most high-growth, value added distributors based in Dubai, Germany, Netherlands and the UK, to serve the channel across EMEA. SPECTRAMI brings niche technologies and solutions in the realm of Information Security, Data Centre Infrastructure, and Data Communication Networks. We help organisations to meet regulatory standards on their infrastructure, protect sensitive enterprise data and applications. SPECTRAMI has been working with large IT Security System Integrators to service regional Governments, Banking and Finance, Telcos, Oil & Gas, Education, Healthcare, Hospitality and Retail sectors for over five years. We attribute our success to a combination of channel empowerment through knowledge sharing and skill building together with our ethos to continually develop and improve all aspects of the business and thereby ensure a consistently high level of customer satisfaction. For more information visit http://www.SPECTRAMI.com.

Media Contact:

Elias Rassi

PR Manager, TITUS

elias.rassi@titus.com

+1-613-820-5111 ext. 286
Fielding Worldwide Inquiries for New Non-Lethal Tool

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA / ACCESSWIRE / August 21, 2018 / Wrap Technologies, Inc. (OTCQB: WRTC), an innovator of modern policing solutions, announced today it has accepted its first international order for its BolaWrap 100 non-lethal remote restraint device.

"We are seeing a dramatic increase in interest in BolaWrap 100 both domestically and internationally as a result of media and our marketing efforts," said David Norris, President of Wrap Technologies. "We are being very selective as we develop export opportunities and acceptance of this first opening Asian order follows several months of diligence."

In recent weeks the Company has fielded multiple inquiries from Europe, Asia (including the Middle East), Central and South America and Canada. The largest 100 countries in these markets represent an addressable market of over 12 million police officers compared to 765,000 sworn officers in the United States. In many countries, including England, Ireland, New Zealand, Iceland, Norway and others, police officers do not routinely carry firearms and have limited tools to engage an increasingly non-compliant public.

"While police worldwide are universally trained to de-escalate hostile situations and use minimal violence in response to a threat, challenges and controversies regarding use of force and mental health encounters create a receptive global market for our new early engagement tool," stated Mr. Norris. "Our aggressive growth strategy includes targeting important international markets both directly and through qualified representatives."

The Company reported that it is designing production to meet the potential of a very large global market for the BolaWrap 100. It is also developing export compliance and the logistics required to deliver in selected international markets. The Company owns three U.S. patents and five pending patents on its technology. The Company has also filed to reserve all international patent rights to its BolaWrap innovations. Other technology innovations are currently under development expected to result in more patent filings this year. The Company's strategy is to aggressively secure its product innovations in both domestic and international markets.

For information on the Company please visit www.wraptechnologies.com. Examples of recent media coverage are available as links under the "Media" tab of the website.

About Wrap Technologies (OTCQB: WRTC)

Wrap Technologies is an innovator of modern policing solutions. Wrap Technology premiered its hand-held BolaWrap 100 remote restraint solution at the International Association of Police Chiefs (IACP) October 2017 international conference. In December 2017 the Company completed a self-underwritten IPO and trades on the OTCQB Venture Market for early stage and developing U.S. and international companies.

BolaWrap is a patented, hand-held remote restraint device that discharges an eight-foot bola style Kevlar tether to entangle an individual at a range of 10-25 feet. Developed by award winning inventor Elwood Norris, the small but powerful BolaWrap assists law enforcement to safely and effectively control encounters.

Trademark Information: BolaWrap is a trademark of Wrap Technologies, Inc. All other trade names used herein are either trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective holders.

Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements - Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains " forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including but not limited to statements regarding the Company's overall business, total addressable market and expectations regarding future sales and expenses. Words such as "expect," "anticipate," "should," "believe," "target," "project," "goals," "estimate," "potential," "predict," "may," "will," "could," "intend," variations of these terms or the negative of these terms and similar expressions are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which involve factors or circumstances that are beyond the company's control. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including but not limited to: the Company's ability to manufacture and produce product for its customers; the Company's ability to develop sales for its new product solution; the acceptance of existing and future products; the availability of funding to continue to finance operations; the complexity, expense and time associated with sales to law enforcement and government entities; the lengthy evaluation and sales cycle for the Company's product solution; product defects; litigation risks from alleged product-related injuries; risks of government regulations; the ability to obtain patents and defend IP against competitors; the impact of competitive products and solutions; and the Company's ability to maintain and enhance its brand, as well as other risk factors included in the Company's most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q and other SEC filings. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and were based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections as well as the beliefs and assumptions of management. Except as required by law, the Company undertakes no duty or obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release as a result of new information, future events or changes in its expectations.

WRAP TECHNOLOGIES' CONTACT :

David Norris

800-583-2652, Ext #504

david@wraptechnologies.com

SOURCE: Wrap Technologies, Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2018) - Lupaka Gold Corp. ("Lupaka Gold" or the "Company") (TSXV: LPK) (FSE: LQP) is pleased to provide an update on recent development activities at the Invicta Gold Development Project ("Invicta"). Processing of mineralized development material from Invicta has recently commenced and the first concentrates have been successfully produced. The mineralized development material was transported to two local toll milling facilities, following substantial completion of the road rehabilitation and upgrade project.

Highlights:

Rehabilitation and upgrade of the 26 k ilometre ("km") main access road is substantially complete ; transportation of mineralized development material to local toll milling facilities was initiated during Q2 2018

Approximately 6,500 tonnes ("t") of mineralized development material was extracted from the 3400 Level, the 3430 sublevel , and the relief raise , stockpiled on surface and systematically sampled returning an average grade of 7. 21 grams per tonne ("g/t") gold equivalent ("Au-Eq") *

The 6 , 5 00 t of mineralized development material was transported to two local toll milling facilit ies, and to date, approximately 1,900 t have been processed

In September, an additional 6,000 t of mineralized development material will be transported to a third toll milling facility for processing

I nspection by the Ministry of Mines and Energy for the mining exploitation license is expected to be completed before the end of October

Production from the first test mining stope expected during Q3 2018

* Au-Eq. calculations are based on US$1250 for gold ("Au"), US$17.00 for silver ("Ag"), US$3.00 for copper ("Cu"), US$1.25 for zinc ("Zn"), and US$1.05 for lead ("Pb"), with assumed metallurgical recoveries of 85% for Au, 80% for Ag, 82 % for Cu and Pb, and 77% for Zn. Individual grades were 3.23 g/t Au, 49.13 g/t Ag, 1.3% Cu, 1.22% Pb, and 1.04% Zn

"We are encouraged by the development activities achieved to-date at Invicta. Substantial completion of the road rehabilitation project has allowed us to commence the evaluation of local toll processing facilities and the ability to generate some initial cash flow ahead of production. Our operations team have been working diligently on all fronts, and we are on track to commence test mining within our budgeted timeline."

Will Ansley, CEO and President of Lupaka

Transportation of Mineralized Material & Toll Processing Activities

Upgrade and rehabilitation work to the 28 km main access road, from the paved highway to Invicta, is now substantially complete. This work included widening the road from 4 metres ("m") to approximately 6 m, construction of four by-passes to circumvent communities and difficult portions of the road where numerous switchbacks occurred, improving the road surface to allow 30 t haulage trucks and heavy machinery to travel, and the installation of berms and drainage ditches. Along with the reduction of traffic within the communities and increasing the efficiency of hauling, the main and most important benefits of these improvements is increasing safety conditions for transporting mineralized material and people.

Completion of the road project allowed the Company to initiate transportation of mineralized development material. Approximately 6,500 t of mineralized development material was extracted from the 3400 Level, the 3430 sublevel, and the relief raise, stockpiled on surface and systematically sampled returning an average grade of 7.21 g/t Au-Eq*. This material was transported to two toll milling facilities comprising 5,000 t to the Coriland plant and 1,500 t to the Huari plant, located some 170 km and 365 km from Invicta, respectively. To date, 1,900 t of mineralized material has been processed and it is expected that the remaining 4,600 t will be processed by the end of Q3 2018. Concentrate sale proceeds from the 6,500 t will be used to offset Invicta's development costs.

In September, an additional 6,000 t of mineralized development material will be transported to a third, larger, toll milling facility, located 340 km from Invicta, for processing and evaluation.

Development Activities and Exploitation License

In addition to completion of the road rehabilitation and upgrade project, recent development activities consisted of: 146 m of development on the 3430 sublevel; 30 m of vertical development for a relief slot between the 3400 Level and 3430 sublevel; slashing and rehabilitation from 3.5 m x 3.0 m to 4.5 m x 4.0 m; installation of ground support over 176 m on the 3400 Level; establishment of the ventilation circuit, installation of the underground electrical, compressed air, and mine water catchment and related treatment facilities. Figure 1 illustrates the development and mining schedule through October 2018.

With the advancement of Invicta's development to-date, the Company is preparing a filing to obtain the final mining exploitation license, which requires an inspection by the Ministry of Mines and Energy. It is anticipated the inspection will be performed before the end of October and upon successful receipt of the exploitation license, the Company will have the ability to produce at a rate of 400 t per day ("tpd"), or approximately 12,000 t per month.



Figure 1 - Invicta Development and Mining Schedule



To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

http://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/2640/38192_a1534817602187_19.jpg

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as the term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of this news release.

About Lupaka Gold

Lupaka is an active Canadian-based company focused on creating shareholder value through discoveries and strategic development of its assets in some of the most prolific mining regions of Peru.

Invicta Gold Development Project - 100% owned, the Company's flagship project is an advanced stage gold-copper polymetallic underground deposit located approximately 120 kilometres north of Lima. Over $12 million of capital has been spent by previous owners on development and infrastructure at Invicta, and management expects to commence production in the second half of 2018 by using third-party mining contractors and utilizing the existing adit and workings. The Invicta project is fully permitted and community agreements are in place.

The underground operation of the Atenea vein will be focused initially on the extraction of about 80,000 t of Indicated Mineral Resources that has been exposed on three sides comprising the 3400 and 3430 sublevels plus the mining relief slot from the 3400 to the 3430 sublevel, and the Inferred Mineral Resources within close proximity of the existing 3400 Level adit (up to 130 metres above the 3400 Level).

Invicta's approved EIA allows for mine production of up to 1,000 tpd, although the current conceptual mining plan is scheduling to commence at 350 tpd.

Cautionary Note Regarding the Invicta Production Decision

The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves and there is no certainty that the PEA will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The quantity and grade of reported inferred resources referred to in the PEA are uncertain in nature and there has been insufficient exploration to define these inferred resources as an indicated or measured mineral resource category.

It is important to note while a mine production decision has been made by the Company, that the information provided in this news release is preliminary in nature. There is no certainty that a potential mine will be realized. A mine production decision that is not based on a feasibility study demonstrating economic and technical viability does not provide adequate disclosure of the increased uncertainty and specific economic and technical risks of failure associated with such a production decision.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Will Ansley, President & C.E.O.

wansley@lupakagold.com

Tel: (416) 862-5257

or visit the Company's profile at www.sedar.com or its website at www.lupakagold.com

Qualified Person

The technical information in this document has been reviewed and approved by Julio Castaneda Mondragon, MAIG, the President of Lupaka Gold Peru S.A.C., a Peruvian subsidiary of the Company, and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Castaneda has verified the scientific and technical information, including sampling, analytical and test data underlying the information or opinions contained in this news release.

Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking statements which constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including all statements, trend analysis and other information relative to anticipated future events or results. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are considered forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements relating to: the processing of an additional 4,600 tonnes of mineralized development material and the anticipated timing and results thereof; the transport of an additional 6,000 tonnes of mineralized development material to a third toll milling facility, and the timing and results thereof; any generation of cash flow there-form; and the commencement of production from Invicta in Q3 2018.

Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, estimates and opinions of management at the date the statements are made and which the Company believes are reasonable. Such information involves risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed on such information, as unknown or unpredictable factors could have material adverse effects on future results, performance or achievements of the Company. Among the key factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information are the following: that the repayment of the PLI Financing is consummated on the anticipated terms; that the Company will not experience any material accident, labour dispute, shortage of skilled and professional staff, changes in project plans, equipment availability and failures, process failures, the ability of third party service providers to deliver services on reasonable terms and in a timely manner; future exploration activities planned at the Invicta Gold Project, and the timing and results thereof; market conditions and general business, economic, competitive, political and social conditions and with respect to the planned mining operations at Invicta; that pre-production mine development can be completed in the time and for the cost projected; that the Company will be able to obtain funding for planned production expenses; that mineralization at Invicta will be of the grades and in the locations expected; that the Company will be able to extract and transport mineralized rock efficiently and sell the mineralized rock at the prices and in the manner recoveries and quantities expected; that permits will be received on the terms and timeline expected and that other regulatory or permitting issues will not arise; that mining methods and reclamation can be employed in the manner and at the costs expected and that such methods yield the results the Company expects them to. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such risks, uncertainties and other factors include, among others: all of the risks described in this news release; that the Company will not be able to comply with the delivery or other obligations in the PLI Financing Agreement and the risk that PLI will enforce its security over the Company's assets, including its mineral properties; s; changes in commodity prices; currency exchange rates (such as the Canadian dollar versus the United States dollar); risks associated with dilution; labour and employment matters; risks in the event of a potential conflict of interest; changes in general economic, business and political conditions, including changes in the financial markets; changes in applicable laws; and compliance with extensive government regulation; and other risks generally associated with mineral exploration. This forward-looking information may be affected by risks and uncertainties in the regular course of business and due to market conditions. Additional risks are described in the Company's annual information form, which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to not be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information due to the inherent uncertainty thereof. Lupaka Gold does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 12, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- SoftServe, a leading digital authority and consulting company, announces it achieved the Infrastructure Partner Specialization in the Google Cloud Premier Partner Program. SoftServe received this Infrastructure Specialization in addition to the Machine Learning Specialization achieved in December 2018. These Partner Specializations affirm SoftServe's expertise and success building customer solutions using Google Cloud Platform (GCP) technology.

The Google Cloud Partner Specialization Program is designed to provide Google Cloud customers with qualified partners that demonstrate technical proficiency in specialized solution and service areas. Specifically, the Infrastructure Specialization demonstrates SoftServe's expertise in assisting customers to architect and build customers' Google Cloud Platform infrastructure, workflows, and migrate to Google Cloud Platform.

"SoftServe has proven success in building customer workflows on Google Cloud Platform and seamlessly moving them to Google Cloud's secure cloud infrastructure where customers can effectively store, analyze, and optimize data for the future," said Volodymyr Yelchev, vice president, critical services at SoftServe. "This Infrastructure Specialization validates the hard work we do every day, as well as our commitment to providing our customers with the unmatched solutions and service that meet their unique requirements."

SoftServe joined the Google Cloud Partner Program in April 2017 and became a Google Cloud Premier Partner in August 2018. To date, SoftServe has 176 GCP professional certifications.

About SoftServe

SoftServe is a digital authority that advises and provides at the cutting-edge of technology. We reveal, transform, accelerate, and optimize the way enterprises and software companies do business. With expertise across healthcare, retail, media, financial services, software, and more, we implement end-to-end solutions to deliver the innovation, quality, and speed that our clients' users expect.

SoftServe delivers open innovation-from generating compelling new ideas, to developing and implementing transformational products and services.

Our work and client experience is built on a foundation of empathetic, human-focused experience design that ensures continuity from concept to release.

We empower enterprises and software companies to (re)identify differentiation, accelerate solution development, and vigorously compete in today's digital economy. No matter where you are in your journey.

Visit our website, blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter pages.

SoftServe Media Contact

Paul Jones

Senior Manager, Analyst and Public Relations

pjone@softserveinc.com

512-796-7358

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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / August 21, 2018 / Luxoft Holding, Inc (NYSE: LXFT), a global IT service provider, today announced that it will be participating in Citi's Global Tech Conference in New York City on Wednesday, September 5, 2018.

Dmitry Loschinin, Chief Executive Officer, Evgeny Fetisov, Chief Financial Officer, and Tracy Krumme, Vice President, Investor Relations, will be conducting one-on-one meetings and participating in a fireside chat at 2:15pm EST that day. The live webcast can be accessed here and will be available on our website.

About Luxoft

Luxoft (NYSE: LXFT) is a global IT service provider of innovative technology solutions that delivers measurable business outcomes to multinational companies. Its offerings encompass strategic consulting, custom software development services, and digital solution engineering. Luxoft enables companies to compete by leveraging its multi-industry expertise in the financial services, automotive, communications, and healthcare & life sciences sectors. Its managed delivery model is underpinned by a highly-educated workforce, allowing the Company to continuously innovate upwards on the technology stack to meet evolving digital challenges.



Luxoft has over 12,700 employees across 42 cities in 21 countries within five continents, with its operating headquarters office in Zug, Switzerland. For more information, please visit www.luxoft.com.

Investor Inquires

Tracy Krumme

Vice President, Investor Relations

212-964-9900 ext. 2460

IR@luxoft.com

Media Inquiries

Robert Maccabe

Director, Public Relations

+44 (0)20 3828 2346

Press@luxoft.com

Twitter: @Luxoft

SOURCE: Luxoft Holding, Inc.
ALBANY, New York, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The global roofing market was valued at US$ 92,430.94 Mn in 2017 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 4.9% from 2018 to 2026, according to a new report titled 'Roofing Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 2018-2026,' published by Transparency Market Research (TMR). The global roofing market is driven by expansion in the global construction industry. Asia Pacific accounts for major share of the global roofing market, led by the increase in construction activities and rise in awareness about sustainable construction materials in the region.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/664869/Transparency_Market_Research_Logo.jpg )



Expansion in Global Construction Industry to Drive Market

The construction industry is a significant end-user of roofing materials. It is expanding steadily in developing countries and sub-regions such as India, China, ASEAN, GCC, and Africa. The rate of urbanization is on the rise in these countries and sub-regions due to the improvement in standard of living. The roofing market is expanding rapidly with industrialization and growth in residential and commercial developments. Significant expansion in the construction sector in developing countries and technological advancements have boosted the adoption of quality roofing systems.

Request a Sample of Roofing Market:https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=48603

The construction industry in India and the Middle East has expanded at a rapid pace in the last few years. This trend is expected to continue in the near future. Robust expansion in the construction industry in the UAE and Qatar due to the increase in government expenditure on commercial and industrial projects is anticipated to drive the roofing market in these countries. This is estimated to create significant opportunities for roofing manufacturers, primarily in the industrial sector. Increase in re-roofing activities for existing buildings, typically in the U.S., Canada, and Germany, is estimated to boost the demand for roofing materials during the forecast period. Additionally, increase in reconstruction activities in Asia Pacific in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Nepal, and Sri Lanka is also projected to drive the market during the forecast period.

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Metal roofing, especially steel roofing with galvanized iron or ZN-Al coating, has been gaining momentum in commercial and industrial applications of the roofing market since the last few years. It is also becoming increasingly popular in residential projects including multi-story apartments, complexes, and single-family homes. Currently, metal roofs have become a rapidly developing innovation in the home remodeling applications, they are durable and offer exceptional protection and high longevity. These roofing materials are recyclable and are available in a wide range of shapes, colors, and finishes. Metal roofing is proving attractive to many homeowners as it is designed to last for 50 years. Metal roofing can accommodate green technologies such as solar harvesting panels and water harvesting systems. For instance, the Government of India is planning to introduce tax benefits for house owners who install metal roofs. Rise in demand for energy-efficient metal roofs with built-in solar panels is expected to provide lucrative opportunities to roofing manufacturers.

Volatility in Raw Material Prices Anticipated to Hamper Roofing Market

The global roofing market is prone to fluctuations in prices of raw materials such as acrylic acid. Constant volatility in prices of raw materials is adversely affecting the roofing market. Bitumen or asphalt is the major raw material used in the manufacture of bituminous roofing materials, which is the leading product segment of the roofing market. Quality and availability of asphalt is a challenge for manufacturers of roofing materials. Gasoline is a key raw material for bitumen. Demand for gasoline is still declining. This has adversely affected the supply of bitumen and asphalt. Furthermore, high cost of manufacturing techniques such as the oxidation process have raised the production cost of bituminous roofing. Additionally, high prices of polymer and fiber cement are estimated to hamper the roofing market during the forecast period.

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Bituminous Segment to Dominate Global Roofing Market

The global roofing market has been segmented based on product, application, and region. Based on product, the market can be divided into bituminous, metal, elastomeric, tiles, and others. Bituminous is the dominant segment of the roofing market. Bitumen roofing can be applied for hot as well as cold applications. It provides superior waterproofing protection to buildings and is highly durable. It possesses high tensile strength and is unlikely to form cracks compared to its counterparts. Rise in demand for modified bitumen roofing systems is driving the demand for bituminous roofing.

Asia Pacific Dominates Global Roofing Market

In terms of region, Asia Pacific accounted for major share of the global roofing market in 2017. Countries such as India, China, Vietnam, and Indonesia are expected to provide lucrative opportunities to manufacturers of roofing owing to the increase in disposable income, growth in population, expansion in construction industry, and rise in demand for residential complexes and industrial warehouses. Demand for retrofitting of residential complexes is significantly high in the U.S. and Europe. This is estimated to boost the roofing market in these regions during the forecast period. Middle East & Africa is expected to provide lucrative opportunities to the roofing market during the forecast period due to the rising investment in the construction sector, which consists of commercial establishments, public infrastructure, and utilities, in the region. Increase in government expenditure on commercial and industrial projects typically in the UAE and Qatar due to government efforts to reduce its reliance on oil revenues is expected to drive the market in these countries. These factors are driving the global roofing market.

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High Degree of Competition among Established Players

Key players profiled in the report are Owens Corning, CertainTeed Corporation, GAF Materials Corporation, TAMKO Building Products, Inc., Carlisle Companies Incorporated, Atlas Roofing Corporation, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Firestone Building Products Company, LLC, Sika AG, Monier Building Group, and IKO Industries Ltd. The top five players - Owens Corning, Carlisle Companies Incorporated, Braas Monier Building Group Services S.A., Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (Johns Manville), and CertainTeed Corporation - cumulatively accounted for more than 10% share of the market in 2017. These companies consistently develop new global strategies to expand their capacity and product portfolios of roofing products through joint ventures and research & development activities. For instance, in 2017, Tamco Building Products Inc. launched a new series Heritage Designer Ridge asphalt shingle for western, southwest, and central U.S. These products are manufactured by using SBS modified bitumen technology.

Global Roofing Market, by Product

Bituminous

Metal

Tiles

Elastomeric

Others

Global Roofing Market, by Application

Residential

Commercial

Non-commercial

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Adding energy-intensive industries to microgrids can help refinance system costs and can lower tariffs for residential consumers, a study suggests. To achieve this though, accurate system design and sizing are essential.According to a new report by Energy 4 Impact, the business case for microgrids in rural Africa improves with the addition of "productive use of energy" (PUE). The authors of the study - produced with the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in support of Power Africa's Beyond the Grid Program - say the increased use of energy by small agriculture, sawmills and other ...

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.
Expanded Microsoft Solutions practice enables Yorktel to lead clients' digital transformation as a trusted partner, solutions developer and managed service provider

London, United Kingdom, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Yorktel today announced the private acquisition of a Microsoft Solutions practice and the appointment of Jeremy Short as Senior Vice President to lead the division. The practice's continued focus will be delivering the Microsoft Modern Workplace to clients as a One Commercial Partner, along with innovative solutions development and managed services. The acquisition is another key milestone in Yorktel's ongoing expansion and growth, further solidifying the company's position as a valued, sole-source multi-vendor strategic technology partner that delivers the latest in collaboration solutions and managed services to enterprise, government and healthcare organisations.





The rising need for organisations to invest in digital transformation in order to stay competitive, create operational efficiencies and optimise the workforce has created the demand for fewer, but more capable, technology partners. This demand is the catalyst for the expansion of the Yorktel Microsoft Solutions practise. The team has a deep knowledge base of Microsoft's enterprise ecosystem. Yorktel now has seven (7) Gold Competencies, three (3) Silver Competencies, is a tier-1 direct Cloud Service Provider (CSP) and a Managed Surface Devices reseller. Yorktel's expertise encompasses all forms of Microsoft cloud and on-premise communication, collaboration and productivity tools such as Teams, Skype, Office365, Windows AutoPilot, Enterprise Mobility + Security, the full Surface device family and complete managed services across the ecosystem. A future company roadmap includes developing cloud software products and applications with technologies related to Azure Cognitive Services, AI, AR, big data and IoT. This builds on the launch of Yorktel's purpose-built TeleHealth product, Univago HE.

Microsoft is the leading digital transformation partner with an unmatched, worldwide and near-saturated footprint in this rapidly growing industry. The International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts $2.0 trillion will be spent on digital transformation in 2020, while Forbes forecasts a $14.4 trillion estimated value of the global Internet of Things market by 2022. As large- and mid-market enterprises continue to invest heavily in workplace transformation initiatives, demand for trusted single-source partners that can develop and implement customised solutions that maximise ROI while seamlessly integrating with their existing Microsoft applications and other collaboration tools continues to grow. Yorktel is poised to capitalise on these trends.

"We are very excited to expand our Microsoft practice, and very fortunate to do so with such a highly capable and experienced leadership team at the helm. As SVP of Microsoft Solutions, Jeremy Short will be working closely with Yorktel's recently appointed CRO, Ken Scaturro, and COO, Mike Brandofino, to globally execute our Microsoft Solutions business plan," said Ron Gaboury, CEO of Yorktel. "Jeremy and his team are well-respected in the industry bringing digital transformation talent across multiple disciplines within the technology sector. His deep and diverse technical background and experience as a technology visionary make him a huge asset to the Yorktel team as we continue to grow our service offering."

As part of this expansion, Yorktel has tapped Shaun Olsen to join the Microsoft Solutions practice as Vice President. Prior to joining Yorktel, Olsen was an executive at Arrow Electronics, a $27 billion global provider of products, services and solutions to industrial and commercial users of electronic components and enterprise computing solutions. At Arrow Electronics, Olsen led the Microsoft Solutions practice and was responsible for the cloud, data centre and platforms strategy in the Systems Integration division.

"We are thrilled to have Jeremy and Shaun join the team to help expand the Microsoft Solutions practice," said Ken Scaturro, Chief Revenue Officer of Yorktel. "They are both highly respected IT executives and strategists with a proven track record of starting, scaling, and managing IT software development, infrastructure, professional and managed services organisations. Jeremy and Shaun bring the right combination of deep knowledge, diversity of experience and strategic thinking that will help enable Yorktel to achieve our growth objectives, with a focus on building on our success as an innovative service provider to our clients,"

For more information about Yorktel's Microsoft Solutions practice, please visit:

https://www.yorktel.co.uk/microsoft.

About Yorktel

Yorktel (www.yorktel.com) is a leading global provider of video cloud and managed services for large enterprise, federal government, and healthcare customers. Founded in 1985 and with offices throughout the US and EMEA, Yorktel enables customers to successfully integrate video into their operations - from video conferencing and unified communications to consulting and media services. Yorktel designs, integrates and manages enterprise-wide video communications solutions. For more information, visit Yorktel online at http://www.yorktel.com or email knowmore@yorktel.com. Follow Yorktel on Twitter: @yorktelcorp.

###
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Skyharbour Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: SYH (http://web.tmxmoney.com/quote.php?qm_symbol=syh)) (OTCQB: SYHBF (http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/SYHBF/quote)) (Frankfurt: SC1P (http://en.boerse-frankfurt.de/stock/Skyharbour_Resources_2-share)) (the "Company") is pleased to announce plans for its upcoming summer/fall 2018 diamond drill program to commence shortly and that it has now completed the 100% earn-in of its flagship, high grade Moore Uranium Project well ahead of schedule. In addition, 1,159,175 warrants have been exercised recently raising an additional CAD $449,884 in net proceeds for the Company.

Moore Uranium Project Claims Map:

http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/maps/MooreLakeRegionalTenure.jpg (http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/maps/MooreLakeRegionalTenure.jpg)

Jordan Trimble, President and CEO of Skyharbour Resources, states: "We will be commencing our planned summer drill program very shortly to test more extensively new targets in the underlying basement rock at the Maverick corridor on the Company's flagship, high grade Moore Uranium Project. The known high grade, unconformity-hosted uranium mineralization at the Maverick corridor was deposited there through feeder zones in the basement rock, the discovery of which will be a top priority in this upcoming program given other recent basement-hosted discoveries including NexGen's Arrow Deposit, Fission's Triple R Deposit and Denison's Gryphon Deposit. Furthermore, warrants that were set to expire have been exercised bringing in additional funds which have been used to complete the 100% earn-in of the Company's Moore Project well ahead of schedule."

Upcoming Summer/Fall 2018 Drill Program:

Skyharbour has received all of the required permits for its upcoming summer/fall diamond drilling program. This program is scheduled to commence shortly and will consist of a minimum of 3,000 metres of drilling in 8 to 10 holes. The bulk of this drilling will test the basement rocks within the high grade Maverick corridor well below the unconformity. Skyharbour's technical team has recently reinterpreted historical drill results and has identified high-priority drill targets within the basement rocks of the Maverick corridor below the drill-defined, high grade, unconformity-style uranium mineralization at the Main Maverick Zone.

Moore Uranium Project Regional Grid Targets Map:

http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/maps/Moore-Lake-Property-Wide.jpg (http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/maps/Moore-Lake-Property-Wide.jpg)

Prior drilling within the basement rocks, although of minimal extent, has intersected significant structural disruption and favourable alteration along with anomalous pathfinder elements and low grade uranium mineralization. These characteristics bode well for the discovery of basement-hosted feeder zones to the overlying high grade, unconformity-hosted uranium mineralization within the Maverick corridor.

Moore Uranium Project Maverick Corridor Drilling Map:

http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/projects/Moore-Lake-Maverick-Trend-w-geophys-inset_20170515_v2.pdf (http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/projects/Moore-Lake-Maverick-Trend-w-geophys-inset_20170515_v2.pdf)

Moore Uranium Project Main and East Maverick Zones Drilling Map:

http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/projects/Moore-Lake-Maverick-Detail_20170515.pdf (http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/projects/Moore-Lake-Maverick-Detail_20170515.pdf)

Skyharbour Raises Additional Funds from Recent Warrant Exercise:

The Company announces that 1,159,175 million warrants have been exercised recently raising an additional $449,884 million in net proceeds. The majority of these warrants were set to expire last week and had an exercise price of $0.40. Skyharbour is fully funded for this upcoming 3,000 metre diamond drilling program at its Moore Uranium Project which has a budget of approx. $1 million. The Company is well financed with over $3.2 million in the treasury after making the $300,000 payment to complete the earn-in at Moore.

Skyharbour Completes 100% Earn-In of Flagship Moore Project:

Further to the news release dated July 14th, 2016, the Company announces that it has elected to pay the remaining CAD $300,000 cash option payment due to earn a 100% interest in the Moore Uranium Project from Denison Mines Corp. (TSX: DML) (NYSE MKT: DNN) ("Denison"), a large and strategic shareholder of Skyharbour. The Company has completed the 100% earn-in on the project almost three years ahead of the five year option term which included the issuance of shares, staged cash payments totaling $500,000, and $3,500,000 in exploration expenditures. Denison has also elected not to exercise its first buyback option, meaning that Skyharbour now owns 100% of the property. The Company now has an additional five year period to incur an additional $3,000,000 in exploration expenditures on the project ("Additional Expenditures"). At that point, Denison may elect to exercise a second buyback option to repurchase a 51% interest in the property by making a cash payment of $500,000 and spending $16,500,000 in exploration expenditures on the property over the following four year period. The parties would then form a joint venture with Denison owning 51% and Skyharbour owning 49%. If Denison fails to complete this second buyback option, Skyharbour would retain its 100% ownership in the property. If the Company does not complete the Additional Expenditures within the allotted five year period, Denison may elect to exercise a buyback option at any time to repurchase a 51% interest in the property by making a cash payment of $500,000 and spending at least 2.5 times the expenditures incurred by Skyharbour since the beginning of the Option Agreement. The parties would then form a joint venture.

About Skyharbour Resources Ltd.:

Skyharbour holds an extensive portfolio of uranium and thorium exploration projects in Canada's Athabasca Basin and is well positioned to benefit from improving uranium market fundamentals with five drill-ready projects. In July 2016, Skyharbour acquired an option from Denison Mines, a large strategic shareholder of the Company, to acquire 100% of the Moore Uranium Project which is located approx. 15 kilometres east of Denison's Wheeler River project and 39 kilometres south of Cameco's McArthur River uranium mine. Moore is an advanced stage uranium exploration property with high grade uranium mineralization at the Maverick Zone with drill results returning 6.0% U 3 O 8 over 5.9 metres including 20.8% U 3 O 8 over 1.5 metres at a vertical depth of 265 metres. Skyharbour has signed option agreements with Orano Canada Inc. and Azincourt Energy whereby Orano and Azincourt can earn in up to 70% on the Preston Project through a combined $9,800,000 in total exploration expenditures, as well as $1,700,000 in total cash payments and Azincourt shares. Preston is a large, geologically prospective property proximal to Fission Uranium's Triple R deposit as well as NexGen Energy's Arrow deposit. The Company also owns a 100% interest in the Falcon Point Uranium Project on the eastern perimeter of the Basin which contains an NI 43-101 inferred resource totaling 7.0 million pounds of U 3 O 8 at 0.03% and 5.3 million pounds of ThO 2 at 0.023%. The project also hosts a high-grade surface showing with up to 68% U 3 O 8 in grab samples from a massive pitchblende vein, the source of which has yet to be discovered. The Company's 100% owned Mann Lake Uranium project on the east side of the Basin is strategically located adjacent to the Mann Lake Joint Venture operated by Cameco, where high-grade uranium mineralization was recently discovered. Skyharbour's goal is to maximize shareholder value through new mineral discoveries, committed long-term partnerships, and the advancement of exploration projects in geopolitically favourable jurisdictions.

Skyharbour's Uranium Project Map in the Athabasca Basin:

http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/SYH_Landpackage_2014.jpg (http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/SYH_Landpackage_2014.jpg)

To find out more about Skyharbour Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: SYH) visit the Company's website at www.skyharbourltd.com (http://www.skyharbourltd.com/).

SKYHARBOUR RESOURCES LTD.

"Jordan Trimble"



Jordan Trimble

President and CEO

For further information contact myself or:

Nick Findler

Corporate Development and Communications

Skyharbour Resources Ltd.

Telephone: 604-687-3850

Toll Free: 800-567-8181

Facsimile: 604-687-3119

Email: info@skyharbourltd.com (mailto:info@skyharbourltd.com)

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that management of the Company expects, are forward-looking statements. Although management believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements, include market prices, exploration and development successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Please see the public filings of the Company at www.sedar.com (http://www.sedar.com/) for further information.

This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: Skyharbour Resources Ltd via Globenewswire


He maintained that Pakistan is facing immense challenges and the government was determined for development.

Islamabad: Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi Monday said that war was not an option to resolve the Pak-India issues.

Addressing a news conference after taking oath as the top diplomat here, Mr Qureshi said: Both the countries are atomic powers. There is no capacity for adventure. Kashmir issue holds significance and India should understand this. Continuous negotiations are needed. We know the issues are tough and will not be solved overnight, but we have to engage.

He said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote to PM Imran Khan and congratulated him. He has also indicated the beginning of talks between the two countries, the FM added.

Mr Qureshi said Pakistans interests are the first priority as the foreign policy will begin and end at the country.

He maintained that Pakistan is facing immense challenges and the government was determined for development.

He said the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI)-led government would pursue a bi-partisan approach to foreign policy issues.

The minister said that efforts were being made to isolate Pakistan but the government wishes to maintain peace and stability in the region.

He said it would be his endeavor to build national consensus on foreign policy. He pointed out that some forces have been pushing Pakistan towards isolation in the absence of a regular foreign minister.

Qureshi declared that he would consult with Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua and also the former foreign ministers Hina Rabbani Khar and Khawaja Mohammed Asif for their suggestions on foreign policy especially the forthcoming session of the UN General Assembly.

Replying to a query, Mr Qureshi categorically said: There are pre-conceived notions about where the foreign policy of Pakistan is made. Let me be clear: The foreign policy will be made here at the Foreign Office.

He said he would engage with all institutions including national security institutions for their input, similar to the policy across the world.

Dont you seek input from CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and Pentagon? I am aware of their working and I will work for the betterment of Pakistan, Mr Qureshi told a foreign journalist who raised a question on the alleged interference of other institutions in formulation of foreign policy.

The Foreign Minister said he would focus on bridging the trust deficit between Pakistan and regional countries and emphasized on putting Pakistan first while fostering better relations with neighbouring countries.

On Pak-US relations, he said: I am well informed of the priorities of US as I have worked with them in the past. Relations are based on equality and we also have our own priorities.

The Foreign Minister said he will listen to the US concerns and also put before them Pakistans viewpoint. He said bilateral relationship should be improved on the basis of mutual respect and equality. He expressed his intention to pay a visit to Kabul to move forward on bilateral agreement.

I want to bring a solid message to the people of Afghanistan. The two countries share a future and geography, and we have to work together and begin our long journey, he said.

The Foreign Minister said he wanted to tell the people of Afghanistan that the two countries needed to become the support base of each other,adding that Pakistan and Afghanistan had the capability to become a good support mechanism for each other.

Responding to a question about China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Shah Mehmood Qureshi said PTI had supported the mega project. He said he will discuss with his Chinese counterpart the future initiatives to be undertaken under CPEC for socio-economic development of the country.

New Pakistan requires change in the attitudes. Diplomats should respect overseas Pakistanis. I also have a small part in 100-day action plan, he said

Meanwhile, Foreign Office spokesperson Dr Mohammed Faisal stressed that the Foreign Minister had not stated that the Indian Prime Minister had made an offer of a dialogue.

The FM but had said that the Indian Prime Minister in his letter to Prime Minister, Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi, had also mentioned something similar to what the Foreign Minister elucidated earlier - that the way forward was only through constructive engagement, he said in a statement said.

The spokesperson said the Foreign Minister was also briefed about the same positivity and constructive environment prevailing during the meeting of the former Minister of Law and Information with the Indian External Affairs Minister during his visit to India on August 18 to attend the funeral of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Pakistan looks forward to a mutually beneficial, uninterrupted dialogue with India to resolve all issues. Any attempts to instigate controversy and vitiate the environment are counter  productive and against the spirit of responsible journalism, he added.
LEXINGTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / August 21, 2018 / Oasis Systems, a provider of technology and professional services to the Department of Defense and other Federal agencies, today announced that the U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center awarded Oasis a 5-year, $821 million contract to provide Engineering, Professional, and Administrative Support Services to its Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence and Networks Directorate.

Tom Colatosti, Oasis CEO, said, "We are privileged and thrilled to be selected and entrusted with a second major United States Air Force services contract. We are grateful for the Air Force's confidence in the Oasis Team's capability to support their mission-critical programs for our Nation's defense."

The Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence and Networks Directorate has the mission responsibility to develop, deploy and sustain Air Force, joint and coalition cyberspace, networks, cryptologic and data link systems to enable decisive combat operations.

The Oasis team will provide comprehensive technical and professional capabilities including systems engineering, specialized cost estimation, acquisition, agile software development, financial management and program management support.

About Oasis Systems

Oasis Systems is a premier provider of customer-driven, cost-effective and quality Engineering Services; Enterprise Systems and Applications; Human Factors Engineering; Information Technology and Cyber Security; Professional Services; and Specialized Engineering Solutions to the Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and other federal agencies. (http://www.OasisSystems.com)

Contact Information:

Oasis Systems

Robin Doucette

781.879.1422

Oasis@OasisSystems.com

SOURCE: Oasis Systems LLC
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / August 21, 2018 / PainQx, Inc., a diagnostic/software company that is developing a next-generation approach to objectively measure and monitor pain in humans, is pleased to announce the completion of a $1.65 million equity financing with accredited investors, several angel investor groups, and institutional investors. The financing round was completed earlier this year. Investors in the $1.65 million equity financing include: Arizona Tech Investors, Italian Angels, Keiretsu Capital, Mid Atlantic Bio Angels (MABA), New York Angels, New York University Innovation Venture Fund, and Accelerate New York Seed Fund.

In addition, earlier this month, PainQx received a NIDA/SBIR grant for the development of a medical device utilizing an EEG-based algorithm for the objective quantification of pain. If successful at accomplishing the milestones for this project, the total award is up to $1.65M. The initial award is for Phase I, at a level of nearly $220,000, with Phase II beginning in January 2019, subject to successful completion of the aims delineated in Phase I. The goal of the project is to develop an objective device that can measure and report a pain score that is correlated to a patient's self-reported pain state.

The PainQx platform measures pain by collecting neural activity from a patient's brain using quantitative EEG and then processing and decoding the data through proprietary algorithms. The PainQx system is being developed as an assessment tool and will offer an objective measurement that eventually could be used as an endpoint to determine a drug's and/or device's efficacy. Upon completion of the requisite validation studies, PainQx will seek FDA clearance and, thereafter, will enter the broader physicians market providing practitioners a tool to more effectively assess and treat patients suffering from chronic pain. This will be an important step forward in treating chronic pain, particularly considering the challenges that the opioid epidemic presents in the U.S.

"With the strong support of our life science focused investors, and now support through the NIH/NIDA grant, PainQx moves one step closer to changing the lives millions of patients. Our goal is to provide objective, replicable data on people's pain," said PainQx CEO and Co-founder Frank Minella. "An agnostic, empirical neuro-marker for pain has the potential for developing a new standard in pain assessment, thus giving a voice to pain patients suffering from under- treatment as well as potentially reducing the risk of over-treatment which has manifested itself in the U.S. as the opioid epidemic."

About PainQx

PainQx, Inc. is a diagnostic/software company that is developing a next-generation approach to objectively measure and monitor pain in humans. The PainQx platform achieves this by collecting neural activity from a patient's brain using quantitative EEG and then processing and decoding the data through proprietary algorithms. The output is a scaled pain and neurological biomarker that is directly correlated to a patient's pain state.

Media and Investor Relations Contact:

Frank Minella

Co-Founder & CEO PainQx Inc.

office@painqx.com

SOURCE: PainQx, Inc.
SAINT JOHN, New Brunswick, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Canadian-owned Irving Oil announced today it has signed agreements to acquire the Tedcastle group of companies, an Irish-based energy marketing and distribution organization, which operates under the brand name Top Oil.

Headquartered in Dublin, Top Oil is a leading supplier of home heating oil, including kerosene, as well as petrol and diesel fuel in Ireland. It recently expanded operations into company-owned retail forecourts and aviation fuel. Top Oil sells more than one billion litres of fuel every year to commercial and residential consumers in Ireland.

The acquisition will ultimately enable Irving Oil to further expand its business across the Atlantic basin, having previously purchased Ireland's sole refinery in the village of Whitegate in 2016.

"This is a great day for our company," says Arthur Irving, Chairman of Irving Oil. "We are proud to be doing business in Ireland and are looking forward to working with everyone at Top Oil. We're excited about the future."

The acquisition will be complete once all conditions of the sale have been met including approval by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission in Ireland. Upon close, Irving Oil will continue full operation of the Top Oil business and its assets as usual. Top Oil branding will remain in place across all locations and the existing workforce will be maintained.

"We're excited about this opportunity to grow our business in Ireland and work with the Top Oil team," says Ian Whitcomb, President of Irving Oil. "We have worked hard to build strong customer relationships and establish meaningful community partnerships in Ireland and are delighted to continue to grow our business in this area. It's a natural fit for us."

"This is a very significant day for the extended family and our business in Ireland," says Raymond Reihill, Deputy Chairman, Tedcastle Holdings. "We are delighted to hand over the reins, on completion of these agreements, to another family company and are confident that the business will continue to grow and prosper."

"We are looking forward to joining Irving Oil and continuing to grow and develop our business under its umbrella," says Gerard Boylan, CEO, Top Oil. "We share a common commitment to our employees, customers and the wider community."

"As a proud Atlantic Canadian company, family owned and operated for close to a century, we have a long-term commitment to our employees, customers and communities we call home," says Sarah Irving, Executive Vice President of Irving Oil. "We are looking forward to this opportunity to continue to expand and grow in the Irish market."

Top Oil has a fully-integrated market presence and well-established ties to the communities it serves. With a 55,000-tonne clean product terminal at Dublin Port, 20 inland depots, 200 dealer and company-owned forecourts and 20 dedicated fuel card sites, Top Oil provides a reliable supply of fuel products to the country's businesses and consumers.

Irving Oil looks forward to sharing more information at the close of the sale.

About Irving Oil

Irving Oil is an international refining and marketing company with a history of long-term partnerships and relationships. Founded in 1924, Irving Oil operates Canada's largest refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, along with more than 900 fuelling locations and a network of distribution terminals spanning Eastern Canada and New England. It also operates Ireland's only refinery, located in the village of Whitegate. Irving Oil established its European operations in 2014 with an office in London, England, and tankage in Amsterdam. Named one of Canada's Top 100 Employers in 2017 and 2018, Irving Oil has a strong customer and community focus and is committed to future growth. Learn more at facebook.com/irvingoil or http://www.irvingoil.com.

About Top Oil

Top Oil is a family-owned business with a 200-year trading history. Top Oil sells over one billion litres of fuel, annually, throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland. The Transport Fuels division serves drivers with quality-assured fuel the length and breadth of the country from 20 company-owned Top Oil Sirio sites or from a network of 180 Top Oil Dealer Service Stations and Motorway service areas. Top Oil Fuel Card users receive excellent customer service including regular management reports and a dedicated account manager when they use the Top Oil Fuel Card at any of its locations. The Direct Fuels business caters to the needs of commercial businesses, resellers, institutions, the farming community and domestic users directly from its Dublin terminal or from any of its 20 Top Oil Depots located in communities across the country. Visit http://www.top.ie for further information.

Media Contact: Sam Robinson, Director, Corporate Communications, Irving Oil, sam.robinson@irvingoil.com, +1(506)650-4947
MONTREAL, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Caprion Biosciences announced today that the company acquired Primity Bio Inc., a specialized provider of biomarker and immune monitoring services located in Fremont, California. Caprion will leverage Primity's strong technological capabilities and innovative track record to further expand its immunology and molecular profiling service offering as well as its ability to globally support its clients.

"The acquisition of Primity Bio provides us access to highly complementary and well-differentiated biomarker and immune monitoring services while considerably expanding our geographic reach to better support the global clinical needs of our clients," said Martin Leblanc, President and CEO of Caprion. "Building on the acquisition of ImmuneHealth, which delivered a critical European footprint, this US expansion and the opportunity to work with the highly talented and innovative scientific team at Primity significantly enhances our ability to deliver on Caprion's service diversification and international expansion strategy."

Founded in 2010 by Peter Krutzik, PhD, and Tom Wehrman, PhD, Primity Bio is a leading provider of cutting-edge flow cytometry services with deep expertise in assay development, early drug discovery, pre-clinical animal sample analysis, biomarker discovery, and advanced human clinical sample analysis. Using the latest in single-cell analysis technologies, Primity specializes in highly complex immunophenotyping, intracellular signaling, cell sorting (FACS), and high-parameter CyTOF (mass cytometry) analysis. "Joining forces with Caprion will provide critical commercial channels to deliver our innovative services to a broader array of global biopharma partners and facilitate the launch of our distributed cloud computing flow cytometry analysis software, CellEngine," said Peter Krutzik, CEO of Primity Bio. "Primity's proprietary technologies for biomarker discovery, cell signaling analysis by flow cytometry, and combination of pre-clinical and clinical capabilities are true differentiators in the industry, and are highly complementary to Caprion's existing services and CAP/CLIA-certified laboratories," added Tom Wehrman, Primity's VP of R&D.

This announcement marks Caprion's second acquisition since GHO Capital's investment in July 2016. With this acquisition, Caprion adds an operational location in the US in addition to those of its headquarters in Montreal, Canada, and its European site in Gosselies, Belgium, acquired in 2016. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

About Caprion Biosciences, Inc. Caprion Biosciences is the leading provider of specialized immunology and proteomics laboratory services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Its immune monitoring business unit, ImmuneCarta, offers proprietary multiparametric flow cytometry services for functional analyses of innate and adaptive immune responses. Caprion has achieved top-tier growth in recent years based on its expanding offering and increasing demand for high-quality immune-monitoring services in patients treated with innovative immunomodulating drugs and vaccines for immuno-oncology, infectious, and autoimmune diseases. Caprion's proteomics business unit, ProteoCarta, offers proprietary gel-free, label-free mass spectrometry (MS) for comprehensive, quantitative, and robust comparative measurement of proteins across large sets of biological samples for the discovery and validation of protein biomarkers. This platform has also enabled the deployment of novel services for the identification and quantification of neoepitopes, as well as for pharmacokinetics analysis and characterization of host cell protein impurities of biologic drugs. For more information, please visit http://www.caprion.com.

About Primity Bio. Primity Bio was founded in 2010 with the goal of bringing innovative flow cytometry platforms to biopharma for use throughout the drug discovery process, from lead selection through clinical trial sample analysis. Its discovery unit provides specialized platforms that include profiling of cell surface and intracellular signaling proteins, high-speed cell sorting by FACS, and deep interrogation of drug mechanism of action. Primity's clinical unit delivers fully customized and complex immunophenotyping, receptor occupancy, and cell signaling assays of clinical samples for exploratory pharmacodynamic analysis. Primity also offers analysis of pre-clinical and clinical samples by CyTOF (mass cytometry) which expands the number of measurable biomarkers per sample to over 35. For further information, please visit http://www.primitybio.com.

About GHO Capital (Global Healthcare Opportunities), or GHO Capital Partners LLP. GHO was founded in 2014 as a specialist healthcare investment adviser based in London. Its vision is to apply global capabilities and perspectives to build a world-class healthcare specialist private equity firm by recognising and seizing the highly attractive and underpenetrated European market opportunity. The firm has a powerful combination of transaction, investment, and industry skills which sets it apart from traditional private equity firms. For further information, please visit http://www.ghocapital.com.

Patrick Tremblay, SVP & Corporate Development Officer, Caprion Biosciences Inc., ptremblay@caprion.com , +1-514-513-1998.
Escondido, California--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2018) - MARIJUANA COMPANY OF AMERICA INC. ("MCOA" or the "Company") (OTC: MCOA), an innovative hemp and cannabis corporation, and its joint venture partner Global Hemp Group Inc. (CSE: GHG) (OTC: GBHPF) (FSE: GHG) (the "Partners") are pleased to provide an update on their CBD hemp farming joint venture in New Brunswick, Canada (the "Project").

The goal of the hemp project in northeast New Brunswick is, in part, to produce hemp biomass that can be used for the extraction of cannabinoids. In anticipation of Canada's implementation of the Cannabis Act on October 17, 2018, which will allow for the processing of the entire hemp plant, the Partners began preparing its Bathurst facility for the installation of drying equipment capable of drying 125 acres of flowers and leaves from the 2018 cultivation.

The flowers and leaves of the hemp plant are rich in cannabinoids, notably containing non-psychoactive compounds of Cannabidiol (CBD). CBD, which has gained increasing popularity as of late, has been found to be effective component in a complete personal wellness regimen that has produced an increased demand from consumers for products containing CBD.The Hemp Business Journal estimated that the CBD market will grow to a $2.1 billion market in consumer sales by 2020.

Health Canada issues Class Exemption to the Industrial Hemp Regulations

Health Canada, the governing body in charge of industrial hemp licensing and its regulations in Canada, has recently issued a new Class Exemption in Relation to the Industrial Hemp Regulations (flowering heads, leaves and branches). This will allow the Partners to legally harvest, dry and store flowering heads, leaves and branches of industrial hemp from its 2018 cultivation, prior to the implementation of the Cannabis Act on October 17, 2018, when extraction of CBD from the flowers and leaves from industrial hemp will be legal in Canada. This will enable the industry to take advantage of an entirely new product market utilizing hemp derived cannabinoids.

New Brunswick Facilities

A 4,000 sq. ft. facility was secured in Bathurst, NB for the project in June. The Joint Venture established its offices and soon will complete the installation of processing equipment in the facility. A biomass dryer to process the flowers and leaves from participating farms will be installed before the end of August. The dried flowers and leaves will be stored until mid-October when the Joint Venture is allowed to sell its product to CBD extractors. Once proper licenses have been acquired for importing and manufacturing finished CBD products, the Bathurst facility may also serve as a distribution center for the hempSMARTTM products that are currently manufactured and distributed in the United States by GHG's partner: MCOA.

Advanced Crop Monitoring - Successful First Drone Flight

In a large hemp field with tall dense crops, it is impossible to identify stressed areas from ground level. The use of specialized drones can provide targeted field diagnostics. When a stressed area is identified, the observer can move directly to that location to assess the conditions of the observed stress.

Three drone flyovers have been contracted for the project. Each flyover will provide a colored image indicating the state of the vegetation, with data collected from random points in the different colored zones to assess the actual conditions on the ground. Data collected includes the measurement of soil moisture, pH, plant height and insect-disease-pressure. Once properly calibrated, these images will become an effective crop management tool for future crops in the region.

Severe Drought

Northeast New Brunswick has been experiencing a severe drought this year. The incidence of the drought has varied in intensity, but is widespread across the region. One of the participating farmers reported that this year's drought was the worst he experienced in his lifetime. While most crops of the region were hit very hard, as revealed by farm-gate prices of hay, hemp has faired relatively well, as it is far less water consumption demands. Preliminary observations collected from the first drone flyover over three of the farms indicate the extent of the stress observed.





Figure 1



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It is noted that of the three varieties cultivated this year, the Joey and Canada varieties fared better than the Finola. Preliminary testing has indicated that the output of flowers and leaves does not appear to be affected by the drought. The attached photo shows the flowers that have been produced.

About Marijuana Company of America, Inc.

MCOA is a corporation which participates in: (1) product research and development of legal hemp-based consumer products under the brand name "hempSMART", that targets general health and well-being; (2) an affiliate marketing program to promote and sell its legal hemp-based consumer products containing CBD; (3) leasing of real property to separate business entities engaged in the growth and sale of cannabis in those states and jurisdictions where cannabis has been legalized and properly regulated for medicinal and recreational use; and, (4) the expansion of its business into ancillary areas of the legalized cannabis and hemp industry, as the legalized markets and opportunities in this segment mature and develop.

About Global Hemp Group Inc.

Global Hemp Group Inc. (CSE: GHG) (OTC: GBHPF) (FRANKFURT: GHG), is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with base operations in Montreal and Los Angeles. The Company is focused on a multi-phased strategy to build a strong presence in the industrial hemp industry in both Canada and the United States. The first phase of this strategy is to develop hemp cultivation with the objective of extracting cannabinoids (CBD, CBG, CBN & CBC) and creating a near term revenue stream that will allow the Company to expand and develop successive phases of the strategy. The second phase of the plan will focus on the development of value-added industrial hemp products utilizing the processing of the whole hemp plant, as envisioned in the Company's Hemp Agro-Industrial Zone (HAIZ) strategy.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" which are not purely historical and may include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such forward-looking statements include, among other things, the development, costs and results of new business opportunities and words such as "anticipate", "seek", intend", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "project", "plan", or similar phrases may be deemed "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with new projects, the future U.S. and global economies, the impact of competition, and the Company's reliance on existing regulations regarding the use and development of cannabis-based products. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Although we believe that any beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any such beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in our annual report on Form 10-12G, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other periodic reports filed from time-to-time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For more information, please visit www.sec.gov.

For more information, please visit the Company's websites at:

MarijuanaCompanyofAmerica.com

hempSMART.com

NetworkNewsWires/MCOA

Corporate Communications Contact:
The Ministry of the Ecological Transition has given the green light to a solar park near the municipality of Talayuela, in the southern region of Extremadura. Work on the facility may begin this year with completion scheduled for 12 months later.The Spanish Ministry of the Ecological Transition has granted final approval to a 300 MW solar project that a consortium led by UK developer Solarcentury hopes to build in the province of Caceres, in the southern region of Extremadura. According to a document published in the Spanish Official Journal, the project will include the construction of a 30/400 ...

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PUNE, India, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

According to a new market research report "Metal Forming Market for Automotive by Technique (Roll, Stretch, Stamping, Deep Drawing, Hydroforming), Type (Hot and Cold), Application (BIW, Chassis, Closure), Material (Steel, Aluminum), Vehicle (ICE, Electric, and Hybrid) - Global Forecast to 2025", published by MarketsandMarkets, the market for Automotive is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.83%, by value, during the forecast period. The market is estimated to be USD 221.22 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 269.01 billion by 2025.Thedriving factors for the Metal Forming Market for Automotive are growing vehicle production across the globe (particularly in Asia Oceania) and the increasing trend of vehicle lightweighting due to stringent emission norms.

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Browse 115 market data Tables and 54 Figures spread through 160 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Metal Forming Market for Automotive"

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"By vehicle type, passenger car is expected to hold the largest share of the Metal Forming Market for Automotive"

According to the Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs d'Automobiles (OICA), passenger cars accounted for 61.2% of the overall vehicle production in 2017. In 2017, according to OICA, the passenger car production in the Asia Oceania region was approximately 44.96 million units. Passenger cars have the highest application of formed components, more than that for light and heavy commercial vehicles. Owing to the increasing passenger car production, especially in the Asia Oceania region, and high applications of metal forming, passenger car segment is projected to share of the metal forming market, by vehicle type.

Ask for PDF Brochure:https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=117844713

"Aluminum is expected to show the fastest growth over the forecast period, by material type"

The contribution of aluminum to the overall vehicle weight has grown substantially over the years. According to the ACC, the contribution of aluminum has increased from 7.8% of the total vehicle weight in 2005 to about 9.0% in 2012, and approximately 9.9% in 2015 for light weight vehicles in North America. Several automotive components are manufactured using aluminum. These include cross-car beam, front door, oil pan, rear door frame, and seat frame. Aluminum is rapidly replacing steel in many automotive applications like body in white and chassis. Its usage rate (%) for forming applications is higher in Europe and North America when compared with that in Asia Oceania. However, even with the low usage rate, Asia Oceania is the largest market for aluminum, owing to its huge vehicle production.

"Asia Oceania is estimated to be the largest Metal Forming Market for Automotive over the forecast period"

China, India, Japan, South Korea, and others are considered under the Asia Oceania region for this study. China is the largest contributor in terms of vehicle production in the Asia Oceania region. Out of the total vehicle production, China contributed approximately 24.9% in 2017. Japan is the second largest vehicle producing country which contributes approximately 8.4% to the global vehicle production. In addition to high vehicle production, factors such as increasing GDP, rising per capita income, low production costs, availability of economic labor, and government initiatives for FDI have created growth opportunities for the OEMs and tier 1 players of the metal forming market in the Asia Oceania region. Even the presence of the tier 1 players such as Aisin Seiki (Japan), Hirotec (Japan), and Toyota Boshoku (Japan) is driving the Asia Oceania Metal Forming Market for Automotive.

The Metal Forming Market for Automotive is dominated by manufacturers such as Magna (Canada), Benteler (Germany), Tower International (UK), Toyota Boshoku (Japan), and Aisin Seiki (Japan).

Know more about the Metal Forming Market for Automotive:

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/metal-forming-market-117844713.html

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Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve.

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PALM BEACH, Florida, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

MarketNewsUpdates.com News Commentary

The increasing demand for Cannabidiol (CBD) and Hemp based products is expected to push both markets into new territories in terms of sales value in the next coming years. According to a report published by New Frontier Data, the U.S. CBD industry grew by nearly 40% in 2017, reaching USD $367 Million in sales across hemp-derived and marijuana-derived markets. The U.S. CBD market is primed for expansive growth across its three primary sectors, hemp-derived CBD, marijuana-derived CBD and pharmaceutical CBD. Cannabidiol is one of more than 100 compounds found in cannabis. The chemical doesn't make consumers high, but international demand for CBD is growing as word spreads about its potential medical benefits, including claims that CBD can ease seizures, calm anxiety and reduce inflammation. With recent developments and advancements in the hemp industry, farmers across the U.S. and globally are turning their attention to commercialization looking for the road to profitability. Active Companies from around the market with current developments this week include: Marijuana Company of America, Inc. (OTC:MCOA), Medical Marijuana Inc. (OTC:MJNA), mCig Inc. (OTCQB:MCIG), Freedom Leaf Inc. (OTCQB:FRLF), GB Sciences Inc. (OTCQB:GBLX).

Marijuana Company of America, Inc. (OTCPK:MCOA) BREAKING NEWS: Marijuana Company of America, an innovative hemp and cannabis corporation, and its joint venture partner Global Hemp Group Inc. (CSE: GHG) (OTC: GBHPF) (Frankfurt: GHG) (the "Partners") are pleased to provide an update on their CBD hemp farming joint venture in New Brunswick, Canada (the "Project").

The goal of the hemp project in northeast New Brunswick is, in part, to produce hemp biomass that can be used for the extraction of cannabinoids. In anticipation of Canada's implementation of the Cannabis Act on October 17, 2018, which will allow for the processing of the entire hemp plant, the Partners began preparing its Bathurst facility for the installation of drying equipment capable of drying 125 acres of flowers and leaves from the 2018 cultivation.

The flowers and leaves of the hemp plant are rich in cannabinoids, notably containing non-psychoactive compounds of Cannabidiol (CBD). CBD, which has gained increasing popularity as of late, has been found to be effective component in a complete personal wellness regimen that has produced an increased demand from consumers for products containing CBD. The Hemp Business Journal estimated that the CBD market will grow to a $2.1 billion market in consumer sales by 2020.

Health Canada issues Class Exemption to the Industrial Hemp Regulations

Health Canada, the governing body in charge of industrial hemp licensing and its regulations in Canada, has recently issued a new Class Exemption in Relation to the Industrial Hemp Regulations (flowering heads, leaves and branches). This will allow the Partners to legally harvest, dry and store flowering heads, leaves and branches of industrial hemp from its 2018 cultivation, prior to the implementation of the Cannabis Act on October 17, 2018, when extraction of CBD from the flowers and leaves from industrial hemp will be legal in Canada. This will enable the industry to take advantage of an entirely new product market utilizing hemp derived cannabinoids.



New Brunswick Facilities - A 4,000 sq. ft. facility was secured in Bathurst, NB for the project in June. The Joint Venture established its offices and soon will complete the installation of processing equipment in the facility. A biomass dryer to process the flowers and leaves from participating farms will be installed before the end of August. The dried flowers and leaves will be stored until mid-October when the Joint Venture is allowed to sell its product to CBD extractors. Once proper licenses have been acquired for importing and manufacturing finished CBD products, the Bathurst facility may also serve as a distribution center for the hempSMARTTM products that are currently manufactured and distributed in the United States by GHG's partner: MCOA.

Advanced Crop Monitoring - Successful First Drone Flight - In a large hemp field with tall dense crops, it is impossible to identify stressed areas from ground level. The use of specialized drones can provide targeted field diagnostics. When a stressed area is identified, the observer can move directly to that location to assess the conditions of the observed stress.

Three drone flyovers have been contracted for the project. Each flyover will provide a colored image indicating the state of the vegetation, with data collected from random points in the different colored zones to assess the actual conditions on the ground. Data collected includes the measurement of soil moisture, pH, plant height and insect-disease-pressure. Once properly calibrated, these images will become an effective crop management tool for future crops in the region.Read this and more news for MCOAathttp://www.marketnewsupdates.com/news/mcoa.html

In the industry developments and happenings in the market this week include:

Medical Marijuana Inc. (OTCPK:MJNA) recently announced that its subsidiary Kannaway will host a European tour during the month of August. This tour will host events in six cities to provide Kannaway brand ambassadors with the chance to network with top Kannaway Europe leaders, the company's global executive team and fellow business owners. "We are excited to broaden our reach and impact throughout Europe with these events," said Kannaway CEO Blake Schroeder. "It is an excellent opportunity for our brand ambassadors, new and old alike, to network with their fellow brand ambassadors, learn about new and upcoming products and build a successful Kannaway business." Attendees will hear from executive team members, including Kannaway CEO Blake Schroeder and International Vice President Alex Grapov, along with brand ambassadors such as Vice Presidential Director Tibor O'dor and Crown Ambassador Juraj Mojzis.

mCig Inc. (OTCQB:MCIG) recently announced that it will begin harvesting its first crop of organic hemp from NYAcres in two to three weeks time. To oversee the harvest and curing process, MCIG brought on Chadd McKeen , co-author of Idiots Guide: Growing Marijuana and founding partner at Canna Mana Trading Company. With over 12 years of experience in cannabis cultivation, Mr. McKeen will be onsite to jump-start the post-grow process, from the actual mechanics of the harvest to extraction and buyer relationships. The NYAcres project began in June 2018 as a joint project with FarmOn!Foundation. The 55,000 pound yield of hemp bio-mass will be a huge growth generator for MCIG, its recently launched CBD Market (http://www.cbd.biz ), and new CBD pet line, Artax (http://www.cbd.biz/portfolio/artax/ ). After harvested and dried, cannabidiol (CBD) will be extracted from the plant source material. The particular strains of hemp grown at NYAcres, Cherry Wine and Berry Blue sourced from the Colorado Hemp Project are known for their high concentrations of CBD. Once extracted, CBD distillate can be used as a component for a diverse range of end user products, from CBD capsules to CBD vape.

Freedom Leaf Inc. (OTCQB:FRLF) recently announced last week that it's wholly owned subsidiary, Tierra Science Global, is launching a national tour and global webinar series for its affiliate platform beginning with presence as a vendor at the American Naturopathic Medical Association Conference August 24-26, 2018 (http://www.anma.org ). Tierra's kickoff business briefing was held on Saturday, August 11, 2018 in Las Vegas with guests from around the world. Attendees included top influencers in Direct Marketing and key influencers from the Online/Social Marketing Industries. Product line samples and overall business model were shared with many who will become key leaders in marketing Tierra's super-affiliate program which goes live later this month. Tierra's event included presentations by founders Mark Rosales and Marc Vitorillo, Dr. Naina Sachdev of NAINAMD, CBD/Hemp expert Dr. Rick Potts of IRIECBD and Freedom Leaf Officers, Raymond Medeiros and Clifford Perry, who were duly impressed with the new company's objectives.

GB Sciences Inc. (OTCQB:GBLX) recently announced that for the three months ended June 30, 2018, revenue reported was $1,315,284 and gross profit of $734,719. This compares to revenue and gross profit of $69,100 and $54,099, respectively, for the same period the prior year. The total net loss for the three months that ended June 30, 2018 was $5,167,339 which includes $2,625,512 of non-cash charges, 40.5% of total expenses. Net loss for the same period in the prior year was $3,082,209.



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EQS-News / 21/08/2018 / 20:15 UTC+8 *[Immediate Release]* *21 August 2018* *China MeiDong Auto Holdings Limited* *(Stock code: 1268.HK)* *201**8* *Interim* *Results* *Revenue* *Increased by **30.4**% to RMB**4,346.7* *m**illion* *Profit Attributable to Equity Shareholders of the Company * *Surged by **46.1**% to **RMB**157.6* *million * *Entered into Agreement to* *Acquired Six BMW Selling and Service Outlets* A fast expanding auto distributor with strong focus in the high-potential 2nd to 4th tier cities, China MeiDong Auto Holdings Limited ("MeiDong Auto", together with its subsidiaries, the "Group", stock code: 1268.HK), announced its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2018 (the "Period") on 20 August 2018. *Results Highlight* In the first half of 2018, the automobile industry witnessed a steady growth and consumer demand maintained a good momentum. Despite of short-term market uncertainties in the second quarter due to factors such as tariff reduction, the growth of major luxury brands remained stable that outpaced the overall automobile market. During the Period, the Group attained revenue of RMB4,346.7 million, presenting a significant year-on-year ("yoy") growth of approximately 30.4%, compared to RMB3,332.3 million for the six months ended 30 June 2017 ("1H2017"). Gross profit also increased substantially by approximately 27.8%, reaching RMB474.6 million (1H2017: RMB371.3 million) while gross profit margin had a slight decrease of approximately 0.2 percentage point ("p.p.") to approximately 10.9% (1H2017: 11.1%) Profit for the Period amounted to approximately RMB160.6 million, representing a yoy increase of 47.7%. Profit attributable to equity shareholders of the Company surged by approximately 46.1% to RMB157.6 million (1H2017: RMB107.9 million). Earnings per share also rose from RMB9.92 cents to RMB13.75 cents. The Board of Directors recommends an interim dividend of RMB0.041 per share for the Period (1H2017: RMB0.035 per share), payout ratio achieved 30%. *New Passenger Vehicle Sales * The Group continued to maintain a balanced and expedited growth rate through the new-store expansion and the same-store growth. Together with the Group's effective "Single City Single Store" strategy, new passenger vehicles sales maintained a satisfactory growth during the first half of 2018. During the Period, the Group's revenue of new passenger vehicles sales amounted to RMB3,779.5 million (1H2017: RMB2,927.6 million), representing an increase of approximately 29.1% over the same period of last year. Luxury brands continued to be the core sales revenue source of the Group, accounting for 73.1% of the revenue of new passenger vehicles sales. During the first half of 2018, BMW, Porsche and Lexus recorded new passenger vehicles sales of approximately RMB1,397.9 million, RMB461.8 million and RMB901.6 million respectively, accounting for 37.0%, 12.2% and 23.9% of the revenue respectively. In terms of sales volume, the Group sold 15,587 new passenger vehicles in total, representing a YoY increase of 24.6% of new passenger vehicles sales. Among which, luxury brands were still the main source of revenue, the sales volume of BMW, Porsche and Lexus were 4,219 units, 576 units and 2,603 units respectively. *After Sales Services* Revenue from after-sales service amounted to approximately RMB567.3 million, representing an increase of 40.2% as compared with the same period of last year (1H2017: RMB404.7 million). A total of 170,889 units were served, representing a YoY increase of 16.2%. The gross profit margin of this segment remained at a stable and high level of 48.4%. The Group holds a young store portfolio; as the stores become matured, the contribution from after-sales services with high margin will gradually enhance. This serves as one of the major driving forces for the optimization of the Group's revenue structure. In addition, the Group is committed to providing high quality value-added services to increase customer loyalty. At the same time, with the growing demand for after-sales services in the second-tier to fourth-tier cities and the local competitive advantage brought by the Group's unique "Single City Single Store" strategy, the Group will fully capture the enormous growth potential in the after-sales service market. *Current network* As at 30 June 2018, there were 41 4S self-operated stores which operate in Beijing, Hebei, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong and Gansu, including a joint venture that is operated by the Group. *Agreement to Acquire Assets of BMW Outlets* As at 20 August 2018, Dongguan Meixin Business Consulting Co., Ltd. (??????????????) (the "Purchaser"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, recently entered into an agreement with an independent third party, the Purchaser agreed to acquire certain assets of six BMW selling and service outlets in Huaibei (??), Suzhou (??), Chuzhou (??), Tongling (??), Chizhou (??) and Huangshan (??), Anhui Province in the PRC. The Board believes the acquisition is consistent with its proven strategy of Single City Single Store focusing on mainstream luxury vehicles. The strategy allows us to enter many fast growing lower tier cities and to be the only dealer for certain luxury brand in those cities. *Prospects* For the second half of 2018, despite the uncertainties in China's macro economy and automobile market, supported by the consumption upgrade and the gradual implementation of encouraging policies, the automobile industry is full of opportunities. Such trend will be particularly recognizable in lower tier cities. *Mr. Ye Tao, Chief Executive Officer of China Meidong Auto*, commented, "The Group will adhere to the "Single City Single Store" strategy with a focus on developing luxury brands portfolio in lower tier cities. Through the development of new stores and merger and acquisition projects, the Group will proactively yet cautiously expand its network, injecting new driving forces for the Group's sustainable and stable growth. While developing the sales network, the Group is also actively expanding its luxury brand products portfolio. Based on its current portfolio of Porsche, BMW and Lexus, the Group will bring in Audi and BMW Mini brands. Audi is one of the top 3 luxury brands in China and has a massive car ownership in China. BMW Mini brand focuses on the younger generation market. The inclusion of the above two brands will help the Group to cover a wider consumer base and further optimize the source of revenue." *Mr. Ye Tao, *continued*, * "in addition to its active expansion, the Group is also committed to continually optimizing its internal data management system and implementing the Group's "simple, direct and data-driven" business principle. At the general management level, continuously optimizing capital and inventory management and enhancing the investment return remain as the managerial priorities of the Group. This aims to bring balance for the Group between maintaining a prudent and solid management approach while capturing market opportunities, ensuring the Group's sustainable long term developments with high returns." -End- *About China MeiDong Auto Holdings Limited* China MeiDong Auto Holdings Limited is a fast expanding auto distributor with focus on 2nd to 4th tier cities and after-sales services. The Group mainly focuses on mid brands and main stream luxury brand, including Porsche, BMW, Lexus, Toyota, Hyundai, Mini and Audi. As of 30 June 2018, the Group owns 41 stores across different cities in Beijing, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Hebei, Sichuan and Gansu provinces in China. This press release is issued by DLK Advisory Limited for and on behalf of *China MeiDong Auto Holdings limited*. For further information, please contact: *DLK Advisory **????* Tel: +852 2857 7101 Fax: +852 2857 7103 Document: http://n.eqs.com/c/fncls.ssp?u=LAHKNTAMUQ [1] Document title: 1268_IR2018_press release_ eng_20180821_FINAL 21/08/2018 Dissemination of a Financial Press Release, transmitted by EQS Group. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Media archive at www.todayir.com 1: https://link.cockpit.eqs.com/cgi-bin/fncls.ssp?fn=redirect&url=6329bf6a7e72a5df1efc9639584d9235&application_id=715993&site_id=vwd&application_name=news

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 21, 2018 08:15 ET (12:15 GMT)
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
The state level bankers committee has also decided to declare a moratorium on agriculture loan for one year.

Thiruvananthapuram: Soon after flood-hit Keralas chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday announced that the United Arab Emirates has promised an assistance of $100 million (about Rs 700 crore) for the states reconstruction, sources said the Central government has decided to decline all offers of financial help from foreign countries.

Mr Vijayan, who chaired a meeting of the state Cabinet to seek a Rs 2,600 cr special package from the NDA government under Centrally-sponsored schemes and called a special meeting of the state Assembly on August 30 to discuss the flood situation, said, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi and made the offer for assistance.

Sources in New Delhi said that the NDA government has taken a considered decision to rely solely on domestic efforts to tide over the challenges.

Kerala has struggled to find its feet after the devastating deluge that left 223 dead in a fortnight. About 10.78 lakh people, including 2.12 lakh women and one lakh children under 12, have been displaced and sheltered in 3,200 relief camps. On Monday, the Union home ministry declared Kerala floods, the worst in 100 years, a calamity of severe nature. This tag paves the way for higher Central assistance to the state.

The chief minister had earlier estimated the damage to be about Rs 20,000 crore and so far the Centre has, in phases, announced interim assistance of Rs 680 crore for the state.

On the Union governments decision not to accept offers of financial help from foreign countries, sources said that New Delhi wants to convey that the country is capable of handling the flood situation on its own both, financially and logistically. According to some reports, even the previous UPA-2 government had declined foreign aid in 2013 when floods struck Uttarakhand.

The Modi government has apparently also communicated to all embassies its position on not accepting foreign financial help for Kerala tragedy. In a message to Indian missions, the government said, If a foreign government makes an offer of help, you may kindly express your appreciation for the sincere sentiments and willingness to assist...

Earlier, Mr Vijayan told reporters that Kerala would ask the Centre to hike the limit of loan it can secure from the open market for the massive rebuilding exercise.

Under the present arrangement, Kerala can obtain three per cent of its gross state domestic product (GSDP) as loans and wants the limit to be raised to 4.5 per cent so the state can mobilise an additional Rs 10,500 crore from the open market, he said.

With rains easing and water receding in some areas of flood-ravaged Kerala, people started returning to their homes as Union minister K.J. Alphons appealed for cooked food and skilled workers to rehabilitate the displaced people.

Though there has been some respite from the rain in the last two days, the water level has not come down in several areas of the Ernakulam, Thrissur, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha and Kollam districts, officials said State government officials and defence forces said rescue efforts will continue till the last person is brought to safety.

As the state drowned in unprecedented misery, the Muslim festival of Id-ul-Adha on Wednesday is expected to be low key. State government events to mark the Onam festival on August 25 have also been cancelled.

Road and rail services have resumed in most parts of the state but clearing houses of the debris washed up by surging flood water is a daunting task.

The state government is also preparing a comprehensive health action programme to prevent outbreak of water-borne diseases.

The Southern Air Command has said the Indian Air Force (IAF) said it will continue all out efforts in coordination with the civil administration to ensure that the people of the Kerala recover quickly from the calamity.

A total of 364 helicopter sorties were flown, 1.25 lakh kg of supplies dropped and 574 people rescued, a release said.

The state level bankers committee has also decided to declare a moratorium on agriculture loan for one year.
SHANGHAI, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- August 2018 marks Westwin's two-year anniversary of acquiring former Microsoft Online's business and assets. Anderson Liu was the general manager of Microsoft Online two years ago; now he is the CEO of Westwin - a leading marketing consulting firm that focuses on cross-border business.

Cross-border marketing is a challenging yet exciting task for brands who aim to enter foreign countries. Over the past two years, Westwin has been helping companies with strategic consultation, digital advertising solution and localization services to extend their businesses internationally. "Westwin believes that big data is the key driving force for cross-border marketing", said Anderson Liu in a recent interview.

Cross-border Marketing Connect Foreign Companies to China

China market offers tremendous potential for global companies. According to the latest data released by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, total volume of China's import and export trade reached US$2.21 trillion in the first half of 2018, growing 16 percent year-over-year. Many global companies are exploring opportunities and cross-border marketing strategies to break into the Chinese market.

Liu thinks that understanding China's cultural differences and technology scene will have a huge impact on efficiency when foreign companies kick off cross-border businesses in China, including brand promotion, marketing cooperation, investment and M&As.

"Despite China market brings a bright future, many foreign companies now are aware of the challenges. This motivates us to optimize our solution to better help our foreign clients in brand presence, reputation management and operation strategy." Liu, a cross-border marketing specialist himself, is leading Westwin to help foreign companies enter the Chinese market. Last month, Westwin released "2018 China Cross-border Consumption Report" - the first study to focus on Chinese cross-border consumers. With research conducted by AC Nielsen, this report is known as a guide to Chinese consumers - the interesting facts within will help retailers choose the best media channel and strategy in the Chinese market.

Big Data Drives Chinese Business Expand Abroad

Over the past 40 years, many Chinese businesses have expanded overseas by implementing their own globalization strategies. More recently, the government's "Belt and Road" initiative is designed to help more Chinese firms step up overseas expansion.

According to available data, Microsoft Online, the predecessor of Westwin, has provided overseas online promotion services to more than 2,000 domestic Chinese businesses. Its core business, "Bing Ads", helped a list of leading Chinese companies expand to overseas markets including Alibaba, JD.com, Air China and Ctrip. Today, Westwin still remains a key partner of Microsoft's online advertising business in mainland China.

Nowadays, big data have changed mainstream technology and the methods in which data are handled and it is driving the future of business. Liu believes that advertising, whether digital or traditional, is ultimately driven by latest technology - and now the technology is big data.

"When a business with overseas operations interacts with an overseas user, there must be a demand for what the brand has to offer coupled with the promotion effect," said Liu. "To meet such a demand, the product or service must be supported by data to optimize the effect."

Under the wave of globalization, Liu has positioned Westwin as a data-driven marketing consulting firm focusing on cross-border business. Through customized strategy and localized platform, Westwin aims to help foreign brands gain brand awareness and acquire customers in brand new market. Talking about vision, Liu said that cross-border marketing creates an entry point for Westwin. "Eventually we will become a data-driven platform that serves cross-border business on a broader scale."
SANTA CLARA, California, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Trianz, a global digital transformation consulting and technology services firm, has been recognized among the '50 Innovative Companies To Watch 2018' by The Silicon Review, a leading US-based online and print publication for business and technology professionals.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/452308/PRNE_TrianzUpdated_Logo.jpg )



Explaining The Silicon Review's selection criteria, a senior editorial member from the publication said, "The 50 Innovative Companies to Watch 2018 list includes organizations that have set themselves apart by providing more value to their clients vis-a-vis service quality, increased customer base, enhanced innovation and market position." Trianz was selected based on its ability to pioneer innovations, longstanding partnerships, and its expertise in helping clients embrace digital evolution.

In recognition of Trianz' contribution towards simplifying digital evolution for clients, the July 2018 issue features Trianz' Founder and CEO, Sri Manchala, on the cover with the caption 'Digital Evolution Simplified: Silicon Valley-based Trianz Steers its Way to Top Accolades.'

In this issue, The Silicon Review talks about why Trianz is one of the 50 innovative companies to watch for in 2018 by profiling how the firm is helping organizations across industries overcome dynamic digital age challenges to move towards more effective, game-changing technologies. The write-up spotlights Trianz' delivery model that provides superior value to clients; one that has been acknowledged for several consecutive years based on positive feedback garnered through client surveys.

Trianz CEO and President, Sri Manchala, expressed his pleasure on receiving the honor by saying, "Clients resources are finite; therefore, innovation is critical. At Trianz, we demonstrate how a client's business can rapidly improve and thrive - gaining ROI along the way - through transitioning to scalable digital platforms. Being included in The Silicon Review's '50 Innovative Companies To Watch' list is a powerful affirmation of our solutions not requiring large equipment expenditures, and the ease with which they can assimilate into existing architectures and incorporate robust data analytics programs."

"Innovation is crucial for businesses to succeed in the long run. Trianz has the positive reputation for constant innovation to develop the most advanced and integrated digital solutions that our clients need and desire. This acknowledgement from The Silicon Review, therefore, further elevates our brand in the industry," Prashant Bhavaraju, Vice President - Marketing at Trianz, said in a statement.

To know more and view all 50 companies recognized by The Silicon Review, click here.

About Trianz

Trianz simplifies digital evolutions through effective strategies and excellence in execution. Collaborating with business and technology leaders, we help formulate and execute operational strategies to achieve intended business outcomes by bringing the best of consulting, technology experiences and execution models. Powered by knowledge, research, and perspectives, we enable clients to transition to a digital enterprise by leveraging Cloud, Analytics, Digital, Infrastructure and Security paradigms. With offices in Silicon Valley, Washington DC Metro, Rosemont, Chicago, Austin, Boston, Denver, Irvine, Raleigh, San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Dubai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai, we serve Fortune 1000 and emerging organizations across industries globally. For more information, visit www.trianz.com.

Contact:

Trianz Media Team

Media.Contact@trianz.com

+1-408-387-5800


Phoenix, Arizona--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2018) - Excelsior Mining Corp. (TSX: MIN) (OTCQX: EXMGF) (FSE: 3XS) ("Excelsior" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that Mr. Stephen Axcell has joined the Board of Directors. The new appointment is in keeping with Excelsior's continuing effort to add additional team members with production experience as the Gunnison Copper Project targets commercial production in 2019. Mr. Axcell will also join the Company's Project Steering Committee.

Mr. Axcell is an executive leader with 38 years of experience with strengths in mining operations management and project management execution, including process plant design and construction management; with industry expertise in mining and minerals, pharmaceutical, and hydrocarbon projects. He has vast experience in international design and construction projects. Experience includes management and oversight of large and small projects, complex process facilities in both green-fields and retro-fit (brown fields) environments.

Mr. Axcell is currently an Independent Consultant providing services to the Mining Industry and large capital projects with an emphasis on achieving project delivery excellence. He was until recently a Senior Vice President for Jacobs Engineering Group. At Jacobs his role included operational responsibilities for the Americas Mining and Minerals group and latterly the Asia Pacific region. The role included resourcing all projects, striving for 'flawless' project execution and growing the business. Prior to rejoining Jacobs, Stephen worked for the largest diamond mining company in the world by value, initially charged with managing and executing a large multi-billion-dollar capital project portfolio and subsequently as Deputy Managing Director responsible for all the technical functions within the company. Mr. Axcell holds a BSc (Eng) Minerals Processing from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Mark J. Morabito, Chair of the Board of the Company states "I am pleased to welcome Steve Axcell to the Board of Excelsior. His vast array of experience in project management, process plant design, and construction management will bring valuable input to the team and we look forward to his contributions as our world class management team drives the Company forward to production targeted for 2019."

About Excelsior

Excelsior Mining "The Copper Solution Company" is a mineral exploration and development company that is advancing the Gunnison Copper Project in Cochise County, Arizona. The project is an advanced staged, low cost, environmentally friendly in-situ recovery copper extraction project. The Feasibility Study projected an after-tax NPV of US$807 million and an IRR of 40% using a US$2.75 per pound copper price and a 7.5% discount rate.

Excelsior's technical work on the Gunnison Copper Project is supervised by Stephen Twyerould, Fellow of AUSIMM, President & CEO of Excelsior and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Twyerould has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this news release.

Further information about the Gunnison Copper Project can be found in the technical report filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com entitled: "Gunnison Copper Project, NI 43-101 Technical Report, Prefeasibility Study Update" dated effective January 28, 2016.

For more information on Excelsior, please visit our website at www.excelsiormining.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE EXCELSIOR BOARD

"Stephen Twyerould"

President & CEO

For further information regarding this press release please contact:

Excelsior Mining Corp.

JJ Jennex, Vice President, Corporate Affairs

T: 604-681-8030 x240

E: info@excelsiormining.com

www.excelsiormining.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" concerning anticipated developments and events that may occur in the future. Forward looking information contained in this news release includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to: (i) the timeline for commercial production from the Gunnison Project; (ii) the results of the Feasibility Study; and (iii) the ability to mine the Gunnison Project using in-situ recovery mining techniques.

In certain cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved" suggesting future outcomes, or other expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions, intentions or statements about future events or performance. Forward-looking information contained in this news release is based on certain factors and assumptions regarding, among other things, the estimation of mineral resources and mineral reserves, the realization of resource and reserve estimates, copper and other metal prices, the timing and amount of future exploration and development expenditures, the estimation of initial and sustaining capital requirements, the estimation of labour and operating costs, the availability of necessary financing and materials to continue to explore and develop the Gunnison Project in the short and long-term, the progress of exploration and development activities, the receipt of necessary regulatory approvals, the completion of the permitting process (including the resolution of any filed appeals), the estimation of insurance coverage, and assumptions with respect to currency fluctuations, environmental risks, title disputes or claims, and other similar matters. While the Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect.

Forward looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such factors include risks inherent in the exploration and development of mineral deposits, including risks relating to changes in project parameters as plans continue to be redefined including the possibility that mining operations may not commence at the Gunnison Project, risks relating to variations in mineral resources and reserves, grade or recovery rates resulting from current exploration and development activities, risks relating to the ability to access infrastructure, risks relating to changes in copper and other commodity prices and the worldwide demand for and supply of copper and related products, risks related to increased competition in the market for copper and related products and in the mining industry generally, risks related to current global financial conditions, uncertainties inherent in the estimation of mineral resources, access and supply risks, reliance on key personnel, operational risks inherent in the conduct of mining activities, including the risk of accidents, labour disputes, increases in capital and operating costs and the risk of delays or increased costs that might be encountered during the development process, regulatory risks, including risks relating to the acquisition of the necessary licenses and permits, financing, capitalization and liquidity risks, including the risk that the financing necessary to fund the exploration and development activities at the Gunnison Project may not be available on satisfactory terms, or at all, risks related to disputes concerning property titles and interest, environmental risks and the additional risks identified in the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's reports and filings with applicable Canadian securities regulators.

Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information is made as of the date of this news release. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release, and no securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved of the contents of this release.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2018) - Palamina Corp. (TSXV: PA) reports that New-Sense Geophysics Limited has commenced a 3,083 line kilometer heliborne geophysical survey over its Coasa, Gaban and Cori gold projects in the Puno Orogenic Gold Belt ("POGB") in south-eastern Peru. In the POGB, gold mineralization frequently has an association with magnetic pyrrhotite within swarms of orogenic quartz veins and veinlets restricted to discrete, continuous packages in shear zone structures hosted by fine-grained sedimentary units. Palamina believes results from the heliborne survey will outline regional structures and help focus follow up ground exploration on identifying the most prospective sectors for possible drill testing.

Andrew Thomson, President of Palamina stated, "The heliborne geophysical surveys should rapidly advance our understanding of the structural and geological attributes of the Gaban, Coasa and Cori gold projects. Palamina is the first company to conduct airborne geophysics over these areas and continues to advance its understanding of the structures in the POGB. Given the success to date of our mapping and prospecting efforts we believe this additional information will accelerate our pace of discovery."

Coasa Gold Project:

At Coasa, the heliborne geophysical survey will target the extension of the regional shear-zone hosting GoldMining's Crucero gold deposit and the recent gold discoveries by the Company along the projection of the same structure near Phusca. The survey will also look to expand on the recently identified Veta Zone discoveries where gold values up to 39.2 g/t gold and 7 m of 4.2 g/t gold were returned from chip sampling (see July 5, 2018 NR21).





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Gaban & Cori Gold Projects:

The Gaban & Cori Gold Projects cover 36,900 hectares where the heliborne geophysical survey will provide Palamina the first modern regional airborne dataset over an orogenic corridor which is currently the focus of both informal placer and hard rock gold mining activity. This section of the POGB sits at the apex of the San Gaban and Inambari rivers, feed from which contributes to the 700 square km's of alluvial gold being mined from the "Mother of God" region in the Amazon jungle.

At Gaban, 10 sets of alluvial miners intermittently mine coarse gold from the Yanamayo river where Palamina has acquired the mining rights to 85% of the surrounding ridges believed to host the orogenic source of the alluvial gold. Through jungle cover the airborne magnetic survey will be key in locating extensions to structural shear zones hosting the source to this gold mineralization.

At Cori aeromagnetic flight-lines were selected to detect possible extensions and structural targets parallel to a known 3 km long NW-SE gold-mineralized trend on the southwest side of the Corimayo mountains. Over 1,200 informal miners are mining native orogenic gold from quartz veins in at least 7 separate mining camps within the trend. Palamina has staked available extensions of this structure in both directions as well as the down-dip extensions on the north side of the Corimayo mountains.









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The three programmed heliborne geophysical surveys are being flown at a constant terrain clearance altitude of approximately 40 metres measuring magnetic and radiometric data. Survey flight lines will total approximately 3,083 line-kilometres and be flown approximately perpendicular to the dominant structural trends and depending on Palamina objectives, on parallel line-spacing's of 125 metre, 250 metre and 500 metre intervals. Magnetic and radiometric data will be downloaded at frequent intervals so that target identification can commence immediately, rather than on completion of the survey.

Palamina has secured 5 gold projects in south-eastern Peru in the POGB based on the undertakings of an exploration team having a cumulative 35 years' experience in the POGB. The POGB is one of the world's least formally explored orogenic gold belts. Palamina's five district scale gold projects now cover 78,500 hectares in the POGB. All have previously been to some extent "ground-truthed" by artisanal, small-scale and informal miners who are generally limited to mining gold from the top 50-100 metres below surface. Mineralized orogenic systems can extend down dip to over 1,000 metres in depth. Palamina continues to drive shareholder value through discovery.

Mr. Donald McIver, M,Sc Exploration and Economic Geology, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (FAusIMM), as well as the Society of Economic Geologists (FSEG), is Vice President Exploration for Palamina Corp. He is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has supervised the preparation, compilation and review of the geological and technical contents of this press release.

About Palamina Corp.

Palamina has acquired the application and mining rights to five gold projects in south-eastern Peru in the Puno Orogenic Gold Belt (POGB), one copper-gold project in the coastal I.O.C.G. belt in Southern Peru and holds 100% interest in one exploration project in Mexico. Palamina's Peruvian based exploration team have a cumulative 35 years' experience in the POGB and are supported by a board of directors and advisors who are proven mine finders, deal makers and financiers. Palamina has 29,621,381 shares outstanding and trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol PA.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:



Andrew Thomson, President

Phone: (416) 987-0722 or visit www.palamina.com

This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of such statements under applicable securities law. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. Various assumptions were used in drawing the conclusions or making the projections contained in the forward-looking statements throughout this news release. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the use of proceeds of the Offering and the Company's future business plans. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. The Company is under no obligation, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable law. A more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company appears in the Company's continuous disclosure filings, which are available at www.sedar.com. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
SpareBank 1 SMN refers to the announcement on 20 August 2018, and the bank has today issued an Additional Tier 1 bond issue with perpetual tenor in the amount of NOK 200 million. Settlement date for the bond issue is 4 September 2018.

The Additional Tier 1 bond issue has a coupon of 3 months NIBOR + 3.35% p.a. The issuer has a first call option after 5 years, subject to an approval from the Norwegian FSA.

In connection with the new issuance, the bank has bought back NOK 4 million of the outstanding volume in the Additional Tier 1 bond issue MING68 (ISIN NO0010692494), also with settlement date 4 September 2018.

The new issues are approved by the Norwegian FSA and the bank's Supervisory Board.

DNB Markets and SpareBank 1 Markets acted as joint lead managers.

Trondheim, 21 August 2018

Contact person in SpareBank 1 SMN:

Deputy Head of treasury Per Egil Aamo, tel +47 73 58 64 66

This information is subject of the disclosure requirements acc. to 5-12 vphl (Norwegian Securities Trading Act)

This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: SpareBank 1 SMN via Globenewswire


Panel discussion will delve into the risks surrounding the digitalization of the energy sector, how enterprises can become cyber resilient

Dragos, Inc., the trusted leader in industrial threat detection and response technology and services, announced today that Joe Slowik, adversary hunter for Dragos, Inc., will present at two sessions-"100% cyber secure-Is it utopia?" and "ICT & Cyber Security"-during the Offshore Northern Seas Foundation's ONS 2018 (Aug. 27-30, Stavanger, Norway).

"ICT and Cyber Security" is a technical session that will feature seven presenters, whose talks will focus on the new initiatives, trends, and applicable technologies within the upstream industry. Slowik will address the topic of building ICT defense in oil and gas and offer recommendations for defensive measures with those two spaces.

WHAT: Technical session: "ICT Cyber Security" WHEN: Tuesday, August 28, 10:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m. WHO: Leo Simonovich, VP and Global Head, Industrial Cyber and Digital Security, Siemens; Niall Merrigan, Head of Cybersecurity Norway, Capgemini; Thomas Ventulett, CEO, Aegex Technologies; Linn Iren Vestly Bergh, Senior Advisor, Petroleum Safety Authority; Prashant Soni, Commercial Director Veracity, DNV GL; Olav Espedal, Corporate Security Manager, Jakob Hatteland Solutions; Joe Slowik, Adversary Hunter, Dragos, Inc. WHERE: Hall 10, Stavanger Forum, Gunnar Warebergsgate 13, Stavanger, Norway

The panel discussion, "100% cyber secure-Is it utopia?" will examine digitalization and how the use of smart grids and smart devices make the energy sector an attractive target for cyber-attacks, with an eye to how enterprises can manage the risks and, more importantly, become cyber resilient.

WHAT: Panel discussion: "100% cyber secure-Is it utopia?" WHEN: Wednesday, August 29, 10:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m. WHO: Moderator: Marianne Aas, Head of Section, Norwegian National Security Authority; Michael Chertoff, Executive Chairman and Co-founder, The Chertoff Group; Joe Slowik, Adversary Hunter, Dragos, Inc.; Leo Simonovich, VP and Global Head, Industrial Cyber and Digital Security, Siemens; Julian Meyrick, Vice President, Security, IBM Europe; Elisabet Haugsb, Senior Cybersecurity Engineer, DNV GL Digital Solutions; JP Cavanna, Group Head of Cyber Security, Lloyds Register; General Michael Hayden, The Chertoff Group. WHERE: Clarion Hotel Energy, Stavanger, Norway

Principal Threat Analyst Mark Stacey will be on hand in the Dragos booth (#5628) to answer technical questions for media and to explain more about the industry's most comprehensive ICS cybersecurity solution.

ABOUT DRAGOS

Dragos applies expert human intelligence and threat behavior analytics to redefine industrial control system (ICS) cybersecurity. Its industry-first, ICS cybersecurity ecosystem provides industrial security practitioners with unprecedented situational awareness over their environments, with comprehensive threat intelligence, detection, and response capabilities. Dragos' solutions include: the Dragos Platform, software providing ICS-specific asset discovery, threat detection, and investigation capabilities; Dragos Threat Operations Center, providing ICS threat hunting, incident response services, and ICS cybersecurity training; and Dragos ICS WorldView, providing global, ICS-specific threat intelligence in the form of weekly reports and critical alerts upon discovery. Headquartered in metropolitan Washington DC, Dragos' team of ICS cybersecurity experts are practitioners who've lived the problems the industry faces, hailing from across the U.S. Intelligence Community to private sector industrial companies. For more information, please visit dragos.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180821005206/en/

Contacts:

Media:

ZAG Communications

Kari Walker, 703-928-9996

kari@zagcommunications.com
SOITEC AND MBDA TO ACQUIRE DOLPHIN INTEGRATION ASSETS

Joint Venture to Develop Dolphin Integration into Leading Provider

of Energy Efficient Semiconductor Design and Silicon IP Solutions

The joint venture formed by Soitec and MBDA acquires Dolphin Integration, including all employees.

The ownership of the joint venture is as follows: Soitec at 60% and MBDA at 40%.

Dolphin Integration's skillset to reinforce a full IP and service offering related to energy efficient solutions for chip design on FD-SOI.

Dolphin Integration and MBDA to strengthen their existing industrial and commercial collaboration including a long-term pipeline for ASIC and SoC products.

Bernin (Grenoble) and Le Plessis-Robinson, France, August 21, 2018 - Soitec (Euronext Paris), a world leader in designing and manufacturing innovative semiconductor materials, and MBDA, announce the joint acquisition of Dolphin Integration.

Dolphin Integration is an industry recognized provider of semiconductor design, silicon IP and SoC (System-On-Chip) solutions for low power applications. Headquartered in Grenoble, Dolphin Integration was founded in 1985. It currently employs 155 people, including 130 design engineers. For the fiscal year ended March 31th, 2018, the company generated revenues of 17 million Euros.

The joint venture formed by Soitec and MBDA acquires Dolphin Integration, including all employees. The resulting ownership of the joint venture is as follows: Soitec at 60% and MBDA at 40%.

The transaction was authorized today by the Commercial Court of Grenoble. It comes as a prompt and positive outcome of Dolphin Integration insolvency proceedings. The company went into receivership on July 24, 2018.

Soitec and MBDA each provide complementary strategic support to Dolphin Integration.

Soitec brings its engineered substrates expertise and unique low-power design methodology (body biasing) to accelerate Dolphin Integration design activities in low-power electronic devices, where a growing number of critical chips are built on FD-SOI technology. In addition, Soitec will strengthen Dolphin Integration's position within the entire semiconductor ecosystem, to develop and promote products and services in several strategic markets, including mobile devices and infrastructure, data centers, and space and industrial applications.

MBDA, a strategic customer of Dolphin Integration for defense applications since 2004, strengthens its existing industrial collaboration and long-term commercial pipeline for ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) and SoC (System on Chip) products. With the support of MBDA, Dolphin Integration will be able to advance its positions in aerospace and defense design.

Soitec and MBDA confident in Dolphin Integration profitable growth.

Soitec and MBDA together committed to a financial investment of around 6 million Euros including the acquisition of most of Dolphin Integration's assets, the payment of certain liabilities and a significant cash injection to finance Dolphin Integration's working capital requirements.

Soitec and MBDA are confident in their ability to turnaround the financial position of Dolphin Integration. Dolphin Integration is expected to be fully consolidated into Soitec's financial statements as of September 2018.

"Dolphin Integration represents a strategic opportunity for Soitec to reinforce a full IP and service offering related to energy efficient solutions for chip design on FD-SOI. This is a major differentiating factor for FD-SOI and a key accelerator of FD-SOI adoption in major market segments," highlighted Paul Boudre, CEO of Soitec.

"MBDA investment will strengthen the French defense industrial base since it will provide Dolphin Integration with a more stable flow of defense related revenues and a closer technological collaboration that will allow it to enhance the access of its specialized microelectronics offering to the entire French and European defense industry," said Antoine Bouvier, CEO of MBDA.

About Dolphin Integration

Created in 1985, Dolphin Integration is an integrated circuit design center and exporter of integrated circuits and components (virtual, analog and digital) for high volume manufacturing. As a major contributor to the emergence of a microelectronics design and following the explosive growth trends in semiconductor design, Dolphin Integration's mission is to become a global player within the specialized market of service design and optimization of integrated circuits for very low energy consumption. The company's products focus on serving the needs of dynamic consumer and industrial markets such as IoT, mobile, and automotive, as well as those of the European defense design industry.

About Soitec

Soitec (Euronext, Tech 40 Paris) is a world leader in designing and manufacturing innovative semiconductor materials. The company uses its unique technologies and semiconductor expertise to serve the electronics markets. With more than 3,000 patents worldwide, Soitec's strategy is based on disruptive innovation to answer its customers' needs for high performance, energy efficiency and cost competitiveness. Soitec has manufacturing facilities, R&D centers and offices in Europe, the U.S. and Asia.

Soitec and Smart Cut are registered trademarks of Soitec.

For more information, please visit www.soitec.com (http://www.soitec.com) and follow us on Twitter: @Soitec_EN

About MBDA

MBDA is the only European group capable of designing and producing missiles and missile systems that correspond to the full range of current and future operational needs of the three armed forces (land, sea and air).

With a significant presence in five European countries and within the USA, in 2017 MBDA achieved revenue of 3.1 billion euros with an order book of 16.8 billion euros. With more than 90 armed forces customers in the world, MBDA is a world leader in missiles and missile systems. In total, the group offers a range of 45 missile systems and countermeasures products already in operational service and more than 15 others currently in development.

MBDA is jointly owned by Airbus (37.5%), BAE Systems (37.5%), and Leonardo (25%).

For more information, please visit www.mbda-systems.com (http://www.mbda-systems.com)

SOITEC



Investor Relations:



Steve Babureck

+33 (0)6 16 38 56 27

steve.babureck@soitec.com (mailto:steve.babureck@soitec.com)







Media Contact:







Erin Berard

+33 (0)6 80 36 53 40

erin.berard@soitec.com (mailto:erin.berard@soitec.com)







Fabrice Baron

+33 (0)1 53 32 61 27

fabrice.baron@ddbfinancial.fr (mailto:fabrice.baron@ddbfinancial.fr)







Isabelle Laurent

+33 (0)1 53 32 61 51 isabelle.laurent@ddbfinancial.fr (mailto:isabelle.laurent@ddbfinancial.fr)



MBDA







Media Contact:







Jean Dupont

Mobile: +33 (0)6 33 37 64 66

jean.dupont@mbda-systems.com (mailto:jean.dupont@mbda-systems.com)







Karen Pachot

Mobile: +33 6 74 10 57 62

karen.pachot@mbda-systems.com (mailto:karen.pachot@mbda-systems.com)





# # #

Soitec is a French joint-stock corporation with a Board of Directors (Societe Anonyme a Conseil d'administration) with a share capital of  62,762,070.50, having its registered office located at Parc Technologique des Fontaines - Chemin des Franques - 38190 Bernin (France), and registered with the Grenoble Trade and Companies Register under number 384 711 909.

# # #

Download the press release in PDF (http://hugin.info/143589/R/2212178/862372.pdf)



This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: SOITEC via Globenewswire


Oakville, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2018) - Cardiol Therapeutics Inc. ("Cardiol" or the "Company"), a nanotherapeutics company focused on advancing the treatment of heart failure by developing proprietary formulations designed to deliver cannabinoids and other drugs to inflamed tissue in the heart, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Eldon Smith, OC, LLD (Hon), MD, FCAHS, FCCS, FRCPC, as Chairman, and Ms. Deborah Brown, MBA, Mr. Iain Chalmers, MBA, and Dr. Guillermo Torre-Amione, MD, PhD, to its Board of Directors.

Dr. Eldon Smith received his medical degree cum laude from Dalhousie University. Following Internal Medicine and Cardiology training in Canada, the UK, and the USA, he joined the Faculty at Dalhousie in 1973. In 1980, Dr. Smith became Head of Cardiology at the University of Calgary and the Foothills Hospital in Calgary; subsequently becoming Chairman of Medicine, Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs, and from 1992 to 1997 Dean of Medicine. From 1997 to 2010, he was Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology. Dr. Smith has published more than 250 papers and has contributed to many organizations, including being President of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society and the Association of Canadian Medical Colleges. In 2006, the Federal government appointed him to Chair the Steering Committee for the Canadian Heart Health Strategy. Dr. Smith became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005 and in 2014 received an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Dalhousie University. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Smith has been a Director of more than ten public companies focused on the biotech sector; among his roles are Chairman and Lead Director. Dr. Smith currently serves as Cardiol's Chief Medical Officer.

Ms. Deborah Brown is Managing Partner of Accelera Canada Ltd., a specialty consultancy firm that assists emerging biopharma ventures with the development and implementation of their Canadian market strategy. She has extensive North American leadership experience, having held progressively senior roles at EMD Serono (a division of Merck KGaA, Merck Serono) from 2000 to 2014, including Executive Vice President of Neuroimmunology for the company's U.S. operations, and President and General Manager of the company's Canadian operations. During her 15 years at EMD Serono Canada, Ms. Brown led the organization through a period of unprecedented growth from a small $10 million affiliate to a mid-sized pharma business with a diversified portfolio generating $150 million in revenue. She led the successful and most critical product launch in Serono's company history in the United States, resulting in a blockbuster product. In 2009, Ms. Brown was inducted into the Canadian Healthcare Marketing Hall of Fame and in 2012, she chaired the National Pharmaceutical Organization (now Innovative Medicines Canada) and served on its Board of Directors from 2007 to 2014. Currently, she sits on the Boards of Life Sciences Ontario, Oncolytics Biotech Inc., the Strategic Executive Advisory Council for Canadian Cancer Trials Group, and her local SPCA. Ms. Brown holds an MBA from University of Western Ontario's Ivey School of Business, a B.Sc. (Hons). from the University of Guelph and completed the Merck Executive MBA Program at the University of Hong Kong, INSEAD, and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and the Harvard University Advanced Negotiation Skills program.

Mr. Iain Chalmers is currently a professor of Marketing and Alcohol Business Management at Centennial College in Toronto Ontario. He recently transitioned to teaching after spending nearly thirty years in the Consumer Packaged Goods business, where for the last eight years, he was the Vice President of Marketing & Innovation for Diageo Canada, the world's largest alcohol spirits company. Prior to this, he spent eleven years at Gillette/Procter & Gamble in various senior positions, including General Sales and Marketing Director for the Gillette Grooming Division. Iain is a seasoned marketer and brand builder with experience in Canada and the U.S. He led the Business Development and Sales Planning function for Braun USA and worked in marketing and sales positions at Unilever and Wrigley Canada. While at Diageo, he was recognized by Marketing Magazine as one of the top four Marketers in Canada, based on the strong creative output of his team and consistent business performance for global brands, including Guinness, Smirnoff, Crown Royal, and Captain Morgan. Working in the alcohol industry has given Iain extensive experience building brands in a highly government-regulated environment. He is a past member of the Association of Canadian Advertisers, Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) and was a member of the Judicial Committee for ASC. Iain holds a BA in Political Science from University of Western Ontario, a Graduate Certificate in Management from Harvard University, a Bachelor of Education and an MBA from Charles Sturt University, and is a Certified Advertising Agency Practitioner (CAAP) from the Institute of Canadian Advertising.

Board certified in Cardiovascular Disease and Advanced Heart Failure/Transplant Cardiology, Dr. Guillermo Torre-Amione is chief of the Heart Failure Division and medical director of Cardiac Transplantation at the Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, where he divides his time between an active clinical practice and heart failure research. He also is a senior member at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, full professor of medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University, New York, and, more recently, became President of TecSalud, an academic medical center and medical school of the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) in Mexico. Dr. Torre-Amione spearheads the Gene and Judy Campbell Laboratory for Cardiac Transplant Research, where his primary areas of research include heart failure, cardiac transplantation, and the role of the immune response in modulating the progression of heart failure. He initiated a series of clinical studies that led to an FDA-approved phase II clinical trial of neurostimulation in heart failure, a novel approach to the treatment of patients with advanced heart failure. Dr. Torre-Amione received his medical degree from the ITESM and a doctorate degree in immunology from the University of Chicago. He has published more than 170 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals. He currently divides his time between his clinical and academic activities at The Methodist Hospital and ITESM. Prior to being appointed to Cardiol's Board of Directors, Dr. Torre-Amione was a member of the Company's Scientific Advisory Board.

"We are extremely fortunate to be able to attract such highly distinguished and accomplished individuals to our Board of Directors, they bring a wealth of experience and expertise in their respective fields to Cardiol," stated David Elsley, President & CEO of Cardiol. "We look forward to benefiting from their guidance and stewardship as we advance our development of innovative approaches to the treatment of heart failure and commercial introduction of pharmaceutical cannabinoid products to the rapidly growing market for medicinal cannabinoids."

About Cardiol Therapeutics

Cardiol Therapeutics, www.cardiolrx.com, is a nanotherapeutics company focused on the research and commercial development of proprietary drug formulations for the treatment of heart failure. The Company is collaborating with researchers and opinion leaders at international centers of excellence to leverage multidisciplinary expertise in drug delivery, drug formulation, nanotherapeutics, cardiac physiology, and heart failure. These research collaborations provide Cardiol with the optimal platform on which to pursue the commercial development of important anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic therapies for heart failure. Heart failure is a chronic condition affecting over six million adults in Canada and the United States and it remains a leading cause of death and hospitalization, with associated healthcare costs exceeding $30 billion annually. Approximately half of all heart failure patients have heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), for which there have been no new therapies developed in over 20 years. Cardiol is developing CTX01, a proprietary nanoformulation of pharmaceutical cannabidiol for the treatment of HFpEF. Cannabidiol has been shown to attenuate cardiac dysfunction in experimental models of diabetic cardiomyopathy and to decrease oxidative stress, fibrosis, and inflammation in other models relevant to HFpEF. CTX01 is designed to optimize and maintain blood levels of cannabidiol and target the drug to areas of inflammation in the heart. Cardiol is also developing CTX02, a proprietary nanoformulation of methotrexate, and CTX03, a proprietary nanoformulation of encapsulated Cyclosporine A (CsA), both for the treatment of heart failure. Additionally, in collaboration with the Company's exclusive manufacturing partner Dalton Pharma Services, Cardiol is developing unique manufacturing expertise in the production of pharmaceutically-produced cannabinoids. With the de-scheduling of cannabinoids from the Canadian Controlled Drug Substance Act to occur on October 17, 2018, Cardiol believes there is a significant opportunity to utilize this manufacturing expertise to produce pharmaceutical cannabinoids for commercial introduction to the growing market for medicinal cannabinoids.

For further information, please contact:

David Elsley, President & CEO

905.491.6793

david.elsley@cardiolrx.com

Trevor Burns, Investor Relations

905.491.6793

trevor.burns@cardiolrx.com

Cautionary statement regarding forward-looking information:

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to: future events; the future performance or the intended business strategy of Cardiol Therapeutics Inc. ("Cardiol"); the potential for Cardiol's licensed drug encapsulation and delivery technologies to enhance the bioavailability of pharmaceuticals; management's expectations regarding estimated future pharmaceutical research and development opportunities, collaborations and prospects; the success and proposed timing of Cardiol's product development activities, including, but not limited to, the proposed timeline of Cardiol's product candidate pipeline for commercial introduction; the ability of Cardiol to develop its product candidates; Cardiol's plans to research, discover, evaluate and develop additional products; Cardiol's proposed future collaborations to advance Cardiol's lead nanoformulations into clinical development; and the potential for Cardiol's cannabinoid-based products to provide sources of future revenue. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that Cardiol believes, expects or anticipates will, may, could or might occur in the future are "forward-looking information". Forward-looking information is frequently identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "projects", "intends", "believes", "anticipates", "forecasts", and other similar words and phrases, including variations (and negative variations) of such words and phrases, or may be identified by statements to the effect that certain actions, events or conditions "may", "could", "should", "would", or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking information contained herein reflects the current expectations or beliefs of Cardiol based on information currently available to it and is subject to a variety of known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause the actual events or results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. These risks and uncertainties and other factors include that the success of Cardiol's product candidates will require significant capital resources and years of clinical development efforts; the results of clinical testing and trial activities of Cardiol's products; Cardiol's ability to obtain regulatory approval and market acceptance of its products; Cardiol's ability to raise capital and the availability of future financing; Cardiol's lack of operating history; unforeseeable deficiencies in the development of Cardiol's product candidates; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future for Cardiol's research and development initiatives; Cardiol's ability to manage its research, development, growth and operating expenses; the potential failure of clinical trials to demonstrate acceptable levels of safety and efficacy of Cardiol's product candidates; Cardiol's ability to retain key management and other personnel; risks related to fluctuations in medicinal cannabinoid markets in Canada and worldwide; uncertainties regarding Cardiol's ongoing collaborative and manufacturing partnerships; uncertainties regarding results of researching and developing products for human use; Cardiol competes in a highly competitive and evolving industry; Cardiol's ability to obtain and maintain current and future intellectual property protection; and other risks and uncertainties and factors. These risks, uncertainties and other factors should be considered carefully, and investors should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking information. Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Cardiol disclaims any intent or obligation to update or revise such forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although Cardiol believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve certain assumptions, risks, and uncertainties and are not (and should not be considered to be) guarantees of future performance. It is important that each person reviewing this news release understands the significant risks attendant to the operations of Cardiol.
LAKEWOOD, CO / ACCESSWIRE / August 21, 2018 / General Moly, Inc. (the "Company" or "General Moly") (NYSE American: GMO, TSX: GMO), the only western-exchange listed, pure-play molybdenum mineral development company, reports that last week, the Nevada Supreme Court issued an Order directing the Company's subsidiary Kobeh Valley Ranch ("KVR") and the Nevada State Engineer to file an Answer to Eureka County's Writ Petition related to KVR's water applications for the Mt. Hope molybdenum project. The Court stated an Answer could be helpful in its review of the Writ Petition.

KVR's and the Nevada State Engineer's Answers are due August 22 and Eureka County's reply, if it chooses to file a reply, is due August 29. The Writ asks the Nevada Supreme Court to review the Nevada State Engineer's denial of Eureka County's Motion to Dismiss the water applications.

The hearing on KVR's water applications will begin on September 11, 2018 as previously scheduled by the Nevada State Engineer. The Company anticipates a decision from the Nevada State Engineer in early 2019.

About General Moly

General Moly is a U.S.-based, molybdenum mineral exploration and development company listed on the NYSE American (NYSE AMER), recently known as the NYSE MKT and former American Stock Exchange, and the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol GMO. The Company's primary asset, an 80% interest in the Mt. Hope Project located in central Nevada, is considered one of the world's largest and highest grade molybdenum deposits. Combined with the Company's wholly-owned Liberty Project, a molybdenum and copper property also located in central Nevada, General Moly's goal is to become the largest primary molybdenum producer in the world.

Molybdenum is a metallic element used primarily as an alloy agent in steel manufacturing. When added to steel, molybdenum enhances steel strength, resistance to corrosion and extreme temperature performance. In the chemical and petrochemical industries, molybdenum is used in catalysts, especially for cleaner burning fuels by removing sulfur from liquid fuels, and in corrosion inhibitors, high performance lubricants and polymers.

Contact:

Scott Roswell

(303) 928-8591

info@generalmoly.com

Website: www.generalmoly.com

SOURCE: General Moly, Inc.
Availability of resources need not constraint our understanding of linkages and our ability to come up with effective solutions.

India, like other countries, marked the World Biofuel Day on August 10, this year. From a development perspective, what is remarkable about biofuels is that their increasing use can help India alleviate many development challenges, all at the same time.

As PM Modi rightly noted in his address to mark the day, Biofuels can help [India] reduce import dependency on crude oil. They can contribute to a cleaner environment, generate additional income for farmers and rural employment. Biofuels have synergies with various government initiatives, including enh-ancing farmers incomes, and Swachh Bharat. Indeed, the government is aiming to blend 10 per cent of fuel with ethanol by 2022, and this may increase to 20 per cent by 2030.

The government needs to prioritise such interventions that are a win-win on multiple fronts. However, not all development interventions belong to this category. Often development interventions aimed at solving any specific development challenge also has unintended consequ-ence(s).

To give a recent example, the government has sought to restrict the manufacture and supply of Oxytocin that is being widely misused by the dairy and poultry industry. But Oxytocin also happens to be the key drug used by doctors to prevent death due to post-partum hemorrhage or heavy blood loss during childbirth. So, placing restrictions on Oxytocin also has the unintended effect on maternal healthcare that made the doctors jittery as they fear a shortage of Oxytocin. There are no easy solutions to this apparent trade-off betwe-en saving the lives of expectant mothers on one hand and shielding the general public from the harmful effects of chemicals in their food, on the other.

Sometimes one can find clever solutions. For example, Neem-coating of urea (fertiliser) has prevented subsidised urea meant to help farmers improve their crop yield, from getting diverted to alternate uses. But not all development problems are amenable to such clever solutions, for the development challenges can be quite varied.

Varied development challenges

Development challenges can be hugely diverse. And equally diverse are the responses needed to deal with those challenges, that can be simple or complex, require one-time effort or sustained efforts, require mostly a change in policy or can be heavy on implementation too and so forth.

To give a few examples, many infrastructure-related projects such as construction of a road or a bridge are pretty straightforward. Once a necessary land acquisition is in place, constructing a road or a bridge is a straightforward activity. But some development challenges can be quite difficult and complex such as tackling child malnutrition. Dealing with the nutrition challenge calls for a multi-sectoral intervention in every nook and corner of the country!

Sometimes a simple change in policy is all that is needed to deal with a problem. For example, advancing the Central annual budget process by a month is enough to enable the states to begin their activities for a new fiscal year on time. And many times, change in policy hardly means anything if it is not implemented well. For example, the real advantages of the Mate-rnity Benefit Amendment Act or the Corporate Social Responsibility Act lie in getting the new or changed provisions of these Acts implemented.

At times, getting a policy changed and implementing it can both be quite challenging. For example, getting the Parliament to pass the Goods & Services Tax (GST) Bill was a long-drawn battle, and once the bill was passed, rolling out the GST system was not easy either.

And sometimes, a narrow intervention can hardly make much difference unless it is accompanied by a set of complementary interventions working in a synergistic manner. For example, solving the problem facing the Indian agrarian sector today, meant that the government devised a series of interventions ranging from crop insurance to market support to crop protection against different risks to providing quality seeds to facilitating irrigation and so forth.

Understanding linkages

Regardless of the type of development challenge, an effective response mechanism ought to reflect and capture various interlinkages and interconnections involved in dealing with any challenge. For example, when a train accident kills several people or an illegal multi-storey building crumbles burying several of its occupants alive or when several school children fall sick after consuming mid-day meal served in school or when several infants die in a hospital within a short span of time, the administration has to deal with these emergencies for sure.

But they also need to fix the system so that such instances do not recur. Fixing the system means understanding the various linkages and interconnections and addressing the weak links in the system.

Availability of resources need not constraint our understanding of linkages and our ability to come up with effective solutions. Though such solutions can be implemented in a staggered manner as and when resources become available. What is true of man-made challenges is also true of challenges created by nature. Here too the planners and administrators need to understand and respect various linkages and interconnections that exists in nature. It is only when we fail to do so that we see repeated occurrences of floods, droughts, landslides and so forth  something we are witnessing at present too!

The writer is a development economist, formerly with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank
Faruqi Faruqi, LLP, a leading national securities law firm, reminds investors in Nielsen Holdings PLC ("Nielsen" or the "Company") (NYSE:NLSN) of the October 9, 2018 deadline to seek the role of lead plaintiff in a federal securities class action that has been filed against the Company.

If you invested in Nielsen stock or options between February 8, 2018 and July 25, 2018 and would like to discuss your legal rights, click here www.faruqilaw.com/NLSN.There is no cost or obligation to you.

You can also contact us by calling Richard Gonnello toll freeat 877-247-4292 or at 212-983-9330 or by sending an e-mail torgonnello@faruqilaw.com

The lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of all those who purchased Nielsen common stock between February 8, 2018 and July 25, 2018 (the "Class Period"). The case, Gordon v. Nielsen Holdings PLC et al., No. 18-cv-07143 was filed on August 8, 2018, and has been assigned to Judge John Fontaine Keenan.

The lawsuit focuses on whether the Company and its executives violated federal securities laws by: (1) recklessly disregarding its readiness for and the true risks of privacy related regulations and policies including the European General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") on its current and future financial and growth prospects; (2) failing to disclose that its financial performance was far more dependent on Facebook and other third-party large data set providers than previously revealed and that privacy policy changes affected the scope and terms of access Nielsen would have to third-party data; and (3), failing to disclose that access to Facebook and other third-party provider data was becoming increasingly restricted for Nielsen and Nielsen clients.

Specifically, on July 26, 2018, the Company announced disappointing financial results for the second quarter 2018. Nielsen blamed the results, in part, on the negative impact that the GDPR had on the Company's access to large data sets provided by partners like Facebook and stated further that "[o]ur results are significantly below our expectations as revenues were impacted by GDPR and changes to the consumer data privacy landscape."

Following this announcement, Nielsen's share price fell from $29.57 on July 25, 2018 to $22.11 on July 26, 2018-a $7.46 or 25.23% drop.

The court-appointed lead plaintiff is the investor with the largest financial interest in the relief sought by the class who is adequate and typical of class members who directs and oversees the litigation on behalf of the putative class. Any member of the putative class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision to serve as a lead plaintiff or not.

Faruqi Faruqi, LLP also encourages anyone with information regarding Nielsen's conduct to contact the firm, including whistleblowers, former employees, shareholders and others.

Attorney Advertising. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Faruqi Faruqi, LLP (www.faruqilaw.com). Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your particular case. All communications will be treated in a confidential manner.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180821005724/en/

Contacts:

FARUQI FARUQI, LLP

685 Third Avenue, 26th Floor

New York, NY 10017

Attn: Richard Gonnello, Esq.

rgonnello@faruqilaw.com

Telephone: (877) 247-4292 or (212) 983-9330
But, Raigad collector Vijay Suryavanshi's affidavit states that Nirav Modi's bungalow is not in violation of any norms.

A week after the Bombay High Court questioned the authorities' inaction over an 'illegally' constructed bungalow in Alibaug, belonging to fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, Maharashtra environment minister Ramdas Kadam has ordered the demolition of that house.

The minister, according to a report in the DNA, informed that there are 162 illegal bungalows in Murud and Alibaug and that Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud co-accused Mehul Choksi too owns one.

However, it appears that the Maharashtra government cannot proceed with a demolition-drive immediately - the matter will have to be heard by National Green Tribunal (NGT), the report added.

On 14 August, the Bombay High Court said that it would direct the state government to initiate an inquiry into the issue. The court also questioned how the collector of Raigad district, where Alibaug is situated, had decided to exempt Modi's bungalow from demolition.

It was hearing a petition filed by activist Surendra Dhavale seeking the court to direct authorities to demolish all unauthorised construction "within the low and high tide areas" in a bunch of villages in Alibaug.

As per the petition, such construction had been carried out in violation of the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority rules and the land laws of the state.

There are around 175 such private residences in CRZ areas in villages such as Varsoli, Sasvane, Kolgaon and Dokvade, among others, in Alibaug taluka, belonging to several "wealthy persons including Nirav Modi, and several businessmen and film actors", the PIL claimed.

In compliance with a previous order of the bench, Raigad collector Vijay Suryavanshi filed an affidavit last week.

In the affidavit, he said that 12 bungalows have been demolished, land records of several others were still being ascertained, and that it was found that Modi's bungalow is not in violation of any norms.

As per the affidavit, Modi's bungalow was constructed prior to 1986 -- before the coastal zone norms were ratified for the Raigad area, and therefore, it couldn't be held in any violation.

The collector's office also submitted that since the said bungalow had now been attached by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), it could not take any action.

The bench, however, took strong exception to the above submissions.

With inputs from PTI
While Rs 1 crore is being contributed directly to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund, the balance Rs 1 crore will be deployed by Jankidevi Bajaj Gram Vikas Sanstha (JBGVS), for distribution of survival kits, Bajaj Auto said in a statement.

New Delhi: Bajaj Auto on Tuesday announced a contribution of Rs 2 crore in aid of flood-hit Kerala.

While Rs 1 crore is being contributed directly to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund, the balance Rs 1 crore will be deployed by Jankidevi Bajaj Gram Vikas Sanstha (JBGVS), for distribution of survival kits, the company said in a statement.

The contribution is in addition to the Rs 50 lakh already contributed by various Bajaj Trusts, it added.

JBGVS is an institution that undertakes various corporate social responsibility initiatives of Bajaj Auto.

"Through this amount, Bajaj Auto aims to support at least 1,000 families with a basic startup kit for those who have been affected by the floods," the statement said.

Bajaj Auto President (Intra-city Business) RC Maheshwari said, "We at Bajaj Auto are extending our support through our dealerships in the state to aid the relief operations and to bring some respite to the victims of this unforeseen natural calamity."

The survival kits, including water filter, tarpaulin sheets, kitchen set with basic items, plastic sleeping mats, blankets and towels, will be supplied through various Bajaj Auto commercial vehicle dealerships and NGOs specialising in relief and rehabilitation, it said.

Hyundai Motor India Ltd. (HMIL) and TVS Motor Company too have announced a contribution of Rs 1 crore each to the state Chief Minister relief fund.

Other companies such as Tata Motors, Nissan India and BMW have also announced service support to customers in the state.
By Chen Aizhu and Florence Tan BEIJING/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - China, seeking to skirt U.S. sanctions, will use oil tankers from Iran for its purchases of that country's crude, throwing Tehran a lifeline while European companies such as France's Total are walking away due to fear of reprisals from Washington. The United States is trying to halt Iranian oil exports in an effort to force Tehran to negotiate a new nuclear agreement and to curb its influence in the Middle East

By Chen Aizhu and Florence Tan

BEIJING/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - China, seeking to skirt U.S. sanctions, will use oil tankers from Iran for its purchases of that country's crude, throwing Tehran a lifeline while European companies such as France's Total are walking away due to fear of reprisals from Washington.

The United States is trying to halt Iranian oil exports in an effort to force Tehran to negotiate a new nuclear agreement and to curb its influence in the Middle East.

China, which has cut imports of U.S. crude amid a trade war with Washington, has said it opposes unilateral sanctions and defended its commercial ties with Iran.

On Monday, sources told Reuters Chinese buyers of Iranian oil were beginning to shift their cargoes to vessels owned by National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC) for nearly all their imports.

The shift demonstrates that China, Iran's biggest oil customer, wants to keep buying Iranian crude despite the sanctions, which were reimposed after the United States withdrew in May from a 2015 agreement to halt Iran's nuclear programme.

"The shift started very recently, and it was almost a simultaneous call from both sides," said one source, a senior Beijing-based oil executive, who asked not to be identified as he is not allowed to speak publicly about commercial deals.

Tehran used a similar system between 2012 and 2016 to circumvent Western-led sanctions, which had curtailed exports by making it virtually impossible to obtain shipping insurance for business with Iran.

Iran, OPEC's third-largest oil producer, relies on sales of crude to China, Japan, South Korea, India and the EU to generate the lion's share of budget revenues and keep its economy afloat.

The United States has asked buyers of Iranian oil to cut imports to zero starting in November. Japan, South Korea, India and most European countries have already slashed operations.

A U.S. State Department official said the Trump administration was aware of China's plans to continue commercial cooperation with Iran and emphasized that Washington was fully committed to enforcing the sanctions.

"We continue to discuss our Iran policy with Chinese counterparts and the implications of our reimposition of sanctions," the official said, responding to the Reuters report.

French oil major Total , previously one of the biggest European buyers of Iranian oil, has said it had no choice but to halt imports and abandon Iranian projects to safeguard its operations in the United States.

On Monday, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said Total had officially left Iran's South Pars gas project.

Total later confirmed it had notified the Iranian authorities of its withdrawal from South Pars after it failed to obtain a waiver from U.S. sanctions.

Iranian officials had earlier suggested Chinas state-owned CNPC could take over Totals stake and Zanganeh said the process to replace the French company was under way.

"As for the future of Total's share, we have not been informed of an official CNPC position, but as we have always said, CNPC, a Chinese state-owned company, has the right to resume our participation if it decides so, Total said in an emailed statement.

WALK AWAY

French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly called for safeguarding the Iranian nuclear deal and defended the interests of EU companies in Iran.

But most European companies have conceded that they would be forced to walk away from Tehran for fear of sanctions and losing access to operations that require U.S. dollars.

The first round of U.S. sanctions, which included cutting off Iran and any businesses that trade with it from the U.S. financial system, went into effect on Aug. 7.

A ban on Iranian oil purchases will start in November. Insurers, which are mainly U.S.- or European-based, have begun winding down their Iranian business to comply with the sanctions.

To safeguard their supplies, state oil trader Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp and Sinopec Group, Asia's biggest refiner, have activated a clause in long-term supply agreements with National Iranian Oil Corp (NIOC) that allows them to use NITC-operated tankers, four sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The price for oil under the long-term deals has been changed to a delivered ex-ship basis from the previous free-on-board terms, meaning Iran will cover all costs and risks of delivering the crude as well as handling the insurance, they said.

In July, all 17 tankers chartered to carry oil from Iran to China were operated by NITC, according to shipping data on Thomson Reuters Eikon. In June, eight of 19 vessels chartered were Chinese-operated.

Last month, those tankers loaded about 23.8 million barrels of crude oil and condensate destined for China, or about 767,000 barrels per day (bpd). In June, the loadings were 19.8 million barrels, or 660,000 bpd.

In 2017, China imported an average of 623,000 bpd, according to customs data.

Sinopec declined to comment. A spokesperson for Nam Kwong Group, the parent of Zhenrong, declined to comment.

NIOC did not respond to an email seeking comment. An NITC spokesman said it would forward a request from Reuters for a comment to the country's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.

It was not immediately clear how Iran would provide insurance for the Chinese oil purchases, worth some $1.5 billion a month. Insurance usually includes cover for the oil cargoes, third-party liability and pollution.

GRAPHIC: Iranian crude exports - https://reut.rs/2Jw4ehD

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Ankara, Cyril Altmeyer in Paris and Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Dale Hudson and James Dalgleish)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Daikin has struggled to compete with local rivals such as United Technologies Carrier and Johnson Controls York, which specialise in ducted air conditioning.

Tokyo: Daikin Industries, the worlds largest maker of air conditioning equipment, is turning to Africa for further expansion, 10 years after a successful gamble on sharing its key technology with a Chinese company.

As Japanese manufacturers such as Panasonic stepped back from home appliances over a decade ago to avoid price wars with Asian rivals, Daikin did the opposite, going head-to-head with the likes of South Koreas LG.

Fighting off low-cost competitors through local partnerships and acquisitions, Daikin grabbed top share in markets such as India. Africa, where LG and Chinas Haier are established giants, may seem like another difficult target for Daikin.

But Yoshihiro Mineno, Daikins senior executive in charge of Asia, said the company is used to silencing critics, recalling the controversy more than 15 years ago over its decision to target mass markets overseas.

Many sceptics at the time said it would be impossible to make profits in the volume zone in Asia, and that it was pointless to invest there, Mineno told Reuters in an interview.

Conventional wisdom, he said, held that the 94-year-old company should focus on high-end markets.

Daikin saw limited potential for growth in that area, however, and executives knew the company would have to focus on low cost and high volume if it wanted to boost its global presence.

The companys market value now exceeds those of electronics conglomerates Panasonic Corp and Hitachi Ltd.

If advanced technologies or added-value products are your only selling points, your rivals are likely to catch up and overtake you, said Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at the research arm of Ace Securities.

But Daikins business model is backed by cost competitiveness, Yasuda added. Its among a few Japanese companies that can compete head to head with the Chinese.

The United States, the worlds largest market for air conditioning, has been tougher to crack.

Daikin has struggled to compete with local rivals such as United Technologies Carrier and Johnson Controls York, which specialise in ducted air conditioning.

Daikin acquired the US company Goodman in 2012 to strengthen its expertise in that area but has made little headway.

The prospect of tariffs from a trade war between the United States and China adds another headache: Daikin assembles air conditioners in the US using some Chinese-made parts.

Mineno said the company may need to export components from elsewhere in Asia if the trade war escalates.

Regional strategy

In 2006, Daikin took over Malaysian contract manufacturer OYL Industries for $2.1 billion. The deal boosted its purchasing power, and provided access to cheaper global suppliers and nimble product development.

Two years later, it shocked the industry by agreeing to a partnership with major Chinese rival Gree Electric Appliances. The deal gave Daikin mass-market production capabilities in return for access to its advanced inverter technology, which saves electricity by efficiently regulating temperatures.

Critics said the move amounted to self-sabotage because of the potential for such valuable components to be copied.

The technology did end up in air conditioners from other Chinese companies. But Daikin expanded production so quickly with Grees help that it drove smaller rivals out of the market.

We effectively created a market for inverter air conditioners with Gree, Mineno said.

Gree is still a partner in producing low-end models and components for Daikin, although they compete in most other segments.

Being the No. 1 player in inverter machines gave us access to government officials and allowed us to influence regulations, Mineno said, adding that stricter energy consumption rules, for instance, made Daikin inverters more attractive.

Daikins sales have tripled since the OYL acquisition, with overseas markets now accounting for 80 percent of its $20 billion annual revenue.

By contrast, other Japanese manufacturers have struggled to maintain their edge in products that include televisions, smartphone screens and semiconductors.

Experts say most failed to innovate enough to continue charging more than their Chinese and Korean rivals, eventually giving up both market share and margins.

India to Africa

Executives said Daikins biggest growth driver is India, where it has established itself as a top player despite competition from LG, Samsung Electronics and local manufacturers.

It appointed Indian industry veteran Kanwal Jeet Jawa to lead operations there, built a sales network and localised production with low-cost know-how from OYL.

Daikins market share in room air conditioners in India jumped from less than 2 percent in 2010 to 17 percent over eight years, lifting the company to the top total sales spot of air conditioners for commercial buildings and industrial use.

Jawa will lead the expansion in Africa as well, the company said. It plans to set up a regional office in east Africa in a few months.

Jawa said Daikin would continue to aim for the volume zone.

Its a very price-sensitive market, he said of Africa. We want to use our leverage of Indian operations and we want to replicate what we have done in India.

Daikin is adding production capacity for further global expansion. It opened an assembly plant in Vietnam in May and plans another in Malaysia this year.

It is also considering a new Indian plant to help produce products for Africa, Jawa said.

Daikin has set a 2020 sales target of 90 billion yen ($812.71 million) for Africa and the Middle East, an increase of 11 percent from last year, but Mineno said it may need to revise that upward.

Globally, I still see a lot of growth potential that can be unleashed by our volume-zone strategy, he said.
In the joint venture firm DLF Cyber City Developers Ltd (DCCDL), DLF has 66.66 percent stake while GIC has 33.34 percent shareholding.

New Delhi: Realty major DLF will settle Rs 8,500 crore payable to its joint venture with Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC by 2020, mainly by transferring certain assets, the company said.

In the joint venture firm DLF Cyber City Developers Ltd (DCCDL), DLF has 66.66 percent stake while GIC has 33.34 percent shareholding. DCCDL currently holds about 27 million sq ft of rent-yielding commercial assets, largely in Gurugram, with annual rental income of about Rs 2,400 crore.

The JV was formed in December 2017 when DLF promoters sold entire 40 percent stake in DCCDL for nearly Rs 12,000 crore.

This deal included sale of 33.34 percent stake in DCCDL to GIC for about Rs 9,000 crore and buyback of remaining shares worth about Rs 3,000 crore by DCCDL.

In an analyst presentation, DLF said that about Rs 8,500 crore amount is inter-company payable by DLF Group to DCCDL.

"It is anticipated that inter-company payables shall be settled by 2020, largely by transfer of certain identified assets of DLF," it added.

DLF plans to settle this amount through sale of certain rent-yielding assets and land parcels earmarked for commercial use.

In February this year, DLF's group CFO Saurabh Chawla had said the company would like to transfer all commercial assets, including land parcels, to the JV but certain assets cannot be transferred due to regulatory norms.

DLF has completed rent-yielding assets in Delhi and has commercial land parcels in Gurugram and Chennai that can be transferred to DCCDL, Chawla had said.

In the presentation, DLF said that DCCDL would "act as 'Business Trust'  not only will it build its own investment properties (about 25 million sq ft potential embedded in the JV) but would also have the ability to purchase investment properties, at FMV (fair market value), being developed by DLF or third parties."

DLF also reported the financial results of the JV firm DCCDL, which posted a net profit of Rs 363 crore over an income of Rs 1,227 crore during the first quarter of this fiscal.

The JV currently has a net debt of Rs 16,162 crore, of which Rs 14,570 crore loans are through lease rental discounting (LRD) against its rental receipts from leased commercial properties. The average maturity of this LRD loan is 7.5 years with average coupon rate of 8.72 percent. Nearly Rs 890 crore loan is through CMBS (commercial mortgage backed securities) with a coupon rate of 10.9 percent.

The JV is expected to generate substantial cash flow for new capex, net debt reduction and dividend flows to both the shareholders, the presentation said.

DCCDL group currently owns and operates a pan-India portfolio about 27 million sq ft and the portfolio would more than double in the next 10 years, it added.
A few other mobile wallet companies have swung into action to mobilise funds for the beleaguered people of Kerala devastated by heavy rains, but how convenient is it for making donations

Dont look a gift horse in its mouth is an old hat. But the one who gifts can always ask anxious questions about the end use of his donations as well as the tax benefits promised to him. It is equally true that charity needs to be properly channelized so as to reach the target beneficiaries. Red Cross has made for itself a formidable reputation for getting into the act with dispatch wherever a disaster strikes. Back home in India people trust committed and resourceful professional charitable organisations like Ramakrishna Mission more than governmental agencies when it comes to donating for an altruistic cause. But this article is focused on the role of donation aggregators.

Paytm and a few other mobile wallet companies have swung into action to mobilise funds for the beleaguered people of Kerala devastated by heavy rains. The ease of collection is definitely in their favor with tailor-made software enabling donations with a touch of the screen at the right spot. A Paytm account holder can donate to the Chief Ministers Distress Relief Fund Kerala (CMDRF) by touching the 500/1000/2000 box. Social media is full of homilies for the common folks---donate a small sliver of what you splurge, is its refrain. But many right-thinking people are also asking---Is Rs 500 a small sliver of an average splurge? It is not for the charity/donation aggregator to say how much one must donate. Restricting donations to one of the three amounts might make for ease of collection and accounting but that makes it beyond the reach of the poor who otherwise might want to contribute their mite to the suffering masses of Kerala.

Initially, Paytm expressed its inability to issue receipts that would pass muster under section 80G of the Income-tax Act 1961 for claiming deduction from ones gross total income. That honor is reserved for charitable institutions that get themselves approved by the Commissioner of Income tax. Obviously Paytm would not like to get enmeshed in the nitty-gritty of rehabilitation which is admittedly not its cup of tea.

But later on, all the mobile wallet platforms seem to have softened their stand and agreed to issue receipts which in turn can be produced to CMDRF for getting yet another receipt, the one that would pass muster under section 80G for claiming deduction by donors. This is a put-off for a donor with an eye on 80G benefit because he would be at the tender mercies of CMDRF which obviously would be chary of such vicarious donors.

Since Paytm would be handing over a lump sum for the donations collected in bits and pieces, reconciliation would be insisted upon before receipts can be issued to such vicarious donors. Paytm should take it upon itself this arduous task instead of asking the vicarious donors to fend for themselves, cringing and craving before the CMDRF bureaucracy. To be sure, Paytm has through its blog exhorted donors vide its platform to seek authentic receipts by logging onto https://donation.cmdrf.kerala.gov.in/ but it wont be as simple as made out to be.

Unless a donor is able to establish a back-to-back relationship with his own small donation to Paytm and the lump sum donation made by the mobile wallet on behalf of a whopping 12 lakh donors aggregating to Rs 30 crore till the time the above blog was posted, 80G seeking donors could be left high and dry.

Incidentally, CMDRF has advertised its account number with State Bank of India along with its IFSC and SWIFT codes into which NEFT transfers can be easily made and an online receipt obtained -- the back-to-back printout of which would pass muster under section 80G. While a mobile wallet is useful in establishments for those who are loath to carry their cards, swipe them and authorise the payment with their ATM PIN, donations triggered as much by noble motives as by the lure of tax benefits would be advisedly better made through net banking.

In the event, the mobile wallet companies initiative, commendable as it is, might find favor only with non-taxpayers. For good measure, Paytm has promised to make a matching contribution up to Rs 1 crore. Thus, if it manages to collect say Rs 50 lakh through its Kerala window, it would present CMDRF with a cheque of Rs 1 crore---0.50 crore from its account holders and 0.50 its own. If it manages to collect Rs 5 crore, it would handover only Rs 6 crore---5 crore of account holders and 1 crore of its own.

Two legitimate questions arise in this regard:

1) Will there be an audit of funds collected vis-a-vis the funds handed over to CMDRF?

2) Will CMDRF get itself embroiled in the messy distinction between own and vicarious donations made by Paytm?

(The author is a senior columnist and tweets @smurlidharan)


According to the latest data uploaded today by the EPFO, the new members enrolment in June is the highest so far in the last 10 month at 7,93,308.

New Delhi: Retirement fund body EPFO's payroll data suggests that as many as 47.13 lakh jobs were created during September 2017 to June this year. However, the retirement body lowered earlier estimate of new members enrolment by 12.38 percent, from 44.74 lakh to 39.20 lakh member for September 2017-May 2018 period.

According to the payroll data released by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) for September-May, as many as 44.74 lakh new member were enrolled for its social security schemes to provide benefits, including provident fund, insurance and pension.

According to the latest data uploaded today by the EPFO, the new members enrolment in June is the highest so far in the last 10 month at 7,93,308.

In June, the maximum number of enrolment of 2,53,466 were recorded in the age bracket of 18 to 21 years followed by 2,05,177 in 22 to 25 age group.

The data is provisional as updation of employees records is a continuous process and gets updated in subsequent months, the EPFO said in a statement.

It also stated that the estimates may include temporary employees, whose contributions may not be continuous for the entire year.

For each age-wise band, the estimates are net of the members enrolled and ceased during the month as per the EPFO records, it added.

The EPFO manages social security funds of workers in the organised/ semi organised sector. It runs three social security scheme Employees' Provident Fund Scheme 1952, Employees' Deposit Linked Scheme 1976 (EDLI) and Employees' Pension Scheme 1995. It manages the accounts of over six crore members and a corpus of over Rs 10 lakh crore.

Earlier this year, the EPFO had started the practice of updating payroll data on its official portal. The body had also lowered its payroll data estimates earlier.
By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump does not expect much progress from trade talks with China this week in Washington, he told Reuters on Monday. Trump said in an interview that he had 'no time frame' for ending the trade dispute with China, which threatens to impose tariffs on virtually all goods traded between the world's two largest economies

By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump does not expect much progress from trade talks with China this week in Washington, he told Reuters on Monday.

Trump said in an interview that he had "no time frame" for ending the trade dispute with China, which threatens to impose tariffs on virtually all goods traded between the world's two largest economies.

"Im like them; I have a long horizon," he added.

The talks this week come as new U.S. tariffs on $16 billion of Chinese goods take effect at 12:01 a.m. (0401 GMT) on Thursday, along with retaliatory tariffs from Beijing on an equal amount of U.S. goods.

The U.S. Trade Representative's Office also is holding hearings this week on proposals for tariffs on a further $200 billion of Chinese goods that will start to directly hit consumer products.

Trump said Chinese negotiators would be arriving shortly, adding he did not "anticipate much" from the mid-level discussions.

He said resolving the trade dispute with China will "take time because Chinas done too well for too long, and theyve become spoiled. They dealt with people that, frankly, didnt know what they were doing, to allow us to get into this position."

Trump also accused China of manipulating its yuan currency to make up for having to pay tariffs imposed by Washington, while arguing the U.S. central bank should be more accommodating.

The meetings, expected to take place on Wednesday and Thursday in Washington, are the first formal U.S.-China trade talks since June, when U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross met Chinese economic adviser Liu He in Beijing but returned with no agreements.

Since then, Washington and Beijing have been locked in escalating rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs, with tariffs on $50 billion in goods by each country expected to be in place by Thursday. Trump has threatened to impose duties on virtually all of the more than $500 billion of Chinese goods exported to the United States.

Trump's tariffs are part of his administration's effort to pressure China into making major changes to its economic policies to better protect intellectual property, end its industrial subsidy efforts and open its markets to foreign competition.

Beijing denies U.S. allegations that it systematically forces the unfair transfer of U.S. technology and insists that it adheres to World Trade Organization rules.

The Washington talks will be led by U.S. Treasury Undersecretary David Malpass and Chinese Commerce Vice Minister Wang Shouwen.

(Reporting Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Writing by Peter Henderson and David Lawder; Editing by James Dalgleish and Cynthia Osterman)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By David Shepardson and David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Foreign-brand automakers with U.S.

By David Shepardson and David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Foreign-brand automakers with U.S. plants do not support Trump administration rules to raise the amount of local content in North American-made vehicles, a group representing companies including Toyota Motor Corp <7203.T>, Volkswagen AG and Hyundai Motor Co <005380.KS> has told key U.S. lawmakers.

Talks between Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer are due to resume on Tuesday in Washington to try to resolve remaining bilateral issues so that Canada, which has been sidelined for weeks from the negotiations, can return to the bargaining table.

The automakers' position was in a previously unreported Aug. 16 letter from their "Here for America" group to top trade-focused members of Congress. The letter could raise resistance to a revamped North American Free Trade Agreement from lawmakers in southern states, where foreign manufacturers have built auto plants.

"We remain concerned that, without further clarifications, assurances and modifications, many of those companies producing vehicles in multiple states will not be in a position to support legislation implementing a NAFTA 2.0," the group said in the letter, signed by John Bozzella, president of the Association of Global Automakers.

Automotive experts have said that some foreign brand automakers with smaller North American manufacturing footprints and fewer U.S. research and development staff may have difficulty meeting the more stringent content requirements for years.

The group said its members, which also include Honda Motor Co Ltd <7267.T>, Daimler , BMW , Nissan Motor Co Ltd <7201.T> Kia Motors <000270.KS>, Subaru Corp <7270.T>, and Volvo, a unit of China's Geely Automobile Holdings <0175.HK>, account for nearly 50 percent of U.S. vehicle production.

DETROIT SUPPORTIVE

At the same time, the American Automotive Policy Council, which represents Detroit's Big Three automakers is "encouraged by the direction of the discussions," said Matt Blunt, who heads the trade group.

"We share the administrations overall goals of strengthening U.S. auto manufacturing and creating jobs and given the importance of NAFTA to U.S. industry we urge the negotiators to quickly complete the negotiations," added Blunt, whose group represents General Motors Co , Ford Motor Co and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles .

The United States and Mexico are closing in on a bilateral deal on autos that would lift the requirement for North American content in regionally made vehicles to at least 70 percent from the current 62.5 percent.

The deal is expected to require that some 40 percent of the value come from high wage locations paying at least $16 an hour, meaning the United States and Canada, a Mexican source close to the talks told Reuters.

USTR officials have been meeting in recent days with individual automakers to secure support for potential changes, according to auto industry sources.

A USTR spokeswoman declined comment.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who launched the renegotiation of the 1994 pact a year ago, has said he wants the reworked deal to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, particularly in autos and auto parts.

Other key unresolved issues include the phase-in time for the new automotive rules to take effect and whether the U.S. demand for a "sunset" clause that forces a renegotiation every five years is adopted, making long-term investment decisions more difficult.

The letter from the ad-hoc "Here for America" group also raised concerns that national security tariffs on autos, auto parts, steel and aluminum would undermine the benefit of a NAFTA agreement.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and David Lawder; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Dhananjay Bhave, 51, formerly attached to a famous temple in Mangueshi village turned himself in before judicial magistrate at Ponda town.

The two women, hailing from Mumbai and currently studying in the US, had filed complaints last month with the Ponda police against the priest, accusing him of molesting them in the temple. (Representational Image)

Panaji: A former temple priest accused of molesting two women surrendered before a court in Goa on Tuesday and was arrested by the police, an official said.

Dhananjay Bhave, 51, formerly attached to a famous temple in Mangueshi village, around 15 km from here in North Goa district, turned himself in before the judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) at Ponda town, he said.

The two women, hailing from Mumbai and currently studying in the US, had filed complaints last month with the Ponda police against the priest, accusing him of molesting them in the temple on separate occasions during their visit to the place in the last two months.

The priest, who was subsequently dismissed from the temple's services, was missing since then.

He had filed an anticipatory bail petition before the district court which rejected the plea. He later moved the Bombay High Court at Goa which also rejected his petition last week.

"The priest surrendered himself before the JMFC this morning and was subsequently placed under arrest," a senior official at the Ponda police station said. The accused has been booked under IPC section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), he said.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs is seeking clarifications from the auditors of Jet Airways on the airline deferring announcement of its June quarter results

New Delhi: The Ministry of Corporate Affairs is seeking clarifications from the auditors of Jet Airways on the airline deferring announcement of its June quarter results, sources said.

The board of crisis-hit Jet Airways -- which is working on ways to reduce costs amid financial woes -- on 9 August deferred the matter of consideration of the unaudited financial results for the June quarter.

Sources said the ministry is seeking clarifications from the auditors of Jet Airways on delay in announcement of results.

The auditors are believed to have issues regarding the airline being a going concern, they added.

In accounting parlance, the going concern assumption means that the company would remain in business for the foreseeable future without being forced to halt operations and liquidate its assets.

Markets regulator Sebi is also looking into the airline delaying the June quarter results.

The airline's board is scheduled to meet on 27 August to consider and approve the unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended 30 June.

Earlier this month, sources said that Sebi is looking into the airline delaying June quarter results after the carrier's audit committee expressed reservations.

Shares of Jet Airways dropped nearly 3 percent to close at Rs 292.35 on BSE.
The government released two separate set of images. The first set will be used on tobacco products from September 1, 2018, for a period of 12 months, after which the second set of images will be used.

New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry issued on Monday enhanced pictorial warnings to be printed on packets of cigarette and other tobacco products, highlighting the ill-effects of tobacco consumption, according to an official statement. These new pictorial warnings will be used from September 1.

The government released two separate set of images. The first set will be used on tobacco products from September 1, 2018, for a period of 12 months, after which the second set of images will be used.

"The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India has notified new sets of specified health warnings for all tobacco product packs by making an amendment in the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labeling) Rules and Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labeling) Second Amendment Rules, 2018, the statement said.

The amended rules will be applicable with effect from 1 September, 2018, it said.

"Any person engaged directly or indirectly in the production, supply, import or distribution of cigarettes or any tobacco products shall ensure that all tobacco product packages shall have the specified health warnings exactly as prescribed," it said.

The statement also said violation of the provision is a punishable offence with imprisonment or fine as prescribed in Section 20 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003.
Swedish furniture retail company IKEA has evinced interest in sourcing products from West Bengal, state Finance Minister Amit Mitra on Tuesday said

Kolkata: Swedish furniture retail company IKEA has evinced interest in sourcing products from West Bengal, state Finance Minister Amit Mitra on Tuesday said.

The multinational retail chain recently opened its first store in India at Hyderabad.

Mitra, addressing the concluding session of a two-day MSME conclave, said IKEA has decided to source Rs 2,000-crore worth bamboo and natural fibre from India.

"West Bengal is a big producer of bamboo. People from IKEA came to meet me and had detailed discussions on their interest in the state," he said, without divulging details.

The minister said the state government has set a target for creating one lakh entrepreneurs in the next two years.

Talking of bank finance to MSMEs, Mitra said the aim is to provide loans worth Rs 80,000 crore to the segment in the next two years, adding, the government would explore the possibility of roping in state cooperative banks for this purpose.

The target set for the current fiscal is Rs 50,000 crore, he said.

The West Bengal government has earmarked 2,000 acres of land for setting up 30 MSME industrial parks across the state.

During the conclave, entrepreneurs were able to clinch export orders worth Rs 113 crore, Mitra said.

Several MoUs were signed for promotion and export of handicraft, leather, apparel, and gem and jewellery products of the state, he said.

The government has also inked two MoUs with the NSE and the BSE to help MSMEs migrate to the IPO level.
In the case of the Kerala floods, the loss will be higher under the motor insurance portfolio as the state has a sizeable number of costly vehicles.

As flood-affected Keralites attempt to take stock of the damage to property, insurance companies have reportedly decided to expedite the settlement of claims by vehicle owners.

General insurance companies want those whose vehicles have been affected by the flood to post a picture of their car or bike submerged in water and claim insurance, The Financial Express reported.

Many insurance firms including National Insurance Company, New India Assurance Company, Oriental Insurance Company and United India have also set up camps across the states to assist insurees in posting claims from damages to vehicles, the newspaper said.

State-owned general insurance companies on Monday said that they have geared up to settle claims in flood-ravaged Kerala. With a wide repository of underwriting and claims management resources, they have simplified claim procedures for large-scale losses during natural catastrophes, the four state-owned firms said a joint statement.

General insurance experts on Monday said that there will certainly be an increase in the premium charged by reinsurers for covering flood risks.

They said that reinsurers may increase the loss deductibles to quote a lower rate to cover the catastrophic risk.

In the case of the Kerala floods, the loss will be higher under the motor insurance portfolio as the state has a sizeable number of costly vehicles, they added.

"Incidents of floods in India seems to be regular in recent years. The reinsurers may ask the primary insurers to manage the risk with their premium rates. If the primary insurers want a catastrophic insurance cover, then the reinsurers may levy higher deductible to cut down on his own losses in case of flood losses," a senior insurance industry official told the IANS on condition of anonymity.

Following are the contact details of some insurers:

National Insurance Co Ltd

Claim hub: 9188044186

Email: kro.claimshub@nic.co.in

New India Assurance Co Ltd

Toll-free number 18002091415

Oriental Insurance Co Ltd

Toll-free number 1800-11-8485

Email: kerala.claims@orientalinsurance.co.in

United India Insurance Co Ltd

Vehicle claims: 8921792522; other claims: 9388643066

Email: uiic.keralaflood@gmail.com

A reinsurance company is an insurer for a primary insurer that provides a cover for property and the lives of people. Loss deductibles are the amount of loss that a primary insurer has to bear from its own pockets while anything above it is borne by the reinsurer.

With inputs from agencies
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has unveiled a new IT policy to make the state as one of the leading states in the country in the sector

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has unveiled a new IT policy to make the state as one of the leading states in the country in the sector.

Banerjee rolled out the policy while launching the Bengal Silicon Valley Hub in New Town, a fast-growing planned satellite city in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, last week.

The new policy will be focused on 3D printing, big data analytics, animation and gaming besides, cyber security INTERNET-of-Things (IoT), robotics, drones, fin tech, artificial intelligence, Industry 4.0, quantum computing and others, a notification said.

"West Bengal has surged ahead economically and seeks to leverage IT for social welfare and economic development. The state's vision is to become one of the leading states in India in the IT, ITeS, ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and ESDM (Electronic System Design and Manufacturing) sectors," it said.

"The policy strives to unlock the vast potential of the IT&E to design a paradigm shift in the sector, all the while fostering social welfare," it said.

The policy also aims at accomplishing following strategic objectives such as creating new jobs in the sector besides, upskill, reskill and skill the population of the state to empower them for targeting jobs in the digital economy.

"It also aims at enhancing brand West Bengal as an epicentre of cutting-edge R&D in IT and promote innovation and enhance contribution to the global value chain. And also foster social benefits through digital technology and create an empowered populace," it said.

The notification also claimed that the policy would "enable West Bengal to transform into a knowledge-driven, technologically-enabled welfare society with the extensive use of IT and ITeS, there increasing employment opportunities and promoting the state as a preferred investment destination."

The new policy would also focus on augmented reality and virtual reality besides, blockchain, cyber security/cyber forensics and data science.

"The objective of an IT&E policy for West Bengal is to prepare the state for the future. The new policy also stressed priorities would be given to skill building, ecosystem build-up, entrepreneurship promotion, spreading the benefits of the IT revolution in tier II, tier III cities," it said.

It has also stressed on the robust physical infrastructure referring to the third largest road network of the country, including 4,000 km of railway tracks and the second largest metro rail network.

Referring to the zero man-days lost in the last five years, the policy described West Bengal as a state has a leading rank among all the states in the context of Ease of Doing Business (EoDB). It has also referred to West Bengal as a power surplus state.

In fact, the policy has also stated that to reach this vision three pillars have been conceptualised.

"West Bengal as a hub of innovation with a focus on emerging technology, the operationalisation of high-technology clusters, making the state the preferred IT/ITeS/ESDM destination, rising the electronics value-chain, hand-holding green cities are key priorities," it said.

West Bengal has been described in the policy as the fourth largest state economy in the country, growing at 15.64 percent gross value added (GVA).

The state IT Minister Bratya Basu told PTI that the policy would help take forward the state in the IT MAP in the country. He is looking forward to IT majors to invest in the state.
Over a dozen FMCG firms, including ITC, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Hindustan Unilever, have pledged to supply water bottle, food and necessary items to flood-hit areas of Kerala in the next two days, Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said on Tuesday

New Delhi: Over a dozen FMCG firms, including ITC, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Hindustan Unilever, have pledged to supply water bottle, food and necessary items to flood-hit areas of Kerala in the next two days, Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said on Tuesday.

In a late evening meeting on Monday with the representatives of leading food processing companies, Badal discussed a plan to strategise assistance to Kerala in the coming days.

"It is time to work as a cohesive unit and make a coordinated effort to help the people of Kerala, instead of separate entities making individual efforts," said the minister of food processing industries.

The companies have pledged full support to the endeavour of reaching out to the people hit by the floods, she said in a statement.

Hindustan Unilever said it has already supplied 9,500 cases of salt, 29,000 cases of wheat products, 1,000 cases of Ketchup, 250 cases of spices mix masala and other products across the state.

Nestle said it has supplied 90,000 packets of Maggi, 2,00,000 packets of Munch, 1,100 packets of coffee and UHT milk.

The company said it will supply additional 40,000 packets of Maggi, 1 lakh Munch, 1,100 packs of coffee and UHT milk will be supplied along with 30,000 packs of ready-to-drink Milo and 10,000 packs of Serigo.

ITC has promised to supply 3.30 lakh packets of biscuits, 2,000 bottles of Savlon, 3,000 packets of dairy whitener, 9,000 packets of liquid hand wash and 7,000 soaps, the statement said.

Coca-Cola India has already supplied 1.4 lakh litres of packaged drinking water and the company has committed to supply additional 1 lakh litres of packaged drinking water in next two days including 20,000 bottles tomorrow.

Pepsico has promised to supply 6.78 lakh litres of packaged drinking water and 10,000 kg Quaker Oats.

Among others, Britannia has already delivered 2.10 lakh packets of biscuits (6.5 Tonnes) at Kochi and 1.25 lakh packets at Malapuram and Wayanad.

The company will deliver additional 1.25 lakh packets of biscuits in next two days, 3,000 buns and 10,000 packets of biscuits to be supplied from Madurai.

MTR Food has delivered 35,000 ready-to-eat packets to Wayanad, while Bikanervala has decided to send one tonne of namkeen in coordination with industry body CII.

Dabur has promised to deliver 30,000 to 40,000 litres tetra-packed juices and 10,000 tubes of Odomos, while GSK India will sent relief material worth Rs 10 Lakhs, 1 million packets of Horlicks and 1 million Crocin tablets.

Marico has committed to supply 30 tonnes of Oats, while Bagrrys India has promised to supply 2 tonnes of oats.

Pernard Ricord and Cargill have assured to coordinate with dairy cooperative Amul for supply of milk powder and baby foods.

Mondelez India Foods has decided to give cash contribution of Rs 10 lakh to the CM relief fund.
Three months ago, Usha Ananthasubramanian was divested of her powers as MD and CEO of the Allahabad Bank following the countrys biggest bank fraud allegedly carried out by diamond jeweller Nirav Modi and associates at the PNB.

Mumbai: A special CBI court here granted bail on Monday to Usha Ananthasubramanian, former managing director and CEO of Allahabad Bank, in connection with the Rs 14,000 crore fraud at the Punjab National Bank (PNB).

Earlier this month, the court had taken cognisance of the sanction granted by the President to prosecute Ananthasubramanian in the case. As per the procedure, when a court takes cognisance of the sanction, summons are issued to the accused to appear before the court. Thereafter, the accused can move a bail application.

Accordingly, Ananthasubramanian appeared before special judge J C Jagdale and applied for bail which was granted by the court.

The government had dismissed Ananathasubramanian on 14 August. Three months ago, she was divested of her powers as MD and CEO of the Allahabad Bank following the countrys biggest bank fraud allegedly carried out by diamond jeweller Nirav Modi and associates at the PNB.

Ananathasubramanian, who was the MD and CEO of the Punjab National Bank before moving to the Allahabad Bank, was named in the CBI charge sheet in connection with the Rs 14,000 crore fraud through fake LoUs in connivance with some PNB employees.

It was alleged that she failed to exercise proper control over the functioning of the PNB while serving as the banks Managing Director. It enabled the fraud in the bank through misuse of SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications), an international payment gateway for large transactions, at PNBs Brady House branch.

Ananthasubramanian had enjoyed leadership roles in the PNB in two stints. She headed the bank between August 2015 and May 2017, before moving to the Allahabad Bank. She was executive director at the bank from July 2011 to November 2013.

Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, in connivance with certain bank officials, allegedly cheated PNB of about Rs 14,000 crore through issuance of fraudulent letters of undertaking (LoUs). The Mumbai branch of the PNB had fraudulently issued LoUs for the group of companies belonging to Modi since March 2011.

The total number of LoUs issued to the companies of Nirav Modi, his relatives and the Nirav Modi Group were 1,213, and to Mehul Choksi, his relatives and the Gitanjali Group were 377. Besides Anathasubramanian, the CBI court had also taken cognisance of sanction for prosecution against former PNB executive director Sanjiv Sharan. He too was granted bail today on similar ground.
In a relief to foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), markets regulator SEBI on Tuesday extended the deadline by two months till December for providing a list of beneficial owners, and assured them that issues raised will be looked into by an expert panel

New Delhi: In a relief to FPIs, markets regulator SEBI on Tuesday extended the deadline by two months till December for providing a list of beneficial owners, and assured them that issues raised will be looked into by an expert panel.

The regulator, in April, had asked Category II and III foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) to provide a list of their beneficial owner (BO) in a prescribed format within six months.

Now, in a circular issued on Tuesday, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said it has extended the deadline to provide such list to 31 December, 2018.

The decision comes after SEBI received representations from market participants, seeking review and additional time for complying with the guidelines.

BO is the natural person, who ultimately owns or controls an FPI.

Besides, the regulator said that a working group headed by H R Khan, former deputy governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), will now look into the various issues raised by FPIs.

Further, SEBI said that appropriate view in the matter will be taken after receiving the recommendations of the working group.

The expert group was formed by the regulator in March to advise SEBI on redrafting the FPI Regulations for simplification and to advise on any other issue relevant to such investors.

According to the regulator, the existing FPI structure, not in conformity with the rules, is now required to change or close their existing position in Indian securities as well as provide the relevant documents by the end of December.

In April, SEBI had also asked FPIs to disclose name and address of the beneficial owner; whether they are acting alone or together through one or more natural persons as a group, tax residency jurisdiction, BO group's percentage shareholding capital or profit ownership in the FPI.

In a major revamp, SEBI in 2014 had released norms that had clubbed different categories of foreign investors into a new class called FPIs.

Under the regime, FPIs have been divided into three categories as per their risk profile and the KYC (know your client) requirements, while other registration procedures have been made simpler for them.
He also said NPAs rose because bankers don't approach a borrower with the mind of a CBI/ED sleuth, but with trust.

Mumbai: State Bank chairman Rajnish Kumar on Monday called for scaling down thrust on consortium lending, saying over-dependence on this has only led to bad loan pile-up as it has been inordinately delaying loan appraisals.

He also said NPAs rose because bankers don't approach a borrower with the mind of a CBI/ED sleuth, but with trust.

Apportioning the blame for bad loans, which has almost touched 12 percent of the system, on the government, the judiciary, banks and slimy borrowers, he said, "instead of lessening credit risk, consortium lending has mostly increased the pain as inordinate delay in loan appraisal, has most of the time, killed projects."

Listing out problems around the consortium lending or multiple banking systems, he said, "up to the mid-90s, it used to be consortium banking and later on, because there were complaints saying it was delaying the process, we went into multiple banking, but that has not resulted in faster decision-making. Instead, it has led to more NPAs."

As a way out, he suggested limiting the size of the consortium as it does not make sense to have too many banks for small loans.

"SBI will definitely reorganise many consortia. Up to Rs 500 crore, I don't do consortium lending anyway. I can take over some loans or I can exit from other consortia," Kumar, the chairman of the largest lender, told reporters on the sidelines of the national banking summit organised by the industry lobbies Ficci and IBA in Mumbai on Monday.

He further said the finance ministry wants the loan appraisal to be quicker so credit flow to the industry can be faster, and lending out of a consortium can achieve this.

Explaining that banking has always been based on trust, Rajnish said "banks do not have a mindset of the Central Bureau of Investigation or the Enforcement Directorate but lend the money on trust, apart from paperwork. But that trust has been breached in many instances, as the NPAs show."

"Now we will trust, but we will verify; probably that verification factor was missing in the past," Kumar said.

Kumar also raised doubts about whether genuine equity was available in the businesses by borrowers, which have gone bust. "Wherever I have seen that equity was available, those enterprises have been able to manage the assets; in case of anyone who was just playing on the bank's money and therefore how much interest and stake they had in the business is again a subject matter of debate," Kumar added.

Admitting that mounting NPAs came into existence due to the delayed response from banks, the chairman said bankers, government, corporates and even the judiciary played a role in the stressed asset issues.

"I would say everybody is responsible, be it the bankers, industry, borrowers, government, and without inviting contempt of court, even the judiciary, has played

a role in this situation," the chairman said, adding the delayed response by bankers has also contributed towards the aggravated NPA situation.

Referring to the 2014 Supreme Court cancellation of the allocation of 214 coal mines awarded between 1993 and 2010, he said if somebody who invested in a business in 1996 based on assurance of coal availability by the government, could not have predicted that 20 years later, coal blocks would get cancelled, leaving the entire investment in jeopardy.

Talking about IBC, he said it has been a good step in instilling fear in promoters of losing the company but he said just for a few hundred crores of rupees more, if the bidding process is delayed, the entire purpose of the law will be defeated.

"What is sacrosanct is that we stick to the (IBC) timeline. If that is not met, then the delay can lead to the asset getting junked," he warned.

"Due to the IBC, there is awareness among borrowers that they need to change the way the business is done. A promoter cannot siphon off the money and run the company down and still continue to be the owner."

"From the bankers' side, they need to move from balance sheet-based lending to cash flow-based lending," he added.

On the power sector NPAs, where the Allahabad High Court is hearing a petition challenging the February 2012 RBI circular, he said the sector is stressed, and there is a need to fix it for the continued growth of the economy.

On MSME lending, he said it is becoming easier because of availability of information and the move from the balance sheet to cash flow.

"What you have to realise is that balance sheet is a one-day affair that is information on a particular day whereas, in the cash flow-based lending, banks or any lender, they have access to the availability of cash or how the enterprise is performing," he said.
Indias overall retail market is pegged at Rs 47 lakh crore, and modern retail and e-commerce together make up about four percent of that pie.

The Tata Groups retail arm -- Trent Ltd. -- which operates the Westside, Star Bazaar, Landmark, Zara and Zudio stores, is reportedly looking to triple revenue to Rs 15,000 crore over the next decade.

Noel Tata, Chairman, Trent, told the Mint that his firm expects to pump Rs 150 crore into the business every year to hit that target.

Indias overall retail market is pegged at Rs 47 lakh crore, and modern retail and e-commerce together make up about four percent of that pie, or some Rs 2 lakh crore.

The market is growing at seven percent, or Rs 3.5 lakh crore a year. Theres a lot of time, and lot of space in the market. And theres space for everybody Tata told the newspaper.

But even as it chases an ambitious growth target, Trent will avoid the super-premium segment, Tata added.

Alibaba taps the Tatas

Separately, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has reportedly revived negotiations with Indias leading conglomerates to boost retail plans in what is now the worlds sixth-largest economy.

Senior Alibaba executives have held talks with the Tata Group, with Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL) and with Kishor Biyanis Future Retail, according to The Times of India.

Those discussions are aimed at expediting the Jack Ma-led internet majors retail plan for India, TOI added.

Trent recently opened the doors to the 131st Westside outlet, at Jamshedpur, which houses Indias first steel plant. "Jamshedpur is an integral part of the Tata history and it is a proud moment for us to launch our first store in Jamshedpur this Independence Day," Noel Tata told reporters at the stores inauguration.

Jamshedpur was brought into being by Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the Tata group.

With inputs from PTI.
Police refuses to share info of place from where 2 accused held.

New Delhi: Two men, who claimed responsibility for attack on JNU student leader Umar Khalid, have been detained.

According to the police, Darwesh Shahpur and Naveen Dalal are currently being interrogated. The police, however, did not specify when the two were detained. A team of Delhi polices special cell had visited the village of Sikh revolutionary Kartar Singh Sarabha, where the two had said they would surrender on August 17. However, they did not turn up.

On Monday, the accused claimed they were cow vigilantes, who had gone to disrupt the event that was underway at Constitution Club in Delhi to draw attention towards the protection of cows.

The police detained Shahpur and Dalal in the early hours on Monday.

During interrogation, the duo told police that they had planned to disrupt the event Khauff se Azaadi (Freedom from Fear), which was being held on August 13 at Constitution Club and where activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan and Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha were present as speakers.

When Dalal reached the Constitution Club, he found Mr Khalid outside the venue and attacked him. In a video uploaded on Facebook on August 15, they claimed the attack on Mr Khalid was supposed to be an Independence Day gift to citizens. Police is verifying the authenticity of the video and trying to trace the IP address from where it was uploaded. Through the video, they requested the police to not trouble anyone and said they would surrender in Sarabha village. Mr Khalid was attacked when he was on his way to take part in the event. He escaped unhurt.

Last Tuesday, Delhi police had handed over the case to its special cell, which incidentally is already probing a sedition case against Mr Khalid and two other JNU students. It also said that it was not intimated about Mondays event attended by Mr Khalid.

An officer privy to the probe also said the police had seized the weapon used in the crime. Preliminary forensic examination suggested that the pistol had jammed when it was used against Khalid.
Around 15 people were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly beating up a woman and parading naked on the streets of Bhojpur district in Bihar after the mob suspected her to be involved in the killing of a 19-year-old man, police said.

Arrah (Bihar): Sixteen persons, including a local RJD activist, have been arrested and eight policemen suspended after a women was assaulted and paraded naked in the state's Bhojpur district by a mob on suspicion of her involvement in alleged murder of a man, officials said on Tuesday.

Violence had rocked the main market area of Bihiya block of the district, about 60 kilometres from the state capital, after the body of 19-year-old Vimalesh Sah, who had gone missing on Sunday, was found adjacent to a railway track on Monday morning, Bhojpur Superintendent of Police Avakash Kumar said.

Residents of Sah's native village Damodarpur had rushed to the spot upon hearing the news and some of them suspected that those living in a red light area nearby could have strangled the youth to death, police said.

The villagers set ablaze a number of shops in the market area and assaulted many local residents, police said.

As the mob frenzy continued, one of them dragged the woman out on street, ripped off her clothes and paraded her naked while kicking and slapping her and hurling abuses, Kumar said.

He said those arrested include a local RJD activist Kaushal Kishore Yadav, who was allegedly leading he mob.

Those placed under suspension are the SHO of Bihiya police station and the inspector in-charge of GRP police station, the SP said.

The frenzied mob had also hurled stones at a train that was passing through the area, before a police team arrived and quelled the violence.

Kumar said FIRs have been lodged at the Bihiya police station in connection with Sah's murder, the arson and vandalism by the mob and outraging of the women's modesty.

The incident also triggered sharp reactions from the opposition parties with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav demanding resignation of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar alleging lawlessness in the state. He also demanded immediate measures to improve law and order situation in the state and to ensure safety and security of women.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) ally Hindustani Awam Morcha's chief and former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi also alleged law and order has collapsed in Bihar and said the state deserved President's Rule.

Ruling party Janata Dal (United) MLC and spokesman Neeraj Kumar hit back by alleging involvement of RJD leaders in a number of heinous incidents in the recent past, including the one at Bihiya.
Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday appointed Ahmed Patel appointed as the new treasurer of Congress party, replacing Motilal Vora, ahead of Lok Sabha elections. Vora will now be AICC general secretary administration, a newly created post.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday appointed Ahmed Patel as the new treasurer of the party, replacing Motilal Vora, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. Vora will now be AICC general secretary administration, a newly created post.

Rahul also appointed former Union minister Anand Sharma as chairman of Congress Foreign Cell while former Speaker Meira Kumar was appointed as a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee.

Luizinho Falerio has been appointed as the AICC general secretary In-charge of North East states excluding Assam, replacing CP Joshi.

Patels appointment ahead of the next years General Elections is being seen as an attempt to strike a balance between the old and young leaders, according to News18.

Patel, who was the political secretary of former party chief Sonia Gandhi, has earlier served the post of treasurer.

The new appointments come a month after Rahul reconstituted the Congress Working Committee, the party's highest decision-making body, with a blend of young and old leaders.

The new CWC, includes other veterans like AK Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, Motilal Vora, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge, Anand Sharma and Kumari Selja. It has 23 members, 19 permanent invitees and nine special invitees, highly-placed sources said.

The committee was dissolved prior to the election of the Congress president and the earlier panel was transformed into a steering committee till the party's plenary session that concluded in March. The CWC, which acts as an advisory panel on all key decisions of the party, was not in place since the plenary session in March.

With inputs from PTI
Manjit Singh GK, who is also the president of Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee (DSGMC), posted a video information about the incident which took place after he was coming out of a TV studio.

Akali Dal leader, Manjit Singh GK and his family were attacked in New York on Tuesday by Khalistani supporters. GK, who is also the president of Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee (DSGMC), posted a video information about the incident which took place after he was coming out of a TV studio.

In a tweet about the attack, he said a group of people attacked him and his relatives in New York. He said such attacks will not scare him from working for his community. He also tagged External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in the tweet.

A group of people attacked me & my relatives in #NewYork. This will not scare me away from my path to serve the community. I have fought & I will fight till my last breath.Such cowardly incidents do not scare me.@SushmaSwaraj@USAmbIndia@IndiainNewYorkhttps://t.co/au9SUx1qrt  Manjit Singh GK (@ManjitGK) August 21, 2018

Speaking to Republic, GK stated that the men who attacked him were from ISI and were under 'nasha' (intoxicated). "I came out of a TV channel debate. People under 'nasha' attacked me and my family. They want to crush any voice from India. They're from ISI. We fight for our cause, justice for 84, justice for our community. No doubt they're from ISI," GK said.

On 20 August, he faced a protest for Bagari shootout outside a gurudwara in New York by Sikh Coordination Committee East Coast (USA), according to The Financial Express. The committee had held Punjab government headed by SADs Amarinder Singh responsible for the Bargari shootout in Punjab.

The Khalistan movement is a Sikh nationalist movement, which seeks to create a separate country called Khalistan in the Punjab region of South Asia.

Pro-Khalistani supporters on 13 August assembled at Trafalgar Square in London in a rally organised by the SFJ, intended to raise awareness for a non-binding referendum in 2020, calling for the Sikh-majority state of Punjab to be granted "independence".

In 2017, a group of Sikhs held a protest outside the UN headquarters in New York against the Indian Constitution, raising pro-Khalistan slogans and demanding the world bodys intervention to protect the community.
A Delhi court on Tuesday sent two people, who had allegedly attacked JNU student leader Umar Khalid in front of the Constitution Club, to two-day police custody. The incident took place on 13 August and they were arrested from Haryana a week later.

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Tuesday sent two people, who had allegedly attacked JNU student leader Umar Khalid in front of the Constitution Club, to two-day police custody. The incident took place on 13 August and they were arrested from Haryana a week later.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sherawat allowed the plea of the Delhi Police after it said their custodial interrogation was required. The two men, who were arrested on 20 August from Fatehabad in Haryana's Hisar district, had claimed that they were cow vigilantes who wanted to draw attention towards protection of cows.

The duo, Darwesh Shahpur and Naveen Dalal, told the police that they had planned to disrupt the event 'Khauff se Azaadi' (Freedom from Fear) that was being held at the Constitution Club on 13 August. When Dalal reached the Constitution Club, he found Khalid outside the venue and attacked him.

Dalal claimed he did not fire from the weapon he was carrying and it fell down while he was fleeing the spot. However, police are probing Khalid's allegations about the weapon being pointed towards him.

Shahpur was also present at the spot but did not attack Khalid. After the attack, they both fled separately. One of them took a bus and then a metro, according to police.

The two men told police they wanted to draw attention towards the issue of cow protection and thought targetting the event would highlight their cause, police said. In a video uploaded on Facebook on 15 August, they claimed the attack on Khalid was supposed to be an "Independence Day gift" to citizens.

"We respect our Constitution. But there is no provision in our Constitution to punish mad dogs. By mad dogs, we mean the JNU gang that is making the country weaker and their number is increasing. "Our elders in Haryana have taught us that such people should be taught a lesson," Shahpur had said in the video message.

Khalid was attacked when he was on his way to take part at the event. He escaped unhurt. The Delhi Police had handed over the case to its Special Cell, which incidentally is already probing a sedition case against Khalid and two other JNU students.

A case of attempt to murder was registered by the police in connection with the incident.
All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) party president Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday said, unless the Supreme Court decides on the Ayodhya issue, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cannot do anything about it.

Hyderabad: All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) party president Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday said, unless the Supreme Court decides on the Ayodhya issue, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cannot do anything about it.

The comment came as a reaction to a statement made by Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, where he said, "People have faith that Supreme Court's judgment will come soon and obstacles in the constructions of Ram Mandir will be removed. Either the judgment will come soon or we will find a solution through dialogue. The third option of passing a law in the Parliament is also open."

Commenting on the same, Owaisi said, "They (BJP) have failed on real issues like crashing economy, unemployment and national security therefore they have come to speak about temple. They don't want to wait for the Supreme Court order. In a way this is contempt of the Supreme Court. Unless the matter is decided by the Supreme Court they can't do anything constitutionally".

The Hyderabad MP also spoke on Congress member Navjot Sidhu hugging Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa during his recent visit to the country. He said, "Our Prime Minister also went to Nawaz Sharif's house uninvited, and hugged him. Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Modi hugged in Parliament also. Giving a hug has become the latest fashion these days; however, I am not a fan of this fashion".

Owaisi also criticised Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on the Hapur lynching case. He said, "Qasim was killed openly in Hapur, his killers confessed in a channels sting operation that they did not even let him drink water. What did the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister do about it? He may be Yogi of a temple, but first, he is the chief minister and has taken oath of the Constitution".
BJP MLA Raja Singh has been taken into preventive custody by Hyderabad police on Tuesday. He had been planning to protest in front of police commissioner's office, demanding release of 'gau rakshaks' from police custody

BJP MLA Raja Singh was taken into preventive custody by Hyderabad police from his residence on Tuesday.

ANI reported that the MLA had been planning to protest in front of the police commissioner's office, demanding the release of 'gau rakshaks' from custody.

After the infamous Alwar lynching of a Muslim man over suspicion of being a cow smuggler, the MLA from Goshamaha, Telangana had earlier stated, "Incidents of lynching will not stop till the time cow gets the status of 'Rashtra Mata'."

On 22 July, in a video message on a social networking website, Singh had said he does not want "khoon-kharaba" (bloodletting) on the issue, but if the bloodshed has to stop, the cow must be declared the mother of the nation.

In the seven-minute clip, the lawmmaker had also urged MPs to make such a demand in Parliament.

"Till cow is not accorded the status of 'Rashtra Mata', I feel the war for 'gau raksha' (cow protection) will not stop even if 'gau rakshaks' (cow protectors) are put into jails or bullets are fired at them," Singh said.

He had also sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's support for the demand.

"Till the time a ministry of cow protection is created in every state and stringent laws are enacted for cow protection, I feel such killings will not stop....this is my feeling and I am telling the fact," Singh, known for making controversial remarks, had said.

Maintaining that he never supported the killing or beating up of people by "gau rakshaks", Singh, had said that "nobody discusses protection of cows and how to stop such violence".

With inputs from PTI
Bombay High Court directed BMC to prepare a regulatory mechanism to streamline the process of granting permission for animal slaughter for Bakra-Eid from 2019

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court directed the Mumbai civic body on Tuesday to prepare a regulatory mechanism to streamline the process of granting permission for animal slaughter for Bakr-Eid from 2019, days after the authorities were forced to temporarily suspend the system for online permission following glaring errors.

A bench led by acting Chief Justice Naresh Patil said such mechanism will not only regulate and simplify the process of granting permission, but, it will also put an end to the last minute litigations that courts witnesses each year before the Muslim festival.

"The rule of law is applicable for each religious festival. We understand that it is not easy for the state administration to regulate religious activities in accordance with the legal framework. That is why you (state) must have uniform policies to deal not just with permission for animal slaughter, but also with permissions for other religious activities. This will also reduce litigation ahead of various religious festivals every year," the bench said.

The directions came while the bench was hearing a writ petition filed by a local NGO - the Jiv Maitri Trust.

The NGO claimed that there were errors in the online system of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for granting permission for animal slaughter this Bakra-Eid, which would be celebrated Wednesday.

The NGO had filed the plea through advocates Sujay Kantawala and Ashish Mehta. It told the High Court that the BMC had been granting permission for slaughter via an online mechanism that generated permission receipts in a PDF format without verifying the details submitted by the applicants.

On a previous hearing last week, Kantawala had told the high court that several lawyers had submitted fictitious names and addresses and secured permission for slaughter of goats inside the courtroom of the Bombay High Court, through the online mechanism.

The BMC then temporarily stopped granting online permissions for slaughter.

BMC counsel Anil Sakhre Tuesday told the High Court that the civic body had revised its online mechanism and made it more stringent.

"Henceforth, all applicants would be required to submit copies of valid ID cards and address proof etc. to seek such permission," he said.

The counsel said the applicant would also have to comply with the BMC's conditions on marinating hygiene, carrying out the slaughter within a confined space, and following civic body's directions on waste collection, and disposal.

"The corporation has so far granted online permission for slaughter of 1,60,000 goats in Mumbai this Bakra-Eid," he said.
CBI recovered a country-made pistol in Aurangabad in Maharashtra, similar to the one used in the killing of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in 2013, and filed a complaint with the police against three people

New Delhi: The Central Bureau India (CBI) recovered a country-made pistol in Aurangabad in Maharashtra, similar to the one used in the killing of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in 2013, and filed a complaint with the police against three people, officials said on Tuesday.

"A khukri, three live rounds and a 7.65-bore pistol were recovered on the basis of leads given by Sachin Prakasrao Andure who was arrested recently by the CBI," they said.

"The agency has filed a complaint with the Aurangabad police against three people for allegedly possessing the country-made pistol, an illegal weapon," they said.

According to the officials, The agency will send the pistol for ballistic examination to ascertain whether it was used in the killing of Dabholkar.

"The recovery was made following searches at houses of two friends and a relative of Andure," they said.

Andure, a resident of Aurangabad, was arrested on 18 August.

"He is believed to be one of the shooters who fired upon Dabholkar in Pune on 20 August, 2013 in broad daylight," the officials said.

The fatal shot killed Dabholkar who had been running a campaign against superstition. The arrest was made on a tip-off from the Maharashtra Anti Terror Squad (ATS) after it had arrested three people in connection with a separate case of arms recovery.
A Level-3 tag for the Kerala floods means that the Centre must help the state with its personnel and funds, which the Narendra Modi government has already begun to do.

The only official classification of natural disasters available in India is this:

L0 (L stands for level) This refers to normal times when there is no disaster. Thats when state-level preparations to deal with disasters, including training in search and rescue operations, must happen. L1 These are disasters that can be managed at the district level, but the state and Centre must be ready to provide assistance if needed. L2 These are the disasters that may need assistance and active participation of the state, as well as state-level mobilisation of resources. L3 These are situations arising from large-scale disasters, wherein districts and the state may not have the capacity to respond adequately and need assistance from the Centre.

The High Power Committee, set up in August 1999 during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's term as prime minister, had made this level 1 to 3 classification of disasters. The panel had submitted its report in 2001. Although this categorisation doesnt find place in the Disaster Management Act of 2005, it figures in the National Disaster Management Guidelines of July 2007 and the National Disaster Management Plan of May 2016.

The Centre has placed the Kerala floods in the Level 3  or L3  category. This was made clear to the Kerala High Court on Monday in response to a petition, which had sought to have the floods declared a national disaster. The L3 status means that the Centre must help a state with its personnel and funds, which the Narendra Modi government has already begun to do in the case of the Kerala floods.

There is no law or provision in India under which a calamity anywhere in the country can be declared a national disaster. It was either out of sheer ignorance or deliberate political mischief that Keralas CPM-led Left Democratic Front government and other Opposition leaders, including Congress president Rahul Gandhi, demanded this label for the Kerala floods.

Labelling disasters is tough

Its difficult to find fault with the High Power Committee for not being more precise in the classification of disasters in terms of intensity and the aid affected places need. Indeed, there can never be a precise scale to measure a disasters exact intensity. For obvious reasons, even the Richter Scale measures the physical intensity of an earthquake but not the exact degree of the havoc it can wreak on the place it strikes. For instance, an earthquake of magnitude 6 on the Richter Scale can possibly be more disastrous in a thickly populated city than a magnitude 8 earthquake in a rural region with fewer people.

Experts worldwide have had a serious problem quantifying or labelling disasters, though it is a necessary exercise that can determine the aid required. Governments and aid agencies globally have traditionally relied on the number of casualties and the financial loss  the obvious indicators of a disasters impact. But there has been no unanimity on the use of this data either.

There are many who argue that while the death of an individual is equally tragic anywhere, the impact of financial loss can differ from place to place, depending on the income levels of the affected regions. This is akin to arguing that when a cyclone ravages Mumbai, a slum in Dharavi needs better official attention than an affluent neighbourhood in Cuffe Parade. Some disaster analysts have come up with very complex methodologies to calculate the impact of calamities, but they always add the rider that there is no foolproof way to do it.

A national confusion

In India, the phrase national disaster, which has no official significance in the absence of a recognised category by this nomenclature, is something used loosely in general parlance. The prefix national here can only mean either colossal or something that must concern the whole nation.

Confusion might arise from the fact that we have a National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the National Disaster Management Plan and the like. But national here applies to the response force and the management plan without qualifying the disaster.

Needless semantics

So the phrase national disaster is bandied about the way national pride, national leader, national shame, etc are tossed around. If the demand that the Kerala floods be declared a national disaster means that the calamity must alarm the entire nation, nobody  not even the Centre  denies that it does. But if it means that the central government must foot the bill for relief and rehabilitation from the National Disaster Response Fund, it has already begun to do that. The Rs 600 crore that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Affairs Minister Rajnath Singh had announced will be granted from that fund. While a demand for more central funds makes sense, clamouring for this particular label doesnt.

The High Power Committee categorised the disasters into levels 1 to 3 on the basis of vulnerability of the disaster-affected area, and the capacity of the authorities to deal with the situation. This was partially along the lines of how international agencies look at calamities. Till another official classification replaces it, this division stands final.

On Monday, Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju declared that the Kerala floods were a natural calamity of severe nature. He might as well have said very severe, acute, terrible or dreadful, or other potent adjectives from his vocabulary. He could have even been generous to actually call it a national disaster to make Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Rahul happy, but it would have made little difference.

The only thing that matters to get the central machinery moving to extend full-scale help to a state is a disasters L3 classification, which is what the Modi government has done to deal with the deluge in Kerala.

Under the procedures laid down, Kerala will present a memorandum to the Centre sometime soon, detailing the losses it has suffered and the money it needs. The Centre will then dispatch an inter-ministerial team to the affected area to assess the damage and arrive at the quantum of relief aid.

Its not a charity that Centre will bestow on Kerala. The Modi government is legally and morally bound to grant funds to the flood-ravaged state. On its part, Kerala must do a good job of explaining its losses in its memorandum, instead of making ridiculous demands to declare the floods a national disaster.

The author tweets @sprasadindia
Union Minister Alphons Kannanthanam on Monday turned down the demand of Congress leaders to declare Kerala flood as a 'national calamity' and said there was no provision in the Disaster Management Act 2005 to do so.

Thiruvananthapuram: Union Minister Alphons Kannanthanam on Monday turned down the demand of Congress leaders to declare Kerala flood as a "national calamity" and said there was no provision in the Disaster Management Act 2005 to do so.

Responding to the statement of former Defence Minister and senior Congress leader AK Antony in this regard, the senior BJP leader said the Disaster Management Act was passed when the Congress-led UPA was in power at the Centre. Antony had asked the Union government to immediately declare the Kerala floods as a national disaster.

Declaring the Kerala floods as a 'national calamity' would help in garnering funds not only from the country but also in getting aid from abroad, Antony said. On the relief sanctioned by the Centre, Antony said Rs 600 crore was nothing as huge damage had been caused to the state.

Reacting to Antony's remark, Kannanthanam said "There is no provision to declare any calamity as national calamity. None of the calamities were declared as national by the Congress when it was in power from 2004-14." Terming the statement of Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Antony in this regard as 'stupid', Kannanthanam said "does Antony, who was the defence minister of the country for ten years not know the rules and provisions of the act."

Taking a dig at the Congress president, Kannanthanam said "let us excuse Rahul as he does not have any administrative and political experience, but a statement like this from a senior leader like Antony was uncalled for, at a time when the people of Kerala are united to face the challenge caused by the floods."

The BJP leader said the aid of Rs 500 crore announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to flood-hit areas was only for immediate relief works.

The central team would visit the state again to assess the damage caused by the floods and would be extending more assistance, he added. On the demand of the Congress to hand over the relief work to the army, Kannanthanam said there was no provision in the Constitution to do that.

In the event of a calamity, the army will assist the civil authorities based on their request, he added. State Opposition leader and former KPCC President

Ramesh Chennithala had demanded handing over of relief works to the army. Kannanthanam also said instead of making statements like this, the Congress leaders should ask party workers to go to the field.

"This shows the sorry state of affairs in the Congress party and I think, it is anti-people. Because, the state showed that they are one except for the Congress leaders who are speaking absolutely ridiculous things," he added. There was only a provision to declare the floods a disaster of severe nature, the Union minister said.

Over 200 people have lost their lives in the rains, floods and landslides in the state where over 7.24 lakh displaced people have been sheltered in 5,645 relief camps since 8 August.

Click here to follow LIVE updates on Kerala floods
ATS arrested Shrikant Pangarkar on Sunday as a part of an alleged terror plot.

The police also alleged that Pangarkar had done a recce of the few areas where terror attacks were planned.

Mumbai: Sessions court judge V. S. Padalkar has sent former Shiv Sena Jalna corporator Shrikant Pangarkar, who was arrested by the Maharashtra anti-terrorism squad (ATS), in ATS custody till August 28. The ATS alleged that he provided monetary assistance in buying explosives found at right-wing activist Vaibhav Rauts residence. The police also alleged that Pangarkar had done a recce of the few areas where terror attacks were planned.

The ATS arrested him on Sunday as part of its investigation into an alleged terror plot to carry out attacks in five cities of Maharashtra by extremist right-wing groups. Pangarkar was a corporator in Jalna Municipal Council for two terms, from December 2001 to December 2011.

Sunil Gonsalves, public prosecutor, argued before the court that Pangarkar is involved in providing funding for crude bombs and conducting a recce at different spots. The intended target of the attacks is yet to be ascertained.

Searches were carried out in Jalna and Aurangabad on August 18 and the ATS has recovered one hard disc and three mobile phones. He was involved in funding of weapons recovered and carried out recce of potential targets.

Meawhile, judge Padalkar queried whether the literature recovered by the ATS is banned. The prosecution replied in the negative, saying that bank account details are to be investigated to ascertain the funding angle and the hard disc is being sent to the forensics department.

Sanjeev Punalekar, the defence lawyer, argued that police custody is not required, as no material evidence has been shown to say that the accused is involved in the crime.

Twenty-two crude bo-mbs and 21 country-made weapons have been recovered from the accused in the case, who were allegedly planning to carry out attacks in five parts of the state. Three accused have been arrested so far.
The Madras high Court on Tuesday passed an interim stay order on land acquisition for the proposed Chennai-Salem highway following a plea which was filed alleging that Tamil Nadu government was using police force to acquire land from farmers.

The Madras High Court on Tuesday passed an interim stay order on land acquisition for the proposed Chennai-Salem highway following protests by farmers across Tamil Nadu. The petition in the case alleged that the state government was using the police force to forcibly acquire land from farmers, reported ANI.

The stay order comes a month after farmers staged protests across Tamil Nadu against their land being acquired for the controversial highway. It also comes amid reports that the project was granted clearance in haste, reported India Today.

In June, members of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and leaders from the Left Wing in Tamil Nadu had joined local residents and farmers in their protest, opposing the state government's decision to acquire land for the proposed eight-lane Chennai-Salem Greenfield super expressway. This gave the agitators' movement some much-needed momentum.

Despite mounting opposition to the highway project, the Tamil Nadu government seemed keen to complete the 277.3-kilometre expressway connecting Chennai and Salem and started conducting preliminary surveys. This prompted wild reactions from farmers.

The land to be acquired for the proposed Rs 10,000-crore highway is agricultural land from across five districts and eight reserved forests in Tamil Nadu, which left the farming community and activists agitated, prompting protests.
Beni's mayor Jean Edmond Nyonyi Masumbuko Bwanakawa announced that the government had decided to make treatment free in Beni, Mabalako-Mangina and Oicha for three months.

Beni: The Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has claimed 55 lives since the start of the month, the authorities said, as the government announced free treatment against the disease for the next three months.

The health ministry's latest bulletin said that the death toll had been increased following five new victims in Mabalako-Mangina, close to Beni, the epicentre of the outbreak in the North Kivu province.

In all, "96 cases of haemorrhagic fever were reported in the region, 69 of which had been confirmed and 27 were seen as probable," the ministry said. At the same time, the medical team in charge of fighting the disease revised downwards the estimated number of "contacts"  people who may have had contact with the virus  from 2,157 to 1,609, following epidemiological tests.

Beni's mayor Jean Edmond Nyonyi Masumbuko Bwanakawa announced that the government had decided to make treatment free in Beni, Mabalako-Mangina and Oicha for three months.

The aim was to "remove the financial barrier that could dissuade the population from going to the health centre," said Dr Bathe Ndjoloko Tambwe, in charge of coordinating the fight against the disease. The current Ebola outbreak began on August 1 in Mangina in North Kivu.

It is the 10th outbreak to strike the DRC since 1976 when Ebola was first identified and named after a river in the north of the country. Ebola has long been considered incurable, though swift isolation and the rapid treatment of symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhoea and dehydration has helped some patients to survive.

The quest for a vaccine grew increasingly urgent during an Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,300 people in the West African states of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2013-15.
The security forces cornered two to three militants in Jammu and Kashmir's Handwara town during the encounter.

A militant was gunned down by the security forces in an encounter which broke out earlier on Tuesday in Kupwara district's Handwara town in Jammu and Kashmir.

According to ANI, the body of the militant is yet to be recovered. The operation is currently underway.

India Today reported that the security forces cornered two to three militants during the encounter.

An army official said that soldiers of 30 RR patrolling party were earlier attacked by the militants at Ganapora near Yaroo area of Langate, Handwara. The soldiers retaliated, which resulted in a brief encounter, Kashmir Life reported.

On 17 August, an army jawan was killed in an encounter with militants in Kupwara district. Security forces had launched a cordon and search operation at Kachloo village in Handwara area of Kupwara district after they were informed about presence of militants.

According to a police official, as the security forces were carrying out searches, the militants opened fire on them which resulted in injuring the soldier. "The injured jawan had been evacuated to 92 Base Hospital of the Army but he succumbed to injuries," the official said.

The officials had to call off the operation because nothing incriminating was found during the searches.

On 2 August, two Hizbul Mujahideen militants were killed in an encounter after they fired upon the security forces in the Kupwara. An INSAS rifle, which the militants had snatched from a policeman few days before the encounter, was recovered from them.

With inputs from PTI
Maharashtra police is probing whether the four men arrested on terror charges recently have links with any radical Hindu outfits, and it may question the head of one such organisation, Sanatan Sanstha

Mumbai: The Maharashtra police is probing whether the four men arrested on terror charges recently have links with any radical Hindu outfits, and it may question the head of one such organisation, Sanatan Sanstha, a senior official Tuesday said.

Vaibhav Raut, who runs a cow protection outfit and was first to be arrested, claimed on his purported social media account that he was associated with the Sanatan Sanstha.

The Hindu organisation, whose headquarters is in Goa, has denied that he was its member.

"The probe has shown that the arrested men have visited different parts of the country, including Goa," the senior police official said.

"The Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) is probing their links with radical Hindu organisations, their masterminds and their motives," he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

When asked if Jayant Athawale, the head of the Sanatan Sanstha, would be questioned, the official said, "If necessary, we will call him for questioning."

Raut, Sharad Kalaskar, Sudhanwa Gondhalekar and Shrikant Pangarkar were arrested by the ATS of Maharashtra Police over the last ten days, and explosives and firearms seized from Nallasopara, Pune and Solapur.

The ATS had said they were planning to carry out blasts ahead of Independence Day and Bakri Eid.

The official said the accused operated "in silos", communicating with each other in code words. "Everybody had a specific role which others in the group did not know," he said.

"They may have received training in bomb-making through the Internet, and further training in handling of arms and explosives in neighbouring states," said the official.

According to the official, Pangarkar, who was arrested two days ago, allegedly played the role of "facilitator and provider".

"The ATS is also probing financial trails of the accused and analysing their bank accounts for the last six years," he said.

After his arrest by the ATS, Kalaskar allegedly revealed that he and his friend Sachin Andure were involved in the killing of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar following which the CBI arrested Andure.

Asked about the state's earlier proposal to ban the Sanatan Sanstha, another official said the state government had sent the proposal to the Centre in 2011, following which the Union government sought more information.

A fresh report proposing a ban was submitted again to the Centre in 2015. "If the state government asks, we will add details of the present case to the earlier proposal," said the police official.

Following the arrests in the present case, opposition Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had demanded a ban on the Sanstha.
This note on the mossy roof of a two-storeyed building at Paravoor near Kochi in Kerala can be read by personnel from helicopters engaged in rescue operations.

Thiruvananthapuram:'Thanks', read the simple message in a huge font in white paint on the terrace of a home, encapsulating sentiments of grateful Keralites rescued by defence personnel after raging floods left them marooned.

This note on the mossy roof of a two-storeyed building at Paravoor near Kochi can be read by personnel from helicopters engaged in rescue operations.

Incidentally, this was the very same house from which two nervous women were dramatically winched up to safety by a brave navy commando when torrential rains lashed Kerala three days ago. Commodore Vijay Varma, who piloted the Naval ALH, had rescued the two women when they got stuck in the marooned house on 17 August.

The Indian Navy has posted a number of photos of this gesture of gratitude in their twitter handle along with the note: "#OpMadad #KeralaFloodRelief #KeralaFloods2018 A Thank You note painted on the roof of a house where the Naval ALH piloted by Cdr Vijay Varma rescued two women. Bravo." Varma had also airlifted a woman in labour last week and rushed her to the Navy hospital, where she later delivered a baby boy.

"This was a very challenging task. We got an SOS and we traced them out...There is tremendous satisfaction, both professionally and personally," the officer had said later.

Personnel of the army, navy, air force and NDRF are continuing rescue operations, braving difficult conditions in Kerala, where the deadly monsoon has so far claimed 216 lives and displaced more than seven lakh people.

A large number of stranded people, ranging from children to a 100-year-old woman, were airlifted and rescued by defence personnel from various isolated houses and buildings in the last few days. Taking huge risks, the personnel had even landed the choppers on rooftops to rescue people.
In a decision taken during a cabinet meeting chaired by Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, the Gujarat government decided to halt the process of finalising the agriculture land records of over 6,000 villages following charges of irregularities and errors in the land mapping work.

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat government on Tuesday decided to halt the process of finalising the agriculture land records of over 6,000 villages in the state following charges of irregularities and errors in the land mapping work.

This decision was taken in the cabinet meeting chaired by Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani in Gandhinagar on Tuesday, state revenue minister Kaushik Patel told reporters.

He said although the land records of around 11,000 villages have been finalised so far, the administration would take into account all the objections and settle the issues being faced by farmers.

"We received representations from farmers and MLAs about irregularities and errors in the land re-survey process. Hence, our government has decided to halt the promulgation of land records, where re-survey has been done but promulgation was yet to be announced," Patel said after the meeting.

The land re-survey work has already got over, the minister said adding that while land records of around 11,000 villages have been finalised so far, the process was yet to start for over 6,000 villages.

"Wherever the promulgation has been already announced, we will settle all the objections raised by farmers in a satisfactory manner. We will unlock the land records and enter a note about the changes if needed," Patel said.

He said stern action would be taken against those agencies that are found guilty of laxity in carrying out the re-survey work for fresh land records.

"We have already stopped payments to the erring agencies. In the coming days, a group of ministers will meet to review the work done by these agencies. If found guilty, we will take stern action against these agencies," he said.

The Gujarat government had last year launched the survey of agriculture land records, its first such initiative since Independence. The state had appointed private agencies for this land mapping exercise.

Opposition Congress has demanded scrapping of the re-survey following complaints by farmers of irregularities and laxity in the process.
According to official sources, India is unlikely to accept any foreign financial assistance for flood relief operations in Kerala

New Delhi: The government is unlikely to accept any foreign financial assistance for flood relief operations in Kerala, official sources said.

They said government has taken a considered decision to rely solely on domestic efforts to tide over the situation.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has offered $100 million (around Rs 700 crore) as financial assistance for flood relief operation in Kerala.

"Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, called up Modi and made the offer for assistance," Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in Thiruvananthapuram.

Around three million Indians live and work in the UAE out of which 80 per cent are from Kerala.

The government of Maldives has also decided to donate $50,000 (Rs 35 lakh) for flood affected people in Kerala.

It is understood that the United Nations is also offering some assistance for Kerala. However, sources said India is unlikely to accept the assistance.

The floods in Kerala, worst in a century, have claimed lives of 231 people besides rendering over 14 lakh people homeless.
Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy has urged the Centre to provide Rs 100 crore relief fund for rain-ravaged state's Kodagu district.

Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy has urged the Centre to provide Rs 100 crore relief fund for rain-ravaged state's Kodagu district.

Addressing the media, the chief minister said, "The Prime Minister has announced relief of Rs 500 Crore for Kerala, we expect at least Rs 100 Crore for Kodagu. We will request the central government for it. We have to repair roads for connectivity. We are taking help of the Army and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF)," Kumaraswamy said.

He added, "We conducted an aerial survey in Kodagu to review the flood situation. In all, 12 people have lost their lives. 845 houses have been damaged out of which 773 houses are partially damaged."

Kumaraswamy stated that a total of 6620 people have been rehabilitated in the relief camps. He said, "41 relief camps in Kodagu and nine relief camps in Dakshina Kannada have been set up and a total of 6620 people are sheltered in these relief camps. An adequate supply of drinking water and milk is being ensured in these camps."

On 20 August, Karnataka's deputy chief minister G Parameshwara stated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government should allocate adequate financial aid for relief efforts in the Kodagu district.

While on 19 August, Kumaraswamy conducted an aerial survey of landslides and flood-affected areas in Kodagu district. The chief minister also presented cheques to the families of Avarthi village who lost their houses in floods. He also inspected rain-affected areas in Somawarpet and adjacent areas.

Kumaraswamy on Saturday announced an ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh for the families which were rendered homeless.
Relief and rehabilitation operations are on in Kodagu after torrential rains left a huge trail of destruction which have claimed at least 12 lives

Bengaluru: BJP's Karnataka chief BS Yeddyurappa on Tuesday said he would meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday and discuss with him the situation of rain-ravaged Kodagu district.

Yeddyurappa said he had already spoken to Modi, who has assured Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy all necessary help. "I will speak to the prime minister on the situation in Kodagu and request him for adequate financial assistance and cooperation. I will also request him to conduct an aerial survey of the region if possible," Yeddyurappa told reporters.

Relief and rehabilitation operations are on in Kodagu after torrential rains left a huge trail of destruction which have claimed at least 12 lives and rendered thousands homeless. BJP MPs and legislators have decided to donate their one-month salary towards relief work in Kodagu district, Yeddyurappa said. The cheque would be sent to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund (CMRF), he said.

About his recent visit to Kodagu, he said each person affected by the rains there had a painful story to tell. "Things are in a very bad state, many have been rendered homeless," he said. BJP MPs Shobha Karandlaje and Prathap Simha, party legislators, along with sangh parivar workers are helping in providing necessary assistance to the needy, Yeddyurappa said, adding that 20-truck loads of necessary items were sent to the district on Tuesday.

He also asked people to extend their support by generously contributing to the CMRF as many in Kodagu are to be provided with permanent houses and facilities to rebuild their lives once again. "Leaving party differences behind, we should all work together to help people of Kodagu," Yeddyurappa said.
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday said that building a 'new Kerala' is the aim for the state government, as floodwater receded in the deluge-hit state after causing the death of 223 people and leaving lakhs displaced.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday said that building a "new Kerala" was his aim as his government turned focus to rehabilitation work after the floodwaters, which caused the death of 223 people and left lakhs of people displaced, began to recede.

ANI quoted Vijayan as saying, "(The) Kerala cabinet has decided to recommend to the Governor to convene a special assembly session on 30 August to discuss relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction of Kerala after floods."

Ahead of an all-party meet on Tuesday, the chief minister said that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has offered a financial assistance of Rs 700 crores for the relief and rehabilitation in the state. On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a relief fund of Rs 500 crore after conducting an aerial survey and a meeting with top government officials.

"The Centre said they will make all necessary requirements available to us but in today's situation what is most needed is the necessary help, equivalent to the total damages caused so far," Vijayan said on Tuesday, NDTV reported.

Vijayan also warned of legal action if anyone was found spreading false rumours. He asked the people to stay vary of false propaganda and appealed that Kerala can use all the help it can get.

"Kerala is exhibiting monumental strength to bounce back from this tragedy, and anyone who is trying to disrupt it will face serious consequences," the chief minister tweeted.

According to reports, after immediate rescue operations, the next monumental need in front of the flood-ravaged state is funds and resources to rebuild infrastructure. Union Tourism Minister KJ Alphons flagged the need for ready-to-eat dry food, doctors and nurses in the state, saying people are now getting back to whatever is left of their homes with the waters receding. The minister also issued an appeal to skilled workers like plumbers, electricians and carpenters to come to make homes livable and help the state regain normalcy.

Chief Minister Vijayan also instructed state officials to ensure that financial relief and essential materials reach Kerala's interstate migrant workers, in a review meeting on Sunday. According to the chief minister's office, thousands of migrant workers in affected areas were lacking shelter and food.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, an Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) weather report, said that heavy rain is not likely in any district in the state till 25 August at least. The prediction is light to moderate rainfall in all 14 districts.

Follow LIVE updates on the Kerala floods here

With inputs from agencies
Upon being told about a broken bridge and road, the team was escorted to the location by civil police with their rescue/relief material.

Mumbai: Six teams of the Indian Navy rescued 109 persons Sunday morning under the directions of the Thrissur Joint Operation Commander (JOC). Navy officer Pulkit Soni led the team comprising three sailors. Upon being told about a broken bridge and road, the team was escorted to the location by civil police with their rescue/relief material.

There were 109 persons trapped on the other side of a strong stream, who had to be brought to the safer side, the strong flow of water notwithstanding. The team joined six ropes to make a pathway across the stream which had broken trees and broken bridge material.

The team started the rescue operation at about 1500 hours and by 1930 hours, was able to rescue all persons trapped on the other side including infants, children, senior citizens and women. Further, mineral water bottles, fruits and bread were supplied to the locals in distress.

A Navy officer said, The team was told about a broken bridge and road there. The team conducted a rescue mission there.

Meanwhile, the Navy has also undertaken rescue operations in the neighbouring state of Karnataka. The headquarters Karnataka Naval Area has deployed two rescue teams along with two Gemini craft in the Kodagu area of Karnataka since Friday.

The operation is being carried out by the Navy with the help of the NDRF and the civil administration. The two teams have rescued a total of 67 people from Kalluru and Devasur villages in the Kodagu district.

These areas have become virtually inaccessible by road and Navy personnel had to trek about 5km every day to reach the locals. The rescued persons include two pregnant women and some elderly people.

A relief centre has been set up near Madikeri by the civil administration and rescue operations by the Navy will continue till the situation is brought under control.
The central government reportedly rejected any UN support for Kerala a day after Shashi Tharoor mentioned the same.

A day after Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said that he was in Geneva to approach the United Nations and international humanitarian agencies for flood relief activities in Kerala, the Central government reportedly rejected any UN support for the state.

A report by Malayalam news portal Deepika said that the External Affairs Ministry had informed UN that the Indian government was able to manage the relief activities in the flood-hit state.

Earlier, Tharoor had tweeted that he will meet UN and international humanitarian agencies for consultations on Kerala floods.

Landed in Geneva to meet w/ @UN & international humanitarian agencies for consultations on #KeralaFloods. While seeking help is the prerogative of the Govt of India, i am here, in close consultation w/ @CMOKerala @vijayanpinarayi, to explore what help could be possible if sought  Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 20, 2018

Tharoor had gone to Geneva with the permission of a Delhi court to pay respects to former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, who died last week.

The Congress leader, who had served the world body as its under secretary general, has got a personal rapport with many top officials of UN agencies like the UNOG head Michael Moller.

Tharoor had also held talks with Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and additional chief secretary (revenue) PH Kurian before going to Geneva.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had earlier expressed concerns over the floods in the state.

With inputs from TK Devasia
Most places severely affected by the flood in Northern Kerala are households who depend on groundwater for drinking and cooking purposes. Wells are highly contaminated and instructions have been given to the people to chlorinate the water every week in the coming months.

Clear skies have returned over the towns in Northern Kerala. With floodwaters receding, locals, police, students have begun cleaning drive and started clearing away what is left in the houses that were affected by the flood. Around 44,000 people in Calicut district were have been staying in over 241 relief camps over the last five days. Around 13,000 homes were affected by the floods in Kerala, which are by far the worst the state has seen in decades. Around 20,000 have returned to their homes with the hope of starting at the very beginning.

Youths in various localities in Calicut district are on the forefront of the restoration and rehabilitiation process with the guidelines from the health department and police officials. "We are cleaning out 15 areas centering around Ramanattukara, Kodampuzha, Mokanadu, Tumbapadam and Chulliparambu in Calicut with the help of the students, NSS, NCC cadets and college students." Said Ravindran, a lecturer at the Government Polytechnic College, who has been coordinating the cleaning drive in Calcut on Sunday.

Health departments in each district across the state have given guidelines to the volunteers, especially about the precautions which need to be maintained. Cleaning is led by the special health team with proper cleaning gears, protective gloves, and medications to prevent rat-bite fever. Instructions were given to those entering muddy waters to visit the nearest health centre and not to enter desolated homes alone.

In Malappuram district, the collector clearly instructed people that they should only return home to their homes only when it was completely dry and hygienic. Only after the geology department and the engineering department have examined the homes, will people be allowed to enter their homes. With at least 12 landslides reported in the region, Nilambur, a municipality and a taluk in the Malappuram district which is also one of the worst-hit town in the district, has around 3,000 people in the relief camps and at least 1,500 houses which are completely and partially destroyed.

Clean drinking water: The biggest challenge

Most places severely affected by the flood in Northern Kerala are households who depend on groundwater for drinking and cooking purposes. Wells are highly contaminated and instructions have been given to the people to chlorinate the water every week in the coming months. People are warned not to drink or use the contaminated water. A few who had shifted back to their homes on Saturday used the contaminated water around them to clean their houses. Ensuring clean drinking water to these households in the coming days is a challenge, which the municipalities and NGOs have taken up, as clean water remains a scarce resource in these parts.

Wells in Malappuram district had collapsed due to landslides. Draining out the contaminated water from these wells required big motor pumps which are not readily available in the district. The demand for bleaching powder also increased but was not readily available, as the plantation in Ernakulum was destroyed in the flood. People are worried about water borne-diseases. Most volunteers and people do not know the scientific method of cleaning out wells, and the people who do are unable reach everywhere on time.

Some relief camps being evacuated, not all

As people started moving out of camps into their homes, many shelters are evacuated and cleaned out in Calicut and Malappuram. Around 55 camps were shut down in Calicut on Sunday. But for some people, going back is not an option. Although the 89 families in Kalluthankadave slum colony in Calicut are asked to go back, with only two toilets for the entire colony, unsteady walls and no proper roof, they are still stranded with currently no home to return to.

The floods destroyed more than a 1,000 homes in the Malappuram district. The collectors and governing bodies are still planning for a concrete rehabilitation plan, while the state government is providing relief funds for those affected. The panchayat in Adivaram is planning to relocate the families of around 13 homes, which collapsed, to rented accomodation.

For the people of Akampadam, Thiruvambadi, a remote place between the districts of Calicut and Malappuram, they not only lost their homes but also their lands due to landslides. The remote area has only one bus service and route which is destroyed by the flood. There are three relief camps still functioning strong, with one relief camp to function for the next six months. Same is the case in Eranjimangadu camp in Malappuram which will function for the coming year, having people who completely lost their homes.

In Nilambur, sensitive areas like the Chulliyode elakkal hills are monitored and have been evacuated in case of landslides.

Missing documents worse than ruined furniture, say people

As water started receding and people returned to their homes, they were devastated to find their belongings destroyed  but more than furniture, people grimached about important documents and missing papers which the floods destroyed. The government announcement of providing school kits with replaced books and easy replacement of documents is a minor relief for the people. "What helped us the most were those who rushed to assist the affected," said Manoj Kumar, the municipal councillor managing resources in Ramanattukara relief camp. "It was during the past week that we truly remembered that we are all humans. Let us continue to be so," he said.

There is a fear among the people that there will be a shortage of volunteers in the coming days. As North Kerala starts getting back to their normal lives, they are sending the excess resources to southern parts of Kerala where districts have been ravaged by the floods and people are still mostly in relief camps.
KJ Alphons issued an appeal to skilled workers like plumbers, electricians and carpenters to come to make homes livable and help Kerala regain normalcy.

New Delhi: Union tourism minister KJ Alphons on Tuesday flagged the need for ready-to-eat cooked food, doctors and nurses in flood ravaged Kerala, saying people are now getting back to whatever is left of their homes with the waters receding.

The minister also issued an appeal to skilled workers like plumbers, electricians and carpenters to come to make homes livable and help the state regain normalcy. Over 216 people have lost their lives in the rains, floods and landslides and over 7.24 lakh people been displaced.

"As the flood is receding in Kerala people have to move to whatever is left of their homes. Need ready to eat cooked food, clothes and an army of electricians, plumbers and carpenters," Alphons said on Twitter on Tuesday, tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.

He issued a series of tweets highlighting the requirements of the people. "I appeal to general public: What Kerala requires... - pre cooked individually packed dry food, an army of electricians, plumbers, carpenters to make homes livable. Doctors and nurses who can go down to the villages as there is apprehension about the possibility of outbreak of deceases. New clothes, if it can be distributed through NGOs," he said.

The minister also thanked the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) for providing the state huge quantities of tetra pack milk and public sector oil companies which came together and handed Rs 25 crore to the Kerala chief minister for flood relief.

The massive flood in Kerala has been declared a calamity of severe nature, the Union home ministry has said. The lakhs of displaced have been sheltered in 5,645 relief camps.
Around four million migrant labourers, displaced in the Kerala floods, work in nearly all sectors in the state, keeping the wheels of the economy moving.

Editor's note: Described as one of the worst since 1924 by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the rains in Kerala have left over 350 dead and rendered thousands of people homeless. According to the latest tally, 80,000 have been rescued so far. Over 1,500 relief camps have been set up across the state that currently house at least 2,23,139 people. In a multi-part series, Firstpost will attempt to analyse the short-term and long-term impact of these unprecedented floods on the lives of the people, economy of the state, and the environment.

***

Sunny Joseph went to Perumbavoor junction at 7 am on Monday to hire a few workers to clean his flood-ravaged house that is filled with mud, reptiles and insects. He could not find anybody there even after waiting for more than two hours. Shopkeepers advised him to go back as the migrant labourers he was looking for had not been coming to the place since the floods devastated most of Kerala.

Perumbavoor junction is usually crowded since 7 am with migrant workers from West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Assam, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh, etc, all looking for people to hire them.

After his search in other areas ended in vain, Joseph began to clean his house with his son's help. However, the IT professional has no idea where to find the plumbers, electricians and technicians he needs to repair the wiring, pipes and electronic items damaged by the floodwaters in the first floor of his house.

This is the plight of the majority of over one million people who were rescued or evacuated from their homes after the torrential rains began. Most of them left household articles and valuables behind. While thousands of houses have been fully or partially damaged by floodwaters, the others are in a total mess.

Migrant workers from the northern and eastern parts of India have been managing all kinds of jobs in Kerala since youngsters from the state began to make a beeline for the Gulf nations in search of greener pastures. At the moment, Kerala needs hundreds of thousands of these skilled and unskilled migrant workers to build new houses as well as repair and clean the damaged ones.

Ironically, a large number of them are on their way back to their home states at a time when Kerala needs their services the most. These migrant labourers  who were given the status of "guests of Kerala" by the state government taking their yeoman services into consideration have no choice but to leave the state as the floods have shattered their lives, too.

A labour contractor in Perumbavoor, where around 1.5 lakh migrant workers live, said that a large number of the workers were displaced as the labour camps where they lived had been washed away in the floods and the factories they worked at had been damaged. A majority of these migrant workers are employed at private factories in Perumbavoor.

A Catholic priest working among migrant workers said that a large number of them had been marooned in the floods in Aluva, Perumbavoor, Kalady, Muvattupuzha and Chalakkudy for several days without food and water. Father Mathew Onatt, a member of a Church-run agency working for the welfare of migrant workers, said that those who were rescued had also faced difficulties as there were not enough relief camps in the flood-ravaged areas.

Benoy Peter, executive director of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (Perumbavoor) said that most of the employers of these workers also did not take adequate care of them. In fact, some had even refused to lend their plywood factories to shelter the rescued workers.

They turned them away, citing lack of facilities inside the factory to serve food and perform daily chores. They relented only after volunteer agencies and local political workers intervened, Peter said.

He added that most of their employers had not bothered to enquire about their welfare, and many even did not pay their pending wages. Instead, they asked the migrant labourers to return to their home state and come back after the damaged factories were repaired and resumed production. This, even as many of them had no money to reach the railway station.

Peter said that the governments in their home states had also failed to come to their aid. Only the Odisha administration had sent a team of officials to evacuate the stranded labourers. The other state governments remained content making enquiries with the Kerala government and appealing to the Railways to run special trains.

The Southern Railway agreed to operate special trains to northern and northeastern states following persistent pressure from a 200-member team from Odisha, which came to Kerala equipped with six helicopters. The team insisted on free journeys for the stranded, but the Railways refused.

A senior railway official said they had operated six special service trains to West Bengal, Odisha and Bihar on Monday and two on Tuesday, adding that they had evacuated over 25,000 people till Monday. Peter said a majority of the workers had boarded the trains without tickets, and they had no money to eat or drink anything during their journey.

Mittu Sarkar, who comes from Malda in West Bengal, said he had to borrow money from a friend to return to his home state. He said he had not received wages for the last two months. I could not ask my employer to pay my wages as his factory and house had suffered damage in the floods. He asked me to return to Malda till he repairs them and resumes operation, said Sarkar, as he waited for a train at the Ernakulam South Railway Station.

Dhingal from Odisha could go back to his home state only after a friend lent him the money to buy the ticket. This is the plight of thousands of workers who fled Kerala.

An estimated four million migrant labourers from other states worked in nearly all sectors in Kerala, keeping the wheels of the economy moving. Peter said that if the migrant workers had stayed back, they would have risked their health as they would have had to do hazardous work post-floods.

Migrant workers are already a vulnerable group. Engaging them in cleaning infected houses will increase their vulnerability, he said, adding that the Kerala government and local bodies had yet to equip the workers required to clean the flooded houses. He said his agency was trying to procure material from various sources with the help of NGOs to reduce the risk of infection among workers engaged in cleaning and disinfecting the flooded houses.

Peter agreed that the return of the migrant workers, which is taking the form of a mass exodus, will adversely affect the post-flood rehabilitation of the people displaced by the centurys worst floods and landslides. It is a mammoth task that the government has to undertake with a lot of planning and care, Peter cautioned.
The NCW staffers have also decided to donate their one day's salary towards relief operations in Kerala and Sharma and other senior officials have decided to donate a fraction of their one-month salary to relief operations.

New Delhi: The National Commission for Women (NCW) has asked state commissions to contribute towards relief funds for flood-hit Kerala that is witnessing its worst deluge in nearly a century, Chairperson Rekha Sharma said on Tuesday.

The NCW staffers have also decided to donate their one day's salary towards relief operations in Kerala and Sharma and other senior officials have decided to donate a fraction of their one-month salary to relief operations.

"I appeal to all my colleagues in the state commissions for women across the country to do their bit to help Kerala in their time of need," Sharma said.

On Monday, employees of the Delhi Commission for Women pledged to donate their one-day salary for relief operations.

Rains, floods and landslides in Kerala have killed 373 people since 30 May, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said on Tuesday.

Altogether 87 people were injured and 32 others went missing in the deluge which hit all the 14 districts of the southern state.

Over 54.11 lakh people in Kerala were affected in the massive floods of which 12.47 lakh inmates have taken shelter in 5,645 relief camps since 30 May.
The BJP-led government in Tripura will donate Rs 1 crore for the relief work in the flood-ravaged state of Kerala.

Agartala: The BJP-led government in Tripura will donate Rs 1 crore for the relief work in the flood-ravaged state of Kerala.

A day after the Opposition CPM urged the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to contribute funds to the flood-ravaged Kerala, the Tripura government on Monday night said that it will donate Rs 1 crore.

"The council of ministers in its meeting on Monday decided to donate Rs one crore for the relief of the flood-affected people of Kerala," Education and Law Minister Ratan Lal Nath told the media.

Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb chaired the cabinet meeting, which also formally adopted a condolence resolution for the demise of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) on Sunday urged the BJP-led government in Tripura to donate funds to the flood-hit people in Kerala, pointing out that no saffron party-ruled state has yet donated any amount to the southern state.

CPM central committee member Bijan Dhar said: "Some non-BJP ruled states and many organisations and individuals have come forward to help the state (Kerala), which was hit by one of the worst natural catastrophes of the century."

Dhar, also the secretary of the Tripura state committee of the Left party, said that the CPM would launch an 11-day long fund collection drive on Tuesday across the state to help the affected people of Kerala.
Reliance Foundation chairperson Nita Ambani said the organisation stands firmly with the people of Kerala affected by the floods.

In view of the devastating floods in Kerala, Reliance Foundation on Tuesday said it will donate Rs 21 crore to the Kerala Chief Minister's Relief Fund and provide relief material worth around Rs 50 crore to assist the people affected by the torrential rains.

Speaking about the organisation's "multi-pronged disaster response programme", Reliance Foundation chairperson Nita Ambani said in a statement: "The foundation stands firmly with the people of Kerala in this hour of need. It will remain committed to its relief and rehabilitation efforts and continue its operations in Kerala until normalcy is restored in the state."

According to the statement, the organisation has been carrying out rescue and relief operations since 14 August in six of the 14 affected districts of Kerala  Ernakulam, Wayanad, Alappuzha, Thrissur, Idukki and Pathanamthitta.

"The team is supporting the rescue operations by providing critical updates on weather and locations of temporary shelters via Reliance Foundation Information Services. It is also providing toll-free helpline numbers to the state disaster management authorities," the statement read.

The foundation has also identified 15,000 families affected by the floods to provide them dry ration kits, utensils, shelter, shoes and clothes.

Through Reliance Retail, it provided supplies such as ready-to-eat food, glucose and sanitary napkins to 160 government-run relief camps, which are sheltering around 50,000 people.

Reliance Foundation has also handed over relief material, weighing around 2.6 metric tonnes, to the Government of Maharashtra, which will be transported to Kerala by air. A total of 7.5 lakh units of apparel, 1.5 lakh pairs of footwear as well as dry groceries are being mobilised for distribution to the affected people in Kerala.

The latest spell of monsoon fury began in Kerala on 8 August, causing one of the worst floods in its history of the state. As the humanitarian crisis unfolded in the southern state, relief poured in from across the country, with several states, corporate entities and individuals, donating aid.

According to the National Disaster Management Authority, rains, floods and landslides in Kerala have killed 373 people since 30 May in Kerala. Over 10 lakh people, including 2.12 lakh women and one lakh children under 12, have been sheltered in 3,200 relief camps.

Disclaimer: Reliance Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Reliance Industries Limited. RIL is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust that controls Network18 Media & Investments Limited, which publishes Firstpost.
Kerala floods; key developments: Over a dozen FMCG firms, including ITC, Coca Cola, Pepsi and Hindustan Unilever, have pledged to supply water bottle, food and necessary items to flood-hit areas of Kerala

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This categorisation will enable the state get greater monetary and other assistance from the Centre. An all party meeting will be held here on Tuesday to take stock of the flood situation.

The Centre on Monday declared the devastating floods in Kerala a "calamity of severe nature" as the state braced for the gigantic task of reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure and rehabilitation lakhs of people rendered homeless, PTI reported. "Keeping in view the intensity and magnitude of the floods and landslides in Kerala, this is a calamity of a severe nature for all practical purposes," a home ministry official said in New Delhi.

Efforts were now under way to clear the houses of the debris to make them habitable, officials said, underscoring the need for making available disinfectants like bleaching powder in adequate quantities to prevent outbreak of water-borne diseases, PTI reported

With flood water level receding in many places, people have started returning to their homes and begun cleaning operations. The state government has also decided to distribute cleaning kits to them, Pinarayi Vijayan said.

The finance ministry has decided to exempt goods imported or supplied for flood relief operations in Kerala from basic customs duty/Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) till 31 December 2018, sources said. A notification to this effect is likely to be issued on Wednesday, PTI reported

Aviation regulator DGCA is monitoring airfares for flights connecting flood-hit Kerala but it should not be seen by airlines as micro-management by the government as this is a unique situation of 'humanitarian crisis', Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu said on Monday, PTI reported.

State-owned general insurance companies have announced that they are fully geared up to settle claims in flood-ravaged Kerala, PTI reported. National Insurance, New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance and United India Insurance have systems in place and are fully geared to receive claim intimations and ensure smooth and expeditious settlements, the four state-owned firms said a joint statement on Monday. Claims predominantly relating to motor, property and cattle are being reported, the statement said.

Vistara airlines has announced that it has capped its flights operating out of Thiruvananthapuram airport in Kerala at Rs 10,000 for travel to and from Delhi and Rs 7,500 for Chennai. It also said that it will help in carrying relief material collected by various NGOs and collection centres across the country and will fly the doctors and nurses who are volunteering in the flood-hit state for free.

Few special trains were started via Trivandrum, Tirunelveli, and Madurai to Chennai, Egmore, Howarah, Gorakhpur, Bhubaneswar routes to evacuate stranded people. Barring the flood-affected areas, the Southern Railway has begun running 159 Express trains and 11 passenger trains connecting Kerala to the rest of the states from 16-18 August.

The train services in Kayankulam-Kottayam- Ernakulam and Palakkad-Shoranur-Kozhikkode sections have been resumed. Heavy damages caused by the floods in Aluva- Thrissur, Thrissur-Shoranur, Kayamkulam-Kottayam- Ernakulam Shoranur-Tirur, Shoranur- Palakkad routes have been fixed. The traffic in Aluva- Thrissur, Thrissur-Shoranur sections was also restored, ANI reported .

Union Minister Alphons Kannanthanam on Monday turned down the demand of Congress leaders to declare Kerala flood as a "national calamity" and said there was no provision in the Disaster Management Act 2005 to do so, PTI reported. Reacting to Congress leader AK Antony's demands , Kannanthanam said "There is no provision to declare any calamity as national calamity. None of the calamities were declared as national by the Congress when it was in power from 2004-14."

The state finance minister, who is overseeing relief work in the Alappuzha district, said the state will also have to make corrections in the development trajectory in the future and focus on the toll that development takes on the environment to avoid such disasters in future.

The Kerala government will need at least Rs 21,000 crore to reconstruct basic infrastructure following the floods and will look at various options to meet the burden, including approaching the GST Council to allow the state to levy a cess, Thomas Isaac told The Indian Express .

The migrant labourers who have been managing skilled and unskilled jobs have started returning to their home states in large numbers in the wake of the flood. The government may have to take urgent steps to either retain or find fresh workers. The chief minister has also called a special cabinet meeting prior to the all-party meeting to discuss the issue.

Rehabilitation is going to be a tough task as thousands of houses are fully or partially damaged and others highly infected with muds, insecticides and pests. Many who went to inspect their flood-ravaged houses said they are in total mess and they need a lot of effort to make it livable.

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has convened an-all party meeting at 4 pm on Tuesday to discuss the rehabilitation of people languishing in the relief camps. Sources in the chief minister's office said that the cabinet will focus mainly on preparing a memorandum to be submitted to the Central government for assistance.

There is no power supply in Munnar and Cheruthoni ever since the heavy rains had. Roads leading to Munnar are broken while the destruction of Cheruthoni bridge has isolated it from the rest of the region, The News Minute reported .

Many states governments have announced separate relief packages for Kerala while govt officials and ministers have foregone their one month salary to contribute to Kerala relief fund.

Union minister KJ Alphons has asked the central govt to send an army of electricians, plumbers and carpenters to Kerala for rehabilitation work now that the water has started receding from the flooded state.

The Indian Army would continue to be engaged in the rescue operations in flood-hit Kerala till the situation is stabilised, Southern Command chief Lt Gen DR Soni told PTI. He also said that the Army's medical teams would extend the first line of relief in co-ordination with the government. "There are inaccessible areas and our men will continue to reach out to people who needed to be rescued," he said.

People returning from relief camps to heir homes are faced with an uphill task of cleaning their surroundings even as the state government sent out an SOS for more supplies of disinfectants and bleaching powder. The immediate priority is to ensure that the flood victims don't fall prey to water-borne infections as the insides of many flood-hit homes have about 60 cm of mud and slush, officials engaged in the rehabilitation work told The Times of India .

Kerala so far has received 2346.6 mm rainfall from 1 June to 9 August against a normal level of 1649.5 mm (above normal by 42 percent). Highest excess rainfall was recorded over the Idukki district (92 percent above normal) followed by Palakkad (72 percent above normal).

Rain may not come in the way of rehabilitating more than a million people stranded in over 3,594 relief across Kerala if the IMD weather prediction for this week is correct. According to the weather report, heavy rain is not likely in any district in the state. The prediction till 25 August is light to moderate rainfall in all 14 districts.

The Kerala government has called a special session of the Assembly on 30 August to discuss the calamity that hit the state. Today too, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan chaired an all-party meet to discuss the rebuilding efforts in the state.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan stressed the need for skilled workforce to help rebuild the state, which suffered heavy infrastructural losses due to massive floods. Unfortunately, the migrant labourers who have been managing skilled and unskilled jobs have started returning to their home states in large numbers in the wake of the flood. The government may have to take urgent steps to either retain them or find fresh workers.

The UAE government has promised to offer $100 million (roughly Rs 700 crore to rebuild Kerala). Earlier, UAE-based Indian origin businessmen had also announced Rs 125 million donation for flood relief operations in Kerala. Kerala-born businessman Yusuff Ali MA, chairman and managing director of Lulu Group and KPHussain, chairman of Fathima Healthcare Group have announced Rs 50 million grants each.

Pinarayi Vijayan also warned against such rumour monger and said that the full data on expenditure from CM's relief fund was available, while he also claimed that entire funds gathered for Ockhi cyclone were disbursed in its entirety. "Rumours have been spread that the Ockhi disaster relief fund has not been used efficiently. Apart from releasing Rs 20 Lakh grant at a record pace for the families of those who died/missing. Govt also disbursed the central fund of Rs 2 lakh for each fisherman impacted by Okhi." Vijayan also warned of legal action against those spreading false propaganda.

However, the official figures suggest that the state has suffered losses to the tune of over Rs 19,000 crore. Early estimates suggest that 80% of the state's infrastructural assets are heavily damaged, while personal losses to homes and property are yet to be ascertained properly. With Centre pledging Rs 600 vrore interim relief, clearly, Kerala needs all the help it can get to stand back on its feet.

Indians from across the nation and expats have come forward to offer help to flood-ravaged Kerala. However, as is evident from a brief scroll of social media channels, several rumours are afloat about the veracity of organisations organising collection drives, and even the routing of money from chief minister's relief fund. Several Whatsapp forwards too have come to light that suggests that Kerala has got enough help from 'rich' anti-India forces, while some allude that the CM's relief fund is not being used properly.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that attempts by some private financial institutions to collect repayment of loans from the people displaced in the flood from relief camps had come to the notice of the government. He urged such institutions to refrain from such moves and provide time to the affected people to repay the loans. He pointed out that the government had already declared a moratorium on repayment of bank loans. This is to provide relief to the affected people. It is unfair on the part some institutions to trouble the people who have left them homes leaving everything behind.

The state government and the Army have made it clear that rescue operations will continue till the last person stranded is brought to safety, PTI reported. The government will now prepare a comprehensive health action programme to prevent the outbreak of any water borne diseases among those rescued.

The first truck carrying relief materials, mobilised by all major ports under the Union Shipping Ministry, was dispatched through the VOC Port Trust in Tuticorin and will be arriving at the port on Tuesday, a port trust official said. The Cochin Port Trust has earmarked two warehouses for free storage of relief materials, arriving from across the country, for people affected by the unprecedented floods, he said, as reported by PTI.

Railway officials had received a notice from the Ministry of Railways for free transportation of relief material and aid to the flood-affected state which shall be applicable to all stations of Kerala. Since the transportation of relief material shall be undertaken free of charge, therefor no ancillary charges like demurrage or wharfage are to be charged on the same, railway officials said.

The Indian Railways has decided to transport for free the aid and relief material to Kerala and the local railway station has made arrangements to introduce the same facility. City railway stations Officiating Director Amrit Singh told The Tribune that the parcel wing had been directed not to charge for transporting aid.

While those in the pay grade of Rs 1,800-2,000 will pay Rs 500 to the fund, those between Rs 2,400-2,800 will contribute Rs 700, those in the pay grade 4,200-4,600 will give Rs 1,000 each, those between Rs 4,800-6,600 will pay Rs 1,500, those earning Rs 7,600 pay grade will pay Rs 2,000, and those in the category of Rs 8,700-10,000 will donate Rs 2,500. All those in the grade of Rs 10,000 and more will pay Rs 3,000 each. This contribution will be made by the employees from the salary for the month of August 2018. However, this contribution is voluntary.

Central Railways employees have decided to a contribute part of their salary for the Kerala flood relief aid, according to details released by the Railway ministry on Tuesday. Both the officers and staff of the central railway zone with headquarters in Mumbai will contribute to the Kerala Chief Minister's Relief Fund according to their pay grade, it said.

Over a dozen FMCG firms, including ITC, Coca Cola, Pepsi and Hindustan Unilever, have pledged to supply water bottle, food and necessary items to flood-hit areas of Kerala in the next two days, Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said on Tuesday. In a late evening meeting on Monday with the representatives of leading food processing companies, Badal discussed a plan to strategise assistance to Kerala in the coming days. "It is time to work as a cohesive unit and make a coordinated effort to help the people of Kerala, instead of separate entities making individual efforts," said the minister of food processing industries. The companies have pledged full support to the endeavour of reaching out to the people hit by the floods, she said in a statement.

Kerala Director General of Police Loknath Behra said police will be adopting poor families for rehabilitation. He has requested all the senior officers to adopt at least family and take care of them until they are able to lead a normal life. PF Rajashekharan, deputy director, Police Information clarified that the officers adopting the families will help them repair their house if it is required, clean them and help them solve physical and mental issues if any they have. Apart from this the Janamithri police will be constructing two houses each for the poor under the station limits.

A two-and-a-half year-old child, who was in a relief camp at Chengannur, has died. The child, Anavadhya, was the daughter of Sunil Kumar and Anupama. A Manorama News report said that the child was suffering from fever when she was brought to the camp. The condition later developed into brain fever. Though the child was rushed to a private hospital in Thiruvananthapuram, her life could not be saved.

Railway officials had received a notice from the Ministry of Railways for free transportation of relief material and aid to the flood-affected state which shall be applicable to all stations of Kerala. Since the transportation of relief material shall be undertaken free of charge, therefor no ancillary charges like demurrage or wharfage are to be charged on the same, railway officials said.

The Indian Railways has decided to transport for free the aid and relief material to Kerala and the local railway station has made arrangements to introduce the same facility. City railway stations Officiating Director Amrit Singh told The Tribune that the parcel wing had been directed not to charge for transporting aid.

While those in the pay grade of Rs 1,800-2,000 will pay Rs 500 to the fund, those between Rs 2,400-2,800 will contribute Rs 700, those in the pay grade 4,200-4,600 will give Rs 1,000 each, those between Rs 4,800-6,600 will pay Rs 1,500, those earning Rs 7,600 pay grade will pay Rs 2,000, and those in the category of Rs 8,700-10,000 will donate Rs 2,500. All those in the grade of Rs 10,000 and more will pay Rs 3,000 each. This contribution will be made by the employees from the salary for the month of August 2018. However, this contribution is voluntary.

Central Railways employees have decided to a contribute part of their salary for the Kerala flood relief aid, according to details released by the Railway ministry on Tuesday. Both the officers and staff of the central railway zone with headquarters in Mumbai will contribute to the Kerala Chief Minister's Relief Fund according to their pay grade, it said.

The Hyderabad-based Humane Society International/India has set up an emergency helpline to coordinate animal rescue throughout Kerala. It is collaborating with Compassion Unlimited Plus Action (CUPA), based in Bangalore, for rescue efforts in Karnataka's hill district of Coorg. HSI India is working with local groups to reach as many animals as possible and also distributing vital life-saving equipment such as inflatable boats, veterinary medicines and food for starving animals.

Animal rescuers are being inundated with distress calls from people in Kerala who were forced to evacuate their homes without their pets. Pet owners are using WhatsApp to send photos of their animals and the location of their near-submerged houses so that NGos India can get rescuers to the scene to save the stranded pets, a spokesperson told PTI.

Over a dozen FMCG firms, including ITC, Coca Cola, Pepsi and Hindustan Unilever, have pledged to supply water bottle, food and necessary items to flood-hit areas of Kerala in the next two days, Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said on Tuesday. In a late evening meeting on Monday with the representatives of leading food processing companies, Badal discussed a plan to strategise assistance to Kerala in the coming days. "It is time to work as a cohesive unit and make a coordinated effort to help the people of Kerala, instead of separate entities making individual efforts," said the minister of food processing industries. The companies have pledged full support to the endeavour of reaching out to the people hit by the floods, she said in a statement.

Kerala Director General of Police Loknath Behra said police will be adopting poor families for rehabilitation. He has requested all the senior officers to adopt at least family and take care of them until they are able to lead a normal life. PF Rajashekharan, deputy director, Police Information clarified that the officers adopting the families will help them repair their house if it is required, clean them and help them solve physical and mental issues if any they have. Apart from this the Janamithri police will be constructing two houses each for the poor under the station limits.

Hindustan Unilever said it has already supplied 9,500 cases of salt, 29,000 cases of wheat products, 1,000 cases of ketchup, 250 cases of spices mix masala and other products across the state. Whereas, Nestle said it has supplied 90,000 packets of Maggi, 2,00,000 packets of Munch, 1,100 packets of coffee and UHT milk. The company said it will supply additional 40,000 packets of Maggi, 1 lakh Munch, 1,100 packs of coffee and UHT milk will be supplied along with 30,000 packs of ready-to-drink Milo and 10,000 packs of Serigo, PTI reported.

ITC has promised to supply 3.30 lakh packets of biscuits, 2,000 bottles of Savlon, 3,000 packets of dairy whitener, 9,000 packets of liquid hand wash and 7,000 soaps, a statement by the Food and Processing Ministry said. Meanwhile, MTR Food has delivered 35,000 ready-to-eat packets to Wayanad, while Bikanervala has decided to send one tonne of namkeen in coordination with industry body CII.

Coca Cola India has already supplied 1.4 lakh litres of packaged drinking water and the company has committed to supply additional 1 lakh litres of packaged drinking water in next two days including 20,000 bottles on Wednesday itself. Pepsico has promised to supply 6.78 lakh litres of packaged drinking water and 10,000 kg Quaker Oats for rescued people in relief camps.

Kerala floods key developments: Over a dozen FMCG firms, including ITC, Coca Cola, Pepsi and Hindustan Unilever, have pledged to supply water bottle, food and necessary items to flood-hit areas of Kerala in the next two days, Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said on Tuesday.

Central Railways employees have decided to a contribute part of their salary for the Kerala flood relief aid, according to details released by the Railway ministry on Tuesday. Both the officers and staff of the central railway zone with headquarters in Mumbai will contribute to the Kerala Chief Minister's Relief Fund according to their pay grade, it said.

The state government and the Army have made it clear that rescue operations will continue till the last person stranded is brought to safety, PTI reported. The government will now prepare a comprehensive health action programme to prevent the outbreak of any water borne diseases among those rescued.

Meanwhile, more relief material from different parts of India has started arriving at the Cochin port through coastal shipping. Four containers of relief material sent by the shipping fraternity from Tuticorin under the initiative of the ministry was delivered for distribution on Monday, officials told PTI. The first truck carrying relief materials, mobilised by all major ports under the Union Shipping Ministry, was dispatched through the VOC Port Trust in Tuticorin and will be arriving at the port on Tuesday, a port trust official said. The Cochin Port Trust has earmarked two warehouses for free storage of relief materials, arriving from across the country, for people affected by the unprecedented floods, he said, as reported by PTI.

The Indian Railways has decided to transport for free the aid and relief material to Kerala and the local railway station has made arrangements to introduce the same facility.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that attempts by some private financial institutions to collect repayment of loans from the people displaced in the flood from relief camps had come to the notice of the government. He urged such institutions to refrain from such moves and provide time to the affected people to repay the loans.

The UAE government has promised to offer $100 million (roughly Rs 700 crore to rebuild Kerala). Earlier, UAE-based Indian origin businessmen had also announced Rs 12.5 crore donation for flood relief operations in Kerala.

The Kerala government has called a special session of the Assembly on 30 August to discuss the calamity that hit the state. Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan stressed the need for skilled workforce to help rebuild the state, which suffered heavy infrastructural losses due to massive floods

Rain may not come in the way of rehabilitating more than a million people stranded in over 3,594 relief across Kerala if the IMD weather prediction for this week is correct. According to the weather report, heavy rain is not likely in any district in the state. The prediction till 25 August is light to moderate rainfall in all 14 districts. Kerala so far has received 2346.6 mm rainfall from 1 June to 9 August against a normal level of 1649.5 mm (above normal by 42 percent). Highest excess rainfall was recorded over the Idukki district (92 percent above normal) followed by Palakkad (72 percent above normal).

People returning from relief camps to heir homes are faced with an uphill task of cleaning their surroundings even as the state government sent out an SOS for more supplies of disinfectants and bleaching powder. The immediate priority is to ensure that the flood victims don't fall prey to water-borne infections as the insides of many flood-hit homes have about 60 cm of mud and slush. Union minister KJ Alphons has asked the central govt to send an army of electricians, plumbers and carpenters to Kerala for rehabilitation work now that the water has started receding from the flooded state.

Meanwhile, the train services in Kayankulam-Kottayam- Ernakulam and Palakkad-Shoranur-Kozhikkode sections have been resumed. Heavy damages caused by the floods in Aluva- Thrissur, Thrissur-Shoranur, Kayamkulam-Kottayam- Ernakulam Shoranur-Tirur, Shoranur- Palakkad routes have been fixed. The traffic in Aluva- Thrissur, Thrissur-Shoranur sections was also restored.

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has convened an-all party meeting at 4 pm on Tuesday to discuss the rehabilitation of people languishing in the relief camps. Sources in the chief minister's office said that the cabinet will focus mainly on preparing a memorandum to be submitted to the Central government for assistance.

The finance ministry has decided to exempt goods imported or supplied for flood relief operations in Kerala from basic customs duty/Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) till 31 December 2018, sources said. Meanwhile, state-owned general insurance companies have announced that they are fully geared up to settle claims in flood-ravaged Kerala, PTI reported.

The Centre on Monday declared the devastating floods in Kerala a "calamity of severe nature" as the state braced for the gigantic task of reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure and rehabilitation lakhs of people rendered homeless. The death toll in the current spell of monsoon fury that began on 8 August has risen to 223, officials said.

"Keeping in view the intensity and magnitude of the floods and landslides in Kerala, this is a calamity of a severe nature for all practical purposes," a home ministry official said in New Delhi. This categorisation will enable the state get greater monetary and other assistance from the Centre. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said 223 people have lost their lives since 8 August.

"Over 10.78 lakh displaced people, including 2.12 lakh women and one lakh children below 12 years of age, have been sheltered in 3,200 relief camps. On Monday, 602 persons were rescued from various places as the rains receded," he told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram. Vijayan said there has been demands from various quarters to declare the floods as a national calamity.

"Our demand is also the same. But the Centre is pointing out certain technical difficulties to make such an announcement. What we need now is to evaluate the total loss and get an equivalent assistance from the centre. As per preliminary estimates, the state has so far suffered a loss of nearly Rs 20,000 crore. The Union government has so far rendered all help to the state. Kerala received Rs 210 crore towards the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund and a promise of Rs 160 crore," he said.

The government will on 29 August honour fishermen who participated in the rescue operations, he said. An all party meeting will be held on Monday to take stock of the flood situation. With flood water level receding in many places, people have started returning to their homes and begun cleaning operations. The state government has also decided to distribute cleaning kits to them, Vijayan said. K Santosh, director of India Meteorological Department's Thiruvananthapuram centre said all alerts have been withdrawn and the state experienced only light to moderate rainfall on Monday. Similar precipitation has been forecast for the next five days.

The Army, Navy, and NDRF teams continued their rescue efforts. Lt. Gen. DR Soni, the chief of the Army's Southern Command, told a press conference in Thiruvananthapuram that rescue operations were still continuing and drones being used to help reach to people trapped in areas not easily accessible. He said 1,500 army personnel were engaged in rescue operations and people stranded on rooftops and inaccessible areas were being winched with the help of defence helicopters. Efforts were now under way to clear the houses of the debris to make them habitable, officials said, underscoring the need for making available disinfectants like bleaching powder in adequate quantities to prevent outbreak of water-borne diseases.

Vijayan earlier said in a Facebook post that Kerala is striving together as one to overcome the "catastrophic" floods with "monumental strength". Referring to some messages being circulated on social media denigrating the relief efforts by the government, he said that anyone trying to "pull us down will face serious consequences".

Aviation regulator DGCA is, meanwhile, monitoring airfares for flights connecting flood-hit Kerala as this is a unique situation of 'humanitarian crisis', Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu said in the national capital. Amid concerns raised by many, including on social media platforms about steep fluctuations in air ticket prices to and from Kerala, where the main airport at Kochi has been shut till 26 August, Prabhu said the ministry as such cannot interfere with the fares but it is "doing it" in this time of crisis.

Kerala Water Authority and Kerala State Electricity Board were trying to restore water and power supply in vast areas that are without power and tap water for the last several days. Commercial flight operations from the naval airport at Kochi commenced on Monday with the first Air India flight from Bengaluru arriving this morning. Small aircraft are being operated from the naval airport. Relief material, including provisions, water and fuel have started arriving at the Kochi port from different parts of the country, official sources said. A team of around 100 doctors and paramedical staff from Maharashtra left for Kerala on Monday to help the flood-affected people.
Starting Tuesday, Tennessee eighth graders can enter to win the trip of a lifetime. Sixty students will win free round trip airfare to Amsterdam, travel insurance, money for passports, and a seven-night river cruise - including all meals and excursions - through the Netherlands and Belgium.

A total of 60 students in select states will be chosen to go on what AAA calls the Discovery Crew cruise. From now thru September 21, 2018; students can enter for a chance to win at AAA.com/DiscoveryCrew.

Many young students dream of taking a trip like this, said Deborah Haas, Vice President, Travel Products and Services, AAA  The Auto Club Group. AAA is excited to team with our travel partners AmaWaterways and Allianz in making this trip a reality for enthusiastic young travelers. The knowledge these students gain will help shape their future, while building new relationships and memories that will last a life time.

To be eligible, students must be:

Entering the 8th grade in good standing

At least 13 years old

Reside in Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Tennessee, Wisconsin, or select areas of Illinois, Indiana, or Minnesota.

Students can confirm eligibility when visiting AAA.com/DiscoveryCrew.

Winners will be selected based on:

A creative selfie, showcasing their love for travel

Their answers to three essay questions: Why do you want to go on this trip? How do rivers affect the communities through which they run? During the trip, youll meet many people. In what ways do you expect the people you meet to be similar to and different from yourself and your friends and family?



Winners will be notified beginning in October. Winning students will bring one parent or legal guardian to serve as a chaperone. Each pair will share a stateroom while sailing on AmaWaterways AmaDante river cruise ship, from March 28  April 4, 2019.

This is an unbelievable opportunity for students, Haas continued. We encourage any and all eighth graders who have a passion for learning about other destinations and cultures to enter this contest.

Contest Rules

No purchase necessary. Legal residents of specific zip codes served by The Auto Club Group within the United States who are at least 13 years old and who are 8th grade students in good standing at their school at the time of entry. Void where prohibited. Contest ends 9/21/18. For official rules, prize descriptions, and eligible zip codes, visit AAA.com/DiscoveryCrew. Sponsors: The Auto Club Group, 1 Auto Club Drive, Dearborn, MI 48126. AmaWaterways, 26010 Mureau Road, Calabasas, CA 91302. Allianz Global Assistance (a brand of AGA Service Company), 9950 Mayland Drive, Richmond, VA 23233.




The recovery was made following searches at houses of two friends and a relative of Andhure.

Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday recovered a country-made pistol in Aurangabad in Maharashtra, similar to the one used in the killing of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in 2013, and filed a complaint with the police against three people, officials said.

A khukri, three live rounds and a 7.65-bore pistol were recovered on the basis of leads given by Sachin Andhure who was arrested recently by the CBI, they said. The agency has filed a complaint with the Aurangabad police against three people for allegedly possessing the country-made pistol, an illegal weapon, they said. The agency will send the pistol for ballistic examination to ascertain whether it was used in the killing of Dabholkar, they said. The recovery was made following searches at houses of two friends and a relative of Andhure.

Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) officials said that the arrested accused in the Dabholkar murder case belong to a group that was entrusted with the murder of the rationalist in Pune.

The investigators said that there are several groups or silos that were not in the loop about the activities of other groups. The ATS has come across code words that are now being matched with the records of the CBI probe in the case and the chargesheet filed against Dr Virendra Tawade, the first person arrested in the Dabholkar case. The others who have been arrested in the case are shooters Sharad Kalaskar and Sachin Andhure, and Vaibhav Raut, a gau rakshak and alleged seeker of the Sanatan Sanstha.

There are several facts that need to be cross-checked with the earlier investigation conducted by the central agency. This include the code words used by the accused and details pertaining to the larger conspiracy, said a senior ATS officer.

The officials are conducting a probe into the money trail of some of Kalaskars bank accounts. The officials also stated that they would seek Andhures custody from the CBI, which had arrested and is currently questioning him. The ATS also said that, if required, it might summon chiefs of the right-wing organisations for questioning whose names have popped up in the recent past.

The fresh raid was carried out after the CBI, after seeking the help of the ATS, raided the Manjeet Pride Residency in Aurangabads Deolai Chowk area around 3 am in two teams. The officials have arrested Andhures cousin and detained two of his friends.
Kwatha Khonou fears with India pursuing an appeasement policy toward Myanmar and allowing construction of border pillars much into Indian territories, totally disregarding age-old traditional boundaries.

Kwatha Khunou is a hamlet along the Indo-Myanmar border in Manipurs Tegnoupal district, 16 kilometres before reaching the border-trading town of Moreh. Living in the remote, border area would have been much difficult if it wasnt for their neighbouring Myanmarese village, Kondong, just 5-minute bike ride away.

It is the nearest stop for their daily requirement. If they had to look elsewhere, it is the Namphalong border market, across the border, accessible within 15 minutes ride from Kondong. For going to Imphal, the state capital or even to Moreh, Kwatha Khunou villagers prefer to travel to Namphalong and then cross over to Moreh by foot and then take a bus or taxi to Imphal or anywhere else.

While Kwatha Khunou shares friendly as well as matrimonial ties with Kondong, the villagers on both sides are possessive of their traditional boundaries and mutual respect prevail to make sure there is no encroachment on either side. An example of good neighbourly relations between the Indian and Myanmarese villages is how Kwatha shares water from Namjellok, a stream flowing within its boundary, with Kondong.

Kwatha Khonou fears all of these are about to change with India pursuing an appeasement policy toward Myanmar and allowing construction of border pillars much into Indian territories, totally disregarding age-old traditional boundaries.

Kwatha Khunou village headman, Manihar Meitei complained about the method of conducting border surveys and alignment by Survey of India. "Officials of Survey of India whenever they come for surveys they never consult us. Instead, they prefer to bring along Myanmarese military and do their work," said Manihar.

This methodology has prompted the villagers to question, "Why they never consult their own people who are in fact the real sentinel of the border?" To prove their point, villagers asked, "Wont the authority come to us to inquire when, suppose, a border pillar is uprooted? So why arent we taken into confidence? Arent we on the same side?"

While they had been suppressing their resentment for long, recently they flagged a possible encroachment, causing a huge outcry in the state. Ironically, the Government of India, as well as the state government, has stated that there is no border dispute with Myanmar.

If not the rest of the country, this stand of the government has shocked the people of Manipur, particularly the villagers of Kwatha Khunou. They are beginning to doubt Indias willingness to guard its border and sees partiality in the way India deals with its border issues. In Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh or Sikkim, India is steadfastly protecting its territory but not in Manipur.

Manipur has witnessed encroachment on its borders by Myanmarese military personnel on several occasions with India on most occasions looking the other way. They did the same even when Myanmarese military marched into Indian territories and vandalised Indian villagers and even burnt down timber sawmills. The latest in Kwatha Khunou is most peculiar.

The district commissioner of Tegnoupal who was sent to the border village to sign an all is well report, following construction of subsidiary border pillars consequential of a bilateral agreement signed between India and Myanmar to address border ambiguities in the Manipur sector as original border pillars stood at least 3 km apart from each other, made a U-turn and claimed an original border pillar, border pillar no. 81, which stood at Kwatha Khunou, was moved 3 km into Indian territory.

It was a shocker for the people of Manipur and called for rectification erupted throughout the state. Several civil bodies and opposition political parties accused the state government of remaining silent even as Manipurs land was being given away in exchange for friendship.

Following media reports of the protest, the external affairs ministry through its spokesperson rejected the district commissioners claim and said the media reports on the issue were completely baseless and unsubstantiated. The official statement while confirming construction of subsidiary pillars said, "This sector of the international boundary is settled and there is no confusion as to its alignment."

Despite Government of Indias official statement, Kwatha Khunou villagers stuck to their version and said that the current position of border pillar no. 81 is encroaching into Indian territory. Manihar explained that a cluster of rocks served as a marker to remind villagers that one was nearing Myanmarese territory but never as the actual spot for the border pillar no. 81. The exact spot for the border pillar no. 81 is around 3 kilometres off from where it is installed now and this would amount to giving away 3 sq km of Indian territory to Myanmar.

While cordiality is undisturbed between Kwatha Khunou and Kondong even after construction of the subsidiary pillars, Kwatha Khunou fears border fencing will follow the subsidiary pillars and that would ultimately cause the loss of their paddy fields, land and homes. "An important shrine, the Namjellok stream, large tracts agricultural land will go to the other side if border fencing is carried out based on the new location of the BP no. 81," said Manihar.

The latest outcry, emitting from its border, is once again reminding the people of Manipur the bitter experience of 1953 when then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, without consulting them, gifted away about 11,000 sq km of Manipurs land to Myanmar when its prime minister, U Nu, visited Delhi. Interestingly, the Kwatha Khunou is adjacent to Kabow valley that Nehru gave away to Myanmar in 1953.

The latest border controversy merits investigation and settlement to convince Indias seriousness about its borders in Manipur. Delay in confidence-building measures will further alienate the villagers of Kwatha Khunou who are now beginning to voice their desire to embrace the other side if their own refuse to take care of them.

India shares more than 1,008 miles of porous borders with Myanmar where a lot of cross-border activities take place, including illicit drug trafficking, arms and gold struggling and insurgency. It is a fact that Myanmar provides refuge to the proscribed armed outfits operating in the North East. Taking advantage of the porous border and a friendly Myanmarese military who will look the other way as long as they receive their tax, the armed outfits conduct their violent activities by crossing in and sipping out with considerable ease, causing security concerns on the Indian side. Indian initiative of checking these activities by border fencing have not succeeded as the fencing exercise that started in 2013 came to a halt following disputes between the two neighbours. The recent joint border survey and signing of the bilateral agreement that paved the way for the construction of the subsidiary pillars would possibly be an attempt to resume the border fencing exercise.
Special Judge Nisha Gupta had earlier on Tuesday convicted the two men  Irfan alias Bhaiyu (20) and Asif (24)  and held them guilty under relevant sections, public prosecutor BS Thakur told PTI. The pronouncement of the quantum of sentence was scheduled for later in the day.

A special court in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur pronounced death sentence for the two accused in the rape case of an eight-year-old girl, media reports said on Tuesday.

Special Judge Nisha Gupta had earlier on Tuesday convicted the two men  Irfan alias Bhaiyu (20) and Asif (24)  and held them guilty under relevant sections, public prosecutor BS Thakur told PTI. The pronouncement of the quantum of sentence was scheduled for later in the day.

The survivor was gang-raped on 26 June in Mandsaur after the accused abducted her while she was waiting for her father outside her school. The accused had also tried to kill her by slitting her throat.

The minor, who suffered severe injuries to her neck, face, head and private parts in the incident, is undergoing treatment in Indore.

Relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act were invoked against the accused. The incident triggered protests in several parts of the state, as many demanded capital punishment for the accused.

On 5 December 2017, the Madhya Pradesh Assembly unanimously passed a bill to grant death penalty to perpetrators who are found guilty of raping girls of the age of 12-year-old or younger.

On 6 August, the Parliament passed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2018 for stringent punishment for those convicted of raping girls below 12 years of age.

With inputs from agencies
The MCI regulates that students with biology as an additional subject in Class 12 are not eligible for the NEET exam, which is pivotal to MBBS admissions.

The Delhi High Court has said that medical aspirants who have completed their Class 12 examinations with biology as an additional subject and have qualified the NEET exams will be given admission to the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) programme.

The Medical Council of India (MCI) regulation states that those studying biology or biotechnology as an additional subject in Class XII were not eligible to participate in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). According to a report from The Indian Express, a bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and AK Chawla held the MCI regulation as discriminatory and arbitrary.

It is held that the petitioners all of whom had appeared in NEET and qualified in the entrance examination, and were also successful during counselling but not granted final admission in the allotted seats, awaiting the decision in this proceeding, shall be granted final admission, the bench was quoted by The Indian Express as saying.

The court's decision came on a plea by students who have studied biology and biotechnology as additional subjects. The students challenged the MCI regulation, claiming that the Council has not considered the rules and procedures of different state boards before rejecting candidates from MBBS admissions.

The court accepted the claim, and said that lack of any empirical study supporting the MCIs conclusion  that those who qualify from regular scholastic study in the 10+2 exams with additional subjects of biology/biotechnology either at one go, or after a year, do so without laboratory experience  render Regulation 4 (2) (a) to that extent arbitrary

Senior counsel Vikas Singh and advocate T Singhdev have contested the decision, saying that the NEET system regulates the entry of candidates into the field of medical education, and allows for students only with the necessary proficiency to gain entry.
Shamima Bano was talkative, witty and a crisis manger in the closely knit Bhat clan of Drabgam village in Pulwama district.

Drabgam: Shamima Bano was talkative, witty and a crisis manger in the closely knit Bhat clan of Drabgam village in Pulwama district. In this south Kashmir village, Bhats comprise about 40 families of masons, carpenters, lowly traders and some labourers too. Tall, broad-shouldered and mother of two children, Shamima would mobilise people, mainly women, and run barefoot to police stations and military camps whenever a local boy was arrested or picked up for being involved in stone-pelting.

Her courage and negotiating skills earned her the sobriquet Shamima DSP.

On 1 May this year, Sameer Ahmad Bhat, popularly known as Sameer Tiger, a Hizbul commander, was killed in a fierce gunfight at a house owned by Shamimas brother, Shabir Ahmad Bhat.

Among the five single-storied houses that the Bhat family owns in the village which is nestled among apple orchards, two were destroyed in the encounter, less then five hundred metres from the house of Sameer Tiger.

On last Friday, Shamima was back in her village from Koil, where she has got married and lives with her husband and two children. She arrived at 9.45 am and at 12.45 pm, after having a quick lunch, she was chatting with her younger sister inside their home when two militants barged in and fired a volley of bullets at her.

"She was hit by at least six bullets: one in neck, two in chest and three in midriff," Mushtaq Ahmad Bhat, 37, the elder brother of Shamima, told Firstpost on Monday morning at his home.

Barely ten feet away, beneath the hollow frames of the windows of the house where Sameer Tiger was killed, shards of glass from the day of the encounter were still glittering in the unusually hot morning.

Outside, the village square wore a deserted look. Even the usual hustle and bustle of Eid, which is being celebrated on Wednesday, was missing. Young boys discussed politics on pavements and shop fronts. I joined one group, curious to know what they thought about her killing.

She was muqhkbir (informer), that is why she was killed. And they did good. There is nothing wrong in it, Farhad Ahmad, 17, a higher secondary student said with a cold expression.

Dressed in a pair of jeans and a sky blue tee, Farhad often wiped his forehead with a handkerchief as he spoke. Everyone who indulges in mukhbiri will meet the same fate, he says nonchalantly.

In Kashmir, the killing of women at the hands of militants is rare. Not many women have been killed in recent years, making the disturbing silence over the killing of Shamima even more criminal. It is like those political killings where, while the killer has already been identified, few buy the official version. On the streets, everyone seems to know on whose order the assassination was carried out. Villagers in Drabgam talk about Shamima in whispers but when they do open up, they talk with the enthusiasm of a child.

It is as if what her life symbolised was a sin, as if she needed to vanish and her murder was the only way out, as if she was the last person standing between 'azadi' and 'occupation'.

Ask anyone here  residents, brothers of Shamima, sympathisers of militants, even the father of Sameer Tiger  no one seems to know for sure what was going on in her life. If she was an informer, why wasnt she given a second chance? What made her life so unworthy? Did she know too much?

If my mother was an informer like the other informers, Musaib Ahmad Bhat, Shamima's son, said in Koil village on Sunday, why didnt militants shoot a video of her, like they have done, naming the names? We have seen videos in other cases. Why did they not talk to her? Why did they directly pump bullets into her body?

Musaib, 18, works as a salesman in a local automobile showroom, and he said he did not drop his mother at his uncles place in Drabgam because of some urgent work.

Apart from the fact that the house of Sameer Tiger is less then five hundred metres away from some of the houses owned by the Bhat family, the dead militant commander and the dead woman share the same caste; they are relatives too. Sameer Tigers father was lying on the floor when I knocked on the door.

People say she was responsible for the killing of my son but I dont know. There is no reason why she would be killed," Maqbool Ahmad Bhat, the father of Sameer said. Her killing is not revenge.

Shockingly, the brutal killing of Shamima was underplayed by most newspapers in Kashmir.

There was silence on social media over the killing of a mother, who was raising two children. No statements of regret or calls for shutdown were issued by Hurriyat Conference. The mainstream parties too didnt find time to condemn the killing.

I want to go with these two children and appear in Srinagars Press Colony, Shabir said at Shamima's grave. "I want answers, I want to know if she was responsible for the killing of Sameer, why did they not tell her family? Why was she killed so swiftly?"

What happened after the death of Shamima was more disturbing than her death. When one of her brothers desired to bury her in her ancestral graveyard in Drabgam, the villagers refused. On Friday evening last week, she was buried in Koil village. Among her companions in the graveyard are few other victims of conflict, including a militant.
As the issue turned controversial, Ram Vilas Paswan said that Kerala will not be charged for the food grains provided as relief material amid the floods.

As Kerala reels from the floods that left 223 people dead in a fortnight and forced over 10 lakh people out of their homes, a controversy erupted on Tuesday after several reports claimed that the Centre had asked the state government to pay for the food grains that it would be sending to the state as relief material.

The background

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had sought 1.18 lakh tonnes of food grains from the central government, which is the monthly allocation to Kerala under the National Food Security Act. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs and Food and Public Distribution allotted 89,540 metric tonnes of food grains to the state in response to the demand. However, news website Kaumudi reported that the Union food ministry, in a letter to the state food and safety department, said that the Kerala administration will have to pay Rs 233 crore to the Centre for the food grains.

A copy of the letter marked to Food Corporation of India chairman said that they could subsequently furnish the credit bill adjusting the payment with the state's eligible entitlement from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) or other schemes, including the National Food Security Act.

Kerala can accept the deal within a month. The food grains will be charged at Rs 25 per kilogram. If Kerala fails to pay the cost, the state will be excluded from schemes under the Food Security Act, or the amount will be debited from the NDRF, the report quoted from the letter.

What did Paswan say?

As the issue turned controversial, Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan clarified on Tuesday evening that Kerala will not be charged for the food grains provided as relief material.

The 1.18 lakh tonnes of food grains that Kerala gets under the National Food Security Act does not cover the entire population. "We want food grains to reach every person in the state. So we are sending an additional 89,540 tonnes. We have also sent 100 tonnes of pulses, with 80 tonnes to be supplied daily henceforth," Paswan told reporters in New Delhi.

Under the Act, 75 percent of the rural population and up to 50 percent of the urban population receives subsidised food grains  5 kilogram per person per month at Rs 3, Rs 2 and Rs 1 per kilogram of rice, wheat and coarse grains, respectively.

Paswan said that the food ministry had not decided on who would incur the expenses on the supply of additional food grains. "It is in the initial stage. The issue of who pays the bill is not a matter of concern now. The food grains can be supplied for three months," he added.

The central government will provide as much help as possible to Kerala, the Union minister asserted.

What else has the Centre done, so far?

The central government has released Rs 600 crore to flood-hit Kerala and decided to waive customs duty and the inter-state GST on the relief material being sent for the people affected in the state.

An official spokesperson for the government was quoted as saying by PTI that the Centre, on Tuesday, had released the Rs 500 crore announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and of Rs 100 crore announced by Home Affairs Minister Rajnath Singh as assistance for Kerala.

Public sector oil marketing companies have contributed Rs 25 crore to the Kerala Chief Minister's Relief Fund. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has opened special points in flood-affected regions of the state for LPG distribution. Besides granting permission for non-certified vehicles to carry LPG cylinders, the petroleum ministry has also made available 3.2 lakh LPG cylinders and 2.2 lakh regulators.

So far, the railway ministry has supplied 24 lakh litres of drinking water, in addition to 2.7 lakh water bottles, to Kerala. It has also made arrangements to supply bedsheets and blankets to the flood victims and is transporting relief material from various states free of cost.

The health ministry will supply three crore chlorine tablets in addition to the one crore tablets supplied earlier. At least 30 tonnes of bleaching powder and 1.76 lakh sanitary pads have also been sent. Additional quantities will be transported in the next few days.

The Ministry of Food Processing Industries is supplying essential spices, salt, tea and coffee, as per the state government's requirements.

Other controversies over the Kerala floods

Despite the dire state of Kerala, the flood situation has not been free from controversies, one of which cropped up after the United Arab Emirates (USE) extended $100 million (roughly Rs 700 crore) as financial assistance to rebuild the southern Indian state. The controversy is not over the West Asian country's gesture, but over the fact that the aid it offered was higher than the monetary assistance provided by the Centre.

Another row amid the flood situation is over the demand to declare the floods as "national disaster". Parties like the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party have criticised the Narendra Modi government for not declaring the deluge a national calamity.

Dear PM @narendramodi, Why the delay in declaring #KeralaFloods a national calamity?

People are suffering and you are being indecisive? OR is it decided not to declare so ? You surely must know that time is running out. Its either timely action or irreparable loss ! pic.twitter.com/S0tWWMH1Dv  AAP (@AamAadmiParty) August 20, 2018

On Monday, Union minister Alphons Kannanthanam had turned down the demand and said there was no provision in the Disaster Management Act 2005 to do so.

Meanwhile, the central government informed the Kerala High Court that the tragedy in Kerala had been categorised as a level-3 catastrophe. According to The Times of India, the Centre was responding to a petition seeking to have the floods classified as a "national disaster". "It is submitted that there is no provision in statutes or manuals to declare a disaster a national calamity, howsoever big it may be. It is only an expression used in general parlance," the report quoted the government as saying in a statement to the high court.

The Kerala government on Tuesday also sought a Rs 2,600-crore special package from the Centre for rehabilitation work.

With inputs from agencies
The Assam NRC released on 30 July left out the names of over four million applicants in the final draft, leaving them all fearing for their citizenship.

Editor's Note: Of the 4 million who didn't make it to NRC, 2.48 lakh have been marked as 'D' voters. The Supreme Court has asked Assam government not to take any coercive action on those who are found to be without proper documents as required under recent National Register of Citizens. NRC, a product of Assam Accord, is expected to solve the fear of Bangladeshi immigrants that has been prevalent in the state for quite some time now. The Centre proposed in 1999 an updated NRC in Assam to solve the problem of "illegal immigration" and two pilot projects were conducted in Dhubri and Barpeta districts. But breaking out of a riot in Barpeta grounded the project. In 2005, when All Assam Student Union opposed the prime minister's visit to the state, tripartite talk between AASU, State government, and the Centre resulted in a decision to prepare a model for the NRC process, which was delayed yet again by over 5 years by the state government. It was only when Abhijeet Sharma of Assam Public Works (APW), an NGO, filed a writ petition in 2009 that the SC's direct intervention led to the start of NRC process in 2014. Firstpost will run a series which will feature 30 profiles in 30 days of those residents of Assam who have not been covered under the final draft of NRC which will decide if they continue to live in the state that they call 'home'.

***

Dhubri: Fajlul Hoque from Assams Dhubri district, 270 kilometres from Guwahati, was quite sure until July that his name would feature in the National Register of Citizens (NRC). After all, what could go wrong? The 58-year-old had submitted all the required documents to prove he was a genuine citizen of the country.

Being left out from the NRC, released on 30 July, burst his bubble, but the worst was yet to come for Hoque. It was only after this rejection that he found out that a case has been running against him at the Foreigners Tribunal since 2002.

In 16 years, not once did I get a notice from the tribunal informing me about the case. What was I supposed to do? said Hoque, who rolls beedis for a living in Gauripur's Balajan Part-2 village. I only got to know about this when officials at the Balajan NRC Sewa Kendra told me that I wasnt included in the list because a case was pending against me at the Kamrup Metro Foreigners Tribunal. They told me I was case number 772/2002.

After many sleepless nights of sifting through his memories, Hoque said he finally remembered the circumstances that had led to the case being registered against him. He said he had once been mistaken for an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant when he was in Guwahati in 2002.

Those days, I was working as a rickshaw puller in Maligaon. I had come to Guwahati in 2001 in search of job opportunities. Things were going well until August 2002 when I was rounded up by the police on suspicion of being a Bangladeshi national. I was taken to the Jalukbari Police Station. They noted down my name and asked me to name a few people from my native village, including the village head. They told me it was not safe for me to work in Guwahati and let me off, he added.

After a while, Hoque returned to his village and thought no more of the incident. Three months later, in November 2002, a team of border police from the Golakganj Police Station under Dhubri district visited his house.

The policemen said they had received a notice in my name from the Jalukbari Police Station in Guwahati, and I needed to show my documents. I showed them my land and legacy documents. I also made them talk to the village head. After that, the team asked me for some chai-pani money. I gave them Rs 100 and they left saying that I would not be disturbed again. And I wasnt. I thought the matter was over and completely forgot it over the years. But now, my family is suffering, too, he said.

Hoques three sons and two grandchildren have also been excluded from the Assam NRC.

He said his family had submitted legacy documents and land deeds after they applied for the NRC on 12 July, 2015. Pre-1971 legacy documents are required to prove that ones ancestors were living in Assam before 24 March, 1971.

I gave my late father Khamir Alis land document from 1942. He was in the voters list since 1966. My three daughters-in-law and wife have made it to the list. But since I was rejected, my children did not stand a chance, he explained.

Hoque said he was enrolled as a voter in 1980. I am a bona fide citizen of this country. When I didnt find my name in the first list of the NRC, everyone told me I shouldnt worry, and that no genuine citizen would be left out of the NRC. But now, Im anxious. I have got in touch with an advocate, but in most cases, it takes the tribunal years to deliver a judgment, he said.

A social worker in Dhubri, Illias Rahman Sarkar, said that at least 90 percent of the 5,000 residents of Balajan Part-2 village were enlisted in the NRC, but Hoques was a peculiar case. He believes that Hoque has every reason to worry as he is running out of time.

It might take years for Hoque to prove that he is a genuine citizen. The updated NRC draft is supposed to be out by 31 December. He is left with just a few months to prove his citizenship, which seems like an impossible task, Sarkar said.

In Assam, over four million people have been left out of the final draft of the Assam NRC, and the process to file claims and objections is on in 2,500 NRC Sewa Kendras across the state.

The author is a Guwahati-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Manmohan Singh and other leaders on Monday paid homage to former premier Rajiv Gandhi on his 74th birth anniversary, recalling his contribution to the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, and Manmohan Singh, among other leaders, paid homage to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi on his 74th birth anniversary on Monday.

Former president Pranab Mukherjee, former prime minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, the Congress chief and other senior party leaders, offered floral tributes to Rajiv at Veer Bhumi in the national capital. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, her husband Robert Vadra, former Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar were also present.

Modi in a tweet recalled the "efforts" of the former prime minister "towards the nation".

Tributes to our former Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi Ji on his birth anniversary. We remember his efforts towards the nation.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 20, 2018

Rahul recalled the time he spent with his father.

Rajiv Gandhi was a kind, gentle and affectionate man whose untimely death left a deep void in my life. I remember the times we had together and the many birthdays we were lucky to celebrate with him when he was alive. He is greatly missed, but his memory lives on. pic.twitter.com/IGwTDJprRd  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 20, 2018

Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala remembered him as the leader, who took the people of India on the "path of modernisation". "Inspiration for millions of youth, symbol of amity, harmony and sacrifice, ambassador of peace and nation-builder, my humble tribute to Bharat Ratna Rajiv Gandhi on his anniversary. Rajiv ji will live in our hearts forever," he tweeted. Congress party's national general secretary Ashok Gehlot also paid tribute to the former prime minister, calling him a humble and warm-hearted soul.

#RajivGandhi ji was a very kind, humble and warm hearted soul, who touched many lives. He dreamt of a strong, vibrant India marching ahead as a technological hub, with best of educational standards n scientific progress. #Memories #RememberingRajivGandhi #RememberingRajiv pic.twitter.com/Rw8wtE16iB  Ashok Gehlot (@ashokgehlot51) August 20, 2018

Senior Congress leader and Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh also took to Twitte to remember the former prime minister on the occasion. "Missing Rajiv Gandhi on his birth anniversary. A great friend, a fine human being and a visionary leader  he was all that and more. His memory lives on, in the hearts of every person whose life he touched, in many small and big ways. #RajivGandhi," he tweeted.

In several other parts of the country, Congress' regional leaders also paid tributes to Rajiv Gandhi by garlanding his portrait or statues. Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot tweeted in Hindi: "Popular leader with a visionary personality, tribute to former prime minister late Shri Rajiv Gandhi. Wishes to all people in the country on Sadbhavna Diwas." He also posted a picture of Rajiv Gandhi, whose birth anniversary is celebrated as 'Sadbhavna Diwas'.

In the Nehru-Gandhi family pocket borough of Amethi, various programmes were held to mark the former prime minister's birth anniversary. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also posted her tribute on Twitter: "Fondly remembering our former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi ji on his birth anniversary". An earlier tweet that had wrongly referred to Rajiv Gandhi's "death anniversary" was deleted from her Twitter page, according to NDTV. Minhaz Merchant, who wrote the biography for Rajiv Gandhi, also shared his sentiments, remembering the time he met the former prime minister.

On Rajiv Gandhis 74th birth anniversary today, a bit of nostalgia: a young geeky me with the PM at his 7RCR residence. He was a kind soul but surrounded by insincere advisors pic.twitter.com/WTATh05asf  Minhaz Merchant (@MinhazMerchant) August 20, 2018

Born on 20 August 1944, Rajiv Gandhi served as the sixth Prime Minister of India from 1984 to 1989. Rajiv took office after the assassination of his mother, then prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1984.

He was assassinated in a suicide bombing at Tamil Nadu's Sriperumbudur on 21 May 1991 and was later cremated at Veer Bhumi, on the banks of the river Yamuna.

With inputs from PTI
The smuggling syndicate was being operated by persons based in Delhi, who were indulging in smuggling of multi-brand high-end foreign-made cigarettes.

Mumbai: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has busted a distribution hub for smuggled cigarettes in south Mumbai and seized items worth Rs 1 crore following raids at half-a-dozen places.

The smuggling syndicate was being operated by persons based in Delhi, who were indulging in smuggling of multi-brand high-end foreign-made cigarettes. The gang had made Mumbai their distribution hub for supplying smuggled cigarettes across the country, DRI officials said.

The officials raided two locations and seized 7.32 lakh cigarettes of brands including Marlboro, Benson & Hedges, More, Rothmans and Gudang Garam along with Rs 2.31 crore in cash. The sticks are of 75mm and above, the officials said.

We have raided locations of two major distributors who have at least six godowns each. These storehouses are in the populated and sensitive market area of Musafirkhana. It was a well-planned multi-locational operation, said a DRI officer.

The investigators arrested two persons, who are suspected to be operators of the warehouses. The officials are probing the larger smuggling ring and how it reached city limits, unhindered. Preliminary investigation has revealed that the consignments were sent in containers as goods and concealed beneath other items.

In October last year, the DRI raided warehouses in Bhiwandi and seized banned Indonesian cigarettes Gudang Garam worth Rs 6.92 crore.

The cigarette packets were found to be printed with statutory warnings in the English and Arabic languages, indicating that they were basically meant for the Gulf countries market. In most of the cases, the smugglers preferred to smuggle in cigarettes from UAE, Malaysia and Singapore, a DRI officer said.

A case has been registered against the two distributors and further investigation is underway.
Union IT and Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad met with WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels in New Delhi and said that it was a 'productive meeting.' Daniels is in India this week as the company is trying to address concerns around fake news on its messaging platform which have led to horrific crimes like mob-lynching. According to sources, Daniels will be in India for 4-5 days and meet business and government officials during his visit.

Union IT and Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad met with WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels in New Delhi and commented that it was a "productive meeting."

Delhi: #Whatsapp CEO Chris Daniels meets Union Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad pic.twitter.com/KMTdsXu8cx  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2018

Daniels is in India this week as the company is trying to address concerns around fake news on its messaging platform which have led to horrific crimes like mob-lynching. According to sources, Daniels will be in India for 4-5 days and meet business and government officials during his visit.

"I complimented him for extraordinary technological awakening that WhatsApp has led in the country, for education, healthcare, relief in Kerala. These are positive development," Prasad was quoted as saying. Reflecting on fake news which circulates via WhatsApp in India, Prasad said that there are also very sinister developments which provoke crime like mob lynching and revenge porn and urged Daniels to find solution to these challenges "which are downright criminal violation of Indian laws."

"I suggested three points," Prasad said. "One, that WhatsApp must have a grievance officer in India. Second, you must properly comply with Indian laws. We won't appreciate a scenario where any problem will have to be answered in America. Thirdly, WhatsApp has become an important component of India's digital storage and must have a proper corporate entity located in India."

Sources said that the agenda of Daniels' visit was to discuss measures which were being undertaken to counter the issue of fake news on its platform as well as the impending launch of its payments services in the country.

Last month, WhatsApp top executives including COO Matthew Idema had met the IT secretary and other Indian government officials to outline various steps being taken by the company to tackle fake news in India.

Over the past few months, fake messages circulating on WhatsApp have incited incidents of mob fury across parts of India. The government has sent out two notices to the Facebook-owned company directing it to take urgent measures to curb false information and rumours being spread on the messaging platform.

The IT ministry has, in the past, said that the platform cannot escape its responsibility for such rampant abuse and needed to find originators of provocative messages. It had also warned that in the absence of adequate checks, it will treat the messaging platform as abettor of rumour propagation and legal consequences will follow.

In its response, WhatsApp has informed the government that it is building a local team, including India head, as part of steps to check fake news circulation even as it did not meet the key demand of identifying message originators.

Apart from education and advocacy programmes, WhatsApp has also introduced new features to let its users identify forwarded messages, restricted number of forwards at a time, and brought out full-page ads giving "easy tips" to spot fake news.
Malik's appointment may also been seen in the light of the changing political scenario with talks doing rounds about disgruntled elements in the PDP joining hands with the BJP.

New Delhi: New Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik will be the first career politician to be appointed to the position in the last 51 years, indicating a change in the strategy of the Centre which has so far relied on ex-babus to run show in the troubled state.

The 72-year-old Malik has been associated with almost all political hues, starting as a socialist student leader to the vice president of the BJP, before being appointed as the Bihar governor last year.

He will be the first career politician to be appointed as the governor of Jammu and Kashmir in 51 years after Karan Singh whose term had ended in 1967.

Since 1967, the post has been occupied only by retired civil servants, diplomats, police officers and Army generals.

His appointment may also been seen in the light of the changing political scenario with talks doing rounds about disgruntled elements in the PDP joining hands with the BJP.

Inspired by Ram Manohar Lohia, Malik started his political career as a student leader in Meerut University and became MLA of Charan Singh's Bhartiya Kranti Dal from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh in 1974.

He joined the Congress in 1984 and became its Rajya Sabha MP but resigned three years later in the background of Bofors scam. He switched to the VP Singh-led Janta Dal in 1988 and became an MP from Aligarh on its ticket in 1989.

In 2004, Malik joined the BJP and unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha elections, losing to former prime minister Charan Singh's son Ajit Singh.

Before taking oath as Bihar governor on 4 October, 2017, he was in-charge of the BJP's Kisan Morcha.

He was the Union minister of state, parliamentary affairs and tourism from 21 April, 1990 to 10 November, 1990.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Jammu and Kashmir government to file its response on a plea alleging custodial torture of the Kathua case witness by 27 August.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Jammu and Kashmir government to file its response on a plea alleging custodial torture of the Kathua case witness by 27 August.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud fixed the matter for further hearing in 29 August.

The top court was hearing a plea by Talib Hussain, a key witness in the Kathua gang rape-and-murder case, alleging custodial torture by the state police in an alleged rape case lodged against him by his sister-in-law. The court had earlier asked the lawyer, appearing for Hussain's cousin Mumtaz Ahmed Khan, to satisfy it on how a writ of habeas corpus (produce the body) was maintainable in the present case where the accused was in lawful police custody following an FIR being registered against him.

The counsel had referred to a Supreme Court judgement and said irrespective of the nature of detention, whether legal or illegal, such a petition could always be filed in cases of custodial torture.

The petition was opposed by the lawyer, appearing for Hussain's sister-in-law who has filed the FIR alleging rape, that there were as many as 10 FIRs against the accused and no relief should be granted without hearing the victim.

The plea seeks protection of Hussain in police custody and alleges that he had been brutally beaten up in the alleged fake rape case.

Hussain is a key witness in the Kathua case, in which an eight-year-old girl from a minority nomadic community was abducted in January and gang-raped before being killed. The state police's Crime Branch, which probed the case, filed the main charge sheet against seven people and a separate charge sheet against a juvenile.

The charge sheet has revealed chilling details about how the girl was allegedly kidnapped, drugged and raped inside a place of worship before being killed.
A group of sex workers presented a cheque of Rs 21,000 drawn in favour of the Prime Minister's Relief Fund for Kerala flood victims to Resident Deputy Collector Prashant Patil in Ahmednagar on Monday, said a functionary of an NGO working for them.

Ahmednagar: Sex workers in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district have donated Rs 21,000 for Kerala flood victims and they will be raising another Rs 1 lakh by the end of August.

A group of sex workers presented a cheque of Rs 21,000 drawn in favour of the Prime Minister's Relief Fund for Kerala flood victims to Resident Deputy Collector Prashant Patil in Ahmednagar on Monday, said a functionary of an NGO working for them.

Dipak Buram of the city-based NGO Snehalaya said sex workers will raise another Rs 1 lakh by the month-end for Kerala flood victims.

Buram is coordinator of Snehjyot, a project run by Snehalaya, which is working for the welfare of sex workers for the last 30 years.

In the past too, sex workers have contributed for helping the victims of natural calamities in various parts of the country, he said.

In December 2015, they had donated Rs 1 lakh for relief work in rain-ravaged Chennai, Buram said.

Till date, they have contributed nearly Rs 27 lakh for various causes, including for the victims of earthquake in Gujrat (2001), tsunami (2004), Kashmir and Bihar floods, drought relief in Maharashtra and families of Kargil war heroes, he said.
Namdeo Bhagat, a Shiv Sena member of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation, allegedly molested the woman at his farmhouse in Dighode village

Mumbai: A Shiv Sena corporator from Navi Mumbai has been booked on charges of molesting a 19-year-old college student after promising to help her financially, said police on Tuesday.

Namdeo Bhagat, a Shiv Sena member of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC), allegedly molested the woman at his farmhouse in Dighode village near the coastal town of Uran in adjoining Raigad district on last Sunday, a police official said.

The 51-year-old corporator, who is also a member of the NMC standing committee, had called the victim to his farmhouse on the pretext of helping her financially, he said.

The woman filed a complaint after which an offence under IPC section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) was registered against the corporator on Monday at the Uran police station, the official said. Bhagat is absconding, he said, adding further probe is underway.
UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Monday called for a collective resolve to fight forces of 'divisiveness, hate and bigotry' in the country, as she asserted that former prime minister and her husband Rajiv Gandhi's 'Sadbhavana' has a great relevance and resonance in the current times.

New Delhi: UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Monday called for a collective resolve to fight forces of "divisiveness, hate and bigotry" in the country, as she asserted that former prime minister and her husband Rajiv Gandhi's 'Sadbhavana' has a great relevance and resonance in the current times.

Speaking at the Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavana Award function, which was conferred on former West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi for his contribution to communal harmony, she said he has been an uncompromising champion of values enshrined in our Constitution which are now under "determined and systematic assault".

The award, given every year on the former prime minister's birthday, was instituted to commemorate his contributions to promote peace, communal harmony and fight against violence.

The Congress leader said, "Rajiv Gandhi was an unwavering believer that India's unity was actually derived from and strengthened by her incredible diversity. That is what Sadbhavna meant to him  not just acceptance of, not just respect for, but most fundamentally a celebration of our society's many diversities."

She said Rajiv Gandhi's Sadbhavana has great relevance and resonance in the current times, which was "not just a passive acquiescence and tolerance of different points of view, but active engagement - so that every citizen of India is enabled to lead a life of dignity, security and self-respect." She further said growing prosperity and social liberalism were two sides of the same coin for the former prime minister.

"Both had to go hand in hand. Technological capabilities would have little value in the climate of growing scientific obscurantism and social prejudice. "We have seen that the opening of the economy and the closing of the mind is a dangerous and destructive mix," she noted.

Talking about Gopal Krishna Gandhi, the recipient of the award this year, she said there are pain and anguish in his writings in recent years and "every right thinking and right acting Indian shares not only his analysis in what is going wrong, but also his profoundly sensitive articulation of what needs to be done".

"In conferring this award to Shri Gopal Krishan Gandhi, we collectively express our resolve to oppose the ideologies that reject the composite essence of our nationhood and to fight the forces of divisiveness, hate and bigotry," she said. Sonia Gandhi also recalled the achievements of Rajiv Gandhi as prime minister, particularly in single-handedly changing the structure of the country's polity by the Constitutional empowerment of panchayats and 'Nagar Palikas' through reservation for women.

She said he brought peace to troubled regions of the country, even if it meant sacrificing elected Congress state governments in the process.

Recalling that Rajiv Gandhi saw huge potential for youth, she said the former prime minister ensured that 18-year-olds were given the right to vote. She said he broke new ground by using modern science and technology to address India's challenges in areas like drinking water, primary health, literacy and agriculture. Former recipients of this award include Mother Teresa, Ustad Bismillah Khan, Mohammed Yunus, Lata Mangeshkar, Sunil Dutt, Dilip Kumar, Kapila Vatsyayan, Teesta Setalvad, Swami Agnivesh, K R Narayanan, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Muzaffar Ali and Shubha Mudgal.

"We collectively express our resolve to oppose the ideologies that reject the composite essence of our nationhood and to fight the forces of divisiveness, hate and bigotry," the Congress leader said.
The judges of the Supreme Court will contribute Rs 25,000 each to the Kerala flood relief fund, informed Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on Monday.

New Delhi: The judges of the Supreme Court will contribute Rs 25,000 each to the Kerala flood relief fund, informed Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on Monday.

The apex court bench helmed by the CJI and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud made the observation while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that sought the barring of lawmakers from practising in courts across the country.

The top court bench made the observation after Attorney General KK Venugopal referred to the tragedy that has hit the southern state.

According to media reports, the AG had earlier donated Rs 1 crore to the flood relief fund. The calamity has also grabbed global attention.

Kerala has been facing the worst flooding in a century. Kerala Chief Minister confirmed on Saturday that the death toll due to the floods has increased to 357. He added that the state has suffered a loss of Rs 19,512 crore due to the deluge.
Taking a harsh view over a petition casting aspersions on Chief Justice Dipak Misra, a Supreme Court bench expressed anguish over an emerging 'trend of targeting judges' and indicated that it may impose heavy punitive fines against those indulging in unnecessary 'judge-bashing'.

Taking a harsh view over a petition casting aspersions on Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, a Supreme Court bench expressed anguish over an emerging "trend of targeting judges" and indicated that it may impose heavy punitive fines against those indulging in unnecessary 'judge-bashing'.

A charitable organisation Bhartiya Matdata Sangathan, in its plea, has alleged that in disregard of constitutional morality, a relative of the CJI, who is an MP from Odisha, was practising as a senior lawyer in the courts and tribunals.

A bench, comprising the CJI and justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, had on 9 July reserved its verdict on a PIL filed by BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay seeking to ban legislators from practising as advocates.

Taking strong note of the interim plea of the organisation in the PIL on which the verdict has already been reserved, the bench said, "This has become a trend of targeting judges. This trend must stop. If you have to make the allegation, please make them at the outset so that we can deal with them."

Justice Chandrachud did not agree to the submissions of some lawyers that the organisation be asked to pay a fine of Rs 50,000, Rs 1 Lakh and Rs 5 lakh for making such scandalous allegations and said, "I think that Rs 5 lakh is not the upper limit. I was thinking of (imposing) Rs 25 lakh".

Deprecating the practice of targeting judges, the bench said, "ultimately, it (allegation) affects the institution".

The bench, which passed over the matter thrice during the day, refused to accept the unconditional apology tendered by the general secretary of the organisation and told him that Attorney General KK Venugopal was suggesting that a case of contempt was being made out.

"Are you the general secretary of the organisation? Did you pass the resolution before filing this? Do you take the responsibility of filing this?" the bench asked. It also asked the lawyer, who is the office bearer of the organisation, whether he had taken any legal advice before filing the application.

"There are judgements which say that the advocate-on-records (AoRs) are responsible for filing such an application," the bench said. Venugopal said that the AoRs are responsible for all the filings in the case. Senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, appearing for one of the parties, however, said that it appeared that the AoR was not aware of such filing in the case and suggested imposing of a fine of Rs 50,000 on the organisation.

Venugopal then referred to the "great tragedy" in Kerala and said the cost, to be imposed in the case, should be deposited in the Kerala relief fund, besides suggesting that a case of contempt was made out in the present case.

The bench, at the end of the hearing, asked the organisation to file the names of its office bearers on 27 August and consult the Attorney General in the meantime on the issue as to how much it can pay as costs for filing such an application. The bench said it was hearing a PIL and there was no need of naming a lawyer just because he had once appeared in a matter against the organisation or its lawyers.

It agreed to the submission of Venugopal that such kind of allegations are "extraordinary" and "unheard of" and needed to be dealt with sternly. "Let the matter be listed on Monday (27 August). The organisation shall disclose the names of its members," the bench said.

As mentioned above, the apex court had reserved its verdict on the PIL which had alleged that a lawmaker drew a salary from the public exchequer and a salaried employee was debarred by the Bar Council of India from practising in the courts of law. The petition said that while a public servant cannot practice as an advocate, legislators are practising in various courts which violated Article 14 of the Constitution.

The plea said the issue is a matter of concern to both the judiciary and the legislature as most of the lawmaker-advocates were involved in active practice of law, despite receiving salaries and other perquisites drawn on the public exchequer. The petition also pointed out that the MPs have the power of voting on the impeachment of judges of the Supreme Court and the high courts.

SC's tough stance on the issue has ample precedents

Supreme Court's stern view on criticism against judges and rulings is hardly a first. However, the court's stance is likely to trigger a fresh debate at a time when transparency in the judiciary and the disquiet within the judiciary has been in the news. Earlier in July, the Supreme Court observed that discussions, debates and criticism of verdicts in the age of technology had become quite common. This trend, in turn, threatened the independence of the judiciary, the court said.

A bench of justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, in their separate but concurring verdicts, said that the Chief Justice of India is the 'master of roster' and has the "prerogative" to allocate cases to different benches. It observed that the sole strength of the judiciary lay in public confidence and trust.

Justice Sikri said it has become a "regular feature" that even laymen, who are constitutionally illiterate, enter into debate and evaluate the outcome of cases influenced by their emotions, rather than legal or constitutional principles. The observations came while the court was hearing a petition filed by senior advocate Shanti Bhushan, seeking clarification on the administrative authority of the Chief Justice of India.

The petition was filed in the aftermath of an unprecedented press conference by four out of the five members of the previous collegium to accuse CJI Misra of breaching rules and "selectively assigning" cases that have "far-reaching consequences for the nation" to "junior judges." The judges raised a host of issues, generally indicating that all was not well within the judiciary. But their primary contention remained on the way the CJI exercised his administrative powers and allotted crucial cases to benches, apparently bypassing these senior most judges.

In March 2015, although in a completely different premise, the Supreme Court had once again expressed its displeasure about criticism of the judiciary and rapped the Gujarat government for joining the bandwagon of 'judge bashing'. The apex court imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on the Gujarat government for compulsorily retiring an honest judicial officer, alleging that she had demanded Rs 20,000 in illegal gratification, The Hindu reported. While passing an order in favour of the judicial officer, a bench of justices BS Chauhan and Ibrahim Kalifull said, 'Judge bashing' had become a pastime of some people. "There is a growing tendency of maligning the reputation of judicial officers by disgruntled elements who fail to secure an order  they desire."

"For the functioning of democracy, an independent judiciary, to dispense justice without fear and favour, is paramount. The judiciary should not be reduced to the position of flies in the hands of wanton boys," the bench added.

In July 2007, while hearing a contempt case against one Apu Banik for criticising judges and making sweeping remarks against the judiciary, said that the ultimate victim of an attack on a judge's reputation is the institution. "There can be no quarrel with the proposition that anyone who intends to tarnish the image of the judiciary should not be allowed to go unpunished," the judges held according to The Hindu. "While fair and temperate criticism of the court even if strong, may not be actionable, but attributing improper motives or tending to bring judges or courts into hatred and contempt or obstructing directly or indirectly with the functioning of courts is serious contempt," the court said.

With inputs from agencies
UP police on Monday registered a case against 20 activists of the cow protection group and also arrested their chief.

Muzaffarnagar: Two Muslim youths were beaten up and paraded by a cow vigilante group under Adarsh Mandi police station in Shamli, police said on Tuesday.

Police on Monday registered a case against 20 activists of the cow protection group and also arrested their chief, said circle officer Ashok Kumar.

Police are trying to identify the remaining accused persons using a video which was shot when the two youths were being thrashed. Later police rescued them and booked them under Prevention of Cow Slaughtering Act.
The advertisement highlighting newly launched government schemes in Telugu papers carried pictures of the woman and her husband, while the publicity material released for English papers had the photo of a different man as her spouse.

Hyderabad: A woman was featured in two print advertisements of Telangana government with one of them carrying a picture of another man as her husband, prompting an embarrassed administration to issue notices to the ad agencies concerned seeking an explanation.

The advertisement highlighting newly launched government schemes in Telugu papers carried pictures of the woman and her husband, while the publicity material released for English papers had the photo of a different man as her spouse.

As the goof-up came in for criticism in the social media, the Information and Public Relations Department issued notices to the two agencies which undertook the ad campaign, seeking explanation, a senior official of the department said on Tuesday.

The notices also sought to know whether the agencies had obtained the consent of the woman to use her picture in the advertisements for 'Rythu Bima' (farmers life insurance scheme) and 'Kanti Velugu' (eye care initiative) that were released on 14 August.

The information and Public Relations Department said it asked the ad agencies concerned to furnish relevant information pertaining to the advertisement. "After ascertaining the facts, action will be initiated against the agencies if they had used the picture without proper authorisation," the department said in an official communication.

The woman, a native of Suryapet District has said she was approached by some people a few days ago and they took her and her husband's picture, promising benefits under a government scheme. However, she was shocked to see her picture in the advertisement with another man as her husband, the woman said, adding she also had to face criticism from family members.
Concentrated TiO2 or long-term exposure could be toxic to a variety of fish and other aquatic organisms.

TiO2 is one of the main ingredients of sunscreen and acts as a protective agent against harmful UV rays. (Photo: ANI)

Applying sunscreen on your body may be good for your skin, but not so much for the fish, a new study has revealed.

Scientists have found that sunscreen from the body of bathers releases significant quantities of polluting titanium dioxide (TiO2) into the sea, which has the potential to harm marine life.

TiO2 is one of the main ingredients of sunscreen and acts as a protective agent against harmful UV rays. Most major regulatory bodies consider it safe for human use at the concentrations used in sunscreens, however, concentrated TiO2 or long-term exposure could be toxic to a variety of fish and other aquatic organisms.

In many sunscreens, TiO2 is present as tiny nanoparticles, which are coated with protective chemicals. Because the particle size is so small, nano-titanium dioxide does not reflect visible light but does absorb UV light, enabling a transparent barrier that protects the skin from the sun's harmful rays.

The researchers have found that in water, the nanoparticles tend to lose their protective coating under the influence of UV light or seawater composition, which exposes the more toxic TiO2 to the aquatic environment.

They measured TiO2 concentrations in 3 beaches near Marseille in France and surveyed bathers about how much sunscreen they used. The team found daily concentrations of 15 to 45 g/L of TiO2, which corresponds to several kgs of nanoparticles per summer season at each beach.

The study found that with one small beach, which saw a footfall of around 3000 people daily, the researchers calculated that around 68kg of cream could be deposited per day or 2.2 tons over the height of summer. Lead Researcher, Dr Jerome Labille said, "If we consider reasonably that half of the creams used contain 5% of titanium dioxide, this gives 1.7 kg of titanium dioxide released per day. That comes to around 54kg in the two months of high summer, which is a significant amount."

The sea is more or less continually in motion, so some of the titanium dioxide pollutants will be dispersed. Nevertheless, we anticipate an accumulation of the chemical in the seashore littoral, which could affect the aquatic life there. In recreation areas with stagnant water, such as in lakes or seawater swimming pools, there will be no such dispersion and the accumulation would be expected to be even more pronounced.

"It is extremely important that sunbathers continue to use sunscreen for skin protection, the titanium dioxide pollution needs to be dealt with by the manufacturers and possibly legislation, and we've had good feedback from the manufacturers we are working with," said Labille.

The researchers are currently working on developing sunscreens which are "safe by design" in which the release and toxicity of nanoparticles will be minimized.

The findings were discussed in the Goldschmidt 2018 meeting.

(Source)
A personal assistant of Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar committed suicide early Monday at his residence in south Delhi, police said.

New Delhi: A personal assistant of Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar committed suicide early Monday at his residence in south Delhi, police said.

The official, Kundan Singh, aged 30, was staying with his family in Laxmibai Nagar near Sarojini Nagar.

"His family informed police around 2 am that he had hanged himself from a ceiling fan in his room," Station House Officer Ritu Raj said.

"A native of Bihar, Kundan had returned from office on Sunday and went to sleep in his room after dinner. When she went to check later, she found him hanging," the officer said.

"No suicide note was found. We are trying to ascertain the cause and questioning his family," he added. The body was handed over to the family after post-mortem.
Maurya criticised the Congress party for looking at Ayodhya dispute as a political issue. 'Just like other devotees of Lord Ram, I also want that Ram temple should be constructed in Ayodhya at the earliest.'

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on Tuesday clarified his previous statement on the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute and said that even majority of Muslims want Ram temple to be built in Ayodhya.

Speaking to ANI, Maurya criticised the Congress party for looking at Ayodhya dispute as a political issue. "Just like other devotees of Lord Ram, I also want that Ram temple should be constructed in Ayodhya at the earliest. Currently, the matter is being heard in the Supreme Court. We are waiting for its judgement.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has always been in favour of the construction of Ram temple. It's not a political issue, rather it's about our faith," Maurya said.

"We have a majority in Lok Sabha, but we don't have the numbers in Rajya Sabha to pass a bill for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. Majority of Muslims also want Ram temple to be made, but due to some political reasons, especially the Congress party does not want consecutive hearings in the Supreme Court. They do not want Ram temple to be built in Ayodhya," he added.

Earlier on Monday, Maurya suggested two options to resolve the dispute. He said either a dialogue process can be started among the stakeholders or a law can be passed in Parliament to resolve it.

"There is demand from saints to resolve the issue at the earliest. If there is any delay in the judgement, there are other options, such as dialogue or passing a law in Parliament. But the signals we are getting indicate that there would not be any delay," he had said.

The Babri Masjid, built by Mughal emperor Babur in Ayodhya in 1528, was, on 6 December 1992, razed to the ground allegedly by Hindu activists, claiming that the mosque was constructed after demolishing a Ram temple that originally stood there. Since then, several hearings have been held in the Supreme Court regarding this matter.
On Monday, Pakistan's new foreign minister spoke of a letter from Narendra Modi, in which the Indian PM expressed his desire for 'constructive and meaningful engagement'

Imran Khan took oath as the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan on Saturday and kicked things off with an inauguration speech that spoke of, among other things, corruption, reforms in the judiciary, black money and the national debt. Of arguably greater interest to the rest of South Asia were the lines: "Our priority is to talk to our neighbours and restore peace in the region. Many leaders have phoned me. We will talk to them and discuss how we can restore peace in the region. We should have better relations with our neighbours."

On Monday, Pakistan's new foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi alluded to a letter to Imran from Narendra Modi, in which the Indian prime minister reportedly expressed his desire for 'constructive and meaningful engagement with Pakistan', as also the need to work for a terror-free South Asia, they said. On his part, Qureshi was quoted by PTI as saying, "We need a continued uninterrupted dialogue. It is the only wise course for us." He added that the two South Asian neighbours cannot afford any "adventurism" and that the only option was "to engage with each other".

From the looks of things, both countries have expressed a desire to 'engage', however, appearances can be deceptive.

For starters, while Modi's letter followed up the desire to engage with a word on terrorism, Qureshi's call for engagement was suffixed with, "Whether we wish or not, Kashmir is an issue and both countries have recognised it. In my opinion, there is no option other than talks to resolve it." It becomes at once apparent that these twin offers of engagement are already somewhat conditional: India wants to talk terrorism  something that is inextricably linked with Pakistan; Islamabad refers to the 'recognition' of Kashmir as an issue, knowing full well that Delhi has a very different view of the issue as an issue. While Pakistan views it as a 'dispute', India has always seen it as just an 'issue'

Let's sidestep the fact that the term 'engage' is fairly insipid and non-committal. But what these communiques do, inadvertently or otherwise, are to send out the message from both parties that any sort of engagement is contingent on the other party stepping down from a deeply entrenched position. Until such a point, the atmosphere/climate/environment will remain "not conducive for talks".

But what of the warm exchanges between the two countries following Imran's election and swearing-in, you may well ask.

There are two aspects to examine here:

The first is a matter of protocol. It is a basic diplomatic protocol between nation-states that have diplomatic relations to write to the new governments of other countries congratulating them on coming to power. If relationships are warmer, then the letter is usually coupled with a telephone call. In terms of India and Pakistan, leaders on both sides have traditionally congratulated each other warmly and expressed a desire to set things right.

In the interest of brevity, let's look back at the past decade alone. In March 2008, then prime minister Manmohan Singh congratulated Yousuf Raza Gilani on his assumption of office with a letter that contained the line, "I hope very much that we can build upon the progress already achieved and work expeditiously, through the dialogue process, towards agreed solutions of pending issues. Five years later, Manmohan wrote to Nawaz Sharif to say, "I look forward to working with you and your government to chart a new course and pursue a new destiny in the relations between our countries."

A year later, Sharif went a step further and called Modi to congratulate him. In return, the Indian prime minister invited his Pakistani counterpart to attend his swearing-in ceremony. And now, we have Modi's letter to Imran, which was preceded by a telephone call on 30 July, the day election results were declared.

The second aspect to look at is the glimmer of hope.

Every new government assumes office believing it will be the one to bring peace to the region. This optimism translates into an initial outpouring of warmth, cautious optimism coupled with testing of waters.

Over the course of the past two decades at least, this has been par for the course. From Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf to Manmohan and Sharif, and onto Modi and Sharif, the initial warmth has been very much on display. Of course, this is swiftly followed by an incident (or worse provocation) on the LoC which throws bilateral relations into yet another freeze. The cyclical nature of warm and cold fronts would be almost comical if it wasn't so horribly tragic.

To bring it all together, discourse about whether or not India offered to have talks or Pakistan misinterpreted what was said becomes trivial when you put together the twin facts that this is all very par for the course and that each offer of engagement comes with red lines. How long this warm back-and-forth lasts this time around will depend largely on how long a leash Pakistan's military-jihadi complex is willing to give Imran.
On Saturday, Sharjah ruler Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi donated Rs 4 crore for Kerala flood victims, whereas the UAE government had formed a national emergency committee to help the flood victims.

As Kerala battles the worst natural calamity in a century, state and non-state players from across the globe have come forward to help the flood-ravaged state. On Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has extended $100 million (roughly Rs 700 crore) as financial assistance to rebuild the southern Indian state amid a host of other nations. According to the data available so far, UAE, which is home to 2.6 million Indians who constitue 30 percent of its population, tops the list of countries that have offered aids to India to help with rescue and relief operations in the state.

On Saturday, Sharjah ruler Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi donated Rs 4 crore for Kerala flood victims, whereas the UAE government had formed a national emergency committee to help the flood victims.

UAE, a federation of seven gulf nations, was one of the first countries to offer solidarity and financial to the people in Kerala. UAE's vice president Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum took to Twitter to express his solidarity with people of the state. "As we prepare to celebrate Eid-al-Adha, we do not forget to help our brothers in India," he said.

"The people of Kerala have always been and are still part of our success story in the UAE. We have a special responsibility to help and support those affected, especially during these holy and blessed days... UAE and the Indian community will attend to offer relief to those affected. We have formed a committee to start immediately. We urge everyone to contribute generously towards this initiative," he tweeted.

The UAE government also asked the business community to gather funds and donate to Kerala and encouraged ctitizens to provide relief assistance through full-page advertisements in leading newspapers and media publications. Following this, individual businessmen of Indian origin stepped forward to pledge over Rs 12.5 crore to help flood victims in Kerala. Indians living in UAE also organised donation camps to raise elief material. The Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC), the largest Indian community organisation in the UAE is encouraging its 60,000 members to set aside their one day's salary for the relief efforts, according to The Gulf News. The Abu Dhabi committee of the KMCC has committed to raise Rs 5o lakh, the report said.

Apart from UAE, Qatar has announced to donate $5 million as an aid for people of Kerala battling heavy rains and floods in the state. The country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted on Sunday announcing its plan to provide the monetary aid. The Maldives, which shares rickety ties with India under its present regime, also stepped in and offered $50,000 (close to Rs 35 lakh) assistance to Kerala.

In China, the Indian diaspora in association with the Malayalee Association has raised over Rs 14 lakh for the welfare of flood relief victims in Kerala, PTI reported.

The international assistance comes in addition to the Rs 600 crore immediate assistance given by the Centre as interim relief. Initially, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had visited the state on 12 August and declared an immediate assistance of Rs 100 crore to Kerala. Later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to the state on 16 August, had announced an aid of Rs 500 crore.

The central government has also decided to give ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each to the family of those killed in the floods and Rs 50,000 to the injured. The compensation will be given from the Prime Minister's Relief Fund. The Congress and the Left parties have been demanding that the Kerala floods be declared a national calamity. However, the Centre declined the request citing the Disaster Management Act 2015, which has no provision in the statutes or manuals to declare a disaster as a national calamity.

The Centre, however, declared the devastating floods in the state a "calamity of severe nature" and has categorised it as 'L3 Level of Disaster,' under the National Disaster Management Guidelines."

This categorisation will enable the state to get greater monetary and other assistance from the Centre. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said 223 people have lost their lives since 8 August.

"Over 10.78 lakh displaced people, including 2.12 lakh women and one lakh children below 12 years of age, have been sheltered in 3,200 relief camps. Today (Monday), 602 persons were rescued from various places as the rains receded," he told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram.

Vijayan, after preliminary assessment pinned the total losses to be around Rs 20,000 crore.

"But this is a highly conservative estimate. A more realistic assessment of the damage after the flood waters fully recede and a truer picture emerging will raise it considerably further, Vijayan said. The gross plan outlay for 2018-19, including Central share, is Rs 37,284 crore, according to The Week. "This is why it looks like we will have to spend the entire plan outlay for this fiscal to tide over the devastation," Vijayan said.

Following the devastating floods, over one million people are now sheltered in 3,274 relief camps in the state. The death toll since the monsoon rains began on May 29 has been estimated at around 370.

Till Monday, the total contributions received to the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund was Rs 210 crore while another Rs 160 crore has been pledged.

With inputs from agencies
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday said his party is preparing to enter electoral politics in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Longowal: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday said his party is preparing to enter electoral politics in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. He was speaking at a conference held in Longowal to pay tribute to former SAD president Sant Harchand Singh Longowal on his death anniversary.

"After Haryana, the party is now preparing to enter electoral politics in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan," Badal said.

On Sunday, Badal had said at a party rally that SAD will contest the parliamentary and state assembly elections in Haryana independently next year. He also appealed to Sikhs across the country to unite under the SAD banner.

Following in the footsteps of Sant Longowal, Badal said, the party is taking up the issues of the community and working to resolve them, be it in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir or Shillong.

Badal also paid rich tributes to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who passed away last week. He said Vajpayee never discriminated against anyone in the name of caste, religion or state and that the former prime minister was a true friend of Punjab and the Punjabis.

The SAD president launched a blistering attack on Chief Minister Amarinder Singh-led Congress government in Punjab. He alleged that Singh was so desperate to seize power in the run-up to the 2017 Assembly elections that he promised everything from a complete farm loan waiver of Rs 90,000 crore, unemployment dole of Rs 2,500 to creating employment avenues for all, but did not fulfil any promise after coming to power.

Badal said even after over a year-and-a-half of the Congress coming to power, its government had not been able to present any evidence of any Akali worker or leader being behind incidents of sacrilege of the Guru Grant Sahib.

Similarly, he said, the Congress had not been able to prove the involvement of any Akali worker or leader in encouraging the drug trade.

Badal also attacked the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and said it was strange how sacked Leader of Opposition of Punjab Assembly Sukhpal Singh Khaira was now finding faults with the party's national convener Arvind Kejriwal. "Earlier, when Khaira was the leader of the Opposition, he found him (Kejriwal) to be the most ideal leader," the SAD president said.

He said Khaira was now accusing the AAP of selling tickets ahead of the 2017 Assembly elections but had not raised his voice earlier.
After helming the BJS for four years since 1968, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was keen to pass the baton on to a worthy colleague to take the party forward

This is a story often recounted with humorous panache by LK Advani when describing the growth of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) and its successor, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It goes thus: After helming the BJS for four years since 1968, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was keen to pass the baton on to a worthy colleague to take the party forward.

The question was: Who should succeed Vajpayee? Vajpayee and Advani, along with other senior colleagues, initially identified the party's vice-president Bhai Mahavir as the successor. In fact, at Vajpayees insistence, Mahavir presided over the Bhagalpur national executive of the party that was to take up a critical and free analysis as the BJS had fared badly in the 1972 General Election after the India-Pakistan war. So Mahavir was considered the natural choice.

Although Mahavir initially agreed to take up the assignment, he developed cold feet after consulting his wife and family members. Then Vajpayee and Advani requested Vijaya Raje Scindia, known as Rajmata (the queen mother) of Gwalior who had defied the pro-Indira Gandhi wave and won a Lok Sabha seat from Madhya Pradesh, to take over as the president. Needless to say, she also declined the offer. Thus with the 1973 BJS national executive in Kanpur, Advani began his innings as the party president  but not without controversy. He sacked Balraj Madhok who had been taking potshots at Vajpayee and his politics for some years.

Thus began the cementing of a camaraderie that lasted for over five decades. As in 1973 when Vajpayee was succeeded by Advani, Vajpayee once again relinquished his presidency  now of the BJP  in favour of Advani in 1986. The context was eerily similar. After Indira Gandhi's assassination, Rajiv Gandhi rode on the sympathy wave and decimated the Opposition in the 1984 Lok Sabha election. The BJP, a newly-formed party after parting ways with the Janata Party experiment, had won only two seats in the country. Vajpayee readily accepted the blame for the debacle and proposed to undergo the punishment that the party deserved fit. The proposition was outright rejected.

However, an internal assessment carried out by a team of leaders led by KL Sharma concluded that Vajpayee's efforts to steer the party towards 'Gandhian socialism' as a guiding philosophy be replaced by Deendayal Upadhyaya's 'integral humanism'. Other suggestions included focussing on "robust nationalism and positive secularism". Of course, 'Gandhian socialism' was not discarded altogether, but included in a manner to maintain the key tenets of the Gandhian philosophy  social justice and equality  as essential to the party's core philosophy.

With the induction of some powerful pracharaks like KN Govindacharya, Advani began a political experiment that was unique. Without diluting the inclusive characteristic that the party had acquired during the Janata Party experiment, Advani focused on organisation building. He roped in notable personalities from outside the Sangh Parivar's fold and also inducted young RSS pracharaks like Narendra Modi in 1986.

Interestingly, Advani was guided by the profound political thesis on the Sangh Parivar, titled The transformation of an ideological movement into an aggregative party by American scholar Hampton Thomson Davey Jr. The scholar argued that without losing its ideological foundation, the BJP could expand its base only by aggregating different sections of society.

From 1986 to 1993, the BJP's focus on strengthening its ideological base by launching the Rath Yatra saw the marginalisation of Vajpayee as the prominent face of the party. Although Advani hogged the limelight, he never let Vajpayee play second fiddle. In one of the interviews, he told me, "I always considered him my senior and was in awe of him." That they shared a unique bond can be explained by none other than Govindacharya who mediated between Advani and RSS leader Bhaurao Deoras in order to persuade Advani to accept the post of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha in 1991. Advani insisted that the post should go to Vajpayee as he had enough experience to do justice to the role. Advani had to resign as the Leader of Opposition after the demolition of the Babri Mosque on 6 December, 1992 and Vajpayee took over from him.

In 1993 at the Goa national executive, Advani surprised everyone, including the top brass of the RSS, by announcing Vajpayees name as the BJPs prime ministerial candidate. Unlike the decision-making process in the Sangh Parivar that requires wider consultations within the ideological brotherhood, Advani's unilateral decision was prompted by his own political understanding. "In a country like India, only an inclusive personality like Vajpayee could lead the country," Advani later explained. In several candid conversations, he explained that his relations with Vajpayee were not of "competition" but of collaboration.

Advani always looked at him as a senior whose words needed to be respected.

Vajpayee himself described his relationship with Advani in a foreword to the latter's book, My country, my life, by saying, "Yes, we have had our differences on the issues and approaches during the course of our long association as it is not possible for two individuals to always have an identical response while working together for over half a century within an organisation. However, it is not the differences, but the unity of purpose and action, that marked our relationship. Divergence of viewpoints never led to discord; neither did they become a cause for division. This is because our party, both as the Jana Sangh and the BJP, was rooted in the ethos of working together for a larger common objective. I consider that philosophy to be the primary reason why the BJP has remained united, an exception in India, where organisational fissures have sadly been a regular feature."

In Indian political history, the Vajpayee-Advani camaraderie is indeed a unique lesson. It was not marked by personal ambitions, jealousies or pettiness that broadly characterise power politics. And together they created a solid foundation for the BJP that became the principal political pole of Indian politics in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

A three-hour lunch with the Advanis

Atal Bihari Vajpayee's most profound creative disruptions in Indian politics: How Narendra Modi is furthering his mentors lineage
Those who recall Atal Bihari Vajpayee only for his statesmanship, geniality and wit are missing the wood for the trees

As the ashes from the funeral pyre of Atal Bihari Vajpayee remind us of the transience of human life, his memories come flooding in to reinforce the belief in an individual's ability to change the course of history. Vajpayee indeed catalysed a profound "creative disruption" in Indian politics and society.

Those who recall him him for his statesmanship, geniality and wit are missing the wood for the trees. He indeed had those admirable qualities, but they are only a few of the many facets of his personality. More than that, his story is coterminous with the journey of a political force which had begun tentatively but, towards the end of his life, established itself as the principal political force. This journey would have taken a different turn if there was no Vajpayee.

How did this happen? Let me recount certain events to emphasise the criticality of Vajpayee in shaping politics that saw the arrival of the BJP as the main party, replacing the Congress of yesteryear. There are instances when one faltering step from Vajpayee would have been fatal. But his genius was exceptional. He knew how to win people estranged by circumstance.

If you have any doubt, savour this story: It was a usual winter in 2001 when then home minister LK Advani was preparing to leave his Pandara Park residence for the North Block office and about to board his official car when his wife, Kamla Advani, came running and said, "Atalji has just called." Advani thought the call was meant for him. But she corrected him, "Vajpayeeji has called me to say that he will be coming home for lunch tomorrow." As was his wont, Advani looked at her pensively and left for the office.

Those were times when the media was rife with speculation about differences between the two top leaders over the handling of the Jammu and Kashmir issue and vesting Brajesh Mishra with the powerful twin posts of Principal Secretary to Prime Minister and national security advisor (NSA). Rumours were rife that the two were rarely talking to each other.

In the past, Vajpayee visiting the Advani household had hardly been news. He was extremely fond of the food cooked by Kamla. But this time the message was different. The tension between the offices of the prime minister and the home minister was quite palpable in the corridors of power. And that had been taking a toll on governance. No doubt, the story of differences between Vajpayee and Advani was also fuelled by a section of vested interests that was quite active in its efforts to take advantage of the possible rift.

Vajpayee defused things by making a phone call not to Advani, but to his wife, and inviting himself for lunch. This was clearly Vajpayee's way of re-emphasising the unique bond he shared not only with Advani but also with his family. Perhaps the camaraderie forged over five decades was strong enough not to let trivia affect their relations. The lunch lasted for over three hours in which everything was washed down with a good amount of Sindhi delicacies. The underlying message was that Vajpayee would never let his ego or prestige come in the way of the larger good of society.

Vajpayees gesture got huge media attention then as he was heading the government and Advani was the powerful No 2. But there are umpteen instances of Vajpayee sacrificing his personal ambitions for his party.

Right since 1957 when he entered Parliament for the first time as a Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) member, he endeared himself to stalwarts of those times with his sheer eloquence and tenacity. Unlike some English-speaking political elites of the times, Vajpayee was a gifted orator in Hindi. His dhoti-wearing demeanour that appeared rooted to the ground was a perfect counter to the elites who used to speak in clipped English accents on account of their foreign education and the hangover of the British Raj.

And it will not be an exaggeration to say that Vajpayee, in his mentor Deendayal Upadhyayas estimation, emerged more like another Jawaharlal Nehru, endowed with unique charm and charisma but deeply rooted in Indian culture. For a fledgling party like the BJS, he had the potential of emerging as a foil to the legacy of the Congress, completely devoid of any Anglo-Saxon cultural context. Although at a nascent stage, the BJS was helmed by an extremely articulate and anglicised Syama Prasad Mookerjee. RSS apparatchiks who gradually controlled the organisation through their fulltime workers were always sceptical of any anglophile leadership inherited from pre-Independence India.

In a detailed and comprehensive study of "the origins and development of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh", titled Hindu Nationalism and Indian politics (1990), political scientist Bruce Graham diagnosed the traditionalists within the party as ill-at-ease with the English-speaking leaders. "It was as though Upadhyaya and his group had placed their trust in a new generation of public men and women who had not known the British Raj except as children and as students and who would therefore draw more readily from the inspiration of Hindu culture and Hindu traditions. Put simply, the Jana Sangh had postponed its challenge to the Congress party until such time as the younger leadership represented by Upadhyaya, Vajpayee and (Balraj) Madhok had had time to consolidate its position and to define its intellectual objectives with confidence."

Upadhyaya died in 1968 under mysterious circumstances, long before he could fully articulate the partys intellectual objectives, even though he defined the BJSs ideological contours by aligning with Ram Manohar Lohia and propounding a guiding philosophy of 'integral humanism' that moderated the image of a party steeped in Hindu orthodoxy bordering on communalism. Madhok, another promising leader, found the BJS' veering towards the issues of social justice and egalitarianism-like support to the abolition of zamindari as an inexorable deviation from the party's ideological position. Within three years of Upadhyayas death, he drifted from the BJS and was sacked.

Vajpayee negotiated political and ideological landmines quite sagaciously and eventually emerged as "the right man at the right time". He did not believe in political untouchability and befriended political notables across the ideological spectrum.

Vajpayee had a unique flexibility that conformed to the Indian genius, especially his predilection for the Madhyam Marg (the middle path). He was blamed for letting the mobs run riot outside Parliament after a rally organised by a group of Hindu saints on the issue of cow protection in 1966, yet he persuaded his party to become a part of the grand coalition against the Congress. Although extremely deft at dealing with contradictions, he gradually took the BJS towards a path that was conciliatory and conformist in order to expand its base. In the 1970s, he began a long and arduous journey in which he found Advani for company. In Indian political life, this friendship is singularly unparalleled.

A camaraderie that built a legacy

Atal Bihari Vajpayee's most profound creative disruptions in Indian politics: How Narendra Modi is furthering his mentors lineage
The image of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who belonged to Gwalior, could act as a blessing for Shivraj Singh Chouhan and help the BJP in the Madhya Pradesh polls.

The overwhelming emotional outpouring that India witnessed since the death of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee may actually work in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the poll-bound states. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been quick to seize the opportunity, making a slew of announcements in memory of the veteran politician after he died on 16 August.

Chouhan is facing anti-incumbency and sudden belligerence of the Congress months before the state, which the BJP has governed for 15 years, is slated to hold Assembly elections. In this context, the image of the BJP stalwart, who belonged to Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh and was loved by all, could act as a blessing for the chief minister and help him sail through the polls.

Among the announcements Chouhan made in memory of Vajpayee were three awards to be named after the politician, who held a tall stature in Indian polity owing to his statesmanship. The awards he announced are worth Rs 5 lakh each, one for poetry, one for journalism and the last for good work in administration.

He also said that the Habibganj Railway Station in Bhopal will be renamed after Vajpayee. Textbooks in Madhya Pradesh's schools will also include Vajpayee's biography from the next academic session, Chouhan said.

After Vajpayee's funeral, the chief minister had said that condolence meetings for the former prime minister will be organised at all the BJP's district headquarters from 22 August to 25 August and at all development blocks and gram panchayats between 25 August and 30 August.

The Madhya Pradesh government has decided to immerse Vajpayee's ashes in all prominent rivers of the state, including the Narmada. Chouhan said the state will build two memorials in Vajpayee's memory in Bhopal and Gwalior to showcase his works, writings  especially his poetry  speeches, and memorabilia.

"As part of the Kalash Yatra, Atal Smriti Sabha (Atal memorial meetings) will be held in villages. People will pay obeisance and will be told about Vajpayee ji's life and achievements to keep his memory alive. Our party's village units are making preparations for it," a Jabalpur-based senior BJP worker said.

Vajpayee had a deep connection with Gwalior as he was born in the city and completed his education there. The Madhya Pradesh government has planned to transform Gorki Government Higher Secondary School in Gwalior, where Vajpayee had studied from Class 6 to Class 8, into a "centre of educational excellence". This centre would have smart classes, a planetarium and a museum.

"Is there any harm if any political party uses an opportunity to name its initiatives after the recipient of the Bharat Ratna like Atal ji ahead of elections? If the initiatives are for people's welfare, then they should be welcomed. The objective should be aimed at development, welfare and positivity. And if these aims are not achieved, then it is wrong," Anil Saumitra, Madhya Pradesh BJP convener and media relations in charge, told Firstpost.

The Madhya Pradesh government has also decided to build world-class libraries and incubation centres for start-ups dedicated to Vajpayee in the seven smart cities being developed in the state  Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Ujjain, Sagar and Satna.

However, the Opposition Congress sees this move as "opportunism".

"Atal ji had been ill and bed-ridden for the last nine years. How many times did Shivraj Singh Chouhan visit him during his many visits to Delhi? By naming awards, renaming the Habibganj Railway Station in Bhopal and many other initiatives after Vajpayee, the Madhya Pradesh chief minister has been trying to gain mileage in the upcoming state elections," Congress spokesperson from Bhopal, Ravi Saxena, told Firstpost.

He added that even if just the last five years of the BJP's 15-year rule in the state was considered, "the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government did nothing on the development front". "Instead, there has been a rise in corruption in Madhya Pradesh. This is nothing but opportunism," he said.

Saumitra refuted Saxena's charge, saying: "Lots of development has taken place in the state in the last 15 years in various sectors. As the latest announcements will add to it, and it is meant for people's welfare, it should not be politicised for the sake of politics."
tech2 News Staff

While rains and floods in the Indian state of Kerala have created havoc, and relief efforts are just barely coping, secondary school students in the coastal city of Kannur are attending some very important lessons on, What is fake news?

The answer, Fake news is completely false information, photos or videos, intentionally created and spread, to confuse the public, spread mass panic, provoke violence and get attention.

Even though 95 percent people of the city, which has a population of 2.5 million, are literate, Kannur too has been a victim of fake news and misinformation spread over WhatsApp in the recent years.

According to a report by BBC, district officials have started 40-minute long fake news classes in 150 of its 600 government schools to combat the situation.

The classes are curated with a combination of words, images, videos, simple classroom lectures and skits that educate the students on the dangers of fake news and also how remaining silent and forwarding things mindlessly can cause mishaps.

Last winter, parents of about 2.5 lakh children in Kannur refused the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine for their children after a fake message saying that the vaccine harmed children went viral. This led to the immunisation drive being stopped.

With over 200 million users, India is one of WhatsApps biggest markets. Fake news and videos are rampant on the Facebook-owned messaging platform. We already know of the various cases of WhatsApp-led lynchings. In times like this, the Kannur initiative, which is the first of its kind in India, is imperative.

Similar efforts in the rest of the country, especially with children, should help spread awareness about the dangers of fake news.
tech2 News Staff

HMD Global, which owns the Nokia brand, is expected to announce the Nokia 6.1 Plus smartphone in India. Although the teasers and posters didn't confirm that Nokia will be launching the device, the fact that it was announced in both China and global markets last month makes it a real possibility.

For everyone out there who wishes to see the launch of the device live, Nokia will be conducting a live stream of the event on its YouTube page, which is embedded below. Nokia will also be streaming the event from its Facebook page as well. For regular updates, please check out tech2's Twitter handle for live coverage of the event.

Although the main focus of the show will most likely be the Nokia 6.1 Plus (Nokia X6 in China), it is believed that the Nokia 5.1 Plus (Nokia X5 in China) will also be showcased.

In terms of the specs, the Nokia 6.1 Plus features a 5.8-inch 19:9 ratio FHD+ display with a resolution of 2280x1080 pixels. The smartphone will be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor, which is accompanied with 4 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage in one variant, and 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of memory in another.

Also Read: Nokia 6.1 Plus launch tomorrow: Here's all we know about the notch-bearing phone

In China, the Nokia X6 was launched with a price tag of RMB 1,299, which translates to about Rs 13,300. When launched in India, HMD Global is likely to price the Nokia 6.1 Plus around the same range.
The talks between privately-held Lucid Motors and PIF underscore the latters appetite to invest in electric car makers.

A deal with Lucid Motors would be more in line with PIFs limited resources.

PIF, the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund that Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk has said could help him fund a $72 billion deal to take his electric car maker private, is in talks to invest in aspiring Tesla rival Lucid Motors Inc, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

The talks between privately-held Lucid Motors and PIF underscore the latters appetite to invest in electric car makers to diversify the oil-rich Middle Eastern kingdoms investment portfolio.

A deal with Lucid Motors would also be more in line with PIFs limited resources, given that, despite its $250 billion in assets, PIF has already made substantial commitments to other technology companies or investments, including a $45-billion agreement to invest in a giant technology fund led by Japans SoftBank Group Corp.

PIF and Lucid Motors have drawn up a term sheet under which PIF could invest more than $1 billion in Lucid Motors and obtain majority ownership, the sources said. PIFs first investment in Lucid Motors, however, would be for $500 million, and subsequent cash injections would come in two stages that are contingent on Lucid Motors hitting certain production milestones, one of the sources added.

The talks between PIF and Lucid Motors may not result in a deal, the sources cautioned.

The sources asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential. PIF and Lucid Motors did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Musk, a 47-year-old investor and engineer, stunned financial markets earlier this month, when he revealed on Twitter he was considering a $420 per share take-private deal for Tesla, an auto manufacturing pioneer that developed the worlds first ever premium all-electric sedan car.

He added that funding was secured, and elaborated last Monday that he believed Saudi Arabias PIF could provide the necessary funding, although sources close to the sovereign wealth fund have played down that prospect. Earlier this year, PIF built a stake of just under 5 per cent in Tesla by snapping up shares in the open market, rather than acquiring newly issued shares.

Musk has also said he believes two-thirds of existing Tesla shareholders would roll over their holdings into a private company, rather than cash out, and that he was still talking with major shareholders and advisers before settling on a structure for a deal.

Getting access to cheap capital is a constant challenge for automakers, which can spend $1 billion or more engineering a single new model and bringing it to mass production, only to have the vehicle flop because of a cyclical sales slump or a shift in market tastes.

Based on the edges of Silicon Valley in Newark, California, Lucid Motors was founded in 2007 as Atieva by Bernard Tse, a former Tesla vice president and board member, and Sam Weng, a former exec at Oracle Corp and Redback Networks. It received backing from Chinese investors, including tech entrepreneur Jia Yueting and state-owned automaker BAIC. Other venture capital backers have included Venrock, Mitsui & Co and Tsing Capital.

Lucid Motors is not yet selling any cars. In 2016, it unveiled a prototype of its Lucid Air model, a $100,000 luxury sedan it had hoped to begin building in Arizona in late 2018. It is not clear when this car will become available, though the company is accepting refundable deposits of $2,500 from consumers on its website.

Tesla is much more advanced as an electric car manufacturer, though investors are questioning how long can it go before turning a profit. It has been burning through cash as it has aggressively ramped up Model 3 production, a process Musk has called production hell.

Analysts at UBS last week questioned the profitability of the Model 3, in a report that said Tesla could lose $6,000 on every base model.

(Source)
tech2 News Staff

After teasing its new smartphone for a month, Chinese smartphone brand Oppo has finally launched its brand new F9 Pro smartphone in India. The device will go on sale starting 31 August on nine online portals. The Oppo F9 Pro features a brand-new Waterdrop screen along with the brand's VOOC Flash Charge technology and is priced at Rs 23,990 and has 6 GB RAM and 64 GB storage.

The Oppo F9 Pro features what the brand calls a 'whole gradient design', bits of which were already included in the previously launched premium flagship, the Oppo Find X. The smartphone will be available in Sunrise Red, Twilight Blue and Starry Purple. All of these finishes are achieved using a Gradient Spraying technology, which according to Oppo will offer users a variety of gradient colour matching options for users, making the surface appear more organic and less flat.

New design aside, the most important highlight of the smartphone is its 6.3-inch Waterdrop screen that provides a 90.8 percent screen-to-body ratio and features a resolution of 2,340 x 1,080 pixels in a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The bezels are thin at just 1.7 mm on both sides of the display.

Inside, the Oppo F9 Pro features an octa-core MediaTek Helio P60 SoC along with a Mali-G72 MP3 GPU. The device will be available in 6 GB RAM + 64 GB storage model and supports microSD cards of up to 256 GB.

Oppo has included a dual camera setup at the rear with a 16 MP + 2 MP camera. The main 16 MP camera features an f/1.8 aperture while the assistant camera features an f/2.4 aperture lens. The second camera is there to simply help produce the bokeh effect. Coming from Oppo, the front-facing camera focuses on selfies and features a 25 MP unit that comes with software-based "AI Beauty Technology 2.1."

Powering all of the above is a 3,500 mAh battery that now features Oppo's Flash Charge technology. Oppo claims that a 5-minute charge using its technology is good enough to deliver up to 2 hours of talk time.

The handset supports the usual connectivity options including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 4G LTE bands as well as dual-SIM. The handset features a triple slot that allows for using two SIM cards and a micro SD card simultaneously.

Weighing in at about 179 grams, the Oppo F9 Pro is powered by the company's custom ColorOS 5.2, which is a skin atop Android 8.1.

Oppo has also collaborated with PUBG for the F9 Pro.
Reuters

Tesla Inc shares fell nearly 4 percent on 20 August as a $113 cut in JPMorgan Chases price target for the electric carmaker added to growing doubts among market players about a plan to take the company private.

Slashing its price target for Tesla Inc from $308 to $195, the brokerage said it did not believe Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk had funds for a plan announced by a tweet that said funding secured two weeks ago.

Analysts from the US bank had upped its forecast from $198 to $308 after a roughly $100 surge in Tesla stock following Musks tweets on 07 August and the note on Monday was the latest evidence of skepticism about the deal on Wall Street.

People familiar with the matter said on Sunday that PIF, the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund that Musk says had been pressing to help fund the buyout, is in talks to invest in aspiring Tesla rival Lucid Motors Inc.

Our interpretation of subsequent events leads us to believe that funding was not secured for a going private transaction, nor was there any formal proposal, JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman wrote in a client note.

Tesla does appear to be exploring a going private transaction, but we now believe that such a process appears much less developed than we had earlier presumed, suggesting formal incorporation into our valuation analysis seems premature at this time, Brinkman said.

JPM now targets the stock, which it continues to value at underweight, back at $195, versus Fridays close of $305.50. The median price target of the Wall Street analysts covering Tesla is $336.

Tesla shares touched a three-month low of $285 in premarket trading before recovering to trade around $290, reducing its market value back below that of General Motors as the biggest US carmaker.

An interview with the New York Times, in which Musk said he was under major emotional stress in the most difficult year of his life, on Friday added to investors concerns over his leadership after a series of social media spats.

A person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters last week that the SEC has opened an inquiry related to Musks tweets on the buyout and the billionaire is also facing a class action suite from investors who lost money in the share moves.

The lack of process to (Musks) announcement has now caused governance and competency concerns which are starting to snowball, said Tigress Financial Partners analyst Ivan Feinseth.
Agence France-Presse

More than 50 cows, sheep and horses have died in France's most serious outbreak of anthrax in two decades, according to officials who have warned of a vaccine shortage.

Authorities in the mountainous Hautes-Alpes region of southeastern France said the infection, which can spread to humans and is deadly in its rarest forms, had spread to 28 farms since June.

Anthrax is transmitted by spores that can stay inactive in the ground for decades, including in the bodies of dead animals.

French vets have been battling to contain the outbreak because the Spanish laboratory which produces the vaccines has been closed throughout August for the summer vacation.

"The state is in talks with its European partners to discuss the availability and purchase of vaccines" which other countries may have stockpiled, said senior regional official Agnes Chavanon Sunday.

Cases of anthrax being passed on to humans are "extremely rare", said Christine Ortmans, a doctor with regional health agency ARS.

No one has been reported ill during the current outbreak, she stressed.

Cutaneous anthrax  which appears on the skin and is by far the most common form of the infection  is rarely deadly when treated with antibiotics.

But the bacteria which causes it, bacillus anthracis, produces a powerful toxin and has been used as a biological weapon.

Most notoriously a series of attacks using anthrax, delivered through the mail, terrorised the United States in 2001 a week after the carnage of 11 September.

A bioweapons expert killed himself after being charged over the attacks, in which five people were killed and 17 others made ill.

Senior Hautes-Alpes official Serge Cavalli said animals were being vaccinated at affected farms in the region.

Those hit have been banned from production for at least 21 days while the farms are disinfected and to provide time for the vaccinated animals to become immune.

Any milk on site is pasteurised and then destroyed.

The last serious French outbreak was in 2008 when anthrax spread to 23 farms, most of them in the eastern Doubs area.

The first case in the current outbreak was detected in the village of Montgardin on 28 June, killing six cows, and has since spread to 12 others.

Cows struck by anthrax swell in the abdomen and bleed from their orifices, and often die in less than 24 hours.

The disease is fairly rare, although more than 100 cases have been registered at French farms since 1999  often during hot summers after periods of heavy rain.

The ARS said 103 people in the Hautes-Alpes region had been flagged as having potentially come into contact with infected animals, most of them farmers, vets or slaughterhouse workers.

Half have been given preventative antibiotics, according to officials.
By Andrew Osborn MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia accused the United States of trying to break the spirit in jail of Maria Butina, a woman U.S. authorities say is a Russian government agent, and complained she was being subjected to 'borderline torture.' Butina, a 29-year-old gun rights advocate living in Washington, D.C., was arrested in July and has been accused of acting as a Russian government agent while developing ties with American citizens and infiltrating political groups.

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia accused the United States of trying to break the spirit in jail of Maria Butina, a woman U.S. authorities say is a Russian government agent, and complained she was being subjected to "borderline torture."

Butina, a 29-year-old gun rights advocate living in Washington, D.C., was arrested in July and has been accused of acting as a Russian government agent while developing ties with American citizens and infiltrating political groups.

Butina, who pleaded not guilty, was detained without bail pending trial after prosecutors presented evidence suggesting she had connections to Russian intelligence operatives and was being funded by Russian oligarchs.

Her case, which Russian authorities allege is fabricated and politically-motivated, has become the latest in a series of irritants between Washington and Moscow at a time when ties are already languishing at a post-Cold War low over allegations of Russian interference in U.S. politics.

Russia's U.S. embassy said in a statement on Sunday that Butina had been transferred from a prison in Washington to one in Virginia on Friday without notice or explanation and that her personal belongings had also been confiscated.

She had been subjected to a strip search and shackled during the transfer, it alleged, before being held in a cell for 12 hours without food and with the lights on. She now faced a solitary confinement regime, it said.

"Her situation is getting worse. It's obvious that attempts are being made to 'break' Maria using additional humiliation and psychological pressure," the embassy said.

"We have more and more questions for the U.S. justice system. Should Maria really be doomed to suffer such borderline torture before a court verdict on the allegations against her? This lawlessness must stop."

U.S. federal prosecutors successfully persuaded a judge in July that Butina was a flight risk and should be jailed prior to her trial.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has raised the case with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, demanding Butina be freed.

The next hearing in her case is scheduled for Sept. 10.

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
ROME (Reuters) - At least 10 people were killed in southern Italy on Monday when the level of a raging white-water creek in a deep mountain gorge swelled suddenly after heavy rainfall upstream, officials said. The civil protection department said 18 people were rescued and six of those were injured in the flash rush of water in the Calabria region.

ROME (Reuters) - At least 10 people were killed in southern Italy on Monday when the level of a raging white-water creek in a deep mountain gorge swelled suddenly after heavy rainfall upstream, officials said.

The civil protection department said 18 people were rescued and six of those were injured in the flash rush of water in the Calabria region.

It was not clear how many people were missing because not all had entered the gorge with official guides and registered. Spotlights were brought to the area so the search could continue during the night.

The nationalities of the dead and injured were not immediately known. Most tourists and trekkers who visit the area, in the country's deep south, are Italian.

In some places the Raganello creek, part of the Pollino National Park, is at the bottom of a narrow, one-kilometre-deep gorge in the mountain. Rescue teams used ropes to descend the sides of the mountain to reach the site.

Images on national television showed helmeted mountain rescue squads rushing from the nearest town, Civita, to reach the gorge, a popular tourist attraction in summer.

The most seriously injured were taken by helicopter to hospitals in the provincial capital, Cosenza.

Last week, a motorway bridge collapsed in the northern Italian port city of Genoa, killing 43 people.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Rosalba O'Brien)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Mateus Maia and Lisandra Paraguassu BRASILIA (Reuters) - The government of the northern Brazilian state of Roraima on Monday asked the country's supreme court to halt the entry of Venezuelan immigrants, increasing pressure on the federal government to resolve a growing regional crisis. Roraima's request followed a weekend of violence in the state, where tens of thousands of Venezuelans have arrived in recent years, fleeing economic and political turmoil in their country. 'As a result of the grave conflicts over the weekend, the state of Roraima submitted a fastrack request ..

By Mateus Maia and Lisandra Paraguassu

BRASILIA (Reuters) - The government of the northern Brazilian state of Roraima on Monday asked the country's supreme court to halt the entry of Venezuelan immigrants, increasing pressure on the federal government to resolve a growing regional crisis.

Roraima's request followed a weekend of violence in the state, where tens of thousands of Venezuelans have arrived in recent years, fleeing economic and political turmoil in their country.

"As a result of the grave conflicts over the weekend, the state of Roraima submitted a fastrack request ... seeking the temporary suspension of Venezuelan immigration through the border," the state government said in a statement.

The supreme court rejected a previous request by Roraima, as the Brazilian constitution mandates an open border.

The court is unlikely to agree to the new request.

Still, local tensions have been mounting in the growing Latin American crisis, with countries across the region taking a tougher line against fleeing Venezuelans.

For instance, Venezuelans entering Ecuador and Peru will soon be required to show hard-to-get passports, rather than the more ubiquitous national identity cards, governments of both countries announced last week.

This weekend in the Roraima border city of Pacaraima, four people beat a shop owner and some locals said the assailants were Venezuelans, which prompted a mob to destroy the tents of immigrants camped in the streets and set fire to the belongings they left behind. Some 1,200 Venezuelans retreated back over the border, local officials said.

President Michel Temer on Sunday announced an increase from 31 to 151 in the contingent of soldiers helping keep order at the border, while also pledging to speed the relocation of Venezuelan immigrants to other Brazilian states. Temer has repeatedly refused to close the border.

"The closure of the border is unthinkable because it is illegal," Sergio Etchegoyen, Brazil's minister of institutional security, said on Monday.

He added that soldiers were now patrolling the border, and that the situation had improved.

"There's tension, but there's no conflict," he said.

Angered by a perceived lack of federal support to deal with the migration crisis, Roraima has repeatedly turned to the courts, hoping judges will force Brasilia's hand.

Earlier in August, a federal judge in Roraima ordered the border closed until the state could create "humanitarian" conditions to receive Venezuelans, but the decision was soon overturned by a federal appeals court judge.

(Reporting by Mateus Maia; editing by Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)

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British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt will urge the United States and European countries to do more to call out Russia's 'malign behavior' and keep Vladimir Putin in check, notably by implementing tough sanctions.

Washington: New British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt on Tuesday will urge the United States and European countries to do more to call out Russia's "malign behavior" and keep Vladimir Putin in check, notably by implementing tough sanctions.

"The established rules of international conduct are repeatedly being flouted by major countries like Russia," Hunt was to say in Washington, in his first major policy speech since succeeding Boris Johnson in July.

"Such aggressive and malign behavior undermines the international order that keeps us safe," Hunt was to tell an audience at the US Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan think tank, according to excerpts provided by the Foreign Office.

"Of course we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt: Russia's foreign policy under President Putin has made the world a more dangerous place."

London has blamed the March poisoning in southwestern England of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia  using a Soviet-made nerve agent  on Moscow, plunging the two countries into a diplomatic crisis.

A number of Western countries have punished Moscow by expelling Russian diplomats in a coordinated manner, and some have gone further with other punitive measures.

Those come on top on sanctions already in place over Russia's annexation of Crimea or Moscow's interference in foreign elections, notably in the 2016 presidential vote in the United States.

Hunt, who is to meet on Wednesday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, will ask London's allies to do more.

"Today, the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US," Hunt will say, according to the excerpts.

"That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea."

The administration of US President Donald Trump has been firm with Moscow, regularly announcing new sanctions over the Skripal case, but that message is sometimes muddied by Trump's willingness to improve ties with Putin.

At his July summit with the Russian leader in Helsinki, Trump appeared to be rather conciliatory towards his counterpart, shortly after raising hackles at a NATO summit in Brussels with his contrarian stance.

That earned the president widespread criticism at home, even angering many in his own Republican Party.

For Hunt, NATO's "credibility" has taken a hit.

"Those who do not share our values need to know that there will always be a serious price to pay if red lines are crossed - whether territorial incursions, the use of banned weapons or, increasingly, cyber attacks," he was to warn.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China will conduct a series of 'targeted inspections' this year in a bid to ensure that central government policies are being properly implemented at the local level, state news agency Xinhua said late on Monday, citing a senior government official. Xiao Jie, secretary-general of China's cabinet, the State Council, said the inspections would focus on the way local governments implement policies relating to priority issues such as cutting poverty, tackling pollution, promoting innovation and revitalising the rural economy

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China will conduct a series of "targeted inspections" this year in a bid to ensure that central government policies are being properly implemented at the local level, state news agency Xinhua said late on Monday, citing a senior government official.

Xiao Jie, secretary-general of China's cabinet, the State Council, said the inspections would focus on the way local governments implement policies relating to priority issues such as cutting poverty, tackling pollution, promoting innovation and revitalising the rural economy.

China's central government has traditionally struggled to impose its will on local authorities worried about the impact of new legislation on jobs and economic growth.

But Beijing has stepped up efforts to ensure that the regions carry out its policies and guidelines, particularly when it comes to protecting the environment.

The central government has also been cracking down on what it calls "perfunctory" or "formalistic" behaviour by local authorities, accusing officials of implementing the letter of the law instead of its spirit.

(Reporting by David Stanway; editing by Richard Pullin)

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By Keith Coffman DENVER (Reuters) - Prosecutors on Monday filed murder charges against a small-town Colorado man accused of killing his pregnant wife and their two young daughters, just days after he pleaded on television for their safe return. Christopher Watts, 33, was formally charged with five counts of first-degree murder, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body

By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) - Prosecutors on Monday filed murder charges against a small-town Colorado man accused of killing his pregnant wife and their two young daughters, just days after he pleaded on television for their safe return.

Christopher Watts, 33, was formally charged with five counts of first-degree murder, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body. The five murder counts include alternate legal theories available to prosecutors under Colorado state law.

Watts has been held without bail since his arrest for the murders of Shannan Watts, 34 and his two daughters, Celeste, 3, and Bella, 4, in a sensational case that has fixed national attention on the tiny former mining town of Frederick, now a bedroom community of 13,000 people.

Shannan Watts and the two girls were reported missing by a family friend on Tuesday from their home in Frederick, about 30 miles (50 km) north of Denver.

Watts said in an interview with TV station Denver 7 on Tuesday that he was torn up inside about his family going missing and pleaded for their return.

"I just want them to come back," Watts told Denver 7. "My kids are my life. Those smiles light up my life. I want everybody to just come home."

The next day he was arrested and one day later the remains of his family were found at a Frederick oil field where Watts worked until his arrest.

Prosecutors say the body of Shannan Watts was discovered buried in a shallow grave and his daughters had been stuffed into oil tanks.

Neither Watts nor his court-appointed attorney have commented publicly on the case since his arrest.

Authorities have not confirmed reports in the local media that Watts confessed to killing his family, and that he strangled the two girls.

Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke said he would seek the release of a sealed arrest warrant affidavit that lays out details of the crime later on Monday.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Writing by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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Two people familiar with the financial fraud investigation of Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, say he will plead guilty to federal charges including campaign finance fraud, bank fraud and tax evasion.

New York: Michael Cohen, the lawyer who gained notoriety as US President Donald Trump's loyal "fixer," reached a plea agreement on Tuesday and will plead guilty to charges including campaign finance fraud, bank fraud and tax evasion, according to two people familiar with the deal.

Cohen is due to appear in court in New York at 4 p.m. Tuesday. He was earlier seen going into an FBI building.

The people spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

They said the campaign finance charges involve payments to two women. It was not clear if the deal requires Cohen's cooperation with the Russia probe or other investigations.

Cohen, 51, is due to appear in federal court in New York at 4 p.m. Tuesday. Security officers were setting up barricades outside the main entrance and a federal prosecutor is expected to speak to the media after the proceeding.

Cohen was seen earlier leaving his apartment and traveling to the Manhattan offices of one of his lawyer, former federal prosecutor Guy Petrillo, and going into a building where the FBI has its New York offices.

Both Cohen's lawyers and the U.S. Attorney's office declined comment on Tuesday.

The development came a day after prosecutors signaled that Cohen could be charged before the end of the month in a case that has been a distraction for the White House with the midterm elections approaching.

Absent a quick resolution, it's believed that prosecutors would have put off a decision on how to go forward with the case until after the election in compliance with an informal Justice Department policy of avoiding bringing prosecutions that could be seen as political and influence voters.

Prosecutors had been investigating Cohen for possible fraud related to his businesses for months. The FBI raided his hotel room, home and office on April 9, seizing more than 4 million items.

The search of Cohen's files sought bank records, communications with the Trump campaign and information on hush money payments made in 2016 to two women: former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who received $150,000, and the porn actress Stormy Daniels, who got $130,000.

Daniels' hard-charging lawyer, Michael Avenatti, later upped the drama by disclosing bank reports showing that Cohen had been hustling behind the scenes to cash in on his close relationship with the president.

The records revealed that several companies, including AT&T, Novartis and a South Korean defense contractor, had collectively paid Cohen at least $1.8 million in consulting fees for his insights into the new administration. Among Cohen's other clients was a U.S.-based investment firm with close ties to a Russian oligarch.

Avenatti tweeted that Cohen's plea agreement should open the door to questioning Trump under oath in Daniels' defamation lawsuit against him about "what he knew, when he knew it, and what he did about it."

The New York Times reported earlier this week, based on anonymous sources, that prosecutors have been focusing on more than $20 million in loans obtained by taxi businesses that Cohen and his family own.

Cohen had gained notoriety as a staunch Trump loyalist before the FBI raid, which the president branded "a witch hunt," an assault on attorney-client privilege and a politically motivated attack by enemies in the FBI.

The president's initial support for Cohen has since degenerated into a public feud, prompting speculation that, to save himself, Cohen might be willing to tell prosecutors some of the secrets he helped Trump keep.
by Sumon Corraya

The big cities tempt Christians: infidelity, cohabitation with Muslims, poverty, drugs. For a Dhaka Catholic, priests should visit families more often.

Dhaka (AsiaNews)  Christian residents of Bangladeshs big cities face more challenges than their village counterpart, including marriage and free religious practice, this according to couples who related their own stories at the World Meeting of Families currently underway in Dublin.

One story touches Ripon Costa, a married man with a 10-year-old son. For the past six months, he has been on his own and has no intention of returning to his family, despite his relatives who have tried to get him to reconcile with his wife.

"I am not interested in married life anymore. I want to be alone, he told AsiaNews. My wife keeps asking me for more money than I have."

Sukla Corraya left her husband after three years of persecution. "I was abused by my husband who was also unfaithful, she said. I could not keep going that way and I've been alone for 20 years.

However, not all is negative. Some stories are about love and marital respect. This is the case of Prodip Rozario, who works for an NGO.

"When I go home after work, my wife and two children run towards me, happy to see me. We pray together every night; we share feelings and emotions."

Probha Rozario, secretary of the Commission for Family Life in the Archdiocese of Dhaka, notes that families that live in villages have more opportunities for sharing. "Every year, we organise a conference and receive positive feedback from rural families, she explained.

In the countryside, people pray together, attend Mass, love each other and show respect for each other. They put Christian values into practice and face fewer problems than the people who live in big cities, where Christians often do not even pray in the evening."

According to Probha Rozario, the most common challenges in the cities are "marital infidelity, lovelessness, a greater presence of migrant women more interested in money than in the affection of their husbands, conflicts between neighbours, negative media influence, poverty, drug addiction, as well as environmental and housing problems."

Regarding the housing emergency, Rozario noted that "Christians live in neighbourhoods where they are the minority, with no churches, living and going to school with Muslims. Children make friends and often marry people of different religions. All this weakens the faith."

Probha Rozario runs pre-marital courses and works with Caritas Bangladesh. For her, it is urgent "for priests to change behaviour and visit parish families continuously."

"Pastoral outreach helps a lot, she explained. If priests and nuns did this, families would have fewer hardships. Those living in poverty need support; drug addicts need love and care."
Beijing has been using its economic clout to peel away international support for the democratically-ruled island, leaving it with only 17 diplomatic allies around the world. Speaking in Beijing at the Diaoyutai Guest House, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised El Salvador's decision to 'recognise there is one China in the world'.

Beijing: China and El Salvador established diplomatic relations on Monday as the Central American nation ditched Taiwan in yet another victory for Beijing in its campaign to isolate the island.

Beijing has been using its economic clout to peel away international support for the democratically-ruled island, leaving it with only 17 diplomatic allies around the world. Speaking in Beijing at the Diaoyutai Guest House, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised El Salvador's decision to "recognise there is one China in the world".

Salvadoran Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, after signing a document with Wang establishing relations, said his country had made a "strategic decision" and taken the "correct and beneficial path for the people of both nations".

The president of El Salvador, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, said in an address on national television Monday night: "I announce that my government has taken the decision to break diplomatic relations maintained until today between the Republic of El Salvador and Taiwan, and establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China."

The announcement in Beijing followed a decision by Taiwan to sever its ties with El Salvador after it learned the country was planning on recognising Beijing. Speaking in Taipei, foreign minister Joseph Wu condemned China's "crude actions".

"We will not engage in dollar diplomacy with China," said Wu, adding that El Salvador had been asking for "huge funding" for a port development project which Taiwan was unwilling to give because it would leave both countries in debt.

El Salvador's move leaves Taiwan with a dwindling number of allies around the world as a growing number switch recognition to China, which sees the self-ruling democratic island as a renegade part of its territory. "El Salvador has made the choice to commit itself to one China with no pre-conditions, thus standing with most countries in the world," Wang said in comments that seemed intended to pre-empt Taiwanese accusations that China had bought the small Latin American nation's loyalty.

But, he added, the country "will get tangible gains from its partnership with China". Relations between Taipei and Beijing have worsened since president Tsai Ing-wen came to power as her government refuses to acknowledge that Taiwan is part of "one China".

China has stepped up it's poaching of Taiwan's allies since Tsai became the leader in 2016. El Salvador is the fifth diplomatic loss under her presidency and the third this year, following Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic. The small African nation of Sao Tome switched recognition to Beijing in late 2016, followed by Panama in June last year.

Taiwan and China have been engaged for years in a diplomatic tug-of-war in developing countries. Economic support and other aid are often used as bargaining chips for diplomatic recognition. Tsai's government is trying to enhance Taiwan's international profile but faces a concerted attempt by Beijing to shrink its space on global platforms.

Beijing has stepped up pressure on her government by blocking Taiwan from attending a growing list of international events and staging a string of military drills around the island.
By Brendan Pierson NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has entered into a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in New York on campaign finance violations, bank fraud and tax evasion, ABC News reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources. The report by ABC followed earlier reports by NBC News, CNN and Reuters that Cohen was discussing a plea bargain.

By Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has entered into a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in New York on campaign finance violations, bank fraud and tax evasion, ABC News reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources.

The report by ABC followed earlier reports by NBC News, CNN and Reuters that Cohen was discussing a plea bargain.

The agreement could increase legal risks for the president, as it raises the possibility that Cohen will provide information to U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller in his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign.

Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion and has called the Mueller investigation a witch hunt. Russia has denied meddling in the election. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded Moscow interfered.

Cohen was part of Trump's inner circle for more than a decade, working as his personal attorney at the Trump Organization and continuing to advise the president after the election. But their relationship has frayed in recent months.

Lanny Davis, a lawyer for Cohen, declined to comment. Cohen and another of his lawyers, Guy Petrillo, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the earlier reports.

The probe is being led by the office of U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan. A spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Federal agents had seized documents and files from Cohen in April that stemmed from a referral from Mueller's office.

Cohen once said he would "take a bullet" for Trump, but their relationship has deteriorated since the April FBI raid on Cohen's office, hotel room and home.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that federal prosecutors were focused on more than $20 million in loans obtained by Cohen from taxi businesses owned by him and his family.

The loans are part of the investigation into whether Cohen committed bank and tax fraud, and for possible campaign law violations linked to a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Mueller's investigation, which began in May 2017, has resulted in the indictment of more than 30 people and five guilty pleas.

Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is on trial in Alexandria, Virginia, for 18 counts of financial crimes resulting from the Mueller probe. The jury in his case was in its fourth day of deliberations on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Brendan Pierson; Writing by Jonathan Oatis; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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By Yeganeh Torbati WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Military officials are sounding the alarm inside the Trump administration about the sharp drop in admission to the United States of Iraqi refugees who have helped American troops in battle, said two U.S. officials aware of the internal discussions.

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Military officials are sounding the alarm inside the Trump administration about the sharp drop in admission to the United States of Iraqi refugees who have helped American troops in battle, said two U.S. officials aware of the internal discussions.

The Pentagon is concerned that not providing safe haven to more of the Iraqis, many of whom interpreted and did other key tasks for U.S. forces, will harm national security by dissuading locals from cooperating with the United States in Iraq and other conflict zones, the officials said.

In a closed-door White House meeting last week devoted to the Iraqi issue, officials focused largely on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's method of conducting certain deep background checks on the Iraqis, and identified it as a major source of the drop in admissions, said the two officials aware of the discussions, who declined to be named.

As of Aug. 15, just 48 Iraqis have been admitted to the United States this fiscal year through a special refugee program meant for people who worked for the U.S. government or American contractors, news media or non-governmental groups, according to data provided by the State Department. More than 3,000 came last year and about 5,100 in 2016.

At the meeting last week, officials examined the multiple security checks that Iraqis must pass, including one background check that all refugees undergo, called the Interagency Check.

They determined the obstacle was a separate process called Security Advisory Opinions (SAOs), which are required for a smaller subset of people - male and female refugees within a certain age range from Iraq and 10 other countries, mostly in the Middle East and Africa.

The FBI and intelligence agencies conduct the SAOs while the State Department coordinates the process.

At the meeting, the FBI revealed that of a batch of 88 Iraqis it had recently completed SAOs for, it found suspicious information on 87 of them, said the two officials aware of the meeting. Current and former officials said that is a much higher "hit rate" than in past years.

It was unclear to officials what exactly is causing the higher hit rate, and the meeting did not get into the details of the FBI's screening methodology and how it might have changed.

FBI spokeswoman Kelsey Pietranton declined to comment on the Iraqi refugee issue.

"ADDITIONAL VETTING"

A State Department spokeswoman said on Saturday the United States will continue to process U.S.-affiliated Iraqis for resettlement "while prioritising the safety and security of the American people. Additional vetting procedures are enabling departments and agencies to more thoroughly review applicants and identify potential threats to public safety and national security."

Pentagon spokesman David Eastburn referred a request for comment on the Iraqi refugees to the White House.

A White House official did not directly comment when asked about the Iraqi refugee issue or the FBI process but said the Trump administration's approach is "protecting the national interest, preventing foreign terrorist attacks, and protecting U.S. taxpayers and workers.

One official said the White House meeting last week resulted directly from a smaller, higher-level meeting of senior national security officials earlier this month. They discussed the maximum number of refugees the United States will admit into the country next year. The administration must reach a decision on the ceiling by Sept. 30.

In the earlier, high-level meeting, the Pentagon and State Department both supported maintaining the admissions ceiling at 45,000, one current official and one former official informed of the discussions said. Other agencies' positions on the cap were not yet clear.

At that meeting, a senior Pentagon official raised the issue of the paltry admissions of Iraqi refugees, and asked that if the admissions ceiling is cut further from 45,000, the Iraqis be admitted without counting against the cap, one official said.

A State Department spokeswoman declined to comment on preliminary discussions. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on its position on the ceiling.

The White House official said the administration's deliberations over the refugee ceiling are continuing and said the United States is "under significant strain as a result of a massive asylum crisis that is separate from, and in addition to, the refugee ceiling."

President Donald Trump campaigned in 2016 promising tight restrictions on immigration, and in the past year and a half, his administration has sharply reduced refugee admissions through executive orders and closed-door decisions.

The refugee ceiling Trump set last year of 45,000 is the lowest since 1980, when the modern refugee program was established. The United States is on track to admit about 22,000 refugees this year, approximately half of the maximum allowed.

Advocates for Iraqis who worked for the U.S. government or American companies say hundreds of them have been killed, wounded, abducted or threatened because of their work and face continued danger inside Iraq from armed militias opposed to the United States.

"Iraqis with a U.S. affiliation currently have no avenue to safety," said Betsy Fisher, policy director for the International Refugee Assistance Project.

STRICTER VETTING

Last year, the Trump administration instituted more stringent screening for refugees, including a requirement that they submit phone numbers and email addresses for many more family members than before. That information is now assessed in the SAOs for those refugees who require them.

The countries whose refugees automatically require SAOs before they can be admitted, in addition to Iraq, are Egypt, Iran, Libya, Mali, North Korea, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Iraqis can raise flags for national security concerns for a number of reasons, especially if their work for the military required them to keep tabs on militants and other potential threats.

Years after their work for the military has ended, it can be difficult to verify that their contact with suspicious individuals or groups was strictly related to their job.

A Department of Homeland Security official said on Friday that refugee applicants "undergo more thorough security vetting than ever before" and that the agency is "making it harder for terrorists, criminals, and individuals seeking to exploit the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program."

During the White House meeting last week, Pentagon officials offered to lend staff to the FBI to help them process the checks faster and potentially resolve concerns about information unearthed during the checks.

As of the end of July, there were more than 100,000 Iraqis who had applied to the special refugee program and were at various stages of the admission process, according to U.S. government data seen by Reuters.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Sue Horton, Lisa Shumaker and Bill Trott)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he was worried that any statements under oath he provides to Special Counsel Robert Mueller could be used to bring perjury charges against him as part of the probe into Russia's electoral interference

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he was worried that any statements under oath he provides to Special Counsel Robert Mueller could be used to bring perjury charges against him as part of the probe into Russia's electoral interference.

In an interview with Reuters, Trump echoed the concerns of his top lawyer in the probe, Rudy Giuliani, who has warned that any sit-down with Mueller could be a perjury trap.

The president expressed fears that investigators could compare his statements with that of others who have testified in the probe, such as former FBI Director James Comey, and that any discrepancies could be used against him.

Even if I am telling the truth, that makes me a liar, Trump said. Thats no good.

Despite his concerns, Trump did not comment on whether he would ultimately agree to an interview with Mueller, who is, among other things, investigating whether Trump's campaign team colluded with Russians during the 2016 election and whether Trump has obstructed justice in the probe.

Trump also declined to say whether he might strip Mueller of his security clearance, as he did last week to former CIA Director John Brennan, who had repeatedly criticized Trump's handling of foreign policy and national security issues.

Russia has denied interfering in the 2016 U.S. election and Trump has denied any collusion took place.

(Reporting by James Oliphant, Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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By Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and James Oliphant WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday ruled out making any concessions to Turkey to gain the freedom of a detained American pastor and said he was not concerned that retaliatory tariffs he imposed will have a ripple effect and hurt the European economy

By Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday ruled out making any concessions to Turkey to gain the freedom of a detained American pastor and said he was not concerned that retaliatory tariffs he imposed will have a ripple effect and hurt the European economy.

Trump, speaking to Reuters in an Oval Office interview, said he thought he had a deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan when he helped persuade Israel to free a detained Turkish citizen. He had thought Erdogan would then release pastor Andrew Brunson.

"I think it's very sad what Turkey is doing. I think they're making a terrible mistake. There will be no concessions," he said.

Trump has imposed tariffs on imports of Turkish steel and aluminum in response to Erdogan's refusal to free Brunson, raising concerns of economic damage in Europe.

"I'm not concerned at all. Im not concerned. This is the proper thing to do," he said, when asked about the potential damage to other economies.

Trump said Erdogan had wanted the Turkish citizen returned from Israel.

Trump and Erdogan met in Brussels for a NATO summit in mid-July where they discussed Brunsons case and what could be the way forward to release the pastor, a senior White House official said earlier.

Turkey had sought U.S. help to persuade the Israelis to release a Turkish woman who was being held in Israel, the senior official said. In exchange Turkey would release Brunson and other Americans being held in Turkey.

Trump said he kept his side of the bargain.

"I got that person out for him. I expect him to let this very innocent and wonderful man and great father and great Christian out of Turkey," Trump said.

Israel, which confirmed that Trump had requested Ebru Ozkans release, deported her on July 15. Ankara has denied ever agreeing to free Brunson in return.

Trump added: "I like Turkey. I like the people of Turkey very much. Until now I had a very good relationship as you know with the president. I got along with him great. I had a very good relationship. But it cant be a one-way street. Its no longer a one-way street for the United States."

Trump had suggested earlier this month he would be willing to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani if the Iranians wanted to discuss the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.

The Iranians, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei, have shrugged off the offer. Asked to respond to Iran's refusal to meet, Trump said it not matter to him whether they met or not.

(Reporting By Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and James Oliphant, editing by Ross Colvin)

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(Reuters) - In the most dramatic day yet in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S.

(Reuters) - In the most dramatic day yet in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, federal prosecutors on Tuesday secured the conviction of U.S. President Donald Trump's former campaign manager and a plea agreement from the president's longtime attorney.

As Special Counsel Robert Mueller continues his Russia probe, the following is a list of people who have indicted or convicted or are being investigated. The court documents related to Mueller's investigation are at https://www.justice.gov/sco.

Trump has denied any collusion by his campaign and has long denounced the Mueller probe as a witch hunt. Mueller told Trump's attorneys in March he was continuing to investigate the president but did not consider him a criminal target "at this point," the Washington Post reported in early April.

In federal court in New York on Tuesday, Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other charges, saying he made payments to influence the 2016 election at the direction of a candidate for federal office. The deal included a possible prison sentence of up to five years and three months.

Also on Tuesday, a jury in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia found former Trump election campaign chairman Paul Manafort, guilty on eight of 18 charges of filing false tax returns, failing to disclose his offshore bank accounts and bank fraud. The judge declared a mistrial on the remaining 10 counts and gave prosecutors until Aug. 29 to decide whether to retry him on the deadlocked charges. Manafort still faces separate charges brought by Mueller in federal court in Washington.

Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump who was also a close campaign aide, pleaded guilty in December to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russia and agreed to cooperate with Mueller's investigation. On Tuesday, Mueller and Flynn's defence team asked for more time before Flynn is sentenced.

George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser, pleaded guilty in October to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russia. According to documents released with his guilty plea, Papadopoulos offered to help set up a meeting with then-candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has been cooperating with Mueller. On Aug. 17, Mueller's office recommended that Papadopoulos serve up to six months in prison for lying to federal investigators and impeding the investigation.

Rick Gates, a former deputy campaign chairman, pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy against the United States and lying to investigators, and agreed to cooperate with the Mueller probe.

Alex Van der Zwaan, a lawyer who once worked closely with Manafort and Gates, pleaded guilty in February to lying to Mueller's investigators about contacts with an official in the Trump election campaign. Van der Zwaan, the Dutch son-in-law of one of Russia's richest men, was sentenced on April 3 to 30 days in prison and fined $20,000.

Twelve Russian intelligence officers were indicted by a federal grand jury on July 13, accused of hacking Democratic computer networks in 2016, in the most detailed U.S. accusation yet that Moscow meddled in the presidential election to help Trump. The Russian government has repeatedly denied meddling in the election.

Thirteen Russians and three Russian entities were indicted in Mueller's investigation in February, accused of tampering in the 2016 election to support Trump.

Richard Pinedo, who was not involved with the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty in a case related to the Mueller probe in February to aiding and abetting interstate and foreign identity fraud by creating, buying and stealing hundreds of bank account numbers that he sold to individuals to use with large digital payment companies. Pinedo "made a mistake" but "had absolutely no knowledge" about who was buying the information or their motivations, his lawyer said. Sources familiar with the indictment said Pinedo was named as helping Russian conspirators launder money as well as purchase Facebook ads and pay for rally supplies.

Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort aide in Ukraine and political operative with alleged ties to Russian intelligence, was charged on June 8 with tampering with witnesses about their past lobbying for Ukraines former pro-Russian government.

(Compiled by Frances Kerry and Cynthia Osterman; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Peter Cooney)

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While Pyongyang regularly proclaims its desire to provide its people with a better life, leader Kim Jong-un roundly condemned its health system on a visit to a medical devices factory.

Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has denounced his own country's health services, state media reported on Tuesday, criticising officials for being "very idle and irresponsible".

Impoverished and isolated North Korea, which is subject to multiple sets of United Nations Security Council sanctions over its pursuit of nuclear weapons, suffers from chronic food shortages and inadequate health services according to international aid agencies. Hospitals lack medicines, equipment, and trained staff.

While Pyongyang regularly proclaims its desire to provide its people with a better life, Kim roundly condemned its health system on a visit to a medical devices factory. Some sectors "have made remarkable leaps forward in recent years" Kim said according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), "but the public health sector has never done so and has become more and more passive". He added "there is no unit keeping its environment well in the public health sector, to say nothing of equipment modernisation," speaking at the Myohyangsan Medical Appliances Factory.

Such "field guidance" visits by the leader are the mainstay of the North's state media output, and a key part of the authorities' domestic messaging, sometimes lauding the quality of projects and sometimes criticising officials. The ruling Workers' Party had stressed the need to improve health services, but "officials are very idle and irresponsible in doing so", Kim was quoted by KCNA as saying.

In the Korean-language version, he berated them for "hibernating for a long time", adding that "animals only hibernate once a year but the health sector has been holed up and hibernating for years and shouting empty slogans."

Since his summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June, Kim has stressed a focus on economic development, visiting industrial sites and factories across the nation.

In this year's "needs and priorities" assessment of North Korea, the UN Development Programme described its healthcare services as "inadequate", with a "lack of essential medical equipment, pharmaceutical remedies, appropriate referral systems, therapeutic equipment and assistive devices, as well as limited professional capacity". It added that "Furthermore, health infrastructure is poor with many [facilities] having inconsistent water, electricity and heating."

North Korea has called for an end to sanctions against it, while the US has urged the international community to maintain a tough approach until its complete denuclearisation.

Following several ballistic missile launches and by far the North's most powerful nuclear test in 2017, Kim declared the development of its atomic capabilities complete and said economic development was the new priority.
Narendra Modi termed India-China relations as a factor of stability in the world and appreciated the increased momentum of high-level contacts between the two countries across all spheres

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday said India and China are handling their differences with "sensitivity and maturity" by not allowing them to become disputes and this was evident from peace in border areas.

Modi also termed India-China relations as a factor of stability in the world and appreciated the increased momentum of high-level contacts between the two countries across all spheres, including in areas of defence and military exchanges.

He made these remarks when State Councillor and Defence Minister of China General Wei Fenghe called on him in Delhi on Tuesday, according to a statement from the Prime Minister's Office.

"Terming India-China relations as a factor of stability in the world, the prime minister said that maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas is indicative of the sensitivity and maturity with which India and China handle their differences, not allowing them to become disputes," the PMO said.

Modi also warmly recalled his recent meetings with President Xi Jinping in Wuhan, Qingdao and Johannesburg.

The Chinese defence minister's four-day visit to India, beginning Tuesday, is being seen as a significant development by officials on both sides to improve communications and atmospherics between militaries of the two countries after 2017's 73-day Doka La standoff.

According to official sources, the primary objective of Wei's visit is to deliberate with Indian defence establishment on implementation of decisions taken by Modi and Xi in their informal summit in Wuhan in April, including for improving mutual trust and avoid repeat of any Doka La-like face-offs.

In the summit, Modi and Xi had resolved to open a new chapter in ties and had directed their militaries to boost coordination along the border, months after the most serious military faceoff in decades between the two nuclear-armed neighbours in Doka La triggered fears of a war.

Wei, who is a key member in China's State Council - the executive organ of China's central government - is scheduled to hold restricted as well as delegation-level talks with Sitharaman Wednesday.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel on Tuesday outlawed the import and sale of e-cigarettes made by Silicon Valley start-up Juul Labs, citing public health concerns given their nicotine content.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel on Tuesday outlawed the import and sale of e-cigarettes made by Silicon Valley start-up Juul Labs, citing public health concerns given their nicotine content.

A statement by Israel's Health Ministry said the Juul was banned because it contains nicotine at a concentration higher than 20 milligrams per millilitre and poses "a grave risk to public health".

Since launching in 2015, the flash drive-sized vaping device has transformed the market in the United States, where it now accounts for nearly 70 percent of tracked e-cigarette sales.

The Israeli move was consistent with similar restrictions in Europe, the statement said.

The ban, which goes into effect in 15 days, was signed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also holds the health portfolio.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported in May that Juul e-cigarettes were already available for purchase at 30 locations around the country.

Juul says it targets adult smokers, but it has faced scrutiny over the popularity of its products with teenagers.

In April the U.S. Food and Drug Administration launched a crackdown on the sale of e-cigarettes and tobacco products to minors, particularly those developed by Juul Labs.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Alison Williams)

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Michael Cohen, US President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and 'fixer,' pleaded guilty Tuesday to campaign-finance violations and other charges, saying he and Trump arranged the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy model to influence the election.

New York: Michael Cohen, US President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and "fixer," pleaded guilty Tuesday to campaign-finance violations and other charges, saying he and Trump arranged the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy model to influence the election.

On a day of bad news bombshells for the White House, reactions from Trump's opponents flooded the news cycle. "It's a Watergate moment" was the loudest one. "If the President was a private citizen, we would be seeing a very different situation. Of course, he would be implicated as a co-conspirator and leader of the cover-up", said a string of legal experts weighing in on the political stunner Tuesday.

White House looks increasingly like a criminal enterprise with the convictions today of President Trumps former campaign manager & personal lawyer & the inclusion of the President as an unnamed, unindicted co-conspirator in the Cohen plea agreement.  Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) August 21, 2018

Cohen committed crimes "In co-ordination with, and at the direction of" @realDonaldTrump . Thus, President appears to be co-conspirator and/or aider and abettor of a federal crime.  Jeffrey Toobin (@JeffreyToobin) August 21, 2018

Cohen's account appears to implicate Trump himself in a crime, though whether  or when  a president can be prosecuted remains a matter of legal dispute. The guilty plea came almost at the same moment former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted in Alexandria, Virginia, of eight financial crimes in the first trial to come out of special counsel Robert Mueller's sprawling Russia investigation.

In a deal reached with federal prosecutors, Cohen, 51, pleaded guilty to eight counts in all, including tax evasion and making a false statement to a financial institution. He could get about four to five years in prison at sentencing Dec. 12. In entering the plea, Cohen did not name the two women or even Trump, recounting instead that he worked with an "unnamed candidate."

But the amounts and the dates all lined up with the payments made to Daniels and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal in the weeks and months leading up to the 2016 White House election. Cohen, his voice shaky as he answered questions from a federal judge, said one payment was "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office," and the other was made "under direction of the same candidate."

As cable networks were showing split-screen coverage of the dueling conviction and plea bargain by two former loyalists, Trump boarded Air Force One in the afternoon on the way to a rally in West Virginia. He ignored shouted questions to reporters about both former aides, retreating to his private stateroom on the airliner. Cohen left the building and headed straight for a black SUV with tinted windows.

A couple of people outside chanted, "Lock him up!" as they recorded the scene with their phones. Cohen's plea follows months of scrutiny from federal investigations and a falling-out with the president, whom he previously said he would "take a bullet" for. The FBI raided Cohen's hotel room, home and office in April and seized more than 4 million items.

The search sought bank records, communications with Trump's campaign and information on a $130,000 payment to Daniels and a $150,000 one to McDougal. Both women claimed Trump had affairs with them, which he denies. Trump denied to reporters in April that he knew anything about Cohen's payments to Daniels, though the explanation from the president and his attorney Rudy Giuliani have shifted multiples times since.

The president has fumed publicly about what he felt was government overreach, while privately worrying about what material Cohen may have after working for the Trump Organization for a decade. Trump branded the raid "a witch hunt," an assault on attorney-client privilege and a politically motivated attack by enemies in the FBI. "Obviously it's not good for Trump," Sol Wisenberg, who conducted grand jury questioning of President Bill Clinton during the Whitewater investigation, said of Cohen plea bargain.

"I'm assuming he's not going to be indicted because he's a sitting president, Wisenberg added. "But it leads him closer to ultimate impeachment proceedings, particularly if the Democrats take back the House." The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal advice and guidance to executive branch agencies, has held that a president cannot be indicted while in office.

Trump's lawyers have said that Mueller plans to adhere to that guidance, though Mueller's office has never confirmed that. There would presumably be no bar against charging a president after he leaves the White House. Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, noted that the deal does not require Cohen to cooperate, but does not preclude it from happening, which should be worrying to the president and his allies.

"What it shows is that the people close to the president have criminal exposure and it may mean they don't need Cohen to cooperate," she said. Levenson argued that the deal also knocks back the argument that the investigations swirling around Trump are a "witch hunt." "No longer can you say Mueller is on a witch hunt when you have his own lawyer pleading guilty to things that were designed to impact the election," she said.

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement: "The factual basis of the plea, potentially implicating the president in illegal campaign finance violations, adds to the president's legal jeopardy."

Mueller's team, which is looking into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, came across the some of the evidence against Cohen in the course of its investigation and referred the matter to federal prosecutors in New York. Deputy U.S.

Attorney Robert Khuzami said that in addition to the campaign finance violations, Cohen failed to report more than $4 million in income between 2012 and 2016, including about $2.5 million from interest payments on a personal loan and $1.3 million from his taxi medallion holdings.

Cohen also lied to a financial institution by failing to disclose more than $14 million in debt and obtaining a $500,000 home equity line of credit he wasn't entitled to, Khuzami said. After making the hush money payments, Cohen submitted phony invoices to Trump's company, ostensibly for services rendered in 2017, the prosecutor said. "Those involves were a sham," Khuzami said. "He provided no legal services for the year 2017. It was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful contributions."

Before the election, Cohen had been a trusted member of the Trump organization, working out of an office in Trump Tower next to one used by his boss. He raised millions for Trump's campaign and, after being interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee last year, told Vanity Fair that Trump had no part in the suspected Russian conspiracy to tamper with the election.

The president's initial support for Cohen after the raid soon degenerated into a public feud, prompting speculation that, to save himself, Cohen might be willing to tell prosecutors some of the secrets he helped Trump keep. When Cohen's team produced a recording he had made of Trump discussing one of the hush-money payments, Trump tweeted: "What kind of lawyer would tape a client? So sad!"
Police arrested Wael Saad, a former monk, for the murder, and Faltaous, a 33-year-old monk, as an accessory. The latter attempted suicide and is currently in hospital. For a spokesman of the Catholic Church, the suspect has long been "a source of trouble" in his old monastery. The affair tops social media. Christians and Muslims are more united.

Cairo (AsiaNews)  The investigation into the murder of a Coptic bishop is still underway. No motives have yet to be identified but the man accused, a former monk, appears to have been a source of trouble" in his monastery, this according to Fr Rafic Greiche, spokesman for the Egyptian Catholic Church, who spoke to AsiaNews about the odd death of Coptic Bishop Anba Epiphanios.

Showing serious head injuries, the lifeless body of the 64-year-old abbot was found on the evening of 29 July in the Monastery of Saint Macarius in Wadi El Natrun, a valley in a desert area about 110 km northwest of Cairo. For Fr Rafic, "The whole affair has baffling aspects. So far nothing has emerged that can help clarify it."

A former monk who had been recently expelled from his religious order was charged with the murder. Wael Saad (whose monastic name was Isaiah) confessed to killing the bishop, accusing a 33-year-old monk, Faltaous, of complicity. The latter is currently in a Cairo hospital after a failed suicide attempt.

A few days after the abbots murder and before Saads arrest, Faltaous cut his wrists and jumped from the tallest building in the monastery. He survived the fall and is now under investigation.

According to information leaked to the press, Saad had squabbled with his superiors and had come under investigation for breaching the monasterys customs. Eventually, he was defrocked and expelled "for inappropriate conduct".

For Fr Rafic, the affair still has many blind spots, namely why "was he (the murderer) still inside even though he had left the monastery a long time before".

According to certain rumours, Saad "had been causing trouble in the monastery for a while and "had failed to follow the abbots orders. There may have been differences of opinion on matters of dogma and faith, but certainly nothing that could justify murder, Fr Rafic said.

Following the abbots murder, the leaders of the Coptic Church closed all of its social media accounts, including Facebook to Twitter. Coptic Pope Tawadros II set the example by shutting down his rarely used accounts.

According to some sources, the decision is due to growing divisions within Coptic Church (10 per cent of Egypts predominantly Sunni population of about 100 million). The Church itself has not yet publicly commented the affair.

"The murder has caused a stir in Egypt, and is being discussed in public, said Fr Rafic. On social media, all sorts of stories are circulating, much of it gossip. We should wait for the results of the investigation and the work of prosecutors.

Although shaken by the violence, Egypts Christians are going through a positive phase, as Fr Rafic confirmed. "Today the government and ordinary Egyptians are more aware of the need to be united, independently of ones religious affiliation or practice.

As Egypt celebrates Eid al-Adha (20-22 August), many members of my community send good wishes and congratulations to Muslims. Some past sectarian problems seem to have been overcome."
By Muhammad Yamany JAMARAT, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - More than 2 million Muslim pilgrims hurled pebbles at a giant wall in a symbolic stoning of the devil on Tuesday, the riskiest stage of the annual haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia where hundreds died in a crush three years ago.

By Muhammad Yamany

JAMARAT, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - More than 2 million Muslim pilgrims hurled pebbles at a giant wall in a symbolic stoning of the devil on Tuesday, the riskiest stage of the annual haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia where hundreds died in a crush three years ago.

Clad in white robes signifying a state of purity, men and women from 165 countries converged on Jamarat to perform the ritual from a three-storey bridge erected to ease congestion after earlier stampedes.

Under close supervision from Saudi authorities, the faithful carried umbrellas to block the blazing sun, with daytime temperatures topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

They will return to the bridge over the next two days for more stoning before returning to Mecca to pray at the Grand Mosque at the end of haj.

For a graphic on The haj journey http://tmsnrt.rs/2imJ2yf

The kingdom stakes its reputation on its guardianship of Islam's holiest sites - Mecca and Medina - and organising the world's largest annual Muslim gathering, which retraces the route Prophet Mohammad took 14 centuries ago.

It has deployed more than 130,000 security forces and medics as well as modern technology including surveillance drones to maintain order.

"The police assistance and the services were all extraordinary. Praise God, I am very happy and God willing our Lord will provide for us again," said Jordanian Firas al-Khashani, 33.

The authorities redesigned the Jamarat area after stampedes in 2004 and 2006 killed hundreds of pilgrims, and the frequency of such disasters has greatly reduced as the government spent billions of dollars upgrading and expanding haj infrastructure and crowd control technology.

But with so many participants, panic is a constant danger.

The 2015 crush killed nearly 800 people, according to Riyadh, when two large groups of pilgrims arrived together at a crossroads on a road leading to the stoning site.

Counts by countries of repatriated bodies, however, showed more than 2,000 people may have died, more than 400 of them from Iran, which boycotted haj the following year. It was the worst disaster in at least a quarter century.

Saudi authorities said at the time that the crush may have been caused by pilgrims failing to follow crowd control rules, and King Salman ordered an investigation but the results were never announced.

Some 86,000 Iranians are attending this year amid a diplomatic rift between Tehran and Riyadh, which are locked in a struggle for regional supremacy. Their dispute was exacerbated by the 2015 crush.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said the pilgrims this year were adhering to a strict timetable in order to reduce congestion. The Health Ministry reported no outbreak of disease so far, a perennial concern.

"A BEAUTIFUL FEELING"

More than 2.37 million pilgrims, most of them from abroad, have arrived for the five-day ritual, a religious duty once in a lifetime for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford the journey.

"It is a beautiful feeling," said Egyptian Hazem Darweesk, 31. "The beauty of it is in the difficulty of performing it. It brings you closer to God."

King Salman and his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received well-wishers on Tuesday at a palace gathering attended by royals, clerics, military leaders and distinguished guests, marking the first day of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice.

"Our country's greatest honour is to serve God's guests," the 82-year-old monarch tweeted. "On Eid al-Adha, I ask God to complete the pilgrims' haj and to perpetuate the goodness and peace for our nation and all other countries."

Saudi authorities have urged pilgrims to set aside politics during the haj but violence in the Middle East, including wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya - and other global hotspots - remain on the minds of many.

Some worshippers criticised Arab leaders for failing to block President Donald Trump's decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem after he recognised the city as Israel's capital.

Pilgrimage is also the backbone of a Saudi plan to expand tourism under a drive to diversify the economy away from oil. The haj and year-round umrah generate billions of dollars in revenue from worshippers' lodging, transport, fees and gifts.

The authorities aim to increase the number of umrah and haj pilgrims to 15 million and 5 million respectively by 2020, and hope to double the umrah number again to 30 million by 2030.

Pakistani Fayas Shahid, 30, said he felt relieved after nearing the end of the exacting journey: "May Allah accept my haj and give everybody a chance to everybody to perform haj."

(Additional reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Alison Williams)

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Both North and South Korea have agreed to withdraw guard posts that are closest to each other on a trial basis as part of confidence-building measures following the landmark summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the South's President Moon Jae-in in April.

Seoul: North and South Korea have agreed to close some guard posts along their border on a trial basis, Seoul's defence minister told parliament on Tuesday amid a rapid diplomatic thaw.

The Demilitarized Zone that has divided the peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953 is, despite its name, one of the most fortified places on earth, with the areas on either side of it bristling with minefields and barbed-wire fences.

Song Young-moo said the South would withdraw around 10 guard posts as part of confidence-building measures following the landmark summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the South's President Moon Jae-in in April.

"What it means is that we will first withdraw one or two guard posts and gradually expand it," Song told lawmakers, adding the North would take reciprocal measures.

"The North and South agreed to withdraw guard posts that are closest to each other," he added.

"The closest is about 700 metres away and we will begin withdrawing guard posts that are within one kilometre." A defence ministry official told AFP the issue was still being discussed and declined to clarify whether the posts would be physically removed.

The 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically at war.

The DMZ, designated as a buffer zone, bisects the Korean peninsula and is about four kilometres wide. It includes a Joint Security Area around the truce village of Panmunjom, where negotiations take place.
By Jonathan Drake CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (Reuters) - University of North Carolina police on Tuesday were reviewing video to find the protesters who toppled a statue of Confederate soldier on campus, part of a recent movement to dismantle U.S.

By Jonathan Drake

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (Reuters) - University of North Carolina police on Tuesday were reviewing video to find the protesters who toppled a statue of Confederate soldier on campus, part of a recent movement to dismantle U.S. Civil War symbols that critics say glorify the South's legacy of slavery.

About 300 demonstrators gathered on Monday evening for a protest and march at the base of Silent Sam, a memorial erected in 1913 to soldiers of the pro-slavery Confederacy killed during the Civil War. Protesters pulled the statue down with rope, cheering as it lay face down in the mud, its head and back covered in dirt.

The university system's board chair, Harry Smith, and president, Margaret Spellings, denounced the toppling of the statue in a joint statement.

"The actions last evening were unacceptable, dangerous, and incomprehensible," they said. "We are a nation of laws and mob rule and the intentional destruction of public property will not be tolerated.

Last year UNC students threatened to sue the school, alleging that the university violated federal anti-discrimination laws by allowing the statue to remain on campus.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said in a statement he shared protesters "frustration" over statues but condemned the violent destruction of public property.

Campus police arrested at least one person at the protest for wearing a mask and resisting arrest, according to Audrey Smith, a university spokeswoman.

The efforts by civil rights groups and others to do away with Confederate monuments such as Silent Sam gained momentum three years ago after avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine black people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. The shooting rampage ultimately led to the removal of a Confederate flag from the statehouse in Columbia.

Since then, more than 110 symbols of the Confederacy have been removed across the nation with more than 1,700 still standing, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group. Many of the monuments were erected in the early 20th century, decades after the Civil War's end in 1865.

A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was vandalised and later removed by school officials last year at neighbouring Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Many Americans see such statues as symbols of racism and glorifications of the southern states' defence of slavery. Others view them as important symbols of American history.

The head of the United Daughters of the Confederacy said on Tuesday the group denounced hate groups and asked people to leave Confederate monuments alone.

"We are grieved that certain hate groups have taken the Confederate flag and other symbols as their own," the group's president, Patricia Bryson, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Jonathan Drake; Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Jonathan Allen and Gabriella Borter in New York; Editing by Frances Kerry and Lisa Shumaker)

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(Reuters) - A shooting at London's Kingsbury tube station has left three people injured, the Sun newspaper reported on Monday night.

(Reuters) - A shooting at London's Kingsbury tube station has left three people injured, the Sun newspaper reported on Monday night.

"Police and London Ambulance Service were alerted at around 2145hrs on Monday, 20 August, to reports of shots fired in Kingsbury Road, NW9.", a spokesman of the Metropolitan Police was quoted as saying by the newspaper. http://bit.ly/2MGhMZm

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru)

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(Reuters) - A 45-year-old woman walking her dog in South Carolina died on Monday after being snatched and dragged underwater by an 8-foot (2.44-meter) alligator, the county sheriff's office said. A witness called police to report an alligator was attacking a woman at a lagoon on Hilton Head Island, a popular tourist destination, the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

(Reuters) - A 45-year-old woman walking her dog in South Carolina died on Monday after being snatched and dragged underwater by an 8-foot (2.44-meter) alligator, the county sheriff's office said.

A witness called police to report an alligator was attacking a woman at a lagoon on Hilton Head Island, a popular tourist destination, the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

Police recovered her body and identified the victim as Cassandra Cline of Hilton Head Island. The alligator believed to be responsible for the attack was captured and killed, said Robert McCullough, a captain for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

The dog was not harmed, the authorities said.

Alligators typically roll their victim beneath the water's surface until their prey stops breathing, before stashing the body to eat later.

Alligator attacks are uncommon in the United States, where the majority of animal-related deaths are caused by farm animals, hornets, wasps, bees and dogs, according to a study published in March.

In June, a nearly 13-foot alligator in Florida killed a woman in an attack, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said.

Two years ago, an alligator snatched a 2-year-old boy from the edge of a lake at the Walt Disney World resort in Florida. His parents tried to save the child but were unable to free him.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Lisa Shumaker)

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RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - At least five civilians and one soldier died in shootouts in northern Rio de Janeiro on Monday, the army said, as thousands of Brazilian soldiers swept into slums in pursuit of drug gangs, trapping terrified residents in their homes.

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - At least five civilians and one soldier died in shootouts in northern Rio de Janeiro on Monday, the army said, as thousands of Brazilian soldiers swept into slums in pursuit of drug gangs, trapping terrified residents in their homes.

Separately, at least six suspected gangsters were killed on Monday near a bridge linking Rio and the neighbouring city of Niteroi, police said. Four people died in the shootout with police, while two more died in hospital.

The army said the early-morning raids took place in several of the city's most violent neighbourhoods, which are home to more than half a million people and have been targeted in a divisive six-month federal security operation.

Initially, the army had reported eight people were killed. It later lowered the death toll, and said two soldiers were injured, with one dying from his injuries.

"The operations are ongoing and there could be more deaths," the army said in an email to Reuters.

Many people shut themselves inside their homes for fear of being shot if they went outside, the Globo TV website reported.

The joint army and police operations, which the army said were intended to flush out drug dealers, involved 4,200 soldiers and 70 police, as well as armoured vehicles and aircraft.

The soldier who died on Monday was the first to be killed since the intervention began, the state security ministry said.

Just over six months ago, President Michel Temer announced emergency measures authorizing the army to take command of police forces in Rio de Janeiro state, where warring drug gangs and militias have triggered a sharp rise in violence.

Since the operation began, both murders and the number of people killed in police confrontations have risen, casting doubts on a strategy criticized for relying on military tactics, a lack of transparency and unclear goals.

Nearly 64,000 people were murdered in Brazil in 2017, a record high, and the rise in violence has become a key issue ahead of presidential elections in October. Candidates across the political spectrum are trying to play up their crime-fighting credentials and appeal to an electorate fed up with a weak economy and endemic graft.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and James Dalgleish)

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By Brendan O'Brien and Noah Barkin WASHINGTON/BERLIN (Reuters) - A 95-year old New York City man believed to be a former guard at a labor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland has arrived in Germany after being arrested and deported by U.S. immigration authorities, U.S. officials said on Tuesday

By Brendan O'Brien and Noah Barkin

WASHINGTON/BERLIN (Reuters) - A 95-year old New York City man believed to be a former guard at a labor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland has arrived in Germany after being arrested and deported by U.S. immigration authorities, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

The White House said Jakiw Palij had served as a guard at the Trawniki Labor Camp, where about 6,000 Jewish men, women and children were shot dead on Nov. 3, 1943, in one of the single largest massacres of the Holocaust.

The United States had been trying to get Palij out of the country since the issue of a 2004 deportation order, but after talks with top members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government Germany agreed to take him in.

Palij was taken to a home for the elderly in the western town of Ahlen, some 130 kilometres northeast of Dusseldorf.

Born in what was then Poland but is now Ukraine, Palij emigrated to the United States in 1949, becoming a United States citizen eight years later, the White House said.

But, it added, he had concealed his Nazi service and involvement in human rights abuses, saying he had spent World War Two working on a farm and in a factory.

In 2001, Palij told Department of Justice officials that he had trained at the Nazi SS Training Camp in Trawniki, in German-occupied Poland, in 1943, the White House said.

"By serving as an armed guard ... and preventing the escape of Jewish prisoner during his Nazi service, Palij played an indispensable role in ensuring the Trawniki Jewish victims met their horrific fate at the hands of the Nazis," the White House said.

A federal judge revoked his U.S. citizenship in 2003 and he was ordered to be deported in 2004. But no European country would accept him, CNN and New York magazine reported.

Given his age and questions over his health and also a possible lack of proof, it is unclear whether German authorities will attempt to prosecute the stateless pensioner.

"In Germany, being a member of a criminal organisation like the (Nazi) SS is not enough to be prosecuted. Even being trained at a camp is not sufficient," said Jens Rommel, Germany's top Nazi hunter. "The participation in or facilitation of a murder must be proven."

MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

The U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, said the deportation was the result of a concerted effort by U.S. President Donald Trump.

"He (Trump) told me directly to make it a priority, to get the Nazi out," Grenell told reporters. "I felt very strongly that the German government had a moral obligation and they accepted that," he added, making clear it was up to Germany to decide whether to prosecute him.

Germany has a mixed record on convicting Nazi war criminals. Critics say it let many high-ranking Nazis and SS members escaped justice only for their juniors, small cogs in the Nazi death machine, to be put on trial decades later.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who on Monday visited the Auschwitz camp, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:

"Germany, in whose name the worst injustice was perpetrated under the Nazis, is confronting its moral obligations."

After an international military tribunal put some top Nazi leaders, including Hermann Goering and Rudolf Hess, on trial soon after World War Two in the Nuremburg Trials, little action was taken by the West German judiciary in the 1950s and 1960s.

Between 1945 and 2005, West German courts convicted 6,656 Nazi criminals out of more than 36,000 investigations into more than 170,000 suspects, a study showed in 2008.

Germany's Central Office for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Ludwigsburg is still investigating individuals after the 2011 conviction of Sobibor death camp guard John Demjanjuk gave it a new impetus. It was the first time involvement in a camp was sufficient to be found culpable even without proof of a specific crime.

"There are currently no preliminary proceedings in Germany and there is no arrest warrant," said Rommel, who heads the office. "We therefore have to wait (to see) whether there will be a new evaluation or whether new evidence appears to underpin the suspicion ... In the case of Palij we are unable to prove where, when and which unit he was in after his training."

(Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Richard Balmforth and David Holmes)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
US Secretary of State Micheal Pompeo and Secretary of Defence James Mattis will travel to New Delhi in September for the 2+2 dialogue, after being postponed from earlier this year.

Washington: Describing India as an "all-weather partner", the US has said the upcoming 2+2 dialogue with the country is an important opportunity to enhance engagement on a range of diplomatic and security issues and discuss how to operationalise India's status as a major defence partner.

US Secretary of State Micheal Pompeo and Secretary of Defence James Mattis will travel to New Delhi in September for the 2+2 dialogue, the format of which was agreed upon between the two sides during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Washington in June 2017.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman were to travel to Washington to take part in the meeting with their US counterparts in July. But the US had postponed the dialogue citing "unavoidable reasons." After June 2017, the two countries have tried to schedule the dialogue many times with several dates having been considered.

Earlier this year also, the '2+2 dialogue' had been postponed due to uncertainty over the confirmation of Pompeo as President Donald Trump's new Secretary of State. "With India, we are looking forward to the inaugural 2+2 dialogue with Secretaries Pompeo and Mattis travelling for these meetings in New Delhi on 6 September," Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Alice Wells told reporters on Sunday. "It is an important opportunity to discuss and enhance our engagement on a range of diplomatic and security priorities and really is an indication of the deepening strategic partnership that we enjoy with India," she said.

Wells was addressing a Foreign Press Centre video conference from Washington on "US Policy in the Indian Ocean Region" during which she previewed her upcoming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference hosted by the India Foundation in Hanoi on 27 and 28 August. She said India plays a central role in US national security adding that it is "enshrined in the President's national security strategy as well as the administration's South Asia and Indo-Pacific region strategies." She said at the upcoming 2+2 ministerial, the US is looking to discuss "how do we operationalise India's status as a major defence partner."

India was designated a major defence partner by the US in 2016. Defence cooperation between India and the US has grown from "essentially zero dollars" in 2008 to $18 billion today.

The US does more military exercises with India than with any other country in the world "but how do we take this partnership to a new level so that it is not just going to be defense acquisitions but really a way of framing how we see challenges and how we want to be able to respond together to address these challenges." Highlighting that the India-US partnership is rooted in shared democratic values and commitment to rules-based order, Wells said the two nations are going to be able to demonstrate at the 2+2 dialogue the facts of this maturing partnership.

On a question about trade relations with India, Wells said opening up trade with India is a "key strategic objective" for the Trump administration. Bilateral trade currently stands at about $126 billion, an increase of more than $10 billion from 2017 and there have been critical purchases by Indian firms in the commercial aviation, energy as well as the defence sectors. She, however, added that impediments do remain between the two countries on trade. "Tariff and non-tariff barriers have been a subject of longstanding concern and intellectual property rights as well. So we are continuing a very intensive dialogue with the Indian government on how do we address these irritants and unlock the trade that is of great interest to US firms when they look at the Indian market and its potential," she said.

Wells added that looking outside of India, Washington wants to work together with New Delhi and identify projects whether they be in Sri Lanka or Nepal. "One of the great new elements of our relationship with India is that we are working in third countries," she said as she cited the example of the assistance and developmental level work with India in Africa on health-related issues and peacekeeping training. She said India and the US worked together in programmes that involved bringing Afghans to India for cost-effective training. "India really is an all-weather partner as we look ahead to how to ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains free and open."

During the press briefing, Wells previewed her upcoming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference and how it supports the Trump administration's Indo-Pacific strategy.

The annual conference, hosted by the India Foundation along with its partners from Singapore, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, will focus on the theme of 'Building Regional Architectures'.
US president Donald Trump sharply accused congressional Democrats of allowing open borders and crime to fester, using a White House event on Monday to stoke a fall campaign fight over immigration and the U.S. southern border.

Washington: US president Donald Trump sharply accused congressional Democrats of allowing open borders and crime to fester, using a White House event on Monday to stoke a fall campaign fight over immigration and the U.S. southern border.

Predicting that Republicans would do "very well in the midterms," Trump said at an event paying tribute to federal immigration officials that immigration would be a potent issue separating the two parties in the November elections.

"I think we're going to have much more of a red wave than what you're going to see as a phony blue wave," Trump said in the East Room. "Blue wave means crime, it means open borders. Not good."

The president honored employees of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, bringing agents to the podium to note their achievements in addressing unlawful border crossings and stemming the flow of illicit drugs.

During the event, he referred to the CBP as the "CBC," an abbreviation for the Congressional Black Caucus, a group that has been critical of his presidency. He also congratulated the work of border agent Adrian Anzaldua on a smuggling bust in Laredo, Texas, inviting him to make some impromptu remarks. Trump said, "You're not nervous  speaks perfect English."

The federal agencies overseeing the border and the nation's immigration system have been thrust into a political debate over the Trump administration's separation of migrant children from their parents after they illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump's hard-line rhetoric underscored the White House's interest in making immigration a defining issue in the fall elections as Democrats seek to capture the 23 seats they need to retake the majority in the House and overcome the Republicans' narrow majority in the Senate.

Trump said "step by step" he was building his signature border wall  a staple of his 2016 campaign  but expressed unhappiness with congressional Democrats who have opposed his plan. The president complained of "a coalition of open borders extremists and to me that means crime, people that don't mind crime. They mind it when it happens to them, they don't mind it when they have to watch it on television."

Trump has assailed some Democratic lawmakers for seeking to abolish ICE. In a letter to state and local leaders before the event, Trump wrote that ICE workers had been subjected to a "nationwide campaign of smears, insults and attacks" by politicians "catering to the extreme elements in our society."

While some Democrats in the House and Senate have raised the prospect of eliminating ICE, no top Democrats in the House or Senate have called for such a move. Democrats have blasted Trump's immigration policies along the border, saying they wrongly separate families.

"More than 500 children remain separated from their families as a result of Trump's anti-immigrant agenda. Instead of addressing this humanitarian crisis that he himself created, Trump continues to ignore the lives he has destroyed and communities he has upended," said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Adrienne Watson.

Trump has made border security a key part of his message as he tries to maintain Republican control of Congress. The president has told aides privately that he doesn't plan to pursue a government shutdown before the midterm elections in order to secure more money for his promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

But he tweeted during the summer that he doesn't care about "political ramifications," pointing to a government shutdown as a "very small price to pay for a safe and Prosperous America!"

Before the president arrived Monday, the White House held a panel discussion on immigration with several state and local officials, who pointed to the role that a secure border plays in the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking and questioned calls to abolish ICE.

Republican Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, who has worked closely with the administration on immigration legislation, said he struggled to see the point of eliminating the federal agency, likening it to someone saying, "I want to get rid of the Marines."

"I just think it's unconscionable, and frankly, I think it's downright unpatriotic and treasonous," Perdue said.
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Alice Wells welcomed Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan's remarks on the importance of having peace on both sides of the country's borders but also expressed concern over terrorist groups continuing to enjoy safe haven in the nation.

Washington: The US has expressed concern over terrorist groups continuing to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan and is asking the country to do more against "externally oriented" extremist outfits, a top official in the Trump administration said.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Alice Wells at the same time welcomed Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's remarks on the importance of having peace on both sides of the country's borders.

"Pakistan has an important role to play in furthering stability in Afghanistan. We have expressed our concern over the fact that terrorist proxy groups continue to be able to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan. We are urging the government to do more to bring pressure to bear against these organisations, externally oriented terrorists groups," Wells told reporters yesterday.

She was asked whether the US has seen any progress in its demand that Pakistan take action against terror groups like the Haqqani network and Taliban.

Wells was addressing a Foreign Press Centre video conference from Washington on 'US Policy in the Indian Ocean Region' during which she previewed her upcoming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference hosted by the India Foundation in Hanoi on August 27-28.

Wells said the US looks forward to working with the new government of Pakistan and "we welcome the words of Prime Minister Imran Khan when he discussed the importance of having peace on both sides of Pakistan's borders."

Responding to questions on Afghanistan and the security situation in the region, she said Pakistan "obviously" has a critical role to play in the stabilization of Afghanistan. "We have encouraged Pakistan to take stronger steps to ensure that the Taliban either come to the negotiating table or expelled back into Afghanistan rather than enjoy safe haven outside of the country."

She noted that Pakistan and Afghanistan have embarked over the last several months on an effort to improve the bilateral relationship with the negotiation of a solidarity document which the US strongly supports. "At a time when President Ashraf Ghani has been so forward leaning in putting forward a peace proposal that the international community has rallied around, at a time when the Afghan people are calling for peacethis is the time for all parties to come to the negotiating table and we very much look to Pakistan to reinforce that message, she said.

On a question on President Donald Trump's South Asia Strategy announced last year encompassing Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, the Central Asian nations and extending into Southeast Asia, Wells said the South Asia strategy "obviously pointed to the role that India can and should play in supporting the stabilisation of Afghanistan. I think that was one of the key new features of the strategy, tapping what has been India's three billion dollar commitment to date upto 2020 in support of Afghanistan's economic development."

Wells said Afghanistan needs to be "stitched back into the region" and that includes both north-south trade as well as east-west trade."We welcome the fact that India has stepped up and has evinced this new commitment and enjoys a strategic relationship with Afghanistan that does not have to come at the expense of any other country in the region."

During the press briefing, Wells previewed her upcoming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference and how it supports the Trump administration's Indo-Pacific strategy. The annual conference, hosted by the India Foundation along with its partners from Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, will focus on the theme of 'Building Regional Architectures'.
by Wang Zhicheng

Today the signing of diplomatic relations between Beijing and the Central American country. To date, 17 States recognize Taiwan, including the Vatican. Salvadoran President: the turning point towards China will bring "great benefits". The "check-book diplomacy".

Beijing (AsiaNews) - El Salvador has cut diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favor of those with Beijing. Today in the Chinese capital, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Salvadoran counterpart Carlos Castaneda have signed the related documents (see photo), in which El Salvador commits to recognize "the only China", the continental one, considering Taiwan "a rebel island".

In a televised speech the Salvadoran president Salvador Sanchez, explained the reasons for the change. "China - he said - is the second largest economy in the world, with permanent growth and its results in various fields place it among the most successful countries".

El Salvador had established relations with the Republic of China in 1933, whose government fled to Taiwan after Mao Zedong took power in 1949. According to Sanchez, the turnaround towards popular China will bring "great benefits" and "extraordinary opportunities". Moreover, this choice "corresponds to international laws" and "to the trends of our time".

El Salvador is the fifth state to end relations with Taiwan to choose China, since Tsai Ing-wen won the presidential election on the island in 2016. Beijing fears that the Tsai party works for Taiwan's independence and seeks to weaken its diplomatic strength.

At present, only 17 states recognize Taiwan. In Europe there is only the Vatican. Several of these states in Central America and the Pacific are poor and tied to the economic aid that Taipei offers them; But Beijing convincing game to win them over, "check-book diplomacy".
Singapore based X-Mini is known for their range of small sized Bluetooth speakers that somehow manage to sound way louder than their size would convey. When the company reached out to us to check out the X-Mini Nano X, we were obviously very excited. Follow along for our review.

As the name suggests, the Nano X is a nano sized speaker that can fit into the skinniest of jeans. Designed as a speaker that you can literally hang from a keyring, it is a diminutive piece of kit. Theres really not much to it other than the speaker.

In fact the entire unit is so tiny that theres no space for buttons or volume rockers. The only button youll see is placed on the underside of the speaker. This doubles up as a power on/off and pairing mode toggle. Around at the back is a microUSB port for charging the speaker and thats about it. The entire speaker can fit in your palm.

How does it sound though? Color us surprised but this thing gets shockingly loud. Nah, its not going to replace a high end wireless speaker or anywhere close to it. The XMini Nano does however get loud enough to fill a small room. The sound quality is unsurprisingly mids focussed. Theres little to no bass here. In fact bass heavy tracks end up making the poor little thing rattle around a table.

The Nano is especially well mated with content like podcasts which sound loud and clear. As long as youre not too particular about sound quality, the X-Mini Nano will serve well as a speaker that you can simply stuff in a pocket and carry around. Theres a microphone onboard so you can use it for calls too. We tried making a few calls and were told that our voice sounded a bit distant so it is perhaps not the best option as a speakerphone. Were also quite surprised by how X-Mini managed to eke out 6 hours of battery life from the nano. We regularly got between 4.5 to 5 hours of use out of the speaker with the volume set to high.

Look, the X-Mini Nano is a fun little toy that works surprisingly well. If you want a high end speaker, this obviously isnt it. What it is though is an ultra portable speaker that can be stuffed in a pocket or hung from a keyring. Itll serve in a pinch when you want something louder than your phone or want to listen to podcasts and audiobooks out loud. Priced at a very affordable Rs. 1399, were half tempted to get a bunch of them and stuff them in all our travel bags. You just cant go wrong with it.
Dell ahead of the Gamescom has announced the Alienware laptops and desktops, as well as a software for a refreshed Alienware Command Center. The Alienware line-up includes Alienware 15 R4 and Alienware 17 R5 laptops. These are the refreshed models to the variants launched in April.

As for the Alienware laptops, nothing has major has changed, except for the TactX keyboard now support per-key RGB lighting for up to 80 quadrillion color combinations. it also includes an option to choose AMD Radeon RX 570 graphics card with 8GB of GDDR5 video RAM (VRAM).

The Alienware laptops are powered by upto 8th Gen Intel Core i9 k-Series processors, and also feature an improved thermal solution and a thin, hinge-forward design to extract the maximum performance from top-of-the-line components. It also has support for desktop graphics cards from NVIDIA or AMD with the optional Alienware Graphics Amplifier. An optional 120Hz TN+WVA 400-nits display designed for NVIDIA G-Sync experiences.

All the models will feature e2500 Gigabit Ethernet and Killer 1550 Networks 802.11ac 22 Wireless with Bluetooth 5.0 technology. It includes 3 USB 3.0 ports, One Thunderbolt 3 Port (USB Type-C with support for SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps, 40Gbps Thunderbolt, and DisplayPort). Next up is the Alienware Aurora and Area 51 refreshments; Dell says that the Alienware Aurora will be available with the just-announced NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070, 2080 and 2080 Ti GPUs.

The new Aurora is ideal for VR, 4K gaming and even up to 12K gaming, thanks to the highest-end graphics options. The Alienware Area-51 will also be available with just announced NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070, 2080 and 2080 Ti GPUs. It is capable of VR, 4k or 8k games and streaming. The new Area-51 is powered by up to 18-core Intel processors. The Dell said the Alienware Command Center that was first announced at CES 2018 is now available with third-party support. It is included for free with all Alienware peripherals and can be used on any PC system. The company says that it can be used on any PC system, no matter the brand.

Dell has also announced the Alienware Academy, a free e-sports training platform. It has course curriculums for popular e-sports titles, including CS: GO, and also includes tips and lessons from pro gamers from Team Liquid. It features eye-tracking enabled tools that are meant to deliver insights while playing.

Lastly, Dell has also announced the all-new Dell Gaming Monitors; 24-inch FHD with 120Hz native refresh rate, overclockable up to 144Hz and 27-inch QHD resolution monitor with 60Hz native refresh rate, overclockable up to 155Hz. Both the models have a response time of 1ms, up to 170-degree viewing angles, and use an LED edgelight system.

Pricing and availability:
Bennigan's Continues Growth in Small-Town America with New North Dakota Restaurant

Brand's owner and hometown friends collaborate to bring iconic chain to Mandan Aug. 20

August 21, 2018 // Franchising.com // MANDAN, N.D. - Bennigan's is known for the emotional connection people worldwide have to the iconic, 42-year-old brand, and that bond will be reinforced yet again when its newest restaurant opens in Mandan, N.D., on Aug. 20.

Bennigan's Co-Owner Gwen Mangiamele and local entrepreneurs Monte Stein and Rob Knoll have been friends since childhood. Monte and Rob recently approached Gwen with their goal to bring Bennigan's - a national casual-dining brand they've loved for years - to Mandan, a town of roughly 22,000 people.

"Rob and I are passionate about Mandan and we're advocates for bringing economic development to our community," Stein said. "We felt the timing was right for a world-renowned restaurant brand like Bennigan's to come here. Our Bennigan's is going to set a new standard in North Dakota for Legendary service and warm, friendly hospitality."

The new restaurant, located at 1506 27th St. NW, will celebrate its grand opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony beginning at 11 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 20. Mandan Mayor Tim Helbling, who attended high school with Stein, Knoll and Mangiamele, will join the festivities in welcoming the town's first casual-dining restaurant.

"Bennigan's has been very successful in the smaller markets that so many other brands ignore, and we agreed that Mandan is a perfect fit for our development strategy," Mangiamele said. "Couple that with Rob's and Monte's capabilities as franchisees, and we felt like we had an ideal model for success."

The new Mandan Bennigan's will offer more than a dozen ice cold beers on tap, a wide assortment of handcrafted specialty drinks, multiple HD TVs and plenty of banquet space. The chef-driven menu features signature, made-from-scratch Bennigan's favorites like the World Famous Monte Cristo, Oh, Baby Back Ribs, the Turkey O'Toole, Lina's Crispy Chicken Sandwich, true half-pound Prime Burgers and the decadent Death by Chocolate. In addition, three authentic Steak & Ale Classics - the Original Kensington Club, Hawaiian Chicken and Smothered Chicken - will be showcased.

The restaurant will also feature a booth dedicated to Mangiamele's parents and long-time Mandan residents, Lillian and Leonard Bachmeier.

As it redefines the casual dining segment, Legendary Restaurant Brands LLC continues to experience significant unit growth both domestically and internationally while achieving solid revenue growth over the last several years.

Since the end of 2012, the company has opened new franchise locations in Clarksburg and Frederick, Md.; Sacramento, Calif.; Melbourne, Fla.; Monahans, Texas; Lexington, Ky.; Veracruz, Mexico; Larnaca, Cyprus; Obarrio, Panama; Doha, Qatar; and Dubai, UAE.

New restaurants are coming soon to Steubenville, Ohio, and Memphis, Tenn.; and internationally in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Amsterdam and Pakistan, with more than 100 additional locations in development.

Mandan's first Bennigan's will be open Sunday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 12 a.m. For more information, visit Bennigans.com.

You're with friends at Bennigan's. The American Legend!

About Legendary Restaurant Brands

Legendary Restaurant Brands owns the iconic Bennigan's and Steak and Ale brands - the pioneers of casual dining - as well as the non-traditional brand, Bennigan's On The Fly. Bennigan's is a high-energy neighborhood restaurant and tavern that is redefining and leading casual dining again. With chef-driven food, innovative drinks and warm, friendly Irish hospitality, this Legendary brand delivers memorable dining experiences to every guest and offers a franchise model capable of compelling returns on investment. Steak and Ale is another American Original poised for a triumphant return. Redefined as a 21st Century polished-casual concept, the new Steak and Ale will once again set the standard for affordable, family-friendly steakhouses.

For franchising information, visit Bennigans.com or call 855-GOT-BENN.

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by Shafique Khokhar

The victim, Vicky Masih, worked as a courier at the Lahore High Court. He leaves his wife and three young children. His brother: "The police are conniving with the murderers, members of rich criminal families".

Lahore (AsiaNews) - A young 35-year-old Christian was killed in Lahore by some acquaintances on the day of his wedding anniversary. His name was Vicky Masih and he was the son of Saleem Masih. Together with his wife and three children (the oldest only six) he lived in Marzi Pura and attended the Galeeli Church in Lahore. For 10 years he worked as a courier at the high court of the city.

Speaking to AsiaNews Iftikhar Saleem, the victim's younger brother, declares: "The future of his children is forever ruined by these inhuman culprits. We will never forgive them ". The family blames the police for delayed investigation. The killers were Muslims.

The murder took place on August 16th. According to testimony, Vicky was celebrating his wedding anniversary when he received a phone call from some friends who invited him to one of their homes to give him a present. After the festivities ended, he joined them in an apartment not far from his home.

The family told the police that while he was in the company of the same friends, Vicky asked them to return a sum of money he had lent to them, but received a refusal in return. The claim for compensation triggered a discussion that soon degenerated into a violent clash. During the quarrel Muhammad Abbas, one of those present, opened fire. With his stomach pierced by bullets, Vicky begged for mercy, but the group continued to beat him ignoring his cries of pain. Eventually the Christian was abandoned agonizing on the street and the guilty parties fled.

Some residents took the young father to the hospital, where he was declared dead. Police handed the body to doctors for post-mortem investigations. They then registered the case against Muhammad Abbas, Muhammad Fahad, Muhammad Ilya and two other unknown men who fled.

The victim's family and neighborhood residents complain that the officers initiated the investigation and arrested the three killers only after public protest. In fact, to draw attention to the murder and ask for justice, the relatives blocked Ravi Road for three hours in Lahore, showing everyone the battered body of Vicky.

According to the victim's brother, "the police are conniving with the perpetrators, who are part of rich criminal families. It does not work with us because those families are very influential in the area ". "We want justice - he declares -. We are poor and we do not have the strength to fight these thugs. We call upon all the people of God to help us and pray for the wife of Vicky and her three little children: now they are the most vulnerable and defenseless ".
by Agung

The community finds strength and inspiration in the teachings of the Church and the recent visit of Pope Francis to the country has given new impetus to the work of evangelisation. Religious persecution follows Kachins in Yangon. Fighting "has destroyed the hopes and dreams of young people in the northern state of Shan.

Yangon (AsiaNews)  Myanmar Catholics face many challenges on a daily basis, including religious persecution, ethnic conflicts and economic hardships.

In a country where 89.2 per cent of the people are Buddhist, Christians have always been a minority. After huge efforts and many martyrs among the missionaries, Catholics currently number only 675,745, just over 1 per cent of the population.

Yet, the community finds strength and inspiration in the teachings of the Church and Pope Franciss recent visit has given its members a new impetus to spread the Word.

Margaret Hla Yin knows this all too well. Despite her familys poverty, she is involved in the charitable works of the Legion of Mary in Yangon.

"I live here with my daughter, the elderly lady told AsiaNews. In the past, one salary was enough to live on. But now three or four are needed.

My daughter works at a hotel reception. Every day I wait for her to come home. Loneliness is a constant part of the life of seniors like myself. However, on weekends I go with volunteers into the citys slums. Thus, I learn to cope with it.

Margaret is an ethnic Kachin, from the homonymous state in northern Myanmar, which is currently embroiled in heavy fighting between the government troops and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). Most ethnic Kachins are Christian.

Even far away, in Yangon, religious persecution takes place. "Even here, Kachin Catholics are starting to be subjected to religious restrictions.

Once, when we celebrated Mass, there were few government limits. But this year, local authorities began requiring us to apply for permission every month. Some Buddhist groups even use loudspeakers day and night to disrupt our meetings."

Myu San, a 26-year-old artist from Bhamo, also left Kachin State and her family to try his luck in Yangon. "I earn a living with the Catholic icons I produce, he said. In Myanmar, job opportunities are few and for young people it is hard to get a decent salary.

"The country's economy is in crisis due to the trade war and many businesses are closing down. Despite this, I find inspiration in my work and a reason to go forward."

Fighting "has destroyed the hopes and dreams of young people in the northern state of Shan, said Hkawn Mai, 30, from Muse, a city on the border between Myanmar and China.

"The civil war between local rebels and the military makes daily life more difficult, he explained.

My parish houses hundreds of refugees. For more than five years, Caritas Myanmar and the Christian community have been offering support and room to displaced people.

Peace is crucial for the development of the country. Even if it seems so far away, we continue to hope and pray for it.
The climate of detente between the two Koreas continues. The head of the South Korean Red Cross will go to the North: to cooperate on humanitarian issues. Positive signals also from Washington: Trump says he could meet again with Kim Jong-un.

Seoul (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Making "regular" meetings between families separated by the Korean War (1950-53), to overcome the humanitarian difficulties created by decades of separation. This is the goal of Seoul, reported today by the Ministry of Unification. Since yesterday, 89 members of separated families from the South are meeting with their relatives from the North on Mount Kumgang. Between August 24 and 26, 83 North Koreans will meet with their Southern relatives.

The new family reunifications are part of the positive signs of rapprochement between the two Koreas, many of which were agreed in April in the Panmunjom Declaration. The two countries have re-established military contacts, are working to open a joint office in Kaesong (North Korea, near the border with the South), have undertaken cooperation initiatives for infrastructure, and are aiming for a new summit, next month. Furthermore, in September, the head of the South Korean Red Cross will visit the North to discuss inter-Korean cooperation on humanitarian issues.

Even US President Donald Trump announced yesterday that he could soon meet again with Kim Jong-un.
Latest food recalls show need for better importing rules





Peter McRae is an importing and exporting industry specialist working with Platinum Freight Management. Hes written this opinion piece for Australian Food News in response to recent listeria threats in Australian supermarkets. He explains food importing rules and where they could be improved to work better in the global marketplace of the future.

THIS month Australian supermarkets recalled several brands of frozen vegetables imported from Europe due to a risk that they may contain the Listeria bacteria. The same products were linked to nine deaths in Europe. Then again this month fish portions from China were recalled due to metal contamination.

The time has come to think more carefully about food standards and how to keep Australians safe in a global market.

Food recall stories challenge what we know about food importing, what Food Safety Standards are and how they are policed.

Also in Australian Food News

How do we know that the food we buy is safe to consume?

Too often we simply trust that because its for sale it must be safe to consume. But in Europe this month, nine peoples similar trust in food safety left them dead. Would it take the same situation to happen in Australia before our own importing standards are reviewed?

We live in a global economy. Much of the food we buy now (and even more so in the future) will neither be grown nor packaged locally.

Therefore much of what we will buy wont necessarily be grown or packaged under the strict safety standards that Australian farmers and manufacturers must meet.

How many consumers know that food we buy from international sources is not necessarily tested to meet Australian food standards before it gets to the supermarket shelves? Common sense would assume the opposite. Unfortunately this is not the case.

The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR) is the initial gatekeeper that releases frozen food into the Australian market. They set the rules for how food is imported and apply the relevant quarantine requirements to ensure it doesnt being in any nasty extras. DAWR states that it is the importers responsibility to meet Australian New Zealand Standards Code for frozen vegetables.

Listeria testing on frozen vegetables outbreak  we can assist with that!https://t.co/uu6XhBBrjV pic.twitter.com/vtGu2ECxXv  Agrifood Technology (@Agrifood1) August 15, 2018

Who checks?

My question is: Who is watching whether the importer does comply with standards? Who checks if the importer is testing its food?

The importer of the frozen vegetables that were found at risk of contamination this month could have done one of three things prior to distribution, but none of these options would be checked by DAWR as a matter of course. The importer could have:

Requested the European manufacturer to supply laboratory tests and analysis for each batch to be imported Air-freighted samples from each batch (in temperature controlled packaging) to Australia for testing before the full container load was sent 50 days later by sea freight Tested each batch in Australia before it was distributed to supermarkets.

No testing results are required to be submitted to DAWR prior to releasing frozen food to Australian distributors. All DAWR asks of each shipment imported is:

Have the frozen vegetables been frozen for at least seven days at -18C Do the goods contain any animal material including egg or dairy?

If the first answer is yes and the second answer is no, the goods are permitted into Australia.

From there the goods are distributed to the supermarkets and supermarket staff unpack it onto shelves.

Two major problems with the system

I see two major problems with this system, and therefore two opportunities for improvement to meet the needs of a global marketplace:

The first problem of course is policing food standards. It makes sense that standards need to be upheld and that the only way to ensure this is by checking that this is happening. Asking manufacturers or importers to prove that the food they import meets local standards should be a requirement, not a suggestion. DAWR should ask for a good deal more information and testing results before permitting food into the Australian marketplace. This is not a case for self-regulation by corporations. It should be case for safe regulation by authorities.

The second problem I see is that rather than tightening the rules around food importing, Australia is in the process of loosening them. Australia is currently working on forming a Free Trade Agreement with the EU that will make the importing process even easier than it currently is. The trouble with this is illustrated by the current listeria case.

The company responsible for the listeria contaminated foods in Europe is actually from Europe. It has had the same strain of listeria identified in frozen foods in Europe for three years in a row now and yet it continues to supply food. A Free Trade Agreement with Europe will mean that the (somewhat insufficient) standards that permit this company to continually supply contaminated foods in Europe will be considered acceptable for Australia too.

A global market place with Free Trade Agreements and standards which are not in line with our own domestic standards creates gaps. The only people who can close or eliminate those gaps are the gatekeepers and the importers.

Popular brands of frozen vegetables are being recalled across the country, over fears of potential contamination by the deadly listeria bacteria. @CGreenbank9 #9News pic.twitter.com/EoAxIofaSl  Nine News Australia (@9NewsAUS) July 10, 2018

Big penalties for importers

These are both fine arguments for buying locally. But more so, they are arguments that Australian Standards need to be more valuable than the paper on which they are written. When referring to food that has been produced and packaged outside of Australia, Standards need to be stringently applied and tested.

There need to be big penalties for importers who dont meet requirements. DAWR needs to take responsibility.

Australia New Zealand Food Standards also need to be aware of the gaps and work with DAWR to close the same gaps before the goods are released into the marketplace. As the global market strengthens, so too must local the rules that protect Australians

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Peter McRae is the CEO of Platinum Freight Management, an importing and exporting specialist who helps businesses import products into Australia.

Notes:

Current food recalls in Australia are available to view here:

http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/foodrecalls/recalls/Pages/default.aspx

Current food recalls in New Zealand are available to view here:

http://mpi.govt.nz/food-safety/food-recalls/recalled-food-products/

Frozen vegetables

http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/foodrecalls/recalls/Pages/Black-and-Gold-Frozen-Mixed-Vegetables-1kg.aspx

Fish portions

http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/foodrecalls/recalls/Pages/Black-and-Gold-Fish-Portions.aspx
By Melissa de Zwart, Professor, Adelaide Law School, University of Adelaide

This is an article from Ive Always Wondered, a series where readers send in questions theyd like an expert to answer. Send your question to alwayswondered@theconversation.edu.au

I have always wondered, in a distant future when humanity is able to settle permanently on a distant body (such as planet, moon or rocky body), are there any current legal frameworks that could be applied as a precedent for such individuals to take ownership of that body and its resources?  Daniel, Croydon, Australia

Despite regular excited talk, human settlement of another planet, the Moon or an asteroid may still be many years away. Physicist Andrew Coates sees major challenges in Elon Musks public plans to colonise Mars.

But mining of space resources is a realistic possibility  and several nations are already investing in extraction operations in space.

We currently have five space law treaties which cover many key issues about the use, exploitation and protection of space. These treaties deal with ensuring that no nation claims sovereignty over a celestial body.

However they do not provide any clear guidelines for extracting resources in the absence of that sovereignty  that is, extracting resources from an asteroid or body that is not owned.





Read more:

Sorry Elon Musk, but it's now clear that colonising Mars is unlikely  and a bad idea





The moon flag was symbolic

Humanity first walked on the Moon in 1969.

The historic landing of Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrongs first moon walk are remembered for Armstrongs deliberate choice of words  thats one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind  as well as the symbolic planting of an American flag on the surface of the Moon.

The choice of flags for this occasion was carefully planned. The relevant NASA appropriations bill provided that the planting of the flag was intended as a symbolic gesture of national pride in achievement and not to be construed as a declaration of national appropriation by claim of sovereignty.

In total, twelve men have walked on the Moon, all of them American and the last of these was as long ago as 1972. None of these acts have been interpreted as an act of settlement or claim of US sovereignty.









Since this time, the popularity of space exploration has waxed and waned, due to the prohibitive cost of space programs.

However, recent developments in space flight have drastically cut the cost of space vehicles. This has resulted in a renewed interest in exploring more permanent settlements on Mars or other celestial bodies.





Read more:

Five reasons India, China and other nations plan to travel to the Moon





Space law treaties

Lets look at the five existing space law treaties that would apply if humanity were to establish a base on Mars or the Moon.

The first of these, the Outer Space Treaty (1967) provides that:

Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

This fundamental principle of non-appropriation prevents any nation from claiming sovereignty over the Moon or any other celestial body.

The other space treaties deal with:









NASA





These treaties (like the Antarctic Treaty with respect to the management and use of Antarctica) represent the international law that applies to outer space.

The Moon Agreement provides the most extensive protection of the Moon environment, and includes specific rules relating to potential activities on the Moon and other celestial bodies.

However, Australia is one of the very few countries which has acceded to the treaty  only 18 parties have acceded to or ratified this treaty (compared to the Outer Space Treaty, which has 107 members).

The Moon Agreement is therefore not considered to reflect customary international law  this means that its terms are not considered to reflect existing rules and norms of international space law. China, the United States and Russia are not members of this treaty, and neither are United Arab Emirates and Luxembourg (countries that do have clear space mining interests).

Taking resources without ownership

Despite the fact that nations may not claim sovereignty over a celestial body, the international treaties leave open the scope for states and private firms to use and mine celestial bodies without asserting ownership of the entire asteroid or planet.

In other words, you can extract and own resources without asserting sovereignty over the entire planet.

At the moment, in the absence of any clear laws regulating resource extraction, it is a case of first in, best dressed.

Corporations are now preparing operations to explore and utilise space resources, such as platinum, helium-3 (a potential fuel source) and water.

Various states, including the United States, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates have begun authorising resource exploration and extraction operations and conveying rights under their respective laws to their nationals with respect to the ownership of those natural resources.





Read more:

A sports car and a glitter ball are now in space  what does that say about us as humans?





Some states have argued that the Outer Space Treaty requires benefit-sharing of the materials extracted from space mining, as detailed by the Moon Agreement. However, even that agreement foreshadows the development of a further international regime to govern the exploitation of natural resources of the Moon, but such a regime has never been agreed on.

So while there is no ability for states to claim sovereignty over space, there is still scope for exploitation of its resources.

Melissa de Zwart is a member of the Advisory Council of the Space Industry Association of Australia.

Originally published in The Conversation.
The Western policy of sanctions against Russia has proven costly and ineffective

The EU and U.S. lost the political confrontation with the Kremlin by their feeble response to Russian aggression in 2014

Economic sanctions can be justified in trade conflicts

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Germany to have a chat with Chancellor Angela Merkel recently. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, no specific agreements were reached. The leaders purpose was to check their watches following a previous get-together in Sochi last May. The subjects raised during the latest meeting reportedly included the Ukraine conflict and the Minsk process, the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea, and the situation in Syria and Iran.



In her opening statement, the chancellor invoked the two countries responsibility for world affairs  particularly Russias, as it is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Mrs. Merkel also has made clear that the sanctions imposed on Russia will remain in place as long as the Minsk agreements, the internationally negotiated road map for resolving the conflict in Ukraine, are not adhered to by Russia and Ukraine is not permitted to reclaim full sovereignty over its territory.

Since 2014, the European Union and the United States have maintained economic sanctions against Russia. They were imposed in response to its annexation of Crimea and involvement in the ongoing war in east Ukraine.

Why Russia prevailed

Two geopolitical dogmas have clashed here. They are Ukraines right to determine its international associations (in this case, to join the EUs Eastern Partnership), and Russias doctrine of protecting its national interests, and, especially, fending off foreign intrusion into its internal affairs by not allowing other powers (in this case, the EU and the U.S.) to establish a presence too close to its borders. In this particular case, their alarm was exacerbated by the fact that its main Black Sea naval base is in Crimea.

After four years of sanctions, the U.S. and the EU have not reached any of their goals in Ukraine. Russia, meanwhile, has consolidated its position in the region. The annexation of Crimea has become a fait accompli, contested only on paper, and Ukraine remains in limbo.

Moreover, the sanctions have lost much of their bite as Russias economy adapts to restrictions. Contrary to the expectations of many in the West, the country has managed to ramp up the domestic production of not only sanctioned goods but also find new suppliers of other goods.

The confrontation over Ukraine was lost by the West right at the start, in 2014, after Crimea was taken over by Russian forces. The West offered strong verbal support to Kiev, but then-U.S. President Barack Obama was quick to exclude any military action by his country (which de facto meant excluding any action by NATO) and weakened U.S. support for some economic measures. Furthermore, Mr. Obama belittled the conflict by describing Russia as merely a regional power  which has proven counterproductive by insulting the Kremlin.

Using the economy as a political weapon is always detrimental

The response from the rest of Europe could only be described as feeble, consisting of verbal reassurances and conditional financial help.

As a result, the illegitimate seizure of Crimea by Russia succeeded.

Military aggression can only be stopped by a military deterrent  which these days includes cyberwarfare. In addition, proactive political steps would have worked better than the sanctions. An explicit declaration in 2014 by European countries, notably Germany, that they would increase their military budgets, combined with more active measures together with Washington, would have served the purpose better. Paradoxically, higher defense spending might have cost Europe less than sanctions in the end, since the latter do damage to both sides.

Experience clearly shows that government involvement in the economy does more harm than good. Additionally using the economy as a political weapon is always detrimental.

An exception to this rule is retaliation for unfair trade practices, as evident in the latest so-called trade war between the U.S. and China. Such conflicts, however, reflect purely economic competition and their implications are limited to trade.
Dell introduces new gaming monitors with a refresh rate of up to 155Hz News oi-Sandeep Sarkar The monitors are covered under Dell Premium Panel Exchange guarantee.

Gamescom 2018 convention is being held in Berlin, Germany this year. During the event, Dell has made a myriad of announcements for the users. The company has introduced its new 'G' series of gaming monitors along with an Alienware Command Centre freebie with all Alienware peripherals. The company has also announced its two new gaming monitors in the ongoing event. The gaming monitors introduced by Dell will be available in 24-inch version and a larger 27-inch variant.

According to some reports from Beebom, Dell's 24-inch gaming monitor comes with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and has a refresh rate of 144Hz and a response time of 1ms. This implies that the gaming monitor will have minimum input lag and provide tear-free graphics along with super smooth frame transition rate and an overall enhanced gameplay experience.

On the other hand, the bigger version of the gaming display which is the 27-inch variant has a screen resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. The 27-inch variant offers a higher refresh rate of 155Hz and a same response time of 1ms. Both the variants of the gaming monitors come with a support for AMD FreeSync technology. The AMD FreeSync technology allows the users to create up to three display profiles and also let the users decide to select the visual mode best suited for their needs and provide them a personalized gaming experience.

Both the gaming monitors feature the Recon-Blue metallic paint design. The monitors are covered under Dell Premium Panel Exchange guarantee. Under the Dell Premium Exchange guarantee users can get a free panel displacement even if they spot a single bright pixel on the display. Notably, the device needs to be in the warranty period in order to claim the replacement offer.

In terms of pricing, the 24-inch Dell gaming monitor comes with a price tag of $319.99 (Rs 22,260 approx), whereas, the 27-inch gaming monitor will be available at a price tag of $549.99 (Rs 38,261 approx). Both the gaming monitors from Dell will be available in North America and Asia Pacific regions beginning from August 28 and can be purchased from Dell's official website.

Besides, Dell has also introduced the Alienware Command Center, which functions as a central gaming dashboard which combines system settings, content and other functionalities. The Alienware Command center can be further used to configure the settings on the 'gaming homepage' and will come bundled with all Alienware peripherals.

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Did Huawei use DSLR to promote Nova 3 sample selfies shots? News oi-Vishal Kawadkar Huawei allegedly false promoted its Nova 3 smartphone's selfie camera.

While Huawei has brought phenomenal smartphones in the market, the company has occasionally been caught involved in the acts of deception. This has now led to the belief of whether the Chinese smartphone giant is honest with its consumers or not. We already know how the company trimmed the bezels of the P8 and P8 max in the promotional pictures. Or the time when the company used DSLR to take P9 "camera samples."

Well, it gets better. The company is in the news again for promoting its Nova 3 smartphone dishonestly. Huawei has been caught pulling off another act of deception, all thanks to the goof-up from the actress involved in the advertisement.

Earlier, Huawei was found cheating with the fake P9 camera samples after the EXIF data was retained by a Google+ post. However, here there was no need for any EXIS data because an actual image of the camera sample being taken by a DSLR instead of Nova 3 came into light.

The Instagram picture posted by Sarah Elshamy, the actress featured in this Huawei Mobile Egypt marketing campaign, has been since-deleted. In one of the many pictures posted by her, the man can be seen stretching his arm in a selfie position. However, instead of the Nova 3, there's a DSLR camera on a tripod placed to mimic the position of a phone.

There are at least three other such instances in the ad where the man takes a selfie, and it'd be surprising if a DSLR wasn't used for all those shots. It's a known fact that a lot of editing goes in the aftermath of an advertisement. There's a possibility that all the OEMs use such tricks to promote their products, but only Huawei in unlucky enough to be caught.

What's more concerning is that the general population who aren't aware of these marketing strategies might think that the Nova 3 is capable of capturing such great pictures. This could be misleading for many, and the fact that the company was promoting a specific feature of the phone makes it even more deceptive.

Huawei is yet to respond on the reports. The company, after the P9 controversy came out and said: "It has recently been highlighted that an image posted to our social channels was not shot on the Huawei P9. The photo, which was professionally taken while filming a Huawei P9 advert, was shared to inspire our community. We recognize though that we should have been clearer with the captions for this image. It was never our intention to mislead. We apologize for this and we have removed the image."

To recall, the Huawei Nova 3 a 6.3-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 2340 x 1080px with a notch on the top. Under the hood, the smartphone is running on the HiSilicon Kirin 970 Octa-core chipset with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage. On the optics front, the smartphone has a 24 MP + 16 MP dual camera setup at the back of the smartphone and a massive 24 MP front-facing selfie camera.

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Nokia 6.1 Plus and 5.1 Plus launched in India: Price, specs and availability News oi-Karan Nokia 6.1 Plus launch event in India today. Here are the live updates.

HMD Global the company under the Nokia branding has already sent out the invites for an event which is going to be held on August 21(today). The company is expected to launch it Nokia 6.1 Plus. The company joined its hands with the e-commerce giant Flipkart, and the upcoming smartphone will be a Flipkart Exclusive.

Nokia 6.1 Plus is going to launch in India on August 21 (today). The com[pany has conducted an event in New Delhi, India. The event will kick start at 12 pm IST.

Nokia 6.1 Plus expected specifications

Nokia 6.1 Plus is expected to come with an aspect ratio of 19:9 along with a notch on the display. This design will help the smartphone to go up against the other mid-range smartphones in the market. It is been reported that the phone will arrive with a glass back, which means that it is prone to fingerprints and smudges. The smartphone has a 5.8-inch FHD+ display with a resolution of 2880x1080, along with minimum bezels on the sides.

12:16 The launch event kick-started

Auto Refresh Feeds Nokia 6.1 Plus is up for pre-orders and will come with Airtel offers. The Nokia 5.1 Plus will be available in September and the pricing of the smartphone will be declared soon. The global price of the smartphone is Euro 199. The Nokia 5.1 Plus will be available in the month of September. @page { margin: 2cm } p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120% } Nokia 6 .1 Plus comes with a price tag of Rs 15,999 via Nokia.com and exclusively on Flipkart from August 30. Android One devices will be the first to deceive digital well-being experience and adaptive feature. Nokia 6 Plus features a 16MP front camera, and the Nokia 5 Plus has a 5MP front camera for selfies and video calls. Nokia 5 Plus Neural process unit, dedicated to run faster AI functions. Both the devices come with dual camera setup. The Nokia 6 Plus comes with the combination of 16MP+ 5MP camera sensors. The Nokia 5 Plus comes with 13MP+ 5MP camera sensors. @page { margin: 2cm } p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120% } Both the smartphones comes with 19:9 aspect ratio display. Nokia 6 Plus 5.8-inch full HD+ screen. The Nokia 5 Plus also has a 5.8-inch display with HD+ resolution. @page { margin: 2cm } p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120% } Both the smartphones have over 90 percent glass look and finish Nokia 6 Plus and Nokia 5 Plus announced The new upcoming Nokia smartphone will support AR core. HMD is intending to create a strong customer base in India.

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Two Individuals Charged for Acting as Illegal Agents of the Government of Iran

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, August 20, 2018



An indictment was returned today charging Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar, 38, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, and Majid Ghorbani, 59, an Iranian citizen and resident of California, with allegedly acting on behalf of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran by conducting covert surveillance of Israeli and Jewish facilities in the United States, and collecting identifying information about American citizens and U.S. nationals who are members of the group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

The charges were announced by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers, U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu for the District of Columbia, and Acting Executive Assistant Director Michael McGarrity of the FBI's National Security Branch.

"The National Security Division is committed to protecting the United States from individuals within our country who unlawfully act on behalf of hostile foreign nations," said Assistant Attorney General Demers. "Doostdar and Ghorbani are alleged to have acted on behalf of Iran, including by conducting surveillance of political opponents and engaging in other activities that could put Americans at risk. With their arrest and these charges, we are seeking to hold the defendants accountable."

"This indictment demonstrates the commitment of the Department of Justice to hold accountable agents of foreign governments who act illegally within the United States, especially where those agents are conducting surveillance of individuals and Constitutionally-protected activities in this country," said Jessie K. Liu, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.

"This alleged activity demonstrates a continued interest in targeting the United States, as well as potential opposition groups located in the United States," said Acting Executive Assistant Director McGarrity. "The FBI will continue to identify and disrupt those individuals who seek to engage in unlawful activity, on behalf of Iran, on US soil."

The indictment charged Doostdar and Ghorbani with knowingly acting as agents of the government of Iran without prior notification to the Attorney General, providing services to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions, and conspiracy. Both defendants were arrested on Aug. 9, pursuant to criminal complaints issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Those complaints were unsealed today.

According to the indictment, in or about July 2017, Doostdar traveled to the United States from Iran in order to collect intelligence information about entities and individuals considered by the government of Iran to be enemies of that regime, including Israeli and Jewish interests, and individuals associated with the MEK, a group that advocates the overthrow of the current Iranian government.

On or about July 21, 2017, Doostdar is alleged to have conducted surveillance of the Rohr Chabad House, a Jewish institution located in Chicago, including photographing the security features surrounding the facility.

On or about Sept. 20, 2017, Ghorbani is alleged to have attended a MEK rally in New York City, during which he photographed individuals participating in the protest against the current Iranian regime. In or about December 2017, Doostdar returned to the United States from Iran and made contact with Ghorbani in the Los Angeles area. During the meeting, Doostdar paid Ghorbani approximately $2,000 in cash and Ghorbani delivered to him 28 photographs taken at the September 2017 MEK rally, many of which contained hand-written annotations identifying the individuals who appeared in the photos. These photographs, along with a hand-written receipt for $2000, were found concealed in Doostdar's luggage as he transited a U.S. airport on his return to Iran in December 2017.

The indictment also alleges that Ghorbani traveled to Iran in or about March 2018, after informing Doostdar that he would be going to Iran to conduct an "in-person briefing." Thereafter, on or about May 4, Ghorbani attended the MEK-affiliated 2018 Iran Freedom Convention for Human Rights in Washington, D.C. During the course of the conference, Ghorbani appeared to photograph certain speakers and attendees, which included delegations from across the United States. On May 14, Doostdar called Ghorbani to discuss clandestine methods Ghorbani should use in order to provide this information to Iran.

Ghorbani is scheduled to appear for a detention hearing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 21, before the Honorable G. Michael Harvey.

The charges in an indictment are merely allegations, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The maximum penalty for conspiracy is five years; the maximum penalty for acting as an agent of a foreign power is ten years; and the maximum penalty for a violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act is 20 years. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes. If convicted of any offense, a defendant's sentence will be determined by the court based on the advisory Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The investigation into this matter was conducted by the FBI's Washington Field Office and Los Angeles Field Office. The case is being prosecuted by the National Security Section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia and the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice.

Topic(s):

Counterintelligence and Export Control

National Security

Component(s):

National Security Division (NSD)

USAO - District of Columbia

Press Release Number: 18-1076

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Success of Air Force logistics begins with Sheppard AFB training mission

By John Ingle, 82nd Training Wing Public Affairs / Published August 20, 2018

SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFNS) -- Lt. Gen. Leo Marquez, often referred to as the "godfather of logistics" in the Air Force, once said, "If our aircraft, missiles, and weapons are the teeth of our military might, then logistics is the muscle, tendons, and sinews that make the teeth bite down and hold on logistics is the jawbone!"

Just as logistics is the jawbone to global military operations, Sheppard Air Force Base is the foundation by which the Air Force is able to produce logisticians in a myriad of specialties to ensure aircraft can take to the air, complete their mission and come home.

Brig. Gen. Ronald E. Jolly Sr., 82nd Training Wing commander and 27-year veteran of Air Force logistics, said much is made of operations as they happen and their results, combat and humanitarian. But those outcomes begin and end with components that get the force in theater and sustain operations.

The successful implementation and detailed coordination of people and equipment is something that takes more than the snap of a finger and a military order. It takes a skilled set of people to carry out the tasks at hand.

The majority of Sheppard AFB's training mission in North Texas, at what Jolly calls "Logistics University," includes logistics functions such as aircraft maintenance, maintenance and munitions officers, civil engineering, and petroleum, oils and lubricants, to name a few. Its reach goes beyond the Lone Star state with missions such as heavy equipment operators at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and F-35 maintainers at the 359th Training Squadron at Eglin AFB, Florida, as well as units in Asia and Europe.

"We've trained those individuals in our initial-skills training for all of our maintainers, equivalent initial-skills training for our logistics officers  so we gave them the foundation, and now they're out their honing their skills," he said. "We are also involved in our advanced training for members with our field training detachments that are out globally helping those Airmen attain the 5- and 7-level skills."

While producing quality logisticians is paramount, Jolly said it's important to get feedback from logisticians in the field to keep up with changing times and needs of those down range.

"Getting that feedback from the field helps us improve the training that we are accomplishing here," he said. "So, we need to adapt to the changing environment  the changing world environment and the changing environment of each one of the missions that we're out there executing."

From a big-picture standpoint, the success of logistics operations in the Air Force and the support provided for sister services begins in the schoolhouses at Sheppard AFB. Bringing more of the logistics training enterprise to Sheppard AFB as part of an overarching Logistics University for the Air Force would create a "synergy" and "commonality" that creates a bond within the community, Jolly said.

The general said he can see having a majority of logistics training based at Sheppard AFB in the next 10 to 20 years.

"Now, understand that some of that is not possible just because of space and infrastructure, but when you think across the logistics board  and it's not just aircraft maintenance, you have LRS (logistics readiness squadron) entities with POL, transportation, civil engineering  you look across the board, we'd like to bring most of that right here so that we can become known as the, no kidding, Logistics University and have a campus dedicated to that," he said.

The cradle-to-grave training mission of Sheppard AFB matches the vision of Lt. Gen. Steven Kwast, commander of Air Education and Training Command, of life-long training. He said it requires oversight of the training that's being provided, tracking the training, understanding the changing environment and improving the Continuum of Learning, a student-centric methodology of instruction.

Jolly said innovation is also an important piece of Kwast's vision and the CoL. He said schoolhouses are looking to capitalize on available technologies to improve training in the classroom whether it's at Sheppard AFB or at a detachment overseas.

"It is very crucial that we maintain that focus on the changing environment and the life learning, long-term learning that General Kwast has put in front of us," he said.

Marquez is credited with transforming and modernizing the Air Force's logistics mission to one that made sense and turned an inefficient process into one that made sense both on paper and to those on the ground completing the tasks. But it was his leadership and passion for taking care of people, Jolly said, that made the historic changes within logistics possible.

Jolly said if people are given the tools and other assets needed to effectively do their job, they will execute and complete the mission. That's why he, too, focuses on people as part of his leadership style.

It's a lesson he learned from an old soldier and in readings about Marquez.

"There's a former soldier, Charles W. Jolly, my father, that taught me to get out there with your soldiers, see what they do, understand and relate to them," Jolly said. "You build credibility and they'll follow you. I think General Marquez had that very same concept and he called it 'trench time.' Get out there in the trenches with your folks, understand what they do, relate to them and they will follow you.

"I do my best to take time to get out with the Airmen, understand what they do so that I can relate and hopefully they will follow."

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Yemenis kill 4 Saudi military forces

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Aug 20, IRNA -- Four Saudi military forces including one officer were killed during an attack by Yemeni forces on Asir region, southwest of Saudi Arabia.

According to Sputnik, Yemen army along with Ansarullah forces carried out a successful attack in west of Abwab ul-Hadid in Asir Region, killing four Saudi military forces.

Yemen has frequently targeted Saudi sites in response to the Coalition's merciless offensives since Saudi Arabia waged a military war against the impoverished country.

The military attack has not only failed to eliminate the fledgling popular revolution in Yemen, but has also cost heavily for the two active members of the coalition; Saudi Arabia and UAE.

Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out deadly airstrikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

Over 14,000 Yemenis, including thousands of women and children, have lost their lives in the deadly military campaign.

8072**1396

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Saudi airstrike kills 13 Yemeni fishermen

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Aug 20, IRNA -- Some 13 Yemeni fishermen was killed and four other wounded off the coast of the western province of Hudayadah in an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition on Sunday.

According to Yemen's al-Masirah television network, two fishing boats were targeted by Saudi fighters and 13 were killed, four wounded and four other went missing.

Civilians have always been the major victims of the military attack on Yemen, which has so far been condemned by the international organizations several times.

Recently, Saudi-led coalition targeted a bus carrying students in Saada province, killing 51 and injuring 77.

Over 14,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen in March 2015.

The United Nations says a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in need of food aid, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.

8072**1396

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Afghan president announces 3-month conditional ceasefire with Taliban

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 07:56, August 20, 2018

KABUL, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday announced a conditional three-month ceasefire with the Taliban starting on Monday.

"As we approach Eid-ul-Adha ... we announce a ceasefire that would take effect from Monday, the day of Arafa, till the day of the birth of the prophet (PBUH), Milad-un-Nabi, provided that the Taliban reciprocate," Ghani told a gathering celebrating the Independence Day.

The Afghan leader also called on Taliban leadership to welcome the wishes of Afghans for a long lasting and real peace.

"We urge the Taliban leadership to get ready for peace talks based on Islamic values and principles," Ghani said, adding that the Afghan government has removed "all obstacles for a long lasting peace through these unprecedented steps."

However, the Taliban group, which has repeatedly rejected an offer for peace talks with the Afghan government, has yet to react to President Ghani's offer for ceasefire.

In June, the Afghan government announced a 17-day ceasefire to encourage the Taliban group to support the national reconciliation process.

Reciprocating the government step, the Taliban announced a three-day truce during Eid-ul-Fitr which marked end of fasting month.

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Afghan Taliban reject President Ghani's ceasefire proposal

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 20, 2018 05:11PM

The Taliban militant group has rejected an Afghan government offer of a three-month ceasefire, saying it would continue with its attacks to bring under control the country's strategic regions.

Speaking on condition of anonymity on Monday, two senior Taliban commanders said their leader had rejected Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's offer of a 90-day ceasefire beginning with this week's Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adha or the feast of sacrifice.

Declining to provide further details, the commanders said the ceasefire would only help US forces and serve the interests of the US-led mission in Afghanistan.

"Our leadership feels that they'll prolong their stay in Afghanistan if we announced a ceasefire now," one of the senior commanders told Reuters on the telephone.

In June, the militant group observed a government ceasefire for the three-day Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. The ceasefire, the first in more than 15 years, ended after the Taliban rejected the government's offer to extend it beyond three days.

'Most Taliban hostages freed in rescue operation'

Meanwhile, government forces have rescued 149 people, including children, who were abducted by the Taliban in the northern province of Kunduz.

Some 170 Afghan civilians and 20 members of security forces were abducted by the Taliban earlier on Monday.

Esmatullah Muradi, a spokesman for the Kunduz governor, said the kidnapping took place when the passengers on board three buses were heading from the northeastern province of Takhar to the capital Kabul.

"The buses were stopped by the Taliban, passengers were forced to step down and they have been taken to an undisclosed location," he said.

Sayed Assadullah Sadat, a Kunduz provincial council member, said the Afghans were traveling to reunite with their families in Kabul during the Eid al-Adha holiday.

Nasrat Rahimi, deputy spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the rescue operation was carried out by Afghan security forces and left at least seven Taliban militants dead.

The remaining 21 abductees are said to be members of Afghan security forces, who were reportedly the main target of the Taliban's Monday ambush.

A spokesman for the provincial governor in Kunduz also confirmed the rescue of the hostages and said the operation was still underway.

The development comes in the wake of fighting in the central city of Ghazni, a strategically important region the Taliban have been battling to bring under control.

At least 150 Afghan soldiers and 95 civilians were killed in a five-day siege that eased last week, when Afghan troops pushed back the heavily armed militants.

The Taliban were ousted from power in 2001 following a US-led invasion. The group has, however, been involved in widespread militancy, killing thousands of civilians as well as Afghan and US forces.

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Yemeni forces hit Saudi military base in Najran with ballistic missile

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 20, 2018 05:09PM

Yemeni army forces, supported by allied fighters from Popular Committees, have fired a domestically-manufactured ballistic missile at a military base in Saudi Arabia's southwestern border region of Najran in retaliation for the Saudi regime's military campaign against their crisis-ridden homeland.

A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Yemen's Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that the short-range Badr-1 missile struck Mostahadeth base in the western sector of the region, located 844 kilometers (524 miles) south of the capital Riyadh, on Monday.

The source added that the projectile had hit the designated target with high precision.

Separately, Yemeni forces and their allies fatally shot a Saudi soldier at a military camp on Jabal al-Qais mountainous area in the kingdom's Jizan region.

Moreover, four Saudi-backed Yemeni militiamen loyal to former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi were killed when Yemeni snipers targeted them in the al-Zobab region of Yemen's southwestern province of Ta'izz.

Also on Monday, Saudi fighter jets carried out a string of airstrikes against residential buildings and properties in the Shada'a district of the northwestern Yemeni province of Sa'ada, leaving substantial damage behind. There were no immediate reports about possible casualties.

Some 15,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen in March 2015.

The United Nations says a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in need of food aid, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.

A high-ranking UN aid official has warned against the "catastrophic" living conditions in Yemen, stating there is a growing risk of famine and cholera there.

"The conflict has escalated since November, driving an estimated 100,000 people from their homes," John Ging, UN director of aid operations, told the UN Security Council on February 27.

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Taliban Rejects Kabul Cease-Fire Offer After Seizing Hostages

RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan August 20, 2018

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan -- The Taliban has reportedly rejected an offer by the Afghan government for a cease-fire, with militant commanders vowing to carry on their attacks after Taliban fighters in the north seized nearly 200 hostages from a convoy of passenger buses.

A Taliban spokesman said Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada on August 20 rejected President Ashraf Ghani's offer a day earlier of a "conditional" cease-fire with the Taliban to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

The cease-fire was meant to begin on August 20 and run for three months, conditioned upon Taliban participation.

But the Taliban spokesman told Reuters by telephone on August 20 that Akhunzada had rejected the new offer on grounds that it would only help the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan.

"Our leadership feels that they'll prolong their stay in Afghanistan if we announced a cease-fire now," the Taliban spokesman said, declining to be identified.

An official in Ghani's office said the Afghan government would continue its military operations against the Taliban if the militants did not respect the cease-fire.

Rescue Operation

Afghan officials say government security forces on August 20 freed 149 people who had been taken hostage by the Taliban several hours earlier in the northern province of Kunduz.

Nasrat Rahimi, deputy spokesman for Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, told RFE/RL that the militants continued to hold 21 others hostage on August 20 after they ambushed a convoy of passenger buses traveling to Kabul for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

He said fighting in the area had halted while Afghan authorities used local elders as intermediaries in negotiations with the Taliban for the release of the remaining hostages.

The buses were stopped in the province's Khan Abad district, an area under Taliban control -- prompting a battle against government forces deployed in a rescue operation.

Rahimi said the rescue operation had killed at least seven Taliban fighters before the militants fled the scene. He said the Taliban had left behind the 149 freed hostages because the militants were unable to transport all of the group due to the rescue operation.

Rahimi said the remaining 21 hostages were taken by the Taliban to an undisclosed location. He said none of them were government employees or members of Afghanistan's security forces.

However, a Taliban spokesman said the militants were conducting their own investigations to determine if any of the remaining hostages work for the Afghan government or security forces.

Sayed Assadullah Sadat, a Kunduz provincial council member, said earlier on August 20 that the buses "were packed with people and maybe there were army soldiers and police" among those taken hostage.

Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, the head of the Kunduz provincial council, said he thinks the Taliban were looking for government employees or members of the security forces.

Abdul Rahman Aqtash, the police chief in neighboring Takhar province, says the passengers were from Badakhshan and Takhar provinces.

The Western-backed government in Kabul has been struggling to fend off the Taliban and other militant groups since the withdrawal of most NATO combat troops in 2014.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-taliban -100-hostages-kunduz/29442985.html

Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Taliban Accepts Invitation to Attend Reconciliation Talks in Moscow - Reports

Sputnik News

20:56 20.08.2018

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Taliban movement has accepted Russia's invitation to attend the Moscow format of Afghan reconciliation talks scheduled for September 4, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Taliban's decision to attend the talks comes as the movement steps up its political engagement with the United States in what seems to be political balancing.

Washington, meanwhile, is likely to abstain from the format, the newspaper suggested.

Earlier in the day, the Russian Foreign Ministry's Second Asian Department Director Zamir Kabulov told Sputnik that Moscow expected the Taliban to participate in the upcoming conference. Afghan Ambassador to Russia Abdul Qayyum Kochai, in turn, told Sputnik that Kabul does not mind the participation of the Taliban movement in the meeting.

The latest diplomatic efforts on Afghanistan come amid Kabul's bids to reach a lasting ceasefire. On Sunday, President Ashraf Ghani announced a ceasefire with the Taliban to mark the upcoming Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday. The president said the truce would begin on Monday and would last for three months. Ghani noted, however, that the ceasefire would only be in place if the Taliban adheres to it.

 Sputnik

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UN mission welcomes Afghan government's announcement of Eid holiday ceasefire

20 August 2018 - After a surge in hostilities in Afghanistan over the past weeks, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) welcomed on Monday the Government's announcement of a conditional ceasefire for the Eid al-Adha holiday and called on warring parties to use this "momentum" to put an end to the conflict.

"A mutual ceasefire would further the prospects for talks to take place between the parties to the conflict to find a political settlement," said UNAMA chief Tadamichi Yamamoto in response to the Government's announcement of the pause, which reportedly would begin today.

If it holds, this would be the second ceasefire between the Government and the Taliban to be respected since conflict started in Afghanistan almost 20 years ago, following a brief pause in mid-June during the three-day Eid al-Fitr celebrations.

"It is important to seize all opportunities for a negotiated end to the conflict so that all Afghans can enjoy the life of peace they so desperately want and need," said Mr. Yamamoto, the top UN official in Afghanistan.

In July, UNAMA released figures highlighting the tragic toll the conflict has had on civilians, revealing that the first half of 2018 was the deadliest for Afghans since UNAMA began documenting civilian casualties in 2009.

In the past week alone, a deadly battle for the city of Ghazni, south-west of Kabul, led to the death of over 150 civilians. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres released a statement on Thursday stressing the "urgent need for an immediate ceasefire and the opening of talks between the parties to the conflict to negotiate a sustainable peace."

UNAMA, whose mandate it is to support the peace and reconciliation process, reiterated that it stands "ready to play any role requested by the parties to the conflict to achieve a negotiated peace".

"This momentum must be upheld and the strong popular desire for peace must not be betrayed," said the UN mission's statement.

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No Afghan Cease-Fire Until Taliban Announcement

By Ayesha Tanzeem August 20, 2018

Afghanistan's government says it will not accept the Taliban's ceasefire unless it is officially announced.

On Sunday, President Ashraf Ghani announced a cease-fire of up to three-months with the Taliban, conditional on the insurgency reciprocating.

Taliban sources said their leadership had told local commanders to stop fighting for four days over the Muslim Eid-ul-Adha festival this week, but were unlikely to officially announce anything.

Presidential spokesman Haroon Chakhansoori said Monday the government will continue its operations against the Taliban until an official cease-fire announcement from Taliban leadership is made. He also said the cease-fire will hold only for the period the Taliban announce.

He added the government wanted a country-wide cease-fire with the Taliban, but said the Islamic State militants would get no reprieve from fighting. The security forces, he said, would continue their operations against IS militants and drug smugglers.

The spokesman also announced the government had asked the Taliban for a prisoner list for possible release over Eid. He said the government would consider releasing Taliban prisoners that were old, sick, or those who had completed their jail terms or declared free by the courts.

The Taliban also said they would release a number of prisoners over Eid. But Chakhansoori suggested a prisoner release should be through mutually exchanged lists. The government, he said, did not know whether the Taliban were releasing government prisoners or ordinary people.

Meanwhile, Taliban shadow governor of Ghazni Haji Wafa, in an interview aired on the insurgency's radio station Voice of Shariah, claimed the insurgency controls five districts in the province. He also claimed his fighters controlled the Kabul-Kandahar highway and would only open it for the public upon orders from their supreme commander.

The Afghan government regained control of Ghazni city after five days of intense fighting last week. The fighting created a humanitarian situation with food and water shortages. United Nations agencies estimated around 200 civilians died in the clashes.

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Erik Prince Again Touts Plan to Privatize US War in Afghanistan

By William Gallo August 20, 2018

A plan by billionaire American businessman Erik Prince to privatize the U.S. war in Afghanistan is reportedly receiving renewed interest within the Trump administration, even though Afghan officials continue to criticize it as misguided.

Prince is mounting a media campaign to convince President Donald Trump that his plan will reduce the cost and the burden of the U.S. military's role in Afghanistan by turning over training of the Afghan army to Prince's security company. Prince has outlined the proposal in new videos explaining the plan in English and Dari.

The former Navy Seal first drew international attention when contractors for his Blackwater security company were accused of numerous abuses in Iraq. He later sold Blackwater but started other companies that provide security services for the United States and other governments.

2017 privatization plan

Trump was said to first consider Prince's plan a year ago during his administration's review of the Afghanistan strategy. But the plan failed to gain any traction in Washington or Kabul.

Instead, Trump decided to largely maintain the status quo when he rolled out his Afghanistan strategy in August 2017.

Tuesday marks one year since Trump's Afghanistan announcement, and Prince is hoping to use the anniversary to capitalize on frustrations that the plan has led to little tangible change in the 17-year-old war.

NBC News reported last week that Trump again became interested in Prince's plan after watching a video in which the former Navy Seal laid out what he sees as the failures of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

Prince's plan would replace thousands of U.S. troops with fewer private contractors, who would be backed by a 90-plane private air force. The war would then be coordinated by what Prince calls a "viceroy."

Asked about Prince's plan on ABC's This Week, White House National Security Adviser John Bolton said, "There are always a lot of discussions. I find them helpful. I'm always open to new ideas. But I'm not going to comment on what the thinking is. That'll ultimately be the president's decision."

Afghan opposition

The U.S. currently spends about $45 billion a year in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon. Prince has claimed he could do the job for less than $10 billion, though some experts have disputed that notion.

Critics say the plan could lead to less accountability and fear a repeat of incidents in which security contractors like Blackwater guards were accused of killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Both Afghanistan's government and its people oppose the privatization plan, Afghan presidential spokesman Haroon Chakhansoori said Monday.

"Giving away the responsibility of waging war to a private company increases the risk of civilian casualties," he said. He also called the plan a "conspiracy against President Trump's South Asia strategy that has had good results."

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Trump Calls Mueller's Russia Probe a 'National Disgrace'

By Ken Bredemeier August 20, 2018

U.S. President Donald Trump has assailed special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential election as "a National Disgrace!"

The U.S. leader started the work week with a string of broadsides against the Mueller probe, complaining the prosecutor "is just someone looking for trouble" as he investigates Trump campaign aides' links to Russia and whether Trump, as president, obstructed justice by trying to thwart the inquiry.

Trump described Mueller as "disgraced and discredited" and said "his whole group of Angry Democrat Thugs" had interviewed White House counsel Donald McGahn for 30 hours "only with my approval, for purposes of transparency." News outlets reported that Trump and his lawyers do not know the full scope of what McGahn told Mueller's team of investigators.

Trump added, "They are enjoying ruining people's lives and REFUSE to look at the real corruption on the Democrat side - the lies, the firings, the deleted Emails and soooo much more! Mueller's Angry Dems are looking to impact the election," the nationwide November 6 congressional contests.

"Where's the Collusion?" Trump asked." They made up a phony crime called Collusion, and when there was no Collusion they say there was Obstruction (of a phony crime that never existed). If you FIGHT BACK or say anything bad about the Rigged Witch Hunt, they scream Obstruction!

Mueller's investigators have uncovered several instances of Trump campaign contacts with Russia, including a mid-2016 meeting at Trump Tower in New York in which Trump's oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., met with a woman said to be a Russian government attorney who would offer incriminating material against Trump's election challenger, Democrat Hillary Clinton. No such anti-Clinton information emerged from the meeting.

But when news of the meeting surfaced after Trump became president, he dictated a misleading statement about the talks, claiming they were about adoption of Russian children. More recently he has said it was a routine political meeting - opposition research about an election opponent - and he did not know about it in advance.

Trump also renewed his attacks on former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, after revoking Brennan's national security clearance last week. Trump called Brennan a "political hack" and "the worst CIA director in our country's history."

Trump said he hopes Brennan carries through on his threat to file a lawsuit to protect others from losing their security clearances because, "It will then be very easy to get all of his records, texts, emails and documents to show not only the poor job he did, but how he was involved with the Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt. He won't sue!"

One hundred and seventy-five other former U.S. national security officers, Pentagon, and State Department officials added their names Monday to the list of those who have already come to Brennan's defense.

They include such well-known names from the Bush and Obama administrations as former deputy secretary of state Tony Blinken, former undersecretary of state Nicholas Burns, and ex-NATO commander, Adm. James Stavridis.

The officials wrote a letter stating that while they may not totally agree with Brennan's sharp criticism of Trump, they believe "strongly that former government officials have the right to express their unclassified views on what they see as critical national security issues without fear of being punished for doing so."

Trump, however, has dismissed their favorable comments about Brennan, saying, "Everybody wants to keep their Security Clearance, it's worth great prestige and big dollars, even board seats, and that is why certain people are coming forward to protect Brennan. It certainly isn't because of the good job he did!"

Mueller has secured guilty pleas from several Trump campaign figures, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and foreign affairs adviser George Papadopoulos, both of whom have pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about their contacts with Russia.

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, a former New York mayor, contended Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press that "truth isn't truth" in the Mueller investigation, saying that various events in the Trump presidency, and whether he obstructed justice by seeking to block the investigation, are open to interpretation.

Giuliani's comment was widely mocked on social media. On Monday, he sought to clarify it, saying, "My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology, but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic 'he said, she said' puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesn't."

Giuliani's statement was focused on conflicting accounts about a meeting early last year at the White House between Trump and James Comey, then director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and leading the agency's Russia investigation before Trump fired him in May 2017.

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Angola to Rebury National Icon and Rebel Leader Savimbi

By Anita Powell August 20, 2018

Angola's government has said it will soon exhume and give a "dignified burial" to Jonas Savimbi, a national icon killed at the end of the nation's lengthy and brutal civil war.

The rebel turned opposition leader was buried in a rural area in 2002, without the honors that many Angolans felt he deserved after a lifetime of resistance, first against Portuguese colonial repression and later against the nation's socialist government.

Even the government's harshest critics  among them, human rights activist and journalist Rafael Marques de Morais  say this is a welcome step by President Joao Lourenco, who took office just over a year ago.

"I'm not cynical about this," Marques tells VOA. "It's really important that it be done."

Fascinating, complicated man

Savimbi is regarded by many Angolans as a liberation hero for leading the fight against Portugal for independence, which came in 1975. He then founded the UNITA party and led a bruising 26-year civil war against the socialist government, which has been led since independence by the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola.

Savimbi nearly won a presidential election in 1992, but some analysts say his refusal to accept the results prolonged the war. He was killed in 2002, at the age of 67, in a battle with government troops. His body was quickly buried nearby.

Alex Vines, head of the Africa Program for think tank Chatham House, says Savimbi was a fascinating man  and he can see why former President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos wanted him to sink into obscurity. Dos Santos ruled for nearly four decades before stepping down last year.

"I met him several times," Vines said of Savimbi. "He was extremely charismatic, rather authoritarian. People around him were very afraid and very obsequious with him. But you did feel the charisma. It is like a number of figures that I have met over my career who have been very controversial, involved in human rights abuses, but yet they were tremendously charismatic."

Reburial for reconciliation?

Savimbi, too, was accused of human rights abuses during the lengthy war that ended in 2002 with his death. The conflict saw the deaths of more than half a million Angolans and shattered the nation's infrastructure.

Marques says a proper burial for Savimbi might help close the division between the ruling party and the opposition in Angola. Such divisions are common across Africa, he says.

"And, so, there is never a sit-down between brothers and sisters to build a country together," he told VOA. "And it's always the ruling party thinking everyone is the enemy, and those in the opposition thinking the ruling party is the enemy, and that's what plagues most of the political systems in Africa, when parties think of themselves as the state."

Vines agreed that lack of reconciliation is an issue that plagues many African nations, and that the proper treatment of major figures matters. In Mozambique, he said, the government's decision to give burial honors to longtime rebel leader Afonso Dhlakama, who died earlier this year, was an important gesture.

"There is some echo, I think, in Mozambique with what's happened in Angola," Vines said. "And maybe, just maybe, that what has happened in Mozambique helped focus further President Lourenco and some of his advisers' attentions that it was time to do something similar in terms of reconciliation, of the body of Jonas Savimbi."

But Marques says this move is about more than one man. If anything, he says, Savimbi's reburial could open the door for countless others.

"It's important to acknowledge that many tens of thousands of Angolans perished in this war, and it's important that the government goes beyond returning the body of Savimbi, so that a process of issuing death certificates to the soldiers on the government side and the UNITA side, who died in the war, that the people who died in the war are properly accounted for," he said.

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Mali Must Bolster Security, Governance, Analysts Say

By William Eagle August 20, 2018

In winning a second term as Mali's president on Thursday, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has another chance to tackle challenges ranging from curbing insecurity to improving the legal system and economy, analysts say.

The 73-year-old Keita garnered 67 percent of the votes in a runoff election against competitor Soumaila Cisse. Threats of violence by jihadist militants held the runoff vote to a dismal 34 percent, and ethnic violence closed polls in the initial round of balloting July 29  despite efforts by the government and international forces to stabilize the country three years after signing a peace deal.

In Keita's next five-year term, the president faces extending state authority into parts of the West African country where there's still inter-communal violence or fighting between armed groups, observers say. They're also calling for reforms to a corrupt and inefficient court system, and for implementing peace accords that require disarming fighters and integrating some of them into the military.

The accords, signed in the capital city of Bamako in June 2015, aimed to end fighting between the government and armed groups in the north, including some linked to international terrorism.

The fighting and instability have created humanitarian concerns, displacing more than 62,000 people in Mali and prompting nearly 140,000 others to seek refuge in neighboring countries. Those conditions also have throttled a once-thriving tourism sector and driven away private investment.

Economic needs

Half of the West African country's 17 million-plus people live on less than U.S. $1.25 a day.

And though the agriculture-based economy grew around 5 percent a year during Keita's first term, the benefits of that growth hasn't reached rural areas. Food insecurity is widespread.

"The gains are regionally concentrated and within a bureaucratic government and business class," said Jonathan Sears, an assistant professor of international development studies at Menno Simons College in Winnipeg, Canada.

The beneficiaries generally include "a particular set of actors  connected to agriculture, mining, energy and real estate," Sears said. "Also, most Malians live in the south or the center, so the gains are concentrated in opportunity centers around Bamako, Sikasso, Segou [and other cities] There's a wide swath of people not seeing that growth."

Sears and other analysts say the public lacks confidence in the government's ability to provide security and improve living standards.

Polls show that large majorities of Malians disapprove of government management of the economy, and of its efforts to boost living standards for the poor.

Issues with inequity

Arthur Boutellis, a senior adviser with the International Peace Institute in New York, sees a gulf between the governing class and the governed, the state and its citizens.

In providing basic services, security and justice, "the main challenge of the government and the president will be to try to restore trust in the state," said Boutellis, who also has worked in various UN missions, including in Mali. "It's basically demonstrating that it can provide services to people."

Conditions on the ground complicate that goal.

Government forces have failed to halt inter-community clashes in the central region  and to provide the security essential for reconciliation, social support and economic growth.

"The problem is they haven't been able to expand their [military] presence and have faced setbacks," Boutellis said. "The agents of the state  administrators, justices and so on  have folded back to only the main urban centers  and have abandoned some of the smaller localities. 

"There is a national plan for central Mali, and a support plan by the European Union as well," he added. "But the problem is: How do you implement them without effective security forces that are also accepted by the local population?"

In the 2015 peace accords, the signatory armed groups and the government agreed to demobilize and disarm ex-rebels, some of whom would join Mali's military.

As an interim measure, the signatories agreed to establish joint patrols combining the Malian defense and security forces and some of the armed groups.

Critics complain that the government is dragging its feet. Officials blame the situation on continued violence by armed groups, a lack of cooperation by some separatist forces in the north and by donors who have failed to fulfill their pledges.

Countering corruption

The government also must tackle corruption and impunity, analysts say.

One area needing reform is the court system, said Richard Reeve, chief executive of the London-based Oxford Research Group. The independent organization specializes in new approaches to security and building peace.

Reeve said political and economic elites have corrupted Mali's justice system. He recommended "bringing in less formal judicial actors," such as chiefs and traditional authorities, to work "within the statutory court system." He also urged "working with paralegals, who are much cheaper and easier to train than lawyers, judges and magistrates. That's been tried successfully in post-conflict countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia."

The government also could aid employment and small-scale development in farming, small trading and mechanics shops, Reeve said. He called for infrastructure such as feeder roads and water supplies, as well as administrative governance promoting community safety.

More needs to be done to foster reconciliation between ethnic and community groups in Mali's troubled central region, Reeve stressed.

He suggested increased political participation  especially for youth and women  to make government more responsive and effective, promote reconciliation and reduce the appeal of armed groups.

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Indiana Man Sentenced to 15 Years for Distributing Information on Explosives and Poisons for Use in a Terror Attack

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, August 20, 2018



Marlonn Hicks, 31, of Crown Point, Indiana, was sentenced today to 15 years in prison, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release, for distributing information regarding the manufacture and use of explosives, with the intent that the information be used for and in furtherance of a crime of violence.

The sentence was announced by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney Thomas L. Kirsch II for the Northern District of Indiana and Special Agent in Charge Grant Mendenhall of the FBI's Indianapolis Division. The sentence was issued by U.S. District Court Judge Joseph S. Van Bokkelen.

"The Department of Justice is committed to investigating and prosecuting terrorist threats against our homeland," said Assistant Attorney General Demers. "The defendant plotted to conduct an attack on U.S. soil and, with today's sentence, he is being held accountable for his actions. I applaud the efforts of the agents and prosecutors to achieve this successful outcome. Their work will ensure that the actions of the defendant, inspired by evil, will serve only as a cautionary tale for other would-be terrorists."

"This exemplifies the Government's commitment to prevent terrorism," said U.S. Attorney Kirsch. "Rather than mourning the tragic attacks in Orlando, Hicks was inspired to try to commit a terror attack to kill innocent victims in the United States. My Office, working with the FBI and the National Security Division, quickly and efficiently eliminated the threat to public safety created by Mr. Hicks' illegal activities."

"The online communications by Mr. Hicks drew swift attention from our agents, who had identified and monitored him early in his path to radicalization," said Special Agent in Charge Mendenhall. "As this radicalization deepened, the FBI continued to monitor Mr. Hicks' activity and took action to mitigate any threats ensuring the public's safety."

According to the documents in this case, Hicks rapidly transformed from a vocal online supporter of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a designated foreign terrorist organization, to someone planning a terrorist act.

Within days of the Orlando, Florida Pulse Nightclub terrorist attack, Hicks was inspired to commit an act of terrorism and kill innocent civilians. On June 21, 2016, nine days after the Pulse massacre, Hicks discussed "getting busy" with a FBI source who Hicks believed was an ISIS supporter. Hicks sent this source two manuals on how to manufacture and use explosives and poisons and continued to discuss with this FBI source possible terror attacks. Hicks made his motivation for the planned attacks clear, exclaiming that since the FBI and similar government personnel "have shut the door now [on his ability to travel to ISIS controlled territory and fight there] I'm gonna open the door to hell for them." As he began to develop an attack plan, in addition to sending the above referenced manuals, he discussed coordinating attacks to create "more of an audience." Hicks also discussed how to obtain firearms and practice with them. Hicks clearly communicated to multiple sources and during his post-arrest interview that he wanted everyone to know the attacks were carried out in the name of ISIS.

During FBI surveillance, Hicks warned one of the FBI sources to "be careful the boys was just following me" referring to then ongoing FBI surveillance. During a message exchange with the FBI source Hicks said he was "strapped," showed a picture of his firearm, and said "if they had me on anything I'd already be dead cause in Shaa Allah [translated as "god willing"] I ain't going to jail." Hicks was arrested on federal charges without incident in July 2016 and has remained in federal custody since his arrest.

The case was investigated by the FBI's Indianapolis Division and the Indianapolis Joint Terrorism Task Force. The case is being prosecuted by the National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section and the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of Indiana.

Component(s): National Security Division (NSD)

Press Release Number: 18-1071

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Multiple Daesh-claimed attacks injure policemen in Chechnya

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 20, 2018 03:15PM

Several officers have sustained injuries in multiple terrorist attacks in various locations in Russia's Chechnya Republic, the region's leader says.

A terrorist tried to carry out a bombing attack but failed, Ramzan Kadyrov said on Monday.

The Chechen strongman wrote on his official Telegram social networking account that two policemen were wounded in the town of Shali while several traffic police officers sustained injuries in the capital of Grozny.

"The bandits have been neutralized," Kadyrov, who was visiting Saudi Arabia on Monday, added.

"The situation in Grozny and Chechnya is absolutely calm," he said.

Police in the North Caucasus region said two men armed with knives were trying to enter police department in Shali and "inflicted wounds on two police employees on duty" before being shot dead.

There has been no official explanation of the incident in Grozny.

Chechnya's Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov said the terrorists "attempted to destabilize the situation in Chechnya" but have been stopped, adding that no officers were killed.

Daesh terrorist group claims attacks in Chechnya: SITE

Later on Monday, the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attacks against policemen in Chechnya, the SITE monitoring group reported.

The terrorists "attacked Chechen police officers and elements in Grozny and Shali in Mesker-Yurt," the SITE quoted the Daesh-affiliated Amaq news agency as saying.

Back in May, a militant attack on a church in the mainly Muslim southern Russian region of Chechnya left seven people dead, including four assailants.

The attack took place when gunmen attempted to take people hostage inside St. Michael church in Chechnya's capital of Grozny.

Thousands of Chechen militants have also reportedly been fighting alongside the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, mainly in Syria. Russian authorities consider the Chechen militants fighting abroad a serious threat if they manage to get back to Russian territory.

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Several Police Wounded In Chechnya Attacks Claimed By IS

RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service August 20, 2018

Russian investigators say they have launched investigations into three separate attacks that wounded several police officers in the North Caucasus region of Chechnya.

The Islamic State (IS) extremist group claimed responsibility for the August 20 assaults in an announcement by its Amaq news agency, without providing details or evidence to back up its statement.

The Kremlin-backed head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, rejected the IS claim, alleging that the militant group had "no support, no social basis" in the North Caucasus republic.

At most, the IS group might have influenced young people on social media, Kadyrov said in a post on Telegram.

Chechen Information Minister Dzhambulat Umarov told the TASS news agency that the youngest attacker was 11 and the oldest 17.

Russia's Investigative Committee said that in one of the August 20 attacks, two attackers entered the district police department in the town of Shali and wounded two officers with knives.

The two assailants were shot dead, according to Chechnya's Interior Ministry.

In the village of Mesker-Yurt, north of Shali, a young person carrying a rucksack blew himself up at a police post, investigators said, adding that "officers and civilians were not harmed by the blast."

Reports earlier said the attacker had survived.

And in the regional capital, Grozny, police opened fire on a vehicle that had hit two policemen. Investigators said the driver was killed.

Authorities reportedly identified the driver as 17-year-old Ali Akhmatkhanov -- a younger brother of Khizir Akhmatkhanov, who was sentenced to a lengthy prison term for his involvement in a terrorist attack in the Chechen city of Gudermes in 2001.

The other person in the car was 11 years old, Umarov told TASS.

Kadyrov, who was visiting Saudi Arabia, claimed that the assaults' main purpose was to "create an illusion that there are some forces capable of organizing armed actions and terrorist attacks" within Chechnya.

The Chechen leader also dismissed the attacks as an attempt to disrupt the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, saying, "The task was to darken this holiday, to cause a broad public response, and to prevent residents of Chechnya from celebrating Eid al-Adha."

Islamic militants in the region have mounted frequent attacks on police, moderate Muslims, and officials, and some have sworn allegiance to IS.

Russia estimates some 2,000 citizens, mostly from the North Caucasus, have fought alongside IS in Syria.

Organized crime, business turf wars, political disputes, and clan rivalry also contribute to the bloodshed in the region.

Critics say Russian authorities and Kadyrov's government sometimes use allegations of militancy as a pretext to crack down on opponents.

With reporting by Reuters, Interfax, SITE, AnnaNews, TASS, and AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kadyrov-attacks -on-chechen-police-aimed-at- creating-illusion-/29443710.html

Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Taiwan hoping for further cooperation with U.S. in space exploration

ROC Central News Agency

2018/08/20 16:50:36

Taipei, Aug. 20 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen's () visit to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space center in Houston, Texas Saturday has sparked hope in Taiwan for further collaboration with the United States in the field of space exploration.

Asked if Tsai's visit will heat up Taiwan-U.S. cooperation in space observation, National Space Organization (NSPO) Deputy Director-General Yu Shiann-jeng () told CNA Monday that he naturally hopes the cooperative relations will become more and more strong.

He hopes for progress "in both the intensity of cooperation and the depth of the issues involved," Yu said.

The United States has been devoted to the exploration of outer space in recent years, the space expert said, although such missions are highly expensive and are mostly undertaken through international collaboration.

Taiwan also wants to contribute to the work of space exploration, if it can have international collaboration and NASA's guidance, Yu said.

NASA is an independent agency under the executive branch of the U.S.'s federal government that is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Its Johnson Space Center in Houston is home to the U.S.'s astronaut corps, the International Space Station mission operations, the Orion spacecraft program, and a host of future space developments.

Taiwan and the U.S. have maintained long-standing cooperation in satellite development and weather data analysis, starting with the FormoSat-3/COSMIC satellite constellation program. COSMIC is the abbreviation of the constellation observing system for meteorology, ionosphere and climate.

At some point between late this year and early next year, the second satellite constellation jointly developed by Taiwan and the U.S., named FormoSat-7/COSMIC-2, could be launched. The main payloads and observation equipment on those satellites were all provided by the NASA, according to the NSPO.

The FormoSat-7 satellite constellation will generate three to four times the volume of data generated by FormoSat-3 and will greatly increase the amount of low-latitude atmospheric and ionospheric data available.

That data will be incorporated into Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau data and forecast system to help improve the accuracy of weather forecasting and climate observation, the NSPO said.

NASA's payloads on FormoSat-7 will mainly be used for the observation of "space weather" and the prediction of the ionosphere's possible impact on satellite communication, the center said.

Tsai's tour of the Houston space center was part of her 27-hour stopover on her way home from state visits to Belize and Paraguay and makes her the first Taiwanese president to visit a U.S. federal agency during a transit stop.

Asked about the landmark tour, Huang Chieh-cheng (), an assistant professor at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies of Tamkang University, hailed it as "meaningful progress" in Taiwan-U.S. relations.

Lately, Taiwan-friendly voices in the U.S. Congress have been louder than before, Huang said.

By allowing Tsai to visit a facility of NASA, which he pointed out plays a much bigger role in science than politics, the U.S. administration not only satisfied the Taiwan-friendly groups in Congress but also "gave Taiwan a very big seal of approval" for its democratic development, the scholar contended.

Tsai is expected to arrive back in Taiwan at 11:30 p.m. Monday.

(By Liao Yu-yang, Elaine Hou and Elizabeth Hsu)

Enditem/J

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Xi requires strengthening CPC leadership, Party building in military

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 07:22, August 20, 2018

BEIJING, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping has called for efforts to comprehensively strengthen the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Party building in the country's armed forces to ensure a solid political guarantee for the building of a strong military.

Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), made the remarks at a CMC meeting on Party building, which was held from Friday to Sunday in Beijing.

Noting that strengthening CPC leadership and Party building in the military is a requisite for advancing the "great new project" of Party building and the building of a strong country with a strong military, Xi said the whole military should comprehensively implement the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress.

The Party's thinking on strengthening the military for the new era must be fully implemented, Xi said.

Also, the absolute Party leadership over the armed forces must be upheld, the full and strict Party governance must be exercised, and the military's war preparedness and combat capability must be highlighted, Xi said.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee and the CMC have been working on building the military and keeping hold of it from a political perspective, Xi said, citing a conference on the army's political work convened in 2014 in Gutian Township, Fujian Province.

Comprehensive and profound changes regarding the Party leadership and Party building in the military have taken place, giving a strong political underpinning for the historic achievements and changes in the cause of building a strong military, Xi said.

Xi noted that the CPC leadership and Party building are essential to the construction and development of the military and matter to the success of the cause of building a strong army and the enduring peace and stability of the Party and the country.

He said the primary task is to uphold the absolute CPC leadership over the armed forces.

The political building of the Party should be intensified to make sure that the whole military resolutely upholds the authority of the CPC Central Committee and its centralized, unified leadership, and resolutely obeys the command of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC.

Efforts should be made to arm the military with the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and the Party's thinking on strengthening the military for the new era, Xi said.

Also, measures should be taken to ensure that all kinds of work are placed under the unified leadership of the Party committees and all important issues are discussed and decided by the Party committees, he stressed, adding that the system for the Party's leadership over the military should also be improved.

To fulfill the primary duty of war preparedness and combat capability, more efforts are needed in improving the system of Party organizations in the armed forces and strengthening their leadership, organizational and executive capacity, according to Xi.

Xi highlighted the crucial role and responsibility of Party committees of units at or above corps-level in the military's Party organization system, and called on them to take a clear political stand and a firm political stance, maintain a correct political direction, hold a strong political conviction, improve their political capability, and ensure that they stay politically strong.

Stressing the prominent importance in cultivating cadres and talent, Xi called for efforts in training high-calibre cadres who are loyal to the Party, have moral integrity, and demonstrate a keen sense of responsibility, and gathering talent in various areas who are committed to building a strong military and winning combat.

The training of talent in joint operations command, new combat forces, high-tech innovation, and high-level strategic management should be improved, said Xi.

He also urged efforts to improve Party conduct and combat corruption in the armed forces.

"The anti-corruption fight must be carried forward with firmness, and there will be no deviation," said Xi.

At the meeting, Xu Qiliang and Zhang Youxia, both members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC's vice chairmen, raised their requirements on implementing the spirit of Xi's speech and strengthening the Party leadership and Party building in military.

CMC members Wei Fenghe, Li Zuocheng, Miao Hua, and Zhang Shengmin also attended the meeting.

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Beijing opposes Washington's military report

People's Daily Online

(China Daily) 08:02, August 20, 2018

China has voiced strong opposition to a report by the US Defense Department on China's military and security developments, saying it misinterprets China's strategic intentions and hypes a so-called Chinese military threat.

The report, released on Thursday, distorts the relations and situation across the Taiwan Straits, said Senior Colonel Wu Qian, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, in a statement on Friday.

"The release of such reports year after year has harmed the mutual trust, and we ask the United States to abandon the Cold War mindset and adopt an objective and rational attitude toward China's defense and military developments," he said.

China has firmly taken the path of peaceful development and remained a contributor to world peace and international order, Wu said, and its military has borne considerable international peacekeeping and disaster relief responsibilities, earning "universal praise from the international community".

He said China's military modernization is aimed at safeguarding its sovereignty and security, as well as world peace and stability, and the military reform, weapons development and cyberspace defense are justifiable and reasonable.

Wu urged the US to adhere to the one-China policy and the principles of the three joint communiques, and to discreetly deal with Taiwan-related issues.

"It is an ironclad fact that Taiwan is a part of China," he said, "The Chinese military will as always stand firm in safeguarding China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits."

China's activities on islands and reefs in the South China Sea are legitimate in safeguarding national territory and meet people's demand so as to better fulfill its international obligations. China is also committed to resolving disputes peacefully through negotiations with related parties.

The real threat to regional peace and stability is the US sending warplanes and ships to the South China Sea in the name of "freedom of navigation", he said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Saturday that the report ignores and misjudges China's efforts in safeguarding its territorial sovereignty and security interests.

He called on the US to refrain from such irresponsible reports and make efforts to maintain stable growth of relations between the two countries and their militaries.

Teng Jianqun, director of the China Institute of International Studies' Department for US Studies, said the report, like other recent US acts, serves to smear China and depict a "China threat".

"The report is their routine depiction and has its own purpose and strategy," he said.

The annual report generally looks at countries the US thinks could challenge its military dominance, said Li Haidong, a US studies researcher at China Foreign Affairs University.

This year it also touches on such issues as Taiwan and investment security. "And the main reason is that US China policy has undergone some major changes and adjustments," he said.

Li said the US has considered China a strategic competitor since late last year.

"China still stresses equality, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation, but the report defames China in an exaggerated way," Li said.

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Indian Scientists Solve Major Glitch in Homegrown Anti-Tank Nag Missile

Sputnik News

20:46 20.08.2018

The Helicopter Launched Nag (HELINA) missile had a problem locking onto the heat signature of a tank target in very hot conditions as the target's heat signature merged into its surroundings. The problem has been solved with the help of an upgraded 640x512px focal plane array infrared imaging seeker.

New Delhi (Sputnik): Indian defense scientists have finally solved a problem that had been delaying the induction of the locally-developed Nag missile, dubbed as one of the most advanced anti-tank weapons in the world, into the country's armed forces.

On Sunday, the Indian Defense Ministry said that the HELINA (helicopter launched Nag) missile was successfully flight tested from an army helicopter in Pokhran. The weapon system was tested for its full range of seven kilometers.

"The missile is guided by an Infrared Imaging Seeker (IIR) operating in the Lock on Before Launch mode. It is one of the most advanced Anti-Tank Weapons in the world," a Defense Ministry statement reads.

The country-made IIR provides day and night operational capabilities against low silhouette tanks, both static and fast moving. This was the first trial of the HELINA using an upgraded 640x512px focal plane array IIR that helped directly hit the target's heat signature. Earlier, it had a problem locking onto the heat signature of a tank target in very hot conditions as the target's heat signature merged into its surroundings.

The anti-tank guided missile can be launched from both land and air-based platforms. The strike range of the land variant and air version of the missile is up to 4 km and up to 7 km, respectively.

The DRDO has been working on the Nag missile since 2009, spending approximately $47 million on its development.

 Sputnik

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Russia Hopes to Sign S-400 Missile Contract With India in October - Official

Sputnik News

09:15 20.08.2018(updated 11:04 20.08.2018)

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - All technical and economic aspects of the contracts with India on the delivery of S-400 air defense systems and Project 11356 frigates have been coordinated, Russia is hoping to sign both contracts in October, Director of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC) Dmitry Shugaev told Sputnik.

"As for the S-400, we have already prepared everything to sign this contract. All the main technical and commercial aspects have been agreed upon, and I think that we are close to making this happen. We hope to sign both contracts with our Indian partners by the end of the year," Shugaev said adding that October would be perfect for that as the Russian-Indian summit takes place at that time.

The Russian defense cooperation chief also said that Moscow had reduced the final price of S-400 systems for New Delhi taking into consideration the strategic partnership between Russia and India.

"India is a strategic partner for us, so we took into account the wishes of our partners, and made certain concessions," Shugaev, answering the question about whether the price for the S-400 during the negotiations was significantly reduced.

According to open sources, the contract for the supply of S-400 systems to India was initially worth about $6.5 billion.

India may start receiving its first Russian-made S-400 air defense systems in 2020, if the contract on the deliveries is signed this year, Shugaev said.

"As for India, if we sign the deal until the end of this year, I think, the deliveries will be possible in 2020," Shugaev said.

The intergovernmental agreement on the supply the S-400 systems was reached by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi in October 2016.

The S-400 Triumf system is a next-generation mobile air defense system, which is capable of destroying aerial targets at an extremely long range of up to 400 kilometers (almost 250 miles).

5th Generation Fighter

The Russian-Indian project to jointly design a fifth generation fighter jet has been frozen, but there is a possibility to resume the talks on the issue in the future, Dmitry Shugaev said.

"It is frozen for now. But we hope that we will return to the dialogue on the fifth generation fighter," Shugaev said.

The Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) project is part of India's current government policy Make in India. On the Russian side, the developer is the JSC Sukhoi Company, the Indian side is represented by the Hindustan Aeronautics.

Orion-E Drones

A Middle Eastern country has requested purchase of the Russian-made long-endurance reconnaissance drones Orion-E, Shugaev told said in an interview.

"Our foreign clients are very interested in this drone, by the way, we have already received the first request from one Middle Eastern country. It proves that we are trending and taking efforts to secure new and perspective niches in the arms market," Shugaev said.

AK-100 Series Assault Rifles

Russia does not rule out sales of AK-100 series assault rifles, produced in India after opening joint venture, to third countries, Dmitry Shugaev said.

"We are ready to work with either state-owned or private company chosen by India. We are absolutely sure that it is practical to meet the demand for such assault rifles through joint venture. This will not allow producing this type of small arms in quantities necessary for India in the short term, but also selling these modern weapons to third countries. Such possibility is not ruled out," Shugaev said.

Russian-Indian BrahMos Missiles

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) wants to buy BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, produced jointly by Russia and India, but the decision on supplies would be taken by Moscow and New Delhi after receiving a firm request, Dmitry Shugaev said.

"At the moment, the issue of supplying production of this company to third countries on the agenda, therefore we will make a joint decision once there is a firm request. The UAE is among potential buyers, but I cannot say that something is being implemented now as there is no firm request," Shugaev said.

 Sputnik

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Missiles, nuclear deal separate issues: Iran to Germany

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Aug 20, IRNA -- Iran's missile program and the nuclear deal are two separate issues with the former being non-negotiable, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday with a reference to German Chancellor's recent remarks.

'She (Angela Merkel) can express her view,[] but she must know that the missile program and the nuclear deal are two separate issues,' Bahram Qasemi said in his weekly press conference.

'We have declared our stance on the missile issue, confirming that it is non-negotiable,' he stressed.

Merkel had earlier said Berlin was willing to preserve the deal in the wake of US withdrawal, while expressing concern over Tehran's missile program.

Answering a question on Iran's foreign policy approach toward Turkey and Pakistan, Qasemi said, 'Our principled policy on our neighbors is clear.'

'We have always been willing to have friendly relations with all countries as we believe that friendly ties can help create a secure region apt for an economic leapfrog,' he said.

'The US is pursuing its goals through bullying,' the spokesman said referring to sanctions imposed on Turkey by Washington, calling the approach 'a medievalist policy'.

9156**2044

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Iran's indigenous air defense system at final stage

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Aug 20, IRNA -- The Iranian air defense system, dubbed Bavar 373, which has more capabilities compared to the Russian-made S-300 is at its final test-fire stage, an official with the defense ministry said.

The Bavar 373 air defense system is at its final stage, said Deputy Defense Minister for Parliamentary and Legal Affairs Reza Talaei Nik, quoting Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami on the sidelines of Majlis (Iranian Parliament) non-plenary session on Monday.

The system is beyond [the Russian-made] S-300, and has a higher technical and production capability in the defense industries.

Bavar-373 is an Iranian designed long-range mobile air defense system unveiled in August, 2016.

9376**2044



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Iran: US Action Group a psychological war

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Aug 20, IRNA -- Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman described the US new anti-Iran measure titled Iran Action Group as a 'psychological and economic war' in line with Washington's longstanding hostility toward Tehran.

The US policies are against all international laws, said Bahrram Qasemi in his weekly press conference on Monday.

US Thursday appointed Brian Hook in charge of Iran Action Group to guide Trump's pressure campaign against Tehran.

'The measure is rather a psychological, economic war, but it will lead to nowhere,' he said vowing that the measure's effects will be contained by Iranian people resistance and devising solutions.

Iran and major world powersthe US, Russia, China, UK, France and Germanysigned the deal, known officially as the Joint Comprehenive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in 2015, under which Tehran accepted to curb its nuclear program in exchange for some economic sanctions relief.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its latest report in May verified Iran's compliance to the deal for the eleventh time since the agreement was implemented in 2016.

Despite the commitment, US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal on May 8, 2018, calling it the worst deal ever and re-imposed unilateral economic sanctions against Iran.

9156**1397





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Iran urges Europe to act as U.S. threats to reimpose oil sanctions

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 07:54, August 20, 2018

TEHRAN, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Minister called for Europe's pragmatic steps to save Iran's interests under the 2015 international nuclear deal as the United States threatened to reimpose sanctions on the country's crude oil exports, Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday.

Europeans' measures to save Iran's 2015 international nuclear deal should "go beyond declarations to take pragmatic steps," Mohammad Javad Zarif said.

The European parties to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) have taken a series of measures after putting forward a package for saving the nuclear deal, Zarif was quoted as saying.

"These measures (by Europe) have been an announcement of stances rather than operational measures. Though they (Europeans) have moved forward, we believe that Europe is not still ready to pay the price," Zarif said.

The JCPOA restricts Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for the easing of sanctions on the Islamic republic.

On May 8, U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the deal and vowed to reinstate sanctions against Tehran to make the latter "change behavior."

Last month, the European Union updated a legislation aimed at countering sanctions by the United States on businesses operating in Iran as part of its pledge to uphold the nuclear deal after Washington pulled out.

It also authorized the European Investment Bank (EIB) to finance Iranian projects, while noting it was up to the bank to give the improvement for any investments.

The European countries should take on their responsibilities to compensate for the relapse of U.S. sanctions following Washington's exit from the deal, Zarif said after the EU decision.

On Sunday, Iranian First Vice President Es'haq Jahangiri also said Iran is looking for solutions to continue its sale of crude oil and get money back to the country after the United States decided to reimpose its sanctions on the country's energy sector in November.

The European countries have pledged to take measures before U.S. sanctions come into effect against the country's oil and banking sectors to make up for any possible losses that Tehran may suffer, Jahangiri was quoted as saying by Press TV.

He said the U.S. sanctions have so far not limited European countries in the economic sector, particularly with regard to oil purchases and trade.

Although some private companies, particularly Europeans, have left Iran after the reimposition of the U.S. sanctions, their move has not been "very determining," said Jahangiri.

Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 6 reimposing the first round of sanctions on Iran, which had been lifted under the nuclear deal, to levy "maximum economic pressure" on the Islamic Republic.

The sanctions will cover Iran's purchases of U.S. dollars, its trade in gold and precious metals, and its automotive sector.

The second round of embargo will be reimposed in early November with the aim of curtailing Iran's oil exports and shipping sectors.

Besides, Iran called on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Sunday to prevent efforts by "certain member states" to take over its share of the oil market.

It referred to speculations that Saudi Arabia would pump more oil to fill Iran's gap once U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic come into effect, Press TV reported.

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran's representative to the OPEC, said that the organization should do more to "fully protect" its member states against countries that "were trying to politicize the group."

"No other OPEC member state can take over the market share of other member states under any condition and no such authorization was ever issued during the organization's last ministerial conference," Gharibabadi was quoted as saying.

"Besides, the technical conditions of other producers do not allow this," he said, stressing that the OPEC needed to remain an independent organization immune to political pressures.

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Europeans must bear expenses for long-term interests: Iran FM

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 20, 2018 04:52PM

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says European countries must be ready to bear the expenses if they want to safeguard their long-term interests in the face of the United States' law-breaking behavior after quitting a nuclear deal with Iran.

Zarif made the remarks while addressing reporters in Tehran on Monday after attending a session at the Iranian Parliament's Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy in which he briefed the lawmakers on the current state of the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The United States has ramped up pressure on Iran after US President Donald Trump withdrew Washington in May from the landmark nuclear agreement, reached between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries in 2015, and decided to re-impose unilateral sanctions against Tehran.

Under the deal, Iran undertook to put limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions.

The top Iranian diplomat said the European countries have so far cooperated with Iran for the implementation of the JCPOA, including by activating the Blocking Statute and allowing the European Investment Bank (EIB) to finance or encourage medium and small enterprises to work with Iran.

"If these measures are to be fruitful, the Europeans need to be prepared to take their interests with respect to Iran, the region and global order into consideration, so that the Americans will not be able to impose their own views on others. In fact, they must be ready to pay a price," Zarif pointed out.

He added, "Europeans have been very good in declaring their positions [on the JCPOA], but to pay that price, they need to make a decision and they have only a limited time for that decision and cannot wait forever."

"The JCPOA succeeded in changing the securitized atmosphere against Iran into an atmosphere of isolation against the law-breaking Americans within the new US administration," Iran's top diplomat said, adding, "Therefore, if Europeans want to guarantee their long-term interests, they must be ready to pay the price."

In defiance of warnings from the European Union, the JCPOA signatories and many international players, President Trump signed an executive order on August 6 re-imposing a first round of sanctions on Iran, which were lifted under the nuclear deal, to levy "maximum economic pressure" on the Islamic Republic.

Earlier this month, the European Union threatened to impose sanctions on companies that stop doing business with Iran in compliance with the US sanctions snapback mechanism.

"If EU companies abide by US secondary sanctions, they will, in turn, be sanctioned by the EU," Nathalie Tocci, an aide to the 28-nation bloc's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said.

Iran's First Vice President Es'haq Jahangiri said on Sunday that Tehran is looking for solutions to continue selling its crude oil after the United States re-imposed its sanctions on the country's energy sector in early November.

Speaking in an interview with IRNA, Jahangiri noted that European countries have told Iran's Foreign Ministry that they will be taking measures before US sanctions come into effect against the country's oil and banking sectors to make up for any possible losses that Tehran may suffer.

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China using Iranian ships to avoid US oil sanctions

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 20, 2018 01:55PM

China has reportedly started to use Iranian ships to transport crude oil to its refineries to avoid the impacts of US sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Reuters quoted unknown sources as saying that Chinese buyers of Iranian oil had created mechanisms to use the ships of the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) for nearly all of their imports to keep supply flowing amid the re-imposition of US sanctions.

The sources said the state oil trader Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp and Sinopec Group, Asia's biggest refiner, had activated a clause in its long-term supply agreements with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) that allows them to use NITC-operated tankers.

The price for the oil under the long-term deals would be changed to a delivered ex-ship basis from the previous free-on-board terms, meaning that Iran would cover all the costs and risks of delivering the crude as well as handling the insurance, the sources said.

"The shift started very recently, and it was almost a simultaneous call from both sides," Reuters quoted one of the sources, a senior Beijing-based oil executive, as saying.

"This is not the first time companies exercised the option... Whenever there is a need the buyers can use that," said another of the sources, also a senior Beijing-based oil executive.

Last month, the media in New Delhi reported that Iran was providing ships as well as insurance cover for oil shipments to India so as to continue exporting the strategic fuel to its second largest buyer in light of returning US sanctions.

In July, all 17 tankers chartered to carry oil from Iran to China were operated by NITC, according to shipping data. In June, eight of 19 vessels chartered were Chinese operated.

Last month, those tankers loaded about 23.8 million barrels of crude oil and condensate destined for China, or about 767,000 barrels per day (bpd). In June, the loadings were 19.8 million barrels, or 660,000 bpd, as reported by Reuters.

In 2017, China imported an average of 623,000 bpd, according to customs data.

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Iran Calls on EU, Russia and China To Speed Efforts On Saving Nuclear Deal

August 20, 2018

Tehran has urged the European Union, Russia, and China to accelerate their efforts to salvage a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers after the accord was abandoned by U.S. President Donald Trump on grounds that it was "deeply flawed."

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said on August 20 that "Europeans and other signatories of the deal (China and Russia) have been trying to save the deal ... but the process has been slow" and needs to accelerate.

"Iran relies mainly on its own capabilities to overcome America's new sanctions," Qasemi said in a news conference broadcast live on state television.

Britain, France, and Germany -- the three European signatories of the landmark accord -- have been scrambling to ensure Iran gets enough economic benefits to persuade it to continue meeting its obligations under the deal, despite the U.S. withdrawal.

The agreement requires Iran to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for international sanctions relief.

The United States imposed fresh sanctions on Tehran in August, targeting Iran's trade in gold and other precious metals, its car industry, and purchases of U.S. currency.

Washington also says it will reimpose sanctions on Iran's oil exports and banking sector on November 4.

Iranian President Hassan Rohani's government is facing growing discontent in Iran over the country's weakening currency, which has lost half of its value since April.

Several mass protests also have broken out in Iran since the beginning of the year over high prices and alleged corruption.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, dpa, and AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-calls -on-eu-russia-and-china-to-speed-efforts- on-saving-nuclear-deal/29443240.html

Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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'Not Negotiable': Tehran Warns Merkel Not to Link Its Missile Program to JCPOA

Sputnik News

16:49 20.08.2018(updated 16:57 20.08.2018)

In November 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron called for the amendment of the the 2015 Iran nuclear deal to include Tehran's ballistic missile activity.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi has reiterated Tehran's stance that the issue of the Islamic Republic's missile program is beyond debate, according to Iran's Fars news agency.

Referring to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Qassemi stressed that "she and her advisors should be aware that the [Iran] nuclear deal, [also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)] and Iran's missile program are two separate issues and are not related."

"Iran's missile issues are not negotiable," Qassemi pointed out.

His statement came after Merkel touched upon the issue ahead of her talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Berlin last Saturday.

"Of course, we will discuss Iran. We want to preserve the JCPOA but we are concerned about Iran's activities, whether it is a missile program or the situation in Syria," Merkel said.

Earlier, Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami made it clear that Tehran would continue to strengthen its missile defense capability regardless of its enemies' threats and sanctions.

"Iran's missile power is a defensive deterrent power and as I had promised our dear people, I will not spare any efforts to increase the country's missile capabilities and certainly, we will increase our missile power on a daily basis," he stressed, warning "any foreign power" against meddling in its "defense and military affairs."

In November 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Iran's ballistic missile program was "very worrying" and that additional measures against the Islamic Republic should be included in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which should not be canceled.

Iran has repeatedly insisted that its ballistic program has a purely defensive nature and remains the most important component of the country's sovereignty  an issue that should not be negotiated.

US President Donald Trump announced Washington's withdrawal from the JCPOA in early May, also pledging to reinstate the anti-Iranian sanctions which were scrapped after the signing of the nuclear deal in 2015.

 Sputnik

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Tehran Looks to Replace France's Total as Firm Quits Iran

Sputnik News

11:47 20.08.2018(updated 12:09 20.08.2018)

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said that France's Total has officially left Iran, according to Iranian state TV.

"Total has officially withdrawn from the agreement on the development of South Pars 11 project. It has been more than two months since the company announced its withdrawal from the agreement," Bijan Zanganeh said as quoted by the ICANA news agency.

The minister noted that Tehran was currently looking for a company which would replace Total in the project.

The US relations with Iran have further deteriorated in the wake of Washington's decision to withdraw from the historic 2015 nuclear deal in May, as well as to reimpose sanctions on Iran in two phases in August and November.

On August 7, the United States officially put into effect the first package of sanctions against Tehran, which are targeting Iran's purchase of US dollar banknotes, trade in gold and other metals and transactions involving the national currency.

The second phase is set to target Iran's oil industry, and Total had already said it would be impossible to remain in Iran unless it received a specific resolution from the US.

 Sputnik

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New Pakistani Prime Minister Says Debt Crisis One of Country's Key Issues

Sputnik News

03:59 20.08.2018

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  New Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan delivered Sunday his first speech as the country's head of the government. Key points of the speech were later posted on the prime minister's Facebook page.

New Pakistani Prime Minister said Monday he believed that one of the key problems of the country is the ongoing debt crisis. Along with the debt crisis, lack of human development, inequality, problems in the system of education, water shortage and climate changes are also mentioned as key Pakistan's problems.

 AP Photo / Anjum Naveed

Khan also said that the progress of Pakistan would be based on several principles including the rule of law, accountability of everyone, fair tax system and creation of the system of meritocracy.

On Saturday, Khan, the leader of Pakistan's centrist Tehreek-e-Insaf party, was sworn in as the country's 22nd prime minister.

Khan was elected prime minister as a result of Friday's vote in the country's National Assembly. Khan's candidature for prime minister was backed by 176 lawmakers out of 272. His key rival, Shehbaz Sharif, the president of the center-right Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was supported by 96 votes.

 Sputnik

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Pakistan: Rival India Hints at Revival of Talks

By Ayaz Gul August 20, 2018

Pakistan disclosed Monday that neighboring India has hinted at the possibility of the two nuclear armed nations reviving long-stalled talks.

The announcement comes as the newly-elected government of Prime Minister Imran Khan takes charge in Islamabad after his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf party won last month's general elections.

Shortly after being sworn in to office, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said a letter from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Imran Khan and "conveyed a message of initiating a process of dialogue."

"That is a very positive gesture," noted Qureshi.

There was no immediate official reaction from India, although Indian media have confirmed and reported details of Modi's letter to Khan.

In his first official communication with the new Pakistani government, Modi called for bilateral engagement, according to The Hindu, an Indian daily newspaper.

"The Prime Minister expressed India's commitment to build good neighborly relations between India and Pakistan and pursuing meaningful and constructive engagement for the benefit of the people of the region," the paper quoted official sources as saying.

The Press Trust of India said Modi conveyed to his Pakistani counterpart that New Delhi is "looking for constructive and meaningful engagement" with Islamabad.

In his first news conference, Qureshi acknowledged that the issues straining bilateral ties, including the territorial Kashmir dispute, are complicated and may not offer "immediate or easy solutions."

He cautioned, however, that Pakistan and India are two nuclear powers and have no option but to come to the table for talks. "We need to engage in a continued and uninterrupted dialogue because, in my opinion, this is the only and wise path available for both of us," Qureshi said.

Islamabad's traditionally strained ties with New Delhi have deteriorated since the inception of Modi's government in India.

Bilateral tensions have led to frequent deadly military skirmishes along the disputed Kashmir border over the past couple of years, prompting fears of another war between India and Pakistan over the divided Himalayan region. Both countries claim the region in its entirety.

Amit Baruah, a longtime observer of India-Pakistan ties and New Delhi-based resident editor of The Hindu, welcomed the apparent thaw in ties.

"Contact and dialogue are a must if India and Pakistan are to address their differences," Baruah said.

The Indian leadership has until now demanded that Pakistan prosecute suspected Islamist militants for their role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed more than 166 people, including several U.S. citizens.

Pakistan says a lack of cooperation and solid evidence from India have hampered prosecutors trying to persuade the anti-terrorism court to expeditiously try those cases.

Afghanistan

Separately, Qureshi said he intended to establish contact with the Afghan foreign minister, Salahuddin Rabbani, on Monday to plan a visit to Kabul to bring a "solid message" to the Afghan nation that peace and security in Pakistan are linked to stability in their country.

"Our future is interlinked, our geography is interlinked, our peace and stability are interlinked. We need each other and we have to support each other to begin a new journey. This is the message and mature thinking I intend to present before the leadership of that country," said the Pakistani Foreign Ministry.

Pakistan-U.S. ties

Qureshi said the new government will promote mutually beneficial relations with the United States "on the basis of equality and mutual respect" for each other's national priorities.

"I am certainly not ignorant about the mutual trust deficit and we have to bridge it. I will want to listen to their point of view and I will present mine as well to move forward on how we reduce the trust deficit," Qureshi noted.

The government of U.S. President Donald Trump cut civilian financial aid to Pakistan this year. Additionally, Trump stopped all military assistance to Pakistan, saying Islamabad must take decisive action to root out militants waging deadly attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has rejected the charges, saying they stemmed from U.S. military failures to end the Afghan war. The allegations and counter-allegations have sent U.S.-Pakistani relations to new lows.

The Trump administration welcomed newly-elected Prime Minister Khan after he was sworn in on Saturday and described the bilateral relationship spanning more than 70 years as vital.

"The United States looks forward to working with Pakistan's new civilian government to promote peace and prosperity in Pakistan and the region," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Saturday.

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Syrian army fortifies positions around al-Safa hills, Sweida

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Aug 20, IRNA -- Syrian Arab Army units and the allied forces continued operations against Daesh (ISIS) dens and fortifications in al-Safa hills, the last stronghold for the takfiri terrorist organization in Sweida province's eastern badiya (desert), SANA reported.

The army units fortified their positions in the vicinity of al-Safa hills, tightening the noose around the encircled Daesh pockets, responding with the appropriate weapons to any hostile attempt by terrorists to break the siege imposed on them, SANA reporter said.

The army's air force and artillery launched accurate strikes against Daesh dens and fortified positions in al-Safa hill, which has a rough terrain replete with rocks, ditches, and gorges, inflicting heavy losses on them in personnel and equipment.

Later, the reporter said that an army unit targeted a terrorist group that was moving in the surroundings of Qabr al-Sheikh Yassin area southwest of the hills, destroying two vehicles, one equipped with a heavy machinegun and the other equipped with an anti-air machinegun.

The army also targeted another group near Ghanem hill east of the hills, which resulted in destroying a vehicle equipped with a heavy machinegun, while another army units apprehended five terrorists.

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Over 13m Syrians need humanitarian aid

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Aug 20, IRNA -- US Agency for International Development Administrator Mark Green said on Monday that over 13 million Syrian civilians are still in need of humanitarian aid.

According to Russia Today, Green made the statements in a ceremony at Center for International and Strategic Research marking World Day of Humanitarian Aid.

Noting that the 13 million make up 80 percent of the Syrian inhabitants, he said that today, Syria faces one of the most complicated human crises in the world.

Earlier, UN in a report said financial damages to the Syrian infrastructure in the wake of the seven-year war exceed 388 billion dollars.

Syria war which started in 2017 has so far claimed over 350,000 lives and displaced over half of its population.

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Hundreds of Syria displaced civilians return to their houses

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Aug 20, IRNA -- Hundreds of civilians who had been displaced from their houses in towns and villages in the southern countryside of Aleppo Province are turning back after the Syrian Arab Army had cleansed them of terrorism.

The displaced civilians are coming from the areas under control of terrorist organizations in Idleb Province through Abu al-Dhuhour corridor towards their houses in the liberated towns and villages, SANA reported.

Civilians are coming on foot, by cars and tractors via the Abu al-Dhuhour corridor, to the far southeast of Idleb countryside, adding that a medical point was provided by the authorities under supervision of Syrian Arab Red Crescent and Internal Security Forces to supply the returnees with health, relief and food aid, SANA reporter said.

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US refusal to reconstruct Syria ploy to impede refugees return: Lavrov

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 20, 2018 03:04PM

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the United States' refusal to participate in the reconstruction of war-torn Syria is aimed to "artificially slow down" the return of Syrian refugees to the their home country.

The top Russian diplomat made the comment in a joint press conference with his Lebanese counterpart, Gebran Bassil, in the capital Moscow on Monday, adding that Washington was only interested in reconstructing those parts of the Arab country where the anti-Damascus armed opposition groups were present.

"A few days ago, Washington hosted a meeting between [UN Special Envoy for Syria] Staffan de Mistura and [US Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo, and the State Department used the phrase 'it is premature to even discuss the restoration of Syria' in the statement following their talks," Lavrov said.

Elsewhere in his comments, he stressed that Moscow would help Beirut return Syrian refugees to their country, adding that Lebanon should not become a hostage to the Syrian refugee crisis. However, he noted that Moscow was opposed to foreign intervention in Lebanon's internal affairs.

Lavrov's remarks came two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin called on European countries to build up humanitarian aid to the Syrian people and to reconstruct the Arab country to ensure that Syrian refugees were able to return to their homeland, warning that a renewed refugee crisis would be a "disruptive burden" for Europe.

The Russian leader further said there were around 5 million refugees in the countries neighboring Syria, including around one million in Lebanon only.

Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed in early August that it had sent a letter to Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford with a proposal to cooperate on reconstructing Syria and repatriating refugees to the war-torn country.

The Russian army's chief of staff General Valery Gerasimov sent the letter to Dunford on July 19, saying Moscow was willing to cooperate with Washington in demining the Arab country and helping refugees return to their homes.

In the letter, Gerasimov said Moscow was ready to "work with the Syrian authorities to provide security guarantees to refugees in the Rukban camp in the US-controlled Al-Tanf area and to create conditions for their return to their homes."

"A proposal was also made to coordinate humanitarian de-mining, including in Raqqa, and other priority humanitarian issues," the Russian ministry said.

Addressing the UN Security Council last week, Russian Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky urged world powers to help Syria's economic recovery and the return of refugees as Damascus nears final victory over terrorist groups.

Polyansky said the "revival of the Syrian economy" was a "critical challenge," with Syria facing an acute shortage of construction material, heavy equipment and fuel to rebuild areas destroyed by war.

In July, Moscow also sent a proposal to Washington to jointly organize the return home of Syrian refugees from Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt that would involve international financial support.

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Syria: WHO appeals for funding to sustain critical health care for millions trapped by conflict

20 August 2018 - With conflict raging in northwest Syria, the United Nations health agency has appealed for $11 million to provide life-saving care to parts of Aleppo, Hama, Idleb and Lattakia governorates.

"The health situation in north-west Syria is already dire and looks set to deteriorate," said Michel Thieren, Regional Emergencies Director for the World Health Organization (WHO).

"If WHO does not receive additional funding, more than two million people caught in the cross-fire may have no access to essential health care services, including life-saving trauma care."

Fleeing mounting insecurity and violence, hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom have already been displaced, may be forced to move again. Idleb is in particularly dire straits, as more than half a million people have been displaced to and within the governorate since January 2017.

Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, had said that there was "at least one million children at risk in Idlib alone."

Meanwhile, growing crime and inter-factional fighting are adding to the insecurity as targeted assassinations and kidnappings also rise.

Many internally displaced persons (IDPs) are living in makeshift, overcrowded shelters with little access to health care, safe water and sanitation, according to WHO.

After more than seven years of conflict, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions to flee, those remaining are faced with degenerating health services, leaving them vulnerable to communicable disease as acute malnutrition is predicted to increase.

Moreover, a decline in vaccination coverage rates threaten renewed outbreaks of preventable diseases, such as polio, and jeopardize WHO's efforts to globally eradicate the disease.

"As matters stand, over half of the country's public health care facilities have been destroyed or forced to close after years of conflict," said Dr. Thieren.

Facing widespread need across many parts of the country, the humanitarian community is finding itself increasingly compromised as a gap in funding for health has placed millions of vulnerable Syrians at increased risk.

WHO said it would use any additionally received donor funds to support primary health care, childhood vaccination and trauma services in north-west Syria; and to strengthen referral systems to transfer critically ill and wounded patients to hospitals for specialized care.

The UN health agency flagged that it would also facilitate medical evacuations and deliver essential life-saving medicines and equipment to hospitals, clinics and mobile teams to treat people in need.

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Turkey takes complaint against additional US steel and aluminum tariffs to WTO

Iran Press TV

Mon Aug 20, 2018 05:53PM

The World Trade Organization (WTO) says Turkey has initiated a dispute complaint with the Swiss-based intergovernmental trade court against additional metal tariffs imposed by the United States on the Anatolian country over the detention of an American pastor.

"Turkey has requested WTO dispute consultations with the United States concerning additional import duties imposed by the United States on steel and aluminum products. The request was circulated to WTO members on 20 August," the WTO said in a statement posted on its official website on Monday.

The Turkish lira has already lost about 30 percent of its value against the US dollar since the beginning of August, when tensions between the two NATO allies soared unprecedentedly over the detention of Andrew Brunson, an American, in Turkey over terror-related charges.

Brunson, 50, was indicted by a Turkish court on charges of having links with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group and the movement of the US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of having masterminded the July 2016 coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Brunson, who has already spent nearly two years behind bars in Turkey, has denied the charges, calling them "shameful and disgusting." If he is found guilty, he will face up to 35 years in jail. His imprisonment and then house arrest have caused one of the deepest rows between Turkey and the US.

Late last month, US President Donald Trump said that Washington "will impose large sanctions on Turkey for their long time detainment of Pastor Andrew Brunson." He also said on Friday that he had ordered to double US tariffs on Turkish aluminum and steel imports to 20 percent and 50 percent, respectively.

The US is the world's biggest steel importer, and Turkey is the sixth-largest steel exporter to the US.

"Turkey claims that the measures are inconsistent with a number of provisions of the WTO's Agreement on Safeguards and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994," the WTO statement further said.

Under dispute consultations, both Ankara and Washington have two months to seek a solution. If they fail to secure such a settlement, then the issue can go to the WTO Dispute Settlement Body. It can take years to resolve disputes if WTO trade judges become involved.

"They should have given him back a long time ago, and Turkey has in my opinion acted very, very badly," Trump said at a press conference on Friday. "We are not going to take it sitting down. They can't take our people."

On Wednesday, a Turkish court rejected Washington's latest appeal for Brunson's release. Later the same day, Ankara increased duties on imports of some key US products such as rice, hard alcohol, leaf tobacco, cosmetics and cars in a tit-for-tat move.

Erdogan on Saturday said his country will not "surrender" to the US under sanctions imposed over the detention of Brunson.

Turkey and the US also disagree over their military interventions in the Syria war, Ankara's plan to buy missile defense systems from Russia and the US conviction of a Turkish state bank executive on sanctions-busting charges in January.

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Erdogan Says Turkish Currency Under 'Attack'

RFE/RL August 20, 2018

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Turkey's currency crisis is the result of an "attack" on his country's economy.

Erdogan made the remarks in an August 20 speech ahead of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday as a dispute worsens with Washington over Turkey's continued detention of an American pastor and its pledge to buy Russian S-400 missile systems.

In a prerecorded address to the Turkish people ahead of the start of the four-day holiday, Erdogan said the aim of those he blamed for Turkey's currency crisis was to bring "Turkey and its people to their knees."

But he said Turkey had the power and ability to overcome the crisis.

Washington has imposed sanctions against its NATO ally over the imprisoned pastor and has increased tariffs in a move that sent the Turkish lira tumbling last week.

Evangelical pastor Andrew Craig Brunson, currently under house arrest after more than 1 1/2 years in prison, faces up to 35 years in a Turkish prison if convicted of espionage and terrorism-related charges.

Turkish prosecutors claim Brunson had ties with the U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan has accused of orchestrating Turkey's failed 2016 military coup.

Turkish authorities are holding more than a dozen other U.S. citizens, including a Turkish-American NASA scientist and a visiting chemistry professor from Pennsylvania, as well as three local staff members of the U.S. Consulate.

U.S. President Donald Trump has called for Brunson's immediate release and threatened more sanctions.

Last week, Trump signed a defense-spending bill that includes delaying the delivery of F-35 fighter jets pending a Pentagon report. U.S. lawmakers have been working to block their delivery in response to Brunson's arrest and Turkey's pledge to buy Russian S-400 missile systems.

Amid the heightened tensions, shots were fired at a security booth outside of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara early on August 20.

Bullets were fired at a security gate from a passing vehicle, according to the Ankara governor's office. It also said that two suspects were detained and a vehicle and pistol seized.

Both suspects, who confessed to the shooting, had criminal records and their links were being investigated, it added.

U.S. officials say nobody was hurt in that incident, which happened while the embassy was closed for the Eid al-Adha holiday.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/erdogan-s ays-turkish-currency- under-attack-/29443448.html

Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Turkey Files Complaint Against US Tariffs in WTO Amid Escalating Tensions

Sputnik News

17:57 20.08.2018(updated 18:26 20.08.2018)

US-Turkish bilateral relations have deteriorated over Brunson's detention in Turkey in 2016. The pastor was since released from prison in late July and placed under house arrest.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) said Monday that Turkey had filed a complaint against US metal tariffs.

"Turkey has requested WTO dispute consultations with the United States concerning additional import duties imposed by the United States on steel and aluminium products. The request was circulated to WTO members on 20 August," the release said.

Turkey and the United States have 60 days to find a solution through discussions otherwise Turkey can request adjudication by a panel.

Last week, Turkish Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan noted that Ankara will challenge Washington's decision to double tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Turkey at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

On August 10, US President Donald Trump authorized the doubling of steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey, up to 50 and 20 percent, respectively, which resulted in the Turkish lira falling to a new historic low.

On Wednesday, a Turkish court rejected Washington's latest appeal for the release of the US pastor. Later the same day, Turkey increased tariffs on imports of some US products.

 Sputnik

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Erdogan: Attack on Turkish Economy is No Different From Attack on Flag

Sputnik News

11:09 20.08.2018(updated 11:40 20.08.2018)

Amid the rapid fall in lira's price, the Turkish president said on Monday that those who seel to make Turkey give up through exchange rate will soon see they are mistaken.

Erdogan said on Monday that the attack on the economy is no different from the attack on the national flag or a call to prayer, adding that Turkish people are able to overcome all the hurdles the country is facing.

"There is no difference between attacking our economy and attacking our flag. The goal is the same: to bring Turkey and the Turkish people to their knees, to enslave them. We are a people who prefer coming to blows over bowing our heads. Very soon those who believe that they will manage to force Turkey to surrender using the exchange rate will understand that they were mistaken," Erdogan said in a pre-recorded address to the Turkish people ahead of the start of the four-day holiday.

He noted that the enemies of the country have "failed to destroy Turkey with the help of terrorism and domestic traitors, it will not be possible to do so using the exchange rate."

Erdogan has blamed the crash of the lira on the US claiming a political, underhand plot had sent the value of country's currency falling to record lows.

Earlier, Turkey's national currency lost almost 20 percent of its value, after the United States has imposed sanctions on two Turkish government ministers and doubled tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum imports over the continued detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson on espionage and terror-related charges.

Turkey retaliated with some $533 million of tariffs on US imports  including cars, tobacco and alcoholic drinks  and threatened to boycott US electronic goods, above all iPhones.

 Sputnik

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US Not Yet Training Turkish Forces for Joint Patrols in Syria

By Carla Babb August 20, 2018

U.S. service members have not yet started training Turkish forces for joint patrols near the volatile Syrian city of Manbij, despite U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis telling reporters last week that he expected them to start by Sunday night.

"We still have a few details to work out," Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Robert Manning told reporters Monday at the Pentagon, adding that "rehearsals for combined patrols" would begin "as soon as possible."

U.S. defense officials familiar with the training told VOA on Monday that the training site in southern Turkey was still being cleared.

Equipment and training officers are already in Turkey, Mattis told reporters traveling with him late last Thursday.

He said he expected the training to begin "within 72 hours," adding, "could be sooner."

The training is needed before U.S. and Turkish forces operating near Manbij can combine their patrols.

Right now, the two forces are conducting "coordinated but independent" patrols, according to the Pentagon.

It is unclear when U.S. and Turkish forces would start conducting the joint patrols in Syria once training of Turkey's troops is complete.

The city of Manbij houses Kurdish militia fighters. Washington supports the Kurdish fighters there, while Ankara says they are anti-Turkey terrorists.

The Pentagon said the purpose of the patrols is to support "long-term security in Manbij" and uphold its commitments to NATO-ally Turkey.

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Another attempt to restore health benefits to General Electric retirees has been defeated.

A panel of judges last week ruled in favor of GE, which has been fending off a legal backlash since 2015 when the company canceled health-care benefits for retirees over 65. Following a Thursday hearing within the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the judges echoed GEs position that the company did not violate federal benefits and labor laws with its decision.

The issue dates to GEs 2015 move to cut supplemental health care plans for retired salaried workers, instead offering access to a private exchange of insurance providers and a $1,000 annual reimbursement to cover expenses. A similar decision followed shortly after for retired hourly workers.

The decision was similar to moves taken by other large companies that have opted to change benefit offerings to cut rising health care costs, especially among retirees.

The initial changes saved GE nearly $1.4 billion in future benefit obligations and affected about 65,000 people, including thousands in southwestern Connecticut, where the company had been headquartered until its departure for Boston in 2016. The suit involving hourly workers affected about 50,000 people.

Retirees and a coalition of unions have contested the companys decision in a series of suits, arguing the company improperly reneged on medical coverage promises it had made to former workers.

The ruling last week was the latest in which a series of judges has maintained that GEs collective bargaining agreement with the union did not guarantee health benefits in perpetuity.

The company has consistently maintained that its decisions were in accordance with accepted practices. GE acted properly, lawfully and consistent with collective bargaining requirements in making changes to the post-65 supplemental Medicare and prescription drug benefits for retired union members, the company said in statement when the first suits were filed.

The unions contested that belief. We are outraged that a very profitable General Electric Corp. would choose to break promises to its retirees during the most vulnerable time of their lives, after they gave decades of service to this company, read a 2015 statement by the chair of the coalition of unions that represented workers. I am glad these retirees have unions that are willing to step up and fight for justice.

Jordan.grice@hearstmediact.com
MGM Springfield / Contributed photo

Stevie Wonder has been performing to large crowds for 57 years, but thats not the only reason were talking about his upcoming concert today.

Wonder will bring his Song Party summer tour to the MassMutual Center in Springfield, Mass., Saturday, Sept. 1, as part of a 10-concert series at MGM properties from Las Vegas to Atlantic City to National Harbor, Maryland, to (wait for it)... this border citys downtown district that is home to MGMs latest property, MGM Springfield. The resort is opening Aug. 24 a block away from the concert venue that opened in 1972.
GREENWICH  As the owner of the Greenwich gourmet bakery/sandwich shop Something Natural, Seth Hirschel used to end his day with a bit of a bread dilemma.

His staff baked dozens of artisan loaves, but demand varied and hed often find himself staging an impromptu buy-one, get-one sale or going door-to-door to share his rye, herb and Portuguese beauties with nearby merchants.

Enter Food Rescue US.

For the last six months, the Norwalk-based organization has sent food rescuers to Something Natural each day to pick up any leftover loaves and transport them to a food pantry, shelter or other agency where they wont go to waste.

They take about 10 to 20 loaves a day, said Hirschel. It makes me feel good because the food is going to good use for people who need it.

Thats the simple, successful idea behind Food Rescue US, which was founded in 2011 by two friends looking for a technological solution to the problem of hunger, said Carol Shattuck, who has been CEO since April.

A Greenwich resident, Shattuck was finishing up close to 13 years at Americares when she joined the Food Rescue board of directors in 2015.

This really intrigued me, she said. I loved the model and I loved the mission.

So how does it work?

Donors  from restaurants to markets to college cafeterias  register and list the kinds and amounts of food theyd like to donate. Agencies, in turn, register with the program and list what sorts of perishable and non-perishable foods they need to serve their populations.

Thats where the technology comes in  getting the donations to those who need them. Volunteers download the Food Rescue US app to their phones and can easily see donations that need to be rescued in their area.

Volunteers can choose to adopt a regular rescue run or pick and choose available rescues when they have some spare time.

Amira Mantoura has been rescuing food for a few years now. The Greenwich mother of three typically picks up donations from Trader Joes or other outlets three times a week on her way home from work.

Store workers help her load her SUV with up to 15 banana boxes of donations  often food thats right on the cusp of its sell-by date or has a packaging issue  and shes off to the receiving agency.

It doesnt have to be an inconvenience, she said. Its not a burden.

And its definitely helping the fight against hunger, said Alison Sherman, Food Rescues communications director. According to Feeding America statistics from 2016, there is an overall food insecurity rate of 11.6 percent in Connecticut. The organization estimated about 29,370 children in Fairfield County do not have access to enough food to live a healthy, active life.

Shattuck said there are about 10 restaurants and grocers donating to the cause and more than 50 active rescuers in Greenwich alone. The organization has sites as far away as Oregon, New Mexico and Florida.

The University of Notre Dame and Ohio State and Duke universities all participate in their regions, as do many Fairfield County chefs determined not to waste food.

We have a lot of relationships with chefs, Shattuck said. Some are relatively waste free.

In Fairfield County, Food Rescue logs about 130 rescues a week. Nationally, it estimates it is providing 600,000 meals a month through the program.

Shattuck gets in on the act when she has time. On a recent Saturday, she knew shed be driving to Stamford, so she checked the app, swung by Whole Foods and made a delivery.

It all happened just seamlessly, she said.

For more information on Food Rescue US, visit foodrescue.us.
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage

Built in 1964, this split-level home in Riverside has reportedly been well maintained by its original owners. The front entrance opens to a spacious family room with a fireplace. A few ascending steps lead to the formal living and dining areas. A second fireplace is found here. The floor plan then leads to a skylight-brightened eat-in kitchen, which has sliding doors that open out to a three-season sunroom porch that overlooks the backyard patio. Hardwood flooring is found throughout the main level, while the bedrooms are carpeted. The yard is level, and theres a shed in place for storage. The home also has an attached one-car garage. The residents of this home enjoy beach rights. The public schools assigned to this address are: North Mianus School, Eastern Middle and Greenwich High.

Listing agent: Sallie Craig, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage; (203) 322-2300 office; (203) 253-0617 cell; sallie.craig@cbmoves.com
Samsung announced its Q2 results at the end of July and the numbers looked good for the semiconductor business. The company reached its highest ever revenue and sales of NAND and RAM chips, and now a business report by Samsung unveiled who were the biggest buyers. Huawei, Apple, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom (the conglomerate behind T-Mobile) and Technotronics were the major clients, according to the official documents.

The semiconductor division of Samsung posted record-smashing Q1 and Q2 results, amassing to over KRW42 trillion (over $37 billion) in sales. Around 11% of the amount came from the top five firms, but nearly 30% or KRW12.6 trillion (over $11 billion) arrived from Chinese clients.

Korea Herald reported that due to the US protectionism policies, manufacturers from China sharply switched their interest towards South Korea.

An industry expert was quoted by Yonhap Agency to say that Samsung should be careful with the Chinese market since Beijing is also pushing for its own semiconductor business and the competition might impact the Korean company and the overall market for chips.

"Samsung Electronics, whose dependency on China has significantly increased, may become the victim of the irrational trade dispute between Washington and Beijing, which is ignoring the existing international system," the watcher added.

The Q2 2018 results were unimpressive for Samsung, but they are expected to be back on the rise after not one, but two positive reports of higher Galaxy Note9 pre-orders than the Galaxy S9 results. The company also announced a new smartwatch and is expected to expand its home appliance portfolio at the IFA unveiling, so eventually, the Q3 guidance will bring some positive vibes in Seoul.

Source
Film cameras may be dead, but physical photos havent gone away. Last year Google launched Google Photo Books in the US, a service that let you turn your cloud library into something you can hold in your hands.

Today this service arrives in the UK. It costs 12 for a 20-page softcover book and 23 for a hardcover. You can add more photos, up to 100 total.

You can create a book using the Google Photos website or mobile apps (Android and iOS). The powerful search feature will help you fish out the photos you want, even if you have a large library. The moment you open Photo Books, Google will suggest several albums you might want to print. Additional tools will remove duplicate or low-quality photos.

Youll find the online Photo Books interface here.
Press release

HELENA  Montana Community Foundation Inc. has announced the opening of a grant cycle to benefit the communities and residents of Blaine County.

Grants will be made from the Blaine County Community Foundation Fund, established at MCF by Warren Ross in 1997. Financial support for this grant program also comes from the Ross 87 Ranch Endowment Fund, established by Warren Ross as well.

Applicants must be either a 501(c)(3) nonprofit or an exempt governmental unit. Grants will range in size from $500 to $2,000. While grants must be used for projects benefiting communities or residents in Blaine County, the grantee organization does not need to be based in Blaine County. Only one application per organization is allowed.

Eligible projects must provide a direct benefit to local residents, be sustainable, and address important, unmet needs. Ineligible projects include conferences, workshops, planning, research, untested projects, and partisan or sectarian activities.

Grant requests are reviewed by the MCF Grants & Scholarships Committee. The grant process is competitive; incomplete applications will not be considered. Grant applications are being accepted through Sept. 7.

To apply for a grant, access the online application at mtcf.org/grants. Only online applications will be accepted. For information, people can contact MCF Director of Operations & Grants Jessica Stewart-Kuntz at 406-441-4950 or [email protected]
A distinctive white stripe lies across the middle of the proboscis of a Culex tarsalis mosquito, the kind of mosquito that transmits West Nile virus in this part of the United States.

With about 1 in 10 local mosquitoes testing positive for West Nile virus, the Hill County Mosquito Control District supervisor is warning people to take care.

A species that carries the virus, Culex tarsalis, makes up 13 percent of the total mosquitoes trapped by the Hill County district, Hill County's weed and mosquito district supervisor Terry Turner said Monday. Recent testing shows that about 90 percent of tarsalis mosquitoes in the district are infected with West Nile, he said.

Tarsalis mosquitoes only fly at night, Turner added, coming out a half hour before sundown. Peak hours are between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m.

Lab tests, however, have shown that the species can transmit the virus to Aedes vexans, another local mosquito species that usually comes out during the day, Turner said. The Aedes vexans species makes up nearly a third of the mosquitoes that fly during the day, he said, which could cause a more serious problem for Hill County.

"Hopefully we don't have that happen," he said. " ... It's pretty scary stuff."

Most people infected by West Nile show no symptoms, but 1 in 5 develop a fever and other symptoms, and 1 infected person in 150 will develop a serious illness. That person has a 10 percent chance of dying from the severe illness, which affects the central nervous system.

"I know about a dozen people who've gotten it in Havre," Turner added. "Their biggest regret is, they wish they'd put some DEET or something on to protect them from getting that virus."

Montana's West Nile cases

Montana has documented two cases of West Nile virus in humans so far this summer, Turner said, recorded in the last couple weeks.

"Mid-July is when we start seeing the cases - this was about a week early," Turner said.

Montana had eight positive equine cases this summer, Turner said; three horses in Cascade County tested positive for West Nile, two in Lake, one in Fergus, one in Musselshell and one in Powder River.

In the two human cases of West Nile, both people learned they had the disease after their blood donations were rejected.

Identifying West Nile-carrying mosquitoes

A tool - a "radar gun" - to identify mosquito species is close to release in stores, Turner added, but until then people can still identify the virus-carrying mosquito.

Culex tarsalis mosquitoes are marked by a white band across the middle of the proboscis, the needle through which they drink blood; the white band is naked-eye visible for those with good eyesight, Turner added, or under a magnifying glass.

The spread of Zika

Pregnant women should particularly consider covering up - global mosquito-borne diseases, like the Zika virus, also pose a threat to Montanans, Turner said.

The "horror story" of Zika, Turner said, is palpable just from audio recordings of newborns affected by the disease.

Zika can cause severe birth defects in babies whose mothers are infected while pregnant.

Zika arrived in the U.S. three years earlier than predicted by The American Mosquito Control Association, whose meetings Turner attends. He added that the association is the global leader of mosquito control, with roughly 40 countries attending its meetings to share information.

"(Zika) got here within a year of when we talked about it at the meeting," Turner said, adding that the spread is due to the 4.5 million U.S. tourists who visit the tropics each year.

"All it takes is an insect bite over in the tropics and (U.S. tourists) bring back the disease," Turner said.

Contrary to Turner's expectations, the virus did not remain only on the coasts but also spread into the middle of the states.

The United States saw the greatest incidence of Zika infections in 2016, including nine cases in Montana. Florida and New York each reported more than a thousand

Reported cases have declined each year since that peak summer, however, a chart on the Center for Disease Control web page reads.

How to protect yourself

"At nighttime, make dang sure you got your protection on," Turner said. " ... It's critical to make sure (you) cover up a half-hour before ... sundown."

The Four Ds of Prevention, Kim Larson of the Hill County Health Department said Thursday, are Dress (in dark clothing with long sleeves and pants), DEET, Dusk and Dawn (stay indoors or protect yourself), and Drain (standing water, where mosquitoes breed).

Although Turner said DEET is a "pretty safe product," as he's learned from meetings and scientific evaluations, a lot of people dislike its "stinky smell."

Picaridin is a good alternative to DEET, Turner said.

"This other stuff is actually pretty pleasant smelling, almost like a deodorant," he said. "But the mosquitoes don't like it, so it deters them away from ya."

The Center for Disease Control has approved picaridin as one of only a few effective mosquito repellants. Turner said he plans to approach local stores to carry Moskito Care, a picaridin insect repellent, because people who've tried his samples prefer the smell to DEET's.

"Gotta get something that people wanna wear," Turner said. "It seemed pretty doggone effective when we put it on."

A 4 ounce bottle costs $10, he said, adding, "It'll last quite a long time."

The Picaridin lotion is water resistant, Turner said. A representative of the company told him an application is effective for nine hours and added that the 14 hours advertised on the bottles is pushing it.

Home prevention

People can also protect their homes using natural methods, Turner said.

"I encourage everybody to check the rain gutters," he said. "Put a couple drops of canola oil or some cooking oil and put it up there. Keeps the larvae from breeding. Just takes a thin micron of oil to stop them breathing - stop their breathing, you kill 'em."

Draining standing water in the yard is important.

"We do have little shaker pellets you can put right in the water to take care of the mosquito larvae, and those are safe for pets," he said, adding that Havre Hardware has the shakers.

The insecticide is nontoxic to humans and is approved for use for pest control in organic farming operations, the CDC web page says.

Altosid pellets are another nontoxic option avaialble in Havre, Turner said. The pellets don't kill the mosquito larvae but instead prevent them from going into the adult stage.

"So, in the meantime, the dragonfly larvae can eat the mosquito larvae that's swimming around in the water," Turner said.

District test for West Nile

"Last week they tested about 10 (district pools)," Turner said.

These are not swimming pools, he clarified, but groups of trapped mosquitoes.

"We collect the mosquitoes in what we call a light trap and then they're separated out (under a microscope) according to species," he said. "We did get up to about 500 or 600 in the trap. We used to get about 4,000 ... ," he said. "We've cut the population down pretty good, so that reduces your risk of getting it."

Tests of mosquitoes came back positive from Hill, Blaine, Cascade, Gallatin, Lewis and Clark and Valley counties.

At least half of Montana's counties are infected with West Nile, Turner said he estimates. Turner believes many other counties in Montana are probably also positive but do not have the technology to take samples, he said, so a 50 percent estimate is probably on the very low end.

Districtwide protection

The mosquito district also works to kill the mosquitoes.

In the early mornings there are fewer mosquitoes flying, Turner said, so the Hill County district does its drive-by fogging treatments from 8 to 11 p.m. each night and sometimes a bit later.

Turner said he gets a lot of help with his work, and that everyone who drives the fogging machine trucks earns a mosquito abatement license and a completes a full week of training before they are sent into the field. The fogging machines, which spray about a shot glass of chemical per acre, automatically stop spraying if the truck exceeds 20 miles per hour, he added. The machines are annually calibrated to get the droplet size to 17 microns - basically smaller than a needlepoint, Turner said.

Mosquitoes have to be airborne to be killed by the insecticide, Turner added.

"Disturb the vegetation in your yard," he said, adding that people can shake their trees' branches. "Get the mosquitoes airborne so we can kill 'em."

People do not need to worry about being accidentally sprayed, Turner said.

"You'd have to stand in the fogger for 11 hours at 15 feet away to have any health risk," he said. "If it was any hazard to humans, I sure wouldn't be using it."

Permanone is the insecticide used by the Hill County district, Turner said. Its active ingredient is pyrethrin, a derivative of chrysanthemum flowers that is synthetically reproduced.

"Actually the real chrysanthemum flowers are stronger than the synthetic," Turner added. "I try to use the safest product that's out there."

The district also protects the "good insects" that pollinate during the day.

"We make sure we don't do any spraying during the daytime," Turner said. "We do the treatment after the bees go into their hives."

Worldwide prevention

Countries around the world are battling mosquito-borne diseases.

"They've been mass-releasing sterilized males," Turner said, "and then the females turn around and produce sterile babies."

China has four or five factories that release about 40,000 sterile mosquitoes a day, he added.

"We have the technology to eliminate the mosquito," Turner said. "It's just a matter of getting it to certain species."

--

Online: Centers for Disease Control map of the United States' West Nile virus status and information on West Nile: https://www.cdc.gov/westnile/.
Lost amidst the flurry of tariff-related disputes between the United States and Canada is an under-addressed and far weightier issue than steel. It is a lethal, but largely preventable threat: the trade and illegal importation of counterfeit drugs, most notably those containing fentanyl.

Trade between the U.S. and Canada exceeds $650 billion each year, but beyond this legal trade looms the danger of illicitly traded goods. Criminals take advantage of our soft border, which strong trade has created. Some illicit goods like weapons flow north, but many illicit goods flow south to the United States. For example, transshipments from foreign countries through Canada and then into the U.S. present an expanding avenue for illegal, dangerous, and counterfeit drugs. China, Hong Kong, and India are three principal export points of goods that are brought into the U.S. through Canada.

In my experience with the Canada Border Services Agency and the Ontario Provincial Police, the scope of the problem and the needs for tackling it are apparent. Clear communication and strategic cooperation are needed for the U.S. and Canada to comprehensively address the challenges that exist.

Some of the packages that are transshipped through Canada into the U.S. include illegal counterfeit drugs that are manufactured in hazardous conditions in countries far away by criminals without the authority, experience, or means to produce safe and effective products. These criminal entities sell the drugs online and attempt to pass them off as the real deal.

Worse yet, some of these drugs are laced with fentanyl, which is significantly more potent and deadly than heroin or morphine. The reach of fentanyl in illegal supply chains is extensive and indiscriminate.

Criminals like using Canada as moniker to pretend that the fake wares they peddle are safe. They disguise rogue foreign websites as Canadian pharmacies. In some cases, criminals even repackage the drugs in parcels with Canadian postage to fool Americans into believing that they have ordered what they perceive to be safe Canadian products. Across the Internet, outside the secure and regulated pharmaceutical supply chain, the Canadian brand can widely be perceived by consumers as desirable because of the cheap prices. However, as in the well-documented case of CanadaDrugs.com, criminals were shipping drugs with no active ingredients to unsuspecting cancer patients. U.S. policymakers are frequently considering proposals, like legalized importation, that would exacerbate this problem.

Its critical that both countries continue to prioritize this devastating and deadly issue. First and foremost, the deterrents need to be stronger. Fentanyls high potency allows it to be shipped in small quantities making it difficult for inspectors to detect; moreover, the high profits gained from the illegal sale entices criminals to transport the contraband in small parcels accepting that only a small percentage will be seized. With a flood of fentanyl overwhelming the inspection system, the deadly consequences of this product entering our communities is far reaching.

Furthermore, increased resources are required, particularly when it comes to personnel and inspection capabilities. Large numbers of drug seizures are not analyzed in a timely fashion and the backlog can last for over a month, leading to stagnant enforcement.

One emerging issue is the prevalence of illegal pill presses, the tool for manufacturing deadly counterfeits. Despite legal controls, many of these tools have found their way into both the US and Canada that weve developed our own domestically-made counterfeit problem alongside the imported one.

Creating awareness plays a significant role in addressing this public safety crisis. From a law enforcement perspective, we cannot arrest ourselves out of this situation. The more that individuals understand the harm of counterfeit drugs and the risks involved, the sooner the issue can be addressed.

From my involvement in investigating organized crime, it is clear that the problem is far too big for any agency, level of government, or even country to handle on its own. What is truly needed is the enhancement of strong interagency partnerships between U.S. and Canadian authorities. In Canada, the term of art is mobilization throughout the federal, provincial, territorial, and municipality levels. This concept should be replicated by U.S. counterparts.

Mechanisms for sharing intelligence must also be further strengthened between our respective countries. Individual agents may only be focused on inbound effects to Canadian or U.S. citizens, respectively, but the reach of counterfeit drugs through transshipment points goes well beyond this. Those involved in organizations positioned to respond and get ahead of the counterfeit drug threat should seek to both augment existing relationships and foster new ones. This means working with international partners, including Chinese officials, to identify vendors at supply countries.

We should not allow trade wars and tariffs to distract from shared U.S. and Canadian interests in protecting citizens on both sides of the border. Ultimately, we must work together to comprehensively address the far-reaching consequences of fentanyl and other counterfeit medicines before they claim more lives.



Don Bell served as chief superintendent of the Ontario Provincial Police. His career in law enforcement spans 33 years.
By Kendall Teare

Body mass index is positively associated with blood pressure, according to the ongoing study of 1.7 million Chinese men and women being conducted by researchers at the Yale Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE) and in China. These findings appear in the Aug. 17 issue of JAMA Network Open.

In individuals who were not taking an antihypertensive medication, the researchers observed an increase of 0.8 to 1.7 mm Hg (kg/m2) in blood pressure per additional unit of body mass index (BMI). Overall, the population had a mean BMI of 24.7 and a mean systolic blood pressure of 136.5, which qualifies as stage I hypertension according to American Heart Association guidelines.

Researchers recorded the participants blood pressure from September 2014 through June 2017 as part of the larger China Patient-Centered Evaluative Assessment of Cardiac Events (PEACE) Million Persons Project, which captures at least 22,000 subgroups of people based on age (35-80), sex, race/ethnicity, geography, occupation, and other pertinent characteristics  such as whether or not they are on antihypertensive medication.

The enormous size of the dataset  the result of an unprecedented effort in China  allows us to characterize this relationship between BMI and blood pressure across tens of thousands of subgroups, which simply would not be possible in a smaller study, explained George Linderman, first author and doctoral candidate at Yale.

In China, the frequency of obesity is expected to more than triple in men  from 4.0% in 2010 to 12.3% in 2025  and more than double in women  from 5.2% to 10.8%. Meanwhile, high blood pressure already affects one-third of Chinese adults, and only about one in 20 of those with hypertension have the condition under control, according to an earlier Yale-CORE China paper for the Lancet based on data gathered in the same Million Persons Project cohort.

If trends in overweight and obesity continue in China, the implication of our study is that hypertension, already a major risk factor, is likely to become even more important, said Harlan Krumholz, M.D., the Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Cardiology, director of CORE, and senior author on the study. This paper is ringing the bell that the time is now to focus on these risk factors.

According to the researchers, one way for the Chinese healthcare system to address these risk factors would be the management of high blood pressure with antihypertensive drugs. A January 2018 study by Yale-CORE China compared the widespread and successful use of antihypertensive drugs in the United States for blood pressure management to their infrequent use in China, suggesting that by prescribing antihypertensives earlier and more frequently, China might begin to take control of its high blood pressure crisis, say the researchers.

Other authors on this study include Jiapeng Lu, Yuan Lu, Xin Sun, Wei Xu, Khurram Nasir, Wade Schulz, and Lixin Jiang.

This research has been supported by grants from Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Innovation Fund for Medical Science, the Ministry of Finance of China and National Health and Family Planning Commission of China, the ChinaWorld Health Organization Biennial Collaborative Projects 2016-2017, the National Key Technology R&D Program, Research Special Fund for Public Welfare Industry of Health, the 111 Project from the Ministry of Education of China, the Peking Union Medical College Youth Fund and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and National Institutes of Health.

Yale University
Guided by glowing bacteria, researchers have devised an imaging technique that can diagnose live tuberculosis in an hour and help monitor the efficacy of treatments. Thats particularly critical because many TB strains have evolved defenses against standard treatments.

Jianghong Rao, PhD, a professor of radiology at the School of Medicine, said speedy TB diagnostics are sorely needed, as current methods can take up to two months to complete  a stretch during which infected individuals could spread the disease broadly, even if they dont know theyre infected. A quicker diagnosis could curtail the infection rate.

Whats more, the new method is cheaper and easier to carry out, ideally enabling health care providers in poorer communities to one day adopt the technology.

A paper describing the research was published Aug. 15 in Science Translational Medicine. Rao is the senior author. The lead author is research scientist Yunfeng Cheng, PhD.

To diagnose TB, clinicians need to collect a sample of sputum, the coughed-up stuff also known as phlegm; cultivate it in the lab; and wait for the bacteria to grow to detectable level. It also requires specialized facilities, which are missing in many hospitals worldwide.

In still-developing countries where TB is most prominent, its hard to maintain those kinds of intensive facilities, and it can be expensive, Rao said.

The new imaging technique uses run-of-the-mill fluorescence microscopes that nearly all hospitals have and that require no special training, he said. All thats needed is a sample of the patients sputum that can be prepared and put under the microscope for analysis.

Switching on

The tactic harnesses a newly created two-piece fluorescent probe, which Rao likens to a lamp. The probe is combined with the sputum sample and gets activated, or switched on, when it comes in contact with TB bacteria. One part of the probe is responsible for detecting live TB, thus creating the telltale glow; the second part, a molecule that binds specifically to the TB microbe, localizes the glow to the bacterium. The concentrated fluorescence allows scientists to not only see the rod-shaped bacteria themselves, but also to track their distribution in infected host cells.

For cases of drug-susceptible TB, the treatment success rates are at least 85 percent, but the rate of success is only 54 percent for multidrug-resistant TB, which requires longer treatments and more expensive, more toxic drugs, Rao said.

The fluorescent probe, Rao said, can help determine the appropriate drug by literally showing which bacteria are still alive in the patient sample: Those that are alive glow green; those that arent (or are a different species of bacteria) appear dark.

Outside the clinic, Rao said the technique could help scientists developing new TB drugs figure out which drugs work best for each particular strain. Now, Rao and his colleagues are planning to test the probe and to work on obtaining approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

The hope is to make this an adaptable technology, Rao said. Its something that could be really widespread, and you wouldnt necessarily need to use it in a hospital setting.
The number of people dying as a result of opioid use has risen markedly, says a report by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at UNSW Sydney.

There were 1,045 Australians aged 15-64 who died of an opioid overdose in 2016, according to a report released today by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at UNSW Sydney. The majority of these deaths (76%) were attributable to pharmaceutical opioids.

The report highlights an increase over the last 10 years in opioid-induced deaths, from 3.8 to 6.6 deaths per 100,000 Australians from 2007 to 2016.

While the number and rate of amphetamine-induced deaths among Australians aged 15-64 is the highest observed since monitoring commenced (105 deaths, or 0.7 deaths per 100,000 Australians in 2016), it is still substantially lower than that recorded for opioids.

The report, Opioid-, amphetamine-, and cocaine-induced deaths in Australia, includes estimates from 1997 to 2016, with preliminary estimates for 2015 and 2016.

Analyses of opioid-induced deaths showed:

The highest rates of opioid-induced death in 2016 were for natural and semi-synthetic opioids (eg, morphine, oxycodone, codeine), with 3.1 deaths per 100,000 people (498 deaths)

The rate of deaths attributed to heroin has been increasing over the last few years. In 2016 there were 2.2 deaths per 100,000 people (357 deaths) attributed to heroin (an increase from 0.9 in 2007)

The rate of deaths attributed to synthetic opioids (eg tramadol and fentanyl) has also increased. There were 1.3 deaths per 100,000 people (214 deaths) in 2016, an increase from 0.11 per 100,000 in 2007

Nearly half (45%) of opioid-induced deaths in 2016 also recorded a benzodiazepine as contributing to the death (475 deaths), an increase relative to 2007 (from 35%)

The rate of opioid-induced deaths was higher among males, and among those aged 35-44 years, with low rates recorded among the 15-24 age group. This has been a consistent trend

Most of the opioid-induced deaths were considered accidental (85%), with one-tenth recorded as intentional.

Dr Amy Peacock, program lead for Drug Trends at UNSW, said that the situation in Australia is different to North America.

Opioid overdoses in the US and Canada are increasing, but the rates they are observing are far higher and there is considerable evidence that illicit fentanyl is driving many of the deaths. Although we are carefully monitoring the situation in Australia, at the moment, there is little evidence to suggest that illicit fentanyl is playing a large part in our opioid overdoses said Dr Peacock.

One of the most important and effective strategies to reduce overdoses is increasing the availability of opioid substitution therapy for people who have developed opioid dependence and encouraging engagement and retention in this treatment. We need to ensure that this remains a key strategy in Australia.

We also need to encourage Australians at risk of having or witnessing an overdose to carry and administer naloxone. This is available over-the-counter in pharmacies and easily administered to temporarily reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, allowing time to seek medical help. The evidence from Australia and internationally to support the establishment of medically supervised injecting centres in areas where rates of overdose are particularly high also cannot be ignored.

This situation of increasing deaths due to pharmaceutical opioids in Australia has generated a response in the policy space. State and federal governments are considering a range of strategies, rolling out prescription monitoring programmes and other interventions intended to reduce risky opioid prescribing.

UNSW Sydney
Vogue Williams and Spencer Matthews on the front cover of Hello!

Here is the first look at mother-to-be Vogue Williams on her wedding day as she married Spencer Matthews.

It was revealed last month the pair had tied the knot at a secret ceremony in Glen Affric in Scotland, the estate owned by Spencer's family.

The RTE star (32) has given fans a glimpse of the ceremony, which she described as "the best day of my life".

The couple adorn the front cover of the new issue of Hello! magazine, posing before an idyllic Scottish landscape.

Vogue is wearing a white wedding dress designed by Irish-American Paul Costelloe while Spencer wore a three-piece blue suit.

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The Howth woman was seven months pregnant at the time, with Mr Costelloe saying he completed her dress in just seven days.

"She was, as always, a joy to work with," he said.

"The dress was completed in just seven days so as to accommodate her fast- growing baby bump. It was a full team effort.

"She's a beautiful woman, a credit to her generation and to Ireland. Spencer Matthews, you're a lucky man."

The magazine, which was present for the wedding, described it as "a simple and intimate outdoor ceremony".

Several of Vogue's family members were in attendance at the bash, with many taking a private jet to the estate in the days prior to the big wedding day.

Speaking to the publication, Spencer said the day had gone down a treat with their guests.

"It has gone down by many as the best wedding they've ever been to," he said.

"I can't imagine life without Vogue at this point. People say, what's changed? What's different?

"But it's just part of growing up, meeting your soulmate and moving on with life."

The couple's first child, a boy, is due next month and they had their baby shower at Dublin's House venue on Leeson Street.

They have played coy regarding which names are on their shortlist, but Spencer said they are planning more babies in the future.

"We would like to have at least three, in an ideal world," he said.

"We do have an idea of names but Vogue has asked me to keep that to ourselves.

"You've got to do what she says. One of his middle names will be Michael after my late brother and one of his middle names will be Frederick after her late father," he told ITV's This Morning.

"I would like to be as involved with the child as possible.

"When I'm 45, he'll be 15. I'm looking forward to doing a lot of active stuff with him."

Vogue and Spencer met on the set of Channel 4 reality series The Jump. They began dating and moved into a flat in west London last year.

Spencer popped the question at the start of this year at the Lyceum Theatre.
Jalisco Congress Approves Statewide Anti-noise Laws

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - The Jalisco State Congress Chamber of Deputies has approved a new Anti-noise Law, a state-wide ordinance that aims to cut back on the noise emitted from both businesses and private properties. Noise pollution will be regulated through municipally set schedules and decibel limitations.

This new body of laws also prohibits fireworks and pyrotechnic displays after 9 o'clock at night, unless previously authorized by a competent authority.

City inspectors (Reglamentos) will make the rounds to verify that bars or restaurants comply with the norm, and will measure the decibels with a monitoring system that, under the new law, must be installed by each business.

The law establishes sanctions of up to 50,000 pesos to businesses that fail to comply with the Official Technical Standard in decibels; and the withdrawal of business licenses if there are three offenses within a period of 1 year (currently it is 2 years).

In cases of municipal jurisdiction, when the infraction is committed in a private home or property without a commercial license, the municipal authority must go to the address and issue a warning. If the noise does not cease within a period of 30 minutes, administrative arrest may be imposed for up to 36 hours or a citation may be issued that includes a specific day and time to stand before a judge, who will determine the nature of the crime and amount of the corresponding penalty.

The law will come into force after its publication in El Periodico Oficial del Estado de Jalisco (the State of Jalisco's Official Newspaper), at which time each municipality must reconcile their city ordinances to comply with the law.
Hagerstown on ag officials' radar due to pest; what you need to know

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This is the blog of China defense, where professional analysts and serious defense enthusiasts share findings on a rising military power.
At some point when disenchantment and alienation of the people of an area or state against the political and administrative dispensation go out of hand, the affected state or area is declared disturbed. In such a situation, if the police are unable to control lawlessness and insurgency, the Indian Armys help is sought to restore order. Since the military does not have normal police powers for it to control unruly mobs or combat insurgents, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) was enacted by Parliament. But before AFSPA is brought in, the concerned area or state has to be declared disturbed by the state or central government. The Act gives the military the necessary legal protection, especially when there are serious injuries or death of miscreants/insurgents. To initiate any legal action against any soldier, acting under AFSPA, the central governments permission is required.

To give added protection to the military, earlier the civil authority seeking assistance had to provide the military a certificate, saying that all available resources have been deployed and the situation is well outside the control of civil administration, and so the militarys help is being sought. This was done to put a check on civil administrations from seeking the militarys assistance at the drop of a hat. But such a certificate showed the civil administration in a poor light, and so the requirement was scrapped. Unfortunately, the militarys high command meekly accepted this decision to do away with the certificate.

In a disturbed area, the local population is usually alienated and anti-national feelings prevail. Consequently, any incident involving casualties to civilians, the locals invariably give evidence against the military. While a few dare to give evidence against the local police, there are always enough witnesses to give false evidence against the military.

Here are two cases that illustrate my point: First, the 2004 Thangjam Manorama case in Manipur. It was alleged that she was tortured, raped and killed by the military and that she was innocent. But the truth is that she was a terrorist and member of the Peoples Liberation Army of Manipur. As part of the organisation, she was involved in laying IEDs that killed six civilians and two security personnel. During the search operation, one transmitter and two grenades were recovered from her. Two independent autopsies (I have a copy of one of the two autopsy reports) ruled out rape and torture, and the nature of the bullet wounds corroborated that she was shot while escaping. Yet allegations continued to be levelled against military personnel.

The second case relates to the alleged murder and rape of two women at Shopian in the Kashmir Valley by military personnel (YEAR?). The local doctor confirmed rape and murder. Later, their bodies were exhumed and a team of independent doctors conducted another round of autopsies. The team ruled out rape and murder. Their deaths were attributed to drowning. In certain cases, even the local police and administration back down under local public pressure, adopting a hostile attitude towards the military. So, there is an obvious need of AFSPA for the military to operate in disturbed areas.

If the Act is diluted, military personnel will hesitate to engage with militants or get killed during confrontations. No personnel wants to spend time running around in civil courts to justify his actions while dealing with insurgents and terrorists, where for sure, witnesses from local, alienated population will align against him. During firefights with insurgents, locals gather at the location and often terrorists who fire at them. They do this because they know that any casualty could be pinned on the military. Let us not forget that to date, the Indian Army has lost more than 700 officers and 9,000 soldiers to the insurgency.

Last week, a group of over 300 soldiers approached the Supreme Court, appealing against any dilution of AFSPA. The petition said prosecuting soldiers who are doing their duty by the civilian authorities like the police and the Central Bureau of Investigation will lower their morale and endanger national security. This development is a serious one and shows the utter failure of the militarys high command to prevent the development of such circumstances where serving military personnel have to approach the court.

In insurgency-hit areas, the military is the last and ultimate instrument of the State to be deployed to ensure territorial integrity and security of the country. So why are we so willingly and purposefully demotivating the military?

Lieutenant General Harwant Singh is retired deputy Chief of Army Staff

The views expressed are personal
Vikas Sethi, who has played several negative characters on television, and found fame after a supporting role in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, is looking to make a comeback in showbiz after self-sabotaging his career.

Mine wasnt a break, it was more like fading into oblivion, he told Times of India in a recent interview. But now, he says, I have changed my looks and lost weight.

The actor admits that he made mistakes in his youth, but he says that he was 21 then. Yes, I have made mistakes, but isnt that human? he asks. According to SpotboyE, in his worst phase, the actor was suffering monetarily and was clinically depressed.

About his disappearance - the actors last credited role, according to IMDb, was the show Sanskaar Laxmi in 2011 - Vikas says that he was mostly to blame. Honestly, the industry didnt throw me out, I threw myself out, he says. He credits his wife, Jhanvi Rana, for standing by him and being a constant source of support.

Once upon a time, Vikas boasted of appearances in the biggest shows of the time - Kasauti Zindagii Kay and Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. But when things dried up, Friends who would stand outside my home, requesting me to party with them, distanced themselves when I wasnt doing anything, he says. I also realised that there are no permanent friends in this industry, he continued.

Vikas says that all he wants to do now is to establish myself again... with strong negative character.

He says that while success can take you to great heights, one must not lose focus. If you lose even a bit of spark, you will become history, he says.

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Katrina Kaif is a stunner with makeup and without it too. The actor, who is in the island nation of Malta for the shoot of her new film Bharat, shared a brand new picture from there and needless to say, she looks stunning in it.

In the no-fuss picture, the most noticeable thing are her curls as they gently wrap her face. Her eyes stand out even with minimal makeup. She is sporting a white, red and black blouse. Sharing the picture, she simply wrote: Malta.

Malta A post shared by Katrina Kaif (@katrinakaif) on Aug 20, 2018 at 8:16am PDT

On the day she left for Malta, Katrina posted an Instagram story which was from inside the aircraft. She captioned it: Destination Malta.

Katrina Kaif shared his picture on her Instagram stories on the day she was leaving for Malta. (Instagram)

In this picture too, Katrina looked stunningly beautiful in her no-makeup look. Her hair was tied in a low ponytail and she seemed to be wearing nothing but a lipstick as makeup. Katrina kept it simple with a blue denim shirt.

The Bharat team seems to be in a work-cum-fun mood. They have been posting pictures and videos from the sets much to the delight of the fans. Apart from Salman Khan, the films lead actor, director Ali Abbas Zafar and co-producer Atul Agnihotri too have posted pics on their respective Instagram pages.

On Monday, Salman shared a picture of his mother Salma, who is also enjoying quality time with her son in Malta. They can be seen climbing a flight of stairs. Sharing it, Salman wrote: Yeh bandhan toh .. pyaar ka bandhan hai #Bharat.

Yeh bandhan toh .. pyaar ka bandhan hai #Bharat pic.twitter.com/5pM9eF93SE  Salman Khan (@BeingSalmanKhan) August 20, 2018

Atul shared a number of them which featured Salman, Sunil Grover, Ali Abbas Zafar, his mother-in-law Salma and himself. Atul is married to Salmans sister, Alvira.

In one of the videos, Salman can be seen walking away from the camera. The actors back is to the camera but his walk is hard to miss. He is dressed in all-black shirt and pants combination. Sharing the video, Atul wrote: Day 19 @beingsalmankhan @bharat_thefilm @aliabbaszafar @katrinakaif #Malta #onlocation.

Bharat is the second time Katrina and Salman will star in an Ali Abbas directorial, Tiger Zinda Hai, being their first with him. The hit Bollywood pair has worked in a number of films together including Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya, Partner, Yuvvraaj, Ek Tha Tiger and Tiger Zinda Hai.

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Actor Sujata Kumar, who died on August 19 after battling cancer for many years, was cremated in Vile Parle on Monday. The last rites were conducted by the later actors sister Suchitra Krishnamoorthi and daughter Kritika.

Pictures from the ceremony show Suchitra and Kritika going through the various stages of the cremation ceremony.

Kritika performs a ritual during the cremation ceremony.

Suchitra Krishnamoorthi during the ceremony.

Sujata, who featured in Gauri Shindes English Vinglish as late Sridevis elder sister and later in Anil Kapoors TV serial 24, was first diagnosed with cancer in 2006. She put up a tough fight against the dreaded disease for many years. However, with fourth stage cancer that had metastasized, the actor suffered multiple organ failure and died on Sunday.

Suchitra Krishnamoorthi bids a tearful farewell to her sister, Sujata Kumar.

One last time: Suchitra Krishnamoorthi looks on as the ceremony proceeds.

Kritika reacts while conducting the last rites.

Actor Arif Zakaria at the cremation.

A day after Sujata Kumars death, a video of a TEDx Talk she delivered in May resurfaced. It was, perhaps, last of her public appearances. Called How to filter emotional pollutants from your life, the TEDxBocconiUMumbai talk delivered by Sujata is a powerful message and a study of the human mind.

In her career, Sujata had also done few TV serials like Hotel Kingston (Star One) and Bombay Talking (Zee Cafe). In 24, she appeared as Meghna Singhania. Sujata also starred in Karan Johars Gori Tere Pyar Mein and Aanand L Rais Raanjhanaa, both in 2013, and was a popular face in TV commercials.

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Now that Priyanka Chopra is officially engaged to Nick Jonas, attention has moved on to the future wedding. And the biggest question on everyones mind is Will Priyankas BFF Meghan Markle attend?

According to an E! News report, the Duchess of Sussex is very excited for Priyanka and Nick. Everyone is very happy and they are definitely a great match, the report quotes an insider as saying.

Meghan was engaged to Prince Harry in November and was married in a lavish wedding in May. Priyanka attended the wedding in a lavender Vivienne Westwood suit and the reception wearing a Dior gown.

While Priyanka attended the royal wedding alone, fans are hoping for the Duchess of Sussex to attend her best friends wedding with Prince Harry in tow. According to People.com, while Meghan has been forbidden from posing for selfies and has been asked to delete her social media accounts, there is no rule forbidding her to attend a close friends wedding.

Nick arrived in India on Friday with his parents, father Kevin Sr and mother Denise. The next day, Priyanka and Nick made their engagement official with a roka ceremony held at her Juhu home. Pictures from the ceremony flooded the internet. While Priyanka was dressed in yellow and white, Nick opted for a cream-coloured kurta pyjama.

Nick and Priyanka met at the 2017 Met Gala where they both represented Ralph Lauren. Rumours of their relationship began in May 2018 as the two were often spotted on dinner dates and outing around New York. She invited him to Mumbai and her house a few months ago and he accompanied Priyanka and her cousins to a small beach vacation in Goa.

Priyanka Chopra and American singer Nick Jonas during a ceremony to perform pre-wedding rituals at her Juhu residence, in Mumbai. (PTI)

He reportedly popped the big question on her 36th birthday in July in England.

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Ill tell you this: many of my friends dont read. Even though were the most woke generation!

The Internet has surrogated our lives with artificial realities. Once browsing through a bookstore for leisure seemed like fun, now you can order online. Despite this, our attention spans are limited to 140-character tweets, conversations are reduced to abbreviations and storieswell, thats literally an icon on your Snapchat. Perhaps thats the reason why not too long ago Pakistani writer Fatima Bhutto was urging people to return to reading by posting a shelfie instead of a selfie on her Instagram.

Six owners of four iconic bookstores help us answer the Q of the moment: In the battle between long form and short attention spans, who will win? (Dolly Haorambam Photo imaging: Piyush Garg )

All our cover stars share this undying passion for books with Ms Bhutto. These extraordinary individuals have tirelessly cultivated spaces that aim to elevate the literary experience in an age where books arent just competing with e-books but also documentaries, podcasts, audio books, Netflix. So how is it that a simple 2-D book can still manage to go beyond the multi-dimensional world of the Internet?

I asked these questions to six bookstore owners at the library in Bikaner House, a quaint corner in the otherwise magnificent and culturally abuzz building.

A book is a childs best friend

Ajay Mago, Om Book Shop

The bookstore was started by Ajay Magos father, Om Prakash, 60 years ago. On Ajay: Shirt, Kenzo; trousers, Hugo Boss (Dolly Haorambam )

When Ajay and Sanjay Magos father, Om Prakash, started his bookstore 60 years ago, it was a traditional one. There was no place to sit or have a cup of tea. Yet people spent an entire weekend there to talk to the owner about upcoming titles. And even though things have changed a lot with aggressive marketing and funding of e-commerce sites, books and bookstores are still thriving.

Book readings, launches and interactive events cant happen online. Id like to meet my author!  Ajay Mago

Discounted books by e-commerce sites are monopolising the market. This might result in bookstores shutting. However, even though ordering books online is convenient, the whole experience of buying books is not just about getting the book and reading. You tell the salesmen what you need. You can Google it, but the personal touch is missing. Book readings, launches and interactive events cant happen online. Id like to meet my author, says Ajay.

This is why he gives his kids weekly pocket money to buy a book from any bookstore. And every weekend, we discuss the book. Besides, millennials have more choices these days. There are so many options. They have audio books and e-books. My kids have gone through all of them but theyve come back to the physical bookstore. Kids aged 10 to 15 are not on Kindle at all, he says.

A book is a treasure that increases with sharing

Anuj Bahri and Rajni Malhotra, Bahrisons Booksellers

Anuj Bahri and Rajni Malhotra helm the Bahrisons Booksellers. On Rajni: Kurta, Rain and Rainbow. On Anuj: Shirt, Summer Line; trousers, tailored from a shop in Khan Market (Dolly Haorambam )

Social media is a strong influence in developing trends and curiosity Rajni Malhotra

Even though Rajni Malhotra feels that theres an imbalance between commerce and culture when it comes to books, she can give you many reasons to buy one: First of all, the book is in your hands  you can smell, touch and hold it any time you want. Secondly, the pages can be underlined or marked if you find something interesting and want to come back to it. You can keep it on your shelf and come back to the same book. And, lastly, you can share the book with a friend or a loved one or gift it, she adds. Bahrisons has upheld these sentiments since 1953. You might bump into a reader in the store who has read the book and an impromptu discussion makes the whole experience rewarding! she adds.

And what about the impact of paper books on the environment? She says: Books are now printed on recycled paper and are environment friendly. This is why both Anuj and Rajni have never read on an iPad or Kindle. Rajni isnt anti-technology. She says: Social media is a strong influence in developing trends and curiosity. If people are online and see new titles, it creates awareness. Online reviews and blogs also increase book sales.

A book is an object dart

Priya and Kapil Kapoor, CMYK

Priya and Kapil Kapoor focus more on art and design books. On Priya: Top, Uniqlo; trousers Banana Republic. On Kapil: Shirt, Zara; trousers, Diesel (Dolly Haorambam )

Priya and Kapil Kapoor are the largest Indian distributors of art and design books in the country. Since we first opened the doors of our Delhi store, nine years ago, there are events every week ranging from book binding, writing and photography workshops, to cooking classes, open mike and PechaKucha evenings, and lots of storytelling, says Priya.

Many bookstore owners fear that books might fade into museum-worthy object darts, but the Kapoors believe that many of the books at CMYK are already like artworks. Kapil says: You cant replicate the experience online.

Books and e-books cannot be compared. Its like going to a restaurant or ordering in  Priya Kapoor

Plus, Priya thinks that a comparison between books and e-books is futile. You cant compare the two. Its like going to a restaurant or ordering in. There is no interaction with the chef, or someone to walk you through the menu, to help you discover a new dish that you may not have ordered sitting at home. The biggest differentiator is that at a bookstore you can discover new books and authors, its hard to do that on online platforms, she reveals.

A book is a reflection of life

Priti Paul, Oxford Bookstore and Kathakali

Priti Pauls Oxford bookstore has nourished the minds of many luminaries. On Priti: Sari, Benares Silk House (Dolly Haorambam )

Started in British India almost 100 years ago, Priti Pauls Oxford bookstore has nourished the minds of luminaries like Vikram Seth, Gita Mehta, Amitav Ghosh and Amit Chaudhuri. Oxford has been a part of the social and intellectual fabric of Calcutta. I was interested in making this place a confluence of different things. There was a time when Amit Chaudhuri would sing in the store for his book release and we also started an alternative art gallery. I wanted to set up the bookstore as a cultural space. After that, I started a bookstore in Mumbai with Cha Bar although I wasnt ready for that kind of humungous growth at the time, says Paul.

When you read, you have so many different perspectives...  Priti Paul

But she realises that were now in the time of multi-channel reading driven by technology. Priti says, Anything that gets people reading is fine. For me, reading is also about opening up your mind. Books can help you cope with this ever-changing, difficult world. Thats what I tell my children. When you read, you have so many different perspectives. 

Though I have to say, she asserts after a pause, I do feel technology can be an enabler, but it can also be a force for evil. Everyone once believed that its an equaliser. Tech companies have become big and powerful. If not monitored they can have a negative impact.

Newsflash! Priti Paul has now opened a bookstore in Marrakesh, Morocco, called Kathakali. Its my boudoir of books, she says. I started this because I wanted my children to visit one!

Have you joined the Brunch book challenge?

One of Twitter Indias most regularly trending hashtags, the #BrunchBookChallenge encourages readers to finish reading 50 books between Jan 1 and Dec 31, post them on social media, and become eligible for special prizes from HT Brunch.With more than four months to go in 2018, its still not too late to start!

Participate in the #BrunchBookChallenge. Visit online: read.ht/BqvR

From HT Brunch, August 19, 2018

Follow us on twitter.com/HTBrunch

Connect with us on facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch
A woman was assaulted, stripped and paraded naked on Monday on the streets of Bihiya town of Bihars Bhojpur district by a mob, which suspected her to be involved in the death of a 16-year-old boy, police said.

The protesters set ablaze a number of roadside stalls, houses besides motorcycles. They blocked the main road and Patna-buxar railway tracks, disrupting vehicular and railway traffic for more than three hours.

They also pelted stones on passenger trains and police. Security has been beefed up in and around Bihiya following the clashes.

The woman was probably attacked as the deceased Bimlesh Kumar alias Chhotu Sao was last seen with her.

IG N H Khan said the woman has been rescued from the rampaging mob and four policemen, including Bihiya SHO, have been suspended for dereliction of duty.

According to police, Sao a resident of Damodarpur village under Shahpur area of Bhojpur district, was allegedly assaulted and killed by some unidentified persons in Dafli locality. His body was later found near Bihiya railway station.

After the news spread, irate residents of Damodarpur gathered in large numbers and started protesting.

The protesters suspected that those living in a red-light area nearby would have strangled the youth to death.

They did not allow the local administration to take Saos body for postmortem. They demanded arrest of suspects even as senior police officials, including the Bhojpur SP, appealed to them maintain calm and assured action.

The Dafli locality is known as an area of sex workers and mujra. The deceased, an Intermediate student, had allegedly gone to meet the woman there.

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Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday warned he would take disciplinary action against the state food commissioner for cancelling 2.48 lakh ration cards in the city allegedly without any valid reason.

Delhi food commissioner Mohanjeet Singh, however, rejected the CMs allegation and said the department deleted only ineligible ration card holders and that too after following due process of law.

Kejriwals attack and the food commissioners rebuttal appear to have again set the stage for another round of tussle between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Delhis bureaucracy.

The chief ministers office, in a statement, said Singh allegedly cancelled the ration cards despite strong objection from state food and civil supplies minister Imran Hussain.

Since these officers do not report to the elected government, therefore they are working against the interests of the people of Delhi, which is a very serious matter. All such families and members in one go would be rendered hungry because of the insensitive, apathetic, hostile, inhuman attitude of the officers, the statement said.

Such acts of commission or omission make the acts of public servants suspicious. Their conduct may invite disciplinary action against the concerned officers, the statement said.

The food commissioner, meanwhile, claimed the exercise was one of the first of its kind in the country and would save ration worth crores of Rupees. For the first time Delhis public distribution system has been cleansed and sanitised. As a result, ration worth crores have been saved from pilferage, Singh said.

Singh added that he had recommended the restoration of the e-POS (electronic point of sale) system, which the government had put on hold. The government said that due to poor Internet connectivity, e-POS machines were working only intermittently.

The cancellation of ration cards has remained a thorny issue between the political leadership and the bureaucracy for a while. In April, food minister Hussain had alleged Singh was bent on cancelling three lakh ration cards without proper verification. In May, Hussain wrote to Singh, directing him to restore the supply of ration to those who have not received it from January to March. The department had stopped distribution of ration to people who had not gotten got themselves verified by food and supplies officers.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday sparred over the deletion of 2.48 lakh ration cards in the city.

BJP leader Vijender Gupta accused the AAP government of corruption in ration distribution and said chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was backing fake card holders.

AAPs chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj countered that the BJP was hand in glove with the ration mafia and it had exposed its anti-poor character by welcoming cancellation of ration cards.

The AAP government had on Monday said ration cards were cancelled without following the due process. Kejriwal had also warned the authorities concerned of disciplinary action over the deletion of names.

Gupta claimed 2.93 lakh ration cards were deleted but food commissioner Mohanjeet Singh had on Monday clarified that 2.48 lakh cards were cancelled after following all rules.

Delhi has a cap of 72.78 lakh ration cards. Issuance of new cards was put on hold after the number of beneficiaries reached the upper limit.

There are 2,254 fair-price shops in Delhi from where foodgrains are distributed to card holders at subsidised rates.

The fake card holders were depriving the genuine poor who had been waiting for years to obtain their ration cards. It is a deep-rooted conspiracy to help AAP and its workers by giving ration distribution rights to some private company. The CM is misleading public by shedding crocodile tears, Gupta alleged.

Gupta said the aggressive opposition by Kejriwal showed that his party men were being deprived of benefits due to the cancellation of bogus ration cards.

Reacting to Guptas allegations, Bharadwaj said it was extremely shocking that the BJP was defending the officers responsible for large-scale corruption in the ration distribution system for so many years.

Why are the BJP and the L-G silent on the question that even if a single ration card was found to be fake, then who was the officer responsible for it? Why is BJPs L-G not taking action against the culprits? Bharadwaj asked.

He said it was the departments duty to conduct a door-to-door survey to check if genuine ration beneficiaries are being denied their rights.

Bharadwaj said people who migrate from Bihar and UP to Delhi for work stay in rented rooms in urban villages, unauthorised colonies and keep changing their rented accommodation.

After the failure of electronic point of sale (E-POS) devices, their ration was suspended and they were asked to submit residence proof such as electricity bill of their earlier accommodation as mentioned in their ration cards. How can they keep updating their Aadhaar cards and other documents if they change their rented accommodation every 1-2 years. With this move a large numbers of genuine poor had been denied ration permanently, he said.
The Delhi government plans to introduce a 50% rebate on road tax for people buying factory-fitted CNG cars to increase sales as it attempts to curb vehicular pollution, according to transport minister Kailash Gahlot.

The transport department has prepared a proposal for the rebate in addition to a 50% concession in registration charges, a plan that was announced by the Aam Aadmi Party government in its latest Budget.

The concession in road tax must act as a direct incentive for car buyers to opt for CNG. The proposal is yet to go to the Cabinet. We intend to offer similar benefits in the electric vehicles policy, which is under process. We hope to implement both by this winter, said Gahlot. The transport department has sent the proposal to Gahlot for his deliberation.

The road tax rebate aims to reduce vehicular pollution by encouraging people to buy cars that use CNG, an eco-friendly alternative to petrol and diesel. More than 1.8 lakh private cars were registered in Delhi between April 2017 and March 2018, of which only 14,824 were CNG-fitted units, according to official figures.

The average road tax for four-wheelers in Delhi ranges between Rs 18,000 and Rs 20,000, depending on the cost of the car. The road tax slab differs for various categories of four-wheelers  4% on cars up to Rs 6 lakh, 7% on cars above Rs 6 lakh and up to Rs 10 lakh and 10% for cars priced above Rs 10 lakh.

A proposal for formulating a policy of granting concession in road tax for private CNG cars was sent to the minister around a week ago. The proposed scheme is in addition to the 50% waiver on registration fee of factory-fitted CNG cars, said a senior Delhi government official who asked not to be named.

Air quality has drastically deteriorated in the national capital in recent years, prompting the government to take steps to curb the alarming levels of pollution. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal called the city a gas chamber last year as PM 2.5 levels breached hazardous levels.

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia had proposed the 50% concession in the registration charges of private CNG cars during his Budget speech in March. However, the addition of the road tax concession to the proposal came in July after the government realised that the registration discount would not be enough to increase sales, the official said. The charge for vehicle registration in Delhi is Rs 600.

Sisodia had said in his speech that the scheme would be implemented after Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijals approval.

The transport department will now prepare a draft Cabinet note incorporating both the proposals, another official said. The present proposal is meant to make more private vehicle owners adopt CNG-powered cars over a petrol or diesel vehicle. Vehicular pollution has been a major contributor to the poor air quality levels in Delhi, in particular, during the winter, the official added.

According to a study by IIT-Kanpur published in 2016, vehicular pollution contributes 20-25% to the air pollution in Delhi during the winter. The number goes down to 6-9% in the summer, the study says.

A report released by the World Health Organization earlier this year said the country had the worlds 14 most polluted cities. Delhi ranked sixth most polluted in the report.

The Delhi government has taken several measures to attempt cleaning the air, including the odd-even traffic rationalisation scheme. However, the scheme did not show a substantial impact in reducing pollution levels, air quality index patterns showed.

Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director, research and advocacy, Centre for Science and Environment, said: Delhi has taken steps to shift its public transport from diesel to CNG. Promoting CNG for personal vehicles is a good step to reduce toxic vehicular emissions. If the policy helps in reducing the number of diesel cars on city roads, it will help in reducing the toxic risk to a large extent.
From August 24, passengers of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and cluster buses will be able to use their metro smart cards to pay for their bus rides in Delhi, transport minister Kailash Gahlot said on Monday.

The date for the soft launch of the common mobility card project has finally been fixed after a delay of nearly five months. Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had announced in January this year that electronic payment of fares through metro cards would be launched in all 5,500 buses of Delhi by April 1.

To use the facility, a passenger will have to furnish her metro smart card to the bus conductor and the fare will be automatically deducted after the card is swiped.

The transport minister said he held a high-level meeting on Monday to finalise the launch of the service. Managing Director (MD) of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) Mangu Singh, DTC MD Manoj Kumar, DIMTS MD M Rajshekhar and transport department officials were present.

People will be able to use their metro cards in all buses of Delhi from August 24. I have directed officers to start advertisement campaigns so people are aware of the service, Gahlot said.

The minister said though the metro has spread its network in the city, DTC and cluster buses still carry more passengers every day. Hence, the common mobility card project is vital to integrate the citys two biggest public transport systems, he said.

According to government data, the daily average ridership of Delhi metro is 26 lakh whereas the state-run buses in the city carry about 35 lakh people.

The government had first set April 1 deadline for the launch of the service, which was later pushed to the end of the same month.

The second deadline too was missed because the DTC, which operates 3,750 buses in the city, was facing delays in the procurement of secure access module (SAM) chips that need to be fitted in every electronic ticketing machine (ETM) to enable e-payment.

The DTC said the chips are being procured from South Korea and its supplies were reaching the city in a staggered manner. The cluster buses operated by DIMTS did not face the problem as its ETMs were already enabled with the e-payment feature.

Nearly 2,000 chips arrived in May and 3,000 more arrived recently. The process took time because in a single day, DMRC can energise or calibrate only 150 ETMs, a DTC official said on condition of anonymity.

Officials privy to the development said the Nirav Modi scam added to the delay. After the scam, the RBI stopped quasi-bank guarantee instruments such letter of undertakings and letter of comfort. So, the concessionaire had to find alternative payment methods to the vendor in South Korea from where these chips are being purchased. So, this took time, an official said.

On January 8, Kejriwal had flagged off 250 buses that accepted metro cards for payments. With this, Delhi became the first city in India to introduce an e-purse travel system that performs transactions as low as Rs 5. The maximum fare a state-run bus in Delhi charges is Rs 25.
As many as seven puppies were found dead under mysterious circumstances inside an apartment complex in a posh west Delhi locality on Monday, triggering allegations that they were killed by the residents.

The police received a call regarding the puppies death by a female resident of the Kargil Apartments in Sector 18A, Dwarka. They were rushed to a veterinary hospital where they were declared brought dead, a senior officer said.

In a Facebook post, the woman alleged, See we human call ourself so civilised and educated. The case of Kargil apartment sector 18A Dwarka where people were so annoyed with these puppies so they killed all of them.

They were seven in number and all were found dead in the morning. There were many cut marks on their body, the post read. The woman also urged her Facebook friends to share the post to bring into the attention of the masses and asked people to fight against such alleged cruelty.

The role of the apartment residents are being probed and the complexs CCTV footage examined, the officer said.

A post-mortem has been conducted and a case will be registered as per the report under specific sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, he added.
There will be no changes to the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) system for admissions to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), the human resource development (HRD) ministry said on Monday. Also, each IIT will be free to fix fee for foreign students, it added.

(The IIT) council did not consider any further changes in the JEE (Advanced) system, the ministry said in a statement.

Earlier, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar had chaired a meeting of the council, highest decision-making body of the IITs.

Officials said it was pointed out that the IITs and the JEE had been built into a major brand and any tinkering with the format was undesirable. It was emphasised that focus should be on strengthening the current system. It was pointed out that no hasty decision should be taken that could undermine the credibility of the IITs and the JEE..., said an official.

As Hindustan Times reported on August 9, a proposal had sought to do away with the JEE Advanced exam, and allowing students to choose an institute rather than courses.

The council agreed to the proposal of increasing fee for foreign students. The boards of governors of individual IITs have been empowered to decide the fee for international students, which is currently Rs 6 lakh per annum.

Javadekar said IIT-PAL, designed to help students in preparing for the JEE Advanced, would be extended. The council did not accept the ministrys suggestions to set up an expert panel to make JEE more scientific.
A 12-year-old girl, who was allegedly raped by her father, delivered a baby boy at the Civil Hospital in Gujarats Surat on Monday night.

The hospital said that both the mother and the new-born were healthy.

The around eight month pregnant patient was suffering from extreme pain. A medical team had to do caesarean section as normal delivery could have been complicated, said a hospital staffer. The new born is a male child and weighed 2.8 kg at the time of birth.

Earlier during her pregnancy, the girl was treated thrice at the same hospital.

The girls parents are divorced. Her mother had registered rape case against the father on June 26 with Kakrapad police station in Surat. The case, registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was transferred to Songadh police station in nearby Tapi district, where her father lives.

According to a relative, the girl, a class 8 student who was staying with her mother in Surat, used to visit her father settled in Vyara town of Tapi occasionally during holidays after the couple got divorced.

The family said that a leading diamond trader has come forward to support the girl as well as the new-born. It has been learnt that new-born is likely to be sent to an orphanage so that the girl can complete her studies.
A 12-year-old girl from Dubai, moved by the devastation in Kerala, has donated her birthday gift of a gold cake worth Rs 19 lakh to help the people of the state.

Pranathi Vivek handed over the cake that weighs half a kilogram to Mathrubhumi in Dubai on Monday towards the Kerala chief ministers relief fund.

Watching the news of floods in Kerala, she asked me about donating clothes and other stuff. Then she walked into her room and came with this gold cake and asked me if she could donate it, her father Vivek Kallidil, who hails from Payyannur in Kannur district of Kerala, said.

The industrialist was more than happy to heed the request of the Class 8 student of Delhi Public School. He had gifted one gold cake each to his triplets Pranathi, Varnika and Dyuthi who celebrated their 12th birthday on May 5.

She told me she had a good sleep yesterday (Monday) after donating the gold cake, he said.

Pranathi, who is also called Minnu, has shown her kind side earlier as well.

When we were in Kanchi Kamakodi Trust Hospital in Chennai earlier this year, Minnu saw a 15-year-old child struggling for hospital consultation charges and asked us to pay. We helped with the surgery of the child that cost around Rs 3 lakh, Vivek said.

And, that was not all.

Around two years ago, we happened to visit Pranathi School for special children in Calicut where children were struggling to walk a long distance to reach the door due to lack of parking for buses nearby. She prompted me to do something and I helped them buy four cents of land to develop a parking lot adjacent to the school building, the proud father added.

He wishes his daughters gesture inspires other children in Kerala to do their bit for flood relief efforts.

Teenagers can help rebuild Kerala, he said.

Pranithi is not the only one as help has been pouring for the flood affected in Kerala from all quarters.

Nine-year-old Anupriya from Villupuram in Tamil Nadu gave away about Rs 9,000, she had been saving for four years to buy a bicycle, after she saw visuals of the deluge in Kerala on television.
The Juvenile Justice Board at Malanvasa sent a 14-year-old boy to a remand home for two years on Monday after finding him guilty of sexual assault in a case that took just four days to probe and a single day to adjudicate.

This case was the latest in a series of sexual assaults that were wrapped up in an expedited manner to ensure speedy justice for minor rape victims in the state.

Ujjain superintendent of police Sachin Atulkar said the juvenile was accused of raping a four-year-old girl at a village under Ghatiya tehsil on the afternoon of August 15. According to him, the girl was playing with other children at the accuseds residence when he sexually assaulted her. The girls parents filed a complaint at the Ghatiya police station after she informed them about the incident.

It took the police just four days to locate the accused, who had fled to Rajasthan, and file a charge sheet against him on the basis of DNA evidence. The sentence was passed by judge Tripti Pandey after a trial that extended over just one day. Advocate Dipendra Malu appeared on behalf of the state.

Atulkar said the investigation could be completed in a speedy manner due to the efforts of additional superintendents of police Pramod Sonkar and Neeraj Pandey; deputy superintendent of police Arvind Tiwari; senior Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) scientist Arvind Nayak; FSL officer Preeti Gaikward; advocate Malu; and sub-inspectors Balram Ninama and Chandani Gaud. They will be suitably rewarded, he added.

Madhya Pradesh has lately made it a point to wrap up rape cases involving minors expeditiously. A judge in Katni district handed out the capital punishment to a rape accused after a trial that ran for just five days in July. On Tuesday, a special court in Mandsaur took a little over a week to award the death sentence to a couple of friends who tried to murder an eight-year-old girl after raping her.
The Union government on Tuesday told the Facebook-owned WhatsApp to comply with Indian law, set up an Indian entity, and appoint a grievance officer in India to who people can reach immediately.

The directive comes at a when the government has pulled up the company for fake news spread on the social media platform serving as a contributory factor in several incidents of mob lynching across the country.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, conveyed this to the global head of WhatsApp, Chris Daniels, who is in India this week. This is the first time that the government has spelt out its key expectations from the platform.

I told him there have been sinister developments like fake news and revenge porn, which are criminal and against Indian laws. I suggested three points: they must have a grievance officer in India; they must comply with Indian laws; and they must have a local, corporate entity in India, Prasad said.

Daniels, he added, had agreed to the three conditions. WhatsApp did not offer an independent confirmation or respond to questions.

Prasad said he also told Daniels that WhatsApp would have to comply with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines to start its payments services in India, saying that the firm would have to store the financial data it collects from India within the country.

After at least 30 lynchings in the past one year were linked to rumours and fake news spread through the WhatsApp platform, the IT ministry sent two notices to the company last month, asking it to curb the spread of such messages. WhatsApps chief operating officer, Matthew Idema, had met the IT ministry secretary Ajay Sawhney towards the end of July to discuss the issue of fake news with the ministry and explain the steps it was taking in curbing its spread.

The application made it more difficult to forward media by removing shortcuts, limited the number of people a forwarded message can be sent to at a time to five, and introduced a forwarded label for such messages after the push from the government.

Explaining its broad approach, a top government functionary, who asked not to be named, said, We cannot accept digital imperialism. India is an open society. We have embraced technology and innovation. But no one should think they can come and do as they like. Firms like WhatsApp must conform to our rules, laws, and address problems.

Reiterating his demand that WhatApp must find a technological solution to trace the origin of rumour-mongering messages, Prasad said, It does not need rocket science to locate a message being circulated thousands and lakhs of times on the same day, on the same issue, in the same district and same state. He said Daniels agreed to comply.

But experts believe that delivering on these demands will be challenging. WhatsApp, according to my understanding, does not store metadata (such as phone number sent from) for text messages that are transmitted using their application or via the web client. Unfortunately, WhatsApp does not make this explicit in their public documentation, said Sunil Abraham, founder of the think tank, Centre for Internet and Society.

Therefore, many governments erroneously believe that sources of specific messages can be determined by big data analysis similar to the analysis of SMS metadata from telecom operators, he said.

Metadata includes information such as the sender and recipient, date and time. Now it would also include whether the message is forwarded, said Abraham.
Four persons, including three of a family, died in two separate incidents of wall collapse on Tuesday as heavy rains lashed the district since since Monday evening, an official said.

A minor went missing after he was swept away in an overflowing drain in Bhopal, said collector Sudama P Khade.

The three of the family - a woman and her two daughters - died when a wall of a government bungalow collapsed on their adjacent house in a slum of Kamal Nagar area about 4 am on Tuesday.

The deceased, identified as Shumaila, 28, wife of Mohd Azeem and her daughters Tanjeem, 6, and Areeba, 4, were sleeping when the incident took place. All died on the spot, as per official sources.

Azeem, a labourer, also sustained serious injuries in the incident and was rushed to Hamidia hospital for treatment.

Bhopal Mayor Alok Sharma, Khade, deputy inspector general of police, Bhopal, Dharmendra Chaudhary, and municipal commissioner Avinash Lavania reached the spot.

In another incident of wall collapse, six-year-old Deepa Ahirwar died at Golkhedi village, under Gunga police circle, in the district

The unidentified boy was swept away in a drain in Teela Jamalpur locality of Bhopal and a rescue operation has been launched to find him, Khade said.

As per the meteorological department, a low pressure area now lies over north east Madhya Pradesh and neighbourhood, which is likely to cause widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy rain fall over west Madhya Pradesh during the next 24 hours.
Patidar reservation leader Hardik Patels attempt to revive his three-year-old agitation through an indefinite hunger strike from August 25 has hit a series of hurdles.

Various steps taken by the state government in the last couple of days have stacked odds against what he called August Kranti to press for two demands: reservation benefits in college admissions and government jobs for his Patidar community and loan waiver for farmers.

Not only did Patel fail to get permission to use an open ground as the venue for the fast, but he also faces the challenge of hosting even a small gathering as prohibitory orders, banning assembly of more than four people, under Criminal Procedure Codes section 144 have been imposed in the city till September 2.

Patels efforts to shift the fast venue to a sprawling farmhouse on SG Highway, his current address, have also fallen flat as the landlord has denied him permission to hold any such event on his premises.

Besides legal roadblocks, the firebrand young leader is also faced with the challenge of gathering resources as his oldest and most trusted aide Alpesh Kathiria will be in police custody till August 24 following his arrest in a two-year-old sedition case on Monday by the Ahmedabad police.

The BJP government is leaving no stone unturned to derail my plans. Kathiria was accused in the sedition case along with me and five others. While we were arrested and jailed, he was not. The police arrested him now so that we do not go on fast, said Patel.

The Ahmedabad crime branch had on Monday sought Kathirias 14-day remand arguing that he was absconding all the while and that police need to find out the financial source of the violent agitation by Patel and his aides.

At the beginning of the agitation on August 25, 2015 (exactly three years back), the government had given the Patidars the biggest open plot of Ahmedabad to hold a day-long rally. It ended in violent clashes with police, leaving 13 youths dead and damaging public property worth Rs 44 crore, while making then 23-year-old Hardik face of the agitation.

Subsequently, police filed a sedition case against Patel and his aides.

On his future course of action, Patel said: Now, I have sought permission to hold the programme in Gandhinagar. If that too will be denied, then I will go on fast at my home and the government cannot prevent me from doing so.

His Patidar Ananmat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) had originally planned to hold the event in Ahmedabads Nikol area, considered to be Patels stronghold.

The open ground for which permission was sought has been now declared free parking plot. This is a cynical plan to stop us, said PAAS spokesperson Nikhil Savani. The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation authorities, however, maintained that as many as 44 open grounds across the city have been declared parking plots as part of ongoing drive addressing traffic snarls and removing encroachments.

The Congress has called the whole episode a violation of basic right to protest, where as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has labelled Patel as the Congress agent.

The government, in an undemocratic way, has been denying the right to protest to Hardik, said Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi.

Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel said: The government has rolled out so many schemes for reserved and unreserved communities. I believe that Hardik now has been trying to put a protest just for the sake of it as he is compelled to do so being a Congress agent.

The BJP had been calling Patel a Congress agent after the PAAS had supported the Congress in past two elections - the local body and assembly polls.
As millions of pilgrims gather at Mecca and Medina for the annual Haj pilgrimage this week, Hajis recollect a specially-minted Indian rupee note that officials would issue every year for the journey. The lal note, a name it got because the Rs100 note was a shade of red, has now become a rare, collectors item.

Thane resident Abdullah Kaka, 81, recollects using it during his visits to Mecca in 1951 and 1968. Haj officials in Mumbai gave him the notes before he boarded the ship for Jeddah, the embarkation port for the holy cities. He used the special currency all through the pilgrimage.

While Kaka does not remember what the Haj Rupee looked like, he knows what he used it for  both in 1951 when he went for Umrah  a shorter version of the pilgrimage and later in 1968. In 1951, we would get a bottle of Coca Cola for Rs1. By 1968, when I went again for Haj, the exchange rate of the rupee had fallen to Rs 3, which later picked up to Rs 1. However, the last time I went for Haj in 1996, I remember exchanging the normal rupee notes for Saudi Riyals, at the rate of Rs 13, Kaka said.

Officials said not many Hajis would remember the special note , which the Mumbai office of the Haj Committee of India (HCOI) first issued in 1959. As per my understanding, Haj notes were in circulation till the first half of 1970s. Maybe, after that, the Saudi economy improved, which is why they might have stopped using our currency, said one official of HCOI.

A retired HCOI employee said after the special Haj currency was stopped, pilgrims were given bank drafts that they exchanged for Saudi currency. Today, they are given 2100 Riyals at Indian airports before they depart for the pilgrimage.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) could not provide this newspaper information about exactly when the notes were withdrawn, but information at the RBI museum reads: These notes were issued in denominations of Rs 10 and Rs100, and had the word HAJ inscribed on the obverse. The serial number of the notes was prefixed with the letters 'HA'. The notes were discontinued when the notes meant for circulation in the Gulf States were withdrawn.

Numismatists  experts who maintain the history of rare currency notes  retraced the inception of the Haj rupee to the Reserve Bank of India (Amendment) Act 1959. Under this act, the RBI introduced what was called a Gulf note, which was the currency issued from India to be used as a medium of exchange in the Gulf States of Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, The Trucial State and parts of Muscat.

However, the same year, the RBI decided to introduce the red Haj notes, as the Gulf notes were rampantly being used to smuggle gold. With gold being smuggled across the coast, and the Indian rupee and Gulf note being used in the process, the colour of Indian currency to be used in the Persian Gulf was changed. The Haj notes had two denominations, a blue Rs 10 note and a red Rs100 note, said Jayesh Gala from mintageworld.com, an online museum for coins, currency notes and stamps.

As the notes fell out of use, not many specimens have survived. The ones that have, are now very valuable. Farokh Todywalla of Todywalla Auctions in Mumbai, which trades in rare currency notes, said the Haj notes are hard to find, with the base value of one Rs 10 Haj note costing a minimum of Rs 3.5 lakh.

Even before Independence, our currency was being widely used in UAE because there was no dollar as an exchange currency then, which is why RBI used to issue notes for most part of the subcontinent. But, very few of these Haj notes are now found in India. In fact, collectors usually get it from UAE, said Todywalla.

Dinyar Madon, 60, a senior counsel at the Bombay high court, has a Rs 10 Haj note from 1959, which he bought 10 years ago. All I am aware of is people who would go for Haj used to take that note to spend it in Saudi Arabia. It was used as currency then, but eventually phased out.
In Kerala, rescue workers mounting dangerous missions to rescue trapped people in the rain-ravaged state, are not the only heroes. More than 100 HAM radio operators are silently working round the clock to trace missing persons and feed rescue personnel the information.

We have helped trace more than 800 people so far in coordination with disaster management groups and fishermen, Subramanian N Shastry, director of HAM Radio Emergency Network, said over the phone.

The amateur operators have received over 8,000 messages informing them about people missing and stranded in the state and HAM radio bases have been set up at the offices of the district magistrates in the state to coordinate with the rescue teams.

We are also coordinating with operators in different states to find out migrants. The focus is on West Bengal and Odisha from where a large number of workers go to Kerala, Shah Jahan, a HAM operator working in Thrissur, where more than 30 operators are working in shifts.

A special helpline has been created for persons from other states.

In Sodepur of Bengals North 24 Parganas district, Ambarish Nag Biswas, secretary of West Bengal Radio Club (Amateur Club) said: So far we have helped rescue 10 persons from the state. We are looking for four more.

Biswas said six construction workers from Bengals Murshidabad district were stranded on the roof of an under-construction building in Ernakulam district. Two floors of the building were submerged and their mobile phones were switched off. The Bengal administration contacted the states HAM radio operators, who relayed the mobile numbers of those missing to their Kerala counterparts. The Kerala administration came out with the last tower location and rescue teams picked up the six from the building.

Three HF stations have been set up in Bengal for the Kerala floods.

Amateur radio, popularly known as HAM, is both a hobby and a service in which participants use various types of radio communications equipment to get in touch with other amateurs through airwaves for public services, recreation and self-training.

These are of special help in situations where cellphone connections become inoperative. Since these radios also operate on batteries and do not need any towers like mobile phones, they can virtually work in all conditions.

An estimated 3 million people throughout the world are regularly involved in amateur radio transmissions.

There are two types of HAM radios  very high frequency (VHF) that operates within a radius of 70-80 km and high frequency (HF) that can be used for worldwide communication.

The base stations having HF sets are receiving information that they are relaying to the district administration as well as HAM operators on the field carrying VHF sets. If someone is traced, the information is relayed back to the operators at the base, who are communicating it to the family members.

In many cases the administration is helping the operators with the last location of the missing persons cellphone before it got switched off.

We hope all missing persons will be traced in another day, or two. On Monday, 100 persons were rescued from one location based on one message, said Rajagopal, an operator based in Keralas Chengannur, one of the worst-hit areas.
The violent protests against Vedantas copper plant in Thoothukudi in May 2018, which led to 13 deaths, may be fading from public memory, but important questions about the way industrial pollution is regulated in India, remain. The first being, how much information about pollution from industries is available to the public?

How industries perform on pollution, remains a black box. The public rarely get eyes on official pollution data from industries that are required to share it with regulators. Thoothukudi is not on the list of most industrially polluted areas in India, but even in the 43 areas that are designated as critically polluted, little information is shared with the public about the extent of pollution.

Though the government seems to be pushing the industries towards continuous realtime monitoring of emissions, the portals where such realtime monitoring information is uploaded by industries are not accessible by general public, said Debadityo Sinha, an air pollution activist at the Delhibased Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. Making such information publicly accessible would bring greater transparency and create a degree of accountability of the polluters towards general public, he added.

The Continuous Emissions Monitoring System (CEMS) introduced in 2014 tracks pollution from 17 categories of Grossly Polluting Industries in real-time. However, this data is only available with the state pollution control boards and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

An RTI filed by HT to access Vedantas CEMS data is pending with the Tamil Nadu board and CPCB. Sources at the CPCB said that there was a lack of clarity on whether data shared by a private company with regulators could be made available through an RTI.

To capture long-term pollution, a Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI) was designed and applied for the first time in 2009, to assess if the carrying capacity of the region has been breached.

If a man can carry 60 kg, and you ask him to carry 100 kg, he cannot do it, the body has its limits, so does nature, said Jagat Narayan Vishwakarma, a petitioner in another case in the NGT against pollution in Singrauli, a Critically Polluted Area (CPA).

In the first assessment, of 88 areas were considered, 43 were declared CPAs. A re-assessment is now underway in 100 industrial clusters. The declaration of CPA is supposed to focus attention on an industrial cluster and requires a long-term pollution mitigation plan, and close monitoring of pollution levels. The areas that were critically polluted in 2009, remain critically polluted in 2015, Aishwarya Sudhir, a Bangalorebased environmental activist, said, adding, the plans have not worked.

This kind of monitoring has to be done manually and is a resource intensive and time consuming process.

For routine monitoring of grossly polluting industries, pollution regulators rely on a scheme of self-reporting and top-down regulation. Based on data shared by industries themselves, that is periodically checked by the pollution control board and the CPCB, the latter issues warnings and orders. If all else fails, either the pollution regulator or members of the public approach the courts, and the issue gets embroiled in lengthy litigation.

With rapid industrialisation, it is becoming a need and necessity to regulate compliance by industries with minimal inspection of industries, a 2017 manual on CEMS noted.

Therefore, efforts need to be made to bring discipline in the industries to exercise self-monitoring and compliance.

CPCB officials said that a lack of confidence in the data being shared by industries is one reason it is not made public.

The question is how to instil that discipline? If they report any information and it is not correct, what will I do with the information? A Sudhakar, a senior official at the CPCB, said. We are only a passive observer, we want them to behave, if they dont, we take action.

Some experts believe the approach has not worked and in recognition, the environment has proposed alternative models to incentivise industries to comply.

A pilot emissions trading scheme (ETS) was proposed by the ministry in 2011 for Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, the most industrialised states in the country, but it never took off. The idea: Industries that were not complying could purchase pollution credits from industries that were able to achieve a greater reduction in emissions than the standards required.

Such a scheme has its drawbacks, but a major stumbling block in implementing the programme was a well-oiled online monitoring system.

Though pollution regulators track emissions from industries, a lack of confidence in the data, and incomplete information, prevents it from being put to its best use: ensuring industries comply with standards and lowering pollution levels.

Now, three states are again taking tentative steps towards using the data. Maharashtra launched a programme in 2017 in partnership with the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC-India), that rates industries based on their particulate matter emissions, and makes this rating public, opening them up to broader public pressure.The ratings rely on manual monitoring data, not real-time monitoring data.

Environment related data, especially on the performance of polluters, has always been both limited in scope and invisible to the public, Anant Sudarshan, executive director, South Asia, for EPIC-India, said. It takes a forward-thinking state to make the data public. We have observed that once Maharashtra took the lead, several other states have come forward to do something similar. The biggest hurdle in the success of the schemes is ensuring that the data is robust because the industries are required to install monitoring equipment themselves and self-report pollution levels. That is why the calibration of monitoring equipment and validation overseen by pollution regulators becomes so important.

In Surat, a pilot emissions trading scheme was launched in 2013, and for the past five years, the push has been for better data collection so that trading can start taking place next year. With this programme, Gujarat State Pollution Control Board became the first regulator to take action based on real-time pollution data, but the data is not available to the public.

Odisha is set to launch a programme that will use real-time monitoring data to evaluate and rate industries on the lines of Maharashtras program.

It will help raise awareness, and result in better regulation by creating a competition among industries in the area of pollution abatement, a member of the Odisha pollution control board, told Hindustan Times, but declined to be identified because the scheme is yet to be officially launched.

Environmental regulation in India is in urgent need of reform. We are still waiting for our 1991 moment in this sector, Sudarshan said, adding that a combination of higher quality data from CEMS and transparent release of this data also opens up the possibility of using market-based regulation in India, which in other parts of the world has been successful at reducing pollution and cutting regulatory costs.
A man was arrested in Uttarakhands Uttarkashi district on Tuesday for allegedly abducting, raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl in rage after her elder sister rejected his love proposal, police said.

According to police, Mukesh Lal alias Bunty, 22, who was of the same community and lived in the same neighbourhood in the village as the victim, had threatened to kidnap the girl he was interested in but not finding her at home on Friday night, took away her youngest sister. He has confessed to the crime, they added.

He was known to the victim and used to tame mules along with her father in the same village. In the initial investigations, it has been found that he was in a one-sided love affair with her 17-year-old elder sister. He was a jilted lover as her sister had refused his proposals in the past after which he committed the crime out of rage, deputy inspector general, Garhwal range, Ajay Rautela told HT over phone from Uttarkashi.

So far it has been found that he committed the crime alone and didnt have any accomplice. He was of the same community as the girl. The legal procedures of his arrest are still on, he added.

Tension had prevailed in the area after the girls body was found lying on a culvert in the village on Saturday morning. Lead by some Hindu-right wing organisations, the residents held rallies demanding ouster of people coming from outside the state for employment there. Markets were kept closed for two days in protest of the incident.

Police denied the involvement of any outsider in the incident.

Another police official privy to investigations of the case told HT on condition of anonymity that in the investigations, it was found that the accused had threatened to abduct the girl he was in love with and the tense girl went away to her grandmothers house.

When he came to her house and didnt find her, he out of rage abducted the 11-year-old and raped her before strangling her to death, he said.

No outsider is involved in the incident as earlier claimed by the locals, he added.
Yechury writes to PM Modi demanding Rs 2,000 cr assistance

CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury demanded hiking of monetary central assistance to Rs 2,000 crore for rehabilitation work in Kerala post devastating floods.

You have sanctioned Rs 500 crore central assistance, but this is grossly inadequate in the light of the extensive damage that has been caused. I would request you to increase this amount to Rs 2,000 crore, Yechury said in a letter letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Reliance Foundation, Bajaj donate for Kerala

Reliance Foundation (RF) Chairperson Nita M. Ambani on Tuesday announced a donation of Rs 21 crore to the Kerala Chief Ministers Distress Relief Fund, besides relief materials worth around Rs 50 crore.

Automobiles major Bajaj Auto announced a donation of Rs 1 crore to the Chief Ministers Distress Relief Fund, Rs 1 core by Jankidevi Bajaj Gram Vikas Sanstha for survival kits and another Rs 50 lakh already contributed by various Bajaj Trusts.

Damaged tracks in Kerala repaired, normal traffic from today: Rlys

The Indian Railways said it has repaired all tracks damaged by the devastating floods in Kerala and restored the traffic to normal from today.

The Railway Ministry said three divisions of the Southern Railway were severely affected by flash floods, landslides and due to boulders falling on tracks.

No outbreak of communicable disease reported so far: Nadda

Union health minister J P Nadda said no outbreak of communicable disease has been reported from the flood-ravaged districts of Kerala so far.

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has issued health advisories to support the state in meeting with post-flood public health management challenges when the threat of water borne, vector borne and viral hepatitis diseases becomes potent.

IOC moves fuel to Kerala from southern states

Energy major Indian Oil Corp (IOC) is meeting the entire aviation fuel needs of the Indian Air Force (IAF) flights in Kerala, moving the fuel from other southern states, said a senior official

Online platform launched to help victims

An online platform has been launched to help rain-hit victims of Kerala connect with people who are willing to throw open their houses for accommodation.

UIDAI asks enrolment agencies to provide free e-Aadhaar printouts

The UIDAI has directed the Aadhaar enrolment agencies in Kerala, including banks and post offices, to facilitate retrieval of the 12-digit number and provide free printouts to Aadhaar-holders who have lost their document in the flood-hit state.

The e-Aadhaar printouts can be taken by people from the enrolment centres by giving their name and biometric authentication, UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey told PTI.

Over 24,000 people rescued in Kerala: NDRF

Over 24,000 people have been evacuated till now from the flood affected regions of Kerala till now even as 41 NDRF teams are still undertaking relief and rescue operations in the state, a force spokesperson said today.

Centre releases Rs 600 crore to Kerala

The Centre released Rs 600 crore to flood-hit Kerala and decided to waive customs duty and GST on the relief materials being imported for the affected people in the state.

The announcement came following a meeting of the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC), which met for the sixth consecutive day.

The central assistance of Rs 500 crore as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rs 100 crore announced by Union home minister Rajnath Singh for flood affected Kerala has been released to the government of Kerala today, an official spokesperson said

GSTR filing extended till Oct 5 for Kerala

Finance minister Piyush Goyal announced that the last date of filing the GSTR 3B has been extended to October 5 for Kerala. For other states, the last date is August 24.

UP donates Rs 15-crore for flood relief work

The Uttar Pradesh government handed over a bank draft of Rs 15 crore to a representative of the Kerala government as its contribution for relief work in the flood-ravaged state.

Railways urges staff to donate one days salary

The Indian Railways has appealed to its employees to donate one days salary each towards the Kerala relief fund.

An official said the move will help collect around Rs 200 crore since the Railways has around 12.5 lakh employees. He said that railway officials in Kerala have already donated Rs 65 lakh for relief work.

Flood relief material from abroad exempted from customs duty, GST: Goyal

Finance minister Piyush Goyal said the relief material coming from foreign countries for distribution in flood-ravaged Kerala have been exempted from the customs duty and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

The government is committed to help Kerala in this time of devastation, Goyal told the media in New Delhi.

...we have made all the relief materials coming from foreign countries for the Kerala flood relief exempt from customs duty as well as GST, he said.

89,540-tonne foodgrains, 100-tonne pulses to be supplied

Food minister Ram Vilas Paswan said 89,540 tonne of foodgrains and 100 tonne of pulses will be supplied for free to flood-hit Kerala for distribution among those who are not covered under the food security act.

The Centre allocates 1.18 lakh tonne of foodgrains monthly to the state. About 52 per cent of the state population is already covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) under which highly subsidised grains are distribution via the Public Distribution System (PDS).

PM could have been more generous towards Kerala: CPI

The CPI on Tuesday said the Centres assistance of Rs 500 crore to flood-battered Kerala was too little, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi could have been more generous towards the state.

The prime minister had last week announced a relief of Rs 500 crore to the state, in addition to Rs 100 crore announced by home minister Rajnath Singh.

Mizoram donates Rs 2 crore, J-K Bank staffers to donate Rs 11 cr

Mizoram government would contribute Rs 2 crore to the Kerala chief ministers Relief Fund in the wake of the recent rain-fed floods in the southern state.

The staff of J&K Bank will contribute Rs 11 crore to help the flood-affected people of Kerala, a spokesperson for the bank said.

While most of the staffers are donating their six days salary towards the relief fund in the southern state, the top executives helped enhance the scale of contribution with their salary of up to two months.

Crocodile, snakes take over Keralas flooded homes

People returning to their flood-battered homes in Kerala from relief camps were are being greeted by snakes and other reptiles and insects.

At Chalakudy in Thrissur district, a man who returned on Monday night to check the condition of his house was stunned to see a new occupant -- a crocodile.

Mustafa, a snake catcher, is a busy man in Malappuram. Since the waters began to recede in the past two days, he has caught over 100 snakes from homes.

Intensifying monsoon, low pressure areas in BoB proved deadly for Kerala: Experts

A deadly combination of two low pressure areas in the Bay of Bengal, a cyclonic circulation and an intensifying monsoon in the southeast Arabian Sea led to heavy rains in Kerala this month, experts said.

Ayyappa devotees asked not to go to Sabarimala shrine

Ayyappa devotees have been advised by authorities to not visit the hill shrine of Sabarimala for the Onam festival as flood waters in the Pampa river have not receded.

Besides, roads in nearby areas of Pampa have been damaged and several trees en route to the shrine uprooted under the impact of the heavy rains, the Travancore Devaswom Board, which manages the shrine, said.

The path to the shrine was also filled with mud and this would make trekking to the shrine very dangerous, the TDB said in a release.

Kerala Police take over relief camps

The Kerala Police took over the security of all the relief camps in the flood-battered state, police chief Loknath Behra said.

Over a million people are now housed in more than 3,000 relief camps that have been set up across the state. The maximum number of people are in Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Pathanamthitta and Idukki districts.

Insurance claims likely to be upwards of Rs 1,000 cr

Insurance companies expect claims in flood ravaged Kerala to cross Rs 1,000 crore as the government declares the deluge as calamity of severe nature.

Assessment of claims will take place with situation moving to normal, a senior official of an insurance firm said, adding clear picture will emerge in the next 4-5 days when claims are received.

Maruti Suzuki, employees pledge Rs 3.5 cr for Kerala flood relief

Maruti Suzuki India said that the company along with its employees will donate Rs 3.5 crore as part of Kerala flood relief effort.

It has donated Rs 2 crore towards the Prime Ministers National Relief Fund to strengthen relief, rebuilding and rehabilitation efforts of the government, Maruti Suzuki India said in a statement

Union health minister holds meeting

Union fealth minister JP Nadda and MoS health Ashwini Choubey hold meeting over Kerala floods.

All-party meeting on Kerala floods underway

An all-party meeting, being chaired by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, over Kerala floods is underway in Thiruvananthapuram.

NCW asks state commissions to contribute

The National Commission for Women (NCW) has asked state commissions to contribute towards relief funds for flood-hit Kerala, chairperson Rekha Sharma said on Tuesday.

HAM radio services help trace stranded people

HAM radio operators are helping in rescue operations in flood-devastated Kerala by tracing stranded people through their last mobile phone location and sharing information with officials as most communication services remain hit in the state.

Need Rs 2,600 crore special package: Kerala to Centre

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan chaired a meeting of the state cabinet, which decided to seek a Rs 2,600 special package from the Centre under the centrally-sponsored schemes including the latters flagship rural employment programme MNREGS.

NHAI suspends user fee at three toll plazas

In view of the unprecedented flood situation in Kerala, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has suspended user fee at three toll plazas in the state, the government said on Tuesday.

Putin writes to Kovind, Modi, expresses condolences

Russian President Vladimir Putin writes to President Ram Nath Kovind and PM Modi, expresses condolences over lives lost in #Keralafloods pic.twitter.com/LU1Y1pZtFt  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2018

Kochi airport suffers loss of over Rs 220 crore

The Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) has suffered an estimated loss of over Rs 220 crore in the floods, an official said on Tuesday.

Maruti Suzuki to donate Rs 3.5 crore

Maruti Suzuki India said on Tuesday that the company along with its employees will donate Rs 3.5 crore as Kerala flood relief effort.

Kochi airport to open on August 26

With the flood waters receding rapidly, the Cochin International Airport, one of the three in Kerala and the busiest, will open on August 26 - after 12 days of closure, CIAL website said. Airport authorities have been engaged in a massive cleaning operation of the operational area that was submerged by flood waters. One side the compound wall of the airport came down after water from the swollen Periyar river and its tributaries, which received an unprecedented amount of water released by major dams, entered the complex, turning it into a virtual sea.

Animal rescuers race to save abandoned pets

With floods ravaging Kerala and Coorg in Karnataka, animal rescuers are being inundated with distress calls from desperate people who were forced to evacuate their homes without their pets.

FMCG firms to donate: Union minister

Over a dozen FMCG firms, including ITC, Coca Cola, Pepsi and Hindustan Unilever, have pledged to supply water bottle, food and necessary items to flood-hit areas of Kerala in the next two days, Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said on Tuesday.

Bajaj Auto announces Rs 2 crore contribution

Bajaj Auto on Tuesday announced contribution of Rs 2 crore in aid of flood-hit Kerala.

While Rs 1 crore is being contributed directly to the chief ministers relief fund, the balance Rs 1 crore will be deployed by Jankidevi Bajaj Gram Vikas Sanstha (JBGVS), for distribution of survival kits, the company said in a statement.

Central railway staff to contribute part of salary

The employees of the Central railway have decided to contribute parts of their salary for the relief and rehabilitation efforts in Kerala, according to details released by the ministry on Tuesday.

While those in the pay grade of Rs 1,800-2,000 will pay Rs 500 to the fund, those between Rs 2,400-2,800 will contribute Rs 700, those in the pay grade 4,200-4,600 will give Rs 1,000 each, those between Rs 4,800-6,600 will pay Rs 1,500, those earning Rs 7,600 pay grade to pay Rs 2,000, and those in the category of Rs 8,700-10,000 to donate Rs 2,500. All those in the grade of Rs 10,000 and more will pay Rs 3,000 each.

People begin returning home

With rains easing and water receding in some areas of flood-ravaged Kerala, people started returning to their homes as Union ministrer K J Alphons on Tuesday appealed for cooked food and skilled workers to rehabilitate more than 10 lakh displaced people, reports PTI.

Special train brings hundreds of stranded to Kolkata

A train carrying hundreds of people stranded in the flood-ravaged Kerala reached here, a South Eastern Railway (SER) spokesman said on Kolkata.

The passengers, mostly labourers from West Bengal, reached Howrah station late last night in the 21-coach special train from Thiruvananthapuram.

Indo-Tibetan Border Police transports patients on improvised floaters

#WATCH: Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel transport patients on improvised floaters in Chengannur's Pandanad in Alappuzha district. #KeralaFloods pic.twitter.com/KITFKpwrSB  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2018

Isnt just a job, its a calling: Indian Coast Guard

MP Police donates Rs 1.31 crore, MPs to donate one day salary

MP Police has donated Rs. 1.31 crore to Kerala chief ministers distress relief fund. Further, all police personnel of MP will donate one days salary for the same purpose, said Madhya Pradesh DGP Rishi Kumar Shukla, reports ANI.

Have to rebuild a new Kerala: CM

As rains subside, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday said that there is need to rebuild a new Kerala.

As rains subside, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday said that there is need to rebuild a new Kerala. ( ANI/Twitter )

Relief material from Coimbatore dispatched

105 battalion of Rapid Action Force (RAF) and G 36 group of Rotary clubs in Coimbatore have dispatched relief material in 10 trucks for flood victims in Keralas Ernakulam, Kottayam and Alappuzha, reports ANI.

105 battalion of Rapid Action Force (RAF) and G 36 group of Rotary clubs in Coimbatore have dispatched relief material in 10 trucks for flood victims in Keralas Ernakulam, Kottayam and Alappuzha, reports ANI. ( ANI/Twitter )

Kerala heath minister KK Shailaja visits state control room

Kerala heath minister KK Shailaja is at the state control room to review health arrangements.

Kerala heath minister KK Shailaja at the state control room to review health arrangements. ( HT Photo )

Convene special assembly session on August 30: Kerala cabinet to governor

Kerala cabinet has decided to recommend to the governor to convene a special assembly session on August 30 to discuss relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction of Kerala after floods, said CM Pinarayi Vijayan, reports ANI.

UAE has offered Rs 700 crore aid: CM

United Arab Emirates (UAE) has offered financial assistance of Rs 700 crores for Kerala floods relief Kerala, says chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, reports ANI.

Of 10,28,073 people in relief camps, 1,76, 495 are children

As on Tuesday there are a total of 10,28,073 people in relief camps and out of these 1,76, 495 are children below 16 years of age.

Many areas covered with mud, carcasses strewn around

Many areas are covered with mud and carcasses of animals are strewn around in Pandanad near Chengannur.

Over 1 lakh children in relief camps, some need treatment: Psychologists

Out of 10 lakh people in relief camps, over one lakh are children below 15 years of age. Many of them are scared and need to undergo treatment, say psychologists.

Drinking water supply restored after 5 days

Drinking water supply has been restored after five days in Kochi and surrounding areas.

Special control room to check epidemic

Special control room will be checking epidemic in Kochi. The Indian Army, Navy and the Air Force are helping the help state to stand on its feet.

Snakes, snails found in homes

As water recedes, snakes and snails found floating in many homes. Incidents of snake-bites also reported in Paravur.

Restoration work begins in Thrissur

Restoration work started at Chalakudy market in Thrissur after a decrease in the water level in the district, reports ANI.

Flood hit areas being disinfected

Large scale disinfection of flood-hit areas is being carried out.

Worst over: People cheer in Alapuzha

After many days of hide and seek sun shines again in Alapuzha. People cheer saying worst is over.

Rains subside, but no outlet for stagnant water

Though rains have subsided, stagnant water remains as there in no outlet. Since water entered with much force, the slush is adding to problem.

Air force airlifts medical team from Mumbai to Thiruvananthapuram

Indian Air Forces C-130J on Monday airlifted medical team consisting of 96 doctors led by medical education minister of Maharashtra Girish Mahajan from Mumbai to Thiruvananthapuram. Medical and relief supplies were lifted along with the medical team for flood-hit areas of Kerela, reports ANI.

Those resisting to move, forcibly taken to relief camps

The police were on Monday given the powers to arrest those who were unwilling to leave their submerged houses. Though no arrest was reported, many were forcibly moved to relief camps.

Rescue ops begin, committed to save last stranded: CM

Committed to save the last stranded, rescue operations began again on Tuesday morning, said Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

As flood water recedes, people battle hunger, disease, poor hygiene

Rainfall abated in flood-ravaged Kerala on Monday as the focus turned to the 5,645 relief camps that house more than a million people battling hunger, disease, poor hygiene and a trail of destruction left in the wake of the states worst deluge in almost a century.

Tripura to donate Rs 1 crore

A day after the opposition CPI-M urged the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to contribute funds to the flood-ravaged Kerala, the Tripura government on Monday night said that it will donate Rs 1 crore.

SC judges to contribute Rs 25,000 each

The judges of the Supreme Court will contribute Rs 25,000 each to the Kerala flood relief fund, informed chief justice of India Dipak Misra on Monday.

All-party meet at 4 pm

Kerala government has called for an all-party meeting over the flood situation in the state at 4 pm on Tuesday in Thiruvananthapuram, reports ANI.

Train services partially restored

The train services which had collapsed following the incessant downpour in Kerala, have been partially restored, reports ANI.

The train services in Kayankulam-Kottayam- Ernakulam and Palakkad-Shoranur-Kozhikkode sections have been resumed. Heavy damages caused by the floods in Aluva- Thrissur, Thrissur-Shoranur, Kayamkulam-Kottayam- Ernakulam Shoranur-Tirur, Shoranur- Palakkad routes have been fixed.

Additional help needed: CM urges Centre

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced that the severe inundation claimed at least 223 lives between August 8-20 in Kerala, while six more people died on Monday.

The Centre said they will make all necessary requirements available to us but in todays situation what is most needed is the necessary help, equivalent to the total damages caused so far.

CM says six more have died, toll rises to 223

Briefing the media in Trivandrum, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said, 223 people lost their lives between August 8-20, while six people died on Monday.

Centre declares calamity of severe nature

The Centre declared the devastating floods in Kerala a calamity of severe nature as the state braced for the gigantic task of reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure and rehabilitation lakhs of people rendered homeless.

Navy scales down Operation Madad

The Southern Naval Command of the Indian Navy on Tuesday started scaling down their rescue operations, termed as, Operation Madad, as rains have reduced and floodwaters have begun receding from many areas in Kerala, a defence press release said on Monday .
Kerala on Tuesday urged the Centre to raise the limit of money it can borrow to deal with the devastation the worst floods in the state in almost 100 years has caused. Rules bar a state from borrowing money more than 3% of its gross domestic product.

Kerala wants the limit to be raised to 4.5% to raise enough resources to rebuild the state as the focus has shifted to rehabilitation after week-long rescue operations ended.

The enhancement of borrowing limit will help the state to mobilise an additional resource of Rs10,500 crore, said Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

He said Kerala desperately needed more money and resources to tide over the crisis and present borrowing limit was an impediment to this. The mission is not to restore the state to pre-flood stature but to create a new Kerala from scratch. Vijayan said they will submit a comprehensive plan to the Centre to mobilise more funds.

The disaster has claimed over 250 lives, displaced more than a million people and led to estimated losses worth Rs20,000 crore.

Vijayan said the government will also impose a special cess with the state GST as part of the on-going revenue mobilization drive to help raise resources. Last week, the government had increased excise duty on liquor to raise additional funds.

Vijayan said each department has been tasked with chalking out specific plans for relief and rehabilitation.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has promised Rs700 crore to the chief ministers relief fund. Out of 25 lakh Non-Resident Indians from Kerala, nearly a quarter live in the UAE.

In Delhi, the Centre on Tuesday announced Rs600 crore assistance for Kerala. A statement issued after a National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) meeting, said the situation in Kerala was improving but isolated pockets remained cut-off.

As the rescue operations wind down, the state administration has started de-requisitioning the teams of the defence forces and the NDRF.

It added an additional allocation of 89,540 MT of rice was being done on Keralas request. Additional quantities of green gram and tur dal were also being dispatched.

Public sector oil marketing companies have contributed Rs 25 crore to the chief ministers relief fund in Kerala. The ministry of petroleum and natural gas has opened special points in the flood-affected areas of the state for LPG distribution, the statement said. Permission has also been granted, in coordination with the state government, for non-certified vehicles to carry LPG cylinders. The ministry has also made available 3.2 lakh LPG cylinders and 2.2 lakh regulators.

The Centre said the railway has so far supplied 24 lakh litres of drinking water in addition to 2.7 lakh water bottles. An Action Plan has been prepared for the restoration of power supply in all the affected areas. Ninety-four per cent of telecom towers has been made functional. Power supply to telephone exchanges is being restored on priority, said the statement.

The Union health ministry was supplying three crore chlorine tablets in addition to one crore supplied earlier. Thirty tonnes of bleaching powder and 1.76 lakh sanitary pads have also been sent. The finance ministry has decided to waive off customs duty and GST on the relief materials.
The armed forces started scaling down rescue operations on Tuesday in Kerala, where floods killed more than 370 people and drove hundreds of thousands from their homes, as the rain abated and the waters receded in several areas of the state.

The Centre has declared the devastating floods in Kerala a calamity of severe nature as the state braced for the gigantic task of reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure and rehabilitation lakhs of people rendered homeless.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said on Tuesday 373 people have lost their lives and 32 others went missing in Kerala since May 30 following monsoons, which hit all the 14 districts of the southern state.

More than 54.11 lakh people in Kerala were affected in the massive floods of which 12.47 lakh have taken shelter in 5,645 relief camps since May 30, it said.

Intense rains, which began August 8 in Kerala, had decreased substantially by Monday and meteorologists are expecting light-to-moderate rains in the coming days.

While water and electricity have been returned to parts of flood-stricken Kerala, the states utilities were working to restore service to vast areas that still had no service, news agency PTI reported.

Reclaiming lives

People have begun leaving the relief camps over the past couple days, heading to their homes to check on damage and begin the long process of cleaning up.

Just outside of Kochi, thousands of people have been streaming over the past two days from the grounds of Union Christian College, one of more than 3,000 relief camps created amid the havoc. A week ago, volunteers at the camp estimated 10,000 people were jammed into the schools buildings. Today, there are perhaps 1,500.

A woman cleans the mud from the entrance of her house following floods in Paravur in Kerala on August 21. (REUTERS)

Abdullah Aliyar has been living in the camp with four of his relatives. On Monday, he returned briefly to his home, which is a few miles (kilometres away). He was dismayed by what he found. There was sludge and muck nearly up to my knee.

But for now, the family is remaining at the college. Theres no drinking water at home, and no electricity. He doesnt know when theyll be able to return.

In Kozhikode, a group of policemen have come together and prepared 1,000 kits of essential items like sugar, pulses, rice etc to be distributed to the neediest who return home from camps.

Over 90% people have gone back from camps in the district to their homes. There are many people who are in a very bad state and so it was decided to distribute kits to them as the festivals are just around the corner even though there may be no celebrations, a police official said.

At Chengannur, one of the worst-hit towns, more than 60 centimetres (two feet) of water still blocked many roads as more rain fell Tuesday. Army teams said several thousand people in the town remained in homes inundated by 10 days of torrential downpours that have battered the state.

Tens of thousands of people in Chengannur and surrounding towns and villages are relying on community kitchens for meals, after water from hilly districts in Keralas north poured down into lowland regions.

People have lost all or most of their belongings in the last few days, the officer told AFP.

People who have left their flood effected homes take refuge in a relief camp set up at a college on the outskirts of Kochin in Kerala on August 21. (AP Photo)

Cochin airport to reopen

The Cochin international airport, one of the three in Kerala and the busiest, will open on August 26, after 12 days of closure. The airport was first closed on August 9, for a few hours, and then on August 15.

An official said the Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) has launched rebuilding on a war-footing of the damaged infrastructure, including 2.5km long airport wall that collapsed after water from the swollen Periyar river and its tributaries, which received an unprecedented amount of water released by major dams, entered the complex.

Our initial assessment is that we have suffered an estimated loss of Rs 220 crore in the floods, the official said.

INS Garuda, the naval air station in Kochi, commenced operations of civil aircraft from Monday.

New Kerala has to be built

Millions of dollars in donations have poured into the state from the rest of India and abroad since the extent of the devastation became known. Supreme Court judges have donated Rs 25,000 each while the British-based Sikh group Khalsa Aid International has set up its own relief camp in Kochi, Keralas main city, to provide 3,000 meals a day.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Tuesday a new Kerala needed to be built following the widespread destruction.

Funds are the prime requisite for this. This will be raised by us through various sources besides getting it from the Centre and other agencies, he said.

People in the flood-affected Manjali at North Paravoor in Kochi on August 20. (PTI Photo)

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), home to hundreds of thousands of Keralites, has informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi that it would be providing $100 million for Kerala, Vijayan told the media.

Vijayan said they would ask the Centre to allow Kerala to increase the market borrowings from 3% of the states total revenue to 4.5%, which could help raise an additional Rs 10,000 crore.

We have decided to approach agencies like NABARD whose mandate includes providing for infrastructure and drinking water. We will demand a special package for the state, said Vijayan.

Till Monday, the total contributions received to the Chief Ministers Distress Relief Fund was Rs 210 crore while another Rs 160 crore has been pledged.

A special session of the Kerala assembly has been called from August 30 to discuss the huge destruction caused by the worst flooding in nearly a century and to chart the future course of action.

Subdued Onam, Bakrid

Many families and organisations have decided against celebrating Onam, considered the states harvest festival, on August 25 and the Muslim festival of Bakrid on Wednesday.

The state government has also cancelled Onam celebrations. The Kerala Tourisms decision to organise Champions Boat League on the lines of Indian Premier League (IPL) from this year starting with Nehru Trophy boat race also took a beating due to the flooding.

Pulikali (Tiger Dance), among the folk art forms of Kerala, which is held in Thrissur with artisans donning tiger masks and sporting the painted stripes of the big cat and dancing to the rhythm of traditional percussion instruments on August 28 is also likely to be cancelled.

Ammini, a 55-year-old in a relief camp, said she and her family had to rush out with only the clothes they wore.s

Everything is lost. We do not have anything left. There is nothing to look forward to. My son is bedridden .. I do not know where to go from the camp with my son, daughter-in-law and their child as there is no home left, she said.

We do not know how to take our life forward. Onam is not now in our minds..., she said unable to hold back tears.
For Indian Army veteran Azmal Hoque, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was meant to bring a final closure to his struggle to prove that he is a citizen. Instead, it has brought in more confusion.

Hoque, whose son is undergoing training at the National Defence Academy in Dehradun and daughter studies at the Army School in Guwahati, were among the 40,07,707 people who did not make it to the draft.

A curious Hoque went to his native village in Chhaygaon, near Guwahati, to find out the reason and was told that he and his children have been put on hold since there is a case pending against him in the foreigners tribunal in Boko.

In November 2017, the tribunal has declared me an Indian citizen, an angry Hoque, who retired as a junior commissioned officer from Indian Army after more than 30 years of service, said. To his shock, the local NRC officials told him that the case pending against him has a different case number than the one which has been decided.

But when Haq went to the tribunal in Boko, he did not find a case with the said case number. There are no records, he said.

A Supreme Court order said that those whose cases are pending in tribunals and those who have been declared as D (doubtful) voters and their descendants will be kept on hold till their cases are decided by the tribunal.

District officials including of the Assam Polices Border Branch and the Chief Electoral Officers office, were tasked with providing data on these cases to NRC secretariat.

NRC State coordinator Prateek Hajela did not respond to queries on why Hoque has been left out of the draft even though he was declared a citizen in 2017.

A senior NRC official had earlier told Hindustan Times that they checked with polices Border Branch, which marks people as suspected foreigners and refers their cases to foreigners tribunals and had come under fire after this case, and found that there is a case pending against Hoque.

Paratha Sarthi Mahanta, superintendent of police, Kamrup who also looks after the Border Branch in the district, refused to comment. Check with the NRC or check with tribunals, he said.

Meanwhile, NRC draft came as a shock for Sanaullah, a retired honorary captain of the Indian Army. Left out of the draft, the reason given to him said he, too, has a case in a foreigners tribunal pending against him.

Unlike Hoque, who could get an opportunity to appear before the tribunal and clear his name, the reason came as complete surprise for the retired army man who could not fathom that he too could be marked a suspected illegal immigrant.

I have never received any notice from any tribunal. Nor has any policeman ever approached me, he said, adding that it was only through the NRC officials that he came to know that he has a case pending against him.

I was made a honorary captain on Republic Day last year by President of India. Yet, this is happening, Sanaullah said before he drove to the tribunal to look for the case records.

Samsul Hoque, a retired sergeant of the Indian Air Force, who now lives in Barpeta, too, remains a doubtful voter in the records with the NRC officials.

I was declared an Indian citizen in 2016 when my D voter case came up for a hearing in foreigners tribunal, he said explaining how Election Commission officials had marked him a suspected illegal immigrant in 1997 but he came to know years later. I was out on duty serving all over the country, the Kargil war veteran said.

Hoque too, has been told that his name and that of his descendants is not there in the NRC draft because he is a D voter.

I feel sad that even after three decades of service to the nation one has to beg for citizenship, he said. I hope they correct it, he said as he prepares to file claims against his exclusion from the draft.
Chhattisgarhs proposed capital, Naya Raipur, will now be named Atal Nagar after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the state government decided on Tuesday.

Also commemorating the former prime ministers contribution to the nation by undertaking another series of nuclear tests in 1998, a battalion of the Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) will be called the Pokhran Battalion.

The decisions were taken a meeting of Chhattisgarh cabinet, chaired by chief minister Raman Singh.

A memorial of Atal ji will come up in Naya Raipur. A statue of Vajpayee will also be installed at Naya Raipur as well as in all 27 district headquarters of the state and a central park will be developed in Naya Raipur in the name of former prime minister, Singh told reporters after the meeting.

Naya Raipur is located about 20 km southeast of Raipur.

The chief minister also said that the Bilaspur University, the newly-built medical college in Rajnandgaon, the Marwa Thermal Power Plant in Janjgir-Champa district, and the under-construction expressway in Raipur will also be named after Vajpayee.

On Chhattisgarh formation day, celebrated on October 1, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Sushasan award will be given to panchayats and urban bodies for good governance, he added, while the biography of the former prime minister will also be included in textbooks of Chhattisgarh board of school education.

The cabinet has also decided that the second phase of Singhs Vikas Yatra, to be launched from the next month in the run-up to the upcoming assembly polls, will now be called the Atal Vikas Yatra.

The Chhattisgarh government will also give a national-level poetry award named after former prime minister, who was a renowned poet himself.

Vajpayee, who was prime minister between 1998 and 2004, died in New Delhis All India Institute of Medical Sciences, on August 16.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his condolences over the loss of lives and property in Kerala floods and said his country shares the grief with the friendly people of India.

In a letter dated August 20, addressed to President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Putin said, Kindly accept the deepest condolences over numerous human casualties caused by the devastating floods in Kerala. Russia shares grief with the friendly people of India and hopes for a speedy recovery to all those injured from this natural disaster.

Russian Ambassador to India Nikolay Kudashev praised the measures taken by the Centre and the state government in conducting rescue operations and countering the effects of this calamity.

I hope that with the rains stopped and floodwater started receding, the soonest recovery is expected. The (Russian) embassy (in India) conveys the words of sincere sympathy and support to the families and friends of all those suffered, Kudashev said in a statement.

The devastating floods in Kerala has left 223 dead in a fortnight and forced more than 10 lakh people out of their homes.
Sex workers in Ahmednagar district have donated Rs 21,000 for Kerala flood victims and they will be raising another Rs 1 lakh by the end of this month.

A group of sex workers presented a cheque of Rs 21,000 drawn in favour of the Prime Ministers Relief Fund for Kerala flood victims to Resident Deputy Collector Prashant Patil on Monday, said a functionary of an NGO working for them.

Dipak Buram of the city-based NGO Snehalaya said sex workers will raise another Rs 1 lakh by the month-end for Kerala flood victims.

Buram is coordinator of Snehjyot, a project run by Snehalaya, which is working for the welfare of sex workers for the last 30 years.

In the past too, sex workers have contributed for helping the victims of natural calamities in various parts of the country, he said.

In December 2015, they had donated Rs 1 lakh for relief work in rain-ravaged Chennai, Buram said.

Till date, they have contributed nearly Rs 27 lakh for various causes, including for the victims of earthquake in Gujrat (2001), tsunami (2004), Kashmir and Bihar floods, drought relief in Maharashtra and families of Kargil war heroes, he said.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave directors of the Amrapali group two more days to furnish details of individual properties and mooted the idea of selling these in order to raise funds for completing stuck housing projects.

A bench of justices Arun Mishra and UU Lalit said it will give the realty firm two more days to provide the required information. We asked you for details of individual properties of directors. You also have to submit details of accounts of some companies, which you have not given so far, justice Mishra said.

The counsel for Amrapali was asked to stick to the deadline and the court made it clear that no further extension would be given. The court also asked the counsel for homebuyers to submit the names of three auditors who could do a forensic audit of the companys accounts.

Tuesdays order came after Amrapali failed to furnish the complete information of its companies/properties to be sold for generating funds. Although the firm did give a list, the court found that many of them had no clear title.

You are giving properties on which there is no clear title, Mishra observed. Your hands are so much unclean. At this point, you cannot claim anything, he said.

Justice Lalit said, This appears to be a very well-crafted cobweb. You say there are so many properties that can be sold. But, if we start selling, there will be charges to be paid to different authorities. By the time we clear them all, we will have a pittance left in our hands. That is why we would need the details of individual properties of all directors.

When the companys lawyer requested exemption from filing details of personal properties of two of its officials who were part of the groups director board, Mishra said: We want it (details) for a purpose. We have a hunch, cant say more now.

On August 2, the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC) had assured the court that it was willing to take over the unfinished projects of the group. The corporation was told to submit within 30 days a concrete proposal to complete the construction so that possession could be given to buyers.
A special court in Mandsaur on Tuesday awarded the death sentence to two men in the rape of an eight-year-old girl in Mandsaur.

Earlier in the day, special judge Nisha Gupta had held the two accused  Irfan alias Bhaiyu (20) and Asif (24)  guilty under relevant sections, public prosecutor BS Thakur said.

The girl was gangraped on June 26 in Mandsaur after the accused abducted her while she was waiting for her father outside her school.

The accused had also tried to kill her by slitting her throat.

The minor, who suffered severe injuries to her neck, face, head and private parts in the incident, is undergoing treatment in Indore.

Relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act were invoked against the accused.
Police in Nagpur have booked two senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders, including its Nagpur womens wing chief, for allegedly sharing the name and photograph of a gang rape victim on social media.

Alka Kamble, president of Nagpur unit of NCP womens wing, along with a couple of senior party activists, went to meet the gang rape survivor at Umred on Saturday, took photographs with her and posted them on social media, along with her name.

The NCP women activists had also posted her name and photos while posting about state party chief Jayant Patils visit to the hospital to meet her last week, and their agitation against the crime.

The issue was taken up by Maharashtra State Women Commission member Neeta Thakare, who approached the police, after which an FIR was registered against Kamble and her fellow NCP leader Urvashi Giradkar under section of 228A of the Indian Penal Code.

The twenty-five-year-old woman employee of Western Coalfields Limited (WCL), working at a company weighbridge at Umred, some 50 km from here, was allegedly thrashed and gang raped by some drivers transporting coal, last week. She is now recovering at a private hospital.

The NCPs local unit also took a strong exception at its women activists sharing the photograph of the victim and disclosing her name.

Nagpur city NCP chief Anil Ahirkar condemned the repeated posting of the survivors name and image in the group, saying he would take up the issue in the next party meeting. Posting of such sensitive details, along with photograph, in social media is highly objectionable and it could have been avoided by the party workers, he said.

The police are investigating the details with the help of cyber cell, said Rakesh Ola, the superintendent of police, Nagpur (rural), adding the persons concerned would be summoned for the investigation when needed after the cyber cell authenticates the sources.
Avinash Bali, 40, a police informer and key eyewitness in the 2011 murders of Keenan Santos and Reuben Fernandez, was found dead in Andheri (East) on Monday morning.

Mumbai police believe Bali, whose real name was Avinash Solanki, was murdered. Police from Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) police station found Balis body in a room within an industrial complex at approximately 3am on Monday morning.

He was lying in a pool of blood and preliminary investigations suggest Bali was assaulted with a blunt object on the back of his head, leading to his death.

The guards at the industrial complex said the closed circuit television (CCTV) camera has been inoperative for at least 15 days.

The DVR of the camera was taken by the technician for repair 15 days back, said one guard.

The prime suspect in Balis murder is an old friend of his named Nilesh Shukla.

Shukla, a 37-year-old worker for a political party who was, according to police sources, arrested in 2008 under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substance act case. Shukla is out on bail.

Bali was last seen alive by his family when he left home on Friday evening, around 7pm. One of his brothers recalls Bali saying he was going to meet Shukla. He didnt pick up the phone when they called him around 9.30pm. When he did not return home on Friday, we called him again on Saturday. One of his numbers was coming off and the other was continuously ringing, but was not answered, said Dileep Solanki, Balis eldest brother. We kept searching for him. On Sunday evening, we informed a few police officers whom he had helped with information in the past. A search operation was started by them and at around 3am, I received a call from one of the officers saying they have found Avinashs body.

Police sources said a bottle of imported alcohol and three glasses were recovered along with the dead body. Two of the glasses contained alcohol while one was empty. Balis death is not believed to be connected to Santos and Fernandezs murders. Bali was a key eye witness and complainant in the double murders of Santos and Fernandez, which is currently in the Bombay High Court, pending appeal.
The Maharashtra government on Monday formed a one-member judicial committee headed by retired high court judge Kishor Rohi to conduct a probe into the alleged Kharghar land scam.

According to the Opposition, a 24-acre City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) plot, worth 1,768 crore, was allotted to farmers affected by the Koyna power project, and they were later allowed to illegally sell it to a private builder for 3.6 crore. The Opposition alleged the builder is close to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Prasad Lad. Both chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Lad had denied the allegations.

After the issue was raised in the monsoon session of the state legislature, Fadnavis in July announced that a committee would be formed. According to the government resolution (GR) issued by the state urban development department (UDD) that ordered the probe, the panel will check the ownership of the plot; the legality of the allotments, and land transfer, among others.

The committee will probe all land allotments made in the past 15 years to those hit by the Koyna project. The panel will look at whether the rules were followed in the allotments, and whether any ineligible person got the land.

Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam expressed unhappiness over the nature of probe. We had demanded a probe by a sitting judge of the high court, as it would have given more legal powers to the panel. Fadnavis had announced to stay the transaction related to the land in dispute, but the government has not taken a decision to scrap the deal. We had also demanded action against the officials in Cidco and district collectorate responsible for the land deal. For a fair probe, the officials responsible for the illegal deal need to be sacked and investigation into their role should be included in the terms of reference, Nirupam said.
A day after AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal made the long-awaited visit to Punjab, the ongoing war in the faction-ridden state unit escalated on Monday with both the party leadership and dissidents hardening their positions.

The rebel camp named Bholath MLA Sukhpal Khaira as interim president of the state unit whereas newly appointed leader of opposition (LoP) Harpal Singh Cheema replaced chief whip and one of the two whips of the legislature party in the state assembly. Kotkapura MLA Kultar Singh Sandhwan has been appointed as chief whip in place of Mansa MLA Nazar Singh Manshahia. Rupnagar MLA Amarjit Sandoa has been made whip in place of Bhadaur MLA Pirmal Singh.

Both Manshahia and Khalsa belong to the Khaira-led dissident group. Calling his removal wrong, Manshahia said the move was not for unity, but towards a split. No one from the party spoke to me before doing this, he said.

Bathinda (Rural) MLA Rupinder Singh Ruby, who is loyal to Delhi leadership, has been retained as whip. We have informed the assembly speaker about these changes. The meeting of the legislature party has been convened on Wednesday, said Cheema. The three-day monsoon session of the state assembly will start on August 24.

While these changes were expected, the announcement came hours after the rebel camp, which has support of eight of the 20 party MLAs, named Khaira as interim president of the state party. Mondays developments are a serious setback to efforts being made for a rapprochement between the two sides that Kejriwal talked about a day ago.

The faction-ridden state unit has been in turmoil since the partys below-par performance in the assembly polls, but the feud came to a boil after Khairas removal and the dissidents staged a revolt demanding autonomy for the state unit.

Dissident MLA Kanwar Sandhu said Khairas appointment was decided the ad-hoc political affairs committee. We will also constitute the state executive and name district presidents soon, he said. He said they (dissidents) were open to dialogue, but not ready to compromise on resolutions passed at their volunteers convention in Bathinda. Rejecting Khairas appointment, Cheema termed it as anti-party activity.

Is this is the khudmukhtyari (autonomy) they wanted? he asked. AAP state co-president Balbir Singh said the party had taken a conciliatory approach but they were escalating matters. Earlier, Khaira announced a protest outside a sugar mill in Morinda on September 5 against 750-crore sugarcane arrears to farmers.
Rio de Janeiros drug war hit a bloody crescendo on Monday when at least 11 suspected criminals and two soldiers were reported killed in a huge military sweep through impoverished favelas and during a rush-hour police car chase.

The military command heading security in Brazils second biggest city said the two troops killed were the first lost since conservative President Michel Temer sent them into protect Rio.

The military command said 4,200 soldiers, backed by armoured vehicles and aircraft, entered the Penha neighbourhood and the Alemao and Mare favela complexes  poor, densely populated swaths of city in large part run by heavily armed drug traffickers.

Only 70 police officers were said to be involved, suggesting a turnaround from previous operations into the dangerous favelas where police have taken the lead and soldiers provided backup.

According to the Rio police force, 948 pounds (430 kg) of drugs were seized in the Mare, a far bigger amount than usual in such operations, which often end with few concrete results.

Positive effects

Troops removed roadblocks erected by drug gangs, followed up on tipoffs against suspected traffickers, and checked vehicles and residents, the military said in a statement.

In addition, troops distributed leaflets asking for cooperation from the population, it said.

The military said the incursion brought positive effects to some 550,000 residents.

However, human rights activists worried that the deaths and the overwhelming role of soldiers, as opposed to police, signalled a concerning development in Rios unending crime wars.

We think this is very serious. If there is confirmation that the dead were executed by officers of the armed forces, it would be a troubling change, said Silvia Ramos, from the Observatory of the Intervention, which monitors security forces in Rio.

The armed forces cannot enter this logic of useless confrontations and unacceptable killings that are the hallmark of the Rio police.

Rush-hour gunfight

In a separate incident in the Rio suburb of Niteroi, six suspected armed criminals were shot dead by police after a rush-hour car chase that briefly caused traffic snarls near one of Rios main bridges.

Police said in a statement that four died on the spot and two died in hospital, and three were taken prisoner. Four assault rifles, four pistols, four grenades and seven radios were seized from two cars, police said.

A commuter bus carrying 38 people was caught in the crossfire during the shootout and hit by 14 bullets, although just one passenger was slightly injured, Globo news site reported.

Rio de Janeiro hosted the Olympics two years ago, winning widespread praise for a smoothly run games. However, corruption, budget problems and spiraling crime have cast a shadow over a city that has long veered between the extremes of joyful carnivals or beach life and shocking violence.

Six months ago, Brazils military took over all security in Rio, following the governments decision that the local police are incapable of combatting the well-armed drug gangs. While police still perform all their normal duties, their top commanders are now military officers.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Pakistans new Prime Minister Imran Khan have renewed support for the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), agreeing to work together to complete the multi-billion dollar project that India opposes.

Khan assured Li that Pakistan will take strictest precautions for the security and safety of Chinese personnel working on the project. India hasnt joined President Xi Jinpings ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of which CPEC is a part, as the corridor passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Beijing and Islamabad are equally firm in implementing the CPEC, which connects Chinas Xinjiang with the Beijing-built Gwadar port in southwestern Pakistan through roads, highways, transport corridors and energy projects.

A phone conversation between Li and Khan on Monday  when the Chinese Premier congratulated Khan on taking over as Prime Minister  focused on the future of CPEC, according to a report in the official Xinhua news agency.

The CPEC is a landmark project in bilateral cooperation in the new era, Li noted, adding that China appreciates the Prime Ministers (Khans) remarks on firmly supporting its construction, and hopes that the two sides will work out plans for its development, the report said.

China also appreciates Pakistans great efforts in safeguarding the corridors construction and believes that Pakistan will continue to take measures to guarantee the safety of Chinese personnel and institutions in the country as well as cooperation projects, Li said.

Khan assured Li of Pakistans help in protecting projects under the CPEC, which has come under sporadic militant attacks besides international criticism that it is putting Pakistan under a debt trap. CPEC brings new development opportunities for Pakistan, and the country will continue to promote its construction and take the most strictest precautions to ensure the safety of Chinese personnel and projects, Khan was quoted by Xinhua as saying.

On the broader aspects of bilateral ties, Li said the two countries have enjoyed a strong strategic cooperative partnership and bilateral ties withstood the test of time, including a changing international scene.

The two sides always treat each other on equal footing and support each other, the Chinese Premier added.

China is willing to strengthen cooperation in various fields with Pakistan, import more competitive and high-quality products from Pakistan and facilitate a balanced development of trade in order to bring more benefits to the two peoples, Li added.

China always stood on the Pakistani side when Pakistan was at its most difficult moments, Khan was quoted by Xinhua as saying, and adding that the new Pakistani government is willing to forge stronger relations than ever with the Chinese side.
Microsoft Corp charged that hackers linked to Russias government sought to launch cyber attacks on the US Senate and conservative American think tanks, warning that Moscow is broadening attacks ahead of Novembers congressional elections.

The worlds biggest software company said late on Monday that it, last week, took control of six web domains that hackers had created to mimic sites belonging to the Senate and the think tanks. Users who visited the fake sites were asked to enter login credentials.

It is the latest in a string of actions Microsoft has taken to thwart what it charges are Russian government hacking attempts. The company said it has shut down 84 fake websites in 12 court-approved actions over the past two years.

Were concerned that these and other attempts pose security threats to a broadening array of groups connected with both American political parties in the run-up to the 2018 elections, Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a blog post.

Microsoft said it had no evidence that the hackers had succeeded in compromising any user credentials before it took control of the malicious sites.

The Kremlin rejected the Microsoft allegations and said there was no evidence to support them.

We dont know what hackers they are talking about, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Who exactly are they talking about? We dont understand what the proof and the basis is for them drawing these kind of conclusions. Such information (proof) is lacking.

Moscow has repeatedly dismissed allegations that it has used hackers to influence US elections and political opinion.

The targets, Microsoft said, included the International Republican Institute, whose high-profile Republican board members include Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has criticized US President Donald Trumps interactions with Russia and Moscows rights record.

The Hudson Institute, another target, has hosted discussions on topics including cyber security, according to Microsoft. It has also examined the rise of kleptocracy, especially in Russia, and has been critical of the Russian government.

Other malicious domains were used to mimic legitimate sites used by the U.S. Senate and Microsofts Office software suite, the company said.

Cyber tensions

Microsofts report came amid increasing tensions between Moscow and Washington ahead of midterm elections in November.

A US federal grand jury indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers in July on charges of hacking the computer networks of 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russias role in the 2016 election and whether Trumps campaign worked with Russians to sway the vote. Russia denies interfering in the elections and Trump has denied any collusion.

The type of attack is known as spear fishing, in which the hackers trick victims into entering their username and password into a fake site in order to steal their credentials.

Facebook Inc said late last month it had removed 32 pages and fake accounts from its platforms in a bid to combat foreign meddling ahead of the US votes.

The company stopped short of identifying the source of the misinformation. But members of Congress who had been briefed by Facebook on the matter said the methodology of the influence campaign suggested Russian involvement.
Pakistans new Prime minister Imran Khan will be held to the same standards as previous governments, the US seemed to signal on Monday as it put terrorism front and centre in the context of bilateral ties and reiterated its expectations to see the south Asian country do more against externally-oriented terrorist groups.

We have expressed our concern over the fact that terrorist proxy groups continue to be able to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan. We are urging the government to do more to bring pressure to bear against these organisations externally-oriented terrorist groups, Alice Wells, the head of South and Central Asian bureau at the state department, told reporters.

Wells was asked about expectations regarding the Haqqani Network, an affiliate of Afghan Taliban that operates out of sanctuaries in Pakistan. But she broadened her reply to externally-oriented terrorist groups, which would include the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad  groups that operate across the countrys eastern border against India.

The Trump administration has been deeply sceptical of Pakistans counter-terrorism efforts and the billions it has claimed as compensation and reimbursement for participating in them. It suspended $2 billion in security-related aid to Pakistan in earlier this year and has let bilateral relations slide.

Washington has so far been cool to the Khan government, having already expressed reservations about the fairness of the elections. The new prime minister has not yet been called by President Donald Trump, secretary of state Mike Pompeo or anyone senior in the administration.

Pompeo will visit Islamabad in September to meet Khan, on his way to New Delhi for the inaugural 2+2 ministerial dialogue. But that is the extent of the attention the US is willing to accord to Khan.

For years, Khan has been vocal in his opposition to US-led counter-terrorism operations in Pakistan, especially strikes by remotely operated drones. He has also been critical of the US for tying aid payments to counter-terrorism, arguing that its an unequal relationship. But he has not shown any inclinations to change it.

At the same time, the US has not displayed a willingness to ease up pressure.
A London couple fear they will be forced to tear down their first home together after being told their ceiling is 20cm too high.

Business consultant Tim Snell and his partner bought their 525,000 one-bedroom flat in January 2017 after developers extended the loft space in 2016.

They moved into their dream home two months later after spending their life savings buying and decorating the loft conversion in south-west London.

But now Wandsworth council has told them the work to renovate the loft before they moved in breached a 2016 planning application.

Planning chiefs wrote to Mr Snell in May last year claiming the ceiling was unlawfully raised by an extra 20cm over agreed specifications.

Mr Snell, 41, said he and his partner, who did not want to be named, were not involved in the renovation at the Victorian terraced house and knew nothing of the alleged breach until they were contacted by the council.

We were devastated, he said. We couldnt understand how this could happen. When we found the flat we thought it was perfect.

Dilemma: the 20cm extra in height of Tim Snell's flat, right with the skylight and new roof tiles, can just about be seen / Lucy Young

Wandsworths planning committee will now decide on Wednesday if retrospective permission will be granted to keep their flat as it is.

If not, the pair say they could be forced to destroy the flat in Denton Street and lower the ceiling to a height that would make it unlivable.

Mr Snell told the Standard: We had just moved to what shouldve been a new chapter of our lives and found ourselves in a nightmare...the worst case scenario is the flat has to be demolished because under the regulations, you cant live in it if the roof comes below the doorways.



Fire safety rules say all routes leading to exits should have clear headroom of no less than 1.9 metres.

Mr Snell said losing 20cm would mean the roof will come down below the doorway and windows, and we couldnt invite any friends who are more than 6ft to our flat.

Developer John Banbury, who oversaw the renovation, said he had assumed the building work complied with the original application.
Appointment

21 August 2018

With world-class meeting venues in Los Cabos, Vallarta - Nayarit and Riviera Maya, Mexico's Velas Resorts announces it has opened its first US-based group sales office. Spearheading meeting and incentive bookings for all five company resorts, the office in Southern California is headed up by Cynthia Kunz as new Global Sales Director - Meetings & Incentives.

"Cynthia has the expertise, creative talent and vision to lead the first US-based Velas Resorts Meetings & Incentives Headquarters," says Jorge Meraz, Director of Cluster Group Sales - International. "Its primary goal is to provide clients with exceptional meetings and events solutions that efficiently achieve business objectives while providing the unique experiences and unmatched level of service that only the Velas Brand can provide."

Prior to joining Velas Resorts, Kunz most recently served at Sales Vice-President & Partner of Incentive Travel Solutions.

Velas Resorts consists of Casa Velas and Velas Vallarta in Puerto Vallarta and the Grand Velas Resorts in Los Cabos, Riviera Maya and Riviera Nayarit.

Velas Resorts has catered to MICE Industry needs for over 25 years with resorts that feature excellence in service, world-class hospitality, beautifully appointed accommodations, signature Luxury All-Inclusive, superb facilities and expansive Convention Centers. For more information on Velas Resorts Meetings or to make a reservation, please call 1-888-505-8399, email [email protected] or visit http://velasmeetingsmexico.com/.
Appointment

21 August 2018

HMC Hospitality (Heavlin Management Company) is pleased to announce Amber Harkin as the new General Manager of Hilton Tucson East. Amber joins the Hilton Tucson East and HMC Team from the Embassy Suites by Hilton Tucson Paloma Village where she was General Manger since March of 2014. While at the Embassy Suites Amber oversaw a four-million-dollar renovation and added a full-service restaurant to the property. Her hotel earned several awards throughout her tenure, including Hotel of the Year in 2017. She came to the Embassy Suites from the Williams Centre TownePlace Suites by Marriott, where she was awarded Opening Hotel of the Year by the TownePlace Suites brand as the opening GM. She moved to Tucson in 2005 after earning her BS in Hotel Management & Leadership from Johnson & Wales University in Denver, where she worked for Marriott International. She completed three internships while pursuing her degree, one with the Doubletree by Hilton, one with the Denver Metro & Convention Visitors Bureau and one with the Marriott Dalmahoy in Edinburgh, Scotland. Amber currently serves as the Chair of the Southern Arizona Lodging & Resort Association (SALARA), and is on the executive committee of Visit Tucson, where she has been an active member of the Board of Directors since 2015. With her extensive knowledge and experience, Amber is a great asset to both the Hilton Tucson East and Heavlin Management Company. She is passionate about her employees and guests which is evident from her commitment to the industry and awards she and her hotels have received during her tenure. As General Manager of the Hilton Tucson East, Amber will use her fresh approach to continue to drive service and enhance the customer experience at the newly renovated property.
Opinion Article

21 August 2018

If you are running a hotel you will expect to welcome guests from all over the world. That means you will have to cater to customers in multiple languages. But this doesn't just mean hiring a multilingual concierge. Your website needs to be multilingual too.

That's because a website in multiple languages is one of the best strategies for increasing the number of guests to your hotel without breaking your budget.

To illustrate, WPML has spoken to a number of hotels which used the plugin to translate their website. Here are the five main reasons why they say a multilingual website helped improve their sales conversions.

It creates an easier booking process

A website in the user's native language makes it far easier for them to make reservations at your hotel. We want our lives to be easy when we are making a booking. A booking platform where it is difficult to identify which dates are available, for example, will see potential customers switching off.

One of the simplest ways we can help a guest is by giving them a booking process in their language. 72.1% of people prefer to browse in their own language. The customer is always right so we should do what we can to help them.

The Spanish hotel Villa Paulita says a multilingual website "removes one of the key obstacles to your conversion rate." In particular, it says it was important to facilitate the reservation of accommodation with special offers.

You can target a larger audience

It might sound obvious but having a website in multiple languages means you instantly widen your customer base.

Given that 25.3% of internet users consider English as their mother tongue, it is crucial that you offer English content on your website. As an example, the Greek hotel Theoxenia Palace is not based in an English speaking country but says "if your website is not in English you will miss loads of clients from around the world."

Many of their guests do not speak Greek but because they can browse in English it allows those who speak it even as a second language to make reservations.

It is easier for foreign guests to find you on search engines

Not only does a multilingual hotel website help guests from all around the world use your website, it allows them to find you in the first place.

Translating your website means that you can rank highly on the likes of Google in those languages. That's because you are able to translate the keywords, URLs and meta descriptions among other features which are important for optimizing multilingual SEO.

As an example, the Greek hotel Flegra Hotels says translating its pages multiplied organic searches in all the languages. Before organic searches from the likes of Turkey, Italy and the Netherlands did not exist but they now appear on the first pages for those countries thanks to SEO.

It makes you appear more professional

A website with multiple languages will indicate to potential guests that you are a serious, professional company.

When a user logs in and sees the option to change the language, it will indicate to them that your hotel is used by people around the world. Knowing this will give them confidence that you are a hotel worth booking with. Indeed, the Dutch hotel Hotel Van Dijk says having a separate "website" for each of its languages exudes professionalism to its customers.

Furthermore, not only having different languages but translations of the highest quality will impress the guest. To elaborate, David Fardon's Revenue Marketing builds and translates websites for hotels. He explains one instance where, after translating 5,500 words into Spanish and Catalan "A Spanish person spoke to the hotel and commented on how the translation was of the highest quality. And they just volunteered that information."

Showing dedication to your content tells the customer that you are most likely equally committed to other forms of your service.

It improves brand recognition and familiarity for your guest

Adapting your website and marketing copy to local guests is an important way to develop brand recognition with them.

Customers from different countries will have different cultures and values which need to be respected. Indeed, people within the same country might have different expectations. Meeting them will tell guests that you are a brand they can trust to respect their values.

To demonstrate, Villa Paulista is based in the Catalan region of Spain which contains people who either prefer to speak Spanish or Catalan. Therefore, it said it was "important culturally to offer them the website in their native tongue to avoid putting anyone off." Doing so indicates that they are aware of the cultural expectations in a region. Something which always goes down well with clients.

Final thoughts

In an increasingly global world, offering a website in multiple languages not only makes business sense, it is becoming a necessity. Doing so, will instantly widen your customer base and lead to you saying "hi", "hola", "bonjour" or greetings in any other language to guests from all over the world.

WPML is a translation plugin which is trusted by nearly 1 million multilingual websites around the world in more than 40 languages. If you are looking for someone you can trust to build your multilingual website then look no further than us. We will take care of the whole process from start to finish to will help you attract guests from any country you want. Contact WPML today to arrange a personal consultation to see how we can build your multilingual hotel website.
General Hotel Management Ltd (GHM) has announced Sept. 1, 2018 as the opening date of Al Bait Sharjah, a 53-key property that celebrates the heritage of Arabia and that will stand as GHM's second property on the peninsula after the award-winning Chedi Muscat.

General Hotel Management Ltd (GHM) has announced Sept. 1, 2018 as the opening date of Al Bait Sharjah, a 53-key property that celebrates the heritage of Arabia and that will stand as GHM's second property on the peninsula after the award-winning Chedi Muscat.

Developed in partnership with Shurooq (the Sharjah Investment and Development Authority), Al Bait Sharjah is making its debut with a refined level of luxury, sophistication and personalised service never experienced before in the Emirate.

As a critical building block in the region's biggest restoration project, known as 'Heart of Sharjah', the opening of Al Bait is a keystone in the re-establishment of Sharjah as the cultural hub of the United Arab Emirates. Paying homage to traditional Sharjah architecture, the heritage resort is rooted to the restored foundations of vintage homes that once belonged to noted Emirati families.

Al Bait, meaning 'The Home', is carefully remodelled and designed to provide world-class hospitality services and luxurious experiences to its guests, through elements that are in harmony with culture, society, history and civilisation as well as quintessential Emirati hospitality and etiquette.

"GHM has taken the lead in pioneering luxury hospitality in the Emirate, while connecting the modern traveller to Sharjah's rich storied past," said Patrick Moukarzel, the resort's general manager. "We eagerly look forward to welcoming guests to Al Bait for an experience comparable to no other."

Al Bait Sharjah is home to world-class gastronomy featuring Arabian and multi-cuisine restaurants as well as The Cafe where diners discover the only remaining circular wind tower in the UAE, while sipping Arabic coffee and indulging in authentic European pastries or traditional Emirate desserts. The Turkish-inspired Ice Cream Shop brings a characteristic charm, and flavours that are hard to find anywhere else in the region. The Spa stays true to the GHM wellness heritage and offers guests a delightful combination of luxurious indulgences to relax and rejuvenate.

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Will Continue as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

The Marcus Corporation (NYSE:MCS), today announced the appointment of Douglas A. Neis as executive vice president of The Marcus Corporation. He will also continue to serve as chief financial officer and treasurer.

For over three decades, Doug has been a tremendous asset to The Marcus Corporation and both of its divisions, said Gregory S. Marcus, president and chief executive officer of The Marcus Corporation. As our chief financial officer, a role he has served in for 22 years, Doug has been instrumental to our growth and success, directing our financial reporting, capital allocation and financing, strategic investments, investor relations and compliance strategies. A seasoned, experienced leader, Dougs steady hand, insightful guidance and deft execution has consistently delivered results. The additional title of executive vice president recognizes Dougs many contributions over the years, for which I and our team are grateful.

Neis is as a member of The Marcus Corporations executive leadership team and serves on its investment committee. He joined the company in 1986 as controller of the Marcus Theatres division and was quickly promoted to controller of Marcus Restaurants in 1987, which, at the time, managed the companys franchised restaurants including Big Boy, Applebees and KFC. In 1991, Neis was appointed vice president of planning and administration for Marcus Restaurants, and in 1994, was named director of technology for The Marcus Corporation. He was elected corporate controller in 1995 and was promoted to chief financial officer and treasurer in 1996. Prior to joining The Marcus Corporation, Neis was a manager at the public accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche. He is a certified public accountant.

In addition to his leadership and achievements at The Marcus Corporation, Neis was honored as CFO of the Year by the Milwaukee Business Journal in 2011. He holds a bachelors degree in accounting from Marquette University.

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It's been a major year for both Mike WiLL Made-It and Rae Sremmurd. After releasing Sr3mm, Uncle Jxm announced that he'd be giving away $10K to five students as part of his scholarship initiative. Mike WiLL was also part of the effort and now, the two of them have announced who will be the recipients of their scholarship give-away.

Mike WiLL and Slim Jxmmi have announced the ten individuals who will receive scholarships through the Making Wishes Matter Foundation. The two artists teamed up to donate $100K in total of scholarships to ten recent high school graduates throughout America. Mike Will is the man behind the Making Wishes Matter. Mike WiLL's launched the Making Wishes Matter foundation alongside his family to help people in the Atlanta community.

Those who were granted the scholarship intend on going to some of the most well-respected schools in the U.S. such as Clark Atlanta University, University of Illinois, among others.

The Instagram post revealed that, "The winners were selected based on their career goals and objectives, proven leadership capabilities, community contributions and overall scholastic achievement.

Both Mike WiLL and Slim Jxmmi donated $10K to five students each.

Peep the list of recipients below.

Mike WiLL Made-It Scholars for 2018:

LaNia Calhoun

Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio

College: North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

Major: Information Technology

Adia Ferrell

Hometown: Woodstock, GA

College: San Diego State University

Major: Biology

Cregory Nance

Hometown: Cordele, Georgia

College: Clark Atlanta University

Major: Biology

Ethan Voss

Hometown: Tracy, Minnesota

College: University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Major: English

Kennedi Wilson

Hometown: Charlotte, North Carolina

College: Auburn University

Major: Biomedical Sciences

The Jxmmi Scholars for 2018 include:

Nancy Castillo C.

Hometown: Hawthorne, CA

College: University of California, San Diego

Major: Environmental Engineering

Neal Dadlani

Hometown: Bloomingdale, Illinois

College: University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign

Major: Molecular & Cellular Biology

Morgan McManus

Hometown: Florence, SC

College: Clemson University

Major: Public Health Sciences, Pre- profession Health Studies Concentration

Woomy Michel

Hometown: Orlando, Florida

College: Clark Atlanta University

Major: Biomedical Engineering/Mathematics with a minor in French

Sebastian Pease

Hometown: Racine, WI

College: CSU-Fort Collins

Major: Horticulture
Drake's October's Very Own and Canada Goose have teamed up yet again for a range of elevated HyBridge Lite Jackets. The jackets comes in four colorways including Electric Blaze" and Electric Fizz as well as "White Noise" and your basic black, all of which feature the OVO owl logo at the chest and the Canada Goose logo on the arm.

In addition to the four jackets, retailing for $625 each, there's also a dual-branded cross-body bag that will be releasing along with the collection. The OVO x Canada Goose Hybridge Lite jacket is expected to release on Friday, August 24 via Canada Gooses webshop and Toronto outpost along with OVOs web store and their brick and mortar stores.

Take a closer look at all of the gear in the IG posts embedded below.
On Friday, Boots Riley tweeted a long essay that sought to dismantle Spike Lee's Blackkklansman as a legitimate "true story." His main point was to expose his belief that Lee had falsely illustrated events in the movie to make law enforcement appear heroic.

Riley claims the film is full of fabricated story notes about its protagonists, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), the black detective who successfully infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan with his white partner. The Sorry To Bother You director wrote about how the latest Spike Lee joint is purposefully being inserted into the public discussion while a new school of civil rights activists is rising.

Its a made up story in which the false parts of it try to make a cop the protagonist in the fight against racist oppression. Its being put while Black Lives Matter is a discussion, and this is not coincidental.

The essay goes on to explore the many incongruencies between the film and the supposed facts. The tweet is available for viewing below.

"Stallworth wrote a memoir to put himself in a different light, but lets look at what else we know. There was no bombing that Stallworth or the police thwarted. This was not in Stallworths memoir. That was made up for the movie to make the police seem like heroes."

According to Riley, Stallworth was actually behind terrorist attacks against the African American community including the assassination of a Civil Rights organizer from Detroit, church bombings in Birmingham, and the Greensboro Massacre of Communist Workers Party members in 1979.

Riley concludes the essay with a reference to his previous declarations about Spike Lee, who had accepted $200,000 from the NYPD for an ad campaign that was "aimed at improving relations with minority communities. In his opinion, this film feels like an "extension of that ad campaign"

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The U.S. should work with Canada and Mexico to make North America great, not just America, Quebecs chief negotiator for the North American Free Trade Agreement said Monday in Houston.

Weve got our economies so integrated, the three countries, said Raymond Bachand of Quebec, and if we want to compete on the world stage, we need to get North America stronger.

Bachand and Antonio Ortiz-Mena, a former senior adviser in the Mexican government, were in town emphasizing the benefits of free trade at the Greater Houston Partnership.

The three countries began renegotiating NAFTA one year ago, with eight rounds of negotiations that lasted into the spring, Bachand said. Much of that came to a halt as the U.S. switched its focus to Mexico and the automobile industry.

Particularly thorny issues include what percent of a vehicles value must be made in the U.S., Mexico or Canada to cross borders without tariffs, and how much of that vehicle needs to be made by workers earning higher wages.

Bachand said Canada is fine stepping back during those talks as anything thats gained with Mexico is a gain for both the U.S. and Canada, but he is eager for the three countries to resume tackling other hot-button issues that have been sidelined.

One priority, he said, is broadening the ability for Canadian companies to bid for U.S. government projects, though hes doubtful about that happening.

I dont think this administration, and the political world today, is going to do that, he said.

Maybe more plausible, if framed as temporary entry rather than immigration, could be expanding the list of professionals eligible for NAFTA work visas. The U.S. has nonimmigrant-classification permits for Canadian and Mexican citizens seeking temporary entry into the U.S. for business.

The permits are for professions including accountants, engineers, lawyers and pharmacists. Largely absent from the nearly 25-year-old agreement are IT and other technology-related jobs.

Bachand pushed back against several issues the U.S. supports. That includes a sunset clause.

Which is an absurdity, he said. You dont sign a treaty which ends in five years. Can we review every five years? Can we have a review process? Yes. But not with the legal consequence of ending it.

He also challenged President Donald Trumps June 8 Twitter attack on Canada for imposing tariffs on dairy products, part of a supply management system that is portrayed as an alternative to grants or subsidies.

If you want access to the Canadian market, taking the presidents language of free and fair trade, then I would say you have to dismantle your grants to the dairy industry because your dairy industry is heavily subsidized, he said.

Canada opened up 3.25 percent of its market to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but the U.S. withdrew from that treaty. Bachand said Canada isnt likely to make such concessions again as farmers werent happy about that.

His perspective, given at a Greater Houston Partnership luncheon and during an interview at Rice Universitys Baker Institute for Public Policy, was augmented Monday with insight from the local business community and an expert on Mexico-U.S. relations.

Bob Harvey, the partnerships president and CEO, called the renegotiation process frustrating given that the citys trade with Mexico and Canada last year totaled $23.3 billion, or 12.1 percent of total international trade.

We are concerned about NAFTA, Harvey said.

Ortiz-Mena, a senior vice president with Albright Stonebridge Group and a former adviser with the Mexican government who helped with the original NAFTA, said a broader energy chapter in the renegotiated NAFTA could strengthen regulatory cooperation and build upon Mexicos recent energy reform that opened doors for domestic and foreign private investment.

Ortiz-Mena was also adamant that NAFTA continue its investor-state dispute settlement provision, allowing companies to resolve issues through an independent arbiter outside of local courts.

Once the auto negotiations wrap up, Ortiz-Mena said NAFTA will have broad support in Mexico even with a change in presidents there. But he expressed concern about NAFTAs political fate in the U.S. Even if Democrats gain seats during midterm elections, he said, they may not support NAFTA because they dont want to give Trump a win.

Bachand likewise described U.S. politics as the major question mark affecting the renegotiated NAFTA. He questioned whether Trump wants to wrap things up quickly or let them linger through midterm elections so he can brag about being tough with Canada and Mexico.

And Canada is going to be the villain, he said.

andrea.leinfelder@chron.com

twitter.com/andrearumbaugh
ConocoPhillips and PDVSA have reached a $2 billion settlement to compensate for the seizure of the Houston oil companys assets more than a decade ago, ending one of many disputes plaguing Venezuelas state-controlled oil company during a time of crisis for the country.

ConocoPhillips won the award earlier this year after an international arbitration tribunal determined that the late President Hugo Chavez in 2007 expropriated two of the Houston oil company's Venezuelan projects as part of his push to nationalize the country's oil industry. But PDVSA didnt pay, so ConocoPhillips sought to collect the money by seizing the embattled companys assets in the Caribbean islands of Curacao, Bonaire and Sint Eustatius, curtailing its refining and exports capacity there.

ConocoPhillips will suspend those measures as part of the settlement, which requires PDVSA to pay $500 million within 90 days and the remainder on a quarterly basis over the next four and a half years.

The question is whether PDVSA, strapped for cash and credit, will be able to uphold its end of the agreement amid deepening financial and political turmoil under the socialist regime of the current president, Nicolas Maduro. Thousands of people have fled the country in the face of violence and severe shortages of food and basic resources, and the country's oil production has reached its lowest levels in decades.

The only thing that ConocoPhillips can really count on is the $500 million, Craig Pirrong, a University of Houston finance professor and energy market expert. The rest will be at risk to the volatile situation in Venezuela.

ConocoPhillips spokesman Daren Beaudo said the company will resume enforcement actions in the event of a payment default.

We believe we have fashioned terms that are reasonable yet fully enforceable, he said.

If PDVSA defaults on the settlement terms, experts say, ConocoPhillips could potentially go after Citgo, its U.S. refining subsidiary which is headquartered in Houston. A federal judge ruled earlier this month that a defunct Canadian mining firm could pursue Citgo's assets to collect $1.4 billion from PDVSA, a ruling expected to open the door to a slew of legal claims against Venezuela and PDVSA from the many U.S. companies seeking compensation from the struggling government.

I expect Conoco to be involved in that process, said Franciso Monaldi, a fellow in Latin American Energy Policy at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

PDVSA, which could not be reached for comment, has said it will appeal the Citgo ruling.

ConocoPhillips is also seeking compensation from the government of Venezuela itself through arbitration pending before a tribunal convened by an arm of the World Bank. The tribunal told ConocoPhillips that it would receive an award, which is expected to be substantially larger than the one from PDVSA. ConocoPhillips anticipates the award by the end of the year.

That could increase the likelihood of ConocoPhillips pursuing Citgos assets, Monaldi said. But they would face competition from many other firms seeking compensation from either the Venezuelan government or PDVSA, potentially creating a drawn-out legal process as claims are filed.

This is not going to be an easy process, Monaldi said.

Citgo employs about 4,000 people in the U.S., including 800 in Houston. The company, valued at nearly $8 billion, has about 160 branded gas stations in the Houston area and about 5,500 nationwide.

Citgo has faced increasing uncertainty since November, when its acting president and five other Houston-based executives with dual citizenship were arrested in Venezuela on corruption charges.

Maduro installed Chavez's cousin, Asdrubal Chavez, as the new Citgo president. He was ordered in July by the U.S. State Department to surrender his U.S. visa amid an ongoing probe into PDVSA, but Citgo has said he will continue in his role remotely for now.

katherine.blunt@chron.com

twitter.com/katherineblunt
Oil exports from the Texas Gulf Coast eclipsed imports for the first time earlier this year as growing U.S. oil production pours into foreign markets and the shale revolution continues to reshape the global energy industry.

The milestone, reached in April and expanded in May, is another reminder of how quickly the flood of oil from the Permian Basin in West Texas and other shale fields has shifted the balance of trade and the regions role in the world economy.

For decades, the Gulf Coast was a net importer of crude oil, pouring money into the accounts of foreign oil producers in the Middle East, Latin America and other regions.

Today, with U.S. exports recently hitting a record of 2 million barrels a day, nearly three of every four barrels  1.4 million a day  move through Texas Gulf Coast ports, the U.S. Energy Department reported Monday. In May, the most recent data available, the region exported nearly 500,000 more barrels of crude each day than it imported, bringing into the region billions of dollars that are driving new investment, creating jobs and helping power one of the nation's fastest-growing state economies.

Over the past year, both Texas and the Houston area have added jobs at twice the rate of the nation as a whole, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

Export Central Of the 2 million barrels a day of crude oil exported by the U.S. 1.4 million or 70 percent move through Texas Gulf ports. See More Collapse

The economy would not be as strong as it is if it werent for the fact that we were exporting crude now, said Patrick Jankowski, senior vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership, a business association. That gives us the opportunity to sell to a much bigger market, which means theres opportunity for us to drill more, to produce more. It also means were building more oil rigs, were building more equipment, were employing more people.

Related: New review shows oil and gas debt at lowest levels since late 2014

Crude exports grew slowly in the months after Congress lifted a 40-year ban  dating to the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s  at the end of 2015, when crude prices were plunging toward their bottom of $26 a barrel in early 2016. Over the past year, as both prices and production have increased, U.S. exports have accelerated, nearly doubling between May 2017 and May 2018, according to the Energy Department.

Exports have been crucial to the growth of U.S. production, which has surpassed Saudi Arabias and is closing in on that of the worlds leading producer, Russia, which pumps just over 11 million barrels a day. Analysts say that U.S. drilling would have expanded much more slowly without access to global markets because of limited domestic demand for the lighter grades of crude that come from shale formations.

Gulf Coast refineries, which account for more than 40 percent of the nations refining capacity, are primarily set up to process heavier grades of crude from the Middle East and Latin America. While some refiners are processing lighter grades from the Permian Basin and elsewhere, analysts said U.S. production exceeds their ability to consume domestic oil.

For producers to continue growing production, their only option is to push that crude out into the global market, said John Coleman, senior research analyst for North American crude markets at the energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. If youre a U.S. shale producer, the story for you is an export story almost exclusively.

The Permian Basin accounts for nearly one-third of U.S. production and companies are investing billions of dollars in pipelines, storage and export terminals to move that oil from West Texas to overseas markets, such as Europe, where refiners are better set up to process U.S. crude, and Asia, where rapidly growing economies and middle classes are driving demand for gasoline. China, Italy and the United Kingdom are among the top markets for oil exported from the Texas Gulf Coast.

Related: West Texas' Permian losing luster as companies look elsewhere

The Energy Department credited the rising share of exports moving through the Texas Gulf Coast to those investments. For much of the past year, crude shipped through the Houston-Galveston port district  which stretches from Corpus Christi to Beaumont  accounted for slightly more than half of U.S. crude oil exports. In May, however, the share jumped to 70 percent.

Sean Strawbridge, chief executive of the Port of Corpus Christi, said oil exports through his port averaged about 500,000 barrels a day in 2017, and he expects that to quadruple to 2 million barrels a day by 2023. The port plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to dredge the ship channel. It also aims to build an export terminal on Harbor Island, just a few miles from the Gulf of Mexico, that could host some of the worlds largest oil tankers, called Very Large Crude Carriers, which can hold up to 2 million barrels of oil.

Two companies are proposing offshore export terminals to accommodate large tankers. In July, the Houston energy company Enterprise Products Partners said it would build a terminal in the Gulf of Mexico south of Galveston, a project that analysts estimated would cost $1 billion to $2 billion. In August, the global commodities trading firm Trafigura Group said it planned to build a similar project off the coast from Corpus Christi.

rdruzin@express-news.net | Twitter: @druz_journo
Why we should welcome AI doctors

Similar progress is being made putting AI to work writing software and evaluating legal contracts . AI has even started to make its mark in the creative world, generating artworks and fashion evaluating graphic design , and helping people to create music . So does AI pose a threat to highly skilled jobs in the same way it does to ones that involve simple, repetitive tasks New technology has been making workers redundant for hundreds of years. But advances in the various industrial revolutions have also always created other new jobs, and people have been able to adapt. In the end, successful technologies were those where human and machine worked in harmony for the benefit of wider society. But the AI revolution may be different because it could affect as many white-collar professional roles as manual jobs.That jobs involving lower skilled office work such as data processing will be reduced seems inevitable and, indeed, is already starting to happen . But AI is also invading the realm of highly trained professionals, such as software engineers. However, its largely happening in a way that shows how AI will be more of a tool than a threat to skilled workers. It may become more common for professionals to be required to learn how to benefit from the power of AI, than for entire jobs to simply disappear.Take computer programming. A longstanding dream of researchers is to develop an AI that can develop complex new software from scratch. The reality is that such a goal is probably a bit too far-fetched. The informal and subjective descriptions usually used to create briefs for programmers are just too imprecise for that.But researchers have realised that AI can be very powerful at optimising existing software, for instance to make it faster and use less energy . Optimising software requires very specific skills, which most software developers actually dont have. So this kind of AI could be very helpful in improving software development without threatening existing jobs.Researchers have started to develop novel ways for AI to detect various types of software bugs in realistic scenarios . And companies such as Facebook already use AI testing tools capable of revealing software crashes, a type of bug that causes apps to abort unexpectedly . These are vital tasks given how increasingly important software is to the smooth functioning of society, yet they are currently very hard for people to carry out.We can predict a similar pattern in medicine. Many countries, including developed ones such as the UK, have a shortage of medical staff. For example, there are simply not enough well-trained doctors to be able to accurately diagnose the early signs of eye disease. AI could provide a solution to help human practitioners improve their capabilities. And with diagnosis taken care of, medical staff can spend more of their time actually caring for their patients.This kind of technology could become even more helpful in countries where the number of well-trained doctors per head of population is much smaller, or for remote communities where accessing any medical advice is difficult. So the kind of research being carried out by Google DeepMind should be welcomed not feared by the medical profession.We should use AI for the tasks that AI is good for, so that we can fill in gaps where there is a shortage of staff and where tasks cannot be easily automated. The challenge we do have is to equip students and professionals for the changes to their jobs that will occur and for the new, unknown jobs that AI will create in the future. With appropriate and timely training, fears of high-skilled job losses wont come true, enabling society to concentrate more on the benefits that AI will bring.The modern jobs market is very competitive and continuous professional development is already vital in many professions. In some ways, this could place us in a better position than people at the time of the industrial revolution. But current educational trends towards examinations and mechanistic thinking are movements in the wrong direction. Regurgitating facts and processing data is what machines are good for. Creativity and critical thinking, meanwhile, have never been so important for humanity.This article was originally published on The Conversation . Read the original article
A Houston pipeline and storage company received a $200 million equity commitment from a San Antonio energy investment firm.

Candor Midstream, LLC, which was formed in 2017, on Tuesday announced the investment by EnCap Flatrock Midstream. The investment firm has a history of making investments in start-up oil and gas companies.

Candor Midstream is led by President and CEO Darrel Hagerman, a former executive with Crestwood Midstream Partners LP and Enbridge. The money could be used to acquire existing assets or to start new projects.

RELATED: Private energy firms buy Occidental Petroleum assets for $2.6 billion

EnCap Flatrock Midstream was involved in funding two Houston energy firms that spent $2.6 billion on assets owned by oil giant Occidental Petroleum. The oil and gas explorer, also known as Oxy, sold its crude oil export Ingleside Energy Center Terminal to Moda Midstream and its Centurion pipeline system from West Texas to Cushing, Okla. to Lotus Midstream. Both privately held companies are backed by EnCap Flatrock Midstream.

The sales came as Occidental was expanding its Ingleside export terminal to handle greater volumes. But the company has been increasingly focused on oil and gas production in West Texas' Permian Basin oil field, and has been selling its other assets in recent years.
The U.S. plans to release 11 million barrels of oil from its 660-million-barrel emergency stockpile, just as American sanctions on Iranian oil exports kick in.

The sour, high-sulfur crude will hit the market in October and November, according to a notice of sale from the Energy Department.

That timing may reflect the White Houses concern over a tight oil market amid the renewal of U.S. sanctions on Iran, according to analysts at ClearView Energy Partners LLC. The Trump administration has asked allies to halt all imports of Iranian oil by Nov. 4, stoking global supply fears. Analysts have also speculated about whether President Donald Trump will announce an emergency release from the crude stockpile to lower U.S. pump prices in the run-up to Novembers mid-term elections.

RELATED: Iran oil minister: French oil giant Total pulls out of Iran

Yet an 11-million-barrel sale over two months likely wont do much to offset the impact of sanctions, which the administration estimates will remove 700,000 to 1 million barrels a day of Iranian crude from the global market by early November.

The October sale is part of a regular draw-down schedule to raise money for government programs. The Energy Department will draw crude from three sites that are part of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve: Bryan Mound and Big Hill in Texas, and West Hackberry in Louisiana.

Any further action by the president, who can release up to 30 million barrels in an emergency, is unlikely before the Nov. 4 deadline, ClearView said.

MILESTONE: Oil exports exceed imports for first time on Texas Gulf Coast

Trump has proposed the sale of half of the stockpile -- which currently totals 660 million barrels -- to cut the budget deficit. Congress has so far authorized the sale of around 240 million barrels between 2017 and 2027.

Bids must be submitted no later than 2 p.m. Central Time on Aug. 28, with contracts awarded within 7 business days. Deliveries will take place in October and November, according to the notice.

2018 Bloomberg L.P.
Hurricane Harvey, which slammed into Houston a year ago this week, and its aftermath forced many Texans to make life-changing decisions. For KTRK-13 chief meteorologist Tim Heller, it helped him decide that  after 35 years of covering weather, 16 of them in Houston  he wanted to hang up his Doppler radar for good.

Heller announced last month that his last day at the station will be Jan. 11.

I always wanted to control my destiny as much as I could, he said recently during a break before going on the air. As much as I could, I always wanted to go out on top and I thought  not my coverage, but our coverage, and our response as a city, nothing will ever top that in my lifetime.  It was so invigorating to see how the city responded. I think I decided in the middle of that that this is the pinnacle of my career.

But the husband and father of three had been eyeing the exit for some time.

My contracts up in October, and Ive been thinking about it for awhile, he said. I read an article in Money magazine many years ago about people who have second careers, who give up everything and start all over.  About three or four years ago, I started thinking about that. I initially proposed it to my wife, and I think she probably blew it off as a life crisis.

Her health crisis last summer  she had whats called a silent heart attack  also helped Heller put things in perspective. Youve got one life, one opportunity, he said. Like every family, weve had health issues, and so Im like, What do we want to do? I dont want to work holidays anymore, which is required of this job. We cant take vacations in May, November or February because of ratings. I cant take a vacation in the middle of hurricane season.

The one thing Heller, 54, is clear on is that hes not retiring.

Im just retiring as an on-air broadcast meteorologist. Im retiring from that part of the business. Its been the same thing for 35 years, you know? he said. Ive changed TV stations but, really, when you look at it, its been the same job. I went from a blue wall, to a green wall, to a video wall in those 35 years but youre still in front of it and you talk for a few minutes. And, outside of a few crazy days, like Hurricane Harvey and severe weather days, its pretty repetitive. Theres a lot of partly cloudy, warm and humid days  over and over and over.

My intention is to find something where I can at least be of service of some way to the public, because thats why I got into the business in the beginning was to serve the public.

What do you know about the weather?

Growing up in Dubuque, Iowa, Heller originally thought he wanted to be a news anchor and studied communications at the citys Clarke College. I was looking for a news internship, and I knocked on the door of our little TV station, KDUB-TV, and I said, Do you have any news internships? They said, Well, were trying to fill a weekend weather job.'

He said, What do you know about the weather? I said, Well, nothing. But it was rip and read, from the National Weather Service, and that was the job.

After more than two years at KDUB, Heller finally got his chance to move into a combo news and weather reporting gig at a station in Rockford, Ill. I hated it, he recalled. I knew as soon as I took the job it just wasnt me. Going to city council meetings. I remember doing court trials and just sitting there for days following the same trial over and over.

I looked forward to doing [weather on] the weekends, he continued. Then KDUB called me and said, Would you come back and do 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. weather for us?  Thats when I decided, OK, this is going to be my career path.

Coming to Texas

He pursued a broadcast meteorology degree and moved to larger markets in Jefferson City, Mo., and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Then he moved into the meteorological big leagues when he jumped to KDFW-TV, the Fox station in Dallas-Fort Worth, where he remained for eight years.

Which gives him a perspective on the Houston-Dallas rivalry. The one thing I miss about Dallas is the weather, he said. Severe weather happened more often, not that I would wish that on the community. But, as somebody who forecasts it, I enjoy that challenge.  We [in Houston] have a couple of winter events  but its rare. Forecasting the dry line [in Dallas] as opposed to the sea breeze here is more interesting. There was a little more variety in terms of weather.

Though its not like Houston  with its tropical storms, hurricanes, flooding and Saharan dust clouds  is boring.

Its been fun to do both, he said. I always say that it doesnt matter what weather pattern were in, I get tired of it after three days.

Thats why he says he wouldnt be cut out to be a weatherman in a city with a more placid climate, like San Diego. Im a data guy, he said. I like taking numbers and helping them make sense for the viewer, taking complicated weather patterns and trying to figure out, how do I explain this to people. Thats what I like.

Its the data side of him that made him different from his popular predecessor, former KTRK weatherman Ed Brandon.

[Heller] had big shoes to fill, but he definitely managed to do that, said Mike McGuff, who runs a blog on local broadcasting and was at KTRK when Heller was hired. Heller was different because he was more of the scientist weather guy  and was there to help you understand the weather.

Ed Brandon was considered a weathercaster, not a chief meteorologist, he continued. This was the first time Channel 13 had a chief meteorologist.  I remember that was the whole plan was to replace Brandon who was extremely popular, so they couldnt copy that. They had to bring in someone with a new positioning. [Heller] has that scholarly look to him. He looks more like what you think a guy working out at the National Weather Service might look.

Wendy Granato, KRTK-13s vice president of news and digital content, said what she appreciates about Heller is his sense of calm. Whats distinctive about Tim is his uncanny ability to remain calm and collected in the most trying, serious, even life-or-death situations, she said in an email. I am most proud of the way Tim and all of our meteorologists handled Hurricane Harvey.

Given all this, it may not come as a surprise that viewers sometimes want Heller to explain his take on climate change, but thats not a discussion he engages in. Its a political hot button for a lot of people. My job is to tell you what the weather is like for the next 10 days, he said. Im very clear that this my job.  When I go to a doctor for my physical, I dont ask him to look at my toothache. They are related, but theyre different.

I dont study climatology. I dont have access to all the computer models that climatologists do. I havent had time to study the mountains of data that are out there. I have a personal opinion  but my day-to-day job is to tell you what tomorrow is going to be like.

What now?

Though Heller is not certain what he and his family are going to be doing after he leaves in a few months  We may take a little vacation, he said  but he does have a fantasy.

My wife and I always joke that our dream would be to open up a coffee shop, wine bar and art gallery on the beach  we only open it when we want to, he said with a laugh. Im kind of moving forward with a plan B, but Im at the same time opening myself up to opportunities.

I would love to travel more. My wife and I are hoping to at least find something that allows us to travel a little bit more, he said. Spending more time with family. All of those boring, stereotypical things that people say they want to do.

Even though hes tired of the workaday grind, Heller says he wouldnt change much of what he has experienced. Its been an incredible career, he summed up.

But hes really looking forward to experiencing Houston weather without having to report on it.

Not having to worry about how we cover the weather, and actually getting to enjoy it, he said with a smile. Sitting on my back porch watching a thunderstorm. That, to me, is a great day.

cary.darling@chron.com
Fistful Smash

2 parts Fistful of Bourbon

 parts grapefruit oleo

 parts fresh lemon juice

10 loose mint leaves

Instructions: Combine ingredients and shake well with ice. Strain over a glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with a mint sprig and grapefruit twist.

Note: Grapefruit oleo (or oleo saccharum, or "sugar oil") is a syrup made from combining citrus peel with sugar, which creates a concentrated syrup. To make at home, zest grapefruit with a vegetable peeler avoiding pith. Place in a Ziploc and add sugar. Toss to make sure all peels are coated with sugar. Set aside. In a few hours the mixture will liquify as citrus oils are extracted and dissolve into sugar. Strain and use.

Fistful Old Fashioned

2 parts Fistful of Bourbon

 parts simple syrup

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Instructions: Combine ingredients with ice and stir. Strain over a large ice cube in a rocks glass. Garnish with grapefruit peel.
21 August marks World Entrepreneurs' Day, a global event that celebrates individuals who start their own businesses. In the modern business environment, one of the biggest make-or-break factors for small to medium-sized companies is creating and maintaining a strong online presence.

vasin leenanuruksa via 123RF

What is a digital marketplace

1. Online spending is increasing

2. Credibility and trust

3. A bigger reach with fewer resources

4. A seamless end-to-end customer journey

5. Delivery logistics are taken care of

6. Marketing best practice

7. Rich data

8. No need to invest in bricks and mortar

9. Training opportunities

10. Growth and lots of it

Its for this reason that digital marketplaces have become the go-to platform for savvy entrepreneurs looking to fast-track growth while cementing their digital footprint.A digital marketplace  think eBay, Amazon, Etsy  is essentially a digital market, where many businesses sell their goods on one platform. The marketplace host is responsible for payments, security and delivery. Setting up secure payment methods, establishing logistics and distribution, building a brand, driving traffic to site and various other operational requirements is simplified as established etailers already possess the necessary operational infrastructure.In the South African context, economists believe marketplaces will be instrumental in unlocking SME potential. Elias Masilela, executive chairman of DNA Economics, says the National Development Plan identifies SME as a key ingredient for growth. One of the biggest hurdles faced by SMEs is access to markets  and staying in the market. Big business also fiercely guards its dominance in the market.Marketplaces can assist by providing a vehicle that drops the barriers and makes distribution more affordable to this sector of the economy. In doing so, they can become more competitive players to the benefit of the consumer and the economy. Distribution is central to the success of business.Frederik Zietsman, head of marketplace at Takealot, says, Digital marketplaces are contributing trillions to the global economy. The ability to connect buyers and sellers is catalysing unprecedented entrepreneurial growth and, in many ways, is just getting started. Takealot.com is fully committed to growing this part of the business as it not only provides sharp growth in terms of product offering range, but it also allows for relatively easy scaling and empowering of local business owners.These are Zietsmans top reasons for SMEs to consider marketplace selling:PayPal and Ipsos cross-border commerce report predicts SAs online spend to reach R53 billion this year. There are big opportunities for SMEs that capitalise on online marketplaces but also a growing gap for those that dont benefit from these.For some customers, it feels safer to do online transactions with a big e-commerce name than a small, relatively unknown SME.Established e-commerce sites often have large and loyal customer-bases for small businesses and entrepreneurs to tap into.Operating via these platforms allows SMEs and entrepreneurs to offer new and existing customers an elevated level of service.With the marketplace delivering the SMEs products to the customers door. How fast a customer receives his or her goods is directly correlated to the prospect of repeat business.Not only will the marketplace help package products beautifully, theyll also have best practice marketing, SEO and analytics, all of which help a business grow.A marketplace system is ideally positioned to provide truly rich data. From buying habits to emerging trends, a digital platform allows for analysing and understanding customer demands.Robert Friese of Eurocare Wellness says that an online marketplace gave them instant access to the market without the need to invest capital in retail outlets. Without listing on Takealot.com there would be no business  we got instant access to the market. We now grow by an average of 10% month-to-month.Big marketplaces can also offer training and continuous learning opportunities to sellers along with specialised skills to bridge capability gaps.An established marketplace allows for sellers to quickly  and affordably  reach a much broader audience. No longer confined to a physical location, business owners are now able to promote their products easily and more efficiently.Are you a SME business owner hoping to set your company apart from the competition? Maybe its time you investigated a local marketplace to suit your needs. Whether its for selling birdseed or baths, comics to cameras, theres sure to be a buyer for your products online.
A Cypress Springs High School teacher faces the possibility of 20 years in prison for having sex and smoking marijuana with a 15-year-old student when she goes before a Houston judge Tuesday.

Michelle Schiffer, 24, pleaded guilty in May to one charge of improper relationship with a student and is scheduled to be sentenced by state District Judge Robert Johnson.

We are hoping for a fair outcome, taking into account that Michelle has a clean criminal record and is very remorseful about what shes done, said her attorney Grant Scheiner.

Cases of teachers being arrested for improper relationships appear to be on the rise in Houston and across the state, according to recent media reports.

Now Playing: Cypress Springs HS teacher charged for allegedly having sex with student Video: Fox 26 Houston

In April 2017, the Texas Education Agency had opened at least 150 investigations into possible teacher-student sex across the state during the 2016-2017 school year, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

The Austin-American Statesman reported that from January 2010 through December 2016, the TEA recorded 686 teachers in Texas permanently losing their teaching licenses following allegations of impropriety with a student.

LOOKING FOR 'SAFEGUARDS': Judge urges area superintendents to step up efforts to end teacher-student sex

Scheiner said the former teacher plans to publicly apologize to the complaining student and his family, as well as everyone affected.

Schiffer, who taught world history, admitted to meeting with a former student for sex at least twice during the summer of 2017, according to court records.

The teacher and student first met up at a Chick-Fil-A in Cypress, then went to a friend's apartment to have sex, court records show.

During their second encounter, Schiffer picked up the student in a park and drove around smoking marijuana. She pulled over on a neighborhood street and the two had sex.

Another student made an anonymous complaint about the relationship to school officials in November. Schiffer and the student both admitted to the allegations after police interviewed both.

Following the criminal complaint, Cypress-Fairbanks ISD removed Schiffer from campus and placed her on administrative leave.

Schiffers case is similar to that of 24-year-old Alexandria Vera, a former Aldine ISD middle school teacher. Vera was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to a first-degree felony for having a long-term sexual relationship with a 13-year-old student. During that relationship, she got pregnant and had an abortion.

In that case, Vera admitted to the relationship in exchange for a sentence decided by the judge with cap of 30 years in prison. Her attorney had argued for probation in the notorious case.

In a separate Houston case, a former counselor at a KIPP school faces three charges of indecency with three different girls that came to light last year.

GAINED TRUST: Police charge former KIPP counselor with abusing two more young students

Brandon McElveen, 34, was charged with three counts of indecency with a child, and investigators have said they believe there may be more victims at the KIPP Explorer Academy on Lawndale. The former counselor was initially arrested in October following accusations that he'd molested an 8-year-old girl under the guise of checking her for lice, according to court documents.

After those alleged misdeeds came to light when KIPP Houston Public Schools released a statement announcing his termination in light of a pending investigation, two other victims came forward.

Those additional students told authorities of a pattern of abuse, and one said it went on once or twice a week from the time she was in kindergarten to fourth grade.
Dozens of steps were outlined this week to help reduce gun violence in Houston, including placing a police officer at every Houston ISD campus and increasing the use of new technology.

The citys Commission Against Gun Violences first report comes about three months after Mayor Sylvester Turner appointed the 37-member commission in response to the fatal shooting at Santa Fe High School that killed 10.

Most of the recommendations focus on schools, but several address firearm safety and access, community safety and domestic violence and sexual assault. The suggestions hit the local, state and federal levels, and call for community involvement to see tangible effects, commission Chair Haley Carter said.

Collectively as a community, we all kind of have to take it on ourselves and work with the stakeholders, Carter said at a City Hall news conference Wednesday. Theres nothing that says you as a concerned citizen cannot take these recommendations and go to a school district.

Using digital technology

The recommendations for schools include apps to report anonymous tips, digital tools to provide school layouts and blueprints to authorities in advance of crises, and micro drones to clear scenes in the event of emergencies.

The commission also recommended that each of Houston ISDs 283 schools have one police officer on campus at all times. HISD currently has 216 officers, according to the district website.

Active shooter building codes should be put in place, the commission said. Some of those standards would include alarm systems, secure entrances to schools and secure walls and doors. A partnership with Microsoft will help the city create safer buildings, Turner said, with additional sensors and mobile and web applications that allow security to communicate with people in crisis areas.

Commission member Alina Dong, an incoming senior at Clear Lake High School, said the Santa Fe shooting opened her eyes to the reality of violence in schools and the need to take steps to prevent it.

We often think the things that happen in the news take place in a world separate from our own, Dong said. It was at that point that I realized that it was just 20 miles away from my school, and it could have been me. As a student, its really meaningful to push for recommendations and push for actions.

Second report upcoming

Other recommendations are less physical and would take form through mentorship programs, violence prevention curricula, and increased mental and behavioral health resources.

The firearms safety recommendations mostly call for legislative changes, including strengthened firearm storage laws and mandatory reporting of lost or stolen guns.

One of the community-based programs listed in the recommendations is United in Peace, a program that would aim to reduce gun-related homicides, assaults and robberies within the Scott Street corridor, running from the Third Ward to Sunnyside.

The domestic violence-related recommendations include the creation of a protocol that would require domestic violence offenders to surrender firearms through the length of family violence protective orders.

Its not just about schools, thats an important part, but it is about what is happening in our communities and neighborhoods, its about whats happening in our apartments or homes, Turner said.

A second report will focus on legislative issues and has an anticipated completion date of November, Carter said.

samantha.ketterer@chron.com

twitter.com/sam_kett
Texas traditional independent school districts and its charter schools scored nearly identical results under the states new academic accountability system, mirroring a recent study that found only slight differences in performance between the two types of campuses.

Traditional public schools earned an average score of 80.2, fractionally higher than the average charter school score of 79, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of accountability results released last week. Starting next year, those scores will be translated to an A-through-F letter grade, meaning traditional public schools would have barely averaged a B grade and charters narrowly would have missed the B rating.

Both types of schools earned roughly the same percentage of scores equating to A, C or D grades. Traditional public schools scored a higher percentage of B-level grades  37 percent to 31 percent  while charters received a greater share of F-level grades, 10 percent to 4 percent.

The Chronicles analysis only included schools that received one of three accountability ratings this year: met standard, improvement required and not rated: Harvey provision. Alternative schools were omitted from the analysis. Some schools may have scored lower than expected this year due to the impact of Hurricane Harvey.

RELATED: How Houston-area school districts fared in accountability ratings

Charter and traditional independent school districts serve slightly different student populations, which could account for some differences in scores.

Compared to charter schools, traditional public schools served a smaller percentage of students deemed economically disadvantaged by the state, 57.7 percent to 66 percent, and a greater share of students receiving special education services, 9.2 percent to 6.3 percent. On average, economically disadvantaged and special education students score lower on state standardized tests, which largely are used to generate accountability scores. State officials have tried to account for that by rewarding schools that show above-average student progress or high scores relative to campuses with similar demographics, regardless of raw achievement results.

A 2017 study by researchers at Stanford University found Texas charter schools slightly outperformed traditional public schools in reading and closed the gap in math after years of lower outcomes. The researchers determined charter schools received the equivalent of 17 additional days of learning in reading and virtually the same level of education in math, based on test scores from 2011-12 to 2014-15. The study compared students from charter and traditional independent public schools by matching them based on demographic characteristics  race, economic status, geography and English proficiency, among others  and comparing their growth on standardized tests.

The academic performance of traditional independent school districts and charter schools often receive close scrutiny in the political debate over the expansion of charters in Texas. Roughly 5 percent of Texas students attend charter schools.
A Colorado State University scientist is testing a groundbreaking vaccine that could prevent cancer in dogs.

About 800 dog owners have volunteered their healthy canine companions for a clinical trial led by the director of clinical research at CSU's Flint Animal Cancer Center. The pets will receive either the vaccine or a placebo and will undergo regular checkups to monitor for tumors. Researchers have spent more than a decade developing the drug. They are hopeful that it could stave off every form of cancer.

Six million canines are diagnosed with cancer every year. If the vaccine works, it could save tens of millions from an untimely end. And since dogs and humans develop similar cancers, researchers are optimistic the vaccine could ultimately be used in people.

Eradicating cancer with a single shot sounds like science fiction. But thanks to research in animal models, it could soon be scientific fact. Impeding this research, as some so-called animal rights activists would have us do, would be a disaster for pets and people alike.

Americans love their pets. More than 60 million U.S. households have a dog; 47 million have a cat.

Our pets rely on medicines that were developed thanks to humane research in animal models. Several vaccines can prevent cats from developing feline leukemia virus, which kills 85 percent of cats within three years of diagnosis. New anti-inflammatory drugs can enable dogs with arthritis, which afflicts 1 in 5 dogs, to move with less pain. Cats with diabetes  about 1 in 200  now have insulin treatments to manage their condition.

Without clinical trials in pets, none of these advances would have been possible.

Many animal researchers are pet owners who chose their profession specifically to help their furry friends. Consider Dr. Jessica Quimby, a veterinary scientist at Ohio State University who developed an affection for barn cats as a girl growing up in Wisconsin. Now, she's uncovering ways to help felines who have kidney disease, which afflicts about 10 percent of cats over 10 years old.

There are many more potential treatments for animals with dangerous diseases on the horizon.

Researchers at CSU's James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital are attempting to find the first definitive non-invasive diagnostic test for feline infectious peritonitis, a highly fatal disease that kills kittens without any warning symptoms. Other CSU veterinarians are testing how a compound derived from marijuana can treat epilepsy in dogs without the side effects of debilitating sedatives.

Scientists at the University of Illinois are starting studies for a potential treatment for oral squamous cell carcinoma, which is the most prevalent oral cancer in cats.

Such studies can also help humans. A new report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for example, has revealed that medicines used to protect pets from fleas and ticks could actually help humans fight Zika and malaria.

Meanwhile, research from Texas A&M University on brain tumors in dogs, for example, could soon yield insight into human brain tumors. Back in 2013, the FDA sped up its approval of a drug for lymphoma after it helped dogs.

Despite its impressive history of producing cures for all sorts of diseases that afflict both pets and humans, animal research has its critics. They claim that these trials are unnecessary.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Animal research has already saved, and will continue to save, millions of pets' lives. Without animal research, how many of our cats would be dying prematurely of leukemia? Or how many of our dogs would be unable to run and play because of debilitating arthritic pain?

Cats and dogs are treasured family members for millions of Americans. To ensure that their furry friends can live long, happy lives, pet lovers must support animal testing.

Bailey is president of the nonprofit Foundation for Biomedical Research in Washington, D.C.
Last year, wind energy officially emerged as the nation's top source of renewable energy for the first time. That is probably not that surprising for anyone in the energy sector, but it may be surprising to others that conservative policymakers have been a driving force in wind's growth.

Recent polling shows a strong majority of conservative voters support the development of wind energy. The fact is, conservative principles and values naturally align with the benefits of wind energy, so there are several reasons it should be particularly appealing to voters and lawmakers alike.

First, it is about job creation. According to the American Wind Energy Association, this sector now supports more than 100,000 jobs in all 50 states, and the industry added jobs at a rate nine times faster than the overall economy in 2016. Job creation is associated with every phase of wind development, including project planning, siting, construction, manufacturing and operations. Most of these are good-paying, long-term careers that offer families reliable employment across the country.

EDITORIAL: Perry vs. Texas: Coal bailout will sell out wind and natural gas

Second, wind energy is essential to broader economic growth. Wind is the fastest growing energy resource, and the industry has attracted nearly $150 billion in investments to date, averaging more than $14 billion a year over the past decade. Landowners, especially farmers and ranchers, receive land lease payments that average $245 million annually, which is often reinvested in agricultural development. Wind energy projects usually require a robust supply chain, which means countless small businesses downstream receive a financial boost.

Another reason for the appeal is that wind energy is particularly important to rural communities where many conservative voters live. In fact, more than 99 percent of wind power capacity is in rural areas, and 71 percent is in low-income counties. Wind energy projects increase local spending, which strengthens those local economies. They also greatly expand local tax bases, which means they contribute to community development by increasing revenue to better fund local schools, parks, emergency services, roads and so on.

RELATED: While offshore wind gets developed, Texas will likely stay onshore

From a political perspective, one more reason conservatives love wind energy is that the states most suitable for it are traditionally "Red States." In fact, look to the top three states for wind capacity  Texas (23,262 megawatts), Oklahoma (7,495 megawatts) and Iowa (7,312 megawatts). In addition to Iowa, wind energy now accounts for more than 30 percent of electricity generation in Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

The final reason conservatives should love wind energy  and other energy innovations  is because it strengthens our national security. Wind energy has become an essential part of the nation's all-of-the-above energy portfolio, accounting for 6.3 percent of the nation's electricity generation in 2017. If our country wants to remain energy independent, diversifying our supply is the only way to guarantee a future with access to affordable, reliable energy that is not affected by geopolitics.

RELATED: How Texas blew to the top in wind power

Wind energy's success signals an important juncture in American clean energy history as the industry and other clean energy industries are finally maturing, acquiring more market share and generating profits. Conservatives need to help keep up the momentum to benefit our priorities as well as our nation.

Reams is the managing director of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, a clean energy advocacy organization. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.
For the first time since 2016, dam levels in the City of Cape Town have passed the 60% mark.

For the past week, dam levels improved slightly by 1.3% to 60.1% of storage capacity, and the average water consumption rose from 519-million to 527-million litres per day.The City of Cape Town said it is encouraged by this milestone. It thanked water users for continuing to use as little water as possible.This remains a priority effort to ensure that we build a buffer against the summer months ahead, the city said on Monday, 20 August.
Beto ORourke is crisscrossing the state urging voters to make Texas the national leader in tackling an array of difficult issues, including immigration, criminal justice, health care and education.

But his opponent, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, says if you cut through ORourkes powerful speeches and soaring rhetoric, his ideas are to the left of most Texans.

My opponent, Congressman Beto ORourke, is running hard, hard left, Cruz said in Arlington Tuesday. Hes running like Bernie Sanders.

ORourkes politics are closer to those of Sanders, the independent Vermont senator and 2016 presidential contender, than Cruz, and for that matter, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott or any other Texas Republican.

The ideological differences between Cruz and ORourke are as clear as an August Texas sky, minus the pollution.

ORourkes challenge is to attract Republican voters, even though hes not in step with how they would approach important issues.

MINTZ: Are Texas moderates dead armadillos? Beto bets no.

Yet, in some instances he appears to be reaching Republican voters. There are yards in GOP areas that contain O'Rourke signs. They are planted with signs for down-ballot Republican candidates. ORourke rallies have attracted some disenchanted Republicans who are turned off by Cruz or President Donald Trump.

Right now, more than ever, I'm seeing Democrats, but Im also seeing Republicans, I seeing independents, I seeing folks who had given up on voting coming together, O'Rourke told me Monday in Dallas. They are coming off the sidelines knowing that everything they care about, everything this county cares for, is at stake.

Last week I covered the appearances of Cruz and Oourke in North Texas. They had contrasting appeals to voters. Though Cruz asked Democrats not satisfied with their party to join his ranks, the November Senate race hinges on whether O'Rourke can peel from Cruz's base.

OPINION: Face the facts: Beto will lose

That could be tough.

Here a sampling of how O'Rourke is different from most Republicans.

- Hes against building a wall to keep immigrants from illegally crossing the southern border, and supports a path to citizenship for the millions of people in the country without authorization.

- He wants to expand Medicaid and would push Texas to take federal funding under the Affordable Care Act. Abbott and former Gov. Rick Perry rejected to deal.

- As part of criminal justice reform, he would legalize marijuana to help end the prison pipeline that adversely impacts minority residents.

- He proposes spending tax dollars on early childhood education, including a proposal that would allot $10,000 a year per student.

- He would vote to impeach President Donald Trump.

Cruz is on the opposite side of all of those policy positions.

ORourke and Republican voters do have the framework of some ideas in common. They dont want to separate immigrant families that illegally crossed the border. They want Texas to be a great place to work and raise a family.

OPINION: Why I'm knocking on doors for Beto O'Rourke

Perhaps thats why the El Paso congressman has staged a campaign that's brought him closer to winning a statewide contest than any Democrat since 1994. He's raising more campaign cash than Cruz, and he routinely attracts thousands of people at his rallies, including the 2,500 that flooded the Richardson Convention Center last Tuesday for a town hall meeting.

But it's going to take more than being a celebrity politician to win in November. And ORourkes star power obscures the structural advantage Republicans have in Texas general elections.

For instance, the Texas Organizing Project, a progressive group committed to criminal justice reform, estimates that 850,000 more Republicans vote in statewide elections than Democrats. That means ORourke must attract tens of thousands of Republicans to beat Cruz. How does he do that while supporting policies that Republican voters generally reject?

The other option for ORourke is pushing more progressive voters to the polls, including Hispanic residents who hold the key to the Democratic Party revival.

ORourke brushes off the political science.

Everywhere I go folks will say, listen, Im a Republican but I saw the work you did to expand mental health care for veterans  Democrats who say we dont need a wall,' he said. Folks are not focused on what divides us. They're focused on the big things that we want to do.

Sounds familiar?

In some ways the 2018 ORourke campaign, at least in message, reminds me of Barack Obamas approach in the 2008 presidential race. With the country on the verge of economic collapse, Obama campaigned on hope and change, with little emphasis or details about policy.

RELATED: Beto ORourke vs. Ted Cruz is the most expensive U.S. Senate race in America

Americas voters needed the tonic of an uplifting campaign with a charismatic candidate they trusted. And Obama bolstered his message with a superior organization propelled by a strong base of Democratic Party voters, including African-Americans.

ORourke has a similar, positive message that's tailored for the era of Trump. He says he wants to be able to tell his children that when the country needed someone to stand up to the president and his policies, he did something.

Well need people who would typically sit home in a midterm election to come out, he said. Well need Republicans who might otherwise allow party to define who they would vote for to put their country first.

Indeed the backlash against Trump and the hunger for a winner has Texas Democrats excited. But its hard to determine if that excitement for ORourke will attract enough non-Democrats to beat Cruz.

For his part, Cruz is confident that if conservatives vote hell win, so hes making sure that he tries to define ORourke before segments of his base are captivated by his rivals positive, often addictive approach.

Every penny that we raise is going to be used to mobilize, to energize, to turn out conservatives, Cruz said. If we turn conservatives out, we will win all of our races. If conservatives stay home, we'll be in trouble.

O'Rourke says he smells trouble for Cruz.

What I feel everywhere I go is that something great in Texas is coming together, ORourke said.
A Gallup poll this month found that Democrats are warming up to the idea of socialism - or at least to the word. While 57 percent of Democrats polled said they view socialism positively, only 47 percent said the same of capitalism, down from 56 percent in 2016. Republicans, meanwhile, remain pretty enthusiastic about capitalism, with 71 percent rating it positively. Still, 16 percent of GOP voters said even they view socialism through a friendly lens, which raises the question: When Americans say they view socialism one way or the other, what exactly do they have in mind?

The United States doesnt have a familiar, established socialist history to look to for guidance on what socialism might mean in this country. But that doesnt mean socialism is hopelessly nebulous, or that Americans who are interested in the idea are wandering dabblers. It just means that socialism, like any sophisticated term, warrants thoughtful consideration.

OPINION: Why do Americans suddenly like socialism? Blame capitalism.

SATIRE: Time to roll out the guillotines!

Socialism has meant different things to different people in different times and places, while maintaining a stable core of themes and objectives: social (as opposed to private) control of the means of production, and of all the societal, humanitarian and political-economic changes that entails, especially where the freedom and autonomy of working people are concerned.

The term itself came into being in the early decades of the 19th century and, like any good word, inspired a great deal of imagination. For the non-Marxian English socialists of the 1840s, socialism mainly meant opposition to the competitive, dehumanizing effects of liberal economics, local experiments with communitarianism and cooperatives, and demands for the privileges of freedom, autonomy and participation in government to extend to the lower classes.

OPINION: Democratic socialists are winning elections. So what do they want?

Meanwhile, Marxian socialism focused on the conditions of production - who owns what, the relationships between wage-earners and owners, and how stuff gets made in a society - and the kind of politics those conditions produce. Even when socialism was a relatively new term, in other words, its exact meaning was disputed.

That happened at least in part because the meaning of socialism has always been politically contested, with different factions claiming that their vision best matches the true essence of socialism. To most English and French workers, Friedrich Engels wrote in an 1880 booklet, Socialism is the expression of absolute truth, reason and justice. But since notions of truth, reason and justice differed, Engels observed, visions of what socialism really represented widely varied - leading to a kind of eclectic, average Socialism.

In contrast to Engels, Karl Marx argued for a scientific socialism, derived from careful analyses of history and economic facts - which explains why Das Kapital is such dry reading. Establishing the priority of one form of socialism over the other was political work.

OPINION: Outright Nazis are running as Republicans, so dont worry about the Democratic left

And the politics of differing socialist visions played out over time, with different forms of socialism taking root in various countries through the years. The profusion of disparate historical examples of socialist governments can understandably cause confusion about what socialism looks like on the ground: Soviet Russia or modern-day Norway? One may as well ask if the United Arab Emirates or the United States of America is really capitalist. The answer, in both cases, has to do with varieties, degrees, democracy and methodology.

But now, as in the 19th century, confusion about what socialism means is stoked by political interest in clouding the issue. As Eric Levitz notes in New York magazine, conservatives tend to oscillate between arguing that successful countries such as Finland, Norway and Denmark, generally regarded as socialist, are actually as capitalist as the United States, and claiming, as Fox Business Networks Trish Regan recently did, that socialism has made those countries stagnant and stultifying.

OPINION: With anti-capitalist Sorry to Bother You, pop culture gets radical

Clarifying exactly what socialism means once and for all likely wont happen anytime soon. But that doesnt mean that voters who are attracted to democratic socialist politicians such as Sen. Bernie Sanders and House candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dont know what theyre getting into. Proposals to wipe out so-called right-to-work laws, to make college tuition-free or to provide universal health care are resonating with those supporters.

At the heart of the democratic socialist vision flowering on the American left is the recognition that more than policy tweaks will be needed to empower everyday people to participate meaningfully in society and democracy. Working Americans deserve a say in how the countrys vast wealth will be used, and that will be possible only when inequality is reduced, corporate and big-money donors are banished from politics, and lawmakers are truly accountable to the people. Its not so much to ask. But democratic socialists are the only ones asking.

Bruenig is an opinion columnist at the Washington Post.
Last December, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, held a news conference highlighting what she described as proof of Irans role in supplying illicit weapons to Yemens Houthi rebels. A ballistic missile fired at Riyadh by the Houthis the month before - a failed attempt to hit a major airport there - apparently carried components manufactured by an Iranian firm.

This, Haley argued, was devastating evidence of Iranian perfidy. Others diplomats werent so sure. They suggested the American envoy was overstating the conclusions drawn by U.N. investigators - and possibly seeking to divert attention away from the Trump administrations controversial moves elsewhere in the Middle East.

EDITORIAL: Congress must rein in our infinite war

Its worth considering Haleys adamant stance in light of what has happened since. The failed Houthi missile strike caused no casualties, but it prompted Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies to tighten their blockade on Yemen and intensify the war against the Houthis. Since then, the countrys epochal humanitarian crisis has only worsened, and airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition have killed dozens of civilians.

The most glaring incident happened less than two weeks ago, when a missile struck a bus in northern Yemen. According to local health officials, 54 people were killed, 44 of whom were children traveling on a rare school outing.

The BBCs Orla Guerin, reporting from the scene days later, described the agony of parents finding their dead children among piles of corpses; she spoke to young boys helping dig small graves for their classmates. Meanwhile, Saudi officials said the bus was a legitimate military target, pointing to allegations that the Houthis are training child soldiers.

The United States, as weve detailed in the past, has abetted the Saudi-led war in Yemen, helping refuel aircraft and supplying intelligence and munitions to the coalition. But while Trump administration officials leap to conclusions about the Iranian hand in Yemens ruinous war, they are far more coy about their own.

EDITORIAL: Like Vietnam, we have to wonder what, exactly, were fighting for and what our nation is sacrificing to gain it.

When pressed about the American role in the deadly strike, a senior U.S. official expressed apathy.

Well, what difference does that make? the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said to reporters in Cairo. We are providing the refueling and support to Saudi aircraft. We are also selling them munitions. . . . We are not denying that.

Over the weekend, CNN concluded that it was an American bomb - manufactured by Lockheed Martin, an influential defense contractor - that sent dozens of Yemeni children to their deaths. The report cited munition experts and shrapnel evidence from the scene of the strike.

While the Trump administration may wave away its actions in Yemen, theres a growing uproar in Washington about the horrors of the war. Haleys performance last year did not silence critics, who are unconvinced by Trumps arguments about checking Iranian influence.

Whenever the United States intervenes in the Middle East, or supports others interventions, it creates the chaotic conditions that amplify Irans malign influence, wrote Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations. Moreover, it is preposterous that backing a horrific and indiscriminate bombing campaign, which primarily targets Iranian-supported Houthi forces, will compel any change in Irans behavior outside of its territory.

And while the Saudis and their U.S. allies have a point when it comes to pinning the blame on the Houthis, argued Frank Giustra and Robert Malley of the International Crisis Group, its not a strong one.

The Houthis have interfered with aid delivery and killed civilians, they wrote in the Globe and Mail. But the Saudi-led coalition is by far the strongest combatant and its Western allies are the most influential powers involved. Together, they are the ones that can now do the most to end the horrors befalling Yemeni civilians.

As my colleague Missy Ryan reported, lawmakers in Congress are citing the catalog of civilian casualties as grounds to establish greater oversight over the war.

I am deeply concerned that continued U.S. refueling, operational support functions and weapons transfers could qualify as aiding and abetting these potential war crimes, Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., wrote in a letter to the Pentagons inspector general. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sought clarification from Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, over how the U.S. military helps support and oversee Saudi and Emirati bombing missions in Yemen.

The ongoing military escalation threatens millions of civilians, and hundreds of thousands are at risk of starvation, Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said in a statement to The Washington Post. The United States must have a cohesive strategy to address the situation.

The violence in Yemen - and the mounting evidence of American complicity in atrocities - is fueling a broader conversation about the White Houses ability to wage war. The Trump administration is following the Obama administrations tacit support of the Saudi-led campaign, but has likely emboldened Riyadh with its vehement grandstanding over Iran and the Houthis.

Elsewhere, President Donald Trump has also prioritized strength of arms over diplomacy. In Syria, Trump celebrated his militarys ruthless bombing campaign against the Islamic State, which helped drive out the militants from the city of Raqqa. But now, after laying waste to the city, Trump wants to cut the U.S. funds set aside to help its recovery and reconstruction - a paltry $230 million compared to the $716 billion defense spending bill Trump signed last week.

Trump tweeted The United States has ended the ridiculous 230 Million Dollar yearly development payment to Syria. Saudi Arabia and other rich countries in the Middle East will start making payments instead of the U.S. I want to develop the U.S., our military and countries that help us!

Trump insists that U.S. allies, including the Saudis, can foot the bill to clean up the mess in Syria. But critics say the White House needs to get tough on its friends in the Gulf rather than simply eyeing their purse strings.

The U.S. allies will accept a peace process only if it is clear that they will not have Washingtons support for more war, The Washington Post wrote in an editorial. Because President Trump remains in thrall to the Saudi princes, its fortunate that Congress has applied some pressure.

The editorial concluded: It is long past time to end U.S. support for this misbegotten and unwinnable war.

Tharoor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post.
Page Content



The Secretary General of ICAO, Dr. Fang Liu (left), has undertaken a bilateral meeting with the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, China, Mrs. Carrie Lam (right), during her mission to this Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. Their discussions focused on aviation's unique and pivotal role as a catalyst of sustainable development and Hong Kong's particularly strategic opportunities to make major contributions to the regional and global momentum in this regard, given its status as a global hub for air transport.

The meeting was part of an extensive series of activities with the leadership of Hong Kong's air transport and logistics sectors, accompanied by visits to the infrastructure and educational facilities that support the region's connectivity and growth. This included meetings, among others, with Mr. Frank Chan, Secretary for Transport and Housing; Ms. Teresa Cheng, SC, Secretary for Justice; and Mr. Simon Li, Director-General of Civil Aviation. Following tours of their facilities, Dr Liu also met with the CEOs of the Airport Authority Hong Kong, Hong Kong Airlines, the Cathay Pacific Cargo Terminal and Cathay Pacific Dragon Airways.

The Secretary General arrived in Hong Kong, China, on 12 August 2018.




Nigeria to join Global Green List Programme on environment

August 20,2018 | Source: The Eagle Online

The Federal Government of Nigeria says it is on the processes of joining the global Green List Programme for Conservation and Protected Areas, an International Union for the Conservation of Nature to achieve biodiversity.



Alhaji Ibrahim Goni, the Conservator General, National Parks Service, disclosed this at a stakeholders workshop on Monday, in Abuja.

Goni said: The Secretariat of the Green List Nigeria will be domicile at the National Park Service, Headquarters, Nigeria.



The pilot protected areas for GL include four parks namely Old Oyo, Cross River, Kainji Lake and Ghashaka Gumti National Parks and two conservation areas in Cross River state.



Also, Beatrice Chataigner, Africa Coordinator, the Green List said that the workshop organised by IUCN was to prepare Nigeria to engage in the Green List process.

Chataigner said that the workshop would provide Nigerian stakeholders with the understanding of the whole Green List processes.



She said: It is designed to assist national governments and their partners in conservation to meet the commitments embodied in the CBD Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and particularly Target 11.



Although, the IUCN Green List standard has been developed first and foremost as the basis of a certification process.

There is a strong interest in also using it as a framework to support learning and adaptive management and for monitoring change over time.



Therefore, this workshop will highlight the requirements of Green List and a requirement of this target is the effective and equitable management of protected areas.



This is not only to measure the Protected Areas performance against the GL standards but also to diagnose the causes of their challenges in order to set up appropriate solutions that will enable the PA to finally meet the IUCN GL standards.



The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the IUCN Green List of Protected Areas (Green List) is an initiative that measures the success of protected areas in reaching good standards of management.



NAN also reports that the workshop was attended by representatives of Federal Ministry of Environment, FAO, USA Embassy, NTDC among others.



The participants pledged their support and assistance to the Green List Programme in Nigeria.

 2018 - The Eagle Online

Theme(s): Others.
World Entrepreneur Day is a perfect opportunity to celebrate the role South Africa's small and medium businesses play in job creation and economic growth. But it is also a time to reflect on what needs to be done to help them grow and thrive - entrepreneurial spirit, drive and passion are essential, but not enough on their own.

Pieter Bensch, executive vice president, Africa & Middle East at Sage

Streamlining time-intensive tasks

Adopting a digital-first agenda

Small and medium businesses are losing 13,780 per second globally (the cost for South Africa is R231 per second) as a result of unproductive, admin-heavy tasks. Economic research conducted by Plum Consulting and Sage shows that our small businesses are being drained of important resources through unnecessary admin, wasting an average of 120 working days, accounting for around 5% of the total manpower.In South Africa, a 5% increase in productivity could lead to an increase in gross value added (GVA) of over R9.5bn. This would be partly achieved by reducing time spent on business admin and taking a better approach to adopting technology and using it to streamline time-intensive tasks. This, in turn, could help startups to survive longer, grow faster and evolve into job-creating scale-ups.Bear in mind that half of startup businesses fail in their first 12 months. And the burden of admin  unnecessary time which would be better spent investing in growth  is commonly cited as one of the top reasons why. Utilising technology is the key to unlocking this untapped productive time from our nations businesses.We will face many obstacles before we can unlock South Africas full productivity potential. Many business owners I speak to emphasise just how burdensome bureaucracy is for them, and how much it distracts them from growing their businesses. Expense reports, invoicing, payroll and constantly chasing for late payments are not activities that should dominate an entrepreneurs time in 2018 and beyond.As the global economic climate becomes increasingly competitive, growth from small businesses will only accelerate if we truly adopt a digital-first agenda. If we could redirect some of the 120 hours spent on basic administrative tasks back into innovating, attracting customers and growing revenue, we could make real headway in closing the global productivity gap.Our future economic success hinges on the success of our businesses today. There is a real opportunity for our policymakers to investigate where regulatory frameworks are hindering progress and to make changes that boost our countrys competitiveness. Targeted intervention to build a thriving and productive landscape should be the main priority of every layer of government.A focus on digital skills and not just infrastructure, a simplification of business taxes coupled with making greater use of local businesses as suppliers to government are important steps to help businesses flourish. By championing and enabling our local businesses in the right way, our economy will be truly poised for growth.
South Africa: President Cyril Ramaphosa celebrates Operation Phakisa - Biodiversity Economy, 25 Aug

August 20,2018 | Source: AllAfrica

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa will address the Biodiversity Economy Innovation and People & Parks conferences in Thohoyandou under the theme: "Innovating and Accelerating - with the people, for the people" on Saturday, 25 August 2018.



The Biodiversity Economy Innovation conference will bring together stakeholders from the wildlife industry, academia, traditional leadership and government. The stakeholders will deliberate on innovative ideas that promote sustainable utilisation and conservation of the country's biological resources.



In 2015, government adopted a Biodiversity Economy Strategy (BES) which seeks to increase the biodiversity contribution to the Gross Domestic Product while conserving the country's ecosystems. It focuses on enhancing growth in various sectors including wildlife and tourism.



The Strategy was designed to sustainably advance the wildlife and bioprospecting sectors of the economy and secure sustainable livelihoods specifically for rural communities as part of meeting the targets of the National Development Plan.



The conference aims to ensure that the biodiversity economy produces healthy returns on investment. The scope of innovation products in the biodiversity economy include bioprospecting and bio-trade products such as cosmetics and pharmaceutical; wildlife and ecotourism products.



The People and Parks conference takes place biennially, providing a platform for stocktaking on progress being made in addressing land claims around protected areas, and in facilitating the contribution of protected areas to the improvement of rural livelihoods.



President Ramaphosa will go on a walk-about at community projects that form part of the Integrated Rural Development Model and which employ approximately 300 local people. Projects include farming (crop and livestock), agro-processing facilities such as an abattoir for poultry and red meat; a milling plant, tourism and wood crafting facilities. These projects are funded and support by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) and the Department of Department of Small Business Development (DSBD).

 2018 AllAfrica

Theme(s): Others.
How techies from Kerala, in India and abroad, rushed to rescue the flood-hit state

by Nidheesh M.K.

August 20,2018 | Source: LiveMint

Alexy Joseph in Colorado, US, says he is just out of bed from a four-hour nap, after about 20 hours working voluntarily for running the website keralarescue.in, when this correspondent called him over the phone on Sunday night.



He is one of the thousands of software engineers from Kerala across the globe who are now working round the clock to mitigate what could be Keralas Katrina moment.



Keralaone of Indias most literate, wealthy and at the same time a densely populated small stateis reeling under the centurys worst floods, after half a week long heavy rains. It has killed 370 people and displaced 1 million others so far, making it Keralas biggest tragedy ever since the state was formed in 1957.



At the peak of the crisis, the height of water levels went up to half the height of a coconut tree in some districts, as per local reports. Television reports showed even two storey houses submerged under water.



Keralas tech force was one of the firsts to respond to mitigate the crisis. I studied in Kerala, my parents and relatives are all in Kerala. So this was something very close to me, says Joseph.



Within hours after the tragedy struck, the techies, volunteers from Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and Keralas IT cell, came together on Slack, a communication platform, and build the entire tech node for keralarescue.in to relay online calls for help to rescue operations offlineall without any funding.



By the time Joseph joined on Thursday, there were already hundreds of volunteers improving the website.



People were coding like crazy. My friends also joined, most of them who had worked at the backend and frontend of websites. We saw a bunch of things that could be improved, he said.



Because it was pushed by the government itself, many rescue operators were using the website. More people realized that the website was being used, more requests came in, several of them from overseas Malayalees, who are known for their propensity to travel and prosper.



More popular it became, more coders joined the effort, some employees of even tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Uber, among others, according to Joseph.



By Saturday, the website grew so rapidly that they ran out of the free quota in Slack, limiting their efforts unless not moved into an expensive paid plan.



One would get an NGO approval to operate for free in Slack, but that usually takes time, a precious resource given the water levels were rising by seconds.



So the coders joined hands and reached out to Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, says Joseph, and he responded within a minute giving them a free upgrade.



By now, according to Joseph, some 1,585 coders are volunteering for the website, which received about 10 million requests, meaning that many people have used the website.



Kerala has been producing millions of engineers over the last three decades. Engineering, along with medicine, has been one of the most sought after higher education options in Kerala. Each year, about 54000 aspirants enroll for engineering courses, where at least half of the students have to pay only a subsidized fees, sometimes as lower as public colleges.



Parallel to this, a bunch of top Malayalee executives in global IT companies have also risen like a tide to raise relief-aid for Keralas reconstruction, which, Mint reported on Sunday, is expected to cost the already cash-strapped Keralas public purse at least Rs 25,000 crore.



One such is Nissan Motor Co. Ltds Chief Information Officer Anthony Thomas, known as Tony among the local IT crowd, who has been camping in Thiruvananthapuram for about a week now.



A team of top IT officials from Kerala are flexing their high level contacts in global IT companies to raise private donations to chief minister Pinarayi Vijayans Disaster Relief Funds, said Tony.



Also, the CMDRF website run by a public body, C-DIT, has been crashing several times. So top experts from IT majors who have their offices in ThiruvananthapuramNissan, UST Global, Oracle, among others and startupsare working closely with C-DIT to resolve performance issues of the website (www.donation.cmdrf.kerala.gov.in).



For instance, on Sunday morning, we created a Whatsapp group (Relief Fund websites). By evening, we had created a mirror website for CMDRF, which can be used as back-up during crashes, said Robin Alex Panicker, a software engineer based in a startup co-working space called B-Hub in Thiruvananthapuram.



We are looking to add several thingsperformance and reliability indicators attached to the collection, linking into e-commerce websites like Amazon, and resolve a lot of complications related to receive international contributions. There are institutional bottlenecks too, like companies can provide their CSR funds to only PMs relief fund now, said Tony.



My engineering head used to be the head of Hotstar, and he comes from Apple. The volumes they are handling is unimaginable, we are looking to use that talent to improve the website, he added.



On Sunday night, Tony is calling top executives at his previous employer Vodafone, to see if people can be traced in bulk by tracing their last available mobile tower location. So if Navy gives them thousand numbers, within seconds they can do a scan and tell you, which was the last tower location of each person, increasing the chances of their tracing, he says.



Panicker is still wrapping up his work, and has to head to the secretariat to show his work on the mirror site in the morning.



Joseph is in no mood to sleep because, we are trying to get the migration done to the new hosting part, its like you have a running train and you change the wheels.



Malayalees cannot control a natural calamity. But they surely can control technology, says Tony.

 2018 HT Media Ltd.

Theme(s): Communities and Organisations.
Trio of tropical cyclones in the Pacific take aim at Hawaii, South Korea and Japan

by Jason Samenow

August 20,2018 | Source: The Washington Post

Three tropical cyclones are lined up in the Pacific Ocean, and one, Hurricane Lane, may hit Hawaii in a few days. The other two, Typhoons Soulik and Cimaron, will crash into east Asia, directly affecting South Korea and Japan later this week.



All three storms contain winds of at least 74 mph, indicating hurricane strength (typhoons and hurricanes are the same kind of storm, but have different names depending on the section of ocean they traverse). Typhoons Soulik and Cimaron are on a collision course with the Asian continent, and effects from torrential rain, strong winds, and dangerous surf appear unavoidable.



Meanwhile, the forecast for Hurricane Lane is less certain but has become more ominous. While it could pass south of Hawaii, merely throwing back big waves on its south-facing beaches, it has become more likely that the storm will veer north and bring more serious effects from wind and rain over portions of the islands.



Lane is positioned about 600 miles from Hawaiis Big Island in the Central Pacific. Its peak winds are 125 mph, down from their peak near 140 mph over the weekend. But it remains a powerful Category 3 hurricane.



The Central Pacific Hurricane Center expects the storm to maintain this strength through Tuesday, before it may begin to very slowly weaken over cooler waters. Even so, when it nears Hawaii on Wednesday and Thursday, its peak winds may still be around 100 mph.



Earlier predictions had suggested Lane might remain south of Hawaii, but [b]ased on the latest trends in the forecast, direct impacts on the islands appear to be increasingly likely, the Hurricane Center said in its discussion Monday morning.



These direct impacts would include flooding rains, damaging winds, and large, hazardous waves.



Computer models are in two camps on the storm track. The American (GFS) model predicts the storm will make landfall on the Big Island Thursday night into Friday before getting pulled to the northwest over Maui late Friday. The European model, however, suggests Lane will remain south of the islands, possibly just grazing Kauai as it stays on more of a westward course through Saturday.



Even if the storm just misses to the south, monster waves, over 15 feet would likely batter south-facing shores of the islands.



Tropical storm or hurricane watches may be needed for portions of the islands later Monday or Monday night as effects from the storm could arrive on the Big Island as soon as Wednesday.



All interests in the Hawaiian Islands, including the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, should continue to closely monitor the progress of Lane this week, the Hurricane Center said.



As Capital Weather Gangs Angela Fritz reported when Hurricane Hector flirted with the islands two weeks ago, direct hurricane strikes on the islands are rare:



A hurricane hasnt made landfall in Hawaii since 1992, when Iniki ravaged Kauai. That Category 4 hurricane generated an enormous storm surge that left water marks as high as 22 feet on the island, according to NOAA. The 145-mph wind stripped leaves and branches from trees. NOAAs damage survey team found few buildings that avoided impact. Iniki is still the most destructive hurricane to hit Hawaii since the beginning of the 20th century.



Despite being in the riskiest location, the Big Island has not been struck by a hurricane since modern records have been kept. A hurricane in 1871 likely made landfall on Hawaii, north of Hilo. After that, only weaker systems  tropical depressions and storms  have hit the Big Island, although there have been several close calls.



Typhoon Soulik, packing winds of 115 mph  equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane, is the most immediate threat to land areas, on a course to first strike Japans Amami Islands on Tuesday before likely riding up South Koreas west coast Wednesday and Thursday.



The hardest-hit areas could see up to 10 to 15 inches of rain and destructive winds.



Soulik has a large truck tire eye, about 70 miles across, and is known as an annular tropical cyclone. Just 4 percent of hurricanes and typhoons are annular, and they are known for their staying power, weakening more slowly under unfavorable conditions compared with conventional storms.



While small deviations in the track forecast are possible, U.S. interests in South Korea could be directly impacted by the storm, including the Osan and Kunsan air bases according to the Stars and Stripes news site, which focuses on the U.S. military community.



On Thursday, Seoul may endure very heavy rain and strong winds from the storm, although it will steadily weaken as it gains latitude and passes over land.



Typhoon Cimaron recently attained typhoon intensity and is forecast to strengthen over the warm waters about 400 miles north of Guam over the next one to two days. By Wednesday, its peak winds are expected to reach 100 miles per hour, equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane.



The track forecast suggests the storm will slam into Japan, just south of Kyoto, on Thursday. However, it is expected to weaken some as it accelerates to the northwest over cooler waters, but may still be at typhoon-strength at landfall.

Theme(s): Others.
Reclamation of Balauring Beach in Indonesia deprives living space of coastal communities

August 16,2018 | Source: KIARA

The reclamation project at Balauring Beach, located in the village of Balauring, Omesuri Subdistrict, Lembata Regency, East Nusa

Tenggara Province (NTT)in Indonesia, seized the living space of at least 400 indigenous family heads.



The reclamation project, named "Love Corner" has been buried by sand with a width of 70 meters and a length of 250 meters. The total area is 17,500 square meters, equivalent to 1.75 hectares. Ironically, this project is not included in the 2018 APBD and not for the needs of coastal communities.



Susan Herawati, Secretary General of KIARA stated "Reclamation in Omesuri District, Lembata Regency, NTT, added to the length of the list of reclamation projects spread in coastal areas in Indonesia. On the other hand, this project has triggered resistance from coastal communities in Lembata, which consists of traditional fishermen and

coastal indigenous peoples, namely the Dolulolong indigenous people.



"In 2016, the People's Coalition for Fisheries Justice (KIARA) recorded 16 coastal reclamation projects throughout Indonesia. This number increased to 37 in 2017. If added to Lembata reclamation, the total coastal reclamation projects in Indonesia will be 38 regions. The irony of the maritime state in the middle of the Martim Axis", explained Susan as in a written statement, Tuesday (5/6).



Susan explained, from the legal side, the reclamation project was clearly very contrary to the constitution and applicable laws and

regulations, namely: first, the 1945 Constitution which states that Indonesia is an archipelagic country. In Article 25A Indonesian identity is written as an archipelago which rejects the concept and

practice of artificial islands. Instead, the reclamation project refused to accept the concept and practice of artificial islands.



"Second, the reclamation project has been proven to rob the lives of coastal Communities around the coastal area and all parties involved in fishing activities. This means that the reclamation project is contrary to the 1945 Constitution, article 27 paragraph 2." he added.



Furthermore, other constitutional contradictions are that the central government and regional governments have proven to empower Jakarta's coastal areas to be privatized and commercialized by the private sector and this means that reclamation projects violate Article 33

paragraph 2. of the 1945 Constitution and finally, reclamation also violates Law No. 1 of 2014 concerning amendments to Law No. 27 of 2007 concerning the management of coastal areas and small islands mandates, in the Management of Coastal Areas and Small Islands.



"We hope that the reclamation project which is damaging the environment will be stopped immediately because it seizes the living

space of coastal communities," he added.

Theme(s): Communities and Organisations.
#WomensMonth: The inclusive, unstoppable power of SheSays

SheSays is all about having each other's backs and listening to each other. Here's how the local Cape Town chapter is set to snowball its efforts.

From left to right: Anelde Greeff, Marina Tokar and Johannie van As at the first SheSays Cape Town event



SheSays is a global network for creative women, but theyre quick to explain that this is not a bra-burning set-up. Rather, think of it as having wine with your favourite 100 work wives, as their free sessions offer the chance to talk about the things that bug us and find practical hacks to fix them.



And in their latest monthly newsletters, the founders of the Cape Town chapter of SheSays mentioned lots to excite their fans.



So while theyve only hosted one event themselves so far, with the second event taking place this week, SheSays is by no means a fledgling foundation, as the global edition is celebrating a decade of disruptive dialogue aimed and pushing the fast-forward button on turning attendees into game-changers.



Largest creative network for women, SheSays, launches in Cape Town

Thats my type of collective! I caught up with the founders of the Cape Town chapter  Anelde Greeff, Marina Tokar and Johannie van As  to find out more about their mission and why they ask and listen, whenever and wherever they have the opportunity...



Explain the essence of the global SheSays movement, which has been running for a decade. Explain the essence of the global SheSays movement, which has been running for a decade. SheSays is a global network for creative women, but theyre quick to explain that this is not a bra-burning set-up. Rather, think of it as having wine with your favourite 100 work wives, as their free sessions offer the chance to talk about the things that bug us and find practical hacks to fix them.And in their latest monthly newsletters, the founders of the Cape Town chapter of SheSays mentioned lots to excite their fans.So while theyve only hosted one event themselves so far, with the second event taking place this week, SheSays is by no means a fledgling foundation, as the global edition is celebrating a decade of disruptive dialogue aimed and pushing the fast-forward button on turning attendees into game-changers.Thats my type of collective! I caught up with the founders of the Cape Town chapter  Anelde Greeff, Marina Tokar and Johannie van As  to find out more about their mission and why they ask and listen, whenever and wherever they have the opportunity...

Firstly, its for the people and by the people: members shape their own event formats and themes. Secondly, autonomy. Founders dont dictate how chapters operate. We can totally do our own thing here in Cape Town. Lastly, its about doing: Encouraging conversations that will lead to actions. But that's the official stuff.

Fantastic. You recently launched the CT chapter. Talk us through how that came about, and why its so important to empower SA female creatives in the current business and social context? Fantastic. You recently launched the CT chapter. Talk us through how that came about, and why its so important to empower SA female creatives in the current business and social context?

A scene from the first SheSays Cape Town event.

Yet when I spoke to locals, it sounded like this was something sorely needed  many described advertising as being a "boy's club" in the upper ranks; few could name more than a handful of female creative directors, let alone a black one; everyone  male and female alike  agreed the time had come for change.

And it looks like you gave just what we needed. Whats the response been like so far from attendees? And it looks like you gave just what we needed. Whats the response been like so far from attendees?

A scene from the first SheSays Cape Town event.

Your upcoming August event is all about the entrepreneurial side hustle. How do you decide on speakers and topics to be covered in the individual events? Your upcoming August event is all about the entrepreneurial side hustle. How do you decide on speakers and topics to be covered in the individual events?

A scene from the first SheSays Cape Town event.

Sounds like it! Looking at collaborative value-adds, explain the impact of the international SheSays teams free career advice tool, Sounds like it! Looking at collaborative value-adds, explain the impact of the international SheSays teams free career advice tool, SheSays Boom

A scene from the first SheSays Cape Town event. From left to right, see moderator Dr Dorrian Aiken and panelists Nikki Stokes, Ingrid Jones, Tharina Haas, Sturae Hickley and Paige Nick.

Lets end by looking ahead to the future. Whats next on the SheSays CT agenda and how can the industry get involved? Lets end by looking ahead to the future. Whats next on the SheSays CT agenda and how can the industry get involved?

We need to encourage young female creatives to join the industry and stay in the industry. In the UK, they call these the lost girls. We need seniors who have left to come back. We need more female role models. We want to introduce mentorship programmes.

Leigh Andrews' articles About Leigh Andrews Leigh Andrews AKA the



Leigh Andrews AKA the #MilkshakeQueen , is former Editor-in-Chief: Marketing & Media at Bizcommunity.com, with a passion for issues of diversity, inclusion and equality, and of course, gourmet food and drinks! She can be reached on Twitter at @Leigh_Andrews

: SheSays is the worlds largest creative network for women. A network that is focused on the engagement, education and advancement of women creatives. It has a presence in over 42 cities around the world and is run by a volunteer network of women.SheSays provides women in creative industries with the thought leadership and connections to fast-track their careers. It runs on three principles:At its heart, SheSays is about women having each others' backs.: For several years, I was living between Cape Town and New York City (NYC). In NYC, there is palatable energy around female empowerment  you really feel the winds of change coming to industries like advertising, with the rise of organisations and movements centred around changing the status quo.That status quo, according to the 3% Conference, is that 89% of creative directors are men, in an industry which starts out 50/50 in lower ranks  so women just don't make it to the top.When I finally made the move to Cape Town, I was surprised to see a dearth of energy in this space. There were hardly any professional organisations or meet-ups in the communications field at all, let alone ones with a female-focus.This gave me the idea to start a chapter of SheSays here in the Mother City. I reached out to the founder, Alessandra Lariu, to see what I could do, and she connected me with Johannie van As, who had been exposed to SheSays in the UK and had a similar idea a while back.She then recruited her friend Anelde to join us, and from there the three of us were unstoppable in our mission to bring SheSays to Africa, with the launch of the Cape Town chapter.: From the moment we popped up on Facebook and started talking to potential speakers, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. If we had 50 people show up to our first event, it wouldve been somewhat embarrassing but passable for a first attempt.Instead, tickets sold out and almost 300 women showed up at the Red & Yellow Creative School of Business, to hear the likes of Nikki Cockroft, Paige Nick and Ingrid Jones speak on the subject of future-proofing your career.The next day, we were inundated with emails of people wanting to get involved as volunteers or offering their services. The general consensus seems to be that its refreshing to have a forum where women can express some of the issues they face, and together come up with practical ways to change things.We had such a cool mix of people, from all walks of life  it was a truly diverse audience and a great testimony to the inclusive way in which SheSays have always done things.: We ask and we listen  whenever and wherever we have the opportunity. Since the three of us started meeting and planning, we've had lists and lists of leads and ideas that we constantly add to.Whenever we meet someone new that's interested in our cause, well connected or just generally inspiring, we ask for input and we add to these lists.We also ran a survey for attendees of the first event, where we asked for feedback and input on future events, and plan on doing that for every future event.In terms of wading through all the ideas and making decisions for the actual events, let's just say it's like a fascinating game of Tetris: lots of moving parts, a variety of suitable options, and so many different outcomes. But it's fun!: Boom is a recent initiative launched by SheSays global, with the vision to build a collective of the best creative minds to help push the industry forward.The idea is to aggregate all the wisdom of thousands of successful women who have been involved in SheSays over the years, from around the globe.The tool is new but as we build up content, it will become a robust destination for advice on all sorts of topics tied to professional development, from presentation skills to salary negotiation.The idea is to take the essence of SheSays beyond events, so anyone, anywhere can access advice from successful women that have paved the way.Theres a crowd-sourced component to it as well, so if you're a woman in the communications field, please go contribute your thoughts ! It will help us grow the platform, and we need South African representation on there.: Our focus thus far has been on hosting the first events and creating a bit of a following on social media. We are busy connecting with agency heads around Cape Town, getting their buy-in to the mission of SheSays.Were keen to start a dialogue about how we can bridge the gender gap in the ad industry  for example, running a survey to see how many female creative directors there really are in our industry, what the male/female ratio is in studios, what the pay gap is.So if youre a recruiter, agency senior, female trailblazer or mentor with ideas to share, or if you want to be one of the first agencies to offer your venue for a quarterly event, get in touch at moc.liamg@nwotepac.syasehs
Imperial Valley News Center

The odds are stacked against Facebook in the latest encryption fight

Menlo Park, California - The US Department of Justice wants to wiretap Facebook messenger. That would involve the social media giant breaking the encryption on its messenger application so that the feds could listen to the voice conversations of an MS-13 suspect. MS-13 is a Mexican and Republican boogey-man.

Currently, in California, a case between the DOJ and Facebook is proceeding under seal, reports Reuters.

The judge in the Messenger case heard arguments [last] Tuesday on a government motion to hold Facebook in contempt of court for refusing to carry out the surveillance request, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

While both the DOJ and Facebook refused to give Reuters a comment, the issue originally arose in Fresno, California as a result of an investigation in the MS-13 gang. If this smacks of a similar case that occurred several hours south in San Bernardino, thats because it was the catalyst for a heated dispute between Apple and the feds over encryption on iPhones. That case was later vacated after a third-party company was able to crack the shooters phone.

But while there are some superficial similarities between the two cases, there are some pretty big differences between the two situations, too. While Apple had a strong case not to decrypt the shooters device, Facebooks legal standing in this case is much more tenuous.

Why is the Facebook case not like the Apple case?

Well, to begin with, (and please, dear reader, forgive me for this pun) youre kind of comparing apples to oranges. Apples encryption secured the device itself. And while Apple had already handed over the contents of the shooters iCloud, it was never in control of the devices data. Nor could it access the device on account of not having the shooters password, nor his private key. The FBIs answer was for Apple to design a workaround that would have created far more risk than was warranted to unlock a single iPhone. From a utilitarian standpoint, it was a really bad ask. There were other legal distinctions, too. The FBI was trying to derive its authority from the All Writs act, which authorizes federal courts to issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.

Heres all you need to know about why that was silly. The All Writs act was passed in 1789, literally in the very first session of the very first congress. The updated version we use today was passed in 1911. Computers were not a thing when this was conceived of. It doesnt apply well to modern cases about encryption.

Facebook is not so lucky because in its case the DOJ are going with the Wiretap Act. And unlike the nearly 250 year old law the FBI decided to try and argue, the Wiretap Act does apply to this case and there is even some precedent on the feds side. The Wiretap Act is actually Title I of the Electronics Communications Privacy Act and its pretty clear about phone companies obligation to comply with wiretap orders given by law enforcement. Further complicating matters is that Microsoft started providing access to Skype in 2012, though at the time providing access to voice calling was not technically feasible.

There are technical differences, too. While Apples case was in relation to a locked physical hard drive, in the Facebook case the feds want a wiretap on all Facebook messenger calls sent and received by one suspect. And unlike with device encryption, youre attempting to encrypt this data in transit, which means that youre going to be generating less secure symmetric session keys to communicate to avoid degradation of performance.

These session keys are generated by the devices, locally, and security is not as emphasized as with Apples passcodes. In fact, in 2015 Philipp Hancke discovered that the session keys were being shared with Facebooks servers. And while Facebook is typically tight-lipped about its configurations and could have changed things in the past few years, that still doesnt bode well.

Will Facebook have to comply with the DOJ?

The question is probably less, will they have to and more can they?

Former Facebook engineer Alec Muffet told The Verge he believes Facebook probably does not currently have the necessary keys and means to comply with a wiretap order. Thats owing to the fact the holding on to other peoples keys is not a good decision (eh, Mr. Trustico?).

The most challenging part of the order has nothing to do with encryption at all. Even with the session key, wiretappers would still need to collect a full copy of the encrypted call, which can be a significant challenge. Most online calling services send data directly from client to client for simple performance reasons, which has given the services a troubled history with wiretap requests.

Apparently, the NSA has found a workaround for this (of course they have), but whether or not it would work for the Facebook situation is another story.

Theres frankly a lot we dont know, and likely wont know about this case until more news leaks about it or a resolution is reached.
Carina Gous, the strategic advisor at Bonnievale Wines, has always had an appreciation for winemaking having grown up on a farm in the Keisie valley near Montagu. Holding an MSC and an MBA, as well as being a chemist by training, Gous has taken her knowledge and love of wine and embarked on a career in wine marketing and international business consultancy.

Carina Gouws

What does a day in your life look like?

What made you choose a career in the wine industry? What inspired you to pursue a career as a wine industry specialist?

Do you think its important to have a month dedicated to women?

The role of women in the wine industry  how do you think it has shaped the industry?

What barriers did you face, as a woman, becoming successful in your field, and how did you overcome them? Are there any worthwhile challenges that you enjoy?

Based on your experience, what advice would you give to women pursuing a career in your field?

Who do you admire most in the industry?

What is your message for Womens Month - any words of wisdom you would like to share?

Gous previously served as head of Distells marketing and brand division, culminating her recognition as one of South Africas leading wine marketing experts.Here, Gous shares more on her challenges, career and message for #WomensMonthIn a nutshell  busy and diverse. Currently, I work in marketing and international wine business, so my days are filled with brand building activities from brand positioning workshops to packaging design as well as international business discussions and frankly chasing sales! No two days are the same, which I really enjoy.I grew up on a grape and fruit farm close to Montagu, so I guess it was always in my blood. It is hard to explain but once you start discovering the interesting and complex world of wine, it is hard not to get hooked. I was fortunate enough to turn that passion into a career.I think it is important for women to celebrate who they are and to rediscover the strength they have and what they are capable of. To really highlight the contribution of women to society.We have made such huge strides in so many industries to open opportunities for women and the wine industry is no different. I do not believe women in the industry should be treated any different from men, but it is great to have more diversity and representation across gender and race. It makes the industry far more multi-dimensional and interesting.There were very few barriers in terms of opportunities to do well in my job and to excel in what I did, however when I started my career discrimination against women was horrible in terms of salary, benefits, pension, etc. I spent many hours in discussions with human resources to try and understand the basis of it all and to change it.Make sure that you are passionate about the work that you want to do. If you are, working and working really hard and making the sacrifices to succeed will never feel like an effort.In my early career, I had huge admiration for Phyllis Hands and learned a lot from people like Bennie Howard, Ernst le Roux, Smartie Genade and Jan Scannell. All experts in their field and really good mentors and leaders.Believe in yourself. If you can dream it, you can achieve it, but you will have to take the action and drive the change.
Imperial Valley News Center

Passing of Former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Washington, DC - Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo: "On behalf of the people of the United States of America, I extend my heartfelt condolences to the people of India on the recent passing of Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"We know that many Indians will reflect on Prime Minister Vajpayees many contributions that led to Indias rise as a global and economic power. He championed tirelessly for his countrys development and demonstrated a devotion to improving the lives of every Indian. Standing before the United States Congress in 2000, he famously characterized U.S.-India ties as a natural partnership of shared endeavors." He recognized early on that the United States and India, based on their shared democratic values, could develop a partnership that would contribute to the economic prosperity and security of the region and the world. Today, our two countries and our bilateral relationship continue to benefit from Prime Minister Vajpayees vision, which helped promote expanded cooperation.

"The American people and I stand with the people of India as we mourn Prime Minister Vajpayees passing. Today, we hold the people of India in our thoughts and prayers."
Imperial Valley News Center

U.S. Delegation Attends the 30th Pacific Islands Forum

Washington, DC - A high-level U.S. government delegation comprised of senior officials from the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Agency for International Development will attend the 30th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders Session with Forum Dialogue Partners on September 4, 2018 in Nauru. The delegation will be led by Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. This visit will underscore our close partnership with the Pacific Islands in promoting sustainable growth and prosperity, ensuring regional stability, and addressing global concerns.

The U.S. delegation will host a roundtable with Pacific Islands leaders on September 4, 2018. Members of the U.S. delegation will also conduct bilateral consultations with heads of state of Pacific Islands Forum members and other senior foreign officials to discuss issues of regional and global importance, including regional security, responding to the threat posed by the activities of the DPRK, combatting illegal fishing, and sustainable development.

The Pacific Islands region is an enduring foreign policy priority for the United States. Through 17 of our departments and agencies  the United States committed more than $350 million in FY 2016 to our engagement with the Pacific Islands via projects, assistance, and operations that directly benefit the 9 million people of the region.

For more information: Follow the State Departments Bureau of East Asia Pacific Affairs at @USAsiaPacific for updates on U.S. participation in the Pacific Islands Forum 2018.
Researchers discover key to mass producing beneficial plant compounds

West Lafayette, Indiana - Purdue University scientists have discovered the switch in plants that turns off production of terpenoids, compounds that play roles in plant physiology and are used by humans in everything from fragrances and flavoring to biofuels and pharmaceuticals.

Terpenoids can be used to develop nutritional supplements, natural insecticides and drugs that treat malaria and cancer. The chemotherapy drug Taxol, which is used to treat breast, ovarian, lung, bladder and prostate cancers, is derived from terpenoids. But plants often make them in such low quantities that extracting them for such uses is impractical.

The findings, reported in the journal Nature Plants by Natalia Dudareva, Purdue distinguished professor in the Department of Biochemistry and researcher in the Purdue Center for Plant Biology, Laura Henry, a recent doctoral graduate of Dudarevas lab, and colleagues from Purdue and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, explain how plants control metabolic pathways by regulating the pool of monophosphates used for terpenoid production.

The scientists had earlier determined how plants turn on terpenoid production but having an understanding of both the on and off switches is essential for terpenoid yield. They also discovered a hidden constraint on flux through the plant terpenoid metabolic pathway.

This is important basic knowledge that opens new targets for engineering of terpenoid metabolic pathways, Dudareva said. Plants produce these compounds already, but the amount is small. It might have taken hundreds or thousands of plants to get enough of a compound to use it for something like a pharmaceutical product. This will lead to faster, more efficient ways way to obtain sufficient amounts of these products.

Isopentenyl phosphate kinases (IPK) convert pools of monophosphates into diphosphates that can be converted through downstream processes into terpenes. Dudareva and colleagues determined that two Nudix enzymes are responsible for dephosphorylation - removing a phosphate group to turn the usable diphosphates back to the inert pool of monophosphates.

We have shown that IPK and Nudix are working together to regulate downstream product formation, said Henry, who is now an analytical chemist for Heritage Research Group. Some of these products might be toxic to the plants if the plants make too much of them. This is how the plants regulates their output.

Dudarevas lab is now working on methods to engineer plant metabolic pathways to increase terpenoid production.

It might be that we have some compounds that arent naturally in a plant, but we can put a gene of interest in them to create the compounds we want or significantly increase their production, Dudareva said.

The USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Purdue University funded this research.
Florida man sentenced for traveling to Dominican Republic for child sex

Miami, Florida - A Florida man was sentenced Thursday to more than 17 years in prison and 30 years of supervised release after pleading guilty to traveling to the Dominican Republic for engaging in illicit sexual conduct with minors. The sentencing is the result of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Miami and the Dominican Republic.

According to court documents, Theodore Williams Symonds, 51, of Wesley Chapel, Florida, travelled frequently between the United States and the Dominican Republic including a trip on March 20, 2017. Symonds was arrested March 23, 2017 by local Dominican authorities for crimes related to the sexual abuse of children. HSI began investigating him shortly thereafter and uncovered proof of Symonds sexual abuse of children, both in person and using the internet.

This sentence should send a powerful message to child predators who believe that they can evade law enforcement by using international travel to engage in this type of reprehensible behavior, said Mark Selby, Special Agent in Charge of HSI Miami. Sexual exploitation of children is a despicable crime that will never be tolerated. HSI will continue to work closely with its law enforcement partners around the world so that sexual predators are always brought to justice.

U.S. Attorney Benjamin Greenberg said, The U.S. Attorneys Office and our law enforcement partners stand united against child exploitation and abuse. There is no immunity for these heinous crimes, whether committed at home or abroad. Any individual who victimizes the most vulnerable members of society, our children, can look to todays sentencing to see there will be severe consequences within the U.S. federal criminal justice system.

This investigation was conducted under HSIs Operation Predator, an international initiative to protect children from sexual predators. Since the launch of Operation Predator in 2003, HSI has arrested more than 16,000 individuals for crimes against children, including the production and distribution of online child pornography, traveling overseas for sex with minors, and sex trafficking of children. In fiscal year 2017, more than 2,700 child predators were arrested by HSI special agents under this initiative and more than 900 victims identified or rescued.

HSI encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free Tip Line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE or by completing its online tip form. Both are staffed around the clock by investigators. From outside the U.S. and Canada, callers should dial 802-872-6199. Hearing impaired users can call TTY 802-872-6196.

Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, via its toll-free 24-hour hotline, 1-800-THE-LOST.

For additional information about wanted suspected child predators, download HSIs Operation Predator smartphone app or visit the online suspect alerts page. HSI is a founding member of the Virtual Global Taskforce, an international alliance of law enforcement agencies and private industry sector partners working together to prevent and deter online child sexual abuse.
Vietnam's Conviction of Peaceful Activist Le Dinh Luong

Washington, DC - We are deeply concerned that a Vietnamese court has convicted Le Dinh Luong to 20 years in prison and 5 years probation under vague charges of attempting to overthrow the peoples administration.

The trend of increased arrests and harsh sentences for peaceful activists in Vietnam is troubling.

The United States calls on Vietnam to release all prisoners of conscience immediately and to allow all individuals in Vietnam to express their views freely and assemble peacefully without fear of retribution.

We also urge the Vietnamese government to ensure its actions and laws, including the Penal Code, are consistent with the human rights provisions of Vietnams constitution and its international obligations and commitments.
President Donald J. Trump Wants Reliable and Affordable Energy to Fuel Historic Economic Growth

Washington, DC - "Were ending intrusive EPA regulations that kill jobs . . . and raise the price of energy so quickly and so substantially." ~ President Donald J. Trump

EMPOWERING STATES TO PROSPER: The Trump Administration is proposing the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule in order to restore the proper role of States under the Clean Air Act.

The ACE Rule  which will undergo public comment  proposes new emission guidelines for States to use when developing plans to limit greenhouse gases at their power plants. This Rule gives States the flexibility needed to construct diverse, reliable energy portfolios that best fit their specific needs.

The ACE Rule proposes to reduce emissions and provide flexibility through four key actions: Defining the best system of emissions reduction for existing power plants as on-site, heat-rate efficiency improvements. Providing States with a list of candidate technologies that can be used to establish standards of performance, which can be incorporated into State clean air plans. Updating the Environmental Protection Agencys (EPA) New Source Review permitting program in a way that encourages investments in innovative power plant technologies. Aligning regulations to give States adequate time and flexibility to develop State plans.



PROMOTING AMERICAN ENERGY DOMINANCE: The Trump Administrations ACE Rule promotes American energy dominance while ensuring environmental protections are in place.

The ACE Rule, if finalized, will significantly decrease bureaucratic red tape and compliance costs, keeping American energy affordable and competitive on the world stage. The EPA projects that the ACE Rule could reduce compliance costs by up to $6.4 billion compared to the Clean Power Plan (CPP). The ACE Rule can achieve these savings while still reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The ACE Rule will ensure that the United States remains the worlds gold standard for energy production and environmental protection. Since 1970, the total emissions of criteria air pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act have dropped 73 percent, while the economy grew over 260 percent. Total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the United States fell by 14 percent from 2005 to 2017, while global emissions increased over 20 percent.



REPLACING BURDENSOME AND COSTLY REGULATIONS: The Trump Administration proposes replacing the Obama Administrations costly and overreaching CPP.
Hungary National Day

Washington, DC - Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo: "On behalf of the Government of the United States, it is my pleasure to congratulate the people of Hungary on the occasion of Saint Stephens Day.

"Hungary is a close friend and ally of the United States. We value our cooperation on many important issues, including defense cooperation, regional European security, and energy diversification. We deeply respect Hungarys rich history, culture, and traditions, and we are grateful for the many contributions that Hungarian immigrants have made to American society in an array of fields, from the arts to business to technology. Bilateral exchanges and a growing trade relationship help strengthen the robust people-to-people ties that bind our two countries together today.

"We look forward to continued partnership with Hungary to advance our shared interests and commitment to freedom and prosperity in Europe."
What The Fork: Not Just Diwali, Sweets are an Integral Part of Indian Culture, Writes Kunal Vijayakar
Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.

It's as inevitable as a Tesla with a personalized license plate.

Fuel prices are going up, so airlines will raise their own prices. One way or another.

Raising fares seems the obvious thing to do. And some airline executives are nothing if not obvious.

But putting a big number up front can be offputting.

I speculated a couple of weeks ago that airlines would start nibbling away at their pesky fees in order to create a niggling pain in human souls.

Baggage fees are the obvious place to start.

Some might have suspected that American Airlines would be the first to offer them a little hike and give the excuse that no one checks a bag anymore.

Yet troubling news emerged today that it's looking like JetBlue.

Emily McNutt at the Points Guy says employees have already been forewarned that baggage fees will go up to $30. For the first bag, that is.

That's compared to the current $25, which is the favored number of American, United and Delta. (Southwest remains staunchly opposed to this form of nickel-and-diming.)

McNutt says that this isn't the only fee that the popular, but commercially challenged airline is embracing.

Those vindictive change fees? Well, the current JetBlue change fee of $150 -- for fares above $200 -- is going up to, oh, $200.

Just as painful -- or perhaps more -- is the new change fee for JetBlue's Mint Class.

Currently, if you change your flight more than 60 days in advance, the fee is $75. Within 60 days, it's $150.

Now, the memo says that, regardless of the timeframe, it'll be $200.

I asked JetBlue to please, please say it isn't so.

Doug McGraw, the airline's vice president of corporate communications, told me: "We aren't able to comment on rumors regarding fee changes."

Which isn't a no. And may be a portent of increasing darkness.

In its second quarter results, JetBlue bemoaned fuel prices going up 40 percent year on year.

Many of its rivals, those who love money slightly more than, say, customer service, are enduring the same circumstance.

Of course, one reason the bigger airlines haven't yet raised these infernal fees is that they want smaller airlines like JetBlue to suffer more first.

I suspect there's a hope among the most venal of executives at the likes of American and United that smaller, more budget-oriented airlines will feel an excessive amount of pinch leading to severe amounts of pain.

Indeed, Doug Parker, American's CEO admitted not long ago that the more budget-oriented airlines are likely to suffer more from higher fuel prices.

This might lead to the bigger airlines getting more business without even trying, something of which they're quite fond.

Perhaps, then, the likes of American, United and Delta will hold off upsetting passengers for some time yet.

I fear, though, that $30 will quickly become the new norm.

And to think it was once $0.

Please allow me to offer more darkness.

Are the days of variable baggage fees -- depending, say, on the time of day -- that far away?

And then there are the additional fees increasingly being charged for seemingly every single seat in the plane -- United being the latest example.

Finding actual, rather than perceived, value in airline fares will become all the harder.
Stories of excess and deception in Silicon Valley seem like a trope at this point, and yet here is another one.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Michael Rothenberg, the 34-year-old founder of San Francisco-based Rothenberg Ventures, with overcharging investors and misappropriating about $7 million to fund his personal business ventures, as well as lavish parties and events in the Bay Area.

Rothenberg was a rising star in Silicon Valley. Growing up in a humble household in Austin, his rags-to-riches tale included Stanford and Harvard Business School diplomas before launching his venture capital firm in 2012. His early-stage fund boasts investments in three unicorn companies: Robinhood, Gusto, and SpaceX.

"Venture capital investors provide important funding for startups but there are risks, including potential harm to investors from unscrupulous managers who defraud them, as we allege Rothenberg did in this case," said C. Dabney O'Riordan, co-chief of the Enforcement Division's Asset Management Unit in a statement.

Without admitting or denying the charges, Rothenberg settled the case with the SEC Monday. After a court approves the settlement, where it will also determine the amount of disgorgement and civil money penalties owed, he will be barred from the brokerage and investment advisory business with a right to reapply in five years.
Entrepreneurs know they face a high likelihood of failure. What they're not prepared for is being knocked violently from the playing field by some catastrophic event: floods that destroy their operations, hurricanes that wipe out key suppliers, financial meltdowns that obliterate demand.

While large corporations front-burner risk management, smaller companies are too busy putting out metaphorical fires to worry about real ones. That's a mistake, say Wharton professors Howard Kunreuther and Michael Useem, authors of the new book Mastering Catastrophic Risk: How Companies Are Coping with Disruption.

"Disruptive events are not only here to stay but their intensity is growing," Useem says?. "If you think about really major disruptions, such as the Japanese earthquake and the resulting tsunami, they affected supply chains all over the world. These events are consequential for just about everybody."

Small companies are especially vulnerable. A vast majority of small businesses are either un- or under-insured, according to research from Insureon and Manta. JPMorgan Chase reports that only half have sufficient cash cushions to survive 27 days of typical outlays. And few possess the resources required to build redundant supply chains or the clout to require vendors to bolster their own resilience.

The menace of myopia

The authors say that small-company leaders are prone to mental biases that prevent them from taking steps to limit their vulnerability. Chief among them is myopia. Low on resources, leaders of small and new businesses generally favor investments that provide a near-term payoff. Convincing them to spend on protections against some future that may never arrive is a tough sell.

Leaders believe low-probability events like hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods are beneath their level of concern, Kunreuther says. That leads to complacency. "But if you tell them that over the next 25 years there is a greater than one in five chance that at least one of those disasters will occur to you," he says, "they start to pay attention."

Kunreuther urges leaders to approach risk-mitigation as a value creator, even if nothing bad ever happens. For example, it may make financial sense to reduce inventory levels, a step that also limits your exposure if a tornado flattens your warehouse. And he would like to see financial institutions--particularly lenders and insurers--incentivize small business leaders to invest in risk mitigation. "If you do something to make your factory safer, then that investment doesn't just vanish. It benefits you over the life of the building," Kunreuther says.

It can happen to you

Excessive optimism and overconfidence can also skew leaders' perception of risk. Entrepreneurs believe against all reason that they'll succeed, and often possess an unrealistic view of their control over outcomes. "If you are optimistic with low-probability events then you are in big trouble, because you say, 'It is not going to happen to me,'" Useem says. "And it may very well."

A more realistic, data-based understanding of risk can help. Data on low-probability events can be hard to come by, and predictive algorithms used by large companies have their limits. Kunreuther and Useem recommend compiling a list of possible future disasters--not just extreme weather but also things like cyberattacks, a deadly product malfunction, or imposition of regulations that cut the company's feet from under it. Then "stress test" the business by calculating its ability to withstand such assaults, and for how long.

Getting risk under control

Catastrophic, low-probability events are, by definition, unpredictable. Like the Coast Guard, leaders must become semper paratus (always ready) by baking risk mitigation into every level of the business. That requires a risk-management culture, Useem says, in which "everyone is asked by top executives to be mindful on a regular basis of potential disruptive risks that can lead to a sudden downdraft in demand or cash."

Of course, all businesses--and entrepreneurial businesses in particular--must take risks to grow. It is up to the CEO to determine the company's level of risk appetite and risk tolerance. Most leaders are pretty clear about their companies' risk appetites, the amount of risk they're willing to assume to achieve their goals. But they may not have specified or even considered their risk tolerance, the willingness to accept loss and disruption. "And it's not just how much loss I will accept this year but also over the next few years if they want to stay in business for a while," Kunreuther says.

Chief risk officers are standard issue at large companies but virtually nonexistent at small ones. CEOs instead should make a top executive--perhaps their No. 2 or No. 3--responsible for getting up to speed on risk, the authors suggest. That person consults with everyone, including functional peers, front-line employees, and board members whose expertise and experience in other industries is particularly valuable. The question: What are the two or three most likely downside risks in the next 12 months, and how can we mitigate them?

Starting with cyber

Cyberattacks are one category of catastrophic event that has lately breached small companies' perimeters of concern. For years, entrepreneurial leaders considered their relatively diminutive businesses uninteresting to hackers seeking vast stores of data or hefty ransoms to restore blocked access. But with more small businesses targeted--almost a quarter of companies with 250 employees or fewer have been attacked, according to the Better Business Bureau--leaders no longer see hacking as a black swan.
After partial assembly, each Taft boot is hand dyed and painted. The company says it uses only vegetable-tanned, chromium-free, full-grain leathers. Marco Arguello

Many business ideas have been hatched over dinner. Online shoe startup Taft actually launched one during dinner. Co-founders Kory and Mallory Stevens were running a successful online sock business. But Kory's heart and (go ahead, say it) sole was in boots and shoes. He'd even trekked to Spain to create prototypes and check out factories--and then went back to hosiery. But during a family dinner in late 2015, Taft's traffic started spiking because of a favorable Reddit mention. "I realized if we missed that moment, we might not get it again," Kory says.

He retrieved his prototypes from the closet and within hours named them (Jack, after his grandfather; Troy, after a nephew) and settled on a semi-random price. He slapped pictures and descriptions of the boots on the site--and amassed $50,000 in preorders by the next day. Acting crazy-quick allowed Taft to seize the traffic to get the preorders needed to pull the trigger on production--and pivot into the boot and shoe business.

The old city center in Almansa, Spain, near the shoe factory. Taft co-founder Kory Stevens traveled Europe in search of skilled shoemakers and found them here.

1. Although many shoe factories now use computer-guided lasers to cut leather from patterns, Taft relies on artisans who do the shoe surgery by hand.

2. A cobbler takes a hammer to the heel to secure the leather to the boot.

3. Sewing is done manually, as shown here. The upper is then attached to the outsole using a process called Blake-stitch construction; it requires a separate machine.

4. After partial assembly, each boot is hand dyed and painted. The company says it uses only vegetable-tanned, chromium-free, full-grain leathers.

5. A worker reaches for a glue brush to attach the inner sole to the shoe.

6. The finished, $250 pair of boots is bagged and boxed and ready to ship. Taft has done so well in its shoe business that it dropped its sock line in 2016.

EXPLORE MORE Inc. 5000 COMPANIES
Gary Vaynerchuk, author of "Crushing It! How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence--and How You Can, Too." Getty Images

A commitment to lifelong learning is a trait commonly found in the most successful entrepreneurs. So, with back-to-school season on all our minds, here's my list of books (published in the last 12 months) that all entrepreneurs should read. Heck, even if you are only considering starting something, give these a read.

Crushing It! How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence--and How You Can, Too

Gary Vaynerchuk kicks off the list. The four-time New York Times bestselling author is a strongly opinionated, bombastic pundit of entrepreneurship. If you have never watched him on YouTube, think Anthony Robbins meets Jack Dorsey. He has a huge following, and for good reason: He gets it. His latest book continues his mission to share new lessons and entrepreneurial inspiration by leveraging the experiences of dozens of founders who have been there, done that.

Tribe of Mentors--Short Life Advice from the Best in the World

Tim Ferriss, the author of the blockbuster The 4-Hour Workweek, is sharing more tidbits, habits, practices, and exercises to make your life better. Tribe of Mentors gives you pearls of actionable wisdom that you can apply in your everyday life. This time Ferriss has brought along his friends--including Maria Sharapova, Dustin Moskovitz, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Anderson, and dozens more--to share their stories. An online reviewer said it best: Think of this book as a massive collection of generally applicable mentorship advice from the world's best and brightest.

Measure What Matters: OKRs: The Simple Idea That Drives 10x Growth

In the startup world, John Doerr is a legend. With a net worth of more than $7 billion, this American venture capitalist has worked with (and funded) such luminaries as Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt of Google; Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com; and Scott Cook and Bill Campbell of Intuit. So when this guy talks, entrepreneurs should sit up and take notice. In Measure What Matters, Doer teaches us about using objectives and key results (OKR), a revolutionary approach to goal-setting, to make tough choices in business. He backs up his advice with firsthand behind-the-scenes narratives from the likes of Andy Grove, Bono, and Bill Gates.

The Startup Way: How Modern Companies Use Entrepreneurial Management to Transform Culture and Drive Long-Term Growth

Eric Ries changed the world of entrepreneurship with the publication of The Lean Startup in 2011. In October 2017, fresh off half a decade as one of Harvard Business School's entrepreneurs in residence, Ries published The Startup Way. In it, Ries shares case studies of how Fortune 500 companies are leveraging the lean startup method to drive innovation and keep costs down. If you have ever wondered how you could apply startup methodology to your business, even if it is not a high-growth digital startup, this book is for you.

Lost & Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World

In Lost & Founder, Rand Fishkin, the founder of $45 million a year Moz, offers a VIP backstage pass to founder life in the startup world. Fishkin is funny and smart, but most of all, he is honest. In the media (like HBO's Silicon Valley, ABC's Shark Tank, and Amazon's Startup), entrepreneurs are often portrayed as rock stars, world changers, and heroes. This book shines a light on dark side of that life, while at the same time highlighting the importance of soft skills when running a startup.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

The last book on my list is another crushingly honest expose of startup life. In this case, John Carreyrou, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The Wall Street Journal, pulls back the curtain on the spectacular rise, massive fraud, and eventual fall of Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos, a biotech startup once valued at $9 billion.
The breakup of the thickest ice in the Arctic will have a potentially catastrophic effect on polar bears and seals, leading scientists have warned.

Satellite images from the first week of August show sea ice along Greenlands northern shores  some of the oldest and strongest in the Arctic  being broken up and pushed away from the coastline.

Described as the last holdout of the Arctics multi-year sea ice  that which remains frozen year after year even during the summer months  experts warned its breakup would increase the rate of melting across the continent.

Recommended Arctic whales threatened by collisions as ships cross melting sea ice

The highly unusual phenomenon is the result of warmer temperatures making the sea ice in this region thinner. As a result, the ice is lighter and more fractured and winds blowing from the Atlantic to the Pacific side of the Arctic are able to shift it away from Greenlands coastline.

The fact that it has become mobile shows it is thinner than it used to be and this last holdout of heavy ice is now becoming as mobile as any other part of the arctic, said Professor Peter Wadhams, one of the UKs leading sea ice scientists who heads the Polar Ocean Physics Group at Cambridge University.

In the past, most of the ice in the Arctic has been multi-year ice, but that has been shrinking and now nearly all the ice in the Arctic is first-year ice, he told The Independent.

The only zone where multi-year ice has survived is north of Greenland, but this last holdout is now opened up and moving away from the coast.

He said it would have serious consequences for wildlife including polar bears, although the full extent of the damage would not be known until next spring when the animals emerge from hibernation.

The north coast of Greenland, with its very steep cliffs, is a denning area for polar bears, explained Prof Wadhams.

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They dig holes in the snow and come out in the spring and go hunting. But if the pack ice has moved offshore they come out hibernation and are left without an area to hunt.

They cant swim very far. If this becomes a permanent feature with ice away from the coast, polar bears wont have any ice to hunt on. You would lose the polar bear habitat.

The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet and this year sea ice in the region is 880,000 square kilometres below the 1981-2010 average.

Sea ice in July was exceptionally low in areas of the Arctic nearest the Atlantic, which includes the region north of Greenland, the UK Met Office said.

Professor Martin Siegert, codirector of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and Environment at Imperial College London, warned the breakup of really thick and strong ice in this area was particularly alarming.

This is not just breaking up of the annual stuff, but the multi-year ice, which is highly unusual, he told The Independent.

Indigenous populations that require sea ice for traditional fishing methods would be affected, he added, as would seals and polar bears that use ice to access plentiful supplies of fish.

The US-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre said Arctic sea ice declined rapidly throughout July but the decline slowed during the first two weeks of August.

But satellite images of Greenlands northern coastline showed sea ice in that area moving away from the land mass in the first six days of the month.

The centre predicts sea ice this year will fall to between the fourth and ninth lowest level in the 40 years since satellite records began, while 2012 saw Arctic sea ice retreat to its lowest level on record.

Nasa has launched a new mission to record the impact on the ocean around Greenland from its melting ice sheets.

The team will this week begin research that will see probes dropped 1,000 metres below the surface of waters surrounding the island, recording temperature and salinity as they go.
Maersk Line, the worlds largest container shipping company, is about to launch the first ever container ship on an Arctic route along Russias north coast, as melting sea ice promises to offer a possible future alternative to the Suez Canal.

The Venta Maersk, a new ice-class 42,000 ton vessel which can carry 3,600 containers, will leave Vladivostok on Russias east coast later this week.

The ship, carrying a cargo of frozen fish, will then follow the Northern Sea Route up through the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska, before travelling along Russias north coast and eventually to St Petersburg by the end of September.

The route has seen growing traffic during summer months already, with cargos of oil and gas regularly making the journey.

Arctic sea ice hit a record low for January this year, and an extreme event was declared in March as the Bering Seas ice levels reached the lowest level in recorded history as temperatures soared 30 degrees above average.

Data released by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado showed this winters sea ice cover was less than a third of what it was just five years ago.

Though the Northern Sea Route can cut journey times between Asia and Europe by up to two weeks depending on destination, it remains more costly as nuclear icebreakers are still required to accompany ships.

In an email to The Independent, Maersk confirmed the undertaking as first reported by Norwegian newspaper High North News. A spokesperson said the company wanted to underline that this is a one-off trial designed to explore an unknown route for container shipping and to collect scientific data.

Speaking about the viability of the route, they added: We of course also want to have a product which is cost efficient enough to generate a reasonable return. Currently, we do not see the Northern Sea Route as an alternative to our usual routes.

With a reduction in sea ice, that may change however. The spokesperson said: We do follow the development of the Northern Sea Route. Today, the passage is only feasible for around three months a year which may change with time.

Sune Scheller, of Greenpeace Nordic, told The Independent the organisation was aware several shipping companies were looking at the possibility of opening Arctic shipping lanes  a move he said was environmentally damaging in a number of ways.

Chief among environmental concerns is the use of the heavy fuel oil large container ships use. According to The Economist, just 15 of the biggest ships emit more of the noxious oxides of nitrogen and sulphur than all the worlds cars put together.

Mr Scheller said: Its cheap, but its damaging. Its more polluting, air quality-wise. It adds to particulate matter  black carbon, as its known  which rests on white surfaces like ice and snow and absorbs heat instead of reflecting it, which contributes to climate change.

If these ships were to have an accident then heavy fuel oil in the marine environment is bad. Its even worse in an Arctic environment. The cold water temperatures slow or halt the natural breakdown of the oil. So it remains in marine environments for a much longer period of time.

In the Antarctic there is a ban on heavy fuel oil. You are not allowed to use it within the wider Antarctic. But a similar ban in the Arctic is not in place. This is a reminder for the IMO (International Maritime Organisation) that the shipping industry is looking at this [route] in increasing detail, and they need to get a ban in place now.

10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Show all 10 1 /10 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica Kira Morris 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others. Hira Ali 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Smoke  filled with the carbon that is driving climate change  drifts across a field in Colombia. Sandra Rondon 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050. Probal Rashid 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change. Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals, says the photographer. Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow. Rizwan Dharejo 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent. Tom Schifanella 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures. Abrar Hossain 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India. The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature. Riddhima Singh Bhati 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a public health emergency. Leung Ka Wa 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions. Mahtuf Ikhsan

Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Oliver Hayes said declining sea ice was a sign more needed to be done to protect the planet from catastrophic environmental degradation.

He told The Independent: Vanishing sea ice is another stark warning that climate change is already having a drastic impact on our planet and its people.

Governments must do everything within their power to head off the threat of catastrophic climate change, first by taking rapid steps to slash the gases polluting our atmosphere.

Increases in Arctic shipping also threaten the regions precious environment. The international community must agree tough action and rules to protect it.

Speaking to High North News, Frederic Lasserre, a Professor at the Universite Laval Quebec, said Maersk will be aware that other shipping companies are examining the viability of the route, including its Chinese rival Cosco, and Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL).

He said: Maersk, in my view, may be merely trying to see what can be done so as to be able to develop this small market should other players  Cosco, MOL  officially begin to develop it.
Manatee deaths have shot up this year as a toxic tide of red algae continues to sweep the Gulf of Mexico.

More of these aquatic mammals, also known as sea cows, have died so far in 2018 than in the whole of 2017.

Experts have blamed a combination of the cold snap at the beginning of the year and the red tide that has struck Florida this summer.

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We expect the red tide-related manatee death toll to rise, Jeff Ruch, executive director for NGO Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told AP.

We suspect there are a number of carcasses that have not been reported yet.

Figures from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission suggest the red tide is to blame for nearly 100 manatee deaths so far.

The phenomenon is the result of nutrients in the water causing a bloom in algae called dinoflagellates.

Where not to visit if you love animals Show all 9 1 /9 Where not to visit if you love animals Where not to visit if you love animals Monkey shows Chimpanzees are forced to perform demeaning tricks on leashes and are often subject to cruel training techniques. Animals who are confined to small, barren enclosures and forced to perform unsurprisingly show symptoms of stress and depression. Chimpanzees have been documented rocking back and forth, sucking their lips, salivating and swaying against enclosure perimeters in distress. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Marine parks Some parks confine orcas to concrete tanks and force them to perform meaningless tricks for food - many die in captivity. Orcas are highly intelligent and social mammals who may suffer immensely, both physically and mentally, when they're held in captivity. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Tiger shows Tigers are forced to live in an unnatural and barren environment and have to endure interactions with a constant stream of tourists. Since tigers never lose their wild instincts, across the world they are reportedly drugged, mutilated and restrained in order to make them safe for the public. However, every year, incidents of tiger maulings are reported at this type of tourist attraction. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Donkey rides Sunning on the beach is great for humans  we can take a quick dip or catch a bite to eat when we get too hot or hungry. But it's pure hell for donkeys who are confined to the beach and forced to cart children around on the hot sand. Some donkey-ride operators at beach resorts in the UK even keep the animals chained together at all times. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Swimming with dolphins Some marine parks use bottlenose dolphins in performances and offer visitors the opportunity to swim with dolphins. Unfortunately, people are often unaware that these animals are captured in the wild and torn from their families or traded between different parks around the world. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Canned hunting Lions are confined to fenced areas so that they can easily be cornered, with no chance of escape. Most of them will have been bred in captivity and then taken from their mothers to be hand-reared by the cub-petting industry. When they get too big, they may be drugged before they are released into a "hunting" enclosure. Because these animals are usually kept in fenced enclosures (ranging in size from just a few square yards to thousands of acres), they never stand a chance of surviving. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Running of the Bulls Every year, tourists travel to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. The bulls who are forced to slip and slide down the town's narrow cobblestone streets are chased straight into the bullring. They are then taunted, stabbed repeatedly and finally killed by the matador in front of a jeering crowd. The majority of Spaniards reject bullfighting, but tourists are keeping the cruel industry on its last legs. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Horse-drawn carriages City streets are no place for horses. The animals toil in all weather extremes, suffering from respiratory distress from breathing in exhaust fumes as well as numerous hoof, leg and back problems from walking on pavement all day long. As easily spooked prey animals, horses subjected to the loud noises and unexpected sounds of city streets are likely to be involved in accidents, even deadly ones. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Zoos The zoo community regards the animals it keeps as commodities, and animals are regularly bought, sold, borrowed and traded without any regard for established relationships. Zoos breed animals because the presence of babies draws visitors and boosts revenue, yet often, there's nowhere to put the offspring as they grow, and they are killed, as we saw with Marius the giraffe in Denmark. Some zoos have introduced evening events with loud music and alcohol which disrupt the incarcerated animals even further. EPA

Though algal blooms are natural occurrences, experts say they have been exacerbated by changes to land and waterways near the ocean, as well as associated agricultural runoff.

Beaches in Florida have been choked with tonnes of dead fish and other sea life that has been poisoned by the algae.

Local communities are also suffering, and hospitals have seen a 50 per cent increase in hospital visits due to respiratory conditions as a result of breathing in toxins from the blooms.

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Conservationist Marilyn Levy Odea said manatees are affected because they breathe in the algaes toxins, as well as absorbing them through their skin and consuming them in the plants they eat.

As they are slow moving creatures, manatees may also be less able to escape the red tide as it spreads across the region.

Florida is home to around 6,000 manatees in total, and they are considered a threatened species.

Besides toxic algae and loss of habitat as humans encroach on their favoured haunts, manatees are also at risk of watercraft collision as propellers and boat hulls can inflict devastating injuries on them.
Organic September is a month-long celebration of organic food, drink, beauty and textiles. Now in its 26th year (although originally called Organic Harvest), there are countless benefits to choosing an organic product.

Not only will it reduce your exposure to pesticides but youll also be supporting a sustainable production system which is better for both wildlife and the planet.

Organic farms tend to have around 50 per cent more bees, butterflies and other pollinators visit them  reason alone to consider switching if you ask us.

The good news is, wine is another category where its possible to buy organic  a pretty selfless task if you ask us. From the health of the soil from which the vines are grown, through to supporting nature-friendly farming techniques  your glass of red has never been such a hot topic.

And were not the only ones to think so  organic wine sales are up 47 per cent, the fastest growing organic category, helping drive eight years of consecutive organic sales growth.

So, now were all on board with switching to organic vino, what to look out for? Although some bottles will helpfully display organic certification, more often than not, they dont, making it pretty confusing when it comes to the checkout. Thankfully weve rounded up a delicious selection across white, red and sparkling styles that all come with full organic certification.

Although weve only included certified wines in our round-up, its worth noting that many smaller producers have practised organic or even biodynamic farming for generations but just havent had the time, money or inclination to apply for official certification. Although certain areas are very well-known for their fantastic organic vineyards, there are also plenty right here in the UK if youre keen to further reduce your carbon footprint.

Aside from the health and planet benefits, its said that organic vines allow the grapes to showcase their true flavour profile, without any additional interference. So you can often expect a superior tasting experience.

And just in case you needed any more justification for going organic, its long been reported that this type of wine is less likely to give you a hangover. In fact, its the stricter measures surrounding the quantity of sulphur dioxide used in organic winemaking (the bit that causes those unwanted headaches!) which means youre more likely to wake up feeling fresh.

You can trust our independent reviews. We may earn commission from some of the retailers, but we never allow this to influence selections, which are formed from real-world testing and expert advice. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

Francone Barbaresco DOCG gallina 75cl 15% Winner of a prestigious Decanter gold medal, the Francone Barbaresco is produced following the Green Experience system  a new set of rules for eco-friendly grape-growing which aims to go one step further than current organic laws. It makes a lot of sense to follow such strict rules, the vineyard itself is part of a UNESCO world heritage site and only 3,000 bottles are produced a year (which sounds like a lot but is pretty exclusive). Deliciously full-bodied, rich and complex with notes of violet and liquorice, we thoroughly enjoyed this now but it will happily age for another 10 years if you fancy stocking up. Buy now  29.92 , Independent Wine {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Vincent careme spring 75cl 12.5% We may be going into autumn but this bottle of spring by modern wine producer Vincent Careme is still well worth a try. Based in the Loire, the estate is fully certified organic across their 14 hectares of vines, with this sec style displaying crunchy green apple and fresh pear. A cracking aperitif, for those that are used to their wines bone-dry, this slightly off-dry style might come as a surprise but we think the excellent freshness, stony minerality and light floral touch also makes it a perfect bedfellow for fresh shellfish. Buy now  13.95 , House of Malt {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Purato Grillo spumante 75cl 12.5% Sicilian, organic, super-sustainable spumante. Made in the Vittoria area of sunny south-east Sicily, this easy-drinking fizz works perfectly as an aperitif but also with a variety of seafood dishes. Carbon-neutral, vegan-friendly and with eco-friendly packaging, this little bottle ticks a lot of boxes. Of course, it needs to taste the part too  and with fine bubbles, subtle floral aromas and well-balanced acidity, we think it does just that. Buy now  10.49 , Ocado {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Weingut DB schmitt frei korper kultur 1l 11.5% If youre after a wine youll remember long after youve finished the bottle  independent, online wine shop Forest Wines is a great place to look. Showcasing natural and organic producers, this little number is an unusual blend of grapes (huxelrebe, pinot blanc, pinot gris, scheurebe) made in the Rheinhessen region of Germany. Taking the whole ecosystem into consideration, young winemakers Bianka and Daniel Schmitt follow biodynamic principles, a very natural way of winemaking that includes harvesting the grapes by hand. The lack of interference allows the grapes to speak for themselves, resulting in this extremely fresh style which has had a tiny bit of skin contact. With bags of personality and a long pronounced finish, its extremely moreish. Do take into consideration, the price is for a slightly larger than normal 1l bottle. Buy now  24 , Forest Wine {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Domaine Gigondan cotes du rhone reserve st just AOC 75cl 13.5%, six bottles All of the wines stocked on Wine at Home are made using organic farming methods, minimal human intervention, natural or wild yeasts, minimal natural sulphur and use sustainable viticulture or conservation cultivation with many, also biodynamic. Domaine Gigondan is one of the very rare vineyards in France to use wild viticulture, whereby vines are grown without support, allowing them to take their natural bush-like form and forgo the usual pruning. Needless to say, they use no chemicals of any kind but secondly, they are one of only two vineyards in France to pioneer the system of hydro agly  where rainwater is demineralised before being used on the vines, ensuring that the plants and soil retain their natural mineral and PH balance. Trust us when we say, you can taste the results in each sip. Delicately spiced with soft tannins  expect black pepper, blackberries and a herbaceous undertone. A versatile style that is also happy to be served slightly chilled, try it with charcuterie, pasta and lightly spiced dishes. Buy now  75.60 , Wine At Home {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Bonterra organic chardonnay mendocino 75cl 13.5% We love this certified organic chardonnay from Mendocino in California, which displays all the rich and buttery, slightly honeyed notes youd expect from a wine from this area. We could have been fooled into thinking we were drinking something much pricier. A real crowd-pleaser with white wine drinkers, as we move into autumn, well be serving this with roast chicken and all the trimmings. Buy now  17.95 , Great Wine {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Bodegas castano parcelas ecologico monastrell Within the EU, Spain is said to have the largest area (100,000 hectares) dedicated to organic vineyards, making it a great place to start your organic education. If youre a fan of wines from this part of the world, look out for the word ecologico on the bottle, which means organic in Spanish. Showcasing this region's monastrell grape for what it can be  rich, deep, fruit-forward and earthy, theres plenty of complexity to be found here, especially given the price tag. With a touch of oak ageing, wed pair this with a hearty meat dish or even pepperoni pizza. Buy now  7.95 , The Wine Society {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Tindall premium organic pinot noir 75cl 13% An elegant pinot noir from New Zealands infamous Marlborough region, this wonderfully aromatic ruby red is bursting with red cherry and plum. Although the Tindall vineyard is well known for making premium sauvignon blanc and chardonnay, its the complex palate of this pinot noir that grabbed our attention. Sweet fruit is coupled with a touch of savoury spice, leading to a nice long, slightly earthy finish. Aged in oak, this is a well-rounded new world red, perfect for pairing with steak and a creamy mushroom sauce. Buy now  23.50 , The Bottle Club {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Castellore organic pinot grigio 75cl 12% Proving that organic certification neednt mean paying over the odds, budget supermarket Aldi comes to the rescue with a perfectly quaffable mid-week white made from Italys pinot grigio grapes. Fans of prosecco are sure to enjoy the medium-dry nature, pronounced apple and green pear and delicate blossom and honeycomb. While we wouldnt normally recommend spending so little on a bottle, Aldi somehow manages to nail this price point  and stylishly bottled to boot. Try drinking with light seafood pasta or salads. Buy now  5.99 , Aldi {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Cortese nostru carricante terre siciliane 75cl 12% Another Italian wine, this time from sunny Sicily made with the ancient indigenous carricante grape. Often blended, here its the star of the show, providing all the body and structure needed. Its having a bit of a renaissance so wed recommend looking out for this one made by winemakers Cortese (who have been happily practising organic farming for more than 10 years). Offering crisp acidity, racy minerality and aromatic apricot and peach, this versatile white is great with goats cheese, grilled vegetables, fish and chicken, although maybe not all at the same time. Buy now  11.95 , Slurp {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Davenport horsmonden dry white wine 75cl 11.5% Like everything Abel & Cole stocks, this dry white wine from English wine producer Davenport is organic, with certification from the Soil Association. A blend of grapes including bacchus, ortega, faber, siegerrebe and huxelrebe, at just 11.5 per cent its perfectly light  a great day wine for sunny afternoons. Although a small amount of the blend spent time in oak, theres no taste of it  instead, its imparted a soft and creamy structure. Look out for an exciting sparkling version which Abel & Cole will be stocking in time for Christmas celebrations. Buy now  17 , Abel & Cole {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Quinta das maias branco 75cl 13% A top Portuguese white wine to eke out the last of the summer, prepare to be transported to sunnier climes. We all too often tend to stick to grapes were familiar with  sauvignon blanc or chardonnay for example, however, this citrusy blend of malvasia and encruzado makes us question why we play it so safe  just look at the price! Super fresh, we need little reason to open this but its particularly good with roast chicken dishes and creamy pasta. Buy now  12 , Honest Grapes {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}}

The verdict: Organic wine If youre after an award-winning organic red, the Francone Barbaresco is a gorgeous drop you wont forget in a hurry. Prefer your wine white? The Weingut DB schmitt frei korper kultur from Forest Wines is a joy and despite the tiny amount of skin contact, is surprisingly versatile and easy drinking. If youre looking for the best places to buy wine, check out our round-up of the best online wine shops

IndyBest product reviews are unbiased, independent advice you can trust. On some occasions, we earn revenue if you click the links and buy the products, but we never allow this to bias our coverage. The reviews are compiled through a mix of expert opinion and real-world testing.
Kendall Jenner has defended comments she made which many deemed offensive to fellow professional models.

In a now-deleted Instagram post by Love magazine, the model was quoted as saying: Since the beginning weve been super selective about what shows I would do. I was never one of those girls who would do like 30 shows a season or whatever the f*** those girls do.

More power to em. But I had a million jobs, not only catwalks but everything else. The whole combination was very overwhelming and I started to freak out a little bit and needed to take a step back.

Before the post was deleted, many models spoke out to say how offensive they found Jenners comments.

Never been so indirectly and publicly offended in my whole entire life god damn! wrote Irina Djuranovic on her Instagram story.

To be called a supermodel how easy it comes to you, she continued.

Russian model Daria Strokous also weighed in on the subject, adding: Whatever the f*** those girls do is do their very best to make their way up and try to make some money so that they can provide for themselves and their families.

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Oh, and its 70 shows a season by the way. And we all are f***ing proud of every single one of the girls that did it.

While Jenner has not directly apologised for her remarks, she has address the backlash.

A representative for Jenner said, The quote was taken out of context. Mid-thought she realised the number of shows some models walk a season is closer to 80.

The point was that its their path and the more power to them. She admires their hard work and dedication. Its an accomplishment.

Jenner has appeared on Vogue covers and walked for top designers including Dolce and Gabbana, Marc Jacobs and Chanel, but she has previously spoken about her desire to take a step back from modelling.

Kendall always decides last minute what she is walking in, a source revealed to People in February 2018. It depends on the money and how she is feeling.
Google is facing a lawsuit surrounding allegations that it illegally tracked millions of people through their phones, even after they set their privacy settings to disable the sharing of their location history.

Napoleon Patacsil of San Diego is seeking class-action status on behalf of US users of Android phones and Apple iPhones who were tracked against their will and knowledge.

Mr Patacsil claims Googles principal goal was to surreptitiously monitor phone users and let third parties do the same.

"Google represented that a user can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored. This simply was not true, the complaint states.

The lawsuit alleges that Google violates people's privacy by falsely assuring them that turning off their "Location History" feature on their phones will prevent their movements from being tracked.

11 useful Google Maps features you didnt know existed Show all 11 1 /11 11 useful Google Maps features you didnt know existed 11 useful Google Maps features you didnt know existed Time travel You can see how places have changed over the years in Street View, by dragging Pegman (the small yellow figure) onto the map and clicking the clock icon. Its not available for all locations though - only the places Google has pictured for older versions of Street View - and the furthest back you can go is 2008. Its fun though, and if you look closely, youll see Pegman turns into Back to the Futures Doc Brown. 11 useful Google Maps features you didnt know existed Dive into your history You can view your Google Maps History by visiting myactivity.google.com. In the search bar at the top of the page, you can filter by lots of different products, and Maps is one of them. Doing so will show you all the Maps data has on you, which you can delete. 11 useful Google Maps features you didnt know existed Zoom with one finger Phones seem to be rowing bigger by the year, and its not always easy to use them one-handed, especially if you want to zoom in on something on your screen. On the Google Maps app, you can zoom in and out with one finger by double-tapping - but keeping your finger on the screen on the second tap - and then dragging it up and down. 11 useful Google Maps features you didnt know existed Create your own map You can create your own custom map on desktop by opening the menu and clicking Your Places, Maps and Create Map. Give your map a name and a description, and add all of your favourite places. You can also collaborate on a map with other people, ideal for when youre planning a holiday. My Maps is also available as an app, separate to Google Maps. 11 useful Google Maps features you didnt know existed Calibrate your compass This isnt an issue thats specific to Google Maps, but its incredibly annoying. Every now and then you might find yourself walking in completely the wrong direction because your phones compass has gone wrong. Fortunately, you can calibrate it by moving your phone in a figure 8 motion a few times. 11 useful Google Maps features you didnt know existed Add stops to your journey Everyone knows Google Maps can direct you from one location to another, you can add multiple stops to your journey too. On the app, after youve entered your starting point and destination, hit the menu button in the top-right corner of the screen and select Add Stop. On desktop, click Add Destination and drag and drop the addresses to reorder your journey. 11 useful Google Maps features you didnt know existed Explore You can easily find great places to hang out by tapping Explore in the main menu of the Google Maps app. Each of the sections is split into specific sub-sections (such as Keep it Cheap and Quick Bites), and every place has a rating and a description. Also, if youve ever wondered what the orange shaded bits on Google Maps indicate, theyre areas of interest Google believes to be worth exploring. 11 useful Google Maps features you didnt know existed Share the places you love If youre planning to meet friends somewhere, you can make the process much smoother by sharing the right location with them. On the app, find the location youre after, tap More Info and Share. On desktop, find the right address and click Share. 11 useful Google Maps features you didnt know existed Share your location You can track your friends or let them track you in real-time with Google Maps, so everyone knows whos on time and whos running late. In the app, hit the menu button and tap Location Sharing. 11 useful Google Maps features you didnt know existed Save data You can save mobile data (and money) by downloading offline maps for certain areas in advance. On the app, hit the menu button and select Offline Maps, then find the area you want and hit Download. You can also find Wi-Fi Only mode in the main menu of the app, which means you can only access your saved offline maps. On desktop meanwhile, you can use Google Maps Lite for when youre on a slow internet connection. 11 useful Google Maps features you didnt know existed Remember where you parked The Google Maps app can save where youve parked your car. Once youve found a spot, all you need to do is tap your blue location dot and select Save Your Parking.

An investigation by the Associated Press, published last week, first revealed the extent of Google's tracking.

At the time, Google said it was clear about how it used and stored people's data.

"There are a number of different ways that Google may use location to improve people's experience, including: Location, History, Web and App Activity, and through device-level Location Services," a spokesperson said.

Recommended Google changes website to clarify exactly when it is tracking people

We provide clear descriptions of these tools, and robust controls so people can turn them on or off, and delete their histories at any time.

The help section of Googles website has since been update to say that turning Location History off does not affect other location services in phones, and that some location data may be saved through other services, such as Search and Maps.

Mr Patacsil is seeking unspecified damages in his case against Google.

Additional reporting by agencies.
Google is rolling out a major new update to its popular Gmail platform, however some users are not happy with the new layout.

The new Gmail update features a snooze email function, a fresh design and a 'confidential mode' that protects outgoing emails.

However hundreds of Gmail users took to social media to complain about Google's new design. Fortunately for them, there is a way to switch it back to the old version, but only for a limited time.

"Approximately 12 weeks after the GA [general availability] announcement in July, any users whove opted out of the new Gmail will be automatically migrated to the new experience, with no option to opt out," Google said in a blogpost announcing the changes.

"Users whove already transitioned to the new Gmail will lose the ability to opt out."

To switch back to the previous version of Gmail, users can simply go to the "Settings" cog in the top right corner and click "Go back to classic Gmail".

Reverting back to the more familiar layout still allows the option to change back to the new version. Simply go back to Settings and click "Try the new Gmail".

When launching the new Gmail for the first time, users will be able to select "default", "comfortable" and "compact" mode

Perhaps the biggest update, beyond the overall look, is the confidential feature, which allows users to put an expiration date on sent emails. This means that after a certain time, the messages will disappear from the recipients inbox.

The email can also not be forwarded or printed and senders have the option to add a passcode in order to access it.

Confidential mode is not set as a default, so to use it Gmail users will need to select the confidential mode icon at the bottom of the compose email window.

The snooze emails function allows people to postpone emails to a future date or a time that's more convenient.

"Your email will come back to the top of your inbox when you want it to, whether that's tomorrow, next week, or this evening," Google explains. "You can find your snoozed items under 'Snoozed' in the Menu."

The new tools are designed to help Gmail users "work faster and more efficiently", while also improving their security.
Do you want to live forever? For the past century, it seems the chances you might have been increasing. There are more than seven times as many centenarians today than there were in the 1980s. Rudi Westendorp, professor of old-age medicine at the University of Copenhagen, recently suggested that a future 135-year-old had already been born.

Weve long since breached the 120-year mark. That was with Jeanne Calment, who was 122 years and 164 days old when she died in 1997. Though Calment was deaf, blind and confined to a wheelchair, she said on the occasion of her final birthday, I dream, I think, I go over my life, I never get bored.

The French, it seems, are particularly good at living a long time. A baby born in France today has a one in two chance of hitting a century. Time to put cabernet sauvignon in the sippy cup? Alas, non.

While in 2016, life expectancy for the average Brit was 79.5 years for men and 83.1 years for women, it was estimated that more than 20 per cent of those years would be spent in ill health. But are we prepared to do what it takes to live that last fifth of our lives in fine fettle? What it does take, according to a study by Harvard University, is not smoking, keeping an eye on your weight, exercising for 30 minutes each day, having no more than one glass of wine daily (hold that cab sav) and eating healthily.

In Rachel Hengs debut novel, Suicide Club, its not unusual for people to live to be 300 with the aid of technologically advanced spare parts and extreme dedication to healthy living. As Hengs characters face a future in which immortality is a very real possibility, some of their number begin to question whether the sacrifices they must make in order to live forever are effectively draining life of all its meaning on the way. They cant eat meat. They cant run (too damaging for the joints). They cant even listen to stirring music lest it raise their cortisol levels. For every advance in longevity theres a sacrifice.

You Can't Ask Me That! Show all 67 1 /67 You Can't Ask Me That! You Can't Ask Me That! Do you want to live forever? The French, it seems, are particularly good at living a long time. A baby born in France today has a one in two chance of hitting a century. Time to put cabernet sauvignon in the sippy cup? Alas, non. Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Do you want to live forever? But when it comes down to it, surprisingly few people would take the immortality option anyway. In Ireland, AAs life insurance team found that less than 20 per cent of the people they surveyed would choose eternal life if offered the opportunity. Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Are you single? Or is it just small talk again? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Is it your time of the month? When it comes to questions you should never ask if you value your life, then Is it that time of the month? directed at any woman of your acquaintance has to be right at the top Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Is it your time of the month? Particularly if youre in the middle of a disagreement with said woman and youre asking the question on the basis of that terrible old stereotype that a woman on her period is not entirely in control of her emotions thanks to her hormones Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Going anywhere nice? Going anywhere nice this year? was always the second question a hairdresser asked. Right after the classic who did this cut then?, delivered while examining your grown-out layers with a look of thinly veiled disgust. Well, actually, Andrea, it was you... Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Going anywhere nice? Lets get back to holidays. Quick. Much safer ground. Its the sort of question you can ask anyone without causing a fight. Who doesnt like talking about holidays? Holidays theyve been on. Holidays theyre going on. Holidays they would like to go on if their lottery numbers came up. You can get at least three perms worth of conversation out of this single simple topic. At least you used to be able to. Holidays are no longer the guilt-free pleasure they used to be, you know. Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Fancy a drink? Forget Dry January, October is now officially the month of abstinence. It started with Stoptober, which was aimed at helping people wanting to give up smoking. Then Stoptobers backers, Macmillan Cancer Support, introduced Sober October, wherein participants commit to a month of not drinking to raise funds for the charitys work. Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Fancy a drink? Im aware that theres a world of difference between giving up alcohol for a month for reasons of vanity and trying to give up for good to save your life. If youre regularly reaching for the bottle first thing in the morning, then you dont need Sober October, you need to speak to your GP. There will be people reading this who think that giving up for a month is just posturing, virtue-signalling perhaps. More about looking good than being good. Ultimately pointless? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Who's getting the house? Getting shot of old rubbish is always a good idea, but simplifying your life should go way beyond throwing out CDs and making sure the kids never find Grandmas bondage kit. Writing a will is the ultimate act of tidying up. However, it seems were more likely to spend time working out how to make our pants balance vertically in a drawer than thinking about how our joy-sparking stuff will be split when were gone. As of last year, its estimated that 60 per cent of British adults do not have a will, which means more than 30 million Brits are in danger of dying intestate. Its fair to say it wont matter much to them. But for the people left behind, it can be a serious headache You Can't Ask Me That! Who's getting the house? Under the rules of intestacy in the UK, only spouses, civil partners and other close relatives can inherit, which means if youre cohabiting without a will, youre in danger of seeing (or not seeing, since youll be dead) all your worldly goods go to some distant cousin instead of the one you love. The most common reason people give for not having written a will is that theyre planning to do it later. But the fact that one in four people over the age of 55 doesnt have one suggests that not all of those people waiting for the right time are going to get round to it. A further 20 per cent of those questioned by Prudential didnt think they had enough assets to make writing a will worthhile. Some thought getting a will drawn up would be too expensive. Its not. October is Free Wills Month, with charities such as Age UK, Diabetes UK and Guide Dogs offering supporters a chance to have a will written or revised completely free of charge Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Is the glass half empty or half full? In these turbulent times, when the news is nearly always bad, it can seem as though to be optimistic is to be unrealistic. Better to look on the distinctly dark side and be prepared for all eventualities, right? Stockpile for Brexit and patch the holes in Grandmas Anderson shelter. But thats no way to live, is it? Always looking out for the next disaster, while missing the magic going on right under your nose? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Is the glass half empty or half full? In these turbulent times, when the news is nearly always bad, it can seem as though to be optimistic is to be unrealistic. Better to look on the distinctly dark side and be prepared for all eventualities, right? Stockpile for Brexit and patch the holes in Grandmas Anderson shelter. But thats no way to live, is it? Always looking out for the next disaster, while missing the magic going on right under your nose? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! How are you? How do you do? How do you answer that one? Lets assume you just met someone for the first time and theyve offered you that question with a handshake. Quick. What should you say in return? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! How are you? The correct answer to How do you do? is, in fact, to say How do you do? right back. Confused? I know I was. But as Kate Fox writes in Watching The English, How do you do? is not a real question about health or wellbeing. Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Are you single? Every week Christine Manby tackles socially unacceptable questions, accompanied by Tom Ford illustrations Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Are you single? Do they want to know if youre unattached so they can ask you out on a date? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? At its peak, in 1999, the UK version of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' was watched by more than 19m people a week. The shows format with its lifelines, ask the audience and phone a friend encouraged maximum audience participation and sparked lively debate. Who would be your friend on the end of the phone? Divorce rates trebled and families fell apart as people revealed that they thought all their loved ones were too thick to be trusted with the job Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Long before Millionaire hit our screens, the best way to get rich quick was with the Football Pools. In 1962 Keith Nicholson won 152,000 (the equivalent of more than 3m in todays money) and his wife Viv promptly announced their plan to spend, spend, spend. The Nicholsons did exactly that but soon became an object lesson in how money cant buy you happiness. After Keith was killed in an accident four years after the win, Viv was declared bankrupt. Her attempts to regain her wealth included recording a single called Spend, spend, spend and appearing in a Manchester strip club singing Hey Big Spender. She was fired when she refused to take her underwear off. She subsequently joined the Jehovahs Witnesses and graced the cover of The Smiths single Heaven knows Im miserable now. Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Do you have children? When it comes to talking about parenthood it seems there are several distinct categories of egregious question that are all too often asked. There are the intrusive questions you get before you have children. Then there are the intrusive questions you get while youre pregnant. There are the intrusive questions you get after the baby is born. And finally the truly painful questions you get if, for whatever reason, you dont end up having children at all Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Do you have children? Almost every human being on earth of reproductive age has been subject to the first category. Do you have children? is a classic ice-breaker. If theres one thing people love to talk about its their kids, right? And most people have them, dont they? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Do you have children? It takes more than having lucky sperm to be a dad and it takes more than giving birth to become a mother. If youre not sure youve got what it takes, isnt it better not to risk it? For everybodys sake? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! What are you afraid of? Around 45 per cent of Brits the idea of sharing kitchen space with an arachnid is the stuff of nightmares. Fear of spiders is Britains number one phobia, with a third of people who suffer saying it affects their day to day life. It affects travel plans  better forget Australia. It causes anxiety and sleeplessness. It even causes embarrassment. Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! What are you afraid of? How do you get over a life limiting phobia? Do you just have to spend the rest of your life wearing T shirts or should you go to Marks and Spencer with a trusted friend to spend a controlled hour stroking button-down shirts? Should you take the train or force yourself to fly? Should you avoid clown movies or star in one? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Have you had any work done? As long as there are Instagram celebrities such as Cara de la Hoyde and Emily Ratajkowski pushing such insane markers of beauty as the Toblerone Tunnel (aka the space at the top of your legs), there will be people whose harmony is perturbed by thoughts about their own comparative lack of perfection Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Have you had any work done? Even if we all know the truth about Instagram filters and Photoshop, it can be difficult not to feel as if we should be doing something drastic to close (or rather open) that thigh gap Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Have you had any work done? Dr Pitanguy, king of the butt lift, who died in 2016, understood that cosmetic surgery is never just about vanity. Perhaps Pitanguy said it best. The most important thing is to have a good ego and then you dont need an operation. If only self-esteem came in syringes Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Do you prefer cats or dogs? Everyone has an opinion on it and there are those who will defend their opinion with violence. Or at least with a campaign of social media shaming that puts anyone who disagrees with them on a par with serial killers Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Do you prefer cats or dogs? Cats versus dogs is an emotional battle that divides people like no other Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Do you prefer cats or dogs? Theres no doubt that each animal has its place both in history and in modern society. The cats self-sufficiency makes it the perfect pet for someone who works long hours. Meanwhile dogs encourage us to improve our sedentary lifestyles. Both provide valuable companionship in an unfriendly world Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Do you really love me? Can true love can be found in an artificial environment? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Do you really love me? Does she really love him? Or does he really love her? How can we tell? And does it really matter? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! What do you believe in? Were not talking fairies, vampires and UFOs here. Were talking religion. Were talking politics. Were talking all those things you should never bring up at the dinner table for fear of causing terrible offence Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! What do you believe in? In 2018, a womans right to control her own body continues to be eroded by the Trump presidency and its not just American women who are affected. One of Trumps first acts as president was to sign off on a policy that withholds US global health funding for international organisations that counsel, refer or provide safe and legal abortion services using other, non-US funding (plannedparenthoodaction.org). The result? US-funded health providers in developing nations, can no longer afford to provide contraception, forcing women to endure unwanted pregnancies and dangerous abortions Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Did you get my text? Is technology good or bad for us? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Whens it due? Its a tricky question if you know for sure that your interlocutor is pregnant. If you dont, its potentially disastrous Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Whens it due? The number one most hated question reported by the pregnant women of my acquaintance is: can I touch your bump? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Whens it due? I knew through the grapevine that a colleague I saw only occasionally was having a baby, so when I found myself standing next to her in the coffee queue at the ATM and wed exhausted all the usual talk about holidays, I risked it. Whens the baby due? I asked. She told me shed had it a month before. My friend did the only thing he could. He left the company and moved to the Philippines Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Did you get my text? Is social media addiction fracturing any real sense of community? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Did you get my text? Will the robots that are already stealing our jobs take over altogether and turn us into meat-based slaves? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! How do I look? Whatever you do, if you hesitate to respond, all is lost. Everyone knows that hesitation in answering this particular question really means, You look like you just escaped naked from a serial killers cellar and grabbed a random selection of his clothes on your way out. Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! How do I look? Yet if youre not open about what you think when someone asks you how they look, arent you doing the other person a disservice? You may be wary of hurting their feelings but if you know theyre not looking their best, or are actively looking like a hot mess, arent you setting them up to be even more hurt by not saying so before someone else does? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! How do I look? Dont we ask questions in the hope of receiving an honest answer? Well, of course wed all like to think we do. In reality, what were usually after is the real-life equivalent of an Instagram like for our banana yellow flares Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Did you sleep well? Its what we ask overnight guests at the breakfast table. Its a morning variation on how are you? and as is the case with that tricky question, youre only ever supposed to answer in the positive. Yes, I did sleep well, thanks. Very comfy bed. And yet for more and more of us, the opposite is true. We didnt sleep well at all. We certainly didnt sleep for long enough Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Did you sleep well? Theres no doubt that modern life can make getting a good nights rest difficult and for many of us its unlikely well be able to change the way we live and work to accommodate significantly better sleeping habits anytime soon. But its definitely worth trying. From better powers of concentration to better sex, from increasing our chances of staving off disease, getting enough sleep changes everything Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Will you marry me? Its the question every woman on earth is waiting to hear. Apparently Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Will you marry me? Is there anything worse than upstaging a bride with an impromptu engagement? I suppose there is something worse. Having the putative fiancee/fiance answer no. Fortunately for the asker, the chances are that he or she wont. At least not right away Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Will you marry me? Public proposals are an exhibitionists Insta dream but a nightmare to most sensible people, even if they dont happen at somebody elses wedding Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Are we ever truly sorry? Does apologising comes naturally to Brits, or do we actually mean something else? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Are we ever truly sorry? When it comes to three little words that are difficult to say, I love you really doesnt come close to being the most difficult phrase in the English language. One of the things we actually find hardest to say is Im sorry Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Are we ever truly sorry? Mark Zuckerberg took out full page ads in a number of British newspapers, to make his Cambridge Analytica scandal apology public, as well as, delivering an apology in person to Congress. There was an expression of regret: It was my mistake, and Im sorry. But was Zuckerbergs apology all that it seemed? Commentators on social media called it hollow. Annabelle Lukin, Associate professor of linguistics at Sydneys Macquarie University, went further, and parsed those apologetic statements Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Guilty or not guilty? Should it be up to a general public jury to decide a defendants fate? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Guilty or not guilty? The system of trial by a group of your peers may have come to the UK with the Vikings, who installed 12 hereditary law men in each of the British towns under their control Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Guilty or not guilty? Guilty or not guilty is still a question we take seriously. And if we should ever be stuck in the dock, most of us would still want our peers to consider it on our behalf Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! How old are you? Discussing age with the under-10s is always appropriate. In fact, if you dont ask, they will. When every passing year means a party where you get presents you actually want, rather than a scented candle from the White Company, birthdays hold no fear. Theres a real sense of achievement in reaching double figures at 10, in turning sweet 16, in getting your driving license at 17, in gaining the right to forget to vote a year later. And how about turning 21? Key to the door, as they used to say when a 21-year-old could actually buy a house. After that, it starts to get murky Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! How old are you? Once youre out of early childhood, youre told its rude to ask. Perhaps its because by the time youve left formal education, age is no longer just a number. Suddenly, it becomes a measure of how far youve come. Or not Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! What do you do? Why dont people like being asked what they do? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! What do you do? I have in the past told people Im an unemployed stunt rider to circumvent those awkward conversations, so I do understand why what do you do can be a loaded question Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! What do you do? Its not easy to make small talk with a stranger Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! What's your type? Whats your type? I mean of course what kind of person would you like to go to bed with? Now were no longer in the 1970s, its a question guaranteed to cause embarrassment if not outright offence because it implies the reduction of people to categories: age, race, size, gender, occupation, income bracket, looks good in wellies... You Can't Ask Me That! What's your type? Thus most people, when asked if they have a type, would probably deny that they do. And yet most of us know someone who absolutely does have a type, dont we? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! What do you want for Chritmas? What do you want for Christmas? Thats a lovely question to be asked, isnt it? Well, sometimes. If the person asking is a dashing billionaire who is so into the season of goodwill that theyve got a special present wrapping room hidden somewhere on their yacht, its great. Especially if you fancy them like crazy and you dont mind being beholden to them in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways. Then its Pass me the Cartier catalogue, baby. Ill underline all the things I like. Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! What do you want for Chritmas? What do you want for Christmas? Thats a lovely question to be asked, isnt it? Well, sometimes. If the person asking is a dashing billionaire who is so into the season of goodwill that theyve got a special present wrapping room hidden somewhere on their yacht, its great. Especially if you fancy them like crazy and you dont mind being beholden to them in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways. Then its Pass me the Cartier catalogue, baby. Ill underline all the things I like. Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Can I kiss you? Theres so much to dislike about Christmas: the expense, the enforced jollity, the dubious traditions. Mistletoe, Im looking at you. Which of us hasnt experienced that sinking feeling upon realising that all that lies between us and our escape from a terrible party is a doorway festooned with the stuff, beneath which stands someone wed usually cross the road to avoid? Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! Can I kiss you? Its been suggested that kissing under the mistletoe began with the Romans, who included the plant in their Saturnalian rituals, but like post-mortem photography and jewellery made from dead peoples hair, the tradition really took off under the Victorians. Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! What's your name? Becoming a parent involves a few basic responsibilities like feeding and clothing the child in your care and keeping their tiny fingers from the dogs mouth or the gas fire. However, it seems to me there is one more parental responsibility that ought to be much higher on the list  giving your child a name they can live with. A name that they wont spend the whole of their life having to spell out letter by letter, excuse or explain. Illustrations by Tom Ford You Can't Ask Me That! What's your name? Luckily governments all over the world agree. There are strict rules about what you can and cant name a child in countries such as Sweden where First names shall not be approved if they can cause offence or can be supposed to cause discomfort for the one using it, or names which for some obvious reason are not suitable as a first name. Or Denmark, where parents have to choose a name from a pre-approved list of 7,000 monikers. Tom Ford

I asked Heng what she would be willing to give up for an extra decade. She replied: I think if it were just one vice, rather than all the vices as in my novel, then there are many things Id be willing to give up in exchange for a guaranteed extra 10 years in good health. Something Id be willing to give up, and have already to some degree, is alcohol. Id also probably be willing to give up caffeine and staying up late. Something I certainly would not want to give up is most foods  carbs, cheese, meat or chocolate.

When it comes to the cosmetic treatments already available, Heng would avoid the lot. No Botox. No fillers. Not even tooth-whitening. Im terrified of needles and worry that teeth-whitening would lead to tooth sensitivity!

Of course, Botox is already old hat, being edged out by injectable moisturisers in the form of gels made from hyaluronic acid that can hold several times its own weight in water. Theyre available now at 900 a pop. Or you could grow-your-own facelift with stem cells harvested from your own fat. The stem cells are reinjected into areas of your face that have been lightly damaged by laser. They jump into action to repair the laser damage and plump up your face in the process (Im paraphrasing, of course). Why stop at your face? You can even use lasers to plump up a saggy vagina.

But all these procedures are in their infancy. If only one could wait another 20 years or so before trying these new-fangled methods. Just until we know for sure they wont cause you to look like the Bride of Wildenstein. Perhaps you can. But youll have to die first. Cryonics is the process of flash-freezing a human body in liquid nitrogen in the hope of reanimating it at such a point in the future where we have found a cure for cancer/unsightly genitals.

(Tom Ford)

A friends husband is planning to have his head frozen after death in the hope that one day hell be reanimated and able to return to his family. His children are young and he cant bear the thought of not being there to see them grow up. Of course, if he were to die tomorrow, it would be wonderful to have him back next week. But while the technology for freezing the human body after death is there, the technology for reanimating those bodies is still a long way off.

Imagining a 50-year lag between dying and reanimation makes cryonics much less appealing. Would the kids be so thrilled to have Dad back then, looking younger than they do and insisting he still knows best despite having missed a half centurys worth of history? Personally, I think we should shuffle off when were supposed to and let the next generation have its turn unencumbered by undead in-laws.

I also think its a big mistake to rely on as yet unborn generations to bring you back to life. I cant help but imagine a future world in which the earth has been colonised by aliens who view cryogenically frozen humans in the way we view fish fingers. With no guarantee that you wont be defrosted in a frying pan, it seems like a waste of money to me. Everything that promises longevity without making the efforts that Harvard University suggested seems to cost an awful lot of money.

But when it comes down to it, surprisingly few people would take the immortality option anyway. In Ireland, AAs life insurance team found that less than 20 per cent of the people they surveyed would choose eternal life if offered the opportunity. A 2013 survey by the Pew Centre for Research found that more than half of the American adults they questioned would not even want to live to 120. The Pew Centre suggested its because we still just dont trust the science. Or want to make the sacrifices. As an eighty-something friend told me over a suitably boozy lunch: If you give up smoking, drinking and sex, you wont live longer. It will just feel like you are.

In any case, Oxford University researchers have recently reported that for the first time in a very long time, life expectancy in the UK has gone into reverse. The first few months of this year saw a 13 per cent rise in death rates, possibly as a result of cuts to social care. Taken into consideration with rising death rates since 2015, OU says the figures are enough to justify a recalibration to show a drop in life expectancy of a whole year for those people heading into their forties and fifties now.

Live forever? Youll be lucky. Perhaps that old Queen song had it right. This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us. Better make the most of it.

Christine Manby has written numerous novels including The Worst Case Scenario Cookery Club
Women are being deterred from training to become firefighters due to the sexist and stereotypical way in which theyre depicted in the media, new research has found.

In July, reality show Love Island was heavily criticised by the London Fire Brigade for its "fireman challenge", which saw the male contestants dress up as firefighters and strip before saving their female partners.

A recent survey conducted by YouGov and commissioned by the mayor of London has discovered that a quarter of women believe that men would be more adept as firefighters.

The 534 women and 508 men who participated in the poll were asked: Do you think men are more able to do the job, women are more able to do the job, or they are both equally able?

Following the results of the poll, London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton is urging shows such as Love Island and advertisers to stop perpetuating sexist cliches about firefighters, as it has the potential to put women off joining the profession.

When popular shows like Love Island roll out every offensive cliche possible with their so-called fireman challenge, it reinforces the misconception that all firefighters are musclebound men. No wonder so many young women are put off by that, she says.

In addition to Love Island, other recent examples where firefighters have been depicted in the media in a stereotypically masculine way include a 2017 Suzuki advert, which saw Ant and Dec refer to "fireman training", and a 2013 advert for Harpic toilet cleaner, which saw a woman ogle a male firefighter.

Four female pilots discuss life on the flightdeck Show all 4 1 /4 Four female pilots discuss life on the flightdeck Four female pilots discuss life on the flightdeck Jessica Sundquist: 787 Dreamliner captain at Norwegian Jessica Sundquist, a Swedish 787 Dreamliner captain for Norwegian, has spoken extensively about being a woman in the industry. In the past shes spoken about the concept of putting your femininity aside in order to succeed. Sundquist says today that she felt she didnt have to do it, but also wanted to fit into the industry without being known as the girl. Today, times are changing, she says, and more women are joining the industry  but its not all good news. Despite working hard to get to where I am today as a captain at one of the most modern and exciting airlines, the industry still has a lot more work to do to give women more opportunities, she says In the future, shed like the discussion on gender inequality to remain open and ongoing, but argues that real action also needs to take place to make any difference. Norwegian Four female pilots discuss life on the flightdeck Joanna Riggs: A380 first officer at British Airways First officer Joanna Riggs says she was never particularly exposed to aviation as a career choice, but became a BA cabin crew member after university in order to see more of the world. She says that entering such a highly male-dominated profession wasnt daunting, but that she felt lucky to have two other females on her course. Colleagues have always been supportive in Riggs experience as have  for the most part  passengers, though some are surprised when they see a female pilot. I hope it will one day be normal to everyone, she adds. Some passengers give a thumbs up or a girl power sign. As for gender differences on the flight deck, Riggs says, We are very professional on the flight deck so it doesnt matter what the gender, race or sexuality of my colleague is. Flying with a fellow female is always a treat though. My brother is also a British Airways pilot, and although I havent flown with him, I get the feeling we would be very similar. British Airways Four female pilots discuss life on the flightdeck Lucy Tardrew: Boeing 747 captain at Virgin Atlantic Lucy Tardrew had always wanted to join the RAF, she says, but it was never allowed to happen  because they werent taking girls at the time. Instead, she travelled to America, where she trained before becoming a flying instructor. After returning to the UK and converting her licences, she began flying night mail  literally all the posts around the country at night  before stints flying executive jets, and last-minute jobs including air ambulances and freighting transplant organs, before joining Virgin 23 years ago. Tardrew is enthusiastic about the company, but is saddened that the ratio of women in the industry as a whole remains low. As for challenges in the workplace, shes never experienced any discrimination. Noting the rare pay equality in the piloting industry, Tardrew feels the reason there arent more female pilots is down to the fact that there arent enough female role models for schoolchildren to think, Im going to become an airline pilot. Virgin Atlantic Four female pilots discuss life on the flightdeck Kate McWilliams: captain at easyJet At 26, Kate McWilliams became the youngest commercial captain in the world. I love being a captain for easyJet, she says. And Im really happy to be working for an airline that is working hard to increase the number of female pilots. Flying was always her goal  but she didnt realise how far she could take it. I joined the air cadets at 13-years-old, but it wasnt until much later that I realised I could become a commercial pilot, she says. EasyJet is aiming to inspire young women, with the Amy Johnson Flying Initiative and their sponsorship of the Brownies, giving girls aged seven to 10 the opportunity to earn an Aviation Badge. The work its doing is really important. The Amy Johnson Flying Initiative was launched in October 2015 with the aim of doubling the number of female new entrant pilots, to 12 per cent, over a two-year period. After achieving its aim in the first year, the airline set a target of 20 per cent for new entrant cadet pilots in 2020. easyJet

The London Fire Brigade has announced its support for the Advertising Standards Authoritys initiative to ban sexist advertising, which states that adverts must not include gender stereotypes that are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence.

Furthermore, in October last year the brigade launched its #FirefightingSexism campaign in an effort to encourage people to stop using the term fireman and opt for firefighter instead.

Out of 5,000 firefighters working in the London Fire Brigade, approximately 300 are women, making up a mere six per cent of the workforce.

It was 30 years ago that people were shocked to see women police officers and its frankly embarrassing that the public are still shocked to see women firefighters today, says Cotton.

The armed forces and the police force have all been enriched by having women better represented across their ranks and its time the fire and rescue service caught up.

Now its time for advertisers, journalists and marketers to stop relying on lazy cliches and help change attitudes which will in turn encourage more women to embark on a wonderful and fulfilling career in the fire service.

The YouGov poll was carried out in June last year and released today.
The number of people reporting problems with bailiffs has soared since the government implemented reforms that were supposed to protect people from unscrupulous practices.

With household debt rising and Citizen's Advice reporting examples of "aggressive" behaviour from a minority of bailiffs, it is important to know your rights if they do contact you to enforce payment of a debt.

What powers do bailiffs have?

Bailiffs, now officially known as enforcement agents, have the legal power to remove items from your home and sell them to pay off your debt. In most cases, they can only do this after your creditor has taken you to court.

In Scotland, the equivalent of bailiffs are sheriff officers, who have slightly different powers. Bailiffs are not allowed to operate in Northern Ireland.

Notice of enforcement

Once a bailiff has been hired to collect your debt they will send you a letter known as a notice of enforcement. This lays out the particulars of the debt.

For your notice to be valid it must:

show your correct name and address

show what debt you owe and state the correct amount

explain that you have seven days' notice before the bailiffs can visit, not including the day the notice is served, Sundays or bank holidays.

come from a registered bailiff not a debt collector - you can check on the Bailiffs Register on the Justice website

be sent to you by letter - either by post, fax, email, by being fixed to your front door if you don't have a letterbox or by being given to you

be written in a certain legal style - see example of a notice of enforcement on GOV.UK

Check if you owe the debt

Youre not responsible for a debt if youre not named on the credit agreement for it. Collect as much evidence as you can to show that you are not responsible for a debt and send this to the bailiffs.

For example, proof that you have already paid it or documents showing that the person who actually owes the money has a similar name to you but is not you. If you arent sure whether the debt is yours, contact the creditor named on the enforcement notice.

Can bailiffs enter my home?

If you are not able to pay off the debt within the seven days or show that you do not owe it, the bailiffs can visit you at your home.

You usually do not have to open your door to a bailiff or let them in but they are allowed to enter through any door that's left open.

Bailiffs cannot enter your home:

by force, for example by pushing past you

if only children under 16 or vulnerable people (with disabilities, for example) are present

between 9pm and 6am

through anything except the door

What if I dont let the bailiffs in?

If you dont let a bailiff in or agree to pay them they could take things from outside your home like your car. However, they cannot take a car thats on a hire purchase agreement.

Citizens Advice recommends not letting a bailiff into your home because its always better to try to sort out your debt by keeping them outside and speaking through the door or over the phone.

Can bailiffs break into my home?

In rare cases, a bailiff will sometimes have the right to force entry by asking a locksmith to open your door if you wont let them in.

According to Citizens Advice: Its very unlikely theyll do this - you should still have the chance to pay without them coming in.

Instances where they may be able to force entry include non-payment of magistrates court fines or taxes owed to HM Revenue and Customs.

They will need a written document from a court authorising this and they cannot break your door down; they must use reasonable force, meaning a locksmith must gain entry.

Call 999 if you are being physically threatened by a bailiff.

What can bailiffs take?

If you do let a bailiff in but do not pay them they are allowed take some of your belongings and sell the items to pay debts and cover their fees.

The first time bailiffs visit your home, they will normally take an inventory of the items you have and the make you sign a controlled goods agreement which lays out a payment plan for the debt and any bailiffs fees.

If you do not make the repayments, they can take your possessions but they cannot take:

things you need, such as your clothes, cooker or fridge

work tools and equipment which together are worth less than 1,350

someone elses belongings, such as your partners computer

For more help and advice on how to deal with debt and bailiffs, visit:

For free advice on dealing with debt, call StepChange on 0800 138 1111 Monday to Friday 8am-8pm and Saturday 8am-4pm.
Students from the poorest families in England are nine times more likely to attend secondary schools which are rated inadequate compared to their wealthiest peers, according to an analysis of Ofsted data conducted by the Labour Party.

As students across the country wait to receive their GCSE results on Thursday, the research also found the most deprived students were half as likely to be enrolled in an outstanding school.

By analysing Ofsted data from March, Labour found 9 per cent of deprived pupils go to a school which is rated inadequate, compared to only 1 per cent of the least deprived.

It also found the poorest pupils were half as likely to attend an outstanding school, with only 19 per cent going to one, compared to 44 per cent of the wealthiest students.

Russell Hobby, chief executive of the charity TeachFirst, said parents from low income backgrounds often face an unequal choice when it comes to their childrens school offering whats best for them, with many outstanding schools concentrated in wealthier areas.

He said: We know that teachers are doing an incredible job of supporting their pupils from day one, by sparking their creativity and imaginations. But for children from poorer backgrounds, there are still challenges that must not be ignored.

Part of the solution will include targeted funding like the pupil premium, so it is our firm belief that this must be protected in real terms. Equally, great teaching and leadership is just as vital, so it is crucial then that government and the education sector continues to work together to ensure we attract more great teachers to areas of the greatest need.

 'Stark' North-South gap in GCSE results needs urgent government intervention, say MPs

Last year, a report from the Fair Education Alliance found that the poorest children in Britain are more than a year behind their wealthier peers by the time they sit their GCSEs.

Angela Rayner, the shadow secretary of state for education, said: No child should be held back from reaching their potential because of their background.

While the Tories have gifted tax cuts to big businesses, per pupil funding has been cut in real terms. It is the most vulnerable children paying the price for the resulting crisis in our education system.

The next Labour government will invest in a National Education Service, giving our schools the funding they need to raise standards and improve outcomes, so every child gets the education they deserve, regardless of their background.

A-level results 2018  in pictures Show all 21 1 /21 A-level results 2018  in pictures A-level results 2018  in pictures Students celebrate their A Level results from Ark Academy in Wembley PA A-level results 2018  in pictures Charlie Jenner, Nathan Sharp and Abhinav Boddu receive their A Level results at Norwich School PA A-level results 2018  in pictures Students collect their A Level results at Brighton College PA A-level results 2018  in pictures Students celebrate their A Level results from Ark Academy in Wembley PA A-level results 2018  in pictures Twins Himmat (left) and Arjun Sohal, who both got 3 A's in Maths, Physics and Chemistry, and will both be going to Bath Universirty to study Chemical Engineering, celebrate their A Level results at Peter Symonds College, Winchester PA A-level results 2018  in pictures Students celebrate their A Level results from Ark Academy in Wembley PA A-level results 2018  in pictures Alex Cox receiving his A Level results at Mander Portman Woodward College, Edgbaston, Birmingham PA A-level results 2018  in pictures Students react as they receive their 'A' level results at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form in London Reuters A-level results 2018  in pictures Moyle Oloko with her results at Brighton College in East Sussex PA A-level results 2018  in pictures Grace El-Mokadem, Maddie Backhouse, Claudia Ballard and Sophie Plumber read their A Level results at Brighton College in East Sussex PA A-level results 2018  in pictures Twins Emily and Molly Goldberg receive their A Level results at Merchant Taylor School in Crosby, Merseyside PA A-level results 2018  in pictures A student reacts as she receives her 'A' level results at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form in London REUTERS A-level results 2018  in pictures Students react as they receive their 'A' level results at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form in London Reuters A-level results 2018  in pictures Simran Kaur Bahia 20 receiving her A Level results gaining an A*, A and B at Mander Portman Woodward College, Edgbaston PA A-level results 2018  in pictures Students pose for a photograph as they receive their A Level results from from Merchant Taylor School in Crosby, Merseyside PA A-level results 2018  in pictures Amanda Georgevic with daughter Phoebe Georgevic 19, who got two A's and one B in her A Level results at Mander Portman Woodward College, Edgbaston PA A-level results 2018  in pictures Students react as they receive their 'A' level results at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form in London Reuters A-level results 2018  in pictures Harriet Selway, 17, left, and Niamh Davies, 17, right, both from Horfield, Bristol, react as they open their A Level results at St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School PA A-level results 2018  in pictures Eleanor Elizabeth Sykes 18 receiving her A Level results gaining 2 A's at Mander Portman Woodward College, Edgbaston PA A-level results 2018  in pictures A group of students talk after receiving their A Level results at Mander Portman Woodward College PA A-level results 2018  in pictures A student reacts as she receives her 'A' level results at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form in London Reuters

The governments minister for school standards, Nick Gibb, said: Across the country there are now more good or outstanding schools and more pupils benefiting from the excellent education they provide than in 2010, rising from 66 per cent to 86 per cent in that time.

This includes more than half a million pupils who were typically in previously underperforming schools that have been turned around after becoming sponsored academies.

The attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers has shrunk at various levels 14 per cent in the early years, 10 per cent at age seven and 10 per cent at GCSE level  and on A level results day last week we saw record rates of disadvantaged 18 year olds getting into university.

We are also putting more money into our school system than ever before, and are investing 2.4bn a year specifically to help disadvantaged pupils alongside schemes like the Opportunity Areas programme which is taking action to improve opportunities for young people who need it most.
England will be short of nearly 400,000 carers to look after the booming older population unless it strikes a deal to guarantee the free movement of EU staff on which the sector relies, a new analysis claims.

Using Office of National Statistics data, the think tank Global Future predicts England will have a shortfall of 380,000 workers by 2026 unless low-skilled roles can be filled with people from overseas, something at odds with government Brexit plans.

The UKs 1.34 million adult social care workforces is currently short of 90,000 staff, a vacancy rate of 6.6 per cent  three times higher than the UK labour market average.

Demand for carers is growing as the UKs population ages, with 1.5 million more people over 75 expected in England by 2026 around 420,000 more workers will be needed to keep up.

But chronic underfunding of social care has seriously harmed the sectors ability to recruit from the UK, and without something to enable staff from overseas to come and work it is only likely to get 10 per cent of the growth it needs.

Global Future director Peter Starkings told The Independent the government must not make it harder to attract people to work in the UK after Brexit.

Ministers have got to stop treating social care as an afterthought and get serious about ensuring our loved ones are properly cared for, Mr Starkings said.

Keeping free movement in the sector is a first step, but the government has to do more. Without action our care sector faces a staffing shortfall of almost 400,000 by 2026.

That must not be allowed to happen.

Other requirements to fortify the sector include a national recruitment campaign and opportunities for career progression, which the government says it is planning.

It has yet to commit to pay increases and funding for the sector which has endured nearly a decade of austerity and no end is in sight.

One in every six adult social care roles in England is filled by carers from outside the UK. Strict visa limits on low-skilled workers have seriously curtailed the ability of staff from outside the EU to work, so and the EU workforce has increased to fill this gap.

However, leaked drafts of the governments Brexit plans suggest similar caps for low-skilled workers from the EU will be introduced when the UK leaves and this could spell disaster for the sector.

NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday Show all 18 1 /18 NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday Nurses test the hearing of a newborn child Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday The waiting room is busy in Milton Keynes University Hospital Reuters NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday On Ward 24, two nurses work at the nurses station Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday In A&E, a porter rushes a patient through the corridor Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday A surgical team prepares a patient for their operation Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday In the physiotherapy department, patients are treated in the hydrotherapy pool Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday On Ward 8, an inpatient awaits visitors Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday In the physiotherapy department, amputees take a class Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday A junior doctor is at work in the staff room Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday A surgical team prepares a patient for their operation Reuters NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday An inpatient has her hair washed by the staff hairdressers Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday In the audiology department, a mother watches on as her son is given a hearing test Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday On Ward 8, staff serve lunch to the patients Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday On Ward 24, a patient waits on their bed Reuters NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday On Ward 8, a cleaner is at work Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday A nurse takes blood from a patient Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday On Ward 8, an inpatient receives a visitor Reuters/Hannah McKay NHS at 70: Pride and worry as free health service celebrates birthday Inpatient Donald Ritson lies in bed in Ward 24 in Milton Keynes University Hospital Reuters

If freedom of movement continues after 2019, Global Future predicts the workforce will continue to grow at current rates and will be 115,000 stronger by 2026  a shortfall of 265,000.

Experts and polling suggests the prospect of Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal increasingly looks like a 50/50 chance, and the uncertainty for workers is making matters worse.

The governments chaotic approach to Brexit is making the workforce crisis in social care even worse, said Barbara Keeley MP, Labours shadow minister for social care.

Ministers should immediately make clear that health and care staff are welcome here to care for our sick and our elderly after Britain leaves the European Union.

The government has said leaving the EU will mean an immigration system that works for the whole of the UK.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: We recognise the invaluable contribution of social care workers and we are confident of reaching a deal with the EU which benefits our health and care workforce.

We want to promote adult social care as a career of choice and ensure the system is able to meet the demands of our growing ageing population. Thats why we are launching a recruitment campaign this autumn to raise the image and profile of the sector.
A Europe-wide measles outbreak blamed for 37 deaths has prompted questions about how families can protect their loved ones.

More than 41,000 people have been infected in the first six months of 2018  23 per cent higher that any annual total in the last eight years.

But experts are united on one simple solution: vaccinations.

Since 1968, there has been a safe and effective vaccine available for measles which virtually eliminates the risk of contracting the disease.

The current outbreak has hit hardest in countries where vaccination programmes are less robust and far reaching, the World Health Organisation said.

Ukraine accounts for 23,000 of the cases this year, but the virus has been able to spread to other countries with more developed health infrastructure and take root in groups who are not protected.

It is appalling that at least 37 people have died in Europe this year from a completely preventable disease and, although no deaths have so far been reported, in England there have been over 800 cases, said Professor Helen Bedford, from the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.

MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) is a safe, effective and readily available vaccine to prevent this highly infectious disease, she added.

While overall MMR uptake rates in the UK are generally high among young children, there are still pockets of lower uptake and some young people missed out on their vaccination when they were toddlers.

It is this group of young people, born after 1998, who are of most concern to health chiefs as MMR vaccination rates collapsed in the wake of a retracted and discredited paper in The Lancet medical journal that year linking the three-in-one jab to autism.

Its primary author, former British physician Andrew Wakefield, birthed the modern anti-vaxxer movement and now based in America has a global reach spreading scepticism about one of the most universal goods humanity has produced.

Measles, a highly contagious viral infection, is spread by close contact and causes a distinctive rash.

Without treatment it can lead to pneumonia, hepatitis, and infections of the brain and eyes which can leave victims blind or cause death.

With a vaccine preventable disease, one case is one too many, and the numbers of measles cases so far this year is astounding, said Dr Pauline Paterson, co-director of the Vaccine Confidence Project team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

 Andrew Wakefield defends his decision to spread his anti-vaccination message in America

Measles is a highly infectious disease that can spread rapidly and lead to serious complications  a very high vaccination coverage of 95 per cent is needed for community protection. If the coverage dips below this in certain regions, measles cases can spread and outbreaks can and are occurring.

A decision not to vaccinate puts everyone at risk, particularly the very young who may not have had both stages of their jab.

Outbreaks in the UK have been isolated, usually linked to travel to and from hotspots on the continent.

But Public Health England has stressed it is never too late to catch up with a vaccination, and urged teenagers heading to Europe this summer, those about to start university, or anyone with concerns to see their GP and make sure they are fully protected.
The first living thing to emerge on our planet appeared at least 100 million years earlier than previously thought, according to a new study.

Around 3.9 billion years ago  shortly after the Earth had been struck by the planet Theia and while it still faced a barrage of meteors  the ancestor of all living things sprang into being.

Scientists have traditionally used the fossil record to trace the origins of life on Earth, but the further back in the planets history they travel the more difficult this becomes.

The problem with the early fossil record of life is that it is so limited and difficult to interpret  careful reanalysis of the some of the very oldest fossils has shown them to be crystals, not fossils at all, explained PhD student Holly Betts from the University of Bristol, the lead author of the study.

In their research, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, Ms Betts and her colleagues used a combination of fossil and genetic data to trace back the so-called Luca  the last universal common ancestor.

Fossils do not represent the only line of evidence to understand the past, said co-author Professor Philip Donoghue.

A second record of life exists, preserved in the genomes of all living creatures.

Science news in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Science news in pictures Science news in pictures Pluto has 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there." Getty Science news in pictures Over 400 species discovered this year by Natural History Museum The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year PA Science news in pictures Jackdaws can identify 'dangerous' humans Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average. Getty Science news in pictures Turtle embryos influence sex by shaking The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal Ye et al/Current Biology Science news in pictures Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. Reuters Science news in pictures Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A. Gennari Science news in pictures Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson Science news in pictures Giant bee spotted Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt Science news in pictures New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science news in pictures Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine, University of Maryland Science news in pictures Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty Science news in pictures Final warning to limit "climate catastrophe" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty Science news in pictures Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty/AFP Science news in pictures Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters/AP Science news in pictures Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn" Viktor Radermacher / SWNS Science news in pictures Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. ESO/A. Muller et al Science news in pictures New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs Jose Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary

By combining data from all available sources scientists are able to construct molecular clocks, based on the idea that the number of differences in genetic code between different species is proportional to the time since they shared a common ancestor.

Using information on 29 genes from a total of 102 living organisms, the team assembled a timeline with dates for the appearance of all the major groups of life forms, such as bacteria.

The scientists concluded that the hypothetical Luca existed before the late heavy bombardment when multiple meteors smashed into Earth.

This is far earlier than the oldest fossil evidence of life, which is no more than 3.8 billion years old.

While there are still uncertainties, the scientists knew that life on Earth could not stretch back further than 4.5 billion years, when Theia crashed into the fledgling planet.

This devastating event not only broke off pieces of the Earth that would ultimately form the Moon, it would have effectively sterilised the planet and killed any life already existing there.

As the first life consisted of tiny microscopic cells, surviving fossils are seldom found, and those that are have been the source of much debate.

Some have suggested the carbon found in a 4.1 billion-year-old mineral called zircon could be evidence of ancient life, but this has not been confirmed.
Scientists have found ice scattered across the Moon's surface. And it's a discovery that could have major consequences for other things up there, too.

Across the surface of our nearest neighbour is frozen ice, hiding out in places in the polar regions that aren't touched by the sun.

The breakthrough has prompted discussion a moon village that could allow people to live on the moon. From there, we could launch into the rest of our neighbourhood, providing vast new opportunities for space exploration.

And, as ever, it has prompted discussion of whether the water spread throughout our Solar System might mean alien life is living far nearer to us than we think.

Does it mean there might be aliens?

Probably not. Nasa's ruling principle in its search for aliens has been to follow the water, since that is thought to be required for any kind of life, but that doesn't necessarily mean that life exists everywhere water does.

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427  more commonly known as WR 124  and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead  sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later  having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region

The environment on the Moon is still unremittingly harsh. It is freezing cold in the shade where the ice is, and devastatingly hot out of it; almost certainly too difficult for life. And that's not to get started on the radiation that pounds the Moon's surface.

Of course, we can't say for sure there aren't aliens; nobody can, until we've scoured the entire Moon. There might be forms of life that look entirely different to what we expect, and which are able to live in very harsh environments  we have certainly found such organisms down here on Earth.

Recommended Ice found on Moon surface in Nasa discovery

There are much better moons to go hunting for aliens on in our own solar system, anyway. Scientists are very excited about discoveries from Jupiter's moons Enceladus and Europa, for instance  both of which seem to have many more of the ingredients required for life than our relatively barren satellite.

And it's also worth noting that some scientists have suggested that there might once have been life on the Moon, even if it's not there anymore. That's probably not especially comforting if you're keen on meeting aliens  but whatever life we found on any Moon nearby would probably be very simple organisms, so are unlikely to have much of a chat with us anyway.

Can we go and live there?

The much more enticing prospect for life on the Moon is if, instead of searching for it, we put it there ourselves. The life we've been looking for might be our own.

The researchers behind the new paper noted that their discovery is of intriguing importance to those who hope to use the Moon's surface as a base, or a place to launch off to other more distant parts of the solar system.

We found direct and definitive evidence for surface-exposed water ice in the lunar polar regions, the researchers in the new paper, which is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The abundance and distribution of ice on the Moon are distinct from those on other airless bodies in the inner solar system such as Mercury and Ceres, which may be associated with the unique formation and evolution process of our Moon.

These ice deposits might be utilised as an in situ resource in future exploration of the Moon.

While we might be able to take the important parts of the infrastructure for life on the Moon up with us  the technology that would allow us to breathe and protect ourselves from the harsh environment, for instance  it will be far too resource intensive to take supplies like water at the same time. So things like water are key to being able to establish ourselves on the Moon.
Donald Trump has pledged to fight back against an effort to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), claiming that Democrats who support such a move are promoting violence and lawlessness, as he seeks to make immigration the single biggest issue ahead of crucial midterm elections

Speaking at the White House to a group of ICE officials and US Customs and Border Protection, the president called them "heroes" and vowed to support the efforts to secure Americas borders. Mr Trump built his presidential campaign around the issue of illegal immigration, and looks to be doing the same before November's vote, where Republicans will be seeking to keep control of Congress.

Our laws are no good. Our immigration laws are broken. Theyve been broken for years and the world is laughing at us. The world is laughing at the stupidity of what weve done with immigration, Mr Trump said.

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The true champions of justice are right in this room, he continued. And theyre proudly wearing the badge of law enforcement.

Looking forward to November, Mr Trump suggested that a vote for Democrats is a vote for lax border enforcement and, potentially, against the very existence of ICE. Providing an alternative to the vision he said some Democrats have for the future of American immigration enforcement, Mr Trump said he plans on securing a bigger budget for border enforcement agencies, reforming US immigration laws, and building his highly promoted US-Mexico border wall.

Sadly, in recent months, incredibly, a coalition of open boarders extremists  and, to me, that means crime, people who dont mind crime   have waged an unprecedented assault on our law enforcement, Mr Trump said of the movement to abolish ICE.

Families belong together protests over Trump immigration policy Show all 8 1 /8 Families belong together protests over Trump immigration policy Families belong together protests over Trump immigration policy Mishawaka, Indiana AP Families belong together protests over Trump immigration policy Washington DC AFP/Getty Images Families belong together protests over Trump immigration policy New York Mayor Bill De Blasio speaks in Tornillo, Texas alongside the many other US mayors who have called for detained immigrant children to be reunited with their families AP Families belong together protests over Trump immigration policy Albuquerque Mayor Tim Kelle leaves a teddy bear as a gift for detained immigrant children in Tornillo, Texas AP Families belong together protests over Trump immigration policy Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti leave sandals as gifts for detained immigrant children in Tornillo, Texas AP Families belong together protests over Trump immigration policy San Diego, California EPA Families belong together protests over Trump immigration policy US embassy, Mexico City AFP/Getty Images Families belong together protests over Trump immigration policy San Diego, California EPA

A blue wave means crime," Mr Trump said, talking about the possibility of Democrats turning enough seats to take control of the House of Representatives and possibly also the Senate. "It means open borders. Not good, the president added.

A push to abolish ICE has gained momentum in recent months after the Trump administration implemented a policy that separated thousands of immigrant children from their parents after entering into the United States.

That policy, known as zero-tolerance - so that all adults caught crossing the border illegally would be sent for prosecution - sparked bipartisan criticism of Mr Trumps immigration plan. It also led to protests outside of ICE field offices where the day to day operations of the agency were disrupted by demonstrations.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump signed an executive order to stop family separation, and a judge ordered the reunification of families separated by the Trump administration policies  a directive that has not yet been fully completed, with many human rights and aids groups still talking of a crisis at the border.

As those policies and outrage over American immigration policies has spread, the electoral wins of far left candidates such as New Yorks Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  who has called for the abolition of ICE  have bolstered the case, and even led to some in the Democratic partys so-called establishment to urge the end of the federal agency.

Mr Trump has struggled to pass meaningful legislation on immigration since taking office, in spite of Republican control of the House and the Senate. But, he has consistently pushed for bigger budgets for immigration enforcement agencies, while at the same time attempting to slash other agencies budgets.

He requested a 7.8 per cent increase to the budget for the Department of Homeland Security in 2019, for instance, which would peg that agencys budget at $47.5bn.
More than 160 Windrush citizens could have been wrongfully deported from the UK or detained, Home Office figures have revealed.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid released the figure in a letter to the chair of the home affairs select committee, Yvette Cooper, in which he also vowed to apologise to the families of 18 people most likely to have suffered detriment because their right to be in the UK was not recognised.

Amnesty International criticised the decision to only apologise to 18 of the individuals involved, saying it was worrying and cast doubt on the governments willingness to learn from the scandal.

Labour said the apology was nowhere near good enough and condemned the government for not having a clearer idea about the number of Windrush citizens affected.

Recommended Windrush citizens still waiting for cases to be resolved

A Home Office unit looked at 11,800 cases of Caribbean Commonwealth nationals who were removed or detained by the department since 2002.

Records of 83 deportees contained evidence they were in the UK before 1 January 1973, the date the 1971 Immigration Act granting them British citizenship came into force.

In its initial response to the Windrush scandal in April, the government said there was no evidence any individuals had been deported, although it revised the figure up to 63 cases in May.

It has since changed the way it calculates the totals, meaning people deported after being convicted of a crime are no longer counted  despite technically being British citizens due to their Windrush status.

A new category was also created for citizens who were removed because they appear to have then left the UK to reside overseas for more than two years, thereby losing their entitlement to indefinite leave to remain.

That category accounts for 74 of the 83 people removed. Neither those 74, or the unknown number who were removed after being convicted of a crime, are among those who will receive an apology.

Of the 83 Windrush citizens the Home Office now says it removed from the UK, 31 were detained beforehand, either at an immigration removal centre or a port.

A further 81 people thought to be Windrush citizens were detained but not deported.

Details of all 164 Windrush citizens have now been passed to a special taskforce who have started contacting them, the home secretary said.

Mr Javid said in the letter: It is clear from our internal analysis of these that features of individual cases are markedly different.

The way in which each individual was treated by the department, and the degree of detriment suffered, varied considerably.

In 18 of the cases records suggested they were detained or deported specifically because they could not demonstrate continuous residence in the UK.

In a statement, Mr Javid said: The experiences faced by some members of the Windrush generation are completely unacceptable and I am committed to righting the wrongs of the past.

I would like to personally apologise to those identified in our review and am committed to providing them with the support and compensation they deserve.

We must do everything we can to ensure that nothing like this happens again  which is why I have asked an independent adviser to look at what lessons we can learn from Windrush.

The letter comes after a June report by the Home Affairs Committee said the detention of the Windrush generation was not a mistake, but instead a symptom of a systemic failure of the Home Office.

Another report by the influential group in July criticised the Home Office for failing to provide full figures about the number of Windrush citizens affected by the scandal.

It said the Home Office must undergo total reform, warning that unless the department was overhauled the scandal will happen again for another group of people.

 Sajid Javid accused by Yvette Cooper of breaking promise by 'gagging' Windrush victims in return for fast-track compensation

The Home Office taskforce received 6,507 enquiries from possible Windrush cases between April  when it opened a call centre  and July, the letter to the Home Affairs Committee chair revealed.

Yet only 3,585 people had been given documentation confirming their status by last month  2,272 under initial arrangements and 1,465 under the governments formal Windrush scheme. The majority of the applicants were Jamaican nationals but the total also included people from Barbados, India, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago

The government has been accused of dragging its feet over a compensation scheme for the Windrush generation. A consultation on the issue is scheduled to run until October, meaning victims will have to wait until autumn for a decision on the programme.

Earlier this month The Independent reported the Home Office was gagging Windrush citizens with non-disclosure agreements in return for promises of fast-track compensation.

In response to Mr Javids letter, Labours shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said the apology to 18 of the victims was overdue and is nowhere near good enough.

The government has still not got a final figure on how many of our fellow citizens were deported, forced into so-called voluntary removals or detained as prisoners in their own country, she continued.

It is an insult that the home secretary has still failed to confirm when the promised compensation scheme will be up and running, after so many of our fellow citizens have been left destitute, in debt and jobless by the governments hostile environment.

Labour is calling for a hardship fund to be set up immediately to support these people ahead of the promised compensation scheme, which will clearly not be up and running for months.

Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Show all 15 1 /15 Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK The ex-troopship 'Empire Windrush' arriving at Tilbury Docks from Jamaica, with 482 Jamaicans on board, emigrating to Britain. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Jamaican immigrants being welcomed by RAF officials from the Colonial Office after the ex-troopship 'Empire Windrush' landed them at Tilbury. PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Alford Gardner who arrived in Britain in 1948 on the first Windrush ship to dock in Tilbury, Essex, speaking at his home in Leeds PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Alford Gardner in Leeds shortly after he arrived in Britain in 1948 on the first Windrush ship to dock in Tilbury, Essex PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Gardner was 22 years old when he boarded the ship in Kingston, Jamaica, with his brother Gladstone before they and hundreds of Caribbean migrants called on to rebuild post-war Britain disembarked the ship in Tilbury Docks PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Alford Gardner (right), during his RAF service in 1947 PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK The son of Ruth Williams, a Windrush-generation immigrant, wants to the leave the country after threats of deportation. According to his mother, Mr Haynes applied for British citizenship in 2016 but was rejected, despite Ms Williams having lived in the UK almost permanently since arriving from St Vincent and the Grenadines in 1959. Ruth Williams, 75, said she felt "betrayed" by Britain after the Home Office twice turned down applications for her 35-year-old son, Mozi Haynes, to remain in the country. Ms Williams is understood to have cancer and said she relies heavily on her son for support. PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK The British liner 'Empire Windrush' at port in 1954. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Ruth Williams, 75, with her British passport. "I feel betrayed and a second class citizen in my own country," she said. "This makes me so sad and the Home Office must show some compassion. "I am unwell and almost 75, I live on my own and I need my son to stay here. I need my family around me and I cant face being alone. He has applied to the Home Office and been refused twice." PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK From the top, hopeful Jamaican boxers Charles Smith, Ten Ansel, Essi Reid, John Hazel, Boy Solas and manager Mortimer Martin arrive at Tilbury on the Empire Windrush in the hope of finding work in Britain. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Jamaicans reading a newspaper whilst on board the ex-troopship 'Empire Windrush' bound for Tilbury docks in Essex. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK After half a century in Britain, Anthony Bryan decided it was time to go abroad. But the decision set off a nightmare that saw him lose his job, detained twice and almost deported to Jamaica. AFP/Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Jamaica-born Anthony Bryan poses outside his home in Edmonton, north London. Now 60 and a grandfather, Bryan thought the issue could be resolved swiftly, as he legally moved to Britain with his family as part of the Windrush generation of Caribbean migrants after World War II. In 1948, the ship Windrush brought the first group of migrants from the West Indies to help rebuild post-war Britain, and many others followed from around the Commonwealth. A 1971 law gave them indefinite leave to remain, but many never formalised their status, often because they were children who came over on their parents' passports and then never applied for their own. AFP/Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Three Jamaican immigrants (left to right) John Hazel, a 21-year-old boxer, Harold Wilmot, 32, and John Richards, a 22-year-old carpenter, arriving at Tilbury on board the ex-troopship 'Empire Windrush', smartly dressed in zoot suits and trilby hats. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Newly arrived Jamaican immigrants on board the 'Empire Windrush' at Tilbury in 1948. Getty

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UKs refugee and migrant rights programme director, said: The home secretarys apology to just 18 individuals is worrying and brings into question whether the Home Office has a realistic grasp on all the people it has wrongly detained and removed following the exposure of its appalling treatment of the Windrush generation.

The governments focus remains narrow, casting doubt on its willingness to learn the full lessons of what has gone so badly wrong. Refusal to recognise the rights of people entitled to live in this country continues even now.

Among those being denied their rights are the thousands of children, many born in the UK, who are blocked from claiming their British citizenship rights because of a profit-making fee they cannot afford.

The government should urgently change tack, properly scrutinise the myriad ways in which its policies and practices continue to wrongly treat people as if ineligible or unentitled to be here, and do all it can to ensure that people both know and can claim their rights.
Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has insisted European Union (EU) citizens will not be turfed out of the UK in the event a deal is not struck with the bloc.

After talks in Brussels, Mr Raab told the BBC that it was inconceivable rights for the 3.8 million EU citizens living in the country to remain would not be secured.

He added the UK had a moral obligation to move swiftly to ensure EU nationals were not forced to leave if negotiators are unable to agree terms before Britain leaves the bloc on 29 March next year.

We hugely value the contribution of the EU citizens here in the UK and Im confident that in the unlikely outcome we dont have a deal we will move swiftly to secure their position, he said. We value their contribution, we want them to stay, it is inconceivable we would do anything other than make sure they are legally in a position where they are secure to stay.

There is absolutely no question that you are going to see EU citizens turfed out, we have made that clear in the past, I have made that clear in the past and Im happy to give that reassurance again. We have got a moral obligation to make sure we do the right thing and in any event we are going to be setting out the contingency plans we have across the board and yes, that will affect EU citizens.

Meanwhile, the European Unions chief Brexit negotiator warned that the 27 nation bloc was not impressed by the blame game being played in the British press over the looming prospect of a no-deal scenario.

Michel Barnier told reporters in Brussels that many people had underestimated the social, economic and legal impacts of the UKs divorce from the union.

 What does a no-deal Brexit mean?

He added both sides would intensify negotiations in a bid to reach an agreement by October, with the Irish border question and numerous other details about the EU and Britains future relationship still to be resolved.

The negotiations are now entering the final stage. We have agreed that the EU and UK will negotiate continuously from now on and Dominic [Raab] and I will meet regularly to take stock and move the negotiations forward, he said.

Mr Raab had earlier said Britain was committed to leaving the EU next year regardless of whether or not a deal could be agreed.

Some of these hair-raising scare stories are very far from the truth, he added.
As Britain prepares to leave the EU on 29 March 2019, much uncertainty hangs in the air.

Will that fixed date be extended to allow for further negotiations? What kind of deal will we leave with and what scenarios will we face if we don't strike a deal?

And will there be a second referendum, to give the people a Final Say?

This will all become clearer in the months ahead, across a number of crucial votes, summits and negotiations.

We'll be keeping track of all the key dates to keep an eye out for, as one of the biggest political changes in British history approaches.

30 September - 3 October 2018: Conservative conference

The government will gather in Birmingham where Theresa May will deliver the key note speech just two weeks before the autumn's crucial EU summit.

18-19 October 2018: EU summit

This gathering of the 28 EU member states will be held in Austria, and it is the point at which all sides hope to agree the terms of the UK's withdrawal agreement. This will include the key issues of the Irish border and any potential trade deal between the two sides after Brexit.

17-18 November 2018: Special EU summit

A reconvening of the key players will take place in Brussels to try and thrash out the details.

13-14 December 2018: EU summit

The 28 EU member states will meet in Austria. This would be the final chance to agree any deal, if both sides are still willing to strike one.

November 2018 - January 2019: UK could vote on Brexit deal

If Theresa May has secured a deal with EU leaders in October, it will be during this session of parliament that MPs will vote on whether or not to accept it.

People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Show all 30 1 /30 People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Rex People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young protestor shouts as she takes part in the People's Vote demonstration against Brexit Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A protester's pro-EU t-shirt EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Gina Miller and Caroline Lucas EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Tens of thousands of people march through London EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Demonstrators at the People's Vote March Getty People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal 'Two months too young to decide on my future' REUTERS People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young girl joins in the march PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal An EU flag is draped across the statue of Winston Chruchill in Parliament Square REUTERS People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Vince Cable MP, Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller, Tony Robinson and Caroline Lucas MP join with crowds PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Crowds gather on Pall Mall PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A man resembling Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, joins EU supporters Reuters People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal People gather in Trafalgar Square REUTERS People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller and Tony Robinson PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EU supporters, calling on the government to give Britons a vote on the final Brexit deal, participate in the 'People's Vote' march REUTERS

Parliament will also pass an Implementation and Withdrawal Bill that sets out the full details of Brexit.

March 2019: EU summit to ratify Brexit deal

The 28 EU member states will meet in Brussels for the last time before Brexit, where they are expected to ratify the withdrawal agreement, if it has been passed by the UK parliament.

29 March 2019: Brexit Day

At 11pm on Friday 29 March next year, the UK will officially cease to be a member of the EU, although a transition period will remain in place until the end of 2020.
Cabinet minister Liam Fox has complained that British people are ignoring important opportunities in world trade because they are too obsessed with talking about Brexit and Brexit and Brexit.

The international trade secretary  a key figure in the Brexit camp  said competitors were focusing on how to exploit opportunities in China, the US and other growing markets, but that debate in the UK had too narrow a bandwidth.

It came after he suggested that Theresa Mays target to lower net migration to the tens of thousands could be dropped, setting him at odds with the prime minister.

At an event for business leaders at the Institute of Directors in London on Tuesday, Mr Fox said the UKs competitors were planning for up to 15 years into the future and he wanted the UK to widen our horizons, to lengthen our timeframes.

He said: Its really important that we dont have such a narrow bandwidth that we only think about Brexit.

Its really interesting when I go to China, when I go to other parts of the world, they talk about the global economy, they talk about tariffs, talk about the United States and China, they talk about the WTO [World Trade Organisation].

And in the UK we talk about Brexit and Brexit and Brexit. It is an important issue, but it isnt the only issue that is out there in terms of global trade.

 What does a no-deal Brexit mean?

He was setting out his plan to make Britain a 21st century exporting superpower, outlining the governments desire to increase exports as a proportion of UK GDP to 35 per cent.

Official figures released in June showed exports of UK goods and services hit a record 620bn last year, accounting for 30 per cent of UK GDP.

In the UK we talk about Brexit and Brexit and Brexit. It is an important issue, but it isnt the only issue International trade secretary Liam Fox

He argued that Brexit did not mean Britain would pull up the drawbridge but instead would be able to embrace the opportunities that the changing pattern of global trade presents.

He added: We must raise our ambitions, widen our horizons and expand our timescales.

Europe is, and will, continue to be an important market for our goods and services, but there is a world beyond Europe and a time beyond Brexit.

 The Bank of England governor says a no-deal Brexit will mean higher prices and disruption to trade as we know it

Earlier in the day Mr Fox raised doubts over whether the governments target to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands would last.

Asked on LBC Radio if it was the correct approach, he said: Well, that is the governments target at the moment. We will be reviewing what we do post-Brexit.

Pushed on whether he supported the target, he said: Naturally as a member of the cabinet I support the governments policy, but I think that we do need to look in the future at how we match our employment opportunities with our migration policy.

People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Show all 30 1 /30 People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Rex People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young protestor shouts as she takes part in the People's Vote demonstration against Brexit Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A protester's pro-EU t-shirt EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Gina Miller and Caroline Lucas EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Tens of thousands of people march through London EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Demonstrators at the People's Vote March Getty People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal 'Two months too young to decide on my future' REUTERS People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young girl joins in the march PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal An EU flag is draped across the statue of Winston Chruchill in Parliament Square REUTERS People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Vince Cable MP, Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller, Tony Robinson and Caroline Lucas MP join with crowds PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Crowds gather on Pall Mall PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A man resembling Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, joins EU supporters Reuters People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal People gather in Trafalgar Square REUTERS People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller and Tony Robinson PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EU supporters, calling on the government to give Britons a vote on the final Brexit deal, participate in the 'People's Vote' march REUTERS

Anti-immigration politicians have attacked the governments consistent failure to hit the target since it came in, while those in government around Ms May have been pushing for it to be scrapped for years.

Home secretary Sajid Javid has refused to explicitly say that he supported the target, but did insist he remained committed to the Conservative Partys manifesto.

George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor, said last year that no senior ministers supported the approach.

The Independent has been running the Drop The Target campaign for over a year in a bid to see the end of the blunt immigration policy, backed by Ms May since her days in the Home Office.
Labour is set to face further pressure to shift its position on a new referendum, as its sister party plans a series of key votes on its approach to Brexit.

The Co-operative Party, which stands on a joint slate with Labour, will vote in the autumn on whether to back a second referendum, single market membership and extending the Article 50 negotiating period.

All are currently against Jeremy Corbyns approach, but the Co-ops support would increase pressure on the leader to change tack, with dozens of Co-op MPs among Labours ranks in parliament.

But it would also threaten new tensions in the Labour Party, with one shadow cabinet member warning on Tuesday that a new referendum could spark civil disobedience in the UK.

It comes as The Independents campaign for a Final Say referendum on any Brexit deal reached by Ms May gathers pace, with more than 660,000 people having signed its petition.

Brexit is set to feature as a key battleground at this years Labour conference in Liverpool, with various wings of the party attempting to push Labours official policy towards a softer Brexit or even an anti-Brexit approach.

Labours Gareth Thomas MP, who also chairs the Co-op group of MPs, said: Given the huge significance of Brexit for the future of our country, for jobs, businesses and our global influence we believe [Co-op] members should have the opportunity to determine our position on whether there should be a vote on the final deal Theresa May offers up.

 What does a no-deal Brexit mean?

The Co-operative movement has always supported a strong relationship with Europe and Co-op businesses have dynamic trading relationships with European businesses, so it will be a particularly lively debate.

There are 38 Co-op MPs on the Labour benches, including senior members of Mr Corbyns front bench: shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth, shadow international development secretary Kate Osamor and shadow Welsh secretary Christina Rees.

Other shadow ministers such as Tracy Brabin, Anneliese Dodds, David Drew, Preet Kaur Gill, Rachael Maskell, Jim McMahon, Steve Reed and Jonathan Reynolds are also MPs attached to the Co-op party  which has some 12,000 members across the country.

One Labour source said: Given Labour looks like it is on a journey towards a softer Brexit, having the Co-op party putting its weight behind some of these things will increase pressure for Labour to do so as well.

Its going to be a massive issue at conference and Jeremy and the NEC will likely have to come up with some sort of statement that accommodates feeling among the membership that a shift is needed.

People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Show all 30 1 /30 People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Rex People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young protestor shouts as she takes part in the People's Vote demonstration against Brexit Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A protester's pro-EU t-shirt EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Gina Miller and Caroline Lucas EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Tens of thousands of people march through London EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Demonstrators at the People's Vote March Getty People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal 'Two months too young to decide on my future' REUTERS People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young girl joins in the march PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal An EU flag is draped across the statue of Winston Chruchill in Parliament Square REUTERS People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Vince Cable MP, Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller, Tony Robinson and Caroline Lucas MP join with crowds PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Crowds gather on Pall Mall PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A man resembling Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, joins EU supporters Reuters People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal People gather in Trafalgar Square REUTERS People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller and Tony Robinson PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EU supporters, calling on the government to give Britons a vote on the final Brexit deal, participate in the 'People's Vote' march REUTERS

The Co-op party will vote on whether to back a second referendum at its conference in Bristol in mid-October.

Labours official line is that it does not currently support a new referendum on Brexit, but Mr Corbyn has left the door open to a possible change in approach in the future.

Recommended Campaigners call for final vote on Brexit deal at Edinburgh rally

But as if to underline the tensions the issue could strain, Barry Gardiner, Labours shadow international trade secretary, warned this week that a second public vote could result in civil disobedience.

He also suggested the extreme right in Britain could benefit if people felt denied in achieving change through democratic means.

He said both Remain and Leave campaigners told voters at the 2016 referendum that their decision will determine the future of our country for the next 40 or 50 years.

Mr Gardiner went on: We meant it. Yes it may well be, and I certainly believe that we will in the short and medium term, be worse off economically as a result of Brexit and certainly the way the government is going.

[But] if you then say to peoplewell, because you voted in the wrong way, well give you another chance to get it right  that undermines the whole principle of democracy in this country.

You never give as much succour to the extreme right as when you cut off the mechanism of democratic change.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in Washington on Monday that he would "most likely" meet with the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong Un.

Top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un (L) meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore, on June 12, 2018. [File photo: Xinhua]

Speaking with Reuters in an interview at the White House, Trump said it would be "likely" when asked whether he and Kim would meet for the second time.

"It's most likely we will, but I just don't want to comment," Trump said, offering no details on the timing or venue.

He also said that he believes Pyongyang had taken specific steps toward denuclearization.

He added that he has "great chemistry" with Kim.

"I like him. He likes me," he said. "There's no ballistic missiles going up, there's a lot of silence ... I have very good personal relations with Chairman Kim, and I think that's what holds it together."

ON TURKEY

As U.S.-Turkey diplomatic deadlock lingered over an American pastor, Trump ruled out any possibility of concessions with Turkey over the case, and said he was not concerned at all that his tough stance on Turkey could hurt other economies.

"I think it's very sad what Turkey is doing. I think they're making a terrible mistake. There will be no concessions," he said in the interview.

Trump said he thought he had a deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to release Andrew Brunson after he had convinced Israel to free a detained Turkish citizen.

"Until now I had a very good relationship as you know with the president. I got along with him great. I had a very good relationship. But it can't be a one-way street. It's no longer a one-way street for the United States," said Trump.

Reuters quoted a U.S. senior official that Trump and Erdogan had met in Brussels in mid-July when they discussed how to solve Brunson's case, as "Turkey had sought U.S. help to persuade the Israelis to release a Turkish woman who was being held in Israel."

When asked about the potential damage of U.S. actions to other economies, the White House host said that "I'm not concerned at all. I'm not concerned. This is the proper thing to do."

Andrew Brunson, a 50-year-old Christian pastor, was detained two years ago in Turkey on spying charges, and would face up to 35 years in prison if found guilty.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury slapped sanctions on Turkey's justice and interior ministers on Aug. 1, citing their roles in the detention of Brunson.

Trump tweeted on Aug. 10 that he has authorized a doubling of tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum imports as their currency Lira slides rapidly downward against the U.S. dollar.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in response that problems with the United States over a series of differences can be solved easily but not with its current mindset.

Cavusoglu also said that Turkey has done its part in terms of preserving friendly relations with the United States, and once again accused Washington of supporting terrorist groups targeting Turkey.

ON RUSSIA, IRAN

In the interview, Trump also indicated that he would consider lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia if Moscow took some actions in such areas as Syria or Ukraine.

"I would consider it if they do something that would be good for us. But I wouldn't consider it without that," he said without mentioning the U.S. threat to sanction Russia in two phases, which has drawn bitter criticism from Moscow.

Trump has been widely attacked after his Helsinki meeting with Putin, due to his reconciliatory remarks that many saw as a sign of siding with Moscow against the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. elections.

The White House has said that the next meeting between Trump and Putin will be delayed until next year.

Turning to Iran, Trump said it did not matter to him whether he met Iran's leaders and there had been no U.S. outreach toward Iran to discuss possible talks.

"If they want to meet, fine. If they don't want to meet, I couldn't care less," he said.

The first round of U.S. re-imposed sanctions on Iran took effect earlier this month. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that any negotiation with the United States to solve the existing problems was an "obvious mistake."

"I have reiterated that we can not rely on American words and even their signature, therefore, negotiations with them are fruitless," he said.

Trump also said in the interview that "I'm constantly reviewing Afghanistan and the whole Middle East. We never should have been in the Middle East. It was the single greatest mistake in the history of our country."
A cabinet minister has indicated that Theresa Mays target to lower net migration to the tens of thousands could be dropped.

Liam Fox said that while the target was in place at the moment, the government needed to look at how it shaped its immigration policy in the future.

The International Trade Secretary has previously also made clear his concerns about the inclusion of students in the net migration target.

The indication that he believes changes to migration policy will be needed, come after Home Secretary Sajid Javid also refused to endorse the target in an interview.

The Independent has been running the Drop The Target campaign for over a year in a bid to see the end of the blunt immigration policy, backed by Ms May since her days in the Home Office.

Asked on LBC Radio if the target was the correct approach, Dr Fox said: Well, that is the governments target at the moment. We will be reviewing what we do post-Brexit.

Pushed on whether he supported the target, he said: Naturally as a member of the cabinet I support the governments policy but I think that we do need to look in the future at how we match our employment opportunities with our migration policy.

 Yvette Cooper: Its a massive chain round your neck, that immigration target, isnt it- Dont you want to ditch it

I think the big problem with free movement from Europe was that people were able to come to the United Kingdom without having a job and they were able to use our public services like schools and hospitals and housing without ever having contributed and I dont think the British public thought that was fair and neither do I.

Anti-immigration politicians have attacked the governments consistent failure to hit the target since it came in, whilst those in government around Ms May have been pushing for it to be scrapped for years.

We do need to look in the future at how we match our employment opportunities with our migration policy International trade secretary Liam Fox

Current Home Secretary Mr Javid has refused to explicitly say that he supported the target, but did insist he remained committed to the Conservative Partys manifesto.

George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor, said last year that no senior ministers supported the approach.

Net migration rose to 282,000 in 2017, up from 249,000 in 2016 while net migration from the EU fell to 101,000 in 2017, down from 133,000 in 2016 to its lowest level since 2012.

Even after Brexit, the fact that non-EU migration was also above 100,000 in the most recent figures shows just how difficult it could be to meet the target.
Chicago police have hit out at "cowardly" and "senseless" gun crime after at least 58 people were shot in another violent weekend across the city.

Six people were killed from the shootings that took place from Friday to Sunday night, Chicago Police Department (CPD) Superintendent Eddie Johnson said at a press conference. It was the second weekend in a month involving around 60 people being shot.

"It's no secret that we had another unacceptable violent weekend," he said. "I share the anger and frustration that many families are having today, mainly, because these acts are tragic, senseless and cowardly."

Recommended Chicago cops appeal for help after 66 shot and 12 killed over weekend

Tom Ahern, the assistant director of news affairs and communications at CPD reported that a three-year-old boy was among those wounded as a result of the shootings from the weekend.

Mr Johnson said that 83 illegal guns have since been confiscated "off the streets" since Friday and 29 people had been arrested on gun-related charges. Three persons of interest have since been placed in custody. The police superintendent stated that 26 of the 58 people wounded by guns over the weekend were known to CPD through arrests or criminal histories.

"As long as we fail to create repercussions for carrying or using illegal guns, or more importantly, hold repeat violent offenders accountable for their actions, we're simply going to continue to have these discussions on Monday mornings," Mr Johnson said.

Students walk out of US schools to protest gun violence Show all 10 1 /10 Students walk out of US schools to protest gun violence Students walk out of US schools to protest gun violence Young people march from the White House to Capitol Hill while participating in the national school walkout over gun violence. EPA Students walk out of US schools to protest gun violence Thousands of local students march down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the US Capitol during a nationwide student walkout for gun control. AFP/Getty Students walk out of US schools to protest gun violence A student has the words,'don't shoot,' written on her hands as she joins with other students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after walking out of their school to honor the memories of 17 students and teachers that were killed. Getty Students walk out of US schools to protest gun violence Students take part in a walkout at General McLane High School. AP Students walk out of US schools to protest gun violence Students from Harvest Collegiate High School stand in Washington Square Park in New York to take part in a national walkout to protest gun violence. AFP/Getty Students walk out of US schools to protest gun violence Students rally in front of the White House in Washington after walking out of school to protest gun violence in the biggest demonstration yet of the student activism that has emerged in response to last month's massacre of 17 people at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. AP Students walk out of US schools to protest gun violence Airport High School juniors Tony LaFata, 16, left, and Noah Doederlein, 17, stands for a moment of silence during a walkout at General McLane High School. AP Students walk out of US schools to protest gun violence Young people rally on the West Front of the US Capitol to participate in the national school walkout over gun violence, in Washington. EPA Students walk out of US schools to protest gun violence Students from Passaic High School hold photos of some of the 17 victims killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. AP Students walk out of US schools to protest gun violence Students join hands as they take part in a student walkout in Lafayette. AP

He added: "It's the same people who are pulling the triggers in some of these communities  this isn't a widespread issue among Chicagoans  it's the same people."

According to NBC Chicago, at least 18 people were reported to be injured in shootings on Friday, with at least 17 more injured in shootings on Saturday and 18 injured on Sunday. The weekend's first fatality reportedly occurred Saturday evening; a man in his twenties was found lying on the sidewalk with a gunshot wound to his back, NBC reported. The victim succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead at a local hospital, police say.

Two bodies were discovered in an empty field in the citys far south side just before midnight on Sunday evening following reports that two teens were reported missing days prior.

CPD told The Independent that the identifies of the bodies have not yet been confirmed. It is not immediately clear how long their bodies had been at the location.

Earlier this month, Chicago police appealed for extra help from the judicial system and its federal partners after a weekend of gang-related gun violence where more than 60 people were shot.

"We will not be defeated, said police chief Fred Waller at the time. We wont be overrun by that small element thats committing these reckless acts.

Mr Johnson said in the press conference on Monday that the "Chicago Police Department simply cannot do this alone."
 Close Press conference following Michael Cohen's charge with campaign finance violations, fraud and tax evasion

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, has pleaded guilty to eight felony charges including tax evasion and campaign finance violations stemming from payments during the 2016 presidential campaign to women who claim they had an extramarital affair with the president.

During a court appearance in Manhattan on Tuesday, Mr Cohen told the judge that he was aware of what he was doing before pleading guilty to the charges, shocking those in attendance by admitting that he worked "at the direction of candidate" Trump to attempt to silence Karen McDougal  a former Playboy playmate who has claimed she had an affair with Mr Trump  in 2016, and worked "with and at the direction of the same candidate" to deliver a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to silence her own claims of an affair.

Mr Cohen did not specifically use his former boss' name while pleading guilty, but he was employed by Mr Trump  then a presidential candidate  at the time of the payments.

Mr Cohen is known for his previously close relationship with Mr Trump, and has repeatedly been described as his "fixer" for difficult matters. That proximity means Mr Cohen could potentially create substantial legal headaches for Mr Trump, whose 2016 presidential campaign is being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller for any potential cooperation with Russian election meddling.

The guilty pleas came just minutes apart from the first jury convictions of Mr Mueller's investigation, when former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted on eight charges of bank or tax fraud at a federal courthouse in Virginia. Those chargers were not directly related to the president.

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Residents of a New York high-rise have been left fearing for their lives amid a spate of shootings directed at the apartment building over the weekend.

An unidentified gunman has been targeting One East River Place  located in the citys Upper East Side  from across the water on Roosevelt Island, law enforcement sources told The New York Post.

The first shooting, understood to have taken place overnight between Thursday and Friday, was reportedly directed at an apartment on the 14th floor of the building. The tenant awoke on Friday morning to find the living room floor strewn with smashed glass.

Less than 24 hours later, an apartment on the 32nd floor of the building was allegedly targeted by the gunman. This time, the apartments tenant was woken in the early hours of Saturday morning by the shattering of the living-room window.

Police reportedly matched the timing of the second shooting with 911 calls from an apartment building on Roosevelt Island  1,400ft across the East River  which had reported suspected gun shots.

Investigators think its some a**hole standing on a balcony shooting across the river, an NYPD insider told The New York Post.

Residents of One East River Place have spoken of their fear following the shootings.

Im petrified for my life, said Ilene Epstein, 55, who lives in a river-facing apartment in the building.

Roosevelt Island can be seen on the right of the East River (Bloomberg via Getty Images)

I moved into this apartment because of the river. I have beautiful views, said Ms Epstein. [But] Ill move out of my building before I walk around with a bulletproof vest.

Arik Cohen, a 45th-floor resident, said: What world do I live in? Who shoots randomly?

My wife is in Long Island with our baby. Maybe I should call her and tell her to stay there for a few days, added Mr Cohen, a 37-year-old computer programmer.

Im already planning on leaving New York. This is just one more reason.
A science advocacy group has hit out at Donald Trumps abysmal track record on science policy.

In a new report, the Union of Concerned Scientists surveyed scientists across 16 federal agencies, wrote that the president has been undermining long-established processes for science to inform public policy.

a year and a half into the Trump administration, its record on science policy in several agencies and departments is abysmal, the Washington DC-based organisation added.

The report said Mr Trumps policies have presented significant challenges related to the development and use of science to protect the public from environmental and public health threats.

They cite beginning the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement, repealing the Clean Power Plan, staff reductions at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), hiring freezes across agencies, and a degree of censorship in public-facing government documents and websites - like the phrase climate change being eliminated - as some of the contributing factors to their conclusion.

The Independent had interviewed scientists who had been consulting with the EPA who had either resigned in protest to the administrations policies or not had their contracts renewed in 2017. One said he did not want to be a future prop for bad science.

Regulated industries possess increasing power to influence what science is used in policymaking, while public voices are increasingly excluded, UCS wrote in the report.

In the case of the EPA consulting scientists, many had been replaced with industry professionals per the agencys own admission.

Of the scientists surveyed, UCS found there was consistent political interference in scientists work, low morale, decreased agency effectiveness, and dwindling resources.

The report found the EPA and Department of Interior far[ed] poorly but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were doing relatively well, according to the advocacy organisation.

When federal scientists cant carry out their work, its the public that suffers, Charise Johnson, a UCS research analyst, said.
Donald Trump's former campaign chairman has been found guilty on eight counts of bank and tax fraud, a jury has ruled.

The jury was undecided on the 10 other counts against political strategist Paul Manafort, leading Judge TS Ellis to declare a mistrial on those charges.

The jury took four days to find Mr Manafort guilty on on five counts of tax fraud, one count of failing to disclose his foreign bank accounts, and two counts of bank fraud.

Recommended Jury enter fourth day of deliberations in Manafort trial

An attorney for Mr Manafort said his client was disappointed by the ruling, and was evaluating all of his options.

Mr Manafort had pleaded not guilty to all 18 charges. No sentencing date has been set, as his attorneys have until 29 August to decide if they will seek a retrial. Prosecutors previously recommended eight to 10 years in prison if he was found guilty on all charges.

The decision came as Michael Cohen, the president's long-term personal lawyer, pleaded guilty to campaign finances charges in a separate case.

 Ex-Trump Campaign Chair Manafort's Court Arrival

Mr Manafort is the first former Trump campaign official to be found guilty on charges stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Mr Trump has repeatedly dismissed Mr Mueller's investigation as a "witch hunt" and called for it to end. He has also been quick to point out that this case does not involve Mr Manafort's work on his campaign, or contain any allegations of Trump team collusion with Russia.

Arriving in West Virginia for a rally on Tuesday night, the president said he "felt badly" for Mr Manafort, but added that the case had "nothing to do with me".

In previous tweets, Mr Trump has suggested that his campaign manager's case was handled unfairly, saying Mr Manafort was being "treated worse" than legendary mafia boss Al Capone.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

After the jury's verdict was released, vice chair of the Senate intelligence committee Mark Warner said the decision "makes it absolutely clear that the Mueller probe is not a witch hunt  it is a serious investigation that is rooting out corruption and Russian influence on our political system at the highest levels".

"The presidents campaign manager was just convicted of serious federal crimes by a jury of his peers, despite the presidents continued attempts to undermine the investigation which has brought Mr Manafort to justice," he added.

A number of Democratic senators joined Mr Warner in calling for an end to any talk of pardoning Mr Manafort. Senator Patrick Leahy said any attempt to pardon the strategist would "have Watergate written all over it".

 Related video: Donald Trump refuses to say if he'll pardon Paul Manafort

The jury had signalled their disagreement on some of the charges earlier on Tuesday, asking the judge how they should fill out the jury form if they could not reach consensus on a single count.

Mr Ellis reconvened the panel in open court, according to the Associated Press, and urged them to listen to one another.

You are not partisans," he said. "You are judges.

The trial itself took three weeks, with prosecutors alleging Mr Manafort had hidden tens of millions of dollars in foreign bank accounts, and lied to US banks in order to obtain even more money in loans. Much of the testimony centred around the political operative's lavish spending, including a $15,000 ostrich jacket.

"When you follow the trail of Mr Manafort's money, it is littered with lies," prosecutor Greg Andres told the jury, according to CBS News.

The adviser faces a separate set of charges in Washington surrounding his political work in Ukraine. That trial is set to begin next month.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 Close Donald Trump refuses to say if he'll pardon Paul Manafort

The jury in the financial fraud trial of Donald Trumps former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, has found him guilty on eight counts of bank and tax fraud, but was unable to reach a consensus on 10 other charges.

The convictions mark the first trial victory stemming from the Russia investigation being led by special counsel Robert Mueller, and which is working to determine to what extent  if any  members of the Trump 2016 campaign colluded or worked together with Russian officials to impact the outcome of that election. At least four individuals who worked on the 2016 campaign have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from Mr Mueller's investigation.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

While observers have suggested that the guilty verdict against Mr Manafort could impact others in Trump's orbit, the charges he faced were not directly related to his work for the Trump campaign  though some of the alleged actions brought up by prosecutors did occur while Mr Manafort worked for the campaign.

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In a stunning day of developments, Donald Trump's former lawyer has claimed he violated campaign laws at the direction of "the candidate", just as the president's former campaign manager was separately convicted of bank and tax fraud.

The president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to violating campaign laws at a Manhattan court and said he was acting for the "purpose of influencing the (presidential) election".

He told the judge that he was aware of what he was doing before pleading guilty to the charges, admitting that he worked "at the direction of candidate" when he attempted to buy the silence of Karen McDougal, a former Playboy playmate who has claimed she had an affair with Mr Trump in 2016.

Mr Cohen also admitted that he worked "with and at the direction of the same candidate" to deliver a $130,000 (100,000) payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to silence her claims about an affair.

Although did not mention Mr Trump's name, he was employed by the billionaire businessman, then a presidential candidate, at the time the payments were made.

Mr Cohen's admission came minutes after the jury in the trial of Paul Manafort, the president's former campaign manager, returned a guilty verdict in eight counts of bank and tax fraud.

The jury took four days to find Mr Manafort guilty on on five counts of tax fraud, one count of failing to disclose his foreign bank accounts, and two counts of bank fraud.

Mr Cohen is known for his previously close relationship with Mr Trump, and has repeatedly been described as his "fixer" for difficult matters. That proximity means Mr Cohen could potentially create substantial legal headaches for Mr Trump, whose 2016 presidential campaign is being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller for collusion with Russia.

The case against Mr Cohen was referred to New York's Southern District by Mr Mueller. There was no mention of a cooperation agreement between Mr Cohen and federal prosecutors. The lawyer was freed after his court appearance on a $500,000 (387,000) bond. He will return in December for his sentencing.

In addition to the payments to Mr Trump's alleged mistresses, prosecutors have been investigating Mr Cohen for over $20m (15m) worth of bank and tax fraud.

Mr Cohen also pleaded guilty to five counts of tax evasion and one count of providing a false statement to a bank.

Mr Trump and Mr Cohen have a relationship that stretches back to the mid-2000s, when the lawyer took the Mr Trump's side in a legal dispute with the condo board at Trump World Tower in Manhattan. Mr Cohen, who owned condominiums in multiple Trump branded buildings in New York City, eventually went to work for the Trump Organization, where he held positions including special counsel to Mr Trump and executive vice president of the organisation.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

That work for Mr Trump extended into the 2016 election campaign, when Mr Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in reported hush money to try and keep her silent about an alleged affair between the actress and Mr Trump in 2006, just after the future president had had a child with Melania Trump. Mr Trump has denied the affair ever occurred, and has previously denied having any knowledge of the payment at the time it was made just before the general election.

But the apparent close relationship between the two appears to have soured in recent months, especially after the FBI raided Mr Cohen's offices, hotel, and home. Since then, the man who has said he would take a bullet for Mr Trump has signalled publicly that his allegiances may not always lie with Mr Trump, saying a month ago on ABC News that he would put his "family and country first" if he was offered a lenient sentence from prosecutors in exchange for providing information on Mr Trump. That statement followed after Mr Cohen's lawyer, Lanny J Davis, released a secret audio recoding of a conversation with Mr Trump that appeared to show him admitting to knowledge of the hush-money that was provided to Daniels.

Reacting to the news, Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti tweeted to White House lawyer Rudy Giuliani, taunting the attorney for the way has handled the case.

He said that Mr Cohen's case will make it easier his client to compel the president to submit to a deposition under oath as a part of the civil case they have brought against him.

"Buckle up Buttercup. You and your client completely misplayed this," Mr Avenatti tweeted after news broke that Mr Cohen was set to appear in court.

Mr Trump has repeatedly decried the special counsel investigation as a "witch hunt", and has claimed that Mr Mueller and his team are conducting a partisan smear effort to try and bring down his campaign.

That investigation has already led to several indictments of individuals associated with the president's 2016 campaign, including guilty pleas from five individuals beyond Mr Cohen.

Arriving in West Virginia for a rally on Tuesday night, the president said he "felt badly" for Manafort, but added that the case had "nothing to do with me". He did not address Mr Cohen's admission of guilt, but made a rambling speech to supporters, mentioning turkeys, an imaginary Chinese driver, and exploding windmills.
A defamation lawsuit against former British spy Christopher Steele has been thrown out by a US court.

Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan sued the ex-MI6 agent over a dossier he created which alleged links between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the Kremlin.

The so-called Steele dossier" described the men as having a close relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin and alleged they colluded with Moscow's interference in the US election.

Recommended The Steele dossier that Trump denounced keeps turning out to be true

Lawyers for the three men  the joint owners of Russian bank Alfa  claimed that as a result, Mr Steele had defamed them in the dossier which BuzzFeed News published in 2017.

They argued that Mr Steele was not protected under the US right to freedom of speech because of his British citizenship.

But Washington DC Superior Court Judge Anthony Epstein dismissed this claim as ironic in his decision earlier this week.

He also noted that the billionaires all held Russian citizenship but had chosen to bring their case before a US court.

The men had failed to prove that Mr Steele knew the information was false when he submitted the dossier to Fusion GPS  a Washington-based intelligence company that was investigating Mr Trumps ties to Moscow during the election, he wrote.

He added: Advocacy on issues of public interest has the capacity to inform public debate and thereby furthers the purposes of the First Amendment, regardless of the citizenship or residency of the speakers.

The ruling leaned heavily on anti-SLAPP laws, which prevent wealthy plaintiffs from using the courts to silence their critics. Mr Epstein was carefully to say, however, that the decision offered no ruling as to whether the claims in the dossier  including that an Alfa intermediary delivered illicit cash to Mr Putin while he was deputy mayor of Saint Petersburg  were true or false.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

The judge dismissed the case without prejudice, meaning the billionaires only option for recourse is to appeal the decision. An attorney for Mr Steele told ABC News he hoped the decision would be a lesson to anyone who sought to intimidate his client.

Mr Steele has faced repeated attacks from Mr Trump since the dossier was published, making the 54-year-old a public figure after a life of relative anonymity. The president has referred to the dossier as fake and phoney, and earlier this month called Mr Steele a low life.

The former intelligence officer has kept a low profile as he fights off other legal challenges stemming from the dossier, including a libel charge in London from Russian businessman Aleksej Gubarev. Mr Gubarev has also filed suit against BuzzFeed News.
Donald Trump has suggested that he could "run" Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling, despite the investigation looking into possible collusion with between Moscow and Trump campaign officials.

The president suggested that he had stayed out of the investigation, but that he does not have to. "I could run it if I want," Mr Trump said, adding that he is "totally allowed" to intervene in the probe, but has chosen to stay out.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the probe early last year over his contacts with Russian officials, leading Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein to eventually appoint Mr Mueller after Mr Trump fired the then-head of the FBI, James Comey, who was leading the probe. Special counsel's are generally appointed when an investigation would mean the potential for conflict of interest for the executive branch of government and Mr Mueller is said to be looking into the possibility that Mr Comey's firing could be obstruction of justice.

A number of bills have been floated by members of Congress to codify in law the protection for Mr Mueller, amid increasingly vociferous attacks from Mr Trump, who has repeatedly denied collusion and has called the probe a "witch hunt". Russia has denied interfering in the 2016 US election.

Calls for Congress to step in will no doubt grow larger in the wake of Mr Trump's latest comments, in an interview with Reuters, with them coming hours after another Twitter rant from the president about the investigation.

Disgraced and discredited Bob Mueller and his whole group of Angry Democrat Thugs spent over 30 hours with the White House Councel [sic], only with my approval, for purposes of transparency, he wrote, acknowledging recent reports that White House lawyer Don McGahn has cooperated with investigators across a series of interviews.

 Rudy Giuliani tells Chuck Todd: 'Truth isn't truth' when it comes to the Mueller investigation

Mr Trump went as far as claiming Mr Mueller and his team a national disgrace who are looking to impact November's crucial midterm elections - during which Republicans are seeking to defend majorities in both the House and the Senate of Congress.

They are enjoying ruining peoples lives and REFUSE to look at the real corruption on the Democrat side  the lies, the firings, the deleted Emails and soooo much more! Mr Trump wrote. Muellers Angry Dems are looking to impact the election. They are a National Disgrace!

Wheres the Collusion? the president wrote in a tweet an hour after attacking Mr Mueller. They made up a phony crime called Collusion, and when there was no Collusion they say there was Obstruction (of a phony crime that never existed). If you FIGHT BACK or say anything bad about the Rigged Witch Hunt, they scream Obstruction!

Over the weekend, Mr Trump insisted his general counsel isnt a RAT and accused Mr Muellers team of looking for trouble. He contrasted McGahn with John Dean, the White House counsel for Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Mr Dean ultimately cooperated with prosecutors and helped bring down the Nixon presidency in 1974, though he served a prison term for obstruction of justice.

The failing @nytimes wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel [sic], he must be a John Dean type RAT, Mr Trump wrote on Sunday.

But I allowed him and all others to testify  I didnt have to. I have nothing to hide......, the president wrote.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Mr Trump's legal team dealing with the probe, led by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have been negotiating with Mr Mueller's team for a sit down interview with the president.

Mr Giuliani has advised Mr Trump against meeting with Mr Mueller over the threat that questions may lead to him being trapped into a lie. Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, Mr Giuliani told Chuck Todd Im not going to be rushed into having him testify so he gets trapped into perjury.

During that interview Mr Giuliani also made the bizarre claim that truth isnt truth when it comes to the Mueller probe.

When you tell me that, you know, he should testify because hes going to tell the truth and he shouldnt worry, well thats so silly because its somebodys version of the truth. Not the truth, Mr Giuliani said. When told by Mr Todd that truth is truth, Mr Giuliani added: No, it isnt truth... Truth isnt truth.

During his interview with Reuters, Mr Trump echoed the concerns of Mr Giuliani. The president expressed fears that investigators could compare his statements with that of others who have testified in the probe, such as former FBI director Mr Comey, and that any discrepancies could be used against him.

"Even if I am telling the truth, that makes me a liar," Mr Trump said. "That's no good."

Despite his concerns, Mr Trump did not comment on whether he would ultimately agree to an interview with Mr Mueller. The president also declined to say whether he might strip Mr Mueller of his security clearance, as he did last week to former CIA Director John Brennan, who has repeatedly criticised Trump's handling of foreign policy and national security issues.

The Russia probe has clearly been on Mr Trump's mind in recent days, although Mr Giuliani said that Mr Trump did not raise the issue of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege about interviews such as those undertaken by Mr McGahn because his team believed  he says now, wrongly  that fully participating would be the fastest way to bring the investigation to a close.

 John Brennan mulls legal action after security clearance revoked

The president encouraged him to testify, is happy that he did, is quite secure that there is nothing in the testimony that will hurt the president, Mr Giuliani said of Mr McGahn during his appearance on NBC.

Just outside Washington, there is also the matter of the trial Mr Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort in Alexandria, Virginia. The jury in the bank and tax fraud trial ended its third day of deliberations without a verdict on Monday and will reconvene on Tuesday morning.

The case is the first to go to trial stemming from Mr Mueller's investigation into Russia investigation, although the charges largely predate Mr Manafort's five months working on Donald Trump's successful campaign and they do not relate to collusion with Moscow.

Mr Manafort faces five counts of filing false tax returns, four counts of failing to disclose offshore bank accounts, and nine counts of bank fraud over money gained from political consulting in Ukraine. If convicted on all the charges, he could face decades in prison. Mr Manafort denies all the charges against him.

A conviction would undermine efforts by Mr Trump and a minority of Republican legislators to paint Mr Mueller's Russia inquiry as a political witch hunt, while an acquittal would be a setback for the special counsel.

Reuters contributed to this report
On 15 April of this year, seven inmates at the Lee Correctional Facility in South Carolina were stabbed and beaten to death in the deadliest prison riot in at least a quarter century. Prison officials took hours to stop the melee, inmates claimed, and later stacked the bodies of the dead in piles outside the prison yard. One inmate said he bled for hours before correctional staff came to his aide.

Officials claimed they only waited to intervene until they had enough resources to ensure the safety of inmates, and later blamed the riot on gang warfare and competition over mobile phones. But prisoners have alleged in legal filings that the violence was related to inhumane conditions at the states largest maximum-security prison.

Four months later, prisoners across the country are hoping to thrust these conditions into the national spotlight, in what is expected to be the largest prison strike in US history.

Inmates in at least 17 different states have signed on to participate in the national prison strike, which starts on 21 August. More than 100 outside groups have endorsed the strike, including chapters of Black Lives Matter, the Democratic Socialists of America and activists groups at Harvard and Princeton.

The protest was originally planned for 2019, as a sequel to the first-ever nationwide prison strike in 2016. But according to organisers, the violence in South Carolina convinced them that the time to act was now.

It made it abundantly clear to the leadership, who live in facilities like Lee, that they had to mobilise now, said Brooke Terpstra, a spokesperson for the Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee (IWOC), an outside group helping to publicise the strike.

The prisoners have released a list of 10 demands, ranging from improvements in prison conditions to changes in the legal system. According to organisers, the diverse set of demands reflects the equally diverse groups of voices who helped plan the protest.

The key themes, however, are clear: More rights  and more money  for incarcerated workers; increased access to rehabilitation programmes, and an end to sentencing practices that many feel target racial minorities.

Prisoners understand they are being treated as animals, the organisers said in a statement earlier this month. We know that our conditions are causing physical harm and deaths that could be avoided if prison policy makers actually gave a damn  For some of us it's as if we are already dead. So what do we have to lose?

The strike participants plan to take whatever actions they can in order to slow, or even shut down, the operations at their facilities. Those with jobs will refuse to show up for work; those with money will refuse to spend it at commissaries. In some prisons, inmates will engage in peaceful sit-ins by simply refusing to move. Prisoners without a job, money, or freedom of movement can simply refuse to eat.

Its unclear exactly how many people will participate in the strike, as communication with the outside world is slow and often censored. But according to organisers, the protest is already larger than its 2016 precursor, which affected an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 inmates, either through participation in the strike or lock-downs in their units.

UK prison conditions: in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 UK prison conditions: in pictures UK prison conditions: in pictures A cell covered in graffiti at HMP Liverpool. PA UK prison conditions: in pictures HMP Liverpool has some of the worst conditions inspectors have seen. HM Inspectorate of Prisons/PA UK prison conditions: in pictures A broken window in a cell at HMP Liverpool HM Inspectorate of Prisons/PA Wire UK prison conditions: in pictures A shower unit with protruding electric cable at HMP Liverpool HM Inspectorate of Prisons/PA UK prison conditions: in pictures Litter at HMP Liverpool HM Inspectorate of Prisons/PA Wire UK prison conditions: in pictures A wall damaged by damp at HMP Liverpool HM Inspectorate of Prisons/PA UK prison conditions: in pictures A pool table at HMP Liverpool HM Inspectorate of Prisons/PA UK prison conditions: in pictures A sign for HMP Liverpool, where drones are seized at a rate of more than one a week. The prisons watchdog flagged up the impact of the remote-controlled flying devices at HMP Liverpool. PA

What makes the strike complicated, however, is that it is technically illegal. Inmates in the US are not allowed to organise, form unions, or even congregate in large groups. Several of the 2016 strike organisers were transferred to other prisons or placed in solitary confinement before the protest even began. This year, the South Carolina Department of Corrections has said they are keeping tabs on any possible strike activities.

The agency will take the necessary actions to ensure the prisons are safe to operate and there are no threats to safety, spokesman Dexter Lee told local newspaper The State.

But that hasnt stopped prisoners from organising anyway. Mr Terpstra emphasised that while the IWOC is helping to publicise the strike, the action itself was planned by people on the inside. In fact, that was one of the goals of the protest: To give prisoners a voice of their own, instead of relying on outside organisations to do it for them.

Crucial in this effort is the spread of contraband cell phones within the prison system. Friends, family members, and even guards often smuggle phones into the prisons, which can then be used to call or text other inmates. Mr Terpstra said this years organisers even held conference calls from inside their cells. More importantly, the phones allow them access to social media, where they can broadcast their plans and demands on platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Prisoners also communicate the old-fashioned way, through letters and visitations with outside advocates. Inter-prison transfers, often used as a way to separate organisers, can actually act in the inmates favour: Organisers transferred to other prisoners can spread the word about the protest there, as well.

Kevin Steele, a former New York inmate who helped organise the 2016 strike, said the process of planning the strike was cathartic in and of itself.

"You find that people who have the same mindset as you, and you just sit there and talk and build on things, and eventually find something worth fighting for, he told The Independent.

 Prison conditions most disturbing ever seen with staff now inured to jails not fit for 21st century, watchdog says in damning report

Mr Steele was released in January of this year on appeal, after serving eight years of his 10-year sentence. He has been working with IWOC ever since, helping to organise prisoners like himself, who want to see a change in prison conditions for future generations.

He is currently in touch with one inmate, a transgender woman, who is interested in joining the strike. She is being held in a mens prison against her will, despite legally changing her name and starting hormone therapy.

Mr Steele said it was inmates like this  who want to join the movement but dont know where to start  that made him commit to organising even while he was still behind bars.

I just felt the need that, If I ever get the opportunity to go home, I'm going to continue to fight for the people who don't have a voice, he said.

The strike participants know that they are up against a powerful adversary, and making some difficult demands. According to Mr Terpstra, they know that their demands are unlikely to be met over the course of a few weeks  or even at all. The point, he said, is to get people talking about them.

"They essentially felt compelled to put their voices out there, he said. They essentially said, life can't continue this way."

He added: "It's about having a life worth living whatsoever.
A woman has been stripped naked, dragged from her home and paraded through the streets in the latest incident of mob violence in India.

The woman had been suspected of involvement in a murder, after a 19-year-old man was found dead on railway tracks in the small town of Bihiyar, in eastern Bihar state. Men travelled to Bihiyar from the mans village and, rather than alerting the authorities, broke into the womans home while also burning houses and vehicles in the red-light district where she lived.

Police were reportedly only alerted to the situation when they saw videos circulating on WhatsApp of the woman being beaten. She has since been arrested, along with 15 men accused of being involved in the mob violence, and seven police officers have been suspended for failing to act sooner.

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According to The Hindu, the incident started when a teen named Vimlesh Shah was found dead on Monday morning. Members of his community in Damodarpur village said his body showed signs of strangulation, and that he had been dumped on the railway line in an attempt to cover up the killing.

Its not clear what led them to suspect the involvement of the woman living nearby but, despite her pleading innocence, a mob thrashed and paraded her naked in front of a large crowd.

Officers later took her into custody and had to open fire to disperse the mob.

Police told BBC Hindi the woman was receiving treatment in a local hospital. They said they were still investigating the circumstances surrounding the 19-year-olds death, and awaited a post-mortem report.

A number of videos of the incident appear to be circulating on social media, including one which shows the naked woman being paraded, surrounded by dozens of men.

Tejashwi Yadav, leader of the opposition in Bihar state, condemned what he called the chief ministers failure to maintain law and order, [and] ensure womens safety and security.

Im speechless & numb to see the heart wrenching videos of that women, he said, referring to Bihar as a lawless state.

News of the incident emerged on the same day as WhatsApps chief executive officer, Chris Daniels, held a meeting in Delhi with India's IT minister to discuss the messaging apps growing role in mob violence.

While there were no suggestions that WhatsApp was used to spread false rumours in the lead up to the Bihar incident, it did show how the app - which has more than 200m users in India - could also be used by mobs to heap further shame on their victims.

Mr Daniels pledged on Tuesday to develop tools that would combat fake messages, and thereby help the government crack down on people whipping up public anger through mass message forwards on social media, Indian officials said.

The IT minister, Shankar Prasad, said WhatsApp was working with law enforcement agencies to tackle the problem and was planning a big campaign to educate consumers about fake messages.
Heavy flooding has caused the deaths of at least 360 people in Kerala since June, the worst natural disaster to strike the southern Indian state in decades.

More than 1m people have been displaced and are recovering in relief camps after 80 dams were overrun by torrential rains.

There have also been significant fatalities in the states of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Assam and Nagaland as a result of people drowning in floodwater or killed by falling rocks from landslides, caused by running streams unsettling the earth.

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At the same time, 11 hikers in Italy were killed when sudden floods swept into the deep Raganello Gorge in Calabrias Pollino National Park.

Flash flooding has been blamed for both tragedies, but what precisely is it?

The phenomenon occurs when a sudden downpour proves so heavy that the underlying ground cannot cope with the sheer amount of water it is exposed to and becomes saturated before it has a chance to drain away.

Common in low-lying areas, flash floods can also be caused by an intense concentration of rain from thunderstorms on dry soil, unaccustomed to ready absorption.

Just six hours of rainfall can be enough to overwhelm the earth.

In built up areas, this can means sewers overflow and the streets gush like rivers, ferrying debris and in extreme cases running with enough water to lift and carry away cars.

Ordinarily, the flooding of rivers is a very gradual process as it takes time for enough rainfall to percolate through the ground and cause the water level to rise sufficiently so that it overflows before reaching the sea.

Flash flooding, however, gives no such warning.

In the case of Kerala, the weather is part of the four-month monsoon rainy season that strikes the Indian subcontinent every summer.

Local officials have been blamed for exacerbating the situation by failing to gradually open the dams dotting the states complex river network, waiting instead until they were already full before unleashing the excess water.

Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Show all 40 1 /40 Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India A man removes debris from a collapsed house after floods in Paravur Reuters Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India An ariel shot of Kerala from Thiruvanpuram Getty Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Murgan and his family clean up their house in Mundancavu village at Chegannur upon returning home after the flood waters receded Getty Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India People assess damage caused by floods on the outskirts of Kochi AP Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Men paddle their boat through the lawns of a partially submerged church at Kuttanad in Alleppey district Reuters Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Sandhya Biji and her son in front of their damaged house on the banks of Pamba river Getty Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Border Security Force distribute food food and water to the residents who are stuck in their houses as well who have not vacated houses because of the flood water in interior places at Allapy Getty Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India A damaged house on the banks of Pamba river Getty Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Murgan cleaning up his house Getty Images Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India An aerial view shows partially submerged houses at a flooded area in the southern state of Kerala Reuters Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Murgan and his family clean up their house Getty Images Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India People are airlifted by the Indian Navy soldiers during a rescue operation Reuters Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India People wait for aid on the roof of their house Reuters Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Indian volunteers and rescue personal evacuate local residents AFP/Getty Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Indian people use a boat to rescue an elderly man in the flooded water in Kochi EPA Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India An aerial view shows partially submerged houses at a flooded area in the southern state of Kerala Reuters Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India An Indian woman watches residents walking through flood streets next to their marooned houses AFP/Getty Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Indian army personal evacuate local residents AFP/Getty Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Indian commuters wade through flooded streets AFP/Getty Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India People move past a flooded road in Thrissur AP Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Water gushes out following heavy rain and landslide in Kozhikode AP Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Fire and Rescue personnel evacuate local residents in an inflatable boat from a flooded area at Muppathadam near Eloor AFP/Getty Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Indian residents look at the Shiva Temple submerged AFP/Getty Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Roads and houses engulfed in water following heavy rain and landslide in Kozhikode. AP Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India People look at vehicles stuck in the mud AFP/Getty Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India A young man wades through a flooded street in Kochi EPA Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Rescue operations being conducted at the landslide location at Kuttampuzha AFP/Getty Images Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India An elderly woman is rescued in a cooking utensil AP Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Local residents look at a partially destroyed house after heavy monsoon rains led to a landslide in Kannappankund AFP/Getty Images Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India An Indian woman sits inside her house immersed in flood waters in Ernakulam district of Kochi AFP/Getty Images Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Indian fire and rescue personnel evacuate local resident AFP/Getty Images Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India A woman stands at the door of her flooded home in Kochi EPA Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India India residents stand on the shore as Periyar river flooded AFP/Getty Images Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India An Indian man carries a basket of bananas next to houses immersed in flood waters AFP/Getty Images Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Laborers hailing from northern states wade through flood waters as they shift to higher ground AP Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan (L) along with opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala (2L) visit relief camp in Chengamanadu Government Higher Secondary School AFP/Getty Images Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Athirampally Falls EPA Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India EPA Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Indian residents look at houses destroyed by flood waters at Kannappankundu AFP/Getty Images Kerala floods: heavy monsoon rains lead to deaths in India Kochi's International airport apron flooded AFP/Getty Images

This could have been avoided if the dam operators had started releasing water in advance rather than waiting for dams to be filled up, when they have no alternative but to release water, water expert Himanshu Thakkar told the BBC.

Indias Central Water Commission has also been under fire for failing to introduce a flood forecasting system to issue warnings.
A 14-year-old and two adults were shot at while they surfed off a remote beach in New Zealand which some surfers have said is by invitation only.

They had been surfing at Te Maika point off the coast of Taharoa, on the west coast of the North Island, when a shot hit the water 3-4 metres from where the young boy was surfing.

Three shots were fired in total and the trio initially believed the first two shots were fired by people hunting inland, police told Stuff.

But the third bullet landed in the water adjacent to where they were, police sergeant Andy Connors said.

He said the surfers were then confronted by two people on the bank, who began shouting abuse at them.

They quickly left the point and alerted the police, who said they were investigating. None of the trio were injured.

 Surfer suffers brutal wipeout while big wave surfing

It was not the first time such territorial violence has occurred in the area, as a fisherman was allegedly shot at while fishing off the coast.

Daniel Kereopa, a local surfer, said the area is generally considered to be invitation only. Ever since I have known the place and the people that have cared for it, its generally been by invitation, he said.

Its one of those places that is still New Zealand  not affected by tourists, not promoted. People live there because they are born for that land and, unfortunately, its brought some attention by whats happened down there.

He added: We all have rights to areas of our coastline  there are people who really care for their land and keep it as is.

Its one place that is so unique, you dont have to hassle anyone for the waves.
Eid al-Adha celebrations around the world

A boy cast stones at the huge stone pillar in the symbolic stoning of the devil during the annual Haj pilgrimage on the first day of Eid al-Adha in Mina, outside the holy city of Mecca

AP
The last Nazi war crimes suspect facing deportation from the US has been extradited to Germany, 25 years after investigators learned he was living in New York.

Former concentration camp guard Jakiw Palij, 95, was taken from his home and flown to Dusseldorf early on Tuesday morning after years of diplomatic wrangling.

Palij fled to the US following the Second World War, claiming to immigration officials upon arrival in 1949 that he had worked as a farmer in his native Poland.

Recommended Former Auschwitz guard charged with accessory to genocide

He concealed his past as a willing helper to Nazi Germanys notorious SS paramilitary wing at Trawniki, a forced labour camp in occupied Poland where at least 12,000 Jews were murdered during the Second World War.

Palij quietly lived in US as a draftsman and then retiree, until investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guarded tipped them off that he was living in America.

He told US Justice Department officials who showed up at his door in 1993: I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied.

A judge stripped him of his US citizenship in 2003 for participation in acts against Jewish civilians while an armed guard at Trawniki.

A court ordered Palijs deportation the next year, but he continued to live in limbo in New York for 14 years because Germany, Poland and other countries refused to take him.

His continued presence in Queens, where he shared a two-story house with 86-year-old wife Maria, outraged the Jewish community and drew frequent protests over the years, with demonstrators often shouting your neighbour is a Nazi.

According to the Justice Department, Palij worked at Trawniki in 1943, the year 6,000 prisoners at the camp were rounded up and shot in one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust.

By serving as an armed guard at the Trawniki labour camp and preventing the escape of Jewish prisoners during his Nazi service, Palij played an indispensable role in ensuring that the Trawniki Jewish victims met their horrific fate at the hands of the Nazis, said the White House in a statement announcing his deportation.

Palij has admitted serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Heinrich Himmler shakes hands with new guard recruits at the Trawniki concentration camp in 1942 (AP)

Last September, all 29 members of New Yorks congressional delegation signed a letter urging the State Department to push through his deportation.

Richard Grenell, the US ambassador who arrived in Germany earlier this year, said President Donald Trump  who is from New York  instructed him to make the issue a priority. He added the new German government, which took office in March, brought new energy to the matter.

The ambassador told reporters that there were difficult conversations because Palij is not a German citizen and was stateless after losing his US citizenship, but the moral obligation of taking in someone who served in the name of the German government was accepted.

It is unclear what will happen next, as German prosecutors have previously said there appeared to be insufficient evidence to charge Palij with war crimes.

Germanys foreign ministry said it was sending a clear signal of Germanys moral responsibility by taking in Palij but gave no details on where he would be taken after his arrival in Dusseldorf.

Local media reported Palij was being put in a long-term care facility near the city of Muenster.

Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi-hunter at Jewish human rights organisation the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, said he hoped prosecutors would revisit the case.

Trawniki was a camp where people were trained to round up and murder the Jews in Poland, so theres certainly a basis for some sort of prosecution, he said, adding that the US Justice Department deserves a lot of credit for sticking with the case.

The efforts invested by the United States in getting Palij deported are really noteworthy and Im very happy to see that they finally met with success, he added.

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Palij entered the US in 1949 under the Displaced Persons Act, a law meant to help refugees from post-war Europe.

He told immigration officials he was employed during the war as a woodworker, a farmer and a factory worker. He said he had never served in the military.

In reality, officials say, he played an essential role in the Nazi programme to exterminate Jews in German-occupied Poland.

According to the Justice Department, Palij served in a unit that committed atrocities against Polish civilians and others and then in the notorious SS Streibel Battalion, a unit whose function was to round up and guard thousands of Polish civilian forced labourers.

After the war, Palij maintained friendships with other Nazi guards who came to the US under similar false pretences. In a coincidental twist, he and his wife purchased their home near LaGuardia airport in 1966 from a Polish Jewish couple who had survived the Holocaust and were unaware of his past.

The Justice Departments special Nazi-hunting unit started piecing together Palijs past after a fellow Trawniki guard identified him to Canadian authorities in 1989.

Officials confronted him in 1993 but it was not until a second interview in 2001 that he signed a document acknowledging he had been a guard at Trawniki and a member of the Streibel Battalion.

Palij claimed at one point during the interview that he was threatened with death if he refused to work as a guard, saying: If you dont show up, boom boom.

Jakiw Palij pictured in Queens, New York, in 2003 after his past as a Nazi concentration camp guard came to light (AP)

He is the first Nazi war crimes suspect to be deported since Germany agreed in 2009 to take John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio mechanic who was accused of serving as a concentration camp guard.

The Ukrainian-American was convicted in 2011 of being an accessory to more than 28,000 killings and died 10 months later, aged 91, with his appeal pending.

Although Palij was the last Nazi suspect in the US with an outstanding deportation order, others remain in the country.

Since 2017, Poland has been seeking the extradition of Ukrainian-born Michael Karkoc, an ex-commander in an SS-led unit which burned Polish villages and killed civilians during the war.

The 99-year-old, who currently lives in Minneapolis, was the subject of a series of 2013 reports by the Associated Press that led Polish prosecutors to issue an arrest warrant for him.

Earlier this year, US authorities requested opinions from medical experts on whether Karkoc was healthy enough to travel by plane and take part in a court trial.

In addition to Karkoc, there are almost certainly other Nazis in the US who have not yet been identified or investigated by authorities.

Some estimates put the number of Nazis who fled to the US after the Second World War at 10,000.

The Justice Department has initiated legal proceedings against 137 suspects, with 67 of those being removed by deportation, extradition or voluntary departure.

Of the rest, 28 died while their cases were pending and nine were ordered to leave but died in the US because no other country was willing to take them.
The Yemeni officer was relieved that he had just a few metres left of Aden's airport to clear, when the ground suddenly buckled, lurched upwards and propelled him into the air.

Ali Salah, 55, said his team had already pulled out more than 580 mines and explosives from the terminal, once a battleground between Yemens recognised government and the Gulf coalition backing them on one side and the Shia Houthi rebel group on the other.

The de-mining team had one last corner to work on before the skeleton carcass of the building could finally be declared safe. But then Salah stepped on something.

When he came around, his right leg had vanished. One month later his son Kamel, 20, would suffer a similar fate, ending up in the same hospital. The 20-year-old driver was transporting a mine clearance team around the southern port city when his car clipped an anti-tank mine along the road.

Like a mirror image of his father, Kamal lost his left leg.

We were both doing our jobs, but it cost us our legs, Salah told The Independent as he tapped his prosthetic limb inside one of the few centres in Aden that is trying to fit amputees with artificial limbs.

Behind him, two wounded children waiting for treatment played together as best they could. One of them, Emad, 14, lost both legs during a mortar attack outside his home.

Salah was injured three years ago, but his colleagues are still digging up mines from areas around Aden.

This is one of Yemens toughest problems now. It will take a lifetime to sort, he added.

The threat of mines, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and explosive remnants of war, known as ERWs, left behind in the fighting is the untold threat facing civilians in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia said this week that the Houthis had laid about a million landmines and IEDs across Yemen since the war broke out in 2015. On the other side of the country Yemeni government officials said they have uncovered half-a-million ERWs, mostly left by al-Qaeda.

There is no way of independently verifying these figures, as international monitoring teams lack access. There is also an issue surrounding the definition of a mine: mine clearance crews in Yemen will regularly call everything from an IED to a mortar shell a mine.

But officials within the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which is supporting local projects on the ground, said problems caused by the explosive ordinances littering Yemen could take decades to fix.

Yemen is in the grips of a devastating three-year conflict between the Iran-backed Houthis and the recognised Yemeni government, the latter supported by a coalition headed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. More than 10,000 people have been killed in the fighting which, according to the United Nations, has sparked the worlds largest humanitarian crisis in terms of numbers: some 22 million people, or three-quarters of the population, rely on aid to survive.

Further east in the country, coalition-backed Yemeni troops are also locked in a battle with al-Qaeda which, until recently, controlled a 700km stretch of territory along Yemens southern coast.

Much has been reported about the direct impact of the fighting but little about the devastating effects of these weapons left behind.

Yemen's battle to clear the country of landmines and explosives Show all 10 1 /10 Yemen's battle to clear the country of landmines and explosives Yemen's battle to clear the country of landmines and explosives Emad, 14, lost both his legs in a mortar attack near Aden, Yemen Bel Trew/The Independent Yemen's battle to clear the country of landmines and explosives Young trainees are schooled in how to identify mines and Improvised Explosive Devices in Mukalla, Yemen Bel Trew/The Independent Yemen's battle to clear the country of landmines and explosives Information leaflets warn civilians of the dangers of landmines in Yemen Bel Trew/The Independent Yemen's battle to clear the country of landmines and explosives A young boy looks out the window of a prosthetic limb and rehabilitation centre in Aden, Yemen Bel Trew/The Independent Yemen's battle to clear the country of landmines and explosives Land mines IEDS, and suicide belts found by the mine clearance teams are laid out during training sessions Bel Trew/The Independent Yemen's battle to clear the country of landmines and explosives This suicide belt packed with nails was made by al-Qaeda militants in south Yemen Bel Trew/The Independent Yemen's battle to clear the country of landmines and explosives The de-mining teams have compiled booklets educating local populations about looking out for mines and IEDS Bel Trew/The Independent Yemen's battle to clear the country of landmines and explosives Posters line the walls of a training centre alerting civilians to the dangers of mines Bel Trew/The Independent Yemen's battle to clear the country of landmines and explosives These anti-tank and anti-vehicle mines are among thousands pulled out of the ground by mine clearances crews every year Bel Trew/The Independent Yemen's battle to clear the country of landmines and explosives Mine clearance crews say Al-Qaeda militants make their own suicide vests as well as victim-activated explosive devices Bel Trew/The Independent

According to the UNDP, in the first six months of this year Yemens top de-mining agency, the Yemen Executive Mine Action Centre, cleared nearly 140,000 explosive remnants of war across 5 million square metres  a process that cost $2.4 million. Between 2016 and 2017 the UNDP said the action centre had cleared more than 510,000 ERWs across at least nine governorates.

"The mine action centre has been completely overwhelmed by the current situation. There is no way they have enough resources to deal with it, said one UNDP official who asked not to be named.

The current levels of contamination will take years to sort and there will be residual risks for a considerable time after that. We need to get survey teams on the ground  even if they can just release ground to say its safe, he added.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its latest report that since 2015, mines and explosive devices appeared to have killed and maimed hundreds of civilians. The rights group has repeatedly urged the Houthis and their allies to cease using the indiscriminate and banned weapons, and to observe the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which Yemen ratified in 1998.

HRW officials now warn that the knock-on effects of the mines will impact a far larger population.

"You have people who, two years on from the end of fighting in their area, cannot return home, because theyve been told its mined. Their livelihoods are therefore destroyed, Kristine Beckerle, HRWs Yemen and UAE researcher, told The Independent.

Humanitarian aid workers also cant access areas where there are believed to be mines or IEDs, so it impedes humanitarian response, she added.

Farmlands are often mined or laced with explosives as well, meaning people cannot make a living.

There are secondary and tertiary effects that are quite devastating, she said.

On the other side of the country, near the port city of Mukalla, which between April 2015 and April 2016 was a stronghold for al-Qaeda, a group of new trainees learn how to identify mines and IEDs in rudimentary, battered kit. Their dangerous but vital work is backed by a mix of funding from UNDP, the Red Cross and the UAE.

Access to proper kit is one of the main problems they face, according to the director of the training centre, whose name has been withheld for security reasons.

When al-Qaeda left they took all the de-mining and bomb disposal equipment with them, which just made our job even harder, the centre's head told The Independent.

The militants and the Houthis have been making their own devices, like this victim-triggered one here, he said, handling an array of home-made IEDs and suicide belts packed with nails and ball bearings designed to maim.

They put them on the main highway, we found 50 on a beach. They put them in houses. Some are so sensitive even a chicken can trigger it, he added.

The current levels of contamination will take years to sort... The mine action centre has been completely overwhelmed by the current situation UNDP official

Behind him, a dozen or so young men in military fatigues and flimsy-looking protective gear were completing a two-month training course before going into the field. Some crawled on their knees along a prepared assault course looking for the tell-tale signs of a buried explosive.

The trainees said that although they are scared of the mines, for them the toughest challenge was dodging car bombs and suicide attacks from the embattled militants. Right now, the teams are mostly focused on clearing areas north of Mukalla, where al-Qaeda has hunkered down in the hills.

Around six of my friends have died from mines so far, said Salah, 30, a father-of-two and new recruit, taking a break in the blistering heat of the summer sun.

Its scary work but for us the most dangerous things are the car bombs we face on the way to work.

His trainer, Ahmed, 43, a veteran de-miner from Aden, has been in the business since he was just 16 years old. He said over the years more than 40 of his friends have been killed de-mining.

Despite decades of experience, he said the mine problem has never been so bad.

Right now is the worst days for mines. Its a thousand times worse now than it ever has been because in this part of Yemen we are dealing with militants who lay them randomly, he told The Independent.

Just two weeks ago he nearly stepped on a mine near Wadi Masini, a two-hour drive north of Mukalla and a former al-Qaeda stronghold, which the militants lost to Yemeni forces in February this year. The team said it takes a whole day just to clear 25 square metres of land there, because it is so densely packed with explosives.

Right now, is the worst days for mines. Its a thousand times worse now than it ever has been Ahmed, de-mining trainer in Mukalla

Ahmed described the moment that saved his life: when out of the corner of his eye he spotted a tiny flicker of metal winking from among the short grasses. He knew it was an anti-tank mine when his metal detector chirruped and clicked over a gentle rise in the ground. One unwise move would have been his end.

I was so close, he added, grinning. Every day we face death. But if we dont do it, who will?

Back in Aden, Abdullah al-Qaisi, the head of the citys prostheses and psychotherapy centre, begged for funds to help his teams.

The parents of double amputee Emad, who dragged himself along the floor, said the teenager was hit by a mortar during the 2015 war but has had very little support. Mohamed, four, who is waiting for a new leg, was held by his father, Marwan, who said they were both injured by Houthi snipers in the same year. Behind them a young girl in her early 20s sat silently, holding the stump of her arm.

We lack everything but mostly the raw materials to make the artificial limbs. We have no funding and we need to make on average between around 50 limbs per month, al-Qaisi said.

Mines and mortars are the main reasons people are injured, we need help to help them.

Read the first piece in Bel Trews series, One Week in Yemen, here: Inside the UAEs war on al-Qaeda in Yemen and the second piece, here: Mukalla: Life after al-Qaeda in Yemen
Vilnius is the cheapest city break this autumn, according to new data released today.

The average price of a city break (flights and accommodation) to Lithuanias capital costs just over 80 from September 2018 to March 2019, according to data compiled by TravelSupermarket  a saving of 195 per cent compared to city break favourite Dubrovnik.

In a bid to attract younger travellers, Vilnius tourism bosses have branded the city as the G-spot of Europe. Nobody knows where it is, but when you find it  its amazing, ran the tagline.

The city secured its top spot in TravelSupermarkets best value city break index thanks to cheap living costs. A three course meal at an average restaurant costs 15.65, and its just 2.68 for a pint of local beer.

Eastern European cities were well represented in the best value index, with Bratislava in Slovakia taking second place. TravelSupermarket adds that a city break to Bratislava was almost half as cheap as a break to weekend favourite Budapest, costing just over 103.

Separately, the data found that the cheapest place to buy a beer in Europe is Bulgarias capital Sofia, at just 1.14 a pint.

Turin in Italy followed in third place on the index, and Frances Lyon came in fourth.

Krakow in Poland took fifth place in the best value city break index, but it also took prime position as Brits favourite short-haul city break for the first time  knocking Amsterdam off the top spot.

TravelSupermarket reports that there has been a 221 per cent spike in Krakow searches year on year, followed by a 102 per cent increase in searches for Istanbul for an autumn/winter city break.

There are also five German cities in the index, with Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf all appearing. Four of them were ranked in the latest top 20 most liveable cities in the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.

At the other end of the spectrum, Dubrovnik (292.66), Helsinki (289.72) and Bruges (265.80) ranked as the most expensive city breaks this autumn/winter.

Icelandic capital Reykjavik also came in as a pricey city break. The research found that a three-course meal in an average restaurant in the city cost 776 per cent more than in Istanbul.

Eastern European cities are great places to treat yourself, says Emma Coulthurst, travel expert for TravelSupermarket.

Picking a less popular destination can save your wallet and you will also have the city more to yourself.
Five years ago today, in the early hours of the morning, chemical weapons were dropped on eastern and western Ghouta, an area just outside Damascus.

Rockets fell on Ghouta, releasing sarin gas that contaminated more than 7,000 people and killed a total of 1,300  the worst chemical attack on Syria to date.

On that horrible day, we all became medics. Though Im a trained dentist, I remember running to the hospital to help where I found a scene worse than any nightmare. Brave civilians came to the hospitals and volunteered to do anything  operate water pumps to wash the gas off the victims bodies, supply fuel, and even evacuate casualties. The attack was so massive in its scale that all these volunteers still werent enough to care for everyone.

Rescue teams entered affected houses and evacuated all those inside with no time to examine them individually. None of them wore protective material; none of them had any. Ambulances arrived at hospitals only to find them full. Drivers would drop off some of the affected and drive the rest to other medical centres, looking for space. In a chemical weapons attack, around a third of all contaminated people will need intensive care. We only had 18 ventilators in the whole of Ghouta. Amid the chaos, families were scattered between hospitals and burial centres, and everybody was looking for everybody.

Three days after the attack, when people lost hope of finding more survivors, they started asking about the dead. Some of them  including children  were buried without being identified.

 Sajid Javid at the House of Commons: the use of chemical weapons everywhere is barbaric and inhumane'

Inside and outside of Syria, news agencies were busy covering the chemical attacks. Investigators from the United Nations were just a few miles away in nearby Damascus, there to investigate an earlier chemical weapons assault. They found evidence that sarin gas, an internationally banned weapon, was used on Ghouta but did not assign blame.

Throughout 2013 and until now, chemical weapons have been used against the Syrian people by the Assad regime and Isis. After a particularly terrible attack on Douma on 7 April 2018, in which more than 40 people died, the United Nations Security Council voted on three resolutions addressing the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Each time they failed, owing to the splits between Russia and the western nations on the council.

In the wake of the Security Councils failure, representatives of 28 countries met in France to discuss chemical weapons. By that point, there had been at least 190 chemical attacks in Syria, a figure that has now jumped to 200. Is this the Syria that the international community wants?

The Fact-Finding Mission of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has, since 2013, investigated the use of chemical weapons in Syria and issued 68 documents and seven resolutions as well as receiving 29 statements from member states about chemical weapons attacks in Syria. It has interviewed hundreds of witnesses, collected thousands of clues and analysed hundreds of thousands of pieces of information at the time as the UN Human Rights Councils Commission of Inquiry condemned Assads deployment of chemical weapons in Syria 25 times.

Israeli forces could intervene in Syria over chemical weapons Show all 3 1 /3 Israeli forces could intervene in Syria over chemical weapons Israeli forces could intervene in Syria over chemical weapons Pg-24-syria1-epa.jpg EPA Israeli forces could intervene in Syria over chemical weapons Pg-24-syria2-afp.jpg AFP Israeli forces could intervene in Syria over chemical weapons Pg-24-syria3-ap.jpg AP

None of this has been able to stop the repeated use of chemical weapons on Syrian civilians. Condemnation and fine words can only go so far. Now action must be taken to bring those who have used chemical weapons to justice.

Justice might not return a buried child to his grieving mother in Ghouta, but seeing the perpetrators of war crimes behind bars may convince her that the massacre will not be repeated again.

The United Nations International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism, which was established to investigate and prosecute the people responsible for the most serious crimes in Syria, must collect all the reports and information on the use of chemical weapons in Syria and present them to any entities also working to bring the Syrian regime to account. Only this will make the Syrian regime think twice before using chemical weapons again,

But is there an international will to do that? Or shall we witness chemical attacks against innocent civilians again and again and again?

Mohamad Katoub is an advocacy manager at the Syrian American Medical Society
Bayer AG has vowed to step up its defence against a wave of US lawsuits over the herbicide Roundup as it began the formal integration of Monsanto Co, acquired for $66bn (58bn) in June.

The German drug and chemical giant said it will formally absorb the US company after selling some crop-science businesses to competitor BASF SE to resolve regulatory concerns.

Because US authorities insisted that the businesses operate separately until that sale was complete, Bayer said it previously had been barred from steering Monsanto's legal strategy.

That will now change as the stakes mount in the US battle over Roundup. Bayer is facing $289m (254m) in damages after Monsanto lost the first court case stemming from claims that the weed killer causes cancer. Even if a judge overturns or reduces the award, the trial will probably be the first of many: More than 5,000 US residents have joined similar suits.

"Bayer did not have access to detailed internal information at Monsanto," the Leverkusen, Germany-based company said in a statement. "Today, however, Bayer also gains the ability to become actively involved in defence efforts."

The move to integrate the companies came as Bayer shares continued their slide in the wake of the court ruling, falling as much as 6.6pc on Thursday. The company lost about

16bn ($18bn) in market value last week, after the jury's award in the Roundup case.

Bayer said it believes US courts ultimately will find that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, wasn't responsible for the cancer of the California school groundskeeper who was the plaintiff in the recent case.

It's planning an appeal. Monsanto has insisted for decades that glyphosate is safe.

Carcinogen

The latest fall in the shares came after Monsanto failed to block California's move to list Roundup as a known carcinogen.

The state's supreme court declined last Wednesday to hear the US company's arguments as to why Roundup, the world's most widely-used weed killer, doesn't belong on the state's list of chemicals known to cause cancer. An appeals court had rejected the company's arguments in April.

Bayer said it's considering its options for further legal action regarding the California listing, saying it "requires judicial intervention and correction".

Bayer is also facing lawsuits in the US over dicamba, another herbicide in Monsanto's portfolio. The German company said it will also take an active role in any claims for damages over dicamba.

 Bloomberg
IFA President Joe Healy said its time for an implementation plan to convert the recent announcements on renewable energy into tangible action.

Mr Healy was speaking at Energy in Agriculture 2018 in Gurteen College today, which he said was evidence of the strong interest among farmers, but they will need certainty around their plans.

Joe Healy said the recent publication of the broad design of a new RESS by the Environment & Climate Action Minister Denis Naughten places what he described as a welcome emphasis on community participation in future renewable projects, although he said it has not recognised the additional supports required for categories such as farm-scale projects.

He said the move away from a feed-in tariff model to an auction-type scheme may ultimately benefit larger scale projects, particularly wind, to the exclusion of small to medium farm scale community-based projects, where a multitude of alternative technologies can be deployed.

This will not create a balanced mix of energy sources, which will continue to add to community concerns and also limit Irelands security of energy supply.

The IFA President said farmers with forestry offer significant potential to meet the growing demand for biomass in the emerging bioenergy sector.

Mr Healy said approximately 40pc of the total forest area in Ireland is owned and managed by farmers, with the majority of plantations reaching production in the coming decade.

Forecasts show that timber production will more than double to 7.9 million m3 by 2035, with almost all of the increased volume coming for farmers.

Joe Healy said if bioenergy generation is to become widespread, then biomass must be readily available and cost competitive.

At the moment, our biomass is market is informal and often supply and demand do not easily match.

To ensure an uninterrupted supply as well as greater control in fuel quality, IFA is advocating a network of centralised biomass trade centres, regional service stations that supply top quality wood fuels, operated by forest producer organisations.

He said a centralised system would enable improved control of the procurement process; biomass could be stored at the centre and processed during the winter season when the demand for fuel is high and when working conditions at the forest may be more difficult.

Supporting the establishment of the network of biomass trade and logistic centres offers farmers and rural communities significant new business opportunities to not just supply biomass, but to come heat contractors, he said.
An unlikely friendship between a pig and a sheep has warmed the hearts of thousands of people online.

A year ago, the old ram was being bullied by younger sheep and the farmer opted to move it into a field of its own.

Thats when the wild pig showed up.

Now a year on, the spotlight has been turned to the animals friendship after the farmers sister Shelley, posted an image on Twitter.

She explained that the two animals, nicknamed McDuff and Pig, had been friends since day one and now spend their time together in the smallholding near Nelson, in New Zealand.

My brother takes extremely good care of his animals and separated McDuff when he started to be bullied by the younger rams, Shelley, from Arrowtown, told Press Association.

Last spring a small pig found her way into the paddock with McDuff and theyve been firm friends since then. They hang out together all day.

She was clearly orphaned and found herself a new Dad and meals served daily.

More than 30,000 people have liked the tale and picture on Twitter.

The reaction has been heartwarming, Shelley added. It started as a sweet Sunday night post for my 300-odd followers. I expected a few likes so its been quite incredible to see how many hearts have been touched.

She added that it was good news in our crazy world.
The Central Bank has issued a fine of 1.5m on PartnerRe Ireland Insurance and Partner Reinsurance Europe in respect of breaches of Solvency II and corporate governance requirements for insurance companies.

In a statement the Central Bank said that it was fining PartnerRe Ireland for a total of six breaches of regulation, while it was fining Partner Reinsurance Europe in respect of three breaches.

The breaches involved weaknesses in the companies corporate governance relating to their internal reporting and internal controls in respect of Solvency II requirements.

The Central Bank found that the governance failings resulted in breaches relating to the calculation of the companies solvency capital requirement for 2016, and the submission of incorrect information to the Central Bank in respect of their solvency for 2016.

The breaches occurred from the inception of the Solvency II regime on 1 January 2016.

"This is the Central Banks first enforcement action in respect of Solvency II breaches," Seana Cunningham, of the CBI, said.

"The Central Banks investigations found that the companies submitted regulatory returns to the Central Bank, which overstated their solvency positions."

"This was due to both firms incorrectly calculating their Solvency Capital Requirement. As a result, both entities were required to re-submit their regulatory returns to the Central Bank. This revealed that they had, not only presented the Central Bank with an inaccurate picture of their respective solvency positions, but also in the case of PartnerRe Ireland, it resulted in a breach of its Solvency Capital Requirement," Ms Cunningham continued.

Both PartnerRe Ireland and Partner Reinsurance Europe said that they have taken "full responsibility" for errors made in their interpretation of the Solvency II capital requirements in 2016.

"While both companies were at all times solvent and policyholders were never at risk from an economic perspective, mistakes were made in the 2016 quarterly filings by each company," a spokesperson for the companies said.

"On discovering the discrepancies, the companies immediately reported the issue to the Central Bank and acted swiftly to remedy the situation. They also initiated an independent third party review and have since implemented recommendations for improving their internal controls and reporting processes for Solvency II."

The companies went on to say that, while they were "disappointed" to have fallen short of their own expectations, "we are pleased that the investigation has now concluded and the Central Bank has indicated its satisfaction with our remediation efforts and our improved governance and processes."

Solvency II harmonises European regulation for insurers. It mainly concerns the amount of capital that EU insurance companies must hold to reduce their risk of insolvency, as well as setting out the requirements for governance and risk management of insurers, and focusing on transparency requirements.
The High Court has confirmed the appointment of an examiner to the Bradley Pharmacy Group, which has debts of approximately 24m.

Ken Tyrell of PwC was confirmed as examiner to the various companies in the group, which employs 139 people and operates several pharmacies in Counties Louth, Meath, Monaghan, Dublin, Wicklow and Kerry, by Mr Justice Denis McDonald yesterday.

The judge said there were no objections by any creditors to the confirmation of Mr Tyrell, who now has 100 days to come up with an arrangement to ensure the group's survival, and that there had been several expressions of interest in the group by potential investors.

However, the judge said there was a failure to disclose relevant matters and a lack of candour shown by Mr Brian Pagni - who is a director of the companies within the group - to the court when the group applied for Mr Tyrell's appointment as the examiner.

Lawyers for Bank of Ireland, the group's former supplier United Drug, Revenue and a landlord of one of the group's pharmacies had expressed serious concerns about how the group had been run - particularly in the period before it sought the protection of the court.

In particular, the judge said there was a failure to disclose the full amount of money paid out of the group to Mr Pagni as repayments on a loan he had advanced to the business.

The judge said group management accounts furnished to Bank Of Ireland, the group's biggest creditor, in July stated there had been 2.9m outstanding on the director's loan.

However, an independent expert's report furnished to the court as part of the application to have an examiner appointed recorded the amount outstanding on the director's loans as being 2m. The judge said these monies had been paid to Mr Pagni at a time when the businesses within the group were experiencing difficulties.

The judge also said there had been a failure to disclose all matters to the court concerning United Drug and the landlord of one of the pharmacies in the group, Leonard & Woods Development Limited.

The judge said he was not satisfied with Mr Pagni's explanations of what was alleged and said there is a duty on persons to fully disclose all relevant matters when seeking orders including the protection of the courts from their creditors.

However, given the expressions of interest and the number of jobs involved the judge said he was prepared to allow the examinership proceed.

He said the examiner, when putting together a scheme of arrangement with the creditors, will have to consider what future role Mr Pagni will play in the management of the group.

The judge welcomed that Mr Tyrell would investigate the matters of concern raised by the creditors at yesterday's hearing.

Earlier this month, Mr Tyrell of PwC was appointed as the interim examiner to a group of related companies which form the Bradley Pharmacy Group.
India said Facebook-owned WhatsApp had pledged on Tuesday to develop tools that would combat fake messages, to help the country crack down on people whipping up public anger through mass message forwards on social media.

WhatsApp chief executive officer Chris Daniels gave the assurance to India's information technology minister during a meeting in New Delhi.

IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had asked the company to work out ways to trace the origin of "sinister" messages, like those that led to a series of mob beatings across the country this year.

"It does not need rocket science to locate a message," Prasad said after his meeting, adding that the U.S. tech giant had agreed to name a grievance officer to deal with issues in India.

A Facebook spokeswoman in India did not respond to a request for comment.

India is WhatsApp's biggest market with more than 200 million users and one where it says people forward more messages, photographs and videos than any other country.

There are also concerns that supporters of political parties could use social media platforms such as WhatsApp to spread false messages in the run-up to India's national elections in 2019.

In July, WhatsApp said message forwards will be limited to five chats at a time, whether among individuals or groups, and said it will remove the quick forward button placed next to media messages.

IT minister Prasad also said WhatsApp was working with law enforcement agencies to tackle the problem and was planning a big campaign to educate consumers about fake messages.

PAYMENTS ROW

WhatsApp will also comply with the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) directive of April that said all payments firms operating in the country should start storing data locally for "unfettered supervisory access", Prasad said.

The central bank is currently working on guidelines related to the directive, which has drawn protest from companies such as Mastercard, Visa and American Express who fear it would lead to higher costs of setting up data centres in the country and weaken analysis of global fraud detection patterns.

Lack of clarity over the RBI's directive has delayed the launch of WhatsApp inter-bank money transfer service in India, which it had tested earlier this year, a source with direct knowledge previously told Reuters.
Microsoft has blamed Russian hackers for allegedly targeting US political groups ahead of the midterm elections.

The company said a hacking group tied to the Russian government created fake internet domains that appeared to spoof two American conservative organisations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute.

Three other fake domains were designed to look as if they belonged to the US Senate.

Microsoft did not offer any further description of the fake sites.

The revelation came just weeks after a similar Microsoft discovery led Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who is running for re-election, to reveal that Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate her Senate computer network.

The hacking attempts mirror similar Russian attacks ahead of the 2016 election, which US intelligence officials have said were focused on helping to elect Republican Donald Trump to the presidency by hurting his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

This time, more than helping one political party over another, "this activity is most fundamentally focused on disrupting democracy", Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, said in an interview this week.

Mr Smith said there is no sign the hackers were successful in persuading anyone to click on the fake websites, which could have exposed a target victim to computer infiltration, hidden surveillance and data theft.

Both conservative think tanks said they have tried to be vigilant about "spear-phishing" email attacks because their global pro-democracy work has frequently drawn the ire of authoritarian governments.

"We're glad that our work is attracting the attention of bad actors," said Hudson Institute spokesman David Tell.

"It means we're having an effect, presumably."

The International Republican Institute is led by a board that includes six Republican senators, and one prominent Russia critic and Senate hopeful, Mitt Romney, who is running for a Utah seat this fall.

Microsoft calls the hacking group Strontium; others call it Fancy Bear or APT28.

An indictment from US special counsel Robert Mueller has tied it to Russian's main intelligence agency, known as the GRU, and to the 2016 email hacking of both the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

"We have no doubt in our minds" who is responsible, Mr Smith said.

Microsoft has waged a legal battle with Strontium since suing it in a Virginia federal court in summer 2016.

The company obtained court approval last year allowing it to seize certain fake domains created by the group.

It has so far used the courts to shut down 84 fake websites created by the group, including the most recent six announced on Tuesday.

Microsoft has argued in court that by setting up fake but realistic-looking domains, the hackers were misusing Microsoft trademarks and services to hack into targeted computer networks, install malware and steal sensitive emails and other data.

Mr Smith also announced on Tuesday that the company is offering free cybersecurity protection to all US political candidates, campaigns and other political organisations, at least so long as they are already using Microsoft's Office 365 productivity software.

Facebook and Google have also promoted similar tools to combat campaign interference.
The Turkish lira firmed slightly against the dollar in thin trade on Tuesday, shrugging off comments by US President Donald Trump ruling out agreeing to any demands from Turkey to gain the release of a detained American pastor.

In an interview with Reuters on Monday, Trump said he was not concerned that his tough stance could end up hurting European and emerging market economies.

The lira stood at 6.0700 against the US currency at 05:00 GMT, gaining from a close of 6.0865 on Monday, when Turkish markets entered a holiday to mark the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival which continues for the rest of the week.

Turkish government officials did not comment on Trump's remarks as they spoke after prayers to mark the start of the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival.

Devlet Bahceli, leader of a nationalist party allied with Erdogan's AK Party, told reporters: "We have no business with those who love Brunson more than us".

Erdogan had been expected to speak to reporters after morning prayers but has not done so. He spoke by telephone on Tuesday with soldiers stationed near Turkey's Iraq border to send them Eid al-Adha greetings.

"I believe that as long as you stand tall our flag will not fall, our call to prayer will not fall silent and this homeland of ours will not be divided," Hurriyet newspaper reported Erdogan as saying.

"Turkey remains a safe harbour and will continue to be so while the world, particularly our region, passes through a difficult period," Vice President Fuat Oktay told reporters after he prayed in Istanbul.

Trump said he thought he had a deal with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan when he helped persuade Israel to free a detained Turkish citizen. He had thought Erdogan would then release pastor Andrew Brunson, who denies Turkey's allegations that he was involved in a plot against Erdogan two years ago.

"I think it's very sad what Turkey is doing. I think they're making a terrible mistake. There will be no concessions," he said.

Turkey has demanded that the United States hand over Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric in the United States suspected in the coup plot against Erdogan, but the United States has balked at this.

On Monday, Erdogan appealed to Turks' religious and patriotic feelings ahead of the Muslim holiday, promising they would not be brought "to their knees" by the crisis that has battered the lira.
'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." So goes Leo Tolstoy's much-quoted opening sentence in Anna Karenina. Stories of unhappy and fractured families are as old as Cain and Abel, as old as Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Shakespeare gave us Hamlet and his awful mother, Dostoevsky gave us the Karamazov brothers and their awful father and virtually every Irish novelist who ever took pen to paper has each donated at least one unhappy tribe. They are strewn across the pages of literature like crumbs across a breadboard and still we can't get enough of them. You would think there's nothing left to say about the whole sorry business. But you'd be wrong.

The Doyle family in Darragh Martin's masterpiece (there is no other word) suffers a distinctly sorry loss from the outset. Their mother dies in childbirth, leaving triplet infants and older sister Peg with their worse-than-useless father who graciously allows his mammy, Granny Doyle, to look after them. Granny Doyle is so busy with the triplets that she has little time for Peg, "that divil of a four-year-old with alert eyes that took in everything: Peg Doyle would need glasses soon, for all the staring she did, and Granny Doyle could summon few greater disappointments than a bespectacled grandchild".

The triplets were conceived, it appears, on the weekend of Pope John Paul II's visit to Ireland. And like so many babies born in 1979 and 1980, one of these Killester triplets was destined to be christened John Paul, the other two conferred with the far more ordinary titles of Damien and Rosie. It is on the wily wide-boy John Paul Doyle that Granny will hang all her hopes and aspirations. Sure isn't it high time the Vatican had an Irish pope? John Paul is destined for greatness. His frequently cruel granny is sure of it.

Fast forward to 2007. Pope John Paul II's been dead for just two years and already the moves towards his beatification are in train. Peg is in New York and is estranged from her family, we don't yet know why. Granny Doyle's useless son is now dead. These days she knows more dead people than live ones. She has a box full of memorial cards. "She'd be lost without her little box of laminated lives." Her grandchildren don't visit. John Paul is the only one who stays vaguely in touch, gets her groceries delivered, sends her the odd present, gives her a mobile phone that she's unable to use. Her bad knees prevent her from going to Mass. "She could have asked John Paul to drive her to the church, in a different life, where he hadn't torn the heart out of her."

And so we discover quite early that John Paul Doyle hasn't devoted his life to God and is not blazing a trail to the Holy See. Although he has been using the name of John Paul III (ironically, of course), to become a YouTube star "well, in Ireland at least". Meanwhile, Damien has a new partner, Mark, and some keen political aspirations within the Green Party. But when blue-haired bohemian Rosie decides to look up her long-lost sister in New York, things take a turn for the Doyles. The past is no longer a foreign country but is suddenly here and now, staring them all right in the face, like a red-light picture of the Sacred Heart.

Darragh Martin's family history is set within Ireland's see-saw social and political climate from the 1980s up to 2011. A sharp chronicler, you can practically smell the past as it wafts up at you from his pages. And while there's tragedy, and outrage, too, there's whipsmart satire and riotous comedy alongside a type of scholarliness that provides this novel with its zest and ingenuity. Think Zadie Smith. But much funnier.
Carlow Rose Shauna Ray Lacey shares a moment with her Mother Angela Ray during the Rose of Tralee. Picture: Domnick Walsh  Eye Focus LTD

Carlow Rose Shauna Ray Lacey says she hopes to 'make an impact in people's lives and inspire people' with her life story.

Shauna (24) gave a powerful interview during the first televised final of the Rose of Tralee on Monday night in which she revealed that her parents, late father Francis Lacey and her mother Angie Ray, had struggled with heroin addiction.

Viewers were hugely impressed by Shauna who told host Daithi O Se that the birth of her own daughter Emmy (3) was a turning point in her mother's recovery.

"[My mother] said, 'I wasn't in your life but I will be in Emmy's life'," she said. Shauna dedicated her performance of Aslan's 'Crazy World' to her father Francis, who died five years ago, and who had been a fan of the Dublin band.

Expand Close Carlow Rose Shauna Ray Lacey shares a moment with her mother Angela Ray, following her interview in the Dome. Photo: Steve Humphreys / Facebook

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Whatsapp Carlow Rose Shauna Ray Lacey shares a moment with her mother Angela Ray, following her interview in the Dome. Photo: Steve Humphreys

Speaking after the show, Shauna said she was not nervous telling her story, but she was a "bit emotional".

"A lot of the girls wouldn't have known my background," she said of her fellow Roses. "I wanted to share my story with everybody that's watching and inspire young women and anybody watching that they don't necessarily have to choose the path their parents go down and 'monkey see, monkey do' kind of thing."

Carlow Rose Shauna Ray Lacey sings a song her late father used to sing to her, Crazy World.#RoseofTralee live now#CarlowRising pic.twitter.com/zpP4cyek2O  RTE One (@RTEOne) August 20, 2018

She added, "I was just so happy I got to share my story with everybody and I hope I make an impact in people's lives and inspire people."

While she spoke eloquently about her father, she said she felt "very emotional" when she was singing, because "I just kind of played it back in my head, being in the car driving places, and just having Aslan blaring on and him looking at me, [singing] 'this crazy world' so that was probably the most emotional part of it. Afterwards I had a little cry."

Expand Close Carlow Rose Shauna Ray Lacey sings Crazy World Photo: Steve Humphreys / Facebook

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Shauna is a deputy manager at Boylesports bookmakers having previously studied Year 1 of Beauty Therapy at CIFE and completed a TEFL course which helped her to educate business entrepreneurs in communication skills.

Her mother Angie (45), who will be four years clean in February, was in the festival dome to support her daughter. Speaking after the show, she said she was "so proud" of Shauna, and she revealed that she turned to heroin at a low point in her life.

Expand Close Carlow Rose Shauna Ray Laceys Mum Angela Ray and her daughter Emmy Nolan look as as they watch her taking part in the Rose of Tralee International Festival at The Dome in Kerry. Photo: Steve Humphreys / Facebook

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"I had an alcohol problem and when I was about 23/24 things started getting a little bit bad," she revealed. "I was partying for a while. At 31 I found heroin. I was actually lost at that point in my head. I found it very hard to cope with just your daily things. It's so easy to access it and it took away any pain or any feeling. I felt horrible. I felt like a bad parent."

Angie revealed that she tried to keep her addiction a secret as Carlow is such a small town. Now, however, she is proud that Shauna has spoken out.

"You are not who your parents are," she said. "The freedom to speak your mind and to feel like you're not being judged at all is the most powerful thing. I'm speechless, absolutely speechless and for that feeling of 'I don't care who judges me anymore' the freedom of that alone is amazing. I'm so proud of her."

She said she had "no reservations" about Shauna sharing their story on the Rose of Tralee stage. However, Shauna said she did not initially intend to raise the issue of addiction.

"Initially I didn't want to use the Rose of Tralee as a platform for it, I wanted to just celebrate the women and have the banter with the girls and celebrate our Irish heritage and Irish diaspora," she said, adding, "I'm happy it did kind of come out that way. I'm happy now I'm going to inspire people hopefully."

Her advice to children and young adults living with parents who are struggling with the disease of addiction is to "never give up".

"At the end of the day it has to be the parent's decision. You can't do it. You do it for yourself," she said, adding to her mum, "You did it for yourself, to be there for us. I suppose kids living with it - just reach out for resources."

Angie also revealed that she hopes to now "be able to help".

"That's my goal, to advocate for women," she said.

The Rose of Tralee continues on RTE One tonight at 8pm.
Actress Asia Argento gestures during the closing ceremony of the 71st international film festival in Cannes, France (Vianney le Caer/AP)

The Italian actress and filmmaker Asia Argento has said she never had a sexual relationship with the young actor whom she paid 380,000 US dollars after he accused her of sexual assault.

In a statement on Tuesday, Argento said reports were absolutely false and that she was linked in friendship only to the now 22-year-old actor who filed a legal notice of intent to sue Argento.

As detailed in a New York Times story published on Sunday, the actor claimed Argento sexually assaulted him when he was 17.

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Argento said the 380,000 US dollar payment was made by her late boyfriend Anthony Bourdain, the television star chef.

Argento said Bourdain personally undertook to help (the actor) economically under the condition that he not contact Argento again.

Argento is a key figure in the #MeToo movement and has made accusations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
The Celebrity Big Brother housemates will enter the diary room tonight to give their first eviction nominations of the series, with one set to receive a pardon from house president Kirstie Alley.

In scenes shown in tonights episode of the Channel 5 reality show, the contestants will let loose as they explain who they would like to see leave first.

Former The Only Way Is Essex star Dan Osborne is set to put US reality star Natalie Nunns name on the chopping block after her behaviour made former Love Island contestant Gabby Allen feel intimidated.

THE BIG TEASE. Your first exclusive glimpse of nominations, as one housemate receives a presidential pardon, and the celebrities let loose in the Diary Room. Plus @pennant83 barks like a dog. Don't miss the show tonight at 9pm on @channel5_tv. Brought to you by @PinkCasino_ #CBB pic.twitter.com/fTWNDHtyAf  Big Brother UK (@bbuk) August 21, 2018

Explaining his decision Osborne will say: Its a tough one as I do really like Natalie. I get on well with her. Shes been a bit different today though.

Im very close with Gabby and Ive become very close to Hardeep (Singh Koli) too. She was very rude to Hardeep about his cooking and then she was rude to Gabby as well and made her cry.

I dont want to see people that I get on with really well and that I like crying. Its causing a bit of a bad atmosphere.

Osborne is set to comfort a tearful Allen, who will break down and say after Natalie told her that she is fading into the background on the show.

Osborne will tell Allen: You should say in return to that Id rather fade into the background, whatever you mean by that, then get involved in other peoples business.

Hollywood actress Alley will inform the housemates that as house president she will grant immunity from eviction to the person she believes deserves it the most.

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Each contestant will present their case for why they should be saved to Alley in the oval office. Osbourne will suggest it should be him as he helped clean Singh Kolis hair out of the bath.

Celebrity Big Brother continues on Channel 5 tonight at 9pm.
Fans of the Irish version of Dragon's Den will remember Noelle O'Connor and her TanOrganic brand of self-tanning products.

The brand still holds the title for the most successful Dragons' Den Ireland product with 1m in sales within the first three months of trading.

And last night Noelle appeared before the four UK dragons - Deborah Meaden, Tei Lavani, Jenny Campbell and Touker Suleyman - seeking an investment of 150,000 for a 5% stake in the company.

All four offered Noelle and her partner Aaron Lubrani the cash, but they wanted a bigger stake in the company and they turned all four offers down.

Expand Close Noelle O'Connor with Gavin Duffy on Dragons' Den Ireland / Facebook

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"They are a tough group of business people to deal with, before we went into the Den we had decided we would give them 5% of the company, however they were pushing for 15%," she said.

"I know the power of Dragons Den, when I appeared on RTEs Dragons Den in Ireland, TanOrganic sales were catapulted to an astonishing 1 million within three months. So part of me was kicking myself for not taking investment."

Expand Close Gavin Duffy poses with Noelle O'Connor and models wearing TanOrganic self tan / Facebook

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However, since her appearance on the show on BBC2 last night she has already had three calls with three firm offers of investment.

TanOrganic is the world's first and only eco-certified organic self-tanning brand and the highest rated self-tan with a score of 9.7 on Trustpilot.

It is also the only self tan with full Vegan Society, leaping Bunny Cruelty Free and Ecocert certifications and it has a 100 per cent score with the ethical association. Only six cosmetic companies globally have this score.
The companies are being liquidated as part of an orderly wind-down of part of the collapsed empire. (Stock photo)

A worker was forced to resign from his job under duress after he was brought out to sea in a speedboat by his boss and questioned over missing money (Stock photo)

A worker at an amusement company was forced to resign from his job under duress after he was brought out to sea in a speedboat by his boss and aggressively questioned for an hour over a missing 10,000.

In the case, the worker said that during the incident, 4km from shore, reference was made to the fact that he would not be able to reach land by swimming because of the coldness of the water.

The worker denied taking any money and told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) that he was scared and cold during the questioning that continued for about one hour.

At that stage, a helicopter appeared and hovered in the area. The boat was untied from the buoy and made its way back to the harbour while the questions continued.

The worker told the WRC that he was subjected to physical and mental stress, was verbally abused and that he was forced to resign under duress.

He said three people questioned him on the speedboat, the company director, his line manager and a business associate of the company director.

The worker said that all three were asking him questions about stealing money from the company and that the director was aggressive in his language.

The boat trip took place on a day off from work for the employee and he said that when they returned to shore, he was forced to resign from his job when he signed a resignation letter that had been prepared for him.

The letter, dated April 27, 2017, stated: "I refer to our conversation this morning and wish to confirm my decision to resign with immediate effect", and was signed by the worker.

The firm subsequently posted out a money order of wages that were owed to the worker and the worker returned the order with a note stating: "What you planned and did to me last Thursday morning was unforgivable. I have been a loyal, committed employee for years. I can't understand why. Why did you do what you did?"

On the speedboat incident, the worker said that he subsequently made a complaint to gardai but that no criminal prosecution had followed.

However, the WRC has upheld the man's claim for unfair dismissal and has awarded him 889.

The award is low as the man has been in receipt of disability payments since resigning his post. Also, as the man has been unavailable for work, he is deemed not to be suffering any financial loss.

Referring to the speed-boat incident, WRC Adjudication Officer Joe Donnelly found that the man was unfairly dismissed in spite of the company director offering a version of events that was completely at odds with the worker's account.

Mr Donnelly stated: "On the balance of probabilities, the resignation of the complainant was brought about by duress due to the actions of the respondent."
Gerard Fortune (inset), who died after a stabbing at his home in Crumlin

A SON accused of murdering his father told gardai: he was my dad and I love him very much, I would have done anything for him.

David Fortune (31) gave the response when he was charged with murdering his father Gerard Fortune (63), who was found stabbed at their home in Dublin on Sunday night.

He was remanded in custody for a week when he appeared in Dublin District Court this afternoon.

David Fortune, also known as David OLeary, is charged with murdering his father, a hospital care worker, at their home at Rutland Grove, Crumlin on August 19.

Garda Sergeant Brendan OHalloran told Judge Mary Dorgan he arrested the accused at Crumlin Garda Station for the purpose of charge at 12.52am this morning for the offence of murder of Gerard Fortune on August 19, 2018 at Rutland Grove, Crumlin.

The accused made no reply when he was cautioned that he was not obliged to say anything.

At 1.55am, he was charged in Sgt OHallorans presence and handed a copy of the charge sheet.

In reply to the charge, he said: I never meant to harm anyone. He was my dad and I love him very much. I would have done anything for him.

Sgt OHalloran said the accused used both surnames.

Defence solicitor Brian Coveney said given the nature of the charge, he was making no application for bail on his client's behalf. Bail can only be granted in the High Court on a murder charge.

He was consenting to the defendant being remanded in custody for a week.

Judge Dorgan granted free legal aid after Mr Coveney made an application and handed a statement of the accuseds financial means in to court. The accused was not working and there was no garda objection to legal aid.

She remanded Mr Fortune in custody to appear in Cloverhill District Court on August 28.

The accused, wearing a red Adidas t-shirt, grey tracksuit bottoms and black runners, did not address the court during the brief hearing.

He appeared visibly distressed as he sat through the proceedings and gestured towards weeping family members in the public gallery as he left the court.

Gardai and emergency services were called to the house at around 8pm on Sunday.

Gerard Fortune had suffered a stab wound and was removed by ambulance to St James's Hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

The scene was preserved for a technical and forensic examination and an incident room was established at Sundrive Road Garda Station.

Yesterday, Gda Supt Michael Cryan said gardai were appealing to anyone who was in the Rutland Grove/Clogher Road area between 8pm and 8.15pm on Sunday to come forward.

Supt Cryan said gardai were also trying to trace the movements of a Red Toyota Yaris on the night.
A High Court judge has reserved his decision until Wednesday on an application ultimately aimed at blocking the PSNI's Deputy Chief Constable, Drew Harris, from taking up his position as the next Garda Commissioner.

Belfast based researcher Ciaran MacAirt, whose grandmother Kathleen Irvine was one of 15 people killed when a loyalist bomb exploded at McGurk's Bar in Belfast in December 1971, has asked the High Court to judicially review the Governments decision to appoint Mr Harris.

The State, represented by Remy Farrell SC, has opposed the application, and argues Mr MacAirt's action is "unstateable and novel" and should be dismissed.

Following the conclusion of submissions from both sides Mr Justice Denis McDonald said he was reserving his position on whether to grant permission allowing Mr MacAirt's case to be heard at a full hearing of the High Court.

The Judge, who acknowledged the urgency in the matter as Mr Harris is due to commence the role on September 3rd, said he hoped to be in a position to deliver judgment tomorrow morning.

In proceedings against the Minister for Justice, Ireland and the Attorney General Mr McAirt seeks various orders including one quashing the decision to appoint Mr Harris as Commissioner of An Garda Siochana and a declaration that he is unsuitable for the post.

In the alternative, he seeks an order preventing Mr Harris having any role in the direction and control of the Garda investigation into the murder of Irish citizens where there is credible evidence of collusion by the RUC or other agencies of the British state in the murder.

He also seeks declarations that the Irish State is obliged to conduct independent investigations into murders of Irish citizens where there is credible evidence of collusion with the British security forces.

He further seeks a declaration that due to his obligations under the UK's Offical Secrets Act and his role in the protection of the PSNI, the RUC and other agencies of the UK, Mr Harris would be incapable of controlling an independent investigation into the murder of those Irish citizens where collusion was alleged.

On Tuesday Mr Farrell for the state said that the case being advanced by Mr MacAirt was "unstateable" and even when taken at its height was "nothing more than an expression of an opinion" that the applicant does not agree with Mr Harris's appointment.

No legal points had been raised in the action that would allow the Court grant Mr McAirt permission to bring his challenge before a full hearing of the court which was being asked to substitute Mr McAirts views over those of Police Authority which had recommended his appointment.

Mr Farrell also told the court that the Government had a minimal role in Mr Harris's appointment. Mr Harris had been selected following a process undertaken by the Police Authority and the Public Appointments Service.

Counsel said Mr MacAirt had not challenged that process nor did he make the argument that the decision to nominate Mr Harris was irrational and unreasonable or that there was a flaw in the process.

Counsel said that the recruitment process for the new Garda Commissioner had also sought candidates from outside the State. Obligations of such candidates from other countries, under laws such as the UK's Official Secrets Act had been taken into account by those undertaking the search for a new Garda commissioner.

The state's submissions were rejected by barrister Gerard Humphreys who appeared for Mr MacAirt with Ruadhan MacAodhain of McGeehin Toale Solicitors.

Mr Humphreys said Mr Harris lacked the independence required to be Garda Commissioner due to his role in the PSNI and its predecessor the RUC.

Counsel said Hr Harris could not direct or control any Garda investigation into the murder of an Irish citizen where there was credible evidence of collusion, between the killers and the RUC or agencies of the British State, including the Dublin Monaghan bombings.

Due to his senior role with the PSNI, and contacts with other agencies of the British state including MI5, Mr Harris has possession of information directly relevant to Garda investigations into the murder of Irish citizens during the troubles.

Mr Humphreys said Mr Harris had signed and was bound by the UK's Official Secrets Act making it impossible to fully discharge his duties as the next Garda Commissioner. This conflict was incompatible with the duties of Commissioner as laid out under Section 5 of the Garda Siochana Act, in particular to state security and the investigation of crime.

Mr MacAirt, who says he was shocked by the decision to appoint Mr Harris, had written a book about and researched the McGurk's bombing and is a director of the Charity Paper Trail which supports victims and survivors of the Troubles. He claims that he has been trying to establish the truth behind the bombing.

The RUC initially blamed it on an IRA bomb being accidentally detonated when in fact the bomb was deliberately planted in the bar by the UVF. Mr MacAirt claimed there was never a proper investigation into the bombing, and alleged there was an RUC cover-up in regards to what happened.

He claims his efforts to find the truth had been frustrated by the PSNI and he had been consistently obstructed by Deputy Chief Constable Harris.

He alleges that as part of his role with the PSNI Mr Harris had responsibility for the PSNI's Historical Enquiries Team, which investigated the bombing. It had produced four reports, which Mr McAirt claimed Harris had the final say over.

Those reports had all been rejected by the victims of the bombing because allegations of collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the RUC had not been addressed.
The drop in demand from school-leavers for computing courses has triggered alarm in business and technology circles.

A decline in applications to the CAO this year for information and communications technologies (ICT) programmes translated into widespread points drops in CAO Round 1 yesterday.

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While UCD's BSc computer science held up, there were some big falls: the same course in Trinity slid from 467 to 444, UCC's slipped 126 to 403, and DIT's went from 443 to 434.

Business organisation Ibec said there were 12,000 vacancies in the sector, offering quality job opportunities at all levels, and called for action to encourage more students to pursue ICT-related careers.

Una Fitzpatrick, director of Ibec's Technology Ireland group, said it was positive to see more students taking higher level maths and engineering subjects in the Leaving Cert, but that was not coming through in CAO applications.

She said there was a need for initiatives in schools, higher education and further education, alternative pathways, such as apprenticeships, as well as measures to attract talent to Ireland.

Ms Fitzpatrick said more tech companies in Ireland were embracing key drivers of change, such as cloud-based technologies, which had the potential to enhance productivity and performance across the board.

"Therefore, this is a business issue for all sectors not just the tech sector," she added.

Cybersecurity company BSI also expressed concern about the decrease in demand for physics and technology-related courses.

BSI's head of human resources in Ireland Aoife Stokes pointed to the increase in students sitting higher level maths and said it was "alarming to see a decrease in points for computer science".

Meanwhile, Engineers Ireland welcomed the 3pc rise in demand for engineering courses, which saw points for many courses rise, and urged all those who had received a CAO offer in this area to accept it, while others should explore routes such as apprenticeships.

Engineers Ireland registrar Damien Owens said almost half of engineering employers agreed that there was an inadequate supply of engineers to meet demands.

Engineering and ICT courses may be among those that feature on the CAO Available Places facility that opens today advertising courses with vacancies.

Meanwhile, the release of CAO Round 1 offers led to another busy day on the National Parents' Council post-primary (NPCpp) Helpline with about 400 calls. The free helpline on 1800 265 165 is open today from 8am to 7pm and tomorrow from 10am until 1pm.
The Chief Executive of the Higher Education Authority Dr Graham Love is stepping down from his role amid tensions with the Department of Education over funding for third-level.

In a surprise move, Dr Love announced today that 'with regret' that he is going to leave the position after only 20 months in the job.

Dr Love confirmed the news in a brief statement, as he wished the organisation 'every success'. It is understood that he has no immediate career plans.

His statement did not make any reference to the reason for his decision, but it is understood that there have been tensions between higher education sector and the Department of Education.

With the State contribution to third-level colleges down dramatically on where it was a decade ago, the sector is frustrated that the funding issue has not been addressed, while, at the same time, the . Department exerts considerable control .

The Cassells Report three years ago said the system needed an extra 600m a year, but no significant action has been taken on the options outlined.

The funding squeeze is blamed for the way Irish universities are plummeting down international rankings. The ration of staff to students is out of kilter with international norms, while many building and equipment are outdated or falling apart.

In a notice posted on the HEA website, Dr Love It is with regret that I resign as HEA chief executive. The HEA makes a valuable contribution to higher education in Ireland. In my brief tenure, I have endeavoured to make strategic development a core element of HEA activities.

I wish the organisation every success in the future.

Dr Love was appointed to the role in January 2017 and the HEA's Chairman, Michael Horgan, said he has made a considerable difference during that time.

Mr Horgan said: On behalf of the Authority, I want to thank Dr Love for his significant contribution to the HEA.

Since joining the HEA, he has overseen the reorganisation of the internal management of the Authority, the production of a new strategic plan and the recruitment of new staff to key positions within the Authority.

During his term, a new funding model has been developed, a new performance framework introduced and the redrafting of a new legislative foundation for the HEA begun.

Dr Love has significantly contributed to the development of the higher education system in Ireland and we in the HEA are sad and disappointed that he is leaving, but we wish him every success in the future.

As a Board we will focus now on continuing the delivery of the HEA workplan, quickly securing an interim CEO and setting about recruiting a permanent replacement.

He is expected to step down in October.

Dr Love, who is from Dublin, is a UCD graduuate and holds a PhD in cell biology.

He was previously the Chief Executive of the Health Research Board Board, an agency of the Department of Health.

In a statement, the Department of Education said it would like to sincerely thank Dr Love for his contribution to the HEA and higher education sector as a whole and wished him the best for his future.

The statement added that, under his leadership and guidance, the HEA had overseen the implementation of significant reform measures , including a new systems performance framework and the design and implementation of a new funding model for higher education.

This new model will provide a roadmap for transitioning towards a reformed universal funding model that is more transparent, consistent across higher education institutions and will provide a mechanism to drive future performance and reform..
Yes badges on the T-Shirt of Liz Crummie, as the result is announced at Dublin Castle (Niall Carson/PA)

A supporter holds photo of Savita Halappanavar in Dublin Castle as Ireland has voted to repeal the 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution which prohibits abortions unless a mother's life is in danger.

Yes campaigners calling for abortion rights in the North during the referendum count in Dublin Castle

A woman breaks down in tears as the results in the Irish referendum on the 8th amendment Photo: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

Family doctors may decline to provide a medical abortion to a woman who is more than nine weeks' pregnant if access to ultrasound is not available.

Proposed legislation widening the grounds for abortion following repeal of the Eighth Amendment will allow medical terminations up to 12 weeks in pregnancy.

However, draft discussion guidelines from the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) in advance of the legislation warn that it may be difficult to measure how far along the pregnancy is after nine weeks.

In those cases, a scan involving an ultrasound will be needed - but this may not be readily available to the GP.

A draft position paper sent to family doctors by the ICGP pointed to difficulties in correctly measuring gestational age after nine weeks.

A medical abortion involves taking two medications, usually 24 to 48 hours apart, to induce a miscarriage.

One of the issues which the proposed regulation of medical abortion will have to work out is whether a woman who is given the go-ahead for the procedure is dispensed the medication in the GP surgery or whether she will have to go to a pharmacy.

There is currently no consensus among doctors on whether a woman should take the medication at the surgery or at home.

GPs will need to undergo training before becoming involved in the service.

The ICGP document said the second medication could be taken at home as opposed to the doctor's surgery.

However, there will be a need for an emergency helpline to be available to allow her to seek medical advice in the event of complications.

Most women won't experience any problems, but there is a small risk of complications, such as excessive bleeding, infection, some of the pregnancy remaining in the womb or damage to the womb.

GPs can exercise conscientious objection and opt not to provide the service.

However, they have a duty of care to the patient and ensure they are not judgemental while referring her on to a doctor who performs medical abortions.

The Government has promised the new law will become effective in early January.

However, it is unlikely this deadline will be met for several reasons, including the need to train GPs and ensuring that it is not launched during what is the most chaotic month in the year for the health service due to the trolley crisis and the spread of flu.

GPs are normally in the front-line during the post-Christmas rush and would be under even more pressure if a significant number of women came forward seeking the new service.

The legislation is due be debated before the Oireachtas over the autumn and winter months.

The fees to be paid to GPs have yet to be agreed and they are expected to be quite sizeable.
Gardai are appealing for the public's help in finding a teenage girl who has been missing for five days.

Gardai are seeking the public's help in tracing the whereabouts of Jodie Mulvihill (16), who is missing since Friday August 17.

Jodie is described as being 5'5", with brown hair, with a nose piercing, of slim build with brown eyes.

When last seen Jodie was wearing a black jacket, grey bottoms and white runners.

She was last seen on Main Street, Swords. It is believed Jodie may be in the Mullingar area.

Anyone with information on her whereabouts are asked to contact Gardai in Ronanstown on 01 666 7700.
JOE Duffy hopes Pope Francis will tell the Church to be more open and understanding during his upcoming visit to Ireland.

The head of the Catholic Church will arrive this weekend for a 36-hour stay, beginning on Saturday.

He is the first Pope to visit these shores since John Paul II in 1979.

More than anything, I hope that he will give a message to the Irish Church to be much more open and much less controlling, said Duffy.

The Liveline presenter (62) pointed out the significant social changes that have taken place in Ireland since the 1970s.

Were living in a different country now. [The proscriptions on] contraception, divorce, same-sex marriage and abortion have been significantly defeated by the vote of the Irish people, he said.

While the visit of Pope John Paul in 1979 was very much billed as a celebration, this is different.

The fact that Pope Francis is going to visit the Capuchins in Church Street in Dublin is an incredible gesture.

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He could also stop at the Magdalene laundry on Sean McDermott Street and say a silent prayer, which would be an incredible gesture.

Duffy pointed out that he is a main of faith and, while church attendance in Ireland may have waned over the years, there is still a large number of people who draw comfort and serenity from their faith.

We had a woman on Liveline recently who voted yes in the abortion referendum, he told the RTE Guide.

Afterwards she was wary about going back to mass but she [went] and cried because she got peace from the mass.

COMFORT

So we have to acknowledge that many people find comfort in their faith.

Duffy, who was a speaker at the Papal Youth Mass in 1979, admitted he was more cynical about the Church nowadays.

I still have many good friends who are clerics or ex-clerics, he said.

They are very open and would never say that anybody who voted yes in the abortion referendum should not come into the Church without first going to confession.

Of course there are arguments like why get involved with an institution where women are very much excluded?

Hopefully, on this visit the Pope will say open those doors to women, let women take a much greater and active part in the Church.

I really believe those doors will have to be flung open.

Duffy still remembers John Paul IIs visit and noted he is looking forward to Pope Franciss stay.

At the time, I cringed watching Bishop Eamonn Casey and Fr Michael Cleary with their patronising attitude to the young people, he said.

But there was also a great bit of craic, camping out the night before and all that. Im glad I did it and Im looking forward to the visit. It will be a fascinating day.
Businessman Sean Gallagher is in talks with a number of councillors about a second bid for the presidency, the Irish Independent has learned.

The man who finished second to Michael D Higgins in the 2011 election is continuing to weigh up the potential for a fresh tilt at Aras an Uachtarain.

Speculation was mounting last night that there could be developments in the coming days, although sources close to Mr Gallagher said his position remains unchanged.

It is understood a "coalition of councillors" from different parts of the country are now in contact with the 'Dragons' Den' entrepreneur. They are urging him to seek local authority nominations in order to get on the ballot paper.

Sources close to Mr Gallagher have previously suggested he will wait until September before making a formal declaration.

It comes as plans to have Oireachtas members nominate at least one candidate to challenge for the presidency are to be stepped up a gear. Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice is writing to TDs and senators for a second time, asking them to take part in the nomination process.

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He is proposing that TDs and senators should listen to potential candidates before joining together to give somebody the 20 signatures required to get on the ballot paper.

Independent senator Padraig O Ceidigh is seen as the most acceptable candidate for a majority of non-party Oireachtas members but is understood to be wary about entering the race.

He has spent several weeks looking at his options but said yesterday he was "still considering it at this stage".

"I'm waiting to see how the dust settles with other candidates and the parties. Ultimately, my decision will be based around what's best for my family and whether I have a realistic chance of winning it," he said.

A previous attempt by Mr Fitzmaurice to rally support for a candidate resulted in positive indications from 19 members, one short of the quota.

He has made it clear that a signature should not automatically tie a TD or senator to the prospective candidate in the subsequent election battle.

"I think it's shameful that the political parties have tried to stagnate the whole thing. You don't have to be backing or supporting someone, just give them opportunity to go," the Roscommon TD said.

His comments came after journalist Gemma O'Doherty indicated that she will seek to get on the ballot paper.

She has asked supporters to write to TDs and senators encouraging them to give her a signature.

A number of politicians who are willing to take part in the process noted last night that Ms O'Doherty would stand a better chance of getting a nomination if she sought the support of four local authorities. This is the route that has been chosen by businessman Gavin Duffy, Senator Joan Freeman and artist Kevin Sharkey.
President Michael D and Sabina Higgins with Alfie Conroy (7) who is holding a stick insect at the official opening of the new Discovery and Learning Centre at Dublin Zoo. Photo: Patrick Bolger

President Michael D Higgins paid a visit to his neighbours in Dublin Zoo to unveil a new learning and resource centre.

Mr Higgins, who did not take questions from the media, delivered a passionate speech on the importance of the zoo in education around conservation and the need to protect the environment.

He said Dublin Zoo, with more than 600 animals, was a world leading facility which was doing valuable work in areas including the protection of endangered species and peat conservation.

The 3m discovery and learning centre is a state-of-the-art facility which Mr Higgins said will be a "living classroom".

The centre will provide immersive education experiences in biodiversity, wildlife conservation, ecology and zoology. The new building includes two classrooms, a lecture theatre and a discovery centre.

It is home to a full-size giraffe skeleton, a model of a southern white rhinoceros, a pair of African lions and a nesting ostrich.

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Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was among the guests who attended the opening of the centre and the pair were pictured together.

Mr Higgins, who is due to begin campaigning for a second term in office in the coming weeks, also spent time with guests posing for pictures.

He has yet to participate in an interview on his decision to seek a second term, but it is expected that he will take part in interviews and debates when the campaign begins.
Leo Varadkar welcomed the letter issued by Pope Francis in which he apologised for the failures o the Church. Photo: Irish Independent

The Catholic Church should look to replicate Irelands use of mandatory reporting of sexual abuse, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

Speaking in Dublin, he welcomed the letter issued by Pope Francis in which he apologised for the failures o the Church.

Mr Varadkar said the Pope was saying all the right things ahead of his visit to Ireland later this week  but words need to be followed up by actions.

I think thats what people will want to see in the period ahead in order to restore trust and confidence in the Church, he said.

The Taoiseach, who will host a special reception for Pope Francis in Dublin Castle on Saturday, said he has spent the last few days reflecting on the church in wake of clerical sex abuse scandals.

A lot of institution have a dark legacy of treating children, and women and those most vulnerable very badly. Its not just the Catholic Church, the State doesnt have a very good record in that regard either, Mr Varadkar said.

He noted that Ireland introduced mandatory reporting last year and has no statute of limitations when it comes to prosecutions for sexual offences.

While that may not be the law in every country in the world, I think its best practice and something that the Church and other institutions might consider implementing. Just because its not the law doesnt mean it isnt the right thing to do, the Taoiseach said.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin during the opening ceremony of the World Meeting of Families at the RDS in Dublin. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire

The Pope has expressed hope his visit to Ireland will help grow unity and reconciliation among Christians.

In a video message released ahead of his weekend arrival, Pope Francis said he was excited about his two-day trip to Dublin and the Knock holy shrine in Co Mayo.

The video was released hours after it was confirmed that the Pope will meet victims of clerical sex abuse during his Irish visit.

The video message coincided with the opening of the major family-themed event in Dublin on Tuesday evening.

"Although the specific reason for my visit to Ireland is the World Meeting of Families, I would like to include all the members of the Irish family," said the Pope.

"In a particular way, I pray that it may further the growth of unity and reconciliation among all Christ's followers, as a sign of that lasting peace which is God's dream for our whole human family."

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In opening the message, the pontiff said: "As I prepare to visit Ireland in a few days' time for the World Meeting of Families, I send a warm word of greeting to all the Irish people. I am excited at the thought of returning to Ireland."

The Pope is not due to travel to Northern Ireland during his visit, despite being urged by religious figures on both sides of the region's sectarian divide to travel across the border.

The World Meeting of Families (WMOF) officially got underway on Tuesday evening as thousands descended on Dublin's Royal Dublin Society (RDS) to attend the opening ceremony.

Church bells were rung simultaneously across Ireland's 26 dioceses to launch the five-day Catholic congress. Prayers were also said throughout the dioceses.

More than 37,000 people from 116 different countries are expected to attend the RDS for a series of events as part of the Catholic festival.

Hundreds of thousands more will attend the celebrations that will be led by Pope Francis this weekend in Dublin and Knock.

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The WMOF will culminate with the closing papal mass in the Phoenix Park on Sunday.

The event has gained huge significance since the Pope made a statement on Monday apologising for the atrocities of clerical sexual abuse.

In a letter to the world's more than 1 billion Catholics, Pope Francis said the Church needed to move to end the culture of death within it.

The opening ceremony, which was entitled Le Cheile le Criost, or Together with Christ, included hymns, psalms and prayers for the entire human family before God.

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In his homily, the Archbishop of Dublin welcomed the thousands of international visitors to the country.

Families and pilgrimage groups will travel from as far as Africa, Canada, Europe, Australia and India to partake.

Diarmuid Martin said: "There are those who would look at the World Meeting as some sort of ideological gathering to celebrate a type of family which probably does not exist.

"Whatever of the past, here in Dublin the World Meeting is something much more profound: it is to reflect the opening words of our reading: 'You are God's chosen race; he loves you'."

Dr Martin added: "The family is not a remote ideological notion but the place where compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience and forgiveness are learned, practised and spread."

The archbishop said family life has changed in Ireland.

"It may seem a strange thing to say, but we have to find ways of ensuring that these new relationships and challenges in family culture become 'clothed in love'," Dr Martin said.

"Only the power of love can purify and restore our Church and us and our society."

He added: "We thank God for the at times immense sacrifice that exists in the love within families.

"We pray for those who have never experienced such love or from whom such love was stolen through abuse or neglect."

Earlier on Tuesday, the Vatican confirmed the Pope would hold a private meeting with victims of church abuse during his visit.

The Catholic Church has been rocked by revelations of wrongdoing by members of the religious orders stretching back decades.

One campaigner said survivors of clerical sex abuse are hoping for real action after they meet Pope Francis.

Earlier this week, the leader of the world church condemned the "atrocities" of child sex abuse and clerical cover-ups in a strongly-worded open letter to the faithful.

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Maeve Lewis, executive director of the One In Four Irish charity for those affected by sexual abuse, said: "If the Pope is in an open, listening mode when he meets the survivors he can learn a lot about the terrible devastation of sex abuse and how people feel let down.

"If he makes any promises to survivors in terms of actions he should follow through on that.

"It would be terribly hurtful if the meeting (produced) no concrete outcome as a result of this."

The Pope is due to arrive in Dublin on Saturday for two days of meetings with families and political authorities, as well as a trip to the Knock shrine, which is revered by Catholics.

Kate Walmsley, 62, suffered sex abuse at the hands of a priest.

She said: "If he is the head of the Catholic Church then he is the person we need to talk to to put forward the wrongs all the children have suffered and I am one of them."

Protesters have arranged a series of rallies coinciding with the pontiff's trip to Ireland to highlight what they believe has been the church's failure to properly address wrongdoing.

Ms Lewis said it would have been an "insult" had the Pope not met survivors.

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She said some would very much want to engage while others would avoid him due to a sense of "betrayal".

Last week a grand jury report outlined seven decades of abuse in Pennsylvania.

The investigation found more than 1,000 children had been abused by 300 priests.

The Pope has apologised after defending a bishop in Chile who was accused of hiding abuses by a priest.

Ireland is gearing up for its first papal visit in 40 years during which at least half a million people are expected to attend a special mass in Dublin's Phoenix Park.
Leona Lambe (with back to camera) is consoled at the scene of the fatal stabbing of her father Gerard Fortune. Photo: Collins

A man who is being questioned in relation to the murder of his father was previously convicted of manslaughter for stabbing another man to death when he was 17.

David O'Leary (31) remained in Garda custody last night after his father Gerard 'Gerry' Fortune (63) was found stabbed to death at his home in Crumlin, Dublin.

Mr Fortune was stabbed once in the throat in the attack at Rutland Grove on Sunday night.

His attacker is alleged to have fled the scene and hijacked a car being driven by a 63-year-old woman who was teaching her 26-year-old daughter to drive.

A manhunt began immediately but sources said that a "blood-covered" O'Leary actually attended O'Connolly Hospital at 10.20pm, believing that he had been injured himself. He was immediately arrested.

"It seems he was so intoxicated and covered in blood that he mistakenly thought that he had been stabbed himself and therefore went to hospital looking for treatment," a source said.

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O'Leary had been arrested on suspicion of drug-driving in the early hours of Sunday morning but was released at 8am after receiving station bail when charged with failing to provide a specimen. It is understood he then went on a "booze and drugs bender".

Mr Fortune, a care assistant at St James's Hospital, was stabbed once in the throat with a weapon believed to be a bread knife.

Speaking at the crime scene yesterday, his daughter Leona Lambe said he was an "amazing father and grandfather".

"Anyone that knew him knows he couldn't do enough for them. He would give you the shirt off his back. He didn't deserve to die like this," she told the Irish Independent. "Nobody had a bad word to say about dad. He wouldn't see anyone in trouble.

"There was once some tourists who got attacked in town and they were in St James's, and they went on social media to thank a man they only knew as Gerry because he helped them. He gave them money for taxis and other things. That's the sort of man he was. He had a heart of gold and he will be missed."

Speaking about the man who gardai are questioning, Leona said her father loved him too.

"He always stood by him. He was part of the family," she said.

This was not the first time O'Leary was arrested for violent knife crime. He was aged only 17 when he stabbed another man to death. He was found not guilty of murder but guilty of the manslaughter of Michael Murphy (31) outside the Buda Bar, in Blanchardstown, on Halloween night 2004.

Superintendent Michael Cryan said: "We are appealing to anyone who was in the Rutland Grove and Clogher Road area of Dublin 12 between 8pm and 8.15pm on Sunday to come forward. We are also trying to trace the movements of a Red Toyota Yaris, with L plates and partial registration 04-WW, that was driven from the scene at about 8pm before it was recovered at approximately 8.20pm at Connolly Hospital."
A priest at the funeral of tragic Co Donegal crash victim Shiva Blue Devine has told young people not to think that they are invincible.

Fr Joeseph O'Donnell was speaking at the funeral mass of the 20-year-old at St Brigid's Church in Ballintra.

Hundreds of people packed into the church overlooking Donegal Bay to say a final farewell to the mother-of-one.

Shiva died along with friend Conall McAleer after the car in which they were both back-seat passengers struck a wall and then a lamp post in Bundoran at 3.25am on Sunday morning last.

Fr Joe told dozens of young mourners "To all you young people here today, I say to you, you are not indestructible, you are very fragile so please handle your life with care."

Fr O'Donnell revealed how this was not the first time he had conducted a funeral mass for a young person killed in such circumstances.

The priest was also present at Letterkenny University Hospital in 2010 when the bodies of eight people killed in the Clonmany road tragedy were brought to the morgue.

He added that the toll of the occasion took him two years to recover from.

He said I spent that Sunday night and Monday morning consoling parents and their friends and leading them down to identify their children.

I had hoped that I would never have to face anything like that ever again. It took me two years to recover.

While the circumstances and the details of Sunday mornings crash may be totally different, the one true fact remains, young lives have been lost."

Among the mourners was tragic Shiva's mum and dad, Julian and Nicola and extended family members.

Her three-year-old son Kyle, wearing a red sequined hat, brought a CD to the altar as part of the offertory gifts.

Many of those at the funeral wore blue in honour of Shiva including mother Nicole who wore a blue address and dark glasses.

The congregation, which was described as one of the biggest in living memory, was told that Shiva packed so much into her short life and always enjoyed having fun.

She had no real time for modern music but loved country and western.

In her honour, Fr O'Donnell recited the Roger Turner poem 'I Grew Up On Country Music.'

Shiva was buried in the adjoining cemetery as hundreds of mourners later walked to the nearby Ballintra Community Centre for refreshments to remember Shiva's life.
I was served two, distinct takes on Irish food this week.

The first came at the launch of Food on the Edge 2018, a cutting-edge symposium that continues to seduce rock star chefs like Virgillio Martinez, Nathan Outlaw and Angela Hartnett to Galway.

The second was Lonely Planets Ultimate Eatlist, a new ranking of the worlds Top 500 food experiences.

Its highest Irish entry? Thatll be Irish stew and a pint of the black stuff, at No. 47.

Its the definition of warming, hearty and filling, the travel bible gushes. Many cultures locate the romance of food in hours of preparation and myriad ingredients; for the Irish, the romance is in the eating and whatever happens around it.

Two takes on Irish food  one a series of cheffy conversations; the other a warm but weary stereotype.

Dont get me wrong. Irish stew is the business  at its best, a beautiful dish that speaks to our history, landscape and food culture. But LPs choice ignores everything that is exciting about eating on this island. How can we bridge the gap between the two?

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I eat, therefore I farm, proclaimed the T-shirt worn by JP McMahon (above), the chef launching Food on the Edge (foodontheedge.ie; Oct 22-23). And certainly, Irish produce and producers, from seafood to cheese, breads to beef, whiskey to beer, have never been better (read Aoife Carrigy on amazing Irish produce here).

A new generation of young chefs  like Killian Crowley, San Pellegrinos Young Chef of the Year for the UK and Ireland, who works with McMahon in Aniar  are channelling those raw ingredients into thrilling dishes.

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Its not always consistent, but Irish food is in very good hands, and its potential to inspire engaged, high-spending travellers is mouthwatering. I regularly meet US visitors who are blown away by the gap between perceptions and reality.

So, how can we get the word out?

One trigger would be a breakout restaurant, similar to Noma in Copenhagen. But we cant control that, and Michelin and the Worlds 50 Best Restaurants do not favour Ireland.

Media exposure is important, as is a solid take-up of Failte Irelands new Food Tourism Strategy, which promises to pair overseas marketing with initiatives like food festivals, trails and ensuring visitor attractions and pubs use local foods.

But most of all, it comes down to us.

Irish food is not about Instagram. Its about what we put into our bodies.

As a parent, I know how hard it is to break eating and cooking habits. But if we can challenge ourselves to try a new Irish ingredient in the weekly shop, to treat ourselves to an exciting Irish restaurant or local food tour, well support local businesses, learn more about food and health, and bit by bit, meal by meal, well play our part in Irelands food story too.

The more we spread the word, the more publications like Lonely Planet will listen. Tuck in!

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Sweden's royal family are masters at the balancing act of satisfying public interested tasked with maintaining some semblance of privacy in their very public roles.

While Britain's royal family are famously clandestine about their holiday time - whether it be Mustique and Norfolk for Kate Middleton and Prince William, Toronto for Meghan Markle, or Balmoral for Queen Elizabeth - and prefer to only share tidbits where unavoidable.

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Other European royal families like Spain, where King Felipe and Queen Letizia organise a regular summer photocall with their daughters Leonor (12) and Princess Sofia (11) on their annual jaunt to Mallorca, understand that a certain amount of access goes a long way, especially in keeping the press, and paparazzi on your side.

Sweden's royal family also understand this practice, and have shared photos of their summer at Solliden palace in Oland, an island on the Baltic Coast, with pictures released through the Swedish Royal Court. Each shot is carefully set-up to reflect the their respective personalities, especially with their spirited young children.

Crown Princess Victoria, next in line to the throne, joins her husband Daniel and their children Princess Estelle (six) and Prince Oscar (two) in a beaming portrait in which Oscar joyfully rides a pony while his big sister helps. They also have an exclusive shot with King Gustaf and Queen Silvia in the property's stables, all suitably dressed in blue blood casualwear: colourful chinos for the men and crisp white for the women (and little Estelle).

Similarly, Prince Carl Philip and his wife Princess Sofia proudly hold their 'Irish twins' - Prince Alexander (two) and Prince Gabriel (11), born just over one year apart, both in matching blue linen shirts and khaki shorts.

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In the last shot, Princess Madeleine and her husband Christopher O'Neill pose alongside their three children Princess Leonore (four), Prince Nicolas (three) and Princess Adrienne (five months). The family announced earlier this month that they are moving to Florida for O'Neill work as an investment banker. They are currently based in London, where Mr O'Neill works, but often return home to Sweden to fulfill royal duties and all of their children were baptised in Drottningholm Palace Chapel in Stockholm, Sweden.

Separately, Victoria has followed in Kate Middleton (and her sister-in-law Sofia's) footsteps by getting behind the camera for some candid shots of her children and sharing them on their official Instagram page, a significantly more personal touch than the Kensington Palace accounts which are comprised exclusively of coverage of senior members of the royal family at events and promoting their personal causes.
The Duchess of Cambridge with Princess Charlotte, as her husband the Duke of Cambridge takes part in the Maserati Royal Charity Polo Trophy at the Beaufort Polo Club, Downfarm House, Westonbirt, Tetbury. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday June 10, 2018. See PA story ROYAL Polo. Photo credit should read: Steve Parsons/PA Wire

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have released this official photograph to mark the christening of Prince Louis on Monday 9th July Photo: Matt Holyoak/Camera Press

Kate Middleton, girlfriend of Prince William, attends the second day of the Gatcombe Park Festival of British Eventing at Gatcombe Park, on August 6, 2005 near Tetbury, England. (Photo by Anwar Hussein/WireImage)

Kate Middleton, girlfriend of Prince William, during their graduation ceremony at St Andrews, Thursday June 23, 2005. William got a 2:1 in geography after four years studying for his Master of Arts. (Photo by Anwar Hussein Collection/ROTA/WireImage)

Catherine Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge with their children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis after Prince Louis' christening at St James's Palace on July 09, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Dominic Lipinski - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

n this Handout Image provided by Clarence House, Kate Middleton and Prince William on the day of their graduation ceremony at St Andrew's University in St Andrew's on June 23, 2005 in Scotland. (Photo by the Middleton Family/Clarence House via GettyImages)

Kate Middleton and Prince William's long-spanning love story has been documented in pretty much medium possible: a cheesy Lifetime movie, near-daily coverage of their family life and their 2011 wedding which was watched by millions of people around the world.

But none of that was possible without their first meeting - one which is typically adorable of the happy couple, whose cherished early days of their relationship are mostly public knowledge; including the fact that they were friends and roommates at St Andrew's University in Scotland

Since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding, there is renewed interest in the British royal family and royal watchers have been noticing specific highlights bout Kate and William's 2010 engagement interview, during which they detail how exactly they first met in 2001.

During their introduction, Kate, who reportedly curtseyed to her future husband, said she "went bright red... and scuttled off feeling very shy."

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"William wasn't there for quite a bit of the time initially, he wasn't there from Fresher's Week, so it did take a bit of time for us to get to know each other.

"But we did become very close friends from quite early on."

They remained a couple throughout most of their college years and split briefly in 2007 for a number of months before reuniting and three years later, William popped the question in Kenya.

Other tidbits from the interview are also recirculating, which included the first time Kate met Queen Elizabeth in 2008 at the wedding of Peter Phillips and former business consultant Autumn.

"She was very welcoming," he said. "She knew it was a big day and everything was going on with Peter and Autumn, she had wanted to meet Kate for a while, so it was very nice for her to come over and say hello, we had a little chat and got on really well."

The couple, who have been together for 17 years, are fresh from a family holiday to Mustique with their children Prince George (five), Princess Charlotte (three) and Prince Louis (three months) and are believed to be spending the rest of their summer divided between their country estate Amner Hall in Norfolk and the Middleton family home in Bucklebury, Berkshire.

Expand Close Members of the Royal Family (L-R) Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, Britain's Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (with Princess Charlotte and Prince George) and Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch a fly-past of aircraft by the Royal Air Force, in London on June 9, 2018 / Facebook

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Whatsapp Members of the Royal Family (L-R) Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, Britain's Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (with Princess Charlotte and Prince George) and Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch a fly-past of aircraft by the Royal Air Force, in London on June 9, 2018
Syrian President Bashar Assad, second from left, prays on the first day of Eid al-Adha at al-Rawda mosque, in Damascus (Syrian Presidency/AP)

Syrias President Bashar Assad has attended prayers for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha in Damascus, the seat of his power.

State-run television showed Mr Assad saluting worshippers as he arrived at the al-Rawda mosque and various footage of him praying and talking to people following prayers.

It is the first Eid al-Adha since Syrian troops, backed by Russia, recaptured suburbs of Damascus earlier this year and areas in southern Syria previously held by rebels.

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In recent years, Mr Assad has often travelled outside Damascus to towns and villages recaptured from rebels or Islamic State fighters to attend holiday prayers there.

With crucial military support from allies Russia and Iran, Mr Assads troops have recaptured most rebel strongholds across the country.

The northern province of Idlib is the last major remaining opposition bastion.
A protester holds a mirror in front of the Czech Republics prime minister Andrej Babis, front left (Petr David Josek/AP)

A ceremony to honour the victims of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia has turned into a protest against Czech prime minister Andrej Babis who has faced claims that he collaborated with Communist-era secret police.

Hundreds jeered and booed Mr Babis arrival for a ceremony in front of the Czech public radio building in Prague, a site of a fierce street battle between unarmed civilians and invading troops in the first hours of occupation where 17 people died.

Shame, shame, the crowd chanted while blowing horns and whistles during his speech.

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Mr Babis did not immediately react to the protest.

Mr Babis, a populist billionaire, is a controversial figure because of a power-sharing deal with the maverick Communist Party and fraud charges he is facing.

There have also been claims he cooperated with secret police during Communist rule.

Troops from the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance formed in 1955 between the Soviet Union and seven Eastern European nations, invaded Czechoslovakia on August 20 1968 to crush liberal reforms enacted in the brief era known as the Prague Spring.

The country was subsequently taken over by a hard-line Communist regime fully loyal to Moscow.

In 1968 alone, 137 people were killed by Warsaw Pact soldiers, and a total of more than 400 died during the occupation of Czechoslovakia that ended only after the 1989 anti-communist Velvet Revolution.

In Brussels, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Europe is not divided by an Iron Curtain any more.

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But let us use this day of solemn commemoration to collectively remember that freedom and the respect for human rights can never be taken for granted and need to be fought for every single day, he said.

In another move related to the anniversary, which will likely anger Russia, Prague authorities unveiled a new explanatory text about the role of Soviet Second World War commander Ivan Stepanovic Konev to his monument in Prague.

Marshall Konev led Red Army forces that liberated large parts of Czechoslovakia from Nazi occupation in 1945.

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His monument was unveiled in the Prague Six district in 1980.

On Tuesday, Prague Six mayor Ondrej Kolar said the authorities wanted to give people full information that would not conceal what happened.

The new text describes Marshall Konevs leading role in crushing the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, his contribution to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the preparation of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Russia and four other former Soviet republics had officially protested against that.

A small group of communists condemned at the site what they called the rewriting of history.

Others demanded the monument was completely removed given what Marshall Konev had done.
Fund Trustees have been implored to always conduct their fiduciary duties with utmost care and integrity in order to uphold prudent investing and safe guard against money laundering.

At the first 2018 Trustee Seminar under the theme, Prudent Investing, Botswana Pension Society Chairman, Peter Hikhwa said trustees need to appreciate the fact that they are entrusted with implementing appropriate investment strategies to ensure they provide their members with a return on their investment. You are acting on behalf of your members and therefore it is critical that you act just as you would on your own behalf, Hikhwa said.

Senior Policy Advisor at the Association of Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA), Sunette Mulder concurred that Trustees need to note that after deciding on appropriate investment mandates in which to invest, the Fund will select an investment to give effect to those mandates. She said potential investment managers should be evaluated from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives  to assess their ability to make superior investment judgments.

In addition to a passion for investment, they must have in-depth knowledge of the markets workings, patience and tenacity; especially for contrarian strategies adopted, flexibility and an ability to invest, unfettered by vested interests.

She further added that experience also counts, as well as knowledge of how other market participants behave.

Mulder added that among other things, trustees need to select managers that are open minded to new and changing investment opportunities and dynamics, including accountability, remuneration structures which are goal congruent with those of the Funds investment criteria. As well as be open to best practice and ethical principles, at both individual and team levels.

Trustees were also encouraged to take heed of the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS)  voluntary standards governing the calculation and presentation of investment performance based on the ethical principles of fair representation and full disclosure.

According to Muller, these ensure accurate and consistent data and that the fund obtains worldwide acceptance of a single standard for calculating and presenting performance; promote fair global competition among investment firms; promote industry self-regulation on a global basis and promote investor interests as well as instill investor confidence.

With the fast evolving regulatory environment, retirement funds investments are subject to stringent regulatory and anti-money laundering controls that Trustees need to be aware of. Managing Partner at Mundial Consulting, Romeo Benjamin said one of the challenges that financial regulators have in dealing with money laundering is that some institutions that are supposed to be shunning money laundering can harbor it and turn a blind eye.

For example, he said with current liquidity challenges that banks are faced with, it is difficult for them to turn away deposits. Many banks require clients to disclose the sources of money when making deposits, however, laundered money can find a way into the systems, Benjamin said.

He, however, stated that since September 11, regulations have become more stringent, resulting in the Financial Action task Force (FATF) Regulations 40+9, which includes the introduction of Know Your Customer (KYC) in financial institutions, among other initiatives.
Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard, is carried on a stretcher from his home in the Queens borough of New York (AP)

Germanys foreign minister has said the country has a moral obligation to seek justice for victims of the Holocaust, after 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard, Jakiw Palij was deported from the US.

Heiko Maas said there is no line under historical responsibility, adding in a comment to German newspaper Bild that doing justice to the memory of Nazi atrocities means standing by our moral obligation to the victims and the subsequent generations.

ICE has deported Jakiw Palij, a Nazi SS labor camp guard living in Queens. President Trump prioritized the removal of Palij, who claimed he spent WWII working on a farm and in a factory. His presence in the U.S. was an insult to the victims of the Holocaust and their families.  The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) August 21, 2018

Palij landed in the western German city of Dusseldorf on Tuesday.

The local government in Warendorf county, near Munster, indicated that Palij would be taken to a care facility in the town of Ahlen.

German prosecutors have previously said it does not appear that there is enough evidence to charge Palij with wartime crimes.

Now that he is in Germany, Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, said he hoped prosecutors would revisit the case.

Palij lived quietly in the US for years, as a draughtsman and then as a pensioner, until nearly three decades ago, when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was living somewhere in America.

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Palij told Justice Department investigators who showed up at his door in 1993: I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied.

A US judge stripped Palij of his citizenship in 2003 for participation in acts against Jewish civilians while an armed guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and was ordered to be deported a year later.

But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-storey, red brick home in Queens he shared with his wife, Maria, now 86.

His continued presence there outraged the Jewish community, attracting frequent protests over the years.

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According to the Justice Department, Palij served at Trawniki in 1943, the same year 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered.

Palij has admitted serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Last September, all 29 members of New Yorks congressional delegation signed a letter urging the US State Department to follow through on his deportation.

The deportation came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations, which the White House said President Donald Trump had made a priority.

Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palijs deportation to Germany and advanced the United States collaborative efforts with a key European ally, the White House said.
Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras delivers a speech from the western Greek island of Ithaca, legendary home of the ancient mariner Odysseus (Andrea Bonetti/AP)

Greeces prime minister has chosen the home of mythical king Odysseus to declare the end of his countrys bailout era.

Alexis Tsipras made references to ancient legends as he said the country was returning to normality after austerity measures following economic collapse.

In choosing the western island of Ithaca, Mr Tsipras harked back to one of the countrys legendary heroes from antiquity.

Since 2010, Greece has undergone a modern OdysseyAlexis Tsipras, Greece's prime minister

Odysseus was the mythical Mycenaean king whose arduous 10-year travels are immortalised in Homers Odyssey.

Mr Tsipras said in a televised address that Greece was ready to become a normal country again.

Since 2010, Greece has undergone a modern Odyssey, he said, in a speech heavy on Homeric and nautical allusions.

Ithaca is just the beginning.

Mr Tsipras declared that Greece has regained its financial freedom, after years of bowing to bailout creditors demands for sorely-needed cutbacks and reforms.

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Overlooking a small bay from the pine-forested hills, Mr Tsipras address provided a reminder of the beginning of Greeces crisis.

In 2010, then-prime minister, George Papandreou, addressed the Greek people from the eastern Greek island of Kastellorizo, informing them that the country was effectively bankrupt and had to get financial help.

In return for the loans, successive governments imposed crippling cutbacks to right the countrys finances and balance budgets deeply in the red.

Over the bailout era, the Greek economy contracted by a quarter and unemployment swelled with one in five still out of work.

Incomes were repeatedly slashed and taxes hiked.

It has clearly been a hugely difficult and painful journey for Greece and one that has lasted almost as long as Odysseus legendary adventures.

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Odysseus, who was an unwilling protagonist in the 10-year Trojan War, a semi-mythical expedition by Mycenaean Greek kingdoms to conquer the city of Troy in what is now northwestern Turkey.

After the fall of Troy, pursued by angry gods, Odysseus took another 10 years of trials and tribulations at sea to return to Ithaca.

Now we have reached our destination, Mr Tsipras said.

The bailouts that carried with them austerity and recession and turned our country into a social desert are over.

Our country is regaining its right to define its own fortunes and future, he added.

Like a normal European country, without having policies forced on it by foreign officials, with no more blackmail, no more sacrifices for our people.

But Greece still remains shackled to the austerity demands of its former creditors.

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And even though it has little fear of new calls for cutbacks from abroad, its hard-won fiscal freedom still carries a high price.

Though the country will no longer have to pass regular checks from creditors to get money it needs to avoid bankruptcy, it cannot return to the old lax ways that put it in a mess in the first place.

During the past eight years, Greece avoided bankruptcy after getting loans worth some 260 billion euro from the other countries that use the euro currency, and from the International Monetary Fund.

Though Greece has turned a massive deficit on its annual budget into a sizeable surplus, further austerity measures remain on the horizon.

Pre-agreed pension cuts and tax hikes lurk in 2019 and 2020.
Stormy Daniels claimed she had an affair with the president (Ringo Chiu/AP)

Donald Trump is accused of directing a former lawyer to make payments to women (Craig Hudson/Charleston Gazette-Mail via AP)

US President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen testified on Tuesday that Mr Trump had directed him to commit a crime by arranging payments ahead of the 2016 presidential election to silence two women who said they had affairs with Mr Trump.

Mr Cohen's voice cracked several times as he pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges in federal court in Manhattan, including tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. Facing up to five years in prison, the admissions were a dramatic change from Mr Cohen's earlier boasts that he was Trump's "fixer" and would "take a bullet" for the president.

Most legal experts say a sitting president cannot be indicted for a crime, but the Constitution allows Congress to impeach and remove a president from office for "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Mr Cohens accusation increases political pressure for Mr Trump ahead of Novembers congressional elections where Democrats are trying to regain control of the House of Representatives and Senate.

Mr Cohen told Judge William Pauley III that "in coordination with, and at the direction of, a candidate for federal office" he arranged payments to two women for their silence "for the principal purpose of influencing the election."

Adult-film star Stormy Daniels was given $130,000 (112,000) and former Playboy model Karen McDougal was paid $150,000 ($130,000).

Mr Cohen did not name Mr Trump in court, but his lawyer, Lanny Davis, said afterward that he was referring to the president.

"Today he (Cohen) stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election," Mr Davis said in a statement.

"If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?" Mr Davis said.

Donald Trump has denied having affairs with the women. His lawyer Rudy Giuliani has said the payments were made to spare Mr Trump and his family embarrassment and were unrelated to the campaign.

Mr Trump did not mention Mr Cohen at a rally in West Virginia hours later.

Mr Giuliani lashed out at Mr Cohen on Tuesday, calling him a "devious little rat" and saying he had a history of lying.

"I think the president is absolutely in the clear," Mr Giuliani told Reuters. "The Cohen thing is over."

Under US election law, campaign contributions, defined as things of value given to a campaign to influence an election, must be disclosed. A payment intended to silence allegations of an affair just before an election could constitute a campaign contribution, which is limited to $2,700 per person per election, some experts said.

Ross Garber, a lawyer who has represented four Republican governors in impeachment proceedings, said Mr Cohens statement dramatically increases the likelihood that, were Democrats to take control of the House in the midterms, they would begin an impeachment investigation.

"The odds of an investigation have definitely gone up, Mr Garber said.

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MUELLER PROBE LED TO COHEN

The guilty pleas came in the same hour that a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, convicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort of eight charges of tax and bank fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts.

The Manafort conviction resulted from US Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign. The charges against Manafort mostly predate his work on Trump's campaign.

The probe also led to a referral from Mr Mueller about Mr Cohen to federal prosecutors in New York who began their own probe of the longtime Trump lawyer.

Donald Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion and has called the Mueller investigation a "witch hunt." Russia has denied meddling in the election, although US intelligence agencies have concluded Moscow interfered. Mr Mueller has also brought indictments against 12 Russian intelligence officers in the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails.

Mr Cohen is scheduled for sentencing on Dec. 12 and his bail was set at $500,000.

Mr Davis told CNN he believed his client had information that would be of interest to the special counsel, but did not give further details.

Mr Mueller's investigation, which began in May 2017, has resulted in the indictment of more than 30 people and five guilty pleas.
Maria Butina was arrested in July over accusations she has been acting as a Russian government agent in the US. Photo: Reuters

Russia accused the United States of trying to break the spirit in jail of Maria Butina, a woman US authorities say is a Russian government agent, and complained she was being subjected to "borderline torture".

Ms Butina, a 29-year-old gun rights advocate living in Washington DC, was arrested in July and has been accused of acting as a Russian government agent while developing ties with American citizens and infiltrating political groups.

Ms Butina, who pleaded not guilty, was detained without bail pending trial after prosecutors presented evidence suggesting she had connections to Russian intelligence operatives and was being funded by Russian oligarchs.

Her case, which Russian authorities allege is fabricated and politically motivated, has become the latest in a series of irritants between Washington and Moscow at a time when ties are already languishing at a post-Cold War low over allegations of Russian interference in US politics.

Confiscated

Russia's US embassy said in a statement that Ms Butina had been transferred from a prison in Washington to one in Virginia on Friday without notice or explanation and that her personal belongings had also been confiscated.

She had been subjected to a strip search and shackled during the transfer, it alleged, before being held in a cell for 12 hours without food and with the lights on. She now faced a solitary confinement regime, it said.

"Her situation is getting worse. It's obvious that attempts are being made to 'break' Maria using additional humiliation and psychological pressure," the embassy said.

"We have more and more questions for the US justice system. Should Maria really be doomed to suffer such borderline torture before a court verdict on the allegations against her? This lawlessness must stop."

US federal prosecutors successfully persuaded a judge in July that Ms Butina was a flight risk and should be jailed prior to her trial.

The next hearing in her case is on September 10.
The toddler saved his brother's life after he attracted help Photo: FOX 16

Two toddlers have survived alone for two days without food or water after they were passengers in a car crash that killed their mother.

Police in Arkansas said a three-year-old boy, called Kylen, was found on Monday morning wandering along a road in Camden, about 85 miles southwest of Little Rock.

Authorities said the boy had several scratches and cuts, but looked to be in good health. They posted his photo online and learned his mother, Lisa Holliman, 25, had not been seen for days.

Ouachita County sheriff's office returned to the area where the boy was picked up and discovered a car wrecked in a deep ravine not visible from the road.

The child's mother was found outside the car, having died from her injuries after being ejected from the vehicle. His one-year-old brother was found strapped into his car seat awake and still alert.

The younger child is being treated for dehydration.

"They went through a pure hell, no doubt," detective lieutenant Nathan Greeley said.

Investigators believe the crash happened two days earlier. Kylen managed to climb out of the car and through the sunroof, they said, before climbing up a hill filled with bushes to get help.

Kylen's grandfather, James Holliman, hailed his grandson a "hero".

"It was hard to see my grandson, you know, laying there like that... all cut up," Mr Holliman said.

He added the family had just found out from a hospital that his daughter was pregnant. "We didn't know. We lost two," he said.
Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi concentration camp guard, has been deported from the US (Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times via AP)

The last Nazi war crimes suspect facing deportation from the US was taken from his home in New York City and deported on Tuesday to Germany, the White House said.

The deportation of the 95-year-old former concentration camp guard, Jakiw Palij, came 25 years after investigators first confronted him about his Second World War past and he admitted lying to get into the US, claiming he spent the war as a farmer and factory worker.

ICE has deported Jakiw Palij, a Nazi SS labor camp guard living in Queens. President Trump prioritized the removal of Palij, who claimed he spent WWII working on a farm and in a factory. His presence in the U.S. was an insult to the victims of the Holocaust and their families.  The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) August 21, 2018

Palij lived quietly in the US for years, as a draughtsman and then as a pensioner, until nearly three decades ago, when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was living somewhere in America.

Palij told Justice Department investigators who showed up at his door in 1993: I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied.

Expand Close Jakiw Palij pictured in 1957 (US Department of Justice via AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Jakiw Palij pictured in 1957 (US Department of Justice via AP)

A judge stripped Palij of his citizenship in 2003 for participation in acts against Jewish civilians while an armed guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and was ordered to be deported a year later.

But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-storey, red brick home in Queens he shared with his wife, Maria, now 86.

His continued presence there outraged the Jewish community, attracting frequent protests over the years.

According to the Justice Department, Palij served at Trawniki in 1943, the same year 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered.

Expand Close Jakiw Palij lived in the Jackson Heights neighbourhood of the Queens borough of New York (AP Photo/Kathy Willens) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Jakiw Palij lived in the Jackson Heights neighbourhood of the Queens borough of New York (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Palij has admitted serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Last September, all 29 members of New Yorks congressional delegation signed a letter urging the State Department to follow through on his deportation.

The deportation came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations, which the White House said President Donald Trump had made a priority.

Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palijs deportation to Germany and advanced the United States collaborative efforts with a key European ally, the White House said.

Germanys Interior Ministry and Justice Ministry and Chancellor Angela Merkels office did not comment on where Palij would be taken in Germany and what exactly would happen to him.

Prosecutors there have previously said it does not appear that there is enough evidence to charge him with wartime crimes.

Palijs deportation is the first for a Nazi war crimes suspect since Germany agreed in 2009 to take John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio carworker who was accused of serving as a Nazi guard.

He was convicted in 2011 of being an accessory to more than 28,000 killings and died 10 months later, aged 91, with his appeal pending.
Like the rest of the world, Botswana has not escaped the effects of climate change, which over the years have manifested themselves in extreme temperatures, heat waves, floods, heavy rainfall and recurring droughts.

Given its cross-cutting nature, the resultant impacts of climate change on the economy have been far-reaching. In the agricultural sector, crops and livestock production have drastically declined leading to reduced household incomes and ultimately, loss of livelihoods  thereby exacerbating poverty levels and burdening the already choked government welfare system.

Land degradation, loss of biodiversity and emergence of new pests and diseases have suddenly become the norm rather than the exception, which factors ultimately led government to stand up, take notice and begin tackling the elephant in the room that wouldnt just go away.

Although the countrys response to this threat  the biggest in the 2st Century to the survival of humankind  has been slow, there is a discernible effort building up, a clear sign that the country doesnt want to be left behind.

Already Botswana has signed and ratified quite a number of international treaties related to climate change. A Climate Change expert at the Department of Metrological Services, Dorcas Masisi cited among these, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties (COP) may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner. Botswana ratified this Convention on 27 Jan uary1994 so that it entered into force on 27 April 1994.

Botswana is also a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, which commits its Parties by setting internationally binding emission reduction targets for developed countries, as well as its amendment called Doha Amendment,. The country ratified the Kyoto Protocol on 8 August 2003 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. The Doha Amendment was ratified and entered into force on 7 March 2016.

And lately the country joined the global lobby to combat climate change effects by assenting to the Paris Agreement on 11 November 2016 so that it entered into force on 11 Dec ember 2016. The Paris Agreement requires all Parties to submit their best efforts through nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the years ahead. This includes requirements that all Parties report regularly on their emissions and on their implementation efforts.

In response to the threat of depletion of the ozone layer, the global community developed and signed the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer in 1985 and the Montreal Protocol for the protection of the ozone layer in 1987. Botswana acceded to both in 1992.

The climate change experts at the Metrology department say that the driving force behind the treaty was the protection of human health against damages caused by the increase of Ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth as a result of ozone depletion.Under the Convention and the Protocol, Botswanas obligation is to reduce the consumption of Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) in the country.

These are gases that are used in Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Fire Fighting. The country does so by following a specific phase out schedule set by Parties to the Montreal Protocol which also requires that each country submit, on annual basis, its production and consumption data to the Ozone Secretariat. Botswana is also in the process of ratifying the Kigali Amendment, which is the recent amendment to the Montreal Protocol of 1992, adopted in 2016. Under the Kigali Amendment, parties reached an agreement to phase down the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

By this commitment, Botswana has demonstrated a willingness to go to all extremes to protect her biodiversity and preserve it for future generations. But with the advent of climate change, which is explained as the measurable variation in the state of the climate over an extended period of time  thee has been added pressure on the countrys leadership to show political will.

There has been a groundswell of opinion that the National Policy on Climate Change has remained on draft form for a long time: Official response to this recurring query is that the draft has been circulated through ministries is hoped will be submitted to the next parliament sitting. Additionally, the National Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan are being developed with funding from the United Nations Development Programme. (UNDP)

The Strategy and Action Plan will assist in the implementation of the Policy. The consultants have to complete the work by June 2018. Currently the country does not have National Mitigation/Adaptation Plans. It is envisaged that the Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan will have the plans.

The mitigation and adaptation measures are contained in the reports that are called National Communications (NC) which the country is required to submit to UNFCCC as an obligation, but most of these measures are being implemented by the different institutions and individuals. And this is one grey area currently frustrating the countrys efforts to transition to low carbon development.

The imperative of policy coordination and coherence cannot be gainsaid. Mitigation generally refers to uptake of renewable energy technology while adaptation actions relate to adoption of climate smart agricultural (CSA) practises and sustainable natural resource management. Botswana has proposed a 15% greenhouse (GHG) emission reduction by 2030 starting from 2010

Botswanas NDC were based on different projects that the departments/institutions were embarking on and there was a conditionality that implementation of these projects can only be achieved if funding was provided. Botswanas National Communications and National Determined Contributions has identified agriculture sector as one of the highest priority sectors where urgent and immediate action is needed to build resilience through adaptation and mitigation.

A group of experts drawn from various public, private, civil society and farmers associations  has just wrapped up a five-day Botswana Climate Finance Design Workshop for GCF Concept Note Development. The aim of the UNDP-sponsored Department of Agricultural l Research workshop was to develop a Concept Note- or document to request funding from the UNFCCC organ called GCF to build climate resilience in agricultural systems in the country.

Workshop convener, Douglas Machacha who is DAR acting deputy director and the workshop Facilitator, Dr George Wamokoya,, a consultant of New Partnership for Africas Development (NEPAD)  radiated joy Wednesday halfway through the development of the Concept Note.

They were confident that the Concept Note would eventually be turned into a full Proposal. And with the help of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and UNDP, both of which are the National Designated Authority (DSA) and Accredited Entity (AE) respectively, it is hoped this process should culminate in securing funding from the GCF or development partners to help the country build climate resilience in her economy.
The world is yet to recover from the news of Irrfan Khan battling cancer. The actor, who broke the news a few months ago is currently in London, getting treated for Neuro-endocrine tumour.

In March, Irrfan Khan made a public announcement and post that, he had to opt out of two projects that include untitled Vishal Bhardwaj film with Deepika Padukone and political satire series titled Gormint.

Agencies

The actor has been living a low-key life, away from the media spotlight. According to a recent report, the actor has recently given a go-ahead from his end to star in Hindi Medium 2.

Pinterest

The sequel to the film was confirmed in 2018 when Homi Adajania announced that he would be helming the second part. And looks like things are looking up for this project as makers of the film flew down to London to meet Irrfan. After the script-narration, Irrfan Khan was so moved by the script that he has given his nod to star in the second part.

The sequel will be produced by Dinesh Vijans Maddock Films and reports claim that the story will evolve as a flash-forward to 10 years, that will take forward the story of Hindi loving Raj (Irrfan Khan).

Released in 2017, Hindi Medium turned out to be one of the most successful films of the year. Irrfan's performance was lauded by the audience and he also won the Best Actor award for his performance in the film at IIFA 2018.
One moment, 40-year-old Nagarajan was sitting by himself on a deep sea trawler boat that was returning to the shore after fishing. The weather was rough and the fisherman was holding on to his seat.

The next moment, he was floating in the sea off the Kudla coast, the water carrying away his unmoving body far away from his boat and his colleagues. Nagarajan didnt panic, he focused on keeping his hands and legs beating. And that is how he lived to tell the tale of a man who swam for seven hours and made it out alive.

Around 20 nautical miles (40km) off Panambur beach, 10km from Mangaluru, a UAE-bound merchant ship came to his rescue.

toi

It was around 10.30am on Thursday (August 16) when Nagarajan apparently blacked out and fell into the sea. He, of course, has no memory of what happened. The trawler was tipping on the water mid-sea and the other fishermen were perched on their seats elsewhere. It was only after a good half an hour that they realised Nagarajan was missing. Though from Tamil Nadu, Nagarajan had settled in Mangaluru for over 20 years and was working for Vasanth S Salian, a fish merchant and boat owner.

As soon as the news went out, the fishermen mobilised 35 deep sea fishing boats and headed out to search for Nagarajan. They returned empty-handed after three hours. There was no sign of Nagarajan; if you dont find a man in the sea in three hours, he is no more, goes a saying among fisherfolk.

Soon after falling in, Nagarajan came to and found himself floating, going where the current took him  far away from the trawler. "He could see three boats moving away from him. Though he tried, he could not draw their attention," Salian told TOI.

Sea creatures were pricking his head and running along his body but Nagarajan kept beating his hands and legs in a desperate attempt to save himself. "Nagarajan told me that some of the boats returned after one-and-a-half hours with a hope to find him.

afp/representational image

However, the water currents along the west were strong that he had swum way farther than they could imagine," Salian said. Nagarajan was just a few kilometres from the rescue boats but they did not spot him. Undeterred, Nagarajan kept swimming and around 6pm, saw a merchant vessel passing the shipping lanes off the west coast. They rescued him and contacted the New Mangalore Port authority.

Captain SR Patnaik, deputy conservator of the New Mangalore Port Trust said he tried contacting the Coast Guard vessel to reach out to Nagarajan. But as the vessel was far off, he decided to instruct and guide a passing merchant ship, MT Pacific Lagoon, bearing a Liberian flag, to rescue Nagarajan. The ship was en route Port Fujairah in the UAE.

Around 7pm, as Salian was considering calling the cops, he received a call that Nagarajan had been rescued. And that he was fine despite spending over seven hours in the sea. Nagarajan left for his hometown in Tamil Nadu on Sunday afternoon to meet his family after the miraculous escape.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has written a letter to President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Expressing grief over loss of lives in the deadly Kerala floods that claimed over 400 lives. Army, Air Force, Navy, NDRF managed to rescue at least 43,000 people, but almost one million people have been displaced.

"Kindly accept the deepest condolences over numerous human casualties caused by the devastating floods in Kerala," Putin said.

"Russia shares grief with the friendly people of India and hopes for a speedy recovery to all those injured from this natural disaster," the Russian president said in his letter.

ani

The Ministry of Home Affairs has declared Kerala floods of 'severe nature', and the Centre exempted basic customs duty and IGST on goods supplied for Kerala relief operations.
As Kerala is reeling under incessant rains and floods, there is an acute shortage of relief material and people from across the country are helping those affected as much as they can.

The prisoners of Central Prison in Thiruvananthapuram are working day and night to feed those staying in relief camps across Kerala, where the worst floods in nearly a century have claimed over 400 lives and displaced more than 7 lakh people.

Ever since the torrential rains hit the state causing massive destruction across its length and breadth, the prisoners have been preparing a large number of chapatis and vegetable curry for relief camp inmates and those stranded in marooned houses.

The Central Prison at Poojappura has been selling several food items including chapati, vegetable and chicken curries under the brand name 'freedom' on a commercial basis for some years now.

The low-cost dishes sold through a few counters in the capital city have many takers. According to jail authorities, around 40,000-50,000 chapatis were prepared for flood victims during the peak days last week.

Though the work load is too high, around 50 convict prisoners of the chapati unit were working round the clock in different shifts to meet the demand, they said.

Reuters

The neatly-packed chapati and curry were handed over to the district authorities to be distributed to the relief camps. "Our food packets were used mainly for airdropping to the people stranded on rooftops and isolated buildings," a senior prison official told PTI.

Reuters

"Besides chapati and curry, we have sent jam and packaged water also," he said adding that as the rescue mission is almost over the demand for chapati packets is reducing now.

The Thiruvananthapuram Central Prison had sent 50,000 'jail-made' chapatis to Tamil Nadu when Chennai was flooded in torrential rains in 2015. The deadly monsoon rains in Kerala have claimed over 200 lives since August 8 and has displaced over 7 lakh people from their homes.
According to the UNAIDS When Women Lead; Change Happens report of 2017, HIV and AIDS is today the, ...leading cause of death among women aged 30 - 49 globally. Compounding this figure is information from the same report, which states that 18.6 million women and girls are currently living with HIV globally with one million new infections per year estimated for this key population. Corroborating this data from UNAIDS is information from the Botswana AIDS Impact Survey (BAIS).

In 2008 the results of BAIS III indicated that 17.6 percent of Batswana were living with HIV and the prevalence amongst females was higher at 20.4 percent while males had 14.2 percent. The 2013 BAIS results continued to show the undue impact the disease is having on women with a relatively higher prevalence rate of 20.8 percent compared to 15.6 percent for males.

Cindy Kelemi from the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV and AIDS or BONELA states that, both studies verify that HIV impacts women more than men and there remains no doubt that HIV is wearing a female face. Other results from the BAIS 2013 survey further highlight how females are disproportionately affected by HIV, with prevalence predominantly higher among females particularly those aged 25 and 44 years old. Kelemi points to religious and cultural perceptions, which perpetuate HIV stigma and also hinder the communitys response to HIV and AIDS treatment, care and support services or messages.

Gender Based Violence (GBV) is also cited as a debilitating factor, which prevents women to negotiate safer sex. The Gender Based Violence Indicators Study Botswana conducted in 2011 by Gender Links and the Womens Affairs Department in Botswana indicates that 67.3 percent of women have in their lifetime experienced gender-based violence. The study further shows that in most cases the violence is perpetrated by intimate partners.

Gomolemo Rasesigo, the Country Manager of Gender Links Botswana, acknowledges that violence exists under different circumstances which is why the term Gender Based Violence was coined. Men do experience violence and are included in the description hence the term gender, she emphasises however that, What we cannot do is run away from the fact that this violence or phenomenon is largely affecting women.

The Domestic Violence Act exists as well; it is specific to women because they are on the receiving end. Women get raped and from a social point of view we cannot underplay that. Rasesigo highlights that unlike murder cases, not all rape cases make it into the media reports or are even reported to the police.

A Swedish Workplace HIV and AIDS Programme advocate based in Zimbabwe, Edith Maziofa-Tapfuma reiterates this observation that if women are not in complete control of their sexual and reproductive rights they will as a population continue to be largely impacted by HIV compared to their male counter parts. We need women and girls to be economically empowered, so they are better able to negotiate for safe sex, says Maziofa-Tapfuma.

In addition, she emphasises that to help circumvent the impact of HIV is the need for open dialogue for topics considered taboo in the community. Africa needs to start being open about LGBTI issues. Men-who-have-sex-with-men are staying underground or on the down-low but are also getting married to help disguise themselves. These are some of the key drivers of the epidemic and further add to the vulnerability of women and girls.

Magdeline Mathiba-Madibela is another gender activist who is also the Country Manager for UN Women (Botswana). She considers that more investment is required to create targeted HIV prevention programs for women to help empower them at a personal level. Mathiba-Madibela says, Capacity building for women is critical when it comes to HIV. When women are empowered, particularly at a personal level they are able to deal with gender power relations, which are key to changing the HIV status quo.

Women as change agents in society need to challenge patriarchy which fuels power imbalance in relationships. Rasesigo agrees with Mathiba-Madibela and adds that it is disheartening when women seem to be the main gate-keepers of patriarchy, saying, women are silent on these issues, particularly those in leadership positions. Kelemi also supports Mathiba-Madibela in regard to removing barriers that will help reduce the burden of HIV among women adding that, there is need to remove structural and legal barriers.

Investment for HIV prevention has gone down. Therefore, we need to intensify prevention efforts for women and empower them to claim their rights. Mathiba-Madibela points out that male involvement is necessary to have an all-inclusive response to HIV and AIDS, men must be part of the solution.

Her advice is for more alignments to be created with custodians of culture and influential men in society to ensure gender scales are balanced, we need to work with chiefs and traditional leaders include them as champions for gender equality.

Men need to be champions for gender equality and womens empowerment including their protection from abuse, and any form of danger. In UN Women we have what we call Heforshe Champions, says Mathiba-Madimela as she emphasises the need for total participation of the community if the virus is to be eradicated and its burden removed from women and girls.
Two months after an eight-year-old girl was gang-raped by Madhya Pradeshs Mandsaur, two men are sentenced to death by a special court in Madhya Pradesh. The class 2 student was lured away by the two men from outside her school on June 26. The men raped her apart from seriously wounding her by inserting an iron rod in her private parts.

The Mandsaur rape had triggered massive protest in Madhya Pradesh seeking the death penalty for the accused. Last month, the special investigation team filled a 500-page charge-sheet against the two accused.

As pieces of evidence, the investigators included hair samples, CCTV footage and videos.

The girl had suffered severe injuries to her neck, face, head and private parts. MP CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan had demanded the death penalty for the two accused and he also had said the case will be heard by a fast track court. He had also written to CJI Dipak Mishra seeking intervention for the timely disposal of such cases in upper courts like High Courts and the Supreme Court.
A woman accused of murder was beaten up, had her clothes ripped apart and paraded naked by a group of men on the streets of Bihars Bhojpur on Monday. According to news agency ANI, 15 people have been arrested in connection with the horrific incident.

Police officer Avakash Kumar said that Vimalesh Sah, 19, was missing since Sunday and his body was found on Monday morning near railway tracks.

After his body was found, people from his village charged up at a nearby area, suspecting that the has been strangled by those living in a red-light area.

The mob set shops ablaze and thrashed residents and shop owners.

indiatimes

They dragged a woman out of one of the buildings, ripped off her clothes and paraded her naked while kicking and slapping her, the police told.

The woman kept screaming for help but no one came to her rescue. After police intervened, she was taken to a police station and then admitted to a hospital.

The mob also pelted stones at a passing train. The police had to fire in the air to disperse the crowd. The incident has angered opposition leaders.

Tejashwi Yadav, leader of the opposition RJD, tweeted: "In Bihar, a woman is allegedly stripped, thrashed and paraded naked by a mob in a lawless state. I'm speechless and numb to see the heart-wrenching videos of that woman. Nitish Ji, with folded hands I request you to fix law and order and ensure women safety and security. Please."
Muslim pilgrims from across the world gather at the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. About 2 million Muslims, including 1.68 million from abroad, flooding Mecca's narrow streets for the annual rite which starts on Sunday.

Officials aim to increase the number of umrah and Hajj pilgrims to 15 million and 5 million respectively by 2020, and hope to double the umrah number again to 30 million by 2030.

1. The Kaaba at the Grand mosque ahead of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

Reuters

2. Palestinian Muslims attend the Eid al-Adha morning prayer in Gaza City.

AFP

3. A Muslim pilgrim visits the Mount Al-Noor, where Muslims believe Prophet Mohammad received the first words of the Quran.

Reuters

4. The five-day Hajj pilgrimage represents one of the world's biggest gatherings every year.

Reuters

5. The first day of Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, which marks the end of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

Reuters

6. A scene of the market in old city of Meccah.

AFP

7. The festival of sacrifice which marks the end of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and commemorates prophet Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son to show obedience to God.

Reuters

8. Muslim Hajj pilgrims touch Kaaba's wall and pray.

Reuters

9. Hajj pilgrims Pray in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Reuters

10. Muslim pilgrims walk out after the Friday prayer at the Grand mosque.

Reuters

11. Muslims across the world are observing the first day of Eid al-Adha.

Reuters

12. Muslim pilgrims touch the golden door of the Kaaba.

Reuters

13. Muslim pilgrims circle the Kaaba and pray at the Grand mosque during the annual haj pilgrimage .

Reuters

14. This year Hajj will run from Sunday, August 19 till Friday, August 24.

Reuters
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has come out in support of his friend Navjot Singh Sidhu who is being lambasted for going to the formers swearing-in ceremony and especially hugging Pakistan army chief General Jawed Qamar Bajwa.

Khan tweeted in support of his friend and called him the ambassador of peace and said, "Those in India who targeted him are doing a great disservice to peace in the subcontinent."

I want to thank Sidhu for coming to Pakistan for my oath taking. He was an ambassador of peace & was given amazing love & affection by ppl of Pakistan. Those in India who targeted him are doing a gt disservice to peace in the subcontinent - without peace our ppl cannot progress, tweeted the newly elected PM of Pakistan.

AFP

Sidhu has been taken to cleaners by his critics especially BJP members and has also been called a traitor. Sidhu, however, made it clear that he, being a friend of Imran, went to Pakistan in his own personal capacity. But BJP even today held a press conference to further corner Sidhu.

Sidhu also held a conference where he asked how his visit is different from that of PMs in 2015. "No one is questioning PM Modi's patriotism," he said.

"For peace and prosperity, such goodwill messages are necessary," the minister added.

Sidhu also spoke about the hug that has caused havoc, "The Pak Army chief said they were making efforts to open a corridor from India's Dera Baba Nanak to the historic Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib. What followed was an emotional moment," he said.

To move forward Pakistan and India must dialogue and resolve their conflicts incl Kashmir: The best way to alleviate poverty and uplift the people of the subcontinent is to resolve our differences through dialogue and start trading https://t.co/V2UkXp0WwS  Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) August 21, 2018

AFP

He showed respect to Punjab CM Amarinder Singh when asked his response against formers disapproval for Sidhus hug. "It is not necessary that just because the Captain has spoken against me, I should too, Sidhu said.

BJP leader Sambit Patra accused Rahul Gandhi of purposely sending Sidhu to Pakistan.

"We want an explanation not from Navjot Sidhu but Rahul Gandhi. What is happening, Rahul Gandhi? Are you opening a Pakistan desk?"
Earlier this month a report revealed that, even when you disable location sharing, Google still tracks your location on your smartphone.

The company has since claimed users are informed about it, but it's still going to face a major lawsuit for the practice.

When news of the issue came out, Google unabashedly confirmed that it was in fact doing that. However, company representatives claimed the location tracking continues in the background in order to improve the Google experience. In fact, they said it can be turned off separately and that fact was made clear to users. The truth of the matter, however, is that disabling the feature requires delving into your Google Account settings, something the average users may not have ever tinkered with. In addition, the practice of leaving this on by default was also only told to users within that buried settings menu.

Despite that, Google still changed the wording on its support page this past Friday to better reflect what actually happens when you turn off your location tracking. Now, one Californian man has filed a case saying the practice is a violation of a users right to privacy. Napoleon Patacsil has moved the San Francisco federal court, and has even requested the case be made class-action so other plaintiffs may join in.

Patacsil has submitted a copy of the Associated Press volunteers activity map as evidence of the continued location tracking. The AP broke the story with a test subject that turned off their Location History and wandered around Manhattan, showing how Google still retained knowledge of their movements. Patacsils lawsuit states the principal goal was to surreptitiously monitor Plaintiff and Class members and to allow third-parties to do the same.

The case accuses Google of three violations of Californias privacy laws. The first involves the prohibition of electronic tracking to determine the movements or location of someone. The second says Google violated the plaintiffs reasonable expectation of privacy when it tracked him despite his instruction to the contrary. And the third says Google disclosed private sensitive and confidential location data when it tracked him.

The question now remains whether the courts decide Google sufficiently fulfilled its duty to disclose what it was doing. Is burying the information within a menu section the same as fine print on a contract (and therefore acceptable)? In the meantime, if the case is granted class-action status, that means pretty much every single US citizen can join in. And thats not even considering the kind of uproar this might raise in the EU, where privacy laws are even more rigid, especially in the wake of GDPR.

In California, if the case goes Patacsils way, Google could face anything from a massive fine to having its licence revoked in the state. Though thats not likely to happen, its still going to raise hell for the company.
Haley Brabant, a woman from New Zealand, was heartbroken when her husband died in February earlier this year.

But after shed had time to grieve, she realized her late husbands iPhone was locked and no one knew the passcode.

Brabant told Fair Go that she approached Apple, begging for their help unlocking the phone. After all, it was locking away a lifetime of memories of the two of them and their four-year-old daughter Mahli.

Brabant said shed never gotten around to asking her husband Steve about the passcode. We just didnt even think about that. At the end it went really quick so things like that just didnt really matter at the time, she said. That was a problem because she couldnt get access to the hundreds of photos and videos of the three of them together.

When Brabant went to Apple, they asked for documents that proved Steve owned the iPhone and proof of his death. After that, they also demanded a will, probate, and other legal paperwork that would have cost Brabant over $1,000.

Eventually though, sometime after approaching the local news site, Apple reportedly assigned an employee to her case. Now, the iPhone has been unlocked and Brabant can finally look at the vault of memories her husband left her. Me and Mahli were pretty much in tears when we saw them, she said. Its just awesome memories and photos I've never seen before of Mahli and Steve, and our life together.

While it may seem like a lot of work to go through, Apples reticence to comply in this case is actually understandable. The company has made its stand on user privacy clear over the years, even battling law enforcement when asked to unlock a suspects iPhone during an investigation.

Its not that Apple wants to stay out of these investigations per se, but its more of wanting to protect its product. After all, users count on the companys encryption as part of a reason to spend tons of money on an iPhone. The minute Apple is immediately unlocking iPhones for anyone that asks (including law enforcement), it begins to lose its users trust. So yes, even a late customers loved ones have to prove themselves.
A Chinese bride has set an example for the rest of the world to follow. This woman who was about to get married, left her wedding photo shoot to perform CPR on a traffic accident victim.

The incident happened in Northern China where, Xie Dan - the bride and also a nurse - was in the middle of her wedding shoot. She was having her pictures clicked on the streets of Wafangdian, Liaoning province along with her husband.

During the shoot, she saw a woman fall out of a vehicle. Dan was quick to realize that the victim needed immediate medical assistance and rushed to help her. The photographer, her husband and passers-by were then stunned to see Dan in her wedding dress performing CPR.

The woman died because of her injuries, but Dan has set a perfect example for the world to live by. Her act has fetched her the title of "most beautiful new bride in Wafangdian" on social media. People are also calling "her husband must be a very lucky man" and we really do second that.

Duty comes first, after all.
Kerala is battling the worst flood in over a century. In a situation so dire, every penny counts.

A donation of whopping 50 crores will be made by one of the richest Indians in the middle east to help rebuild Kerala.

Kerala-born Dr Shamsheer Vayalil is the founder and managing director of UAE-based VPS Healthcare. He has made this donation in a bid to help build the infrastructure of his home state. This money will be spent throughout the state of Kerala, said Dr Vayalil, 41, in an interview with The National.

VPS Healthcare is launching a INR 50 crore initiative designed to aid in the recovery and rebuilding of Kerala in the aftermath of the devastating 2018 floods. @navdeepsuri @narendramodi @PMOIndia @SushmaSwaraj @VPSHealth @CMOKerala #KeralaFloodRelief  Shamsheer Vayalil (@drshamsheervp) August 20, 2018

We will work with the local authorities to determine where this financial support is needed the most. Certain areas have already been identified for immediate help. We will use this money through an oversight committee with the support of people in Kerala who are in the public domain, he added.

1.

Great to see leading UAE-based NRIs respond so positively to the disastrous floods in Kerala#KeralaFloods https://t.co/YrGag2IvgE  IndAmbUAE (@navdeepsuri) August 20, 2018

2.

Kerala-born Dr Shamsheer Vayalil, founder and managing director of UAE-based VPS Healthcare has donated Dh26 million - 50 Crore INR for #KeralaFloods. He has vowed to help rebuild vital infrastructure in the worst hit areas of the southern Indian state.#RebuildKerala  Firoze (@Firoze_) August 21, 2018

3.

Dr Shamsheer Vayalil Donates AED26 Million to UAEs Kerala Emergency Relief Campaign #KeralaFloodRelief pic.twitter.com/ckaJV2RXTC  DUBAI CITY GUIDE by Cyber Gear (@dcgguide) August 20, 2018

To ensure optimum utilization of his donation, VPS Healthcare will hire specialist contractors to complete the work and will see that money is only spent in areas where it is most needed.
The growing popularity of The Sweden Democrats is a great tragedy of Sweden, which has become an example of how people of different cultures are able to live together safely.

The growing popularity of The Sweden Democrats is a great tragedy of Sweden, which has become an example of how people of different cultures are able to live together safely. Despite the remarkable progress made by the EU countries in the field of integration of migrants, the Government's policy of multiculturalism and tolerance is being increasingly questioned on the part of destructive nationalist forces. No matter how hard Jimmie Akesson tries to put a human face on the activities of The Sweden Democrats, this party, particularly with regard to value declared, has moved not so far from its Neo-Nazi ancestors from The Progress Party (Norway) and Swedish movement 'Keep Sweden Swedish'. Furthermore, the risks of political activities of The Sweden Democrats lie not only in gambling on the theme of refugees, but also in seeking to call into question the usefulness of Swedish membership in the EU, although the EU exit does not serve the interests of the majority of Swedish citizens.

Despite the marginality of supporters and the use of xenophobic rhetoric, The Sweden Democrats were able to increase own popularity after the success in the 2014 parliamentary elections. And now the party may easily win up to 20% of votes during the elections to the Riksdag. Many observers attribute growing popularity of this party to failures of The Swedish Social Democratic Party in economic and social spheres, as well as, to public popularity of firm measures proposed by The Sweden Democrats against migrants. But in reality the key to nationalists' success is the active cooperation of the party's representatives with groups of Russian hackers. A trail of accusations of being in contact with Russia was with The Sweden Democrats even after the 2015 split of the party. As it turns out, there's a reason for it. And further proof of cooperation between Russians and Jimmie Akesson has appeared there.

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo informed Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Jacek Czaputowicz that The Sweden Democrats received comprehensive support from the Kremlin right before the forthcoming elections to the Riksdag. Moscow wants to strengthen its influence in Scandinavia and believes that nationalists will be receiving a high number of seats in the EU Parliament. A sharp increase of The Sweden Democrats' campaign funding, most likely, took place with the help of Russia during the previous elections to the EU Parliament, too.

The leader of French far rightists Marine Le Pen for her part has not neglected the issue of The Sweden Democrats' campaign either. She has personally assured Jimmie Akesson that she would dispatch observers from The National Front to the elections to the Riksdag; assist The Sweden Democrats to find propagandists and provide funding for their election campaign.

Thus, Swedish elections are directly exposed to blatant interference of Russia and European far right forces. This may result in a serious political crisis not only in Sweden, but also in the whole European Union, where destructive nationalist parties are waiting for the ultimate success of The Sweden Democrats with the aim of further consolidation of their efforts.

Obviously, anticipating possible disclosure, The Sweden Democrats hurried to warn of the outbreak of false rumors in the media about their links with Russia. But such clear testaments to the cooperation between the nationalists and Russian hackers leave no doubt that the party of Jimmie Akesson, who pretends to be Chief Defender of Sweden, threatens the country's security and sovereignty for the sake of its success in the elections to the Riksdag.
Microsofts Azure platform services have always offered support for microservices. In fact, Azure Service Fabric has been there from the start. Initially supporting Azures SQL services, its now a foundation of much of the Azure platform, along with Cosmos DB.

Youve been able to use Azure Service Fabric in your own applications for nearly as long, because its key to managing and scaling your own code. With support for containers and virtual infrastructure, you can compare it with other service orchestration tools like Kubernetes. Although powerful, its not that intuitive to use; its complex set of XML-based configuration files can get in the way of building a deployment and can be hard to debug.

Azure Service Fabric Mesh is meant to fix that difficulty of use, building on lessons from Kubernetes to simplify configuring and deploying applications built up of container-hosted microservices and of Azures own platform services.

Introducing Azure Service Fabric Mesh

Azure Service Fabric Mesh is a serverless host for .Net Core-based microservices, using either ASP.Net Core or console applications. But it also lets you develop and host code in any language thats supported by a Docker container, so you can work with languages that have a more distributed systems focus, such as Google Go. Azures underlying platform flexibility makes this an alternative to other microservices frameworks, as well as removing the need to build and manage service orchestration around your code.

All you need to do is set the resources you need, the availability requirements for your services, and any resource limits. Azure Service Fabric Mesh does the rest for you, handling the underlying infrastructure and restarting services as necessary. While its best suited for microservices, it can also support larger applications. If code can run in a container, it can be supported on Azure Service Mesh. Itll also automatically handle upgrades, when you deploy a new version of an application over running code, swapping out containers for youwhich makes it a useful endpoint for a devops pipeline.
Grammy Museum Mississippi Celebrates Gospel Music Heritage Month Celebration Includes Gospel Music-Themed Events and Programs Throughout September



Contact: NaCherrie L. Cooper, Marketing & Communications Manager, GRAMMY Museum Mississippi, 662-441-0104, ncooper@grammymuseumms.org



CLEVELAND, Miss., Aug. 21, 2018 /Christian Newswire/ -- GRAMMY Museum Mississippi will celebrate Gospel Music Heritage Month with events and programs open to the public throughout the entire month of September. Known informally as part of the "Bible Belt," the state of Mississippi's roots run deep in the origins of gospel music and American history.



Upcoming events during Gospel Music Heritage Month include: Spotlight: Travis Greene on Sept. 4 in the Sanders Soundstage. The event will start at 7 p.m., and doors will open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 for Members and $25 for non-members. Greene will also participate in the Museum's Backstage Pass education workshop at 11 a.m.



The Gospel Showdown on Sept. 15 on the Front Lawn. Ten choirs will be selected to perform two songs and be judged by song, appearance, and crowd support. The event will start at 2:00 p.m., and the winner of the competition will receive a $500 donation to their organization. Tickets are free for members and advance tickets are $5 for non-members and $8 at the door.



Gospel Roots Family Day on Sept. 29 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. includes fun activities for all ages. Gospel Roots Family Day admission is half price and supported in part by the King's Daughters and Sons Circle Number 2 and The Delta Center. "So much of our history has been told through hymns and spirituals," said GRAMMY Museum Mississippi Executive Director Emily Havens. "The Museum is excited to put a spotlight on a genre that shares the pain, the joy, and the inspiration that shapes our American historyonly gospel music can do that."



GRAMMY Museum Mississippi is located at 800 W. Sunflower Rd., Cleveland, Miss., 38732. For more information on upcoming events, visit GRAMMYMuseumMS.org.



ABOUT GRAMMY MUSEUM MISSISSIPPI

Developed by the Cleveland Music Foundationa nonprofit organization founded in 2011the 28,000-square-foot GRAMMY Museum Mississippi is housed near the campus of Delta State University, home of the Delta Music Institute's Entertainment Industry Studies program, which features the most unique audio recording facilities in the South. Affiliated with the Recording Academy, GRAMMY Museum Mississippi is dedicated to exploring the past, present, and future of music, and the cultural context from which it emerges, while casting a focused spotlight on the deep musical roots of Mississippi. The Museum features a dynamic combination of public events, educational programming, engaging multimedia presentations, and interactive permanent and traveling exhibits, including a Mississippi-centric area that introduces visitors to the impact of Mississippi's songwriters, producers, and musicians on the traditional and modern music landscape.



For more information, visit GRAMMYMuseumMS.org, "like" GRAMMY Museum Mississippi on Facebook, and follow @GRAMMYMuseumMS on Twitter and Instagram.



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Botswana Public Employees Union (BOPEU), President Masego Mogweras led National Office Bearers (NOB) have been accused of possibly embezzling huge funds from the union.

The legal battle has pitted BOPEU as 1st Applicant followed by Ogaufi Masame, Zibani Philemon, Mosalagae Tlhako and Motswaledi Monaiwa against NOB members being union President Masego Mogwera as 1st Respondent followed by Tlhabologo Galekhutle (Treasurer), Martin Gabobake (1st Deputy President), Topias Marenga (General Secretary) and Ketlhapelang Karabo (Deputy General Secretary).

Following a heated National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting last month at Cresta Lodge in Gaborone, Mogwera and team were suspended pending investigation while Philemon was subsequently appointed acting president.

Mogweras team retaliated by declaring a state of emergency and suspended Philemon and crew. NOB members are also part of the NEC.

On the 1st August 2018, Applicants approached the Court on urgency mainly to: declare as lawful the meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) held on Saturday 28 July 2018 (the Meeting) at which Respondents were suspended pending investigation and possible disciplinary action; restrain the Respondents from holding themselves as rightful governing officials of BOPEU and evicting them out of the premises of BOPEU as well as setting aside the declaration of state of emergency made by Gabobake and setting aside the suspension of Masame, Philemon, Tlhako, Monaiwa by Mogwera. Lobatse High Court is today (Friday) scheduled to make a ruling on the urgency of the matter before merits of the case could be argued.

According to the head of arguments filed before court seen by this publication, Philemon and team reveal that they discovered during the meeting that the 2nd to 5th Respondents were earning salaries from BOPEU without the approval of the National General Council (NGC) or Central Executive Committee (CEC), this being in violation of Article 53.2 of the BOPEU Constitution.

Consequently in the NECs view there was a need to look into a case of possible embezzlement or misappropriation of huge funds of the Union. This kind of breach of the Constitution of the Union amounts to serious misconduct under Article 48.1.2 of the Constitution of the Union. The NEC at the meeting found it necessary and in the interest of the Union to suspend these Respondents pending an investigation and possible disciplinary action as provided for under Article 47.4 of the Constitution of the Union.

In terms of Article 53.1 of the Constitution of the Union, remuneration of seconded office bearers will be determined by the NGC or CEC as a recommendation from the Finance Committee. The Respondents maintain that their remuneration was approved, read the court papers.

Regarding the alleged chaos of the last month meeting, the Applicants' contention is that discussions were very cordial during the meeting. It is argued that an audio recording reflects that the meeting was an orderly meeting. They posited that what is admitted is that there were divergent views from the Respondents and the Applicants.

The Respondents have an original copy of the recording, it is for them to challenge the veracity and/or authenticity of the recording and its transcription by Applicants. This recording is a relevant piece of evidence of what transpired at the meeting especially in so far as it relates to the demeanour of the meeting. The allegations of chaos or rowdiness during the meeting have not been particularised. The Respondents make general averments without explaining the disorder.
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Im excited about Aflacs broker sales growth with Stephanie leading the team. She has consistently delivered strong results, innovative solutions and strategies, and I am confident this will continue in her new role, Williams said in a statement.

Shields joined Aflac in 2014  then as vice-president of strategy, product and marketing. Most recently, she served as vice-president of the companys Premier Broker and Product Solutions.

Prior to joining Aflac, she held a number of positions of increasing responsibility with Cigna, including the role of vice-president, Cigna Voluntary Segment Leader. Before Cigna, Shields worked for Willis Towers Watson.

Shields received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biobehavioral Health from Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Business Administration degree from Drexel University.

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Socius Insurance Services has appointed a new member to its casualty practice in New York City.

Jerry Ascolese has been hired to serve Socius as vice-president of the insurance wholesalers new location. He has 25 years of experience in the insurance industry  the last 15 of which was spent specializing in construction, energy and casualty brokerage products in New York City, a release said.
The attacks focus on the Ukraine and its specific timing  it struck just before Constitution Day, when Ukraine celebrates its independence  led many to point the finger of blame at the Russian military, citing low-level conflict between the two countries after the occupation of Crimea in 2014 as the trigger. The US and UK governments supported this accusation.

Everyone is aware of nation state hacking. The ultimate question is: at what point does a nation state cyberattack reach a level of severity that it enters the realm of cyber warfare? said Matthew McCabe, assistant general counsel for cyber policy at Marsh.

Certainly, in the case of NotPetya there were statements by the US and UK governments attributing the attack to the Russian military, but we cant rush to judgment without ignoring the many other factors that come into play. Was NotPetya carried out by cyber privateers that acted without the instruction of any nation state government? What was the intent behind the attack? Did it support military purpose or was there an act of propaganda?

McCabe addresses these questions and more in a new Marsh insight article entitled NotPetya Was Not Cyber War in which he analyzes legal precedent to conclude that, despite the attacks significant impact, NotPetya did not meet the criteria for warlike activity, and therefore does not trigger the war exclusion in cyber policies.

In the report, he states that in order for a cyberattack to escalate to hostile and warlike activity, its consequences must go beyond economic losses. He points back to when President Obama labelled a similar nation state cyberattack - which inflicted no physical damage but still proved very costly for a US company  as an act of cyber vandalism. For an attack to fall within the scope of the war exclusion, there should be a comparable outcome, tantamount to a military use of force, McCabe wrote.

If a non-physical damage cyberattack facilitates additional warlike activity, such as troop movements or more hostile activity, then I would call that a hybrid attack, McCabe told Insurance Business. But in the instance of NotPetya, the attack caused serious concerns for private industry, but it didnt challenge our national security, which is why its at the level President Obama spoke about with cyber vandalism.

A war exclusion has never been triggered on a cyber policy. This is because were dealing with a round peg in a square hole scenario in that the insurance industry has borrowed concepts and language from marine insurance policies written a century ago to address the new and quickly developing theory around cyber warfare. Markets and insureds have been asked to interpret this language in the context of cyber war. The real point of my article is to point out that there are too many voices reaching a conclusion of warlike activity too quickly, without considering precedent and history.
A recent study finds no evidence that ride-hailing app Uber reduced the number of serious car wrecks in Virginia. The research also found no change in the likelihood that a fatal crash involved alcohol.

The College of William & Mary said in a press release earlier this month that one of its economic majors had looked into the matter. Uber has claimed that its presence in cities helps reduce drunken driving.

William & Mary student Brittany Young reviewed accident data in the Virginia counties that have Uber and the counties that dont. She found no evidence that hospitalizations from car crashes dropped. Chances that alcohol was involved in a fatal wreck also did not change.

A 2017 New York Times article reported that studies across the country have been contradictory.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Virginia Sharing Economy Ridesharing
A New York man charged in the killing of his girlfriends mother for insurance money has pleaded guilty.

WHEC-TV in Rochester reports Knowledge Couser entered his plea Thursday to murder charges in connection with the death of 52-year-old Julie Martin.

Martin was found dead inside her home in the Wayne County town of Ontario in February 2017. Court documents show she was smothered with a pillow.

Martins 23-year-old daughter Jasmine Harlee and Cousers 19-year-old brother Davontae Devine previously pleaded guilty to murder charges. Each faces 20 years to life in prison.

Nineteen-year-old Malquan Drayton pleaded guilty to robbery charges in connection to the crime.

Couser faces 20 years to life in prison during his sentencing in October.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Abuse Molestation New York
The bridge that collapsed in the Italian port city of Genoa was considered a feat of engineering innovation when it was built five decades ago, but it came to require constant maintenance over the years. Its design is now being investigated as a possible contributor to its stunning collapse.

The Morandi Bridge was severed in its midsection during a heavy downpour Tuesday. Government officials initially said 39 people were killed but revised the death toll to 38 on Thursday. Italian prosecutors focused their investigation into possible design flaws or inadequate maintenance of the bridge that opened in 1967.

Engineering experts said the disaster points to the challenges of maintaining any aging bridge, regardless of its design.

What the general public does not comprehend is that bridges have been traditionally designed in the past for a life span of 50 years, said Neil Hawkins, a professor emeritus of engineering at the University of Illinois, who specializes in reinforced and prestressed concrete design. The environment in which the bridge exists can have a major effect on how much it can last beyond that 50-year design life span.

The structure is a cable stayed bridge designed by Italian engineer Riccardo Morandi, who died in 1989. Among its unusual features were its concrete-encased stay cables, which Morandi used in several of his bridge designs instead of the more common steel cables. There are two similar bridges in the world, in Libya and Venezuela.

Experts have said a number of factors could have contributed to the collapse, including wear and tear from weather and traffic that surpassed what the bridge was originally built to sustain.

Genoa is a port city so that there can be marine effects and also it is a major industrial center so that there can be air pollution that impairs the concrete, Hawkins said in an e-mail. Whether any of these effects, or other major deficiencies in the foundations, were present I have no knowledge. But all can contribute to a bridge failure.

Antonio Brencich, a professor of construction at the University of Genoa, said the design lent itself to swift corrosion and the bridge was in constant need of maintenance.

Most recently, a 20 million-euro ($22.7 million) project to upgrade the bridges safety had been approved before its collapse, with public bids to be submitted by September. According to the business daily Il Sole 24 Ore, the improvement work involved two weight-bearing columns that support the bridge _ including one that collapsed Tuesday.

But Brencich, who warned two years ago that the design of the bridge was a failure, said the structure should have been destroyed rather than be subjected to more repairs.

The Genoa bridge, along with the two similar bridges in Libya and Venezuela, have deteriorated at unimaginable speeds, Brencich told Sky News Italian television station Wednesday. Since this bridge was under constant maintenance, the time had come to consider a replacement for the bridge.

The Italian CNR civil engineering society said structures as old as the Morandi Bridge had surpassed their lifespans. It called for an ambitious plan to repair or replace tens of thousands of Italian bridges and viaducts built in the 1950s and 1960s, citing a series of collapses in recent years, not all fatal.

The collapse of a freeway bridge in Minneapolis in 2007 drew similar alarm bells about aging infrastructure in the U.S.

The Interstate 35W bridge, whose collapse into the Mississippi river killed 13 people, was also built in the 1960s, though federal investigators ultimately concluded that poor maintenance wasnt the main cause of the disaster. Instead, they pointed to a design defect, saying crucial gusset plates that held the beams together were only half as thick as they should have been.

Since then, there has been a push to improve bridge designs and make changes to the way they are inspected.

A more recent fatal collapse involved a newly constructed pedestrian bridge in Florida. U.S. investigators have said they are looking at the emergence of cracks in the structure before the collapse of the bridge near Florida International University, which killed six people.

Matteo Pozzi, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, said the bridge in Italy was known to have problems, as evidenced by the upcoming upgrades. But he said older bridges can often be sustained with maintenance and repairs  and collapses are rare.

Its still a challenge to predict exactly when, or if, a bridge will collapse, Pozzi said. Overall, we are doing a good job because a failure of this kind is rare. But we are trying to improve the ways in which we understand and monitor these bridges.

Of the bridges design, Hawkins said the concrete encasement improves the anchorage of the cables but in a marine environment there can be a buildup of chloride in the concrete and that can lead to cable corrosion. He said any broken cables would have to be examined to determine whether that was the case in the Morandi bridge.

The bridge in Venezuela, which is much larger and spans Lake Maracaibo, also has had mishaps. In 1979, corrosion caused the rupture of one of the concrete-encased cables, forcing a complicated effort to replace it.

Pozzi said use of concrete-encased cables for bridges was considered a pioneering technique at the time but it was never widely adopted and came to be considered problematic.

However, he said there are many bridges around the world whose original technology has been abandoned, and he cautioned against concluding that any are in danger of collapse.

More often, it means there is a maintenance cost, he said. The question is for how long and in what way.

Related:

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The owner of a residential construction business in Dayton who under reported his payroll by millions of dollars to lower his workers comp premiums has been sentenced for workers compensation fraud, the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation (BWC) reported.

Honorato Camacho, owner of Field Construction LLC, pleaded guilty to a fifth-degree felony count of workers compensation fraud on July 12. Acting on a tip, BWC investigators found Camacho had deliberately under reported his payroll by more than $3.5 million from 2013 to 2015.

Mr. Camachos scheme saved him more than $300,000 in premiums, but look what it cost him in the end  he still owes us for the premiums and now he has a felony criminal record on top of it, said Jim Wernecke, director of BWCs special investigations department.

Judge Mary Wiseman in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas ordered Camacho to pay BWC $255,434 in restitution, the balance owed after repayments he made prior to sentencing. She also sentenced Camacho to five years community control.

Source: Ohio BWC

Topics Workers' Compensation Fraud Ohio
A new chapter within the opposition coalition Umbrella for Democratic Change is expected to take shape this week as the Registrar of Societies has rejected the partys constitution.

The Registrar of Societies, Davids Okello-Wengi this week wrote to the UDC Secretary General in response to the two constitutions submitted by the warring parties within the UDC.

The constitution, which has been submitted to the Registrar of Societies, has divided the four UDC constituents of Botswana Congress Party (BCP), Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD), Botswana National Front (BNF) and Botswana Peoples Party (BPP).



BCP and BNF, who submitted an amended constitution to the registrar, are in one corner pitted against BMD and BPP who are opposed to the submitted constitution. Both BCP and BNF set themselves similar deadlines during their respective conferences last month.

BNF resolved that having noted that the new UDC constitution has been filed with the Registrar of Societies, the BNF should ensure that the process is concluded within twenty-one (21) days. The BCP on the other hand resolved that having been appraised and deliberated thereof on the developments within the UDC collective, conference resolved to remain in the UDC, but directed that due to limited time before registration for the general election, all outstanding matters within the UDC should be resolved by mid-August 2018.

Responding to the submitted constitutions, the Registrar said that UDC is not a political party but a cooperation agreement by the four political parties for a common political goal. All four parties are listed in the schedule, therefore, in our opinion, the registration of UDCs constitution falls outside the scope of the Act, reads the letter in part which some within the UDC have described as confusing.

Okello-Wengi described in the letter that the term society is defined in Section 3 of the Act to exclude any political party listed in the Schedule of the Act. The Registrar listed the political parties listed in the Schedule to the Act as BMD, BCP, BPP and BNF. Therefore, the registration of political parties falls outside the scope of the Act, reads the letter dated 13 August 2018.

It is not yet clear how the four parties within the constitution will react to the Registrars letter, however a source within the BCP told this publication that their lawyers will look into the matter and advice.

At press time BCPs Phillip Monowe, who at the time was not aware of the letter, said as the party they have not been briefed by their representatives at the UDC leadership on progress regarding the constitution and other pending matters.

Remember the constitution was not the only outstanding issue. We have the issue of wards allocation as well. There are areas where we engage with BNF, BMD and BPP on various wards. So our representatives on these matters would have to brief us after the deadline so that we decide a way forward. It is after these reports that we would be able to give a clear picture of where we stand, said Monowe.

When addressing the media on Wednesday morning, BNF Secretary General who doubles as UDC Head of Communications, Moeti Mohwasa indicated that they hope to receive response from Registrar by end of day. However, when contacted by this publication at the end of business on Wednesday, Mohwasa said the response had not arrived yet.

Submission and approval of the UDC constitution has been one of the thorny issues that the BCP had long wanted dealt with as a matter of urgency. With both set deadlines having passed it is yet to be seen what would be the next cause of action by the two parties and their colleagues in the coalition. There have been speculations that should the constitution be approved, BMD and BPP would challenge such in court.

The constitution was submitted by UDC President Advocate Duma Boko and his deputy, Dumelang Saleshando who is also President of the BCP. The BMD and BPP have contested the submitted constitution through letters written to the Registrar of Societies.

Mohwasa revealed during the BNF press conference in Gaborone this week that they remain hopeful of a positive feedback. He told the media that proper procedure was followed when the constitution was submitted. According to Mohwasa all the necessary documents have been filed together with the constitution.

Mohwasa insists all procedures were followed to the letter including the signatory issue.

During a meeting in Polokwane in 2016 it was agreed that negotiations would be between UDC and BCP. There were only two negotiating teams with six people from UDC and six people from BCP. We cannot now say individual parties were negotiating and the four presidents should sign, that would be insincere. Even our streams were just technical teams. UDC team was led by BNF Vice President Dr. Prince Dibeela while the BCP team was led by its Vice President Dr. Kesitegile Gobotswang. So people should stop misleading themselves, well I do not know if they are misleading themselves or just undermining the President of the UDC, said Mohwasa.

The constitution that has been submitted is the one that was agreed by the people. Authority came from the majority which is the members from all the four parties who gathered at Boipuso Hall in February this year. We cannot have 16 people who make up the UDC National Executive Committee (NEC) deciding for over thousands of people. As the NEC we cannot be seen to stifle things. The Boipuso Congress was the closing chapter of the UDC and BCP negotiations and the same congress which carries more weight than the NEC.
Authorities say storms have damaged trees, downed power lines and churned up at least one small tornado in southwest Missouri.

National Weather Service meteorologist Drew Albert says an EF-0 tornado has been confirmed near Diggins in Webster County. It uprooted a tree and caused other minor damage Sunday afternoon.

Meteorologists also suspect a tornado touched down later Sunday near the town of Aurora. Crews will be sent Monday to investigate damage there and in Barton County.

No injuries were reported.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Windstorm Missouri
The father of a man killed in a St. Louis, Mo. police shooting has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the federal lawsuit alleges that Mansur Ball-Bey was unarmed in August 2015 when he was shot in the back as he ran. The suit says the 18-year-old was a church youth leader without a criminal record.

His father, Dennis Ball-Bey, is suing the city, former police chief Sam Dotson and Officers Ronald Vaughn and Kyle Chandler, who fired the shot.

The officers told investigators that Mansur Ball-Bey brandished a gun as he fled after police served a warrant at a home. Prosecutors declined to charge the officers after an investigation.

The spokesmen for Mayor Lyda Krewson and the police union declined to comment.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Missouri
Some Bayer AG investors were surprised to learn about the thousands of farmers lining up before U.S. courts to argue that Roundup  the blockbuster weedkiller the German company recently acquired when it bought Monsanto Co.  had given them cancer. But Roundup is hardly the only chemical in Monsantos portfolio carrying legal risks.

There are also lawsuits aplenty for dicamba, its next best-selling herbicide, which U.S. farmers are spraying on about 50 million acres of soybean and cotton crops this summer to combat weeds that have become resistant to Roundup.

Dicamba has a tendency to vaporize after being sprayed and drift onto neighboring fields, harming crops and other plants that arent genetically modified to withstand its effects. More than 1 million soybean acres are claimed to have been damaged this year as of mid-July, and last summer, that number was more than 3 million.

Monsanto and other crop-chemicals companies have come up with formulations that they say will stay put when applied correctly. St. Louis-based Monsanto pins the crop damage on incorrect application by farmers, and thats going away with increased training. The company has received only a third of the complaints about off-target movement that it did last year, while acres have more than doubled, said Scott Partridge, vice president at Monsanto. Moreover, 12 states last year saw record soybean yields.

Growers are exercising a choice, and they have chosen to purchase and plant and harvest the highest-yielding, most profitable soybeans that are out there, Partridge said by phone. The technology has a historic rate of adoption, and its one thats desperately needed by soybean and cotton growers to boost productivity.

Class-Action Suits

But some agricultural researchers and farmers say theres still a problem, and dicamba continues to be a magnet for class-action lawsuits. These could cover thousands of plaintiffs, according to Tiffany Dowell Lashmet, an agricultural law specialist at Texas A&M University. Currently, 35 of 37 cases with 181 named plaintiffs have been consolidated into a federal class action, a number thats far from being in the thousands, Monsanto said. Meanwhile, rival seed companies are piling on pressure: Becks Hybrids, the fourth-largest U.S. soybean-seed retailer, last month wrote to the EPA asking it to place new restrictions on the application of dicamba. Monsanto said its competitor could be looking to sell similar technology.

One lawsuit seeks to get dicamba taken off the market altogether. Oral arguments are scheduled for Aug. 29 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Seattle over whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency broke the law in granting the herbicide a two-year registration, which expires in November.

Farmers using dicamba were supposed to avoid drift damage by following instructions written on an unprecedented and byzantine 16,000-word label, said George Kimbrell, the legal director at the Center for Food Safety, one of four non-profit groups bringing the suit. The EPA may also have violated the Endangered Species Act, Kimbrell said.

After more than seven years of exhaustive scientific review and evaluation, EPA approved XtendiMax with VaporGrip Technology for in-crop use, Bayer AG said in a statement. Dicamba-based herbicides have a 50-year history of safe use, when applied according to label directions, and we are confident the governments exhaustive assessment will prevail.

Recurrent Theme

Monsantos Partridge said that such lawsuits are a recurrent theme whenever the company brings new technology to the marketplace.

The EPA said it doesnt comment on pending litigation.

Our goal is to make a decision in time for growers to make informed seed purchase decisions for the next planting season, the agency said in an emailed statement.

Bayer lost more than 13 billion euros in market value in the week ended Friday as news of Roundup-related lawsuits mount. On Aug. 10, a San Francisco jury awarded $289 million to a groundskeeper who said Roundup, a four-decade old herbicide based on a chemical called glyphosate, gave him cancer. Monsanto points to more than 800 studies indicating that glyphosate is not carcinogenic. Its parent company plans to appeal the verdict.

Bayer also recently failed to block the state of California from listing Roundup as a known carcinogen.

Partridge said the companys dicamba-resistant soybeans had yields with a 5.7 bushel per acre advantage over a major competitor.

Dicamba is being sold to farmers for use in conjunction with the companys Xtend GMO soybeans and cotton. For Bayer  which completed its $66 billion acquisition of Monsanto in June and hasnt yet integrated the companies  the loss of Xtend would mean a hit of as much as $400 million to future earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Jonas Oxgaard said in an August research note.

Oxgaard also said in nearly all states that only followed the EPAs regulations this year, drift complaints were higher. The EPA has to balance farmers needs to manage glyphosate-resistant weeds with other farmers need to not have their crops destroyed, he said.

The likeliest outcome this year is for the EPA to give a one-year temporary registration, and impose even more stringent requirements, Oxgaard said. The likeliest outcome after that is for the registration to be revoked.

If that happens, it would derail Monsantos plans to roll out dicamba-tolerant seeds throughout the world  the next step in herbicide tolerance  and destroy a lot of value for new products Monsanto is launching over the next couple of years, said Chris Perrella, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.

Topics Lawsuits USA Agribusiness Pollution Chemicals
Baldwin Risk Partners (BRP), the Tampa, Fla.-based insurance distribution and consulting holding company, is pleased to announce the appointment of John Valentine as chief partnership officer.

Valentine joins BRP with more than 17 years experience closing mergers and acquisitions in addition to equity and debt transactions for public, private and sponsor-owned clients across various industry sectors.

Most recently, Valentine led the Investment Banking practice in the Mid-Atlantic region at Wells Fargo Securities. Prior to joining Wells Fargo Securities, Valentine served as vice president at Hyde Park Capital Partners, LLC and Athena Capital Partners. He began his career at Keefe, Bruyette and Woods, Inc., where he assisted in the structuring and marketing of sell-side M&A engagements, trust preferred, and mezzanine capital transactions for financial services companies.

As chief partnership officer, Valentine will be responsible for partnership execution and due diligence activities in collaboration with BRPs respective Division and Business Function leadership teams. In addition, Valentine will collaborate with BRPs leadership team to drive successful integration of new partner firms.

In 2017, BRP partnered with firms across Florida in Bradenton, DeLand, Destin and Orlando. In 2018, BRP has continued to partner with firms across Florida and has expanded its footprint across the Southeast, including the Texas, Alabama and Georgia markets. BRP was recently ranked the 43rd largest Independent Insurance Broker in the United States by Insurance Journal.

BRP is an entrepreneur owned and inspired insurance distribution holding company offering risk management, insurance, and employee benefits services.

Topics Mergers Florida
California is finalizing the details of a plan that could let PG&E Corp. issue bonds to cover potential damages from wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes last year.

The details are still being worked out, and a proposal may be issued by Tuesday night, state Senator Bill Dodd said Monday. Its part of a comprehensive wildfire bill that a state conference committee is evaluating now and that lawmakers are seeking to complete before the legislative session ends Aug. 31.

The securitization plan would help PG&E, which is exposed to billions in damages from last years wildfires. However, lawmakers have abandoned an effort to change state liability laws that say property owners can collect compensation from utilities linked to fires even if they werent negligent. State investigators have said PG&E equipment caused 16 of last years fires.

One of the major goals is to make sure our utilities are financially healthy, said Dodd, a Democrat, who is co-chair of the conference committee.

The committee is developing legislation to address the growing threat of wildfires, which officials say are getting worse due to climate change. The final bill may address issues including strengthening the power grid, fire suppression practices and forest health. Dodd said that Governor Jerry Brown had asked lawmakers to consider a broad range of topics, and Dodd announced over the weekend they wouldnt have time to consider some topics including the liability law, known as inverse condemnation.

A legislative fix to wildfire liability issues is now in question, Greg Gordon, a utility analyst for Evercore ISI, wrote in a note Monday.

Shares of PG&E slipped 0.8 percent to $44.90 at 1:26 p.m. in New York, after earlier dropping as much as 4 percent. Edison was down 0.6 percent, after sliding as much as 2.2 percent.

Investors would be receptive to the idea of issuing bonds backed by customer bills to cover damages from the wildfires in Northern California wine country, according to Julien Dumoulin-Smith, an analyst for Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

PG&E, the states biggest utility owner, has spent months lobbying lawmakers to change the liability policy. Brown has been sympathetic, proposing a bill that would require the courts to consider whether a utility acted reasonably when deciding whether to impose damages. PG&E could face as much as $17 billion in liabilities for the 2017 fires, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Related:

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.

Topics California Legislation Wildfire
A Colorado rafting company says it cant be held responsible for the 2016 death of a Maryland man because the victim signed a waiver before entering the boat.

Aspen Whitewater Rafting filed a counterclaim Aug. 8 in the U.S. District Court of Denver in a lawsuit brought by Allison Parker accusing the outfitter of negligence and fraud.

Parkers 58-year-old husband, James Abromitis, died June 15, 2016, after being ejected from a boat during a rafting trip on the Roaring Fork River.

The Aspen Times reports the outfitter noted that both Abromitis and Parker signed a release that included an agreement not to sue for any loss or injury.

The counterclaim contends Parker committed breach of contract by filing the suit and should pay expenses associated with the litigation.

Related:

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Colorado
What Is an Agreement Corporation?

An agreement corporation is a type of bank that is permitted by a state to engage in international banking.

The term is derived from the fact that in order to receive this permission, the banks in question have to agree to limit their activities to those allowed under the Agreement Corporation Act, which was passed in 1916.

Key Takeaways Agreement corporations are banks that are permitted to engage in international banking and transactions.

The term is seldom used today, as it relates to a 1916 law that has since been replaced with more recent legislation.

The 1916 Agreement Corporation Act allowed banks to put 10% of their funds into state-chartered banks and corporations allowed to finance projects overseas.

However, many banks were reluctant to take on the costs and risks of expanding their services.

To remedy this, Congress passed an amendment to the Federal Reserve Act in 1919 called the Edge Act, which said that the Fed could charter new banks for the purpose of international lending.

Although in the early 20th century American banks were reluctant to lend internationally, they are today among the most active participants in international commerce.

Understanding Agreement Corporations

Until 1913, banks in the United States were prohibited from opening branches overseas or financing foreign projects. However, as the country increasingly became a major international exporter, the government came to recognize the need for American banks to open up operations abroad.

To this end, Congress passed the Agreement Corporation Act in 1916. This new law authorized American banks to invest 10% of their capital into state-chartered banks and corporations permitted to finance projects internationally. The state-chartered bank would need to enter into an agreement with the Federal Reserve, agreeing to be bound by the rules and regulations set out in the Act. It was from these agreements that the term "agreement corporation" arose.

At first, few companies came forward to participate in this new program. In the three years after its passage, only one American bank had formed an agreement corporation. For most banks, the costs and risk of expanding operations under the Act simply were not justified in light of the potential rewards.

The Edge Act

To address this situation, Congress passed an amendment to the Federal Reserve Act in 1919. This new law, known as the Edge Act, authorized the Federal Reserve to charter new banks expressly oriented toward international lending. These new companies, known as Edge Act corporations (EACs), helped open the door for increased international involvement of American banks writ large.

Example of an Agreement Corporation

The Edge Act effectively removed the requirement for state supervision over agreement corporations. Instead, these corporations came under the oversight of the Edge Act, and thus of the Federal Reserve. American banks created new EAC vehicles in which to focus their international banking operations. This allowed them to segregate the risks of international lending from their core domestic banking activities.

Since the passage of the Edge Act in 1919, the laws surrounding international banking have further evolved toward promoting international commerce. Today, American banks are among the world's most active participants in international lending.
What Is a Silent Bank Run?

A silent bank run is when depositors withdraw funds in large volumes without physically entering the bank. Silent bank runs are similar to normal bank runs, except funds are withdrawn via electronic fund transfers, wire transfers, and other methods that do not require physical withdrawals of cash.

Key Takeaways A silent bank run is similar to a traditional bank run except it involves non-physical means of withdrawing funds.

Examples of such means include wire transfers, electronic fund transfers, or requests placed through telephone or online banking platforms.

The 2008 financial crisis saw several examples of silent bank runs occurring throughout the world.

1:31 What is a Bank Run?

Understanding Silent Bank Runs

Silent bank runs are the modern equivalent of a traditional bank run. Whereas depositors previously would need to visit a bank in person to withdraw cash, today they can withdraw money using various electronic means, such as online banking platforms.

In many ways, these new technologies make the prospect of a bank run even more threatening from the perspective of a bank. Many traditional barriers that would have helped slow the pace of a bank runsuch as customers needing to wait in long queues to withdraw fundsare no longer applicable. Similarly, customers today do not need to wait to place orders within a bank's working hours. They can issue an order online and that order will be processed once the bank opens.

On the other hand, these modern conveniences might also benefit banks by making the occurrence of a bank run less visible to outside observers. A depositor might be more likely to withdraw their funds if they see other depositors lining up outside a bank wishing to do so. With electronic withdrawal requests, the symptoms of a bank run may be less easily seen.

Real World Example of a Silent Bank Run

During the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, many financial institutions faced silent bank runs, as depositors feared losing their money if banks were to collapse. Across United States and Europeparticularly in the U.K. and Icelandsilent runs drained bank reserves, which served to deepen the crisis and force several large institutions to the brink of collapse.

One notable silent bank run affected Wachovia in 2008. Depositors withdrew $15 billion over a two-week period after Wachovia reported negative earnings results in April 2008. A second wave of withdrawals occurred in September 2008. The failure of Lehman Brothers triggered an $8.3 billion run, followed by a $10 billion run after Washington Mutual failed. This combined $18.3 billion represented 4.4% of Wachovia's depositor base.

Much of the withdrawals were concentrated among commercial accounts with balances above the $100,000 limit insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Though Wachovia had other liquidity problems prior to September 2008, the run on deposits exacerbated its woes and contributed to the FDIC encouraging its sale to Wells Fargo (WFC).

The Great Recession also saw bank runs happen in nations such as Ireland, the U.K., and Iceland. Northern Rock, the first British bank to experience a run of any kind since Victorian times, experienced both a silent and a traditional bank run in September 2007. The run started after media reported Northern Rock had gone to the Bank of England for help, and accelerated as customers realized deposits above 2,000 were not fully insured. Depositors withdrew funds through the internet, telephone and mailin addition to forming queues outside bank branches.
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By Oliver Mangan

The UK is set to leave the EU next March, but there is still considerable uncertainty about what shape Brexit will take.

The lack of progress in the negotiations is giving rise to mounting fears that there could be a no-deal, hard Brexit.

This has been reflected in renewed downward pressure on sterling, with the euro climbing back up to around the 90p level.

There are numerous hurdles to be overcome to avoid a no-deal, hard Brexit.

An exit deal needs to be concluded between the EU and UK before the end of the year. This will consist of two elements.

The first element is the withdrawal agreement, which will largely cover the technical aspects of the UKs departure, including citizens rights, future budgetary contributions, Irish border issues, and the transition period.

The second element is a political declaration that will set out a broad framework for future economic, trade, and security relations between the EU and the UK.

It should be noted that while the withdrawal agreement will be legally binding, the political declaration is not.

Thus, this element of any exit deal can be left vague and be more aspirational and, thus, largely fudge the issue of customs and trade.

This offers the best approach of getting an exit deal concluded in the coming months. It also offers the best prospect of an exit deal being approved by the British parliament.

The deep divisions in the Conservative Party over Brexit mean that it could be a difficult exercise for the minority Conservative government to get an EU exit agreement through parliament.

It would help, though, if the political declaration element of the exit deal is vague on the issue of future trade relations.

Eurosceptic Conservative MPs could then support it and look to secure a harder Brexit in the trade negotiations that are due to commence after Britain leaves the EU.

Otherwise, they risk bringing down the Government on the issue.

This means, though, that it will probably still not be clear what the final shape of Brexit is, even when the UK leaves the EU in March.

The status quo would be largely maintained during the transition period that is to last from the exit date until the end of 2020.

The difficult decisions, in terms of future customs and trade arrangements, could be left to the detailed negotiations on reaching a new EU-UK trade deal to be conducted during the transition period.

Sterling is likely to remain out of favour until markets get clear signs that an exit deal can be reached. Thus, it could trade at around 90p versus the euro over the next couple of months.

We expect that, despite all the hurdles, an exit deal will be agreed and approved by the UK parliament.

However, given that uncertainty in regard to the precise nature of Brexit could extend into the transition period, the upside for sterling may be limited. EUR/GBP may only return to an 87-89p trading range if a deal is done.

Of course, if the chances of a no-deal Brexit continue to rise, then sterling is likely to weaken further.

The euro could move up to around the 93p level hit last summer, and may even reach the 95p level last seen during the financial crisis back in 2009.

Indeed, sterling could even fall to parity in the event that the UK crashes out of the EU without any deal in a very chaotic Brexit next March.

Oliver Mangan is chief economist at AIB
A Cork cocktail bar has claimed top prize at the 2018 Bar of the Year awards.

Cask beat over 500 entries to the award, with the cocktail bar being deemed to be outstanding in all areas, with judges particularly noting its unique design.

It rounded off a fine night for MacCurtain St bar as hotspot also picked up the Cocktail Bar of the Year and the Contemporary Bar award.

The awards were presented on Monday night at a gala ceremony in Dublin, hosted by radio presenter Tom Dunne.

Among the other winners, the Gin Library at Galgorm Resort & Spa in Antrim picked up Gin Bar of the Year while the Southern Comfort Peoples Choice Awards saw An Pucan in Galway take home both the overall Peoples Choice Award and the regional title in Connacht/Ulster.

Dolans of Limerick (Munster), Devitts of Camden Street (Dublin) and one of Irelands highest pubs, Johnnie Foxs (Leinster), rounded out the Southern Comfort Peoples Choice winners.

Cork was well served in the awards, with Rebel County watering holes picking up four other awards on the night.

The Shelbourne Bar was named Whiskey bar of the Year, Franciscan Well named Tourist Bar, The Oyster Tavern collected the City Bar of the Year and Traford Murphy of Ballymaloe House collected the Cocktail Bartender of the Year award.

Commenting on the winners, Katherine ORiordan, Event Director said: "The judges were blown away with the standards right across the board this year.

"Bars throughout Ireland continue to create, innovate and up their game. From the classic Irish pub to trendy cocktail bars, the variety and quality is what makes these bars stand out above the rest.

"We are delighted that these awards give us the opportunity to showcase the very best bars, pubs and clubs this country has to offer.

"Ireland is known the world over for our outstanding bars along with the craic they provide  if these winners are anything to go by, that reputation is in safe hands."
By Gordon Deegan

Record numbers of passengers going through Dublin Airport last year helped boost pre-tax profits at catering firm Gate Gourmet by 57% to over 1.38m.

Last year, 29.6m passengers went through Dublin Airport, helping revenues at Gate Gourmet Ireland Ltd to increase by 12% to 20.59m.

The company performed strongly, driven by increased volumes and new customers, state its directors in the accounts.

Its parent group, the Swiss-based Gategroup, is owned by the indebted Chinese conglomerate HNA.

Plans to spin off Gategroup in a stock-market sale were abandoned this year.

Singapore fund Temasek swooped earlier this summer to buy a stake in the Swiss-based airline caterer.

In Ireland, it is engaged principally as Gate Gourmet in food manufacture and in-flight catering facilities.

The figures show that operating profits at Gate Gourmet Ireland increased 60% to 1.273m.

Accumulated profits rose from 1.8m to 3m, while shareholder funds increased from 6.3m to 7.5m.

Staff numbers increased in the year to 115 from 105.

Its costs of sales increased from 11.37m to 11.62m, with administrative expenses climbing from 6.24m to 7.69m.

After paying corporation taxes of 186,920, it posted a net profit of almost 1.22m.

Gategroup serves more than 350m passengers a year from about 100 airport locations operated by Gate Gourmet

around the globe

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By Eamon Quinn

Opportunities for top executives have increased outside Dublin and fewer were actively seeking new jobs last month as unemployment falls, according to recruitment firm Morgan McKinley.

Its latest employment monitor suggests economic recovery outside the capital is picking up steam, it said.

There are a lot of positives in terms of what is happening right around the country, said the firms Trayc Keevans.

Approximately 65% of the publicly announced jobs in July were outside of Dublin. In the early part of the economic recovery, job creation was skewed towards the capital. However, we are starting to see a real shift as regional job creation has grown significantly, she said, citing new jobs announcements for Athlone, Donegal, Laois, Limerick, Sligo and Waterford.

Morgan McKinley also said concerns about Brexit is helping to attract executives from across Europe to Ireland. Jobs in life sciences, technology, and professional services, and data analytics remain in demand. Separately, temporary work has fallen back to pre-recession levels and is not a huge part of the feature of work patterns in Ireland, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).

And the study by the think tank found temporary employment is not filled by low-skilled jobs, while freelance work only account for one in 50 of the workforce. Temporary jobs did not generally act as a stepping stone to permanent employment even though temporary workers were as satisfied with their work as full-time workers, the ESRI study found.

The evidence in this report suggests that it [temporay work] is not an increasing phenomenon in Ireland, said Professor Seamus McGuinness.
By Eamon Quinn

A leading consumers advocate has called on Ulster Banks new chief executive, Jane Howard, to guarantee she will oppose closing more branches until customer service across the industry improves significantly.

Ulster Bank, the third largest lender in the Republic, confirmed the appointment of Ms Howard, who joins from one of the top executive jobs at Ulster-Bank-parent RBS. Chief financial officer Paul Stanley, who has been running the bank since the shock departure this year of Gerry Mallon to head up Tesco Bank in the UK, becomes deputy CEO.

Ms Howard faces the challenges faced by other Irish lenders, including customer dissatisfaction over a shrinking branch network and political controversies for crisis-era loan sales, as well Central Bank censure for the banking industrys 1bn tracker mortgage scandal.

Dermott Jewell, policy and council adviser at the Consumers Association of Ireland, said it was a time for a change as customer services at Ulster and other lenders deteriorate.

As managing director of personal banking at RBS, Ms Howard was responsible for the distribution transformation strategy, and for leadership of the branch network, telephony, webchat, messaging and complaints across NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Ulster Bank NI, according to her LinkedIn page.

She was in the spotlight this year when RBS announced redundancies and the closure of about a quarter of its network of NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland branches, though following a political outcry, it deferred some of those closures in Scotland.

The closures were necessary as more customers switched to using its bank services online, she said at the time.

The Financial Services Union last year said it was shocked over an Ulster Bank plan to close branches which accounted for about a fifth of the network in the Republic. But more branch closures does not appear to be on the agenda at Ulster Bank for the time being.

At RBS, she hailed the introduction of online video services to help customers buying mortgages.

Following the appointment of Francesca McDonagh at the top job at Bank of Ireland in late 2017, Ms Howard  who was born in Bury in Greater Manchester  becomes only the second woman to secure a CEO post at an Irish bank.

Ms Howard brings a track record of strong leadership, intense customer focus, drive, and enthusiasm, said Ulster Bank chairman Des OShea. Her deep banking experience gained across a variety of senior leadership roles will bring considerable value, he said.
By Sean ORiordan, Defence Correspondent

If supporters of H-Block hunger strikers had broken into the British embassy in July 18, 1981, they would have faced nearly 200 Irish soldiers who would have opened fire if necessary.

The army was called in to prevent the embassy being burnt as had previously happened on February 2, 1972, after protesters attacked it following the Bloody Sunday massacre by the British Parachute Regiment.

A rally on O'Connell St, Dublin, in 1981 to show support for hunger strikers in the H-Blocks. Picture: RollingNews.ie.

In a new book on the Irish armys involvement in The Troubles, a retired lieutenant colonel said senior army officers were told by the Government that under no circumstances could there be a repeat of the burning.

The army commander in the embassy left his troops in no doubt that if rioters attempted to take their guns they were to open fire with live rounds.

The rules of engagement were to fire warning shots in the air, and if this didnt work fire to wound, and  as a last resort  fire to kill.

Military historian Dan Harvey, a nephew of the late Taoiseach Jack Lynch, notes that the soldiers did not have riot gear.

It was decided that if the protesters broke through the 500-strong Garda line, that the army would use the CS gas first and then snatch squads made up of men formidable in both physique and psyche would be sent in to take out the ringleaders.

The rifle company commander asked his commanding officer if there were any specific considerations for opening fire on the protesters if they broke through.

In Mr Harveys book, Soldiering Against Subversion, it is stated that the senior officer replied that he could not let any of his troops be forcibly disarmed.

Rioters attacked gardai with petrol bombs, bricks, pick-axe handles, and sharpened poles.

The gardai eventually decided on a major baton charge to disperse the crowd. Nearly 200 people ended up in hospital, 75% of them gardai.

The idea that the British embassy would be sacked a second time would have been to allow the reputation of the State to be gravely damaged internationally, said Mr Harvey.

In his book, he also says that when the Troubles started, the [Irish] army had war-gamed to go into the North to protect Catholic areas and claimed the British army was badly directed and used as a blunt force. Also, they did not have the peacekeeping experience of the Irish army, which would try to de-escalate situations, except when they came under direct fire.

The Irish army was also careful not to be seen to be in cahoots with their British counterparts.

Bizarrely, neither army would talk to each other. If the British were conducting an operation close to the border, the Irish army would be asked to secure the southern side to prevent IRA snipers firing on them.

However, even if the two sides met, talks were conducted through the gardai and the RUC.
The identities of around 1,000 Irish Catholic clergy against whom credible allegations of child sexual abuse have been made are being kept secret under laws and practices that continue to hurt victims and endanger children, it has been claimed.

The Boston-based group BishopAccountability.org, established following revelations of abuse and cover-ups in Boston in the early 2000s, delivered the warning while publishing the first database of clergy convicted of abuse in Ireland.

Despite the Church here acknowledging child sex abuse allegations against more than 1,300 clergy over the last 40 years, just 75 can be named because of highly restrictive defamation and data-protection laws.

That is despite the fact that many of the others were sanctioned under Church law and the belief that some of the accused remain in ministry or active in community life where they could be in contact with children.

Database co-director Anne Barrett Doyle said the lack of transparency in Ireland is in stark contrast to other countries where it is possible to publish the names of both convicted and Church- sanctioned priests including, in some dioceses, regularly updated details of where they are living.

In Ireland, we have this painful incongruity of a massive amount of suffering documented but very few perpetrators named publicly, said Ms Barrett Doyle.

She said making names known publicly helps safeguard children and, even where perpetrators had died, aids healing for victims.

We have heard from survivors that seeing their perpetrators names listed has contributed immensely to their own healing, she said. It is instant validation.

She said the lack of action taken by State authorities against bishops and religious superiors involved in covering up abuse is startling compared to other countries.

This is a challenge to the DPP and the prosecutors here, she said. I think they need to have the courage to go after the Church.

The database launch took place as Pope Francis issued an apology for the Churchs failures in dealing with abuse.

Writing with shame and repentance and referring to the abuse as atrocities, the Pope wrote: We showed no care for the little ones. We abandoned them.

He made specific reference to the need to tackle the culture of cover-ups with a zero-tolerance approach.

We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary, said Francis.

===========

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2018-08/pope-francis-letter-people-of-god-sexual-abuse.html

The letter comes just days before the Pope is due in Ireland and while the Vatican is reeling from abuse and cover-up revelations in the US state of Pennsylvania.

Ms Barrett Doyle said it is time for action, not words.

Theres such a disconnect between what Pope Francis says and what he actually does in terms of reforming the Catholic Church, she said.

If he wants to stop the abuse of children, theres a real simple thing he could do. He could make zero tolerance more than a slogan. It could actually become universal canon law.

Survivors group One in Four expressed disappointment with the letter, which it described as a rehash of previous apologies and condemnations.

Executive director Maeve Lewis said: There is nothing in this new communication from Pope Francis to show that the Vatican intends to put in place clear laws and protocols that will hold [to account] every bishop and cardinal who shield sex offenders and place them in positions where they can continue to abuse children. Survivors are tired of meaningless apologies and expressions of solidarity that do not involve a clear call to action.

A spokesman for the Catholic Bishops declined to comment on the call to open its files and name all priests sanctioned under canon law, saying all queries relating to child abuse must be referred to the National Board for Safeguard Children.

The board said it acted in accordance with legislation.

At the moment that legal framework does not allow for those who have been accused but not convicted to be named  and we comply with that, said chief executive Teresa Devlin.

As for the possibility of changing those laws, we would suggest the best first step would be to talk to the victims to determine what theyd like to see happen.
By Michael Clifford

Just after 1.45pm, somebody in the ballroom of the Gresham Hotel said, Youd think it was Obama we were waiting for.

By then Sean Spicer was a half-hour late. The room was full and impatient.

Behind the rows of chairs a table was weighed down with copies of Spicers book, The Briefing. Sales didnt appear to be terribly brisk.

The former presidential spokesman was in Dublin to promote his tome. Books emerging from and delving into the current White House administration are plentiful at the moment, each promising more salacious detail about the Trumponian organised chaos.

Not this one. Spicer has written to praise Donald Trump, not to bury him. The big question concerned whether he continued to be his masters voice now he is no longer employed to be so.

The answer at the event, organised by the Institute of International and European Affairs, would appear to be in the affirmative. Over the course of a brisk and well-conducted interview with the economist Dan OBrien, Spicer demonstrated that he remains a Trump man.

This despite taking issue with the US president on matters such as style and communication.

What he did offer was a cogent briefing on the stark polarisation in America between liberals and conservatives.

Things simmered for a long time, he said.

A lot of Republicans were saying we havent had a voice for a long time for a lot of reasons.

[Now] the focus tends to be who started it, whos to blame. People talk as if theyre not part of it. If you dont like the current state of things, help be part of the solution.

Spicer wants to be part of the solution. Later, in response to a question, he said he didnt agree with the idea Trump thrives on division.

He believes the media and social media have played a part in hyping the divisions.

You can isolate yourself (on social media) to the point where you are only hearing voices that support what you believe, that further those thoughts and blank out the other side. Also on social media you can say things you would never say otherwise and feel that there is no repercussion for it.

The media, he says, has also compartmentalised, playing to its own respective constituencies at the cost of balance.

He spilled no secrets about his former boss.

Interestingly, he said that the presidents biggest achievement in his first year at the White House was not tax cuts but an appointment to the Supreme Court.

If Spicer is correct in this analysis it suggests that identity politics is rising in relevance compared to economic prosperity.

Spicer is still his boss voice when it comes to trade. Trumps refrain that the US, the biggest trading, military, and economic power in the world, has been treated unfairly in trade deals is one which Spicer echoes.

He did concede that in his old job, the boss presented him with many challenges, not least the tendency to communicate off the cuff.

There is nobody who has the ability to message like he does, said Spicer.

A normal candidate, if you were to have a rally in Columbus, Ohio, you would have ads running on radio and TV, you would spend boatloads of money to create a crowd.

Trump sends out a tweet and people are lining up around the block.

Far more revealing than anything he had to say about his former boss was Spicers demeanour in public. In the dog days of early 2017, his briefings on behalf of the president had become something of a source of global amusement.

The press officer fumbled and wilted under the complete chaos informing the early days of the Trump White House.

He became a joke figure, particularly after his portrayals on Saturday Night Live.

Yesterday in Dublin, Spicer came across as a relaxed, articulate, and informed political operative, at ease in a room that was most likely hostile to the administration he served.

Asked at the conclusion whether he ever misses the job, Spicer simply replied, No I was honoured and privileged to do that job but theres not a single day I look back.
Independent Kerry TD Danny Healy-Rae has admitted he did doze off at Croke Park, but insisted it was only for a couple of minutes.

He described Transport Minister Shane Ross as a waste of time and a waste of space after the Independent Alliance TD criticised him for falling asleep at Croke Park on Sunday.

A picture of Mr Healy-Rae nodding off was circulated on social media. Mr Ross retweeted it, adding a question: Is this a waste of a good ticket?!!

Is this a waste of a good ticket?!! pic.twitter.com/oKYXLIN9gl  Shane Ross (@Ross_Shane1) August 20, 2018

The tweet sparked a furious response from Mr Healy-Rae, who has been a fierce critic of Mr Ross over the recent drink driving and abortion bills.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Mr Healy-Rae launched a blistering attack on Mr Ross who, he said, had destroyed rural Ireland.

He is a waste of space, he said. He is a waste of time. I cant wait to get up to Dublin to get at him for what he has done to rural Ireland.

Explaining his doze, Mr Healy-Rae said he had been up since 6.30am on Saturday organising buses for people needing cataracts operations from Kerry to Belfast.

Mr Healy-Rae, who does not drink, said he was out late that night to celebrate Kilgarvans intermediate county hurling final victory.

He then got an early train to Dublin on Sunday to make the All-Ireland final, which he has done every year since 1988, he said.

The Kerry TD admitted he did nod off for a couple of minutes during the interval of the minor match.

He said the seat in which he was snapped was not his actual seat. He said that, for the senior final, he sat in seat 8, row HH in Section 327 in the Hogan Stand.

I wasnt sitting in the ard comhairle or anything like that. I got my ticket when I got off the train in Dublin, he said.

I did nothing wrong by closing my eyes for a few minutes. Ive been working hard all summer helping people.

Mr Healy-Rae, his brother Michael, and Tipperary TD Mattie McGrath were among a number of rural-based TDs who delayed the passage of the Road Traffic Bill by way of a filibuster. They opposed the proposal to further lower drink-driving limits.
By David Raleigh

Gardai have appealed for witnesses after a double stabbing allegedly occurred at a house in Limerick in the early hours of yesterday.

Two men in their early 20s sustained serious stab injuries during the incident at Woodbine Avenue, Caherdavin between 3am and 4am on Monday, a garda source said.

One man was taken to Cork University with life-threatening injuries while a second man was taken to University Hospital Limerick where he is being treated for serious injuries.

Gardai have not disclosed any details of what transpired at the house leading to the two men receiving stab wounds.

A garda spokesman said: Gardai at Mayorstone Park in Limerick are investigating a stabbing incident which occurred between 3am and 4 am, Monday 20 August 2018 at a house at Woodbine Ave, Caherdavin, Limerick.

Two men aged 22 years and 23 years received stab wounds and were taken to Cork University Hospital for treatment.

Investigations are continuing.

The spokesman added that no arrests have been made.

Mayorstone Garda Station have appealed for witnesses to contact them on 061-456980, he added.
Senior officers were last night consulting with the DPP on whether or not to bring charges against a man arrested for the fatal stabbing of a 63-year-old father in south Dublin.

Gerard Fortune received a knife wound to his neck at his home on Rutland Grove, Crumlin, at around 8pm on Sunday.

The attack is understood to have occurred inside the terraced property.

The assailant afterwards stole a car and drove at speed across the city to Blanchardstown in north west Dublin.

Gardai tracked his car down 20 minutes later and managed to arrest him and take him into custody.

The man is known to the deceased and there were no signs of forced entry at the house.

His daughters were comforted at the scene by neighbours. One daughter described her father as a lovely man, who would be missed dearly.

She said her father didnt deserve to die the way he did.

One neighbour expressed his shock at what happened but said he didnt hear any noise.

He described the deceased as a quiet man who kept to himself.

Gardai placed large plastic sheets over the driveway and the outside pavement, as well as over the car parked in the driveway, in order to preserve any potential evidence.

Mr Fortune was in a long-term relationship with Eileen Lambe, and they lived in the house together and had a number of children.

He had previously been married to another woman and had a number of children with her.

The deceased is understood to have worked in nearby St Jamess Hospital.

He had been taken there by ambulance after neighbours rang 999. He was pronounced dead a short time later at the hospital.

Officers from Sundrive Road Garda Station set up a murder investigation.

The suspect was detained at nearby Crumlin Garda Station for questioning under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act. This allows for 24 hours in custody, excluding sleep breaks.

Speaking at Sundrive Road Garda Station, Superintendent Michael Cryan made an appeal to the public for assistance.

We are appealing to anyone who was in the Rutland Grove / Clogher Road area of Dublin 12 between 8pm and 8.15pm on Sunday, August 19, 2018 to come forward.

We are also trying to trace the movements of a Red Toyota Yaris, described as a four-door hatchback with L plates and partial registration 04-WW, that was driven from the scene at Rutland Grove at about 8pm before it was recovered at approximately 8.20pm at Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown.

We would also appeal to anyone with dashcam footage from the Rutland Grove or Connolly Hospital areas in and around the specified times to make it available to investigators.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the incident room at Sundrive Road Garda Station 01-666 6600, or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111.
A new survey shows home broadband speeds are not getting faster - but customers appear happier.

Three in five Irish consumers are satisfied with their home broadband speeds - even though 78% say they are either the same or worse than this time last year.

The survey, from price comparison and switching service Switcher.ie, also shows that there is still an urban/rural divide with a third of people in Connacht/Ulster (33%) saying they are unhappy with their broadband speeds at home, compared to just 16% in Dublin.

1,001 people took part in the survey and almost four in 10 (37%) said that they knew nothing about the Government's National Broadband Plan (NBP).

The NBP was

Read More:

The NBP promised to deliver minimum speeds of 30Mbps download and 6Mbps upload by 2020.

Questions have already been raised around the viability of the plan when both Eir and an ESB-Vodafone joint venture Siro decided not to continue in the tender process.

The survey found that 18% of consumers are not confident the NBP will have any impact on them, while just 14% are confident that it will.

A speed tests taken on Switcher.ie in the first six months of this year show two-thirds of consumers are still getting speeds below 30Mbps, the minimum target proposed by the NBP.

Eoin Clarke, Managing Director of Switcher.ie, said: In an increasingly digital world, broadband is without a doubt a household essential, and being stuck in the slow lane can really have a big impact on peoples quality of life.

Its great to see that peoples satisfaction with the speeds theyre getting at home has improved somewhat, but while were hearing a lot about superfast broadband, there are still a significant number that arent satisfied with their speeds, and many who feel things arent going to improve any time soon, despite the promises of the National Broadband Plan. For people struggling with sluggish speeds, simple things like streaming content, working from home, and keeping in touch with friends and family can be a real issue."

- Digital Desk
Passengers have hit out at Ryanair after claiming they only received notification that their return flight to Cork from Lanzarote had been cancelled hours before take-off.

The 7.25am service from the Canary Island back to Cork was cancelled after a member of the aircrew fell ill. Some passengers said they were only informed at 3am while others said they were waiting in the departures queue at the airport before they received the notification via text and email.

It meant passengers, including groups with young children, face extra days on the island for which they had not budgeted.

One family said they are now due to return via Dublin on Thursday, meaning a race against time for one teenager to be back in time for a fitting for her debs dress.

The girls mother, Annemarie, from Cork City, told Red FMs Neil Prendeville Show their travelling party of 16 had arrived at the airport at 4.50am and were waiting in the queue for an hour before they heard the flight might have been cancelled.

We didnt get the email until 6am, she said, adding that there was no satisfaction whatsoever from airport staff.

She later told the Irish Examiner that after a holiday she and her family  including children ranging in age from five to 17  had spent all year looking forward to, we cant afford a bottle of water.

She added: All the kids are like zombies walking around.

Another passenger affected by the cancellation was Patrick Kelly, who works in digital marketing in Kerry.

He said he received the cancellation notice at 3am but travelled to the airport as planned so as to arrange another flight back as quickly as possible.

There was no information so we queued at the check-in desk, he said.

They said to go over to the customer service desk, saying we cant do anything for you. We joined another queue there, we were queueing for at least an hour and a half.

Patrick did book another return flight for tomorrow but said the scene at the airport was difficult, with families of young children trying to sort out alternative accommodation and people getting very upset and irate.

He also said there was initial confusion as to the reason for the cancellation.

Ryanair said in a statement:

This flight from Lanzarote to Cork was regrettably cancelled due to crew illness. All affected customers were contacted by email and SMS text message and advised of their options of a full refund, free transfer on to the next available flight or alternative routing and provided with hotel accommodation.

"Ryanair sincerely apologised to customers for this cancellation.

It is understood some customers opted for a refund while others moved to an alternative Ryanair flight.
Labours Senator Ivana Bacik has joined colleagues in criticising the current debate around the leadership of the party, insisting the matter should be discussed at a pre-Dail conference next month.

The lawyer also said the September discussions should include a debate on whether Labour should or should not consider entering government after the next general election.
Update: 7.15pmPope Francis has said he hopes the World Meeting of Families will bring "renewed encouragement to families everywhere".

In a video message relased ths evening ahead of his visit to Ireland Pope Francis said he is "excited" about his return to Ireland.

He studied in Dublin for three months back in the early 1980s.

Pope Francis will attend a number of events in Dublin and visit Knock Shrine in Co Mayo and will meet victims of clerical sexual abuse during his visit.

The video message coincided with the opening of the major family-themed event in Dublin this evening.

In the video he said: "I hope that this festival will be a source of renewed encouragement to families everywhere, especially those families that will be present in Dublin.

"May it remind us all of the essential place of the family in the life of society and in the building of a better future for todays young people."

He went on: "Although the specific reason for my visit to Ireland is the World Meeting of Families, I would like to include all the members of the Irish family," said the Pope.

"In a particular way, I pray that it may further the growth of unity and reconciliation among all Christ's followers, as a sign of that lasting peace which is God's dream for our whole human family."

In the opening message, the pontiff went on: "As I prepare to visit Ireland in a few days' time for the World Meeting of Families, I send a warm word of greeting to all the Irish people. I am excited at the thought of returning to Ireland."

Pilgrims arrive for the opening ceremony of the World Meeting of Families at the RDS in Dublin. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

4.30pm: Pope expresses hope World Meeting of Families will bring "encouragement to families everywhere".

Senator Ronan Mullen has criticised former President Mary McAleeses description of the World Meeting of Families as a right-wing rally.

The Senator said it would offend thousands of people who were hoping for the Popes visit this weekend to Ireland to be a moment of reconciliation and celebration.

Mr Mullen made his comments as it was revealed that Pope Francis will meet clerical sex abuse victims when he visits Ireland this weekend.

The Pope is due to arrive in Dublin on Saturday for two days of meetings with families and political authorities as well as a trip to Knock.

Earlier this week the Pope condemned the "atrocities" of child sex abuse and clerical cover-ups in a strongly worded letter to members of the church.

Earlier today the Vatican confirmed the Pope would be meeting with abuse survivors.

Senator Mullen said: Thousands of Irish people, including many returned missionaries, but also ordinary families from parishes around Ireland, are upset by the current negativity towards the Church that they love.

These are not people who want to hide from uncomfortable truths. They are as disgusted as everyone else by the behaviour of some bishops and cardinals who failed to report child sexual abuse and who were, in some cases, molesters and predators themselves.

They are angry at the mocking disregard some of these churchmen have shown for the civil law and for the churchs own moral teachings."

He said that he, and many Irish people within the Church, also believe any bishop or cardinal involved in the cover-up of the scandal should not stay in office.

Mr Mullen said: This is a time of reform for the Catholic Church. Much progress has been made in Ireland, and perhaps much more needs to be done.

But the drumbeat of negativity towards the Popes visit, and the need that some prominent people feel to chastise the Catholic Church without equally acknowledging the huge force for goodness and love that the Church has been and still is, is disrespectful to thousands of people."

"They had hoped that this weekends event would be a moment of truth-telling, but also of reconciliation and celebration. They are upset that some people apparently dont want the event to be a success.

"They will be saddened, in particular, by the term right-wing rally used by our former President, Mary McAleese, to describe this weeks World Meeting of Families."

Ms McAleese had also said Ireland is "long past the point of accepting words of simple sorrow" from the Pope about the scandals and also revealed that she has made a formal canonical complaint to Pope Francis about Cardinal Farrell's banning of her speaking at the Vatican in March of this year.

Senator Mullen said: That label is both unkind and untrue. It is no way to describe the thousands of grounded and generous people who are coming to celebrate their faith and reflect on what it has to say about their lives as families and their commitment as Christians.

"A quick look at the programme for this event and the profile of the people coming will show that Mary McAleese has got these people badly wrong.

If our country is to have a decent future, it cannot be based on the disparagement of those with whom we disagree.

"'Building bridges' used to mean reaching out to people you knew you might never agree with, but finding out what you had in common and learning to get along with, and eventually loving, each other."

"It should still mean that." Senator Mullen concluded.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that the cost of the Pope's visit to Ireland is expected to be 10m more than expected.

The final bill to the state is expected to be somewhere between 20m and 30m.

Pope Francis will be in the country for less than 36 hours.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has defended the increase in spending, saying: "The cost relates entirely to the scale of the event.

"Bear in mind there are over half a million people attending the Mass in Phoenix Park, tens of thousands of people in Croke Park and in Knock lining the streets as well.

"So, we have to bear in mind that this is probably, in terms of participation, the biggest event that's happened in over 40 years, that is why the costs are so high."

Update - 3.16pm: Maeve Lewis, executive director of the One in Four charity for those affected by sexual abuse, said it would have been an insult had the Pope not met survivors while in Ireland.

She said some would very much want to engage while others would avoid him due to a sense of "betrayal".

"If the Pope is in an open, listening mode when he meets the survivors he can learn a lot about the terrible devastation of sex abuse and how people feel let down," she said.

"If he makes any promises to survivors in terms of actions he should follow through on that.

"It would be terribly hurtful if the meeting (produced) no concrete outcome as a result of this."

Maeve Lewis

Kate Walmsley, 62, suffered sex abuse at the hands of a priest.

She said: If he is the head of the Catholic church then he is the person we need to talk to, to put forward the wrongs all the children have suffered and I am one of them.

Protesters have arranged a series of rallies coinciding with the pontiffs visit to highlight what they believe has been the churchs failure to properly address wrongdoing.

Today the World Meeting of #Families begins in Dublin. Let us join in prayer with all the families of the world, especially those in difficulty. @WMOF2018 @LaityFamilyLife  Pope Francis (@Pontifex) August 21, 2018

1.04pm: Pope to meet victims of sexual abuse during Ireland visit

Pope Francis will meet clerical sex abuse victims when he visits Ireland this weekend, the Vatican confirmed.

He is due to arrive in Dublin on Saturday for two days of meetings with families and political authorities as well as a trip to Knock.

Earlier this week the Pope condemned the "atrocities" of child sex abuse and clerical cover-ups in a strongly worded letter to members of the church.

The Catholic Church has been rocked by revelations of wrongdoing by members of the religious orders stretching back decades.

A spokeswoman for the Vatican, when asked about the Pope's meeting with survivors, confirmed it would take place.

Protesters have arranged a series of rallies coinciding with the pontiff's trip to highlight what they believe has been the church's failure to properly address wrongdoing.

Last week a grand jury report outlined seven decades of abuse in Pennsylvania.

The investigation found more than 1,000 children had been abused by 300 priests.

The Pope has apologised after defending a bishop in Chile who was accused of hiding abuses by a priest.

The latest Vatican intervention on the issue comes as Ireland gears up for its first papal visit in 40 years during which at least half a million people are expected to attend a papal mass in Dublin's Phoenix Park.

Several protests by groups campaigning for clerical abuse victims are set to take place during the visit.

- Digital Desk and PA
A man in his 30s is due in court this afternoon charged in connection with a fatal stabbing in the Crumlin area of Dublin.

A 63-year-old man was attacked at a house in Rutland Grove at around 8pm on Sunday night.
By Dan Buckley

Holidaymakers should be vaccinated against measles, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned, as European cases of the infectious disease reach an eight-year high.

The WHO has warned that the 41,000 cases of measles in the first half of 2018 have already outstripped every annual total since 2010.

In Ireland, there has been a total of 76 cases so far this year, five of them in recent days, according to the HSE. Four of the most recent cases have occurred in Dublin.

These four individuals are likely to have developed measles from contact with one of the two earlier cases at hospitals in Dublin, said the HSE.

Helena Murray, a specialist in public health medicine, said: Measles can be a serious illness and is highly infectious. The best protection is to be fully vaccinated with two doses of MMR [measles, mumps, and rubella] vaccine.

People at increased risk of getting measles are those who are not fully vaccinated with two doses of MMR vaccine or have not had measles in the past. The risk of measles is for up to 21 days, after contact with a case of measles.

The HSE says it is particularly concerned about the risk of measles for children who attended Temple St Childrens University Hospital, in Dublin, on four dates between July 25 and August 6 and who may have been exposed to an infectious case of measles.

Measles cases are also occurring in children and adults who are in contact with measles cases in the community in Dublin, said a HSE spokesperson.

Across Europe, there were 41,000 measles cases during the first six months of 2018, including 37 deaths.

The WHO said the highest annual total for measles cases since 2010 was in 2017, when 23,927 cases were identified.

The global health body said France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine have had more than 1,000 cases each so far in 2018. Ukraine has been the hardest-hit, with more than 23,000 people affected, said the WHO.

In the European region, 41,000 children and adults have been infected with measles in the first six months of 2018.

The total number for this period far exceeds the 12-month totals reported for every year this decade. So far, the highest annual total for measles cases between 2010 and 2017 was 23,927, for 2017, and the lowest was 5,273, for 2016. Monthly country reports also indicate at least 37 people have died due to measles, so far this year.

Following the decades lowest number of cases, in 2016, we are seeing a dramatic increase in infections and extended outbreaks, said Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO regional director for Europe. We call on all countries to immediately implement broad, context-appropriate measures to stop further spread of this disease.

Good health for all starts with immunisation and as long as this disease is not eliminated, we are failing to live up to our Sustainable Development Goal commitments.

Seven countries in the region have seen over 1,000 cases, in children and adults this year (France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Russian Federation, Serbia, and Ukraine).

Ukraines 23,000 affected people account for over the half the regional total. Measles-related deaths have been reported in all of these countries, with Serbia reporting the highest number, at 14.
Former White House press spokesman Sean Spicer insists that Donald Trump will remain as president for six more years, saying the US must come back together and stop undermining its systems of government.

Mr Spicer made the prediction as he denied Russian collusion in the 2016 US presidential election; defended the removal of immigrant children from their parents; and questioned the value of investigations into Mr Trump.

At an Institute of International and European Affairs event in Dublin yesterday, Mr Spicer said far-right organiser Steve Bannon was a good steward for Mr Trumps message and claimed that despite style concerns, most Americans back the presidents results.

Acknowledging the significant opposition to his tenure both in the US and abroad, he predicted Mr Trump will win the 2020 presidential election and remain in the White House until 2024.

Six years, Mr Spicer said immediately when asked how long Mr Trump will remain in power.

Its not just what Im saying, Im telling you what the polls said. Its not my opinion, this is literally what it is. That is what every consistent poll shows.

Mr Spicer rejected evidence of Russian collusion in the 2016 election.

Downplaying the attacks as meddling, he said after 18 months of investigations, there has been no evidence of any wrongdoing or that the Russians secretly backed Mr Trumps campaign.

Theres meddling and theres collusion. On meddling, theres no doubt, hands down, no question that Russia tried to meddle in the US election, said Mr Spicer.

But thats morphed into collusion, and I have not seen anything to believe there was any kind of collusion.

He dismissed ongoing inquiries by saying that the Democrats would spend all of their time just investigating as opposed to legislating if they could.

Mr Spicer admitted there have been difficulties in how the crackdown on illegal immigrants coming to the US has been handled in light of shocking images of children being held in makeshift cells. Despite saying the US must remain a beacon of hope and freedom, he backed the immigration policies.

Obviously those [child images] are very difficult to look at, but again weve got to do what we can to make sure children are protected, not trafficked, not coming in to be abused in any way.

Mr Spicer rejected suggestions that Mr Trump has created divisions, saying if it was up to him, he would like people to come together.

He side-stepped questions on whether he would like to become the US ambassador to Ireland and said he does not miss his old job.

When asked if he has any regrets, he referenced his book, The Briefing: Have you read the book? Buy that and then ask the question.
The Taoiseach has called on the church to introduce mandatory reporting for child sexual abuse.

Leo Varadkar also says there should not ever be a statute of limitations for prosecutions in those cases.

However, the Taoiseach refused to say if he would raise the issue with Pope Francis when he meets him on Saturday.

Leo Varadkar says the church can learn from law changes introduced in Ireland.

"It is mandatory for people to report child sex abuse or sex abuse if they are aware of that," said Mr Varadkar.

"And also we have no statute to the limitations when it comes to criminal prosecution.

"While that may not be the law in every country in the world I think it is good practice and perhaps something the church and other institutions might consider implementing.

"Just because it's not the law in every country doesn't mean it isn't the right thing to do."

- Digital Desk
Update 9.33pm, 21/08/18:Hannah Hughes has been found safe and well.

Update 11.20am, 21/08/18:

Janelle Quinn has been found safe and well.

The whereabouts of Hannah Hughes are still unknown.

Gardai are appealing for anyone with information of her whereabouts to contact Athlone Garda Station on 090-6498550 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111.

20/08/18: Gardai in Athlone seek help locating missing teenagers

Gardai in Athlone are looking for the public's help in tracing two teenage girls.

Janelle Quinn and Hannah Hughes were reported missing last Wednesday, August 15.

16-year-old Hannah is described as 5ft 2 in height, with long red hair.

When last seen she was wearing a peach hoodie, pink and black leggings, pink Nike Air Max runners and a black jacket.

Janelle who is 15, is 5ft 4', with long brown hair and brown eyes.

When last seen she was wearing grey leggings, a grey hoodie, green jacket and white Nike runners.

Both girls are thought to be in the Dublin area.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Athlone Garda Station 090-6498550 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111.

- Digital Desk
Its 150 years since 33 people lost their lives when the Irish Mail, carrying some of Irelands wealthiest people, crashed into runaway trucks filled with paraffin, writes Robert Hume

Thirty-three passengers were burned to death when the Irish Mail, one of the fastest and most famous trains of the day, smashed into runaway goods trucks along a lonely stretch of coast in North Wales on August 20, 1868.

On board were some of the wealthiest men and women in the country, aristocrats returning to their estates in Ireland via the steamship from Holyhead to Dublin.

The Irish Mail had left London Euston at 7.30am and was in the final hour or so of its six-hour journey when the disaster happened.

At Llanddulas, near Abergele, two brakemen were fly-shunting trucks on the main line right ahead of the passenger train. Two of these trucks carried barrels of paraffin.

Schoolboys George Grundy and Willie Statter, on holiday in north Wales, were having a picnic above the track, watching the Irish Mail climb the hill from Abergele.

Suddenly, they glimpsed a short luggage train heading towards the Mail. But a bend in the track obscured the trucks from the express drivers view until the last minute.

There was a terrific crash.

The locomotive, Prince of Wales, rose up into the air like a horse jumping a fence. For a while it seemed to stand still. Then down it came on top of the trucks, smashing them to pieces and throwing them about like a sea monster spitting out rocks. Burning oil gushed from the trucks and unleashed a column of black smoke, which spiralled up into the hills.

As carriage after carriage caught light, George Grundy described a faint whiff of roast dinners in the air.

Dozens of labourers from nearby limestone quarries formed a human chain, passing buckets of water from the sea, but it was all to no avail. The fire, wrote a priest from Birmingham, blazed as wildly as the fires of hell.

A tangled mass of iron bars and bolts littered the scene; bodies were so horribly charred that identification became almost impossible: Most register entries read simply female/male person unknown. Some bodies had to be pieced together.

There were no injured passengers. It was either complete escape, or death. Nothing of this magnitude had ever happened on the railways of Britain and Ireland.

Many passengers were identified only by their possessions, placed in wooden fish crates by the line. They provided a poignant reminder of a divided society. Some clearly belonged to a privileged class: A gold watch, a pair of opera glasses, bottles of smelling salts, expensive jewels  diamonds, rubies, opals and emeralds  sparkling in the sunshine. Beside them lay the possessions of those who served them: A blue hairpin, a crochet needle, an ink bottle.

The bodies of rich and poor came to be buried side-by-side in a trench in the churchyard at St Michaels Abergele, with no regard to where they came from or who they were; aristocrats next to their servants. It was totally unprecedented. They included Lord and Lady Farnham; Judge Walter Berwick from the Bankruptcy Court in Dublin, returning from a continental tour; and William Henry Owen, organist at St Bartholomews Church, Dublin.

The fates of several passengers had been determined when they boarded the train at Chester. Emerging onto the platform through a connecting archway from the Queen Hotel, their decision to turn right or left was to have huge significance within the next hour. If they turned right and took their seat in one of the rear carriages, they would survive with, at most, a few bruises, but if they turned left to one of the first three carriages behind the locomotive they were destined for a horrific death.

By a particularly ironic twist, one of those who died, William B Parkinson, a Blackburn tradesman travelling to the Lakes of Killarney, had bribed the driver of his train to Liverpool to go at full speed so he would be in time to catch the connection with the ill-fated Irish Mail at Chester.

Among the survivors were the Duchess of Abercorn, wife of the newly appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and their six children, going to their Tyrone estate. Lord Castlerosse and his family were also spared. The Cork Examiner (August 28, 1868) reported on a service in Kenmare church, offering thanks for their miraculous escape.

What caused this tragedy?

In the wake of the Manchester Outrages and the Clerkenwell explosion of 1867, many contemporaries immediately suspected sabotage, a terrorist attack. There was talk that the London & North Western Railway was riddled with Fenian signalmen and station workers, determined to kill some of the most influential Anglo-Irish aristocrats in one fell swoop, but the coroner preferred explanations involving human error and negligence.

The brakemen should not have been shunting trucks on the main line when an express passenger train was due. Instead of supervising the brakemen, the stationmaster at Llanddulas was eating lunch. The London & North Western Railway had not issued the brakemen with up-to-date books of rules and regulations, nor provided them with watches, so they were unaware the Irish Mail was due. Instead of providing a special train, as the law demanded, the railway company had saved money by transporting barrels of paraffin on an ordinary goods train. The Flint Oil Company claimed carrying paraffin was no more dangerous than carrying Irish whiskey.

The London & North Western Railway was found negligent and was ordered to provide 4,000 compensation and pay the funeral expenses.

No new measures were introduced as a result of the crash. Existing rules about shunting and carrying paraffin were simply restated.

A fateful journey for Farnhams and their staff

A statue in Cavan town of Lord Farnham, who was burned to death along with his wife

Henry and Anna Maxwell (Lord and Lady Farnham), were returning to Ireland with their four servants, after a holiday at Buxton Spa, Derbyshire. Farnham, 69, who was lame and walked with two sticks, was Conservative MP for Co Cavan, and was affectionately regarded by his tenants.

At 11.30am on August 20, they boarded the train at Chester. The station inspector helped them into a first class carriage towards the front of the train, and wished them a pleasant journey.

His brother identified Henrys crested gold watch with white face and black Roman numerals: It had stopped at 12.52 and 23 seconds.

A scrap of unburned silk dress indicated that another corpse was Lady Farnham. Loose diamonds from her magnificent necklace  worth nearly 750,000 in todays money  were found scattered along the track.

Nearby, a stout body enveloped in crinoline wires was that of her ladyships companion, Elizabeth Strafford. Beside it was found her gold plate for false teeth, a crochet needle and an inkbottle.

It was his meerschaum pipe and bible that helped identify valet Edward Outen. Maid, Mary Anne Kellett, and footman, Charles Buckingham, were found clinging to each other, reported the North Wales Chronicle and Advertiser, as if in the moment of the collision they had rushed into each others arms.
Irish-Iraqi Ali Bracken Ziad has swapped music for poetry in quest for meaning says Ellie OByrne

IN poet Ali Bracken Ziads new chapbook, a pamphlet-style collection, protagonists James and Aine meet in St Lukes Cross and make their way down into a city known for its breweries, but which are all closed and with not a drop of drink to be had, and the golden angel of St Finbarres Cathedral blowing her trumpet to herald the end of days.

In the opening poem in the book, titled Place And People Without, Ali writes: I met a man that told me:/Life is treacherous/Whilst eating a spilling sandwich,/Coffee in hand, legs crossed.

Thats about two different occasions, speaking to a friend, and my brother, he explains. They were both sitting in the most comfortable, safe locations, having a coffee or eating a sandwich, and they were telling me how terrible life was. I was watching them and thinking to myself, this just doesnt look like a bad life.

Alis protagonists traverse a world both familiar and, yet, somehow, inverted and full of menace and uncertainty. It may seem fanciful, but, of course, in other cities, people wake frequently to discover that commodities they had taken for granted have disappeared, and that their safe lives have been turned upside-down and replaced with apocalyptic chaos.

If the 25-year-olds poems reflect a heightened, post-colonial consciousness of the global context of the safe, provincial lives in Irelands second city, it may stem in part from his background: His mother is from Cork and his father is Iraqi.

He was a soldier in the Iran-Iraq war, he says of his father. I think it had to have had an impact, growing up: He was scared to travel for a long time, even for family holidays, and hes never been able to go back. He missed his mothers funeral, his sisters funeral.

But, on the comedic side, I have this vivid memory from when the US was invading Iraq, of my dad sitting on the edge of the bed, shouting at George Bush giving a speech on the TV screen. He got so angry, he got up and turned around and pulled his pants down and bared his ass at the TV. For some reason, I had that memory really clearly in my head when I started writing these poems.

Ali grew up in Cork City, attending primary and secondary Gaelscoils. Having completed his BA in English in UCC, he is now embarking on a law degree. While studying English, he says, it dawned on him that the poetry he had always written as an adjunct to his musical career could take centre stage. He formerly played guitar and sang with folk-rockers White Line Fever, who enjoyed modest success, but who are now, he says, all but disbanded.

I started taking poetry more seriously and realising how terrible what I had been writing was, he says. With encouragement from tutors and from regulars at the O Bheal poetry group, who meet Monday nights in the iconic Long Valley bar, he entered and won the Munster Slam poetry competition, and has been selected to represent Cork in the annual Cork-Coventry Poetry Exchange.

Performing live is one of the more enjoyable aspects of poetry to Ali, who says that playing with a band served as a baptism of fire, in terms of getting used to being on stage. I made just about every mistake its possible to make with the band, he says. At every single gig, you make an absolute fool of yourself. With poetry, you rehearse on your own and develop some ideas of what you can do with your body while youre saying these words.

Ali was awarded the inaugural Eoin Murray Memorial Scholarship in Creative Writing, dedicated to the memory of the young poet and UCC student, who was 23 when he died of a rare heart condition, in 2015. His family established the scholarship in association with UCCs College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences. Alis chapbook is the result of this scholarship.

Ali says its a huge honour to receive the award. I didnt know Eoin, but I had many friends who did, he says. He was such a burgeoning poet and musician, so its a great honour to pay homage to someone who was doing the same things that I am.

Ali Bracken Ziad will be amongst the poets and musicians performing at the Eoin Murray Tribute Night on August 25th, at 8pm in The Long Valley bar on Winthrop Street, Cork.
Lieutenant Colonel Dan Harvey, now retired, served on operations at home and abroad for 40 years. In his new book, Soldiering Against Subversion he reveals the armys critical role in internal security at the height of the Troubles from 1969-1998. Here he gives a flavour of the role the Defence Forces played.

Taken together, the many incidents and happenings that occurred in the south during the Troubles 1969-1998 represented a serious threat to the stability of the State.

Historically, from a Defence Forces perspective, it was manpower, equipment, procedures, and training that made internal security operations possible and it was skills, expertise, and experience that made them successful.

Organisationally, it was all about capacity and capabilities; operationally, it was all about command and control; individually, it was all about commitment and courage.

Soldiering against subversion required dedicated people prepared to withstand difficulty and hardship, poor pay and conditions, and yet be prepared to risk their lives in the process.

The what of government security policy was the preserve of the politicians, the how of its implementation the problem and remit of the security forces.

The North, convulsed, had begun to fall apart and, from a starting point of chronic underinvestment and lack

of preparedness, the Irish security forces, despite the pressure of events, had to prevent the Republic going the same way.

Mostly, the security forces involvement appeared overtly undramatic and unspectacular, their consciously low-key presence, posture, and persistence went largely unnoticed and certainly unheralded, yet it was absolutely crucial.

To disrupt the danger and threat from the terrorists, to counter the fear and intimidation from the subversives, to reduce the harm and hazard from the balaclava bandits required competent people with a serious purposefulness.

The Troubles were grim, forbidding, and severe times, best forgotten; only omitted along with them has been the

unwavering loyalty, the steadfast reliability, and the staunch patriotism of the Defence Forces. To examine this period in the States history is to understand the need for an army, an army that when tested did not falter.

The outbreak of large-scale violence in the North caused deep unease that it could precipitate a worse tragedy throughout the entire island. With the North close to collapse, and decades of frustration and anger exploding into inter-communal violence, the danger of spillover into the Republic was a very real danger, one that was to persist for three decades.

The root causes of the conflict were difficult to get at and the Troubles lasted for far longer than anyone expected. From the beginnings of the conflict, the Irish governments position was that there was no room for force or coercion in Irish policy towards the North.

Unity was only to be achieved through peaceful means, and, significantly, the rule of law must be maintained and made to prevail down south. To meet the ever-changing challenge of the Provisional IRA and other paramilitary groups involved Defence Forces intervention in civil affairs. This did not mean Irish soldiers acting as policemen, but rather in a role that was not quite military.

To achieve this, the Defence Forces had to conduct what were to become necessary everyday routine operations, followed intermittently by intelligence-led or reactive surge operations. However, throughout it all, An Garda Siochana took the lead and the Defence Forces aided them.

Democracy had to be defended, society secured, and the State kept stable. In the prevailing, highly charged circumstances, force may have had to be used, or available to be used, against those groups attempting to subvert the State.

An Garda Siochana was essentially an unarmed force, a position favoured by themselves, the Government, and the public. Notwithstanding, with armed, lawless, and dangerous subversives at large, public outrage at the killing of gardai would not be enough to protect them. Force had to be met by force and how it was applied was an all-important matter; too little and with hesitancy would imply weakness while being too heavy-handed would be counter-productive.

The swaying of public opinion for or against the States institutions was an important consideration. Any approach regarding the use of force had to be measured, appropriate, and proportionate; there were hearts and minds to be won and lost.

For its part, the Provisional IRA held the Irish government in contempt, regarding the Dail as an illegitimate institution, and operated outside the law with murderous intent.

The Aid to the Civil Power policy placed An Garda Siochana in the lead, with primacy over operations and the Defence Forces there to support them. It was a very wise policy and proved steadfast in such a difficult situation. There was a very close working relationship and regard for each others role. There was an overall mutual respect, but it has to be said without either force necessarily trusting the other wholeheartedly. The Defence Forces reservations stemmed from the nature of the Aid to the Civil Power role itself and the active application of it by the gardai.

The Defence Forces defended Irish democracy, protected its people, and secured the safe functioning of the States institutions at a time of enormous tension and pressure against those who wished to undermine it and take upon themselves, without any legal authority or political mandate, to impose with the illegal possession of arms and use of force their minority vision of statehood and force it on the majority.

The Irish Republic was a sovereign independent State, with an elected parliament and courts, police, and army to enforce the rule of law. The Provisional IRAand others had no authority to exclude themselves from this arrangement. Notwithstanding, foot soldiers were sent out to wreak havoc, bomb indiscriminately, and kill without compunction. They had to be stopped and, in the South, the Defence Forces contributed hugely in this regard.

Former taoiseach Liam Cosgrave put it succinctly, and for all his retired life was consistent in his conviction, that:

except for the Garda Siochana and the Defence Forces there would have been no State.

The Defence Forces, in particular, protected the Irish political structure and organs of Government, standing in the breach against those who would subvert the State and undermine our democracy at the barrel of a gun.

The occasion of the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Troubles, generally regarded to be October 5, 1968, is an entirely appropriate time to historically review the Defence Forces heretofore unheralded involvement and to give it, for the first time, due recognition. The commitment, courage, and calibre of the soldiers of the Defence Forces who dutifully and loyally gave such steadfast service, working punishing round-the-clock duty rosters, patrolling along the border, manning permanent positions on the walled perimeter of Portlaoise Prison, and otherwise consistently providing armed protection for the gardai and the people has rarely received its due acknowledgement.

It is too easy to forget those difficult days and it is dangerous to do so because the complexity of the fractured identity that was at the essence of the Troubles in a sense remains to be resolved.

Everyone struggled and suffered once conflict, with its abhorrent violence, became part of the scenario. The Defence Forces, however, played a crucial part and made a vital contribution to its containment.

Retired Lt Col Dan Harvey is the author of Soldiering Against Subversion which recalls the role of the Defence Forces defending the State against the paramilitaries. Published by Merrion Press.

IRA planned Tet Offensive attack

By Sean ORiordan, Defence Correspondent

The Provisional IRA planned a version of the North Vietnamese armys 1968 Tet Offensive attack against the Americans in Vietnam.

The IRAs intention was to weaken the resolve of the British to stay in the North with a sharp, massive strike.

The IRA had been stockpiling weaponry, most of it supplied by Libyas Colonel Muammar Gadaffi.

They smuggled four shipments of arms into Ireland and were waiting for the final piece of the jigsaw.

However, the offensive was called off after the MV Eksund was seized in October, 1987, by the French authorities. It contained 120 tonnes of weapons, including 20 SAMs (surface-to-air missiles), 36 RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), 1,000 detonators, Semtex explosive and a million rounds of ammunition. The seizure was a major blow to the IRA.

In his book, retired Lieutenant Colonel Dan Harvey says the shipments that got through were mainly stored in larger bunkers in the south and shipped to smaller bunkers in the border counties, or what the IRA called the war zone.

The IRAs Southern Command was known as a support area for training and weapons-holding.

Why didnt we know about them? It was an intelligence failure on our part. They were good, said Lt Col Harvey.

He cites Unionist claims that there was a nod and a wink relationship between the Irish army and the IRA and says there absolutely wasnt, outlining a number of incidents when off-duty soldiers had run-ins with Provisionals.

One night in Monaghan town, a highly active and dangerous member of the IRA, who was later shot dead by the SAS in the Loughall ambush, had a clash with an Irish army officer, telling him: Well get you. The reply came: You will, if youre able.

Meanwhile, in a pub in Dundalk, a group of officers were approached by some IRA men, and one told the officers they would be shot at some crossroads some day. He was grabbed by the collar and told that the IRA men would instead be shot in their beds. They backed off.

Mr Harvey also says that relations between the Irish army and the gardai were not as good as the public might think.

He says that rule eight of the IRAs Green Book of orders clearly stated its members shouldnt take on Irish security forces, a directive not followed on a number of occasions.

Freezing soldiers would be crouching in soggy ditches or on water-logged ground, while accompanying gardai at checkpoints, for the most part sat in their vehicles with the engine running and the heater turned on.

Indiscreet gardai would mention their rates and allowances, which did not go down well with the Defence Forces, who got much less.

He described relations as institutionally strained because senior gardai were reluctant to operate a proper command-and-control structure.

However, on the ground, it worked better, especially if a soldier knew a garda because they were from the same area, or played GAA together. He said that, unlike the army, punctuality was not a priority for the gardai, who were more laid-back.
Why can't fiction's most famous secret agent be played by Idris Elba? Just use your imagination, writes Dr Edward Ademolu

A black Bond? Its an apparently unproblematic and straightforward question, right? Well, not quite. When suggested quite quizzically by a colleague, it sparked a series of reactionary positions in the staff room, especially from the 007 traditionalists.

In fact, whispers that the very suave  and yet indisputably black  actor Idris Elba could potentially play Bond have ignited social commentaries about race, filmic representation and literary integrity around the world.

The issue was shaken and stirred (sorry, I couldnt help myself) by a recent report in the Daily Star, in which director Antoine Fuqua recalled a discussion with Bond producer Barbara Broccoli, who allegedly said it is time for a black actor to star as 007 and that she is confident it will happen eventually.

Interestingly, this little nugget sat at the top of a story about Fuqua launching his latest business venture  an app that allows people to listen to movies online with surround sound. But reporters know how to sell stories to their editors and so the headline, main picture and the first half dozen paragraphs were devoted to Elbas Bond prospects.

Despite the fact that Fuquas management subsequently insisted that the conversation was made-up stuff, the question of Elba as the new Bond dominated the comments below the story, which included one reader asking: What would be the outcry if Martin Luther King was played by a white bloke? What indeed?

Elba himself is keeping us guessing: My names Elba, Idris Elba he tweeted at 9am on August 12, followed three hours later with: Dont believe the hype.

Dont believe the HYPE...  Idris Elba (@idriselba) August 12, 2018

Elbas no mug. He knows how to fan the flames of speculation. And Im unashamedly going to fall into his trap. So is it time for a black James Bond? What the heck  why not?

Tall, dark and handsome

Is it beyond fictionalisation  or the limitations of our individual and cultural imagination  to comprehend a reality in which theres a devilishly handsome and sophisticated black Englishman with an MI6-approved licence to kill. It gives new  or should I say restores (in my humble opinion) the original  meaning to tall, dark and handsome, right? Everything that Bond is supposed to be.

Wouldnt it be more surprising, and perhaps unsettling, if such an imagining, even in fiction, couldnt withstand the assumed fragility of our liberal mindedness? Especially when we are supposed to live in a post-racial society where  ironically  inequalities, discrimination and oppression are nonexistent. If they are nonexistent in the material world, it seems they are alive and well in the figments of our imagination.

Cast your mind back to the medias preoccupation with Prince Harry and Meghan Markles racially progressive interracial union, or Frances international posturing as a bastion of ethno-racial equality, with its colourblind government prohibition on referencing the race and ethnicity of its citizens. Is that enough to convince you that we live in a multicoloured land of bliss where all is possible?

Rallying against this romanticism are traditionalists  or Bond literalists  who, in all their intransigent preoccupation with conserving the historically white purity and scriptural heritage of the Bond franchise, are irked at a blackened prospect. They offer a plethora of counter arguments, not least that in 1953 Casino Royale, the first in Ian Flemings 12-book Bond series, the secret agent is described as a white Englishman of part Scottish and Swiss heritage who was educated at Fettes College.

To which I submit: we arent in the 1950s. The films are no longer time-warped in black-and-white  they have changed and adapted to reflect the cultural zeitgeist of cinematic and contemporary public consciousness.

Its interesting to note that these purists are not all white  disproportionally so, yes  but not all. Some non-white Bond enthusiasts have also put in their own two cents worth, asking producers to stick to the script and insisting that being white is integral to Bonds character. But can we racialise character?

Others, meanwhile, have called for their own black, Walther PPK-wielding agent, in the manner of 007, to not only tell their own new or complimentary stories but also avoid falling prey to potential accusations of tokenism in film.

Colourblind casting

Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione  https://t.co/5fKX4InjTH  J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 21, 2015

Meanwhile, JK Rowling decried critics of the casting of black actress Noma Dumezweni as the fictional Harry Potter character Hermione Granger, as a bunch of racists and that white skin was never specified, challenging normative assumptions that fictional characters are white, by default.

Supporters of Bonds racial metamorphosis urge for better ethnic minority filmic representation in the spy genre and stress that fiction is not exempt from transformation even in the context of race. Its a sentiment I share.

I realise that my openmindedness unlatches a Pandoras Box of Whatabout-me-isms. What about a polyamorous, gender-nonconforming, effeminate, anti-misogynist Gujarati Indian as Othello? Or, can I, as a Liverpudlian-accented, shaven-headed, transgendered lesbian, play Sherlock Holmes? Then again, what about a white Shaft? But wait wouldnt that be Whitesploitation? Lets not go there.

Would Elba make a fine Bond? Absolutely. Having seen 007 in all his white iterations, Im all for a representational shift towards a salt-and-peppered Afro-textured, mahoganied urbanite. Too far fetched? Surely not.

This article was written by Dr Edward Ademolu of University of Manchester and was originally published on The Conversation

Read the original article here.
Each advance Kofi Annan made in his 10 years as UN secretary general owed everything to his personal commitment, determination, and faith in the future, writes Gordon Brown

KOFI Annan will be mourned on every continent. Under his leadership of the UN, internationally shared goals for development (the Millennium Development Goals) were agreed for the first time.

But there were other important firsts that occurred on Annans watch:

The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria was created; $100bn (86.7bn) of African debt was forgiven; aid to the poorest countries rose fast; the Responsibility to Protect principle moved from one mans aspiration to unanimous endorsement by the UN General Assembly; and the first steps toward the Paris climate agreement were taken.

These were just a few of the causes that Annan championed. His achievements confound those who write off the UN as a mere talking shop.

I remember attending, at his invitation, a meeting of the Kofi Annan Foundation in Geneva and discovering how in his retirement, he was advising, in one way or another, a half-dozen countries in Asia, one or two in Latin America, and the majority of countries of Africa on human rights, elections, or poverty alleviation.

For that reason, no single assessment can do justice to the breadth and depth of the successes of a leader who brought the UNs decision-making out of smoke-filled rooms and into the 21st century.

Each advance made during Annans 10 years as secretary general owed everything to his personal commitment, determination, and faith in the future. And it is a tribute to the moral force of his vision that he made progress at a time when the Security Council was split on almost every major issue  as on Iraq  and the UNs major financier, the US, did not view him with affection.

Soft spoken, personally modest, gentle, and almost self-effacing, Annan was both a UN insider, promoted from within the organisations ranks to be the first African to hold the office of secretary general, and an anti-establishment campaigner who galvanised and mobilised the international NGO community to force change on often-reluctant states.

Of course, the new global order he sought has been long delayed by great-power rivalries, nationalism, and protectionism. Despite his good intentions, the UN failed to prevent the genocide in Rwanda before he became secretary general, as well as the wars in Bosnia, Iraq, and, more recently, Syria, where for a time he was a peace envoy.

But even when it came to peacemaking, he was more than a witness to history. His charisma made him friends everywhere, and his patience rivalled that of a saint. Despite setbacks and disappointments, he persevered, and ultimately changed our view of what international cooperation could make possible.

Supported in his foundations work by his wonderful wife Nane, Annan continued to champion, in his retirement, the environmental, democratic, and anti-poverty causes he had made his lifes work  and he never gave up.

I recall working with him 10 years ago as he laboured night and day to bring together both sides after Kenyas disputed presidential election and post-election ethnic violence. Annans mediation undoubtedly prevented the loss of more lives.

In the last few months, I talked with Annan about Myanmar and the pathbreaking proposals put forth by his Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, which, even now, offer the best chance of reconciliation and an end to the crisis that has been destroying lives in that strife-torn country.

He loyally supported the international work to fill a gap in the global architecture for development, by backing the Education Commissions plan along the lines of The Global Fund  to create a $1bn International Finance Facility for Education to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal on universal education.

Even in the last few months of his life, Annan was, as ever, active and available to help  advising on the elections in Zimbabwe, championing youth leadership with his programme to inspire a new generation of internationalists, and calling for more attention to human rights and democracy through the recent reports and conferences run by his foundation.

Annans journey is over. But the legacy of this leader of leaders will live on in the impact his work continues to have on the lives of people on every continent.

Gordon Brown, former British prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer, is United Nations special envoy for global education and chair of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity. He chairs the advisory board of the Catalyst Foundation. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2018
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been found guilty of eight financial crime charges in the first trial victory for special counsel Robert Muellers team.

He was found guilty of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of hiding foreign bank accounts.

A judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict.

The jury deliberated for four days before announcing the verdict at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia.

Prosecutors spent more than two weeks presenting their case as they sought to prove Manafort concealed millions of dollars in offshore accounts from the IRS.

Paul Manafort, the political operative who for months led Donald Trumps winning presidential campaign, has been found guilty of eight financial crimes.

It is the first trial victory of the special counsel investigation into the presidents associates. A judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts the jury could not agree on.

The verdict was part a stunning one-two punch of bad news for the White House, coming as the presidents former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty in New York as part of a separate deal with prosecutors.

The jury returned the decision after deliberating four days on the charges of tax evasion and bank fraud against the former Trump campaign chairman.

The outcome almost certainly guarantees years of prison for Manafort and established the ability of special counsel Robert Muellers team to persuade a jury of average citizens despite months of partisan attacks  including from President Trump  on the investigations integrity.

The verdict raised immediate questions of whether the president would seek to pardon Manafort, the lone American charged by Mr Mueller to opt for trial instead of cooperate.

The president has not revealed his thinking but spoke sympathetically throughout the trial of his onetime aide, at one point suggesting he had been treated worse than gangster Al Capone.

The more-than-two-week trial, presided over by US District Judge TS Ellis III, has captured President Trumps attention as he works to undermine Mr Muellers investigation through a constant Twitter barrage and increasingly antagonistic statements from his lawyer-spokesman, Rudy Giuliani.

But President Trump and his campaign were only a small part of Manaforts trial, as jurors instead heard days of testimony about Manaforts finances and what prosecutors say was a years-long tax-evasion and fraud scheme.

Manafort decided not to put on any witnesses or testify himself in the trial. His lawyers said he made the decision because he did not believe the government had met its burden of proof.

- Press Association
There is only one place to be next Sunday, while Pope Francis is in the Phoenix Park. I hope to stand with many others in the Garden of Remembrance, in solidarity with the victims and survivors of the Catholic Churchs abuse.

Its an event organised by Colm OGorman and others. Its message is that there is a need to stand for a different truth, a truth that wont be found in the Phoenix Park.

Ive marched for survivors of institutional abuse in the past. Ive stood alongside them and tried to work with them. Ive seen that the pain sometimes never ends.

But this time Ill be standing in solidarity with two women Ive never met. Indeed, to my shame, I heard about them for the first time only this past weekend.

Im indebted to Conor Keane, whose gripping and intensely moving documentary about these two women I heard on RTE radio on Saturday called Shame, Love, In Shame.

It was the most revealing story about how we treated people  about how the Catholic Church treated people  Ive ever heard.

Forty-eight hours after hearing it, I cant get some of the images out of my mind. When I tried to describe the documentary to my wife, I found that I couldnt speak without almost breaking down.

Colm OGorman

Peggy McCarthy was a girl of 18 years who lived in Listowel and became pregnant. When her time came to give birth, a midwife came to her home. But there were complications, and a hackney cab, driven by a man called John Guerin, was called to take her to hospital.

She was in pain, so he drove as fast as he could to Listowel Hospital, only to discover that they would not admit her. So he drove on to Tralee, and was again refused admission.

By the time he got to Killarney, a further 20 miles away over the roads of the time (this was 1946) Peggy had reached a point where she could not survive, and she died giving birth.

He arrived back in Listowel the following day, with a coffin strapped to the roof of his cab, and tried to bring it to the local church. But the canon, Listowels dominant priest, had chained and locked the gates of the church against her.

As the word spread in the town, people gathered, and forced their way into the church to try to give Peggy a Christian burial. Again the canon refused, and eventually Peggy was waked and buried in the small chapel that was part of the local hospital.

Her crime, the reason the Church wouldnt give her a funeral after she had died in childbirth in agonising pain, was that she hadnt been married when she became pregnant.

But Peggy had given birth to a baby, a little girl called Breda. Eventually, Peggys parents decided to raise her as their own, and for the next 18 years, as she grew, Breda knew her grandparents only as mam and dad.

Breda was diagnosed with a mild intellectual disability as a child, but that didnt stop her growing up happy, surrounded by friends. When she was 18, her mam died.

Almost immediately, a priest came to the house, and told her grandfather, who was elderly, that he could not look after Breda, and she would have to go into care. And overnight, she disappeared from Listowel, and from the lives of those who knew her.

Breda spent the rest of her adult life in a succession of Magdalene Laundries, because she was the daughter born out of wedlock. For 50 years, she was punished by her church  and obviously with the casual connivance of her state  for the circumstances of her lonely birth.

Magdalene laundries file photo

As far as I could tell from the documentary, Breda is still alive, institutionalised after a life of toil and suffering, and living in a religious-run care home. Her neighbours and cousins in Listowel werent told for years what had happened to her.

But when they found out, they began to visit her regularly, and eventually were able to fulfil her only wish  a trip back to Listowel.

On the trip they brought her to the cemetery where her grandparents are buried  the ones shed always known as mam and dad. Beneath their names on the headstone was Peggys name.

When she saw it, she turned to her friends and whispered Peggy was my real mam, wasnt she? Peggys story has also been told in a play called Solo Run, written by Tony Guerin, the son of the hackney driver that terrible night.

And she and Breda are remembered in a powerful, heart-breaking song written by the Kerry writer Sean McCarthy, who it turns out was Peggys older brother.

The song is called, In Shame Love in Shame (you can find it on YouTube, and one of its verses goes like this): Now hush little darling we soon will be there/ A blanket of love will surround you with care/ No vile tongues will whisper, you will never feel pain/ Hear the Nightingale crying in shame love in shame.

Shame? Whose shame? And why? A little girl forced to die in shame. A girl with a disability forced to live and be punished in shame. Is that it really?

Its nonsense, isnt it? Cruel and brutal nonsense. The shame belongs to the Catholic Church. People talk about the culture of the time, about the mores of the time. But it was the Church that imposed that culture. It was essential to its power.

They used shame to exert control. Shame was the base and the root of the Churchs power. But not their shame. The shame of their victims.

Not once in either of their lives did Peggy or Breda McCarthy do anything to warrant the shame heaped on them. The abuse they suffered may not have had the character of the physical, sexual and emotional abuse heaped on others.

But 50 years of being ostracised from everyone you loved, never knowing what you did to deserve it, but instead being allowed to grow old, feeling worthless and unvalued  isnt it hard to conceive of abuse worse than that?

Thats why theres nothing to celebrate in the Phoenix Park next week. As an institution the Church does not deserve to be allowed to admit shame and move on. It should live in shame for all it has done to innocent people.

It should be asking itself, day after day and in public, how does it make reparation, how does it root out the corruption within, corruption still evident today. It couldnt be clearer that the leaders of the Catholic Church want to manage the fallout from abuse, not to root out the abuse, the abusers, and those who cover it up.

Thats the debt owed to everyone who has been abused. It cant be paid by bowing the head in the Phoenix Park, or by cheering Pope Francis like some kind of superstar. We need to stand in solidarity with those who survived and those who didnt.

We need to demand real truth and real change, a final end to corruption. And well never do that in the Phoenix Park.

Listen to the full RTE Radio 1 documentary Shame, Love, In Shame here.
Dateline The Implications of Banning Karen Martyrs Day

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Kyaw Kha: Welcome to Dateline Irrawaddy! This week, well discuss the ban on Karen Martyrs Day. Im The Irrawaddy chief reporter Kyaw Kha. Saw Tun Tun, member of the committee to organize Karen Martyrs Day in Yangon Region, and joint general secretary (1) of the Womens League of Burma and central executive committee member of Karen Womens Organization Naw Se Se join me for the discussion.

I heard that an arrest warrant has been issued for six individuals including Mahn Nyein Maung for organizing Karen Martyrs Day without permission in Irrawaddy Region. I also heard that a Karen Martyrs Day event was also banned in Yangon. Ko Saw Tun Tun, why was it banned?

Saw Tun Tun: An official letter was sent [by authorities] to the organizing committee to cancel the event in Be Ga Yet Village in Kangyidaunt Township [in Irrawaddy Region]. Authorities also banned it in Pantanaw Township. In Hinthada Township, authorities came and ordered a stop to an ongoing event and hinted that force would be used to disperse the attendees if the event continued. Six individuals including Pado Mahn Nyein Maung were sued.

In Yangon Region, authorities did not directly obstruct the organizing committee but instead, discouraged the trustees of the St. Peters Church where the event was planned to be held. The order was issued through the concerned ward administrator. At first, the ward administrator had given permission for the event. But nearly one week later, he submitted a letter to the township administrator and said that he could not take responsibility for the planned Karen Martyrs Day event in his ward. When authorities met the organizing committee, they said it was up to us whether or not to hold the event. The ban was made according to Article 3 of the The 1954 State Symbols and National Titles (Restriction of Celebration) Law. Article 1 defines the state symbol and the ban was made according to the fact that the event may create confusion over the term national leader or martyr.

KK: I heard that the family members of the Karen martyrs who came to attend the event were shadowed. Can you tell us about it?

STT: About eight families of Karen National leaders and those who took a lead role in the Karen national movement came to attend the event in Yangon. Family members of Bo Lin Htin, Mhan Ba San and so on including their grandchildren came and met. I heard that officials of the Office of Military Security Affairs had gone to their hometowns and villages and inquired about them. We dont know how many they have inquired about, but it is confirmed that the family members are being followed.

KK: As Ko Saw Tun Tun has said, the event was banned on legal grounds due to the fact that it could cause confusion as to the national-level Martyrs Day event [regarding the death of Gen Aung San and his colleagues]. What do you want to say about this?

Naw Se Se: Weve organized the event annually to pass down the history to younger Karen generations. They have banned this on legal grounds, saying that it could cause confusion. But it amounts to refusing to recognize Karen leaders. Other ethnic people have their own martyrs, not other Karen people. Every ethnic group wants to recognize and pay tribute to their concerned ethnic leaders. The ban indicates that our leaders are denied recognition and similar events are also discouraged in the future.

KK: Karen Martyrs Day events were held in several places. It was banned in some places but also permitted in other places. The statue of [late] Karen martyr Saw Ba U Gyi was erected in Karen States Kawkada village for the Karen Martyrs Day event. There, the event was allowed to be held freely. But it was banned in Irrawaddy and Yangon regions. So, Im not clear if it was the policy of the Union government to ban the event. What is your view on this?

STT: I think it is related to the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference. Before the conference, there were restrictions on holding [national-level] political dialogues. [The Karen Martyrs Day event] was restricted by concerned security and border affairs ministers. They asked organizers to hold the event only in concerned areas. But on the other hand, we need to tell the Karen people about the peace process. Karen people live not only in Karen State, but also in Yangon, Irrawaddy, and Bago regions and Mon State. We have to inform the Karen people and make sure all of them can participate. So we tried, but we were faced with restrictions.

There was no restriction in all the five previous events. In those cases, we could manage to hold the event after negotiating with concerned authorities and submitting the application two weeks in advance. The statue of Karen national leader Saw Ba U Gyi was allowed to be unveiled on Karen Martyrs Day [in Karen State]. Authorities implied that we can do what we like in our region, but not in Yangon and Irrawaddy regions, which are not ours. They implied that we can only hold the event in our controlled-area because it was designated by the Karen National Organization. As far as Im concerned, the Union government has no particular policy about Karen Martyrs Day and local administrative branches restrict it. But in fact, Karen people should have the right to keep monuments and memorials in the places wherever they live.

KK: This years event was different from previous years. This year, the event was banned in some places where it was not banned in previous years. I think there is a reason behind this. I doubt it was the policy of the Union government. Perhaps, it was lower-level authorities that banned the event of their own accord. What is your view on this?

NSS: Weve held Karen Martyrs Day for many years. We also held related events. There was no problem except for inquiry by authorities. But the situation has changed. We are restricted on legal grounds this year. Leaders of both sides in the peace process and political dialogue should consider this.

KK: The news of the ban has spread among the public. What implications could it have?

STT: There will never be riots as the authorities are involved.

KK: Why?

STT: The intention of holding Karen Martyrs Day is to let the people know the history correctly, and to contribute to establishing a federal Union. There were nearly 800 people attending the event in Yangon on Aug. 12. Only if authorities forcibly stopped the event, would there have been a riot. The riot will not be caused by us. Unnecessary disputes and riots will only occur because of restrictions by administrative authorities.

KK: The Karen National Union (KNU) was founded by Karen resistance leader Saw Ba U Gyi. It is an influential group that also has political influence. It is the main group among the ethnic signatories that have signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) with the government. Now is the time that trust is being built between the two sides, and efforts are being made for national reconciliation. So, Naw Se Se, do you think the failure to recognize Karen Martyrs Day and restricting it could impact trust building and national reconciliation?

NSS: Now is the time for building trust between armed groups and the government. Karen people have their own red-letter days including Karen Martyrs Day. If authorities dont want to recognize such trivial matters and only make restrictions, we doubt if our big demandsself-determination and equalitywill ever be fulfilled.

As Saw Tun Tun said, Karen Martyrs Day is not intended to drum up calls for riots. It is just to inform younger generations and make them understand what our senior leaders did, what their goals and objectives were, and what we have been doing to achieve those goals. We just want to exchange information and tell them about the history on that occasion so that the younger generation will idolize those leaders and do their fair share in marching toward a federal Union, which is our goal.

So we need to consider this very seriously. We need to build strong trust to be able to reach our goals of self-determination and equality. In trust building, there is a need for mutual recognition of both sides. It should start from recognizing the culture, literature and significant days of ethnic people including Karen people. Otherwise, the federal Union will still be a long way off.

KK: What do you think are the preconditions for national reconciliation, peace, national unity and a genuine federal Union?

STT: For us to achieve peace, national reconciliation, and a genuine federal Union, we already accept that our country is a multi-ethnic country. So, there is a need to recognize and promote the traditions, customs and political conditions of all the ethnicities. For example, the government needs to think about how to include ethnic literature  such as Karen literature  in school curriculums, and how to design an acceptable curriculum to Karen people. It also needs to think about how to make the Constitution respectable to ethnicities.

Speaking of national reconciliation, there is a real cause for concern. It is because the highest leaders of the country dont listen to others during the talks. There are a lot of things to be done.

But at tripartite meetings, one side doesnt bother to listen to two other sides, which is a serious cause for concern. Those in the highest positions need to consider this. Throughout history, there are things that our leaders have to do. They might have made mistakes deliberately or accidentally. They might have made mistakes because they had power or they might have been mistreated because they didnt have power.

The leaders of the country need to apologize. They should solemnly apologize to ethnic people. This is the most important point in national reconciliation. So far, the attitude of the current government is that the previous government and dictatorship did all of the bad things and that it has nothing to do with them]. No matter who did it, the highest authorities of the present time should solemnly apologize to the people who have suffered for some 70 years. This is the very first thing to do. The wishes of the ethnic people must also be fulfilled. There are a lot of things that need to be done, but the most important thing is to apologize to the people who were mentally traumatized for years.

KK: Thank you for your contributions!
Lifestyle Ten Things to Do in Yangon This Week

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One-Hundred, Aung Zaw solo show

The exhibition of artist Aung Zaw featuring 100 paintings will be open at Nawaday Tharlar Gallery on Nawaday Road in Dagon Township from Aug. 25 to 31.

Mirror of Dark Mishear and Mislead

The fifth solo show of Ohn Khine Zin is on view from Aug. 24 to 28 at Lokanat Gallery, No. 62, First Floor, Pansodan Road, Kyauktada Township.

Happy?

This is an art exhibition by Ba G, Lwin Oo Maung, Nge Nge and Zoncy. It takes place from Aug. 18 to 26 at Myanm/art Gallery No. 98, Third Floor, Bogalay Zay Street,

Cartoon Show

This cartoon show is being held to raise funds for flood victims. It will take place in front of Maha Bandoola Park from Aug. 24 to 26. All money raised from the sale of cartoons will go to flood relief efforts.

Dream Lover Solo Concert

Popular Myanmar artist Me Me Win Pe will perform at the Sky Star Hotel on Aug. 25. Call the Myanpwel hotline on 09 445 151 010 for tickets which range from 20,000 to 70,000 kyats.

Literary Talks and Book Fair

This fair is being hosted by Hledan Community Public Library from Aug. 20 to 22. Writers Manottha Kyaw Win, Myinmu Maung Naing Moe, Maung Nyein Thu (Gyopingauk), Myat Soe (Hline), Ma Hnin Pyway and Maung Sein Win (Padigone) will give literary talks over three days.

Irish Folk Night

New ensemble Craic the Knife will perform traditional Irish numbers from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Aug. 24 August at Sky Bistro located on the 20th floor of the Sakura Tower in downtown Yangon.

Japanese Movie Showing

The film Fireworks from the Heart will be screened on Aug. 25 from 10:00 AM at Japan Culture House as part of their ongoing film program. Japan Culture House is located at Room 322B, 2nd Floor, Building C, Pearl Condo, Kabaraye Pagoda Road, Bahan Township.

Taung Pyone FAB

This FAB falls on the weekend of the Taung Pyone spirit festival. Some claim the festival is the unofficial gay pride festival of Myanmar so partygoers are going to celebrate with their own Taung Pyone Festival-style FAB part on Saturday Aug. 25 from 9:00 p.m. at Pyrite Club near Inya Lake Hotel, Yankin Township.

Tin Maung Hsan Min Win Troupe

The Tin Maung Hsan Min Win troupe will perform traditional Burmese entertainment by mixing dance, music, song, comedy and theatre at Kandawgyi Hmaw Sin Kyun. At 6:00 p.m. on Aug. 25. Tickets from 5,000 to 10,000 kyats will be available at the venue.
Asia Malaysia Seizes Rhino Horns Worth $12M in Largest Such Haul

A 2017 seizure of rhino horns at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) by customs officers. / Reuters

KUALA LUMPUR  Malaysia has seized rhinoceros horns worth nearly $12 million bound for Vietnam, in its largest haul of such contraband, officials said on Monday.

Wildlife experts say Malaysia is a major transit point for the illegal trafficking of endangered species to other Asian countries.

Officials acting on a tip-off seized 50 horns, weighing about 116 kilograms (256 pounds), at the cargo terminal of Kuala Lumpur airport on Aug. 13, a wildlife official said in a statement.

The shipment also included nine carcasses of what are believed to be tigers and bears, weighing about 200 kilograms (441 pounds).

All the wildlife items confiscated were to be exported out of Malaysia without a proper permit, Abdul Kadir Abu Hashim, the director-general of the Wildlife and National Parks Department, said in the statement.

The department will run DNA tests to identify each wildlife species involved, he added.

The shipment, valued at 48 million ringgit ($11.7 million), was bound for Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.

Investigations showed the consignment had been shipped with false documents, and efforts were being made to identify its true owner, Abdul Kadir said.

TRAFFIC, a group which monitors the illegal wildlife trade, said the case highlighted links between Malaysia and Vietnam, which are both in Southeast Asia.

This was a very unusual mix of wildlife parts found  rhino horns which were clearly not from Asia and carnivore carcasses which could have originated from the country, TRAFFICs acting Southeast Asia director Kanitha Krishnasamy said in a statement.

This discovery raises questions about how criminals are accumulating wildlife parts and using a multitude of routes and methods to traffic them onwards to destination countries.

Global trade in rhino horn is banned by a United Nations convention, but it is prized in some Asian countries as an ingredient in traditional medicines to treat everything from fever to cancer.

Last year, Malaysia seized about $3.1 million worth of rhino horns flown in from Mozambique via Qatar.

Separately, authorities arrested a man on July 13 for illegal possession of three baby Sumatran orangutans, Abdul Kadir said.

The suspect was believed to have been trading wildlife online and was arrested while dealing with a buyer, he said.

Malaysia will return the animals to Indonesia, he said.

Orangutans live in lowland forests on Borneo, an island shared by Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as on Indonesias island of Sumatra.

They are endangered, with populations declining due to rampant deforestation and hunting.
Asia Trump Says 'Most Likely' to Meet North Korea's Kim Again

US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meet at the start of their summit at the Capella Hotel on the resort island of Sentosa, Singapore, on June 12. / Reuters

WASHINGTON  US President Donald Trump said on Monday he would most likely meet again with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, while defending his efforts to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

In an interview with Reuters, Trump, who held a landmark summit with Kim on June 12, said he believed North Korea had taken specific steps toward denuclearization, despite widespread doubts about Kims willingness to abandon his arsenal.

While insisting that a lot of good things are happening with North Korea, Trump complained that China was not helping as much as it had in the past because of its trade dispute with the United States.

Trump, who faced the North Korean challenge as soon as he took office in January 2017, said he had only been working on the North Korean issue for three months whereas his predecessors had been working on it for 30 years.

I stopped [North Koreas] nuclear testing. I stopped [North Koreas] missile testing. Japan is thrilled. Whats going to happen? Who knows? Were going to see, he said.

At their summit in Singapore, Kim agreed in broad terms to work toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. But North Korea has given no indication it is willing to give up its weapons unilaterally as the Trump administration has demanded.

Trump has hailed the Singapore summit as a success and went as far as saying North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat.

South Koreas presidential Blue House said on Tuesday Trumps mention of the possibility of another summit with Kim could be a sign of progress in their relations.

We think it is part of a process for achieving the two leaders resolve for the denuclearization and peace of the Korean peninsula, spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told reporters.

Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed at their summit in April to push to declare an official end to the 1950-53 Korean War together with the United States.

Seoul officials see the UN General Assembly in New York next month as a desirable venue for the declaration but said they are flexible about its formality.

We hope that North Korea-US relations would make rapid progress and bear fruit, the spokesman said.

The Washington-based think tank 38 North reported last month that satellite images indicated North Korea had begun dismantling key facilities at a site used to develop engines for ballistic missiles, in a first step toward fulfilling a pledge US officials say he made to Trump at the summit.

However, several members of the US negotiating team, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they had seen no progress toward denuclearization and no sign that North Korea was prepared to negotiate seriously until the United States promised relief from sanctions in return.

Last month Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a Senate committee hearing that North Korea was continuing to produce fuel for nuclear bombs, and a US official said US spy satellites detected renewed activity at the North Korean factory that produced missiles capable of reaching the United States.

In the interview, Trump credited his great chemistry with Kim for easing a nuclear standoff that last year raised fears of a new Korean war.

I like him. He likes me, he said. Theres no ballistic missiles going up, theres a lot of silence  I have very good personal relations with Chairman Kim, and I think thats what holds it together.

Asked whether another meeting with Kim was on the horizon, Trump said: Its most likely we will, but I just dont want to comment. But he offered no details on the timing or venue.

Critics say Trump made too many concessions to Kim by agreeing to hold the summit in the first place and then suspending joint US-South Korea military drills while gaining little in return.

Asked whether North Korea had taken specific steps to denuclearize other than blowing up its main nuclear bomb test site ahead of the summit, Trump said: I do believe they have. But he did not elaborate.

He also pointed to North Koreas pre-summit handover of three American detainees.
Burma Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Pays Tribute to Late UN Chief

Kofi Annan and State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi prepare for a meeting of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State in Yangon in 2016. / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi paid tribute to the late Kofi Annan during a talk in Singapore on Tuesday, calling the former UN secretary general and chairman of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State someone who had a generous and positive nature and who wanted Myanmar to reach its goals for peace, prosperity, security and progress.

Annan died on Saturday at the age of 80.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said she first approached Annan in 2016 and asked him to lead a commission to help us find the lasting solution to the problems jeopardizing peace and progress in the region so bountifully blessed by nature, referring to the western state of Rakhine, where communal strife between ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya Muslims had been on the rise since 2012.

It was the first time foreign experts had been invited to assist the countrys efforts to tackle the Rakhine crisis. He accepted the offer to lead the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State and made recommendations for ending the violence in the conflict-torn state and promoting development, despite some resistance to his appointment from local ethnic Arakanese, opposition parties and the military.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi immediately endorsed the commissions 88 recommendations and vowed to implement them in the shortest timeframe possible allowing for conditions on the ground. Annans recommendations have been treated as a roadmap for promoting communal reconciliation and development in Rakhine.

Please allow me at this point to pay tribute to Dr. Kofi Annan. His quality and achievements were myriad, the state counselor said during her lecture on Myanmars democratic transition at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), adding that Annan abided by his decision to help Myanmar even after events in Rakhine brought severe criticism onto the country.

She said Annan showed compassion, integrity, wisdom and courage in his leadership of the commission and the recommendations it made.

His approach is constructive and caring, she said. Despite the many demands on his duty, he made time to speak to me on telephone occasionally to ask how he might help, to listen, to encourage.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said Annans life offered lessons everyone could learn from.

It exemplified the principles and values on which the UN is founded, the principles and values that allow us to hope peace and prosperity might be possible for all in our world, said she.

Of the 88 recommendations the commission made, the state counselor said, 81 have been implemented to date and would help establish lasting peace and stability in Rakhine.

But challenges there are multi-faceted and require multi-tasking, she said.
Burma Democratic Transition Requires a Democratic Constitution, Suu Kyi Says

State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi answers a question after delivering a lecture at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore on Aug. 21, 2018. / Myanmar State Counselors Office / Facebook

CHIANG MAI, ThailandState Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday reiterated her governments intention to amend the Constitution without damaging the national reconciliation process, and stressed the importance of building peace  including in conflict-torn Rakhine State  and promoting economic development.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi made the comments while delivering the 43rd Singapore Lecture, Myanmars Democratic Transition: Challenges and the Way Forward at the Institute of South East Asia Studies Yusof Ishak Institute in the city-state on Tuesday. She is on a four-day state visit to Singapore this week.

Her lecture covered a wide range of topics including the various phases of Myanmars history since independence, the roadmap to the current democratic transition; the 21st-Century Panglong peace process; the situation in Rakhine State; and the countrys economic development.

[Amending] the Constitution was one of the goals of our government. This is something that we need to mention here, because the completion of a democratic transition must necessarily involve the completion of a truly democratic constitution. This we have not yet achieved, but we aim to achieve it through negotiation and through evolution, she said in her concluding remarks.

She added that there are parts of the Constitution which we believe would have to be amended if we are truly to be a democratic society. But we also made it quite clear [since her time as a legislator from 2012-15] that these changes we will bring about through negotiation, always keeping in mind that national reconciliation is one of our greatest needs.

Reflecting on Myanmars seven-decade-long civil war and intercommunal conflicts, she said, Our people yearn for peace and security, for an end to unrest and strife, for material and emotional security, for a chance to contemplate the future of their children with tranquility.

She added that, A sound base for peace and stability has to be broad and comprehensive. Addressing destabilizing issues in Rakhine State was a fundamental part of building peace and stability, which she described as one of the three pillars that support the Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan.

She listed the steps taken by her National League for Democracy-led government to resolve the crisis in Rakhine State, including forming the national-level Central Committee for Rule of Law and Development in Rakhine State; the Advisory Commission led by the late Kofi Anan, a former UN secretary-general; the Rakhine Advisory Board; and the Independent Commission of Enquiry, in addition to a number of government implementation bodies. She also acknowledged the role of UN agencies and expressed confidence that Myanmars engagement with Ambassador Christine Burgener, the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General to Myanmar, will be positive and fruitful.

We share deep sympathy and concern for all displaced persons, especially women and children, the State Counselor added, though she was careful not to use specific labels, whether religious or ethnic, in reference to the displaced persons.

Regarding the safe return of refugees from Myanmar currently residing in Thailand, she said, The return of displaced persons [from Thailand] to our country is also working smoothly as a result of close consultation and cooperation between Myanmar and Thailand.

Similarly, we hope to work with Bangladesh to effect the voluntary, safe and dignified return of displaced persons from northern Rakhine, she added. The State Counselor appeared to be comparing previous challenges faced by the government in terms of repatriating refugees to the situation facing the displaced persons in Bangladesh refugee camps, who lack the documentation necessary for repatriation.

Myanmar and Bangladesh have been cooperating at the ministerial level on facilitating refugee repatriation, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said, adding, The Bangladeshi Foreign Minister was invited to Myanmar to see at first hand preparations we have made for the resettlement of returnees. During his visit [last week], both sides agreed, inter alia, to deliver on commitments made, to speed up implementation of bilateral agreements on repatriation, and to set up a hotline between the two countries at the ministerial level.

With regard to the ongoing peace-building process in Myanmar, she insisted that the 21st-Century Panglong Peace Conference had made progress, citing the signing of parts of the Union accords in which 51 basic principles for a future democratic constitution were laid out at two conferences held last year and this year. Among the NLDs achievements in this arena, she said, was having two more ethnic armed organizations sign the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement.

The State Counselor added, We are constantly alert to the challenges and we aim to resolve them through dialogue and negotiation, by persevering in the endeavor to build mutual trust and understanding.

She urged each and every individual to learn to talk to one another and also to listen to one another so that the country could move forward, and to respect diversity, pointing out that Myanmar comprises some 135 ethnic groups.

She also urged ASEAN members and the international community as a whole to listen with understanding, listen with empathy, listen by putting yourselves in our places, not the place of the government, but in the place of our ordinary people, of the citizens.

She continued, If you listen with their ears and you try to see with their eyes, you will have a better idea of what the real challenges of our transition are. They are not just the challenges the world sees, but the challenges [that] each and every one of our people sees for himself or herself.

On the economic front, she said, The future remains bright because Myanmar and Singapore are working together to promote trade through a bilateral investment treaty. In 2017, foreign investment in Myanmar reached USD8 billion, with more than half of that coming from Singapore.

She also said that, second only to the developments in Rakhine State following the attacks on government security posts by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army in 2016 and 2017, when it comes to Myanmar, the outside worlds main focus is on foreign direct investment.

We place high importance on investment but within the context of our wider needs. We want Myanmar to be business-friendly, an environment where investors can be comfortable and secure and where their interests can merge harmoniously with our development aims, she said.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been in Singapore since Aug. 19 at the invitation of Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong. On Aug. 20, she visited the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. This is her third official visit to Singapore. Her most recent previous visit was in November 2016.
Burma Govt Readies Protected Areas for Wild Elephants

Wild elephants enter an inhabited area in central Myanmar in 2016. / The Irrawaddy

NAYPYITAW  The government is planning to open wild elephant protection camps in three regions where the pachyderms are most at risk from poachers, Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation Minister U Ohn Win told a session of Parliament on Friday.

We are planning to make camps where police, local administration officers and staff from the Forestry Department can stay and watch for poachers, hunt down the poachers and protect the wild elephants, he said, responding to questions about the plan from lawmakers.

The minister said the camps will be in Yangon, Bago and Irrawaddy regions, where the numbers of poached wild elephants are highest.

U Ohn Win said wild elephants were on Myanmars list of protected species and that the government was collaborating with local and international organizations to save them. He said government officials were also working with the police on ways to take tougher legal action against poachers and those who trade in wild elephant parts.

The number of poached elephants more than doubled from 18 to 46 from 2016 to 2017, according to the Forestry Department. It says 14 wild elephants were poached between January and July this year.

Lawmakers noted that poachers were killing the elephants not only for their tusks, but for their meat and skin as well, and smuggling the parts to neighboring countries.

At least one wild elephant is poached a week. The number of wild elephants has declined from over 10,000 to under 2,000. It is necessary to hunt down elephant poachers with joint forces, said lawmaker U Than Aung Soe, who represents Magwe Regions Minhla Township.

According to the Natural Resources Ministry, 56 poachers were arrested from 2010 to 2017 and prosecuted under the Protection of Wildlife and Conservation of Natural Areas Law.

In May, the Protection of Biodiversity and Conservation Areas Law was also enacted, which stipulates jail terms of at least three years for poachers and smugglers and up to 10 years in cases involving wild elephants.

U Ohn Win also noted that infrastructure projects such as roads and dams were increasingly encroaching on elephant habitat and bringing the animals increasingly into contact  and conflict  with people.

Confrontations between wild elephants and local residents killed six people in 2016, nine in 2017, and two this year through June.

The natural resources minister said the Forestry Department was educating people in areas where there are elephants on ways to stay safe. He said the ministry was collaborating with the US-based Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute on a project to place radio transmission collars on a total of 28 elephants in Yangon, Bago, Irrawaddy and Tanintharyi regions.

The Forestry Department is also partnering with the Wildlife Conservation Society, another US-based organization, on a project running from 2018 to 2027 that aims to double the average life of Myanmars elephants to about 100 years.

Translated from Burmese by Zarni Mann.
Burma Kofi Annan's Contribution to Myanmar's Pressing Rakhine Crisis

Rakhine State Advisory Commission Chairman Kofi Annan during a press conference in Yangon, December 2016. / The Irrawaddy

The former United Nations secretary-general and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kofi Annan died on Saturday at the age of 80. Despite his top job at the UN, the Ghanaian is remembered in Myanmar for his involvement in tackling the crisis in Rakhine State in the west of the country, where communal strife between ethnic Arakanese and Rohingya Muslims had been on the rise since 2012.

It all started in 2016, when Myanmar State Counselor Daw Aung San Kyi approached Annan and asked him to lead a commission that would analyze the situation in Rakhine State. It was the first time foreign experts had been invited to assist the countrys efforts in confronting the Rakhine crisis. He accepted the offer to lead the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State and made recommendations on ending the violence in the conflict-torn state and promoting development, despite some resistance against his commission from local ethnic Arakanese, opposition parties and military.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi immediately endorsed the commissions 88 recommendations and vowed to implement them in the shortest timeframe possible given the conditions on the ground. Annans recommendations have been treated as a roadmap for promoting communal reconciliation and regional development in Rakhine.

Since the formation of the commission, The Irrawaddy has extensively covered stories related to the nine-member commission. On the death of Kofi Annan, we revisit some of our stories to reflect the former UN boss contribution to Rakhine State.

Aug. 24, 2016

Former UN Chief Kofi Annan to Head New Commission on Arakan State

The former United Nations secretary-general and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kofi Annan was named by Myanmars State Counselors office as the leader of a nine-member Advisory Commission on Rakhine State to recommend lasting solutions to complex and delicate issues in the conflict-torn region.

Aug. 25, 2016

ANP Demands Cancellation of Kofi Annan-Led Arakan State Commission

The largest Rakhine political party, the Arakan National Party (ANP), has demanded that the government cancel the newly formed Kofi Annan-led Arakan State Advisory Commission. The ANP expressed objection to the three non-Myanmar members selected to serve on the commission, stating that they would not be able to understand the background and current situation on the ground in Arakan State, as well as that it would harm the rights of indigenous peoplea reference to the Buddhist Arakaneseand national sovereignty.

Aug. 30, 2016

ANP Lawmaker Calls for Removal of International Experts From Arakan State Commission

A Rakhine lawmaker from the Arakan National Party (ANP) at the Lower House submitted an urgent parliamentary proposal calling for the replacement of three non-Myanmar experts serving on the Rakhine State Advisory Commission with local academic specialists. With support from the military representatives and main opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party, the proposal called the inclusion of international experts foreign interference in internal affairs. But the proposal failed to earned parliamentary approval, as the majority of NLD lawmakers rejected it.

Sept. 5, 2016

Kofi Annan Confident in Arakan State Advisory Commissions Mandate

Kofi Annan said despite the challenges facing Arakan State being complex and deep-rooted, he remains confident that we can assist the people of Rakhine to chart a common path for a peaceful and prosperous future. During the first meeting with the commission members and State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon, the former United Nations secretary-general said the advisory commission would act rigorously to find ways to address the situation in Arakan State, and work closely with the people of the region, including engaging with community and religious leaders, local administration and members of the State Counselors Office.

Sept. 7, 2016

Advisory Commission Completes First Trip to Arakan State

Kofi Annan-led Rakhine State Advisory Commission completed its first two-day trip to Rakhine State to learn about local perspectives on trust-building from the Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya communities in the state capital, Sittwe. Local residents and Buddhist monks staged protests against the commission, challenging what they perceived as foreigners biased intervention from the nine-member panel.

Sept. 8, 2016

Kofi Annan: Commission Will Not Do Human Rights Investigation in Arakan State

Upon his arrival from Rakhine, Kofi Annan told media in Yangon that the commissions purpose was not to investigate rights abuses, but to write an impartial report. He explained that the objective of the advisory commission was to provide recommendations for the Myanmar government in accordance with international standards in order to facilitate a lasting solution to the conflict in Arakan State.

Oct 9, 2016

Nine Police Dead in Arakan State Border Attacks

Nine police officers were killed and five were injured during a series of attacks by Muslim militants on border guard headquarters and outposts near the Bangladeshi border in northern Rakhine State.

Dec. 6, 2016

Kofi Annan: Charge of Genocide Should Not Be Used Loosely in Arakan State

Chairman of the Arakan State Advisory Commission Kofi Annan told reporters at a Yangon press conference that when describing the crisis in Rakhine State, the term genocide should be used with caution.

March 16, 2017

Arakan State Advisory Commission Releases Interim Report

The Rakhine State Advisory Commission released an interim report for the Myanmar government to improve the situation in Rakhine State, calling for immediate and unimpeded access for humanitarian aid organizations and the media to areas of northern Rakhine State.

July 10, 2017

U Zaw Htay: Kofi Annan Commission is Govt Shield

The Myanmar government spokesperson said the Annan commission was serving as a shield for the Myanmar government. Were it not for the Kofi Annan commission, the allegations would be much worse, I think, he said.

Aug. 19, 2017

Did Advisory Commission Remedy Rakhine States Conflict?

Since its formation, the Kofi Annan-led Advisory Commission on Rakhine State had been under fire from local ethnic Arakanese people, opposition parties, and the military. Given the resistance, would the recommendations to be made by the commission for Rakhine State be helpful?

Aug. 22, 2017

Rakhine Advisory Commissions Kofi Annan Arrives in Yangon

Kofi Annan arrived in Yangon to release his Rakhine State Advisory Commissions final report on Rakhine State.

Aug. 24, 2017

Kofi Annan: Dont Leave Citizenship Issues To Fester

The commission submitted its final report to Myanmar Army commander-in-chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing and State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyitaw. The report criticized several aspects of Myanmars 1982 Citizenship Law as failing to meet international standards, while still encouraging the government to accelerate the national verification process in line with that law in Rakhine State. But the military questioned the impartiality of the commissions report and urged Annans delegation to review some factually wrong points.

Aug. 25, 2017

Muslim Militants Stage Major Attack in Rakhine

Several hours after the submission of the commissions final report, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army launched attacks on 24 border guard posts, police stations, and army bases in northern Rakhine State, killing at least 10 police officers and one Myanmar Army soldier.

Sept. 12, 2017

Govt to Implement Recommendations on Rakhine Issue Without Delay

The Presidents Office announced the formation of a 15-member committee to implement the recommendations of the Kofi Annan-led Advisory Commission on Rakhine State and a government investigation commission led by Vice President U Myint Swe. The implementation committee was led by Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement U Win Myat Aye. The new committee was responsible for accelerating the national verification process and ensuring equal access to education and health services regardless of religion, race, citizenship or gender, as well as fighting terrorism and eliminating drugs in the region as a priority.

June 2018

Rakhine Advisory Commission Stands by Recommendations After Review

Ten months after it made recommendations for Rakhine State, the Kofi Annan-led commission said that in reviewing its suggestions, the recommendations to settle communal tension in the restive region remain relevant despite political realities in the state changing dramatically and tragically following the ARSA attacks in August 2017.
Burma Reuters Journalists Face Verdict Next Week on Myanmar Secrets Charges

Detained Reuters journalist Wa Lone is pulled into a police vehicle after a court hearing in Yangon, Myanmar, August 20, 2018. / Reuters

YANGON  The judge in the trial of two Reuters reporters jailed in Myanmar on accusations of obtaining secret state documents said on Monday he will deliver his verdict on Aug. 27, in a case seen as a test of press freedom in the fledgling democracy.

The judge set the date after hearing closing arguments from both sides, during which lawyers for the two journalists said they had been trapped by police in an effort to interfere with their reporting of a massacre of Rohingya Muslims.

The duty of the reporter is to reveal the truth, said lead defense lawyer Khin Maung Zaw. Some people may not be okay with that truth.

Khin Maung Zaw said the prosecution had failed to establish that the documents at the heart of the case were sought out by the reporters or that they were a threat to national security, crucial components of the case against them.

The court in Yangon has been holding hearings since January to decide whether, Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, are guilty of breaching the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

At the time of their arrest last year, the two reporters were working on a Reuters investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys in a village in western Myanmars Rakhine State, during an army crackdown that United Nations agencies say sent some 700,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh.

Lead prosecutor Kyaw Min Aung outlined the states case against Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, whose actions, he said, showed they intended to harm the country. By acquiring documents that could pose a threat to the state if their contents were obtained by extremist groups, he said, the pair were working for the benefit of Reuters rather than for the national interest.

Reuters is a foreign news agency that pays its reporters in dollars, he said. It was found from the reporters that they sent their news to Reuters and their own evidence shows that Reuters sells news for money.

Defense lawyer Khin Maung Zaw said it was obvious Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were reporters and the court had heard no testimony to suggest they were spies.

The government has not designated Reuters an enemy of the nation, he added.

Government spokesman Zaw Htay could not be reached for comment on Monday. He has mostly declined to comment throughout the proceedings, saying Myanmars courts are independent.

Reuters said in a statement there was no basis for a conviction and that it looked forward to the reporters acquittal, which it said would be an important step towards demonstrating Myanmars commitment to the rule of law, freedom of the press, and democracy.

The evidence before the court is clear: Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are two honest reporters who did not commit a crime, said the new agency in the statement. Imprisoning them for even one more day would be unlawful retribution for their truthful and important journalism.

Baby Girl

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have told the court they were entrapped by police officials who planted documents on them shortly before their arrest on Dec. 12. They say Police Lance Corporal Naing Lin and another officer handed them the documents in a rolled-up newspaper at a Yangon restaurant.

A police captain, Moe Yan Naing, testified that a superior officer had instructed his subordinates, including Naing Lin, to trap the reporters. Naing Lin has told the court he met the reporters, but denied giving them anything.

The reporters have said they were hooded, handcuffed, and deprived of sleep during days of interrogation.

The case has captured global attention and has come to be seen as a test of press freedom and reforms in Myanmar, where the military still wields considerable influence. Senior UN officials, Western nations and press freedom advocates have called for the release of the two journalists. The courtroom on Monday was filled with foreign diplomats and observers.

Wa Lones wife, Pan Ei Mon, who earlier this month gave birth to the couples first child, was not present. After the hearing, Kyaw Soe Oos wife, Chit Su Win, carried their three-year-old daughter out of the court as she sobbed papa.

Speaking to reporters, Wa Lone said he hoped the court would rule in their favor.

We firmly believe that the court will make a fair decision and will free us, he said. I firmly believe that, before long, I will be able to return to my baby girl.
Guest Column Engaging the UWSA: Countering Myths, Building Ties

The Wa flag flies outside a school in Northern Wa Region. / Andrew Ong

The carefully staged photos of Tatmadaw Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing serving soup to United Wa State Army (UWSA) commander Bao Youyi, hospitalized after fatigue and hypertension at the Third Union Peace Conference (UPC) in July 2018, raised eyebrows across the country. The photo was posted to the formers Facebook page and gestured towards bridge-building between the Tatmadaw and the UWSA, the countrys strongest Ethnic Armed Organization (EAO).

Building genuine trust however, will take far more than birds nest soup.

Not captured in the photograph were the UWSAs demands for an official Wa State, amendments to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) and the 2008 Constitution, and recognition of the Wa-controlled territory on the Thai border.

The UWSA had in September 2016 walked out of Aung San Suu Kyis landmark attempt to build peace with EAOs, the 21st Century Panglong Conference (now UPC). The formation of the UWSA-led coalition, the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC) in April 2017, was a further blow to her NLD governments hopes for significant progress in the peace process. The FPNCC submitted its demands at the Second UPC in May 2017, which were largely ignored. This Third UPC saw little concrete progress made, and now runs the risk of halting its momentum.

Perceptions and Myths of the UWSA

The UWSA was formed from the fracturing of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) in 1989, its leaders quick to sign a ceasefire with the Tatmadaw, one that has held to the present day. It controls fully two large swathes of territory along the Chinese and Thai borders, protected by an army of around 30,000.

Narratives about the UWSA have focused on secrecy and isolation, with sensationalized reporting about  an empire built on guns, drugs and blood , or unverified allegations of the acquisition of helicopters and other weapons . The scant scholarly material centers on the political economy of opium and drugs, with book covers predominantly depicting soldiers in poppy fields.

In May 2015, the UWSA hosted the first EAOs summit at its headquarters in Pangkham, without the presence of Myanmar government representatives, and created the first opportunity for the press to visit Wa Region. Journalists were invited by the UWSA again in October 2016.

Paradoxically, while these visits gave a glimpse into life inside Wa Region, they also created distance  exaggerating the secrecy and remoteness of Wa Region, or its similarities to China . Across the media, representations of the UWSA invariably depict young soldiers marching, training, or guarding checkpoints, alongside charges of vice and lawlessness, and exotic visuals of the wildlife trade and casinos.

Little wonder then, that the UWSA remains  feared and poorly understood , and few in Yangon can imagine ever engaging with the UWSA. Two serious misconceptions circulate in Yangon: first that the UWSA is a part or pawn of China, and second that they are mysterious, isolated and disengaged from Myanmar.

Pawns of China?

Suggestions of the UWSA being pawns of China are part of the Tatmadaws allegations; the New Light of Myanmar accused the UWSA in 2015 of being ethnic Chinese posing as Wa tribesmen to further their secessionist and drug-running aims. Many Burmese people view the Wa as far closer to China than it actually is, wondering why they speak Chinese and not Burmese, and why travel there is so difficult  with perceptions that Burmese are unwelcome in Wa Region. But for the UWSA, historical affinity to China is simple and straightforward, not a sinister conspiracy  as Chairman Bao himself remarked, in the past, when we needed help, no one else helped us but China.

With telecommunications systems and somewhat a stable kyat only a relatively recent phenomena in Myanmar, the UWSA has for decades relied on Chinese currency and Chinese markets for its rubber and mining industries, construction technology, and communication networks. Yet since the 1990s, the UWSA has demonstrated a creativity and ability to navigate different routes, markets, and investments to buttress its self-reliance. Collaborations between Wa-owned companies and other Myanmar conglomerates point to strong business ties with elites in Yangon and Mandalay.

Other observers overstate the UWSAs subordination to China, suggesting that China has advisors shadowing top UWSA leaders, vets visitors to Wa Region, and dictates the UWSAs external relations. Rather, the relationship is more nuanced and based on mutual interest, respect, and norms of propriety. The inclusion of a clause to invite China as an observer to FPNCC negotiations, in the press release from the first FPNCC meeting of August 2017, seems an example of such face-giving and respect. As Yun Sun observes , China cannot force the UWSA to leave or join the peace process without creating resentment, and its interest is in maintaining good ties with the UWSA.

Both China and the UWSA have tried to dispel rumors about the nature of this relationship; China angrily dismissed suggestions that it had encouraged EAOs to reject the NCA. The UWSA is also quick to point out that China is invited as an observer only because of its status as a neighbor, although at other times it perhaps hides behind Chinas wishes as an excuse for certain decisions it makes. The relationship is better described as the UWSA making its own autonomous decisions, while taking into account how China might view these actions.

Disengaged?

The BBCs analysis following its visit in 2016 wrote of the Wa: detached from both national and international laws, they do exactly as they please. And they do not want to change. This lazy and flippant mischaracterization served only to portray the UWSA as removed, stubborn, and narrow-minded, lacking a political strategy.

The UWSA has always made the case for an autonomous Wa State, yet insists that it does not call for secession or independence. Mistranslations between Burmese, Chinese, and English have often led to misunderstandings around political terminology such as autonomy, independence, state, and federalism, causing uncertainty around motivations and intentions.

The UWSAs engagement has been shaped by the uncertainties of its negotiating partners. It stayed out of peace negotiations prior to 2015 because it did not want to be used by the Myanmar government to pressure other smaller EAOs to the negotiating table. The policy was to let everyone make their minds up on their own. Premature rumors frequently circulate about the willingness of the UWSA to sign the NCA, creating confusion amongst its allies, and is part of the motivation to create a unified stance under the FPNCC.

The UWSA has long been seen as militarily strong yet politically unsophisticated and isolationist by its allies, but these perceptions are shifting as admiration builds for its ability to resist pressures from the Myanmar government. In reality, little has changed, and the UWSAs stance towards the ceasefire has been consistent throughout  they frequently cite the fact that there is already a bilateral ceasefire in place, and hence further signings are meaningless. Yet they have shown a willingness to compromise under the right conditions, as they did in 2011 when they re-signed a ceasefire with the junta.

Reticence towards the peace process should not be interpreted as disinterest. Speaking about Min Aung Hlaings insistence on NCA acceptance, the UWSAs External Relations Head replied : It is not a problem. He has his own stand and we have our own stand. If we have the same stands, there wont be conicts. It is not strange. We will meet frequently and negotiate in the future to nd an answer. The UWSA refuses to be hurried into negotiations, and hence appears indifferent at times, but this does not mean an unwillingness to compromise, should the conditions be right.

UWSA Self-imaginaries

This behavior is perfectly consistent with the self-imaginaries of the UWSA, which sees itself as autonomous, self-reliant, resolute, and united. When asked about former Shan druglord Khun Sa in an interview with Phoenix News, Chairman Bao Youxiang of the UWSA replied that Khun Sa was a businessman, like water he flowed wherever he flowed. By contrast, he presented the UWSA as a rock that cannot be moved.

While contradictions exist within their self-portrayal, the UWSA insists that it will never fire the first shot; and leaders pride themselves on the value of their promises, exemplified by Chairman Baos once hyperbolic claim that he would cut his head off if opium was still grown in Wa Region after the ban. Yet it is precisely a pride in their promises that often keeps them out of agreements they fear they cannot fulfill. At such times they prefer to withdraw or remain silent.

Self-reliance is central to the UWSA imaginary, with its refusal to be coerced or threatened into signing agreements. The UWSA carefully protects its supply routes and key locations, safeguarding strategic interests. Disagreements and standoffs on the northern and southern boundaries of Wa Region have occurred from time to time, but without serious escalation. Threats to these corridors are the most likely to spark open conflict, conversely, avoiding them renders outbreaks of fighting highly unlikely.

The UWSA leadership recalls the deadlock and futility of warfare under the CPB during the 1970s and 80s, the casualties suffered fighting Khun Sa in the 1990s, and the difficulty of holding terrain. They have no wish to return to warfare nor to expand their territory.

The UWSA is also proud of unity within their ranks, and the avoidance of factionalism. This consistency of their stances is their pride  authoritative, unchanging, and straightforward  and while interpreted as intransigence by observers, the UWSA are perplexed and dismayed by factionalism and changing stances amongst other EAOs. On this basis, the UWSA originally proposed a top-down approach to peace negotiations, one that was roundly rejected in favor of a more acceptable bottom-up approach. Yet following the 3rd UPC, there appear to be calls for a return to narrower top-level discussions.

The logic of power in Wa Region also comes with an obligation for provision and generosity. For the UWSA to respect the governments authority, the government must demonstrate a basic sincerity in providing for its subjects. Many requests are small, and failures to meet them all the more discouraging. For instance, the UWSA has a longstanding request that the government provide identity documents to people in Wa Region. Yet this has been inadequately met, on one occasion in 2015 a meager 150 or so were issued by Myanmar Immigration. Such gestures of stinginess provoke only disdain amongst the UWSA.

Engaging the UWSA

As Yun Sun notes , key difficulties facing national reconciliation with the Myanmar government are the creation of a Wa State and the status of the UWSAs territory on the Thailand border. With a supposed 30,000 soldiers, and as leaders of the FPNCC, the UWSA cannot be ignored in any political solution, nor will it cede any territory easily.

A first step would entail searching for avenues through which ties can be built across the Salween River. Here, the international community can and should play a serious part. The UWSA has constantly appealed for development aid and technical assistance. International organizations should seek engagement and development interventions in Wa Region if they take national reconciliation, peace-building, and conflict management seriously rather than paying lip service to it.

Development organizations worked in Wa Region from the late 1990s as part of opium substitution efforts. The UWSA banned opium growing in 2005, and international organizations provided food security and livelihood support. At its peak in 2010, nine organizations worked in Wa Region. But the Kokang crisis of 2009 and Border Guard Force demands of the Tatmadaw, as well as shifting funding priorities, meant that all but three had withdrawn by 2012. For the UWSA, it seemed that appeals for aid had fallen on deaf ears: just as we had begun to learn how to work with them, they have left.

The World Food Programme has worked on food security in Wa Region since 2004, but its programs have been scaled down owing to a lack of funding and shifting priorities. From annual food distributions of thousands of tons, it now runs only school-cooked meals for nearly 130 out of the 400 schools across the region. Malteser International and Health Poverty Action still have a handful of clinics in Pangkham and activities across the region  one of the few remaining links to the UWSA. Since 2014, many others organized missions, data-gathering visits, and surveys, but having made overtures, collected information, and shaken hands, they never returned. The UWSA finds this mode of operating hard to comprehend.

People in Wa Region remain desperately poor. The absence of updated and reliable statistics is in itself an indicator of its marginalization from development initiatives. Food security is between 6-9 months in many townships, and health and education indicators dismal. The attrition rate of students between Grade 1 and Grade 6 is 92 percent. Extrapolating from the 2014 Census report, literacy in all languages is at an appalling 22.5 percent.

Many in the development community see access to Wa Region as too dependent on security constraints, programs not cost-effective due to high terrain and transport costs, interventions not sufficiently impactful owing to the lack of partners for holistic and sustainable interventions, and the UWSA as too elementary and difficult to work with. But more importantly, they see it as too high a political risk. For these reasons, the EAO most central to the peace process has not been strategically engaged. This is a shame.

Engaging the UWSA requires trust-building, one that takes time and sustained presence, which NGOs and international organizations can provide through development assistance. While the Tatmadaw might be keen to deprive the UWSA of any support, such an arrangement actually makes sense for it and the Myanmar government. By permitting or even facilitating international organizations to work in Wa Region, it will be seen as providing for its subjects, at no cost to itself. Any development assistance is in any case a fraction of other revenue in Wa Region. With about 30 percent of schools in Wa Region teaching Burmese language, and the possibility of scaling up, the prospect of a shared language for future generations is invaluable. Most importantly, sustained international presence in Wa Region provides a possible channel and more potential mediators, balancing the UWSAs reliance on China as the middleman.

This too makes sense for China since its goals in the peace process cannot be easily achieved by working alone. Chinas unilateral intentions and actions will always be regarded with suspicion as to its true motives. Working with the international community lends legitimacy to the valuable input and inroads it has already made. Nor is there any genuine chance of international actors supplanting its lead and favored position with the UWSA.

Andrew Ong is a postdoctoral fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University.

This article originally appeared in Tea Circle, a forum hosted at Oxford University for emerging research and perspectives on Burma/Myanmar.
Tuesday, August 21st, 2018 (12:10 pm) - Score 1,206

Cable ISP Virgin Media UK has today announced that 6,000 premises in Carluke (South Lanarkshire, Scotland) will be next in line to gain access to ultrafast broadband speeds of 362Mbps and premium TV services, which stems from their on-going 3bn Project Lightning network expansion.

The work, which has already completed for several homes, follows the announcement of a similar roll-out to 9,000 homes and businesses in the small town of Stepps (North Lanarkshire) last month (here). Overall Virgin Media expects to reach a total of around 360,000 extra premises across Scotland by the end of 2019 (here), although doubts have recently been cast over whether or not theyll achieve that on time (here).

Completion of the latest extension in Carluke is currently still expected by the end of 2019.

John Anderson, South Lanarkshire Councillor, said: We welcome Virgin Medias continued investment into South Lanarkshire which will give residents in Carluke access to the benefits of ultrafast broadband, as well as more choice. This private investment fits perfectly into the Councils Economic Strategy and the improvement of Digital Connectivity and we are working closely with Virgin Media to ensure disruption to residents is kept to a minimum.

The operator tends to use narrow trenching (where possible) in order to minimise disruption and locals are typically informed at least one week in advance of any work taking place. A Local Community Liaison Officer will also be available to discuss any concerns and some local meetings are also likely to be held in the near future.

As usual Virgin havent said if any of the local deployment will involve their Radio Frequency over Glass (RFoG) based full fibre style FTTP platform or their more traditional Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network. Both are designed to work with DOCSIS technology.
Windows ransomware known as Ryuk has been used in a number of well-targeted campaigns over the last two weeks, encrypting hundreds of PCs, storage and data centres in each infected firm, the security firm Check Point says.

Researchers at the company said that while the capabilities of Ryuk were not overly impressive, the organisations that had been affected had paid out large sums as ransoms.

The ransom amount demanded ranged from 15 bitcoin to 50 bitcoin and the attackers had already made about US$640,000, Check Point said.

The source code of Ryuk had some similarities to an older ransomware strain, known as HERMES, with the latter linked to a North Korean group known as the Lazarus Group.

Hence, Check Point said this could be another case of malware emanating from the same group, or else from some attacker who had managed to obtained the HERMES source code and created a variant.

Check Point said one distinguishing feature of Ryuk was that it was not distributed through big spam campaigns, but rather appeared to be intentionally built for small, targeted operations.

"This, of course, means extensive network mapping, hacking and credential collection is required and takes place prior to each operation," Check Point said.

"Its alleged attribution to Lazarus Group... may imply that the attackers are already well experienced in the targeted attacks domain, as seen by attacks such as the breach of Sony Pictures in 2014."

The ransom note that accompanied Ryuk had two versions: one, a long well-worded note and the second a more abrupt missive.

Check Point has a detailed, technical analysis of Ryuk here, where it compares the ransomware to HERMES.
A satellite jointly developed by UNSW Canberra Space and Defence Science and Technology has been operating on-orbit successfully for more than nine months and conducting experiments to pave the way for small spacecraft development in Australia.

The Buccaneer Risk Mitigation Mission cube satellite was launched into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in November 2017.

UNSW Canberra Space director Professor Russell Boyce says the mission has achieved its key objectives.

Shortly after the launch, the satellite was successfully commanded from Australian small satellite ground stations at DST and UNSW Canberra Space, which have shared daily communication with the spacecraft over the subsequent months.

DST mission supervisor Dr Coen van Antwerpen says the satellite has successfully deployed its three-metre, X-shaped antenna that is part of the novel DST Group developed and designed payload  and one of the core pieces of technology, which will be used in future Buccaneer missions.

Now that the flight operations and experiments planned for the main part of the mission have been successfully completed, the mission is moving into an extended operations phase to obtain additional valuable information on the ongoing performance of the spacecraft, Dr van Antwerpen says.

Professor Boyce says the team has worked to test and characterise the performance of the satellites various sub-systems in the space environment, including the UNSW Sydney-developed GPS and a UNSW Canberra camera used to monitor the performance of the antenna.

Following that, experiments have been conducted that extend the state-of-the art for small satellite space situational awareness and test key technologies in preparation for a follow-on mission, in which DST will perform calibration research for the Jindalee Over-the-Horizon Operational Radar Network.

The international ground-based Falcon space surveillance telescope network, including UNSW Canberras node of that network, has been used to collect considerable amounts of data on Buccaneers attitude in Low Earth Orbit. This data will support UNSW Canberra Spaces research in the science of space situational awareness.

The Buccaneer mission has been extremely successful from the perspective of a partnership to climb the space mission learning curve, as Australia accelerates its momentum in space activity exemplified by the Australian Space Agency commencing last month.

According to DST Strategic Space research lead Dr Nick Stacy, small, affordable satellites like Buccaneer provide a unique opportunity to support Defence capabilities and develop the Australian space industry.

The 2016 Defence White Paper highlights space research and space systems as an important part of Australias Defence capability and National Security, Dr Stacy says.

Professor Boyce says the mission has demonstrated capability and credibility as UNSW Canberra proceeds toward the RAAF-funded M1 mission, to be launched later this year.

Our lessons learnt from this mission will be integrated into future spacecraft developed here at UNSW Canberra Space, he says.

Buccaneer is one of a number of funded satellites at UNSW Canberra Space, with a further three in early development, and will play an important role in gathering data and demonstrating space-based capability ranging from remote sensing to secure communications, to help meet Australian and international needs and opportunities on the ground.
'Twas a time not so long ago when backing up an Android phone was a massive, migraine-inducing undertaking.

It's true: A mere matter of years back in our mobile device saga, a proper Android backup required physical computer connections, complicated third-party software and more than a few adult beverages.

But my, what a difference a few years makes. These days, backing up an Android device and keeping your data synced takes little to no actual effort. Most of the work happens seamlessly and automatically, behind the scenes  either without any involvement on your behalf or with a one-time opt-in when you first set your phone up. And restoring your data is typically as simple as signing into a device and letting Google's systems work their magic.

Still, your data is important, especially if you use your phone for business. With all the stuff we tend to have on our phones (or at least accessible from our phones), it's worthwhile to know where and how everything's being saved. That way, you can understand what's happening and confirm it's all functioning as intended  and the next time you need to move to a new device, you can rest easy knowing your data will be there and ready.

Here's a section-by-section breakdown of Android's backup systems and how they operate.

[ Further reading: 8 ways to turn Android into a productivity powerhouse ]

General settings and preferences

When you powered up your Android device for the first time, you probably signed in with your primary Google account. This is critical  because that same account is your key to the vast majority of your automatically backed up data.

On the system level, that includes most of your Android settings and preferences  everything from approved Wi-Fi networks and passwords to your language and input settings, date and time settings, and display preferences. You can confirm all of that's being backed up by going into the System section of your phone's settings, tapping "Advanced," and then tapping "Backup."

On Samsung phones, you'll instead tap the Accounts and Backup section and then select "Backup and restore" and look for the "Google account" area of the screen. Samsung confusingly offers the option to back up your data to its own service  via your Samsung account  in addition to backing it up with the standard Android backup system. Disregarding that and going with the standard, Google-associated setup is the most advisable option, as that'll allow you to restore your data to any phone you might use in the future, whereas Samsung's superfluous setup will work only with other Samsung-made phones.

You should see an active toggle next to "Back up to Google Drive" (or "Back up my data," on Samsung phones) at the top of that screen, and below that, you'll see the Google account that's associated with all of your system backups. Make sure you use that same account when signing into any devices in the future  and if you ever need to change which account is associated with your backups, just tap the line showing the account on this screen; that'll bring up a list of all the Google accounts connected to your phone, and you can select whichever one you want to take over.

If you tap the name of your phone (or the line labeled "Google account" on a Samsung device), meanwhile, you'll see a breakdown of the specific types of data connected to your device and when they were last backed up.

JR Raphael/IDG You can monitor and control your phone's system-level backups within the aptly named Backup section of your device's settings.

You can also look in the Backups section of Google Drive on the web to find this same information and see precisely how much space is being taken up by your backed up settings for any devices associated with your account.

Apps and app data

The list of apps you've installed from the Play Store is always synced with Google's servers, and when you first sign into any new Android device, you'll be given the opportunity to restore that complete set of applications or to cherry-pick certain titles from within the list. (That option typically comes up if you opt not to restore everything via a physical, USB-cable connection between your new and old phones.) If you've had more than one Android device active on your account recently, you'll be able to choose which device you want to use as the source.

Google also provides an expanded app backup system that saves and restores app-specific data  everything from sign-ins to preferences and any other relevant elements from within your actual apps. It's worth noting that this requires some level of integration and support on the developers' parts, however, so it works more effectively with some apps than others.

Calendar, contacts, and email

Backing up these business-critical areas is actually quite easy  because nowadays, almost all calendar, contact, and email data is inherently cloud-based (or at the very least cloud-connected). In other words, you don't have to back up your phone's email or calendar data because it's already stored in the cloud; you can simply open the email or calendar app from another device to retrieve it.

(Google's own email and calendar apps  Gmail and Google Calendar, respectively, both of which come preinstalled on many phones and are readily available for anyone to download  store data with Google's servers by default but can also work with Exchange and other third-party accounts. You can add third-party accounts directly into the Gmail app; with Exchange, once your account is added into Gmail, it should then show up in Google Calendar as well.)

The one asterisk worth mentioning is contacts, as some manufacturers and even carriers provide their own interfaces for organizing contact information  and those interfaces don't always sync with Google's Contacts system by default. Suffice it to say, this isn't ideal: If your data is set to sync with, say, Verizon's system instead of Google's, you'll be in a pickle if you ever try to sign into a non-Verizon phone in the future. Similarly, if your contact data is being stored only on the device's local storage or SIM card by default, you're asking for trouble down the line.

Go into your phone's Contacts app and look in its settings to see if there's any option for where your contacts are being synced or stored. The specifics vary from one device to the next, depending on the manufacturer and carrier  but often, when a company puts its own solution in place of Google's, it'll give you the ability to switch to Google's Contacts system if you want.

Some phones' Contacts apps may also ask where you want to store a contact every time you add someone new. Be sure to always select Google for maximum consistency and accessibility moving forward.

JR Raphael/IDG The Contacts app on many Samsung phones asks where you want to save a new contact every time you create one.

You can confirm that your contacts are, in fact, being synced with Google Contacts in that same aforementioned Backup section of your system settings (after you tap your phone's name  or tap "Google account" on Samsung devices). You can also always access Google Contacts via its dedicated website to see that your data is there.

Messaging

Backing up and saving your SMS data so you can restore it on a future phone is generally pretty painless on Android, but there are lots of layers involved  and it's a little confusing to figure out what exactly is backed up and how.

In a change from the recent past, Google now automatically backs up all SMS data from all Android devices. This happens regardless of who made your phone or what messaging app you're using.

That backup, however, is limited to 25MB of data and does not include MMS messages  things like photos and videos sent via text. If you want your multimedia messages to be saved, you'll need to sign up for a paid Google One plan. Those start as low as $2 per month and also include extra storage space that can be used across all Google services. Then, you'll need to install the Google One app onto your phone and look for the Device Backup section within the app to turn that option on. You'll need to be sure to repeat that process with any new phone you sign into in the future (or even with your existing phone, should you ever reset it and sign in anew).

Google says the MMS backups work best when you use its own Messages app. Google also notes that multimedia messages sent via the new chat-like RCS standard may or may not be backed up, depending on what phone and carrier you use. So, yeah: It's a bit of a convoluted mess at the moment  one that isn't aided by the presence of conflicting info within the company's official help documents (some of which still list SMS backups as being Pixel-exclusive features as of this writing). Sheesh!

If you want something a bit more straightforward and without any ongoing fees or limitations, the third-party Pulse SMS app is an excellent next-level option. In addition to providing its own universally available automatic backup and sync system, it offers plenty of opportunities for customization and also lets you send, receive, and manage messages in real time from multiple devices  including any combination of phones, tablets, and laptop or desktop computers. (The basic phone app is free to use, though the multi-device messaging capability requires a paid in-app upgrade of $11 for a lifetime subscription.)

There are also third-party utilities like SyncTech's free SMS Backup & Restore that can manually back up and restore SMS data, but using a messaging setup that handles that task continuously and seamlessly is the simpler and more effective way to go.

Files

The easiest way to keep files on your device backed up is to save them directly to a cloud-based storage service like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive. All of those services provide a reasonable amount of free storage  with additional space available for a nominal monthly or annual fee  and all of them make it simple to access files from your device whether you're online or not.

If you'd rather store files locally on your Android phone, snag an app called Autosync, which is available for use with Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, and Box. It'll let you continuously sync folders on your phone with matching folders on whichever cloud storage service you choose  and once you set it up, you'll never have to think about it again.

JR Raphael/IDG AutoSync allows you to keep specific local folders continuously synced with cloud-based equivalents.

AutoSync is free for use with a single synced folder pair and with files smaller than 10MB in size. You can eliminate those restrictions (and also eliminate some irksome ads within the app's setup interface) by making a one-time $5 in-app upgrade.

Photos and music

OK, so they aren't technically work-related  but even if you use a business-connected phone, odds are you're taking some pictures and listening to the occasional hackle-soothing jam.

Thankfully, keeping your photos and music backed up is a fairly thought-free process at this point. On the photos front, Google's free Google Photos app will automatically sync every image and video you take and make it available on any other device  mobile or otherwise.

And for music, the free Google Play Music app lets you upload your entire personal MP3 collection  up to 50,000 songs, if you still own that much music  and then access it from any Android device or from any computer via a web browser. (The service is expected to be merged with the newer YouTube Music app eventually, but Google swears that won't happen until YouTube Music is able to support the same sort of storage-locker capability.)

If streaming's your thing, of course, just download the appropriate app for whatever service you prefer and listen away without worry.

This article was originally published in August 2017 and most recently updated in January 2020.
To help reduce the chance of AWS S3 configuration errors, Amazon is working on two new tools  Zelkova and Tiros  to provide greater clarity around who has access to your data and resources and what they can do with them. The tools analyze and evaluate access controls and map the openness of your cloud environment.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) continues to have a problem with ensuring its customers are securing their cloud environments. Misconfiguration errors remain common and have left huge amounts of sensitive data exposed. Organizations including Verizon, Booz Allen Hamilton, the WWE Foundation, Alteryx, the U.S. National Credit Federation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and Accenture have all left information exposed due to configuration errors.

This is despite previous attempts by AWS to help improve the security of its services and reduce the chance of configuration errors. Last year the company launched Macie, a machine learning tool designed to automatically discover and protect sensitive data stored within AWS, as well as a series of new features designed to improve S3 security including default encryption, detailed inventory reports, and permission checks.

In February 2018  just a few days after news broke that FedEx had exposed over 100,000 documents including passports, drivers licenses, and customer records  AWS made its S3 Bucket Permissions Check service free to all users.

AWS Simple Storage Service (S3) is the companys object storage offering. According to Skyhigh Networks, 7 percent of all S3 buckets have unrestricted public access, while 35 percent are left unencrypted. Recent examples of data left exposed and unprotected includes the login credentials of more than half a million vehicle tracking devices, 200 million U.S. voter records, and sensitive data belonging to U.S. Army Intelligence. As well as stealing information, hackers have locked down data with ransomware and been found using the computing resources to mine cryptocurrency.

What Amazon Zelkova and Tiros do

Zelkova and Tiros were created by AWSs Automated Reasoning Group (ARG), which develops verification tools and techniques for Amazons products. Automated reasoning is a method of formal verification that takes semantic-based reasoning and applies mathematical formulas to, in short, answer specific questions and verify policies are working as expected. The ARG sits within the AWS security team, and has been developing tools internally for more than two years.

First announced in June 2018, Zelkova uses automated reasoning to analyze policies and the future consequences of those policies. Compatible with the companys Identity and Access Management (IAM), S3 and other resource policies, it enables organizations to create benchmarks and inform you of the consequences of your current policy settings. For example, when used against S3 policies it can inform you if unauthorized users are able to read or write to your bucket.

Tiros maps the connections among your networks. For example, it can answer questions around whether any of your EC2 instances are reachable from the internet.

Zelkova and Tiros began as internal tools. Zelkova is used internally as part of the S3 dashboard and within AWS Macie. Investment management firm Bridgewater Associates was given early access to test them.

Bridgewater uses Zelkova to verify and provide assurances that our policies do not allow data exfiltration, misconfigurations, and many other malicious and accidental undesirable behaviors, Dan Peebles, lead cloud security architect at Bridgewater Associates said in the Zelkova announcement. Zelkova allows our security experts to encode their understanding once and then mechanically apply it to any relevant policies, avoiding error-prone and slow human reviews, while at the same time providing us high confidence in the correctness and security of our IAM policies.

Neither tool is currently available for public release. Bridgewater says they are in a raw state, not particularly user friendly. Amazon declined to release any information around wider availability or pricing.

Amazons cloud configuration challenges

While cloud vendors such as Amazon and Microsofts Azure offer some level of security around their services and provide recommended best practices, they operate under a shared security model in which much of the onus is still on the customer, which is where problems often occur. The security challenges being reported around AWS S3 buckets have little to do with the platform itself, says Steve Smith, senior site reliability engineer at UK-based MSP Claranet, but everything to do with the people using it, who are the biggest weakness here.

AWS sets a lot of sensible defaults designed to support configuration; S3 buckets are now private by default, but unfortunately, its very easy to get things wrong if you dont know how to use the platform, Smith adds.

A lack of education combined with complexity of deployments and management tools, as well as an ever-growing number of services administrators need to get to grips with, plus the fact cloud environments can easily be spun up outside the view of security teams all mean data leaks continue to be a common issue.

As a consumer you have to do your part by understanding the shared responsibility model and applying best practices to protect your data, says George Gerchow, CSO at log management and analytics provider (and AWS customer) Sumo Logic. AWS does not do much to provide this education, so it is easy for consumers to believe that everything is done for them.

With these new tools, AWS is looking to reduce the chances of human error and reduce the likelihood of data leakage. But will they help? Our security objective here is to stop data exfiltration from AWS, Bridgewater Associates security architect Greg Frascadore said in a presentation around Zelkova and Toris during the AWS New York Summit 2018. What were trying to get is a formal analysis and a methodical way that we have gone about verifying that the security controls we put into place are working the way we think theyre working.

Frascadore said use cases for these tools include verifying individual security controls, creating benchmarks around security controls, locating relevant controls across a fleet of accounts, automating verification, and verifying during the design phase. "A very important thing about these tools is that you can verify things during the design stage. One of the things that we would really like to be able to do is security verification before we make a change to the actual AWS infrastructure, so before we put a vulnerability into the account, he said.

Others warn that these new tools have both benefits and potential downsides. Sumo Logics Gerchow says that while they are a good start, they are expensive and need to be properly configured, which could add more complexity, and wont help in multi-cloud or hybrid deployments.

There's a ton of potential upside for Zelkova and Tiros, but those teams must be able to operationalize the data, otherwise they're just running a tool, says Matt Wilson, chief information security advisor at BTB Security. They still require someone at the organization to execute them, analyze their output, and act upon the information provided. Advanced algorithms and a slick interface are great, but theyre not enough alone.
Collaboration with Habitat for Humanity Enters 25th Year

Illinois Wesleyan students volunteered at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in this 2015 photo from Turning Titan: New Student Orientation.

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.  Illinois Wesleyan Universitys annual Mission Day on Friday, Aug. 24 marked the 25th anniversary of the campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity, a volunteer organization that works to build houses for local families in need.

I am always amazed by the testimonies of new homeowners who are so proud of what they've accomplished and who are so grateful for their friends and families, as well as the communities of volunteers who have worked alongside them for many months, said University Chaplain Elyse Nelson Winger, who serves as faculty advisor for Habitat for Humanity. Students love working on the sites because they know that they are a part of making this kind of transformative change in other people's lives.

On Mission Day, a one-day event during Turning Titan: New Student Orientation for students to participate in events that encourage commitment to the IWU mission, approximately 40 first-year students began framing the walls of this years house. Chapters from Illinois Wesleyan and Illinois State University will then collaborate to complete construction on the 25th Collegiate House build by building on Saturdays throughout the upcoming academic year.

For 25 years, a wide range of students, faculty and staff have chosen to get involved with Habitat for Humanity.

The process of building each house brings together people from different backgrounds and experiences toward a common goal of providing affordable, safe housing for families, said Miner Linnaeus Sherff Endowed Professor of Botany David Bollivar, a long-time volunteer. The connections I make with our students at the work site allows the students and I to form closer connections and see that the commitment of all of us goes beyond the classroom in making a difference in the community.

In addition to building on Saturdays, students also have the option of participating in an Alternative Spring Break (ABS), where a team of volunteers travels to varying locations in the United States and collaborates on various assignments for Habitat for Humanity. Past locations have included Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Texas and West Virginia.

I decided after participating in the Alternative Spring Break with Habitat for Humanity in Birmingham this past spring that I wanted to get more involved, said Ryan Ozelie 19 (Sayner, Wis.), the incoming president for the IWU chapter. The trip allowed me to witness generous, selfless volunteers make a huge impact for communities. After seeing this work and how grateful the new homeowners are with the huge difference it makes in their lives, I knew I wanted to continue my involvement with Habitat.

Ozelie encourages all members of the Illinois Wesleyan community to find a way to contribute to Habitat for Humanitys mission.

By being involved in our campus chapter, you can make an immediate difference in our community and be part of a very fun and wholesome group that strives to make the world a better place.

By Rachel McCarthy 21
Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic via Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Harvey Weinstein's attorney stated Monday that the claim of sexual misconduct made against Italian actress Asia Argento should cast doubt on the allegations she's made against the disgraced producer.



Months after Argento became one of the first people to publicly accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, she's now herself accused of paying off a young male actor who accused her of sexual misconduct, according to a report in the New York Times.



The paper says it obtained documents that show Argento paid 22-year-old actor Jimmy Bennett $380,000 to settle the accusations. Bennett claims that in 2013 -- a couple of months after his 17th birthday -- a then 37-year-old Argento sexually assaulted him in a California hotel, according to The New York Times. The age of consent in California is 18.



"This development reveals a stunning level of hypocrisy by Asia Argento, said Weinstein's attorney, Benjamin Brafman, in a statement to ABC News. At the very same time Argento was working on her own secret settlement for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor, she was positioning herself at the forefront of those condemning Mr. Weinstein, despite the fact that her sexual relationship with Mr. Weinstein was between two consenting adults which lasted for more than four years."



According to the New York Times, a notice sent to Richard Hofstetter, the lawyer for Argento's late boyfriend, Anthony Bourdain, who was representing the actress at the time, claims Bennett made more than $2.7 million in the five years before the alleged assault, but his income has since dropped to an average of $60,000 a year as a result of trauma he suffered following the alleged "sexual battery." Argento, who lives in Rome, subsequently hired Carrie Goldberg -- a prominent lawyer for victims of online attacks -- to handle the case, according to The New York Times.



Bennett and Argento first met when he appeared at age seven in Argentos 2004 film "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things," according to the Times. They reportedly stayed in contact in the ensuing years and agreed to meet years later for a reunion. Bennett claims that at the time of the alleged May 13, 2013, incident, he arrived at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey, California, to meet Argento in her hotel room with a family member, who left the room after Argento asked to be alone with Bennett.



He alleges that Argento gave him alcohol prior to the assault, which allegedly included oral sex and intercourse.



Argento then asked to take a number of photos with Bennett, according to the documents cited by The New York Times. They, along with an Instagram post of their faces taken on that day, were included in the notice of intent to sue.



The notice of intent reportedly sought $3.5 million in damages for the intentional infliction of emotional distress, lost wages, assault and battery.



Argento, one of the 13 women included in the first October 2017 New Yorker report about Harvey Weinsteins alleged sexual harassment and assaults that dated back decades, has not commented on the allegation, nor have her representatives.



Rose McGowan, another of Weinstein's early accusers, stated on Twitter that the New York Times report left her heartbroken.



"I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere," she wrote. "None of us know the truth of the situation and Im sure more will be revealed. Be gentle."



Bennett's other film credits include 2003's "Daddy Day Care," "Firewall," "Evan Almighty" and "Star Trek." He most recently had a role in the Amazon TV series "Bosch."

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Operation Rescue Introduces Abortion911.com to Prove Abortion Isn't Safe

Contact: Troy Newman, President, 316-683-6790 ext. 111; Cheryl Sullenger, Senior Vice President, 316-516-3034; both with Operation Rescue, info.operationrescue@gmail.com



WICHITA, Kan., Aug. 21, 2018 /Christian Newswire/ -- Operation Rescue has launched a new web site, Abortion911.com, that documents medical emergencies at abortion facilities for the purpose of helping the public understand that abortions are not as safe as the abortionists say they are.



"Help us prove that abortion is not safe. We know it kills babies and hurts women, but the public needs to see documented reports to overcome the propaganda of the left that says abortion is a 'human right,' instead of the human rights abuse that it really is," said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue.



The website also is seeking photos, videos, documentation, and eyewitness accounts of medical emergencies at abortion facilities to add to the ever-expanding number of reports.



For several years, Operation Rescue has collected photos, videos, and 911 reports related to medical emergencies that take place at abortion facilities. Our database of such incidents has been considered the most comprehensive available. However, it is understood that this is only a fraction of medical emergencies that occur at abortion facilities.



Our data has been used to:

Promote the passage pro-life legislation at the state level.



Support pro-life laws in court.



File complaints against abortion facilities that have resulted in disciplinary action and closed abortion facilities.



Expose the dangers of abortion to the public.

"This site could have a lasting impact on public opinion and legal cases regarding abortion. Abortionists toss out numbers on so-called 'abortion safety' that have little, if any, documentation to back them up. We want Abortion911.com to serve as an easily-accessible repository of incidents that can provide hard evidence of abortion dangers," said Newman.



The "Check Your State" tag cloud feature is a resource that allows a user to easily see the reports related to abortion-related medical emergencies in any state for which there are documented incidents. The size of a state's font is directly related to the number of documented emergencies reported to Operation Rescue.



There is also a featured page with links to reports concerning abortion-related maternal deaths covered by Operation Rescue.



"Our eyes and ears on the ground have always been those involved in ministry outside the abortion facilities, and we need your eyes and ears more than ever," said Newman. "By contributing to this new project, you can help influence our nation in favor of life and move us closer to the goal of an abortion-free America."



To report incidents at abortion facilities that led to emergency responses and/or ambulance transports, please e-mail us at ReportAbortion911@zoho.com.



"There are those who are desperate to stop this documentation of life-threatening abortion dangers from reaching the public. Let's not let them win!" said Newman.



Abortion911.com joins Operation Rescue's suite of websites, including OR's main informational site, OperationRescue.org, and the resource site AbortionDocs.org, the largest online collection of documents related to abuses within the Abortion Cartel.



Read this release on Operation Rescue's website.



About Operation Rescue

Operation Rescue is one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the nation and has become a strong voice for the pro-life movement in America. Click here to support Operation Rescue.


Summerville, SC (29483)

Today

Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High 72F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Clear skies. Low 49F. Winds light and variable.
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By Thomas WATKINS | 

Washington (AFP)  A year since President Donald Trump unveiled his strategy for Afghanistan, a fresh wave of violence and bloodshed has assailed the war-torn nation and overshadowed some small glimmers of progress.

Each successful attack represents a massive setback not just for the Afghanistan government, which is pushing for peace talks with the Taliban, but also for the Pentagon, where officials insist things are finally improving.



AFP / ZAKERIA HASHIMI. Shopkeepers salvage what they can from a shop after the Taliban burned a market area in the city of Ghazni.

In just the last few days, the Taliban and the Islamic State group have unleashed a series of deadly operations where civilians have borne the brunt of the bloodshed, including an IS attack inside a school that killed dozens of students.

Before that, Taliban militants launched a high-profile attack on the strategic city of Ghazni, forcing US-backed security forces to struggle for days to repel them, and challenging the Pentagon narrative that the Taliban is struggling to effectively target larger cities.

Such headlines are surely not what Trump envisioned when on August 21 last year he announced that  despite his instinct to pull out  he was doubling down on the US commitment to Afghanistan and indefinitely prolonging Americas longest war.

Fed up with President Barack Obamas notion that America could somehow pull out of Afghanistan without leaving a security vacuum, military brass welcomed Trumps decision to deploy thousands of additional US troops, loosen rules of engagement and cancel the promise of a timetabled withdrawal.

The consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable, Trump said as he revealed his strategy, which also sought to pressure Pakistan do more to tackle the Taliban.

 Looking bleak 

Just months later, the top US commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, claimed the war had turned the corner and predicted the Afghan security forces would expand government control of the population from about 64 percent now to 80 percent over two years.

But according to a US government watchdog, the percentage of people under government control has only risen to 65 percent, with insurgent groups holding steady.



AFP /  Afghan volunteers carry an injured youth on a stretcher to a hospital following a suicide attack in Kabul.

Weve turned so many corners in Afghanistan that weve probably made multiple circles, Bill Roggio, an Afghanistan expert and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told AFP.

Things look pretty bleak, he said.

Without a US presence in Afghanistan you would quickly see large areas of the country fall under the control of the Taliban, he added, pointing to the horrendous casualty rates and other problems that have beset the Afghan security forces.

A core part of Trumps Afghanistan plan was to force the Taliban to the negotiating table and to support peace talks between Kabul and the insurgents.

An unprecedented country-wide ceasefire between the Taliban and government forces in June gave some relief to civilians and sparked hopes the truce could clear the way for talks to end the war.

 Game changer 

Alice Wells, the senior official for the State Departments Bureau of South and Central Asia Affairs, reportedly met with Taliban officials last month in Qatar.

And on a visit to Kabul last month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there was now hope for peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

Many of the Taliban now see that they cant win on the ground militarily. Thats very deeply connected to President Trumps strategy, Pompeo said.

US-backed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani hailed Trumps strategy as a game changer.

However, the recent attacks have led many to question how such negotiations could move ahead.

Observers have suggested the Taliban may be trying to strengthen their position before any potential talks.

This is what weve seen before (in) insurgencies, when theres going to be a negotiation or a cease-fire, trying to up the ante, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Thursday.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the US remains committed to finding a political solution to end the Afghanistan conflict.

Were exploring all avenues for dialogue in close coordination with the Afghan government, and were going to continue to do that, she said.

Still, amid the chaos, one sign of progress is that the Taliban have been unable to hold cities theyve invaded for more than just a few days at a stretch.

But signs are emerging that Trump is growing frustrated with the pace of progress in Afghanistan, where the US taxpayer has already spent more than $1 trillion and American soldiers are still dying.

NBC News reported Friday the president is showing fresh interest in a proposal by Eric Prince, the former head of a controversial private military firm once known as Blackwater.

His idea, loathed by the Pentagon, would essentially privatize the Afghan war by replacing most US troops there with private contractors.

Currently, about 14,000 US troops are in Afghanistan, providing the main component of the NATO mission to support and train local forces.

Featured Photo: GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File / MARK WILSON. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on Americas military involvement in Afghanistan.
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In a conversation earlier this summer with Jordans King Abdullah II, the king told Trump about the possibility of a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, which Abdullah said younger Palestinians increasingly favor. Trump is said by French and other diplomats present to have replied, what you say makes sense. [In a one-state scenario,] the prime minister of Israel in a few years will be called Mohammed.

The remark was made in jest, but it is a bad joke and displays complete ignorance of the lengths that Israels far right Likud government goes to make sure no such thing happens. It is called Apartheid. Trumps expectation is like suggesting that in the Jim Crow south, an African-American could have been elected governor.

Israel effectively rules over 13.3 million people.

8.3 million are Israelis proper

Of these, 75% or 6.2 million are Jews, and the other quarter, about 2.1 million, are mostly Palestinian-Israelis and predominantly Muslim, though there are Christians and Druze.

Although Palestinian-Israelis are about a fourth of the country, they do not have have 30 seats in the 120-member parliament. They currently have about 12 members, less than half what their numbers in the country would justify. One member of parliament just resigned over the Jewish Nationality Law that designated non-Jews as second-class citizens who do not participate in national sovereignty.. Others are under pressure to follow suit. The Jewish members of parliament passed a law allowing them arbitrarily to expel Palestinian-Israeli Knesset representatives.

Lots of Palestinian-Israeli villages are not recognized. And, at least 50 laws on the books formally discriminate against Palestinian-Israelis.



h/t Wikipedia

Then there are about 5 million Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. They are stateless and do not have the right to have rights. They mostly have no access to Israeli courts and their property and human rights can be taken away from them at will.

The one-state solution envisaged by the Likud government of Israel is a permanent Israel sovereignty over the 5 million occupied Palestinians that does not envisage their being granted citizenship or the franchise. And even the 2 million Palestinian-Israelis are gradually being redefined as even more second-class citizens than before, and politicians such as Avigdor Lieberman (a relatively recent immigrant to Palestine) argues for denaturalizing them, i.e. taking away their Israeli citizenship.

The nearly 7 million Palestinians under Israeli rule already outnumber the 6.2 million Israeli Jews. If they did gain citizenship and the right to vote, Israeli would become a binational state, resembling Lebanon or Nigeria or Belgium.

But that isnt the plan. The plan is the same one as in South Africa from the late 1940s. The white South Africans, also a minority, hived their African populations off into Bantustans and deprived them of South African citizenship and of the vote in their own country.

The Likud does not want a binational state. At all. It wants an Apartheid state. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu keeps talking about an economic solution to Palestinian woes, as though a higher standard of living could make up for being deprived of their national identity and being kept stateless and without basic human rights.

Moreover, Israel doesnt actually provide that great a living to to the Palestinians, whose per capita gdp actually is probably less than that of Jordan. People who keep saying Palestinians are better off under Israeli rule have no idea what they are talking about. Not only are they objectively for the most part not better off, they live in a powder keg with constant tit for tat violence and their property is constantly being taken or sabotaged by Israeli squatters (who routinely burn, e.g., Palestinian olive orchards).

So Trump might deliver the Palestinians to the Likud on a silver platter and might give Netanyahu international legitimacy for his permanent Apartheid. But that the Likud and its allies would ever allow, much less elect, a Palestinian-Israeli prime minister, is absurd.

On the other hand, if your time horizon is a century, it could well be that a truly binational state emerges from the Apartheid arrangement of today. But it wont be owing to anything Trumps administration does, since his go-to people on this issue like Jared Kushner and David Friedmann are basically Israeli squatters themselves, and the whole policy is being paid for by corrupt far right casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.

-

Bonus Video:

i24News: Trumps Peace Plan: The View from Ramallah
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London (OpenDemocracy.net)  In the absence of civil war, the people of Iraq have found an opportunity to demand that the political elite deliver on their election campaign promises.

While Iraq is in the grip of a breathtaking summer heat-wave, the odor of dissatisfaction rose in the major southern cities of Basra, Najaf and Karbala and swiftly spread to the outskirt of the capital city, Baghdad in July 2018. The spontaneous protests began weeks after the general election concluded in Iraq.

On 12 May 2018, Iraqis went to the ballots to elect members of parliament and subsequently a new Prime Minister. In a sense, these elections were unique in the history of Iraq since the 2003 invasion for three pivotal reasons. First, this is the first general election since the demise of ISIS and its proclaimed caliphate in Iraq. Second, the election occurred a year following a referendum for independence in the Kurdistan region. Third, the election was marred by regional tensions between regional powers.

The May turnout was reportedly around 45 percent, the lowest since 2003. In some constituencies, the results of the elections were contested and faced recounts. Nevertheless, many commentators were caught off guard by the results of the ballot boxes. Iraqs populist Shia cleric, Muqtada Al-Sadrs Al-Sairoon party gained more seats than the incumbent Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi and the powerful coalition of Iranian backed Shia paramilitary factions of Al-Fateh led by Hadi Al-Ameri.

Al-Sadr, led a popular movement advocating a cross-sectarian national government and its umbrella party included non religious parties including Iraqs Communist Party. Nevertheless, after weeks of behind the scenes political haggling over which party will dominate the key ministerial positions, protestors in the south of Iraq poured into the streets. Demonstrators flared over lack of public services. Residents in Basra went on a rampage after accusing the municipality of financial mismanagement, entrenched corruption and failing to provide basic services, and systemic nepotism.

Reportedly in late July, thousands of protesters in Baghdad and the Southern cities called for the downfall of traditional political parties. Many Iraqis believe that since the invasion of Iraq, a generation of certain political elites have been taking a central place in ruling the country whose political patriarchy have for more than a decade made power the province of their own. A resident of Najaf, on condition of anonymity, expressed to me that for a decade appointed governments had no plans to accommodate the Iraqi nations financial concerns. He adds that since the Iraqi government declared victory against ISIS in December 2017, people became even more frustrated with the authorities. This is because the Iraqi people witness the political elites keenly turning to their convoluted routine of haggling to obtain more leverage while paying little attention to the Iraqs economic concerns.

What is important here is that the demonstrations began in Shia populated cities. Since the removal of Saddams regime, the central government in Baghdad is mainly dominated by Shia parties. Having such large scale demonstrations in the Shia holly cities of Najaf and Karbala is unprecedented. In fact, sporadic unrests were mainly taking place in Sunni areas in central Iraq. In 2014, extremist groups such as ISIS managed to take advantage of Baghdads failure in accommodating marginalised Sunni communities within the governmental apparatuses, and it established a so called Caliphate that lasted for three years.

In the absence of civil war, the people of Iraq have found an opportunity to demand that the political elite deliver on their election campaign promises. What is important, is that the Iraqi protesters chant slogans demanding services and jobs, with an absence of sectarian rhetoric amongst the protestors. It is the nature of that unsettledness that is the main melody of recent demonstrations in southern Iraq. Although the response of the caretaker government of Iraq has been heavy-handed, the protests continue to focus on the economic demands.

There is one other key aspect that should be mentioned; Iraqs top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is revered by millions of Shias supported the protests. Sistanis representative stated that the incumbent government must work hard, urgently, to implement citizens demands to reduce their suffering and misery.

Amid weeks of mass protests, Iraqs electricity minister Qassem al-Fahdawin was suspended by Iraqs Prime Minster in late July. Subsequently, Prime Minister Al-Abadi began conducting meetings with delegations of local tribal leaders and prominent individuals, promising a range of swift actions to meet peoples economic demands. In late July, Al-Abadi also ordered compensating poultry farmers who suffered economically due to the bird flu earlier this year.

On 23 July, Sunni Arab tribes of Hawija symbolically issued a press statement backing the protests in the southern provinces. In a sense, there were similar demonstrations in some major cities in the Kurdistan region in December 2017. The Kurdish protestors across Suleimania and Halabja took to the streets over lack of basic services and delayed salaries. A resident in Suleimania expressed to me that many people in Kurdistan have sympathy towards their fellow countrymen in Najaf and Basra, as all suffer from the same pain of lack of basic services and entrenched corruption.

What is clear, however, is that the protests in Iraq are not a revolution. This is a new phase of political maturity across Iraqs streets. The recent demonstrations have brought a new non-sectarian dimension to Iraqs socio-political arena. The future Iraq, like the present one, cannot be governed without accountability or with pure impunity. Each pole of power needs to adjust itself to Iraqs post-sectarian era. Like the creak of a sail-rig as a ship begins to turn, a sign of change in Iraqs socio-political structure can prove decisive. The time is ripe to turn to a non-sectarian technocratic cabinet that focuses on providing welfare to Iraqi citizens and fighting against corruption. But this begs the question of how the future government will address Iraqs concerns tangibly. The peoples voice is certainly intended to show their frustration with the authorities inability to address the countrys economic concerns in the past.

In a sense, in the new Iraq, the economic concerns and peoples financial daily struggles transcend tribal and sectarian fault lines. This is a great challenge and also a significant opportunity for policy makers in Iraq to direct the country towards a non-sectarian and non-tribal governance where the regeneration of the country is the main action plan.

Via OpenDemocracy.net

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

CGTN: Iraq supreme court ratifies results, 90 days left to form a govt
LONDON and CALGARY, Alberta, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mkango Resources Ltd. (AIM / TSXV: MKA) (the "Company" or "Mkango") is pleased to announce results for the first eight holes totaling 944 metres of its targeted 10,000 metre diamond drilling programme at the Songwe Hill Rare Earths Project (Songwe) in Malawi. The drilling programme is a key component of the ongoing Feasibility Study for Songwe. Highlights from the new results are as follows:

PX062 147.2 m1 grading 1.6% Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO) (5.3  152.5 m end of hole (EoH)). Inclined hole (70 degrees east). PX065 91.0 m2 grading 1.5% TREO (0.0  91.0 m) including 27.0 m2 grading 2.0% TREO (23.0  50.0 m). Inclined hole (60 degrees west). PX047 51.8 m grading 1.6% TREO (16.2  68.0 m). Inclined hole (60 degrees west). PX046 48.0 m grading 1.2% TREO (4.0  52.0 m). Inclined hole (60 degrees south). PX045b 9.2 m grading 2.0% TREO (6.1  15.3 m) and 27.5 m grading 1.5% TREO (30.5  58.0 m EoH). Vertical hole. PX042 19.1 m grading 1.0% TREO (18.0  37.1 m). Inclined hole (60 degrees west). PX036 42.8 m grading 1.3% TREO (87.3  130.1 m EoH) including 6.7 m grading 2.2% TREO (123.4  130.1 m EoH). Inclined hole (60 degrees west).

1 Includes a 2.0m cavity not sampled. 2 Includes a 2.7m cavity not sampled. TREO: total rare earth oxides based on total La 2 O 3 , Ce 2 O 3 , Pr 2 O 3 , Nd 2 O 3 , Sm 2 O 3 , Eu 2 O 3 , Gd 2 O 3 , Tb 2 O 3 , Dy 2 O 3 , Ho 2 O 3 , Er 2 O 3 , Tm 2 O 3 , Yb 2 O 3 , Lu 2 O 3 , Y 2 O 3 . These intersections are reported as down hole widths and do not necessarily represent true thicknesses and attitude of the mineralised zones, the estimation of which will require further refining of the geological model.

William Dawes, Chief Executive Officer, commented: These are an excellent first set of results from the current programme and we look forward to announcing results from the remaining approximately 75 drill holes as they become available. The drill programme and planned resource update are fully funded following investments by Talaxis Limited totalling 6 million in January 2018. Talaxis will invest a further 7 million to fund completion of the Feasibility Study for Songwe on Mkango publishing a NI 43-101 technical report in relation to the resource update.

The drill programme is focused on infill drilling to confirm and upgrade the existing Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource Estimates, testing extensions to the mineralisation and geotechnical drilling.

All eight drill holes intersected rare earth mineralisation, with the table above highlighting intersections averaging 1% TREO or more.

Drill holes PX065, PX062, PX046, PX047, PX042 and PX045b above were focused on infill drilling. Intersections of broad zones of mineralisation, as opposed to narrow veins or dykes, continue to support the concept of a bulk tonnage, open pit mining operation with low mining costs.

Drill hole PX036 was focused on testing the southerly extension of mineralisation. The significance of the more than 42 m of mineralisation intersected by PX036 at depth (87.3  130.1 m), including 6.7 metres grading 2.2% TREO to the end of the hole (130.1m), is being evaluated. This was the first hole in the projects history to be drilled in the area near the summit of Songwe Hill. Another hole testing the southerly extension of mineralisation, PX037, did not reach the target depth.

A total of 8,466 metres of drilling, comprising 70 drill holes, has now been completed as at August 20, 2018.

A schematic geological map illustrating the location of the drill hole collars and estimated drill hole traces is available on the Companys website (www.mkango.ca).

The breakdown of TREO values reported above are as follows:

Drill Hole From To Interval La 2 O 3 Ce 2 O 3 Pr 2 O 3 Nd 2 O 3 Sm 2 O 3 Eu 2 O 3 Gd 2 O 3 Tb 2 O 3 Dy 2 O 3 Ho 2 O 3 Er 2 O 3 Tm 2 O 3 Yb 2 O 3 Lu 2 O 3 Y 2 O 3 TREO m m m ppm ppm ppm ppm ppm ppm ppm ppm ppm ppm ppm ppm ppm ppm ppm % PX062 5.3 152.5 147.2 (i) 4,226 7,157 736 2,524 364 96 225 27 113 18 43 5 30 4 512 1.6% (i) Includes 2.0m cavity not sampled. PX065 0.0 91.0 91.0 (i) 3,600 6,594 689 2,352 319 83 191 23 107 17 41 5 29 4 489 1.5% including 23.0 50.0 27.0 (i) 5,595 9,574 954 3,020 370 91 196 21 88 13 27 3 16 2 329 2.0% (i) Includes 2.7m cavity not sampled. PX047 16.2 68.0 51.8 3,606 7,149 800 2,877 415 115 280 36 179 29 70 9 47 6 807 1.6% PX046 4.0 52.0 48.0 2,486 5,129 577 2,104 317 92 227 30 146 25 60 8 47 6 703 1.2% PX045b 6.1 15.3 9.2 5,257 8,278 806 2,752 469 136 330 44 224 42 118 18 112 14 1,318 2.0% 30.5 58.0 27.5 3,876 6,232 617 2,075 337 98 240 30 144 25 61 8 46 6 737 1.5% PX042 18.0 37.1 19.1 2,490 4,263 440 1,496 235 70 174 23 112 18 41 5 31 4 486 1.0% PX036 87.3 130.1 42.8 2,821 5,648 636 2,279 295 67 141 15 77 15 41 6 35 5 483 1.3% including 123.4 130.1 6.7 5,540 10,403 1,078 3,582 391 83 162 15 65 11 29 4 28 4 357 2.2%

Scientific and technical information contained in this release including sampling, analytical, and test data underlying the information has been approved and verified by Dr. Scott Swinden of Swinden Geoscience Consultants Ltd, who is a "Qualified Person" in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Sample preparation and analytical work for the drilling and channel sampling programmes are being provided by Intertek-Genalysis Laboratories (Perth, Australia) employing ICP-MS techniques suitable for rare earth element (REE) analyses and following strict internal QAQC procedures inserting duplicates, blanks and standards. Internal Laboratory QAQC was also completed to include blanks, standards and duplicates.

About Mkango Resources Limited

Mkango's primary business is exploration for rare earth elements and associated minerals in the Republic of Malawi, a country whose hospitable people have earned it a reputation as the warm heart of Africa. The Company holds interests in three exclusive prospecting licenses in Malawi, the Phalombe licence, the Thambani licence and the Chimimbe Hill licence.

The main exploration target in the 80% held Phalombe licence is the Songwe Hill rare earths deposit, which features carbonatite-hosted rare earth mineralisation and was subject to previous exploration in the late 1980s. Mkango completed an updated Pre-Feasibility Study for the project in November 2015 and a Feasibility Study is currently underway, the initial phases of which include a major drilling programme.

Under the terms of an agreement with Talaxis, Talaxis will fully fund the Feasibility Study for Songwe by investing 12 million for a 49% interest in the project (via Mkango subsidiary Lancaster Exploration Ltd). Talaxis will also have the option to acquire a further 26% interest by arranging funding for project development including funding the equity component thereof. If Talaxis exercises its option, Mkango will retain a 25% interest, free carried to production. To-date, Talaxis has invested 5 million, which is funding the initial phase of the Feasibility Study, for a 20% interest in the project with Mkango holding 80%.

By investing a further 2 million, Talaxis will acquire a 49% interest in Maginito Ltd, a new subsidiary of Mkango focused on neodymium alloy powders, magnets and other technologies. This includes the collaboration with Metalysis Ltd announced in September 2017, which is focused on advanced alloys using neodymium or praseodymium with other elements for permanent magnet manufacturing. Permanent magnets are critical materials for most electric vehicles, direct drive wind turbines and many other high growth applications. Neodymium is a key rare earth component at Songwe. To date, Talaxis has invested 1 million for a 24.5% interest in Maginito with Mkango holding 75.5%.

The main exploration targets in Mkangos remaining two 100% held licences are, in the Thambani licence, uranium, niobium, tantalum and zircon and, in the Chimimbe Hill licence, nickel and cobalt.

For more information, please visit www.mkango.ca.

Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure

Certain information contained in this announcement may have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 until the release of this announcement.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements (within the meaning of that term under applicable securities laws) with respect to Mkango, its business and the Project. Generally, forward looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as plans, expects or is expected, scheduled, estimates intends, anticipates, believes, or variations of such words and phrases, or statements that certain actions, events or results can, may, could, would, should, might or will, occur or be achieved, or the negative connotations thereof. Forward looking statements in this news release include statements with respect to the global market for products using the rare earth metals the Company is exploring for, completion of the feasibility study and of the transactions contemplated in the Agreement, as well as the use of proceeds from the investments into the Company by Talaxis and the timing of such expenditures. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, known and unknown risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not occur, which may cause actual performance and results in future periods to differ materially from any estimates or projections of future performance or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors and risks include, without limiting the foregoing, market demand for the metals and associated downstream products for which Mkango is exploring, researching and developing, the positive results of a feasibility study on the Project, delays in obtaining financing or governmental or stock exchange approvals. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Additionally, the Company undertakes no obligation to comment on the expectations of, or statements made by, third parties in respect of the matters discussed above.

For further information on Mkango, please contact:

Mkango Resources Limited

William Dawes

Chief Executive Officer

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

UK: +44 207 3722 744

Canada: +1 403 444 5979

www.mkango.ca

Alexander Lemon

President

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@MkangoResources

Blytheweigh

Financial Public Relations

Tim Blythe, Camilla Horsfall, Julia Tilley

UK: +44 207 138 3204

SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP

Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker

Jeff Keating, Caroline Rowe

UK: +44 20 3470 0470

Alternative Resource Capital

Joint Broker

Alex Wood, Rob Collins

UK: +44 20 7186 9004; +44 20 7186 9001

The TSX Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any equity or other securities of the Company in the United States. The securities of the Company will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the U.S. Securities Act) and may not be offered or sold within the United States to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons except in certain transactions exempt from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act.
VANCOUVER, Aug. 20, 2018 /CNW/ - Alio Gold Inc (TSX, NYSE AMERICAN: ALO) ("Alio Gold" or the "Company"), or the "Company"), today reports changes aimed at aligning capability to focus on its operating mines and reduce overhead costs.

Recently, the Company announced the temporary suspension of exploration and development work at its Ana Paula project and a commitment to focus its efforts and capital allocation on its two operating mines, San Francisco and Florida Canyon. The Company is aligning its capability to support these efforts. As a result, Paul Hosford, Vice President of Project Development, and the Project Manager, Terry Murphy, will be leaving the Company on August 31, 2018. The Company has also taken steps to reduce costs at the Ana Paula project site in Mexico while maintaining a level of local employment and community engagement.

"We would like to thank Paul and his development team for their efforts in advancing Ana Paula," said Greg McCunn, Chief Executive Officer. "We have increased our knowledge of the project greatly over the last year and made significant improvements to the infrastructure which will make it simpler to resume work when we are in a position to do so."

In addition, Colette Rustad, Chief Financial Officer, has left the Company on August 17, 2018.

"Colette was brought on last year to lead the arrangement of $100 million in debt financing and put all the financial systems in place to build a mine," Greg McCunn added. "We made excellent progress on those efforts, but the decline in gold price and the equity capital market conditions are not supportive of advancing the Ana Paula project at this time. We wish Colette all the best in her future endeavors."

Ian Harcus, currently Corporate Controller, has been appointed Vice President Finance and will lead the finance function for the Company. In conjunction with this, the Company has also implemented a number of changes at its corporate office in Vancouver which in total are expected to reduce the corporate overhead by approximately $1.2 million over the next 12 months.

Technical capability is now being aligned under Doug Jones, Chief Operating Officer, as the Company focuses on the technical review of the San Francisco mining operations in Sonora, Mexico. The objective of the review is to improve understanding and mining operations in the San Francisco pit aiming at reduced mining dilution and improved grades feeding the crushing circuit ahead of heap leaching. At Florida Canyon, the Company has begun implementing new management systems and processes as part of the integration process. Joe Campbell, the current General Manager at San Francisco, will be moving into the General Manager role at Florida Canyon to lead these changes. The new life of mine plan and supporting technical report for Florida Canyon is on track for completion by the end of this year.

About Alio Gold

Alio Gold is a growth-oriented gold mining company, focused on exploration, development and production in Mexico and the USA. Its principal assets include its 100%-owned and operating San Francisco Mine in Sonora, Mexico, its 100%-owned and operating Florida Canyon Mine in Nevada, USA and its 100%-owned development stage Ana Paula Project in Guerrero, Mexico. The Company also has a portfolio of other exploration properties located in Mexico and the USA.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements and information contained in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable U.S. securities laws and "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, which we refer to collectively as "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements are statements and information regarding possible events, conditions or results of operations that are based upon assumptions about future economic conditions and courses of action. All statements and information other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "seek", "expect", "anticipate", "budget", "plan", "estimate", "continue", "forecast", "intend", "believe", "predict", "potential", "target", "may", "could", "would", "might", "will" and similar words or phrases (including negative variations) suggesting future outcomes or statements regarding an outlook.

Forward-looking statements in news release herein by reference include, but are not limited to statements which relate to future events. Such statements include estimates, forecasts and statements with respect to project development risks and estimated future production and cash costs, future trends, plans, strategies, objectives and expectations, including with respect to costs, capital requirements, availability of financing, production, exploration and reserves and resources, projected production at the Company's San Francisco Property, Florida Canyon Property and Ana Paula Project, including estimated internal rate of return and projected production, exploitation activities and potential, and future operations, projected operational updates to the Ana Paula Project, expectations regarding environmental studies at the Ana Paula Project, expectations regarding permitting at the Ana Paula Project and expectations regarding the payment of dividends on the Company's common shares.

Such forward-looking statements are based on a number of material factors and assumptions, including, but not limited to: the successful completion of development projects, planned expansions or other projects within the timelines anticipated and at anticipated production levels; the accuracy of reserve and resource, grade, mine life, cash cost, net present value and internal rate of return estimates and other assumptions, projections and estimates made in the technical reports for the San Francisco Property, Florida Canyon Property and the Ana Paula Project; that mineral resources can be developed as planned; interest and exchange rates; that required financing and permits will be obtained; general economic conditions, that labour disputes, flooding, ground instability, fire, failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate are as anticipated and other risks of the mining industry will not be encountered; that contracted parties provide goods or services in a timely manner; that there is no material adverse change in the price of gold, silver or other metals; competitive conditions in the mining industry; title to mineral properties costs; and changes in laws, rules and regulations applicable to the Company. Forward- looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. The Company believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements contained herein.

Some of the risks and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward- looking statements contained in this news release herein by reference include, but are not limited to: decreases in the price of gold; competition with other companies with greater financial and human resources and technical facilities; risks associated with doing business in Mexico; maintaining compliance with governmental regulations and expenses associated with such compliance; ability to hire, train, deploy and manage qualified personnel in a timely manner; ability to obtain or renew required government permits; failure to discover new reserves, maintain or enhance existing reserves or develop new operations; risks and hazards associated with exploration and mining operations; accessibility and reliability of existing local infrastructure and availability of adequate infrastructures in the future; environmental regulation; land reclamation requirements; ownership of, or control over, the properties on which the Company operates; maintaining existing property rights or obtaining new rights; inherent uncertainties in the process of estimating mineral reserves and resources; reported reserves and resources may not accurately reflect the economic viability of the Company's properties; uncertainties in estimating future mine production and related costs; risks associated with expansion and development of mining properties; currency exchange rate fluctuations; directors' and officers' conflicts of interest; inability to access additional capital; problems integrating new acquisitions and other problems with strategic transactions; legal proceedings; uncertainties related to the repatriation of funds from foreign subsidiaries; no dividend payments; volatile share price; negative research reports or analyst's downgrades and dilution; and other factors contained in the section entitled "Risks and Uncertainties" per above.

Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, you are cautioned that this list is not exhaustive and there may be other factors that the Company has not identified. Furthermore, the Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements included in, or incorporated by reference in, this news release if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as otherwise required by applicable law.

Neither the TSX nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX) nor the New York Stock Exchange MKT accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2018) - Lupaka Gold Corp. ("Lupaka Gold" or the "Company") (TSXV: LPK) (FSE: LQP) is pleased to provide an update on recent development activities at the Invicta Gold Development Project ("Invicta"). Processing of mineralized development material from Invicta has recently commenced and the first concentrates have been successfully produced. The mineralized development material was transported to two local toll milling facilities, following substantial completion of the road rehabilitation and upgrade project.

Highlights:

Rehabilitation and upgrade of the 26 k ilometre ("km") main access road is substantially complete ; transportation of mineralized development material to local toll milling facilities was initiated during Q2 2018

Approximately 6,500 tonnes ("t") of mineralized development material was extracted from the 3400 Level, the 3430 sublevel , and the relief raise , stockpiled on surface and systematically sampled returning an average grade of 7. 21 grams per tonne ("g/t") gold equivalent ("Au-Eq") *

The 6 , 5 00 t of mineralized development material was transported to two local toll milling facilit ies, and to date, approximately 1,900 t have been processed

In September, an additional 6,000 t of mineralized development material will be transported to a third toll milling facility for processing

I nspection by the Ministry of Mines and Energy for the mining exploitation license is expected to be completed before the end of October

Production from the first test mining stope expected during Q3 2018

* Au-Eq. calculations are based on US$1250 for gold ("Au"), US$17.00 for silver ("Ag"), US$3.00 for copper ("Cu"), US$1.25 for zinc ("Zn"), and US$1.05 for lead ("Pb"), with assumed metallurgical recoveries of 85% for Au, 80% for Ag, 82 % for Cu and Pb, and 77% for Zn. Individual grades were 3.23 g/t Au, 49.13 g/t Ag, 1.3% Cu, 1.22% Pb, and 1.04% Zn

"We are encouraged by the development activities achieved to-date at Invicta. Substantial completion of the road rehabilitation project has allowed us to commence the evaluation of local toll processing facilities and the ability to generate some initial cash flow ahead of production. Our operations team have been working diligently on all fronts, and we are on track to commence test mining within our budgeted timeline."

Will Ansley, CEO and President of Lupaka

Transportation of Mineralized Material & Toll Processing Activities

Upgrade and rehabilitation work to the 28 km main access road, from the paved highway to Invicta, is now substantially complete. This work included widening the road from 4 metres ("m") to approximately 6 m, construction of four by-passes to circumvent communities and difficult portions of the road where numerous switchbacks occurred, improving the road surface to allow 30 t haulage trucks and heavy machinery to travel, and the installation of berms and drainage ditches. Along with the reduction of traffic within the communities and increasing the efficiency of hauling, the main and most important benefits of these improvements is increasing safety conditions for transporting mineralized material and people.

Completion of the road project allowed the Company to initiate transportation of mineralized development material. Approximately 6,500 t of mineralized development material was extracted from the 3400 Level, the 3430 sublevel, and the relief raise, stockpiled on surface and systematically sampled returning an average grade of 7.21 g/t Au-Eq*. This material was transported to two toll milling facilities comprising 5,000 t to the Coriland plant and 1,500 t to the Huari plant, located some 170 km and 365 km from Invicta, respectively. To date, 1,900 t of mineralized material has been processed and it is expected that the remaining 4,600 t will be processed by the end of Q3 2018. Concentrate sale proceeds from the 6,500 t will be used to offset Invicta's development costs.

In September, an additional 6,000 t of mineralized development material will be transported to a third, larger, toll milling facility, located 340 km from Invicta, for processing and evaluation.

Development Activities and Exploitation License

In addition to completion of the road rehabilitation and upgrade project, recent development activities consisted of: 146 m of development on the 3430 sublevel; 30 m of vertical development for a relief slot between the 3400 Level and 3430 sublevel; slashing and rehabilitation from 3.5 m x 3.0 m to 4.5 m x 4.0 m; installation of ground support over 176 m on the 3400 Level; establishment of the ventilation circuit, installation of the underground electrical, compressed air, and mine water catchment and related treatment facilities. Figure 1 illustrates the development and mining schedule through October 2018.

With the advancement of Invicta's development to-date, the Company is preparing a filing to obtain the final mining exploitation license, which requires an inspection by the Ministry of Mines and Energy. It is anticipated the inspection will be performed before the end of October and upon successful receipt of the exploitation license, the Company will have the ability to produce at a rate of 400 t per day ("tpd"), or approximately 12,000 t per month.

Figure 1  Invicta Development and Mining Schedule

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as the term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of this news release.

About Lupaka Gold

Lupaka is an active Canadian-based company focused on creating shareholder value through discoveries and strategic development of its assets in some of the most prolific mining regions of Peru.

Invicta Gold Development Project  100% owned, the Company's flagship project is an advanced stage gold-copper polymetallic underground deposit located approximately 120 kilometres north of Lima. Over $12 million of capital has been spent by previous owners on development and infrastructure at Invicta, and management expects to commence production in the second half of 2018 by using third-party mining contractors and utilizing the existing adit and workings. The Invicta project is fully permitted and community agreements are in place.

The underground operation of the Atenea vein will be focused initially on the extraction of about 80,000 t of Indicated Mineral Resources that has been exposed on three sides comprising the 3400 and 3430 sublevels plus the mining relief slot from the 3400 to the 3430 sublevel, and the Inferred Mineral Resources within close proximity of the existing 3400 Level adit (up to 130 metres above the 3400 Level).

Invicta's approved EIA allows for mine production of up to 1,000 tpd, although the current conceptual mining plan is scheduling to commence at 350 tpd.

Cautionary Note Regarding the Invicta Production Decision

The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves and there is no certainty that the PEA will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The quantity and grade of reported inferred resources referred to in the PEA are uncertain in nature and there has been insufficient exploration to define these inferred resources as an indicated or measured mineral resource category.

It is important to note while a mine production decision has been made by the Company, that the information provided in this news release is preliminary in nature. There is no certainty that a potential mine will be realized. A mine production decision that is not based on a feasibility study demonstrating economic and technical viability does not provide adequate disclosure of the increased uncertainty and specific economic and technical risks of failure associated with such a production decision.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Will Ansley, President & C.E.O.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tel: (416) 862-5257

or visit the Company's profile at www.sedar.com or its website at www.lupakagold.com

Qualified Person

The technical information in this document has been reviewed and approved by Julio Castaneda Mondragon, MAIG, the President of Lupaka Gold Peru S.A.C., a Peruvian subsidiary of the Company, and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Castaneda has verified the scientific and technical information, including sampling, analytical and test data underlying the information or opinions contained in this news release.

Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking statements which constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including all statements, trend analysis and other information relative to anticipated future events or results. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are considered forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements relating to: the processing of an additional 4,600 tonnes of mineralized development material and the anticipated timing and results thereof; the transport of an additional 6,000 tonnes of mineralized development material to a third toll milling facility, and the timing and results thereof; any generation of cash flow there-form; and the commencement of production from Invicta in Q3 2018.

Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, estimates and opinions of management at the date the statements are made and which the Company believes are reasonable. Such information involves risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed on such information, as unknown or unpredictable factors could have material adverse effects on future results, performance or achievements of the Company. Among the key factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information are the following: that the repayment of the PLI Financing is consummated on the anticipated terms; that the Company will not experience any material accident, labour dispute, shortage of skilled and professional staff, changes in project plans, equipment availability and failures, process failures, the ability of third party service providers to deliver services on reasonable terms and in a timely manner; future exploration activities planned at the Invicta Gold Project, and the timing and results thereof; market conditions and general business, economic, competitive, political and social conditions and with respect to the planned mining operations at Invicta; that pre-production mine development can be completed in the time and for the cost projected; that the Company will be able to obtain funding for planned production expenses; that mineralization at Invicta will be of the grades and in the locations expected; that the Company will be able to extract and transport mineralized rock efficiently and sell the mineralized rock at the prices and in the manner recoveries and quantities expected; that permits will be received on the terms and timeline expected and that other regulatory or permitting issues will not arise; that mining methods and reclamation can be employed in the manner and at the costs expected and that such methods yield the results the Company expects them to. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such risks, uncertainties and other factors include, among others: all of the risks described in this news release; that the Company will not be able to comply with the delivery or other obligations in the PLI Financing Agreement and the risk that PLI will enforce its security over the Company's assets, including its mineral properties; s; changes in commodity prices; currency exchange rates (such as the Canadian dollar versus the United States dollar); risks associated with dilution; labour and employment matters; risks in the event of a potential conflict of interest; changes in general economic, business and political conditions, including changes in the financial markets; changes in applicable laws; and compliance with extensive government regulation; and other risks generally associated with mineral exploration. This forward-looking information may be affected by risks and uncertainties in the regular course of business and due to market conditions. Additional risks are described in the Company's annual information form, which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to not be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information due to the inherent uncertainty thereof. Lupaka Gold does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
Kansas State University experts confront looming threat of African swine fever in Asia

Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018

Jurgen Richt, director of the Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases at Kansas State University, joins Young Lyoo, dean of veterinary medicine at Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea, in a discussion with media, government officials, scientists and students about efforts to combat the spread of African swine fever. | Download this photo.





MANHATTAN  Kansas State University experts are providing guidance to officials in East Asia on the emerging problem of African swine fever.



Jurgen Richt, Regents distinguished professor and director of the university's Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases, known as CEEZAD, is an internationally recognized expert on transboundary animal diseases. He was in Asia to deliver a series of presentations when an outbreak of African swine fever was reported in China on Aug. 1. A second outbreak was reported on Aug. 16, and a third on Aug. 19.



African swine fever is a highly contagious disease of domestic pigs and wild boar. The disease causes high fever, respiratory problems, weakness, and stillbirths. The economic consequences for the pork production industry are grim: Mortality rates among affected animals approach 100 percent. More than 8,000 pigs were culled in response to the initial outbreak, according to news reports.



"Efforts to handle a potential outbreak have not succeeded, so we have to be concerned about the disease spreading across national boundaries," Richt said. "The first outbreak occurred only a little more than 120 miles north of North Korea."



Richt spoke with veterinary medicine faculty and students at Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea, and with members of South Korean media and swine associations. He said South Korea is not well prepared to handle the outbreak and that the country is working to improve its emergency procedures. Containing the disease is particularly difficult because it tends to spread via wild boars.



Richt also discussed the challenges facing those trying to develop vaccines for African swine fever. CEEZAD is actively involved in the effort to produce mitigation strategies to control African swine fever and to develop vaccines.



Young Lyoo, dean of the Konkuk University College of Veterinary Medicine, said Richt's information will help provide a front line of defense to save a major industry and protect a valuable protein source.



"Dr. Richt provided not only expert knowledge and opinion on the disease and a control, but also disseminated awareness to the public, government and industry through media exposure," Lyoo said. "His visit showed how important international cooperation is to fight against contagious transboundary disease."



Richt said the disease presents trade problems for China and other Asian countries. China produces nearly half the world's pork.



"African swine fever is a threat to world trade in the pork industry, which will ultimately affect western Europe, the United States and other trade partners," he said.



Stephen Higgs, director of Kansas State University's Biosecurity Research Institute, and Wenjun Ma, associate professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology at the university's College of Veterinary Medicine, also traveled to China to give invited talks at the Conference on Animal Infectious Diseases and Human Health jointly conducted by the Chinese Association of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine and the Chinese Society for Immunology in Harbin, China. Higgs described work at the Biosecurity Research Institute, Richt presented a lecture on Rift Valley fever virus, and Ma discussed his work on bat influenza viruses.



Higgs said the invitations indicate international respect for Kansas State University research in infectious disease and biodefense.

"Our facilities and experts are second to none," Higgs said. "We are keeping a close eye on disease outbreaks around the world and maintaining a rigorous research program to defend against economically devastating livestock diseases."



"Fundamental science questions about diseases like African swine fever can only be addressed in the unique facilities we have by the talented faculty, students and staff at K-State," said Peter Dorhout, the university's vice president for research. "Our land-grant university heritage and mission align perfectly with how Professor Richt and his team apply their new knowledge about African swine fever to help protect the world's food supply and a critical agricultural industry."






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A gentle giant who came to Kilkenny city in 2005, endeared himself to all who came into contact with him until he passed away recently.

Cezary Balcerzyk from Kalisz in Poland, came to the city to work with the Farm Relief Service.

A year later in 2006, he joined the staff at Chancellors Mills on the city's Freshford Road where he was an instant hit and highly thought of by his colleagues and the Dalton family who held him in the highest esteem.

He was hard to miss at 6' 6 and he was a Trojan worker, meticulous and conscientious.

His beaming smile, hearty handshakes and general good humour endeared him to customers and fellow employees and anyone who had the good fortune to be in his company.

His death at such a young age from an infection after heart surgery robbed his family and friends of a very special person.

And in keeping with his wishes, the Dalton family organised for his remains to be brought home by road to his native Poland because it had always been his fervent wish to drive back to his beloved Kalisz, a city of 100,00 people in the centre of the country, to see his mother who is still alive.

And at his funeral Mass in Polish, two weeks ago in St Johns Church on the citys Dublin Road, the farmers and other customers that he served on a regular basis filled the church to bid farewell to a man they trusted.

Back to 2006 - At Chancellors Mills he quickly became a popular and trusted member of the workforce.

No task was considered too great or too small, he took great pride in his work and everything had to be finished to perfection; there were no half measures.

Although adopting quickly to the Irish way of life, he never forgot his roots, he always spoke warmly of his family, friends and home place and visited his native city whenever possible.

In the end its not the years in your life that count but the life in your years.

Although Cezarys passing came all too soon at the relatively young age of 47, he had packed a great deal into that short space of time, making a lasting impression on all who were lucky enough to know him.

He will be sadly missed by his fellow workers in Chancellors Mills and by his many friends both Irish and Polish.

Chancellors Mills heartfelt condolences go to his extended family and friends in Poland but in particular to his mother Zofia, daughter Kinga and his partner Angelica.



Niech jego sliczna dusza bedzie po prawicy Boga.
The Herald reports:

New Zealands first offender, a Whanganui stabber, to be given the maximum sentence available under the controversial three-strikes rule is the law working as it was intended, says Act Party leader David Seymour.  The three-strikes law requires a person convicted of a third serious violent, sexual or drugs offence to be sentenced to the maximum available sentence without parole, unless it would be manifestly unjust. Justice Collins, a former Solicitor-General of New Zealand from 2006 to 2012, sentenced Hayze Neihana Waitokia to seven years imprisonment for wounding with intent to injure after stabbing a man in the leg while on bail.

So he was on bail and he stabbed someone. What else is in his record.

Waitokia has 14 previous convictions, including six for violent offending. In 2012, the 26-year-old was sentenced to five months home detention and was given his first-strike warning for a vicious assault using a piece of wood. In 2014, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment and given his second-strike warning for stalking and sexually assaulting a 17 year-old girl. Waitokia was also sentenced to four months imprisonment for domestic violence assaults in March this year.

A perfect example of why we need Three Strikes. He is a violent recidivist who has bashed, sexually assaulted and stabbed multiple victims. He was on the bail and parole merry-go-round and it has now come to an end.

At sentencing today, Justice Collins said he was not convinced that it would be grossly disproportionate to sentence Waitokia the the maximum term. I acknowledge that your sentence will be much harsher than I would otherwise

have imposed, however, that will invariably be the case for a third-strike offence, the judge said. Parliament deliberately designed a harsh response to offenders who persistently

commit serious offences despite clear warnings. Justice Collins continued: I have reached the conclusion that this is not a clear and convincing case to depart from the full effects of the three strikes regime. This conclusion is based in part because I consider that you are at a high-risk of reoffending and there is a need for community protection. Your previous three strike offences, and the pattern of behaviour they demonstrate, are very telling.

Justice Collins has it right.

Heres what we know about Waitokia from the sentencing notes:

14 convictions by age 26

Six convictions for violent offending

Wounding with intent in 2012

Sexual violation in 2014

Domestic violence assaults in 2018

Rated high risk of reoffending

Involved in violence against prison guards

Now if we did not have the three strikes law, his sentence would have been two years and three months. And he would have been eligible for parole after just nine months in prison.

Labour wants to repeal the law which means he could be out back on the streets after just nine months to stab, bash or sexually assault further victims.

It would be nice if someone can find a way to rehabilitate him, and stop him offending. Im all for that. But until we can, I want the community safe from him. Heres what the Judge said about his second strike:

Your second-strike offence, while for a different kind of offending, was more serious than your first-strike offence. You followed a 17-year-old girl as she was walking home. She either tripped or was pushed to the ground. You indecently assaulted her and forcibly pulled down her underwear while telling her to calm down. You then forcefully penetrated her genitalia with your finger. She screamed and yelled for help, begging you not to hurt her further. You also threw her cell phone away during the attack. You attempted to remove your pants with one hand while holding her with the other. At this stage, the victim managed to bite your forearm and fortunately, she managed to escape. Your offending had major negative emotional impacts on the victim.

The pre-sentence report for this offence described you as reluctant to

even discuss the incident. It also concluded there was no evidence of remorse and that you displayed no emotion

And the Judge also noted:

All three of these offences occurred within a period of approximately six and half years. You continued to offend on each occasion shortly after the end of your previous sentence.

Basically the moment he is out, he creates a new victim. So if he is out in two years, there is a new victim in two years. Have him in for seven years, and that is a further five years without a new victim.

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The logo of the joint venture between Korean Air and Delta Air Lines / Courtesy of Korean Air

Korean Air has begun offering better services to its customers, since the establishment of a joint venture with Delta Air Lines on May 1, the nation's largest air carrier said Monday.



The Korean firm will operate flights between Incheon and Boston starting from April 12, 2019, while the U.S. company will begin providing flights for the route between Incheon and Minneapolis, April 2, 2019.



The Incheon-Boston flights will help passengers access the Northeastern U.S. more conveniently. Travelers to the largest city in the state of Minnesota will also be able to visit more easily, thanks to Delta's direct flights to Minneapolis.



Korean Air had stopped operating flights to Boston 18 years ago, due to low profitability. However, it now expects Delta's sales network in the United States will help it profit from the formerly unprofitable route.



After getting government approval for operating flights on the two routes, Korean Air and Delta will add 90 routes, including routes between Boston and Pittsburg and between Minneapolis and Cleveland, to their code-share programs, in order to offer more options to their customers.



Since launching the joint venture, the two full-service air carriers have increased the number of routes in the U.S. at which they run code-share programs from 164 to 370.



Beginning June 6, Korean Air started running code-share programs with Delta for flights from Nagoya to Detroit and from Narita to Atlanta, Seattle, Detroit and Portland.



Residents in southeastern Korea have therefore been able to visit the U.S. conveniently via the Japanese airports, by using Korean Air's flights departing from Gimhae International Airport.



Delta has been running code-share programs with Korean Air for 38 routes in Asia as well.



The two companies have also adjusted flight schedules for their passengers to spend less time transferring.



Their efforts are expected to have more travelers use the second passenger terminal in Incheon International Airport for their transfers, instead of Narita International Airport.



"Korean Air and Delta Air Lines will run code-share programs in the Latin American countries," a Korean Air official said. "We will share lounges and counters with Delta, and will continue to make efforts to provide better services to our customers."



(Advertorial)


Abu Dhabi, Aug 19: A United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based businessman has announced a 2.6 million dirhams ($707,837) donation towards relief operations in the flood-hit Indian state of Kerala.

According to K.P. Hussain, chairman of Fathima Healthcare Group, about half of the amount will directly go to the Kerala Chief Minister's Relief Fund, while the rest will be allocated for medical relief aid, reports Khaleej Times.

Hussain said that the group has coordinated with the state's health secretary to send volunteers from its medical faculty, which includes doctors and paramedics, to relief camps.

Other UAE businessmen had also earlier pledged a donation to help in flood relief operations. As of Sunday, the toll from the torrential rains and the subsequent floods that have ravaged Kerala since August 9 stood at 370.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 19, 2018 04:32 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Srinagar, August 21: Father of martyred Indian Army rifleman Aurangzeb Khan today requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to meet Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan so that peace can be maintained in the Kashmir Valley. Taking to news agency ANI, Mohammed Hanif said, I request PM Modi to meet Imran Khan. There should be such an understanding between the two countries that no person should be killed and both the countries should develop.

Rifleman Aurangzeb was abducted and killed by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmirs Pulwama district. His body was found at Gusoo in Pulwama. Aurangzeb was a resident of Poonch and was serving in Rashtriya Rifles. The terrorists abducted him while he was on his way to his home for Eid. He was part of the operation along with Major Rohit Shukla in which Sameer Tiger and other terrorists were killed.

I request PM Modi to meet Imran Khan. There should be such an understanding between the two countries that no person should be killed and both the countries should develop: Mohd Hanif, father of rifleman Aurangzeb (abducted & killed by terrorists in Pulwama on June 14) pic.twitter.com/J80K4dCgmG  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2018

The government on the eve of Independence Day nominated Aurangzeb for Shaurya Chakra for his bravery. Meanwhile, Aurangzeb's father Hanif and mother Raz Begum unfurled the national flag at Regal Chowk on Independence Day in Madhya Pradesh's Indore. Talking to media, they said that they were proud of his sacrifice for the country. Last year in a similar way, Lt Umar Fayaz who belonged to Kulgam was also killed by the terrorists in Shopian.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 21, 2018 04:51 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 21: The UAE has pledged $100 million for flood-battered Kerala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced on Tuesday, adding "a new Kerala" needed to be built following the widespread destruction.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), home to hundreds of thousands of Keralites, has informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi that it would be providing $100 million for Kerala, Vijayan told the media.

"A new Kerala has to be built. At today's cabinet meeting, it has been decided to submit a detailed list to the Centre," he said. "Funds are the prime requisite for this. This will be raised by us through various sources besides getting it from the Centre and other agencies," he said.

"The Kerala diaspora has been a huge source of help for us. Since they have done tremendous service in the Middle East, it has helped build good relations with the governments there.

"Today morning, the UAE rulers informed our Prime Minister about their contribution for Kerala and this was conveyed to me by M.A. Yusuf Ali (who owns Lulu Supermarkets)," he said, thanking the Emirate for the timely help.

Vijayan said they would ask the Centre to allow Kerala to increase the market borrowings from 3 per cent of the state's total revenue to 4.5 per cent. As a result, an additional Rs 10,000 crore can be raised.

"We have decided to approach agencies like NABARD whose mandate includes providing for infrastructure and drinking water. "We will demand a special package for the state," said Vijayan.

Following the devastating floods, over one million people are now sheltered in 3,274 relief camps in the state. The death toll since the monsoon rains began on May 29 has been estimated at around 370.

Till Monday, the total contributions received to the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund was Rs 210 crore while another Rs 160 crore has been pledged. A special session of the Kerala Assembly has been called from August 30 to discuss the huge destruction caused by the worst flooding in nearly a century and to chart the future course of action.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 21, 2018 02:42 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Raad al Hussein has sent out a dire warning. In his last days in office, Hussein has warned that the United Nations five permanent Security Council member states wield too much power which could lead to its "collapse".

He said, China, France, the UK, Russia and the United States are "running too much of the business" and they are able to veto resolutions put forward by other UN members due to the way the body is currently structured.

"When they cooperate things can move; when they don't everything becomes stuck and the organisation in general becomes so marginal to the resolution of these sorts of horrific conflicts that we see," Hussein said referring to Syria and Yemen. "That has to change: [otherwise] in the end the organisation can collapse at great cost to the international community," he said, speaking in Geneva, Switzerland.

Hussein has been an outspoken critic of several world leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, as well as Israel's treatment of Palestinians and human rights violations in Syria's ongoing war.

He also alluded to the lessons of World War II that, he suggested, appeared to be fading with time. "My sense is the further away we get from those historical and dreadful experiences, the more we tend to play fast and loose with the institutions created to prevent repetition," he said.

"All states are works in progress and one or two generations of reckless politicians can destroy any and every state. It's applicable to the U.S. as well."

Hussein announced in December that he would not continue after his initial four-year term expires at the end of August due to concerns he might be required to "bend a knee in supplication" or " be a mute statement of advocacy" were he to continue in his current role.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 21, 2018 09:50 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Washington, Aug 21: The US has welcomed newly-elected Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khans statement emphasising the importance of peace with India and Afghanistan, a key official said here. "We welcome the words of Prime Minister Imran Khan in which he discussed the importance of peace on both sides of Pakistan's borders," Alice Wells, who heads the Bureau for South and Central Asian affairs at the US State Department, said on Monday at a press briefing. Wells is expected to accompany US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo when he visits Islamabad in the first week of September for talks with the new Pakistani leadership following which he will make stopovers in New Delhi and Kabul, reports Dawn news. Wells said that America's South Asia strategy was "obviously pointed to the role India can and should play" in supporting the stabilisation of Afghanistan.

"We want to see Afghanistan stitched back into the region," said the US diplomat while clarifying that this integration does not have to come at the expense of any other country in the region. Without mentioning the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the US official expressed concerns over projects in countries where governments involved had not been able to sustain the repayment schedules, which "resulted in the loss of sovereignty over key infrastructures" that they have had to turn over to their lenders. Wells said that if China stopped pursuing the policy of mortgaging the future of such countries to "unrealistic and unsustainable loan terms, Washington and Beijing could work together on many issues

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 21, 2018 10:31 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Abu Dhabi, Aug 21: Indian expats enthusiasm to help flood victims in Kerala should not lead them to the wrong side of the law on fund raising in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), India's Ambassador warned here. "The feedback received from the UAE government suggested that some individuals and organisations are involved in fund raising. I have to draw the attention of fellow Indians to the local laws (on fund raising)," Navdeep Singh Suri told the media on Monday. He said only organisations that have special permission from the UAE's Community Development authorities can collect money and remit it abroad, the Gulf News reported on Tuesday. Suri said the UAE authorities, including the Central Bank, have given the clearance for sending money directly to the Kerala Chief Minister's Disaster Relief Fund (CMDRF), which Suri said was the best way to help the flood victims.

"We don't want well-meaning efforts for the flood victims ending up in trouble. We are very mindful and respectful of local laws," the Ambassador said. Suri also advised community organisations not to open temporary money exchange counters at their premises since the local laws do not permit it. Al Ansari Exchange, the UAE Exchange and Lulu Exchange are facilitating free-of-cost remittance to the CMDRF, said the Gulf News.

Urging people to refrain from sending relief materials, the Ambassador said he had discouraged people who offered to send large amount of mineral water and medicines to Kerala. "First of all sending medicines needs special permission. Moreover, India is the pharmacy of the world. You can get medicines in India at one tenth cost in the UAE," he explained.

Following the worst flooding in a century, over one million people are now sheltered in 3,274 relief camps in Kerala. The death toll since the monsoon rains began on May 29 has been estimated at around 370.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 21, 2018 04:00 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Auckland, Aug 21: In a shock move, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Tuesday announced that her government would be freezing the pay hike of Member of Parliaments. The move, she claimed, is aimed at curbing the rich-poor divide and make New Zealand a more equitable society.

The decision received cross-party support, with members of the prime opposition National Party extending support. Analysts claim the halt in MPs' salary hike will also boost the image of Ardern, portraying her as an altruistic leader.

The freeze on pay increase comes days after 29,000 primary school teachers resigned from their jobs citing stagnant wages, among other reasons.

While speaking to media, Ardern said her decision is "right" as it comes at a time when a large section of the nation's workforce is facing the brunt of slow wage growth.

The salary hike has been stalled till at least July 2019, Ardern announced, further adding that subsequent hikes would be decided on the basis of how the wages of an average New Zealander increases on yearly basis.

Under the incumbent module of MPs' salary hike, the pay was increased by nearly 3 per cent per annum.

Here's a Look at MPs' Salaries Vis-a-Vis Wages of Workers, Teachers & Others:

An MP in New Zealand, based upon the duties assigned to him by the Parliament, draws an annual income between NZ$163,000 ($108,000) to more than NZ$450,000 ($300,000).

The average salary of non-cabinet ministers, excluding allowances, is approximately $288,900, according to a report in the Stuff. This is nearly $200,00 more than what an average worker earns per annum. Below is a sector-wise comparison:

Below is the designation-wise comparison:

As per the statistics sources from the Stuff, no industry's average pay comes close to that of a Member of Parliament. The distant second in the race is the mining sector, where an average of $116,012 has been recorded.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 21, 2018 08:26 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Traditions of America plans to start construction this winter on its newest 55-and-older community -- beside Green Pond Country Club.

The first of the planned 229 homes are expected to be offered for sale by early spring.

That timeline was shared Tuesday by David Biddison, a partner with the developer based in Radnor, Pennsylvania.

Monday night, the Bethlehem Township Board of Commissioners gave final approval to the controversial development first proposed in July 2014. By that point, Traditions had become the third developer in 15 years to submit plans for the property adjacent to and offered for sale by the country club.

"We've worked a long time on this project and we're excited to be able to bring it to our customers," Biddison said.

Opponents of the project rallied together as Save Green Pond, calling on the township to preserve the property's wetlands that are important to migratory birds and waterfowl.

"The project was significantly improved over time from the perspective of protection of the wetlands and bird habitat as the result of the case Save Green Pond made," said Charles Elliott. He and his brother Thomas Elliott, both attorneys based in Easton, argued on behalf of the opponents at hours of public hearings last year that led to tentative plan approval.

Charles Elliott said he was not surprised by the township's vote Monday, given the tentative approval awarded a year ago for the project at Farmersville and Green Pond roads.

The board approved the development 4-0, with Commissioner Tom Nolan absent. Elliott said he would closely follow the development to ensure all of the plan conditions are complied with.

"We've worked with all of the township environmental consultants, Save Green Pond and their consultants," Biddison said. "And we are maintaining and actually enhancing all of the environmental features that currently exist."

The wetlands on the property will remain intact, and the developer plans to add more water features as part of stormwater management basins to address flooding, he said.

This is Traditions' 26th age-restricted community and will feature a mix of attached and detached single family homes. The sale prices were unavailable Tuesday and Traditions, a privately held company, was not releasing how much it's investing in the project.

Biddison directed potential buyers to the traditionsofamerica.com website to learn more about the homes and amenities.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
The owner of a Bethlehem Township animal sanctuary accused of failing to properly care for the animals has agreed to keep his population under 100.

Jahjah Melhem didn't admit he treated the animals cruelly, however.

The owner of the Heaven on Earth sanctuary pleaded no contest to eight counts of animal cruelty brought forward by the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

In exchange for the plea, 23 additional counts were dropped.

The SPCA charged Melhem after they discovered several of his animals were malnourished, underweight, dehydrated and suffered from eye, ear, skin and hoof ailments. Some animals were covered in feces, according to the citations.

Their goal was to see the animals properly cared for, according to SPCA Director of Humane Law Enforcement Nicole Wilson.

"We're helping Mr. Melhem to reduce his population so it allows him to provide an appropriate level of care for the animals that remain," Wilson said. "No single person can care for the number of animals that are at that property."

The agreement will allow him to keep 99 animals. Wilson estimated that's about a third of the current total.

Defense attorney Donald Souders said Melhem has relied on volunteers to help care for the animals. Publicity about the sanctuary has drastically reduced his help, Souders said.

Melhem has a difficult time turning away animals, especially sick ones, despite his lack of resources, he has said.

"He's working 20 hours a day to take care of all his animals," Souders said.

He thanked the SPCA and Wilson in particular for reaching this compromise.

Melhem has 60 days to find homes for the animals. After that, the SPCA has the authority to take any animals above the agreed upon limits.

Melhem already surrendered 12 animals and will hand over six soon. None of the animals will be euthanized, Souders said. The SPCA will help him find homes or other sanctuaries for the animals.

By pleading no contest, Melhem did not admit he treated the animals poorly. He admits only that the SPCA would have had enough evidence to convict him at trial of eight counts of animal cruelty.

Each count carries a $50 fine plus $117.80 in court costs. Senior District Judge James Narlesky approved a payment plan so that Melhem can pay for the fine and costs for one count per month over the next eight months.

TERMS OF THE DEAL

Under a plea deal, Jahjah Melhem may keep this amount of these types of animals:

12 cats, 12 dogs, 2 exotic birds, 20 pigs, 10 goats, 3 bovine animals, 2 alpacas, 7 equine animals, plus no more than 31 additional birds for a total of 99 animals.

Any animals over that total become property of the SPCA within 60 days.

Melhem must castrate all his livestock.

He must remove eggs from any birds.

A veterinarian must come to the property at least twice a year and Melhem must allow for an occasional unannounced inspection.

The SPCA reserves the right to pursue further action if the terms of the deal are violated.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
A driver wasn't hurt as he damaged up to five parked cars in a crash Tuesday morning in Easton, police said.

After striking the cars in the 200 block of Bushkill Street, the driver's the Nissan Frontier pickup rolled onto its side. The last two vehicles -- a Scion xB and a Kia Sportage -- had the most damage, the Scion being pushed up the street, then onto a sidewalk and into the Kia.

Colin van Horne, 37, of that block, had just decided to keep his 2012 Scion, figuring its trade-in value was no longer a motivator to sell. The Bethlehem firefighter had arrived home only a few minutes before when a neighbor knocked on his door alerting him to the crash.

"I didn't hear a thing," he said.

The pickup driver was standing up inside the truck just before 8 a.m. and said he wasn't hurt. Two others helped the driver before van Horne could get there, van Horne said.

"I'm glad the guy's alright," van Horne said. "He was very apologetic."

Easton police and fire personnel responded and Easton Auto Body righted the truck and towed it and the Scion.

Three other vehicles -- a Subaru Impreza, a Honda Civic and a Subaru Legacy -- were east of the main crash scene and had minor damage, although it wasn't certain it came from this wreck.

The driver's name and any possible citations were not immediately available. The pickup had New Jersey plates.

He declined to comment at the scene.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin will announce charges Tuesday afternoon against a Roman Catholic priest, according to an alert about a news conference.

The announcement is planned for 3 p.m. is Martin's office in the Lehigh County Courthouse on West Hamilton Street in Allentown.

A grand jury's report released in recent days indicates 301 priests across six Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania -- including 35 named in the Diocese of Allentown -- were accused of abuse beginning in the mid-1950s.

Many of the crimes are past the statue of limitations, but a small number weren't.

It wasn't immediately clear if the charges Martin's reporting are related to any of the crimes listed in the grand jury's report.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A 30-year-old priest is accused of sending nude photos of himself to a 17-year-old girl he met through his work at an Allentown parish.

The criminal charges come one week after the Pennsylvania attorney general released an 884-page grand jury report detailing decades of sexual abuse and coverups across six dioceses, including the Diocese of Allentown.

In a crowded news conference, Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin said the latest charges levied Tuesday are not related to the grand jury investigation.

Kevin Lonergan, of Pottsville, is charged with one count each of corruption of minors and indecent assault. He could face a maximum of nine years in prison if convicted of both counts.

He was arraigned Tuesday afternoon on the charges and released on $50,000 unsecured bail.

Reporters and cameras crowd in as Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin gives a press conference Aug. 21, 2018. (Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Lonergan allegedly met the victim in August 2017 before Mass at St. Francis of Assisi church on 11th Street in Allentown, where he was assigned. He has been a priest for five years, and it was not immediately clear if he has worked at other churches.

He got her cellphone number from another member of the church and communicated with her, mostly via Snapchat, through January, the district attorney said. Some of those messages allegedly included nude photos.

In February, Lonergan hugged the victim at church -- she attempted to pull away, but he pulled her closer and grabbed her rear over her clothes, Martin said.

After the victim told another priest of the assault in June, the diocese reported it to the DA's office and Lonergan was immediately suspended from public ministry, according to both Martin and a statement from the diocese.

Though the are not connected, the allegations against Lonergan follow a grand jury report alleging that at least 1,000 identified children were abused at the hands of 301 priests across the state, including 35 named priests and one layperson in the Allentown diocese.

(MORE: The complete list of grand jury allegations of Diocese of Allentown sex abuse)

Martin said neither the timing of the report nor the fact that the case involved a priest affected how his staff investigated.

"Regrettably we have a lot of cases of this type, which involve child victims who are subject to sexual and other types of abuse," Martin said. "The fact that this happens to be a clergy member is certainly regrettable and in today's climate newsworthy, but it's much the same vein as any other case."

The diocese statement said Lonergan has retained his own legal counsel at his own expense, but it did not name his attorney.

The statement also explained why the diocese didn't immediately announce the allegations. This has been its practice in recent years as part of an effort "to deal with such allegations with transparency," the statement says.

"The announcement was delayed, however, after the district attorney asked the diocese not to make an immediate announcement because it might interfere with the investigation," the statement says. "The diocese cooperated fully with the law enforcement investigation."

Anyone who knows of incidents of abuse, in the church or elsewhere, should report it to the State Child Line at 1-800-932-0313, the State Attorney General's hotline at 1-888-538-8541 or to local law enforcement.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveNovakLVL and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
The Middletown, Dauphin County, police chief has been charged with attempted rape and suspended from his duties.

Middletown Mayor James Curry announced in a video posted on the borough's Facebook page that criminal charges were filed against Chief George Mouchette.

Court records list the charges as aggravated indecent assault, attempted rape and unlawful restraint.

According to charging documents, a woman met with Mouchette at his office for business on Aug. 13. At one point, she went to the restroom and returned to his office.

That's when the woman told authorities that Mouchette grabbed her by the arm, forced her up on his desk, pulled her dress up and digitally penetrated her, according to charging documents.

The woman repeatedly told him "no" as he tried to have intercourse with her, documents state.

It was not until after she agreed to meet with him outside of the department that he stopped, according to charging documents.

Mouchette was in uniform at the time of the incident, according to investigators.

On Friday, investigators say Mouchette acknowledged the incident took place in his office and apologized many times for his actions.

Mouchette was arraigned Tuesday afternoon, and bail was set at $25,000. He will be held at Dauphin County Prison as long as he is unable to post bail.

Curry, the Middletown mayor, stated the following information during the video:

"Thursday Aug. 16, 2018, 10:45 p.m. I received an extremely emotional telephone call, during which the caller made a serious allegation against the chief of police, George Mouchette."

Curry said he called the borough solicitor about the allegations, and the Dauphin County district attorney began an investigation the following day.

Mouchette was charged Tuesday and suspended without pay.

Mouchette has been the town's police chief for a little more than a year. A retired New York City detective, he was hired on an interim basis in January 2017.

"The thoughts and concerns of the Borough of Middletown rest with the alleged victim of these charges," Curry said. "Words do not do justice to express the collective feelings in our hearts. I am confident however, where words do no justice, the courts will."
Under a proposal being circulated in the New Jersey Legislature, most of the state's K-6 and K-8 school districts would be consolidated into regional K-12 districts, a move that could mean the end of 38 districts in Warren and Hunterdon counties.

State Senate President Stephen Sweeney says school consolidation is part of a larger plan to control the state's recurring budget deficits. In addition to reducing administrative and other costs through unified school districts, the Legislature is looking to place tolls on high-speed express lanes on major highways and to scale back public employee health care and pension benefits.

More than 300 smaller districts across the state would be targeted for regionalization, to try to stem the pressure on property taxes. Two months ago the Legislature floated a similar proposal, requiring towns with populations under 5,000 residents to merge with an adjacent town or towns. That idea was dropped from the latest cost-cutting proposal.

The school merger idea faces a bumpy road. Many people in elementary districts like having a local school board and their own school identity. Some argue that the economies of scale involved in consolidation don't live up to projections, and don't justify the disruption involved.

What do you think? Is the Legislature on the right track in trying to unify districts, as Pennsylvania did decades ago? Have a say in our informal poll, and check the comments section to read others' opinions on the issue. Feel free to add your own.
Electric Ireland has announced the latest act in its Throwback Stage line-up at Electric Picnic.

Irish girl band B*witched and Heather Small, the voice of M People (and most of the 90s), caused a stir when they were announced for the Throwback Stage.

Now, the legendary Johnny Logan has been announced as the latest addition to the line up.

Johnny Logan is known as being the only performer to have won the Eurovision Song Contest twice, in 1980 and 1987. He also composed the winning song in 1992.

Logan first won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980, with the song "What's Another Year" written by Shay Healy. The picture above is from 1980.

In 1984, Logan composed the song "Terminal 3" which placed second at Eurovision, performed by Linda Martin. He won the contest for a second time in 1987 with "Hold Me Now", which he also wrote himself. His third win came in 1992, as composer of Linda Martin's winning entry "Why Me?".

The Eurovision legend will perform the first ever 'slow set' at Electric Picnic.

Speaking of the announcement, Johnny Logan said:

After years and years of gigging very successfully around Europe, millions of record sales, performing for heads of state from The Queen of England to Pope John Paul at The Vatican - Ive finally been asked to play on the Electric Irelands Throwback Stage at this years Electric Picnic!

"I am more than delighted and really looking forward to it. The slow set is the perfect way to set the mood before I take to the stage. So many people share their memories of dancing to some of my songs, during the slow set back in the day. I really hope people get into the spirit, and enjoy the slow set, a novel thing in the middle of a festival Im sure!

Electric Picnic returns to Stradbally, Co. Laois from August 31st - September 2nd.

Tickets are completely sold out!

SEE ELECTRIC PICNIC NEWS HERE.
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Special Bus Eireann inter-city services to Dublin and Knock for Pope Franciss visit have limited remaining availability and customers are urged to purchase online before bookings close this Friday afternoon.

Over 500,000 people are expected to visit Dublin City on Sunday, August 26 where Mass will be celebrated by Pope Francis in the Phoenix Park.

Another 45,000 patrons are expected to attend Knock, which the Pope will visit on Sunday morning. An Garda Siochana have urged motorists and the public to use public transport to travel there.

In order to cater for anticipated demand, Bus Eireann will operate a greatly enhanced schedule which will see overall capacity increasing by over 100% this Sunday.

Over 800 trips on both commuter and Expressway services will provide for over 30,000 passenger journeys to and from Dublin City on the day. All other services in the Greater Dublin Area will operate as normal with diversions and likely delays  along with restricted stops - in some cases.

Expressway intercity services to Dublin and Knock

To facilitate additional demand, a number of special Expressway intercity services will operate to and from Dublin City and Knock.

Availability on these services is limited and with tickets selling quickly, customers are advised to purchase their seat on these services as soon as possible.

Customers who book on these services can enjoy the comfort of being guaranteed a seat while enjoying shortened journey time due to limited stops.

Details on these special services are as follows:

Dublin

Route 2: Wexford (7am), Enniscorthy (7.20am), Gorey (7.45am) & Arklow (8am)

Route 4: New Ross (6.30am), Waterford (7am) & Carlow (8am)

Route X8: Cork (6am), Fermoy (6.30am), Mitchelstown (6.50am), Cahir (7.15am) & Cashel (7.30am)

Route 12: Limerick (6.30am), Nenagh (7.10am), Roscrea (7.40am) & Portlaoise (8.10am)

Route X20: Galway (5.30am), Loughrea (6am), Ballinasloe (6.30am) & Athlone (7am)

Route 22: Ballina (6.30am), Swinford (7.30am), Charlestown (7.10am) & Longford (9.10am)

Route 23: Sligo (6.30am), Boyle (6.50am) & Carrick-on-Shannon (7.15am)

Route 30: Donegal (5.30am), Ballyshannon (5.50am), Enniskillen (6.30am), Cavan (7.20am) & Virginia (8.05am)

Route 32: Letterkenny (5.30am), Strabane (6am), Omagh (6.30am), Monaghan (7.15am), Castleblayney (7.50am) & Carickmacross (8.05am)

Route 100X: Dundalk (7.30am) & Drogheda (8am)

All return services will depart Busaras at 7pm

Knock

Route 64: Galway (6am), Tuam (6.32am) & Ballyhaunis (7.10am)

Route 64: Sligo (6am), Tubbercurry (6.35am) & Charlestown (6.45am)

All return services will depart Knock at 1pm

Tickets for these services must be purchased in advance on www.buseireann.ie/popeinireland

All other Bus Eireann Expressway intercity services (including those to/from Dublin) will run as normal and family return tickets represent real value. Book here at www.expressway.ie

Diversions in Dublin City Centre

Due to the scale of events taking place in Dublin city centre, customers are advised to allow extra time for their journey and that a number of our routes will be diverted and may operate from alternative stops.

Please log onto www.buseireann.ie/popeinireland for further information.

Read Also:

Road closures for Pope's visit to Knock
National housing charity Threshold, along with the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) and Daft.ie, has launched an awareness campaign to help people in their quest to secure suitable rented accommodation.

Entitled Scamwatch, the initiative offers a checklist for would-be tenants to help them to avoid falling victim to a rental scam. As part of the campaign, Threshold will also liaise with student unions throughout the country to provide assistance for students who encounter problems in their rented accommodation during the academic year.

Scamwatch advises would-be renters to:

- Be aware of offers that appear to be too good to be true  if rent seems like a bargain, do more research by checking rental rates for similar properties in the area, using Google maps to verify that the property exists, and checking the Register of Landlords on the Residential Tenancies Board website.

- Never agree to rent a property without having properly viewed it and making sure you are happy with the terms and conditions of the letting.

- Avoid paying in cash; and always get a proper receipt.

- Never transfer funds via Western Union, Moneybookers or other Electronic Fund Transfer services to someone claiming to be an agent or landlord of a prospective property without verifying their bona fides.

- Ensure the keys work and they have proper contact details for the landlord/agent.

Commenting, chief executive of Threshold, John-Mark McCafferty said: While rental scams occur throughout the year, we are asking people looking for rented accommodation to exercise particular caution at this time of year, when there is a spike due to a new generation of third-level students looking for somewhere to live. We strongly advise people to be cautious of a landlord who claims to be out of the country and cant show you the property and requests a deposit. Would-be renters should also be mindful that in some instances a scammer could be living at the property and showing a number of people around, getting a deposit from several people and then disappears with the money. In other instances, the transaction appears normal until the renter finds that the keys dont work and the landlord has disappeared. People need to establish that the house exists, that it is available for rent, the identity of the landlord /agent and that the person advertising the property is authorised to rent it out.

Our advice to students is to start looking for accommodation as soon as possible, but not to feel pressured to take the first place they see. The Scamwatch checklist is a resource for students, and indeed anyone looking to rent in the private rented sector, to advise them on what to look out for in securing suitable accommodation and the steps to take to protect themselves from scams. Anyone can fall victim to a scam and we ask anyone who finds themselves in this situation to report it to Threshold, as well as to An Garda Siochana. While Threshold cannot help to recover the lost money, alerting us will help to prevent other people from falling victim.

Threshold is also calling on the Government to provide greater legislative protection to licensee renters, which includes those in digs and those in sub-let accommodation.

Mr McCafferty said: Students, in particular, are vulnerable when it comes to their legal rights. Normal landlord / tenant laws, under which disputes can be referred to the Residential Tenancies Board, do not apply to many students, including those who live in owner-occupied or sub-let accommodation. Rent Pressure Zone legislation, which caps rent increases at four per cent per year, does not apply to purpose-built student accommodation. Threshold continues to lobby for legislative reform to regulate these situations and to protect these renters.

We are also calling on the Government to urgently introduce the Deposit Protection Scheme, approved in December 2015, whereby deposits would be held securely by an independent body  this would offer immediate protection to all tenants. We are also calling for a ceiling of one months rent to be placed on all deposits. This would act as an additional security measure against landlords who demand deposits equivalent to several months rent.

President of USI, Siona Cahill said: Availability and affordability of suitable accommodation is a huge issue for students and many are finding themselves priced out of higher education because of the rental crisis. It is shocking that there are such few tenancy rights afforded to renters in so many types of accommodation typically populated by students, and many find themselves at risk of falling victim to scams. It is an issue that USI has been working hard to address and we are delighted to have the expertise of an organisation like Threshold to guide students through the rental process where difficulties arise. We would urge any student looking for accommodation to check out Thresholds Scamwatch tips before they commit to a property.

Property website Daft.ie is also lending its support to the Scamwatch awareness campaign. It already issues guidance to its users on how to spot and avoid rental scams and will share Thresholds checklist on its website.

Martin Clancy of Daft.ie said: Daft.ie is a valuable resource for anyone looking to secure rental accommodation in Ireland. We have advice for our users on how to spot a scam and internet fraud and we encourage anyone who comes across a suspicious listing to report it to us. We are delighted to support Threshold in this campaign and we will also carry its advice for students on Daft.ie.

The Scamwatch checklist can be downloaded here.
A CHRONIC heroin addict who smashed the windows of almost a dozen parked cars at locations across Limerick city has been jailed for four months.

Darragh Casey, aged 28, who has an address at Hyde Road, Ballinacurra Road, pleaded guilty to multiple charges of criminal damage relating to offences which happened on dates in August 2017, January 2018 and May 2018.

He also admitted stealing around 130 in cash from one of the cars which was a taxi.

Sergeant John Moloney said windows were smashed in the cars and that the defendant was identified as a suspect on CCTV.

Hundreds of euro worth of damage was caused and some property was taken from a number of the vehicles.

At a vacation sitting of Limerick District Court, Judge Marie Keane was told the defendant, who has 81 previous convictions, has struggled with addiction in recent years.

Solicitor Tom Kiely said his clients offending was in order to feed his habit which he accepts he has to address.

He is a heroin addict, he was feeding his addiction, he said adding that Casey is making efforts to address his addiction in prison.

Mr Kiely said the defendant made admissions when arrested and cooperated with gardai.

He said he has no financial means and is not in a position to offer compensation to any of the car-owners.

Judge Keane noted this commenting that Casey has an appalling criminal record. She imposed sentences totalling four months imprisonment.
THE FAMILY of a Limerick fan who suffered a heart attack on the Luas after the All-Ireland final have thanked a Galway nurse for saving his life.

George Barnby, aged 71, is originally from Kileely in the city but moved to Kildare when he was 10. He remained a proud Limerick man and attended the match with his daughter Chloe.

This Tuesday he is recovering well in the Mater Hospital and had tea and toast.

George collapsed on the Luas near Abbey Street at 7pm on Sunday evening.

Luckily for George, Claire Dolphin, a-24-year-old nurse from Mullagh and massive Galway supporter was nearby.

A lady asked for help. He was unresponsive. It all happened so fast. I got up and did what anybody would have done, said Claire modestly.

My training just kicked in. There wasnt a pulse or anything. I started CPR, there was a Limerick lady who helped out. I started chest compressions while we waited for the paramedics. It was about 10 minutes. I just did what we were meant to do, she added.

The fire brigade arrived and used a defibrillator. Then George was taken by hospital having been brought back to life.

Id like to send my best wishes to George and hope he has a speedy recovery, said Claire.

The Limerick lady Claire refers to is Jean Ryan, from Ballysimon Road, who was also at the match.

All of a sudden he started to slump over. I got up to check on him and was asking, Are you ok? Are you OK? Then I just started screaming for help, if there was a doctor or nurse on the Luas and for someone to ring an ambulance. Then Claire came so I helped her put him on the floor so she could start CPR and then just helped her as much as I could. It was terrible. Claire saved his life, she was brilliant, said Jean.

Another Limerick supporter to help was Jeannette Ferguson, from Croom.

She was straight in with the compressions on his chest. She just kept going with the compressions, she did not stop, she was just unbelievable, said Jeannette.

Kathleen Maguire, a daughter of Georges, said only for them she doesn't think her father would have made it.

I'd love to thank those who helped on the Luas and especially the nurse. They saved his life. He moved when he was 10 to Kildare but you can't take the Limerick out of the man. He was ecstatic to have got tickets for the match and him and Chloe had had the best day ever until then, said Kathleen.

Chloe also wants to thank Claire.

We are all so thankful for that woman who helped him. He would not be here if it wasnt for her, said Chloe.

If the team get a chance over the next few days Georges family said a signed jersey or sliothar would make his day.
NINE students from the Irish Chamber Orchestras Sing Out with Strings programme in Limerick are preparing to embark on the musical adventure of a lifetime.

The pupils, who studied at Le Cheile NS, Presentation NS and are now attending Colaiste Nano Nagle, are heading to the UK to perform with star violinist Nicola Benedetti.

The nine students from the ICOs Sing Out community engagement programme are to represent Ireland at the Sistema European Youth Orchestra Residency later this month.

The residency brings 200 10-21 year old musicians and 50 teachers from Sistema music programmes in 15 countries to London and Birmingham for a celebration of the power of music to unite nations, cultures and young people.

The 10-day course culminates in performances at two of the UKs most prestigious venues, the Birmingham Symphony Hall and the Southbank in London.

The girls will join other aspiring young musicians from many nations to form a Youth Symphony Orchestra, rehearsing and performing together, tutored by some of the worlds top professional musicians.

With a strong emphasis on leadership, friendship and creativity, these young musicians will participate in planning, running and exchanging ideas for events, including a Youth Takeover of the Southbank to include pop-up music making and flash-mobs.

Patronage from the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Michael Buckley and Northern Trust scholarship funds, Music Capital Scheme, The Arts Council, The Department of Culture Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Music Network, the JP McManus Foundation, Sistema Europe Foundation and Colaiste Nano Nagle has enabled this inspirational residency for the Limerick students.

Julian Lloyd Webber, founder of Sistema England, said the residency was a magnificent and extraordinary international cultural collaboration.
Aug 21, 2018, 4 AM

The United Nations Postal Administrations souvenir sheet for Macao 2018, the 35th Asian international stamp exhibition, includes stamps in three different currencies and laser-cut stamp designs.

By Denise McCarty

An upcoming souvenir sheet from the United Nations Postal Administration features the ancient Chinese poem the Ballad of Mulan and also honors a stamp exhibition in Macao.

The sheet will be issued Sept. 21, the opening day of Macao 2018, the 35th Asian international stamp exhibition. The event will run through Sept. 24 at the Macao Venetian Convention and Exhibition Center.

The stamps in the sheet were printed using a special laser-cut technology, according to UNPA. Liechtenstein Post has used similar technology since 2011 for its New Year/Chinese Signs of the Zodiac stamps (Scott 1534).

Preliminary artwork of the U.N. Macao 2018 souvenir sheet is shown above.

The sheet contains three stamps denominated in three different currencies: $1.15 for use from the post office at U.N. headquarters in New York City; 2 francs for use from the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland; and 1.80 for use from the Vienna International Center in Vienna, Austria.

The designs of the stamps resemble Cantonese opera masks.

Hua Mulan, the heroine of the folk tale of a girl who joins the army in the place of her elderly father, is represented on the 1.80 stamp and in the selvage of the souvenir sheet. According to UNPA, these images were inspired by the stages of Hua Mulan acted by famous last generation Cantonese opera actresses Madam Lang Yunyu and Guo Fengnv.

The laser-cut design on the $1.15 stamp shows Bao Zheng, also known as Justice Bao. Although much of his life has been fictionalized over the years, Justice Bao was a government official who lived from 999 to 1062.

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Guan Yu, represented on the 2fr stamp, was a warrior and general. He is believed to have died around 220. Like Justice Bao, Guan Yus life inspired legends.

According to UNPA, the three figures on the stamps serve as symbols of justice (Judge Bao), loyalty and righteousness (Guan Yu), and bravery and equality (Hua Mulan).

Cartor Security Printing of Meauce, France, printed the souvenir sheet in a quantity of 18,000. Ye Luying of China designed the sheet.

The story of Hua Mulans bravery has been retold many times over the centuries, including on postage stamps.

Macao issued a set of stamps April 8, 2016 (Scott 1476-1477), showing scenes from the ancient ballad, as did China on April 30, 2000 (Scott 3021-3020).

Less than a month after the debut of Walt Disneys animated film Mulan in June 1998, The Gambia issued stamps and souvenir sheets featuring the characters (Scott 2043-2048).

The UNPA began issuing souvenir sheets in three different currencies in 2016. The sheets promote stamp exhibitions.

For ordering information, visit the website; email; telephone 800-234-8672; fax 212-963-9854; or write to UNPA, Box 5900, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163-5900.
An electron microscope image of the Strelley Pool microfossils (left). New research shows they have a similar chemical signature to two other fossils made by bacteria (right), suggesting that these 3.4-billion-year-old rock samples once housed some of Earth's earliest life.

Tiny filaments burrowed in 3.4-billion-year-old rocks may be evidence of some of Earth's earliest life, scientists argue in a new study. But not everyone is convinced these burrows are fossils of ancient lifeforms.

These so-called microfossils, found in a shallow lake known as Strelley Pool in Western Australia, have been a source of contention for decades, with some scientists arguing that the mysterious tunnels were forged by volcanic processes, rather than primordial life.

The authors of the new study say their analysis of the rocks  which date to the early Archean eon, 4 billion to 2.5 billion years ago  "all but confirms" that these Strelley Pool microfossils were once home to some of Earth's earliest life-forms.

The research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters and presented Aug. 16 at the Geochemical Society's Goldschmidt Conference in Boston, was conducted by a team of scientists led by study author Julien Alleon, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [In Images: The Oldest Fossils on Earth]

It's a hard rock life

The team analyzed the ancient structures found in the hard rock deposits, called cherts, of Western Australia's Strelley Pool Formation using advanced microscopy and spectroscopy techniques. The team compared the Strelley Pool filaments with similar structures made by modern bacteria, as well as with 1.9-billion-year-old microfossils from Canada's Gunflint Formation in Ontario, Canada. The Strelley Pool filaments contained organic molecules with similar chemical features to both of the other samples, suggesting all three were made by the same  biological  process.

"This is exciting work, with the new types of analyses providing compelling evidence that the cherts contain biogenic microfossils," or fossils made by living organisms, Vickie Bennett, a professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry at the Australian National University, who was not involved in the research, said in a statement. "This is in line with other observations for early life from the Strelley Pool rocks." The results confirm the minimum age for life on Earth is 3.4 billion years, Bennett added.

Still, techniques used by Alleon and his team "are not applicable to the older rocks that host the claims for the oldest terrestrial life," Bennett said. So the new techniques won't resolve a debate about separate rocks from Labrador, Canada, dating to between 4.29 billion and 3.77 billion years ago, that some researchers say contain traces of Earth's earliest life.

But not all scientists are convinced that even the Strelley Pool structures are biological in origin. Alison Olcott Marshall, an assistant professor of paleo-biogeochemistry at the University of Kansas, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science that, while the team's data do reveal that the structures are composed of carbon- and nitrogen-containing compounds, that is not unique to biological material.

"I would say that the authors make a convincing case that these are carbonaceous structures that are likely syngenetic," meaning the burrows formed at the same time as the surrounding rock, she told Live Science by email. But before definitively calling these rocks microfossils, she would like to see the same type of analysis that was done on the filaments also performed on the rock surrounding them, Olcott Marshall said.

That's because there are processes other than life that can put carbon in rocks. For instance, in older rocks from the Pilbara Craton, the geological formation that holds the Strelley Pool filaments, scientists have found that the surrounding rock contains multiple generations of carbon-containing materials, Olcott Marshall said. That would mean the carbon in the microstructures may not have been made by ancient life-forms, after all, she said.

Alleon acknowledged this point but argues it doesn't discount his team's conclusions. "Carbon- and nitrogen- containing compounds are not unique to life," he told Live Science in an email. "What we show is that the Strelley Pool microfossils have both nitrogen-to-carbon ratio and molecular signatures similar to younger biogenic microfossils from the Gunflint Formation. Their chemistry is thus consistent with fossilized microorganisms that have been only slightly degraded by geological processes."

Still, Olcott Marshall told Live Science that this new research has not settled the debate on these or older microstructures.

"Given how altered Archean rocks are, and how few localities there are to sample, I think it will be hard to ever finally close the book on this debate," Olcott Marshall said. "Instead, I think people will continue to use new techniques to write new chapters in this ongoing story."

Originally published on Live Science.
Over a period of less than three weeks, more than 100 endangered sea turtles washed up dead on an 18-mile (30 kilometers) stretch of beach on the Pacific coast of Mexico near Guatemala, and authorities aren't sure why.

The mass mortality event began on July 24, when 26 dead turtles were discovered in the small tourist beach town of Puerto Arista in the state of Chiapas, Mexico's Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA) reported. In the following days, officials recorded dozens more dead sea turtles in the area.

On Saturday (Aug. 18), PROFEPA reported that by Aug. 13, the number of dead turtles totaled 102 olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea), six hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricate) and five Pacific black sea turtles (Chelonia mydas agassizii). All three species are classified by the Mexican government as critically endangered, PROFEPA reported. [In Photos: Tagging Baby Sea Turtles]

The dead turtles were all adults, including both males and females, and in various stages of decomposition. PROFEPA is performing necropsies on a few of the specimens and collecting tissue samples to help determine the cause of the deaths.

Wildlife experts suspect that some of the turtles died from interactions with fisheries operations in the area. Several of the turtles found on July 24 had injuries that appeared to come from a hooks or fishing nets, PROFEPA reported.

The coastal waters off Puerto Arista are part of a protected marine sanctuary, but sea turtles in the area are occasionally caught in legal fishing nets and drown. On Aug. 2, authorities met with fishers in the region and urged them to practice responsible fishing techniques that ensure protection of the endangered sea turtles, PROFEPA reported.

Authorities have also collected water samples in the area to test for the presence of harmful toxins from algae. On the Gulf Coast of Florida, a harmful algal bloom called a red tide has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of fish, marine mammals and sea turtles. A similar algal toxin could be killing the sea turtles off the Pacific coast of Mexico, but authorities are still investigating, PROFEPA reported.

Original article on Live Science.
A Houston pipeline and storage company received a $200 million equity commitment from a San Antonio energy investment firm.

Candor Midstream, LLC, which was formed in 2017, on Tuesday announced the investment by EnCap Flatrock Midstream. The investment firm has a history of making investments in start-up oil and gas companies.

Candor Midstream is led by President and CEO Darrel Hagerman, a former executive with Crestwood Midstream Partners LP and Enbridge. The money could be used to acquire existing assets or to start new projects.

EnCap Flatrock Midstream was involved in funding two Houston energy firms that spent $2.6 billion on assets owned by oil giant Occidental Petroleum. The oil and gas explorer, also known as Oxy, sold its crude oil export Ingleside Energy Center Terminal to Moda Midstream and its Centurion pipeline system from West Texas to Cushing, Okla. to Lotus Midstream. Both privately held companies are backed by EnCap Flatrock Midstream.

The sales came as Occidental was expanding its Ingleside export terminal to handle greater volumes. But the company has been increasingly focused on oil and gas production in West Texas Permian Basin oil field, and has been selling its other assets in recent years.

Rye Druzin covers energy news in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | rdruzin@express-news.net | Twitter: @druz_journo
A San Francisco man stalked his ex-boyfriend  hiding a GPS monitor under the victims vehicle and following him for months to his workplace, home and his mothers property, all while sending barrages of threatening text messages, officials said Monday.

Joshua Elliotts campaign of fear, though, ended on Friday when he was convicted of felony stalking and misdemeanor domestic violence charges, prosecutors said. A San Francisco Superior Court jury deliberated for just five hours before coming back with the guilty verdict.

This victim was absolutely terrorized by his stalker; he was living in fear, District Attorney George Gascon said in a statement. I commend him for getting out of an abusive relationship, and I urge anyone living in fear to come forward and to contact authorities. We are here to help.

Elliott, 45, was in a relationship with the victim, and the two lived together for two months in 2017. But things turned ugly when Elliott became possessive and controlling, so his boyfriend broke things off, prosecutors said. The victim was not named.

The San Francisco Police Departments Special Victims Unit takes intimate-partner stalking seriously, and we recognize that it can quickly escalate into violence, said Inspector John Keane, who investigated the case. I encourage people experiencing stalking behavior to report it to police immediately.

In January, after the couple broke up, Elliott began his troubling campaign, sending the victim phone messages, saying he knew where he was, officials said.

It turns out that he probably did.

Elliott had purchased a Spytec GPS tracking device, which comes with software that allows the user to follow it electronically from another location.

While leaving San Francisco General Hospital at 2 a.m. one January morning, the victim spotted Elliot slowly driving by and staring at him as he got into his vehicle, police said.

A week later, the victim was walking his dog outside his home in San Pablo and spotted his stalker sitting outside. Elliott confronted the victim, telling him things were going to get worse for him, prosecutors said.

The next month, things got worse. Elliott followed the victim over the Bay Bridge, and the victim tried to lose him, but when he got to work later that morning, his stalker was waiting for him in the parking lot of his workplace, police said.

Elliott threatened the victim, prosecutors said, telling him ominously that his daily routine would soon change and that he would not be getting up every day. The victim began video recording the episode with his cell phone, at which point Elliott attacked him and tried to wrestle his phone away, officials said.

Bystanders intervened and Elliott bolted. The victim called police and was treated for minor wounds to his hand and back, prosecutors said.

Four days later, police said the victim went to San Franciscos Hall of Justice to give them a statement and got a text from Elliott saying, What do you know? While meandering around the city, I happened to see your car by the courthouse. Could be a work coincidence.

Prosecutors said Elliott had tracked the victim to the courthouse with the GPS monitor.

Increasingly suspicious, the victim searched his vehicle and found the unit in a magnetic box stuck under the drivers side rear wheel of his car.

He decided to pretend he hadnt discovered the device and put it back. He later drove to Georgetown (El Dorado County) to visit his mothers property, where prosecutors said he got a text saying, I dont suppose I have to tell you how beautiful the property is.

That same morning he checked his vehicle and found the device had been removed.

Two weeks later, on March 9, the victim got a string of text messages from Elliott saying, Today is the day and it was a turning point, prosecutors said. The victim also noticed the tracker was back on his vehicle.

The victim became worried he would be attacked and took the tracker off his car. Elliott then began showing up at the victims workplace and followed him on several occasions, authorities said.

Police arrested Elliott on March 27 and found the records associated with the tracking device. They revealed that he was monitoring the victims mothers home, his workplace, his grandparents home, his friends home and his trailer area.

Elliott is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 21. His attorney did not return messages.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
Korea: Where the American Century Began

By Michael Pembroke

Oneworld. 346 pp. $27.95

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American militarism was born in the blood and rubble of the Korean War. During that famously forgotten conflict in the early 1950s, the United States became a self-righteous bully. It overreacted to trifling threats and bumbled into an endless series of distant conflicts, waging war in the name of peace.

That is the provocative argument Michael Pembroke, an Australian historian and high court judge, makes in "Korea: Where the American Century Began." Pembroke, whose father fought in a pointless battle at the end of the Korean War, has written an anti-American diatribe that is alive with disturbing facts sure to discomfort readers who know little about the Korean War and its legacy. His book is timely, readable and deeply researched.

It is also exasperating. Pembroke all but ignores the spectacularly prosperous and democratic state South Korea has become - with the steady help of the United States. He mostly sidesteps the cruelty and incompetence of North Korea's founding dictator, Kim Il Sung, who sweet-talked Joseph Stalin into backing the surprise invasion that sent Soviet-made tanks and North Korean troops into South Korea on a Sunday morning in June 1950.

With a polemicist's distaste for ambiguity, Pembroke cherry-picks events of the Korean War, emphasizing American outrages that support his argument while omitting successful U.S. efforts to confine the conflict's savagery to the Korean Peninsula and prevent it from becoming World War III. A case in point: During the first year of the war, American pilots fought and died in the world's first all-jet dogfights. Their lethal adversaries were ace Russian pilots pretending to be Chinese. They wore Chinese flight uniforms and painted their Soviet-made MiG-15 fighters with Chinese or North Korean markings. If shot down, the Russians were under orders to explain their white skin by saying they were European Chinese of Soviet extraction. Americans, of course, knew who their enemy was, having overheard them speaking Russian on aircraft radio. Still, the Truman administration kept this information secret. It worried that if the public learned Russians were blasting American boys out of the sky, popular pressure would increase for a retaliatory war against the Soviet Union, which by then had the atomic bomb. Washington's coverup served a global peace.

Yet Pembroke's book - appearing at a time when President Trump's hot-headed threats and self-absorbed peacemaking have focused global attention on the two Koreas - does deliver crucial information that Americans need to understand the permanent crisis in northeastern Asia.

For starters, Pembroke shows how the 1945 division of Korea was an all-American idea and a bone-headed blunder that all but guaranteed war. Trying to stop Stalin's armies from occupying all of the Korean Peninsula at the end of World War II, the U.S. government drew an arbitrary line along the 38th parallel, offering the north to the Soviet Union and taking control of the south. The border became a flash point for skirmishes between two aggressive puppet states, each led by egocentric dictators, one financed and armed by Moscow, the other by Washington.

The United States, to be sure, did not start the Korean War; North Korea did, with the connivance of the Soviet Union. But once the conflict was underway, as Pembroke explains with considerable precision, the Americans made the war two years longer and incalculably more murderous than it should have been. It took little more than three months for the United States, fighting with a United Nations mandate and with troops from South Korea and many other countries, to repulse the invasion. U.S. forces destroyed most of the North's army and returned to the American-invented border between the two Koreas. But they did not stop there. Washington's anti-communist blood was up, Pembroke explains, and it "lost sight of the limitations implicit in the moral principle of repelling aggression."

Under the command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur and with the backing of President Harry Truman, U.N. forces occupied all of North Korea and marched north to the Chinese border. At the same time, the U.S. government ignored repeated back-channel warnings from China that it would not tolerate an American army along its northeast border.

Under Mao Zedong, China was true to its threat. As winter approached in 1950, it sneaked about 200,000 troops into North Korea - a mobilization that MacArthur's intelligence team completely missed. The Chinese then humiliated the United States in what Pembroke accurately characterizes as "an epochal horror" of relentless attacks, horrific American losses and the longest retreat in U.S. military history. MacArthur had bumbled into what he called "an entirely new war." Soon, the Chinese clawed back all of North Korea's territory.

In its last two years, the war settled into a blood-soaked stalemate during which the United States conducted a pitiless - and often pointless - bombing campaign that devastated North Korea, blowing up cities with conventional explosives, burning them down with napalm and killing countless civilians. Pembroke accurately says America's bombing "lacked any sense of proportionality." It also gave North Koreans an enduring reason to hate and fear the United States, sentiments that have been stoked by decades of propaganda under three generations of dictators named Kim.

Pembroke completed his book months before Trump's unprecedented meeting with Kim Jong Un in Singapore - a meeting that produced vague commitments that North Korea may someday dismantle its nuclear arsenal. In early August, Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, acknowledged that North Korea had not taken any steps toward denuclearization. For readers capable of looking beyond an America First understanding of how the world works, Pembroke's analysis is chillingly relevant.

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Harden, a former Washington Post correspondent in northeastern Asia, is the author of three books about North Korea, most recently "King of Spies."
House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia

By Craig Unger

Dutton. 354 pp. $30

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Of all the allegations contained in the "Steele dossier," the urtext of President Trump's possible ties to Russia, one has long stood out as the most compromising, because it would be evidence of a political and business relationship between Trump and Russia that predated his campaign for the White House.

"An intelligence exchange," former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele writes, "had been running between" Trump's team and the Kremlin, with the direct knowledge of Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Within this context Putin's priority requirement had been for intelligence on the activities, business and otherwise, in the US of leading Russian oligarchs and their families. Trump and his associates duly had obtained and supplied the Kremlin with this information."

The precise nature and location of that "intelligence exchange" have never been fully explained. But journalist Craig Unger thinks he may have found it, running out of the offices of Bayrock Group, a real estate development company that operated in Trump Tower in Manhattan in the early 2000s and partnered with the Trump Organization.

Based on his own reporting and the investigative work of a former federal prosecutor, Unger posits that through Bayrock, Trump was "indirectly providing Putin with a regular flow of intelligence on what the oligarchs were doing with their money in the U.S."

As the theory goes, Putin wanted to keep tabs on the billionaires - some of them former mobsters - who had made their post-Cold War fortunes on the backs of industries once owned by the state. The oligarchs, as well as other new-moneyed elites, were stashing their money in foreign real estate, including Trump properties, presumably beyond Putin's reach.

Trump, knowingly or otherwise, may have struck a side deal with the Kremlin, Unger argues: He would secretly rat out his customers to Putin, who would allow them to keep buying Trump properties. Trump got rich. Putin got eyes on where the oligarchs had hidden their wealth. Everybody won.

Thus Trump succeeded in business with Russia by what could most charitably be described as willful ignorance. Take the money. Don't ask too many questions.

And he'd had a lot of practice at that, Unger writes. Trump's burgeoning real estate empire was fueled in the 1980s by another privileged class, Russian gangsters who appear to have used Trump properties to launder their ill-gotten gains, Unger alleges.

It is this nexus between Trump, Putin, and wealthy mobsters and oligarchs - often the same people - that is Unger's fixation in his latest book, "House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia."

That subtitle is a bit misleading. There is much in Unger's thoroughly researched narrative that has been told, including in the pages of The Washington Post. Close followers of the byzantine Trump-Russia saga will recognize many of the names and events that fill the pages of Unger's book.

And yet the story Unger weaves with those earlier accounts and his original reporting is fresh, illuminating and more alarming than the intelligence channel described in the Steele dossier.

Unger believes that Trump was compromised by Russia as early as the 1980s, when the Russian money laundering through his properties probably began. "It's hard to imagine Donald Trump had no knowledge whatsoever about what was going on," Unger writes, as hundreds of millions in Russian investment flowed into Trump's coffers. Trump evinced an "eagerness to turn a blind eye to practices that allowed the Russian mob to launder money," Unger continues.

There's never been a proven allegation that Trump was involved in or knew of money laundering through his businesses. But remember, Unger implores, Trump worked at the upper end of Manhattan real estate development. That's not to say he engaged in organized crime, but he certainly knew what it looked like.

The richer Trump got, the deeper he sank into the Russian criminal underworld, which after the fall of the Soviet Union rose up to form the ruling class, now under Putin's control.

Unger spends much of his story connecting the dots between Trump and individual alleged Russian mobsters, such as David Bogatin, the pioneer of a gas tax scam, who bought five apartments in Trump Tower in 1984 for $6 million.

Not all the connections run so directly. One famous gangster, Semion Mogilevich, who was renowned for his talent of making dirty money look clean, looms over the entire narrative like an orchestra conductor. Mogilevich, whom FBI agents have called the "boss of bosses," directed the expansion of the Russian mob into the United States in the early 1990s. And although there is no definitive evidence connecting him directly to Trump, according to Unger, a mountain of facts places him in Trump's corner of the real estate business.

As Unger tells it, Trump can't be totally unaware of the criminality surrounding him, and even if he were, that ignorance is no defense. Trump allowed himself to become compromised by Russia, years before he seriously entertained running for public office.

The men who used Trump for their illicit purposes ensnared him. "They had ensured that he was beholden to Russia's money, and its power," Unger writes. "All largely unseen. With deniability."

There is abundant evidence in Unger's book that Trump made his business infrastructure - his condos, his developments, his very name - available to criminals and oligarchs trying to hide their ill-gotten gains, whether from tax collectors, investigators or the president of Russia. And that's a form of collusion, too.

Unger sees the Kremlin's intervention in the 2016 presidential election, which U.S. intelligence officials have said was ordered by Putin himself, as the latest manipulation of Trump by Russia, and the most consequential. Again, readers will find no evidence that Trump knew of or participated in the Russian campaign, which every U.S. intelligence agency has concluded aimed to help Trump win.

But Unger is convinced that the Russians succeeded in their goal because they had a willing target, who seized on false news stories, propaganda and unflattering Democratic emails that Russia disseminated. Trump weaponized Russian disinformation without ever questioning its provenance. He even asked for more when he publicly told Russia to "find" Hillary Clinton's personal emails.

"Given Trump's narrow victory in states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan - states that were predicted to vote Democratic but were won by Trump with a margin of less than 1 percent, and which put him over the top in the electoral college, it is more than likely that the Russian interference made the difference," Unger writes.

If that's true, then Trump the politician has replicated his business model with profound results: Both he and Putin have come out winners.
WASHINGTON - A Middle East historian and author who is president of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York will be the next director of the Smithsonian's Asian art museums.

Chase F. Robinson will begin his tenure on Dec. 10 as the director of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian announced Tuesday. He succeeds Julian Raby, who retired in December after 15 years.

An author and history professor, Robinson described the position as a "wonderful opportunity" to lead an educational institution with a broad reach.

"I've given my academic and intellectual life over to the understanding of the Middle East and Asia," Robinson, 55, said. The museum's collections and exhibitions can be powerful tools for understanding the societies, cultures and history of Asia and the Middle East, he added.

"We live in a time where cultural misunderstanding seems to be on the rise, and what better institution to foster ... serious cultural understanding," Robinson said of the Smithsonian.

Robison served as provost and senior vice president of CUNY's Graduate Center from 2008 until he was named president in 2013. The doctorate-granting arm of the country's largest public urban university, the Graduate Center has almost 4,000 students, including 3,300 who are enrolled in 31 doctoral programs.

During his 10 years at CUNY, Robinson led efforts to invest in digital learning and teaching, recruited several dozen faculty members - including its first Nobel laureate - and collaborated with many institutions, including the American University in Beirut. He expanded the Graduate Center's public affairs and arts and cultural programs, and surpassed previous fundraising levels.

Smithsonian Secretary David J. Skorton highlighted Robinson's understanding of the role of public institutions in civil society.

"Chase is an outstanding scholar ... who recognizes the importance of public institutions in advancing understanding as a widespread civic good," Skorton said in a statement. "I am confident he will continue the Freer/Sackler tradition of excellence while using the museums' world-class collections to provide a broader, finer and keener understanding of Asian art and culture and its connections to our own lives today."

Before his stint at CUNY, Robinson spent 14 years on the faculty of the University of Oxford. He is the author or editor of nine books and more than 40 articles. He earned his bachelor's degree at Brown University, studied at the American University in Cairo, the University of Cairo and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and earned a doctorate from Harvard University in 1992.

The Freer/Sackler is a significantly smaller operation for Robinson. The Graduate Center's faculty and staff number about 600. The center operates on an annual budget of $225 million. In comparison, the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery - two of the smaller branches of the Smithsonian - have 115 employees who study and care for collections of some 41,000 works. The annual budget is $23 million. Robinson will earn a salary of $425,000.
"Papillon," a remake of the 1973 film about Devil's Island inmate Henri "Papillon" Charriere, could be described as a prison drama, but it's probably just as accurate to call the new movie a mystery.

The central conundrum is this: Why on earth would anyone try to improve on - let alone equal - the rousingly entertaining, if melodramatic, original? It starred Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, earning McQueen a Golden Globe nomination for his gritty performance as a long-suffering French prisoner (and multiple escapee).

With a screenplay based not only on Charriere's 1969 and 1972 memoirs, but also the first film's screenplay by Dalton Trumbo and Lorenzo Semple Jr., this new and vastly inferior telling of the tale stars Charlie Hunnam in the title role and Rami Malek as Papillon's fellow inmate Louis Dega, a wealthy forger who, over the course of the story, goes from being the recipient of Papillon's protection to his dear friend. Directed by Danish filmmaker Michael Noer ("Northwest") with enhanced levels of violence, but little feeling for the movie's touching central relationship, "Papillon" is full of superficial adventure and shock value - an early disemboweling, regular escape attempts, a sadistic warden (Yorick van Wageningen) - but no real sense of drama. The first act of the two-hour-plus epic feels overly hasty, with the rest of it plodding along at a tedious and off-putting pace.

Papillon opens in 1931 Paris. Its safecracker antihero, whose nickname (French for "butterfly") comes from a tattoo on his chest, has just been framed for murder, and is quickly dispatched, for life, to a penal colony in French Guyana. There, Papillon's refusal to stay locked up gets him bumped from one hellhole to another, until he ends up on Devil's Island. (Whether the historical Charriere ever really served time on the notoriously escape-proof rock is a matter of some dispute, and his memoirs are probably best thought of as at least lightly fictionalized.)

The film portrays Papillon's stoic suffering through repeated, years-long stints in solitary confinement - punishment for abortive escapes - as a metaphor for the human will and the survival instinct. But despite the compelling raw material from which this yarn is spun, "Papillon" paints a surprisingly unconvincing portrait of one man's spirit under duress.

That's probably because Hunnam only ever seems to go through the motions of anguish, never managing to fully transfer to us what Papillon is supposed to be feeling (despite the gray hairs that pop up atop the performer's increasingly gaunt frame). Though he's easy on the eyes, Hunnam is not a particularly complicated performer, nor does he possess the depths of cynical resignation that were second nature to McQueen.

There's an epilogue to the main action, in which we see Hunnam, in heavy old-age makeup, pitching his manuscript to a French publisher. "This is your story?" the publisher asks. "It's the story of a lot of men," says Papillon, portentously.

That makes what we've just seen sound like an expose of atrocity. But the only real crime here is the debasement of a great film's name.

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One and one-half stars. Rated R. Contains violence, including bloody images, strong language, nudity and some sexual material. 136 minutes.

Ratings Guide: Four stars masterpiece, three stars very good, two stars OK, one star poor, no stars waste of time.
One night after beating the Mets in 13 innings, the Giants are sending a far different lineup Tuesday night.

Buster Posey is out of the lineup. Then again, he caught 13 innings in Mondays opener.

So are the Brandons, Crawford and Belt, along with Joe Panik and Steven Duggar, all left-handed swingers. Crawford is 2-for-23, Belt 5-for-24 since coming off the disabled list.

The Mets are starting a lefty, Steven Matz.

So manager Bruce Bochy shook up the lineup and stacked it with right-handed hitters, though Hanson is a switch-hitter. That includes Andrew McCutchen, and the Giants arent about to pull the right fielder from the lineup when hes a likely trade chip and would need to be showcased.

Teams can trade a player to any team in August if he passes through waivers. If hes claimed, his team has 48 hours to make a deal with the claimant. Or simply permit that team to take the player, contract and all. A team can always pull back a player who is claimed. In most cases, teams put players on waivers to gauge interest for their offseason plans.

A player must be acquired before Aug. 31 to be eligible for the playoffs.

The Nationals did some things Tuesday that help explain the process. They traded Daniel Murphy to the Cubs and Matt Adams to the Cardinals and are keeping Bryce Harper, who reportedly was placed on waivers and claimed by the Dodgers. The Nationals pulled him back.

Heres the lineup:

RF McCutchen

2B dArnaud

3B Longoria

C Hundley

1B Slater

LF Pence

CF Hernandez

SS Hanson

RH Stratton

John Shea is The San Francisco Chronicles national baseball writer. Email: jshea@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnSheaHey
Britain's top diplomat praised President Donald Trump for increasingly strong sanctions against Russia and called on Europeans to match his efforts, whether in response to a nerve agent attack in England last spring, election interference or the annexation of Crimea.

Russia's "aggressive and malign behavior undermines the international order that keeps us safe," Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Tuesday in a speech at the U.S. Institute of Peace. "Of course we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt. Russia's foreign policy under President [Vladimir] Putin has made the world a more dangerous place."

Trump has a "very different style of politics," including his prolific use of social media, and has engaged in dialogue with the Russian leader, Hunt said. But "I think it's very important to look at what he does as well as what he says."

"What you see is an approach to foreign policy that is . . . absolutely focused on upholding the international order," Hunt said. "If you look at his actions, he's actually willing to be very tough, tougher in fact that many of his predecessors."

While Trump's admiring outreach toward Putin has raised bipartisan concerns in this country, Hunt's assessment echoes the administration's own emphasis on deeds rather than words. It comes at a time when Britain, following passage of a 2016 referendum calling for withdrawal from the European Union, is seeking reassurance in closer trade relations with the United States.

Asked Monday whether he would consider lifting a range of current sanctions against Russia, Trump said: "No. I haven't thought about it. But no, I'm not considering it at all."

"I would consider it if they do something that would be good for us," he said in an interview with Reuters. But "we have a lot of things we can do good for each other," he said, mentioning Syria and Ukraine without elaboration.

Trump said Putin "never brought up" the sanctions issue during a two-hour meeting the two leaders had without aides last month in Helsinki. In the interview, Trump also again raised questions about Russian responsibility for election interference, saying that "if it was Russia," the ongoing special-council investigation of Russia and Trump "played right into the Russians' hands."

Wess Mitchell, the administration's top diplomat for Europe, appeared more certain of Russian responsibility Tuesday, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Putin was bent on ripping apart the social fabric of the United States.

"Putin's thesis is that the American Constitution is an experiment that will fail if challenged in the right way from within," Mitchell said during a hearing. "Putin wants to break apart the American republic, not by influencing an election or two but by systematically inflaming the fault lines that exist within our society."

In his speech, Hunt pointed to the administration's expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats to punish Moscow for its use of a military-grade nerve agent in an unsuccessful attempt to murder Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy living in Salisbury, England, with his daughter. The United States, he said, acted even before the rest of Europe, he said.

"Today the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the U.S.," Hunt said. "That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice wherever and whenever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the heart of Crimea," which Russia unilaterally annexed from Ukraine.

While all 28 members of the European Union joined to condemn the Salisbury attack, some members - including right-wing governments in Italy and Greece - have called for Europe to develop closer relations with Russia rather than pushing it away.

James Nixey, head of the Russia and Eurasia program at the London-based think tank Chatham House, said the European Union was reluctant to match the United States' tougher sanctions in part because the bloc is "far from united" on what its response to Russia should be.

The European Union is "more exposed to Russia" than the United States, given its geography and economic ties, Nixey said. "It is more worried about the effect of the EU economy and the severity of the Russian response."

Russia has denied involvement in the Salisbury attack, which both Sergei and Yulia Skripal survived. Another victim, Dawn Sturgess, later died after handling a perfume bottle that British investigators said held residue of the Russian nerve agent known as Novichok.

This week, Trump is due to impose additional sanctions, mandated under a 1991 law to punish the use of chemical and biological weapons, followed by even harsher measures within 90 days if Russia does not acknowledge and destroy such weapons and allow international inspections.

Responding to Hunt, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that "our British colleagues have pretty high self-esteem." Despite Britain's plans to leave the European Union, Lavrov said at a news conference in Sochi, it was "trying to dictate foreign policy to the EU."

"Now it turns out that London wants to dictate foreign policy with regard to Russia to Washington, as well," he said.

The visit here by Hunt, who served for many years as Britain's health minister, is his first since becoming foreign secretary in July. He replaced Boris Johnson, the Brexit hard-liner who resigned in anger over the soft, pro-business strategy pursued by Prime Minister Theresa May in leaving the European Union.

In addition to punishment for the Salisbury attack, the Trump administration separately imposed two new sets of sanctions Tuesday against Russian companies related to North Korea and to Russian intelligence.

The Treasury Department levied sanctions on two companies based in Vladivostok for using their Russia-flagged ships to conduct ship-to-ship transfers of oil to ships bound for North Korea. Such ship-to-ship transfers are prohibited under United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The Treasury Department also targeted two companies that supplied underwater diving equipment to Russian government agencies, including the Federal Security Service (FSB), which has been under sanctions since 2016.

Meanwhile, Sigal Mandelker, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told Congress that U.S. sanctions against Russia overall have had a significant impact on the Russian economy and blocked hundreds of millions of dollars in Russian assets in the United States.

"Our efforts, taken together with our partners across the U.S. Government and around the world, are guided by a clear understanding of the threat Russia poses to the United States and to our friends and allies," she said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Senate Banking Committee.

"The breadth and brazenness of Russia's malign conduct demands a firm and vigorous response," Mandelker said. The administration has placed sanctions on 217 Russian-related people and companies since 2017, which she said included close Putin associates and a "veritable 'who's who' of Russia's most prominent companies."

The British call to continue and increase sanctions against Russia came a day after the software giant Microsoft uncovered fresh attempts by Russian hackers, with ties to the Russian military intelligence agency, to create fake websites to mimic two conservative Washington think tanks, the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute.

Microsoft said the latest attempts were mounted by the same Russian group that hacked into Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Mitchell, in the diplomat's congressional testimony, withheld endorsement of a new sanctions legislation package, called the Deter Act, that would impose new penalties if the director of national intelligence uncovered Russian efforts to interfere in future U.S. elections.

- - -

The Washington Post's John Hudson and Carol Morello in Washington, William Booth and Karla Adam in London, and Natalia Abbakumova in Moscow contributed to this report.
Vanna In's family came to the United States seeking refuge when he was just 3 years old, fleeing Cambodia and war-torn Vietnam in the 1970s. But the family didn't find the refuge they sought.

By the time he was 15, In was a young man filled with rage, picking fights and looking for trouble. At home, he said his mother beat him with a broom stick. At school, he was told to go back to his country.

But as part of a gang, he was among family. He joined because that's what he was looking for. He started out stealing from people, then robbing people, and fighting people. And then one night, In took a man's life. It was November 1993, and In, then 17, shot and killed a rival gang member after a party, a crime for which he would serve six years behind bars. He was then ordered to be deported in 2001, stripped of his green card.

"I don't think I knew what true remorse was at first," In told The Washington Post. "Maybe I was more sorry I got caught. But in March 1994, I gave my life to God. That's when I learned to be truly sorry for what I did."

Now a youth pastor at North Fresno Mennonite Brethren Church, In said he has spent the last 17 years trying to honor the life of the man he killed by helping dozens of gang members get off the streets and find jobs and stability - efforts that grabbed the attention of Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown this month.

On Friday, Brown pardoned In for the 1993 murder, indicating he hoped it would allow In to avoid deportation back to Cambodia, a country in which he has never set foot. The deportation order has not been executed since it was entered in 2001, In said, because Cambodia was not accepting deportees at that time. Instead, In said he has been living under an order of supervision, checking in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on a regular basis, fearing the supervision order could be revoked at any time.

"While the seriousness of the crime can never be minimized," Brown wrote in the pardon, "I believe that Mr. In should be permitted to have the chance at remaining in a community to which he has devoted a life of service."

In was among 36 people Brown pardoned Friday, including two other Cambodian refugees also at risk of deportation. The pardons don't automatically throw out deportation orders, but allow attorneys to petition an immigration judge to reopen their cases and potentially decide to halt the removals, as the Asian Law Caucus in Sacramento explained. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

Such pardons for immigrants with criminal records have emerged as one tool of resistance to the Trump administration's deportation efforts in states, like California and New York, that are generally viewed as having hostile relationships with ICE. In July, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo granted clemency to seven immigrants facing deportation with minor convictions on their records, most related to drugs. In March, Brown provoked outrage from President Donald Trump when he pardoned five ex-offenders facing deportation whom Brown believed were rehabilitated. Among them were men convicted of kidnapping and robbery, domestic abuse and vehicle theft.

"Is this really what the great people of California want?" Trump tweeted.

With In's case, hundreds of people wrote to Brown to support his pardon, the governor said, including members of In's church and young men he helped escape gang life since his release from prison.

Before returning to Fresno to become a "beloved pastor," as Brown put it, In worked as a counselor for Hope Now for Youth, where he estimates he helped 125 young people complete a job training program and find steady work following his release from prison. He then moved to Greeley, Colorado, to co-found Jobs for Hope, where he roamed the city to build relationships with gang members, helping to persuade them to turn their lives around. In estimates he helped 80 young men here.

"I wanted to keep the word 'hope' in there, because that's what people in my situation needed," In said.

In knew what to look for, because the young people he encountered reminded him of himself: teenagers from poverty and abusive families. In was born in South Vietnam, the youngest of six just after his family fled Cambodia, where his father was a soldier who supported the Americans in the Vietnam War. They took a boat to Thailand and stayed at a refugee camp until finding their way as refugees to the United States. Growing up in Houston, In said he lived in the projects and suffered verbal and physical abuse at home. He said all this is "not an excuse" for committing violence on the streets - but nevertheless contributed to it.

His family later moved to Fresno in the late 1980s. He joined a gang after his older brother was sent to prison - the same gang his brother had been a part of, In said.

"It took years and years of reconciliation," In said of the murder. "There's reconciling, and there's mourning, and then there's acceptance of responsibility."

In is grateful to Brown for the second chance, but said he knows from reading the reactions to the news of his pardon that not everyone believes he should get one. Many, he said, want him to go back to Cambodia.

"Some people want to continue to just label me as a murderer. I get it, but it's hard," In said. "I know that no matter how good I become or how far away I get, people will still see me a certain way. I've come to accept it. I've come to accept that's the way it is."
Petersburg current and past residents gathered Saturday to celebrate the annual Petersburg Day.

This year's theme was Pride in America-Small Town USA.

The event is traditionally celebrated to promote the town, its history and to bring back former residents and students of Petersburg ISD to share memories.

Saturday's events kicked off with a moving Veteran/Military Appreciation Ceremony at the Plaza. The town honored those who have served in the military. The Patriot Guard Riders, American Legion and Veterans of Wars participated in the event.

A parade followed.

Locals and other people from around the area participated in the parade, which featured floats, horse clubs, classic cars, antique tractors and commercial vehicles.

The weather was cloudy, mild and cool  just right.

Petersburg hosted other events throughout the weekend including a softball tournament and a motorcycle fun run, both of which brought teams and motorcycle riders from all over the area.

The event also included a barbecue cook-off. Look for results in a later edition of the Plainview Herald.

Saturday's festivities concluded with class reunions, an outdoor concert and videos at the town's community center.
DUBLIN - Pope Francis said in an unprecedented letter to the world's 1.2 billion Catholics on Monday that the church has not dealt properly with "crimes" against children and must prevent sexual abuses from being "covered up and perpetuated."

"We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them," Francis wrote.

The 2,000-word letter, the first by a pope addressed to the world's Catholics on the topic of sexual abuse, amounted to a direct response by Francis to a rekindled crisis that has engulfed his papacy and eroded the credibility of the Catholic Church.

But after years of high-level pledges to end abuse, the letter renews questions about whether Francis will be able to follow through with a more concrete plan to overhaul the Vatican's handling of sexual offenses.

His letter touched off mixed reactions from across the Catholic world, with some noting that Francis did not outline any specific new steps the church should take. But others said that Francis is coming to grips with the scale of the crisis and has increasingly described the problems as systemic or cultural, not simply the result of isolated priestly behavior.

"Looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such [abuses] from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated," Francis wrote.

The letter was issued at a time when revelations in the United States and around the world are roiling the church - and prompting new scrutiny over how the institution's hierarchy handles abuse cases. A Pennsylvania grand-jury report released last week documented seven decades of abuse by 300 priests. It detailed cases of children who were allegedly raped, manipulated with alcohol and "brushed aside" by church leaders.

This weekend, Francis will travel to Ireland, a country scarred by decades of sexual abuse in parishes and in Catholic-run schools. In Dublin, many have demanded that Francis acknowledge during his trip the role church higher-ups played in silencing victims and helping to keep pedophile priests on the job.

The Catholic Church has been dealing for more than three decades with publicly known cases of abuse, new cases in recent months have caused a wave of anger among Catholics, who say the Vatican has been slow to make meaningful reforms.

"The public, and Catholics in particular, are truly fed up with this. It's beyond frustration," said Peter Isely, a founding member of Ending Clergy Abuse, a global survivors and activists group. "They've had decades to do something. What it appears to look like is that nothing has significantly changed."

Isely said that Francis is beginning to "correctly describe" the problem.

Popes have previously written letters on sexual abuse, but they were directed at individual countries - not at the broader Catholic world. In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI, in a letter to the Catholics of Ireland, told victims of abuse and their families that he was "truly sorry" and that the church in Ireland needed to acknowledge the "serious sins committed against defenseless children."

Earlier this year, Francis sent a letter to the people of Chile describing a culture of "abuse and coverup." That move was particularly notable, coming just months after the pope, in a much-criticized move, had defended a Chilean bishop facing accusations of abuse.

"He has shown the capacity to change, and I think that's the single most important lesson he has given us about himself," said Jason Berry, a reporter and author who has covered sexual abuse for decades. "If he can evolve on this issue forcefully, he might have a chance at achieving some kind of genuine reform."

Berry said that Francis's letter was a first step - but that to go further he would have to contest a "calcified power structure that is honeycombed with secrecy."

"He does not have a brain trust around him that is focused on systemic reform," Berry said. "Right now they're putting out fires."

In his letter Monday, Francis specifically mentioned the Pennsylvania grand-jury report, but he did not reference other scandals in the United States, Chile or Australia. Francis said the Pennsylvania report reflected "abuse of power and of conscience."

"The heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced," Francis wrote. "But their outcry was more powerful than all the measures meant to silence it, or sought even to resolve it by decisions that increased its gravity by falling into complicity."

The U.S. church has also reeled from revelations about Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., who resigned last month amid allegations that he abused seminarians and minors. McCarrick was able to climb the church's hierarchy, becoming one of the U.S. church's most powerful figures, even after two New Jersey dioceses paid out settlements in response to his alleged misconduct.

The McCarrick allegations, coupled with the report from Pennsylvania, have prompted American bishops to reckon with their failure to deal more forcefully with alleged abusers - whether they are priests or prelates.

One of the leaders whose actions have raised questions is Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the current archbishop of Washington, who during a previous posting in Pittsburgh disciplined some accused priests but reassigned others who were under scrutiny to new parishes, according to the grand-jury report.

Wuerl has defended his record and said the report shows that he acted "with diligence." An Archdiocese of Washington spokeswoman said Wuerl has canceled a planned trip this week to Ireland, where he was scheduled to give a keynote speech at the World Meeting of Families.

Last week, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the U.S. church should give a wider role to lay people in holding clerics accountable.

In his letter, Francis said he was aware of efforts in parts of the world to "come up with the necessary means to ensure the safety and protection of the integrity of children and of vulnerable adults, as well as implementing zero tolerance and ways of making all those who perpetrate or cover up these crimes accountable."

"We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary," Francis wrote, "yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater culture of care in the present and future."

Francis also criticized the culture of clericalism - which some outsiders say creates a chasm of power between clerics and laity. Francis wrote that clericalism "helps to perpetuate many of the evils that we are condemning today."

Kathleen Cummings, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame, said Francis's critique of clericalism gives her hope for reforms to come.

"He spoke about clericalism far more forcefully and explicitly in this letter," she said.

More important, though, she said, is that church leaders welcome further investigations like the grand-jury report in Pennsylvania.

The Catholic Church "should not be waiting for the attorney general to come knocking but saying 'Come in,' " Cummings said. "The only way to move past this crisis is to understand its magnitude."
"The meeting [at the Trump Tower in 2016] was originally for the purpose of getting information about Clinton. . . .That was the original intention of the meeting. It turned out to be a meeting about another subject and it was not pursued at all."

"Any meeting with regard to getting information on your opponent is something any candidate's staff would take. If someone said, 'I have information about your opponent,' you would take that meeting."

"She didn't represent the Russian government. She's a private citizen. I don't even know if they knew she was Russian at the time. All they had was her name. . . . They didn't know she was a representative of the Russian government."

-- Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, appearing on NBC's " Meet the Press ," Aug. 19, 2018

---

Giuliani, who is a lawyer for President Donald Trump, asserted at one point in this television appearance that "truth isn't truth." He later explained that he was referring to "the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic 'he said, she said' puzzle."

Okay. But there were three other key points he made in that interview that are worth exploring. It's not a question of he said, she said, but actually how the Trump administration has mangled the truth, repeatedly, about a meeting at Trump Tower in 2016.

The Facts

--The purpose of the meeting was 'getting information on Clinton'

Guiliani said that the original purpose of the meeting was to get information on Trump's opponent, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, but that it turned out not to be the case. Attendees at the meeting with a Russian lawyer included key members of Trump's inner circle, including then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, son-in-law Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr.

Readers should not forget that this is not what the Trump White House originally said. Instead, in a statement, Trump Jr. insisted that "it was not a campaign issue at the time." He said that "we primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government."

Now, however, Giuliani has turned that original explanation on its head. He claims that the original purpose was a campaign issue - getting dirt on Clinton - and then it ended up being about adoptions.

We know this only because, under pressure, Trump Jr. was forced to release the emails regarding the meeting. The first email, on June 3, 2016, via British citizen and music publicist Rob Goldstone, said: "The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."

Within 20 minutes, Trump Jr. responded: "If it's what you say, I love it."

(Note: "Aras" refers to Aras Agalarov, the father of Russian pop star Emin Agalarov and a real estate developer who worked with Trump on the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.)

Recall also that the Trump campaign's initial statement about Russian contacts, via then-spokeswoman Hope Hicks, was a flat denial after a Russian government official was quoted as saying the Russians had contact with members of Trump's entourage before the election: "It never happened. There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign."

So, apparently to preserve the original denial of any contacts with Russians, administration officials first misled Americans about the purpose of the meeting.

--'Something any candidate's staff would take'

Even if administration officials initially misled about the purpose of the meeting, Giuliani then asserts that this was the normal type of meeting that any campaign would have. Campaigns certainly look for opposition research on their rivals, but accepting help from a foreign government appears to cross a line.

The legal ramifications are in dispute. Some experts argue that it is a crime for any person in a campaign to "solicit" the contribution of "anything of value" from a foreign citizen, while others insist that the laws are not that clear-cut. We will leave that for the special prosecutor to sort out.

But in any case, it is disingenuous to claim that this is standard campaign behavior. Stuart Stevens, chief strategist for the 2012 Mitt Romney campaign (and now a Trump critic), said if he had gotten a message that a foreign government had dirt on a former secretary of state, "I would have told a campaign lawyer, and the campaign lawyer would have called the FBI."

Stevens pointed to an incident during the 2000 campaign, when he was part of George W. Bush's media team, as the appropriate response by a campaign. The Bush campaign had a tightly held briefing book to prep Bush for his debates with then-Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic nominee. There were only seven or eight debate books, each with a specific typo on the opening page so a leak could be traced, he said. Someone associated with the campaign anonymously shipped a copy of the 120-page book, along with a 60-minute videotape of mock debate sessions, to Tom Downey, then a congressman from Long Island who was assisting Gore with the debates and playing the role of Bush in mock debates.

Downey said he quickly realized what the materials were and contacted a lawyer, who called the FBI so it could take possession of the materials. Downey then recused himself from any further debate prep - a move that Stevens said probably hurt the Gore campaign because Downey was so central to the preparation. A woman who worked for media consultant Mark McKinnon, a colleague of Stevens, was eventually charged and sentenced to a year in jail.

"It's not a close call" about how a campaign should react, Stevens said.

--'They didn't know she was a representative of the Russian government'

Here's where Giuliani's spin goes off the rails -- and is self-contradictory. While he says the meeting was to get dirt on Clinton, and it was perfectly fine to do so, he then tries to claim that the link to the Russian government was not clear.

But emails are clear.

On June 7, Goldstone wrote in an email to Trump Jr.: "Emin [the pop star] asked that I schedule a meeting with you and The Russian government attorney who is flying over from Moscow for this Thursday."

Recall that the first email, on June 3, referred to "Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." And then on June 8, Goldstone asked Trump Jr. to move the scheduled meeting by an hour because "the Russian attorney is in court until 3."

The lawyer was Natalia Veselnitskaya. She has insisted that she was not representing the Russian government in the meeting, but what's important is what Trump Jr. was told - that she was working on behalf of the Russian government. Moreover, it later emerged that she worked closely with a top Kremlin official, Yuri Y. Chaika, the prosecutor general, to block a Justice Department fraud case against a Russian company. The Associated Press reported that she was "a ghostwriter for top Russian government lawyers."

The talking points that she brought were found to match a document that Chaika's office had given to a U.S. member of Congress two months earlier, the New York Times reported. Adding to the intrigue, the U.S. research firm that hired former British spy Christopher Steele to compile a "dossier" on Trump's ties to Russia also assisted the U.S. law firm that defended the Russian company.

In any case, it's false to claim that the Trump campaign aides had no idea Veselnitskaya was representing the Russian government. The emails made that point repeatedly.

The Pinocchio Test

Giuliani's efforts at subterfuge fall flat. The Trump campaign originally said there were no contacts with Russians. When contacts were found, officials said it was not about the campaign. When that talking point was proven wrong, the story changed yet again.

Now Giuliani tries to claim that any campaign would have taken such a meeting. But that's legally dubious - and contrary to the way modern-day presidential campaigns should conduct themselves. Finally, there's no way to spin the fact that Trump Jr. was told repeatedly that he was meeting with a representative of the Russian government. Giuliani earns Four Pinocchios.

Four Pinocchios
BOSTON  The Russian military intelligence unit that sought to influence the 2016 election appears to have a new target: conservative American think tanks that have broken with President Donald Trump and are seeking continued sanctions against Moscow, exposing oligarchs or pressing for human rights.

In a report scheduled for release on Tuesday, Microsoft Corp. said that it detected and seized websites that were created in recent weeks by hackers linked to the Russian unit formerly known as the GRU. The sites appeared meant to trick people into thinking they were clicking through links managed by the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute, but were secretly redirected to webpages created by the hackers to steal passwords and other credentials.

Microsoft also found websites imitating the U.S. Senate, but not specific Senate offices or political campaigns.

The shift to attacking conservative think tanks underscores the Russian intelligence agencys goals: to disrupt any institutions challenging Moscow and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

The Hudson Institute has promoted programs examining the rise of kleptocracy in governments around the world, with Russia as a prime target. The International Republican Institute, which receives some funding from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, has worked for decades in promoting democracy around the world.

We are now seeing another uptick in attacks. What is particular in this instance is the broadening of the type of websites they are going after, Microsofts president, Brad Smith, said Monday in an interview.

These are organizations that are informally tied to Republicans," he said, "so we see them broadening beyond the sites they have targeted in the past.

The International Republican Institutes board of directors includes several Republican leaders who have been highly critical of Trumps interactions with Putin, including a summit meeting last month between the two leaders in Helsinki.

Among them are Sen. John McCain of Arizona; Mitt Romney, a former presidential candidate; and  though he was silent on Trumps appearance in Helsinki  Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who was replaced in the spring as the White House national security adviser. McMaster, who is now retired, had been the author of the national security strategy that called for treating Russia as a revisionist power and confronting it around the world.

This is another demonstration of the fact that the Russians arent really pursuing partisan attacks, they are pursuing attacks that they perceive in their own national self-interest, Eric Rosenbach, director of the Defending Digital Democracy project at Harvard University, said Monday. Its about disrupting and diminishing any group that challenges how Putins Russia is operating at home and around the world.

The State Department has traditionally helped fund both Republican and Democratic groups that engage in promoting democracy.

Daniel Twining, president of the International Republican Institute, called the apparent spear-phishing attempt consistent with the campaign of meddling that the Kremlin has waged against organizations that support democracy and human rights.

It is clearly designed to sow confusion, conflict and fear among those who criticize Mr. Putins authoritarian regime, Twining said in a statement.

The goal of the Russian hacking attempt was unclear, and Microsoft was able to catch the spoofed websites as they were set up.

But Smith said that these attempts are the newest security threats to groups connected with both American political parties ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

These attacks are seeking to disrupt and divide, he said. There is an asymmetric risk here for democratic societies. The kind of attacks we see from authoritarian regimes are seeking to fracture and splinter groups in our society.

On Sunday, the national security adviser, John R. Bolton, suggested that Russia was not the only threat in the fall elections. He also named China, Iran and North Korea  the other most active cyberoperators among state adversaries  as threats.

But so far Microsoft and other firms have not found extensive election-related action by those nations.

Senior U.S. intelligence officials have also warned that the midterm elections will be targeted by foreign governments looking to influence American voters.

Speaking last month at the Aspen Security Forum, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said his agency was seeing information operations aimed at sowing discord and divisiveness in the country.

Only days later, in a report first released to members of Congress, Facebook revealed that it had discovered and eliminated an influence operation aimed at fueling divisions among Americans by targeting progressive groups. Facebook stopped short of naming Russia as the culprit of that campaign, although the social media company pointed to similarities between the influence operation and previous work by the Russian state-linked Internet Research Agency.

The attempt revealed by Microsoft mirrored efforts by Russian state-backed hackers before the 2016 presidential election.

After the 2016 vote, a number of cybersecurity companies discovered websites that had been created by Russian hackers to spoof, or mimic, those of well-known institutions. Among the think tanks targeted were the Council on Foreign Relations and the Eurasia Group, both based in New York; the Center for a New American Security in Washington; Transparency International in Berlin and the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

A single letter, or even a punctuation mark, was often the only difference between the real and fake websites.

The fake websites were used as the conduit for a number of attacks, including persuading victims to download harmful malware or to reveal passwords and other personal information. But for the past year Microsoft has grown increasingly aggressive in countering them.

In 2016, a federal judge in Virginia agreed that the group Microsoft calls Strontium and others call APT 28, for advanced persistent threat, would continue its attacks. The judge appointed a special master with the power to authorize Microsoft to seize fake websites as soon as they are registered. As a result, the hackers have lost control of many of the sites only days after creating them.

But it is a constant cat-and-mouse game, as the Russian hackers seek new vectors of attack while Microsoft and others seek to cut them off.

These attacks keep happening because they work. They are successful again and again, said Thomas Rid, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University, who doubts whether anyone can stay ahead of the hackers.

Microsoft is playing whack-a-mole here, Rid said. These sites are easy to register and bring back up, and so they will keep doing so.

Last month, Microsoft announced that it had detected and helped block similar attacks against two senators who are up for re-election. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who faces one of the toughest political challenges this year, acknowledged that her campaign was among them after months of keeping the news quiet  apparently to avoid alienating voters who doubt the Russian role in election interference.

Microsoft says it is expanding its effort to help political candidates counter foreign influence. It is starting an initiative it calls AccountGuard to bolster protections to candidates and campaign offices at the federal, state and local level, as well as think tanks and political organizations.

With the midterms less than three months away, Microsoft said greater cooperation was needed between tech companies and the federal government over efforts to interfere in the U.S. elections.

Over the last year the larger tech companies, in particular, have put into place stronger information sharing practices where we have seen these threats emerge, Smith said. Those agreements, however, are informal.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times
WASHINGTON - A Republican senator whose vote could ensure the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh offered an upbeat assessment of their meeting Tuesday, highlighting the judge's statement that the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion is "settled law."

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a centrist who supports abortion rights, appeared to be leaning toward backing President Donald Trump's nominee after a one-on-one session that lasted more than two hours. Collins said she would announce her decision after confirmation hearings next month.

Collins said Kavanaugh told her that he agreed with Chief Justice John Roberts, who said during his 2005 confirmation hearing that Roe was "settled as a precedent of the court." The landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision established a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy.

"He said that he agreed with what Justice Roberts said at his nomination hearing, in which he said it was settled law," Collins told reporters. She praised her session with Kavanaugh as "excellent."

With Republicans holding a slim 51-to-49 Senate majority, favorable votes from Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, would guarantee Kavanaugh's confirmation and hand Trump his second Supreme Court justice.

Collins has said that she would oppose a nominee who "demonstrates hostility" to Roe v. Wade. She has also said that Kavanaugh's position on abortion will not be the only factor in her decision.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., offered a wholly different assessment of his meeting with Kavanaugh on Tuesday afternoon, saying the judge failed to answer basic questions on executive power, health care and other issues while providing no reassurance that he would uphold Roe.

"I asked Judge Kavanaugh if he agreed that Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood were correctly decided. He would not say 'yes.' That should send shivers down the spine of any American who believes in reproductive freedom for women," Schumer said at a news conference.

Casey v. Planned Parenthood was a 1992 ruling that upheld Roe, saying states could not enact laws that placed an "undue burden" on access to abortion.

Schumer said Kavanaugh also "would not say that the president should comply with a subpoena," a matter that could come before the Supreme Court in relation to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the Trump campaign.

"Judge Kavanaugh seems to have just about the most expanded view of presidential power of any nominee that I have ever come across," he said. ". . . Even in a criminal case against the president that would jeopardize national security, he wouldn't say they should use the subpoena."

There are several signs that Collins will vote to confirm Kavanaugh, a conservative stalwart with deep ties to the Republican establishment, to succeed retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Despite pressure from both parties, the four-term senator has never opposed a Supreme Court nominee. She voted in favor of Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2006. And both Collins and Murkowski voted to confirm Neil Gorsuch, Trump's previous Supreme Court nominee.

Murkowski will meet with Kavanaugh on Thursday, her spokeswoman confirmed. Republicans hope to confirm Kavanaugh before Oct. 1, when the court's new term begins.

Schumer and Kavanaugh have tangled before on the issue of abortion, a topic likely to shape the discussion at the confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

When Schumer asked for his view on Roe during Kavanaugh's confirmation to the D.C. Circuit in 2006, the would-be judge declined to give his opinion of the ruling but said he would follow Roe "faithfully and fully" if confirmed.

Kavanaugh does not have a large body of writing on abortion jurisprudence. In Garza v. Hargan last fall, he dissented from an opinion allowing an undocumented teenager to temporarily leave government custody to obtain an abortion, arguing to delay the procedure until she was released to a sponsor.

The dissent raised concerns among some abortion rights opponents who considered it too lenient.

The notion that Kavanaugh sees Roe as "settled" precedent, as Roberts said he did, may alarm rather than reassure abortion rights supporters: Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., another George W. Bush nominee, have been reliable votes for abortion restrictions in the most important cases to come before the court during their tenures.

Kavanaugh, 53, also met with Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif., in addition to Collins and Schumer. The nominee declined to answer reporters' questions as he walked between offices.

Absent from Collins's account of their meeting was mention of a newly released memo from 1998 in which, as a lawyer in the office of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, Kavanaugh proposed asking President Bill Clinton sexually explicit questions about his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.

The memo, first reported by The Washington Post, revealed Kavanaugh's support at the time for an aggressive approach by the independent counsel. He said later that his views had shifted, arguing that presidents are too busy to be subject to investigations of that kind while in office.

Kavanaugh's views on the matter are seen as crucial given that he might rule as a Supreme Court justice on the limits of Trump's power and the investigation into Russian election interference led by Mueller.

Collins said she and Kavanaugh discussed his views on executive power, the Garza case and District of Columbia v. Heller, a landmark Supreme Court ruling on gun rights. She did not go into further detail on those topics.

---

The Washington Post's Robert Barnes contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump is threatening to revoke the security clearance of another former U.S. intelligence official, in this case after watching him in a heated debate on cable television.

In a tweet Monday night, Trump accused former CIA and FBI official Philip Mudd of becoming "totally unglued and weird" during a CNN appearance on Friday night, asserting that "Mudd is no mental condition to have such a Clearance."

"Should be REVOKED?" Trump asked his nearly 54 million Twitter followers. In the tweet, Trump flagged Fox News host Sean Hannity, who aired a segment Monday night on Mudd's appearance.

During the CNN segment, Mudd, who is an analyst for the network, debated pro-Trump commentator Paris Dennard on whether Trump is revoking security clearances to punish his political enemies - a hot topic since Trump last week announced the revocation of former CIA director John Brennan's clearance.

Mudd grew visibly angry after Dennard accused officials such as him of profiting from their clearances.

"I have zero relationships with the private sector that involve my security clearance," Mudd said, his voice rising. "Zero. Zero. I get zero dollars from consulting companies that deal with the U.S. government. Are we clear?"

As Dennard persisted in his argument, Mudd yelled: "We're done. We're done. Get out!"

Video of the exchange circulated widely on social media over the weekend. Trump appears to have seen it for the first time on Hannity's broadcast Monday night.

In revoking Brennan's clearance last week, Trump accused the longtime intelligence officer of abusing his status by criticizing the administration.

The president later acknowledged in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he had moved against Brennan in part because of his role in the beginning of the investigation into whether Trump's campaign conspired with the Russian government. Special counsel Robert Mueller is now leading that inquiry.

Trump has also threatened to revoke the clearances of several others involved in the Russia probe and who have criticized him publicly.

That list includes Bruce Ohr, a current senior Justice Department official. Yanking Ohr's clearance, former officials say, would amount to an unprecedented attack on a career civil servant and mark a significant escalation in the president's campaign to retaliate against his real and perceived critics.

Trump's actions and threats have prompted a rare groundswell of opposition to the president from hundreds of former national security officials who normally steer clear of political disputes.

Retired Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, a former CIA and National Security Agency director whose clearance Trump said he is reviewing, responded to Trump's tweet targeting Mudd on Monday night, calling him a "hero" and a "counterterrorism giant."

---

The Washington Post's Shane Harris contributed to this report.
Photos showing two police officers in Chicago sleeping in their patrol vehicle have prompted outrage and an investigation after another week of violence in the city.

The photos, which appear to show the officers dozing in their uniforms, were posted on social media over the weekend, when at least 58 people were shot across Chicago - six of them fatally, according to CBS affiliate WBBM. It's unclear where the photos were taken.

A spokesman with the Chicago Police Department said the officers, who were not publicly identified by the department, are facing disciplinary action after an investigation into the incident, but no further details were provided.

The department said in a statement to WGN that "officer welfare, health and safety are among our highest priorities."

"The officers involved in this incident were not on an overtime initiative and worked minimal amounts of overtime since July 1st and didn't work overtime this week or weekend," according to the statement.

The photos have drawn intense criticism, particularly from several mayoral candidates in Chicago - one of them calling the officers' behavior "inexcusable" and the others expressing concern about how the department is run, according to WGN. Candidate Ja'Mal Green, who also shared the photos of the officers Sunday on Facebook, blamed Mayor Rahm Emanuel, D, for the incident.

"In light of all of the violence that happened last week, Rahm decided to deploy 600 MORE officers & make officers work overtime! This picture proves WHY that was a bad idea," Green wrote in the post.

Green added that police officers "get fatigued which will prevent them from reacting to crime. Militarizing communities does NOT reduce violence."

The mayor's office did not immediately respond Tuesday morning to a request for comment.

Last week in Chicago, there were 67 reported shootings, 13 murders, 45 instances of criminal sexual assault and 156 instances of aggravated robbery, according to crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department.

In posting the photos on Facebook, Green wrote that the city needs "a REAL comprehensive plan to address violence that deals with economics / jobs, education, mental health, small businesses, affordable housing and more!" His platform includes what he calls "People Policing Police" - saying that if he is elected, "Residents of Chicago will serve on a police oversight committee."

Another mayoral candidate, Lori Lightfoot, also expressed concern.

"This administration has exceeded overtime budgets year after year, pushing officers to a breaking point with excessive overtime work and very little officer wellness support, resulting in stress, fatigue, and potentially deadly consequences," Lightfoot, a former president of the Chicago Police Board, said in a statement to WGN.

Former Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy told WGN that politics are impeding police. But he also called out the officers.

"Sleeping on duty is just inexcusable," McCarthy said. "It's a big deal."
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!
Comal County sheriff's deputies and the San Marcos Dive Team are looking for a Bulverde man after finding his boat abandoned on Canyon Lake on Sunday.

Cody Dax Wooten, 24, left at 7:30 a.m. that day to fish near the Jacobs Creek area, according to the Comal County Sheriff's Office.
Lunch was the main thing on Carmen Alvarados mind Monday morning as she walked with a co-worker through the laundry room of the historic St. Anthony Hotel.

But thoughts of where to brunch gave way to shock as she was greeted by the glare of bright television lights and the applause of co-workers who lined the basement corridor.

The surprise was to mark Alvarados 45th year of working in the laundry room, one flight down from the hotel main lobby. Balloons, tied to opened doors, floated above the 66-year-old laundry manager, known affectionally as the heart of the house.

RELATED: Preserve all of the Alamos history

Three dozen employees, from all departments, crowded the hallways to celebrate her anniversary with flowers and a cake. Some well wishers noted that not many people achieve similar milestones these days.

Convention services manager Fabiola Lozano, 26, looked on through tear-filled eyes.

I love her, she said. Im happy to see that shes acknowledged.

Director of Housekeeping, Rebecca Leal, hugged Alvarado and presented her with two gifts: fine, luxury linen and a customized fleece blanket with her name on it. Then Leal hung a sign on the white, concrete block wall that read: Carmens Laundry.

Thank you, all of you, very much, Alvarado said, sweeping her arms to the crowd. I love everybody.

During her tenure, the laundry manager has witnessed many changes.

Shes worked with 25 general managers, dozens of housekeeping directors and eight different hotel companies.

READ ALSO: Downtown restaurant Rebelle in St. Anthony reinventing itself as a seafood place

Debbie Gonzalez, senior account executive, said Alvarados demeanor has brightened the St. Anthony Hotel.

Through peaks and valleys, as hotels go through interesting times, her team has always been steady and happy, Gonzalez said. Through her leadership, theyve always been productive. What they do is very difficult, its not glamorous. We always need employees who will work 45 years.

The first time Alvarado saw the historic hotel was in 1963, when her parents moved her and her seven siblings from Monterrey, Mexico. When they would visit downtown, theyd walk along Travis Park and shed wonder what it would be like to walk inside the luxurious landmark.

Ten years later, she got her chance during a three-month trial period in the laundry room. Those shifts turned into 45 years of providing fresh, clean linen, sheets, towels and tablecloths to guests.

She learned to work gigantic flat iron machines and she toiled beside seamstresses and dry cleaning crews who are no longer on the payroll.

READ ALSO: San Antonio City Council gives initial approval to new hotel fee to fund tourism promotion

The days were hot and sweaty. Before 1983, when air conditioning was installed, they found relief from big fans and by opening small windows to allow cool air to drift in from the park. And along with her co-workers, she smoothed out wrinkles and folded sheets to the tunes of the day.

Alvarado never married. Her co-workers became as dear to her as her family members. As her parents grew older, she cared for them until their last days.

Her passion outside of work is singing with the mariachi choir at San Fernando Cathedral, during the 5 p.m. Saturday Mass.

Leal, 49, said Alvarado plays an integral role, ensuring the laundry never shuts down.

Shes a treasure, Leal said, and the sweetest lady youll ever meet. Renaming the laundry after her is very fitting. Any future employee that becomes a part of the hotel will see Carmens Laundry.
A 23-year-old man was arrested Sunday after he allegedly choked and stabbed his friend to death during a drunken fight after a family baby shower, police said.

Juan Jose Ortega now faces a first-degree felony charge of murder in the death of Guy Santos LaRue, 25. Ortega remains in the Bexar County Jail on a $100,000 bond.

RELATED: Police: Man stabbed in the neck by friend after S.A. baby shower

Police said the fight between Ortega and LaRue began around 5 a.m. Sunday in the 1000 block of Patton Boulevard when Ortega wanted to drive home after a night of drinking at the baby shower. LaRue told Ortega he wouldn't let him drive home in such a state.

"The argument turned into a physical fight and ended when the suspect stabbed the victim," according to a preliminary police report.

Though Ortega is accused of stabbing LaRue, the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office on Monday listed LaRue's cause of death as a "probable choking."

After the attack, Ortega ran to the house where the baby shower had been held and "began pounding on the door, yelling for the family to call EMS," according to the preliminary police report.

RELATED: 53-year-old woman on the run from murder charge arrested in Uvalde

Officers and paramedics came to the home and found LaRue lying in the street. He was taken to University Hospital, where authorities pronounced him dead around 6:15 a.m.

If convicted of the charge against him, Ortega could face up to 99 years in prison.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

Caleb Downs is a crime reporter for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here.| cdowns@mysa.com | Twitter: @calebjdowns
A Bexar County Sheriff's Office deputy accused in June of sexually assaulting a 4-year-old relative and blackmailing her undocumented mother was found dead Monday in his jail cell in Karnes County, according to officials.

Jose Nunez, a 10-year veteran of the sheriff's office who formerly served as a detention officer, was pronounced dead from apparent suicide at about 5:45 a.m. at the Karnes County Detention Center facility.

RELATED: 10-year BCSO veteran arrested, charged with felony sexual assault of a child

The Karnes County Sheriff's Office and the Texas Rangers are conducting an investigation into his death, according to a statement from Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar.

The investigation into the sexual assault by both the criminal and internal affairs divisions will also continue, Salazar said later on Tuesday.

"This alters things a bit, but it doesn't change our ultimate goal of proving it or disproving it," he said.

According to the sheriff's office, the girl and her mother remain in the U.S. and the mother is in the process of applying for a type of non-immigrant visa for victims of crime or the relatives of crime victims who have suffered substantial mental or physical abuse and are willing to cooperate with investigators.

Salazar said the girl is currently getting access to victim's rights programs, and the sheriff's office's victim rights coordinator, Linda Miranda, has been working with the girl and her mom.

"We owe it to this victim to keep following these leads and trying to prove these allegations," he said. "This is life changing. I don't think anyone would dispute that. We need to make sure she's okay and her mom's okay."

Authorities believe Nunez abused the girl for months, maybe years. Salazar said Nunez was able to conceal his crimes in part because he threatened to have the girl's mother, who had entered the country illegally, deported should she notify authorities of the abuse.

RELATED: One dead in Northwest Side apartment complex fire

"Folks like this are creatures of habit and opportunity," Salazar said at a press conference in June. "I don't know that he was purposely targeting the undocumented community. Certainly what was appealing was the vulnerability of that community because they are less apt to report things."

Deputies learned of the assaults after the mother took the girl to a fire station and asked for help. Following an investigation, Nunez was arrested and jailed.

Salazar said Nunez was transferred to the Karnes County Jail the day of his arrest in accordance with a department policy that requires criminally charged sheriff's deputies to be housed in a jail other than Bexar County's.

"That was something I changed," Salazar said. "We don't house them here. It could lead to allegations of favoritism, or it could be a bad situation in which you're guarding these inmates one day and the next you're one of them."

Bexar County currently has a contract with Karnes County that allows them to house up to 100 inmates at the jail for a certain price. The contract allows Bexar County to house more inmates at the Karnes County Jail, but at a higher price.

Nunez was one of only a few Bexar County inmates at the Karnes County Jail, Salazar said.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

Caleb Downs is a crime reporter for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here.| cdowns@mysa.com | Twitter: @calebjdowns
In recent years, Texas leaders on both sides of the aisle have increasingly recognized the need for the state to improve policies to support Texans  both adults and children  with mental health challenges.

On the eve of last years state legislative session, for example, the Texas House Select Committee on Mental Health issued a report emphasizing the importance of addressing mental health in Texas, concluding: Because mental health affects so many segments of our daily lives (i.e. education, medical care, health insurance, criminal justice, homelessness, etc.), it is absolutely one of the most critical areas of concern facing Texas today.

One of the key challenges in addressing mental health in Texas is that the state has the highest uninsured rate and highest number of uninsured people in the nation.

Data provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2016 demonstrates how important health insurance is for getting mental health treatment in Texas. It shows that Texans with health insurance were nearly 50 percent more likely to receive treatment for mental illness or a substance use disorder compared to Texans who lack insurance. The report also confirmed that a huge number of the 1 million Texans without health insurance had experienced mental illness or a substance use disorder during the previous year.

Mental health is only one of the policy challenges that are hard for state leaders to address so long as Texas has a sky-high uninsured rate. Maternal and infant health, families struggling to make ends meet, rural hospital closures and pressure on local property taxes are among the other challenges that are exacerbated by the states high uninsured rate.

Recent polling makes clear that Texans want the Legislature to work on health coverage: 87 percent of Texans say that its a top priority or important for the Legislature to work on expanding access to health insurance.

A big reason that the state has such a high uninsured rate is that there is no affordable insurance option for those working in child care, the service industry, construction and many other professions with incomes that keep Texans below the federal poverty line and whose workers dont receive insurance from their employers. Medicaid policies determined by the Texas Legislature have largely restricted the health insurance program to people with severe disabilities or near-death illnesses, and low-income children, seniors and pregnant women.

The federal government offers states Medicaid expansion funding to create an insurance option for these low-wage adults, but so far, the Texas Legislature and governor have turned down the funding, leaving billions of dollars on the table.

The consequences of that decision have been profound for Texans with mental health challenges: The HHS report estimates that more than 400,000 Texans with mental health or substance use challenges could enroll in health insurance if state leaders accepted Medicaid expansion funding.

Providing much-needed health care for hundreds of thousands of Texans would be a game changer at a time when many policy proposals are measured by the dozens or hundreds of Texans who would benefit. Its time for state leaders to make real progress on mental health by developing a plan to reduce our states high uninsured rate.

Greg Hansch is the public policy director at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, Texas. Will Francis is the government relations director at the National Association of Social Workers/Texas Chapter.
Restaurants Association of Ireland urge government to retain 9% VAT rate

A recent report published by the Restaurant Association of Ireland (RAI) has revealed that 695 new jobs in the Accommodation and Food Services sector have been created in County Longford since the introduction of the reduced VAT rate of 9% in July 2011. This report identifies the direct and indirect employment associated with the introduction of the reduced VAT rate of 9%. Between Q2 2011 and Q1 2018, the number of people working in the Accommodation & Food Services sector nationally increased by 54,400, taking total employment from 117,300 to 171,700 on a seasonally adjusted basis. The sector also accounted for 7.7% of total employment in the economy in the first quarter of 2018. At a national level, the increase in indirect employment as a result of the job creation in the Accommodation & Food Services sector is estimated at 25,024. The increase in direct and indirect employment is estimated at 79,424.

The Restaurants Association of Ireland today is urging Government to retain the 9% VAT rate for the tourism and hospitality industry as they believe it has improved the competitiveness of the sector, while ensuring the viability of many small businesses that have been going through challenging times. The RAI is asking Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure, Paschal Donohoe T.D, not to return the VAT rate to 13.5%.

In Q1 2018, it is estimated that 1,473 workers were employed directly in the Accommodation and Food Services sector in County Longford. The total gross annual wage paid to those workers was 34.1 million. The total net annual wage paid to those workers was 30.3 million. The payroll taxes accruing to the Exchequer from this employment was 7.5 million. Indirect employment as a result of direct employment in the sector is estimated at 678.

Total employment in the Accommodation and Food Services sector in County Longford increased by 476 between Q2 2011 and Q1 2018. The total gross annual wage paid to those extra workers is 11 million. The total net annual wage paid to those extra workers is 9.8 million. The payroll taxes accruing to the Exchequer from this extra employment is 2.4 million. Indirect employment as a result of the change in direct employment in the sector is estimated at 219.

Speaking about the success of the reduced VAT rate in recent years, Adrian Cummins, Chief Executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, said: In terms of creating new jobs in the hospitality sector, the introduction of the 9% VAT rate in July 2011 has been a major driver of local employment growth. In Q1 2018 alone, 171,700 workers were employed directly in the Accommodation and Food Services sector and the total gross annual wage paid to those workers was 3.98 billion. Total employment in the Accommodation and Food Services sector has increased by 54,400 people between Q2 2011 and Q1 2018. The impact the reduced VAT rate has had on this growth cannot be underestimated.

Due to this significant increase in employment in between Q2 2011 and Q1 2018, the total gross annual wage paid to those extra workers has amounted to 1,260 million.The total net annual wage paid to those extra workers is 1,118 million and the payroll taxes accruing to the Exchequer from this extra employment was 278 million.

There has been strong growth in the number of overseas trips to Ireland since the 9% VAT rate was introduced in July 2011. Between 2011 and 2017 there has been an increase of 52.7% in the number of overseas visitors to Ireland. This growth is due to a number of factors, but the impact that the reduced VAT rate has had on the competitiveness of the Irish tourism product is significant. This increase in visitor numbers, resulted in an increase of 1.97 billion in overseas tourist expenditure.

The 2018 report recognises tourism as Irelands most important indigenous sector, providing considerable employment across Ireland. In the context of a country where there is a strong imperative to boost employment and economic activity, the ongoing health of the sector is of vital importance. The RAI believe that the lower VAT rate is an important component of the tourism sector and the introduction of an increased VAT rate would only serve to undermine the competitiveness of the industry and the viability of many small businesses across Ireland.
The family and friends of the late Fergus Fergie Feeney, Knock, Lanesboro came together recently and raised 620 which they donated towards the MRI Scanner appeal in Mullingar Hospital in his memory.

Fergus passed to his eternal reward, peacefully, in the presence of his family, at Rose Lodge Nursing Home, Killucan after a short illness on Thursday, June 28.

Photo: The late Fergus Feeney.

The money was presented to Mullingar Hospital following Fergus' month's mind Mass.

His daughter Liz explained, The MRI Scanner is very close to our hearts. When Dad was under the care of Mullingar Hospital and was diagnosed with a brain tumour, he needed a detailed MRI scan. As there was no scanner on site, an ambulance crew had to be arranged to take him to Tullamore.

The transfer agitated him. As Dad was at risk of seizures, that same night an advanced paramedic team were sent from Dublin to transfer him from Mullingar to Beaumont for the MRI scan. Again this transfer left him agitated. If we can stop another person from having to go through this experience that would be amazing.

Also read: Lough Ree Monster sighted in Lanesboro

Liz added, The care my dad received in Mullingar was outstanding and he was happy to be treated there. They really should be self-sufficient and have their own MRI Scanner on site.

She thanked everyone who donated towards the appeal and also to Annette Coffey, Micheal Coffey and all the Shannon Tones, Steve and Theresa Ormsby (Clarkes Bar), SuperValu Lanesboro for providing the food and all of Fergus' Friends and Family.

Fergie was was a character with a soft and caring personality. He was obliging and helpful to everyone and his passing leaves us all the poorer but richer from the time we had with him throughout his life.

Also read: Tributes paid to wife of Longford county councillor

He was a founder member of the legendary Hop group that held Hops in the hall on Sunday nights during the late 60s and early 70s. He had music in his heart and he loved to express it in song.

Fergie was part of the Shannon Tones who released a CD a few years back, he was a poet and wrote poetry for many various people and occasions. He was also a reader at Mass a number of months each year.

Fergie is sadly missed and lovingly remembered by his wife Maureen, daughter Elizabeth, son-in-law, Ian, his sister Gabrielle, brother Tom, daughter-in-law Sinead, grandchildren Nicolas and Eva and all of his family and friends.

Also read: Lanesboro's Donal Chapman set for Bungee Jump fundraiser
Apple at last has an external graphics processing unit on the hallowed shelves of the Apple Store, and as you might expect, its a looker.

The Blackmagic eGPU (from Blackmagic Design) was designed in collaboration with Apple. With its brushed aluminum casing and the spot-on space gray coloring, the Blackmagic eGPU, MacBook Pro, and iMac could pass for cousins in a family portrait. It belongs.

It also follows many of the same design philosophies that make Apples own products so beloved. Its quiet and sleek, with its noise reaching only around 15dB at peak performance, thanks to a tangle of cooling tubes. Its inconspicuous and easy to set up, to the point that it doesnt even have a power switch. You simply plug it into your a Macs Thunderbolt 3 port and it works. Heck, at the moment, you get only get it from the Apple Store.

And yet for all that, youll likely find that its magic fails to leave a lasting spell.

Gray ghost

Perhaps intentionally, its design somewhat echoes the maligned 2013 Mac Pro. The Blackmagic eGPU is a softly angular eight-faced contraption rather than Jony Ives often-lampooned curvy trash can, but like that device, its design embraces squat, 11.5-inch verticality rather than the desk-hogging horizontalism of other eGPUs. In fact, Blackmagics unit is slightly more interesting to look at, as a soft LED light illuminates the 1.7-inch gap between the bottom grill and the surface it rests on when it powers up.

Leif Johnson/IDG Not quite pot and kettle, but its pretty close.

A selection of ports runs along its spine in the style of the Mac Pro, ranging from four USB-A 3.1 ports and an HDMI slot to two Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports for connecting it to your Mac or hooking up to an external monitor like the officially supported LG UltraFine 5K display. Considering that it can also charge your Mac with 85 watts of juice, thats an impressive selection to choose from. The only drawback in this regard is the roughly 20-inch Thunderbolt 3 cable, which means youll always have to keep it fairly close to your MacBook. In a way, though, thats the point, as the shorter cables help with the 40GBps data transfer speeds to your MacBook Pro.

But, of course, the chief legacy of the Mac Pro was its famous resistance to upgrades and alterations, and these same troubles carry over to the Blackmagic eGPU. Blackmagics device comes with a non-removable 8GB AMD Radeon Pro 580 tightly packed in-between the aluminum shell and the grills on the units top and bottom, and you can see the massive tangle of cooling tubes when you peek through the honeycomb latticework. There are no visible screws; If you want to get into this thing, youre going to have to force your way in (and we dont recommend that). Its a sturdy beast, though, and its easy to get the feeling that none of the units 9.9 pounds were wasted.

Leif Johnson/IDG Nice set of pipes, eh?

Plug and play

I understand why someone would want a device like this. Theres a lot to be said for a device that can significantly boost the graphics performance of a MacBook Pro simply by plugging it into a Thunderbolt 3 slot. And it really is that simple, as macOS High Sierra (and Mojave) comes with all the drivers needed to support most AMD cards built right into the OS itself. When you need to unplug it, you simply right-click an icon on the taskbar.

Most eGPUs are actually fairly easy to set up, but this device avoids even the (very minor) hassle of slipping a supported graphics card into the enclosures slot and screwing it in. The Blackmagic eGPU is about as plug-and-play as you get.

Leif Johnson/IDG Were fans of the fans.

But its just not that powerful, which means its not a future-proofed as it could be. The AMD Radeon Pro 580 is certainly more powerful than the Radeon Pro 560X youll find in the 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro, but it still doesnt hold a candle to AMD cards like the RX Vega 56 and and the RX Vega 64. And its not like including these would have been out of the realm of possibility (although they may have boosted the price by a couple hundred bucks), as the iMac Pro already comes with Vega-powered graphics. For that matter, the Radeon Pro 580 is already over a year old at this point.

As it stands, youre going to get the absolute most out of a unit like this if youre using a Mac that doesnt have a discrete graphics card, such as the 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro without Touch Bar that I sometimes use.

Double your fun

First off, its not bad. Youre almost certainly going to get a significant 3D boost regardless of which Thunderbolt-3 MacBook Pro or non-Pro iMac youre using, although the boost will naturally be stronger for older and smaller units such as the 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro. The big question is whether it delivers enough of a boost to make it worth $700.

Naturally, I wanted to check out how it works with our decked-out 2.9GHz 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, which is packed with 32GB of RAM and an AMD Radeon 560X graphics card. Heres how it checks out:

IDG Longer bars/higher scores are better.

As you can see, it soundly trounces Apples latest and greatest laptop in a series of Geekbench 4 benchmarks for both Metal and OpenCL.

Impressive, yes, but I was especially impressed with how well it performed with the 2017 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar that I use on a daily basis. It allows the Check out the performance gains in that machine with Geekbench 4 benchmarks.

IDG Longer bars/higher scores are better.

As impressive as these results are, I found that theyre usually not powerful enough to deliver the kind of performance in games that you might expect. In other words, just because you have this $700 eGPU hooked up to your MacBook Pro, you shouldnt expect the kind of performance that youll get from a proper gaming PC.

For testing, I ventured into the crowded hub of Barolus in World of Warcrafts new Battle for Azeroth expansion on the 2017 MacBook Pro, and I found I could only reach a steady rate of more than 40 frames per second by dialing down the overall graphics settings from 10 to 7 (on a scale of 10) on an external 25-inch Asus Predator XB2 gaming monitor. For comparison, my 2017 MacBook Pro recommends a setting of 4 without the eGPU.

I gathered more concrete results with the benchmarking tool for the resource-demanding game Rise of the Tomb Raider. As you can see below, I was never able to reach the desired 60 fps while running it on Very High settings at a 19201080 resolution, although it still gives a big boost over the 2017 15-inch MacBook Pros discrete Radeon Pro 555 card.

IDG Longer bars/higher framerates are better.

I saw similar results in Uningines Benchmark Valley tool while running it on Ultra settings at 19201080 resolution on the Asus monitor. You can see how the frame rate basically doubles, but were still not reaching 60 fps.

IDG Longer bars/higher framerates are better.

Im focusing so much on gaming because video editing still lags behind with eGPUs, which is a bit of a shock because Id assume this would be the market eGPUs work with. Fortunately, Blackmagic Designs own DaVinci Resolve 15 works well with the eGPU, but more popular suites from other companies present more problems. Final Cut Pro X appears to use it for video editing, for example, but theres little discernible difference when processing videos. And Adobe apps simply dont use support eGPUs at all, which is a major blow considering Premiere Pros massive presence on the market. For that matter, you still cant use eGPUs to play PC games through BootCamp.

The Radeon Pro 580 is a good card, but you shouldnt be under any illusions that its the best. For a comparison, I hooked up an AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 to a customizable eGPU and ran the same Geekbench 4 tests. The Vega 64 is essentially top-of-the-line now, and itll remain a good card for a few years to come. Its basically what you want if you consider yourself a pro user. Heres how it performed on the 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro in comparison to the onboard cards and the Blackmagic eGPU.

IDG Longer bars/higher scores are better.

I wouldnt say the Vega 64 blew the Radeon Pro 580 out of the water, but the improvements were undeniable. As for the Radeon Pro 580? I worry that Apples own machines could overtake it within a couple of years.

Bottom line

If youre looking for the absolute minimal hassle when setting up an eGPU, the Blackmagic eGPU isnt such a bad buy. Its beautiful and it complements the aesthetic of Apples own devices, and it delivers clear (if occasionally disappointing) performance boosts over the graphics cards built into many Macs, and its impressively quiet. It effectively doubles the graphic processing capabilities of the 2018 MacBook Pro.

Leif Johnson/IDG You can use an eGPU without an external monitor in Mojave (but youll take some performance hits).

But even now, this pricey non-upgradeable unit isnt going to give you the best performance boost you can get with an eGPU, and in just a couple of years, it may lag behind what Apple itself is rolling out in its new MacBooks. When that happens, you wont be able to simply buy a new graphics card and replace the Radeon Pro 580; instead, if you want this same kind of ease of installation, youre likely going to want to buy an updated Blackmagic eGPU. And when that happens, lets hope its got a better card than this one.
Chrissy Teigen took to Twitter today to apologise for puking at her daughter's school orientation.

Chrissy and partner John Legend have been living it up in Bali these past few weeks, and came home to attend their daughter's school orientation, where it seems as though the holiday caught up with her.
Post Malone has had a bit of a rough day, after being caught up in emergency landing drama on board a private jet.

It was reported that the The Gulfstream IV jet had blown two tyres during takeoff on Tuesday while Post and 15 of his entourage were on board.

CBS news reported that "A London-bound plane that left Teterboro Airport this morning with two blown tires is being diverted to New York Stewart International Airport in Orange County."

"According to unconfirmed reports, rapper Post Malone and his entourage are on the plane. They were reportedly headed to London for a concert."
Boston Celtics forward Marcus Morris has advice for others dealing with anxiety and depression.

"I know lots of guys who are dealing with some kind of anxiety and depression -- not knowing if they have a job next season, not knowing if they're going to get traded. It's so stressful. Everyone is pulling at you. They want your time, your money, a piece of your fame," Morris told ESPN's Jackie MacMullan. "If you have depression, you should be trying to get rid of it instead of bottling it up and letting it weigh on you and weigh on you and weigh on you."

Morris opened up about his personal experience with depression for part two of MacMullan's five-part series on mental health in the NBA. Tuesday's piece discussed how race relates to depression.

Marcus and his twin, Markieff, who plays for the Washington Wizards, have both dealt with mental health struggles that stem back their childhoods in Philadelphia, where they lived in a basement with 6-and-a-half foot ceilings inside a crime-ridden neighborhood. Marcus, specifically, detailed to MacMullan the stress of wanting to stay out of his hometown. He discussed the weight of playing in the NBA, dealing with unreliable management, a system that doesn't always prioritize mental health and how his upbringing affects his outlook on it all.

MacMullan addressed Celtics legend Paul Pierce's bout with depression during part one of her series. Click here to read part two, which goes far deeper than simply outlining the Morris twins' personal accounts.

--

Fred Katz covers the Celtics for MassLive.com. Follow him on Twitter: @FredKatz.
A private plane carrying rapper Post Malone is attempting an emergency landing at New York Stewart International Airport.

The Gulfstream IV had two of its tires blow out shortly after takeoff from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey at 10:55 a.m. It was bound for London.

At one point, the jet was set to make its emergency landing at Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport in Massachusetts.

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The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that infants be exclusively breastfed for about the first six months of life followed by breastfeeding in combination with the introduction of complementary foods until at least 12 months of age.

Breast milk alone is considered sufficient to support optimal growth and development for approximately the first six months after birth.

Despite the recommendation, less than 50 percent of infants born in the United States in 2015 were exclusively breastfed through three months and about 25 percent were exclusively breastfed through six months, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC notes that "mothers may not be getting the support they need from health care providers, family members, and employers to meet their breastfeeding goals."

CDC data, however, shows a high percentage of infants on average are breastfed for at least six months if not exclusively.

Among infants born in 2015 in the United States, four out of five or 83.2 percent started to breastfeed, over half or 57.6 percent were breastfeeding at six months, and over one-third or 35.9 percent were breastfeeding at 12 months.

Breastfeeding rates among infants born in 2015 in Massachusetts - similar to national rates - show that 87.4 percent ever breastfed; 55.6 percent breastfeeding at six months; 36.8 percent breastfeeding at 12 months; 46.5 percent exclusive breastfeeding through three months; 26.6 percent exclusive breastfeeding through six months; 13.7 percent breastfed infants receiving formula before two days of age; and a percentage of 19.0 for live births in 2018 occurring at baby-friendly facilities that provide support for mothers to breastfeed.

States with higher exclusive breastfeeding rates at six months for infants born in 2015 include Alaska at 42.1 percent; Vermont at 38 percent; and Minnesota at 37.2 percent.

The rates of exclusive breastfeeding through three and six months have generally been increasing each year, according to the CDC, that also said the rates have stayed virtually the same among infants born in 2015, compared with infants born in 2014.

The CDC said rates for infants born in 2015 increased for breastfeeding at six and 12 months compared to those born in 2014 in the U.S.

States with some of the lower rates for infants born in the U.S. in 2015 who were ever breastfed include Mississippi at 63.2 percent; Louisiana at 67 percent; and Alabama at 68.1 percent.

In 2018, almost half - some 49 percent - of employers are said to provide a separate onsite lactation room/mother's room, according to the CDC data.

Percentage rates vary widely by state on babies born in facilities considered to provide recommended care for lactating mothers and their babies.

Approximately one in six or 17.2 percent breastfed infants born in 2015 received formula supplementation within the first two days of life.

Other breastfeeding rates among infants born in 2015 in the U.S. show that 46.9 percent exclusive breastfeeding through three months; 24.9 percent exclusive breastfeeding through six months; 17.2 percent breastfed infants receiving formula before two days of age; and a percentage of 26.1 for live births in 2018 occurring at baby-friendly facilities.

The CDC compiled what it calls its 2018 Breastfeeding Report Card of data on breastfeeding practices and supports in all states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands in conjunction with the Healthy People 2020 objectives.

The initiative is a collaborative health promotion and disease prevention effort by the federal government.

Overall, five of eight Healthy People 2020 objectives for breastfeeding have been met nationally.

Its unmet targets include to reduce the proportion of breastfed newborns who receive formula supplementation within the first 2 days of life from the current rate of 17.2 percent to 14.2 percent.
A 19-year-old man from Cheshire remains in critical condition after he was shot and badly injured in October Mountain State Park early Tuesday, police said.

The teenager is being treated at Berkshire Medical Center, David Procopio, a Massachusetts State Police spokesman said in an email.

Police responded to the 16,000-acre park at 1 a.m. Tuesday after receiving reports of a shooting. State police detectives, members of the crime unit and forensic unit, along with a K-9 unit continue to search the forest for the assailant.

The teenager was found on New Lenox Road at Ashley Lake in the park, police said.

The investigation remains open.

The Berkshire County District Attorney's office is also investigating, alongside state police.
EASTHAMPTON -- If all goes as planned, a tiny cocktail lounge at 78 Cottage Street will change hands and gain a new name.

Owner Amy Florek is selling "The Library" to James Stillwaggon of Northampton, who plans to change the name to "Gigantic."

"We have 682 square feet. That's why we're calling ourselves 'Gigantic,'" Stillwaggon told the Easthampton Licensing Board on Aug. 13.

The board approved a liquor license transfer for the venue, which must in turn be approved by the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission.

The Library, at 78 Cottage St., is next door to Amy's Place, a restaurant and bar at 80 Cottage St. also owned by Florek.

Up until 2016, the two venues shared a liquor license. After the city won eight new over-quota licenses that year, Florek was granted a separate license for The Library.

Now, The Library is being splintered off and sold with its attached all-pour alcohol license.

A common interior door linking the two venues will be eliminated, Stillwaggon told the board. He said the tinted windows will come down "so people can see inside." Stillwaggon will hold the license under Cottage Industries, LLC.

According to state land records, Amy's Place and The Library are part of a five-unit commercial condominium complex within the brick storefront building on Cottage Street. Florek has an 18 percent interest in the common areas and facilities of the property.

In 2009, Florek bought "Unit 5" of the commercial condo complex for $110,000, land records show. It's not known how much Stillwaggon will pay for 78 Cottage Street.

The real estate transaction is dependent upon the liquor license approval, Stillwaggon told the board.

"I will keep the bar similar to how it is now," he said. "It will remain a nice, quiet place for a grownup to have a drink."

Stillwagon said he anticipates opening 'Gigantic' in the fall.
CHICOPEE - A crash on Interstate-391 has closed the northbound lanes of the highway and the Exit 2 ramp because of a serious accident.

State Police confirmed the crash happened at about 6:30 p.m. There is no information about how many people are involved.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation is reporting there are injuries in the crash.

The exit leads to Route 116 and downtown Chicopee.

It is not known how long the highway will be closed, police said.
Justin Bilton and his dad, Charles, were hiking in Glacier National Park in early August when they found themselves trapped in the middle of a life-threatening forest fire, NBC News reports. A dead-end road left only one route of escape down a windy dirt road, which the pair, both Massachusetts residents, took in their rental car, according to NBC10 Boston.

Flames engulfed trees on either side, leaving a scorchingly narrow course. In a viral video, Justin desperately asks, "Dad, what if the car blows up?" and "Dad, what if a tree falls on us?" Charles responds, "Ah, wow, then we're dead."

The Bilton's debated getting out of the car once conditions worsened, but ultimately decided to hit reverse and retrace their path, when a fallen down tree made the road impassable.

According to NBC News, two park employees were waiting for them with rescue assistance at the start of the road.

Justin told NBC News, "We're just really, really grateful to be alive."

"I think what we learned is don't take a chance," Charles said in an interview with NBC10 Boston. "When you see the tape and the fear and the reality of what could have happened, now, I realize that we were in a real mess."
Licenses for Massachusetts marijuana testing labs -- a crucial link that's been missing in the supply chain for retail pot -- are on the agenda of state regulators.

The Cannabis Control Commission is set to meet Thursday at 1 p.m., with independent testing lab licenses for CDX Analytics LLC in Salem and MCR Labs LLC in Framingham on the agenda.

Recreational marijuana must be independently tested before it's sold in Massachusetts, but no labs are currently licensed. Commissioners have previously approved provisional licenses for retail, manufacturing and other parts of the supply chain.

July 1 was a target date for retail marijuana shops to open, but the date was not mandated within state law. Massachusetts voters backed the broad legalization of recreational marijuana for adults ages 21 and over in November 2016.

The lack of openings has led to grumbling in some circles, with Shaleen Title, one of the five members of the Cannabis Control Commission, fielding complaints on Twitter.

"[O]h look at that, labs are on the agenda, you all can chill the hell out," Title said in a Twitter post shortly after Thursday's agenda went live on the commission's website.

Title, a longtime marijuana legalization activist, wrote the legalization ballot question that ultimately become law in 2016. She is also the only member of the commission who voted in favor of the ballot question.

The agenda also includes retailer licenses for Alternative Therapies Group, Inc. and Northeast Alternatives, Inc., and a product manufacturer license for Cultivate Holdings, LLC.

The timeline for the opening of a retail marijuana shop remains unclear.
SPRINGFIELD -- The INSA medical marijuana company is looking to fill 31 jobs here and in Easthampton, an official said Monday.

"We currently have about 75 employees between all departments, 15 in Springfield and 60 in Easthampton," CEO Mark Zatyrka told The Republican in an email.

The new jobs entail cultivating, harvesting, trimming and working in retail at both dispensaries, he said.

The starting pay for retail dispensary jobs is $15 to $17 an hour, for cultivation $14 to $16 an hour and for harvesting and trimming $12 to $15 an hour, he said.

INSA opened a medical marijuana dispensary at 122 Pleasant St. in Easthampton in February. It opened the Springfield location at 506 Cottage St. in May.

INSA also has received three provisional licenses to cultivate, process and dispense marijuana for recreational purposes from the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission.

The provisional licenses that the commission approved for INSA Aug. 9 allows for "Tier 7" cultivation, meaning the company can grow and manufacture 50,001 to 60,000 square feet of marijuana and marijuana products. This will be at the Easthampton site.

"INSA continues to grow, in more ways than one. We are excited to announce that we are once again hiring in almost all departments," said a press release announcing the available jobs.

To apply for the jobs, visit myinsa.com, click on the drop-down menu in the upper right and select "careers." Or click here

INSA is the combination of two categories of the cannabis plant, "INdica" and "SAtiva," Zatyrka said.
A Pittsfield teenager has been charged with a shooting that has left a 19-year-old from Cheshire in critical condition.

Kevin Nieves, 19, was arrested shortly before 3 p.m. Tuesday and charged with armed assault with intent to murder, illegal possession of a firearm, kidnapping and assault and battery, said Fred Lantz, spokesman for Berkshire District Attorney Paul Caccaviello.

Nieves is accused of shooting a Chester resident near the Ashley Reservoir in October Mountain State Park, in Washington, early Tuesday morning, he said.

Police received a 911 call reporting the shooting at 1 a.m. The victim was found on New Lenox Road and brought to Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield and underwent surgery. He is currently being treated in the intensive care unit, Lantz said in a written statement.

The shooting is being investigated by State Police detectives assigned to Caccaviello's office, the Massachusetts State Police Crime Scene Services and Ballistics Sections, forensic scientists assigned to the State Police Crime Laboratory, state troopers from the Lee and Cheshire barracks, members of the Pittsfield, Dalton, Washington and Hinsdale Police Departments and the Berkshire County Sheriff's Department.

Anyone with information about the crime is asked to call state police detectives at 413-499-1112.
Update: Plane lands safely in New York.

____

A private jet -- reportedly carrying rapper Post Malone and 15 others -- is en route to New York rather than Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport in Westfield to make an emergency landing after two of its tires blew out after takeoff.

Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport Manager Eric Billowitz said Tuesday afternoon the troubled Gulfstream IV is now bound for New York Stewart International Airport, a public/military airport in Orange County, New York.

Malone, 23, and his team left from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey Tuesday morning for London, TMZ reported. The Gulfstream IV's tires blew off during takeoff.

According to TMZ, an air traffic control informed the Gulfstream pilot to continue to Massachusetts in order to burn more fuel for a safer possible crash landing. The plane had 3,700 gallons of fuel to burn.

Flight tracking service flightradar24.com showed the flight, which had been circling over Stamford and Bridgeport in southern Connecticut on the Long Island Sound, headed toward New York after 2:30 p.m.

Malone, born Austin Richard Post, performed at the MTV VMA Awards with 21 Savage and Aerosmith on Monday night. He won Song of the Year for "Rockstar."
Update: Plane lands safely in New York.

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Rapper Post Malone's plane is reportedly en route to Westfield Barnes Regional Airport in Westfield to make an emergency landing after two of the plane's tires allegedly blew out after takeoff.

The 23-year-old Syracuse rapper and his team left from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey Tuesday headed to London, TMZ reported. The Gulfstream IV's tires blew off during takeoff.

The Federal Aviation Administration told the Associated Press the flight has been diverted to Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport.

Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport Manager Eric Billowitz confirmed it has been told to prepare for an emergency landing of a Gulfstream IV out of Teterboro Airport. He was not told who was on the flight.

According to TMZ, an air traffic control informed the Gulfstream pilot to continue to Massachusetts in order to burn more fuel for a safer possible crash landing. The plane had 3,700 gallons of fuel to burn.

Flight tracking service flightradar24.com showed the flight circling over Stamford and Bridgeport in southern Connecticut on the Long Island Sound shortly before 1:30 p.m.

Malone, born Austin Richard Post, performed at the MTV VMA Awards with 21 Savage and Aerosmith on Monday night. He won Song of the Year for "Rockstar."
SPRINGFIELD -- Erik W. Henry, the former Chicopee firefighter accused of seven robberies, is scheduled to be tried Nov. 28.

Greenfield District Court Judge William F. Mazanec III has been specially assigned to Henry's case by state Trial Court Chief Justice Paula Carey. Carey authorized Mazanec to sit as a Superior Court judge for Henry's case.

The trial date was set last week at a pretrial hearing before Mazanec in Greenfield.

Henry has denied 14 charges for allegedly robbing three banks, two convenience stores and a gas station during a five-week spree last fall.

In February, Henry, 36, of Chicopee pleaded not guilty in Hampden Superior Court to 10 counts of armed robbery while masked, two counts of unarmed robbery and one count each of possession of heroin and possession of cocaine.

Henry faces two counts of armed robbery while masked for the Nov. 16 robbery of Westfield Bank in Holyoke. He faces two counts of armed robbery while masked for the robbery of a United Bank branch in Springfield on Nov. 6.

The indictments for Chicopee robberies are:

one count of armed robbery while masked for the Shell gas station at 447 Springfield St. on Oct. 21,

two counts of unarmed robbery for Westfield Bank at 569 East St. on Oct. 30,

one count of armed robbery while masked for the Quik Pic convenience store at 452 Chicopee St. on Nov. 22,

one count of armed robbery while masked for Basics Plus Mini Mart at 190 East St. on Nov. 26,

and three counts of armed robbery while masked for TD Bank at 153 Meadow St. on Nov. 26.

Henry is represented by Terrence M. Dunphy in the case prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney James M. Forsyth.
President Donald Trump expressed his condolences to the families of two college students from Saudi Arabia, who drowned while trying to rescue two young children from the Chicopee River on June 29.

Jaser al-Rakah, 25, and Theeb al-Yami, 27, were among several adults who jumped into the Chicopee River in Wilbraham as the children were struggling with the current. The two college students drowned in the effort.

The Saudi embassy in Washington on Monday night released a statement regarding the two letters sent by the president. They were printed in their entirety by Al Arabiya and ArabNews.com

"On behalf of the American people, I respectfully extend our sincere condolences," Trump began in letters dated Aug. 9.

"Jaser (and Theeb) exemplified tremendous courage by putting (their) own life at risk to save two distressed children from drowning in the Chicopee River. (Their) heroism represents the very best of humanity, and (their) noble actions will always be remembered," Trump wrote. "Melania and I send our thoughts and prayers to you during this sorrowful time. May you find strength in their inspiring legacy of selfless sacrifice."

Al-Rakah was a junior at Western New England University, majoring in civil engineering, while al-Yami was enrolled at the University of Hartford, as a senior majoring in civil engineering.
AMHERST - President Donald Trump's trade tariffs are hurting farmers all across the country, U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern said Tuesday during a tour of Western Massachusetts farms.

"The tariffs are a stupid way to work out our trade differences," McGovern said. "There are better ways to negotiate better trade.

"Our farmers are hurting. Tariffs should be the last resort. We need to fix our trade policy. Behaving like a bully or a crybaby is not the way to do it," he said.

The Worcester Democrat made the comments while visiting the University of Massachusetts farm, one of six he visited in Western Massachusetts. He is scheduled to visit six more Wednesday in Worcester County as part of his 8th annual cross-district farm tour.

He talked about farmers' needs and the farm bill among other topics.

Being a dairy farmer in New England "is particularly difficult," he said, and he supports programs to help them remain viable.

"We're trying to find ways to provide dairy farmers with some relief," including programs from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he said.

He said the USDA supports programs that help farmers "transition to other areas to help support the farm, helping them provide funding for farm stands, help them to diversify so it's not just dairy.

"Dairy farmers in this area are under extreme pressure," he said.

"We ought to support our local farms," the congressman said. "Agriculture is an important part of the Massachusetts economy. We ought to appreciate what our farmers do. We ought to buy locally."

McGovern, who was recently appointed a member of the conference committee to complete a five-year reauthorization of the farm bill, talked about the work that needs to happen for passage of that bill. He said there are some "huge differences" between the House and Senate versions. He supports the Senate bill.

The House bill cuts the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, by $20 billion and contains provisions that could lead to more than 2 million low-income Americans losing their benefits or seeing declines in financial assistance, according to reports.

The House also has stricter work requirements for millions of food stamp recipients.

"The Senate bill is better for our farmers," McGovern said. The bill goes to conference committee, but he's not sure the differences will be worked out during this session or will have to come back next year. "It's not a done deal ... I hope we do get to 'yes.' American farmers deserve a farm bill."

He said the farm tour of Western and Central Massachusetts "will be informative to me" as he works to negotiate the bill.

During his UMass stop, he talked to students who work at the farm about the program and about whether they want to continue farming when they graduate.

"I wouldn't last two seconds," he said of the hard word, noting that farm workers "actually produce something." He was holding a visual display -- a handful of flowers the students grew.

"If you have the discipline, what a wonderful career," he said.
CHICOPEE - A 32-year-old woman was killed and two men were injured in a two-vehicle crash on Interstate-391 that caused a truck to roll over Monday.

The collision occurred at about 6:05 p.m. shortly before Exit 2. The crash closed the northbound side of the highway for about 3 1/2 hours, Massachusetts State Police said.

The woman, a Maine resident, was brought to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield by ambulance and died there. Her name is not being released until family members can be notified, police said.

She was a passenger in a 2004 Volvo S80 which was traveling north when the driver lost control of the car and struck a 2001 Ford pickup. The Volvo crossed to the left side of the road and crashed into a guardrail and the truck went to the right side of the road and rolled over, police said.

The driver of the Volvo, a 31-year-old Westfield man, and the 31-year-old West Springfield man who was driving the truck were brought to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield by ambulance. Both suffered minor injuries, police said.

No charges have been filed. The preliminary investigation was conducted by Trooper Adam Cardin. The cause of the crash remains under investigation with the assistance of the State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section, the Crime Scene Services Section, and detectives from Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni's Office, police said

State police were assisted by the Chicopee Fire and Emergency Services Department and Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

Anyone who witnessed the crash is asked to contact Cardin the Springfield State Police Barracks at 413-736-8390.
A young man was shot in October Mountain State Park in Lee early Tuesday and now Massachusetts State Police are searching for the assailant.

The victim - who was not identified - was taken to Berkshire Medical Center with a life-threatening injury, David Procopio, a spokesman for the state police said in an email.

At 1 a.m. state police, along with a K-9, and the forensic unit responded to a reported shooting on New Lenox Road at Ashley Lake in the park.

Procopio said the alleged shooter is believed to have run from the area.

The investigation is ongoing.

October Mountain is the largest state forest in Massachusetts, with more than 16,500 acres.

No further updates are available at this time, Procopio said.
The town of Lancaster is reportedly in talks with video-streaming service Netflix to be the central filming location for a new show or movie.

The Sentinel & Enterprise reported that the town has entered into negotiations with Netflix, though specifics on what the company plans to film are still unknown. The town Historical Commission's Monday meeting agenda listed a discussion topic about a Netflix proposal to construct a gazebo for filming purposes on the Town Green.

Selectman Mark Grasso told the Sentinel & Enterprise that he believes filming could begin as early next month.

"My understanding is that Lancaster and Ayer are going to be the two central filming locations for a series. I don't think it's going to be a movie," he told the newspaper.

Several scenes in the new Hulu series Castle Rock were filmed in Lancaster last summer. The show, produced by J.J. Abrams, was largely shot in the small town of Orange.
People running for public office, including Gov. Charlie Baker, are facing an early Primary Day this year, with Democrats, Republicans and others going to the polls on Sept. 4, the day after Labor Day.

And they don't want voters to forget.

"I think it's really important for all of us, and I say it literally in almost every talk I give at this point, that Primary Day is the day after Labor Day," Baker told reporters.

Baker continued: "Most people are wired to think that the primary is somewhere around the second Tuesday of September, somewhere around the middle of the month. That early primary date is going to catch up to people. And for all of the folks who were going back to school the week before Labor Day, and for all the folks who were going back to school the week of Labor Day, people need to be paying attention to this one."

Baker declined to speculate who benefits from such an early election date, whether it's incumbents like himself or challengers.

"The one thing I would say, though, is Primary Day is really early this year," the governor said. "It's early in part because there were two Jewish holidays on the next two Tuesdays and I get the fact that the secretary of state needed to change the day. But we all need to understand that Primary Day is the day after Labor Day. And with all the other things going on, people need to remember that."

Baker noted that people can vote via absentee ballot "right now" in most communities.

Baker is set to face off against controversial pastor Scott Lively in the GOP primary for governor.

Two Democrats are fighting for the chance to face off against the winner of the GOP primary in November: Former Deval Patrick budget chief Jay Gonzalez and environmental activist Bob Massie.

The secretary of state, 24-year incumbent Bill Galvin, is facing a challenge from fellow Democrat Josh Zakim, a Boston city councilor. The job of secretary of state includes overseeing elections, regulating securities and managing the state archives.

The winner will face Republican Anthony Amore, the security director at the Gardner Museum in Boston, in November.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, announced a wide-ranging set of anti-corruption policies Tuesday that aim to crack down on the role money plays in federal decisions and ensure the government "again works for American families."

The Massachusetts Democrat, who touted her "Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act" at the National Press Club, contended that the legislation is needed to combat corruption "which has seeped into the fabric of our government, tilting thousands of decisions away from the public good and toward the desires of those at the top."

Casting her plan as "the most ambitious anti-corruption legislation proposed in Congress since Watergate," Warren argued it would address the "national crisis of faith in government."

"This is an aggressive set of reforms that would fundamentally change the way Washington does business. These reforms have one simple aim: to take power in Washington away from the wealth, the powerful and the well-connected, who have corrupted our government and put power back in the hands of the American people," she said. "We can do this. We must do this. And when we do, we will restore the faith of the American people -- not just in our government, but faith in democracy itself."

Warren laid out a multi-step approach to ending Washington corruption and increasing public integrity.

It included: Closing the revolving door between industry and government; ending lobbying "as we know it;" stopping corporate capture of public interest rules; improving judicial integrity and defending access to justice for all Americans; strengthening enforcement; and boosting transparency in government.

The senator's plan specifically calls for permanently banning elected and appointed officials from becoming lobbyists after they leave office, legally barring presidents and federal lawmakers from owning companies while in office and ending "legalized lobbyist bribery" by preventing them from writing campaign checks or giving personal gifts to candidates or lawmakers.

It also proposes requiring disclosures of funding or editorial conflicts of interest in rulemaking comments and studies, mandating that the Supreme Court follow the ethics rules for all other federal judges, creating a independent anti-corruption agency dedicated to enforcing federal ethics laws and requiring federal elected officials and candidates to disclose more financial and tax information.

Although Warren acknowledged that some of her proposals "will be very unpopular" in Washington and are likely to face pushback, she argued that most Americans should see them as "no brainers and be shocked they're not already the law."

The senator further stressed that she plans to "fight to pass as many of these reforms as possible" and hopes it's supported by members on both sides of the political aisle.

"I believe we can break the stranglehold that the wealthy and well-connected hold over our government," she said. "I believe we can get our democracy working again."

The Democrat added that her legislation "is not about big government versus small government -- it's about whether government works for the wealthy and well-connected or government works for the people."

U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, offered support Tuesday for Warren's anti-corruption proposal, saying he believes "the people who work inside the Beltway need to do a better job fighting for the interests of people who live outside" it.

"There needs to be more transparency, accountability and openness in government. And we need to reduce the influence of big money in politics ... People need to know that their voices are being heard and that government is on their side. Senator Warren's plan addresses these concerns and is a good step in the right direction," he said in a statement.

Aside from announcing her legislation, Warren, an oft-rumored 2020 presidential contender, used her National Press Club appearance to discuss her other work on Capitol Hill and to address claims that she's eying a White house run.

Stressing that she's "focused on 2018," the senator -- who's up for re-election in November -- urged Americans to recognize the importance of the upcoming mid-term elections.

"I'm going to make this pitch, it's really important that we focus on mid-term elections and stop acting like the only important shiny object in the room is 2020," she told reporters.

Warren, meanwhile, would not definitively say whether she'd support efforts to impeach President Donald Trump, offering that she believes Special Counsel Robert Mueller should be able to finish his investigation and present his results to the American people.
SOMERVILLE -- Are hospitals choosing profits over patients or is a nurses' union on a "self-serving" mission to increase its membership? Accusations are heating up as both sides of a nurse staffing ballot question argue that they represent nurses' interests, and more importantly, the interests of patients.

Hospital executives "are making it more difficult for nurses to care for patients" and are ignoring nurses' concerns about safe staffing "while pocketing seven-figure salaries," said Donna Kelly-Williams, president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, at a press conference outside Partners HealthCare's corporate offices on Tuesday.

But Deborah Cronin-Waelde, chief nursing officer at Melrose-Wakefield Health Care, who oversees the nurses in that system and opposes the ballot question, said in a phone interview that the question is not about CEO salaries or hospital profits. "This is about the government legislating how professionally licensed nurses care for patients," she said.

The November statewide ballot question, Question 1, would require hospitals to meet specific nurse staffing ratios, with the numbers depending on the type of unit. Supporters say this would improve patient safety by ensuring there are enough nurses on staff to properly care for patients.

Opponents say the guidelines are too rigid and would prevent nurses and hospitals from making staffing decisions that make the most sense in any given situation. They argue that the expense of hiring new nurses could drive some hospitals out of business or force them to close less profitable units, like behavioral health units.

Funding for both efforts remains murky, since ballot committees have not had to submit any financial reports since their year-end reports for 2017. The next report is due Sept. 7 and will reflect their activity in 2018.

Through the end of 2017, the pro-Question 1 Coalition to Ensure Safe Patient Care raised and spent around $1 million, with virtually all the money coming from the Massachusetts Nurses Association. The coalition advocating for the ballot question had the initial expenses of drafting the question and collecting signatures.

The Coalition to Protect Patient Safety, formed to oppose the ballot question, was still in the early stages in 2017, operating with $11,500 from the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association, which represents hospitals and health care systems.

The only other public source of information about a ballot committee's donors is the disclosures published in television ads.

Ads released by the Coalition to Protect Patient Safety list the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association and the Organization of Nurse Leaders in Massachusetts as top contributors. ONL focuses on developing managers and leaders in nursing.

The Coalition to Ensure Safe Patient Care has not yet released any television ads.

Kelly-Williams, of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, argued that bedside nurses are advocating for staffing ratios to improve patient safety. She said hospitals are "making choices where they're going to invest their money," and are not spending it on patient safety.

She pointed to data showing that most Massachusetts hospitals today are profitable, with 49 out of 62 acute care hospitals posting a profit in 2017.

According to publicly available information, more than a dozen hospital CEOs earned salaries of more than $1 million in 2016, with the CEO of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Ron Walls, taking home the highest salary -- $5 million.

Kelly-Williams pointed out that Massachusetts hospitals are buying out-of-state hospitals and constructing new office buildings, including Partners Healthcare's $464 million Somerville office complex.

Kelly-Williams accused hospital executives of being "deceptive" by refusing to be the face of their own campaign, instead focusing on the support from nursing groups. "Who supports Yes on 1?" Kelly-Williams said. "It's the nurse at your bedside."

"A safe limit to the number of patients we have at one time allows me to get to you quicker if you put a call light on because you're having trouble breathing, you need medication or you need assistance going to the bathroom," Kelly-Williams said. "If I have too many patients, all of that care is delayed."

The coalition supporting the staffing ratios has support from multiple out-of-state nursing groups and numerous Massachusetts unions and Democratic and liberal organizations.

But opponents of Question 1 say they have also obtained support from nurses, including the Massachusetts chapter of the American Nurses Association, and associations representing emergency nurses, infusion nurses and Massachusetts nursing colleges.

Cronin-Waelde said the goal is never to run a unit short-staffed. But there are unanticipated needs - for example, if a nurse calls in sick. With 1,700 nursing vacancies in the state, and a range of different nursing specialties, she said hospitals do not have an unlimited pool of resources to draw from. "You can't pull a skilled, competent nurse out of the ceiling," she said.

Cronin-Waelde worried about what will happen if multiple sick patients show up at the emergency department simultaneously and there are not enough nurses on duty. She said patients could be stuck in the emergency room while waiting for a nurse to arrive at an appropriate unit to accept them.

"When you mandate things, it takes away flexibility," she said.

Health care providers that oppose the question include the Massachusetts Medical Society and groups representing emergency physicians, psychiatrists, behavioral health systems and other major hospital groups.

Donna Glynn, president of the American Nurses Association-Massachusetts, and Amanda Oberlies, CEO of the Organization of Nurse Leaders, said in a statement that the Massachusetts Nurses Association represents fewer than 25 percent of nurses in the state. They accused the union of trying to expand its membership through the ballot question.

Question 1, they said, "is bad for patients, wrong for Massachusetts and opposed by leading nurse organizations throughout the state."
Market Research Future Published a Half Cooked Research Report on Global Brachytherapy Research Report. Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 45 market data tables and figures spread over 80 pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on Brachytherapy market Research Report Global Forecast to 2023.

Global Brachytherapy Market  Overview

Brachytherapy is a type of radiation therapy in which a radiation emitting source is placed near the area requiring treatment. Brachy is a Greek word for short distance and therapy means treatment. It effective for the treatment of cervical cancer, breast cancer, skin cancer and other types of cancers. Cancer cure rates after brachytherapy are comparable to surgery or external beam therapy (EBT). Demand for brachytherapy is increasing because of an increase in prevalence of various type of cancers, low treatment time and high efficiency. Its treatment results also show an increasing cure rate which is also contributing to the growth of this market. Global market of brachytherapy is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.9% during the forecast period 2017-2023.

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Brachytherapy Market  Segments

Global Brachytherapy market has been segmented on the basis of applications which consist of cervical, prostate, breast, skin cancer, gallbladder, rectum and others. On the basis of types the market is majorly divided into; drugs and devices. Devices are further divide on the basis of mode of operation, i.e. invasive and non-invasive. Invasive if further comprises of; microsphere brachytherapy, while non-invasive includes; electronic brachytherapy. Based on end users the market is classified into; medical physicist, licensed dosimetrist and radiation oncologist.

Global Branchytherapy Market  Study Objectives

To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with the forecast for the next seven years of the various segments and sub-segments of the brachytherapy market.

To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth.

To analyze the brachytherapy market based on various factors- Price Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis, Porters Five Force Analysis, etc.

To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies  Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East & Africa and their countries.

Brachytherapy Market  Key Players

Some of the key players in this market are: Modus Medical Devices Inc. (Canada), Varian Medical Systems, Inc. (US), Eckert & Ziegler (Germany), C. R. Bard, Inc (US), Argon Medical Devices, Inc. (US), Elekta AB (Sweden), IsoRay Medical, Inc. (US), IsoAid (US), and others.

Brachytherapy Market  Industry Updates

August, 2017 Becton Dickinson and Company (BD) acquired Bard. The acquisition will expand its focus on disease treatment beyond diabetes, and include urology, peripheral vascular disease, cancer, and hernia.

May, 2017 Eckert & Ziegler Strahlen- und Medizintechnik AG signed an agreement to acquire Gamma-Service, a specialist in manufacturing isotope technology. With this acquisition Eckert & Ziegler is expected to strengthen their market position and focus on the optimal servicing for their existing customers.

Feb, 2017 Merit Medical Systems, Inc. to acquire products from Catheter Connections, Inc. and Argon Medical Devices. These product acquisitions will broaden Merits product portfolio and simultaneously expanding the companies geographic presence. The company also focuses on widening its customer base globally.

Jan, 2017 Alliance Medical signed a pact to purchase Eckert & Ziegler Radiopharma GmbH (Eckert & Zieglers cyclotron division), a subsidiary of Eckert & Ziegler AG. The cyclotron division consist of four cyclotrons across Germany, Austria and Poland. The acquisition of Eckert & Zieglers cyclotron division will further extends the companys molecular imaging presence in Europe as well as the radiopharmacy facilities in the Italy and UK.

August, 2016 Eckert & Ziegler had acquired BranchySolutions BVBA, a European prostate seed distributor. The acquisition will strengthen Eckert & Ziegler seed manufacturing position in Europe

Jan, 2016 Argon Medical Devices, Inc. acquired three vascular products from Rex Medical, LLC. The product include, UltraStream Chronic Hemodialysis Catheter Option, ELITE CLEANER Rotational Thrombectomy System, and Retrievable Vena Cava Filter are wholly owned by this company. The acquisition is expected to fortify the existing interventional portfolio. It further enables the company to offer customer procedure-based comprehensive solutions.

Major Chapter from Table of Content

Chapter 1. Report Prologue

Chapter 2. Market Introduction

Chapter 3. Research Methodology

Chapter 4. Market Dynamics

Chapter 5. Market Factor Analysis

Chapter 6. Global Branchytherapy Market, By Type

Chapter 7. Global Branchytherapy Market, By Device

Chapter 8. Global Branchytherapy Market, By Application

Chapter 9. Global Branchytherapy Market, By Region

Chapter 10. Company Landscape

Chapter 11. Company Profiles

Chapter 12. MRFR Conclusion

Chapter 13. Appendix

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The advent of genetic tests has revolutionized the molecular diagnostics and cytogenetic industry. It is one of the most rapidly growing segments in molecular diagnostics industry, which helps in delivering customized health services or personalized medicine. The share of genetic testing is incessantly increasing in the market. Growing awareness about genetic testing, technological advances in genetic sequencing, and rising incidences of genetic diseases especially cancer are some of the major factors propelling the genetic testing market.

The report Global Genetic Testing Market Outlook 2022 provides a detailed analysis of the genetic testing market. The report also provides an insight regarding the current and future prospective of the market. This report covers the major trends and drivers, and their impact on the market. The report also discusses some of the restraints that can hinder the growth of the market, as well as rising opportunities which can provide new dimensions to the industry.

The segmentation of genetic testing markets has been done in the report on the basis of applications, diseases, and geographical regions.

Based on application, the genetic testing market is divided into Diagnostic Testing, Newborn Screening, Prenatal Testing, Carrier Screening, and Others. Diagnostic testing and Newborn screening are the major application areas of genetic testing industry. The large shares of these applications can be attributed to presence of huge players in the segment, and to rising number of genetic tests performed for this purpose. The Carrier Testing market is expected to witness the highest growth during 2017-2022. This growth is likely to be driven by the huge population opting for carrier screening of cystic fibrosis, exhibiting unprecedented rise in the US. The report provides current and forecasted market for each of the application areas of Genetic Testing.

The major disease profiles/conditions for which Genetic Testing is used include Alzheimers Disease, Cystic Fibrosis, Cancer, Down Syndrome, and Others. Cancer accounts for largest share amongst the diseases for which genetic testing is done. This large share can be attributed to the rising prevalence of cancer, which is expected to increase as the global population ages. Approximately 75-80% of all cancers are diagnosed in people aged 55 or older, and this pattern is expected to increase by 2020. The report provides current and forecasted market for each of the genetic conditions of Genetic Testing.

Moreover, the report also contains markets for the major regions including North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. North America contributes the largest share in the global genetic testing market, followed by Europe. Presence of major players, increased awareness and higher disposable income, are some of the prominent factors that have led to North America being the market leader. The Asia-Pacific market is expected to witness the highest growth during 2017-2022. The major reasons for the high growth are the increasing per capita income and gradual development of healthcare sector in countries, such as India and China. North America and Europe are expected to grow at modest rate due to launch of new and innovative products in these markets.

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The company profiles segment in this report is entirely devoted to profiling leading companies of the genetic testing industry including some major players like Abbott Laboratories, Roche Diagnostics, Myriad Genetics, Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Hologic, Inc., Cepheid, Agilent Technologies and QIAGEN. This segment provides you access to the new launched products, recent developments, and strengths and weaknesses of these companies to deliver a clear understanding/view of the competitive landscape. Overall, the report will prove to be a complete source of knowledge and analysis for clients and potential investors.

Table of Content

Analyst View Research Methodology Genetic Testing Overview Industry Overview Global Genetic Testing Market Outlook Global Genetic Testing Market by Application Global Genetic Testing Market by Disease Global Genetic Testing Market by Geography Genetic Testing Regulations Mergers & Acquisitions Company Profiles (Overview, Product Offering, Financials, Developments, Strength & Weakness)

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The Market is estimated to grow rapidly during the forecast period. The major factor influencing the growth of the market include increasing geriatric population. According to the U.S. Population Reference Bureau the number of people with age group of 65 years and older, will grow to 98 million by 2060. Thus the increasing geriatric population will enhance the growth of global market. Consumption of intelligent pills will be mostly by geriatric population and paralytic patients. Other factors driving the market are: increasing number of gastrointestinal disorders, stomach cancer, paralysis and infectious diseases. Capsule endoscopy is its most commonly used application to capture images of gastrointestinal tract.

Intelligent Pills works on the principle of ingestible event markers (IEM), these pills are incorporated with a sensors which enables physicians to monitor patients use of medication. These pills can be consumed in similar way like any other medicinal tablet. The data that can be monitored with the help of these pills is heart rate, breath rate and body temperature, which will be displayed on patients smart phone. These pills were tested for number of diseases like tuberculosis, psychological disorder, cardiovascular disease, high or low blood pressure, and diabetes. Although, the concept of intelligent pills may seem to be naive, but in 1980s NASA had invented ingestible thermometer to monitor the body temperature of astronauts. Other scientists are developing pills with camera to obtain high quality images of digestive system by non-invasive method.

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Key Players for Global Intelligent (Smart) Pills Market

Some of the key players in this market are: Prominent players in Intelligent Pills Market:

CapsoVision, Inc. (US),

Given Imaging Ltd. (Israel),

Medimetrics (Mexico),

(Bio-Images Drug Delivery) BDD LTD (UK),

Proteus Digital Health (US), and others.

Global Intelligent Pills Market  Competitive Analysis

The global market of Intelligent Pills appears to be very naive, with very few companies developing intelligent pills. However, due to increasing awareness, companies like CapsoVision and Proteus Digital Health are using this platform to produce innovative solutions.

Founded in 2005, CapsoVision, Inc. manufactures medical devices in diagnostic imaging of the gastrointestinal tract. In November 2016, the company announced U.S. FDA approval of CapsoCam Plus, a small bowel endoscope. Its the first small video capsule endoscope to be marketed in U.S. thus making CapsoVision a pioneer in capsule endoscopy. Capsule endoscopy is a non-invasive process which does not require administration of anaesthesia and reduces hospitalisation expenses.

Proteus Digital Health is a leading provider of digital healthcare products, pharmaceuticals and medical device and has issued more than 300 patents. The FDA has approved the first smart pill Called Abilify MyCite of Proteus for use in the United States. The pill contains a drug and an ingestible sensor (microchip) that is activated when it reacts with stomach acid to detect the consumption time of the drug. Abilify Mycite System includes Mycite Patch a wearable patch which is to be worn on torsos; MYCITE APP, a smartphone application that displays the track record of ingested drug. ABILIFY MYCITE, is prescribed in adults for treating of schizophrenia, acute manic, mixed episodes and depressive disorders.

Segments for Global Intelligent (Smart) Pills Market

Global Intelligent (Smart) Pills market has been segmented on the basis of applications which consist of boost in sleeping disorders, capsule endoscopy, Reflux Monitoring, Mobility Monitoring, Stress Management and others. By prescription type which includes prescription smart drugs and others.

Global Intelligent (Smart) Pills Market  Regional Analysis

Intelligent Pill market is dominated by America due to increasing geriatric population and rising genetic disorders. America is segmented into North America (U.S. and Canada) and South America (Brazil, Argentina and Peru). North America comprises of 80% of the total land of America and therefore it is largest market for Intelligent Pill. Additionally, easy access to advanced technology, reimbursement policies, and approval of innovative molecules and devices are estimated to promote market growth in North America.

Europe is the second largest market for Intelligent Pills. Increasing government funds in research and development is the major factor for the market growth within the region. Extensive use of advanced technology also promotes the market growth

The Asia Pacific region is expected to observe the fastest growth during the forecast period. Rising research and development expenditure and, the presence of the emerging countries like India and China within the region fuels the market

Brief TOC

Chapter 1. Report Prologue

Chapter 2. Market Introduction

Chapter 3. Research Methodology

Chapter 4. Market Dynamics

Chapter 5. Market Factor Analysis

Chapter 6. Global Intelligent Pills Market, By Material

Chapter 7. Global Intelligent Pills Market, By Application

Chapter 8. Global Intelligent Pills Market, By End Users

Chapter 9. Global Intelligent Pills Market, By Regions

Chapter 10. Competitive Landscape

Chapter 11. Company Profile

Chapter 12. Conclusion

Chapter 13. Appendix

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Primary human cells are the cells isolated directly from normal human tissues or blood cells via the enzymatic or mechanical method. Primary cells maintain their fundamental cellular functions hence, their use in cell-based research programs is increasing significantly. The rapid growth in biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries, growing cancer research, increasing demand for monoclonal antibodies, and rising healthcare expenditure are anticipated to drive the growth of the market during the forecast period. Moreover, advantages of primary human cells over cell lines contribute to the growth of the market. For instance, endothelial cell lines, lack various functional markers, whereas primary endothelial cells retain these critical features. Despite these drivers, the high cost of advanced primary cells and risk of contamination may hamper the growth of the global primary cells market during the assessment period.

Key Players

Lonza (Switzerland), Thermo Fisher Scientific (US), Merck KGaA (Germany), Cell Biologics (US), Promocell (Germany), ZenBio, Inc. (US), STEMCELL Technologies (Canada), ALLCells (US), American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) (US), and Axol Biosciences (UK).

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Segmentation

The Global Primary Cells Market has been segmented into origin, type, and end user.

The market on the basis of origin has been segmented into skin cells, hematopoietic cells, gastrointestinal cells, liver cells, lung cells, renal cells, heart, skeletal and muscle cells, and others.

The market on the basis of type has been segmented into human primary cells and animal primary cells.

On the basis of end-user, the market has been segmented into research institutes and life science research companies.

The market has been segmented, by region, into the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa. The primary cells market in the Americas has further been segmented into North America and South America, with the North American market divided into the US and Canada.

The European primary cells market has been segmented into Western Europe and Eastern Europe. Western Europe has further been classified as Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, and the rest of Western Europe.

The primary cells market in Asia-Pacific has been segmented into Japan, China, India, South Korea, Australia, and the rest of Asia-Pacific. The primary cells market in the Middle East and Africa has been segmented into the Middle East and Africa.

Global Primary Cells Market, by Origin

Skin Cells

Hematopoietic Cells

Gastrointestinal Cells

Liver Cells

Lung Cells

Renal Cells

Heart

Skeletal and Muscle Cells

Others

Global Primary Cells Market, by Type

Human Primary Cells

Animal Primary Cells

Global Primary Cells Market, by End-User

Research Institutes

Life Science Research Companies

Regional Market Summary

Geographically, the Americas is anticipated to dominate the global primary cells market. The market growth in this region is attributed to the presence of a well-established healthcare system, increasing prevalence of cancer, growing government funding in research, and technological advancements. According to the National Cancer Institute, around 1,685,210 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in the US in 2016.

Europe is expected to be the second largest in the global primary cells market. It is expected that the government support towards research and development and growing prevalence of chronic diseases such as cancer are likely to drive the market growth in this region. According to the Office for National Statistics, the gross domestic expenditure on Research and Development (R&D) activities was Euro 33.1 billion (USD 35.2 billion) in 2016.

The primary cells market in Asia-Pacific consists of countries, namely, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, and Australia. The market growth is mainly driven by rapidly expanding biopharmaceutical industries in the region, rising prevalence of cancer, growing pharmaceutical outsourcing, and increasing government funding in the life sciences sector. Moreover, countries such as India and China have established research institutes promoting cell-based research which contributes to the market growth.

The Middle East and Africa holds the lowest share of the global market owing to the slow economic development, lack of technical knowledge, and poor medical facilities.

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SOLICITATION NUMBER: 72066018R10009

ISSUANCE DATE: August 20, 2018

CLOSING DATE/TIME: September 7, 2018

SUBJECT: Solicitation for a Cooperating Country National Personal Service Contractor (CCN PSC)

Dear Prospective Offerors:

The United States Government, represented by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is seeking offers from qualified persons to provide personal services under contract as described in this solicitation.

Offers must be in accordance with Attachment 1, Sections I through V of this solicitation. Incomplete or unsigned offers will not be considered. Offerors should retain copies of all offer materials for their records.

This solicitation in no way obligates USAID to award a PSC contract, nor does it commit USAID to pay any cost incurred in the preparation and submission of the offers.

Any questions must be directed in writing to the Point of Contact specified in the attached information.

Sincerely,

Priscilla Sampil

Supervisory Executive Officer

I. GENERAL INFORMATION

1. SOLICITATION NO.: 72066018R10009

2. ISSUANCE DATE: August 20, 2018

3. CLOSING DATE/TIME FOR RECEIPT OF OFFERS:September 7, 2018

4. POSITION TITLE: Administrative Management Specialist (Deputy Executive Officer)

5. MARKET VALUE: Equivalent to FSN-12 in accordance with AIDAR Appendix J and the Local Compensation Plan of USAID/Democratic Republic of the Congo. Final compensation will be negotiated within the listed market value.



6. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE: The period of performance is five years. The services provided under this contract are expected to be of continuing nature executed by USAID through a series of sequential contracts, subject to availability of funds, satisfactory job performance and need for continued services.

7. PLACE OF PERFORMANCE: Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

8. SECURITY LEVEL REQUIRED: Regional Security Office Clearance

9. STATEMENT OF DUTIES

A. Basic Function of Position

The Management Specialist functions as one of two Deputy Executive Officers in the Executive Office of USAID/DRC, reporting directly to the USDH Supervisory Executive Officer (S/EXO). The incumbent assists in overseeing delivery of effective personnel, administrative, logistical, and other support services for the Mission.

In this capacity, the Management Specialist helps to organize Executive Office work priorities and serves as an alter ego to the S/EXO as requested. The Management Specialist reviews and pre-approves designated actions for EXO attention, and assigns and follows up on designated management operation tasks to ensure they are carried out properly and within appropriate time limits and customer service guidelines.

The Management Specialist directly supervises the following functions in the Executive Office as assigned by the S/EXO on a daily basis: General Services (this includes liaising with State/ICASS on Housing, Property Management, Maintenance, Warehousing, Shipping, and Motor Pool services); Communications and Records; and Travel (including all local and international travel such as entitlement, Permanent Change of Station travel, training, etc). The incumbent indirectly supervises Human Resources, Procurement, Training, and Information Technology, but may be assigned supervisory duties for these sections as designated by the S/EXO. The Management Specialist coordinates with the RSO and Implementing Partners on Safety and Security matters when designated. The Management Specialist acts as the Mission Executive Officer when designated in the absence or preoccupation of the USDH D/EXO or S/EXO, and during those times, has overall responsibility for the functions normally carried out by the S/EXO. The Management Specialist can also backstop the Partner Security Liaison Officer (PSLO). The Management Specialist regularly attends and participates in key meetings with U.S. officials at USAID and the U.S. Embassy/Kinshasa, as designated.

The Management Specialist exercises good judgment, often under stress and with limited time and resources, making decisions and providing advice on USAID management policies, contracting practices, and when providing personal counseling and/or advice to employees. The Management Specialist uses sound judgment in making decisions, in the formulation of expert opinions, and in providing advice to senior Mission management in collaboration with, or the absence of, the USDH D/EXO and/or S/EXO.

The Management Specialist maintains contacts at all levels within USAID and the Embassy, as well as with USAID/Washington and host country government officials.

B. Major Duties and Responsibilities

As senior advisor and assistant to the S/EXO, the Management Specialist participates in planning, directing, andadministering the Executive Office for USAID/DROC. S/he assists the S/EXO and D/EXO with the high volume of work in the Executive Office Sections, coordinates between Sections, and with other Mission Offices. The Management Specialist monitors overall performance of the Executive Office, and is charged with ensuring that Mission procedures comply with USAID regulations and United States Government (USG) statutory requirements. The Management Specialist is responsible for management of personnel directly supervised, including completing performance appraisals and making recommendations for personnel actions.

As required, s/he provides guidance and advice to EXO Sections and participates in the decision-making process in Office and Mission administrative management issues. As the alter ego to the S/EXO (or designee), the Management Specialist leads the Executive Office in the absence of the EXOs, including during travel, conferences, and training, etc. The Management Specialist manages and ensures continued effective and smooth operation of the Executive Office in all areas, except signatory authority involving the commitment of USG funds. The Management Specialist can also backstop the Partner Leadership Security Officer (PLSO).

Daily work responsibilities include:

1. General Services: The Management Specialist oversees the following GSO services: Ensuring efficient delivery of services by State/ICASS with respect to Motor Pool Operations (including the Mission Director's Chauffeur(s)), Vehicle Maintenance and Records; Customs and Shipping; Maintenance and Repairs of the standalone USAID Building; Property Management; Liaising with the USAID Building Landlord and Maintenance Contractors; and Management of the Custodial Staff at the USAID Building. Other significant duties include Occupational Safety and Space Management. The Management Specialist works with relevant Embassy personnel and GSO staff as needed to ensure that all systems for tracking mileage, fuel, and repair costs in the area of Motor pool Operations, Vehicle Maintenance, and Records are current, and that all required reports are completed and submitted in a timely

manner.(S)he approves and signs requests for customs clearance of official shipments eligible for importation under USAID and host-government regulations; Coordinates with the Facilities Maintenance Supervisor to resolve complaints about substandard Janitorial Services under State/ICASS when needed; Ensures compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Standards; Oversees requests for additional or reconfigured office space, as needs dictate, providing various options to best meet requirements within available space; and reviews plans for office moves with the EXO and concerned clients to ensure manpower and materials are available at the time moves are scheduled.

2. Procurement: The Management Specialist ensures appropriate management controls are in place and utilized in all areas of procurement activities; approves requests for advance of funds through local petty cash as needed. The Management Specialist liaises and consults regularly with a wide variety of USAID/Washington offices, private-sector vendors, and contractors. (S)he participates in the development of the annual procurement plan, in concert with the S/EXO, for submission to Mission management and inclusion in the annual Budget Request.

3. Property Management: The incumbent oversees the property management function for non-expendable and expendable property, including office equipment and furniture inventories, as well as the residence for the Mission Director. (S)he ensures that all official property procured by the Mission, non-expendable and expendable, is properly received and that required receiving reports are accurately completed; that all required actions are completed for the proper establishment and maintenance of inventory records; where applicable, supervises all disposal sales, from item selection, completion of disposal authorizations, conduct of the actual sale, and adjustment of property records to comply with Agency regulations; assists State/ICASS in conducting periodic inspections of facilities (USAID Building, Mission Director's residence) to ensure proper procedures for security, fire prevention, safety, and cleanliness are in place and in compliance with Agency regulations; and, conducts spot checks on various records throughout the year to determine their validity and to ensure that all items are accounted for and that actual accounts match records. The incumbent also ensures that the Missions safety and security equipment, IT equipment, and mobile devices are managed according to USG regulations.

4. Maintenance: The incumbent monitors USAID-assigned residential and office building maintenance, including the status of make readies, routine and preventive maintenance, and maintenance of sufficient supplies, equipment, and records.

5. Budgeting: The Management Specialist assists with the following budget-related functions: Developing OE support budgets and monitors obligations of OE and OE Supplemental funds, in coordination with the S/EXO and FMO; Advises the Program Office on the Program Support Objective budget; Participates in ICASS negotiations with the

U.S. Embassy, when designated; Reviews ICASS invoices to assure proper allocation of work load counts; Establishes good working relationships and maintains open communication with U.S. Embassy Management Sections, including applicable General Services, FMO, and Security staff, to ensure receipt of services procured under ICASS, and to resolve any outstanding issues. The Specialist is responsible for assisting the S/EXO and the Mission in critically evaluating ICASS services.

6. Policy Planning and Policy Communication: The Management Specialist is responsible for the following: Conducts management analyses and studies as required to recommend or evaluate improvements in management operations; Assists in the planning and direction of a continuing nature to evaluate Mission organization, staffing, and services, in order to ensure maximum utilization of material and human resources; Analyzes requirements and makes administrative and technical recommendations to Mission management as requested; Develops and implements appropriate internal Mission management systems and policies; Drafts or clears Mission Orders, Management Notices, and correspondence from EXO on management policies, as needed or required; Serves on the Management Control Review Committee (MCRC) and the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act committee (FMFIA), to ensure implementation of regulations.

7. Support to Institutional Contractors: The incumbent provides: Administrative support, guidance, and clarification to Institutional Contractors (IC) in such areas as acquiring visas, business permits, expatriate quotas, resident permits for expatriates, registration with the host government, VAT exemptions and other related tax issues, registration of official program vehicles, aviation/airport issues, motor vehicle licenses; program vehicle insurance, and Mission and host-government policies guiding these and other issues. The Management Specialist develops close working contacts with Government officials, especially with the officials handling issues affecting IC operations in Kinshasa. The incumbent communicates with ICs on safety and security matters as requested.

C. Supervisory Relationship:The Management Specialist works with a high degree of independence. Assignments are made orally and in writing. The S/EXO, in consultation with the incumbent, sets priorities and deadlines in terms of policy, priority, results to be achieved, and basic approaches. The Management Specialist reviews completed written work, and provide clearance on external correspondence, as directed. The S/EXO provides guidance on major decisions regarding Executive Office and Mission activities, taking into account the incumbent's recommendations.

D. Supervisory Controls:Direct supervision of 5 EXO staff including 2 section heads. Indirect supervision of approximately 10 other EXO staff. Can step in to supervise all sections within the Executive Office as requested or serve as the Alter Ego of one of the two USDH EXOs when needed. Provides counsel, advice or instructions to staff members as well as daily supervision. Provides guidance and indirect supervision to outside contractors on special administrative projects as requested for travel, construction, maintenance, security, and other administrative matters.

10. AREA OF CONSIDERATION: All interested CCN candidates. Cooperating Country National (CCN) is defined as an individual who is a cooperating country citizen or a non-cooperating country citizen lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the cooperating country.

11. PHYSICAL DEMANDS: The work requested does not involve undue physical demands.

12. POINT OF CONTACT: usaidhrkinshasa@usaid.gov

II. MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED FOR THIS POSITION

The education and experience factors below determine basic eligibility for the position. Applicants who do not meet all of education and experience factors are considered NOT qualified for the position.

A. Education: Possession of a Baccalaureate Degree or the equivalent of a four-year US college/university (or equivalency accreditation if a non-US institution) in business administration, financial management, or a field related to administrative management is required.

B. Prior Work Experience: Minimum of seven years of progressively responsible professional administrative experience, developing and implementing management procedures, contracting, procurement, involving human resources or any combination thereof is required.

III. EVALUATION AND SELECTION FACTORS

The evaluation and selection criteria of the selected candidate will be based on a review of his/her qualifications, work experience, knowledge, skills and abilities, and level of language required. The applicants who obtain the highest score based on the criteria defined will be interviewed and may also be required to pass a written test (depending on the TEC Chairpersons decision). The security clearance and medical clearance is required for the top ranking candidate, after conducting and receiving the positive reference checks.

Quality Ranking Factors (QRFs):

Job Knowledge (30 points)

Demonstrated in-depth knowledge, or the ability to quickly gain such knowledge, of a highly technical body of government laws, regulations, instructions, procedures, policies, and practices relevant to administrative management, human resources management, budget and fiscal administration, travel, building management, property management, procurement and contracting, C&R, and other administrative procedures, regulations, and requirements sufficient to provide administrative and technical (when required) supervision of Executive Office personnel.

Technical Skills and Abilities (25 points)

Demonstrated analytic skills with theproven ability to forecast needs for resources, to plan and assess issues/problems and develop realistic solutions;Ability proactively manage tasks and work accurately and efficiently with minimal supervision is essential.

Supervisory Ability (25 points)

Excellent supervisoryand interpersonal skills as well as good leadership and managerial skills, and a personality that inspires confidence in employees and permits the maintenance of effective working relationships between employees and supervisors.Demonstrated ability to train subordinate personnel, and to tactfully and efficiently work with a diverse team so that the Executive Office provides the best administrative support and customer services possible to the Mission; Ability to create and maintain a good working climate, in order to ensure maximum productivity in a service-oriented manner

Communications Skills including language proficiency (20 points)

Fluent English and French Language ability (at the IV level) is required.Must have the ability to negotiate orally and in writing withservice providers and customers including Embassy and ICASS administrative personnel, and host-country government and business officials on USAID operations and resources. Proven ability to exercise tact and diplomacy.

Rating System

1. Job Knowledge 30 points

2. Technical Skills and Abilities 25 points

3. Supervisory Ability 25 points

4. Communications Skills and Language proficiency 20 points

Total Possible Points: 100 points

The candidate with the highest score will be selected based on the above criteria.

IV. PRESENTING AN OFFER

Eligible Offerors are required to complete and submit the offer form- DS-174 Application for U.S. Federal Employment. The DS-174 Application form can be found in the US embassy website https://cd.usembassy.gov/embassy/jobs/job-opportunities/ A cover letter and a CV written in English. A supplemental document of up to two pages that demonstrates how prior experience and/or training directly address directly the QRFs should be attached. Offers must be received by September 7, 2018 at 17:00 (Kinshasa Time) via email to usaidhrkinshasa@usaid.gov. To ensure consideration of offers for the intended position, Offerors must prominently reference the Solicitation Number in the offer submission.

V. LIST OF REQUIRED FORMS FOR PSC HIRES

Once the Contracting Officer (CO) informs the successful Offeror about being selected for a contract award, the CO will provide the successful Offeror instructions about how to complete and submit the following forms:

Medical History and Examination Form (Department of State Forms) Questionnaire for Non-Sensitive Positions (SF-85) Finger Print Card (FD-258)

VI. BENEFITS/ALLOWANCES

As a matter of policy, and as appropriate, a PSC is normally authorized the following benefits and allowances: Child Allowance, Spouse allowance, 13th and 14th Month Bonuses, Transportation Allowance, Meal Allowance, Housing Allowance, and Miscellaneous Allowance, Medical Coverage, Annual Leave and Sick Leave.

VII. TAXES

The employees are responsible for calculating and paying local income taxes. The USAID/DRC does not withhold or make local income tax payments.

VIII. USAID REGULATIONS, POLICIES AND CONTRACT CLAUSES PERTAINING TO PSCs

USAID regulations and policies governing CCN/TCN PSC awards are available at these sources:

1. USAID Acquisition Regulation (AIDAR), Appendix J, Direct USAID Contracts With a Cooperating Country National and with a Third Country National for Personal Services Abroad, including contract clause General Provisions, available at https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1868/aidar_0.pdf

2. Contract Cover Page form AID 309-1 available at https://www.usaid.gov/forms

3. Acquisition & Assistance Policy Directives/Contract Information Bulletins (AAPDs/CIBs) for Personal Services Contracts with Individuals available at https://www.usaid.gov/work-usaid/aapds-cibs

4. Ethical Conduct. By the acceptance of a USAID personal services contract as an individual, the contractor will be acknowledging receipt of the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch, available from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, in accordance with General Provision 2 and 5 CFR 2635. See https://www.oge.gov/web/oge.nsf/OGE%20Regulations

END OF SOLICITATION

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY: The USAID Mission in DRC provides equal opportunity and fair and equitable treatment in employment to all people without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, political affiliation, marital status, or sexual orientation. USAID/DRC also strives to achieve equal employment opportunity in all personnel operations.

The EEO complaint procedure is available to individuals who believe they have been denied equal opportunity based upon marital status or political affiliation. Individuals with such complaints should avail themselves of the appropriate grievance procedures, remedies for prohibited personnel practices, and/or courts for relief.
by Sara Guaglione , August 21, 2018

Verizon and Hearst are shutting down Rated Red, the joint video brand the companies created to target millennial conservatives.

Complex Networks is restructuring Rated Red and closing its Nashville office at the end of August, a company spokesperson told BuzzFeed, which first reported the news. We will continue to focus our efforts to expand our slate of popular series for our core Complex brands and with a growing list of distribution partners.

Rated Red was the result of a partnership between Verizon and Hearst to develop digital video programming targeting a mobile millennial audience.

The venture was announced in March 2016, and moved under Complex Networks when Verizon and Hearst bought Complex Media Inc. that same year.

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The partnership also created video brand Seriously.TV, which shut down last year.

Rated Redbranded itself as the voice of Heartland millennials, with videos ranging from live music performances to gun reviews and food shows on smoked meats and fried snacks. It also offered tips on the outdoors, such as how to throw a casting net.

The brand had over 2 million followers on Facebook, 280,000 on YouTube and over 40,000 Twitter followers.

A number of smaller, digital-native outlets have had trouble navigating an ecosystem dominated by Facebook and Googles changing algorithms and large slice of online advertising revenue.
by Wayne Friedman , August 21, 2018

Comcast Corp. grabbed the highest share of advertising revenue from national marketers of any media company in the first half of 2018 -- improving its share of a year ago.

Comcast posted a 12% share in revenue from national marketers, according to Standard Media Index, from January through June 2018. Google had the second highest ad revenue share at 9.6%.

A year ago, for the first six months of 2017, Comcast was at 9.7% share; Google, 9.1%.

For national marketers, these shares comprise any advertising purchased through media agencies -- national and local media, including national TV networks, local radio, local TV, newspapers and digital media.

This year, after Comcast and Google, Walt Disney was at 8.6% share (it was at 9.1% a year ago); CBS Corp., 6.3% (6.8% in 2017); Time Warner, 5.7% (same as 2017); 21st Century Fox, 5.5% (6.5% in 2017); Discovery Inc. 3.9% (same as 2017); Viacom, 3.8% (4.0% in 2017); and Facebook, 3.5% (2.8% in 2017).

SMI also says a 3.9% share went through media agency trading desks. It was 3.5% in 2017.

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This year, the top 10 media companies/platforms totaled a 62.9% share of national marketers dollars; the remaining 37.1% share went to other media sellers.

SMI says 63% of advertising revenue from national marketers went to traditional media and 37% went to digital media. Just looking at video advertising, 89% went to linear TV video platforms and 11% to digital video.

SMIs data comes from five of the seven major media agency groups , gleaned from raw invoices, actual dollar amounts spent on each ad buy. These agencies make up 70% of the national TV market. SMI models out the remaining 30% using occurrence data.
If youre used to finding photographs of far-flung landscapes in National Geographic, you may be surprised to discover that the magazines August issue is focused on a topic closer to home: the science of sleep. Share on Pinterest An estimated 35 percent of adults do not get enough sleep. The National Geographic cover story is a deep look into sleep and its effect on our well-being. The magazines editors liken sleep to a place we go, rather than a state of being. Sleep is an undiscovered country that each one of us travels to every night, but we really dont understand it very well, said senior editor Robert Kunzig in an interview with CBS This Morning. Its hugely important for our health in our daily lives. Here are 5 things we learned from this months cover story:

1. The epidemic of sleep is costing us The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found that 35 percent of adults are not getting the recommended seven hours of sleep, and one in three adults are suffering from lack of sleep. Most Americans sleep less than 7 hours a night, about 2 hours less than a century ago. Needless to say, the epidemic of sleep is costing us, both economically and physically. Sleep-deprived consumers are paying over $66 billion on devices, medications, and sleep studies  a figure that could rise to $85 billion by 2021. According to Kunzig, were also spending more than $411 billion to make up for the accidents and loss of productivity caused by lack of sleep.

2. We werent built to skimp on sleep Weve always been told that getting sufficient sleep is good for us, but the recent science cited in the NatGeo spread is inspiring us to hit the pillow earlier. Every animal, without exception, exhibits at least a primitive form of sleep writes Michael Finkel. Its evidently natural law that a creature, no matter the size, cannot go full throttle 24 hours a day. The biology doesnt lie, and the stress of staying awake is taking its toll on our bodies. Theres all sorts of health effects that are linked to sleeplessness: heart disease, diabetes even obesity, Kunzig explained.

3. Sleep is a spiral journey Did you know one night of sleep actually consists of a series of cycles? In the first stage, we fall into sleep, which takes about 5 minutes. Then, our brain stays active in the second stage, as it fires into its editing process, deciding which memories to hold onto from the day. Since sleep reinforces memory, exhausted soldiers are actually advised not to go directly to bed if they just returned from a disturbing mission. In the third and fourth stages, we enter a deep sleep  a physiological housekeeping for our bodies. Then, in REM sleep, we experience dreams. Some scientists say our dreaming state is a psychotic state, as we can experience hallucinations and delusions.

4. When sleep is interrupted, the whole day can feel different The magazine issue includes an interview with Thrive founder and CEO Arianna Huffington, who spoke to editor-in-chief Susan Goldberg about what happens when sleep cycles are interrupted. As it turns out, an interrupted night of sleep can make the difference between an energized morning or an exhausted one. One of the metaphors I use is that sleep is like the laundry, Huffington explained. Youre not going to take out the laundry 10 minutes early to save time. You have to complete all the cycles in the washing machine. Our sleep cycles have to be completed too; otherwise we wake up and feel like wet and dirty laundry.
Infectious fever makes our bodies more resilient to cancer by increasing and strengthening a particular group of cells in the immune system. Share on Pinterest How does fever benefit us? At present, this is just a theory. For decades, studies have suggested that there is a link between history of infectious fever and lower risk of cancer  but as yet, there is no direct proof of cause. However, in a paper now published in the journal The Quarterly Review of Biology, scientists from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland argue that there is a strong case for their hypothesis. They are not the first to propose that the immune system increases resilience to cancer each time that the body fights an infectious fever. Several hypotheses have been presented thus far, they write, and recent debates have pointed to the effect of fever on innate and adaptive immune functions. They are, however, the first to single out a group of white blood cells, or lymphocytes, known as gamma-delta T cells.

Potential for cancer immunotherapy The authors also suggest that the cells should be investigated for use in immunotherapy, which is a treatment approach that recruits and boosts the immune system to fight disease. Research and clinical practice of immunotherapy for cancer has tended to focus on another group of white blood cells called alpha-beta T cells. The scientists propose that a better understanding of how fever interacts with gamma-delta T cells could reveal the larger impact and the clinical benefits of this relationship. In the study paper, the authors review published research and data from experiments. Drawing on this, they argue that infectious fever plays a key role in increasing gamma-delta T cells and enhancing their immune antitumor competence over a persons lifespan. They say that repeated fever responses to acute infection increase the ability of gamma-delta T cells to spot abnormal cells and cultivate environments that destroy them.

The febrile system An infectious fever is a defensive and adaptive reaction by the immune system, which is triggered when the immune system encounters a particular molecular pattern, such as that of a virus or bacterium. Recognition of the molecular pattern engages the bodys febrile system, which comprises several mechanisms. These include, for example, thermoregulatory mechanisms that raise core temperature, and the release of cascades of cell signaling proteins, called cytokines, that redirect energy and resources to the immune system. There is also a marked increase in a vast range of defensive immune cells called effectors. These include gamma-delta T cells, which possess a potent anti-infectious and antitumor competence, note the authors.
In light of the global relief efforts required after natural disasters, which have often called for blood transfusions, researchers are looking for effective ways of turning other blood types into the universal donor, blood type O.

Share on Pinterest Researchers press on with their quest for a safe and effective method to convert other blood types into type O, the universal donor.

According to the ABO blood group system , there are four main blood types in humans. These are A, B, AB, and O.

Of these, only O is a universal donor, meaning that a person with this blood type can safely donate blood to all the other groups.

Otherwise, people with type A can only donate to people with types A and AB, type B to types B and AB, and type AB only to other ABs.

Blood type compatibility is therefore very important in cases of mass disasters, when those affected need a constant supply of blood from compatible donors.

If there was an appropriately large supply of the universal donor, however, this would make it easier to attend to anyone in urgent need of a transfusion.

For years, researchers have been looking into effective ways of converting other blood types into type O by developing enzymes that would remove the antigens that make blood types A, B, and AB so discriminating.

Now, researchers from the University of British Columbia  with branches in both Vancouver and Kelowna, Canada  have presented the results of a new study at the 256th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, held in Boston, MA.

They explained that they may have found an effective and safe way of converting blood types A and B into type O: by using certain enzymes found in the gut.

We have been particularly interested, says study co-author Stephen Withers, in enzymes that allow us to remove the A or B antigens from red blood cells, adding:
Think of sartorial sensibilities for 30,000 feet above and you'd be blessed with names of a lot of stylish men. #AirportStyle  as they call it  is now a move of the top dogs and is soon, even trickling down to the ordinary. After all, you can find the love of your life anywhere, right? Even at a boarding terminal; so you rather be prepared.

Saif Ali Khan, though married, exudes his personal swagger even while flying. But mind you: he may be a high-flying, business class traveller, but he hardly dresses the part; that's just his way of life and we're no one to complain. Because after all, he's a Nawab, who's always raining on his own parade. So, for his recent airport outfit in Mumbai, he did exactly that.

 Viral Bhayani

Going by this visual above, Saif's style slogan seems simple: walk into a terminal like you're getting into bed (and just keeping rolling in it). Throw in a bandana in the combo (a style-signature), Kolhapuris (because, he's in an Independence Day hangover) and headphones, because "I don't care if you're shouting my name, bro". Takeaway: whether at the airport or in situations outside, Khan's style is chill at all times. Does this mean dressing up adversely for #AirportStyle is a trend that's now officially dead?

 Viral Bhayani

That said, as much as we say and call his 'chill', we must appreciate the fact that this is a unique, well-planned out style flex. Sure, there's just a T-shirt and trackpants in there, but notice the timepiece on the wrist, tinted sunnies, colour-twinning with the bandana and headphones and, well, that Louis Vuitton bag, that's the single-most symbol of his bank balance here. Worth just a few lakhs maybe?

And though, we would have loved some trimming on the beard, let's just call this his lazy day!

 Viral Bhayani

Clearly, this is a reminder that Airport style isn't something that needs to be forced down one's throat. What style-route you want to take or whether you even want to really care is something you don't need to push yourself into. Much like Saif Ali Khan, men like Shah Rukh Khan too prefer chill dressing over being overtly dramatic (or forcibly put-together) at the airport. Looks like, bigger the bank balance, more the modesty. Since when did this become a famous man-thing?
The age of the internet can lead to a zillion debacles within seconds. It's become a place where rumours and fake updates travel like wildfire and threaten to destroy the peace and sanity we possess as a society, thanks to a handful of tech-savvy, active internet operatives, who never fail to cease the chance to have a few jesting moments.

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What they don't realise, however, is that such misrepresentations and sarcastic pieces have the power to whip up abundant trouble online, while the repercussions dribble slowly onto the offline space. Since we got a taste of our share of having to deal with the fakes, here's giving you an update on the ones that you must steer clear of ASAP.

To Give You A Better Idea

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While you must have already figured it out for yourself, this story gives you a quick heads up on some of the fake news that is steadily surfacing on the internet and social media around the Kerala floods.

All you need to do is identify them and nip in the bud before it turns into a pain in the arse for unassuming folks like many of us.

Fake News Alert 1

The most recent piece of information, or rather misleading information, that's surfaced across a number of social media channels is this rant by someone who goes by the name of Suresh Kochattil, who has now also been identified as an aspiring politician.

As can be seen from the post above, Kochattil is seen claiming that the elites of Kerala would not care for people's handouts and one must check with proper authorities before sending across materials, since as per his personal research, more than 200 truck-loads of material are waiting at Coimbatore and Mysore.

Thus, what people need is manpower and skilled labourers, plumbers, electricians and the likes, instead of money and materials since most Malayalis are rich people with ample money.

Naturally, he has been bashed for his statements by the public for his uninvited claims and statements.

Fake News Alert 2

Imposter wearing Army combat uniform in video spreading disinformation about rescue & relief efforts. Every effort by all & #IndianArmy aimed to overcome this terrifying human tragedy.Forward disinformation about #IndianArmy on WhatsApp +917290028579. We are at it #KeralaFloods pic.twitter.com/ncUR7tCkZW  ADG PI - INDIAN ARMY (@adgpi) August 19, 2018

The Indian Army took to Twitter in a measure to prevent the fake news formulated by a man identified as Unni Nair, who is also an ex-serviceman, in the form of a video message spreading false information about the relief work being carried out by the paramilitary and the government in the flood-hit areas of Kerala.

The Indian Army as well as Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan have condemned such acts and have warned that stringent action will be taken against the culprits.

Which is why we say, cross-check before you send that forward.

Fake News Alert 3

 Twitter

Though this story might have been put together as a satirical piece, it has backfired big time! A satirical news portal published a fake story on the floods claiming that a man lost his life after he refused to wear a saffron coloured life jacket that was offered to him during rescue operations because the colour is affiliated with Hindutva.

Perhaps this was meant to be a critique of what our nation has come to of late. But that aspect of our society could have been mirrored in a different manner and not by playing on people's sentiments in a time of crisis, and surely not by adding political colour to it in order to invigorate people's political differences.

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There might just be more of such fake news lurking in the shadows to pounce upon unassuming people and we must be wary of them. This menace is only hurting those who are actually trying to do some good in the flood-ravaged state.
Modern games have come a long way in terms of graphics, it's become so good that at times you can't even make out whether its an actual footage or CGI. Even though the hardware has been consistently improving, nothing brings in the feel of the 90s double-digit bit rate games that we've played.

Artist and animator, John Stratman has created a 16-bit version of the big fight scene in 'Infinity War' where the team of Iron Man, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and the Guardians of the Galaxy take on Thanos on Titan.

The first half consists of the wonderful 16-bit remake, while the second half compares it side-by-side to the actual film so that you can also experience the drastic change.

The video, made for the YouTube channel 'Mr Sunday Movies', is 10 minutes long and covers almost everything in the entire fight against Thanos on Titan. Right from the fight choreography to Doctor Strange's trippy powers, Stratman has managed to cover everything with just 16-bits.

 YouTube

While the video is just amazing to watch and will get you all nostalgic, there's no way to play Stratman's version of Infinity Wars as a real video game right now.

Though on the brighter side, Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics are working with Marvel on an actual 'Avengers' game, we haven't seen or heard much about it since the release of the teaser trailer.

25-30 years back, this game would've been every Marvel fan's dream. No, why just Marvel fans? The plot and the cliffhanger nature of the series are more than sufficient to have almost every kind of gamer excited for this.

 Marvel Studios

The movie, 'Avengers: Infinity War' is now available on digital platforms, DVD, and Blu-ray. The next instalment of the movie is scheduled to come in May 2019. In fact, there have been reports stating that Benedict Cumberbatch is being offered 7.5 million (US$ 9.57 million) to star in the sequel.

'Avengers: Infinity War' has been a huge success for the Marvel Studios. The film has earned more than US$ 2 billion worldwide and is the highest-grossing film of 2018, globally.

Domestically in the USA, the film is the second-highest grossing of the year and the fourth-highest grossing film of all time.
BHP Billiton will target higher oil output and can accelerate development of growth projects in other key commodities after using stronger profits to cut debt and reward investors.

The world's biggest miner has nine major projects underway and is spending almost $1 billion this year on exploration, Chief Executive Officer Andrew Mackenzie said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Melbourne, Australia. Capital expenditure is forecast by the company to rise by as much as 18 percent to $8 billion this year.

Even after trimming debt and lifting returns, "there has been money left over to grow the company in the future, and there's lots more to come," Mackenzie said after BHP reported full-year underlying profit jumped 33 percent to a four-year high. "We have a cupboard full of options for the short, medium and long term in all of our commodities."

Rio Tinto Group and Anglo American Plc are advancing new projects and expansions as the sector begins to embrace growth. Anglo last month approved a $5 billion copper mine in Peru, while Rio is building a bauxite mine in Australia and leading the $5.3 billion expansion of Mongolia's Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold operation.

Melbourne-based BHP can fund both improved shareholder returns and underwrite developments after net debt was cut by $15 billion over two years to within the company's target range, Mackenzie said. BHP paid a record final divided, though confirmed it'll be later this year before it sets out plans to return to investors the bulk of about $11 billion in proceeds from the sale of its shale assets in the U.S.

While the annual dividend rose 42 percent on a year earlier, it may prove "slightly disappointing," Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts including Eugene King wrote in a note. "We believed that there was scope to go higher given the net debt position," the analysts said. Net debt was cut a third to $10.9 billion, BHP said.

BHP's shares declined 1.9 percent in Sydney trading -- as the mining benchmark index lost 1.4 percent -- after executives said the additional investor returns won't be immediate and the company flagged some higher production costs as well as delays to a planned $2 billion program of productivity gains. Net profit slumped on more than $5 billion of impairment charges tied to the shale unit and to U.S. tax reforms.

The mining sector's efforts to lower debt and sell unwanted assets since a 2015 commodities crash means companies are well-positioned to maintain returns, ride out volatility in prices and pursue selective growth, according to BlackRock Inc.'s World Mining Trust, which holds BHP shares.

BHP and its largest competitors "have better profitability, are better placed financially with lower debt and that means you do start to look at returns to shareholders first, and then at growth," Peter O'Connor, a Sydney-based analyst at Shaw and Partners Ltd., said by phone.

Conventional oil is a priority for BHP as it seeks to reverse a production decline and capture rising prices, according to Mackenzie. The producer, with operations in the Gulf of Mexico and Australia, forecasts output to fall as much as 6 percent this fiscal year as fields decline. "We will look to accelerate production now in order to capture favorable prices," and could consider an acquisition to add output, he told analysts on an earlier call.

The producer is also seeking to add copper production with the market likely to move into a structural deficit early in the next decade that'll send prices higher. BHP's Olympic Dam operation in South Australia is currently suffering an outage at an acid plant and the impact is being assessed, the company said in the statement.

BHP has a pipeline of about $4 billion of potential projects across commodities to upgrade existing operations, including at Escondida, the world's No. 1 copper mine, and its Australian iron ore operations, the company said in a May presentation. A longer-term list includes $15 billion of possible developments in copper to potash.

Despite global trade tensions, there's also little cause for alarm on the outlook in China, the top commodities consumer, Mackenzie said in the Tuesday interview. "We're not seeing any slowdown in China -- perhaps a little bit in copper, everything else is going well," he said.

--With assistance from Bloomberg's William Canny.
MIDDLETOWN  The Buttonwood Tree, 606 Main St., Middletown, is welcoming live musical artists and a new artists work to the club on Labor Day weekend. Tickets are required for all shows and reservations are encouraged. For tickets and information, call 860-347-4957, or visit www.buttonwood.org.

Aug. 31: Deborah Davis And A Few Good Men, 8 p.m. $20. A jazz vocalist fused with Texas blues, gospel, and soul, she has a natural flowing charm and flawless stage presence that draws you into her show. A native of Dallas, Texas, Davis musical development lead her to New York City, where she has carved out a niche for herself on the international jazz scenes. Davis distinct style of phrasing, extraordinary singing ability and professionalism has earned her invitations to perform with legendary jazz greats, Ray Brown, Lionel Hampton, Clark Terry, Randy Brecker , Delfeo Marsalis, and countless others. Davis has been praised for her powerful voice and the passion with which she sings her stories. Learn more at https://www.deborahdavissings.com/
MOODUS  Nathan Hale-Ray Middle School students will be able to explore space and dive into the deepest depths of the ocean. They will take field trips to learn about building the tallest buildings, or perhaps to study rainforests in Brazil. Sure, you might say, maybe someday. At the middle school, someday is today, thanks to a grant from Dominion Energy Nuclear Connecticut, Inc.

Dominion Energy Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., owner of Millstone Power Station in Waterford, recently awarded the Hale-Ray Alumni Association a $3,000 grant, which will be used to expand the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) program at Nathan Hale-Ray Middle School. Assistant Principal Roy Parker said that the grant will go towards purchasing 20 Google Expeditions devices. These devices will help students learn about the environment, alternative energy sources, and much more.

Dominion Energy and the Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation accept applications from employees, and annually award about $20 million to organizations which are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code. Grants are made in four focus areas:

Human needs grants that support increased food security, housing and shelter, and access to basic medical and health care.

Environmental stewardship grants to protect natural resources and help non-profit organizations make efficient use of energy.

Education grants to develop the capacity of the future workforce, especially in STEM and energy fields.

Community vitality grants to foster an appreciation of diversity, revitalize neighborhoods and ensure a vibrant community life through support of cultural endeavors.

Millstone Power Station provides approximately 50 percent of the electricity consumed in Connecticut. The stations two active units generate enough power for more than one million homes and businesses, and is 98 percent carbon free. Dominion Energy grants are awarded primarily in areas where they provide electricity or natural gas services. Grants typically range from $1,000-$15,000 and where there is employee involvement in the effort.

Jennifer Rowland, Nuclear Licensing & Regulatory Affairs Coordinator at Millstone, submitted the grant application. She is a 1996 graduate of Nathan Hale-Ray High School and member of the Hale-Ray Alumni Association.

Article written and submitted by Kathleen Golec, Secretary, Nathan Hale-Ray Alumni Association.

Museum to hold Onrust Project benefit

ESSEX Guests can experience the Netherlands as the Connecticut River Museum hosts a night to support The Onrust Project on Friday, Sept. 14, 5:30-8 p.m.

Enjoy Dutch culture with samples of traditional food and drinks, play classic Dutch tavern games, hear music, and witness a cannon demonstration - all from the museums north deck overlooking the Connecticut River.

The Onrust is a reproduction of the famed Captain Adriaen Blocks 1614 era vessel that was the first European vessel to chart and explore Long Island Sound, parts of Rhode Island, and the Connecticut River.

Catering by Selene will provide several traditional Dutch foods for people to sample. The cannon demonstration will be with one of the Onrusts reproduction cannons.

A standard ticket includes the food and drink tasting, music, games and cannon demonstration with a cost of $30 for members/$40 for non-members. For tickets and information, go to www.ctrivermuseum.org or call 860-767-8269.

Vocal Chords resume rehearsals

MIDDLETOWN  The Middlesex Hospital Vocal Chords (a 2017 Middletown Commission on the Arts Advocacy Award Recipient) will resume rehearsals on Tuesday, Aug. 28 at 6:45 p.m. at St. Francis Church, Msgr. Fox Parish Hall, 10 Elm St., Middletown.

The rehearsals are in preparation for the upcoming Dec. 2 holiday concert. New members in all voice parts are always welcome. Members do not need to be a hospital employee or Middletown resident to join. Members are from Central and Southern CT and all walks of life. No auditions are necessary but a love of music, singing and a commitment to rehearse every week are required. New members will be accepted until Sept. 18.

This group has entertained audiences for 28 years with its lively concerts--promoting their mission to lift spirits, relieve stress and heal souls with music. In recent studies, it has been found that members take fewer medications, experience less depression and make fewer visits to the doctors. Proceeds from the concerts are given back in the form of scholarships to graduating seniors pursuing a career in nursing or music. $72,000 has been awarded thanks to our Fall Patron Drive and loyal followers.

Call 860-342-3120 (mention Vocal Chords) or visit us at Middlesex Hospital Vocal Chords.

Library to hold Evening with the Gillettes

KILLINGWORTH  The Killingworth Library will present a program with Harold and Theodora Niver, aka William and Helen Gillette, on Thursday, Aug. 23 at 7 p.m.

Not only do the Nivers talk about William and Helen Gillette, they become the Gillettes, flitting back and forth between being presenters and portrayers, library members said.

The program takes place at the Killingworth Firehouse, 333 Route 81 in Killingworth.

Guests can learn about Gillette Castle in East Haddam, and what famous people visited the Castle; Gillettes greater love, his wife Helen, and about Wills love of cats.

Their costuming is authentic and period correct. Their knowledge of Sherlock Holmes, William Gillette and Gillette Castle is extensive. Because of their distinctive home, which is built around a Holmes theme, they have been in such magazines as US, Smithsonian, Fortune, Connecticut, and Yankee. TV segments include PM Magazine, ABC News, and CBS.

Since both Harold and Theodora are professional musicians, theyll perform several songs from the English Music Hall era.

The program is free; advance sign-up is required. Call the Killingworth Library at 860.663.2000 or visit www.killingworthlibrary.org for additional details.
For half a century, Italy's Benetton family has preached compassion through eye-popping ads for its eponymous clothing line that have included photos of a dying Aids patient, a black woman breastfeeding a white baby and, most recently, African immigrants being rescued at sea.

Now the Benettons themselves are the focus of public outrage after at least 43 people died Tuesday when Genoa's Morandi Bridge collapsed, threatening part of the family's other, much more profitable business running airports, turnpikes and roadside diners from Santiago to Rome.

Leading members of Italy's new populist coalition government have begun the process of revoking the lucrative toll license held by Atlantia SpA, the family-controlled company that operated the bridge, and want its chief dismissed. The threats triggered a selloff that's wiped about $6.7 billion (5.9 billion euros) off Atlantia's market value in the less than a week, and fueled a backlash on social media, where scores of posts accuse the Benettons of pursuing profit over safety.

The Benettons didn't comment until Thursday, when they issued a statement via holding company Edizione Srl. expressing "deep sympathy" for the victims of the disaster and vowing to work with authorities to determine the cause, while emphasizing that Atlantia and its Autostrade subsidiary have invested more than 10 billion euros in Italy's roads over the past decade.

Atlantia Chief Executive Officer Giovanni Castellucci followed up Saturday with a pledge to rebuild the bridge within eight months and provide an initial 500 million euros to alleviate the suffering of victims, not including possible direct compensation payments. That's about half of what the company returned to the Benettons and other shareholders last year.

For Enrico Valdani, a professor of marketing at Bocconi University in Milan, the actions may not be enough to ease tensions with the government or win back the trust of the populace, much like United Colors of Benetton initially balked at taking responsibility for a cave-in at a Bangladeshi garment factory, where it sourced shirts, that killed more than 1,100 in 2013.

"They made a mistake by not promptly clarifying their alleged role in the fatal bridge collapse," Valdani said by phone. "What the family now urgently needs is a straight plan of communication and crisis management. They need to demonstrate the company acted in good faith or admit any possible fault."

A statement from the Benettons on Saturday, a day of mourning, said their thoughts were with the loved ones of the deceased. At the same time, Chairman Fabio Cerchiai said he personally hoped Castellucci, 59, will remain in the job, adding that the CEO has the support of the board and investors.

Representatives met with executives and lawyers on Friday to prepare the initial funding package, and there'll be meetings in Rome this week to discuss the causes of the tragedy, according to people familiar with the situation.

Long-celebrated in their native Treviso, a northeastern city of 85,000, for their rags-to-riches story, the Benettons last month suffered the loss of the youngest of four siblings who founded the apparel company in 1965, Carlo, who died of cancer at 74. He's survived by Luciano, 83, Giuliana, 81, and Gilberto, 77, all of whom remain active stewards of the family's various investments.

Luciano founded the company by selling sweaters out of small store in Treviso that were knitted by his sister Giuliana. Within two decades the offspring of a bicycle shop owner had become a global force in fashion, both for their vibrant clothing and provocative ads that occasionally riled the Catholic Church. The Vatican once took legal action to halt a campaign that featured a doctored photo of the pope kissing a Muslim leader.

Gilberto, who runs the clan's finances, started to diversify in the 1990s, making purchases in a wave of privatizations that produced the bulk of its current fortune. The family now holds about 12 billion euros of assets, including a 30 percent stake in Atlantia, which became the world biggest toll-road operator this year with the acquisition of Spanish rival Abertis.

The strategy proved prudent. Their clothing chain has struggled to compete with upstarts like Inditex SA's Zara brand and lost 180 million euros last year. In 2015, the family sold its stake in another major retailer, World Duty Free SpA, to Basel, Switzerland-based Dufry AG.

Last year, the siblings hired former Telecom Italia Chief Executive Officer Marco Patuano to revamp their investments, reduce their dependence on Italy's sluggish economy and pursue a more global strategy.

About 45 percent of the group's revenue came from abroad last year and that share is even greater now with Atlantia's purchase of Abertis, which operates in South America and France as well as Spain. The Benettons also became the biggest owner of Spanish mobile-phone tower operator Cellnex.

Separately, Atlantia bought a billion-euro stake in Eurotunnel -- now Getlink SE -- the operator of the underwater link between the U.K. and France, and won the right to manage Nice's main airport. The company is also considering spinning off Autogrill's North American division, which accounted for more than half of the international restaurant chain's 4.6 billion euros of sales last year.

The Benettons have done well pivoting away from their flagging brand and will likely weather the current storm over the Morandi Bridge disaster, according to Ugo Arrigo, a professor of public finance at Bicocca University. He said he doubts the government will make good on threats by some officials to pull the toll-road license held by Atlantia, which operates half of Italy's motorways.

"The government has been very generous in granting the family lucrative motorway tariffs over the past two decades," Arrigo said from Milan.

Atlantia shares renewed their decline after the government on Friday sent the company a letter formally beginning the process of withdrawing the concession. The stock was down 8.1 percent to 17.77 euros as of 9:38 a.m. in Milan on Monday, after a delayed opening.

Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio reiterated the plan on Saturday after Autostrade offered an initial 500 million euros in funding to help victims and said it would rebuild the bridge in eight months. The government is moving to re-nationalize the highway system, and is studying passing a fast-track law in parliament, La Repubblica reported.

La Repubblica had reported on Friday that Atlantia was in informal talks with Italy that could result in fines and other commitments, but would stop short of the seizure of the toll-road concession held by Autostrade.

The tragedy could accelerate the family's plan to have more financial investments and fewer industrial businesses to manage. Gilberto Benetton has indicated that in the future the holding company should operate more in the manner of a sovereign wealth fund.
Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division had just finished clearing a remote compound with Afghan security forces in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province when the Taliban opened up on them.

"When I tell you that the sky lit up with enemy fire -- RPGs, mortars, small-arms fire -- it literally lit up the sky, that's how much we were getting shot at," said Spc. Myles Shoemaker, an infantryman with 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, recalling the Oct. 26, 2017, firefight with Taliban forces.

"That will always be in my mind, just seeing bullets and tracers come over your head, snapping and whizzing and hitting things in front of you. It was pure chaos, but I felt very calm during the entire situation, like I knew what I was doing the entire time," he said.

Shoemaker's unit was advising and supporting Afghan forces as part of Operation Freedom's Sentinel, the military mission that began in Afghanistan at the close of formal combat operations in late 2014. Today, the Army's new 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade has taken over that train, advise and assist mission in Afghanistan.

The Oct. 26 battle, recently made public due to valor awards given for heroism in the fight, offers a snapshot of the dangers U.S. troops continue to face quietly as they fill supporting roles in the country, far from the public spotlight.

The force of about 70 Afghans and U.S. soldiers had air-assaulted into the area with four CH-47 Chinook helicopters that night to search compounds suspected of Taliban activity.

The mission started off uneventfully, until a force of about 50 Taliban fighters ambushed the Afghan-led operation, killing one Afghan soldier and wounding one U.S. soldier and another Afghan, troops who participated in the operation said. Before it was over, the Afghan forces began to unravel, and leaders from the 10th Mountain were forced to take over before the situation turned disastrous.

1st Lt. Tyler Wojtasinski, who commanded the battalion's 1st platoon, A Company, remembers that elements of the combined Afghan-U.S. unit had reached an open field after clearing the compound when they were hit by an "intense volley of fire."

"At first, it was just trying to get some situational awareness as to where everybody was," he told Military.com on Monday.

The Afghans and Americans pulled back to the compound in search of cover. A rocket-propelled grenade exploded, wounding U.S. Army Spc. Shamire Groce and two Afghan soldiers.

"They all got hit by that RPG round; he took shrapnel," Wojtasinski, 25, said, referring to Groce.

Once consolidated in the compound, Wojtasinski said he realized that many of the Afghans were not posting their own security and firing back at the Taliban.

"It was madness in the middle of the courtyard ... there was lots of yelling. We just needed to get some control on the situation," he said. "The Afghans weren't pulling security; they shut down a little bit and we had to step in. Up until that point, it was an Afghan-led operation, but at that point, we said, 'OK, we have to establish security and we have to fight the fight.'

"It was just a lot for them to handle," he continued. "They wanted to help the individuals who were injured. It was just about knowing what we needed at the time, and what we didn't need were 20 people standing over three casualties."

One of the Afghan element's casualties was a machine gunner. Realizing this, Shoemaker picked up the unit's M240B machine gun and carried it to the rooftop position Wojtasinski had established to get better vantage point to engage the attacking Taliban.

"When we got up on the roof, the first thing I did was get down; I got down as low as possible. There were bullets snapping over my head," Shoemaker, 20, said.

With the help of his fellow soldiers, Shoemaker started identifying and engaging targets with the M240 at distances as far out as 300 meters, he said.

"It was dark and I was using my night vision [device] on my helmet," Shoemaker said. "The people that I could see moving toward us, I could also see shooting at me ... there were a couple more popping up and down and then a couple more to the left and right of them."

The Afghan M240 had been poorly maintained and malfunctioned several times, forcing Shoemaker to switch to his M4A1 carbine, while other soldiers got the weapon working again.

"When they got within 100 meters of myself, they were kind of showing a pattern when they were popping up ... and I specifically remember putting my M4 on auto," he said. "I kind of just guesstimated where this guy was going to pop up, and he popped up, and I let him have a five-to-eight round burst. And after that, he didn't pop up again."

Spc. Brad Cook helped carry one of the wounded Afghans to where he could be treated.

But the Taliban fire began to intensify.

"It got to a point where we needed to pick up and move," Cook, 22, said. "They were bracketing mortar rounds in on us."

Cook assisted American sergeants and other Afghans in treating the three wounded while waiting for the medevac helicopter to arrive.

"They landed the helicopter inside of the compound," he said. "I'll give the flight crew a lot of credit ... they landed that helicopter with maybe two feet on each side of the rotor. It was a tight fit, and they took that risk to do it."

The wounded were flown to a military hospital, where one of the Afghans died. Groce and the other Afghan recovered from their wounds, Wojtasinski said.

The company commander worked with an Air Force combat controller to bring in some "strafing gun runs," which began to turn the tide of the skirmish, he said. He added that he couldn't recall which aircraft the Air Force called in.

"Once they see air assets, the Taliban really don't want to fight anymore," Wojtasinski said.

The unit pulled back to a safe distance, and Air Force "jets came back and dropped bombs" on the Taliban, ending the fight, he said.

For their actions, Wojtasinski, Cook and Shoemaker were awarded the Bronze Star with Valor at a June 14 ceremony at Fort Drum, New York.

During that 2017 deployment, there were other missions, "two or three" other firefights, but none of them matched the intensity of that one mission, Wojtasinski said.

Some of the Afghan units were well-seasoned, hard fighters. Other Afghan units, like the one that Wojtasinski's unit accompanied on Oct. 26, needed work.

"They were the company that needed the most work, they were getting these influxes of new soldiers," he said. "They always progressed. A lot of the Afghans we fought beside ... they all had their strengths and weaknesses, but they were extremely dedicated to their country and they just got better and better with each operation.

"It's just the smaller details of coordinating together, those little things that make a force lethal," he added.

-- Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the spellings of Miles Shoemaker and Shamire Groce.

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.
The Defense Department has identified the U.S. soldier killed in a helicopter crash Sunday night along the Iraq-Syria border.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Taylor J. Galvin died Aug. 20 in Baghdad, Iraq, "as a result of injuries sustained when his helicopter crashed in Sinjar, Nineveh Province, Iraq," officials said in a release. Galvin, a Spokane, Washington native, was 34.

Galvin was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The airborne special operations unit is known as the Night Stalkers, tasked with moving and inserting elite commandos such as the Army's Delta Force and the Navy SEALs for night operations.

In a statement, U.S. Special Operations Command said that Galvin, the married father of two, had deployed nine times in his career-- twice in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, three times in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and four times in support of Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria.

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He joined the Army as a CH-47 aircraft mechanic in 2003 and in 2007 was accepted to warrant officer candidate school and graduated flight school in 2008 at Fort Rucker, Alabama.

Galvin was assigned to Charlie Company, 2-1 General Support Aviation Battalion, Fort Riley, Kansas, where he served as a UH-60 instructor pilot, deploying twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan.

After a successful assessment in 2015, he was assigned to Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where he served as an MH-60M Fully Mission Qualified Pilot, SOCOM said.

His military education included the Warrant Officer Candidate School; Aviation Warrant Officer Basic Course; Aviation Warrant Officer Advanced Course; the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Course; UH-60 Aviator Qualification Course; UH-60 Instructors Pilot Course; and the MH-60M Qualification Course.

Galvin's awards and decorations included one Air Medal with combat "C" device; the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters; the Army Commendation Medal with two oak leaf clusters; the Joint Service Air Medal with one oak leaf cluster; and the Army Achievement Medal with two oak leaf clusters.

He also received the Afghanistan Campaign Medal; the Iraq Campaign Medal; the Global War On Terrorism Expeditionary Medal; the Global War On Terrorism Service Medal; the Combat Action Badge and the Senior Army Aviator Badge.

In 2011, the Night Stalkers provided insertion for the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. U.S. special forces, along with the 160th, attempted to rescue American journalist James Foley in 2014. Foley was beheaded by Islamic State militants weeks after the rescue attempt.

The unit flies MH-60M Black Hawks, MH-47 Chinooks, among other helicopters.

DoD officials said the incident in Sinjar remains under investigation.

Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Rob Manning on Monday said several others were injured in the Sunday night crash of an MH-60 Black Hawk. The service members were returning from an anti-ISIS mission as part of Operation Inherent Resolve.

The aircraft had earlier joined "in a partnered counter-terror mission against ISIS," he said.

At least three service members were medically evacuated for further treatment, Manning said. Recovery operations were underway at the crash site to retrieve the helicopter.

At the Pentagon Monday, Manning did not disclose the nature of the counter-terror mission that Galvin and others aboard the MH-60 had conducted or its location.

However, U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria have focused in recent months on backing up local forces in the effort to defeat remnants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria who still operate in ungoverned spaces along the Iraq-Syria border and in the Middle Euphrates River Valley.

The Sinjar area in northwestern Iraq near the border with Turkey was one of the first areas to fall to ISIS in the terror group's August 2014 invasion that pressed to the gates of Baghdad as the Iraqi Security Forces crumbled, leaving behind weapons and equipment.

ISIS carried out massacres against the male population of the Yazidi sect in the area and enslaved women, according to U.S. and United Nations reports.

Thousands of Yazidis fled to the Kurdish autonomous region while others remained in tent cities. The area is still subject to periodic Turkish airstrikes against the PKK, or Kurdish Workers Party, which is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and Turkey.

"We are conducting recovery operations and are in close communication and coordination with our Iraqi partners," U.S. Central Command said in a release following the crash. "There are no indications the crash was caused by hostile fire."

In March, a U.S. HH-60 Pave Hawk crashed in western Iraq, killing all seven combat search and rescue Air Force members on board. CENTCOM officials at the time also said the crash did not appear to be the result of enemy activity. The incident remains under investigation.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @oriana0214.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
As loved ones and comrades gathered in Japan this week to honor the 10 sailors killed aboard the guided-missile destroyer John S. McCain one year ago, Navy officials are still working through how best to implement more than 100 recommendations to prevent similar tragedies from occurring.

Seventy-eight of the 110 recommendations made after lengthy investigations into a spate of mishaps in the Asia-Pacific region are "fully underway," Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer told reporters at the Pentagon earlier this month.

The McCain was the second ship involved in a deadly collision in 2017. Months before that collision with a merchant vessel off the coast of Singapore, the guided-missile destroyer Fitzgerald collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan. Seven sailors were killed in that accident.

Two other Navy ships in the region were involved in incidents earlier in the year, including a grounding and a more minor collision. Those incidents did not result in fatalities.

As the Navy looks to fix the problems that led up to the troubling trend, Spencer said the remaining 32 recommendations will require more time, money and long-term cultural shifts in how the organization addresses problems.

"To be very frank, you have an absorption issue -- you can really only put so much out into the fleet," the Navy secretary said. "You really want them to absorb A, absorb B, absorb C. You don't want them to absorb 30 percent of each."

He estimated that about half of the remaining recommendations need to be carefully timed. The other half will require money from future budgets, he said.

The Navy established a council earlier this year that would oversee changes to the fleet. Some changes were easier to implement than others, Spencer said.

For example, ship crews have now been directed to turn on their vessels' automatic-identification systems when crossing high-traffic areas, allowing other ships to spot them more easily. Spencer called that fix a "check the box" solution they could easily communicate to the fleet and enforce.

Other proposed changes, like a sweeping overhaul to the surface-warfare officer training pipeline, are underway, but it will take time to see results. A new policy in implementation will limit who's able to pursue a SWO qualification in order to free up vital training time that needs to be set aside only for those officers who will command ships in the future.

Still other recommendations are going to require what Spencer called long-term cultural fixes for the Navy.

He said he'd like to see the Navy become a fast-learning organization -- one that innovates, experiments and thinks quickly about how it will respond to future threats and challenges.

"That's going to be a big rock to move," Spencer said. "I can pound that drum. I can tell people 'Hey, you looking at the problem, give me a newer process.'"

Too often, though, he said rank-and-file sailors and Marines don't think they can speak up to their leaders when they think they have a better way of doing something. That needs to change, he said, but it's going to take time.

Spencer and other leaders are also working to address serious readiness shortfalls that left the Navy pushing its people and equipment to a breaking point. Sailors reported being so busy they were often sleep-deprived. And deployments were often extended in the event of a humanitarian or security crisis in the region in which they were operating, which wreaks havoc on ship maintenance schedules.

Spencer has looked to the private sector to see what best practices he can apply from industries like commercial airlines to improve Navy readiness. The Navy, he said, has created a clear line of ownership for maintenance and is also working to push more responsibility down the chain of command, which will empower leaders to make more immediate decisions about repairs, rather than forcing them through a lengthy approval process.

"This sounds easy ... but you're culturally rewiring [the service]," he said.

--Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ginaaharkins.
The Senate has confirmed the four-star general appointment of Lt. Gen. John M. Murray, who will become the first commander of the new Army Futures Command.

The Army nominated Murray, the service's modernization guru, to lead the new command in mid-July, after the senior leaders announced that Austin, Texas had been selected to become the home of the command responsible for leading the Army's ambitious modernization strategy.

Bruce Jette, the Army's assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisitions, Logistics and Technology [ASSALT], said Tuesday, a day after Murray's confirmation, that he looked forward to working with Murray as the new head of Futures Command during a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association's Science & Technology Symposium and Showcase.

"If you don't know him, he's a really, really bright guy," Jette said, adding that Murray, as AFC commander, will take over supervision of the Army's laboratory system, a responsibility that used to fall under ASSALT. "I get along really well with him, and we have had discussions about looking at the best ways to enable the lab system to move into the future."

The move to confirm Murray comes as some call into question the Army's entire plan for Futures Command. Language in the recently passed 2019 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Army to submit a detailed study to Congress early next year describing the structure and leadership of the planned command.

And a new amendment to the appropriations bill that will fund the defense budget would put funding for Futures Command on hold until two Government Accountability Office studies examining the command's cost-effectiveness are completed, Stars and Stripes reported. The Army has yet to provide a clear cost estimate for the command's establishment next year.

Murray, who has been serving as the deputy chief of staff for Army G-8, has been the service's voice of modernization at congressional hearings and other public events.

As an infantry officer, Murray held leadership positions ranging from commanding 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, during Operation Iraqi Freedom to serving as commanding general of Joint Task Force-3 in Afghanistan.

Murray has also served as director of Force Management at the Pentagon; assistant deputy director for Joint Training, J-7, on the Joint Staff; and director of the Joint Center for Operational Analysis for U.S. Joint Forces Command.

After an exhaustive search of U.S. cities, the Army announced July 13 that Austin has the right mix of industrial innovation and academia to support the Army's vision for building a future force. AFC is scheduled to be at full operational capability by next summer.

The Army announced its plan to stand up Army Futures Command last October. The service unveiled its six new modernization priorities: long-range precision fires; next-generation combat vehicle; future vertical lift; a mobile network; air and missile defense; and soldier lethality.

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.
The Navy approved several new hairstyles for female sailors last month, but leaders are still cautioning women to "police" themselves when it comes to where they might sport the new 'dos.

Ponytails, locks (or locs) and wider buns are all allowed under the new female grooming standards, The new rules were announced on July 10, and Navy officials have released photos of the newly approved regs so female sailors can get the looks right.

Even if they're within regs though, female sailors need to aware of their environments, Capt. Jeffrey Timby, commanding officer of Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune, said in a news release accompanying the photos. If the women work predominantly around Marines, for example, they should be mindful of their sister service's regulations.

"What I would say to everyone is to self-regulate when it comes to these new standards," Timby said. "... As members of the military, it's our responsibility to police ourselves and watch out for others."

Here's a look at what women need to keep in mind.

Mind the collar

Ponytails and single braids can now be worn in service, working and PT uniforms. Make sure they don't extend more than 3 inches below the lower edge of the collar of the shirt, jacket or coat though.

And if there are operational hazards, hair should be fully secured.

Regs for locks

Partings for locks must be square or rectangle in shape and must continue from the root to the end of the hair. If worn loose, they can't be more than 3/8 of an inch apart and must be tightly interlaced.

No zig-zag patterns or new growth beyond half an inch are permitted.

Broader buns

Buns can now span the entire width of the back of a sailor's head. That allows women with longer or thicker hair to get beyond the previous 3-inch limit.

Forward-facing rules

Anytime a sailor is facing forward, their ponytails, or braids should not be visible from the front. They must also be able to wear proper safety equipment.

--Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ginaaharkins.
A lost pair of chests used to hold the mementoes and service items of a fallen soldier have been found and are to be returned to their owner, Gold Star wife Krista Simpson Anderson.

The chests, one presented by the Army, the other handmade by a family friend, were lost during a permanent change-of-station move by military-contracted movers this summer.

Although emptied of their contents for the move, they usually housed Staff Sgt. Michael Simpson's uniform and other items after he died from combat injuries on May 2, 2013. They gave Krista a place to pause and remember her late husband.

Now remarried to a soldier, Krista and her family moved from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, on June 22 and received their household goods Aug. 1.

She realized the chests were missing as soon as the truck was emptied at her new home, but calls to the moving companies and attempts to find them on their own were unsuccessful.

This chest, handmade by a family friend, held the personal items of Staff Sgt. Michael Simpson, who died from combat injuries in 2013. His wife, Krista, says it was lost in their military move. (Photo courtesy of Kirsta Simpson Anderson)

Krista, the Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year for 2018, next turned to social media for help. An Aug. 18 Military.com story about Krista's plight was shared widely.

It was after a friend saw that story, Krista said, and "was able to escalate the issue" at U.S. Transportation Command that the chests were located. TRANSCOM oversees military moves.

"TRANSCOM located the chests in 24 hours," she said. They were found sitting forgotten at the warehouse in Virginia where the rest of her goods had been packed onto a truck for delivery.

"The warehouse and movers, I don't believe, set out to lose or damage anyone's things," Krista said. "The representative from Allied Moving was so apologetic and just felt terrible we had to go through this."

Allied Moving plans to deliver the chests Aug. 21.

Krista believes everything happens for a reason, including misplacing the chests. After the post about the chests was shared, she received a message from someone she had never met whose family is an important part of her life.

"My gift? A woman contacted me after she saw my post on 'lost during my PCS' to tell me about how our family blessed hers 1 May 2013," Krista said. "If that date looks familiar, it's because it was the day we arrived at Landstuhl Army Medical Center in Germany to say goodbye to Mike. The day he passed. This woman's husband was one of the chaplains that greeted us in the hospital that day. He said he saw, simultaneously, incredible pride and pain and expressed the extreme impact it had on him. I am so grateful for this connection and will continue communicating with this family. This was the reason those chests went missing."

Staff Sgt. Michael Simpson died May 2, 2013, at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, of injuries sustained from an improvised explosive device on April 27 in Afghanistan. (Photo courtesy of Krista Simpson Anderson)

Krista said she is very grateful for the care and concern readers and the military community worldwide showed for her, despite the sadness the misplacement sparked.

"The power in [the] article, social media, our community and the genuine kindness and compassion from so many people leaves me feeling just blessed," she said.

-- Amy Bushatz can be reached at amy.bushatz@military.com.
ANN ARBOR, MI - On the western edge of downtown Ann Arbor, across from the YMCA in the Old West Side neighborhood, some of the most blighted buildings in the city stand on city-owned property.

The graffiti-laden facade of a nearly century-old building along Washington Street is crumbling, exposing rusted metal rebar and old nails. Windows are broken and boarded up.

Trees and weeds are growing in rusty gutters around rooftop edges and between steps of a metal staircase.

Panels hanging from the sides of the main building flap in the wind, while piles of old bricks and other discarded items lay below.

A faded sign out front at 415 W. Washington St. gives a clue that this was once home to the Washtenaw County Road Commission.

But for many years now, the deteriorating collection of buildings -- in an otherwise charming historic neighborhood on the edge of a vibrant downtown -- have been owned by the city of Ann Arbor.

City leaders have spent more than a decade talking about doing something with the 2.5-acre property, located in the city's 5th Ward.

But while multiple studies and assessments have been done, there's been little action to move anything forward.

That could change soon.

"I think we should be embarrassed," City Council Member Chuck Warpehoski, D-5th Ward, said of the fact that the city has let the site remain an eyesore for so long.

"It's a testament to letting the perfect be the enemy of the good," he said. "There's a deep division about what should happen on this site. And because there's a deep division, nothing has happened."

Records obtained by The Ann Arbor News under the Freedom of Information Act show the city has been approached my multiple real estate agents working with developers interested in potentially redeveloping the site as either artist lofts or senior housing.

Another local developer said last year he would like to do a condo development on the property.

Those are just some of the many ideas city officials have heard or been presented with over the past decade.

The city hasn't made any final decisions about the future of the site yet, though the city's administration is getting ready to ask the city's Historic District Commission to approve demolition of the buildings.

City records obtained by The News show there still are lingering concerns about pollution on the property, though, and that may need to be addressed if and when the buildings are demolished.

Different visions

Council Member Chip Smith, who lives around the corner from 415 W. Washington, said the blighted nature of the property has been a source of frustration for him since before he was elected to council. He said it's beyond time to do something about it.

"It's a problem for the neighborhood," he said. "We would like to see something positive happen there. One of the things that's frustrating is that it just sits empty. It's a liability instead of an asset."

There are five buildings on the site, including some garage-like structures behind the main building.

Some ideas put forward by different people over the years have included rehabilitating the main two-story building and transforming it into either a work/exhibition space for artists or a warming center for the homeless, but the city determined it would cost millions of dollars to make the building usable and there hasn't been money for it.

Others have suggested demolishing the blighted structures and either creating a park or otherwise redeveloping the site, but that requires approval from the HDC since it's in a historic district.

City leaders indicated several years ago that at least part of the site, which includes a roughly 150-space dirt parking lot managed by the Downtown Development Authority, would be transformed someday into a greenway anchor park as part of the city's larger plan for a new greenway trail through the city.

What was formerly known conceptually as the Allen Creek Greenway is now called the Treeline urban trail. And the city's new master plan for the Treeline, adopted by the City Council last December, still envisions routing the trail through 415 W. Washington.

The city's thinking is that the Treeline could run through the eastern part of the site, the floodway portion next to the railroad tracks, while the other part where buildings stand in the flood fringe could be privately redeveloped. Money from selling or leasing the property could then help pay for the Treeline and other city priorities such as affordable housing, according to city leaders.

But what type of vertical development overlooking the Treeline, if any, should happen at 415 W. Washington remains to be decided, along with whether any existing structures should be saved.

The site originally was home to the Road Commission in the 1920s and later was used by the city as a headquarters for forestry, park operations, signs and signals, the city's radio shop and parking enforcement. Many of those operations moved to the city's new Wheeler Service Center on Stone School Road in 2007, and 415 W. Washington has been vacant since.

The city considered three development proposals for the site a decade ago, but none panned out at the time.

That included a proposal from the Ann Arbor Art Center, which wanted to make the site its home along with artist studio lease space, and two other mixed-use development proposals including artist live/work units and other aspects from Chicago developer Morningside Group and a partnership involving local developer Peter Allen.

City emails obtained via FOIA show city officials were approached in May by Bud Falsetta, a local real estate agent with Real Estate One, whose client, Denver-based MorningStar Senior Living, proposed building a senior living facility at 415 W. Washington.

City emails also show communications between city officials, the local nonprofit Arts Alliance and local real estate agent Ryan Tobias, co-owner of Triad Real Estate Partners, about another idea to create affordable housing for artists.

Tobias wrote to Deb Polich, president and CEO of the Arts Alliance, in February, saying he had been doing some preliminary work around the idea of bringing affordable artist lofts to Ann Arbor, suggesting 415 W. Washington as the ideal location.

"I've had some good conversations with Artspace about being the developer of such a project," Tobias wrote.

"They're a non-profit based in Minneapolis that specializes in this exact type of project, completing nearly 50 of them nationwide. Notably, they did a fantastic project over in Dearborn with the City Hall Artspace Lofts, a $16.5M venture that opened in 2016 with 53 units of affordable live/work spaces, studios, incubator and gallery space."

Tobias indicated in the email that Artspace is interested in doing a project in Ann Arbor.

"I've run this by the mayor and several council members and have received solid support, but obviously this is the type of project that will take a wide range of community support, notably from arts organizations like the Arts Alliance," Tobias wrote.

In other emails to city officials, Tobias indicated he was hoping to get $25,000 for a feasibility study for the Artspace concept, with funding to come from the city, the DDA and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. Later emails show city officials and others had a conference call with Artspace to hear the group's pitch.

In a followup email to city officials and others in March, Polich thanked Tobias for "making the arrangement to bring us together to meet" with Artspace, adding: "They are a well-respected organization familiar to many of us who work in the national arts and creative industries. Locally, the Jackson and Dearborn projects were led by people very connected to Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti."

Tobias said this week the feasibility study hasn't moved forward due to lack of a commitment from the city. He said there are competing visions for 415 W. Washington and the Artspace idea is stalled right now, but he's still hopeful something can happen.

If it doesn't happen through a rehabilitation of 415 W. Washington, he said, it could happen on another site.

Next steps

City Administrator Howard Lazarus sent a memo to the City Council on June 27 indicating his administration is planning to go to the HDC seeking approval to proceed with demolition.

The memo cites a 2013 historic structure assessment done by Rueter Associates Architects, looking at the five buildings which were constructed between 1924 and 1934. The study identified minor, serious and critical building deficiencies and also looked at flooding issues, concluding the expected water level in the buildings during a 100-year storm would vary from 4.8 feet to 8.7 feet.

The Rueter study also developed conceptual plans for a rehabilitation of four buildings, including proposed additions and alterations to add an elevator, egress stairway and main entrance lobby.

It was determined it would cost at least $2.6 million to stabilize the buildings to prevent parts in good condition from further deteriorating and to make repairs to deteriorated exterior elements, while it would cost $6.4 million for a total rehabilitation.

In 2017, the city retained historic preservation consultant Kristine Kidorf of Kidorf Preservation Consulting for evaluation of seeking HDC approval to demolish the buildings. She recommended any request for demolition be predicated on a city code section stating that retaining the buildings is not in the community's best interest.

The city then had Northville-based architectural firm DRN & Associates complete an updated assessment last fall, concluding it would cost about $7.4 million to rehab the buildings.

The firm's report cited "progressive deterioration caused by exposure to the elements and lack of ongoing maintenance" and, aside from any possible historical value, it concluded 415 W. Washington "does not appear to be a strong candidate for adaptive reuse or rehabilitation."

It's on those grounds that the city's administration now plans to go to the HDC seeking approval for demolition.

City officials hope that an eventual developer of the site can pay for the demolition costs, as well as pollution cleanup, possibly through brownfield tax incentives, but they want to clear the hurdle of getting approval for the demolition now.

If approved, it's possible the city could front the demolition costs, take the buildings down, and then seek reimbursement later.

Lazarus said he's been in talks with Smith and Warpehoski, the two 5th Ward reps on council, about next steps, and they're looping in Ali Ramlawi, who replaces Warpehoski on council in November.

Lazarus said whatever happens with the property, it needs to reserve an easement for the Treeline trail.

"It needs to have a connection to the Treeline, and one of the exciting things I've heard is incorporating an art park," he said, adding there's some interest in creating an arts district of sorts.

City officials suggest a mixed-use development with some type of arts space and mixed-income housing may be possible, and they say that could include affordable workforce housing. There's also some talk of including a pocket park connected to the Treeline.

"The property has tremendous value and we need to be deliberate and purposeful about what we want to do there," Lazarus said, adding it has to be respectful of surrounding neighbors.

He said it also could take advantage of the proximity to the YMCA across the street.

City officials expect the developer of the site would pay for the block-long segment of the Treeline trail that would run through the property from Washington Street to Liberty Street.

The city-owned property at 721 N. Main St. is another site with similar considerations regarding redevelopment and the Treeline.

Warpehoski and former Mayor John Hieftje proposed listing part of 415 W. Washington for sale four years ago, but they pulled back their proposal in the interest of waiting for the greenway trail master plan to be completed first.

Warpehoski said it seems evident that the buildings at 415 W. Washington need to come down, and he wants to try to seek community consensus on a vision for the site.

Instead of putting out a request for proposals and soliciting ideas from developers, he said, another option is to have the city hire a consultant to go through a planning/design process and engage the public to come up with a conceptual vision that would then go through the city's formal development approval process.

He said the city could then take an approved site plan and seek a developer willing to build it. He said that approach could help avoid some conflict and uncertainty.

Warpehoski said he's hoping to get things moving in that direction by the time he leaves council, so there can be a project with community support and the eight votes needed from the next council.

If the property stays in the historic district, which is the plan, whatever is built would have to follow historic district guidelines.

"It won't be a high-rise," Warpehoski said, adding his sense is that it would be zoned D2, possibly allowing a mid-rise development.

Smith said he's agnostic when it comes to whether to preserve the existing main building. He said he doesn't believe it has much historic value and architecturally it isn't particularly unique.

"When you don't take care of buildings for a decade, they become blighted and you have to make decisions," he said, adding the city should be ashamed it's gotten to this point.

"We should be embarrassed by it. I am. I'm embarrassed by it every time I walk into the YMCA to pick up my kids," Smith said, adding he hears concerns about it from Y leaders and other members.

"This site is a problem to them and they don't understand why it's still there. It's a huge issue."

The idea of turning the entire property into a 2.5-acre park has been talked about, but both Smith and Warpehoski say they don't believe that would be the best use for the site. Warpehoski notes West Park is only a block and a half away.

Smith, who said his neighbors have told him they don't want the entire site to become a park, suggests there might be an opportunity to create a grassy field for the YMCA on a temporary basis after the buildings come down and before the site is redeveloped.

After that, it's possible a park of some size connected to the Treeline could be part of the longer-term redevelopment plan.

Christine Brummer, president of the Old West Side neighborhood association, said the association has no preferences about what to do with the site, though she said it's a gateway point to downtown and the neighborhood and it's already a high-traffic area, so she does have concerns about adding more traffic. That said, she thinks a green building with solar panels would be good, and she said the association supports including room for the Treeline trail.

Ramlawi, who lives in the Old West Side historic district, said he met with Warpehoski last week and they talked about it.

He said there are lot of different issues and it's complicated, but he wants to see a development that benefits the community, one that includes workforce housing and has some cultural significance.

He said that could include having a new building cantilevered over an open first-floor space that could be used for a market/bazaar or studio art space, or possibly a cultural performance center -- something that's interactive and connected with the Treeline.

He said he doesn't see anything culturally significant about what's standing there now, so he has no hesitations there.
BAY CITY, MI -- A 32-year-old man accused of putting a baby into hot bath water causing second-degree burns is facing a child-abuse charge.

Scott W. Perry on Aug. 15 appeared in Bay County District Court for arraignment on one count of second-degree child abuse. The charge is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Authorities issued a warrant for Perry on Aug. 8.

Police allege the incident occurred in the 400 block of 19th Street in Bay City on June 2. Police said Perry was giving a 1-year-old girl a bath and put her in the tub without checking the water's temperature, which was scalding.

Police say Perry is living with the toddler's mother and her husband, 32-year-old Caleb I. Ovaitt, who is charged as a codefendant with accessory after the fact to a felony. That charge is a five-year felony.

Authorities have issued a warrant for the child's mother as well on a charge of accessory after the fact to a felony, though she's not yet been arraigned. Her name is being withheld pending arraignment.

Police said Ovaitt is charged as he and his wife did not want to take their daughter to the hospital, as they didn't want Child Protective Services getting involved. Somehow, though, CPS did become involved and alerted police, who began their investigation on June 8.

Michigan law states a person is guilty of second-degree child abuse if he or she "knowingly or intentionally causes physical harm to a child" by "an act that under the circumstances poses an unreasonable risk of harm or injury to a child, and the act results in physical harm to a child."

Both Perry and Ovaitt are free on personal recognizance bonds.

Perry and Ovaitt are to appear for a preliminary examination before District Judge Mark E. Janer the afternoon of Aug. 30.
Detroit Police Chief James Craig says the department is investigating the suspected homicide of an off-duty Detroit firefighter.

"There is very little information on the circumstances," Craig said. "His home was ransacked."

WDIV-TV, Channel 4 news identified the firefighter as 29-year-old Jack Wiley II, who was shot and found dead inside his home on the 15000 block of Penrod in Detroit about 9 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 21. The victim's vehicle, a 2011 black Ford Expedition, was missing from the scene, Channel 4 reports.

Craig said more information will be forthcoming. Police haven't publicly identified any suspects or announced any arrests.
OWOSSO, MI -- A break-in at an Owosso mobile home park is what started a deadly hours-long standoff over the weekend between a man and dozens of police officers.

Officers with the Owosso Police Department responded around 8:45 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 18, to Candlewick Court mobile home park for a subject armed with two knives who broke into a mobile home and asked the residents for the keys to a vehicle.

Owosso Public Safety Director Chief Kevin Lenkart said the subject, identified as 26-year-old Jace Davey of St. Johns, was confronted by a female homeowner who began screaming at him.

The woman's husband then came out of a back room of the residence armed with a crossbow and engaged in a "verbal confrontation" with Davey, Lenkart said, who then fled on foot to a friend's trailer he'd been staying at for a couple days.

That's where responding officers found Davey "running around, yelling, screaming, threatening he is going to shoot everyone and himself," said Lenkart, adding officers witnessed the Davey injecting narcotics.

A perimeter was established by law enforcement officials in the area around the mobile home. Owosso police spoke with Davey through a window for approximately 30-45 minutes.

"He was acting very erratic," said Lenkart, noting the friend was not in the residence at the time of the incident. "He was telling the officers he was injecting methamphetamines."

The Michigan State Police Emergency Support Team later arrived and took over tactical command of the scene, according to Lenkart.

An armored state police vehicle approached Davey after he came out of the residence with a weapon Lenkart described as "some type of long rifle."

Davey allegedly fired shots at the state police vehicle and gunfire was returned prior to Davey taking his own life, Lenkart said.

Michigan State Police Lt. David Kaiser could not confirm if any of the shots fired by troopers hit Davey.

Some troopers have been placed on administrative leave as an investigative response team out of the Lansing area reviews the incident, Kaiser said.

The case will be turned over to the prosecutor's office for review upon completion of the investigation.
Employers are looking to fill multiple positions during two job fairs in Genesee and Shiawassee counties.

The Flint & Genesee Job Fair & Resource Fair is set from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 23, at the Baker College of Flint student center, 1050 W. Bristol Road, in Flint Township with nearly 30 employers hoping to fill entry-level positions.

On-site interviews with adults 18 and older will take place with employers that include Genesee Intermediate School District, D&W Windows & Enclosures, Meijer, The D.M. Burr Group, Speedway, Belle Tire, Hamilton Community Health Network, Sovita Credit Union, Randy Wise Automotive and several others.

Job seekers also may get a complimentary haircut by Park Place Hair Studio and updated clothing and accessories donated by 2nd Time Around Consignment.

A job fair is also scheduled less than one week later in Shiawassee County.

The multi-employer job fair is scheduled from 9 a.m.-noon Wednesday, Aug. 29 at GST Michigan Works, 1975 W. Main St., in Owosso.

Universal Handling Equipment Company, Martin Powder Coating, Young Owosso, Retriever Solutions, and furniture manufacturer Woodard are some of the local companies looking to fill spots at the job fair.

Anyone seeking additional information on the Flint-area job fair may contact the Flint & Genesee Chamber of Commerce at 810-600-1404 or GST Michigan Works at 989-729-9599.
FLINT, MI -- Lt. Gov. Brian Calley doesn't think Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon can get a fair trial in Genesee County.

Responding to a Twitter message about Lyon, who was bound over to stand trial on charges including involuntary manslaughter Monday, Aug. 20, Calley wrote, "Political charges and a political decision. There won't be a professional legal process until there is a change in venue."

The lieutenant governor's remark isn't the first time he's criticized the prosecution of Lyon by Attorney General Bill Schuette, whom he ran against and lost to in the Republican primary election for governor earlier this month.

In July, Calley claimed Flint water prosecutors intentionally delayed Lyon's preliminary examination for political reasons and "know that they can't win" the case at trial.

Political charges and a political decision. There wont be a professional legal process until there is a change in venue. https://t.co/rvUvMFA8fa  Brian Calley (@briancalley) August 20, 2018

Chip Chamberlain, an attorney for Lyon, who has not requested a change of venue since his arraignment in Genesee District Court more than a year ago, declined to discuss future plans for the case.

"Now is not the time to discuss our overall motion strategy, although I can say that we certainly will file a motion to quash the bindover," Chamberlain said in an email to MLive-The Flint Journal.

Anna Heaton, press secretary for Gov. Rick Snyder, said Calley was not available for further comment, and Andrea Bitely, a spokeswoman for Schuette, declined to comment.

Lyon's case in Genesee Circuit Court has been assigned to Judge Judith Fullerton following District Judge David Goggins' bindover of the case for trial on two counts of involuntary manslaughter and charges of willful neglect of duty and misconduct in office.

The charges are related to Lyon's role in the Flint water crisis, particularly outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease that killed at least 12 people in the area, state officials have said.

Goggins said in making his decision Monday that Lyon knew of the outbreaks and the potential they were related to use of the Flint River for drinking water, but never told the public or Snyder what he knew.

The governor has left the director on the job at DHHS despite having placed lower-level state employees charged with Flint water crisis crimes on paid leave from their jobs.

Lyon's attorneys said immediately that they intend to fight Goggins' ruling, saying the judge ignored arguments they laid out for him showing prosecutors failed to meet their burden of proof.

"He (the judge) did not address a single one of those 20 pages (of arguments). The Circuit Court and if not there, the Court of Appeals, are going to look at this and they are going to reverse so fast it will make your head spin," said John Bursch, an attorney for Lyon.
Construction is underway for five new retailers - TJ Maxx, Old Navy, Ulta Beauty, Five Below and Bath & Body Works - at the Village at Knapp's Crossing, according to the West Bloomfield firm developing the shopping center.

The retailers are expected to open in fall 2019, said Christopher Brochert, a founding partner at Lormax Stern Development Company. The shopping center is located at the northeast corner of Knapp Street and East Beltline Avenue NE.

"It's such a great location," he said, pointing to what he said is significant number of high-income residents who live and shop near the development. "The first thing they say about retail development is location, location, location."

The shopping center is home to 16 stores, including P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Art Van Pure Sleep, Potbelly Sandwich Shop, RX Optical and GNC, Brochert said.

The first and second phase of the Knapp's crossing project totals 150,000-square-feet. About 90 percent of that is currently leased, and Brochert said he expects the remaining space to be leased by fall of 2019.

There's an additional 45,000-square-feet of space available at the north end of the shopping center for the development's third phase, said Brochert, whose firm is working with Visser Brothers, a general contractor, on the development of Knapp's Crossing.

Brochert's firm was brought in as a partner in 2014 to help find tenants for the once-struggling development.

The project's previous developer, Steve Benner, had hoped to create a $60 million "lifestyle center" on the site, a former apple orchard. But he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2013 after failing to find any tenants besides P.F. Changs.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A semi-truck that crashed into a U.S. 131 wall in the S-curve caused a hole in the concrete early Tuesday, Aug. 21.

The crash happened about 7 a.m. in the southbound lanes of U.S. 131 over Grandville Street.

One lane of southbound traffic was blocked for a period Tuesday as Michigan Department of Transportation crews examined the damage.

MDOT spokesman John Richard said workers expect to make a permanent repair in the concrete at a later date.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Every morning Grand Rapids Public Schools is dedicating a two-hour block of time to literacy instruction for students in kindergarten through second grade at 14 schools to improve proficiency in English language arts.

The new reading initiative kicked off this morning, the first day of school. GRPS was among six districts returning to class Monday, Aug. 20.

Next school year, state law requires schools to hold back third-graders who are more than a grade level behind in reading. Superintendents will have the option to grant exemptions in some instances.

Superintendent Teresa Weatherall Neal said the district will be "more focused and intentional'' this school year on how literacy interactions are planned and implemented to move the needle on reading.

"We want to emphasize the joy of reading and instill a love for books,'' said Neal, about getting kids to want to read for pleasure, not just for building literacy skills crucial for school and career.

Twenty-three percent of GRPS students were proficient in English language arts at the end of the third grade, according to state data. The proficiency rate for the schools involved in the initiative range from 5.1 percent to 37.3 percent.

Statewide just 44 percent of students were proficient in English language arts at the end of third grade.

Last school year, to ensure more kids would be proficient, school districts and charter schools had to have programs in place such as for screening students and early interventions.

"During the morning literacy block, teachers will provide engaging instruction, including in phonological and phonemic awareness and word works (phonics, vocabulary and spelling),'' said Bridget Cheney, executive director of Elementary and PreK-8 Schools for GRPS.

"We are being very intentional and strategic to increase the level of learning and achievement.''

Cheney said teachers will be reading aloud to students, there will be interactive reading where the students join in, independent reading, as well as guided reading that involves the teacher working with small groups of students who demonstrate similar reading behaviors.

She said lessons will be data-driven, designed around areas students have learning deficits. She said during the 120-minute literacy block there will be a handful of literacy stations where students can engage in activities to build literacy skills.

The 14 elementary and K-8 schools involved in the literacy block and their reading proficiency rate at the end of third grade are:

Aberdeen (20), Brookside (18.2), Burton (8.7), Campus (10.3), Cesar Chavez (7.4), Coit (37.3), Dickinson (11.8), East Leonard (23.5), Gerald R. Ford Academic Center (30.4), Harrison Park (28.9), Ken-O-Sha (15), Kent Hills (10.5), MLK Leadership Academy (14.3), and Sherwood Global Studies Academy (5.1).

MLK, Campus and Brookside were part of a literacy block pilot last school year and showed some improvement, according to Cheney.

Neal said she is confident the district will see more improvement in reading because they have the right strategy and right people to implement it effectively.

She said since she took the reins, the district went from 15 to one state designated priority school - Alger Middle.

Neal said one of the successes of her Transformation Plan, now in its third phase, has been increased parent engagement, student attendance and graduation rates.

"We believe in our students and have high expectations,'' she said. "I want to continue to work together with our parents to see more gains in achievement.''

School and district M-STEP passage rates have generally reflected student socio-demographics.

That means schools serving largely affluent and middle-class families are likely to have higher average scores than districts with large numbers of children in poverty.

Godfrey-Lee and Wyoming schools districts, for example, are two other high-poverty districts like Grand Rapids that were among districts statewide with the fewest students passing the reading test at 26.9 percent and 28.7 percent, respectively.

For at least four years, West Michigan school districts have been ramping up its literacy efforts. In 2014, around 100 school districts, including those in the Kent ISD, banded together to share best practices to boost reading scores.

The Reading Now Network, comprised of 20 counties, is focused on improving early literacy, and student achievement across all grade levels. In 2015, a symposium was held at the Kent ISD to share the results and best practices, such as literacy blocks, from a field study.

A team of eight educators learned about the common threads among five West Michigan elementary schools, where K-3 students outperformed their peers with similar demographics on literacy measures. An emphasis on reading was common.
Larry Bell

TRAVERSE CITY, MI -- Lead and toxic per- and polyfluorinated compounds called PFAS in Michigan water supplies have made national headlines.

Larry Bell, owner and founder of Bell's Brewery, wonders if oil is next.

For Bell, it's not hypothetical. The Kalamazoo-based brewer witnessed the 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill, in which Canadian company Enbridge Energy failed to recognize that its Line 6B had ruptured until at least 17 hours afterward.

About 843,000 gallons of heavy crude oil spilled into the Kalamazoo River. It is the largest and most costly inland spill in American history.

On Monday, Bell testified as part of a panel before the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee field hearing in Traverse City on the possibility of and response to an oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac from the Line 5 oil and gas pipeline belonging to Enbridge Energy.

"A rupture of Line 5 would cement Michigan's reputation of having the worst water in the United States," Bell said. "This reputation would have horrible effects on our business as brewers."

In a worst-case scenario Straits rupture, Line 5 would gush 2,436,000 gallons of oil, slick 437 miles of Great Lakes shoreline and cost $1.86 billion in damages, according to a study spearheaded by Michigan Technological University.

Bell was among other area stakeholders to testify at the hearing put on by U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Michigan. He was joined in the panel by representatives from the pipeline industry, environmental advocacy groups, labor unions and Enbridge Energy.

Before that panel took the stage, another composed of top-level federal emergency-responders and regulators were held to question and answer by Peters.

Most of the questioning from Peters in that first session regarded response to the April 1 anchor strike in which the twin Line 5 pipelines were dented in three places and "gouged" it in a fourth.

Bell testified at the hearing as a representative of the business community. In early 2017, he and numerous other business leaders from around the state formed the Great Lakes Business Network, calling for the 65-year-old Line 5 to be decommissioned.

Bell told Peters how the PFAS contamination in Parchment, which abuts Kalamazoo but has its own water supply, has affected his business.

"While water from the Kalamazoo municipal system remains clean, our customers both in-state and out-of-state have been concerned because the contamination of water in Parchment," Bell said.

PFAS levels in the Parchment water system are 20 times higher than the federal lifetime health advisory. It has become a public health crisis.

"Due to the state of PFAS issues around the state, as well as the issue of lead in the water in Flint, our state has been gaining the reputation for having bad water," Bell said. "This is not the type of thing that makes us comfortable in the brewing business."

The issue of whether of not to shut down Line 5, Bell said, has divisions among party lines.

"It unfortunately has become partisan," he said after the hearing. "To me, water should never be partisan."

The 645-mile-long Line 5 pipeline, built in 1953, runs from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Canada, and transports up to 540,000 barrels of light crude oil and natural gas liquids per day.

Composite sleeves were wrapped around the anchor-dented portions to strengthen the lines. That work finished the week of July 30, according to Enbridge officials.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has set a deadline of Sept. 30 to formalize an agreement with Enbridge on the future of Line 5.

The full U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee field hearing can be viewed here.
WYOMING, MI - Services are set for a crash victim who died Saturday, Aug. 18, on what was supposed to be his wedding day.

Nathaniel "Nate" Walma, 38, of Wyoming, was injured days earlier in a motorcycle crash.

He was to marry Andee Talsma.

He was severely injured in an Aug. 12 crash on Chicago Drive SW near Godfrey Avenue.

A GoFundMe account was set up after the crash.

Wyoming police suspect that the other driver, a 25-year-old man, was intoxicated when he turned left in Walma's path.

The other driver was arrested the night of the crash but is no longer in jail, police said.

A screenshot of a GoFundMe page for Nathaniel Walma and Andee Talsma.

Police obtained a search warrant for the other driver's blood and are awaiting test results. Once police receive the results, investigators will present findings to Kent County prosecutors, Capt. James Maguffee.

The crash happened around 11:30 p.m.

Walma was riding a motorcycle west on Chicago Drive, just west of Godfrey, when an eastbound car turned left in front of him. Walma could not avoid a collision, police said. Police found no skid marks from his motorcycle to suggest he had a chance to brake or swerve.

Walma's family declined to comment.

The son of Joel and Liz Walma, he served in the U.S. Navy during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

"Nate cared for people and would do whatever he could for others," his obituary said.

Services will be at 11 a.m. Friday, Aug. 24, at Matthysse-Kuiper-DeGraaf Funeral Home in Grandville.
TRAVERSE CITY, MI -- U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Michigan, says the Canadian company operating the Line 5 oil and gas pipeline underneath the Straits of Mackinac has and deserves a failing grade in public trust.

"It's a well deserved deficit of trust, given the pipeline disaster in Kalamazoo and the fact that we tend to find information from Enbridge Energy after it's happened, and when it should've been reported we don't find out about it for a few months after," Peters told reporters Monday, Aug. 20, after a U.S. Senate committee field hearing in Traverse City.

"That doesn't endear any kind of trust with the people in Michigan."

The field hearing at the Milliken Auditorium on Northwestern Michigan Community College's campus brought together top-level federal emergency-responders and regulators, along with area stakeholders, to speak on Line 5 spill preparedness and response.

The format of the hearing was question and answer, with Peters, the sole U.S. senator present, asking the questions.

Peters questioned hearing panelist and Enbridge Energy Vice President of Operations David Bryson on what he says was pushback to temporarily shutting down Line 5 during a high-wave event about two weeks after the twin pipelines were dented in three places and "gouged" it in a fourth by an anchor strike on April 1.

"When they are not even willing to be proactive in shutting down a pipeline temporarily when there's a severe storm hitting at the time we have a damaged pipeline and no way to clean up, it speaks volumes," Peters said.

A November 2017 agreement between Enbridge and the state requires the company to shut down operations if waves exceed 8 feet. The first such temporary shutdown occurred on Dec. 5.

Bryson contended there was no pushback on his company's part to the April 15 shutdown.

Peters pressed officials from the U.S. Coast Guard and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal agency which oversees pipeline safety, on the timeline of the April 1 anchor strike.

Howard Elliott, administrator of the Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, said it wasn't until two days after the anchor strike that Enbridge Energy officials concluded their lines were dented in three places.

A visual inspection of the lines did not occur until more than two weeks after the strike. It revealed "gauging" on one of the lines, Elliot said.

In a statement released for the hearing, Enbridge Energy officials wrote that they have 24-hour monitoring of all their pipelines and can initiate shutdown in minutes.

Elliot said that, with data provided by Enbridge, his department concluded line integrity was not compromised by the strike. Peters questioned if regulators accepted whatever pipeline operators gave them.

Peters continually questioned Rear Adm. Joanna Nunan, commander of the U.S. Coast Guard's Ninth District, which oversees oil spill responses in the Great Lakes area, if there wasn't enough focus on Line 5 after the strike.

Nunan contended there was, that Enbridge's analysis and visual inspections above the water gave enough confidence to turn attention to the ruptured cables owned by American Transmission Company.

Those cables spilled an estimated 550 gallons of toxic coolant oil into the Straits.

Nunan said the primary equipment to clean up an oil spill in the Straits wouldn't be on scene until probably 12 hours after. Peters, after the hearing, said while he respected the Coast Guard, he wasn't pleased with its preparedness to a spill.

The 645-mile-long Line 5 pipeline, built in 1953, runs from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Canada, and transports up to 540,000 barrels of light crude oil and natural gas liquids per day.

Composite sleeves were wrapped about the dented portions to strengthen the lines. That work finished the week of July 30, according to Enbridge officials.

In a worst-case scenario Straits rupture, Line 5 would gush 2,436,000 gallons of oil, slick 437 miles of Great Lakes shoreline and cost $1.86 billion in damages, according to a study spearheaded by Michigan Technological University.

The study, released in July, is the last of five analyses requested by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder as he deliberates decommissioning and possible alternatives for the twin oil and gas pipelines under the Straits of Mackinac.

Snyder has set a deadline of Sept. 30 to formalize an agreement with Enbridge on the future of Line 5.

The full U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee field hearing can be viewed here.
GRAND RAPIDS - It's time to name the best IPA in Beer City USA.

Create TC and 7 Monks Taproom are partnering to host the inaugural Grand Rapids IPA Challenge, a new event where 10 breweries will battle for hops supremacy.

Presented by MI LOCAL HOPS, the competition will take place at 7 Monks Taproom, 740 Michigan St. NE, from 5-10 p.m. on Sept. 14.

"We've invited 10 Grand Rapids breweries to submit their best IPAs, and 200 beer lovers will have the chance to choose their favorite and crown one 'The Best IPA in Grand Rapids," said 7 Monks co-owner Matt Cozzens.

Breweries facing off include: Arvon Brewing Co., Brewery Vivant, City Built Brewing, Creston Brewery, Founders Brewing Company, Gravel Bottom Craft Brewery, Railtown Brewing Company, Speciation Artisan Ales, The Mitten Brewing Co. and Two Guys Brewing.

"These will be blind tastings," 7 Monks co-owner Jim Smolak said. "Ticket holders will know the description of the beer, ABV, and other facts, but the brewery will not be revealed prior to tasting."

The winner of the inaugural competition will be crowned at 10 p.m. DJ Kyle will be on hand to play music until midnight.

Tickets are $30 per person and include 10 sample tickets which equal one 3 oz taste each, two wild card tastings, $5 food token for a greasy spoon smash burger, custom taster glass, descriptions, rating sheets, award presentations and a voting ballot.

Tickets can be purchased at 7 Monks Taproom in Grand Rapids or online here. Only 200 tickets will be sold.
HOLLAND, MI - Holland State Park has closed off access to its popular pier area amid waves expected to build up to 10 feet in height tonight and dangerous swimming conditions.

A webcam from the nearby SpyGlass Condominiums shows waves overtopping the pier that extends along one side of the Holland Channel.

In addition to barring walkers and fishermen from the pier, the state park started flying the red flag - warning of dangerous swimming conditions - around 4 p.m. today.

Park workers sent a stern warning telling swimmers to get out of the water.

"As mentioned earlier we have red flags at the beach, and conditions continue to deteriorate," the park said on its Facebook page. "If you are at the beach and have a loved one in the water we strongly recommend that you ask them to get out now as dangerous currents can result in tragic consequences."

"Stay out of the water when the red flag flies and steer clear of the pier!"

Strong north winds are driving the big increase in wave height.

Beach hazard warnings issued by the National Weather Service extend from the shoreline near St. Joe, north to Manistee.

It's been a deadly week in Lake Michigan. Five people have either drowned or gone missing in the lake in the last seven days.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate John James is pushing for six debates with incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow before the November election.

This week, James' campaign called for a series of six U.S. Senate debates hosted throughout the state prior to the election, at least one of which they believe should be focused exclusively on veterans' issues.

"What has Stabenow demonstrated in the past 18 years that indicates anything will change in the next six?" James' campaign manager, Tori Sachs, said in a statement. "Michiganders deserve to hear from both candidates on the debate stage."

Stabenow's campaign has not announced their preferred debate schedule, but Jason Ellenburg, Stabenow's campaign manager, said in a statement Tuesday that Stabenow "looks forward to debating the important issues that matter to Michigan families."

Ellenburg added that the campaign would be "working out the details in the coming weeks."

Sachs responded on Twitter with a call for the campaigns to meet Wednesday at noon to finalize debate details: "Voters have waited 40+ years for Stabenow to 'work out the details,'" she wrote.

Team @Stabenow's comments sound like DC-talk for 'we'll wait until no one is looking.' Let's meet tomorrow at noon - They can name the place - To finalize the details for debates. Voters have waited 40+ years for Stabenow to 'work out the details'.. we're still waiting  #MISen https://t.co/q6EFtC6cOk  Tori Sachs (@Tori_Sachs) August 21, 2018

James recently defeated businessman Sandy Pensler in Michigan's Aug. 7 primary election to advance as a challenger to Stabenow, who has held the seat since she was first elected in 2000.
QUINNESEC, MI - A Michigan man who claimed he swallowed a stray grill brush bristle has failed to persuade an appeals court to revive his lawsuit.

The Associated Press reports that Robert Kaminski, a resident of the small Upper Peninsula community of Quinnesec in Dickinson County, had surgery in 2014 to remove the metal bristle, which was ingested by mistake after he was barbequing chicken.

Kaminski had sued the maker of the grill brush, Arcola, Illinois-based The Libman Company, for negligence, but a federal appeals court ruled in favor of the company last week, the AP reported.

Judge Robert Jonker reportedly said the brush was a simple tool that wasn't unreasonably dangerous and didn't require warnings.

Kaminski also failed to cite other examples of Libman grill bristles causing injuries, according to the AP.
JACKSON, MI - Jackson County students are heading back to class on Wednesday with more than 10,000 school supplies donated by the public.

Approximately 10,724 back-to-school items were collected in a "Stuff The Bus" event from Aug. 13-17 - featuring 20 drop box locations and six collection events in the county.

Stuff The Bus was hosted by the United Way of Jackson County, the Jackson Human Rights Commission, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services in Jackson County and the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center.

"Once again, Jackson County rises to the challenge of helping vulnerable families and children," Ken Toll, United Way of Jackson County CEO/president said in a press release. "On behalf of the partners and sponsors of Stuff The Bus, thank you for your generous support."

Items will be distributed to students through the school districts and the DHHS foster care youth program. Supplies also were handed out at the Back to School Bash on Aug. 19 at the King Center.

Stuff the Bus also was sponsored by Buffalo Wild Wings, County National Bank, Flagstar Bank, Henry Ford Allegiance Health, Home.fm 106.9, Jackson County Intermediate School District, TAC Manufacturing and Two Men and A Truck.

Not including clothing and electronics, school supplies costs families 47 percent more this year than a decade ago, according to the National Retail Federation.

The total breakdown of items collected is:
JACKSON, MI - A former Jackson Area Career Center teacher convicted of two felonies received text messaged photos of a naked student and another of the girl's buttocks, as the teen says he requested.

"G-- d---! You are so f------ naughty," Kevin Laverty said in response, according to excerpts contained in the police report from photographs of the exchange.

Kevin Laverty's relationship with the teen, which never became physical, began when the student, then 17, asked him in the fall of 2016 to write her a reference letter.

The student told a Jackson County Sheriff's deputy he agreed, via text using a cell phone number Laverty said she provided in the email. He told her he liked helping students anyway possible, she said, and "he could help her with other things once she graduates," reads the police report, obtained Friday, Aug. 17, through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Laverty, a 36-year-old, married teacher of health sciences, resigned shortly after allegations surfaced in February 2017, and he pleaded guilty to two felonies, using a computer to commit a crime and promoting, distributing or financing "child sexually abusive" activity or material. A judge sentenced him last week to two years probation, and he will have to register for 25 years as a sex offender.

The relationship came to light in February 2017, when the student reached out to Assistant Principal Ron Kinch about girls spreading rumors she was having sex with Laverty.

Kinch looked into this and found another student had photos of texts sent to and from Laverty. When approached, the 17-year-old showed the principal several other screenshots of improper messages.

Laverty denied none of this and cooperated with investigators, allowing a phone search and providing an account of what happened.

He said his first mistake was to send her a text. She responded by making a comment, punctuated with a wink emoji, about letting him know how she might repay him, he said.

She told him she and others thought he was hot, he told sheriff's Detective Sgt. Bryan Huttenlocker. "After stating this, he wanted to clarify that at no time does he want to blame (the teen) or want anyone to think it was her fault... He stated he is the adult, the mentor and instructor, and he knew full well that this was not only ethically wrong, but possibly criminally negligent..." Huttenlocker reported.

Laverty said, in two interviews, the girl, no longer his student, would stop by his office most days after class and talk, the report states. He and his wife were having a tough time and the teen was showering him with attention and positive comments, he told the detective. She said the topics were personal and sexual.

At some point, she sent him the pictures, which he said he deleted within about an hour. In one, she was emerging from a bubble bath. "He stated he is quite certain he did not ask her to send the photos..." the report says.

The girl told Huttenlocker that Laverty asked her to provide nude photos, and she sent at least three. She interpreted his responses as asking her to reposition herself and send another. "Maybe you could spread those cheeks," he says. She said Laverty constantly referenced the photos, which upset her because it made her think he wanted nothing more.

He said he was embarrassed of, but did not dispute his photographed responses, crude and explicit.

The girl said he would comment on his impatience for graduation, so they could be together. There were thousands of messages, and talk of physical meetings, the teen said.

"She stated she feels horrible about the whole incident and feels like it is her fault," Deputy Kelley Rybicki reported.

In late 2017, the relationship deteriorated.

The girl, to the deputy, said Laverty became "crazy," getting jealous of her guy friends or male students. She said he would degrade them and tell her not to talk to them.

She said he could be persistent with texting and when he became increasingly so in late 2016, she ignored him, and out of anger tweeted: "If you text me again, I am telling your wife."

Citing an obligation to his family, he eventually ended the relationship.

Laverty said she had informed him she was going to East Lansing to have sex with another guy, according to the police report. He told her this was not the best choice and to be careful about sexually transmitted diseases.

She then made the Twitter remark, he said. Laverty told the detective he became concerned, thinking she was telling friends.

They did not have further contact until school resumed in January. She came to his room and asked about their status, he said.

He noted a Jackson High School teacher, Jonathan Hastings, had been prosecuted for the same conduct. A jury convicted Hastings last year of the crimes Laverty soon faced.

When Laverty stopped replying to her messages, the teen called his wife, he said.

"Throughout speaking with Mr. Laverty, he would express how sorry he was and that he 'took full responsibility' for his actions. He also stated he couldn't believe that it had gotten this far...," Rybicki reported.

Of the girl, Huttenlocker noted: "At the end, (the teen) was asked if she was OK. (She) began to cry stating that she never wanted to get Mr. Laverty in trouble."
JACKSON, MI - Police have arrested a man wanted in connection with a shooting that wounded another man outside a Jackson lounge and a strip club a month ago.

Leandrew Martin, 40, was arrested without incident Monday night, Aug. 18, weeks after he disappeared after being charged with six felony counts, including attempted murder, being a felon in possession of a firearm and other gun crimes, according to a Jackson Police Department statement.

Martin was arraigned Tuesday morning, Aug. 21, by District Judge Daniel Goostrey who set bond at $750,000.

Martin's alleged victim, A 31-year-old man, was hit in the foot before 1 a.m. July 22, after a fight involving about 20 people had broken out behind The Avenues Gentleman's Club, 621 E. Michigan Ave., and neighboring Kingston's Lounge, 629 E. Michigan Ave., police said.

Surveillance footage of the incident, circulated on Facebook, shows a person firing several times into a crowd.

Martin is currently lodged in the Jackson County Jail.
KALAMAZOO, MI -- If you heard a rumble in the Kalamazoo sky this morning, it was not thunder, but rather the Texas Raiders B-17G bomber and a SB2C Helldiver dive-bomber.

The two planes landed around 11 a.m. Monday, Aug. 20, at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo about an hour ahead of schedule due to weather conditions along the route. Several guests were there when the plane landed and many more made their way through tours that began at 1 p.m. Monday.

The B-17 "Flying Fortress" is one of the most iconic warplanes from WWII. Though 12,700 were built, only nine are still flying in the U.S. today. The Texas Raiders B-17G is among those nine.

The Flying Fortress could weigh up to 36 tons and carry 20,000 pounds in bombs. Its wingspan is over 103 feet and the plane stretches over 74 feet long. The plane had a top speed of 287 mph and was typically manned by a crew of 10.

This particular B-17 was manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Corporation in Long Beach, California, and brought into service July 21, 1945, by the United States Navy. Brought in service shortly after the war ended, the Navy converted the plane to carry radar equipment instead of bombs.

The plane was later restored and is now used as a flying museum.

The SB2C Helldiver dive-bomber accompanying the larger plane on its visit to Kalamazoo is the only one currently flying in the U.S. The military built roughly 7,000 Helldivers.

It has been a few years since the Commemorative Air Force B-17 Texas Raiders plane has visited the Air Zoo.

Tours of the aircraft will run through Thursday, Aug. 23. The first public flights began at 5:30 p.m. Monday.

Flights ticket prices start at $475 per person, Nancy Kwiecien from the Commemorative Air Force said. To sit in the nose of the airplane, those more premium tickets costs between $700 and $850, she said.

Those looking for a chance to take to the sky in the iconic aircraft should reserve their seat online at b17texasraiders.org or by calling 855-359-2217.

Donations are requested for a tour of the B-17. Tickets costs $10 per adult and $5 for children 12 years old and under. Organizers also offer family tour passes for two adults and up to three children that costs $25.

The Air Zoo's exhibits will continue as usual through the course of the B-17 event, said Nikki Statler, the museum's director of marketing. Regular admission prices apply.

After its visit to Kalamazoo, the plane is headed to the Thunder over Michigan Airshow, which runs from Aug. 25-26 at Willow Run Airport near Ypsilanti.
RICHLAND, MI -- An interim superintendent was named for Gull Lake Community Schools ahead of Chris Rundle's last day with the district.

Lisa Anderson, current assistant superintendent of finance and operations, will take the lead at Gull Lake while the board finds a permanent replacement, Board President Carole Mendez said during a Board of Education meeting Monday, Aug. 20.

Sitting at the meeting as superintendent of the district for the last time, Rundle thanked the board, teachers and the community for the opportunity to serve.

"I want to thank the board for everything you've done for me in the last 10 years," he said.

He encouraged school staff in attendance to continue to strive toward innovation and to be proud of the district's "tremendous accomplishments."

Mendez said Rundle wished for his last board meeting to be business as usual, but many people chose to speak kindly of his service, thanking him for his professionalism and efforts toward collaboration with school staff.

"You are retiring on a win," Mendez said.

Randy Walridge and Peggy Kendrick, co-presidents of the Gull Lake Education Association, spoke during public comment to thank Rundle for his time as superintendent.

"Ten years ago you talked about taking the district from good to great," Kendrick said. "Now we're going to take it from great to greater."

Walridge said in an interview after the meeting that Rundle was very open to suggestions and always worked toward mutual collaboration. Kendrick praised him for his "really great out-of-the-box ideas" and the way he trusted staff to implement change.

Rundle announced his retirement during a board meeting June 18.

He said Monday his reason for leaving was not the "ideal situation," citing an illness he did not disclose publicly, but said everything happens for a reason.

"I'm in a good place," Rundle said. "That's because of the support you've shown me. I really appreciate that.

"The story shouldn't be about an illness," Rundle said. "We accomplished great things. That's the story."

The district expected the process to find his replacement to stretch into the school year, but planned to hire an interim during the search, Mendez said.

Finding the district's next leader is "one of the most important things we as a board will do," Mendez said.

The board will take time to reflect on what they hope to see in Rundle's replacement. Anderson will serve as interim until a decision is made, she said.

Rundle's last day with the district is Aug. 31, Mendez said. School resumes Sept. 4.

Prior to his time at Gull Lake, Rundle worked five years as superintendent at Harrison Public Schools in northern Michigan.

He worked 21 years with the Michigan State Police before coming into education.
KALAMAZOO, MI -- Protesters applaud the failure of proposed changes to Kalamazoo city parks rules, but people can still face jail time for sleeping or camping in parks.

After a four-hour City Commission meeting Monday, no commissioner introduced a motion to pass new ordinances intended to decriminalize violations of city code and establish more specific restrictions. It was a victory for people who said the changes would push homeless people out of public spaces, particularly downtown Bronson Park, but larger issues facing homeless people remain unsolved.

Violations of park rules are considered misdemeanor offenses, which carry up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail. These penalties have been in place since 1983.

Changes proposed Monday would have changed a majority of violations to civil offenses, punishable by a $200 fine. However, it would have also added new restrictions to camping and sleeping in parks during the day.

Vice Mayor Erin Knott said there was a lot of merit in the proposed amendments and she supports decriminalizing city ordinance violations. The City Commission can "walk and chew gum," she said; larger work on housing equity and homelessness can happen at the same time as decriminalizing ordinances.

"I hope we can pretty quickly arrive at something that is a step in the right direction with regard to the ordinance," Commissioner Jack Urban said Monday night. "I'm not ready, at least at this moment, to propose a motion. However, it does seem to me that we can separate the ordinance that has to do with camping away from the others."

Another change would have allowed parks and recreation employees to remove a person from a park for violating ordinances. Only public safety officers have this power.

City Attorney Clyde Robinson is in the process of the first overhaul of Kalamazoo city codes in a decade. He said Tuesday morning that his office will reconsider the parks code changes, which were unpopular among "well-intended people who didn't understand what was going on."

"What we're trying to do is make civil infractions the default and misdemeanors the exception," Robinson said. "That's one of the problems that developed last night -- we had to call out those offenses that remain misdemeanors. When people saw that, people were incensed."

Almost 50 people came to lobby the commission Monday, many of whom identified themselves as being homeless. In addition to criticizing the proposed parks rules, citizens used the opportunity to discuss the need for economic opportunity and long-term affordable housing in Kalamazoo.

The City Commission gave Robinson no directive to bring the ordinances back at a later date. His office still intends to decriminalize offenses and make adjustments based on feedback from the Aug. 20 meeting, Robinson said.

A proposed definition of camping was among the more unpopular changes to parks rules. New rules would have made camping a civil infraction but defined it as setting up "bedding, sleeping bags, personal belongings or other materials" for a place to "dwell or sleep" for more than 2 hours in a 12-hour period.

Urban and Commissioner Don Cooney said the city could provide spaces for people to store their belongings while shelters are closed during the day.

Addressing homelessness

Elected officials said more can be done to deal with root causes of homelessness.

Ending generational poverty, increasing opportunities for people with criminal records and at-risk youth and building affordable housing are among several broad goals the commission has held up during the last several years.

Urban said officials are being held accountable for making a community that is welcoming for everyone. Urban is serving his second term after a six-year career as a Kalamazoo County commissioner.

Commissioner Shannon Sykes Nehring said she is angry with herself for not pushing a conversation on homelessness sooner. Since being elected in 2015, she's known about the threat of poverty, gentrification and displacement. Sykes Nehring took responsibility for failing to generate change.

"I knew, I have always known and I didn't follow through," the first-term commissioner said. "Being on this commission has been toxic, because there are have been so many things that are said in one room and completely different things said in another room, but I have not gone hard enough."

She accused the City Commission of being too cozy to make serious progress, calling the Shared Prosperity Kalamazoo initiative "a joke."

Commissioner David Anderson highlighted two projects which show the city's dedication to providing affordable housing.

Also on Monday's agenda, the commission approved the sale of a public lot on Charles Street to the Kalamazoo Valley Habitat for Humanity for $120.

It also approved tax break for a affordable housing development in the Edison Neighborhood. "The Creamery" project would bring 49 one and two-bedroom apartments to 1101 Portage St., with 29 of them set aside for people nearing 60 percent of the county's area median income.

According to the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, 60 percent of the median income for a two-person household is $33,060. Rent for a two-bedroom unit is considered affordable if under $826 per month.

Anderson is director of housing and facilities for Kalamazoo Community Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and chair of the Kalamazoo County Public Housing Commission. He has served on the City Commission for more than a decade.

Mayor Bobby Hopewell did not make remarks on the ordinance during the meeting. Instead, he asked Assistant Attorney Robert O. Cherry to discuss an upcoming event to help clear crimes from a person's record.

Cherry said people can come to the Michigan Avenue Courthouse from noon to 6 p.m. on Sept. 14 to mitigate outstanding warrants and non-violent misdemeanors. Social service providers will gather in Bronson Park afterward.

Cherry, who drafted the ordinances, said he experienced homelessness while growing up. He said there has been a "big misconception" related to the proposed ordinances.

Cherry said misdemeanor penalties will need to be reduced in the future.

Cooney, another long-time member of the commission, said solving homelessness is a "complex issue" not unique to Kalamazoo. A sense of urgency is needed, while also understanding that funding and community support are also vital.

People who remained in the City Commission chambers late into the night were stunned when no commissioner made a motion to pass the ordinance changes.

When Hopewell explained that the measure failed, a tired audience cheered.
KALAMAZOO, MI -- People who are homeless feel they are denied sanctuary in Kalamazoo parks for the benefit of more affluent residents.

Monday, the City Commission chose not to adopt unpopular ordinance changes after facing several hours of criticism from activists and homeless residents. Citizens said it would cause homeless people to be pushed from Bronson Park, which offers a highly-visible safe place for them downtown.

"We are human beings, not some piece of trash you can kick aside," said Michael Rizor. "We are tired of being treated like crap by all the rich people (and) all the politicians."

No commissioner made a motion to pass the new ordinances. The proposal died on the floor without a vote.

City Attorney Clyde Robinson's office has been in the process of revising city codes after being mandated to decriminalize ordinances. Penalties for sleeping in the park during certain hours or sitting with belongings would have changed from a misdemeanor to a civil infraction, among other things, but new restrictions were also proposed.

Assistant City Attorney Richard O. Cherry, who said he experienced homelessness while growing up, said there has been a "big misconception" related to the proposed ordinances. The changes were meant to make penalties less severe, not attack homeless people who use Bronson Park.

Penalties for 16 codes would have changed from misdemeanors to civil infractions. Robinson said some of the changes were spurred after police and parks staff expressed increased issues caused by people occupying parks for long periods of time.

Chief Karianne Thomas said more violations of city codes were reported this summer in Bronson Park, but couldn't quantify an amount Monday evening.

Misdemeanor charges can carry up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine. A civil infraction would result in up to a $200 fine.

Activists and homeless people said parks provide an alternative to shelters that don't welcome everyone. But access to shelters is less important than creating more affordable housing.

Commissioner Shannon Sykes Nehring said she is angry with herself for not pushing a conversation on homelessness sooner. She accused the City Commission of being too cozy to make serious progress, calling the Shared Prosperity Kalamazoo initiative "a joke."

"I'm disappointed at myself because I have not pushed hard enough," she said. "Tonight, I go home next to my husband in a king-sized bed and I tuck my kids in, and that is a travesty."

Two women said rapists prey on homeless women. They expressed fear of being assaulted if they can't occupy Bronson Park.

Thomas said she hadn't heard about a suspect targeting homeless people. She declined to comment on if homeless people are safer in Bronson Park.

There are roughly 4,600 homeless people in Kalamazoo County, according to a 2017 count of the population by Michigan State Housing Development Authority and Michigan Campaign to End Homelessness

This includes 1,710 children and 140 unaccompanied youth. The average age of a homeless child is 8 years old.

Sixty-percent of homeless people are black, according to the 2017 count, while 36 percent are white and 6 percent are Hispanic.

Failed rule changes

People who sleep overnight in the park face a misdemeanor under the current ordinances. The proposed rules would have made sleeping during certain hours a civil infraction, not a crime.

Sleeping in parks is not allowed from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Camping is prohibited, punishable by a misdemeanor. New rules would have made camping a civil infraction and added a more clear definition.

The definition states camping is "bedding, sleeping bags, personal belongings or other materials" for a place to "dwell or sleep" for more than 2 hours in a 12-hour period.

Sleeping or lying down to rest on paved surfaces in parks, including the Rotary Stage in Bronson Park, remains a misdemeanor. This wouldn't have changed under the proposed ordinances.

Another change would have allowed parks and recreation employees to remove a person from a park for violating ordinances. Only public safety officers have this power under the previous city code.

Nowhere to go

Activists and homeless people set up camp on the steps of City Hall Sunday to protest the ordinance changes.

Heather Sadler, 30, said there is no other place for people to go if parks are not open. The ordinance changes would have confined them to live under bridges and in less visible places, she said.

Bronson Park provides a safe place for people while the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission is closed, Sadler said.

But the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission doesn't welcome everyone, citizens said Monday. Some said people are kicked out because of their alcohol use, others became sick after eating the food, and some said they are uncomfortable in a non-secular environment.

Nathan Dannison, leader of First Congregational Church, says LGBTQ people are "not protected" at the mission.

A representative of the mission was not present at Monday's meeting.

Jamie Bowers feared homeless people would have been "forced out into the neighborhoods" surrounding downtown. He was among organizers at Monday's demonstration outside City Hall.

'Bad apples'

The changes were necessary because the public safety and parks and recreation departments reported more littering and "confrontations" between homeless people and residents during weekend concerts, the city attorney said.

Sadler acknowledged that some people cause issues in Bronson Park, but others try to clean up debris and mind their own business. She doesn't want stigma associated with homelessness to define her.

"There is a lot of homeless people that won't clean up their own garbage, they won't be respectful, I understand that," Sadler said. "Don't punish the rest of us for one group of bad apples."

Kalamazoo Township Trustee Jen Strebs says most are homeless for short periods of time as they try to get stabilized. She was homeless while escaping a domestic violence situation years ago.

Thirty percent of homeless people last year identified as a domestic violence victim or survivor.

Robinson said the city needed to specify the definition of camping to address groups of people who bring their belongings and "stake out a spot all day long in the park."

Robinson said the city of Portland, which prohibits any camping on public property, provided a model to define camping. People sleeping in the park interfere with maintenance and grass mowing, he said.

Nathan Erickson, 28, used harsh language to describe his anger with police and institutions of power in Kalamazoo. He said he takes a more radical view than others who protested Monday, a philosophy that came to him after years of disenfranchisement.

He was jailed in 2012 for sleeping in Bronson Park and received a felony after assaulting officers while in custody. Erickson said he matched aggression being directed toward him. Now he can't get a job because of his criminal record.

"We become violent and it solves nothing, but at the same time they do nothing to help us," Erickson said. "(We face) persecution, dehumanization for the simple fact we are homeless. We deserve dignity as people."

Thomas said Bronson Park is in a zone covered by one public safety officer assigned to patrol the city's downtown.

Jessica Decker, 29, came to the United States from England to take care of her mother and later became homeless. She hadn't been in Kalamazoo long when she accidentally fell asleep on a Bronson Park bench.

She was given a misdemeanor but successfully challenged it in court.

Another solution

Bowers said the shelters in Kalamazoo County are a "band-aid" that don't address the root causes of homelessness. What the community really needs are more long-term housing for people dealing with substance abuse and mental health issues.

Bowers, 55, understands that struggle. He is two years sober after a long battle with drug addiction.

"Understand: Those people aren't lazy; they're not no good," Bowers said. "There's mental illness, there's drug abuse and alcoholism and people who don't feel good about themselves ... We need to look past that and see the person."

Bowers is handicapped and became homeless last month after being cut off of his disability benefits. He was helping homeless people out of his own house until he lost everything.

He wants the city to give him a vacant building for a private rehabilitation facility.

Other changes

Another change would have made using a speaker or sound-producing device without earphones a misdemeanor. This includes bullhorns and voice amplifiers used during demonstrations in the park.

Bronson Park in particular has been a popular location for various political protests, social demonstrations, marches and civic activism. Sometimes these events are planned well in advance, but other impromptu demonstrations have also occurred.

Demonstrations in the park don't require a permit if it is free and open to anyone.

Smoking is allowed in parks, but can be prohibited during special events. A new section of code proposed including electronic smoking devices like vape pens, e-cigarettes and other devices that use heat to produce vapors.

Parks could become tobacco-free zones in the future, Robinson said.
SAGINAW, MI -- Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on Monday, Aug. 20, that Saginaw was one of the cities selected to the National Public Safety Partnership.

In June 2017, Sessions announced the program at the National Summit on Crime Reduction and Public Safety.

The partnership is an effort to fulfill President Donald Trump's initiative to combat violent crime through the Department of Justice, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office of Eastern District of Michigan.

The initiative provides federal support of state, local, and tribal law enforcement officials and prosecutors as they aggressively investigate and pursue violent criminals, specifically those involved in gun crime, drug trafficking and gang violence.

Cities, through the partnership, will have the opportunity to consult with, receive coordinated training and technical assistance from, and have access to an array of resources from the Justice Department and its law enforcement components, the release said.

U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said his office is committed to fighting violent crime across Michigan.

"Having grown up in Saginaw County and worked in the City of Saginaw, I am especially pleased to work with our law enforcement partners in that area to help protect the public," Schneider said.

Partner sites are selected through a process that considers both quantitative and qualitative measures, including sustained levels of violent crime that far exceed the national average.

Saginaw spent the early 2000s within the top 5 of the FBI's list of most violent cities per capita.

In 2014, Saginaw was ranked 4th most violent per capita for cities of 50,000 or more people. Saginaw fell below the population threshold for the ranking in 2015.

This year, there have been 11 homicides in the city.

Saginaw and Salisbury, North Carolina, were chosen as diagnostic sites, while Kansas City, Missouri, Miami, Florida, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, were selected as operational sites.

Diagnostic teams help participating cities develop tools to diagnose and address violent crime issues.

Operations teams partner directly with federal, state, local and tribal officials to strategically address violent crime issues.
SANDUSKY, OH - Get ready for another huge new attraction at Cedar Point set to debut in 2019.

The amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio just announced on social media it is getting rid of Dinosaurs Alive on September 3 to make way for what it calls Forbidden Frontier on Adventure Island.

Of course, with most Cedar Point announcements, it leaves us with more questions than answers. What type of attraction will this be? Will it be a roller coaster? It sounds like it will be like a giant escape room adventure of sorts.

"Grab your map and prepare for a minute-by-minute real-life adventure, where you and others are challenged, questioned and pushed to the limits in both brain and brute power. Be immersed in interactive encounters with the island inhabitants, push yourself with physically active challenges that test your resourcefulness and fortitude! It's your job to discover and uncover all that you can; to solve the mystery surrounding the Forbidden Frontier, and return to tell the tale. Every ending is different and determined by you and the secrets you unlock!"

Cedar Point also announced it plans to close the Witches Wheel. The fast spinning ride, which is located near Magnum, will shut down for good on Monday, September 3, 2018.

THE TOP 10 COASTERS AT CEDAR POINT

With all new attractions at Cedar Point, the park tends to go for the record breakers. This year it debuted the tallest, fastest and longest steel/wood hybrid coaster in Steel Vengeance. In 2016, Cedar Point debuted the tallest and fastest dive coaster in Valravn.
MARQUETTE, MI - Meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Marquette have issued a rather dire beach hazard warning for two areas along the Upper Peninsula's Lake Superior shoreline.

It warns of "dangerous, pounding waves and life-threatening currents" at two beach areas in Marquette and Alger counties where people have drowned in the past in similar conditions.

Blustery weather is forecast for the U.P. on Tuesday along Lake Superior. Wave heights are expected to build during the day, reaching 5 to 9 feet in some spots.

Superior's not the only spot expecting big waves. In Lake Michigan, waves could reach up to 10 feet by Tuesday afternoon, the NWS has said.

The beach hazard warning for the Upper Peninsula is in effect from Tuesday morning through Wednesday morning.

In Alger County, "current related fatalities and rescues in the past have occurred during wave conditions similar to today near the Au Train River mouth at Au Train, the exposed regions of Grand Marais Harbor, and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

For Marquette County: "Current related fatalities and rescues in the past have occurred during wave conditions similar to today in Middle Bay north of Presque Isle and at Little Presque Isle.

People visiting beaches in these areas should stay out of the water, the NWS said.

"Pay attention to beach flags and signs posted at beach access points and lifeguard stations. Dangerous currents can sweep you away from shore. They occur most often at breaks or low spots in the sandbars, near shoreline structures, and near river mouths or other water outlets."
HOLLAND, MI - The National Weather Service is warning beach-goers that life-threatening waves are forecast to build along the Lake Michigan shore late Tuesday afternoon and into Wednesday.

Waves of 6 to 10 feet are expected to peak late today - but still remain high on Wednesday - along the shoreline from St. Joseph north to Manistee.

Strong north winds will make piers, breakwalls and swimming areas near them very dangerous spots, according to the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids.

"Piers will be dangerous, with waves over-topping them," the NWS said today. "Areas on the north sides of pier structures will be particularly dangerous for swimming."

In the Upper Peninsula, Alger and Marquette counties have beach hazard warnings along Lake Superior for today and Wednesday.

State parks in Pentwater, Holland and elsewhere are asking beach goers to be aware of today's dangerous wave forecast, and cautioning people not to go in the water when conditions are rough.

"These wave heights are rarely seen during the summertime. Stay off the piers, stay out of the water," the NWS said.

It's been a deadly week in Lake Michigan, with 5 people drowned or missing after swimming. The incidents have occurred in Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan. Three of the victims were 14 or younger.

The Great Lakes map included here shows high-risk swim areas ringed in red. You'll notice most of Lake Michigan is outlined in red, and smaller pieces of the Lake Superior and Lake Huron shorelines.

To see the current beach hazard conditions, check here.
NLC India | Company resumed mining operations of Neyveli Mines. (Image: nlcindia.com)

Niti Aayog has called for awarding deep-seated mines on a first-come-first-serve basis to accelerate their mining and production and attract large private sector investment, according to a senior official at the government think-tank.

Another crucial change that the body wants the government to bring in is to club the three permits of reconnaissance, prospecting and mining which would reassure investors and give them more hope of getting adequate returns, the official said.

Private sector presence in Indias mining sector has been negligible because of government laws that are both tough and vague. Environmental issues, problems in land acquisition and alleged exploitation of tribals in forest areas have ensured domination of the sector by government-owned companies that mostly deploy outdated technologies.

There are now technologies available that can extract these deep-seated minerals without damage to the environment. It is also costly and the technology is available with only a few companies. Niti Aayog believes that to attract large private sector investments in the sector, it is important that we give them on a first-come-first-serve basis with mining rights, the official said.

The government is working on a new mines and mineral policy under which it also plans to rationalise royalties on mining of different minerals as well as offer a more rewarding environment for miners.

Speaking at an event in the national capital on August 17, Bipul Pathak, joint secretary in the ministry of mines, had said that the new policy was expected to be out in two months. It is currently undergoing deliberations with views of various stakeholders being gathered and thrashed out for incorporation in the policy.

So if a company prospecting for the mineral, which itself requires huge deployment of man, machine, technology and money, and the company still has no surety of being able to secure the mining licence, then why will it come forward? So to attract private investment, Niti Aayog is proposing that we give the same company prospecting and mining licences both, something that is not guaranteed right now, the unnamed official said.

A reconnaissance permit issued by the government allows preliminary prospecting of a mineral through regional, aerial, geophysical or geochemical surveys and geological mapping, but does not include pitting, trenching and drilling. Prospecting licence means a licence granted for the purpose of exploring, locating or proving mineral deposits. The state governments are empowered to grant prospecting licences.

The third stage after reconnaissance and prospecting licence is the issue of mining licence which allows an entity to go ahead and carry out mining to extra the mineral. If Niti Aayogs suggestion is accepted, all three exercises will be carried out by one company.

Deposits of rare earth elements like tungsten, cobalt and lithium are almost non-existent in India. Both cobalt and lithium are essential for making batteries that are used in electric vehicles as well as mobile phones. Some of these elements are deep inside the surface of the earth and their mining and extraction is a tough act, not to forget environmental issues and damage to tribal livelihoods.

Last month, speaking at the fourth national conclave on mines and minerals organised by the ministry of mines, at Indore, Steel Secretary Aruna Sharma had said there was a strong need to rationalise royalty on minerals and also allow offset of input costs under the Goods and Services Tax.

There is a strong need to rationalise royalty. The industry is willing to pay royalty but there is a need to rationalise the central royalty and the District Mineral Foundation, she said.

The central government has the power to fix and revise royalty in case of major minerals while states fix the same for minor minerals. Common major minerals are coal, chromite, diamond, gold, iron ore, manganese ore, nickel, silver, zinc, copper, and bauxite.

Minor minerals include stone, sand, marble, slate, boulder and brick earth. Crude oil and gas form a separate category called mineral oils and government by central laws.

Different minerals attract different rates of royalty. Chromite attracts 15 percent of the average sale price on ad valorem basis while 11.5 percent royalty is levied on diamonds and 15 percent on iron-ore, a key raw material for making steel.

District Mineral Foundation or DMF has been created to ensure the welfare of the people affected by mining. DMF is funded by way of contributions at the prescribed rates from holders of mining lease. It is imposed at the rate of 30 percent of the royalty for leases granted till January 11, 2015, and 10 percent for leases granted thereafter.

Royalty and DMF contributions are both outside the purview of GST and payments towards them are currently not offset under the indirect tax regime.
India is the fastest growing market for paper globally and is expected to grow above six percent per annum over the next few years. The estimated domestic turnover of about Rs 50,000 crore at present accounts for about three percent of the worlds paper production. This presents an exciting scenario as paper consumption is poised for a big leap forward in sync with economic growth.

Writing and printing paper companies turned around sharply in FY17. The momentum continues in Q1 FY19 as well. Domestic demand remained buoyant, while the closure of stressed domestic capacities has led to supply constraints. Reduced raw material and power prices, which forms nearly 80 percent of operating cost, have aided profit growth.

Lets look at paper companies which have seen a noticeable performance in their quarterly earnings.

West Coast Paper Mills (WCP), a flagship company of the SK Bangur Group, has a single plant with an integrated capacity of 320,000 tonne per annum (writing and printing paper: 262,500 TPA; paperboard: 57,500 TPA). The company manufactures optical fibre cables and owns wind mills.

Its financial performance has improved significantly during the last two fiscals and the same trend continued in Q1 FY19 as well, with net profit surging 56 percent year-on-year and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin at 26 percent. However, there are some concerns. First, it imports around 40-50 percent of its input requirement. Though proximity to the Goa port gives it an edge over other mills located in interiors, profitability remains vulnerable due to global price movements and exchange rates. Second, attempt to acquire Sirpur Paper Mills through National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) was unsuccessful as there was a default in one of the group companies. Hence, it has relied on organic growth.

Incorporated in 1964, International Paper APPM (formerly known as The Andhra Pradesh Paper Mills) has more than five decades of experience in the Indian paper industry. IPAPPM produces writing, printing and copier papers for foreign and domestic markets. The companys production facilities at Rajahmundry and Kadiyam (including a recycle unit) have a total installed capacity of 241,000 TPA

In a first, significant domestic acquisition by a foreign paper company, International Paper, bought 75 percent stake following which the company was renamed to IPAPPM. The US headquartered company is the largest pulp and paper company in the world with a presence across 24 countries.

IPAPPM reported better operating performance for Q1 FY19, while revenue registered a growth of only 4 percent YoY. EBITDA margin improved significantly to 26 percent. Consequently, profit grew a healthy 88 percent YoY. IPAPPM derives revenue from sale of both paper and pulp and de-risked its business by being an integrated manufacturer. The companys ability to leverage brand, global presence and technology of the parent will be a key monitorable.

TNPL , 35.32 percent owned by the Tamil Nadu government, has a production capacity of 600,000 TPA. Its plant at Kagithapuram in Tamil Nadu is the largest single location paper plant in India. It uses bagasse as the principal fibre source. Though the company has manufacturing capability for newsprint too, owing to unfavourable economics of manufacturing newsprint in India, its current production consists mainly of writing and printing paper.

Due to lack of adequate water, operations at TNPL's Karur plant was affected and led to it reporting a loss in Q1 FY18. Production volume declined about 50 percent, resulting in a sharp fall in revenue and profitability. Operating margin fell to 6.2 percent in Q1 FY18 as compared to 23.8 percent YoY due to lower production and higher pulp cost, as it had to import the latter at a higher rate.

The water situation has improved subsequently and the company resumed operations from July last year. As a result, the company is back in the green and reported strong revenue growth in Q1 FY19. There is scope for significant improvement as margin are still sub-optimal. We expect writing and printing paper capacity utilisation to improve to over 80 percent and the profitability to recover gradually as EBITDA margin reverts to previous levels of 20-22 percent from next fiscal.

The paper industry is characterised by cyclicality on account of input price volatility and capital expenditure plans. The last two years have been favourable as input pressures have eased out, while demand held up well.

Operating margin of paper companies was in the 13-14 percent range over FY12-15. Margin expanded by about 350 bps to 17 percent at the end of FY17 and is currently more than 20 percent. As per Crisil, writing and paper companies are expected to hold onto their healthy operating margin.

Going forward, the integrated player with sufficiency in all major inputs  raw material, water and power - will be able to sustain and improve margin. From the companies discussed above, JK Paper stands out as it sources more than 80 percent of its wood requirements from captive farm forestry. Adequate water is available at both units: Gujarat and Odisha. It has also achieved self-sufficiency in power with 80 MW capacity. Read : JK Paper: Well positioned in a sector on an upturn

West Coast Paper relies on imports to a large extent, which exposes it to volatility in input prices. TNPL is facing some shortage in sourcing of bagasse and is dependent on government auctions for its wood requirements. Water availability has been an issue for TNPL in the past.

All paper companies discussed above are operating at close to full capacity, except TNPL. JK Paper, with the acquisition of Sirpur Paper Mills, can increase production. West Coast Paper Mills is constrained for inorganic growth through the NCLT route. TNPL has set up a new board plant near Trichy with an annual capacity of 200,000 TPA, which commenced production in May 2016. There is ample scope to improve capacity utilisation in its writing and printing paper plant, now that water availability is not an issue.

Outlook for the paper sector in general and printing and writing companies in particular is positive. As per Crisil, over the next two years, writing and paper companies are expected to hold onto their healthy operating margin and generate an operating profit, which will be 33 percent higher than the last five year average.

Paper stocks have outperformed on the back of improving financials and strong earnings growth. While valuation re-rating for many paper companies seems to have played out, sectoral opportunities provide strong earnings visibility. As a result, valuation will be sustained.

TNPL is the stock to watch out for. While the delta in earnings can be huge, we would like to watch the pace of margin improvement and ramping up of production at the commissioned board plant for at least a quarter to decisively turn positive on the stock. Within the sector, we continue to prefer JK Paper. The stock is currently trading at 5 times FY20e enterprise value-to-EBITDA, which is reasonable considering the high earnings growth potential.

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The RBI's six-month moratorium on all term loans got over on August 31

Banks are likely to float the planned asset management company (AMC) and alternate investment funds (AIFs) of up to Rs 10,000 crore under project Sashakt in the next 15 days.

Further, the operating guidelines on the Inter-Creditor Agreement (ICA) to get banks on board for faster resolution will be issued in the next two weeks.

"We are having advanced discussions on that and there are many funds that have shown a keen interest in partnering with us. So, we are working on the structure of the AMC and again it might take another 10-15 days to incorporate or come out with the AMC and kick-start the process. Both domestic and international investors [have shown interest]," said C.V. Nageswar, Deputy Managing Director - Global Markets, State Bank of India (SBI).

The idea of an AMC and AIFs to help resolve large corporate loans was mooted by the Sunil Mehta-led committee in June this year.

"We are looking at one or multiple AMCs and there will be sector-specific funds. Depending on the sector and the number of assets that are there, each fund can be in the range of Rs 2,000 crore to around Rs 8,000 crore or up to Rs 10,000 crore," the SBI executive told reporters on the sidelines of a banking event organised by FICCI and Indian Banks' Association (IBA).

He added that the stake of public sector banks will not be more than 30 percent in the AIFs.

ICA operating guidelines

On the operating guidelines of the ICA between banks to aid consensus-based faster resolution, Nageswar said, "People (banks and financial institutions) with around 85 percent exposure have already signed. Operating guidelines will likely be accepted by the middle or end of next week or latest by the week after."

He added, "We have already drafted it and in a couple of days' time we will be circulating to the banks. Once the 66 percent of the banks agree to this, the operating guidelines will become enforceable."

The ICA, which is part of the governments Sashakt plan, is applicable to all corporate borrowers who have availed loans for an amount of Rs 50 crore or more under consortium lending/multiple banking arrangements.

The lead lender, mostly with the highest exposure to a stressed borrower, will be authorised to formulate the resolution plan, which will be presented to all lenders for their approval in a time-bound manner.

The operating guidelines will be for the lead lender and the steering committee which will be formed by the IBA, after which the ICA will be effective.

The operating guidelines will talk about the timelines, by which time what needs to be done. "If you have to do a resolution plan then we need to do the valuation, we need to call the investment banker who can give the resolution plan and voting mechanism," the SBI executive said.

So far, the ICA has been signed by as many as 32 banks and financial institutions, yet resisted by several private and foreign banks including HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Citi among others including asset reconstruction companies (ARCs).

The disagreement or resistance to ICA is over issues including lack of a well-defined exit clause from the deal, status of third-party and current security-sharing terms; an option to stay out of a fresh funding scheme to a beleaguered borrower and restriction from selling loans to anyone but other banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) once a borrower is referred for resolution under ICA.

One of the senior executives of the banks which has not signed the agreement, said, "We don't want to be bound by the agreement as we do not have very large exposures in most cases. We will cooperate wherever required."

According to Nageswar, 20 public sector banks have signed the deed already, while one will sign this week. Among others, six private sector banks, two financial institutions, and one foreign bank have signed the ICA.

"All public sector have signed, private sector banks, a majority of people who are part of corporate finance are there. There are a couple of private sector banks which are likely to sign and dialogues are going on between the lawyers of the ICA and the lawyers of these banks. Hopefully, they will be singing in the next few days," Nageswar added.

The total stress in the banking sector is estimated at over Rs 10.5 lakh crore, about 11.6 percent of total loans, as on March 31, 2018.
Insurance companies are likely to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the claims settlement process for those affected by floods in Kerala and Karnataka.

This will include the uniform process to be followed for the claims and the process to be followed in case of absence of documents.

The Kerala floods, which were the worst floods in the state in almost a century, caused heavy loss of life and property. As many as 361 people died due to the flooding caused by heavy rainfall across the state.

In Karnataka, 17 people died flooding and landslides caused by rain.

"The claims process will have to be streamlined to ensure that they are settled expeditiously. A similar one to the mechanism followed during the Assam and Chennai floods will be used for the Kerala floods," a senior insurance official told Moneycontrol.

After this, a detailed statement on the documents required for submitting claims will be released by each of these companies on their respective websites.

Initial estimates suggest that the insured losses could touch Rs 700 crore. This would include motor insurance and crop insurance losses due to heavy destruction to vehicles and crops.

The insurance regulator has asked companies to nominate a senior officer who would act as a nodal officer for Kerala/Karnataka for coordinating and expediting the settlement of all eligible claims.

The insurers will also have to submit a weekly report on the claims to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI).

For crop insurance, it is likely that insurers will use geo-satellites to assess the extent of damages and pay claims accordingly.

The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana aims at providing financial support to farmers suffering crop loss/damage because of unforeseen events.

It is also likely that little or no documentation will be required for claims under Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, which are the life and personal accident insurance schemes sponsored by the central government.

Given that several areas are still cut-off due to flooding, insurers could also tie-up with local auto manufacturers and dealers to expedite the process of claims settlement for motor insurance.

Basic repairs and replacements will be done locally.

The insurers will meet and discuss what will be the basic documents required to submitted for claims settlement. In cases of death where the body has not been recovered, a letter from a local authority could be a valid proof.

For corporate customers in Kerala, insurance companies will not just consider the physical losses to the commercial property/factories, but will also look at loss of business and man-hours due to a complete shutdown in the state.

Several offices and financial institutions in Kerala have not been operational for almost a week.
Niti Aayog

Likes and dislikes of leadership determine the policy making in India, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said today. Kumar, while participating in a panel discussion at a book launch function, further said Indian policy making is "a lot about individuals" and it has not often been "aligned with national interest".

Citing example of late CPM leader Jyoti Basu, Kumar said, "Had he become the prime minister, you would have seen India's economic situation very different".

Basu was a prime minister probable in 1996 but his party did not agree to the then West Bengal chief minister heading a coalition government.

Referring to demonetisation, Kumar said: "I have been an ardent supporter of demonetisation. To try and promote clearer economy we (India) needed demonetisation".

Participating in the panel discussion, Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister (EAC-PM) member Shamika Ravi said whenever the country faced an inflection point, it was driven by individuals.
Answer: Donald Trump.

US President Donald Trump does not expect much progress from trade talks with China this week in Washington, he told Reuters on Monday.

Trump said in an interview that he had "no time frame" for ending the trade dispute with China, which threatens to impose tariffs on virtually all goods traded between the world's two largest economies.

"I am like them; I have a long horizon," he added.

The talks this week come as new US tariffs on $16 billion of Chinese goods take effect at 12:01 a.m. (0401 GMT) on Thursday, along with retaliatory tariffs from Beijing on an equal amount of US goods.

The US Trade Representative's Office also is holding hearings this week on proposals for tariffs on a further $200 billion of Chinese goods that will start to directly hit consumer products.

Trump said Chinese negotiators would be arriving shortly, adding he did not "anticipate much" from the mid-level discussions.

He said resolving the trade dispute with China will "take time because China has done too well for too long, and they have become spoiled. They dealt with people that, frankly, did not know what they were doing, to allow us to get into this position."

Trump also accused China of manipulating its yuan currency to make up for having to pay tariffs imposed by Washington, while arguing the US central bank should be more accommodating.

The meetings, expected to take place on Wednesday and Thursday in Washington, are the first formal US-China trade talks since June, when US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross met Chinese economic adviser Liu He in Beijing but returned with no agreements.

Since then, Washington and Beijing have been locked in escalating rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs, with tariffs on $50 billion in goods by each country expected to be in place by Thursday. Trump has threatened to impose duties on virtually all of the more than $500 billion of Chinese goods exported to the United States.

Trump's tariffs are part of his administration's effort to pressure China into making major changes to its economic policies to better protect intellectual property, end its industrial subsidy efforts and open its markets to foreign competition.

Beijing denies US allegations that it systematically forces the unfair transfer of US technology and insists that it adheres to World Trade Organization rules.

The Washington talks will be led by US Treasury Undersecretary David Malpass and Chinese Commerce Vice Minister Wang Shouwen.
People push a shopping cart past a warehouse of the Swedish furniture maker IKEA in Bordeaux, southwestern France, February 13, 2010. REUTERS/Olivier Pon (FRANCE - Tags: BUSINESS) - RTR2A6PO

Swedish furniture retail company IKEA has evinced interest in sourcing products from West Bengal, state Finance Minister Amit Mitra today said. The multinational retail chain recently opened its first store in India at Hyderabad.

Mitra, addressing the concluding session of a two day MSME conclave, said IKEA has decided to source Rs 2,000-crore worth bamboo and natural fibre from India.

"West Bengal is a big producer of bamboo. People from IKEA came to meet me and had detailed discussions on their interest in the state," he said, without divulging details.

The minister said the state government has set a target for creating one lakh entrepreneurs in the next two years.

Talking of bank finance to MSMEs, Mitra said the aim is to provide loans worth Rs 80,000 crore to the segment in the next two years, adding, the government would explore the possibility of roping in state cooperative banks for this purpose.

The target set for the current fiscal is Rs 50,000 crore, he said. The West Bengal government has earmarked 2,000 acres of land for setting up 30 MSME industrial parks across the state.

During the conclave, entrepreneurs were able to clinch export orders worth Rs 113 crore, Mitra said. Several MoUs were signed for promotion and export of handicraft, leather, apparel, and gem and jewellery products of the state, he said.

The government has also inked two MoUs with the NSE and the BSE to help MSMEs migrate to the IPO level.
Q13. This a small Muslim community based largely in Gujarat and Maharashtra. They run roughly 1,500 restaurants across Gujarat, Maharashtra and parts of Andhra Pradesh. A close-knit community of about 5 lakh Shias and Agakhanis, work on trust  be it in transactions with people from their own community or with vendors outside and believe in strong business relationships. How do we know them?

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Microfinance institution CreditAccess Grameen (CAG) will make its debut on the bourses on August 23. The final issue price is fixed at the higher end of the price band of Rs 418-422 per share.

The public offer comprises a fresh issue of up to Rs 630 crore and an offer for sale of up to 11,876,485 shares, including a portion of 8,041,617 shares reserved for anchor investors.

The Rs 1,131-crore public issue, which ended on August 10, was subscribed 2.22 times, majorly supported by qualified institutional buyers (QIBs).

The portion reserved for qualified institutional buyers was subscribed 5.52 times, that for non-institutional investors was subscribed 0.98 times and that for retail investors was subscribed 0.88 times.

Considering investors' response to the issue, CreditAccess is expected to list either on a flat note or at a small premium on the offer price, experts said.

All experts Moneycontrol spoke to said a bumper return on listing day was an improbable outcome.

"Looking at the lower than expected subscription levels in all the categories indicates CreditAccess Grameen (CAG) would list on a softer note (5-10 percent best case) and also expect to drive down below issue price on listing day," Prashanth Tapse, AVP Research, Mehta Equities told Moneycontrol.

Astha Jain, Senior Research Analyst at Hem Securities also expects a tepid listing for this issue and is of the view that the stock will close on a flat note on listing day with no major gains.

"We expect stock to hover near issue price on listing day," Jain said.

According to Anita Gandhi, Whole Time Director, Arihant Capital Markets, some listing gains are likely but the closing depends on market conditions.

Explaining the strategy for listing day, Tapse said if that market sentiment supports a healthy listing (premium of around 15-18 percent), one can look to book profit and adopt a wait-and-watch strategy as they expect the counter to trade below the issue price in the near term.

Gandhi said that investors should take a partial profit as the issue was offered at a slightly high price. Jain also feels that if the stock is available at a premium of 2-3 percent on listing day, investors with a short-term horizon should exit while those with a long-term horizon should wait.

When asked whether the stock will be a long-term hold or buy on every decline after listing day, Jain said investors should hold shares for the long term, that is for a period of a year or so, as she expects the stock to gain 10-15 percent over its issue price in a one-year period.

According to Tapse, if the stock declines to below or near Rs 400, investors should accumulate as the company's CAG business fundamentals are strong, unlike other microfinance players with mixed exposure to urban and rural markets.

Tapse, however, feels that there is a lower probability of the stock falling below Rs 400 on listing day because of demand for the IPO was relatively low.

"Microfinance industry has exhibited impressive business growth over the past few years and company with a clear focus on rural customers whose access to the formal banking sector is limited would witness healthy growth going forward," Tapse said.

CreditAccess Grameen's total revenue grew at 48 percent CAGR (compounded annual growth rate), while its net interest income grew at 54 percent CAGR, from FY15-18.

The company's profit grew at 37 percent CAGR over the same period. Its CRAR (capital to risk (weighted) assets ratio) was 28.08 percent, 21.48 percent, 29.71 percent and 28.94 percent as at the end of March 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively.

This is well above the regulatory requirement of 15 percent.

"We found that the Bangalore-based micro-finance institution is a pure rural play with 82 percent of its branches catering to rural markets which act as the main catalyst for Long term investment holding for 2-3 years," Tapse said.

He also said that given the relatively lower valuation, higher quality of the loan assets, and majority rural focused business, one can invest in the stock for the long term with a one-year target of around Rs 480-500, 14-18 percent higher than the issue price.

"On valuation parse post-IPO equity CAG is expecting a market cap Rs 6,050 crore at higher price band, valued at 2.9x the book value, which is on the lower side of the average to its listed peers," Tapse reasoned.

Anita Gandhi also said the businesses in this profile have generally done well in long term.

CreditAccess Grameen is focused on providing micro-loans to women customers predominantly in rural areas in India. It provides loans primarily under the joint liability group (JLG) model.

As at the end of March 2018, CreditAccess covered 132 districts in eight states (Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Kerala, Goa) and one union territory (Puducherry) in India through 516 branches and 4,544 loan officers. Its customer base increased from 0.50 million active customers as of March 2014 to 1.85 million as of March 2018.

Its promoter CreditAccess Asia N V is a multinational company specialising in MSE financing (micro and small enterprise financing), which is backed by institutional investors and has micro-lending experience through its subsidiaries in four countries in Asia.

CAA is primarily engaged in providing, through controlled companies, financial services to micro and small businesses and self-employed people in emerging countries. Presently, CAA has investments in micro-finance institutions in India, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
The other IPO which also received huge responses were Happiest Minds Technologies and Chemcon Speciality Chemicals, which was subscribed 150.98 times and 149.3 times respectively. Interestingly, both these stocks have seen bumper listing gained over 100 percent. Let's see how the IPO subscription and listing happened in 2020 so far, considered only IPOs issue size over Rs 100 crore.

Harsha Engineers, the largest manufacturer of precision bearing cages in organised sector in India, has filed draft red herring prospectus with SEBI on August 20 for its IPO which comprises fresh issue as well as offer for sale.

The initial public offering comprises a fresh issuance aggregating up to Rs 370 crore and an offer for sale of up to 3,31,250 equity shares each by Rajendra Shantilal Shah, Harish Ranjit Rangwala, Nirmala Rajendra Shah and Charusheela Harish Rangwala.

The company proposes to utilise the fresh issue proceeds for pre-payment of certain indebtedness; purchase of machinery in India; investment in subsidiaries: investment in Harsha Engineers Europe SRL by ways of equity infusion; and investment in Harsha Precision Bearing Components (China) in the form of debt capital; infrastructure development for existing facilities in India; and general corporate purposes.

Harsha Engineers holds more than 50 percent of the market share in the Indian bearing cages market in the organised segment for brass, steel and polyamide cages, as per Bearing Cages Market  Global Insights report.

Axis Capital and Edelweiss Financial Services are the book running lead managers.
GSK Pharma | Company reported lower profit at Rs 76.5 crore in Q2FY21 compared to Rs 502.7 crore, revenue fell to Rs 879 crore from Rs 882 crore YoY.

Moneycontrol News

Cereal maker The Kellogg Company (Kellogg) and British healthcare company Reckitt Benckiser Plc have entered the race to buy GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) consumer nutrition business, which includes Horlicks, The Economic Times reported.

Both companies have completed their initial evaluations of the deal. Rothschild is advising Kellogg, while Goldman Sachs is advising Reckitt Benckiser, sources told the paper.

The proposed deal is estimated to be roughly $4.5 billion in size, according to media reports.

Nestle, HUL, ITC, and Coca Cola are the other companies looking to acquire the business, media reports suggest.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the news.

Michigan-based Kellogg has been present in India for over twenty years. Its entry in the race for Horlicks is a surprise, given its otherwise conservative approach in the Indian market.

For Reckitt Benckiser, this will not be the first major acquisition in India. The company, which owns brands like owns brands such as Dettol, Strepsils and Veet, acquired Paras Pharmaceuticals eight years ago.

If Reckitt Benckiser is successful in acquiring GSK's Horlicks, then it is likely to reformulate the brand and sell it at chemists and pharmacies, source told the news daily.

There are also product synergies between Reckitt Benckiser's products and GSK's over-the-counter (OTC) offerings such as Crocin, Sensodyne and Eno.

For Kellogg, the acquisition is being driven by its parent company, the newspaper reported.

"Kellogg India doesn't have the resources to push such a mega deal," a source was quoted as saying.

"Besides, historically, it hasn't been aggressive in India, and neither has it explored acquisitions, instead, basing its strategy only on localisation, pushing small packs and moving beyond breakfast to cereal-based snacking, which is witnessing intensified competition," the source said.
A quiet day of trade it is for the market on Tuesday, as benchmarks closed with minimal gains. This, after they clocked fresh record highs in the opening minutes before giving up almost all of the gains.

Selling in banks after an initial rally dragged the indices lower from their high points. Along with it, weakness was visible in sectors such as metals and FMCG. Meanwhile, buying counters were buzzing in IT and pharmaceuticals. A weak rupee also boosted tech stocks during the day. In case of broader markets, midcap indices ended the day with minor gains.

At the close of market hours, the Sensex is up 7.00 points or 0.02% at 38285.75, while the Nifty is up 19.10 points or 0.17% at 11570.90. The market breadth is negative as 1,320 shares have, against a decline of 1,373 shares, while 180 shares were unchanged.

Coal India, Axis Bank, UPL and Tech Mahindra were the top gainers, while Tata Steel, HUL, and BPCL lost the most.

The day started with the market hitting fresh highs of 11,581 on the Nifty, while the Sensex hit 38,402.96 in the morning. But the selloff immediately dragged them lower and steadied it around flat lines through the day. Experts believe that investors could also be waiting for cues from US-China trade meeting lined up on Wednesday along with any other global cues.

The market will be shut tomorrow on account of Bakri Id.

Stocks in news

Vadilal Industries share price recovered to end 2 percent lower after falling 12 percent intraday. This is in addition to 20 percent fall in previous session after ace investor Ashish Kacholia cut his shareholding in the company.

Shares of HCL Technologies added 1 percent after its shareholders approved the companys Rs 4,000-crore buyback proposal.

Tech Mahindra added 3 percent after foreign research house BoFAML (Bank of America Merrill Lynch) upgraded the stock to buy from underperform rating. The research house raised target price to Rs 800 from Rs 600 per share, implying an upside of 33 percent.

Meanwhile, MEP Infrastructure Developers fell 1 percent as company received letter from Maharashtra government asking it to not collect toll at Airoli (Mumbai region) toll plaza for next 1 month.

Shares of Lupin added more than 2 percent as it received USFDA approval for dermatitis lotion.

Shares of Jet Airways were trading lower by 3 percent as investors reacted negatively to allegation of siphoning off of funds by the promoters. On August 20, 2018, Moneycontrol reported that fresh trouble is around the corner for Naresh Goyal-owned Jet Airways as the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has opened a preliminary inquiry into the carrier on suspicion it siphoned off funds.

Global markets

Markets in Asia closed higher, extending their upmove from Monday as investors eyed the crucial meeting between US and Chinese counterparts to address trade issues. The Shanghai composite rose 35.36 points, or 1.31 percent, to 2,733.82.

Meanwhile, markets in Europe were trading higher as traders waited for cues from US-China meet as well. Having said that, critical comments from President Donald Trump capped gains. Stoxx 600 was up around 0.3 percent at the time of publishing this story.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 20)  The reopening of Boracay island will push through in October even if only 30 percent of establishments are expected to be ready to operate, a government official said Monday.

In a public hearing on the ongoing rehabilitation efforts of Boracay, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III said only 30 percent of establishments can go fully operational when the island reopens on October 26.

This is because the government expects around 30 percent of the establishments to be connected to the new sewer line and have their own sewage treatment plans (STP) ahead of Boracay's reopening.

While the number of tourists that can be accommodated in the island will also be cut, Densing affirmed this won't hamper the anticipated opening of Boracay.

"Ang sa akin kasi, if everybody (ay) maka-connect sa sewer line ng 100 percent, eh di 100 percent sila mag o-operate," Densing said in the hearing.

"It is not to the interest of everybody to keep Boracay closed," he added. "Pero kung hindi naman sila susunod sa batas to make sure that the water quality that comes out of the island is SB level, then we'll have to do it at 30 percent."

[Translation: In my opinion, if everybody can connect 100 percent to the sewer line, then they can operate 100 percent. It is not to the interest of everybody to keep Boracay closed. But if they will not adhere to the law to make sure that the water quality that comes out of the island is SB level (Recreational Water Class 1), then we'll have to do it at 30 percent.]

Senator Cynthia Villar, who chairs the senate committee on environment and natural resources, slammed stakeholders regarding the issue, saying that it defeats the purpose of closing Boracay for rehabilitation.

Villar said she was "disappointed" as she urged the involved parties to submit a more detailed report on the Boracay reopening.

"Kung ako ang president, magre-resign na ako," Villar said.

[Translation: If I were the president, I would resign.]

"Okay lang sa kanila na hindi mag-comply kasi hindi nila pagbubuksan. Pero is that really the intention na 30 percent ang mag-bukas? For me parang masyadong mababa yun," she added.

(Translation: It's okay for them not to comply because they will not open. But is that really the intention, that only 30 percent will be opening? For me, I think it's a very low number.)

The clean-up and rehabilitation of Boracay involves the clearing of polluted waters in Bulabog Beach, the new sewage system, and the demolition of illegal establishments and structures.

CNN Philippines' Correspondent Cecille Lardizabal contributed to this report.
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Share price of FDC slipped nearly 8 percent intraday Tuesday as USFDA has made 8 observations for its Waluj plant.

The company's sterile ophthalmic manufacturing facility located at B-8, MIDC Industrial Area, Waluj, Aurangabad, Maharashtra recently undergone inspections from PIC/S Malaysia and USFDA.

PIC/S Malaysia has carried its inspection from August 7 and completed successfully on August 10 with respect to the oral liquids and oral powders for the ROW markets.

Also, there was an un-announced inspection by the USFDA which started on August 8 and completed on August 16, 2018.

The USFDA inspection was carried out in relation to the Ophthalmics products being exported to USA market. The USFDA has made 8 observations (483's) for which appropriate response shall be submitted by the company.

However, the company continues to export its Ophthalmics products to USA market.

At 09:49 hrs FDC was quoting at Rs 243, down Rs 8.80, or 3.49 percent on the BSE.

Posted by Rakesh Patil
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Shares of Jet Airways were trading lower by 2 percent as investors reacted negatively to news reports of a siphoning off probe into the airline.

The stock touched an intraday high of Rs 298.00 and an intraday low of Rs 293.75.

On August 20, 2018, Moneycontrol reported that fresh trouble is around the corner for Naresh Goyal-owned Jet Airways as the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has opened a preliminary inquiry into the carrier on suspicion it siphoned off funds.

A senior official confirmed to Moneycontrol that the Mumbai Registrar of Companies (RoC) will inspect Jets books of accounts.

An email to Jet Airways seeking comment did not elicit a response at the time of publishing. NSE later sought clarification on this article, to which the airline replied saying it had not received any communication from the MCA.

A source close to the development told Moneycontrol that the RoC is also coordinating with market regulator SEBI over its inquiry of Jet's books.

Further, the RoC may also look into the role of auditors. Arvind Gupta, who recently became famous as the whistleblower in the ICICI Bank-Videocon case, recently wrote to the Finance Ministry, SEBI, RBI and the Chief Vigilance Commission, complaining of irregularities.

Gupta questioned the audit committee's inability to "prevent the promoters of Jet Airways from siphoning off Rs 5,125 crore from the companies".

According to Gupta, the company, under its Jet Airways and Jet Lite brands, undertook transactions "under the guise of selling and distribution expenses and other means" with companies privately owned by the promoter.

However, the MCAs probe is independent of Guptas complaint.
The National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) today signed an MoU with the MSME and textiles department of West Bengal government for supporting and facilitating alternate sources of funding through equity among the small and medium sector enterprises.

The Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) and Textiles department have taken the initiative to engage the NSE with all industry associations and chamber bodies, so that large number of SMEs in West Bengal can be encouraged to explore alternate sources of funding and help list them on emerge platform of NSE, a NSE statement said.

This initiative by is just the beginning of journey towards the objective of getting 100 SMEs from West Bengal, listed on NSE Emerge platform by 2020, it said.

NSE Emerge has a total of 168 SMEs, listed on the platform with total capital raise of Rs 2,597 crore. Currently, six companies from varied industries in the state are listed on NSE Emerge platform with total funds raised standing approximately at Rs 44 crore, it said.

Also, approximately 15 new companies from West Bengal plan to get listed on NSE Emerge platform over the next one year, the statement said.
Markets regulator Sebi today imposed Rs 2 lakh fine on European American Bank AG (Euram Bank) as its sub-account failed to satisfy the broad based fund criteria.

In an order, the regulator noted that India Focus Cardinal Fund (IFCF) had sought registration from Sebi as a sub-account in the broad based fund category under the foreign Institutional investor (FII) -- Euram Bank.

IFCF was granted the registration with a condition that it will meet the broad based criteria within 90 days.

Under the FII Regulations, broad based fund is categorised as as a fund, established or incorporated outside India, which has at least twenty investors, with no single individual investor holding more than forty-nine per cent of the shares or units of the fund.

However, if the broad based fund has institutional investor(s), it shall not be necessary for the fund to have twenty investors and if it has an institutional investor who holds more than forty-nine per cent of the shares in the fund, then the institutional investor must itself be a broad based fund.

The regulator noted that the investors holding more than 49 per cent shares in their respective share classes did not on their own meet the criteria of being a broad based fund.

"Therefore, because of the failure of such investor having more than 49 per cent to qualify as a broad based fund, I conclude that the sub-account i.e. IFCF has in turn failed to satisfy the criteria of broad based fund," Sebi Adjudicating Officer B J Dilip said.

Euram Bank had the knowledge that IFCF had not satisfied the broad based fund criteria when it itself held shares up to 75 per cent as an individual investor in one of the share classes of IFCF, he said.

FII Regulations also envisage that a foreign institutional investor should be responsible and liable for all the acts of commission and omission of all its sub-accounts.

Noting that Euram Bank has violated FII Regulations, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) imposed a penalty of Rs 2 lakh on it.
IndiGo

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Shares of aviation companies, SpiceJet and InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo), rose up to 3 percent on the back of good growth in domestic traffic for July.

SpiceJet touched an intraday high of Rs 87.20 and an intraday low of Rs 84.80. Meanwhile, it touched an intraday high of Rs 1,106.00 and an intraday low of Rs 1,075.00.

Continuing to register double digit growth, domestic airlines carried 115.57 lakh passengers in July which is nearly 21 percent higher compared to year-ago period, according to official data.

IndiGo continued to be the largest player with a market share of 42.1 percent while that of national carrier Air India stood at 12.4 percent in July.

Latest figures compiled by aviation regulator DGCA showed that there was an increase of 20.82 percent in the number of passengers flown by local carriers last month. In July this year, airlines carried 115.57 lakh passengers as against 95.65 lakh people in the year-ago period.

Last month, the market share of SpiceJet and GoAir stood at 12.3 percent and 8.9 percent, respectively. Jet Airways garnered a market share of 13.6 percent in July.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-July 2018 were 800.40 lakh as against 657.21 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 21.79 percent," the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said today.

India is one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world and has been registering double-digit growth for more than three years.

As per the data for July, as many as 2,001 passengers were denied boarding while 14,045 people were affected by cancellations. Besides, delays of flights impacted 1,35,481 passengers.

In terms of On-Time Performance (OTP), IndiGo topped the list with a figure of 85.5 percent followed by SpiceJet (80.6 percent). SpiceJet had the highest passenger load factor of 93.8 percent.

The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines in July was 1.49 per cent, with Zoom Air cancelling all its flights during the month. Air Odisha and Air Deccan also cancelled a large number of flights.

At 10:05 hrs, Interglobe Aviation was quoting at Rs 1,102.00, up Rs 16.25, or 1.50 percent, while SpiceJet was quoting at Rs 85.25, up Rs 0.60, or 0.71 percent.
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The June quarter earnings were largely in-line with expectations boosted by low base due to demonetisation and GST, but experts are building a case for earnings recovery which could well play over next two quarters.

For the first quarter, earnings were led by consumption and commodity companies, with metals and oil & gas accounting for more than 100 percent of the incremental earnings growth, suggest experts.

Within the consumption pack, auto lagged with a broad-based miss on profits and consequent earnings downgrades.

The Q1FY19 net profits of the Nifty50 index grew 12.3 percent which was 2 percent above our estimates due to lower losses of certain PSU banks. We model 20% growth in net profits of the Nifty-50 ndex for FY19 (down from 23% before 1QFY19 results season) and 24% for FY20, Kotak Institutional Equities said in a note.

However, valuations are heady and macro weak and faces growing risks from a large number of global issues. We note that 2-year growth numbers (CAGR) are quite mediocre, raising concerns about the strength and sustainability of the ongoing economic recovery, which is led by consumption demand. On the other hand, the Indian banking NPLs seem to be peaking and resolutions moving ahead, a good sign, it said.

Strong earnings have helped D-Street to skyrocket to fresh record highs in the last two months and stocks which rose in anticipation of good earnings in the small & midcap space delivered over 100 percent net profit growth.

Stocks in the small & midcap space which have already more than doubled investor wealth in 2018 gave stellar results in June quarter where net profit grew by more than 100 percent. The list includes names like Dolat Investments, Graphite India, Mangalam Organics, Nelco, Excel Industries, India Glycols, Merck, Muthoot Capital, Jubilant FoodWorks, and L&T Technology Services, according to data compiled by AceEquity.

Data suggests that top stocks when filtered from highest to lowest returns flagged these 10 stocks in which net profit grew by over 100 percent on a year-on-year basis. Are these top buys? Well, maybe not, at current levels, say experts.

Most of the brokerage houses do not have a coverage on these stocks while some feel that it is best not to add fresh positions at current levels.

Among the 10 stocks which have more than doubled investor wealth in the last one year we wouldnt recommend a strong buy on any as some of these are cyclical stocks which will reverse when their cycle turns, while a few are fundamentally weak or are just rising with the tide, Jimeet Modi, Founder at Samco Securities told Moneycontrol.

Higher valuations in a few also do not support investing in these stocks at this point in time. As these stocks would provide a low margin of safety and would be high-risk plays, it would be advisable to look for other safer opportunities which have performed consistently in the past and have adequate safety in this highly volatile market and have corrected decently, he said.

Can we see a double-digit growth by FY19-20?

If you are eyeing a double-digit earnings growth by FY19-20 then it looks plausible, but experts feel that investors should take the recovery with a pinch of salt.

Some of the large-cap companies which beat analyst estimates were TCS, Wipro, M&M, Grasim, Hindustan Unilever, Ultratech, Indian Oil, BPCL Reliance, HDFC, Sun Pharma, ONGC, while HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra posted inline numbers.

The result announced during the June Quarter have been more or less in line with Sharekhan expectation. While some misses were SBI, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, Maruti (marginal disappointment on margin side), Hemang Jani, Head - Advisory, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas told Moneycontrol.

Sensex earnings are set to record a 14-16% CAGR in the coming two years. This itself is quite encouraging and will provide some cushion to equity markets, he said.

Cumulative effects of demonetisation and GST have played out strongly in the June quarter and the healthy numbers are proof. But, some experts feel that market has already discounted the good news and the growth for the remaining quarters in this fiscal year could be muted.

We have seen a recovery in auto, FMCG or even some housing finance companies all have given a robust top-line growth which has led to the index touching new highs. Due to GSTs low base from the last year, exceptional growth has been reported by a few large players in the FMCG space, said Modi of Samco Securities.

Giants such as HUL and Nestle have given Rs 175 crore to the govts consumer welfare fund as they failed to pass the benefit of GST to the consumers and probably that could be the reason for robust numbers. This indicates that the double-digit growth is an aberration and not here to stay. Markets have already discounted these factors but the growth for the remaining quarters in this fiscal year can be muted compared to this quarter which the market has not discounted, he added.

Here is a list of stocks which investors can look at post Q1 results:

Analyst: Mustafa Nadeem, CEO, Epic Research.

The double-digit growth continues to be there though in a scenario with stretched valuations we expect leaders to continue to perform well. We expect this to continue in coming quarters and see double-digit growth in sectors like financials, pvt banks, cement, and construction space.

Voltas: Target: Rs 702, RBL Bank: Target 665, Ultratech Cement: Target: Rs 4700, NCC: Target Rs 135, and India Cements: Target Rs 140.

Analyst: Hemang Jani, Head - Advisory, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas

TCS, Mahindra & Mahindra, Dabur India, Escorts & Bajaj Finserv are some of the ideas from our stable which are looking good from an investment perspective.

: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on Moneycontrol are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
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The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) here is likely to deliver its judgment on August 27, on the application filed by the Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) of Lanco Infratech Limited for the liquidation of the company.

The IRP had earlier filed a petition before the Hyderabad bench of NCLT for the liquidation of the company as the Committee of Creditors (CoC) rejected the revised bid by Thriveni Earthmovers, a Tamil Nadu based infra and mining firm.

According to a regulatory filing by Lanco, Employee Welfare Association of Lanco also filed a petition before the tribunal seeking to know why the resolution plan was rejected.

The Hyderabad bench of the tribunal will also take up, on August 23, an application of by Power Mech Projects Limited, a potential bidder which had submitted an 'Expression of Interest.' "The bench heard the arguments of both the parties and posted the matter for pronouncement of Orders on the Liquidation Application on August 27, 2018," Lanco said.

"As the CoC rejected the resolutionplan submitted by Thriveni, the IRP has no choice but to approach the NCLT for liquidation of the company," sources close to the development told PTI. Lanco Infratech is part of the first 12 accounts that was listed by the Reserve Bank.

It owes over Rs 44,000 crore to an IDBI Bank-led lenders consortium. The CoC of Lanco Infratech had twice rejected the resolution plan submitted by Thriveni Earthmovers.
Q13. The original product was created by Harutun and Esther Batmazian, an Armenian trader and his wife, who arrived in Cork in 1902 after fleeing pogroms in the Ottoman Empire. They exhibited his confections at the Great Cork International Exhibition that year. The business was set up in Cork City where it thrived although after WWI there was an incident with the premises being burned, it is assumed it occurred when soldiers returning from the Gallipoli offensive mistook the family as Turks. Batmazian moved the shop from Lower Glanmire street to McCurtain street and set about explaining the family heritage to the local people. The sweet became a regional favourite. The business exported it confections to Harrods in London and Bloomingdale's in New York. It was even supplied to Buckingham Palace. Name this delight. (Image: Reuters)

Bored of feeding the same old sweets to your brother on Raksha Bandhan? Well, here's your chance to try something new. Believe it or not, a sweets store in Surat called 24 Carat Mithai Magic is selling a dry fruit specialty sweet covered in 24 carat pure gold leaf. The store is offering a kg of the sweet for Rs 9,000.

The 80-year-old brand wanted to make the festival grand this year and opted to cover the dry fruit special in gold. "The sweet is made of dry fruits and gulkhand and we have replaced the silver sheet we generally use for covering sweets with a gold one this year to make Rakha Bandhan celebrations grand," said Radha Mithaiwala, owner of the sweet shop.

People have been buying 500 grams and above of the sweet. A limited amount of the sweet has been displayed at the Parle Point, Surat outlet.

"People have already shown interest in the sweet and are buying it in small portions and placing orders for Raksha Bandhan. Gujarat celebrates the festival in a grand manner and what is better than gold to make any occasion grander," Mithaiwala added.

After the gold sweets, 24 Carat Mithai Magic would be prepping up for the special edition of Gujarats specialty mewa sweets Ghari. The traditional sweet with be given a modern twist and prepared in 17 different flavours including chocolate, strawberry, mango among others.

Gujarat, which is known for its gold and diamond works, has been incorporating the yellow metal in edible items for some time now. Last year Huber and Holly, the ice cream parlour run by Havmor, introduced a special gold edition ice cream at its Ahmedabad outlet, aptly named the Mighty Midas collection, it was priced at Rs 1,000 per serving. The exotic dessert comes wrapped in a 24-carat gold foil with edible gold flakes.
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Aditya Birla Group firm UltraTech today said it has received an approval from the fair trade regulator Competition Commission for the acquisition of the cement business of Century Textiles and Industries.

The company said the CCI has given its approval for the share swap deal between the companies, Ultratech said in a regulatory filing.

On May 20, UltraTech said it would acquire the cement business of BK Birla Group company Century Textiles and Industries through a share swap deal, a move which would further consolidate its position as market leader in the segment.

"...the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has by its letter dated August 21, 2018 informed the company that it has approved the proposed combination under sub-section (1) of section 31 of the Competition Act, 2012," Ultratech said.

However, the copy of the CCI order is awaited, it added.

The board of directors of UltraTech Cement on May 20, 2018 approved a scheme of arrangement amongst Century Textiles and Industries and its respective shareholders and creditors, the Aditya Birla Group firm said in a statement.

The transaction would provide UltraTech an opportunity to further strengthen its presence in the east and central markets, extending its footprint in the Western and Southern markets in the country.

Century Textiles has three integrated cement units situated in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra with a total capacity of 11.4 mtpa (million tonnes per annum) and a grinding unit in West Bengal of 2.0 mtpa.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee | On August 16, India's most revolutionary politician and its first non-Congress prime minister breathed his last after prolonged illness. Vajpayee, who was 93, is known for the Pokhran nuclear tests conducted in 1998, which made India a nuclear-armed nation.

Moneycontrol News

In honour of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Rajasthan government is planning to develop a model Atal Seva Kendra that will provide public utility e-service facilities to state's citizens.

The former prime minister and co-founder of the Bharatiya Janata Party passed away last week. He was 93.

The model Atal Seva Kendra will also include literature, information and other objects related to Vajpayee, The Economic Times reported.

"We have not decided on the location. But it should be near Jaipur. Apart from that we want to make Vajpayee immortal by developing all Atal Seva Kendras as the most efficient public service centres," Rajasthan's Panchayati Raj Minister Rajendra Singh Rathore told the paper.

The state already has almost 10,000 Atal Seva Kendras (previously called Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendra) at the village panchayat and panchayat samiti levels to provide public utility services to people living in rural areas.

The state also has 33 Atal Suvidha Kendras at the district level.

"Atalji will remain alive in our villages and panchayats through these kendras. We will improve service standards at these centres, which currently offer online services like Aadhaar card, PAN card, utility bill payments, ration cards and other government-to-public services," Rathore told the daily.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje renamed the kendras in 2014, a move that sparked widespread criticism.

The move was challenged in court, with Rajasthan High Court asking the state government to reinstate the original name of the centres. The High Court's order has not been followed and the new names have continued.

In a separate development, Vajpayee's biography is set to be included in textbooks of the Rajasthan state education board.

"We have yet to decide the class in which we would be adding the chapter on Atalji. But it will focus on his childhood, unparalleled statesmanship, emergency, Kargil war and nuclear tests, among other inspiring events of his life," Rajasthan Education Minister Vasudev Devnani was quoted as saying.
The death toll in rain-ravaged Karnataka rises to 161 as torrential floods unleashed a trail of devastation. According to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), 5,839 of the 7,795 rescued are accommodated in over 73 relief camps across the flood-affected areas of the state as of 6 pm on Monday.



#KarnatakaFloodRelief Report (20 Aug 2018 | 1800 Hrs) Lives lost: 161 No. of persons evacuated: 7795 | Relief Camps:73 | Inmates: 5839 | 4 @NDRFHQ Tms in Kodagu, Uttara kannada, Dakshina kannada & Udupi | 1 AirForce & 1 Army in Kodagu deployed

 NDMA India (@ndmaindia) August 21, 2018

Reports suggest that four National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams have been dispatched in Kodagu, Uttara Kannada, Dakshina Kannada and Udupi, while an air force and army unit have been deployed in Kodagu.

Urging the Centre to provide relief for the rain-battered Kodagu district, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy requested Rs 100 crore in relief funds for food, shelter and other necessities.

"The Prime Minister announced relief of Rs 500 crore for Kerala, we expect at least Rs 100 crore for Kodagu. We will request the Central government for it. We have to repair roads for connectivity. We are taking the help of the army and NDRF," he said.

After conducting an aerial survey of landslides and flood-affected areas in Kodagu district, the state government announced an 'initial compensation' of Rs 3,800 in cash and foodgrain.

In the last three weeks, more than 1,600 houses have been damaged in the Kodagu district, which reportedly received almost thrice the normal rain for the month in the first three weeks of August.

Kumaraswamy reassured citizens stating that the government would do 'everything possible' to restore and rebuild the lives of people in the district.
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Realty major DLF will settle Rs 8,500 crore payable to its joint venture with Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC by 2020, mainly by transferring certain assets, the company said.

In the joint venture firm DLF Cyber City Developers (DCCDL), DLF has 66.66 percent stake while GIC has 33.34 percent shareholding. DCCDL currently holds about 27 million sq ft of rent-yielding commercial assets, largely in Gurugram, with annual rental income of about Rs 2,400 crore.

The JV was formed in December 2017 when DLF promoters sold entire 40 percent stake in DCCDL for nearly Rs 12,000 crore.

This deal included sale of 33.34 percent stake in DCCDL to GIC for about Rs 9,000 crore and buyback of remaining shares worth about Rs 3,000 crore by DCCDL.

In an analyst presentation, DLF said that about Rs 8,500 crore amount is inter-company payable by DLF Group to DCCDL. "It is anticipated that inter-company payables shall be settled by 2020, largely by transfer of certain identified assets of DLF," it added.

DLF plans to settle this amount through sale of certain rent-yielding assets and land parcels earmarked for commercial use.

In February this year, DLF's group CFO Saurabh Chawla had said the company would like to transfer all commercial assets, including land parcels, to the JV but certain assets cannot be transferred due to regulatory norms.

DLF has completed rent-yielding assets in Delhi and has commercial land parcels in Gurugram and Chennai that can be transferred to DCCDL, Chawla had said.

In the presentation, DLF said that DCCDL would "act as 'Business Trust'  not only will it build its own investment properties (about 25 million sq ft potential embedded in the JV) but would also have the ability to purchase investment properties, at FMV (fair market value), being developed by DLF or third parties."

DLF also reported the financial results of the JV firm DCCDL, which posted a net profit of Rs 363 crore over an income of Rs 1,227 crore during the first quarter of this fiscal.

The JV currently has a net debt of Rs 16,162 crore, of which Rs 14,570 crore loans are through lease rental discounting (LRD) against its rental receipts from leased commercial properties.

The average maturity of this LRD loan is 7.5 years with average coupon rate of 8.72 percent. Nearly Rs 890 crore loan is through CMBS (commercial mortgage backed securities) with a coupon rate of 10.9 percent.

The JV is expected to generate substantial cash flow for new capex, net debt reduction and dividend flows to both the shareholders, the presentation said.

DCCDL group currently owns and operates a pan-India portfolio about 27 million sq ft and the portfolio would more than double in the next 10 years, it added.
Moneycontrol News

Google has dedicated its Doodle of the Day in the honour of Indian Urdu writer, Ismat Chughtai. An iconic feminist during her time, Chughtai had written books on topics related to feminism and other topics which were considered taboo during the 1930s.

During 20th century, Chughtai was renowned as a significant voice in Urdu literature and wrote books on topics such as female sexuality and femininity, middle-class gentility, and class conflict.

The Government of India had awarded her the prestigious Padma Shree in 1976. Chughtai made her Bollywood debut as a screenwriter with several hits such as Arzoo (1950), Farain (1953) and Sone Ki Chidiya (1958).

Chughtai came from a family of Hindus, Muslims and Christians who all live peacefully, Chughtais daughter, nephew and niece had married Hindus.

With a fondness for reading, she read not only the Quran but also avidly read the Gita and the Bible.

Some of Chughtais writings were banned in South Asia. These included Angarey and Lihaaf.

Passing away at the age of 76 in 1991, Chugtais dying wish was to be cremated. Fulfilling her wish, she was cremated in Chandanwadi crematorium.
The Indian military is scaling down rescue operations in the southern state of Kerala, where intense floods killed more than 200 people and drove hundreds of thousands from their homes.

Decreasing rains and floodwaters means the navy can cut back on its rescue teams in Kerala, navy spokesman Capt. D.K. Sharma said in a Monday statement.

The navy has rescued a total of nearly 16,000 people in the state. People have begun leaving Kerala's thousands of relief camps over the past couple days, heading to their homes to check on damage and begin the long process of cleaning up.

Intense rains, which began August 8 in Kerala, had decreased substantially by Monday. Meteorologists are expecting light-to-moderate rains in coming days. While water and electricity have been returned to parts of flood-stricken Kerala, the state's utilities were working to restore service to vast areas that still had no service, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

Just outside of Kochi, thousands of people have been streaming over the past two days from the grounds of Union Christian College, one of more than 3,000 relief camps created amid the havoc. A week ago, volunteers at the camp estimated 10,000 people were jammed into the schools' buildings.

Today, there are perhaps 1,500. Abdullah Aliyar has been living in the camp with four of his relatives. On Monday, he returned briefly to his home, which is a few miles (kilometers away).

He was dismayed by what he found: "There was sludge and muck nearly up to my knee." But for now the family is remaining at the college. There's no drinking water at home, and no electricity. He doesn't know when they'll be able to return.
August 25, 2018 / 03:37 PM IST

Requirements listed by CMO Kerala:

Social Welfare Department has an urgent requirement of approximately 5000 pieces of wheelchairs, crutches and hearing aids each to support its efforts across Kerala.

Kudumbasree needs over 40,000 volunteers, 20,000 pairs of Gumboots and 22,000 pairs of Gloves for its efforts in Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Kottayam, Thrissur and Wayanad districts.
Since the onset of the southwest monsoon, Kerala has received abnormal amounts of rainfall, causing floods in almost all districts of the state. Between June 1 and August 15, Kerala got 2,091 mm of rainfall, 30 percent more than the 50-year average for the period, according to Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) data.

The volume of water that fell over the coastal state amounts to 81.26 cubic km. To put this in perspective, in the space of two-and-a-half months, Kerala received enough rainfall to fill Srinagars Dal Lake 82 times over. Also, this figure is more than half the 147 cubic km of saline water that fill the Dead Sea basin.

All of the 14 districts of state have witnessed excess rainfall, while Idukki recorded a large excess. The hill district saw 70 percent more-than-normal rainfall. Kottayam and Ernakulam received 41 percent and 38 percent more rainfall than the historical average. The IMD classifies rainfall patterns by comparing with the 50-year average.

Idukki is home to several dams like the Mullaperiyar, which has been the bone of contention between Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Reservoirs which were operating below half the maximum storage capacity are now having to open the sluice gates to keep up with rising water levels. Several villages and towns in the vicinity have been inundated.

Kerala is the only state in the country to have received excess rainfall this monsoon season. The monsoon has played truant in other parts of the country. Twelve sates recorded deficient rainfall. Mizoram had a large deficiency, getting less than 66 percent of the 50-year average.

Rainfall between 30 percent and 59 percent of the historical average is considered excessive. Rains are deemed normal if they fall in the -19 percent to +19 percent bracket.

In 2017, Kerala received 2,664.9 mm rain, only marginally greater than the 2,091 mm recorded in the two-and-a-half months since June 1, 2018. The IMD reckons that 2039.7 mm rainfall is normal for the four-month window between June 1 and September 30.

Ironically, Kerala received only 1855.9 mm rainfall during this period last year, a deficiency of 9 percent. Halfway through the monsoon season, rains in Kerala have already breached the historical average for the four months ending September.

The deluge has claimed over 350 lives and caused widespread damage to property. Several strategic installations have also been rendered inoperable due to flooding. The Kochi airport was shuttered for a week, and efforts are on to clear the airstrip.

Even if the rains subside, authorities will have to keep a check on water level in dams. According to Kerala State Electricity Board data, all but three of the dams used for generating hydroelectric power have their reservoirs filled to over 90 percent of maximum capacity.

Incessant rains had caused the water level in the Idukki dam to veer close to the danger mark. At present, its storage is 99 percent of total capacity. India Today had reported that on August 10, authorities at the Idukki dam let out six lakh litres of water every second.

The ordeal is yet to end for Keralites. The floodwaters have started to recede but the IMD has forecast heavy rains at several places, including Alappuzha and Ernakulam districts.

Experts believe that if dams had started releasing water earlier, the situation would not have deteriorated to the present level. Water level has been rising in dams since mid-July. Most rivers in Kerala empty out into the Arabian Sea.
Maharashtra's Charity Commissioner has tasked Gau Rakshak trusts with the work of providing shelter for stray cows.

The job of keeping stray cattle away from crowded roads and marketplaces is being given to nearly 40 such trusts in the state, according to a report by The Times of India.

Charity Commissioner Shivkumar Dige said that stray cattle are responsible for accidents and traffic in many cases.

"We have decided to rope in Gau Rakshak trusts, which already have cattle shelters, to provide food and all to such animals till their owners come for them," he told the daily.

The trusts will charge the owners of the cattle Rs 300 per day. If the owner of the animal doesn't approach the trust within 10 days the cattle will be handed over to the government.

"In the long term, the trust would tie up with the tehsildar's office and find a way to hand over such animals to poor farmers at no cost," Dige said.

In cities without Gau Rakshak trusts, the government will request temple trusts to build shelters to accommodate stray cattle.

Maharashtra had earlier proposed a Rs 34 crore scheme to set up shelters for old and unproductive cattle.

Under the scheme the government was supposed to set up cattle shelters in 34 districts and make arrangements for the land required. But the scheme did not succeed as the government couldn't find an ideal institution.
Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is leaving for Argentina to attend the G20 IT Minister's conference starting August 23, after which he will visit the Silicon Valley and is likely to meet top officials of Internet firm Google as also investors in Indian start-ups.

"Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is leaving for trip to Argentina and Silicon Valley. There is G20 IT minister's conference of G20 in Argentina from coming August 23 to 25 where there will be discussions on development of inclusive digital economy," an official statement said.

After the G20 conference, Prasad will visit the Silicon Valley in California, USA, where he will meet CEOs of large IT companies and investors who have invested in Indian start-ups.

He is expected to pitch for investments in electronics manufacturing in India, especially in medical electronics. According to sources, Prasad is likely to meet top officials of Google during his visit to Silicon Valley.

Prasad will meet Indians working in Silicon valley and address a conference of immigrant Indians, the statement said. He will also hold a dialogue with faculty of Stanford University.

Recently a UK based NGO 'aPolitical' had acknowledged Prasad among top 20 leading personalities in the field of Digital Governance.
Shashi Tharoor is a leader who has a way with wordssometimes, those words find a way into a controversy. In July, addressing an event in Thiruvananthapuram, he said: If they (the BJP) are able to win a repeat of their current strength in the Lok Sabha then, frankly, our own democratic Constitution, as we understand [it], will not survive... because then they will have all the three elements they need to tear up the Constitution of India and write a new one. And that will enshrine the principle of Hindu Rashtra, that will remove equality for the minorities, and that will create a Hindu Pakistan...

A Delhi court today allowed Congress leader Shashi Tharoor's plea to travel to Geneva to express condolences to the family of former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and seek international aid for Kerala, which is reeling under unprecedented floods.

The politician, who is currently on bail in a case related to his wife Sunanda Pushkar's death almost four years ago in a luxury hotel here, approached the court this morning through his lawyers following an earlier direction that he will not leave country without its permission.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal allowed the politician's application after his counsel said Tharoor had worked under Annan for ten years and he was his "close friend and mentor" at the United Nations. Annan died on Saturday last.

"The applicant (Tharoor) is granted permission to travel to Geneva, Switzerland between August 20 and 21 as prayed for. Inform the investigating officer about your schedule," the judge said.

The court had on August 1 allowed Tharoor's application seeking permission for around eight visits to five countries, including the US, Canada and Germany, till December. He is currently in Germany in pursuant to the court order.

However, Geneva was not on his list of travel.

In his application moved today through senior advocate Vikas Pahwa and advocate Gaurav Gupta, the Thiruvananthapuram MP told the court that "in view of the sudden demise of his close friend and mentor Kofi Annan, the applicant (Tharoor) urgently wishes to go to Geneva for one day to visit the family of the deceased."

The application further said that Tharoor also "wished to meet representatives of United Nations and other humanitarian organisations in order to seek aid and relief for the massive calamity which has hit Kerala, that is his state and constituency (Thiruvananthapuram)."

Pushkar was found dead in a suite of a luxury hotel in the city on the night of January 17, 2014. The couple was staying in the hotel, as the official bungalow of Shashi Tharoor was being renovated at that time.

In its August 1 order granting permission to Tharror to travel abroad, the court had placed several conditions on him and directed the Congress MP to furnish a fixed deposit of Rs two lakh, which will be refunded on his return.

Besides directing him not to tamper with the evidence or influence witnesses, it had asked him to inform the investigating officer and the court about the travel details and his arrival in the country.
Representative Image

The Congress today stepped up attack on the BJP-led NDA government, accusing it of trying to cover up an alleged scam in the Rafale jet deal and said it will hit the streets to press for a JPC probe into the issue.

"We will press for a transparent, fair and independent probe through a JPC," Congress leader and former Minister of State for Defence Jitendra Singh told reporters here.

He said the party would launch a countrywide agitation to "expose the scam".

"The Narendra Modi government is indulging in a brazen cover-up exercise to deceive people on the Rafale deal in which national interest was compromised causing loss to public exchequer," Singh said.

Claiming that the deal caused a Rs 41,205-crore loss of public money, he said that purchase of 36 Rafale jets was done at a price of Rs 1670.70 crore per aircraft compared with Rs 526.10 crore per aircraft, as per the international bid opened on December 12, 2012 during the previous UPA government.

"While 36 aircraft would have cost Rs 18,940 crore, the amount shot up to Rs 60,145 crore," he said, adding, as per the earlier arrangement, 108 aircraft were to be made in India by the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) with transfer of technology.

Slamming the Centre for refusing to divulge "inflated prices" of the aircraft citing a "secrecy clause", the Congress leader claimed that the agreement between India and France has no such clause on non-disclosure of commercial purchase price.

Singh, who is also AICC Odisha In-Charge, sought to know as to why the number of fighter jets required for the Indian Air Force was "reduced from 126 to 36".

He also accused the BJP-led government of having by-passed the defence acquisition council and cabinet committee on security (CCS), and alleged that defence procurement procedure was violated and transfer of technology surrendered.

Singh further alleged that Rs 36,000 crore offset contract was "snatched" from HAL, as a private company got 'Defence Offset Contract' of Rs 30,000 crore and 'Life Cycle Contract' of Rs 1 lakh crore.

He wondered as to why the government allowed the offset contract to be given to a company that has "zero experience" of manufacturing fighter aircraft, bypassing the public sector HAL.

The Congress leader claimed that the private company had been registered just 12 days prior to clinching the deal, and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being a "partner" in gross irregularities.

"Has the 'Chowkidar' become 'Bhagidar' in the whole episode? This unusual act of benevolence tells a unique story of PM Modi's crony capitalism," Singh said.

He said had HAL bagged the offset contract, around 50,000 youths of Odisha would have got employment opportunities, as the company has a key plant in Sunabeda in the state.

Singh also criticised the Centre for "deliberately ignoring" a 20-per cent price reduction offer by Eurofighter Typhoon. "In the original invited tender by the previous UPA government, two fighter aircraft were found equal on all technical fronts - Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon," he said.

Both the Central government and the BJP have dismissed as false the allegations levelled by the Congress on the Rafale deal.
Bharat Forge lines up Rs 1,250 crore capex for FY19 & FY20

The Kalyani Group-controlled company will incur Rs 500 crore capex in FY19 and about Rs 350 crore in FY20

Swaraj Baggonkar August 21, 2018 / 02:42 PM IST











Bharat Forge | Government of Singapore name appeared in shareholding pattern of September quarter with 1.11 percent stake, LIC raised stake to 4.90 percent from 4.66 percent in June quarter. live bse live

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Bharat Forge , the country largest forging company, has lined up capital expenditure of Rs 1,250 crore for FY19 and FY20 as it looks to open new plants, secure defence contracts and get ready for Bharat Stage VI.

The Kalyani Group-controlled company will incur Rs 500 crore capex in FY19 and about Rs 350 crore in FY20. A further $55 million (Rs 380 crore) will be spent on setting up an aluminium forging plant in the US for its automotive clients.

Confirming this development, Amit Kalyani, Executive Director, Bharat Forge, said, We are now in the midst of Rs 500 crore capex where we are expanding our forging and machining capacities. This will start coming online from next year and will provide us substantial growth headroom. In FY19, our capex is about Rs 500 crore and next year it may be Rs 350 crore. Right now, the US capex for which we have a large order is $55 million.

The companys focus on the US market follows the huge surge in demand for aluminium forged auto parts in light of the light weighting of vehicles ahead of the rollout of tighter emission norms. While aluminium forged products are more expensive than steel, they are however stronger and lighter.

We are seeing strong traction in aluminum forging demand in the US and have now decided to set up a facility. This will be a brownfield expansion. We expect strong export market demand across all sectors. In the domestic market, we see fairly strong demand, in spite of this weight load change that has been made on axle loads, Kalyani added.

The company is betting big on defence orders over the next 6-12 months, especially from field artillery guns that the Indian Army has been testing for the past few years. Four of the companys artillery platforms have been tested. It is now fielding the guns for Army Trial 1 platform. This means that post-testing by agencies the guns will be sent for user trials.

Kalyani hopes to secure a pilot order for some products before FY19-end.

"In terms of revenue from the defence space because of components and exports, this year itself will be an inflexion point. Once you start receiving revenue from this programme, it will become big. This year itself, we will garner substantial revenue from defence by this fiscal-end, Kalyani told analysts.
The fee hike is set to be implemented from October 2, 2020

An ex-employee of HCL Technologies in the United States has filed a class action complaint against the company, alleging that the IT major favours South Asians, mainly Indians, over Americans.

Last week, California-based The Mercury News and the web portal law.com reported that Texas resident Reese Voll has filed a class action complaint in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Voll, who joined HCL Technologies in November 2014, has alleged in his complaint, a copy of which was provided by law.com, that HCL promoted and chose H-1B visa holders to work on projects, most of whom are Indians.

At the time of publishing, HCL Technologies had not responded to a request for comment from Moneycontrol.

Daniel Low, the attorney for Kotchen & Low who has filed the complaint, told Moneycontrol in an email response, "The key allegations are that HCL discriminates against non-South Asians in hiring, promotions and terminations in four ways."

These include using fraudulent H-1B visa applications to secure South Asian workers from overseas and giving preference to those workers ahead of American workers.

"HCL gives substantial preference to South Asian applicants when hiring for local positions in the US... HCL consistently promotes more South Asian employees than their non-South Asian counterparts... HCL benches and terminates non-South Asians at disproportionately higher rates. At least 70 percent of HCLs employees are South Asian, despite South Asians making up about 12 percent of the US IT industry," Low added.

The complaint notes that HCL submits visa petitions for more positions than actually exist in the US subsidiary of the company. "This is to maximize its chances of securing the highest number of available H-1B visas from the lottery process. In this way, HCL has been able to secure visas for far more individuals than it actually has a present need for," the plaintiff Voll has alleged in the complaint.

Voll was initially part of HCL's contract with PepsiCo, and was put on bench or given unassigned project status in July 2016. When he told his superiors he was told he would be working on other projects as well, he was asked to contact human resources.

As per HCL's policy, an employee is terminated after being on bench for 30 days. While some initial conversations to join a few projects happened, none fructified and Voll as asked to quit in August 2016.

Voll has further claimed that he applied for open job roles within HCL between 2016 and 2018 several times, but was not hired for any role in spite of being adequately qualified.

The Indian IT industry has been accused of misusing the H-1B work visas, the most popular route for IT employees to work in the US.

The industry has consistently denied this claim and all top four IT companies- Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, HCL and Wipro- have spoken about hiring more Americans but the issue remains a thorny one with President Donald Trump's regime cracking down heavily on H-1B misuse by making the process more stringent and also increasing the number of checks.

Low said he has been involved in similar litigation against Infosys, TCS and US-based Cognizant.

Last year, a former employee of Infosys, Erin Green had filed a Green had filed a lawsuit alleging that Infosys favoured employees who are of South Asian, especially Indian descent.

Similarly, a federal judge in Oakland, California expanded a 2015 case into a class action against TCS, on behalf of American workers who lost their jobs at TCS offices in the US because they hadnt been assigned to any of its clients.

HCL Technologies has for long held that it does not depend on H-1B visas as much as before.

The complaint says that HCL employees 12,000 people in the US, but received 10,432 new H-1B visas between 2015 and 2017.

Voll has also alleged that HCL Technologies promotes South Asians (Indians) and terminates non-South Asians disproportionately.
Former Shiv Sena corporator Shrikant Pangarkar was arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) today in connection with the seizure of crude bombs and weapons from different parts of the state between August 9 and 11, an ATS official said.

Pangarkar was arrested under the Explosives Act, the Explosive Substances Act and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, he added.

Three persons Vaibhav Raut, Sharad Kalaskar and Sudhanwa Gondhalekar were arrested from Palghar and Pune districts on August 10 in connection with the seizure of bombs and weapons.

All three are in ATS custody till August 28.

Pangarkar, a former member of the Jalna Municipal Corporation, was detained by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) last night in connection with the killing of anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar.

CBI sources had said Pangarkar's name had cropped up during the interrogation of Sachin Prakasrao Andure, the alleged main shooter in the Dabholkar murder case.

Andure, who was arrested by the CBI from Pune last evening, was produced before the court of Judicial Magistrate First Class A S Mujumdar at Shivajinagar today and remanded to the agency's custody till August 26.

The CBI told the court that Andure was one of the two assailants who had shot at Dabholkar at the Omkareshwar Bridge in Pune on August 20, 2013.

Pangarkar, aged around 40, was detained after Andure told the CBI that he was with him when Dabholkar was killed, the sources said.

The former corporator was allegedly riding pillion on the motorcycle driven by Andure, they added.

Dabholkar (67) was shot dead by two motorcycle-borne assailants on August 20, 2013, when he was on a morning walk near his home in Pune.

Andure was arrested on a tip-off from the Maharashtra ATS, which had arrested Raut, Kalaskar and Gondhalekar for allegedly hatching a conspiracy to carry out blasts in the state.

One of the arrested accused gave the input about Andure's involvement in Dabholkar's murder, which the ATS shared with the CBI.

Dabholkar's murder case was transferred to the CBI from the Pune Police in 2014.
Representative image

Moneycontrol News

A recent study has revealed our ancestors to have a high precision grip that enabled them to develop advanced stone tools such as spear points.

As reported by Heritage Daily, the study, led by Dr Alastair Key, focused on a technique called platform preparation that allowed to use the stone tool in such a way that it would shape the stone into a pre-conceived design.

The technique of Platform preparation is crucial for developing advanced prehistoric stone tools, the earliest of which was discovered at the 500,000-year-old Boxgrove site located in West Sussex, United Kingdom.

The study investigated the use of hands, grips in particular while developing different types of early stone tools. Stone tool producers, also known as flint knappers were attached to sensors and this enabled the researchers to identify the technique which was required to apply the required pressure through the fingers to shape the stone.

The research carried out revealed the early human ancestors (Boxgrove hominins) required strong grips as compared with others who lacked the advanced skill. The study also suggested that only with the evolution of humans, was it possible to develop tools such as the handaxes which were found at Boxgrove and stone spear points that were discovered later.

The discovery was crucial in the sense that the survival of fossilised human hand bones is rare.

Hand bones from before 300,000 years ago are rare, particularly when compared to other human fossils such as teeth, so the fact we can study the manipulative capabilities of our early ancestors from the stone stools they produced is incredibly strong, said Keys.

The study was carried out at the School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Sussex and was funded by the British Academy.
The Supreme Court pulled up the Uttar Pradesh government on Monday, questioning the state's refusal to indict Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in a 2007 hate speech case.

The top court issued a notice to the UP government on the basis of a plea that challenged the Allahabad High Court's decision of accepting the state's refusal to grant a sanction to prosecute Adityanath in the hate speech case.

The petition was filed by Gorakhpur resident Parvez Parvaz and Azamgarh resident Asad Hayat.

A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra and comprising of Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, has issued a notice to the Director General of Police (Crime Branch), Gorakhpur District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police.

The next hearing will take place after six weeks.

Senior advocate Aman Lekhi, who is representing the Uttar Pradesh government, has said that he will file the response in two weeks.

On February 22, 2018, the Allahabad High Court had dismissed a plea to overturn the state government's decision to deny sanction to prosecute Adityanath.

It had also denied another plea seeking a fresh probe by an independent agency other than Crime Branch CID (CB-CID), which had handled the case till then.

Here is a brief timeline of the case:

January 27, 2007: During the Gorakhpur Hindu-Muslim riots, Adityanath (then MP from Gorakhpur) allegedly delivers a speech calling for revenge against Muslims, which precipitates in large scale violence between the two communities.

2008: Petitioner Parvez Parvaz files a case against the then MP of Gorakhpur, Yogi Adityanath, for delivering a hate speech during the 2007 Gorakhpur Hindu-Muslim riots. A magistrate court in Gorakhpur admits the petition and starts criminal proceedings against Yogi.

2015: The CB-CID submits its draft final report (DFR) to the state government and seeks sanction to initiate prosecution against Adityanath and the others accused. The report finds five leaders, including Adityanath, guilty of making provocative speeches with intent of causing riot, outraging the religious feelings of a community and promoting enmity between two communities.

May 4, 2017: The Allahabad High Court pulls up the UP government "for unnecessarily delaying its sanction to initiate prosecution against the five accused. It notes that the CB-CID has been waiting for more than two years for the required permissions to file a chargesheet in the matter.

It is noteworthy, that on April 28, 2017 the top court pointed out: "From a perusal of record, it appears that the matter of sanction regarding prosecution of the accused persons is pending before the state government and the question of grant of sanction for prosecution is to be decided by the head of the state government, who himself is a prime accused in the present FIR lodged by petitioner no.1 (Pervez Parwaz)."

May 12, 2017: The BJP government of Uttar Pradesh denies the sanction sought by the CB-CID to prosecute the accused and file a charge sheet in the matter citing 'inadequate and inconclusive evidence'.

June 2017: The then DG (Crime) writes a letter to the chief secretary saying that the matter is closed and that there was no reason for any other independent agency to probe the case further.

The petitioners, Parvez Parvaz and Asad Hayat, alleged eyewitnesses to Yogi's speech, filed a fresh plea challenging the state government's decision of not allowing criminal proceedings against the accused.

However, in February 2018, the Allahabad High Court rejected it saying: "In view of aforesaid facts and discussions, we do not find any procedural error either in the conduct of the investigation or in the decision-making process of refusal to grant sanction or any other illegality in the order which may require any interference by this court while exercising its extra-ordinary power under Article 226 of the constitution of India."

The Supreme Court bench led by the CJI has now agreed to hear the petition, which points out that "the home department was under the chief minister and he could not be a judge in his own cause", The Indian Express reported.

The petitioners also claimed that they had submitted a written request to the investigating officer to procure details of a television programme in which Adityanath had reportedly admitted to the incident.
Mike Pompeo

Describing India as an "all-weather partner", the US has said the upcoming 2+2 dialogue with the country is an important opportunity to enhance engagement on a range of diplomatic and security issues and discuss how to operationalise India's status as a major defence partner.

US Secretary of State Micheal Pompeo and Secretary of Defence James Mattis will travel to New Delhi next month for the 2+2 dialogue, the format of which was agreed upon between the two sides during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington in June 2017.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman were to travel to Washington to take part in the meeting with their US counterparts in July.

But the US had postponed the dialogue citing "unavoidable reasons." After June last year, the two countries have tried to schedule the dialogue many times with several dates having been considered.

Earlier this year also, the '2+2 dialogue' had been postponed due to uncertainty over the confirmation of Pompeo as President Donald Trump's new Secretary of State.

"With India, we are looking forward to the inaugural 2+2 dialogue with Secretaries Pompeo and Mattis traveling for these meetings in New Delhi on September 6," Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Alice Wells told reporters yesterday.

"It is an important opportunity to discuss and enhance our engagement on a range of diplomatic and security priorities and really is an indication of the deepening strategic partnership that we enjoy with India," she said.

Wells was addressing a Foreign Press Centre video conference from Washington on "US Policy in the Indian Ocean Region" during which she previewed her upcoming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference hosted by the India Foundation in Hanoi on August 27-28.

She said India plays a central role in US national security adding that it is "enshrined in the President's national security strategy as well as the administration's South Asia and Indo-Pacific strategies."

She said at the upcoming 2+2 ministerial, the US is looking to discuss "how do we operationalise India's status as a major defense partner." India was designated a major defence partner by the US in 2016.Defence cooperation between India and the US has grown from "essentially zero dollars" in 2008 to $18 billion today.

The US does more military exercises with India than with any other country in the world "but how do we take this partnership to a new level so that it is not just going to be defense acquisitions but really a way of framing how we see challenges and how we want to be able to respond together to address these challenges."

Highlighting that the India US partnership is rooted in shared democratic values and commitment to rules-based order, Wells said the two nations are going to be able to demonstrate at the 2+2 dialogue the facts of this maturing partnership. On a question about trade relations with India, Wells said opening up trade with India is a "key strategic objective" for the Trump administration.

Bilateral trade currently stands at about $126 billion, an increase of more than $10 billion from last year and there have been critical purchases by Indian firms in the commercial aviation, energy as well as the defense sectors She however added that impediments do remain between the two countries on trade.

"Tariff and non-tariff barriers have been a subject of longstanding concern and intellectual property rights as well. So we are continuing a very intensive dialogue with the Indian government on how do we address these irritants and unlock the trade that is of great interest to US firms when they look at the Indian market and its potential," she said.

Wells added that looking outside of India, Washington wants to work together with New Delhi and identify projects whether they be in Sri Lanka or Nepal.

"One of the great new elements of our relationship with India is that we are working in third countries," she said as she cited the example of the assistance and developmental level work with India in Africa on health-related issues and peacekeeping training. She said India and the US worked together in programmes that involved bringing Afghans to India for cost-effective training.

"India really is an all-weather partner as we look ahead to how to ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains free and open."

During the press briefing, Wells previewed her upcoming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference and how it supports the Trump administration's Indo-Pacific strategy.

The annual conference, hosted by the India Foundation along with its partners from Singapore, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, will focus on the theme of 'Building Regional Architectures'.
Britain on Tuesday will call for the European Union to increase sanctions against Russia, saying the bloc had to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the United States, which hit Moscow with new economic curbs this month.

Britain's foreign minister, Jeremy Hunt, will say that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the world "a more dangerous place", and that after a chemical weapons attack in England, the EU should apply more pressure to ensure Russia sticks to international rules.

"Today the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US," Hunt will tell an audience in Washington in his first major speech since his appointment in July.

"That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea."

Britain, the EU, and the United States blame Russia for a nerve agent attack against a Russian double agent in the English city of Salisbury earlier this year. The Kremlin denies involvement.

Earlier this month the United States, citing the Salisbury incident, imposed sanctions against Russia covering national-security related goods. It has promised more hard-hitting measures unless Russia gave "reliable assurances" it would no longer use chemical weapons.

The sanctions sparked a sell-off across Russian markets, and pushed up the country's cost of borrowing - with both likely to worsen if the second wave of measure is enacted.

Britain is preparing to leave the EU next year, but its sanctions policy is currently determined in Brussels. The EU recently agreed to renew sanctions against Russia relating to its annexation of Crimea and activity in the region.

But, the EU has not imposed sanctions related to Salisbury, although it strongly condemned Moscow and joined international action to expel Russian officials. Its measures against Russia include finance restrictions and arms exports.

Hunt, who took over from Boris Johnson as Britain's foreign minister in July, will meet U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other U.S. officials on Wednesday, and address the United Nations Security Council on Thursday.

His speech later on Tuesday will also outline other threats that Britain sees to the global order, including telling China that "with economic power comes political responsibility", and criticising their inaction over Crimea and chemical weapons.

On Brexit, where negotiations have become bogged down as the deadline for reaching an exit deal with the EU approaches, Hunt will repeat a message he has been delivering to European leaders over the summer:

"The risk of a messy divorce, as opposed to the friendship we seek, would be a fissure in relations between European allies that would take a generation to heal... now is the time for the European Commission to engage with an open mind with the fair and constructive proposals made by the Prime Minister."
CRUDE-OIL

China, seeking to skirt US sanctions, will use oil tankers from Iran for its purchases of that country's crude, throwing Tehran a lifeline while European companies such as France's Total are walking away due to fear of reprisals from Washington.

The United States is trying to halt Iranian oil exports in an effort to force Tehran to negotiate a new nuclear agreement and to curb its influence in the Middle East.

China, which has cut imports of US crude amid a trade war with Washington, has said it opposes unilateral sanctions and defended its commercial ties with Iran.

On Monday, sources told Reuters Chinese buyers of Iranian oil were beginning to shift their cargoes to vessels owned by National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC) for nearly all their imports.

The shift demonstrates that China, Iran's biggest oil customer, wants to keep buying Iranian crude despite the sanctions, which were reimposed after the United States withdrew in May from a 2015 agreement to halt Iran's nuclear programme.

"The shift started very recently, and it was almost a simultaneous call from both sides," said one source, a senior Beijing-based oil executive, who asked not to be identified as he is not allowed to speak publicly about commercial deals.

Tehran used a similar system between 2012 and 2016 to circumvent Western-led sanctions, which had curtailed exports by making it virtually impossible to obtain shipping insurance for business with Iran.

Iran, OPEC's third-largest oil producer, relies on sales of crude to China, Japan, South Korea, India and the EU to generate the lion's share of budget revenues and keep its economy afloat.

The United States has asked buyers of Iranian oil to cut imports to zero starting in November. Japan, South Korea, India and most European countries have already slashed operations.

A US State Department official said the Trump administration was aware of China's plans to continue commercial cooperation with Iran and emphasized that Washington was fully committed to enforcing the sanctions.

"We continue to discuss our Iran policy with Chinese counterparts and the implications of our reimposition of sanctions," the official said, responding to the Reuters report.

French oil major Total , previously one of the biggest European buyers of Iranian oil, has said it had no choice but to halt imports and abandon Iranian projects to safeguard its operations in the United States.

On Monday, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said Total had officially left Iran's South Pars gas project.

Total later confirmed it had notified the Iranian authorities of its withdrawal from South Pars after it failed to obtain a waiver from US sanctions.

Iranian officials had earlier suggested China state-owned CNPC could take over Total stake and Zanganeh said the process to replace the French company was under way.

"As for the future of Total's share, we have not been informed of an official CNPC position, but as we have always said, CNPC, a Chinese state-owned company, has the right to resume our participation if it decides so,a Total said in an emailed statement.

French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly called for safeguarding the Iranian nuclear deal and defended the interests of EU companies in Iran.

But most European companies have conceded that they would be forced to walk away from Tehran for fear of sanctions and losing access to operations that require US dollars.

The first round of US sanctions, which included cutting off Iran and any businesses that trade with it from the US financial system, went into effect on Aug. 7.

A ban on Iranian oil purchases will start in November. Insurers, which are mainly US- or European-based, have begun winding down their Iranian business to comply with the sanctions.

To safeguard their supplies, state oil trader Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp and Sinopec Group, Asia's biggest refiner, have activated a clause in long-term supply agreements with National Iranian Oil Corp (NIOC) that allows them to use NITC-operated tankers, four sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The price for oil under the long-term deals has been changed to a delivered ex-ship basis from the previous free-on-board terms, meaning Iran will cover all costs and risks of delivering the crude as well as handling the insurance, they said.

In July, all 17 tankers chartered to carry oil from Iran to China were operated by NITC, according to shipping data on Thomson Reuters Eikon. In June, eight of 19 vessels chartered were Chinese-operated.

Last month, those tankers loaded about 23.8 million barrels of crude oil and condensate destined for China, or about 767,000 barrels per day (bpd). In June, the loadings were 19.8 million barrels, or 660,000 bpd.

In 2017, China imported an average of 623,000 bpd, according to customs data.

Sinopec declined to comment. A spokesperson for Nam Kwong Group, the parent of Zhenrong, declined to comment.

NIOC did not respond to an email seeking comment. An NITC spokesman said it would forward a request from Reuters for a comment to the country's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.

It was not immediately clear how Iran would provide insurance for the Chinese oil purchases, worth some $1.5 billion a month. Insurance usually includes cover for the oil cargoes, third-party liability and pollution.
An employee of Daikin Industries Ltd works at the production line of outdoor air conditioning units at the company's Kusatsu factory in Shiga prefecture, western Japan March 20, 2015. Picture taken March 20, 2015. REUTERS/Yuya Shino - GF10000049544

Daikin Industries, the world's largest maker of air conditioning equipment, is turning to Africa for further expansion, 10 years after a successful gamble on sharing its key technology with a Chinese company.

As Japanese manufacturers such as Panasonic stepped back from home appliances over a decade ago to avoid price wars with Asian rivals, Daikin did the opposite, going head to head with the likes of South Korea's LG.

Fighting off low-cost competitors through local partnerships and acquisitions, Daikin grabbed top share in markets such as India. Africa, where LG and China's Haier are established giants, may seem like another difficult target for Daikin.

But Yoshihiro Mineno, Daikin's senior executive in charge of Asia, said the company is used to silencing critics, recalling the controversy more than 15 years ago over its decision to target mass markets overseas.

"Many sceptics at the time said it would be impossible to make profits in the 'volume zone' in Asia, and that it was pointless to invest there," Mineno told Reuters in an interview.

Conventional wisdom, he said, held that the 94 year old company should focus on high-end markets. Daikin saw limited potential for growth in that area, however, and executives knew the company would have to focus on low cost and high volume if it wanted to boost its global presence.

The company's market value now exceeds those of electronics conglomerates Panasonic Corp and Hitachi Ltd.

"If advanced technologies or added-value products are your only selling points, your rivals are likely to catch up and overtake you," said Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at the research arm of Ace Securities.

"But Daikin's business model is backed by cost competitiveness," Yasuda added. "It's among a few Japanese companies that can compete head to head with the Chinese."

The United States, the world's largest market for air conditioning, has been tougher to crack. Daikin has struggled to compete with local rivals such as United Technologies' Carrier and Johnson Controls' York, which specialise in ducted air conditioning.

Daikin acquired the US company Goodman in 2012 to strengthen its expertise in that area, but has made little headway. The prospect of tariffs from a trade war between the United States and China adds another headache: Daikin assembles air conditioners in the U.S. using some Chinese-made parts.

Mineno said the company may need to export components from elsewhere in Asia if the trade war escalates.

REGIONAL STRATEGY

In 2006, Daikin took over Malaysian contract manufacturer OYL Industries for $2.1 billion. The deal boosted its purchasing power, and provided access to cheaper global suppliers and nimble product development.

Two years later, it shocked the industry by agreeing to a partnership with major Chinese rival Gree Electric Appliances. The deal gave Daikin mass-market production capabilities in return for access to its advanced inverter technology, which saves electricity by efficiently regulating temperatures.

Critics said the move amounted to self-sabotage because of the potential for such valuable components to be copied.

The technology did end up in air conditioners from other Chinese companies. But Daikin expanded production so quickly with Gree's help that it drove smaller rivals out of the market.

"We effectively created a market for inverter air conditioners with Gree," Mineno said. Gree is still a partner in producing low-end models and components for Daikin, although they compete in most other segments.

"Being the No. 1 player in inverter machines gave us access to government officials and allowed us to influence regulations," Mineno said, adding that stricter energy consumption rules, for instance, made Daikin inverters more attractive.

Daikin's sales have tripled since the OYL acquisition, with overseas markets now accounting for 80 percent of its $20 billion annual revenue.

By contrast, other Japanese manufacturers have struggled to maintain their edge in products that include televisions, smartphone screens and semiconductors.

Experts say most failed to innovate enough to continue charging more than their Chinese and Korean rivals, eventually giving up both market share and margins.

INDIA TO AFRICA

Executives said Daikin's biggest growth driver is India, where it has established itself as a top player despite competition from LG, Samsung Electronics and local manufacturers.

It appointed Indian industry veteran Kanwal Jeet Jawa to lead operations there, built a sales network and localised production with low-cost know-how from OYL.

Daikin's market share in room air conditioners in India jumped from less than 2 percent in 2010 to 17 percent over eight years, lifting the company to the top total sales spot of air conditioners for commercial buildings and industrial use.

Jawa will lead the expansion in Africa as well, the company said. It plans to set up a regional office in east Africa in a few months.

Jawa said Daikin would continue to aim for the volume zone. "It's a very price-sensitive market," he said of Africa. "We want to use our leverage of Indian operations and we want to replicate what we have done in India."

Daikin is adding production capacity for further global expansion. It opened an assembly plant in Vietnam in May and plans another in Malaysia this year. It is also considering a new Indian plant to help produce products for Africa, Jawa said.

Daikin has set a 2020 sales target of 90 billion yen ($812.71 million) for Africa and the Middle East, an increase of 11 percent from last year, but Mineno said it may need to revise that upward.

"Globally, I still see a lot of growth potential that can be unleashed by our volume-zone strategy," he said.
A group that represents UK hospitals has warned that its members may run out of drugs if Britain leaves the European Union without an agreement on future relations.

NHS Providers says a lack of "visible and appropriate communication" from the government is hampering preparations for a so called no deal Brexit.

In a letter to National Health Service bosses that was leaked to the Times of London today, the group's chief executive says it would be more efficient to develop contingency plans nationally rather than "have to reinvent the wheel 229 times".

Chris Hopson says "the entire supply chain of pharmaceuticals" could be affected by the failure to reach a deal, adding that it could also "jeopardize" the EU workforce "on which the NHS relies".
The Delhi High Court, on Tuesday, asked the Centre and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to file a response on the plea seeking exemplary damages for the losses caused due to leakage of Aadhaar data.

A bench of Justice S Ravindra Bhat and Justice AK Chawla asked the Centre and UIDAI to file response within six weeks and listed the matter for further hearing on 19th November.

The Court was hearing a plea filed by Shamnad Basheer through advocate Siddharth Aggarwal alleging that the dissemination of personal information of Aadhaar-holders made it clear that government is responsible for any breach of right to privacy.

The petitioner has said his constitutional rights have been breached due to the negligence of UIDAI.

Citing top court's judgement, the petitioner said that when the State violates the constitutional rights of a citizen, courts may award compensation.

He also said that his petition is very different from the other proceedings in the Supreme Court as he is seeking claim to damages due to breach of data.

Mr Basheer has also requested the Court to appoint an independent committee comprising multiple experts to investigate the scope, extent of breaches and the magnitude of harm caused due to data leak.

He has also sought direction to release information on the number of data breaches which have taken place since the inception of the Aadhaar scheme and the steps taken by the government towards remedying and rectifying their security practices after the breaches.

Disclaimer: Information, facts or opinions expressed in this news article are presented as sourced from IANS and do not reflect views of Moneylife and hence Moneylife is not responsible or liable for the same. As a source and news provider, IANS is responsible for accuracy, completeness, suitability and validity of any information in this article.
There are many kinds of financial sector companies: banks, non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), leasing & hire-purchase companies, microfinance companies, life insurance companies, general insurance companies, re-insurance companies, housing finance companies, asset management companies, investment companies, holding companies Accounting standards are prescribed for each category or...
Australian Economic News Updates Enjoy a contrarian outlook on the Australian economy  and how movements beyond our borders could affect your stocks, retirement fund or the value of your home. Go here for more.

Daily Chinese Economy News Chinas economy has been a powerhouse in recent years. But times are a changing and China, for better or worse, is a subject of heated debate. Are there investment opportunities to be still had from China, and how will they affect your wealth at home? Find out here.

US Economy News The US economy is drowning under the weight of its public and private debt. But is it too soon to call the end of this financial, military and political empire? Only time will tell. Either way, you need to make sure your investments are on the right side of the trade.

Eurozone Economy The Eurozone is in a huge mess right now. Can it hold it together or will, one-by-one, member states leave the Euro and go at it on their own? More importantly, what consequences will this have for Australia and your investments? More on that here.

Global Economy News Dont just follow the news on the global economy  get an inside peek into whats happening in developed and emerging economies around the world  and what it could mean for your investments. Go here for more.
In a bid to boost its returns, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has announced that it will more than double its allocation of assets to China by 2025, from the current 7.6% of its portfolio to as much as 20%.

The CPPIB, with present assets amounting to $367 billion, established its first international office in Hong Kong in 2008, and has $28 billion currently invested in mainland China.

Aside from this, the Board also has approximately $3 billion more invested in Chinese securities listed on the Shanghai and Shenzen stock exchanges, as part of the mainlands Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor program.
A new analysis by CBRE Group Inc. pegged Vancouver as the strongest industrial real estate market globally, with warehouses propelling the exceptional performance that has seen the citys lease rates grow 29% year-over-year in Q1 2018.

This is far above the worldwide average of 3% in that quarter, Bloomberg reported.

Industrial previously was almost like a forgotten asset class, CBRE Vancouver vice president and sales manager Jason Kiselbach said. But we havent even scratched the surface of the demand thats going to continue to grow and put more pressure on the industrial market.
Some of that has been lost over the last few years with the fluent, busy, ease of the market that weve been in, but there are many [originators] who have never seen the cycle, he said. So its really getting back to some of the basics that many of us started with at the very beginning, and being very purposeful and intentional. Its the whole idea of failure to plan is planning to fail, and figuring out what you want your business to look like, where its going to come from, and then being very consistent about it.

One thing thats been a part of Jablonskis plan and daily practice is setting boundaries. Theyre good for relationships, and theyre good for business as well. Other originators wear their constant availability like a badge of honor, Jablonski said, but thats not the way he operates.

When Im in the office its very regimented, very scheduled, very productive. But then, I think the difference for me is, Im not 24/7, he said. He has four kids and is involved in their activities, so he was firm about boundaries both at the beginning of his career and when establishing current relationships with referral partners who align well with his priorities. Some [partners] may not like it, but many really respect it and wish that they had some of that as well . . . . Very rarely do I spend all weekend working. Were productive enough during the week, and Ive got members of my team that would be available, but I really do try to put boundaries in place. Ive found it allows me to be a lot more productive because Ive got to get work done in those 10-12 hours a day during the week.

Jablonski has worked with both retail and correspondent lenders, and although he enjoyed his time and success with correspondent lenders, he moved to Bank of America in 2008 and never looked back. Hes always done a lot of new construction and jumbo loans, and during the market shift at that time, the banks were really the only players in the jumbo game. The correspondent field was so much higher on rate sheets that it became extremely difficult for him to do that business.

It was a scary time. But at that point, it was making the purposeful decision for my business to be able to have confidence that I knew that the next day, the funding would be there, and that the doors would be open. And not to take that for granted. Honestly, once I got into that world, I looked at the other side again at times, but its been a very good fit for me. Its not for everybody, but it certainly has been for me better than I probably even anticipated.
ODESSA  To Lupe Valdez, the race to win the gubernatorial seat in Texas is one of several uphill battles shes faced throughout her life. The Democratic candidate and former Dallas County sheriff on Monday said she thinks Texans are ready for a change.

I cant remember ever having it easy, Valdez said. And you know what? Im getting darn good at uphill battles.

Valdez shared details about her personal background and vision for Texas during a lunchtime event held at Ajuuas Mexican Restaurant in Odessa. She thinks teachers should be paid as professionals and that more money should be put toward education in the state.

We just need to invest more in things that are necessary for the future, she said. Public education is an equalizer, and we have to have our children compete in a global economy.

To fund education in the future, Valdez mentioned reviewing the tax code for outdated loopholes. She also questioned what could be done with funds that are being used for law enforcement at the Texas-Mexico border.

The candidate wants to unseat Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican elected to the position in 2014 with 59 percent of the vote.

Valdez during Mondays event referenced the uphill battle she faces as well as education-related ones from her past. She said she commuted outside her humble San Antonio neighborhood to attend a better public school and later worked multiple jobs to pay for college.

Karen Howard-Winters, vice president of the Ector County Democratic Club, said Valdezs emphasis on schools should make her appealing to West Texans.

Shes pro-education, for one thing, Howard-Winters said. Our schools are in such dire need of more money and more attention.

Midland ISD officials estimate local taxpayers will be responsible for more than $140 million in school finance payments during the next two years, according to a previous Reporter-Telegram story. As a part of the so-called Robin Hood system, MISD and other districts that are considered property-rich send money to the state to be distributed to poorer ones.

School funding has got to be totally redone, Valdez told the Reporter-Telegram. We have to go back and just go all over school funding again.

Valdez said the Midland-Odessa region is an important part of the state and wanted to hear from its people. She said the oil and gas industry has brought jobs to Texas and that renewable energy can generate profit for the state.

Oil and gas has been very good to us, but there is renewable energy, Valdez said. Texas leads with wind power and solar power.
Salaries for Midland Countys four commissioners will have increased by more than $20,000 (or greater than 47 percent) since 2010 if County Judge Mike Bradfords proposed budget is approved.

The proposed budget for fiscal year 2018-19 for Midland County calls for commissioners to receive a 9 percent raise. That means the same commissioner whose base salary was $47,176 in 2010, according to a 2011 Reporter-Telegram report, will make $69,083.45. Commissioners base salary currently is $63,379.31, according to information provided by Midland County.

Commissioners also get a $10,300 annual travel allowance and $60-a-year longevity pay based on years of service. They also could elect to receive an $80-per-month cellphone allowance. That computes to a possible $80,343 compensation package (not including insurance) for a first-year commissioner.

In 2010, the commissioners received a $6,900 allowance for county-related travel and gas mileage reimbursements, according to that previous article.

The 9 percent raise for Precinct 1 representative Scott Ramsey, Precinct 2 representative Robin Donnelly, Precinct 3 representative Luis Sanchez and Precinct 4 representative Randy Prude is more than the 6 percent hike proposed for elected officials, including the county judge, and the 4 percent increase for other county employees, according to information provided by the county.

County Judge Mike Bradford said he put the 9 percent in at the request of Sanchez for all commissioners consideration. He said there hasnt been overwhelming resistance from the court.

If they are passionate about it and willing to vote for it, I am willing to put it in the budget, Bradford said.

County Judge Mike Bradford, according to the Texas Association of Counties 2018 salary survey, makes a base salary of $110,356 with another $25,200 in salary supplements and $8,600 in a travel allowance. His salary ranks 20th of the 39 counties in Texas listed as having a population of 100,000 or more.

Midland County ranks 29th of 39 counties in terms of commissioners base salary. Midland County is one of only three counties with more than 100,000 population where commissioners receive a travel allowance of $10,000 or more.

Midland County commissioners are underpaid for amount of budget they handle and time they put in, Bradford said.

In 2011, Donnelly justified a pay raise for commissioners, saying, You can starve a job and make it so that nobody wants the job except someone who comes in and doesnt really care about it. Our idea is to maintain the job so you have good people who come in and care about the county and community.

Earlier this month, Ector County Commissioners set the bar on increasing their own pay by voting to give themselves an 8 percent pay increase. They also approved an 8 percent pay raise for their employees, compared to the 4 percent Midland County commissioners are set to approve.

Midland City Council members make $25 a month for their service.

The Reporter-Telegram has reached out to Bradfords office for comment.
A former kindergarten teacher is set to challenge the school board president in the battle for Midland ISD District 6.

Lauren Party told the Midland Reporter-Telegram she is using her classroom experience as a campaign tool as she promotes parental involvement and making the most of MISDs qualified teachers and staff members.

The seats up for election in November are Districts 3, 5 and 6. Party joins Rick Davis and Austin Beam as those who announced candidacies to represent District 6, which includes Lee High School, Abell Junior High, Rusk Elementary, Scharbauer Elementary and Bush Elementary. Party and Beam filed Monday -- the last day a person could file to be on the November ballot.

Party is a graduate of Texas Tech University. After earning a degree in multi-disciplinary studies with an emphasis in special education, she taught kindergarten for three years in Midland ISD. She is pursuing a masters degree in special education with an applied behavioral analysis. She was raised in San Antonio and believes Midland is a great community to raise a family.

She said that as a former teacher she knows the needs of teachers and parents.

My main goal is to help parents get involved in their students education, Party said. I want to see all Midland ISD students succeed.

She said Midland ISD is on a good path academically, but she would like to see more progress monitoring and see more programs implemented to show parents how to better support students. She believes the Parent University program should be required on all campuses because she saw the impact it had at Bunche Elementary.

I want to help provide a proper learning environment for all students, Party said. (Midland) has potential to be one of the best performing districts in the state.

More for you Davis seeks re-election to MISD board

Party is a member of Midland Moms on a Mission group that has been a presence at school board meetings for months. She says the group is not only about bullying reform but district leadership in general. Working to improve relationships with teachers would be an area she has first-hand experience.

I want to be a voice for all the families, Party said. I dont want to be just a voice for my district (but hear) concerns and suggestions for all Midland families.

On the Midland ISD ballot

District 3

Tommy Bishop

District 5

Heidi Jean Kirk

John Trischitti III

Thomas Wolfmueller

District 6

Austin Beam

Rick Davis

Lauren Party

Note: Monday was the last day to file to run in the November election.
AUSTIN  The gun issued to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lupe Valdez while she was Dallas County sheriff has been located after it was reported missing earlier this year. A search this week uncovered the Beretta 9 mm pistol in the departments property room, according to a statement from the Dallas County Sheriffs office.

The gun had been turned in on January 2, but wasnt entered into inventory at that time, the release said. A previous audit had failed to locate the firearm.

Sheriff (Marian) Brown and the Sheriffs Department offer their sincere apologies to former Sheriff Lupe Valdez for any distress and hardship that was created as a result of the Departments mistake, the statement said. The Sheriffs Department is in the process of reviewing how this oversight occurred and will be taking steps to implement measures to insure this type of incident does not occur again.

The Dallas Morning News first reported earlier this month that Valdezs department-issued pistol had gone missing. Critics attacked Valdezs credibility and Republican Gov. Greg Abbotts campaign posted an online video questioning whether she was responsible enough to lead the state.

In a written statement, Valdez said she has been a responsible gun owner for more than 40 years and has always followed protocol when returning issued property.

As a law enforcement officer, I made a commitment to keep the public safe and will continue to do so, she said. My opponent considered this a slam dunk, thinking this would distract from his unwillingness to keep our communities safe from gun violence, but I will not be strong-armed from keeping him accountable for his failures or be silenced on the need for gun reform.

Valdez was first elected sheriff of Dallas County in 2004. She stepped down in December to run for governor and won the Democratic party primary in a run-off.

This post has been updated with a comment from Valdez.

amorris@express-news.net
Loan Tran is reclaiming her true identity and her narrative.

And with a personal essay in The New York Times, her break from silence is an act of resistance against toxic fans who see nothing beyond the stories they want to hear, and think nothing of the very real experiences of the storytellers.

Known as Kelly Marie Tran in Hollywood, she was chased off of social media after a relentless bullying campaign against her over her role as Rose Tico, the first leading role for a woman of color in a "Star Wars" film. Episode 8 of the series, "The Last Jedi," divided its fan base, which is par for the course for anything "Star Wars." But some online commenters' complaints about the film and her character led them to attack her personally. In sharp contrast to her earnest Instagram posts basking in the joy of being a "Star Wars" hero, a barrage of racist and abusive comments criticized her looks and her ethnicity.

Tran outlines exactly why it was particularly harmful to her:

"Their words reinforced a narrative I had heard my whole life: that I was 'other,' that I didn't belong, that I wasn't good enough, simply because I wasn't like them," Tran wrote. "And that feeling, I realize now, was, and is, shame, a shame for the things that made me different, a shame for the culture from which I came from. And to me, the most disappointing thing was that I felt it at all."

The "Star Wars" role was her breakout, but Tran outlines the different "roles" she's expected to play all her life, that society "taught me I existed only in the background of their stories, doing their nails, diagnosing their illnesses, supporting their love interests - and perhaps the most damaging - waiting for them to rescue me."

She then talks about how her parents felt it necessary to abandon their given names to adopt Western names, Tony and Kay, "a literal erasure of culture that still has me aching to the core."

Tran and her family are just a few of many Asian-Americans who change their names to ease their passage through an American life. Chloe Bennet, star of ABC's "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," recently defended her decision to change her last name from her Chinese one because "Hollywood is racist and wouldn't cast me with a last name that made them uncomfortable." And a 2016 study showed Asian job applicants with Western names were more likely to receive a call back from potential employers than ones with Asian names.

Tran writes about her ambition to "live in a world where children of color don't spend their entire adolescence wishing to be white." She declares that her real name is Loan, and that she's just getting started.

Despite her not mentioning "The Last Jedi" or her character once, some replies to the Times Arts section's tweet of her essay still couldn't help but make the same ad nauseam gripe that led to this whole issue: They didn't like her character.

It's important to note that other than accepting a leading role in a "Star Wars" film (and who would pass on that?), she was pushed into a situation that was not of her making or choosing. She did not write the Rose Tico character. She did not write "The Last Jedi" or any of the plot points torn apart by YouTube's countless armchair critics, including the infamously panned Canto Bight sequence, where Rose and fellow "Star Wars" lead hero Finn take a long detour to a casino.

It's not unlike the circumstance of her existence. Asian. Woman. San Diego-born American. Daughter of Vietnamese refugees. None of these facets that shape her life were her decision, yet she faced judgment and shouldered unrealistic or unwarranted expectations on her identity. Similarly, her "Star Wars" character began life as a character unsure of her place in the universe, and within the resistance against evil forces.

With Tuesday's act of defiance in breaking silence and declaring her real name, she has decided to own and shape the narrative about her. She understands her prestige as a storyteller as the first woman of color in a leading "Star Wars" role, and she aims to change the rules that were written before she was born.

Rose Tico returns in "Star Wars: Episode IX" on Dec. 20, 2019. You can already hear the cheers when she returns to the big screen. But with her essay, the next episode of the Loan Tran story has already begun.
VIRGINIA  A Virginia man is facing several charges after wrecking his motorcycle near Virginia.

According to an Illinois State Police report, Wesley D. Helmich, 30, of Virginia was riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle on Virginia Road about 7:40 p.m. Sunday.

As he was approaching a curve at Old Bethel Church Road, his motorcycle left the road and traveled up an embankment, where it came to rest, according to the report.

Helmich was flown to Memorial Hospital in Springfield with non-life threatening injuries.

According to state police, the driver was charged with improper lane use and driving under the influence.
We are not at loggerheads with ...
During the Democratic Weekly Address, Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) slammed the Trump administration for its sabotage of the healthcare system.

Baldwin was Tuesdays KVML Newsmaker of the Day. Here are her words:

Hi, Im Tammy Baldwin, and I have the honor of working for Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate.

The Trump administration is rewriting the rules on guaranteed health care protections that millions of Americans depend on.

They are moving forward on an expansion of junk insurance plans that can deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and dont have to cover essential services like prescription drugs, emergency room visits, and maternity care.

This is more of the same from Washington and we need your help to stop them.

Last year, when Congressional Republicans tried to pass repeal plans that would allow insurance companies to charge more for preexisting conditions  families across our country fought back.

And when they tried to charge older Americans an age tax and make people pay more for less care, you let your voices be heard and sent a loud message to Washington  protect our care.

President Trump did not listen and we need you in this fight now more than ever.

Instead of working in a bipartisan way to take on big drug companies and lower prescription drug costs, Congressional Republicans gave them a huge tax giveaway as they continue to jack up your prices.

Instead of working in a bipartisan way to lower health care costs for the middle class, President Trump has been working to sabotage our health system.

The Trump administrations sabotage has made it harder for people to sign up for coverage and created instability in the health care market, contributing to premium spikes in Wisconsin and across the country for 2018.

The Trump administration has even gone to court to support a lawsuit that would take away guaranteed health protections and raise costs for Americans with pre-existing conditions.

If they succeed, insurance companies will again be able to deny coverage or charge higher premiums for more than 130 million Americans with a pre-existing condition.

When I was nine years old, I got sick. Really sick. I was in the hospital for three months.

I recovered, but I was branded as a child with a pre-existing health condition and denied coverage.

This personal experience has driven my fight to make sure that every American has affordable, quality health care coverage  including the more than two million Wisconsinites with pre-existing conditions.

Today, because of the Affordable Care Act, they cannot be discriminated against and denied health care coverage.

But now, President Trumps latest act of sabotage will expand junk insurance plans that could increase costs and reduce access to quality coverage for millions, harm people with pre-existing conditions and force premium increases on older Americans.

Thats why I am leading an effort in the U.S. Senate to take action and stop this sabotage.

Right now, I am organizing my colleagues to support a new Senate resolution that would force a vote on these junk plans.

We cannot let the Trump administration rewrite the rules on the guaranteed protections that families need.

If you agree, please make your voices heard in support of my Senate resolution to force a vote on overturning the Trump administrations expansion of junk insurance plans.

Together, we have fought against efforts to repeal health care because no family should be forced to choose between helping a loved one get better or going bankrupt.

Together, we must fight this latest act of health care sabotage  lets say no to Trumps junk insurance plans and make sure Washington starts working for you to protect your health care and make it more affordable.

The Newsmaker of the Day is heard every weekday morning at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML.
Calaveras County Sheriff's Office View Photos

San Andreas, CA  An 18-year-old with confessed ties to a gang that pays tribute to the Mexican Mafia and has nationalized in the U.S. was arrested after a disturbing incident at a local academy.

According to Calaveras County Sheriffs spokesperson Sgt. Rachelle Whiting, deputies responded to the Rite of Passage Sierra Ridge Academy located on Fricot City Road near San Andreas last Thursday night following a call reporting that a student had attempted to stab staff members. Sgt. Whiting notes that the academy is advertised as a school program for disadvantaged youth.

During the incident investigation, she recounts deputies learned that 18-year-old Steven Perez-Bogle of El Monte had become agitated when two staff members instructed him to return to his bunk for the night. Refusing to follow instructions, he instead pulled a metal object from his pocket and then attempted to stab a staff member several times. The object was later determined to be an improvised knife made out of a shaved-down key.

Whiting reports that a staff member sustained a minor injury before other staff members were able to remove the weapon from Perez-Bogle. He was arrested on felonious assault with a deadly weapons charges, including likely to cause great bodily injury on a school employee. Since during his interview he admitted to being a Surenos gang member and had gang paraphernalia in his possession, he was additionally charged with participation in a criminal street gang. He was booked into the Calaveras County jail with $50,000 bail.
Protesters in Sacramento at Water Rally Aug 20 2018 View Photos

Sonora, CA  A massive turnout of Californians, some from the Mother Lode, showed up to protest state water regulators plans to allocate significantly more water for fish flows.

Mondays Water Grab Rally on the north steps of the State Capitol in Sacramento kicked off at high noon. It was scheduled to happen a day ahead of a previously scheduled two-day public hearings period that is still happening. However, the Water Board, which originally hoped to push through its final plan to seek at its discretion 40 to 60 percent unimpaired flows from three rivers including the Stanislaus, has postponed the vote in the wake of local, state and even federal uproar, as reported here.

Along with losing so much additional water for multiple beneficial purposes, generating billions in economic losses downstream, reverberating impacts would locally hit home, such as by rendering New Melones reservoir mostly useless for recreation and long-term storage.

Mother Lode Lawmakers Unload

Federal, state and local officials and a spectrum of stakeholder groups turned out to chant, wave signs and hear from various speakers. Among Mother Lode officials on hand were Tuolumne County supervisors Karl Rodefer and Randy Hanvelt, who shared their impressions of the rally with Clarke Broadcasting.

(Note: They and Oakdale Irrigation District General Manager Steve Knell also shared photos you can view by clicking into the image box slideshow. Knell estimated the crowd size as over 2,000 although he heard another estimation at 1,500 or so. One photo that Rodefer captured was of the counter protest, which he described as an assembly of about a dozen people from the Sierra Club.)

There is a groundswell of people who are saying stop this stuff  this is not a solution  it is based on bad science, ignoring thereal science, Hanvelt recounted. Asked to describe the protest groups, he replied, There was a real cross-section of people there. They were not Democrat or Republicans  they were Californians. He adds that stakeholder presences included agricultural groups, representatives from cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, contingents from mountain communities, the Central Valley, and northern areas above Shasta.

A Call For Better Alternatives

California Farm Bureau Federation spokesperson Dave Kranz shared, What was striking about the rally is that while the [current] plans would affect only the watersheds of the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced riverseveryone realizes that this effortwill eventually spread to other watersheds in other parts of the state. He emphasized, Everyone realizes that this is a very important situation that needs to be resolved  and we hope that the board will look at other alternatives that will achieve the same goals without taking so much water from other peoples use.

Assemblymember Adam Gray, who was a key organizer behind the protest event, noted that public pressure has been building on the Brown Administration for months to shelve the Water Boards plan and instead work in cooperation with the wide-ranging stakeholder groups. Communities throughout the state are taking noticeand calling foul on the states sorry excuse for a plan. If regulators would admit their current proposal relies on unfounded selective science, they would see that there are balanced alternatives which offer really environmental benefits without decimating local communities, he maintained.

He added, Despite their misguided plan, irrigation districts and water rights holders remain at the table willing to negotiate voluntary settlements. The only alternative to reasonable settlement is a decades worth of litigation. While that might make the lawyers happy, it will do nothing to improve environmental conditions. The choice is simple.
Yosemite, CA  Yosemite National Park announces that a hiker who had been missing since July 25 was found dead in a northeastern area of the park.

48-year-old Scott Tenczar of San Jose was described as being an experienced backpacker. Before going missing he was last seen at a ranger station east of Yosemite. He was in the midst of a multi-day back-packing trip. Tenczars cause of death is still under investigation.

It was the second body found in the park in just the past week. This past Friday the National Park Service reported that John Cogdell, a park ranger, was found dead after being missing for a few days. No details were released regarding his cause of death.
Uh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here.
On this date in ...

1918: Saratoga Springs had its second murder since the opening of the 1918 horse racing season when Marcellus Hazeltine shot five bullets into the chest of Eli Lucas, 52, at 10:30 in the morning in the middle of a crowded Congress Street. The two men had been arguing about money matters while walking down Congress, and as they approached South Federal Street, Hazeltine calmly pulled out a revolver and fired it before quietly walking away after Lucas fell to the ground. Police apprehended Hazeltine trying to escape out the back door of a nearby tailor shop.

1968: It was wrong for teachers to blame parents of children in inner-city areas for taking little interest in school matters, said Seth Spellman, professor at SUNY Albany's School of Social Welfare, addressing about 50 teachers at a 10-day training for teaching minority children. He said parents were concerned with their own survival, not with the future, so it was up to the teachers and community to provide stimulation and learning experiences to make the children aspire higher.

1993: For more than two decades, gay rights activists had been pushing the state Legislature to expand New York's civil rights law to cover homosexuals. This year, they came closer than ever to succeeding  getting the Assembly to pass a gay rights bill, only to see it killed in a closed conference of the Senate's Republican majority. But the issue wasn't going away. The legislation was certain to be reintroduced next session, and many on both sides of the issue believed that in Albany, the battle over gay rights would become even more intense and emotional.

Want to read more about the Capital Region's past? Have any memories or thoughts about how our history relates to today's events? See http://blog.timesunion.com/history.
GREENWICH  Atoms. Cosmic. Vibrations. Democracy. Self-importance.

These words took on new meaning during a discussion about Leonard Bernstein, who would have turned 100 Saturday, at the Nantucket Project headquarters in downtown Greenwich Monday night.

Throw out what you were expecting, Im not giving you a lecture of the history of Leonard Bernstein, said Steve Rowland, who facilitated the conversation.

Instead, Rowland  who produced the award-winning radio show Leonard Bernstein: An American Life  used his oral biography as a platform to rehash questions the composer wrestled with in life, on the origins of life, the universality of music and the purpose of art.

That openness is exactly what we hope for, said Scott Williams, the Nantucket Projects president.

The house hosts two conversations each month, open to the public, as part of the organizations Mason Street Project, a local, low-key iteration of the Nantucket Projects annual ideas conference in September. That event, on Nantucket Island, draws multiple speakers and hundreds of attendees.

Bernstein, famous for conducting the New York Philharmonic and for composing West Side Story, was not exposed to music as a young child, unlike many of his stature, Rowland began.

As he researched his subject, he discovered the extent of the composers intellectual talents and his social conscience, aspects of Bernsteins life he introduced through excerpts of his radio show.

Rowland played a bit from an interview with American pianist Leon Fleisher. The musician recalled how after shows, Bernstein would say: I was really on the edge of the abyss there.

Before Rowland continued, Greenwich resident Tish Richardson asked, What does that mean?

The audience grabbed hold of the concept of the abyss.

To feel so full of passion, to feel the intention that could take you apart, to feel so inspired by a thing that you could lose yourself except that you cant because you have to keep it together to convey it, New York City-based performance artist Barbara Ann Michaels said. The abyss would be falling apart and the edge would be all the skill you had to practice in order to keep from doing so.

When his presentation ended, Rowland passed out waffle cones with papers inside. In groups of two, people associated words on the papers with the themes Rowland introduced.

Westport photographer Stephen Wilkes had atoms, which he associated with a letter Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wrote to Bernstein and Rowland included in his presentation. In it, she thanked Bernstein for the piece of music he conducted for the funeral of her brother-in-law, Robert.

When you think about it, each musician is like an atom, and Bernsteins gift was to stir these individual atoms and create this energy wave ... that got passed to Jackie in particular, Wilkes said. It affected her so deeply she had to write about it, and that letter stored the energy until you discovered it, and now that you discovered it, its creating more and more ripples after the fact.

Rowlands eyes widened and he jotted down the comparison.

This is a really good example of collective genius, thank you, Rowland said.

Richardson had self-important, which begged the question if Bernstein had that quality.

Some people have a sense they have a place in the world and that place is to speak out and show their ideas, Richardson said.

Rowland agreed, and said people who have made contributions to humanity, including Bernstein, could be thanked for their self-importance.

Williams lauded Rowland for weaving Bernsteins interests in science, music and existence into one story that got nearly all the audience members to speak.

Hes the real deal, Williams said. I was completely blown away.

Rowland, a Seattle resident, combined the talk with visits to New York City. Williams said Rowland has a shot at getting his show broadcast again.

Its been broadcast once, and when it was, it won all these awards, Williams said. It seems more applicable now than ever, given that its his 100th birthday.

The program aired on public radio in 2008. Among its honors was a Peabody Award.

When asked if Monday nights discussion demonstrated Bernsteins importance to the Greenwich community, Williams had two words: Heck yes.

For the producer  who spent seven years making the radio show and getting to know Bernstein through others  current celebrations of the composer remind him of the Bernsteins absence.

Its too bad Lenny is not around to guide us the way he used to be, Rowland said.

jo.kroeker@hearstmediact.com
/

HAMDEN  Following participation in a distracted driving campaign, police continue to urge motorists to park in a safe location before using their cellphone, according to a news release.

The Hamden Police Department recently participated in the Connecticut Department of Transportations 2018 Distracted Driving High Visibility Enforcement Campaign, and officers issued 635 tickets for cellphone use and distracted driving, the release said.
The Colorado man who is accused of killing his pregnant wife and two daughters before dumping them at an oil work site told the police that it was his wife who strangled the children  and that he strangled her out of rage, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant released Monday.

The man, Christopher Watts, 33, had been having an affair with a co-worker, the police said, and had told his wife he wanted to separate during an emotional conversation on the night of Aug. 13.

Afterward, he told the police, he had looked at the family's baby monitor and had seen his wife strangling their daughter Celeste, 3. Their other daughter, Bella, 4, was laying on her bed and appeared blue, he said. After that, he strangled his wife, he told the police.

But the authorities believe Watts  who gave a television interview pleading for the return of his family before he was arrested  is responsible for all three deaths.

On Monday, he was charged with murder in the deaths of his wife, Shanann, 34, as well as their daughters. He faces a total of nine criminal counts, including unlawful termination of a pregnancy and tampering with dead bodies.

James E. Merson, a public defender who is representing Watts, did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

Though Watts said he did not kill his children, he said he did dump their bodies in oil tanks and bury their mother nearby, according to the affidavit.

The next day, Aug. 14, after his family was reported missing, he stood on his porch and pleaded in an interview with a television reporter for his wife and two young children to come home.

"Shanann, Bella, Celeste, if you're out there, just come back," Watts said, staring into the camera. "If somebody has her, just bring her back. I need to see everybody, I need to see everybody again. This house is not complete without anybody here."

He eventually confessed to knowing where they were and showed investigators where to find them on an aerial photograph of the oil site, according to the affidavit.

The bodies were found on the property of the Anadarko Petroleum Corp., an oil company where Watts worked, the authorities said. He was fired on the day of his arrest, according to a company spokeswoman.

The defense has asked the authorities to take swabs of the children's necks and suggested that DNA may still be present, despite the fact that their bodies were submerged in oil for several days, according to court records.

In a news conference Monday, Michael Rourke, the Weld County district attorney, declined to answer specific questions about the case. Afterward, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office did not respond to a request for comment about Watts' account of what happened.

Nickole Atkinson, a friend of Shanann Watts, said in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" broadcast Monday that she had reported her friend missing after Watts, who was 15 weeks pregnant, had missed a doctor's appointment. "She was going to get to hear the baby's heartbeat," Atkinson said in the interview.

She expressed little surprise that Christopher Watts had been implicated in the deaths. "He wasn't being the loving Chris that he normally was," Atkinson said. "He wasn't touching or hugging or doing stuff like that. He wasn't being as attentive to the girls as he normally is."

At the prosecutor's news conference Monday, Shanann Watts' father made a brief statement. Through tears, he thanked the authorities for their help and the community for its support.
Search on for man

who escaped arrest

BAYLIS  Pike County authorities are looking for a man they said was able to evade arrest on drug-related charges last week.

About 7:15 p.m. Aug. 13, deputies made a routine traffic stop on County Highway 2 near Baylis. A search of the vehicle revealed methamphetamine, a prescription controlled substance and drug paraphernalia, according to the report.

Driver Cain I. Vincent, 18, of Pittsfield was arrested on charges of possession of methamphetamine and possession of a controlled substance.

A passenger, Dusty L. Embree, 23, of Griggsville, was taken into custody for an outstanding Pike County arrest warrant. He was handcuffed and searched, during which a deputy reported finding drug paraphernalia.

Embree fled on foot into a nearby cornfield out of sight. A search of the area by deputies, Illinois State Police, the West Central Illinois Drug Task Force and other volunteer agencies had to be ended because of darkness.



Morgan County

Sheriff

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Trevor R. Fromme, 31, of 503 Lake Drive, Franklin, was booked into the Morgan County jail at 12:17 a.m. Sunday on charges of violating a stop/yield sign and driving while license is revoked or suspended.

 Arcella M. Cameron, 63, of 4100 Petefish Rd., Virginia, was booked into the Morgan County jail at 2:31 p.m. Monday on charges of driving on a revoked or suspended license and operating an uninsured vehicle.

Jacksonville Police

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Sherrell R. Robinson, 73 of 810 Beesley Ave. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 2:19 a.m. Sunday on charges of driving under the influence and failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident after police say the vehicle she was driving hit the rear of a vehicle being driven by Blake A Maddox, 27, of Jacksonville about 11:40 p.m. Saturday at East Douglas Avenue and Brown Street.

 Skee D. Sanders, 24, of 308 N. Church St. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 2:49 a.m. Sunday on a burglary charge.

 Kenneth J. Montero Rosado, 26, of 1420 E. Sixth St., Beardstown, was booked into the Morgan County jail at 4:03 p.m. Sunday on a charge of violating an order of protection.

 Haley S. Brown, 25, of 320 S. Fayette St. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 1:56 a.m. Monday on charges of theft and domestic battery.

 Wilbert Jr. Bruner, 54, of 320 Farell St. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 5:02 p.m. Monday on a charge of theft.

 Dennis B. Lancaster, 36, of 15 Harmony Dr. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 5:39 p.m. Monday on a charge of violating an order of protection.

BURGLARIES, THEFTS

 A lawnmower was taken from a residence in the 300 block of Berkshire Lane between Thursday and Saturday, according to a report filed at 6:02 p.m. Saturday.

 Between 5:20 and 9:27 p.m. Saturday, the window of a vehicle parked in the parking lot of a North East Street business was broken and a purse was taken, according to a report filed at 9:27 p.m. Saturday.



Brown County

Sheriff

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Colin T. Fuqua, 19, of Mount Sterling was cited on a charge of illegal possession of alcohol by a minor at 12:31 a.m. Saturday on U.S. 24 two miles west of Mount Sterling. He was also issued a citation on a charge of possession of cannabis.

 Kitchell R. Deters, 32, of Fowler was cited on a charge of possession of cannabis wax at 6:35 p.m. Aug. 13 on U.S. 24 at Ripley.



Pike County

Sheriff

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Dustin M. Christison, 33, of Barry was arrested at 8:40 p.m. Sunday on a violation of an order of protection.

 Walter L. Michel, 22, of Nebo was arrested at 6:58 p.m. Saturday on charges of driving while license is suspended or revoked and leaving the scene/failing to report an accident.

 Sean A. Robertson, 23, of New Canton was arrested at 11:05 p.m. Wednesday on charges of driving while license is suspended or revoked and operating an uninsured motor vehicle.

 Zebulon Q. McDaniels, 23, of Nebo was arrested at 10:19 a.m. Wednesday on a petition to revoke probation.

 Stacey Bland, 55, of Quincy was arrested at 6:37 p.m. Aug. 15 on charges of driving under the influence, operating an uninsured motor vehicle, driving while license is suspended or revoked and illegal transportation of alcohol by a driver.

 Austin W. Ellison, 18, of Kinderhook was arrested at 8:03 p.m. Aug. 15 on a battery charge.

 William M. Scranton, 37, of Nebo was arrested at 9:59 p.m. Aug. 14 on charges of driving under the influence and having no valid drivers license.

Compiled by David C.L. Bauer, Nick Draper, Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree
For many central Illinois students, Monday was the first day of a new school year in a new classroom.

At Washington Elementary School, students adjusting to the newness of their third-grade classroom shared the experience with their teachers, who were adjusting to their first day in a Washington classroom.

Teachers Morgan Zachary and Tracy Thrasher previously worked together at Salem Lutheran School and both took jobs this year as third-grade teachers at Washington.

The pair spent the first day at their new school getting to know their new co-workers and students.

It was an awesome day, Thrasher said. Ive been so impressed by the kids. They know the procedures and the points of Leader in Me. Theyve been great.

This isnt Thrashers first time teaching in a Washington classroom, though it is her first time at Washington as a full-time teacher.

I actually student taught in this classroom 17 years ago, Thrasher said. Coming back here to teach after teaching in other places is coming full circle for me.

For Zachary, coming into the classroom Monday was an exciting start in a new place.

There was just so much excitement, Zachary said. It was great. You know sometimes there can be some sadness at the end of summer, but the kids were just so excited.

Zachary and Thrasher will work together to develop the third-grade students in their classes this year, from planning similar lessons to joint class projects.

While starting off at a new school, both Thrasher and Zachary said they have felt welcomed into the school and the district with open arms.

Everyone has been so welcoming, Zachary said. Its not just the students. Its the staff and the parents, everyone has been so welcoming.

Thrasher agreed.

Theyve been checking in on us, seeing if we have questions, Thrasher said. Theyve reached out to us.

During the remainder of the school year, Thrasher hopes to build connections with her students, she said.

Once they are my students, they are my kids, Thrasher said. I push them academically and see the growth in them. I have kids that I have watched all the way through high school.

Zachary also is excited to see her students progress throughout the year, she said.

I am excited to see them reach their full potential, Zachary said. I want to see them take on some self-motivation as big third-graders.

Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1233, or on Twitter @JCNews_samantha.
WASHINGTON - The Trump administration on Tuesday proposed relaxing pollution standards for power plants nationwide, a move that could slow the decline of U.S. carbon emissions and lead to hundreds more premature deaths and thousands of asthma attacks and missed school days.

The Environmental Protection Agency's Affordable Clean Energy rule, which President Donald Trump planned to tout at a roundtable meeting in Charleston, West Virginia, on Tuesday evening, represents the administration's most ambitious proposal to bolster the nation's coal industry. Although it probably would have a modest impact on curbing carbon dioxide emissions in the power sector, it could potentially increase human health risks from other pollutants.

The measure, which would replace an Obama-era rule that set strict carbon dioxide limits for each state and encouraged the shuttering of coal plants, is likely to widen the environmental policy divide between red and blue states. Officials in conservative states may allow utilities to extend the life of coal-fired units, while those in liberal states are likely to keep pressing for steep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

"We're pleased that the proposed rule recognizes and respects the environmental and energy needs of each state," said John Mura, communications director for Kentucky's Energy and Environment Cabinet. His state has made progress in cutting emissions, but 79 percent of its electricity still comes from coal.

Several Democratic leaders said Trump's proposed rollback is irresponsible.

"This is a declaration of war against America and all of humanity - it will not stand," California Gov. Jerry Brown, D, said in a statement. "Truth and common sense will triumph over Trump's insanity."

One of the measure's biggest effects could be on public health, because it would allow coal-fired plants to run longer if they became more efficient, which could increase the total amount of soot and smog-forming pollutants they emit. The EPA projects that the rule could lead to 470 to 1,400 premature deaths each year compared with the Obama-era rule.

"There is nothing clean or affordable about this rule," Carter Roberts, president and chief executive of the World Wildlife Fund, an advocacy group, said in a statement. "Coal plants emit more carbon pollution than all other sources. They're often more expensive than natural gas, solar, or wind energy. And worst of all, they impose severe public health costs on us all."

But Bill Wehrum, who heads EPA's air and radiation office, said that the proposal would provide companies with an incentive to update their operations and that the agency has other policies that reduce traditional pollutants.

"What we're dealing with here are greenhouse gases," Wehrum said. "We have abundant legal authority to deal with those other pollutants directly, and we have aggressive programs in place that directly target emissions of those pollutants."

The agency estimates that the power sector's greenhouse gas emissions would continue to decline in coming years, but almost entirely as a result of market pressures. By 2030, carbon dioxide levels would be 0.7 percent to 1.5 percent lower than they would have without any regulation in place, it said, a reduction of 12 million to 24 million metric tons.

By contrast, the Obama rule would have cut 67 million metric tons compared to business as usual over the same time frame.

Many states are pressing ahead to close coal plants and expand the use of natural gas and renewable energy. Craig W. Butler, director of Ohio's Environmental Protection Agency, said his state has retired 9,200 megawatts of coal power since 2010, largely because of Ohio's robust natural gas reserves.

"There's been a culling in the market in Ohio, just because of market forces," Butler said. "The plants we have remaining are much more efficient."

Environmentalists and several Democratic attorneys general said they would challenge the proposed rule in court because it would delegate too much authority to the states.

"This isn't how the Clean Air Act is supposed to work," said Earthjustice counsel Howard Fox, noting that the federal government traditionally sets specific pollution targets. "States have leeway about how to achieve the reduction, but not whether to achieve it."

Industry officials praised the administration for the plan, which EPA estimates would save the power sector $400 million a year in compliance costs compared with the rule it would replace.

A key component of the rule would allow plants to run longer if they can convert coal to electricity more efficiently, without having to install new controls to curb fine particulate matter, or soot, as well as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Fine particulates are linked to heart and lung disease, while the other two pollutants can cause respiratory illnesses.

EPA estimates that by 2030, the measure could cause 48,000 new cases of exacerbated asthma, and at least 21,000 new missed days of school a year.

"The cost of failing to act is enormous - from increases in lung disease and heavy metal poisoning to the many health harms from climate change that doctors are already seeing among their patients," said Mona Sarfaty, director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health.

About 40 percent of the U.S. coal fleet has been retired or slated for retirement since 2010, according to the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. The Sierra Club says that 270 of the 523 coal plants it targeted in 2010 are either shut down or scheduled to be.

Electric utilities with coal generation are encouraged by the EPA's proposal. John McManus, senior vice president of environmental services at American Electric Power, one of the nation's largest electric utilities, said in an interview that the proposal would be less onerous than the Obama-era rule. "This approach makes sense," he said.

The Obama-era rule, dubbed the Clean Power Plan, never took effect because the Supreme Court stayed it after more than two dozen Republican attorneys general and industry groups said the EPA exceeded its legal authority.

Trevor Houser, an energy analyst with the Rhodium Group, said the U.S. power sector was already on track to meet the Obama administration's target of cutting emissions 32 percent by 2030. But he added the United States is falling short of the broader climate goal it pledged in the 2015 Paris Agreement, to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions between 26 percent and 28 percent compared to 2005 levels by the end of the next decade.

"The U.S. is not on track to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement, the best chance that we have for averting catastrophic climate change," said Houser, who served in the State Department under President Barack Obama. "This is a missed opportunity to accelerate progress in the power sector in a way that would deliver on those commitments."

- - -

The Washington Post's Dino Grandoni contributed to this report.
NEW YORK - President Donald Trump's former longtime attorney and his onetime campaign chairman were separately declared guilty Tuesday of eight crimes each, a dramatic collision of two investigations that intensified the legal and political pressure on the embattled president.

In a guilty plea entered in a Manhattan federal courthouse, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen implicated Trump directly in some of his acts, saying he arranged to pay off two women to keep their stories of alleged affairs with Trump from becoming public before Election Day - in coordination with the then-candidate.

At nearly the same moment, a jury in Alexandria, Virginia, convicted former Trump campaign boss Paul Manafort on eight of the 18 tax- and bank-fraud charges against him and said it was deadlocked on the 10 others.

The charges in the Manafort trial involved the former campaign manager's personal finances and were not related to special counsel Robert Mueller III's investigation ofRussian interference in the 2016 campaign. But Manafort's conviction on eight counts, in the first trial to emerge from Mueller's inquiry, was a major victory for the special counsel.

"Paul Manafort's a good man," Trump told reporters in West Virginia. The verdict, he said, "doesn't involve me, but I still feel, you know, it's a very sad thing that happened."

Later, speaking to supporters at a rally in Charleston, West Virginia, the president repeated his frequent denunciation of the special-counsel investigation as the "Russia witch hunt."

"Where is the collusion?" he said, his voice rising. "Where is the collusion?"

Tuesday's dual courtroom dramas played out on cable TV in an extraordinary split screen. Five Trump associates have now pleaded guilty or been charged with criminal wrongdoing since Trump took office, including his former national security adviser, his deputy campaign chairman and a former campaign policy adviser.

In a statement, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said: "There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government's charges against Cohen. It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Cohen's actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time."

Cohen - long the self-professed "fixer" for Trump - pleaded guilty after prosecutors warned that he risked more than a dozen years in prison, according to a person familiar with the matter. Although Cohen's plea deal did not include a promise to cooperate with investigators against any other people, his description of his acts implicated not just himself but also Trump and others.

Lanny Davis, an attorney for Cohen, said in television interviews Tuesday night that Cohen has information that would be of interest to Mueller and is happy to share it with the special counsel.

Davis told MSNBC that those topics include the "computer crime of hacking" and "whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on."

Mueller "will have a great deal of interest in what Michael has to say," he added.

Earlier Tuesday, Cohen pleaded guilty to five counts of tax evasion, one count of making a false statement to a bank and two campaign finance violations: willfully causing an illegal corporate contribution and making an excessive campaign contribution.

"Guilty, your honor," Cohen said eight times as Judge William Pauley III read the counts.

The longtime attorney for Trump faces a recommended prison sentence of 46 to 63 months, according to court filings.

Cohen told the court that "in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office," he and the chief executive of a media company worked in the summer of 2016 to keep an individual from publicly disclosing information that could harm the candidate. And he said he worked "in coordination" with the same candidate to make a payment to a second individual.

"I participated in this conduct . . . for the principal purpose of influencing the election," he said.

The details he described matched payments made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult-film star Stormy Daniels. Both have alleged that they had sexual encounters with Trump, which he has denied.

In August 2016, McDougal was paid $150,000 by AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, for the rights to her story, which the company then shelved. In October 2016, Cohen used a home-equity line of credit to finance a $130,000 payment to Daniels.

Trump had previously denied knowledge of the Daniels payoff, and Giuliani said Trump did not know about it at the time. But Cohen said Tuesday that Trump repaid him the money for the purpose of influencing the campaign.

According to court filings, Cohen used a line of credit for the Daniels payment that he obtained through a fraudulent loan application in 2015.

In January 2017, after Trump's election, he sought reimbursement for the Daniels payment from Trump. Unnamed executives at the Trump Organization directed that Cohen be paid $420,000, which would reimburse him for his payment, along with additional money for taxes and expenses and a $60,000 bonus, filings said. One executive told another to falsely describe the fees as legal expenses and describe the first two monthly payments as a "retainer," according to court papers.

A Trump Organization spokesman declined to comment.

Court papers also detailed extensive behind-the-scenes efforts by a person matching the description of AMI Chairman David Pecker to try to stop negative stories about Trump from surfacing.

Pecker and a top National Enquirer official warned Cohen through an encrypted application that Daniels was going to make a deal to sell her story to another outlet, court papers said. Within days, Cohen had used a shell company to wire Daniels's attorney $130,000.

AMI officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Asked by Pauley, the judge, whether he knew what he did was wrong and illegal, Cohen said yes.

Davis said in a statement that Cohen pleaded guilty "so that his family can move on to the next chapter." "Today he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election," Davis added. "If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?"

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.

According to court filings, Cohen failed to report $4 million in income from 2012 to 2016 to avoid paying taxes on money he earned, mostly through interest and taxi rental payments.

He also concealed $100,000 he made selling a piece of property in Ocala, Florida, in 2014, a $30,000 in profit he made for arranging the sale of a couture Birkin handbag and $200,000 in consulting fees he made from an assisted-living company, according to filings.

As part of his plea deal, Cohen agreed to file corrected tax returns and pay $1.5 million to the Internal Revenue Service.

Cohen - who is out on bail until his scheduled sentencing in December - left the courthouse shortly after the hearing ended, entering a black Buick as a protester across the street screamed, "Lock him up."

Robert Khuzami, the deputy U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement that rather than respect the law as an attorney, Cohen "chose to break the law, repeatedly over many years and in a variety of ways. His day of reckoning serves as a reminder that we are a nation of laws, with one set of rules that applies equally to everyone."

The case against him stems in part from work done by Mueller's team, which examined Cohen's role in at least two episodes involving Russian interests, according to people familiar with that probe.

[Special counsel has examined episodes involving Michael Cohen, Trump's longtime lawyer]

However, special-counsel investigators have indicated to federal law enforcement officials that the office does not require Cohen's cooperation for its inquiry, according to two people familiar with their work.

The Cohen investigation first burst into public view in April, when FBI agents searched his New York office, home and hotel room. The searches - in which agents collected all of Cohen's phones and electronic devices - set off panic in the White House that federal investigators were looking into Trump's business dealings and communications with Cohen.

Since then, the probe has led to revelations about how Cohen sought to squelch negative stories about Trump and then leverage his access to the president.

After the raid, Giuliani acknowledged that the president had made several payments reimbursing Cohen for the $130,000 settlement with Daniels.

Meanwhile, leaked documents showed that Cohen was paid millions last year by companies such as AT&T and Novartis to provide advice about the administration.

Cohen had been under scrutiny by federal prosecutors starting in the fall of 2017, when Mueller's team came across some unusual financial transactions and loans Cohen had obtained. The special counsel referred the matter to the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York.

- - -

Barrett and Leonnig reported from Washington. The Washington Post's Lynh Bui, Josh Dawsey, Rosalind S. Helderman, Beth Reinhard, Felicia Sonmez and Shane Harris contributed to this report.
By all accounts, the first time an Israeli met Yasser Arafat was in July 1982, after Uri Avnery - a white-haired war veteran, left-wing politician and muckraking journalist - boarded the Palestinian leader's armored Mercedes in the streets of West Beirut.

The car swerved through the alleyways of a city under siege, one month into an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and ferried Avnery to an ordinary apartment building where he spent two-and-a-half hours interviewing the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman, a man many Israelis deemed a terrorist.

Accompanied by a German television crew, they discussed the possibility of peace in the Middle East and, according to a report in Britain's Independent newspaper, bonded over a game of chess.

"There was a joke about Mr. Arafat not being married," Avnery later told The Washington Post. "I said if he would marry an Israeli girl it would solve the whole problem. He said if it would solve the problem, he would do it that day."

As scenes of his meeting with Arafat aired on Israeli television, Avnery returned home to face accusations of treason. The country's attorney general later said no crime had been committed, but the episode cemented Avnery's reputation as a political renegade and leading advocate of "two states for two nations" - a position that often put him at odds with Israeli officials.

When he died Aug. 20 at 94, at a hospital in Tel Aviv after suffering a stroke, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin called him "the eternal opposition figure" in a tweet, whose struggle for free speech "paved the way for Israel as a young country."

Avnery was a dominant and divisive figure in Israel, where he called for secularism in the country's politics, negotiations with the Islamist group Hamas, recognition of the right of Palestinians to establish their own state and shared control of Jerusalem.

Once dubbed "Government Enemy No. 1" by the chief of Israel's internal security service, he spent four decades as editor in chief of the news magazine Haolam Hazeh (This World), a now-defunct weekly that published exposes of government corruption alongside left-wing political columns and, on its back cover, photos of naked women.

"He ran one of the few truly independent and unabashedly critical newspapers in the state's early years," said Haviv Rettig Gur, senior analyst with the Times of Israel. "Uri is one of the first serious journalists who introduced into our profession in Israel an ethos of independent criticism. Though he was on the deep left on the issues, he could critique left-wing parties as readily as right-wing ones."

In his youth, the German-born Avnery championed an ideology known as revisionist Zionism, which called for a Jewish state that would extend from the Mediterranean through the modern state of Jordan. His views shifted leftward while fighting for Israeli independence, and - after writing a best-selling war book - he became one of the first prominent Israelis to openly call for a two-state solution.

When Avnery came out in support of Arafat, insisting that the Palestinian leader sought peace, he effectively "pioneered . . . the argument at the heart of the Oslo project," said Gur, referring to the 1990s negotiations between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

That peace process has long since stalled, although Avnery expressed confidence that a breakthrough would occur. He had, he told the Independent in 2012, "the misfortune of being an incorrigible optimist," as his views were increasingly out of step with Israel's political leadership and even the country's political left.

"He was ahead of his time and then lagged behind it," said Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team. "Now the conversation among left-wing Israelis is no longer about two states. It's about challenging and actually denouncing Zionism, acknowledging the wrongs of the past. . . . His death, in a lot of ways, marks the end of the two-state solution - he was the last activist I know of that was really calling for it."

Avnery was born Helmut Ostermann in Beckum, Germany, on Sept. 10, 1923, and raised in Hanover, where his father worked in finance. The family immigrated to what was then the British mandate of Palestine when Helmut was 10, months after Hitler came to power.

They soon slipped into poverty, and Avnery left school at 14 to work as a clerk in a law office. He also joined the Irgun, a paramilitary group that, he told Haaretz, "planted bombs in markets in Jaffa and in Haifa, which killed dozens of women and children." He left the organization after several years, and wrote in a 2014 memoir, "Optimistic," that he "learned that the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist depends on your perspective."

Avnery served with an Israeli commando unit during the country's 1948 war of independence, during which he was wounded by machine-gun fire on the Egyptian front. About that time he also adopted his last name, Hebraizing the name of his brother Werner, who died during the war.

Acclaim for Avnery's journalistic war book, "In the Fields of the Philistines" (1949) was followed by dismay at its sequel, "The Other Side of the Coin" (1950), which alleged wartime atrocities. It brought Avnery his first dose of public scorn, which continued in earnest after he acquired Haolam Hazeh in 1950.

The magazine's circulation was never more than 25,000, according to the Jerusalem Report, although Avnery said each issue found its way to about 150,000 readers. That figure apparently did not include David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, who reportedly referred to it only as "that certain weekly," refusing to use its name.

Before Avnery sold the magazine in 1990 (it closed several years later), he and its newsroom inspired frequent controversy and sometimes outright violence. He said the publication's offices were bombed three times, that fingers on both his hands were once broken during a nighttime ambush, that the newsroom's archives were burned down in 1972 and that three years later he was stabbed "by an alleged lunatic" who tried to kill him.

A defamation law that Avnery said was targeting the magazine led him into electoral politics. Establishing a small new political party, he was elected to the Knesset in 1965, reelected four years later and - after losing at the polls in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War - served part of a third term, from 1979 to 1981.

Avnery was out of office when he made contact with Arafat, at a meeting that was closely monitored by Israeli forces. This year, in the book "Rise and Kill First," journalist Ronen Bergman reported that an Israeli special-ops team was organized to assassinate Arafat, and unsuccessfully attempted to follow Avnery to the meeting in an effort to ferret out the Palestinian leader's location.

The group, code-named Salt Fish, lost Arafat's car "in the alleys of south Beirut," Bergman reported, and had planned to kill Avnery as well if necessary. That fact was long unknown to Avnery, who in 2003 joined Arafat in Ramallah, during the second intifada, to act as a "human shield." He believed - apparently incorrectly - that his presence might have prevented a possible assassination of Arafat by Israel.

With his wife, the former Rachel Gruenbaum, Avnery founded the activist group Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc). Together they received the Right Livelihood Award, known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize," in 2001, when they were cited "for their unwavering conviction, in the midst of violence, that peace can only be achieved through justice and reconciliation."

Avnery's wife died in 2011. They had no children, and he said his political actions sometimes caused tension with the rest of his family. When his mother died, she scorned him in her will, reportedly writing that he would receive no inheritance "since he didn't take care of me and instead went to visit that murderer Yasser Arafat."

In recent years, Avnery wrote regular columns for Haaretz, most recently condemning the newly passed "nation-state" law, which formally declares Israel a homeland for the Jewish people. Calling it a "semi-fascist" piece of legislation, he wrote that its outcome was clear: "No democracy. No equality. A state of the Jews, for the Jews, by the Jews."
WASHINGTON - U.S. prosecutors announced charges Monday against two men arrested Aug. 9 and accused of acting as agents of the government of Iran, covertly monitoring a Jewish center in Chicago and American members of an Iranian opposition group in exile in behalf of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Criminal complaints against Ahmadreza Mohammadi Doostdar, 38, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, and Majid Ghorbani, 59, an Iranian citizen and resident of California, were unsealed after an indictment was returned Monday in the District of Columbia, according to the U.S. Justice Department and U.S. attorney's office of the District.

Ghorbani is scheduled to appear for a detention hearing at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate G. Michael Harvey of the District, prosecutors said. Attorneys for the men could not immediately be identified.

"Doostdar and Ghorbani are alleged to have acted on behalf of Iran, including by conducting surveillance of political opponents and engaging in other activities that could put Americans at risk," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said in a statement.

"This alleged activity demonstrates a continued interest in targeting the United States, as well as potential opposition groups located in the United States," namely the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) or People's Mujahedin of Iran, said Michael McGarrity, acting executive assistant director of the FBI's national security branch.

Doostdar and Ghorbani were charged with acting as agents of Iran, violating U.S. sanctions and conspiracy. The charges carry maximum statutory penalties of 10 years, 20 years and five years in prison, respectively.

According to charging documents, Doostdar entered the United States in about July 2017 allegedly to gather intelligence about targets considered enemies of the Tehran government, including Israeli and Jewish interests and the MEK, a dissident group that seeks regime change in Iran and that was listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist group from 1997 until 2012.

According to an FBI affidavit, Doostdar on July 21, 2017, allegedly surveilled and photographed security features at the Rohr Chabad House - a branch of Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois that serves students at the University of Chicago-Illinois.

That December, Doostdar allegedly paid Ghorbani $2,000 in cash and received 28 photographs with names attached that Ghorbani is accused of taking of demonstrators at a Sept. 20, 2017, MEK rally against the Iranian government in New York City, the FBI said.

The pictures and a handwritten receipt for $2,000 were allegedly found concealed in Doostdar's luggage as he traveled through an airport in the United States to return to Iran, the FBI affidavit said.

U.S. authorities accused the men of continuing to work together this year, with Ghorbani allegedly traveling to Iran in about March after telling Doostdar he was going there to conduct an "in-person briefing," and discussing clandestine methods to provide to Iran photographs Ghorbani took of people who attended an MEK-affiliated Iran Freedom Convention for Human Rights in Washington, D.C., on May 4.
The 2016 arrest of El Chapo, one of the world's most notorious drug kingpins, left the door open for a new power struggle among Mexican drug cartels.

Since then, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel has emerged as one of the fiercest groups cutting into El Chapo's drug-market share, according to the Associated Press.

REPORT: Zetas controlled all levels of power in Mexican state, expanded to Houston

The Drug Enforcement Administration said in a 2017 drug threat assessment that the Jalisco cartel splintered from El Chapo's Sinaloa cartel around 2010. Now, U.S. and Mexican authorities are targeting the group's leader and founder Nemesio Ruben Oseguera-Cervantes, aka "El Mencho," who has reportedly grown his cartel from a regional drug-trafficking threat to an international crime power.

"Through extreme violence, corruption, and extortion, [Jalisco New Generation Cartel] has increased its presence in Mexico, engaging in turf battles throughout the country and steadily expanding their territory and control," according to a press release from the U.S. Department of State.

The State Department is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information that leads to the arrest of Oseguera-Cervantes, on top of a $1.6 million reward from Mexican authorities.

According to an extensive article in Rolling Stone, Oseguera-Cervantes, 52, was born into a family of poor avocado farmers in Mexico and eventually dropped out of school in the fifth grade. He moved to California in the 80s and began smuggling drugs into the U.S. under several aliases.

In the mid-90s, an investigation involving a wiretap revealed his role in a heroin deal that landed Oseguero-Cervantes a five-year prison sentence in West Texas. He was released on parole after three years, and the U.S. Marshals deported him back to Mexico when he was 30 years old.

His rise to power started after other powerful cartel leaders were arrested or killed. The gap in leadership left him fighting off competition for control of the Jalisco, Nayarit, and Colima drug distribution networks, the state department's press release said.

RELATED: Former drug lord pleads guilty in Texas, faces life in prison

The Jalisco cartel's drug operation is centered around methamphetamine, but it also deals wholesale amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin. They bring drugs into the United States through various drug trafficking corridors along the southwest border, including the cities of Tijuana, Juarez and Nuevo Laredo, according to the DEA.

The cartel's swift rise has also been stained by bloody battles with Mexican authorities.

In one of the Jalisco cartel's most notable attacks in 2015, six soldiers were killed after the cartel downed a Mexican military helicopter with the a rocket-propelled grenade. It was the first time a Mexican military aircraft was destroyed by police, the Rolling Stone article said.

That same year, the cartel killed at least 15 police officers while pinning them down with machine gun fire and grenade launchers.

Oseguera-Cervantes has been charged in a federal indictment in the District of Columbia with drug trafficking, corruption and murder. His wife, Rosalinda Gonzalez Valencia, was arrested earlier this year in Mexico on charges of organized crime and money laundering after she was accused of managing the cartel's finances.

Julian Gill is a digital reporter in Houston. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | julian.gill@chron.com
At 10 p.m. Monday, Luis Solis wished his girlfriend good night and prepared to leave his apartment, but before he could go, he caught a faint scent of smoke.

His family keeps candles lit at night, so he assumed one had tipped over. He checked his daughters' room first. Everything was fine. Then the bathroom. Fine. Then his bedroom. Fine.

But then he saw a haze of smoke in the living room and heard muffled screaming outside.

"Help! Help! Help!" Someone was begging.

He opened the apartment door and thick black smoke rushed into his third-story unit.

"At that point, fear kicked in," he said.

RELATED: One dead in Northwest Side apartment complex fire

Solis's apartment was one of several that were destroyed in a massive blaze at the Ashler Oaks apartment complex in the 4100 block of Parkdale Street Monday night.

The fire killed one woman, injured two others and displaced at least 10 people, according to officials.

Solis and his family made it out by the skin of their teeth. He said as soon as he got his daughters, ages 3 and 8, and his girlfriend out, he heard a loud pop and then a fireball rose to consume his apartment.

"The flames just came out, and I was just thinking all of our stuff is gone. We're going to have to start all over, from square one," he said.

Others were even less fortunate. The woman killed in the blaze has not been identified, but Solis said she and her son lived in a unit on the second floor. The son and another man tried to rush in to save her, but the fire overpowered them. Firefighters later found her dead in her bed.

The woman's granddaughter came to the apartment to deliver food to her around 9 a.m. Tuesday, unaware of what happened, Solis said. When police told her that her grandmother had died, she broke down in tears and left.

A man who lived directly under Solis, Tai Bannister, is currently recovering in the intensive care unit at University Hospital, according to family members.

ON EXPRESSNEWS.COM: Fatal apartment fire: 'like end of the world'

Bannister shared the apartment with his two sons and two dogs, one of which is a service dog for Bannister. He and his sons were able to escape the blaze, but the dogs were trapped inside, said Anna Rodriguez, the 31-year-old mother to one of Bannister's grandsons.

"He walked back into the apartment to save the dogs," she said, "but the fire was too strong."

Bannister tossed the dogs from the second-story unit, but then fell, landing on his head. He suffered a possible neck fracture, Rodriguez said.

Though he's in serious condition, Bannister was speaking at one point after the fire, and he expressed concern about his service dog, Jax, an Australian Sheppard-Blue Heeler mix that went missing after the fire.

He was found Tuesday morning and is at a veterinarian's office receiving treatment for injuries sustained in the fall.

It is unclear at this time who the third injured person is. Joe Arrington, a spokesman for the San Antonio Fire Department, said the department will provide updates as they are available.

Residents of Ashler Oaks described chaotic scenes as the blaze consumed the structure. People were screaming, trying everything they could to rescue those still inside as they waited on firefighters to arrive.

San Antonio Fire Department Chief Charles Hood said when firefighters did arrive, they found people hanging out of windows.

RELATED: 5th San Marcos fire survivor joins lawsuit against Iconic Village Apartments

"It was bad. I've never seen anything like that in my life," said 22-year-old resident Dawnte Hawkings. "It looked like some end of the world type stuff."

Hawkings lives across the parking lot from the building and was largely unaffected. But he still wants to move elsewhere. He said the apartment's management sent out a gas leak notification last week, providing residents tips on what to do should they smell gas.

He believes the fire may be connected to a gas leak issue, though investigators have not determined the cause of the fire.

Solis, too, took up issue with the fact that the building was not equipped with a sprinkler system, and he said neither himself nor other residents heard any fire alarms. He said he spoke with management, but they informed him its the residents' responsibility to ensure their smoke detectors are working.

Representatives of Ashler Oaks were not immediately available for comment.

Arson investigators are now working to determine the cause of the blaze. The investigation may be a delicate one, as two of the four destroyed units are structurally compromised.

"They're completely demolished," Hood said. "For us to be able to stop this (fire) at this four units was pretty amazing."

Caleb Downs is a crime reporter for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here.| cdowns@mysa.com | Twitter: @calebjdowns
San Antonio police arrested a woman Monday who left her ID behind while trying to rob a local sex shop, authorities said.

Estella Acevedo, 27, was charged with robbery in connection to the July 24 incident at Adam and Eve adult store, at 6957 San Pedro Ave.

RELATED: Deputy accused of sexually assaulting 4-year-old, threatening mom with deportation found dead

An employee of the store told police a woman brought merchandise to the counter, but then said the price was too high, according to an arrest affidavit.

As the employee removed the merchandise, Acevedo took the items and ran out the front door. The clerk chased her, according to the affidavit.

Police said Acevedo hit the employee with a stick, before dropping the merchandise and running off.

As the employee picked up the stolen items left behind, she noticed Acevedo left her wallet and cell phone on the ground. The wallet contained an ID with the name "Estella Acevedo," police said.

Acevedo was arrested on a $20,000 bond, according to jail records.

Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here. | fsabawi@mysa.com | Twitter: @FaresInSA
City staffers on Monday briefed the City Councils Transportation Committee on proposed regulations that would tame users of the unregulated pay-per-use electric scooters currently zipping around downtown.

The suggested regulations include charging operators a permit fee, prohibiting their use in certain areas, such as Alamo Plaza, and banning them from sidewalks  a move that drew immediate criticism from some council members.

Rey Saldana, chairman of the committee, and other officials want to make sure that San Antonio doesnt re-create the restrictive environment that sparked controversy in the early days of ride-hailing, when Uber and Lyft came to town several years ago. After their arrival, the city instituted a policy so restrictive that the ride-hailing companies left San Antonio until the ordinance was recast.

RELATED: 15 things to know about those new 'Bird' scooters riding around San Antonio

We know that scooters today are popular. Folks are using them, whether you work downtown or youre a visitor or tourists. Its high use, so we dont want to scare away the technology. We want to embrace it, Saldana said.

John Jacks, director of the Center City Development and Operations Department, assured the panel that the citys intention is to not be overly restrictive.

Were trying to be very minimal with it, he said.

If approved, the regulations could take effect as early as Oct. 4.

Go to ExpressNews.com to read more about proposed regulations for pay-per-use electric scooters.

Josh Baugh is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jbaugh@express-news.net | Twitter: @jbaugh
| BY Ricki Green |

Youve heard of FOMO, but what about FOMU? In its latest campaign via DDB Melbourne, British Paints is calling on novice painters across Australia and New Zealand to fight the FOMU (Fear of Mucking Up).

DDB Group Melbourne executive creative director Stuart Turner said the FOMU platform came from both personal experience and customer insights.

Says Turner: Weve all been in a position where we needed to tackle a large-scale paint job and felt overwhelmed or scared about how to approach it. Its this insight that led us to come up with FOMU  the Fear of Mucking Up.

FOMU encompasses all of the things that can feel like barriers to starting a new paint job. Its the quiver in your hand as you put the roller to the wall. The indecision in the face of a thousand colour swatches. The all-consuming thought that if something can go wrong with a painting job, it probably will.

The campaigns launch TVC is the first in a series of three, with the campaign running across digital, social and instore.

Client: British Paints

Marketing Manager: Paul Murphy

Brand Manager: Sue Pham

Senior Brand Manager: Kelly Magee

Product Manager: Nicholas Walsh

Agency: DDB Melbourne

Managing Director: Kate Sterling

Executive Creative Director: Stuart Turner

Art Director: Becky Morriss

Copywriter: Anna Yates

Head of Broadcast: Tuesday Picken

Group Business Director: Lucy Haworth

Business Director: Katie Franklin

Chief Strategy Officer: Karen Dwyer

Business Manager: Natalie Linsdell

Production Company: Sweetshop

Director: Damien Shatford

Producer: Nik Aulich

Managing Director & Executive Producer: Edward Pontifex

Executive Producer: Loren Bradley

Offline Editor: Simon Price  ARC EDIT

Colourist: Edel Rafferty
John Davenport /San Antonio Express-News

Paid internships provide invaluable hands-on experience for college students before they graduate and launch into the job market. Even if an internship doesnt result in a job, it helps students strengthen resumes and offers networking opportunities in chosen careers. Paid internships allow interns to earn money for their education.

So, we applaud the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Boards plans to seek legislative support next session for a statewide database of paid internships to link students and potential employers. The plan merits bipartisan support.
Re: Squabble over CPS revenue underscores city-county rift, Puro San Antonio, Gilbert Garcia, Sunday:

From the perspective of many of Precinct 3 Commissioner Kevin Wolffs constituents, his proposal to divert roughly $40 million of CPS revenue from the city of San Antonio to Bexar County is unwelcome.

Most of the countys general fund is spent on jail and judicial services, while 77 percent of the citys general fund is spent on police officers, firefighters, EMS providers, parks and streets.

Perhaps Wolffs proposal to take money away from public safety personnel, street repairs and parks in San Antonio and spend it on county jails and courts has some appeal for inmates, lawyers and non-city residents. But for most of the 77 percent of Bexar County residents who live in the city of San Antonio and appreciate the basic services that the citys shrewd investment in CPS helps pay for, Wolffs idea is imprudent.

Dave Pasley

Inefficient dictator?

John Brennan, Omarosa Manigault Newman and the editors, reporters and publisher of this newspaper appear not to be in prison. If Donald Trump is a dictator, he is a darned inefficient one.

I see articles from named people against everything the president does. Do you somehow think you can change peoples mind by throwing names of powerful people at them? Your problem is that it is the unpowerful people who are being helped by his policies.

Boohoo if you have lost your power base.

Penelope Talley

Take his, too

About my security clearance:

As a retired Medical Service Corps officer, I fully understand the position that retired Adm. William McRaven has taken regarding his security clearance.

In my last assignment on active duty, I too had a top secret security clearance. I retired on Sept. 30 1994.

If it has not elapsed, I join the admiral in requesting that it be revoked! The behavior of the current administration cannot stand without the appropriate criticism and resistance.

John Olmstead
SEYMOUR  Unlike a fine wine, Bungay School is not getting better with age.

Thats why the Board of Education is beginning to discuss what improvements can be made to the 64-year old elementary school on Bungay Road.

During the boards meeting Monday, board members questioned how long some of the problems facing the schools infrastructure can continue to be fixed with a Band-Aid before a major upgrade is inevitable.

The Board of Education, as part of regular facilities reviews, would indicate that major infrastructure needs to be updated or replaced, including the roof, windows, flooring, HVAC, parking lots, improved traffic flow, technology capability and classroom learning environments, said Superintendent of Schools Michael Wilson.

Board member Kristen Harmeling said the board has been talking about making long-overdue improvements to the school for the last three or four years, but hasnt taken the next step to do something about it.

Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations Rick Belden said if the board opts to move forward with a major fix for Bungay, a comprehensive infrastructure study would need to be done by an architect. Belden said the study itself could cost anywhere between $20,000 to $25,000.

Wilson said school and town officials would first need to discuss if funding is available for the study. If that happens, Wilson said the town would have to form a building committee, which would develop a proposal to bring to residents to a referendum vote. If approved, the town would then submit the proposal to the state Department of Education for review and submission to the state Bond Commission for funding.

Seymour currently has a state reimbursement rate for school building projects of 62 percent.

Board members said while theres not enough time to get something on the upcoming November ballot, beginning the process of first trying to find funding for the infrastructure study is a step in the right direction to get the aging school a much-needed makeover.

Board member Peter Kubik served on the original Bungay School Building Committee back in the mid-1990s, and also on several other school and town building committees, and said its time to focus on the aging elementary school.

Bungay School is in dire need of a renovation, said Kubik. We need to fully understand the school needs by executing the study so that informed decisions can be made.

Wilson said the last renovation to Bungay was done in 1996, which included modernization and code compliance, along with a new classroom wing, and increased gym and cafeteria spaces. In 1971, there was a classroom addition.

Bungay School, built in 1954, is currently lead by Principal Mary Sue Feige and Assistant Principal Lauren Reid, and serves approximately 450 students in grades K-5.

The school gained notoriety when former longtime Principal Cathy Colella introduced inclusive education there years ago, pairing students with special needs into classrooms with their mainstream peers. The program gained attention from several Dutch educators, who invited Colella to share her recipe for success in the Netherlands.

jean.sos@snet.net.
- South west leaders have been warned against imposing President Buhari on the country by Arewa Youth Consultative Forum

- The group said youths would no longer tolerate that kind of imposition that has brought the nations economy to its knees

- Going further, the group said false hopes by the Buhari led administration was an insult on the sensibilities of Nigerians

Ahead of 2019 general elections, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) has cautioned the south west geo-political zone against dictating to it who to present as presidential candidate in the 2019 general elections, The Guardian reports.

National president of AYCF, Alhaji Yerima Shettima, who disclosed this vowed that the north would resist what he described as the antics of some political figures in the South West to determine, like it successfully did in 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari was imposed as candidate of the region despite better available options.

READ ALSO: Drama as Buhari, Saraki supporters meet at airport

We have noticed that gradually Nigeria is being pushed back to the political scenario of 2015 where the South west dominated the decision- making process on who should be the nations president and the region out of modesty, merely allowed that historic imposition.

"But we have come to realise the fact that the first four years of the Buhari administration are replete with poverty, hunger, unemployment, general under-development and disturbing levels of stagnation, he said.

Going further, he added that: Imposition that has brought the nations economy to its knees and all we now get is empty propaganda instead of performance.

"Even though the consensus is that power should reside in the North in 2019, we make bold to say no one should dare try to teleguide the region and its people this time around.

Northerners have a right to their democratic aspirations and choice of a president. No one should try to usurp that constitutional power through the backdoor.

We want to make it very clear that the era of imposition of anyone on the North is gone. We are watching, and very closely too, the turn of events on Nigerias democratic space at the moment. We wont take any form of manipulation by people who know little or nothing about the kind of leadership the people of the north wants, he said.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that there was a bit of drama as supporters of the Senate president, Bukola Saraki, and President Muhammadu Buhari met at the Ilorin International Airport, Kwara state on Sunday, August 19.

The supporters of Saraki were reportedly at the airport to welcome the Senate president, while supporters of Buhari were there to welcome Kwara state governorship aspirant, Moddibo Kawu, and a Labour Party governorship aspirant in the state, Issa Aremu.

Nigeria Election 2019: What are Bukola Sarakis chances against President Buhari | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng
- A Nigerian lady has mourned two months after husband passed away

- The lady who is from Kogi state took to Facebook to pay tribute to her late husband

- Friends and family members of the deceased also paid tribute to the deceased

- It was gathered that the man died of blood loss

Nigerian woman who hails from Kogi state has taken to social media to mourn her husband who died barely two months after their marriage. The lady took to Facebook to pay tribute to her late husband identified as Lukman Salifu.

The grieving wife in her Facebook post, had expressed that her husband died before they could even have children.

She further expressed sadness over the fact that he died after all he went through for the both of them.

Lady takes to social media to mourn her hubby who died just 2 months after their wedding Photo source: Facebook user Lukman Rejoice

READ ALSO: Photos of Nigerian man killed in the US by girlfriends ex emerge online

Friends and family members of the deceased took to social media to pay their respects to him. Many shared stories of their experiences together.

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Legit.ng gathered that the deceased Lukman Salifu, who is popularly known by friends as L-Man, died of blood loss. It was also discovered that his doctors were shocked to find out that he was in a dire state due to blood shortage.

According to Nairaland, due to blood shortage the man had received eighteen pints of blood before he died.

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Source: Legit
| BY Ricki Green |

Carlton & United Breweries has announced that Richard Oppy, AB InBevs vice president marketing, Asia Pacific South, has been appointed global VP for global brands, including Corona, Stella Artois and Budweiser.

Oppy is a born-and-bred Melburnian who has been with Carlton & United Breweries for almost 18 years.

He will move to New York to take up the new role, which will see him lead the world-wide marketing for some of the biggest beer brands in the world.

Oppy started at CUB in 2001 as an assistant brand manager for VB and Carlton Mid and has since risen through the business in various marketing roles including CUB marketing director.

Oppy was last year appointed VP marketing, Asia Pacific South, a position that saw him head-up marketing for AB InBev in Australia, India and Southeast Asia.

His time leading CUBs marketing is marked by a strengthening of the business brands and a rebalancing of its portfolio, which has driven topline growth. Under Oppys leadership CUB made big bold bets on the future, with the introduction of innovative new brands and products among his biggest achievements.

Oppys innovations include Great Northern, Carlton Dry, the Yaks, Carlton Draught Tank Beer and Pure Blonde Cider. These initiatives and their marketing strategies have experienced enormous success and fuelled category growth.

He will commence his new position in New York on 1 January 2019.

Says Oppy: Im obviously over the moon and humbled by this amazing opportunity. At a time when other consumer goods companies have cut costs, we have invested in innovation and fuelled growth. As a passionate marketer and brand lover, I have to pinch myself when I think about being chosen to run some of the most loved brands globally out of New York with this incredible business.
- Akwa Ibom state governor, Udom Emmanuel has replied his predecessor, former Senate minority leader, Godswill Akpabio

- Governor Udom Emmanuel says his achievements in office shows that he is not a mistake

- Akpabio earlier expressed regrets for what he called imposing the Akwa Ibom state governor, on the people of the state

Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom state, says his achievements in office shows that he is not a mistake, The Cable reports.

Legit.ng gathered that the Akwa Ibom state stated this in response to Godswill Akpabio, his predecessor, who described him as a mistake that must be rejected in 2019 at a rally in Ikot Ekpene

Akpabio recently defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

READ ALSO: I will remain in APC for the rest of my political career - Governor Bindow

The governor responding through Charles Udoh, his commissioner of information, said Akpabio has mortgaged his conscience and is now attempting to deceive Akwa Ibom people.

He said: A governor that records the achievements despite the challenges of an epileptic national economy cannot be a mistake.

I doubt if there is any first term governor in Nigeria who has recorded this level of achievement. Godswill Akpabio spent eight years as commissioner under Obong Attah; spent eight years as governor at the height of the states income receipts from the federal government yet he couldnt complete Uyo-Ikot Ekpene road (the road to his village) despite appropriating almost all the sums budgeted for the project.

Godswill also commissioned an uncompleted building with rented furniture and fitting and called it 4 Points Sheraton Hotel. Udom has, as at today, facilitated the setting up of more than nine industries in just three years; Godswill spent eight years with zero industry

Its unfortunate that Akpabio has mortgaged his conscience and is now attempting to deceive Akwa Ibom people. Akwa Ibom people are wiser.

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In a previous report by Legit.ng, former Senate minority leader, Godswill Akpabio, expressed regrets for what he called imposing the Akwa Ibom state governor, Udom Emmanuel, on the people of the state.

Apologising before a crowd at Ikot Ekpene Plaza, Akpabio, who returned from his mother-in-laws burial at Enugu on the evening of Sunday, August 19, said Emmanuel was the greatest mistake he made in a hurry and asked to be forgiven, The Punch reports.

Akpabio, who represents Akwa Ibom Northwest in the Senate, added that Emmanuel is a mistake that must be corrected in 2019.

Nigeria Election 2019: What are Bukola Sarakis chances against President Buhari | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit
- EFCC has filed charges against Senator Albert Bassey of Akwa-Ibom state

- The anti-graft agency is set to arraign Bassey for allegedly receiving 12 cars as bribes worth N254 million

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Monday, August 20, filed charges at an Ikeja high court against another serving senator, Albert Bassey, for allegedly receiving 12 cars as bribes worth N254 million.

Bassey, 45, who is representing Akwa-Ibom North-East, received the vehicles between 2010 and 2014 from Olajide Omokore, a businessman, when he (Bassey) served as the Akwa-Ibom Commissioner for Finance.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the EFCC has slammed a 14-count charge bordering on corruption on the duo.

Bassey is to face a seven-count charge of bordering on corruption as a public officer and for inviting bribes as a result of his own action.

READ ALSO: Rivers state blasts Tinubu for comments about Wike

On his part, Omokore is also facing a seven-count charge bordering on offering gratification to a public officer and giving bribe on account of the action of a public officer.

The duo as well as their counsel were, however, absent in court on Monday when the case was announced for mention at 4.05 pm on Monday, according to NAN.

Zainab Ettu, the prosecuting counsel for the EFCC, requested a new court date to enable the anti-graft commission arraign the senator and the businessman.

We do not have the defendants in court today, though we had earlier anticipated that we would have them in court at a later date.

We will be asking for a further date, most preferably, after vacation, she said.

Responding, the vacation judge, Justice Obafemi Adamson noted that the case had not been assigned to a judge, making it difficult to adjourn the case after vacation.

The judge ordered that the case file should be sent to the Registry of the High Court for assignment to a judge, who will hear it.

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According to the charge sheet, Bassey received the vehicles from Omokore over a five-year period (2010-2014) in Lagos.

Bassey received the bribes while serving as the Akwa-Ibom Commissioner for Finance and Chairman of the Akwa-Ibom State Inter-Ministerial Direct Labour Coordinating Committee (IMDLCC).

On May 10, 2010, Bassey also allegedly corruptly received a BMW X5 BP worth N50 million from Omokore in December 2012 and another Infinity QX 56 BP worth N45 million from him.

On November 2013, the serving senator received a Toyota Landcruiser V8 BP valued at N40 million and in March 2014, he received a Range Rover, also valued at N40 million from the businessman as well as in September 2014, another Toyota Hiace High Roof car valued at N27 million.

Others are Toyota Hiace High Roof car valued at N16 million and six units of Toyota Hilux vehicles valued at N36 million.

The anti-graft commission claimed that the car gifts were given to Bassey by Omokore in exchange for contracts from the Akwa-Ibom Government.

The offences, according to the EFCC, contravene Sections 63 (1)(a), 64 (1)(a) and 98(1), (a), (i) of the Criminal Law of Lagos 2011.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that the Akwa Ibom state government has slammed a N50 billion lawsuit against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for freezing its accounts.

The state government in its suit with suit No: FHE/UY/CS/137/18 said the accounts which have remained frozen for 72 hours crippled both the economy and the reputation of the state.

The EFCC stage a walk against corruption - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng
- Rivers state APC chairman, Ojukaye Flag-Amachree, accuses Governor Nyesom Wike of invading units during the Port Harcourt constituency 3 bye-election

- He alleges that the governor plans to compromise the 2019 elections

- Rivers state blasts Tinubu for comments about Wike

The Rivers state chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ojukaye Flag-Amachree, has alleged that Governor Nyesom Wike offered him N200 million bribe to compromise the Port Harcourt constituency Rivers bye-election.

READ ALSO: Just in: Tinubu has presidential ambition, working ahead of 2023- Saraki spills

Flag-Amachree stated this at a press briefing in Port Harcourt on Monday, August 20, when accusing Wike and the Independent National Electoral Commissions (INEC) of trying to scuttle the 3 bye-election, The news Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

The APC chairman alleged that the governor had placed many INEC officials in Port Harcourt on his payroll.

He claimed that the APC candidate for the bye-election, Chief Dickens Worlu was comfortably leading in most polling units before Governor Wike mobilised his chief security officer, Promise Nwosu with armed men to invade the units.

He further alleged that the invasion of the polling units with armed men attached to the Rivers government house was to disrupt the peaceful process and rig the election in favour of the PDP candidate.

In the process, several shots were fired to intimidate both voters and election officials but most of the voters in the constituency stood their ground and resisted the state of shootings and intimidation.

Having failed to substantially cow the voters especially APC members, Wike reached me and pleaded to have my cooperation and in return get N200m bribe, which I declined and reported same to the APC leadership.

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In failed mission to bribe me and intimidate voters, Governor Wike and his CSO became more determined to scuttle the bye-election, decide to undertake smear campaign against me as demonstrated in his broadcast, he alleged.

According to Flag-Amachree, Governor Wike has all the electoral officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Rivers on his payroll with the purpose of compromising the 2019 election in advance.

Wike has been paying a monthly sum between N1m to N3m to various officers depending on rank, and he has penciled down key security agents to compromise elections in the state.

We are not also surprised that INEC and Governor Wike are working hand-in-gloves to rig elections in Rivers, he claimed.

The chairman said the APC believes that the recruitment and posting of a confessed PDP apologist and virulent critic of President Muhammadu Buharis government, Obo Effanga is beyond mere accident.

The highly convoluted memo suspending the bye-election further attests to the fact of a well-entrenched bias on the part of the INEC REC.

There was an op-ed published on a national daily on the 30th of May 2016 titled: The Change government one year after by Mr Obo Effanga before he was mysteriously employed and posted to Rivers, he said.

Flag-Amachree urged INEC in Rivers to immediately conclude the process by announcing the winner of the By-Election without further delay.

He dismissed Governor Wikes allegations against the commander of the special anti-robbery squad (SARS), ACP Akin Fakorede of meddling in the by-election.

Meanwhile, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state has lashed out at the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Bola Tinubu, for saying he lured Governor Aminu Tambuwal to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Premium Times reports that this was contained in a statement by the state commissioner for communication, Emma Okah. The commissioner called on elders to exercise restraint at times like this.

News Nigeria Today: Is the Nigerian PVC Really Powerful? | Legit.ng TV

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- The minister of defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, says there has been lots of improvement in the security situation in the country more especially in Zamfara and Benue states and in Niger Delta

- He states that the federal government has taken a critical look at the security situation in the northeast

- President Buhari says he is ready to continue his anti-corruption fight

The federal government has described the security situation in the northeast geopolitical zone of the country as worrisome.

The minister of defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, made the statement shortly after a security briefing with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Monday, August 20, Vanguard reports.

READ ALSO: EFCC files charges against Akwa-Ibom senator for allegedly receiving N254m car gifts

Dan-Ali, told journalists that the meeting was to update the president on all the activities that occurred while he was away in London.

The minister said: This is a normal routine security briefing with Mr President. He just came back, so we briefed him on all the activities we had while he was away. It is an update of the August 2 meeting.

The decision that has been taken is that we have seen that there is a lot of improvement in the security situation in the country more especially in Zamfara and Benue states and in Niger Delta.

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In the North-East we are having worrisome report, we have looked into it critically and we have taken absolute decision.

Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday, August 18, reportedly restated his commitment to work harder to ensure that all who looted the nations treasury are jailed.

Buhari stated this while answering questions from journalists after disembarking from the presidential jet at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, This Day reports.

I will work hard the more to ensure that all those who stole the Nations money are sent to prison, he said.

Nigeria Election 2019: What are Bukola Sarakis chances against President Buhari | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng
- A Nigerian man, Imasaun Henry Omorogby, has been arrested for fraud in India

- Omorogby was arrested along with his Indian girlfriend, Sheela Dey

- The couple reportedly run a scam using fake bank accounts and data to dupe job aspirants

A Nigerian man, Imasaun Henry Omorogby, and his Indian girlfriend, Sheela Dey, have been arrested for allegedly duping people on the pretext of providing them jobs abroad, according to a report by the Indian police on Saturday, August 18.

A police officer who spoke to the press said: Imasaun Henry Omorogby from Nigeria and his girlfriend Sheela Dey from Hyderabad were running a scam using fake bank accounts and data from various websites to lure people on the pretext of providing them employment."

India's national daily, The Hindu, reported that a woman had filed a complaint last year stating that on September 2017 she had received an e-mail for a job as logistics operation manager in an oil and gas company based in Malaysia, to which she responded with CV and particulars, the police said.

READ ALSO: EFCC files charges against Akwa-Ibom senator for allegedly receiving N254m car gifts

She was then asked to deposit Rs. 8 lakh in a bank account for formalities. After depositing the money, she did not get an offer letter.

Omorogby, his girlfriend, Sheela, and the police. Photo source: The Hindu

Claiming to be calling on behalf of the Ministry of Finance, Delhi, the accused again demanded Rs. 65,000 from her for releasing the documents, the police said.

The complainant then suspected foul play and went to verify the facts from the Ministry which were then found to be fake, the police said. During the investigation, the accuseds bank details were tracked, IP address of e-mail IDs was scanned and the Facebook link of the suspect was put under the scanner.

The photographs uploaded on Facebook were matched with the photographs on the account opening form, the police said, adding that the suspect remained untraceable.

On 8 August, the suspect, Sheela, updated a status on Facebook  GOING BANGKOK  along with a picture of Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad. The special team immediately reached Hyderabad airport and procured the passengers departure and arrival details. She was then detained on August 14 soon after her arrival, said a police officer.

The accuseds boyfriend was also detained from the airport for his involvement in the crime, he added.

Their modus operandi was to send emails to job seekers regarding employment opportunities outside India, he added.

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After gaining the confidence of the victims with attractive job offers, the accused asked them for money on the pretext of visa processing, work permit application, immigration and travel expenses. Following this, the victims would deposit money in the account number provided by the accused, the police said. Then, the accused would flee with the money, they added.

Legit.ng earlier reported that officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) in Nairobi, the headquarters of Kenya, on Saturday, August 18, arrested suspected 19 Nigerian nationals believed to be behind online fraud in the city.

The suspects were reported to be using social media to defraud unsuspecting Kenyans.

The EFCC stage a walk against corruption - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit
- The government of the United States of America has called on Nigerian government to strengthen its laws

- The US goverment blamed continous killings in Nigerian on reign of impunity

The government of the United States of America has called on the Nigerian government to strengthen its laws against killer to put a permanent stop to what it described as killings caused by reign of impunity in the country.

Punch reports that the deputy chief of mission and charge de affaires, US Embassy in Nigeria, David Young, made this statement in an interview with journalists on Sunday, August 19, in Jos during his fellowship with church leaders in Plateau state.

Young said the killings in Nigeria has increased because most perpetrators of such acts go unpunished.

He said: The Nigerian government should strengthen its laws to deal with killers."

He also reiterated the condolences of the Donald Trumps administration to the families of those killed by suspected herdsmen who attacked some communities in the Barkin Ladi local government area of Plateau state.

READ ALSO: Nigerian man and Indian girlfriend arrested for job fraud

He said: On behalf of the United States government and American people, I want to express again our condolences on the tragic loss of lives across Plateau, North-Central and North-West states. Quite a lot of people have died; it has been very terrible tragedies. We want to affirm the sanctity of human lives and anytime a person dies, it is a tragic loss, be that person a Christian, Muslim, Berom, farmer or herder.

I think it is clear, we know and government knows that as well. A lot of people are doing good things and working hard. But it needs to be even more because it is clear that there is a climate of impunity. When people are committing serious crimes, they get away with it, without being brought to justice.

It is so important that there should be very strong efforts to make sure that people are brought to justice for these terrible crimes. It is also important to address the drivers of conflicts, address opportunity, fight poverty and provide jobs and hope for young people because definitely young people are getting into terrible groups. They really need to be part of the future and as such need mentoring and parenting.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that the federal government described the security situation in the northeast geopolitical zone of the country as worrisome.

The minister of defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, made the statement shortly after a security briefing with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Monday, August 20.

Nigeria Election 2019: What are Bukola Sarakis chances against President Buhari - Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng
- The US embassy expresses regret for the inconvenience the interruption of its services in Abuja caused

- The consular states that visa and American Citizen Services (ACS) applicants with scheduled appointments for August 24 should come to the Embassy in Abuja, as usual

- It says those about the arrival of their US passports could contact the embassy through its website

The US embassy has disclosed that it will be reopening its Abujas consular section on Friday, August 24, for full services for both visas and American Citizen Services (ACS).

The embassy made the disclosure in a message on its website on Monday, August 20, Legit.ng reports. The embassy expressed regret for the inconvenience the interruption of its services in Abuja caused.

READ ALSO: EFCC files charges against Akwa-Ibom senator for allegedly receiving N254m car gifts

It however noted that its consular functions at the US consulate in Lagos was never affected by the brief closure of its Abuja office.

It said: "The U.S. Embassy in Abujas consular section will reopen on August 24 for full services for both visas and American Citizen Services (ACS). Please note that consular functions at the U.S. Consulate Lagos were never affected and will continue as usual.

We regret the inconvenience this interruption of service in Abuja has caused."

The embassy stated that visa and ACS applicants with scheduled appointments for August 24 should come to the Embassy in Abuja, as usual.

It said visa and ACS applicants with cancelled appointments between August 13 and August 23 will be contacted by the embassy for rescheduling.

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Visa and ACS applicants, who were requested by an officer to appear again for follow-up questions on existing applications should contact our office to arrange a new date," the statement read.

It assured visa applicants, who submitted passports through the interview waiver programme for visa renewal, that such would be processed as soon as possible.

If your application was already approved, it will be mailed out as normal on the next available DHL shipment to your listed address.

"Abuja ACS applicants, who wish to pick-up their already-printed U.S. passports, may come on Friday between 9:30a.m and 11am."

The consular office said those uncertain about the arrival of their US passport could contact the embassy through its website.

The embassy had on August 15 temporarily suspended its consular services in Abuja due to reasons it said were beyond its control.

In another report, President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, August 20, signed the Instrument of Accession to the International Cocoa Agreement, 2010 in Abuja.

Malam Garba Shehu, the senior special sssistant to the president on media and publicity, who confirmed this in a statement in Abuja, said the signing of the Agreement followed its approval by the federal executive council.

According to him, with the execution of the instrument of accession, Nigeria undertakes faithfully to abide by all the stipulations therein contained in the Agreement.

Street Gist: Will Nigeria be a better place with Trump as president? | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng
- The PDP has been asked by Senator Kwankwaso to consider picking its presidential candidate from the northwest if it wants to win the 2019 general election

- He said if the APC is fielding a candidate from the zone, it is also necessary for the PDP to do same

- The former governor said he is better qualified for the party's presidential ticket

Senator Rabiu Musa Kwakwaso, a former governor of Kano state and presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), wants the party to consider zoning the presidency to the northwest in the forthcoming 2019 elections.

Speaking on Monday, August 20, in Benin while addressing PDP delegates and members during his nationwide consultation on his presidential aspiration, Kwankwaso said the northwest is the most populous region in the country, Daily Trust reports.

He stated that it is necessary for the PDP to consider fielding its candidate from the zone if it is true that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is fielding a candidate from there.

READ ALSO: EFCC files charges against Akwa-Ibom senator for allegedly receiving N254m car gifts

If you are selecting a candidate, you have to under this circumstances look at the geography, history and population of the country. It is a common knowledge based on previous census that Kano state is the most populous state and northwest is the most populous region in the country.

So, if it is true that our former party is fielding a candidate from the northwest, it is also necessary for the PDP to consider fielding its candidate from the zone.

I have no doubt in my mind that the South South and South East are very solid in the PDP. I believe that what we will do in the North with what will come out in the South West, I have no doubt that PDP will be victorious in the 2019 presidential election, he said.

The former governor added that he was at a vantage position to lead the PDP and Nigeria with his wealth of experience as two-time governor, minister of defence and senator.

According to him, he had contested elections 15 times and only lost twice, in the last 26 years.

Everyone can contest to get the partys ticket and getting it is one thing, but the most important thing is winning the election. I am better qualified for the ticket. I am in the PDP to add value and I believe it is only Kwankwaso that can bring this to table in all the states of the federation, he said.

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Kwankwaso further advised the party to do the right thing after looking at the facts and figures on ground to avoid making mistakes.

He added that failure to do the right thing could create serious challenge to the party in the 2019 elections.

Recall that Kwankwaso, a serving senator representing Kano Central, along with 14 other senators announced their defection from the APC to the PDP in a letter read on the floor of the Senate by the Senate president Bukola Saraki on Tuesday, July 24.

Legit.ng had reported that following his defection, supporters of the Rabiu Musa Kwankwasos political group, Kwankwansiyya Movement in Nasarawa state, on Wednesday, August 8, joined their leader by dumping the APC for the PDP.

The supporters of Kwankwaso stormed the state secretariat of the PDP and declared their defection from the APC with symbolic burning of brooms.

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Source: Legit Newspaper
- Ex-senator and chieftain of APC Umoyo was expected to make his return to PDP official at the rally organized by Udom's campaign organisation but failed to show up

- The organizers did not explain what went wrong to the teaming crowd that had been waiting for the big defection

- Senator Umoyo's family source claimed he could not make it for his defection party because he was hospitalized a day earlier

A former senator and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Etang Umoyo on Monday, August 20 refused to show up to a special rally partly organized in his favour by Akwa Ibom governor Emmanuel Udom.

According to Vanguards report, Governor Udom and his supporters were greatly disappointed when Umoyo failed to appear at the endorsement of the Akwa Ibom chief executive officer for a second term.

READ ALSO: 2019: It is necessary for PDP to zone presidency to northwest - Kwankwaso

Umoyo, who represented Eket senatorial district from 1992 to 1993, was said to have been expected to announce his return to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the PDP Eket Senatorial District rally but shunned the event.

While the organizers of the event did not explain the ex-lawmakers absence Vanguard quoted a family source as claiming that Umoyo was hospitalized on Sunday, August 19 and so could not make it to the rally.

Reports said Umoyo on Friday, August 17, had a meeting with some APC members in his Esit Eket local government area where he announced his defection plans but was challenged by members with angry speeches and placards, accusing him of receiving N10 million from Governor Udom to destroy the APC in Esit Eket.

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However, three other APC members who were not from Eket senatorial district defected during the event and were received by the PDP state chairman Obong Paul Ekpo.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Monday, August 20, filed charges at an Ikeja high court against serving senator, Albert Bassey, for allegedly receiving 12 cars as bribes worth N254 million.

Bassey, 45, who is representing Akwa-Ibom North-East, received the vehicles between 2010 and 2014 from Olajide Omokore, a businessman, when he (Bassey) served as the Akwa-Ibom Commissioner for Finance.

The EFCC has slammed a 14-count charge bordering on corruption on the duo.

News Nigeria Today: Will Senators, Lawmakers Defection from APC Change Power in 2019? - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng
- As Muslim faithfuls celebrate this year's Sallah, President Buhari has vowed to put an end to corruption in the country

- He called on Nigerians to rise above personal, group, sectarian and other interests

- According to him, selfishness, greed and corruption have no place in our lives and in our dealings

President Muhammadu Buhari has felicitated with all Nigerians, particularly the Muslim faithful, as they celebrate this years Eid-el-Kabir.

In his Sallah message posted on his official Twitter account (@MBuhari) on Tuesday, August 21, the president called on Nigerians to rise above personal interests and promote harmony in the nation.

He also vowed not to rest until the country is free from the ravages of corruption. He said his administration will not relent in its relent in its effort to build and secure a prosperous nation.

READ ALSO: 2019: It is necessary for PDP to zone presidency to northwest - Kwankwaso

Buhari, in a message to Nigerians made available to journalists by his senior special assistant on media and publicity, Garba Shehu, said surrendering to corruption was not an option because it destroyed society and progress of nations.

Even if some people hate you for fighting corruption, you should not chicken out from the task as a leader because doing so is a betrayal of public trust, he said.

The president is currently in Daura, Katsina state for the Sallah celebration.

Legit.ng earlier reported that President Buhari will be celebrating this years Eid-el Kabir with fellow kinsmen in his home town, Daura, Katsina state.

The president on Monday, August 20, left the Presidential Villa, Abuja, for the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, at about 3.06pm.

Some top government officials including his Chief of Staff Abba Kyari, the National Security Officer Babagana Monguno and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation Boss Mustapha, saw Buhari off as he left for his hometown.

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Buhari left shortly after meeting with the nations security chiefs during which he directed them to step up their game in order to make the country safer.

President Buhari on 2019 Presidential Election: Will You Vote For Him? on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit
| BY Ricki Green |

The HR-V with its magic seats has been touted for years as the versatile SUV that easily transforms to suit different lifestyles. The new campaign created with Leo Burnett Melbourne and Zenith goes one step further, giving a sneak peek into those different lives.

The campaign sees one actor take on eight different roles based on eight different real-life stories. Each is brought to life by young female actor, Krew Boylan, in a tongue in cheek play on the interchangeable 20-something women often depicted in the small SUV category. The actor and the HR-V may stay the same, but each spot is completely different, with Boylan transforming into a new and interesting persona every time.

The move came after initial insights from customers showed a craving for something that reflected them more authentically and differed from the generic 20-somethings in the prime of their lives, driving through city streets listening to music or sipping lattes.

It is an evolution of the 2017 brand campaign and purpose You are at the centre of everything we do.

Says Scott McGregor, general manager, customer and communications, Honda: We were determined to demonstrate the human, personal side of car ownership and set ourselves apart in the category. This launch showcases how the HR-V stands out as different, by fitting into your unique life.

To create the campaign, hundreds of real stories were gathered from Honda drivers across Australia. Some funny, some downright weird (who knew so many people proof bread in their car?). Some of the best, including hoarders of hard rubbish, mid-afternoon snoozers and ingenious dog owners were among those chosen to be immortalised.

Says Jason Williams, CCO, Leo Burnett: We wanted to tap into real-life, relatable stories about how people use their cars. The sometimes unglamorous, insightful, funny moments. We knew that if we could bring them to life in an engaging way, we could make Honda feel more relatable and more human.

As different as the people who drive it defined the entire strategic approach of the HR-V through to media, with the eight stories becoming the basis for a sophisticated content journey that matched individuals interests with relevant HR-V features. Smart utilisation of a comprehensive campaign ecosystem including TV, social and digital drives 50+ permutations of the campaign. Through deep research and data collection, a potent and highly targeted media program was then formed with Hondas media partner Zenith. A continuous Test & Optimisation strategy will constantly iterate and shape the program ongoing.

Client: Honda Australia

General Manager, Customer & Communications: Scott McGregor

Brand Communications Manager: Ben Familton

Brand Communications Specialist: Sarah Tolliday

Agency: Leo Burnett Melbourne

CCO: Jason Williams

Creative Director: Blair Kimber

Creatives: Lucy Logan and Holly Burgess

Director of Integrated Strategy: Ilona Janashvili

Integrated Strategist: Tallon Mason-Kaine and Zac Martin

Broadcast Producers: Cinnamon Darvall, Bridget Materia and Sophie Simmons

Director, Client Services and Solutions: Tim den Braber

Group Account Director: Jaime Morgan

Account Director: Jacquelyn Whelan

Digital Creative Director: Chris Jovanov

Lead Digital Designer: Matthew Caminiti

Social Editors: John Angless and Matt Cahill

Producers: Nick Baum and John Trifonopoulos

Photographer: Alexander Stoeckel

Retoucher: Adrian Garofalo

Production: Rabbit Content

Director: Lachlan Dickie

Producer: Megan Ayers

Executive Producer: Alex Hay and Lucas Jenner

DOP: Shelley Farthing-Dawe

Post Production

Editor: Bernard Garry  The Editors

VFX & Supervisor: Vivienne Baker

Post Producer: Charlotte Griffiths

Sound Engineer: Ramsay De Marco  Nylon Studios

Soundtrack: Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart (Sweet Dreams)

Composer: Jesse Watt

Music Producer: Karla Henwood  Nylon

Music Supervision: Chelsea Ramsden  Nylon

Media: Zenith

Strategy Director: Simon Schoen

Group Business Director: Katrina Stratton

Account Director: Philippa Butler and Michael Smith
- A pastor of a Baptist Church has been killed by suspected bandits in Kaduna state

- The pastor, Hosea Akuchi, was killed after struggling with the gunmen when they tried kidnapping him

- His wife was, however, abducted by the gunmen after he was killed

Suspected bandits have killed a pastor identified as Hosea Akuchi in Igabi local government of Kaduna state while attempting to resist kidnappers.

The Cable reports that Akuchi was a pastor of a Baptist Church, Guguwa, Nasira. The incident was said to have happened on Sunday, August 19.

Legit.ng gathers that the deceased's wife, Talatu, was abducted by the bandits after they killed her husband.

According to a witness, the bandits arrived the community around 1am and forced their way into the apartment of the clergyman after shooting sporadically in the air.

READ ALSO:

He said: The gunmen came at about 1am; I dont know how many of them but they were shooting sporadically. We thought they were armed robbers, everybody was scared.

They wanted to kidnap the pastor, but he was resisting them by struggling with them and they shot him. After killing him, they went away with his wife.

The incident was confirmed by the spokesperson for the police in the state, Yakubu Sabo, who said the clergyman was shot while struggling with his attackers.

He said: In the early hours of this morning, information reaching us that some armed men storm the house of Reverend Hosea and attempted to kidnap him.

But after struggling with them, they shot him and took away his wife. It is quite unfortunate that while we are keeping the peace we are enjoying in Kaduna, some criminals are doing this to sabotage our collective efforts.

We have visited the scene of the unfortunate incident and we are trying our best to get to the root of this incident and as soon as we get more information, I will get back to you."

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that five persons, including the community leader of Sarari village, were on Thursday, April 5, killed after bandits stormed their village located near Kuriga town in Birnin Gwari local government area of Kaduna state.

A survivor who identified himself as Henry said the bandits stormed the community on motorcycles in large numbers and started going from house to house shooting people.

Legit.ng visits kidnappers' den discovered in Lagos - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng
- Godswill Akpabio has denied an alleged claim that he called Governor Udom Emmanuel a mistake to be corrected in 2019

- Akpabio said the statement allegedly credited to him by a former senator, Anietie Okon, was totally untrue

Senator Godswill Akpabio has denied a statement allegedly credited to him by former Senator Anietie Okon, that he referred to Akwa Ibom state governor, Udom Emmanuel, as a mistake that must be corrected in 2019 election.

Akpabio, in a statement issued on Monday, August 20 by his media aide, Anietie Ekong, said Senator Okon's claim that he called Governor Emmanuel a mistake was untrue.

The senator's statement is a reaction to a earlier pulication by Punch in which a remark calling Governor Udom a mistake was credited to Akpabio.

READ ALSO: Defection: APC chieftain shuns Governor Udom's endorsement rally

Akpabio's press releases read: The attention of His Excellency, Senator Godswill Akpabio (CON) has been drawn to a speech by Senator Anietie Okon at a purported mega rally at Onna, the home local government area of Governor Udom Emmanuel, insinuating that Senator Akpabio said that Udom Emmanuel was a mistake in 2015.

We state categorically that such assertion never came from Senator Akpabio.

Senator Akpabio is now an APC chieftain, hence the likes of Senator Okon should concentrate their energy on marketing their party  the PDP instead of continually using falsehood to drive a wedge between Governor Udom Emmanuel and his predecessor.

For 2019, God shall decide the fate of our nation and individuals according to his will."

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that Governor Emmanuel said his achievements in office shows that he is not a mistake.

The Akwa Ibom state governor stated this in response to Godswill Akpabio, his predecessor, who allegedly described him as a mistake that must be rejected in 2019 at a rally in Ikot Ekpene Akpabio recently defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Nigeria Election 2019: What are Bukola Sarakis chances against President Buhari | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit
- Lauretta Onochie accuses Saraki and Tambuwal of allegedly relying on a fake report reportedly paid for by the PDP to Cambridge Analytica about Buharis health

- The Senate president hits executive, accuses it of delaying submission of INEC's budget

An aide to the president on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie, has said Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto state and Senate president Bukola Saraki are angry with Bola Tinubu because the APC chieftain told them the undiluted truth about their defections from the ruling party.

Legit.ng had earlier reported that APC national leader, Bola Tinubu, on Sunday, August 19, said that defectors who left the party wanted automatic tickets and sharing of the national wealth which the governing APC could not guarantee.

READ ALSO: Defection: APC chieftain shuns Governor Udom's endorsement rally

He said that Senate president Bukola Saraki and Sokoto state governor, Aminu Tambuwal, among others left the APC because the party could not offer them what they wanted

Backing Tinubus claims, Onochie in a tweet on Monday, August 20, accused Saraki and Tambuwal of relying on a fake report allegedly paid for by the PDP to Cambridge Analytica about Buharis health.

She said contrary to the report, the president has continues to live and will not die.

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Meanwhile, Senate president Bukola Saraki, on Sunday, August 19, lambasted the executive arm of the government for allegedly submitting the Independent National Electoral Commissions budget for 2019 general elections late.

Saraki, who accused the executive of lack of foresight, made the statement through his special adviser on new media, Olu Onemola, while reacting to the allegation by Muhammadu Buhari Media Organisation that the Senate intentionally delayed the approval of the INEC budget, Punch reports.

Nigeria Election 2019: What are Bukola Sarakis chances against President Buhari | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng
Governor Peter Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state is one personality that is known to be full of life. The amiable governor is also popular for being down to earth and cares not what other people will say about him.

There is photo of the outgoing governor of Ekiti state making round the internet nd it has gone viral.

The photo shows the governor doing the Shaku-shaku dance step. This should not be strange as Governor Fayose is a youth at heart. Not only that, the man popularly called Oshokomole has five sons so taking their father on the latest dance steps in town cannot be found wanting.

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Governor Fayose spotted doing the Shaku shaku dance steps

The governor was alleged to be doing the Shaku-shaku dance as he celebrated with his newly married daughter and her husband.

Legit.ng had reported that Fayose could not hide his joy, like every other parent, as he gave out his beautiful daughter, Tomi, out in marriage to her fiance with the royal blood, Arewa Odunlade, in a stylish wedding ceremony.

READ ALSO: Pretty Oyinbo bride weds Nigerian man in her Igbo traditional attire (photos)

Lagos city was shut down on Saturday, August 18, when Tomi, daughter of former governor, Ayo Fayose, married her man in grand style. The family of Fayose marked a memorable period in their lives with pomp and pageantry. The flamboyant event shut down the environs of Ikeja, Lagos, as many dignitaries showed up to celebrate love with the family.

Top-4 Nigerian Celebrities and Politician Weddings on Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit.ng
- Mallam Muhammad Sanusi II led the Eid-El-Kabir prayer at the Eid prayer ground, Kofar Mata

- He urged Muslims to fear God in all their activities

- The Eid prayer was attended by Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and many other dignitaries

The Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, on Tuesday, August 21, called on Nigerians to continue to live in peace with one another so as to foster peace, love and unity in the country.

The Emir made the call while addressing the people of the state shortly after he led the Eid prayer at the Kofar Mata Central Eid ground in Kano metropolis, NAN reports.

He stressed the need for all Nigerians irrespective of their political and religious inclination to promote peaceful co-existence to ensure economic growth and development in the country.

The monarch also called on wealthy individuals to support the less-privileged in the society to alleviate their sufferings.

Emir Sanusi led the Eid prayer at the Kofar Mata Central Eid ground in Kano metropolis. Photo Credit: Salihu Tanko Yakasai Twitter

He said there was need for the people of the state to continue to pray for peace and progress of the state in particular and the country at large as the 2019 general elections draw nearer.

READ ALSO: Eid-El-Kabir: Saraki felicitates with Muslims

While praying for bumper harvest in the state and the country, the monarch charged unemployed youths to engage in useful and meaningful ventures to enable them become self-reliant and contribute to the development of the country.

Gov Ganduje attended the Eid-El Kabir prayer at the Eid Prayer Ground. Photo Credit: Salihu Tanko Yakasai Twitter

He charged the people of the state to ensure that they obtain voter cards to enable them exercise their civic responsibility during the forthcoming general elections.

The monarch also urged Muslims to fear God in all their activities as according to him each and everyone of them must give account of his deeds in the hereafter.

Many dignitaries as well as other leaders in the society were also in attendance. Photo Credit: Salihu Tanko Yakasai Twitter

The Eid prayer was attended by Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, Senators Kabiru Gaya and Barau Jibrin, commissioners, some members of House of Representatives and members of the Emirate Council, among others.

Also in attendance were members of the state Assembly and traditional rulers from across the 44 local government areas of the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) also reports that security was tight during the prayer as armed policemen and other security personnel were deployed to various Eid ground and other strategic places in the city.

Armed policemen and other security personnel were deployed to various Eid ground for security reasons. Photo Credit: Salihu Tanko Yakasai Twitter

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Muslims across the world are celebrating Eid-El-Kabir, a day set aside to commemorate the willingness of Prophet Ibrahim to follow Allahs command to sacrifice his son, Ishmael.

Legit.ng earlier reported that President Muhammadu Buhari is celebrating this year's Eid-El-Kabir in Daura, his hometown in Katsina state.

He was at the Daura Eid ground on Tuesday, August 21, where he was joined by thousands for prayers.

The president also performed the annual sacrifice of slaughtering of the ram immediately after the prayer session.

Eid-el-Kabir: Why the ram killed must not exceed three days in your house on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit
- A young girl who was kidnapped at the age of two four years ago has been found

- The girl was kidnapped while attending her uncles end of the year party with her mother

- The kidnappers were arrested by the Imo state police command who rescued 10 more children among them a set of twins from the child trafficking syndicate

A 2-year-old girl identified as Onyinyechi Okpala who was kidnapped four years ago has been found four years later.

Okpala had got missing on November 30, 2014, at an end of the year party hosted by her uncle named Taribo. She had attended the party with her mother in Port Harcourt, Rivers state.

A search party was launched but all to no avail as Okpala had been kidnapped and taken to another state.

Luck finally shines on little Onyinyechi as on Monday, August 20, the little girl, who is now 6, was found by the Imo state police command.

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The police had busted a child trafficking syndicate where a total of 11 stolen children were recovered from the suspects, among them a set of twins. Some of the kidnapped children have been identified by their parents.

The Imo state Police Command have revealed that they have arrested eight suspects in connection with child stealing and trafficking. The were arrested between 24/07/2018 and 17/08/2018 at Agbor Park in Benin City, Edo state and Imo state respectively.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that some armed bandits on Sunday, May 20, hit Kaduna state where they kidnapped at least three women in Maganda village, Birnin Gwari local government area.

Daily Trust reports that the kidnapped women were wives of one Adamu Nakwana, a popular businessman in Birnin Gwari.

The women were abducted in the early hours of the day, around 1.30am, when the unknown gunmen stormed Madanga village and headed straight to Nakwanas house.

Evans the Kidnapper Lands in Kirikiri Prison After First Appearance in Lagos Court | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Patient readers, here again is a skeletal Water Cooler to get you going. I will finish up my foray into Medicare Part D, and then return with more, later. Lambert UPDATE Finished, having run errands 5:35PM

Politics

2020

Elizabeth Warren introduces sweeping ethics bill that faces tough odds on Capitol Hill [ CBS ]. Asked later by a reporter to cite a Democrat who she believes of harboring similarly corrupt behaviors, she cited Mary Jo White, the former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission and a former federal prosecutor. She faulted White for light enforcement of federal rules on corporations and then returning quickly to working for them in private practice.  Not Eric Holder?

Padlock the revolving door: Warren makes anti-corruption pitch [ American Banker ]. The legislation includes a ban on individual stock ownership by members of Congress, Cabinet secretaries, senior congressional staff, White House staff, federal judges and senior agency officials. It also includes restrictions on former federal employees joining the lobbying ranks, as well as on lobbyists going to work for the government, among other things. The bill would prohibit the worlds biggest companies, including banks, from hiring former senior government officials for four years after they leave the public sector. It would impose lifetime lobbying bans on presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress, federal judges and Cabinet secretaries. Lobbyists, meanwhile, could not take government jobs for two years; that period is six years for corporate lobbyists. Sure, theres lots of expertise in the private sector, and government should be able to tap that expertise, Warren said. And, yes, public servants should be able to use their expertise when they leave government. But weve gone way past expertise and are headed directly into graft . Padlock the revolving door.'  I wonder if anybody asked Warren about security clearances

2020 Contender Elizabeth Warren Unveils Her Plan to Drain the Swamp [ Roll Call ] ( the bill ). Warren said the Trump administration has ushered in the most corrupt Washington era to date. But they are not the cause of the rot, she said during a speech at the National Press Club in Washington. Theyre just the biggest, stinkiest example of it.

2018

Trump warnings grow from forgotten Republicans [ Associated Press ]. The expanding list of marginalized GOP leaders underscores how thoroughly Trump has dominated  and changed  the Republican Party in the nearly two years since he seized the presidency. The overwhelming majority of elected officials, candidates and rank-and-file voters now follow the president with extraordinary loyalty, even if he strays far from the values and traditions many know and love. The forgotten Republicans  people like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford and Ohio Gov. John Kasich  have been unwilling to sit quietly as Trump steers the GOP away from free trade, fiscal responsibility, consistent foreign policy and civility. Isolation and political exile have been their rewards. Their diminished roles leave fewer Republican leaders willing to challenge Trump under any circumstances, even in his darkest moments.

The Problem With Electability' [ FiveThirtyEight ]. In short, because the U.S. is majority white , and because a significant number of Americans have some negative views about nonwhite people and women, a heavy emphasis on electability can be tantamount to encouraging any candidates who arent Christian white men either not to run in the first place  or to run only if they are willing to either ignore or downplay issues that involve their personal identities.

Sex, lies and DUIs: GOP dumps oppo on Dem House hopefuls [ Politico ]. [W]ith so many first-time candidates running on the Democratic side  without the baggage of legislative voting records or controversial positions adopted over a long public career  and the political environment tilting toward them, GOP efforts to keep them out of the House may hinge on specific personal critiques, vetting them publicly for the first time. Thats how Congressional Leadership Fund, the Republican super PAC, is starting its campaign against Democrat Sean Casten in Illinois, blasting him for mismanagement, fraud, greed at his company in a TV ad released Wednesday. (Castens campaign called it false attacks in a statement.) The group is also hammering Randy Bryce, the Democratic nominee in Speaker Paul Ryans district, over a drunk driving arrest. And theres more to come.  Politics aint beanbag.

And speaking of corruption. July was the sixth consecutive month the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has raised more than the National Republican Congressional Committee. The DCCC ended the month with $4.7 million more in its bank account [ Bloomberg ].  Go team!

2016 Post Mortem

Pollsters: Trump and GOP are losing young, female voters permanently [ The Hill ]. Pollsters Anna Greenberg and Dan Cox said on Monday that President Trump and Republicans are losing young women to Democrats permanently. When you ask millennial women who are likely voters , about 65, 68 percent would actually vote for a Democrat in the generic congressional race, so that puts them as base Democratic voters, [said] Greenberg. What we know is that in your coming of age years, from sort of your teens into your early 20s, have a profound, long-term impact on what your partisanship and voting patterns are for the rest of your life, she continued. So, not only in this moment are these millennial women heavily, heavily Democratic and heavily hostile to Trump, but its likely that they are going to sort of be the vanguard of, I think, the feminization of the Democratic Party, she said.  Several points: This is the liberal Democrats favorite Demographics is destiny talking point, which is important operationally because it implies that Democrats never need to change; all they need to do is wait. True, that hasnt worked for fifteen years, but maybe it will work at some time in the future. Second, thats likely voters. True, Democrats are resolutely opposed to expanding their base, so non-voters dont matter to them, but I for one would like to know where the non-voters are going and what theyre thinking. Third, despite Greenbergs pseudo-revolutionary language  vangaurd, feminization, identified, I would imagine, with feminist  Greenberg has nothing to say about policy, let alone ideology. If were looking a generation of Hillary Clintons, why would that be a good thing? We really do have to get away from the idea that ascriptive identity is a good thing in itself. If it were, Obama, The First Bank President, would have been the FDR so many Democrats of good faith (including Thomas Frank) thought he would be.

Association of Chronic Opioid Use With Presidential Voting Patterns in US Counties in 2016 [ Journal of The American Medical Association ]. This cross-sectional analysis of a national sample of Medicare claims data found that chronic use of prescription opioid drugs was correlated with support for the Republican candidate in the 2016 US presidential election. Individual and county-level socioeconomic measures explained much of the association between the presidential vote and opioid use.  Although I drew attention to opiods in  Salient Economic Characteristics of the Counties that Flipped to Trump, Sorted by Maslows Hierarchy of Needs , this study was not available at the time of writing.

New Cold War

Donald Trump should sue John Brennan to bring civility back to our politics [ USA Today ]. Of all people, the ex-CIA director should know what treason is. That is why Brennan is special  he knowingly or recklessly made the false statement. Applying each of the libel criteria, it is evident that Brennan committed an actionable libel: Did Brennan make a false statement? Yes. Was Brennans accusation defamatory? Yes. Were Brennans statements made with actual malice? Yes. Even tough actual malice is difficult to prove, the case of John Brennan is particularly compelling. Indeed, his statements demonstrate that he had actual knowledge of the legal requirements of the crime of treason, and despite that, he leveled the false accusation, knowingly, or with reckless disregard for the truth.

Michael Cohen Pleads Guilty, Says He Acted at Trumps Direction [ Wall Street Journal ]. Michael Cohen, President Trumps former lawyer, pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to payments he arranged before the 2016 presidential election to silence two women who alleged having affairs with Mr. Trump, directly implicating his former boss for the first time in a scheme to violate campaign-finance laws.  They got Al Capone on income tax violations

The Liberals Have Lost Their Minds

Lifes little ironies: #Resistance Democrats, who revel in slogans like love Trumps hate, also revel in homophobic tropes, as weve seen over and over again. If  since?  doublethink and lack of principle is what the Democrat Blue Wave comes down to, why am I happy about it? And  I smell business model!  please dont tell me theres another product line of liberal tsotchkes with Sanders face swapped in

Realignment and Legitimacy

It would be nice if this were an outlier:

it seems the corporate media's constant smear of progressives has taken hold of my local party. it's not just on twitter that people call each other berniebots and Russians, my local dem party has deteriorated into nothing but insane accusations congrats, MSNBC and CNN, you won  beth, an alien (@bourgeoisalien) August 21, 2018

But Im not so sure it is. At my Bangor meetup last year, one of the attendees, a Sanders supporter, was driven out of his local party.

He brought an American flag to protest fascism in Portland. Then antifa attacked him [OregonLive (o4amuse)]. As he carried his flag, two people dressed in black and covering their faces approached Welch and demanded he turn it over to them, calling it a fascist symbol, he said.  Of course, the two people could be cops, doing the agent provocateur thing. But thats rather the problem, isnt it?

Stats Watch

The Bezzle: Tesla whistleblower says company spies on employees [Sky News]. A former Tesla employee has claimed the company spies on its workers and allowed a drug cartel to operate inside of its plant. Karl Hansen made the whistleblower complaint to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to his lawyer Stuart Meissner. Mr Hansen was a member of Teslas internal investigations team before he was fired.  Missed this one. A drug cartel on the plant floor  gotta get through production hell and a world of flaming paint booths somehow  would explain a lot about the build quality.

The Bezzle: Internal documents reveal the grueling way Tesla hit its 5,000 Model 3 target [Business Insider]. Internal documents show that Tesla had to rework more than 4,300 of the 5,000 Model 3 vehicles it built during the last week of June, when it hit its critical production target.  Gruelling is hardly the word! Note that the teardowns show that the Model 3 can be profitable (modulo liability). Thats not at all the same thing as saying that Tesla can manufacture them profitably. Here are the bullet points:

First pass yield of 14%. No wonder Tesla doesnt allow outside firms to sell parts or do repairs; each Model 3 must be its own unique little snowflake, shipped after a mallet expert banged the parts that dont fit into place

The Bezzle: Tesla Model 3 Tracker [Bloomberg]. Our best estimate is that Tesla has manufactured 72,791 Model 3s so far, and is now building approximately 5,942 a week. This projection relies on Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs), unique strings of digits displayed on every new car sold in the U.S.  Well, for some definition of building

The Bezzle: JPMorgan analyst cuts Tesla price target by 37% [Axios]. JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman cut his Tesla price target from $308 to $195, stating that it appears funding has not been secured for Elon Musks take-private proposal as originally claimed, reports StreetInsider.com.  I first mistyped the category as The Bezla. Pretty good, eh?

The Bezzle:

This is the best description of Bitcoin there will ever be. https://t.co/T1SSQEHUdi  Tigerfort (@StripeyCaptain) August 16, 2018

Hurrah for permissionless innovation!

Tech: Steams content-driven freeze on game approvals expected to last for months [GamaSutra]. Valve has since started work on the filtering tools  that aim to let players better curate their own feeds, however the company has yet to offer developers much information up front about how game releases and approvals are being affected in the meantime. Weve reached out to Valve for more information on this freeze and will update this article with any additional comments from Valve following a reply.  One of the chronic, minor fears that haunts me is that there will be some major development  economic, cultural, or even political  on the gaming front, and I wont even notice it, or understand it (like a world-building Presidential campaign with a candidates avatar. And the last thing I need is another time sink).

Regulation: The $23 Trillion Argument Against Dismantling U.S Earnings Rules [Bloomberg]. Flexibility and lower costs were the reasons given by President Donald Trump in ordering regulators to consider spacing out earnings reports to six months. In a market where $23 trillion of value has been created since 2009, some money managers wondered it if was a solution without a problem.  For some definition of value..

Our Famously Free Press

Why building a business thats dependent on Facebook is crazy' (interview) [Recode]. Digiday President and Editor in Chief Brian Morrissey: I dont think many people are going to build publishing strategies and their models around Facebook anymore. I dont think thats a bad thing. I think that publishers should build their own strategies and as much as possible control what you can control. Facebook will do whats in Facebooks interest. The idea of being dependent on Facebook or being dependent on any other platform is crazy. * It was always crazy. And heres Naked Capitalism, chugging along.

Water

How Colorados Water Law Affects You and Our Rivers [American Rivers].  Prior appropriation is the backbone of our water law system . Perhaps youve heard of first in time, first in right,  this phrase refers to the water law system. Prior appropriation allows individuals or entities who first apply water for a beneficial use to be entitled to that appropriation into the future (and has priority over subsequent users). Holding a water right doesnt actually imply ownership over the water (water in Colorado is owned by the people) but is instead the right to use the peoples water for a beneficial use like agriculture, municipal water, and now more recently, in benefit of the environment as in-stream flows.  With podcast.

Net Neutrality

Chairman Pai Doesnt Know How to Measure Investment [Free Press]. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is trying to gut Net Neutrality protections at the agency by claiming theyve stifled broadband investment. Chairman Pai has insisted that aggregate broadband-industry investment has been on the decline since the FCC passed strong Net Neutrality rules under Title II authority. That argument is wrong on its face (aggregate investment is actually going up). But it also relies exclusively on aggregate investment data, which are, at best, only mildly informative. .Technological developments also mean that for many internet service providers, its getting cheaper to expand capacity and upgrade their networks. For example, once cable companies have already deployed a new cable line, they increase capacity primarily by upgrading the electronics at each end of the line. As technology improves, those electronics get better and cheaper. In other words, ISPs may be spending less while still making their networks faster.  Which doesnt speak to coverage  lets just have municipal broadband everywhere  but does show, as if we didnt know it, that Pai is a bad actor.

Police State Watch

Police say they accidentally ran over a fleeing suspect with a bulldozer during pot bust [USA Today].  Yes, and it wasnt easy.

Health Care

Whats in the Administrations 5-Part Plan for Medicare Part D and What Would it Mean for Beneficiaries and Program Savings? [KFF] (further to todays post). The Administrations 5-part plan for Part D would likely affect all Part D enrollees in terms of their out-of-pocket costs, premiums, and access to medications, although some enrollees would be affected to a greater degree than others. The Administration has emphasized that these proposals are intended to be implemented together, since eliminating any of them would change the impacts of the plan overall. This makes it difficult to precisely measure the effects for beneficiaries, since the effects would depend on several factors specific to an individual enrollee, including what drugs they take, what plan theyre enrolled in, how their plan premium changes, how their formulary coverage and access to medication changes, whether they receive low-income subsidies, their level of drug costs in any given year, whether they reach the coverage gap and/or catastrophic coverage phase in any given year, and the level of rebates negotiated by their plan for drugs they take.  What a hoot. All this complicated eligibility determination jargon  coverage gap , catastrophic coverage phase   that nobody can understand, except to the extent that it cant possibly mean anything good.

Neoliberal Epidemics

A Closer Look at How the Opioid Epidemic Affects Employment [Harvard Business Review]. In short, while the opioid epidemic has caused wide-reaching devastation, aggregate employment appears not to be one of its victims. Furthermore, evidence suggests that poor economic conditions cannot be blamed for the crisis itself. What this means is that we must look at the opioid epidemic for what it is: a self-inflicted perfect storm that arose from a combination of newly available opioids, new attitudes about the importance of pain management, loose prescribing practices, and a lack of professional accountability. The solution to the problem must lie in addressing some of these root causes.  The methodology of the study is interesting; Id welcome reader comments.

Class Warfare

As usual, things are more complicated, in this enormous country, than they appear at first sight, in this case the role of non-slaveholding Southerners in the Civil War. Thread:

I'm seeing some misinformation here re: non-slaveholding southerners fighting in the #CivilWar since @TheTattooedProf 's #RobertELee thread went viral. So let's get a few things right:  Keri Leigh Merritt (@KeriLeighMerrit) August 17, 2018

A Confederate veteran speaks: What the monuments mean [USA Today].  One local historian recently told a reporter he has never heard nor read about the statues being a testament to white supremacy. Perhaps Wiley N. Nash, Mississippian and Civil War veteran, can add something to the conversation. What good purpose, he asked in 1908, is subserved, promoted and supported by the erection of these Confederate memorials all over the South? Nash had studied both literature and law at the University of Mississippi, so his answer came fully attired in his best rhetorical finery: Like the watch fires kindled along the coast of Greece that leaped in ruddy joy to tell that Troy had fallen, so these Confederate monuments, these sacred memorials, tell in silent but potent language, that the white people of the South shall rule and govern the Southern states forever.'  And much more.

* * *

Why Prisoners Are Going On Strike Today [The Nation]. Prisoners across the country are launching a strike today, on the anniversary of the death of incarcerated activist George Jackson. Jackson, a member of the Black Panther Party, was a leading voice and theorist in the 1970s prison movementa time that saw hundreds of uprisings behind bars. On April 24, prisoners in South Carolina announced the strike, which is expected to last for 19 days and ends on the anniversary of the Attica prison uprising in New York Their second demand, which reads: an immediate end to prison slavery. All persons imprisoned in any place of detention under United States jurisdiction must be paid the prevailing wage in their state or territory for their labor, has been a theme in work strikes over the past five years and speaks to a [Jailhouse Lawyers Speak (JLS),] slogan, #Abolishthe13th, referencing the 13th Amendment of the constitution.

Im For Disruption: Interview With Prison Strike Organizer From Jailhouse Lawyers Speak [Shadowproof]. JLS representative: the biggest thing that we can ask any of these [outside] groups or any organization is to hold some type of event, particularly an event that can get the radios attention, news media attention, anything that can get back into the jail cells and the prisons. The more radio programs that pick it up, the prisoners can listen to it. Particularly the prisoners that dont have access to phones or internet access, they can at least get it while theyre listening to their radios or they can see it on television. This is very, very important. This is how Floridas strikes spread so fast, because they were able to get it in through the channels. They were able to raise enough hell to where the media caught on to it and it was getting back into the prisons and cells that [prison officials] really didnt want it to get into.  And innovation, too, apparently

* * *

Walmart And Others Offer Workers Payday Loan Alternative [NPR]. Forty percent dont have $400 to cover an emergency expense, such as a car repair. And many working-class people turn to payday loans or other costly ways to borrow money. But more companies are stepping in to help their workers with a much cheaper way to get some emergency cash. Startup companies that offer better options for workers are partnering with all kinds of businesses  from giants like Walmart to little fried chicken restaurants.. [Founder and CEO Safwan Shahs] PayActiv compay lets workers get access to that money they have already earned. So lets say theyve already earned $900 by earning $100 a day for nine days, says Shah. But payroll is still five days away and they need the money right away. Shaw says they open the app and they will see a number which is half of the amount they have earned that is accessible to them. So if they need $400 for a car repair or a trip to visit a sick brother, they tap a few buttons and the money gets zapped to their checking account or a prepaid card. And the fee is $5. (Some employers pay the fee or a portion of it.) And a lot of workers are deciding thats a much better option than getting stuck in a cycle of debt with costly payday loans.  Walmart has this. I grant this sounds better than payday loans  though gawd knows what PayActiv does with the data  but I cant get away from the sneaking suspicion that Walmart sees PayActiv as a substitute for decent wages, rather than a complement.

Massachusetts gives workers new protections against noncompete clauses [Ars Technica]. In a Thursday phone interview, [state Rep. Lori Ehrlich] told Ars that her work was motivated by hearing from hundreds of Massachusetts workers who had suffered from the abuse of noncompete laws. We heard from people working at pizza parlors, yogurt shops, hairdressers, and people making sandwiches, Ehrlich said. Those stories were incredibly compelling and really drove the narrative for change.'  Drove the narrative for change. Ugh. More: The legislation bans the enforcement of noncompete agreements against minors, student interns, and workers who are laid off. The law also bans the enforcement of noncompete agreements against whats known as non-exempt workershourly, generally low-wage workers who are eligible for overtime pay.  The focus of the article is on non-compete clauses in the tech elite. But it sounds like Ehrlich has done a good job for the hourly workers. So, great! After all, the tech elite will do fine, no matter what.

You dont need a weatherman:

A compressed version of the Jackpot, in fact.

News of The Wired

Innovation:

All this tech. LCDs, ARM processors, gigs of RAM, WiFi, VMs, just so I can avoid opening the fridge door? pic.twitter.com/7hJDXXC62w  Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) August 14, 2018

I dunno. Theres plenty of times I havent wanted to open my refrigerator door. But I probably wouldnt have wanted to look inside it, either, even digitally.

Contrarian views on Mastodon (1). Thread:

I think Mastodon kind of sucks, actually. If everyone moved there, the abuse problems would mostly be worse.  three-fingered fox (@3fingeredfox) August 16, 2018

I dunno. I set up an account, and it seemed a bit clunky. The user population is small, but theres some attraction to writing the, er, platform and its user base into existence

Contrarian views on Mastodon (2). Thread:

So, Mastodon. Just FYI, if a SINGLE hostile user on a SINGLE malicious instance follows you, all your posts may be kept forever    (@adrienneleigh) April 6, 2017

If theres one thing weve learned from Silicon Valleys social media debacle, its that assuming people will be at their best, while providing them tools to do their worst, produces a highly profitable platform with a suboptimal user experience.

Derek Smalls on Going Solo, Keeping Drummers Alive and the Future of Spinal Tap [Consequence of Sound]. With the future of Spinal Tap up in the air, the bands legendary bassist Derek Smalls has gone solo, unleashing the album Smalls Change, featuring a whos who of renowned guest musicians Smalls Change is a 13-song opus with instant classics like Butt Call, She Puts the Bitch in Obituary and more, as Smalls steps into the role of frontman with a power and force akin to an 18-inch stonehenge replica crashing into the ground.  Pitch perfect. In all senses

Maines Obsession With Allens Coffee Flavored Brandy [The Daily Beast (RH)]. [Maines] most persistent aberration may be its lasting fondness for Allens Coffee Brandy. [Portland bar owner Andrew Volk], in Northern Hospitality, his forthcoming book about Maine cocktails co-authored with his wife and business partner, Briana, notes that the melting of the snow in late winter heralds a Maine phenomenon: Empty bottles [of Allens] found in the spring along snowmobile trails are called Lilies of the Tundra.'  Well, I dunno if Id trust a barkeep from a Boston suburb talking his book  gracefully as the Daily Beast author wraps that up  but the article is filled with genuinely interesting information about our Great State. But the moment artisanal coffee brandy hits the market, expatriation is gonna move a lot higher on my list.

* * *

Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Todays plant (Stephen V.):

Stephen V. commennt: No pollination required. Parthogenesis?

* * *

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So do feel free to make a contribution today or any day. Here is why: Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know Im on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of small donations helps me with expenses, and I factor that trickle in when setting fundraising goals. So if you see something you especially appreciate, do feel free to click the hat!



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More and more commentators are coming around to the point of view that a crash out Brexit is likely. As well discuss below, it appears to be very probable. Even though most people tend to think of politics as a realm where positions can and do change and parties regularly makes strained compromises, as well explain, there are boundary conditions that at this juncture make it very difficult not to have a hard Brexit.

One reason that the high odds of a no-deal Brexit are not being more widely recognized is that the consequences, not just for the UK but also for the EU, are sufficiently dire that many observers, particularly those that have not gotten into the weeds, assume that Sense Will Prevail and the Brexit train will therefore not be allowed to plunge off a cliff. Another reason is the Ultras are telling baldface lies of the This is all Project Fear intended to deny you the benefits of a glorious Brexit! sort. Sadly, they are getting far more press than they deserve and not enough effective pushback.

In the runup to the crisis, Richard Bookstaber published A Demon of Our Own Design, in which he described how tight coupling produced financial crises. Tight coupling occurs when a systems are too tightly integrated and processes can move too quickly to be halted, resulting in the system spinning out of control. His examples included how portfolio insurance led to automated selling in a large market drop, producing the 1987 crash, and Three Mile Island. One of his observations was that in a tightly coupled system, emergency measures to reduce risk generally wind up making matters worse.

Another Bookstaber case study was the start of World War I. He took the Barbara Tuchman Guns of August view, that treaty obligations and demands of loyalty and honor forced key countries to declare war when the state of communications of the day prevented them from speaking to each other and finding other responses.1

Even if Bookstabers World War I illustration is arguably strained, he is still getting at a larger truth: political events can develop a momentum that in combination with deadlines look an awful lot like tight coupling. There isnt enough time to create the needed room to maneuver to stop or divert a rush to action.

Readers may beg to differ, but here is why a crash out Brexit looks awfully close to inevitable.

The Brexit Date Is Rigid, and Any Concessions Wont Be Given to Help the UK

The EU will let the UK back out of a Brexit, but thats a non-starter on the UK end. Barnier and some EU national leaders have said theyd welcome the UK doing an Emily Litella Never mind with respect to Brexit, even up to the very 11th hour. Accepting a petition to nullify the invocation of Article 50 would presumably take a unanimous vote of the EU27, but it is hard to see why any country would oppose it. The hardlines would welcome the spectacle of the UK admitting it needed the EU. The countries that are more friendly to the UK are the ones that have strong trade exchange, and they would be relieved not to be taking a large economic hit.

One possible stumbling block even if the UK were to grovel would be the EU would be within its rights to demand some concessions for being put through the nonsense of the last two years, like having the UK agree not to invoke Article 50 for at least X years.

The EU has been discouraging the idea that the UK might get an extension of the Article 50 deadline with no deal in place. Privately, EU officials have signaled that they might be able to push out the drop dead date if both parties were negotiating in good faith and needed a bit of time to get all the points nailed down. Even then it would presumably take a vote of the EU27, which is a high bar. And those sources have also indicated that the EU will be receptive to the idea of an extension only if it is in the EUs interest.

Another reason why an extension wouldnt be the break for the UK that it might otherwise appear to be is that the EU is not likely to push out the drop dead date for the transition period, now set for December 31, 2020, just because the UK didnt get serious about negotiating until very late. The EU has been hardnosed about the 2020 limit because going beyond that would mess up EU budgeting and Parliamentary representation.

The EU Is Not Going to Cut the UK Any Slack

The fact that chief negotiator Michel Barnier regularly strains to appear to be polite to UK counterparts who would drive most sentient beings mad is not the same as making concessions, misinformed UK commentary to the contrary.

European leaders have said to the English language press that they regard Brexit as yesterdays business when the EU has more pressing matters. They are not sympathetic to what they regard as UK stunts. The UK had virtually no friends in the EU when the UK invoked Article 50, and UKs conduct since then has only served to harden opinion against them.

Even more important, there is close to no European press coverage of Brexit. There is no upside for being generous to the UK. The very morning after Brexit was announced, and consistently since then EU leaders have said that they expect that they will suffer as a result of the UKs divorce, so in their minds they have already marked this trade to market. And EU business leaders supported the decision to prioritize preserving the integrity of the EU over economic considerations.

Now as the Brexit drop-dead date approaches, EU corporate executives are sounding alarms, in part because many of them discounted the possibility of a crash out. And Eurocrats and politicians are also likely to be underestimating the GDP hit of a disorderly Brexit. But there does not seem to be much willingness to change course on the EU side, in large measure because the UK, to the extent it is negotiating at all, has been negotiating in bad faith.

The UK Is and Will Remain Incapable of Getting Out of Its Own Way

I hate to tell you, this part of the equation is not hard to parse, despite all the noise in the UK press.

The Government has painted itself in a corner. Unless something very radical happens in the next few months, the UK has assured a no deal outcome through its position on the Irish border. For a whole host of reasons, a land border is not workable. The UKs attempts at technology and regulatory fudges will not work. It is absolutely unacceptable for any EU country that regards its agricultural sector as important to allow Ireland to serve as a channel for smuggling in non-complaint products. The only viable option is a sea border, which was the backstop plan in the so-called December Agreement.

As Brexit followers recall, Theresa May rejected the existing version of the backstop over the summer, and has yet to propose a new one, even though the EU requires that there be a backstop of some form.

The EU has also made clear that coming up with an Irish border solution is a preliminary to concluding the Withdrawal Agreement.

A couple of weeks ago, DW gave a good recap of the state of play:

The UKs Brexit negotiations with the European Union are at an impasse  thats according to Prime Minister Theresa May. In a letter to her own divided Conservative party, she admits that, surrounded by red lines she is not allowed to cross, she can neither push ahead nor turn back Brussels has rejected Mays latest proposal, which would have meant negotiating a kind of free trade area only for goods. Just 11 percent of UK citizens liked that plan, according to opinion polls There are no viable proposals either on trade issues or the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. The British government is set on a vague statement about its future relationship with the EU. However, Brussels is insisting on a concrete exit treaty that would at least finalize essential questions regarding finances, borders and civil rights. It is clear that time is getting short Up until now, the British have negotiated by playing dead and only coming up with something substantial and concrete at the very last moment, but that is not likely to work this time around. Mays attempt to split the EU with charm offensives in Paris and Berlin has failed. The UKs negotiating position is growing weaker by the day.

There is not remotely enough support in the UK for undoing Brexit for that to be a viable political position. No party is pumping to exit Brexit. And if the Guardian is to be believed, Labour is in the process of tearing itself apart.

Richard North highlighted a new poll in The Sun that found that 59% of the respondents said Im really bored by Brexit. 55% oppose a second referendum and 40% think the UK should stick to the original March 29 Brexit date, deal or no deal.

And to add to the direction of political energy to useless ends, the latest distraction are the calls for a second referendum. A referendum is silly because it was only advisory in the first place. If sentiment towards Brexit had really changed, so that polls were consistently showing 60%+ now opposed, thered be no need for such a nicety. A second referendum is merely a means of providing political cover.

We have already pointed out that there is too little time between now and March 29 to complete an referendum. There is also not enough time to legislate new procedures, and the Ultras are guaranteed to contest any referendum that did not adhere to the legal requirements, and theyd be correct to do so.

While the Independent cites a YouGov poll commissioned by Peoples Vote with markedly different findings, that 45% of respondents support a second vote versus 30% who dont, and 53% now say theyd vote Remain, that is not a give enough change to embolden politicians to stick their necks out and change their positions on Brexit much, if at all. And thats before factoring in that there is a contingent of Leave voters who are fervent in their belief in Brexit, which is not matched by similar passions for Remain. Clive highlighted this section of a Guardian story earlier this month:

It would be comforting to think that what George Orwell called the gentleness of the English civilisation would mean that an overturning of 2016s outcome would be grudgingly swallowed by the vast majority of leave voters, but I would not be so sure. Ukip is back in the polls, and has newly strengthened links to the far right. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Boston in Lincolnshire, the town whose 75.6% vote for Brexit made it the most leave-supporting place in the UK. Many of the people I spoke to were already convinced that Brexit was doomed, and full of talk of betrayal. Some of what I heard was undeniably ugly, though much of it was based on an undeniable set of facts. People were asked to make a decision, and they did. The referendum was the one meaningful political event in millions of voters lifetimes, and we were all assured that its result would be respected. Whatever the noise about a second referendum, this is the fundamental reason why the likelihood of Brexitinterrupted remains dim. If we take that as a given, anyone involved in progressive politics ought to focus on one imperative above all others: the defeat of the zealots who saw the dismay and disaffection of so many potential leave voters, opportunistically seized on it  and now want to pilot the country into a post-Brexit future that is completely inimical to their future.

In other words, despite growing awareness of and anxiety about the lasting damage that would be caused by a crash-out Brexit, it is difficult to find any channel for changing the trajectory of the course that Theresa May set in motion by invoking Article 50, and further restricted by her decision to nix the Irish backstop with no acceptable alternative in hand. It is possible to change public opinion in surprisingly short order with a concerted propaganda campaign, but there isnt enough unanimity of elite opinion to set an effective program in motion.

It would be better if I were wrong, but Brexit has all the makings of Lehman-level event, although the knock-on effects would probably not unfold as quickly as they did in September and October of 2008. Not only would there be considerable disruption to some key EU ports, but the near-impossiblity of coming up with aviation agreements would lead to considerable dislocation of flights.2 And that is before getting to the scenario that Willem Buiter thought was a real risk for the UK in 2008: that of becoming Reykjavik on the Thames, of suffering banking crisis that would lead to a sovereign debt and currency crisis. And if anything Seriously Bad were to happen to UK banks while the EU economy was taking it on the chin, its not hard to see EU banks starting to go wobbly.

As Bette Davis once said, Fasten your seat belts. Its going to be a bumpy night.

____

1 Later studies of the start of World War I, such as Christopher Clarks The Sleepwalkers, describe how bureaucrats and pols in many of the key countries were hawkish, but the monarchs less so. Its very hard to judge counterfactuals, but a key element in the start of World War I was that Kaiser Wilhelm was inaccessible on his steam yacht when the Archduke was assassinated. Had he been part of the mix, it is not out of the question that the ruling families would have played a bigger role in decisionmaking and produced a different outcome.

2 Reactions to this issue too often fall in the This is so terrible, of course it will not be permitted to happen. The wee problem is that commercial airlines are heavily regulated and the operators accept the importance of regulations for safety reasons. No airline would violate the rules. Experts have also said it would take five to ten years for the UK to negotiate replacements to the agreements in which it participates via the EU. I havent seen anything that suggests that the UK is even remotely on track to solving this problem.
Ancestor of all life on Earth evolved earlier than we thought, according to our new timescale The Conversation (KW).

Devastating dolphin loss in Florida red tide disaster Agence France Presse

Sea level rise is already costing property owners on the coast WaPo

Maersk launches container ship on Arctic route FT

Environmentally-Caused Disease Crisis? Pesticide Damage to DNA Found Programmed Into Future Generations EcoWatch (GF).

An alternative to controversial pesticides still harms bumblebees Nature

Rhododendron? Hydrangea? America Doesnt Know Anymore WSJ

Syraqistan

Prospect of a new UK party grows as Brexit shifts ground at Westminster Guardian

Have British Spies Been Hacking the EU? Consortium News

A Gangster State Craig Murray

2018: the year the failure of privatisation and austerity became undisguisable New Statesman

The Greece Bailouts Legacy of Immiseration James Galbraith, The Atlantic

How Crises and Bailouts Have Changed Greeces Economy Bloomberg

EU-wide deposit insurance is the best antidote to populism FT. Oh.

China?

Tariff Tantrum

US trade panel hears harsh criticism of proposed new tariffs  and praise for Chinese craftsmanship South China Morning Post. The front page teaser reads US business reps blast proposed new tariffs, and praise Chinas workers. Not quite the same. Craftsmen tend not to need suicide nets.

New Cold War

Trump Transition

Democrats in Disarray

Health Care

Imperial Collapse Watch

The Rise and Fall of Soft Power Foreign Policy Lockheed to build ALIS data transfer controls for F-35s foreign customers FlightGlobal. International development partners and foreign customers of the F-35 have expressed concern that ALIS, which manages and analyses the fighters systems, training and flight logs, would automatically transmit information back to Lockheeds hub in Fort Worth, Texas, possibly giving the company and the USA insight into their military operations. Oh. Who wrote those requirements?

Class Warfare

Why do American CEOs get paid so much? James Galbraith, Guardian

A Superconductor Scandal? Scientists Question a Nobel PrizeWorthy Claim Scientific American

Stacking concrete blocks is a surprisingly efficient way to store energy Quartz

From Chester Himes to Judy Blume, 10 Writers and Their Cats Literary Hub

Antidote du jour (via):

Having written on the New York subway system, I subscribe to its Twitter feed. Hence this bonus antidote:

Two very baaaaad boys. pic.twitter.com/3fcb9QCxGh  NYCT Subway (@NYCTSubway) August 20, 2018

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
By Lambert Strether of Corrente

This post  inspired by this Times article on Medicare Part D (non-paywalled duplicate)  is or was going to be my first foray into actual Medicare, as opposed to #MedicareForAll.[1] I say was because in fact my foray failed, as I recoiled in horror when I tried to understand the system. WikiPedia:

Medicare is further divided into parts A and BMedicare Part A covers hospital (inpatient, formally admitted only), skilled nursing (only after being formally admitted for three days and not for custodial care), and hospice services; Part B covers outpatient services including some providers services while inpatient at a hospital. Part D covers self-administered prescription drugs. Part C is an alternative called Managed Medicare by the Trustees that allows patients to choose plans with at least the same benefits as Parts A and B (but most often more), often the benefits of Part D, and always an annual out of pocket spend limit which A and B lack; the beneficiary must enroll in Parts A and B first before signing up for Part C.

Four parts is three parts too many. Its clear at the outset that Medicare has a serious neoliberal infestation problem, since complex eligibility determination  we call it shopping  is the hallmark of the neoliberal approach to the provision of services. (Thats why free at the point of care is essential to any #MedicareForAll program; its the only way to blow away the eligibility system, along with its gatekeepers and rent-seekers.) Clearly, doping out what my Medicare coverage should be will be a large, even enormous, tax on my time, and I dont want to pay that tax just now.

So, a change of course (and a shorter post). First, Ill provide a brief potted history of Medicare Part D; then Ill look at the the issues that the Times raises; then  as a #MedicareForAll supporter  Ill explain why Medicare Part D shouldnt exist in the first place; and finally Ill open the floor for readers to share their own experiences.

Medicare Part D was passed by the Bush administration in 2003[2], and is essentially a public-private partnership. It went into effect on January 1, 2006. From The Commmonwealth Fund in July 1, 2006:

Medicare Part D: A Successful PublicPrivate Partnership Six years ago, millions of elderly Americans, most of them living on fixed incomes, had few ways to contend with the rising cost of prescription drugs other than to delay getting their prescriptions filled, take fewer pills than prescribed, or save on other expenses by such dire strategies as skipping meals. The problem was clear and the nation resolved[3] to embark on the most ambitious public-private partnership since Medicare was adopted 40 years ago. For the benefit to succeed, it would demand unprecedented collaboration within the health care community and a commitment to publicprivate partnerships . In 2003, Congress passed the Medicare Modernization Act, challenging the marketplace to bring affordable prescription drugsand peace of mindto elderly Americans like Barbara Stetson[4], an 81-year-old Maine resident who has had three strokes and takes nine medications. She had been frantic, she says, unable to afford her medications and depressed by the fear that she had become a burden to her children by living too longa tragic and all too typical situation. [T]he new program is working well. Barbara Stetson and millions of people like her are no longer frantic. They have affordable drug coverage at long last. What happened? The short answer is that both the private and the public partners have taken their responsibilities seriously and have worked exceptionally hard, cooperatively, and effectively to meet and overcome the inevitable problems accompanying the most significant strengthening of the Medicare program since its enactment in 1965.

(Anything that nudges Medicare toward privatization doesnt strengthen it, but never mind that for now.) Fast forward twelve years, and there are some snags. From the New York Times, the story I mentioned at the beginning:

The Large Hidden Costs of Medicares Prescription Drug Program

As a sidebar, the deck:

Premiums have risen very little in the years since Medicare Part D was introduced. But the same cannot be said of the burden on taxpayers.

As NC readers know, although the Times does not, Federal taxes do not fund federal spending; see Fed Chair Beardsley Ruml here. End sidebar. Quoting the Times at length:

Drug benefits are entirely provided by private insurance plans, with generous government subsidies. There are lots of plans to choose from. Its a wildly popular voluntary program, with 73 percent of Medicare beneficiaries participating. Premiums have exhibited little to no growth since the programs inception in 2006 . [But] in 2007, Part D cost taxpayers [no, it didnt] $46 billion. By 2016, the figure reached $79 billion, a 72 percent increase. Its a surprising statistic for a program that is often praised for establishing a competitive insurance market that keeps costs low, and that is singled out as an example of the good that can come from strong competition in a private market. Much of this increase is a result of growing enrollment  it has doubled in the past decade to 43 million  and higher drug prices [and why, one might wonder, are they so high?]. But there is also a subtle way in which the programs structure promotes cost growth.

So, subtle is the story; cf. Thomas Frank on how the professional classes love complexity for its own sake. Back to the Times:

When enrollees drug costs are relatively low, plans pay a large share, typically about 75 percent. But when enrollees drug spending surpasses a certain catastrophic threshold  set at $5,000 in out-of-pocket spending in 2018  80 percent of drug costs shifts to a government program called reinsurance. This gives people in charge of private insurance plans an incentive to find ways to push enrollees into the catastrophic range, shifting the vast majority of drug costs off their books. For example, they could be less motivated to negotiate for lower drug prices for certain types of drugs if doing so would tend to keep more enrollees out of the catastrophic range. Reinsurance spending, which is not reflected in premiums, has been rising rapidly. The Affordable Care Act hastened this growth. The law requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to pay some of the cost of the drug benefit. (The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 further increased how much manufacturers must contribute.) For the purposes of reaching the catastrophic threshold and triggering reinsurance, these industry contributions count as out-of-pocket payments for enrollees, even though they are not. That means enrollees dont have to spend as much as they otherwise would to trigger the reinsurance program. Although this is of great benefit to enrollees, it also pushes up taxpayer liability [no, it doesnt] for the program. Changing the extent to which manufacturers contributions count as enrollee out-of-pocket spending is one potential reform of the program. Other solutions include increasing the liability of insurance company plans in the catastrophic range and decreasing the liability of taxpayers. This would have the effect of bringing premiums more in line with program spending. Doing so would return Part D to the market-based program it was intended to be, [Jeah Jung of Penn State University]. As it stands, there is a substantial divide between what Part D was billed as and what it actually is.

Two fun facts, neither mentioned by the Times: (1) the legislation enabling Medicare Part D forbids the Federal government from using its bargaining power to decrease the price of pharmaceuticals; and (2) the high and rising price of pharmaceuticals is largely due to Big Pharmas monopoly power. With these two facts in mind, lets reformulate the Timess prose in simpler terms:

(1) Medicare Part D, through a familiar shopping experience, has fixed drug prices at a low level for years. Hence consumers love it.

(2) Medicare Part D enables drug manufacturers to pass on monopoly prices to the Federal Government, which cannot bargain them down. Hence Big Pharma loves it.

(3) Big Pharma has also figured out a way to game Medicare Part Ds complex eligibility requirements (reinsurance), making their profits even more grotesquely ginormous than they already are.

(4) Point #3 is what the Times thinks is the scandal, and not point #2, let alone #1 (neoliberalisms quasi-religious belief in shopping).

(5) A system where the price of a product to consumers is regulated by the government, yet the where the cost of the product to the government cannot be regulated, is considered by economists to be market-based by intent.

Well, my head hurts. So at this point, Ill appeal to you, readers to help me out with my foray into Medicare by sharing your own experiences. After all, things may not be as bad as I think! Millions depend on it, after all.

NOTES

[1] Im incentivized on Medicare, since Ive been going naked ever since the Crash  before that, employer-based health insurance was actually a thing for me, a routine thing  and in the near- to medium-term future Ive got to figure out what to do about this, given whatever Medicares monthly costs might turn out to be, per this laughingly named Medicare 2018 costs at a glance page at Medicare.gov. It could be that its better just to put the money in the bank, and go the medical arbitrage route when or if the time comes. (There is also the question of whether I want to enter our brutal and horrid health care system in the first place; Id rather die in a ditch in the tropics than be stuck in a bed in a nursing home, in front of a TV I cant turn off.) Youd think there would be a simpler way.

[2] At the time, there was a good deal of whinging about mean Republicans (Kos; Rep. Louise Slaughter), but, as usual, there were enough Democrat votes to pass it in the Senate: Max Baucus, John Breaux, Thomas Carper, Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Dianne Feinstein, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Zell Miller, Ben Nelson, and Ron Wyden. Why, some of them of them still Senators today! Although not Max Baucus, who readers will remember had protesters arrested in his hearing room; they were protesting his exclusion of any single payer advocates from his panel.

[3] We dont seem to hear triumphalist rhetoric like the nation resolved any more, oddly, or not.

[4] I ran a search on Barbara Stetson in Maine, and came up with testimony from a Barbara Stetson in this interesting article on a Maine program for preventing falls, which Stetson attended, called A Matter of Balance. Buried at the very, very bottom left of the page is  hold onto your hats, here, folks  the fee: $20. Sounds small, but then again, thats 20 cans of cat food at Dollar Tree. You could eat for practically a month on that! Free at the point of care really is important.
| BY Ricki Green |

AdFest has announced the dates and theme for next years festival, which will be held at the Royal Cliff Hotels Group, Pattaya, Thailand from Wednesday 20th March to Saturday 23rd March 2019.

AdFest 2019 will again be divided into two streams: Craft@AdFest on 20th  21st March and Creative@AdFest on 22nd  23rd March.

Says Jimmy Lam, president, AdFest: Craft@AdFest is dedicated to craft and technology, highlighting the latest production, digital, content and technology trends. Creative@AdFest is all about creativity  the DNA of AdFest  and will focus on inspiring and pushing the boundaries of the creative and communications industry in the Asia Pacific and MENA region.

Next years theme, TMRRW.TDAY, was devised by Eric Cruz, executive creative director of AKQA in Shanghai in collaboration with the AdFest Collective, an advisory body made up of leading creative professionals that advises the AdFest Working Committee.

Says Cruz: Our industry today is too cautious so TMRRW.TDAY is about resetting our skills and being braver. Next years festival will inspire people to create new values. Throw out the old. Start anew. Experiment. Build our skills. The future will happen if we take control today.

The AdFest 2019 identity is designed by a talented team from TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno, led by Melvin Mangadachief creative officer and one of the most influential creatives in Philippine advertising. Mangada was jury president of Design Lotus and Print Craft Lotus at AdFest 2018.

Says Mangada: We took inspiration from the passing of time to bring the theme, TMRRW.TDAY, to life. Weve created a few variations of the logo to mimic the ticking hands of a clock  its our way of showing that TDAY meets TMRRW at AdFest 2019.

AdFest is a non-profit-making entity that believes passionately in its role to nurture and support the creative industry in the Asia Pacific and MENA region.

Says Vinit Suraphongchai, chairman, AdFest: Creativity is at the heart of everything we do at AdFest. We are just as passionate about raising creative standards and challenging the industry to do better as we were 21 years ago when AdFest launched.
(Natural News) Over 300 predator priests were named in the recently released grand jury documents from the child sex abuse scandal in Pennsylvania. The graphic and horrifying details of sexual assault and rape of young children at the hands of these priests have undoubtedly turned the world of the Catholic Church upside-down. To make matters worse, it turns out that many of these abuses were ignored by bishops whod rather look the other way than out a peer for sexual abuse.

Rather than protect children from abusers, some leaders in the Catholic church chose to be a shield for sexual predators.

When so-called men of God do nothing, evil prevails  and it doesnt get much more evil than child sexual abuse. Whether other members of the church were looking the other way, or helping to cover up the crimes in some cases, those who knew but did nothing are just as bad as their abusive peers.

In one case, a priest who had been molesting a little boy for over two years confessed to church leaders that he was guilty of engaging in naked horseplay' with a child  and was allowed to continue his service in the ministry for another seven years.

In another instance, a different priest admitted to molesting a 12-year-old boy. The diocese reportedly ruled that no action need be taken against the priest because the abuse wouldnt necessarily be a horrendous trauma to the victim.

Another priest raped a little girl while he was visiting her in the hospital.

In another case, a priest raped a young girl and got her pregnant  and then arranged for her abortion. When the bishop heard about what happened, he sent a condolence letter to the priest.

There are many more horrific instances like these, detailed in the documents. Writing for The Daily Wire, Matt Walsh contends, It is a dark, evil, horrific story. It is worse than that, but I dont have the words to describe it. Perhaps we will just have to settle on the word demonic. And although some of the details here are particularly shocking and we hope unusual, still the most terrible thing is that the overall narrative  one of systematic abuse covered up by those in power  is extremely and shamefully familiar.

As Walsh notes further, the reluctance of so many Catholic church members to speak out about such crimes is deeply concerning  and the fact that covering up child abuse seems to be more important than actually stopping abusers from harming more children is even more alarming. To turn away from such a horrific act, and do nothing, is just as bad as the assault itself.

Over 1,000 children are estimated to have been abused in Pennsylvania over the course of 70 years. One thousand children, in just a single state  how many more victims are there? The sense of betrayal is strong, especially for churchgoers in the Quaker State.

Walsh argues that Catholics, in particular, need to voice their outrage. The good priests and bishops must come out and rebuke with righteous fury. Statements of sadness and grief will not do. Cardinal Wuerls limp-wristed lament about the tragedy of sexual abuse is insufficient, he states. Further, Walsh contends, the Catholic church needs to purge itself of sexual predators, along with those who simply allowed it to happen.

Even Pope Francis, whos known for commenting on highly charged issues, issued a no comment statement when the news of this troubling scandal first broke.

The Vatican and the pope have both been mysteriously silent on this issue, prompting concerns that even these fixtures of Catholicism are complicit in crimes against children.

See more coverage of stories about evil in our midst at Evil.news.

Sources for this article include:

DailyWire.com

NBCNews.com
(Natural News) In a recent interview, Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey finally admitted what most engaged conservatives who use his social media platform have known for months, if not longer: The companys got a real liberal bent to it.

As Breitbart News reported, Dorsey said during an interview with CNNs media analyst, the never impressive Brian Stelter, that his company was more Left-leaning.

We need to constantly show that we are not adding our own bias, which I fully admit is left, is more left-leaning, Dorsey said. And I think its important to articulate our bias, and to share it with people so that people understand us, but we need to remove all bias from how we act, and our policies, and our enforcement.

While that moment of honesty was long overdue, Dorsey then went onto to tell this whopper:

But the real question behind the question is, are we doing something according to political ideology and viewpoints? And we are not. Period.

"We do not look at content with regards to political viewpoint or ideology," @Jack told me. But he knows some people do not believe him. "I think we need to constantly show that we are not adding our own bias, which I fully admit is left, is more left-leaning," he says pic.twitter.com/1i8jJunhfz  Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 18, 2018

Hoo, boy. At least he wasnt hooked up to a lie-detector machine.

Alex Jones of Infowars would certainly disagree with Dorsey, having been banned for an entire week recently over policy violations for allegedly inciting violence in a Periscope video post.

We were getting a number of reports around the tweet and the Periscope that the content was inciting violence, which is against our terms of service, and we took action, Dorsey said.

Only, one stroll through Jones video shows that he wasnt inciting violence when he called on Americans to pick up battle rifles. He wasnt telling Americans to launch an armed revolt, he was recommending they arm themselves against the violent Left that is sure to come for us someday soon if current Left-wing violence trends continue.

But I digress. Dorsey also addressed the issue of shadow banning, which he says his company broadly defines as not amplifying particular messages and hiding that tweet without the user/sender knowing it.

To be clear, that happens all the time and there is plenty of evidence to prove that its political in nature.

Dorsey is gaslighting everyone

As The National Sentinel reported, Jack Dorseys platform is shadow banning conservatives and Republican lawmakers, as well as GOP candidates running for office this year:

While Democrats and some RINOs continue to scream Russian meddling! ahead of the 2018 midterms, the real threat to our democratic processes and our republic is home-grown.

We already knew that the social media behemoths were censoring and shadow-banning conservative, pro-POTUS Trump news and information. We also knew that platforms like Twitter were shadow-banning existing Republican lawmakers.

Now we learn that Twitter is also shadow-banning Republican candidates running for office this year.

A poster at Reddit The Donald revealed that John James, a black GOP star (POTUS Trumps words) candidate for the U.S. Senate from Michigan, has been shadow banned from Twitter, according to a special app that has been developed to detect it. (Related: Democrat memo demands complete takeover of the internet, total censorship of political opponents.)

One respondent to the post claimed that GOP Senate candidate Kelli Ward, whos running for retiring RINO and NeverTrumper Sen. Jeff Flakes seat, is also being shadow banned. So, too, is Californias Ron Bassilian, whos running for the U.S. House.

Again, sitting Republican lawmakers are also being subjected to Twitters special form of select censorship that Jack Dorsey claims isnt happening. The Gateway Pundit reports that censored Republicans include Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Devin Nunes of California, Mark Meadows of North Carolina, Jim Jordan of Ohio, and John Radcliffe of Texas.

Gaetz is so upset about it hes filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, claiming the shadow ban amounts to handing an unfair advantage to his Democratic opponent.

Dorsey is gaslighting Americans with this nonsensical claim that his left-leaning platform isnt making political determinations regarding who to censor and who to promote.

Read more about Twitters overt censorship of conservatives at Conservative.news.

Sources include:

Breitbart.com

TheNationalSentinel.com
(Natural News) Gao Junfang, known as Chinas Vaccine Queen, once one of that countrys wealthiest citizens, was recently arrested along with 17 other high-level officials of the vaccine manufacturing company Changsheng Biotechnology. The company produced not one, but two batches of substandard vaccines and then circulated them to close to half a million Chinese children. According to the South China Morning Post, hundreds of thousands of Changshengs combination diphtheria, polio and typhoid (DPT) vaccines were found to be ineffective, while the test records for its rabies vaccine were confirmed to have been fabricated. The once booming company is now facing financial ruin.

About three quarters of the affected children have been given some form of treatment, according to the Chinese government, while plans have been put in place to do the same for the remaining kids. Unfortunately, the government cannot be relied upon to supply all the facts of the case, as it has been trying its best to keep a lid on the story, restricting and censoring news coverage of the events, and treating whistleblowers as troublemakers rather than heroes.

In the age of social media, however, it has proved impossible for officials to totally contain the story or hide the multiple posts from angry parents who have no idea whether their children may also have been given these dangerous vaccines.

Nonetheless, at least the Chinese government has arrested these vaccine fraudsters, unlike the Big Pharma vaccine tycoons who get away with killing and injuring innocent children on a daily basis in the United States.

Who is Chinas Vaccine Queen?

Junfang is something of a legend in China. Just two years ago, Forbes China listed her personal fortune as being in excess of U.S.$1 billion. Born into a rural farming family in 1954, Junfang joined the state-owned Changchun Institute of Biological Products as an accountant in the 1970s, and from there rose through the ranks until she was appointed as general manager of Changsheng Bio-tech, an offshoot of the institute. Though the details of her rise to fame and fortune are murky, Junfang went on to amass a huge personal fortune  apparently at the expense of others.

Breitbart reported:

Gaos rise from humble origins to billionaire tycoon was formerly the stuff of legend, but now accusations are swirling that she gained control of the company by cheating workers out of their stock holdings and engaged in other shady business practices, including bribery of public officials. Gaos 18.1 percent stake in Changsheng Biotechnology was frozen by Chinese officials last week.

But our vaccines are safe, right?

Of course, government officials, the mainstream media and the medical community would be quick to point out that vaccines are subjected to strict testing and safety standards in the United States, and as such, there can be no comparison with Chinas Vaccine Queen and Big Pharma executives in this country. If that is true, however, then why has the U.S. government paid out over U.S.$3 billion to vaccine-injured families since 1986?

As previously noted by Natural News, the manufacture of vaccines is at best an imperfect science, and life-changing, deadly side effects are far more common than most parents realize or are told:

The Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) lists several negative outcomes of vaccines. Many of these side effects are worse than the diseases these vaccines are for! VAERS reports that the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine is linked to febrile seizures, which are a type of seizure that occurs in infants and young children in association with fever. While these seizures hold no long-term consequences, they can be a frightening experience.

Worse yet, VAERS reports that a whole slew of vaccines, including MMR, varicella zoster, influenza, hepatitis B, meningococcal and tetanus are linked to anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis shock can lead to sudden death. Many of these cases are under-reported, filed as SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome.

In short, then, our vaccines are not safe either, and parents need to know that before inflicting them on their helpless children.

Learn more about the real science behind vaccines at Vaccines.news.

Sources include:

Breitbart.com

SCMP.com

SCMP.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America is a pro-gun control group founded in 2012. The group is funded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and is part of his Every Town for Gun Safety initiative. Moms Demand Action thrives on their grass roots image of stay-at-home moms coming together to save the children, but appearances can be deceiving. As it turns out, the groups leader, Shannon Watts, is not exactly who she says she is. Though she may be portrayed as a stay-at-home mom, Watts is a former PR executive for the worlds most notorious poison-pushing corporation, Monsanto.

It seems that the grass roots group is rooted in a more elite class than anyone wants to let on; it would ruin the narrative that everyday people want Big Government to take guns away from law-abiding citizens.

Even the Moms Demand Action page tries to paint a quaint picture of Watts, stating, Moms Demand Action was founded by stay-at-home mom Shannon Watts on December 15, 2012, in response to the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. But a shocking report by Newsbusters tells a slightly different story about who Shannon Watts really is.

Who is Shannon Watts?

If you looked at Watts About page on the site, youd see her described as a stay-at-home mom of five and former communications executive before Moms Demand Action was created. In an interview with NPR, Watts is described as an apolitical, laundry-folding mom who just wants to protect kids from harm  but as a PR executive for some of the nations most lucrative companies, Watts clearly knows how to play the public image card. Indeed, the history of Shannon Watts is far different than the story painted by the media.

As Newsbusters reports:

A donor search at Open Secrets for the Utterly Non-Political Mom Folding Laundry finds $1,750 in donations in 2012 to Barack Obama for President, and $250 to Rob Zerban, the Democrat running against Rep. Paul Ryan in Wisconsin. In 2011, she sent $500 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In 2010, there was $500 to the DNC Services Corp., and $1,000 for EMILYs List, which only funds female pro-abortion Democrats.

Estimates indicate Watts has made around $10,000 in political donations, and about one-third of those sums were given before the Sandy Hook school shooting. Yet, NPR reportedly described Watts as having never done anything political before. Beyond the fact that Watts is not the accidental activist shes portrayed as being, digging a little deeper shows there are even more red flags to behold.

Shannon Watts used to go by the surname Troughton and only recently changed her name. She began her career in 1993, as a public affairs officer for Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan (D), the Missouri House of Representatives, and the Missouri Department of Economic Development. In 1998, she became the Vice President of Corporate and Public Affairs at Fleishman-Hillard, a top public relations company.

In 2001, Watts became Director of Global and Public Affairs for Monsanto, where she reportedly led external initiatives designed to generate positive, proactive media coverage of the companys agriculture biotechnology products. Monsanto is known for their heavy-handed public relations campaigns, often aimed at smearing real science and hiding the truth about their toxic products.

Between 2004 and 2006, Watts worked as a communications director for GE, and later became Vice President of Corporate Communications at WellPoint, a health insurance company.

Watts continued advancing along her career path until mid-2012. So much for the stay-at-home mom.

Like drips on a rock

The Monsanto executive-turned-activist is bent on making gun control happen  and Moms Demand Action has the funds to keep pressing the issue for as long as theyd like. Writing for Breitbart, AWR Hawkins posits that increasing financial support for Moms Demand Action seems to be giving Watts and her team confidence that one day, they may just wear down Second Amendment supporters enough to win.

Its like drips on a rock, but that is ultimately how change gets made, Watts stated recently. Whether or not Watts wants those changes shes petitioning for to apply to herself and other members of the elite remains to be seen. But, the allegedly anti-gun activist was recently spotted walking around a local park with some friends  and a few armed guards.

Nothing says hypocrisy like a gun control activist walking around with a few big guys with scary guns for safety. Its fine when Watts wants to protect herself with a firearm, but heaven forbid regular citizens do the same.

There are steep suspicions that Watts didnt just form Moms Demand Action overnight in response to the Sandy Hook Shootings. As Freedom Outpost argues, [A] veteran lefty public-relations expert, who donated to the Obama campaign seven times, starting a well-organized, well-funded anti-gun group sounds a lot more likely than does a Susie homemaker nobody, who claims she started her anti-gun campaign with little more than a Facebook page.

With everything else Watts has lied about to increase public appeal, its hard not to wonder: What else is she lying about? Perhaps Moms Demand Action wasnt born out of upset in response to the Sandy Hook shooting at all. Perhaps its just another front group, pushing the gun control narrative for a more clandestine purpose. Who knows?

See more coverage of stories about threats to the second amendment at Guns.news.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

Newsbusters.org

AmmoLand.com

FreedomOutpost.com
(Natural News) Minnesotas farmers are using more fertilizer than needed, say the states agricultural officials. The state governments response to regulate the use of nitrogen fertilizer  a bid to ensure clean drinking water at, according to detractors, the risk of impairing one of Minnesotas biggest industries  is seemingly a question of which gets the higher priority: today or the future?

Aptly named the Groundwater Protection Act, the proposal prevents farmers from applying fertilizer during the fall on frozen soil located in areas where groundwater is vulnerable to contamination through leaching. This covers about 30 communities where groundwater is used for drinking by over 100,000 people.

The move was spurred by the states Department of Agricultures discovery that its farmers use 10 to 15 percent more fertilizers than needed. The proposals goal is to limit the release of nitrates to the environment and curb its harmful effects to public health, particularly, to infants.

The proposal is not without its detractors, in a state whose governments website describes as an agriculture and food production powerhouse. Indeed, the states agricultural industry is currently valued at $75 billion.

Some groups question the need for the new law, with some seeing it as nothing more than a bid to impose practices on farmers. Even without the law, they say, farmers have already taken steps to reduce their use of fertilizer and maximize cost-efficiency. Corn, one of the major crops planted in the state, has been less profitable by at least five dollars since early this year, so farmers have been using as little fertilizer as they can without hurting their harvest.

Keep in mind that nitrogen isnt free, and corn just barely hit $3. We have to have an economic return, said Nora Felton, from Northfield, in one of the proposals hearings.

Felton agreed that while groundwater is important, it can be protected using other, mainly voluntary measure.

The proposals draft has had several changes over the last months, especially after farmers contested the original map that depicted the areas considered vulnerable. Kirby Hettver, president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, calls the proposal, post-improvements, reasonable.

Thom Petersen, of the Minnesota Farmers Union, agrees. A lot of our concerns have been addressed, he said. A lot of farmers can work within the rule.

The dangers of nitrates

Nitrates provide plants with the nitrogen they need to grow healthy and produce much yield, which is why this fertilizer is popular among farmers. However, numerous studies have confirmed its links to a variety of harmful conditions affecting both nature and the humans who drink water contaminated with it.

The Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone, an area covering anywhere from 6,000 to 7,000 square miles, is caused by the accumulation of nutrients, mainly nitrogen and phosphorus, from runoff originating from states that feed into the Mississipi River and, consequently, the gulf. The overabundance of nutrients leads to algal blooms that result in eutrophication, the loss of oxygen in the water. Eutrophication is a common cause of fish kills.

But nitrates are notorious for their effects on human health as well. Studies identify the harmful effects of drinking water contaminated with nitrates as ranging from spine- and brain-related birth defects to cancers in the colon, thyroid, and the bladder.

Nitrates have been confirmed to cause a condition called blue baby syndrome. True to its name, this condition causes infants skin to turn blue because their blood loses the ability to circulate oxygen properly. The condition arises from feeding babies formula made from contaminated water. In many cases, blue baby syndrome is fatal.

Discover why clean water needs to be protected at CleanWater.news.

Sources include:

StarTribune.com

MPRNews.org

MN.gov

Serc.Carlton.edu

TakePart.com
(Natural News) A recent investigation led by Kaiser Health News and USA Today has revealed a shocking truth: Deaths and serious injuries abound at surgery centers, and lack of rules and regulations means there is little to no accountability. Between the tremendous variability in state laws and the fact that that doctors blacklisted by hospitals can still go on to open their own practices or centers, many tragic incidents go without investigation  and in many cases, even unreported. How many people have been maimed or killed by incompetent doctors operating out of uncouth surgery centers is unknown, but the danger is no less real.

Since 2013, at least 260 people have died at surgery centers.

Routine death

In Little Rock, Arkansas, Kanis Endoscopy Center is a prime example of what happens when medicine is unregulated: People die. At Kanis Endoscopy, this happens more than it should  especially since the endoscopy is considered one of the safest procedures a patient can undergo. In April 2014, two people died within a single month at Kanis. Another woman was rushed to a hospital in July after visiting the center for an otherwise routine procedure. Hospital staff said she was lucky to be alive.

Faye Watkins, now 63, says that she had no idea two patients had died at Kanis before she walked into the facility. She states that something felt wrong while she was still under the effects of anesthesia, and heard someone say her blood pressure was dropping.

I said [to myself], Lord, if its time for me to go, take me. But Im not ready, she recalled. When she woke up, she was in the hospital.

Court records say the patients harmed or killed by Kanis Endoscopy all went there for an endoscopy, and each stopped breathing shortly after. They all showed signs of the same type of brain injury seen in drowning victims. But what happened there didnt result in a review by Arkansas officials, not even a slap on the wrist. Arkansas, once the Clintons stomping grounds, is one of 16 states that doesnt mandate surgery centers report patient deaths. Whether the deaths were simply anomaly, or a sign of something much worse, was never investigated.

In another tragic case at another surgery center, a 12-year-old boy died having his tonsils removed. One of the doctors claimed young Reuben Van Veldhuizens death the result of pre-existing conditions, acts of others, or conditions over which they had no control or responsibility. The center called for an ambulance, but according to a government report, the paramedic who arrived to treat Reuben received no response from the facility staff when she inquired who was in charge of CPR.

These horrible stories show that doctors sometimes care more about the profits than their patients.

A national issue: Surgery centers lack oversight, regulation

As Kaiser Health News (KHN) reports, surgery centers around the nation operate under greatly varying standards, which means that deaths and injuries often do not get reported to the government  or would-be patients. This is a major red-flag. As KHN reports:

The gaps in oversight enable centers hit with federal regulators toughest sanctions to keep operating, according to interviews, a review of hundreds of pages of court filings and government records obtained under open records laws. No rule stops a doctor exiled by a hospital for misconduct from opening a surgery center down the street.

Health officials from at least 17 states confirmed that they have no way of knowing that a patient died during a procedure at a surgery center, because the centers arent required to report such information.

Even Medicare, an institution of the federal government, has giant gaps in the reporting requirements of hospitals compared to surgery centers. As KHN reports, hospitals are compelled to provide much more data.

The same Medicare website displays different data for surgery centers  and for some key measures, the reported results cover only a fraction of patients. Medicare allows surgery centers to report data for as few as half of just their Medicare patients, ignoring most patients under age 65 who do not yet qualify for Medicare.

Ultimately, these centers may end up reporting on as many hospital transfers as they choose to  and there is no notation on the Medicare website about the limitations of their data. But dozens of centers report a zero transfer rate to Medicare, even though their records indicate otherwise.

Take Memphis-based Urocenter, a urological specialty center, for example. The group reported 45 transfers across 2014 and 2015 to state officials  but their public Medicare report for those years showed zero transfers.

Medicare officials say that they allow limited reporting so as not to overburden surgery centers with requirement  but it seems their lax stance has contributed to major issues. Not only are people dying by the dozens at surgery centers, the under-reporting of key information gives the false illusion of safety.

Medicare can slap centers with involuntary decertification for serious offenses, but as KHN reports, that often doesnt stop them from continuing their operations. As reported:

In California, eight centers that Medicare decertified over health violations have continued to operate on patients, with the blessing of private accreditation agencies hired by the centers to perform inspections. They include a center that was operating without a lifesaving drug in the crash cart and a facility where managers pressed an unqualified receptionist into duty disinfecting scopes used inside the body.

There are many, many problems that persist across the conventional healthcare industry; lack of accountability and poor regulation are just the tip of the iceberg.

See more coverage of stories about questionable medicinal practices at Medicine.news.

Sources for this article include:

KHN.org

CBSNews.com
(Natural News) The left is far too busy at the moment rooting on the technocratic thought police that are actively censoring conservative and out-of-the-box thinking online to notice that what theyre now advocating for is really no different than the policies of old that forced black people to sit at the back of the bus behind whites.

In a recent CounterThink segment on InfoWars, available for viewing at Brighteon.com, Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, presents a fictitious scenario that perfectly illustrates this point, demonstrating the absolute outrage that would ensue were all black people being banned from social media as opposed to people with with right-leaning politics.

Parodying statements previously issued by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, in which hes tried to defend the silencing of conservative voices using hate speech as the rationale, Adams exposes the utter hypocrisy of the left in demanding that anything it doesnt like be muzzled and removed from the conversation.

When challenged on the First Amendment implications of this, liberals are quick to say that Twitter, Facebook, and others are private companies, meaning they can censor whomever they want.

Its important to note that this same standard doesnt apply to Jack Phillips, the Colorado cake baker whom liberals say should be forced to bake cakes for homosexuals, of course. Thats because nobody should be allowed to discriminate against liberals; only against conservatives.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced today that Twitter will ban the online speech of all black people, Adams reads from a fictitious press release as part of a dramatization illustrating this point.

This, says Dorsey, is perfectly allowable because Twitter is a private company, and according to the current consensus on the left, private companies can ban anyone they like. As of today, according to Jack Dorsey, black people can no longer use Twitter. Black employees at Twitter are no longer allowed to eat at the company cafeteria. And anyone of dark skin color is being asked to sit in the back of Twitters offices.

Liberals would be screeching at the top of their lungs in the streets if they were the ones being censored from social media

The made-up press release goes on to explain that all quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will also be removed from Twitter in order to comply with the new rules. Anything black-related will no longer be a part of the Twitter network because, again, its a private company and it can do whatever it wants.

None of this is real, of course, and is simply trying to prove a point that liberals just dont seem to get: that censorship and discrimination go both ways. Policies that allow for the silencing of all conservative thought online can quickly change to the silencing of all liberal thought online, depending on whos in charge.

Alex Jones and InfoWars [represent] the true definition of diversity of ideas and tolerance of individual liberty, because here at InfoWars  I know that he welcomes people of all different backgrounds, as long as are pro-liberty. Thats the key, Adams emphasizes about what true tolerance looks like.

Alex doesnt judge you by your skin color, your sexual orientation, your religion or lack of religion, your country of origin. None of that stuff, not by how you look. Alex judges you the way I do: which is to say, are you pro-liberty? Do you support individual liberty? Are you rooted in logic and reason and rationality?

These are the things that matter. These are the things, by the way, that people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for when he said we should judge people by the content of their character, and not the color of their skin. Dont be skin deep. Look into the soul, look into the spirit of people.

Be sure to watch the full segment of Counter Think with Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at Brighteon.com.

Sources for this article include:

Brighteon.com

NaturalNews.com
Archaeologists digging around broken jars in an ancient Egyptian tomb were in for a big surprise when they unearthed a chunk of ancient "mummy cheese."

A Smelly Ancient Discovery

At first, the scientists weren't certain of the nature of the stinky white substance they uncovered. While they suspected it was something ancient Egyptians consumed, it took a laboratory analysis to reveal what it actually was.

In a newly released research paper published in the journal Analytic Chemistry, it's confirmed that the substance is actually ancient cheese that's approximately 3,200 years old. It is one of the oldest solid specimens ever found.

According to New York Times, the Egyptian tomb where the cheese was found was for Ptahmes, who was a high-ranking official in 13th century B.C. The tomb was originally discovered in the 19th century, but it was buried under sand again and rediscovered in 2010.

Is It Edible? Delicious?

It's a fascinating find that could certainly unlock secrets from the past, but there's one question on everyone's mind: could the mummy cheese actually be eaten?

Right now, unfortunately not.

Paul Kindstedt, a cheese expert from the University of Vermont, tells SFGate that a study conducted in 1942 suggests that ancient cheese probably just tastes like dust.

"According to the authors, these solid and powdered cheese residues, which were about 2,000 years older than the one in the latest study, 'have no smell and only a dusty taste,'" he says.

An even better reason to stay away from the 3,200-year-old cheese: bacteria.

The analysis on the cheese revealed evidence of a specific bacteria that is known to cause brucellosis. Brucellosis is an infectious disease that leads to an array of symptoms  fever, sweating, headache, muscle pain, and others  that may never go away, according to CDC. It can be contracted from contact with infected animals or animal products.

Back then, though, the mummy cheese would have been similar to modern goat cheese back when it was served in ancient times, according to Kindstedt. It may have had an acidic bite with a spreadable texture.

For the study authors, the taste takes a back seat to their discovery.

"We know it was made mostly from sheep's and goat's milk, but for me it's really hard to imagine a specific flavor," Enrique Greco, study lead author, says in an email to SFGate. "I'm Italian. I love cheese and I know how much they can change in flavor and appearance even with very few differences in ingredients and process."
Joseph DeAngelo, a former police officer, is accused of being the "Golden State Killer." He faces 13 murder charges in cases up and down the state of California dating from 1975 to 1986. Here's a look at those cases.



Claude Snelling - Sept. 11, 1975

Snelling was shot and killed as he tried to confront a masked gunman who was trying to kidnap his 16-year-old daughter after breaking into their home. Snelling is believed to be the GSK's first victim. Read more

Brian and Katie Maggiore - Feb. 2, 1978

Brian and Katie Maggiore were shot and killed in Rancho Cordova while they were out walking their dog. Detectives are still mystified about what triggered the slayings. Read more



Golden State Killer: Evidence, Victims in Decades-Old Case

Robert Offerman and Debra Manning - Dec. 30, 1979

Debra Manning, 35, and Dr. Robert Offerman, 44, were killed in their home. Their murder was the first of two double murders in the Goleta area. Read more

Lyman and Charlene Smith - March 13, 1980

Lyman Smith, 43, and Charlene Smith, 33, were killed in the bedroom of their home, where they had been bound and bludgeoned with a fireplace log. Charlene Smith was sexually assaulted and bound with a drapery cord. Read more

Keith and Patrice Harrington - Aug. 19, 1980

Keith and Patrice Harrington were bludgeoned to death inside their home in a gated community in Laguna Niguela, Orange County. They were found by Keith's father when he came to have dinner with the newlyweds. Read more



Cheri Domingo and Greg Sanchez - July 27, 1981

Greg Sanchez, 27, and his girlfriend, Cheri Domingo were killed in a house near Goleta, which Domingo was house-sitting. Read more

Manuela Witthuhn - Feb. 5, 1981

Manuela Witthuhn, 28, was murdered in her house while she was alone. The killer broke in. Her husband was in the hospital at the time. Read more

Janelle Cruz - May 4, 1986

Janelle Lisa Cruz, 18, was raped and killed at her parents' home while she was living there alone. She is believed to be the GSK's final victim. Read more
The man accused of being the Golden State Killer, who is charged with murders in Orange County and other jurisdictions around California, will be tried in Sacramento County, prosecutors announced Tuesday in Santa Ana.

During a joint news conference, prosecutors announced the filing of a consolidated criminal complaint in Sacramento County against 72-year-old Joseph DeAngelo of Citrus Heights. The complaint charges DeAngelo, a former police officer, with 13 murders, including four in Orange County.

The murder charges include a variety of special circumstance allegations that open DeAngelo to a possible death sentence. The complaint also includes 13 counts of kidnapping to commit robbery.

The alleged crimes span an 11-year period from 1975 to 1986 and occurred in six different counties.

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said the decision to try the case jointly in Sacramento County was made based on a variety of factors, including the availability of witnesses and consideration for victims' families and other concerned parties that would need to appear in court.

Rackauckas and other prosecutors have been holding discussions for weeks to discuss how to handle the prosecution of DeAngelo. Ventura County District Attorney Gregory D. Totten said prosecutors from all the affected jurisdictions would be working together closely on the case.

"We are unified and we are committed to delivering justice to the victims of the Golden State Killer and their loved ones who for far too long have had justice elude them,'' he said.

Also taking part in the Santa Ana news conference were District Attorney Diana Becton of Contra Costa County, Anne Marie Schubert of Sacramento County, Joyce E. Dudley of Santa Barbara County and Tim Ward of Tulare County.

In Orange County, DeAngelo is accused of killing 24-year-old Keith and 28-year-old Patrice Harrington Aug. 19, 1980, in Dana Point; 28-year-old Manuela Witthuhn in Irvine on Feb. 5, 1981; and 18-year-old Janelle Cruz in Irvine on May 5, 1986.

The Harringtons lived in a single-story home in the gated Niguel Shores community when they were attacked in their bedroom, said Investigator Larry Pool of the Golden State Killer task force. Their bodies were found on their blood-spattered bed with ligature marks on their wrists and Patrice's ankles, Pool wrote in a probable cause declaration.

Their killer left the binds on the bed. It appears he tied their hands behind their backs, covered them in a comforter and slammed a blunt object over their heads, Pool said.

Investigators in 1996 matched semen at the crime scene to the killer in the two other Orange County cases, Pool said. The identity of the killer remained anonymous until this year when investigators used a public genealogy database with DNA recovered from an item discarded by DeAngelo, Rackauckas said in an interview in May.

Witthuhn was attacked sometime between 11 p.m. Feb. 5, 1981, and 2 a.m. Feb. 6, 1981, when investigators believe she died, Pool said. The cause of death was skull fractures from a beating, Pool said, adding that her parents discovered her body when they went to check on her.

Witthuhn's body was found in a sleeping bag investigators believe she was sleeping in, Pool said. There was no evidence of a struggle and she had ligature marks on her wrists and on her right ankle.

Cruz was killed about 5 p.m. May 5, 1986, in her bed in her Irvine home. Blood covered her head and neck and she was partially covered by her blanket, Pool said.

She had hemorrhaging in her eyes and bruises on the bridge of her nose, according to Pool. Her killer knocked out three teeth with two found in her hair. She had no ligature marks on her wrists like the other victims, but there were abrasions, leading investigators to speculate her killer squeezed her wrists so hard he left a mark, Pool said.

Her lower lip was swollen, her tongue bitten. An ultra-violet light spotlighted semen on the victim, according to Pool. No murder weapon was found, but a pipe wrench in the backyard was missing.

Her cause of death was "crushing skull fractures,'' Pool said.

DeAngelo is also accused in the killings of Lyman and Charlene Smith in Ventura on March 13, 1980; Cheri Domingo and Gregory Sanchez in Goleta on July 27, 1981; Robert Offerman and Alexandria Manning in Goleta on Dec. 30,

1979; Brian and Katie Maggiore in Rancho Cordova on Feb. 2, 1978; and Claude Snelling in Visalia on Sept. 11, 1975.

DeAngelo is also linked to the so-called Visalia Ransacker burglaries from April 1974 through December 1975, a spree that ended with the attempted murder of Visalia Officer Bill McGowan as he tried to apprehend the suspect, Pool said.

DeAngelo is also alleged to be the East Area Rapist who was suspected in 52 attacks in Contra Costa, Sacramento and Santa Clara counties from June 1976 through July 1979, Pool said.

DeAngelo attended the Kings County Public Safety Academy for 400 hours. He worked for the Exeter police department until 1976, when he went to work as an officer in Auburn until he was fired in 1979 for shoplifting a hammer and dog repellant, Pool said.
| BY Ricki Green |

Sweetshop has appointed Llew Griffiths to the newly created position of head of production based out of its Sydney office. In the role, Griffiths will oversee all productions across Sweetshops Sydney and Melbourne operations, as well as being integral to the bidding process.

Griffiths has over 17 years of experience, split between both production company and agency sides. He began his career in Saatchi & Saatchi TV production department in Sydney, during which time the agency was awarded Agency of the Year three years consecutively by Campaign Brief. After seven years he moved to the UK where he continued to work as a freelance producer. Upon returning from the UK, he returned to Saatchis where he soon became executive producer. In 2014, he moved production side, producing numerous commercials for some of the countys top directors on local and international campaigns.

Griffiths has worked with brands including ALDI, Toyota, Cadbury, Steinlager and Foxtel, and has been credited as agency or production producer on winning campaigns at every major advertising awards show, including Cannes Lions, D&AD and LIA.

Says Edward Pontifex, managing director and executive producer, Sweetshop Australia: Were super lucky to land Llew  an incredible asset to any production. He has an impeccable record of overseeing complex productions with extensive logistical challenges and sensitivities, as well as working brilliantly with some of the top creative talent of our day. Im really excited about what hell bring to our Sweetshop Australias team.
The state Department of Public Health has launched an investigation into the apparent medical overdose death last year of a patient at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, NBC Bay Areas Investigative Unit has learned.

Records show that over a 10-hour period in March of last year, the hospital doctors and nurses administered a combination of morphine-based painkillers, sedatives and a sleeping aid to the 41-year-old patient Teresa Panepinto.

The following morning, after a doctor twice failed to rouse Panepinto, a hospital nurse found her unresponsive. She never regained consciousness.

She was a person with a great deal of love, said William Panepinto about his daughter, a lawyer described by friends and family as a tireless advocate for homeless veterans. It hurts to not have her with us. It hurts.

Through medical records and interviews, NBC Bay Areas Investigative Unit outlined what led to her death.

Although Panepinto had long suffered debilitating pain in her arms and hands that left her unable to work, her father, a longtime social worker who specialized in addiction, says she steadfastly resisted taking any opioid pain medication.

But she relented the week before her death because of new, unexplained pelvic pain, which eventually landed her at Kaiser Hospital at 4:30 p.m. on March 29 of last year.

Records show that over the course of 10 hours, Panepinto was given five doses of morphine-based drugs, along with two different sedatives and the sleeping aid Ambien. The fifth and final dose of morphine-based painkiller came around 2 a.m. March 30.

That was about the time Panepinto posted a photo on Facebook of her feet covered by a blanket on her hospital bed. She also phoned her parents in New York and left a message on their answering machine.

This is Teresa, Im sorry Im calling so late, I just wanted you to know they have decided to admit me, so I will be staying in the hospital overnight, Panepinto said to her parents. OK, Ill talk to you tomorrow. Love you. Bye.

Five hours later, just after 7 a.m., medical records show a Kaiser doctor checked her pulse and breathing but was unable to wake her. Two hours later, at about 9 a.m., the doctor returned and told a nurse that Panepinto again could not be roused. Fifteen minutes later, that nurse found Panepinto blue and unresponsive.

Her parents immediately rushed out from New York. By the time they arrived in Oakland, William Panepinto said friends and family had just three days to say goodbye.

The Alameda County Medical Examiner determined Panepinto died from brain injury caused by the hospital giving her a lethal mix of drugs. An abdominal mass, likely the source of Panepintos pelvic pain, did not contribute to her death, according to the coroners report.

We stood around her, we brought her Superman comforter that she had kept from when she was a kid, William Panepinto said. We put it on her, we talked to her, we sang a little bit, and she died by ten or eleven oclock that morning.

NBC Bay Areas investigation also found that Kaiser did not alert state public health officials about Panepintos death, an apparent violation of state reporting requirements. The California Department of Public Health now tells NBC Bay Area it is investigating the incident.

Kaiser declined to be interviewed for this story, citing privacy laws and ongoing arbitration, but sent a written statement expressing condolences to the family and saying Kaiser complies with all reporting requirements.

We extend our sympathy for the family on the loss of their loved one, wrote Jeff Collins, senior vice president and area manager for Kaiser Permanente East Bay.

Out of respect for privacy laws, we cannot provide additional information. At Kaiser Permanente, providing high quality, safe care is our highest priority. As part of our rigorous quality program we follow up and investigate any unusual or unexpected occurrences in the course of care. We comply with all regulatory reporting requirements and evaluate cases using established standards to determine when it is appropriate to file a report.

While a Kaiser doctor eventually checked Panepintos pulse and breathing, NBC Bay Area found nothing in her medical records that documented constant electronic monitoring of her vital signs after she was given opioids and sedatives. The apparent lack of continuous monitoring troubles her father.

She had no monitoring mechanisms on her while she was an inpatient, Panepinto said. There was no nursing presence in her room, which there would have been if she had been in the ICU.

Dr. Anna Lembke, chief of Addiction Medicine at Stanford University, says combining opioids and sedatives compounds the risk of an overdose.

She authored a book on the prescription drug epidemic, titled "Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It's So Hard to Stop."

When we combine that opioid with a sedative, we increase the risk of slowing down the heart rate, slowing down the breathing rate, Lembke said. Patients fall asleep, gradually stop their breathing, and over the course of many hours, dont wake up again.

To avoid that, she said hospitals need to constantly track vital signs and be ready to act at the first sign of an overdose.

We need protocols in place to make sure that the patient has not received so many opioids and so many sedatives that the patient is potentially not going to wake up again, Lembke said.

In March of this year, the Panepinto family filed an arbitration claim against Kaiser.

The familys attorney, Jim Keenley, was Panepintos classmate in law school. He says the medical records portray Panepinto as angry and hostile while she was at the hospital and suspects Kaiser sought a quick way to control a difficult patient.

This death was caused by relying on the easiest available solution to deal with a frantic, suffering patient, Keenley said. Which is to give them easily administered medication that will calm them down and make them less of a problem on the emergency room floor.

William Panepinto, who now takes Teresas backpack with him every time he travels, said he wants Kaiser to change its policies for sedatives and opioids.

I dont want this to happen again to more people, he said.
Massage therapy chain Massage Envy was slapped with a lawsuit Monday alleging the companys employees sexually assaulted clients.

The suit, filed in San Mateo County, claims that at least five women, and possibly dozens more, were sexually assaulted at multiple Massage Envy locations across California.

One of the alleged assaults reportedly happened at the Burlingame site.

Bobby Thompson, of Thompson Law Offices in Burlingame, said the lawsuit is being brought on behalf of women throughout California, from Orange County to Sacramento County.

A second lawsuit has been filed against Massage Envy in Pennsylvania.

"Theres no more vulnerable place than in a closed room for a woman, or a male for that matter, with their clothes off, face down, with some stranger's hands on them in intimate parts of their body," said Brian Kent, attorney with Philadelphia-based Laffey, Bucci & Kent.

Among the claims, attorneys say, is that a massage therapist named Brandon Davis inappropriately touched a woman during a massage at the Burlingame location.

A man by the same name is facing multiple criminal counts of sexual battery in San Mateo County for allegedly attacking 13 women. But court documents dont indicate where the battery happened. A receptionist at the Burlingame Massage Envy told NBC Bay Area that Davis no longer works there.

The company released a statement Monday, saying in part: "The franchise location informed us of only one inappropriate conduct incident involving Brandon Davis, which resulted in his termination and restriction, meaning he is not eligible to work at any Massage Envy franchise locations. No other incidents involving Mr. Davis were reported to us."

The California Massage Therapy Council said its records show a Brandon Davis whose certification is suspended.

The attorneys said they will be filing more lawsuits against Massage Envy in the coming weeks.
What to Know Michael Cohen, President Trump's former personal lawyer and "fixer," pleaded guilty Tuesday to campaign-finance violations and other charges

He said he and Trump arranged the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy model to influence the election

Under a plea bargain reached with federal prosecutors, Cohen, 51, could get about four to five years in prison at sentencing Dec. 12

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty Tuesday to campaign-finance violations and other charges, saying Trump directed him to arrange the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy model to fend off damage to his White House bid.

Cohen's extraordinary account marks the first time that any Trump associate has gone into open court and implicated Trump himself in a crime, though whether  or when  a president can be prosecuted remains a matter of legal dispute.

The guilty plea was part of a double dose of bad news for Trump: It came at almost the same moment his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted in Alexandria, Virginia, of eight financial crimes in the first trial to come out of special counsel Robert Mueller's sprawling Russia investigation.

In a deal reached with federal prosecutors, Cohen, 51, pleaded guilty to eight counts, including tax evasion. He could get about four to five years in prison at sentencing Dec. 12.

In entering the plea, Cohen did not name the two women or even Trump, recounting instead that he worked with an "unnamed candidate" to influence the election.

But the amounts and the dates all lined up with the $130,000 paid to Daniels and the $150,000 that went to Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to buy their silence in the weeks and months leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Both women claimed to have had affairs with Trump, which he denies.

Cohen, his voice shaky as he answered questions from a federal judge, said one payment was "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office," and the other was made "under direction of the same candidate."

However, in the charging documents, a news release and comments outside the courthouse, prosecutors did not go as far as Cohen did in open court in pointing the finger at the president. Prosecutors said Cohen acted "in coordination with a candidate or campaign for federal office for purposes of influencing the election."

As cable networks were showing split-screen coverage of the conviction and plea bargain by two of his former loyalists, Trump himself boarded Air Force One on his way to a rally in West Virginia and ignored shouted questions about the men.

Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, noted in a statement that "there is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government's charges against Mr. Cohen."

Daniel Petalas, a former prosecutor in the Justice Department's public integrity section, said, "This brings President Trump closer into the criminal conduct."

"The president has certain protections while a sitting president, but if it were true, and he was aware and tried to influence an election, that could be a federal felony offense," Petalas said. "This strikes close to home."

After the court hearing, which ended with Cohen released on $500,000 bail, the lawyer wiped away tears as he gazed out a courthouse window. He left the building and headed straight for a black SUV with tinted windows. A couple of people outside chanted, "Lock him up!" as they recorded the scene with their phones.

Under federal law, expenditures to protect a candidate's political fortunes can be construed to be campaign contributions, subject to federal laws that bar donations from corporations and set limits on how much can be given.

"If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?" Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, tweeted.

Cohen, who now finds Trump to be unsuitable to be president, "would not accept a pardon" from Trump, Davis said Wednesday on the "Today" show.



Cohen's plea follows months of scrutiny from federal investigations and a falling-out with the president, for whom Cohen once said he would "take a bullet."

The FBI raided Cohen's hotel room, home and office in April and seized more than 4 million items. The search sought bank records, communications with Trump's campaign and information on the payments to the two women.

According to prosecutors, the payment to McDougal was made through the parent company of the National Enquirer. Cohen made the payment to Daniels through his own company and then was reimbursed by Trump, he said.

Trump denied to reporters in April that he knew anything about Cohen's payments to Daniels, but the explanations from him and Giuliani have shifted multiple times since.

The president has fumed publicly about the raid, branding it "a witch hunt," an assault on attorney-client privilege and a politically motivated attack by enemies in the FBI. But privately he has worried about what information Cohen may have after working for the Trump Organization for a decade.

"Obviously it's not good for Trump," Sol Wisenberg, who conducted grand jury questioning of President Bill Clinton during the Whitewater investigation, said of the plea bargain.

"I'm assuming he's not going to be indicted because he's a sitting president, Wisenberg added. "But it leads him closer to ultimate impeachment proceedings, particularly if the Democrats take back the House."

The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has held that a president cannot be indicted while in office. Trump's lawyers have said that Mueller plans to adhere to that guidance, though Mueller's office has never confirmed that. There would presumably be no bar against charging a president after he leaves the White House.

Daniels said Tuesday that she and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, feel vindicated and look forward to apologies "from the people who claimed we were wrong."

Nothing made public so far indicates Cohen has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, but Avenatti said he is certain that is happening.

Mueller's team, which is looking into Russian interference in the presidential election, came across some of the evidence against Cohen in the course of its investigation and referred the matter to federal prosecutors in New York.

Late Tuesday, Cohen's lawyer told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to Mueller and is "more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows."



Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami said that in addition to the campaign finance violations, Cohen failed to report more than $4 million in income between 2012 and 2016, including $1.3 million from his taxi medallion holdings.

Cohen also lied to a financial institution by failing to disclose more than $14 million in debt and obtaining a $500,000 home equity line of credit he wasn't entitled to, Khuzami said. Cohen used that credit line to fund the Daniels payment, prosecutors said.

After making the hush money payments, Cohen submitted phony invoices to Trump's company, ostensibly for services rendered in 2017, the prosecutor said.

"Those involves were a sham," Khuzami said. "He provided no legal services for the year 2017. It was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful contributions."

IRS-CI Special Agent-in-Charge James D. Robnett said, "Mr. Cohen's greed to hide his income from the IRS cheats all the honest taxpayers, and we should not expect law abiding citizens to foot the bill for those who circumvent the system to evade paying their fair share."



Before the election, Cohen had been a trusted member of the Trump organization, working out of an office in Trump Tower next to one used by his boss. He raised millions for Trump's campaign.

The president's initial support for Cohen after the raid soon degenerated into a public feud, with Cohen hinting he might cut a deal with prosecutors.

When Cohen's team produced a recording he had made of Trump discussing one of the hush-money payments, Trump tweeted: "What kind of lawyer would tape a client? So sad!"
A new generation of Catholics is stepping outside the church's tainted shadow and creating a modern community that, they say, better reflects the world today.

This new generation of believers worship outside the confines of an antiquated and draconian institution that is out to protect itself, they say. This has been a daily practice for many long before a Pennsylvania grand jury report exposed decades of sexual abuse by hundreds of clergy members throughout the state.

Weve always had an antagonistic or non-relationship with the bishops, Michael Rocks, president of Dignity Philadelphia, said. We dont trust them to police themselves.

Founded in 1973, Dignity is a community of LGBT Catholics who worship in the basement of St. Lukes Episcopal Church in Center City. Their services are frequently led by Kathleen Gibbons Schuck, a woman who was ordained as a priest in 2015.

Schuck is one of more than 200 Roman Catholic Women Priests around the world. Their unique sisterhood dates back to 2002 when a group of radical male bishops took it upon themselves to ordain seven women on the Danube River. While the Vatican does not recognize these ministers, Schuck and her sisters remained undeterred.

We live below the radar, she said. Its all about community. I believe at the deepest level thats what Jesus calls us all to.

Despite their rejection of the traditional Catholic Church, both Rocks and Schuck consider themselves faithful. Rocks is a gay man, and Schuck is married to a man and has a college-aged daughter.

Both church leaders are drawn to Catholicisms sense of community.

I have found that at times of real trauma, grief, the support of a community has made a difference and helped me get through challenging situations, Schuck said.

But her 21-year-old daughter remains cautious, if not cynical, regarding the church her mother embraces. When the grand jury report came out last week, Schucks daughter told her that the news merely exposed a scam for what it really is.

Schucks daughter is not alone in her mistrust of organized religion. More than 30 percent of millennials consider themselves to be religiously unaffiliated, according to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center. Even older Americans are increasingly calling themselves atheist or agnostic - almost a quarter of the U.S. population now considers itself unaffiliated compared to just 16 percent in 2007.

Whereas it is life-giving and energizing for me, it is not for [my daughter], Schuck said.

The Pennsylvania grand jury report forced many Catholics to confront painful realities about the church, but it has not necessarily shaken their faith.

Pope Francis issued a letter to believers around the world Monday condemning the crime of priestly sexual abuse and demanding accountability. He begged forgiveness for the pain suffered by victims and said lay Catholics must be involved in any effort to root out abuse and cover-up.

His words resonated throughout the world, even drawing the praise of Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who spearheaded the grand jury investigation.

The popes words also helped to galvanize a new generation of Catholics who want to see the church modernize.

I have known and have met priests that are genuinely good, a 23-year-old La Salle University student told NBC10. You cant judge one person by what another person has done.

The Philadelphia native asked that her name not be used because her family is active within the local church community. She admits that of her friends, she is the only one who openly practices Catholicism. The others have fallen off, she said. They are too busy with school and work to attend mass, and they dont necessarily understand supporting an organization accused of so much wrongdoing.

I was taught church is the people, not the building, she said.


A Detroit mother is calling for parents to talk to their kids about dangerous challenges being shared on social media after her 12-year-old daughter was hospitalized with severe burns after mimicking the so-called "fire challenge."

Brandi Owens' daughter Timiyah Landers was engulfed by flames on Aug. 17 after imitating the fire challenge, where a person sets part of their body ablaze before dousing out the flames. She is expected to be hospitalized for months while undergoing several surgeries, she wrote on a GoFundMe page.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Owens said she had gone to take a nap while her daughter was playing with two friends then was startled by a popping sound. She next saw Landers, covered in flames, running down a hallway yelling "help me!" Her fiancee helped rush Landers to the bathtub where they were able to put out the fire before rushing Landers to the hospital.

The other girls later said that Landers had poured rubbing alcohol on her arms and one of her friends lit the fire, not expecting the challenge to go awry, Owens told the Post.

In her GoFundMe page, Owens linked what happened to her daughter to videos of the fire challenge found on YouTube.

"Children often do not realize that life is a precious gift and that they cannot copy things that they see on the internet," she wrote, saying that the experience has "shaken our family to the core."

Landers is not the first person to be hospitalized over the fire challenge, where reports of injuries have made headlines periodically in recent years.

The dare appears to have grown out of a YouTube video in 2012 before gaining popularity there and on now-shuttered social media platform Vine in 2013 and 2014, according to KnowYourMeme.com. Other versions of the challenge involve moving a flame close to one's body.

"There's a misconception that they're going to be able to light themselves on fire, get a cool video and then quickly put the flames with shower water," said burn specialist Stephanie Campbell of Dallas' Parkland Memorial Hospital back in 2016 in the wake of a new case. "But it's absolutely not true."

As of Tuesday, a search of "Fire Challenge" on YouTube mostly showed reports from years ago about people getting hurt.

YouTube did not answer questions about how many such videos are still availble on its platform but said it removes "flagged videos."

"YouTubes Community Guidelines prohibit content that's intended to encourage dangerous activities that have an inherent risk of physical harm or death," a spokesperson said in a statement. "We remove flagged videos that violate our policies."

There is no video of the Detroit incident on YouTube.



The original video of the phenomenon listed by KnowYourMeme was removed frin YouTube Tuesday morning after NBC contacted YouTube.



YouTube is not alone among social media companies in having hosted videos of dares over the years, like the Tide Pod Challenge, Condom Challenge and Cinnamon Challenge.

NBC has reached out to Facebook and Snap for comment on what steps they take to curtail such videos.
The authorities of the city of Guadalajara, considered to be one of the most conservative cities in Mexico, approved a law that allows sexual relations in public view, unless there's a public complaint.

With the legal reforms, the police will no longer have the authority to sanction public sex acts, so long as there isn't a complaint from a third party.

"Having sexual relations or committing acts of exhibitionism of a sexual nature in public places, vacant lots, inside vehicles or in private locations in public view will be considered administrative offenses, as long as a citizen requests police intervention," details the modification to article 14 of the Bylaws of Good Government.

The changes were issued in the capital of the state of Jalisco under the argument that the police should focus on combatting crime and not bother those who might be lacking funds to pay for a hotel.

That change has caused indignation among many citizens who label it as a moral issue, and also warn that it makes it easier for rapists and pedophiles to abuse their victims.

Once these changes go into effect, the police will only be able to detain and fine those who have intimate encounters in public view if there is an expressed complaint from other citizens.

This initiative has a history in the world, now that Vondelpark in Amsterdam, one of the most popular public parks in the capital of the Netherlands, has allowed sex in the open air spanning over a decade.

The only rules in Amsterdam are to keep the space clean, the activities should be conducted in areas away from dedicated child zones, and if there's too much noise, police can ask the lovers to leave.
Police officers in Illinois who are assigned to protect school children and patrol school hallways will soon be required to undergo new youth-specific training.

Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a bill over the weekend that requires school resource officers, also known as SROs, to be better prepared to deal with the student population. The training will focus on de-escalation, crisis intervention and cyberbullying.

Previously, youth-specific training was not mandatory for law enforcement agencies student resource officers.

Michelle Mbekeani-Wiley is an attorney for the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law who said she does not agree that officers should be permanently assigned to schools. But she said those officers at schools must be trained to understand how the adolescent brain differs from adults.

We want to ensure that officers know how to appropriately respond to children, for example, with disabilities, to not handcuff them when they're having an outburst, but to instead to realize they need to get them to the appropriate services, Mbekeani-Wiley said.

Some police chiefs and sheriffs previously argued their resource officers were already prepared and said the new training is not necessary. However, the new law allows for law enforcement agencies to apply for training waivers.

NBC 5 Investigates surveyed Chicago-area school districts and found a majority of the respondents said they do not have police in schools.

Meantime, any law enforcement agency that provides a school resource officer can apply for state and federal grants to help pay for the training.
What to Know Tibbetts vanished on July 18 from her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa.

Investigators said she was last seen on a routine jog through the streets of the city.

Nearly $400,000 was raised for any tip that led to Tibbetts' safe return. The fund will now likely be used for any information on suspects.

NOTE: NBC Chicago will offer a live stream of the 4 p.m. CT news conference right here. Watch live above.

Investigators have recovered a body believed to be that of 20-year-old college student Mollie Tibbetts, who disappeared from her small hometown in central Iowa one month ago, police said Tuesday.

The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation says the body was found Tuesday morning in rural Poweshiek County, which includes Tibbetts' hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa.

The agency called a 4 p.m. news conference to provide an update on the search for Tibbetts, saying investigators were working to confirm the identity of the body.

An Iowa official says a suspect is in custody in the death and is being held on federal immigration detainer, the Associated Press reported.

DCI spokesman Mitch Mortvedt said Tuesday that he couldn't yet comment on any potential suspect in the case, saying only "there is nobody charged at this time." Hundreds of people have been interviewed by investigators, who have been inundated with tips from the public.

Investigators have said that foul play, including the possibility that Tibbetts was abducted, could be involved, saying that disappearing on her own would be inconsistent with past behavior.

Investigators were working Tuesday at a scene about 12 miles (19 kilometers) southeast of Brooklyn, where a government vehicle blocked the public's access to a gravel road. An SUV from the state medical examiner's office was seen leaving the area.

Tibbetts vanished on July 18 from her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa, a town of about 1,400 in central Iowa. Investigators said she was last seen on a routine jog through the streets of the city. It's unclear whether she returned to the home where she was dog-sitting for her boyfriend and her boyfriend's brother, who have said they were both out of town.

Greg Willey of Crime Stoppers of Central Iowa said he learned of the body's discovery from a close family friend of Mollie Tibbetts on Tuesday morning. Willey says he has no other details about the discovery, but called it a "tough" ending to the search for the University of Iowa student.

Willey's group has been administering a reward fund that raised nearly $400,000 for any tip that led to Tibbetts' safe return. He says the fund will now likely be used for any information that helps police catch any person responsible for her death.

"Once they catch their breath, this will turn into a weapon going the other direction to catch the person who did it," he said.
Chicago White Sox Manager Rick Renteria reported he was feeling good after a bout of lightheadedness before Monday nights Chicago White Sox game sent him to the hospital.

Renteria was taken to Hennepin Medical Center for precautionary reasons, a White Sox spokesman said.

He is being evaluated but everything seems normal so far and he reports hes feeling good, spokesman Bob Beghtol said.

The White Sox squared off against the Minnesota Twins in Minneapolis.
| BY Lynchy |

Singaporeans have grown up side-by-side with Gurmit Singh, who was born the same year Singapore was founded. But beyond the laughs theyve shared with him, theyve never really got to know his real story.

So rather than show Singh as weve all seen him before, OCBC Bank worked with GOVT Singapore to reveal his untold story, and through that imperfect journey, show how OCBC Life Goals financial planning programme can keep you on track throughout the twists and turns of life.

Acclaimed director Royston Tan was brought on board to tell Singhs emotional story, with the delicate touch required a journey deep into his past.

The 3-minute film spearheaded a nationwide campaign to promote OCBC Banks Life Goals programme.

Our team has been working tirelessly to push the creative work into spaces rarely seen by a Singaporean bank. Its motivating to see that effort paying off, and hopefully it rewards our clients bravery and trust in us, said Stephen Kyriakou, Creative Director at GOVT Singapore.
A former teacher at Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts school is accused of engaging in a sexual relationship with a then 14-year-old student and has been charged.

Brian Marshall, 28, of Meriden, has been charged with second- and fourth-degree sexual assault and risk of injury/impairing the morals of a minor.

The arrest warrant said he had been the student's seventh-grade teacher and debate coach. The teen said the relationship had gotten more intense over a few years.

The first time Marshall and the teen were physical was during a snow day in February 2017, according to court documents. The victim said Marshall picked her up from her home, they drove around and she kissed Marshall in his car.

The first time the two had intercourse the victim was 14, according to paperwork. There were multiple instances of intercourse in Marshalls vehicle including at Devils Hopyard in East Haddam, Blackledge Falls in Glastonbury, Gillette Castle and several different commuter lots.

In the warrant, the victim said both she and Marshall called out from school one day and had sex in the spare bedroom of his Meriden home.

The teen also said in documents that she spent multiple nights at Marshalls house  stating that he and his wife were on a break  and told her mom she was sleeping at a friends home.

Detectives also have the teens journals, call logs and DNA samples, according to the warrant.

Other students who were aware of the alleged relationship brought it to the attention of school administrators in December, the arrest warrant application said.

It has come to our attention that a former CREC employee has been arrested for allegations made last winter, Superintendent Tim Sullivan said in a statement send to NBC Connecticut. When CREC was made aware of the allegations, the individual was immediately put on leave. CREC has cooperated fully with law enforcement officials. The individual no longer works for CREC.

NBC Connecticut went to Marshall's home and there was no answer. NBC Connecticut also reached out to his attorney via phone and email and did not receive a response.

Marshall is out on a $25,000 bond and due back in court on Sept. 18.
Lincoln College of New England (LCNE) announced Monday it will close at the end of the Fall 2018 semester after issues with accreditation.

The school will close for good on Dec. 31, 2018, according to a letter addressed to current students, Interim President Dr. Jim Vernon. Vernon wrote that the college was going through its regular reaccreditation process with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), the regional accreditation association. On July 26 NEASC informed school officials the college was placed on probation, and following that notice, the school made the decision to close.

The commission said it made the decision to put the school on probation based on concerns that the college was not in compliance with standards regarding Planning and Evaluation; Organization and Governance; the Academic Program; Students; Teaching, Learning and Scholarship; Institutional Resources; and Educational Effectiveness, according to a notice on LCNEs website.

Before making the decision to close, LCNE made arrangements with Goodwin College to complete their programs if they so choose. Students can find more information on that here.
A rally was held in Hartford Tuesday for a New Haven mother set to be deported to Bangladesh just days before her only child heads to college.

Salma Sikandar has two days left in the US. Her husband is on a hunger strike as supporters rallied of the Immigration Customs and Enforcement headquarters in Hartford, hoping for a last-minute miracle.

Sikandar, who came to the US from Bangladesh in 1999, overstayed her tourist visa, eventually filing a hardship application to stay in the country for her son, who is an American citizen. He will begin his freshman year at Quinnipiac University Monday.

The family, visibly emotional, gathered Tuesday morning in New Haven.

Im having to worry about that in two days my mom could disappear from me and thats never happened before. Ive never spent a night without my parents. Ive always been with my parents, said Samir Mahmud, Salmas son.

I dont ask anything too much. I just ask my wife to be with me. She is my strength. She is my everything. She is my life, Anwar Mahmud, Salmas husband, added.

US Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) is calling for an emergency stay.

I have asked ICE officials for the strongest discretion and consideration in this matter, and we are all hoping for a positive outcome. I believe forcing her to leave is counterproductive, whats more it is cruel, DeLauro said.

ICE said Saikandar has overstayed the requirement of her visa for more than 18 years. In a statement, the agency said in part:

Since being ordered to be removed by an Immigration Judge in 2016, she has filed multiple appeals both to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) as well as in federal court that have been dismissed.

ICEs Board of Appeals is considering whether to reopen the case.
A man suspected of murder in New London in December 2017 has been arrested and charged by Connecticut authorities after being found in Massachusetts.

Jamir Johnson, 19, was wanted in connection with the shooting death of Quvonte Gray on Dec. 9, 2017.



Police in Halifax, Massachusetts arrested Johnson in July on burglary charges. On Tuesday he was returned to Connecticut and charged with murder, possession of a pistol without a permit and unlawful discharge of a firearm for the New London case.

Johnson is being held on a $1.5 million bond.
To help boost job growth and the economy, southeastern Connecticut is looking no further than its shoreline. U.S. Maritime Administrator retired Rear Adm. Mark Buzby, USN, toured sea-based businesses Monday that included Mystic Seaport, the Cross Sound Ferry, Thames Shipyard & Repair Co., New London State Pier and Essex Boat Works.

As the highways become more congested, people are looking for alternative means and the ferry provides that. Its basically a floating highway in itself, said Stan Mickus, the director of marketing for Cross Sound Ferry Services.

Thats why the Cross Sound Ferry, which transports people, vehicles, even commercial vehicles between New London and Long Island, just got more than a $500,000 federal grant from the Maritime Administration, a subsector of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The Thames Shipyard & Repair Co.which is owned by Cross Sound and services its fleet of ferries and tugboats, along with other boats, including some from Delaware and New Jerseyhas also received a different three grants from the same office over the years, Mickus said.

Coming back to the waterways makes good common sense and were figuring out ways to come back to the waterways. This area has an abundance, according to Buzby, who said cargo is key.

His office wants to provide incentives for maritime business to grow.

There are currently 182 large, ocean-going merchant ships nationwidethe smallest number since before World War II, Buzby said. Its because the cost of operating a United States flag ship costs about $7 million more than its foreign competition, he added.

There are multiple programs in place to try to offset some of the costs of doing maritime work and bring more people into the business.

Connecticut Port Authority Chairman Scott Bates said for the first time in its history, this state has a maritime strategy. The State Pier is currently under-utilized. He also mentioned the strategy to support dredging of the ports and waterways.

Especially with the expansion of Electric Boat, Bates said there are lot of manufacturing goods that require shipment. Plus theres an emerging technology of wind turbineswhich could see a home at the State Pier.

And more traditional shipping of goods like lumber, construction, supplies. These are all good, blue collar jobs, working class jobs to support families, Bates said.

The state just invested $15 million in revitalizing the pier including the demolition of selected structures, storm water treatment and drainage improvements, construction of a heavy lift pad and improvements to the load bearing capacity. Governor Dannel Malloys office previously called it a first-step in revitalizing the pier for potential use in the deployment of equipment and workers for the seven offshore wind projects currently planned in the northeast.

Congressman Joe Courtney (D  Dist. 2) is pushing for the wind turbine prospect and said Connecticut needs to take advantage of all the potential. Many businesses are now trying to avoid congested highways.

We really need to go back to the future in terms of really using what really is the reason people settled here to begin with, which is the proximity to water, Courtney said, who invited Buzby to the shoreline.

Courtney said there will be upgrades to the freight rail that runs from the State Pier in New London up through Massachusetts. Itll pass Norwich, Willimantic and several towns in between, so that will help industry in the northeast inland parts of the state as well.
Homeowners from several northeastern Connecticut towns threw they support behind applying for a federal grant that would pay for homeowners to have their concrete tested at a meeting in Vernon Tuesday night.



Crumbling foundations are a problem that NBC Connecticut Investigates exposed three years ago and hundreds of homes in Connecticut are in danger of collapsing because of the state of the foundations.

The hearing was the first step in finding out how many homeowners are affected so that Vernon, Ellington and Stafford can apply for a block grant through the federal government. The grant would be through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

When are we going to get it fixed? It's hanging over your head. It's a big big problem, said Jim Tomko of Vernon.

For homeowners affected by the crisis, its a big problem that continues to haunt them. Their number one investment is cracking and crumbling beneath them.

When it rains, it comes in, you throw newspapers down, the finest crack brings in the most water, so you're mopping up water every rainstorm, Tomko said.

At Tuesdays public hearing homeowners from Vernon, Ellington and Stafford gave their support for the towns to file a joint application for more than $500,000 from the federal government. That money would help pay for foundation testing, which can cost thousands of dollars per home.

Experts have said the crumbling concrete is caused by a naturally occurring mineral known as pyrrhotite. Many insurance companies don't cover repairs, which could cost about $200,000 per home. More than 700 homeowners have filed complaints with the state so far reporting crumbling foundations.

The state of Connecticut is pledging about $200 million over the next 10 years, but it might not be enough, so state and local leaders want federal assistance.
A man from Mexico living in the U.S. illegally has confessed to kidnapping college student Mollie Tibbetts while she was running in her small Iowa hometown, killing her and dumping her body in a cornfield, authorities said Tuesday.

Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of the 20-year-old Tibbetts, whose July 18 disappearance set off a massive search involving state and federal authorities.

Rivera led investigators early Tuesday to a body believed to be Tibbetts in a cornfield about 12 miles (19 kilometers) southeast of Brooklyn, Iowa, where Tibbetts was last seen running, Division of Criminal Investigation special agent Rick Rahn said.

"I can't speak about the motive. I can just tell you that it seemed that he followed her, seemed to be drawn to her on that particular day, for whatever reason he chose to abduct her," Rahn told reporters at a news conference outside the sheriff's office in Montezuma, where Rivera was being held on $1 million cash-only bond.

The news that the highly publicized and gruesome crime was allegedly committed by a person in the country illegally drew immediate outrage. President Donald Trump noted the arrest and called for immigration law changes at a rally in West Virginia.

"You heard about today with the illegal alien coming in, very sadly, from Mexico and you saw what happened to that incredible, beautiful young woman," Trump told the crowd in Charleston. "Should've never happened. Illegally in our country. We've had a huge impact, but the laws are so bad. The immigration laws are such a disgrace, we're getting them changed, but we have to get more Republicans. We have to get 'em."

Iowa's two GOP U.S. senators also described Tibbetts' death as a tragedy "that could have been prevented," and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said residents were heartbroken and angry.

"We are angry that a broken immigration system allowed a predator like this to live in our community, and we will do all we can to bring justice to Mollie's killer," Reynolds, a Republican, said in a statement.

Trump has made further crackdown on illegal immigration a core policy of his administration. He often has claimed widespread crime by people living in the country illegally, citing among other things the indictments of 11 suspected MS-13 gang members from El Salvador charged in connection with the slayings of two Virginia teens. Trump also has held events at the White House with members of "angel families," whose relatives were killed by immigrants.

Although Trump claims legal U.S. residents are less likely to commit crime, several studies from social scientists and the libertarian think tank Cato Institute find that isn't accurate and states with a higher share of people living in the country illegally have lower violent crime rates.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that it lodged a federal immigration detainer for Rivera after he was arrested on the murder charge. That move means the agency has probable cause to believe he is subject to deportation.

Investigators said they believed Rivera had lived in the area from four to seven years, and Rahn described Rivera as someone who lived in a rural area and kept to himself.

Yarrabee Farms, a family-owned company that operates dairy farms in the rolling hills outside Brooklyn, said that Rivera had been an employee in good standing for four years and that it was shocked to learn he was implicated in the crime.

The company is owned by the family of Craig Lang, a prominent Republican who previously served as president of the Iowa Farm Bureau.

A search of court records revealed no prior criminal history for Rivera in Iowa, and it's unclear whether he had ever been subject to prior deportation proceedings.

Rivera's Facebook page described him as being from Guayabillo, a community of less than 500 people in the state of Guerrero. It's about a three-hour drive from the resort city of Acapulco.

Investigators said they zeroed in on Rivera after obtaining footage from surveillance cameras in Brooklyn. The footage showed a Chevy Malibu connected to Rivera that was driving back and forth as Tibbetts was running in the area, Rahn said.

An affidavit attached to the criminal complaint against Rivera alleged that he admitted to investigators he got out of his car and started running alongside Tibbetts.

Tibbetts grabbed her phone and said she was going to call the police. The affidavit says Rivera panicked and then said he blacked out. Rivera next remembers seeing her earphones on his lap, and taking her bloody body out of the trunk of his car, it said.

"The defendant further described during the interview that he dragged Tibbetts on foot from his vehicle to a secluded location in a cornfield," the affidavit said.

Investigators said they had earlier searched the area for Tibbetts but didn't find her, noting the body was covered by corn stalks when recovered early Tuesday.

Rahn said that Rivera was cooperating with investigators and speaking with the help of a translator. He said an autopsy would be performed on the body Wednesday by the state medical examiner's office, which would assist investigators in understanding whether Tibbetts had been assaulted or tried to fight him off.

Rivera's initial court appearance is scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday in Montezuma.

A conviction on first-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole in Iowa, which doesn't have the death penalty.

On Tuesday night, deputies were guarding a trailer where the suspect had lived on a gravel road outside Brooklyn near a dairy farm.

Tibbetts' disappearance set off a massive search involving dozens of officers from the FBI, as well as state and local agencies. They focused much of their efforts in and around Brooklyn, searching farm fields, ponds and homes. Investigators asked anyone who was around five locations, including a car wash, a truck stop and a farm south of town, to report if they saw anything suspicious on July 18.

Last week, Vice President Mike Pence met privately with the Tibbetts family during a visit to Iowa and told them that "you're on the hearts of every American."

At Brooklyn City Hall, city clerk Sheri Sharer said Tuesday was a sad day for the town.

"It never crossed our mind that she wouldn't come home safe," she said.

The University of Iowa mourned the loss of Tibbetts, a psychology major who would have started her junior year this week.

"We are deeply saddened that we've lost a member of the University of Iowa community," said university official Melissa Shivers, who urged students to seek counseling and other support services as needed.

Rahn said he met with the parents and other relatives of Tibbetts to inform them of the arrest Tuesday. He told them that the investigation revealed that they had "raised a great daughter."

"We got to know Mollie," he said. "She was a phenomenal individual."

Tibbetts aunt Billie Jo Calderwood posted a statement on her Facebook page following the arrest of Rivera reading, "Please remember, Evil comes in EVERY color. Our family has been blessed to be surrounded by love, friendship and support throughout this entire ordeal by friends from all different nations and races. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you."



Tibbetts, a psychology major originally from Oakland, California, would have started her junior year this week in Iowa City, about 50 miles east of Brooklyn. She was staying with her longtime boyfriend and working while home from school over the summer.
What to Know A White House memo focuses on boosting efficiency at coal-fired power plants and allowing states to reduce "wasteful compliance costs"

Critics say focusing on efficiency would keep older, dirtier power plants running, undercutting potential environmental benefits

Obama's plan was designed to cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030

The Trump administration on Tuesday moved to prop up the declining coal industry with an overhaul of Obama-era pollution rules, acknowledging that the increased emissions from aging coal-fired plants could kill hundreds more people annually and cost the country billions of dollars.

The proposal broadly increases the authority given to states to decide how and how much to regulate existing coal power plants.

The EPA said its Affordable Clean Energy rule "empowers states, promotes energy independence and facilitates economic growth and job creation."

"CLEAN COAL," President Donald Trump tweeted ahead of a Tuesday trip to coal country in West Virginia. Trump promoted the plan as making good on his campaign pledge to bring back the coal industry, which is being hit hard by market forces that make natural gas and other cleaner fuels cheaper and more appealing.

"Today we are fulfilling the president's agenda," acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler told reporters.

The proposal dismantles President Barack Obama's 2015 Clean Power Plan, one of his administration's legacy efforts against climate change. The Obama rules, which have been halted by court challenges, would have increased federal regulation of emissions from the nation's electrical grid and broadly promoted cleaner energy, including natural gas and solar and wind power.

Michelle Bloodworth, president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a trade group that represents coal producers, called the new rule a marked departure from the "gross overreach" of the Obama administration and said it should prevent a host of premature coal-plant retirements.

But the Natural Resources Defense Council called the Trump's proposal "Dirty Power Plan."

Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator when the Obama plan was developed, said the proposed changes show the Trump administration emphasizing "coal at all costs."

The EPA's 289-page regulatory analysis acknowledged that every possible scenario under its proposal projects "small increases" in climate-changing emissions and some pollutants, compared to the Obama plan.

EPA officials said they could give no firm projections for the health effects of their plan because that will depend on how states regulate power plants within their borders.

But models provided by the agency estimate that under the Trump plan, 300 to 1,500 more people would die prematurely each year by 2030, compared to the Obama plan.

The models for the Trump plan also project tens of thousands of additional major asthma attacks and hundreds more heart attacks compared with the Obama plan.

When health costs from air pollution  soot and smog killing people, increased asthma and heart attacks  are factored in, the repeal of the coal power plan would cost the country $1.4 billion to $3.9 billion annually, according to the agency.

"It shows that removing the Clean Power Plan would be detrimental to health," said University of North Carolina environmental engineering professor Jason West, who went through the agency's regulatory analysis with The Associated Press.

"The cost to society in increases of death and other outcomes from air pollution are greater than the cost to industry from removing the Clean Power Plan," West said.

The projection of increased deaths and costs marks "what's extraordinary about this proposal," said Richard Revesz, dean emeritus at the New York University School of Law. "To their credit, they tell us directly, 'We are doing something to cause great harm to the American people.'"

Environmentalists and other opponents said they expect legal challenges, arguing the Trump administration is abdicating its responsibilities under the Clean Air Act as set by Congress and the courts.

Bill Wehrum, head of the EPA's air office, told reporters that the administration rejects any suggestion the agency has a broad legal duty to combat climate change through regulation of power grids or promotion of cleaner energy.

"An important part of what we're doing here is getting us back into our lane," Wehrum said.

The EPA called the Obama-era regulations on coal power plants "overly prescriptive and burdensome."

Combined with the EPA's proposal earlier this month to ease gas-mileage requirements for vehicles, the move may actually increase the country's climate-changing emissions, according to some former top EPA officials, environmental groups and other opponents.

Tuesday's move opens a public-comment period on the proposal before any final approval by the president.

Scientists say that without extensive study, they cannot directly link a single weather event to climate change, but that it is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme events such as storms, droughts, floods and wildfires.

The new proposal establishes guidelines for states to use when developing any plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Critics say the new plan would allow utilities to run older, dirtier power plants more often and extend their operating life.

Trump has already vowed to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement as he pushes to revive the coal industry.

Obama's plan was designed to cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The rule dictated specific emission targets for states and gave officials broad latitude to decide how to achieve reductions.

The Supreme Court put the plan on hold in 2016 following a legal challenge by industry and coal-friendly states, an order that remains in effect.

Even so, the Obama plan has been a factor in the wave of retirements of coal-fired plants, which also are being squeezed by lower costs for natural gas and renewable power and state mandates that promote energy conservation.

Trump has vowed to end what Republicans call a "war on coal" waged by Obama.
Two men have been charged in connection with the investigation into more than 100 suspected K2 overdoses in the New Haven area last week.

The suspects, 53-year-old John Parker and 37-year-old Felix Melendez, were taken into custody on unrelated charges last week during the investigation into the string of overdoses in the city. Police said both men were identified by victims and witnesses as linked to the sale or distribution of the drugs.

Both Parker and Melendez were charged with possession of controlled substances and the sale of hallucinogens with the intent to sell/distribute.

Both men have been previously arrested for selling drugs on the Green, police said.

In Photos: New Haven Overdose Emergency

A third man, 47-year-old Quentin Staggers, was arrested by federal authorities in connection with the case, according to a spokesperson for the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. The affidavit is currently sealed.

Emergency responders in New Haven responded to a string of suspected K2 overdoses starting last Tuesday and continuing through Thursday. Police said a total of 47 people were transported to the hospital, some multiple times due to multiple overdoses. In total, there were 108 transports.

Many of the people became ill while they were on the New Haven Green, which is located near Yale University. There were no fatalities, but authorities warned that the drug can be fatal and for people to stay away from it.

The K2 involved in this case was contaminated with another synthetic drug called fubinaca,

One form of fubinaca is an "ultrapotent" synthetic cannabinoid known to be 50 to 85 times more powerful than K2 and "poses a public health concern," according to a 2017 article in the New England Journal of Medicine that found the drug was involved in a 2016 outbreak in Brooklyn, New York, that resulted in dozens of hospitalizations and left the area looking like a "zombieland."

Last year, the Drug Enforcement Administration temporarily classified fubinaca as a Schedule I drug, the same category as heroin, a move the federal agency said was necessary to avoid an imminent hazard to the public safety.

Officials said fubinaca was found in nearly all the K2 samples New Haven police recovered. The DEA helped the city discover what was in the co-called bad batch.

Thanks to the DEA for doing the testing and thanks to victims who were courageous enough to come forward and make identification weve been able to tie both of them definitively to the distribution and sale of the K2 that was happening on the Green, said New Haven Police Chief Anthony Campbell.

The overdose emergency was followed by a visit from Jim Carroll, the nominee for federal drug czar and current Deputy Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, who discussed the response and ways to combat the ongoing addiction and substance abuse epidemic in the country with state and local officials.
Fort Worth is trying to fix a parking problem in an upcoming and trendy part of downtown  the W. 7th Street area.

City employees started placing new parking meters in the area Tuesday, which will activate on Aug. 30.

Its gotten outrageous. Theres no room for anyone and its gotten so much more crowded, Fort Worth resident Jonathan Fayyazi said. People are parking on the side of the street. You see them double parked. Its just hard to get around. Even if you live around here; it gets kind of rough sometimes.

Parking fees for these meters will vary based on the time of day. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the rate will be $1 per hour. From 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., the rate will be $2.50 per hour. There is no fee from 10 p.m. to 10 a.m.

But those parking fees can fluctuate based on demand in the area which is a first for Texas.

The fluctuation is not something that is happening in a dynamic way. Its happening over time. So, we will evaluate the demand and we can adjust gradually at most  once per week, Fort Worth Parking Director Peter Elliott said.

Fees can rise or fall by 25 cents per hour on a weekly basis based on demand. There is a maximum rate of $4.50 per hour and a minimum of $1 per hour.

Its done in areas where there is very high demand on parking and limit supply and so it is done mostly to reduce congestion, to reduce circling and to increase turnover on actual spaces, Elliott said.

City leaders say the sliding pricing scale has been successful in Seattle, New York, San Francisco and Boston. It keeps the flow of people moving in and out of parking spots during times of high demand.

According to city leaders, there are still other parking options including the Fort Worth school districts Farrington Field, located at the corner of University Drive and Lancaster Avenue. Under a new agreement, 400 spaces will be available for employee parking and fee-based parking for the general public beginning Aug. 30.

Fee-based surface lots and garages in the W. 7th Urban Village are additional alternatives.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  The Department of Foreign Affairs will be extending financial assistance to Overseas Filipino Workers who have been affected by flight delays and cancellations due to the runway closure at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said Tuesday the department, through the Office Of Migrant Workers Affairs (OMWA), will give out assistance amounting to P5,000 for Filipinos who were unable to depart for their host countries due to the airport incident.

A Xiamen Airlines passenger plane skidded off the NAIA runway on August 16. The incident prompted aviation authorities to close the runway for more than 24 hours, resulting in several flight interruptions across the country.

"We are releasing a reasonable amount from our Assistance to Nationals Fund as we understand that a number of our kababayan (countrymen) remain stranded and do not have funds to meet their daily needs," Cayetano said in a statement.

OFWs who are still in the country can claim the financial aid starting at 3 p.m. on Wednesday until Friday afternoon at the OMWA offices in the DFA's main building along Roxas Boulevard, as well as at the NAIA terminals 1, 2, and 3, Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Sarah Lou Arriola confirmed.

Here are the schedules for claiming of the financial assistance:

August 22 (Wednesday): Beginning 3 p.m.

August 23 (Thursday): 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

August 24 (Friday): 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Arriola said those claiming the aid should present their airline tickets (showing original and rescheduled dates of departure), employment contract, and overseas employment certificate.

The DFA also said its embassies abroad are ready to issue certifications to explain to foreign employers, if needed, about the OFWs' delayed arrival.

Airport officials on Tuesday said operations at NAIA have returned to normal.

Xiamen Air has released an apology on Monday. But Malacanang wants 'more than an apology' as the airline officials are expected to undergo probe.

Kevin Yang, station manager of Xiamen Airlines in Manila, told CNN Philippines both the pilot and the first officer are still in the country and have already faced the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.

Yang, however, was unable to provide information regarding the meeting.
Researchers say drug overdoses were the leading cause of maternal deaths in Texas between 2012 and 2015, with opioids to blame for the majority of those.

A report Monday by a state task force blamed 64 maternal deaths occurring up to a year after giving birth on overdoses from 2012-2015, or 17 percent of total deaths. Opioids caused 58 percent of them.

A 2016 study found that Texas' maternal morality rate more than doubled between 2010 and 2012, becoming the highest in the developed world. But state researchers have since said that miscalculations inflated those previous findings.

The task force logged 382 maternal deaths from 2012 to 2015, finding that 38 percent were pregnancy related and 56 percent were associated with pregnancy.

Cardiac events caused 55 deaths and infection/sepsis 32.
It took dozens of firefighters to take down a large fire at an abandoned school in Pleasant Grove early Tuesday morning, authorities said.

According to Jason Evans, Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman, first responders were called to a vacant building behind the Faith Kingdom Church of God in Christ in the 6900 block of Lake June Road shortly after 2 a.m.

The building was the original site of Dallas Christian Academy, dating back to the 1960s, which long-since relocated to Mesquite.



Flames were seen shooting from the roof of the building as the first crews arrived, Evans said. He said the fire was so intense that firefighters held back from attempting to save the building.

About 80 firefighters and support personnel were called to the scene, Evans said. The flames were extinguished after a couple hours.

According to the Deputy Fire Chief on the scene, firefighters found evidence of a significant homeless encampment inside of the boarded up building. His crews were confident that no one was still inside by the time they arrived and completed their primary search of the building. They were unable to do a secondary  and more thorough  search of the building because of the significant amount of damage done to the structure.



Investigators were looking into what sparked the fire.

No one was hurt.

NBC 5's Ben Russell contributed to this report.
A Dallas police officer is in good condition and has been released from the hospital after being run over while chasing a man Tuesday morning, police say.



According to police, the officer was patrolling the 4100 block of Western Street when he noticed a utility van with two men inside that he suspected may be stolen.

Police said the officer stopped the driver and ordered the men to get out the van. Suddenly, a passenger inside the van hopped out and ran behind nearby homes.

As the officer chased the man, police said he jumped on the hood of a Ford Fusion stopped at the corner of Sunnyside Avenue and Western Street and yelled for the driver to "go!"



After grabbing the man on the hood and holding onto him, the officer lost his grip and was partially pulled under the vehicle.

He was later transported to a hospital with non life-threatening injuries, treated and released in good condition.



DEVELOPING: Dallas Police say an officer was injured during an incident here along Western St, which is in the west part of the city.



Still awaiting details about what happened, but we are told the officer is in good condition at a local hospital. #NBCDFWNow pic.twitter.com/1h9eRLj6lv  Tim Ciesco (@TimCiescoNBC5) August 21, 2018

The driver of the Ford Fusion was taken into custody near Dryden Drive and Shelly Boulevard, police said, and the driver of the van was also taken into custody.

The man seen running from the utility van and onto the hood of the Ford remains at large.

Police have not yet confirmed if the van was indeed stolen.



Officers said the investigation is ongoing and charges are pending.



Check back for developments on this breaking news story. As details unfold, elements of this story may change.


Fort Worth police are investigating a terrifying crime on the far south side of town near Crowley. A pregnant woman and her husband were held at gunpoint in their home with their three young children sleeping down the hall.

NBC 5 has learned that the home invasion robbery, which investigators believe was random, may be connected to several other armed robberies across Tarrant County.

The home invasion happened last Thursday in the middle of a string of armed robberies across Hurst, Weatherford and Fort Worth. The Hurst and Weatherford robberies targeted cell phone stores. Now detectives in Fort Worth are looking into connections, to see if they can tie all the crimes together.

Late last week, Chad Killen's wife and three young children had gone to bed and he stepped outside for a cigarette when a man with a gun rounded the corner.

"As I'm putting my hands up like this, I'm getting down like this to take off after him, Killen said, gesturing outside his front door. I'm gonna bolt after him. And as soon as I got the courage to do so, two more come around the same corner with guns drawn."

Killen says the two men and a woman forced him inside and went to get his pregnant wife, holding them at gunpoint in the living room, with the kids still sleeping down the hall.

Killen is a martial arts instructor and says it took everything not to charge at the robbers.

"I thought of angles where I could attack her, get her gun, shoot him and the one in the bedroom but then you're having gunfire where my babies sleep 20 feet away," Killen said.

After they'd stolen all they could grab, phones, wallets, electronics, the gunmen marched Killen and his wife into the bathroom.

"They said you move you die and I just looked at her and said I'm sorry, I failed you, I love you," Killen said.

The robbers left without hurting anyone, but on the way out the door, they stole the family dog, a Yorkie named Hannah.

"When they took our dog, that is on a whole other level of psychotic," Killen said.

But despite the loss and trauma, Killen has a surprising response to the people responsible.

"I want to hurt them and I want to hug them," he said.

He's a man of strong faith, who believes compassion is the only way to end the cycle of violence.

"I want everybody to have the opportunity to know Christ and I want everyone to start loving each other more," Killen said.

It's a prayer he'll take with him as he and his family move on to a new home and better days.

There was a second armed robbery outside the apartment complex right after the Killen family was held up. Surveillance video shows the robbers get into a dark-colored truck and take off.

Thats the same description for the suspect vehicle in the two cell phone robberies in Weatherford and Hurst. Police have arrested two men and a woman charged in those two crimes, but it's not clear yet if they'll be tied to the home invasion case.

There is a GoFundMe page set up to help the Killen family, if you would like to donate, click here.


Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) was at Solar Preparatory School for Girls in Dallas Tuesday afternoon for a roundtable session with teachers, administrators and local lawmakers. The governor said he was there not to talk, but to listen.

"Many of you all are teachers. I'm a student," Abbott said as he looked across the tables assembled in a grade school classroom. "This is back to school time. Back to school for teachers and students, but also back to school for legislators."

The media was allowed to hear only the beginning statements. The rest of the roundtable session was closed.

Abbott said he wanted to hear ideas for an education finance plan that would include putting teachers on a path to earn six-figure salaries.

"We want to attract the very best teachers and keep the very best teachers," Abbott said. "We want to find ways that we keep you, empower you to commit more of your life to education and our kids, and I believe one way of doing that is by paying teachers more."

The devil may be in details. Without a concrete plan, there are none right now. When asked if pay would be tied to standardized test scores, Abbott said no.

"It's not realistic in the beginning," said second grade teacher Veronica Luna, who was in the roundtable session. "We have someone actually here with us who is close to that benchmark, so it's achievable, but it takes a lot of work."

Abbott said the Dallas Independent School District has a path for teachers to earn top dollar, and that any plan would not be a one-size-fits-all from Austin.

"The only thing you can get funding for is something that you are able to sell to the legislature," Abbott said. "So the first thing we have to do is put together the product that I can sell. When we do that, then I'll get the funding."
Demonstrators arrested in July at a Free Our Future protest in downtown San Diego are still facing criminal charges, the City Attorneys office confirmed Monday.

We are reviewing the cases, said City Attorney spokesman Gerry Braun.

San Diego police arrested 10 demonstrators on July 2, mainly for draping a banner from the side of the Westin hotel. The banner read Free Our Families Now.

The protesters were speaking out against President Donald Trump and his administrations zero-tolerance immigration policies.

Other demonstrators also temporarily locked arms and blocked the entrance of the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building on Broadway. The demonstrators who locked arms in front of the federal building eventually moved before they were arrested.

These are places where we have seen the criminalization of our community, said Mara Mora, about why the group chose the federal building to protest.

The group began at Chicano Park where hundreds gathered before marching downtown calling for the abolishment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fully respects the rights of all people to voice their opinion peacefully without interference, a spokeswoman for ICE responded.

Once the crowd reached downtown, several protesters hung the sign from the Westin building while the crowd cheered. Some were arrested on suspicion of felony trespassing, conspiracy and misdemeanor obstruction, according to San Diego police.

Police later learned the group rented rooms in the Westin and rappelled down from the windows to display the sign. Another group held hotel doors shut preventing police from gaining access to the group until the sign was displayed.

Mijente, one of the organizers of the event, called the charges against the protesters extreme and retaliatory. Their director Marisa Franco released the following statement in response to the charges, which they say include felony burglary.

The attacks our communities are facing from the Trump administration require that we fight back in every way, sometimes putting our bodies on the line for what we believe is right.

Franco continued: The charges against them are extreme and cannot be read as anything other than an attempt to discourage protest. We call for the charges to be dropped against all the protestors, who were exercising their right to speak out against the atrocities committed by the Trump administration and Jeff Sessions.

The spokesman for the City Attorney did not respond to further questions.

Mijente organized a legal fund to help with the defense of those arrested, which can be found here:

NBC 7 obtained the names of the defendants: Ethan Buckner, Katherine Wines, Brianna Gibson, Avery Sinclair, Brittany Baker, Kevin Pang, Jaque Fragua, Nora Leccese, Roberta Capobianco and Nora Rasman.
A San Jose native who was last seen near Yosemite National Park in late July has been found dead, according to a family member.

Scott Tenczar's body was found on Saturday, according to his brother Matt Tenczar. A Yosemite spokesperson reportedly told KSEE that Scott Tenczar's body was found in the northeast section of the park.

Specific details regarding Scott Tenczar's death were not immediately available. An investigation is ongoing.



National park Service

Tenczar, 48, was an Afghanistan veteran who recently came back from Korea where he was teaching English, according to his brother. He was originally from San Jose and was last seen at the Bridgeport Ranger Station located to the northeast of the heart of Yosemite.



He planned to backpack from Robinson Creek to Crown Lake, Matterhorn Canyon, Smedberg Lake, Seavey Pass and Peeler Lake.

Matt Tenczar said that when his brother did not return on the day he was supposed to, they contacted the sheriffs department and authorities began their investigation.
Unionized teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District are scheduled to begin voting Thursday in a strike-authorization vote as the union and district remain at loggerheads in contract talks.

The vote -- which does not automatically mean a strike will be called -- will come amid labor negotiations that have been pushed into state mediation, thanks to the union declaring an impasse in talks.

United Teachers Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl and LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner met face-to-face last week. Beutner said later the pair found "common ground" and said the district continues to offer the union 2 percent raises over each of the next three years -- the same deal reached with other LAUSD employee unions. Beutner also said he was willing to meet with Caputo-Pearl again prior to a planned mediation session next month.

But Caputo-Pearl told the Los Angeles Times the district has been delaying mediation sessions, and accused Beutner of trying to "interfere with our strike vote."He also said the face-to-face meeting resulted in no indication the sides were getting closer to agreement, insisting "There is not the outline of a deal. Nothing could be further from the truth."

The district, in a statement issued Sunday, denied any effort to delay or avoid mediation.

"L.A. Unified has accepted Sept. 27, 2018, which is a date offered by the Public Employment Relations Board mediators in accordance with California labor law to resume bargaining," according to the LAUSD. "The district is waiting to hear from the mediators that the date is confirmed."

District officials also said it "agrees with UTLA" in concept on issues such as reducing class sizes and increasing staffing, but noted that it continues to face a roughly half-billion-dollar budget deficit during the urrent school year, and UTLA's contract demands would increase that deficit by $813 million.

The teachers union is calling for a 6.5 percent raise, along with steps to lower class sizes and increase the number of staffers such as nurses, librarians and counselors. It is also calling for a reduction in standardized testing and implementation of "accountability measures" for charter schools.

The union claims the district has $1.7 billion in its reserve fund that could be used to invest in classrooms. The district, however, insists its reserve fund is only $1.2 billion, which will be used to cover this year'roughly $503 million deficit, lowering the overall reserve to about $700 million.
What to Know Authorities sought public help to solve the kidnapping of a man from a shopping center in San Gabriel

Ruochen "Tony" Liao, a 28-year-old Chinese national residing in Santa Ana, was kidnapped about 7:30 p.m. July 16

The FBI and a family attorney held a news conference at the Westwood Federal Building to seek public help and announce rewards in the case

Authorities sought public help Monday to solve the kidnapping of a man from a shopping center in San Gabriel, where he may have been lured in connection with a business deal.

Ruochen "Tony" Liao, a 28-year-old Chinese national residing in Santa Ana, was kidnapped about 7:30 p.m. July 16 from a shopping plaza in the 100 block of West Valley Boulevard, the FBI reported.

The FBI and a family attorney held a news conference this morning at the Westwood Federal Building to seek public help and announce rewards in the case. Liao's family is offering a reward of $150,000 for information leading to his return; the FBI is offering a reward of up to $25,000 in the case.

Witnesses told the FBI that three men of Chinese ethnicity were involved in the abduction. They were riding in two very similar-looking, dark- color vehicles -- a van, probably a Toyota Sienna or one similar to it; and an SUV, probably a Range Rover, according to the FBI.

One suspect drove away with Liao in the van, and the other two suspects drove away in the SUV. The suspects later demanded a $2 million ransom from the family, which was not paid, according to the FBI. A witness described one of the suspects, known only as "David," and authorities released a composite drawing of the man, described as 35-40 years old and about 6 feet tall. He speaks Mandarin.

Liao, who was working at a Costa Mesa luxury-car dealership, is Asian, 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs 130 pounds, and has black hair and eyes. Investigators are unsure if Liao was involved in a business deal, or if he was lured to the location and robbed, said Gene Kowel of the FBI.

"Our hope is that Tony is still alive," Kowel said. "We're operating under the premise that he is still alive, which is why this reward (and) this publicity is so crucial to the case. However, we do become concerned as these cases progress, the chance of someone remaining alive can diminish."

Matthew Lombard, an attorney representing Liao's family, said: "He's a deeply loved person by his family. He's their only child, and they're very, very concerned for him."

Anyone with information on the case was urged to call the FBI at (310) 477-6565.
Investigators determined that a 23-year-old man run over and killed on a Perris street by a driver who fled the scene was attempting to commit a carjacking when he was hit, the California Highway Patrol reported Monday.

Christian Chavez of Riverside was killed Friday night after an unidentified motorist struck him on Cajalco Road, just west of Cowan Road, according to CHP Officer Dan Olivas.

He said that shortly before 9 p.m., Chavez was standing in the middle of Cajalco when a woman at the wheel of a 2008 Infinity G35 approached from the east, clipping him with her driver's side window after she failed to notice him until the last second.

Olivas said the woman immediately stopped on the shoulder of the roadway, and her front-seat passenger, a female friend whose name was withheld, got out of the sedan to check on the pedestrian, who jumped in the passenger seat and tried to take control of the sedan.

The motorist switched off her ignition but was unable to put the car in park, and it rolled across eastbound lanes, running into a chain-link fence near Gustin Road, according to Olivas.

He said the driver ran away, and Chavez slipped behind the wheel, attempting unsuccessfully to restart her car.

"(Chavez) exited the vehicle and walked to the center of the westbound lane of Cajalco Road," Olivas said. "An unidentified driver stopped their vehicle, possibly a GMC Denali, partially on the shoulder of Cajalco, near Cowen. (Chavez) attempted to enter the vehicle."

Olivas said the SUV driver accelerated and Chavez tumbled onto the pavement. As the suspect laid on the westbound side of Cajalco, a motorist ran over him and didn't stop, according to Olivas.

Riverside County Fire Department paramedics arrived a few minutes later and pronounced Chavez dead at the scene.

No one else was injured.

Anyone with information about the hit-and-run was asked to call the CHP's Riverside office at (951) 637-8000.
The California Supreme Court has upheld a state law that requires employers to obtain workers' permission before hiring a company to check their backgrounds.

The court in a unanimous ruling on Monday rejected an argument that the law was unconstitutionally confusing because it overlapped with another law that doesn't require employee consent.

The justices said employers could follow both laws.

The ruling came in the case of a bus driver who filed a lawsuit alleging her employer, First Student, Inc., did not obtain her written consent for a background check as required.

An email to an attorney for First Student and a call to the company were not immediately returned.
Authorities said Monday that they are looking into sexual assault allegations by a young actor against Italian actress Asia Argento  one of the most prominent activists of the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment.

Los Angeles County sheriff's Capt. Darren Harris said investigators from his department will seek to talk to Jimmy Bennett or his representatives about the alleged incident at a Southern California hotel in 2013, when Bennett was 17.

The move comes in response to a New York Times story saying Argento, 42, settled a legal notice of intent to sue filed by Bennett, who is now 22, for $380,000 shortly after she said last October that movie mogul Harvey Weinstein raped her.

Argento and Bennett co-starred in a 2004 film called "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things" in which Argento played Bennett's prostitute mother.

Bennett says in the notice that he had sex with Argento in the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Marina del Rey, California, in 2013. The age of consent in California is 18.

The notice says the encounter traumatized Bennett and hurt his career, the Times reported.

Investigators have learned no police report was filed at the time, Harris said.

The newspaper said it received court documents that included a selfie of Argento and Bennett in bed. Three people familiar with the case said the documents were authentic, the Times reported.

In a statement to The Associated Press on Monday, a lawyer for Bennett said the actor "does not wish to comment on the documents or the events" at this time.

The statement asked for privacy and noted that Bennett would take "the next 24 hours, or longer, to prepare his response."

Argento became one of the most well-known activists of the #MeToo movement after she told the New Yorker magazine that Weinstein raped her at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 when she was 21. Argento told the magazine that she continued to have a relationship with Weinstein because she was afraid of angering him.

Weinstein has been indicted on sex crime accusations involving three women, but not including Argento.

Representatives for Argento did not respond to a request from The Associated Press for comment.

___

Editor's Note: This story has been clarified to say that Jimmy Bennett filed a notice of intent to sue.
An official of the Mexican state of Guanajuato confirms that a man detained by immigration agents in California is wanted on an arrest warrant for homicide in Mexico.

The official was not authorized to be quoted by name and could not say when the crime occurred, but said it was an intentional homicide case akin to a U.S. murder charge.

The official said Monday that Mexican prosecutors had asked the U.S. government to help find and detain Joel Arrona Lara. Arrona Lara's wife had to drive herself to the hospital and give birth without her husband after he was detained by immigration agents Wednesday in San Bernardino.

The couple came to the U.S. 12 years ago from the city of Leon, Guanajuato, without legal authorization to live in the U.S. Emilio Amaya, an attorney for Arrona Llara, said his client's brother shares the same last name and believes there could have been a mix up.

Arrona Lara's attorney is working with the Mexican Consulate as well as Mexican attorneys to dig deeper into this arrest.

Arrona Lara, 35, was detained Wednesday, officials said. In a statement, spokeswoman Lori Haley said Arrona Lara "was brought to ICE's attention due to an outstanding warrant issued for his arrest in Mexico on homicide charges."

Arrona remains in custody pending removal proceedings. Amaya has filed paperwork for a bail hearing in hopes of getting his client out as soon as possible. The arrest went down when the couple stopped for gas in San Bernardino, just east of Los Angeles.

Surveillance footage shows two vehicles immediately flank the couple's van after they pulled into the gas station. Agents questioned the couple and asked for identification, Venegas said. Venegas, 32, said she provided hers but that Arrona had left his at home in their rush to the hospital.

The surveillance footage shows the agents handcuffing Arrona and taking him away, leaving a sobbing Venegas alone at the gas station. Venegas said she drove herself to the hospital for a scheduled cesarean section for the birth of her fifth child.
What to Know Victor Perez snapped the photo of the crocodile lounging on a yellow pool noodle on August 6.

The unusual sight caught the attention of the National Weather Service in Key West, which shared the photo on Twitter.

The croc was spotted in Key Largo in the area of mile marker 105.5.

One Florida crocodile used its noodle while lounging in a Key Largo canal on August 6.

Instead of thrashing about the water to stay afloat, the reptile found a yellow pool noodle to relax on.

Victor Perez caught the only-in-Florida moment on camera, posting the photo on his Instagram page.

Crock on a float, he wrote in the caption.

The National Weather Service in Key West commended the crocs adherence to safety.

Yes. Yes, that is a crocodile on a noodle, the organization tweeted. Even they know to #PlayItSafe when heading into the water!

Perez said he spotted the crocodile in mile marker 105.5.

We probably wont see another sight like this for a whilecrocodile.
What to Know 46-year-old Tammy Wynell Crews was arrested Saturday and charged with felony grand theft and a misdemeanor drug charge.

Security video shows Crews taking the jar from the Tapatio restaurant, near where 7-year-old Heidy Rivas Villanueva died on Aug. 11.

The jar contained about $600 that was meant to help the girl's family with funeral expenses.

Authorities say a Florida woman stole a donation jar full of cash meant for the family of a little girl killed in a shooting.

The Florida Times-Union reports that 46-year-old Tammy Wynell Crews was arrested Saturday and charged with felony grand theft and a misdemeanor drug charge.

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office says security video shows Crews taking the jar from the Tapatio restaurant, which is located in the shopping center where 7-year-old Heidy Rivas Villanueva was caught in the crossfire of an Aug. 11 shooting. Three men have been charged in the shooting.

A fourth person, Kezia Luckey Holmes, was arrested Saturday on charges of tampering with evidence. The Florida Times-Union reports Holmes' 28-year-old son is also wanted on an accessory after the fact charge.

The jar contained about $600 that was meant to help the girl's family with funeral expenses. A GoFundMe page has been set up to send the girl's body to Honduras for burial.

Crews was being held without bail. Jail records didn't list an attorney.
What to Know Lawrence Wright, a 61-year-old Brooklyn man freed from jail after five years after prosecutors dropped their murder case, will sue for $50M

After his arrest, Wright was held without bail for five years as he bounced between Rikers Island and state-run psychiatric facilities

A series of I-Team stories cast doubt on the accuracy of the video confession and on the thoroughness of the police investigation

A Brooklyn grandfather who spent five years in jail only to have the D.A. suddenly drop his murder case intends to sue the NYPD and the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office for $50 million.

Lawrence Wright, 61, was arrested in early 2013 for the fatal stabbing of his high school friend Denise Pannell inside her Sheepshead Bay apartment. Though Wright had impaired verbal and cognitive ability due to a previous stroke, detectives in the 61st Precinct held him for nearly 17 hours without a lawyer before recording a rambling video confession. After his arrest, Wright was held without bail for five years as he bounced between Rikers Island and state-run psychiatric facilities.

In his first sit-down interview since being released from jail, Wright said that confession was coerced by detectives who took advantage of his brain injury.

"I just said whatever they wanted me to say because I was tired," said Wright.

Earlier this year, a series of I-Team stories cast doubt on the accuracy of the video confession and on the thoroughness of the police investigation. Among other things, the original 911 caller who alerted police to Denise Pannell's body told the I-Team that detectives ignored her when she said she saw a man in a maintenance uniform creep into Pannell's apartment and appear to steal jewelry the night before her body was discovered.

After the I-Team investigation, Brooklyn D.A. Eric Gonzalez dropped the case against Wright. In court, Assistant D.A. Bernarda Villalona said Wright had a deteriorating cognitive condition which made it likely he would never be fit for trial and the decision to withdraw the murder charge was made "in the interest of justice." The District Attorneys Office did not explain why.

Paul Prestia, the attorney representing Wright in the civil claim, said it makes no sense that prosecutors would have confidence in the confession of a brain-damaged defendant -- but at the same time believe that defendant is too impaired to understand whats happening in a trial.

"Lawrence Wright is clearly so innocent of this crime, and for them to prosecute him for five years? There is no excuse for that. There is no way to justify it," said Paul Prestia, the attorney representing Wright and his family.

Though Denise Pannell was stabbed more than 20 times, leaving her apartment a bloody mess, police never found blood or DNA on any of Lawrence Wrights clothes. They did find another mans fingerprints and boot prints that didnt match Wrights shoes.

Prestia criticized the NYPD and prosecutors for concluding Wright committed the grisly murder before figuring out more about the forensic evidence inside the victims apartment. Wright was arrested after he approached a police officer outside the crime scene, asking if Pannell, his old high school friend, had indeed been killed.

"It is shocking to me that the New York City Police Department did not do an ounce of investigation on this case and simply took Mr. Wright off the street," Prestia said. "I hate to say this [but] in some places black lives dont matter, because clearly Denise Pannells life didnt really matter much, since they didnt bother to investigate or really get to the bottom of what happened."

Both the Brooklyn D.A. and the NYPD declined to comment for this story, citing the pending litigation. But last May, NYPD spokeswoman Sgt. Jessica McRorie, expressed confidence in the original investigation despite the collapse of the case. When asked if police would reopen a probe into Denise Pannells death, McRorie said, "Following a thorough NYPD investigation, Lawrence Wright was arrested and charged with the murder of Denise Pannell."

Jamel Wright, Lawrence Wrights son, said the refusal to acknowledge mistakes in the original case and open a new investigation is evidence his father was unfairly prosecuted.

"The fact that theyre doing that tells me you guys still stand by your decisions," Jamel Wright said. "I think it is an injustice to Denise [Pannell] and her family."

At the time of Lawrence Wrights release, Denise Pannells mother, Pearlita Pannell, told the I-Team she supported the decision to set him free. The murder victims sister, Darlene Pannell, has suggested she believes Wright was the killer.
What to Know A man was stabbed to death in Hell's Kitchen early Monday and now cops are on the hunt for his killer, police say

Law enforcement sources say a cab driver found the man in the middle of 46th Street, in between Ninth and 10th avenues, and called police

No arrests have been made; investigators said they will be looking at surveillance video in the area to help them piece the mystery together

A man was found bloodied and dead in the middle of 46th Street in Hells Kitchen, police say, and a search is on for his killer.

Law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation tell News 4 New York that the man, whose name hasnt been released, was found in the street between Ninth and 10th avenues, by a cab driver who called authorities.

Neighbor Margaret Weinhart told News 4 that she heard yelling right before the man's body was found around 3 a.m. Monday.

"I knew something happened really bad for the way he was screaming," she said.

Police said when they arrived at the scene, they found the unconscious man with injuries to his face as well as a stab wound to his chest. He was rushed to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Sources said the man did not have identification on him.



Exclusive video obtained by News 4 shows an SUV pulling up on West 45th Street near Ninth Avenue about six minutes after the stabbing. One man gets out of the passenger side, chucks something from across the street into a fenced-in area with trash cans outside an apartment building, where the item bounces off the building. On Monday afternoon, police recovered a knife from that same fenced-in area.

Right now, the man in the video is not considered a person of interest, but detectives are looking at the video and the knife to see if both are connected to the murder.

No arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.

Police said they will be looking at surveillance video in the area to help them piece the mystery together.
What to Know The last Nazi war crimes suspect facing deportation from the U.S. has been deported from his NYC home to Germany

Jakiw Palij's deportation comes 25 years after investigators first confronted him about his World War II past

His deportation is the first for a Nazi war crimes suspect since Germany agreed in 2009 to take John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio autoworker

A 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard who lived quietly in New York City for decades was carried out of his home on a stretcher by federal agents and flown to Germany early Tuesday in what could prove to be the last U.S. deportation of a World War II-era war-crimes suspect.

Jakiw Palij's expulsion, at President Donald Trump's urging, came 25 years after investigators first accused Palij of lying about his wartime past to get into the U.S. But it was largely symbolic because officials in Germany have repeatedly said there is insufficient evidence to prosecute him.

Trump "made it very clear" he wanted Palij out of the country, and a new German government that took office in March brought "new energy" to expediting the matter, U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell said.

"He's gone. He's back in Germany," Trump said at a campaign rally in West Virginia Tuesday night as he celebrated his role in the deportation.

Eli Rosenbaum, the former head of the U.S. office investigating accused Nazi war criminals, said Palij's removal "is a landmark victory in the U.S. government's decades-long quest to achieve a measure of justice and accountability on behalf of the victims of Nazi inhumanity."

Palij lived quietly in the U.S. for years, as a draftsman and then as a retiree, until nearly three decades ago when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was "living somewhere in America."

Palij, an ethnic Ukrainian born in a part of Poland that is now Ukraine, said on his 1957 naturalization petition that he had Ukrainian citizenship. When their investigators showed up at his door in 1993, he said: "I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied."

A judge stripped Palij's U.S. citizenship in 2003 for "participation in acts against Jewish civilians" while he was an armed guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and he was ordered deported a year later.

But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-story, red brick home in Queens he shared with his late wife, Maria. His continued presence there outraged the Jewish community, attracting frequent protests over the years that featured such chants as, "Your neighbor is a Nazi!"

According to the Justice Department, Palij served at Trawniki in 1943, the same year 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered. Palij has acknowledged serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Last September, all 29 members of New York's congressional delegation signed a letter urging the State Department to follow through on his deportation.

"Good riddance to this war criminal," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.

The deportation came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations.

Grenell told reporters there were "difficult conversations" because Palij is not a German citizen and was stateless after losing his U.S. citizenship. But "the moral obligation" of taking in "someone who served in the name of the German government was accepted," he said.

Video footage from ABC News showed federal immigration agents carrying Palij out of his home Monday on a stretcher. Palij, with a fluffy white beard and a brown, newsboy-style cap atop his head, was wrapped in a sheet as the agents carried him down a brick stairway in front of his home and into a waiting ambulance.

He ignored a reporter who shouted, "Are you a Nazi?" and "Do you have any regrets?"

Palij was flown on a specially chartered air ambulance from Teterboro, New Jersey, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and arrived in Dusseldorf, Germany, at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

Palij's lawyer, Ivars Berzins, declined to comment.

The local German government in Warendorf county, near Muenster, said Palij would be taken to a care facility in the town of Ahlen.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said "there is no line under historical responsibility," but added in a comment to the German daily Bild that doing justice to the memory of Nazi atrocities "means standing by our moral obligation to the victims and the subsequent generations."

Jens Rommel, head of the German federal prosecutors' office that investigates Nazi war crimes, said Tuesday that the deportation doesn't change the likelihood that Palij will be prosecuted for war crimes. "A new investigation would only come into question if something changed in the legal evaluation or actual new evidence became known," he said.

However, Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said he hoped prosecutors would revisit the case now that Palij is in Germany.

"Trawniki was a camp where people were trained to round up and murder the Jews in Poland, so there's certainly a basis for some sort of prosecution," he said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem.

"The efforts invested by the United States in getting Palij deported are really noteworthy and I'm very happy to see that they finally met with success," he said.

Palij's deportation is the first for a Nazi war crimes suspect since Germany agreed in 2009 to take John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio autoworker who was accused of serving as a Nazi guard. He was convicted in 2011 of being an accessory to more than 28,000 killings and died 10 months later, at age 91, with his appeal pending.

Palij, whose full name is pronounced Yah-keev PAH'-lee, entered the U.S. in 1949 under the Displaced Persons Act, a law meant to help refugees from post-war Europe.

He told immigration officials that he worked during the war in a woodshop and farm in Nazi-occupied Poland, as well as at another farm in Germany and finally in a German upholstery factory. Palij said he never served in the military.

In reality, officials say, he played an essential role in the Nazi program to exterminate Jews as an armed guard at Trawniki. According to a Justice Department complaint, Palij served in a unit that "committed atrocities against Polish civilians and others" and then in the notorious SS Streibel Battalion, "a unit whose function was to round up and guard thousands of Polish civilian forced laborers."

After the war, Palij maintained friendships with other Nazi guards who the government says came to the U.S. under similar false pretenses.

The Justice Department's special Nazi-hunting unit started piecing together Palij's past after a fellow Trawniki guard identified him to Canadian authorities in 1989. Investigators asked Russia and other countries for records on Palij beginning in 1990 and first confronted him in 1993.

It wasn't until after a second interview in 2001 that he signed a document acknowledging he had been a guard at Trawniki and a member of the Streibel Battalion. Palij suggested at one point during that interview that he was threatened with death if he refused to work as a guard, saying, "If you don't show up, boom-boom."

Though the last Nazi suspect ordered deported, Palij is not the last remaining in the U.S.

Since 2017, Poland has been seeking the extradition of Ukrainian-born Michael Karkoc, an ex-commander in an SS-led Nazi unit that burned Polish villages and killed civilians during the war. But it could take years before the 99-year-old, who currently lives in Minneapolis, faces deportation. He was the subject of a series of 2013 reports by The Associated Press that led Polish prosecutors to issue an arrest warrant for him.
What to Know A luxury jet with 16 people on board blew two tires upon takeoff from New Jersey's Teterboro Airport on Tuesday

No injuries were immediately reported aboard the Gulfstream Aerospace GLF-4 aircraft, which had been bound for England

The pilot had to circle the airport for some time, in a holding pattern, as emergency crews assembled on the ground; then it was diverted

A luxury jet carrying rapper Post Malone landed safely in New York Tuesday afternoon, hours after blowing two tires during takeoff at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport.

The Gulfstream IV carrying 16 passengers touched down safely at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh just before 4 p.m., nearly five hours after takeoff.

Authorities did not confirm the identities of those on board, but Syracuse-born Post Malone tweeted he had landed, with a message for his fans, and for his haters. "Thank you for your prayers. Can't believe how many people wished death on me on this website. F*** you. But not today," he said.

A plane thought to be carrying rapper Post Malone makes an emergency landing in New York.

Videos posted to social media Tuesday morning by multiple members of Post Malone's team, including his manager, his bodyguard and his DJ, showed the rapper boarding a plane at Teterboro Airport. Post Malone was seen reclining on a bed on the jet as it began to taxi on the runway.

After the plane landed, Malone's manager posted an Instagram Story on the runway at Stewart with the caption "THANK YOU LORD."

The face-tattooed singer/rapper, told TMZ on Facetime, "Oh, my God, I hate flying in general. I don't even know what to say, man. I'm shook. There was one hell of a team on that aircraft, and we're here, we're here on earth, and I need a beer, and I need some wine, at the same time, mixed together."

The plane had 16 people on board when it left Teterboro Airport on Tuesday morning, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

No injuries were immediately reported aboard the aircraft, which was departing for London Luton Airport in Luton, England. The rapper was scheduled to perform at the Reading and Leeds Festival in England over the weekend, according to his website's tour schedule.

Emergency crews readied to receive the plane at Teterboro after the pilot circled for a time, burning fuel, but it was then diverted to an airport in Massachusetts. Then it was said to be making an emergency landing somewhere in Connecticut before it was diverted back to New York -- to Stewart Airport.

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Fans gathered at Stewart International Airport after hearing the rapper was on board, and they cheered when the plane landed.

Anthony DeStefano saw the plane descend and said it appeared to have a normal landing, with no unusual noise or other indications of a problem. DeStefano, a local teacher, acknowledged being unfamiliar with Post Malone until his nephew informed him.

"Great job by the pilot," DeStefano said. "People started clapping as soon as it landed.

Stewart's signature feature is a nearly 12,000-foot runway, long enough to handle the fat-bodied C-5A Galaxy planes laden with supplies and better for such emergencies.

Post Malone performed at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York City Monday night with Aerosmith and won Song of the Year at the ceremony for his hit "Rockstar."



The rapper shot to fame with his 2015 single "White Iverson, and has gone on to smash streaming records and win multiple awards for his music. Born in Syracuse, New York, the 23-year-old made history when his second album 'beerbongs & bentleys' broke the first week streaming record on Spotify globally.

He has worked with rappers such as 50 Cent and Kanye West and performed at Kylie Jenners 18th birthday party. His first single from the album, Rockstar, peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and held the spot for eight consecutive weeks. It also won Top Rap Song at the 2018 Billboard Music Awards.

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What to Know The first day of the years-long Route 495 road project, expected to bring epic traffic jams for commuters, failed to live up to the hype

Cars streamed along Route 495 toward the Lincoln Tunnel on Monday on the first full day of lane closures

One lane of the many-laned viaduct is closed each way. Within the tunnel itself, all lanes are open

The first day of a long-term road project expected to bring epic traffic jams for commuters to and from New York failed to live up to the hype Monday, giving them at least some hope that the predictions of "carmageddon" were overstated.

Cars streamed along Route 495 toward the Lincoln Tunnel on Monday morning and back out in the afternoon on the first full day of lane closures to accommodate the rebuilding and resurfacing of the 80-year-old viaduct connecting the New Jersey Turnpike to the tunnel.

One lane of the many-laned viaduct is closed each way. Within the tunnel itself, all lanes are open.

Just outside the tunnel in Union City, site of many a shortcut via GPS apps, extra police were deployed to oversee busy intersections. But the traffic was orderly, almost calm, in the morning as commuters hurried to catch shuttle buses into the city.

Roughly 150,000 vehicles drive across the span each day, making it one of the Northeast's worst bottlenecks when there is an accident or emergency road repair. For the viaduct project, one lane each way will be closed for the next 2 years, 24 hours per day. The viaduct is considered functionally obsolete and structurally deficient.

Motorists have been urged to take public transportation such as trains or ferries, stagger their travel times or use other routes into the city such as the Holland Tunnel in Jersey City. While Monday morning was a bright spot, a truer test may come in two weeks when summer vacation season ends.

"It is very important for commuters to remember that just because traffic was light today, they should not be lulled into a false sense of security," New Jersey Department of Transportation spokesman Steve Schapiro said in an email. "Traffic may be heavy over the next several weeks, particularly after Labor Day when people are back from vacation and school is back in session. Commuters should continue to seek alternative routes over the course of the project."

For one day at least, the traffic predictions around Route 495 project echoed those from 2014 when the resurfacing of the deck of the Pulaski Skyway through Jersey City to the Holland Tunnel began. The predicted apocalypse failed to materialize as commuters adjusted their routines, and the resurfacing was completed this year.

New Jersey DOT Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti said last week the Route 495 project "will result in a tremendous amount of pain for everyone who lives and travels in this corridor." But commuters opting to ride the rails will find a system plagued by dozens of cancellations in recent weeks, many with little or no advance warning, due to an engineer shortage at New Jersey Transit exacerbated by required track safety work. The cancellations are expected to continue, albeit in smaller numbers, until the end of the year.

Motorists will also have another major disruption to contend with the year after the Route 495 work is completed: the replacement of the helix leading down into the Lincoln Tunnel, tentatively scheduled to begin 2022 and last about five years.
What to Know It was the first trial victory of the special counsel investigation into President Trump's associates

The jury returned the decision after deliberating four days on tax and bank fraud charges against Manafort

Manafort led Trump's election effort during a crucial stretch of 2016

Paul Manafort, the longtime political operative who for months led Donald Trump's successful presidential campaign, was found guilty of eight financial crimes Tuesday in the first trial victory of the special counsel investigation into the president's associates.

A judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts the jury could not agree on.

The verdict was part of a stunning one-two punch of bad news for the White House, coming as the president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty in New York to campaign finance charges arising from hush money payments made to two women who say they had sexual relationships with Trump.

The jury returned the decision after deliberating four days on tax and bank fraud charges against Manafort, who led Trump's election effort during a crucial stretch of 2016, including as he clinched the Republican nomination and during the party's convention.

Manafort, who appeared jovial earlier in the day amid signs the jury was struggling in its deliberations, focused intently as the clerk read off the charges. He stared down blankly at the defense table, then looked up, expressionless, as the judge finished thanking the jury.

His lawyer, Kevin Downing, said Manafort was disappointed at "not getting acquittals all the way through a complete hung jury on all counts." He said Manafort was evaluating all of his options.

The jury found Manafort guilty of five counts of filing false tax returns on tens of millions of dollars in Ukrainian political consulting income. He was also convicted of failing to report foreign bank accounts in 2012 and of two bank fraud charges that accused him of lying to obtain millions of dollars in loans after his consulting income dried up.

The jury couldn't reach a verdict on three other foreign bank account charges, and the remaining bank fraud and conspiracy counts.

No sentencing date has been set. Prosecutors have until Aug. 29 to decide whether they will seek a retrial on the 10 counts where the jury hung.

The outcome, though not the across-the-board guilty verdicts prosecutors sought, almost certainly guarantees years of prison for Manafort, who faces another trial this fall in Washington. It also appears to vindicate the ability of special counsel Robert Mueller's team to secure convictions from a jury of average citizens despite months of partisan attacks, including from Trump, on the investigation's integrity.

The verdict also raised immediate questions of whether the president would seek to pardon Manafort, the lone American charged by Mueller to opt for trial instead of cooperate. The president has not revealed his thinking but spoke sympathetically throughout the trial of his onetime aide, at one point suggesting he had been treated worse than gangster Al Capone.

The president Tuesday called the outcome a "disgrace" and said the case "has nothing to do with Russia collusion."

The trial did not resolve the central question behind Mueller's investigation  whether Trump associates coordinated with Russia to influence the election. Still, there were occasional references to Manafort's work on the campaign, including emails showing him lobbying Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner on behalf of a banker who approved $16 million in loans because he wanted a job in the Trump administration.

Manafort urged Kushner to consider the banker, Stephen Calk, for Secretary of the Army. Though Kushner responded to Manafort's email by saying, "On it!" Calk ultimately did not get an administration post.

For the most part, though, jurors heard detailed and sometimes tedious testimony about Manafort's finances and what prosecutors allege was a years-long tax-evasion and fraud scheme.

Manafort decided not to put on any witnesses or testify himself. His attorneys said he made the decision because he didn't believe the government had met its burden of proof.

His defense team attempted to make the case about the credibility of longtime Manafort protege Rick Gates, attacking the government's star witness as a liar, embezzler and instigator of any crimes as they tried to convince jurors that Manafort didn't willfully violate the law.

Gates, another Trump campaign aide, spent three days on the stand, telling jurors how he committed crimes alongside Manafort for years. He admitted to doctoring documents, falsifying information and creating fake loans to lower his former boss' tax bill, and also acknowledged stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars without Manafort's knowledge by filing fake expense reports.

Beyond the testimony, prosecutors used emails and other documents to try to establish that Manafort concealed from the IRS, in offshore accounts, millions of dollars in Ukrainian political consulting proceeds. Overall, they said, he avoided paying more than $16 million in taxes.

Central to the government's case were depictions of an opulent lifestyle, including a $15,000 ostrich jacket, luxury suits and elaborate real estate that prosecutors say was funded through offshore wire transfers from shell companies in Cyprus and elsewhere.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III repeatedly grew impatient with prosecutors as they sought to demonstrate Manafort's garish tendencies. The clashes between the judge and the prosecution team became a sideshow of sorts during the weeks-long trial, with prosecutors at time struggling to contain their exasperation and the judge even acknowledging at one point that he may have erroneously scolded them.

After the verdict Tuesday, Ellis complimented lawyers on both sides for "zealous and effective representation." He also remarked on his surprise at the level of attention the case has received and the criticism he received for his management of the trial.

"We all take brickbats in life," Ellis said.

The trial in Alexandria, Virginia, is the first of two for Manafort. He faces a trial later this year in the District of Columbia on charges of conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, making false statements and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Ukrainian interests. He is also accused of witness tampering in that case.
What to Know Sen. Elizabeth Warren proposes a new bill that would ban members of Congress and the White House staff from owning individual stocks

The legislation would create "conflict-free investment opportunities for federal officials with new investment accounts"

The measure comes amid speculation that Warren could run for president in 2020

Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to ban members of Congress and the White House staff from owning individual stocks  and replace them with government-managed investment accounts.

Those are just two of the dozens of proposals dotting the Massachusetts Democrat's sweeping new legislative package, the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act, which she unveiled Tuesday. Warren said the bill is designed to "eliminate the influence of money in federal government."

While the measure is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled Senate, it comes amid speculation that Warren could run for president in 2020. President Donald Trump ran on "draining the swamp," but his administration has been racked with corruption scandals, while many of Trump's private businesses have reaped financial gains during the early stages of his term.

Warren's bill would also impose a lifetime ban on lobbying for presidents and federal lawmakers, and would bar U.S. lobbyists from using foreign cash to affect American policy. It would slap new taxes on "excessive lobbying" of more than $500,000 a year. It would bind Supreme Court justices to a code of conduct recognized by other federal judges.

And, in an apparent jab at Trump, the measure would require presidential candidates to share years of previous tax returns and continue doing so every year if they win. Trump broke with tradition and did not release his tax returns during the 2016 campaign.

But in remarks she made Tuesday morning at the National Press Club, Warren said that the roots of political corruption, which have eroded Americans' trust in the government, go back decades before Trump took office.

"This problem is far bigger than Trump," Warren said. "It is a crisis. A crisis of faith."

Stock rules

Warren's proposal also arrives about two weeks after Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., was indicted and arrested by federal law enforcement officials on insider trading charges related to an Australian biotech company of which he was a board member. Collins suspended his re-election campaign in his Trump-friendly district in upstate New York a few days later. Collins has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

In pursuit of ending "both the appearance and the potential for financial conflicts of interest," Warren's bill would prohibit federal lawmakers, judges, Cabinet secretaries and other senior congressional staff from owning individual stocks while in office. It would also bar all government officials from holding stocks the value of which might be influenced by their work in office.

"Enough of the spectacle of HHS secretaries and herds of congressmen caught up in insider trading schemes," Warren said in the speech.

As an apparent alternative to individual stock ownership, the bill would create "conflict-free investment opportunities for federal officials with new investment accounts," according to a synopsis of the bill obtained by CNBC.

"They can put their savings in conflict-free investments like mutual funds or they can pick a different line of work," Warren said.

These accounts would be managed by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, an independent agency established during the Reagan administration that boasts fewer than 300 employees.

A source familiar with the legislation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said it would establish so-called Federal Employee Investment Accounts for senior officials to maintain their stock and securities investments. They can divest from their conflicted assets, the source said, and "temporarily invest the resulting funds" into the federal accounts.

Officials would be able to withdraw their funds from the government accounts "at any time without penalty," the source added.

Accountability and ambition

On Monday, Warren, a longtime critic of Wall Street, teased her new bill by highlighting what she called "examples of how corruption has seeped into Washington" in a series of tweets.

Her list of targets included Trump administration officials such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and former EPA chief Scott Pruitt. The latter two left the administration under a cloud of scandal.

She accused Citibank of working to erode financial regulations, and criticized Exxon Mobil, which she said employs nearly two dozen lobbyists who previously worked for Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Warren's new push to sever corporate power from the federal government follows another proposal she outlined less than a week earlier called The Accountable Capitalism Act. That bill would establish a system of federal charters requiring company directors to consider the broader impact of their actions beyond solely their own shareholders.

"My proposal says, 'Let's get a little accountability into the system,'" Warren said in an interview last week with CNBC's Jim Cramer.

She was also asked to respond to criticism that her proposals were merely part of a bid to run for president in 2020.

"First of all, I am running for Senate," said Warren, who is up for re-election this year but is favored to win easily. "But let me say, these are the things I've worked on all my life."

She denied any presidential ambitions once more on Tuesday. "I am not running for president in 2020," Warren said in response to a reporter's question. "I'm running for the Senate in 2018."

'It's insane'

While Warren established from the outset that her bill aimed at problems beyond the current administration, Trump was still a central character in the speech.

"The truth is, it's insane that we have to beg the president of the United States to put the American people ahead of his own business interests. Insane," she said.

Her legislation would require the president and the vice president to place all their conflicted assets  including their businesses  in a blind trust to be sold off.

And it would force the IRS to release tax returns from all presidential and vice-presidential candidates stretching back eight years before they launch their campaigns. They would also be required to release their tax returns every year while in office.

As a presidential candidate, Trump promised to release his tax returns following a government audit  though there was no law stopping him from releasing those documents regardless of an audit.

After Trump won the election, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Trump would not release his tax returns, after all. "We litigated this all through the election," she said in an ABC interview at the time. "People didn't care."

Warren also referenced Paul Manafort, Trump's beleaguered ex-campaign chairman, who is currently on trial in Alexandria, Virginia on bank fraud tax crime charges.

Manafort's trial, Warren said, "has exposed how foreign governments hide their efforts to influence the American government through lobbying."

Her bill would ban Americans from getting paid to lobby for foreign governments. Manafort made millions of dollars as a consultant for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. His charges, brought by special counsel Robert Mueller through an ongoing probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, are related to that Ukraine work.

Manafort has pleaded not guilty to all charges in the Virginia case, as well as similar charges lodged by Mueller in a case in Washington, D.C. federal court.

"If foreign governments want to express their views, they can use their diplomats," Warren said in her speech.

This story first appeared on CNBC.com. More from CNBC:
A 30-year-old Roman Catholic priest in Allentown has been accused of sending nude texts to a teen girl last year and groping her behind, Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin announced Tuesday afternoon.

Its the latest in a wave of sexual abuse allegations tainting the Catholic Church and casting a shadow over the religious institution.

Father Kevin Lonergan, who most recently served as assistant pastor at the Cathedral of St. Catherine Siena, is charged with one count of indecent assault and one count of corrupting a minor, the DAs office said. He was arraigned Tuesday and released on $50,000 unsecured bail.

Lonergan allegedly met the 17-year-old victim before mass in August 2017 at Allentowns St. Francis Assisi Church. Shortly after meeting her, Lonergan got the teens number from another church member, Martin said.

The two communicated via SnapChat several times between December 2017 and January 2018, according to the DAs investigation. Some of those messages included nude photos of the priest, Martin said.

Then, in February 2018, Lonergan hugged the victim and grabbed her buttocks when she tried to pull away, according to the DAs office.

The victim remained silent for several months after the assault, but she eventually came forward to officials at her high school. They reported the incident to the Archdiocese of Allentown, which banned Lonergan from ministry in June.

Bishop [Alfred] Schlert wanted to act very quickly and transparently to report this and to inform the public of Lonergans removal from active ministry, but he held off doing so at my request in order not to compromise the investigation, Martin said.

The arrest of Lonergan, who lives with his parents in Pottsville, adds to an already lengthy list of priests who have been accused of sexually assaulting minors. Last week, a Pennsylvania grand jury released a sweeping report that documented decades of abuse and subsequent cover-ups by clergy members across six dioceses in the state.

The charges against Lonergan were not a result of the landmark grand jury investigation but stemmed from a complaint filed in June, after the grand jury had finished its work, authorities said.



Pope Francis condemned those so-called predator priests and apologized for the Catholic Churchs sluggish response to the allegations.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correctly state where Lonergan lives.
What to Know The family of a girl killed by her father in a murder-suicide asked the governor to investigate the judge involved in the custody battle.

A spokesperson for the governor confirmed they would ask the Judicial Conduct Board to look into the judge's decisions.

The bodies of Jeffrey Mancuso and his daughter were found back on Aug. 6. Mancuso had a lengthy criminal record and a history of violence.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf's office will ask the state's Judicial Conduct Board to investigate a judge who allowed a Manayunk father to visit his daughter weeks before he beat her to death and killed himself.

The family of 7-year-old Kayden Mancuso reached out to Wolf's office and requested they review the decisions made by Bucks County Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey G. Trauger prior to the girl's death.

"Governor Wolf empathizes with the family regarding their tragic loss," a spokesperson for the governor wrote to NBC10. "A member of Governor Wolf's staff did reach out to them and relayed that we would ask the Judicial Conduct Board to look into their concerns and offered for them to meet with Governor Wolfs Secretary of Policy and Planning."

Kayden and her father, Jeffrey Mancuso, 41, were found dead the morning of Aug. 6 in his Manayunk home, police said. The two were discovered by the girls stepfather after she failed to return to her mothers house the night before.

Investigators determined Mancuso killed Kayden before taking his own life.

Relatives suspected that Kayden Mancuso fell victim to her fathers violent impulses. On their GoFundMe page, the family blamed Philadelphia police and the Bucks County family court system for failing to protect the girl.

Kayden's mother trusted that the law and the court system would work for her daughter's best interests. However, the system failed and she was taken too soon, the page read. "Kayden's mother was told to trust the process, but the door was slammed in her face time after time."

According to a custody order provided by the girl's family, Kayden Mancuso witnessed her fathers violent urges on several occasions. Mancuso yelled at his daughter, verbally fought with her grandmother and harassed her teachers and other school officials. Mancusos aggressive behavior prompted Pennsbury School District in Bucks County to issue a certified letter asking the erratic father to "cease and desist all communication with the school."

Kayden Mancuso also witnessed her father punch himself in the face while angry and attack the family dog, according to family court documents.

In May, Judge Trauger granted full custody of the girl to her mother, Kathryn Giglio. Jeffrey Mancuso received visitation rights and a word of warning from the judge.

"The court cautions [Mancuso] to be aware at all times of potential risks that his behavior may have on childs future emotional and psychological wellbeing," Trauger wrote in his court order.

Philadelphia criminal court records showed that Jeffrey Mancusos violent tendencies dated several years back to September 2009 when he threw a beer bottle at a man and the man's wife near 15th and Sansom streets in Center City. Part of the bottle broke off and cut the womans face.

Mancuso was charged with a total of eight counts of aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and possessing an instrument of crime. He pleaded guilty to simple assault in exchange for dropping the other charges. Mancuso was fined and sentenced to a maximum of two years probation.

Then, in 2012, Mancuso was arrested again for punching a man in the face and biting the top of his victims ear off during a fight near 2nd and Reed streets. He, again, faced some familiar charges, including recklessly endangering another person, aggravated assault and simple assault. He was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to house arrest with electronic monitoring.

During this time, Mancuso was allowed to drive to work, but had to submit to random alcohol and drug testing and attend anger management counseling.

Five years later, Mancuso received a DUI near the Vine Street Expressway.

The father also violated his probation several times, though court records did not specify the violations.

Neighbors told NBC10 they saw the man and his daughter around but did not think she was in danger.

"I never saw signs of him being violent, nothing like that," Noah Cook said. "That's why this is so shocking."

Even her godfather didnt think Jeffrey Mancuso could kill his own daughter.

We never thought the father would go this far, Matthew Moffett said. When your child is taken from you in a manner that Kayden was, there is no justice. There is no peace.

Kayden Mancuso was set to begin the second grade at Edgewood Elementary School in Yardley this fall, school officials said.


Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, could be charged before the end of the month with bank fraud in his dealings with the taxi industry and with committing other financial crimes, two people familiar with the federal probe said Monday.

The people confirmed reports that federal prosecutors in Manhattan were considering charging Cohen after months of speculation over a case that has been a distraction for the White House with the midterm elections approaching.

The New York Times reported Sunday, based on anonymous sources, that prosecutors have been focusing on more than $20 million in loans obtained by taxi businesses that Cohen and his family own.

As part of the investigation, prosecutors have subpoenaed records from Sterling National Bank, one of the institutions that loaned Cohen money with his ownership in taxi cabs as collateral, one of the people said. The material was sought because it's suspected Cohen falsified some of the paperwork, the person said.

The people, who weren't authorized to discuss the case and spoke on Monday on condition of anonymity, refused to answer questions about speculation that Cohen still might strike a plea deal with prosecutors requiring his cooperation.

Absent a quick resolution, it's believed that prosecutors would put off a decision on how to go forward with the case until after the election in compliance with an informal Justice Department policy of avoiding bringing prosecutions that could be seen as political and influence voters.

The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment Monday. A spokesman for Sterling National Bank declined to comment.

Prosecutors in New York have several options as to how to proceed, multiple people familiar with the ongoing federal criminal investigation told NBC News. They may seek to indict Cohen before September or, if they feel their case isn't ready, they may wait until after Election Day on Nov. 6.



Cohen had gained notoriety as Trump's loyal "fixer" before FBI agents raided his officies and a hotel where he was staying while renovations were being done on his apartment in a Trump-developed building.

Prosecutors were initially silent about why Cohen was under investigation. Some details became public after lawyers for Cohen and Trump asked a judge to temporarily prevent investigators from viewing some of the seized material, on the grounds that it was protected by attorney-client privilege.

The search of Cohen's files sought bank records, communications with the Trump campaign and information on hush money payments made in 2016 to two women: former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who received $150,000, and the porn actress Stormy Daniels, who got $130,000.

At the time, Trump branded the raid "a witch hunt," an assault on attorney-client privilege and a politically motivated attack by enemies in the FBI.

The president's initial support for Cohen degenerated over the summer into a public feud, prompting speculation that, to save himself, Cohen might be willing to tell prosecutors some of the secrets he'd help Trump keep.

Davis, Cohen's lawyer, has been sending signals of his own.

First, he went on CNN with a tape of Trump talking about the McDougal payment. Then, over the weekend, he revealed that he's been having conversations with John Dean, the White House lawyer who helped bring down President Richard Nixon.

Davis said Monday that he sees major parallels between Cohen and Dean and that he wanted to hear what he'd learned from Watergate and his perspective on what Cohen is going through. Cohen hasn't spoken to Dean, Davis said.

Associated Press writers Michael Sisak and Larry Neumeister contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump on Monday railed against special counsel Robert Mueller in a second day of angry tweets that drew comparisons to Watergate, insisted his general counsel isn't a "RAT" like President Richard Nixon's and accused Mueller's team of "looking for trouble."

"If you FIGHT BACK or say anything bad about the Rigged Witch Hunt, they scream Obstruction!" he tweeted.

Also Monday, Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani took to Twitter to clarify his viral comments on "Meet the Press" from a day earlier when he said that "truth isn't truth." He said he was referring to "a situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements." Critics had jumped on the comments as the the latest "alternative facts" explanation in the Trump era to justify falsehoods.



Trump's latest rant follows a New York Times report that the White House general counsel, Don McGahn, has been cooperating extensively with the special counsel team investigating Russian election meddling and potential collusion with Trump's Republican campaign.

In a tweet Sunday, he contrasted McGahn with John Dean, the White House counsel for Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Dean ultimately cooperated with prosecutors and helped bring down the Nixon presidency in 1974, though he served a prison term for obstruction of justice.

"The failing @nytimes wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel, he must be a John Dean type 'RAT,'" Trump wrote Sunday, misspelling "counsel."

"But I allowed him and all others to testify - I didn't have to. I have nothing to hide ..." he wrote.

On Monday he called Mueller "disgraced and discredited."

"Anybody needing that much time when they know there is no Russian Collusion is just someone looking for trouble," he wrote. "They are enjoying ruining people's lives and REFUSE to look at the real corruption on the Democrat side - the lies, the firings, the deleted Emails and soooo much more!"

Dean, Nixon's White House counsel and a frequent critic of Trump, tweeted Sunday that he doubts the president has "ANY IDEA what McGahn has told Mueller. Also, Nixon knew I was meeting with prosecutors, b/c I told him. However, he didn't think I would tell them the truth!"

Trump's original legal team had encouraged McGahn and other White House officials to cooperate with Mueller, and McGahn spent hours in interviews.

Trump attorney Giuliani said in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Trump didn't raise executive privilege or attorney-client privilege during those interviews because his team believed  he says now, wrongly  that fully participating would be the fastest way to bring the investigation to a close.

"The president encouraged him to testify, is happy that he did, is quite secure that there is nothing in the testimony that will hurt the president," Giuliani said.

McGahn's attorney William Burck added in a statement: "President Trump, through counsel, declined to assert any privilege over Mr. McGahn's testimony, so Mr. McGahn answered the Special Counsel team's questions fulsomely and honestly, as any person interviewed by federal investigators must."

Trump also assailed the Mueller investigation Sunday.

"So many lives have been ruined over nothing - McCarthyism at its WORST!" Trump tweeted, referring to the indiscriminate and damaging allegations made by Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s to expose communists.

"Study the late Joseph McCarthy, because we are now in period with Mueller and his gang that make Joseph McCarthy look like a baby! Rigged Witch Hunt!" Trump later wrote.

Giuliani, in his interview, also acknowledged that the reason for the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign aides and a Russian lawyer, arranged by Trump's son Donald Trump Jr., was that they had been promised dirt on Trump's 2016 Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

"The meeting was originally for the purpose of getting information about Clinton," he said, adding that the Trump team didn't know that Natalia Veselnitskaya was Russian  even though emails later released by Trump Jr. show that she had been described as a "Russian government attorney."

Giuliani also tried to make the case that having Trump sit down for an interview with Mueller's team wouldn't accomplish much because of the he-said-she-said nature of witnesses' recollections.

"It's somebody's version of the truth, not the truth," he said, telling NBC: "Truth isn't truth."

Among those who seized on that comment was fired FBI Director James Comey, who tweeted that "truth exists and truth matters."

"Truth has always been the touchstone of our countrys justice system and political life," he wrote. "People who lie are held accountable. If we are untethered to truth, our justice system cannot function and a society based on the rule of law dissolves."

Giuliani slammed Comey on Twitter Monday as "the last person who should pontificate on truth."

But Giuliani still issued a clarification on Monday for his "truth isn't truth" comment, tweeting: "My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic 'he said, she said' puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesnt."
President Donald Trump weighed in on local politics, endorsing the Republican candidate in a hotly contested North County race that has garnered national attention.

District 49, which encompasses Encinitas, Oceanside, Vista, Carlsbad and a small part of Orange County, is represented by Republican Congressman Darrell Issa who announced his retirement in January.

On Twitter Sunday evening, the president tweeted, @DianeHarkey is an extraordinary woman of great accomplishment & potential. She is running as a very popular Republican for the Congressional seat of my friend Darrell Issa with his complete support. Diane is strong on crime, loves our Military & Vets has my total Endorsement.

.@DianeHarkey is an extraordinary woman of great accomplishment & potential. She is running as a very popular Republican for the Congressional seat of my friend Darrell Issa-with his complete support. Diane is strong on crime, loves our Military & Vets-has my total Endorsement!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2018

A smattering of Republicans and Democrats entered Junes so-called jungle primary, in which both parties run together and the top two candidates of whatever party advance to the November election.

Harkey, a Republican and current member of the California Board of Equalization, came in first with 25 percent of the vote. Democrat Mike Levin, who is also an environmental attorney, came in second with 17 percent of the vote.

Levin responded to the presidents tweet just minutes later, writing, No surprise that @RealDonaldTrump, an expert in failed real estate scams, would endorse my opponent @DianeHarkey, whose campaigns have been funded by a Ponzi Scheme.

No surprise that @realDonaldTrump, an expert in failed real estate scams, would endorse my opponent @DianeHarkey, whose campaigns have been funded by a Ponzi Scheme.  Mike Levin (@MikeLevinCA) August 21, 2018

Diane Harkeys campaign office put out a statement in response to Levins: It comes as no surprise that a candidate who supports higher gas taxes and amnesty for illegal aliens would resort to false personal attacks, David Gilliard, a Harkey campaign consultant said.

The election is on Nov. 6.
What to Know Democrat Nikki Fried said Monday that the banking giant started asking questions about her platform a month after she joined the race.

Wells Fargo said in a letter that it was shutting down her account based on a review of its banking risks.

Wells Fargo said it could not comment on an individual account, but said the bank does not "knowingly" provide services to pot businesses.

A Florida candidate running to become the state's next agriculture commissioner says banking giant Wells Fargo shut down her campaign account because she supports medical marijuana.

Democrat Nikki Fried said Monday that the banking giant started asking questions about her platform a month after she joined the statewide race: Does she advocate more access to medical marijuana? Would she accept contributions from medical marijuana lobbyists?

Fried responded in July that she herself had lobbied for medical marijuana companies and had received contributions from lobbyists. Then, just weeks before the Aug. 28 primary, Wells Fargo said in a letter that it was shutting down her account based on a review of its banking risks.

The move upset Fried, who has been forced to transfer her money to another bank. She said she was "not touching" or "producing the plants" and was simply "advocating" on behalf of those who want more access to medical marijuana.

"Wells Fargo's actions against my campaign are emblematic about what is wrong with government and politics today," Fried said.

Florida voters legalized medical marijuana in 2016 but some banks are reluctant to do business with an industry that remains illegal under federal law. Florida's agriculture commissioner does not have a direct role in the regulation of medical marijuana but Fried has vowed to press for increased patient access.

Wells Fargo said it could not comment on an individual customer's account. A representative said the bank does not "knowingly" provide services to marijuana businesses.

"It is Wells Fargo's policy not to knowingly bank or provide services to marijuana businesses or for activities related to those businesses, based on federal laws under which the sale and use of marijuana is illegal even if state laws differ," said Bridget Braxton with Wells Fargo Corporate Communications. "We continually review our banking relationships to ensure we adhere to strict regulatory and risk guidelines."

Florida's agriculture commissioner is one of three elected officials who serve on the Florida Cabinet. Commissioner Adam Putnam is leaving due to term limits. Fried is one of three Democrats and four Republicans who are running for the post.
Thousands of local drivers have violated traffic laws or crashed their cars in school zones in the past three years, according to police records obtained by the News4 I-Team.

Those records and corresponding surveillance work by the I-Team show a wide range of violations, many of which could endanger the safety of children walking to school.

Parents are trying to get to work, kids are trying to get to school, everybody is running late, said Montgomery County police Sgt. Jim Whalen, who helps oversee the agencys school zone traffic details.

The I-Team monitored an inspection by Whalens team outside a North Potomac, Maryland, elementary school in the spring and saw a series of violations, including a parent cited for distracted driving and another stopped for failing to belt a child into his seat.

Records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show hundreds of more severe violations in Maryland since 2015. At least 140 drivers were prosecuted in court for driving misconduct in school zones in Prince Georges County since 2015. At least 219 drivers in Montgomery County were prosecuted in the same time frame. Violations include reckless driving, speeding and distracted driving.

Washington, D.C., records show more than 200 school zone infractions since 2015.

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State motor vehicle data released by Virginia showed a rising number of crashes in school zones. More than 5,500 crashes have occurred in school zone since 2015, eleven of them were fatal.

Fairfax County alone experienced more than 600 school zone accidents in the same time frame.

People need to pay attention a lot more than they do, said Gwen Ward, whose daughter was struck and killed while crossing Germantown Road to reach Seneca Valley High School in 2012. Ward has advocated for stricter laws to control speeding and reckless driving in school zones.

These students have to cross over major highways," she said. "We have a long, long way to go as drivers.

Maryland legislators have considered multiple pieces of legislation to address school zone traffic safety since 2016.

A 2018 proposal from Del. Eric Luedtke (D-Montgomery County) would require a statewide review of all school crossings in the state.

A separate proposal would require a reduced speed limit in all school zones.

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A journalist who became the first black woman to receive press credentials to cover the White House and Congress will be honored with a statue in the nations capital next month.

A life-size bronze sculpture of Alice Allison Dunnigan will go on display Sept. 21 at the Newseum.

Dunnigan began her journalism career in her home state of Kentucky before moving to the District during World War II. In 1947, she became the head of the Associated Negro Press Washington bureau in 1947. The next year, she covered President Harry Trumans whistle-stop campaign tour, becoming the first black, female journalist to do so.

Dunnigan also obtained press credentials to cover Congress, the State Department and the Supreme Court. But she fought racism and sexism throughout her career.

The bronze sculpture of Dunnigan was created by Kentucky sculptor Amanda Matthews. It will be displayed at the Newseum until Dec. 16. It will then be moved to Dunnigans hometown, where it will be installed at the West Kentucky African American Heritage Center.
What to Know A $20,000 reward is being offered for the arrest of Shawn Richard Christy, 27, of McAdoo, Pennsylvania.

Officials say Christy threatened both President Trump and Northamtpton County District Attorney John Morganelli on Facebook.

Christy also allegedly stole a 2001 Jeep Cherokee in Kentucky.

A Pennsylvania man accused of threatening President Donald Trump and other elected officials has been seen in Maryland, police say.



The FBI, U.S. Marshals and the U.S. Secret Service are all attempting to track down the man, who also allegedly threatened to shoot anyone who tried to arrest him, police said.

A federal warrant was issued on June 19 for Shawn Richard Christy, 27, of McAdoo, Pennsylvania. The warrant was related to threats Christy made against Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli and Trump on Facebook, officials said.

Investigators say Christy wrote, Keep it up Morganelli, I promise Ill put a bullet in your head as soon as I put one in the head of President Donald J. Trump, in a Facebook post.

Police say he also threatened police officers and claimed he would use "full lethal force on any law enforcement officer that tries to detain me," police said.

On Saturday, police spotted a stolen 2001 Jeep Cherokee believed to be operated by Christy near Nitro, West Virginia. On Sunday, a man was spotted sleeping in a car near Cumberland, Maryland. A citizen identified him as Christy.

He was wearing a tan shirt and blue jeans, police said.

Christy ran away, police said. Nearby, a 1997 Sierra pick up truck with Pennsylvania plates was stolen, police say. Christy is suspected in the theft.

Christy also has multiple arrest warrants in Pennsylvania for burglary, probation violation and failure to appear for an aggravated assault case.

A $20,000 reward is being offered for information leading to his arrest, investigators say.

Christy is also a suspect in the theft of a dark green 2001 Jeep Cherokee with the Kentucky license plate 095-WYT. Officials say the vehicle was stolen on Aug. 9 around 8:30 a.m. on the 900 block of Brockman Keltner Road in Greensburg, Kentucky. The vehicle has a black hood, US Postal Service and Rural Carrier magnets on the sides and backs and a steering wheel on the right side.

Officials also believe Christy abandoned a stolen 2012 Toyota Tundra in the area earlier this week.

Christy stands 5-foot-10 and weighs about 160 pounds. He has a tattoo of a cross on his right upper arm, short dark blonde hair and a beard. He also speaks with a noticeable lisp and claims to be a survivalist, police said.

Officials are offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to Christys arrest. If you have any information on his whereabouts, please call the U.S. Marshals at 1-877-926-8332 or the FBI at 215-418-4000. Christy is considered armed and dangerous and anyone who spots him should not engage him but instead call authorities immediately.


The youngest woman to own an medical cannabis dispensary in Maryland is about to open up shop.

After graduating from college, Hope Wiseman saw an opportunity in her home states budding industry.

"Maryland was about to start their medical cannabis program," the Bowie native, now 26, said.

She pitched the idea to her mom, Octavia Simkins-Wiseman, a dentist, and a family friend, Larry Bryant. The dispensary, named Mary and Main, would be entirely African-American owned.

The costly and lengthy bureaucratic process to approve a dispensary was only one challenge Wiseman faced.

"There are a lot of barriers to entry besides capital, but capital is probably one of the most prevalent," Wiseman said. "Especially in the minority community."

Wiseman and her mother say theyre committed to providing convenient treatment for Prince Georges County residents  even though the county has strict zoning laws.

Prince Georges Countys zoning laws prohibit dispensaries from opening near daycares, schools and residential areas.

"The challenges of the zoning here in Prince Georges has been well-documented," lobbyist Darrell Carrington told News4. "Its one of the most difficult places in the state to locate."

The rules may create medicine deserts, Carrington said.

Mary and Mains investors pressed on, and eventually found a location in Capitol Heights.

"We are just here to help those people who need our help," Simkins-Wiseman said. "Those sick children who have epilepsy, those adults who may have Alzheimers or other diseases. Thats what we're here for."

The county is allowed to have up to 16 medical marijuana dispensaries; two are allowed in each legislative district. So far, four dispensaries have opened.
A Virginia man was arrested Sunday after police say he threatened to kill people at his mosque and rammed into cars in the parking lot.

The suspect used Facebook Live to broadcast the barrage of threats.

Fairfax County Police said 22-year-old Zulqarnain Khan threatened to kill everyone he encountered at the Masjid Noor Mosque on 8608 Pohick Road in Springfield. Khan prevented people from entering the mosque and threatened people as they left the mosque as well, police said.

Police said Khan rammed his car into three parked cars, one of which was occupied. The person inside the car that was rammed by Khan called 911, police said. Police said no one was injured.

Fairfax County police said when the responding officer arrived, Khan sped toward the officer before jumping out of his car and blocked the road. Khan cursed and screamed at the responding officer before he was taken into custody, police said.

Mosque members responded with compassion for Khan.

"He needs some help and we are here to help him," a mosque trustee said. "Our job is to have love for them and sit down and chat with them."

Khan is being held in Fairfax, police said. He was charged with five felonies and four misdemeanor charges of abduction and destruction of property, among others, police said. He is being held without bond.

Mosque trustee Muhammad Ramzan Khan said Khan, to whom he said he had no relation, had a medical issue.

There's no indication he was carrying a weapon.
A Colorado man told a judge he understood he has been charged with killing his pregnant wife and two young daughters and then hiding their bodies in an oil field as his father-in-law sobbed in the courtroom Tuesday.

Christopher Watts, wearing an orange jail suit and cuffed at the wrists and ankle, stoically answered, "Yes sir," as District Judge Marcelo Kopcow formally advised him of the murder charges and that he could face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted of killing his wife, Shanann, 34, and their daughters Celeste, 3, and Bella, 4.

Shanann's father, Frank Rzucek Sr., wept with his face in his hands. Shanann's brother, Frank Rzucek Jr., rubbed his father's shoulders and glared unflinchingly at Watts. A bailiff stood between them.

Watts didn't enter a plea to three first-degree murder charges, two counts of killing a child under 12, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.

Shanann's body was buried in a shallow grave in an oil field north of Denver and the girls' bodies were found submerged in nearby oil tanks, according to police arrest affidavit.

Watts told authorities his wife killed the children after he told her he wanted a separation. He said he erupted in rage after seeing her strangle one of the kids on a baby monitor and then strangled their mother inside the family's home, according to court documents.

Police first visited the home on Aug. 13, after a friend asked officers to check on Shanann. She had missed a doctor's appointment and wasn't answering calls or text messages hours after returning home from a business trip, the friend said.

Police searched the house and found Shanann's cellphone stuffed inside a couch. Her purse was in the kitchen and a suitcase was at the bottom of the stairs.

A detective spoke to Watts and learned about his plan to leave his wife. He said the conversation with Shanann was civil at first but that later "they were both upset and crying" and she planned to go to a friend's house, the court papers said.

When she and the girls did not return home Aug. 14, investigators ramped up their efforts with help from the FBI and Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Christopher Watts was interviewed by several local television stations, saying he missed his family and wanted them back.

It wasn't until last Wednesday night that he told investigators "he would tell the truth." Watts asked to speak with his father, then acknowledged killing his wife.

In court papers released Monday, investigators said they learned that Watts was "actively involved in an affair with a co-worker," something he denied in earlier conversations with police.

According to Watts' account, Aug. 13 began with an intense conversation. He said he told his wife that he wanted a separation, then walked downstairs.

When he returned, he said he spotted a baby monitor on his wife's nightstand and saw her "actively strangling" Celeste. He said it also showed their other daughter, Bella, "sprawled out on her bed and blue."

"Chris said he went into a rage and ultimately strangled Shanann to death," the document said.

Police found surveillance video from a neighbor showing Watts' truck backing into the driveway at 5:27 a.m. and then driving away from the house in Frederick, a small town on the grassy plains north of Denver where fast-growing subdivisions intermingle with drilling rigs and oil wells.

Watts, who worked as an operator for Anadarko Petroleum, said he loaded his wife and daughters' bodies into the backseat of his truck and drove to an oil work site about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of the family's home. He buried Shanann's body and "dumped the girls inside" oil tanks, according to court documents.

Separate documents filed by Watts' defense attorney last week said the girls' bodies were submerged in crude oil for four days before police found them late Thursday. Their mother's body was found in a shallow grave nearby, prosecutors said.

The court filing says Watts gave police an aerial photograph and identified three areas where he placed the bodies. Investigators searched with a drone and spotted a bedsheet that matched other linens in the family home and fresh dirt.

Shanann's social media accounts are filled with photos and videos of the girls playing with their father and the couple smiling. They married in North Carolina nearly six years ago and moved to Colorado soon afterward.

District Attorney Michael Rourke said Monday that it was too early to discuss whether he will seek the death penalty. Watts will next be in court Nov. 16.
Pope Francis vowed Monday that "no effort must be spared" to root out priestly sex abuse and cover-up from the Catholic Church, but gave no indication that he would take action to sanction complicit bishops or end the Vatican culture of secrecy that has allowed the crisis to fester.

In a letter to Catholics worldwide following damning new revelations of misconduct in the U.S., Francis sought to project a get-tough response to the perpetrators and a compassionate shoulder for victims ahead of a fraught trip to Ireland this weekend.

Francis begged forgiveness for the pain suffered by victims and said lay Catholics must be included in the effort to root out abuse and cover-up. He blasted the clerical culture that has been blamed for the crisis, with church leaders more concerned about their own reputations than the safety of children.

"We showed no care for the little ones," Francis wrote. "We abandoned them."

But Francis alone can sanction bishops and he offered no hint that he would change the Vatican's longstanding practice of giving religious superiors a pass when they botch abuse cases or are negligent in protecting their flocks.

He said he was aware of the "effort and work being carried out in various parts of the world" to ensure children are protected and hold accountable those who commit abuse and cover it up.

But he made no reference to what the Vatican plans to do, saying only: "We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary, yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater culture of care in the present and future."

The letter was viewed by abuse survivors as little more than recycled rhetoric that fails to acknowledge the Vatican's own role in turning a blind eye to predatory priests and fomenting a culture of secrecy that has allowed crimes to go unpunished for decades.

"That culture was overseen by #Vatican & codified into its laws," tweeted Colm O'Gorman, a prominent Irish abuse victim who is organizing a solidarity demonstration of survivors in Dublin during Francis' visit. "He needs to name & own that."

Marie Collins, another prominent Irish survivor who resigned in frustration from the pope's sex-abuse advisory commission, said statements about how terrible abuse is and how bishops must be held accountable are meaningless.

"Tell us instead what you are doing to hold them accountable," she tweeted. "That is what we want to hear. 'Working on it' is not an acceptable explanation for decades of 'delay.'"

Priestly sex abuse was always expected to dominate the pope's trip to Ireland, a once staunchly Roman Catholic country where the church's credibility has been devastated by years of revelations that priests raped and molested children with impunity and their superiors covered it up.

But the issue has taken on new gravity following revelations in the U.S. that one of Francis' trusted cardinals, the retired archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, allegedly sexually abused and harassed minors as well as adult seminarians.

In addition, a grand jury report in Pennsylvania last week revealed that at least 1,000 children were abused by some 300 priests over the past 70 years, and that generations of bishops failed to take measures to protect their flock or punish the rapists.

"Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all," the grand jury report said.

The letter from Latin America's first pope also comes on the heels of a spiraling sex-abuse scandal in Chile, where law enforcement has staged multiple raids on church archives to try to determine what was known and kept hidden about pedophile priests.

The three-page letter, issued in seven languages, referred to the Pennsylvania report but stressed that its message was to a much broader global audience. In it, Francis acknowledged that no effort to beg forgiveness of the victims would be sufficient but vowed "never again."

Looking to the future, he said: "No effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated."

He demanded an end to "clericalism"  the culture that places priests on a pedestal. He said lay Catholics must help end that culture, since rank-and-file Catholics are often the ones who most fervently hold up their priests as beyond reproach.

That emphasis  on both the role of the laity and clericalism  is new for a pope in addressing the abuse scandal and seems a direct response to the Pennsylvania findings, said Kathleen Sprows Cummings, associate professor of American studies and history at the University of Notre Dame.

"That's what people are feeling. That's the rage," she said, adding that she had acquaintances who were withholding donations to their parishes, refusing to address priests as "Father" and demanding at Sunday Mass that their pastors address the crisis.

"I think this is a crisis and I don't think many church leaders appreciate that," she said.

Francis appears to hear that call, but it's unclear if it will be enough.

Several years ago, he scrapped a proposed Vatican tribunal to prosecute negligent bishops, relying instead on current Vatican procedures. While he has taken some bishops to task, he has refused to act on credible reports of bishops failing to report abusers to police or otherwise botching the handling of cases.

Francis also has kept on his nine-member cabinet a Chilean cardinal long accused of covering up for pedophiles, an Australian cardinal currently on trial on sex-abuse charges and a Honduran cardinal implicated in a gay priest sex scandal involving his trusted deputy.

As a result, advocates for victims found his letter wanting.

"Mere words at this point deepen the insult and the pain," said Anne Barrett Doyle of the research group Bishop Accountability, which released a database Monday of credibly accused or convicted Irish clergy.

What Francis should do to protect children, she said, is to order the Vatican to release the names of all priests who have been convicted under canon law of abusing minors.

Unlike the U.S. bishops' conference, which has referred only to "sins and omissions" in their response to the Pennsylvania report, Francis labeled the misconduct "crimes."

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said it was "significant" that Francis used that term and called for accountability, "which in many cases means bishops."

"This is a wake-up call for everyone," Burke told The Associated Press.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro praised the pope's letter and urged local church officials to "cease their denials and deflections" and accept the grand jury recommendations, which include allowing victims to sue the church for abuse that otherwise would fall outside the statute of limitations.

The Catholic Church has long resisted such litigation windows, fearing for its bottom line. In the U.S., the sex-abuse scandal and related litigation has cost the church some $3 billion and led to the sell-off of church properties and bankruptcy protection for several dioceses.

It was the second Vatican response in recent days to the Pennsylvania grand jury report, which has sparked a crisis of confidence in the U.S. Catholic leadership and led to calls for mass ouster of American bishops.

Last week, Burke issued a statement calling the abuse "criminal and morally reprehensible" and said there must be accountability for those who raped children "and those who permitted abuse to occur."

Subsequently, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked Francis to authorize a Vatican investigation into McCarrick, whose penchant for inviting seminarians to his New Jersey beach house and into his bed was apparently an open secret.

The Vatican hasn't said if Francis would approve such an investigation. The question is delicate, given that there is evidence that Vatican officials knew as early as 2000 of McCarrick's activities, yet still appointed him Washington archbishop and a cardinal.

On Monday, the archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, said he didn't see a letter sent to his office in 2015 concerning McCarrick's activities.

O'Malley said a pastor sent him the letter because he was president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. He said his priest secretary told the pastor a recommendation to review cases fell outside the commission's mandate.

O'Malley apologized to the pastor and to anyone whose concerns were reflected in the letter.

Read the full letter below:

If one member suffers, all suffer together with it (1 Cor 12:26). These words of Saint Paul forcefully echo in my heart as I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons. Crimes that inflict deep wounds of pain and powerlessness, primarily among the victims, but also in their family members and in the larger community of believers and nonbelievers alike. Looking back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient. Looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated. The pain of the victims and their families is also our pain, and so it is urgent that we once more reaffirm our commitment to ensure the protection of minors and of vulnerable adults.

1. If one member suffers

In recent days, a report was made public which detailed the experiences of at least a thousand survivors, victims of sexual abuse, the abuse of power and of conscience at the hands of priests over a period of approximately seventy years. Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past, nonetheless as time goes on we have come to know the pain of many of the victims. We have realized that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death; these wounds never go away. The heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced. But their outcry was more powerful than all the measures meant to silence it, or sought even to resolve it by decisions that increased its gravity by falling into complicity. The Lord heard that cry and once again showed us on which side he stands. Marys song is not mistaken and continues quietly to echo throughout history. For the Lord remembers the promise he made to our fathers: he has scattered the proud in their conceit; he has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty (Lk 1:51-53). We feel shame when we realize that our style of life has denied, and continues to deny, the words we recite.

With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them. I make my own the words of the then Cardinal Ratzinger when, during the Way of the Cross composed for Good Friday 2005, he identified with the cry of pain of so many victims and exclaimed: How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to [Christ]! How much pride, how much self-complacency! Christs betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his body and blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison  Lord, save us! (cf. Mt 8:25) (Ninth Station).

2.  all suffer together with it

The extent and the gravity of all that has happened requires coming to grips with this reality in a comprehensive and communal way. While it is important and necessary on every journey of conversion to acknowledge the truth of what has happened, in itself this is not enough. Today we are challenged as the People of God to take on the pain of our brothers and sisters wounded in their flesh and in their spirit. If, in the past, the response was one of omission, today we want solidarity, in the deepest and most challenging sense, to become our way of forging present and future history. And this in an environment where conflicts, tensions and above all the victims of every type of abuse can encounter an outstretched hand to protect them and rescue them from their pain (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 228). Such solidarity demands that we in turn condemn whatever endangers the integrity of any person. A solidarity that summons us to fight all forms of corruption, especially spiritual corruption. The latter is a comfortable and self-satisfied form of blindness. Everything then appears acceptable: deception, slander, egotism and other subtle forms of self-centeredness, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14) (Gaudete et Exsultate, 165). Saint Pauls exhortation to suffer with those who suffer is the best antidote against all our attempts to repeat the words of Cain: Am I my brother's keeper? (Gen 4:9).

I am conscious of the effort and work being carried out in various parts of the world to come up with the necessary means to ensure the safety and protection of the integrity of children and of vulnerable adults, as well as implementing zero tolerance and ways of making all those who perpetrate or cover up these crimes accountable. We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary, yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater culture of care in the present and future.

Together with those efforts, every one of the baptized should feel involved in the ecclesial and social change that we so greatly need. This change calls for a personal and communal conversion that makes us see things as the Lord does. For as Saint John Paul II liked to say: If we have truly started out anew from the contemplation of Christ, we must learn to see him especially in the faces of those with whom he wished to be identified (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 49). To see things as the Lord does, to be where the Lord wants us to be, to experience a conversion of heart in his presence. To do so, prayer and penance will help. I invite the entire holy faithful People of God to a penitential exercise of prayer and fasting, following the Lords command.[1] This can awaken our conscience and arouse our solidarity and commitment to a culture of care that says never again to every form of abuse.

It is impossible to think of a conversion of our activity as a Church that does not include the active participation of all the members of Gods People. Indeed, whenever we have tried to replace, or silence, or ignore, or reduce the People of God to small elites, we end up creating communities, projects, theological approaches, spiritualities and structures without roots, without memory, without faces, without bodies and ultimately, without lives.[2] This is clearly seen in a peculiar way of understanding the Churchs authority, one common in many communities where sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience have occurred. Such is the case with clericalism, an approach that not only nullifies the character of Christians, but also tends to diminish and undervalue the baptismal grace that the Holy Spirit has placed in the heart of our people.[3] Clericalism, whether fostered by priests themselves or by lay persons, leads to an excision in the ecclesial body that supports and helps to perpetuate many of the evils that we are condemning today. To say no to abuse is to say an emphatic no to all forms of clericalism.

It is always helpful to remember that in salvation history, the Lord saved one people. We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual. Rather, God draws us to himself, taking into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships present in the human community. God wanted to enter into the life and history of a people (Gaudete et Exsultate, 6). Consequently, the only way that we have to respond to this evil that has darkened so many lives is to experience it as a task regarding all of us as the People of God. This awareness of being part of a people and a shared history will enable us to acknowledge our past sins and mistakes with a penitential openness that can allow us to be renewed from within. Without the active participation of all the Churchs members, everything being done to uproot the culture of abuse in our communities will not be successful in generating the necessary dynamics for sound and realistic change. The penitential dimension of fasting and prayer will help us as Gods People to come before the Lord and our wounded brothers and sisters as sinners imploring forgiveness and the grace of shame and conversion. In this way, we will come up with actions that can generate resources attuned to the Gospel. For whenever we make the effort to return to the source and to recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new paths of creativity open up, with different forms of expression, more eloquent signs and words with new meaning for todays world (Evangelii Gaudium, 11).

It is essential that we, as a Church, be able to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities perpetrated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all those entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for those most vulnerable. Let us beg forgiveness for our own sins and the sins of others. An awareness of sin helps us to acknowledge the errors, the crimes and the wounds caused in the past and allows us, in the present, to be more open and committed along a journey of renewed conversion.

Likewise, penance and prayer will help us to open our eyes and our hearts to other peoples sufferings and to overcome the thirst for power and possessions that are so often the root of those evils. May fasting and prayer open our ears to the hushed pain felt by children, young people and the disabled. A fasting that can make us hunger and thirst for justice and impel us to walk in the truth, supporting all the judicial measures that may be necessary. A fasting that shakes us up and leads us to be committed in truth and charity with all men and women of good will, and with society in general, to combatting all forms of the abuse of power, sexual abuse and the abuse of conscience.

In this way, we can show clearly our calling to be a sign and instrument of communion with God and of the unity of the entire human race (Lumen Gentium, 1).

If one member suffers, all suffer together with it, said Saint Paul. By an attitude of prayer and penance, we will become attuned as individuals and as a community to this exhortation, so that we may grow in the gift of compassion, in justice, prevention and reparation. Mary chose to stand at the foot of her Sons cross. She did so unhesitatingly, standing firmly by Jesus side. In this way, she reveals the way she lived her entire life. When we experience the desolation caused by these ecclesial wounds, we will do well, with Mary, to insist more upon prayer, seeking to grow all the more in love and fidelity to the Church (SAINT IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, Spiritual Exercises, 319). She, the first of the disciples, teaches all of us as disciples how we are to halt before the sufferings of the innocent, without excuses or cowardice. To look to Mary is to discover the model of a true follower of Christ.

May the Holy Spirit grant us the grace of conversion and the interior anointing needed to express before these crimes of abuse our compunction and our resolve courageously to combat them.
The Maine Fire Marshal's Office says a woman set her boyfriend's house on fire after an argument.

Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland says police arrested 38-year-old Angie Clark on charges of arson and aggravated criminal mischief.

Clark made her first court appearance Monday before being returned to jail. Her attorney didn't immediately return a message seeking comment.

McCausland says Clark got into a fight with her boyfriend Aug. 6, and when he left, she set the home on fire. No injuries were reported, but authorities say the home in Farmington was a total loss.

Police located Clark the day after the fire and she was hospitalized for evaluation. She was arrested immediately after she was released.
The Democrat who wants to be Vermont's next governor says her campaign has been the target of rude online trolling and worse threats of violence.

"We have gotten some death threats," Christine Hallquist acknowledged Monday in an interview with NBC10 Boston and necn.

Additionally, the Vermont Democratic Party said it has been receiving four or five harassing calls a day regarding Hallquist's candidacy.

The threats and meanness appear to have started, Hallquist indicated, after worldwide attention on the race spotlighted the electrical engineer and former utility executive's gender identity.

She's the nation's first transgender woman from a major party to run for governor.

Hallquist said she believes the threats came from outside of Vermont.

"I know there are many people across the country like me that want to pull us together," Hallquist said of politicians running for office in 2018 aiming to heal divisions. "And I certainly want to pull Vermont together."

Incumbent Republican Gov. Phil Scott saw disparaging comments about his opponent online and called for them to end.

"I won't tolerate it," Scott said of language or writing that may disparage a political candidate or anyone else. "I think it's important that we treat each other with respect and civility. It's something I've practiced throughout my life."

Both candidates said they want the run-up to November to focus on issues, not gender.

Scott's prioritizing job growth and making Vermont more affordable.

Hallquist wants to raise the minimize wage and expand broadband to rural parts of the state.

Political analyst Chris Graff said voters here don't tend to tolerate nastiness.

"Negative campaigns backfire in Vermont," Graff said. "I think the candidates, to succeed in Vermont, will have to be civil  they really have to."

LGBT rights activist Brenda Churchill, a Hallquist supporter who is working as part of the campaign on outreach, said she hopes in time, the kind of transphobia the campaign has encountered in its early days will fade.

"When people are introduced to folks who are transgender, and engage and talk, fear goes away and understanding and acceptance starts," Churchill told NBC10 Boston and necn. "It isn't always there  sometimes, it's basically tolerance. But you know, you've got to start somewhere."

As for those threatening and harassing phone calls, the Vermont Democratic Party said they've been reported to state and local police, who have given advice on new campaign security plans.
What to Know Forty-four-year-old Jeramie Colella of Dover, New Hampshire was ordered held without bail after he waived his arraignment.

Colella has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of his wife, Joanna Colella, and his father Francis Colella.

An autopsy to determine their cause and manner of deaths is scheduled for Wednesday.

The New Hampshire man accused of murdering his wife and his father inside his home is being held without bail.

Jeramie Colella, 44, waived his arraignment in Strafford County Superior Court so he didnt face a judge Tuesday.

Prosecutors say Dover Police were called to 18 Tideview Estates Monday morning.

Dover was there to do a well-being check and they discovered the bodies, explained Assistant Attorney General John Kennedy.

Colella is now charged with two counts of second-degree murder. Police say he killed his wife, 43-year-old Joanna Colella, and his father, 69-year-old Francis Colella, sometime between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning.

You dont want to think anyone living close to you could do that to someone else, said neighbor Debby Boyle.

The bodies were found just across a small parking lot from where Eric Cuvellier lives with his wife.

Its sad, I wish I couldve done something, he said Tuesday afternoon.

As the state builds its case against Colella, the affidavits are sealed and prosecutors are withholding a lot of the details, but turning to neighbors for help.

We would ask at this point if anyone in the area heard or saw anything Sunday around noon time until Monday morning, contact the Dover Police Department, said Kennedy.

Cuvellier told NBC10 Boston he works the third shift and was awake all night.

I was up Sunday into Monday morning and nothing, he said.

Residents say a double murder in the usually quiet neighborhood is shocking but there was a growing concern among some residents about Colella.

Theres been chatter in the neighborhood, someone suggested hes been getting worse, withdrawn and disheveled over the past year, so I dont know what happened, Boyle said.

NBC10 Boston reached out to Joanna Colellas family Tuesday morning but they had no comment and asked for privacy.

Colella will be held without bail until his indictment within 90 days.
Four New Hampshire officers have been placed on leave following a deadly shootout that resulted in the death of an erratic driver who allegedly opened fire on officers Monday.

Douglas Heath, 38, was killed in an "exchange of gunfire" with officials after he crashed his vehicle near the intersection of Route 125 and Oak Street in Rochester, New Hampshire, according to state Attorney General Gordon MacDonald.

Heath was wanted on multiple warrants, including fleeing from Maine State Police and trafficking narcotics. When officials spotted the suspect Monday afternoon, they suspected he had weapons in the vehicle and began to follow him, authorities said.

Heath allegedly led police on a chase that resulted in a crash, where he opened fire on two New Hampshire State Police troopers and two Rochester police officers.

"The guy rolled out of the car wielding a handgun and started firing off a couple of shots," witness Austin McKenzie said. "He was endangering lives of police officers."

McKenzie recorded the fatal confrontation with his cellphone. He said that Heath fired at officers first, which resulted in them firing back in response.

"He 100 percent had it coming," McKenzie said. "I dont know what happened beforehand or anything like that, but coming out of the car like that you cant do something like that and expect it to be a good outcome."

Police recovered a gun near Heaths body after the shootout.

Maine State Police said Heath had been wanted in connection with a police chase in Sanford on June 11. Authorities said Heath led Sanford and State Police on a chase along Route 202 from Sanford to Lebanon but after a couple of miles, the pursuit was terminated because of safety to the public.

Maine State Police had attempted to pull Heath over because of an arrest warrant out of New Hampshire on a drug charge.



Johnny Watson, a longtime friend of Heath, spoke with NBC10 Boston about Monday's ordeal.

"I'd just like people to know that he's a pretty good guy and I wish his family the best through this awful situation," Watson said.

Officials are continuing their investigation into the officer-involved shooting. Anyone who witnessed the exchange or who has information is urged to contact New Hampshire State Police at 603-271-3636.
Officials say a 71-year-old Maine man is facing charges after he refused to stop for sheriff's deputies and police until after a police officer disabled his vehicle by shooting at its tires.

The incident began around 8 a.m. Saturday when authorities began searching for a man believed to be experiencing a severe medical issue.

A few minutes later the vehicle was spotted on Route 1 in Northport. The car was stopped briefly police on a number of occasions, but the driver continued to flee. The chase ended after a Searsport police officer fired his weapon, disabling the vehicle.

The driver, James Thomas, of Camden, was taken to an area hospital for evaluation. He's facing a variety of charges.

It's unclear if Thomas has an attorney.
The Trump administration has approved a major disaster declaration in connection with the May 15 tornadoes that caused extensive damage in several towns.

The declaration includes New Haven and Fairfield counties and means that state agencies and towns in those counties will receive financial assistance from the federal government to help pay for costs associated with the storms.

A request by Gov. Dannel Malloy for assistance for individual residents remains under review, according to a news release.

On May 15, tornadoes touched down in Winsted, Barkhamsted, Oxford, and from Beacon Falls to Bethany and into Hamden.

Several other towns sustained heavy damage from a macroburst.

This declaration will provide much needed financial assistance to our municipalities and the state, Governor Malloy said. These storms had a devastating impact, causing significant damage that is still being cleaned up and repaired months later. I thank the federal government for continuing to be a partner in these efforts.

While the aid is a huge relief for municipalities, homeowners are still unsure if they'll see any help for their out-of-pocket costs of cleanup. Help for homeowners is still being considered, including potential loans or direct assistance.

Every morning I wake up and it looks very, very different. Im shocked every day, said Betty Kelley of Bethany.

Kelley and her husband Joe still cant believe how their backyard in Bethany was transformed in a moment.

Ive never seen anything like it. It was kind of eerie, said Joe Kelley.

Tree crews are still cleaning up dozens of downed trees at the Kelleys.

There are those without insurance and even some who do, including the Kelleys, are discovering their damage is not covered since the trees did not hit their house.

This is out-of-pocket. So you have to do what you have to do, said Betty Kelley.


Massachusetts State Police troopers are searching for a gunman responsible for leaving a 19-year-old man with life-threatening injuries early Tuesday.

At approximately 1 a.m., police found the victim in a wooded area in October Mountain State Forest, according to state police. He was rushed to Berkshire Medical Center in critical condition.

Officials believe the gunman fled the area. October Mountain State Forest is Massachusetts' largest state forest that spans at 16,500 acres.

The victims identity was not released. The shooting is under investigation.
A 19-year-old Massachusetts woman lit herself on fire in a New Hampshire police cruiser after being arrested for allegedly trespassing and loitering, according to police.

Officers in Hampton say they saw Jeante Driscoll, of Leominster, trying to conceal herself outside Kennebunk Savings Bank on Winnacunnet Road around 10:20 p.m. Saturday. Police say they gave her a warning about loitering and told her to leave the area.

Later, police say they saw Driscoll next to the building again and she refused to leave.

As police were arresting Driscoll, they say she became agitated, and officers struggled to get her into the car. When they were driving her to the Hampton Police Department, Driscoll lit her clothes on fire.

Police stopped the cruiser, pulled Driscoll from the car and rolled her on the ground to put the fire out. Driscoll was treated at the police station by the Seabrook Fire Department, then taken to Portsmouth Hospital. The extent of her injuries was not made clear.

In addition to violations for criminal trespassing and loitering, Driscoll faces a misdemeanor charge of assault by prisoner for allegedly kicking an officer in the groin at the police station.

Driscoll has been released on $10,000 personal recognizance bail. She is due to be arraigned Oct. 2 at 10th Circuit Court in Seabrook. It was not immediately clear if she had an attorney.

Anyone with information is asked to call 603-929-4444.
A group of abuse victims joined a group of 20 lawmakers in calling for Rhode Island's legislative leaders to extend the time limit for filing child abuse lawsuits.

The news conference in Providence on Monday demanded a vote on legislation that would extend the time limit for filing suits to 35 years from seven years. The demonstrators also called on Attorney General Peter Kilmartin to open a grand jury investigation of the Catholic Church's Providence Diocese.

The Rhode Island Catholic Conference said in a statement it would only support expanding the statute of limitations as long as the legislation doesn't apply retroactively.

The news conference was sparked by a Pennsylvania grand jury report concluding state church leaders covered up abuse allegations against hundreds of priests for decades.
Rhode Island is spending $3 million in federal funds to secure and modernize its elections systems.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission released a report Tuesday showing how states plan to spend $380 million allocated by Congress last spring to strengthen voting systems amid ongoing threats from Russia and others.

The largest chunk -- roughly 36 percent -- is being spent to improve cybersecurity in 41 states and territories.

Of the $3 million allocated to Rhode Island, about half is going toward upgrading the central voter registration system to enhance security and guard against efforts to penetrate the voter database.

Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea says she feels the voting systems are secure going into November, but it'll cost millions more to guard against hacking and other cyberattacks in the future.
The union representing faculty at the Vermont State College System says the administration and union have reached an impasse after five months of contract negotiations while the administration said the two sides are close to resolving several remaining issues.

The Vermont State Colleges said Monday that the two sides plan to meet with a mediator on Aug. 31.

The union says the mission of the state colleges -- to provide affordable, high-quality public higher education -- requires spending on instruction, including faculty compensation to attract and retain skilled faculty.

Jeb Spaulding, chancellor of the state colleges, said "we all hope for a timely resolution on behalf of faculty, students and the VSCS."

The VSCS is comprised of Castleton University, Community College of Vermont, Northern Vermont University, and Vermont Technical College.
Pamela Littky / Contributed photo

Fall Out Boy is touring in support of its new album, MANIA, which hit No. 1 in 30 countries. The Grammy-nominated quartet will perform at Mohegan Sun Arena on Friday, Aug. 31, with Machine Gun Kelly and Against the Current as special guests.

The rock band celebrated its new albums release with performances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Good Morning America, as well as The Late Late Show with James Corden, where it performed Hold Me Tight or Dont.
BRIDGEPORT - Ruing that gang violence, once the purview of late nights in the city, has made it dangerous for citizens to walk city streets during the day, a judge sentenced a gangland hit man to 53 years in prison.

Superior Court Judge Robin Pavia said on Friday the only thing staying her from imposing the maximum term of 60 years on 20-year-old Deonte Tomlinson is his young age.

Tomlinson, who stood smirking while the judge spoke, said he had nothing to say.

Tomlinson, a member of the 150 gang, was found guilty last month of murder and carrying a pistol without a permit for the May 2016 fatal shooting of Kahlil Kah Diaz, 18, a leader of the Green Hollow Boyz who had only recently been acquitted of killing a rival gang member. Diaz was gunned down on a downtown street in the middle of the afternoon.

Senior Assistant States Attorney Colleen Zingaro urged the judge to send a message with her sentence that a crime that threatens the lives of the citys residents will not be tolerated.

Diaz, a student at Harding High School, was found not guilty Feb. 5, 2016 in connection with the Aug. 10, 2014, fatal shooting of 21-year-old Ryan Hernandez, a member of the 150s on a downtown street. Sources said Tomlinson was at the courthouse when Diaz was acquitted.

Three months later Diaz was getting into a silver Audi sedan parked on Madison Avenue when police said Tomlinson ran up to the car and shot Diaz three times.

Three police detectives were in the area at the time and ran to the scene to see the shooter run off, according to trial testimony. They pursued the suspect down a nearby driveway, catching Tomlinson less than 50 feet from the murder scene. Along the pursuit route the detectives recovered the discarded sweatshirt and knitted hat they said the shooter had been wearing along with the murder weapon.

DNA recovered from the hat was consistent with Tomlinsons DNA.

Tomlinson did not testify at trial.

Diazs death added fuel to the fire between the two rival gangs and police said led to numerous retaliatory shootings in the city. It also raised Diazs profile in the Green Hollow Boyz and was used to inspire younger gang members. The gang renamed their turf Kahland in honor of Diaz and swore to Kah rather than God, according to city gang task force members.
NEW MILFORD  A controversial solar project that would generate 20 megawatts of power on Candlewood Mountain will no longer get tax benefits from the town.

Mayor Pete Bass notified Candlewood Solar, the projects developer and a subset of Ameresco, that the town would not implement the negotiated payment in lieu of taxes agreement from February 2017.

Ameresco officials could not be reached for comment.

The project, which was approved by the Connecticut Siting Council last year, would clear-cut about 70 acres of trees to install about 60,000 panels.

It was opposed by residents and environmentalists who argued clear-cutting the 70 acres or so of trees would harm wildlifes habitats on the mountain, reduce property values and cause erosion. Pilots at adjacent Candlewood Farms also argued the panels would create a glare.

Bass says the town is not implementing the agreement because the project has not, and is not likely to, receive approval from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, which was one of the agreements contingents, according to a press release.

DEEP officials could not be reached for comment.

Under the agreement, the power company and the company that owns the land would pay the town a total of $2.7 million over the solar farms 20-year life span, with amounts increasing from $75,000 the first year to about $200,000 the last year.

The agreement was negotiated by former Mayor David Gronbach and approved by the Town Council in a 5-4 vote with Gronbach casting a rare tie-breaking vote in January 2017. The language was finalized and approved by the council with a 5-2-1 vote the following month.

It drew criticism from business owners in the community who said the tax benefits were unfair.

Company representatives argued that they are paying the same amount of money, just spread out over a longer period of time and the project was not affordable because the panels were so expensive at the start, but depreciated as it went on.

Rescue Candlewood Mountain, a group of residents, filed an appeal of the Siting Councils decision earlier this year, and filed a brief with the Superior Court earlier this month.

Bass said he and Town Attorney D. Randall DiBella learned DEEP opposed the project through that appeal, though they heard some of the concerns from the department during the hearing itself.

DEEP didnt testify during the hearing, though the state Department of Agriculture did, arguing the project clear-cut too many acres of core forest  an initiative the two departments took up last year with the passage of a law.

The law requires the siting council to balance preservation of forests and farmland against promotion of alternative energy projects. However that law went into effect a few days after the petition was filed and so the council ruled it didnt apply.

Since the appeal was filed, DEEP submitted testimony that storm water management and drainage issues were not adequately addressed in the application process and no decommissioning plan was presented.

Bass said when he saw that, he knew the companies cannot fulfill the PILOT agreement.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there is a sharp rise in the number of measles cases across Europe in the first six months of this year. Measles has affected over 41,000 individuals and killed 37, says the WHO.

This week in a report from the agencys Europe office, experts have said that these numbers are higher than the numbers for the whole year in the past decade. In 2017 for example the total number of cases was 23,927 and in 2016 the numbers were only 5,273. Dr. Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO regional director for Europe, said in a statement, We are seeing a dramatic increase in infections and extended outbreaks. We call on all countries to immediately implement broad, context-appropriate measures to stop further spread of this disease. Good health for all starts with immunization.

Measles rash: Image Credit: Phichet Chaiyabin / Shutterstock

Measles is a viral illness characterized by fever, rashes, runny nose, red and watery eyes and often an impaired immune system. In most cases it resolves within 10 days. In some cases, however, it may become life threatening. Some of the life-threatening complications of measles include brain inflammation encephalitis, meningitis, liver inflammation hepatitis, pneumonias and febrile convulsions.

In the 1960s the infection was virtually wiped out of the United States after an effective vaccine was administered to babies. The vaccine offers a combination of protection from measles, mumps and rubella. The infection is highly contagious and often spreads rapidly within the unvaccinated via droplets released on coughing and sneezing. Babies who are too young to be vaccinated are also vulnerable. There has been a recent spike in cases among travellers who are unvaccinated. The spike in cases began around two decades back when an erroneous research paper linked MMR vaccine to autism. This discredited the vaccine and many parents stopped immunizing their children. Unvaccinated populations contracted the infection and it spread rapidly giving rise to these cases.

According to the WHO report, half the cases in Europe (around 23000) have been seen in Ukraine. Nations like France, Greece, Georgia, Russia, Serbia and Italy have over 1000 cases of the infection as well. England has seen 807 cases in the first half of this year.

WHO has called for mass immunization campaigns, raising public awareness and also better surveillance to prevent spread of the infection. They have warned that unless curbed, measles could become endemic in Europe.

According to the Public Health England 9PHE), the cases in England are mostly due to unvaccinated people travelling to areas in mainland Europe where there are outbreaks of measles at present. Dr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisation at PHE explained that most of these cases are among adults and teenagers who have not been vaccinated as children. Anyone who missed out on their MMR vaccine in the past or are unsure if they had two doses should contact their GP practice to catch up.

We would encourage people to ensure they are up to date with their MMR vaccine before travelling to countries with ongoing measles outbreaks, heading to large gatherings such as festivals, or before starting university, she said. The NHS recommends that all children should receive the MMR vaccine around their first birthday and then again before they started school.

Dr Nedret Emiroglu, from the WHO said in a statement, This partial setback demonstrates that every under-immunised person remains vulnerable no matter where they live, and every country must keep pushing to increase coverage and close immunity gaps.
Before surgeon Emily Penman, M.D., begins a mastectomy or lumpectomy, her lightly sedated patient receives a nerve block, an injection of medicine to control pain after surgery.

Its effectiveness, when combined with other anti-inflammatory medications, has lowered the need for opioids while reducing by 30 percent the proportion of patients who experience severe pain in the post-anesthesia care unit.

Christiana Care Health System is successfully reducing its use of opioids systemwide, including in post-surgical prescribing, its emergency departments and in primary care. New evidence of its progress includes:

A 40 percent reduction in the number of opioids prescribed after some ob-gyn and general surgery procedures.

A reduction by almost 50 percent in the rate of opioid prescriptions among discharged emergency department patients.

A 37 percent reduction in primary care patients on chronic opioid therapy for pain in a pilot project.

There is plenty of progress to make. In 2012, Delaware was the nation's No. 1 prescriber of high-dose opioid pain relievers and 17th in opioid prescriptions overall. By 2016, Delaware saw on average a death a day from an opioid overdose.

"We've embarked on a multifaceted strategy to educate providers about responsible prescribing practices, promote non-opioid alternatives to control pain and spread evidence-based guidelines around opioid prescription," said Linda Lang, M.D., chair of Christiana Care's Safe Opioid Stewardship Steering Committee and chair of the Department of Psychiatry.

The overall goals of Christiana Care's efforts are to reduce chronic opioid use, combat addiction and, ultimately, reduce overdose deaths. Because primary care offices are the single largest source of opioid prescriptions, it is there that much of the progress can be made.

Opioids at the doctor's office Whether their pain is sudden or chronic, most patients first go to their primary care doctor for help.

Christiana Care is putting non-opioid alternatives front-and-center in patients' electronic medical record, educating providers about alternatives to pain and identifying patients on long-term opioid use at the highest risk, said Roger Kerzner, M.D., FACC, clinical director for specialty services at the Medical Group of Christiana Care.

There is some evidence that a team approach focusing on high-risk populations can pay off. A pilot project at the Rocco A. Abessinio Family Wilmington Health Center at Wilmington Hospital resulted in a 37 percent reduction in the number of patients on chronic opioid therapy.

Data analysis is one tool the pilot used to identify patients who are at higher risk of addiction and even accidental death from chronic opioid use due to their other medications, health conditions and other factors, said Ed Ewen, M.D., director of clinical data and analytics and a primary care physician at Christiana Care.

These patients' cases were reviewed by a multidisciplinary team that came up with patient-specific recommendations to help them transition out of opioid use.

"We can find those patients and focus on them with a concerted team effort to mitigate their risk," Dr. Ewen said.

Another key focus, Dr. Kerzner said, is to try alternative approaches for patients who started using opioids in the past few months and whose use may become chronic.

Many patients are first exposed to opioids after a surgical procedure, and too many of them eventually become dependent on them.

Delaware OPEN tackles acute pain Building off the work by a grant-funded effort in Michigan called the Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network, or OPEN, Christiana Care developed a straightforward set of guidelines that recommend specific medications and quantities after 21 surgical procedures.

Led by anesthesiologist Matt Powell, M.D., Delaware OPEN intends to reduce the wide variation in the number and type of opioids prescribed after surgeries. Patients who are prescribed more opioids than they need may hold onto them and use them later for ailments like pain, depression or trouble sleeping, he said.

Often, prescribing fewer opioids means accepting some level of pain after a procedure. Dr. Powell says doctors are now talking about pain in terms of function: Can the patient work, sleep and carry out other everyday tasks?

Though the guidelines are optional for prescribers, the early data showing a 40 percent reduction in opioids -; which relates to many of the surgical procedures performed from July 2017 to July 2018 -; shows many are taking the new advice.

On Aug. 15, Christiana Care will host a team from Michigan who will share their results to a statewide audience that includes other Delaware health systems.

Christiana Care's emergency departments, too, are engaged in finding alternatives to treat acute pain.

ED cuts opioid prescriptions in half Christiana Care's three emergency departments are successfully tackling the addiction crisis from both ends by helping those with a substance use disorder access treatment and by prescribing opioids more intentionally.

Its success in cutting by nearly half the rate of opioid prescriptions among discharged patients, to 8 percent in May 2018, owes to a combination of efforts, including the implementation of new opioid prescription guidelines developed by the Delaware chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, or ACEP.

"Our repeated education of Delaware ACEP guidelines, along with initiatives like Middletown's Opioid Alternative Environment and the Suboxone pilot, has helped us treat pain in an appropriate manner without prescribing needlessly," said John T. Powell, M.D., MHCDS, FACEP, chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Christiana Care.

By tapping Project Engage's peer counselors to meet with patients, the emergency departments are identifying those struggling from withdrawal. When appropriate, the emergency department is piloting a program to start these patients on Suboxone, a medication which provides immediate relief from the symptoms of withdrawal, and also connecting them with an all-hours treatment center that offers medication-assisted therapy and counseling. Meanwhile, the Middletown Emergency Department is developing alternatives to opioids in an effort called the Opioid Alternative Environment. That doesn't mean opioids have no place there, but that other methods -; including trigger point injections of anesthetic and, in some cases, IV acetaminophen -; will be tried first.

Removing the fuel for addiction Terry Horton, M.D., chief of Christiana Care's Division of Addiction Medicine, likens the battle against opioid over prescription and addiction to a raging forest fire.

Such a fire, he said, is most dangerous when it can tap into a ready fuel source, like downed trees and dry undergrowth. If you can remove the fodder, you can limit the risk of a major conflagration.

"Our efforts to prescribe opioids responsibly," Dr. Horton said, "are reducing the fuel for that fire."
In a new study, University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers, in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital, have detailed the effect of radiation exposure on the development of hormone deficiency in pediatric and young adult patients treated for brain tumors.

These results, published in the Aug. 17, 2018 online edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, provide evidence that further supports minimizing the dose of radiotherapy to the hypothalamus and pituitary gland and will help predict the risk of hormonal complications for those being treated with radiotherapy for brain tumors.

The hypothalamus is a region of the forebrain that coordinates the activity of the pituitary gland, and together, they regulate many of the hormones in the body that control growth, metabolism, adrenal function and gonadal function.

"There isn't much data defining the dose response of radiation therapy to the hypothalamus and pituitary gland in pediatric and young adult patients with brain tumors," says Ralph Vatner, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and lead author on this study. "We examined the correlation between radiation therapy dosage to these brain structures and development of endocrine dysfunction in this population."

Vatner says dosimetric data--measurement, calculation and assessment of the ionizing radiation dose absorbed by the human body--and clinical information was collected from 222 children and young adults (younger than 26 years old) with brain tumors treated with proton radiotherapy on three prospective studies (2003 to 2016) coordinated by Massachusetts General Hospital.

Proton radiotherapy is a form of radiation treatment used for certain types of cancers and lymphomas. A major advantage over traditional forms of radiotherapy is its ability to deliver radiation to a tumor with remarkable precision, sparing healthy tissues. The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center/UC Health Proton Therapy Center is the only facility of its kind locally and only one of about 28 in the country.

Deficiencies of various hormones, including growth hormone, thyroid hormone, adrenocorticotropic hormone and gonadotropins, were determined using serum collected from patients along with their clinical symptoms, and radiation dose was calculated using the treatment plans for these patients. Statistical models were developed using these data to estimate the effect of radiation dose and age on the development of hormone deficiency.

"Radiotherapy for brain tumors is known to cause hormone deficiency in some patients, and children are especially sensitive to this potential side effect. We were able to analyze data from 189 pediatric and young adult patients treated with proton therapy at [Massachusetts General], with an average follow-up of 4.4 years (between 0.1 to 13.3 years)--the largest study of its kind and the first with patients receiving proton therapy for a variety of brain tumors," Vatner says. "Among these patients, the rate of any hormone deficiency at four years was 48.8 percent, but this was strongly associated with the dose of radiation and the age at time of treatment."

"This provides strong support for the benefits of advanced radiation technologies such as proton therapy for the treatment of brain tumors, especially in younger patients," he continues. "These data will help physicians predict the risk of deficiencies in growth hormone, thyroid hormone, adrenal corticosteroids and sex steroids in their patients receiving radiotherapy for brain tumors on the basis of patient age and radiation dose to the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. Moving forward, physicians can use these models to help navigate their treatment planning and identify patients who will most benefit from advanced technologies like proton therapy that can treat tumors while better sparing healthy normal tissues."

This project was supported by the federal share of program income earned by Massachusetts General Hospital on a National Institutes of Health Grant C06 (CA059267).

Vatner receives honoraria and research funding from Varian Medical Systems, a radiation oncology treatment and software maker.
An estimated 30 percent of all diseases globally require surgical care and expertise, yet global surgeons based in academic health centers (AHCs) often face institutional barriers that make it difficult for them to take the time to offer their services in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, a new position paper from the Association of Academic Surgeons (AAS) Global Affairs Committee, the Society of University Surgeons Committee on Global Academic Surgery, and the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Operation Giving Back (OGB) program contends that surgeons from AHCs have much to gain, including professional education, research experience, and an opportunity to enhance their institution's reputation when AHCs support academic global surgeons from their institutions. The position paper appears as an "article in press" on the website of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons ahead of print.

Making the Case for Global Surgeons

The taskforce that developed the position paper sent a survey to 62 U.S. academic global surgeons to get a sense of who global surgeons are and how they spend their time. The results showed that academic global surgeons typically have appointments at U.S. medical schools and spend dedicated time working with underserved populations, focusing on research, education, and health equity to improve surgical care globally. The taskforce argues that global surgeons can add strategic value to AHCs and surgical departments, but leadership at these institutions may need guidance on what it means to support and meaningfully engage in this emerging field as increasing numbers of trainees aim to establish careers in global surgery.

"With the recognition that there is growing interest among academic surgeons and a role for academic institutions in global surgery, we recognize that there is a need to legitimize the field of academic global surgery," said Jennifer Rickard, MD, MPH, lead author of the position paper and co-chair of the AAS Global Affairs Committee.

To help legitimize the field of academic global surgery, the position paper includes the following recommendations:

Global surgery is a defined academic surgical specialty and avenues for promotion should be clearly delineated within the field. U.S. AHCs and surgical departments should recognize the value of academic global surgery. Due to the large burden of global surgical disease, the field is ripe for productivity in all academic spheres. U.S. academic surgical departments should provide support for academic global surgeons. There are many ways to show support. Protected time and funding are the two greatest needs for global surgeons. However, administrative, logistical, and statistical support are also critical.

"We need to see more and more institutions support global surgery to show that it can be done, and how it can be done, in a way that's accommodating and welcoming to everyone," Dr. Rickard said.

Academic global surgeons face particular challenges in advancing their careers at AHCs because, as the authors note, the standard metrics for promotion in academic surgery translate poorly to an academic global surgery setting. To address this challenge, the authors recommend a list of measurable outputs of global surgical work that could serve as a guide for AHC leadership when considering recruitment, retention, or promotion of academic global surgeons. These outputs include specific metrics within the areas of education, clinical service, and research, among others.

"Global surgeons, because they're working in different cultures, may work better with others, may have more cross-disciplinary collaborations, and may be more likely to be interested in cost-effective or cost-reducing innovations," Dr. Rickard said.

Unifying the Efforts of Global Surgery

A related challenge facing the field of global surgery is that there has been no unifying force to coordinate the efforts of different groups working to bring LMICs access to surgery. To address this challenge, OGB has supported the development of a Consortium for Academic Global Surgery Programs (CAGSP). The consortium had its first meeting at the ACS Clinical Congress 2017 in San Diego, with another meeting planned for Clinical Congress 2018 in Boston, where the plan is to define the mission, vision, and organizational structure of CAGSP. Leaders of academic global surgery programs who are interested in attending this meeting should contact OGB.

"There is a growing interest from academic surgeons as well as residents and students to participate in global surgery. The problem has been that these efforts have been uncoordinated," said Girma Tefera, MD, FACS, a corresponding author of the position paper and Medical Director of OGB. "We are trying to create a platform where academic global surgery programs can join hands and work together so we can better utilize resources and avoid duplication of efforts."

As a way to unify the global surgery efforts of academic global surgery programs, Dr. Tefera said OGB is working to create training hubs around the globe to serve as places to train surgeons, develop collaborative research projects, and foster innovation. The first of these training centers will be in Hawassa, Ethiopia. It will serve as a place where 13 different U.S. academic global surgery programs will collaborate and work together to train surgeons and bring surgical services to sub-Saharan Africa.

"As we develop more training hubs, we will welcome contributions of academic global surgery programs and encourage them to join hands," Dr. Tefera said.
The Academy of Lifelong Learning at Shell Point Retirement Community will host two informative series on some of the worlds oldest continuous civilizations and archaeological history.

The first two-part series, Iran: Its History and Today, will take place on Sept. 11 and 18 at 4:30 p.m. and will trace some of the worlds oldest settlements dating back to 4000 B.C. The second two-part series, The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, will be held on Sept. 25 and 27 from 4:30 to 6 p.m.

Florida SouthWestern State College Professor Adrian Kerr will lead both of the series.

For Iran: Its History and Today, the first session will introduce the Indo-Europeans and uncover the rise and fall of the nation. The second session will discuss how the Islamic conquest of A.D. 650 was a turning point in Iranian history. The series will conclude with a look at recent times and the major shift in Iranian leadership.

For The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Kerr will investigate the wonders and their creators, historical and archaeological evidence. He will also share illustrations from his personal encounters.

Tickets for each session are $10.

To purchase tickets or for more information, call 239-489-8472 or visit www.shellpoint.org.

Shell Point Retirement Community is at 15101 Shell Point Blvd.
Research at Royal Holloway University of London, has suggested a link between patients with epilepsy and patients with bipolar disorder, through investigating a medicine used to treat both disorders.

Valproic acid has been used successfully for many years to treat people with a diagnosis of either epilepsy or bipolar disorder, but there has never been a clear understanding of how it works for these two different conditions. Unfortunately, the drug also has severe side effects, increasing the chance of causing birth defects, if taken by pregnant women.

Professor Robin Williams, Head of the Centre for Biomedical Sciences in Royal Holloway's School of Biological Sciences, and his students have carried out extensive research to discover how the drug works. Their work has been published in the journal Disease Models & Mechanisms.

Robin said: "To enable us to understand how the drug works in both conditions, we carried out tests using a simple amoeba as a research model. Using this model we were able to identify a single protein affected by valproic acid. This protein has previously been associated with both conditions, however, our research has been the first to suggest that it may be the key linking the treatment of both disorders".

"Now that we understand how valproic acid works, we have been able to design potential new drugs that would be effective in treating both conditions, without causing birth defects."

"Successfully developing these new drugs would be potentially life changing for women who want to have children, but depend on valproic acid to manage their condition".

The next step for Robin and his colleagues is to find a partner organisation who will support the development of these new compounds. Development of these new drugs could lead to safer and more effective treatments for patients with epilepsy and bipolar disorder.

The initial research has been funded by NC3Rs.

In the UK, there are around 500,000 people who have epilepsy and around 2.4 million who have bipolar disorder.
Tomocubes revolutionary holotomography technique delivers 3D structural and chemical information quickly and simply without any labeling or pre-preparation

Quantitative characterization of SH-SY5Y cells in the presence of MPP+. Red, Apoptotic cells; Green, Dividing cells; Blue, Normal cells.

A spin-out company from the renowned Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon has been established to commercialize the revolutionary Holotomography (HT) microscopy developed there by Professor Yong Keun (Paul) Park.

Tomocube, the new company sees Park serving as Chief Technology Officer while co-founder Kihyun (Kenny) Hong is CEO. They are joined as Chief Marketing Officer by Aubrey Lambert who spent almost 30 years with Carl Zeiss Microscopy in national and international positions.

Tomocubes novel optical technology will be of interest to all life scientists, especially those using live cells or thin tissues in their work.

HT microscopy is an optical technique analogous to X-ray computed tomography (CT), which exploits laser holography and computed tomography to quantitatively and non-invasively investigate biological cells and thin tissues, simply and rapidly.

The technique reconstructs the 3D refractive index (RI) distributions of biological material to resolve highly detailed structural and chemical information, including dry mass, morphology, and dynamics of the cellular membrane.

Unlike traditional optical microscopes that only provide users with a two-dimensional view of their samples, Tomocubes HT microscopy offers high-resolution 3D images of living cells. However, it does this without the need for labeling or extensive pre-preparation, in stark contrast with expensive atomic force, electron and laser-scanning light microscopes that have been used for detailed 3D studies until now.

According to Aubrey Lambert:

Tomocube is dedicated to delivering products that can enhance biological and medical research and the eventual treatment of diseases. Our platform enables researchers to capture and measure nanoscale, real-time, dynamic images of individual living cells without the need for sample preparation. It also permits the retrieval of unique cell properties, including cell volume, shapes of sub-cellular organelles, cytoplasmic density, surface area, and deformability. Our hope is that in allowing the easy and rapid 3D observation of biological cells, HT microscopy will help more scientists quantitatively study cell pathophysiology.

Source: http://www.tomocube.com/
Rickets is a disease of the growing bones among children that is caused due to deficiency of Vitamin D mainly due to lack of sunlight exposure. It was most commonly seen during the Victorian era due to smog and lack of exposure to sunlight among the children in the cities.

New archaeological evidence has shown that Roman children were also not exempt from this crippling bone deformity. Experts have said that at least one in 20 Romans could be suffering from rickets. The numbers were higher at one in ten among those who lived in the British Isles.

Scientists from Historic England and McAster University in Canada have uncovered evidence that Roman children did not get adequate sunlight exposure. This led to vitamin D deficiency in them and eventually rickets. Rickets was considered to be most prevalent in Britain than anywhere else in the Roman Empire. In the smoggy 19th Century Britain, the industrial towns in Victorian Britain caused rickets in thousands of children. This new finding shows that rickets was prevalent in the Roman Empire nearly 2000 years before that.

Rickets. Image Credit: Alila Medical Media / Shutterstock

The team had embarked upon a three year project examining roman skeletons they had obtained from northern England to southern Spain. In total they looked at 2,787 skeletons from 18 cemeteries across the Roman Empire. They noted that these bones tended to have rickets like deformities in them. According to Simon Mays, a human skeletal biologist at Historic England, rickets seemed to be far from being a new problem. The study was published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

They also noted that the problem of Vitamin D deficiency among Romans was not as bad as that seen in Victorian times. The problem was in seen among one in 20 children and most commonly seen among infants. In the English cementaries, one in 10 children seemed to have bone deformities that looked like rickets. One of the reasons for prevalence of rickets could be keeping babies and children indoors out of sunlight to protect them from the cold. Pregnant mothers who were vitamin D deficient and not exposed to the sunlight passed on their deficiency to their babies. Mayes said, Being indoors away from sunshine was probably a key factor. Infant care practices that were innocuous in a Mediterranean climate may have been enough to tip babies into vitamin D deficiency under cloudy northern skies.

Researchers noted that Roman towns were smaller and had less pollution so the prevalence of rickets was lower than in the Victorian England. At a cemetery near Ostia, Italy there seemed to be more number of cases than anywhere else. Ostia was a port town and had a dense population. People there lived in multi-storey apartment buildings. Megan Brickley of McMaster University, the principal investigator on the project, explained that people living in apartments with small windows also lived in closely spaced areas with narrow streets. This meant they had low exposure to sunlight and were thus deficient in Vitamin D.

As food started becoming fortified with vitamin D, rickets started slowly disappearing during the early 20th century. Awareness also raised the exposure to sunlight among children. In recent years however, there is a surge of vitamin D deficiency among adults and children in UK.

Rickets typically causes bone deformities such as bowed legs, stunted growth and deformed arms. These bones are more likely to be fractured at minor impacts.
RxBenefits, a full-service pharmacy benefits advisory firm, is pleased to introduce its latest innovation, a tailored and flexible approach to managing hospital pharmacy benefits. Providing customized support to hospital employer groups for more than 22 years, RxBenefits uncovered a need to devote greater focus to the development of pharmacy benefits solutions tailored for hospitals and health systems. The RxBenefits approach bridges the gap between hospital-specific resources and the traditional pharmacy model - in an enhanced solution that accounts for a hospital's dual role as an employer and provider.

"For more than two decades, RxBenefits has successfully delivered aggregate pricing terms, concierge service and strategic clinical management to our clients," said Bryan Statham, CEO of RxBenefits. "We've identified a major gap in how pharmacy benefits are managed in the hospital employer space. Each hospital is unique and requires a specialized pharmacy management solution to address their specific challenges. It's exciting to see our services help hospital employers leverage their own resources and opportunities to achieve their pharmacy benefits savings and access objectives."

The more than $962 billion hospital landscape in the U.S. has become increasingly complex. Over the past decade, the significant changes in the market have created financial constraint for hospitals, resulting in the need for controlling costs. From hospitals utilizing prescription medications 10-15 percent more than commercial employers, to specialty medications becoming the largest driver of cost increases facing hospital employers, the need for a customized hospital solution has never been greater.

Owned resources unique to hospitals, like on-site retail and/or specialty pharmacies, 340B/group purchasing, or own-use pricing, are not prioritized or optimized by traditional pharmacy benefit models. Providing best-in-class consultative services, through an account team that is well-versed in the hospital space, RxBenefits is better equipped to address the unique needs of its hospital clients. Since its September 2017 launch, RxBenefits' hospital solution has disrupted the market by identifying impactful contract and clinical opportunities that are unique to each hospital, achieving measurable results that include an average savings of 25-35 percent for more than 100 hospital partners nationwide.

Industry veteran Nathan White leads the hospital program, applying nearly two decades of experience to providing expert leadership and oversight to both hospital and healthcare clients. By blending a background in health care industry relations and hospital account management, White is uniquely positioned to pinpoint the exact needs of an organization and save them money while providing top-notch service.

"We are committed to delivering a best-in-class, flexible service offering tailored to each hospital's individual needs by optimizing health system resources and fully leveraging the capabilities of our pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) partnerships," said White, who serves as Vice President of Hospital and Strategic Markets. "We deliver value to our hospital clients by enhancing their margins while improving employee satisfaction, health outcomes and lowering absenteeism."

Clients utilizing RxBenefits' hospital solution can expect year-over-year pricing improvements, full visibility and client-specific guaranteed terms.
How do muscle cells prepare for the particular metabolic challenges of the day? Scientists at Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen (LMU), members of the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), have investigated this question and published their results in 'PLOS Biology'. The study has uncovered a metabolic network which is, contrary to expectations, not controlled by the brain but rather by the 'circadian clock' of muscle cells.

Circadian clocks are present in all cells of the body, and have a pervasive influence on all aspects of human physiology. This is because they regulate homeostasis by anticipating rhythmic changes in behavior and nutritional state, and by compartmentalizing incompatible metabolic pathways within precise temporal windows. "This applies, for example, to the use of nutrients such as fats and carbohydrates," explains Professor Henriette Uhlenhaut. She is group leader at the Institute for Diabetes and Obesity of Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen (IDO) and the Gene Center of LMU. "If the body's internal clock gets out of synch, however, it can have serious consequences for the body's metabolism. For example, it is known that shift workers are particularly susceptible to metabolic diseases such as diabetes."

In their recent work, the team led by Uhlenhaut turned their attention to the 24-hour metabolic rhythm of muscles. "We focused specifically on two proteins that act as master regulators, positive and negative arms of the circadian clock," says Kenneth Dyar, a scientist at the IDO and lead author of the study. "These two opposing molecules bind to DNA and trigger expression of additional proteins known to regulate lipid and protein metabolism." Using muscle cells from mice, the scientists determined the activity of the two proteins over the course of the day and night. "We measured everything, from DNA binding to gene expression and metabolites," says Kenneth Dyar, explaining the researchers' comprehensive approach. Building upon previous studies, the scientists studied the synthesis and breakdown of fats and proteins over 24 hours - an approach that might also be interesting for athletes.

Uncovering a metabolic network

In collaboration with Italian and Austrian colleagues (from the Venetian Institute of Molecular Medicine and the Universities of Padua, Graz, and Trieste) the researchers identified certain processes that are switched on at night by the regulators of the internal clock: "They include, for example, fat storage, glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity," explains Henriette Uhlenhaut. At the same time, opposing processes such as fatty acid oxidation and protein breakdown are throttled down, according the authors. These patterns are especially pronounced in the hours before awakening and are thought to prepare the muscles for the day ahead.

In the final step, the scientists investigated possible ways to intervene in these processes. To this end, they examined mice lacking these master regulators. Without a circadian clock, the animals were leaner, with less fat and more muscle mass. "Taken together, our work has revealed an entire metabolic network at multiple levels," Uhlenhaut explains. "Another biologically exciting finding is that, contrary to expectations, the key regulator is not centrally located in the brain, but is in fact the internal clock of the muscle cells themselves." In the long term, the authors will investigate the mechanisms also in humans and try to find a way for therapeutic interventions. Their hope is that it might be possible to counteract insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes or to stimulate energy use to combat obesity.

Souce: https://www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/en/news/latest-news/press-information-news/article/44870/index.html
A UTA researcher has won a five-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to look at new ways to harness the body's own defense responses to fight pathogens like bacteria.

"Superbugs, or strains of bacteria that are resistant to multiple families of antibiotics, are an increasingly important problem and can prove life-threatening to patients," said Mark Pellegrino, UTA assistant professor of biology and lead investigator on the grant.

"My team is looking to harness the way mitochondria defend themselves to generate new ways to both boost innate immunity and improve resistance to infections."

Mitochondria have multiple functions within cells, including the production of energy and the metabolism of amino acids and lipids, as well as the regulation of programmed cell death.

When mitochondria are stressed by disease, toxins or infection, a protein enters the cell nucleus and binds to certain DNA sequences to unlock genes to repair the mitochondria. This signaling pathway is called the mitochondrial unfolded protein response.

In previous research, Pellegrino identified the protein ATFS-1 as the regulator of this mechanism in C. elegans, a primitive worm that is studied as it shares many characteristics with human biology. He then discovered that ATFS-1 and this signaling mechanism also play an important role in promoting a mitochondrial-associated defense strategy against infection.

"Mitochondria are an obvious target for pathogens, especially given their role in programmed cell death," Pellegrino said. "We plan to look at the way that pathogens interact with the mitochondria's defense and repair system - ATFS-1 and the signaling pathway - with the long-term goal of developing new treatment options for patients."

Pellegrino joined UTA in 2016 from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York with a grant from The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas to study mitochondrial stress signaling in the context of cancer biology. His previous discovery that mitochondria are an important activator of innate immunity was published in the leading journal Nature in 2014.

His group will be housed in UTA's new Science & Engineering Innovation & Research Building or SEIR, a state-of-the-art teaching and research space focused on health-science discoveries that will be inaugurated in late September.

"One of the reasons I came to UTA was because of the SEIR building project, which really catapults UTA into a new level in teaching and research," Pellegrino said. "I look forward to collaborating with my colleagues across multiple disciplines in this new environment."

Clay Clark, UTA chair of biology, congratulated Pellegrino on his new success.

"Dr. Pellegrino is helping us build a very strong biology program with an increasing emphasis on health sciences," Clark said. "This new grant broadens the scope of his work on mitochondrial stress and immune response and brings a new optic to the issue of how to manage infections."

Source: https://www.uta.edu/news/releases/2018/08/Pellegrino%20release.php
Marvel's new Iron Fist probably is a Chinese hero that's been waiting in the wings for years

Marvel may have revealed the new Iron Fist the moment it announced Danny Rand's retirement
:

Rabat, Aug 21 (IANS/MAP) Moroccan King Mohammed VI granted pardon to 450 prisoners, including 22 convicted in extremism and terrorism cases, the Justice Ministry announced.

The move came after pardon requests by the prisoners. The royal approval was obtained after the prisoners officially announced their rejection of all forms of extremism and terrorism, as well as their firm adherence to the nation and to national institutions, MAP news agency said.

Of the 22 inmates who were convicted in terrorism cases, 17 had their remaining prison terms pardoned, sentences of three were commuted from life imprisonment to fixed prison terms, while two had their prison terms reduced.

The pardon came on the occasion of the anniversary of the Revolution of the King and the People, which is held on August 20 to mark the movement launched by the Moroccan people on this day in 1953 after French colonial authorities exiled the late king, Mohammed V, and the royal family.

The 22 persons granted pardon in extremism and terrorism cases had participated in the second edition of the 'Reconciliation' or Moussalaha programme organised by the jail administration.

The programme, which involves the participation of human rights experts and radicalism experts, provides psychological support and rehabilitation to inmates involved in cases of extremism and terrorism to help them reintegrate with society.

Of those pardoned by the King, 325 prisoners had their prison terms reduced, four had their sentences commuted from life imprisonment to fixed prison terms, while 29 prisoners had their remaining terms pardoned.

--IANS

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  Ruling party PDP-Laban said it has no plans of reconciling with a faction that declared its own leadership, indicating a failure  at least for now  of President Rodrigo Duterte's efforts to unite the two groups.

In an interview with CNN Philippines' The Source on Tuesday, PDP-Laban President Koko Pimentel slammed what he previously called "a rogue assembly," led by its own supposed president Rogelio Garcia.

"The people surrounding him are even unknown to our national headquarters," said Pimentel. "There's nothing to resolve. Non-party members, people with hidden agenda, cannot just shortcut the processes of the party, hold a public event covered by media, and then hope for a compromise agreement and get something in return."

In July, the faction elected Garcia as its president in a public gathering at Amoranto Stadium in Quezon City  causing confusion as to who really runs the ruling party.

Pimentel dismissed the event as a "shortcut to being a party member [and] leader." He maintained some of those present were not even registered members of the party.

Duterte met with the two factions on August 9 and another meeting is scheduled on September 1.

The President sought to reconcile them because "he personally knows Atty. Garcia," said Pimentel.

The senator said the President advised the factions to talk. "Since nothing has come out with the passage of time, we will have to go on," he said. "Why should we be derailed by some incident in Amoranto Stadium of some non-members?"

He maintained that when Duterte met with Pimentel's group privately, he acknowledged them as the legitimate leaders of the party.

No commitment from senatoriables

Pimentel also said that the personalities on the PDP-Laban senatorial line-up have not committed to the party just yet.

He also said the list was just meant to start an internal process that would still go all the way up to the President.

"We have not yet offered [the slots] to anybody, so this is just the result of internal survey within the party, suggestions from party leaders, as well as declaration by a party member  specifically Ka Freddie Aguilar  that he wants to run for the Senate," said Pimentel. "Who am I to disqualify this early? So I included everybody."

No talks with HNP

With the looming 2019 elections, in-fighting is not the only concern the ruling party faces.

Davao City Mayor and Presidential daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio founded regional party Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP), which the President reportedly joined. However, Duterte has since clarified he was not jumping ship.

Nonetheless, Pimentel maintained there was no conflict because PDP-Laban was a national party, whereas HNP was regional.

"A senatorial candidate can be assisted or helped by more than one political party," said Pimentel.

HNP has already joined forces with the Nacionalista Party (NP), Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC), and National Unity Party (NUP). It may also have a coalition with Lakas-CMD, the previous party of President-turned-House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

RELATED: Sara Duterte's party to back Cynthia Villar, Imee Marcos Senate bid

Following talk that other PDP-Laban members could jump ship to Lakas-CMD, House Deputy Speaker Fredenil Castro previously predicted that the ruling party could be "erased from the political landscape."

Duterte-Carpio is also in conflict with PDP-Laban Secretary General Pantaleon Alvarez. Congressmen told CNN Philippines she had a hand in his ouster as House Speaker.

But Pimentel is not worried about this row, or the growing social capital of HNP.

"That's a person," Pimentel said, referring to the enmity between Duterte-Carpio and Alvarez.

"I do not see why it is a threat. Hugpong is a regional party," he added.

The senator also said they were not in talks to join forces with HNP, but he did not shoot down the possibility.

"But I will have to be honest with you: there are no current or pending negotiations towards that effect," he said. "But given that its August... and [the filing is on] October, things can happen very fast."
Following a report of a lost 5-year-old girl near a mountain top near Lake George, a team of a half dozen state Forest Rangers answered the call, quickly spread out and after several hours found the child.

Two of the Rangers where brought to the mountain's summit by helicopter to join in the search.

That incident and others occurred between Aug. 14-17. All specifics below were supplied by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

WARREN COUNTY

Town of Lake George

Search: "On Aug. 17 at 1:50 p.m., Ray Brook Dispatch was contacted by the Glen Island Caretaker. The caretaker had received a broken cell call advising that a 5-year-old female from Barton was separated from her family near the summit of Black Mountain. Forest Rangers were dispatched to Black Mountain and Black Mountain Point. One Ranger was transported by Lake George Park Commission to Black Mountain Point and searched the mountain from the west side. A second Ranger proceeded up the mountain from the east side. Three additional Rangers were inserted at the summit by helicopter and worked their way down. An additional Ranger proceeded up the Pike Brook Road Trail. During the search, the subject was located in good health at 3:34 p.m. near the shoreline of Black Mountain Point. The subject advised the Rangers that she became separated from her siblings and continued downhill. She was located in good condition, but wet and cold from recent rains. She was warmed up, fed, and rehydrated prior to her family's arrival. No medical attention was required and the subject was released to her family at 4:47 p.m. The incident concluded at 5:15 p.m."

ST. LAWRENCE COUNTY

Town of Colton

Search: "On Aug. 16 at 8:18 p.m., Ray Brook Dispatch received a request for assistance in locating a 61-year-old female hiker from Los Angeles, CA, who had been missing since early Thursday afternoon. The subject was last seen heading into the woods at 3:15 p.m. Three Rangers were dispatched to Lake Marion near the camp to look for the subject. Search operations continued through the night. On Aug. 17, four additional Rangers joined the search effort. At 8:51 a.m., the subject was spotted from the summit of Iron Mountain swimming across Iron Pond toward Lake Marion. A canoe was sent out to retrieve her. The subject was cleared by EMS and released to her family at 10 a.m. The incident concluded at 11:45 a.m."

BROOME COUNTY

Southern Tier & Finger Lakes Flooding

Rescue: "Due to excessive rains, flooding occurred in multiple locations in New York's Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions last week. In response, DEC deployed two swiftwater teams that included four airboats, kayaks/rafts, and 20 Forest Rangers trained in water rescues. On Aug. 14, the teams conducted multiple rescues in the town of Conklin while assisting local authorities. On Aug. 16, the teams surveyed the Susquehanna River looking for hazards and infrastructure damage. On Aug. 17, an airboat team assisted the New York State Department of Transportation with a bridge inspection in the town of Conklin. The bridge over Snake Creek was reportedly damaged by flood water."

SENECA COUNTY

Flood recovery effort: "On Aug. 14, the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services (DHSES) activated the State Incident Management Team to respond to flooding in the Finger Lakes region. This multi-agency team helps provide additional command and control during large-scale emergency operations. Four Forest Rangers were assigned to the team in a variety of roles, including deputy incident commander, planning section chief, situation unit leader, and logistics section chief. The team is helping to manage the recovery operations in Seneca County."

HAMILTON COUNTY

Town of Indian Lake

Rescue: "On Aug. 16 at 10:45 a.m., Ranger Bruce Lomnitzer was on water patrol on the Indian River when he observed a 63-year-old male subject from Bethesda, MD, struggling after he capsized his boat on the Indian River. The subject unsuccessfully tried to swim ashore in Class 3 rapids. Ranger Lomnitzer retrieved subject and brought him to shore before going after the subject 's gear and boat, which the Ranger successfully retrieved. The subject did not require medical attention and the incident concluded around 11 a.m."

Town of Long Lake

Bear issues: "In response to reports of increased black bear activity earlier in the week, Forest Ranger Jim Waters was assigned to patrol DEC's Golden Beach Campground on Raquette Lake. During the early morning hours of Aug. 17, Ranger Waters observed a large bear at the campground. Ranger Waters successfully hazed the bear to discourage it from foraging for food. The bear quickly left the campground. Forest Ranger patrols continue to be assigned to Golden Beach Campground to monitor bear activity. Forest Rangers are also working closely with campground staff to ensure all campers and day use visitors are storing food securely and out of reach of all wildlife and that garbage is disposed of properly."

ESSEX COUNTY

Town of North Elba

Rescue: "On Aug. 16 at 2:29 p.m., DEC Dispatch received a request for assistance for a 59-year-old male from Brandon, Vt., who sustained a knee injury below Wright Peak on the Algonquin Trail. The knee injury was non-ambulatory. Forest Rangers were assembled for a rescue mission and New York State Police Aviation was contacted for a possible hoist mission to retrieve the subject. Rangers assembled at the Lake Placid Airport, where the helicopter met them for the hoist operation. One Ranger was inserted by helicopter and reached the subject at 3:30 p.m. The subject was hoisted out at 3:40 p.m., and lifted to AMC Saranac Lake for treatment. The incident concluded by 4 p.m."
China paid US$2.5 billion for twenty-four SU-35 fighter jets which have thrust-vectoring engines for super-maneuverability.

The Su-35 is powered by two AL-117S turbofan engines and fitted with thrust-vectoring nozzles enabling it to perform post-stall maneuvers at low speeds.

The Su-35 also features a multifunctional radar capable of tracking up to 30 targets simultaneously  and purportedly able to engage with up to eight  as well as a newly integrated receiver for Chinas Beidou satellite navigation system.

China will be able to learn to build better jets by learning from the technology in those planes.
RADA Electronic Industries Multi-Mission Hemispheric Radars (MHR), which are embedded in the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Drone Dome counter-drone solution, will be delivered to the British Army in the coming months. These systems will be used to protect from airborne drones some sensitive facilities and sites on which British armed forces are deployed. The British Army is the first customer for this new and advanced Drone Dome system.

RADAs MHR provides 360-degree surveillance and detects the drones at distances of 3-5 kilometers. Signal intelligence system along with electro-optical sensors, provide additional layers of threat classification and identification, while RF jamming provides the soft-kill layer of this solution.

Each system includes radars, electro-optical (EO) identification and signals intelligence systems and electronic jammers that disable the drones datalink or navigation systems.

The system can direct its soft kill jamming capability across a narrow area to avoid disruption of other legally-operated unmanned systems in the area.

The Drone Dome is capable of disabling an airborne UAS with a two-second concentration from its 5Kw hard kill laser effector, the system is described as having a technology readiness level (TRL) of around 6-7 and a range of 2 kilometers.
HAMDEN  People will have the opportunity to learn about modern electric vehicles first hand Sept. 8 at the Electrify Your Drive! car show and informational event at Miller Memorial Library.

Town resident Robert Langdon, who is organizing the event along with his wife, Beva Nall-Langdon, is hoping to educate people about electric vehicles, he said Monday.

It is being held as part of the annual Drive Electric Week effort organized by Plug In America, the Sierra Club and the Electric Auto Association, and is sponsored by (e)lectric vehicle (EV) drivers and enthusiasts, the Town of Hamden, and the Hamden Energy Use and Climate Change Commission, according to posted information.

Langdon said he took his first foray into the market about six years ago, purchasing a Toyota Prius, which is a hybrid powered by fuel and batteries. This past November, he transitioned to a Chevrolet Bolt, which runs entirely on battery power.

He said his driving experience has not changed dramatically since he moved to an electric vehicle.

Theres some difference in how the car brakes  it immediately slows when you take your foot off the accelerator, using the energy to recharge the battery instead.

But he can commute between his Hamden home and Guilford without issue, as the Bolt is designed to go approximately 240 miles on a full charge, and he said the interior is accommodating for his 6-foot-plus frame. Hes been surprised how much he likes driving it  theres no real sense of compromise, he said.

Langdon said he was motivated to buy an electric vehicle by a desire to help combat climate change.

He noted that motor vehicle travel creates a significant portion of U.S. carbon emissions. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, as of 2016, transportation accounted for 28.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States  which, in turn, contributes to global warming.

Its an issue that matters to Langdon, and he said getting into his car used to leave him feeling guilty.

There can be a negative feeling every time you get in your car, said Langdon. You fire up that engine and say, here we go again.

Now, hes able to hit the road with a clear conscience.

Langdon said he hopes sharing more information with attendees of the Electrify Your Drive! event will help break down mystery around the vehicles.

Attendees will be able to speak one-on-one with owners of electric vehicles, he said, and question-and-answer sessions will be held, as well.

Vehicles including Chevrolet Bolts, Volts and Nissan Leafs are expected to be there for test drives.

The most important part of the event is to educate people, said Langdon. (The vehicles) arent that mysterious.

The event will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Langdon also is helping to set up a similar event in Old Saybrook, which will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 15 at the Saybrook Point Pavilion.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com
In 1989 Russian president Boris Yeltsin's wide-eyed trip to a Clear Lake grocery store led to the downfall of communism.

It was Sept. 16, 1989, and Yeltsin, then newly-elected to the new Soviet parliament and the Supreme Soviet, had just visited Johnson Space Center.

RELATED: The true story of when Dennis Hopper came to Houston and nearly killed himself

At JSC, Yeltsin visited mission control and a mock-up of a space station. According to Houston Chronicle reporter Stefanie Asin, it wasn't all the screens, dials, and wonder at NASA that blew up his skirt, it was the unscheduled trip inside a nearby Randall's location.

Yeltsin, then 58, "roamed the aisles of Randall's nodding his head in amazement," wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution."

Shoppers and employees stopped him to shake his hand and say hello. In 1989, not everyone was carrying a smart phone in their pocket so Yeltsin "selfies" weren't a thing yet.

Yeltsin asked customers about what they were buying and how much it cost, later asking the store manager if one needed a special education to manage a store. In the Chronicle photos, you can see him marveling at the produce section, the fresh fish market, and the checkout counter. He looked especially excited about frozen pudding pops.

RELATED: What did Houston look like in 1987?

"Even the Politburo doesn't have this choice. Not even Mr. Gorbachev," he said. When he was told through his interpreter that there were thousands of items in the store for sale he didn't believe it. He had even thought that the store was staged, a show for him. Little did he know there countless stores just like it all over the country, some with even more things than the Randall's he visited.

The fact that stores like these were on nearly every street corner in America amazed him. They even offered him free cheese samples.

By contrast, this is what a Russian grocery store looked like at the same time.

According to Asin, Yeltsin didn't leave empty-handed, as he was given a small bag of goodies to enjoy on the rest of his trip.

About a year after the Russian leader left office, a Yeltsin biographer later wrote that on the plane ride to Yeltsin's next destination, Miami, he was despondent. He couldn't stop thinking about the plentiful food at the grocery store and what his countrymen had to subsist on in Russia.

RELATED: When Fidel Castro came to Houston to eat barbecue and schmooze with locals

In Yeltsin's own autobiography, he wrote about the experience at Randall's, which shattered his view of communism, according to pundits. Two years later, he left the Communist Party and began making reforms to turn the economic tide in Russia.

Maybe you can blame those frozen Jell-O Pudding pops he's seen marveling in those Chronicle photos.

"When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people," Yeltsin wrote. "That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it."

The leader himself stepped down on the last day of 1999 after years of trying to bring a new system to Russia. The cronyism in place only managed to stifle Yeltsin's dream for his country. Corruption and perceived incompetence plague his final years in office. Leaving the Kremlin voluntarily is said to have kept him from criminal prosecution.

His successor was Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took over as acting president. Putin had been an aide to Yeltsin in the years previous.

Yeltsin died in 2007 at the age of 76.

The Randall's he visited, just off El Dorado Boulevard and Highway 3, is now a Food Town location.
NEW HAVEN  An advocate for the homeless has been charged in connection with the distribution of K2 in the city, just days after more than 100 overdoses, many of which took place on the Green.

Quentin Q Staggers, 47, of New Haven, was arrested on a federal criminal complaint that charges him with conspiracy to distribute, possession with intent to distribute, and distribution of synthetic cannabinoids, or K2.

Tom Carson, a spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office in Connecticut, said there is no public information connecting Staggers to distributing the tainted K2 and that the affidavit and search warrant are sealed.

Staggers, wearing a tan jumpsuit, appeared Tuesday in front of Judge Sarah A. L. Merriam for a detention hearing.

Margie Staggers, Staggers mother, said she found out Friday that her son had been arrested. She said she doesnt know if the allegations are true but said people cant believe everything they hear.

Merriam said Staggers was subject to a rebuttable presumption  he would detained unless his lawyer Kelly M. Barrett can reasonably assure the safety of any other person and the community if he is released.

Barrett said during the court proceeding that she had discussed several options with the probation office, but none were available at this time. Barrett said Staggers has an extensive history of substance abuse and addiction and is looking into an in-patient treatment facility.

Merriam then ruled Staggers will be detained until Barrett can present evidence to such a facility, and then the matter can be readdressed.

As Staggers was placed back in handcuffs, he locked eyes with his mother and said, Love ya, Mom.

I love you too, sweetie. Behave yourself, Margie Staggers said.

Absolutely, he replied.

Staggers was the third man arrested on charges related to K2 following last weeks more than 100 overdoses by 47 people on the city Green. Some of those who overdosed are homeless. Staggers was homeless for several years, living on the Green for a period of time.

He started advocating for better conditions and more opportunities for the homeless community  and in November 2017 participated in a march called Housing Not Jail, which demanded the decriminalization of homelessness and provide housing for all  and was to secure housing in October 2017 through a voucher system funded by the state Department of Housing, according to his testimony during a legislatures Appropriations Committee hearing.

Felix Ayala Melendez, 37, and John Arthur Parker, 53, both of New Haven, also have been arrested in connection with the K2 overdoses.

Both Parker and Melendez have been identified by victims/ witnesses in the ongoing New Haven Green K2 Overdose case. Both have been directly linked to the sale and/ or distribution of K2 to some of those victims, police spokesman Officer David Hartman said in a release.

Emergency personnel were stained during a 72-hour period as they responded to one emergency call after another last week. City Office of Emergency Management Director Rick Fontana said things started to calm down about 10 p.m. Thursday, when the men allegedly responsible for the distribution of the tainted K2 were taken into custody.

A preliminary investigation revealed Melendez was allegedly responsible the distribution of the tainted K2 and police were aware he had an outstanding warrant for violation of probation for alleged failure to complete substance abuse evaluation and treatment, according to an officers affidavit.

Officers headed to Melendezs residence, and he was taken into custody without incident. A friend of Melendezs told investigators Melendez buys and uses K2 but wasnt sure if the 37-year-old distributed it, the report said.

Melendez then told officers he had K2 in a bag, which contained a green leafy-like substance weighing around 5 grams. Officers also found a half-smoked blunt and 30 zip-close packets containing a green plant-like residue, which tested positive for the presence of synthetic cannabinoids, the report stated.

Additionally, an informant told police last Wednesday an individual known as JP was selling K2 on the Green. The informant said when emergency personnel and police officers arrived, JP left the scene and returned to a hotel where he had been staying, according to a separate officers report.

From previous investigations, police knew John Parker, who had an active arrest warrant for allegedly selling K2 on the Green Feb. 26, used the moniker JP.

Officers went to the hotel where Parker was staying and subsequently arrested him. Parker consented for his room to be searched, and officers allegedly found 33 Ziploc bags containing a green and brown leafy plant-like substance, the report said.

Parker told investigators he had been selling K2 to make enough money to pay for a hotel so he is not homeless. He said he buys around three bags of K2 at a time from Bridgeport, for approximately $10 apiece and then separates the bags into six or seven smaller zip-close bags.

Parker said by selling each bag for $3 to $5 apiece, he makes around $200 per week. However, he said he smokes K2, so he doesnt make too much money, according to the report. He said he left the area when the overdoses started.

Melendez and Parker are both charged with possession of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell. Parker also is charged with sale of hallucinogens. Melendez also is charged with violation of probation, and Parker additionally charged with sale of a controlled substance.

Police said in a release that all of the K2 samples tested for this case by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency were positive for Fubinaca, a synthetic cannabinoid.

jessica.lerner@hearstmediact.com; @jesslerner on Twitter
LUDWIGSBURG, Germany - Before Allied forces liberated Nazi Germany and the survivors of Adolf Hitler's death camps more than 70 years ago, tens of thousands of Nazi criminals who were directly involved in the Holocaust disappeared.

Some escaped abroad. Others hid in German cities, moving into houses with people they would have sent to their deaths under the Hitler regime.

Few of them faced justice - until now, perhaps.

At least 23 alleged Nazi criminals who are believed to have worked in death camps were already facing charges in Germany and Austria by June, marking a dramatic increase compared with previous decades, according to a document German prosecutors shared with The Washington Post.

On Tuesday, that number increased further, as the White House announced that it had deported 95-year-old Jakiw Palij, the last known alleged former Nazi guard living in the United States. The resident of the Queens borough of New York was arrested Monday and deported to Germany early Tuesday, according to the U.S. Embassy in Berlin. Palij was moved to a nursing home upon arrival in the city of Dusseldorf, Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. officials indicated that the deportation was the result of negotiations by "President Trump and his team" and "collaborative efforts with a key European ally," Germany.

Palij was born in what today constitutes Ukraine but was part of Poland at the time. After the end of WWII, he left Europe for the United States, where he became a citizen in 1957 by hiding his Nazi past. But 17 years ago, in 2001, Palij admitted his involvement with the Nazi SS, Hitler's feared paramilitary organization. Prosecutors argue that documents prove Palij's knowledge and participation in the Holocaust, in which more than 6 million Jews and millions of other victims were killed.

Palij admitted to U.S. officials in 2001 that he was trained at the SS paramilitary camp in the town of Trawniki where units were specifically prepared to participate in the Holocaust. The now 95-year-old also worked at Trawniki's labor camp the same year the Nazis massacred 6,000 Jews there. Palij has maintained that he did not participate in any killings.

Authorities took away Palij's U.S. citizenship in 2003, and the former Nazi guard lost an appeals process two years later, but administrative challenges dragged on until now because it was unclear to which country Palij should be deported. All three European countries involved in the case - Germany, Ukraine and Poland - refused to accept Palij.

U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell indicated in a briefing call on Tuesday that President Donald Trump had taken a personal interest in Palij's case. "I don't know how he learned of the case, but it was very clear that he knew this individual as a Nazi guard and wanted him out of the United States," Grenell said.

The ambassador said he brought the issue up in a number of recent meeting with German officials. "The president asked me to do this  they could tell we were making it a priority."

"(The Germans) saw this as a moral obligation that they had, not so much a legal obligation," said Grenell, referring to Palij not being a German citizen.

In Germany, Palij will be one of two dozen Nazi suspects whose cases are now under investigation by the country's dedicated Nazi crimes agency, based in the city of Ludwigsburg, or have already been transferred to local prosecutors.

All the agency's suspects are in their 90s, and some are likely to die ahead of any sentencing or could be declared unfit to stand trial. More than 70 years on, there is little time to be lost: It could be the last chance for Nazi criminals to face justice for crimes that continue to represent the worst of mankind.

How many more individuals will be charged largely depends on Jens Rommel, Germany's sixth chief prosecutor for Nazi crimes. "All of my five predecessors assumed that they'd be the last person in this office," said Jens Rommel.

"In recent years, though, we've made some remarkable progress," said Rommel.

It's a remarkable turnaround, given that there was little reason for such enthusiasm only a few years ago, after German prosecutors for decades faced hurdles that made it impossible to charge a wide range of suspects despite evidence of their Nazi past.

"By 1960, murder and abetting murder were the only Nazi-era crimes that prosecutors could charge," Elizabeth Barry White, a senior historian with the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, explained last year. High-ranking Nazi officers were often only charged with lesser offenses because their direct responsibility for the killing of one or more individuals could not be proved based on the narrow German jurisdiction. In many cases, lower-ranking guards or soldiers such as Palij were not even prosecuted at all.

"As time passed and the higher-ranking perpetrators died out, the pool of potential defendants shrank to those against whom evidence was hardest to find," White said. A new approach was needed, and it came after a court convicted former Nazi guard John Demjanjuk in 2011.

Before 2011, prosecutors needed to provide evidence that guards had themselves murdered Jews or other Nazi opponents. But the Demjanjuk verdict was based on a dramatically different approach: His mere presence at the Nazi death camp was sufficient to establish responsibility for the killing.

Demjanjuk later appealed the sentence but died before a court could evaluate his claims. The new legal framework's viability was only proven two years ago when another former guard lost his appeal following a similar sentence.

At the time, many feared that it may also have been the last.

And while the verdict may have led to the sentencing of hundreds more guards if it had come years earlier, the recent increase in investigations has led to new optimism among Germany's Nazi prosecutors, said chief prosecutor Rommel, sitting in his Ludwigsburg office filled with books about the Nuremberg trials and a map of WWII Germany.

Rommel and his colleagues mainly rely on documents found in archives or in memorial sites of former death camps. The unit's eight investigators then painstakingly compare the entries found in equipment or sick lists to establish a suspect's identity. Once they've found a possible match, Rommel's team checks whether the individual could still be alive.

"In 95 percent of cases, this isn't be the case," Rommel said.

In the agency's basement, tens of thousands of paper documents are stored that include details on convicts or clues that may eventually give away the identities of more suspects. It's the world's most comprehensive database of Nazi criminals.

But as German authorities assumed that active cases were going to drop, the archives were never digitalized. The agency's bureaucratic paper trail isn't the only challenge. Cases are also slowed because the Ludwigsburg-based Nazi crimes agency handles only early stage investigations that are later taken over by local prosecutors. "It takes time for prosecutors to review and understand the evidence [and] given the age of the suspects, their capacity to stand trial can change very quickly, so that a once-promising case can overnight become impossible to prosecute," explained historian White.

Investigators aren't sure how long they will be able to continue their work, because of the advanced age of the identified suspects.

Walking through his agency's headquarters, surrounded by thousands of files cards with details on the Nazi criminals he and his predecessors hunted, Rommel acknowledged that the job had taken a personal toll on the investigators, especially as time is now running out.

"I don't take those papers home with me. I just wouldn't be able to let it go," he said.

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The Washington Post's Seung Min Kim contributed from Washington.

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Video: The Post followed a group of young Jews and Muslim refugees who toured the world's most notorious Nazi death camp and talked about the nature of intolerance in 2018.(Luisa Beck,Sarah Parnass,Griff Witte/The Washington Post)

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NEW HAVEN  City officials say the third phase of the Board of Education Security Alarm Fire Emergency Response program is wrapping up in the final dozen schools as the school year begins next week.

BESAFER  which increases surveillance in schools with nearly 3,000 total cameras, makes that footage accessible to first responders remotely and limits access to buildings to first responders holding key cards during lockdown procedures  was largely funded by a state bonding program.

New Haven Public Schools Chief Operating Officer Will Clark said the district would be interested in another round of funding so it could bring all of its technology up to date.

We planned it and had enough resources to put in for three phases, he said. We found through this process that we need to upgrade our servers for the higher quality of video.

Members of a citywide school security committee met Tuesday morning to run a tabletop drill, wherein Emergency Operations Director Rick Fontana presents officials with an emergency scenario, and they devise a response, calling upon their protocols. Clark said that morning it had been a scenario of a disgruntled spouse entering a school to confront a teacher; in that scenario, he said, the first priority is to close off the school and make it secure.

Police Chief Anthony Campbell said the city has revisited its security protocols with recent school-based mass casualty events such as a shooting spree in a Parkland, Fla., high school earlier this year. The protocols make schools accessible to all law enforcement personnel, he said, and has improved communication between departments.

Brian Zahn / Hearst Connecticut Media

Police department spokesman Officer David Hartman took members of the press on a tour of a New Haven police mobile response vehicle, where officers have the ability to sync the radio frequencies of multiple agencies through computers, so emergency personnel can communicate between departments during a school lockdown.

Mayor Toni Harp said it is almost inconceivable for those of us of a certain age to have active shooter drills, but in todays climate, that preparation is essential.

There is perhaps no greater responsibility we have as a city than to safeguard the children of city residents, she said.

Superintendent of Schools Carol Birks said there currently are nine uniformed school resource officers, who work security functions in city schools but are paid by the police department, and seven hires were approved last week for the districts own security team at the same meeting 17 school counselor layoffs were tabled.

Weve had cuts and reductions, [the hires] get us to a level with a daily staff, Clark said.

Clark said the citys students are accustomed to seeing police in schools, because they are learning the layout of every building as part of security protocol and the district also employs a community policing approach to school security.

brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com
Photo: CTV

More arrests were made Monday outside Kinder Morgan's Burnaby terminal.

Five people were arrested as doctors and protesters gathered to voice opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.

Dr. Tim Takaro said forest fires raging across B.C. are a symptom of climate change that will only get worse.

"I have children and I'm a public health physician, it's my job to stand in the way of projects like this that run contrary to public health," Takaro said. "We know these increased warming trends are giving us much higher risks of fire in our forests."

I'm here because I think this project represents an enormous public health risk, to the air and to the water, both locally and globally, Dr. Peter Pare said.

The five arrested were blocking access to the terminal gates. They were released from custody on a promise to appear in court.

More than 200 people have been arrested at the site since March.

 with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: Contributed

Montreal's city council unanimously adopted a motion on Monday calling for the federal government to ban the possession of handguns and so-called assault weapons across the country except for members of security forces and other authorities mandated to posses firearms.

The resolution follows a similar motion passed by Toronto city council in July after a gunman opened fire on the city's Greektown district, killing two people and injuring 13 others.

Coun. Alex Norris, who tabled the motion, told the assembly the problem of guns in cities won't be solved with a local ban and, thus, a nation-wide prohibition on certain types of weapons is necessary.

"(A local ban) would be a half measure and completely inefficient because it would be simple to import firearms acquired in another part of the country into the big cities."

The city's motion also calls on the federal government to strengthen its gun-control bill, known as C-71, which doesn't prohibit the private ownership of handguns or military-grade firearms.

Norris's motion excludes members of the Canadian Armed Forces, police as well as other authorities mandated to possess firearms.

He said the motion doesn't target shotguns or hunting rifles, but takes aim at handguns and firearms known as "assault weapons," which Norris described in the past as "police or military-style weapons."

Montreal's police union released a statement applauding the motion, saying it is "always in favour of a strict control over the possession and circulation of firearms."

The president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, however, said last week the country's gun laws are "very good" and his organization wasn't seeking any wholesale legislative changes in response to recent gun violence.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said his government is "listening attentively" to the council motions from the nation's two largest cities.
A disabled veteran and his family filed a lawsuit in federal court Friday, stating they were harassed for having a service dog at a zoo.

Jonathan and Jacqueline Hinker of North Cape May filed a seven-count lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Camden Friday against Cape May County, the Cape May County's Sheriff's Department, and other defendants, alleging they were harassed for having a properly identified service dog while at the Cape May Zoo, run by the county.

The Hinkers visited the zoo Aug. 20, 2016, with their service dog and allege zoo employees and sheriff department officers confronted the family about having the dog in the zoo and "unlawfully and improperly harassed, bullied, and intimidated Hinker and his family" during the visit.

The suit also stated employees and sheriff department officers confronted the family, asking why the dog was in the zoo and other information, Hinker claims was private. The family was subsequently told to leave the zoo, according to the claim.

The lawsuit states Jonathan Hinker has post-traumatic stress disorder after a brain injury while serving in the military. The injury, along with bilateral hearing loss and eyesight issues, qualified him to be assigned a service dog.

The family says the zoo violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by not allowing the family to have "full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations of its place of public accommodations." The family also suffered permanent psychiatric and emotional distress due to the visit, they claim

Attorney Derek G. Timms of Singley & Gindele said the Hinkers were improperly treated while spending the day with his family and service dog at the Cape May County Park facility.



"Singley & Gindele recognizes the importance of protecting the rights of Veterans of military service," Timms said in a statement. "They take great pride is advocating on behalf of Veterans with respect to their benefits and protections. George Singley, a partner of Singley & Gindele, is a Marine Corps Veteran himself and understands the many obstacles that Veterans face. Singley & Gindele will vigorously enforce the protections that should have been afforded to Jonathan Hinker, and are available to assist all Veterans."

According to Cape May County spokesman Denis Brown, the county cannot comment at this time because the county had not been served with the complaint.

The family is seeking damages, along with attorney fees and other court-related costs.

Chris Franklin can be reached at cfranklin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @cfranklinnews. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips
A 55-year-old Newark man was arrested and charged with fatally stabbing a deli worker in East Orange last week.

Roberto Ubiera, 55, of Newark. (Essex County Prosecutor's Office)

Roberto Ubiera was charged with murder in the slaying of Tarlok Singh, 55, of East Orange, the Essex County Prosecutor's Office announced on Tuesday.

Singh, who worked at the Park Deli & Grocery on North Park Street, was stabbed Friday morning around 7:30 a.m., prosecutors said.

He was pronounced dead at the deli.

Ubiera did odd jobs at the deli, according to the prosecutor's statement.

He is being held at the Essex County jail and is scheduled to have a detention hearing on Aug. 23.

Singh was a well-liked member of the community who was kind to everyone, residents told ABC7.

Following the attack on Singh, members of the Sikh community took to social media to condemn the attack. It had been the third violent attack on a Sikh in the United States in three weeks.

Prosecutors did not state a motive for the attack on Singh.

Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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Federal prosecutors in Newark on Tuesday charged 16 alleged members of the Bloods street gang with drug-trafficking crimes, bringing to 27 the number of defendants charged in what the FBI described as an elaborate crime ring run from an affordable housing development.

Keith Herd, the drug ring's alleged leader. (Essex County Correctional Facility)

The U.S. Attorney's Office in a statement said the alleged members of the Brick City Brims, a local set of the Bloods, had controlled the sales of heroin and crack cocaine around the New Community Corp. development, near 14th Avenue and Hayes Street in the city's Central Ward.

In addition to their retail customers, authorities said, gang members operating from the New Community Manor apartment building at 72 Hayes St. also sold their wares to other dealers.

Reached by email, a spokesperson for New Community Corp. said officials were not available to comment on the investigation Tuesday afternoon.

Investigators believe the gang sold roughly 600 bricks of heroin a week for the length of the conspiracy, which prosecutors said they penetrated with the aid of surveillance, informants and telephone wiretaps.

Prosecutors said the 16 newly charged defendants had been led by Keith Herd, also known as "Beefy," who was charged in March along with 10 other alleged members of the organization, one of whom has since pleaded guilty to drug charges.

A detailed 16-page affidavit filed with the most recent criminal complaint shows federal agents have had their eye on the alleged dealers as early as November 2016.

Investigators spent more than a year using cooperating witnesses to make controlled buys from the dealers, an FBI agent wrote, using hidden audio-video equipment to record each purchase.

Those charged Tuesday, authorities said, were:

Anthony Brinson, 27, of Newark

Kayron Caldwell, 26, of Newark

Calvin Cheek, 47, of Newark

Murad Fleming, 18, of Newark

Sherod Green, 25, of Newark

Furad Loyal, 30, of Newark

Jaquwin Marlin, 30, of Newark

Khalif Nash, 20, of Newark

Zahir Nash, 19, of Newark

Dimani Newby, 25, of Newark

Nasir Sanders, 21, of Newark

Shawn Scott, 32, of Newark

Kahlid Windley, 31, of Newark

Stephan Young, 19, of Newark

Jeray Alson, 28, of Vauxhall

Sean Collins, 50, of East Orange

In the affdavit, an FBI agent said each member of the gang was provided with five to 10 bricks of heroin a day for sale, and could obtain more when needed from drug supplies stashed in certain apartments.

It was in one of those apartments that investigators conducting a raid of the building in November found Loyal, a previously convicted felon, hiding near a 9mm handgun, 17 rounds of ammunition, nine bricks of heroin and approximately $10,000 cash, the agent wrote.

He faces federal weapons offenses in addition to drug possession and conspiracy charges, prosecutors said.

Of the 16 new defendants, nine were in custody as of Tuesday morning, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Cheek, Loyal, Marlin, Scott, Windley and Young were expected to make their initial appearances in U.S. District Court before a magistrate judge that afternoon.

It was unclear from court records whether any of the six had attorneys who could comment on the charges.

Note: The headline has been corrected to reflect that only nine of the 16 defendants were in custody as of Tuesday morning.

Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips
SECAUCUS -- A pair of teenagers from West New York face charges related to a stolen car that was found the same day two minors led police on a wild car chase that ended in a fiery crash, authorities said.

The teenagers, ages 15 and 16 years old, are charged with receiving stolen property and conspiracy to commit receiving stolen property in connection to a Ford Focus that was found abandoned on Hudson Avenue on Aug. 3.

The charges are the second set of offenses the 15-year-old faces in relation to the Aug. 3 mayhem. That day, police said their arrested the boy and another teenager from West New York after they led the authorities on a car chase and crashed a stolen Acura SUV in Laurel Hill Park.

The pursuit began when the SUV, which was reported stolen out of West New York, drove through a construction site at First Street and Flanagan Way. The vehicle narrowly missed striking two construction workers, but came in contact with the Ford Focus, also stolen out of West New York, authorities said.

Both vehicles fled the scene after the minor collision, with police pursuing the Acura. At that time, the 15-year-old was in the Ford Focus, but eventually got into the driver's seat of the Acura, police said.

When the chase entered the park, the Acura rammed three police cars before it struck a large rock and went airborne. The SUV caught fire when it came back down and came to a stop, Miller said, adding that the teens were then removed from the vehicle.

Both were evaluated at the scene by medical personnel, but refused additional treatment, Miller said.

After the incident in the park, witnesses told police they saw two males get out of the Ford Focus on Hudson Avenue and leave the area, Miller said.

A follow-up investigation of the theft of the Ford led to the 15-year-old's arrest on Aug. 16 and the 16-year-old's arrest the next day.

They were both released to their parents.

Miller thanked the Hudson County's Regional Fatal Collision Unit, which investigates serious car crashes, and the Hudson County Sheriff's Office for their assistance in the investigation.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify that the 15-year-old was rearrested on Aug. 16 following his initial arrest on Aug. 3.
JERSEY CITY  One of the four Jersey City cops facing charges over a June 2017 police pursuit that ended in a fiery crash on Tonnelle Avenue wants his indictment tossed, telling a Hudson County Superior Court judge that county prosecutors bungled the case.

Francisco Rodriguez is a rookie facing four charges related to shots he fired at the car that cops were pursuing on June 4, 2017. Rodriguez's attorney, Brian Neary, filed a brief Monday seeking to have all the charges dropped, arguing in part that prosecutors have unfairly connected Rodriguez with officers accused of kicking an innocent man set ablaze by the crash.

The case received massive media attention after video surfaced of officers kicking the innocent man, Miguel Feliz-Rodriguez. Neary says in his Aug. 20 motion that his client had nothing to do with the actions of those officers and calls it "egregious" that prosecutors discussed that incident with a grand jury along with the "wholly unrelated" allegations against Officer Rodriguez. The grand jury indicted the four men on Nov. 2.

The description of Feliz-Rodriguez attempting to put out the flames to his head and body was "enough for a grand jury to indict anyone put before them," the brief says.

"The prosecutor could have easily presented this incident into a separate grand jury and spared the defendant the grievous misfortune of being lumped in with police officers that allegedly committed an assault on an innocent human being," the brief says. "This error by the prosecutor is inexcusable and tantamount to intentional misconduct."

At the time officers allegedly kicked Feliz-Rodriguez, Neary says, Officer Rodriguez was helping evacuate the nearby motel "to keep them safe from the fire."

Neary also argues that prosecutors withheld "exculpatory evidence" from the grand jury about Leo Pinkston, the man police were pursuing. He says Pinkston allegedly told police that, prior to the chase, he had been "smoking cocaine all night" and that a crash investigator concluded Pinkston was driving 20 mph over the speed limit during the pursuit. Neither of these details were presented to the grand jury, according to Neary, who says if they were, Officer Rodriguez may not have been indicted.

Asked to respond, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez said in a statement, "It is our position that this matter was handled appropriately and beyond that we have no further comment as it involves pending litigation."

The other men accused in the investigation of the pursuit are MD Khan, Eric Kosinski, and Keith Ludwig. The grand jury indicted them on a total of 25 counts. Khan and Kosinski face attempted murder charges. All four men have pleaded not guilty and their attorneys have argued they acted appropriately.

The high-speed pursuit began in the city's Greenville section on the night of June 4, 2017 and lasted for six miles as cops chased Pinkston north. Authorities have said officers initially attempted to stop Pinkston's car because it matched the description of one connected to an earlier crime.

The charges against Officer Rodriguez stem from him shooting at Pinkston's car as it drove by him at Tonnelle and Manhattan avenues. New Jersey has guidelines for officers who pursue suspected criminals. Among them is a ban on firing weapons from or at moving vehicles "except as a last resort to prevent imminent death or serious injury" to themselves or another person.

Neary's brief says Officer Rodriguez shot at the car three times because Khan and Kosinski, who were two blocks south at Carlton Avenue, shot at Pinkston's car a total of 12 times. Officer Rodriguez did not know the shots were coming from police officers and shot at Pinkston's car because he believed "his life and the lives of others (were) in grave danger," Neary's brief says.

The brief indicates that part of Officer Rodriguez's defense is to highlight the alleged misdeeds of two of his co-defendants. Officer Rodriguez "could be seen as a victim of Officer Khan and Kosinski's mistake, and not an actor who should have been indicted," the brief says.

Requests for comment from attorneys for Khan and Kosinski were not returned.

Anthony J. Iacullo, Ludwig's attorney, told The Jersey Journal he will also file motions on behalf of his client seeking a dismissal of the indictment.

"Lt. Ludwig maintains that his actions were proper and necessary under the emergent circumstances that he was compelled to respond too," Iacullo said.

Khan was fired for an unrelated matter, while the other three officers remain suspended by the department.

Pinkston on Feb. 5 pleaded guilty to eluding and aggravated assault related to the chase and Feliz-Rodriguez's injuries. He was sentenced to over six years behind bars. Feliz-Rodriguez has sued Jersey City, seeking millions in damages.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
Former Gov. Jim McGreevey's parents were the victims of a home invasion in their Carteret home early Saturday morning, sources told The Jersey Journal.

Two men entered the couple's residence and held them at gunpoint, demanding money and valuables, the sources said. The ex-governor's parents were rattled but not physically harmed, they said.

Neither man has been found but authorities have identified at least one of them, according to the sources. A car connected to the suspects was later found in Jersey City, the sources said.

A request for comment from McGreevey, who lives in Jersey City, was not returned. The former governor runs a prisoner re-entry program based in Jersey City that has expanded to include eight other locations.

A Carteret police spokesman referred all questions to Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey, who said in a statement that his office is investigating the Aug. 18 incident along with other law enforcement authorities.

Carteret borders Woodbridge, where McGreevey was mayor from 1992 to 2002.

An earlier version of this story should have said McGreevey's tenure as Woodbridge mayor began in 1992.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
An off-duty Jersey City police officer and another man beat a man unconscious and then continued to pound away in downtown Hoboken early Sunday morning, police said.

Erik Castro, who has been on the police force for a little more than a year, and Kely Nunfio, both 24, were each charged with aggravated assault in the incident in the area of First and River streets, Hoboken police Lt. Edgardo Cruz said.

Castro has been suspended without pay, Jersey City police spokeswoman Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione said.

Hoboken police responded to the report of a fight at 2:56 a.m. and found a crowd of about 40 people milling about and an unconscious man on the ground bleeding from his face, Cruz said.

The injured man was being tended to by several bystanders and a Hoboken police officer. Police dispersing the crowd were told that Castro and Nunfio, both of Jersey City, were the two who knocked out the man.

Castro and Nunfio were still at the scene and Castro told officers that he struck the victim. Witnesses said Castro and Nunfio struck the victim several times, knocking him unconscious and then continued to hit the victim while he lay prone on the ground, Cruz said.

The two were arrested and Castro was released on a summons, while Nunfio was taken to Hudson County jail in Kearny, Cruz said. Both appeared in Criminal Justice Reform Court on Monday.

The victim suffered serious head trauma and remains under observation at the Jersey City Medical Center.
When former Woodbridge resident Narsan Lingala approached the hitman he wanted to hire, he showed up to the meeting with more than just his ex-wife's name in mind -- he had photos of her and her home.

That's according to the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office, which on Saturday arrested Lingala and his girlfriend Sandya Reddy on attempted murder and conspiracy charges.

The office alleges the hitman they met with was an undercover officer, and the suspects were there to discuss the planned killing of Lingala's ex-wife, a North Brunswick resident.

Documents reviewed by NJ Advance Media on Monday in connection with the case indicate detectives recorded phone calls with the couple, who now live in Noblesville, Indiana, outside Indianapolis.

After her arrest in Woodbridge on Saturday, investigators said, Reddy, 51, gave a videotaped statement to police in which she admitted her knowledge of the murder plot.

In a statement announcing the arrests, the prosecutor's office and township police said the charges stemmed from a three-month investigation conducted with the help of the FBI.

The prosecutor's office has not publicly commented as to an alleged motive, though documents indicate Lingala, 54, has a past history of domestic violence allegations, having previously been served with a temporary restraining order.

Superior Court records show he was charged criminally in 2012 with contempt of court for an alleged restraining order violation, but the matter ultimately was transferred to family court.

Lingala has owned his own information technology consulting company, LMN Solutions Inc. since 2008. His LinkedIn page also listed multiple other short-term IT jobs, including a 2016 gig working on servers for the Tennessee Department of Treasury.

He may have been facing financial issues, according to several court filings.

A 2017 appellate court decision in New Jersey, in which the court ruled against him, shows Lingala had agreed to pay $358 a week in child support to his ex-wife. In his unsuccessful appeal, he argued the agreement should have been nullified because his income was overestimated and because he'd been in handcuffs - in court - during part of the negotiations.

Lingala's detention in that instance was for allegedly violating a restraining order in Massachusetts.

Lingala also has been named in lawsuits in Superior Court over the last few years related to a business deal that fell through when he allegedly lost his financing during the purchase of a construction company in 2015.

Both Lingala and Reddy were scheduled to make their initial court appearances on Monday afternoon. Court records show the prosecutor's office has filed motions to keep each jailed pending the end of their respective case.

Lingala's court-appointed attorney could not immediately be reached for comment Monday evening.

It was not immediately clear from court records whether Reddy had an attorney who could comment on the charges.

Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett.

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An invasive exotic tick species spreading in New Jersey has turned up in Monmouth County, marking the sixth county to see the tiny parasite, officials said Tuesday.

The Longhorned tick, also known as the East Asian tick, was discovered on the floor of a home with a dog, but it was not clear if it was ever attached to the pooch, according to the state Department of Agriculture. Another dog also recently visited the house.

"It is important for the public to continue to submit tick samples as this will allow us to identify new areas where this tick may be located," Dr. Manoel Tamassia, the New Jersey Department of Agriculture State Veterinarian, said in a statement. "Only with this knowledge, will we be able to make decisions at local and national levels."

The tick has previously been found in parks, including Davidson Mill County Pond Park in Middlesex County and Watchung Reservation, Houdaille Quarry Park, and Briant Park in Union County, according to officials.

Longhorned ticks have also been confirmed in New York, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Arkansas. How the tick, which is native to China, Russia and the Korean Peninsula, arrived in the United States remains a mystery, but officials believe it could have arrived on a dog.

Last August, a farmer went to a Hunterdon County health office covered in thousands of the ticks after she was sheering an Icelandic sheep, named Hannah. Experts identified the Longhorned tick, which was not previously reported in the United States.

"Various local, state, and federal animal health agencies, as well as Rutgers Center for Vector Biology, continue to work together to identify the range of the Longhorned tick in New Jersey," state officials said in a news release. "Longhorned ticks that have been collected in New Jersey thus far have tested negative for various human and animal pathogens."

Similar to deer ticks, the nymphs of the Longhorned tick are extremely small and resemble tiny spiders, the agriculture department said. They can easily go unnoticed on animals and people, and have been known to spread disease in other countries. The tiny ticks infest a range of species, including humans, cats, dogs and livestock.

State agriculture officials setup a phone line for anyone who finds a tick on themselves, pets or livestock and has questions: 1-833-NEWTICK (1-833-639-8425. Tick reports can also be submitted at the NJDA website.

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Photo: CTV

Firefighters have contained a small wildfire on the West Vancouver waterfront.

The blaze broke out Monday afternoon in some bushes off railway tracks near the 3300 block of Sunset Lane.

The fire covered an area about 15 by 30 metres by 5 p.m.

A couple of nearby homes were briefly evacuated, but the residents were allowed home by 6 p.m.

There's no word yet of the cause of the fire.

 with files from CTV Vancouver
Many people in South Jersey would readily supply the most obvious answer to the question posed by Republican U.S. House candidate Seth Grossman: "Why am I called a bigot?"

Suffice it to say that Grossman's self-assessment, in an op-ed published in our print edition Monday, may vary greatly from the assessment of outsiders -- notably, the GOP's own national congressional committee. The committee cut ties with the 2nd District nominee, passing up an opportunity to back a campaign that could keep an "open" seat in Republican hands.

Grossman's inelegant posts, tweets, and interviews, in one of which he called diversity "a bunch of crap," do not use the typical racial, ethnic, homophobic or misogynistic slurs that the worst of our political candidates now feel the freedom to utter. For that, we have a Monroe Township (Gloucester County) school board candidate who just called it quits over the weekend.

Richard Jankowski of Williamstown, swell guy that he is, has referred to black people as "animals," and in one widely cited Facebook post, stated, "... time to start firing bullets into these (expletive) monkeys and send them to their graves." He was referring to protesters gathered to decry the controversial shooting of a black citizen by a white police officer. The specifics provide context, but nothing close to an excuse for Jankowski's comments.

His colorful language captured the attention of The Washington Post and other national media, putting an undeserved stain on a lot of good Monroe Township citizens of all races -- not counting the 26 who inexplicably signed Jankowski's nominating petition and qualified him for the ballot. Current school administrators had to defend the district and the township, even though they had nothing all to do with Jankowski or his abbreviated candidacy.

Yet, where Jankowski talks the racist talk, leaving nothing to the imagination, South Jersey's citizenry should be more concerned at how Grossman got to where he did. He's on the fall ballot as the standard-bearer for one America's two major political parties, in a closely observed contest that would normally attract hundreds of thousands of outside dollars for both sides.

Grossman used his op-ed to point out that he is Jewish, that he went to a minority-heavy Atlantic City high school and that, as an attorney, he has represented many African Americans in legal matters. Maybe, but his highly provocative views were well known before he entered the GOP House primary. Republican political organizations in some 2nd District counties are still backing him, if not financially, by refusing to ask him to stand down.

In some ways, Jankowski's belated apology and withdrawal from his school board contest are a more self-aware reaction to the negative things he has inflicted on his community.

Although the GOP party machinery backed another candidate in the House primary, Hirsch Singh, it failed to get the job done by coalescing effectively around Singh, and failed to limit the number of candidates splitting the non-Grossman vote.

"Open" primaries are usually good things, but not when party leaders fail to prevent the likely outcome from being a fall nominee who's a known embarrassment.

Jankowski is a loose cannon who was running in a non-partisan, low-stakes, board of education race. No one else in Monroe needs to take any blame whatsoever for his rantings or the broad dissemination of them.

Can South Jersey's Republican hierarchy say they're equally blameless for what their rogue congressional candidate says or does?

Send a letter to the editor of South Jersey Times at sjletters@njadvancemedia.com

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A Colorado man told police that he killed his pregnant wife in "a rage" when he discovered she had strangled their two daughters after he sought a separation, according to an arrest affidavit released on Monday.

Colorado prosecutors, though, filed formal charges earlier in the day, accusing the former oil and gas worker of murdering his entire family days before he was interviewed by local television stations and pleaded for his missing family's safe return home.

Christopher Watts, who is being held without bail, is due back in court on Tuesday morning to be advised of the charges filed against him. His wife Shanann Watts listed herself as being from Passaic and records show she previously lived in New Jersey.

District Attorney Michael Rourke declined to answer most questions about the case Monday but said his office has three prosecutors assigned to it. Rourke also said it was too early to discuss whether he will seek the death penalty.

Under state law, the top punishment for homicide is the death penalty or life in prison.

The arrest affidavit was sealed at prosecutors' request until Monday, a frequent request in Colorado as prosecutors determine what charges to file after someone has been arrested.

After filing charges, prosecutors asked a judge on Monday to unseal it -- revealing Watts' confession that he had killed his wife and his accusation that she was responsible for the deaths of 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste. The document also says police confirmed that Christopher Watts was having an affair with a co-worker, something he denied in earlier conversations with investigators.

According to the affidavit, early on the morning of Aug. 13 Christopher Watts told his wife that he wanted to separate. She had returned from a business trip a few hours before their conversation.

Watts told police that he walked downstairs, leaving his wife in their bedroom. When he returned, Watts said he checked a baby monitor on Shanann's nightstand and saw his wife strangling their youngest daughter. He said the monitor also showed their oldest daughter sprawled on her bed, looking blue.

Watts, 33, said he then "went into a rage" and strangled his wife.

He told police that he loaded all three bodies into his work truck, and then he buried his wife at an oil work site and dumped the bodies of Bella and Celeste inside oil tanks.

Autopsies have been completed but not released. A judge on Friday denied a request by defense lawyer James Merson to require the coroner to collect DNA from the necks of the children.

Watts faces three first-degree murder charges, two counts of murdering a child, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.

The charges come a week after a friend reported Shanann Watts, 34, and the girls missing.

Before his arrest last week, Christopher Watts lamented in interviews with local television stations about missing his wife and daughters. He spoke in front of their home in Frederick, a small town on the grassy plains north of Denver where fast-growing subdivisions intermingle with drilling rigs and oil wells.

Police spoke with Watts several times before he was arrested late on Wednesday, according to the affidavit. It says Watts initially told police that his conversation with Shanann about a separation was civil but emotional. Watts later told police that both he and his wife were "upset and crying" and Shanann told him she was going to a friend's house that day.

FILE - In this Aug. 16, 2018, file photo, Christopher Watts is escorted into the courtroom before his bond hearing at the Weld County Courthouse in Greeley, Colo. Charges were filed Monday, Aug. 20, 2018, against 33-year-old Watts in the deaths of his pregnant wife and their two young daughters. (Joshua Polson/The Greeley Tribune via AP, Pool, file)

The bodies were found on property owned by Anadarko Petroleum, one of Colorado's largest oil and gas drillers, where Watts had worked as an operator. He was fired on Wednesday. Court documents filed by Merson said the girls had been submerged in crude oil for four days.

The affidavit says Watts gave police an aerial photograph of the area and identified three areas where he placed the bodies. Investigators used a drone to search the area and spotted a bed sheet that matched other linens found in the family home, along with fresh dirt.

Family and friends have said they were shocked by the slayings, saying the family seemed happy and Christopher Watts appeared to be a good father. The social media accounts for Shanann Watts, who was from North Carolina, are filled with photos of the family smiling and playing and posts praising her husband and expressing excitement about the couple expecting their third child.

A June 2015 bankruptcy filing showed that the family was dealing with financial strain, including tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, student loans and medical bills totaling $70,000 in unsecured claims along with a sizable mortgage.
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, who has been battered by millions of dollars worth of attack ads from Republican opponent Bob Hugin, began fighting back Tuesday with his first commercial of the campaign season.

The commercial began running two weeks before Labor Day, the traditional start of the campaign season. It's the first of a series of broadcast, cable and online ads to run between now and Election Day.

"The stakes in this election couldn't be higher," Menendez campaign spokesman Steve Sandberg said. "Bob Menendez has always stood up for New Jersey and been right on the issues that New Jersey families care about. Bob Hugin is a far-right Republican out of touch with New Jersey values who got rich ripping off cancer patients and who's too afraid to stand up to Donald Trump."

Hugin, a former Celgene Corp. executive who has already pumped $15.5 million of his own money into the race, has been on the air since before the June 5 primary. Of the $8.6 million spent through June 30, $6.3 million went for media.

Those ads helped hold Menendez's share of the Democratic primary vote to 62 percent against community newspaper publisher Lisa McCormick, who reported raising no money for her campaign.

Menendez spent just $1.4 million during the same period as Hugin while building a campaign bank account of $6.4 million and holding off going on the air until now.

His initial commercial doubled as both biographical and a way to attack Hugin.

He narrated the ad himself, showing pictures of Union City, where both he and Hugin grew up. He criticized his opponent's record at Celgene, which fought a lower-cost alternative to its Revlimid cancer drug, and for supporting Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

"I never forgot my roots. He has," Menendez said. "I'm fighting for equal pay and affordable health care; he's for corporate tax breaks. I'm working to lower prescription costs; Hugin gouged cancer patients. And I'm standing up to Donald Trump. He donated hundreds of thousands to him."

In response, Hugin cited Menendez's relationship with a friend and campaign donor, Dr. Salomon Melgen, who was convicted of Medicare fraud. The Senate Ethics Committee "severely admonished" Menendez for receiving gifts and trips from Melgen while intervening with federal agencies on his behalf.

"Bob Menendez's career of corruption and self-service is an embarrassment to our shared hometown," Hugin said. "The people of Union City are honest and decent, and Bob Menendez is neither. He sold his office and took $1 million in illegal gifts from a convicted felon, and has failed New Jersey for 25 years in Washington by raising our taxes again and again, letting our infrastructure crumble, and creating a mess in both immigration and health care. It's time for a change."

Menendez is strongly favored to win re-election by the two Washington-based publications that track Senate races, the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections.

While two polls taken earlier this year gave Menendez double-digit leads over Hugin, a Fairleigh Dickinson University Poll released in May gave the incumbent just a 28 percent to 24 percent advantage, with almost half the electorate, 46 percent, saying they were undecided.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
A Union County man has been found guilty of killing his girlfriend on Easter two years ago and fleeing to North Carolina with their infant daughter.

A jury in Elizabeth on Friday convicted Arturo Alomas, 35, of the murder of Trenice Johnson, 26. John Esmerado, the prosecutor's office investigations supervisor, announced the outcome in a news release Monday. Assistant Prosecutor Armando Suarez handled the case.

Johnson's family found her dead in her apartment at the Mravlag Manor public housing complex in Elizabeth around 6 p.m. on March 27, 2016. Her hands were bound with duct tape.

At the time, Claiborn Pryor -- Johnson's father -- said his daughter was a victim of domestic abuse. To victims he urged: "Tell someone. The same thing that happened to my daughter can happen to (anyone's) sons and daughters."

An autopsy showed that Johnson was killed by strangulation.

On the same day of the killing in 2016, authorities in North Carolina arrested Alomas at a traffic stop. He attempted to elude police before then, Esmerado said. The daughter, then 2-months-old, was found in Alomas' car.

Alomas is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 12 and could face life in prison since he has seven prior indictable convictions (robbery, burglary, theft, eluding police, aggravated assault).

Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JBrandt_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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New Jersey State Police are seeking the public's help in identifying a man who kicked his way into a Harmony Township home and tried to steal something.

A man on July 31 kicked his way into a Harmony Township home before fleeing in a black Acura MDX, New Jersey State Police report. (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com)

The man about 2:45 p.m. July 31 forced his way into the home but eventually encountered a resident, police said on Facebook. The man ran out of the home, leaving what he was trying to steal behind, police said.

He got into a black Acura MDX outside the home and another man drove away, police said.

One of the men was in his mid 20s and approximately 6 feet tall, police said.

The state police Forensic Photography and Composite Artist Unit created a sketch of the home invader based on the resident's recollection.

Anyone with information can contact Detective Adam England at the Washington barracks at 908-689-3101. Anonymous tips are welcome, police said.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
The Times-Picayune is marking the tricentennial of New Orleans with its ongoing 300 for 300 project, running through 2018 and highlighting 300 people who have made New Orleans New Orleans, featuring original artwork commissioned by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune with Where Y'Art gallery. Today: businessman Alden McDonald.

The icon: Alden McDonald.

The legacy: Throughout his life, Alden McDonald has been a go-getter, starting with odd jobs in his neighborhood and continuing with a job at a bank that he liked -- a lot. Before his 30th birthday, McDonald was the head of Liberty Bank, which has become the oldest black-owned bank in the Gulf South, offering African-Americans, many of whom were in the growing middle class, entree to financial services that previously had been out of reach. McDonald built his bank, and rebuilt it after Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding, which destroyed bank buildings, bank records and the homes of many Liberty customers, including McDonald's. But Liberty has come back: According to the latest report at www.ibanknet.com, it has more than $600 million in assets, compared with $350 million before the storm.

The artist: D. Lammie Hanson.

The quote: "People remain poor only because they have not had the opportunity to open a door. Once a door is open for them and they are pointed in the right direction, they can perform like anyone else." -- Alden McDonald Jr., in a 2001 interview with The Times-Picayune

Explore more of Hanson's work online at WhereYart.net and in person at the Where Y'Art gallery, 1901 Royal St.

When McDonald was a youngster, his nickname was "Manyjobs" because he was always taking advantage of odd jobs such as mowing lawns, teaching driving, and delivering prescriptions to hone his skills and earn money.

By John Pope, contributing writer

Source: The Times-Picayune archives; www.ibanknet.com; The New Orleans Tribune; The New York Times; staff research

More on 300 for 300:
The jet carrying rapper Post Malone made a safe landing Tuesday afternoon after circling New York and Connecticut with two blown out tires for several hours.

"i landed guys," he tweeted at 4:13 p.m. "thank you for your prayers. can't believe how many people wished death on me on this website. f*** you. but not today."

The A Gulfstream Aerospace GLF-4 blew two tires while taking off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey around 10:50 a.m, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

After two diversions and five hours in the sky, the jet landed at New York Stewart International Airport in New Windsor just before 4 p.m., the FAA said in a statement.

The agency will continue to investigate the incident.

A live stream from CBS showed the plane make a fairly smooth landing, in spite of its damaged tires. Firefighters and other rescue personnel rushed onto the runway after it touched down.

TMZ reported Tuesday afternoon that Post Malone, fresh off winning song of the year at the MTV Video Music Awards Monday night, was on board the plane bound for Luton, England. He is scheduled to perform in Reading and Leeds on Friday and Saturday in the United Kingdom.

Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Photo: Contributed

Twenty-one properties near Darke Lake Valley have been placed on an evacuation alert.

The Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen issued the alert due to the threat of the Darke Creek wildfire north of Faulder in Electoral Area F.

"Because of the potential danger to life, health, and property damage, the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen(RDOS) has issued an evacuation alert for the lands indicated in the attached mapped area which include 21 properties and Darke Lake Provincial Park," stated the RDOS in a release to media.

Photo: Contributed

"The RDOS is aware that residents in this area were put on Evacuation Alert exactly one month ago due to the Mount Eneas fire. We can appreciate how the high activity of wildfires and the amount of smoke in the area can make residents feel uneasy. We want to thank all residents for preparations and patience during this time. The RDOS has been in communication with BC wildfire Services and crews are responding to the area immediately."

Two new fires have been sparked in the area in the past 24 hours.

The evacuation alert was issued due to the four-hectare Darke Creek fire.

BC Wildfire Service is actioning the fire with both tankers and helicopters. The fire is listed as "out of control."

"A new 4 ha. fire near Darke Creek is currently burning ~15 km northwest of Summerland and seven km north of the Princeton-Summerland highway. We are responding with six ground personnel, airtankers and two helicopters. More updates will be provided as they become available," stated the BCWS on Twitter.

The second fire is considered a spot fire and is at the south end of Darke Lake.
Family members of the 15-year-old boy fatally shot in Algiers Saturday night (Aug. 18) have identified the teen as Chance Smith.

The Orleans Parish Coroner's Office previously identified him as Chad Smith.

The shooting was reported by NOPD shortly after 6:30 p.m. in the 3900 block of Sullen Street. First responders rushed Smith from a house while performing CPR. He was taken to University Medical Center, where police said he died shortly after.

No suspects have been named, nor have police released further details about the shooting.
A black girl with extensions was not allowed to attend classes at a Terrytown private school because administrators said her hairstyle was against school policy, family members confirmed Tuesday morning (Aug. 21). Their comments on social media quickly gained national attention, including those of rapper T.I. and social activist Shaun King.

Montrelle Fennidy confirmed Tuesday morning that her 11-year-old daughter Faith is no longer a student at Christ the King Elementary School in Terrytown. She was in the process of finding a new school for her 6th grader.

This is the second time in the past week or so that a private school in the South has received attention for hair policies that some say are not inclusive of black students' hairstyles. Last week, a 6-year-old boy in Florida was turned away from his Christian school because he had dreadlocks. The video of his father's interaction with the school quickly went viral.

The archdiocese in statement said the girl's hairstyle violated the Terrytown school's requirement that all students have natural hair.

A video of Faith, shot by her brother Steven Fennidy, went viral Monday after he posted it on Facebook. In the video shot Monday, Faith is shown in tears as she leaves Christ the King. She's wearing a school uniform and has her hair styled in a shoulder-length ponytail.

Off camera, a woman can be heard asking, "What's wrong with her hair?"

In his Facebook post, Steven Fennidy said Faith has been going to the school for two years and wearing extensions. However, his post said, the school changed the policy over the summer and no longer allows extensions, clip-ins and weave.

School officials did not respond Tuesday to multiple calls from NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. The Archdiocese of New Orleans on Tuesday released the following written statement from Superintendent RaeNell Billiot Houston:

Archdiocese of New Orleans schools develop policies appropriate for their respective schools. Christ the King Elementary School has a policy that states: "Boys and Girls: Only the students' natural hair is permitted."

This policy was communicated to all parents during the summer and again before the first day of school, and was applied to all students. Furthermore, the school leadership worked with families as needed to ensure compliance.

We remain committed to being a welcoming school community that celebrates our unity and diversity.

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Houston told WGNO.com that school officials told Faith and her parents during the first week of school, which was last week, that her hair was not in compliance with the policy and should be fixed.

"The child had her hair re-done on Friday of last week and reported to school today," Houston told WGNO on Monday. "The new hairstyle was still not in compliance with the new hairstyle policy. At that point, the parent made the decision to remove her child from the school."

The Fennidy family told WWL-TV they are meeting with a lawyer about filing a discrimination lawsuit.

---

Here are some of the social media posts that are going viral Tuesday morning about Christ the King. (Caution: Strong language)

Tokyo Vanity is on VH1's "Love and Hip Hop Atlanta" and says Faith is her niece. She has 1.6 million followers on Instagram.

T.I. is a rapper with 8.8 million followers on Instagram.

Shaun King is an activist and a columnist for The Intercept and The Appeal. He has 1 million followers on Twitter. He posted several tweets about the school, including the school's phone number.

---

Carlie Kollath Wells is a morning reporter at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Have an early-bird tip? Send it to her: cwells@nola.com or Twitter @carlie_kollath.
A $237.7 million plan to deepen the main channel of the Mississippi River to 50 feet from Baton Rouge to the Gulf of Mexico cleared a major bureaucratic hurdle earlier this month - a recommendation of approval by the Army Corps of Engineers senior civil engineer. The decision was praised Friday (Aug. 17) by Gov. John Bel Edwards, members of the state's Congressional delegation, and officials with the shipping industry.

James Dalton, director of civil works for the corps, concluded that the 5-foot increase in the river's depth will result in average annual benefits of $127.5 million to the nation's economy, compared to average annual costs of $17.7 million.

Dredging the channel 5 feet deeper will allow modern "New Panamax" vessels, built larger to use the widened Panama Canal, and "Post Panamax" vessels that may be too large for the canal, to reach as far north as Baton Rouge, as long as their superstructure fits below the Crescent City Connection bridge in New Orleans.

It also will reduce the present costly practice of loading some ships with less cargo weight than their size allows, or unloading cargo from ships before they enter the river's mouth. Officials also hope that the deeper dredging will increase the intervals between required maintenance dredging.

"This is truly a great moment for Louisiana and the thousands of men and women whose livelihood depends upon the Mississippi River," said Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards in a news release. "One in five jobs in Louisiana is tied to our ports and this project will help to make our world-renowned port system even more competitive, while creating opportunities for manufacturers, growers and producers who rely on our ports up and down the entire Mississippi River."

The final proposal, which still must be approved by the White House Office of Management and Budget and Congress, represents a major expansion from the tentative plan submitted to public review in December 2016. Congress must also include funding for the project in its fiscal year 2019 budget, and money for the increased cost of annual dredging - estimated at $17.7 million - in future annual budgets.

About 80 miles of river through and below Baton Rouge have been included in the deepening project, adding to both the cost of dredging and of relocating major pipelines and utilities buried beneath the present river bottom.

In his approval memo, chief engineer James Dalton said the project will now cost $237.7 million, compared to a 2016 estimate of $88.9 million. The memo was sent to R. D. James, assistant secretary of the Army for public works on Aug. 3.

According to a corps spokesman, the state's share of that cost could be as much as $119.6 million, which includes $39.4 million, or 25 percent, of the actual deepening project construction costs.

The other $80.2 million attributed to the state is the cost of relocating pipelines and other utilities that run through the river. Both the corps and state estimate least half of the relocation cost will be picked up by the utility owners, and not the state, thanks to relocation requirements that were included in permits allowing them to use the river bed.

The state expects to use a variety of sources of money to pay for its share of the project, including the state's annual capital outlay budget, or other federal grants, said Rodney Mallett, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation and Development, which is acting as the non-federal sponsor for the project.

An earlier version of the dredging project, without the Baton Rouge extension, would have cost the state about $22.2 million.

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The project will deepen the main shipping channel an extra five feet where needed along 256 miles of the river as it passes through four of the nation's top 15 ports measured by tonnage: the Plaquemines Port, Harbor and Terminal District; Port of New Orleans; Port of South Louisiana; and Port of Greater Baton Rouge. Those ports handle more than 500 million tons of cargo a year, including 60 percent of the nation's grain and are connected to 14,500 miles of inland navigable waterways.

The southernmost part of the project is between river mile 13.4 above Head of Passes near Venice and mile 22 below Head of Passes, at the river's mouth. The portion of the river below Head of Passes is Southwest Pass.

The navigation channel in that area would be officially deepened from the present 48 feet below its lowest low-water level -- during lowest tidal levels -- to 50 feet, but in reality it would be 54 feet in the beginning. That's because the dredging also would include 2 feet of "advanced maintenance" and 2 feet of allowed "overdepth", both aimed at increasing the time between required maintenance dredging.

Material dredged in the lower river would be used to build about 2.2 square miles of new wetlands in the federal Delta National Wildlife Refuge and the state Pass A Loutre Wildlife Management Area. Material dredged from the southernmost 2 1/2 miles of Southwest Pass will be placed in an existing ocean dredge material disposal site.

Upriver, the project will require dredging of a dozen "river crossings," the straight reaches of the river between river bends, with the sediment deposited in deeper water areas just downstream, where it will flow downriver.

"More commerce on the Mississippi means more jobs for Louisiana workers and more economic opportunity in our state," said U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La.

"This project is a win on multiple fronts," said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.. "It will open the Mississippi River to larger ships and help us remain globally competitive. It also will help us create more wetlands and protect our coast."

"Louisiana is our nation's gateway to the world for commerce, so it is vitally important we continue to be globally competitive in shipping capacity," said House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson. "Deepening the Mississippi River Ship Channel is very important for Louisiana, and is also strategically important to the nation as a whole."

"The Mississippi River and our ports power our economy," said U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-N.O. "Deepening the river has been an important goal since I was first elected to Congress and I am proud to have worked with the Governor and the other members of the delegation to make it a reality."

"This is another big win for Louisiana - and for the entire country - long in the making," said U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge. "The Mississippi River is America's global commerce superhighway, and this stretch is the linchpin."

Drew Heaphy, president of the Ports Association of Louisiana and executive director of the St. Bernard Port, Harbor and Terminal District, said the project will keep his and other deep draft ports viable, while creating new marshlands to combat coastal erosion.
Scores of people gathered in the 1900 block of Orleans Avenue on Monday evening to celebrate the life of the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin who passed away last Thursday.
Photo: NOAA

Researchers are preparing to give a sick killer whale more medication off the coast of Vancouver Island.

The southern resident orca J50 is showing signs its health may be improving after it was darted with antibiotics earlier this month.

It was spotted returning to the Salish Sea on Saturday.

The four-year-old whale, dubbed Scarlet, had been emaciated and sluggish, and was falling behind its pod as it swam toward San Juan Island.

But it was seen socializing with the rest of the pod over the weekend, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, giving hope it may be on the mend.

Staff are preparing to dose the orca with another round of antibiotics, and may also administer a dewormer to reduce the risk of parasites.

The pod was last heading back toward the open ocean.

The endangered southern resident population is down to just 75 whales, and J50 is a potential calf-bearing female, which prompted the intervention.

 with files from CTV Vancouver Island
A "heartbreaking" dog-fighting operation has been broken up in Alabama, where one man is facing charges, AL.com reported Monday (Aug. 20).

Seventeen pit bulls, four of which had injuries consistent with dog fighting, were initially found in the woods in Mulga, near Birmingham, the report said. Several more dogs were later found, along with 11 dog skulls.

"It's gut-wrenching and heartbreaking," Jefferson County Chief Deputy Randy Christian said in the report.

Deputies made the discovery behind a home Sunday morning after responding to a complaint. They found a ring with fresh blood inside, the story said.

Reginald Antonio Dowdell, 42, was taken into custody Sunday.
The exercise is as old as the Republic, but the first thing you need to understand about redistricting is that hot-water cornbread is as ubiquitous in north Louisiana as etouffee is in the south, says Rick Gallot, the Ruston Democratic representat
Ordinarily, it's good for an actor to be convincing. That wasn't necessarily the case for Justin T. Lebrun, however, who, after being hired to portray a jewelry store robber on the locally shot CBS series "NCIS: New Orleans," says he found himself staring down the barrels of real guns when sheriff deputies showed up thinking the staged heist was the real thing.

Lebrun, of Lake Charles, has since filed a lawsuit against CBS and "NCIS: New Orleans" production company Danni Productions in connection with the Oct. 18 incident, which took place at a jewelry store in a strip mall on West Judge Perez Drive in St. Bernard Parish.

In the suit, filed in Louisiana's 34th Judicial District Court in St. Bernard, Lebrun says producers failed to notify local police of the staged robbery.

A letter from Lake Charles neuropsychologist Lawrence S. Silks submitted as part of the lawsuit says Lebrun has suffered major depression, anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the ersatz robbery and subsequent police response.

Lebrun is seeking unspecified damages to cover medical expenses, pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss wages and loss of enjoyment of life.

Lawyers for CBS have yet to respond to the details of the lawsuit, although they filed a petition Aug. 15 to have the case moved from state court in St. Bernard Parish to federal court in New Orleans, based on their belief that the claim could exceed the jurisdictional threshold of $75,000.
Photo: The Canadian Press A photograph of Shanann Watts and her daughters, Bella, 4, left, and Celeste, 3, is shown at a makeshift memorial in Frederick, Colo. Charges were filed Monday, Aug. 20, 2018, against 33-year-old Christopher Watts in the deaths of his pregnant wife and their two young daughters.

The father of two young girls found submerged in oil tanks after being missing for days told authorities his pregnant wife killed the children after learning he wanted a separation, and that he erupted in rage after witnessing the killings and strangled their mother inside the family's suburban Denver home, according to court documents.

Days after letting police inside his home so they could help find his missing family, Christopher Watts told investigators "he would tell the truth."

Watts first asked to speak with his father then admitted to killing his wife, Shanann. Watts told police in court papers released Monday that he killed her after witnessing her strangling one of the girls on a baby monitor. The other child had already been killed by the woman, he said.

Watts, 33, faces three first-degree murder charges, two counts of murdering a child under 12, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body. He is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday and is being held without bail.

District Attorney Michael Rourke declined to answer questions about the case Monday but said his office has three prosecutors working on it. Rourke also said it was too early to discuss whether he will seek the death penalty.

Police first visited the family's house on Aug. 13, after a friend asked officers to check on Shanann Watts. She had missed a doctor's appointment and wasn't answering calls or text messages hours after returning home after a business trip, the friend reported.

With Christopher Watts' approval, police searched the house and found his wife's cellphone stuffed inside a couch. Her purse was on a kitchen island and a suitcase was at the bottom of the stairs.

A detective spoke to Christopher Watts and learned about his separation plans. Watts first described the conversation with Shannan as civil but later told police that "they were both upset and crying" and she planned to go to a friend's house that day, the court papers said.

When Shanann Watts and the girls did not return home by Tuesday morning, investigators ramped up their efforts with the help of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Christopher Watts was interviewed by several local television stations, asking for the return of his family and discussing how much he missed spending time with his children.

It wasn't until Wednesday night that he made his promise to tell police the truth.

According to Watts' account, the early hours of Aug. 13 began with an intense conversation. He said he told his wife that he wanted a separation. Separately in the papers released Monday, investigators said they learned that Watts was "actively involved in an affair with a co-worker," something he denied in earlier conversations with police.

Watts told police that after discussing the separation he walked downstairs.

When he returned, he told them he spotted a baby monitor on his wife's nightstand  displaying her "actively strangling" their 3-year-old daughter, Celeste. He said the video feed also showed their other daughter, 4-year-old Bella, "sprawled out on her bed and blue."

"Chris said he went into a rage and ultimately strangled Shanann to death," the document said.

Police found surveillance video from a neighbour showing Watts' truck backing into the driveway at 5:27 a.m. and shortly after driving away from the house in Frederick, a small town on the grassy plains north of Denver where fast-growing subdivisions like the one the Watts family lived in intermingle with drilling rigs and oil wells.

Watts, an operator with Anadarko Petroleum, said he loaded his wife and daughters' bodies into the back seat of his truck and drove to an oil work site about 40 miles (65 kilometres) east of the family's home. There, he buried Shanann Watts' body and "dumped the girls inside" oil tanks, according to the court document.

Separate court documents filed by Watts' defence attorney last week said the girls' bodies were submerged in crude oil for four days before police found the remains late Thursday. Their mother's body was found nearby, in a shallow grave, according to prosecutors.

Anadarko, one of Colorado's largest oil and gas drillers, has since fired Watts.

The court filing says Watts gave police an aerial photograph of the area and identified three areas where he placed the bodies. Investigators used a drone to search the area and spotted a bed sheet that matched other linens in the family home, along with fresh dirt.

Shanann Watts' social media social media posts show the girls playing with their father and each other. The couple married in North Carolina nearly six years ago, and moved to Colorado soon after.

Shanann's father, Frank Rzucek, spoke to reporters for the first time on Monday. In a statement, he thanked police for their efforts, along with friends and neighbours who organized a candlelight vigil outside the family's home last week.

"Keep the prayers coming for our family," Rzucek said.


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No one loves the State Fair more than Nora Spitznogle. Who else could attend every single day over the two week run with such enthusiasm (and appetite)? Follow along as she reports on her daily fair-going adventures from the 2018 Indiana State Fair.

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Photo: The Canadian Press A surfer walks out of the surf as the sun sets behind Ocean Beach pier in San Diego. California Gov. Jerry Brown announced Monday, Aug. 20, 2018 that he signed a bill making surfing the official state sport.

"Let's go surfing now, everybody's learning how," the Beach Boys have been telling us in song since 1962.

And if you haven't started listening by now  and you live in California  perhaps it's time you did.

On Monday surfing became the official sport of California.

So grab a board, catch a wave and again as the Beach Boys like to say, find yourself, "sittin' on top of the world."

"I am stoked that surfing is now California's official sport," declared Al Muratsuchi, state assemblyman and a dedicated surfer dude himself, after Gov. Jerry Brown put his signature to the new law Muratsuchi wrote and shepherded through the Legislature.

"No other sport represents the California Dream better than surfing  riding the waves of opportunity and living in harmony with nature," added Muratsuchi, a surfer since high school who represents the city of Torrance, a place not far from the heralded California surf break called Haggerty's. (Yes, the one mentioned in the Beach Boys' song "Surfin' USA.")

While the law acknowledges that surfing, like so much other California stuff, actually came from somewhere else  in this case Hawaii  it also makes the case that California revolutionized the art of shooting the curl and hanging 10.

The Golden State is the heart of the surfboard building industry and the place where the wetsuit was invented, state officials say, and with 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometres) of coastline, it provides a surfer's paradise that Muratsuchi estimates generates more than $6 billion in annual retail sales.

Michael Scott Moore, author of the acclaimed 2010 surfing history "Sweetness and Blood," agrees that although Hawaii is the cradle of surfing, California did play a key role in revolutionizing the sport.

"Modern surfing was born in Huntington Beach, Malibu, the South Bay, Manhattan, Redondo," Moore said, referencing many of the beachfront cities the Beach Boys call out in "Surfin USA."

"That's where new technologies in surf design got developed," continued Moore, an avid surfer himself. "We had a lot of aerospace technicians who were into surfing, and they developed new shapes for surfboards that turned the sport into something of a pop cultural phenomenon."

Basically, California builders began making boards safer, lighter, easier to stand on and easier to manoeuvr through the water than the ones the Hawaiians had used for centuries, Moore said. They also added a key feature, the skeg or bottom-of-the-board rudder and, yes, they invented the wetsuit.

Meanwhile, popular "Beach Party" movies of the 1960s that starred teen heartthrobs Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon made it look to the rest of the country like one big surf party was going on nonstop in California. The Beach Boys, Dick Dale, Jan and Dean and other popular musicians of the time provided the soundtrack.

"It's part of the California mythology," University of Southern California pop culture historian Leo Braudy said. "The idea of someone becoming Californianized, and if you become Californianized then surfing is part of the deal."

Indeed, Huntington Beach now calls itself Surf City and is home to the Surfers' Hall of Fame and the International Surfing Museum. Oceanside has the California Surf Museum. In Redondo Beach, there is a bust of George Freeth, hailed as California's first surfer after he began dazzling local crowds with his wave-riding skills in 1907.
The biggest banks are traditionally the most cautious. But Wells Fargos scrutiny of Ms. Frieds political beliefs set its decision apart.

If a bank is going to start drawing a line based on a candidates particular advocacy, where does a bank draw that line? asked Christian Bax, who until Aug. 10 was Floridas medical marijuana director. Is it going to extend to every candidate in Florida who advocates for medical marijuana?

A Wells Fargo spokeswoman declined to discuss Ms. Frieds case specifically, but said the bank has a policy of avoiding the marijuana industry.

It is Wells Fargos policy not to knowingly bank or provide services to marijuana businesses or for activities related to those businesses, based on federal laws under which the sale and use of marijuana is illegal even if state laws differ, the spokeswoman, Bridget Braxton, said in a statement. We continually review our banking relationships to ensure we adhere to strict regulatory and risk guidelines.

Erik Gordon, assistant professor at University of Michigans Ross School of Business, said that while it was highly unlikely that Ms. Fried could successfully claim Wells Fargo had impeded her right to free speech, the banks move seemed to him like semi-paranoid overkill.

Theyre seeing the word marijuana  theyre seeing a word that could indicate danger  and are assuming that the danger exists without thinking carefully about whats going on, he said.

Banks have gotten mixed signals about marijuana from the federal government. In 2013, the Justice Department announced that it would not commit resources to prosecuting legitimate marijuana businesses and would instead focus on things like breaking up drug-trafficking rings and preventing the sale of marijuana to children. But the Trump administration rescinded that guidance in January, saying prosecutors should use their discretion to prosecute marijuana-related cases just as they would for any other category of offenses.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  The airline that caused the runway mishap at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) has to be held accountable, Senator Koko Pimentel said Tuesday.

Speaking to CNN Philippines' The Source, the senator said Xiamen Airlines should pay back other airlines that spent more as a result of the hold-up.

"Xiamen Airlines is, I'm sure, insured. They will receive insurance compensation for what happened," Pimentel said. "But then because of the disruption, I think their insurance coverage should now cover some of the necessary or consequential expenses."

This includes, he said, how airlines spent for the food of passengers whose flights were delayed or cancelled.

A Xiamen Airlines plane slid off the runway while landing amid a downpour on August 16. The plane's nose wheel collapsed while its left engine was ripped off. The incident caused the closure of the runway for 36 hours  but thousands of passengers still feel the effects of the NAIA mess five days after the incident.

The airline released an apology on Monday, and its concerned officials have since met with the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.

Pimentel admitted that the government was not prepared, and expressed support for a Senate probe on the airport mess. The hearing is set for August 29.

"That's shocking news because we should anticipate everything that can happen in an airport," Pimentel said of the reported lack of equipment that could tow away the plane.

The senator also suggested a "dual airport approach," with the government more actively tapping Clark International Airport as a partner for connecting flights to provinces.

"The treatment must be [Clark] as a partner to NAIA," said Pimentel. "The other suggestion is more runways to NAIA, but it is smack in the middle of Manila. Runways need land. You still have to study air patterns."

Senate Committee on Public Services Chairman Grace Poe on Monday said that land allotted for casinos could maybe used for a new airport runway instead.
Photo: CTV

A wildfire burning on northern Vancouver Island forced the evacuation of six properties near the village of Zeballos on Monday.

The 90-hectare fire has been burning for nine days.

Residents to the east side of Pandora Hill were ordered to leave their homes, while much of the rest of the community is on evacuation alert.

The blaze is zero per cent contained and is challenging firefighters because of the steep terrain.

Also in the north island, a fire at Pinder Creek grew to 200 hectares Monday.

The lightning-caused blaze is only 10 per cent contained, but is not threatening any homes or other structures.

Meanwhile, a 10-hectare fire at Larry Lake, near Port Alice, is threatening power and phone lines.

It's burning in steep slopes above Highway 30 and is five per cent contained.

 with files from CTV Vancouver Island
The record reflects that he sought out the MS-13 gang and was an active, willing participant in its violent culture, Judge Bianco wrote in the order released on Monday. More so, Mr. Portillo killed the young men, the court documents show, with the understanding that he would be promoted within the gang.

Mr. Portillo is the first of the accused to publicly plead guilty.

By pleading guilty, he puts himself at the mercy of the court, said his lawyer, Joseph W. Ryan Jr. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 10, 2019. The courts recognize that sparing a trial and cost of the proceeding is an incentive to getting a more lenient sentence, Mr. Ryan said.

The court filings added new details to the account of a gruesome night, showing that Mr. Portillo participated in planning meetings weeks before the murders when they were focusing on one victim, who in the end escaped. On April 11 Mr. Portillo set the events in motion: He texted two teenage girls, telling them where to lure the victims and relaying that information to his fellow gang members. In addition to using machetes and knives, the attackers beat their victims that night with tree limbs, the documents show.

According to court filings, the local clique of MS-13, a transnational gang formed in the 1980s in Los Angeles with refugees from El Salvador, was seeking revenge against a group of young men whom they believed to be in a rival gang. Jefferson Villalobos, a cousin of Michael Lopez Banegas, was visiting from Florida that week. The families of the slain boys have said in interviews that they were not part of any gang, and even Mr. Trump, when appearing on Long Island, recognized their parents as victims.

The quadruple homicide brought the total to 17 murders committed in Suffolk County by MS-13 from January 2016 through April 2017, and drew Mr. Trump to Long Island, twice, where he decried gang members as animals and urged officials to crack down on loopholes of the immigration system.
The North Koreans also have handed over to the Pentagon what they said were the remains of 55 American service members from the Korean War.

While such actions are a good beginning, they shouldnt be exaggerated. Most are reversible and pale in comparison to the fact that the North continues to produce plutonium and enriched uranium, the fissile material needed for nuclear weapons, as well as to build ballistic missiles.

The Americans have given up even less: Mr. Trump met with Mr. Kim in Singapore, agreed to the communique (however flawed) and suspended military exercises with South Korea.

So where does that leave things?

The administrations demand that North Korea take major steps toward denuclearization before the United States does anything to reciprocate is a recipe for failure. Whats needed is a step-by-step process in which both sides take mutually reinforcing actions that begin to build confidence and a more stable security environment.

That may seem like a lot to ask, given the extreme distrust on both sides. But in recent weeks, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has appeared more open to the step-by-step approach. For this diplomatic opening to have any future, though, the two sides must soon begin serious sustained working-level negotiations.

Administration officials and some experts are worried that a peace declaration would open the door to withdrawing the 28,500 American troops from South Korea, weakening the United States defense relationship with South Korea and its ability to take military action if needed.

But an interim declaration of peace is not the same as a peace treaty, which would presumably go into effect only when North Korea had denuclearized. The United States would always have the right to respond militarily if warranted.
I dont claim to understand the whole story. But one thing is clear: The Orwellification of the G.O.P. didnt start with Trump. On the contrary, the party has been moving in that direction for years; the mind-set Trump is exploiting was already well in place before he burst on the scene.

Consider the claims of Trump and his allies that evidence of his collusion with Russia  not alleged collusion, because there is no longer any real doubt  is a hoax perpetrated by the deep state. Where have we seen something like that before? In Republican attacks on the evidence for climate change.

Fifteen years have passed since Senator James Inhofe suggested that global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. This was and is an even crazier claim than the assertion of Trump and company that all of the tweeter in chiefs woes are the product of a vast deep-state conspiracy; its not far short of Pizzagate or QAnon territory. To take it seriously you have to believe in a vast international conspiracy involving thousands of scientists, not one of whom dares speak out.

Yet this paranoid fantasy has in effect become the official position of the G.O.P. Climate change deniers have pretty much given up on arguing about the evidence, although the old line its a cold day, so global warming is a myth still pops up now and then. Instead, its all about the supposed conspiracy.

Whats the evidence for this conspiracy? A lot of the argument rests on things like out-of-context quotes from stolen emails (sound familiar?), such as those sent among researchers at the University of East Anglias Climate Research Unit. Like the texts between two F.B.I. officials that supposedly prove the existence of a plot against Trump, Climategate actually showed nothing more than that the people involved were human. But to a determined conspiracy theorist, everything is evidence of nefarious activity.
My dear, thank you for just being alive.

HWANG WOO-SEOK, 89, who fled to South Korea during the Korean War and was briefly reunited this week with his 71-year-old daughter in the North.
Where were you the first time Jennifer Lopez came into your life?

Was it while she was dancing on In Living Color in the 80s? Or perhaps when she played Selena Quintanilla-Perez in the 1997 biopic of the artists life? Maybe it was when Waiting for Tonight hit the charts in 1999? Or when Ms. Lopez stole rom-com lovers hearts in the early aughts as the leading lady in The Wedding Planner and Maid in Manhattan?

Jennifer Lopez has been icon for more than three decades. She is also the first Latina actor to earn over $1 million for a film and the first woman to have a No. 1 album and a No. 1 movie in the same week. And dont forget about her Golden Globe nomination.

So its fitting that Ms. Lopez just received this years Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, which recognizes career-spanning accomplishments in music and film.

When she took the stage tonight at the VMAs, she reminded everyone that she has staying power. She began the medley of her biggest hits in a flowing blue and gold Versace cape over a gold leotard with thigh straps. She later donned a floor-length white fur coat and ended the performance in baggy gold pants  the same outfit she accepted her award in.
What will tonights MTV Video Music Awards bring?

Cardi B will make her first appearance since she gave birth to Kulture Kiari Cephus last month. The rapper has the most nominations of any artist tonight; shes in the running for 10 awards, including artist, video and song of the year.

Nicki Minaj, who took to Twitter yesterday to air her frustrations about the fact that her latest album Queen came in second to Travis Scotts Astroworld, will perform remotely tonight, from a secret location in New York City. The offsite performance will possibly minimize her chances of running into ex-boyfriend, Safaree, whom she fought with on Twitter recently, and from sitting just one row in front Travis Scott and Kylie Jenner.
[The founder of the #MeToo movement said the latest accusations should not discredit it.]

The announcement came just a day after The Times reported that Ms. Argento  a leader of the #MeToo movement who was among the first women to publicly accuse the producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault  arranged to pay $380,000 to Mr. Bennett, who said she had sexually assaulted him in a hotel room in Marina del Rey, Calif., an unincorporated, upscale harbor community on the west side of Los Angeles County.

Documents obtained by The Times outline the allegations and the subsequent arrangement for payments. The documents include a selfie dated May 9, 2013, of Ms. Argento, who was 37 at the time, lying in bed with Mr. Bennett, who was 10 months shy of being 18, the age of consent in California. On that day, the pair, who had acted together, met for a reunion in Ms. Argentos room at a Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey.

A notice of intent to sue said that after Ms. Argento was left alone with Mr. Bennett, she gave him alcohol to drink and showed him a series of notes she had written to him on hotel stationery. Then she kissed him, pushed him back on the bed, removed his pants and performed oral sex, the document says. She climbed on top of him and the two had intercourse, the document also says.

The Times has tried repeatedly to obtain a response to the allegations from Ms. Argento and her representatives but has been unsuccessful. Mr. Bennett, who lives in Los Angeles, has not yet agreed to be interviewed.

Reactions to the revelations have poured in since the allegations surfaced, with many, including a lawyer for Mr. Weinstein, accusing Ms. Argento of hypocrisy.
The Colorado man who is accused of killing his pregnant wife and two daughters before dumping them at an oil work site told the police that it was his wife who strangled the children  and that he strangled her out of rage, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant released on Monday.

The man, Christopher Watts, 33, had been having an affair with a co-worker, the police said, and had told his wife he wanted to separate during an emotional conversation in the middle of the night on Aug. 13.

Afterward, he told the police, he had looked at the familys baby monitor and seen his wife strangling their daughter Celeste, 3. Their other daughter, Bella, 4, was lying on her bed and appeared blue, he said. After that, he strangled his wife, he told the police.

But the authorities believe Mr. Watts  who gave a television interview pleading for the return of his family before he was arrested  is responsible for all three deaths.
SYDNEY, Australia  Malcolm Turnbull, Australias prime minister, survived a challenge to his leadership Tuesday, narrowly fending off a more conservative rival after growing speculation that he had lost the support of his party.

Mr. Turnbull called for a vote among Liberal Party colleagues in the wake of a failed effort to win support for an energy bill that would aim to reduce both prices and climate emissions. He won the vote over Peter Dutton, the Home Affairs minister, 48 to 35, and later called for a return to business as usual.

When were united we can continue to deliver great results, he said. Smiling and aiming to look calm at a news conference in Canberra, he added: Its really important that we put differences behind us and get on with our job of looking after the 25 million Australians who put us here.

But the victory for Mr. Turnbull may be fleeting. Mr. Dutton, who resigned from his post as Home Affairs minister immediately after the loss, will move to the backbench, where he is expected to rally support for another challenge as early as Thursday.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Paul Manafort, the longtime political operative who for months led Donald Trump's winning presidential campaign, was found guilty of eight financial crimes Tuesday in the first trial victory of the special counsel investigation into the president's associates. A judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts the jury could not agree on.

The verdict was part a stunning one-two punch of bad news for the White House, coming as the president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty in New York as part of a separate deal with prosecutors.

The jury returned the decision after deliberating four days on the charges of tax evasion and bank fraud against the former Trump campaign chairman.

The outcome almost certainly guarantees years of prison for Manafort and established the ability of special counsel Robert Mueller's team to persuade a jury of average citizens despite months of partisan attacks  including from Trump  on the investigation's integrity.

The verdict raised immediate questions of whether the president would seek to pardon Manafort, the lone American charged by Mueller to opt for trial instead of co-operate. The president has not revealed his thinking but spoke sympathetically throughout the trial of his onetime aide, at one point suggesting he had been treated worse than gangster Al Capone.

The more-than-two-week trial, presided over by the colorful and impatient U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, has captured Trump's attention as he works to undermine Mueller's investigation through a constant Twitter barrage and increasingly antagonistic statements from his lawyer-spokesman, Rudy Giuliani.

But Trump and his campaign were only a small part of Manafort's trial, as jurors instead heard days of testimony about Manafort's finances and what prosecutors say was a years-long tax-evasion and fraud scheme.

Manafort decided not to put on any witnesses or testify himself in the trial. His attorneys said he made the decision because he didn't believe the government had met its burden of proof.
PRAGUE  Could Soviet-style communism be reconciled with the dignity and freedom of the individual?

In 1968, the question was put to the test when the leader of Czechoslovakias Communist Party, Alexander Dubcek, initiated a project of liberalization that he said would offer socialism with a human face.

What followed was a rebirth of political and cultural freedom long denied by party leaders loyal to Moscow.

The free press flourished, artists and writers spoke their minds, and Mr. Dubcek stunned Moscow by proclaiming that he wanted to create a free, modern and profoundly humane society.

A season when hope and optimism were in bloom, it became known as the Prague Spring.

But nearly as soon as the movement came to life, it was crushed under the treads of Soviet T-54 tanks.
The Husband Hunters has a lot to say about the young American women who married titles, but at heart its a wonderful study of monster mothers. Alva was a true horror. There was a force in me that seemed to compel me to do what I wanted to do regardless of what might happen afterwards, she wrote. I have known this condition often during my life. Almost in her league was Mrs. Bradley-Martin, who inherited an unexpected fortune from her father and shoved her daughter, Cornelia, into a marriage to the impecunious Earl of Craven, who was after her million-dollar dowry. The poor girl was just 16. The weddings excess and the obviously transactional nature of the match shocked even the usually fawning Gilded Age chroniclers. During the ceremony, Cornelias scared young face peered nervously out from under a diamond tiara once worn by the Empress Josephine.

If American society was a cutthroat matriarchy, the world the heiresses married into was exactly the reverse. In England, the men called the shots. A gilded girl who thrived in an urban setting and was used to seeing women get their own way now found that the sparkle of London was confined to the three months of the summer social season. Life as the chatelaine of an English country seat revolved around the sporting calendar and dour male management of the estate. (This is still true today, as Meghan Markle will discover after a few weekends with Harrys friends.)

The American bride also found she had to bone up on British politics. As de Courcy reminds us, Britains ruling class actually did rule. As late as 1965, a mere 60 families dominated the House of Lords and one third of the House of Commons. Mostly, though, once the dowry changed hands it was isolation, childbirth and rain, rain, rain.

The way to get sprung, however, was a lot easier than escaping Mrs. Astors thrall in New York. It only took a pair of dancing eyes to catch those of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. This gregarious libertine, who in 1901 would become King Edward VII, introduced the pleasure principle to aristocratic life. Waiting as long as he did to assume the throne from his indomitable, censorious mother, Queen Victoria, Edward made it his prime quest in life to be amused. He was the undisputed arbiter of taste and position. A society woman might enter his circle via her looks, her vivacity and her gifts as a hostess. He adored and cultivated American women, considering them less stuffy and better dressed. Plus, they had the cash to lay on a great party. Arriving heiresses seeking his imprimatur needed only to show up during August at Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, the yacht-racing capital of the world, to upstage the British competition in a blaze of Worth-designed taffeta silk.

The money honey Maude Burke had a dodgy background in the lawless American West. Her father was reputed to be one of the four gun-toting partners who shared in the great Nevada Comstock Lode silver mine. Her mother was reputed to be a woman of light virtue. After Maude married Sir Bache Cunard, an affable dud and a grandson of the founder of the cruise ship line, her life as the mistress of a minor stately home might have been as dull as her husband if she hadnt come to the notice of the Prince of Wales. His visits soon made the Cunard country seat, Nevill Holt, in the depths of Leicestershire, a hotbed of social action.

Emerald Cunard, as the former Maude Burke repackaged herself, reigned for decades over her adopted countrys high society, thanks to the dazzling conversation of the famous musicians, artists, men of letters, visiting beauties and political players she attracted to her table. Edward, for his part, was loyal to his American charmers as long as they catered to his exacting standards of social amusement  and sometimes (like Jennie Jerome, widow of Randolph Churchill) agreed to serve him Japanese tea, which came with a beguiling flash of what was under the kimono.

What impresses about de Courcys American imports is how efficiently they adapted their native skills to Englands resistant class structure. They deployed not only looks and flair but also an organizational dynamism that whipped the stately homes and their owners into shape. They were brave. They were venturesome. They opened the windows of English aristocratic life, culturally as well as literally. It wasnt just their money. With all that drive, all that enterprise, they were just what was needed to shake the cocktail and bring some pizazz to the party. De Courcy conjures it all with skill.
Renunciation of Townsend led the princess toward what the world regarded as the ultimate rebound marriage, her union with Antony Armstrong-Jones, photographer, social climber and early metrosexual, according to Brown. The soon-to-be minted Lord Snowdon was said by one of his girlfriends to have wept on her bare breasts at the prospect of getting married to royalty. Three years after the wedding, he had grown restless, and a few more beyond that he was leaving nasty notes on her desk, including one headed Twenty-Four Reasons Why I Hate You.

Image

Margaret gave as good as she got during their acid rows, but the marriage was doomed by Snowdons inability to satisfy one half of the princesss two-stage central compulsion. First came her desire to appear rebellious and bohemian; marrying Tony was fine for that, since her artsy consort helped to assemble a showbizzy, swinging 60s crowd. But then Tony wouldnt cooperate with the second phase, during which Margaret required that nonroyals whod just been trapped into committing lese-majeste be swatted for flouting the prerogatives she actually treasured. Stories abound: Colin Tennant, a pre-Snowdon suitor, was permitted to engage in heavy petting but not to call her Margaret. After a long, relaxed chat, the actor Derek Jacobi found himself being told: You dont light my cigarette, dear. Oh no, youre not that close.

There would always be toadies (Peter Sellers gave his daughters pony to Margarets children), but also a lot more republican impatience as the decades passed. After hearing that shed called him an over-made-up tart, Boy George replied: I bring more money into this country than she does. Those who genuinely liked her  Prince Philip, Gore Vidal  tended to be somewhat impossible themselves.
1. Pivotal legal developments for President Trumps circle.

His longtime fixer, Michael Cohen, above, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and bank and tax fraud. He also made the extraordinary claim that he had paid the adult film actress Stormy Daniels at the direction of Donald J. Trump for the purpose of influencing the election.

While the deal does not require cooperation with federal prosecutors in Manhattan, it does not preclude his providing information to the special prosecutor, Robert Mueller.

And Paul Manafort, Mr. Trumps former campaign chairman, was convicted on eight counts in his financial fraud trial. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on 10 of the 18 counts, and the federal judge declared a mistrial on those charges.
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Heres what you need to know:

New targets for Russian hackers

 The Russian military intelligence unit that sought to influence the 2016 election has recently focused on conservative American think tanks that have been critical of Moscow, according to a report to be released today by Microsoft.

The company said it had seized websites in recent weeks that sought to trick people into thinking they were clicking on links managed by the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. The sites redirected to web pages to steal passwords and other data.

Microsoft also found websites imitating the U.S. Senate, but it was able to catch the spoofed sites as they were set up. The goal of the hacking attempts was unclear.
PepsiCos $3.2 billion purchase of SodaStream is an idea right out of the past.

Most consumers now drink soda out of bottles or cans. But the vending machine staple got its start as a mixable medical remedy. By buying SodaStream, PepsiCo will partly return to the mixable syrup model on which its sugary business empire is built.

Soda was introduced to the mass market in the late 1700s by Johann Jacob Schweppe, a German scientist who developed a process for carbonating water.

There was a belief that volcanic mineral carbonated water was healthy, said Darcy ONeil, author of Fix the Pumps, a book that details the history of the soda fountain. Then people realized they could add lemon and some sugar to it, and that was the first soda.

For 100 years or so, soda was primarily thought of as medicine. Pharmacists had syrup recipes of different herbs and spices that were mixed with carbonated water to treat all manner of ills. By the 1890s, soda fountains were reaching peak popularity.
Slack, the four-year-old workplace messaging company, said on Tuesday that it had raised $427 million in new funding, just a year after its last huge infusion of money. The latest round values the company at $7.1 billion.

Slacks appetite for funding and its eye-popping leaps in valuation are becoming normal in the private investment market, where giant funds are eager to write oversize checks to start-ups with momentum and scale. In the first seven months of the year, 268 companies raised mega-rounds of $100 million or more, a record pace.

Based in San Francisco and Vancouver, British Columbia, Slack says it has eight million daily users, double its total from around a year ago. Many of its users do not pay for access to the service. More than 70,000 groups pay, the company said.

Slacks growth has made it a darling among investors and potential acquirers. In 2015, when Slack was worth $2.8 billion, Stewart Butterfield, the companys chief executive and a co-founder, said it was the best time to raise money ever. Last year, Slack raised $250 million in capital from SoftBank Groups Vision Fund, among other investors. That funding valued Slack at $5.1 billion.
Updated Aug. 23, 2018

WASHINGTON  President Trumps trade war with China is about to hit home for many consumers. On Thursday, the administration imposed a 25 percent tariff on another $16 billion worth of Chinese products, bringing the total so far to $50 billion. Officials are now weighing a 25 percent tariff on another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, including materials used in many of the consumer products that were spared in the first round.

Nearly 400 companies, trade groups and others descended on Washington this week to testify at six days of hearings before the United States trade representative. While some have spoken out in support of the tariffs, a majority of those testifying are opposed and trying to persuade American officials not to tax the Chinese products or materials they depend on. They warn the tariffs could force them to raise prices and potentially destroy their businesses.

Whether youre a college student, a parent, an entrepreneur, an outdoor enthusiast or a retiree, the tariffs could ultimately affect the products you covet.
You do not have to use your Hennessey XO to make a sidecar. Jeff Bell, a bartende r at PDT, and Thomas Pastuszak, the wine director at the NoMad, have worked together to develop a reasonably priced, easy-drinking California brandy for cocktails, Bertoux. Pot-still brandies are blended to make a mellow spirit with dried fruit overtones. The spirit will appear in cocktails at PDT in the East Village, the Aviary in the Time Warner Center, Adas Place at Legacy Records near Hudson Yards, Katana Kitten in the West Village and Dead Rabbit in the financial district after Bertoux goes on sale on Sept. 5.

Bertoux Brandy, $45 for 750 milliliters after Sept. 5 at Bowery and Vine, boweryandvine.com.

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Over the last century, though, industrial farming and large-scale spirits production have encouraged distillers to focus on a limited range of grain varieties, grown not for taste but for alcohol yield, with much of the flavor coming later, in the barrel-aging process.

This whole idea of terroir has been bred out of us by the large grain producers because its inimical to mass production, said Mark Reynier, who built the Bruichladdich Distillery in Scotland around terroir-specific whiskeys before selling it to Remy Cointreau in 2012. (He is now at work on another terroir-driven project, the Waterford Distillery in Ireland.)

For example, almost all the corn used to make bourbon is a high-yield, relatively flavorless variety called Yellow Dent No. 2 grade, grown by the millions of bushels across the Midwest.

When I was learning to distill, all I was taught was buy Yellow Dent, Number Two Grade, said Rob Arnold, the head distiller at the Firestone & Robertson Distilling Co. in Fort Worth, who is also pursuing a doctorate in plant breeding and genetics at Texas A&M.

For his dissertation, Mr. Arnold is examining how soil and climate in different parts of the state affect the flavor characteristics in corn, and whether those qualities come through in a distilled and aged spirit  a project that, he believes, will help him make whiskeys that can be identified with specific parts of Texas. What Im hoping to do is tap into flavors that have been forgotten, he said.

A similar effort is underway at High Wire, where Mr. Blackwell and his wife, Ann Marshall, produce estate-specific rums and whiskeys, drawing on crops grown along the South Carolina coast, and inland along the Pee Dee River.

Working with farmers across the state, they make their bourbon using a variety of corn called Jimmy Red, which they selected with the help of Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills, a South Carolina company that sells heirloom grains.
Photo: City of Penticton Rejected plans for a 2,700 square foot carriage house in Penticton

Penticton council has directed city staff to tighten design regulations for new carriage houses in the community.

The decision came after a lengthy conversation Tuesday afternoon, sparked by the rejection of a 2,700 square foot carriage home on Kendall Crescent earlier this month.

Planning manager Blake Laven told councillors Penticton takes a considerably more hands-off approach to regulating the development of secondary homes compared to other communities such as Kelowna and Vancouver.

Guidelines around design aesthetics, in particular, are quite lax with existing bylaws focused limiting the height and footprint of the structure.

Councillors directed Laven to have his staff draft a set of changes that limit the actual living space of carriage homes. Aesthetic guidelines will most likely be updated through Official Community Plan discussions already underway.

We obviously have carriage houses because we need them, we need housing, thats the bottom line, Coun. Helena Konanz said.

One thing I do know, I drive through Vancouver and Kelowna, and the designs of their carriage houses really are very nice  and sometimes to tell you the truth am disappointed with what we allow many of our carriage houses look like silos.

The changes to the carriage house guidelines will likely be presented to council for a vote in late September or early October.

Those changes will come too late for unhappy neighbours in the Kendall Crescent and Ridgedale Avenue area. While bylaw variances for the proposed carriage home at 142 Kendall were rejected, the homeowner is still free to build a two-storey carriage home under current bylaws.

Council received a petition from 22 properties in the area asking the city to declare the area a carriage free zone and implement a moratorium on new carriage homes until regulations can be overhauled. Eight homes in the neighbourhood did not sign the petition, but one of those is Coun. Judy Sentes and another is vacant.

Council heard they have no power to block the building permit application at 142 Kendall as long as it fits current bylaws, because the application was opened before council directed the changes take place.
At these new Nobus, Mr. Matsuhisas food was still a major event, but not necessarily the main event. And the question was not just whether you felt like eating at Nobu but whether you felt like being at Nobu. The Malibu location in particular has a reputation for intense good-time vibes that can drive away customers who merely want to eat.

All this was encapsulated for me in two brief scenes from my recent meals at Nobu Downtown and Nobu Fifty Seven. The first episode took place while I was sitting at the sushi bar of Nobu Downtown. This location, inside the old AT&T tower on Lower Broadway, is theoretically the successor to the first Nobu; it opened last year a few weeks after the original closed. The sushi bar was the heart of the TriBeCa restaurant. The chefs behind it prepared or touched at least half the food, and seats there were so coveted that during the 1990s, when even celebrities complained about how hard it was to get in, a mostly sushi restaurant called Next Door Nobu was opened simply to contain the overflow. (It closed last year, too, and wont be replaced.)

At Nobu Downtown, the upstairs sushi counter is on the far side of the cocktail bar that the design firm Rockwell Group slipped in among the enormous fluted limestone columns that fill the buildings ground floor like a petrified forest. I had just eaten a piece of Japanese scallop sushi with a dangerous streak of wasabi when an animated group of four new arrivals appeared next to me. The sushi chefs eyed them warily, because they appeared to intend to cluster around a single stool, the way people do at a bar. Soon it became apparent that they thought they were at the bar. But the people they mistook for bartenders were all busy slicing raw fish, so eventually the group moved on to look for somebody to make them a drink.

Moments like this didnt tend to happen at the original Nobu, but they do bring Nobu Downtown in line with Nobu Fifty Seven. In business on 57th Street since 2005, Nobu Fifty Seven is another two-story proposition. Between 5 and 7 p.m. its ground-floor lounge acts on young Midtown professionals like the fishing nets evoked by Rockwell Groups design. At the time the second scene took place, the bartenders looked as if they were struggling not to get caught. My cocktail, a Negroni-esque thing with sake in it that was ferried to my upstairs table from the downstairs bar, was neither shaken nor stirred; it was, in fact, almost hot.

While I was waiting for the cocktail to be cooled by its single ice cube, a server was struggling to open a bottle of Champagne for a table of at least 10 men next to me. When the cork came out, he managed to spray the room in a manner usually seen in the Super Bowl champions locker room. Everybody nearby got a little wet, including me and my guests, but nobody seemed to notice.
Headliner

Randalls Barbecue

Jared Male, who has been schooled in the techniques of slow smoking at Hill Country Barbecue, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que and the Big Eas y in London, now has his own rig on the Lower East Side to monitor. He offers brisket, pulled pork and spare ribs, of course, but also smoked duck, lamb ribs, and, in a nod to the neighborhood, smoked chopped chicken livers and homemade pastrami. He takes other liberties, coming up with smoked meatloaf, New England clam cakes and country-fried eggplant. The space is compact, with 44 seats, vintage touches and communal tables. Sandwiches are served on Kossars bialys, and Mr. Male gets his pickles from the Pickle Guys nearby. Craft beers, bourbon and tequila dominate the bar service.

359 Grand Street (Essex Street), Lower East Side, 646-692-9980, randallsbarbecueny.com.

Opening

Rips Malt Shop

Allison and Matt Robicelli, known for their baked goods, relocated to Baltimore about two years ago for personal reasons. Theyre working as consultants there and in New York, and now theyve become partners in this diner-style spot that is 100 percent vegan. Burgers, hot dogs and chicken salad are all animal-free and made with vegan products from Field Roast and Beyond Meat. The ice cream in their floats and sundaes is Van Leeuwen dairy-free.

10 Clermont Avenue (Flushing Avenue), Fort Greene, Brooklyn, 347-689-9009, ripsmaltshop.com.

Gertie

This all-day restaurant from Nate Adler, a managing partner in Huertas in the East Village, will be opening in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in the late fall. Until then, it will have a pop-up presence in the Bergn food hall.

899 Bergen Street (Classon Avenue), Crown Heights, Brooklyn , bergn.com.

Bakers Pizza & Espresso

Good coffee and inventive pizzas meant for breakfast, notably the Benedict with eggs over-easy, Canadian bacon and hollandaise sauce, set this place apart from its East Village parent, Bakers Pizza.

754 10th Avenue (51st Street), bakerspizzanyc.com.
Inadequate sleep causes more than $400 billion in economic losses annually in the United States and results in 1.23 million lost days of work each year, researchers have found.

The impact of chronic sleeplessness in the United States far exceeds the costs in other industrialized countries. The runner-up, Japan, loses as much as $138 billion annually to sleeplessness among workers, but that represents a greater share of its economy, researchers at the RAND Corporation found.

The number of individuals who sleep less than the recommended hours is increasing in the developed world. From 20 to 30 percent of these workers complain of a lack of sleep on a daily basis.

Inadequate sleep is too easily accepted into the community as part of life, said Dr. David Hillman, a clinical professor at the University of Western Australia who studies sleep deficiency. In many work settings,  sleep is an indulgence.
My editor, Carlos Tejada, first alerted me to an article in The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, about Mr. Tangs plight. I decided to pursue the story after hearing that Mr. Tangs parents were still walking the streets of Zhangjiajie in central China, looking for him.

I wanted to understand what it was like to go on that search.

When my colleague Elsie Chen and I arrived in Zhangjiajie, it was pouring. I met Mr. Tangs father, Tang Chunwu, and his mother, Liao Mandong, in their rented ramshackle inn, where they were drying their shoes off. There was a weariness about them. They had crisscrossed the city earlier, asking same question over and over again: Have you seen my son?

The elder Mr. Tang showed me the dozens of text messages that he would send his son every day. One read: Its been three months, dont you miss Mom and Dad? Dad and Mom miss you so much. We cry out to your photo every day, with tears in our eyes.

The next morning, Elsie and I met up with the Tang family to continue their search. What time did you set off from your inn today? I asked Ms. Liao. She bristled, thinking that I was implying that she wasnt putting in enough effort to look for her son. And besides, why was I asking all these questions?

Im more worried than anyone else, she said. You wont understand how much Ive suffered for the past three months.
In Edgar Allan Poes The Purloined Letter, the detective Auguste Dupin is able to find a stolen letter in the apartment of an unscrupulous government minister  a letter no one else could find, because everyone else assumed it would be treated as if it were valuable and hidden. Instead, the letter was hiding in plain sight, not carefully preserved but crumpled and torn like trash. It escapes detection by dint of being extremely obvious. We prefer our politicians to be like Dupin: able to rise above the mire of small details and see the whole.

This is harder than it sounds. The letter either pops out or it doesnt. The obvious can be like a Magic Eye poster, one of those novelties whose hidden 3-D image only leaps out at you when you look at it just right: You cant really help someone else see it. It has been a signature move of the Trump administration to disrupt the obvious, beginning with a debate over the size of the crowd at the moment the president was sworn in. The mind is great at coming up with viable alternatives to ideas it doesnt want to accept, and those unwilling to accept invocations of the obvious, like Remnicks, find themselves safely tangled in a web of possibilities. With Trump, rather than acknowledge the obvious, the supporters spin theories of Art of the Deal,  wrote Jim Schutze in a column in the Dallas Observer, imputing all kinds of cleverness and guile, saying he pretends to be an idiot as part of a wily strategy. At its least extreme, this entails a belief that there is some cunning in Trumps most transparent lies and clumsiest public statements; at its most extreme, it puts him at the center of an elaborate plot to destroy the deep state. What is obvious is taken as false because its too obvious.

This is because the obvious is, essentially, a shortcut: It appeals to a set of values wed formed some consensus around, a set of ideas we once agreed no serious person would question. To call something obvious or common sense is to call it settled and refuse to relitigate it or revisit all the work that went into determining it was so inarguable in the first place. In a recent book, At War With the Obvious, the psychoanalyst Donald Moss writes that the obvious is adaptive. It mutates under pressure, like cells. If you need evidence of this, he writes, consider the status of gay, queer and trans people over the past few decades. In the 1990s, the American mainstream found it obvious that gay people should have no right to marry; today, its regarded by many as broadly obvious that they should. An idea that was once marginal enough to require laborious defense gradually became so self-evident that it was hardly worth explaining; like the crumpled letter, its presence was taken for granted.

The difficulty is that, later, when such propositions are threatened, people may find themselves shocked, out of practice, struggling to defend their values with the passion or eloquence that first brought them into existence. Last month, for instance, Michael Anton, a former national-security official in the Trump administration, published a Washington Post op-ed arguing that, contrary to the understanding of most readers, birthright citizenship was based in a misreading of the law and should be ended by executive order. The fury that met this suggestion was sputtering: For anyone not already immersed in constitutional law, being horrified by Antons claims meant arguing in favor of something that had long been so obvious that it was easy to forget what made it obvious in the first place. Justin Fox, a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, allowed that a majority of the worlds nations didnt offer birthright citizenship. But the claim that the authors of the 14th Amendment intended anything else, he wrote, is, to anyone who takes the time to read a few pages of congressional debate, obviously false.
Because the same society that taught some people they were heroes, saviors, inheritors of the Manifest Destiny ideal, taught me I existed only in the background of their stories, doing their nails, diagnosing their illnesses, supporting their love interests  and perhaps the most damaging  waiting for them to rescue me.

And for a long time, I believed them.

I believed those words, those stories, carefully crafted by a society that was built to uphold the power of one type of person  one sex, one skin tone, one existence.

It reinforced within me rules that were written before I was born, rules that made my parents deem it necessary to abandon their real names and adopt American ones  Tony and Kay  so it was easier for others to pronounce, a literal erasure of culture that still has me aching to the core.

And as much as I hate to admit it, I started blaming myself. I thought, Oh, maybe if I was thinner or Maybe if I grow out my hair and, worst of all, Maybe if I wasnt Asian. For months, I went down a spiral of self-hate, into the darkest recesses of my mind, places where I tore myself apart, where I put their words above my own self-worth.

And it was then that I realized I had been lied to.

I had been brainwashed into believing that my existence was limited to the boundaries of another persons approval. I had been tricked into thinking that my body was not my own, that I was beautiful only if someone else believed it, regardless of my own opinion. I had been told and retold this by everyone: by the media, by Hollywood, by companies that profited from my insecurities, manipulating me so that I would buy their clothes, their makeup, their shoes, in order to fill a void that was perpetuated by them in the first place.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has not been accused of wrongdoing, and under state law the attorney general lacks the power to investigate him even if he had. But that didnt stop his fellow Democrats vying to run for attorney general to say on Tuesday that they would be open to doing just that.

All four candidates, including one endorsed by Mr. Cuomo, were asked in a taped debate that airs on Wednesday if they support calls for an investigation into the governor for the use of state government offices for campaign purposes by a top Cuomo aide convicted in March on federal corruption charges.

No one said they did not.

If individuals used a public office for political purposes, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. What I, as the next attorney general, will do is follow the evidence and the facts wherever it leads and if it leads to the second floor, so be it, Letitia James, the citys public advocate who has the support of Mr. Cuomo as she runs for the Democratic nomination for attorney general, said in reference to the location of the governors office at the Capitol.

Anytime there is corruption at that level of state government, the person at the top of state government should say Im the accountable person, the buck stops here with me, said another candidate, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney. You shouldnt be afraid of the truth, you shouldnt be afraid of a full investigation, and thats what should happen.
Michael Cohen, President Trumps former personal lawyer, went from this: Ill do anything to protect Mr. Trump. They say Im Mr. Trumps pit bull. Ive stood by him, shoulder to shoulder. To this: Shock waves after President Trumps former attorney Michael Cohen ... Michael Cohen, pleading guilty and implicating the president ... ... possibly the worst day in Donald Trumps presidency thus far. So why did one of Trumps most trusted advisers flip? Cohen was known for being Trumps fixer and biggest defender. If theres an issue that relates to Mr. Trump that is of concern to him, its of course of concern to me. And I will use my legal skills within which to protect Mr. Trump to the best of my ability. In April, the F.B.I. raided Cohens office after he became a target in special counsel Robert Muellers investigation. Trump was quick to come to Cohens defense. But once the investigation zeroed in on Cohen, the lawyer began to change his tune. My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will. I put family and country first. In July, Cohen released audio from a conversation with Donald Trump that he secretly recorded two months before the 2016 election. The two appear to be discussing payments to a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Trump. [Cohen and Trump speaking] Heres when things between Trump and Cohen began to publicly fall apart. I expected something like this from Cohen, hes been lying all week. I mean, for two  hes been lying for years. Theres nobody that I know that knows him that hasnt warned me that if his back is up against the wall, he will lie like crazy, because hes lied all his life. On Aug. 21, Cohen pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance laws and said President Trump directed him to make payments to two women during the 2016 campaign to avoid a potential sex scandal. Cohens lawyer suggested he knew more. Mr. Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel and is more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows. Trump tried to play down the momentous admission via Twitter.
Other law enforcement and intelligence agencies, particularly the F.B.I. and C.I.A., have opposed the departments overseas deployment. Mr. Kelly was criticized for sharing information about terror attacks in London in 2005 and Mumbai in 2008. Federal officials have also complained about the police freelancing their own terrorism investigations.

Critics say the Police Departments liaison program has expanded its focus to justify its ongoing existence without answering deeper questions about the necessity of the initiative.

Its a completely wide-open program established with no oversight at all, said Mike German, a former F.B.I. agent and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Critics have also raised questions about the influence of the police foundations donors over the departments policies, and the absence of government oversight for the nonprofit that was founded in 1971. For instance, in 2015, the online news organization The Intercept reported that the United Arab Emirates had donated $1 million to the police foundation to aid unspecified investigations. A New York police detective has been stationed with the Abu Dhabi police since 2009.

Susan Birnbaum, the president of the police foundation, said the donation from the Emirati government was benign and was not part of a quid pro quo. She also said the U.A.E. was the only foreign government that had donated money to the organization.

Mr. German, the former F.B.I. agent, said the donors should be disclosed. What does a foreign government think that its getting in exchange for its money? Mr. German said. How can New Yorkers be confident that information gathered here in New York City isnt being shared with foreign governments inappropriately?

Chief Galati said the department carefully scrutinized each intelligence request from an overseas law enforcement agency to make certain that its legally sound in America. In the past, the department has rejected inquiries from foreign governments about political dissidents.
Hanna Mina, an eminent Syrian writer who chronicled the lives of the poor and oppressed in dozens of books as one of the first Arab novelists to employ social realism, died on Tuesday in Damascus. He was 94.

His death was confirmed by Syrian state media.

Mr. Minas career spanned half a century, and several of his works were adapted for film and television. But only two were translated into English.

Bassam Frangieh, a professor of Arabic at Claremont McKenna College in California who translated Mr. Minas novel Sun on a Cloudy Day with Clementina Brown, called him a majestic figure in Arabic literature.
A shocking incident took place at Delhis most rush area Connaught Place where a 50-year-old woman was killed by a 20-year-old girl. Yes, a 20-year-old fashion student run a car over the old woman by an SUV car on Sunday night.

According to the reports, the woman was dragged by a car at least 300 metres before the student could manage to stop the car.

However, the driver of the SUV (a black Jeep Compass) has been arrested by Police when she could able to stop the car at a police picket nearly 300 metres away from the accident spot.

The victim was still underneath the vehicle when it was stopped, the police said.

According to the Police, when the girl identified as Shreya Agarwal, arrested then she was not drunk.

However, the deceased lady has been identified only by her first name i.e. Phoolwati. As per the reports of HT, she lived in a night shelter near Bangla Sahib Gurdwara with her husband.

Meanwhile, the accident took place at around 9 pm when the SUV hit the lady, which had three occupants, took a left from Baba Kharak Singh Marg to the lane leading to Shaheed Bhagat Singh Marg, the police said.

However, the victims body was sent for a post-mortem and her husband, Sushil Kumar was also informed about her death.
Thomas B. Hofeller, a political consultant whose mastery of redistricting strategy helped propel the Republican Party from underdog to the dominant force in state legislatures and the House of Representatives, died on Thursday at his home in Raleigh, N.C. He was 75.

The Rev. Greg Jones, the rector of St. Michaels Episcopal Church in Raleigh, where a service is scheduled for Friday, confirmed the death. The political website The Hill, quoting Dale Oldham, a business partner of Mr. Hofellers, said the cause was cancer.

For most of his 48-year career, Mr. Hofeller was little known outside the small band of government clerks, political strategists and data buffs who surfaced, cicada-like, after every decennial census to draw new political maps.

But after Republicans swept many state legislative elections in 2010, giving them control over the political maps that would be drawn after that years census, Mr. Hofeller gained an almost mythic reputation as an architect of the partys comeback.
Women are hypocrites. Women are opportunists. Women are liars.

They are abusers and bullies and manipulators. They are capable of cruelty, callousness and evil.

Just like men.

This obvious fact  that women are fully human  bears repeating in light of the stunning news that a figurehead of the #MeToo movement has herself been accused of abuse.

Asia Argento, the Italian actress and director, was a key figure in Ronan Farrows explosive New Yorker story in October 2017 about Harvey Weinsteins predations. She was the victim who called the Cannes Film Festival his hunting ground. She was the one who gave that unforgettable quote about Mr. Weinstein forcibly performing oral sex on her at a hotel there when she was 21 years old: A big fat man wanting to eat you. Its a scary fairy tale.

In the months that followed, Ms. Argento was rightly hailed for her bravery in speaking out publicly against a serial assaulter. But in private, according to The Times, she was paying off her own accuser $380,000 to keep quiet.
Australia should be a global leader in battling climate change. The vast nation-continent has an abundance of potential solar and tidal power, while the bleaching of the spectacular Great Barrier Reef by warming waters and a record drought offers ample evidence of what climate change can wreak. In advance of a critical vote on a new energy bill, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wisely noted that it is well known what happens when you allow ideology and idiocy to take charge of energy policy.

Yet right after saying that, Mr. Turnbull, under pressure from rebellious conservatives in his party, abandoned his National Energy Guarantee and its modest effort to reduce energy emissions. With that, he appeared to confirm Australia as a poster child for something completely different, as reported by Damien Cave in The Times on Tuesday: a political inability to enact sorely needed energy legislation because of acute partisanship on addressing climate change and the influence of a coal industry that accounts for more than a third of all global coal exports.

Though recent Australian governments have been reasonably progressive on many of the issues that have tested other democracies, such as gun control, health care and wages, and Mr. Turnbulls achievements include legalizing same-sex marriage, the bitter divisions over climate change have led to the fall of two prime ministers in the past decade. By jettisoning his energy bill, Mr. Turnbull narrowly escaped becoming the third, at least for now.

The volatility, Mr. Cave wrote, is explained at least in part by ideological ties to coal and by its enormous lobbying machine. The result is that any mention of emissions control, or even well-established climate science, prompts a violent allergic reaction on the right. That is what Mr. Turnbull referred to as ideology and idiocy, before he fell prey to its power.
Coal mining isnt coming back, and its time to get real about it. Im a fifth-generation coal miner and a ninth-generation Appalachian from Virginia. I spent four years in the coal industry. The work was dangerous and came with a lot of long-term health impacts. We love our coal miners. And theyre not being mistreated anymore. Miners are going back to work, folks. Those are false promises that are only going to line the pockets of coal executives while delaying the inevitable. If Trump really wants to help Appalachian mining communities that support him, lowering emissions standards is not the way to do it. The industry has never been on the side of the coal miner. The coal companies were quick to create a culture around coal mining, around the hard work and patriotic duty and sacrifice for families. But they did it with a total disregard for our safety. Were still having to fight for things like black lung benefits, workmans compensation and disability from injuries in the mines. You might think of Appalachia as a very conservative place. But in 2000, the majority of Appalachias coal-producing counties voted for Al Gore. Our families used to vote Democrat for labor rights. But economic desperation has driven us to vote otherwise. Were defending ourselves against liberal elite stereotypes that were unintelligent deplorables. And beautiful clean coal, clean coal, really clean coal. Coal cannot be clean. We know that firsthand. Acidic mine drainage is real. Its coming out of our family spring. Coal slurry impoundments are real. Theyre leaching into our creeks, our rivers and our lakes. Miners dont want to be told about climate change. But at some point, we have to realize that the environmental impacts of the industry arent a partisan issue. Theyre a matter of life and death. We dont need short-term revivals of an industry that has always mistreated us. We need long-term investments into our communities. This is the only way to give justice to the communities who have sacrificed so much to provide the energy and steel that has made this nation so great.
This week, the worlds 1.5 billion Muslims celebrate Eid al-Adha, a four-day feast that usually includes communal prayer, presents for children and visits to family members and cemeteries. But the key ritual will be what gives the holiday its name: Adha means sacrifice in Arabic. Most families who can afford to do so will slaughter an animal  perhaps a sheep, goat, cow or camel. The animal will be blindfolded, gently put down and then slaughtered while the name of God is praised. The meat is consumed by the family and also distributed to neighbors and to the needy.

For some non-Muslims, it may seem puzzling that Muslims engage in such a bloody ritual. But Jews and Christians should be able to relate to the holidays origin: the biblical story of the sacrifice of Isaac.

This story is in both the Book of Genesis and, with some interesting variations, the Quran. In the story, Abraham receives a shocking injunction from God: He must offer his beloved son as a sacrifice. As a devoted servant of God, he agrees to obey and takes the child to Mount Moriah to slaughter him. At the last moment, God, satisfied with Abrahams devotion, saves the boy by sending a ram as a substitute sacrifice.

There are minor differences between how the story is told in Islam and how its told in Judaism and Christianity  such as the name of the child, which the Quran doesnt mention and Muslims gradually accepted as Ishmael. But the moral lesson is the same: Abrahams piety should be celebrated. He was willing to obey Gods order, even if it meant killing his son.
In 2015, the same year that the water crisis in Flint, Mich., made headlines, more than 21 million people nationwide relied on drinking water systems that violated basic legal health standards, according to the study. Throughout the country, low-income communities disproportionately bear the brunt of this crisis. In California, drinking water contamination is most likely to afflict small, low-income communities of color, particularly Latino farmworker communities that have not benefited from the tremendous economic growth in the San Francisco Bay Area and other urban centers. However, nearly every county in the state has a system without safe drinking water.

In 2012, after a hard-fought grass-roots campaign, California became the first and only state to pass a right-to-water act. That bill enshrined safe, clean, affordable and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking and sanitary purposes as a basic human right. Yet more than five years later, legislators have yet to take the bold actions necessary to make that guarantee a reality.

Hundreds of communities in California still lack access to safe drinking water in their homes, schools, parks and businesses. Some families spend up to 10 percent of their income on clean water, having to pay for bottled water on top of their monthly water bills. At the same time, leaders of local water boards have been frustrated in their efforts to improve conditions because their financially stretched water systems are ineligible for grants and loans for treatment upgrades.

This is not just a problem in California. As the recent study in the National Academy of Sciences journal found, regulatory compliance with drinking water regulations can be a challenge for rural systems due to limited financial resources and technical expertise. The study also noted that small systems face restricted access to loans and outside financing.

Now a solution may be at hand in California. After more than a decade of intense community activism, negotiations and studies, a plan to help communities tackle drinking water problems has won the support not only of environmental justice and public health advocates but also of leaders from business, agriculture, labor and many local governments and water suppliers, though not all.
To the Editor:

Re With Revulsion, Resignation and Hope, Catholics Take Stock (front page, Aug. 16):

What will it take for Catholics to revolt, not just be sad or disappointed? How many more kids will be abused, assaulted or raped?

Why arent women equal leaders within the church? Would women priests or a female bishop simply move abusers to another parish instead of calling the police? Yes, we hoped that men would prioritize the children over their abusers, but they did not. Maybe the church needs women in charge in order to protect the children.

In politics people talk about this being the year of the woman. How many decades will it take for religion to have a year of the woman?

Mindy Moore

Atlanta

To the Editor:

I write as a 71-year-old Catholic parishioner. The sexual abuse scandal and the complicity of church leadership in covering it up is beyond the point of no return. The hierarchy is morally bankrupt and without credibility. The only way forward is for Pope Francis to appoint a council of lay women and men to assume governance of the church and undertake an unsparing housecleaning that begins at the top and sweeps through every level of the church. Nothing else will suffice.
While Lula insists his only option lies in his own candidacy, his Workers Party, or PT, has a Plan B. In this scenario, the former mayor of Sao Paulo and current vice-presidential candidate Fernando Haddad would end up on the ballot if Lulas protests, legal recourse and international campaign efforts prove futile. In case the ex-union leader is able to transfer enough of his votes to his replacement, he may win in a runoff election scheduled for Oct. 28. If the transfer doesnt quite work out, however, and the PT is denied victory one way or another, the challenges for Brazil may be overwhelming.

An additional complication arises from the regional context in which this drama is being played out. In several Latin American nations, incumbents bans on opponents running for office have become a pattern. In Nicaragua in 2016, Daniel Ortega struck down or intimidated a sufficient numbers of rivals  especially the strongest one, Eduardo Montealegre  to finally win with 72 percent of the vote, virtually uncontested. In Venezuela this year, Nicolas Maduro made sure that the main opposition contenders, Henrique Capriles and Leopoldo Lopez, were unable to run. Only a semi-sham candidate opposed Mr. Maduro.

In other countries, attempts at discouraging or prohibiting candidates from being on the ballot have also occurred. They range from the Mexican opposition leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in 2005 ( he was finally elected in July) to several Guatemalan candidates barred by corruption charges, anti-nepotism clauses and human rights violations.

As in Brazil, many of these cases  not all, obviously  are tricky. Some contenders are disqualified for valid reasons, or at least lawful ones. Others are unquestionable victims of political persecution. It is hard to dispute the notion that Lulas case tends to fall into the Venezuelan and Nicaraguan categories, rather than the others. Except that Brazilian democracy is not collapsing, demonstrators are not being murdered in the streets, students are not being jailed, and the media is not muzzled. As The Economist regretted a few months back, there may be government by judges in Brazil, but not a dictatorship.

In the end, though I believe that the Lava Jato scandal, as well as the diligence of judges like Mr. Moro, have served Brazil and Latin America well, I prefer to see Lula on the ballot than in jail.

The charges brought against him are too flimsy, the purported crime so petty (until now), the sentence so brazenly disproportionate and the stakes so high that in Latin America today, democracy should trump  so to speak  the rule of law. In an ideal world, the two go together and certainly do not clash with each other. In Brazil, they do. Ill go with democracy, warts and all.

Jorge G. Castaneda, foreign minister of Mexico from 2000 to 2003, is a professor at New York University and a contributing opinion writer.

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From the start of the Russia investigation, President Trump has been working to discredit the work and the integrity of the special counsel, Robert Mueller; praising men who are blatant grifters, cons and crooks; insisting that hes personally done nothing wrong; and reminding us that he hires only the best people.

On Tuesday afternoon, the American public was treated to an astonishing split-screen moment involving two of those people, as Mr. Trumps former campaign chief was convicted by a federal jury in Virginia of multiple crimes carrying years in prison at the same time that his longtime personal lawyer pleaded guilty in federal court in New York to his own lengthy trail of criminality, and confessed that he had committed at least some of the crimes at the direction of Mr. Trump himself.

Let that sink in: Mr. Trumps own lawyer has now accused him, under oath, of committing a felony.

Only a complete fantasist  that is, only President Trump and his cult  could continue to claim that this investigation of foreign subversion of an American election, which has already yielded dozens of other indictments and several guilty pleas, is a hoax or scam or rigged witch hunt.
Maybe someday, when the history of Donald Trumps presidency is written, well pinpoint the start of this week as his pivot into complete derangement and come up with a pithy name for it. Maybe well call it Melania Monday.

Well note that on Aug. 20, 2018, the first lady, again with a pussy bow, publicly chided cyberbullies at the same time that her husband ranted and raged on Twitter, likening Robert Mueller to Joseph McCarthy and demonstrating a grasp of history commensurate with his grip on civility.

Well admire the wickedness of her announcement, just hours later, that shed be making a solo trip  her farthest and flashiest yet as an official ambassador  to Africa, whose nations the president cant pronounce, let alone respect. She didnt choose that destination randomly, throwing a dart at a map. She chose it defiantly, throwing shade at her husband.

Surely Melania Trump is getting under his skin. Certainly shes making the effort. If she would just turn these fitful baby steps into full-length strides, she might finally undo him and set us free. Melania the Savior. A pussy-bow coup. Stranger things have happened. Less exhilarating fantasies have been born.
What is the criteria for calling someone a great man? Isaiah Berlin, the Oxford philosopher/historians definition is in my judgement ideal. Berlin wrote, To call someone a great man is to claim that he has intentionally taken a large step, one far beyond the normal capacities of men, in satisfying, or materially affecting, central human interests Permanently and radically alters the outlook and values of a significant body of human beings.

I cannot claim intimacy with Atal Bihari Vajpayee. I knew him for over four decades. He had an engaging personality, verbal spontaneity, sense of humour, he was free of pomposity, was approachable, literary, had a first-rate political judgement, was an orator of the highest calibre and a skilful, disarming superb parliamentarian.

I had first met him in the early 1970s. I was Ambassador to Poland. He had come to Warsaw as a member of a Parliamentary delegation. Unlike most of his colleagues he did not make outrageous demands. He was dignified and did not throw his weight around. I had a couple of worthwhile conversations with him, both about Poland and her relations with Soviet Union. I told him that Poland attached considerable importance to Indo-Polish relations, but had no independent foreign policy. The foreign policy of the East European countries, was dictated by Moscow. However, in private the Poles were not over fond of the Soviets. Atal ji left a good impression on me and his Polish hosts.

He was for a short period External Affairs Minister in Morarji Desais rickety government. During his tenure he visited Lusaka, capital of Zambia. I took him to meet President Kaunda, who over did his praise of the Indian High Commissioner. Vajpayee did not share the enthusiasm of the Zambian President. On leaving the Presidents residence, I asked the driver to drop the External Affairs Minister at his hotel. He said to me in Hindi, aap mujhe apne ghar nahin le jainge (Will you not take me to your house?) I said no, not after the way your government has been treating me. Natwar Singh is Indira Gandhis man etc. From London I had been abruptly posted to Zambia. My monthly reports to the Ministry were filed not read. Vajpayee ji insisted, I want to meet your wife. Your mother-in-law asked me to see her. It was not the cell phone age. I telephoned my wife from the reception desk telling her to prepare lunch. For half an hour we sat in Vajpayee jis suite. The lunch was not a success. I did not let my diplomatic guard down. I was formal, stiff and mostly silent. He enjoyed the meal, chatted with my wife, talked about her mother.

When I finally got back to Delhi in 1982 after my Islamabad posting, I saw him from time to time. He was critical of our Pakistan policy in particular. He asked about President Zia. Why did he hang Bhutto. I enlightened him, Zia was a small and vengeful man.

After a minor but open tiff we got on very well. This was at an all-party meeting on Iraq in Parliament House (probably in 2001). The Congress was represented by Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and myself. The PM held forth on the merits of his Iraq policy. I politely contradicted him. Uncharacteristically he retorted, Natwar Singh ji ko adat hai hamari policy ko criticize karneki. I could have replied but restrained myself.

Three days later there was a meeting at 7 Race Course Road. I was present. After the meeting as I was leaving the room, a man ran after me, PM is calling you, Sir. When we met, the great man won me over for life. I give the English translation of what he said, The other day I said to you, more than I should. Please do not take it to heart.

Here is large-hearted greatness for you. His passing away, ends an era. He was an exceptional statesman. By - K. Natwar Singh
Reviving this older stream of dissenting rests on the active interests and lost authority of its citizens and its fading democratic values. This would replace my country right or wrong with the centuries-long struggle, as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it, to be true to what you said on paper. This is the position from which voting rights, civil rights, immigrant rights and economic rights can be fought: with a vision of what is acceptably American and what is not. Decent people will rise to the challenge.

The nation is the only imagined community, as Benedict Anderson put, where everything from mass transit to health care to wealth distribution to a green economy can find traction. A rejuvenated national vision would transcend the backward-looking  and often reactionary  search for an America in arrested decay that has too often informed politics since Ronald Reagan first promised to make America great again.

Civic patriotism must also be an aspirational story of struggle and inclusion. The narcissistic and racist politics of right-wing nationalism must be challenged with an expansive and inclusive civic vision about hope and potential. Its what Barack Obama spoke of at the 50th anniversary of the Selma march. Standing before the Edmund Pettus Bridge, he asked, What greater form of patriotism is there than the belief that America is not yet finished, that we are strong enough to be self-critical, that each successive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals?

To be sure, the rhetoric of nationalism can be dangerous in a place with a history of settler colonialism, slavery, anti-immigrant hysteria and territorial expansion. Any civic framing risks fomenting exclusion by drawing lines between those who are in and those who are out  an especially profound problem in an era of mass migration. Yet when the American left abandons any vision of social patriotism because of the racist ugliness it has come to symbolize, it concedes the American story to the voices of exclusion and avarice.

The pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty made many of these arguments 20 years ago in a book, Achieving Our Country. That book became famous after the 2016 election for having predicted the rise of a strongman to fill the void in national politics. He feared that indulging in cultural politics rather than emphasizing the material interests of American working people, and surrendering the struggle to shape the national vision where that can happen, would lead to such a catastrophe. While his nightmare of the nationalist demagogue has come to pass, few people are talking about the foundation of his predictions.

Patriotism may well be the last refuge of the scoundrel, but as a pragmatist like Mr. Rorty would tell you, it is too powerful and too important to leave to the scoundrels. Voters are in search of a place of vision for average Americans, a place of idealism in an age of cynicism, a place of unity in a time of fracture and a place where policy can be embedded in something greater than technocracy.

While commentators are getting worked up over the revival of socialism, an increasing number of insurgent blue-collar Democrats across the country are looking to recapture a sense of nation. The dark-horse candidate from Kansas, the Army veteran James Thompson, for instance, promises to Fight for America.

As we approach midterm elections, we urgently need to hear these messages in good faith and rise to their challenge.

Jefferson Cowie is a professor of history at Vanderbilt University and the author, most recently, of The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics.

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Likewise, let those medical students who want to be private practice ophthalmologists in the suburbs of San Francisco take out loans to pay tuition. But the university could demand no payment from those, for example, who commit to becoming primary care doctors and agree to take Medicare and Medicaid or specialists willing to practice in poor areas with doctor shortages.

I know that many young people are not sure of their chosen path when they enter medical school. But there are simple ways to adjust the concept.

How about all medical schools commit to forgiving or paying back the loans of young doctors who go into lower-paying fields or set up practice in underserved areas  and keep doing so as long as they stay there?

The government could reasonably demand such a system from academic medical centers as a precondition for receiving federal subsidies and payments. After all, many receive billions from the government and pay little if any tax because the I.R.S. allows them nonprofit status , in part because they provide community benefit.

So if a student chooses to become an ear, nose and throat surgeon in suburban New York or a private cardiologist in Miami, fine. He or she can pay back what has been borrowed. But if that doctor chooses to deliver babies in rural Oklahoma or practice pediatrics on the South Side of Chicago, then he or she should get to keep every penny of salary.

The federal government and some states, as well as the military, already subsidize medical school tuition or pay back loans in exchange for limited-time service commitments. But that promotes a tour-of-duty mentality. They are also poorly funded and cover a relatively small number of students .

The real goal is not short-term payback but to enable and support young doctors who feel that treating patients is a calling, regardless of the patients ability to pay.
Theres a reason refugee camps exist: Host governments like them. Liberating refugees is a hard sell. In camps, refugees are the United Nations problem. Out of camps, refugees are the local governments problem. And they dont want to do anything to make refugees comfortable or welcome.

Bangladeshs emergency response for the Rohingya has been staggeringly generous. But emergency is the key word. The government has resisted granting Rohingya schooling, work permits or free movement. It is telling Rohingya, in effect, Dont get any ideas about sticking around.

This attitude wont deter the Rohingya from coming, and it wont send them home more quickly. People flee across the closest border  often on foot  that allows them to keep their families alive. And theyll stay until home becomes safe again. Its the simple practicality of finding the easiest way to refuge, said Victor Odero, regional advocacy coordinator for East Africa and the Horn of Africa at the International Rescue Committee. Any question of policies is a secondary matter.

So far, efforts to integrate refugees have had mixed success. The first experiment was a deal for Jordan, which was hosting 650,000 Syrian refugees, virtually none of whom were allowed to work. Jordan agreed to give them work permits. In exchange, it got grants, loans and trade concessions normally available only to the poorest countries.

However, though the refugees have work permits, Jordan has put only a moderate number of them into jobs.

Any agreement should include the views of refugees from the start  the Jordan Compact failed to do this. Aid should be conditioned upon the right things. The deal should have measured refugee jobs, instead of work permits. Analysts also said the benefits should have been targeted more precisely, to reach the areas with most refugees.

To spread this kind of agreement to other nations, the World Bank established a $2 billion fund in July 2017. The money is available to very poor countries that host many refugees, such as Uganda and Bangladesh. In return, they must take steps to integrate refugees into society. The money will come as grants and zero interest loans with a 10-year grace period. Middle-income countries like Lebanon and Colombia would also be eligible for loans at favorable rates under a different fund.
[phone ringing] Rapid response hotline. Yes, do you help all immigrants, or just Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese? Uh, is this an ICE raid? Pardon? Are you calling about an ICE raid? Potential. Im just concerned. Im from a European country. Im here illegally and I wondered if you help Europeans or just Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese. We help anyone who is involved with an ICE raid. But is there an ICE raid happening right now? I imagine. This is an emergency line, sir. Can you please call if theres an ICE  Well, I, like, Im having an emergency. I am having an emergency. Theres a bunch of illegal people in our country that shouldnt be here and assholes like  [dial tone] [phone ringing] Rapid response hotline. You guys are going to have some big surprises when you go for certain raids. You are going to get some nice surprises, you traitor [expletive]. [phone ringing] Hi, San Francisco Rapid Response Hotline. Hi. I own a restaurant and had a few customers in here eating, and they left, and they were saying because of immigration or ICE was on 24th and Mission. This was about  I want to say 20 minutes ago. 24th and Mission? Well, the lady got a phone call. And she got a phone call, and her whole facial expression changed, and I was like, is everything O.K.? She was like, I have to go, I have to go. And there were six other tables, and I guess she told them, so everyone left. And how many customers left the establishment? That left, were 10. Damn. O.K. Your whole restaurant left? [phone ringing] Hi, San Francisco Rapid Response Hotline. Hi there. Im at Mission  or sorry, 2nd and Jessie and there is a Homeland Security federal protective police car sitting here. I dont see anybody. I dont see any ICE guys, but this is a Homeland Security car. Oh wait, here they are, police D.H.S. Oh. It looks like theyre on their lunch break. [laughter] (SINGING) Dont give up hope. Dont give up hope. Youre not alone. Youre not alone. Dont you give up. Hi, I wanted to confirm that there was ICE activity in the Mission today. So weve been receiving a large volume of calls today, reports about 24th and Mission, 14th and Mission, Marshall Elementary, and the Foods Co in the Bayview and the Foods Co here in the Mission. Weve sent dispatchers to all sites, no ICE activity. Theyve all been false alarms. (SINGING) Look up ahead. Look past despair. Look past despair. You gotta put one foot in front of the other, and  Hi, San Francisco Rapid Response Hotline. Yeah, I have a couple of friends who are undocumented, and theyre trying not to draw attention to themselves, but theyre wondering if ICE does show up in their neighborhood, and we got the numbers from the news to call, but theyre unclear as to exactly what your organization will do. Will they stop the raids from happening? Well, the fact is, that when enforcement is happening we cant actually stop it from happening. But I thought you guys stopped it from happening. Thats what we were looking for. No I dont think that theres any entity that would be able to do that, to actually stop the enforcement  Yeah, and you know whats really unfortunate, I was talking to my friend, is that because California had made these sanctuaries, theyve called attention to themselves, and that is unfortunate. This may have not even been happening if they never announced that and bolstered it. At least thats what my friends are thinking. Its like they just caused it  they just, they just made ICE focus in on these places, which is unfortunate. It seems like its backfiring. Its crazy. Yeah. I hate it. I thought the sanctuary city stopped ICE. No, no, no. Thats not exactly what sanctuary does. [phone ringing] Hello, Rapid Response Hotline. Im calling because my uncle was detained by ICE on 24th and Mission. He has already been taken? Yeah, he has been taken. Migration, I think, it was there, on 24th and Mission. 24th and Mission. O.K. just a second. Do you know how old he is? He was born on November 2, 1952  1958. Do you know what his status was when he was taken? [phone ringing] Oh, his status?  Hang up or press one. Hello. Hello? You have a call from an inmate in the Yuba County Jail. This call is from a corrections facility and is subject to monitoring and recording. Hello? (SINGING) Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary Pure and holy, tried and true- [phone ringing] With thanksgiving  Good morning, Rapid Response, how can I help you? Didnt you know it was against the federal law to harbor illegal immigrants? Is this an emergency? No. Just keeping your lines busy. (SINGING) Pure and holy, tried and true. With thanksgiving Ill be a living sanctuary for you.
Bret Stephens: I know there are a lot of juicy subjects for us to get to, Gail, before we have our security clearances revoked by President Trump. But Id like to hear your take on something a step removed from politics. Thats the grand jury report in Pennsylvania on the sexual abuse of children by hundreds of priests and the Catholic Churchs subsequent cover-up.

Im not Catholic, so Im a bit reluctant to opine on a religion not my own. But I just dont understand why the church has been so slow to deal with this. Ive been reading these sorts of stories for nearly 20 years and we never seem to reach the bottom. Whats the reason?

Gail Collins: I come to the subject with some bias, since I went to a Catholic girls high school back in the day. We got lectures about sex constantly. They called an emergency schoolwide meeting in the auditorium when one of the nuns saw a girl kissing her boyfriend. Priests would give us sermons about how, when Christ was dying on the cross, his greatest anguish was seeing a future in which teenage girls like us necked in the back seat of a car.

Bret: Your agnostic Jewish correspondent suppresses a rueful smile.

Gail: Well, as I said, that was back in the day. And Ive known a bunch of amazing priests. But the institution as it stands now is just wrecked. All these terrible problems stem from the fact that its run entirely by men whove taken vows of celibacy.
I had a dinner with Pharrell and his wife a few months later, and I said, Neil deGrasse Tyson was nice to me. Pharrell said, No he wasnt! He gave you a hard time on Mercury retrograde, and I wont let him live it down. I said, Oh Pharrell, he was O.K. He was nice to me. I was scared but he was respectful, Ms. Miller says. (A rep for Mr. Williams confirmed the story: He loves her.)

Whether you believe in her methods or not, though, Ms. Miller is devoted to providing advice for you and the other millions of readers who visit her site when she distributes her free horoscopes, usually on the first of the month. To supplement her income, she offers even longer forecasts for what she says is about half a million paying app subscribers, writes regular columns for a handful of magazines including Vogue Japan and has a partnership in the works with her favorite hotel, the Four Seasons Los Angeles in Beverly Hills.

Here it is necessary to address the situation surrounding Ms. Millers forecasts, which is that they are often published days, and sometimes weeks, past her self-imposed deadlines, and often without a satisfying explanation. One summer, a particularly late July column made tabloid headlines replete with quotes from her readers, who found themselves incapacitated from having to start the month off blind.

Her fans know from reading about her over the years that these delays are usually related to unforeseeable flare-ups from chronic illnesses she says have plagued her since she was left bedridden for a year with a rare disease at the age of 14. Since then, she says, shes undergone dozens of surgeries, and been in and out of the E.R. with broken bones, recurring infections and symptoms of muscular degeneration. Her eyesight is failing, and she says that earlier on the day we spoke she took a breath test for the gastrointestinal disease ulcerative colitis. Or maybe the breath test took place four years ago. Like Ms. Millers forecasts, her medical history does not follow a strict linear narrative, and she breaks off on tangents and circles back many times. All you really need to know is that shes sick quite a lot, and so sometimes, she says, she takes longer to write than she anticipated.

Ms. Millers mother taught her the art of astrology while she was bedridden as a teen. She also accurately predicted her daughters career trajectory.
And on Tuesday, Boxed announced that it had sold a minority stake to Aeon Group, one of the largest retail chains in Japan. Alongside investors including Alpha Square Group and CDIB Capital, Aeon invested $110 million in Boxed. The deal values the start-up at $600 million, according to a person familiar with the agreement.

Are technology folks like us going to figure out retail faster than the retailers figure out technology? Mr. Huang asked. In some ways were all kind of fighting the same fight against the gigantic folks online.

Food shopping is one of the last major holdouts to online retail. Groceries are unique in that their inventory is perishable, fragile and heavy. Grocery customers often shop at the last minute, like to see the food they are about to eat and dont want to pay high delivery fees.

Even Amazon, with its Amazon Fresh online grocery service, has struggled to gain ground in the business. The companys Whole Foods deal, paired with Walmarts 2016 acquisition of Jet.com, underscored that the future of selling food and household items requires cooperation between the digital natives and the old-school retailers.
SAN FRANCISCO  After a yearslong search, Uber has finally found a chief financial officer as it advances toward an initial public offering.

The ride-hailing company said Tuesday that it had hired Nelson J. Chai, 53, a former executive at Merrill Lynch and CIT Group, to be its new chief financial officer. The appointment fills a prominent void in Ubers executive suite: The job had been vacant since Brent Callinicos departed in 2015.

Picking a chief financial officer is crucial for Uber because the company has said it plans to go public by the end of 2019, in what is likely to be one of the biggest-ever technology I.P.O.s. Uber is already one of the most highly valued private companies in the world, at $62 billion. Wall Street typically likes to see experienced finance executives helping to helm companies that are going public.

Yet Ubers financial picture may deter some investors. While the transportation colossus is growing quickly, it has been highly unprofitable and has burned through money. Last week, Uber posted a loss of $891 million for the second quarter, which was slightly narrower than a year earlier.
Asia Argento, the Italian actress and director who has positioned herself as a leading figure in the #MeToo movement, pushed back Tuesday against a New York Times report that she had arranged to pay the actor Jimmy Bennett after he accused her of sexually assaulting him when he was 17.

In a statement, Ms. Argento said that she had never had sex with Mr. Bennett. Hours later, Mr. Bennetts lawyer, Gordon K. Sattro, said that her denial was false and that he was working with his client on a statement. By Wednesday morning, Mr. Bennett and his advisers had still not issued one.

The responses were the first public comment from either side since The Times approached the actors with questions about documents showing that Ms. Argento had arranged to pay $380,000 to Mr. Bennett, after he notified her last November that he would sue over their May 2013 encounter in a California hotel room. The age of consent in that state is 18.

Ms. Argento, who for five days has not responded to The Timess requests for comment, forcefully denied Tuesday that she had assaulted Mr. Bennett.
Whether the 24-hour Los Angeles network becomes as popular as NY1 remains to be seen. Los Angeles is not exactly hurting for local television coverage, but Spectrum insists it is carving out a different space from local news networks like KTLA or KNBC.

Were not going to try to compete chasing in a helicopter with the same type of scenes they would, said Mike Bair, executive vice president of Spectrum Networks who will oversee the new network.

Mr. Bair said that 125 people would be hired for the newsroom and that they were already more than halfway through staffing up the network. The new channel  he would not reveal its name  will be headquartered in El Segundo, near the Los Angeles International Airport and The Los Angeles Timess new headquarters.

Spectrum has several local news stations around the country, including in Florida (Orlando and Tampa) and Texas (San Antonio and Austin). Mr. Bair said that the local news stations are very popular and create a higher level of retention for the cable service.

In November, around 1.5 million Los Angeles Spectrum homes will get the new channel.

We dont have to worry about two-minute sound bites, Mr. Bair said. If an interview takes three or four minutes, we stick with it. Were more likely to cover much smaller stories, neighborhood-based stories than youd see in other markets.
SAN FRANCISCO  Prosecutors from six counties in California announced Tuesday that they were combining their cases against the man suspected of being the Golden State Killer, joining forces on charges of 13 counts of murder against Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., who was arrested in a Sacramento suburb in April.

The case, which also includes multiple kidnapping and weapons charges, will be tried in Sacramento, the district attorneys announced.

It is very fitting that this journey for justice that has been sought for over 40 years ends in Sacramento, said Anne Marie Schubert, the district attorney for Sacramento County, at a media briefing held in Orange County. The trial, she said, would bring to an end probably the most notorious unsolved serial-rape killing in California history.
In the security video, Ms. Tibbetts is seen running near Boundary and Middle Streets, and a dark-colored Chevy Malibu also appears, driving back and forth numerous times, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed Tuesday.

Mr. Rivera was questioned by law enforcement officers on Monday, and he admitted to pursuing a woman running in the area with his car, according to the affidavit. He told the authorities that he parked his car, got out and ran behind and beside her. Mr. Rivera said she then grabbed her phone and said, Im gonna call the police, and he panicked, the affidavit said.

[Read our feature examining the myth of crime in immigrant communities.]

He told the authorities that he blocked his memory of what happened next, which he said happens when he gets upset, but recalled that he came to an intersection in his car and turned back around to an entrance of a cornfield, according to the affidavit.

Mr. Rivera said that he noticed there was an ear piece from a pair of headphones in his lap, and that is when he realized he had put the woman in the trunk of his car, according to the affidavit. He told the authorities that he then took her out of the trunk, noticing she had blood on the side of her head, before he put her over his shoulder and left her about 20 meters into the cornfield. He described placing corn leaves on her and leaving her face up, the affidavit said.

He later led the authorities to the body.

Based on the clothing found, and a tentative identification by the medical examiner, the authorities believe the body is that of Ms. Tibbetts.

He tells us that he had seen her before, Mr. Rahn said, but declined to elaborate on whether Mr. Rivera and Ms. Tibbetts knew each other.
POMPANO BEACH, Fla.  Maddy Wilford tied a surgical mask around her face and scraped the dirt from beneath her fingernails. She scrubbed her hands and arms, allowing frothy yellow iodine to wash over the thick scar on her right arm  a physical reminder that she had nearly died six months ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

Ms. Wilford was shot multiple times that day, the bullets piercing her arm and torso, and arrived at Broward Health North in shock and need of surgery. Now she was volunteering as an intern at the same hospital, learning about medicine from the doctors who saved her life.

With my injuries, I would have been dead, said Ms. Wilford, 17. The work they performed on me, and how quickly I recovered, it made me become more interested.

Seventeen people were killed during the gunmans rampage at Ms. Wilfords high school last February, but she is part of another group: The 17 who were shot and survived and are now finding their way forward.
Judge Kavanaughs views on abortion have raised intense concern among abortion rights advocates, in part because of a dissent he wrote in a 2017 case, Garza v. Hargan, that drew widespread attention last fall. Ms. Collins said she talked to Judge Kavanaugh at length about the Garza case  the only abortion case in which he has rendered a decision.

In that decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, on which Judge Kavanaugh serves, voted to allow an undocumented 17-year-old in immigration detention to seek an abortion without delay; the Trump administration had wanted to first transfer her to an adult sponsor for guidance.

In his dissent, Judge Kavanaugh wrote that while the appeals court was bound to obey Supreme Court rulings that said the Constitution protects a womans right to choose an abortion, those precedents nonetheless permit the government to apply reasonable regulations that do not impose an undue burden.

Ms. Collins has previously said that she will vote against any nominee who demonstrates hostility to Roe. In her meeting with Judge Kavanaugh, Ms. Collins said, we talked at great length about precedent and the application of stare decisis  the legal principle of standing by precedent  to abortion cases.

We talked about whether he considered Roe to be settled law; he said that he agreed with what Justice Roberts said at his nomination hearing, in which he said that it was settled law, she added.

Chief Justice Roberts testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005 that Roe was settled as a precedent of the court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis. However, he added, those principles explain when cases should be revisited and when they should not.

Abortion rights groups immediately jumped on the settled law comment, noting that, despite his confirmation hearing testimony, Chief Justice Roberts dissented when the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that would have severely restricted access to abortion.
Im not a clone of my father, he said in a late-night interview after the forum earlier this month. His shirt was rumpled. He looked weary.

But with just weeks to go until his primary in the First District, Mr. Sanders, 49, still cannot avoid comparisons to his father, Bernie Sanders. His father, who won the 2016 presidential primary in this Live Free or Die state by 22 points. His father, whose booming, sometimes bellicose style on the stump seems to have rubbed off on his son.

Like Bernie Sanders, Levi Sanders is fighting  loudly  for single-payer health care, a $15 minimum wage and tuition-free public college. He vilifies corporate PAC money. He has asked backers to contribute $27, the same amount his father had touted during his presidential campaign to prove his support came from small donors. On Levi Sanderss website? A photo of his father, front and center.

Mr. Sanderss campaign, for a House seat in a competitive district, has puzzled everyone from the most enthusiastic Bernie supporters to his 10 Democratic opponents, more than a few of whom seem all too eager to dismiss his candidacy. Some people view him as a firebrand, with a quick fuse and a sharp tongue. Others describe him more as a nuisance, who has only gained notice because of his name. Because he lives outside the district, on the other side of this outsider-averse state, he has even been accused of carpetbagging.

Mr. Sanders, who is not a lawyer, has made a career in legal services fighting for the less fortunate. But there is no doubt he is a severe underdog in his primary. He worked for his fathers campaign, but in terms of non-familial political experience, he has none. Nearly a decade ago, he ran for City Council in Claremont, where he lives, and finished seventh in a field of nine.
The Trump administration announced a series of sanctions on Tuesday targeting Russia, including ships that are delivering Russian oil to North Korea despite ongoing sanctions and marine companies that are supplying Russias military.

The ships, based in Vladivostok and operating for Primorye Maritime Logistics Co. and Gudzon Shipping Co., have defied international sanctions against North Korea by engaging in ship-to-ship transfers of oil to North Korean ships, which then bring the contraband into North Korean ports.

The Trump administration has been warning against this practice for months. But while negotiations with North Korea were going well, the administration largely turned a blind eye to the problem.

The marine companies were sanctioned for doing business with a Russian company, Divetechnoservices, that the Trump administration had sanctioned on June 11 over its links to Russias Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the main security and intelligence agency in the country.
It was not immediately clear if the jurors question suggested that they had reached a verdict on 17 of the 18 counts of bank and tax fraud brought against Mr. Manafort, a former campaign chairman for President Trump.

The jurys note to Judge Ellis asked: If we cannot come to a consensus on a single count, how should we fill out the jury verdict sheet for that count, and what does that mean for the final verdict?

The jury said it would need another form, please.

The question from the jury came on the fourth day of deliberations following a two-week trial. During the trial, prosecutors built a case that Mr. Manafort hid millions of dollars in foreign accounts to evade taxes and lied to banks repeatedly to obtain $20 million in loans.

The trial is the first stemming from the inquiry led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

It did not touch on Russias efforts to influence the election or on whether Mr. Trump had sought to obstruct the investigation. But it is the first test of the special counsels ability to prosecute a case in a federal courtroom amid intense criticism from the president and his allies that the inquiry is a biased and unjustified witch hunt.
These cyber actors are using social media platforms to spread disinformation  and set Americans against each other  targeting both sides of a countrys most divisive issues. Youre watching a recent Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about how foreign internet trolls are using social media to influence American politics. In the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, Russian trolls used disinformation campaigns to sow discord. Experts are now seeing similar activity heading into the 2018 midterms. The trolls are trying to improve their tactics. Theyre trying to get better at hiding their traces. So its going to be a game of cat and mouse. Ben Nimmo is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab. He works to identify and analyze online disinformation. The way these accounts work has always been a combination of infiltration and radicalization. He walked us through some of the imagery and strategies used by notorious online trolls from Russia and, perhaps, elsewhere. First, they pick a hot-button issue. There are certain very high-profile problems that American society has, which are well-known abroad. And it tended to be those ones which are targeted. So the original troll factory accounts were very heavily engaged in the debate on gun control and the Second Amendment, on womens rights and abortion rights. They were heavily engaged on Black Lives Matter. A slew of inauthentic accounts that Facebook recently deleted took the same approach, updated to fit the latest top news. They use identity politics and emotion to appeal to followers. Next step, tap into a community. So you start off by making positive comments about the target group. Lets say you want to masquerade as a Black Lives Matter supporter. You start by making lots of positive comments about the African-American community. You talk about how beautiful the girls are. You talk about their glorious cultural history and you try and engage with real activists who are busy on this subject. Now its time to ramp it up. Once youve established your credentials, you start slipping more and more toxic content into the mix. So, rather than saying positive things about your community, you start saying negative things about other communities. The war against colonialism is a theme that comes up on this page time and again. Its a hint at violence. And last, they try to move from the online world into real life. And then maybe you slip into the mix a suggestion: Lets have a protest. Lets get real people out on the streets. And then, because youre operating probably from some time zones away, you need to think, Well, how do we get this to happen? And you start trying to reach out to genuine local organizations. Maybe you say, Well, we cant turn up on that day because weve got something else going on. Why dont you organize this for us? In 2016, Russian trolls organized political events for and against both presidential candidates. At an Islamic center in Houston, they organized a protest and the corresponding counterprotest. Down with the racists! Down with the Nazis! So why go to such lengths? These bad actors are trying to polarize the American public by exploiting existing tensions in our society. The goal? Make Americans see each other as enemies, especially during high-stakes events such as elections. If people feel they cant trust their neighbors or their government, democracy falters. There is a massive, sophisticated, persistent campaign on multiple fronts to misinform, divide and ultimately manipulate the American people. Is that accurate? Yes.
The following is an edited and condensed version of the conversation.

Q. Hi, Mr. Friess. How are you?

A. No, lets start on the right track here. Mr. Friess is my dads name. And Im Foster.

Foster it is. Youre a guy whos had a long, accomplished career. By no means do you need to get into politics to prove anything. Why all of a sudden, at your age, did you think: Hey, you know what? I want to be the next governor of Wyoming.

It wasnt I wanted to be the next governor of Wyoming. I just wanted to contribute to make Wyoming a wonderful place. We absolutely love this place, and now we have a half-billion-dollar deficit. And a lot of the elite here are treating my money, our money, the welders money, the carpenters money, nurses money, truck drivers money, as if its Monopoly money.

Almost all of my aunts and uncles lived to be over 100. So Im ready to go.

You mentioned the elite. Given your background and your success, dont you worry people will say, No, hes one of the elite.

I came from nothing. My mom dropped out of school in eighth grade to pick cotton and save the family farm. My dad had a high school education. And Lynn (Mr. Friesss wife) and I came out of the Army with $800 cumulative leave pay.

My mom and brother and I would go into the basement and butcher a couple dozen chickens every few months, put them in the freezer. And then a few days later get a couple bushels of corn. Because my mom said we cant afford any of that expensive store-bought food. So Ive always been the little guy.

I really had a very special moment on the campaign trail where I went into a shop where there were eight welders. And they took a picture of me. And I had my white, white shirt on and next to me were the grimy, sooty guys who had been welding all day. And it just kind of clicked that these are the guys Id want on my unofficial governors expense review board. Every time I see an expense I can impact, Im going to ask myself, What would my welder friends do?
The case is part of a wave of lawsuits over the quality of schools in more than a half-dozen states. The suits could serve as road maps for advocates in other states amid a nationwide teachers movement and a push in some state legislatures for more school funding.

The legal complaints have different areas of focus  from school funding to segregation to literacy  but all of them argue that the states are violating their constitutions by denying children a quality education.

Such lawsuits were filed in past decades, but the recent cases show a renewed energy for using the courts to fight for better education, and they may signal an end to a period when many courts, after the last recession, seemed unwilling to require states to spend more money on schools.

The courthouse doors are in effect open again, said David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, which has argued school funding cases in New Jersey and has filed amicus briefs in several of the current cases. What were seeing are the beginnings of a broader conversation about what the right to an education should look like.

Advocates are focused on state courts because of roadblocks at the federal level: A 1973 Supreme Court decision found that unequal school funding was not a violation of the United States Constitution, which does not mention education. Last month, a federal judge in Michigan ruled that access to literacy was not a fundamental federal right for students in the troubled Detroit school system.
A Texas sheriffs deputy charged with sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl and accused of threatening her immigrant mother with deportation if she reported him was found dead in his jail cell, apparently of suicide, the authorities said on Tuesday.

The man, Jose S. Nunez, was found in his cell at Karnes County Correctional Center at 5:45 p.m. on Monday, said Sgt. Elizabeth Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the Bexar County Sheriffs Office. She said the Karnes County Sheriffs Office and the Texas Ranger Division were investigating.

Sergeant Gonzalez said Mr. Nunez had been held at the jail since June 17.

Mr. Nunez, 47, was arrested that day in Bexar County after the girls mother said that her child made an outcry about the abuse, and she reported him to a fire station, Sheriff Javier Salazar said at a news conference that month.

Mr. Nunez was charged with super aggravated sexual assault of a child, a first-degree felony because of the girls age, Sheriff Salazar said. In the event of a conviction, the charge carries a prison sentence of at least 25 years.
The dramatic demonstration on Monday night followed decades of controversy and protest at the university that had accelerated in the last year, after the fatal eruption of racist violence in Charlottesville, Va.

The university said last year that removing the Confederate monument is in the best interest of the safety of our campus, but that a state law made it impossible to remove the statue on the universitys own authority.

Under that 2015 law, which is similar in language and structure to laws in other states that shield Confederate-themed displays, a monument, memorial or work of art owned by the state may not be removed, relocated or altered in any way without the consent of a state historical commission.

University officials resisted calls, including one from Gov. Roy Cooper, for them to invoke a loophole in the law allowing an object of remembrance to be removed without the commissions approval if it is a threat to public safety because of an unsafe or dangerous condition.

Nor did the university do much to pursue the formal process under the law for deciding the monuments fate.

Before the protest on Monday, a state panel was planning to meet on Wednesday to weigh the legal standing of private individuals who had sought the statues removal. The historical commission said it had not received any requests for action from the university system or its board of governors.

It was not clear on Tuesday what the authorities would  or could  do now about Silent Sam. No details were released about the extent of damage to the effigy or whether there were plans to restore, relocate or dispose of it.
It is rare that assailants in such attacks are detained. Afghan officials hoped the men in their custody, as well as the communication equipment seized, will help bring clarity to whether recent urban attacks claimed by the Islamic State can be traced to the same networks that operate for the Taliban and the Haqqani Network, the lethal arm of the insurgency.

If they are thinking the rocket attack will keep Afghans down, they are wrong, Mr. Ghani said.

Since a rare, overlapping cease-fire two months ago brought Afghans a brief bit of quiet, Mr. Ghani and his international partners have been working toward a second lull in the fighting around Eid al-Adha. When the Taliban assaulted a major city just 90 miles from Kabul, it put the fate of a second cease-fire in limbo. Mr. Ghani went ahead with an offer, but this time conditioned it on the groups reciprocating.

The Taliban have remained quiet on the offer. Instead, they abducted more than 100 Afghans on the highway in the north of the country on Monday. By the end of the day, they had released most, except for 21 who were reportedly members of security or government forces.

In private, Taliban officials said they were unlikely to declare a cease-fire this time, largely because it had been difficult to contain their fighters during the last one. Many of them even traveled to cities and took part in celebrations, suggesting to the Afghan government that the insurgents are as tired of the war as officials are.

In recent months, a strong push has been made to end the Afghan conflict by getting the Taliban to the negotiating table. American diplomats met with Taliban officials in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, where the insurgents keep a political office, in the hopes of shifting their long-held condition that they would negotiate only with the Americans first.

Now, Moscow is increasing its own involvement, and it has reached out to the Taliban.

We have never concealed the fact that we maintain contacts with Taliban members  they are part of Afghan society, said Mr. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, at news conference in the southern Russian resort city of Sochi.

The Taliban rejected a similar invitation to talks in April 2017, according to Russian news media reports.
TAIPEI, Taiwan  El Salvador severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan on Tuesday and established ties with China, leaving only 17 nations that officially recognize the Taiwanese government.

Latin America and the Caribbean have been an important bastion of support for Taiwan. Nine of the countries that maintain diplomatic ties are in the region. That has been eroding, however. Panama broke ties with Taiwans government in 2017, and the Dominican Republic did the same in May 2018.

Chinas Communist government seeks to absorb self-governed and democratic Taiwan and is campaigning to erase any acknowledgment of Taiwanese sovereignty by countries or corporations.

To persuade countries to switch recognition, China has primarily used money, just as it has used the lure of its giant market to pressure international airlines and other companies into dropping references to Taiwan on their websites.
SYDNEY, Australia  Mile after mile of the Great Barrier Reef is dying amid rising ocean temperatures. Hundreds of bush fires are blazing across Australias center, in winter, partly because of a record-breaking drought.

The global scientific consensus is clear: Australia is especially vulnerable to climate change.

And yet on Monday, Australias prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, abandoned a modest effort to reduce energy emissions under pressure from conservatives in his party. And on Tuesday, those same conservatives just missed toppling his government.

What on earth is going on?

Australias resistance to addressing climate change  by limiting emissions in particular  is well documented. Mr. Turnbull could yet be turned out of office as rivals rally support for another challenge as soon as Thursday. If that happens, he will be the third Australian prime minister in the last decade to lose the position over a climate dispute.
SYDNEY, Australia  When Alyson Colquitt was arrested in 2015 for selling cocaine, she expected jail time. What she did not expect was to spend more than a year in custody waiting to be sentenced, without access to drug rehabilitation or other services.

Ms. Colquitt pleaded guilty to selling less than a gram of cocaine to an undercover police officer. Despite being a first-time offender selling to support her own drug addiction, she was held in custody for 14 months.

There were absolutely zero opportunities for rehabilitation for prisoners awaiting sentencing in that prison, said Ms. Colquitt, who ended up overcoming her addiction with no medical support. I was hallucinating, vomiting, shaking, having nightmares. It was horrible.

The government of New South Wales, Australias most populous state, is not short of money: This years budget surplus runs into the billions. But despite its wealth and official promises to deliver an effective and efficient justice system, the states prisons and courts are overwhelmed with backlogs and sentencing delays that can drift to more than a year for nonviolent crimes, often cutting off access to programs that help keep criminals from offending again.
ROME  Even as she emerged as one of the leading figures in the #MeToo movement  raised fist and all  the Italian actress Asia Argento was never a media favorite in Italys unbendingly patriarchal society.

She was for the most part portrayed neither sympathetically nor heroically, but rather as a disingenuous climber well versed in her countrys often transactional relationship between sex, power and the pursuit of ambition.

Now, with reports that Ms. Argento quietly arranged to pay $380,000 to Jimmy Bennett, an actor who said she had sexually assaulted him when he was 17, she has gone from being the imperfect spokeswoman of a movement already having difficulty gaining traction in Italy to one who may have damaged the cause irreparably, at least in her own country.

This week, Ms. Argento was the target of a broad and savage public pillorying on the front pages of virtually every newspaper in the country. The headlines were merciless. Asia Minor was one; Et tu, Asia, another; and, naturally, Asia Weinstein.
After a wall of water roared down a narrow canyon in southern Italy, killing at least 10 hikers and sweeping some as far as two miles downstream, rescue workers continued searching on Tuesday for survivors and more victims.

A downpour on Monday during what is usually a dry time of year sent a flash flood down the Raganello Gorge, a popular destination for hikers in the Calabria region, overwhelming people with a surge that suddenly rose as much as eight feet, witnesses said. At least five people were missing on Tuesday.

This gorge filled in a very short time with water, and people were catapulted out like bullets, Carlo Tansi, head of the civil protection agency for Calabria, told reporters.
BERLIN  The Nazi guard lived a quiet life in a racially diverse corner of New York City for decades, having lied on his United States immigration papers in 1949 about the type of work he did during World War II. But on Tuesday, he was deported to Germany, ending a 14-year battle to remove him from American soil.

The expulsion of the former guard, Jakiw Palij, rid the United States of the last known surviving Nazi war crimes suspect still residing in the country, bringing to a close a long-vexed effort by the government to deport him. It also handed President Trump, who had pressed strongly for Mr. Palijs removal, a powerful talking point against critics of his immigration policies, by shifting the focus to the deportation of a man associated with the worst atrocities of the Holocaust instead of thousands of unauthorized immigrants whose stories are far more sympathetic.

Mr. Palij, 95, was first tracked down by investigators in 1993, and stripped of his American citizenship 10 years later when a federal judge found that he had falsely claimed in his visa application that he had worked on his fathers farm in Poland and at a German factory during the period when he was actually serving the Nazis at the Trawniki labor camp in occupied Poland.

In 2004, a federal immigration judge ordered that Mr. Palij be deported. But for years, American officials failed to persuade any country to accept a man born in what was once Poland and is now Ukraine, and who had served a murderous German regime.
Similar scandals have erupted elsewhere during the popes tenure, including in Chile and Australia.

Ireland has its own history of sexual abuse committed by clerics and other emotionally wrenching church scandals, most notably the mistreatment of women and girls in the notorious Magdalene Laundries, the for-profit church institutions that survived through much of the 20th century.

Mr. Burke said at a Vatican news conference that Francis, the first pope to visit Ireland in nearly 40 years, would set aside time to meet with victims of sexual abuse during his visit on Saturday and Sunday. He said it would be up to the victims to decide afterward if they wished to speak publicly.

The important thing for the pope, in these moments, is that it be a moment of prayer, of silence, of listening, Mr. Burke said.

The pope has been accused of reacting slowly to well-known sexual abuses by priests. On Monday, in an extraordinarily frank letter addressed to all Catholics, Francis assailed the abuses as atrocities committed against children.

With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives, he wrote in the 2,000-word letter. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them.
Our audit uncovered regular deposits into his bank account for the mortgage broking or consultancy services he was providing, so it was clear that his business was profitable, said Morris. Taxpayers cant just choose to remove themselves from the tax system. We all have a responsibility to pay our fair share towards societys essential services.

Barton ran Park Avenue Mortgage Brokers from 1995, and was sentenced to four years jail in 2000 for defrauding a number of pensioners and other investors of approximately $1 million. He had lost a significant chunk of money through gambling addiction and failed investments, and defence lawyer Gary Gottlieb described him as out of control.

According to Morris, Barton had registered for income tax but had not paid it for any of the years that he was in business. He evaded an estimated $400,000 of taxes over ten years.

Barton was fully aware of his tax obligations, said Morris. We made several attempts to try to help him get back on track, but he simply wasnt interested in doing the right thing.

His offending amounts to straight out theft of taxpayers money and shows a blatant disregard for one of the key responsibilities of running a business  filing an income tax return.
Local drug maker CIPLA  Quality Chemicals Industries (CiplaQCi) yesterday launched its sale of shares to the public, where for the next 10 days, the public will be able to submit different offers, with each share going for Shs 256.5.

In this Initial Public Offer (IPO), the company will sell out 18 per cent of its stake. Cipla-QCis coming on board will end a six-year initial public offering drought on the Uganda Securities Exchange (USE). Umeme Limited was the last company to issue an IPO on the USE in 2012.

The drugs manufacturing firm is a joint venture between Cipla Ltd of India, which holds a majority stake of about 62.3 per cent, and Quality Chemicals Uganda Ltd.

Emmanuel Katongole, the executive chairperson, said under the new arrangement, Ciplas shareholding will drop to 51 per cent after the initial public offering.

Cipla will remain the largest shareholder. We want it like that because of the technology the mother company has. We want to be able to tap into that technology, he said.

At the IPO launch yesterday at Kampala Serena hotel, Nevin Bradford, the companys chief executive officer, explained that the company plans to use the capital to expand its business.

He further said that there will be an expansion of the geographical reach and also increased production in volumes.

We are going to manufacture more drugs, develop a wider range of affordable drugs, as well as expand our market. By 2020, we want our presence felt in more countries from the current 19 where we supply our drugs, he said.

Up to 657,199,319 shares are up for grabs with a minimum amoung of shares that one can purchase being 1,000.

In the last financial year alone, Cipla-QCi supplied HIV/Aids medicines to approximately 500,000 people and malaria drugs capable of treating roughly 45 millon people.

The lead transaction advisor and sole bookrunner of this IPO is Renaissance Capital Kenya, while the lead sponsoring broker is Crested Capital. Standard Chartered bank is the receiving bank.

justuslyatuu08@gmail.com
Commissioner of Police JOSEPHINE KAKOOZA is the head of music, dance and drama department in the force, which she has served since joining as a 14-year-old in 1969.

The now 64-year-old is best known for her role in the police band. She has performed before eight different Ugandan presidents and as she prepares for retirement, she shares her life journey with Zurah Nakabugo.

You have to give it to Kakooza when it comes to dedication. She has risen from the lowest rank of probation constable to now a commissioner; she has seen it all in the force and is now grooming others to follow in her footsteps.

As police MDD head, she oversees and supervises more than 180 officers. She is an outstanding example of a woman determined to succeed in a male-dominated field and those close to her nicknamed her Mama Police.

Commissioner of Police Josephine Kakooza

Born in Masaka to Joseph Kakooza, a former Buganda county chief, and Theodora Namutebi, a young Kakooza actually dreamt to become a nurse when she grows up.

I was a young girl in the sixties and I admired British policewomen who were managing the police band back then, she says.

I loved the way they sang and held instruments. I also admired police women because they were smartly-dressed all the time and performed on so many occasions.

Kakooza recalls that it was normal back in the day to recruit young people into police because they could pick the music very fast compared to adults.

I was at Trinity College Nabbingo, but I dropped out of school in 1968 and my daddy told me to join a nursing school though I didnt like the course, she says.

She was enrolled at Butabika hospital nursing school but dropped out almost immediately.

I started with treating dead bodies which scared me a lot and ran away from there. I was also tired of seeing people dying all the time, she says.

After running away from Butabika, a relative connected her to then Inspector General of Police (IGP) Erinayo Oryema with the intention of drafting her into the police force. Oryema surprisingly didnt chase her away in spite of her young age and instead enrolled her to go through intensive music training.

IGP Oryema was a good man, very professional and knew the work of police. He respected police officers in all departments. But as a young girl, I didnt follow him so much since my focus was to shine in the police band, she says.

By the way, we had British trainers who were so professional and caring about constables who had joined the department to learn and feel the music, she says. We were very few, about 80 people.

After training at Kibuli police training school for two years, she was deployed in the police band under the police music department. Since then, Kakooza has never looked back and being part of the police band department has made her a role model.

It has made me grow in both age and mind. I now feel it is part of me. I love my job and I knew that I could do better work than men. That challenged me to work harder. I became firm in everything I did and when we used to go for field work and men sleep on verandas, I would also sleep there.

Recalling her formative days in the force, Kakooza says becoming a policewoman meant one had to endure a bit of discrimination.

Whereas we were all trained in police work, women were not trained in weapons until 1973. Before, women were neglected in weaponry training, thinking that we were weak and cant do it. But many women were also not confident in their work and left most of martial training for men, she says.

However, I had a different thought. My mind was that if a man can do it, why not me? And with that belief, I managed to train and defeated the men. I emerged the best in shooting the target during weaponry training in 1973.

It goes without saying that as a young lady in a field full of men, Kakooza attracted the attention of her male colleagues. Like any other woman, I faced many challenges with men attempting to have an affair with me. But I was firm and I used to challenge and oppose any man. Im tough, by the way, she says.

In the years that followed, Kakooza established herself in the band, often playing the flute or leading the march.

She performed before different heads of state such as Idi Amin, Milton Obote and, of course, President Museveni. She has managed to steer clear of any controversy by focusing on music as well as grooming others.

She is an exemplary figure whom all of us respect, says Patrick Onyango, the deputy police spokesperson. We look out for her when we need parental advice because she is an honest person.

Finance minister Matia Kasaija (R) joins Emmanuel Katongole (C), the executive chairman of Cipla Quality Chemical Industries, and other officials to unveil the CiplaQCIL IPO share price of Shs 256.5 per share

In her course of work, Kakooza has also been under several IGPS but she wouldnt want to rate them. Its not easy to say who was better. They all had different skills on police work. Although some of them have made a lot of faults than others, but they are human beings, she says.

Besides music, Kakooza is a proud mother of six children although two of them have since passed on. I educated my children until they completed their studies and now I have grandchildren. Im glad one of my sons has also joined police, she says.

On how she juggles police work and family time, she doesnt find any challenges. I am currently a single mother since my marriage was not successful due to so many ups and downs.

Kakoozas longevity in police has also yielded several awards that she cherishes a lot.

I have won several medals in my career. There is one for Independence, long service and good conduct, and distinguished service in the police. Im grateful to God for the recognitions because there are many police officers who look up to me for inspiration. You know, at the time I joined the force, women were not confident but I was different and used to do all things men could do. It gives me joy when I see many women coming up through the ranks.

Whereas Kakooza has had only one formal job throughout her life, she has various forms of income.

I do tailoring and practice little farming. I dont have much free time since I spend most of my time with training officers in music that we perform on different occasions, she says. Sometimes I also counsel and offer advice to people especially police women infected with HIV/Aids.

Kakooza has now set her eyes on retirement and she has already prepared for it.

I have constructed a small house and reserved some piece of land where I do small-scale farming. I have also learnt tailoring and poultry farming which I will practice during my retirement age to keep me busy.

She advises young officers to be determined and love their work.

They should avoid being greedy and making quick money through bribes. My advice to anyone wishing to join police is that they shouldnt look at making quick money. When you love your job, you will be a better police officer and get all the ranks. Young officers should go slowly and step by step until they will make it, she says.

Police officers should always rotate on three pillars; namely discipline, reporting bad cases and respect those above them.

zuraneetah2015@gmail.com
A police officer attached to the counter terrorism unit at parliament has been shot under unclear circumstances.



Kapchebungai Mudashir was shot in the leg at the basement parking opposite Parliament Avenue yesterday at about 4:00pm. Kapchebungai was rushed to an unknown hospital in an ambulance.



According to sources that preferred anonymity, it is not yet clear how Kapchebungai was shot.

Area around where the shooting happened

"They don't know where the bullet came from, but they just saw the man falling down. But there was no sound, and there [was] blood all over" the source told URN.



Parliament security officers confirmed the incident but declined to speak on the matter. Parliament's director of communications Chris Obore said that there was a shooting incident at parliament, but it was not worrying.



"There was an incident in which one police officer sustained an injury. He is receiving treatment and the condition is not worrying" said Obore.

Police spokesperson Emilian Kayima said that police is investigating the incident.
The health condition of Mityana municipality member of parliament Francis Zaake has reportedly worsened after falling off his hospital bed in Lubaga hospital.



Zaake was later transferred to Nsambya hospital for a scan after suffering complications in the spine, chest and stomach. Julius Katongole, a relative who has been taking care of the MP since Friday said that Zaake's condition had started normalizing.



He, however, says that Zaake's condition worsened on Sunday night when he fell off his hospital bed and hurt his neck.

Zaake at Nsambya hospital

"The situation of Hon Zaake is not good, we transferred him to Nsambya hospital. When we reached there, the doctors told us they dont have medication to be given to him. Now were fidgeting to take him abroad. The reason why we want to take him abroad is because here at Lubaga they dont have those machines for operations." Katongole said.



He said that while at Nsambya hospital, Zaake was given painkillers on grounds that the hospital cannot manage his condition and that it would be best if he's transferred abroad for treatment. Ironically, President Yoweri Museveni said Zaake who has been on life support, escaped from custody after being arrested last week on Monday.

Zaake was arrested alongside over 30 others on allegations that they stoned Museveni's motorcade in Arua. Zaake was dumped at Lubaga hospital by soldiers in worrying condition that triggered protests in his constituency.

Police spokesperson Emilian Kayima said Zaake escaped from Arua regional referral hospital and was not dumped at Lubaga hospital as alleged by his family. The arrested suspects were charged with treason and remanded until August 30 in Arua main hospital. They were reportedly tortured while under detention.

Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi who was also arrested in Arua, and separately charged with unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition in an army court, was also said to have been tortured.

Kyagulanyi was remanded to Makindye military barracks until August 23. His continued detention triggered off daily protests in several parts of the city, Mukono, Mbarara, Mityana among others.
The impending relocation of Kasubi market has sparked a bitter feud among area leaders, who accuse one another of taking bribes to support the move.

A few weeks ago, Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) bought a 1.2-acre piece of land at Shs 2bn from businessman Samuel Nkugwa to build the resettlement area for the market, which has been operating by the roadside for the past four decades and was disrupting traffic along the Kasubi-Namungoona route.

Whereas the relocation was agreed upon by the more than 3,000 traders to pave way for the expansion of the road, the move has been cast in controversy over the way it was done and the choice of the new location.

Kasubi roadside market

MONEY WOES

Last week, Catherine Nagawa, a woman councillor for Lubaga North, dragged fellow councillor Kennedy Ssonko to Old Kampala police station, accusing him of threatening to harm her if she didnt stop pestering him for money.

In an audio recording, Ssonko admits receiving facilitation from Joyce Ssebugwawo, the mayor for Lubaga, to distribute to area councillors to induce them to support the relocation.

A source at the Lubaga division headquarters told The Observer that LC-V councillors were budgeted to receive Shs 50m each while Shs 10m was to go to the LC-III councillors of the area.

About Shs 800m has exchanged hands. This money was channelled through Yusuf Wangi, who acts as the frontman for the seller, says a source.

Interviewed, Wangi denied being involved in the scheme and instead lays blame on opportunists. Im a respected businessman and I cannot participate in such dubious deals, he said. Let them bring proof that I dished out the money.

One LC-III councillor who preferred anonymity admitted getting only Shs 3m instead of the Shs 10m that had been agreed upon.

However, Nagawa blew the lid on the deal when she learnt that she had gotten peanuts.

There is a lot of money that exchanged hands to silence critics of the deal and I will expose each and every person who participated because ultimately, it is the traders that will suffer the consequences, she told The Observer on Friday. Some of our leaders picked bribes to remain silent and not antagonise the planned relocation. I have the evidence.

When The Observer contacted Ssebugwawo last Friday, she denied any involvement in the bribery scheme and blamed the development on a misunderstanding between councillors.

First of all we as Lubaga division were not involved in the purchase of that land, it was KCCA, she says. If those councillors are engaged in fighting amongst themselves, then it is unfortunate but as [Lubaga] council, we dont know about such allegations.

Meanwhile, the controversy has also sucked in Sarah Kanyike, the deputy lord mayor, who is being accused of being the mastermind behind the dishing out of the money. Sources accuse her of meeting Nkambo and striking a deal to silence dissenting views.

She, however, denied such a meeting ever took place and promised to get back to us with details of the deal. Im travelling from Kisumu but I will furnish you with everything when I return, she said.

Traders petition land commission

On Saturday, The Observer visited the new site, which is a few metres away from where the current market is. Nearby, a group of traders led by Lauben Ssengendo expressed their displeasure.

One acre cannot accommodate all of us, especially when you factor in that every trader needs bigger space, said Ssengendo.

This is not like Owino where people sell shoes or clothes and can operate in tiny spaceshere, traders mostly deal in foodstuffs. So, when you put into consideration that there has to be partitions, an offloading area as well as toilets, you realise this one acre is not enough. We had identified a bigger strategic place of four acres but we feel let down by our leaders who opted for such a place that cannot meet our needs, said Ssengendo.

The traders are now threatening to appeal to higher authorities for redress. Ssengendo and his group signed a petition which they handed to Kampala minister Beti Kamya.

The Observer has seen the petition by the traders through their lawyers Nabukenya and Associates advocates, which calls on the minister to investigate the matter.

The whole deal is littered with controversy and we have to seek justice before it is too late, reads part of the petition.

We are also going to the land commission of inquiry to investigate how this deal was reached, said Ssengendo.

We feel we have been betrayed by our local leaders who have decided to keep quiet as we suffer. We hope to meet Justice [Catherine] Bamugemereire and air out our grievances because this is wastage of taxpayers money through a bogus deal.

Why the relocation?

Plans to relocate the market have been ongoing for the past three years as part of efforts by KCCA to implement the five-year Second Kampala Institutional and Infrastructure Development Project (KIIDP-2).

The project is funded by World Bank and aims to improve KCCAs infrastructural and institutional capacity. It is valued at $183.7m (about Shs 712 billion).

There have been clashes in the past between KCCA and the traders at the market, who resisted relocation until a new place had been gazetted.

Peter Kaujju, the director of public and corporate affairs, says work at the new site is soon beginning and hopes it will be complete by September before the traders relocate.
When President Uhuru Kenyatta announced in February that traders living along the KenyaUganda borders of Malaba and Busia could freely move between the two countries for trade, the announcement was welcomed with ululations.

But five months later, Ugandan traders, especially women, complain of harassment and arbitrary arrest by the Kenyan police whenever they enter the country to do their petty trade.

Speaking to The Observer recently, some petty traders said their goods are confiscated and they are forced to pay a lot of money to recover them. Sometime, they said paying does not guarantee the return of ones goods.

Judith Nafula, 37, a mother of three, says she was once arrested in Busia Kenya at around 6pm, taken to the police station where she spent two days in the cells while her relatives were looking for money to bail her out.

I have been doing this business (hawking kitchenware and bananas) for over eight years. We used to take the merchandise to Kenya, although they used to harass us but they would not arrest us, she said.

Nafula remembers how paying bribes was the order of the day and traders had gotten used to it.

We used to bribe a lot, and we were used to that but trouble started when President Kenyatta publically announced that we were free to trade on both sides of the country, she said.

Linet Namaloba, who sells dry fish, lost her merchandise on top of paying Kshs 10,000 (Shs 380,000) to regain her freedom. She agrees that things have never been the same.

When we heard that we were free to trade, we stopped paying the bribes and were now confident and openly told the police that it was our right to trade freely only to realise later that we were inviting trouble, she said.

She is now jobless as all her investments were taken away by the Kenyans.

Leaders take

Geoffrey Macho, the Busia municipality MP, confirmed the extortion.

Its true my people are suffering. In the last 14 days, 60 women have been arrested and had to part with Kshs 10,000 (Shs 380,000) in order to get out. This is very humiliating and fighting the spirit of East African Community integration, he said.

We are asking the government to intervene, our people are suffering, women are losing their capital and dignity at the hands of the Kenyan police.

Macho pointed out that there are many Kenyan petty traders in Uganda who are freely trading without being harassed by Ugandan authorities. Why then should Ugandans be harassed, he asked.

It is not only at the lower levels that the EAC spirit is being undermined. Finance minister Matia Kasaija who was in Busia to launch the revenue authoritys vehicle scanning equipment pointed out that it was agreed that under the Common Market protocol no taxes be charged on EAC regional goods.

[But] things are changing; our sugar is rejected and we dont know why. Women selling vegetables are being arrested in Kenya! But why are they arrested? he wondered.

The arrests are bad because it will spoil the protocol and the spirit of integration that we are trying to create.

justuslyatuu08@gmail.com


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is receiving criticism for barring journalists from two otherwise public community meetings.

Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet that the meetings, at which such topics as race, immigration, healthcare, disability rights and housing were set to be discussed, were designed for residents to feel safe discussing sensitive issues in a threatening political time.

The candidate has been no stranger to the media spotlight since her surprise victory over Rep. Joe Crowley in the June Democratic primary, appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and stumping on the campaign trail with Sen. Bernie Sanders. But according to representatives of her campaign, unwanted attention following her PR tour was a major factor in the decision to make the community meeting off limits to the press.

Several journalists have noted that the candidates decision might not bode well for her ability to deal with press if she gets to Capitol Hill. Washington Post White House reporter Seung Min Kim said that if Ocasio-Cortez wanted to protect the privacy of those at the meeting, she should have made it a private event. Dont make it a public event and then ban the press, she said in a Tweet.

These were the first set of events where the press has been excluded, campaign spokesman Corbin Trent told the Queens Chronicle. This is an outlier and will not be the the norm. Were still adjusting our logistics to fit Alexandrias national profile.

Calling the dust-up a nonstory, Ocasio-Cortez said that future events would be open to the media.


Ed Rogers

BGR Government Affairs has inked a "public relations and media management services" contract with the Saudi Arabia Embassy in Washington.

The $80K monthly retainer contract calls for BGR to keep the Saudis apprised of political issues in Congress and the executive branch that may impact the Kingdom.

The firm also will assist the Saudis in communicating priority issues regarding US-Saudi relations to American audiences including the media and policy communities.

BGR's contract, which runs for a year, includes a conflicts clause.

Under the agreement, BGR agrees for one year following the expiration of the Saudi work not to "perform any work or accept any engagement for another government or governmental entity, or for any other client whose interests or objectives may be adverse to the interests or objectives of the Embassy, without written approval by the Embassy."

BGR chairman Ed Rogers handles the Saudi work.


Sreejit Mohan

Novartis has appointed Sreejit Mohan as global head of external communications. Mohan has been with Novartis since 2012, most recently serving as head of communications for Novartis Global Drug Development. Before joining GDD, he was the global head of franchise communications at Sandoz, a Novartis Company. Previously, he was director, public policy and communications at Bayer HealthCare and a vice president at FleishmanHillard. In his new role, which will integrate digital and traditional functions of external communications for Novartis, Mohan will help build and execute fully integrated communications strategies.



Courtney Beasley

Walker Sands has appointed Courtney Beasley vice president of marketing. Beasley joined Walker Sands in 2012, most recently serving as director of marketing. She has led the creation of 45 assets and dozens of campaigns to support departments across the agency, as well as spearheading multiple events and overseeing paid, SEO and creative campaigns. Before coming to Walker Sands, Beasley was an account executive at Groupon. As vice president of marketing, she will contribute to Walker Sands strategic expansion plans, and work to solidify the agencys status in the B2B tech market. Walker Sands has significantly expanded its leadership team over the last year, most recently with the appointment of three new female partnersErin Jordan, Annie Gudorf and Allison Wardin June 2018.



Lee McGuire

Lund International, which designs, manufacturers and branded automotive accessories has hired Lee McGuire as its new senior director of marketing for Jeep and off-road. McGuire comes to Lund from Skyjacker Suspensions, where she served as director of marketing. She has served on several select committees and task forces of the Specialty Equipment Market Association and was recognized by SEMA as one of its 35 Under 35. Lee will work to further develop our Jeep and light truck brands to their fullest potentials, said Lund President and CEO Mitch Fogle.


Canadian-owned Irving Oil announced today it has signed agreements to acquire the Tedcastle group of companies, an Irish-based energy marketing and distribution organisation, which operates under the brand name Top Oil.

Headquartered in Dublin, Top Oil is a leading supplier of home heating oil, including kerosene, as well as petrol and diesel fuel in Ireland. It recently expanded operations into company-owned retail forecourts and aviation fuel. Top Oil sells more than one billion litres of fuel every year to commercial and residential consumers in Ireland.

The Top Oil brand is attached to garages and outlets in Mount Lucas, Cappincur, Tullamore, Cloghan and Banagher.

The acquisition will ultimately enable Irving Oil to further expand its business across the Atlantic basin, having previously purchased Irelands sole refinery in the village of Whitegate in 2016.

This is a great day for our company, says Arthur Irving, Chairman of Irving Oil. We are proud to be doing business in Ireland and are looking forward to working with everyone at Top Oil. Were excited about the future.

The acquisition will be complete once all conditions of the sale have been met including approval by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission in Ireland. Upon close, Irving Oil will continue full operation of the Top Oil business and its assets as usual. Top Oil branding will remain in place across all locations and the existing workforce will be maintained.

Were excited about this opportunity to grow our business in Ireland and work with the Top Oil team, says Ian Whitcomb, President of Irving Oil. We have worked hard to build strong customer relationships and establish meaningful community partnerships in Ireland and are delighted to continue to grow our business in this area. Its a natural fit for us.

This is a very significant day for the extended family and our business in Ireland, says Raymond Reihill, Deputy Chairman, Tedcastle Holdings. We are delighted to hand over the reins, on completion of these agreements, to another family company and are confident that the business will continue to grow and prosper.

We are looking forward to joining Irving Oil and continuing to grow and develop our business under its umbrella, says Gerard Boylan, CEO, Top Oil. We share a common commitment to our employees, customers and the wider community.

As a proud Atlantic Canadian company, family owned and operated for close to a century, we have a long-term commitment to our employees, customers and communities we call home, says Sarah Irving, Executive Vice President of Irving Oil. We are looking forward to this opportunity to continue to expand and grow in the Irish market.

Top Oil has a fully-integrated market presence and well-established ties to the communities it serves. With a 55,000-tonne clean product terminal at Dublin Port, 20 inland depots, 200 dealer and company-owned forecourts and 20 dedicated fuel card sites, Top Oil provides a reliable supply of fuel products to the countrys businesses and consumers.

Irving Oil looks forward to sharing more information at the close of the sale.
UP 2022 poll: BJP kicks off online campaign with 'Soch Imanadar, Kaam Damdaar, Fir Ek Baar BJP Sarkar' slogan

Uttar Pradesh govt's decision to provide aid to kin of Covid victims very late: Mayawati

Ahead of 2022 UP polls, BJP sends Diwali gifts to its 30 lakh booth-level workers

Viral video: UP man held in sedition case after facebook post celebrating Pak win in T20 match

Allahabad: 5 found dead, bodies recovered from fridge, suitcase

India

oi-Madhuri

Allahabad, Aug 21: In yet another shocking incient, a five members of a family were on Monday night found dead inside their residence in Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. The Allahabad Police recovered bodies of a man, his wife and three daughters from a locked house on Monday late night.

The police said that the body of the man was found hanging, his wife's body was found inside the fridge, while the bodies of two daughters were found in suitcase & almirah and one daughter was found in the room.

Speaking on the incident, Allahabad Senior Superintendent of Police Nitin Tiwari said that it appeared to be a case of murder followed by suicide.

He said,''Prima facie, it seems that the man killed his wife and daughters, and later committed suicide. Investigation underway.''

The police have launched an investigation into the incident that occurred in Dhumanganj area of Allahabad.

In a similar incident, on July 1, 11 members of a family were found dead under mysterious circumstances at Burari in the national capital. The incident left the entire nation shocked.
Rajasthan: This woman BJP candidate demolished PM Modis Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao in her campaign

Rahul attacks PM Modi, says from 'Make in India' to now 'Rape in India'

Beware of this fake website with a Beti Bachao Beti Padao logo

India

oi-Madhuri

New Delhi, Aug 21: A fake website with Beti Bachao Beti Padhao logo is duping people posing as a government-backed saving scheme, warned an official with the Women and Child Development today.

The fake portal is made to appear a partner of the Ministry of Women and Child Development which aims to secure the future of girl children in the country, the official added.

2 women pilots flying around the world to spearhead 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao'

Advising the people to not fall prey to such fraud, the women and child development ministry has issued a circular stating the ministry does not host the portal and it has not published any kind of form or information on the website.

All details of the ministry are published only on www.wcd.nic.in, the circular read.

An official said a SMS and Whatsapp message is circulating, asking persons with girl children between the ages of 1 to 18 years to apply in this fake portal for availing Rs 10,000.

"The fake portal has a form which should be filled by the applicants. The portal carries BBBP logo and photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," read the circular.

The police said they have registered an FIR.

4 years of Modi govt: Education of girls key to India's growth

Allegedly, the fake website was charging Rs 200 per registration. Cases under relevant section of IPC and IT Act were registered. The accused has been identified and we are on the lookout for him, the police said.

The Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana programme was launched in January 2015 for the welfare of girl children under the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao programme.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 13:16 [IST]
Covid test must for those visiting Bihar from other states during Diwali, Chhath

Bihar By-polls: Lalu Yadav to campaign for RJD candidates on Wednesday to ensure 'visarjan' of Nitish Kumar

Bihar: Woman stripped, thrashed, paraded naked on suspicion of murder

India

oi-Madhuri

Patna, Aug 21: A woman was assaulted, stripped and paraded naked on Monday on the streets of Bihiya town of Bihar's Bhojpur district by a mob, which suspected her to be involved in the murder of a 16-year-old boy. The woman is currently under police custody and is undergoing medical tests. She has denied the allegations against her.

The man has been identified as Vimlesh Sav, who was found murdered near the railway tracks on Monday morning.

The Bihar police have so far arrested around 15 people in connection with the incident. It was alleged that the woman was probably attacked as the deceased Bimlesh Kumar alias Chhotu Sao was last seen with her.

Also Read | 20 years on, killer of 4 year old boy nabbed from Bihar

The villagers, in a show of anger, burnt down shops and vehicles including police vehicles. Security has been beefed up in and around Bihiya following the clashes.

Meanwhile, the SHO has been suspended and senior police officials have been camping in Bihiya.

Patna Zone Inspector General, in reference to this particular case, told news reporting agency ANI that the Station House Officer (SHO) Bihiya has been suspended. A First Information Report (FIR) has been registered in the case and police raids are on to arrest the culprits.

The Dafli locality is known as an area of sex workers and "mujra". The deceased, an Intermediate student, had allegedly gone to meet the woman there.

Also Read | Bihar: Secretariat officer shot dead in Patna

Tejashwi Yadav, leader of opposition in Bihar took to his Twitter handle to express his grief and comment upon the issue. Shocked by the incident, he provoked Deputy CM of Bihar Sushil Kumar Modi to break his silence over the matter. He went on to allege him of converting Bihar into 'rakshas raj' or rule of the demons and 'maha-jungle raj' or rule by the savages.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 11:40 [IST]
BJP leader slaps Mandsaur rape accused in court premise

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Mandsaur, Aug 21: A BJP leader slapped one of the Mandsaur rape accused while they were being produced before the court on Tuesday. The video of local BJP leader Vinay Dubela slapping one of the two Mandsaur rape accused was posted by news agency ANI.

Two men Irfan and Asif were sentenced to death on Monday by a special court for raping a seven-year-old girl in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur area. Special Judge Nisha Gupta held the two accused - Irfan alias Bhaiyu (20) and Asif (24) - guilty under relevant sections, public prosecutor B S Thakur said. The court will pronounce the quantum of sentence later in the day, he said.

The Class 2 student was lured away by the two men - Irfan and Asif - when she was standing outside her school on June 26, waiting for her parents to pick her up. The men raped her, tortured her and then slit her throat before walking away. Condemning the incident, local residents demanded capital punishment for the accused and as a mark of protest.

#WATCH: BJP leader Vinay Dubela slaps one of the two Mandsaur rape accused while they were being produced before the court. The two accused have been awarded death sentence in the rape case. #MadhyaPradesh pic.twitter.com/8fjqKikkkt  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2018

Also Read | MP: Two men gets death sentence for raping 8-year-old in Mandsaur

The girl identified the accused Irfan alias Bhaiyu (20) and Asif (24) before special judge on July 31. The rape survivor had earlier identified the duo from their photographs during the police investigation.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 18:27 [IST]
The don is depressed, brother in charge and not all is well in Dawood paradise

Dawoods financial manager, Jabir Moti was listed as director of Mac World Trading Ltd

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

London, Aug 21: The arrest of Jabir Moti, a key Dawood Ibrahim associate was a major breakthrough for the agencies. He was arrested by the Scotland Yard's Extradition Unit on suspicion of conspiracy to commit blackmail, import illegal drugs and money laundering in the US, the Metropolitan Police said.

Moti, reportedly in the UK on a 10-year visa, has been described as the financial manager of Dawood Ibrahim - the key accused in the Mumbai serial bomb blasts in 1993.

According to UK Companies House records, Moti is registered as the director of a company named Mac World Trading Limited under the name Jabir Siddiq since May 2012.

The correspondence address for the company is in the Grove Park Avenue area of east London and Moti's nationality and country of residence is listed as Pakistan.

However, as per the account filing history for the company, Mac World Trading Ltd was dissolved in September 2014 via a "compulsory strike-off" action by UK authorities.

"The registrar of companies gives notice that, unless cause is shown to the contrary, at the expiration of three months from the above date the name of Mac World Trading Limited will be struck off the register and the company will be dissolved," states a Companies House notice dated May 20, 2014, following which it seems the company was struck off.

Big breakthrough: Dawood's top financial manager arrested

The notice warned that upon dissolution "all property and rights vested in, or held in trust for, the company are deemed to be bona vacantia (ownerless property), and accordingly will belong to the crown".

Curiously, under the "nature of business" section of the company's filing history, it states "to be provided on next annual return", leaving the details of Moti's UK business interests a mystery.

Jabir Motiwala, a Pakistani national, was arrested by the Met Police at a hotel in Paddington area of London last Friday. He was produced at Westminster Magistrates' Court in the city the same day, where he was remanded in custody to appear again on Tuesday.

"A man was arrested by the Met's Extradition Unit at a hotel in the Paddington area on Friday, 17 August, in relation to an allegation of conspiracy to commit blackmail, import class A drugs and money laundering in the USA," a statement by the Met Police said.

"A warrant had been issued by Westminster Magistrates' Court," the statement said on the arrest of Motiwala, aka Jabir Moti and Jabir Siddiq.

He is believed to be the right-hand man of Ibrahim, managing his investments in the UK, UAE and around the world.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim remains on the UK government's recently-updated financial sanctions list.

Financial sanctions in force in the UK could apply to individuals, entities and governments who may be resident in the UK or abroad.

The measures include prohibiting the transfer of funds to a sanctioned country and freezing the assets of a government, the corporate entities and residents of the target country to targeted asset freezes on individuals or entities.

The UK Treasury department's 'Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets in the UK', updated on August 16, records Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar as the only "Indian" on its annually updated asset freeze list.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 17:00 [IST]
Due date for filing GSTR-3B extended till Aug 24, for Kerala its Oct 5

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

New Delhi, Aug 21: Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said that the last date of filing Goods and Services Tax Returns (GSTR) 3B for the month of July has been extended to 24 August. For Kerala, which has been hit by heavy rains and floods, the date for filing GSTR 3B is October 5.

"Last date of filing GSTR 3B has been extended to 24th August (for all states). Due to flood situation in Kerala, the last date of filling GSTR 3B has been extended to 5th November in the state," news agency ANI quoted Goyal as saying.

GSTR-3B is a monthly return. Taxpayers can file their return on GST Portal. Taxpayers have to file this return of a particular month by 20th of the subsequent month.

Goyal had even earlier said that there would be considerations for Kerala as the state has suffered due to excessive rains. The heavy rains which wreaked havoc in Kerala in the past few weeks seems to have eased a bit but the situation continues to remain grim. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday said that though the Centre has been forthcoming with help in terms of relief and rescue efforts, more is needed to make for the total damage.
Lawyer without brief is like Tendulkar without his bat on cricket ground: SC

How many courts have been set up to hear cases against MPs, MLAs with pending criminal cases: SC

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 21: The Supreme Court has sought to know the number of special courts set up to deal with criminal cases involving MPs and MLAs.

The court has asked the Centre to file a categorical affidavit to this effect. The court also sought to know the details, types of such courts and also the plans to set up more such courts. The affidavit will examined by the Supreme Court, next Tuesday.

SC restores honour of Army veteran who led 'Operation Blue Star'

Earlier the SC had said, "can we direct the Election Commission that if charges are framed against a person, he or she should not be given ticket to contest polls? Can we make such kind of orders? Or should we suggest the legislators to make a law in this regard as political parties are giving tickets to criminals," the Bench asked the Centre.

The court further asked how a politician charged with murder would uphold the Constitution. The observations were made while hearing a petition which seeks to disqualify politicians under the Representation of Peoples Act against whom charges have been framed by the trial court in heinous offences.

The Bench headed by Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra asked if a person charged with a heinous offence will uphold the Constitution as per his oath of affirmation to be a legislator under the Third Schedule.

Hungry, frustrated, man creates ruckus in Supreme Court

Attorney General, K K Venugopal responded by saying that a person is presumed innocent until found guilty. There is nothing wrong in taking oath until proven guilty, he also said.

The court however pointed out to the petitioner that there is a 'Lakshmanrekha' here. We only declare the law, the legislature makes the law, the court further said.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 17:09 [IST]
Goa assembly adjourned twice on first day of monsoon session following ruckus

Kasganj violence: Where is the need to raise anti-Pak slogans in Muslim localities, DM asks

Hungry, frustrated, man creates ruckus in Supreme Court

India

oi-Madhuri

New Delhi, Aug 21: A man allegedly created a ruckus out of frustration and hunger inside the Supreme Court complex today, a police official said.

The Supreme Court security informed the police that a man was lying inside the complex in an unconscious state, the official said.

Muslim man becomes Hindu to marry lady love, but parents take her away

He was later identified as Babu, a resident of Coimbatore, the official said.

After an enquiry, it was learnt that Babu had lost his case in the Madras High Court. He had come to Delhi to file an appeal before the Supreme Court five days ago, the official said, without giving details of the case.

The official said Babu was hungry and was also frustrated because he could not file his appeal due to a lack of required papers.

SC seeks Rajasthan's reply on contempt plea in lynching case

Legal aid at the Supreme Court advised him to come with the complete set of documents, after which he came to the parking area of the court and laid on the ground and started shouting and screaming, the officer said.

He was admitted to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and is doing better now, the officer added.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 10:52 [IST]
Amit Shah spends night at CRPF camp in Pulwama; says will see a peaceful J&K 'in our lifetime'

J-K cops detain 6 over derogatory video after Pakistan's victory against India in T20 match

Balkanisation of India: Lt. Gen would look to further bolster Operation Tupac in Kashmir

Terrorist who was going to kill shopkeeper in J&K gunned down

J&K: One terrorist gunned down in Handwara

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Srinagar, Aug 21: One terrorist was gunned down on Monday by the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Handwara region, said reports.

On Sunday (August 19), an unidentified terrorist was killed as Army foiled an infiltration bid along the Line of Control (LoC) in Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir. On the same day, two Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) Over Ground Workers (OGW) were arrested Handwara region of Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district.

[J&K: Two JeM Over Ground Workers arrested in Handwara]

Arms and ammunition were also seized during a joint operation by Handwara police and 30 Rashtriya Rifles.

[Army foils infiltration bid, 2 Pakistani soldiers gunned down in Tangdhar Sector]

On August 16, four soldiers were injured in a gun battle with militants on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.
JNU student Umar Khalid firing case: Attackers sent to two-day police custody

India

oi-Madhuri

New Delhi, Aug 21: A Delhi court on Tuesday sent two persons, who had allegedly attacked JNU student leader Umar Khalid in front of the Constitution Club here, to two-day police custody.

The two men, Darvesh Shahpur and Naveen Dalal, had claimed to have attacked the Jawaharlal Nehru University student outside the Constitution Club before an event.

In a video circulated on messaging service WhatsApp after the incident, the men had claimed: "By attacking Khalid we wanted to give a gift to the people on the occasion of Independence Day." They also said in the video that they would surrender on August 17 at the house of Sikh revolutionary Kartar Singh Sarabha. A police team went there but they did not turn up. They were later arrested, and investigators are trying to verify their claims.

Also Read | Two detained for questioning in Umar Khalid attack case

In 2014, Naveen Dalal was arrested for allegedly entering the BJP office with a cow head, the police said.

The Delhi Police had handed over the case to its Special Cell, which incidentally is already probing a sedition case against Khalid and two other JNU students.

The police are interrogating the two men on their whereabouts on the day of the incident and trying to obtain CCTV footage from nearby places.

Also Read | Cops release footage of man suspected to have fired at Umar Khalid

The police suspect that the accused uploaded the video "for publicity", which, perhaps, was their "primary motive".

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 13:40 [IST]
Hopeful IT panel will take up Pegasus; officials may have been instructed to skip last meet: Tharoor

Kerala Flood Relief: Shashi Tharoor is not our representative at UN, says CM Pinari Vijayan

India

oi-Madhuri

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 21: The Kerala government on Tuesday denied that the Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who is in Geneva to seek assistance from the United Nations and its allied agencies for the flood-hit state of Kerala, is not their representative at UN.

The CMO Kerala said that Shashi Tharoor is not their representative a UN and was not the envoy for the government, as reported by News 18.

Earlier in the day, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan also thanked the country and international community for helping the flood-ravaged state in returning to normalcy. The chief minister said that the United Arab Emirates has offered nearly Rs 700 crore to rebuild Kerala.

The chief minister added that the United Arab Emirates has pledged $100 million (nearly Rs 700 crore) for relief work and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi has spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Tharoor had earlier sought permission to travel abroad from the Delhi court that is hearing the Sunanda Pushkar death case. He is currently out on bail. Tharoor said he had gone to seek aid after consultation with Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan.

Also Read | Kerala floods updates: 'UAE govt has pledged $100 million towards relief operations'

Tharoor, on the other hand, tweeted last night that he has reached Geneva to seek help from humanitarian agencies.

Landed in Geneva to meet w/ @UN & international humanitarian agencies for consultations on #KeralaFloods. While seeking help is the prerogative of the Govt of India, i am here, in close consultation w/ @CMOKerala @vijayanpinarayi, to explore what help could be possible if sought  Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 20, 2018

The application that Tharoor gave the Delhi court to seek permission to leave the country said that apart from seeking aid and relief for the massive calamity which has hit Kerala, the MP also wished to express condolences to the family of former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Also Read | Kerala floods declared calamity of 'severe nature'

Kerala, which was destroyed due to heavy rain and flood, is currently on its way to normalcy. The state witnessed massive destruction which resulted in the death of over 350 people. The government along with some NGOs are trying to help Kerala get back on track by organising relief camps and providing medicines, food, clothes, and shelter to the flood victims.

The state has a humongous task of rehabilitating over 7 lakh people who were displaced by the floods.

Meanwhile, the Kerala government has called for an all party meet at 4 pm on Tuesday.
IAS officer Kannan Gopinathan, who shot to fame during Kerala floods, resigns over restrictions

Rahul writes to Centre seeking help for flood relief works in Kerala

Kerala Floods: Pinarayi Vijayan holds all-party meeting

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

Kochi, Aug 21: An all-party meet called by Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan was held on Tuesday to discuss the rehabilitation of people languishing in the relief camps.

Efforts to restore essential services is going on parallel with relief and rescue in Kerala, where at least a thousand people are still stranded at five villages around Chengannur - a town in Alappuzha.

With floodwater receding in some areas, lack of clean drinking water and diseases due to mosquito infestation, especially in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram, have become a big concern.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday said that over one million people were sheltered in 3,274 relief camps in Kerala. Rains that battered the state for over a week finally provided a relief on Monday.

Kerala floods declared calamity of 'severe nature'

Vijayan said that the annual outlay for Kerala in the present fiscal was Rs 37,248 crore and the "damages caused by the floods could be as high as the total outlay in a five year plan period".

The Chief Minister said that the total contributions received towards the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund so far was Rs 210 crore while another Rs 160 crore had been pledged.

How to help flood-hit people of Kerala

A total of 602 marooned people were rescued on Monday. Meanwhile, the Centre has declared the Kerala flood situation as a 'severe' calamity.
How many pregnant women in Kerala have died due to Covid-19? Health Minister Veena Geroge reveals

How an Arabic to Malayalam book on Jihad led to Islamic fanaticism in Kerala

Kerala floods: India unlikely to accept foreign donations

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Aug 21: The government is unlikely to accept any foreign financial assistance for flood relief operations in Kerala, official sources said.

They said the government has taken a considered decision to rely solely on domestic efforts to tide over the situation. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has offered USD 100 million (around Rs 700 crore) as financial assistance for flood relief operation in Kerala.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, called up Prime Minister Modi and made the offer for assistance, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in Thiruvananthapuram.

Around three million Indians live and work in the UAE out of which 80 per cent are from Kerala. The government of Maldives has also decided to donate USD 50,000 (Rs 35 lakh) for flood affected people in Kerala.

It is understood that the UN is also offering some assistance for Kerala. However, sources said India is unlikely to accept the assistance. The floods in Kerala, worst in a century, have claimed lives of 231 people besides rendering over 14 lakh people homeless.

PTI
Kerala floods: J&K bank to contribute Rs 11 crore

India

oi-Madhuri

Srinagar, Aug 21: The staff of J&K Bank will contribute Rs 11 crore to help the flood-affected people of Kerala, a spokesperson for the bank said today.

While most of the staffers are donating their six days' salary towards the relief fund in the southern state, the top executives helped enhance the scale of contribution with their salary of up to two months.

The staff of the bank has decided to donate six days of their salary to the flood victims in Kerala, a spokesperson for the leading bank of the state said.

Also Read | Kerala floods updates: 'UAE govt has pledged $100 million towards relief operations'

The Chairman and CEO of the bank, Parvez Ahmed, shall be contributing two months' salary while the executive presidents will donate their one month salary towards the cause, he said.

Expressing solidarity with the flood-affected people, Ahmed said "natural disasters of this proportion leave a trail of devastation. They destroy people's homes and crops, lives, bankrupt businesses, and shatter the sense of safety we enjoy as humans.

Also Read | As Kerala stands devastated, nation comes forward to help

"Having experienced devastating deluge only a few years back, we understand the miseries and are deeply saddened at the unprecedented destruction and hardship that the people of Kerala have been facing in the wake of worst ever floods in the state," he said.
Kerala floods: No outbreak of disease reported so far

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 21: The National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) met for the fifth time in five days here to review the rescue and relief operations in the flood affected areas in Kerala. Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha, chaired the meeting. The Chief Secretary of Kerala participated in the meeting via video conference. He informed that there has been less rainfall and floodwater has started receding.

The department of Consumer Affairs has dispatched 100 MT of pulses today. The Ministry of Health has airlifted 52 MT of emergency medicines. Another 20 MT of medicines will reach Kerala by tonight. 20MT of bleaching powder and one crore Chlorine tablets will be dispatched by tomorrow. 12 medical teams have also been put on standby. No outbreak of disease has been reported so far.

How to help flood-hit people of Kerala

The Ministry of Power has moved power equipment like electricity meters, coils, transformers etc. to restore the distribution network. Power generation has reached 2600 MW and no difficulty is envisaged on this score.

The department of Telecom has made operational 77000 [towers out of total 85000 towers in the State. Out of 1407 telephone exchanges, except 13 all are made functional. DoT has operationalised a helpline with number 1948 to help trace missing persons.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has made available 12000 KL of Kerosene. Adequate arrangements have been made for distribution of LPG cylinders. Adequate aviation fuel is also made available.

With regard to cattle fodder, 450 MT has been dispatched. Two lots of veterinary medicines have also been dispatched.

Goa next, be careful says ecologist who predicted Kerala floods

Railways have offered to supply required amounts of water and also transport relief material free of cost. Adequate quantities of milk and milk power have been made available by Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying.

The NCMC meeting was attended by Secretaries of Central Ministries including Health, Telecom, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Power, Petroleum and Natural Gas, and Senior Officers of Defence Forces, MHA and National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 6:00 [IST]
Kerala floods: Rains subside, 9 lakh people take shelter in relief camps

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Kochi, Aug 21: After the Centre declared Kerala floods as a "severe" calamity, the state government called for an all-party meeting over flood situation in the state at 4 pm in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday.

On declaring floods as a "severe" calamity, the state is bound to receive support at a national level with the possibility of additional assistance from the Centre's National Disaster Response Fund. Also, MPs from across the country can donate liberally from their MPLADS funds for providing relief.

Also Read | Kerala floods :'Need help equivalent to total damages,' CM Vijayan appeals for additional aid

Police have been instructed to take strict measures against such cyber offenders. Also Spotted some fraudulent messages/posters with altered CMDRF account numbers as well. Kerala is exhibiting monumental strength to bounce back from this tragedy, and anyone who is trying to disrupt it will face serious consequences.

North Paravoor in Kochi A man salvages the items at his shop after flood water receded at North Paravoor in Kochi on Monday, Aug 20, 2018. (PTI Photo) Health check-up Flood affected people queue up for health check-up at a relief camp at North Paravoor in Kochi on Monday, Aug 20, 2018. (PTI Photo) Also Read |Kerala floods declared calamity of severe nature' 'Thanks' to heroe's of Kerala Thanks' is written on the roof of a building to convey Kerala people's gratitude to Indian Navy and Air Force for their rescue and relief operations towards the flood-affected people, at North Paravoor in Kochi on Monday, Aug 20, 2018. (PTI Photo) INS Garuda naval base The passenger plane of Alliance Air that landed at INS Garuda naval base in flood-hit Kochi, Kerala on Monday, Aug 20, 2018. (PTI Photo) Packing up Army personnel pack up their material after carrying out rescue and relief operations in the flood-affected areas, at North Paravoor in Kochi on Monday, Aug 20, 2018. (PTI Photo)
Kerala CM assures Rs 10,000 to even those who leave relief camps

Kerala floods: Amid row over foreign aid, state focuses on rehabilitation

India

oi-Madhuri

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 24: With rescue operations in rain-ravaged Kerala nearly over, the focus is now on taking care of the over 10.40 lakh people staying in relief camps and rehabilitating people whose houses were destroyed in the deluge, even as the row over accepting foreign aid for relief work saw the Congress and Left attacking the Centre.

More than 50,000 volunteers have taken up the task of cleaning houses and public places filled with mud deposits and debris dumped by the floodwaters in the rain fury.

Meanwhile, health department officials said post-floods their focus has shifted to ensuring medical attention for the injured and the people living in shelter camps, cleaning of houses and wells, distribution of medicines and cleaning materials to the affected people.

As many as 387 people have been killed while over nine lakh are sheltered in relief camps in the state.

How to help flood-hit people of Kerala

Here are the Highlights on Kerala rains:

Cochin Airport suspends operations till Aug 26

The waters may be receding in Kerala but previous post-flood scenarios in other states suggest it could take years for the southern state to help rebuild its people's lives, destroyed in one of the worst floods in a century, and some more to implement measures that could significantly minimise the impact of a similar disaster.

[Kerala cancels Onam celebrations after worst floods hits the state]

The Kerala government has estimated a loss of Rs 20,000 crore, with Idukki, Malappuram, Kottayam and Ernakulam districts being the worst affected. Government officials say the state's topmost priority is to rescue people and provide lakhs of the affected with relief materials. They, however, admit that rebuilding the state will be a "daunting task".
Mallikarjun Kharge to boycott Lokpal selection panel meet, for fourth time

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Aug 21: The Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday decided not to attend the meeting of the Lokpal Selection Committee slated for Tuesday as a special invitee, the fourth time this year.

Alleging that the process of Lokpal appointment was "vitiated" and accusing the government of "subjugating" Parliament, Kharge, in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said he would not be able to attend any meeting of the selection committee until the leader of the single largest opposition party is conferred the status of a full-fledged member.

He alleged that the government was refusing to bring an amendment in the Lokpal Act making the leader of the single-largest party in Lok Sabha as a member of the panel, even after a parliamentary panel made the recommendation.

"It is deeply embarrassing to Parliament that even after the select committee of Parliament has approved the amendment to the Lokpal Act that would enable the leader of the single largest party to be a member of the selection committee, the government refuses to bring this amendment before the house. In a parliamentary democracy, to exclude the voice of the opposition would be to exclude and subjugate Parliament," he said.

"I continue to believe that the process of appointing the Lokpal under such circumstances is vitiated," he said, noting that people of the country are wise enough to see through this insincerity as "special invitee" without rights of participation, recording of opinion or voting is being sent out to the opposition.

"Under these circumstances, I must once again respectfully inform that I would not be able to attend the meeting of the selection committee until the leader of single largest opposition party is conferred the status of a full-fledged member as envisioned in the Lokpal Act, 2013," he said in his letter to the prime minister.

He also drew the attention of the prime minister to his three earlier letters, dated February 28, 2018, April 10, 2018 and July 18, 2018, which he had sent in response to previous invitations requesting him to attend the meetings of the Selection Committee held on March 1, 2018, April 10, 2018 and July 19, 2018 respectively, as a "special invitee".

PTI

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 11:16 [IST]
MP: Two men gets death sentence for raping 8-year-old in Mandsaur

India

oi-Madhuri

Mandsaur, Aug 21: Two men Irfan and Asif were sentenced to death on Monday by a special court for raping a seven-year-old girl in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur area.

Special Judge Nisha Gupta held the two accused - Irfan alias Bhaiyu (20) and Asif (24) - guilty under relevant sections, public prosecutor B S Thakur said. The court will pronounce the quantum of sentence later in the day, he said.

The Class 2 student was lured away by the two men - Irfan and Asif - when she was standing outside her school on June 26, waiting for her parents to pick her up. The men raped her, tortured her and then slit her throat before walking away.

The men were caught within 24 hours of the rape after police examined the photographs and CCTV footage from the neighbourhood.

Also Read | Congress demands CBI probe into Mandsaur rape case

Relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act were invoked against the accused.

Earlier on Saturday, Superintendent of MY Hospital, where the minor girl is undergoing treatment, told media that the victim is out of danger.

"Her condition is better than the one she was brought in and she's out of danger now. She's being given semi-solid food and is speaking today. We are monitoring her. She was also examined by doctors called from outside," he said.

Also Read | Gangrape of 8-year-old in Mandsaur: Chargesheet filed against the accused duo

The Mandsaur rape had triggered huge protests in Madhya Pradesh.
Lawyer without brief is like Tendulkar without his bat on cricket ground: SC

No NOTA in Rajya Sabha elections rules SC while striking down EC notification

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 21: The Supreme Court has said that None of the Above Option will not be allowed in Rajya Sabha elections. The court delivered the verdict while overruling the decision of the Election Commission allowing NOTA in the ballot papers for the Rajya Sabha polls.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India was hearing a petition filed by Manubhai Parmar, who was the Congress' chief whip in the Gujarat assembly during the last Rajya Sabha polls, in which the party had fielded sitting MP Ahmed Patel. Parmar had challenged the poll panel's notification allowing NOTA option in ballot papers.

"Why should a Constitutional court be party to an unconstitutional act ... If a person does not vote, he could be expelled by the party. But by introducing NOTA, you (EC) are legitimising the act of not voting," the bench, also comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud had said.

Did NOTA stand in between BJP and a majority in Karnataka?

It said the NOTA option was meant for individual voters in direct elections and not for polls for Rajya Sabha and MLC seats.

The idea behind having an open ballot voting system in polls for the Rajya Sabha and the Legislative Councils was to restrain cross-voting due to corrupt practices, it said.

The Bench also said that a lawmaker has to vote according to the directions of his or her party in such polls where preferences have to be disclosed on party lines and the voter cannot say that he would give first preference to a candidate and then give NOTA.

"Whether to vote and not to vote falls under the domain of the member of the house and the Election Commission cannot issue notification giving NOTA option," it said.

"How can the Election Commission can enter into this arena," the bench asked, while taking note of the submissions of Attorney General KK Venugopal, who opposed the poll panel's notification, that NOTA should not be made applicable in Rajya Sabha and MLC elections.

In five years, 1.33 crore Indians have exercised NOTA: ADR

Venugopal said a party enters into some kind of "contract" with other party which was beneficial to them and asked the MLAs to vote according to its decisions.

"Fundamental right of freedom of speech and expressions can be curtailed on the ground of morality," he said, adding that MLAs are bound by the decisions of their respective parties.

The poll panel opposed the plea against NOTA provision and said that it was an "abuse" of the legal process.

The Bench asked the poll panel as to why it was venturing into the "complicated" area.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 11:05 [IST]
Sonia ji unwell, Rahul Gandhi should take over as Congress chief: Siddaramaiah as party preps up for CWC meet

Opening of economy and closing of mind a dangerous mix: Sonia Gandhi

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Aug 21: UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, on Monday, called for a collective resolve to fight "forces of divisiveness, hate and bigotry" in the country, as she asserted that former prime minister and her husband Rajiv Gandhi's 'Sadbhavana' has a great relevance and resonance in the current times.

Speaking at the Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavana Award function, which was conferred on former West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi for his contribution to communal harmony, she said he has been an uncompromising champion of values enshrined in our Constitution which are now under "determined and systematic assault".

The award, given every year on the former prime minister's birthday, was instituted to commemorate his contributions to promote peace, communal harmony and fight against violence.

The Congress leader said, "Rajiv Gandhi was an unwavering believer that India's unity was actually derived from and strengthened by her incredible diversity. That is what Sadbhavna meant to him -- not just acceptance of, not just respect for, but most fundamentally a celebration of our society's many diversities."

She said Rajiv Gandhi's Sadbhavana has great relevance and resonance in the current times, which was "not just a passive acquiescence and tolerance of different points of view, but active engagement - so that every citizen of India is enabled to lead a life of dignity, security and self-respect."

She further said growing prosperity and social liberalism were two sides of the same coin for the former prime minister.

"Both had to go hand in hand. Technological capabilities would have little value in the climate of growing scientific obscurantism and social prejudice."

"We have seen that the opening of the economy and the closing of the mind is a dangerous and destructive mix," she noted.

Talking about Gopal Krishna Gandhi, the recipient of the award this year, she said there is pain and anguish in his writings in recent years and "every right thinking and right acting Indian shares not only his analysis in what is going wrong, but also his profoundly sensitive articulation of what needs to be done".

"In conferring this award to Shri Gopal Krishan Gandhi, we collectively express our resolve to oppose the ideologies that reject the composite essence of our nationhood and to fight the forces of divisiveness, hate and bigotry," she said.

Sonia Gandhi also recalled the achievements of Rajiv Gandhi as prime minister, particularly in changing the structure of the country's polity by the Constitutional empowerment of panchayats and 'Nagar Palikas' through reservation for women.

She said he brought peace to troubled regions of the country, even if it meant sacrificing elected Congress state governments in the process.

Recalling that Rajiv Gandhi saw huge potential for youth, she said the former prime minister ensured that 18-year-olds were given the right to vote. She said he broke new ground with using modern science and technology to address India's challenges in areas like drinking water, primary health, literacy and agriculture.

Former recipients of this award include Mother Teresa, Ustad Bismillah Khan, Mohammed Yunus, Lata Mangeshkar, Sunil Dutt, Dilip Kumar, Kapila Vatsyayan, Teesta Setalvad, Swami Agnivesh, KR Narayanan, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Muzaffar Ali and Shubha Mudgal.

PTI
Rahul Gandhi meets party leaders from Gujarat, asks them to be prepared for assembly polls

Rahul has lunch at roadside eatery in Goa, rides pillion on two-wheeler taxi for few kms

Rahul can't run parallel govt, says BJP after Sidhu defends his Pakistan 'hugplomacy'

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

New Delhi, Aug 21: Shortly after Sidhu's press conference, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra lashed out, saying that the Congress president cannot run a "parallel government" in the country.

Patra said Sidhu has implicated India by hugging the Pakistan Army chief and instead of explaining his act he is lecturing us over peace.

"Rahul ji you cannot run a parallel government in this country, Diplomacy is the prerogative of the central government. Any decision pertaining to the well being of the country will be taken by the government at Centre and not at the state, let alone a minister in the state cabinet," Patra said.

Patra further added that Sidhu's visit looked like an attempt to "implicate India".

Sidhu defends Pak visit for Imran's oath-taking, cites Vajpayee's visit to Lahore

"Whatever is happening between India-Pak it is the responsibility of India. Nobody has said no to peace. India has alway stood for peace. But if someone tries to stab India in the back it will not be accepted," Patra Slammed Sidhu.

"Have you opened a Pakistan desk in India? Sidhu is trying to preach 125 crore how India has a 'chhota dil'. What is happening? I am asking this not as BJP spokesperson but as a normal Indian who is annoyed today by tha appalling behaviour of your party," Patra said launching a blistering attack on Rahul Gandhi.

So for Congress, our Army Chief is 'sadak ke gunde' and Pakistan Army Chief is 'sone de munde'?, he further questioned.

Navjot Singh Sidhu had been widely criticised for his presence in Pakistan. He was also slammed for hugging Pakistan Army Chief.

However, Sidhu has claimed that his visit was a personal visit and he didn't go as a politician but, as a friend.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 14:56 [IST]
Bank strike today: SBI, PSU banks to be affected, which services will be hit

Why a farm loan waiver and not a temple at Ayodhya matters to farmers

RBI staff to go on mass leave from September 4 over pension trouble

India

oi-Madhuri

New Delhi, Aug 21: The United Forum of Reserve Bank Officers and Employees said its members will go on mass casual leave on September 4 and 5, pressing their long-pending demands over pension related issues.

According to a press release, United Forum today held a silent demonstration near the RBI office here which witnessed the participation of various leaders.

GST dented exports, demonetisation led to decline in MSME sector: RBI study

"To express deep resentment at the attitude of the officials of the Government of India, RBI staff members have waited too long and the limit of patience is crossing and are left with no alternative but to observe two consecutive days strike action ( Mass casual leave on September 4 and 5, 2018)," it said.

The forum will also submit a memorandum to the respective regional directors of all RBI centres on August 27.

RBI to pay Rs 50,000 cr dividend to govt for FY18 in line with Budget estimate

The demands include updation of pension for contributory provident fund retainers and allow CPF/ additional provident fund for those recruited from 2012, among other demands.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 13:01 [IST]
To launch major seaborne attack, Pak Army plans major distraction in Kashmir: IB

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 21: As the new dispensation took charge in Pakistan, Indian agencies have warned of attacks from Pakistan, especially from the sea. The Intelligence Bureau warning suggests that Pakistan army would look to keep the Indian Army busy in Jammu and Kashmir and the bordering areas, while it launches a sea borne attack.

This is the second time in two months that the agencies have warned of a seaborne attack from Pakistan. In July, the agencies had said that two groups, the Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Lashkar-e-Tayiba are training to carry out seaborne attacks on India.

With the election process on in Pakistan, there was a bit of a slowdown in terror related activities. The agencies in India warned that after the election process is completed, Pakistan would look to step up the heat on India.

J&K: Two JeM Over Ground Workers arrested in Handwara

The alert suggests that the terrorists of both the groups are training hard in a bid to launch an attack on the Indian Navy. The threat looms large in the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, an IB officer told OneIndia.

Several intelligence reports available with OneIndia state that the naval wing of these groups is handled by the Musa Company, which is the special services group of the Pakistan Army.

The naval wing of these terrorist groups is not often used by terror groups. It is part of the surprise element, the reports state. Since 2004, it had become mandatory for every Lashkar-e-Tayiba recruit to undergo a certain amount of maritime training. This apart, the terrorists also take part in classes on elementary flying.

As part of the training programme, the first class is held in Thakot and then at Murdike. The training programme comes to a close at Karachi and each of these sessions is conducted by officers of the Musa company.

Officials say that this is a strategic ploy by Pakistan. While it would look to keep the Indian agencies busy on land, it would look to stage an attack along the 7,500 kilometre coastline. The attack, the IB warns would be specifically on the Indian Navy. They would look to target strategic assets of the Navy such as INS Chakra and the INS Vikramaditya.

The Lashkar-e-Tayiba poses a bigger threat:

In a bid to boost up the maritime capabilities, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the al-Shahbab came together in 2011. The coming together of these two outfits was specifically to spruce up their maritime capabilities.

Investigations conducted have revealed that the pirates from Somalia who are dominant on Indian waters were sponsored by the al-Shahbab group which is linked to the al-Qaeda. It was the ISI that had suggested that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the al-Shahbab come together and carry out strikes.

J&K: Unidentified militant killed in Baramulla

The idea was to send out the terrorists along with some of the pirates in a bid to carry out strikes. Since manning all vessels is an impossible task for India alone, it became necessary to seek the cooperation of other nations such as Africa.

The Lashkar-e-Tayiba on the other hand entered into several alliances in a bid to spruce up its maritime capabilities. An operative by the name Abu Yakub was tasked with coordinating with the al-Shahbab. A plan hatched back in 2011 indicated that these groups would send out several pirates into the sea in a bid to keep the Indian Navy busy.

On the other hand they would take advantage of the situation and then get their terrorists to launch an attack on the Navy. Post the 26/11 attack, maritime security had been increased. There are over 400 warships which are on guard. In addition to this several more coastal police stations were set up and the fishermen were roped in to provide human intelligence.
Who is Ismat Chughtai? today's Google doodle

India

oi-Madhuri

New Delhi, Aug 21: Google Doodle, the search giant on Tuesday celebrated the 107th birth anniversary of Ismat Chughtai, one of the eminent Urdu writer. She was born in Badayun, Uttar Pradesh to Nusrat Khanam and Mirza Qaseem Baig Chughtai.

However, there is some confusion over when Ismat Chughtai was born. Some accounts state it as 15 August 1915, still others as 21 August of that same year. However, Google - which has issued a commemorative doodle for Ismat Chughtai's 107th birthday - attributes her family as stating her date of birth as 21 August 1911.

Ismat Chughtai is that fierce feminist voice of Indian Literature, who unapologetically wrote on the taboos close to the society in this part of the world, never seems to lose its relevance.

She wrote on themes like female sexuality and femininity, middle-class gentility, and class conflict, often from a Marxist perspective. With a style characterised by literary realism, Chughtai established herself as a significant voice in the Urdu literature of the twentieth century, and in 1976 was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India.

Ismat Chughtai was awarded Padma Shree in 1976, for her contribution in the field of literature. Some of her most notable works are Terhi Lakeer, Angarey, Lihaaf, and Chui Mui, all of which are collections of her short stories. This literary stalwart breathed her last on October 24th, 1991 in Mumbai, India.

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Story first published: Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 7:46 [IST]
Who is Satyapal Malik, the first politician to be appointed as J&K Governor after 51 years

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

New Delhi, Aug 21: When NN Vohra's term as the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir ended on June 28, 2018, speculations were rife as to who would replace him. Several names, from Lieutenant General DS Hooda to Major General GD Bakshi, were doing the rounds since then. Lt.Gen.Syed Ata Hasnain was also seen as the contender for the post. Since 1967, the post has been occupied only by retired civil servants, diplomats, police officers and Army generals.

The government today (August 21) announced that BJP leader Satyapal Malik, who is the current Governor of Bihar, would be the next Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. Malik will be the first career politician to be appointed as the governor of Jammu and Kashmir in 51 years after Karan Singh, whose term ended in 1967.

[Satyapal Malik appointed as next Governor of Jammu and Kashmir]

Jammu and Kashmir is currently under Governor's rule after the BJP pulled out of the ruling coalition with the PDP in June this year.

Karan Singh was the last Governor of Jammu and Kashmir with a political background. He served from 1965 to 1967. The appointment of Malik, who will head the administration in the border state, also comes against the backdrop of the changing political scenario amid speculation of the possibility of some disgruntled MLAs in the Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP joining hands with the BJP.

Malik's appointment brings to an end the tenure of Vohra, a former civil servant who took over as Governor of Jammu and Kashmir on June 25, 2008, at a difficult time when the state was facing the Amarnath land row agitation.

[Centre favours an Army veteran as J&K Governor: Here are the two names]

Malik, who has been associated with almost all political parties, started as a socialist leader in Meerut University during his student days to finally become the vice president of the BJP before being appointed as the Bihar governor last year. Malik was with the Bhartiya Kranti Dal, Lok Dal, Congress and Janata Dal and the BJP during his long political career. He became the MLA of Charan Singh's Bhartiya Kranti Dal from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh in 1974.

He joined the Congress in 1984 and became its Rajya Sabha MP but resigned three years later in the background of Bofors scam. He switched to the V P Singh-led Janata Dal in 1988 and became an MP from Aligarh on its ticket in 1989. In 2004, Malik joined the BJP and unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha elections, losing to Charan Singh's son Ajit Singh. Before taking oath as Bihar governor on October 4, 2017, he was in-charge of the BJP's Kisan Morcha.

Malik had served as the Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Tourism and held many important positions at the central and Uttar Pradesh government.

OneIndia News with PTI inputs
Has 3rd wave started in India? Here's how many cases of AY.4.2 reported in country, so far

2+2 dialogue an 'opportunity to enhance India-US ties': Official

International

pti-PTI

Washington, Aug 21: The United States has described India as an "all-weather partner" and noted that the coming 2+2 dialogue with New Delhi is an important opportunity to enhance engagement on a range of diplomatic and security issues and discuss how to operationalise India's status as a major defence partner.

U.S. Secretary of State Micheal Pompeo and Secretary of Defence James Mattis will travel to New Delhi next month for the 2+2 dialogue, the format of which was agreed upon between the two sides during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington in June 2017.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman were to travel to Washington to take part in a meeting with their U.S. counterparts in July.

But the U.S. postponed the dialogue, citing "unavoidable reasons." After June last year, the two countries had tried to schedule the dialogue many times, with several dates having been considered.

Earlier this year also, the '2+2 dialogue' was postponed due to uncertainty over the confirmation of Pompeo as new Secretary of State.

On August 20, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Alice Wells said, "With India, we are looking forward to the inaugural 2+2 dialogue with Secretaries Pompeo and Mattis travelling for these meetings in New Delhi on September 6. It is an important opportunity to discuss and enhance our engagement on a range of diplomatic and security priorities and really is an indication of the deepening strategic partnership that we enjoy with India."

Wells was addressing a Foreign Press Centre video conference from Washington on "U.S. Policy in the Indian Ocean Region" during which she previewed her coming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference hosted by the India Foundation in Hanoi on August 27-28.

Major defence partner

She said India played a central role in U.S. national security. It was "enshrined in the President's national security strategy as well as the administration's South Asia and Indo-Pacific strategies."

She said at the 2+2 ministerial, the U.S. was looking to discuss "how do we operationalise India's status as a major defence partner."

India was designated a major defence partner by the U.S. in 2016 and the defence cooperation between had grown from "essentially zero dollars" in 2008 to $18 billion today.

The U.S. did more military exercises with India than with any other country in the world "but how do we take this partnership to a new level so that it is not just going to be defence acquisitions but really a way of framing how we see challenges and how we want to be able to respond together to address these challenges."

Wells highlighted that the India-U.S. partnership is rooted in shared democratic values and commitment to rules-based order. ''The two nations are going to be able to demonstrate at the 2+2 dialogue the facts of this maturing partnership.''

Trade relations

On a question about trade relations with India, Ms. Wells said opening up trade with India was a "key strategic objective" for the Trump administration.

Bilateral trade currently stood at $126 billion, an increase of more than $10 billion from last year and there have been critical purchases by Indian firms in the commercial aviation, energy as well as the defence sectors. She, however, added that impediments do remain between the two countries on trade.

"Tariff and non-tariff barriers have been a subject of long-standing concern and intellectual property rights as well. So we are continuing a very intensive dialogue with the Indian government on how do we address these irritants and unlock the trade that is of great interest to U.S. firms when they look at the Indian market and its potential," she said.

'An all-weather partner'

Wells observed that looking outside of India, Washington wanted to work together with New Delhi and identify projects whether they be in Sri Lanka or Nepal.

"One of the great new elements of our relationship with India is that we are working in third countries," she said as she cited the example of the assistance and developmental level work with India in Africa on health-related issues and peacekeeping training. She said India and the U.S. worked together in programmes that involved bringing Afghans to India for cost-effective training.

"India really is an all-weather partner as we look ahead to how to ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains free and open."

PTI
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang calls Vajpayee 'outstanding politician'

International

pti-PTI

Beijing, Aug 20: Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has described former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as an "outstanding politician" who made significant contribution to development of the Sino-Indian relations and expressed condolences over his death.

Vajpayee, one of India's most charismatic leaders and inspirational orators, died on August 16 at the age of 93 in New Delhi.

"I am saddened to learn the passing away of A B Vajpayee former Prime Minister of Republic of India," Li said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sent on August 17.

The translated letter of Li was tweeted by the Indian Embassy here today.

"On behalf of the Chinese government and its people, I would like to extend my deep condolences and express my sincere sympathy to the bereaved family," he said.

"Vajpayee is an outstanding politician who devoted his life for national and social development and had earned widespread respect among the Indian people," the Chinese premier said.

[Headley's half brother at Vajpayee funeral: India finds Pak's choice surprising]

During his tenure as Prime Minister, he paid an official visit to China (2003) and has made outstanding contribution to the development of India-China relations, he said. The Chinese side attaches great importance to China-India relations, and would like to work together with the Indian side to push forward bilateral ties to greater achievements, he said.

[To build memorial for Vajpayee, NDA to scrap 2013 UPA law]

Vajpayee visited China in 2003 during which the two countries have setup the Special Representatives mechanism to resolve the boundary dispute.

PTI
Hopeful IT panel will take up Pegasus; officials may have been instructed to skip last meet: Tharoor

Kerala floods: Tharoor in Geneva to seek UN assistance

International

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Geneva, Aug 21: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor to meet the United Nations agencies for their assistance in rebuilding his home state Kerala which has witnessed unprecedented crisis due to floods.

Tharoor, Thiruvananthapuram MP, said "While seeking help is the prerogative of the Govt of India, i am here, in close consultation with CMO Kerala, CM Pinarayi Vijayan, to explore what help could be possible if sought."

Also Read | Kerala floods declared calamity of 'severe nature'

He tweeted, " Landed in Geneva to meet w/ @UN & international humanitarian agencies for consultations on #KeralaFloods. While seeking help is the prerogative of the Govt of India, i am here, in close consultation w/ @CMOKerala @vijayanpinarayi, to explore what help could be possible if sought."

Landed in Geneva to meet w/ @UN & international humanitarian agencies for consultations on #KeralaFloods. While seeking help is the prerogative of the Govt of India, i am here, in close consultation w/ @CMOKerala @vijayanpinarayi, to explore what help could be possible if sought  Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 20, 2018

However, the CMO Kerala stated that Tharoor was not their representative at UNited Nations, reports News 18.

The Union Home Ministry has declared the crisis in Kerala as a calamity of severe nature in view of the "intensity and magnitude" of the floods and landslides in the state. The Ministry noted that at least 247 people have lost their lives in the rains, floods and landslides in the state, while over 17,000 huts/houses have been damaged.

Also Read | Weather forecast for Aug 21: Heavy rains likely in Hyderabad in next 24 hours

Earlier, Tharoor met with former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's family to pay condolence. Kofi Annan passed away on Saturday in Geneva, Switzerland.
Why ISKP would be ISIs preferred proxy to launch attacks in India

NIA arrests Madurai man for trying to establish Islamic State, Sharia law in India

With Islamic State in overdrive mode particularly in South India, NIA sounds a high alert

Madurai man who tried to establish Islamic Caliphate charged by NIA

Why Islamic State could spoil the Chinese party in Afghanistan

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Multiple attacks on security personnel in Chechnya, IS claims responsibility

International

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Moscow, Aug 20: The Islamic State (IS) have claimed responsibility for attacks at three different locations in Chechnya on Monday, said reports.

The attacks were aimed at the security forces and several policeman are said to be injured.

Officials in Russia confirmed several policemen were wounded in the cities Grozny and Shali, reported Al-Jazeera.

The responsibility for the attacks was claimed by a website called Amaq which is said to be affiliated to the Islamic State.

Amaq said its militants had attacked police officers in the areas of Shalinsky, Mesker-Yurt, and Grozny, but did not provide further details, said a Reuters report.
A tense situation at the Welikada Prison left three inmates and eight officials injured.

According to prison sources, female inmates of the prison had staged a protest against the authorities decision to transfer an inmate who was involved in drug peddling and smuggling, to another prison.

At the same time, a group of over 100 prisoners had broken open a door of a cell and started pelting stones at jailors who were on duty outside the prison cells.

Prison sources said that some female inmates threw gravy at the officials and several prison officials were injured when they were pelted with stones.

Later, a section of the female prisoners had staged a protest on the prison roof demanding that the authorities not transfer the female in question to another prison. The inmates started hurling roofing tiles at officials on duty

A tense situation ensued when Prison officials attempted to bring the situation under control by using minimum force.

Fifty two inmates who were behaving in an unruly manner were arrested and transferred to another prison.

A senior official of the Welikada prison said that there are more than 400 female inmates at the Welikada prison and only a group of inmates were involved in the protest.

(Source: Daily News  By Buddhika Imbulana)
Orthopaedic Medical Tourism Clinic Trends  Berlin No beach No Problem

Medical Tourism Costs for Major Countries

You may be researching medical tourism for yourself or a loved one and trying to decide if its something that is right for you.We hope you find the information below helps you in your decision process. If you have more questions feel free to contact us.Brief History of Medical Clinic TourismMedical tourism is increasing in popularity all over the world. For example, most Americans dont even realize they are in the middle of a hot spot for medical tourism from visitors outside the country.Patients from USA, Middle East, Russia and China are most actively traveling for medical producers.Medical tourism has changed and grown a lot over the years. Some time ago just the words medical tourism would strike fear into most people. Picturing seedy unhygienic operations in back street allies in third world countries.This is not the case anymore. With countries all over the world getting involved in medical tourism the standards of care are on par with countries such as the United States.Medical Tourism Goes Main StreamThe main driving force in medical tourism the past few years was plastic surgery, in places like Thailand. While the industry continues to grow with breast implants, nose reconstruction and hair transplants it is not the only popular medical treatment anymore.More complicated surgeries are coming to the forefront of the medical tourism industry. For example just 5 years ago most Americans would have never traveled to India for a heart surgery. Now, this is common practice.As you most likely are aware, and why you are searching for a medical clinic, is the high cost of medical care especially in the United States.Now there are several countries that offer first class medical care at a much better value compared to the USA. For example, some more complicated surgeries can cost up to 70% less to have performed outside the USA. In most case, the standard of care and time for the patient to recover is much better than in the United States as well.Orthopaedic Procedures New TrendOne very popular procedure growing in medical tourism is orthopedic surgery. There are several reasons for the growing demand for orthopedic medical tourism.The main reason for the growth in orthopedic medical tourism is the cost. This is directed at the US market. The cost in the US for a standard hip replacement it is on average of $42,000 and you only get 1-2 days max stay in the hospital before your sent home to get physiotherapy on your own.Total knee replacement costs are even more than hip replacements in the United States.This brings us to another reason for the demand of medical tourism, is the cutting edge procedures in some countries.For example, in Germany, they are performing Uni-Knee replacements. In the simplest form instead of cutting both joints for a total knee replacement, you can have the uni procedure were only a small part of the knee is cut out. The advantage to this is the recovery time and cost is much better in both cases. This procedure, for example, is not being done in the United States at all.Patients are becoming more confident in the skill of international doctors have to perform such procedures such as total hip and total knee replacement. There is little to no margin for error for this type of surgery so of course patients are becoming very educated on doctors and the best place for them to go for operations.Now for most of you will know the BIG 3 countries for medical tourism.Thailand (Cosmetic Surgery)Mexico (Dental Work, Cosmetic)India (Fertility treatments, orthopedic and cardiac care)Pros of Medical Tourism for the Patient:Low cost of proceduresTravel to exotic locationNo or little wait timeUsually a high standard of healthcareCons of Medical Tourism for the Patient:Communication may be a problem.Doctors may resume needles between patients or have other unsafe injection practices.Medication can be counterfeit and of poor quality.The blood supply in some countries comes primarily from paid donors and may not be screened.Flying after surgery increases the risk of blood clots.What might surprise you is the fourth most popular destination for medical tourism! Care to guess?GERMANY!Germany is the fourth most popular destination for medical tourism and it continues to increase in popularity.Some statistics about Germany medical tourism;The biggest source of patients in Germany is Russia, followed by the Middle East; particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia; and other Eastern European countries. There is also strong interest in medical tourism from some European markets, including the Netherlands, UK, and Austria. And there is a small amount of business from the USA and Israel.2018 data255,000 people from 177 countries receive medical treatment in Germany. But that number includes tourists so should be downgraded to around 115,000.There are several factors for the growth in popularity of medical travelers to Germany.It started with the dentist then grew with the popularity of ophthalmology. Vision doctors in Germany are ranked some of the best in the world.For example Heidelberg Ophthalmologist ranked 16 of the 100 most influential people in Ophthalmologyberlin medical tourism clinicStill not convinced? See the list of world doctor rankings.So here is the list of top 10 countries with best doctors in the world 201610. Japan is a resourceful country which has also the best economy in the world. Japan also has some of most advanced technology in the whole world ,so they are able to produce the best tools and they have best institutes to train their doctors. So these are reasons that they have professional and skillful doctors as well. Many countries also send their doctors to Japan for training, because they have well developed or managed education department in terms of medical because Government knows that these doctors have to serve as the backbone of the country after their attacks in 1945 so pharmaceuticals, surgery, neurology, ENT, cardiology is best in this country.9: Netherland Country which will provide the best health proven facilities to every patient of the world is Netherland that is situated in the Northern Western side of Europe as this country has finest doctors from that of all over the world, so Government of this country which has best health care system provides them adequate experience and requires extra assiduousness to qualify for the final house job. Therefore doctors who are graduating from the medical institutes of this country are well polished and skillful because they have to work under the qualified physicians and surgeons General Practitioners and Doctors in the best organization of the Netherlands which is producing qualified medical specialists.8: Sweden another rich European country which has the best and most organized health care system of region because well established hospitals. It is very interesting to know that almost every hospital in the country is mainly government-funded but on the other hand private hospitals are also exist which are also well organized and well managed because the health system in this country is managed at three different levels which are National, local as well as regional. So doctors of this country are quite well famous in the world because of their best services in the medical department, therefore, all doctors which are passing out every year from colleges are also trained under the specialists for more time than the average.7. Norway is not only the richest country of the world with its income per capita but also considered one of the best in fields of education with best medical research, so it is shocking to know that every hospital of the country is funded by public in National Budget, therefore, medical facilities are free for every citizen until the age of 16 years. So due to excellent medical system doctors of this country are excellently trained and ready to manage medical departments. This is because the skillful doctors of Norway have conquered every sphere of the medical field, this country has the highest expenditures on health which is US$9715 per head, therefore, the health care system is performing very well in the world.6. Belgium Belgium has proved itself as the best regardless of the skillful and best doctors as compare to all countries of the world which is mainly due to establish to large number of labs, hospitals, clinics, healthcare centers, pharmaceuticals industry and research institutes where these medical specialist are every day and night very hard to produce a better system with training of freshly passing out doctors, therefore, they got better results. So not only specialists of this department but also of other field are touched to managed every department in respect of health system, hospitals are working as Government and also as private but dentists in this country are private only.5. Canada is well established and has all sources including its excellent Government, are managed as a well-organized health care system because this country has grown in popularity due to its great work in the field of medical sciences, therefore, it has the best and qualified doctors in the world. The medical department is always public funded therefore provide free medical facilities to its citizens. As they have best medical facilities with highly qualified doctors, people from every country always choose this country for their treatment because they are fighting to resolve challenging diseases which are not solved by the other doctors of many countries.4. Australia this country is blessed with the most sustained health care system with highly qualified doctors and specialists of the world so government, as well as private institutes, is available in this country, so it is better to know that a large number of expenditures are only paid by Government of this country so according to statistics that more than 75 thousand doctors and medical specialists are working now in this country. So the government has opened many institutes which are the only reserved for the training of new doctors for their further training as specialists. Doctors in this country are highly professional and specialize and are able to cure every disease.3. Israel is ranked on this position with respect to the medical department with most qualified doctors of the world; it is possible as a sufficient part of the budget of this country spent on medical care system and on the education as well as training of doctors, therefore, this country has many skillful doctors. So doctors of this country are consulted by patients who are living in different areas of the country so far the awareness of people research seminars and medical projects meeting are conducted every month in public so it is necessary for the people of this country to join of the four insurance policies in the country, therefore, the health care system is improving with every passing day.2. United States is providing complete health safety to its citizens due to its excellent health care system with highly qualified doctors, as these doctors are trained in special institutes. This has led to this country producing the finest doctors from all countries of the world. The United States ranks 2nd in this list because of producing highly productive health care each year. The volume of patients each year is ambition, not only to provide better polite treatments but also maintain friendly relations with patients to treat psychologically. It is interesting to note that about 60% of the hospital of the United States are not profitable but the treating doctors are profitable.1. Germany the most advanced country in the field of Medical Sciences. Germany has a great history of medical training skills and manpower. This is producing some of the finest most qualified doctors in the world. Doctors are trained in intensive medical programs by the supervision of many international specialists. Germany has laid the foundation of the best medical system in the world with excellent quality hospital facilities, and best medical specialists.It is been reported that German trained physicians and surgeons are more highly trained than the world average. The healthcare system of Germany is about 80% Government funded while other remaining is publicly funded. Health insurance is mandatory in Germany for all residents and citizens in the form of private or public health insurance.Berlin medicalMedical tourism is experiencing extremely high growth for orthopedic surgeries specifically for total hip and total knee replacement.Berlin Germany is growing as a popular destination for total hip and knee replacements. A few reasons for the popularity growth.An exciting and historic city as a travel destinationWorld leading healthcarePatient first NOT money doctor mentalityState of the art clinics and hospitalsSame implant technology as in the USThe fantastic value for procedures, many clinics offer all-inclusive packagesNOC ORTHO Medical Clinic, A Leader in Orthopaedic Health CareAt NOC ORTHO Boutique Medical Clinic, your life is our specialty. Our team of compassionate, experienced physicians offers a comprehensive range of orthopedic healthcare services. We are also an english speaking orthopaedic clinic.By specializing in orthopedic surgical medical tourism our team streamlines every aspect of your health care. NOC ORTHO offers the best care for total hip and total knee replacements.Theres only one name youll need to remember for all of your orthopedic medical tourism needs: NOC ORTHO Boutique Medical Clinic.Our team of physicians treats patients from all over the world. In addition to emphasizing preventive care to help our patients stay healthy, our primary care services include total hip replacement, total knee replacement, hand and shoulder surgery.Are you experiencing hip or knee pain? Take the NOC ORTHO hip or knee quiz to help you understand better what might be causing the pain.NOC ORTHO treats all types of knee and hip conditions, including arthritis, sports-related injuries, fractures, and dislocations. The expert physician assistants, physicians, and therapists at NOC are specialty-trained in the most advanced, minimally invasive treatment options for hip and knee replacements. Our care team will work with you to personalize a care plan to best fit your lifestyle and outcome desires.NOC ORTHO1021 N Ocean AveOrlando Florida 32832erick@noc-ortho.comnoc-ortho.com/
Europe Portable Mini Fridges Market is expected to garner $440.7 million in 2025

Europe Portable Mini Fridges Market

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The Europe Portable Mini Fridges Market is expected to garner $440.7 million in 2025, growing at a CAGR of 3.2% during the forecast period according to Progressive Markets report, Europe Portable Mini Fridges Market Size, Trend, Share: Opportunity Analysis & Forecast, 2014-2025.Access Full Summary:Portable mini fridges are also called travel mini fridges. They are the best choice to keep food, drink, pharmaceuticals, and beautifying agents cool while traveling. These mini fridges are smaller and lighter than ordinary refrigerators. These can be set-up according to the choice of the buyer. Being light weight is a key property of these fridges, which facilitates their use for voyagers who can store them in their vehicles and move around during their trips. Increase in demand from residential customers and rise in need for cold storage in commercial vehicles drive the growth of the portable mini fridges market. However, limitations in refrigeration efficiency and limited opportunity in residential space are expected to hamper the market growth to a certain extent.Based on type, portable mini fridges are categorized into less than 1 cu ft, 1 - 1.9 cu ft, 2 - 2.9 cu ft, 3 - 3.9 cu ft and 4-5 cu ft. 4 - 5 cu ft portable mini fridge was the largest segment that accounted for about two-fifths share of the industry sales in 2017. Features such as convenience, low energy usage, and less space, encourage consumers to replace their conventional refrigerators with portable mini fridges. Apart from this, 2 - 2.9 cu ft portable mini fridges segment experiences an increase in demand from customers who travel extensively as well as from urban dwellers who live by themselves in small apartments. In 2017, 2 - 2.9 cu ft segment market share was about one-seventh of industry sales and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.2% from 2017 to 2025.Request Sample Report:Based on application, the market is categorized into commercial use and home use. The commercial segment consists of portable mini fridges used for cooling purposes in road & commercial vehicles, caravans, tug boats & transport boats, and other commercial places, such as hotels, restaurants, offices, and institutes. In 2017, portable mini fridges in commercial use accounted for four-fifths market share and is expected to be three-fourths of industry sales in 2025.Based on country, the market is segmented into Germany, the UK, France, Russia, Benelux, Italy, Spain, and rest of Europe. The UK portable mini fridge market generated the highest revenue in 2017 with about one-fifths of total market share followed by Germany, France, and Italy. Technological advancements and change in lifestyle coupled with adoption of smart and energy saving home appliances are the key factors driving the growth of the portable mini fridge market in this region.Some of the leading manufacturers profiled in this report are Dometic Group AB (Publ), Smeg S.P.A, Signature (LG Electronics), Caldura, Rubiks Cube (Husky International), Chillquiet, Igenix, Danby, GE Appliances, and Haier Inc.The company makes use of primary corporate research and secondary inputs from trusted sources to build its own reference base. It maintains consistency in quality as it keeps itself updated with changes in market dynamics and gauging its net effect on global business trends.Reach UsMr. Shriram Dighe4th Floor, Unit 12, Marisoft III,West Wing, Marigold IT Park,Kalyani Nagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411014,India: +91 20 66346040Toll Free: + 1-888-906-9222help@progressivemarkets.com
Healthcare BPO Market 2018 to 2023, Along with Accenture, Catalent, Charles River Laboratories International, Cognizant Cyber Securities, Covance , IBM, etc. by MRFR

Healthcare BPO Market

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Market Research Future has a cooked research report on analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next seven years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Healthcare BPO Market.Healthcare BPO Market - HighlightsThe Healthcare BPO Market is growing with the rapid pace; mainly due to the technological innovations in medical care. According to a recent study report published by the Market Research Future, the global Healthcare BPO Market is booming and expected to gain prominence over the forecast period. The global healthcare BPO market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.3% during the forecast period 2018-2023.Notably, minimization of critical mistakes is the key factor driving the Healthcare BPO Market. Increasing incidence of errors in the medical bills has encouraged adoption of BPO services by healthcare organization.Request Premium Sample copy atThe BPO professionals ensure the highest accuracy rates in all tasks such as medical coding, billing, claims adjudication, accounts receivable, records indexing, and others, which will help in boosting the growth of the market. Other factors such as increase in cost saving, rise in recovery audits, and demand for niche services are also fuelling the growth of the market. Despite these significant driving factors, doubts over service quality is expected to decline the market growth. Service quality is the major issues in the developing regions. For instance, in 2015, British Telecom has announced plans to shut down its call centres in India due to complaints of poor customer service.On considering the recent trends, it is observed that with the rise in development of healthcare sector, adoption of the advanced technology, and IT services have also been escalating. The major benefit associated with the adoption of BPO services is the minimization of operation cost and time. Healthcare BPO plays a key role in response to three major trends: managing the claims, electronic health records, and maintaining the financials record. Thus, many healthcare organization are adopting these services to improve the management.The healthcare BPO services enrich resource allocation, boost financial performance and increase the effectiveness of providers. The healthcare BPO provides services such as: medical billing & collection medical billing, medical coding, medical data entry, medical records indexing, medical claims processing, and others.Key Players:AccentureCatalentCharles River Laboratories InternationalCognizant Cyber SecuritiesCovanceIBMAnd more.Get Customized Report with niche Segments, Vital Players and Overall Segments atHealthcare BPO Market - Regional AnalysisMost of the existing market players are concentrated in the Americas owing to well-established market and high healthcare expenditures. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in 2015, U.S. healthcare spending increased 5.8% reaching USD 3.2 trillion. Canadian healthcare specifically was stressed by an advancing demographic move. The increase of insurance coverage because of health care reform (Affordable Care Act, 2010) in the U. S. additionally prompted an expansion in health care spending. The North American healthcare BPO market is showing a huge potential to grow due to high adoption rate. Various U.S. based organizations such as Sykes, Cognizant, IBM, QUINTILES, and others are continuously putting efforts to come up with newly advanced technology to curb the surmounting healthcare cost, and other management issues. In current scenario, integration among companies have been observed. For instance, on Feb. 9, 2017, Accenture acquired iDefense Security Intelligence Services business to address enterprise security needs.Healthcare BPO Market - Segments:The global healthcare BPO market is segmented on the basis of services and region. Service-based segmentation coveres payer services, pharmaceutical services, and provider services. The regional segmentation of global healthcare BPO market covers the Americas (North America and South America), Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa (MEA) and rest of the world (RoW).The Americas dominate global healthcare BPO market due to huge development in healthcare domain and presence of strong economic conditions. Maximum revenue from this region comes from the United States of America (USA) and Canada. In the global market, Europe holds the second position after the Americas. Biggest markets in Europe include France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom (UK). The Asia Pacific, the fastest growing market for healthcare BPO garners maximum revenue from countries such as Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea. In this region, higher number of cancer patients is increasing demands for various diagnosis & treatment methods. Such demands boost the market growth. In countries such as India, government resolutions are aiming to enhance healthcare services, not only due to a high percentage of population suffering from cancer like illnesses, but also due to the popularity of medical tourism.Healthcare BPO Market - Competitive AnalysisThe Healthcare BPO Market is currently dominated by very few players. IBM is one of them and holds a strong share in the market. IBM is a U.S. based company that manufactures and markets computer hardware and software and offers hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. The prime emphasis of the company is on digital revolution by improving data, cloud, and mobile and social security. The company has entered into various collaborations to expand their product portfolio and market share. For instance, in June 5, 2017, IBM Watson Health teamed up with Novartis to use cognitive computing with an aim of improving results in advanced breast cancer research.Cognizant is also one of the leading providers of BPO services along with information technology, information security, and consulting. In 2017, Cognizant acquired Brilliant Service Co. Ltd. to expand its digital transformation portfolio.Get Prime Discount atAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.ContactMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Composite Simulation Software Market is Likely to be Worth US$ 76.8 Million in 2023

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Stratview Research announces the launch of a new research report on Composite Simulation Software Market by Software Type (Computer-Aided Design, Computer-Aided Engineering, and Computer-Aided Manufacturing), by End-Use Industry Type (Aerospace & Defense, Transportation, Building & Construction, Wind Energy, Marine, and Others), and by Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World), Trend, Forecast, Competitive Analysis, and Growth Opportunity: 2018-2023.This market report, from Stratview Research, studies the simulation software market in the global composites industry over the trend period of 2012 to 2017 and forecast period of 2018 to 2023. The report provides detailed insights on the market dynamics to enable informed business decision making and growth strategy formulation based on the opportunities present in the market.Simulation Software Market in the Global Composites Industry: HighlightsComposite materials are far more complex and variable than metals due to presence of many raw materials, intermediates, and manufacturing processes. It is not easy to produce a final part by developing a right combination of different materials and processes at the first instance. Also, there is a big push on the manufacturing side to streamline automation and produce high-quality composite parts faster. Simulation software helps composite stakeholders in the designing, development, and production of composite parts more efficiently.Composites industry currently accounts for a minuscule share of the total simulation software market, but is likely to be one of the fastest-growing applications in the foreseen future. As per Stratview Research, the global composite simulation software market offers an impressive growth during the forecast period and reach US$ 76.8 million in 2023, which offers an opportunity to the industry players to align themselves with the market growth. Increasing penetration of composites in various end-use industries such as aerospace & defense and automotive, higher demand for automation and faster production processes, and increasing demand for simulation software from design to production are some of the major growth drivers of the market.Aerospace & defense industry is expected to remain the largest market for simulation software in the composites industry. All major aerospace and defense OEMs are searching out the possibility of using composites in most of the structural applications of their upcoming aircraft, thus driving the demand for efficient simulation software to minimize the risk of expensive product development. Transportation industry is expected to offer the highest growth in simulation software demand for composites over the next five years, driven by increasing use of composites in the structural applications of electric vehicles and premium vehicles. All major simulation software companies in the composites industry are heavily targeting the transportation industry to tap the growing market potential.Register Here for a Free Sample of the ReportAmongst the three software types i.e. CAD, CAM and CAE; CAD is the most used simulation software in the global composites industry and is expected to remain so during the forecast period as well.In terms of region, North America is expected to remain the largest market for composite simulation software over the next five years. The region is the worlds capital in terms of aerospace composites manufacturing with presence of several aerospace OEMs and tier players. However, Asia-Pacific is likely to experience the highest growth in the demand of composite simulation software due to high growth of composites and a gradual shift of composites manufacturing from North America and Europe to the Asia-Pacific region.The global composite simulation software market is highly consolidated with about a dozen players populated worldwide. The key players are Siemens AG, Autodesk Inc, Dassault Systemes, ESI Group and Altair Engineering. New product development and merger & acquisitions are the key strategies adopted by the major players to gain competitive edge in the market.Report FeaturesThis report provides market intelligence in the most comprehensive way. The report structure has been kept such that it offers maximum business value. It provides critical insights on the market dynamics and will enable strategic decision making for the existing market players as well as those willing to enter the market. The following are the key features of the report:Market structure: Overview, industry life cycle analysis, supply chain analysis.Market environment analysis: Growth drivers and constraints, Porters five forces analysis, SWOT analysis.Market trend and forecast analysis.Market segment trend and forecast.Competitive landscape and dynamics: Market share, product portfolio, product launches, etc.Attractive market segments and associated growth opportunities.Emerging trends.Strategic growth opportunities for the existing and new players.Key success factors.This report studies global composite simulation software market and has segmented the market in three ways, keeping in mind the interest of all the stakeholders across the value chain. The following are the three ways in which the market is segmented:Composite Simulation Software Market by Software Type:Computer-Aided Design (Regional Analysis: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and RoW)Computer-Aided Engineering (Regional Analysis: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and RoW)Computer-Aided Manufacturing (Regional Analysis: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and RoW)Composite Simulation Software Market by Composites End-Use Industry Type:Aerospace & Defense (Regional Analysis: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and RoW)Transportation (Regional Analysis: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and RoW)Wind Energy (Regional Analysis: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and RoW)Building & Construction (Regional Analysis: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and RoW)Marine (Regional Analysis: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and RoW)Others (Regional Analysis: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and RoW)Composite Simulation Software Market by Region:North America (Country Analysis: the USA, Canada, and Mexico)Europe (Country Analysis: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Rest of Europe)Asia-Pacific (Country Analysis: China, Japan, India, and Rest of Asia-Pacific)Rest of the World (Country Analysis: Latin America, the Middle East, and Others)Stratview Research is a global market intelligence firm providing wide range of services including syndicated market reports, custom research and sourcing intelligence across industries, such as Advanced Materials, Aerospace & Defense, Automotive & Mass Transportation, Consumer Goods, Construction & Equipment, Electronics and Semiconductors, Energy & Utility, Healthcare & Life Sciences, and Oil & Gas.We have a strong team of industry veterans and analysts with an extensive experience in executing custom research projects for mid-sized to Fortune 500 companies, in the areas of Market Assessment, Opportunity Screening, Competitive Intelligence, Due Diligence, Target Screening, Market Entry Strategy, Go to Market Strategy, and Voice of Customer studies.2nd Floor, Crystal Tower, Telibandha, Raipur, Chhattisgarh 492001Stratview ResearchE-mail: sales@stratviewresearch.comDirect: +1-313-307-4176
Peanuts Market Analysis, Top Key Players| Hampton Farms Inc., Star Snacks Co., LLC, Virginia Diner, Olam International, Kraft Foods Inc., Etc.

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Peanut Market Overview:The wide application of peanuts in the food industry is considered as a major driver for peanuts market. Peanuts are widely used for the extraction of oils and peanut flour. The processing of peanuts and its high consumption as snacks also has a positive impact on its market growth. The high nutrient value of peanuts make its consumption more popular amongst the health conscious consumers. Shift in consumption pattern and adoption of healthy lifestyle has supported the positive growth of peanuts market. However, peanut is also listed as one of the major allergens due to which its consumption is restricted only amongst the consumers who do not have peanut allergy.Peanut is a potential crop used for the manufacturing of peanut oil, spreads and is often used directly for culinary propose and direct consumption. Peanuts are a rich source of poly unsaturated fatty-acids and hence have a wide application in food industries for the health benefits it imparts. The by-products after peanut processing is also considered to be of industrial use. Peanuts are rich in energy and are a good source of nutrients, minerals, antioxidants and vitamins that are essential for maintaining a healthy body. They are also known to be a rich source of dietary proteins and hence are popularly used amongst the consumers.Bring a Sample Report @On the basis of peanuts form, raw form is found to hold a major share and is calculated to increase at high rate globally based on the oil and flour extracted from the raw form of peanuts. However, the convenience usage of the powder form is supporting the increased demand of the product from consumers side. The application of peanut in extraction of peanut oil is found to hold a major share on a global level. Amongst the distribution channels for the sale of peanuts, hypermarket and supermarkets share is projected to increase at a high rate.Key Players:The key players profiled in the global peanuts Market are Olam International (Singapore), Kraft Foods Inc. (U.S.), Hampton Farms, Inc (U.S.), Star Snacks Co., LLC (U.S.), Virginia Diner (U.S.), Archer Daniels Midland (U.S.), Diamond Foods, Inc. (U.S.)Segments:Peanuts has been segmented on the basis of Form which comprises Raw, Roasted, blanched, Powder, Others. Raw form is found to hold a major share due to its application in further processing.Peanuts has been segmented on the basis of application which comprises Direct consumption/Culinary purpose, Bakery and confectionery, Peanut butter and Spreads, Peanut bars, Dairy Products, Oils, Others. Peanuts application in oil production is holding a large share followed by application in bakery and confectionery.Peanuts has been segmented on the basis of Distribution Channel which comprises Hypermarkets and Supermarkets, Convenience stores, Specialty stores, E-commerce, Others. Sale through hypermarkets and supermarkets is found to be high.Regional Analysis:The Global Peanuts Market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and rest of the world (ROW). Asia Pacific region has the major market share followed by North America. Changing life-style has led to adoption of healthy diet by consumers due to which Asia-Pacific is projected to generate a high revenue during the given forecast period. The Major importers of peanuts include Netherlands, China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Germany. Based on the higher demand for food oils with high mono-unsaturated fatty acids, the import and export of peanuts in the developed countries is found to rise at a steady growth rate.Access a Report Details @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.ContactMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Global Urinalysis Market Competitive landscape and key vendors are Beckman Coulter, Siemens, Sysmex Corporation, Sysmex America, Inc., ARKRAY,Inc., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Teco Diagnostics

Global Urinalysis Market

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This market report offers a comprehensive overview of the Urinalysis market considering all the trends, market dynamics, and competitive scenarios. Also, the Urinalysis market report is comprised of a brief overview of the market focusing on definitions, market segmentation, end-user applications and value chain analysis. If you have a different set of players/manufacturers according to geography or needs regional or country segmented reports we can provide customization according to your requirement globally With Expanding Future Business Scope. The Urinalysis market also presents vital statistics on the condition of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance for clients and other businesses interested in the market.The urinalysis market accounted to USD 1.25 billion in 2016 growing at a CAGR of 7.5% during the forecast period of 2017 to 2024.Request FREE Sample Report copy atSome of the Prominent vendors operating in urinalysis market are Beckman Coulter, Inc., Siemens AG, Sysmex Corporation, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, ARKRAY, Inc., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., URIT Medical, Tecodiagnostics among others.Market SegmentsOn the basis of application the market is segmented into diabetes, urinary tract infection (UTI), kidney disease, liver diseaseOn the basis of geography North America & South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East & AfricaSome of the major countries covered in this report are U.S., Canada, Germany, France, U.K., Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, China, India, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Brazil among others. In 2017, North America is expected to dominate the market.On the basis of product type the urinalysis market is segmented into instruments and consumablesThe instruments urinalysis market is further sub segmented into biochemical urine analyzers and automated urine sediment analyzersThe consumables urinalysis market is further sub segmented into dipstick, reagent, analyzers and disposables.On the basis of end user the market is segmented into hospitals, diagnostic labs, home healthcare settingInquiry before Buying atFactors Driving Huge Growth in the Global Urinalysis MarketIncreasing Geriatric PopulationWith increasing age, the bodys immune response stops responding and chances of getting bacterial infections or any diseases is very high. According to WHO, in 2015, the world geriatric population aged 60, was 900 Million and by 2050, it is expected to reach 2 billion. With growth in the geriatric population, the urinalysis market is also growing as the chances of getting bacterial infection or UTI infection is more in the elder population.Increasing Prevalence of Urinary tract Infection and Kidney DiseaseUrinary tract infection is the most common infection of kidney which is diagnosed by urinalysis test. Febrile UTI is the most common UTI infection that occurs in Childhood. Around 1 in 10 girls and 1 in 30 boys develop UTI by the age of 16. Boys have higher incidence rate of UTI infection while girls have higher incidence rate of recurrent UTI infection. At the age of 7 around 3% girls and 1% boys develop upper UTI infection. Urinalysis market is booming because of the increase in prevalence of urinary tract infection and kidney diseases.Inquire about Discounts and Customized Reports at sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.comImportant highlights covered in the global urinalysis market Key points related to the focus on urinalysis market like product definition, variety of application, Revenue and demand and supply statistics Analysis of the various growth opportunities in the urinalysis market for stakeholders and to provide details of competitive landscape for significant players Competitive study of the top Vendors operating in the market space along with analyzing the latest trends and strategies used by various Companies. Accurate predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior Growth of the urinalysis industry across various geographies such as the North America Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America and Middle East & Africa.About Data Bridge Market Research:Data Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.Contact:Data Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-2818Email: sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.com
Future Growth: Fibre Optics Market By Key Players: Fujikura, Prysmian Group, AFL Europe, Leoni AG 2018-2025

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report Fibre Optics to its huge collection of research reports.This report studies the global Fibre Optics market status and forecast, categorizes the global Fibre Optics market size (value & volume) by manufacturers, type, application, and region. This report focuses on the top manufacturers in North America, Europe, Japan, China, India, Southeast Asia and other regions (Central & South America, and Middle East & Africa).An optical fiber or optical fibre is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair.The APAC region currently dominates this market. The presence of leading companies, such as Furukawa Electric, Fujikura, and Yangtze optical fiber & cable, in this region, is a significant factor that will impel the prospects for market growth in this region during the estimated period.Get Free Sample Report of the Research Study at:The major manufacturers covered in this reportCorning IncorporatedOptical Cable Corporation (OCC)LS Cable & SystemFurukawa Electric Co., Ltd. (OFS Fitel, LLC)FujikuraPrysmian GroupAFL EuropeBirla Furukawa Fibre Optics LimitedLeoni AGFinisar CorporationGeneral CableYangtze Optical Fiber & CableThe study objectives of this report are:To analyze and study the global Fibre Optics capacity, production, value, consumption, status (2013-2017) and forecast (2018-2025);Focuses on the key Fibre Optics manufacturers, to study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in future.Focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis.To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market.To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2017 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered.Key StakeholdersFibre Optics ManufacturersFibre Optics Distributors/Traders/WholesalersFibre Optics Subcomponent ManufacturersIndustry AssociationDownstream VendorsRead Complete Research Report at:Table of ContentsGlobal Fibre Optics Market Professional Survey Report 20181 Industry Overview of Fibre Optics1.1 Definition and Specifications of Fibre Optics1.1.1 Definition of Fibre Optics1.1.2 Specifications of Fibre Optics1.2 Classification of Fibre Optics1.2.1 Multimode Fibre1.2.2 Single-mode Fibre1.3 Applications of Fibre Optics1.3.1 Communications1.3.2 Medical1.3.3 Military1.3.4 Other2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Fibre Optics2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Fibre Optics2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Fibre Optics2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Fibre Optics3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Fibre Optics3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Fibre Optics Major Manufacturers in 20173.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Fibre Optics Major Manufacturers in 20173.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Fibre Optics Major Manufacturers in 20173.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Fibre Optics Major Manufacturers in 20174 Global Fibre Optics Overall Market Overview4.1 2013-2018E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2013-2018E Global Fibre Optics Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2017 Fibre Optics Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2013-2018E Global Fibre Optics Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2017 Fibre Optics Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2013-2018E Global Fibre Optics Sales Price4.4.2 2017 Fibre Optics Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)...List of Tables and FiguresFigure Picture of Fibre OpticsTable Product Specifications of Fibre OpticsTable Classification of Fibre OpticsFigure Global Production Market Share of Fibre Optics by Type in 2017Figure Multimode Fibre PictureTable Major Manufacturers of Multimode FibreFigure Single-mode Fibre PictureTable Major Manufacturers of Single-mode FibreTable Applications of Fibre OpticsFigure Global Consumption Volume Market Share of Fibre Optics by Application in 2017Figure Communications ExamplesTable Major Consumers in CommunicationsFigure Medical ExamplesTable Major Consumers in MedicalFigure Military ExamplesTable Major Consumers in MilitaryFigure Other ExamplesTable Major Consumers in Other...About Us: QYResearchReports delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYResearchReports feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact Us:Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-618-1030Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Urinary Incontinence Devices Market witness to reach $3,411 Million by 2023

Urinary Incontinence Devices Market

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According to a new repor titled, Urinary Incontinence Devices Market by Product, Category, Incontinence Type, and End User: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2017-2023, the urinary incontinence devices market was valued at $1,611 million in 2016, and is projected to reach $3,411 million by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 11.3% from 2017 to 2023. The internal urinary incontinence devices segment accounted for three-fifths share of the market in 2016.Access Full Summary at :Urinary incontinence is a highly prevalent condition and is considered to be an underreported problem that increases with age that affects nearly 50% of the geriatric population. Urinary incontinence is categorized into four major types namely stress urinary incontinence, urge urinary incontinence, mixed urinary incontinence, and functional urinary incontinence. Stress urine leakage is associated with increased abdominal pressure from laughing, sneezing, coughing, climbing stairs, or other physical factors that assert stress on the abdominal cavity. Whereas, urge incontinence is the involuntary leakage accompanied by urgency. Among the four above mentioned types of urinary incontinence, stress and urge are most commonly prevalent among men and women.Urinary incontinence has a major impact on the emotional, psychological, and social life; maximum number of patients suffering from urinary incontinence cannot perform regular activities confidently. This propels the development of effective solutions for the treatment of the same. According to the Urology Care Foundation, a quarter to a third of men and women in the U.S. suffer from urinary incontinence per year. This also indicates that approximately 33 million of the U.S. residents have overactive bladder that represent symptoms of urgency and frequency leading to the urge in the usage of urinary incontinence devices.Request Sample Report:Some of the other factors responsible for substantial market growth include development of innovative urinary incontinence devices, increase in aging population coupled with high risk of urological conditions, and increase in the urinary incontinent patients transitioning from conventional solutions to advanced surgical treatments. Factors such as lack of awareness regarding novel developments in the urinary incontinence devices and post-operative complications associated with the devices restrict the market growth to a certain extent. Moreover, growth in healthcare expenditures in the developing economies offers lucrative opportunities for the market players to invest in these economies.Vaginal slings generated the highest revenue in 2016, accounting for about two-fifths of the total market. This is attributed to the high contribution of the conventional vaginal slings in the vaginal slings market owing to the high preference for the use of biomaterials in surgical treatment of incontinence. Advancements in the conventional vaginal slings assist in eliminating the post-operative complications associated with the vaginal sling surgeries and several key players are developing conventional slings using advanced synthetic materials to meet the patients requirement. In addition, the advanced vaginal slings have witnessed increased adoption in the surgical treatment of urinary incontinence among women owing to their minimal invasive nature.Based on incontinence type, stress incontinence generated the highest revenue in 2016 accounting for about half of the total share of the market and is anticipated to continue this trend throughout the forecast period. Pregnancy as well as childbirth result in the stretching and weakening of a womans pelvic floor muscles which causes stress urinary incontinence. In addition, prostate surgeries in men can also result in stress urinary incontinence. This has made stress urinary incontinence the most prevalent conditions among men and women.Key Findings of the Urinary Incontinence Devices Market:The Internal urinary incontinence devices segment generated the highest revenue in 2016 and is anticipated to do so throughout the forecast period, registering a CAGR of 12.3% from 2017 to 2023.Hospitals dominated the end user market, accounting for maximum share in global market in 2016 and is expected to witness a CAGR of 10.1% from 2017 to 2023.North America dominated the market, accounting for maximum share in 2016 and is expected to retain the same trend during 2017 to 2023.Japan accounted for two-sevenths share of the Asia-Pacific urinary incontinence devices market in 2016.Asia-Pacific is expected to witness the highest growth rate for urinary incontinence devices market throughout the forecast period. Asia-Pacific offers lucrative opportunities for players that operate in the urinary incontinence devices market due to its high population base, growth in disposable incomes, and improvement in patient awareness about advanced urinary incontinence management. Japan, India, and China are among the leading countries for prevalence of urinary incontinence in Asia-Pacific, which further contributes to the robust growth displayed by this region in the global marketThe key players in this market have adopted product launch as one of their key developmental strategies such as acquisitions and product launches. The major companies profiled in this report include Coloplast, Boston Scientific Corporation, C. R. Bard, Inc., ConvaTec Group Plc, Ethicon, Inc., Caldera Medical Inc, Cook Medical, Covidien plc (Medtronic), Prosurg, Inc., and Cogentix Medical Inc. Other players (profiles not included in the report) in the value chain analysis include, Sofradim, B Braun Melsungen AG, Baxter International Inc., Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA, Karl Storz GmbH & Co. KG, Nipro Corporation, Olympus Corporation, ABISS, and Betatech Medical.Allied Market Research, a market research and advisory company of Allied Analytics LLP, provides business insights and market research reports to large as well as small & medium enterprises. The company assists its clients to strategize business policies and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.Allied Market Research provides one stop solution from the beginning of data collection to investment advice. The analysts at Allied Market Research dig out factors that help clients to understand the significance and impact of market dynamics. The company amplies clients insight on the factors, such as strategies, future estimations, growth or fall forecasting, opportunity analysis, and consumer surveys among others. As follows, the company offers consistent business intelligent support to aid the clients to turn into prominent business firm.Shriram Dighe5933 NE Win Sivers Drive#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesToll Free: +1-800-792-5285UK: +44-845-528-1300Hong Kong: +852-301-84916India (Pune): +91-20-66346060Fax: +1855550-5975help@alliedmarketresearch.comWeb:
AI in Construction Market Analysis 2018 (By Segment, Key Players and Applications) and Forecasts To 2023

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Report DescriptionThis report analyzes the global AI in construction market by stage (pre-construction, construction stage, post-construction), component (solutions & services), technology (machine & deep learning, NLP, neural networks), and by application; it also studies the top manufacturers in the market.GET SAMPLE REPORT @The global AI in construction market is projected to reach USD 2,011.4 million by 2023, at a CAGR of 35% during the forecast period 2017-2023.The major players in global AI in construction market include: IBM Corporation (U.S.) Oracle Corporation (U.S) SAP SE (Germany) Alice Technologies. (U.S.) Microsoft Corporation (U.S.) Aurora Computer Services (U.K) Autodesk (U.S.) eSUB (U.S.) Smartvid.io (U.S.) Building System Planning (U.S.)The market revenue and share have been analyzed with respect to the following regions and countries:AmericasNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeWestern EuropeGermanyFranceU.K.Rest of EuropeAsiaPacificAsiaChinaIndiaJapanRest of Asia PacificRest of the WorldThe Middle East & AfricaLatin CountriesOn the basis of stage, the global AI in construction market has been categorized into the following segments: Pre-Construction Construction Stage Post-ConstructionOn the basis of component, the global AI in construction market has been categorized into the following segments: Solutions & ServicesOn the basis of technology, the global AI in construction market has been categorized into the following segments: Machine & Deep learning NLP Neural NetworksOn the basis of application, the global AI in construction market has been categorized into the following segments: Building information management Schedule management project management Risk management Equipment management Supply chain managementResearch Methodologyanalysis is conducted by industry experts who offer insight into industry structure, market segmentation, technology assessment, competitive landscape (CL), and market penetration, as well as on emerging trends. Besides primary interviews (~80%) and secondary research (~20%), their analysis is based on years of professional expertise in their respective industries. Our analysts also predict where the market will be headed in the next five to 10 years, by analyzing historical trends and current market positions. Furthermore, the varying trends of segments and categories in different regions are estimated based on primary and secondary research.Both the top-down and bottom-up approaches were used to estimate and validate the size of the market and to estimate the size of various other dependent sub-markets. The key players in the market were identified through secondary research, and their market contributions in the respective regions were determined through primary and secondary research. This entire process included the study of the annual and financial reports of the top market players and extensive interviews for key insights with industry leaders such as CEOs, VPs, directors, and marketing executives. All percentage shares, splits, and breakdowns were determined using secondary sources and verified through primary sources. All the possible parameters that affect the market covered in this research study have been accounted for, viewed in extensive detail, verified through primary research, and analyzed to arrive at the final quantitative and qualitative data.Table of Content: Key Points1 Executive Summary2 Scope Of The Report3 Market Research Methodology4 Market Landscape5 Industry Overview Of Global AI In Construction Market6 Market Trends7. Global AI In Construction Market By ComponentContinuedACCESS REPORT @Get in touch:LinkedIn:Twitter:Facebook:Wise Guy Reports understand how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available. We also provide COTS (Commercial off the Shelf) business sector reports as custom exploration agreeing your needs.WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Online Sex Toys Market 2018 Global Analysis Report By Key Players- Doc Johnson,LELO, LUVU Brands, Standard Innovation & Global Forecast

Online Sex Toys Market 2018 Global Analysis Report

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The Report published on UpMarketResearch.com about Online Sex Toys Market is spread across 96 pages and provides newest industry data, market future trends, allowing you to identify the products and end users driving Revenue growth and profitability. The industry report lists and studies the leading competitors, also provides the insights with strategic industry Analysis of the key factors influencing the market.Get FREE Sample Copy Of This Report @Online Sex Toys Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state which focuses on the major drivers and restraints for the key players. Online Sex Toys Industry research report provides granular analysis of the market share, segmentation, revenue forecasts and geographic regions of the market.The report begins with the overview of the Online Sex Toys market and updates the users about the latest developments and future expectations. It presents a comparative detailed analysis of all the regional and major player segments, offering readers a better knowledge of areas in which they can place their existing resources and gauging the priority of a particular region in order to boost their standing in the global market.In Online Sex Toys Market Report, there is a healthy amount of coverage of the market economies such as the demand and supply, cost and profit of the Online Sex Toys Market. This holds key importance for users and hence this information is well supported with due statistics that are represented in easy to consume graphs, charts, and tables.The report compiles exhaustive information obtained via proven research methodologies and from trusted sources within the industries.Buy this report@The report segments the Global Online Sex Toys market as:Regional Segment Analysis (Regional Consumption Volume, Consumption Volume, Revenue and Growth Rate 2018- 2025): North America United States Canada Mexico Asia-PacificProduct Type Segment Analysis (Consumption Volume, Average Price, Revenue, Market Share and Trend 2018- 2025): Dildos Erection rings Adult vibratorsApplication Segment Analysis (Consumption Volume and Market Share 2018- 2025; Downstream Customers and Market Analysis) Man WomanKey Players/Competitor Segment Analysis (Company and Product introduction, Online Sex Toys Market Sales Volume, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin): Doc Johnson LELO LUVU Brands Standard Innovation Reckitt BenckiserIn this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Online Sex Toys are as follows: History Year: 2013-2017 Base Year: 2017 Estimated Year: 2018 Forecast Year 2018 to 2025The Report covers in-depth analysis as follows: Chapter 1 Study Coverage Chapter 2 Executive Summary Chapter 3 Breakdown Data by Manufacturers Chapter 4 Breakdown Data by Type Chapter 5 Breakdown Data by Application Chapter 6 North America Chapter 7 Europe Chapter 8 Asia Pacific Chapter 9 Central & South America Chapter 10 Middle East and Africa Chapter 11 Company Profiles Chapter 12 Market Opportunities, Challenges, Risks and Influences Factors Analysis Chapter 13 Value Chain and Sales Channels Analysis Chapter 14 Research Findings and Conclusion Chapter 15 AppendixFor more information@Key Reasons to Purchase: To gain insightful analyses of the market and have a comprehensive understanding of the Online Sex Toys and its commercial landscape. Assess the Online Sex Toys production processes, major issues, and solutions to mitigate the development risk. To understand the most affecting driving and restraining forces in the Online Sex Toys market and its impact on the global market. Learn about the market strategies that are being adopted by your competitors and leading organizations. To understand the future outlook and prospects for Online Sex Toys MarketCustomization of the Report:UpMarketResearch provides free customization of reports as per your need. This report can be personalized to meet your requirements. Get in touch with our sales team, who will guarantee you to get a report that suits your necessities.About UpMarketResearch:The UpMarketResearch () is a leading distributor of market research report with more than 800+ global clients. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined  we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Contact Info:Name: Alex MathewsEmail: alex@upmarketresearch.comOrganization: UpMarketResearchAddress: 500 East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United StatesPhone: +1 347-377-7033
Function-as-a-Service Market : Future state of the competitive landscape | Dynatrace LLC, SAP SE, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Corporation, Google, Inc., and IBM

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Serverless computing is all the rage these days as it shifts the task of running and managing the infrastructure from the company to its cloud provider. While software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS) are already well known and popular in the domain of serverless computing, there is another upcoming technology  function as a service (FaaS)  which is primed to become mainstream soon enough.Function as a service (FaaS) is essentially a software framework offered by a service provider. It can be tailored easily to serve the business needs of the user by helping them to quickly develop an application or system. By doing away with the need for heavy investments in infrastructure and hardware, FaaS results in tremendous cost savings. Some of prominent participants in the market are also big guns of the likes of Microsoft Corporation, SAP SE, Amazon Web Services, Google, Inc., and IBM.Request a sample copy of the Report @From a geographical perspective, North America outshines all others due to the presence of a large number of FaaS providers and savvy companies increasingly looking to up business agility and flexibility, particularly in the advanced U.S. and Canada market. Asia Pacific, on the other hand, is slated to expand at a good clip in the foreseeable future due to businesses booming in the developing economies in the region. China, India, Taiwan, South Korea, and other nations in the region, which are home to a growing number of software firms, are frontrunners in driving expansion in the Asia Pacific market.Global Function-as-a-Service Market: OverviewFunction-as-a-service (FaaS), a.k.a. serverless computing, is creating an evolution in the field of cloud computing as it plays a pivotal role in boosting IT agility by releasing developers from the taxing job of managing and provisioning servers. The next step in cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS), FaaS cancels the need to administer servers and pay for them when not in use while making it a whole lot easier to leverage and scale complex automation areas. It is an event-driven computing service which executes functions and codes only when required.Request TOC of the report @Global Function-as-a-Service Market: Key TrendsThe international FaaS market is prophesied to grow in the black at a knockout CAGR as organizations shift from DevOps to serverless computing. During the forecast period, there could also be other factors supporting the market growth, which include maturity of hosted services, scalability, and agility. The global market could be driven by the constant need articulated by most companies regarding the optimization of microservices and management of multiple platforms. As a result, services such as microservice management and monitoring and automation and integration are anticipated to gain a relentless impetus.Issues pertaining to portability to the cloud could act as an obstacle in the global FaaS market. Nonetheless, the availability of robust pre-existing cloud infrastructure and easy management and deployment need are forecasted to make up for the market disincentive. Companies around the world are now implementing FaaS as a means to run, manage, and deploy applications. Keeping this ability of the product in view, the market is expected to see the domination of operator-centric FaaS and developer-center FaaS in the coming years. Besides for the deployment of different applications such as those relating to research and academic and mobile and web, FaaS can be employed to optimize their performance.Global Function-as-a-Service Market: Market PotentialDelineated as the first serverless database, FaunaDB Serverless Cloud, introduced by a San Francisco startup, is making rounds on technology news columns with its real-time data replicating ability to ensure multi-cloud availability. The serverless revolution by Fauna Inc. is proud to seamlessly span Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services. Later in 2017, the company is planning to offer support to the Microsoft Azure cloud. This latest offering is based on the adaptive operational database of FaunaDB that is capable of leveraging pay-as-you-go pricing, reduced operational overhead, elastic scaling, enhanced marketing time, and other cloud capabilities.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report @Global Function-as-a-Service Market: Regional OutlookThe North America FaaS market is prognosticated to lean on a colossal count of FaaS providers, surging want for business agility and flexibility, and towering rate of penetration into a gamut of industry verticals in the U.S. The researchers envisage the regional market to rake in a larger share of revenue in the coming years. Asia Pacific, on similar lines, is envisioned to secure a higher rate of growth during the forecast period. This could be due to the need to streamline business operations and enhance customer experiences with the help of significant investments in cloud service providers. As a result, Asia Pacific is predicted to register a telling CAGR.Global Function-as-a-Service Market: Competitive LandscapePlayers in the global FaaS market could be looking to boost customer satisfaction and focus on perpetual innovation in technology with a view to fortify their status in the industry. Additionally, partnerships, acquisitions, and new product developments are prime strategies projected to take precedence in the market. Some of the leading companies in the market are Dynatrace LLC, SAP SE, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Corporation, Google, Inc., and IBM.About Us:TMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Contact Us:Rohit BhiseyHead Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Road Safety Market 2018: Growth Factors Analysis, Top Companies : JENOPTIK AG, Kapsch TrafficCom, Sensys Gatso Group AB, 3M, Redflex Holdings Limited & Redflex Traffic Systems Pty Ltd, American Traffic Solutions, FLIR Systems,

Road Safety Market

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Road Safety Market with Detail information about the factors affecting the growth of the Global Road Safety Market, Detail analysis of parent market with respect to all the possible segmentation of the market and track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Road Safety Market.Get Free Sample Report@Global Road Safety Market accounted for USD 3.1 billion in 2016 growing at a CAGR of 8.7% during the forecast period of 2017 to 2024. The upcoming market report contains data for historic year 2014, 2015, the base year of calculation is 2016 and the forecast period is 2017 to 2024.Some of the major players of the global road safety market are: JENOPTIK AG, Kapsch TrafficCom, Sensys Gatso Group AB, 3M, Redflex Holdings Limited & Redflex Traffic Systems Pty Ltd, American Traffic Solutions, FLIR Systems, Inc., Motorola Solutions, Inc., SWARCO AG, INFORMATION ENGINEERING GROUP INC., Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Johnson Controls, Saab AB,Company Share Analysis:The report for road safety market include detailed vendor level analysis for market shares in 2016 for Global, North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and South America specifically. Also impact and development analysis of key vendors is registered in the market and factored on the basis of Vendor Positioning Grid Analysis which measures the vendors strengths and opportunities against present market challenges, measure providers ability to identify or satisfy present market needs, map providers market vision to current and upcoming market dynamics among others. The report also measures technology life line curve and market time line to analyze and do more affective investments.Customization With Discount Available On This Report @Major market drivers & restraints: Increase in mobility and associated demand for transportation systems Increase in urbanization Increase in road accidents/fatality rate Growing government regulations for road safety Insufficient government funding in decentralized areas Barrier to implement advanced road safety infrastructureMarket Segmentation:The global road safety market is segmented on the basis of solution into red light enforcement, speed enforcement, incident detection system, bus lane compliance, automatic license plate recognition, and others.On the basis of service, the global road safety market is segmented into professional services, and managed services. The professional services segment is further sub segmented into consulting and system integration, training, support, and maintenance, risk assessment and analysis.On the basis of geography, the global road safety market report covers data points for 28 countries across multiple geographies such as North America, South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. Some of the major countries covered in this report are U.S., Canada, Germany, France, U.K., Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, China, India, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Brazil among others. In 2017, North America is expected to dominate the market.Research Methodology:Data collection and base year analysis is done using data collection modules with large sample sizes. The market data is analyzed and forecasted using market statistical and coherent models. Also market share analysis and key trend analysis are the major success factors in the market report. To know more please Request an Analyst Call or can drop down your inquiry.Some of the key research methodologies used by DBMR Research team is Vendor Positioning Grid, Technology Life Line Curve, Market Time Line Analysis, Market Overview and Guide, Company Positioning Grid, Company Market Share Analysis, Multivariate Modeling, Standards of Measurement, Top to Bottom Analysis and Vendor Share Analysis. To know more about of research skills drop an inquiry to speak to our industry experts.Key questions answered in the report: What will the market growth rate of Road Safety Market in 2024? What are the key factors driving the Global Road Safety Market? Who are the key manufacturers in Road Safety Market space? What are the market opportunities, market risk and market overview of the Road Safety Market? What are sales, revenue, and price analysis of top manufacturers of Road Safety Market? Who are the distributors, traders and dealers of Road Safety Market? What are the Core Materials Market opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in the Road Safety Market industry? What are sales, revenue, and price analysis by types and applications of Road Safety Market? What are sales, revenue, and price analysis by regions of Road Safety Market industry?Read More about This Report@Note: If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.About Data Bridge Market Research:Data Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.Contact:Data Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-281Email: sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.com
Flavored and Functional Water Market 2018 Latest Trends and Future Scope with Global Top Key Players- Nestle, Kraft, Danone, Coca Cola, HindWater, Pepsi

Flavored and Functional Water

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The report gives the clear picture of current Flavored and Functional Water Market scenario and the predicted future of the industry. The report focuses on the basis of market drivers, restraints, growth, trends and forecast for the period of 2018-2025. In addition, the report also maps the market performance by value chain analysis which will help in better product differentiation along with the analysis of each segment in terms of opportunity, market attractiveness index and growth rate.The report Flavored and Functional Water Market by Key players highlights the essential market dynamics of Flavored and Functional Water Market sector. The efficiency of this segment has been studied deeply along with the noteworthy challenges and forthcoming growth opportunities and prospective. The report focuses in decision making abilities and supports to make effective counter strategies in order to achieve competitive advantage. Current market scenario of the segment and forecasts of the market situation have also been bounded in this market report.QY Research groups can be relied upon for the most updated and in depth information of the title Global Flavored and Functional Water Market this is estimated by experts to develop at the most elevated CAGR amid the estimate time frame 2018-2025.To Grab the SAMPLE or PURCHASE the Full Report please click on the LinkThe major manufacturers covered in this report Nestle Kraft Danone Coca Cola HindWater Pepsi...Geographically, this report studies the top producers and consumers, focuses on product capacity, production, value, consumption, market share and growth opportunity in these key regions, covering North America Europe China Japan India Southeast Asia Other regions (Central & South America, Middle East & Africa)On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into Flavored Water Functional WaterBy Application, the market can be split into Adult ChildrenThe study objectives of this report are: To analyze and study the global Flavored and Functional Water capacity, production, value, consumption, status (2013-2017) and forecast (2018-2025); Focuses on the key Flavored and Functional Water manufacturers, to study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in future. Focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis. To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region. To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks. To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth. To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments. To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market. To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.Get the best Discount in the market here @This market is segmented by Types and Applications. It provides a profound study of the leading players in the market and the prevailing regions in the business, thereby benefiting new entries in the business by proving the most updated insights of the market.At QY Research Groups we render the most authentic and elaborate information for the utmost benefit of our clients.About Us:QY Research Groups is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. QY Research Groups is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact Us:Call: +1-888-236-2744Email: sales@qyresearchgroups.comRoom B1510, Shiji Kemao Building,No.66 Zhongguancun East Road,Haidian District, Beijing,100190, China.
Stem Cell Research in Cardiology Global Market 2018: Key Players  Athersys, Inc., Axordia Ltd, Baxter International, U.S. Stem Cell, Inc, Vericel Corporation

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Stem Cell Research in Cardiology IndustryDescriptionWiseguyreports.Com Adds Stem Cell Research in Cardiology -Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities and analysis of Top Key Player Forecast to 2021 To Its Research DatabaseHeart disease has assumed great magnitude as an endemic health problem. Cardiology field has seen significant efforts in clinical research in the past few years with the development of new drugs and surgical modalities of therapy as well. However, the mortality rates remain very high. In this context, stem cell applications in cardiology assume great significance since stem cells have been found to be successfully used in tissue regeneration. Heart disease, including myocardial infarction and ischemia, can be treated with the applications of stem cells. This report emphasizes on the market for stem cells in Cardiology. The study is segmented by Source (Allogenic and Autogenic) and by Type (Bone Marrow Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, and Other).Request for Sample Report @HighlightsAdult stem cells market is the largest tapped market while cord blood and embryonic stem cell markets, though with huge market potential, are still in infancy stages. The concept of stem cell transplantation to regenerate the myocardium and better the working of the heart has received a great deal of attention in recent times. Small-scale studies in the pre-clinical and clinical stages support the use of stem cells in treating heart disease. However similar such studies must be carried out on a larger-scale to corroborate the findings and prove stem cell therapy as a viable alternative method of treating patients with heart disease. Cells in heart?s muscle are not capable of replacing themselves, and therefore the heart does not return to normal functioning levels once some of these cells are damaged. Other than stem cells therapy and surgery, there are hardly any effective methods available for treating cardiovascular ailments.This leaves people with congestive heart failure, heart attack, and congenital heart diseases with little hope to improve their quality of life. Though transplanting of heart is an effective technique, donors of heart are few in number. This is where adult stem cell therapy comes in. Adult stem cells are able to coax the existing cells in the heart?s muscles to produce new heart-muscle cells. Adult stem cell therapy for treating heart diseases has been examined in medical tests for efficacy as well as adverse effects. These tests have proved that such stem cell therapy is much better and safer than many existing procedures for treating cardiovascular diseases. This is the reason adult stem cell therapy is gaining importance in cardiac stem cell research.Leave a Query @Key PlayersAthersys, Inc. (USA)Axordia Ltd. (UK)Baxter International (USA)U.S. Stem Cell, Inc. (USA)Vericel Corporation (USA)More.Why buy this ReportThis report may help Strategists, Investors, Laboratories, Contract Research Organizations, Biotechnology & Healthcare Companies, Academic Professionals, Drug Approval Authorities, and Other Organizations to Identify Market OpportunitiesReview and Analyze Global and Regional MarketsGauge Market Potential for your ProductsIdentify CompetitionUse Market Research for exploring new areasAcquire Meaningful Guidelines for Strategic PlanningGear up for Market EntryGet Actionable InformationAnalytics and data presented in each report pertain to several parameters such as Global and Regional Market Sizes, Market Shares, Market TrendsProduct (Global and Regional) Market Sizes, Market Shares, Market TrendsTechnology TrendsCorporate IntelligenceKey Companies By Sales, Brands, ProductsOther Strategic Business Affecting DataBuy now @Continued...Contact Us: Sales@Wiseguyreports.Com Ph: +1-646-845-9349 (US) Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)About Us:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Addres:Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt LtdPune  411028Maharashtra, GlobalPh: +91 841 198 5042
Decorative Lighting Market 2018 Global Market Key Players  Acuity Brands, Generation Brands, General Electric Company, Signify Holding, Maxim Lighting

Global Decorative Lighting Market

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Global Decorative Lighting MarketDescription:-Wiseguyreports.Com Adds Global Decorative Lighting Market 2018: Global Analysis, Industry Size, Share, Trends, Application Analysis and Growth Opportunities Forecast to 2023 To Its Research DatabaseThe global Decorative Lighting market will reach xxx Million USD in 2018 and CAGR xx% 2018-2023. The report begins from overview of Industry Chain structure, and describes industry environment, then analyses market size and forecast of Decorative Lighting by product, region and application, in addition, this report introduces market competition situation among the vendors and company profile, besides, market price analysis and value chain features are covered in this report.Product Type Coverage (Market Size & Forecast, Major Company of Product Type etc.):Ceiling LightingWall LightingCompany Coverage (Sales Revenue, Price, Gross Margin, Main Products etc.):Acuity BrandsGeneration BrandsGeneral Electric CompanyMaxim LightingSignify HoldingRequest a sample copy @Application Coverage (Market Size & Forecast, Different Demand Market by Region, Main Consumer Profile etc.):ResidentialCommercialRegion Coverage (Regional Production, Demand & Forecast by Countries etc.):North America (U.S., Canada, Mexico)Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Italy, Russia, Spain etc.)Asia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, Southeast Asia etc.)South America (Brazil, Argentina etc.)Middle East & Africa (Saudi Arabia, South Africa etc.)Table of Content1 Industry Overview1.1 Decorative Lighting Industry1.1.1 Overview1.1.2 Development of Decorative Lighting1.2 Market Segment1.2.1 Upstream1.2.2 Downstream1.3 Cost Analysis2 Industry Environment2.1 Policy2.2 Economics2.3 Sociology2.4 Technology3 Decorative Lighting Market by Type3.1 By Type3.1.1 Ceiling Lighting3.1.2 Wall Lighting3.2 Market Size3.3 Market Forecast4 Major Companies List4.1 Acuity Brands (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.2 Generation Brands (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.3 General Electric Company (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.4 Maxim Lighting (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)4.5 Signify Holding (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)7 Region Operation7.1 Regional Production7.2 Regional Market7.3 by Region7.3.1 North America7.3.1.1 Overview7.3.1.2 by Country (U.S., Canada, Mexico)7.3.2 Europe7.3.2.1 Overview7.3.2.2 by Country (Germany, U.K., France, Italy, Russia, Spain etc.)7.3.3 Asia-Pacific7.3.3.1 Overview7.3.3.2 by Country (China, India, Japan, Southeast Asia etc.)7.3.4 South America7.3.4.1 Overview7.3.4.2 by Country (Brazil, Argentina etc.)7.3.5 Middle East & Africa7.3.5.1 Overview7.3.5.2 by Country (Saudi Arabia, South Africa etc.)7.4 Regional Import & Export7.5 Regional Forecast8 Marketing & Price8.1 Price and Margin8.1.1 Price Trends8.1.2 Factors of Price Change8.1.3 Manufacturers Gross Margin Analysis8.2 Marketing Channel9 Research Conclusion Table Upstream Segment of Decorative LightingBrowse full Report @About Us:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Contact Us:Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt Ltdsales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)Maharashtra, Pune  411028
Unnatural Amino Acids Global Market 2018: Key Players  AbbVie, Inc., ACS Dobfar SpA, terna Zentaris, Inc., Ajinomoto Co., Inc, AnaSpec, Inc.

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Unnatural Amino Acids IndustryDescriptionWiseguyreports.Com Adds Unnatural Amino Acids -Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities and analysis of Top Key Player Forecast to 2021 To Its Research DatabaseUnnatural Amino acids Market research report gives an insight into the different types of Unnatural Amino Acids (-Amino Acids, -Amino Acid Derivatives, Cyclic Amino Acids & Derivatives, D-Amino Acids, D-Amino Acid Derivatives, DL-Amino Acids, DL-Amino Acid Derivatives, L-Amino Acid Derivatives and Other ) and their application areas such as R&D, Pharmaceutical, Food & Feed, Agrochemicals and Other. The study includes historic, current, and future markets for 2010 -2022 for the global Unnatural Amino Acids market by type and applications. Regional Analysis is covered separately for North America (United States and Canada); Europe (UK, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, The Netherlands, and Rest of Europe); Asia Pacific (China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, and Rest of Asia Pacific); and Rest of World. The text is complemented with graphical representations of 293 exhibits. Business profiles of 58 major companies are discussed in the report.Request for Sample Report @The report serves as a guide to global Unnatural Amino Acids industry covering more than 500 companies that are engaged in Unnatural Amino Acids R&D, synthesis, discovery, testing and supply of derivatives, products and services. Compilation of Worldwide Patents and Research related to Unnatural Amino Acids market size is also provided. Information related to industrial activity, corporate developments, research trends, product releases, product developments, partnerships, collaborations, and mergers and acquisitions is also covered in the report.HighlightsModern drug discovery research is increasingly experimenting with unnatural amino acids, the non?proteinogenic amino acids, either natural or chemically synthesized. Their unlimited structural diversity and versatile applications are being used as chiral building blocks and molecular scaffolds in building combinatorial libraries. These molecules are powerful ingredients in therapeutic peptidomimetics and are used as molecular probes which can assimilate the biological systems better. They show improved in vivo stability, better potency, oral absorption, tissue distribution, and better and selective responses. Unnatural amino acids are increasingly being used to alter the peptides tertiary structure. Drug candidates with side chain modifications meet and match their biological targets.The pharmaceutical industry accounts for almost 80% of chiral market revenues. Despite the fact that chiral drugs have been in use much before the arrival of modern medicine, it is only now that chiral drugs in the pharmaceutical industry has gained so much attention. This is largely due to the understanding that enantiomers often show different bioactivity and metabolic fates. In addition there is also a commercial reason where pharmaceutical companies have the chance to extend patent coverage after expiry of patents on racemic drugs. This can take place through the development of the chiral switch enantiomers with suitable bioactivity. Unnatural Amino Acids market is a rapidly growing market in the intermediates sector. Majority of the products utilizing these compounds are pharmaceutical intermediates ( ? Lactam Antibiotics). Asia ? Pacific region is acquiring lead position in global pharmaceuticals market with the balance gradually shifting from the US and Europe to Asia ? Pacific. In principle, an unnatural amino acid can be produced by procedures such as replacement of hydrogen by fluorine in a ring structure, or phenyl by another resonant ring system, or one kind of heterocyclic ring by another one, or a remnant from the framework of an amino acid by another remnant of one that is analogous in shape and size.Practically all the advantageous amino acid analogues have earlier existed as close structural isomers of amino acids that occur naturally. So far, no efficient analogs of proline, glutamic acid, aspartic acid, alanine, threonine, cysteine, serine or glycine have been accounted for. Probably, the biological sites that are involved in these amino acids are governed by particular size and shape of molecule when compared to amino acids of larger size. Some of the alterations that are performed for the production of anti ? metabolites from the larger sized amino acids are not tenable with smaller sized amino acids. This is because the resultant compounds lack appreciable stability as in the case of fluoroglycine or substitution of sulfur for ? CH2 within the molecular framework of glutamic acid or threonine. In this regard, the non ? existence of proline analog is intriguing, though the occurrence of azetidine ? 2 ? carboxylic acid is worth mentioning. Most of the amino acid analogues could be conceived as anti ? tumor, antiviral or antimicrobial. The amino acid analogues are regularly subjected to screening to find the possibility of anti metabolite activity to counteract bacteria. These experiments are all documented in detail and are useful for those who want to study the effect of analogues on proliferating bacteria. Unnatural Amino Acids market is a rapidly growing market in the intermediates sector. Majority of the products utilizing these compounds are pharmaceutical intermediates ( ? Lactam Antibiotics).Leave a Query @Key PlayersAbbVie, Inc. (USA)ACS Dobfar SpA (Italy)terna Zentaris, Inc. (Canada)Ajinomoto Co., Inc. (Japan)Amatek Chemical Co., Ltd. (Hong Kong)AminoLogics Co. Ltd. (South Korea)AnaSpec, Inc. (USA)Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd. (South Africa)AstraZeneca plc (UK)Bajaj Healthcare Ltd. (India)BASF SE (Germany)Bayer CropScience AG (Germany)Biological E Ltd. (India)Biovet SA (Spain)Central Life Sciences (USA)Corden Pharma International GmbH (Germany)CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Limited (Hong Kong)C-TRI Co., Ltd. (South Korea)Divis Laboratories Ltd. (India)Donboo Amino Acid Co., Ltd. (China)DSM Sinochem Pharmaceuticals (Singapore)EMD Millipore (USA)EMD Serono, Inc. (USA)Enzo Life Sciences, Inc. (USA)Evonik Industries AG (Germany)GlaxoSmithKline plc (UK)Hanmi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (South Korea)Harbin Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd. (China)Hovid Berhad (Malaysia)IRIS Biotech GmbH (Germany)Kyowa Hakko Bio Co., Ltd. (Japan)Lek d.d. (Slovenia)Lunan Pharmaceutical Group Corporation (China)Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (USA)Mimotopes Pty. Ltd. (Australia)MP Biomedicals, LLC (USA)Nagase & Co., Ltd. (Japan)Norbrook Laboratories Ltd. (UK)Novartis AG (Switzerland)Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (India)Pfizer, Inc. (USA)PolyPeptide Group (The) (Denmark)Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. (India)Sandoz International GmbH (Germany)Sanofi SA (France)Sekisui Medical Co., Ltd. (Japan)Shanghai Hanhong Chemical Co., Ltd. (China)Shanghai HC Biotech Co., Ltd. (China)Shanghai PanQi Biochem Tech Co., Ltd. (China)Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC (USA)Tocris Bioscience (USA)Topsun International Group Co., Ltd. (China)Unibiochem Co., Ltd. (China)United Laboratories International Holdings Limited (The) (Hong Kong)Venus Remedies Ltd. (India)WR Grace (USA)Xeno Pharmaceuticals Phils, Inc. (Philippines)Zhangjiagang Huachang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (China)...Buy now @Why buy this ReportThis report may help Strategists, Investors, Laboratories, Contract Research Organizations, Biotechnology & Healthcare Companies, Academic Professionals, Drug Approval Authorities, and Other Organizations to Identify Market OpportunitiesReview and Analyze Global and Regional MarketsGauge Market Potential for your ProductsIdentify CompetitionUse Market Research for exploring new areasAcquire Meaningful Guidelines for Strategic PlanningGear up for Market EntryGet Actionable InformationAnalytics and data presented in each report pertain to several parameters such as Global and Regional Market Sizes, Market Shares, Market TrendsProduct (Global and Regional) Market Sizes, Market Shares, Market TrendsTechnology TrendsCorporate IntelligenceKey Companies By Sales, Brands, ProductsOther Strategic Business Affecting DataContinued...Contact Us: Sales@Wiseguyreports.Com Ph: +1-646-845-9349 (US) Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)About Us:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Addres:Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt LtdPune  411028Maharashtra, GlobalPh: +91 841 198 5042
SWOT Analysis of Radiotherapy Market 2018: Key Players Are RaySearch Laboratories, Isoray Medical, Inc., ordion, Varian Medical Systems, Elekta, Accuray, Brainlab & More

Global Radiotherapy Market

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Global Radiotherapy Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Global Radiotherapy Industry. The report provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Global Radiotherapy analysis is provided for the international markets including development trends, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions development status.Click Here for Free Sample Report @New report title Global Radiotherapy Market, By Type (Beam Radiotherapy (IGRT, IMRT, VMAT, Tomotherapy, 3D CRT, Proton Beam, Stereotactic), Brachytherapy (LDR, HDR), Systemic Radiotherapy), By Product Type (Cyberknife, Gammaknife, Linac, Proton Beam, Systemic Radiotherapy, Seeds, Afterloaders), By Indication (Prostate & Breast Cancer)), By Geography (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, Rest of the World)  Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Global Radiotherapy Market is expected to reach USD 9.3 billion by 2024 from USD 5.2 billion in 2016, at a CAGR of 7.5% in the forecast period 2017 to 2024.Europe Radiotherapy Market has accounted for USD 1.6 billion in 2016, and is expected to reach USD 2.7 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR 6.7% during the forecast period 2017 to 2024.The new market report contains data for historic years 2015, the base year of calculation is 2016 and the forecast period is 2017 to 2024Global Radiotherapy Market Segmentation: The global radiotherapy market is segmented on the basis of Type, Product type, Indication, Geography.The global radiotherapy market is segmented into three types, namely beam radiotherapy, brachytherapy and systematic radiotherapy. In 2017, the beam radiotherapy segment is expected to dominate the market with a share around 75.0% and is expected to continue this trend till 2024. Radiotherapy Market is segmented into beam radiotherapy, brachytherapy and systematic radiotherapy. The beam radiotherapy is segmented into IGRT, IMRT, VMAT, tomotherapy, stereotactic technology and 3D conformal technology. The brachytherapy is segmented into LDR and HDR. On the basis of product type, the market is segmented into external beam radiotherapy, internal radiotherapy products, radiotherapy softwares and systematic radiotherapy. External beam radiotherapy is segmented into LINAC, CyberKnife, proton therapy and Gamma Knife. The proton beam is segmented into cyclotron and synclotron.The internal beam is segmented into seeds and afterloaders. The radiotherapy softwares is segmented into treatment planning softwares, dosage planning softwares, patient positioning softwares and image guiding softwares. On the basis of indication, the market is segmented into prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, spine cancer, liver cancer, brain cancer and others.Have Any Query? Inquire here @North America is expected to dominate the market with 46.2% in 2017 in terms of market value. However the APAC region is expected to grow at the highest CAGR in the forecast period 2017 to 2024.The geographical regions are further segmented into 24 major countries such as U.S. Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, U.K., Belgium, Switzerland, Belgium, Turkey, Japan, China, Singapore, Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa and many others.Global Radiotherapy Market globally Varian Medical Systems, Inc. dominated the radiotherapy market accounting for a market share in 2016. The market is highly fragmented based on technologies offered by different manufacturers are different. The major players are concentrating on product development and strategic mergers with healthcare payers and providers to penetrate the market.GROWING PREVALENCE OF CANCERIn recent years, the prevalence of cancer across the globe has increased considerably over a period of time. The rapidly increasing prevalence of cancer and the subsequent rise in chronic conditions are major factors driving the demand radiotherapy devices.RISING AGING POPULATIONWith increasing age, the patient pool for chronic disease is rising which includes the growth of cancer cases among the older population. Since, cancer incidence is increasing exponentially with advancing age, it is expected to affect the older population which will impact the growth of the older cancer patient pool.Elekta AB:Founded in 1972 and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden by Lars Leksell and Laurent Leksell. Elekta is a provider of human care, which specialises in the treatment of cancers and brain disorders. It provides oncologists, radiation therapists, neurosurgeons, and other medical specialists with the aid of clinical solutions and tools.To Understand Complete Table Of Content, Tables And Figures @Related ReportEurope Radiotherapy Market  Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Europe Radiotherapy Market, By Therapy (Beam Radiotherapy (IGRT, IMRT, VMAT, Tomotherapy, 3D CRT, Proton Beam, Stereotactic), Brachytherapy (LDR, HDR), Systemic Radiotherapy), By Product Type (Cyberknife, Gammaknife, Linac, Proton Beam, Systemic Radiotherapy, Seeds, Afterloaders), By Indication (Prostate & Breast Cancer)), By Country (Germany, France, U.K., Spain, Italy, Russia, Netherlands, Turkey, Belgium, Switzerland, Rest of Europe)  Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Report Access:About Data Bridge Market Research:Data Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.Contact:Sopan GedamData Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-2818Email: sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.com
Ceramic Dental Implants to Boost Demand in the Global Tooth Replacement Market | Arizton

Tooth Replacement Market Size, Growth Forecast 2023

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Cosmetic dental surgeries and demand for dental implants will revolutionize the global tooth replacement market.Ariztons recent market research report on the global tooth replacement market provides comprehensive industry analysis, trend forecasts, and competitive analysis. The research study segments the market by product (dental prosthetics, dental implants, CAD/CAM systems, imaging and surgical planning, dental abutments, and dental biomaterials), by end-users (dental clinics, hospitals, dental laboratories, DSOs, and dental academic & research centers), geography (APAC, Europe, North America, Latin America, and MEA), and offers detailed competitive analysis.The global tooth replacement market is anticipated to reach values of approximately $15 billion by 2023, growing at a CAGR of around 7% during 2017-2023.The increasing awareness about the negative effects of poor oral health and growing consciousness among patients regarding the benefits of dental care is augmenting the growth of the global market.The top 3 drivers and trends contributing to the development of the global tooth replacement market are discussed below:Growing Demand for Digital DentistryThe predictable results, predictable cost, and improved efficiencies with the workflow are some of the factors boosting the adoption of digital dentistry in the global tooth replacement market. The increased efficiency, effective cost control, and time-saving nature of digital technologies will propel the evolution of the dental healthcare industry. With the increasing digitization of the healthcare industry, the field of dentistry is rapidly evolving in the digital ecosystem. The extensive use of digital technology will help care providers design and manufacture dental implants and dental prosthetics in a personalized and customized manner to offer improved patient care in the global tooth replacement market. Furthermore, the implementation of 3D printing technology will assist in improving dental procedures through accurate scans and models of artificial teeth/dental prosthetics in the market. Several dentists and hospitals are extensively using this technology to create implants, crowns, caps, and dentures by printing 3D models with exact size and shape. The introduction of highly advanced CAD/CAM systems and digital impression scanners will transform the global tooth replacement market during the forecast period.High Growth Potential of Ceramic Dental ImplantsThe increasing focus on developing and using metal-free implant materials and the use of prosthetics made of zirconia will attribute to the evolution of the global tooth replacement market. The ceramic implants offer greater aesthetic appeal, possess anti-allergenic, and tissue-friendly properties, thereby, boosting its adoption in the global market. Ceramic dental implants have excellent biocompatibility and tissue integration capabilities, favorable biomechanical properties, and low affinity to plaque formation.The prominent players are focusing on developing a broad range of ceramic-based implants and abutments to attract a maximum number of consumers and boost their revenues in the global tooth replacement market.The patients are looking for safer and less invasive solutions, as well as metal-free alternatives for replacement procedures. Such changes in end-user preferences will create lucrative opportunities for manufacturers in the market over the next few years. The continuous innovations and technological advances will result in improvement providing reliability and strength of zirconia dental implants, allowing for novel designs, connections and reconstructions in the global tooth replacement market.Request for your free sample today!:Growing Popularity of Dental TourismThe rising popularity of dental tourism and dental treatment abroad will drive the growth of the global tooth replacement market. Countries such as Mexico, Hungary, Poland, India, Costa Rica, and Thailand are becoming popular destinations for undergoing replacement procedures and patients travel from various developed countries to access these services in the global market. The low-cost dental care, lower labor and real estate costs in various emerging countries are drawing investors to invest in the establishment and operation of dental clinics in these regions in the global tooth replacement market. Hungary is Europes premier and a popular destination for British, Irish and French people looking to save on replacement procedures in that region. Countries such as Mexico and Brazil have world-renowned dentists, state-of-the-art dental facilities, and highly skilled dentists offering replacement procedures at 50-70% discounts. The growing demand for good quality dental care at affordable prices will drive the growth of these developing countries in the global tooth replacement market during the forecast period.The leading vendors in the global tooth replacement market are Institut Straumann, Dentsply Sirona, Danaher, Zimmer Biomet, and Henry Schein.The complete overview of the latest market research report on global tooth replacement market by Arizton is now available.The report also offers a detailed study of major trends, drivers, challenges, and also provides the market size and forecast for major geographical regions and key countries.Source:About Arizton Advisory & IntelligenceArizton  Advisory and Intelligence is an innovation and quality-driven firm, which offers cutting-edge research solutions to clients across the world. We excel in providing comprehensive market intelligence reports and advisory and consulting services.Arizton has gained a paramount standpoint in the market research arena as it offers top of the line solutions to clients to assess market landscape and to finalize foolproof business strategies. We are committed to provide inclusive market research reports and consulting services to clients from diversified industries including Consumer Goods & Retail Technology, Automotive and Mobility, Smart Tech, Healthcare and Lifesciences, Industrial Machinery, Chemicals and Materials, IT and Media, Logistics and PackagingArizton comprises a team of exuberant and well-experienced analysts who have mastered in generating incisive reports. Our specialist analysts possess exemplary skills in market research. We train our team in advanced research practices, techniques, and ethics to outperform in fabricating impregnable research reports.Arizton Advisory & IntelligenceChicago, Illinois, 60605Mail: enquiry@arizton.comCall: +1-312-465-7864
Bone Growth Stimulator Market Poised to reach US$ 763.4 Mn by 2022

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As patients of spinal cord fractures continue to struggle with long duration consumed for complete recovery, surgeons and doctors continue to promote the use of bone growth stimulators. The Fact.MR forecast report on global bone growth stimulator market anticipates that global sales of these devices will bring in more than US$ 1.4 Bn by the end of 2017. Spinal fracture patients opting for bone growth stimulators is expected to rise due to increasing advancements in lowering patient discomfort. By the end of 2022, sales of bone growth stimulators in the global market is pegged to bring in US$ 1.91 Bn, exhibiting a steady growth at 5.3% CAGR.Key Forecast HighlightsAccording to the report, bone growth stimulation devices will account for nearly 56% share on global bone growth stimulator revenues in 2017. Platelet-rich plasmas, on the other hand, will be observed as promising product segment, revenues from which are expected to showcase robust growth at 6.2% CAGR. By the end of 2022, a little over US$ 450 Mn worth of platelet-rich plasmas will be sold in the global market for bone growth stimulators.Request Report Sample @In the view of poor road infrastructure and inferior healthcare facilities existing in the Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region, the demand for bone growth stimulators is expected to gain grounds. These factors are boosting the incidence of spinal fractures in this region, compelling doctors towards adoption of bone growth simulation therapy. Moreover, manufacturers of bone growth stimulators are expected to benefit from low wage costs and high resource availability by setting up their manufacturing units across APEJ region. By the end of 2022, over US$ 225 Mn worth of bone growth stimulators will be sold across the APEJ market.North America is expected to remain the largest market for bone growth stimulator. The report predicts that high healthcare spending implemented in Canada and the US will urge manufacturers towards developing advanced bone growth stimulators. Meanwhile, revenues amassed from sales of bone growth stimulators in Europe will contribute US$ 600 Mn in revenues by the end of 2022. Towards the end of forecast period, North Americas bone growth stimulator market is likely to soar at a CAGR of 6.2%.Application of bone growth stimulators in delayed union & non-union bone fracture treatments is expected to gain traction, reflecting a revenue growth at 5.7% CAGR. Spinal fusion surgeries will account for nearly 25% of the global bone growth stimulator sales in 2017, while their application in oral and maxillofacial surgeries will procure around US$ 250 Mn in global revenues.Request Report Methodology @Hospitals and clinics are expected to remain largest end-users of bone growth stimulator throughout the forecast period. With more than 43% share, over US$ 800 Mn worth of bone growth stimulators will be sold in hospitals & clinics across the globe by 2022-end. Home care end-use of bone growth stimulator, on the other hand, is expected to create an incremental opportunity of more than US$ 100 Mn by 2022 over 2017.The report has also profiled leading players in the global bone growth stimulator market, which include companies such as Orthofix International N.V., Medtronic plc, Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc., Bioventus Inc., Stryker Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, Arthrex, Inc., DJO Global Inc., Elizur Corporation, and Ossatec Benelux B.V.About Fact.MRFact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Fact.MR11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400Rockville, MD 20852United StatesEmail: sales@factmr.comWeb:
Future Outlook of 3D CAD Software Market to reach USD 13.29 Billion by 2025 | Top Worldwide Key Players - Bricsys NV, CAXA Technology, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, Oracle

3D CAD Software Market

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Global 3D CAD Software Market 2018-2025 report provides the newest industry data and industry future trends, allowing you to identify the products and end users driving Revenue growth and profitability. The industry report lists the leading competitors and provides the insights strategic industry Analysis of the key factors influencing the market.Global 3D CAD Software Market Overview:The report spread across 80 pages is an overview of the Global 3D CAD Software Market 2018-2025. The Global 3D CAD Software Market is projected to grow at a healthy growth rate from 2018 to 2025 according to new research. The study focuses on market trends, leading players, supply chain trends, technological innovations, key developments, and future strategies.Available Exclusive Sample Copy of this Report @Global 3D CAD Software Market to reach USD 13.29 Billion by 2025.Global 3D CAD Software Market valued approximately USD 8.13 Billion in 2016 is forecasted to grow with a healthy growth rate of more than 5.61% over the forecast period 2018-2025. The major factors expected to augment the markets include rising investments and espousal of 3D printing, growing adoption of cloud-based CAD solutions, the increasing penetration in the automotive & manufacturing sectors and growing focus on enhancing productivity by augmenting the design process. CAD, also known as computer-aided design and drafting (CADD), is the application of computer technology for design and design documentation. Basically, CAD software replaces manual drafting with an automated process.Regional analysis of Global 3D CAD Software Market is considered for the key regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America and Rest of the World. The North American region is the leading region across the world in terms of market share. Whereas, owing to countries like China, Japan and India, Asia Pacific region is expected to exhibit higher growth rate / CAGR over the forecast period 2018-2025.The objective of the study is to define market sizes of different segments & countries in recent years and to forecast the values to the coming eight years. The report is designed to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the industry within each of the regions and countries involved in the study. Furthermore, the report also caters the detailed information about the crucial aspects such as driving factors & challenges which will define the future growth of the market.Purchase this report online with 80 Pages, List of Tables & Figures and in-depth Table of Contents on Global 3D CAD Software Market 2018-2025 @Major Key Players:1 Bricsys NV2 CAXA Technology Co., Ltd.3 Autodesk Inc.4 Bentley Systems5 Dassault Systemes6 Oracle and More.......................Market Segment by Deployment Type:1 On-Premise2 CloudMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers:1 North America2 Europe3 Asia Pacific4 Latin America5 Rest of the WorldGrab Your Report at an Impressive Discount @This study answers to the below key questions:1 What will the market size be in 2025 and what will the growth rate be?2 What are the key market trends?3 What are the challenges to market growth?4 Who are the key players in this market?5 What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key players?In the end, this report covers data and information on capacity and production overview, production, market share analysis, sales overview, supply, sales, and shortage, import, export and consumption as well as cost, price, revenue and gross margin of 3D CAD Software Market.Major Points in Table of Contents:Global 3D CAD Software Market Report 20181 Global 3D CAD Software Market Definition & Scope2 Research Methodology3 Executive Summary4 Global 3D CAD Software Market Dynamics5 Global 3D CAD Software Market by Deployment Type6 Global 3D CAD Software Market by Application7 Global 3D CAD Software Market, Regional Analysis8 Competitive IntelligenceAbout usBusinessindustryReports.com is digital database of comprehensive market reports for global industries. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined  we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Media ContactBusiness Industry ReportsPune  Indiasales@businessindustryreports.com+19376349940
Microfiber Textile Market Brief Analysis and Application Set to Attain Growth by 2026

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Microfibers used in the textile industry have ultra-thin strands that are high in strength. They are used in the textile industry in cleansing and shining applications. Microfiber is a fiber with less than one denier per filament (denier is a measure of linear density, and it is generally used to describe the size of a filament). Microfibers can be made of polyester, nylon, or any other polymer. They are ultrathin and are considered hundred times finer than human hair. Many microfibers are woven together to form a single strand, and these strands are woven into textiles. Standard combination of microfiber used in textile industry contains 70% to 90% polyester and 10% to 30% polyamide. Microfibers are generally used in cleaning purposes because of their high absorbing properties. They last longer than cotton and can be washed a thousand times before losing their effectiveness. They can remove large quantities of microbes, including hard to kill spores.View Report Preview:Rise in demand for cleaning services, both from the commercial and residential sectors, drive the global microfiber textiles market. With the expansion of service sectors, demand for commercial cleaning services such as window cleaning, floor cleaning, and other services such as kit cleaning is on the rise. This is anticipated to provide better opportunities for the expansion of microfiber textile market. Demand from residential cleaning services such as maid services and carpet & upholstery and other services such as polishing, vehicle cleaning, and appliance cleaning is also expected to fuel the expansion of microfiber textile market in the coming years. Cleaning services that employ microfibers are gaining popularity owing to factors such as rise in construction activities, increased disposable income, etc.In terms of polymer, the microfiber textile market can be segmented into polyester, nylon, and other polymers. In terms of product, the microfiber textile market can be classified into mono-component and multi-component microfibers. Based on application, the microfiber textile market can be categorized into household, commercial, industrial, and automobile (car care products). Commercial cleaning applications such as window cleaning, floor cleaning, and other services such as kit cleaning are the major applications of microfiber textile market.The global microfiber textiles market expanded at a modest pace in 2017, and the trend is estimated to continue during the forecast period. North America is a major region of the microfiber textile market. Technological advancements in the region and rise in demand from commercial cleaning services are key factors driving the market in the region. In Europe, market penetration by cleaning contractors over the past few years has been on the rise. The microfiber textile market in the region is anticipated to offer attractive opportunities during the forecast period. Asia Pacific, which includes China, a major consumer of microfiber textiles, is expected to offer lucrative opportunities to the microfiber textiles market owing to the increase in population, urbanization, and rise in disposable income. Emerging economies in Latin America such as Brazil are likely to have significant influence in the microfiber textile market. Middle East & Africa is also expected to offer significant opportunities to the microfiber technology market due to rise in construction activities.Key players operating in the global microfiber textile market include Toray Industries, Kuraray Co., Ltd, Asahi Kasei Corporation, TEIJIN LIMITED, 3M, Eastman Chemical Company, Sanfang Chemical Industry Co., Ltd , Hexin, and Norwex Microfiber.Request to view Sample Report:The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact UsTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Rapid Growth of Pet Insurance Market | Top Key Companys - Petplan UK (Allianz), Nationwide, Trupanion, Hartville Group, Pethealth, Petfirst, Embrace | Global Business Outlook Till 2022

Pet Insurance Market

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Global Pet Insurance Market Report 2018 report provides the newest industry data and industry future trends, allowing you to identify the products and end users driving Revenue growth and profitability. The industry report lists the leading competitors and provides the insights strategic industry Analysis of the key factors influencing the market.Global Pet Insurance Market Overview:The report spread across 117 pages is an overview of the Global Pet Insurance Market Report 2018. The Global Pet Insurance Market is projected to grow at a healthy growth rate from 2018 to 2022 according to new research. The study focuses on market trends, leading players, supply chain trends, technological innovations, key developments, and future strategies.Available Exclusive Sample Copy of this Report @With the slowdown in world economic growth, the Pet Insurance industry has also suffered a certain impact, but still maintained a relatively optimistic growth, the past four years, Pet Insurance market size to maintain the average annual growth rate of 15.44% from 1300 Million $ in 2014 to 2000 Million $ in 2017, market research analysts believe that in the next few years, Pet Insurance market size will be further expanded, we expect that by 2022, The market size of the Pet Insurance will reach 5000 Million $.Rise in awareness about Pet Insurance, rise in number of companion animals, and growth in pet ownership and associated health benefits of pet ownership propels the growth of the market. However, high cost of pet insurance policies, lack of awareness among consumers, and government regulation limits the growth of the market. Furthermore, largely untapped market with extremely low penetration rates is expected to provide numerous opportunities for the pet insurance market.The Global Pet Insurance Market is segmented on the basis of End User, Policy Type and Region. End-User segment covered in this study include dog, cat, horse, exotic pet, and others. Based on Policy Type, the market is classified into Lifetime Cover and Non-Lifetime Cover.Purchase this report online with 117 Pages, List of Tables & Figures and in-depth Table of Contents on Global Pet Insurance Market Report 2018 @Major Key Players:1 Petplan UK (Allianz)2 Nationwide3 Trupanion4 Petplan NorthAmerica(Allianz)5 Hartville Group6 Pethealth7 Petfirst8 Embrace9 Royal & Sun Alliance (RSA)10 Direct Line Group and More.................Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers:1 North America Country (United States, Canada)2 South America3 Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea)4 Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy)5 Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC)Grab Your Report at an Impressive Discount @This study answers to the below key questions:1 What will the market size be in 2022 and what will the growth rate be?2 What are the key market trends?3 What is driving this market?4 What are the challenges to market growth?5 Who are the key vendors in this market space?6 What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?7 What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?In the end, this report covers data and information on capacity and production overview, production, market share analysis, sales overview, supply, sales, and shortage, import, export and consumption as well as cost, price, revenue and gross margin of Pet Insurance Market.Major Points in Table of Contents:Global Pet Insurance Market Report 20181 Pet Insurance Product Definition2 Global Pet Insurance Market Manufacturer Share and Market Overview3 Manufacturer Pet Insurance Business Introduction4 Global Pet Insurance Market Segmentation (Region Level)5 Global Pet Insurance Market Segmentation (Product Type Level)6 Global Pet Insurance Market Segmentation (Industry Level)7 Global Pet Insurance Market Segmentation (Channel Level)8 Pet Insurance Market Forecast 2018-20229 Pet Insurance Segmentation Product Type10 Pet Insurance Segmentation Industry11 Pet Insurance Cost of Production Analysis12 ConclusionAbout usBusinessindustryReports.com is digital database of comprehensive market reports for global industries. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined  we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Media ContactBusiness Industry ReportsPune  Indiasales@businessindustryreports.com+19376349940
In-app Advertising Market to Witness Robust Expansion throughout the Forecast 2016 - 2026

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Global In-app Advertising Market: OverviewIn-app advertising is a form of advertising through smartphones wherein the advertisements are integrated into the mobile applications. With adaption of digital marketing and smartphones penetration worldwide, there are lucrative opportunities for in-app advertising worldwide. Currently, most of the population spend a colossal amount of time using their smartphones or other gadgets like iPad and are constantly using various smartphone applications for messaging, ticketing and gaming among others. In-app advertising can be integrated with these applications where consumers spend most of their time. The in-app advertising proves to be most effective form of advertising as compared to other forms of advertising such as out of home advertising, T.V among others, as the in-app advertising is a two-way communication among consumers and advertisers. The in-app advertising accounts for a major share of global advertising revenue and the global in-app advertising market is expected to grow significantly by the end of forecast period to register a healthy double digit CAGR.Global In-app Advertising Market: Drivers & RestraintsThe global in-app advertising market is primarily driven by the increasing smartphone penetration and increased use of various smart phone applications, which the consumers use regularly such as Facebook, WhatsApp among others. Among various smart phone applications, the messaging applications will have a significant effect on the in-app advertising market as the consumers use the messaging applications on a regular basis compared to other smartphone applications. It is expected that the smartphone messaging applications will gain a billion new users in the next few years, which in turn will drive the market for in-app advertising market globally. Moreover, the increase in the number of smart phone applications downloads from google play store, iOS store will also drive the market for in-app advertising market globally. However, the technicality issues like the testing of advertisements for in-app advertising for different smartphone softwares like android and iOS are time-consuming as both softwares display contents differently which might pose as a restraint to the in-app advertising market globally.Request for Report Sample :Global In-app Advertising Market: Market SegmentationBased on in-app mobile advertising types, the global in-app advertising market can be segmented into:Standard Banner AdsInterstitial AdsHyper-local Targeted AdsRich Media AdsVideo AdsNative AdsBased on the smartphone applications, the global in-app advertising market can be segmented into:MessagingGamingOnline ShoppingTicketingOthersGlobal In-app Advertising Market: Regional OutlookBased on the geographic regions, global In-app Advertising Market is segmented into seven key market segments namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, and the Middle East & Africa. Among the aforementioned regions, North America market for in-app advertising market currently holds the largest market share due to the spending on smartphones surpassing the desktops and laptops. The Asia-Pacific market for in-app advertising is followed by the North American market, India currently holds the second position in use of smart phones worldwide which is a provide lucrative opportunity for in-app advertising in the region. Western Europe market for in-app advertising trail behind the Asia-Pacific market, which is followed by Latin America, Eastern Europe, and MEA regions.Global In-app Advertising Market: Key playersSome of the major players identified in the global In-app Advertising Market include, Facebook, Inc., Apple, Groupo Mobile, Phone Valley, Google, and Mobile Dream Factory among others.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, types, technology, and applications.Request for Report TOC :About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA,Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Self-Drive Car Rental Market Share and Growth Opportunity By Top Key Players Like Hertz Global Holdings, Enterprise Holdings, Avis Budget Group, Sixt AG and Others 2018 - 2025

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The Global Self-drive Car Rental Market size, industry status and forecast, competition landscape and growth opportunity. This research report categorizes the global Self-drive Car Rental market by companies, region, type and end-use industry.In 2017, the global Self-drive Car Rental market size was million US$ and it is expected to reach million US$ by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of during 2018-2025.Browse complete report@This report focuses on the global top players, coveredHertz Global HoldingsEnterprise HoldingsAvis Budget GroupEuropcarSixt AGChina Auto Rental InceHi Car ServicesUber Technologies IncMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaMarket segment by Type, the product can be split intoEconomyExecutiveLuxuryMUVSUVOtherMarket segment by Application, split intoBusinessLeisureOtherThe study objectives of this report are:To study and forecast the market size of Self-drive Car Rental in global market.To analyze the global key players, SWOT analysis, value and global market share for top players.To define, describe and forecast the market by type, end use and region.To analyze and compare the market status and forecast between China and major regions, namely, United States, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India and Rest of World.To analyze the global key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the marketTo analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the marketTo strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.Request for sample@In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Self-drive Car Rental are as follows:History Year: 2013-2017Base Year: 2017Estimated Year: 2018Forecast Year 2018 to 2025For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2017 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered.Key StakeholdersSelf-drive Car Rental ManufacturersSelf-drive Car Rental Distributors/Traders/WholesalersSelf-drive Car Rental Subcomponent ManufacturersIndustry AssociationDownstream VendorsTable of ContentsGlobal Self-drive Car Rental Market Size, Status and Forecast 20251 Industry Overview of Self-drive Car Rental1.1 Self-drive Car Rental Market Overview1.1.1 Self-drive Car Rental Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Self-drive Car Rental Market Size and Analysis by Regions (2013-2018)1.2.1 United States1.2.2 Europe1.2.3 China1.2.4 Japan1.2.5 Southeast Asia1.2.6 India1.3 Self-drive Car Rental Market by Type1.3.1 Economy1.3.2 Executive1.3.3 Luxury1.3.4 MUV1.3.5 SUV1.3.6 Other1.4 Self-drive Car Rental Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Business1.4.2 Leisure1.4.3 Other2 Global Self-drive Car Rental Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Self-drive Car Rental Market Size (Value) by Players (2013-2018)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate2.2.2 Product/Service Differences2.2.3 New Entrants2.2.4 The Technology Trends in FutureRequest for Discount@3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 Hertz Global Holdings3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Self-drive Car Rental Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.2 Enterprise Holdings3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Self-drive Car Rental Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.3 Avis Budget Group3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Self-drive Car Rental Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.4 Europcar3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Self-drive Car Rental Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.5 Sixt AG3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Self-drive Car Rental Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.6 China Auto Rental Inc3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 Self-drive Car Rental Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.7 eHi Car Services3.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.7.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.7.4 Self-drive Car Rental Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.8 Uber Technologies Inc3.8.1 Company Profile3.8.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.8.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.8.4 Self-drive Car Rental Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)Who we areResearch Trades has team of experts who works on providing exhaustive analysis pertaining to market research on a global basis. This comprehensive analysis is obtained by a thorough research and study of the ongoing trends and provides predictive data regarding the future estimations, which can be utilized by various organizations for growth purposes.We distribute customized reports that focus on meeting the clients specific requirement. Our database consists of a large collection of high-quality reports obtained using a customer-centric approaches, thus providing valuable research insights.Contact us:Email: sales@researchtrades.comCall us: +1 6269994607 (USA), +91 7507349866 (IND)Web:Skype ID: researchtradescon
Growth of Cancer Biological Therapy Market On Amgen Inc., Merck &Co., Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG

Cancer Biological Therapy Market, Cancer Biological Therapy Market Study, Cancer Biological Therapy Market Size, Cancer Biological

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Cancer Biological Therapy Market Driven by the exponential rate of residential and nonresidential building construction across myriad geographies, due to the economic revival of the developed countries and a worldwide rise in population, Cancer Biological Therapy Market is expected to register massive gains in the ensuing years.Cancer Biological Therapy Market size is expected to reach USD 100 billion by 2023, U.S. cancer biological therapy market share was over 80% of the North American revenue in 2015 and is anticipated to grow owing to increased public funding for R&D and other government initiatives.Request a Sample of this premium Research Report@Report Mainly focuses on the top Manufacturers in global market are given bellowNovartis International AG, Amgen Inc., Merck &Co., Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Eli Lilly, Seattle Genetics, Inc., Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Celgene CorporationGermany revenue was over USD 4 billion in 2015 and contributes largely to the Europe cancer biological therapy market size. Major drivers include favorable insurance and public reimbursement policies. For instance, about 90% of the German population is covered by Statutory Health Insurance and only 10% of population by private insurance players.Monoclonal AntibodiesNaked Monoclonal Antibodies, Conjugated Monoclonal Antibodies, Bi-Specific Monoclonal AntibodiesVaccinesPreventive, TherapeuticCancer Growth BlockersTyrosine Kinase Inhibitors, Proteasome Inhibitors, mTOR InhibitorsBlood Cell Growth FactorsLenograstim, FilgrastimCytokinesInterferons, InterleukinsRising incidence rates and increased adoption of biologic therapy will drive global cancer biological therapy market size. According to WHO estimates, the number of new cancer cases are projected to rise by 70% in the next two decades, largely due to increased consumption of alcohol and tobacco. It is estimated by the ACS that 180,890 prostate cancer and 246,660 breast cancer cases will be diagnosed in 2016 in the U.S.Mounting global geriatric population is predicted to boost cancer biological therapy market size owing to correlation between new cases and old age. Elderly population is more prone to the disease and according to ACS, 86% of cases in the U.S. were recorded in individuals aged 50 and above. High associated cost attributed to the cost of drug development may act as a major bottleneck to growth. Millions of dollars are spent in identifying a potent drug, obtaining its preclinical data and carry out its clinical trials. Monopoly is yet another factor that contributes to higher cost. The emergence of new therapeutic classes with reduced adverse-effects, such as immuno-oncologics will change the industry landscape.Cancer vaccines market was over USD 1.9 billion in 2015. Approval of the first vaccine sipuleucel-T (Provenge) for metastatic prostate cancer by the FDA will boost growth in the immunotherapy segment. Cancer growth blockers market was over USD 18 billion in 2015, and is expected to grow at 5.8% CAGR from 2016 to 2023. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors dominated revenue share among the growth blockers in 2015 and is expected to continue witnessing steady growth.Monoclonal antibodies market size was over USD 21 billion in 2015. Antibody therapy has been the most successful and important approach for treatment of hematological malignancies and solid tumors. Bispecific monoclonal antibodies are anticipated to grow at 6.5% CAGR from 2016 to 2023.Request a Discount on standard prices of this premium Cancer Biological Therapy Market Research Report@The above information is provided on a regional and country basis for the following: North America (U.S., Canada)o Europe (Germany, UK, France, Spain, Italy)o Asia Pacific (India, China, Japan)o MEA (South Africa, Saudi Arabia)o Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina)China will drive Asia Pacific cancer biology therapy market share by providing favorable growth opportunities to players, which will motivate them to invest in R&D of biologic products. The favorable reimbursement plans will further accelerate growth.To View Full Report@About Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Market Study Report4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email:sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:Blog:
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The US and European Electronic Monitoring Market: Size & Forecast with Impact Analysis of COVID-19 (2021-2025)", provides an in depth analysis of the US and European electronic monitoring market by value, by segment, etc. The report also provides a detailed analysis of the COVID-19 impact on the electronic monitoring market. The report also assesses the key opportunities in the market and outlines the factors that are and will be driving the 
There were so many reasons to say no: the eight years of consistent failure, the loan defaults, the shuttered factory, the management turnover.

But when SoloPower Systems called last summer, Oregon answered. The state that already had given the Portland company $13.5 million in tax credits, $10 million in direct financial assistance and millions of dollars' worth of tax breaks ponied up another $641,835 in rent.

Thirteen months later, SoloPower appears to be dead. The state doesn't expect to recoup its loans, and the company owes Multnomah County $1.8 million in property taxes.

In a final twist, the county could seize the company's equipment to cover the unpaid taxes, but it's steeped in a toxic stew of cadmium and hydrochloric acid.

"This stuff is very caustic," said Michael Vaughn, Multnomah County assessor. "And there's lots of it. It's one big mess."

Now the Oregon Secretary of State is questioning the state's decision to help SoloPower with rent, given its "history of loan default, forbearance, and restructuring," according to a newly released audit.

The Department of Energy received no collateral or security for those payments. Instead, agency officials said, it relied on "verbal representations" from SoloPower management that they were close to a deal that would enable it to repay all its debts. It never happened.

What the audit doesn't say is that the Energy Department considered giving SoloPower even more money. The Oregonian/OregonLive has learned that agency officials approached Gov. Kate Brown's staff in September 2017 about an additional investment. Brown's office rejected the plan, said her spokesman Chris Pair.

And now, the Energy Department no longer views the maker of flexible solar panels as a "going concern,' agency spokeswoman Rachel Wray said.

The company's 225,000-square-foot factory in the Rivergate Industrial Park in North Portland is uninhabited. The county can repossess the equipment there because SoloPower failed to pay the taxes on the property near Terminal 6 on North Marine Drive. But it will first have to clean up the toxic waste, which could cost up to $500,000.

It's been eight years since SoloPower arrived in Oregon with technology that promised lighter, thinner solar panels that could be placed on buildings that couldn't support traditional solar panels. The state of Oregon and the city of Portland were eager to back the company that projected as many as 450 manufacturing jobs.

Oregon officials were eager to jumpstart an economy still languishing after the housing crash. The Energy Department loaned the company $10 million, and Business Oregon handed over an additional $20 million in tax credits.

Portland also stepped up, agreeing to cover half of SoloPower's debt to the state if it built its solar panel factory in the city. Multnomah County declared the company's North Portland factory site to be within an enterprise zone, a decision that freed the company from paying property taxes as long as it met certain job creation requirements.

The federal government, meanwhile, agreed in 2011 to furnish $197 million in loan guarantees. In 2011, the California Energy Commission loaned the company nearly $5 million.

SoloPower was small change compared with Oregon's other green energy debacles. The Energy Department's infamous Business Energy Tax Credit program dispensed a billion dollars' worth of tax credits to 14,000 businesses. Later reviews deemed a third of those deals to be "suspicious" and worthy of further investigation.

There were some legitimate reasons to believe SoloPower was the real deal. The company invested heavily in new factory  an estimated $340 million officials said at the time.

Plus, it was backed by Hudson Clean Energy Partners, a deep-pocketed private equity firm.

And yet, SoloPower was also a huge risk. Its technology was untested; the market demand unknown. Plus, SoloPower's products were expensive compared with traditional solar panels.

In April 2013, the company shut down the factory and laid off most of its employees. Three months later, SoloPower stopped making payments on its state loan.

That was enough for the federal government. It immediately withdrew the $197 million in loan guarantees that were on the table.

California also took quick action. The state sued SoloPower in 2013, after the company allegedly defaulted on its loan.

In 2017, Multnomah County sued the company for back taxes. After SoloPower failed to create a minimum number of jobs, it no longer qualified for the property tax breaks, Vaughn explained.

That same year, Portland's $5 million loan guarantee came into play after SoloPower stopped making payments to the state. Because of that guarantee, the city has been paying $119,000 a month to cover SoloPower's debt to the state since April 2017 and will continue to do so until October 2020.

The Energy Department declared SoloPower in default last fall. It has taken no steps to collect the debt.

Then came last July and the urgent plea that SoloPower needed money to cover its rent.

There were ample reasons to turn down the request. As the Secretary of State's audit explains, the company had "defaulted on its loan repayments to (the state) in September 2016 and has not made any repayments since. Further, at the time department management elected to cure the lease defaults, the borrower's property tax payments were delinquent. Multnomah County had the legal right to seize the borrower's equipment for delinquent taxes."

Auditors found no evidence that agency lenders got any collateral in exchange for the additional funds. They never checked with an independent expert, the audit said, and apparently believed the assurances of SoloPower's primary investor Hudson Valley that the refinancing would happen.

Wray, the agency spokeswoman, called it "a tough decision." The company had been in talks with investment banking giant Goldman Sachs on a deal to inject new capital into SoloPower, she said.

"We had multiple discussions with Goldman Sachs from August to October 2017," Wray said. "The investment would have made SoloPower a 'going concern,' meaning it could resume operations; we never saw terms that involved the (state) loan being paid in one fell swoop. Eventually that conversation went quiet, the investment didn't go through, and we don't have any specific information about why."

A commercial lender who once worked for the Energy Department said it was irresponsible for the agency to hand over the last $640,000.

"It was throwing good money after bad," said Dan Weldon, now with Washington Federal Savings Bank in Portland. "At some point, the agency got locked into this enabling relationship with SoloPower. Good, sound risk managers don't do that."

The SoloPower failure will contribute to increasing financial problems at the Energy Department's Small-Scale Energy Lending Program. By 2020, it will no longer have sufficient funds to pay off its debt. The fund needs about $8 million in new capital, the agency says.

-- Jeff Manning
A Clackamas County man faces a charge of animal abuse after police said he shot a neighbor's dog in the face.

Preston L. Gorbett

A resident of a stretch of Oregon 211 just outside of Molalla called police Friday, saying her dog was missing and that a neighbor, Preston L. Gorbett, claimed to have shot the golden retriever, Rudy.

Investigators arrested Gorbett on suspicion of first-degree aggravated animal abuse. The Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said Gorbett shot the dog with a .44 Magnum.

Gorbett was booked in the Clackamas County Jail. He was no longer listed as an inmate Monday afternoon.

Rudy was found and taken to a local animal hospital, where he is expected to survive, police said.

-- Elliot Njus
The top administrator of Multnomah County's mental health services is on leave, pending an internal investigation over how his department handled complaints about Portland's psychiatric crisis center and other health care providers.

David Hidalgo, director of Mental Health and Addiction Services, was placed on indefinite leave last Wednesday.

Joan Rice, the quality manager for the health department, is also on leave. She serves as the de facto clearinghouse for complaints and ultimately decides what to do with them.

Both will be paid their full salary and benefits during this time.

The county's chief operating officer said last week that she ordered the review after what appears to be a pattern of county officials ignoring serious complaints about Unity Center for Behavioral Health. The review will look at the past year's worth of complaints for all health care providers, including nursing homes and hospitals.

According to county documents, Rice has received at least 19 complaints about Unity since the 24-hour operation opened Jan. 31, 2017.

In its first month, a Unity staff member reported to the county that the center's staff discounted a woman's account that she had been sexually assaulted, only to find that she was right, according to complaint files provided to The Oregonian/OregonLive by the county under a public records request.

Earlier this year, a county employee in the mental health division also reported a suicide and a person found dead in bed associated with Unity to Rice.

She appears to have never taken action on any of the complaints, the records indicate.

Chief Operating Officer Marissa Madrigal said it's possible the county health department did everything right, but it's hard to tell because administrators couldn't explain their process for investigating the complaints.

Under state law, Multnomah County is supposed to investigate allegations of wrongdoing at any health care facility in its jurisdiction.

Many of the complaints the county received last year about Unity weren't made public until an Oregon Health Authority investigation of the center started in March.

The state investigation is ongoing. Unity officials said they're making changes to the center to address state sanctions, including replacing doors on bathrooms with curtains, teaching staff how to respond to medical emergencies and other gaps in training and protocols.

If Unity doesn't meet state health guidelines, it could lose federal certification that could affect its ability to stay in business. The center faces a Sept. 11 to address the state's concerns.

-- Molly Harbarger

mharbarger@oregonian.com

503-294-5923

@MollyHarbarger
BROWNSVILLE  Linn County authorities say a black teenager was assaulted at a country music festival after he criticized a Confederate flag three men were waving.

Sheriff Jim Yon said Monday that the men were driving through the camping area of the Willamette Country Music Festival in Brownsville waving the flag from a newer-model black Ford truck when the 18-year-old victim spoke out.

One of the men got out and hit the victim several times before fleeing. He has not been found.

The victim was treated for non-life threatening injuries. The festival ended Sunday.

Linn County Lt. Michelle Duncan says authorities are investigating whether the incident qualifies as a hate crime.

The suspect had dark hair and was wearing jeans, a black muscle shirt with the sides cut, brown boots and a black cowboy hat.

-- The Associated Press
Hillary Borrud and Brad Schmidt | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown's campaign is demanding that television stations stop airing an attack ad financed by the political nonprofit Priority Oregon.

The campaign's letter was first reported Monday by Oregon Public Broadcasting. According to OPB, television stations are under no legal obligation to stop running the ad.

The 30-second video features a mother reading a bedtime story to her children. "Do you want to hear a scary story?" the mother asks in the ad, which is also posted on Priority Oregon's Facebook page. She then rattles off a list of problems "in Kate Brown's Oregon" that have been reported by news organizations.

In its letter to TV stations, Brown's campaign seized on the mother saying, "You can sell drugs while running a daycare."

The line references state rules that allowed a Portland man to own a childcare business inside his home while also owning a storefront marijuana dispensary.

State rules prohibit anyone from growing or distributing marijuana at a child care facility. Oregon officials interpret their rules to also prohibit a licensed provider or operator of a day care from growing or distributing marijuana, regardless of the location.

But those rules don't account for a hands-off day care owner.

Last year, The Oregonian/OregonLive highlighted the story of Samuel Watson, who hired others to operate a day care inside his Northeast Portland home. Watson also owned and operated a marijuana business from a North Portland storefront. Two of Watson's day care employees quit and contacted the state, saying they could no longer ensure the safety of kids. They told regulators they had reason to believe Watson stored large quantities of marijuana inside his home where the day care was operated.

Watson vehemently denied the allegations. State officials investigated but labeled the case unfounded. Watson closed his in-home day care, plus a second location run from a rental property. His marijuana storefront, now under a new name, remains open.

"It is illegal to sell drugs at a child care center in Oregon under numerous provisions of Oregon law," lawyer Harry Wilson of the firm Markowitz Herbold PC wrote in the letter to TV stations. "Priority Oregon's ad misinforms and deceives Oregonians and the continued publication of the ad does a disservice to your viewers and all Oregonians."

Although Wilson complained of "numerous false statements of fact," he did not identify other examples. The ad also refers to isolated instances in recent years of children in foster care reportedly not receiving enough food. Finally, it alludes to a 2017 report by The Oregonian/OregonLive that state officials kept the public from viewing thousands of substantiated abuse complaints against homes for seniors around the state.

Erica Hetfeld, who's leading Priority Oregon's work, responded to the Brown campaign's letter in an emailed statement late Monday. "Governor Brown is scrambling for cover behind lawyers because Oregonians are waking up to her blatant mismanagement of our state government," Hetfeld wrote.

Priority Oregon has been paying for ads attacking Brown, a Democrat, since at least January, The Oregonian/OregonLive has reported. The nonprofit generally has not disclosed its donors, but it has previously acknowledged its members include the Oregon Small Business Association and the Taxpayers Association of Oregon.

It's also tied to a co-founder and chief executive at Entek, a battery component manufacturer based in Lebanon that has tangled with the state over potentially elevated levels of a cancer-causing solvent near its factory. Political action committees for the building, trucking and restaurant and lodging industries reported contributing $30,000 to Priority Oregon in 2017, and the nonprofit exchanged $30,000 worth of research with the Republican Governor's Association, according to a federal filing.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Samuel Watson's name.

Hillary Borrud

503-294-4034; @hborrud



Brad Schmidt

503-294-7628; @_brad_schmidt
A motorcyclist riding along a rural Oregon highway at night was killed when he struck a deer in the middle of the road, authorities said Tuesday morning.

Donald P. Hoak, 36, was traveling north along Oregon 260 in Josephine County when he crashed into the animal near milepost 10, state police said.

Police received a report of the crash around 2:20 a.m. and rushed to the scene. They found Hoak, a Grants Pass resident, his 2001 Suzuki motorcycle and the deer.

Hoak and the deer both died at the scene, police said.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh

skavanaugh@oregonian.com

503-294-7632 || @shanedkavanaugh
Oregon housing officials say they have few viable options for preventing the owners of nuisance properties from receiving taxpayer bailouts to avoid foreclosure.

Board members for the Oregon Affordable Housing Assistance Corporation, a state-affiliated nonprofit, met Monday to review potential fixes in the fallout over one problem home in Tigard. A final determination may not be made for at least three months.

The Oregonian/OregonLive in June reported that the owner of a Tigard home received a $29,601 loan last year from the nonprofit to prevent foreclosure. Tigard police have raided the house twice and have logged hundreds of calls to the property. At least 16 people associated with the home have been arrested in the past three years.

"The types of issues affecting this property and neighborhood are a matter for law enforcement and cannot be effectively or consistently addressed through the policies of a foreclosure prevention loan program," a state housing official, Carmel Charland, wrote in a three-page memo to the board.

The Tigard homeowner was one of more than 700 to receive a no-interest, forgivable loan through a state program tapping $9.4 million in federal taxpayer money. State officials say they aren't aware of problems beyond Tigard but concede they have not looked for other problem properties.

Adding a criminal background check during the loan application process could run afoul of federal fair housing laws, the memo said. Meanwhile, state officials say it would be costly and difficult to act after a loan is approved.

The nonprofit could intervene if a property incurs liens or unpaid property taxes, or if it is not kept in good repair, according to the memo.

Board members on Monday expressed some interest in exploring whether the agency could declare a loan in default over property condition, although there's no clear definition for what would constitute a violation, said Kenny LaPoint, a state spokesman. Seeking a default could give the state some leverage to force a property owner to make changes, he added.

But state officials warned that foreclosure would be costly and difficult. Legal fees could range from $5,000 to $10,000 and proceedings could run several months to years, according to the memo.

The nonprofit board, which administers loans on behalf of the state's Oregon Homeownership Stabilization Initiative, meets again Nov. 19.

-- Brad Schmidt

503-294-7628

@_brad_schmidt
Gov. Kate Brown is dismissing reports that national political watchers have downgraded her outlook for re-election.

In a call with reporters Friday, Brown cherry-picked from recent close election results to illustrate her point that winning statewide office isn't easy for Oregon Democrats, notwithstanding their nearly 10 percentage point registration edge over Republicans. It was the second press call organized by the governor's office in the last two weeks, one in a series of teleconferences that Brown said will continue after the Nov. 6 election.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter Dirk VanderHart pointed out that such organizations as The Cook Political Report and the University of Virginia Center for Politics had changed their ratings of Oregon's gubernatorial race from a "likely Democratic" win to "leans Democratic."

"What do you make of that and are you worried?" VanderHart asked Brown.

"Truth be told, Gov. [John] Kitzhaber won with less than 50 percent of the vote in both of his elections in '10 and in '14," Brown responded. "I think you recall that [Republican] Dennis Richardson won the secretary of state race in 2016."

Kitzhaber won the 2014 contest, capturing 49.9 percent of the vote to Richardson's 44.1 percent. The election took place a couple weeks after news broke of former first lady Cylvia Hayes' paid work for green energy groups that wanted to influence state policies.

A recent voter survey and poll showed a close race, and although Brown supporters have questioned the results, they have not released their own polling. John Horvick, vice president and political director of DHM Research in Portland, has said the first survey by Florida-based Gravis Marketing showing a tight governor's race tracked with polling his firm has done.

"Oregon has a totally blue reputation, but that has never been my reality in public service," Brown said on Friday. "Of the years I spent in the Legislature, I served 14 years in the minority." Brown was a lawmaker for 17 years, before becoming secretary of state in 2009.

In 2016, Brown was elected to finish the remaining two years of Kitzhaber's term  he'd resigned in February 2015  with 50.6 percent of the vote. Her Republican opponent, Bud Pierce, got 43.4 percent.

Here are other recent Oregon governor's race results:

In 2010, Kitzhaber narrowly won with 49.3 percent, while Republican and ex-Blazer Chris Dudley received 47.8 percent.

In 2006, former Gov. Ted Kulongoski won re-election by 50.7 percent, and Republican Ron Saxton garnered 42.8 percent.

-- Hillary Borrud

503-294-4034; @hborrud
Closing the "boyfriend loophole" by expanding an existing ban on guns for people with stalking and domestic violence convictions ( House Bill 4145 , 2018): requested the legislation, made it one of her top priorities and signed it into law
The leader of the Archdiocese of Portland on Monday said he was shocked and discouraged over recent revelations of child sex abuse by priests and the subsequent cover-ups by church leaders.

In his first public comments since a Pennsylvania grand jury report detailed decades of abuse at the hands of 300 Roman Catholic priests in that state, Archbishop Alexander K. Sample apologized for harm done to the victims of abuse and called the latest allegations evidence of an "institutional and spiritual" failure.

His written statement also addressed the July resignation of prominent former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who served as archbishop of Washington, D.C. McCarrick faces allegations of sexually abusing a child nearly five decades ago as a New York priest. McCarrick, the first cardinal in history to step down in connection with the unfolding sexual abuse scandal, denies the allegations.

Portland's archdiocese was driven to bankruptcy in 2004 after settling more than 100 claims of abuse at the hands of clergy and facing dozens more. It was the first Catholic diocese to file for bankruptcy over child sex abuse claims.

"These horrific revelations are particularly painful in light of what victims in our own Archdiocese have suffered and the impact that sexual abuse has had on the Church here in western Oregon," Sample said in Monday's statement.

"These most-recent accusations and details expose  yet again  certain systematic and profound failures of episcopal leadership in our Church. These failures are both institutional and spiritual in nature, and date back many decades."

Sample outlined steps he said the church should take to avoid abuse and subsequent cover-ups, including the creation of an outside investigation process and expanding investigations to include those who knew about abuse and failed to report it. He said he would advocate for reform when U.S. bishops gather in November for an annual meeting.

He urged victims of previous abuse to bring their complaint to the church or local law enforcement, and he asked members of the church to pray for and assist the victims of abuse.

The archdiocese said it was holding a Mass of Healing for Victims of Sexual Abuse at 11 a.m. Sunday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, 1716 N.W. Davis St. in Portland.

Near the end of the five-page letter, Sample also urged the Portland faithful not to abandon the church.

"In dealing with all of this some are quite understandably tempted to give up on the Church," Sample wrote. "Yet our faith is finally in God, not in individuals who fail to live up to their calling in Christ."

Pope Francis condemned sexual abuse by priests in a letter earlier Monday, demanding accountability but offering no indication of how he plans to sanction complicit bishops or end the Vatican's long-standing culture of secrecy.

More on the Archdiocese of Portland's handling of sex abuse allegations:

Chronology

Links to previously secret documents

The Oregonian

-- Elliot Njus

enjus@oregonian.com

503-294-5034

@enjus
A U.S. senator from Louisiana introduced a resolution Tuesday demanding that Mayor Ted Wheeler resign over his handling of the occupation of the local Immigrations and Customs Enforcement office.

The resolution brought by Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy states Wheeler should "immediately resign so that a leader committed to protecting all law-abiding citizens and public servants from harm can assume the duties of Mayor of Portland."

Wheeler's decision to not have Portland police assist federal officers guarding the Southwest Portland ICE field office from protesters drew an attack from President Trump, who on Monday cast Wheeler's decision as shameful.

Wheeler issued a statement in response to Trump on Tuesday, saying he desires "a president that we can be proud of" and a country that respects people of differing backgrounds and refugees.

The Portland mayor has also shot down accusations that he denied protection to ICE employees and federal agents.

Wheeler will not respond to Cassidy's resolution Tuesday, said spokesman Sophia June.

Sen. Ron Wyden said in a statement that Cassidy's resolution "is a classic example of politicians whose actions fly in the face of their pronouncements that they're in favor of state and local rights, which they only seem to be when they think the states and localities are right."

"Portlanders don't need a senator from Louisiana telling them what to do," Wyden said.

It's unclear if Cassidy's resolution, first reported by Willamette Week, will receive serious consideration in the Republican-controlled Senate.

-- Gordon R. Friedman
President Donald Trump's trade war comes to Oregon's largest industry this week with a new round of tariffs levying taxes on imported electronics central to semiconductor production.

The first tariffs Trump imposed on China last month, on $34 billion in Chinese goods, largely spared the chip industry. That changes with tariffs on an additional $16 billion in goods kicking in Thursday, including dozens of products instrumental to semiconductor production. The U.S. chip industry anticipates the taxes will cost it $500 million annually.

Chipmakers generally support the president's efforts to open Chinese markets to U.S. products and to combat theft of American companies' trade secrets. Yet manufacturers and their suppliers are confounded by the coming sanctions, noting that their industry is one of the few that has retained a large domestic presence even as other manufacturers shifted overseas.

If tariffs drive up the cost of chipmaking equipment, that will eat into domestic manufacturers' profits - and their budget to invest into new innovations. It could even drive some overseas, the opposite of the tariffs' intended effect.

In practice, though, there's little evidence the tariffs pose an immediate threat to domestic manufacturers. While fiercely opposing the tariffs, Intel says it doesn't expect they will have a meaningful impact on sales. Analysts and observers agree the direct impact will be muted, at least for the time being.

"I don't think there will be big, direct consequences from tariffs because most of the big players have a huge global infrastructure they can move around," said Thomas Diffely, analyst with D.A. Davidson.

And while China is levying retaliatory sanctions on some U.S. products, Diffely said American technology is likely to be spared: "China does not want to slow the flow of high-tech equipment into their country."

The chip industry has a wary eye on the trade war nonetheless, worrying it could create a broader drag on the global economy - or that China might target one or two high-profile American products, like the iPhone, that could pinch a wide range of suppliers.

"It's all muddled," Diffely said. "No one knows exactly how it's going to end up."

Electronics manufacturing is Oregon's most vital industry, accounting for 14 percent of the state's economic output in 2016, according to Josh Lehner with the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis. Oregon exported $8.8 billion in computer and electronic equipment last year, according to federal trade data cited by Lehner.

Most of that output comes from Intel, which employs 20,000 in Oregon - more than any other business. Its largest and most advanced operations are at its Washington County campuses, where the company engineers and produces each new generation of microprocessor.

Those finished chips fly from Oregon to Intel facilities in China, Vietnam and Malaysia for testing and assembly. Other Asian manufacturers then incorporate the finished processors into PCs, laptops and servers and ship them to back to the United States, or to customers all around the world.

That multinational production process is typical in the electronics industry. Manufacturers obtain high-tech components from specialists all over the world and then assemble them in China or another Asian country where labor costs are relatively low.

"For our industry, things flow back and forth several ... times with little things being added along the way," said Jay Chittooran, public policy manager for SEMI, a semiconductor manufacturing equipment trade group.

Supporters of the new tariffs hope the taxes will prompt companies to retain their domestic operations or resist moving production overseas so they don't have to pay the tariff. And they hope it will create an incentive for China to remove its own trade barriers and government support for favored industries.

Opponents see a more complicated picture, at least in chips. In a full-blown trade war, Chittooran warns, tariffs could stack up as products move among countries - pulling down profits and pushing up prices for everything from cars to smartphones.

In hopes of curbing the tariffs, he said SEMI has had 85 meetings since March on Capitol Hill or with the administration. SEMI testified again Monday against another round of tariffs slated to take effect later this year that could amplify the trade war's impact on the chip industry.

Chipmakers and their suppliers are supportive of the administration's goals, according to Chittooran. He said everyone wants better access to China, but SEMI and its members don't see tariffs as an effective way to get there.

If tariffs prompt American manufacturers to move operations out of China, he said the Chinese will have added incentive to build their own, rival industry to supply customers there - potentially shutting U.S. companies out of the world's largest market.

"The prescription here is deeply flawed," Chittooran said. "I think what will likely happen is you'll just embolden China."

In the meantime, tariff opponents' say the cost of the new taxes will fall heavily on American companies rather than Chinese, given the fledgling state of China's own semiconductor industry.

"Very few semiconductor related products developed by Chinese companies are being imported into the U.S.; in fact, we are not aware of any Chinese company produced microprocessors sold in the U.S.," wrote Greg Pearson, Intel vice president for corporate and government affairs, in a July letter to federal trade authorities. "So tariffs on microprocessors are unlikely to motivate the (Chinese) government to change any unfair trade and industrial practices."

Neither Intel nor other large chip companies active in Oregon would comment on the trade disputes. Several, though, have issued warnings in recent regulatory filings. They describe tariffs as a "risk factor" for their business.

"The proposed tariffs would add costs to our U.S. manufacturing operations and impact our competitiveness in the global semiconductor manufacturing market," manufacturing equipment supplier Lam Research wrote in a letter to trade authorities last month. The company has nearly 3,000 people working at its Tualatin factory and research campus.

Notably, Intel has not joined other chip companies in listing trade as a risk factor to its business. Interim chief executive Bob Swan told The Wall Street Journal in July he didn't believe the trade war "would have significant impact on our revenue."

Though Swan didn't explain why he holds that view, Intel has an especially large manufacturing network spread across six countries. Most functions take place in more than one country, so Intel may be able to shift production among those sites to avoid the tariffs and muffle their impact.

Such production shifts may ultimately determine what impact, if any, the trade war has on Oregon's chip industry. Josh Lehner, the economist with Oregon's Office of Economic Analysis, said companies will muddle through if they view the tariffs as a temporary spat. They will make bigger changes if they envision a prolonged fight.

"That will be even more disruptive and we don't know which countries will be the winners and losers from the new (supply) chain," Lehner wrote in an email. "The U.S., and Oregon, could get more facilities here, or they could move to countries not subject to the trade skirmish."

-- Mike Rogoway | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699
Sometimes, even Abraham Lincoln needs a GoFundMe campaign.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, which supports Lincoln's museum in Springfield, Ill., has found itself $9.7 million in debt on a loan it took out 11 years ago to purchase a collection of rare artifacts from a private collector. Now, hundreds of Lincoln's personal possessions, including a beaver fur stovepipe hat that Lincoln purportedly wore, as well as letters and other artifacts, are at risk of ending up on the auction block if the foundation can't pay off the hulking debt through state funding or private donations. Or even a GoFundMe campaign titled, "Save Lincoln Artifacts. Donate NOW!" On Wednesday, the foundation and its board members agreed to begin hunting for prospective auction houses. The move is a necessary precaution in the event the foundation cannot make the payment deadline in October 2019, the foundation said.

In this June 14, 2007 file photo, Abraham Lincoln's bloodstained gloves he carried on the night of his death are photographed at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman File)

As of early Friday morning, the Lincoln Museum's GoFundMe page to help save the collection from auction has raised $10,239, still well short of the $9.7 million goal. "It's certainly not a day any of us wanted to see come to pass," Carla Knorowski, the foundation's CEO, told The Washington Post about Wednesday's decision. "Having said that, it's something that we internally have been preparing for just in case. But every day that I wake up, that my colleagues wake up and our board wakes up, we are working to figure out how we can raise money towards this, and how we can successfully bring this campaign to a conclusion." Perhaps the most recognizable item at stake is a beaver fur stovepipe hat that Lincoln purportedly wore as a state lawmaker in Springfield. The famous top hat is just one of three of its kind preserved over time, Knorowski said, although some have questioned its authenticity . The collection offers rare items, such as bloodstained white gloves the president had in his pocket the night he was assassinated, as well as his billfold, eyeglasses and presidential seal, still checkered with red chips of wax wedged into the cracks. Knorowski said there's also a page from his 1824 "sum book," in which Lincoln scribbled long division and wrote a poem in the top corner, bearing the earliest known example of his handwriting. "Abraham Lincoln is my name," 14-year-old Lincoln wrote, "and with my pen I wrote the same. I wrote in both haste and speed, and left it here for fools to read."

The artifacts are all part of the Louise and Barry Taper Collection, one of the most comprehensive collections of Lincoln's personal belongings. In 2007, the foundation acquired more than 1,000 artifacts valued at $25 million from the Taper collection. The money came in the form of a $2 million donation and a $23 million loan, which the foundation expected to pay back in private donations.

At the time of the purchase, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum was still relatively new, having opened its doors in 2005. The library offered tourists a chance to see rare copies of the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment and the Gettysburg Address. But what it lacked, Knorowski said, were Lincoln's everyday belongings or prized possessions that would make the museum come to life.

That's why the Taper collection was so important, she said, as it brought so many of Lincoln's possessions out of private hands and into the public realm.

"Abraham Lincoln is our nation's greatest export," she said. "People might say it's corn or the U.S. dollar or whatever. But it's Abraham Lincoln."

Since the foundation acquired the collection, private philanthropists have donated more than $13 million to pay off the loan, Knorowski said. But donor fatigue in the 11 years since the purchase of the collection has left the foundation and its supporters wondering what's next.

Once the loan is paid off in full, the state of Illinois, with license plates that proudly say, "Land of Lincoln," is expected to become the owner of the collection once the loan is paid off in full, according to the foundation. This move would come despite the state not providing funding to the foundation.

"Many of the donors or prospective donors have come to us and said, well, what is the state doing to help?" Knorowski said.

The foundation met with Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner's office in May to talk through their options, but the governor's office "made no financial commitments," the foundation said at the time . A spokeswoman from the governor's office told the State Journal-Register that it would continue to work with the foundation and is "listening to their business plan," but wouldn't elaborate on any help the state might offer.

The foundation is hoping for a $5 million grant from a state tourism fund, believing it could then challenge private donors to match the rest. However, state Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, who represents the same area that Lincoln once did, told the Associated Press that state funding would be a last resort and questioned whether shopping for auction houses at this point was necessary.

"This is a really bad sign that they've started these proceedings," he told the AP. "I realize they've got to do some planning, but I would hope that the foundation wouldn't move to that step until the absolutely last minute."

The foundation has already sold some items from the collection at auction - specifically, items that once belonged to Marilyn Monroe. She ended up in the Taper collection because of her fascination with the president, Knorowski said. Taper's collection included a dress that belonged to the star that sold for $50,000 at auction and a bust of Carl Sandburg, who Monroe befriended after reading his biography of Lincoln.

Knorowski said the Las Vegas-based auction featuring the Monroe items took more than 10 months to arrange.

"He is the standard-bearer for our nation, and it's important that we honor him, and it's our job at the foundation to honor his legacy every day," Knorowski said. "That's why we bought this collection and that's why we're committed to retaining it."

(c) 2018, The Washington Post. Written by Meagan Flynn
A Colorado man told police that he killed his pregnant wife in a "rage" after she strangled their two daughters, according to an affidavit released by police on Monday after prosecutors formally charged Christopher Lee Watts with the murder of his entire family.

The bodies of Watts' wife and children were found last week on the property of the oil and gas company he worked for near Denver.

According to the new documents released by Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke, Watts, 33, told detectives that he and his wife, Shanann, 34, discussed ending their marriage on Aug. 13. Watts, who was having an affair with a co-worker, claimed that by the end of the conversation, both were "upset and crying." He told investigators that he went downstairs, then returned to speak with Shanann. He looked at the baby monitor in their bedroom and what he saw threw him "into a rage": His older daughter, Bella, 4, was "sprawled out on her bed," and Shannon Watts was strangling their younger daughter Celeste, 3, he said.

After a multiday investigation, Christopher Watts confessed to killing his wife, loading the bodies into his truck and driving to an oil work site, where he left them.

Watts has been held without bail since his arrest Wednesday. He is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday morning, when he will be informed of the charges against him.

He faces five counts of first-degree murder, one count of unlawful termination of pregnancy and two counts of tampering with a deceased human body.

The first three charges of murder in the first degree accuse Watts of killing his wife, who was 15 weeks pregnant, and his daughters "after deliberation." Under Colorado law, "after deliberation" means that Watts not only intended to kill his family, but opted to commit the homicides after he took time to reflect on his decision to do so. "An act committed after deliberation is never one which has been committed in a hasty or impulsive manner," according to the state statute.

The district attorney's office also filed two additional counts of first-degree murder for Bella and Celeste. To convict Watts on these counts, prosecutors must prove that the children were younger than 12 at the time, and that Watts was "in a position of trust." As their father, Watts fits Colorado's definition of the latter.

A motion that Watts' attorneys filed Friday suggested that the two children may have been strangled and stated that their bodies had been submerged in crude oil for four days. The attorneys had asked to obtain DNA samples from the children's necks, as well as from their mother's hands and nails, arguing that DNA would still be present on the bodies. A Weld County judge, however, denied the request.

Authorities have not said how the victims died. James Mason, a deputy state public defender in rural Weld County, did not respond to a request for comment.

-- Kristine Phillips
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and "fixer," pleaded guilty Tuesday to campaign-finance violations and other charges, saying he and Trump arranged the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy model to influence the election.



The guilty plea came almost at the same moment former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted in Alexandria, Virginia, of eight financial crimes in the first trial to come out of special counsel Robert Mueller's sprawling Russia investigation.



In a deal reached with federal prosecutors, Cohen, 51, pleaded guilty to eight counts in all, including tax evasion and making a false statement to a financial institution. He could get about four to five years in prison at sentencing Dec. 12.

Michael Cohen's crimes go right to @realDonaldTrump. These crimes helped Trump win the election. Any effort to pardon Michael Cohen or Paul Manafort in and of itself would be a gross assault on the rule of law, and constitute high crimes and misdemeanors.  Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) August 21, 2018





In entering the plea, Cohen did not name the two women or even Trump, recounting instead that he worked with an "unnamed candidate." But the amounts and the dates all lined up with the payments made to Daniels and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal.



Cohen said the first payment was "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office," and the second was made "under direction of the same candidate."



As cable networks were showing split-screen coverage of the dueling conviction and plea bargain by two former loyalists, Trump boarded Air Force One in the afternoon on the way to a rally in West Virginia. He ignored shouted questions to reporters about both former aides, retreating to his private stateroom on the airliner.



Cohen's plea follows months of scrutiny from federal investigations and a falling-out with the president, whom he previously said he would "take a bullet" for.

The FBI raided Cohen's hotel room, home and office in April and seized more than 4 million items. The search sought bank records, communications with Trump's campaign and information on a $130,000 payment to Daniels and a $150,000 one to McDougal. Both women claimed Trump had affairs with them, which he denies.



Trump denied to reporters in April that he knew anything about Cohen's payments to Daniels, though the explanation from the president and his attorney Rudy Giuliani have shifted multiples times since.



The president has fumed publicly about what he felt was government overreach, while privately worrying about what material Cohen may have after working for the Trump Organization for a decade. Trump branded the raid "a witch hunt," an assault on attorney-client privilege and a politically motivated attack by enemies in the FBI.



"Obviously it's not good for Trump," Sol Wisenberg, who conducted grand jury questioning of President Bill Clinton during the Whitewater investigation, said of Cohen plea bargain.



"I'm assuming he's not going to be indicted because he's a sitting president, Wisenberg added. "But it leads him closer to ultimate impeachment proceedings, particularly if the Democrats take back the House."



The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal advice and guidance to executive branch agencies, has held that a president cannot be indicted while in office. Trump's lawyers have said that Mueller plans to adhere to that guidance, though Mueller's office has never confirmed that. There would presumably be no bar against charging a president after he leaves the White House.



Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, noted that the deal does not require Cohen to cooperate, but does not preclude it from happening, which should be worrying to the president and his allies.



"What it shows is that the people close to the president have criminal exposure and it may mean they don't need Cohen to cooperate," she said.



Levenson argued that the deal also knocks back the argument that the investigations swirling around Trump are a "witch hunt."



"No longer can you say Mueller is on a witch hunt when you have his own lawyer pleading guilty to things that were designed to impact the election," she said.



Mueller's team is looking into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The team referred the case involving Cohen's financial dealings to federal prosecutors in Manhattan.



Before the election, Cohen had been a trusted member of the Trump organization, working out of an office in Trump Tower next to one used by his boss.



He raised millions for Trump's campaign and, after being interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee last year, told Vanity Fair that Trump had no part in the suspected Russian conspiracy to tamper with the election.



The president's initial support for Cohen after the raid soon degenerated into a public feud, prompting speculation that, to save himself, Cohen might be willing to tell prosecutors some of the secrets he helped Trump keep.



When Cohen's team produced a recording he had made of Trump discussing one of the hush-money payments, Trump tweeted: "What kind of lawyer would tape a client? So sad!"





-The Associated Press
Updated at 2:09 p.m.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A jury has found former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort guilty after a three-week trial on tax and bank fraud charges -- a major if not complete victory for SpecialCounsel Robert Mueller as he continues to investigate the president's associates.

The jury convicted Manafort on eight of the 18 counts against him. The jury said it was deadlocked on the other 10. U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis declared a mistrial on those other charges.

Manafort was convicted on five counts of filing false tax returns, one count of not filing a required IRS form, and two bank fraud counts.

The verdict announced Tuesday comes as President Donald Trump has stepped up his criticism of Mueller's probe, publicly criticizing the investigation on a weekly basis. As the Manafort trial began, Trump called for Mueller's probe to be shut down immediately.

Manafort's guilty verdict may strengthen Mueller's hand as he continues to investigate possible conspiracy and seeks an interview with the president; an acquittal could have led to a broader effort by conservatives to shut down the special counsel's office.

The 18 charges in the Manafort trial centered on Manafort's personal finances, and had little to do with the special counsel's mandate of probing Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether any Trump associates conspired with those efforts.

But the trial was the first to emerge from Mueller's probe, and as such it marked a significant public test of his work.

The jury deliberated for four days before announcing its verdict.

Over two weeks of testimony, more than two dozen witnesses, including his former right hand man Rick Gates, as well as his former bookkeeper and accountants, testified against Manafort. They said he hid millions of dollars in foreign bank accounts that went unreported to the IRS, and then later lied to banks in order to get millions of dollars in loans.

Bill Christeson holds up a sign Tuesdayas the first guilty count comes in at the trial of Paul Manafort at the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.

His lawyers had argued that Gates, not Manafort, was the real criminal, pointing to Gates' admitted lies, theft, and infidelity. Gates pleaded guilty in February to lying to the FBI and conspiring against the United States, and has said he hopes to get a lesser prison sentence by cooperating against Manafort.

Prosecutors, in turn, told the jury that the most compelling evidence in the case were the dozens of documents, many of them emails, showing Manafort oversaw the false statements to the IRS and banks.

Manafort, 69, called no witnesses at all, as his lawyer argued prosecutors had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to defraud the government or banks. Manafort's lawyers repeatedly suggested their client might not have known the law.

The trial featured heated arguments at times -- not between the government and defense lawyers, but between Ellis and prosecutors. The judge repeatedly chided prosecutors in front of the jury, though at the end of the trial he urged the panel not to consider during deliberations any opinions he may have expressed.

Manafort faces a second trial in September in Washington D.C., on charges that he failed to register as a lobbyist for the Ukraine government, and conspired to tamper with witnesses in that case. Manafort has been in jail since June as a result of the witness tampering charges.

On Tuesday morning, the jury sent a note indicating they were split on at least one count. At that time, Ellis said he might be open to accepting a partial verdict at a later point, but not yet.

Manafort's attorney Kevin Downing argued jurors should be given a new verdict form that would give them the option to be undecided on the charges. The "third option should be hung as to each count," said Downing, who added that the jury "shouldn't be misled" into thinking that a hung jury is inappropriate.

Prosecutor Greg Andres objected to that suggestion, saying such a form goes against the judge's instruction for the jury to keep deliberating. The judge agreed, saying that if the jurors still can't come to a consensus after he sends them back to continue deliberating, then he would "ask them to tell me where they stand."

When the jurors were brought into the courtroom, Ellis told them only that if they failed to agree on a verdict, the case would be "left open and undecided," and that there was no reason another 12 jurors could decide the case "better or more exhaustively" than they could. He told jurors not to yield their beliefs, but asked them to consider whether they stood in the minority, and if so, whether they should change their minds.

Juries are permitted to return partial verdicts, in which they reach a unanimous decision of conviction or acquittal on some - but not all - of the counts against a defendant. In those circumstances, the acquittal or conviction will stand as the trial outcome for those specific charges, but prosecutors must then decide if they want to retry the defendant on the counts that resulted in a deadlock. During deliberations, judges encourage juries that say they are stuck on part or all of a case to keep trying to reach a unanimous verdict.

Prosecutors charge that from 2010 to 2014, Manafort hid more than $15 million from the IRS - money he made as a political consultant in Ukraine.

When that income ended in 2014, authorities charge Manafort lied to banks to get millions of dollars more in loans to support his extravagant lifestyle.

On Thursday, the jury asked Ellis to clarify some legal elements in the case that had been raised by the defense team. Since then, its members have deliberated without asking for further guidance.

The president has repeatedly spoken out publicly in support of Manafort, both at the trial's outset and during jury deliberations.

On Monday morning, Trump tweeted that Mueller's investigators "are enjoying ruining people's lives and REFUSE to look at the real corruption on the Democrat side - the lies, the firings, the deleted Emails and soooo much more! Mueller's Angry Dems are looking to impact the election. They are a National Disgrace!"

--The Washington Post
Microsoft said Tuesday it has uncovered new Russian hacking attempts targeting U.S. political groups ahead of the midterm elections.



The company said that a hacking group tied to the Russian government created fake internet domains that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. Three other fake domains were designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate.



Microsoft didn't offer any further description of the fake sites.

The shift to attacking conservative think tanks underscores the Russian intelligence agencys goals: to disrupt any institutions challenging Moscow and President Putin https://t.co/MylItd14vc  The New York Times (@nytimes) August 21, 2018



The revelation came just weeks after a similar Microsoft discovery led Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who is running for re-election, to reveal that Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate her Senate computer network.



The hacking attempts mirror similar Russian attacks ahead of the 2016 election, which U.S. intelligence officials have said were focused on helping to elect Republican Donald Trump to the presidency by hurting his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.



This time, more than helping one political party over another, "this activity is most fundamentally focused on disrupting democracy," Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, said in an interview this week.



Smith said there is no sign the hackers were successful in persuading anyone to click on the fake websites, which could have exposed a target victim to computer infiltration, hidden surveillance and data theft. Both conservative think tanks said they have tried to be vigilant about "spear-phishing" email attacks because their global pro-democracy work has frequently drawn the ire of authoritarian governments.



"We're glad that our work is attracting the attention of bad actors," said Hudson Institute spokesman David Tell. "It means we're having an effect, presumably."



The International Republican Institute is led by a board that includes six Republican senators, and one prominent Russia critic and Senate hopeful, Mitt Romney, who is running for a Utah seat this fall.



Microsoft calls the hacking group Strontium; others call it Fancy Bear or APT28. An indictment from U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller has tied it to Russian's main intelligence agency, known as the GRU, and to the 2016 email hacking of both the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.



"We have no doubt in our minds" who is responsible, Smith said.



Microsoft has waged a legal battle with Strontium since suing it in a Virginia federal court in summer 2016. The company obtained court approval last year allowing it to seize certain fake domains created by the group. It has so far used the courts to shut down 84 fake websites created by the group, including the most recent six announced Tuesday.



Microsoft has argued in court that by setting up fake but realistic-looking domains, the hackers were misusing Microsoft trademarks and services to hack into targeted computer networks, install malware and steal sensitive emails and other data.



Smith also announced Tuesday that the company is offering free cybersecurity protection to all U.S. political candidates, campaigns and other political organizations, at least so long as they're already using Microsoft's Office 365 productivity software. Facebook and Google have also promoted similar tools to combat campaign interference.

By MATT O'BRIEN, AP Technology Writer
WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday said he agrees that the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion rights is settled law, according to Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine who is a key swing vote on his nomination.

Collins held a two-hour meeting with Kavanaugh in her office that she called "very informative."

"We talked at great length about precedent and the application of stare decisis to abortion cases," Collins said, using the legal term for letting precedent stand. "We talked about executive power. We talked about the Heller gun decision. We talked about his judicial philosophy. We talked about which judges he admires most or he feels most similar to."

Collins also said she pressed Kavanaugh on whether he considers Roe v. Wade to be established law.

"He said that he agreed with what (Chief Justice) Justice Roberts said at his nomination hearing, in which he said that it was settled law."

That answer could be crucial for Kavanaugh's chances of being confirmed. Collins supports abortion rights and has vowed to oppose any nominee who has "demonstrated hostility" to Roe v. Wade.

Republicans have a narrow 50-49 majority in the Senate due to the absence of ailing Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and can't afford a single defection on Kavanaugh if every Democrat votes no.

Collins said she would not make a decision on whether to vote for him until after the Senate Judiciary Committee holds confirmation hearings after Labor Day. Yet she has spoken highly of the judge, praising his qualifications.

The meeting with Collins kicked off a busy day for Kavanaugh, an appellate court judge who is making the rounds on Capitol Hill for courtesy calls to Senate Democrats.

One key meeting Tuesday will be with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who says he'll ask Kavanaugh to fully support releasing documents from the Bush White House that Republicans have declined to review.

Schumer said he will ask Kavanaugh, as he has Republicans, "What are they hiding?" He expects the judge to be able to fully explain his record. "I hope he comes prepared to answer direct questions," he said.

Democrats complain that Republicans, who have a slim 51-49 majority in the Senate, are withholding documents in their rush to confirm Trump's pick for the court ahead of the midterm elections.

Kavanagh, 53, is a conservative who, in replacing retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, could tip the court rightward for a generation.

Several Democratic women senators joined with advocates for women's health care Tuesday to talk about the stakes of adding Kavanaugh to the court, particularly when it comes to access to abortion services.

"This is a wakeup call," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. "Do not take this moment lightly."

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., also said Kavanaugh should have no problem releasing all his writings and documents. "Why would he be complicit with this administration in hiding all of this paper that's out there?" she asked.

Kavanaugh has already met with most Republicans but his meeting with Collins, and a meeting expected later this month with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, will be crucial. Both senators both support access to abortion services.

Kavanaugh is also set to meet with other Democrats on Tuesday as he steps up his outreach to that side of the aisle.

Many Democrats have already said they would oppose Kavanaugh.

Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee scolded his colleagues for treating the nominee as if he'd just been released from prison and said that the hoped the discourse around Kavanaugh's nomination remained civil. "I hope we treat him with dignity and respect," Alexander said.

Republicans are using an expedited process to review Kavanaugh's lengthy record in public service, drawing on records assembled by Bush's lawyer, Bill Burck, separate from those traditionally compiled by the National Archives and Records Administration.

Republicans say there is plenty to review, including 300 court cases from his 12 years as a judge, and are only seeking records from Kavanaugh's time in the White House counsel's office. Democrats also want documents from Kavanaugh's three-year stint as Bush's staff secretary.

The National Archives is also producing documents from Kavanaugh's time on Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Bill Clinton, but has said its larger cache of files from the Bush years won't fully be delivered until late October.

Documents released Monday from the Starr investigation include a two-page memo in which Kavanaugh suggested that attorneys preparing to question Clinton seek graphic details about the president's sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

Another memo released earlier this month showed Kavanaugh opposed to indicting a sitting president and preferred to send the findings of the investigation to the Justice Department for the next administration to review.

Republicans hope to have Kavanaugh confirmed by the start of the court's session Oct. 1.

-- The Associated Press
The Michigan Community Service Commission is hosting a Volunteer Michigan Tour that will stop in Midland this fall.

The tour is visiting each region of the state to explore ways to expand service and volunteerism.
The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriff's Office and the Midland Police Department. Compiled by reporter John Kennett.

Monday, Aug. 20

1:25 a.m.  A suspicious situation was reported in the 900 block of Wyllys Street.

Sunday, Aug. 19

12:12 am.Officers made an arrest for obstructing justice-bond violation in the 690 Block of Eastman Avenue.

1:07 a.m.  Deputies were sent to Lincoln Township for a report of a suspicious situation. The homeowner heard a loud bang at the front door. The area/house was checked but no one was located.

8:13 a.m.A suspicious situation occurred in the 800 block of East Carpenter Street.

8:42 a.m.  Officers made an arrest for OWI at Jefferson Avenue and Northgate Drive.

10:15 a.m.  A deputy responded to a Larkin Township residence for a harassment complaint. Contact was made with the complainant, a 49-year-old woman, who stated that she is being harassed by a 44-year-old man. The complaint is under investigation.

10:26 a.m.  A deputy assisted the Midland City Police with an OWI investigation in the City of Midland.

11:28 a.m.  A suspicious situation was reported in the 4500 block of North Saginaw Road.

12:01 p.m.  After a traffic stop for tailgating in Greendale Township, A 21-year-old Midland male passenger was arrested for an outstanding contempt of court warrant. The woman driver was issued a warning for tailgating.

8:12 p.m.  An animal complaint was reported in the East Patrick/Saginaw Road area.

9:07 p.m.  A liquor inspection was conducted in the 1600 block of East Wheeler Street.

9:51 p.m.  An animal complaint was reported in the 5200 block of Bay City Road.

10:01 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to a Sanford location for a report of an intoxicated 47-year-old man who was falling down. The man was transported to the hospital to be further evaluated.

10:17 p.m.  A 36-year-old Jerome Township woman called 911 to report that she while looking through her 14-year-old daughter's phone, it was discovered that the 14-year-old was using Snapchat to communicate with men/boys from all over the U.S. The 14-year-old admitted to sending a nude photograph of herself. The complaint is currently under investigation.

10:25 p.m.  Officers responded to a suspicious situation in the 200 block of East Grove Street.

11:16 p.m.  A suspicious situation was reported in the 2900 block of Ronan Street.

11:45 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to a new construction site in Edenville Township in reference to someone lighting off a firework and it catching some plastic on fire. It is unknown who lit the firework and no building materials or anything of value was damaged.

Saturday, Aug. 18

12:27 a.m.  An attempt to locate/be-on-the-lookout was conducted at West Isabella Street and Castor Road.

12:55 a.m.  Deputies responded to a neighborhood issue in Lee Township. One party accused the other of trespassing and unwanted pushing respectively. Both parties voluntarily separated and did not wish to pursue the matter.

1:26 a.m.  Officers conducted a property check in the 900 block of East Park Drive.

3:14 a.m.  Deputies were dispatched to a residence in Ingersoll Township and made contact with a 73-year-old woman that advised she thought someone was in her yard. She believed it was her 83-year-old husband that she had gotten into an argument with earlier that day. The deputies searched the yard and found no one to be around.

3:21 a.m.  A 22-year-old Saginaw man was arrested for VCSA (violation of controlled substance) after a traffic stop for an equipment violation in Lee Township. The subject was transported and lodged at the Midland County Jail without incident. The subject's vehicle was turned over to a passenger in the vehicle.

4:31 a.m.  A K9 sniff test was conducted in the 1300 block of West Main Street.

12:14 p.m.  A be-on-the-lookout was issued in the area of Eastman Drive and North Saginaw Road.

2:12 p.m.  Officers responded to domestic violence in the 700 block of Village East Drive.

3:46 p.m.  Officers responded to retail fraud in the 900 block Joe Mann Boulevard.

4:04 p.m.  A suspicious situation was reported in the 600 block of Eastlawn Drive.

5:05 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to an area in Edenville Township in reference to a complaint of three juvenile women that were on the side of the road with a "Homeless" sign. The deputy searched the area and was unable to find the women but did find a "Home For Sale" sign.

6:09 p.m.  An animal complaint was reported in the 3400 block of Cambridge Street.

6:22 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to a residence in Hope Township in reference to a complaint of loud music. The deputy made contact with the 36-year-old woman resident and she was notified of the township noise ordinance. She agreed to turn the music down.

7:04 p.m.  A case of fraud was reported in the 900 block of East St. Andrews Road.

7:26 p.m.  Officers made an arrest for OUID/heroin/opiates in the 100 block of Meadow Lane.

7:33 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to an area in Lincoln Township in reference to a compliant of two individuals on a highway overpass. The individuals were gone upon deputy arrival.

8:51 p.m.  A suspicious situation was reported in the 2100 block of Ridgewood Drive.

8:52 p.m.  An animal complaint was reported on Wyllys Street near Lindy Street.

9:25 p.m.  While on routine patrol a deputy attempted to make contact with a known 28-year-old man at an establishment in Lincoln Township. He was known to have a warrant for his arrest. While the deputy attempted contact the man fled and was apprehended by the deputy. Methamphetamine was also found in the man's possession. The man was arrested and transported to the Midland County Jail without any further incident. A report of the incident was completed and turned over to the Prosecuting Attorney's office.

10:00 p.m.  A larceny was reported in the 6900 block of Eastman Avenue.

10:09 p.m.  Deputies responded to a verbal between uncle/niece in Jerome Township. No criminal acts. The woman left for the night.

10:10 p.m.  A deputy responded to Geneva Township for a BOL report of a vehicle being driven erratically. The deputy searched the area for the vehicle but was not able to locate it.

10:36 p.m.  Officers made a warrant arrest in the 300 block of Dyke Street.

11:24 p.m.  A deputy was sent to a Lee Township home for a report of a barking dog. Two dogs were inside the residence barking and the homeowner was not home. Contact was made with the homeowner who stated they would have someone come resolve the matter.

Friday, Aug. 17

1:02 a.m.  A 23-year-old Lake Odessa man was lodged at MCJ for violation of the controlled substance act following a traffic stop in Jasper Township.

3:53 a.m.  A deputy was sent to Hope Township for a man waving at traffic just off the roadway. The deputy was unable to locate the man.

4:23 a.m.  A 53-year-old Jerome Township woman reported her 53-year-old boyfriend stole her car. The car was not stolen. The complainant was advised the incident was a civil matter.

8:28 a.m.  Animal Control received a call about a dog running loose in Mills Township. The animal was brought to the LEC to a deputy. Animal Control transported the dog to the Humane Society.

11 a.m.  Animal Control received a call about a sick cat that was exposed to humans in the City of Midland. The cat was sent to be tested for rabies.

11:48 a.m.  A deputy was dispatched to a Jerome Township residence to assist the Jerome Township Fire Department with a hostile 48-year-old woman who was having an allergic reaction to medication. She was transported to the ER for evaluation.

11:57 a.m.  Animal Control received a call about a cat bite. A Greendale Township resident was bitten by a stray cat. An isolation notice was issued.

1:40 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to the 300 block of South Castor Road to assist EMS after a 13-year-old boy called 911 from his cell phone advising that he was trapped under a riding lawnmower in a ditch, after it turned over on him. The Lee Township Fire Department arrived on scene and rescued him.

2:02 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to a residence in Ingersoll Township in reference to an ongoing argument between a 48-year-old woman and her 61-year-old male landlord over debts owed for the rental. The woman is in the process of moving out and no longer wishes to have any contact with the landlord. The landlord agreed to no longer have any more contact with the tenant and try to deal with the issues through small claims court.

2:44 p.m.  A deputy responded to a verbal argument in Lincoln Township between a 47-year-old Lincoln Township man and a 56-year-old Mills Township man. The 56-year-old man's son lives behind the 47-year-old man's residence. They share a residence. Both men yell and harass each other. Today, they were flipping each other off and calling each other names. Both parties were advised to ignore each other and mind their own business. No charges were filed.

3:02 p.m.  A 66-year-old Lee Township woman reported harassing communication. She is getting unwanted telemarketer calls from the same individual. The caller ID shows a different number each time he calls. The area codes have been from Lansing, Texas, and inside Dow Chemical. The deputy explained that there is not much they can do except give her a complaint number for her phone company to deal with.

3:26 p.m.  A deputy made contact with an 18-year-old woman of Geneva Township and a 33-year-old Midland woman. They both advised the other one was harassing them through Facebook. The deputy suggested to block each other on Facebook. The deputy found that the 33-year-old had a warrant out of Midland County. The woman was placed under arrest and transported to the jail without incident.

4:58 p.m.  A 50-year-old Greendale Township woman called because her live in boyfriend of 17 years, a 48-year-old male, took the registration plate off of his own vehicle. She drives the vehicle. The deputy explained that since the vehicle is in his name and the registration plate is in his name, he can do that. She refused any other help that was offered.

4:58 p.m.  A 58-year-old Port Hope man reported a larceny of his credit card and unauthorized usage. The 58-year-old suspects his 59-year-old Warren Township brother is responsible for the larceny and unauthorized usage.

7:39 p.m.  Deputies were dispatched to a Mount Haley Township location for a careless driver. The vehicle was gone upon arrival.

10:22 p.m.  A 40-year-old Clarkston man was arrested in Jerome Township on an Oakland County FOC warrant. Contact was made with the man as he had a flat tire.

10:46 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to an Edenville Township location in reference to a group of people near a large fire that the caller thought might get out of control. The deputy made contact with the five individuals who were around the almost-burned out fire. They stated they were about to put sand on the coals and leave.

10:57 p.m.  A 19-year-old Greendale Township man was stopped for an expired license plate at a Lee Township location. The man did not have a valid driver's license. The man was placed under arrest for DWLS and transported to the MCJ without incident. The man received a citation for expired registration. A report has been forwarded to the Prosecuting Attorney's Office for review.

10:58 p.m.  A deputy checked M-20 in Greendale Township for a possible drunk driver. The area was checked but the vehicle was not located.

11:52 p.m.  Officers made an OWI arrest at U.S. 10/Eastman Avenue.
A VPN protects your privacy by routing your web traffic through an encrypted connection to a remote server, shielding your personal information and making you harder to track online. It's a powerful kind of tool, and CyberGhost is one of the better VPNs we've tested. It boasts the largest network of VPN servers we've yet seen and allows a generous seven simultaneous connections. It has also expanded its reach beyond VPNs with other security tools. But the service is expensive, has yet to undergo a third-party audit, and doesn't have the full complement of VPN features we've come to expect from top-tier products.

How Much Does CyberGhost Cost?

A subscription with CyberGhost starts at $12.99 per month. That's quite a bit higher than the current industry average of $9.96 per month, and significantly higher than the 5 per month ($5.99 at time of writing) that Editors' Choice winner Mullvad charges.

Like most VPN services, CyberGhost offers a discount for longer subscriptions. The CyberGhost annual plan costs $47.88, its two-year plan costs $83.76, and the oddly timed three-years-and-three-months subscription costs $87.75. Considering that the average annual plan among the VPNs we've tested is $72.33, CyberGhost's plans are extremely tempting. However, we always recommend starting with a monthly plan so you can see how well the VPN works for you. Note that while CyberGhost sometimes alters its billing structure, any introductory rates are listed with the future rate as well.

Note that monthly customers must pay an additional $59.88 per year in order to access CyberGhost's high-security NoSpy servers. Customers who sign up for any plan that's longer than a month get NoSpy servers for free. We discuss these specialized servers in greater detail below.

Cost doesn't have to be a hurdle when it comes to security, as there are many serviceable free VPNs available. TunnelBear has a free offering that restricts the amount of data to 500MB per month and AnchorFree Hotspot Shield offers a far more generous 500MB per day. Editors' Choice winner ProtonVPN supplies our favorite free subscription, limiting you to only a few servers but without a data cap.

You can easily purchase a CyberGhost plan with major credit cards or PayPal, but you can also pay anonymously with Bitcoin. Paying with Bitcoin means giving up the chance to purchase some of the add-ons supplied by CyberGhost, however, but more on that later. If you're keen for a purely cash transaction, both Editors' Choice winners IVPN and Mullvad VPN allow cash payments made to their respective HQs.

A subscription to CyberGhost lets you use seven devices simultaneously, making it a good value for a household with lots of devices. The industry average for VPN companies is five devices, but that seems to be slowly changing in consumers' favor. Avira Phantom VPN, Encrypt.me VPN, Ghostery Midnight, IPVanish VPN, Surfshark VPN, and Windscribe VPN place no limit on the number of devices you can connect at the same time.

(Editors' Note: Encrypt.me and IPVanish are owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company.)

A VPN is a powerful tool, but it won't protect you from every threat. We highly recommend using standalone antivirus and a password manager, as well as enabling two-factor authentication wherever it is available.

What Do You Get for Your Money?

CyberGhost VPN offers NoSpy servers, which it says are specially tuned servers in a high-security server facility in CyberGhost's home of Romania. This is similar to ProtonVPN's Secure Core servers in that they also have increased physical security. ProtonVPN, however, uses its Secure Core servers for multi-hop connections while CyberGhost does not provide multi-hop connections at all. Access to NoSpy servers cannot be added to an existing subscription and we were unable to test them this time. We will update this review once we are able to try the NoSpy servers out for ourselves.

In addition to VPN protection, CyberGhost boasts that it provides malware and ad blocking. We don't test the efficacy of these features in any VPN products, but generally advise readers to use standalone tracker blockers and antivirus software. Unlike ProtonVPN and Editors' Choice winner NordVPN, CyberGhost VPN cannot route your traffic through the Tor anonymization networkalthough a VPN is not required to use Tor. CyberGhost does, however, include split tunneling. This lets you exempt specific URLs from traveling through the VPN connection.

CyberGhost offers dedicated IP addresses, which ensure that your traffic always appears to come from the same IP address and perhaps look a little less like VPN traffic. The company boasts about its tokenized system for dispensing dedicated IP addresses without maintaining records of who actually uses which IP. Dedicated IP addresses are available in Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the US for $5 per month on top of CyberGhost's subscription fee.

Some VPN companies are beginning to expand their array of products. An account with Hotspot Shield VPN, for instance, grants access to several other security and privacy services and NordVPN offers a password manager and encrypted file locker. For an additional $2 per month, you can tack on a CyberGhost password manager. A free email monitoring service called ID Guard will alert you if an email address shows up in a data breach. CyberGhost is also bundling a license for the cloud storage file encryption service Boxcryptor with subscriptions of one year or longer. We did not evaluate these additional services in our testing.

The biggest addition to the CyberGhost arsenal is CyberGhost Security Suite for Windows, which is an additional $5.99 per month with the purchase of a VPN subscription. Final pricing varies based on the length of the subscription. Under the hood, Security Suite for Windows includes antivirus protection provided by Intego, a Privacy Guard tool designed to protect your information from Microsoft, and Security Updater, which keeps tabs on your apps that need updating. This tool is available to anyone with a CyberGhost VPN account but is only supported on devices running Windows 7, 8, or 10.

We were quite surprised to see the CyberGhost VPN's antivirus is powered by Intego, which has traditionally been a Mac antivirus company. When we last reviewed Intego's Mac product in 2017, we noted that it performed particularly badly at detecting Windows malware in third-party lab testing. That's a bit ominous for its inclusion in a Windows-only antivirus package, but we're reserving judgment as we have not tested the efficacy of CyberGhost Security Suite for Windows.

VPN Protocols

There are many ways to secure a VPN connection, and the new hotness is WireGuard. This VPN protocol promises better speeds and newer encryption technology compared with other VPN protocols but is so new that it isn't widespread quite yet. It's also open-source, meaning it can be picked over for potential vulnerabilities by anyone with the interest to do so. CyberGhost VPN is one of the few products that supports WireGuard across all its platforms, which on its own is an impressive list: Fire Stick TV, Android, Android TV, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, and various routers.

CyberGhost also supports the excellent and open source OpenVPN on all its platforms except for macOS. IKEv2, another favorite VPN protocol, is available on Amazon Fire TV Stick, Android, Android TV, iOS, macOS, and Windows.

Servers and Server Locations

The more and more-varied server locations a VPN offers, the more choices you have for picking the perfect server and for spoofing your location. Large server networks can also mean better odds of finding a server close to wherever you happen to be.

CyberGhost has about 7,000 servers across 91 countries, making it one of the largest and most-varied services we've reviewed. While the vast bulk of its servers are in the UK and US, it's still a good global mix with a better-than-average showing for Africa and South America, two continents often ignored by VPN companies. CyberGhost does offer servers in regions with repressive internet policies, such as China, Hong Kong, Russia, Turkey, and Vietnam. In its breadth of locations, CyberGhost is only outdone by ExpressVPN, which has servers across 94 countries.

Not all VPN servers are the same, however. Virtual servers are software-defined, meaning that a single hardware server can play host to many virtual ones. All kinds of servers can be configured to appear as if they are somewhere other than where they are truly located, making them virtual locations. Neither virtual servers or virtual locations are inherently problematic, but we prefer VPN services that are transparent about where your data is headed and how it's handled. We like that CyberGhost VPN has a list of all its server locations that clearly indicates whether they are virtual locations.

A company representative explained that some of CyberGhost VPN's server infrastructure is rented, but some serverslike its NoSpy serversare owned directly. Regardless of ownership, CyberGhost VPN's servers are encrypted and run in RAM only, which means no data is stored to a hard drive. Even if an attacker physically removed the server, there would be no data to examine.

Your Privacy With CyberGhost

Using any security or privacy software requires that you trust the product to not expose you to other dangers. This is particularly important for VPNs, because a VPN could have as much insight as your Internet Service Provider into your online activities. Protecting those activities is one of the key reasons to use a VPN in the first place. In general, CyberGhost appears to do a good job of protecting user privacy. We'll attempt to summarize below.

The information CyberGhost collects, its use, and what information it does not collect, are all laid out in its privacy policy. While the policy has an excellent and easily understandable preamble, it quickly falls into something far more dense and difficult to read. CyberGhost should follow Editors' Choice winner TunnelBear's lead and produce a simplified and educational policy for its customers.

The company's documentation says that CyberGhost does not store user IP addresses, DNS queries, browsing history, connection/disconnection timestamps, session duration, bandwidth, or the VPN server with which you connect. That's excellent. The company does appear to collect information regarding connection attempts and successes, but only in aggregate form. A company representative told us that the CyberGhost not only does not log user activity, it also does not know the identity of the customers connected to a given server.

A company representative assured us that CyberGhost only generates revenue from customer subscriptions. That's what we want to hear, as a VPN should protect your information, not monetize it.

Issues involving law enforcement and VPN companies can be tricky, which is why it's important to know what country the VPN company is headquartered in and under what legal jurisdiction it operates. For its part, CyberGhost has offices across Europe, but is headquartered in Bucharest, Romania, and operates under Romanian law. A company representative told us that because the company has no personal user data, it has no way to comply with legal requests for information. This is backed up by the company's transparency report, which is now compiled quarterly.

The company's full name is CyberGhost S.R.L., which is owned by parent company Kape Technologies PLC. Kape, which also owns ExpressVPN and Private Internet Access VPN among other privacy and security companies. In a previous incarnation, Kape was an adware company called Crossrider.

CyberGhost has not undergone a third-party audit aside from an evaluation by AV-Test, although a representative tells us the company plans to complete one this year. A thorough, publicly released audit that examines all aspects of the service is ideal, and the company should carry one out. TunnelBear, for contrast, has committed to annual public audits. We hope to see CyberGhost and other VPN companies find new ways to demonstrate good behavior to the public.

Hands On With CyberGhost for Windows

We tested the CyberGhost windows app on an Intel NUC Kit NUC8i7BEH (Bean Canyon) desktop running the latest version of Windows 10. During installation, CyberGhost VPN informed us we had hit the maximum number of installations. Before we could proceed, we had to visit the online client portal and delete some devices from our account. A CyberGhost representative explained that you can only be logged in on seven different devices and must log out manually or remove the device, as we did. The representative also said that CyberGhost records only the operating system and device model. We would rather that the service only limit simultaneous connections, rather than installations.

A recent visual refresh has moved away from flat colors to a more subtle dark blue and gray color scheme, punctuated with orange highlights that seem to glow on the screen. A large button sits in the center of the app, inviting you to click and connect to what the app believes is the best server. Clicking the arrow on the left side of the app expands to reveal a more detailed server selector and extensive settings. The app doesn't have the distinctiveness or friendliness of TunnelBear, but we appreciate how much it matches the look and feel of Windows 10. Note that the app's Dark and Light modes only refer to its expanded panel; the main panel is always darkly colored.

You can change VPN location from the pulldown menu beneath the connection button. Expanding the list shows all the servers in a given location, and lets you add the servers you prefer to a list of favorites. We like the flexibility this affords users. From the server list you also can see the load on specific servers, and the precise number of users connected. Server lists for gaming, torrenting, and streaming further break down CyberGhost's network options.

The Privacy Settings panel has toggles for preventing DNS leaks and a kill switch that prevents your computer from transmitting data in the event the VPN unexpectedly disconnects. The Block Content toggle says that it blocks DNS domains associated with ads, trackers, and malicious activity. PCMag does not test the efficacy of ad blocking for VPNs.

The Smart Rules panel lets you set specific behaviors for CyberGhost VPN. This includes connecting immediately at startup,or what the app should do when a new Wi-Fi network is detected, among others. If you want a truly set-and-forget experience, you'll want to edit these.

The Smart Rules Exceptions tab is where you can designate URLs that CyberGhost VPN should route outside the VPN connection. That's useful for banks and streaming services, which might block VPN traffic. You might expect that the App Rules tab lets you do the same for app traffic, but that's unfortunately not the case. Instead, this automatically launches and connects CyberGhost VPN when you launch the apps you've added to the list.

A deeper settings menu has a collection of surprisingly advanced security features. You can, for example, have CyberGhost connect via a random port, change the VPN protocol used by the app, or block IPv6 connections. Most of these you won't need to touch, but we like that they're there. By default, the app selects what it thinks is the best VPN protocol, but you can manually select IKEv2, OpenVPN, or WireGuard.

Netflix is extremely aggressive when it comes to blocking VPNs. Unfortunately, CyberGhost had some issues with Netflix in our testing. We could only stream Netflix originals content while connected to a New York-based VPN server, and we had the same problem when connected to one of CyberGhost VPN's servers optimized for Netflix streaming. That said, blocking VPNs is a bit of a cat-and-mouse game, so a VPN that works with Netflix today might be blocked tomorrow.

VPNs should not leak DNS or IP address information. Using the DNS Leak Test tool, we found that our IP address was hidden and our DNS information secure. Keep in mind we only tested one server. Other servers may not be properly configured.

Hands on With CyberGhost for Android

We tested CyberGhost on a Samsung A71. CyberGhost's Android VPN app looks very similar to the iOS client, with a purple interface and yellow highlights.

CyberGhost for Androids features include split tunneling and a content blocker. You can also choose your MTU size, select the VPN protocol, and enable random port connections. CyberGhost also has Domain Fronting, which the company says is necessary if their API is unreachable due to censorship.

We used the DNSLeakTest.com tool to check that our information was not being exposed while connected to a server in Mexico City. The VPN server did not leak our real IP address.

While connected to the same server in Mexico, we went to Twitch.tv and watched a few live streams. Each stream took about 4 or 5 seconds to load, but the video looked good and there were no interruptions. We then went to YouTube and watched a few videos. Each one had a near instant load time, and we didnt experience any lag or buffering.

Hands on With CyberGhost for iPhone

We didnt have any trouble installing the CyberGhost iPhone VPN client on on an iPhone XS running iOS 14.4.2. The purple, yellow, and grey color combination is a far cry from the delightful and colorful whimsy of TunnelBear, but the app is easy enough to navigate.

Theres a giant connection button with a label reading Best Connection underneath. With the iPhone app, you can view a list of individual servers to choose from. That high level of control over server choices is hard to find in an iOS VPN app.

Most of the features found in the Windows version of the service are not present in the iOS version. You can change your VPN protocol, and theres something called the Connection Checker, which will tell you if your internet connection is working and if CyberGhosts servers are reachable.

The most important aspect of any VPN service is the ability to protect your information. We used the DNSLeakTest.com tool and performed an extended test while connected to a server in the Bahamas to confirm our information was secure. We found that our DNS information and IP address were hidden.

We logged into YouTube Premium while connected to the same server in Nassau, Bahamas. YouTube informed us that, despite our monthly membership, we might still see ads due to our location. Regardless, we had no trouble loading videos quickly, and they all played without incident. Notably, we did not see any ads. We then went to Twitch.tv and played a couple of streams. Each stream took about 5 seconds to load, but once it did, they played without buffering or stuttering.

Hands on With CyberGhost for macOS

CyberGhost does not have a MacOS VPN app in the App Store, so we downloaded it from the vendors website. We installed the app on a MacBook Air (2020) running Big Sur 11.2.2.

The version of CyberGhosts service for MacOS features a flat purple and yellow interface. The tiny window can expand to be much larger, making it easy to see all the servers available. Like the Windows version, you can choose which individual server you want to use, or you can use servers that are best for certain activities, like streaming on Netflix or downloading files. The CyberGhost MacOS app doesnt have nearly as many features as the Windows version, but some of the core features made the leap.

During testing, we were surprised to find that a CyberGhost VPN connection continued after we uninstalled the CyberGhost client. The developer explained that a dialog box should have warned us and prevented this issue. The entire problem can be avoided by completely quitting the application before uninstalling it, but we'd like to see CyberGhost address this in future updates.

As always, we checked to make sure the VPN server did not leak our IP address or DNS information by visiting DNSLeakTest.com and running an extended test. The Sao Paolo, Brazil based server was not leaking our information.

While still connected to the server in Brazil, we logged into a YouTube Premium account and watched a few videos. The videos took about two seconds to load, and it played without interruptions. We then went to Twitch.tv to watch a live stream, and the stream took about 4 seconds to load the source-quality video. We did not experience any lagging or buffering while watching the stream.

Speed and Performance

Using a VPN will almost certainly have a negative impact on your internet speeds. We try to get a sense of how large that impact is by running a series of comparative tests with Ookla's internet speed test tool. Read our feature on how we test VPNs for more on our methodology and the limits of our testing.

(Editors' Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, which also owns PCMag.)

This year, CyberGhost VPN yielded excellent speed test results, besting much of the competition. We found that CyberGhost VPN reduced download and upload speed test results by 13.3% and 26.7%, respectively. It increased latency by 11.2%.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has limited our access to the PCMag Labs, necessitating some changes in how we test VPN speeds. This year, we've moved to a rolling testing model and will update with the latest results throughout the year. The chart below shows the most-recent information at the time of publication.

Data calculated on 3/30/2021

Our testing is useful for comparison, but these should not be taken as a complete evaluation of each service. The same tests performed at different times or different locations will surely be different from ours. Also, we discourage anyone from deciding on a VPN based on speed alone. The service's cost, features, and privacy protections are far more important.

A Solid Choice

With its gigantic server list, CyberGhost is best suited for someone who needs a VPN for specific activities. Perhaps that's video streaming, spoofing your location very precisely, or something similar. Its excellent speed test scores may help enable those activities. We also like that CyberGhost has fully embraced WireGuard, and its interface's visual refresh is most welcome.

With an expanding set of security tools, CyberGhost is working to provide more value for its high price. It mostly succeeds, but we'd like to see it match some of the features of competitors, such as multi-hop or split tunneling for app traffic. While we believe it's trustworthy, the company should spruce up its privacy policy and complete a third-party audit.

The competition can't match CyberGhost's size, but Editors' Choice winners IVPN, Mullvad VPN, Proton VPN, and NordVPN give CyberGhost a run for its money on features or price or, in many cases, both.

CyberGhost VPN 4.0 Check Price Pros Large, well-distributed server fleet

Allows up to seven simultaneous connections

Several add-ons, including antivirus

Outstanding speed test scores View More Cons Expensive

No third-party audit

Confusing privacy policies The Bottom Line CyberGhost offers the largest VPN server network we've seen, accessed by a snazzy client, and powered by the latest VPN technology. All that helps offset the service's hefty price tag, but it doesn't include all the privacy features found among competitors.
Update 8/22/2018: On Wednesday night, Nvidia revealed how much faster the GeForce RTX 2080 is compared to the GeForce GTX 1080 and provided some additional information about new RTX-boosted software features, including a massive upgrade to Ansel super-screenshots. The data may alleviate some pre-order concerns, but many other questions remain.

Buyer beware: Nvidias new breed will no doubt excel in ray-traced games, but the drop in CUDA cores could potentially indicate a lesser performance uplift in traditional rasterized games, although thats far from certain as Nvidia could have overhauled those cores in Turing. If that potential worries you, skip preordering and spend the time reading our GeForce RTX graphics card reveal analysis instead.

None come cheap, however, adding significant price premiums to new RTX hardware that already fetch far higher prices than their predecessors. And while all three of Nvidias new GPUs promise to achieve impressive new feats in real-time ray tracing, the extra RT cores and tensor cores buried deep inside the Turing GPU architecture muscled out the sort of sizeable CUDA core increases weve witnessed in previous Nvidia upgrade cycles. The $700 GeForce RTX 2080 features roughly 500 fewer CUDA cores than the previous-gen GTX 1080 Ti, for example, and the $500 GeForce RTX 2070 has around 250 fewer CUDA cores than the GTX 1080 despite having the same starting price at launch.

Nvidia might have tooted the horn of its premium-priced, overclocked Founders Edition graphics cards during the ray tracing-filled reveal for the GeForce RTX 2070, RTX 2080, and RTX 2080 Ti , but they wont be the only dual-fan versions hitting the streets on September 20. Youll even see hardware with three fans, because Nvidia board partners like EVGA, Asus, and Zotac are readying a slew of customized GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards of their own.

Speaking of why you might want to hold off preordering, note that none of the listings of the cards for sale early include clock speed specifications, so even if you think theyll be overclocked, theres no guarantee that they actually will based on the information available today. Caveat emptor.

If youre not concerned by any of those blinking question marks, lets start with a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, because well, on paper it just looks awfully impressive in every aspect (aside from the $999 baseline price). If youre going to risk preordering anything, grab one of those. Otherwise, this list is separated by vendor. Several additional models have been announced, including some popular ones like EVGA FTW cards with iCX cooling and triple-fan Asus ROG Strix cards, but if you cant buy them yet, we didnt list them here.

EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti XC Gaming  $1,150 on Newegg

Newegg

EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti XC Ultra Gaming  $1,250 on Newegg

Newegg

EVGAs been a rock-solid enthusiast brand for years. Given this ones Ultra branding and $100 premium over the one above, youd think thered likely be a hefty overclock or some other standout feature attached to this one. But again, the information in the listings for these cards is minimal. You can find some additional geeky details on EVGAs RTX series page, including for some cards that arent available to buy yet, but these two cards look very identical on paper thus far.

Beyond the paper, EVGAs overhauled Precision X1 overclocking software is looking slick.

EVGA RTX 2080 XC Gaming  $750 on Newegg

Newegg

Heres the RTX 2080 variant using EVGAs new dual-fan cooler design. The as-yet unavailable models I mentioned previously include some triple-fan setups, but they havent been revealed yet.

Asus GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Dual  $1,240 on Newegg

Newegg

As you might have guess from its name, this card also packs a dual-fan design.

Asus GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11G Turbo Edition  $1,210 on Newegg

Newegg

Dont spend over $1,200 on a graphics card with a reference-style blower fan unless you have a mini-ITX PC. Hell, now that Nvidias own Founders Edition cards pack a dual-fan blower design, you could say this is a worse-than-reference design. Seriously, just dont do it. Sorry not sorry Asus.

Asus GeForce RTX 2080 ROG Strix OC  $850 on Newegg

Newegg

THAT ROG STRIX GOT A BIG BADASS COOLER THOUGH. Shame that its on the RTX 2080 and not the RTX 2080 Ti, thoughand that despite the OC in its name, Asus isnt saying by how much.

Asus GeForce RTX 2080  $840 on Newegg

Newegg

Asus also offers a RTX 2080 with its dual-fan design, but curiously drops the Dual from its name on Newegg. Insert thinking-face emoji here.

EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 XC Ultra Gaming  $850 on Newegg

Newegg

Heres the Ultra version of the RTX 2080, again priced $100 higher than the non-Ultra version for no discernible reason with the information at hand. Look, I know I said Id group this by manufacturer, but I couldnt stand putting four listings in a row with a virtually identical image. EVGA didnt provide different angles to work with in its product listing images.

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming OC  $1,200 on Newegg

Newegg

Say hello to yet another triple-cooler design. Also say hello to another card with OC in the card with no mention of overclocked speeds in the product listing.

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Windforce OC  $1,170 on Newegg

Newegg

This card looks pretty much identical to the last one, but it adds Windforce to the name and costs $40 less? These are pretty much like loot boxes without more detailed specifications. Whatll you get when you roll the dice?

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Gaming OC  $830 on Newegg

Newegg

The three-fan RTX 2080 version of Gigabytes card looks just like the others, so screw it, heres the backplate instead.

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Windforce OC  $790 on Newegg

Newegg

Theres a Gigabyte RTX 2080 Windforce with the same cooler design and a mysterious $40 discount, too. Heres the IO panel.

MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming X Trio  $1,200 on Newegg

Newegg

Three fans, with one smaller than the others? MSIs well-regarded Gaming X cooler. And what looks like customizable RGB lights galore? Thats like, two more question marks than with the other cards even.

MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio  $800 on Newegg

Newegg

The cooler on the RTX 2080 version mirrors the RTX 2080 Ti design yet again, so yet again, heres a look at the backplate.

Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP  $1,200 on Newegg

Newegg

Its not shown here, but Zotacs triple-fan shroud design also includes Spectra lighting. You know whats missing? Listed clock speeds.

Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP  $840 on Newegg

Newegg

Zotac applied its AMP cooling solution to the RTX 2080, too. I kind of dig this backplates unorthodox styling and short length. Not enough to buy something for $840 when I didnt know what I was getting for it, but you know, to each their own.

And thats every GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti you can buy today! In case it wasnt clear, I suggest waiting for reviews if possible. The new GeForce RTX hardware is absolutely loaded with boundary-pushing tech that looks amazing on paper, and theres no doubt that the addition of new hardware types dedicated to ray tracing could fundamentally change PC graphics, but new frontiers mean uncharted territory.

Look. I write about GPUs for a living. I game at night when Im not working. I love new graphics cards. Love. And just look at how jaw-droppingly gorgeous the ray tracing is in this Battlefield V trailer:

But with so many questions involved here, and so much money on the line with this new RTX 20-series generation, its prudent to wait and see how these crazy kids run in the real worldeven if it means prolonging the wait for a new graphics card yet further.

Full disclosure: Because Nvidia would provide GeForce RTX information only via an in-person briefing in Cologne, Germany, with no alternative venue in the United States or by virtual means, we accepted the companys offer to pay for my flight and hotel services in order to get the story.
A man who visited a nursing home in western Pennsylvania for Sunday school is accused of indecently assaulting several of the female residents there, instead.

As WJAC-TV reports, Thomas Patrick, 68, of Curwensville, Pa., faces seven counts of indecent assault without consent for several incidents at the Mountain Laurel Nursing Home in Clearfield County earlier this month.

Details from WJAC:

According to court documents, Patrick, who visited with a Sunday school group on Aug. 12, sat down between two female patients and began rubbing his hand up and down one of the patient's legs and then brought his hand up her side and touched her breast.

Another female patient told police that Patrick visited her on Aug. 13 and reached up under her shirt and touched her bare breast. The patient told police Patrick also touched her inappropriately on Aug. 12.

On Aug. 14, an employee of Mountain Laurel observed Patrick at the nursing home attempting to visit patients again, at which point he was advised by staff not to return and that police had been contacted.

Police said Patrick admitted to touching three patients at Mountain Laurel and stated he did it because he got a thrill out of it. But he said he didn't want his wife to know what was going on.

Patrick is a member of the Sunday school group, but not an employee of the facility.
The jet carrying rapper Post Malone made a safe landing Tuesday afternoon after circling New York and Connecticut with two blown out tires for several hours.

"i landed guys," he tweeted at 4:13 p.m. "thank you for your prayers. can't believe how many people wished death on me on this website. f*** you. but not today."

The A Gulfstream Aerospace GLF-4 blew two tires while taking off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey around 10:50 a.m, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

After two diversions and five hours in the sky, the jet landed at New York Stewart International Airport in New Windsor just before 4 p.m., the FAA said in a statement.

The agency will continue to investigate the incident.

A live stream from CBS showed the plane make a fairly smooth landing, in spite of its damaged tires. Firefighters and other rescue personnel rushed onto the runway after it touched down.

Plane Emergency Landing #BREAKING POST MALONE PLANE LANDS SAFELY: A plane reportedly carrying rapper Post Malone and 15 other people makes a safe emergency landing after two tires blew after takeoff. Posted by WJZ-TV | CBS Baltimore on Tuesday, August 21, 2018

TMZ reported Tuesday afternoon that Post Malone, fresh off winning song of the year at the MTV Video Music Awards Monday night, was on board the plane bound for Luton, England. He is scheduled to perform in Reading and Leeds on Friday and Saturday in the United Kingdom.

The aircraft has made a safe, controlled landing at @SWFairport. It has taxied clear of the active runway. #PostMalone  NYCAviation (@NYCAviation) August 21, 2018

Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
MUNSON -- Three men face more than 1,400 counts each of sexually abusing animals at a Pennsylvania farm.

Prosecutors said Monday that a teenage boy alerted state police to the abuse, which involved a variety of animals.

On Saturday, police searched a property where the men live in Munson, Clearfield County, 130 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, and seized recording equipment, cameras and homemade videos.

The men are charged with child endangerment and corruption of minors as well as over 1,400 counts each of sexual intercourse with animals. They also were issued animal cruelty citations.

#UPDATE Here's a look at the 3 men accused of sexually abusing animals at a makeshift farm Posted by WJAC-TV News on Monday, August 20, 2018

The Centre Daily Times reports the men were jailed in lieu of $100,000 bond. Court records didn't list lawyers for them.
WASHINGTON - In the week since a Pennsylvania grand jury reported on child sex abuse by Catholic priests, Cardinal Donald Wuerl's reputation has taken a brutal hit.

Wuerl's upcoming book has been canceled by the publisher, he abruptly pulled out of his role as keynote speaker at a major global meeting in Ireland, and officials are considering taking his name off a high school in his hometown of Pittsburgh, where Wuerl served as bishop for 18 years before becoming the archbishop of Washington in 2006.

On Monday, a vandal got ahead of them - covering his name in red spray paint.

Wuerl, an outwardly mild priest and meticulous manager who picks every word carefully when he speaks, has become for the moment the face of a ballooning crisis in the Catholic Church. And unlike the quiet protests and longings for change of past decades, Catholics in 2018 are demanding accountability - and fast.

"Particularly among people who have stuck with the church this long, who have been through it all, they are saying: 'God, we cannot go through this again,'" said John Allen, who has written multiple books on the Vatican and the U.S. church and now runs the Catholic website Crux. "And my read is that this crowd is not going to be satisfied with assurances. They want to see something real."

For the past 18 months or so, Allen said, mounting scrutiny of the role of two cardinals in allegedly covering up clergy sex abuse in Chile has trained Catholic attention on the church hierarchy. "And now it's symbolized by the case of Donald Wuerl."

READ MORE:

By "it," Allen is not referring to the abuse by priests, who in the vast majority of cases were ultimately removed from church life for alleged abuse decades ago. He is referencing coverups by their leaders - bishops and cardinals who have not been held accountable for moving abusers around and continuing to protect and pay them, favoring protection of the institutional church over devastated victims.

The 900-page report mentions Wuerl more than 200 times and challenges the image Wuerl has tried to project of a leader who always stood with victims.

It says that in some instances he went well beyond the norm in trying to push out predators, perhaps most notably when he went all the way to the Vatican to fight an order that he reinstate a priest named Anthony Cipolla - and won.

But in other cases, the report alleges that Wuerl coddled flagged priests - in one case permitting an accused abuser to remain in ministry and in another presiding over a settlement agreement that banned the victims from speaking.

READ MORE:

It cites the case of William O'Malley, who Wuerl gave a church job and loaned money even though the priest had sexual trouble in his past. Victims later came forward alleging abuse in the years after Wuerl had returned O'Malley to ministry, the report alleged.

On Monday, Wuerl's spokesman, Ed McFadden, and his attorney, Mickey Pohl, said the grand jury report has painted the cardinal unfairly, when he was simply following the norms of the day, whether that was coming to confidential settlements with victims or not reporting certain complaints to police. "The report intentionally seeks to create the worst possible outcome in media coverage for someone like his eminence," McFadden said.

Some priests have said they plan to appeal the report in court this fall.

The Pittsburgh Diocese, and Wuerl, have been a focus since the report's release last Tuesday. Of the six dioceses included, it had the largest number of accused priests named - 68 from the diocese, and another 22 priests and brothers from religious orders who were from the Pittsburgh area.

Pope Francis on Monday took what some abuse advocates say is an unprecedented step toward accountability. In the first papal letter ever to the world's Catholics on the topic of clergy sex abuse, Francis ended his silence on the Pennsylvania report and said church leaders "showed no care for the little ones."

The letter did not list specific actions he would take, but the pope clearly described abuse as "crimes" and used the term "coverup" twice, noted Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor who served on a papal commission about clergy sexual abuse of children. "There is an acceptance that the coverup is a fact," she said. "Until now, deniers and defenders within the clergy and outside have denied the coverup. Now the pope actually said it: It's a fact."

Pressure from the outside is increasing the possibility for change, she said. "Now the fact that ordinary Catholics are beginning to raise their voices as well, that's putting pressure that hasn't been before. There is so much anger."

The country's political divisions also are seeping into the debate and serving to heighten calls for accountability. Wuerl and Theodore McCarrick, who resigned as cardinal after allegations surfaced that he sexually abused boys and men, have become proxies to conservatives who distrust Francis and think he is too open on issues that include abortion and homosexuality.

What this will all mean for Wuerl is unclear.

As is required of all bishops, Wuerl submitted his retirement paperwork when he turned 75, in 2015. If anything, his star has risen since, especially as an ally of Francis. He now sits on the Vatican's powerful bishop-picking committee and is understood to be a confidant of the pope.

The decision on Wuerl's job standing rests exclusively with Francis, and Vatican spokesmen have ignored requests for comment on the question.

Critics have complained that Wuerl showed a disturbing tone-deafness after the grand jury report was released Aug. 14. He immediately put out a statement saying he believed the report "confirms that I acted with diligence, with concern for the victims and to prevent future acts of abuse." That night the archdiocese posted a website, TheWuerlRecord.com, defending the cardinal. It has since been taken down.

Later that week, Wuerl said on Fox-5DC that he didn't think "this is some massive, massive crisis."

As of Monday night, 6,800 people had signed a change.org petition to remove his name from the title of Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic High School in Pittsburgh. The Rev. Nick Vaskov, a spokesman for the Pittsburgh Diocese, said the school's board met and discussed the removal of Wuerl's name. They will announce their decision in a few days, he said.

Wuerl had been slated to give the keynote speech this week at the World Meeting of Families, a high-profile event held once every three years. The talk was titled "The Welfare of the Family Is Decisive for the Future of the World." The Irish Times reported Saturday that Wuerl was withdrawing, without giving a reason. Wuerl's press office declined to comment.

(c) 2018, The Washington Post * Michelle Boorstein
ABC/Randy HolmesMetallica drummer Lars Ulrich will participate in an upcoming talk with photography duo Herring & Herring on October 19 at The Cooper Union in New York City.

While you may not know Herring & Herring by name, if you know Metallica, you've probably seen their work. The duo, made up of photographers Dimitri Scheblanov and Jesper Carlsen, worked on the album artwork for Hardwired...to Self-Destruct, and directed the videos for "Halo on Fire," "Am I Savage?" and "Now That We're Dead."

"The guys have shot us numerous other times, both in the studio and at live shows, and were always blown away by their creativity and distinctive style," Metallica says.

Ulrich's talk with Herring & Herring will be free and open to the public, and you can RSVP now. Visit Metallica.com for more info.

Metallica will kick off a U.S. tour in support of Hardwired...to Self-Destruct September 2 in Madison, Wisconsin.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Tuesday praised the Philippine National Police (PNP) for "neutralizing" two cops allegedly involved in illegal drugs.

The agency noted that the operation that resulted in the deaths of PO3 Ronald Bernardo and PO2 Maria Oliver Olaso in Zamboanga City last Saturday was done "barely 24 hours after" President Rodrigo Duterte offered a 5 million reward money for the head of each "ninja cop"  a term used for a police officer involved in illegal drugs operations.

"My commendations to the good cops of Zamboanga City for nailing the bad cops who taint the name and image of our organization," Interior Officer-In-Charge Eduardo Ano said in a statement.

Bernardo and Olaso were killed "when they shot it out with their colleagues during an operation," the DILG said. They were accused of reselling seized drugs.

PNP Chief Oscar Albayalde on Monday assured that police officers will never benefit from the President's offer of reward money to avoid the rise of bounty hunters. It is not immediately known if citizens would be receiving money for giving information on Bernardo and Olaso.

Ano called on drug-linked cops to "leave the police service or face the consequences of your action." He said they could also confess their involvement and subject themselves to due process.

Duterte on Friday night also urged "ninja cops" to just surrender within 48 hours, but no one yielded to the President's call, Albayalde noted.

The President clarified he was not asking people to kill cops, but offered a scant amount - P10,000 - for anyone who could bring him a bad cop "alive."

"Wala akong sinabing patayin mo, pero pag dinala mong buhay bigyan kitang diyes mil," he said.

[Translation: "I did not say you should kill, but if you bring them to me alive I'll give you ?10,000."]

The Commission on Human Rights and other groups have since condemned the President's statement and called on him to value people's lives.

Duterte, who has publicly lashed out at errant cops, earlier put the bounty for "ninja cops" at 2 million, then raised it to 3 million.

A total of 58 uniformed personnel have been arrested for their involvement in drugs since Duterte assumed office in July 2016, government data show. The DILG said more than 6,000 police officers and uniformed personnel have been sacked, demoted or suspended for various offenses.
A Roman Catholic university in Pennsylvania plans to remove the names of three bishops from campus buildings, saying it is acting in solidarity with victims of child sexual abuse following the release of a grand jury report accusing church leaders of helping cover up decades of abuse by priests.

The University of Scranton said late Monday that three bishops -- Jerome D. Hannan, J. Carroll McCormick, and James C. Timlin -- in the local diocese were found in last week's Pennsylvania grand jury report to have covered up crimes by priests and put children in harm's way.

Hannan served from 1954 until his death in 1965. McCormick served from 1966 until 1983 and died in 1996. Timlin served from 1984 until 2003 and is 91 years old.

A Scranton Diocese spokesman has said Timlin would not do interviews, but pointed to the diocese's response to the report noting that Timlin instituted a uniform response policy for allegations of abuse and established an internal review board.

Earlier this month, the Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg began removing the names of bishops on buildings. Bishop Ronald Gainer ordered the names of all bishops who preceeded him since 1947 be removed from all diocesan properties, saying they had failed to protect children from sexual predators.

In Baltimore, the late Cardinal William Keeler's name was scrapped from the nameplate of a new Catholic school in Baltimore. The former bishop of the Harrisburg diocese, Keeler served as archbishop in Baltimore from 1989 until until his retirement in 2007. Keeler's name has also been removed from properties in the Harrisburg diocese.

The moves are part of the growing fallout from a grand jury report that says a succession of church leaders helped cover up abuse by some 300 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania who victimized more than 1,000 children, and possibly many more, since the 1940s.

Pope Francis vowed Monday that "no effort must be spared" to root out sex abuse by priests and church cover-ups, but Francis gave no indication that he would sanction complicit bishops or end the Vatican culture of secrecy that has allowed the crisis to fester.

At various points in the report, it cites complaints about sexual misconduct by priests with children or teenagers that the three Scranton Diocese bishops did not act on, instead leaving the priests to continue in ministry.

Two weeks before the report was released, the Harrisburg Diocese said it would hold past church leadership accountable for the sexual abuse of children by priests and strip the names of bishops going back 70 years from church properties.

Dioceses in Pennsylvania have released lists, for the first time, of priests accused of sexual misconduct. Meanwhile, Beaver County fired a county government lawyer after a report showed that, as district attorney in the 1960s, he stopped an investigation into alleged child abuse by a priest to gain political favor from the Pittsburgh Diocese.

In Allentown, City Council voted unanimously to fire the city solicitor based on the report's description of him, as the local diocese lawyer, in 2002 attempting to "undermine" and "discredit" a woman who had accused a priest of molesting her two decades earlier.

The University of Scranton said it was renaming McCormick Hall in honor of Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop, an Australian nun who publicly exposed the sexual abuse of children by a priest. The building will be known as MacKillop Hall.
A college student who admitted filming a drunken woman performing a sex act on him can't force his parents' insurer to cover him against a lawsuit the woman filed, a federal appeals court panel has ruled.

That call from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rdCircuit leaves the illicit Pennsylvania videographer with no insurance protection against the victim's claim for $750,000 in damages.

The 3rdCircuit ruling, set in an opinion by Judge Marjorie O. Rendell, upholds a decision by a U.S. Eastern District judge that frees Boston-based First Liberty Insurance Corp. from any coverage obligation.

The case revolves around what the male student of American University did in a basement at an off-campus party in Washington, D.C. The female student claimed that, without her knowledge or consent, the male student filmed her performing the sex act while she was too drunk to realize or later remember what she was doing.

The male student shared the video with friends and classmates. The woman, who was a freshman, "became aware of the incident when others told her about the video," Rendell wrote.

Both students are eastern Pennsylvania residents and are identified in court filings only by their initials. The male student was arrested by District of Columbia police and later pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of voyeurism.

He appealed to the circuit court after Eastern District Judge Harvey Bartle III refused to order First Liberty to provide coverage against the lawsuit under his parents' homeowner's policy.

Bartle cited an exclusion in that policy which negates coverage for sexual molestation and intentional or criminal acts. Rendell agreed with Bartle that the man's guilty plea to the voyeurism charge triggered the policy exclusion. In pleading guilty he admitted to committing a disqualifying criminal act relating to sexual molestation, Rendell found.
WILLIAMSPORT - The operator of two convenience stores that sell gasoline has been accused of not paying employees a minimum wage or overtime.

The U.S. Labor Department makes the accusation against Mohammad Tahir whose Lewisburg-based business operates stores in Tafton and Greentown under Shalimar Distributors and TAFS Corp., respectively.

The allegations contained in a complaint filed Monday in U.S. Middle District Court about the Tafton store called Promised Land Truck Stop are failure to pay employees the required minimum wage.

Over a three-year period beginning in April 2015, employees were not paid for the time they spent counting cash and preparing reports for the next shift on fuel and lottery sales, the complaint charges.

The Labor Department charges at that store and the Whistle Stop in Tafton, employee wages were deducted to cover cash register shortages and they were paid straight time in cash for hours worked over 40.

At the Whistle Stop store employees were classified as assistant managers when they worked more than 40 hours and thus exempt from overtime requirements, the suit charges.

The same employees were paid hourly if they worked 40 hours or less, the document states. The work week ranged from 40 to 55 hours, the Labor Department says.

Tahir also is accused of failing to keep accurate records on wages paid and hours worked.

The Labor Department says he is liable for the unpaid minimum wage and overtime pay. The agency also is seeking an injunction to stop the alleged violations.
Carolyn Dymond was sure that whomever stole her dog, repeatedly stabbed her and left her to die was someone the family knew.

Christopher Roberts.

"It's sad that it was someone who had been friends with one of our children," she said today. "What's more sad is that Bella just went to him. She's very friendly. He knew her, he called her, and she just went to him."

Swatara Township police on Monday arrested 19-year-old Christopher Roberts, of Elizabethville, whom they say admitted to killing the 9-year-old Boston terrier-Jack Russell mix over a failed relationship with one of the owners.

A witness called the police Friday after seeing someone drop off Bella on the 300 block of Rupp Hill Road before driving off. Police brought the injured Bella to an emergency veterinary hospital, but she died a short time later due to the extent of her injuries.

It's an incident that has shaken the family. Dymond spoke about it on Sunday:

"She was a wonderful dog. She was friendly and happy," Dymond recalled. "She used to jump and play, and she was just the happiest, friendliest dog."

Today, she was grateful the police had resolved the case, and she is now just waiting to get back the body of her dog.

According to charging documents, the incident occurred like this:

Around 7:47 a.m. Friday, Swatara Township Police were called to the 300 block of Rupp Hill Road where a witness said he was with a bleeding Bella.

The witness, who works at Amerigas, told police he saw someone walking the dog to an area behind the business's parking lot. After seeing that person, later identified as Roberts, driving off in a silver car, the witness found the injured dog.

Bella had been microchipped, which led police to the family and the discovery that Dymond's son had plans to meet Roberts at nearby park that morning.

After he left the house, though, Roberts sent the son a text saying he had a family emergency and could no longer meet. With the son away, Roberts pulled into the driveway of the Swatara Township home, went inside and took Bella.

Investigators spoke again to the witness on Rupp Hill Road, who described the suspect as someone resembling Roberts and described Roberts' silver car.

Investigators obtained a search warrant for Roberts' home in Elizabethville, where they found a pair of jeans with blood stains. During an interview with police, they said, he admitted to taking Bella and stabbing her with his folding knife, which police recovered, along with a pair of latex gloves, from an Appalachian Trail parking lot.

Roberts, who told police he killed the dog because he was angry over a failed relationship, is facing charges of cruelty to animals, burglary and theft and is set for a preliminary hearing Sept. 6.
A federal corruption trial is underway in Philadelphia for Reading's former mayor, who is accused of using his office in a pay-to-play scheme.

Prosecutors argued Monday that Vaughn Spencer sold his office, solicited bribes, and engaged in pay-to-play politics with money that belonged to the people of Reading, WFMZ is reporting.

Spencer's attorney, Geoff Johnson, said in his opening statements that his client never gave an explicit promise to anyone, and the prosecution's case fails to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, reports indicate.

Authorities say Spencer steered contracts toward companies that contributed to his campaign and accused him of bribing former city council president Francis Acosta by offering $1,800 to his wife, Rebecca Acosta's, district judge campaign if he repeal the city's anti-pay-to-play ordinance, according to reports.

The charges spawned from federal investigations into the city governments of Reading and Allentown.

Former Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski was convicted in March of bribery and attempted extortion charges.
HARRISBURG--Harrisburg School Board members Monday night voted to begin the process to revoke the charter for the Premier Arts and Science school, located across the street from district headquarters.

The charter school is one of three currently operating in the Harrisburg School District.

A lawyer hired by the school district evaluated the progress and operations of the pre-K-8 school and noted test scores ranked the lowest in the city out of all schools, the school didn't comply with many mandates under state law and that the school may have overcharged the district.

The school at 500 N. 17th Street reported the average daily membership (ADM,) which measures attendance, at roughly 125 students in the 2014-15 school year to state officials. But the school reported 176 students to the school district, which would result in a larger payment from the school district.

A similar situation occurred in the 2016-17 school year when an "ADM" of 172 was reported to state officials through an online database, but the school billed the district for 212 students.

It's unclear how much the school may have overcharged the district. Officials were still working to determine the amounts.

The errors are magnified, however, because the lower numbers reported to state officials reduced the basic amount of money the school district received from the state and the lower numbers also served to inflate the rate that the district paid to all charter schools for tuition each year.

"Failure to properly report ADM from a fiscal management perspective is a gross error and one that frankly I've never seen before at this magnitude," said Allison Petersen, an attorney with the Levin Legal Group.

The school also failed to meet most, if not all, of the goals outlined in its 2013 charter school application, including a 98-percent attendance rate and 98-percent participation rate for state standardized tests.

The school also reported "false" data under the Office of Safe Schools, but corrected the report 11 months after the deadline. Still, the corrected report was incomplete because it indicated 53 incidents occurred but only two parent contacts. The updated report also did not include numbers of suspensions, expulsions or truancy.

Fire drills, bus evacuations, and checks for student physical exams, and staff clearance information was not conducted or collected, according to Petersen.

Staff members also did not understand programming differences and nuances of the state's special education law, which "may account for the significant rise in number of identified special education students" in 2017-18, which would generate more money for the school.

Petersen recommended that the board start proceedings to revoke the school's charter.

Several teachers and one grandparent spoke in support of the school, highlighting the small class sizes and family atmosphere.

Sylvia Rigal, who has three grandchildren enrolled at Premier, said her grandkids have been taught Spanish since kindergarten and are thriving. Rigal said shutting Premier down after a new school year has already begun would be terribly disruptive and unfair to the students and staff.

School board members should look past the low test scores, said Deb McMichael, a former Harrisburg School teacher who has worked at Premier for four years.

The school is "so much more than test scores," she said, adding that, "the school district's scores are low too."

Another employee pointed out that parents don't complain at Premier the way they do to the school district about their children getting bullied, lost in the shuffle or overlooked for important special services.

If the school has to close its doors this year, the 200 or so displaced students could transfer to their "home schools," said Jaime Foster, the district's chief academic officer, or apply to the Sylvan Heights charter (if it still has positions available) or a cyber charter.

School Board Member Brian Carter asked to postpone the vote so they could gather more information from Premier, but his motion seconded by Carrie Fowler was overruled by the majority of the school board.

The vote broke down along similar lines with the majority of Danielle Robinson, Ellis Roy, Lola Lawson, and Melvin Wilson voting to push forward with a vote on the school's future. Carter, Fowler and Board President Judd Pittman supported pausing the proceedings.

With Carter's motion out of the way, the board then approved starting the non-renewal process. The next step includes staging another hearing where Premier representatives can respond to the allegations, and introduce evidence and data to support their side. Board members will then vote a second and final time on whether to grant the school a new charter after the original one expired in June.

The decision against Premier angered Rigal, who stormed out of the board meeting saying her grandchildren speak two languages and students at the main high school "can't read, write or count," but the school board is moving to close Premier.

Carter offered words of encouragement to the Premier employees who attended the meeting. He said he had attended several of their events and seen their passion for teaching children.

"So keep fighting," he said.

Aug. 20 2018 Premier Presentation to Harrisburg School Board by PennLive on Scribd
Road work on Interstate 81 has slowed traffic near Carlisle.

The work is taking place in the southbound lanes a mile north of Exit 47B (Hanover).

There is a lane restriction as a result of the work, according to 511PA.com.

Just before 1 p.m., traffic could be seen backed up to the 581/11 interchange, Exit 59. Traffic was either slowed or stopped for about 10 miles.

For more traffic information, follow live traffic updates, accident reports and road closures below from PennDOT, Total Traffic Network and other Twitter sources.

Get a look at conditions on local roads -- via PennDOT traffic cameras -- anytime here on PennLive. For Pennsylvania Turnpike updates and possible travel delays visit the Turnpike website here.

Tweet us at @pennlive with any incidents you see on your commute or send a submission to submissions@pennlive.com.
Shawn Christy, accused of threatening President Donald Trump, is back in Pennsylvania, the FBI warned on social media, Tuesday.

Christy, 26, of McAdoo, Pennsylvania, is wanted for threatening to harm and/or kill a police chief, other law enforcement officers, a district attorney and President Trump, the FBI previously released.

Christy was believed to have left the state, but a social media post from the FBI Philadelphia Field Office, a truck believed to be stolen from Western Maryland was located in Schuylkill County.

UPDATEFugitive Shawn Christy is believed to have returned to Pennsylvania, w/a truck recently stolen from Western MD located today in Schuylkill County. We ask the public to remain vigilant & report sightings of him to law enforcement ASAP. Case details: https://t.co/JKQaqs8e8H pic.twitter.com/4loGAiumz6  FBI Philadelphia (@FBIPhiladelphia) August 21, 2018

The FBI previously said he may be in possession of several stolen handguns, and the FBI asked the public to remain vigilant and report sightings of him to police.

Christy is accused of posting threats to Facebook between June 3 and 12, 2018, saying he was going to shoot Trump in the head, and was going to use "lethal force" on any law enforcement officer attempting to detain him.

A federal arrest warrant was issued for Christy by the U.S. District Cart, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Wilkes-Barre, Pa. on June 19th, for interstate communication of threats and threats against the President of the United States.
A man has been charged with breaking into a home, stealing a dog, then torturing the animal, according to the Swatara Township Police Department.

On Monday, 19-year-old Christopher Roberts, was charged with burglary, aggravated animal cruelty, and theft by unlawful taking, police said.

"He allegedly took the canine to another location where he used a knife to cut and stab the canine. He admitted that he wanted to kill the dog as a result of a failed relationship with one of the dog's owners," according to police.

The incident occurred on Friday when the nine-year-old dog was taken from a home along the 300 block of Rupp Road.

Although officers rushed the Boston terrier-Jack Russell mix to the veterinary hospital, she died due to the extent of her injuries.

Roberts is currently awaiting arraignment at the Dauphin County Booking Center.
Charging documents filed in the case of Middletown's police chief state he sexually assaulted a woman at his office last week.

George A. Mouchette, 48, was charged today by the Dauphin County District Attorney's Office with aggravated indecent assault, attempted rape and unlawful restraint.

According to charging documents, a woman met with Mouchette at his office for business on Aug. 13. At one point, she went to the restroom and returned to his office.

That's when the woman told authorities that Mouchette grabbed her by the arm, forced her up on his desk, pulled her dress up and digitally penetrated her, according to charging documents.

The woman repeatedly told him "no" and "stop" as he tried to have intercourse with her, documents state.

It was not until after she agreed to meet with him outside of the department that he stopped, according to charging documents.

Mouchette was in uniform at the time of the incident, according to investigators.

Investigators say Mouchette acknowledged the incident took place in his office and apologized many times for his actions during a phone call to the victim on August 17.

Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo praised the courage of the victim in coming forward, according to a release from the District Attorney's Office.

According to reporting from the Press and Journal, Mouchette previously worked in Internal Affairs with the NYPD. At the time of Mouchette's hiring as the interim chief, Curry said Mouchette's background in internal affairs was an asset.

"I'm just saying in terms of his experience, he knows what to expect of a professional police force and people who have the utmost standards of professionalism," Mayor James H. Curry III told the Press and Journal.

He has been suspended without pay, Middletown Mayor James Curry announced on the borough's Facebook page.

Statement on behalf of the Borough of Middletown. For Immediate Release. Posted by James Curry on Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Mouchette is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Sept. 4.

Prior to coming to Middletown, Mouchette was a police detective in New York City and served at Ground Zero during 9/11, the Press and Journal reports.

According to the same report, Mouchette retired from the New York City Police Department after more than 20 years and came to the region when his wife took a job with The Hershey Company. He was a first-grade detective in New York, he said, but did not have any supervisory experience.

When he was promoted from acting chief to full-time chief in August 2017, he was hired with a salary of $96,000 per year, the Press and Journal reports. He was the sixth acting, interim or permanent police chief the borough has hired in the past six years.
A 30-year-old priest is accused of sending nude photos of himself to a 17-year-old girl he met through his work at an Allentown parish.

The criminal charges come one week after the Pennsylvania attorney general released an 884-page grand jury report detailing decades of sexual abuse and coverups across six dioceses, including the Diocese of Allentown.

In a crowded news conference, Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin said the latest charges levied Tuesday are not related to the grand jury investigation.

Kevin Lonergan, of Pottsville, is charged with one count each of corruption of minors and indecent assault. He could face a maximum of nine years in prison if convicted of both counts.

Lonergan allegedly met the victim in August 2017 before Mass at St. Francis of Assisi church on 11th Street in Allentown, where he was assigned. He has been a priest for five years, and it was not immediately clear if he has worked at other churches.

He got her cellphone number from another member of the church and communicated with her, mostly via Snapchat, through January, the district attorney said. Some of those messages allegedly included nude photos.

In February, Lonergan hugged the victim at church -- she attempted to pull away, but he pulled her closer and grabbed her rear over her clothes, Martin said.

After the victim told another priest of the assault in June, the diocese reported it to the DA's office and Lonergan was immediately suspended from public ministry, according to both Martin and a statement from the diocese.

Though the are not connected, the allegations against Lonergan follow a grand jury report alleging that at least 1,000 identified children were abused at the hands of 301 priests across the state, including 35 named priests and one layperson in the Allentown diocese.

(MORE: The complete list of grand jury allegations of Diocese of Allentown sex abuse)

Martin said neither the timing of the report nor the fact that the case involved a priest affected how his staff investigated.

"Regrettably we have a lot of cases of this type, which involve child victims who are subject to sexual and other types of abuse," Martin said. "The fact that this happens to be a clergy member is certainly regrettable and in today's climate newsworthy, but it's much the same vein as any other case."

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveNovakLVL and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Brandon Warrington seemed rather cheerful for a repeat sex offender who was facing the prospect of a long stay in state prison.

The 25-year-old grinned at his grandparents and laughed as he shuffled into a Dauphin County courtroom in handcuffs and shackles Tuesday morning.

A few moments later, Judge Deborah E. Curcillo sentenced him to 2 1/2 to 5 years behind bars, plus 9 years of probation, for molesting a 15-year-old girl on a nature trail in Swatara Township.

A county jury convicted the Lebanon County man of multiple child-sex offenses during a trial in May, although it acquitted him of raping the girl. Police said the assault occurred in August 2015 on the trail at the Living Waters Church.

Curcillo ordered her sentence to run consecutively to a 9- to 25-year prison term Warrington already is serving for the 2014 rape of a 12-year-old girl in Lebanon County. Public Defender Suzanne Edwards had asked the judge to run the new sentence concurrently with Warrington's Lebanon County penalty.

Warrington was physically abused as a child, Edwards said, and his mother is serving a 30-year prison term in Maryland for battering her kids. On her advice, and with an eye toward an appeal, Warrington said nothing when Curcillo gave him the chance.

The victim of the nature trail incident declined an invitation to attend the sentencing, Chief Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Gettle said. "This has been a very difficult thing for her to go through," Gettle said.

The prosecutor said text messages between Warrington and the teen show the two planned the meeting and that the girl might have initially been open to some kind of sexual activity. "I would suggest she got in over her head in this situation," Gettle added. "The jury's verdict suggests she had changed her mind and he went ahead anyway."

"She's going to carry it with her for a long time," Gettle said.

Warrington remains a public danger, she argued, because "he doesn't seem to understand he should not be having this kind of contact with juveniles."

A failure to grasp that fact would be catastrophic for Warrington. Gettle told him another conviction for a violent sex crime would open him to a sentence of life in prison. If he's convicted of another non-sexual violent crime he'll face a mandatory 25-year jail sentence, she said.

His conviction in the Swatara Township case requires Warrington to register with state police for life as a sex offender.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- Pennsylvania's highest court ruled Tuesday that Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf did not exceed his authority when he set up a process to give some union rights to home-based workers who care for elderly and disabled people.

The state Supreme Court, divided 5-2 along party lines, ruled that Wolf's 2015 executive order formalized a voluntary system to obtain information and discuss issues and did not impinge on the Legislature's prerogative.

"Critically, the entire process set forth in the order is voluntary, nonbinding, nonexclusive and unenforceable," wrote Justice Debra Toddfor the majority. Todd, a Democrat, said the order "merely formalizes what the governor and executive officials could have done without an executive order."

The court, however, wants a lower court to examine whether the administration violated privacy rights by providing the names and contact information for the 20,000 direct-care workers to unions interested in organizing them.

A lawyer for the people and groups who sued -- including a woman and her daughter who cares for her -- said they are worried their employment relationship will be harmed by negotiations that they had believed were not legally permitted.

"Assuming this process goes into effect, they will be the subject of requests, knocks on the door to join a collective bargaining organization," said the attorney, James Kutz. "And they will have their employment rights negotiated by an exclusive representative."

In a dissent , Chief Justice Thomas Saylor, a Republican, said that electing a labor organization, having the state Department of Human Services act as "an intermediary between the labor organization and consumer-employees," and affecting work relationships "represent(s) far more than simple communications with subordinate officials."

Shorting after taking office, Wolf issued the directive that set up a new advisory group within the Department of Human Services and let direct-care workers elect representatives to meet with the agency.

The court ruling overturned a decision two years ago by Commonwealth Court, which had described Wolf's order as an "invalid exercise of executive authority" that invaded the relationship between workers and the patients who hire and supervise them.

A large percentage of the employee-employer relationships at issue consist of family members, with pay rates typically in the $10-an-hour range. Wolf's order said it was not altering the ability of patients to "select, hire, terminate and supervise" their direct-care workers.

Wolf, who had argued the order did not violate state law, called the ruling a step toward his goal of improving home-based health care. He said his order did not grant the workers collective bargaining rights, force them to unionize or convert them into state workers.

"The court's decision affirms a key part of my plan to provide choices for seniors, improve home and community-based care and attract more qualified homecare attendants," the governor said in a news release.
Ern Tobias, an owner and general curator at Lake Tobias Wildlife Park, inspects the clutch of 23 newly laid alligator eggs. (Provided photo)
Petoskey library kicks off NASA@My Library program on Nov. 4

Shoot for the stars with the Petoskey District Librarys new NASA@My Library program, which will be launching on Nov. 4.
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By Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters)  U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he was worried that any statements under oath he provides to Special Counsel Robert Mueller could be used to bring perjury charges against him as part of the probe into Russias electoral interference.

In an interview with Reuters, Trump echoed the concerns of his top lawyer in the probe, Rudy Giuliani, who has warned that any sit-down with Mueller could be a perjury trap.

The president expressed fears that investigators could compare his statements with that of others who have testified in the probe, such as former FBI Director James Comey, and that any discrepancies could be used against him.

So if I say something and he (Comey) says something, and its my word against his, and hes best friends with Mueller, so Mueller might say: Well, I believe Comey, and even if Im telling the truth, that makes me a liar. Thats no good.

Despite his concerns, Trump did not comment on whether he would ultimately agree to an interview with Mueller, who is, among other things, investigating whether Trumps campaign team colluded with Russians during the 2016 election and whether Trump has obstructed justice in the probe.

Trump also declined to say whether he might strip Mueller of his security clearance, as he did last week to former CIA Director John Brennan, who had repeatedly criticized Trumps handling of foreign policy and national security issues.

I havent given it a lot of thought, he said.

Russia has denied interfering in the 2016 U.S. election and Trump has denied any collusion took place.

As he has done almost daily on Twitter, Trump railed against the probe in the Oval Office interview with Reuters, repeatedly calling it a disgrace and arguing that Mueller and other members of his team were biased.

Trump asserted that he retained the power to intervene in the probe, but that he had chosen not to do so for the moment.

His administration, Trump said, was a smooth-running machine, except in that world. And Ive decided to stay out. Now I dont have to stay out.

I can go in, and I could do whatever  I could run it if I want. But I decided to stay out, he said. Im totally allowed to be involved if I wanted to be. So far, I havent chosen to be involved. Ill stay out.

Trump has been critical of Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the probe, leaving oversight to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

In the interview, Trump blamed the investigation for hampering his efforts to strengthen the countrys relationship with Russia and for sowing discord among the American public.

He again neglected to blame Russia for interfering in the 2016 election, a conclusion reached by the U.S. intelligence community.

The probe, he said, played right into the Russians  if it was Russia  they played right into the Russians hands.

(Reporting by James Oliphant, Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters)  Russia accused the United States of trying to break the spirit in jail of Maria Butina, a woman U.S. authorities say is a Russian government agent, and complained she was being subjected to borderline torture.

Butina, a 29-year-old gun rights advocate living in Washington, D.C., was arrested in July and has been accused of acting as a Russian government agent while developing ties with American citizens and infiltrating political groups.

Butina, who pleaded not guilty, was detained without bail pending trial after prosecutors presented evidence suggesting she had connections to Russian intelligence operatives and was being funded by Russian oligarchs.

Her case, which Russian authorities allege is fabricated and politically-motivated, has become the latest in a series of irritants between Washington and Moscow at a time when ties are already languishing at a post-Cold War low over allegations of Russian interference in U.S. politics.

Russias U.S. embassy said in a statement on Sunday that Butina had been transferred from a prison in Washington to one in Virginia on Friday without notice or explanation and that her personal belongings had also been confiscated.

She had been subjected to a strip search and shackled during the transfer, it alleged, before being held in a cell for 12 hours without food and with the lights on. She now faced a solitary confinement regime, it said.

Her situation is getting worse. Its obvious that attempts are being made to break Maria using additional humiliation and psychological pressure, the embassy said.

We have more and more questions for the U.S. justice system. Should Maria really be doomed to suffer such borderline torture before a court verdict on the allegations against her? This lawlessness must stop.

U.S. federal prosecutors successfully persuaded a judge in July that Butina was a flight risk and should be jailed prior to her trial.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has raised the case with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, demanding Butina be freed.

The next hearing in her case is scheduled for Sept. 10.

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)
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MSNBCs Nicolle Wallace ran through the list of Trump crimes that White House Counsel Don McGhan may have witnessed and told Robert Mueller about.

Video:

Wallace said:

So heres some of the flashpoints in the investigation into obstruction of justice that Son McGahns 30 hours of interviews may have helped make more clear to Robert Mueller. First, Trumps campaign to pressure his A.G. To unrecuse himself in the investigation. In March trump ordered McGahn to stop sessions from recusing. Next the firing of FBI director James Comey. McGahns aides at the center and how Trump would explain it publicly. Then there was Trumps attempt to fire Robert Mueller. Trump directed McGahn to fire the special counsel last June. Mcgahn this time refused. There are also concerns of witness tampering.

The New York Times reporting in March Mueller learned of two conversations in which trump asked key witnesses, one of them Don McGahn, about matters they discussed with the special counsel, raising concerns that the president was acting improperly. And then there is the spark that ignited it all, the firing of national security advisor Mike Flynn. McGahn was at the center of that, too. He was the one who briefed trump on Flynns dishonesty. And what Trump knew about Flynns deception and when he could  when he knew he could determine whether his pressure on Comey to drop the Flynn investigation amounted to obstruction of justice. Theres plenty of reason for Trumps attorneys to worry.

Trump and his cronies have a whole world of problems because on McGhan realized that Trump was setting him to be the fall guy, he decided to fully cooperate with Mueller to show that he did not do anything wrong. Judging from the list that Nicolle Wallace ran off, McGhan heard and saw a lot.

McGhans lawyer told The Washington Post that his client doesnt believe that he implicated Trump in any illegal behavior, but doesnt believe is not the same thing as a no.

Trump terrible legal strategy is catching up to him, and it has led to Mueller getting information directly from the White House.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

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Former congresswoman and attorney Liz Holtzman said that the double whammy of the Manafort verdict and the Cohen cooperation means that the noose is tightening and Donald Trump is heavy duty trouble.

Video:

Holtzman said, The president took an oath of office and that oath of office requires him to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. That means the criminal laws and civil laws. There is nothing that allows the president to determine the investigation of him, for him to pick his own prosecutor and pick his own investigator and pick his judge, pick his jury and make himself innocent. Thats not the rule of law that we have. For him to say that shows that he has not the slightest inkling of what our constitution requires and what our democracy is. Its very dangerous. Because, obviously, theyre getting so desperate. The noose is tightening. If Manafort gets convicted if Cohen engages in a cooperation agreement. Donald Trump is in real, real trouble. Heavy duty trouble. Deepwater potential criminal trouble.

Most Americans have been waiting for these moments to arrive since Trump took office. None of this is a surprise. There were loud whispers about Trump and Russia before he became the Republican nominee. As a candidate, Trump refused to release his tax returns or provide detailed information about his international business dealings. Trump even refused to release his medical records.

Trump refused to separate himself from his businesses and even ran his presidential campaign through his business. The man is a walking conflict of interest. Donald Trump set himself up to the most scandal-plagued president in history. It may seem to most like the Trump administration has been dragging on for 20 years, but it has been less than two.

Trumps history is already catching up to him and as former Rep. Holtzman said, he is in potential criminal trouble.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

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Michael Avenatti told MSNBC that it is a one hundred percent certainty that Michael Cohen is going to provide prosecutors with damaging information on Trump crimes.

Video:

Transcript of Avenatti on MSNBC:

Michael Avenatti: Well, Im not surprised by the news. The only thing Im surprised about is that it took this long. I think for the first time on MSNBC back in April I stated that ultimately he was going to be charged and roll over on the president and Im going to maintain that position. I think the likelihood  well, I know the likelihood of him providing information damaging about the president is 100%.

Steve Kornacki: How do you know that the likelihood is 100%?

Avenatti: Because Ive been active in connection with the case on behalf of my client. Ive been active in communicating with people in law enforcement. Theres no question that hes going to be providing and has provided information thats damaging to the president.

Kornacki: Information of what nature? How specific? What would you know there in terms of what the information would be?

Avenatti: Information relating to financial dealings that had gone on between him and the president during the 10 to 12-year time period for which Michael Cohen served as the presidents personal counsel. Of all the people that the president should have showed loyalty to beyond Vladimir Putin, Michael Cohen should have been second on the list. Some would have argued that he should have been first on the list. You dont put a guy that has your innermost secrets on an island and treat him the way that Donald Trump has treated Michael Cohen and ultimately its going to come back and bite him.

Kornacki: Im trying to make sense here. Are you saying that the information would be related to this hush money payment, the potential there for a campaign finance violation? Are you saying that information will be related to something

Avenatti: No, its broader than that but includes it.

Michael Cohen knows about Trumps crimes

Avenatti has had a strong track record of being correct when it comes to Trump and Cohen. Michael Avenatti has said from day one that Cohen would flip on Trump and that he has highly damaging information on the president. Unlike you and I, Michael Avenatti has actually seen the evidence. He knows at least some of what prosecutors have, and what they are likely to get from Cohen is details on more than a decade of international financial crimes.

While the rest of the country is looking at Robert Mueller, Michael Cohen is the man who the White House most fears.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

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It is being reported that Trumps former personal lawyer Michael Cohen could plead guilty to tax fraud and bank fraud within hours, as his potential plea deal is bad news for Trump.

Video:

WNBCs Jonathan Dienst said on MSNBCs Andrea Mitchell Reports:

We know these talks are underway between Michael Cohens attorneys and federal prosecute ers, and that a deal on a potential guilty plea could be reached as early as this afternoon. And preparations are underway now in federal court for that possible hearing. Of course nothing is done until its done. But that is our understanding at this hour, that both sides are very close, and that Michael Cohen is considering accepting a plea deal with federal prosecutors in lower Manhattan.

The U.S. Attorneys spokesman declined to comment, as did Lanny Davis, with these talks ongoing. The FBI, the IRS investigating the bank fraud and other possible crimes related to his taxi medallion business. This is why this case is being handled here out of New York and is not part of the Mueller investigation. These are his separate business dealings and questions of whether he broke any laws regarding bank fraud and tax fraud. The New York Times this weekend reported that it involves bank fraud totaling close to $20 million. Thats being looked at by prosecutors and the FBI. So that is ongoing. But what is newsworthy here today is the timing. Weve known that there have been talks ongoing for weeks.

The issue now is it all may be coming to a head today in lower Manhattan. Well know more within the next hour or two, whether they have formally reached a deal. Or if not, if it falls apart, then its our understanding from several sources reporting, Sarah Fitzpatrick and Tom winter, prosecutors would then attempt to move forward with an indictment and just charge him in the days or perhaps the week ahead. But as of now, the goal, we are told, is for the two sides to reach a guilty plea agreement which could happen, which could happen sometime today.

A Michael Cohen Plea Deal Is A Disaster For Trump

Michael Cohen has signaled his willingness to cooperate with prosecutors for weeks. As a part of a plea deal, Cohen will have to cooperate with other investigations into Trump, which one would assume includes the Mueller investigation, and any investigations into the Trump Foundation, Trumps business activities, and Trumps payoffs to silence women who he has had affairs with. Michael Cohen is a key intersection point in all of the Trump scandals. If Cohen has been talking, it means only bad things for Trump on multiple fronts.

These charges dont involve Trump, but others will

Pay special attention to Cohen on two fronts. Cohen is a key player in Trumps hush money payments to women that he had affairs with. Cohen also may have insight into how funds were used at the Trump Foundation, which is under investigation by the state of New York. Trump may think that he can pardon himself for any federal criminal offenses, but he cant hide from state-level charges.

The biggest legal jeopardy that Trump faces isnt from Robert Muellers investigation, which could lead to impeachment, but state-level charges. Those close to Trump are fleeing, which means that someday Trump could be an ex-president who is living in the big house instead of the White House.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

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Microsoft has announced that a hacking group tied to the Russian government created fake internet domains ahead of this years midterm elections.

According to the Washington Post:

A group affiliated with the Russian government created phony versions of six websites  including some related to public policy and to the U.S. Senate  with the apparent goal of hacking into the computers of people who were tricked into visiting.

The fake websites appeared to copy two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. Three other fake domains were designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate.

Microsoft didnt offer any further description of the fake sites but did say it had discovered and disabled them.

The unsettling discovery of new Russian hacking in the U.S. came a few weeks after Microsoft discovered hacking of the computer systems of Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who is running for re-election. They were able to prove that Russian hackers tried without success to penetrate the computer network of her Senate office.

The hacking effort was led by the notorious APT28 hacking group which actively interfered in the 2016 presidential election. They have been publicly connected to a Russian intelligence agency.

U.S. intelligence officials said the groups efforts were focused on helping to elect Republican Donald Trump to the presidency by harming Hillary Clinton and creating social discord.

Brad Smith, Microsofts president and chief legal officer, said that the current hacking by Russia is not focused on helping any one candidate or political party. Instead, he said, this activity is most fundamentally focused on disrupting democracy.

Smith said there is no sign the hackers were successful in persuading anyone to click on the fake websites. If they had clicked on them, they would have been exposed to computer infiltration, hidden surveillance and data theft.

Both conservative think tanks said they have been on the lookout for spear-phishing email attacks which are used to invade computer networks. They said that authoritarian governments from around the world have targeted them because their global pro-democracy work.

Were glad that our work is attracting the attention of bad actors, said Hudson Institute spokesman David Tell. It means were having an effect, presumably.

Microsoft calls the Russian hacking group Strontium but other names for it are Fancy Bear and APT28.

Robert Mueller has connected the group to Russias intelligence agency, the GRU, and and said they were responsible for the 2016 email hacking of both the Democratic National Committee and the campaign of Hillary Clinton.

We have no doubt in our minds who is responsible, Smith said.

Microsoft sued Strontium in a Virginia federal court in 2016. They got court approval last year to seize some phony domains created by the group. So far it has used the courts to close down 84 fake websites they created.

Microsoft also announced that they are going to offer free cybersecurity protection to all U.S. political candidates, campaigns and other political organizations. The only condition is that they must be already using Microsofts Office 365 productivity software. Facebook and Google have also announced that they are offering similar tools to fight hacking and campaign interference by outside groups intent on doing harm to Americas elections.
By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters)  U.S. President Donald Trumps Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh agrees with the courts Chief Justice John Roberts that the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion is settled law, Senator Susan Collins said on Tuesday.

Collins, a Republican, spoke to reporters after meeting Kavanaugh in her office. We talked about whether he considered Roe to be settled law. He said that he agreed with what Justice Roberts said at his nomination hearing, in which he said that it was settled law, she said. Settled law refers to a legal position that has been consistently upheld by judges.

Republican President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh, 53, on July 9 to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Before Kavanaugh can assume the lifetime job on the nine-member court, the Republican-controlled Senate must vote to confirm him.

Trump promised during his campaign to appoint pro-life justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. Speculation has centered on whether Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge with a solidly conservative judicial record, would vote to overturn a womans right to abortion.

Kavanaughs judicial record on abortion is thin, although last year he was on a panel of judges that issued an order preventing a 17-year-old illegal immigrant detained in Texas by U.S. authorities from immediately obtaining an abortion.

Collins, a moderate Republican, has said that she could not support a nominee who had demonstrated hostility to Roe V. Wade. She is considered a key vote in the confirmation process, but she said Tuesday she will not make a decision until after Kavanaughs confirmation hearings, which start on Sept. 4.

I have always waited until after the judiciary committee hearings before rendering a final decision on a Supreme Court nominee. You never know what questions are going to come up, she said.

Collins said her conversation with Kavanaugh, which lasted over two hours, covered a wide range of issues, including abortion and guns and Kavanaughs judicial philosophy. She called the meeting helpful, productive and informative.

Kavanaughs confirmation will require a simple majority in the 100-seat Senate, where Republicans hold a 51-49 edge over Democrats and independents. Senator John McCain, a Republican, is at home undergoing treatment for cancer, leaving Republicans no room for error if no Democrats support Kavanaugh. Vice President Mike Pence would vote if there is a tie.

However, conservatives are pressuring several Senate Democrats running for re-election in states that Trump won in 2016 to vote for Kavanaugh. Three Democrats voted to confirm Trumps previous Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Susan Thomas and Cynthia Osterman)
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Most people think that if there is a Blue Wave election this year it will result in Democrats taking control of one or both houses of Congress. Just as likely, however, is the chance that the Blue Wave will sweep Democrats into power in statehouses throughout the nation. In many states popular moderate Republican governors are retiring due to term limits, and the GOP candidates seeking to replace them have won primaries by tying themselves to Donald Trump.

In other words, as the Republican Party lurches to the right, the country may be swinging to the left. This situation offers great opportunity for Democrats to take back power in state governments that will play a critical role in redistricting after the 2020 census is completed.

There are many important states where GOP governors are retiring, and where Democrats have a chance at a pickup. In several of these states the retiring governors dont appear to like their partys new nominees very much at all.

For example, in Nevada, GOP Governor Brian Sandoval, who supported the Affordable Care Act, has said he will stay neutral in the November election between Republican Adam Laxalt, a Trump supporter, and Democrat Steve Sisolak. In Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder has declined to endorse conservative Bill Schuette, who defeated Snyders lieutenant governor to win the GOP nomination.

Im focused on being governor of Michigan, Snyder told reporters when asked whether he was goint to endorse Schuette. Less politics, more governing.

Two other Republicans have said they wont give strong support to the partys nominees. New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, who, like Sandoval, opposed the repeal of the ACA, said that Republican nominee Stevan Pearce was the best candidate in the race but declined to say that she would campaign for him.

In Ohio Governor John Kasich has proven to be a moderate, and he even defended Medicaid expansion from Republican criticism. He has shown lukewarm support for GOP nominee Mike DeWine, and said he would support him only after DeWine promised not to reverse the Medicaid expansion decision.

He came out for Medicaid expansion, Kasich told reporters. I had a very direct conversation with him, and he came out for it, so yeah, Im going to be supporting Mike.

Democrats see the discord within the ranks of the Republican Party as an opening for them. Republicans have to defend 26 governorships this year, compared to only 9 for Democrats. And many of the states with current GOP governors are rated tossups by the Cook Political Report.

Other possible swing states where the GOP is at risk of losing governors offices include Florida, Maine, Iowa, Kansas and possibly Wisconsin.

Current governors Sandoval, Snyder, Kasich and Martinez all came to power based on their moderate images and policies. All of them supported the expansion of Medicaid. All of them at times expressed criticisms of President Trump. And all of their would-be successors got their partys nomination by running as an ally of the president.

This is all indicative of a Republican Party thats moving far to the right, said Jared Goldberg-Leopold from the Democratic Governors Association. It creates a lot of voters who are up for grabs. People who voted for John Kasich or Brian Sandoval need to think hard about what Mike DeWine or Adam Laxalt would do for their state.

In recent years there has been much focus on the impact of gerrymandering by state governments, and how that has helped Republicans keep control of the U.S. House of Representatives. If Democrats can win elections in 2018 and 2020 to give them more power in state governments this will prevent further gerrymandering for the GOP during the 2020 census redistricting process. And this may be essential to prevent further erosion of democracy in America.
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The Trump world is likely in more panic on Monday as Michael Cohens lawyer is reportedly in close communication with former White House counsel John Dean, who helped topple Richard Nixon during the Watergate saga.

According to The Washington Post, citing the Associated Press, Cohens lawyer Lanny Davis has been talking to Dean over the last few months to hear his wisdom, the lessons that he learned and his reflections on what he saw Michael Cohen going through.'

In other words, Cohens team is talking to a man who knows a thing or two about cooperating with investigators to bring down a corrupt president.

More from The Post:

Davis revelation Monday is seen as the latest sign Cohen could be seeking a deal to cooperate against Trump in the Russia probe. It comes as federal prosecutors appear close to charging Cohen with financial crimes. Davis says he and Dean see parallels between Deans experience with Watergate and Cohens pivot from being loyal to Trump to looking out for himself.

The Watergate parallels are piling up

Not only does Michael Cohen look to be pulling a John Dean, but so does current White House counsel Don McGahn, who has Trump shaking in his boots over 30 hours of interviews he granted to special counsel Robert Mueller.

As PoliticusUSAs Jason Easley noted over the weekend, the White House is panicking because they dont have a clue what McGahn may have spilled during his extensive time with Mueller.

What we do know is that McGahn, like Cohen, is likely working overtime to protect himself before Trump has a chance to throw him under the bus, too. Key to the McGahn angle is the fact that Trump tried to pressure him to fire Mueller last summer, but McGahn threatened to resign over it.

Regardless of whether Trumps effort to push Mueller out failed, his intent was again clear: He wanted to remove the man running the Russia investigation in order to protect himself  aka obstruction of justice. This is information McGahn likely confirmed with Mueller.

Ultimately, people who Trump thought were allies are now trying to save themselves, even if that means throwing the White House overboard. And as this slow-motion Saturday night massacre continues, this presidents fate is shaping up a lot like Nixons.
By Brendan OBrien and Noah Barkin

WASHINGTON/BERLIN (Reuters)  A 95-year old New York City man believed to be a former guard at a labor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland arrived in Germany after being arrested and deported by U.S. immigration authorities, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

The White House said Jakiw Palij served as a guard at the Trawniki Labor Camp, where about 6,000 Jewish men, women and children were shot dead on Nov. 3, 1943, in one of the single largest massacres of the Holocaust.

The United States had been trying to get Palij out of the country since the issue of a 2004 deportation order but after talks with top members of Chancellor Angela Merkels government Germany agreed to take him in.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said Palij had arrived by military plane at Duesseldorf airport in western Germany and taken to a home for the elderly in the area.

Born in what was then Poland but is now Ukraine, Palij emigrated to the United States in 1949, becoming a United States citizen eight years later, the White House said.

But, it added, he had concealed his Nazi service and involvement in human rights abuses, saying he had spent World War Two working on a farm and in a factory.

In 2001, Palij told Department of Justice officials that he had trained at the Nazi SS Training Camp in Trawniki, in German-occupied Poland, in 1943, the White House said.

By serving as an armed guard  and preventing the escape of Jewish prisoner during his Nazi service, Palij played an indispensable role in ensuring the Trawniki Jewish victims met their horrific fate at the hands of the Nazis, said the White House.

A federal judge revoked his U.S. citizenship in 2003 and he was ordered to be deported in 2004. But no European country would accept him, CNN and New York magazine reported.

Given his age and questions over his health and also a possible lack of proof, it is unclear whether German authorities will attempt to prosecute the stateless pensioner.

MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

The U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, said the deportation was the result of a concerted effort by U.S. President Donald Trump.

He (Trump) told me directly to make it a priority, to get the Nazi out, Grenell told reporters. I felt very strongly that the German government had a moral obligation and they accepted that, he added, making clear it was up to Germany to decide whether to prosecute him.

Germany has a mixed record on convicting Nazi war criminals. Critics say it let many high-ranking Nazis and SS members escaped justice only for their juniors, small cogs in the Nazi death machine, to be put on trial decades later.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who on Monday visited the Auschwitz camp, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:

Germany, in whose name the worst injustice was perpetrated under the Nazis, is confronting its moral obligations.

After an international military tribunal put some top Nazi leaders, including Hermann Goering and Rudolf Hess, on trial soon after World War Two in the Nuremburg Trials, little action was taken by the West German judiciary in the 1950s and 1960s.

Between 1945 and 2005, West German courts convicted 6,656 Nazi criminals out of more than 36,000 investigations into more than 170,000 suspects, a study showed in 2008.

Germanys Central office for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Ludwigsburg is still investigating individuals and the 2011 conviction of Sobibor death camp guard John Demjanjuk gave it a new impetus. It was the first time involvement in a camp was sufficient to be found culpable even without proof of a specific crime.

(Writing by Madeline Chambers, editing by Larry King, Richard Balmforth)
WASHINGTON (Reuters)  The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on two Russians, one Russian company and one Slovakian company for what Washington said were their actions to help another Russian company avoid sanctions over the countrys malicious cyber-related activities.

The U.S. Treasury said in a statement that the sanctioned companies, Saint Petersburg-based Vela-Marine Ltd and Slovakia-based Lacno S.R.O., and the two individuals helped Divetechnoservices evade previously imposed sanctions.

In June, the United States sanctioned Divetechnoservices, also based in Saint Petersburg, for procuring underwater equipment and diving systems for Russian government agencies, including Russias FSB intelligence agency.

The Obama administration sanctioned the FSB in December 2016, citing the Russian governments aggressive harassment of U.S. officials and cyber operations aimed at the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In a statement on the Russian foreign ministrys website, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called the latest sanctions groundless and promised a response from Moscow.

Ryabkovs criticism extended to separate sanctions Washington imposed on Tuesday on two Russian shipping companies that it said were involved in transferring refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels in violation of Unite Nations restrictions.

The U.S. Treasury said the two individuals targeted on Tuesday under the cyber-related sanctions program, Marina Igorevna Tsareva and Anton Aleksandrovich Nagibin, had both helped Divetechnoservices attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions.

The head of Vela-Marine told Reuters he did not understand why his company was being designated. Speaking by telephone, Andrei Kuklin, head of the company, said, Unfortunately I cannot comment. I dont understand what the problem is.

Reuters was unable to immediately determine contact information for Lacno, which does not have its own website and which does not list any contact number on the Slovak finance ministry registry of firms website.

Nagibin did not answer a call seeking comment. Reuters was not immediately able to identify contact information for Tsareva.

(Reporting by Tim Ahmann; Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber in Moscow, and Tatiana Jancarikova in Bratislava; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)
On August 17, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova commented on the announcement that the U.S. State Department would be redirecting approximately $230 million in funds to stabilize and rebuild Syria. She rhetorically asked who the money could have been intended for, claiming that the Islamic State no longer exists in Syria.

Vladimir Putin made a similar announcement about the Islamic State in December of last year. In reality however, the Islamic State is still active in Syria. This was apparent in late July when a contingent of ISIS fighters launched a devastating attack on the Syrian town of Suwayda. Attackers went from house to house executing occupants before running out of ammunition and detonating their suicide bomb vests. In total, around 200 people were killed and another 180 wounded in the attack. A Defense Department report estimates that the Islamic State may currently control five percent of Syrias territory.

A U.S. Defense Department report estimates that the Islamic State may currently control five percent of Syrias territory.

Not only the U.S. military and the Western media contradict Russian Foreign Ministry claim that there is no IS fighters left in Syria  the Russian Defense Ministry reported on August 9, an escalation of the attacks by the IS groups in certain areas in Syria.That was only a week before Zakharovas statement. Even the Russia state media -- RT -- put video of the Suwayda attack on YouTube (below), calling in the "worst violence" in the area in seven years.

The funds to be redirected were aimed at rebuilding areas of Syria liberated from IS by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a movement organized by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed factions, the YPG/YPJ (Peoples Protection Units/Womens Protection Units). These forces received air and artillery support from the U.S. and its coalition allies during the campaign to capture Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State, in the fall of 2017.

U.S. officials in the Trump administration said that contributions from Saudi Arabia and other coalition allies would more than compensate for the $230 million, and that the U.S. remained committed to the goal of eradicating the Islamic State from Syria and Iraq.

Zakharovas words suggest that the U.S. is not interested in sponsoring peaceful life in Syria. This claim is also false. According to the UN, the United States is the worlds single largest aid donor to Syria, having provided more than $7.4 billion to meet the humanitarian needs of Syrian people, and the effort is ongoing.

According to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. government has provided $73 million aid to Syria since the beginning of 2018. It provided $729 million in 2017, $916 million in 2016, $914 million in 2015, $796 million in 2014, $776 million in 2013, $124 million in 2012 and $26 million in 2011.

Zakharovas statement recalls earlier Russian statements accusing the U.S. of funding or backing the Islamic State or other irreconcilable militants in Syria. In December, the Russian Defense Ministry accused the U.S. of arming and training former Islamic State and al Nusra fighters.We found this false. Any similar allegations or implications in Zakharovas August 17th statement, of course, are nonsensical given the role the U.S. has played in assisting the Syrian Democratic Forces in their fight against the Islamic State since 2015. In addition to the SDF, the U.S. has also trained other groups to fight against the Islamic State, such as the Revolutionary Commando Army in southern Syria.
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Minnesota Muslims are celebrating Eid today and tomorrow at US Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis. Harking back to the Super Bowl hosted at the stadium earlier this year, the organizers are calling the event Super Eid. Animals will be sacrificed at an undisclosed location off site in connection with the festivities.

Animal sacrifice is apparently still a thing in Islam. The Star Tribune is discreet about this in the article by Chris Bowling about the festivities. Without passing judgment, MPR is a little more blunt.

The event has its own site listing the roster of speakers. A corporation has been set up to sponsor the event. Who is paying for it? We dont want to go there, but it cant be a piddling expense to rent the stadium for two days.

Asad Zaman is a prominent spokesman for the event. Zaman is the executive director of the local chapter of the Muslim American Society. The MAS and Zaman are red flags.

The Muslim American Society was founded by the United States chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is the Brotherhoods Palestinian branch. It shouldnt be too difficult to get a clue. Andrew McCarthys The Grand Jihad provides an extremely useful guide to the world of the Muslim American Society. As the lead prosecutor of the Blind Sheikh and his friends for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, Andy acquired first-hand knowledge of this world.

Getting a bead on the MAS should be especially easy in Minnesota. As I say, Zaman is the executive director of MAS-MN. Zaman first came to our attention as the principal of Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota. TiZA was the Islamic charter school that took public funds on the pretense that it was nonsectarian. Let me emphasize the point: TiZA took taxpayers money on false pretenses. Zaman was the ringleader of the now shuttered TiZA operation. To say the least, he is a publicly compromised character. In my opinion, he should be on the inside of some Minnesota prison looking out.
Smoking remains an enormous public health problem in the U.S. Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in this country. According to some studies, more than half of longtime smokers will die from smoking-related complications. David Abrams, a professor at New York Universitys College of Global Public Health, estimates that 1,300 people die from smoking every day. The life expectancy of a cigarette smoker is said to be a decade less than someone who has never smoked

As I explained here, e-cigarettes offer a partial solution to this perennial health crisis. They deliver the nicotine that attracts people to cigarettes (and addicts them), but not the tar and other carcinogens that kill them. They say people smoke for the nicotine, but die from the tar. A method that supplies nicotine the way cigarettes do without the tar represents a life-saving breakthrough.

Yet, key Democrats like Sens. Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin are leading the charge against this breakthrough. They base their opposition on the use of e-cigarettes (known as vaping) by teenagers. They argue that vaping will hook teenagers on nicotine, just as smoking always has, and that it will hook many teenagers who would not otherwise have been hooked (because they would not have taken up smoking).

Maybe yes, maybe no. But theres no maybe about the fact that that teenagers hooked by vaping will not suffer the severe, deadly health effects produced by cigarettes. Addiction is never good, but it does not, in itself, constitute a health crisis. Many Americans are addicted to caffeine.

Great Britain seems to be taking a more responsible approach to vaping than U.S. politicians are. The Science and Technology Committee of the UK Parliament has released a report calling for, among other things, liberalizing advertising rules on e-cigarettes and increasing limits on nicotine levels.

Brexit will afford the UK new opportunities to liberalize in this area. As Philip Salter of Forbes explains, the UK is currently bound by the European Unions regulations, such as the Tobacco Products Directive (translated into UK law via the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016). This legislation places strict limits on where vapes and related products can be advertised, prevents marketers from making substantiated health claims about relative risk, and among other restrictions forces manufacturers to limit nicotine strength.

This kind of regulation is part of what gives the EU a bad name  so bad that Brexit happened. Now that it has, Britain will be free to get on with the business of saving the lives of millions of would-be smokers.

Lets hope it does. Lets hope we do too.
Last month, I wrote about a poll that found Sen. Joe Manchin to be a shoe-in for reelection if he votes to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, but in for an extremely close race if he doesnt. According to the survey, taken by the Trafalgar Group, West Virginia voters favor Manchin over Republican Patrick Morrisey by 29 points if Manchin votes for confirmation, but by only two points (within the margin of error) if he votes the other way.

I expressed skepticism that Manchins vote on Judge Kavanaugh will have as much impact as the poll suggested. However, it was easy to accept the view that Manchins reelection bid will be better off if he votes to confirm the nominee.

But now, a poll of the Indiana Senate race finds that incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly improves his chances of re-election if he votes against confirming Kavanaugh. The survey was conducted by Trafalgar, the same outfit that polled the corresponding question in West Virginia.

In Indiana, according to the poll, Donnelly leads by seven points in a scenario that assumes he votes against confirming Kavanaugh. In a scenario assuming he votes to confirm, the lead in only one point. ( FiveThirtyEight points out that, oddly, Donnellys lead is 12 points before the Kavanaugh nomination is raised with respondents).

How to explain the differing results Trafalgar obtained in these two states? For one thing, Trump is more popular in West Virginia than he is in Indiana, though hes popular in both states. It may also be that advocacy advertising regarding Kavanaugh has followed differing patterns in the two states.

My sense is that the question of how voters will respond to a yes and a no vote on Kavanaugh is too hypothetical at this point to yield reliable information. I think Senate Democrats who plan to base their vote on the nomination on such a calculation should trust their political instincts and not rely on polls.
According to Goldstein Research, India ICS market is expected to reach USD 1.8 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 8.71% over the forecast period 2017-2025.

India Industrial Control System (ICS) Market

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According to Goldstein Research, India ICS market is expected to reach USD 1.8 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 8.71% over the forecast period 2017-2025. India being a developing economy is witnessing investments in the growth and development of the multiple industries. The industrial advancing steps by the government is driving the growth of industrial control system in India.Browse Full Report: https://www.goldsteinresearch.com/report/india-industrial-control-systems-market India ICS market segmentation has been carried out on the basis of control system, applications, end users and geography. On the basis of end user, manufacturing industry accounted for 24.2% market share in 2017 owing to adoption of new technologies and increasing industrial security threats which is increasing demand for application of industrial control system. India ICS market is majorly growing in the tier-1 cities with a market share of 43.2% in 2017 such as in the electricity smart grids in Bengaluru, New Delhi and Chennai. Moreover the establishment of industries in the outskirts of tier-2 cities tends to highly influence ICS market of India and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 9.0% over the forecast period.Market SegmentationOn the basis of our in-depth analysis, IndiaICS Market can be segmented as follows:By Types of Control System Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) Distributed Control Systems (DCS) Supervisory control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)By Applications Industrial Security Process Controlling Others (Supervision, etc.)By End-Users Energy and Mining Sector Transportation and Logistics Sector Manufacturing Industry Electric and Electronic Industry Aviation Industry OthersBy Region Tier-1 Cities {Market Share (%), Market Size (USD Billion)} Tier-2 Cities {Market Share (%), Market Size (USD Billion)} Tier-3 Cities {Market Share (%), Market Size (USD Billion)}India ICS MarketOutlook 2025contains detailed overview of the India ICS market.On the basis of our in-depth analysis, market can be segmented in terms of market segmentation by types of control system, applications and end users.Download Exclusive Sample Report:Further, for the in-depth analysis, IndiaICS Market Report encompasses the industry growth drivers, market challenges, risk analysis, market attractiveness, BPS (Base Point Scale) analysis, Porters five force model and SWOT analysis. This market report also includes competitive outlook of some of the major players profiling of companies such asABB, Honeywell, Siemens, General Electric, Cisco, Symantec, Fortinet, Kaspersky, IBM, Booz Allen Hamilton, Citrix Systems, Brocade Communication Systems, Computer Science, EMC, F-Secure, L-3, Trend Micro,etc. The company profiles include business strategy, geographical revenue distribution, major information of the companies which encompasses business outlook, products, services and industries catered, financial analysis of the company and recent developments. Overall, the report represents the IndiaICS market trends along with market forecast that will help industry consultants, technology providers, existing players searching for expansion opportunities, new players searching possibilities and other stakeholders to align their market centric strategies according to the ongoing and expected trends in the future.Key questions answered in this IndiaIndustrial Control System (ICS)Report What is the India ICS Market Size by 2025 and what would be the expected growth rate of the industry? What is the total revenue per segment and region in 2016-17 and what would be the expected revenue per segment and region over the forecast period? What are the ICS market trends? What are the factors which are driving this industry? What are the major barriers to ICS industry growth? Who are the key vendors in this industry space? What are the industry opportunities for the existing and entry level players? What are the recent developments and business strategy of the key players?Browse Similar Report:
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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Point Loma Resources Ltd.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Calgary, Alberta (FSCWire) - Point Loma Resources Ltd. (TSX Venture:PLX). has issued a press release with the following headline:Point Loma Resources Announces Closing of Additional Working Interest in Recent Oil AcquisitionTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Point Loma Resources Ltd., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Point Loma Resources Ltd.Source: Point Loma Resources Ltd. (TSX Venture: PLX)Date: August 21, 2018Time: 8:00 AM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Point Loma Resources Ltd. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2018 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
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They were not involved in the actual voting as they were not qualified. But children were a strong part of the Katsina North senatorial by-election which produced Ahmad Babba-Kaita as senator-elect.

The district, where President Muhammadu Buhari hails from, became vacant following the death of Mustapha Bukar on April 4.

From Daura, the districts capital, to Kankia, Bindawa, Baure and other towns, children from age two and above made their ways to polling units on their own.

They engaged in different activities, economic and political.

On the economic side, many were seen at polling areas displaying their wares which mostly were food stuffs, some others hawked from one polling unit to another.

PREMIUM TIMES reporter who covered the election in this report chronicles the activities of children at polling units.

THE PERFECT EXAMPLE  KANKIA

Located in the bustling town of Kankia, three polling units set up in Bakin Kasua Primary School presented a perfect example of childrens activities in the electoral process.

Kankia itself is significant for the election; it is hometown of the candidates of the two major political parties, Kabir Babba-Kaita of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Ahmad Babba-Kaita of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The three polling units; Bakin Kasua PU 005, 006 and 010 are all located within the school.

By 10:40 a.m. when this reporter first landed in the polling units, it was difficult to tell who were more; adults or children. In fact, it is safe to say the number of children exceeded that of adults.

At this time of the election day, the children could be safely categorised into two.

The first group comprised those who came to sell food items and placed themselves at strategic places within the polling units. While some created what could be called mini shops for themselves under trees, a good number preferred to hawk their wares.

They sold zobo local beverage, kolanut, Rogo dafawa (cooked cassava), sweets, baked foods etc. For many voters, election observers and journalists, these children were the messiahs who delivered them from hunger.

Children in the second group were not hard to spot. They slightly outnumbered the ones in the first group. Dressed in smeary attires, children from age two and above wandered around the three polling units. They certainly did not understand the process but were keen on feeding their eyes with all items and happenings.

Buying and sellingso close to polling unit

Often times, they got so close to the ballot boxes to the wrath of security agencies. Certainly, a measure had to be devised to control them before the end of voting.

THE LOCAL RUMBLE AND AHMADs WELCOME

Still in Bakin Kasua Primary School. The time is 12:15p.m. and voting exercise continues in peace.

Until this period, the children were still polarised in two groups of sellers and spectators. But this changed just as the APC candidate, Ahmad Babba-Kaita approached the polling unit.

More like they were assigned to do so, the children quickly changed their course. Almost immediately they sighted Mr Ahmad, they became what many would call hailers. From the road that linked the school, children in hundreds, fused with adults, form the entourage of Mr Ahmad.

In Hausa, they chanted From senator to governor, even before the aspirant became a senator.

A few minutes later, Mr Ahmad was at his polling unit. He opted to join the already long queue and wait for his turn. The children retreated but were still very much present in the vicinity.

Children displaying their wares

The polling unit continued to be calm until dust raised unannounced. Two children, a boy and girl, were fighting close to the queue designated for males. And instead of the adults, mostly males, to separate them, they preferred to cheer the boy, who they considered as their representatives in the battle.

Karka Karaya Karka ka, some of the youthful men shouted to boost the confidence of the boy.

Their encouragement was enough for the boy as evident in the result of the local rumble. When a security personnel finally separated them, the girl had inherited a swollen face.

But what caused the fight? Hauwa like every other children had arrived Bakin Kasua as early as 8a.m. to sell her Soya bean snack popularly called Awara. The boy, Musa, had wanted two pieces of Awara for the portion of Kunnu which he traded but Hauwa would not part with more than one.

Musas insistence and attempt to coerce his friend, now turn enemy, to give him two Awara led to the fight right in the presence of Mr Ahmad.

LOYAL HAILERS

The time now is 1:17p.m. Mr Ahmad had decided to leave the queue for a tree shade after queuing for about an hour but he wouldnt be left alone.

Mr Ahmad flanked by children

For the about 150 metres walk from where he queued to the tree shade, he was flanked both sides, back and front by cheerful children. This time, they were joined even by those who hawked.

When Mr Ahmad finally decided to relax under the tree, the children mounted the tree top, some on slim branches, to maintain their entourage. Others gathered around him as though they were in a political meeting.

They would not bulge even after a series of protests by Mr Ahmad for them to retreat.

By 1:42p.m., still in the hot afternoon, another rush ensued.

About 50 metres to Mr Ahmads sitting position, a good Samaritan had decided to feed the children on dafaffen Rogo (cooked cassava), a local delicacy.

The kind gesture caught them unawares, hence, the tone of the struggle. While the fit ran to grab at least a handful of the meal, those on the tree made their ways from the high elevation. They were indeed hungry.

Stampede, another stampede and more stampedes characterised the struggle.

By the time dust finally settled, many of the children had sustained injuries. But they were not deterred. They returned to their position with Mr Ahmad.

HOW SECURITY OFFICIALS COPED

Section. 129 (1) of the Electoral Act states that no person shall on the date an electionloiter without lawful excuse after voting or after being refused to votein a polling unit or within a distance of 300 metres of a polling unit

Children at the polling unit

The law says that any person who contravenes this commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine of N100, 000 or imprisonment for 6 months for every such offence.

This is the ideal but the reality in Kankia did not conform.

Perhaps, a N100, 000 would have been paid in multiple folds should security operatives decide to adhere strictly to this provision.

Apart from wandering about the three polling units, the children were uncomfortably close to ballot boxes and election materials.

At almost every seconds, security officials at the polling units had to shoo them away but it did not work as the children kept coming back like the proverbial stubborn goat.

By 2:00p.m. when it seemed almost impossible to control their interference, officials at each polling units decided to dedicated at least one security officer to shooing away children from the polling units.

Police officer with special duty of warding off children

This worked but not quite.

INEC NOT AWARE

INECs Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Oluwole Osaze-Uzi, said the commission was not aware of situation as it was not contained in any of the reports submitted after the election.

You are the one telling me about that, he said Monday afternoon. Im not aware of that. I didnt see that in our report.

Mr Osaze-Uzi however said the children like every other persons ought to maintain a distance as prescribed by the law.

But ordinarily on Election Day, within the vicinity of the polling unit, you ought to have a distance to be there.

Austin Aigbe of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) condemned the development.

How did the children get to the polling station? The process is simply, on election day, there are restriction of movement, and only eligible voters with PVC are allowed a walking distance to their respective polling unit. The Nigerian constitution prescribe that a person must be 18 or above to be eligible to vote. Allowing children to participate in elections is, therefore the highest level of violation of our electoral laws, he said.

By 4:00p.m., when the counting and sorting started, the children were still very much on ground. In Hausa language, they joined the Presiding Officer in counting of ballot papers.

What followed was jubilation across the three polling units, still led by children.
President Pierre Nkurunziza has warned that whoever attempts to overthrow democratic institutions in Burundi, will himself fall in the trap he would have laid.

Mr Nkurunziza who gave the warning in his message to the nation at his third anniversary of rule, called on the east African countrys citizens to continue contributing to the countrys 2020 general elections.

Were engaged on the path of democracy. The most recent example is the organisation of the constitutional referendum successfully held on May 17 this year where citizens voluntarily contributed necessary funds for the organisation of the referendum.

I take this opportunity to thank all Burundian citizens and those of the Diaspora to continue contributing to the 2020 elections, said Mr Nkurunziza.

According to him, citizens have been showing their enthusiasm in contributing to the 2020 elections because they have understood their past and now know where they are heading to.

Among decisions to be taken, there is one that concerns us all. Let us prepare and organise ourselves the 2020 elections as well as future elections without waiting for external aid, said Mr Nkurunziza.

He indicated that the 2015 elections during which he was victorious were held in serenity.

Citizens who love their country jubilated, but enemies of the country wherever they are were surprised and didnt know what to do.

He added that the third anniversary of his rule after winning the 2015 elections is celebrated at a time when Burundi is enjoying peace, security and total tranquility.

Burundi is peaceful thanks to the good collaboration between security and defense forces, the judiciary, the local administration and citizens, said Mr Nkurunziza.

He advised citizens to work for the country and to protect it so that future generations can inherit a nice, peaceful, organised, respectable and prosperous country.

Mr Nkurunziza said his government is committed to fight all sorts of discrimination and favoritism.

At the promulgation of the countrys amended constitution on June 7 at Bugendana, in Gitega province, central Burundi, Mr Nkurunziza announced that he will leave the presidency in 2020 at the expiry of his current presidential term.

Mr Nkurunziza was elected president by the two chambers of the parliament in 2005 and directly re-elected by citizens in 2010.

He was again directly re-elected by citizens in 2015 in what the opposition called a third term in violation of the 2005 national constitution.

But the ruling party, the National Council for the Defence of Democracy-Forces for the Defence of Democracy, argue that the 2005-2010 term should not be considered as a genuine term as the 2005 national constitution stipulates that the President of the Republic is elected in a direct universal suffrage for a five-year term renewable once.

(Xinhua/NAN)
President Muhammadu Buhari has spoken on the need for Nigerians to take part in the national youth service, NYSC, but continued to maintain silence over the revelation that his minister skipped the mandatory programme and obtained a fake exemption certificate.

A PREMIUM TIMES investigation showed that finance minister, Kemi Adeosun, failed to serve despite graduating before the age of 30. The minister obtained a forged discharge certificate afterwards, when she was apparently not entitled to one.

Over 44 days after the revelation, the Minister has refused to react to the scandal. The federal government has also failed to address the matter.

On Tuesday however, while celebrating Sallah in Daura, his hometown, Mr Buhari said his support for the scheme remains unchanged.

The president, after prayers, received members of the NYSC serving in Daura community- an audience that has become part of his schedule during the Sallah celebrations in the past years.

While reaffirming his support for the scheme established in 1973, Mr Buhari told the corps members that: It is better to know all about the country than for people to be state-inclined.

I always look forward to meeting the NYSC team because I served mostly in the south when I was in the military.

He said that during his military career that many people did not know much outside their immediate environment.

For them (NYSC members) to be brought to the desert or near the Sahel region is a very difficult thing but it will make an impact on Nigeria.

I have personally spoken to Gen. Gowon to thank him for having the initiative to start the NYSC programme. It is very good for Nigeria.

The president also welcomed the corps members to the ancient town of Daura and asked them to enjoy their service year.

In his remarks, the Corps Liaison Officer, Jibrin Ishak, thanked the president for prioritising the welfare of the youth to secure their future through his style of leadership and developmental initiatives.

The voice of the people is the voice of God and by the grace of God, we pray that in 2019 you will continue to be president of Nigeria to do more for us, Mr Ishak said.

Mr Buhari also expressed delight over Nigerias steady progress toward food sufficiency.

The president made his feelings known when he fielded questions from reporters at his private residence in Daura.

He thanked Almighty God for a bumper harvest being recorded across the country.

I hope the rainy season will be as good as the previous ones so that there would be plenty of food so that we may even completely stop importation of food items, he added.

The president wished all Nigerians a happy and successful celebration and expressed delight that the country was spending less on food importation.

According to him, the development is a major boost to the agricultural policies of his administration.

On the mammoth crowd chanting `Sai Baba on his way back home after performing the Eid-el Kabir prayer at Daura Eid ground, the president said he did not expect anything less from his immediate constituency.

I am very happy about it (the warm reception) and I do not expect anything less from my immediate base, he said.
The leader of the House of Representatives and chairman of the APC Caucus, Femi Gbajabiamila, in this interview with PREMIUM TIMES Festus Owete and Nasir Ayitogo, speaks on the defections in the House, his relationship with Speaker Yakubu Dogara, the demand by the APC for the resignation of the Senate president, Bukola Saraki and other issues. Mr Gbajabiamila only agreed to respond to questions written and transmitted by mail, making it difficult to follow up on leads.

PT: The APC senators and members of the House of Representatives met with the partys national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole and other members of the NWC on Tuesday. You are the Leader of the APC Caucus in the House and you spoke at that forum. Why was Speaker Yakubu Dogara not there?

Gbajabiamila: The Speaker is a member of the APC Caucus as far as I know. He was not at the meeting just like several other members were absent due to one reason or the other. That does not mean they are not APC members. The Speaker Im sure youre aware has been in Bauchi where they just concluded a senatorial by-election

PT: The exit of about 33 APC lawmakers must have jolted your caucus. How are you taking it? I am sure your party is yet to recover from it.

Gbajabiamila: The exit of a single member should jolt any member to use your words, not to talk of 33. The jolt then turns into sympathy when you know the member has made a big mistake. Soon after the sympathy becomes a sigh of relief with the knowledge that your party remains the party of the masses which for me is the most important consideration. We all witnessed the size of the rallies and decampment that took place subsequently in various states and local governments where notable politicians had decamped from. We also make the costly mistake when we think a party belongs to the elite or political class when truly it belongs to the masses who every day continue to understand the intrigues and lust for power amongst the political class and know those who are there to protect them. I assure you many who got caught up in the euphoria of decamping are regretting today.

PT: Some say this is payback time because in 2013 your party hugely benefitted from the gale of defections that hit the PDP. I recall that in December 2013, 37 PDP members joined the newly formed APC. That was after five governors had defected. So why are bitter this time?

Gbajabiamila: When you characterise a process that is devoid of ideology as payback then you do a great disservice to Nigerians. Politics may be a game but must be anchored and played with certain ideological goals in mind and premised on the need for the greater good of Nigerians. That it was done four years ago does not mean it should be celebrated as a quadro annual event. What we should be working against is a repeat in another four years. The absence of clear political ideologies must be discouraged. Parties must have ideologies that differentiate them such that if you decamp from one to the other you will become a laughing stock as someone with no ideological underpinning who swings like a pendulum. Even if you call it payback for one political party what of the people who you represent who elected you most times because of the party you belong.

If you study most advanced democracies its practically impossible to find a single politician defect from one party to another simply because they dont believe in same thing. In the rare case that it happens eg Senator Joe Lieberman in United States he defected from the Democratic Party not to the Republican whose ideology he didnt share as a democrat. Instead he became an independent candidate and thank God the idea of independent candidacy is gradually finding its way into our constitution through the process of constitutional amendment. So please do Nigerians a favour and call this anomaly what it is and not describe it flippantly as pay back. Its the Nigerian that are holding the short end of the stick

PT: As we speak, would you say the APC is in comfortable majority in the House now and how many are you?

Gbajabiamila: The APC has a clear and overwhelming majority in the House of about 196 thereabouts to PDPs 150 or so, a difference of about 40. Thats a big deficit for the PDP. Dont forget that all of the members that defected to ADC have progressive inclinations and we expect them to work with the APC in the House. That there are many members still expected to leave the APC is nothing but wishful thinking. In fact its the other way round. As you know two members so far have joined APC from Akwa Ibom since the so called gale.

PT: Some have said the manner your party, especially the national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole is going about the issue of Saraki is procedurally wrong. The Senate and the House have procedures for electing and removing their presiding officers. These rules are clear. But the national chairman was appears to favour illegal and undemocratic means to remove Saraki. Why is your party desperate?

Gbajabiamila: The national chairman spoke of legality and morality of an opposition member occupying headship of the legislature. I dont know where you find desperation or illegality in the national chairmans conduct.

PT: Four years ago, former Speaker Aminu Tambuwal defected from PDP to APC. You did not only hail him, you made sure he didnt resign. In fact, you protected his seat. Is it not hypocritical asking Saraki to resign, given that the fact that the two issues are the same?

Gbajabiamila: I said at the time the whole House voted for Tambuwal and not just ACN. I stand by that. Whether the whole House voted for someone is not same thing as whether Tambuwals movement to a minority party at the time he should have remained the Speaker. I never addressed that particular issue. Now assuming I did perhaps that was what I thought. There is nothing wrong in changing ones mind in the face of further and better evidence of the law. Indeed what would be wrong will be for one to be an ostrich and remain inflexible just because you dont want to change your position even in face of new and more detailed research. That ability to change in face of a more compelling argument makes you a better person. After all even the Supreme Court has had occasion to reverse itself in the past when they realised they were wrong. The Senate President is a family friend I grew up with and did not know or meet in politics. Thats why this has been particularly difficult for me and I wish the situation was not what it is now. I believe beyond the 2/3rds debate, a constitution or law is interpreted based on the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. If a provision is ambiguous as it apparently is now you look at the intention of the drafters and framers if the constitution. So question is  could it have been the intention of the framers that a minority or opposition member would be a senate president? The answer is clearly no. Any other interpretation will lead to absurdity. If we say yes the law did not mind a situation where such would happen then it means an opposition senate president can use his position to make sure the ruling party/government fails. It would be in his interest to do so, so as to give his opposition party the opportunity to take over government. This could never have been the intention. If I were the senate president and I belonged to the opposition I would make sure the House did not reconvene so the money needed to finance the budget would not be approved by the National Assembly. Or what stops an opposition senate president from appointing all opposition members as committee chairmen including committees needed to make the government function? The midterm elections are coming up in the US in November. If the democrats should regain control of the Congress as speculated Speaker Ryan automatically steps down. Nowhere in the world that I know where constitutional democracy is practiced does the minority party occupy headship of the legislature. Now the provision commonly referred to that the whole House shall elect to mean the whole House shall elect from among the candidates produced by the majority party. This is why I said then that the House elected Tambuwal and not PDP. Even the PDP knows this and that is why even though here was ample opportunity to elect a PDP member as senate president because they were in the majority on the day of election they did not present a candidate. So it really isnt about impeachment or 2/3rds. Its about office eligibility. This is my take. Like I said I have a relationship with the senate president that goes beyond politics and wish it hadnt come to this but it is what it is.

Bukola Saraki, Senate President

PT: The APC caucus in the House of Representatives seems to be divided due to the existence of Parliamentary Support Group led by Abdulmumin Jibrin. Is there anything the caucus is doing to address this?

Gbajabiamila: PSG is a group of lawmakers who have the right of association. However there is only one APC caucus in the House and no other.

PT: What is your relationship with the Speaker considering the fact that you are eyeing the seat in the next assembly?

Gbajabiamila: I enjoy a cordial relationship with the Speaker let no one make a mistake. There is only one Speaker at a time and I have never voiced or otherwise expressed my future intentions to anyone. I am not God.

PT: There are reports indicating that you are facing a stiff opposition in your bid to return as representative of Surulere constituency in 2019. What is the real situation on ground?

Gbajabiamila: Please show me one constituency where there isnt opposition. Its normal and its what makes politics interesting at every level. The concept of direct primaries allows everyone to go out there and test their popularity and level of acceptability.
The Chief Imam of Ijebu-Ode, Mufutau Ayanbadejo, has decried the spate of corruption in Nigeria and urged President Muhammadu Buhari not to relent in the anti-corruption war.

Mr Ayanbadejo made the call while delivering his sermon at the Ijebu-Ode Eid Praying Ground on Tuesday in commemoration of the Eid-el-Kabir celebration.

He said it was worrisome that those perceived to have contributed to the menace of corruption were still walking free in spite of concrete evidence against them.

He added that capital punishment for corrupt practice or long jail terms for high profile personalities would serve as deterrent to others.

The cleric urged politicians to be truthful and accountable and not to fail those who entrusted them with their mandate.

Mr Ayanbadejo also stressed the need for the government to look inwards and initiate programmes and policies that would reduce the level of penury and hunger in the land.

He called on Muslims to live in peace with one another as the Holy Quran preaches.

(NAN)
The president, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Samson Ayokunle, has urged Christians to be part of those driving change on gender violence across the country.

Mr Ayokunle made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.

He said if the Church (Christians) would embark on such assignment the nation would feel equipped and empowered to lead change in the area of gender-based violence.

One of the keys that will help to bring about changes is faith leaders. For a long time, for the desired deep change to become a reality, we need faith leaders to really capture the vision and run with it.

Faith leaders are really well placed to bring people on board and create an enabling environment for transformation in any society.!The leadership of CAN is ready and willing to play their part in preventing violence against women, he said.

He said that a lot of work was needed on violence against women and children across the nation for serious intervention or prosecution of perpetrators.

According to him, faith leaders can often be overlooked, but when they are included then it makes such a huge difference in turning situations around. It will be a game-changer.

I believe the Church can start conversations in all communities through sermons, Bible studies and by inviting in local experts on family violence.

They can also ensure their church has best practice policies and procedures in place to make it a safe and supportive environment for those experiencing or who have experienced violence, he added.

Mr Ayokunle said: Through consistent and persistent teaching, preaching and prayers, the violence vulture against women will become history.

The Bible is against violence in any form and the scripture regards women as weaker vessels compared to men.

There is nowhere in the Bible where violence against women is encouraged. Instead, men are warned against maltreating them if they wanted their prayers to be unhindered.
The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has issued a notice of mass actions over the protracted crisis between the Council of Legal Education (CLE) and National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN)

It said the crisis had hindered the law graduates of the university from admission into the Nigerian Law School for over five years.

A statement by the National Vice President (External affairs) of the association, Taiwo Bamigbade, and made available to journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, said the protest would begin on August 27 and would be in two phases.

Mr Bamigbade said the association had earlier written a letter to notify President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday over the crisis.

The student body had issued a three months ultimatum to the federal government on May 23 to admit the Law graduates from NOUN into the Nigerian Law School.

The student apex body described as unfortunate that its three-month ultimatum to the federal government received no attention, despite the plight of NOUN law students for the past five years instead it continued with gimmicks.

Sequel to our petition dated 23rd May, 2018 in respect of the intimidations, injustices and inhumanity to man meted out to students that were offered admission and graduated in the faculty of law of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).

As stated previously, it amounts to fraud, deceit, discrimination and mischief against the Nigerian students and inhumanity to vulnerable citizens, especially the youths to formally admit, graduate and issue them deficient certificates after several years of study despite financial implication.

We will commence our mass actions with Phase-1 in the Federal Capital Territory from 27th to 31th August.

Consequently, we have decided that enough is enough and shall inevitably shut down the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, against any public activities taking place in the period.

Mr Bamigbade stated that the phase one protest which would be a five-day mass action will take place in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, while phase two will take place on October 1.



NAN also recalls that the judgment of Justice Hilary Oshomah of the Federal High Court. Port-Harcourt, Rivers, on October 4, 2017, hands-off the matter to the academia to resolve.

The bodies include the National Universities Commission (NUC), Council of Legal Education (CLE) and the Federal Ministry of Education.

However, the decision of the court did not go down well with the NOUN, Law Graduates Forum, who stated that the court unconsciously renounced its jurisdiction on all academic and students matters.

The forum also frowned at the nonchalant attitude of the three academic bodies in resolving the misunderstanding despite the judgment.

The letter was copied to the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and Speaker, House of Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara.

Others are: The Minister of Education; Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission; Director-General, Nigerian Law School and the Vice-Chancellor, NOUN. 

(NAN)
A lecturer at the Niger State College of Education, Minna, has been arrested by the police for allegedly facilitating the issuance of fake certificates to unqualified persons, PREMIUM TIMES has learnt.

According to the provost of the college, Yakubu Auna, the lecturer, identified as Mallam Musa, was exposed after a neighbouring institution, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida University, also owned by Niger State, caught two students with fake national certificates in education of the Minna college which they allegedly used to gain direct entry admission to the university.

The facilitation of the fake certificates was then traced to the lecturer who, as well as the two students, is now in police detention.

The lecturer involved has already spent a month in detention while the students were detained for two weeks, the provost told PREMIUM TIMES. We have zero tolerance to malpractices or related scandals. Once they are caught, they will be dismissed and police will do their job.

He refused to disclose the names of the two students suspected to have used forged credentials for admissions.

Some students that spoke with this newspaper under the condition of anonymity said the forgery scandal is not new as many of their senior colleagues had gone undetected before the recent one.

It may be new to the management but not new to us. It is perfected by some staff in connivance with interested students, a student said.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday joined thousands of Muslim faithful to observe the Eid el-Kabir prayer in Daura, Katsina State.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the president arrived the Eid Praying Ground in company of his aides and relatives at about 9.48 a.m.

NAN further reports that the president performed the annual sacrifice of slaughtering of the ram immediately after the prayer session.

He trekked for over 800 metres from the prayer ground to his private residence amidst chanting of `Sai Baba by well-wishers.

Earlier in his sermon, the Chief Imam of Daura, Safiyanu Dansanwai, who led the prayer, stressed the need for peace.

He called on the Muslim ummah to pray for peace, harmony and development of the country.

NAN reports that the Emir of Daura, Farouk Umar, was among the thousands of faithful who performed the two rakaat prayer.

(NAN)
The Director General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu, has declared his intention to contest election for the Senate in 2019.

Mr Okechukwu, in a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday, said he would run on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to represent the Enugu West Senatorial District.

The district is currently represented by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu.

Mr Ekweremadu, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is currently spending his fourth term in the upper legislative chamber of the National Assembly having been elected in 2003.

Before Mr Ekweremadu, the district was represented by Hyde Onuaguluchi of the defunct All Peoples Party (1999-2001) and Ben-Collins Ndu of the PDP (2001-2003).

The VON DG becomes the second APC member from the South-east serving in the President Muhammadu Buhari government to indicate his intention to seek election into the Senate 2019.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, had disclosed on Monday that he was under immense pressure to contest for senatorial election.

Mr Ngige, a former governor of Anambra State, was senator for the state central senatorial district between 2011 and 2015.

In the statement, Mr Okechukwu asked his party members in the district to support his ambition, adding that he would retire Mr Ekweremadu from politics.

My dear APC compatriots, may I seek your endorsement to retire Ike Ekweremadu from the Senate. I pledge to give the good people of Enugu West Senatorial District the following service  selfless, revamp Enugu coal, eastern corridor railway and cassava and rice settlement.

He did not however indicate when he would officially declare his intention in Enugu while confirming his ambition to PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday.

A strong supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Okechukwu was appointed DG of VON in May 2016.

Mr Okechukwu left the ANPP together with Mr Buhari to float the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) from where they left for the APC. He has remained one of Mr Buharis followers since then.

He has repeatedly asked the Igbo to vote Mr Buhari for a second term in 2019, saying doing so would make it easier for one of their own to become the countrys president in 2023.

It is not clear if Mr Ekweremadu would seek reelection into the Senate for a fifth term.

One of his close aides, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak, told PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday that the deputy senate president would unveil his political plan soon.
Yobe State has recorded another peaceful Eid-el-Kabir Sallah celebration, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

The state is one of the three Northeastern states worst hit by Boko Haram activities. The others are Borno and Adamawa.

A correspondent of NAN reported that Muslim faithful conducted their prayers peacefully at various Eid grounds amidst tight security across the state on Tuesday.

The report said the faithful trekked long distances in some places to attend the annual prayers in Damaturu and other major towns.

Security operatives were deployed to strategic positions to keep vigil on individuals and groups tripping to the praying grounds.

A Nigeria Air Force jet was also hovering around the metropolis of the state capital and other places to ensure safety and peaceful celebration in the state.

A 12-hour restriction of vehicular movements was imposed across the state from 10 p.m. on Monday to 10 a.m. on Tuesday to beef up the security.

Meanwhile, movements have resumed with residents in high festive mood and visiting friends and neighbourhoods as part of the celebration.

Governor Ibrahim Gaidam had in his Sallah message assured the commitment of his administration to consolidate the improved security in the state.

He also assured residents of his administrations resolve to improve the welfare of the people.

(NAN)
No fewer than 11 people were feared dead in an auto crash involving a bus, Toyota Corolla and a Hilux van on Ibeto/Kontagora Road in Kontagora Local Government Area of Niger on Tuesday.

Abdullahi Ibrahim, Federal Road Safety Corps Unit Commander in Charge of Kontagora, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kontagora on Tuesday.

Mr Ibrahim said 27 people were involved in the accident, 11 died on the spot while 16 others sustained various degrees of injuries.

He said the bus was heading toward Kebbi, while the Toyota Corolla and Hilux were going to Kontagora.

He added that the accident was caused by wrong overtaking and speeding.

He said bodies of the deceased were deposited at the morgue in Kontagora General Hospital, while the injured were receiving treatment in the same hospital.

The unit commander cautioned motorists against reckless driving, especially during the sallah celebration.

(NAN)
The Kaduna Police Command on Tuesday confirmed the killing of a clerric, Hosea Akuchi of Nasara Baptist Church at Guguwa community of the state.

The gunmen, believed to be kidnappers, also abducted the victims wife, Talatu, after the killing.

The armed men arrived the pastors home located in Igabi local government area around 1am Monday. The attackers then forced their way into the apartment of the clergyman and shot him.

They abducted the wife after leaving the victim in a pool of blood.

The police spokesperson, Yakubu Sabo confirmed the incident to PREMIUM TIMES.

Yes, the unknown armed persons stormed his house in an attempt to kidnap him and maybe there was resistance, so they shot him before taking away his wife.

Our men (police officers) have already visited the scene and investigation has already commenced on how to rescue the wife. So we are still on it, he said.

The officer did not mention whether there was ransom demand from the abductors.

Kidnappers have been terrorising Kaduna residents for months despite the governments effort to tackle the menace.

Last week Sunday, four policemen from the Intelligence Rescue Team unit were shot dead by armed men believed to be kidnappers inside Rigasa forest.

Six of the gunmen were also killed by the police during the gun battle.
On the day Governor Udom Emmanuel described him as the only senator speaking for Akwa Ibom, the anti-graft agency, EFCC, filed corruption charges against Bassey Albert.

Mr Albert is the only senator from Akwa Ibom who is still in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) following the recent defection of Godswill Akpabio to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The EFCC on Monday filed charges at an Ikeja High Court against Mr Albert for allegedly receiving 12 cars worth N254 million as bribes.

Mr Albert, 45, representing Akwa-Ibom North-East, received the vehicles between 2010 and 2014 from Olajide Omokore, a businessman, when he (Albert) served as the Akwa-Ibom Commissioner for Finance under Mr Akpabio as governor, the EFCC said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the EFCC has slammed a 14-count charge bordering on corruption on Messrs Omokore and Albert.

Mr Albert is to face a seven-count charge of bordering on corruption as a public officer and for inviting bribes as a result of his own action.

On his part, Mr Omokore is also facing a seven-count charge bordering on offering gratification to a public officer and giving bribe on account of the action of a public officer.

The duo as well as their counsel were, however, absent in court on Monday when the case was announced for mention at 4.05 p.m. on Monday, according to NAN.

Zainab Ettu, the prosecuting counsel for the EFCC, requested a new court date to enable the anti-graft commission arraign the senator and the businessman.

We do not have the defendants in court today, though we had earlier anticipated that we would have them in court at a later date.

We will be asking for a further date, most preferably, after vacation, she said.

Responding, the vacation judge, Obafemi Adamson noted that the case had not been assigned to a judge, making it difficult to adjourn the case after vacation.

The judge ordered that the case file should be sent to the Registry of the High Court for assignment to a judge, who will hear it.

According to the charge sheet, Mr Albert received the vehicles from Mr Omokore over a five-year period (2010-2014) in Lagos.

Mr Albert allegedly received the bribes while serving as the Akwa-Ibom Commissioner for Finance and Chairman of the Akwa-Ibom State Inter-Ministerial Direct Labour Coordinating Committee (IMDLCC).

On May 10, 2010, Mr Albert allegedly corruptly received a BMW X5 BP worth N50 million from Omokore and another Infinity QX 56 BP worth N45 million from him in December 2012.

On November 2013, the serving senator allegedly received a Toyota Landcruiser V8 BP valued at N40 million. And in March 2014, he allegedly received a Range Rover, also valued at N40 million from the businessman. Also in September 2014, he allegedly received another Toyota Hiace High Roof car valued at N27 million.

Others are Toyota Hiace High Roof car valued at N16 million and six units of Toyota Hilux vehicles valued at N36 million.

The anti-graft commission claimed that the car gifts were given to Mr Albert by Mr Omokore in exchange for contracts from the Akwa-Ibom Government.

The offences, according to the EFCC, contravene Sections 63 (1)(a), 64 (1)(a) and 98(1), (a), (i) of the Criminal Law of Lagos 2011.

Mr Omokore, a controversial businessman, enjoyed a lot of business deals during the tenure of President Goodluck Jonathan. He was also a major financier of the PDP then.

THE ONLY SENATOR

On Monday, the Akwa Ibom Governor, Udom Emmanuel, said Mr Albert was the only senator from the state speaking for the whole of,Akwa Ibom State.

Mr Emmanuel said this on Monday while addressing a large crowd of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members and supporters who turned out at the Onna township stadium for a rally organised by the people of Akwa Ibom South Senatorial District to show solidarity with the governor.

The only man standing! The only man standing! The only man standing! Mr Emmanuel repeatedly shouted to the crowd as he acknowledged the senators presence at the rally.

The crowd responded with the shout of Oba! Oba! Oba! which is the acronym for Obong Bassey Albert.

He is the only senator speaking for the whole of Akwa Ibom State in the Senate, the governor told the crowd.

The governor shouted, One with God.

And the ecstatic crowd responded, .is with the majority!

Mr Albert, the only senator still remaining in the PDP in the state, has vowed not to leave the party and has also pledged political support for Mr Emmanuel.

Governor Emmanuels remarks appear to be a veiled attack on the other two Akwa Ibom senators, Godswill Akpabio and Nelson Effiong, who defected from the PDP to the APC.

There was no indication the crowd at the event on Monday were aware of the corruption charges the senator is now facing, for which he could be jailed for years if found guilty.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities of the Lagos State University, Ojo, has raised alarm that the institutions authority is planning on using security forces to arrest its members on trumped up charges of burglary and theft of documents.

Few weeks ago, the union raised alarm over the professorial promotion of the Vice- Chancellor, Olanrewaju Fagbohun, and petitioned the Governing Council of the university, alleging that his promotion was illegally backdated by the past Registrar of the university, Akinwunmi Lewis, who allegedly misinterpreted the decision of the Council which was taken on May 7, 2014 to promote the vice-chancellor by backdating the promotion to 2008.

PREMIUM TIMES reported the rebuttal of the VC to the allegations of ASUU describing them as unfounded and baseless.

Mr Fagbohun said the registrar of the university at that time never knew that he could become the vice-chancellor in 2016, hence, he could not have started doctoring documents for him in 2014.

Apart from that, in 2012, I wrote a petition that I was entitled to be promoted as far back as 2007/2008 and that the manner they have implemented the rules was unfair to me. The Governing Council took all the petitions and not my own alone.

He said the current Dean of the Faculty of Law was also a beneficiary.

So, to say that the former registrar doctored documents for me to get a chair is a lie. It is just another futile attempt at creating chaos in the university, the VC claimed.

However, ASUU in its fresh statement issued and signed by its Secretary and Assistant Secretary, Tony Dansu and Adeolu Oyekan respectively, said the duo, who had earlier been queried by the management for allegedly being in possession of a secret document of the university, and are currently being monitored by security operatives for possible arrest.

Following the petition and specifically on the 23rd of July, 2018, the Secretary and Assistant Secretary of ASUU-LASU, who signed the petition on behalf of the union, were queried for being in possession of copies of the promotion letter of Dr. Fagbohun. Now, there are claims that the original file copy of the letter is missing at the Faculty of Law, and we are aware that these officers of the union are being monitored by security forces for arrest on trumped up charges of burglary and theft of document.

The union said it was surprised that the vice-chancellor had escalated a purely internal matter by engaging the media, which betrayed the managements position that all internal mechanisms should be exhausted before externalising issues.

The rush to the press is yet another effort to preemptively change the narrative, turn this matter on its head and make the vice-chancellor look like a victim, even as he seeks to silence the union, ASUU said.

Meanwhile, when contacted, the spokesperson of the university, Ademola Adekoya, who spoke on behalf of the VC, denied the allegations of planned arrests.

Mr Adekoya said the VC has no case with the union as there are laid down rules and regulations which led to the query written to the members over the allegations of possessing documents illegally.
Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State on Tuesday joined the Muslim community in Enugu at the Central Mosque, Owerri Road, to celebrate the feast of Eid-el-Kabir, calling for special prayers for President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and other leaders in the country.

Mr Ugwuanyi, who was warmly received amid jubilation by Muslim faithful in the state, including the State Commissioner of Police, Danmallam Mohammed; the State Director, State Security Services, (SSS); and Sarkin Hausawa, Abukakar Sambo, among others, felicitated with them and also called for a special prayer for Enugu State.

The governor expressed delight at the existing peace in Enugu State, which he said was responsible for the security of lives and property in the state, noting that this has brought development.

As you celebrate in this season of sacrifice, may we all continue to see one another as brothers and sisters for the good of our dear state and our dear country Nigeria, he added.

The Muslims, who appreciated the presence of Mr Ugwuanyi at the Mosque to celebrate with them also prayed for him and his administration for the guidance, peace, protection and blessings of Allah. The jubilant Muslim faithful equally commended the governor for the marvelous work he is doing in the state and reiterated their firm support for him in 2019 and beyond.

Speaking, the Sarkin Hausawa, Enugu State, Mr Sambo, added that the feast of Eid-el-Kabir, which is the Eid of sacrifice, equally offered them the opportunity to celebrate the governor, saying: we are also celebrating you because we have seen the significance of today in you.

Mr Sambo disclosed that Mr Ugwuanyi has demonstrated love and a style of leadership that promotes unity, togetherness and love for both religions, maintaining that the governor is indeed a great man, who has visited the mosque on several occasions to identify with them.

According to the Sarkin Hausawa, We the Muslim community in Enugu State assure you that you have our loyalty; you have our support; you have our prayers because you are indeed a friend of Muslims.

The Muslim leader thanked the governor for the Sallah gifts he gave to the community, restating: May your days be long. We are looking not only ahead of 2019; Muslims in Enugu State are looking beyond. Your good work is everywhere.

Also speaking, the leader of the Yoruba Muslim community in the state, Abdulazizi Adebayo, while describing Mr Ugwuanyi as a security manager, compared his cordial relationship with the Muslims to that of late Obafemi Awolowo, saying: You are doing like Awolowo who was not a Muslim but was a friend of Muslims.

In his brief remark, the State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Mohammed noted that the governors presence at mosque to rejoice with Muslims was sign of quality leadership, stressing that, Though a Christian but he decided to join the Muslims on our Sallah day.

His words: His Excellency is a great leader and we will continue to support him to make sure that the good people of Enugu State sleep with their two eyes closed.

As the Yoruba Chief Imam said, he is a security manager. He is beyond a security manager. Truly, he gives us the maximum support we need to operate effectively. We are assuring you that we will not fail you and the good people of Enugu State.

The climax of the event was the presentation of a ram to the governor to celebrate the feast as a friend of Muslims.
Saverio G Greco, age 95, of Princeton Junction, NJ, passed away on October 18 at his home, of natural causes. He was born in Calabria, Italy and came to this country with his family...
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.




WASHINGTON and SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Council of Engineering Companies Business Insurance Trust (BIT) and Greyling/EPIC Insurance Brokers & Consultants announced today leadership changes within the Trust as well as new Trustee appointments. Current Trustees Robin S. Greenleaf, P.E., LEED AP, Robert A. Overfield, P.E., and Michael D. Klingner, P.E. have assumed new leadership roles for the ACEC BIT. Robin will serve as Chair of the BIT Trustees, Robert as Vice Chair, and Michael as Treasurer. Former Chair Gary Loesch, P.E., DEE, will remain involved with the Trust as Trustee Emeritus.

Additionally, Armando Ramos, P.E., LEED AP and Richard Humann, P.E., have been appointed Trustees for the ACEC BIT. "We are very pleased to welcome new Trustees Armando and Rich. With their extensive experience in managing engineering firms in California and the northeastern US, they bring a balanced perspective to the Trust and a thorough understanding of the risks and challenges facing engineering firms today," said Robin.

Armando Ramos is President of Ramos CS, a multi-service infrastructure consulting firm specializing in engineering, program, and construction management. Mr. Ramos has over 22 years of experience working on large-scale transit and transportation systems, international airport expansions, and federal and municipal facilities. Mr. Ramos started his career as a Structural Engineer, where he was responsible for the design of several federal facilities and structures, including the Metro Gold Line underground tunnels and bridges in the Los Angeles area. Armando has held many ACEC leadership roles, with his most recent being ACEC Los Angeles President (2018-2019).

Mr. Richard Humann is Chairman, President, and CEO of H2M architects + engineers; H2M Associates, Inc.; and H2M Architects & Engineers, Inc., where he first started as an engineering intern in 1987. Rich became the CEO in 2013, and since been responsible for the overall performance of the firm, driving the corporate mission, vision, and values of the firm to create a working environment that promotes growth, engagement, and positive culture. "Building sustainable communities since 1933" is H2M's mission, marshalled by Rich in how he motivates and encourages all employees to make sustainable design the foundation of the firm. Rich sits on several charitable, business, and academic boards, including the Engineering Advisory Boards at Stony Brook University and the New York Institute of Technology, and the Corporate Advisory Board of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

The ACEC BIT is responsible for providing quality business insurance responsive to engineering firms' unique needs, delivering exceptional service to ACEC members, and offering valuable and relevant member benefits. The Trustees strive to meet and exceed member firms' expectations and are committed to helping the Program keep pace with changes in the profession.

For additional information regarding the ACEC BIT Program, please contact Jeff Connelly at Greyling/EPIC (833-223-2248 or [email protected]) or any of the following BIT Trustees:

Robin S. Greenleaf, P.E., LEED AP, F.ACEC

Phone: 617.542.0810

Email: [email protected]

Robert A. Overfield, P.E.

Phone: 307.587.4911

Email: [email protected]

Michael D. Klingner, P.E.

Phone: 217.223.3670

Email: [email protected]

Doris I. Willmer, P.E., LEED AP, F.ACEC

Phone: 770.939.9904

Email: [email protected]

Rachel Hayden, P.E.

Phone: 214.753.8100

Email: [email protected]

Armando Ramos, P.E., LEED AP

Phone: 626.993.6786

Email: [email protected]

Richard Humann, P.E.

Phone: 631.756.8000

Email: [email protected]

Marc Alper, P.E., S.E., F.ACEC

Phone: 314.432.8600

Email: [email protected]

Gary E. Loesch, P.E. DEE

Phone: 631.756.8000, ext. 1140

Email: [email protected]

About EPIC:

EPIC is a unique and innovative retail property & casualty and employee benefits insurance brokerage and consulting firm. EPIC has created a values-based, client-focused culture that attracts and retains top talent, fosters employee satisfaction and loyalty, and sustains a high level of customer service excellence.

EPIC team members have consistently recognized their company as a "Best Place to Work" in multiple regions and as a "Best Place to Work in the Insurance Industry" nationally.

EPIC now has more than 1,400 team members operating from 50 offices across the U.S., providing Property & Casualty, Employee Benefits, Specialty Programs, and Private Client solutions to more than 20,000 clients.

With run rate revenues greater than $400 million, EPIC ranks among the top 20 retail insurance brokers in the United States. Backed by Oak Hill Capital Partners, the company continues to expand organically and through strategic acquisitions across the country. For additional information, please visit www.epicbrokers.com.

*LOGO Link for media: Send2Press.com/300dpi/16-0308-epic-insurance-300dpi.jpg

This release was issued through Send2Press, a unit of Neotrope. For more information, visit Send2Press Newswire at https://www.Send2Press.com

SOURCE EPIC Insurance Brokers and Consultants

Related Links

http://www.epicbrokers.com


MONTERREY, Mexico, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- ALFA, S.A.B. de C.V. (ALFA), will host its Investor Day on Thursday, November 15, 2018 in New York City.

The event will begin at 8:00 a.m. EST and feature presentations by ALFA's Chairman Armando Garza, President Alvaro Fernandez, and Chief Financial Officer Eduardo Escalante, as well as executives from each of ALFA's portfolio companies. Presentations will discuss strategic positioning, current business trends, and growth opportunities.

Registration is open to the investment community and required by Monday, November 12, 2018. To register, please email your name, title and company affiliation to Cinthya Araya at [email protected]. Confirmation and additional event details will be provided to individual attendees.

About ALFA

ALFA is a holding company that manages a portfolio of diversified subsidiaries: Sigma, a leading multinational refrigerated food company, focused on the production, marketing and distribution of quality foods through recognized brands in Mexico, Europe, United States and Latin America. Alpek, one of the world's largest producers of polyester (PTA, PET and fibers), and the leader in the Mexican market for polypropylene, expandable polystyrene (EPS) and caprolactam. Nemak, a leading provider of innovative lightweighting solutions for the global automotive industry, specializing in the development and manufacturing of aluminum components for powertrain, structural components and for electric vehicles. Axtel, a provider of Information Technology (IT) and Communication services for the enterprise, government and mass market in Mexico. Newpek, an oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in Mexico and the United States. In 2017, ALFA reported revenues of Ps. 317,627 million (U.S. $16.8 billion), and EBITDA1 of Ps. 38,312 million (U.S. $2.0 billion). ALFA's shares are quoted on the Mexican Stock Exchange and on Latibex, the market for Latin American shares of the Madrid Stock Exchange.

SOURCE ALFA, S.A.B. de C.V.
DUBLIN, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN) today announced it received a Complete Response Letter (CRL) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in response to the New Drug Application (NDA) for ulipristal acetate (UPA) for the treatment of abnormal uterine bleeding in women with uterine fibroids.

The letter from the FDA indicates it is not able to approve the ulipristal acetate NDA in its current form and is requesting additional information. The agency cited safety concerns regarding ESMYA post-marketing reports outside the United States. Allergan plans to meet with the FDA to discuss their comments and next steps.

"Allergan continues to believe in the need for novel treatment options for women who are looking for a non-surgical treatment for uterine fibroids," said David Nicholson, Chief Research and Development Officer, Allergan. "We intend to meet with the FDA to discuss the Complete Response Letter and determine the potential next steps for our ulipristal acetate NDA."

The New Drug Application for ulipristal acetate included the results of a robust clinical trial program which included two U.S. Phase 3 clinical trials and all Phase 3 EU registration studies as well as real-world data in more than 700,000 women with uterine fibroids across 80 countries worldwide.

About Ulipristal Acetate

Ulipristal acetate, an investigational drug in the U.S. for the medical treatment of abnormal uterine bleeding in women with uterine fibroids, is a selective progesterone receptor modulator (SPRM), which acts directly on the progesterone receptors in three target tissues: the endometrium (uterine lining), uterine fibroids, and the pituitary gland. In the U.S, the safety and efficacy of ulipristal acetate has been evaluated in two North American Phase 3 studies (Venus I and VENUS II) of more than 500 adult women of reproductive age.

In addition to the Venus I and II trials, the efficacy of ulipristal acetate has been demonstrated in a series of four, multi-center, Phase 3, European trials involving more than 1,000 women with uterine fibroids. In Europe, ulipristal acetate is marketed under the trade name Esmya by Gedeon Richter. In Canada, ulipristal acetate is available under the trade name Fibristal and marketed by Allergan. Esmya and Fibristal are currently approved for the pre-operative and intermittent treatment of moderate to severe symptoms of uterine fibroids in adult women of reproductive age.

About Allergan plc

Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN), headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is a bold, global pharmaceutical leader. Allergan is focused on developing, manufacturing and commercializing branded pharmaceutical, device, biologic, surgical and regenerative medicine products for patients around the world.

Allergan markets a portfolio of leading brands and best-in-class products for the central nervous system, eye care, medical aesthetics and dermatology, gastroenterology, women's health, urology and anti-infective therapeutic categories.

Allergan is an industry leader in Open Science, a model of research and development, which defines our approach to identifying and developing game-changing ideas and innovation for better patient care. With this approach, Allergan has built one of the broadest development pipelines in the pharmaceutical industry.

Allergan's success is powered by our global colleagues' commitment to being Bold for Life. Together, we build bridges, power ideas, act fast and drive results for our customers and patients around the world by always doing what is right.

With commercial operations in approximately 100 countries, Allergan is committed to working with physicians, healthcare providers and patients to deliver innovative and meaningful treatments that help people around the world live longer, healthier lives every day.

For more information, visit Allergan's website at www.Allergan.com.

Forward-Looking Statement

Statements contained in this press release that refer to future events or other non-historical facts are forward-looking statements that reflect Allergan's current perspective on existing trends and information as of the date of this release. Actual results may differ materially from Allergan's current expectations depending upon a number of factors affecting Allergan's business. These factors include, among others, the difficulty of predicting the timing or outcome of FDA approvals or actions, if any; the impact of competitive products and pricing; market acceptance of and continued demand for Allergan's products; the impact of uncertainty around timing of generic entry related to key products, including RESTASIS, on our financial results; risks associated with divestitures, acquisitions, mergers and joint ventures; uncertainty associated with financial projections, debt reduction, projected cost reductions, projected synergies, restructurings, increased costs, and adverse tax consequences; difficulties or delays in manufacturing; and other risks and uncertainties detailed in Allergan's periodic public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to Allergan's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017 and Allergan's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended June 30, 2018. Except as expressly required by law, Allergan disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

CONTACTS:

Allergan:

Investors:

Daphne Karydas

(862) 261-8006

Karina Calzadilla

(862) 261-7328

Media Relations:

Amy Rose

(862) 289-3072

Fran DeSena

(862) 261-8820

SOURCE Allergan plc

Related Links

http://www.allergan.com


MILL VALLEY, Calif., Aug 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Glassdoor, one of the world's largest and fastest growing job sites, today announced it will host Glassdoor Recruit, a one-day recruiting conference on Thursday, September 27 in Chicago aimed at helping employers hire the best. Glassdoor Recruit will offer insights, best practices and industry trends to help employers of all sizes and across diverse industries recruit and retain the best candidates on the market today. People can register to attend and learn more on Glassdoor for Employers.

Broadcast for free via livestream, Glassdoor Recruit will offer a fireside chat featuring Amazon VP of Worldwide People Operations Ardine Williams with Glassdoor founder and CEO Robert Hohman. During this conversation, Williams will discuss the future of recruiting and the important role of today's talent acquisition and hiring professionals in leading overall company success.

At this time, Glassdoor Recruit livestream speakers include:

Amazon  VP of Worldwide People Operations, Ardine Williams

 VP of Worldwide People Operations, Slack  VP of People, Robby Kwok

 VP of People, T-Mobile  Head of Diversity and Inclusion, Holli Martinez

 Head of Diversity and Inclusion, Johnson & Johnson  Global VP of Talent Acquisition and People Experience, Sjoerd Gehring

 Global VP of Talent Acquisition and People Experience, Anthem  Chief Diversity Officer, Tracy Edmonds

 Chief Diversity Officer, Glassdoor  CEO, Robert Hohman

 CEO, Glassdoor  Chief Economist, Dr. Andrew Chamberlain , Ph.D.

In addition to the livestream, the 400+ in-person attendees will hear exclusive perspectives, tips, and trends from leading industry experts on how to recruit and hire better, including how to recruit with Glassdoor and more. Exclusive in-person only content will feature:

Kellogg  VP of Global Talent, Tammy Winnie on Screening for Retention

 VP of Global Talent, on Screening for Retention Salesforce  Director of Recruiting, Jen Price on Leveraging Employee Engagement to Recruit

 Director of Recruiting, on Leveraging Employee Engagement to Recruit WeWork  Director of Talent Attraction, Andrew Levy on Attracting the Best Candidates

 Director of Talent Attraction, on Attracting the Best Candidates The Oprah Winfrey Show  Former Executive Director of Talent Acquisition and Producers on Building the Team Behind Oprah's Meteoric Rise

Glassdoor Recruit will take place at Chicago's modern and sophisticated Venue SIX10. The complete agenda is available on Glassdoor for Employers. In addition to learning how to recruit and hire more effectively, Glassdoor Recruit attendees will experience the following:

How to Hire to Win: Learn the strategies that leading organizations are using to make better hires, eliminate bias, and recruit the right people to help their companies succeed.

Fast-Paced Format: Hear dynamic speakers share engaging stories and strategies in short and informative mainstage and breakout sessions.

Connect with Industry Leaders: Build quality connections with the most influential leaders in the recruiting and hiring space through interactive group breakouts and networking events.

Tickets to attend the event in Chicago are available for a limited time, starting at $595. The event is open to all HR practitioners, talent acquisition professionals, recruiters, executives and anyone else involved in hiring.

To register to attend in-person or via Livestream visit: glassdoor.com/recruit

About Glassdoor

Glassdoor combines all the latest jobs with millions of reviews and insights to make it easy for people to find a job that is uniquely right for them. As a result, Glassdoor helps employers hire truly informed candidates at scale through effective recruiting solutions like job advertising and employer branding products. Launched in 2008, Glassdoor now has reviews and insights for over 800,000 companies located in more than 190 countries. For more information, visit glassdoor.com.

Glassdoor is a registered trademark of Glassdoor, Inc.

SOURCE Glassdoor

Related Links

http://www.glassdoor.com


The striking design, created by OUTFRONT Studios, OUTFRONT's in-house creative studio, includes Babbo's spaghetti that extends out in front of the display by two feet, and an LED backlit dish that entices commuters on their way home to eat like an Italian. Inspired by the Babbo's award-winning interior design, OUTFRONT Studios crafted a display that aligns with the brand and expresses the passion that goes into creating Babbo's classic dish.

"The OUTFRONT Studios creative team was eager to work with Babbo to create a design that shared their story and history in a way that raised awareness around their passion for classic Italian cuisine," said Dave Wood, Regional Vice President at OUTFRONT Media. "Our out-of-home assets continue to be great platforms for engaging large audiences on the go. We were ecstatic to help illuminate this local Phoenix treasure."

Located on I-17 heading north near Thomas Road, the creative will run the rest of the year, highlighting the visual diversity the OOH medium affords brands.

"We are passionate about making the best spaghetti and meatballs in the city and wanted to get the word out in a big way. No better way to get the message out then a billboard with a giant 3D plate of our classic Italian dish!" said Ken Pollack, Owner of Babbo. "The display has only been up for a few days, and already we have people coming into the restaurant saying they saw our billboard, and it reminded them to come in and have their favorite Italian meal."

About OUTFRONT Media Inc.

OUTFRONT Media connects brands with consumers outside of their homes through one of the largest and most diverse sets of billboard, transit, and mobile assets in North America. Through its ON Smart Media platform, OUTFRONT Media is implementing digital technology that will fundamentally change the ways advertisers engage people on-the-go.

SOURCE OUTFRONT Media Inc.

Related Links

http://www.outfrontmedia.com


MONTREAL, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Caprion Biosciences announced today that the company acquired Primity Bio Inc., a specialized provider of biomarker and immune monitoring services located in Fremont, California. Caprion will leverage Primity's strong technological capabilities and innovative track record to further expand its immunology and molecular profiling service offering as well as its ability to globally support its clients.

"The acquisition of Primity Bio provides us access to highly complementary and well-differentiated biomarker and immune monitoring services while considerably expanding our geographic reach to better support the global clinical needs of our clients," said Martin Leblanc, President and CEO of Caprion. "Building on the acquisition of ImmuneHealth, which delivered a critical European footprint, this US expansion and the opportunity to work with the highly talented and innovative scientific team at Primity significantly enhances our ability to deliver on Caprion's service diversification and international expansion strategy."

Founded in 2010 by Peter Krutzik, PhD, and Tom Wehrman, PhD, Primity Bio is a leading provider of cutting-edge flow cytometry services with deep expertise in assay development, early drug discovery, pre-clinical animal sample analysis, biomarker discovery, and advanced human clinical sample analysis. Using the latest in single-cell analysis technologies, Primity specializes in highly complex immunophenotyping, intracellular signaling, cell sorting (FACS), and high-parameter CyTOF (mass cytometry) analysis. "Joining forces with Caprion will provide critical commercial channels to deliver our innovative services to a broader array of global biopharma partners and facilitate the launch of our distributed cloud computing flow cytometry analysis software, CellEngine," said Peter Krutzik, CEO of Primity Bio. "Primity's proprietary technologies for biomarker discovery, cell signaling analysis by flow cytometry, and combination of pre-clinical and clinical capabilities are true differentiators in the industry, and are highly complementary to Caprion's existing services and CAP/CLIA-certified laboratories," added Tom Wehrman, Primity's VP of R&D.

This announcement marks Caprion's second acquisition since GHO Capital's investment in July 2016. With this acquisition, Caprion adds an operational location in the US in addition to those of its headquarters in Montreal, Canada, and its European site in Gosselies, Belgium, acquired in 2016. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

About Caprion Biosciences, Inc. Caprion Biosciences is the leading provider of specialized immunology and proteomics laboratory services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Its immune monitoring business unit, ImmuneCarta, offers proprietary multiparametric flow cytometry services for functional analyses of innate and adaptive immune responses. Caprion has achieved top-tier growth in recent years based on its expanding offering and increasing demand for high-quality immune-monitoring services in patients treated with innovative immunomodulating drugs and vaccines for immuno-oncology, infectious, and autoimmune diseases. Caprion's proteomics business unit, ProteoCarta, offers proprietary gel-free, label-free mass spectrometry (MS) for comprehensive, quantitative, and robust comparative measurement of proteins across large sets of biological samples for the discovery and validation of protein biomarkers. This platform has also enabled the deployment of novel services for the identification and quantification of neoepitopes, as well as for pharmacokinetics analysis and characterization of host cell protein impurities of biologic drugs. For more information, please visit www.caprion.com.

About Primity Bio. Primity Bio was founded in 2010 with the goal of bringing innovative flow cytometry platforms to biopharma for use throughout the drug discovery process, from lead selection through clinical trial sample analysis. Its discovery unit provides specialized platforms that include profiling of cell surface and intracellular signaling proteins, high-speed cell sorting by FACS, and deep interrogation of drug mechanism of action. Primity's clinical unit delivers fully customized and complex immunophenotyping, receptor occupancy, and cell signaling assays of clinical samples for exploratory pharmacodynamic analysis. Primity also offers analysis of pre-clinical and clinical samples by CyTOF (mass cytometry) which expands the number of measurable biomarkers per sample to over 35. For further information, please visit www.primitybio.com.

About GHO Capital (Global Healthcare Opportunities), or GHO Capital Partners LLP. GHO was founded in 2014 as a specialist healthcare investment adviser based in London. Its vision is to apply global capabilities and perspectives to build a world-class healthcare specialist private equity firm by recognising and seizing the highly attractive and underpenetrated European market opportunity. The firm has a powerful combination of transaction, investment, and industry skills which sets it apart from traditional private equity firms. For further information, please visit www.ghocapital.com.

SOURCE Caprion Biosciences

Related Links

www.caprion.com


DALLAS, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Ray Waddell, Founder and CEO of CEC Companies, a specialty services contractor in Irving, Texas, was selected as an honoree for the Dallas Business Journal's 2018 Most Admired CEOs Awards in the Construction/Building & Engineering category.

The 2018 Most Admired CEOs are being honored for the impressive stewardship of their companies, specifically in cultivating an inclusive, collaborative culture. These North Texas leaders inspire those around them, hold their employees, products and services in the highest regard, run their companies with integrity and are excellent examples of how all companies should be run and managed.

About CEC Companies

CEC Companies is a privately-held specialty services contractor company providing electrical, mechanical and technology construction, service, repair and installation solutions to some of the largest companies in the United States.

LinkedIn

http://www.linkedin.com/company/ceccompanies

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/ceccompanies

Dallas Business Journal CEO Honorees article

https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2018/08/10/honorees-in-most-admired-ceo-awards-announced.html#g/439747/28

SOURCE CEC Companies

Related Links

http://www.cec-companies.com


PETALUMA, Calif., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- How can CEOs most efficiently guide their organizations? A recent study by the Harvard Business Review suggests that setting a clearly defined agenda and surrounding oneself with a dynamic leadership team are highly valuable tools that allow CEOs to optimize resources. Without these in place, the loudest constituencies and most immediate concerns take over, and a lot of important work is done less effectively. According to the study, a good agenda sets priorities and is more of a matrix addressing specific matters with open-ended priorities than a linear, rigid outline. Further, having a trusted team allows more time to pursue the agenda. Brandon Frere, CEO of Frere Enterprises and other ventures, understands the need to create an agenda to guide steady progress on multiple, simultaneous work streams while fluidly responding to emerging issues.

"Having an agenda can really bring focus to an organization," said Frere. "And having a solid leadership team in place is absolutely essential. As issues arise, no matter how severe, we need a team in place I can trust to handle it and the agenda to set the direction and goals to move forward with the work that we have prioritized."

According to the study, nearly 36 percent of the day was spent reacting to internal issues, such as team conflict or a product safety failure, or external issues, such as a cyberattack or even a natural disaster. Though these more extreme incidences were rare, CEOs were forced to expend resources at high rates, while still working toward desired outcomes.

One way CEOs furthered their agenda was to limit routine responsibilities. Over 10 percent of CEO time was spent on routine duties such as review meetings, board meetings and greeting new employees. The study revealed that CEOs need to look hard at each of these activities and decide which are essential for the well-being of the organization and which might be more efficiently given up to make time to pursue the agenda.

Further, CEOs can advance their agenda by having confidence in their leadership team. A correlation was discovered in that the more confidence that CEOs had in their direct reports (staff reporting directly to a CEO), the more time CEOs spent with them, furthering the agenda of the organization. Conversely, the less confidence a CEO had in direct reports, the more time they had to spend dealing with work that should have gotten done and cleaning up after substandard work, taking time away from agenda-driven goals. Direct reports who could be trusted to do more than manage the status quo helped the CEO take the company to a new level.

"I have been so lucky to surround myself with a team I can trust," said Frere, "so that our organization can stay focused on our agenda, continuing to add value to the lives of our clients and employees."

About Frere Enterprises

Brandon Frere is an entrepreneur and businessman who lives in Sonoma County, California. He has designed and created multiple companies to meet the ever-demanding needs of businesses and consumers. His company website, www.FrereEnterprises.com, is used as a means to communicate many of the lessons, fundamentals and information that he has learned throughout his extensive business and personal endeavors. Most recently, Frere has focused on advocating on behalf of student loan borrowers nationwide.

As he experienced during his own student loan repayment, Mr. Frere found out how difficult it can be to work with federally contracted student loan servicers and understand the repayment programs designed to help borrowers. This firsthand knowledge has helped him gain an insider's look into the repayment process and the motivations behind the inflating student loan debt bubble. His knowledge of the confusing landscape of student loan repayment became a vital theme in his endeavors and he now uses those experiences to help guide others through the daunting process of applying for federal repayment and loan forgiveness programs.

FrereEnterprises.com

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SOURCE Frere Enterprises

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HOUSTON, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- David Cam, 2017 World Oil Awards Finalist in the "Innovative Thinker" category and CEO of Hydrus Technology, continues to demonstrate the effectiveness of the company's patented solution in markets, such as landfill, mining, and oil and gas. Hydrus is a proven leader in championing innovative solutions for complex wastewater challenges, provides clients superior operational, economic, commercial, and environmental wastewater treatment results not previously available.

The company recently demonstrated its commercial scale landfill leachate solution providing treated water suitable for land application and/or safe environmental release using HTX Solution's proprietary, mobile scalable, and relocatable wastewater treatment technology. This innovative technology turns contaminated wastewater into water that meets Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards or client-specified water quality targets.

Mr. Cam elaborated on why Hydrus is at the leading edge of a global paradigm shift in wastewater treatment, "Untreated wastewater contaminates soil, waterways, damages the environment and pollutes drinking water sources. This is a global problem and we have developed the solution to protect one of the world's most precious natural resources today and in the future." The Hydrus CEO goes on to say, "We have engineered technology that sets new benchmarks for cost-effective treatment enabling reuse, sale, or safe environmental release, as well as the recovery of saleable minerals and other value add commodities. The HTX Solution removes complex wastewater contaminants that other removal systems cannot thereby providing clients a total treatment solution with a minimal amount of non-hazardous waste."

The HTX Solutions' technology is capturing the attention of the industrial and investment communities, and giving the competition pause. Clients appreciate the treatment is on-site, mobile, and fully scalable with a small operational footprint. From a cost standpoint, the "Water as a Service" model allows customers to pay per volume of water treated with no capital investment required.

Hydrus developed a strategic partnership with a US-based heavy equipment manufacturer combining their unparalleled global dealer network with HTX's deep technical expertise and innovative technology providing unmatched service and delivery excellence to clients' most complex wastewater challenges across the globe. More about the HTX Solution, and Mr. Cam's prescience and entrepreneurship driving the pursuit to deliver this groundbreaking technology, can be viewed in his recent exclusive interview with Proactive.

About Hydrus Technology (HTX):

Hydrus Technology Holdings, a technology company founded in Australia with its U.S. headquarters in Houston, Texas. HTX is at the leading edge of a paradigm shift in wastewater treatment. The company has developed advanced, resource-efficient, flexible electrochemical technologies with broad application across industries including landfill, mining, industrial, oil and gas, food production, and other applications. The company's technology has positioned Hydrus to address some of the world's toughest commercial, natural resource, and environmental challenges. For more information about Hydrus Technology, visit www.hydrustech.com.

CONTACT:

Suzanne Palmer

571-332-9778

[email protected]

SOURCE Hydrus Technology

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BEIJING and HONG KONG, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Chinasoft International (SEHK: 00354) announced today its 2108 interim results.

For the first half of the 2018, the Group's business achieved high growth. Its revenue, service revenue, profit for the period, and net profit attributable to the owners of the Group achieved a YoY growth of 16.1%, 17.9%, 48.0%, and 44.9%.

RMB'000 2018H1 2017H1 Growth Revenue 4,813,853 4,145,060 16.1% Service Revenue 4,770,267 4,047,248 17.9% Profit for the Period 355,805 240,445 48.0% Net Profit Attributable to Equity Shareholders 358,759 245,470 46.2% Basic EPS(RMB cents) 14.87 10.26 44.9%

For the first half of 2018, the Group accelerated its global service layout with its cloud driven digitalization services and continued to improve its overall competitiveness. The Group ranked 7th in the latest "Top 100 Most Competitive Chinese Software Enterprises" (and continues to rise in rankings), and became the backbone of China's software and ITS development. It plays a leading role in industrial innovation and upgrade transformations of government and enterprise customers.

A. Focus on Large Customers and Promote Comprehensive Strategic Partnerships.

During the reporting period, the Group continued its in-depth partnerships with large customers including Huawei, HSBC, Tencent, Ping-An, and etc. Through its "zero distance" innovative service, the Group understood its customers' demands better, improved its management capabilities, and increased quality and delivery efficiencies. Furthermore, the Group combined cloud services with its Internet platform to provide Chinese and global enterprises with more capabilities, values, and more smart technologies, creating a new ecosystem in the digital world.

During the reporting period, the Group strengthened its partnership with Huawei, and was named "Huawei Cloud's Best Partner". The oversea strategic partnership achieved substantial breakthrough in Malaysia, Myanmar, India, and etc. The Group was introduced into Huawei's "Service Provider Development Program," becoming its trustworthy strategic partner.

HSBC's line of business progressed steadily. The Group participated in the development HSBC's third generation global commercial banking platform and HSBC risk control department's key project, and completed the upgrade of a HSBC's brand new online banking system infrastructure. The online banking line of business grew 30% YoY. During the reporting period, the HSBC SME digitalization line of business achieved breakthrough in global servicing capabilities. The Group's delivery team in Xi'an surpassed that of in England and India, gaining competitive advantages.

During the reporting period, Tencent software service line of business grew rapidly. The Group's Guangzhou WeChat line of business expanded quickly, and the Group worked a WeSure, a subsidiary of Tencent, to signed its first customer project. Furthermore, Ants Financial oversea payment project was launched in Indonesia, reaching a certain scale. Ali Mama's advertisement audit business was also implemented. Lastly, the Group formed a strategic partnership with Baidu in artificial intelligence, specifically in technology enablement, market expansion, innovative technologies, and etc.

During the reporting period, the Group continued to strengthen its comprehensive strategic partnership with Ping-An. The Group and Ping-An signed a strategic cooperation to jointly develop the Shenzhen Smart IT project. Furthermore, the Group and Ping-An Insurance continued its in-depth partnership and upgraded the partnership model. The Group will leverage its mobile, big data, and other capabilities to help Ping-An Insurance connect to its clients (precise matching).

B. Accelerate the Strategic Transformation: Emerging Business Grew Rapidly

During the reporting period, the emerging business, largely represented by JointForce, cloud, and big data businesses, achieved high growth. The revenue of the emerging business was RMB 741.655 million and accounted for 15.4% of the total revenue, representing a YoY growth of 95%. Through the accelerated implementation of the transformation strategy, the Group's revenue structure and profitability improved during the reporting period. The new generation cloud driven, platform IT enterprise's value will continue to blossom.

1. JointForce Sees Positive Results, With the Implementation of the "Cloud Integrative Service" Completing Its Ecosystem Blueprint

The JointForce platform has been commercialized for three years now, and has continued to enrich its services, upgrade its business model, and accelerate the growth of its servicing capabilities. JointForce's resources now span across 400 cities (districts and counties). The volume of the work posted in the first half of 2018 was RMB 1.2 billion, and has completed over 10,000 enterprises' precision profiling and due diligence. JointForce has truly established a cloud ecosystem focusing in software development.

Focusing on the software service demand of the Government, JointForce launched its "Cloud Integrative Service" solution. This solution, through establishing a cloud integrative service platform, helps the government with IT services, including online purchasing transaction services, due diligence for service providers based on enterprise big data. This solution is being quickly recognized, approved, applied and promoted. It is in operation in Nanjing, has reached a pilot phase in Xi'an, and reached a strategic agreement with the Zhejiang government. Furthermore, JointForce's "Cloud Integrative Service" team has penetrated the top 50 GDP cities in the country and helped over tens of thousands of software service providers undergo digital due diligence, completing precision profiling.

"Cloud Software Parks" continued to be promoted, serving Jiangsu, Shandong, Hubei, Anhui, Chongqing, Zhejiang, Fujian, and other provinces. There are close to 1,000 people ("army") there to promote locally and provide local services. In these regions, JointForce software ecosystems are beginning to form.

During the reporting period, the Group focused on intelligent manufacturing. JointForce adhered to the "China Manufacture 2025 Core Integrators" development initiative and formed strategic partnerships with ESI Group (France), Haier, Phoenix Contacts (Germany), Fast, Nari Information and Telecommunication, and other prominent domestic enterprises as well as multiple governments. JointForce and Haier's COSMOPlat platform will go hand in hand to fully promote the industrial intelligent manufacturing cloud ecosystem. In the virtual prototyping field, the Group migrated ESI Group's industrial virtual prototype solution onto the cloud and fully realized "Honeycomb's" intelligent manufacturing integration capabilities. Through cloud, the Group will be able to distribute this solution to the Chinese manufacturers and crease a virtual prototype application ecosystem through "JointForce + Honeycomb".

During the reporting period, the Group continued to expand in the artificial intelligence and industrial software industries. The Group formed a strategic partnership with the Nanjing Turning Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, founded by Academician Yao Zhizhi. Together they will establish the JointForce Turning Research Institute and accelerate the evolution of AI technology products. Furthermore, the Group will also jointly promote the construction of the "Industrial Software International Cooperation Industrial Base" with the China Electronic Information Industry Association.

2. Cloud Business Grows Steadily and Its Business Scope Expands

During the reporting period, the Group's cloud line of business grew steadily, successfully realized overseas cloud business layout, and successfully expanded its business scope with Huawei Cloud, Tencent Cloud, and Baidu Cloud. The Group was nominated for 100% third-party service software operation and maintenance supporting project of Huawei's e-government PaaS platform; it completed Huawei cloud and multiple e-government cloud migration projects, and provided cloud migration service for near 40 users and about 180 application and business systems, with the number of cumulatively migrated cloud hosts over 1,100 and total data volume near 700T. The Group passed the certification of independent software vendor (ISV) of Tencent cloud and obtained Tencent Cloud's subcontracting channel. The Group successfully developed a cloud deployment solution based on Microsoft enterprise applications. The Group introduced mature Azure-based cloud service capacity, built a joint team with members from China, the US and India, developed the "Hosting" solution of Huawei cloud for Microsoft products, and realized the globalized layout of cloud services. During the reporting period, the Group's enterprise cloud disk capabilities reached an industry leading position, and expanded its business to Southeast Asia, Africa, and other regions.

3. Big Data Business Continues to Expand Its Industry Leading Position, Fueled by Success in Multiple Industries

During the reporting period, following the strategy of exploring in-depth solutions and focusing on the industry, the Group continued to strive in different industries and won landmark project, continuing to expand its industry leading position. In the banking, securities, insurance, and other sub-segment of the finance industry, the Group will continue to focus on the quality customers, understand the industry need, and continue to upgrade its services. In the airport industry, the Group won the bid for the Beijing New Airport Intelligent Data Center System Project and the Wuhan Tianhe Airport Intelligent Data Warehouse Construction Project. In the public transportation industry, the Group successfully won the bid for the Jiangsu Province One Card Platform data mining project, the Beijing One Card Big Data Platform Project and the Xi'an City Running Big Data Project.

In the first half of 2018, facing the complex situation of the US-China trade war, fluctuation of currency in emerging markets, and the volatility of the stock market, the Group remained resolute towards its strategy. Firmly believing in its strategic transformation, the Group formed an employee owned fund, which increased its shares of the Group during this period, showing the Group's confident in future business development. This action solidified the capital market's confident in the Group.

Under the opportunity of the digital China transformation, the Group will, in the future, penetrate the government and enterprise market. Through the JointForce software ecosystem platform, the Group will continue to export new technologies, form new businesses, establish new ecosystem, ignite new motives, and to fully utilize the Group cloud service and top IT design capabilities to drive the Group to optimize the revenue structure and realize business model upgrade. The Group will continue to become a global IT service leader with comprehensive strength and outstanding innovation capabilities.

About ChinaSoft International Limited (SEHK:354)

Founded in 2000, ChinaSoft International Limited is a listed company on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with its code of 354.HK. It is a leading China based comprehensive software and information services provider, ranging from end-to-end services of consulting, solution, outsourcing and talent training. It serves clients in manufacturing, finance, telecommunication, high-tech, transportation, energy and also the government. The Company provides global services to over 100 multinational companies with close to 54,000 employees located worldwide including mainland China, Hong Kong, Princeton, Seattle, London, Tokyo and etc. For more information, please visit www.chinasofti.com.

SOURCE ChinaSoft International Ltd.
From Japanese frying techniques to Chinese noodle steam and boil technology, from its origin in Japan to reinvention in China, after 60 years of development, the instant noodle industry is witnessing a major transformation. With Laofanjia Instant Noodle Shop Noodles, Jinmailang achieves a quantum leap in technology, from "Made in China" to "Created in China", as the new technology represents a paradigmatic shift from the traditional frying approach, restoring the full flavor of noodle shop noodles and giving birth to a second, new generation of instant noodles.

On the eve of the 9th World Instant Noodle Summit to be held in Osaka, the press conference of Chinese noodle steam and boil technology themed on "Reinventing Instant Noodles after 60 Years, Instant Noodles Enter the Era of Instant Noodle Shop Noodles" was held in Tokyo's Ginza district on August 21, attracting the attention of numerous local media.

During the launch event, Jinmailang founder Fan Xianguo shared the story behind the new product. As a food connoisseur, Mr. Fan has devoted himself to the research of traditional Chinese food culture for decades. Inspired by the tradition of steaming buns and boiling noodles found in Chinese households, he created Laofanjia Instant Noodle Shop Noodles through a combination of steaming and boiling processes. The new product maintains to the fullest the soft and chewy texture as well as the nutrients of traditional boiled noodles. Now, any consumer anywhere in the world at anytime can enjoy the freshly cooked taste of noodle shop noodles. After trying the new noodles at the launch, a leading Japanese noodle chef immediately gave them two thumbs up, proclaiming the taste to be just as soft and chewy as noodles freshly cooked in a noodle shop.

As one of the world's top gourmet cultures, China has a long-established tradition of steamed and boiled foods. As Gushikao, a collection of papers on Chinese classical studies, records, "Since the reign of the Yellow Emperor (circa BCE 2717), the Chinese people have had a tradition of steaming rice and boiling porridge." As such, steaming and boiling, a culinary tradition dating back several millennia, is a cultural DNA that has been kept alive from generation to generation. The epoch-making non-fry steam and boil process was inspired by Chinese cooking techniques handed down over thousands of years. This new product, which faithfully reproduces the flavor as well as the soft and chewy texture of noodles freshly served in a restaurant, is being hailed by the media as a reinvention of instant noodles. Jinmailang plans to launch the Laofanjia Instant Noodle Shop Noodles in supermarkets across Japan and share the Chinese culture of steaming and boiling with consumers in and outside China.

SOURCE Jinmailang
SAO PAULO, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- CHINT will hold the "CHINT, Turn on the Love" solar donation ceremony at 14:00, August 29th Brazil Time at ENIE 2018, where CHINT will also be exhibiting from August 28th to 29th in Stand No. i13, White Green Expo Center Norte. The principal of the University of UNIFEBE, Mr. Gunther Lother Pertschy will be present at the ceremony to receive this high technology donation from the General Manager of CHINT Latin America, Jacky Xiang.

The solar system that will be donated to the University of UNIFEBE will replace the normal parking shed with solar panels, converting sunlight to solar energy. This system can not only help the university save on electricity costs, but also offers a solar system research demonstration for the engineering students interested in new energy development.

"CHINT, Turn on the Love" is a project initiated in 2017 by CHINT, aimed at helping society solve the world's energy shortage problems. CHINT Solar, the business unit of CHINT founded in 2006 for the production of high quality monocrystalline and polycrystalline photovoltaic modules, will provide its reliable and professional solar systems to schools, hospitals and welfare institutions to over 15 countries, including Brazil, Czech Republic, Egypt, Ghana, India, and Kenya.

As a leading global electrical equipment and integrated supplier, CHINT is committed to providing the world with safe, reliable and stable electrical equipment and clean energy solutions. As a member of the global family, CHINT never shirks its social responsibility and takes world charity as its duty.

In 2009, CHINT established a charity foundation with a registered capital of 90 million RMB (around US $9.13 million). Through the years, CHINT has spent more than 300 million RMB (around US $44 million) to support different activities such as "low carbon" series campaigns and student financial aid; disaster relief efforts for earthquakes, floods, and other disasters; and other charity projects.

SOURCE CHINT
In addition to providing a venue for the world's top big data firms to highlight their latest products and breakthroughs, SCE 2018 will also be a platform for interactions and discussions among industry professionals, playing host to over 400 business, government, and academic dignitaries such as Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma, Tencent CEO Pony Ma, Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon, and former Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong.

"Big data and smart technology are profoundly changing economic patterns, lifestyles and social governance," said Tang Liangzhi, Mayor of Chongqing, traditionally a manufacturing hub in western China." Chongqing has adopted an innovation-driven growth strategy and holding SCE will help promote the development of big data and smart technology in the city."

With more than 180,000 square meters of floor space, SCE 2018 will focus on sectors such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI) and supercomputers with the newest and most advanced "smart" products and technologies on display. For example, Chongqing Jinshan Science & Technology (Group) will showcase its newly-developed surgical robot, which makes remote surgery possible.

In addition, there will be a "smart experience area" at SCE 2018 where visitors can experience what life will be like as we incorporate new technologies such as facial recognition, smart parking, and AI consulting services into daily life. Roadshows, conferences, and contests will also be held at the event.

SCE 2018 will display Chongqing's openness, inclusiveness, and immense business opportunities to the world as the city seeks to breathe new life into its traditional industries with the help of big data.

By 2020, Chongqing aims to become China's first-tier pilot city for the application of Big Data Intelligence. The value of 12 sectors - including big data, AI, integrated circuits, and the Internet of Things - is expected to grow to 750 billion yuan by then. Additionally, Chongqing plans to upgrade its traditional sectors by setting up 20 smart factories, 200 digital workshops and 2,000 digital assembly lines by 2020.

About Smart China Expo (SCE)

Held in Chongqing, the Smart China Expo (SCE) is a world-class, national-level Expo that supports the development of big data and smart technologies in Western China. SCE serves as a platform for Chongqing's Smart Endeavors in the era of big data and smart tech, as well as for exchanges among organizations, enterprises, experts, and scholars from around the world. http://www.ichongqing.info/smart-china-expo/

For more information, visit: https://www.smartchina-expo.cn/

SOURCE Smart China Expo

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AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Compeat, the only fully integrated restaurant accounting, back office, workforce and intelligence management software, is proud to announce that they have moved to The Domain, located in the high-tech corridor of northwest Austin, Texas. Situated in a beautiful park-like setting, The Domain features 100 upscale and mainstream retail stores and restaurants, almost half of which are exclusive within the market.

"Eighty percent of our employees are restaurant veterans, so we wanted to be located near the pulse of the industry and close to our customers," states Jeff Stone, CEO of Compeat. "This is an exciting time for our company. We were very strategic in our office design to not only allow us room to grow and attract top employee talent but also represent our brand and our passion of serving restaurants."

Compeat has seen an amazing level of growth recently. Over the last three years, the employee base has grown by 500%, with 270% occurring in the Austin office. New customer growth has doubled in the first half of 2018 as restaurants increasingly turn to technology to streamline operations and increase profitability.

Located in a major hub of high-tech companies, The Domain also hosts several of Compeat's customers such as Cyclone Anaya's, Doc B's, Punch Bowl Social, Paul Martin's, Sprinkles Cupcakes, and Hat Creek Burger. "We are now located where cutting-edge technology meets amazing food," adds Stone. "We could not have found a better fit."

The new space contains original murals that honor Compeat's New Orleans beginnings by featuring the great B.B. King for his contributions to the Blues movement as well as Willie Nelson for his influence on the Austin music scene. The iconic Austin "I love you so much" mural has been recreated as "I love you food so much" to tie in Compeat's love of Austin and its 18-year history in the restaurant industry.

"At Compeat, we truly are restaurant peeps and technology geeks," says Kristi Turner, Chief Marketing Officer. "Austin's unique combination of being a leader in technology as well as a mecca for music, art, and food makes it the perfect home for us. When designing the space, we chose to pay homage to the greatness of the city, the restaurant industry, and our amazing customers and employees. We wanted meaningful word art, murals, and canvases as a constant reminder of our heritage, values, and our purpose - to serve those who serve others."

The new address is 11500 Alterra Parkway, Suite 130, Austin, TX 78758, and boasts an ample 20,000 square feet of office space as well as access to state-of-the-art meeting areas and a training facility. Compeat's satellite California office is also moving from Novato to downtown Petaluma with the similar brand and restaurant themed decor. The Petaluma office is in the middle of the downtown Petaluma shopping district.

About Compeat

Compeat and Ctuit have combined to offer the most comprehensive and innovative all-in-one restaurant management software available for the restaurant industry. With over 34 years of industry experience, we are the largest provider of integrated accounting, back office, workforce and business intelligences solutions designed to improve profitability of restaurant operators nationwide. Our product portfolio includes Hire, Labor Management and Compliance, Schedule, Payroll, Accounting, Inventory, Recipes, Prep and Ordering, Logbook, Event Management, Intelligence, Manager and Employee Mobile Apps and third party integrations including over 70 Point of Sale partners. For more information, visit www.compeat.com and www.ctuit.com.

CONTACT:

Amy Dardinger

[email protected]

SOURCE Compeat

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As president of AF Group since 2016, Corless assumes CEO duties from Elizabeth Haar, who is now BCBSM executive vice president and president of Emerging Markets. The promotion is an expansion of duties for Corless, who will maintain responsibility for the day-to-day operations of AF Group.

"AF Group and Lisa continue to be an integral part of the Emerging Markets team," said Haar. "This announcement recognizes AF Group's consistent excellence and the confidence I have in Lisa's ability to guide the company to new and exciting opportunities. With a clear passion for her team and a strong vision for AF Group, I am confident she will further lead and inspire the organization as president and CEO."

Corless joined AF Group in 2013 as a member of the executive team, serving as senior vice president, chief administration officer and chief of staff. As president, she has expanded the company's offerings into the commercial auto segment with the launch of Fundamental Underwriters earlier this year.

Corless' impact and influence in insurance has earned the respect of her peers along with a number of significant, professional honors including the Woman of Influence award from the Austin Business Journal for her efforts in both business and philanthropy, and the 2017 Women to Watch award from Business Insurance.

Recognized for her volunteer and philanthropic work, Corless is a passionate supporter of national and local charitable causes. She currently serves on the board for the Sparrow Foundation of Lansing and is a strong supporter of the Mid-Michigan chapter of the American Red Cross.

Corless holds an executive Master of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin  The Red McCombs School of Business. Additionally, she is a member of C200, a global organization focused on promoting the advancement of women in business. She is a board member of the National Council on Compensation Insurance and is on the Board of Directors for the American Insurance Association, recently serving as co-host of their 2018 Women in Insurance event in Boston.

To learn more about AF Group and its brands, visit AFGroup.com.

About AF Group

Founded in 1912, AF Group (Lansing, Mich.) and its subsidiaries are a premier provider of innovative insurance solutions. Rated "A-" (Excellent) by A.M. Best, AF Group is a nationally recognized holding company conducting business through its brands: Accident Fund, United Heartland, CompWest, Third Coast Underwriters, AF Specialty and Fundamental Underwriters.

Contact:

Bob Lapinski

(517) 708-5664 or (517) 331-4890

[email protected]

AFGroup.com

SOURCE AF Group

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Inc. Magazine has highlighted the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. for more than 37 years. This year, in particular, the bar was set extremely high, unveiling one of the most competitive lineups in the list's history. The 2018 ranking highlights companies that displayed staggering growth compared to years prior with DoctorLogic displaying a tremendous total growth of 1,560%.

As a first-timer on the list, DoctorLogic now shares similar recognition with other renowned companies such as Yelp, Pandora, Oracle, Microsoft, Domino's Pizza, and S'well.

DoctorLogic's proprietary patient-marketing website platform combines stunning designs, unique content, patient reviews, photo galleries, and more to grow medical practices through online marketing. With hundreds of medical practitioners from numerous specialties achieving success on the platform nationwide, DoctorLogic has expanded to serve both enterprise clients, as well as form prestigious partnerships with highly ranked medical organizations.

According to Andre Riley, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for DoctorLogic, "We are thrilled and honored to be listed with some of the nation's most successful companies. Being named to this list validates the incredible work that our entire team has put forth and proves we are a game-changing force in the industry. I am truly excited to share this outstanding award and celebrate with our passionate, dedicated staff members who continue to make a name for DoctorLogic every day."

For more information, visit https://doctorlogic.com/.

About DoctorLogic

DoctorLogic's all-in-one Website Marketing Platform was built to grow medical practices through stunning, responsive websites and diverse digital marketing strategies. Our technology helps doctors increase their internet leads with our patent-pending software that leverages their unique content, photo galleries, patient reviews, and more in a new way that creates up to 100X more Google-friendly indexed pages within their website.

For more information, contact Andre Riley, [email protected].

SOURCE DoctorLogic

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DFW AIRPORT, Texas, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Customers at Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport will fly nonstop to Dublin, Ireland and Munich, Germany, starting June 6, 2019, thanks to new service from American Airlines. With these flights, DFW Airport will provide its first ever nonstop service to Ireland, and its third daily nonstop flight to Germany.

"These new flights will advance DFW Airport's mission to bring more international passenger and cargo service to the Dallas Fort Worth region," said Sean Donohue, chief executive officer at DFW Airport. "DFW anticipates tremendous growth in the year ahead, and with nonstop service to Dublin and Munich we're offering two great new destinations, more travel choices, business connections and opportunities for tourism."

"We want to thank American Airlines, one of our city's largest employers, for adding to our repertoire of international flights out of DFW Airport, the fourth busiest airport in the nation," said Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price. "These additional flights to Dublin and Munich add to our ongoing efforts to promote tourism, expand economic opportunities and foster business relationships."

"The new flights will help the Dallas Fort Worth region continue to build on the great business relationships we have with Germany and Ireland, which are already our 9th and 12th biggest trading partners," said Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings. "These new flights are a testament to the strength of the Dallas Fort Worth business environment and an important economic gain for the region."

From Europe, customers can connect at DFW to more than 90 domestic destinations in the Midwest and western U.S., and more than 30 business and leisure markets throughout Canada and Latin America.

The launch of Dublin and Munich service in June 2019 will give DFW a total of 59 international destinations and 235 unique destinations. The new destinations will be DFW's eighth and ninth European cities served.

Since 2010, DFW Airport has added a total of 21 new international destinations.

About Dallas Fort Worth International Airport:

DFW Airport warmly welcomes more than 67 million customers along their journey every year, elevating DFW to a status as one of the most frequently visited superhub airports in the world. DFW Airport customers can choose among 176 domestic and 59 international nonstop destinations worldwide. DFW is elevating the customer experience with modernized facilities and updated amenities. Centered between its owner cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, DFW Airport also serves as a major economic generator for the North Texas region, producing over $37 billion in economic impact each year by connecting people through business and leisure travel. For more information, visit the DFW website or download the DFW Mobile App for iOS and Android devices.

Follow @dfwairport on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest

SOURCE DFW International Airport

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DALLAS, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- DKBinnovative (DKB), a Dallas-based, full-service IT managed security services provider, was selected for the Inc. 5000 Annual List of America's Fastest-Growing Companies. The winners were announced by the popular business magazine on Aug. 15. This comes at the heels of being named to Channel Futures' 2018 MSP 501 Worldwide Company Rankings, the largest and most comprehensive ranking of managed service providers worldwide.

Started in 1982, the Inc. 5000 is the most prestigious ranking of the nation's fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economy's most dynamic segment  its independent small businesses. Microsoft, Dell, Domino's Pizza, Pandora, Timberland, LinkedIn, Yelp, Zillow and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as members of the Inc. 5000.

"This is the second consecutive year that we've made the list," said Keith Barthold, president and CEO of DKB. "It's not only a testament to the fantastic team and business we've developed here at DKB, but it shows we're on the right track of reaching our corporate goal of being a major voice and innovator in the IT managed services world. We're deeply honored and very proud."

The 2018 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2014 and 2018. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2014. They have to be U.S.-based, privately held, for profit and independent  not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies.

"If your company is on the Inc. 5000, it's unparalleled recognition of your years of hard work and sacrifice," says Inc. Editor-in-Chief James Ledbetter. "The lines of business may come and go, or come and stay. What doesn't change is the way entrepreneurs create and accelerate the forces that shape our lives."

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region and other criteria, can be found at www.inc.com/inc5000.

The annual Inc. 5000 Conference and Gala honoring the companies on the list will be held Oct. 17-19, 2018, at the JW Marriott Resort & Spa in San Antonio, Texas. Event speakers include some of the best thinkers and leaders in business today.

About DKBinnovative

DKBinnovative provides reliable and highly secure managed IT solutions that simply work  and accelerate a company's business. With a special emphasis on cybersecurity and compliance, they accelerate workforce productivity through a proven proprietary process, guaranteed to deliver measurable end-results most organizations have never experienced. With DKBinnovative as an IT partner, companies can focus on core objectives and the clients or patients they serve, while they work tirelessly to improve the company's IT every single day. DKBinnovative is currently seeking strategic acquisition opportunities. Learn more at www.dkbinnovative.com.

Contact:

Lauren Yates

703.593.3184

[email protected]

SOURCE DKBinnovative

Related Links

http://www.dkbinnovative.com


CLEARWATER, Fla., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- (ISC)  the world's largest nonprofit association of certified cybersecurity professionals  today announced its final keynote speaker for its 2018 Security Congress. Dr. Jessica Barker has been named one of the UK's top 20 most influential women in cybersecurity.

"Dr. Barker has a unique perspective on cybersecurity thanks to her consultancy experience, technical knowledge and sociology background," said Brian Correia, managing director, North America, (ISC). "Learning about the human side of cybersecurity and the psychology behind it will be of great interest to our attendees."

Barker will be the keynote speaker on the third day of (ISC)'s annual Security Congress event, held in New Orleans October 8-10, and her address will conclude the proceedings. Her session, titled "Why We Should be Optimistic About Cyber Security" will focus on the psychology of cybersecurity, and why she believes pessimism is actually holding us back in the battle against cybercrime.

Dr. Barker was recognized as one of the UK's Tech Women 50 in 2017 and has spent several years running her own consultancy. She delivers thought-provoking and engaging presentations around the world at corporate events as well as practitioner and academic conferences. Her areas of focus span cybersecurity awareness, behavior and culture.

"Despite all the technological advances in the fight against cybercrime, it's still very much a people-focused problem," said Barker. "Only by understanding the motivations behind both cybercriminals and targets can we address the right solutions to improve our tactics. The type of audience that Security Congress draws will be aware of this dynamic and I look forward to speaking with them."

Security Congress will be attended by more than 2,000 professionals and will feature more than 100 educational and thought leadership sessions, including workshops, panel discussions, research presentations and case studies. Since 2011, (ISC) has hosted this annual conference around the United States, with this year's event taking place at the New Orleans Marriott. For more information on Security Congress, visit congress.isc2.org.

About (ISC)

(ISC) is an international nonprofit membership association focused on inspiring a safe and secure cyber world. Best known for the acclaimed Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification, (ISC) offers a portfolio of credentials that are part of a holistic, pragmatic approach to security. Our membership, over 138,000 strong, is made up of certified cyber, information, software and infrastructure security professionals who are making a difference and helping to advance the industry. Our vision is supported by our commitment to educate and reach the general public through our charitable foundation  The Center for Cyber Safety and Education. For more information on (ISC), visit www.isc2.org, follow us on Twitter or connect with us on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Media Contact:

Jarred LeFebvre

Senior Manager, Corporate Communications

(ISC)

[email protected]

(727) 316-8129

SOURCE (ISC)2

Related Links

http://www.isc2.org


"Just over a year ago, DTE first announced a broad sustainability initiative to reduce carbon emissions by more than 80 percent and do it in a way that maintains affordability and reliability for our customers," said Gerry Anderson, chairman and CEO, DTE Energy. "In fact, we're already doing it. Since 2009 we have driven investments of more than $2.5 billion in renewable energy with more investments coming. But as we continue to retire coal-fired power plants  all of them by 2040  we need to complement wind farms and solar arrays with high reliability assets. As we Michiganders know well, the wind doesn't always blow, and the sun doesn't always shine in our beautiful state. And that's why we need natural gas-fueled plants like the Blue Water Energy Center. When it begins operations in 2022, it will represent our single largest step in reducing carbon emissions to date."

The plant will be built by Kiewit Engineering (MI) Co., a Kiewit company. The company will spend a minimum of $200 million on Michigan-based labor and materials, and has begun the pre-qualification process for local sub-contractors. Additionally, GE Power, a world leader in power generation and water technologies for utilities, independent power producers and industrial applications, has been chosen to provide the major generation equipment. More than 500 Michigan skilled labor jobs will be created during construction beginning in spring 2019 and an additional 35 full-time positions will be filled when the plant becomes operational in 2022.

"The new, cleaner natural gas power plant will create hundreds of jobs and provide additional revenue that we can put toward improving our roads, schools and other essential services," said St. Clair County Commissioner Jeff Bohm. "This $1 billion investment is a significant boost to our community and helps assure continued job growth while ensuring we can meet our state's energy needs."

Blue Water Energy Center, unanimously approved by the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) earlier this year, is expected be the most fuel-efficient power plant in Michigan. It will run on natural gas and use combined-cycle technology that captures waste heat to produce additional electricity. The plant will be 70 percent cleaner and 40 percent more efficient than the three coal-fired plants DTE plans to retire by 2023. It is a critical component of a balanced energy mix that provides 24/7, always available power generation required when wind turbines and solar arrays are unable to produce electricity due to weather conditions or time of day.

Already a significant producer of renewable energy, DTE has announced plans to double its renewable energy capacity by 2022 to 2,000 megawatts  providing enough additional electricity to power 800,000 homes, while driving investments of more than $1.7 billion in Michigan. Within the next year, DTE will begin operating the Pine River and Polaris wind parks, which will have a combined capacity of 330 megawatts and be DTE's largest and most efficient wind parks to date.

"The Blue Water Energy Center not only represents our commitment to a cleaner energy future, but our commitment to the St. Clair community. DTE has been part of this community for 65 years and we intend to continue to be a force for growth and prosperity here for a long time to come," Anderson said.

About DTE Energy

DTE Energy (NYSE:DTE) is a Detroit-based diversified energy company involved in the development and management of energy-related businesses and services nationwide. Its operating units include an electric utility serving 2.2 million customers in Southeastern Michigan and a natural gas utility serving 1.3 million customers in Michigan. The DTE Energy portfolio includes non-utility energy businesses focused on power and industrial projects, natural gas pipelines, gathering and storage, and energy marketing and trading. As one of Michigan's leading corporate citizens, DTE Energy is a force for growth and prosperity in the 450 Michigan communities it serves in a variety of ways, including philanthropy, volunteerism and economic progress. Information about DTE Energy is available at dteenergy.com, twitter.com/dte_energy and facebook.com/dteenergy.

About Kiewit

Kiewit is one of North America's largest and most respected construction and engineering organizations. With its roots dating back to 1884, the employee-owned organization operates through a network of subsidiaries in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Kiewit offers construction and engineering services in a variety of markets including transportation; oil, gas and chemical; power; building; water/wastewater; and mining. Kiewit had 2017 revenues of $8.7 billion and employs 22,000 staff and craft employees.

About GE Power

GE Power is a world leader in power generation with deep domain expertise to help customers deliver electricity from a wide spectrum of fuel sources. We are transforming the electricity industry with the digital power plant, the world's largest and most efficient gas turbine, full balance of plant, upgrade and service solutions as well as our data-leveraging software. Our innovative technologies and digital offerings help make power more affordable, reliable, accessible and sustainable.

SOURCE DTE Energy

Related Links

http://www.dteenergy.com


ATLANTA, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Edible Arrangements CEO Mike Rotondo today announced plans to relocate the company's corporate headquarters to Atlanta, GA. Edible will maintain a small office in Wallingford, CT, with approximately 20 people.

Edible opened an Atlanta office as a "second" headquarters in March 2018 to take advantage of the more centralized location, access to major transportation hubs and other resources for many of the services that were previously handled out of Wallingford, Conn. The company employs approximately 130 workers in Wallingford. The company aims to complete the relocation by the end of 2018.

"We are excited to make Atlanta the brand's home base as we build a best-in-class Support Center for our franchise owners," said Rotondo. "Edible's Wallingford, CT office is an important part of the brand's history and heritage, and we will always have a presence in the community. At the same time, the global marketplace is changing at a rapid pace and Atlanta is an attractive location to base much of the team needed to support the company's next phase of growth."

The company will issue a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) to the extent it is required by law.

The company's metro Atlanta office is in the Lakeside Commons buildings in Sandy Springs, GA. The space will serve as the base of operations for the company's franchise operations.

ABOUT EDIBLE

With more than 1,200 franchise locations open or under development worldwide, Edible International, LLC is the world's largest franchisor of shops offering creatively designed fresh cut fruit arrangements. Edible store locations also carry the company's rapidly expanding Edible Treats line which features all-natural, fresh fruit smoothies, chocolate Dipped Fruit, Froyo Fruit Blends, fresh fruit salads, parfaits, and treats. Since its founding in 1999, the company has been recognized as an industry leader, ranking first in its category in Entrepreneur magazine's annual "Franchise 500," Entrepreneur's Top 40 of "Fastest Growing Franchises" and "America's Top Global Franchises" as well as being included among the "Inc. 5000" list of the fastest growing privately-held companies. Edible fresh fruit arrangements, chocolate Dipped Fruit, fresh fruit smoothies, and more can be enjoyed at franchise locations worldwide. Gifts can be ordered online at edible.com or through any local Edible Arrangements store.

SOURCE Edible Arrangements

Related Links

http://www.edible.com


MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Statistics within mid-size manufacturing and distribution industries report a high rate of failure for many new B2B eCommerce initiatives. This lack of success can be attributed in part to organizations and solution providers who fail to acknowledge the complex nature of B2B buying scenarios, and the manifold needs of every person involved in every B2B commerce environment.

"Choosing the right B2B eCommerce solution means looking past the bells and whistles, and understanding the true requirements of manufacturers and distributors," said Steve Shaffer, Chief Executive Officer for Insite Software. "A large component of success when implementing B2B eCommerce is understanding how to support each role within the complex buying cycle, from the researcher, to the buyer, to the technician in the field. We want to help customers understand that there are ways to take an initial eCommerce solution beyond commerce, and make dramatic improvements to productivity and efficiency as part of their overall digital transformation."

Shaffer will give the welcome address at Engage 2018, Insite Software's new conference for customers, partners and industry experts being held September 10-12 at Loews Minneapolis Hotel. The event will provide a venue for users of Insite's powerful B2B eCommerce solutions to network with peers, interact with Insite's team of experts, and hear from industry thought leaders.

"Manufacturers and distributors need an eCommerce solution that supports the needs of B2B right out of the box, without requiring complex customizations. That means so much more than a flashy frontend. It means meeting the true goals of B2B commerce, to increase productivity, reduce inefficiencies, and grow digital revenues," said Jon Greene, Senior Vice President of Customer and Partner Success for Insite Software. "We're excited to bring our customers together to learn more about meeting the needs of the people of B2B, and building much stronger ROI from having done so."

Registration for Engage 2018 is now available and limited to Insite Software customers and invitees only. Register to attend here.

About Engage 2018  Engage 2018 is a new opportunity for Insite customers to connect, share and engage, taking the digital transformation journey beyond commerce. Attendees will gain powerful insights and tools that drive revenue, create efficiencies, and deliver enhanced customer experiences. Engage 2018 offers the chance to meet Insite subject matter experts, industry thought-leaders and Insite-certified technology and implementation partners, plus interact with Insite users from around the world. The event includes best practice presentations, customer success stories, product labs, training and one-on-one consulting.

About Insite Software  Insite Software is the leading provider of powerful digital commerce solutions architected for manufacturers and distributors. Insite's B2B eCommerce solutions go beyond commerce connecting people, products and channels for a rich, omnichannel experience. We believe eCommerce is more than a website. It's about transforming your business and delivering best-in-class experiences for everyone involved in the complex B2B buying cycle. With more fully-supported B2B capabilities out-of-the-box than any other platform in the marketplace, with the ability to extend and customize, Insite delivers digital commerce without compromise. For more information, visit Insite Software at insitesoft.com.

Talk to us on Twitter, circle us on Google+ and get to know our company on LinkedIn and Facebook. For B2B commerce best practices and tips, read our blog.

SOURCE Insite Software

Related Links

https://www.insitesoft.com


BEIJING, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Fang Holdings Limited (NYSE: SFUN) ("Fang"), the leading real estate Internet portal in China, today announced that it will report its unaudited financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2018 before the U.S. market opens on Tuesday, August 28, 2018.

Fang's management team will host a conference call on the same day at 8:00 AM U.S. ET (8:00 PM Beijing/Hong Kong time). The dial-in details for the live conference call are:

International Toll: +65 67135090 Local Toll: United States +1 845-675-0437 / +1 866-519-4004 Hong Kong +852 3018-6771 / +852 800-906-601 Mainland China +86 400-620-8038 / +86 800-819-0121 Passcode: SFUN

A telephone replay of the call will be available after the conclusion of the conference call from 11:00 ET on August 28, 2018 through 9:59 ET September 5, 2018. The dial-in details for the telephone replay are:

International Toll: +61 2-8199-0299 Toll-Free: United States +1 855-452-5696 / +1 646-254-3697 Hong Kong +852 800-963-117 / +852 3051-2780 Mainland China +86 400-602-2065 / +86 800-870-0205 Conference ID: 5587239

A live and archived webcast of the conference call will be available on Fang's website at http://ir.fang.com.

About Fang

Fang operates the leading real estate Internet portal in China in terms of the number of page views and visitors to its websites. Through its websites, Fang provides e-commerce, marketing, listing, financial and other value-added services for China's fast-growing real estate and home furnishing and improvement sectors. Its user-friendly websites support active online communities and networks of users seeking information on, and other value-added services for, the real estate and home furnishing and improvement sectors in China. Fang currently maintains about 100 offices to focus on local market needs and its website and database contains real estate related content covering more than 651 cities in China. For more information about Fang, please visit http://ir.fang.com.

For investor and media inquiries, please contact:

Dr. Hua Lei

CFO

Phone: +86-10-5631-8661

Email: [email protected]

Ms. Jessie Yang

Investor Relations Director

Phone: +86-10-5631-8805

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Fang Holdings Limited
MONROVIA, Calif., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority (Construction Authority) announced completion of the $2.6 million Utility Relocation design-bid-build contract, awarded to W.A. Rasic Construction Company, Inc. (Rasic) in September 2017. Over the last 11 months, Rasic crews successfully relocated and/or protected a dozen strategically-located sewer and water lines that cross the railroad corridor where the Foothill Gold Line is being built. Today's announcement marks the successful completion of the first of three contracts to be awarded over the life of the $1.5 billion, six-station Foothill Gold Line light rail extension from Glendora to Montclair. The project will add new Metro Gold Line stations in the cities of Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, Pomona, Claremont and Montclair.

"The utility work went very smoothly and was completed two months ahead of schedule," stated Construction Authority CEO, Habib F. Balian. "We were very pleased with Rasic's work, which helps pave the way for the main design-build contractor to begin work as soon as they are ready."

Procurement for the Alignment design-build contract began in November 2017 and will include all work on the 12.3-mile light rail extension with the exception of parking. Proposals are due on September 12, and the Construction Authority anticipates awarding the contract later this year. Major construction is expected to begin in early 2020 and consist of two construction phrases. First, the Alignment contractor will rebuild and relocate the freight and Metrolink systems that currently operate in the middle of the rail corridor. Once the relocation is done, crews will build the light rail system. Completion is expected in 2026.

"This is an early success for the project and for our funding partners," added Balian. "Getting this work done ahead of the main design-build team being hired reduces risk for the four shortlisted bidding teams and hopefully reduces their final bid prices and keeps the project within our current estimates."

The Foothill Gold Line light rail project is being funded by local county sales tax measures and the State of California. The portion of the project within Los Angeles County (Glendora to Claremont) is being mostly funded by LA Metro's Measure M, with just under $100 million in Measure R funding designated for the project. The portion from Claremont to Montclair is being funded by San Bernardino County's Measure I. In April 2018, the project received nearly $300 million from the State of California's Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program, a grant program funded by SB1 and the State's Cap and Trade Auction. State funds will be used to fill the estimated funding gap needed to complete the project in both counties.

About the Foothill Gold Line - The Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority is an independent transportation planning and construction agency created in 1998 by the California State Legislature to plan, design and build the Metro Gold Line light rail system from Union Station to Montclair. The agency completed the first segment from Union Station to Pasadena in 2003 and the Pasadena to Azusa segment in 2015; both on time and under budget. The agency began work on the Foothill Gold Line from Glendora to Montclair in 2003. The Glendora to Montclair project was environmentally cleared under CEQA in March 2013 and completed advanced conceptual engineering in 2016. The project was the first Measure M-funded project to break ground.

SOURCE Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority
BOSTON, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Fish & Richardson is one of 26 elite "trailblazing" U.S. firms to have earned the highest designation of Mansfield 1.0 Certified Plus from Diversity Lab for having successfully reached at least 30 percent women and minority lawyer representation in a notable number of their current leadership roles and committees. The Mansfield Rule Certification measures whether law firms have affirmatively considered at least 30 percent women and attorneys of color for leadership and governance roles, equity partner promotions and senior leadership positions.

"We are thrilled to receive the Mansfield Rule Certification Plus designation from Diversity Lab and are confident we will continue to see a measurable increase in diverse lawyers in law firm leadership," said Kristine McKinney, Chief Professional Development Officer at Fish & Richardson. "At Fish, we value diversity because we know that diverse teams increase the quality of legal services we provide to our clients, and builds upon our position as a top intellectual property law firm. By increasing the diversity of our pipeline, we are making significant progress towards diversifying the next generation of law firm leaders."

To achieve the Mansfield Rule objectives, participating law firms had to first establish a baseline metric by which they could assess and analyze their talent pipelines. As part of the rigorous Mansfield Rule Certification process, the firms were expected to create and adopt documentation and tracking norms to measure their progress and identify areas for improvement. Fish will also be one of 65 firms participating in Mansfield 2.0, which will include LGBTQ+ lawyers as well as women and attorneys of color as part of the diverse candidate pool. Mansfield 2.0 also will measure consideration for roles in client pitch meetings and will ask participating law firms to make appointment and election processes transparent for all lawyers in their firms.

Diversity Lab creates and experiments with innovative ways to close the gender gap and boost diversity in law firms and legal departments by leveraging data, behavioral science and design thinking. The Lab's first pilot initiative, the OnRamp Fellowship, is now the largest global re-entry platform matching experienced women returning to the workforce after a hiatus with more than 35 law firms, legal departments and banks for paid Fellowships in the U.S., Australia, the UK and Canada. Due to the overwhelming success of Diversity Lab's 2016 Women in Law Hackathon, a series of "Diversity in Law Hackathons" are happening in 2018 in partnership with Bloomberg Law, Harvard Law School, Northwestern Law School and University of California at Hastings School of Law. Fish & Richardson has been a participant in both Hackathons.

Fish & Richardson is a global intellectual property firm offering patent prosecution, counseling and litigation; trademark and copyright prosecution, counseling and litigation; and commercial litigation services. Established in 1878, and now with more than 400 attorneys and technology specialists in the U.S. and Europe, our success is rooted in our creative and inclusive culture, which values the diversity of people, experiences and perspectives. Fish is the No. 1 ranked U.S. patent litigation firm, handling nearly three times as many cases as our nearest competitor; a powerhouse patent and trademark prosecution firm; a top-tier trademark and copyright litigation firm; and the most-active firm at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Fish continues to win cases worth billions in controversy  often by making new law  for the world's most innovative and influential technology leaders. For more information, visit fr.com or follow us at @FishRichardson.

Contact: Amy Blumenthal or Kelly Largey

Blumenthal & Associates

Fish & Richardson

617-879-1511

800-818-5070

[email protected]

[email protected]

SOURCE Fish & Richardson

Related Links

http://www.fr.com


BOSTON, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Fish & Richardson has awarded full scholarships to 33 students and their teacher chaperones from across the country to attend the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama this summer. The goal of Fish's Space Camp Scholarship program  which the firm has run for 20 consecutive years  is to engage middle school students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Fish launched the Space Camp Scholarship program in 1999 and has since sent over 500 students to Space Camp on full scholarships.

The scholarship winners are selected by Fish attorneys based on written applications and in-person interviews. All of the students are from schools in economically disadvantaged areas in the 11 U.S. cities where Fish has offices: Atlanta; Austin; Boston; Dallas; Houston; Minneapolis/St. Paul; New York; San Diego; Silicon Valley; Washington, D.C.; and Wilmington, Delaware. The scholarship winners  who received full tuition, round-trip airfare, and accommodations  spent six days at Space Camp experiencing simulated space shuttle missions, participating in programs on space exploration, and learning about mission control.

"Encouraging young people, especially those from underrepresented populations, to focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is important to our country's future economic success," said Peter Devlin, President and CEO of Fish & Richardson. "STEM pervades every part of our lives, and we will continue to do everything we can to inspire more students to consider STEM careers."

After the students return from Space Camp, many of them meet with the attorneys from Fish to share their experiences as junior astronauts and "report on their mission." The attorneys also have the opportunity to encourage the students to keep on exploring STEM and to strive for academic excellence when they return to school in the fall.

Fish & Richardson is a global intellectual property firm offering patent prosecution, counseling, and litigation; trademark and copyright prosecution, counseling, and litigation; and commercial litigation services. Established in 1878, and now with more than 400 attorneys and technology specialists in the U.S. and Europe, our success is rooted in our creative and inclusive culture, which values the diversity of people, experiences, and perspectives. Fish is the No. 1 ranked U.S. patent litigation firm, handling nearly three times as many cases as our nearest competitor; a powerhouse patent and trademark prosecution firm; a top-tier trademark and copyright litigation firm; and the most-active firm at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Fish continues to win cases worth billions in controversy  often by making new law  for the world's most innovative and influential technology leaders. For more information, visit fr.com or follow us at @FishRichardson.

Contact: Amy Blumenthal or Kelly Largey Blumenthal & Associates

Fish & Richardson 617-879-1511

800-818-5070 [email protected]

[email protected]

SOURCE Fish & Richardson

Related Links

http://www.fr.com


NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The country's 16 million college students are heading back to their respective colleges and universities this week, following the biggest back-to-school spending season in recent history. But what the students bought  and where  reveals that Gen Zers' relationship to digital technology is more complex than commonly thought.

According to "Gen Z: Decoding the Digital Generation," a new report by leading Student Affinity UNiDAYS and Ad Age Studio 30, Gen Zers make some surprisingly traditional choices when it comes to their technology usage and purchasing habits, despite growing up side by side with the internet. For example, while 98 percent own a smartphone, only 22 percent of respondents use it to make online purchases and many of them prefer to interact with a brand face-to-face in a retail location.

The survey, which drew responses from 22,723 college students, primarily ages 1723, in the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand, covered a wide range of topics related to technology usage. The full report can be accessed at www.adage.com/genzinsights.

Nearly every question yielded some unpredictable answers, including the following:

They read hard-copy books . The assumption that Gen Z is mobile-only, digital-only, virtual reality-only, is only partially valid. A full 77 percent of respondents prefer reading printed books.

. The assumption that Gen Z is mobile-only, digital-only, virtual reality-only, is only partially valid. A full 77 percent of respondents prefer reading printed books. They plug in (and don't live stream ). While 61 percent of respondents have fully switched to streaming services, 28 percent still subscribe to cable, and 32 percent watch streaming services on an old-fashioned TV.

). While 61 percent of respondents have fully switched to streaming services, 28 percent still subscribe to cable, and 32 percent watch streaming services on an old-fashioned TV. They use laptops . A full 93 percent of respondents own a laptop, and only 44 percent own a tablet. In the U.S., 41 percent of students prefer to watch streaming services on a laptop, and 60 percent prefer using a desktop when making purchases online. And if they have a question? They still send a trusty old email (40 percent preferred to reach out to brands on email).

. A full 93 percent of respondents own a laptop, and only 44 percent own a tablet. In the U.S., 41 percent of students prefer to watch streaming services on a laptop, and 60 percent prefer using a desktop when making purchases online. And if they have a question? They still send a trusty old email (40 percent preferred to reach out to brands on email). They don't overshare. While conventional wisdom assumes this generation chronicles every detail of their lives on Snapchat and Instagram, that's not entirely true. A majority (59 percent) don't trust Facebook with their personal data, and 78 percent let some apps, but not all, know their geo-location.

"The most important takeaway for marketers is that while Gen Z appears to be digital-first, they still have more than a few analog habits," said Alex Gallagher, CMO of UNiDAYS. "For example, while Gen Z loves browsing online, they still enjoy shopping at brick-and-mortar stores. It's critical for brands to develop a cohesive strategy, across both online and offline, that caters to their unique preferences. And we're thrilled to be able to offer a single platform for brands to do it all."

Gen Z: Decoding the Digital Generation is part of a year-long partnership between UNiDAYS and Ad Age Studio 30 that includes four global research studies exploring Gen Z attitudes. For more insights and tips on how to engage Gen Z and build loyalty for a lifetime, visit GenZInsights.com, driven by UNiDAYS.

Here is the video link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLuVXIHxCRE&t=12s

Photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ktcoohhnhbstx5q/AAAQYQIxZDMGI2307BBzPZVWa?dl=0

About UNiDAYS

UNiDAYS is the world's leading Student Affinity Network. Today, UNiDAYS connects brands to more than 10 million Gen Z college students around the world, giving them the power to make every experience more valuable and rewarding. The UNiDAYS award-winning marketing platform provides student verification technology and integrated marketing solutions to some of the world's most recognizable brands, including Levi's, Adidas and Samsung. Founded in 2011 by CEO Josh Rathour, and headquartered in Nottingham, U.K., UNiDAYS also has offices in London, New York and Sydney. The Sunday Times Tech Track 100 honored UNiDAYS as one of the top 10 fastest-growing companies in the UK. For more information, visit www.myunidays.com/genz .

About Ad Age

Ad Age is a daily must-read for an influential audience of decision-makers and disruptors across the marketing and media landscape. Created in 1930 to cover a burgeoning industry with objectivity, accuracy and fairness, Ad Age continues to be powered by award-winning journalism. Today, Ad Age is a global media brand focusing on curated creativity, data and analysis, people and culture, and innovation and forecasting. From vital print editions to must-attend events and innovative platform offerings, its industry-leading offerings include the coveted A-List & Creativity Awards, the Ad Age Next Conference, and proprietary data such as the Leading National Advertisers Report from the Ad Age Datacenter. Ad Age Studio 30 is the custom content arm of Ad Age, specializing in the creation of branded content that resonates with the Ad Age audience.

Media Contacts:

United States:

Ellen Hartman or Tracy Henderson

[email protected], 678-399-3335

[email protected], 720-989-3530

SOURCE UNiDAYS

Related Links

https://www.myunidays.com


DALLAS, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Generational Equity, a leading mergers and acquisitions advisor for privately held businesses, is pleased to announce the sale of its client, Michigan Instruments, to an affiliate of Grand Ridge Holdings. The acquisition closed May 9, 2018.

Michigan Instruments is a pioneer in the respiratory care and emergency medical industries, developing one of the world's first commercial mechanical CPR devices. Besides oxygen-powered CPR machines, the company also develops and sells test lungs that are used to calibrate ventilators and train ventilator operators. Additionally, it has a contract manufacturing division that delivers dependable, high-standard medical equipment. The business is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The Grand Ridge Holdings affiliate is run by an ex-executive of a major holding company in the Grand Rapids area that was searching for a business in the region in which to invest and grow. Grand Ridge seeks Michigan-based companies in the manufacturing, value-added distribution or business-to-business services sectors.

Generational Equity Senior Managing Director Doug Smith's team, led by trusted affiliate Steve Dinehart with support from Senior VP Ryan Johnson, successfully closed the deal. Senior Managing Director Brian Hendershot established the initial relationship with Michigan Instruments.

"The sale is a great transition for a company with 50 years of history in Grand Rapids," said Dinehart. "Michigan Instruments and its employees will continue to be an asset to the Grand Rapids business community while new ownership leads innovation into the next 50 years."

About Generational Equity

Generational Equity, DealForce, and Generational Capital Markets, member FINRA/SIPC, are part of the Generational Group, which is headquartered in Dallas and is one of the leading M&A advisory firms in North America. With over 250 professionals located throughout North America, the companies help business owners release the wealth of their business by providing merger, acquisition and strategic growth advisory services. Their four-step approach features exit planning education, business valuation, value enhancement strategies, and M&A transactional services.

The M&A Advisor named the company the 2016 and 2017 Investment Banking Firm of the Year. For more, visit the https://www.genequityco.com/ or the Generational Equity press room.

For more information:

Carl Doerksen

972-232-1125

[email protected]

SOURCE Generational Equity

Related Links

http://www.genequityco.com


CHICAGO, Aug. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Midwest Equity Mortgage ("MEM") announced today that Heejin Kim has recently agreed to join the company. Ms. Kim has had an extensive and very successful mortgage banking career that spans 30 years and has involved almost every facet of the mortgage industry.

As a top-producing loan officer and the founder of two companies, Ms. Kim has funded well over $3 billion over the course of her career. Most recently, Ms. Kim co-founded and managed JVM Lending, a company that enjoys a tremendous reputation for its systems, recruiting, training, business development, online reviews and operational efficiency. Ms. Kim will remain influential within JVM but is able to focus on new opportunities precisely because she helped turn JVM into a self-managing company, a skill she hopes to share with future MEM partners.

Building upon MEM's growing retail channel and the value proposition created by Celebrity Financial's recent acquisition of MEM, Ms. Kim will head the company's recruiting division. She will employ her extensive contacts throughout the mortgage industry to identify and recruit top retail team and loan officers who are a fit for Celebrity/MEM's value propositions and culture.

In announcing her transition, Ms. Kim stated, "I'm excited to be a part of a very unique and promising opportunity to grow our brand and bring some of the best minds and practices together to benefit from each other's expertise. Celebrity's model of lean operations, no middle managers and total transparency is something that loan officers throughout the industry have been waiting for, and I am very confident that I explode with it here at Celebrity and MEM."

David Robnett, CEO of Midwest Equity Mortgage and CEO and chairman of Celebrity Financial Inc., commented, "Heejin was the first person I thought to pursue and I'm absolutely sure her impact will be immense and pervasive throughout the entire company. She's the perfect person to lead the launch of our Celebrity Mortgage brand, and I'm extremely excited to have her join our team as an equity partner."

Additional inquires can be directed to Eric Meadow at [email protected].

About Midwest Equity Mortgage LLC

MEM is an independent mortgage lender which celebrated its 10th anniversary in April of 2017. Licensed in 15 states with multiple offices in the U.S., MEM originates and funds residential mortgage loans through three distinct business channels and under the DBAs of Midwest Equity Mortgage, eClick Lending, Capital Financial Group and JVM Lending.

About Celebrity Financial Inc.

Celebrity is a duly organized, privately held diversified financial services holding company based out of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Celebrity has holdings in mortgage lending, vendor services and fintech. Additional inquiries related to Celebrity, its holdings and future opportunities can be directed to David Robnett, president, at [email protected].

SOURCE Midwest Equity Mortgage
BERKELEY, Calif., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The wait is finally over! After receiving hundreds of notes from fans over the years, Annie's Inc., known for its beloved Cheddar Bunnies, is proud to announce the launch of Gluten-Free Cheddar Bunny Tails  a delicious, crispy cracker made with real cheddar cheese and gluten-free goodness. Just in time for back to school, Annie's worked their tails off to perfect the most delicious gluten-free cracker possible. These new gluten-free goodies allow more kiddos to snack the Annie's way: no artificial flavors, synthetic colors or synthetic preservatives, and full of flavor.

After receiving hundreds of notes from fans over the years, Annies Inc., known for its beloved Cheddar Bunnies, is proud to announce the launch of Gluten-Free Cheddar Bunny Tails  a delicious, crispy cracker made with real cheddar cheese and gluten-free goodness. Just in time for back to school, these new gluten-free goodies allow more kiddos to snack the Annies way: no artificial flavors, synthetic colors or synthetic preservatives and full of flavor.

"Over the years, we have received so many heartfelt notes, letters, and emails asking for us to create a gluten-free recipe for our Cheddar Bunny crackers. We are so thrilled to share our crispy, cheesy gluten-free bunny cracker and we hope our patient fans will hop with joy when they taste them," said Carla Vernon, Annie's President. "At Annie's, it is our mission to give kids and families food that they feel good about eating. We want kids to light up when they see Annie's in their lunchboxes. And we hope parents can feel confident about the wholesome and delicious Annie's snacks they're packing."

With another school-year just ahead, Annie's is helping to make lunchboxes everybunny will love. Even kids with the pickiest of palates will look forward to the noon bell so they can dig into lunchtime yum with Annie's:

The Veggie Skeptic  Cook up a batch of Yummier-Than-Ever Classic Cheddar Mac & Cheese and add in broccoli, peas or pureed cauliflower. Your veggie skeptic will love the cheesy taste and creamy sauce and will barely notice the chopped-up veggies. Win-win.

 Cook up a batch of Yummier-Than-Ever Classic Cheddar Mac & Cheese and add in broccoli, peas or pureed cauliflower. Your veggie skeptic will love the cheesy taste and creamy sauce and will barely notice the chopped-up veggies. Win-win. The Lunchroom Gluten-Free Hero  Pack Gluten-Free Cheddar Bunny Tails and juicy Berry Patch Bunny Fruit Snacks for a delicious, gluten-free combination the kiddos will love. Packed with flavor, your child will become a lunchroom hero with shareable snacks many can enjoy.

 Pack Gluten-Free Cheddar Bunny Tails and juicy Berry Patch Bunny Fruit Snacks for a delicious, gluten-free combination the kiddos will love. Packed with flavor, your child will become a lunchroom hero with shareable snacks many can enjoy. The Bunny Bestie  A perfect treat for sharing with friends, Bunny Grahams are made with real and organic honey, cocoa and whole wheat. These bunny snacks are lightly sweet, organic, and a perfect finish to a lunch packed with love.

Annie's. More Than Just Food. For more information and to locate Annie's products near you, visit www.Annies.com.

About Annie's:

Annie's, Inc. is a natural and organic food brand within General Mills offering family friendly products. Annie's products are made without artificial flavors, synthetic colors and preservatives common in conventional packaged foods. Annie's launched its first organic product in 1998 and continues to grow its organic portfolio, striving to extend its positive sustainability impacts in everything it does. Today, Annie's offers more than 150 products and is present in retail locations nationwide. Founded in 1989, Annie's is committed to being socially responsible and environmentally sustainable. For more information, please visit www.annies.com.

SOURCE Annie's, Inc.
CAMBRIDGE, England, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Biosceptre has initiated its Phase I clinical trial of the peptide vaccine BIL06v, with the first patient treated at the initial trial site on 16th of August 2018. The first patient was recruited at the Sydney Adventist Hospital in Sydney, Australia, under treating physician and Principal Investigator Associate Professor Gavin Marx. Other clinical sites will be added to the trial in the coming months, and competitive recruitment for the minimum 6 month treatment is anticipated to proceed to the full cohort (20-30) within 12 months.

The trial will accept broad cancer indications with primary focus on prostate and lung cancer patients who are refractory to, or have refused, standard of care treatment. Breast, colorectal and other cancer patients will also be accepted.

The trial has been designed by Dr Bob Li, attending oncologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Dr. Li is a recipient of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Young Investigator Award, and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Young Investigator Translational Cancer Research Award.

The trial will be overseen by Biosceptre's Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul De Souza, who is Foundation Chair of Medical Oncology, School of Medicine, at Western Sydney University, and Honorary Professor of the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney.

Biosceptre's BIL06v therapy is a peptide protein conjugate vaccine, administered in the presence of an adjuvant. Primary endpoints include evaluation of safety and immunogenicity, with secondary endpoints including dose limiting toxicity and/or maximum tolerated dose as well as recommended Phase II dose. Disease control rate at 12 weeks as well as progression free survival will also be examined.

Exploratory endpoints will include quality of life and overall survival, as well as serum tumour biomarkers and cellular immunogenicity. Archived tissue will be screened for expression of the nfP2X 7 target.

Biosceptre's Chairman Sir Gregory Winter, founder of Domantis and Cambridge Antibody Technology, and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, said, "The relationship between P2X 7 and cancer is a field of increasing research focus at the moment, and Biosceptres' data supports the therapeutic potential of targeting nfP2X 7 in human cancer in the clinic."

Chief Executive Officer Gavin Currie said, "It is a long journey from discovery of a novel target like nfP2X 7 in oncology to eventually putting a first-in-class drug into the clinical setting, and I am delighted that all the hard work has come to fruition. We are very optimistic that this trial will meet its primary endpoints, a critical inflection point for value for our shareholders."

Chief Medical Officer Paul de Souza said, "I am delighted that the first patient has been treated on our Phase I trial. I look forward to reviewing the data and to taking BIL06v into further clinical studies."

About Biosceptre

Biosceptre is a Cambridge UK headquartered biotechnology company focused on developing next generation cancer treatments targeting nfP2X 7. Biosceptre's product pipeline includes a range of biologic therapeutics to treat a range of cancer types. For more information visit www.biosceptre.com.

About nP2X 7

Biosceptres' pipeline, including clinical stage peptide vaccine BIL06v, all target nfP2X 7 , a "non-functional" form of the P2X 7 receptor in which cell death signalling (pore functionality) is absent, but ability to sustain ion channel driven proliferation signalling remains.

Expression of nfP2X 7 is important in the avoidance of cell death by cancer cells. The target allows cells to avoid programmed cell death signals in the tumour micro-environment, and provides growth and metastatic advantages to cancer cells.

Biosceptre's focus is on validation and exploitation of this novel immuno-oncology target by multiple therapeutic modalities including vaccine, antibody, and cell therapy (Car-T).

A paper describing Biosceptres' recent discoveries of the relationship between nfP2X 7 and the tumour microenvironment, and confirming the role of nfP2X 7 in cancer cell biology has been published by the journal Oncogene. This paper can be viewed online at Oncogene.

Photo(s):

https://www.prlog.org/12724858

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Biosceptre International Limited

Related Links

http://www.biosceptre.com


PITTSBURGH, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- It's difficult for consumers to prevent security breaches to their credit card account transactions. However, thanks to the efforts of two inventors from Virginia Beach, Va., they can now take an active part in blocking such illegal access to personal information that appears on their mailing labels or any other product with sensitive information.

The inventors developed patent pending SECURE STAMP to help protect personal information and reduce the chances of identity theft. As such, it eliminates the need to cut or peel address labels from packaging before it is discarded, saving considerable time and effort. This innovation in identity protection is also convenient, effective and affordably priced. Other appealing attributes are its light weight, compact size, durability and ease of use and storage. In addition, its simple design minimizes production costs and it could be a less expensive option than a shredder. Furthermore, SECURE STAMP can be used on items that many shredders cannot handle.

The inventors' personal concerns inspired the idea. "Before I disposed of empty envelopes, boxes and other packaging I had received in the mail, I removed my personal information, like name and address labels, to prevent identity theft," one of them said. "I wanted a better way to do this than having to cut or peel them off."

The original design was submitted to the Virginia Beach office of InventHelp. It is currently available for licensing or sale to manufacturers or marketers. For more information, write Dept. 17-VIG-310, InventHelp, 217 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 288-1300 ext. 1368. Learn more about InventHelp's Invention Submission Services at http://www.InventHelp.com.

SOURCE InventHelp

Related Links

http://www.inventhelp.com


LOS ANGELES, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On Saturday, September 22nd, Los Angeles will experience first-hand the power of the movement for a life free of lupus at the Walk to End Lupus Now at LA Live. Actress Kate Linder will be leading the event festivities as Grand Marshal and Sharon Tay, CBS2/KCAL9 anchor, will emcee the ceremony.

As the world's largest lupus walk program, the Lupus Foundation of America's Walk to End Lupus Now events bring communities together to raise money for lupus research, increase awareness of lupus, and rally public support for those who suffer from the brutal and life-threatening impact of lupus.

"Lupus is a disease that has touched my family," said Kate Linder, Walk to End Lupus Now Grand Marshal in Los Angeles and star of The Young and The Restless, who also has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, "My sister-in-law was diagnosed with lupus 18 years ago, and I have seen firsthand how it's affected her everyday life. Despite its devastating impact, awareness of lupus has remained low and funding for research is not enough. That's why it's so important for our communities to come together at events like the Walk to End Lupus Now to not only show our support for all lupus warriors, but to raise funds for research so that we can develop better treatments and find a cure."

The LA walk will offer a family-friendly experience and welcome special guests including Kazy Tauginas, actor and rising star in The Equalizer 2, whose mom has lived with lupus for more than 40 years.

To learn more visit walktoendlupus.org/la. To view the full release click here.

About the Lupus Foundation of America

The Lupus Foundation of America is the only national force devoted to solving the mystery of lupus, one of the world's cruelest, most unpredictable and potentially fatal diseases, while giving caring support to those who suffer from its brutal impact. Through a comprehensive program of research, education, and advocacy, we lead the fight to improve the quality of life for all people affected by lupus. Learn more about the Lupus Foundation of America at lupus.org. For the latest news and updates, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Media Contact:

Maggie Maloney

202.212.6766

[email protected]

SOURCE Lupus Foundation of America

Related Links

http://www.lupus.org


KELOWNA, BC, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Marapharm Ventures Inc. (CSE: MDM) (OTCQX: MRPHF) (FSE: 2M0) ("Marapharm" or the "Company") a public company with substantial medical and adult-use cannabis assets in the United States and Canada, is very pleased to announce the fully funded operating agreement with Full Spectrum Medicinal Inc. ("FSM"), a company incorporated in the province of British Columbia.

Marapharm has taken immediate action to amend two items on its late- stage Health Canada's Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations ("ACMPR") application. The Company is currently amending the location for its license application to Celista, BC, FSM's 40-acre site, 1 hour from Salmon Arm and the new appointment of a Quality Assurance Person (QAP).

10 - 10,000 sq. ft. engineered bio-secure facilities, which have been fully funded by FSM, will be constructed in two phases, ultimately maximizing the potential of our 100,000 sq. ft. ACMPR licence once approved by Health Canada. Ground preparation on the site began on August 15th. To view images, video and on-going construction progress, please visit www.marapharm.com

"As a Canadian based company, we are confident about the demand and anticipated size of the Canadian cannabis market. This strategic alliance is mutually beneficial and will bring great shareholder value." Linda Sampson, CEO

Using conscious cultivation methods, the facilities will use supplemental power generated by utilizing all waste produced from cultivation. This is achieved using a Vapor Thermal Carbonization System (VTCS) and through combination with our organic food delivery system and energy efficient lights, we will meet and exceed the curriculum of organic consumption. Our goal is to set the standard for premium quality cannabis using an organic method of growing, optimizing a re-engineered system, reducing labor requirements and increasing production.

FSM has developed advanced, stand-alone, proprietary technology utilizing photomorphogenesis. Photomorphogenesis is the process by which a plants growth and development is controlled by light manipulation. "Our technology allows for complete control of spectral emissions which communicate with the DNA of plants using specific algorithms, in combination with spectral frequency algorithms, triggering antagonistic and degenerative responses to pathogens, mold and mites." Richard Huhn, CEO of FSM.

"Coupled with our shared organic methodologies and FSM's advanced technological practices, we simply could not be better positioned to expand on these technologies across all of our licenses both here in Canada and the U.S. This particular model serves to provide us with a superior level of reducing production costs while maximizing output of top shelf product." Corey Klassen VP of Corporate Development.

ABOUT MARAPHARM VENTURES INC.

www.marapharm.com

Marapharm is a publicly traded company investing in the medical and recreational cannabis space, since 2014. Marapharm has rapidly expanded to include having cultivation, production and dispensary locations in the key North American states of Washington, Nevada, and California, and are seeking expansion opportunities worldwide.

SOCIAL MEDIA:

Facebook:facebook.com/marapham

Twitter: twitter.com/marapharm

STOCK EXCHANGES:

Marapharm trades in Canada, ticker symbol MDM on the CSE, in the United States, ticker symbol MRPHF on the OTCQX, and in Europe, ticker symbol 2M0 on the FSE. Marapharm also trades on other recognized platforms in Europe including Stuttgart, Tradegate, L & S, Quotnx, Dusseldorf, Munich, and Berlin.

Neither the CSE, the FSE nor the OTCQX has approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. Neither the CSE, the FSE nor the OTCQX accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

MARIJUANA INDUSTRY INVOLVEMENT:

Canadian listings (CSE) will remain in good standing as long as they provide the disclosure that is rightly required by regulators and complying with applicable licensing requirements and the regulatory framework enacted by the applicable state in which they operate.

Marapharm owns marijuana licenses in California and Nevada. Marijuana is legal in each state however marijuana remains illegal under US federal law and the approach to enforcement of US federal law against marijuana is subject to change. Shareholders and investors need to be aware that adverse enforcement actions could affect their investments and that Marapharm's ability to access private and public capital could be affected and or could not be available to support continuing operations. Marapharm's business is conducted in a manner consistent with state law and is in compliance with licensing requirements.

Copies of licenses are posted on Marapharm's website. Marapharm has internal compliance procedures in place and has compliance focused attorneys engaged in jurisdictions to monitor changes in laws for compliance with US federal and state law on an ongoing basis. These law firms inform any necessary changes to our policies and procedures for compliance in Canada and the US.

FORWARD - LOOKING STATEMENTS:

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward looking statements. The use of any of the words "anticipate", "continue", "estimate", "expect", 'may", "will", "project", "should", 'believe", and similar expressions are intended to identify forward- looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward- looking statements are based on reasonable assumption but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and the forward-looking statements included in this news release should not be unduly relied upon.

SOURCE Marapharm Ventures Inc.

Related Links

http://www.marapharm.com/


WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Nominations are now open for a new award sponsored by Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards (CFP Board) and the Foundation for Financial Planning (FFP) that will recognize education institutions that are applying their students' skills and knowledge to give back to their communities.

The first annual Registered Program Excellence in Pro Bono Award will recognize one college or university's CFP Board Registered Program for making significant contributions to pro bono financial planning while providing exceptional experiential learning opportunities to students. The award will be given out yearly.

"Pro bono work is an effective and meaningful avenue for financial planning students to apply the skills they have learned in the classroom to serve those in need. We are thrilled that for the first time we are able to partner with the Foundation for Financial Planning to honor excellence in pro bono financial planning work at one of CFP Board's Registered Programs," said Mary Kay Svedberg, PhD, CFP Board's Director of Education.

"The Foundation for Financial Planning is pleased to partner with CFP Board on this important new award program," noted Jon Dauphine, the Foundation's CEO. "We hope that as more and more financial planning students have meaningful experiences helping underserved members of their communities, they will become committed to a lifetime of pro bono service to others that will truly enhance and elevate the financial planning profession."

The award recipient will receive a $5,000 grant, sponsored by Dalton Education. The award winner will be announced in February 2019 during CFP Board's Registered Programs Conference.

Interested colleges and universities must submit a nomination form (click here for the form) by October 19, 2018 and meet the following eligibility requirements:

Nominated programs must be actively registered with CFP Board for the entire 2018 calendar year;

Programs must remain actively registered and in good standing by February 2019 ;

; Pro bono activities must involve students from CFP Board Registered Programs; and

The activities must include students providing underserved members of the community (i.e. low income, military personnel/veterans, domestic violence survivors, victims of a natural disaster, individuals facing a serious medical diagnosis) during the period of January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2018

For more information about the Foundation for Financial Planning's ongoing pro bono efforts, visit FoundationForFinancialPlanning.org

ABOUT CFP BOARD

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. is a professional body for personal financial planners in the U.S. CFP Board sets standards for financial planning and administers the prestigious CFP certification  one of the most respected certifications in financial services  so that the public has access to and benefits from competent and ethical financial planning. CFP Board, along with its Center for Financial Planning, is committed to increasing the public's awareness of CFP certification and access to a diverse, ethical and competent financial planning workforce. Widely recognized by firms as the standard for financial planning, CFP certification is held by nearly 82,000 people in the United States.

ABOUT THE FOUNDATION FOR FINANCIAL PLANNING

The Foundation for Financial Planning, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, is the nation's only nonprofit solely devoted to supporting the delivery of pro bono financial planning to vulnerable people, including wounded veterans, domestic violence survivors, people with serious medical diagnoses, and many others. Dedicated to Powering Pro Bono Financial Planning, the Foundation has provided more than $6.6 million in grants to community-based nonprofits to support local programs; worked with partners to activate more than 15,000 volunteer financial planners to serve their communities; and acted as a leader and catalyst to embed a rich tradition of and commitment to pro bono across the financial planning profession. Visit FoundationForFinancialPlanning.org to learn more.

SOURCE Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.cfp.net


The initial agreement between Honduras and Guatemala began in June 2017. Since the program's implementation, the countries have noticed a 1.4% and 1.2% growth in their respective Gross Domestic Products (GDP). With the addition of El Salvador 14 months later, the three countries now expect a commercial impact of $117 million in trade benefits across the region.

Government officials confirmed that as a result of the new hub, the time spent at customs will decrease significantly, creating a more competitive region for producers and buyers investing in Central America. With the completion of the Omoa Highway, located in northern Honduras extending into Guatemala, it will further ease the transportation of goods and people across Central America.

The recent success of the customs union adds to Honduras's transformation into a logistics hub of Latin America. Through support from the President's economic plan, Honduras 2020, Honduras has invested $2.4 million in the past year into highways to facilitate regional travel.

President Juan Orlando Hernandez says, "[Thanks to] the new Customs Union between Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, we're looking to become the eighth largest economy in Latin America." He continues, "we have begun to define our short, medium, and long-term goals, and hope to eventually include Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama as well in this Union."

"With the addition of El Salvador, our new Customs Union will help us establish a productive integration and common market capabilities that will open more opportunities and generate economic competitiveness within Latin America," explained Jimmy Morales, President of Guatemala.

The development projects that President Juan Orlando Hernandez's administration continues to push indicates a new phase of modernization for the country. By helping Honduras attract more opportunities for investment, tourism, and exports, it better positions the Central American country within the global market.

About the Honduras Country Brand

The Honduras Country Brand Program (www.HondurasMarcPais.com/) is a public-private partnership launched in 2015 to promote Honduras as a destination for tourism and investment and to position the country's goods and services around the world while highlighting the talent and work of all Hondurans. Learn more Honduras's diverse export offerings by visiting: http://www.hondurasmarcapais.com/exportacion/.

SOURCE Honduras Country Brand
"Patrick knows Los Angeles, the valley and Santa Barbara Country very well and is highly regarded throughout these communities and the industry," said Stuart Bernstein, Head of Branch and Private Banking for Union Bank. "We are thrilled to have him join our team as we look to strengthen our client relationships and modernize the in-branch experience for our clients throughout the region."

Nygren has more than 15 years of experience in consumer and small business banking. Most recently he served as Regional Bank President for Wells Fargo, where since 2017, he led all aspects of consumer, small business and affluent business banking throughout Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.

"Union Bank has a strong reputation and legacy throughout the West Coast, particularly in Los Angeles, and I am honored and excited to join such a trusted institution," said Nygren. "I see this as a wonderful opportunity to bring my experience to help Union Bank continue to grow as we assist our clients, whether individuals or small businesses, with achieving their financial goals."

Nygren is an active member of the Los Angeles community. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Valley Industry and Commerce Association (VICA) and is very active with organizations that serve the well-being of children and health within the community.

Patrick earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, and received his Graduate Level certificate in banking from the Pacific Coast Banking School at the University of Washington, Seattle.

About Union Bank

Union Bank is a full-service bank with a rich history of investing in our clients, communities and employees throughout the West Coast for more than 150 years. Union Bank provides a wide range of personal and business banking products as well as wealth management services. With more more than 350 branches in California, Oregon and Washington, Union Bank remains committed to serving the needs of its local communities. As a member of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), one of the worlds largest financial institutions, Union Bank holds our clients best interests to heart and remains committed to investing in their success.

About MUFG Union Bank, N.A.

As of June 30, 2018, MUFG Union Bank, N.A. operated 355 branches, comprised primarily of retail banking branches in the West Coast states, along with commercial branches in Texas, Illinois, New York and Georgia, as well as 22 PurePoint Financial Centers. We provide a wide spectrum of corporate, commercial and retail banking and wealth management solutions to meet the needs of customers. We also offer an extensive portfolio of value-added solutions for customers, including investment banking, personal and corporate trust, global custody, transaction banking, capital markets, and other services. With assets of $123.8 billion, as of June 30, 2018, MUFG Union Bank has strong capital reserves, credit ratings and capital ratios relative to peer banks. MUFG Union Bank is a proud member of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (NYSE: MUFG), one of the world's largest financial organizations with total assets of approximately 299.1 trillion (JPY) or $2.7 trillion (USD), as of June 30, 2018. The corporate headquarters (principal executive office) for MUFG Americas Holdings Corporation, which is the financial holding company, and MUFG Union Bank, is in New York City. The main banking office of MUFG Union Bank is in San Francisco, California.

1 Exchange rate of 1 USD=110.5 (JPY) as of June 29, 2018

MUFG Union Bank, N.A.

A member of MUFG, a global financial group

2018 MUFG Union Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Member FDIC.

Union Bank is a registered trademark and brand name of MUFG Union Bank, N.A.

SOURCE MUFG Union Bank, N.A.

Related Links

https://www.unionbank.com


JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Patriot Rail Company LLC is a premier short line railroad and transportation service provider in North America. Recently, its Louisiana & North West Railroad (LNW) location, which operates over 62 miles of track from Gibsland, Louisiana to McNeil, Arkansas, welcomed a new tenant, Shale Support Holdings, LLC.

Shale Support Holdings, LLC is a leading provider of frac-sands and logistical solutions to the oil and gas proppant market with an exclusive terminal in Gibsland, Louisiana. The terminal boasts 24/7 operations, 100 car capacity, easy access to major highways, on-site storage, and room to add future storage capabilities.

"An important aspect of what makes Patriot Rail an attractive partner for energy sector companies is our capabilities to provide customized solutions to meet specific customer service demands and best in class service reliability," said John Fenton, President & CEO of Patriot Rail Company. "We are excited for this opportunity with Shale Support and look forward to cultivating a strategic business relationship."

Patriot Rail's LNW and Temple Texas operations are prime for companies in the energy sector, as they are conveniently located near the Haynesville shale basin, oil and gas industries, pipeline development projects, and provide a gateway to Mexico.

For additional information on this site or any of Patriot Rail's other short lines or service locations, please contact Patti Foy, AVP Business Development at [email protected] or 904.438.2451.

www.patriotrail.com

SOURCE Patriot Rail Company LLC

Related Links

http://www.patriotrail.com


SUGAR LAND, Texas, Aug, 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas) -- In the July 11 webinar regarding spending in the global Pharmaceutical-Biotech Industry, Annette Kreuger, Industrial Info's vice president of Pharma-Bio Industry research, and Shaheen Chohan, vice president of Global Analytics, discussed how spending in this dynamic industry is shaping up around the world. The latest reports claim expenses for drugs will amount to $1.5 trillion in 2021. The global population is increasing and aging, and as people age they need more drugs. In addition, the growing middle class in developing countries is giving more and more people access to medications, making the Pharma-Bio sector a competitive, rapidly-changing industry. Industrial Info is tracking more than 950 Pharmaceutical-Biotech projects across the world that are currently under construction and valued at a combined $59 billion.

To read the full article, visit the most recent edition of Industrial Info's NavigatIIR online newsletter.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, six offices in North America and 12 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities. Follow IIR on: Facebook - Twitter - LinkedIn. For more information on our coverage, send inquiries to [email protected] or visit us online at http://www.industrialinfo.com.

Brian Ford

(713) 980-9393

SOURCE Industrial Info Resources, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.industrialinfo.com


CHICAGO, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, nationally syndicated radio host Joe Walsh, announced a series of Chicago focused political discussions alongside Maze Jackson, host of Chicago's WVON Morning Show.

The four "Black and White, Uncomfortable Conversations" events will feature authentic, uncensored dialogue with respectful, no-holds barred conversation about the issues affecting black and white men and women of all ages throughout Chicago.

The events, taking place in Bolingbrook, Wauconda, Chicago's south side, and Lake Forest, will examine community issues like taxes, gun violence, reparations, religion, family structure, education, and other political topics that have been hijacked by an agenda-driven media.

"The 'Uncomfortable Conversations' events will help us find common ground, which too many Americans have forgotten how to do," says event organizer Joe Walsh. The former Illinois Congressman currently hosts one of the highest rated nationally syndicated conservative radio shows in the country, The Joe Walsh Show, which broadcasts live from 5-7pm CT in Chicago.

Known for his outspoken, honest criticism of President Trump, his opposition to illegal immigration, and his support for our second amendment rights, Joe Walsh defends his conservative principles nightly on his national television program seen on NewsmaxTV.

The Uncomfortable Conversations tour will pair Walsh with the host of Chicago's WVON Morning Show, Maze Jackson.

Jackson is an accomplished political strategist, lobbyist, and urban marketing pioneer with a background in business, politics, and community engagement. Jackson can be heard daily on the WVON 1690 AM Morning Show asking the question, 'What's In It For The Black People?'

"I'm looking forward to having some really uncomfortable conversations on race, politics, and culture with a very unlikely partner, former Congressman Joe Walsh," Jackson stated. "I'm as pro-Black as you can be, and Joe is as conservative as one can be, so when we get together, fireworks will erupt. But after we get through the bombastic words we'll get to the core of finding solutions to benefit us all."

These events will be open to the public and tickets are available by visiting www.eventbrite.com, and searching Black & White Uncomfortable Conversations.

CONTACT: Camille Jackson EMAIL: [email protected]

SOURCE Former Congressman Joe Walsh; Radio Host Maze Jackson
"Console games continue to set new standards for gameplay, but controller designs have been slow to evolve in step with those advancements," said Min-Liang Tan, Razer Co-Founder and CEO. "The power of PS4 offers an incredibly immersive experience with controllers that can unlock the platform's potential and headsets that exploit the richness of Sony audio. Our new Razer Raiju Ultimate and Tournament edition, and Razer Thresher, answer the call for next-level PS4 hardware."

Razer Raiju Ultimate

The Razer Raiju Ultimate is crafted as the most modular PS4 controller everto challenge the limits of customizability. Sporting wireless and wired connectivity, upgraded ergonomics and a wealth of customization options, the Razer Raiju Ultimate is the controller that adapts to every gamer.

A new dedicated mobile app enables gamers to make advanced customizations easily. Multi-function buttons can be mapped to create more than 500 customized profiles to fit different playstyles for different gaming genres. Users may adjust the sensitivity of thumbstick movements to achieve greater headshot aiming precision or speedy response. Advanced lighting effects are powered by Razer Chroma for immersive gamingRGB LED lighting up in sync with controller vibrations and other button actions.

The controller also comes with a set of interchangeable thumbsticks and D-pad, providing more ways to personalize experiences. RazerTM Mecha-Tactile Action Buttons combine the soft-cushioned touch of a membrane rubber dome with crisp tactile clicks of a mechanical switch. The distinct feel of the controller makes it a unique choice for gamers.

To ensure a user-friendly experience, the controller offers three connectivity modes via a built-in switch located on the back for easy transitions between PS4, Bluetooth, USB and PC Bluetooth modes. A quick control panel provides instant access to functions like profile switching and on-the-fly mapping, while a secure button lock prohibits unintended key presses.

Razer Raiju Tournament Edition

The Raiju Tournament Edition focuses on essential features that gamers seek. With wireless and wired connectivity, an ergonomic design and seamless accessibility, it is strategically positioned to provide a competitive edge.



Razer Raiju Ultimate Razer Raiju Tournament Edition MSRP $199.99/199.99 $149.99/149.99 Connectivity Bluetooth & Wired Connection Bluetooth & Wired Connection Action Buttons Razer Mecha-Tactile Buttons Razer Mecha-Tactile Buttons D-pad Interchangeable Individual Buttons, Concave Plane Analog Sticks Interchangeable Concave, Crosshair Texture Multi-Function Buttons 4 extra Multi-Function Buttons 4 extra Multi-Function Buttons Lighting Effect Chroma Lighting NO Trigger Stops YES YES Configuration Mobile app & Quick Control Panel Mobile app Profiles 4 Onboard + 500+ Cloud profiles 1 Onboard + 500+ Cloud profiles Sensitivity Clutch Level Adjustment Adjustable through mobile app Adjustable through mobile app 3.5 mm Headphone Jack YES YES

Razer Thresher for PS4

The Razer Thresher for PS4 provides comfort and control over a gamer's listening experience. Users can choose a wireless 2.4 GHz connection or a wired 3.5 mm connection, adding cross-platform functionality. The Razer Thresher can last up to 16 hours in wireless mode from a single charge without concerns of disconnecting.

With a wireless range of up to 40 feet, the Razer Thresher for PS4 is designed to be the most reliable headset in the world for gamers.

Master and mic volume controls are conveniently placed on the headset. A retractable unidirectional boom microphone and mic-monitoring allow you to hear yourself in-game. This mix of seamless control and audio fidelity provides a winning advantage when ambient sounds and clear communication matter.

The headset comes with large leatherette ear cushions made of memory foam that conform to any gamer's head. The memory foam provides extraordinary comfort, better sound quality, and noise isolation, even for those wearing glasses thanks to the indented eyewear channels in the ear cups.

Within each ear cup is a 50 mm driver that provides loud and clear audio into each cup with a wide frequency response range of 12 Hz to 28,000 Hz.

The Razer Thresher for PS4 is also compatible with the PC, Nintendo Switch, and other devices equipped with a 3.5 mm audio port.

Raiju Ultimate

Product features:

Wired and wireless connectivity

4 Multi-function buttons

Mecha-Tactile Triangle, Circle, X, Square action buttons

Powered by Razer Chroma TM

Trigger stops for quick-firing action

3.5 mm audio port for stereo audio output and microphone input (wired mode)

Quick Control Panel

Interchangeable Thumbstick and D-pad modules

Carrying Case

Detachable 3 m / 10 ft. lightweight braided fiber cable with Micro-USB connector

/ 10 ft. lightweight braided fiber cable with Micro-USB connector Approximate size: 106 mm / 4.17 in. (Length) x 155 mm / 6.09 in. (Width) x 66 mm / 2.60 in. (Height)

Approximate weight (without cable): 352 g / 0.77 lbs.

Product images:

https://resource.razer.com/galleries/efcad621-a5e1-431e-82b4-2596e3c668a9_ff44f166-9b42-4c55-be29-8de64d5894a6-ExternalUser

Raiju Tournament Edition

Product features:

Wired and wireless connectivity

4 Multi-function buttons

Mecha-Tactile Triangle, Circle, X, Square action buttons

Trigger stops for quick-firing action

3.5 mm audio port for stereo audio output and microphone input (wired mode)

Detachable 2 m / 6.5 ft. lightweight braided fiber cable with Micro-USB connector

/ 6.5 ft. lightweight braided fiber cable with Micro-USB connector Approximate size: 104 mm / 4.1 in. (Length) x 159.4 mm / 6.28 in. (Width) x 65.6 mm / 2.6 in. (Height)

Approximate weight (without cable): 322 g / 0.71 lbs.

Product images:

https://resource.razer.com/galleries/efcad621-a5e1-431e-82b4-2596e3c668a9_7c516479-2300-4ff9-9ad2-98ad06f3adf8-ExternalUser

Thresher for PS4

Product features:

Compatible Devices: PS4, PC, Nintendo Switch, devices with a 3.5 mm audio port

Frequency Response: 12 Hz - 28,000 Hz

Drivers: 50 mm, with Neodymium Magnets

Impedance: 32 at 1 kHz

Wired Connection: Analog 3.5 mm

Wireless Connection: RF 2.4 GHz, up to 40 ft. / 12 m

Master Volume Controls on headset

Mic Monitoring Controls on headset

Retractable Uni-directional Boom Microphone

Mic Frequency Response: 100 Hz - 10,000 Hz

Mic Sensitivity (@1kHz, 1V/Pa): -38  3 dB

Mic Signal-to-Noise Ratio: >55 dB

Up to 16 hours on one single charge

Includes USB Dongle for wireless transmission

Approximate size: 214 mm (Width) * 104.8 mm (Height) * 196 mm (Length)

Approximate weight: 402 g / 0.89 lbs.

Product images:

https://resource.razer.com/galleries/efcad621-a5e1-431e-82b4-2596e3c668a9_3cd9f190-1768-4460-be65-19402ae13f6d-ExternalUser

For more information, visit:

Raiju Ultimate https://www.razer.com/raiju-ultimate

Raiju Tournament Edition https://www.razer.com/raiju-tournament-edition

Thresher for PS4 https://www.razerzone.com/thresher-for-ps4

Price:

Raiju Ultimate $199.99/199.99 Raiju Tournament Edition $149.99/149.99 Thresher for PS4 $129.99/129.99

Availability:

Raiju Ultimate/ Raiju Tournament Edition

Razer.com  August 20, 2018

Worldwide  Fall 2018

Americas - TBC

Thresher for PS4

Razer.com  August 20, 2018

Worldwide  Fall 2018

About Razer

Razer is the world's leading lifestyle brand for gamers.

The triple-headed snake trademark of Razer is one of the most recognized logos in the global gaming and esports communities. With a fan base that spans every continent, the company has designed and built the world's largest gamer-focused ecosystem of hardware, software and services.

Razer's award-winning hardware includes high-performance gaming peripherals, Blade gaming laptops and the acclaimed Razer Phone.

Razer's software platform, with over 50 million users, includes Razer Synapse (an Internet of Things platform), Razer Chroma (a proprietary RGB lighting technology system), and Razer Cortex (a game optimizer and launcher).

Razer services include Razer zGold, one of the world's largest virtual credit services for gamers, which allows gamers to purchase virtual goods and items from over 2,500 different games.

Founded in 2005 and dual-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, Razer has nine offices worldwide and is recognized as the leading brand for gamers in the USA, Europe and China. Razer is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (Stock Code: 1337).

Press Contacts:

Global

Alain Mazer

[email protected]

Americas

Kevin Allen

[email protected]

Europe/Africa

Jan Horak

[email protected]

Asia Pacific

Raymond Lau

[email protected]



China

Evita Zhang

[email protected]

Razer  For Gamers. By Gamers.

SOURCE Razer

Related Links

http://www.razer.com


DURHAM, N.H., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, The RiverWoods Group broke ground for their newest project, RiverWoods Durham, a new Continuing Care Retirement Community, and affiliate of The RiverWoods Group (TRWG), the parent company of the nationally accredited 24-year-old CCRC RiverWoods Exeter, and Birch Hill, a CCRC located in Manchester, NH.

RiverWoods Durham Community Members

Justine Vogel, CEO of The RiverWoods Group said, "We are grateful to all our partners gathered here today, and to our new RiverWoods Durham residents, that we are able to bring the RiverWoods way of life to more people. No project this significant gets done without a great deal of teamwork, and support from the community, and based on our experience so far, we are off to a great start."

RiverWoods Durham is a non-profit Continuing Care Retirement Community comprised of 150 independent apartments and a 72-bed health center, on a 11-acre campus in Durham, New Hampshire. After only 29 selling days, RiverWoods Durham was 100% sold, which is a record in this industry. Today, the community remains 100% sold, but is currently accepting wait-list deposits (equal to 10% of the entrance fee of the apartment selected).

Funding completion was announced in July 2018, for which TD Bank and SunTrust Bank were selected as co-lead banks and People's United Bank was selected as participant bank. LeCesse Construction of New York is managing the construction project, and the community is scheduled to open in late 2019.

Attendees at today's groundbreaking included executives from RiverWoods Group, Ziegler, TD Bank, SunTrust Bank, and People's Bank along Todd Selig, the Durham Town Manager, members of the Durham Town Planning Board and leadership team, LeCesse Construction, Greystone developers and RiverWoods Durham depositors.

The event included a photo and recognition of the co-founders of RiverWoods Exeter, Marianna Hatch and Rosemary Coffin. Johanna Hatch, daughter of Marianna Hatch, a long-time resident of Durham spoke during the ceremony, in honor of her mother and the community she inspired. Over 35 years ago, Marianna and Rosemary gathered a small group of Seacoast area residents to create the area's first Continuing Care Retirement Community. Their original goal was to locate the community in Durham, but instead, it opened in Exeter in 1994.

About RiverWoods Durham

RiverWoods Durham is a new charitable, nonprofit CCRC (Continuing Care Retirement Community), comprised of 150 independent homes and a 72-unit health center providing assisted living, memory support and nursing care, located on 11 acres in Durham, New Hampshire, and scheduled to open in early 2020.

CCRCs welcome people 62 years or older, to enter as independent residents. Once there, residents enjoy a variety of amenities from housekeeping, laundry service, dining, inside and outside maintenance, to educational programs and exercise classes, while making friends and cultivating community engagement. As they age, if a resident needs a higher level of care, it is available to them within the same campus.

RiverWoods Durham is an affiliate of The RiverWoods Group, which is the parent company of RiverWoods Exeter, a charitable, nonprofit, nationally-accredited CCRC comprised of three vibrant campuses on 200 wooded acres in Exeter, New Hampshire and Birch Hill, a nonprofit CCRC in Manchester.

Press Contact

Jackie Lucas

Vera Voce Communication

978-255-1159

[email protected]

SOURCE The RiverWoods Group

Related Links

http://www.riverwoodsdurham.org


New Blockchain Solution Will Help Brands Verify Influencer Data Performance

SINGAPORE and NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Robin8, Inc. (www.robin8.com), China's first social media influencer search engine announces strategic partnership with Kantar Media CIC (KMCIC), China's leading social intelligence consulting firm, to bring a revolutionary change to KOL profiling in China's influencer market.

As part of the partnership, KMCIC will introduce Robin8's blockchain enterprise solution to evaluate KOL's performance, enabling better evaluation of China's KOL market and bringing transparency to advertisers.

China's influencer marketing industry has been grappling with many pain points. One of the most prominent is fake data. In Tencent's September 2016 crackdown on fake data, many WeChat subscription accounts that previously garnered over 10,000 views saw their views diminished by as much as 90%.

"Influencer marketing is one of the fastest growing segments of advertising. However, the number one issue facing advertisers is fake data. Nowadays, you can buy fake fans, fake clicks and fake likes for pennies," said Miranda Tan, founder and CEO of Robin8. "Aside from fake data, another significant issue is data ownership. Every day, millions of people use social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Weibo and WeChat, where we share pictures of our family, our friends, information about where we work, eat and shop and yet we don't own or have any control of our data. Even worse, these third parties do not take the proper precautions to protect our data. For example, when Target, Equifax and Yahoo were hacked and lost millions of personal data."

Robin8 is China's first influencer search engine powered by AI, big data and NLP technology. Robin8 key technology is about profiling, ranking and matching people based on their social media data. To combat the fake data crisis faced by advertisers, Robin8 launched its Profile Management EcoSystem (PMES) that allows any application to add their profile data on the blockchain. Starting next month, Robin8 in partnership with KMCIC will introduce a new blockchain solution for brands where Robin8 will be able to verify the influencer data on the blockchain.

As a market pioneer in social listening and KOL studies for more than 15 years, KMCIC is consistently looking for innovative solutions to assist marketers' day-to-day decision making.

"KOL profiling and the evaluation of the KOL's performance are still two big challenges for the industry", said Coolio Yang, CEO of KMCIC. "We believe Robin8's blockchain solution will revolutionize China's influencer marketing industry."

KMCIC will introduce Robin8's blockchain solution to verify the influencer's performance based on user opt-in, and allow advertisers to better trust the veracity of the data they see.

KMCIC 's newly launched Cooperator XI product will be powered by Robin8 on its KOL function. This blockchain-based solution will be imbedded into Cooperator XI  the automated social insight, performance tracking and marketing tool. KOLs will claim their profile on blockchain and their activity will be recorded and stored on the blockchain.

"We are super excited to partner with KMCIC to introduce this new blockchain solution to the industry," says Tan. "We will be beta launching the new blockchain verification solution and welcome brands to contact us if they are interested in being part of our program."

-

About Robin8

Robin8 is the leading influencer search engine and marketplace. The company's key technology is profiling, ranking and matching people down to a science and helping brands find the best people based on big data, AI and blockchain. Robin8 has already profiled over 30+ million people.

Robin8 recently launched its Profile Management EcoSystem (PMES) that allows any application to add their profile data on the blockchain.

To learn more, please visit www.robin8.com.

SOURCE Robin8, Inc.
FAIRFAX, Va., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Salient CRGT was awarded a $7.6M prime contract to support several Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) applications. The applications that Salient CRGT will support includes three different DoD enterprise HR case management systems: Investigations and Resolutions Case Management System (IRCMS), Case Management Tracking System (CMTS), and Defense Injury and Unemployment Compensation System (DIUCS). This contract will have a 12-month base period and four (4) twelve-month option periods.

The DMDC serves under the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense to collate personnel, manpower, training, financial, and other data for the Department of Defense (DoD). DMDC's primary function is to support the information management needs of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel & Readiness (OUSD(P&R)) and its predecessors. The scope of work that Salient CRGT will perform includes software development and maintenance; system user guide documentation; disaster recover activities; and system security procedures including supporting the Risk Management Framework continuous monitoring to identify, analyze and remediate vulnerabilities.

"We are honored to support the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense and the DMDC with our agile software approach to enable DMDC to operate, maintain and enhance their critical HR applications," said Tom Ferrando, Salient CRGT CEO. "We have a critical role in supplying accurate, timely, and consistent data for the DoD that allows them to operate DoD-wide personnel programs."

About Salient CRGT

Salient CRGT provides agile software development, health, data analytics, mobility, cyber security and infrastructure solutions. We support these core capabilities with full lifecycle IT services and trainingto help our customers meet critical goals for pivotal missions. We are purpose built for IT transformation supporting federal civilian, health, defense, homeland, and intelligence agencies, as well as Fortune 1000 companies. We use the most innovative talent delivery model in the industry, scientifically providing exactly the right people for the customers' most pressing requirements. Salient CRGT has earned a record of success with integration and operations of largescale, highvolume solutions. Visit our newsroom and explore www.salientcrgt.com .

Tweet: [email protected]_CRGT Awarded Defense Manpower Data Center $7.6M Prime Contract

by Defense Human Resources Activity. http://bit.ly/1MGSz5l

SOURCE Salient CRGT, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.salientcrgt.com


FRISCO, Texas, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Gateway Architects announced today the addition of Scott Cunningham to its advisory board. He joins a team of other technology innovators and business leaders who are pioneering Gateway's flagship product Meister 2.0, a disruptive propriety platform solution that revolutionizes the way businesses access, utilize and optimize SAP data capabilities.

Managing Architect and Founder, Platinum DQ Consulting

Cunningham joins the Gateway advisory board while currently serving as managing architect and founder of Corpus Christi, Texas-based Platinum DQ Consulting, an elite group of data quality professionals with decades of experience specializing in SAP data quality, enterprise information management applications and data quality best practices.

"I'm excited about working with a team of exceptional thinkers and leaders with a truly disruptive technology, the likes of which I haven't seen in my more than 30 years in this industry," said Cunningham. "Having successfully provided solutions to Fortune 500 companies for more than 18 years, I think Meister's impact, combined with its Day 2 ROI, makes it an unrivaled SAP data solution."

Cunningham brings with him more than three decades of experience in information technology with more than half of his time at SAP, becoming one of their elite Platinum consultants and holding multiple SAP certifications. Considered one of their most advanced data quality experts, he has experience in enterprise-level data quality planning, development and deployment using a blend of SAP and leading industry best practices.

"With Scott's reputation as an industry innovator and opinion leader, joining forces with him is a fantastic opportunity," said William Mays, Gateway Architects co-founder and chairman. "He's spent his career solving complex data management, access and analytics issues for Fortune 500 companies both nationally and internationally. With the strong traction we're getting in the U.S. and Middle Eastern markets, it is the perfect time to bring in his product development guidance and connectivity to large multinational end users and leading channel partners."

Meister is a ground-breaking, proprietary platform that unleashes the power of data in SAP, enabling transparency, accuracy, velocity and agility on a real-time basis at a fraction of the time and cost. Meister delivers data that is in real time, visible, extensible, streamlined, controlled and efficiently accessible via any device, anywhere, at any time  without sacrificing security.

About Gateway Architects

Gateway Architects are world-class experts in developing algorithms and compilers at SAP. Using research, machine learning models and advanced compiler methodologies, they create disruptive solutions which enable any device and platform to seamlessly transact with SAP NetWeaver. Their flagship product Meister unlocks the power and potential of SAP, transforming the ability to turn information into real-time intelligence. They are headquartered in Frisco, Texas. Visit them at www.gameister.com.

For more information, please contact:

Lauren Yates

ThinkWell Consulting LLC

703.593.3184

[email protected]

Related Links

Platinum DQ Consulting

Gateway Architects

SOURCE Gateway Architects

Related Links

http://www.gameister.com


NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Juan Monteverde, founder and managing partner at Monteverde & Associates PC, a national securities firm headquartered at the Empire State Building in New York City, is investigating SUPERVALU, Inc. ("SUPERVALU" or the "Company") (NYSE: SVU) relating to the sale of the Company to United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI). Under the terms of the agreement, shareholders of SUPERVALU will receive only $32.50 in cash for each share of SUPERVALU that they own.

Click here for more information: https://monteverdelaw.com/case/supervalu-inc. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

The investigation focuses on whether SUPERVALU and its Board of Directors violated securities laws and/or breached their fiduciary duties to the Company's stockholders by 1) failing to conduct a fair process, 2) whether and by how much this proposed transaction undervalues the Company by and 3) failing to disclose all material financial information in connection with the upcoming shareholder meeting.

Monteverde & Associates PC is a national class action securities and consumer litigation law firm that has recovered millions of dollars and is committed to protecting shareholders and consumers from corporate wrongdoing. Monteverde & Associates lawyers have significant experience litigating Mergers & Acquisitions and Securities Class Actions, whereby they protect investors by recovering money and remedying corporate misconduct. Mr. Monteverde, who leads the legal team at the firm, has been recognized by Super Lawyers as a Rising Star in Securities Litigation in 2013 and 2017, an award given to less than 2.5% of attorneys in a particular field. He has also been selected by Martindale-Hubbell as a 2017 Top Rated Lawyer.

If you own common stock in SUPERVALU and wish to obtain additional information and protect your investments free of charge, please visit our website or contact Juan E. Monteverde, Esq. either via e-mail at [email protected] or by telephone at (212) 971-1341.

Contact:

Juan E. Monteverde, Esq.

MONTEVERDE & ASSOCIATES PC

The Empire State Building

350 Fifth Ave. Suite 4405

New York, NY 10118

United States of America

[email protected]

Tel: (212) 971-1341

Attorney Advertising. (C) 2018 Monteverde & Associates PC. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Monteverde & Associates PC (www.monteverdelaw.com). Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.

SOURCE Monteverde & Associates PC

Related Links

http://www.monteverdelaw.com


MIAMI, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Sitel, the BPO subsidiary of Sitel Group, one of the world's largest customer experience companies, was honored with the Implementation Award by Speech Technology magazine for achieving significant business benefits from its deployment of the CallMiner Eureka speech analytics solution and MyEureka portal.

"The mix of Sitel's people innovation and CallMiner's technology resulted in a highly successful program deployment which exceeded initial expectations and is being offered to additional Sitel clients around the globe," according to Craig Reines, Sitel Chief Operating Officer for Asia Pacific (APAC).

Sitel deployed Eureka in an effort to improve call resolution time, increase sales, and enhance overall customer experience. Deploying the Eureka speech analytics solution and MyEureka portal enabled Sitel to analyze customer behaviors, better train agents, and measure the effectiveness of actions taken.

"We are excited to have Sitel recognized for their innovative use of CallMiner Eureka technology to drive early and impressive results in agent training and customer experience," said Paul Bernard, President and CEO of CallMiner. "CallMiner is proud to work with Sitel as a leader in customer care and we look forward to supporting their continued success."

"We are deeply honored by this recognition from Speech Technology magazine. This award reaffirms Sitel's commitment to provide the best customer experience to our clients," according to Reines.

ABOUT SITEL GROUP

Sitel Group is one of the largest customer experience companies in the world. The group is comprised of industry-leading firms providing business process outsourcing, digital marketing, training and talent management, technology and innovation, consulting and analytics solutions.

With subsidiaries such as Sitel, TSC, Learning Tribes, Extens Consulting, Sitel Insights and Novagile, the group's services are leveraged across geographies, verticals and all stages of the end-to-end customer journey, helping clients effectively harness the industry's explosive digital transformation and consistently deliver outstanding customer experiences.

With over 30 years of industry-leading experience, Sitel Group's 75,000 associates service more than 400 clients, Fortune Global 500 companies as well as local businesses, through its network of more than 150 offices in 25 countries.

For more information, visit www.sitel.com

Follow us: Twitter , LinkedIn and YouTube

Media Contacts:

Christine H. Matriano

Senior Director, Partner Communications

+632.860.2040

+63917.3120012

[email protected]

Gesner Filoso

Director of Marketing

Email: [email protected]

Martin Wilkinson-Brown

Vice President, Marketing

Mobile: +1.305.546.9898

Email: [email protected]

About CallMiner

CallMiner believes that resolution is the fundamental driver of positive customer experiences. When contact center agents and others responsible for customer engagement are empowered by insight and feedback in near real-time, they can dramatically improve the rate of positive outcomes. With the tagline "Listen to Your Customers, Improve Your Business" our goal is to help companies automate the overwhelming process of extracting insight from phone calls, chats, emails and social media to dramatically improve customer service and sales, reduce the cost of service delivery, mitigate risk, and identify areas for process and product improvement. Highlighted by multiple customer achievement awards, including seven Speech Technology implementation awards in the past five years, CallMiner customers have been recognized for unparalleled success in leveraging Eureka interaction analytics to attain their business goals and objectives. www.callminer.com.

Media Contact:

Kate Davis

Marketing Manager

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Sitel Group

Related Links

http://www.sitel.com


"SS&C GlobeOp's Forward Redemption Indicator for August 2018 of 2.73% was a very strong result for the hedge fund industry, markedly better than the 3.55% reported for the same period a year ago and the second lowest level of redemption notices for any calendar month of August since the inception of the Indicator in 2008," said Bill Stone , Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, SS&C Technologies. "The August 2018 reading of 2.73% continues the generally favorable trend in asset retention that we've seen over the past year and a half, indicating investor confidence in hedge funds remains high."

The SS&C GlobeOp Forward Redemption Indicator represents the sum of forward redemption notices received from investors in hedge funds administered by SS&C GlobeOp on the SS&C GlobeOp platform, divided by the AuA at the beginning of the month for SS&C GlobeOp fund administration clients on the SS&C GlobeOp platform. Forward redemptions as a percentage of SS&C GlobeOp's assets under administration on the SS&C GlobeOp platform have trended significantly lower since reaching a high of 19.27% in November 2008. The next publication date is September 24, 2018.

Published on the 15th business day of the month, the SS&C GlobeOp Forward Redemption Indicator presents a timely and accurate view of the redemption pipeline for investors in hedge funds on the SS&C GlobeOp administration platform. Movements in the Indicator reflect investor confidence in their allocations to hedge funds. Indicator data is based on actual investor redemption notifications received. Unlike subscriptions, redemption notifications are typically received 30-90 days in advance of the redemption date. Investors may, and sometimes do, cancel redemption notices. In addition, the establishment and enforcement of redemption notices may vary from fund to fund.

SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Performance Index

Base 100 points on 31 December 2005 Flash estimate (current month) 0.97%* Year-to-date (YTD) 4.54%* Last 12 month (LTM) 7.37%* Life to date (LTD) 157.40%* *All numbers reported above are gross



SS&C GlobeOp Capital Movement Index

Base 100 points on 31 December 2005 All time high 150.77 in September 2013 All time low 99.67 in January 2006 12-month high 138.20 in September 2017 12-month low 134.06 in July 2018 Largest monthly change - 15.21 in January 2009

SS&C GlobeOp Forward Redemption Indicator

All time high 19.27% in November 2008 All time low 1.85% in January 2012 12-month high 4.18% in December 2017 12-month low 2.20% in January 2018 Largest monthly change 9.60% in November 2008

About the SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Index

The SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Index (the Index) is a family of indices published by SS&C GlobeOp. A unique set of indices by a hedge fund administrator, it offers clients, investors and the overall market a welcome transparency on liquidity, investor sentiment and performance. The Index is based on a significant platform of diverse and representative assets.

The SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Index is available at www.sscglobeopindex.com or through a link on the homepage of www.sscglobeop.com. Alert and RSS subscriber options are available at www.sscglobeop.com. Index Twitter comments: #HFindex.

The SS&C GlobeOp Capital Movement Index and the SS&C GlobeOp Forward Redemption Indicator provide monthly reports based on actual and anticipated capital movement data independently collected from all hedge fund clients for whom SS&C GlobeOp provides administration services on the SS&C GlobeOp platform.

The SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Performance Index is an asset-weighted benchmark of the aggregate performance of funds for which SS&C GlobeOp provides monthly administration services on the SS&C GlobeOp platform. Flash estimate, interim and final values are provided, in each of three months respectively, following each business month-end.

While individual fund data is anonymized by aggregation, the SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Index data will be based on the same reconciled fund data that SS&C GlobeOp uses to produce fund net asset values (NAV). Funds acquired through the acquisition of Citi Alternative Investor Services are integrated into the index suite starting with the January 2017 reporting periods. SS&C GlobeOp's total assets under administration on the SS&C GlobeOp platform represent approximately 10% of the estimated assets currently invested in the hedge fund sector. The investment strategies of the funds in the indices span a representative industry sample. Data for middle and back office clients who are not fund administration clients is not included in the Index, but is included in the Company's results announcement figures.

About SS&C Technologies

SS&C is a global provider of investment and financial software-enabled services and software for the global financial services and healthcare industries. Founded in 1986, SS&C is headquartered in Windsor, Connecticut and has offices around the world. Some 13,000 financial services and healthcare organizations, from the world's largest institutions to local firms, manage and account for their investments using SS&C's products and services.

Additional information about SS&C (NASDAQ: SSNC) is available at www.ssctech.com.

SOURCE GlobeOp SS&C

Related Links

https://www.ssctech.com


STOCKHOLM, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at 10.00 am CET, Starbreeze CEO Bo Andersson Klint and CFO Sebastian Ahlskog will host a live stream and present the report on Starbreeze Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/starbreeze

Second quarter 2018

Net sales up to SEK 123.5 million (122.7).

(122.7). PAYDAY generated SEK 31.3 million (51.4) and Dead by Daylight SEK 71.5 million (65.8) of net sales.

(51.4) and Dead by Daylight (65.8) of net sales. EBITDA amounted to SEK 52.4 million (-2.7).

(-2.7). Depreciation, amortization and impairments totaled SEK 46.7 million (15.9).

(15.9). Profit before tax amounted to SEK 26.2 million (-16.7).

(-16.7). Basic and diluted earnings per share were SEK 0.13 (-0.04).

(-0.04). Oversubscribed rights issue raised approximately SEK 152 million before transaction costs.

before transaction costs. Joint venture StarVR Corporation listed on the Taipei Exchange Emerging Market board in Taiwan .

. Sale of the publishing rights to Dead by Daylight closed.

First half 2018

Net sales up 30 percent to SEK 233.6 million (180.0).

(180.0). PAYDAY generated SEK 56.3 million (75.5) and Dead by Daylight SEK 133.5 million (86.7) of net sales.

(75.5) and Dead by Daylight (86.7) of net sales. EBITDA amounted to SEK 101.2 million (-38.0).

(-38.0). Profit before tax amounted to SEK 19.8 million (-73.0).

(-73.0). Basic and diluted earnings per share were SEK 0.12 (-0.22).

(-0.22). Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the period amounted to SEK 269.2 million (384.2).

After the end of the period

505 Games decided on 21 August 2018 to release the console version of OVERKILL's The Walking Dead in February 2019 .

to release the console version of OVERKILL's The Walking Dead in . Agreement with Acer to extend the convertible bond of SEK 75.5 million with a one-year repayment plan. See separate notice.

CEO Bo Andersson Klint remarks on the report:

In an all-time high, we generated sales of SEK 123.5 million in the second quarter. Even though we did not release any new products during the quarter, we matched our sales record set in Q2 2017 when we had two major game releases. Starbreeze has dramatically boosted profitability since the agreement to sell back the publishing rights to Dead by Daylight. Compared to last year, we have improved EBITDA by SEK 55.1 million, largely due to the Dead by Daylight deal.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Ann Charlotte Svensson

Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

Tel: +46-8-202-509

[email protected]

Starbreeze AB is required to disclose this information under the EU Market Abuse Regulation and the Securities Market Act. The information was provided by the above contact person for publication on 21 August 2018 at 08:30 CET.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/starbreeze-ab/r/starbreeze-ab--publ--interim-report-q2-2018,c2596566

The following files are available for download:

http://mb.cision.com/Main/14632/2596566/894804.pdf Interim Report Q2 2018

SOURCE Starbreeze AB
The Secretary of States office announces Tennessees 2018 Student Mock Election. The Student Mock Election was first introduced during the 2016 presidential election, which drew participation from 165,968 students and 479 schools across the state.

Students in preschool through high school from all public and private schools, as well as home school associations across the state, can cast a vote for Tennessees next governor and U.S. senator. Registration is open through Oct. 12, and results must be submitted by Mock Election Day, Oct. 30.

Our goal with the Student Mock Election is to emphasize the importance of civic engagement in our schools, hopefully preparing our students to be engaged citizens as they reach adulthood, said Secretary of State Tre Hargett.

The Civic Education and Engagement Advisory Committee has prepared lesson plans for teachers to incorporate civic engagement into their curriculum leading up to the Student Mock Election.

For more information about the Student Mock Election and other civic engagement initiatives, visit sos.tn.gov/civics
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- MiniTool Software Limited., a leader in the data recovery field, constantly updates the software to meet customers' increased requirements. Recently, MiniTool has announced the newest MiniTool Power Data Recovery V8.1 is released.

Every updated version of this data recovery software can bring a new experience to users, and what's new functions can users get from this new version?

Users can explore its new features now.

New Features in MiniTool Power Data Recovery V8.1

MiniTool team has researched and developed MiniTool Power Data Recovery for years to improve its data recovery performance and help more users to reduce the loss caused by data missing.

With this MiniTool data recovery software, users can recover lost and deleted data from various kinds of data storage devices, such as internal hard drives, external hard drives, USB flash drives, memory cards, SD cards, CDs/DVDs, and so forth.

The new version of this top data recovery software still retains these four recovery features: This PC, Removable Disk Drive, Hard Disk Drive, and CD/DVD Drive. While the most obvious updates focus on its languages, convenience, and excellent recovery performances.

The specific interpretations are listed as follows:

1. Support for Multiple Languages

Unlike the earlier version, MiniTool Power Data Recovery V8.1 supports for multiple languages including English, German and Japanese.

During the installation process, users can select setup language accordingly. Even after entering the software interface, users can also choose their wanted language.

But, users are not allowed to switch languages after entering the scan result interface.

2. Improved Data Recovery Engine

The data recovery engine of this version has been optimized.

Users can discover that the scan speed is the fastest in history. This advantage will come out when they need to scan large amounts of data. So, it can save a lot of time for users.

3. Added Show Lost Files Feature

Users who are familiar with this data recovery software know that it has some features which can help them find their wanted files from the scan result quickly, including Find, Filter, Type, and Preview.

This time, MiniTool added a new feature in this software - Show Lost Files. It can also help users to find the needed files easily.

After entering the scan result, users can see this feature on the left side of Find. Then, users can click on this feature to make the software only show the lost files. After that, users can see it is an easy job to select their wanted files.

For users who want to recover the lost files, this design is more user-friendly and convenient.

4. Enhanced Data Recovery Result

Combining users' feedbacks during software usage, MiniTool fixes some bugs and makes this data recovery tool act more and more perfect.

For example, the performance of this newly released version is more stable. The software corruption and stuck phenomenon will become less and less.

Also, regardless of the causes of data loss issue, users can select a suitable recovery module to get back their wanted files easily and effectively as long as they are not overwritten by new data.

All in all, MiniTool Power Data Recovery is still the free data recovery software, and it becomes more and more powerful.

About MiniTool

Established in Canada, MiniTool team devotes itself to develop and update different kinds of computer programs like partition management software, file recovery tool, mobile recovery software, and digital data backup product. Their excellent performances attract millions of users all over the world. For more information about this company and its products, users can visit https://www.minitool.com.

https://www.partitionwizard.com

SOURCE MiniTool Software Ltd.

Related Links

https://www.minitool.com


WEST HAVEN, Conn., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of New Haven today announced it is preparing to welcome the second largest class in its almost 100-year history this fall.

The Class of 2022 comprises more than 1,300 first-year students and nearly 200 transfer students from 31 different states as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam. It also includes students from 16 different countries and is 58 percent female.

First-year students will be moving into the University's residence halls on Wednesday, August 22 and Thursday, August 23 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Returning students will be arriving on campus on Friday, August 24. Media are invited to cover Move-In Day, with students and their families available for interviews.

"Our goal is to make the transition to college life at the University of New Haven as smooth as possible," said Greg Overend, executive director of student engagement, leadership, and orientation. "This is a campus-wide initiative, and everyone at the University plays a crucial role in helping our new students to adjust and feel welcome."

As the University's enrollment continues to grow, its campus and programs have continued to expand. Through its Building for Success initiative, the University is making significant enhancements to its campus, including its residence halls, and it is building the new Bergami Center for Science, Technology, and Innovation, a state-of-the-art facility that will house collaborative classrooms, innovative engineering and science labs, and a 3D visualization technology suite.

About the University of New Haven

The University of New Haven, founded on the Yale campus in 1920, is a private, coeducational university situated on the coast of southern New England. It's a diverse and vibrant community of more than 7,000 students, with campuses around the country and around the world.

Within its colleges and schools, students immerse themselves in a transformative, career-focused education across the liberal arts and sciences, fine arts, business, engineering, public safety and public service. More than 100 academic programs are offered, all grounded in a long-standing commitment to collaborative, interdisciplinary, project-based learning. Further information is available at http://www.newhaven.edu/.

SOURCE University of New Haven

Related Links

http://www.newhaven.edu


URSTYLE wants to build on this success and develop an advanced community platform similar to Pinterest or Instagram, with the newest technologies supported by Blockchain and AI. In times when people are leaving Facebook and searching for smaller, more thematic communities, URSTYLE's platform offers a solution with approximately five million page views per month and 1 million product sets posted by users so far. Today, URSTYLE is promoting more than 10 million affiliated products from 598 partner stores and managing at least 1 million sets created by users.

With this success in mind, upcoming months will be very important for URSTYLE community, as they are planning to announce new strategic partnerships and release game-changing features. This will be launched alongside their marketing campaign starting at Q4.

About URSTYLE.com

URSTYLE is a community-powered social commerce website. Lovers of fashion, beauty, home decor and art gather here to create and publish their own designs, to shop for the content they like, to compete in contests, socialize and more. The company's virtual moodboard function allows community members to add products into a shared product index, and use them to create image collages called "Sets". Each "set" contains shoppable content imported from web stores. URSTYLE Clipper - which works as a web browser extension, was used for importing over half a million items so far. Around 10 000 items are daily imported to urstyle.com. URSTYLE uses advanced technology supported by machine-learning and currently offers more than 10 million products, as well as more than 1 million unique user creations. This creative outlet offered a new home for the ex Polyvore community.

SOURCE URSTYLE.com

Related Links

https://urstyle.com


Guests were welcomed in the museum-like hotel lobby on the event day where the giant contemporary Chinese Ink Painting "Splendid Orient" was displayed together with other art pieces. As guests moved up to the main venue of this event, the oil painting, "Night of Shanghai", an art piece in Wanda Reign on the Bund was enhanced with high-tech and lighting systems, evolved into a brand new interactive art show. This event created a luxury experience of contemporary art for all guests and it showcased that the Wanda Reign brand was built up with a characteristic that closely connected to arts.

The gala dinner was started with a new Wanda Reign brand video and followed by the opening speech that delivered by Dr. Jeff Ning, Executive President of Wanda Cultural Tourism Creativity Co., Ltd., and President of Wanda Hotels & Resorts. Dr. Ning reviewed the development of Wanda Reign brand, the flagship brand of Wanda Hotels & Resorts, during the past 4 years and introduced the latest brand strategy of four existing brands - Wanda Reign, Wanda Vista, Wanda Realm and Wanda Jin. He also announced two to-be-lauched new brands - Wanda Moments and Wanda Allegroitalia.

"Wanda Hotels & Resorts owns three cores sections of hotel design, hotels construction and hotel management, and it is a whole industrial chain company that integrates hotel development and management globally. The 2nd anniversary of Wanda Reign on the Bund is a milestone for the development of Wanda Hotels & Resorts. In terms of global expansion, new projects will be under development in Istanbul, Langkawi and Vientiane in 2019." Dr. Ning said, "In the meantime, Wanda Hotels & Resorts launched 'Wanda Club', a new loyalty program to further reward our guests and enhance their experience. In the future, Wanda Hotels & Resorts, a hotel brand rooted in China, will continue its global expansionsteady and confidently and become a world-famous international hotel management company."

Dr. Jeff Ning, President of Wanda Hotels & Resorts, Mr. Xu Xiao Liang, Executive Director and Co-president of Fosun International, Mr. Kieran Twomey, Executive Vice President of Wanda Hotels & Resorts, and Mr. Alexander Paul, General Manager of Wanda Reign on the Bund proposed the toast at the anniversary celebration of Wanda Reign on the Bund. The five-course gala dinner was presented by the award-wining Huaiyang cuisine restaurant, River Drunk of the hotel. It features the classic Huaiyang dishes that used to be served in formal state banquets and perfectly balanced both taste and presentation. During the dinner, the 270-degree screen showcased the cooking process of each dish when it was serviced, the art of the dishes impressed every guest.

The development of Wanda Hotels & Resorts is under the support of all guests and business partners. When the group developed, it made more effort to its corporate social responsibilities. Authorized by the China Charity Federation, Wanda Hotels & Resorts established Wanda Children's Foundation in June 2012. "Wanda Charity Projection Rooms" was established as the kick-off project of Wanda Children's Foundation in July 2012. 100 "Wanda Charity Projection Rooms" had been established for children in need by July 2017. In August 2017, Wanda Children's Foundation cooperated with Beijing Stars and Rain research center and launched "Stars and Rain - Wanda Classroom" program to help 250 families with autistic children to receive professional training in five key cities across the country. An auction of two artworks by an autistic child was conducted at the gala dinner, raising a total of RMB200,000 for the "Stars and Rain - Wanda Classroom" program.

To celebrate Wanda Reign on the Bund's second anniversary, the three Wanda Reign hotels in Shanghai, Chengdu and Wuhan were launched a celebration room package with exclusive offers. Book the package at any of the three hotels from 16 August to 16 September, 2018, guests can enjoy double or triple Wanda Club reward points, upgrade to club floor room, special offers in dining and spa, etc. For more information and reservations, please visit http://www.wandahotels.com

About Wanda Hotels & Resorts

Founded in 2007, Wanda Hotels &Resorts endeavors to be recognized as one of the world's most valuable asset management companies with a core competency in hotel business. This vision has been achieved through integrated business resources including hotel design, hotel construction and hotel management based on its core values of "People First - practical care to our employees; commitment to all stakeholders and customers." and corporate belief of "Practical, innovative, rooted in China." Wanda Hotels & Resorts, as one of the only "one-stop solution" hotel companies in the world with over 60 hotels in over 50 cities in China, currently manages six brands in its portfolio: the ultra-luxury brand Wanda Reign, the luxury brand Wanda Vista, the premium brand Wanda Realm,the select-servicebrand Wanda Jin, the two new brands: Wanda Moments and Wanda Allegroitalia. For more information and reservations, please visit: http://www.wandahotels.com

Media Contact:

April Ma

Senior Brand Communications Manager

Wanda Hotels & Resorts

T: +86-10-8585-3162

T: +86-186-1169-2633

E-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE Wanda Hotels & Resorts

Related Links

http://www.wandahotels.com


MIAMI, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- 3650 REIT, the national commercial real estate lending, investment and services firm, today announced a new joint venture with the California State Teachers' Retirement System. The JV is dedicated to 3650 REIT's bridge and event driven lending strategy and will include an initial $200 million commitment with an accordion feature for a potential total commitment of $500 million.

3650 REIT is a portfolio lender dedicated to originating, holding and servicing real estate secured loans that are individually structured to meet the business objectives of its borrowers. Founded in April 2018, it is led by commercial real estate finance veterans Jonathan Roth, Toby Cobb and Justin Kennedy. Its strategies include long-term, first-lien mortgages, bridge and event driven financing, opportunistic investments and relationship-focused loan servicing and asset management.

3650 REIT's discretionary bridge and event driven lending strategy originates senior and mezzanine loans and preferred equity commercial real estate investments without employing external leverage.

CalSTRS Director of Real Estate Mike DiRe, said, "CalSTRS has a longstanding working relationship with 3650 REIT co-founder Jonathan Roth. Because of our relationship with him and the team he and his partners have assembled we're confident that our new joint venture will bring the returns we expect. As a long-term investor CalSTRS seeks opportunities with our trusted partners to generate an enhanced yield to the actuarial earnings rate assumption thus maintaining our mission to secure the retirement benefits of California's educators."

Jonathan Roth, Managing Partner and co-founder of 3650 REIT, said, "We are honored to collaborate with CalSTRS, a world class institution recognized for its thoughtful and disciplined real estate investment strategy. Its institutional model is aligned with our long-term values, our philosophy as a relationship lender, and our commitment to providing real estate owners and operators with more than just capital. Our unlevered bridge lending strategy targets real estate assets that are in transition. Forming this partnership now with CalSTRS provides opportunities to target transitional assets with misjudged value, structural complexity or time sensitivity."

The venture's investment activities will target originating loans to well-capitalized sponsors seeking debt capital for properties located in prime U.S. markets. The loans will be for groundup construction, recapitalizations, acquisitions and repositions where traditional capital is unavailable or not capable of fully satisfying the sponsor's needs.

For more than 20 years, 3650 REIT principals have played leading roles in CRE debt markets with track records of success across CRE lending, capital markets, and loan servicing. Through this experience came the determination to create a new and better borrower experience: a portfolio lender delivering reliable, customer-focused outcomes that align the interests of all parties in the lending and servicing process from origination through maturity.

About 3650 REIT

3650 ("Thirty-Six Fifty") REIT is a fully integrated, national CRE investment and services firm headquartered in Miami with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Newport Beach. 3650 REIT and its related companies own or manage over two million square feet of commercial real estate across the United States. 3650 stands for the firm's commitment to borrowers and equity partners: 3,650 days to service and asset manage loans of up to ten-years with the goal of helping borrowers and equity partners maximize cash flow and grow value in an ever evolving CRE landscape. The firm was co-founded by Jonathan Roth, Toby Cobb and Justin Kennedy. For more information visit: www.3650REIT.com

SOURCE 3650 REIT

Related Links

http://www.3650reit.com


ATLANTA, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Justice Equality & Economics, better known as JEEPAC, announced today that it has held a successful meeting with Brian Kemp, the Republican Party's nominee for Governor of Georgia. The discussion centered on the economic challenges facing the black community including lack of access to capital, discrimination in contracting policies and lack of protections to bolster African American owned businesses.

In the meeting, both Kemp and JEEPAC agreed on the need for a vibrant business climate for black businesses. JEEPAC, however, stressed additionally the need for specific policies and protections designed to boost African American owned businesses in particularsomething JEEPAC contends is necessary given that African American owned businesses have been discriminated against for decades. In response, Kemp indicated he is open to review policy for socially and economically disadvantaged business.

Though JEEPAC believed the meeting with Mr. Kemp to be productive, the organization is holding back from issuing any endorsement at this time. JEEPAC reminded Kemp that the GOP has ignored the black vote for years and that the Democratic Party has spoken only to social issues rather than to economic issues facing African Americans.

Every day, we meet with black professionals representing businesses ranging from corner stores to Fortune 500 companies. All of them both small and large tell me they are not satisfied with Stacey Abrams," said Omar Ali, President of JEEPAC.

Stacey Abrams continues to take the black community, particularly black business people, for granted. Georgia is home to the largest community in the country of black business people, entrepreneurs, and job creators. Our next governor must understand and respect this community. When black businesses thrive, our people thrive. When our businesses thrive, we will gain more power politically and thus can truly remedy systemic issues of abuse in the justice system and elsewhere. When our businesses thrive, we can start to fix the abysmal wealth disparity that exists between African Americans and the rest of this country. We can then truly integrate our communities and our schools creating a new generation of black leaders. We find it troubling that Stacey Abrams does not seem to understand this but the community continues to stand ready to educate her on our points of view. At the request of our members and supporters, the community will continue to work with Brian Kemp and his team to incorporate their views into his platform. The community stand ready to do the same with Stacey Abrams if she so desires. In the meantime, we will continue to evaluate our options in the gubernatorial election and will make an endorsement at the appropriate time if our members so choose," Ali added.

Contact

Omar Ali

[email protected]

SOURCE JEEPAC
FREDERICK, Md., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Akonni Biosystems, a molecular diagnostics (MDx) company that develops, manufactures, and intends to market advanced MDx systems, today announced receipt of a $3 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Last year Akonni received a 2017 North American New Product Innovation Award from Frost and Sullivan, which highlighted the potential of its unique, cost-effective diagnostic platform, TruDiagnosis. This grant in particular will help Akonni accelerate the commercialization of its proprietary TruArray test for Tuberculosis and simultaneous drug susceptibility testing (DST) on its TruDx 3000 sample-to-answer diagnostic platform.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Tuberculosis (TB) continues to cause significant mortality and morbidity throughout the world, recently surpassing HIV as the single largest killer of all infectious diseases. Of all diseases, TB represents one of, if not the greatest, health disparities between socioeconomic classes. Further compounding this health disparity is the prevalence of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) cases. Each year there are approximately 500,000 new cases of MDR-TB, 10% of which have XDR-TB. Current diagnostic methodologies, available primarily to affluent healthcare communities, utilize microbial cultures, which require sophisticated laboratories and weeks before a result can be determined. In addition, difficulties for lower socioeconomic persons to commute and/or follow up with their physicians can result in a lack of appropriate treatment, potentially leading to further drug resistance. Akonni's recent strategic partnership with one of the leading molecular diagnostic companies in China, Righton Inc., will use their established sales distribution network to address the estimated 1 million new cases of tuberculosis each year in China.

"A low cost, point-of-care solution for guiding the treatment of drug resistant TB is desperately needed in low- and middle-income countries where few options for rapid diagnosis exist. A robust, portable device that can not only detect, but also characterize specific drug resistance profiles directly from a patient sample has the potential to transform drug resistant TB treatment globally, and is critical for achieving the World Health Organization's goal of a world free of TB," said Timothy Rodwell, MD, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor in the Division of Global Public Health, Department of Medicine at University of California, San Diego. The Akonni TB test on the TruDx 3000 includes an automated method of extracting DNA from sputum and a proprietary Lab-on-a-FilmTM diagnostic consumable, which consists of hundreds of molecular sensors printed on a conventional plastic film. This film replaces costly microarray glass, and the simple, yet elegant microfluidic design eliminates the need for expensive, complex pumps, valves or special coatings. The promise of this assembly strategy is that manufacturing throughput can increase from one part per minute using standard robotics to one part per second using the newspaper printing production method commonly known as "reel-to-reel manufacturing."

"We are grateful to the National Institutes of Health for giving us the opportunity to address this challenging clinical need," said Christopher Cooney, PhD, Principal Investigator on this project and Director of Engineering for Akonni.

For more information visit: www.akonni.com.

About Akonni Biosystems

Akonni Biosystems was founded in 2003 and has been issued 21 US and 37 International patents primarily covering sample preparation, microfluidic devices, bioinstrumentation, and integrated systems. Product development has been supported by a series of government grants and contracts from NIH, CDC, DOE, DOD, NIJ, and NSF. The company significantly advanced the original technology by improving the system's capabilities from sample preparation to test result. Commercial products in Akonni's near-term pipeline include rapid sample preparation technologies for nucleic acid extraction and multiplex panel assays for detecting clinically relevant genotypes for pharmacogenomics, human chronic diseases, and genotypes for infectious diseases such as multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), upper respiratory infections, viral encephalitis, and hospital-acquired infections (MRSA). Based on its recent analysis of microarray-based applications in the molecular diagnostics (MDx) market, Frost & Sullivan recognized Akonni Biosystems with the prestigious 2017 North American New Product Innovation Award.

Contact:

Michael Reinemann, Director of Business Development

301-698-0101

[email protected]

SOURCE Akonni Biosystems

Related Links

http://www.akonni.com


LINCOLN, Neb., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association has announced a statewide commitment of $6.5 million for its Mission: Lifeline Stroke initiative to expand and enhance stroke care in Nebraska. The foundation of this new initiative is a three-year grant of $5.35 million from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.

Mission: Lifeline is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's community-based initiative to develop systems of care to improve outcomes for heart attack and stroke patients. These systems bring together hospitals, emergency medical services and first responders, communications and regulatory agencies, state and local government, and payors to provide a seamless plan of action to treat patients from the time of symptom onset through their rehabilitation and recovery process.

Mission: Lifeline Stroke specifically focuses on connecting all the components of acute stroke care into a smoothly integrated system that reinforces the use of evidence-based guidelines to timely and effectively treat stroke patients.

"This initiative represents a significant investment in Nebraska's stroke system of care, especially in our rural areas," said Senator Roy Baker. "We are grateful to the Helmsley Charitable Trust for its commitment to important, lifesaving services to our citizens through their generous support of this program."

Cardiovascular disease, including heart and stroke conditions, is the leading cause of death in the United States. The acute nature of heart attacks and strokes is particularly deadly and requires time-sensitive treatment to save lives and reduce lasting disability. Stroke is the fourth most prevalent cause of death in Nebraska, with more than 3,400 strokes annually accounting for nearly 800 deaths. Approximately 37,000 Nebraskans (3 percent) are living with stroke-related disabilities.

This is the latest in a series of Helmsley investments in Mission: Lifeline's system of care model for acute cardiac and stroke care. "We believe that a comprehensive approach is the best way to 'move the needle,' especially for rural populations that face longer transit times and limited access to specialists," said Walter Panzirer, a Trustee for the Helmsley Charitable Trust.

In 2014, the Helmsley Charitable Trust provided a $4.1 million grant to support the launch of Mission: Lifeline STEMI in Nebraska to reduce treatment times for acute cardiac care in the cases of ST Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI). STEMI is the most serious type of heart attack and occurs when blood flow is completely blocked to a portion of the heart.

Every minute saved in heart attack and stroke treatment can directly improve survival and recovery rates. Streamlining care requires a system-wide quality improvement approach to address many similar triaging, transfer, and treatment challenges in time-sensitive stroke care.

"Through this ongoing commitment from the Helmsley Charitable Trust, we are directly impacting the lives of all Nebraskans and for this I am very grateful," said James Bobenhouse, MD, a neurologist and stroke medical director at CHI St. Elizabeth's and Bryan Health. "The Mission: Lifeline Stroke initiative will help us better coordinate stroke care, which will mean better outcomes for patients, and more lives saved. Stroke treatment is time-sensitive, so getting patients proper treatment faster, especially in rural areas, is crucial." Each minute of onset-to-treatment time saved grants an average of 1.8 days of extra healthy life.

Survivor and American Heart Association volunteer, Jill Duis, knows first-hand the importance of time. Suffering a stroke in 1999, Duis is grateful for programs like Mission: Lifeline Stroke. "Programs like Mission: Lifeline will save lives all across Nebraska. If it weren't for the care, and the timing of the care I received, I might not be here today," said Duis.

Mission: Lifeline Stroke will build upon the gains achieved by the existing Nebraska Stroke Advisory Council (NSAC) by further strengthening the collaboration with stakeholders across the state representing hospitals, individual ambulance services, the Nebraska Department of Health, and others. The project will enhance many critical elements of an optimal stroke system of care, including:

A system-wide data tool to assess protocols used throughout the continuum of care;

Coordination of treatment guidelines for EMS and hospital personnel;

Local plans for rapid transport and/or inter-facility transfer of stroke patients;

Strategies for reducing barriers to access and quality of telemedicine and rehab care;

Peer-to-peer stroke survivor support network; and

A public education campaign focused on recognition of stroke signs and symptoms and the need to activate the 9-1-1 system.

From 2010 through 2016, Helmsley has committed nearly $37 million in funding for Mission: Lifeline STEMI projects in North Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, Montana, and South Dakota. In 2017, the first Mission: Lifeline Stroke project was awarded in North Dakota. With the recent award for the Mission: Lifeline Stroke project in Nebraska, the total Helmsley commitment to Mission: Lifeline projects through their Rural Healthcare Program is more than $46 million.

About the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association

The American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association are devoted to saving people from heart disease and stroke  the two leading causes of death in the world. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies, and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat these diseases. The Dallas-based American Heart Association is the nation's oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. The American Stroke Association is a division of the American Heart Association. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-800-AHA-USA1, visit heart.org or call any of our offices around the country. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

About the Helmsley Charitable Trust

The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust aspires to improve lives by supporting exceptional efforts in the U.S. and around the world in health and select place-based initiatives. Since beginning active grantmaking in 2008, Helmsley has committed more than $2.2 billion for a wide range of charitable purposes. Helmsley's Rural Healthcare Program funds innovative projects that use information technologies to connect rural patients to emergency medical care, bring the latest medical therapies to patients in remote areas, and provide state-of-the-art training for rural hospitals and EMS personnel. To date, this program has awarded more than $349 million to organizations and initiatives in the upper Midwest states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Minnesota, Iowa, and Montana. For more information on Helmsley and its programs, visit helmsleytrust.org .

SOURCE American Heart Association

Related Links

https://www.heart.org


Another Broken Egg Cafe offers a Southern-inspired menu featuring Traditional Menu options like Lemon Blueberry Goat Cheese Pancakes, Crab Cake Benedict, and Nellie's Chicken Sandwich; a Seasonal Menu which currently features items such as Pecan Praline & Candied Bacon French Toast, Brunch Bruschetta, and Toasted Coconut Quinoa Power Skillet; as well as a slew of Signature Cocktails some of which include Lemon Blueberry Mimosas, ABE Famous Infused Mary, and Spiked Vanilla Cold Brew.

With increased brunch demands nationally and over 60 locations in 12 states and more in development, Another Broken Egg Cafe is positioned to dominate the breakfast and brunch industry. In 2018, Another Broken Egg Cafe was named "Best Buy in Exclusive Franchise Times Ranking" as well as "Best Breakfast Franchise" by the second-annual consumer-focused Zor Awards by Franchise Times. Other finalists in the breakfast category included Denny's, Huddle House, and Village Inn.

"With the increase of brunch demand in America, we are really excited to continue building off this momentum with future franchisees," said Clay Carson, Vice President of Franchise Development. "Ideally, we'd like to continue to expand and see new franchises in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Just recently, we acquired four additional company-owned cafes with two in Orlando, one in Jacksonville and one in Jacksonville Beach  bringing the total to six company-owned cafes."

Hallmarks of the Another Broken Egg Cafe brand include a powerful and loyal guest base, a proven and experienced executive leadership team, the liberal use of innovation and technology in improving our menus and operations, and a flexible business model that offers additional revenue streams  including alcohol margins, some of the highest in the industry.

Another Broken Egg Cafe in Sylvan Park is located at 4111 Charlotte Avenue. For more information about franchising opportunities, please visit anotherbrokenegg.com/franchising.

About Another Broken Egg Cafe

Another Broken Egg of America, LLC is an upscale breakfast, brunch and lunch restaurant that specializes in award-winning, Southern-inspired menu options with innovative twists and signature cocktails. Another Broken Egg Cafe is one of the fastest-growing daytime-only concepts in the country, with over 60 locations in 12 states and dozens more in development. The company was honored in 2017 by Winsight Media with its Leader in Foodservice Full-Service Award and ranked by Franchise Times magazine as one of their Fast & Serious Smartest-Growing Brands. This year, Another Broken Egg Cafe was named by FSR magazine as one of the 14 Restaurant Chains Ready for Lift-Off in 2018. For more information about franchising opportunities, please visit anotherbrokenegg.com/franchising.

SOURCE Another Broken Egg Cafe

Related Links

http://anotherbrokeneggfranchise.com


Atlas Protocol (ATP) is incubated by Nebulas Labs and xGoogler Blockchain Alliance (xGBA). The project aims to build technical infrastructure that will boost the interactive advertisement blockchain ecosystem and construct a new paradigm of interactive marketing. Atlas Protocol proposes a new original and creative media model in the blockchain market, which will define the interactive marketing standards among advertisers, publishers, and users. Atlas Protocol can rank onchain targets' value and enable value circulation through tokens.

Duran Liu, co-founder of Atlas Protocol (ATP) explained that, "Blockchain is a value network, Nebulas Rank provides a way to measure the value of multidimensional data in the blockchain." He also added, "The core algorithm of Atlas Protocol is based on the expanded Nebulas Rank. It will create a trustworthy new marketing channel and define a new tokenized marketing frontier." ATP Smartdrop, the service provided by Atlas Protocol has already been launched in the Nebulas Incentive Program, which delivered token rewards to more than one hundred thousand users. It is known that ATP Smartdrop was the first service application built on top of Atlas Protocol and is dedicated to demonstrate the potential of intelligent interactive onchain marketing among blockchain users.

Professor Shoucheng Zhang of Stanford University, founding chairman of Danhua Capital said, "the healthy development of the blockchain ecosystem in the long term requires an outstanding team to truly energize the whole industry." The founding team of the project has a lot of experiences in both blockchain and internet advertising. Team members include Duran Liu, former Head of Nebulas Labs; Cheng Li, former FreeWheel Engineering Director; Hitters Xu, founder of Nebulas; Ellen Wang, founder of Linked-Media. They have all worked for Google, the Internet advertising giant, for many years. In addition, Jeremy Zhou, co-founder of Jide Technology and the first engineer of Google AdWords, Professor Ronghui Gu of Columbia University and co-founder of CertiK, will be the technical advisors of the project. After the fundraising, Atlas Protocol (ATP) will continue to grow the team, optimize its products and expand market channels.

SB China Venture Capital (SBCVC), the lead investor, was established in 2000. It is a leading venture capital investment and private equity funds management company. It has successfully invested in many outstanding enterprises, such as Alibaba, Taobao and Focus Media. Mervin Zhou, a partner of SBCVC, suggests that interactive advertisement marketing has the potential to make the next unicorn in the era of blockchain. He also believes that Atlas Protocol has the opportunity to become the next Google Ads in the world of blockchain.

In addition, BV (Baidu Ventures), Danhua Capital (DHVC) and Fenbushi Digital also participated in this round of investment. All the investors agree that Atlas Protocol is a project with vision, and the team can address interactive advertisement marketing problems through cutting edge blockchain technologies. To conclude, they all believe that Atlas Protocol will have chance to foster a blockchain adtech alliance, eliminate information discrepancies in the industry, and generate more traffics and users into the blockchain ecosystem.

For more information on Atlas Protocol, visit https://atlasp.io

SOURCE Atlas Protocol

Related Links

https://atlasp.io


DETROIT, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Stratview Research announces the launch of a new research report on BMI Prepreg Market by End-Use Industry Type (Aerospace, Defense, and Others), by Application Type (Tooling, Airframe, Nacelles, and Others), by Reinforcement Type (Unidirectional and Fabrics), by Curing Type (Autoclave, Out of Autoclave, and Others), and by Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World), Trend, Forecast, Competitive Analysis, and Growth Opportunity: 2018-2023.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/660595/Stratview_Research_Logo.jpg )



This report, from Stratview Research, studies the BMI prepreg market over the trend period of 2012 to 2017 and forecast period of 2018 to 2023. The report provides detailed insights on the market dynamics to enable informed business decision making and growth strategy formulation based on the opportunities present in the market.

BMI Prepreg Market: Highlights

Composite materials have been witnessing the most disruptive journey especially in the aerospace & defense industry where the penetration of advanced composites has reached up to 53% of the structural weight in the next-generation aircraft programs, such as A350XWB. the usage of composite materials in some applications, such as nacelles, missile radome, and aircraft propulsion system, is still limited, because composite parts tend to degrade when exposed to extreme heat. This factor propelled the industry to develop high-temperature-resistant composite materials, which can replace metals from those applications where withstanding extreme heat and harsh environmental conditions are most critical. Among all, the most renowned development is Bismaleimide (BMI) prepreg, which can operate at temperatures reaching 350C and above and can be used in a wide array of high-temperature applications, such as tooling, engine nacelles, compressor fairing, thrust reverser, automotive racing components, radomes, and missile propulsion system.

As per Stratview Research, the global BMI prepreg market is likely to grow at an excellent CAGR of 7.8% over the next five years. Growth of BMI prepreg would be higher than the overall prepreg market (7.8% vs 5.9%) over the next five years. There is a wide array of factors which are directly or indirectly stimulating the growth BMI prepregs. One of the biggest factors is increasing production of composite-rich military aircraft, especially Lockheed Martin's F-35. F-35 aircraft constitutes roughly 35% composites of its structural weight. Carbon/BMI or carbon/epoxy are the most common prepregs used to fabricate composite parts of F-35.

Aerospace industry is likely to remain the most dominant segment of the market during the forecast period. Increasing production rates of the fifth- generation military fighter aircraft F-35 (Joint Strike Fighter) is likely to give an impetus to the demand for BMI prepreg in the segment in the coming years. Lockheed Martin announced that it increased the deliveries of F-35 by 40% in 2017 than the previous year. The company is likely to further increase its annual deliveries from 66 aircraft in 2017 to an expected delivery of 160 aircraft in 2023.

Based on the application type, tooling is likely to remain the most dominant application of the BMI prepreg market over the next five years. BMI prepreg, in tooling application, serves high Tg (glass transition), which can be used across all the major structural parts in the aerospace & defense industry. It offers good mechanical performance, toughness, robust tooling, and durability with an excellent surface finish.

Autoclave is projected to maintain its dominance in the market. Aircraft primary structures, such as wings, fuselages, and empennage components, are mostly fabricated by using composite materials and cured through an autoclave. High pressure of an autoclave ensures good mechanical properties and helps reduce void contents. Out-of-autoclave curing type is also likely to witness healthy growth rate during the forecast period.

Register Here for a Free Sample of the Report

North America is projected to remain the largest market for BMI prepreg during the forecast period, driven by the presence of world's leading aircraft OEMs, aeroengine manufacturers, tier players, prepreg manufacturers, and raw material suppliers. Europe, another major market, is also projected to create favorable growth opportunities during the forecast period. Dassault Aviation, BAE Systems, and Airbus Group are some of the key OEMs, which are driving the demand for BMI prepregs in the European market.

Major BMI prepreg companies are GMS Composites, Hexcel Corporation, Mitsubishi Chemical Carbon Fiber and Composites (MCCFC), Renegade Materials Corporation, Solvay S.A., and Koninklijke TenCate nv. Development of prepreg system which can withstand extremely high temperature with ease of manufacturing processes, reduced operational cost, and formation of strategic alliances are some of the key strategies adopted by the major players to gain a competitive edge in the market.

Report Features

This report provides market intelligence in the most comprehensive way. The report structure has been kept such that it offers maximum business value. It provides critical insights on the market dynamics and will enable strategic decision making for the existing market players as well as those willing to enter the market. The following are the key features of the report:

Market structure: Overview, industry life cycle analysis, supply chain analysis

Market environment analysis: Growth drivers and constraints, Porter's five forces analysis, SWOT analysis

Market trend and forecast analysis

Market segment trend and forecast

Competitive landscape and dynamics: Market share, product portfolio, product launches, etc.

Attractive market segments and associated growth opportunities

Emerging trends.

Strategic growth opportunities for the existing and new players

Key success factors.

This report studies the global BMI prepreg market and has segmented the market in five ways, keeping in mind the interest of all the stakeholders across the value chain. Following are the five ways in which the market is segmented:

BMI Prepreg Market, By End-Use Industry Type

Aerospace

Defense

Others

BMI Prepreg Market, By Application Type

Tooling

Airframe

Nacelle

Others

BMI Prepreg Market, By Reinforcement Type

Unidirectional BMI Prepreg

Fabric BMI Prepreg

BMI Prepreg Market, By Curing Type

Autoclave-Cured BMI Prepreg

Out-of-Autoclave-Cured BMI Prepreg

Other BMI Prepregs

BMI Prepreg Market, By Region

North America (Country Analysi s: The USA , Canada , and Mexico )

Europe (Country Analysis: France , Germany , the UK, Spain , Russia , and Rest of Europe )

Asia-Pacific (Country Analysis: China , Japan , India , and Rest of Asia-Pacific )

Rest of the World (Country Analysis: Latin America , the Middle East , and Others)

Stratview Research has several high value market reports in the chemicals and materials industry. Please refer to the following link to browse through our reports:

Click Here for Other Reports from Stratview Research in the Chemicals & Materials Industry

Related premium market report in the composites industry are:

Global Out-of-Autoclave (OOA) Prepreg Market by End-Use Industry Type, by Product Form Type, by Reinforcement Type, by Matrix Type, and by Region, Forecast, Competitive Analysis, and Growth Opportunity: 2018-2023

About Stratview Research

Stratview Research is a global market intelligence firm providing wide range of services including syndicated market reports, custom research and sourcing intelligence across industries, such as Advanced Materials, Aerospace & Defense, Automotive & Mass Transportation, Consumer Goods, Construction & Equipment, Electronics and Semiconductors, Energy & Utility, Healthcare & Life Sciences, and Oil & Gas.

We have a strong team of industry veterans and analysts with an extensive experience in executing custom research projects for mid-sized to Fortune 500 companies, in the areas of Market Assessment, Opportunity Screening, Competitive Intelligence, Due Diligence, Target Screening, Market Entry Strategy, Go to Market Strategy, and Voice of Customer studies.

Stratview Research is a trusted brand globally, providing high quality research and strategic insights that help companies worldwide in effective decision making.

For enquiries,

Contact:

Stratview Research

E-mail: [email protected]

Direct: +1-313-307-4176



SOURCE Stratview Research
AUBURN, Ala., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Chicken Salad Chick, the nation's only southern inspired, fast casual chicken salad restaurant concept, announced today the opening of its newest franchised location in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Marking the brand's 93rd restaurant overall and second opening in 8 days, the Hattiesburg location reflects Chicken Salad Chick's explosive growth and aggressive development efforts throughout the South. Located at 3002 Hardy St., the Hattiesburg restaurant will celebrate its grand opening on August 29th, with four days of giveaways including free chicken salad for a year to the first 100 guests.

During grand opening week, guests will experience the southern hospitality that Chicken Salad Chick is known for, with giveaways and specials that include:

Wednesday, August 29  Free Chicken Salad for a year The first guest will receive one large Quick Chick of chicken salad per week for an entire year; the next 99 guests will receive a free large Quick Chick of chicken salad per month.*

 Free Chicken Salad for a year The first guest will receive one large Quick Chick of chicken salad per week for an entire year; the next 99 guests will receive a free large Quick Chick of chicken salad per month.* Thursday, August 30  Thirsty Thursday  The first 100 guests to purchase a Chick Special will receive a free large drink and coozie. The first 50 guests at 5p.m. to purchase a Chick Special will receive a free large drink and a Popsocket.**

 Thirsty Thursday  The first 100 guests to purchase a Chick Special will receive a free large drink and coozie. The first 50 guests at to purchase a Chick Special will receive a free large drink and a Popsocket.** Friday, August 31  The first 100 guests to purchase a Chick Trio will receive a free chick tumbler. The first 50 guests at 5p.m. will receive a free upgrade to a Chick Trio.

 The first 100 guests to purchase a Chick Trio will receive a free chick tumbler. The first 50 guests at will receive a free upgrade to a Chick Trio. Saturday, September 1  The first 50 guests to purchase two large Quick Chicks will receive a free large Chick cooler.

The Hattiesburg restaurant is owned and operated by husband-and-wife franchisees Blake and Shae Fuller of Taste and C, LLC. Blake was first introduced to Chicken Salad Chick when he met founder Stacy Brown and her husband, Kevin while working as a food broker. He was immediately drawn to the brand's welcoming culture and mounting success, which fueled his desire to become a Chicken Salad Chick franchisee. After trying the food firsthand, the Fullers, along with their business partners David Stephens and Walt Marcello, decided to bring Chicken Salad Chick to more communities throughout Mississippi. With their first restaurant in Flowood experiencing great success, the Fullers are excited to open their second restaurant in Hattiesburg and have plans to open two additional locations in Jackson, Mississippi within the next year.

"Joining Chicken Salad Chick has been one of our greatest decisions," said Shae Fuller. "Since the opening of our first location, the amount of love and excitement we've seen from residents around Mississippi has been astounding. From the quaint dining atmosphere to the flavorful chicken salad recipes, guests embrace and adore what Chicken Salad Chick is all about. We are excited to share this one-of-a-kind experience with the residents of Hattiesburg and know the unique flavors will leave them speechless."

The Chicken Salad Chick concept, born in Auburn, was established in 2008 in the kitchen of founder, Stacy Brown. When Stacy discovered that the local county health department would not allow her to continue making and selling her delicious recipes out of her home kitchen, she overcame that obstacle by launching her first restaurant with the business expertise of her future husband and fellow founder, Kevin Brown. Together, they opened a small takeout restaurant, which quickly grew; the company now has 93 restaurants across the Southeast.

Chicken Salad Chick in Hattiesburg will be open Monday  Saturday from 10:30 a.m.  8:00 p.m. For more information, visit http://www.chickensaladchick.com or call (769)-390-7050. Follow Chicken Salad Chick on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the latest news and trends.

*Eligible winners must be over 16 years of age, purchase a Chick Special and are required to download the Craving Credits app. Redemption will start 9/3.

** Eligible winners must make required purchase for all giveaways. Limit one giveaway per guest per purchase. Must be 16 years of age or older. Colors for tumblers will be given on a first come, first serve basis.

For more information on giveaways and specials, visit www.facebook.com/chickensaladchickhattiesburg

About Chicken Salad Chick

Founded in Auburn, Alabama, in 2008, Chicken Salad Chick serves full-flavored, Southern-style chicken salad made from scratch and served from the heart. With more than a dozen original chicken salad flavors as well as fresh side salads, gourmet soups, signature sandwiches and delicious desserts, Chicken Salad Chick's robust menu is a perfect fit for any guest. Today, the brand has more than 90 restaurants in 9 states and is continuing its rapid expansion with both franchise and company locations. Chicken Salad Chick was recently named as one of FastCasual.com's top Movers and Shakers and one of Nation's Restaurant News 2017 Next 20 brands. The brand also ranked #37 on the 2016 Inc. list of the 500 fastest-growing companies in the U.S. See www.chickensaladchick.com for additional information.

Contact:

Nikki Rode

Fish Consulting

954-893-9150

[email protected]

SOURCE Chicken Salad Chick

Related Links

http://www.chickensaladchick.com


ATLANTA, Aug. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Church's Chicken the fourth-largest quick service restaurant chicken franchisor in the United States, announced today an Agreement of Discontinuance with the Attorney General of the State of Washington regarding no-solicitation clauses included in franchise agreements between Church's corporate and its franchisee operating three locations in that state.

"We have had discussions with the state's Attorney General about amending the current language in our franchise agreements and we are now intent on eliminating any wording that could be viewed as limiting a Church's restaurant employee's ability to seek employment with another Church's franchisee," said Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Craig Prusher. "This is a practice we will now adhere to going forward in all states where our franchisees do business. We are very appreciative of the efforts of Washington State Attorney General Robert Ferguson, and we will be working closely with his office moving forward."

A single franchisee owns all three of Church's restaurants operating in the State of Washington and there have been no issues relating to franchisees soliciting employees of other franchisees. "The franchise agreement language was intended to protect the substantial investments by Church's franchisees in training their personnel and to enhance the overall value of the brand. However, we so seldom have had any occasion even to consider invoking this clause, and given the AG's concerns with the language, we decided to remove it from our system nationwide," said Prusher. "Church's believes in being proactive in this matter, and as an employer of choice and a franchisor of choice, we want all current and prospective employees to know they are free to work where they choose. For 66 years, Church's has offered competitive salaries, great benefits, and an environment where employees learn and grow."

About Church's Chicken

Church's Chicken is one of the largest quick service restaurant chicken chains in the world. Church's specializes in original and spicy chicken that is freshly prepared throughout the day in small batches. Its hand-battered and double-breaded Tender Strips are honey-buttered biscuits made from scratch and freshly baked, and its classic, home-style sides make for a great value. Church's (along with its sister brand Texas Chicken outside the Americas) has more than 1,500 locations in 23 countries and international territories and system-wide sales of more than $1 billion. For more information, visit www.churchs.com. Follow Church's on Facebook at www.facebook.com/churchschicken and Twitter at www.twitter.com/churchschicken.

Contact: Kim Miller

866.571.3449

[email protected]

SOURCE Church's Chicken

Related Links

http://www.churchs.com


ORLANDO, Fla., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Clinically-validated UVC disinfection robot, Tru-D SmartUVC, will attend the 2018 VA Environmental Programs Service Training Event in Orlando, Florida, August 28-29, 2018. The conference will engage participants in a variety of management, leadership and operational issues and initiatives key to the success of an effective Environmental Management Services program. Validated by more than 15 independent studies including the only CDC-funded randomized clinical trial on UVC disinfection, Tru-D invites attendees to learn how its patented technology can help keep veterans safer in health care facilities.

Tru-D SmartUVC helps to keep health care facilities safer for veterans.

Not only has Tru-D been proven to reduce the risk of acquisition and infection from patient to patient, but a new analysis of the two-year, $2M, CDC-funded Benefits of Enhanced Terminal Room-Disinfection (BETR-Disinfection) randomized clinical trial found that Tru-D was able to impact all patients in the hospital when a subset of high-risk rooms was targeted with UVC. The researchers concluded that, "Enhanced terminal room disinfection with UV in a targeted subset of high-risk rooms led to a decrease in hospital-wide incidence of C. difficile and VRE."

"Veterans risk their lives to protect our freedom, and they deserve the highest level of care while in a hospital setting," said Alice Brewer, MPH, CIC, Director of Clinical Affairs for Tru-D SmartUVC. "Just as important as handwashing, manual cleaning and antibiotic stewardship are to preventing hospital infections and keeping our veterans safe, so is disinfecting the room from top to bottom. We are eager to meet with attendees of the EPS Training Event and share how Tru-D can help provide a safer, cleaner health care environment."

With patented Sensor360 technology, Tru-D is able to provide thorough disinfection from one placement in the room, eliminating human error and minimizing downtime for staff. Tru-D pioneered the UVC disinfection industry, placing the first robot in a health care facility in 2007, which is still in operation today. Through its programmatic approach to standardizing UVC implementation and utilization in hospitals as well as its dedication to innovation and customer experiences, Tru-D is on a mission to keep our veterans safe.

For more information and links to independent studies, visit Tru-D.com. Tru-D is a GSA contracted supplier: GS-07F-031CA.

About Tru-D SmartUVC

Only Tru-D delivers an automated, measured dose of UVC light to consistently disinfect a room during one cycle. Operating from one placement in the room, Tru-D ensures significant pathogen reduction in direct and shadowed areas. Validated by more than a dozen independent studies as well as a well-controlled, large-scale, CDC-funded randomized clinical trial, Tru-D's automated, measured dosing capabilities and real-time usage-tracking features make it one of the most advanced UV disinfection systems available. To learn more, visit tru-d.com.

Christin Yates

Tru-D Public Relations

901-774-5771

[email protected]

SOURCE Tru-D SmartUVC
JINAN, China, Aug. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Confucian Merchants Conference 2018 (CMC), hosted by the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee and the People's Government of Shandong Province, will be held in Jinan, China from September 28 to 30.

The themes of the conference are "The Great Way to Confucian Entrepreneurship: Integrity and Credibility" and "New Era, New Vision, New Energies, New Confucian Entrepreneurs". Throughout the event, various activities will be held in all the 17 cities across Shandong.

The conference aims to apply the guidelines of President Xi Jinping's thoughts on Socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, the 19th National Congress of the CPC and especially the guidelines of the important instructions and comments delivered by President Xi Jinping during his inspection tour of Shandong. To gain new competitive advantages in developing Shandong's open economy, it is imperative to promote the Confucian entrepreneurship in the modern era, giving full play to the role of entrepreneurs. This will help create the lively atmosphere of encouraging respected entrepreneurs to embark on their careers in society at large, inspiring them to practice Confucianism -- to work for national prosperity and the benefits of people by actively funding major projects to replace old growth drivers with new ones. In a word, they are expected to work as pioneering entrepreneurs in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and in the course of socialist modernization, making greater contribution to upgrading modern Shandong open economy comprehensively.

The general schedule will be as follows: On the afternoon of September 28, provincial leaders will have an informal discussion with some of the conference guests. On the evening of 28, the Welcome Banquet will be held, followed by a Themed Performance at the Daming Lake in Jinan. On the morning of September 29, the opening ceremony will take place. On the afternoon of 29, 11 parallel forums will be held. On September 30, guests will leave for the 17 cities to participate in featured theme activities. The conference will also feature exhibitions on Shandong's achievements in economic and social developments, the planning of Shandong's major projects to replace old growth drivers with new ones and time-honored and iconic Shandong brand products.

The conference brings together representative entrepreneurs from both Shandong and other provinces who have invested in or cooperated with Shandong province, and influential representatives from the business sector, as well as academic and research institutions who have studied or worked in the province and made major contributions to its economic and social developments. Roughly 1,000 guests will be invited, of whom 30% are from within the province, 40% from other provinces in China and the other 30% overseas.

Major Highlights

The conference aims firstly to highlight the unique characteristics of Shandong province, which, as the cradle of Confucian culture, embodies long-standing traditional Chinese culture and modern entrepreneurship, and is creating a new unique modern version of Confucian entrepreneurship. The conference will further explore the rich content and typical characteristics of Confucian entrepreneurship, and call on outstanding entrepreneurs and important people from home and abroad to gather in Shandong. Adhering to the Confucian maxims of "serving a just cause for the common good to achieve harmony and unity", with concerted efforts Shandong will promote the development of the province to new levels.

Secondly, the conference aims to build a platform to promote business prosperity in Shandong province. By hosting the conference, the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee and the People's Government of Shandong Province intend to promote the Confucian entrepreneurship in the modern era, building cooperation mechanisms and platforms, expanding contacts, and creating an environment in which this new business philosophy will flourish. With Confucian entrepreneurship as a matchmaker, the meeting provides a venue for making friends from all walks of life, seizing business opportunities, and attracting and developing the talent, technology and capital necessary for innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as inspiring enthusiasm for promoting investment and attracting talent and know how across the whole province. Thus, the conference represents not only a grand reunion for Shandong Confucian entrepreneurs from home and abroad to come back to their native soil, to revive memories, and to contribute to its development, but also a grand gathering of Confucian entrepreneurs from all over the world. The conference will bring together learned, honest, and ambitious Confucian entrepreneurs to Jinan, in the sincere hope that many will gather in Shandong, be adopted by Shandong, and contribute to Shandong.

Thirdly, the conference aims to promote the accumulation of high-level resources. At its 11 industry forums, including new-generation information technology, high-end equipment, new energy, new materials, modern marine-time industry, medical care and elderly care, advanced chemical engineering, modern efficient agriculture, cultural innovation, fine tourism, contemporary financing services and so on, the conference will promote interchange between talents from various fields, cutting-edge discussion of development trends and investment opportunities in relevant fields, and the provision of suggestions regarding Shandong's critical projects to restart economic momentum, industrial transformation and modernization, and investment promotion. Focusing on the "Top Ten" industries in the province, Shandong is dedicated to the optimization, improvement and growth of this industry grouping. Shandong will also further integrate chains of industry, capital, talent and innovation, and systematically introduce the major projects, policies and talent needed for high-quality development in Shandong, thus demonstrating the new opportunities, new momentum and new prospects available for development in Shandong.

Fourthly, the conference aims to be meticulous and refined. Striving to comprehend the individual needs of each guest, the organizer of CMC will deliver attentive services during the entire conference process, creating opportunities for people from all walks of life to realize their ambitions. To capitalize upon the opportunity, all 17 cities have planned various featured exchange events, which are designed to deliver "accurate introduction and better service". CMC encourages guests, particularly those who can visit their hometowns, to do so, meet friends and relatives, and establish regular contact. Via uniting people through nostalgia, friendship, affection and heartfelt sentiment, the organizer of CMC wishes to promote a sense of recognition and belonging, and thus see an increased return of talent, projects, capital and headquarters to the province.

The fifth aim of the conference is to be long-lasting. Shandong plans to repeat the conference every two years, and has set up a permanent secretariat position. When the conference is not in session, under the leadership of the Secretariat, heads of provincial government departments and eminent industrialists will be responsible for organizing groups for regular exchanges, covering fields such as industry and commerce, science and technology, education, culture and tourism, health, finance, overseas associations and the overseas Chinese community, and the new generation and young entrepreneurs. CMC plans to attract more Shandong merchants to come home to start businesses, and will draw more Confucian entrepreneurs into participation in Shandong's lively reform and development, and thus to strongly underpin this new perspective on the construction of a powerful modern province in the new era.

SOURCE Information Office of the People's Government of Shandong Province
Curaleaf's first dispensary opened in Miami in 2017. Since then, the company has grown its presence across the state, including dispensaries in Lake Worth, Fort Myers, St. Petersburg, Palm Harbor, Palm Bay, Orlando and most recently this week  Jacksonville. The Jacksonville dispensary, located at 6361 103 Street, will provide delivery service throughout northern Florida into the Panhandle region.

In keeping with Curaleaf's mission to provide Florida's patients with access to top quality, effective medical marijuana products and celebrate its statewide delivery milestone, Curaleaf will offer patients FREE delivery service through September 1, 2018.

"As the first medical marijuana company in Florida to earn Safe Quality Food (SQF) Level II certification, Curaleaf is thrilled to be able to now offer statewide delivery service of its superior quality and safe products to patients who are seeking this life-changing treatment throughout the state of Florida," said Lindsay Jones, President of Curaleaf Florida. "We want the communities we serve to know that as Curaleaf expands its footprint across Florida, our company remains focused on safety, exceptional quality, accessibility, educational resources and superior customer service."

In Jacksonville, the dispensary is open Monday through Friday, 10am  7pm; Saturday, 10am  5pm; and Sunday, Noon  5pm. The State of Florida's Office of Medical Marijuana Use Registry requires an order from a qualified Florida ordering physician and a State of Florida medical marijuana card to obtain medical marijuana products. All dispensary visitors must show a State of Florida medical marijuana card. Discounts are in effect for senior citizens, military veterans, pediatric patients and recipients of government financial assistance. Same-day or next-day delivery is available to the following neighboring counties: St. John's, Clay, Bradford, Union, Baker, Nassau and Putnam. Patients may call 877-303-0741 for more information.

About Curaleaf

Curaleaf is a leading vertically integrated cannabis operator in the United States. Headquartered in Wakefield, Massachusetts, Curaleaf is located in 10 states and owns and operates 26 dispensaries, 10 cultivation sites and 9 processing sites with a focus on highly populated, limited license states, including Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. Curaleaf leverages its extensive research and development capabilities to distribute cannabis products in multiple formats with the highest standard for safety, effectiveness, consistent quality and customer care. Curaleaf is committed to being the industry's leading resource in education and advancement through research and advocacy. Curaleaf's Florida operations were the first in the cannabis industry to receive the Safe Quality Food certification under the Global Food Safety Initiative, setting a new standard of excellence. More information regarding Curaleaf can be found at www.curaleaf.com.

SOURCE Curaleaf

Related Links

https://www.curaleaf.com


The Mansfield Rule Certification measures whether law firms have affirmatively considered at least 30 percent women and attorneys of color for leadership and governance roles, equity partner promotions, and senior lateral positions. The goal of the Mansfield Rule is to boost the representation of diverse lawyers in law firm leadership by broadening the pool of candidates considered for these opportunities.

Dorsey's "Plus" status indicates that, in addition to meeting or exceeding the pipeline consideration requirements for Certification, Dorsey has successfully reached at least 30 percent women and minority lawyer representation in a notable number of its current leadership roles and committees.

To achieve the Mansfield Rule objectives, participating law firms had to first establish a baseline metric by which they could assess and analyze their talent pipelines. To that end, as part of the Mansfield Rule Certification process, the firms were expected to create and adopt documentation and tracking norms to measure their progress and identify areas for improvement.

Dorsey will participate in Diversity Lab's 2.0 iteration of the Mansfield Rule, which runs from July 2018 to July 2019, with 65 law firms. Mansfield 2.0 will include LGBTQ+ lawyers as well as women and attorneys of color as part of the diverse candidate pool. Also new, in addition to leadership role appointments and lateral hiring, Mansfield 2.0 will also measure consideration for roles in client pitch meetings and will ask participating law firms to make appointment and election processes transparent to all lawyers in their firms.

"We are honored to have achieved Mansfield Certification Plus along with a number of other notable firms," said Ken Cutler, Dorsey's Managing Partner. "We look forward to participating in Mansfield 2.0 to continue to promote diversity and inclusion in our Firm. Dorsey understands the value of an inclusive and diverse work environment. One of our greatest strengths is a culture that respects the individual and is knit together by our core values of colleagues, community and clients. As we continue to encourage diversity and remove barriers, we know that Dorsey is a better place to work and that our clients benefit from the increased efficiency, higher morale and greater productivity of our client teams."

For more information on the Mansfield Rule, see Diversity Lab's news release.

About Dorsey & Whitney LLP

Clients have relied on Dorsey since 1912 as a valued business partner. With locations across the United States and in Canada, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, Dorsey provides an integrated, proactive approach to its clients' legal and business needs. Dorsey represents a number of the world's most successful companies from a wide range of industries, including leaders in the banking, energy, food and agribusiness, health care, mining and natural resources, and public-private project development sectors, as well as major non-profit and government entities.

About Diversity Lab

Diversity Lab creates and experiments with innovative ways to close the gender gap and boost diversity in law firms and legal departments by leveraging data, behavioral science, and design thinking.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Jeri Longtin-Kloss

612.492.5315

[email protected]

SOURCE Dorsey & Whitney LLP
NEW YORK and WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Venable LLP, an American Lawyer Global 100 firm, and Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto, one of the world's leading intellectual property firms, have reached an agreement for Fitzpatrick to join Venable.

With the addition of the Fitzpatrick practice, the firm will have approximately 800 attorneys, focused on business, government, litigation and intellectual property disciplines, and approximately 700 other professionals and staff. The firm will have about 175 IP lawyers  making it one of the largest IP groups in the country. This agreement will increase the size of Venable's New York City presence to more than 160 lawyers, placing it among the largest firms in the city.

Stu Ingis, chairman of Venable, said: "We are very pleased to welcome such an elite group of lawyers with a long-standing and sophisticated client base. Fitzpatrick has been one of the top IP firms in the country for nearly 50 years. Its attorneys will be an excellent fit with the existing Venable IP practice and will also benefit our client base requiring broader IP support. Most importantly, they share our firm's values, our respect for each other and our commitment to clients."

Dominick Conde, chair of Fitzpatrick's Management Committee, said: "Both firms share a deep dedication to our clients. We have been privileged to work with many of the world's leading companies creating solutions for their IP challenges for decades. While we have been incredibly successful on our own, this deal creates a synergy that we couldn't pass up. As a result, the firm will be able to extend its dedication to clients to more areas and is an excellent fit of people and practices of two outstanding firms."

The deal is expected to close November 1.

About Venable LLP

Venable LLP is an American Lawyer Global 100 law firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. that serves as primary counsel to a worldwide clientele of large and mid-sized organizations, nonprofits, and high-net-worth entrepreneurs and individuals. With approximately 700 attorneys across the country, including California, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Virginia and Washington, D.C., the firm strategically advances its clients' business objectives in the U.S. and around the globe. Venable advises clients on a broad range of business and regulatory law, legislative affairs, complex litigation and the full range of intellectual property disciplines. For more information, please visit www.Venable.com.

About Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto

At Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto, IP is not just a practice area  it is the firm's sole focus. Founded in 1971, Fitzpatrick is a leading national intellectual property law firm with offices in New York, California and Washington, D.C. It has one of the premier patent litigation and prosecution practices, which covers the spectrum of intellectual property services, including applying for patent and trademark protection, litigation, appeals, post-grant patent challenges (e.g., IPRs), alternative dispute resolution, licensing, opinions, corporate transactions and due diligence. Fitzpatrick represents an international client base from Fortune 500 companies to start-up companies. For more information, please visit www.fitzpatrickcella.com.

Media contact: Marichelli Hughes, 202-344-4900, [email protected]

SOURCE Venable LLP

Related Links

http://www.venable.com


NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- FSA administration company, Clarity Benefit Solutions, offers five selling strategies for next generation brokers.

As a generation of older brokers retires and a new generation of brokers is ushered in to market exciting new benefits offerings, it is up to these forward-thinking brokers to develop innovative selling strategies in a highly competitive marketplace. The following are five selling strategies that next generation brokers can employ to build a trusting, long-lasting relationship with their clients.

Build a personal brand. Rising brokers should first spend time building a brand through the many social media platforms that are out there. An engaging website can strengthen their online presence. Make it full of articles, tips, case studies, webinars, videos, and blogs. Cross-post this information to drive more traffic and increase awareness.

Develop an expert niche. Next-generation brokers who have successfully built their brand should also have a specialty to distinguish themselves from their competition. This will help them become a sought-after resource in a particular area. Make sure this specialty is well-promoted!

Make the most of SEO. Next generation brokers that are engaged with the industry will be noticed by all the major search engineswith the brokers' content linked to or shared. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important strategy to master. Doing so will ensure success.

Utilize the latest technology. Technology is a must to keep up with constantly evolving changes in the industry. Next generation brokers should use an online platform in all their sales efforts. Not only will it save them time and money, it will result in more customer satisfaction as clients can access their information, at their convenience, from an app on their smartphone

Be socially responsible. A majority of the younger generation is highly concerned about the communities they work and live in. As a broker that wants to connect, and sell to, this audience, be aware of local social and environmental issues. Championing for a cause can help a broker feel good about him or herself and have a positive impact on selling strategies.

About Clarity Benefit Solutions: Clarity Benefit Solutions provides technology that makes the health insurance plan selection process fast, easy, and straightforward. For over two decades, we have provided clients with industry-leading technology, compliance, and exceptional customer service. Our offering is designed to save time and lower the costs of managing benefits while also promoting employee self-service and automated ACA compliance.

Media Contact

Calvin Clark

[email protected]

732-428-8272

SOURCE Clarity Benefit Solutions
CSE: HUGE

OTC: FSDDF

FRA: 0K9

TORONTO, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - FSD Pharma Inc. ("FSD Pharma" or the "Company") (CSE: HUGE) (OTC: FSDDF) (FRA: 0K9) is pleased to announce that its wholly-owned subsidiary, FV Pharma Inc. ("FV Pharma"), a licensed cannabis producer under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (the "ACMPR"), completed the harvest of its first lot of cannabis and successfully passed microbial testing required by Health Canada under the ACMPR and will be harvesting its second lot this week so as to conduct full analytical testing, thereby positioning FV Pharma to request a Pre-Sales License Inspection from Health Canada. The Pre-Sales License Inspection is the last step prior to the issuance of a Sales License under the ACMPR.

Thomas Fairfull, President and CEO of FSD Pharma stated, "This marks an important milestone for our Company as we expedite the growth of our business and the delivery of our business plan. We are extremely proud of our cultivation team that has delivered five high-quality strains and an impressive yield. Requesting our Pre-Sales License Inspection from Health Canada will position FV Pharma as one of the few independent companies with a cannabis sales license under the ACMPR in Canada. Once fully licensed, FV Pharma can begin selling cannabis for both the medicinal and recreational markets."

FSD Pharma operates its current cultivation facility in the former Kraft plant located in Cobourg, Ontario. The facility sits on a 70 acre parcel of land with 40 acres primed for development and an expansion capability of up to 3,896,000 square feet. The Company is currently in phase 1 of its growth plans with 25,000 square feet available to grow high-quality pharmaceutical grade cannabis flower. A further 220,000 square feet of growing capacity is under development with an anticipated completion date of December 2018. This expanded Phase 1 is expected to begin growing cannabis plants in January 2019 subject to approval by Health Canada.

"We are extremely pleased with the result of our first crop," said Zeeshan Saeed, EVP and Director of FSD Pharma. "We have delivered a highly efficient yield in our first harvest, which will be followed by a subsequent crop this week. We are well-positioned to complete our second harvest by the end of August 2018. We intend to continue to deliver the highest quality hydroponic indoor-grown pharmaceutical-grade cannabis from this point forward."

About FSD Pharma (CSE: HUGE) (OTC: FSDDF) (FRA: 0K9)

FSD Pharma through its wholly-owned subsidiary FV Pharma, is a licensed producer of marijuana under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR) having received its cultivation license on October 13, 2017. Headquartered at the former Kraft plant in Cobourg, Ontario, approximately an hour's drive from Toronto, FV Pharma management's mission is to transform the facility into the largest hydroponic indoor cannabis facility in the world. FV Pharma intends to target all legal aspects of the cannabis industry, including cultivation, processing, manufacturing, extracts and research and development.

About FV Pharma

FV Pharma is a licensed producer under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR), having received its cultivation license on October 13, 2017. Headquartered at the former Kraft plant in Cobourg, Ontario, approximately an hour's drive from Toronto, FV Pharma management's mission is to transform the facility into the largest hydroponic indoor cannabis facility in the world. FV Pharma intends to target all legal aspects of the cannabis industry, including cultivation, processing, manufacturing, extracts and research and development. For more information about FV Pharma, please visit www.fvpharma.com.

Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Corporation's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. In particular, this release contains forward-looking information relating to the development of the Corporation's indoor cannabis facility and its business goals and objectives. The forward-looking information contained in this press release is made as of the date hereof, and the Corporation is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward looking-information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its regulation services provider accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE FSD Pharma Inc.
Representatives from nine Louisiana pharmacies authorized to dispense medical cannabis toured our high-tech 36,000-sq ft GB Sciences facility in Baton Rouge, LA.

"I got so excited when this was being brought to legislation, and we're just really excited to be part of it," said Randy Mire, a pharmacist who will serve patients in and around Baton Rouge. "It's going to help so many patients. They won't need to travel out of state anymore; they'll be able to stay local."

Mr. Mire refers to 2015, when Louisiana legislators paved the way for medical cannabis to be administered to patients suffering from a range of conditions. In 2017, GB Sciences won a competitive bid process in order to partner with the LSU AgCenter for one of two licenses that were granted statewide and the only commercialized license in the state at this time.

"As a pharmacist, it's personally gratifying that you are able to help people," said Ruston Henry, a second-generation pharmacist in New Orleans. "And with this new industry that's in place you have an opportunity to help a lot of people that are definitely underserved."

Once construction of the production facility is complete, the facility will house a 5,000 square foot, state of the art laboratory operated by LSU AgCenter researchers. Researchers will investigate all aspects of cannabis from individual compounds to plant genetics.

This research is at the heart of the GB Sciences and LSU AgCenter partnership, according to LSU AgCenter Research Associate Professor Ted Gauthier.

"The research in this facility will be cutting edge in the field of cannabis studies, and our partnership with GB will allow us to push the edge of that envelope and take a look at the plant like it's never been looked at before," Gauthier said.

"We're very excited to be working with the LSU AgCenter here in Baton Rouge, because their scientists are doing the exact same things with other agricultural products, like sweet potatoes, rice, and sugar cane," said John Davis, President of GB Sciences Louisiana. "And we're excited about what can come from that research partnership: the inventions, the new strains, and a genetics databank."

About Louisiana State University Agricultural Center

The Louisiana State University Agricultural Center ("LSU AgCenter" or "AgCenter") is an institution under the supervision and management of the Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College (the "LSU Board of Supervisors"). The AgCenter's mission is to provide the people of Louisiana with research-based educational information that will improve their lives and economic well-being. The LSU AgCenter includes the Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station, which conducts Agricultural and Renewable Natural Resource-based research, and the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service, which extends the knowledge derived from research to the people of the state. The LSU AgCenter plays an integral role in supporting agricultural industries, enhancing the environment, and improving the quality of life through its 4-H youth, family and consumer sciences, and community development programs.

About GB Sciences, Inc.

GB Sciences, Inc. (OTCQB: GBLX) is a diverse cannabis company, focused on standardized cultivation and production methods; as well as biopharmaceutical research and development. The Company's goal is creating safe, standardized, pharmaceutical-grade, cannabinoid therapies that target a variety of medical conditions. To learn more about GB Sciences, Inc., go to: http://gbsciences.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain statements relating to future results or events, which are forward-looking statements. Words such as "expects", "intends", "plans", "may", "could", "should", "anticipates", "likely", "believes" and words of similar import may identify forward-looking statements. These statements are not historical facts, but instead represent only the Company's belief regarding future events, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of the Company's control. It is possible that the Company's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. Further, information concerning the Company and its business, including factors that potentially could materially affect the Company's business and financial and other results, are contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, available at www.sec.gov. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date of this press release, and we do not undertake any obligation to publicly update or correct any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that subsequently occur or of which we hereafter become aware.

Note: Although the Company's research and development activities are not illegal, the production and sale of cannabis products violate federal laws as they presently exist.

Contact Information

Corporate:

GB Sciences, Inc., 3550 West Teco Ave., Las Vegas, NV 89118

866-721-0297, or

Tom Arcuragi, EVP, [email protected]

SOURCE GB Sciences, Inc.

Related Links

http://gbsciences.com/


FERMONT , California, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

According to a new market intelligence report by BIS Research, titled 'Global Precision Agriculture Market - Analysis and Forecast, 2018-2025', reach $10.55 billion by 2025, rising at a CAGR of 13.70% from 2018 to 2025. The market growth is primarily attributed to the increasing demand for higher crop yield with limited availability of natural resources, the growing market penetration of ICT in farming, and rising governmental support for sustainable farming technologies.

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Browse more than 35 Data Tables and 145 Figures spread through 259 Pages and in-depth ToC on "Global Precision Agriculture Market"

Precision agriculture is considered to be one of the significant technological changes in the farming sector since the green revolution. Precision agriculture technology-based solutions enable the farmers to optimize the use of resources such as seed, water, fertilizer, and pesticides. Moreover, information such as crop rotation details, ideal planting times, harvesting times, and soil management, are also provided to the farmers to avoid wastage of resources and attain better yields. With rapid introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in farming since the past decade, the farming industry has been witnessing a revolutionary phase.

Furthermore, the trend of precision farming is not only prevalent in developed countries but in developing countries as well have realized its importance. In countries, such as China and India, massive deployments of smartphones and internet of things systems have led to the rapid adoption of precision agriculture solutions. The government of several countries has realized the need and advantages of these technologies, and thus, their initiatives to promote precision farming techniques are expected to drive the growth in the market further.

BIS Research Report: https://bisresearch.com/industry-report/global-precision-agriculture-market.html

According to Sonali Mazumdar, Analyst at BIS Research, "In 2017, hardware systems solution type, followed by software and services, held more than 70% share of the total global precision agriculture market. Hardware systems are finding widespread usage in the farming sector as they provide a full range of solutions covering a majority of precision farm management purposes. Moreover, irrigation was the largest application sector for precision agriculture technologies in 2017. During the forecast period, the market for precision spraying technologies is also estimated to grow at a robust pace. Precision spraying solutions enable the farmers to target the pesticides more precisely and offer 8-10% reduction in product waste."

Regionally, North America is at the forefront of the global precision agriculture market, with high market penetration in the U.S. European market for precision agriculture technologies is also quite developed with major growth opportunities arising from countries in the Eastern European region. Increasing adaptability of farmers for modern technologies and the positive support from the government is also expected to augment the growth in the region. The fastest growth is expected from the Asia-Pacific and South America regions. Presence of key agricultural producing countries, such as China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Argentina, in this region is estimated to boost the market for advanced farming techniques. These emerging countries are currently facing the issues of extreme climatic conditions and inadequate resource accessibility coupled with mounting demand for food, owing to the rising population and economic growth. Thus, the adoption of effective farming solutions has become indispensable.

The competitive landscape for the precision agriculture market demonstrates an inclination toward companies adopting strategies, such as partnerships and collaborations, along with new product launches to introduce new technologies or further develop on the existing product portfolio. Moreover, acquisition activities have increased in the market during the last five years. Presently, the big four agricultural companies, namely Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, and BASF are continually increasing their investment for the digitization of the farming sector, by acquiring or collaborating with data sciences companies. In May 2018, ICL Ltd. partnered with CropX, to invest and develop advanced solutions for the agricultural sector, providing farmers with advanced soil sensor technologies and cloud-based analytics. In February 2018, Syngenta completed its acquisition of FarmShots Inc., a North Carolina-based innovator of high-resolution satellite imagery to further develop its solutions for farm management and decision-making tools.

Request for Sample Report: https://bisresearch.com/requestsample?id=551&type=download

This report is a meticulous compilation of research on more than 100 players in the precision agriculture ecosystem and draws upon insights from in-depth interviews with the key opinion leaders of more than 40 leading companies, market participants, and vendors. The report also profiles 22 leading companies which include AGCO Corporation, Ag Leader Technology, AgJunction, CNH Industrial, Conservis Corporation, Deere & Company, DICKEY-john, DJI Innovations, Hexagon Agriculture, Iteris Inc., Lindsay Corporation, Raven Industries, Topcon Positioning Systems, Trimble Inc., The Climate Corporation, Valmont Industries Inc., Farmers Edge, Farm Logs, 365FarmNet GmbH, Agrivi, Agroptima, and Granular Inc.

Key questions answered in the report:

 What is the expected global precision agriculture market size in terms of revenue from 2017-2025 along with the anticipated growth rate during the forecast period 2018-2025?

 What is the anticipated revenue generated by the different solutions such as hardware systems, software, and services for the precision agriculture market in the forecast period?

 What is the market size of precision agriculture solutions for different applications including irrigation, field monitoring, fertilization, spraying, planting, data management, and others?

 What is the anticipated precision agriculture market size for different regions based on various solutions and applications during the forecast period?

 What are the key trends and opportunities in the market pertaining to countries included in different geographical regions?

 How attractive is the precision agriculture market for different stakeholders present in the farming industry by analyzing the complete supply chain?

 What are the major driving forces that are expected to increase the demand for precision agriculture during the forecast period?

 What are the major challenges inhibiting the growth of the global precision agriculture market?

 What are the upcoming trends and opportunities in this market?

 What kind of new strategies is being adopted by the existing market players to expand their market position in the industry?

 What is the competitive strength of the key players in the precision agriculture market by analyzing their recent developments, product offerings, and regional presence?

Related Reports:

Global Farm Management Software & Services Market, Analysis & Forecast (2017-2021)

Global Livestock Monitoring & Management Market - Analysis & Forecast (2017-2021)

About BIS Research:

BIS Research (Business Intelligence and Strategy Research) is a global B2B market intelligence and advisory firm focusing on those emerging technological trends which are likely to disrupt the dynamics of the market.

With over 150 market research reports published annually, BIS Research focuses on high technology verticals such as 3D Printing, Advanced Materials and Chemicals, Aerospace and Defense, Automotive, Healthcare, Electronics and Semiconductors, Robotics and UAV, and other emerging technologies.

Our in-depth market intelligence reports focus on the market estimations, technology analysis, emerging high-growth applications, deeply segmented granular country-level market data, and other important market parameters useful in the strategic decision-making for senior management.

What distinguishes BIS Research from the rest of the players is that we don't simply provide data but also complement it with valuable insights and actionable inputs for the success of our clients.

Contact:

Bhavya Banga

Email: [email protected]

39111 PASEO PADRE PKWY STE 315,

FREMONT CA 94538-1686





Visit our Blog @ http://bisresearch.com/blog/

Connect with us on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/company/3720474

Connect with us on [email protected] https://twitter.com/BISResearch



SOURCE BIS Research
ALBANY, New York, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The global roofing market was valued at US$ 92,430.94 Mn in 2017 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 4.9% from 2018 to 2026, according to a new report titled 'Roofing Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 2018-2026,' published by Transparency Market Research (TMR). The global roofing market is driven by expansion in the global construction industry. Asia Pacific accounts for major share of the global roofing market, led by the increase in construction activities and rise in awareness about sustainable construction materials in the region.

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Expansion in Global Construction Industry to Drive Market

The construction industry is a significant end-user of roofing materials. It is expanding steadily in developing countries and sub-regions such as India, China, ASEAN, GCC, and Africa. The rate of urbanization is on the rise in these countries and sub-regions due to the improvement in standard of living. The roofing market is expanding rapidly with industrialization and growth in residential and commercial developments. Significant expansion in the construction sector in developing countries and technological advancements have boosted the adoption of quality roofing systems.

Request a Sample of Roofing Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=48603

The construction industry in India and the Middle East has expanded at a rapid pace in the last few years. This trend is expected to continue in the near future. Robust expansion in the construction industry in the UAE and Qatar due to the increase in government expenditure on commercial and industrial projects is anticipated to drive the roofing market in these countries. This is estimated to create significant opportunities for roofing manufacturers, primarily in the industrial sector. Increase in re-roofing activities for existing buildings, typically in the U.S., Canada, and Germany, is estimated to boost the demand for roofing materials during the forecast period. Additionally, increase in reconstruction activities in Asia Pacific in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Nepal, and Sri Lanka is also projected to drive the market during the forecast period.

View in-depth table of contents for this report @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/48603

Metal roofing, especially steel roofing with galvanized iron or ZN-Al coating, has been gaining momentum in commercial and industrial applications of the roofing market since the last few years. It is also becoming increasingly popular in residential projects including multi-story apartments, complexes, and single-family homes. Currently, metal roofs have become a rapidly developing innovation in the home remodeling applications, they are durable and offer exceptional protection and high longevity. These roofing materials are recyclable and are available in a wide range of shapes, colors, and finishes. Metal roofing is proving attractive to many homeowners as it is designed to last for 50 years. Metal roofing can accommodate green technologies such as solar harvesting panels and water harvesting systems. For instance, the Government of India is planning to introduce tax benefits for house owners who install metal roofs. Rise in demand for energy-efficient metal roofs with built-in solar panels is expected to provide lucrative opportunities to roofing manufacturers.

Volatility in Raw Material Prices Anticipated to Hamper Roofing Market

The global roofing market is prone to fluctuations in prices of raw materials such as acrylic acid. Constant volatility in prices of raw materials is adversely affecting the roofing market. Bitumen or asphalt is the major raw material used in the manufacture of bituminous roofing materials, which is the leading product segment of the roofing market. Quality and availability of asphalt is a challenge for manufacturers of roofing materials. Gasoline is a key raw material for bitumen. Demand for gasoline is still declining. This has adversely affected the supply of bitumen and asphalt. Furthermore, high cost of manufacturing techniques such as the oxidation process have raised the production cost of bituminous roofing. Additionally, high prices of polymer and fiber cement are estimated to hamper the roofing market during the forecast period.

Request for Multiple Chapters on Global Roofing Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=MC&rep_id=48603

Bituminous Segment to Dominate Global Roofing Market

The global roofing market has been segmented based on product, application, and region. Based on product, the market can be divided into bituminous, metal, elastomeric, tiles, and others. Bituminous is the dominant segment of the roofing market. Bitumen roofing can be applied for hot as well as cold applications. It provides superior waterproofing protection to buildings and is highly durable. It possesses high tensile strength and is unlikely to form cracks compared to its counterparts. Rise in demand for modified bitumen roofing systems is driving the demand for bituminous roofing.

Asia Pacific Dominates Global Roofing Market

In terms of region, Asia Pacific accounted for major share of the global roofing market in 2017. Countries such as India, China, Vietnam, and Indonesia are expected to provide lucrative opportunities to manufacturers of roofing owing to the increase in disposable income, growth in population, expansion in construction industry, and rise in demand for residential complexes and industrial warehouses. Demand for retrofitting of residential complexes is significantly high in the U.S. and Europe. This is estimated to boost the roofing market in these regions during the forecast period. Middle East & Africa is expected to provide lucrative opportunities to the roofing market during the forecast period due to the rising investment in the construction sector, which consists of commercial establishments, public infrastructure, and utilities, in the region. Increase in government expenditure on commercial and industrial projects typically in the UAE and Qatar due to government efforts to reduce its reliance on oil revenues is expected to drive the market in these countries. These factors are driving the global roofing market.

Request for Discount on This Report: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=D&rep_id=48603

High Degree of Competition among Established Players

Key players profiled in the report are Owens Corning, CertainTeed Corporation, GAF Materials Corporation, TAMKO Building Products, Inc., Carlisle Companies Incorporated, Atlas Roofing Corporation, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Firestone Building Products Company, LLC, Sika AG, Monier Building Group, and IKO Industries Ltd. The top five players - Owens Corning, Carlisle Companies Incorporated, Braas Monier Building Group Services S.A., Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (Johns Manville), and CertainTeed Corporation - cumulatively accounted for more than 10% share of the market in 2017. These companies consistently develop new global strategies to expand their capacity and product portfolios of roofing products through joint ventures and research & development activities. For instance, in 2017, Tamco Building Products Inc. launched a new series Heritage Designer Ridge asphalt shingle for western, southwest, and central U.S. These products are manufactured by using SBS modified bitumen technology.

Global Roofing Market, by Product

Bituminous

Metal

Tiles

Elastomeric

Others

Global Roofing Market, by Application

Residential

Commercial

Non-commercial

Browse Popular Research Reports by TMR:

Vacuum Insulated Glass Market for Building & Construction: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/vacuum-insulated-glass-building-construction-market.html



Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/autoclaved-aerated-concrete-market.html

About Us

Transparency Market Research is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. Our experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information.

Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.

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SOURCE Transparency Market Research
DENVER, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Hammond's Brands, the parent company of Hammond's Candies and Old Dominion Peanut Company, has launched an all-new look for their popular Holiday Gift Bags. Perfect for gifting, the newly-designed packaging is available just in time for stores to stock up before the high-traffic holiday season.

Hammond's Holiday Gift Bags Hammond's Holiday Gift Bags

Hammond's Holiday Gift Bags are filled with 5 oz. of delicious, nostalgic treats, including Mini Ribbon Candy, Natural Peppermint Puffs, Art Candy, Organic Mint Pillows and Christmas Bear Gummies. With MSRP's ranging from $5.49 to $7.99, these sweet treats are the perfect option for everyone on a customer's gift-giving list.

"Our gift bags are always a retailer favorite during the holiday season," said Andrew Whisler, Hammond's Executive Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. "We've maintained a classic feel while adding an edge with a modern look that really shows off the quality of the hand-crafted candies we are known for."

"The new Hammond's Holiday Gift Bag packaging pops off the shelf," added Andrew Schuman, President & CEO. "Consumers won't be able to pass up the eye-catching, bright white and red packages that perfectly showcase the colorful treats inside. Our range of candy styles offers a great gift option for all ages at the holidays."

Hammond's Brands is now shipping Holiday Gift Bags and other festive candies. Stock up before the holiday rush by calling 1-800-CANDY-99 (1-800-226-3999).

About Hammond's

Hammond's Candies began delighting candy lovers with artisan candy canes, beautifully spun ribbon candy, and larger-than-life lollipops when it was founded by the Hammond family in 1920, making it Colorado's favorite handmade confectioner for decades. In 2007, the company became the Hammond's that it is today through its acquisition by current President and CEO Andrew Schuman, growing from a much-loved, local candy company to a leading gourmet sweet provider with national regard (and has doubled the number of employees). Since then, Hammond's has gone on to acquire such companies as McCraw's Candies in 2010 and Old Dominion Peanut Company in 2012 as well as to gain impressive recognitions for their brand packaging and product innovation.

Follow Hammond's Candies on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/hammondscandies and on Instagram at http://instagram.com/hammondscandies to stay up to date on their latest releases. More information is also available at www.hammondscandies.com or by calling 1-800-CANDY-99 (1-800-226-3999).

Media Contact:

Kelsey Williams

[email protected]

Telephone: 424-214-9848

SOURCE Hammond's Brands

Related Links

http://www.hammondscandies.com


AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Infotools, a global leader in market research analysis solutions, has scooped two awards at the 2018 Research Association Effectiveness Awards (RAEAWARDS), winning the Gold Award in the Perceptive International Category as well as the premiere Innovation Award.

Infotools team members at the 2018 RAEAWARDS in Auckland, New Zealand

The RAEAWARDS, an initiative of the Research Association New Zealand (RANZ), are designed to encourage, recognize and reward the successful use of research, evaluation, data analysis and insights in commercial and social environments. The International Category Award recognizes the work of a New Zealand-based insights company working in at least one international market, while the Innovation Award recognizes a project that demonstrates an innovative approach and effective execution of a research project.

Infotools won both awards in recognition of its work with Orange, one of the world's leading telecommunications providers. Together, Infotools and Orange have transformed Orange's approach to market research by developing a dynamic, interactive analysis and reporting platform for global brand tracking and customer experience studies.

The Infotools solution gives Orange's stakeholders direct, immediate access to up-to-date data presented as customized, user-friendly insights. The platform provides immediate answers to questions and enables strategic business decisions to be made on the go. This new approach has significantly increased the understanding of the value that the Market Research team delivers to Orange's business.

"The Infotools solution has helped our business decision makers - both locally and within global teams - engage with and actively use our brand data to help drive strategy and contribute to growth," says Russell King, Director of Group Brand & Customer Experience Research at Orange. "I'm delighted that the work we've done together is now being recognized by the wider insights industry."

Orange's new forward-thinking, customer-first approach is giving them a competitive edge and helping them achieve their goal of delivering consistently high-value, high-quality and highly personalized experiences for all customers in each interaction.

"We're exceptionally proud of the work we've done to help the Orange Market Research team align their approach to market research with their overall business objectives," said Ant Franklin, CEO of Infotools. "By working closely together, we've been able to create a solution that allows Orange to quickly access and act on their consumer insights, creating a consumer-first culture for the company. Winning this award is a great confirmation that an approach like this speaks to the future of our industry."

Infotools has published a comprehensive case study detailing its ongoing collaboration with Orange. The case study can be downloaded here: https://www.infotools.com/resources/the-color-of-transformation/

Awarded every two years, the RAEAWARDS:

Reward the successful use of research, evaluation, data analysis and insights in commercial and social environments.

Establish and enhance wider understanding of the role of research, evaluation, data and insights in driving social and commercial decision making.

Encourage, recognize and reward innovation and creativity in research, evaluation, data analysis and insights generation.

The 2018 awards were presented at a gala dinner in Auckland on Friday 17 August.

About Infotools

Infotools is an award-winning software and services provider, with particular expertise in processing, analyzing, visualizing and sharing market research data. Established in 1990, Infotools works with some of the world's best-known brands, including Coca-Cola, Orange, Samsung and Mondelez, as well as boutique research agencies such as MDI and Quantum Market Research. For more information, visit www.infotools.com or follow on Twitter @infotools.

Media Contact:

Marie Melsheimer

541-815-3951

[email protected]

SOURCE Infotools

Related Links

http://www.infotools.com


VANCOUVER, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - INVICTUS MD STRATEGIES CORP. ("Invictus" or the "Company") (TSXV: GENE;OTCQX: IVITF; FRA: 8IS1) today announced the proposed spinout of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Poda Technologies Ltd. ("Poda"), by way of plan of arrangement (the "Arrangement"), in a bid to create a stand-alone entity to conduct business in the U.S. and internationally, outside of the TSXV.

Poda is a zero-cleaning vaporizer system, harnessing innovative technology that can be paired with almost any vaporizable substance including cannabis, tobacco, e-liquids, concentrates, coffee and more. Other pod-based vaporizers on the market today still require cleaning and produce significant waste. Poda vaporizers use patent-pending zero clean technology and offer biodegradable pods. Most importantly, Poda vaporizers will provide consumers with consistent performance.

As part of the Arrangement, each common share of the Company held by an Invictus Shareholder will be exchanged for one new common share of the Company and one Poda common share. Immediately after the Arrangement, the Invictus Shareholders shall be the shareholders of Poda. Each Invictus stock option will be exchanged for one new stock option of the Company and one Poda stock option. Each Invictus warrant will be exchanged for one new warrant of the Company and one Poda warrant. The Arrangement will be affected under the terms and conditions of an arrangement agreement to be entered into between Invictus and Poda (the "Arrangement Agreement").

The Company has obtained an independent comprehensive valuation report and fairness opinion (the "Report") on the Arrangement. The Report concludes that the terms of the Arrangement are fair, from a financial point of view, to the Invictus Shareholders. The fair market value of Poda, as at June 30, 2018, was determined to be approximately $1,915,000.

Following completion of the Arrangement, Poda will use its commercially reasonable efforts to apply for and obtain a listing of the Poda common shares on the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") or other Canadian stock exchange or quotation system. Management of the Company and Poda will remain the same following completion of the Arrangement.

Subject to execution of the Arrangement Agreement, and receipt of requisite corporate, regulatory and court approval, the record date for the exchange and distribution of the common shares of Poda (the "Record Date") is anticipated to be on or about September 2018.

All Invictus shareholders, of record as of the Record Date, will be issued a notice from Invictus' transfer agent, Computershare, with instructions on how to obtain the shares they are entitled to under the Arrangement.

Completion of the Arrangement is contingent on completion of closing conditions associated with the Arrangement, such as requisite corporate, regulatory and court approvals.

For more information, please visit www.invictus-md.com.

On Behalf of the Board,

Dan Kriznic

Chairman and CEO

Jessica Martin

Vice President, Public Relations and Regulatory Affairs

(604) 537-8676

About Invictus

Invictus is a global cannabis company offering a selection of products under a wide range of lifestyle brands. Our integrated sales approach is defined by five pillars of distribution including medical, wholesale, international, Licensed Producer to Licensed Producer and retail.

Invictus has partnered with business leaders to convey our corporate vision, including KISS music legend and business mogul Gene Simmons as our Chief Evangelist Officer, and global branding agency Authentic Brands Group. Invictus is expanding its cultivation footprint, with two cannabis production facilities fully licensed under ACMPR in Canada and a third awaiting approval, featuring 100,000 square feet of available grow space today with 200,000 expected by the end of 2018 and 1 million by end of 2019. The Company will earmark 50 per cent of production to the medical and recreational markets, respectively. To ensure consistency in quality and supply, Invictus maintains all aspects of the growing process through its subsidiary, Future Harvest Development Ltd., a high-quality Fertilizer and Nutrients manufacturer. Invictus drives sustainable long-term shareholder value through a diversified product portfolio with over 69 Health Canada approved strains and a multifaceted distribution strategy including medial, recreational, international and retail. For more information visit www.invictus-md.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This release includes certain statements and information that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws or forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, including statements regarding future estimates, plans, objectives, timing, assumptions or expectations of future performance, including the timing and completion of the Arrangement, the timing of the launch of the Poda vaporizers, and the potential production capacity of Invictus, are forward-looking statements and contain forward-looking information. Generally, forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "intends" or "anticipates", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would" or "occur". Forward-looking statements are based on certain material assumptions and analysis made by the Company and the opinions and estimates of management as of the date of this press release, including that the Company will be successful in completing the Arrangement and obtaining the requisite shareholder, regulatory and court approvals of the Arrangement, Poda will be successful in launching its vaporizers this fall, that Invictus will be successful in reaching its potential production capacity, its production facilities will be completed as anticipated, regulatory approval will be granted as anticipated, Invictus will reach full production capacity on the timeline anticipated by the Company, and no unforeseen construction delays will be experienced. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information. Important factors that may cause actual results to vary, include, without limitation, the Company will not obtain the requisite approvals to complete the Arrangement in the timing anticipated by management or at all, Poda will be unsuccessful in launching its vaporizers this fall, Invictus will not be successful in reaching its potential production capacity, its production facilities will not be completed as anticipated, and licenses or approvals being granted on terms or timelines that are materially worse than expected by the Company. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, forward-looking information or financial out-look that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE Invictus MD Strategies
BRANFORD, Conn., Aug. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- IsoPlexis Corporation (IsoPlexis), a privately held life sciences company at the forefront of single-cell analytics technology, announced today an exclusive agreement with Tekon Biotech, a leading instrumentation distributor, to distribute IsoPlexis' products in China. Tekon Biotech's first conference featuring IsoPlexis's systems will be held at Purple Mountain Hotel, Pudong, on September 20th, 2018 in Shanghai.

IsoPlexis's IsoCode & IsoLight system have received numerous awards, recognized as both The Scientist's and Fierce Life Science's #1 innovation of 2017 for the ability to provide both single-cell sensitivity and highly multiplexed and quantitative functional ELISA detection together for the first time. IsoPlexis' IsoLight was also awarded the global Red Dot Design Award in 2018 for its ease of use. These systems will now be available to customers, through its exclusive partner Tekon Biotech, in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau.

IsoPlexis has published data over the past three years with a variety of leading US CAR-T and Cell Therapy biopharmas and academic institutions, most recently in the journal "Blood", where IsoPlexis' IsoCode technology predicted whether non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients would respond to CAR-T therapy, directly from the pre-infusion Cell Product. Other pre-infusion metrics from existing technologies tested in this study were not predictive.

"We are very excited to partner with Tekon Biotech, a world class distributor of life science systems and technology in China," said IsoPlexis Chief Executive Officer, Sean Mackay. "We see significant demand for our unique single-cell platform from leading Chinese pharmaceutical companies, research laboratories, and academic institutions. We are confident this partnership will help accelerate research in the fast emerging CAR-T therapy area in China, as we continue to extend our single-cell leadership into new markets."

"China has emerged as a world leader in CAR-T cell therapies. Fueled by Chinese biotech investment ($10bn in 2017) and government programs such as 'one three five' development plan and 'Made in China 2025', CAR-T clinical trials have grown significantly in China in the last few years," said Tekon Biotech CEO, David Hadfield. "As we continue to build on Tekon's leadership position in solutions for cell biology into cell therapy and precision medicine, one company repeatedly came up in discussions with leading researchers, IsoPlexis. Now we are very pleased to be partnering to bring IsoPlexis' unique single-cell solutions to benefit researchers in precision medicine across Greater China."

Dr. David Ho, chief executive officer of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and IsoPlexis Scientific Advisory Board member, said, "Biopharma research and development in China is accelerating at a rapid pace, and IsoPlexis' IsoLight system is well positioned to address a critical need in the fast growing field of CAR-T and other cellular immunotherapies."

Dr. Rong Fan, Yale professor and Chair of IsoPlexis' Scientific Advisory Board, said, "IsoPlexis' IsoCode Chip has demonstrated an improved ability to predict responses of CAR-T patients, from the pre therapy cell product with global leaders in CAR-T. IsoPlexis' IsoLight will benefit our pharma and translational partners internationally by providing a powerful, yet straightforward solution for establishing immune response functional correlates in the fast moving immunotherapy and cell therapy ecosystem in China."

Dr. Jim Heath, President of leading precision medicine institution, the Institute for Systems Biology, and Scientific Advisory Board member of IsoPlexis said, "The IsoCode Chip will continue to uncover solutions to key challenges not only in CAR-T and cell therapy, but in novel areas of precision medicine as well. IsoPlexis' systems will play an important role in profiling immune response in the quickly accelerating Chinese immunology and oncology R&D area."

ABOUT TEKON BIOTECH:

Tekon Biotech, founded in 1988, sells and supports a broad range of technologies in the China life sciences market. Tekon's customers include all major pharmaceutical and biotech companies plus the top 50 universities. Tekon is headquartered in Shanghai with offices in Hong Kong and Taipei. Tekon Biotech takes pride in providing the best service and technical support. For more information, visit http://www.tekontech.com/.

ABOUT ISOPLEXIS:

Data-driven and highly-targeted immunotherapies are the future of the fight against cancer. IsoPlexis, a privately held life sciences company, develops novel end-to-end solutions that are accelerating the revolution in immune and cell-based treatments of cancer. The IsoLight, a next-generation analytics platform, profiles responses at the single cell level enabling researchers to generate a precise functional patient signature to help predict and understand complex patient response to cancer immunotherapies. IsoPlexis has partnered with leading biopharmaceutical companies and trial centers to generate real-world data to advance high-need areas of cell product characterization, immune biomarker discovery, and patient monitoring.

For additional information on IsoPlexis, visit http://www.isoplexis.com or email [email protected].

MEDIA CONTACT:

Jon Chen

Director of Demand Generation

[email protected]

SOURCE IsoPlexis

Related Links

http://www.isoplexis.com


Organised by UBM Asia, the JNA Awards is one of the most prestigious awards programmes that promotes innovation, excellence and best business practices in the jewellery industry. It has established itself as an inspiring platform where business leaders and industry influencers can exchange ideas and share stories of success. The Award Recipients and Honourees will be feted at a gala celebration on Sunday, 16 September, at the InterContinental Hong Kong.

Competition was keener than ever in this category. Out of the 34 outstanding entrants, nine successfully made it to the Honourees list, namely, China Precious Gold Holdings Limited, Cody Opal Australia Pty Ltd, DRC TECHNO, IIDGR (UK) Ltd, ISMOND Jewelry Technology Co Ltd, PANDORA Production Co Ltd, Shenzhen HengFuYingJia Gold Co Ltd, Shenzhen Lingchengben Technology Corporation Limited, and Shenzhen MOVER Jewellery Co Ltd.

Letitia Chow, Chairperson of the JNA Awards, Founder of JNA, and Director of Business Development -- Jewellery Group at UBM Asia, said, "The importance of innovation is vital for businesses to remain competitive and be the winning team in this ever-changing world. Innovation does not only apply to technology, but in every aspect of an operation, from business models, gemmological research, production and marketing initiatives to management processes, which have all been well-demonstrated by the Honourees. These companies are not satisfied with the status quo and have sought creative ways to respond and foresee the needs and challenges of the industry."

The 2018 independent judging panel consists of industry experts, namely, Albert Cheng, Advisor to the World Gold Council (WGC) and former Managing Director, Far East (WGC); James Courage, former Chief Executive Officer of Platinum Guild International (PGI) and former Chairman of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC); Lin Qiang, President and Managing Director of the Shanghai Diamond Exchange (SDE); Mark Lee, Research Director of Asia Pacific Institute for Strategy (APIFS); Nirupa Bhatt, Managing Director of the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) in India and the Middle East; and Yasukazu Suwa, Chairman of Suwa & Son, Inc.

JNA Awards 2018 is supported by Headline Partners Chow Tai Fook (CTF), the Shanghai Diamond Exchange (SDE), and the Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones (DANAT) together with Honoured Partners KGK Group, Guangdong Gems & Jade Exchange, and Guangdong Land Holdings Limited (GDLAND).

Tickets for the prestigious Awards Ceremony and Gala Dinner are available for booking now at http://www.JNAAwards.com/ The JNA Awards is a ticketed event by application only.

Here is the full list of the individuals and companies that have been shortlisted as Honourees for JNA Awards 2018:

Brand of the Year -- Retail

Jewelmer (KARAMAR CORPORATION)

Luk Fook Holdings (International) Limited

Phu Nhuan Jewelry Joint Stock Company

Shenzhen Darry Jewelry Co Ltd

Shenzhen Perfect Love Diamond Co Ltd

Shenzhen Sunfeel Jewelry Co Ltd

eSupplier of the Year

Kiran Gems Private Limited

Zbird / Shanghai Wisdom Jewelry Trading Co Ltd

Zhuge-to-store, Fubillion

Industry Innovation of the Year

China Precious Gold Holdings Limited

Cody Opal Australia Pty Ltd

DRC TECHNO

IIDGR (UK) Ltd

ISMOND Jewelry Technology Co Ltd

PANDORA Production Co Ltd

Shenzhen HengFuYingJia Gold Co Ltd

Shenzhen Lingchengben Technology Corporation Limited

Shenzhen MOVER Jewellery Co Ltd

Manufacturer of the Year -- Cutting & Polishing

Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd

KGK Diamonds (HK) Limited

Manufacturer of the Year -- Jewellery

Kuwayama Corporation

MKS Jewelry International Co Ltd

Shenzhen Kingli Jewellery Co Ltd

Outstanding Enterprise of the Year -- ASEAN, Japan & Korea

Crossfor Co Ltd

J.ESTINA

Poh Kong Jewellers

Outstanding Enterprise of the Year -- Greater China

Luk Fook Holdings (International) Limited

Shenzhen MingFeng Jewellery Co Ltd

Shenzhen Sunfeel Jewelry Co Ltd

Outstanding Enterprise of the Year -- India

H.K. Jewels Private Limited

KGK Diajewels Private Limited

RMC GEMS INDIA LIMITED

Retailer of the Year (500 outlets and below)

Phu Nhuan Jewelry Joint Stock Company

Poh Kong Jewellers

PT Central Mega Kencana

Shenzhen Darry Jewelry Co Ltd

Retailer of the Year (501 outlets and above)

HIERSUN

Mokingran Jewelry Group Co Ltd

Shenzhen Ideal Jewellery Co Ltd

Sustainability Initiative of the Year

Jewelmer (KARAMAR CORPORATION)

KGK Diamonds (HK) Limited

Young Entrepreneur of the Year (Age 40 and below)

XU Xiao, Zbird / Shanghai Wisdom Jewelry Trading Co Ltd

Xiao, Zbird / Shanghai Wisdom Jewelry Trading Co Ltd YANG Lian Guang , Beijing Ying Yan Network Technology Co Ltd

, Beijing Ying Yan Network Technology Co Ltd Zulu GHEVRIYA , Prism Group

For more information, visit www.JNAawards.com or contact:

JNA Awards Marketing

UBM Asia (Hong Kong)

+852 2516-2184

[email protected]

Notes for Editors:

1. About the Headline Partner

1.1 Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Limited (www.chowtaifook.com)

Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Limited (the "Group"; SEHK stock code: 1929) was listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong in December 2011.

Founded in 1929, the Group's iconic brand "Chow Tai Fook" has been widely recognised for its trustworthiness and authenticity, and is renowned for its product design, quality and value. The success of the Group and its iconic brand is rooted in innovation, craftsmanship and heritage. The Group also holds other jewellery brands including CHOW TAI FOOK T MARK, Hearts On Fire, MONOLOGUE and SOINLOVE, which are the first examples of a long term multi-brand strategy rollout.

The Group's commitment to sustainable growth is anchored in its "Smart+" strategy, which is in place to promote long term innovation in the business, in people and in culture. Another asset underpinning sustainable growth is a sophisticated vertically integrated business model. This supports the Group by fostering excellence and extending opportunities along the entire value chain to communities and industry partners.

With an extensive retail network in Greater China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and the United States, and a fast-growing e-commerce business, the Group is implementing effective online-to-offline ("O2O") strategies to succeed in today's omni-channel retail environment.

1.2 Shanghai Diamond Exchange (www.cnsde.com)

Authorised by the State Council, the Shanghai Diamond Exchange (SDE) is the only diamond exchange in China and provides diamond dealers a fair and safe transaction venue under close supervision. It also enjoys a favourable taxation policy and is operated in accordance with international best practices of the diamond industry.

Established in 2000, the SDE is a non-profit, self-regulating membership organisation and a member of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses.

1.3 Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones -- DANAT (http://www.danat.bh)

The Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones (DANAT) was established in 2017, at the instigation of HRH Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain. DANAT was formed as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company (Mumtalakat), the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom. As an organisation, DANAT has evolved from the Pearl & Gem Testing Laboratory of Bahrain (the first laboratory of its kind in the region), which was established in 1990. DANAT was formed to expand upon and enhance the excellent work of the laboratory, with the vision of becoming the world's preferred institute for natural pearl and gemstone third-party verification services and scientific research.

DANAT plays a vital role in protecting and enhancing the public trust in pearls, gemstones and jewellery. With its offices located at the iconic Bahrain World Trade Center, DANAT aims to establish itself as the window into international markets, serving local and global clients and bolstering the reputation of the Kingdom as a leading centre for pearl and gemstone expertise. DANAT is an authority on industry standards, scientific knowledge and education, and is committed to the highest standards of professional and personal ethics. It is dedicated to supporting the pearl and gemstone industry and offers training programmes locally, regionally and internationally to a new generation of gemmologists, industry professionals and gemmology enthusiasts.

2. About the Honoured Partners

2.1 KGK Group (www.kgkgroup.com)

The KGK Group was founded in 1905 by Kesrimal Kothari and Ghisilal Kothari of Jaipur (India), with the humble task of trading gemstones between India and Burma. With a global presence across 19 countries today, the privately held group has evolved into one of the most preferred brands in the gemstone and jewellery industry, with a vertically integrated operation that spans the entire supply chain from mines to brands. KGK is one of the few conglomerates covering the entire spectrum of mining, sourcing, manufacturing and distribution of coloured gemstones, diamonds and jewellery for over a century. KGK Group has a resilient team of 12,000 employees with operations and offices in Asia, Australia, North and South America, Europe and Africa. Having achieved an impeccable reputation in the gemstone, diamond and jewellery trade, the group has recently diversified into real estate.

2.2 The Guangdong Gems & Jade Exchange (http://en.gdgje.com/)

Founded in February 2016, the Guangdong Gems & Jade Exchange is one of two provincial jewellery trading platforms authorised by the People's Government of Guangdong Province.

Aggregating resources from key industrial hubs across Guangdong including Guangzhou, Pingzhou of Foshan, Yangmei of Jieyang and Sihui of Zhaoqing, the Guangdong Gems & Jade Exchange joins hands with world-renowned jewellery brands in setting up an international supply chain integrated service platform that offers a secure and convenient trading experience for domestic and overseas jewellers.

The Guangdong Gems & Jade Exchange is set to benefit China's jewellery industry in a variety of areas, such as the promotion of a healthier and more balanced international division of labour, foreign trade development, cross-border resource management and consumer market growth. As part of this effort, it will take full advantage of the base and influence of Guangdong's jewellery industry and the benefits stemming from the Belt and Road Initiative to establish linkages with national and global gemstone and jewellery markets.

2.3 The Guangdong Land Holdings Limited (www.gdland.com.hk)

The Guangdong Land Holdings Limited (GDLAND), with its headquarters in Hong Kong, is listed on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited, and is a subsidiary of GDH Limited, which is Guangdong Province's largest conglomerate operating outside Mainland China.

The principal business of GDLAND is property development and investment, including but not limited to the development and operational management of the innovative commercial real estate, urban complex and industrial business complex. As the strategic arm of GDH Limited, GDLAND engages in the business development of commercial real estate, as well as urban and industrial complex projects.

GDLAND's flagship project, namely the "Buxin Project," is planned to become the biggest and most advanced jewellery mart in the world, including a large-scale jewellery trading and exhibition centre along with other facilities, with a lot size of over 87,000 square metres and a construction scale (floor area) that is projected to exceed 700,000 square metres. The Buxin Project, which is located in the Buxin area of Luohu district in Central Shenzhen, close to the Shuibei Gold and Jewellery Base, is expected to develop the area into one of the most influential gold and jewellery trading and exchange platforms in China and around the world.

3. About UBM Asia (www.ubmasia.com)

UBM Asia recently became part of Informa PLC, a leading B2B information services group and the largest B2B Events organiser in the world. Please visit www.ubm.com/asia for more information about our presence in Asia.

4. About Responsible Jewellery Council (https://www.responsiblejewellery.com/)

The Responsible Jewellery Council is an international not-for-profit standards and certification organisation. It has more than 1,100 member companies that span the jewellery supply chain from mine to retail. RJC Members commit to and are independently audited against the RJC Code of Practices -- an international standard on responsible business practices for diamonds, gold and platinum group metals. The Code of Practices addresses human rights, labour rights, environmental impact, mining practices, product disclosure and many more important topics in the jewellery supply chain. RJC also works with multi-stakeholder initiatives on responsible sourcing and supply chain due diligence. The RJC's Chain-of-Custody Certification for precious metals supports these initiatives and can be used as a tool to deliver broader Member and stakeholder benefit.

The RJC is a Full Member of the ISEAL Alliance -- the global association for sustainability standards. For more information on RJC Members, Certification, and Standards please visit www.responsiblejewellery.com

SOURCE UBM Asia

Related Links

http://www.ubmasia.com


NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Knewton, the world's leader in adaptive learning products and technologies, has closed its latest financing round, which includes up to $25 million in capital. Knewton plans to use the funding to scale Alta, the company's adaptive learning courseware for higher education, which has established strong momentum since its debut in the U.S. market in January 2018.

The financing round is led by TriplePoint Capital with a debt facility of up to $20 million. Knewton's existing investors  which include Accel, Atomico, Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, First Round Capital, Founders Fund and Sofina  invested an additional $5 million.

"Knewton's adaptive learning platform has long been the envy of the ed-tech industry. By putting it directly in the hands of students and instructors with Alta, we've figured out how we can make the biggest impact on improving student outcomes," said Brian Kibby, CEO of Knewton. "With this investment, we will bring Alta to scale while developing new ways of using our technology to enable true data-driven teaching and learning throughout the course experience."

"What Knewton has accomplished with Alta in less than eight months is remarkable. We're excited to support Knewton's effort to put Alta into the hands of every college student in the U.S.," said Jim Labe, CEO of TriplePoint Capital.

Higher ed instructors are making the switch to Alta

Since its launch in January 2018, Alta has received an overwhelmingly positive response from instructors in the U.S. higher education market, with many instructors opting to choose Alta's combination of dynamic adaptivity and unparalleled insights into student performance, and high quality, openly available expertly-developed content over traditional textbook and digital homework offerings.

Alta delivers a personalized learning experience for students by harnessing the power of Knewton's adaptive learning technology. In 2017, Knewton invested in making Alta accessible to all learners, achieving WCAG 2.0 AA-level ADA compliance across Alta's technology, content and user experience. By leveraging high quality, openly available content, Knewton is able to offer Alta to students for only $44 per course.

Knewton expects that more than 250 colleges and universities will be using Alta during the Fall 2018 term.

"I chose Alta because it levels the playing field for students. It provides support so that I can engage all students in the classroom," said Donna Jean, associate professor of chemistry, Park University. "If a student is struggling with mathematical problems, Alta quickly diagnoses that and presents the student with instruction geared towards those knowledge gaps."

"Alta is the first personalized learning system I've used that truly delivers on the promise of adaptive technology by continually measuring students' proficiency levels and providing feedback designed to help them achieve mastery," said Andrew Moore, department chair and assistant professor of mathematics at National Louis University. "With Alta, students don't have to wait for their next diagnostic or for me to provide them with that feedback  they receive it immediately."

For the Fall 2018 term, Knewton will offer 36 Alta products in courses across mathematics, economics, chemistry and statistics, including seven products developed exclusively to support math corequisite curriculum redesign initiatives.

For students, Alta delivers learning that lasts

Alta is designed to help students master the learning objectives covered in their course.

To measure Alta's impact on mastery, Knewton analyzed the results of more than 10,000 students who used Alta in 2017. The findings revealed:

Students using Alta demonstrate proficiency by completing assignments at high rates. 87% of the time, students using Alta demonstrated proficiency by completing their assignments. Of students who struggled with an assignment, 82% ultimately completed it.

87% of the time, students using Alta demonstrated proficiency by completing their assignments. Of students who struggled with an assignment, 82% ultimately completed it. Completing Alta assignments is directly correlated to better performance on summative assessments. Students using Alta who had not yet completed an assignment scored an average of 55% on related course assessments, while students who completed their assignment scored an average of 81%.

Students using Alta who had not yet completed an assignment scored an average of 55% on related course assessments, while students who completed their assignment scored an average of 81%. Alta provides the biggest benefit to students who need it most. For struggling students, completing assignments in Alta led to an average assessment score increase of 38 points, from 40% to 78% correct, helping them gain ground on their peers.

As part of Knewton's commitment to transparency regarding Alta's effectiveness, the company is collaborating with Johns Hopkins University's Center for Research and Reform to measure the effectiveness of Alta in helping students achieve mastery. Knewton plans to release the findings of Johns Hopkins University  which were developed independently of Knewton's own analysis presented above  in the months ahead.

About Knewton

Knewton puts achievement within reach for everyone through adaptive learning technology and products that deliver personalized and lasting learning experiences. Educators, schools and universities, and education companies around the world use Knewton to power and provide digital courses that dynamically adapt to each student's unique needs. More than 15 million students around the world have used Knewton-powered courses to date. Knewton was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in New York City.

About Triple Point Capital

TriplePoint Capital is a Sand Hill Road-based global financing provider to high growth venture capital-backed companies throughout their lifespan, providing customized debt financing, leasing and direct equity investments. TriplePoint provides unparalleled levels of creativity, flexibility and customer service to serve as the primary debt financing provider for leading venture capital-backed companies in the technology, cleantech and life sciences sectors and is the only debt provider equipped to meet the unique needs of high growth venture-backed companies at every stage of their development. For more information, visit www.triplepointcapital.com.

Media Contact

[email protected]

(415) 323-0850

SOURCE Knewton

Related Links

http://www.knewton.com


RESTON, Va., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Leidos (NYSE:LDOS), a FORTUNE 500 science and technology leader, was awarded a prime contract by the U.S. Air Force Sustainment Center to provide single-point integration services for F-16 fighter jet avionics shops. The single-award, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract has a three-year base period, two one-year option periods, and a total contract ceiling of $620 million. Work will take place at Hill Air Force base in Utah.

Leidos will support the Air Force Avionics Intermediate Shop Product Support Integration program. Under the contract, Leidos will be an independent non-manufacturing product support integrator for the Air Force's F-16 avionics shops that perform maintenance on the electronics of the fighter aircraft. Additional services include the sustainment and procurement of test program set system hardware and software, and management of automated test equipment components and support equipment for the F-16.

Leidos technical experts will use their vast experience, optimized engineering processes, and discipline to manage the sustainment of over 300 critical assets. Work will support seven U.S. Air Force major commands, participating European Air Forces, and Foreign Military Sales countries.

"Ensuring our customer has what is needed to keep their F-16 fleet in the air requires expert product support and logistics through integrated services at a large scale," said Aaron Bedrowsky, Leidos Senior Vice President, Operations and Logistics Solutions. "Leidos will be providing world-class management services and logistics solutions for their Air Force's critical mission of keeping F-16s at the ready."

About Leidos

Leidos is a Fortune 500 information technology, engineering, and science solutions and services leader working to solve the world's toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, civil, and health markets. The company's 31,000 employees support vital missions for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $10.17 billion for the fiscal year ended December 29, 2017. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com.

Statements in this announcement, other than historical data and information, constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause our actual results, performance, achievements, or industry results to be very different from the results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Some of these factors include, but are not limited to, the risk factors set forth in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 29, 2017, and other such filings that Leidos makes with the SEC from time to time. Due to such uncertainties and risks, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof.

SOURCE Leidos

Related Links

http://www.leidos.com


Scott said American also was at a disadvantage in Chicago because it had to continue operating daily nonstop flights to Shanghai and Beijing or risk losing the right to offer those flights. U.S. carriers must seek government approval to operate flights to certain countries, including China. American, which got approval for its flights between Chicago and China after some of its rivals, had less flexibility to scale back flights when demand slowed, she said.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Marken announced today that Brazil's ANVISA has approved shipments of biological samples from Sao Paulo's Viracopos airport to the United States using the UPS airline. The pilot program approved by the Brazilian authorities will allow biologic samples to depart from a second Sao Paulo airport to the US, thus allowing Marken to take advantage of an existing UPS flight to any US city. This additional flexibility allows Marken the ability to offer the fastest transit times and best value when compared to other couriers.

The hybrid logistics service leverages the UPS network with Marken's clinical expertise and benefits Brazil-based clinical investigators by offering a single provider for all shipments. Marken will manage all aspects of the shipment including all investigator orders, export documentation and shipment status updates for full end-to-end visibility.

The new hybrid service extends the latest pick up times for 21 Brazilian cities by up to 5 hours, allowing investigators more time to prepare and package the sample. The use of the UPS aircraft also reduces reliance on commercial airlines, which can offload biologic cargo from time to time leading to shipment delays.

Marken has gradually increased its staff in Brazil due to the continued strong demand from cities in Brazil which are an important source of patients for clinical trials. Additionally, Marken has deployed members of its Mexico operations team to assist with the new service from Brazil, given the success of a similar hybrid service from Mexico City launched a year ago.

Wes Wheeler, Chief Executive Officer, commented on the news: "Brazil becomes the latest country from which we can offer a hybrid transport option to the United States. The new option, which allows use of a second Sao Paulo - based airport at Viracopos provides maximum flexibility for our clients. We can offer later pick-up times, earlier US delivery times and reduced paperwork for investigators in many Brazilian cities. We are the only clinical courier who can offer this level of flexibility and value. We will continue to develop hybrid options for many other cities throughout the world."

About Marken

Marken is a wholly owned subsidiary of UPS. Marken is the only patient-centric supply chain organization 100% dedicated to the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries. Marken maintains the leading position for Direct to Patient services and biological sample shipments and offers a state-of-the-art GMP-compliant depot network and logistic hubs in 49 locations worldwide for clinical trial material storage and distribution. Marken's more than 890 staff members manage 50,000 drug and biological shipments every month at all temperature ranges in more than 150 countries. Additional services such as biological kit production, ancillary material sourcing, storage and distribution, shipment lane verification and qualifications, as well as GDP, regulatory and compliance consultancy add to Marken's unique position in the pharma and logistics industry.

SOURCE Marken

Related Links

https://www.marken.com


BOISE, Idaho, Aug. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The 11th lawsuit was filed today related to the Romaine lettuce E. coli O157:H7 outbreak. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Jordan Anglen against Grasmick Produce Co. INC. Mr. Anglen is represented by Marler Clark, the food safety law firm, and Hepworth Holzer, LLP, a local firm.

On March 25, Mr. Anglen, a 23-year-old, Costco employee, purchased a Caesar salad from the Costco food court where he worked. The salad was prepared from a salad mix processed by Grasmick Produce containing romaine grown and harvested in Yuma, Arizona.

On March 28, Mr. Anglen began experiencing bloody diarrhea along with severe abdominal pains. His symptoms became so intense that he sought medical attention from Primary Health Urgent Care the next day. On March 30, Mr. Anglen was transferred to St. Luke's Boise, where he was diagnosed with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a complication of E. coli O157:H7. As a result of neurological damage resulting from HUS, Mr. Anglen suffered from numerous seizures. He remained hospitalized through April 23, 2018. Mr. Anglen continues to receive medical care for his injuries.

"We are filing lawsuits, not only to seek compensation for our clients, but to help determine the source of the contamination that has sickened so many," said Marler Clark managing partner, Bill Marler. "The FDA has done little to show the route of the E. coli O157:H7 contamination from Yuma to consumer meals. Through the litigation process, we will show how this contamination occurred and who was involved. It is only when all this information is gathered and transparently shared that we can learn how to prevent the next E. coli O157:H7 outbreak," added Marler.

On April 10, 2018, the CDC announced an investigation into an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak stemming from romaine lettuce grown in the Yuma region of Arizona. There were a total of 210 confirmed cases across 36 states, with 96 hospitalizations and 5 deaths. California was hardest hit with 49 sickened. Idaho had 12 illnesses, including Mr. Anglen. The five deaths were reported in Arkansas, California, New York and Minnesota.

Marler Clark currently represents 87 people affected in the outbreak and has filed 11 lawsuits associated with the outbreak.

Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm, is the nation's leading law firm representing victims of E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks and hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). The E. coli O157:H7 lawyers of Marler Clark have represented thousands of victims of E. coli O157:H7 and other foodborne illness infections and have recovered over $650 million for clients. Marler Clark is the only law firm in the nation with a practice focused exclusively on foodborne illness litigation. Our E. coli O157:H7 lawyers have litigated E. coli O157:H7 and HUS cases stemming from outbreaks traced to ground beef, raw milk, lettuce, spinach, sprouts, and other food products. The law firm has brought E. coli O157:H7 lawsuits against such companies as Jack in the Box, Dole, ConAgra, Cargill, and Jimmy John's. We have proudly represented such E. coli O157:H7 victims as Brianne Kiner, Stephanie Smith and Linda Rivera.

SOURCE Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm

Related Links

http://www.marlerclark.com


As one of the Great Hall Partners in a public-private partnership (P3)including Ferrovial Airports and JLC InfrastructureSaunders selected McCain Walls in order to save time and reduce material waste that is typically associated with industry standard: drywall. Working closely with PanAmar Inc., the affiliated sales representative for this project, McCain Manufacturing provided onsite technical support ensuring McCain Walls were the best fit for the project's needs.

By eliminating the need to install temporary drywall, McCain Walls helped cut Saunders' projected commencement date by more than three days. Over the life of the renovation, McCain Manufacturing will save its client 28,000 linear feet of drywall that would have required more than 100 dumpsters to dispose of debris, totaling 4,000 cubic yards and 1.2 million pounds.

Adoption of McCain Walls will dramatically reduce Denver International Airport's environmental impact by reducing indoor air quality impact and removing drywall's potential negative impact on landfills. Gypsum and other sulfate minerals may decompose and leach toxic chemicals into groundwater, and under wet conditions, the bacteria conversion of gypsum produces toxic hydrogen sulfide gas.

McCain Walls were deployed to Level 5 Baggage Claim in Denver International Airport prior to the project's July 12, 2018, kickoff date. Construction of the Great Hall will take place in four phases. Instead of erecting new temporary drywall partitions, McCain Walls will be reused, saving Saunders valuable time and money, supporting an eco-friendly solution, in addition to enhancing travelers' experience

About McCain Manufacturing

Headquartered and manufactured in Vista, California, McCain Manufacturing is the proud producer of McCain Walls. With a mission to save time, money, and the planet one wall at a time, McCain products provide cost-effective, reliable, sustainable solutions, while supporting emerging construction technologies and green initiatives. McCain proudly manufactures in the United States of America.

www.mccainwalls.com | (760) 295-9094

SOURCE McCain Manufacturing

Related Links

http://www.mccainwalls.com


ORLANDO, Fla., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- PlanSource announced today that it has been selected as a technology provider of choice by National Healthcare Technology Solutions, a leading health care technology procurement and consulting firm. Together, they provide a seamless solution for health care providers and employers that streamlines the HR and benefits decision-making, enrollment and renewal process.

"Health care providers work tirelessly day and night to ensure patients receive the appropriate medical care they need," said Bob Segar, CEO of National Healthcare Technology Solutions. "As employers, they need help supporting the individual needs of their physicians, nurses, caregivers and administrators. By supporting them with cutting-edge technology such as PlanSource, we aim to bend the cost curve while providing health care employers with ease of administration throughout their entire employee benefits administration process."

The new partnership will enable National Healthcare Technology Solutions to offer PlanSource's advanced benefits administration technology to their clients nationwide, allowing HR managers and administrators to effectively implement and manage complex employee benefits strategies. Employers of all sizes use PlanSource's flexible and intuitive cloud-based platform for employee benefits shopping, enrollment, billing, compliance and administration. Employees are offered step-by-step guidance and personalized plan recommendations during the shopping and enrollment process, which provides unique opportunities for customization and consumer education.

"National Healthcare Technology Solutions is revolutionizing the health care industry, providing a holistic view and end-to-end solutions to a fragmented market," said Dayne Williams, CEO of PlanSource. "Our partnership gives health care employers a unique opportunity to simplify the enrollment process and provide invaluable benefits education when employees need it the most."

About National Healthcare Technology Solutions

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, National Healthcare Technology Solutions is a healthcare technology procurement and consulting firm. We identify key areas within healthcare provider systems that need proactive solutions, establish partnerships with cutting edge healthcare technology providers and conduct ongoing market research and vetting for the healthcare industry. Learn more at www.nathealthtech.com.

About PlanSource

PlanSource is a technology company driven to create a better benefits and HR experience for employers and their employees. Nearly 3.5 million consumers receive their benefits through the PlanSource platform, which provides flexible and intuitive software and services for benefits administration and human capital management. By combining industry-leading software and a full suite of professional services, PlanSource provides companies of all sizes with a complete solution for benefits shopping, enrollment, billing, compliance and administration. Learn more at www.plansource.com.

PlanSource is a registered trademark of PlanSource Benefits Administration, Inc., and PlanSource owns other registered and unregistered trademarks. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE PlanSource

Related Links

http://www.plansource.com


HOUSTON, Aug. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On August 20, 2018, cPanel signed an agreement to be acquired by a group led by Oakley Capital (Oakley). The group also owns Plesk and SolusVM. This investment will enable significant investment in new product and feature innovation and will support growth in headcount in Houston, Texas, USA where cPanel will continue to be headquartered.

Established in 1997 by CEO Nick Koston, cPanel provides one of the Internet infrastructure industry's most reliable and intuitive web hosting automation software platforms. With its rich feature set and customer first support, the fully-automated hosting platform empowers infrastructure providers and gives customers the ability to administer every facet of their website using simple point-and-click software. Based in Houston, TX, cPanel employs over 220 team members and has customers in more than 70 countries.

cPanel has developed an FAQ at https://go.cpanel.net/investmentfaq that it hopes answers many questions that typically arise following the announcement of a transaction.

Nick Koston, CEO of cPanel, Inc. commented:

This investment reflects a great step forward for cPanel. Our team has developed software that contributes to the success of millions of websites operating globally and looks forward to continuing to do so with the same passion that you, our loyal customers have come to love. This investment will give Internet infrastructure providers access to a wider range of software, features, and support. I am excited about what the future holds for the company and the great team at cPanel.

For further information, please contact:

cPanel, Inc.

benny Vasquez, Manager of Community Engagement

832-433-4005

[email protected]

Related Links

cPanel, Inc.

SOURCE cPanel, Inc.

Related Links

https://cpanel.com


VANCOUVER, Aug. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Parkit Enterprise Inc. ("Parkit" or "the Company") (TSX-V: PKT;OTCQX: PKTEF) is pleased to announce that it held its Annual General and Special Meeting on August 15, 2018, and that all of the motions proposed in the Notice of Annual General and Special Meeting dated July 12, 2018, which was filed on SEDAR together with Management's Information Circular on July 18, 2018, were approved by the shareholders. The Company would like to thank its shareholders for their participation in the Meeting. The Company would also like to welcome Brad Miller to the board of directors. Mr. Miller is President and owner of the AdvanTec Global Innovations group of companies specializing in marine and industrial manufacturing with a focus on clean tech manufacturing. Under the direction of the newly constituted board of directors, consisting of Brad Miller, Elie Norowitz, Brad Dunkley, David Delaney and Avi Geller, the Company intends to aggressively pursue acquisitions in the parking related real estate space and increase its asset base.

Bryan Wallner, Parkit's CEO has tendered his resignation, effective September 30, 2018. The Company would like to offer its sincere thanks to Mr. Wallner for his service, both as the CEO and as one of the Company's directors. Mr. Wallner has agreed to stay on through September 30, 2018 in order to assist the board with a smooth transition to new senior management.

Effective September 30, 2018, Avi Geller and David Delaney will assume executive director roles at Parkit on an interim basis as the Company searches for a new CEO. Both David and Avi will be responsible for managing Parkit to ensure that value is realized from the Company's current participation in the OP Holdings JV LLC as well as to pursue parking related real estate investments. Mr. Delaney has also been elected as Chairman of the board.

The Company believes that it has a strong asset base consisting of six cash flowing parking real estate assets from which to grow. Furthermore, the Company believes that the value of its direct and indirect real estate assets is substantially higher than the current market capitalization of the Company. The Company is excited to realize this value and increase its asset base by a targeted acquisition strategy. David Delaney, Parkit's Executive Chairman, had this to say: "We have reconstituted the board with a strong slate of directors including two of the Company's largest shareholders. I am very pleased with the progress we have begun to see recently with our SmartPark acquisition and our deal flow has increased exponentially in the last quarter."

About PARKIT

Parkit Enterprise Inc. is engaged in the acquisition, optimization and asset management of income producing parking facilities across North America. The Company's shares are listed on TSX-V (Symbol: PKT) and on the OTCQX (Symbol: PKTEF).

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Disclaimer for Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Forward-looking statements in this press release include those concerning the Company's intent to aggressively pursue acquisitions and increase its asset base using a targeted acquisition strategy, anticipation of a smooth management transition, and that the Company is well positioned to move forward with strong stewardship. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materially from those contained in the statements, including the risks disclosed in the Company's public filings on SEDAR. No assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will occur or, if they do occur, what benefits, if any, the Company might obtain from them.

SOURCE Parkit Enterprise Inc.

Related Links

http://www.parkitenterprise.com/


PITTSBURGH, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Pineapple Payments, a payment processing technology company, today announced that it has acquired Transax, a payments-focused software company that offers a full-service payment gateway and other omni-channel payment enablement tools for merchants and integrated software providers. Transax will remain in its offices in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, while Pineapple will continue to expand its headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh. Terms were not disclosed.

Brian Shanahan and Jon Halpern share a moment of congratulations over the successful completion of the Transax acquisition - Pineapple Payments' fifth acquisition in 2018.

Having completed four acquisitions and two significant investments over the past 10 months since closing on a $40 million Series A round led by Providence Strategic Growth, Pineapple is now poised to become a force in the payments technology industry. The firm serves more than 13,000 merchants and processes $3 billion in volume annually. With the acquisition of Transax and a growing distribution network, the company has a strategy in place to become a major player as one of the premier payment gateways within a matter of months.

"Transax has a 10-year track record as an omni-processing payment gateway connecting merchants of every size to the top payment processors in the world like Worldpay and TSYS," said Pineapple Payments CEO Brian Shanahan. "When you add in its suite of products tailored for SMBs and software developers to enable payments and the platform's ability to be customized for and tailored to each individual partner or business, the conversation about where we are going to take Pineapple drastically changes. We now have the complete set of tools to compete with everyone and anyone in our industry and we plan to do just that."

Based just outside of Chicago, Transax brings a strong mix of technologists, product support specialists and business development leaders to Pineapple. Their team is most excited about what the acquisition means for their platform and their distribution partners. On the subject, Transax CEO Matthew Schwartz said, "We are most excited to join forces with Pineapple because of their team's extensive experience in payments and technology. With Providence Strategic Growth's support, we are confident that we can provide an even better experience for our re-sellers and their merchants. We've dedicated ourselves to our technology and our partners for a decade, and Pineapple is committed to supporting us in that same vein for years to come."

Brian Shanahan is a household name in the payments industry, having built and exited from four different payments companies over three decades. Shanahan's most recent success was as the founder and CEO of CardConnect, now a First Data company. "We are thrilled for Matthew Schwartz, Adam O'Hare and the rest of the Transax team to join us at Pineapple," said Shanahan. "We are well-positioned to grow their platform and we have big plans for bringing it to market under the Pineapple brand. It is truly unique in that it can be used out-of-the-box as it is, completely white-labeled or fully integrated via API by re-sellers and merchants alike."

Shanahan has built his core team with technology in mind, having partnered with SaaS veterans Jon Halpern and Brian Gross who serve as Pineapple's president and executive vice president respectively. "We are going to invest heavily into our payments feature set and the underlying platform, as well as in our direct sales force and channel partners," said Halpern. "The most exciting thing for us with Transax is the breadth and flexibility of its functionality. It offers everything from recurring billing and invoicing to batch payment processing and fully hosted online payment pages. We are most excited about our native payments plugin for Quickbooks, which is truly a differentiator in the marketplace. With our vision for the company and strong sales and technical leadership, our future is bright."

ABOUT PINEAPPLE PAYMENTS

Pineapple Payments is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based payment processing technology company that provides omni-channel payment acceptance tools for merchants of all shapes and sizes, from start-ups to large-scale enterprises. From its innovative technology solutions to its proactive payments concierge team, Pineapple truly takes a fresh approach to payment processing. In 2017, Pineapple Payments received substantial investment for accelerated growth from Providence Strategic Growth (PSG), the growth equity affiliate of Providence Equity Partners, a global private equity firm with more than $50 billion in assets under management.

ABOUT TRANSAX

Transax is a Rolling Meadows, Illinois-based software company focused on building payments technology tools. Their flagship product is the Transax Payment Gateway, which offers both out-of-the-box and API-driven payments solutions for merchants and integrated software vendors. Through a wholesale sales model, the payments industry's biggest players have leveraged Transax as a payment gateway to connect merchants with their backend processing platforms. Transax has partnered with more than 100 re-sellers who have driven more than 4,000 merchants to their platform. Today, the company processes over $1 billion in payment volume annually.

Media Contact:

Brian Gross, EVP of Pineapple Payments

Phone: 724-235-7012

Email: [email protected]

Related Images

brian-shanahan-and-jon-halpern.jpg

pineapple-payments-downtown.jpg

SOURCE Pineapple Payments

Related Links

http://pineapplepayments.com/


OAKLAND, Calif., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Sampling delicious pintxos along the grid of narrow streets in San Sebastian's old town has been named the #1 best food experience in the world, according to global travel authority Lonely Planet's Ultimate Eats.

In the much-anticipated follow-up to Lonely Planet's Ultimate Travel, Ultimate Eats: The World's Top 500 Food Experiences...Ranked (Lonely Planet Food / $29.99 / August 2018) travels the world with an insatiable appetite to present the definitive foodie bucket-list of the world's top 500 food experiences  ranked.

Whether it's baozi in Shanghai, steak tartare in Paris or clam chowder in Boston  food and place are inextricably connected. Whenever we eat while traveling, we don't just taste the dish itself but experience the whirl of people, languages, aromas and sounds that are unique to that destination. That's what makes each dish memorable, and why the food experience is always so much more than what's in the plate, bowl or glass in front of you.

Ultimate Eats (lonelyplanet.com/ultimate-eats) is Lonely Planet's collection of the planet's most thrilling and famous culinary experiences; each entry in the list details an experience, the culture behind it, and what makes it so special. It also includes favorite food experiences as nominated by 20 of the world's top chefs and food writers  from Jose Andres to Andrew Zimmern.

Visitors to lonelyplanet.com/ultimate-eats have the opportunity to enter a competition for a chance to win the ultimate eating experience for two courtesy of Intrepid Travel's Northern Spain Real Food Adventure. Terms and conditions apply.

About Lonely Planet Food:

Lonely Planet Food  an imprint of the world's leading travel authority, Lonely Planet  was established in 2016 to enable travelers (both on and off the road) to discover the most local, authentic and delicious foodie hotspots around the world. Lonely Planet believes food and drink are an intrinsic part of travel, so now we're sharing our foodie knowledge with titles that serve up unforgettable, mouthwatering food and drink experiences across the globe. Explore the culture behind local cuisines, where to find them and how to enjoy them. Find out more on www.lonelyplanet.com/food-and-drink, and join us on Instagram (@lonelyplanetfood).

For media requests, please contact: Natalie Nicolson - US | [email protected]

SOURCE Lonely Planet

Related Links

http://www.lonelyplanet.com


Roberts joined Purchasing Power in June 2006 to build the human resources function, and in 2010 was named vice president of human resources. She reports directly to Richard Carrano, Purchasing Power Chief Executive Officer.

"Racquel has been instrumental in establishing the company's culture and introducing programs that support its continued evolution," said Carrano. "Her ability to support and direct the unprecedented expansion of Purchasing Power has seen our head count more than quadruple while still meeting the needs of our employees. This growth is a direct result of her strong business acumen and her people-first approach."

Through the course of her tenure, Roberts developed an HR strategy that expanded the human resources team to include employee learning & development and internal communications. Roberts helped to develop Purchasing Power's first mission statement with core values and nine "Super Powers" that guide the organization. Additionally, she helped the company achieve 10 consecutive years among the Inc. 5000 annual listing of the fastest-growing private companies in America.

Prior to joining Purchasing Power, Roberts served as the human resources manager of Sibley Heart Center Cardiology, a human resources manager at CapMark Services, and as a communications manager at Lend Lease.

Roberts received a B.A. in social science from Georgia College and State University. She also earned a Senior Professional in Human Resources certification (SPHR), credentialed by the Human Resources Certification Institute (HRCI), and is a Society for Human Resource Management Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP). She is an active member of SHRM, the Association of Talent Development (ATD) and the Corporate Executive Board (CEB).

To see the full release: https://corp.purchasingpower.com/article/racquel-roberts-named-chief-people-officer

About Purchasing Power, LLC

Headquartered in Atlanta, Purchasing Power is available to millions of people through large companies including Fortune 500s, associations and government agencies. Purchasing Power is a Flexpoint Ford, LLC company. For more information, visit www.corp.PurchasingPower.com.

Purchasing Power is a registered trademark of Purchasing Power, LLC.

2018 Purchasing Power, LLC. All rights reserved.

Media Contact:

Joe Swaney, 404.609.5630

[email protected]

Juliann Kaiser, 770.643.0615

[email protected]

SOURCE Purchasing Power, LLC

Related Links

http://www.PurchasingPower.com


TSX.V: SCZ

FSE: 1SZ



VANCOUVER, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Santacruz Silver Mining Ltd. (TSX.V:SCZ) (the "Company" or "Santacruz") reports on the operating results from the Veta Grande Project in Zacatecas, Mexico and the Rosario Project in San Luis Potosi, Mexico for the second quarter of 2018.

During Q2 2018 the Company produced a total of 174,175 silver equivalent ounces, a 13% increase when compared to Q1 2018 (Q1 2018  154,175; Q2 2017  270,659) the increased production primarily reflects an 8% increase in tonnes milled and an 5% increase in silver equivalent head grade at the Veta Grande Project with a smaller contribution from increased tonnes milled at the Rosario Project. When compared to Q2 2017, the decreased production reflects 45% less tonnes milled at the Rosario Project and a 24% decrease in the average silver equivalent head grade at the Veta Grande Project.

Mr. Carlos Silva, Chief Operating Officer, stated "Development work in the Zacatecas Mining District at the Garcia, Armados and Navidad mines is on track and expected to reach targeted areas during Q3 2018 at which time an increase in tonnage, grades and mill recoveries is expected. As for the Rosario Project, development work at the Membrillo Prospect is now at Level 3 in the targeted mineralized area and preparation of production stopes is underway with the aim of being in full production by Q4 2018."

2018 Second Quarter Consolidated Production Results

Summary of Production Results 2018 Q2 2018 Q1 2017 Q2 Material Processed (tonnes milled) 52,025 48,068 57,684 Silver eqv. ounce production(1) 174,175 154,175 270,659 Silver production (ounces) 56,122 48,102 89,242 Gold production (ounces) 143 135 472 Lead production (tonnes) 142 134 238 Zinc production (tonnes) 507 449 725 Average Head Grade (g/t Ag Eqv.) 176 167 180

2018 Second Quarter Veta Grande Project Production Results

Summary of Production Results 2018 Q2 2018 Q1 2017 Q2 Material Processed (tonnes milled) 36,622 34,928 29,718 Silver eqv. ounce production(1) 84,271 71,410 145,942 Silver production (ounces) 36,741 32,413 56,062 Silver head grade (g/t) 70 62 91 Gold head grade (g/t) .17 .15 .23 Zinc head grade (%/t) 1.14 .94 1.49 Lead had grade (%/t) .41 .46 .77 Silver recovery (%) 45 47 64 Gold production (ounces) 59 56 174 Lead production (tonnes) 111 109 198 Zinc production (tonnes) 164 118 317 Average Head Grade (g/t Ag Eqv.) 161 142 211

2018 Second Quarter Rosario Project Production Results

Summary of Production Results 2018 Q2 2018 Q1 2017 Q2 Material Processed (tonnes milled) 15,403 13,140 27,967 Silver eqv. ounce production(1) 89,904 82,765 124,717 Silver production (ounces) 19,381 15,689 33,181 Silver head grade (g/t) 44 43 42 Gold head grade (g/t) .26 .28 .43 Zinc head grade (%/t) 2.54 2.91 1.76 Lead head grade (%/t) .23 .22 .18 Silver recovery (%) 89 85 87 Gold production (ounces) 84 79 298 Lead production (tonnes) 31 25 40 Zinc production (tonnes) 344 331 408 Average Head Grade (g/t Ag Eqv.) 212 232 148

(1 AgEqvOz = (Au*Pau)+(Ag*Pag)+(Pb*Ppb*2205)+(Zn*Pzn*2205)

(Pag)

Metal Prices 2018: Ag $17.00, Au $1,295, Pb $1.00, Zn $1.35 Metal Prices 2017: Ag $16.00, Au $1,150, Pb $1.00, Zn $1.15

About Santacruz Silver Mining Ltd.

Santacruz is a Mexican focused silver company with two producing silver projects, Veta Grande and Rosario, and two exploration properties, the Minillas property and Zacatecas properties. The Company is managed by a technical team of professionals with proven track records in developing, operating and discovering silver mines in Mexico. Our corporate objective is to become a mid-tier silver producer.

'signed'

Arturo Prestamo Elizondo,

President, Chief Executive Officer and Director

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward looking information

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute "forward-looking information" as such term is used in applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information is based on plans, expectations and estimates of management at the date the information is provided and is subject to certain factors and assumptions. In making the forward-looking statements included in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including, but not limited to, assumptions as to the continuation of payments under the Agreement, the expansion of the Vita Grande Project, the Company's financial condition and development plans do not change as a result of unforeseen events, third party mineralized material to be milled by the Company will have properties consistent with management's expectations, that the Company will receive all required regulatory approvals, and that future metal prices and the demand and market outlook for metals will remain stable or improve. Forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause plans, estimates and actual results to vary materially from those projected in such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause the forward-looking information in this news release to change or to be inaccurate include, but are not limited to, the risk that any of the assumptions referred to prove not to be valid or reliable, which could result in lower revenue, higher cost, or lower production levels; delays and/or cessation in planned work; changes in the Company's financial condition and development plans; delays in regulatory approval; risks associated with the interpretation of data (including in respect of the third party mineralized material) regarding the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; the possibility that results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations, as well as the other risks and uncertainties applicable to mineral exploration and development activities and to the Company as set forth in the Company's continuous disclosure filings filed under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. There can be no assurance that any forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader should not place any undue reliance on forward-looking information or statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information or statements, other than as required by applicable law.

Rosario Project

The decisions to commence production at the Rosario Mine, Cinco Estrellas Property and Membrillo Prospect were not based on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability, but rather on a more preliminary estimate of inferred mineral resources. Accordingly, there is increased uncertainty and economic and technical risks of failure associated with this production decision. Production and economic variables may vary considerably, due to the absence of a complete and detailed site analysis according to and in accordance with NI 43-101.

Veta Grande Project

The decision to commence production at Veta Grande Project was not based on a feasibility study on mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability. Accordingly, there is increased uncertainty and economic and technical risks of failure associated with this production decision. Production and economic variables may vary considerably due to the absence of a complete and detailed site analysis according to and in accordance with NI 43-101.

SOURCE Santacruz Silver Mining Ltd.

Related Links

www.santacruzsilver.com


Also in March, a Tesla driver using the automakers semi-autonomous Autopilot feature died when the Model X hit a highway barrier in California. It was the second death while Autopilot was in use; in May 2016 a driver in Florida was killed when his Model S T-boned a semitrailer. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board cleared Tesla of wrongdoing in what was believed to be the first self-driving car fatality, though a strong warning was issued to the electric-car maker to clarify to owners how the system should be used.
NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Spheryx, Inc. announced today that the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the company a Phase II-B Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for $500,000 over 2 years. This new grant is a continuation of an earlier grant entitled "Total Holographic Characterization of Colloids Through Holographic Video Microscopy" and is for the development of their proprietary Total Holographic Characterization technology. These highly competitive grants are intended to stimulate technological innovation and commercialization for small businesses.

Dr. Laura Philips, Founder, President and CEO, commented, "This Phase II-B SBIR grant will enable us to enhance the capabilities of our technology to address critical issues in research and development, quality control and manufacturing process control across industries in applications as diverse as cost reduction in semiconductor wafer polishing, quality control in biologics manufacturing, contaminant identification in multiple product manufacturing processes, and as a cutting edge research tool in leading research institutions."

About Spheryx, Inc.

Spheryx, Inc. is a privately held analytical services and instruments company providing Total Holographic Characterization of colloidal materials. Spheryx's proprietary technology uses holographic video microscopy to characterize each particle in colloidal dispersions and multi-component colloidal mixtures, offering unprecedented insights into these materials' characteristics. Applications include R&D, quality assurance and manufacturing process control across a broad spectrum of industries, where characterization of colloids can enhance innovation, improve safety and reduce costs. For more information: https://www.spheryx.solutions/

Note: This news release contains forward-looking statements regarding future events. These statements are just predictions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual events or result to differ materially.

Contact:

Laura Philips, CEO

[email protected]

607-738-0100

SOURCE Spheryx, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.spheryx.solutions


PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Robert J. Mongeluzzi, of Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky, P.C., today said his legal team, on behalf of its clients, "supports the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation referral to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Missouri for criminal investigation." He added, "All those who continue to grieve support holding fully accountable those responsible for making the deadly decisions that resulted in the catastrophe."

SOURCE Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky, P.C.
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Only 16 percent of employers are "very confident" that their employees will be able to achieve a financially secure retirement, according to a study released today, Striking Similarities and Disconcerting Disconnects: Employers, Workers, and Retirement Security, by nonprofit Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies ("TCRS"). As alarming as this might be, particularly given the important role of employers, the survey finding is consistent with the 18 percent of workers who are "very confident" that they will be able to fully retire with a comfortable lifestyle.

As part of its 18th Annual Retirement Survey, TCRS surveyed 1,825 employers of for-profit companies with five or more employees to learn how they are helping their employees prepare for retirement. The study also provides context by comparing the employer survey findings with TCRS' survey of 6,372 workers.

Pervasive Disconnects Between Employers and Workers Re: Retirement

"Today, people have the potential to live longer than any other time in history. Many workers now want and need to extend their working lives to financially prepare for longer retirements  but they need support from their employers which they are not yet getting," said Catherine Collinson, CEO and president of Transamerica Institute and TCRS.

The survey findings illustrate ways in which employers are out of sync with workers in their perceptions and business practices. Key findings include:

Many Workers Plan to Work Past Age 65, but Will Their Employers Support Them? Eighty-two percent of employers agree their company is supportive of its employees working past 65." Only 72 percent of workers agree that their employer is supportive.

Eighty-two percent of employers agree their company is supportive of its employees working past 65." Only 72 percent of workers agree that their employer is supportive. When Is a Person "Too Old" to Work? Almost two-thirds of employers (65 percent) say "it depends on the person," compared to 54 percent of workers. Among those who provided a specific age, employers consider age 70 (median) "too old" to work, a finding that is younger than workers at age 75 (median).

Almost two-thirds of employers (65 percent) say "it depends on the person," compared to 54 percent of workers. Among those who provided a specific age, employers consider age 70 (median) "too old" to work, a finding that is younger than workers at age 75 (median). Aging-Friendly? Maybe. D & I Policy Statement? Unlikely. Most employers (70 percent) consider their companies to be "aging friendly" by offering opportunities, work arrangements, and training and tools needed for employees of all ages to be successful in their current role or contribution to the company. In comparison, only 56 percent of workers consider their employers to be "aging friendly." Of further note, just 23 percent of employers have adopted a formal diversity and inclusion policy statement that specifically includes age among other commonly referenced demographic characteristics.

Most employers (70 percent) consider their companies to be "aging friendly" by offering opportunities, work arrangements, and training and tools needed for employees of all ages to be successful in their current role or contribution to the company. In comparison, only 56 percent of workers consider their employers to be "aging friendly." Of further note, just 23 percent of employers have adopted a formal diversity and inclusion policy statement that specifically includes age among other commonly referenced demographic characteristics. Few Employers Offer a Formal Phased Retirement Program. Only 20 percent of employers offer a formal phased retirement program with specific provisions and requirements for employees who want to transition into retirement. In contrast, 47 percent of workers are envisioning a phased transition by reducing work hours (30 percent) or working in a different capacity that is less demanding and/or brings greater personal satisfaction (17 percent).

"Older workers bring wisdom, experience, expertise, and tremendous untapped potential in today's historically low unemployment environment. Further, a multi-generational workforce can enhance diversity and inclusivity  and foster innovation. By not adopting business practices that can support workers of all ages, employers are missing out on an important opportunity," said Collinson.

The Current State of 401(k)s and Opportunities to Enhance Retirement Security

"Employer-sponsored retirement plans, including 401(k) and similar employee-funded plans, have proven to be the most effective way to facilitate long-term savings among workers," said Collinson. "Unfortunately, not all workers have equal access. For example, large companies typically provide more robust benefit offerings than their small business counterparts." The study examines the current state of 401(k)s and other benefit offerings by small (5 to 99 employees), medium (100 to 499 employees), and large companies (500+ employees).

Key findings that highlight specific opportunities include:

Retirement Plan Sponsorship Rates Increase With Company Size. Sixty-five percent of employers offer a 401(k) or similar plan to their employees. However, these plans are more commonly offered by large (92 percent) and medium companies (86 percent), and less commonly by small companies (59 percent).

Sixty-five percent of employers offer a 401(k) or similar plan to their employees. However, these plans are more commonly offered by large (92 percent) and medium companies (86 percent), and less commonly by small companies (59 percent). Most Non-Sponsors Are Not Planning to Offer a Plan. Among employers that do not offer a 401(k) or similar plan, only 27 percent say that they are likely to begin sponsoring a plan in the next two years. The most often cited reasons among employers that are not planning to do so include: company is not big enough (58 percent), concerns about cost (41 percent), and employees are not interested (22 percent). There may be cause for optimism with regard to the future, however, as 25 percent of employers that are not likely to offer a plan say that they would consider joining a multiple employer plan (MEP) offered by a reputable vendor who handles many of the fiduciary and administrative duties at a reasonable cost.

Among employers that do not offer a 401(k) or similar plan, only 27 percent say that they are likely to begin sponsoring a plan in the next two years. The most often cited reasons among employers that are not planning to do so include: company is not big enough (58 percent), concerns about cost (41 percent), and employees are not interested (22 percent). There may be cause for optimism with regard to the future, however, as 25 percent of employers that are not likely to offer a plan say that they would consider joining a multiple employer plan (MEP) offered by a reputable vendor who handles many of the fiduciary and administrative duties at a reasonable cost. Few Part-Time Employees Are Eligible to Participate. Among employers that offer a 401(k) or similar plan to their employees, only 41 percent extend eligibility to part-time workers. The likelihood of extending eligibility to part-time employees is higher among medium (60 percent) and large companies (54 percent) than among small companies (37 percent).

Among employers that offer a 401(k) or similar plan to their employees, only 41 percent extend eligibility to part-time workers. The likelihood of extending eligibility to part-time employees is higher among medium (60 percent) and large companies (54 percent) than among small companies (37 percent). Adoption of Automatic Enrollment Is Low. Eighty-one percent of workers find automatic enrollment into a 401(k) or similar retirement plan to be appealing. In stark contrast, only 22 percent of plan sponsors have adopted automatic enrollment, including 28 percent of both large and medium companies, and 17 percent of small companies. Plan sponsors that offer automatic enrollment do so at a default contribution rate of 5 percent (median) of an employee's pay.

Eighty-one percent of workers find automatic enrollment into a 401(k) or similar retirement plan to be appealing. In stark contrast, only 22 percent of plan sponsors have adopted automatic enrollment, including 28 percent of both large and medium companies, and 17 percent of small companies. Plan sponsors that offer automatic enrollment do so at a default contribution rate of 5 percent (median) of an employee's pay. Plan Sponsors Can Do More to Assist With Retirement Transition. Workers nearing retirement age can feel overwhelmed by the multitude of difficult decisions they need to make related to transitioning into retirement. The study finds that plan sponsors are not doing much to help employees transition their savings and finances into retirement, and 22 percent do "nothing."

Workers nearing retirement age can feel overwhelmed by the multitude of difficult decisions they need to make related to transitioning into retirement. The study finds that plan sponsors are not doing much to help employees transition their savings and finances into retirement, and 22 percent do "nothing." Other Health and Welfare Benefits Can Help Improve Financial Security. In addition to retirement benefits, employee benefits such as health, life, and disability insurance  along with employee assistance, workplace wellness, and financial wellness programs  may enhance workers' financial security. These benefits may offer protections, mitigate out-of-pocket expenses, and provide additional resources in situations of financial difficulty. While many employers (correctly) believe that their employees find such benefits important, a considerably lower proportion of employers actually offer them.

"Employers play an all-critical role in promoting retirement security among workers, yet it's important to remember that their raison d'etre is running a business. Working together, policymakers and the retirement industry must make it as easy, affordable and worry-free as possible for employers to offer retirement plans along with other employee benefits and flexible retirement options to their employees," said Collinson. The study offers recommendations for policymakers that can be found here.

Please visit TCRS at www.transamericacenter.org to view the study along with other research reports and materials from the 18th Annual Retirement Survey. Follow TCRS on Twitter @TCRStudies.

About Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies

Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TCRS) is a division of Transamerica Institute, a nonprofit, private foundation. Transamerica Institute is funded by contributions from Transamerica Life Insurance Company and its affiliates and may receive funds from unaffiliated third parties. TCRS and its representatives cannot give ERISA, tax, investment or legal advice. This material is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as ERISA, tax, investment or legal advice. Interested parties must consult and rely solely upon their own independent advisors regarding their particular situation and the concepts presented here. For more information please refer to www.transamericacenter.org and follow TCRS on Twitter at @TCRStudies.

About the 18th Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey

Employer Survey

The 21-minute online survey was conducted within the U.S. by The Harris Poll on behalf of TCRS between November 15 and December 15, 2017 among a nationally representative sample of 1,825 employers across small (5-99 employees), medium (100-499 employees), and large (500+ employees) companies. Potential respondents were targeted based on job title at for-profit companies and met the following criteria: Business executives who employ 5 or more employees across all locations and who make decisions about employee benefits at their company. Results were weighted as needed on employee size using weighting targets from the Dun & Bradstreet database to ensure each quota group had a representative sample based on the number of companies in each employee size range.

Worker Survey

The 25-minute online survey was conducted within the U.S. by The Harris Poll on behalf of TCRS between August 9 and October 28, 2017 among a nationally representative sample of 6,372 full-time and part-time workers. Potential respondents were targeted based on employment status and company size. Respondents met the following criteria: U.S. residents, age 18 or older, full-time or part-time workers in for-profit companies with 5 or more employees. Results were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with the population of U.S. residents age 18 or older, employed full-time or part-time in a for-profit company with 5 or more employees, and to adjust for attitudinal and behavioral differences between those who are online versus those who are not, those who join online panels versus those who do not, and those who responded to this survey versus those who did not. No estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

TCRS 1368-0818

Contact: Madeleine Reul

[email protected]

952-346-6061

SOURCE Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies

Related Links

http://www.transamericacenter.org


In addition to participating in the obstacle course, event goers can visit Subaru's "Camp Ascent" and get an intimate look at the all-new 3-row Subaru Ascent, the perfect vehicle for budding families in need of more room for their adventure-packed lives. Kids and parents alike can also participate in fun camp activities such as archery, arts and crafts, tug-o-war, and compete to win fantastic prizes for their next camping trip.

"At Subaru, we believe in the pursuit of adventure and are passionate about instilling this spirit in our next generation of drivers by encouraging kids and their families to break out of their comfort zones," said Scott Thompson, Regional Marketing Manager, Western Region, Subaru of America, Inc. "We are proud to join forces with likeminded partner Kids Obstacle Challenge to inspire and challenge kids, while strengthening family bonds, through adventure and obstacles."

"Through this adventure series, we aim to create a safe, fun atmosphere that fosters courageousness and introduces kids to meaningful learning opportunities for dealing with obstacles in real life," said Brooke Jackson, Managing Director of Kids Obstacle Challenge. "With the support of Subaru, we look forward to encouraging a more active, adventurous and perseverant generation of kids."

The Kids Obstacle Challenge event series, which is currently underway, will continue to spread family fun to cities across the country through October 2018.

Subaru Kids Obstacle Challenge Event Schedule:

September 15-16 : San Mateo, CA , Coyote Point Recreation Area

: , Coyote Point Recreation Area September 29 : San Diego, CA , Kit Carson Park

: , October 6-7 : Los Angeles, CA , Oak Canyon Park

: , Oak Canyon Park October 20 : Phoenix, AZ , Rawhide Event Center

: , Rawhide Event Center October 27 : Sacramento, CA , Gibson Ranch Park

For more information on Subaru Kids Obstacle Challenge, please visit: www.kidsobstaclechallenge.com.

About Subaru of America, Inc.

Subaru of America, Inc. (SOA) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Subaru Corporation of Japan. Headquartered at a zero-landfill office in Camden, N.J., the company markets and distributes Subaru vehicles, parts and accessories through a network of more than 630 retailers across the United States. All Subaru products are manufactured in zero-landfill production plants and Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. is the only U.S. automobile production plant to be designated a backyard wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. SOA is guided by the Subaru Love Promise, which is the company's vision to show love and respect to everyone, and to support its communities and customers nationwide. Over the past 20 years, SOA has donated more than $120 million to causes the Subaru family cares about, and its employees have logged more than 40,000 volunteer hours. As a company, Subaru believes it is important to do its part in making a positive impact in the world because it is the right thing to do.

For additional information visit media.subaru.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

About Kids Obstacle Challenge

Kids Obstacle Challenge is a family-focused event series headquartered in Portland, OR. The company produces Kids Obstacle Challenge events throughout the country, hosting 23 events in 2018. Kids Obstacle Challenge is the largest touring adventure and obstacle course event series for kids in the nation, and the only adventure series where kids and parents get to run together on the course. Each event consists of 13-15 obstacles across a 1.5-2 mile course, as well as incorporating mud pits and water features throughout. The mission of Kids Obstacle Challenge is to inspire and challenge kids, and forge family bonds, through adventure and obstacles. Kids Obstacle Challenge proclaims, "Brave Your Adventure!" to encourage kids to courageously face the obstacles they will encounter on the course and carry that courageousness over to obstacles they will encounter in life. Kids Obstacle Challenge is dedicated to creating fun family experiences where parents can get off the sidelines and into the mud with their kids. Committed to helping foster a more active, adventurous, and perseverant younger generation for many years, Kids Obstacle Challenge looks to grow into new markets nationwide in 2019 with an eye on international markets as well.

For more information, visit www.kidsobstaclechallenge.com/about. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Diane Anton

Subaru of America, Inc.

856-488-5093

[email protected]

Rebecca Bertone

Bolt Marketing Group, LLC

844-562-5437

[email protected]

SOURCE Subaru of America, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.subaru.com


RECORD QUARTERLY PRODUCTION  ANNUALIZED RATE OF MORE THAN 100,000 OUNCES

ALL-IN SUSTAINING COSTS DECREASED 23% (>$300 PER OUNCE) RELATIVE TO PRIOR QUARTER

(In US Dollars unless otherwise stated)

TORONTO, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Superior Gold Inc. ("Superior Gold" or the "Company") (TSXV:SGI) announced today its financial and operating results for the quarter ended June 30, 2018. This release should be read in conjunction with the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) and condensed consolidated interim financial statements for the quarter ended June 30, 2018. These documents will be posted on the Company's website at www.superior-gold.com and SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Second Quarter Highlights:

Record quarterly production of 25,608 ounces of gold, an increase of 46% for the same period in 2017

Highest quarterly gold recoveries averaging 90%, an increase from 76% for the same period in 2017

Sold 25,797 ounces of gold at a total cash cost 1 of $1,013 per ounce sold, all-in sustaining costs 1 of $1,098 per ounce sold and average realized gold price 1 of $1,303 per ounce sold

of per ounce sold, all-in sustaining costs of per ounce sold and average realized gold price of per ounce sold All-in sustaining costs 1 decreased 23% or more than $300 per ounce relative to the prior quarter

decreased 23% or more than per ounce relative to the prior quarter Cash flow from operating activities of $5.0 million , including a $2.1 million stamp duty payment stemming from the acquisition

, including a stamp duty payment stemming from the acquisition Construction of the gravity circuit largely completed by the end of June, with commissioning on July 9, 2018

Chris Bradbrook, President and CEO of Superior Gold stated: "We are pleased to provide results for the second quarter of 2018 and to highlight a number of key achievements. We reached record production at the Plutonic Gold operations, since their acquisition in October 2016. Production during the quarter also represented a material increase relative to the first quarter of 2018 as underground mining activities returned to higher grade zones and ramp up of production continued to progress well at the Hermes gold mine. Consequently, costs also decreased significantly relative to the prior quarter, resulting in a strong $5.0 million of cash flow from operating activities. Significantly, monthly production increased and costs decreased through the quarter.

Recoveries have increased steadily since taking ownership of the Plutonic Gold operations from 76% in the second quarter of 2017 to an average of 90% in the second quarter of 2018. The construction of the gravity circuit, which required a modest capital investment of $1.7 million, was completed shortly after the second quarter.

We benefited this quarter from three full months of commercial production at Hermes which we built on schedule and under budget. It is important to note that we built the Hermes mine from internally generated funds. The increase in production from Hermes is expected to help the Company to achieve its growth plans for 2018 and beyond as we target sustainable production of more than 100,000 ounces of gold. Our cash balance decreased relative to the end of the prior quarter primarily due to a number of one time expenditures, which included $5.3 million for costs associated with the development of Hermes incurred in the first quarter, $2.1 million stamp duty payment stemming from the acquisition of the Plutonic Gold Operations and $0.8 million towards the installation of the gravity circuit. With most of the planned capital expenditures now behind us this year, we remain focused on free cash flow generation and building a progressively stronger balance sheet.

Looking ahead, with the mill consistently running at full capacity, we continue to move forward with our strategy of "fill the mill at the best possible grade" as running higher grade ore through the mill will allow us to increase production levels beyond 100,000 ounces and decrease costs.

At the Plutonic Gold mine, we continue to utilize three underground diamond drills. Two are focused primarily on grade control drilling, while the third drill is focused exclusively on expanding reserves and resources. We continue to announce very encouraging underground drill results. At Hermes, we are commencing the second stage drill program at the Hermes South deposit, where initial drilling outlined significant new mineralization. We aim to provide an updated reserve and resource statement in the first quarter of 2019 using drill results to the end of 2018."

Summary of Financial and Operational Results:



Three months ended

June 30,

2018 Three months ended

June 30,

2017 All amounts in $ thousands except where noted



Financial



Revenue 33,631 24,324 Cost of sales 30,501 23,521 General and administrative 1,080 948 Operating income (loss) 1,565 (221) Income (loss) before taxes1 1,282 140 Net income (loss)1 737 (82) Earnings (loss) per share  basic and diluted1 0.01 (0.00) Adjusted net income (loss)1 654 (213) Adjusted net income (loss) per share  basic and diluted1 0.01 (0.00) Cash from (used in) operations 4,959 3,424 Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash 21,904 30,344 Weighted number of common shares o/s  basic 95,737 95,669





Operational



Gold produced (ounces) 25,608 17,556 Gold sold (ounces)1 25,797 19,353 Realized price ($/ounce)1 1,303 1,254 Total cash costs ($/ounce)1 1,013 966 All-in sustaining costs ($/ounce)1 1,098 1,078 Total ore milled (000's tonnes) 389 309 Grade milled (g/t) 2.3 2.3 Gold recovery (%) 90 76

Plutonic Gold Operations

The Plutonic Gold mine produced and sold 25,608 and 25,797 ounces of gold, respectively for the second quarter of 2018. Total cash costs1 of $1,013/ounce and all-in sustaining costs1 of $1,098/ounce were below the realized gold price1 of $1,303/ounce for the quarter. In comparison, 17,556 and 19,353 ounces of gold were produced and sold, respectively for the second quarter of 2017, while total cash costs1 and all-in sustaining costs1 of $966/ounce sold and $1,078/ounce sold were below the realized gold price1 of $1,254/ounce for the second quarter of 2017. Total cash costs1 and all-in sustaining cash costs1 increased slightly over the prior year primarily reflecting lower grades in the underground operations in April 2018 which resulted in fewer ounces being produced. These cost per ounce increases were offset by a full quarter of production from the Hermes open pit as a result of commercial production being reported effective April 1, 2018 and the higher realized gold price in the second quarter of 2018 as compared to the second quarter of 2017. On a 'per ounce' basis all adjustments to total cash costs, which derived the all-in sustaining cost figure, were lower than the comparative period due to the increase in ounces sold. The Company generated net cash from operations after working capital changes of $5.0 million for second quarter of 2018 after a $2.1 million stamp duty payment stemming from the acquisition.

Gold sold increased by 6,444 ounces relative to the second quarter of 2017 as a result of achieving record quarterly production of 25,797 ounces primarily due to the addition of the Hermes open pit.

Exploration Activities

During the second quarter, the Company's ongoing underground diamond drilling program focused on six zones at its wholly-owned Plutonic Gold mine: Caribbean, Caspian, Cortez, Indian, Pacific and Timor. A number of significant intersections were encountered. Results were released for 169 drill holes for a total of more than 12,600 metres. The drill holes were primarily completed for resource definition and grade control purposes. Resource definition drilling was designed to increase the confidence level of the mineral resources in areas where drilling was limited as part of the ongoing work to upgrade resources to reserves. Grade control drilling was completed to provide additional information for stope design ahead of mining.

Significant intersections included:

89.4 g Au/t over 4.6 metres

29.0 g Au/t over 3.2 metres

12.3 g Au/t over 5.7 metres

33.7 g Au/t over 2.0 metres

True widths are estimated to be approximately 70% of the reported drill intercept length

The Company's interest in the Bryah Basin joint venture is an earn-in option which, upon completion of required expenditures of AUD$1.2 million by April 2018, entitled Superior Gold to an interest of up to 80% in the joint venture. The Company provided the required notice of completion during the second quarter of 2018. As part of the work at Hermes South, which is included in the Bryah Basin joint venture, the Company released results of its initial reverse circulation drilling program. The goal of the program was to expand the existing resource and explore for additional zones of mineralization.

Significant results included:

142.0 g Au/t over 4.0 metres from 56.0 metres downhole

37.7 g Au/t over 3.0 metres from 27.0 metres downhole

13.5 g Au/t over 4.0 metres from 50.0 metres downhole

6.4 g Au/t over 12.0 metres from 62.0 metres downhole

11.8 g Au/t over 3.0 metres from 62.0 metres downhole

All intersections were outside of the existing resource

Outlook and Strategy

The Company is focused on re-establishing the Plutonic Gold operations as a stable gold producer capable of producing at least 100,000 ounces of gold annually. To achieve this goal, the Company intends to focus on its growth strategy which includes:

Increasing annual gold production at the Plutonic and Hermes operations

Resource and reserve additions through increased drill activity in 2018

The "fill the mill at the best possible grade" strategy at the existing Plutonic Gold operations site

With the Company's cash position, ongoing cash generated from the Plutonic Gold mine and the recent completion of the Hermes project, the Company has the liquidity available to execute on its near-term growth and exploration strategy. This will enable the Company to execute on its medium to long-term goals of:

Further exploration and development at the Plutonic Gold operations

Acquisition of precious metals properties in established low risk jurisdictions

Conference Call

Management will host a conference call and webcast on Tuesday August 21, 2018 at 10:00AM ET to discuss the second quarter 2018 financial and operating results.

Conference Call and Webcast

Date: Tuesday August 21, 2018 10:00AM ET Toll-free North America: (888) 231-8191 Local or International: (647) 427-7450 Webcast: https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1781291/6E0FC4A26C5A747D1557FB88872A8778 Conference Call Replay

Toll-free North America: (855) 859-2056 Local or International: (416) 849-0833 Passcode: 8074317

The conference call replay will be available from 1:00PM ET on August 21, 2018 until 23:59PM ET on September 3, 2018.

The presentation will be available on the Company's website at www.superior-gold.com.

_______________________________

(1) Refer to Non-IFRS Performance Measures section of the Company's MD&A for a description and calculation of these measures.

Qualified Person

Scientific and technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Pascal Blampain, who is a member of the AusIMM and the Australian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG) and a "qualified person" within the meaning of NI 43-101. Mr. Blampain is an employee of the Company and serves as Chief Geologist.

About Superior Gold

Superior Gold is a Canadian based gold producer that owns 100% of the Plutonic Gold operations located in Western Australia. The Plutonic Gold operations include the Plutonic underground gold mine and central mill, the Hermes open pit gold mine and an interest in the Bryah Basin joint venture. Superior Gold is focused on expanding production at the Plutonic Gold operations and building an intermediate gold producer with superior returns for shareholders.

Forward Looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws that is intended to be covered by the safe harbours created by those laws. "Forward-looking information" includes statements that use forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "potential" or the negative thereof or other variations thereof or comparable terminology. Forward looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, the Company's objectives, goals or future plans, and statements regarding exploration results and exploration plans.

Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and is based upon a number of estimates and assumptions of management at the date the statements are made. Furthermore, such forward-looking information involves a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual plans, intentions, activities, results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future plans, intentions, activities, results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. See "Risk Factors" in the Company's prospectus dated February 15, 2017 filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com for a discussion of these risks.

The Company cautions that there can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as required by law, the Company does not assume any obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking information contained in this press release to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE Superior Gold
PLANO, Texas, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Despite the fact that Facebook's free ad-supported 'Watch' on-demand video service launched just over a year ago, the offering continues to face significant challenges regarding feature awareness and use. This according to new research from The Diffusion Group (TDG), which found that half of adult Facebook users have never heard of the free Watch video service, while 24% have heard of it but never used it -- despite the fact that Watch is featured on the social network's navigation bar and marketed heavily within the Facebook app.

TDG: A Year After Launch, Awareness and Use of Facebook Watch Remain Modest

In mid-2018, TDG surveyed 1,632 adult Facebook users regarding their awareness and use of Facebook's 'Watch' tab. According to this survey, 21% view shows on Watch at least monthly, 14% at least weekly, and 6% at least once a day.

While Watch is populated by content from a number of independents, legacy studios are finding ways to dip their toes into Watch, and with some success. For example, ABC's TV Station Group launched Localfish, a digital-first media brand, whose More in Common debuted in July 2018 and has to date gathered five million views and 50,000 subscribers.

"Despite the slow build of Watch users, it would be remiss to underestimate Facebook's long-term potential as a large-scale video provider," notes Michael Greeson, President of TDG. "As we first noted in 2016, prominent social platforms like Facebook are looking for ways to exploit their massive scale to sell new video services to their users, much as Amazon has done with Prime. Watch is a small first step in that direction, as is the $1 billion Facebook set aside in 2018 to fund original programming to populate the service."

Greeson notes that Watch was never intended to generate Amazon-size audiences, and Facebook will continue to tweak the formula until it sees the results it seeks. And it has the cash to wait for years to make this happen.

"This is why technology companies are so dangerous to legacy media companies. Pure-play video, music, or gaming operators must survive on revenue and profits from those services, whereas Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon have such deep pockets and vast business empires that they can spin up a service in short order and lose money on it for years if it serves a higher purpose, like keeping Facebook users in the branded ecosystem for longer. For large tech companies, media services are commonly a means to a larger end, not ends in themselves."

TDG's new research is part of the firm's ninth annual Benchmarking the Connected Consumer study, which examines connected device ownership and placement within the home, as well as the use of specific media applications and services. TDG's new research is part of the firm's ninth annual Benchmarking the Connected Consumer study, which examines connected device ownership and placement within the home, as well as the use of specific media applications and services.

For more information about this research, please contact us at [email protected], or call 469-287-8060.

Contact:

Wendy Stockard

469.287.8061

[email protected]

About TDG Research

TDG provides actionable intelligence on the quantum shifts impacting consumer technology and media behavior. Since 2004, we've helped incumbent and emerging technology vendors, media companies, and service providers master the digital transformation and meet the needs of viewers in real time -- whenever and wherever they may be.

Want to see the future of TV? Ask TDG.

https://www.thevideoink.com/2018/08/13/5qs-with-president-of-abc-owned-television-stations-group-on-pushing-into-facebook-watch/

SOURCE The Diffusion Group
QUEBEC CITY, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Derby Building Products Inc., the manufacturer of Tando brand and Novik brand of shake and stone, announces Toby Bostwick as the new Senior Vice President of Business Development. As Senior Vice President of Business Development, Bostwick will oversee customer service, research and development, claims and warranty, as well as product management, focusing the product development team more closely with the customer experience.

To further support the company's growth strategy, Mathieu Piche has been promoted to Research and Development Manager and Jean-Francois Tanguay to Customer Service Manager. Both will report directly to Bostwick.

"Our goal is to bring R&D and Customer Service into closer alignment by identifying and getting ahead of customer needs and desires," said Ralph Bruno, CEO, Derby Building Products. "Toby and his team continue to innovate and support Tando's rapid growth in the marketplace and this strategy will support our product development going forward."

Bostwick is a seasoned product development executive and has been working in construction and building products for 17 years. He served as Director of New Business Development at AZEK Building Products and was Director of Product Management at TimberTech before it was acquired by AZEK. In both of these positions, Bostwick created strategic plans to enhance product development and profitability.

Prior to his promotion to Senior VP of Business Development at Derby, Bostwick served as Director of Product Development where he oversaw the product development of the Tando and Novik brands of shake and stone. He also lent his expertise to Beach House Shake and Signature Stain, two game-changing innovations with unmatched realism, which are indistinguishable from cedar and stained wood shake.

To learn more about TandoShake and TandoStone, visit www.tandobp.com. To learn more about NovikShake and NovikStone, visit www.novik.com .

About Derby Building Products  Home of Tando and Novik

Derby Building Products is the parent company of two game-changing brands in the building products category, Tando and Novik. Tando, Derby's pro channel brand, has redefined the exterior cladding category by replicating the natural beauty and texture of wood shake and stone, with little to no upkeep. Impervious to moisture and resistant to all types of weather, new Beach House Shake created by Tando is indistinguishable from real cedar, while Tando's Signature Stain line offers the rich depth and beauty of stained wood. Perfect for today's mixed material trend in exteriors, all Tando products complement an array of siding types including fiber cement, engineered vinyl, stucco, and brick. www.tandobp.com. Novik inspires stunning mixed material exteriors including shake, clapboard, brick and stone. Novik replicates the natural beauty and texture of wood and stone and is simple to install., For more information, visit www.novik.com.

SOURCE Derby Building Products Inc.
NEW YORK, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Digital Workplace Solution Provides Multilingual Company News and Collaboration Capabilities to 22,000 Employees

Unily, an award-winning digital workplace solution, today announced that Stantec, a leading global design firm, has selected Unily to build out an internal news room for their employees around the world.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/659299/Unily_Logo.jpg )



The news room will provide multilingual access to the company's internal news content for more than 22,000 global employees across six continents. Beyond its newsroom capabilities, Stantec elected to work with Unily for their ability to provide a unique solution that addresses its business needs, including:

Custom branded mobile application access

Improved content relevancy for users with targeting, personalization, and permissioning

Social integrations with Yammer

Industry leading security and privacy accreditations

"We're excited to work with Stantec and their employees around the world," said Richard Paterson, Co-Founder, Unily. "As a global business, we work with major, multinational brands whose work spans multiple continents. We look forward to working with such a tremendous company like Stantec to help improve their internal communications and collaboration to drive great productivity."

"We were impressed with Unily's platform and their experience working with multi-national companies," stated Lui Mancinelli, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Communications and PR, Stantec. "We believe our news room will enhance the ability for employees to connect and share their stories and successes, which is an important aspect of our brand and our company culture."

To learn more about Unily and its offerings, please visit www.Unily.com.

About Unily

Unily is an award-winning digital workplace solution designed to improve organizational productivity, efficiency and engagement. It offers global workforces the ability to communicate and collaborate from any device, anywhere serving as a driver for digital transformation. The company recently attained ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification for its information security management standards, and it is proud to be a Microsoft Gold Partner. Unily serves its customers through offices in Surrey, UK; New York; Seattle and Sydney. For more information, visit www.unily.com.

About Stantec

Communities are fundamental. Whether around the corner or across the globe, they provide a foundation, a sense of place and of belonging. That's why at Stantec, we always design with community in mind .

We care about the communities we serve-because they're our communities too. This allows us to assess what's needed and connect our expertise, to appreciate nuances and envision what's never been considered, to bring together diverse perspectives so we can collaborate toward a shared success.

We're designers, engineers, scientists, and project managers, innovating together at the intersection of community, creativity, and client relationships. Balancing these priorities results in projects that advance the quality of life in communities across the globe.

Stantec trades on the TSX and the NYSE under the symbol STN. Visit us at stantec.com or find us on social media.

Contact:

Finn Partners for Unily

Erica McDonald

[email protected]

+1-646-202-9784

Stantec

Danny Craig

[email protected]

+1-949-632-6319



SOURCE Unily
NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts (www.usdan.org), the nation's preeminent arts summer day camp, today announces the launch of The Reimagine Fund - a new campaign designed to gather financial support in response to damage sustained during a recent lightning strike and fire on the 140-acre Wheatley Heights campus. Usdan estimates a financial need of at least $250,000 to rebuild the Visual Art Department and upgrade the camp's overall infrastructure.

On Tuesday, August 14, a lightning strike sparked the blaze that ultimately destroyed two studios A17 and A18 in the Visual Art Department and caused additional damage to other buildings in the area. No one was injured, and no students were affected as camp had concluded its 50th Anniversary season the previous Friday.

Usdan was built on the dream of young artists exploring their creativity and individuality in a natural environment. Since opening in 1968, over 40,000 students have attended the popular day camp. This summer, Usdan welcomed close to 1,600 campers from across Long Island and New York City. Offering over 100 classes in disciplines from dance and art to music, theater and chess to writing and recreation, Usdan continues its philosophy to help children to "lose themselves for a summer, and find themselves for a lifetime."

"I was awed as I visited the damaged studios to see that, through the charred remains, spiders had begun spinning webs and butterflies explored the new terrain," says Lauren Brandt Schloss, Usdan's Executive Director. "Now, as we begin to see the leaves turning brown and gold, I am confident in nature's ability to renew and Usdan's promise to inspire. I am so thankful for the support of our community and know that, together, we can not just rebuild but reimagine and continue to grow a place where kids draw from nature and their own creativity to be who they really are."

To learn more and to donate to The Reimagine Fund, please go to www.usdan.org/support-us/donate-now.

About Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts

Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts (usdan.org) celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2018. The nation's preeminent not-for-profit day camp for the arts, Usdan has been named a "Best Of" camp by TimeOutNY/Kids, and by NY Metro Parents. Diverse and playfully rigorous from the start, Usdan has brought world-class teachers and visiting artists  actors, directors, playwrights, painters, sculptors, musicians, composers, dancers, poets and novelists  to teach and collaborate with Usdan campers ages 4 to 18. Usdan ignites each child's artistic spirit in a fun, welcoming environment. We believe art making is brave making, friend making, freedom making and future making. Usdan is an agency of the UJA-Federation of New York. All programs will take place at the camp's magnificent 140-acre woodland campus, located at 185 Colonial Springs Road in Wheatley Heights, NY 11798.

SOURCE Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts
INDEPENDENCE, Mo., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The United Steelworkers (USW) today announced its endorsement for Cort VanOstran to represent working families in Missouri's second congressional district on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

USW District 11 Director Emil Ramirez said that the union is proud to endorse a candidate who will stand with workers on important issues.

"We need powerful new voices in Washington to protect our right to join together and bargain fair wages, better benefits and safer working conditions," Ramirez said. "We know that we can count on Cort VanOstran to stand with us."

Ramirez said that Missourians have an opportunity to vote for a candidate who understands the value of organized labor.

"Missouri voters know that strong unions will rebuild the American middle class, soundly defeating anti-union, anti-worker Proposition A at the ballot box earlier this month," he said. "Those same voters now can choose to elect a congressman who will fight for them instead of the wealthiest individuals and most powerful corporations."

In endorsing VanOstran, the USW joins the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; the United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement of Workers of America; and the St. Louis-Kansas City Carpenters Regional Council.

The USW represents 850,000 men and women employed in manufacturing, metals, mining, pulp and paper, rubber, chemicals, glass, auto supply and the energy-producing industries, along with a growing number of workers in public sector and service occupations.

More information, contact: Tony Montana  (412) 562-2592; [email protected]

SOURCE United Steelworkers (USW)

Related Links

http://www.usw.org


Smith was the first African-American woman to join the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, the handbook reports. In 1965, during the Vietnam War, she baked a fruitcake for each of the 330 residents from her local Tarrant County serving in the military; the next year, Fort Worth proclaimed a Lucille B. Smith Day in gratitude. She was named to the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women in 1969. In 1974, at age 82, she founded and became president of her family-owned corporation, Lucille B. Smith's Fine Foods. Smith died in 1985, age 92, at her daughter's home.
BEIJING, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The world's first non-governmental, nonprofit China-initiated tourism organization, the World Tourism Alliance (WTA), has announced the dates for its much-awaited Xianghu Dialogue and the Annual/Council Meetings, Sept. 7-11, 2018 in Hangzhou.

The one-day Xianghu Dialogue on Sept. 9 will be held at the New Century Grand Hotel Hangzhou. This year's solution-focused theme--Poverty Alleviation and Development: Shared Responsibilities of the World Tourism Communitywill be discussed by renowned global tourism experts and economists.

"As we approach the one-year anniversary of the founding of the World Tourism Alliance, we are pleased to have made significant strides toward our goal of leveraging tourism for human development. Our message and mission are resonating among tourism organizations, institutions, enterprises and government agencies throughout the world as shown by our rapidly increasing number of members," WTA's Secretary General Liu Shijun said.

"The Xianghu Dialogue is a forum that we can all come together as partners for a common objective. Through this, we hope to accomplish more and broaden our reach to encompass the whole world. We walk hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder with our members and partners to make a meaningful difference in the lives of many," he added.

Agenda for the full-day event includes the release of the World Tourism Development 2018 report on how tourism promotes poverty alleviation.

The WTA will also share its own high-level Best Practice in Poverty Alleviation through Tourism.

Invitation to the Sept 9th Xianghu Dialogue is open to all WTA members, local governments, tourism authorities, tourism enterprises and associations; tourism academia, diplomatic envoys, China-based tourism promotion agencies, local and international media.

Admission is free. Registration is required and can be done online at www.wta-web.org by scanning the QR code in the invitation.

About the World Tourism Alliance

The World Tourism Alliance (WTA) is the first global non-governmental, nonprofit tourism organization. Established in China on Sept. 12, 2017, it is committed to promoting peace, global development and poverty reduction through responsible tourism. Working with the travel and tourism industry around the world, it serves to drive global tourism exchanges and cooperation on all levels. Guided by its vision of a "Better Tourism, Better Life, Better World," the WTA offers professional services to its members by establishing high level tourism research institutions and providing personal training for governments and businesses. It has 138 members in 34 countries/regions, covering all five continents.

Visit www.wta-web.org for more information or to sign up to become a member.

Media Contacts:

Lillibeth Bishop

[email protected]

310-384-2189

China: [email protected]

SOURCE World Tourism Alliance

Related Links

http://www.wta-web.org/eng


London, Aug 21 : Three persons were injured on Monday night in a shooting outside an underground station in London, the police said.

"Officers are at the scene of a shooting in #Kingsbury Road. Not terror related. Three people taken to hospital, none believed to be life-threatening," London Metropolitan Police said on its Twitter account, Xinhua reported.

The police said there has been no arrest so far.

Kingsbury Tube station on the Jubilee line was shut down while the police carried out an investigation outside the station, Transport for London announced on its website.
Jammu, Aug 21 : The annual Amarnath Yatra was suspended for three days on Tuesday as the authorities decided not to allow any pilgrim to move from Jammu to the Kashmir Valley from August 21 to 23.

"No yatri will be allowed to move towards the Kashmir Valley from here on August 21, 22 and 23," a police officer said.

Officials gave no explanation for the yatra's suspension, but informed sources said the decision was taken because of the Eid festival on Wednesday, and also due to the decreasing number of pilgrims opting for the yatra as it nears its end on August 26.

On Monday, a small batch of just 43 pilgrims left the Bhagwati Nagar Yatri Niwas for the Kashmir Valley.

Since it started on June 28, over 2.82 lakh pilgrims have performed the pilgrimage setting a record over those doing so during the last three years.
Washington, Aug 21 : A man in the US state of Colorado has been charged with the deaths of his pregnant wife and their daughters last week.

Chris Watts, 33, is facing three counts of first-degree murder and six other counts, BBC reported.

Court papers show he claims it was Shanann Watts, 34, who strangled Celeste, three, and Bella, four, after he told her he wanted to separate.

He told police that "in a rage" he then murdered his wife at their home in the small town of Frederick. Watts is due in court on Tuesday to be arraigned.

His nine felony charges include two counts of murdering a child, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.

His wife's body was found by authorities on Thursday, buried in a shallow grave near an oil tank on the premises of a petroleum company that her husband had worked for.

The bodies of Bella and Celeste were later discovered inside oil tanks near their mother's grave. Mrs Watts was 15 weeks' pregnant.

According to the affidavit, investigators discovered that Watts was having an affair with a work colleague, which he had denied to police.

The court papers say that a friend dropped off Watts at her home from a business trip to Arizona last Monday. Watts said to police that he then told his wife that he wanted to split up.
Los Angeles, Aug 21 : Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder-starrer "Destination Wedding" wrapped up its shoot in a span of nine days at Dubost Winery in Paso Robles, California.

Written and directed by Victor Levin, the film is being brought to India by PVR Pictures. Reeves says Levin never rushed when it came to getting the most out of his actors.

"Vic was especially concerned with pacing," Reeves said in a statement to IANS.

"He wanted us to almost talk over each other and then find the moments where we could both be still. He worked like a really good orchestra conductor, trying to find the music of the scene, the tempo and the physicality."

"It was an extremely busy nine days," added producer Gail Lyon.

The movie showcases both the actors as socially awkward guests who develop an unlikely romance at a destination wedding in California's wine country.

"Destination Wedding" reunites Reeves and Ryder -- who first worked together in Bram Stoker's "Dracula" in 1992. The film is slated to open in India on September 7.
Washington, Aug 21 : US President Donald Trump has said it is "most likely" he will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un again following their historic summit in June, according to a news report.

Trump was responding to a question during an interview with Reuters at the White House on Monday about whether the two were planning another meeting.

"It's most likely we will, but I just don't want to comment," he was quoted as saying, offering no details on the timing or venue, Yonhap news agency reported.

"I like him. He likes me," Trump said. "There's no ballistic missiles going up, there's a lot of silence ... I have very good personal relations with Chairman Kim, and I think that's what holds it together."

At their June 12 meeting in Singapore, Kim committed to work toward the "complete denuclearisation" of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for security guarantees from the US.

Trump has hailed the deal as ending the North Korean nuclear threat, but critics say there has been no indication yet of Pyongyang's willingness to give up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
Agartala, Aug 21 : The BJP-led government in Tripura will donate Rs 1 crore for the relief work in the flood-ravaged state of Kerala.

A day after the opposition CPI-M urged the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to contribute funds to the flood-ravaged Kerala, the Tripura government on Monday night said that it will donate Rs 1 crore.

"The council of ministers in its meeting today (Monday) decided to donate Rs one crore for the relief of the flood-affected people of Kerala," Education and Law Minister Ratan Lal Nath told the media .

Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb chaired the cabinet meeting, which also formally adopted a condolence resolution for the demise of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) on Sunday urged the BJP-led government in Tripura to donate funds to the flood-hit people in Kerala, pointing out that no saffron party-ruled state has yet donated any amount to the southern state.

CPI-M central committee member Bijan Dhar said: "Some non-BJP ruled states and many organisations and individuals have come forward to help the state (Kerala), which was hit by one of the worst natural catastrophes of the century."

Dhar, also the secretary of the Tripura state committee of the Left party, said that the CPI-M would launch an 11-day long fund collection drive on Tuesday across the state to help the affected people of Kerala.
Rio De Janeiro, Aug 21 : Two soldiers and five civilians have been killed in a military raid here in Brazil.

Around 4,200 soldiers, supported by 70 policemen with the aid of armoured vehicles and helicopters carried out the searches in the congested neighbourhoods called favelas.

According to the Joint Command of the military seven were killed in the operation in three favelas in the north of Rio (Alemao, Penha and La Mare), home to more than 500,000 people.

The operation is part of President Michel Temer's military intervention ordered in February to deal with security and violence that plagues the Rio de Janeiro State, Efe news reported.

On August 17 and 19 the military carried out an anti-narcotics operation in the favela of Alemao.

Violence in Rio is endemic and claimed 6,731 lives in 2017.
Washington, Aug 21 : The US has charged two people acting as agents for the Iranian government, according to an official statement.

Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar and Majid Ghorbani, who were arrested on August 9, had allegedly been monitoring Israeli and Jewish facilities in the US, while also gathering information on individuals in Washington who were part of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, CNN quoted the statement from the D.C. US Attorney's Office as saying on Monday.

"The indictment charged Doostdar and Ghorbani with knowingly acting as agents of the government of Iran without prior notification to the Attorney General, providing services to Iran in violation of US sanctions, and conspiracy," it said.

The statement said that Doostdar had photographed security features as part of a surveillance effort on a Jewish facility in Chicago on or around July 21, 2017.

Additionally, on or near September 20, 2017, Ghorbani allegedly took photos of individuals at an event in New York where people were protesting the Iranian regime "This alleged activity demonstrates a continued interest in targeting the US, as well as potential opposition groups located in the US," said Acting Executive Assistant Director Michael McGarrity in Monday's statement.

"The FBI will continue to identify and disrupt those individuals who seek to engage in unlawful activity, on behalf of Iran, on US soil."

Ghorbani is set to appear in DC District Court on Tuesday morning for a detention hearing.

There was no further information on Doostdar.
Washington, Aug 21 : The US has welcomed newly-elected Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khans statement emphasising the importance of peace with India and Afghanistan, a key official said here.

"We welcome the words of Prime Minister Imran Khan in which he discussed the importance of peace on both sides of Pakistan's borders," Alice Wells, who heads the Bureau for South and Central Asian affairs at the US State Department, said on Monday at a press briefing.

Wells is expected to accompany US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo when he visits Islamabad in the first week of September for talks with the new Pakistani leadership following which he will make stopovers in New Delhi and Kabul, reports Dawn news.

Wells said that America's South Asia strategy was "obviously pointed to the role India can and should play" in supporting the stabilisation of Afghanistan.

"We want to see Afghanistan stitched back into the region," said the US diplomat while clarifying that this integration does not have to come at the expense of any other country in the region.

Without mentioning the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the US official expressed concerns over projects in countries where governments involved had not been able to sustain the repayment schedules, which "resulted in the loss of sovereignty over key infrastructures" that they have had to turn over to their lenders.

Wells said that if China stopped pursuing the policy of mortgaging the future of such countries to "unrealistic and unsustainable loan terms, Washington and Beijing could work together on many issues.
Argento became one of the most well-known activists of the #MeToo movement after she told the New Yorker magazine that Weinstein raped her at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 when she was 21. Argento told the magazine that she continued to have a relationship with Weinstein because she was afraid of angering him.
San Francisco, Aug 21 : A group affiliated with the Russian government created phony versions of six websites, including some related to the US Senate, with an aim to hack into the computers of people who were tricked into visiting, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft on Monday night said that it has discovered and disabled the fake sites, reports The Washington Post.

The effort by the notorious APT28 hacking group, which has been publicly linked to a Russian intelligence agency and actively interfered in the American 2016 presidential election, underscores the aggressive role Russian operatives are playing ahead of the midterm congressional elections in the US.

APT28 specialises in information warfare or hacking and disinformation operations. "APT" refers to "advanced persistent threat" in cybersecurity circles.

US officials have repeatedly warned that the November vote is a major focus for interference efforts.

Microsoft said the sites were created over the past several months but did not go into more specifics.

Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, which is responsible for the company's response to email phishing schemes, took the lead role in finding and disabling the sites, and the company is launching an effort to provide expanded cybersecurity protection for campaigns and election agencies that use Microsoft products.

Among those targeted were the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think-tank active in investigations of corruption in Russia, and the International Republican Institute (IRI), a non-profit group that promotes democracy worldwide.

Three other fake sites were crafted to appear as though they were affiliated with the Senate, and one non-political site spoofed Microsoft's own online products.

"This apparent spear-phishing attempt against the International Republican Institute and other organisations is consistent with the campaign of meddling that the Kremlin has waged against organizations that support democracy and human rights," The Washington Post quoted Daniel Twining, IRI's president, as saying who put blame on Russian President VladiAmir Putin.

"It is clearly designed to sow confusion, conflict and fear among those who criticise Putin's authoritarian regime."

The move by Microsoft is the latest effort by Silicon Valley to address Russian threats to the upcoming election more aggressively than the technology industry did in 2016.

Companies and US officials have vowed to work together more closely this year.

Facebook recently disclosed that the company had taken down 32 fake accounts and pages that were tied to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian disinformation operation active before and after the 2016 election.
Washington, Aug 21 : US President Donald Trump repeatedly said during the 2016 election that he would "hire the best people" for his administration, but a new poll found that most Americans don't think he delivered on that promise.

The Monmouth University Poll released on Monday found that only 30 per cent of respondents believe that Trump has hired the "best people," with 58 per cent saying he has not, reports Politico news.

Twelve per cent of those polled responded either that the President's hiring record was mixed or that they did not know about his hiring record.

Trump's White House has experienced a higher-than-usual turnover and several of his hires for his 2016 campaign and administration have made news in recent weeks.

Paul Manafort, who ran Trump's presidential campaign in2016, is awaiting a jury verdict on tax evasion and bank fraud charges as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian election interference.

Meanwhile, longtime Trump loyalist Omarosa Manigault Newman made headline over the last week as she embarks on a press tour to promote her new tell-all book, including the release of secret recordings she made during her time in the White House.

The Monmouth poll found that about three-quarters of respondents were aware of Manafort's trial and Manigault Newman's book release, Politico reported.

Respondents held a dim view of how the Trump White House operates in general with just 19 per cent said that they were "very confident" in the way that the President's advisers and staff are handling their jobs and 23 per cent saying they were "somewhat confident" in White House personnel.

More than half said they were "not too confident" or "not at all confident".

The poll was conducted by phone from August 15 to 19 with 805 adults in the US.
New Delhi : Book: How India Manages Its National Security; Author: Arvind Gupta; Publisher: Penguin/Viking; Pages: 410; Price: Rs 599 National security is not just about the military, it also concerns governance and the tendency to politicise the actions of the armed forces should be "eschewed at all costs", says Arvind Gupta, a former Deputy National Security Advisor, in this scholarly new work that will appeal to both the security apparatus and the common man -- no mean feat in itself.

He says that the issues of economy, society and technology are integral parts of the national security system.

"National security is not just about the military. It also concerns governance. The armed forces cannot be responsible for domestic law and order and governance issues, although that is the case in a limited way in developmental projects and are asked to maintain law and order when it breaks down in any part of the country," writes Gupta, who was also the former Director General of the Defence Ministry-funded think tank, the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).

Noting that the military is a non-political, secular institution working under civilian control as laid out in the Constitution, he has criticised the tendency in recent years to politicise its actions, a glaring example being the actions of the political parties in the wake of the army's 2016 surgical strikes against terrorist launch pads in Pakistan.

"Political parties freely used the army's name in their election campaigns ahead of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. This is a dangerous trend which needs to be curbed... Efforts to politicise the functioning of the army for narrow political ends should be eschewed at all costs," writes Gupta, who currently heads the Vivekananda Institute that focuses on foreign policy, defence and security-related issues from an Indian perspective, in the Preface that encapsulates what is to follow in the book's 12 chapters.

The modern-day concept of security being much broader, "it goes beyond the actions of the armed forces and involves all of government and even society". The issues of economy, society and technology are integral parts of the national security system, he says, urging an institutional approach to ensure security.

"First, there have to be properly designed institutions of national security with well-defined roles and responsibilities. At the same time, they should be able to work with each other synergistically. They should be adequately resourced, both materially and financially," he writes.

"For instance, weakness in terms of policing and in the criminal justice system creates a sense of insecurity among the people. Even disparate institutions should work in harmony. While they operate under the rules, procedures and guidelines prepared by the government, the institutions should also have the necessary flexibility and a degree of autonomy," writes Gupta, also an honorary professor in the Department of Defence and National Security Studies at Chandigarh's Panjab University.

Holding that incompetent leadership can mar even a healthy organisation, Gupta says the institutions must be led by men and women with proven integrity, professionalism and a nationalist vision.

"Finally, there must be a robust mechanism that brings national security institutions together so that they can work in sync with each other," the author maintains.

Where then does India's national security system stand in this narrative? It's not exactly hunky-dory, to go by what Gupta writes.

For starters, "jointness among the armed forces, between the military and diplomacy, the military and civilian agencies and the military and intelligence agencies needs to be enhanced urgently. Dealing with the twin challenges of China and Pakistan will require a comprehensive approach. There is no alternate but to reduce the power asymmetry vis-a-vis China", the author maintains.

There is urgent need, he says, for a deeper level of defence reforms and points to at least nine broad areas where these are needed: Civil-military relations, higher military organisation, net assessment, procurement, indigenisation of defence production, jointness among the armed forces, internal efficiencies, budgeting and defence planning, and defence diplomacy.

"The efforts so far have been half-hearted and had partial success. As the resource crunches the armed forces will have to find a way of doing more with less. This will be possible only if the efficiencies in the use of resources are enhanced and synergies among the three armed forces are developed," Gupta says.

There is also the question of the "tough nuclear environment", with Pakistan developing tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) and threatening to use them against India.

The perception outside government circles "is that India's nuclear doctrine, which promises massive retaliation, is not credible against TNWs. Should India think up a flexible response strategy or change its doctrine to first strike" is an "important question", Gupta writes, adding that this does not seem possible so far.

Coupled with this, "hybrid warfare, which is a combination of conventional military conflict, sub-conventional conflict and warfare in cyber space and outer space" is more likely in the future, besides which military warfare is likely to be accompanied by economic warfare and information warfare, Gupta writes.

Despite the shortcomings in many of our institutions and deficiencies in the implementation of programmes, India has made steady progress. With the country now set to emerge as the third-largest economy in the world, there is need to develop new, uniquely Indian narratives and develop matching, capable institutions to ensure that it overcomes poverty and occupies a deserving place in the comity of nations, Gupta says.

(Vishnu Makhijani can be contacted at vishnu.makhijani@ians.in)
New Delhi/Mathura, Aug 21 : Five men were critically injured on Tuesday in Uttar Pradesh when they were hit by the speeding Chhattisgarh Sampark Kranti express near Mathura, an official said.

The incident occurred early in the day when the passengers were trying to board the Agra intercity stationed on Platform number one of Kosi Kalan station.

"Six passengers tried to board the train from the off-side, when they were hit," Railway Ministry Media Director Rajesh Dutt Bajpai said.

Two of the injured were sent to Niyati hospital in Mathura, while three were at the Lifeline hospital. All injured were between the age group of 20-25 years.
Lucknow, Aug 21 : A man was killed and six others were critically injured early on Tuesday in Uttar Pradesh' Mathura district after being hit by a train, police said.

The incident occurred at the Kosi Kalan railway station when the speeding Chhattisgarh Sampark Kranti express hit them.

"The passengers were trying to board the train from the off-side, when they were hit," Railway Ministry Media Director Rajesh Dutt Bajpai said.

All injured are men between the age group of 20-25 years. One belongs to Rithora, two are from Surwari and four from Nagariya in Mathura district.
Jakarta, Aug 21 : Indian shooters Saurabh Chaudhary and Abhishek Verma bagged the gold and bronze medals respectively in the Men's 10 metre Air Pistol final in the ongoing 2018 Asian Games here on Tuesday.

Saurabh, 16, clinched the gold after producing an Asian Games record score of 240.7. It was India's third gold medal at the ongoing Games.

Abhishek, 29, stood third scoring 219.3 to take India's medal tally to seven. He had finished sixth during the qualification round.

Tomoyuki Matsuda of Japan secured the silver with 239.7. He and Saurabh pulled away for the gold medal battle with points of 220.1 and 220.5 respectively as Abhishek was eliminated with 219.3 points after eight series.

Matsuda, 42, was leading the charge going into the ninth and final series having led after each of the series. But in the final series, he came up with first shot score of 8.9 to blow his chances as Saurabh overtook him with a 10.2 in his first shot of the series.

In the second shot of the series, Matsuda scored 10.3 but Saurabh did well with 10.4 to seal the title.

At the beginning, Saurabh, who topped the qualifications after a score of 586, began his finals with a 50.6 in the opening five-shot series. In the second five-shot series, he scored 50.8 to take his total to 101.4, while Matsuda had 103.3 in total at this point of time.

In the third series, a two-shot round, Saurabh scored 18.6. He then produced scores of 19.4, 20.0, 20.6, 20.2 to have a total of 200.2 at the end of seven series when Matsuda and Saurabh totalled 201.3 and 199.7 respectively as the top three places were determined.

In the eighth series, Saurabh, Matsuda and Abhishek got scores of 19.9, 19.2 and 19.6 as the latter was eliminated.

The drama unfolded in the final series, with Matsuda coming up with his worst shot of the entire final round to give the advantage to Saurabh, who grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
New Delhi : The media is abuzz these days with horrendous stories of child sexual abuse, the most recent incidents being of abuse in shelter homes in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. While the trauma experienced by the girls will send a chill down the spines of most people, it is disheartening that hardly anyone seems to be concerned about the "why" of these incidents.

There are marches held, opinions articulated, outcries about how the offender deserves to be handled/punished but nothing on how the girls deserve protection or why this horrific injustice happened in the first place -- and definitely nothing on how such incidents can be prevented. This is the sad but bitter truth.

To overcome any social problem, however severe, it is important to understand its root cause. It is also extremely important to work on prevention, rather than on intervention. But at the moment, given that such crimes are so rampant, we need to work on prevention as well as intervention.

Let us, however, first try to understand the "why". Why are children abused? The different reasons may include:

- Many abusers carry the burden of a past childhood sexual abuse themselves. Not provided with any intervention to heal the emotional trauma, they simply do to children what was done to them.

- Many abusers develop an instinctive desire to experience a sexual relationship with a child; some develop an urge/fantasy to experience abnormal sex with children.

- Many others simply believe this is the best way to understand sex.

- Still others, who do not have a healthy orientation towards sexual activity, believe in bizarre methods of gratification.

- A majority of the abusers indulging in non-touch forms of abuse are blissfully unaware that their acts are punishable under the POCSO Act.

- There are also individuals who may have severe personality disorders, leading them to become child sexual abusers.

Once we are aware of the common causes, it is essential that we set about preventing these causes and assuaging the trauma of the survivors. It is important for us, as a country, to become more psychologically minded and facilitate psycho-social intervention for every child sexual abuse victim. Treatment and rehabilitation of children who have experienced child sexual abuse is one sure way to reduce the number of adult abusers.

Acknowledging that many adults develop an innate desire to experience sex with children/minors and encouraging them to undergo psychotherapy is another way to work towards preventing child sexual abuse.

Healthy sex education in the pre-adolescent period will also prevent many young adolescents and adults from indulging in child sexual abuse. As a society, we need to develop a healthy attitude towards sex, sexuality and sexual relationships. We need to be able to perceive it as a healthy physiological activity.

While the percentage of abusers is quite low, the percentage of passive bystanders is worryingly large. It is extremely essential that every bystander turn into an activist for this cause in his own environment. It is time every adult takes this up as his/her life mission; he/she must not hesitate to report sexual abuse occurring within families; it is time every adult spoke up to protect children from being abused.

If only the adults in the lives of those girls in the shelter homes, where abuse has been reported, felt responsible and accountable, these crimes could have been prevented and those girls would have been saved from experiencing physical and psychological trauma.

Prevention, developing psychological mindedness, creating awareness, sex education -- in simple words, transforming ourselves into responsible adults.

Child sexual abuse is a social problem that needs various interventions -- and a stricter law is just one of them. We as a society ignore the psycho-social angle which is an important sphere of intervention. Psychological mindedness, psycho-socio intervention for the abused as well as the abuser; a much more responsible and accountable society -- are some of the keys to overcoming this social malaise.

(Mahalakshmi Rajagopal, Founder-Director of Sahayam Trust, is a trained psychologist who has worked extensively in the area of child sexual abuse. She can be contacted at mlakshmi@sahayam.org)
New Delhi, Aug 21 : BLS International Services Ltd, one of the world's largest specialist service providers for outsourcing of visa and consular services, on Tuesday kick-started BLS Accelerator -- a start-up nurturing programme to help innovative business attain the right mentoring and scale.

Delhi-based BLS International plans to invest up to Rs 5 crore in the programme by the end of this year.

BLS Accelerator will support early stage start-ups with up to Rs 50 lakh seed funding, along with mentoring in areas such as technology, upgradation of citizen services, product ideation and development, and go-to-market strategy.

"Our decision to start BLS Accelerator is a way to support the future Indian business leaders on their initial journey and scale both in India and globally," said Shikhar, Joint Managing Director, BLS International.

For start-ups at growth stage, BLS Accelerator will not only be an investor but also facilitate market exposure to more than 60 countries where BLS International currently operates, the company said in a statement.

The first batch, part of the three-month programme, will have five start-ups based on their value proposition, market traction and team credentials.

In the next two-three years, BLS Accelerator aims to target investment in more than 100 promising global and Indian start-ups.

"The vision of BLS Accelerator is to support the Indian businesses leverage BLS International's global and Indian presence and experience and develop global scale and competence," said Riya Aggarwal, Chief Executive Officer, BLS Accelerator.
Kabul, Aug 21 : At least one rocket struck Kabul on Tuesday, followed by several explosions, during an address to the nation by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani ahead of Eid al-Adha.

The rocket struck the Afghan capital at 9 a.m., without causing any casualties, followed by a series of unidentified blasts, police spokesperson Hashmat Stanekzai told Efe.

The sound of the blasts could be heard as Ghani spoke live on television.

"If they (militants) think this nation would bow under the rocket attacks, this is a brave, and standing nation and forever will defend its sovereignty, independence and Islamic values," Ghani said after the explosions.

He assured that Afghan security forces "have full readiness and this (explosions) and other incidents will be controlled".

"This war, suicide attacks and explosions have no religious justification," Ghani said, adding that according to a recent survey 93 per cent of Afghans favoured peace.

On Sunday, the Afghan President had proposed a ceasefire from August 20 to November 20 (birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad, or Milad-ul-Nabi), however, it remains in limbo pending a response from the insurgents.

If implemented, this would be the second ceasefire by the Afghan government during the 17 years of conflict, following one earlier in June during the Eid ul-Fitr festivities.
But hes doing his part to bridge the divide. He presented his interactive work at a TedxDePaulUniversity event in May, and Brinkmann has been doing public performances for over a year in Chicagos subways  often times playing on Red and Blue Line platforms trying to sway people to take a minute and reflect on what they hear. That Wednesday, he ventured to Michigan Avenue, down the way from Chicago Symphony Center. He set up his three tripods and began to play. During breaks, he shared some things hes learned along the way: he has about 15 seconds to capture the attention of those walking by; there is no one age group that stops more than another, and its always hardest to get the first contributor to stop to express themselves in words or art.
Grozny, Aug 21 : A series of coordinated attacks in Chechnya were carried out by children as young as 11, officials said on Tuesday, blaming a campaign of online recruiting by extremist groups.

The Islamic State (IS) terror group claimed responsibility for three separate attacks in the Russian republic on Monday, reports the Guardian.

The attacks, which included an attempted suicide bombing, a car ramming and a raid on a police station, left several police officers in the town of Shali hospitalised with knife wounds.

Four of the five attackers were killed, the police said.

Chechnya leader Ramzan Kadyrov said the youths had been "confused" by IS recruiters using social media.

"The fact that they recruit mentally immature teenagers shows that the 'masters' don't have even a trace of shame or conscience," Kadyrov said in a post on the social media site Telegram.

He suggested the attack was targeted before the Eid al-Adha Islamic holiday.

Chechnya's Communications Minister Dzhambulat Umarov said the attackers ranged in age from 11 to 16.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : Global technology brand Lenovo India on Tuesday announced the appointment of Shailendra Katyal as Executive Director and India PC and Smart Devices Business Group (PCSD) Consumer Leader.

Based in Bengaluru, Katyal will report to Rahul Agarwal, Managing Director and CEO, Lenovo India.

"He played a pivotal role in the organisation during his earlier stint and understands the pulse of the consumer business. This appointment is in line with our growth strategy, as we continue to strengthen our position in the PC market," Agarwal said in a statement.

Katyal, who has held leadership roles at Wipro, Marico and Lenovo, will focus on driving sustainable, profitable growth across multiple routes-to-market for the consumer business and build a more consumer-centric organisation.

In his previous stint at Lenovo, Katyal started as chief marketing officer for the India region and launched the tablet business in the country.

"We see a lot of headroom for growth for us in the country given the strong technology and product innovation that Lenovo brings to the table as a global technology leader," said Katyal.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels on Tuesday met Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and promised to step up action to prevent the circulation of fake news and misinformation on its platform.

In a meeting here, Prasad reportedly told Daniels to appoint an officer for grievance redressal, comply with Indian laws and establish a proper corporate entity in the country.

"We had a productive meeting. WhatsApp is being misused to create misinformation and the social media platform has assured prompt action," Prasad told the media after the meeting.

Daniels' meeting with the IT Minister came in the backdrop of several incidents of mob lynchings across India owing to circulation of fake messages and misinformation on the instant messaging platform.

To tackle the spread of false information, the Facebook-owned platform has limited forward messaging to five chats for over 200 million users in India.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan seen leaving after day-2 of Parliament's monsoon session, in New Delhi, on July 19, 2018. Image Source: IANS

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 21 : The UAE has pledged $100 million for flood-battered Kerala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced on Tuesday, adding "a new Kerala" needed to be built following the widespread destruction.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), home to hundreds of thousands of Keralites, has informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi that it would be providing $100 million for Kerala, Vijayan told the media.

"A new Kerala has to be built. At today's cabinet meeting, it has been decided to submit a detailed list to the Centre," he said.

"Funds are the prime requisite for this. This will be raised by us through various sources besides getting it from the Centre and other agencies," he said.

"The Kerala diaspora has been a huge source of help for us. Since they have done tremendous service in the Middle East, it has helped build good relations with the governments there.

"Today morning, the UAE rulers informed our Prime Minister about their contribution for Kerala and this was conveyed to me by M.A. Yusuf Ali (who owns Lulu Supermarkets)," he said, thanking the Emirate for the timely help.

Vijayan said they would ask the Centre to allow Kerala to increase the market borrowings from 3 per cent of the state's total revenue to 4.5 per cent. As a result an additional Rs 10,000 crore can be raised.

"We have decided to approach agencies like NABARD whose mandate includes providing for infrastructure and drinking water.

"We will demand a special package for the state," said Vijayan.

Following the devastating floods, over one million people are now sheltered in 3,274 relief camps in the state. The death toll since the monsoon rains began on May 29 has been estimated at around 370.

Till Monday, the total contributions received to the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund was Rs 210 crore while another Rs 160 crore has been pledged.

A special session of the Kerala Assembly has been called from August 30 to discuss the huge destruction caused by the worst flooding in nearly a century and to chart the future course of action.
Chandigarh, Aug 21 : Slamming those who criticized him for hugging the Pakistan Army chief, Punjab cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Tuesday said that Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa met him barely for a minute before the swearing-in of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

"I did not meet him later," he told reporters.

Defending his action, Sidhu also said that his seating at the swearing-in in Islamabad on August 18 was changed at the last minute and he did not know who sat next to him.

Without mincing words, he said his visit to Pakistan was a tribute to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who wanted peace between the two countries.

Sidhu said he received a lot of love and affection in Pakistan and was disappointed by some of the reactions in India.

He said he went to Pakistan at the invitation and repeated reminders from Imran Khan.

"Even our government gave permission to me to visit Pakistan. Two days after Pakistan gave him the visa, our External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called me and said that I had been given permission (to go)," Sidhu said.
Jakarta, Aug 21 : Indian shooter Sanjeev Rajput clinched a silver medal in the men's 50 metre Rifle 3 Positions event at the 18th Asian Games here on Tuesday.

Sanjeev scored 452.7 in the final. The 37-year-old had earlier bagged bronze in the same category at the 2006 Doha Asian Games.

China's Hui Zicheng secured the gold medal after scoring 453.3, while Japan's Takayuki Matsumoto settled for bronze with a score of 441.4.

The 37-year old Rajput gave a good account of himself in the keeling and prone positions, although he struggled in the standing round which eventually stood in the way of him winning the gold.

Rajput rallied to recover from 7.8 in the third series of the kneeling position to finish in the top position with a score of 151.2.

In prone, Rajput consistently shot 10s and was ahead of the pack from start to finish. He had a total score of 307.1 after 30 shots.

In the standing position, Rajput led after the first series with a score of 355.6. But as Zicheng fought to catch up with him, Rajput lost his spark and ended second best.
Beijing, Aug 21 : El Salvador on Tuesday became the latest country to cut ties with Taiwan and establish diplomatic relations with China, acceding that the self-ruled island is not a country.

El Salvador is the third country in a few months to sever ties with Taiwan, a self-ruled island which China considers a breakaway province and has vowed to reunite with the mainland one day.

Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Salvadorean Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda signed a joint communique in Beijing establishing diplomatic relations.

The communique said that the El Salvador government severs "diplomatic relations" with Taiwan as of this day and undertakes not to have any more official relations or official exchanges with Taiwan.

With this, the number of countries recognizing Taiwan as a country has come down to 17.

"The El Salvador government has recognized and promised to abide by one-China principle. It severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan and established diplomatic relations with People's Republic of China," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said at a press conference.

"This is a right choice that corresponds with the trend of times and the will of people. China highly appreciates this."

Taiwan has been a self-ruled island since 1949 where the Nationalists fled after being defeated by the Communists in the civil war in China.

The ties between Taipei and Beijing soured after the island elected Tsai-Ing wen as its President in 2016.

Tsai, the leader of a pro-independence party, has never acknowledged that Taiwan is a part of China, keeping Beijing on edge.

However, more and more countries are joining the Chinese side and breaking off formal ties with Taiwan.
Chandigarh, Aug 21 : Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has given in-principle approval for the construction of an elevated railway line in Kurukshetra city on the Kurukshetra-Narwana line to decongest the traffic in the city, it was announced on Tuesday.

The construction of the elevated track would be undertaken by the Haryana Rail Infrastructure Development Corporation at a cost of Rs 224.58 crore, a government statement said.

Out of the total project cost, Rs 100 crore will be shared by the Railway Ministry.

The elevated railway track would do away with five level crossings in Kurukshetra, reducing traffic jams.

An official spokesman said this would be the second elevated railway line in the state.

The Chief Minister recently launched the first elevated railway track project over the Rohtak-Gohana-Panipat section being constructed at a cost of Rs 315.71 crore.

The total length of the elevated railway line in Kurukshetra would be 5.18 km.

He said the project would be environment friendly and integrate the old city with the new city. With the construction of this project, five level crossings would be closed permanently. Apart from saving of cost on construction of road over bridges, it would enhance the safety of trains.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : The National Commission for Women (NCW) on Tuesday directed the Bihar police chief to investigate an incident in which a woman was assaulted and stripped by a mob suspecting that she was involved in the murder of a youth.

"The Commission has written to the DGP, Bihar for investigation. The NCW has also directed him to apprise the Commission of detailed action taken in the matter at the earliest," an official statement said.

The Commission said it has also taken cognizance of the fact that no arrest has been made by the police till now even after many photos and videos have been circulated on social media.

The incident which happened in Bihiya town surfaced on Monday. The woman has been taken under police custody and is undergoing medical tests. However, she denied the allegations against her.
San Francisco, Aug 21 : Microsoft has announced it would stop accepting new apps for Windows 8 from October 31 in an attempt to redirect the focus of app developers towards Windows 10.

Microsoft would stop delivering Windows 8-based phone and device app updates from July 2019 and 2023 respectively, Microsoft Store Team wrote in a blog post on Monday.

"After these dates, we will stop distributing app updates to Windows Phone 8.x or earlier and Windows 8 or 8.1 devices; at that time, updates will only be made available to customers using Windows 10 devices," the post added.

Even though the tech giant would put a halt to accepting new app submissions for Windows 8, the company claimed that this would not affect existing apps based on the earlier Windows version.

"We encourage you to explore how you can port your existing app to the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) where you can create a single Windows 10 app package that your customers can install onto all device families," the post added.

Last year, Microsoft had admitted that it had blocked Windows 7 and 8 updates on Intel's seventh generation Core i3, i5, Qualcomm's 8996 and other processors to "force" users to upgrade to Windows 10.
The director is Swedish native Bjorn L. Runge, whose wife, Lena Runge, served as editor of this self-effacing triumph. Director Runge isnt a major stylist, and not all the castings ideal: Lloyd is serviceable but a bit bland. The shots alternate slow zooms and lateral glides, usually in the direction of Close, with the occasional and somewhat intrusive handheld approach for surface immediacy. But Runge is very good with actors. Its a pleasure simply to watch Close and Pryce establish such minute and careful gradations of happiness, desolation and exasperation in their scenes together. The Wife isnt a two-person show, but it feels like one because these two are so effortlessly interesting. Pryce knows this territory by instinct  he played a Philip Roth-inflected narcissist in Listen Up Philip, one of the great comic examinations of the male literary ego in modern American cinema.
Kabul, Aug 21 : A series of rocket attacks shook the Afghan capital on Tuesday during President Ashraf Ghani's address to the nation on the eve of Eid-ul-Zuha.

There were no reports of casualties in the attacks and no group claimed immediate responsibility. But according to reports, the assault appeared to be a rejection by Taliban insurgents of Ghani's offer for a conditional three-month truce.

As Ghani addressed the nation, the explosions were first heard near the Presidential Palace and then across the city.

Officials said at least 12 rockets were fired but Kabul residents said they counted as many as 22. Television images showed dark smoke rising into the sky, TOLO News reported.

Without flinching, Ghani said in his address: "If they are thinking the rocket attack will keep Afghans down, they are wrong."

"We announced a ceasefire providing it is bilateral... But all were ready to believe that some groups and individuals who believe in plots and bloodletting will resort today to acts that would jeopardize the tranquillity of the Afghan nation."

The country's Interior Minister later said that three attackers were killed by a helicopter gunship that bombed the warehouse they were holed up in near the Defence Ministry, several blocks away from the Presidential Palace.

According to a BBC report, four people were wounded, two of them security personnel.

Separately, officials said the Taliban had released more than 160 bus passengers kidnapped a day earlier in the north. At least 20 soldiers and policemen were still being held.

On Sunday, Ghani proposed a ceasefire from August 20 to November 20 (birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad, or Milad-ul-Nabi). However, it remains in limbo pending a response from the Taliban.

The militant group has launched several attacks in the last few weeks. The largest was an assault on the city of Ghazni, which sparked a five-day battle with government forces that left hundreds dead or wounded.
Rome, Aug 21 : At least 11 hikers were killed in flooding caused by heavy rain in the southern Italian region of Calabria, officials said on Tuesday.

The hikers were walking in the Raganello Gorge in Pollino National Park in the region when they were hit by a torrent swollen by heavy rain. The Civil Protection Department said that 10 bodies were found on Monday, including that of a 14-year-old girl, while another person died in hospital.

Another five people were still missing. Rescue operations started immediately after a small stream near the village of Civita overflowed, the BBC reported.

Eleven people were injured in the flash floods, out of whom those with serious injuries were admitted to hospitals in Cosenza and the rest in the city of Castrovillari, officials said.

Search and rescue teams were able to save 23 people, including several children. However, more people might be missing as several groups were visiting the area, according to authorities.

Carlo Tansi, head of civil protection, told reporters that when the hikers were hit by the water they were "catapulted out like bullets" and were washed down the valley for about 3 kilometres.

"The Raganello Gorge is narrow and tall, it can get up to 1 kilometre high," he said. "The gorge filled up with water in a really short time."

Luca Franzese of the alpine rescue squad in Calabria said the height of the flood waters was some eight feet deep.

"The wave of flooding of the Raganello stream happens often in the winter, but it has never happened in the summer, when the stream is very popular among tourists," he told the news agency ANSA.

The nationalities of the hikers were not immediately known, although the Corriere della Sera newspaper said one of the injured was Dutch.
Chandigarh, Aug 21 : Slamming those who criticised him for hugging the Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, Punjab Cabinet minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Tuesday said that no one had raised questions about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's unscheduled visit to Pakistan.

Defending his visit, he said: "My visit was not about politics but on a warm invite from an old friend. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had travelled on the bus to Lahore and Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an unscheduled trip to Lahore in 2015, on his way back from an official visit to Afghanistan."

During that surprise stopover, Modi had hugged then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, he said.

"No one is questioning Prime Minister Modi," he added.

Sidhu said his seating at the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan as Pakistan's Prime Minister in Islamabad on August 18 was changed at the last minute and he did not know who sat next to him.

He was responding to the criticism for sitting next to Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir President Masood Khan at the ceremony.

Without mincing words, he said his visit to Pakistan was a tribute to Vajpayee, who wanted peace between the two countries.

Sidhu said he received a lot of love and affection in Pakistan and was disappointed by some of the reactions in India. He said he had received the invitation for the ceremony 10 times.

Sidhu said he went to Pakistan at the invitation and repeated reminders from Khan.

"Even our government gave permission to me to visit Pakistan. Two days after Pakistan gave him the visa, our External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called me and said that I had been given permission (to go)," Sidhu said.

Two days earlier Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said Sidhu's hug with Bajwa was "not a nice gesture and was completely avoidable".

Sidhu should have avoided indulging in such a gesture when Indian soldiers are getting killed everyday on the borders, the Chief Minister told reporters here.

At this Sidhu replied: "I was criticised by the Captain (Amarinder Singh), by top Congress leaders. It is not necessary that if the Captain has spoken against me, I should too."

"Many people from Congress have spoken on this, including Captain Sahab. It's a democracy and everyone has the right to have an opinion," Sidhu said.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the police to file a status report on a plea for cancellation of the anticipatory bail granted to Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in a January 2014 case pertaining to the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar.

Justice R.K. Gauba's direction came on advocate Deepak Anand's plea for cancellation of the anticipatory bail granted by a sessions court on July 5 to Tharoor, who is accused of abetment to suicide.

The petitioner pleaded that the anticipatory bail application of the Congress leader was premature and not maintainable since it was not in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and also in violation of the law laid down by the Supreme Court.

He said that Tharoor's anticipatory bail application was filed to bypass the procedure laid down in the CrPC.

Citing a top court judgment, Anand said that anticipatory bail plea can only be filed during investigation or prior to investigation but not after the issuance of summons.

On June 5, the trial court had taken cognisance of the police charge sheet and issued summons to Tharoor.

On May 14, police charge-sheeted Tharoor under Sections 306 and 498A of the Indian Penal Code, pertaining to abetment to suicide and cruelty to wife, which entails a jail term of up to 10 years.

Pushkar, 51, was found dead under mysterious circumstances in a hotel room in south Delhi on January 17, 2014, days after she alleged that Tharoor was having an affair with a Pakistani journalist.
Raipur, Aug 21 : Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on Tuesday announced that Naya Raipur smart city, will be renamed as "Atal Nagar" in honour of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who passed away on August 16 in New Delhi.

After a cabinet meeting here, Singh announced that along with renaming of Naya Raipur, the Bilaspur University, a medical college, state capital expressway and the under-construction Central Park will be named after Vajpayee.

On November 1, which is observed as the foundation day of the state, the government will also give awards to honour people who have rendered service to the society. The awards will be called as ' Atal Sushashan Awards'.
Mumbai, Aug 21 : Amidst the ongoing crackdown on right-wing activists by the CBI and ATS, the Samajwadi Party on Tuesday demanded a ban on the Sanatan Sanstha and its leaders.

Maharashtra SP President Abu Asim Azmi also asked the Centre and the state government to ensure adequate security at various mosques ahead of the Eid Al Adha festival.

"The ATS has said there was a major plan to foment communal disturbances and made terror strikes in different cities of Maharashtra. It has also seized large quantities of arms and explosives from Palghar," Azmi pointed out.

In the wake of these seizures, Maharashtra ATS chief Atulchandra Kulkarni should also be provided strong security, he said.

Congress leader Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil asked Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to immediately arrest the Sanatan Sanstha founder-chief Jayant B. Athavale.

He alleged that the activities of the organisation were nothing short of 'terror' and sought a ban on the outfit.

Referring to the recent police actions, Vikhe-Patil said he had specific information that nearly 500 youths have been trained to use firearms and they must be tracked.

For this, it was imperative to arrest Athavale, which would help unravel Sanatan Sansthan's modus operandi and plans, he said.

A Sanatan Sanstha spokesperson has dismissed all charges against it and said no such training was imparted to any youth and that it was a spiritual organization.

On Tuesday, a large of Sanstha and Hindu Janjagran Samiti activists took out a procession in Pune protesting what they termed attempts by various organisations and political leaders to defame them.

They carried banners, posters and placards with slogans of Hindu unity and flaying organisations like the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS), headed by the slain rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.

HJS convenor Parag Gokhale said neither his organization nor the Sanstha were in any manner involved in the killing of rationalists like Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M.M. Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday greeted the citizens of India on the occasion of Eid-ul-Zuha, a major Muslim festival.

In his message, the President has said: "On the occasion of Eid-ul-Zuha, I extend my greetings and good wishes to fellow citizens and, especially to our Muslim brothers and sisters in India and abroad."

"On this special day, we celebrate the spirit of sacrifice. Let us resolve to work together for unity and fraternity in our shared society," Kovind added.
Berlin, Aug 21 : A 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard was deported to Germany from the US on Tuesday after years of diplomatic wrangling over his status.

Jakiw Palij landed at DAsseldorf airport in the morning. He has been stateless since a federal judge revoked his US citizenship in 2003. Germany refused to accept him for years as he never had German nationality, the BBC reported.

After his arrival in Germany, he was taken to a care home for the elderly. The US Ambassador in Berlin, Richard Grenell, praised Germany's new government for resolving the case.

Palij is accused of having lied to gain entry to the US almost 70 years ago, claiming he was a Polish farmer. Almost 20 years ago, the US authorities determined that he had been a member of the SS, the elite corps of the Nazi party, and had worked at the Trawniki concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, the Guardian reported.

The camp trained soldiers to round up Jews for extermination. In 2005, a US judge ordered his expulsion.

However, German authorities resisted taking him, saying the crimes he was alleged to have carried out took place on foreign soil. He was believed to be the last Nazi collaborator still living in the US. His residence in the Queens area of New York City attracted protests from residents.

A White House statement said Palij served as an armed guard and had played an "indispensable role" in ensuring Jews were killed. He arrived in the US in 1949 and was given citizenship in 1957.

Although a US court had ruled that he assisted in the persecution of prisoners, he was not found personally responsible for deaths. Palij himself has denied collaborating with the Nazis.

The US authorities were unable to persuade Germany, Ukraine or Poland to take him in. He never had German citizenship and originated from an area of Poland that is now Ukraine.

The US Ambassador said a change of heart came with the advent of Chancellor Angela Merkel's new Cabinet earlier this year.

Centre-left Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper that Germany had a "moral duty" to "come to terms with and face up to the crimes of the Nazi reign of terror".
New Delhi, Aug 21 : Finance, Coal and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said the relief material coming from foreign countries for distribution in flood-ravaged Kerala have been exempted from the customs duty and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

"The government is committed to help Kerala in this time of devastation," Goyal told the media here.

"...we have made all the relief materials coming from foreign countries for the Kerala flood relief exempt from customs duty as well as GST," he said.

On August 18, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Rs 500-crore financial assistance to the state.

Earlier, Home Minister Rajnath Singh during his visit to state also announced a financial assistance of Rs 100 crore.

Following the devastating floods, over one million people are now sheltered in 3,274 relief camps in the state. The death toll during this monsoon season is estimated at around 370.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : The Indian Railways has appealed to its employees to donate one day's salary each towards the Kerala relief fund, an official said on Tuesday.

The official said the move will help collect around Rs 200 crore since the Railways has around 12.5 lakh employees.

The official said that railway officials in Kerala have already donated Rs 65 lakh for relief work.

Following the devastating floods, over one million people are now sheltered in 3,274 relief camps in Kerala. The death toll since the monsoon rains began in the state on May 29 is around 370.
Harris was in the first cast at the Second City. And she was in the storied comedy theater's very first sketch. Her first performance there was the opening night of the theater: Dec. 16, 1959. She sung her own comic song. The words, telling of Harris' sly self-deprecation and off-kilter warmth, were: Everyone's in the know but me. Knows who Eisenhower has to tea. Knows what's wrong with education, specialization, automation. Are clear as to what they would have done had they been tempted by Twenty-One. Me, I'm not so sure of myself. No, I don't have it all clear. But, if you don't like your drink, the next one will taste better."
New Delhi, Aug 21 : A group of Indian and international partners on Tuesday announced the formation of a coalition that aims to catalyse a mass entrepreneurship movement in India with the aim of creating 10 million new entrepreneurs and 50 million new jobs by 2030.

The coalition, called Global Alliance Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), has received initial funding commitment of Rs 100 crore over three years from several Indian and global donors, a statement from GAME said.

The announcement was made at a day-long workshop here organised by The Rockefeller Foundation.

Endorsement and support for the alliance has come from many organisations.

"My ministry fully welcomes and supports this initiative and hopes to benefit by these ideas," K.P. Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, said in a statement.

"Helping more Indian families rise out of poverty remains a challenge we're committed to tackling; creating thousands of new companies and millions of new jobs is key to that. This alliance can make that goal a reality," said Christine Heenan, Vice President for Policy, Partnerships and Communications, The Rockefeller Foundation.

Announcing the formal launch of the initiative, Ravi Venkatesan, former Chairman of Bank of Baroda and Microsoft India and Founder of GAME said, "With GAME, we aim to create a focused autonomous organisation, bringing together a consortium of public, private and civil society organisations."
Lucknow/New Delhi, Aug 21 : The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday handed over a bank draft of Rs 15 crore to a representative of the Kerala government as its contribution for relief work in the flood-ravaged state, a government spokesman said.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had last week announced a sum of Rs 15 crore as Uttar Pradesh's donation to the coastal state which has been devastated by unprecedented floods triggered by heavy rains.

On Tuesday, Additional Resident Commissioner of Uttar Pradesh Dhanalaxmi K. handed over the bank draft for the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund to Kerala Resident Commissioner Puneet Kumar, at Kerala Bhawan in the national capital.

The Kerala official extended gratitude on behalf of his government for the donation, which he added would go a long way in helping the flood-hit people of the state. Other than this, the UP government has also pledged relief materials including medicines for Kerala.

Vehicles carrying this relief material was to be flagged off by Adityanath from his official residence on Tuesday but has since been put off citing "unforeseen reasons".
Kolkata, Aug 21 : The standoff between television artistes and a section of producers in Bengal over the payment of fees continued for the fourth day on Tuesaday even as senior members of the artistes' forum appealed to everyone to resume shooting.

"We conducted a meeting with the artistes to make our standpoint clear. Our only demand is that all our payments are made on time. We have requested everyone to resume work and the forum will take care of the existing problems," senior Bengali actor and Working President of West Bengal Motion Picture Artists' Forum Prosenjit Chatterjee told reporters here.

The shooting of a number of Bengali mega serials has been stalled since August 18, as disputes over regularisation of artistes' payment, due fees and working hours were not addressed by the Welfare Association of Television Producers (WATP).

According to Chatterjee, the members of Artist Forum would stick to their decision as it was not possible for them to keep working without getting paid on time.

"The decision was taken in the presence of a Minister, which cannot be denied. We are ready to discuss the problems without any pre-condition. But if the artistes and performers in the industry ask for their due payments, is that a crime?" Chattejee asked.

"Like everyone else, artistes also have prior commitments. If they do not get their fees on time, it would be impossible for them to fulfil those commitments," he added.

Arindam Ganguly, General Secretary of Artists' Forum, said: "Our main agenda is to regularise the payments. We haven't stalled the shoot as most of the artistes were waiting for the shoot even on Saturday when the disruption started."

Pointing out that some producers do make payments on time, he said that they had a meeting on July 7 with the producers' association on this issue, after which the work was going on peacefully. However, disruptions started after the producers said they do not agree with any of the points discussed at the meeting.

On the stance of the producers, Swaroop Biswas, Secretary, Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of Eastern India (FCTWEI), said: "I think the producers are being too rigid, which I feel is not right. Everyone in the industry including the producers, technicians and the artistes have to work, so rigidity won't help."

The producers have, however, blamed the artistes for stalling the work.

"Many artistes had done their make-up and were ready to shoot on Saturday (August 18), but they got a message on their phone to stop work. We haven't asked them to do so," WATP president Saibal Banerjee added.
Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 21 : For the first time in many days, the sun shone brightly over Kerala on Tuesday even as hundreds of thousands remained in relief camps while many who returned home broke down after seeing the enormity of the destruction.

There were no rains and the level of flood water in several areas of the state that got submerged had receded, officials and residents said. But the low-lying areas in the districts of Ernakulam, Idukki and Thrissur were still under a sheet of water.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), home to hundreds of thousands of Keralites, has pledged $100 million for relief work in Kerala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced.

"A new Kerala has to be built... Funds are the prime requisite for this. This will be raised by us through various sources besides getting it from the Centre and other agencies," he told the media.

Both central and state agencies besides NGOs continued to rescue those still stranded in flooded areas and provide relief on a massive scale in the wake of the worst flooding in the state in a century that has left some 370 people dead and caused widespread destruction.

In Neliyamapathy in Palakkad district, helicopters ferried pregnant women and others seeking medical help from a marooned spot while dumping food for more than 1,000 people still cut off after roads in the region were severely damaged.

In Chengannur, the last of those trapped in water-logged places had been rescued, said local legislator Saji Cherian.

Likewise, rescue operations were declared over in Paravur in Ernakulam district, one of the most affected places since torrential rains and the opening of sluice gates of many dams caused a deluge.

In Wayanad, people began to start going back to their homes, now filled with mud and filth. But 800 tribal families were distraught as their homes had been washed away.

"We have nothing left. And we have nowhere to go," cried a tribal woman.

In Malappuram and Kozhikode districts too, many were seen leaving the camps.

"We have given a departure kit to everyone and it includes all the basic things for people to restart life," said a government official.

The Kerala Police on Tuesday took charge of all the 3,000 relief camps.

Police chief Loknath Behra warned that appropriate action would be taken against all traders who jack up prices of essential commodities.

"There will be no leniency shown to such people and those who engage in spreading fake messages and news. Already a few are behind the bars."

Murali, a carpenter, lamented that there was nothing in his house that could be salvaged. "I have lost Rs 50,000 worth of equipment. I have to start from the scratch."

A freelance photographer in Chengannur broke down when he found his most precious camera destroyed.

Said a woman in Pandanadu: "We are left just with the clothes we are wearing."

Meanwhile, a Coast Guard ship arrived at the Cochin Port with 48 tonnes of relief materials.

Several groups have launched an initiative to clean people's houses.

Aravind Sasi, a journalist here, said he had already completed the cleaning of a house in Thiruvalla.

"We have all the cleaning materials and we have an electrician also... Tomorrow we will reach Ranni where we will clean up around three houses," he said.

Vijayan said they would ask the Centre to allow Kerala to increase the market borrowings from 3 per cent of the state's total revenue to 4.5 per cent. As a result an additional Rs 10,000 crore can be raised.

The Chief Minister said he would demand a special package for Kerala from the Modi government.

On Tuesday, the Centre waived of customs and import duty on all materials arriving from abroad.
Jaipur, Aug 21 : Hathi Gaon (the village of elephants), near Jaipur, has 102 of them. It is from here the giant animal is sent to various tourist places for joy rides. One of these resident-elephants, Elephant Number 44, if you care, has been badly sick with serious infections in the foot. And it continues to carry tourists for joy rides.

'Shackled, beaten, and abused. Be a compassionate traveller: Say no to elephant rides' -- reads a big billboard of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) at the Railway Station Flyover in Jaipur.

Elephant Number 44's plight was highlighted in June 2017 when a group of American tourists at Amer Fort saw him being beaten up continuously for at least 10 minutes.

His story spread light wild fire, prompting Bollywood actor Sonakshi Sinha in February 2018 to write to PETA India requesting sending the animal to a rehab facility for urgent care.

Instead, the elephant continues to be used for rides.

"The gut-wrenching image of a suffering captive elephant being viciously beaten by a group of men should be enough to convince any compassionate person never to ride an elephant", says PETA India CEO Dr Manilal Valliyate.

"PETA India's billboard is the latest step towards our work to shut down the archaic and cruel elephant ride industry at Amer Fort," says Valliyate.

The billboard follows a PETA India report in April that revealed shocking cruelty to elephants used for rides at Amer Fort and at elephant village (Hathi Gaon). PETA India filed a petition before the Jaipur Bench of the High Court seeking an end to illegal elephant rides at Amer Fort.

"The High Court last month recommended animal registration certificates with owners' names. But an inspection by Animal Welfare Board of India and a group of state government's veterinary doctors found that in Hathi Gaon, there were no such certificates," said Valliyate.

According to the PETA India report, among the 102 working elephants examined at Amer Fort, many were found to be more than 50 years old. Ten tested reactive to tuberculosis (TB) test, which can be transmitted to humans, and 19 were observed to be visually impaired, rendering them unfit to give rides because of the danger posed to both themselves and the public, the report said.

All were found to be suffering from various foot problems, including overgrown toenails and bruised footpads, and many displayed stereotypical behaviour patterns, such as repetitive swaying and head-bobbing, indicating severe psychological distress, the report said.

"The tusks of 47 elephants appeared to have been cut, in apparent violation of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, raising suspicion that the tusks may have entered the illegal wildlife trade," the report said.

And all of those examined were seen carrying loads heavier than 200 kg, which is the legal maximum weight for these animals on hilly terrain.

The post-mortem reports for four elephants who died within a period of five months in 2017 indicate that most had been suffering from respiratory diseases and a heavy internal parasitic load, the report added.

More than 100 travel agencies, including global operators such as TripAdvisor, The Travel Corporation, Intrepid Travel, smarTours, STA Travel, and TUI Group, have restrained themselves from offering activities that exploit elephants.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : A bank customer was injured at a bank in south Delhi on Tuesday after the bank guard's service weapon went off accidentally.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Romil Baaniya said guard Rudra Pal Singh, a retired Army man, posted at the Vijaya Bank's Defence Colony branch negligently fired a shot around 1.30 p.m., injuring Rajender Singh from Mithapur in Badarpur area.

Rajender is undergoing treatment at a hospital. The firearm and five cartridges have been seized by police.

"The guard was taken into custody and booked under Sections 336 and 337 of the Indian Penal Code for endangering the lives and personal safety of others and Section 30 of the Arms Act," the officer said.
Chennai, Aug 21 : Energy major Indian Oil Corp (IOC) is meeting the entire aviation fuel needs of the Indian Air Force (IAF) flights in Kerala, moving the fuel from other southern states, said a senior official.

"The aviation fuel demand at Thiruvananthapuram airport has shot up drastically from about 180 kilo litres (KL) per day to about 550 KL/per day. We are moving the fuel from Coimbatore, Bengaluru, Mengaluru and even from Hyderabad," Sabitha Natraj, General Manager (Corporate Communications) South Zone, told IANS.

She said it was a logistical challenge for the IOC to cater to the increased needs of Kerala that was affected by floods as supplies to various markets had to be diverted without affecting the demand and supply situation anywhere.

An IOC official said the truck operators had to be cajoled to take the supplies to Kerala.

The fuel needs of civilian flights were also met by IOC at the Thiruvananthapuram airport.

Natraj said the IOC's aviation team reached the aviation turbine fuel to upcountry locations like Palakkad where IAF choppers operated rescue efforts.

From refuelling 8-10 flights per day, the flight numbers in the Kerala capital had shot up to 80-90 a day due to relief work post floods, she said.

According to her, IOC has also moved 1,861 KL of petrol and 1,913 KL of diesel from Madurai and Coimbatore and 523 KL of aviation fuel from Sankari in Salem district in Tamil Nadu and Chennai to Kerala between August 17 and 20.
Manama, Aug 21 : Bahrain authorities on Tuesday announced they were suspending issuance of entry visas for Qataris.

"The decision wasn't taken because of Qatari nationals who share brotherly ties with Bahrainis, but as a result of irresponsible acts of Qatari authorities that don't consider the rights of neighbouring countries or the principles of the international law," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The Ministry said Qatari students in Bahrain were excluded along with those with valid visas.

The Arab Quartet consisting of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt severed all ties with Doha last year for "supporting terror groups".

The Quartet issued a list of 13 demands presented to Doha through Kuwait to resolve the crisis that is still not addressed. The demands included closing a Turkish military base in Qatar and shutting the Al Jazeera pan-Arab television network.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : Train traffic on all major routes earlier disrupted due to damage to tracks by floods in Kerala has been restored, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday.

"The traffic between Thiruvananthapuram and Nagercoil, Ernakulam and Kottayam, Ernakulam and Shoranur, Palakkad and Shoranur, Shoranur and Kozhikode, and Kollam and Punalur has been resumed after completion of repairs," Goyal said.

The Indian Railways staff is still working to restore traffic on the Punalur-Senkottai-Thrissur-Gururvayur tracks, which were heavily damaged.

"The work on this section is going on at a war footing, and the route is likely to be ready for trains within two-three days," the Minister said.

Almost all train services, except for a few for want of pairing rakes, have been restored in the state.

"Due to unprecedented monsoon rains and consequent opening of dams in Kerala, three divisions of Southern Railway were severely affected due to heavy floods, landslips and boulders on tracks," the Minister said.

Goyal said that in the Thiruvananthapuram division, the flood water had risen above the danger mark beneath 11 rail bridges while tracks were submerged at three locations. Even track embankments were washed away at three places with earth slips reported from seven locations on various sections.

"The tracks were damaged on the Palakkad division of the Southern Railway as water level rose to dangerous level near 10 rail bridges and track got submerged at one location. In Madurai Division, earth slip and falling of boulders was reported from six locations, he said.

A senior Ministry official said that the Railways will ferry relief material from across the country to Kerala free of cost till August 31.
Tehran, Aug 21 : Iran unveiled its first fighter jet "Kowsar" at a ceremony marking the National Defence Day here on Tuesday.

The fighter jet has been designed and manufactured by Iranian engineers and will be used as a defensive tool for the country, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said. The jet, however, was by no means a threat to the region but for sustainable peace, he was quoted as saying by official news agency IRNA.

"Iran's preparedness for defence does not mean warmongering but signifies a durable peace," he said, adding that Tehran never invaded its regional neighbours and will never do so.

The Kowsar fighter jet made its first flight during the ceremony, marking the anniversary of Iran's military industry in the presence of Rouhani, Defence Minister Brig. Gen. Amir Hatami and other senior military officials.

The jet features multi-purpose digital monitor technology, computerized ballistic calculations of weaponry and the HUD system to provide precise guidance, as well as advanced multi-objective fire control radar to improve threats detection.

Hitting out at the US, the Iranian President said: "Washington imposes sanctions on Iran, but refrains from taking military action against the Islamic republic, since it is aware of the heavy costs of aggression."

"Any hostile move against Iran would cost the aggressors dearly," he said, according to Tasnim news agency.
Recovery has been a difficult process, but it is an extraordinary accomplishment, and we are very proud of her! She deals with anxiety, depression, ADHD, LD, OCD and an eating disorder. She has lost all of her friends, a nice boyfriend and the respect of many family members. Her father and I are all she has left at this point.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the government if it can direct the Election Commission to include in the symbol order a clause that a political party is liable to lose its recognition if it fields candidates with criminal antecedents.

"Why can't we exhort Parliament like the Law Commission does to address the problem? Why can't we take clue from Section 33A of the Representation of People Act and direct the Election Commission to include in Symbol order a stipulation to bar people with criminal antecedents from electoral fray?" the court asked.

"Without asking the legislature (to make a law), you are asking the Election Commission (to insert addition qualifications)," Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said.

The top court, he said, could exhort Parliament to enact a law to bar the people with criminal background from the electoral fray, but any expansion of the Symbols Order that would have a bearing on the recognition of political parties would be ultra vires.

The five-judge constitution bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Fali Nariman, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice Indu Malhotra is hearing a plea by NGO Public Interest Foundation seeking to bar people from electoral politics against whom charges have been framed by trial courts for heinous offences.

The Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 says that a party would be recognized as a national party if it has fielded candidates in any four or more states, in the last general election to Lok Sabha or the legislative assembly and has secured 6% of the valid votes polled in each of the four states.

Besides this, the party has to secure four seats in the Lok Sabha from either one state or all the four states.

Informing the court about the presumption of innocence till an accused is convicted, Venugopal said excluding a person, charged with a criminal offence yet not convicted from the election fray would amount to adding another disqualification.

"It will be ultra vires," Attorney General said as Justice Chandrachud asked: "Is there anything that prevents the Election Commission from introducing additional qualifications? Can't EC incorporate such provisions in its rules?"

The constitution bench is hearing a reference by a three-judge bench on the question "whether disqualification for membership can be laid down by the court beyond Article 102(a) to (d) and the law made by Parliament under Article 120(e)?"
New Delhi, Aug 21 : Repayment of funds, which was raised from overseas market in 2013, has been a main reason for rupee depreciation in the past few months, a senior Finance Ministry official said on Tuesday.

However, the official maintained that there has been a "zero depreciation" of the Indian currency in the last 5-years between 2013 and 2018.

"In 2013, about $32-34 billion were raised by the government that appreciated the Indian rupee," the senior official said here on Tuesday adding that "the currency exchange rate between the US dollar and the Indian rupee pair is the same in 2018 as it was in 2013."

"In the last 5-years, the Indian rupee has remained stable against all major currencies like Euro and Pound, though vis-a-vis the US dollar there has been some depreciation due to the strengthening of the USD."

"We are the only country among the emerging market economies, whose currency has maintained a stable value in the long term."

In recent days, factors such as geo-political developments, wider trade deficit, along with outflow of foreign funds have pulled the Indian rupee to fresh record intra-day and closing lows.

On August 16, the Indian rupee had plunged to an intra-day low level of 70.39-40 -- its lowest ever mark -- against the greenback prompting automobile manufacturers and other import dependent sectors to raise prices.

It settled at a record closing low of 70.16 against the US dollar on August 16.

However, easing of global trade tensions, the Indian rupee appreciated by 2 paise on Tuesday to settle at 69.81 per US dollar, from 69.83 on the previous trade session.

On the country's foreign reserves position, the official said: "We are in a comfortable position as far as the forex reserves are concerned."

Recently, the country's foreign reserves as handled by the Reserve Bank of India declined by over $1.80 billion during the week ended August 10 to $400.88 billion from $402.70 billion reported for the week ended August 3.

Analysts attributed the decline in Forex reserves to RBI's intervention to stem the decline in rupee's fall. The RBI is known to enter the markets via intermediaries to either sell or buy US dollars to keep the rupee in a stable orbit.
Panaji, Aug 21 : A former temple priest, who has been booked for molesting two young women in the temple premises, surrendered before a local magistrate on Tuesday after remaining traceless for nearly one month.

The 51-year-old accused, Dhananjay Bhave, now a former priest at the popular Mangueshi temple located in South Goa, was formally arrested by officials from the Ponda Police Station soon after his surrender.

"The accused has been remanded for two days in police custody," an official investigating the case said requesting anonymity.

On July 19, Bhave, who was then serving as a temple priest, was booked under Section 354 (outraging modesty) of the IPC after a young woman accused him of hugging and kissing her.

Two days later, another victim filed an FIR accusing the temple priest of also trying to kiss her near the sanctum sanctorum of the temple.

The police had been unable to contact Bhave, even as the priest suspended by the temple authorities had filed an anticipatory bail application, which was eventually rejected by the Bombay High Court bench in Panaji.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : The Supreme Court was moved on Tuesday challenging the amendment to the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act restoring the provision mandating immediate arrest in the event of a complaint under the statute.

The petitioner lawyers Prathvi Raj Chauhan and Priya Sharma have challenged the amendment to the Act in its just concluded monsoon session by which top court judgment diluting the provision was reversed.

Comparing the recent amendment with the one brought by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi government to overturn the top court verdict in Shah Bano case, the petitioner lawyers have described the amendment as "arbitrary" as it reversed the top court decision to protect the innocent people from the abuse of the stringent provisions of the Act.

In the Shah Bano case, the top court had awarded her maintenance to the divorcee Muslim woman, but then Rajiv Gandhi government brought an amendment to overturn the judgment holding that it was an infringement of the Muslim Personal Law.

The petitioner lawyers have contended that the government brought the amendment under pressure from alliance partners and for political mileage and its worry over antagonising huge vote-bank ahead of the next year's Lok Sabha elections.

It says the government plea seeking the recall of this order is still pending before the top court.

In its plea seeking the recall of the judgment diluting stringent provisions, the Centre had told the top court that its judgment had "seriously affected their (SC/ST) morale in the ability of State to protect them."

The top court had held on March 20 that the police will hold an inquiry to ascertain the veracity of a complaint filed under the Act before acting on it.

The court had said that it was providing for the safeguard "in view of acknowledged abuse of law of arrest" under the Act.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : The central government has decided to send an additional 89,540 tonnes of food grains to the flood-battered Kerala, Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Tuesday.

Under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) scheme, Kerala gets 1,18,000 tonnes of food grains per month but it does not cover the entire population.

"We want food grains to reach every person in the state. So, we are sending additional 89,540 tonnes. In addition, we have sent 100 tonnes of pulses, with 80 tonnes to be supplied daily henceforth," Paswan told reporters here.

Under the NFSA, 75 per cent of the rural population and up to 50 per cent of the urban population receive subsidised food grains -- 5 kg per person per month at Rs 3, Rs 2, Re 1 per kg of rice, wheat, and coarse grains respectively.

Paswan said that the Ministry had not decided on who would incur the expenses on the supply of additional food grains.

"It is in the initial stage. The issue of who pays the bill is not a matter of concern now. The food grain supply can be done for three months," Paswan said.

The central government will provide as much help as possible to Kerala, he added.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : The Centre on Tuesday said 65 tonnes of emergency drugs have been transported by the Indian Air Force to check epidemics in flood-hit Kerala.

According to the Health Ministry, one crore of chlorine tablets have been sent and another crore is in transit.

"The total request for four crore chlorine tablets will be sent in phases. The Health Ministry has further mobilized 20 tonnes of bleaching powder which is being sent by road," said a statement from the Ministry.

The Ministry has also formed 12 public health teams, one each to be deployed in the 12 worst affected districts in Kerala.

The Ministry's decision comes after Union Health Minister J.P Nadda held a meeting to review the relief measures in Kerala.

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has issued several health advisories to support the state in meeting the post-flood public health management when the threat of water borne, vector borne and viral hepatitis diseases might become potent.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : A man working as the food and events manager of a luxury hotel here has been arrested along with a friend on charges of stealing a car, police said on Tuesday.

Ishit Monga, 21, along with his friend Akshay Arora, 25, stole a Ford Eco from the parking space of Connaught Place's PVR Plaza on August 15, Deputy Commissioner of Police Madhur Verma said.

When the car owner reached there around 7.45 p.m., he was told by the parking attendant that someone had driven away his vehicle by producing a parking slip, Verma said.

On August 18, the car was found abandoned near the Safdarjung flyover at Lodhi Colony. In it the police found a letter-head of the hotel which led to the the accused.

The two men confessed to their involvement in the crime. After being refused the use of a car by his father, Monga took away the vehicle from the parking lot.
Bengaluru, Aug 21 : Relief operations were in full swing in Karnataka's flood-hit Kodagu district as rains abated and life limped back to normal, an official said on Tuesday.

"We are concentrating on providing shelter and other relief to the people evacuated from towns and villages in the hilly areas flooded by rains and blocked by landslides," Kodagu Deputy Commissioner P. Sreevidya told reporters at Madikeri, about 270 km from here.

Though rescue operations slowed down as flood waters receded, the administration is using drones to look for people reported missing or stranded in remote areas or villages where landslips were witnessed.

"We are receiving huge quantities of relief material, especially food items, drinking water, clothes, utensils, mats and tarpaulin from Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Udupi and other places in the state.

"Food, warm clothing, medical care, baby feed, bedsheets and other essential items have been distributed in the relief camps.

"Essential items, including medicines, have been rushed to 51 relief camps housing 7,594 people across the district," said Sreevidya.

The administration has also rushed food grains and other provisions to towns and villages across the district, as heavy rains and floods disrupted supplies over the last 10 days due to landslides and roadblocks.

"Besides state officials, hundreds of volunteers from non-government organisations are helping us in looking after those staying in the relief camps. It will take a week before they can return to their homes as restoration works are slow due to extensive damage caused by floodwaters," the officer said.

According to initial estimates, the cumulative loss in the ravaged district is said to be about Rs 2,000-Rs 3,000 crore due to heavy damage to infrastructure like roads, bridges, power lines, apart from houses and agricultural crops.

Two MI-17 helicopters of the Indian Air Force (IAF) took off for relief work in Kodagu, operating from Kushalnagar, Periapatna and Harangi.

"Helicopters undertook aerial recce and rescue missions in flood-affected areas of Monnangeri and Jodupala to identify ground rescue in coordination with district officials," the IAF training command said in a statement here.

The choppers were also used in airlifting essentials to the affected areas.

State Relief Commissioner Gangaram Baderiya said here later that the joint rescue operation was in the last leg, as rainfall had considerably reduced.

"No distress call was received since Monday. Rescuers are trekking and screening other villages. Till Tuesday, 4,390 people were rescued and brought to safety by NGOs and local communities," said Baderiya in the statement.

The Border Road Organisation has deputed engineers and army engineering task force to assist in clearing debris and restoration work.

Temporary structures using 2,000 aluminium sheets to house about 10,000 homeless people displaced due to landslides will be built on priority.

"Besides Rs 3,800 relief amount per family for subsistence, 10 kg rice, 1 litre oil, 1 kg sugar, 1 kg salt, 1 kg dal (lentil) are being supplied to the affected families," added Baderiya.

The district administration has also ordered hotels, resorts, homestays and guesthouses to cancel bookings till August 31 due to the havoc wrought by heavy rains in the hilly region.

Meanwhile, the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit has rushed 10 tonnes of food grains and other relief material to the affected in Kodagu in trucks from Bengaluru.

The Commissioner has also requested the public, philanthropists, NGOs and companies to contribute money to the Chief Minister's Calamity Relief Fund through cheque or draft.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : Terming Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu's visit to Pakistan a non-issue since he went there in his personal capacity, the party on Tuesday turned to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him as to what happened to the red lines of 'no-talks' till terror from Pakistan stops.

It said the PM's letter to his newly elected counterpart Imran Khan was to "obfuscate this government's lack of policy."

Modi has written to Khan saying India desires "constructive engagement" with Islamabad. The Congress has demanded that the Prime Minister should make the letter public to clear the air about multiple narratives about 'resumtion of dialogue' with Pakistan.

The party said India and Pakistan relations are extremely complicated. "Navjot Singh Sidhu is not the issue," it emphasized.

"The real issue is the relationship between India and Pakistan, the impact of the India-Pakistan stand-off on South Asia and the complete absence of the NDA-BJP government's policy towards Pakistan," said Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari.

"There seems to be a suggestion of resumption of a dialogue despite all the red lines," he said. "These lines mean that there will be no talks till terror from Pakistan stops, till the trial of the 26/11 perpetrators is not resumed, till Lakhvi is not put back in the prison, till Hafiz Saeed, who heads the Jamat-ud-Dawa, is not incarcerated," he said.

"So there has been a concerted attempt by the government to try and obfuscate this. That is the real issue," he added.

On government contradicting Pakistan's foreign minister's claim on PM's offer on India's overtures for talks with Pakistan, Tewari said: "The difficulty with this government is, it only speaks through sources on uncomfortable questions."

"You have a second narrative on 'sources in India' which says that no such offer has been made. So why does not the Prime minister make the letter public, which he has written to Prime Minister Imran Khan?" he asked.

"I think, it would be appropriate that the letter be put it in the public space so that the whole thing can be clarified. And may I also add, I don't see the government doing so," he added.

Tewai said it was not the responsibility of the Congress to suggest a policy. "We conceptualized policy and implemented it for 10 years while we were in government," he said.

"The NDA-BJP government has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous on their Pakistan policy," he said.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday expressed his displeasure to Lt. Governor Anil Baijal after the DDA expressed its unwillingness to take part in the Delhi government's mega tree plantation drive.

In a letter to Baijal, Kejriwal said the Delhi Development Authority's (DDA) senior officials failed to show up at two meetings convened by him regarding a mammoth drive to plant five lakh trees and shrubs.

On August 18, Kejriwal had called a meeting of all the greening agencies. It was decided that the plantation drive would be carried out on September 8. The DDA did not attend the meeting.

"When I called you (Baijal) and informed you, you were kind enough to say that you would ensure participation of the DDA Vice Chairman in the next meeting," Kejriwal said.

"It pains me to inform that today (on Tuesday), a junior level officer came to the meeting and said that the DDA has already planted three lakh trees and will not participate in this tree plantation drive," he added.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader said that in the second review meeting of preparations of the upcoming drive with all the greening agencies on Tuesday, "the DDA was the only agency which was short of answers".

"DDA was trailing by 70 per cent of its greening target for the current year and still the DDA official refused to participate in the tree plantation drive," Kejriwal said in his letter.

The DDA reports to the central government, which has been locked in a power struggle with the AAP government in Delhi.
New York, Aug 21 : Involvement of teachers as participants in school recess -- leading games, monitoring play and ensuring conflicts -- may boost kid's physical activity, a new study has found.

Recess is seen by educators and policymakers as a valuable part of a child's school day, in part because physical activity plays an important role in helping to curb high child obesity rates.

The findings, published in the journal Preventive Medicine Reports, suggested that students are more likely to be active and engaged during longer recess periods.

"While recess is often perceived as a break for students and teachers alike, it can also be an opportunity for teachers and students to interact in more informal settings, for teachers to model healthy behaviour and appropriate social skills and for students and teachers to develop stronger relationships," said lead author William Massey, Assistant Professor at the Oregon State University in the US.

For the study, the team outfitted 146 children in grades 4-6 from seven schools with fitness tracking devices to monitor their physical activity during the school day, including recess.

They examined several variables that affect both a child's engagement in recess activities and the amount of physical activity they netted during recess periods.

The researchers also observed recess activity for 8,340 students at nine schools and analysed the quality of the recess environment and the students' engagement in activities.

They found that the average recess period was nearly 23 minutes and that students averaged just under 42 steps per minute during recess. The researchers also found that boys averaged about 10 more steps per minute than girls in each recess period.

Overall, recess contributed to 27 per cent of the students' daily step count average, even though it made up just 5.6 per cent of the children's school day. The researchers also found that boys were more engaged in recess than girls.

"This study underscores the importance of a high quality recess experience for children, including the need for adults who are actively engaged with the children on the playground," Massey noted.
Kolkata, Aug 21 : Questioning the prevailing democratic situation in the country, BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha, who has often spoken against the BJP government at the Centre, on Tuesday said democracy in India has "relapsed a lot".

"Democracy has relapsed a lot. Some of the incidents that we have noticed were not desirable," said Sinha.

"This (Supreme Court judges coming out in public) was first time it happened in the history of Indian democracy. I am not saying what's right or wrong. I am saying how the situation came to a pass where they had to come out and talk to media. I feel very sad about it," Sinha said at an event organised by Calcutta Chamber of Commerce.

Meanwhile, Janata Dal (United) Rajya Sabha MP Pavan Kumar Varma said the BJP, the largest party in the country now, would find difficulties in the next year's general elections to repeat its performance in the same magnitude as it did in 2014.

When asked about it, Sinha said, "Time will tell."

Speaking on the controversy relating to the draft National Register of Citizens in Assam, he said: "Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that no genuine Indian would face any injustice. Others (people who were left out of the draft NRC) will have options to appeal. The matter is on way to getting resolved."

Criticising the Centre on demonetisation and implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST), he said a "complicated GST" was rolled out when the country had "not fully recovered from the note-ban shock".

Sinha, however, categorically said he would continue with his party.

Asked about efforts being made by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to form a federal front, Sinha said, "I am not in the (proposed) front. I am technically and emotionally with the BJP. It is my first and last party. I only talk in favour of democracy and national interest."
New Delhi, Aug 21 : The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Centre to file within two weeks a status report on vacant posts of Chairpersons and Members in various tribunals across the country and the stages of the selection processes to fill them.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud also clarified that Members of the Armed Forces Tribunal shall hold office till the age of 65.

Tribunal Chairpersons who have been former Supreme Court Judges shall hold their present office till the age of 70, the bench said, adding that old rules will continue to apply in case of the Central Administrative Tribunal.

Members of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal shall be in office till the age of 62 while its President shall continue till the age of 65, the bench said.

The court's order came on a batch of pleas challenging the Finance Act and the Tribunal, Appellate and other Authorities (Qualifications, Experience and Other Conditions of Service of Members) Rules 2017, which dealt with appointment, tenure and other service conditions of Chairs/Members of such panels.

The appointments in various tribunals were stalled due to the pendency in the top court of the petitions, which had alleged that the newly amended Finance Act had changed the processes related to search, selection and removal of Members and presiding officers of the tribunals.

The pleas were filed by the National Green Tribunal Bar Association, Employees Provident Fund Tribunal Bar Association and one Kudrat Sandhu, who had also sought an interim stay on the new Act and the Rules, under which a new Search-cum-Selection Committee for the post of Administrative Member would be set up.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal held a meeting with representatives of food-processing industry and informed them about the immediate need for baby food in Kerala relief camps, official sources said on Tuesday.

Badal held a meeting with industry leaders on Monday to plan a strategy for assistance for the flood-affected people in Kerala. The meeting was attended by representatives from ITC, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Hindustan Unilever, Dabur, MTR, Nestle, Britannia, and Marico.

"It is time to work as a cohesive unit and make a coordinated effort to help the people of Kerala, instead of separate entities making individual efforts," an official release quoted Badal as saying.

The contribution from the industry includes packaged drinking water, biscuits, buns, Maggi, packed juices, oats, chocolate bars, sanitary products, milk powder, and wheat products.
Gandhinagar, Aug 22 : Gujarat Leader of the Opposition Paresh Dhanani on Tuesday said the state governments ordering a one-man inquiry committee into the alleged groundnut procurement scam was to cover up its own "wrong-doings".

"This is the eleventh such commission ordered by state government, which I believe will yield nothing. Instead of our demands of ordering a probe headed by a sitting high court judge, the government has entrusted this to a retired judge H.K. Rathod," Dhanani told reporters here.

He was referring to the alleged scam where huge groundnut stocks procured by the state government were adulterated with gravel and dust after the good quality grains were removed from it. In at least four such cases where this was detected, the godowns where the groundnut was stocked were set on fire.

After a state-wide hue and cry by the opposition Congress, over 3o persons were arrested and later on Saturday evening the government constituted a one-man committee under a retired high court judge.

However, according to Dhanani who is leading the Congres charge against the scam, this was not enough.

"Why isn't the government complying with our demands?" he wondered. There are lots of other questions which need answers. Why isn't the government acting against the members of the (agriculture) cooperative, who are moving about freely, headed by former agriculture minister Chimanbhai Saparia," he said.

Dhanani said it was clear the government had accepted the scam in groundnut procurement, so "the chief minister should immediately resign on moral grounds".

Doubting the scope of the judicial probe ordered by the state government, the opposition leader said, "This commission has been constituted just to save the tainted skin of the BJP."

"There is no clarification by the government on the fire that engulfed the warehouses where the groundnut was stored, the procurement process, who and how the selection of the cooperatives and the agencies (for procurement) was carried out, how was the storage done and the how was the rent decided. All such questions are not addressed in the terms of reference of the commission," he added.

"So it is clear commission's probe is just to save the skin of the real culprits behind the scam," he went on.

Dhanani wondered why was the probe limited to only five warehouses where the fire took place and not to all 279 where the groundnut was stocked, why was it that the fires in five godowns were of similar in nature, why have the FSL reports still not obtained, even after seven months.
Washington, Aug 22 : US Under Secretary of Treasury Sigal Mandelker has said Washington will impose "much more economic pain" to Russia if it does not change its global behaviours significantly.

Speaking on Tuesday before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Mandelker said, "Though Russia's malign activities continue, we believe its adventurism undoubtedly has been checked by the knowledge that we can bring much more economic pain to bear using our powerful range of authorities - and that we will not hesitate to do so if its conduct does not demonstrably and significantly change," Xinhua reported.

She said the Treasury's actions have caused "extensive consequences" in Russia in such areas as domestic and foreign private investment, energy and money laundering.

"The significance of our actions and other financial measures must ultimately be measured in terms of their strategic impacts," she added.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Treasury announced to sanction several Russia-related individuals and entities over their involvement in actions against the US sanctions.

The US State Department said earlier this month that the country will impose new sanctions on Russia in two phases, and the first batch will take effect around August 22.

Russia and the US have been waging sanctions against each other as bilateral relations continue to worsen over recent years.

Moscow has repeatedly said that it reserves the right to take additional countermeasures against US diplomatic properties in Russia if Washington continues hostility.
Newsec has signed Thomas Kempf as the new head of the Danish Property Asset Management business, Newsec Datea. Kempf leaves a role as COO at Coor Denmark. He will start his new job on 1 October and focus going forward will be on continuing the work with digitalizing the business

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A tightly held Wentworth Street, Dover Heights clifftop offering sold at auction last night for a bullish $6 million.

With private ocean views, it is a knockdown on 544 sqm that came with $4.5 million hopes through Bradfield Cleary agent Georgia Cleary.

The price guidance was based on a $4.4 million sale of a 449 sqm holding a few doors along by Cleary in mid-2017.

The home, bought in the 1940s for 340 pounds, last traded internally among relatives at $200,000 in 1982.

It sold to a phone bidder represented by estate agent Wayne Ihaka.

The sighting of Deborra-lee Furness at an open for inspection quickly triggered a wave of suggestions she and her showman husband Hugh Jackman could be on the lookout for a permanent Sydney abode.

They were no-show at the auction.

The word from the Jackman camp is that Furness was merely assisting a family friend with their Dover Heights property search.
Natural gas now produces more electricity in the U.S. than coal, which as recently as a decade ago was responsible for more than half of the nations energy. The shifting economics are a major reason why nearly 270 U.S. coal plants have either closed or been scheduled for retirement during the past eight years, according to a tally by the Sierra Club, a nonprofit advocacy group that turned up the pressure on power companies with a series of Clean Air Act lawsuits.
transcosmos Korea will help global companies that venture into the Korean market through the outstanding customer services more than ever before.

transcosmos Korea, Inc., a subsidiary of transcosmos inc., is delighted to announce that each one of the companys 25 all-star team members received the COPC CSP Implementation Leader certification after going through a COPC(R) Best Practices for CX Operations training class from April 23 to April 27, 2018.

COPC(R) Best Practices for CX Operations is the de-facto global industry standard training program that helps companies achieve cost optimization and sales expansion as well as develop globally sought-after talent for their capabilities of improving service quality and customer satisfaction (CS). COPC Inc. certifies training participants who pass a half-day exam at the end of the class as, COPC CSP Implementation Leader.

25 transcosmos Korea employees who are responsible for service operations and consultants who execute business improvement initiatives in the CRM business which focuses on contact center services and BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) business participated in the COPC(R) Best Practices for CX Operations class and all 25 members became, Certified COPC CSP Implementation Leader.

Having 25 Certified COPC Implementation Leaders is a testament to transcosmos Korea being the global leader of outsourcing vendors including call center players. transcosmos Korea will help various global companies that venture into the Korean market by improving their customer experience, optimizing their costs and expanding their sales through the provision of outstanding customer services and customer experience that meet global standards more than ever before.

About COPC Inc. (http://www.copc.com)

COPC Inc. is an innovative global leader that empowers organizations to manage complex customer journeys. The company created the COPC Customer Experience (CX) Standard and provides consulting, training and certification for operations that support the customer experience. Founded in 1996, COPC Inc. began by helping call centers improve their performance. Today, the company works with leading brands worldwide to optimize key customer touchpoints and deliver a seamless experience across channels. COPC Inc. is privately held with headquarters in Winter Park, FL, U.S. and has operations in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, Latin America, India and Japan. To learn more about COPC Inc., visit http://www.copc.com.

About COPC(R) Best Practices for CX Operations

COPC(R) Best Practices for CX Operations is an in-person training program for companies that operate a single-channel such as call center players as well as companies that offer omni-channel customer support via website, social media and mobile. This training shows participants, mainly customer service providers, the fundamentals of measuring and managing customer experience, methods for gathering and analyzing customer feedback, quality approach to drive improvement in customer experience, how to apply real-world benchmarks, implementation tips, and guidelines and best practices based on the CRPC CX (Customer Experience) Standard in order to manage and improve customer experience whilst improving customer satisfaction and profits. At the end of COPC(R) Best Practices for CX Operations class, COPC Inc. certifies participants who pass a half-day, in-person exam as Certified COPC Implementation Leader.

*transcosmos is a trademark or registered trademark of transcosmos inc. in Japan and other countries.

*Other company names and product or service names used here are trademarks or registered trademarks of respective companies.

About transcosmos Korea, Inc.

transcosmos Korea, a subsidiary of transcosmos, offers extensive business process outsourcing (BPO) services that include contact center services, chat services, field services, direct mail services, direct sales and internet promotion services.

Established: May, 2001

Number of bases: 14

Number of employees: 7,600 (approximate)

URL: http://www.trans-cosmos.co.kr/

About transcosmos inc.

transcosmos launched its operations in 1966. Since then, we have combined superior people with up-to-date technology to enhance the competitive strength of our clients by providing them with superior and valuable services. transcosmos currently offers services that support clients business processes focusing on both sales expansion and cost optimization through our 173 locations across 33 countries with a focus on Asia, while continuously pursuing Operational Excellence. Furthermore, following the expansion of e-commerce market on the global scale, transcosmos provides a comprehensive One-Stop Global E-Commerce Services to deliver our clients' excellent products and services to consumers in 49 countries around the globe. transcosmos aims to be the Global Digital Transformation Partner of our clients, supporting the clients transformation by leveraging digital technology, responding to the ever-changing business environment. Visit us here https://www.trans-cosmos.co.jp/english/
"Resilient systems from cyberattacks are imperative for the safe operation of any Intelligent Autonomous Systems, says Ken Brizel, ACAMP CEO.

The Alberta Centre for Advanced MNT Products (ACAMP) and Raytheon Canada Limited, a subsidiary of Raytheon Company, join forces with the Alberta based Advanced Systems for Transportation Consortium to protect intelligent autonomous systems from cyberattacks.

With the global advanced transportation and autonomous vehicle systems market expected to grow from $2.4 billion in 2014 to $102 billion in 2030, security is paramount. In recognizing the true potential of this market for Alberta businesses, ACAMP led the formation of the Autonomous Systems for Transportation Consortium (AST). The purpose of AST is to encourage development and innovation in smart infrastructure and transportation as well as promoting collaboration between Alberta businesses, academic institutions, multinational manufacturers and the government of Alberta.

As part of the AST Consortium, Raytheon Canada Limited will take the lead on cybersecurity resilience of hardware, firmware and software subsystems used by AST.

In Alberta, companies are working on technology that can be applied to autonomous systems worldwide". Resilient systems from cyberattacks are imperative for the safe operation of any Intelligent Autonomous Systems, says Ken Brizel, ACAMP CEO.

Alberta companies employ hundreds of people in the area of Intelligent Autonomous Systems, including artificial intelligence, advanced sensor technologies and geospatial mapping. The AST Consortium will enable Albertas small to medium sized businesses to expand their client base, increase their exports, attract investments, and help diversify the Alberta economy, said Rosy Amlani, ACAMP CFO & Vice President Business Development.

About ACAMP

Founded in 2007, ACAMP is a unique industry-led product development centre that advanced technology entrepreneurs rely on, to transition their innovation from proof-of-concept to manufactured product, by providing access to multidisciplinary engineers, technology experts, specialized equipment, and industry acumen. ACAMP develops electronics hardware, integrating embedded systems which includes sensors, firmware, and control systems. From its offices in Edmonton and Calgary, ACAMP offers support to companies worldwide. For more information please visit acamp.ca.
Intrinsic ID BroadKey is a transformational product in efficiently scaling security for the promise of trillions of IoT devices. Given that threats are changing on a nearly daily basis, it is clear that the trillions of connected devices will all need an unclonable identity to deal with these threats.

Intrinsic ID, the worlds leading provider of digital authentication technology for Internet of Things security and embedded applications, today announced its BroadKey product has been named among the Top 25 finalists in the Accenture Innovation Awards. BroadKey is among the finalists nominated in the Security category, one of eight themes in which awards will be given.

BroadKey delivers security for Internet of Things products by implementing a root of trust based on an unclonable identity for such IoT products. BroadKey can be implemented at any time in an IoT products life span, as early as when it is manufactured and as late as after deployment. BroadKey is the first product to enable remote brownfield deployment of a hardware root of trust.

BroadKey is a transformational product in efficiently scaling security for the promise of trillions of IoT devices, said PimTuyls, Intrinsic ID chief executive officer. Given that threats are changing on a nearly daily basis, it is clear that the trillions of connected devices will all need an unclonable identity to deal with these threats. The liability to the companies delivering these products could be considerable, and such risk should be considered at the highest levels of their management.

Security is one of eight themes recognized by the Accenture Innovation Awards, along with Climate, Education, Finance, Health, Living & Working, Mobility and Nutrition.

Among the data Accenture cites as indicators of the significance of security innovation:



27 percent: Percentage by which successful breaches per company has risen as of 2017

2/3: Portion of utility executives who believe their country faces at least a moderate risk of electricity supply interruption from a cyber attack on electric distribution in the next 5 years

70 percent: Portion of surveyed companies indicated cyber security is a board-level concern

$125 billion: Worldwide cybersecurity spending projected for 2020

$90 trillion: Cost of cyber attacks projected for 2030

The Accenture Innovation Awards is a year-round program aiming to create an extensive ecosystem to connect all innovators, structured around eight inspiring, issue-based themes with immense potential to transform our future.

Intrinsic ID is invited to the Security Summer Night September 6 on Pampus Island, The Netherlands, where innovators will meet the theme juries, business partners and other guests. At the end of that night the jury will announce the Top 10 innovations that will proceed to the semifinals during the Innovation Expo in Rotterdam October 4.

About Intrinsic ID

Intrinsic ID is the worlds leading digital authentication company, providing the Internet of Things with hardware-based root-of-trust security via unclonable identities for any IoT-connected device. Based on Intrinsic IDs patented SRAM PUF technology, the companys security solutions can be implemented in hardware or software. Intrinsic ID security, which can be deployed at any stage of a products lifecycle, is used to validate payment systems, secure connectivity, authenticate sensors, and protect sensitive government and military systems. Intrinsic ID technology has been deployed in more than 100 million devices. Award recognition includes the Frost & Sullivan Technology Leadership Award and the EU Innovation Radar Prize. Intrinsic ID security has been proven in millions of devices certified by Common Criteria, EMVCo, Visa and multiple governments. Intrinsic IDs mission: Authenticate Everything. Visit Intrinsic ID online at http://www.Intrinsic-ID.com.

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/intrinsic-id

Twitter: https://twitter.com/intrinsicid

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Intrinsic-ID-367721959973148/

GooglePlus: https://plus.google.com/100457819932721237291

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/IntrinsicID

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/intrinsic_id/

Intrinsic ID, the Intrinsic ID logo, BroadKey and Authenticate Everything are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intrinsic ID, Inc., and are protected by trademark laws of the United States and other jurisdictions. All other product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
The high-quality organizations that are included in the Sage Intacct channel consistently see the value-add in our solution for their businesses and that of their customers.

AcctTwo, a leading consulting firm and provider of cloud-based financial management solutions and managed accounting services, is pleased to announce it has achieved membership in the 2018 Sage Intacct Presidents Club. This coveted sales and customer satisfaction award is given annually by Sage Intacct to its top-performing channel partners. The list recognizes value added resellers (VARs) and Sage Intacct Accountants Program firms (SIAPs) for their success in helping clients migrate to Sage Intaccts Cloud Financial Management Solutions. This is the 6th time AcctTwo has made Sage Intacct's Presidents Club.

Sage Intacct has attracted the cream of the crop to its channel programs, boasting 31 of the Top 100 CPA firms and 30 of the Top 100 VARs in the industry. Sage Intaccts partners deliver comprehensive, high-quality services, support, and software to help companies get maximum value from their Sage Intacct investment.

Founded in 2010, AcctTwo focuses on delivering Software-as-a-Service financial management and ERP solutions to customers in more than 40 states with a growing international presence. AcctTwo also provides Managed Accounting Services (MAS) to clients on the Sage Intacct platform.

"Being named to Sage Intacct's President's Club for 2018 is an honor and is the validation for all the work put in by our growing sales, implementation, and customer success teams, who have provided our customers with unparalleled service and support," said Marcus Wagner, CEO and Founder of AcctTwo. "We're proud of our partnership with Sage Intacct and can't overstate how instrumental Sage Intacct's innovative products and the support provided by their partner channel team have been to our continued success."

Helping our partners build sustainable excellence, achieve remarkable growth year after year, and deliver new levels of success for our joint customers, is the driving force behind the Sage Intacct partner program, said Taylor Macdonald, Senior Vice President of Channel Sales for Sage Intacct. The high-quality organizations that are included in the Sage Intacct channel consistently see the value-add in our solution for their businesses and that of their customers. Congratulations to our top partners earning membership in this years Sage Intacct Presidents Club -- we look forward to each firms continued growth.

To learn more about our Sage Intacct offerings, please visit https://www.accttwo.com/on-demand-erp.

About AcctTwo:

AcctTwo is a leading consulting firm and reseller of cloud-based accounting, ERP, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), and Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software. Our sophisticated systems solve the issues growing middle market companies and nonprofit organizations face today. AcctTwo also provides Managed Accounting Services (MAS), allowing clients to focus on the core competencies of their business. We provide the people, processes, technology, and office facilities to perform these functions, while allowing clients to collaborate interactively through an on-line portal.

AcctTwo is headquartered in Houston, Texas. For more information, please visit http://www.accttwo.com or call 713-744-8400.

Contacts:

Peter Wagner

Director of Marketing

AcctTwo

Cell: 512.415.6846

Email: pwagner(at)accttwo.com

About Sage Intacct:

Sage Intacct is the innovation and customer satisfaction leader in cloud financial management software. As the preferred provider of financial applications for AICPA business solutions and a solution in Sage Business Cloud, we enable organizations from startups to public companies to improve company performance and make finance more productive. Our award-winning accounting software delivers deep functionality that automates even complex business processes and surfaces the richest financial and operational insights to help accelerate growth.

Sage Intacct is based in San Jose, California, and is an entity of Sage. For more information on Sage Intacct, please visit http://www.sageintacct.com.
"This is a very serious issue - one that will affect individuals for many years to come," states Paul Ferron.

On Monday, August 10, 2018, it was released that Adams County in Wisconsin had a data breach that lasted almost six years. Adams County, Wisconsin announced that they have discovered a data breach of potentially all of their 250,000 + residents.

Adams County released the following statement:

If you had given the county any of your personal identifying information (PII), personal health information (PHI), or tax intercept information (TII) to any of the departments in the county, including veterans service office, extension office, county employees, health and human services, child support, and the sheriffs office, you were more than likely included in the data breach.

LibertyID, is the leading provider of identity theft restoration services, boasting a 100% success rate in restoring their subscribers identities, often times in 40 days or less. LibertyID is an active member of the Governor of Californias Cybersecurity Task Force and provides identity theft restoration services to military veteran organizations across the country.

LibertyID is currently working with Adams County officials to develop a solution for all of those affected by this insidious data breach.

This is a very serious issue  one that will affect individuals for many years to come, states Paul Ferron, Vice President of LibertyID. We are the leader in identity theft restoration, having restored tens of thousands of individuals  without a failure. This is a powerful example of how credit monitoring is useless.

In addition, LibertyID will be providing their comprehensive restoration services to all Military Veterans living in Adams County.
AMMCOR, the premiere Home Owners Association management company based in Orange County, has committed to contributing towards American Humane's Shelter to Service program, which trains shelter animals to become companions of war veterans. This year, AMMCOR has sponsored a dog named "Bailey" will be partnered with a war veteran suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and/or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

Founded in 1877, American Humane is a network of like-minded animal-loving individuals and organizations that has been protecting the safety, welfare, and well-being of animals for over one hundred and forty years. The non-profit organization serves not only to protect animals but to promote a nurturing bond between animals and humans, which is why partnering trained animals with war veterans in need of companionship is quintessential of American Humane's efforts.

AMMCOR has had a long and rich history of partnership with American humane, particularly with regards to the annual Hero Dog Awards, which is a nation-wide annual event that seeks out and recognizes dogs that perform heroic acts, whether it's lending sight or hearing to a human companion or saving lives on the battlefield. Hero Dogs compete in seven categories, including Law Enforcement/Arson Dogs, Service Dogs, Therapy Dogs, Military Dogs, Search and Rescue Dogs, Guide/Hearing Dogs, and Emerging Hero Dogs (the category for ordinary dogs who do extraordinary things).

AMMCOR currently has over 15,000 Orange County, CA homes in its portfolio, and provides them with a wide array of professional services including financial processing, collection procedures, and tenant relationships.

AMMCOR offers a 24-hour live emergency call-in service for concerns regarding fairness in collections and coping with homeowner complaints. They also offer supplementary services like Board of Directors education seminars and help with understanding financial concepts and documents.

About AMMCOR

Founded in 1979, AMMCOR is a homeowners association management company with over 15,000 homes in its portfolio in Orange County CA. AMMCOR is a member in good standing of CAI. Visit AMMCOR.com or call (949) 661-7767 for more information.
"I have been in the SMB space since 2003 and I know for fact there is no other place or venue or platform where top B2SMB Execs participate & share like this." - Clate Mask, Founder/CEO, Infusionsoft

The B2SMB Institute, the first professional organization focused on advancing excellence in the business-to-small-business (B2SMB) ecosystem, today announced keynoters, featured speakers and agenda highlights for the B2SMB Institute Global Conference, the second-annual gathering of B2SMB leadership executives, taking place Oct. 1-3, in Chicagos innovation hotbed, the West Loop.

The program for this years Global Conference reflects the strategic and tactical demands B2SMB leaders face  not just how to better reach, engage, qualify and close SMBs, but how to change the business relationship they have with their millions of small business customers, said Dave Walker, CEO and Cofounder, B2SMB Institute. We are gratified with how our fast-growing community of B2SMB execs has encouraged, supported and contributed to an absolutely killer line-up for this event.

B2SMB leaders will present their successes and lessons learned during two and a half days of Ted-Talk-like keynotes, engaging panel discussions, topical breakouts and a workshop-styled hackathon with small business owners.

DAY 1 KEYNOTES & SMB INFLUENCERS

The conference leads off with instructive and inspiring keynotes by B2SMB leaders, including:



Todd Rowe, Global Managing Director, Google Marketing Solutions

Michael Fauscette, Chief Research Officer, G2 Crowd

Christal Bemont, Senior Vice President and GM of SMB, SAP/Concur

Jill Nelson, Founder and CEO, Ruby Receptionists

Day 1 concludes with a meet-and-greet reception featuring over a dozen nationally recognized small-business experts - bloggers, authors and thought-leaders who collectively influence millions of SMBs. These influencers include John Jantsch, bestselling author of Duct Tape Marketing and Carol Roth, national media personality and author of the New York Times bestseller, The Entrepreneur Equation.

HOT TOPICS ON TRANSFORMATION, PLAYBOOK BREAKOUTS & ENTREPRENEURS HACKATHON

Day 2 of the Global Conference will feature subject matter experts examining a number of transformational changes impacting the B2SMB marketplace, including:

AI and Machine Learning - Brett Tolbert, VP of SMB Marketing and Data Science, Comcast Business

Blockchain Business Models - Nitin Gaur, Director, IBM Blockchain Labs

GDPR and Data Protection - Christian Ward, Principal & Cofounder, DataSmart Consulting

Digitals Next Wave - Scott Gifis, President, AdRoll

Dual afternoon breakout tracks will focus on Sales & Marketing and Product Development & Delivery, offering playbooks shared by top B2SMB practitioners, including:

Brian Bar, Founder and CEO, Victory Lap, who will share how he built the Groupon sales juggernaut.

Joe Malcoun, CEO Nutshell, who will discuss his companys successful convergence of marketing and sales across 50-plus countries.

Matt Bostwick, Product Director, Indeed, who will talk about adapting an SMB product to be best fit for millions of users.

Day 2 will also feature the B2SMB Institutes first-ever Entrepreneurs Hackathon, in which attendees will have the chance to discuss real small-business challenges, needs and solutions with dozens of local small business owners, in a casual and constructive face-to-face setting.

PARTNER NETWORKING, INNOVATION SHOWCASE AND MOCK SMALL BUSINESS OFFICE TOURS

The final day of the conference focuses on partnership, innovation and market education. The day begins with the first-ever Partner-Palooza, a networking event designed to bring attendees together to explore a variety of means of working together. Then a showcase of the newest and hottest B2SMB companies and solutions opens, with simultaneous sessions built around mock SMB Office Tours, hosted by member experts who will detail whats inside a small-business front office, back office and infrastructure.

Tickets for the B2SMB Institutes Global Conference are available now with prices set to increase on September 4. For the full agenda, speakers list and registration details, visit https://b2smbi.com/global-conference/.

About the B2SMB Institute

The B2SMB Institute is the first professional organization focused on advancing excellence in the business-to-small-business ecosystem. B2SMB leaders, practitioners, brands and enterprises rely on the Institute for critical market intelligence resources, peer-to-peer networking, best-practice guidance and specialized skills development. The B2SMB Institute champions small-business-centric thinking and practice, with a focus on how to reach, engage, win, keep and grow SMB customers. The member-driven organization serves as a dynamic, daily destination to find, meet and network with B2SMB decision-makers who share common needs, challenges and goals. Visit https://b2smbi.com/ for details on resources, benefits and membership opportunities.
First Deputy Superintendent Anthony Riccio said detectives were with the mother of one of the boys when she received an "anonymous message" saying she might find her son in a wooded area at 130th and Rhodes. Detectives went there and found Turner and Flowers dead, Riccio said. Both had been shot several times.
The new bellbrooklabs.com.

Whether it be online or through a suite of high throughput screening (HTS) solutions, Bellbrook Labs is dedicated to offering customers a successful experience. When browsing the new site in search of information regarding biochemical assays, visitors will find a seamless transition between products, with relevant details such as technical manuals, application notes, and instrument compatibility readily available.

The new capabilities will allow BellBrook to respond faster to the changing trends in drug discovery. Opportunities are now available for scientists to interact directly through the web interface with the click of a mouse. The new bellbrooklabs.com will also make purchasing product SKUs fast and easy, providing more time for scientists to work on experiments, and less time purchasing reagents.

BellBrooks goal is for scientists who visit the website with the desire to learn more about HTS solutions, confidence that the assays will help accelerate their drug discovery. With a seamless, continuous flow, Bellbrook Labs hopes that any visitor will find learning about HTS products easier than ever before. To visit the new website or learn more go to bellbrooklabs.com or call 608-443-2400.

About BellBrook Labs: BellBrook Labs is dedicated to accelerating drug discovery and biological research by providing innovative high throughput screening solutions. BellBrooks core technology Transcreener is a universal, homogenous biochemical assay platform based on detection of nucleotides that makes it easy to screen thousands of different enzymes. These include validated targets like kinases and phosphodiesterases, as well as emerging targets like ATPases, GTPases, methyltransferases, and glycosyltransferases. Detection reagents from BellBrook Labs help researchers progress toward more effective therapies for cancer and other debilitating diseases.
Biocoat, Inc. Adam Spence is committed to providing best-in-class solutions and superior quality, which makes them an ideal partner, and we look forward to years of productive collaboration.

A new strategic partnership between Biocoat, Inc. and Adam Spence, a Spectrum Plastics Group Company, will streamline the process of producing catheters used in vital vascular procedures, such as angioplasty, bypass surgery, fluid drainage, and other essential treatments.

The partnership allows Adam Spences innovative reinforced catheter shafts to receive Biocoats industry-leading hydrophilic coatings. The two companies have also committed to sharing expertise on the development of new products to improve patient experiences.

This partnership is an excellent example of Biocoats commitment to providing superior surface coatings for high-demand, critical surgical devices. It creates a seamless solution for delivering Hydak hydrophilic coatings for Adam Spences braided and coiled catheters and delivery systems, while allowing us to collaborate on new technologies, said Jim Moran, President and CEO, Biocoat. Adam Spence is committed to providing best-in-class solutions and superior quality, which makes them an ideal partner, and we look forward to years of productive collaboration.

Founded in 1960, Adam Spence is a pioneer in the contract design and manufacture of medical device components. Today, the company produces custom products for many of the worlds leading medical device manufacturers.

The new partnership between Biocoat and Adam Spence capitalizes on the geographic proximity of the two organizations. Adam Spence develops and manufactures braid- and coil-reinforced delivery systems in Wall, NJ. Biocoat will apply and test its low-friction HYDAK topcoat on these products at its nearby Horsham, PA facility. The two companies will share expertise in coated delivery systems  from development through full commercialization.

Biocoat has deep experience in the application of low-friction hydrophilic coatings for catheters used in the cardiovascular, neurovascular, peripheral vascular, and structural heart markets, said Steve Maxson, Vice President, Marketing and Sales, Adam Spence, A Spectrum Plastics Group Company. This collaborative partnership will benefit both companies and our clients as we continue to develop solutions that improve the experience and outcomes for patients.

###

About Biocoat, Inc.

Biocoat, Inc. develops and licenses biomaterial coatings for medical devices that are custom engineered to meet specific clinical parameters. The company specializes in supplying lubricious hydrophilic coatings for medical devices to original equipment manufacturers and contract manufacturers. Biocoat is also able to provide coating services to aspiring medical device companies that require assistance with manufacturing. The company also sells diagnostic test kits in the reproductive market for use in male factor infertility. Visit http://www.biocoat.com or connect on Twitter (@biocoat1) and LinkedIn.

About Adam Spence

Adam Spence designs and manufactures highly engineered medical extrusions, braid-reinforced tubing and catheter sub-assemblies for many of the worlds leading medical device OEMs. Originally founded as Adam Spence Corporation in 1960, the Company was acquired by WL Gore in 2004 and sold to Vance Street Capital in 2017 before being acquired by Spectrum Plastics Group in 2018. The company was a pioneer in the contract design and manufacture of medical devices and has been providing extrusions to medical device industry for over 55 years. http://www.adamspence.com.

Adam Spence is exhibiting at Medtec China with Spectrum Plastics Group on September 26-28 in Shanghai, China at stand #H002 -- presenting its next generation reinforced tubing solutions.

For additional information:

Peg Beavers / pbeavers@biocoat.com / 215-734-0888, ext. 135
West Chester, PA-based PrimePay, LLC and Philadelphia, PA-based Horn & Hardart Coffee have joined forces to support our nations military veterans.

Aug. 20 was the launch of a combined giveaway, celebrating the launch of Horn & Hardarts newest brew, Bunker Blend. Those that enter will have a chance to win a bag of Bunker Blend, two handcrafted Horn & Hardart mugs, plus a $250 VISA gift card provided by PrimePay.

This dark roast coffee was made by veterans, to support veterans. Half of the blends profits benefit Bunker Labs Philadelphia  a national nonprofit built by veteran entrepreneurs to empower other veterans as leaders in innovation.

When I was introduced to Bunker Labs 18 months ago, it was a cathartic experience for me. I had never been involved with a group of veterans. And that this was a young, bright, cadre of entrepreneurs has made it an enriching experience for me. Bunker Blend is my small contribution to supporting Bunker Labs Philadelphia. It's my hope that we can make it a best seller, Al Mazzone, Vietnam veteran and CEO of Horn & Hardart shared.

PrimePays team echoed those sentiments.

Partnering with Bunker Labs Philadelphia has been inspiring to our entire team across the country. A big portion of our Veterans in Business program is a give back initiative that focuses on veterans in our local communities. We are thrilled that Bunker Labs introduced us to Horn & Hardart and we can launch this contest together to promote the great work Bunker Labs does, said PrimePay CEO Bill Pellicano.

Philadelphia natives are no stranger to the Horn & Hardart name. Its roots date back to 1888 when Joe Horn and Frank Hardart opened a small coffee shop in the city. In 1902, the company opened its first automat (a restaurant where you order fresh food and coffee out of a vending machine-like kiosk) in Philly.

Fast forward to 2017, when Mazzone and family revived this vintage chain, and continue to produce the same great coffee that once delighted consumers in two of Americas largest cities.

PrimePay, a national provider of payroll and HR, recently launched its Veterans in Business initiative. Lead by US Navy SEAL Monty Heath, the company looks to work closely with veteran small business owners and help them run their business smoothly.

In addition to its philanthropic efforts, feature stories on veteran-owned clients, and sponsoring organizations like Bunker Labs, PrimePay hopes this giveaway will further solidify its support for the veteran community.

Together with Horn & Hardart, PrimePay looks for this giveaway to bring great coffee, a great connection, and great awareness to the Bunker Brew and Bunker Labs.

With PrimePay's presence in all 50 states, I think the giveaway will reach a wide, diverse audience. That fits well with Horn & Hardart's history and mission, said Mazzone.

The contest is social media-centric, so head to Facebook.com/PrimePayUS or Instagram.com/PrimePay to get the full details. The contest will run through Sept. 20 and winners will be announced at Bunker Labs annual Muster event.

About PrimePay

PrimePay believes in the power of small business.

Since 1986, PrimePay has been helping small businesses get time back in their day to focus on what matters most. This is possible through their payroll, HR, Time Clock and benefits admin services that help to ensure compliance and provide exceptional support during the employee lifecycle.

For more on the West Chester, PA-based PrimePay, visit PrimePay.com.

About Horn & Hardart

Horn & Hardart makes crafted coffee that balances a rich roasted flavor with a distinctly smooth and refined finish. This iconic blend is in a class of its own.

To shop Horn & Hardart coffee, visit HornandHardartCoffee.com.

About Bunker Labs

Bunker Labs is a national not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization built by military veteran entrepreneurs to empower other military veterans as leaders in innovation. Through local chapters organized in 12 different cities, Bunker Labs provides educational programming, mentors, events, and thriving local networks to help military veterans start and grow businesses.

Bunker Labs works to inspire, educate, and connect veterans with the right people and the right resources to be successful as entrepreneurs and as innovators. Additionally, our online platform, Bunker in a Box, gives active duty and veterans worldwide access to entrepreneurship education, complete with dozens of interviews with military veterans who have successfully started a diverse array of businesses.

For more on Bunker Labs, visit BunkerLabs.org.
BrightWave, the leading email and eCRM agency, today announced that it will be expanding its partnership with the non-profit 48in48. The Atlanta-based company will provide its award-winning services to help further 48in48s mission to build websites, emails and digital materials for non-profits.

Since 2015, 48in48 has worked to bring together marketing professionals in various cities to build 48 websites for 48 non-profits in 48 hours. Over the years, their volunteers have generated over $15 million worth of digital assets for hundreds of non-profits. After participating for several years, BrightWave is looking forward to expanding its partnership with 48in48. The agency will now be supporting the non-profits own email efforts, helping them spread the word about their important mission to marketing professionals and would-be supporters.

BrightWave found its passion for 48in48 through experience, with 2018 marking the third year that BrightWave will provide custom-designed email templates for all 48 participating non-profits in Atlanta with a full team of 15+ email experts. The experience has been an impactful way to give back to the community and connect with digital makers and doers in Atlanta. Given the positive experience, the decision to take the partnership further with national support was an easy one.

48in48 is proud to partner with BrightWave to create email marketing materials on both a local and national level. Email is a powerful tool for non-profits and this support only enhances the impact on Atlanta's non-profit community and the growth of 48in48's mission, said 48in48 Development Director Carole Williams.

We've found this event helps us build a stronger culture while giving back. We cant wait to help 48in48 communicate effectively nationally and internationally as they expand this movement. We are honored to contribute industry-leading talent to the cause, said BrightWave President Raj Choudhury.

About 48in48

48in48 is a 501c3 social entrepreneurship organization that brings marketing professionals together to create websites and digital materials to help nonprofits extend their impact. In 2015, Jeff Hilimire of Dragon Army and Adam Walker of Sideways8 recruited 150 volunteers in Atlanta to build websites for 48 nonprofits in 48 hours. Since then, the organization has generated millions in value worth of websites, logos, and marketing support to strengthen communities across the globe.

About BrightWave

BrightWave is the leading email and eCRM agency. With over 15 years of experience managing the best email programs in the country, BrightWave elevates eCRM and cross-channel programs through industry-leading innovation, relationship orchestration and pioneering inbox experiences. Learn more at http://www.brightwave.com.

BrightWave is the creator of EiQ, The intelligent email gathering. This one-day event on March 14, 2019 is where the industry community convenes and focuses on innovation and business impact. For more information on the event, please visit http://www.eiqgathering.com.
Sherry Acque, RVP of the Northeast Region Im looking forward to working with my team as Regional Vice President and helping our clients in the Northeast region expand their reach with Caliper.

Caliper announced today that Sherry Acque has been promoted to Regional Vice President of the Northeast region, covering Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Her extensive experience with account management at Caliper and deep industry knowledge of assessment solutions and organizational effectiveness make Sherry fully equipped to lead Calipers account team in the Northeast area.

In her role as Regional Vice President of the Northeast region, Sherry will oversee an account team and work with them to strategically position Caliper as the assessment company of choice to clients.

"Im looking forward to working with my team as Regional Vice President and helping our clients in the Northeast region expand their reach with Caliper," said Sherry Acque. Calipers world-class science, technology and expertise are well suited to helping clients achieve critical business objectives by improving talent management decisions.

Prior to her promotion to Regional Vice President, Sherry was Calipers Inside Sales Director where she managed and oversaw the small to mid-markets account team. Sherry functions as a partner for all of her clients and has expertise in delivering assessment consultations for employee selection and development purposes.

"We've been busy this year expanding our sales capabilities, and Sherry is another excellent addition to lead this world-class team," said Caliper's Chief Revenue Officer, John Maketa. "The focus on this role highlights our commitment to providing the best service to our customers during this time of growth and expansion."

Sherry joins other external and internal promotions to Regional Vice President across the country as Caliper grows and expands its focus on customers to meet their needs with local representation.

ABOUT CALIPER

Caliper is a human capital analytics company leveraging decades of data and validated assessment results to predict and select high-quality candidates. Caliper partners with all types of organizations, industries, and sectors  from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and from government agencies to non-profits. Caliper is uniquely positioned to help companies select and develop their next generation of emerging leaders. Whether your business needs to hire for an important position, reduce turnover, improve team effectiveness, or develop current and future leaders, Caliper can help you make the best talent management decisions.
CareAcademy, a social impact enterprise that empowers family and professional caregivers to learn how to deliver the best care to older adults was named a finalist in the 2018 North American MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge (IIC), a global competition that awards entrepreneurs using technology to reinvent the future of work.

"Were setting the standard for senior care training and looking at the future of healthcare," said Helen Adeosun, CEO and Co-founder of CareAcademy. "Theres a shortage of senior caregivers nationwide and were developing e-learning tools and methodologies that employers can use to educate and upskill entry level healthcare workers."

MITs Inclusive Innovation Challenge awards grants to entrepreneurs that are using technology to solve the grand challenge of our time: to create shared prosperity by reinventing the future of work in the digital era.

CareAcademy was recognized in the Skills Development and Opportunity Matching category.

Imagine a training program that gives you the education and skills you need to get your first job in healthcare, says CEO Helen Adeosun. Now imagine that education being delivered on your smartphone and it can be completed in under 10 days. And what if this education was provided to you at no cost, by a local healthcare employer who needs to hire dozens of workers every month to keep up with the rapidly growing demand for in-home senior care. Were working with senior care employers across the United States and Canada to do that and the industry is starting to take notice.

About CareAcademy: Boston-based CareAcademy provides expert-developed online training for senior home care professionals. Hour-long video courses, which can be accessed on any mobile device, cover critical topics such as infection control, nutrition and meal preparation, dementia, fall prevention, and safe transfers. The company provides 24/7 English and Spanish language technical support to accommodate caregivers schedules.
Waismann Method- Medical Opioid Treatment and Rapid Detox Center "If we provide effective drug detox with individualized mental health care, we might just start turning this opioid crisis around. Waismann states. We have the science, we have the resources, but unfortunately, we lack the right priorities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) just released provisional data showing 70,689 drug overdose deaths in 2017. This is the highest overdose death rate on record and reflects an increase of 6.6 % over the 2016 drug overdose deaths statistic. Making matters worse, the CDC warns that the provisional numbers likely underestimate the total overdose death count and that the final number of overdose deaths will likely top 72,000.

Opioids were responsible for 40,000 overdose deaths, more than half of the total. Most opioid overdose deathsapproximately 30,000involved synthetic opioids (excluding methadone) such as fentanyl and its analogs.

Some states saw a particularly dramatic increase in opioid deaths compared to 2016. Nebraskas overdose death rate increased by 33.3% compared to the previous year. North Carolina and New Jersey also saw increases of over 20%. In 38 states, more people died from drug overdose in 2017 than in 2016. New England, Appalachia, and the South are hardest hit by the epidemic.

Across the US, the number of overdose deaths from prescription opioids and methadone dropped slightly from 2017 levels. This suggests that legal restrictions of opioid prescribing may have reduced overdose deaths on prescription opioids but have perhaps pushed vulnerable patients to use more powerful fentanyl-like drugs.

While the new CDC estimates are deeply disheartening, these are not surprising, says Clare Waismann, founder of the Waismann Method Opioid Treatment Specialists and Rapid Detox Center. Waismann suggests, We keep doing the same things but expect different results.

Addiction is not the issue but the consequence, states Waismann. Maintenance drugs or cookie cutter rehabs do not treat the core issue. The endless revolving doors of drug rehabs or the prolonging of opioid dependence causes people to feel hopeless and even more depressed. This deeper state of emotional distress intensifies the drug abuse, which leads to overdose and possibly death. The CDC numbers tell us that people are dying and what we are doing isnt working.

Despite the disappointing numbers, Waismann offers a solution. Medical science has evolved immensely. We clearly understand the physiological effects of opioids. We also know how to medically detox a patient, reverse dependence and block cravings. Now, if we provide effective drug detox with individualized mental health care, we might just start turning this opioid crisis around, Waismann states. We have the science, we have the resources, but unfortunately, we lack the right priorities.

About the Waismann Method

Waismann Method offers medical assisted opioid detoxification and rapid detox treatment in a Full-Service JCAHO Accredited Hospital in Southern California. Medically directed by Dr. Michael H. Lowenstein, the Waismann Method is the premier medical opiate detoxification and rapid detox center in the US. Dr. Lowenstein is recognized nationally and internationally as an expert in opioid dependence and rapid detox treatment. He leads a team of healthcare professionals that consistently provide humane, dignified, and effective drug treatment. This commitment to providing excellent care for patients struggling with opioid addiction and superior results, is as strong today as it was 20 years ago when we started.
Search And Be Found (SABF) LLC, a website development and marketing company, was founded to help small businesses succeed in today's ever changing online marketplace. They understand that businesses struggle with their website and online properties, which is why their team creates innovative solutions with design and development support. They also know what it takes to bring in leads, and how to incorporate various channels of marketing to help achieve a company's marketing goals. At the end of the day, leads are what bring in revenue and Search And Be Found knows how to take advantage of the lead generation opportunities that each marketing platform has to offer, contributing to their clients profitability. Located in Blakeney at the intersection of Ardrey Kell and Rea Road near Ballantyne in South Charlotte, SABF primarily works with eComm and Medical companies locally and across the US.

Search And Be Founds owner/UX lead Kevin S. Cooke, has been in the eComm/Marketing industry for over 10 years and has an extensive background in Web Development, along with eComm, SEO, and Paid Search experience. He started building websites when he was 12 years old and still today has a passion for creating visually appealing, lead generating websites for his clients. Kevin gained experience in digital marketing at a local marketing company, before moving out West working in Real Estate, Sporting Goods and Fly Fishing Industries across a variety of roles.

Alongside Kevin is newest SABF team member, Nina, who has over 8 years of experience in creative sales, and traditional/digital marketing. She has worked in various industries ranging from the Health Spa, Healthcare, Transportation, Real Estate, and Print industry. Additionally, she worked for a digital marketing agency where she worked with a plethora of respected companies in different industries which provides a unique outlook to the way SABF approaches their clients and their needs.

Whether youre looking to update your website, build a new site from scratch or increase traffic through inbound marketing (SEO, Paid Search, Social Media), SABF can help!

About Search And Be Found

Search And Be Found was started to help save clients time and money when marketing their products or services online. Search And Be Found knows how to increase the bottom line using online marketing. In business for just under 4 years, with combined team experience of over 10 years, they currently service a number of exclusively selected businesses who are currently growing their organization with their online marketing services. They can make online easy for you and offer unparalleled customer service and verifiable results. Most importantly, their team can assure your business shows up in the right place locally and nationally based on an agreed upon Strategy. From WordPress to Magento, your website is managed and monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our SEO services utilize story based content, Rich Snippets and clean code to make your business distinguish itself amongst the competition.

Doesnt your website deserve attention? Visit their website to get a website audit to see how they can improve your website.

How can SABF help tell your story online? Schedule A 30-minute session to see how they can help!
"We are delighted that our Fresh inTransit technology has been selected to further advance the leadership position Canadian Pacific has taken to drive enhanced visibility and improved reliability for the overall market."

August 21, 2018  Atlanta, GA  Cooltrax, a global leader in temperature control monitoring and reporting, has announced that Fresh inTransit will be deployed within new refrigerated containers purchased by Canadian Pacific Railway (CP). The new containers feature a slimmer design refrigeration unit that allows for loading of up to two additional pallets, while also using a greener refrigerant that improves overall operating performance. Adding Cooltrax technology to this innovative design allows for enhanced visibility into temperature ranges, which is critical for products that require temperature-controlled environments for shipping, handling and storage.

Cooltrax recognizes that shippers and transportation providers face growing scrutiny in ensuring that product temperatures are maintained and monitored throughout the entire cold chain logistics process. We are delighted that our Fresh inTransit technology has been selected to further advance the leadership position Canadian Pacific has taken to drive enhanced visibility and improved reliability for the overall market, said Mike Sharpe, president, Cooltrax North America.

Our primary focus at CP is to offer reliable, efficient services that help our customers achieve their objectives, which include delivery of products and services across many geographic regions, said Jonathan Wahba, vice president, sales and marketing  intermodal, CP. Installing Cooltrax technology will deliver an unprecedented level of innovation, and more importantly, give CP temperature visibility and control, which is crucial as the industry is facing growing challenges to ensure products are handled and delivered safely and within required temperature ranges.

Cooltrax Fresh inTransit delivers improved visibility into the handling of temperature-controlled products. Through the Cooltrax Business Intelligence dashboard, one can monitor product-level temperatures in real-time within custom pre-defined ranges. Additionally, one can see the speed of product movement, as well as the timing and duration of door-opening events.

ABOUT COOLTRAX

For more than 10 years, Cooltrax has helped companies across the globe manage their cold chain, with a suite of solutions that cover the entire cold chain while allowing warehouse and fleet managers to know the exact temperature of all their cold storage locations and reefer units in real-time. Cooltrax enables industries to become more valuable to their customers by providing leading-edge technology to capture, monitor and report real-time temperatures in trailers, storage, in-store and at the product level. For more information, visit http://www.cooltrax.com.
The emotional moment capped the fifth day of evidence at the side-by-side trials of Micheail Ward and Kenneth Williams, who have been charged with the 2013 murder of the King College Prep High School honors student. Eight days before her death, the band majorette performed at the second inaugural festivities of then-President Barack Obama, whose Kenwood neighborhood home is about a mile away from the shooting scene.
Cybersecurity can seem complicated and expensive, especially for Small Business. It leaves most owners and managers wondering where they stand against the growing attacks they read about daily and not knowing how they can protect themselves.

Defendify changes all that. The new, web-based platforma SaaS modelis designed and built exclusively for companies with 500 or fewer employees. Its an all-in-one solution thats easy to implement and affordable yet comprehensive, powerful, and scalable.

Defendify is a holistic solution and concept thats never before been delivered to the Small Business marketthe first to focus on a layered approach of: 1. Technology that goes beyond traditional antivirus and firewalls; 2. Culture of employee awareness and institutional knowledge; and 3. A foundation of policies, procedures and plans. Defendify is simple and affordable, with three program options starting as low as $9 per user per month and ready to scale up as an organization grows.

Defendify is the only cybersecurity platform built from the ground up that targets a definite void for smaller organizations. While most are scrambling to serve the enterprise, we serve the undercurrent of Americas economy: Small Business, said Andrew Rinaldi, Co-Founder. Partner and Co-Founder, Rob Simopoulos adds, Cybersecurity is a posturenot a projectthat every organization needs to embrace without a complicated and expensive process. Defendify is revolutionizing cybersecurity. Its an ongoing program of cybersecurity that businesses will use daily to protect themselves from mistakes and malicious threats. Its streamlined, super-accessible, and genuinely affordable with its online delivery.

Defendify works for Small Business by serving as:



A cybersecurity dashboard with insights, reports, notifications and cybersecurity tools.

A cybersecurity support system with cybersecurity resources and recommendations.

A website for managing cybersecurity, quickly and easily.

With a simple log-in, users can view all aspects of their cybersecurity program in one place. Defendify brings together a variety of features, products and services that complement each other and deliver multiple, key layers of cybersecurity. And Defendify prides itself on being dead simple, always using straight talk, not tech talk.

The Human Side

Theres so much more to Defendify. Thats because the Defendify teamincluding its growing number of channel partnersoffer friendly, accessible and responsive sales, support, and service backed by real people out of its offices in Portland, Maine. Defendify is the next evolution of the company formerly known as Launch Security, started by Co-Founders Andrew Rinaldi and Rob Simopoulos.

About Defendify

Defendify was founded on the philosophy of providing Small Business a simplified, ongoing cybersecurity solution thats easy to use, affordable at every level, and more than technology and confusing IT speak. A comprehensive and streamlined online system, Defendify is the only all-in-one cybersecurity program specifically designed for Small Business and delivered through a SaaS model. We make cybersecurity easy to understand and use, with straight talk and not tech jargon and provide support by our in-house team of cybersecurity program advisors. We invite you to visit our website at http://www.defendify.io or call us today at 888-508-9221.
Planet DDS Denticon Denticons online patient registration makes it very easy for us to get health histories in advance from the responsible party.

Planet DDS (PDDS) recently partnered with Spa Creek Dental to deploy its Denticon practice management software in support of mobile treatment operations at more than 250 senior living facilities in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Spa Creek Dental cited the need for a centralized solution that allowed for remote access of consolidated provider records as a top priority in its selection of Denticonsomething that is difficult to achieve with most practice management systems currently on the market. Denticons cloud-based enterprise solution allows Spa Creek to streamline its onsite operations while freeing up its staff to focus on quality patient dental care instead of IT.

According to Nicholas Zeitvogel, Spa Creek Dentals Chief Operating Officer, Denticons comprehensive suite of practice management tools allows his team to tackle the unique challenges of mobile dental organizations. The ability to view key patient information remotely online is essential to giving updates to responsible parties who arent always on site with the patient. Denticons online patient registration makes it very easy for us to get dental health histories in advance from the responsible party when the patients themselves arent always in a position to do so on their own.

Denticons multi-location cloud architecture is ideally suited to the needs of mobile practices, allowing them to operate mobile care delivery units without building out an extensive IT infrastructure or setting up permanent hardware at each treatment site. In other words, Denticon helps broaden their reach significantly.

Were very excited to have Spa Creek Dental join the many onsite and mobile dental groups already using Denticon practice management software to deliver dental services. Its a privilege to partner with a dental organization that provides oral care to seniors who dont always have easy access to dentists, noted PDDS CEO Eric Giesecke. We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with Spa Creek Dental.

Denticon by Planet DDS is the only proven, time-tested software offering that was built from the ground up for multi-location groups in the cloud. Denticon allows dental organizations break free from the constraints of desktop software with a comprehensive solution that includes the tools needed to standardize, centralize, and grow. All while reducing IT cost and enhancing security. Learn more about Denticon at http://www.planetdds.com.

Spa Creek Dental improves the health of senior living residents and makes life easier for their families by arranging oral hygiene and general dentistry services onsite at senior care facilities. Spa Creek Dentals mission is to help senior care facilities reduce disease and infection in their resident populations by coordinating high quality oral health care programs for their residents. Spa Creeks dental partners and their dedicated clinical teams combine compassion and experience in attending to each residents safety and comfort, while providing them the high level of dentistry care that they deserve. Learn more about Spa Creek Dental at http://www.SpaCreekDental.com.
Fors Marsh Group (FMG) is experiencing fantastic growth and providing meaningful impact in the areas of election administration and voting policy evaluation. They count the Election Administration Commission (EAC), Pew Charitable Trusts, Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), and the Council of State Governments (CSG) as clients and partners who look to FMG as leaders and experts in the increasingly important civic field.

To accelerate the leadership, expertise, and intelligence that organizations are relying on FMG to provide, they are proud to announce that Doug Chapin has joined FMG as Director of Election Research. In this role, Doug will be responsible for leading the research, analysis, and delivery of FMGs election research programs and our fantastic staff of experts in this field.

Doug joins FMG from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, where he served as the founder and first director of the Program for Excellence in Election Administration. This master- and undergraduate-level certificate program is aimed at students as well as practitioners and works to identify, recruit, and train the next generation of election administrators nationwide. Before this role, Doug served as Director of Election Initiatives for the Pew Center on the States and was the founder of electionline.org, still the nations premier source of nonpartisan news and information about election administration across the United States. Doug is a well-known writer and speaker in the field and has an extensive academic background, having earned a law degree from Georgetown University, a master of public administration from Harvard Universitys John F. Kennedy School of Government, and an A.B. in politics from Princeton University.

Dougs professional expertise and staff leadership will increase the positive impact that FMG will bring to this critical area of civic engagement.
The Posture Keeper can be set up in any office chair in just 30 seconds, and gently reminds you to sit upright, retraining muscle memory to improve posture over the long-term  eliminating chronic neck, shoulder and back pain.

The Posture Keeper, a new device designed to prevent slouching and improve posture while you work, today launched on Kickstarter.

The Posture Keeper can be set up in any office chair in just 30 seconds, and gently reminds you to sit upright, retraining muscle memory to improve posture over the long-term  eliminating chronic neck, shoulder and back pain.

Studies show that one in three office workers suffer from chronic back or neck pain, as a result of spending hours working at a computer. Over a prolonged time, this can cause significant and ongoing health issues. While many devices aim to address this pain, none proactively work to solve the issue over the long-term. The Posture Keeper gently reminds you to sit upright at your desk and uses a lumbar system to help retrain your muscle memory  so even without the device, you will stand tall and healthy.

Founder Shirley Tan personally fought chronic neck and back pain for years and tested every medication and device with little to no improvement.

When the doctor suggested I stop working because of my neck and back pain, my breath stoppedbecause I love my job, Tan said. The last thing I wanted was to leave it, but he informed me that years of being hunched over, staring into the computer had taken its toll. I was suffering from radiating pain on both arms, stiff neck and tight shoulders. I was tired of chronic pain.

Tan, an experienced entrepreneur, founded The Posture Keeper to help address the root of chronic pain with a simple, transportable and easy-to-use device.

The Posture Keeper is a drug-free solution that will help everyday office workers to improve their posture and live without pain over the long-term, so they can enjoy even the littlest things in life, continued Tan.

The Posture Keeper uses lightweight straps and lumbar support to cradle and comfort the lower back. Rather than leaning forward and straining your neck, shoulders and back, The Posture Keeper reminds you to sit back and upright  improving your posture and overall health.

Features include:



LUMBAR SYSTEMS - Enjoy comfortable lumbar support where your ears, shoulders and hips are kept in alignment and the natural inward curvature of your lower spine is maintained. Posture Keeper offers extra comfort with real memory foam, keeping you comfortable and relaxed.

STOPS NECK STRAIN  The Posture Keeper prevents you from leaning forward and straining your neck. When you lean forward, the muscles in your neck tighten, forcing them to work harder to support your head. Sitting all day exposes you to huge risks for nerve, muscle, and stiff necks!

FITS MOST CHAIRS - Designed to fit most chairs, you wont feel the Posture Keeper taking up most of your seat and pushing you off the chair like other lumbar pillows. Adjustable to your height and chair so when you sit right, you dont even notice it.

QUICK & EASY SET UP - It takes less than 30 seconds to assemble the Posture Keeper. Featuring a quick release mechanism that lets you easily get in and out, no tech, no battery, no assistant needed to improve your posture and relieve your back pain.

Comfortable straps  light weight, ergonomically design, adjustable to fit most people from 4 to 64 tall

High Quality - Made with durable ballistic nylon material

For information and to pre-order from The Posture Keeper at early bird discount prices, visit its Kickstarter Campaign Page.

ABOUT LIVING WELL PRODUCTS

Living Well Products mission is to design and produce products that help improve consumer health and well-being. We started with the most basic product that can help people who have to work in an office at the desk and sit in their chair for long hours at a time. With the Posture Keeper, our goal is to help people improve their posture, keep their spine in alignment and help them become pain free.
Gilbane Building Company Earns Two Project Awards for Rhode Island Veterans Home

Gilbane Building Company was recently honored with two project awards for the Rhode Island Veterans Administration Home. Gilbane received a Project Achievement Award in the projects over $50 million category from the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA), New England Chapter. Gilbane also received a Best Projects Award from Engineering News Record (ENR), New England in the Best Government Public Building category. The projects, located throughout the New England region, are selected by panels of local prominent industry professionals. Projects are evaluated on the ability of the teams to overcome challenges, project safety, innovation, customer satisfaction and overall management of quality, cost and schedule.

From day one the Gilbane team recognized that this project was special. The [Gilbane] team worked together seamlessly to manage the change order process, schedule, budget, safety, security and trade contractor performance, meeting our project goals, notes Kasim J. Yarn, Director of Office of Veterans Affairs, State of Rhode Island.

The Rhode Island Veterans Home provides skilled nursing and residential care to Rhode Island war veterans. Services include social, medical, nursing and rehabilitative care. The intent of this project was to provide the State of Rhode Island and its veteran residents with state-of-the-art living and a residential atmosphere within a comfortable community environment. The new 208-bed, 260,000 square foot home was designed by Brewster Thorton Group Architects of Rhode Island and SFCS of Virginia and encourages mobility, activity and socialization.

About Gilbane Building Company

Gilbane provides a full slate of construction and facilities-related services  from pre-construction planning and integrated consulting capabilities to comprehensive construction management, general contracting, design-build and facility management services  for clients across various markets. Founded in 1873 and still a privately held, family-owned company, Gilbane has 46 office locations worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.gilbaneco.com.

Gilbane has been headquartered in Rhode Island for more than 140 years, and has built some of the most complex and celebrated construction projects in the State, including the InterLink at T.F. Green Airport, IGT headquarters (formerly GTECH), URIs Ryan Center and the renovation of the Dunkin Donuts Center. For more information, visit https://www.gilbaneco.com/locations/providence-rhode-island/.
Hernon Manufacturing Inc., innovator of high performance sealants, adhesives and associated dispensing and curing equipment, was recently granted a coveted spot on the Orlando Sentinel's list of the Top 100 best workplaces in Central Florida. The Orlando Sentinels Top 100 program recognizes companies throughout Central Florida that are committed to making their company a great place to work. Organizations across Central Florida entered the two-part survey process, which included evaluation of company practices and demographics, as well as input from employees via survey. Hernon Manufacturing also was measured on workplace flexibility, company leadership, career opportunities, community service, compensation and benefits.

For more than 20 years, Orlando Sentinels Top 100 program has recognized companies across Central Florida that are committed to workplace satisfaction. The program acknowledges employers within three categories (15-99, 100-499 and 500 employees and above) to ensure organizations of all sizes are represented.

Hernon Manufacturing, Inc. exports high-performance adhesives, sealants and coatings as well as precision dispensing equipment and UV curing systems throughout the globe. The company has returned double digit sales growth for five consecutive years including a 47% increase in revenue for the 2016-2017 business cycle. Hernon Manufacturing, Inc. is a longtime member of Central Floridas industrial manufacturing community and is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2018. Hernon Manufacturing provides solutions for a variety of industries including: Energy and Power Generation, Medical, Electronics, Electrical, LED, Automotive, Appliances, Sporting Goods, Ammunition, Communications, Aerospace, Aviation, High Tech Audio, Defense, Fire Suppression, Transportation, Marine Manufacturing and more, with products proudly made in the United States.
Ignite 2018 Marketing Conference

In todays business world, there is perhaps no greater challenge or necessity than gaining and keeping the consumers trust. Thats why organizers of this years Ignite: Sparking Action in Marketing Conference have chosen the theme of Protecting Trust in Todays Consumer Journey.

The conference, hosted by leading marketing promotions firm YA and the Institute for Research in Marketing at the University of Minnesotas Carlson School of Management, will take place Sept. 20, 2018 at the Carlson School of Management.

It pairs top academic scholars who have cutting-edge research on the topic of trust with corporate leaders who will share real-world implications of managing trust.

Speakers include Jamie Moldafsky, the Chief Marketing Officer of Wells Fargo, who will discuss what the company learned about rebuilding trust. Other speakers include Gary Judd, global leader of FranklinCoveys Speed of Trust practice, Leslie Gaines-Ross, Weber Shandwicks Chief Reputation Strategist, who will speak to the consumer drivers and the activism movement, Michael Becker, an internationally recognized speaker and co-founder of mCordis, and esteemed University of Minnesota professors Melissa Koenig, Akshay Rao and Kathleen Vohs.

Speakers will discuss the evolution of trust in the minds of consumers and the ongoing journey organizations must take to gain, keep and regain trust in times of crisis.

Every interaction with employees, customers and partners is an opportunity to build the trust relationship, said YA President and CEO Chris Behrens. It is why people choose your brand and why they stay with your brand even in times of adversity. If you dont provide that journey of trust, consumers will vote with their feet instead of their wallets.

Unfortunately, for so many organizations, its not about if a breach of trust will occur, its about when, said Steve Goodyear, Director for the Institute for Research in Marketing, University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. This conference provides proven ideas how to address such issues and more importantly, how to avoid them in the first place.

In addition to sponsors YA and the Institute for Research in Marketing, partners for the Ignite Marketing Conference include Twin Cities Business, Minnesota Public Radio, mpls downtown council and Executive Education at the University of Minnesotas Carlson School of Management.

To learn more about the conference and to register, visit http://www.ignitemarketing2018.com.

About YA

For more than 45 years, YA has been a leader in promotional marketing services. We deliver high-impact data-driven digital, social and mobile promotions, such as rebates/rewards, enter to win and loyalty programs, to the nations most respected brands. With deep expertise across several industries, our end-to-end management of 3,500+ promotions each year helps our clients reach tens of millions of consumers annually. This makes us experts at turning even first-time customers into loyal brand advocates who take action, buy more and spread the word. For more information, visit: http://www.yaengage.com.

About The Institute for Research in Marketing

Since 2005, the Institute for Research in Marketing at the University of Minnesotas Carlson School of Management has provided a forum for some of the worlds most distinguished academics to partner with top organizations in order to generate thought-provoking perspectives about companies, consumers, and communities. Working together, we apply our faculty's leading marketing insights and findings to real-world problems. The Institute is committed to building enduring relationships with the corporate community that lead to advances in the science and practice of marketing.
In his mind he didnt do anything wrong, cause he didnt pull the trigger and hes over talking to other detectives right now and hes going to tell an account thats very suitable, the detective said. The only thing we really dont know about what happened that day was what was going on in here, in your heart and up in your mind.
Earning a spot on the Inc. 5000 list for a second time is an incredible achievement for the entire team at InCadence.

InCadence Strategic Solutions, Corp. is pleased to announce it has been recognized by the 2018 Inc. 5000 as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America.

"Earning a spot on the Inc. 5000 list for a second time is an incredible achievement for the entire team at InCadence," said, InCadence CEO Sandra Corbett. "Our continued rapid growth is driven by the consistent delivery of world class technical solutions to our government and commercial clients. New product innovations and software development in the areas of mobile biometrics and identity management are also spearheading our success.

Each year, Inc. magazine releases the list of the five thousand fastest-growing private companies in America. Companies are ranked by their respective revenue growth rates as calculated by comparing 2017 revenue to that of the 3 prior years. The average company on the 2018 Inc. 5000 achieved a three-year growth of 538.2 percent. The Inc. 5000's aggregate revenue is $206.1 billion in 2017, and the featured companies collectively generated 664,095 new jobs over the past three years.

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000.

The annual Inc. 5000 event honoring the companies on the list will be held October 17 to 19, 2018, at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort, in San Antonio, Texas.

About InCadence Strategic Solutions Corp.

InCadence Strategic Solutions Corp., founded in 2009, is a rapidly growing business headquartered in Manassas, VA. InCadence has built a strong reputation for providing cutting-edge technical solutions for our government and commercial clients in the areas of Biometrics and Identity Management, Data Solutions, Tactical Communications and Operational Intelligence.

InCadence has been recognized with a #1 ranking for 2018 Best Place to Work, Washington Business Journal, 3 consecutive Great Places to Work, Washingtonian Magazine in 2017, 2015 and 2013; 2017 Innovation Award Winner, Washington Business Journal; 2016 Program of the Year, GovCon Awards; 2016 Transformer of the Year, ACT/IAC; 2014 Inc. 5000 list and 2013 SECAF Government Contractor of the Year ($6-$12M category).

InCadence maintains a DCAA Approved accounting system and certifications and standards of CMMI ML2 Dev, ISO:9001-2015, ISO 20000, and ISO 27000.

InCadence is an Equal Opportunity Employer, M/F/PV/D.

For more information about InCadence Strategic Solutions Corp. visit I nCadencecorp.com.
Interjet A321 landing at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) With our EVA Air agreement, Interjet offers the convenience of purchasing a single ticket for flights on either airline, checking bags at origination to their final destination, and easy connections at the airports served by both carriers.

Interjet Airlines today, announced yet another interline agreement, this time with EVA Air, providing customers convenient connections between the networks of the two airlines. Interjet Airlines customers connecting at Vancouver International Airport (YVR), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) or San Francisco International Airport (SFO), can now travel to Taiwan and more than 64 destinations served by EVA Air. EVA Air customers will now have access to the more than 55 destinations Interjet serves.

"We are very excited to announce this important interline agreement between Interjet Airlines and EVA Air," said Jose Luis Garza, General Director for Interjet Airlines. "Our commitment has been to offer our business and leisure travelers everywhere we fly, our unique brand of lower prices with free checked bags on select fares, more legroom between seats and great service that differentiates us from our peer competitors. With our EVA Air agreement, we can now offer the convenience of purchasing a single ticket for flights on either airline, checking bags at origination to their final destination, and easy connections at the airports served by both carriers along with greater connectivity to more of the world, he added.

EVA Air was founded in March 1989 and serves 64 destinations on four continents and operates a mixed fleet of Airbus and Boeing aircraft, with Airbus A330, Airbus A321, and Boeing 777 airliners.

For more information regarding Interjet or to make a reservation, visit http://www.interjet.com. In the U.S. call (866) 285-9525.

About Interjet Airlines

Interjet is an international airline based in Mexico City and carries more than 12 million passengers annually within Mexico and between Mexico, the United States, Canada, Central and South America. In all, it provides air service to 55 destinations in eight countries offering its passengers greater connections and travel options through agreements with major airlines such as Alitalia, All Nippon Airways (ANA), American Airlines, British Airways, EVA Air, LATAM Group, Hainan Air, Iberia, Lufthansa and Japan Airlines.

Interjet was recently honored with Skytraxs World Airline Award as the Best Low-Cost Airline in Mexico and Best Cabin Crew in Mexico. In 2017, Interjet was awarded the Travelers' Choice Trip Advisor Award as the best Mexico airline.

Media Contact

Julieta Pena Flores

Tel. +52 (55) 9178 5500 x5833

Email: julieta.pena(at)interjet.com.mx
"Jan Stephenson Pineapple Flavored Rum has aromas of burnt sugar and coffee bean, lit candle, singed fruit cake, and fennel with a long grilled pineapple and hint of licorice finish. A fantastic pineapple rum with rich, complex flavors that perfectly bridges the fun and the serious. " 94

Meet Dented Brick Distillery owners LPGA Legend Jan Stephenson and Cindy Rarick as they launch their award wining spirits in California during Eat Drink SF.

Eat Drink SF is San Franciscos premiere food and drink festival, ringing in 10 years with an impressive lineup of renowned tastemakers to celebrate the Bay Areas world-class cuisine, August 24-26 at Festival Pavilion in Fort Mason Center. With three days of curated programming, the festival brings elevated VIP experiences from newcomers like Jan and Cindy's Dented Brick Distillery, main stage demonstrations by luminaries like Chef Dominique Crenn and Chef Roland Passot, Chef Chris Cosentino and bar programs from mainstay Pacific Cocktail Haven and Japanese-influenced Kabuki Hotel.

Guests will have the opportunity to meet and eat with the chefs and culinary personalities Jan and Cindy throughout the weekend.

During the weekend, guests are encouraged to stay connected using the hashtag #EDSF and on the events social channels:



Facebook: @eatdrinksffestival

Instagram/Twitter/Snapchat: @EatDrinkSF

About Eat Drink SF

Eat Drink SF (fka SF Chefs) was founded by the Golden Gate Restaurant Association in 2009 to celebrate the Bay Areas world-class restaurant community. Each year, more than 150 restaurants participate in Eat Drink SFs events, which include Taco Knockdown and its signature Grand Tasting sessions. With more than 8,500 attendees, Eat Drink

SF provides an opportunity for top area chefs to connect directly with enthusiastic food lovers. Guest tickets include all food and beverage tastes from more than 30 different restaurants featured at each Grand Tasting (restaurants change at every session) as well as bars, distilleries, breweries, and wineries.
Jason Freeman on the rise  Top 40 Young Lawyers

Jason B. Freeman, Founding and Managing Member of Freeman Law PLLC, has been named to the American Bar Associations 2018 On The Rise  Top 40 Young Lawyers in America list. The annual award provides national recognition for 40 ABA young lawyer members who exemplify a broad range of high achievement, innovation, vision, leadership and legal and community service.

Freeman was previously recognized in 2018 by the Dallas Business Journal, naming him to its prestigious 40 under 40 list. He was also recognized by D Magazine, naming him to its 2018 list of Best Lawyers in Dallas and its list of Top Lawyers Under 40.

Jason Freeman is a dual-credentialed attorney-CPA, trial attorney, law professor, speaker, and author. He represents clients in litigation, with a particular focus on federal and state tax controversies, and white-collar disputes.

About The ABA

The American Bar Association is one of the worlds largest voluntary professional organizations, with over 400,000 members and more than 3,500 entities. The ABA is committed to supporting the legal profession with practical resources for legal professionals while improving the administration of justice, accrediting law schools, establishing model ethical codes, and more.

About Freeman Law

Freeman Law is a tax, white-collar, and litigation boutique law firm based in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Freeman Law provides a client-centric environment with personalized focus and measured advice. With a background in complex tax planning and litigation, white-collar criminal and civil disputes, and sophisticated civil litigation, Freeman Law is where clients turn when the stakes are high and the issues are complex.

To see a full list of the 2018 honorees, please click here.

For more information about Mr. Freeman, please click here.
KOMPAN is dedicated to the Austin community and we look forward to showing our support in the city, KOMPAN President Tom Enright said. We are excited to announce our partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of the Austin Area as the first step in this endeavor.

The grand opening of KOMPANs U.S. Headquarters will take place on Thursday, August 23, 2018, as an introduction to the new facility in Austin, Texas. KOMPANs CEO and board members from Denmark will be in attendance. Expected are representatives from the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Austin Area (BGCAA), the City of Austin Parks and Recreation, and Austin City Council Member Leslie Pool.

Opening events will also recognize a partnership between KOMPAN and BGCAA aimed to bring cutting-edge outdoor fitness and play spaces to their new flagship Home Club on the Sheth Family Campus.

An advocate of healthy lifestyles for kids and teens, BGCAA has served the Austin area for over 51 years. For the first time they are constructing their own facility designed serve more than 250 kids a day (1,000 annually) on a campus designed to meet the needs of youth and families from neighborhoods across Austin. The Home Club will impact the lives of local youth through programming for academic success, character and leadership building, and healthy lifestyles. KOMPAN is thrilled to join with the Boys and Girls Club of Austin to help bring these kids Home.

KOMPAN is dedicated to the Austin community and we look forward to showing our support in the city, KOMPAN President Tom Enright said. We are excited to announce our partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of the Austin Area as the first step in this endeavor.

KOMPAN employs approximately 110 people throughout the U.S., with half of those in Austin, Texas. KOMPANs U.S. Headquarters in Austin houses staff in design, sales support, finance, and marketing departments, as well as the U.S. Warehouse and distribution center. The company anticipates these numbers will double over the next four years. KOMPAN is excited to be in Austin and is committed to active partnership with the city and the community.

We are thrilled at KOMPANs support for our community and youth through their collaboration with our Home Club on the Sheth Family Campus, said Misti Potter, CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Austin Area. At Boys & Girls Clubs of the Austin Area, expanding opportunities for fun, health and the fitness of our Club members is a priority.

About KOMPAN

KOMPAN is a world leader in playground and outdoor sport & fitness solutions. All of our solutions are backed by extensive research, user tested, and manufactured with the highest quality materials. Our universally designed solutions motivate play and movement for users of all ages and abilities.

For over 45 years, KOMPAN has been designing unique play solutions for its customers. Shaping happier and healthier societies is KOMPANs mission. We do that by stimulating physical activity, learning and social interaction in the solutions we offer. KOMPAN U.S. is headquartered in Austin, TX. http://www.kompan.us

For more information, press only:

KOMPAN - Katherine Ring

Marketing Director

M: +1 (512) 605-9715

P: +1 (737) 402-7048

katrin@kompan.com

Website:

KOMPAN: https://www.kompan.com

KOMPAN U.S.: https://www.kompan.us

BGCAA - Katherine Thole

Marketing Director

M: 206.225.7942

P: 512.444.7199, ext. 22

Katherine.thole@bgcaustin.org

Website:

BGCAA: https://www.bgcaustin.org/
Radio Compatibility Tool With so many great antenna options available to our customers, we set out to create an easy-to-use, familiar search feature on the site that takes away the guess work when users are trying to find compatible antennas that work with their desired radio platform, said Shaun Gameroz, Sr. Mktg. Mgr.

KP Performance Antennas, a manufacturer of wireless network antennas, has just launched its new online radio-to-antenna compatibility search feature on the companys website. This easy-to-use filtering menu simplifies the search process of selecting the right antennas based on the users radio platform they are deploying in the field.

It is common in wireless network buildouts and deployments for engineers, field technicians and network operators to already know which access point and subscriber equipment radios they will be using. But with so many antenna options available for a single radio type, it becomes difficult to know exactly which antennas are compatible. This new online tool allows users to quickly and easily identify exactly which of KPs antennas work with their chosen radio.

This expanded parametric filtering option works in combination with the sites existing search filters to further narrow the users results, making product selection more focused and less confusing. When searching for an antenna, customers can now filter results to match the radio they will be using, and when searching for a radio, customers are offered a filter menu of antennas to choose from. Once a filter is selected, the search results are reduced to display compatible product choices.

With so many great antenna options available to our customers, we set out to create an easy-to-use, familiar search feature on the site that takes away the guess work when users are trying to find compatible antennas that work with their desired radio platform, explains Shaun Gameroz, Senior Marketing Manager for KP Performance Antennas. This new radio compatibility filter, found on the left-hand side of the screen in the reductive filtering options, is a dynamic list of popular radio platforms that will continue to grow as new models and manufacturers enter the market, which is why we felt it was imperative to streamline the customers purchase journey.

KPs new radio-to-antenna compatibility search tool is now live on the KP Performance Antennas website.

For inquiries, please call 1-855-276-5772.

For more information about this release, please contact:

Peter McNeil

KP Performance Antennas

17792 Fitch

Irvine, CA

978-682-6936 x1174

About KP Performance Antennas:

With decades of in-the-field expertise as former WISP operators and Ph.D. antenna engineers, KP Performance Antennas helps wireless internet service providers maximize ROI with products engineered to exceed industry expectations by delivering superior throughput, greater service coverage, dependable performance and reduced maintenance costs, while also providing responsive service, expert technical support and same-day shipping. KP Performance Antennas is an Infinite Electronics company.
Gary Horton, President and CEO of Landscape Development, Inc. We have been on a steady growth trajectory for the past several years and we are continuing this through organic and acquisition-based opportunities. When we have opportunities such as this to bring on board a team that shares our passion for quality, service and commitment, it is very exciting."

Enhanced Landscape Management (ELM), the maintenance division of Landscape Development, Inc. (LDI) with headquarters located in Valencia, CA has concluded the asset purchase of Quality Landscape Care (QLC) located in Ventura, CA. LDI is currently an industry leader in California with annual revenues over $90,000,000.

Over the course of two decades, QLC has established a strong reputation for excellence in horticulture and customer service in the public works sector. The entire staff of approximately 50 employees of QLC is being retained in this transition. Michael Robinson, the founder and owner of QLC joins the ELM executive team as the leader of their Ventura Branch operations and will play a key role in business development in the Ventura and Central Coast markets.

We have been on a steady growth trajectory for the past several years and we are continuing this through organic and acquisition-based opportunities. When we have opportunities such as this to bring on board a team that shares our passion for quality, service and commitment, it is very exciting, said ELM Division President Ron Reitz. Michael Robinson added, Ive long admired ELM and consider joining ELM an optimal union between our two companies sharing identically matching customer-facing priorities.

The QLC business will be branded as ELM immediately to ensure a consistent brand in the ELM service areas. The clients of QLC will continue to experience the same, familiar service, staff and management they are accustomed to. As a result of this acquisition, clients of QLC will benefit by being offered a broader range of services including landscape construction, maintenance, water management, landscape architecture and erosion control in an expanded service area.

This is an exciting addition to our LDI family and one which will bolster our presence in a key market for us, said LDI CEO Gary Horton. We continue to pursue acquisition opportunities to further grow and diversify our business while providing ever-expanding, best-in-class service to our valued clients.

LDI was founded in 1983 by Gary Horton; he continues to serve as President and CEO. LDI currently operates from nine regional offices throughout Central and Southern California.
MarketsandMarkets, the worlds largest revenue impact research and advisory firm focused on high-growth niche markets, today announced it will host its Annual Customer Summit Europe in Amsterdam, the Netherlands on Nov. 12-13, 2018.

The summit, to be held at Amsterdams Tobacco Theater, will feature two exciting days of thought-provoking TED Talk-style sessions, interactive panel discussions and networking opportunities. Top executives from every major industry will be in attendance to share best practices and discover areas of opportunities within connected and converging markets.

The upcoming summit for our European clients follows closely on the heels of our very successful Annual Customer Summit in Chicago in June, said Pavan Palety, vice president  head of Europe at MarketsandMarkets. Just like Chicago, the Amsterdam summit will feature a mixture of panel discussions on pragmatic and visionary topics to help our clients roll up their sleeves and tackle the difficult strategic challenges related to connected and converging markets that many of them are facing today.

Speakers at the Chicago summit included senior executives from Butzel Long, Cisco Systems, Dover Corporation, Microsoft and Veritas Technologies, among other top companies. The list of speakers for the Amsterdam summit will be released this fall.

Featuring discussions about emerging technologies from around the world and how the newest technological products and trends will drive growth, the Customer Summit Europe will address the following major topics and themes:



Getting Ahead of Greenfield Opportunities: Change is a constant in business and the speed of change is accelerating. For new emerging trends and technologies, being a large or stable organization is not much of an advantage anymoreit is an even playing field for start-ups and legacy companies alike. In such scenarios, is the starting point defining leadership? How can companies get ready to stay ahead?

Decision Making in Connected Markets: As change is accelerating, markets are converging more and more. To take advantage of market disruptions, it is important to not only understand how emerging trends will impact your business, but also to anticipate what will affect the business of your clients and your clients clients. You have to solve for both the known-unknown and the unknown-unknown. What are some ways in which astute business leaders are grappling with this problem?

New Revenue Mix: New trends and opportunities dictate that the revenue mix of companies will continue to change. What constitutes 10-20 percent of todays revenue will grow to 60-80 percent in the next 5-10 years. To survive and flourish, companies need to understand where to place their bets with limited or no information. How should companies decide on what trends to focus on for their future revenue mix?

Is There a Need for a B2B Marketplace? In an increasingly digital world, there are plenty of B2C marketplaces, from eBay to Amazon to even Uber and Yelp that rate and rank consumer products and services providers in real time. But for the B2B customer, an equivalent marketplace does not exist today. How should we think about such a marketplace? Is there a need to create such a marketplace?

Are You Asking the Right Questions? Organizations, more often than not, do not spend enough time in asking the right questions and defining problems well. What are some hurdles in asking the right questions and how can you overcome them? What are some frameworks that can help you plan and prioritize your research needs to achieve maximum revenue impact with your future strategies?

Were very excited to be convening the Customer Summit in Amsterdam to bring our European clients together to learn from each other and discuss long-term growth strategies, said Shelly Singh, chief operating officer at MarketsandMarkets. The summit will explore challenges around growth initiatives and provide insights on emerging areas of opportunity for 2019 planning and beyond.

Attendance at MarketandMarkets Annual Customer Summit Europe is by invitation only. For more information or to request an invitation, contact summit(at)marketsandmarkets(dot)com, or visit https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/event-promotion.asp.

About MarketsandMarkets

MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B competitive intelligence research on high-growth emerging niche markets that will impact future revenue mix of 70-80 percent of companies worldwide. Following its unique Growth Engagement Model (GEM), MarketsandMarkets helps clients identify new opportunities, most important customers and sources of incremental revenues for both the clients and their competitors as well as develop "attack, avoid and defend" strategies. With more than 850 fulltime analysts and subject matter experts (SMEs), the company serves more than 7,500 corporate clients worldwide, including 80 percent of global Fortune 2,000 companies. Its global headquarters is located in Pune, India, and the U.S. headquarters is in Chicago. For more information, visit http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ or follow on Twitter @MarketsMarkets.
Medeco CLIQ Go is an intelligent key system for small to mid-sized businesses Winning this award is testament to Medecos commitment to provide innovativeand economicalintelligent key systems for businesses of all sizes.

Medeco Security Locks, a division of ASSA ABLOY N.A., located in Salem, Va., was a winner of Security Today magazines New Product of the Year Award. Medeco CLIQ Go received top honors in the category, Locks/Safes/Hardware.

Medeco CLIQ Go is a cost-effective intelligent key system for small to medium-sized businesses that allows them to manage their security on the go using the CLIQ Go mobile app. Medeco CLIQ Go was designed for business owners who need access control on only a handful of doors, said Ashok Acharya, Medeco CLIQ product line manager. Winning this award is testament to Medecos commitment to provide innovativeand economicalsecurity solutions for businesses of all sizes.

Medeco CLIQ Go also benefits local security professionals by creating a recurring revenue source, as well as the opportunity to offer intelligent key systems off the shelf to their business clients. Medeco - CLIQ Go puts locksmiths in control of their intelligent key business, from the sale to programming keys to expanding current systems as client needs change.

The Security Today New Product of the Year Award honors the outstanding product development achievements of security equipment manufacturers whose products are considered to be particularly noteworthy in their ability to improve security. More than 100 entries were received in the 10th successful year of the independently juried contest. Winners were honored in 47 product award categories.

This is the 10th year that we have sponsored the New Product of the Year contest, and each year I am amazed at not only the quality of the products but the intuitive nature behind the development of the products, said Ralph C. Jensen, editor-in-chief and content director of Security Today. There is real genius behind the products that have been entered, and Im pleased that we can help bring this new technology to the forefront of the security industry. I am so grateful for the time people put into creating their entries and sharing this information with us, that we can then share with our readership.

Winners in each category will be recognized and presented awards at GSX September 25-27 in Las Vegas.

About Medeco:

Founded in 1968 and based in Salem, Va., Medeco is a market leader in mechanical and electronic locks and locking systems for security, safety, and control. The companys customer base includes wholesale and retail security providers, original equipment manufacturers, and institutional, commercial, industrial, and residential end-users. Visit http://www.medeco.com for additional information.

About ASSA ABLOY:

ASSA ABLOY is the global leader in door opening solutions, dedicated to satisfying end-user demands for security, safety and convenience. For more information, visit http://www.assaabloy.com.
Monster Energys Ben Wallace Scores Third at Nitro World Games Park Event There is always a course for someone and that bowl just seemed to be made for me. It worked so well. It was one of the most fun bowls I have ever ridden and I wish we were still going. Im just pumped on the whole experience and am still buzzing on the whole event - Ben Wallace

Monster Energy congratulates Ben Wallace for his flawless showing at the first ever Nitro World Games park event and Monster Armys Brian Fox on his Best Trick victory. Wallaces well-rounded approach to the unique bowl made his runs stand out among the best in the world, while Fox put body and bike on the line in the 20-minute jam event.

A private event at a brand new facility nestled north of San Diego, the inaugural Nitro World Games event brought out the best riders in the world looking for their portion of the $300,000 prize purse. But it wouldnt be a quick road, as Ben would have to battle his way through Quarter and Semi Finals to even have a shot at walking away with a trophy and some cash.

Wallace was on point the whole way through, combining everythingbig tricks, boosted airs, speed, unique lines, and technical tricksin his runs time and time again. He kicked off each run with a massive lookback transfer into a vert quarter, but he upped the level in his very last run in Finals to seal the third place finish.

From that very first transfer Wallace kept the speed going through a unique line that seemed impossible to everyone watching. Stylish and boosted one-footed X-ups, toboggans, and no-handers filled each wall, a different huge transfer with a tailwhip, and then cutting an unreal line to a flair across the longest quarter in the park. A double tail-whip over the box, an alley-oop lookback, a whip over the triangle spine, and an insane double tail-whip pocket air were the remaining bangers of his run.

What sealed the deal for Wallace was the barrage of technical tricks he was able to squeeze into the last few seconds of his run: a downside footplant x-up on the buildings support beam, a 540 tailtap, and an over-tooth-to-back-over on the triangle spine an unreal run that had every element of riding. After the event, Wallace was on cloud nine.

There is always a course for someone and that bowl just seemed to be made for me, said Wallace. "It worked so well. It was one of the most fun bowls I have ever ridden and I wish we were still going. Im just pumped on the whole experience and am still buzzing on the whole event.

Immediately after the award ceremony, the Best Trick Jam kicked off with 20 minutes of what can only be described as controlled mayhem. Monster Energy had a strong presence in the Jam with Colton Walker pulling a Twix air (a tailwhip barspin at the same time) and Kevin Peraza almost stomping a never been done 450 nose manual-to-360 downside whip. But, it was Monster Armys Fox who took the Best Trick win for spinning an unreal 1080 over the spine. It was a battle, though. Six attempts and one destroyed wheel later, Fox rolled away clean. Fox summed it up simply afterward, Im going to be sore tomorrow.

Download photos for Editorial Use.

For more info on Wallace, Fox, Walker, Peraza and the rest of the Monster Energy BMX team visit http://www.monsterenergy.com. Follow Monster Energy on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram & Twitter.

About Monster Energy

Based in Corona, California, Monster Energy is the leading marketer and distributor of energy drinks and alternative beverages. Refusing to acknowledge the traditional, Monster Energy supports the scene and sport. Whether motocross, off-road, NASCAR, MMA, BMX, surf, snowboard, ski, skateboard, or the rock and roll lifestyle, Monster Energy is a brand that believes in authenticity and the core of what its sports, athletes and musicians represent. More than a drink, its the way of life lived by athletes, sports, bands, believers and fans. See more about Monster Energy including all of its drinks at http://www.monsterenergy.com.
Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder on the same day in November 2015 as the court-ordered release of police dashboard camera video depicting the white officer shooting the black teen 16 times. The footage showed Van Dyke opening fire within seconds of exiting his police SUV as McDonald walked down the street with a knife in his hand  contradicting written reports by Van Dyke and several other officers who contended McDonald lunged at police with the knife.
"This collaboration with CDP will allow us to extend the work we do and ultimately serve a greater number of people whose needs are currently going unmet.

Good360, the global leader in product philanthropy and purposeful giving, has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP) to support long-term recovery work after Hurricane Harveys impact nearly one year ago.

The aim of the grant is to help accelerate Hurricane Harvey recovery by solving challenges around logistics and the distribution of needed goods. The grant funds will also satisfy unmet product needs of nonprofit organizations working in long-term disaster recovery in southeast Texas. Specifically, by providing distribution methods and warehousing, the grant will support getting products to where they are needed, and storing and organizing them in a way that is easily accessible to Good360s nonprofit partners.

Natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey result in a lengthy recovery period that is often overlooked, said Robert G. Ottenhoff, president and CEO of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. There are still gaps in providing needed goods to support the recovery of communities in southeast Texas. By partnering with Good360, we will make significant steps forward in closing these gaps by expanding product distribution capabilities in the area.

We activated in Texas within 72 hours of Harveys initial impact last summer, said Howard Sherman, CEO of Good360, and we continue to be on the ground in Houston and area in order to support our local nonprofit partners with the goods they need. This collaboration with CDP will allow us to extend the work we do and ultimately serve a greater number of people whose needs are currently going unmet.

About Good360

Good360s mission is to transform lives by providing hope, dignity, and a sense of renewed possibility to individuals, families, and communities impacted by disasters or other challenging life circumstances who, without us, would struggle to find that hope. As the global leader in product philanthropy and purposeful giving, we partner with socially responsible companies to source highly needed goods and distribute them through our network of diverse nonprofits that support people in need. Good360 has distributed more than $9 billion in donated goods around the world, helping its network of more than 60,000 pre-qualified nonprofits strengthen communities and improve the lives of millions. Good360 is proud to partner with corporate donors such as Walmart, UPS, CVS Health Foundation, Nike, IKEA, Sears, Home Depot, Grainger, 3M, Mattel, Crayola, Gap, Inc., ANN INC., Williams-Sonoma, and Hilton. Good360 is a registered 501(c)(3) organization. Learn more at https://www.good360.org.

About the Center for Disaster Philanthropy

The Center for Disaster Philanthropys mission is to transform disaster giving by providing timely and thoughtful strategies to increase donors impact during domestic and international disasters. For more information, please visit: http://disasterphilanthropy.org and connect with @funds4disaster on Twitter.
Elyse Baron Wins "Municipal Coordinator" Award

Baron routinely goes above and beyond her every day job, and brings along passion, drive and personality, said NJCCC Executive Director Sandy Huber.

Middlesex County officials nominated Baron in honor of the many educational programs and clean-ups she coordinates. Baron can often be seen around the Sayreville public schools, teaching students the importance of having a clean community.

I bring awareness and education into the program as well as fun, Baron said. I was pleased to join in the NJCCCs litter survey in my part of the state, helping to take responsibility for improving litter prevention.

Having a clean community helps everyone in the long run and should be everyones goal, Baron added.

Sayreville Mayor Kennedy OBrien described Baron as one of the unsung heroes of Sayreville who continually work to many the borough a great place to live. We cant expect the next generation of Sayreville residents to fight litter on their own, the mayor said. Elyse is continually on the front lines in the areas of education and advocacy, which make her so deserving of this award.

NJCCC is a comprehensive, statewide litter-abatement program that has served New Jersey residents and visitors for more than 25 years. Learn more at njclean.org.
LaMont Hampton At Fresh Coat Painters of M.O.T., we are more than painters  we are also product experts. That means we understand how to help you find exactly the right coating for your project and we can apply it in the right way so it looks perfect every time. - LaMont Hampton

Experienced paint professional LaMont Hampton is pleased to announce the launch of his new professional painting company, Fresh Coat Painters of M.O.T.

Fresh Coat offers residential and commercial painting services including interior or exterior painting, wood staining, and other services for nearly every protective coating application. They have a 24/7 receptionist, online scheduling, free detailed quotes, and they only use high-quality materials. Fresh Coat Painters of M.O.T. serves Middletown, Odessa, Townsend, Smyrna, Newark and Dover.

Prior to launching Fresh Coat, Hampton spent more than 24 years working for Sherwin-Williams, a Fresh Coat Painters national paint partner. He is a paint and coatings expert and has more than nine years of high-level management experience. Hampton is looking forward to bringing his knowledge, experience and customer-centric mindset to Fresh Coat. Hampton lives in the M.O.T. area with his wife, Elana, and their son, Joseph.

There are a lot of painters out there, but most of them just put paint on walls. At Fresh Coat Painters of M.O.T., we are more than painters  we are also product experts. That means we understand how to help you find exactly the right coating for your project and we can apply it in the right way so it looks perfect every time, Hampton said.

As part of Fresh Coats focus on service, they offer a 3-3-3 customer service pledge, so calls will be answered by a live person within three rings, a quote will be delivered within three days (customer schedule permitting) and the job will be started within three weeks. All Fresh Coat employees are specially trained, dependable and background-checked and Fresh Coat Painters of M.O.T. is bonded and insured.

During Hamptons time with Sherwin-Williams, he met quite a few painting companies across five local markets. He chose Fresh Coat because of the professionalism and vision of the company.

Ive worked with a Fresh Coat franchisee over the years and, when I started looking for a business opportunity, a colleague told me that the Fresh Coat franchise in my area was available. I did my research and Im excited to bring Fresh Coat to M.O.T. This is an up-and-coming painting franchise and the focus on quality, professionalism and customer services is what sets us apart, Hampton said.

Fresh Coat was founded in 2004 as part of Strategic Franchising Systems. Since 2015, Fresh Coat has been included in the Bonds Top 100 and named to Entrepreneur Magazines Franchise 500 list. Fresh Coat is also part of the International Franchise Association, the Small Business Associations Franchise Registry, VetFran and Minority Fran.

For more information about Fresh Coat Painters of M.O.T. or for a consultation, call (302)378-7365, email LHampton(at)FreshCoatPainters(dot)com or visit http://www.FreshCoatPainters.com/M-O-T.
New research conducted by the Better World Campaign finds that U.S. businesses won over $1.74 billion in procurement contracts with the United Nations in 2017, by far the most of any country around the world. Since 2010, U.S. companies have received over $9.5 billion in procurement contracts with the UN.

The economic benefits of the UN are wide-ranging from coast-to-coast. Forty-two states plus Washington D.C. are home to American companies that were awarded UN contracts in 2017, said Peter Yeo, President of the Better World Campaign.

Eighty-Four Senators and 239 members of the House of Representatives have companies headquartered in their district or state that are directly benefitting from doing business with the UN. The top five states benefitting from contracts with the UN include New York, New Jersey, California, Maryland and Washington D.C.

This new data is being released just a few months after Ambassador Haley hosted a seminar for U.S. companies on doing business with the UN. At the event, Ambassador Haley said, The United Nations procures over $17.5 billion each year in goods and services. This represents an enormous opportunity for U.S. businesses.

We at the Better World Campaign couldnt agree more with Ambassador Haleys assessment on the tremendous value this presents to American companies, added Yeo.

This new data confirms that the UN is not only in Americas foreign policy and national security interests, American corporations also benefit more than any other country in the world from procurement contracts with the UN.

Learn more about the economic benefits of the UN to the U.S.

About the Better World Campaign

The Better World Campaign works to foster a strong relationship between the U.S. and the UN to promote core American interests and build a more secure, prosperous, and healthy world. The Better World Campaign engages policymakers, the media, and the American public alike to increase awareness of the critical role played by the UN in world affairs and the importance of constructive U.S.-UN relations. Learn more at: http://www.betterworldcampaign.org.
Physicians Medical Forum: 2018 Community Health Ambassadors Internship Program and Coordinators The ultimate reason to become a medical doctor is to help people. Physicians Medical Froum is in this business

Physicians Medical Forum (PMF), aims to expand the pipeline and the number of African American/Black, Native Americans, Hispanic and minority students who want to become physicians. PMF, a non-profit organization, provides a network that encourages high school, college/post bac, medical students and residents to pursue their careers as physicians in the Oakland/San Francisco Northern California Bay Area.

To that end, PMF congratulates the students who completed its 2018 Community Health Ambassadors Internship Program (CHA), a 5-week program that develops and creates pathways for students interested in becoming doctors or pharmacists. PMF receives funding from The California Wellness Foundation, Kaiser Foundation Hospital Fund for Community Benefit Programs at the East Bay Community Foundation, San Francisco Foundation and Wells Fargo. The CHA Program was held at Samuel Merritt University, Health Education Center in Oakland, CA and who partners with PMF on education, health and wellness initiatives.

Photo of PMF & CHA Interns from Left to Right include: Ugomma Eze, CHA Program Coordinator and UCSF Medical Student with CHA Ambassadors Interns, Lois Onuoma, Jai Smith, Laetta Diane Brown, Fatima Vidrio, Jeremiah Richard Purdy, Naomi Purdy, Stephanie Lawless and Stalfana Bello, MPA, PMF Executive Director and Kafi Hemphill, CHA Program Coordinator and UCSF Medical Student

Kathryn E. Malone, M.D., (Family Medicine) and Vice-President, Physicians Medical Forum stated that students explored a variety of Primary Care medical topics and other healthcare disparities. Dr. Malone also discussed with the students the critically important role of the physician in patients health and wellness and why they must seek and establish networks and mentorships that will provide them with better insight into the real world of medicine.

Stalfana Bello, M.P.A., Executive Director, Physicians Medical Forum said, The Community Health Ambassadors Internship Program provided the students, who will be first generation doctors in their families, a snapshot of what it takes to become physicians or pharmacists. Most of the students attended our Doctors On Board Pipeline Program and the internship is a natural next step to help students move forward in their journey to become doctors.

Ugomma Eze, CHA Program Coordinator, 3rd year Medical Student and Kafi Hemphill, 4th year Medical Student who are both at UCSF School of Medicine stated that Ambassadors conducted interviews an created a health-focused educational videos presentation for their community-service-project. The Ambassadors focused the video presentation on why it was important for students to become physicians and the positive impacts towards improving health and wellness in the communities they hope to serve.

ABOUT PHYSICIANS MEDICAL FORUM (PMF):

The Physicians Medical Forum is an Oakland, CA based non-profit 501(c)(3) whose mission is to encourage recruitment and retention of African American/Black and minority physicians to eliminate health disparities; improve access to care; and maintain diversity within the profession, thereby, improving the quality of healthcare for the community overall.

Other PMF programs and initiatives include: Doctors On Board Pipeline Program; Doctors Rock Workshop Series on Mentoring; MCAT Prep with Princeton Review; Interviewing skills and writing personal statements; scholarships and stipends for post bac, medical students and residents; Scholarships for Visiting Elective Residency Programs at UC Davis and UCSF Schools of Medicine and UCSF Benioff Childrens Hospital Oakland; physician education and development; networking with legislators and medical organizations and community outreach programs. http://www.PMFMD.com

EDITORS: The following are available for interviews. To arrange interviews, contact: Stalfana Bello | 510.562.5560 | ExecutiveDirector@PMFMD.com



Stalfana Bello, M.P.A, PMF Executive Director

Albert L. Brooks, M.D., PMF President

Ugomma Eze, CHA Program Coordinator, UCSF School of Medicine, Medical Student

Kafi Hemphill, CHA Program Coordinator, UCSF School of Medicine, Medical Student

Kathryn E. Malone, M.D. PMF Vice-President

CHA Student Interns

Please visit us at:

WEBSITE: http://www.pmfmd.com

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/pmfprograms/

LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/physicians-medical-forum

YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfmwV7dUax42_mmNJwGZrgw

PHYSICIANS MEDICAL FORUM

6114 La Salle Avenue, #601  Oakland, CA 94611 510.562-5560 p  http://www.pmfmd.com

The ultimate reason to become a medical doctor is to help people. PMF is in this business
LiDAR point cloud, colorized with aerial imagery, farmland in Door County, Wisconsin. "The 3DEP program is unique in that it helps federal agencies, as well as state and local governments and private organizations, minimize their costs for collecting valuable geospatial information, while maximizing its impact for a variety of uses," said Michael Shillenn, vice president at QSI.

Quantum Spatial, Inc. (QSI), the nations largest independent geospatial data firm, announced that it is currently working on more than two dozen Lidar collection projects designed to address the countrys need for high-quality topographic data in support of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) program. 3DEP, which provides matching federal funds for large-area Lidar collections that benefit multi-agency groups with common geospatial needs, will open its application process on August 31, 2018, with a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for fiscal year 2019. Proposals will be due by October 26, 2018.

Since inception of the of the 3DEP program, QSI has worked with a diverse range of public agencies and private sector organizations seeking federal assistance to finance Lidar collections. In addition to providing Lidar survey and data analytics services, QSI also has fostered coalition building among disparate groups that have Lidar needs in the same geographic area, and provided guidance and support for project justifications, shared cost models and project specifications.

"QSI has been our trusted partner on 3DEP projects throughout the State of Wisconsin for many years. Together our firms have completed more than 20,000 square miles of Lidar surveys across the State," said Jason Krueger, manager of Aerial Mapping at Ayres Associates. "As we move into the FY2019 project year, we look forward to working closely with them on additional projects that will bring the many benefits of the 3DEP program to participants at the federal and state level.

3DEP Yields Real Community and Business Value

Working on 33 BAA projects since 2015, QSI continues to see how the Lidar data collected delivers value to the agencies, companies and other organizations in the geographic areas surveyed. Recent projects, awarded under the FY2018 BAA, include:

 North Slope Borough, Alaska  On the Arctic coast, this area is home to eight communities, and subject to increasing erosion, flooding and subsidence that has been exacerbated in recent years by melting permafrost and sea ice retreat. QSI worked with North Slope Borough officials to design the project scope and technical specifications and assisted with developing a cost share model. Now, QSI is in the process of collecting data across 458 square miles, which will provide a crucial baseline for monitoring the impact these changes have on infrastructure, as well as support emergency response efforts and assessment of gravel resources for infrastructure projects.

 Wisconsin Land Information Program (WLIP)  WLIP, working in partnership with the counties of Fond Du Lac, Calumet, Waupaca, Green Lake, Clark and Price, is undertaking a survey of 4,791 square miles, including the last four counties in Wisconsin without Lidar coverage. The elevation layer data will be used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for floodplain delineation projects, as well as by the Environmental Protection Agency and county land conservation offices for watershed/pollution monitoring. It also will benefit other federal and state agencies, tribal organizations, private businesses and individuals for planning and zoning, land conservation, utilities, roads and economic development activities. QSI is partnering with Ayres Associates to design and complete this latest component of an ongoing multi-year program to complete Lidar coverage throughout Wisconsin. This partnership has expanded dramatically since 2010, resulting in cost savings and better data sets for all participants.

 Crown of Maine - Since 2010, QSI has performed several Lidar projects, including four 3DEP BAA-funded projects covering more than 23,500 square miles throughout Maine. The most recent project is with the Maine GeoLibrary and Maine Office of GIS, for which QSI will acquire Lidar data across 6,691 square miles to complete the GeoLibrary's long-term plan to achieve initial statewide coverage. The project is supported by several partners, including the Baxter State Park; Town of Carrabassett Valley, Maine; Cooperative Forest Research Unit; Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands; Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention: Maine Department of Transportation; Maine Geological Survey; the Nature Conservancy; Pattern; State of Maine Emergency Management Agency; Sunrise County Economic Council; USGS; USDAs Natural Resources Conservation Service Maine office; and private landowners. The GeoLibrary is leveraging the Lidar data to support widespread public distribution of geospatial information. Data will be used to modernize local government land records, promote innovative uses of public information for economic development and reduce costs.

 Prince of Wales Island, Alaska  In an earlier BAA award, QSI surveyed 2,055 square miles of Prince of Wales in Alaska, through a project for The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Forest Service, Sealaska and Natural Resources Conservation Service. Working on phase two of the project in 2018, with additional partners the Metlakatla Indian Community and Organized Village of Kake, QSI will survey the southeast portion of the island, which is dominated by closed-canopy, coniferous forest and steep slopes. The project will assist ongoing U.S. Forest Service land management programs, measure current and future timber availability, aid in economically critical fish management studies, evaluate transportation infrastructure, detect geologic hazards, and characterize cultural heritage and mining sites. In addition to doing conducting the survey, QSI was instrumental in helping The Nature Conservancy develop the project and a cost share model, organize groups with similar interests to join the project, and draft the BAA proposal.

The 3DEP program is unique in that it helps federal agencies, as well as state and local governments and private organizations, minimize their costs for collecting valuable geospatial information, while maximizing its impact for a variety of uses  including flood risk management, wildfire management, planning and response, natural resources conservation, coastal and riverine protection, infrastructure management and geologic resource assessment, said Michael Shillenn, vice president at QSI. QSI is proud of our work helping foster these collaborative partnerships and providing the advanced surveys and data analytics that deliver insights into our countrys constantly changing natural and constructed features.

Organizations or agencies interested in learning more about the 3DEP program and how QSI can help, download this information sheet or contact Michael Shillenn at mshillenn (at) quantumspatial (dot) com or Oriane Taft at otaft (at) quantumspatial (dot) com.

About Quantum Spatial, Inc.

Quantum Spatial, Inc., (QSI) the nations largest independent geospatial data firm, provides geographic insights to the largest government and corporate organizations that need geospatial intelligence to mitigate risk, plan for growth, better manage resources and advance scientific understanding. A pioneer in advanced mapping technology, QSIs end-to-end solutions and services deliver the industrys highest data quality and accuracy, while leveraging the widest array of technologies for analyzing all types of terrains. Customers use the companys acquisition, processing, analytics and visualization solutions in a range of technical and scientific disciplines  from geology and biology, to hydrology, forestry and civil engineering. Utilities, oil and gas producers, engineering and construction firms, as well as the military and major government agencies, are QSI customers. QSI has multiple offices around the country. For more information visit quantumspatial.com, join us on LinkedIn or follow us on Twitter @QuantumSpatial.
Under the new single-source digital marketing program, which is already underway with participating Brazilian dealers, Search Optics is creating a more connected customer experience and a more unified brand message for Suzuki Vehicles of Brazil.

Search Optics, a leading global digital marketing provider with expertise in the automotive industry, has announced an agreement with Suzuki Brazil to implement an integrated digital marketing strategy that fully aligns Suzukis brand marketing initiatives with its dealers across the Brazilian market for the first time.

Under the new single-source digital marketing program, which is already underway with participating Brazilian dealers, Search Optics is creating a more connected customer experience and a more unified brand message for Suzuki Vehicles of Brazil. Through shared data insights, the program is also designed to enable Suzuki and its dealers to accelerate sales processes and better meet sales goals. While the initiative is just getting started, in other markets a similar Search Optics approach has led to an 87% increase in appointment requests, a 69% jump in website conversions and a 50% boost in website traffic.

Real-Time Inventory Data

A major focus of the Search Optics initiative is the addition of inventory data to Suzuki dealer websites in Brazil for the first time. This is implemented through the Search Optics Blueprint Platform, a truly responsive website solution built for all screen sizes. Heightening the effectiveness of the partnership is UPTRACS, a third-party reporting platform that provides real-time campaign metrics to ensure optimal results. Both platforms are widely used to support and grow brands globally and available in numerous languages and currencies.

Heading up the Suzuki Brazil digital program for Search Optics is Eduardo Cortez, President, EMEA and LatAm. The Suzuki brand is already well known in Brazil, and were proud to offer them this new results-driven integrated strategy, said Cortez. Were confident that it will foster greater success for their dealers through a more consistent, unified and amplified brand message.

Offering deep automotive industry expertise and global reach, Search Optics supports more than 62 automotive OEM programs around the world and serves 29 leading Asian, European and North American automotive brands with integrated digital marketing programs.

About Search Optics

Celebrating 20 years of business in 2018, Search Optics has earned its status as a leader in global digital marketing. Using an uncommon blend of class-leading technology backed by real people, the company specializes in custom, integrated solutions with an emphasis on outstanding measurable results. With a client base of over 3,000 customers worldwide, Search Optics has offices in the North American, EMEA and LATAM regions. For more information, please visit http://www.searchoptics.com. You can follow Search Optics on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Richard Nishimoto of Los Angeles California, age 70, received his May 7th 2018 Mortgage Statement which reflected a reinstatement amount of $2,690,841.82. When the estimated value of the Home was only $1,179,000.00, leaving Mr. Nishimoto and his two elderly siblings (ages 80 and 78) with a negative equity amount of -$1,511,841.82.

Since 2010, Mr. Nishimoto and his family wrestled to keep their family's home of 48 years. This involved hiring many unscrupulous companies and attorneys that charged outrageous fees. Some of them forced Mr. Nishimoto to forfeit his valuable watches that they asked for as a good faith deposit.

After being instructed to file multiple bankruptcies including a Chapter 13 and a Chapter 7 just to delay the inevitable Auction of their home the Property was eventually foreclosed on May 11, 2018 and sold to the highest bidder at $950,000.00 which left the Nishimotos with a deficit of -$1,740,841.82 from their last reinstatement amount.

With no money to relocate, Mr. Nishimoto was concerned he would be unable to rent a home for his two elderly siblings and himself due to damaged credit brought on by the defaulted Mortgage. Mr. Nishimoto was now understandably suffering from depression and anxiety. What made matters worse is Mr. Nishimoto was now getting bombarded by various foreclosure consultants offering eviction delay services with no written guarantees of any additional time in the home, but they all wanted to collect exorbitant upfront fees that these siblings did not have.

Richard Nishimoto was directed to a web site, http://www.NACAlaw.org, that belongs to the Nonprofit Alliance of Consumer Advocates, a faith-based not for profit legal clinic that focuses on homeownership retention for families experiencing financial distress under the legal direction of Attorney Peter Nisson, a prominent appellate level Attorney licensed for 44 years. Mr. Nishimoto sent an email on May 31st and it was immediately responded to by a home retention advocate. It was immediately identified by the Nonprofit Alliance of Consumer Advocates staff that Mr. Nishimoto needed specialized Legal Services that may offer Richard and his two elderly siblings more than just eviction delay. What the Nishimotos needed was an experienced Litigation Law Firm who also has experience in potential Elderly Abuse as well as possible Wrongful Foreclosure.

Richard Nishimoto agreed to engage in the zero out of pocket bundled legal services of Attorney Tony Caras Consumer Defense Law Group http://www.CDlawgroup.com on June 4, 2018. On July 25, 2018, funds were wired into the Nishimotos bank account in the amount of $208,000.00. Attorney Peter Nissons Nonprofit Alliance of Consumer Advocates then referred and introduced the Nishimotos to Faith First Bancorp & Real Estate that got them pre-approved to immediately purchase a single story 3 Bedroom/2 Bathroom home where the Nishimotos wont have to make any payments for the rest of their lives while Tony Caras Consumer Defense Law Group continues to investigate Mr. Nishimotos case further.
No one has been charged in connection with her death, though authorities have named Sheri Gordon a person of interest in the case. Others identified as persons of interest are Semajs grandmother, Darlene Crosby; an aunt, Lakerisha Crosby; a female minor who was living with the family; and a fifth person who authorities say may have information pertaining to the childs death.
Specialty Technical Publishers

Specialty Technical Publishers (STP) and Specialty Technical Consultants (STC) announce the availability of the newly updated International Audit Protocol Consortium (IAPC) EHS audit protocol for India. Leading companies around the world use IAPC EHS audit protocols to understand the scope of their EHS regulatory obligations and rapidly collect, share, archive, and export audit findings in a cost effective manner. IAPC EHS audit protocols are now prepared by STC in partnership with STP and continue to focus on those national (plus, in some cases, regional or provincial) EHS requirements that have site-specific application for manufacturing operations. As a leading EHS management consulting firm with a global network of experienced EHS teaming partners, STC has indepth knowledge and technical expertise of local/regional EHS requirements.

STP and STC maintain leading-edge EHS audit protocols for more than 30 jurisdictions. The protocol documents are written in English and are available in MS Word, Adobe Acrobat and Excel formats, as well as through STPs web-based portal or can be integrated into an existing company platform. Using the protocols custom templates and advanced functionality features, auditors can easily track audit findings and manage data over time to improve compliance, risk management and safety performance. In addition, STPs formatting is compatible with leading risk management and sustainability platform providers.

Highlights of selected legislation covered in the newly developed protocol include:



The Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, September 26, 2017 were added to this protocol. These Rules established restrictions of activities in wetlands, in relation to the Ramsar Convention (the Convention on Wetlands signed at Ramsar, Iran in 1971). These Rules replace the 2010 version.

Relevant requirements of the Child Labour and Adolescent (Prohibition and Regulation) Rules, 1988 were added to this protocol. The Rules established additional administrative requirements with regard to the employment of children, including providing exemptions to scenarios where children are allowed to work.

Various regulations on electrical safety were added to flush out the relevant requirements, including The Electricity Act, 2003; The National Electrical Code, 2011; Central Electricity Authority (Safety Requirements for Construction, Operation, and Maintenance of Electrical Plants and Electric Lines) Regulations, 2011; and Central Electricity Authority (Measures Relating to Safety and Electricity Supply) Regulations, 2010.

Relevant requirements of The Boiler Attendants Rules, 2011 and The Boiler Operation Engineers Rules, 2011 were added to this protocol. These Rules ensure that qualified persons are responsible for the supervision and operation of boilers.

The Static and Mobile Pressure Vessels (Unfired) Rules, 2016 were added to this protocol. These Rules replace the 1981 version and continue to establish requirements for the storage and transport of tanks holding liquefied gases including flammable, toxic, and corrosive gases under pressure such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), ammonia, ethylene oxide, etc.

The Gas Cylinders Rules, 2016 were added to this protocol. These Rules repeal and replace the 2004 version and continue detail the required procedures and standards for the construction, marking/labeling, placement, and maintenance of compressed gas cylinders.

The Regulation of Persistent Organic Pollutants Rules, 2018 were added to this protocol. These Rules prohibit the manufacture, trade, use, import and export of certain chemicals classified as POPs in Annex A to the Stockholm Convent on Persistent Organic Pollutant.

For more information on all International EHS audit protocols offered by STP and STC click here.

About Specialty Technical Publishers

Specialty Technical Publishers (STP) produces technical resource guides covering environmental, health & safety, transportation, accounting, business practices, standards and law, offering comprehensive guidance on key compliance and regulatory issues. STP is a division of Glacier Media Inc., a Canadian information communications company that provides primary and essential information in print, electronic and online media. Glaciers Business and Professional Information Group publishes directories, technical manuals, research and development materials, medical education, electronic databases, investment information and specialty websites.

About Specialty Technical Consultants

Specialty Technical Consultants, Inc. (STC) is a specialized management consulting firm working to enhance environmental health and safety (EHS) performance. Through its consulting services, STC partners with clients to strengthen management systems' design and implementation, and identifies needs and implements solutions to meet business objectives. Services provided include: EHS compliance support; risk assessment; EHS auditing; corporate responsibility and sustainability; EHS management systems development and implementation; EHS regulatory information tools; and EHS training.

STC is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE) by the Womens Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) and the Supplier Clearinghouse for the California Public Utilities Commission, and as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program.
Straub Construction, Inc. was awarded the contract for the P440 Air Wing Training Facility at Naval Air Station, Fallon in Nevada. This project was awarded on August 6, 2018 as a Task Order under a previously awarded multiple award construction contract. The work to be performed provides for construction of the facility that will support desk-style aircraft simulators, Virtual Aegis Combat simulators, F-35 Mission Rehearsal Trainers, and unmanned aerial system simulators, E-2D simulators and support spaces. Project will be constructed with reinforced concrete masonry with seismic upgrades, reinforced concrete slab, structural steel framing, elastomeric roof and structural elements that would allow the expansion of the facility in the future if required.

Straub Construction, Inc. is an award-winning general contractor specializing in design-build and construction management services. The company has provided comprehensive services to support Department of Defense and public construction programs for clients in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. The privately held corporation has always maintained a reputation for excellence throughout its 40 year history. The company is currently located at 202 West College, Fallbrook, CA 92028. Corporate Office: (760) 414-9000, fax (760) 414-9100. http://www.straubinc.com
It is so important that our users can rely on the accuracy of the parts they build into designs, said Harald Friedrich, CEO/owner of TARGET 3001!. The Ultra Librarian verified 3D models are more accurate than generic modelsespecially important when designing products with tight space requirements

EMA Design Automation (http://www.ema-eda.com), a full-service provider and innovator of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) solutions, today announced that its Ultra Librarian 14 million electronic part library of symbols, footprints, and 3D models is now available to PCB designers using the TARGET 3001! design suite. TARGET 3001! users can now download verified models from Ultra Librarian, saving them time and eliminating errors that can occur when manually building part models, said Manny Marcano, president and CEO of EMA. This is especially true with more complex components, large components, or components that use non-typical pin patterns.

The TARGET 3001! design suite combines schematic capture, simulation, PCB layout, auto routing, 3D view, and front panel design. PCB projects can be designed on boards or on 3D bodies (MID), a technique not common in the industry, and this is supported by a single user interface for all features. A complete TARGET 3001! project is all stored in a single file containing all needed information. With Ultra Librarian, manufacturer part numbers or distributor order numbers are shown on the Bill of Materials (BoM). Subsequent processes of manufacturing, assembly, or documentation/information are eased significantly, and the calculation of board production cost and the ordering with PCB houses are both simple processes and time efficient.

It is of utmost importance to our TARGET 3001! users that they can rely on the accuracy of the parts they build into their designs, said Harald Friedrich, CEO and owner of TARGET 3001!. Ultra Librarians models are created based on IPC and manufacturers specifications and go through more than 30 checks during creation by the Ultra Librarian team and/or component manufacturers. The Ultra Librarian verified 3D models are more accurate than generic 3D models, which is very important especially when designing products with tight space requirements.

For more information about Ultra Librarian, go to http://www.ultralibrarian.com or call 585.334.6001.

About EMA Design Automation, Inc.

EMA Design Automation is a trailblazer in product development solutions offering a complete range of EDA tools, PLM integrations, services, training, and technical support. EMA is a Cadence Channel Partner serving all of North America. EMA develops Ultra Librarian, TimingDesigner, CircuitSpace, CIP, EDABuilder, and a host of custom solutions to enhance the OrCAD products, and all are distributed through a worldwide network of value added resellers. EMA is a privately held corporation headquartered in Rochester, New York. Visit EMA at http://www.ema-eda.com for more information.

About TARGET 3001!

TARGET 3001! is a standalone PCB Layout CAD software package developed and privately held by Ing.-Buero Friedrich (IBF) in Eichenzell, Germany. TARGET 3001! was first released in 1990 and is in continuous development by IBF. It is a reliable tool for engineers and electronics developers worldwide and its user base is growing steadily. While it meets the requirements of industrial engineers, companies value the sustainability of TARGET 3001! being permanently developed and maintained for the long term. TARGET 3001! partners with PCB and assembly houses in Germany and Europe. It plays an important role in the process chain of a wide range of electronics developing companies. Visit ibfriedrich.com for more information.

EMA Design Automation, TimingDesigner, CircuitSpace, EDABuilder, Ultra Librarian and the EMA logo are registered trademarks, and Component Information Portal is a trademark of EMA Design Automation, Inc. Cadence, Allegro, and OrCAD are registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All other trademarks in this release are the property of their respective owners.
Texas Independent School District installation Would you send your children to school without fire alarms? Schools are now looking at active shooter detection in the same way.

Shooter Detection Systems (SDS), the leading K-12 school gunshot detection solutions provider, today announced that Texas schools are choosing the Guardian Indoor Active Shooter Detection System as a part of comprehensive security upgrades to secure schools against the active shooter threat. The SDS system continues to be selected due to its proven performance history at other schools, its zero-false alert history and its proven, certified technology integrations with many schools current security technologies.

The company has had a presence in the state of Texas since 2016 with installations in schools and corporate spaces, yet this year marks the companys largest expansion in that region. We are experiencing a clear trend upwards in the K-12 school market, especially in Texas, said Christopher Swanger, Senior Vice President of Sales for SDS. Texas schools are prioritizing funds for school safety and they see the value of our zero false alert system to empower students, staff and law enforcement to respond. Would you send your children to school without fire alarms? Schools are now looking at active shooter detection in the same way.

In response to the groundswell of support for the implementation school safety measures after the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, authorities are recognizing that an active shooter detection system is a critical technology for school safety. Alongside video surveillance, mass notification and access control systems, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has placed gunshot detection on the list of products and technologies for consideration in their recently published K-12 School Security Guide for Preventing and Protecting Against Gun Violence and in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott advocates for gunshot detection in his May 2018 School and Firearm Safety Action Plan, citing active shooter alarm systems among his recommendations to reduce security threats and improve Texas schools.

We are very pleased to see Government authorities advocating for gunshot detection systems for schools, said Christian Connors, CEO for the company. As a parent, its been painful to see schools that want gunshot detection unable to move forward to secure their schools due to tight or non-existent security budgets. Its refreshing to finally see schools shifting budgetary priorities to focus on school safety, and Texas is leading the charge.

Shooter Detection Systems is currently working with a multitude of Texas Independent School Districts in an effort to make school buildings gunshot aware. SDS is urging concerned parents, school administrators and School Resource Officers to reach out so they can conduct a gunshot detection evaluation for their ISDs and individual school buildings. Texas communities looking for more information about gunshot detection can call 1-844-SHOT911 or email sales@shooterdetectionsystems.com.
Tranont We are on a path to positively impact more than one billion lives over the next 20 years, said Lorne Berry, CEO and Founder at Tranont. Placing in the top seven percent of companies nationwide is a great honor and a testament to the enthusiasm and passion surrounding our movement.

Inc. Magazine ranked Tranont no. 321 in its annual ranking of Americas fastest growing companies  placing it in the top seven percent of privately held companies in America for growth.

We are on a path to positively impact more than one billion lives over the next 20 years, said Lorne Berry, CEO and Founder at Tranont. Placing in the top seven percent of companies nationwide is a great honor and a testament to the enthusiasm and passion surrounding our movement.

From startup to a multi-million, international company in three years  its a feat that most entrepreneurs dream of. How did Tranont do it?

We are first and foremost an education company, said Russ Losee, Tranont COO and Co-founder. We teach people about finances, saving for a rainy day and retiring well. Then we teach people how to live a fuller, healthier life. Our customers love our products because they are natural extensions of something they learned.

In addition to placing in the top seven percent of companies nationwide, Tranont received three other top Inc. 500 honors:



#23  Top Consumer Products and Services Companies

#10  Top Utah Companies

#7  Top Provo-Orem, Utah Companies

Tranont is headquartered in Lehi, Utah  the hottest city for entrepreneurship according to the 2018 Inc. 5000.

About Tranont

Founded in 2013 by CEO Lorne Berry, Tranont is on a mission to impact one billion lives for good. Through personalized health and wealth education, we provide instruction, products, and services to help families reach their goals.

Using a direct sales model, neighbors are helping neighbors improve their health, create more wealth, and leave a lasting impact in their communities.

For more information, visit: http://www.tranont.com.
Mobile banking startup Varo Money, Inc. today announced the hire of Thibault Fulconis as Chief Financial Officer. Fulconis has extensive experience in financial management and joins Varo from the executive team of Bank of the West and its holding company BancWest. He will serve as the companys Chief Financial Officer, overseeing all financial, treasury, regulatory reporting and accounting operations, and will work directly with CEO Colin Walsh to support the company as it rapidly scales and delivers its business plan.

We are excited to welcome Thibault to Varo, said Colin Walsh, CEO of Varo. He brings decades of experience in the banking sector, and his unique blend of strategic insights and financial rigor make him an ideal executive to lead the finance function at Varo as we pursue our mission to redefine banking and help customers make smart financial choices.

At Bank of the West, Fulconis served as Vice Chairman, Corporate Functions and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to that role, he oversaw the Commercial Banking and National Finance business units of the bank, and the Corporate Development, and served as Vice Chairman in charge of Finance. Before his tenure at Bank of the West, he held various positions, mostly in Finance, with parent company BNP Paribas since 1989. He served as CFO and Head of Development for the International Retail and Financial Services pole of BNP Paribas and as Head of Financial Management for the BNP Paribas Group. Before joining BNP Paribas, Fulconis was a business analyst in the mergers and acquisitions practice with Booz Allen Hamilton in Paris.

Ive worked in banking and financial services for many years and I feel fortunate to put my knowledge and experience to work for a company with such an important social mission, said Fulconis. The team at Varo Money team brings unique experience and energy to this space. Im energized to be part of this movement towards a better banking system.

Varos all-mobile bank account was built with best-in-class technology to help people get ahead financially. In June 2016, Varo applied for a national bank charter to be able to deliver on its mission to help Americans achieve better financial health nationwide, offering customers a full range of products and solutions and the highest standards of consumer protection.

Varo was founded in 2015 and has raised more than $79M in funding with Warburg Pincus and The Rise Fund, a global impact fund led by private equity firm TPG as lead investors.

About Varo Money

Varo Bank Accounts are provided by The Bancorp Bank, and deposits are FDIC-insured up to $250,000 through The Bancorp Bank.

Varo Money, Inc. (Varo) combines mobile technology with a social mission to provide access to no-cost premium bank accounts through better service and automated savings tools. We believe everyone has a right to high-quality banking at no cost regardless of net worth. In addition to premium banking products offered through The Bancorp Bank, Varo provides tech-first features to budget, track, and save money as a way to help people manage their money more easily. Varo serves customers without being tied to a branch and embraces technology to provide helpful banking relationships. Based in San Francisco and Utah and privately held, Varo has raised $79M to date, led by Warburg Pincus. Varo Personal Loan and Varo Backup Line are offered by Varo Money, Inc., under state licenses, subject to application approval. For more information, please visit http://www.varomoney.com and follow Varo on Instagram @varomoney, Facebook @varomoney or Twitter @varomoney.
Proudly Serving Our Country For 28 Years We didn't invent this technology a few months ago, we have been streamlining our tools for decades. Our team is eager to solve challenges in your industry next.

Veloxiti, a recognized artificial intelligence engineering firm has been accepted into the Forbes Technology Council, an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives.

Veloxitis CEO, Larry Lafferty, joins other Forbes Technology Council members who are hand-selected to become part of a curated network of successful peers while accessing a variety of exclusive benefits and resources, including the opportunity to submit thought leadership articles and short tips on industry-related topics on Forbes.com.

Forbes Councils combine an innovative, high-touch approach to community management perfected by the team behind Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) with the extensive resources and global reach of Forbes. As a result, Forbes Council members get access to the people, benefits and expertise they need to grow their businesses  and a dedicated member concierge who acts as an extension of their own team, providing personalized one-on-one support.

Veloxiti Inc. has emerged from nearly three decades of government research where their engineering talent and cognitive solutions development stack, used to create a powerful class of artificial intelligence, have been extensively tested for target perfect accuracy, adaptive durability, and massive scalability in critical defense sectors.

Lafferty, CEO, said Our work represents the pinnacle of government investments in cognitive solutions which provide stronger artificial intelligence capabilities to our customers. Were excited about influencing the Forbes Council understanding of artificial intelligence and how our cognitive approach will responsibly impact business and society.

The company's successes have opened doors in supply chain, finance, banking, travel, energy, and other commercial applications, resulting in solutions that augment operations with near real-time insights and operational controls provided by intelligent cognitive agents.

Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils, says, We are honored to welcome Larry at Veloxiti into the community. Our mission with Forbes Councils is to curate successful professionals from every industry, creating a vetted, social capital-driven network that helps every member make an even greater impact on the business world.

About Veloxiti

Veloxiti Inc. is one of the oldest most respected privately held artificial intelligence engineering firms in the world. Previously known as Applied Systems Intelligence, the company changed its name to begin an authentic strategy to transfer its nearly half-billion dollars of government research into commercial sectors. Enterprise business applications rely on their talent and tools to add new productivity controls that augment operations through such things as natural language understanding, associative memory, and intent or belief modeling. Learn more by viewing their tools at http://www.veloxiti.com

About Forbes Councils

Forbes partnered with the founders of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) to launch Forbes Councils, invitation-only communities for world-class business professionals in a variety of industries. Members, who are hand-selected by each Councils community team, receive personalized introductions to each other based on their specific needs and gain access to a wide range of business benefits and services, including best-in-class concierge teams, personalized connections, peer-to-peer learning, business services partners, and the opportunity to share thought leadership content on Forbes.com. For more information about Forbes Technology Council, visit https://forbestechcouncil.com/. To learn more about Forbes Councils, visit forbescouncils.com.
Walker Sands, an integrated PR and digital marketing agency for B2B technology and professional services companies, has appointed Courtney Beasley vice president of marketing, effective immediately. As the vice president of marketing, Beasley is a key contributor to Walker Sands strategic expansion plans, working to solidify Walker Sands status as a leading B2B tech agency.

Beasley joined Walker Sands in 2012 as employee No. 15. After a short stint in sales, Beasley shifted roles to establish the marketing department and began playing an integral part in the growth of the agency.

Since then, the Walker Sands marketing team has become a strong cross-departmental support system for the agency, working across digital, creative, sales and PR departments to generate demand and drive leads. Beasley has led the creation of 45 assets and dozens of campaigns to support departments across the agency, including the widely popular Future of Retail and State of Marketing Technology reports. She has spearheaded multiple events, such as Marketing Madness and Just a Book, and overseen paid, SEO and creative campaigns, which bring in an average of over 1000 leads per year. During her time in marketing, Walker Sands has more than tripled revenues and just this month was named to the Inc. 5000 for the sixth year in a row.

Courtney has been an invaluable asset to our leadership team and is a huge reason that weve been able to grow so quickly. Since joining Walker Sands, she has been a champion of the agencys core values of learn, support, do, says Mike Santoro, president of Walker Sands. Walker Sands sophisticated marketing program ensures that we are leading conversations around innovation in B2B technology and the future of marketing. Im excited to continue to push the envelope and deliver next-level campaigns that truly capture the expertise of our marketing team and value our company provides our clients.

Walker Sands has significantly expanded its leadership team over the last year, most recently with the appointment of three new female partners in June 2018. The agency currently boasts an 12-person corporate team that spans across departments including marketing, sales, and human resources. As Walker Sands client roster has grown, new roles centered on management, program development and recruitment have been filled to support employee and client needs. An increased focus on learning and development programming provides seamless onboarding and offers current employees valuable opportunities for professional development. The strength and diversity of skills within the corporate team has largely contributed to continued employee development and the agencys overall success.

Coming out of the 2008 recession, agencies werent investing in marketing for themselves, says Beasley. Walker Sands took a chance on me, for which Ive always been grateful. I am honored to be joining executive leadership as the first female vice president and look forward to continued growth, individually and collectively.

For more information about Walker Sands public relations and digital marketing offerings, visit http://www.walkersands.com.

About Walker Sands

Walker Sands is a public relations and digital marketing agency for business-to-business technology companies. With an integrated approach to creative services, Walker Sands helps clients build brand awareness, enhance credibility and drive new business. Walker Sands is a six-time Inc. 5000 honoree and regular recipient of some of the industrys most prestigious awards from organizations including Entrepreneur, Holmes Report and Hermes Creative. Walker Sands was founded in 2001 and has offices in Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle. To learn more, visit walkersands.com or walkersandsdigital.com.
Two of them, 17 and 18, stood in her way and pushed her toward the other teen, a 17-year-old who grabbed and fondled her, police said. She screamed and broke free, running north on Kedzie Avenue and then Milwaukee Avenue, stopping in the 2600 block of Milwaukee and seeking help from a stranger, Westbrooks said.
Danielle Dulsky, founder of the Living Mandala Yoga teacher training programs, author of Woman Most Wild (New World Library, 2017) and a female spirituality activist, discusses her guide for self-proclaimed witches to rediscover their instinctive womanhood in The Holy Wild (NWL, Sept.).

How is this book different from your previous book, Woman Most Wild?

My intention was for Woman Most Wild to be a sweet-voiced invitation, asking readers to question the stereotypes and indoctrinated beliefs they have about witchcraft. My intention is for The Holy Wild is to go beyond that initial invitation to meet the witch within and to actually give her a voiceto let her speak, permit her to share her story of becoming, and even more than that, to know that story as valuable medicine for these troubled times.

What inspired your belief that women need their own teaching tales?

Witchcraft is essentially feminist, ecologically conscious, and against all forms of oppression. It requires each individual practitioner to take an inventory of what they've been told of divinity, magick, and the sacred. Practicing magick demands the witch know themselves to be part of the cosmic weban embodiment of the same energy that they seek to wield. In the absence of teaching tales and stories of spiritual transformationwhere the hero is a heroinethere is often a blockage to deep self-awareness. This lack of understanding is born of patriarchal culture. We learn that deities, prophets, and spiritual leaders are male. The women in our spiritual teaching stories are often the sinners, the ugly witches, and the wicked step-mothers.

Do you think its becoming increasingly difficult for women to understand their inner wild in the modern world?

There are countless reasons to resist any kind of change, but I'm not sure the wild feminine path requires anything more from you aside from taking notice of where you already are. It's a shift in awareness more than a to-do list, and while, yes, that sort of embodied presence does demand the phone gets put on silent or even better, left at home for an hour, I think that an embrace of The Holy Wild looks different for everyone. There's no one way to be a witch, and there's no one route home to the wilds.

What is the message youd like readers to take away from the book?

I think the key message is that it's not my words or stories that are holy; it's the reader's own personal words and stories that are holy. My hope is that the verses and stories I share serve as a sort of catalyst for the reader to revision parts of her own experience as not only not shameful, but deeply sacred in their own right.
The ratification includes the country as a member-state of the International Cocoa Council.

Nigerias president, Muhammadu Buhari signed the agreement on Monday, August 20, 2018, eight years after the conference.

By appending its signature, Nigeria joins other cocoa exporting nations in Africa such as Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Gabon, Togo, that have signed the agreement.

The agreement was adopted on June 25, 2010, at Geneva by the United Nations Cocoa Conference for the Negotiation of a Successor Agreement to the International Cocoa Agreement, 2001.

At its 85th regular session, held from 27 to 30 March 2012, the International Cocoa Council decided to extend the period of signature of the Agreement from October 1, 2012, to September 30, 2026.

Among the 54 nations that attended the conference only 26 have signed the agreement so far, Business Insider Sub-Saharan Africa gathered.

Business Insider Sub-Saharan Africa looks at some of the important details in the document:

1. The International Cocoa Council was established to promote international cooperation in the world cocoa economy.

2. Obtain fair prices of cocoa among members to have equitable economic returns to both producers and consumers in the cocoa value chain

3. To promote and encourage consumption of chocolate and cocoa-based products in order to increase demand for the product, including its health benefits.

4. Encourage members to develop and implement strategies to enhance the capacity of local communities and small scale-farmers to benefit from cocoa product and thereby alleviate poverty.

5. Increase the income of cocoa farmers by supporting cocoa producers in improving the functioning of their cocoa economies.
A Chinese landlord was arrested on terror charges for renting out his home to ethnic Uighurs, as the government continues to expand its surveillance of members of the minority group.

Police in central China's Henan province arrested a Han Chinese man who had privately rented out his home in

The government has been closely monitoring the movements of the minority group, and the group regularly faces restrictions based on their ethnicity.

According to the World Uyghur Congress, a

And it's not only their movements inside the country that are heavily surveilled.

The Chinese government has demanded Xinjiang residents both inside and outside the country to hand over their passports.

A young Uighur man studying at a university outside of Xinjiang told Radio Free Asia that the government's crackdown on Uighur passports prompted him to flee the country.

China also appears to be compiling a database of all its Uighurs living in the country and abroad as the plight of the minority group has gained global attention.
NEW YORK  President Donald Trump's name wasn't said a single time during a roughly 45-minute court proceeding where his former longtime lawyer entered eight guilty pleas to federal charges that could land him in prison for the rest of his life.

It didn't matter.

As Michael Cohen explained to US District Judge William H. Pauley why he was pleading guilty to all of the charges  including charges that he made illegal campaign and corporate contributions to an unnamed candidate in 2016  the president's name was impossible to avoid.

Cohen, the man who worked alongside the president for more than a decade, admitted in federal court, as part of a plea deal he struck with the government, that Trump directed him to knowingly break the law to boost his own candidacy.

As Cohen explained that he committed the campaign-finance violations "at the direction of the candidate" and with the "purpose of influencing the election," there were audible gasps in the lower Manhattan courtroom packed with reporters.

Aside from explaining why he was pleading guilty to the eight charges he faced, which also included five counts of tax evasion and one count of making false statements to a bank, Cohen said almost nothing in the hearing. Cohen admitted he had one stiff drink on Monday night ahead of the proceeding  a Glenlivet, 12-year-old single malt scotch on the rocks.

He said such a drink was not customary for him. Then again, little would be customary for him about the 24 hours that followed.

Cohen implicates Trump

Cohen first said that in the summer of 2016, at "a candidate's" direction, he moved to keep an individual from publicly disclosing damaging information that would hurt that candidate's campaign. That person was former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who says she had an affair with Trump years ago.

Her story was purchased by American Media Inc., whose head, David Pecker, is a longtime friend of Trump. The National Enquirer, owned by AMI, purchased the rights to McDougal's story for $150,000 in August 2016 but never published it. That practice is known as "catch and kill."

In court, Cohen said "we accomplished" the goal regarding preventing that information from coming out.

"I participated in this conduct with the principal purpose of influencing" the election, he added.

Cohen said the same candidate later "directed" him to make a second payment to keep another individual from disclosing damaging information about him. That was a reference to porn star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

Just days before the 2016 presidential election, Cohen facilitated a $130,000 payment to Daniels to keep her quiet about her allegation of having a 2006 affair with Trump  an allegation Trump has denied. The FBI was looking for documents related to that payment and similar arrangements with other women when it raided Cohen's home, office, and hotel in April at the onset of the probe.

Cohen initially said this payment was not for the purpose of influencing an election but to prevent Trump's family from learning of the embarrassing information. Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, made the same claim.

"I knew what I was doing was wrong and illegal," Cohen said in court Tuesday.

The federal prosecutors Cohen struck a deal with said they had evidence proving Cohen's guilt in the matter, stemming from records obtained from him that included audio tapes, texts, phone records, emails, witnesses with knowledge of the transactions, and records from The National Enquirer.

Pauley then read Cohen each count one by one, asking him to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty.

"Guilty," Cohen repeated eight times. Pauley announced a sentencing hearing for Cohen on December 12. Bail was set at $500,000. As Cohen left the courthouse, he was greeted to chants of "lock him up" from onlookers, a reference to a popular chant Trump's supporters directed at former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Soon after, Giuliani offered up a response. He called Cohen a liar.

"There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government's charges against Mr. Cohen," Giuliani said. "It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohen's actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time."

Lanny Davis, one of Cohen's attorneys, questioned how his client's admission of guilt didn't also implicate the president.

"Today he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election," Davis said. "If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?"

Ahead of a rally in West Virginia, Trump was asked about the Cohen news, along with the news that Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman, was found guilty on eight counts.
President Donald Trump responded to news that his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was found guilty on eight federal counts of bank and tax fraud on Tuesday.

Moments after exiting Air Force One in West Virginia where he was set to hold a rally, Trump said, "I must tell you that Paul Manafort is a good man. He was with Ronald Reagan, he was with a lot of different people over the years, and I feel very sad about that."

"It doesn't involve me, but it's a very sad thing that happened," Trump added, insisting that the Manafort case "has nothing to do with Russian collusion."

"We continue the witch hunt," Trump said, reprising his attack on the Russia investigation being led by the special counsel Robert Mueller before quickly walking away from the cameras.

The president ignored shouted questions from reporters about the other big news of the day: a plea deal his former longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, signed on to within minutes of the Manafort verdict.

Cohen testified under oath that Trump directed him to commit campaign finance violations during the 2016 election, and pleaded guilty to several other charges.

Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said of the Cohen plea: "There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government's charges against Mr. Cohen."
It's the bizarre Tesla subplot that just won't die.

Rapper Azealia Banks is posting cryptic messages about Tesla CEO Elon Musk on her Instagram account, demanding in a series of updates that the billionaire returns her phone. She also threatened to call the police.

It's a development on Banks' claims last week that she spent a weekend at Musk's Los Angeles home earlier this month to collaborate with his girlfriend, the musician Grimes. During Banks' stay, she says she overheard Musk on the phone "scrounging for investors to cover his ass" for saying he had secured funding to take Telsa private. Banks relayed the experience to Business Insider's Kate Taylor.

A representative for Musk initially said he had never met Banks. But then he told the New York Times that he did spot the rapper at his home "as she was leaving." He said Banks was not in "hearing range" and he did not recognize her.

Banks cryptic messages about her phone

Now Banks is claiming that Musk has her phone.

The posts alone do not explain why Musk has her handset, but a now-deleted update casts more light on her side of the story. The message, screenshotted by Cheddar anchor Hope King below, claims that Musk's attorney has Banks' phone and is deleting evidence.

Related content

Business Insider has contacted Tesla for comment. We asked Banks over Instagram four times to explain why Musk might have her phone. She responded, but did not elaborate on her now-deleted Instagram post.

Instead, Banks drew Business Insider's attention to the fact that Musk had apparently deleted his Instagram account. "I wonder why he deleted his account," she said. "Very strange."
In June, Kelly Marie Tran  who plays Rose Tico in "The Last Jedi," and is the the first woman of color to have a large role in the Star Wars franchise  deleted all of her Instagram posts after receiving online harassment for months. Her account still existed, with "" written in the bio.

Tran addressed the racist and sexist online harassment she experienced in a powerful op-ed published in The New York Times on Tuesday. In the op-ed, she wrote that the online harassment took her "down a spiral of self hate."

Tran faced racism and sexism online surrounding her casting in "The Last Jedi." For instance, in December 2017,someone editedtheRose Tico Wookieepedia pageso that her name was "Ching Chong Wing Tong" and her home was "Ching Chong China."

At San Diego Comic Con in July, Nerds of Color

"It wasnt their words, its that I started to believe them," Tran wrote. The op-ed addressed how the aggressive online harassment made her feel. Tran also explained how feelings of invalidation because of her gender and race were evident before she became a target of "Star Wars" fans.

Tran also went into more detail about the dark period that the words said to her online provoked.

"I thought, 'Oh, maybe if I was thinner' or 'Maybe if I grow out my hair' and, worst of all, 'Maybe if I wasnt Asian.' For months, I went down a spiral of self-hate, into the darkest recesses of my mind, places where I tore myself apart, where I put their words above my own self-worth."
Michael Rothenberg, the founder of a flashy San Francisco VC firm that imploded under a cloud of controversy in 2016, has settled charges with federal regulators alleging that he misappropriated millions of dollars from investors.

The SEC announced on Monday that it has charged Rothenberg with overcharging investors to fund personal projects, including a virtual reality company. The settlement includes barring Rothenberg from

Rothenberg Ventures was a high-flying venture firm that publicly imploded in 2016. It was known for its over-the-top parties and spending  as well as its young, charismatic founder, Mike Rothenberg. Back in 2016, theaccording to an email obtained by Business Insider

On top of that, multiple employees filed wage complaints against the company with the state of California, several people told Business Insider, and they also cooperated with the SEC investigation.

One of them who was involved in this process told us, "

The firm, which had over $50 million under management, ran out of operating money, and all its employees except its lawyer were told they were put on "unpaid leave" a year ago, according to a lengthyaccount of the firm's troubleson Backchannel.
This is because a new airline, Passion Air, has joined the space to provide air transport services for the local market.

This brings the number of airlines operating in Ghanas domestic aviation market to two.

The authority believes this should protect consumers as it will prevent unfair competition and possible exploitation in some cases.

The Director of the GCAA, Simon Allotey explained that this should make the industry competitive.

There could be price wars where a strong carrier could decide to reduce prices to below economic levels just to get the competitors out and once the competitors are out, then they increase prices, he told Citi Business News.

Passion Air joins Africa World Airlines as the second operator in Ghanas domestic aviation industry.

AWA has been the only company since Starbow Airlines exited the market early this year.

The new airline is expected to operate flights to Kumasi which will gradually be escalated to Tamale and Takoradi with an increased fleet of aircrafts.
Youve got to have a mayor who is really going to push for this. People feel like city government is corrupt. They feel like it doesnt work unless you have clout, Lightfoot said in an interview. I hope to make this a specific narrative in the campaign and hope people start asking their aldermen where they stand on these issues, and that it becomes a narrative in aldermanic campaigns as well. Were not going to win back the public by continuing to do business as usual.
He starred alongside Abraham Attah and Idris Elba who were undoubtedly the stars of the movie.

He is not a beggar. He is currently a pupil of Cape Coast Montessori School and in Class 5, skrika's manager, Mawuko Kuadzi, told Citinewsroom.com. "After the Beast of No Nation audition, we realized that he was not fluent in English and was not going to school, so we decided to take him to school.

Stika's plight was highlighted by a student of the Ghana Institute of Journalism, Caleb Nii Boye.

In a post on Facebook, Boye narrates meeting Strika and hes begging to make ends meet, when he probably should be in school for a boy his age.
He featured Naterial on this song.

The song draws inspiration from his own cultural background which combines traditional Ghanaian musical patterns with contemporary Afrobeats.

The music pays tribute to his heritage as much as pushing towards a new sound and the future of his genre.

Coming up with a whole new vibe.

His latest song "Treat You right" is amongst one of the hottest trending in UK and Ghana and is expected to go further around the Globe.
Creative director, Janet Oddoye takes us on a journey with her collection, creating beautiful, timeless handbags that inject joy into the lives of women who carry them.

The limited edition Yaa handbag with its dark brown wooden handles create an ethnic feel, whilst the Ama shoulder bag in seasonal mono-chromatic colours and limited edition mixes with a detachable, luxurious, double gold or silver chain is perfect for day to evening wear. Each handbag is adorned with a signature, metal name badge, and dog-tag, authenticating it.

Adubea Jensen is a socially responsible brand that taps into Ghanaian heritage beading craftsmanship to create intricate, beaded handbags to suit every demographic.

Each handbag is uniquely made using tiny beads which are woven together to form exquisite one-of-a-kind bead bags. The process is 100% handmade and a bag can take up to 50 hours to make.
As part of the celebrations, many Muslims usually converge to observe a prayer, feast and dance to a prosperous year.

However, there are also some persons who take advantage of the celebrations to perpetrate violence and display rowdy misbehaviours.

To this end, the Police has warned that security will be tight in the various Muslim communities to ensure that an incident-free celebration.

In a statement, the Director of Public Affairs at the Ghana Police Service, DSP Sheilla Kessie Abayie-Buckman, said some roads will be closed, whiles urging Muslims to celebrate the Eid-ul-Adha in moderation.

Police patrols and presence shall be intensified at the Independence Square on Tuesday, 21 August 2018, for the climax of the National Muslim Prayers, sections of the statement read.
Speaking in Keta in the Volta Region, the veteran politician accused cronies of Mr Mahama of amassing wealth and neglecting the party officers.

He said within four years under Mr Mahama, his backers built mansions and bought land cruisers, adding that they denied the party resources with the excuse that there were no funds.

The pillars that support you when youre up there, are the pillars you have to fortify to continue to carry you up there when you weaken them, you fall. You cannot put something on nothing. We have to change.

Dont tell me that the boys that suddenly came closer to the president within four years can build mansions and buy land cruisers and you say there are no resources, where are they getting the money, their salaries? Mr. Bagbin queried.

In an interview, the National Organiser of the NDC and former campaign coordinator of Mr Mahama, Kofi Adams, said the deputy speaker was out to destroy the NDC.

"If truly Mr Bagbin is not out there to destroy the party, he must be careful with what he says," he said on Joy FM.

"For some of us, it is becoming very clear that it is an agenda to destroy the party and not to lead it," he added.

Meanwhile the party is warning that it will sanction aspirants who attack their opponents.
Her decision comes after she also confirmed that she has resigned from active politics.

Mrs. Djaba was one of the Ministers who were affected by President Akufo-Addos first reshuffle after being replaced by Hajia Alima Mahama.

But she was reassigned to become Ghanas new Ambassador to Italy.

However, she has turned down her new post, explaining that she wants to concentrate on taking care of her family.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic, Mrs. Djaba said she is not ready to be moved away from her family.

She explained that she was bowing out of politics to take care of her ex-husband who has had stroke for the past six years.

At 56 years, I want to relax and enjoy my family and life and, therefore, I am not ready to take up the appointment as Ambassador to Italy, Mrs. Djaba told the Daily Graphic.

I am the one who has been taking care of him (her ex-husband) since he got sick and I cannot abandon him now.
Shares of Tesla are on track to continue their decline Monday morning, set to open down 6%, after a report from Saudi Arabias Public Investment Fund was considering an investment in rival electric-car maker Lucid Motors.

News of the talks comes almost two full weeks after the Financial Times reported the kingdoms sovereign wealth fund had bought a 3-5% stake in Tesla. That report was followed by a tweet from CEO Elon Musk stating that funding had been secured to take the electric-car maker private at $420 per share.

In response, Tesla shares skyrocketed to a near record highs, hitting of $387.46 apiece, on August 7. But they had slumped more than 20% from that level through Friday, and Monday's selling, which has wiped away all of Tesla's post-earnings gains, is adding to those loses. The sell-off has been a windfall for Tesla short sellers, who have made more than $1.3 billion in the process.

The big profits seen by the short sellers come much to the chagrin of Musk, who told the New York Times in an interview published Friday that hes gearing up for "months of extreme torture" from those betting against his stock.

Also weighing on Teslas stock price in early-trading Monday was a price-target cut from JPMorgan. The bank's analyst, Ryan Brinkman slashed his target by more than 35% to $195 a share, citing the fact that funding was not actually secured at the time Musk claimed it had been.

"The revelation the Saudi fund is subsequently asking Tesla for details of how the company would be taken private suggests to us that any deal is potentially far from even being formally proposed," Ryan Brinkman told clients in a note Monday, Bloomberg reported.
African leaders were not left behind either in wishing the Muslim electorate in their respective countries a happy and blessed Eid al-Adha.

People of other faiths welcome the holiday with open arms, who can say no to a free holiday in midweek.

On that note, here is all you need to know about Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr.

Eid al-Adha

Eid al-Adha is a Muslim celebration which revolves around the time Allah appeared to Ibrahim in a dream and asked him to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, as a sign of his faith.

Its similar to the Christian and Jewish stories in which God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, but spared him from doing so.

During this time, Muslims traditionally sacrifice animals, in Britain this is done in a slaughterhouse, and the meat is divided up among friends, family and the needy.

Eid al-Adha begins on the evening of August 21, 2018, which falls in the middle of the 12th and final month in the Islamic calendar and finishes on Saturday, August 25.

The date of the religious observance changes annually, as it is based around the lunar calendar.

If you have a Muslim friend or you come across one, today is your perfect opportunity to put your Arabic skills to use.

Eid Mubarak is a Muslim greeting reserved for use on the festivals of Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr.

Eid means "celebration", and Mubarak means "blessed".

Eid al-Fitr

Eid al-Fitr on the other hand is another important religious holiday for Muslims.

Eid or Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, which is a month of fasting that started on May 16 and finished on June 14 in 2018.

After thirty long days of fasting Eid al-Fitr is a day when Muslims are not permitted to fast.

During Eid, Muslims will often purchase new clothes for the occasion, and take part in festivals and celebrations. Gifts and cards are often exchanged among friends and family.
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In a 2,000-word first of its kind letter, according to the Vatican, the Holy Father dwells on the sufferings of thousands of children whose trust in the Church has been abused.

Concerning this little ones, he wrote, "We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them."

To the readers, he said, "With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives."

Clergy sexual abuse

Pope Francis' letter comes after the latest reports of clerical sexual abuse in . Over 300 priests from six different Catholic dioceses have been accused of sexually abusing at least 1,000 children. According to a grand jury report, this lasted for over seven decades because of the priests who helped to cover it.

"Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades," the grand jury wrote in its 800-page report which took two years to compile.

This latest scandal follows the recent abuse-related scandals in Chile and Australia.

Read Pope Francis' full letter to the People of God:

"If one member suffers, all suffer together with it" (1 Cor 12:26). These words of Saint Paul forcefully echo in my heart as I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons. Crimes that inflict deep wounds of pain and powerlessness, primarily among the victims, but also in their family members and in the larger community of believers and nonbelievers alike. Looking back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient. Looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated. The pain of the victims and their families is also our pain, and so it is urgent that we once more reaffirm our commitment to ensure the protection of minors and of vulnerable adults.

1. If one member suffers

In recent days, a report was made public which detailed the experiences of at least a thousand survivors, victims of sexual abuse, the abuse of power and of conscience at the hands of priests over a period of approximately seventy years. Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past, nonetheless as time goes on we have come to know the pain of many of the victims. We have realized that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death; these wounds never go away. The heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced. But their outcry was more powerful than all the measures meant to silence it, or sought even to resolve it by decisions that increased its gravity by falling into complicity. The Lord heard that cry and once again showed us on which side he stands. Mary's song is not mistaken and continues quietly to echo throughout history. For the Lord remembers the promise he made to our fathers: "he has scattered the proud in their conceit; he has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty" (Lk 1:5153). We feel shame when we realize that our style of life has denied, and continues to deny, the words we recite.

With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them. I make my own the words of the then Cardinal Ratzinger when, during the Way of the Cross composed for Good Friday 2005, he identified with the cry of pain of so many victims and exclaimed: "How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to [Christ]! How much pride, how much self-complacency! Christ's betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his body and blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie Eleison - Lord, save us! (Cf. Mt 8:25)" (Ninth Station).

2.  all suffer together with it

The extent and the gravity of all that has happened requires coming to grips with this reality in a comprehensive and communal way. While it is important and necessary on every journey of conversion to acknowledge the truth of what has happened, in itself this is not enough. Today we are challenged as the People of God to take on the pain of our brothers and sisters wounded in their flesh and in their spirit. If, in the past, the response was one of omission, today we want solidarity, in the deepest and most challenging sense, to become our way of forging present and future history. And this in an environment where conflicts, tensions and above all the victims of every type of abuse can encounter an outstretched hand to protect them and rescue them from their pain (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 228). Such solidarity demands that we in turn condemn whatever endangers the integrity of any person. A solidarity that summons us to fight all forms of corruption, especially spiritual corruption. The latter is "a comfortable and self-satisfied form of blindness. Everything then appears acceptable: deception, slander, egotism and other subtle forms of self-centeredness, for 'even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light' (2 Cor 11:14)" (Gaudete et Exsultate, 165). Saint Paul's exhortation to suffer with those who suffer is the best antidote against all our attempts to repeat the words of Cain: "Am I my brother's keeper?" (Gen 4:9).

I am conscious of the effort and work being carried out in various parts of the world to come up with the necessary means to ensure the safety and protection of the integrity of children and of vulnerable adults, as well as implementing zero tolerance and ways of making all those who perpetrate or cover up these crimes accountable. We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary, yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater culture of care in the present and future.

Together with those efforts, every one of the baptized should feel involved in the ecclesial and social change that we so greatly need. This change calls for a personal and communal conversion that makes us see things as the Lord does. For as Saint John Paul II liked to say: "If we have truly started out anew from the contemplation of Christ, we must learn to see him especially in the faces of those with whom he wished to be identified" (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 49). To see things as the Lord does, to be where the Lord wants us to be, to experience a conversion of heart in his presence. To do so, prayer and penance will help. I invite the entire holy faithful People of God to a penitential exercise of prayer and fasting, following the Lord's command.[1] This can awaken our conscience and arouse our solidarity and commitment to a culture of care that says "never again" to every form of abuse.

It is impossible to think of a conversion of our activity as a Church that does not include the active participation of all the members of God's People. Indeed, whenever we have tried to replace, or silence, or ignore, or reduce the People of God to small elites, we end up creating communities, projects, theological approaches, spiritualities and structures without roots, without memory, without faces, without bodies and ultimately, without lives.[2] This is clearly seen in a peculiar way of understanding the Church's authority, one common in many communities where sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience have occurred. Such is the case with clericalism, an approach that "not only nullifies the character of Christians but also tends to diminish and undervalue the baptismal grace that the Holy Spirit has placed in the heart of our people".[3] Clericalism, whether fostered by priests themselves or by laypersons, leads to an excision in the ecclesial body that supports and helps to perpetuate many of the evils that we are condemning today. To say "no" to abuse is to say an emphatic "no" to all forms of clericalism.

It is always helpful to remember that "in salvation history, the Lord saved one people. We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual. Rather, God draws us to himself, taking into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships present in the human community. God wanted to enter into the life and history of a people" (Gaudete et Exsultate, 6). Consequently, the only way that we have to respond to this evil that has darkened so many lives is to experience it as a task regarding all of us as the People of God. This awareness of being part of a people and a shared history will enable us to acknowledge our past sins and mistakes with a penitential openness that can allow us to be renewed from within. Without the active participation of all the Church's members, everything being done to uproot the culture of abuse in our communities will not be successful in generating the necessary dynamics for sound and realistic change. The penitential dimension of fasting and prayer will help us as God's People to come before the Lord and our wounded brothers and sisters as sinners imploring forgiveness and the grace of shame and conversion. In this way, we will come up with actions that can generate resources attuned to the Gospel. For "whenever we make the effort to return to the source and to recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new paths of creativity open up, with different forms of expression, more eloquent signs and words with new meaning for today's world" (Evangelii Gaudium, 11).

It is essential that we, as a Church, be able to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities perpetrated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all those entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for those most vulnerable. Let us beg forgiveness for our own sins and the sins of others. An awareness of sin helps us to acknowledge the errors, the crimes and the wounds caused in the past and allows us, in the present, to be more open and committed along a journey of renewed conversion.

Likewise, penance and prayer will help us to open our eyes and our hearts to other people's sufferings and to overcome the thirst for power and possessions that are so often the root of those evils. May fasting and prayer open our ears to the hushed pain felt by children, young people and the disabled. A fasting that can make us hunger and thirst for justice and impel us to walk in the truth, supporting all the judicial measures that may be necessary. A fasting that shakes us up and leads us to be committed in truth and charity with all men and women of good will, and with society in general, to combatting all forms of the abuse of power, sexual abuse and the abuse of conscience.

In this way, we can show clearly our calling to be "a sign and instrument of communion with God and of the unity of the entire human race" (Lumen Gentium, 1).

"If one member suffers, all suffer together with it", said Saint Paul. By an attitude of prayer and penance, we will become attuned as individuals and as a community to this exhortation, so that we may grow in the gift of compassion, injustice, prevention and reparation. Mary chose to stand at the foot of her Son's cross. She did so unhesitatingly, standing firmly by Jesus' side. In this way, she reveals the way she lived her entire life. When we experience the desolation caused by these ecclesial wounds, we will do well, with Mary, "to insist more upon prayer", seeking to grow all the more in love and fidelity to the Church (SAINT IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, Spiritual Exercises, 319). She, the first of the disciples, teaches all of us as disciples how we are to halt before the sufferings of the innocent, without excuses or cowardice. To look to Mary is to discover the model of a true follower of Christ.
But while Torrez has been involved with Garcias political organization in the past, it isnt clear whether hes that candidate. Other hopefuls are likely to vie for Garcias backing before nominating papers can be filed for City Council seats in November. And then candidates will need to withstand petition challenges to get on the ballot.
In a recent statement, the Church leader Russell Nelson announced that the name "Mormon" is no longer appropriate for the church, The Guardian reports.

The 93-year-old revealed that this decision is from God, who "impressed upon my mind the importance of the name".

He added, "We have work before us to bring ourselves in harmony with His will."

New style guide of Latter Day Saints

Now, the church leader is urging both members and non-members to use the official name- "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

If the full name can not be used when referring to the church, the new guide says "the Church" or the "Church of Jesus Christ" is okay. The "restored Church of Jesus Christ" is also allowed.

"When referring to Church members, the terms "members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" or "Latter-day Saints" are preferred", the style guide adds.

Following this new directive, the terms "Mormon Church", "Mormonism" and the abbreviation "LDS" have all been banned.

In his words, "we're not changing names. We're correcting a name."

NOTE: This new change does not affect the central text - "The Book of Mormon."

Fast Facts on Russell Nelson

Nelson became the churchs 17th president after his ordination during a religious ceremony on Sunday, January 14, 2018.

He took over the leadership of the church after his predecessor Thomas Monson died on Jan. 2, 2018.

Prior to this appointment, he used to be known as a world-renowned heart surgeon who was president of the Society for Vascular Surgery and of the Utah State Medical Association.

During that time, KUERs Lee Hale reports that Nelson performed the first open heart surgery in the state of Utah and pioneered advancements for coronary artery disease.
The Nigerian team according to NAN won the medals in the Outstanding Support and International Journey categories.

The competition started on Monday, August 13, 2018, and students participating in the challenge were asked to solve problems related to energy with the use of robotics.

Speaking with NAN on Telephone from Mexico, the National Coordinator of the Global Robotics Olympiad, Mrs Remi Willoughby said 193 teams from 187 countries participated at the competition.

The five students who represented Nigeria in the competition are students from private secondary schools in Lagos.

They are: Anjolaoluwa Olowokere from Lagoon School; Iroaganachi Udodirim, Queens College; Samuel Mbah, Osezele Comprehensive Senior Secondary School; Tochukwu Anyigbo, Lagoon School; and Daberechi Onyeacholem, Greensprings School Lekki.

Willoughby described the students' victory as an attestation that the Nigeria child are making progress in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics.

Nigerian students win gold at World Adolescent Robotics in China

Recall that in July, three Nigerian students who participated at the World Adolescent Robotics in China won gold for proper documentation of processes on engineering note.

ALSO READ: Nigerian student wins Chinese language contest in China
According to Quaye, who currently begs on the streets of Ghana for survival, he was paid $30,000 for his role in the film - which he says represents 1% of the film's profit - but he was told by a certain producer - Kofi Robert - that the money is being kept in a bank account for him until he turns 18.

After the movie, I was to be paid 1% of the profit made from the movie. They told me its in the bank but I am yet to see the money, he said during an interview with GHOne TV.

Talking about his relationship with his "Beasts of No Nation" co-star, Abraham Attah - Agu - the actor said it has not been the same since the former relocated to America.

The way he now behaves is not good. The way he talks; the way he replies is not good. He will be shouting on you and all stuff, I dont know if its because he has travelled outside," he said.

Since their roles in "Beasts of No Nation," Abraham Attah has starred alongside Tom Holland in "Spider-Man: Homecoming."

He was also an award presenter at the 2016 Academy Awards, alongside Rooms actor, Jacob Tremblay.

Quaye also spoke about his role in another film titled "Jungle Justice," for which he was paid 10,000. According to Quaye, a talent manger named Mawuko used the money to buy him clothes and shoes without consulting him.

Mawuko used the money to buy suits and other things the money was not given to me directly; I was only told," he said.
This is what he told policemen when he was arrested. He is a 25-year-old Nigerian youth.

He makes a confession with the clothes of his parents in his hands. They are local Ankara wears commonly patronized by elderly folks in Nigeria.

The youth planned to take the clothes to a black magic priest to perform rituals required to bring him wealth. At 25 years of age, he thinks he has suffered and wants an end to his money issues.

Getting arrested by the police however may ultimately mean his end. He is not alone in his desire for enormous wealth.

1. Internet fraudster attempts to use mum for money rituals'

An internet fraudster, Taiwo Akinola, has been arrested by the police in Lagos following an attempt to use his mum for money rituals.

On Sunday, August 19, 2018, the suspect attacks the victim, Mrs Alice IyaboAkinola at her residence in Ayobo.

He reportedly employed the use of a plank and other harmful objects in a bid to kill her for ritual purposes.

The incident has been confirmed by police spokesperson CSP Chike Oti according to a Punch News report.

2. Yahoo Boys use grandmother for blood money

Two other internet fraudsters have been apprehended by the police in Edo State while trying to dispose the body of their grandmother Grace Ovbiedo, who was killed for money rituals.

Their arrest was revealed by DSP Chidi Nwanbuzor, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), for Edo State, who mentioned that the force is in pursuit of two other accomplices.

ALSO READ: Lady regrets dating Yahoo boy who eats bread and excreta for money rituals

It was alleged that the group of wealth seekers tied a tortoise on their backs and smashed Ovbiedo's head on the wall. This is based on a message they received from the priest who told them they can acquire their desire when a person close to them is killed.

According to many reports, this was confirmed by a family member who stated that the suspects carried out the order as soon as they got home.

3. Wealth seeker uses sister's son for money rituals

A Yahoo boy has been apprehended for using his nephew for money rituals. The wealth seeker was caught in the act in Ikoyi, Lagos, according to a Facebook user.

In a picture, Tunde Owolabi, also known as 'Money Talks', was captured in handcuffs as he crouched beside the corpse of a little boy reportedly 7 years old.

The image was provided in a post shared by Odueko Olumide John who expressed shock concerning the incident.

ALSO READ: 5 devilish things Internet fraudsters do to get money

A grave-looking Owolabi had a look of intent as he tilted his neck sideways as if paying attention to a more serious reality.

"What a wicked world. Luck ran out of another Yahoo big boy named Tunde Owolabi ( aka Money Talks) caught using his elder sister's 7-year-old son for money rituals in Ikoyi, Lagos State," writes John.

It is becoming rampant, occurrences that have seen impatient money lovers use their family members for wealth rituals.
According to Yabaleftonline.ng, Facebook user who lives in Asaba, Delta state posted the photos on the social media platform and it has since gone viral.

The Facebook user posted the photos with a caption: The day people would start minding their business in this world, the better for them.So a Father was having sex with his son and busybodies wouldnt allow them do it in peace.

Whats wrong with incest? Is it not peoples choice and what two adults have agreed to do with their bodies?If it were homosexuals now, everyone would start speaking out in support of the harassed party, but because this is incest, no one is saying anything.

Incest should be legalized in the country. Everyone has a right to choose who they want to have sex with. Its a matter of choice and sexual preferences.

The controversial view expressed by the Facebook user has sparked negative reactions, with some condemning the culprits.
Fashion Focus Talks kicks off this weekend in Nairobi, Kenya. Tagged Building From Within, the Fashion Focus Talks is a series of curated free talks to inspire African creatives of the need to work together towards achieving a sustainable economy. It will run from the 26th of August to the 2nd of September 2018.

On Sunday the 26th of August, Nairobi will host speakers Omoyemi Akerele (Founder, Style House Files and Lagos Fashion Week), Diana Opoti (Founder, Designing Africa Collective), Adebayo Oke-Lawal (Creative Director, Orange Culture), Sunny Dolat (Co-founder, The Nest Collective), and James Kahuri (Strategy and Financial Advisor) at the first city stop at the Tribe Hotel, Limuru Road, The Village Market, Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya.

Speaking on the talks, Londe Thompson, Programme Director of Fashion Focus Africa & Fashion Focus Talks stated:

The expansion to include Nairobi and Accra in our talks couldnt have come at a better time when Fashion Focus Africa is opening its application to candidates all around Africa. Our goal is to provide as many young and emerging designers with enough knowledge to level the playing field in the fashion industry in Africa and the rest of the world.

Fashion Focus City Tours is an initiative of Heineken Lagos Fashion Week in partnership with Style House Files, FetsWallet, Viva Boutique, Glitz Magazine, Avivere, and Designing Africa Collective.

Media Partners: BellaNaija Style, Pulse NG, Guardian Life, Konbini, Genevieve, George Britton, Glitz Africa, Business Day, and Ventures Africa.

City Tour speaker announcements for Lagos, Abuja, and Accra will be announced via @lagosfashionweekofficial Instagram page. Follow for all updates.

Attendance to all Fashion Focus City Tours is FREE.

Follow the link to register to attend http://lagosfashionweek.n

Other programs lined up:

Green Fashion Access - A competition aimed at Nigerian students, to begin to raise awareness of the need to make sustainable choices in the Nigerian fashion industry and simultaneously, to discover raw fashion talents

Graduate Fashion Exchange - A series of workshops targeted at empowering fashion photographers and filmmakers on the Nigerian fashion scene

SHF Presents - Following our success last year, in partnership with Nigeria Export Promotion Council, our access to market initiative will continue in London, New York and Milan

Africa House New York - An initiative by Pangolin LLC - Africa House is a week-long members club, convening a vibrant network of policy-makers, thought leaders, business executives, entrepreneurs, artists and designers, all of whom are vested in the economic, social or cultural development of Africa.

#LFWNG Important Dates:

 SHF Presents x NEPC: July to September 2018

 Fashion Focus City Tours: August 26 - September 2 2018

 Runway Shows: October 24 - 27 2018
According to Punch, the former Governor said this while speaking to his supporters at Ikot Ekpene Plaza on Sunday, August 19, 2018.

Akpabio recently defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) amidst celebrations.

According to some sources, the Senator left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) because of a quarrel between him and his former ally, Gov Emmanuel.

The former Governor of Jigawa, Sule Lamido alleged that Akpabio was shown some files that made him afraid.

Udom is a mistake

Senator Akpabio also referred to the state Governor as a mistake, which he said will be corrected in 2019.

According to him, Udom (Emmanuel) is a mistake that must be corrected in 2019. All hands must be on deck to ensure that the mistake is corrected for a people-oriented leadership under the ruling All Progressives Congress at the centre.

Emmanuels administration has failed the people, he added.
The president hailed the programme after he was visited by corps members at his Daura home in Katsina State on Tuesday, August 21, 2018, as part of the Sallah celebrations by Muslim faithfuls across the country.

In tweets posted on the president's official Twitter account (@MBuhari), he said the programme offers Nigerian youths a unique chance to understand different parts of the country other than their own.

He said, "One of the Sallah traditions I look forward to the most is the visit by Youth Corpers posted to Daura. I think the NYSC is one of the best things that has happened to Nigeria, because of the opportunity it gives young Nigerians to see and know different parts of the country.

"Many of the Corps members posted to Daura are from southern Nigeria, and have never lived in or experienced this part of the country. For them to be brought to the desert or near the Sahel region is a difficult thing, but I have no doubt it will make a positive impact on Nigeria.

"I welcomed them to my ancient town of Daura, and asked them to enjoy their service year, and the hospitality of the people. Regardless of where they're from, Daura is also their home, and I hope that in the years to come they will look back to this time with fond memories."

Buhari remains mute on minister accused of NYSC fraud

The president's comments on the NYSC programme comes in light of his refusal to comment on allegations that the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, forged an NYSC certificate.

Investigations by online news platform, Premium Times, uncovered the minister's alleged forgery of an NYSC exemption certificate after failing to enroll for the one-year mandatory scheme for all Nigerian graduates.

Despite the public pressure on Buhari to fire the minister or, at least, acknowledge the situation, he has not said anything about the controversy which first surfaced 45 days ago.

Earlier in August, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the president's image has not been dented in any way by the controversy.

He said the president cannot act until the allegations have been proven to be genuine by the the appropriate authorities.
According to Punch, the $250m facility is owned by International Breweries Plc, an arm of AB InBev Group.

Speaking on the launch, the Managing Director, IB Plc, Annabelle Degroot, said the plant will help meet the governments goal of producing quality drinks locally.

Degroot said International Breweries Plc is a brand that places a premium on quality. Bearing this in mind, we will spare no expense or effort in ensuring that Nigerians are treated to the best traditions in brewing, with outstanding recipes, superior ingredients, innovation and world-class techniques.

According to IB Plcs plant Manager, Mr. Tony Agah, over 300 Nigerians have already been employed following the completion of the first phase of the project.

He said this while speaking to journalists during a media tour of the facility which is located in Ogun state.

Agah also said Given the importance of this event, the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, is expected to perform the inauguration of the facility.

The governor of the state, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, will be hosting all of us, as our landlord. Other eminent Nigerians and officials of AB InBev, especially the global CEO, Mr. Carlos Brito, will lead the celebration.

The new brewery will be the companys largest plant within the group in Africa outside the one in South Africa. This will have a significant multiplier effects on the value chain within Ogun State and its environs.

ALSO READ:5 Important things Buhari said at International Criminal Court

It will provide direct and indirect employment, make available global brands locally and support Nigerias foreign direct investment aspiration.
Asked if it was hard to say no to the president, McCarthy responded, Hes not the one who asked me. If he does, then were going to have to figure out how to handle it. Its not in my plans. McCarthy said he was asked by an individual if hed be interested if that person pursued the possibility on his behalf but decided its not the right thing for me to do right now.
The president took to his official Twitter account (@MBuhari) on Tuesday, August 21, 2018, to urge Nigerians to resist the spirit of selfishness, greed and corruption to make the country a better place.

He further called on Nigerians to rise above personal interests and promote harmony in the country while his administration builds a Nigeria that appeals to all.

He posted, "Eid-ul-Adha offers an opportunity to remember the submission of Prophet Ibrahim Alaihis-Salam to Allah, by which he taught the world the value of sacrifice in relating with one another.

"We must imbibe this lesson and make it a duty to sacrifice for others and to always remember those who are less fortunate than ourselves. Selfishness, greed and corruption have no place in our lives and in our dealings with one another.

"On this occasion of Eid-ul-Adha, I urge all Nigerians to rise above personal, group, sectarian and other interests, and to promote harmony and tolerance in dealing with one another at all times.

"I felicitate with all Nigerians, particularly the Muslim faithful, on this year's celebration. I assure you all that our administration will not rest or relent as we work to build the Nigeria of our dreams - secure, prosperous and free from the ravages of corruption."

I'll jail more thieves - Buhari

Upon his return from London after a 10-day vacation, President Buhari vowed to jail more of those who have endangered Nigeria's economic fortunes.

"We are going to jail more of the thieves, you know, that brought the economic problem to the country. I think this is really expected of me and I will do it," he said.
The cleric, who warned Muslims against using ill-gotten money for the purchase ram for sacrifice, noted that the Almighty Allah was pure and would accept only that which was clean and pure.

Al-Yolawi also admonished Muslims to have good intention for the sacrifice because it was a prerequisite to achieving acceptable sacrifice.

According to him, the meat or blood of the sacrificed ram cannot reach but Allah is only concern about the piety of a believer.

Al-Yolawi explained that the act of slaughtering animal as sacrifice was a tradition that was highly encouraged among Muslims, which was performed on the 10th of Zul-Hijjah and the following three days.

It is an essential religious rite in memory of the sacrifice performed by Prophet Ibrahim.

 It involves the slaughtering of domestic animal (sheep, goat, cow or camel) and offering it as a sacrifice during these days of Sallah celebrations,  he said.

He enjoined Muslims to ensure that the animal to be sacrificed had reached the required age, adding a minimum of six months for a sheep, one year for a goat, two years for cow and five years for camel.

It should be healthy and physically fit, free of any defect, because Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) said there are four that will not do for sacrifice.

A one-eyed animal whose defect is obvious, a sick animal whose sickness is obvious, a lame animal whose limp is obvious and an emaciated animal that has no marrow in its bones.

Meanwhile, the cleric warned youths to avoid exceeding the limit of Islamic rules in sallah celebrations by committing sinful, immoral acts and indulging in extravagance lifestyle.
Okupe made this known in a post which he published on Twitter on Monday, August 20, 2018.

Atiku has signified his interest to run for President during the upcoming 2019 general elections on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

According to the former presidential aide, it will take Nigerians 10 years to recover if Atiku rules for one day.

If Atiku rules Nigeria for 1 day, it will take us 10 years to recover. If Saraki rules for a day, Nigeria will MAKE history, he added.

Bukola Saraki, in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday, August 15, 2018, revealed that he's considering the possibilityof running for president against President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 presidential election.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) however feels otherwise, as they recently listedseven allegations which they say will frustrate Sarakis presidential ambition.
Two of the suspects, Ahmed Sani, and one Corporal Ibrahim Idris, were apprehended in Jos by the special force which included military personnel, after being caught with various firearms and ammunition.

Sani, reputed in security circles to be a notorious armed robber, kidnapper and assassin, was arrested in an operation in conjunction with the Special Task Force (STF) on July 21, 2018; while Idris, a soldier residing in Maxwell Khobe Barracks, Rukuba, Jos, Plateau State, was arrested on June 27, 2018.

Security sources told NAN that Sani, also notoriously known as Sani Gunrunner, trades in various calibre of firearms and ammunition almost on a daily basis.

Sani is one of the brains behind the feud between the Fulanis and other ethnic group in the Middle Belt. This is owing to the constant supply of arms and ammunition he receives owing to his close relationship with Idris, a reliable security source told our reporter.

The source further revealed that information obtained during Sanis interrogation led to the arrest of a police officer, one Sergeant Zakaria, attached to the Police Counter Terrorism Unit in Maiduguri, Borno State.

The NPF personnel was arrested in a sting operation while in the process of supplying 400 rounds of ammunition to Sani who was already in custody.

"Sanis confession also helped identify one Suleiman who is a detainee in Jos Prison. On interrogation, Suleiman confessed that he was a gunrunner before his remand in prison custody.

He also confessed to facilitating the sale of arms and ammunition while still in prison.

Sani and Suleiman are currently assisting security forces with information that can lead to the arrest of other syndicate members, the source said.

In the same vein, one Ahmadu, a Fulani militia commander was arrested on July 16, 2018, at Barkin Ladi, Jos.

According to sources, the interrogation of Ahmadu led to the arrest of three other Fulani militiamen. The army is conducting further interrogation of all the suspects.

The Office of the NSA declined to comment on these arrests, but NAN learnt that the presidency has been briefed.
Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, disclosed this in a statement on Monday in Abuja.

Daramola explained that the attacks, which were preceded by days of intensive Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions, were planned and executed based on credible intelligence indicating that the BHTs were making moves to regroup around the fringes of Sambisa.

The first air strike was a daytime mission executed on Aug.10 at a location 4.5 Km Northwest of Arra around the fringes of Sambisa, where ISR had confirmed that BHTs were regrouping to launch attacks against our troops in the general area.

 Accordingly, the ATF detailed an Alpha Jet to attack the location. Overhead the area of interest, the Alpha Jet acquired and engaged targets, destroying parts of the settlement and neutralizing several BHTs.

 Intelligence reports later revealed that some of the surviving BHTs had converged at another location 4.8Km West of Arra.
It sounds like a conversation politicians engage in all the time in the corridors of power.

Saraki made the disclosure after Tinubu for his unbridled ambition to become president of Nigeria.

"However, no progressive enactment bears his name for he cared not for progress. He has been more focused on changing the rules of the senate to favour himself and changing the order of elections so as to coincide with his selfish designs, Tinubu wrote of Saraki.

Those were hard, searing words.

The Asiwaju added thatIf Saraki had remained in the APC, he would be unable to reclaim his senate seat let alone the senate presidency. He thus bolted because he lusts for the presidency but was promised by the PDP, at least, a return to his position in the senate.

For Senate President Saraki, returning to the PDP, he harbors dreams of the presidency.

Sarakis response to Tinubu was just as loaded. The senate president said he fell out with Tinubu because he didnt support Asiwajus bid to become Buharis running mate in 2015, on the grounds that a Muslim-Muslim ticket wasnt going to be good for the APCs chances of seizing power from the PDP.

Saraki said of Tinubu: It should be noted that he has not forgotten the fact that I took the bull by the horns and told him that in the interest of the country, he should accept the need for the party to present a balanced ticket for the 2015 general elections in terms of religion and geo-political zones. Since that time he has been very active; plotting at every point to undermine me, both within and outside the national assembly.

I have seen quite a lot of folks taking sides since both men decided to wash the others dirty linen in public. My advice is that you shouldnt. Unless you are a paid supporter of either Tinubu or Saraki or a sycophant of either man, you really should be sitting this one out.

In the murky, convoluted world that is politics, no one will ever know who is telling the truth and who is looking out for the people between Saraki and Tinubu. Both men are politicians schooled in the art of swaying the national conversation their way.

This whole back and forth between Tinubu and Saraki is therefore not about the common good or national interest. It is about the lust for power for the sake of it. It is about conquering Nigeria and channeling as much of the nations wealth to their pockets. This is not about you. It is not about me.

It is perhaps no longer a secret that Tinubu wanted to become Buharis running mate in 2015. He hinted as much afterwards. In the end, it was Osinbajo--who Tinubu handpicked because a Muslim-Muslim ticket was never going to fly in an ethno-religious Nigeria--who became Buharis vice president instead.

We also know that there was a time when Tinubu and Buhari werent this cordial. You could see that their relationship had broken down. However, with the 2019 election in the horizon, Buhari made peace with Tinubu and ceded some powers to appoint federal employees to the Asiwaju. All of this is in the public domain.

One more thing: Tinubu and Saraki have been nursing presidential ambitions of their own. No one should tell you otherwise. They are both very ambitious, power hungry men who love to flaunt those powers at every opportunity. This is essentially what this is all about.

So, when they fight, you are better off taking a stool to watch ringside without backing either man. That way, you are assured of your sanity when they both meet at the next power meeting to share corny jokes, cut deals, laugh at themselves, make peace and appropriate the national cake to themselves.
The former Anambra State governor said he is consulting on running to become the representative of the Anambra Central Senatorial district in the upper legislative chamber.

According to a report by The Punch, he made the disclosure at a briefing at Obosi in the Idemili North local government area of Anambra State on Monday, August 20, 2018.

He said, "The people who are pressurising me are my constituents; the people of Anambra State and some prominent people from the South-East.

"We are all in agreement that we need to go and better the milieu of the ninth Senate. Many people feel that the present eighth Senate has been engulfed in a battle of supremacy with the executive and they feel that some of us who have tested the executive and legislature should go back. The Senate is not for kindergarteners.

"I am considering it, I am consulting and the result of my consultations will be made known in a fortnight."

Ngige won the 2011 senatorial election to represent Anambra Central on the platform of the now defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and was Senator until 2015 before he was appointed a minister by President Muhammadu Buhari.

If he decides to run again in 2019, he's expected to run on the platform of the All Progressives' Congress (APC).

FG generous to South-East -Ngige

While speaking at the briefing on Monday, Ngige assured that the Buhari-led administration has been generous to the southeast region with infrastructural development as promised.

He said, "The Federal Government of Nigeria has been generous to the people of the South-East; I am from the South-East. You see the President promised us infrastructure development and the South-East has not been left out.

"When you talk about infrastructure, you are talking about transport, road infrastructure, air infrastructure, sea, health and power infrastructure. In all these areas, we (South- East) have not been left untouched.

"If you drive from Enugu now to Awka, you will see the work that is ongoing on the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway; if you go there and see the thickness of asphalting work, you will marvel."
"Such aggressive and malign behavior undermines the international order that keeps us safe," Hunt was to tell an audience at the US Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan think tank, according to excerpts provided by the Foreign Office.

"Of course we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt: Russia's foreign policy under President Putin has made the world a more dangerous place."

London has blamed the March poisoning in southwestern England of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia -- using a Soviet-made nerve agent -- on Moscow, plunging the two countries into a diplomatic crisis.

A number of Western countries have punished Moscow by expelling Russian diplomats in a coordinated manner. Some have gone further, with other punitive measures.

Those come on top on sanctions already in place over Russia's annexation of Crimea or Moscow's interference in foreign elections, notably in the 2016 presidential vote in the United States.

Hunt, who is to meet on Wednesday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, will ask London's allies to do more.

"Today, the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US," Hunt will say, according to the excerpts.

"That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea."

The administration of US President Donald Trump has been firm with Moscow, regularly announcing new sanctions over the Skripal case, but that message is sometimes muddied by American leader's willingness to improve ties with Putin.

At his July summit with the Russian leader in Helsinki, Trump appeared to be rather conciliatory towards his counterpart, shortly after raising hackles at a NATO summit in Brussels with his contrarian stance.

That earned the president widespread criticism at home, even angering many in his own Republican Party.

Red lines

For Hunt, NATO's "credibility" has taken a hit.

"Those who do not share our values need to know that there will always be a serious price to pay if red lines are crossed -- whether territorial incursions, the use of banned weapons or, increasingly, cyber attacks," he was to warn.

Hunt will also seek to carry a tough message to Europe on the subject of Brexit, warning that a no deal departure could threaten the continent's unity for a generation, according to his office.

"One of the biggest threats to European unity would be a chaotic no-deal Brexit," he was to say.

Hunt, who replaced Johnson last month amid discord over how London should handle Brexit, was to say Britain would manage -- "we have faced many greater challenges in our history" -- but the European Union would suffer a serious blow.

"The risk of a messy divorce... would be a fissure in relations between European allies that would take a generation to heal -- a geostrategic error for Europe at an extremely vulnerable time in our history," he was to say.
An unannounced rest home inspection has revealed concerning issues less than a year since it was ordered to refund $10,000 to a 92-year-old resident.

Last year, Bupa Care Services was ordered to pay up for the way it treated Freda Love while she was a living in their St Kilda Care Home facility in Cambridge.

But an audit found St Kilda Care Home was meeting only four of seven criteria that were assessed.

Consumer NZ head of research Jessica Wilson told RadioLIVE that the failings are concerning.

These are basic failings in care, call-bells not being answered within required times, care plans not being reviewed, issues in complaints, no action to ensure they dont happen again, so really concerning failings.

She was in a wet bed, a urine-soaked bed for many hours.

Last November, Mrs Loves son told Newshub his mothers treatment was unacceptable.

"She was in a wet bed, a urine-soaked bed for many hours, and that happened on many occasions."

He had paid an extra $52 a night so she could have a better room and premium service at the rest home.

Mr Love was drawn to what he described as their impressive and persuasive marketing material.

Freda only lived at the care home for four months, but in that time Mr Love says he repeatedly found her in substandard conditions due to "poorly trained staff" and "incompetence".

Ms Wilson says the ongoing shortfalls at St Kilda highlight the problems with rest home monitoring and lack of adequate deterrents for breaches. A homes failure to meet required standards may not be picked up unless theres an unannounced inspection or a complaint is made.

We would expect these big guys [Bupa Healthcare] to actually be leading the way in having really good standards of care but at this home, what we are finding from complaints and unannounced inspections are that there are ongoing problems.

Bupa's chief operating officer Carolyn Cooper said in a statement that she has apologised to residents and relatives of St Kilda, and that they are responding to the inspections findings with the utmost seriousness and desire to improve.

"A follow up audit by an independent reviewer at the end of June found that there was no evidence of the historical complaints of poor care," the statement read.



Listen to the full interview with Jessica Wilson above.

Morning Talk with Mark Sainsbury, 9am - 12pm Weekdays and streaming live on 'rova' channel 9 - available on Android and iPhone.

RadioLIVE.
A lawyer is on a crusade to make the Government allow parents to name their children Justice.

Lawyer Bevan Marten says it's the most frequently banned name in New Zealand.

Justice has been rejected as a name 65 times in the past five years.

Justice is one I think is a bit different.

"Its one of a number of ranks and titles that youre not allowed to have a name that can be confused with," he told RadioLIVEs Mark Sainsbury.

Same with Judge or Duke or Prince, Justice is one I think is a bit different.

The Government has made an exception before, allowing a New Zealand baby girl to be named Justice.

Justice Hetaraka is now a law student, and she got to keep the name after her mother refused to give it up.



The registrar of births, deaths and marriages can veto any name it doesn't like, including any name that resembles an official title or rank such as the name Justice.

In 2017, the rejects list included 'Messiah', 'Ida-Queen', '4Real', 'Senior Constable', and even a simple full-stop.

Listen to the full interview with Bevan Marten above.

Morning Talk with Mark Sainsbury, 9am - 12pm Weekdays and streaming live on 'rova' channel 9 - available on Android and iPhone.

RadioLIVE.
Every Tuesday night after the 10pm news, Mitch Harris is joined by Christopher Swasbrook, CEO and founder of Elevation Capital, to talk on the latest business stories, both in New Zealand and internationally.

Tonight: A treat for Tuesday night business, as Mitch and Chris talk with special guest Philippe Legrain.

Mr Legrain is a commentator for the BBC, a former correspondent for The Economist magazine, and he has also been special adviser to WTO director-general Mike Moore.

Topics covered in the fascinating discussion include what impact a trade war could have on countries including New Zealand, possible financial repercussions after Brexit, and what impact Donald Trump could have on countries' economies.

Night Talk with Mitch Harris, 8pm - 12am Monday to Thursday nights on RadioLIVE, and streaming live to the rova app on Android and iPhone.

RadioLIVE.
NETHERLANDS: The Dutch main line network is almost full, ProRail warned on August 20. The national infrastructure manager issued the stark assessment in its annual update on proposed path allocations for 2019.
Sub Saharan Africa is set to receive a tailored HD English language channel called Star Life on 27 August from 21st Century-owned broadcaster Star India.





The channel will air family dramas, celebrity dance shows and Bollywood movies on the DStv, GOtv, and Openview TV platforms.At Star, we believe in creating stories for the world, stimulating imagination and showcasing the limitless power of ordinary people. We have seen the need for quality Indian crossover entertainment and with Star Life, we are proud to bring to Africa, engaging programming, in English, which will leave our viewers inspired, rejuvenated, moved and delighted, said Gaurav Jandwani, SVP & business head UK/Europe & South Africa, Star Network We are delighted to partner with DStv and Openview, the best platforms in the region, making Star Life the most widely available channel in its genre in southern Africa.Viewers in South Africa will have the channel available in high definition (HD) but DStv viewers elsewhere in Africa will only receive the channel in standard definition (SD).
It once carried huge hopes as the channel of the future but AwesomenessTV now plans to let 98 employees go at its Santa Monica offices, which represents about 50% of its workforce.





According to numbers filed with the California Employment Development Department, the teen-focussed media company said the layoffs would be official 15 October for most of the impacted workers, with the remaining 15 people losing their jobs 31 December.As we begin to integrate Awesomeness and streamline the organisation within Viacom, a number of positions were impacted yesterday, a Viacom spokesperson told Deadline. We are grateful for the many contributions of each individual and continue to work diligently to ensure a smooth transition. Deadline reported that the head of Awesomeness Films, the head of documentary and drama, and the heads of music and casting are all affected.AwesomenessTV, once one of YouTubes most successful multichannel network, has seen its fortunes fall significantly since Verizon bought a quarter stake in the company for $159 million two years ago. The wireless giant had expected to leverage its assets and a $150 million content deal to bolster a digital media play anchored by Go90, a mobile-first, millennial-focused video offering, plus the acquisitions of Yahoo! and AOL. Go90 failed to take off, and Verizon recently said it would fold it into its Oath division.AwesomenessTV felt the collateral damage, with Go90 money drying up. It decided recently to sell to Viacom, reportedly for less than $300 million
Since the surprise announcement of his indictment and guilty plea on Oct. 30, 2017, the short-term, volunteer Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos has often been described as a central figure in the Trump-Russia affair. Now, a new court filing from special counsel Robert Mueller suggests Papadopoulos was a bit player all along.
Fact checkers, like others who work in media, are competing for their share of the dwindling American attention span. Even my local newspaper in a town of 8,000 residents has started to offer its readership multimedia options like video segments in an effort to accommodate contemporary sensibilities. So it is not surprising that fact checkers have also gone multimedia.

Since 2015, FactCheck.org has teamed with Jake Tapper, host of CNNs State of the Union, to produce regular video segments based on its traditional written fact checks. At RealClears Fact Check Review, we evaluate these segments just as we do written fact checks. We are able to do so because Tapper, true to journalistic form, provides sourcing on both the claims he is evaluating and the evidence he uses to make determinations. This allows viewers to critically engage with the pieces, evaluating the evidence themselves, and ultimately subjecting Tappers verdicts to the crucible of reason. It also allows us to apply our methodology to the segments.

A segment from April is a typical example of FactCheck.orgs joint work with CNN. Viewers are able to access the segment via a post on FactCheck.orgs blog, The Wire. The post presents a summary of the claim and evidence evaluated by Tapper, including links to original sources. Also provided is a link to the full-length piece upon which the video was based. This thoroughness carries through to the video itself, which is embedded in the blog post.

In this instance, Tapper examines a claim by President Trump that the United States Postal Service is losing money by shipping packages for Amazon. Tapper plays a video clip of the president making this assertion. For each piece of evidence cited, Tapper articulates the source, and in several instances, graphical inserts are placed upon the screen to emphasize key quotes or pieces of data and their sources. The viewer is able to verify these sources, if so inclined. Tapper notes that the post office declined to supply data that would have been helpful in making a more definitive determination. Despite that caveat, he ultimately concludes that the presidents claim was incorrect. The viewer is left not only with Tappers verdict, but a clear road map explaining how it was reached.

Contrast this exercise with a video from the Washington Post, released in June under the title One rally, one hour, almost 30 Trumpian claims. The video was produced by Meg Kelly, who creates visual content for the Post and also writes standard fact checks. In the few descriptive paragraphs that accompany the video, Kelly writes that Trump made at least 29 false claims during a rally in Duluth, Minn. She notes that 20 of these claims have been covered extensively in our project cataloguing all of the presidents false or misleading claims. Of the presidents speech, she writes that [b]y the end of the hour, the president made a false or misleading claim almost once every two minutes. The video above fact-checks a handful of these claims.

Unfortunately, the video doesnt deliver on this promise. Instead, a clip of Trumps speech is played as a buzzer sounds when he makes a statement the Post deems false. On screen, a contrary assertion or fact is displayed for each claim, but no sources are offered for them. The video runs through only a few of the 29 claims referenced by Kelly, advancing to each one via a clever fast-forwarding effect. A counter ticks off which claim we are watching  No. 7, No. 13, and so on. But nowhere is a comprehensive list of the 29 claims given. Even the Posts catalogue of all of Trumps false claims lists only 20 of them, according to Kellys own report.

The first false claim identified by the Post (although it is listed as No. 7, the audience not being privy to the first six) in what the newspaper called a Pinocchio-filled rally was the presidents assertion that the Obama administration-brokered Iran nuclear deal resulted in the U.S. sending $1.8 billion to Iran. The Post corrective reads this way: The $1.7 billion settled a decades-old claim between the U.S. and Iran. It was not a ransom.

The newspaper is apparently quibbling with two parts of Trumps statement. The first is his $1.8 billion estimate, which hes used before. According to the Congressional Research Office, the correct figure was $1.7 billion. Is this really a Pinocchio-like lie? PolitiFact didnt characterize it that way: It termed that slight exaggeration reasonably accurate.

The second sentence in the Post video takes the presidents remarks out of context. For starters, Trump did not use the word ransom. His allusion to the $1.8 billion is made in passing while he boasts about North Korea. We got back our hostages, he said. And I didnt pay $1.8 billion to get back our hostages.  They stopped shooting missiles over Japan. They stopped all nuclear testing. They stopped nuclear research.

The president went on like this for a while. Maybe North Korea is doing these things, and maybe it isnt, but implying that American citizens held captive in Iran were released as part of the larger negotiations between Tehran and the Obama administration isnt necessarily a stretch. The first payment of $400 million to Iran was announced by the administration on the same day Iran released five Americans held on bogus charges. State Department spokesman John Kirby explained it this way: While there is no connection between the $400 million and the return of our American citizens, we did, however, in those endgame hours, hold back that payment until we knew that our Americans were safe and sound -- and on their way out of Iran.

Glenn Kessler, editor of the Washington Posts fact-checking blog, takes issue with these conclusions. He quotes Trump as saying, We got back our hostages. And I didnt pay $1.8 billion. Kessler says, If that is not a reference to ransom, what is it? Ransom is perfectly acceptable shorthand in a video.

More broadly, he says that video is different from the standard fact-checking format and suggests that the Post audience would understand that. No one is going to sit through a video on every single claim, he said in an email. It was not designed to be comprehensive. He added that the video made it clear that most of Trumps questionable assertions were not new and that those previously debunked by the newspaper can be found in the links provided.

Trump lie No. 23, according to the Post, is the president denying collusion with Russia in the 2016 campaign. The investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia is ongoing, the Post asserts. Kessler doesnt see a problem with that. We are saying the investigation is ongoing, where he says its a nothing burger from the start.

But is that really a politician running afoul of the facts? The papers implication here is that, unless and until Robert Mueller clears the president of wrongdoing, Trump cant even say aloud that he thinks hes innocent without earning the Pinocchio awards the Post slaps on those found telling untruths.

That seems like a novel view of the doctrine of innocent until proven guilty.

This video is also a novel approach to fact-checking. It video opens by noting that Trump hosted a campaign-style rally in Minnesota. Perhaps its fitting, then, that this fact check more closely resembles an election-year attack ad than a dispassionate attempt to separate fact from fiction.
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Prosecutors in Colorado have 60 days after someone is arraigned to say if they will seek the death penalty. No date has been set for Watts' arraignment and District Attorney Michael Rourke said Monday that it was too early to discuss if he will pursue the death penalty.
Bristol Palin gets candid about her life as a single mom in her first promo for her addition to "Teen Mom OG."

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The 27-year-old tells her mom, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin , her life is "not perfect at all" in the teaser for the MTV series.

"I want to do what's best for my kids," she adds in another scene.

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MTV shared the promo during the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards, which took place Monday in New York. The network also posted the teaser on the "Teen Mom 2" official Twitter account.

Bristol Palin is joining the #TeenMomOG family," the company wrote. "A new chapter begins Monday, October 1st on @MTV."

Palin gave birth to her first child, son Tripp, at age 18. She is parent to Tripp with ex-fiance Levi Johnston, and to two daughters, 2-year-old Sailor and 15-month-old Atlee, with ex-husband Dakota Meyer.

Palin confirmed this month she is "freshly divorced" from Meyer.

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Palin joins Catelynn Lowell , Maci Bookout and Amber Portwood on "Teen Mom OG."

Farrah Abraham, who was fired from the show in the fall, slammed Palin's casting Monday while attending the MTV Video Music Awards with her daughter.
As citizens across the country prepare to head to the polls on Nov. 6, Athens-Clarke County voters will see an electoral rematch in the race f
Germany is demanding policy changes by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan if he wants any help in stabilizing the economy, according to a party ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"We have common interests concerning refugee policy, but we also have big differences," Juergen Hardt, a senior member of the German parliament's foreign affairs committee, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. Germany wants Turkey to respect media freedoms, release Germans jailed for political reasons and refrain from inflaming the war in Syria, he said.

Turkey's turmoil resonates particularly in Germany, its biggest economic partner and home to a German-Turkish minority estimated to number about 3.5 million. While German officials say no economic aid for Turkey is on offer for now, those ties heighten the stakes for Erdogan's planned state visit to Germany in late September.

Hardt, a member of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party, made it clear that Turkey's first western port of call should be the International Monetary Fund, rather than Germany or the European Union. "I think the IMF has to help" Erdogan, he said.

German influence would be key to any European measures to stabilize Turkey, the Middle East's biggest economy. Merkel's government on Monday denied a Der Spiegel report that Finance Minister Olaf Scholz urged his Turkish counterpart, Berat Albayrak, to seek an IMF aid program.

While Merkel put EU talks on expanding the bloc's customs union with Turkey on hold last September after two German citizens were taken into custody, the EU's offer formally remains on the table. On its own, Germany could potentially offer a boost in export financing by its state-controlled development bank.

After a war of words over democratic values sent relations to a low point a year ago, Germany's invitation to host Erdogan on Sept. 28 represents an overture that underscores how President Donald Trump's attacks on the global order are spurring Merkel to re-examine her alliances. Last weekend, she hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin one-on-one for the first time in more than five years.

Germany is Turkey's biggest economic partner by far, accounting for some 37 billion euros ($42 billion) in bilateral trade last year. In addition, Merkel and the EU need Erdogan to uphold an agreement to host Syrian refugees for which Europe has pledged 6 billion euros ($6.9 billion) in aid.

An Istanbul court this week lifted a travel ban on German journalist Mesale Tolu, who was detained for seven months last year on terrorism charges she rejects. Hardt suggested it's premature to say whether her release signals a broader shift in Turkey.

"We ask the Turkish government to come back to politics as it was 10 years ago -- independence of justice, independence of media and rule of law in every court," Hardt said. "At the moment Turkey unfortunately is going away from that."

--Bloomberg's Birgit Jennen contributed.
Back to School, 1970s

1. Take the kids downtown to go shopping at Sears for back to school clothes the last week of August. Get everyone a new pair of corduroys and a striped tee shirt. Buy the boys a pair of dungarees and the girls a pair of culottes. No, Jennifer, you cant have that orange and red poncho. Promise you will crochet her a better one with much more fringe. Get the girls a package of that rainbow, fuzzy yarn they like in their hair. You are done. You have spent a total of $43.00. Now take everyone to the Woolworths lunch counter for grilled cheeses and chocolate milk.

2. On the night before the first day of school (that would be the Sunday night after Labor Day, of course, you know, mid-September) throw the kids in the way back of the station wagon and drag them downtown to Eckerds, K-Mart, Ames, Dollar General, Drug Fair or the like and hurry them over to the back-to-school area to pick out a lunchbox. Make sure you tell them to get a move on because you dont have all night for them to make a damn decision. They need to get in bed by eight and yes, theyre going to miss the Wonderful World of Disney if they cant decide between The Fonz and Dukes of Hazzard.

RELATED VIDEO: Back-to-School Shopping Cost: This is How Much Parents Should Expect to Spend

Good Lord, why is it so hard for them to pick? Tell Kimberly if she cant make up her mind between Holly Hobbie and The Bionic Woman then youre going to pick Pigs in Space and you dont want to hear another word about it until June. Grab a composition book for each of them and a pack of pencils too. Thats all they need. Remember to save some grocery bags so they can cover their textbooks with them after the first day of school.

3. Buy yourself a pack of Virginia Slims on the way out and smoke three of them on the way home.

4. Get up in the morning and make yourself a cup of Sanka with Sweet n Low. Line up all the lunchboxes on the Formica counter top in your kitchen. Open up a bag of Wonder Bread and do this assembly line style.

5. Spread yellow mustard on bread. Slap bologna on bread. Unwrap American cheese slices and put on top of bologna. Put top on the sandwich and wrap sandwich in tin foil or wax paper. Put it in the lunchbox. Every kid gets the same exact lunch. Period.

6. Alternate sandwich choices could include: Peanut butter and grape jelly, peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, the end of last nights leftover roast beef or the ever popular with children tuna fish with large chunks of onions and celery and Miracle Whip.

7. Put some Planters Cheese Balls into a baggie and close with a twist tie.

8. Take Twinkies out of the box. Put one in each childs lunch box

9. Fill thermoses with either Kool-Aid or whole milk.

10. Include a red delicious apple even though you know that damned apple is just going to come home uneaten again, which is fine because you can keep adding the same one until it practically rots.

11. Close the lunchboxes. Youre done. Theyll grab them, along with a frosted, dutch apple Pop-Tart on the way out the door as they walk a half mile down the road to get to the bus stop. Go put some Barry Manilow on the record player and celebrate that your kids are out of the house until dinner time.

Back to School, Today

1. Take five deep breaths and say a positive affirmation. There are still a couple weeks left before they go back to school. Dont worry, you still have time to order BPA-free bento boxes and authentic Indian tiffins made with special stainless steel that did not involve any child-labor, sweat shops or animal cruelty. Remember, you have Amazon Prime. You can get the free two day shipping and you will have plenty of time to read reviews and make this very important decision because your kids are in summer camp which is actually just another word for school in the summer because OH MY GOD you were so tired that day you had to have them home all day with you and you couldnt go to your restorative flow class at yoga. And that was also the day something went terribly wrong with the homemade glitter cloud dough recipe that was supposed to go in their sensory bin and the very same day that they were out of soy milk at Starbucks and you had to immediately email corporate to let them know that duh, they should actually be selling almond milk and/ or coconut milk. Get with it Starbucks. Soy is so 90s. Ugh, but you digress. The tiffin. The bento boxes

2. One Week Later: The bento boxes and tiffins have arrived. So has your childrens schools annual list of school supplies that you must purchase and deliver. It is three and a half pages long. It includes a ten pound bag of flour and several cleaning products and also requests a Costco-sized package of toilet paper.

3. Begin frantic online search for backpacks and school bags made from all natural materials yet still cool. Have them monogrammed.

4. Take kids shopping at the mall for new school clothes. Buy them each a completely new wardrobe from Gymboree and Crew Cuts. Spend $2,387.07 on your credit card.

5. Take children to the child psychologist to prepare them mentally for the difficult transition to a new grade, new teacher and new classroom.

6. Intently study the allergy list the school has sent you which lists all the items that other children in your childrens classes are allergic to and thus cannot be sent in your childs lunch either. This is extremely stressful because the last thing you (or anyone) wants to be responsible for is sending a second grader into anaphylactic shock. Make notes on your phone so you can remember what not to buy when you go to Whole Foods.

7. Purchase school supplies for your children. Not to be confused with the 3 1/2 page list of classroom supplies you are also responsible for. They will need paper, pens, folders, notebooks, a calligraphy set, fifteen new apps for their tablets, a graphing calculator, a scalpel, an electron microscope and a centrifuge.

8. Go to Whole Foods to shop for school lunch items. This will take 4 hours and 15 minutes because you have to read every single label to make sure you are purchasing organic, locally sourced, non-GMO, gluten-free, allergy friendly products. You come home with tahini, bananas and a package of brown rice cakes. You somehow spent $76.19.

9. The night before the first day back to school, prepare the Bento boxes. Fill containers with organic, local strawberries intricately cut into the shapes of sea creatures. Include homemade, nut-free granola made with certified gluten-free oats. Make a sandwich on vegan hemp bread out of tahini, kale and jicama. Form it into the shape of your childs favorite Disney character. Make flowers out of non-dairy cheese slices, olives and seaweed. Photograph the finished Bento Box and post it to Instagram.

MORE FROM VICTORIA:

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 Kids Birthday Parties Then and Now

10. Write your child an encouraging note which includes an inspirational quote.

11. Include a sheet of stickers for good measure.

12. Fill a Siig bottle with filtered water and also include a box of chilled coconut water in the Bento Box because children can never be too hydrated. Ever.

13. Blog about this experience. Pray it goes viral.

14. Get up at 4AM on the first day of school. Make first day of school signs for each child to hold as you photograph them on the front step. Make a bunting to hang above the front door. Blow up balloons. Actually, go ahead and make a full on back to school photo booth.

15. Make pancakes in the shape of the letters of the alphabet.

16. Dress kids in coordinated outfits and spend 35 minutes posing and photographing them (with your phone).

17. Load everyone into the car to drive them to school.

18. When they are safely in their new classrooms, return to your car to cry for the next 20 minutes. But its okay, really. Youll be back in six hours to pick them up and drive them to Synchronized Swimming, Cello and Urdu classes this afternoon.

This article originally appeared on Scarymommy.com

Victoria Fedden, the author of the memoir This Is Not My Beautiful Life, is a mom, and a college writing teacher who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Read more at www.victoriafedden.com

Facebook: facebook.com/victoriacfedden

Instagram: @victoriafedden

Twitter: @widelawns


The verdict also raised immediate questions of whether the president would seek to pardon Manafort, the lone American charged by Mueller to opt for trial instead of cooperate. The president has not revealed his thinking but spoke sympathetically throughout the trial of his onetime aide, at one point suggesting he had been treated worse than gangster Al Capone.
Cambodias government on Tuesday released two former RFA reporters who had spent more than nine months behind bars on espionage charges, a day after the countrys King Norodom Sihamoni granted a pardon for four land activists based on a request by Prime Minister Hun Sen.



Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin were taken into custody on Nov. 14 last year and formally charged with illegally collecting information for a foreign source. They have since had production of pornography added to the charges against them and face possible jail terms of up to 15 years if convicted.



On Tuesday evening, the two men were freed from Prey Sar Prison and reunited with friends and family following an order by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to release them on bail.



The reporters cautiously welcomed their release while speaking with the media outside of the prison, noting that they must report to the police monthly, have had their passports confiscated, and could be re-arrested at any time.



We maintain that we are innocent of the charges against us and will continue to do so, Yeang Sothearin said.



The authorities confiscated all of our equipment when we were arrestedincluding the computers and cameras that belong to Uon Chhinso they had everything, but they still were unable to present evidence of our alleged crimes and never held a trial, he added.



We continue to urge the court to drop all charges against us so that we can have the freedom to return to our work.



Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin are widely seen as victims of a crackdown on the opposition, NGOs and independent media by Hun Sen in the lead up to Cambodias July 29 general election, which his ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) won in a landslide victory, securing all 125 parliamentary seats in play.



The ballot was widely seen as unfree and unfair after the dissolution of the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in November last year and arrest of its leader Kem Sokha two months earlier amid allegations of a plot to overthrow the government.



After eliminating his main political challenger last year, Hun Sen turned his attention to silencing critics of his rule.



In May, The Phnom Penh PostCambodias last independent dailywas sold for an unknown sum to a Malaysian investor with ties to Hun Sen following the out-of-court settlement of a U.S. $3.9 million claim by the government for alleged unpaid back taxes, prompting an exodus by several senior members of the newspapers reporting staff.



The sale of the Post came less than 10 months after the forced closure of the Cambodia Daily, another independent newspaper that was also pressured over claims of unpaid taxes, and the shuttering of several independent radio programs. RFA closed its operations in Cambodia in September amid government pressure.



Widespread condemnation



When police took Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin into custody in November, they initially said they had been detained for running an unlicensed karaoke studio. The reporters were later accused of setting up a studio for RFA and charged with espionage under Article 445 of Cambodias Criminal Code.



Cambodias Ministries of Information and Interior had warned prior to their arrests that any journalists still working for RFA would be treated as spies.



During the more than nine months of their incarceration, the two reporters were held in separate overcrowded cells, and prohibited from reading newspapers, listening to the radio, or making phone calls.



Multiple local and international rights groups had condemned Hun Sens government for its treatment of the two reporters during their detention, demanding that they be freed.



On Tuesday, Am Sam Ath, the head of investigations for local rights group Licadho, continued to press for their unconditional freedom.



I hope the court dismisses all the charges against the two former RFA reporters because, so far, the court has produced no evidence, he said.



The granting of bail to Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin came a day after Cambodias King Norodom Sihamoni granted royal pardonsat Hun Sens behestto prominent land rights activist Tep Vanny and three others convicted for their roles in a protest over a land grab in the capital Phnom Penh.



Tep Vanny had been imprisoned for more than two years of her 30-month sentence, while the other three activists were granted bail following their convictions.



The activist was awarded the 2013 Vital Voices Global Leadership Award for her work campaigning on behalf of the community evicted from Boeung Kak Lake, which was later filled with sand to make way for a development project with ties to Hun Sen and the CPP.



Hun Sen, who added another five-year term to his 33 years in office after election results were announced last week, has made a practice of heavy-handed crackdowns on his critics, followed by a relaxation of restrictions after facing international condemnation.



Call for release



Also on Tuesday, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) called in a statement for Cambodia to drop all charges and immediately release Kem Sokha, ahead of the CNRP chiefs latest bail hearing, scheduled for Wednesday.



Kem Sokha has been held in pre-trial detention for 11 months in Cambodias remote Tboung Khmum province, and has been denied bail four times since his arrest.



The opposition leader Kem Sokha has now been jailed for nearly a year on preposterous treason charges, because he had the audacity to lead an opposition party in Cambodia, said Brad Adams, HRWs Asia director.



Governments concerned about the end of democratic rule in Cambodia should demand the immediate release of Kem Sokha and all other political prisoners.



HRW cited Kem Sokhas lawyers as saying that the CNRP chief suffers from serious health problemsincluding high blood pressure, severe shoulder pain, and diabetesbut that prison authorities have denied him appropriate medical treatment.



The rights group noted that authorities are holding him in isolation and have refused access to all visitors other than his immediate family and lawyers, and noted that United Nations standards prohibit such indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement, which it said may amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment in violation of international law.



On Monday, Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan dismissed calls by former CNRP President Sam Rainsy, who is living in self-imposed exile to avoid a slew of convictions seen as politically motivated, for the government to free Kem Sokha ahead of his bail hearing or risk international condemnation.



Cambodias government doesnt need legitimacy from anyone or anything, besides the election and the electoral institution, the spokesman said.



Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
(CNN)  Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad struck a conciliatory tone during his visit to Beijing Monday, a stark contrast to his earlier sharp language on China.

In the past year, Mahathir has spoken harshly about Chinese investment in his country, alleging that his predecessor hurt Malaysia's sovereignty by signing multibillion-dollar deals with China.

But on Monday, the Malaysian leader said his nation could "learn a lot" from Beijing. "I believe in cooperation with China because China has got a lot that will be beneficial to us," Mahathir told reporters after holding talks in Beijing with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

For his part, Li said both sides were willing to further expand trade between China and Malaysia. "China is willing to further increase imports of Malaysian goods to satisfy the needs of the Chinese market," the Chinese premier said.

The 93-year-old Malaysian leader started his five-day visit on Friday. He toured a Chinese car plant and e-commerce giant Alibaba, and rode China's fastest high-speed train from the tech hub of Hangzhou to Shanghai, before arriving at the Chinese capital.

Although Mahathir has long spoken about renegotiating the terms of Beijing-funded large-scale infrastructure projects in his country, documents signed between the two governments Monday only touched on more modest items, such as cross-border accounting cooperation, and durian and palm oil trade.

Mahathir later met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, during which he said Malaysia welcomes Chinese investments to benefit both nations.

'An old friend of the Chinese people'

When he joined the opposition to topple then-Prime Minister Najib Razak last year, Mahathir strongly criticized the Najib government's business deals with China, especially a massive loan from China to build a rail link.

He warned such agreements could threaten Malaysia's independence  including its claim in the South China Sea, where an increasingly aggressive Beijing is locked in a bitter territorial dispute with its smaller neighbors.

"We already have big debt, now we are going to owe such a large sum from a single source," Mahathir was quoted as saying last November. "It appears as if we are changing our approach to the South China Sea, that we are willing to give up our claims."

In July, citing their high costs, Mahathir suspended two China-backed projects worth over $22 billion  the East Coast Rail Link as well as gas pipelines  that were approved by Najib, who had pulled Kuala Lumpur close to Beijing.

But speaking on Sunday at an elite business forum in Beijing, Mahathir blamed Malaysia's huge debt to China on Najib, who is now awaiting trial for alleged corruption.

"It is not about the Chinese, it is about the Malaysian government," he said. "We are not against Chinese companies, but we are against borrowing money from outside and having projects which are not necessary and which are very costly."

China has been careful in addressing Mahathir's statements since he took office in May, describing the elder statesman as "an old friend of the Chinese people" and praising his "support and participation" in the Belt and Road Initiative, a global trade and investment program championed by Xi.

Mahathir  who had earlier led Malaysia from 1981 to 2003  appears to have softened his stance on China as well, after scoring a stunning electoral victory and returning to power.

In an interview with CNN last month, Mahathir, who still voiced doubts over China's "spreading influence through money," said that Malaysia has to accept the reality of a dominant China in the region and cannot go to war with Beijing over the South China Sea.

"They are more powerful, and we cannot fight against them," he said. "How do we benefit from their wealth and their power? That's what we are looking at now."
I think that what Im going to remember about Merle is that she personified what many of us hope to be. She lived a long, healthy life, which most of us hope to do, and kindness was paramount in her life, said Jeanne Hansen, the executive director of the Belmont Village senior living facility in Carol Stream, where Phillips lived. She tried to serve her God and to serve others.
More than 1,000 families in northeast Cambodias Stung Treng province are facing extreme difficulties after heavy rainfall led a tributary of the Mekong River to flood their commune for the third time in a month, according to residents, who said a controversial hydropower dam was to blame.



Pey Mey, a resident of Sesan districts Talat commune, told RFAs Khmer Service on Tuesday that the Sesan River had overflowed its banks for the third time since the end of July, forcing the families from five villages in the commune to evacuate to higher ground.



After a week living in a tent community above the inundated village tracts, and with rain continuing to fall, the families are now facing a shortage of food and fresh water, as well as a lack of sanitary conditions, he added.



We are facing serious hardships on the high ground area because its unsafe and the rainfall has not stopped, he said, adding that the sodden land had made it difficult to keep tents aloft.



The high ground area is located in the jungle, and its not clear if it will remain safe from the flooding.



The villagers rice paddies and plantations have been flooded for around a week, he said, adding that the crops had likely been destroyed.



Its really because of the hydropower dam that the flooding occurred, he said, adding that if it was only the rainfall, it wouldnt be this bad.



Talat commune chief Soeng Khong confirmed to RFA that all of the all areas rice fields and plantations had been flooded, but said he had yet to receive a full report of the damage.



The U.S. $781 million Lower Sesan 2 hydropower dams floodgates were closed in September last year and began producing electricity two months later. The 400-megawatt capacity dam is expected to come fully online later this year.



But the project, which is a joint venture between Cambodias Royal Group and Chinas Hydrolancang International Energy, has faced criticism over its social and environmental impacts.



Speaking to RFA on Tuesday, Leang Bunleap, the executive director of the 3S Rivers Protection Network, said that if rainfall continues, flooding from the Lower Sesan 2 would be compounded by the release of reservoir water from dams upstream in neighboring Vietnam, which would cause additional swelling of the river in Stung Treng.



Villagers evacuated to the high ground posted photos on Facebook showing  that there is a severe shortage of food, he said.



But [the situation may worsen as] the water level from the hydropower dams  will rise when the floodgates are opened.



Keo Vy, the spokesman for Cambodias National Committee for Disaster Management, recently told the local media that at least 18 people had been killed and more than 40,000 families affected by flooding from heavy rains since the end of July.



He was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday.



Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Vanrith Chrea. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong are swooping on what remains of a workers' movement at a technology factory aided by leftist followers of late supreme leader Mao Zedong.



Protesters who campaigned for an independent labor union at the Jasic Technology factory in Guangdong's Shenzhen city, said social media accounts and chat groups used to organize the protests are now being shut down by government censors.



"A lot of accounts and chat groups are being shut down if they openly discuss the story," a source close to the workers told RFA on Tuesday. "Using words such as Jasic, Shen Mengyu [and] Pingshan are all banned."



Earlier this month, Shen Mengyu, a Maoist labor activist and former Jasic employee, was taken away by unidentified personnel after she led the campaign for a union to negotiate collectively on behalf of some 1,000 Jasic workers that led to the detention of dozens of workers in the local Pingshan district police station.



"A lot of groups or individual accounts, including my own, have been shut down for using these words carelessly," the source said.



Shen was grabbed and forcibly restrained by three unidentified individuals in Shenzhen as she ate dinner with her father on Aug. 11, before being bundled into an unmarked vehicle, sources close to the campaign told RFA at the time.



The source said the movement had failed to achieve its goal, and had become politicized by the intervention of the Maoists, some of whom sought work at the factory in order to help organize the workers.



"The only people still involved with it now are the Maoist left ... the sort of young students who believe in what they read on the Utopia website," the source said. "That is to say, it's not really a labor movement any more; it has already become a form of political protest."



"To put it another way, it is a political and ideological standoff between the Maoists and the government."



The administration of President Xi Jinping has shut down a number of Maoist websites in recent years, including Utopia, but has generally allowed them to re-open after politically sensitive events, such as the trial of leftist icon and former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai in 2013.



The Jasic protests have also inspired solidarity among labor groups across the internal immigration border in the former British colony of Hong Kong, however.



Around a dozen trade unionists waved placards and chanted slogans outside Beijing's Central Liaison Office in the city, hitting out at Shen Mengyu's sudden "disappearance."



They told reporters that local police had dragged their feet on investigating her whereabouts, and that surveillance cameras near where she was taken were "damaged," and that footage couldn't be recovered from them.



They called on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to order the Pingshan authorities to release those workers and supporters who remain in police custody following the protests.



The detention of workers came on July 27 as they protested the dismissal by factory management of those involved in a bid to set up a union through legal channels.



Seven workers said they had been beaten up by police for their involvement in the campaign to found a union, which began on July 18.



Collective action



Collective action by workers are common and widespread in China, as workers seek to use collective bargaining as a tool to defend their legal rights, according to a recent annual report by the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin (CLB).



"The workers movement entered a new phase of more organized and purposeful collective action in which workers utilized the latest internet and telecommunications technology to more effectively pursue their objectives," the report said.



However, it hit out at "reforms" carried out in recent years by the government-backed All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU).



"The ACFTU can no longer merely indulge in superficial structural reforms which in reality do more to protect its own vast self-interests than Chinas workers," CLB said in a summary of the report's findings.



"It is now absolutely essential that trade union reforms allow workers to reclaim ownership of the union and for the union to represent workers (not itself) in collective bargaining with employers at the enterprise level," it said.



"The union needs to be led and driven by those who believe in the core values of socialismequality, justice and democracy," CLB said.



More than 40 years after his death at the age of 82, late supreme leader Mao Zedong still presents a political dilemma to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.



While revering Mao as the leader who founded the People's Republic on Oct. 1, 1949, the party has been forced to conclude publicly that the leader made some "serious political mistakes."



Locally funded statues of Mao have been torn down in recent years, reflecting official concerns over the potential use of the Great Helmsman's image as a focus for millions of poor and dispossessed people in China, including the country's army of petitioners, many of whom have lost their land or homes to government-backed development.



Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Chinese police are regularly using handheld devices to scan the contents of people's smartphones, according to recent media reports.



Government procurement documents cited by Reuters showed that police stations in almost every Chinese province have been acquiring special data-extraction devices for smartphones since the beginning of 2016.



The scanners, generally hand-held or desktop devices that can break into smartphones and extract and analyze contact lists, photos, videos, social media posts and email, appear to have been rolled out in the northwestern region of Xinjiang initially, Reuters said.



Sources in the region confirmed their use in recent interviews with RFA.



"I ran into a police patrol when I went to fill up at a gas station, who told me to take out my smartphone for checking," a resident of the regional capital Urumqi surnamed Hao told RFA.



"They stuck it into this device they had, which shows them what you have been reading or watching, and anything you have stored on it," he said. "It can find stuff you didn't even know you had on there; stuff you had forgotten about."



"They looked through all of it, and then they detained me for five days on the basis of it," Hao said.



Hao said he was surprised to have been scanned, as he believed police usually targeted the Turkic-speaking, mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group for such checks.



A second resident of Xinjiang, Ping Liang, said residents are now increasingly being surveilled via a backdoor in the popular social media app WeChat.



"Some people are getting their accounts shut down before they've even said anything," Ping said. "That includes people from high-ranking think-tanks like the China Academy of Social Sciences and the [ruling Chinese Communist] Party School."



"Academics are all being shut down, so at least there's some equality in that respect," he said. "Everyone is being treated the same, whether they are regular citizens or ministerial ... level officials."



Spreading from Xinjiang

According to Reuters, police have spent more than 129 million yuan (U.S.$19 million) in budgeting or spending on the equipment since the beginning of 2016, with amounts accelerating in 2017 and 2018.



And the devices are being purchased outside Xinjiang, including in Shanghai, Beijing and across China's vast railway network, the agency said.



Some police stations have ordered tools to collect data from a phone user's accounts on Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp chat service and the Google Chrome browser, Reuters said.



"Basic content collection functions" must include "mobile phone passwords, address books, call history, SMS records, MMS, pictures, audio and video data, calendars, memos and mobile app data," it cited a customs document as saying.



U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao said Chinese law is very hazy about such invasions into its citizens' privacy.



"Legally, it's rather unclear, especially when it comes to law enforcement," Teng said. "There are very few checks on state power ... and neither the police nor government departments at any level pay any attention to the law anyway."



Hebei-based freelance journalist Zhu Xinxin said the government is increasingly treating all of its citizens as a potential enemy.



"They are treating everyone as a threat, because their own power and legitimacy doesn't stem from the [will of] the people," Zhu said. "That's why they are constantly using various methods to curb the people."



"But such tactics are going to push more and more people into opposition," he said.



Teng said many people comply with such scans because of the likely consequences if they refuse.



"If you don't let them check [your phone], you could end up in trouble, and you are likely to be beaten up, detained or locked up somewhere," he said. "There is no judicial independence [in China]."



Reported by Han Jie for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Ma Lap-hak and Fok Leung-kiu for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
The Arirang mass gymnastic and artistic performance is held to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, at the Rungrado May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea, July 22, 2013.

North Korea has invited traders and entrepreneurs from China to attend a massive synchronized gymnastics and dance performance for free as part of celebrations to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the nation, though some say the move is an attempt to attract investment to the isolated, sanctions-hit country.

The businesspeople have been invited to the Arirang Mass Games, also known as the Arirang Festival, at Rungrado May Day Stadium in the capital Pyongyang, which begins on Sept. 9  North Koreas National Day  and runs until the end of the month.

Last held in North Korea in 2013, the event this year is called Shining Fatherland in Korean.

But it is billed in English as The Glorious Country in hopes of attracting curious foreigners willing to pay between 100-800 euros (U.S. $114-$915) per ticket depending on seat location, to generate much-needed foreign currency for the regime of leader Kim Jong Un.

Trade workers from North Korea meet regularly with Chinese entrepreneurs who express interest in investing in North Korea and offer them free tickets to see the mass gymnastics performance, said a Chinese trader from the city of Dandong in northeastern China's Liaoning province.

Those who receive free ticket offers are suspicious about the motives of the North Koreans, but many accept them anyway, said the source who declined to be named.

Trade workers are very active, visiting Chinese entrepreneurs and extending offers for them to visit Pyongyang, he told RFAs Korean Service. They must have received orders from North Korean authorities.

North Korea is using the September event to attract Chinese investors, the source said.

Despite the free ticket offers, North Koreans should not expect any great outcome from their hospitality as long as Pyongyang remains under international sanctions for its nuclear weapons program, he said.

The reason why Chinese entrepreneurs are hesitant to fully invest in North Korea is because the U.S. and U.N. sanctions on North Korea are still in effect, the source said.

The United Nations and the United Sates have imposed harsh economic sanctions on the country for its illicit missile and nuclear weapons tests, bringing much of the border trade between China and the North to a halt and limiting investment opportunities.

As part of the sanctions, China in September 2017 ordered the shutdown of all existing joint ventures with North Korean firms in China and entities owned by North Korean companies or individuals. It also required overseas Chinese-North Korean joint ventures to cease operations.

But it remains unclear how many Chinese firms have complied with the order from their government, an ally of North Korea which has long argued for a softer approach to Pyongyang and only reluctantly supported U.S.-led sanctions efforts.

Not comfortable with the offer

An ethnic Korean businessman based in Shenyang in northeastern Chinas Liaoning province said he also received an offer for a free ticket to the event when he visited Pyongyang in July.

I was unexpectedly invited by my North Korean partner company, and Im still deciding whether I should go to Pyongyang in early September or not, said the source who declined to be named.

The North Korean partner said I needn't worry about money and could just enjoy watching the mass gymnastics performance, he said. But Im not comfortable with the officer, so Im hesitant to make a decision.

When the businessman visited clients in Pyongyang, they did not reach an agreement on a proposed investment in a stone quarry, the source said.

They talked about the mass gymnastics performance, so Im sure that they will pressure me to make a decision about the investment in the stone quarry [if I go there], he said.

During my last Pyongyang visit, I felt it was a bit strange because they treated me to meals, and they were a lot gentler, he said. Im even more confused this time by their invitation to the mass gymnastics performance.

North Korea has said that marble and granite from its quarries are not restricted from export under the sanctions, as are other natural resources such as coal, iron, and lead.

The mass gymnastics performance is part of the governments celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as the country is formally known. The event will feature some 100,000 performers  mostly students  about as many as participated in the Arirang Mass Games held in 2002-2005 and 2007-2013, sources said.



Reported by Joonho Kim for RFAs Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Britain's new foreign minister in his first major address has urged the European Union to increase sanctions against Russia, saying the bloc should stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the United States, which hit Moscow with new economic sanctions this month.

In a speech at the U.S. Peace Institute in Washington on August 21, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that, after Russia's alleged poisoning of a Russian ex-spy in England this year with a chemical nerve agent, the EU should apply more pressure to try to force Russia to honor international rules.

Responding to Hunt's speech, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Britain of trying to impose its policy toward Russia on the EU and the United States.

"Of course, we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt: Russia's foreign policy under President [Vladimir] Putin has made the world a more dangerous place," Hunt said in the speech.

"Today, the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the U.S."

"That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea," he said, referring to the Ukrainian peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014.

NATO 'Credibility'

Without further action, Hunt said, NATO's "credibility" will be undermined.

"Those who do not share our values need to know that there will always be a serious price to pay if red lines are crossed -- whether territorial incursions, the use of banned weapons or, increasingly, cyberattacks," the British foreign secretary said.

Speaking in the Black Sea resort of Sochi after meeting with the Serbian foreign minister, Lavrov accused British politicians of having "quite a high opinion of themselves."

"A country which is leaving the European Union in the framework of Brexit is trying to dictate foreign policy to the European Union itself. And now, as it turns out, London wants to dictate foreign policy on Russia in Washington," the Russian foreign minister said.

Lavrov also alleged that Russia had offered Britain to discuss problems affecting bilateral ties, but had always been rebuffed "in a high-handed way."

Britain, the EU, and the United States have blamed Russia for an attack with the Novichok chemical agent that sickened former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, in March.

Two other British citizens living nearby were also exposed to the substance months later, and one of them died, in an incident British police believe was related to the first one.

Russia has denied any involvement in the attacks. But earlier this month, the United States, citing the Salisbury incident, imposed sanctions that, starting on August 22, will bar Russia from buying sensitive U.S. technology goods.

Washington has promised more, even tougher measures unless Russia agrees to allow international chemical weapons inspectors into the country and provides "reliable assurances" it will no longer use chemical weapons.

The new U.S.sanctions sparked a sell-off across Russian markets -- something that could recur if the promised second wave of sanctions is carried out.

Britain is preparing to leave the EU next year, but its sanctions policy is currently determined in Brussels. The EU recently agreed to renew sanctions against Russia that were first imposed in 2014 over its annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine.

The EU has not imposed economic sanctions related to the chemical attacks in England, although it strongly condemned Moscow over the Skripal poisonings and joined diplomatic sanctions by expelling Russian envoys after the incident.

Hunt in his speech for the first time criticized China for not taking action after Russia's takeover of Crimea or over the chemical weapons attacks, warning Beijing that "with economic power comes political responsibility."

Hunt, who took over from Boris Johnson as Britain's foreign secretary in July, will meet U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other U.S. officials on August 21, and address the United Nations Security Council on August 23.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, and TASS
This summer has brought Tajikistan a lot of attention, most of it of the very negative variety.

In July, Tajikistan became the site of Central Asia's first deadly terrorist attack on Westerners and also the first attack in the region seemingly inspired by the militant group Islamic State (IS). If that wasn't enough, Tajik authorities have continued a spectacular crackdown on manifestations of dissent in the country -- illustrated by persistent Internet blocking and the continued imprisonment of hundreds of government critics, including lawyers, political activists, and, now, a journalist.

Among the many ominous human rights developments this summer in Tajikistan, two forms of repression took center stage and led to an unusually robust international outcry: abuses against children and attempts to silence free speech.

On August 22, the Sughd regional court will consider Hairullo (Khayrullo) Mirsaidov's appeal of his sentence on what Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other rights groups have called "bogus charges" of embezzlement, misuse of state funds, and false accusations against a local official for corruption.

Besides his long record as a journalist who worked for outlets including Asia Plus, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), Al-Jazeera, and Deutsche Welle, Mirsaidov more recently made his mark managing Tajikistan's national KVN comedy troupe, which enjoyed several winning streaks performing in international competitions.

In November 2017, Mirsaidov authored an open letter to Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, appealing to him to investigate the head of the Sughd Department of Youth Sport. Mirsaidov said the official had sought a $1,000 bribe from the funds allocated for the KVN team. Reportedly, there was no investigation of the bribe attempt, but charges were filed against Mirsaidov and he was arrested on December 5.

Almost as soon as Mirsaidov was arrested, his friend, journalist and filmmaker Michael Andersen, jumped into action, initiating the #FreeKhayrullo campaign on Twitter. The campaign took some time to gain steam. But by July, when Mirsaidov was sentenced to 12 years in prison, the reaction by key diplomatic missions in Tajikistan was surprisingly swift and stern.

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) media-freedom representative Harlem Desir said he was "alarmed by the stringent and disproportionate sentence handed down to the journalist." The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said that Mirsaidov's conviction "signals that the authorities are cracking down on reporting of corruption, rather than on corruption itself."

Following Mirsaidov's conviction, the #FreeKhayrullo campaign really took off, with people around the world (Los Angeles, Mexico City, Copenhagen, London, Kyiv, and Jakarta, to name a few cities) posting selfies with signs that read #FreeKhayrullo. Probably the most notable success is that even the U.K.'s own ambassador to Tajikistan, Hugh Philpott, adopted the campaign's hashtag calling on Tajik authorities to release the journalist and stepping outside the usual strictures of diplomatic parlance.

This intense outside pressure might be the reason why on August 15, when the Sughd regional court met to hear Mirsaidov's appeal, it quickly rescheduled the hearing for August 22.

Kids As Collateral

The first rallying cry has been Dushanbe's policy of retaliating against the relatives of government critics abroad, using tactics that include mob violence, threats of rape, and travel bans. Twice this summer, rights groups raised alarm when Tajikistan barred the children of opposition figures in exile from leaving the country; in one case, the child prevented from traveling abroad was desperately in need of life-saving medical treatment unavailable in Tajikistan.

These children are a kind of human collateral, a means for the government to lure perceived critics back to the country, or at least make them think twice about engaging in public criticism.

On August 4, Tajik security service officers pulled 10-year-old Fatima Davlatova and her 65-year-old grandmother, Jamila Hudoidodova, off their plane at Dushanbe airport. The two were starting a journey to see Fatima's mother, Shabnam Hudoidodova, a former member of Tajikistan's banned Group 24 political movement and now an independent activist living in Europe.

The officers interrogated them for hours, telling Fatima and her grandmother they were not allowed to leave because they were on a "wanted list."

The ban came just three days after Tajik authorities relented and allowed 4-year-old Ibrohim Hamza Tillozoda to leave the country so he could receive treatment abroad for testicular cancer.

Human rights organizations like HRW and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee issued statements and appeals for much of July while Ibrohim's mother, Mizhgona, tried to get her son out of Tajikistan as his tumor doubled in size in less than a month.

Ibrohim's grandfather is Muhiddin Kabiri, the chairman of the now banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT). The party was part of a coalition that fought the Tajik government during the 1992-97 civil war. The June 1997 peace deal gave the IRPT government positions, and the IRPT stuck to the terms of the peace deal.

But President Rahmon was intent on neutralizing all opposition, including the IRPT. The party was able to field candidates in Tajikistan's March 2015 parliamentary elections but banned as a party and declared a terrorist organization by the end of October. All of its senior leaders who stayed in the country were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in 2016, including two who were sentenced to life in prison.

This summer's travel bans on Fatima, her grandmother, and the Kabiri family were the culmination of years of persecution by authorities that began at the same time as the crackdown on the opposition.

A flashpoint for the abuse of activists' relatives in Tajikistan occurred in September 2016, one day after representatives of Group 24 and the IRPT made presentations at the annual OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw, Poland.

HRW said at the time that "in the city of Kulob at the family home of Shabnam Hudoidodova...a crowd of students, teachers, school directors from various schools, city officials, and members of the local TV station gathered in her 9-year-old daughter's (Fatima's) classroom.... The crowd taunted her, calling her the daughter of a 'terrorist' and 'enemy of the people,' and followed her home, where she lives with her grandmother and other relatives."

Returning the next day, HRW said, "demonstrators attacked Hudoidodova's 10-year-old niece, hitting and kicking her, apparently mistaking her for Shabnam's daughter." People then broke into the house "beating at least three relatives who attempted to keep them out, shouting that the relatives were 'terrorists.'"

Mob violence targeting dissidents' relatives also occurred in at least three other locations that day, potentially indicating a level of coordination that could point to government orchestration.

In addition to violence, reports suggest the authorities have forced relatives to make videos denouncing their activist family members. In December 2015, when Kabiri was scheduled to speak publicly in Washington at an event organized by Freedom House, "authorities came to the home of Kabiri's 95-year-old father and detained him with seven other family members," forcing them to record a video condemning their relative that the authorities then put on YouTube. The same tactic has been used on the relatives of Group 24 activists.

In January 2016, authorities prevented Kabiri's father, Tillo, by then 96, from boarding a plane to Istanbul, where he had planned to receive medical treatment. As with Fatima Davlatova, security services forced him off the plane after he had already cleared passport control. He died in October 2016.

One might have thought Tajik authorities would continue such abuses with impunity or become immune to the negative press. But in a dramatic reversal, following an international outcry by rights groups and scrappy social-media campaigns to #FreeHamza and #FreeFatima, Tajikistan finally bowed to the pressure. On August 2, Kabiri's 4-year old grandson and his mother departed for Istanbul. August 11 was the next breakthrough, when Fatima and her grandmother were allowed to leave as well.

The success of #FreeHamza and #FreeFatima suggest that even in the toughest cases, pressure sometimes works.

Activists are hoping that a combination of public and private pressure will lead to a dismissal of charges or eventual release for Mirsaidov, and perhaps an improvement in Tajikistan's rights record. And they have some reason to feel a consensus is slowly building in their favor. In May, two UN bodies issued rulings declaring that the imprisonment of two other prominent political prisoners, opposition figures Zayd Saidov and Mahmadali Hayit, violates international law. Additional rulings on other political prisoners are almost sure to follow suit.

Stronger support for human rights in Tajikistan by international actors is urgently needed. They can start by lending their support to #FreeKhayrullo and similar campaigns, showing that Tajikistan's practice of using relatives as bargaining chips and silencing critics needs to end now.

Bruce Pannier is the editor of RFE/RL's Central Asia blog, Qishloq Ovozi. Steve Swerdlow is a Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL
U.S. authorities say President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer has agreed to plead guilty to campaign finance violations and other criminal charges, in a major legal blow for Trump.

Michael Cohen's plea on August 21 comes amid mounting problems for the U.S. president.

Earlier on August 21, a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, found Trumps former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, guilty on eight counts of bank and financial fraud.

The charges stemmed from work Manafort did for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine, including former President Viktor Yanukovych.

The case against Cohen is being conducted by prosecutors in Manhattan, but reportedly grew out of the investigation under way by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into alleged interactions between Russia officials and Trump associates during the U.S. presidential election in 2016.

Cohen's plea did not involve any Russia-linked activity, but rather alleged violations of U.S. election law involving the payment of so-called "hush money" to women who claim they had affairs with Trump.

If the payment was made during the 2016 election campaign, federal law requires that it be reportedly publicly. If Trump authorized the payment, but it wasn't disclosed, that could be charged as a federal crime.

Manafort's trial was the first to come out of Mueller's investigation.

A second, more serious trial against Manafort is scheduled to begin in Washington, D.C., next month.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and Bloomberg
A crowd of Czechs marked the 50th anniversary of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia with a protest outside the Russian embassy in Prague. They gathered to hear speeches denouncing Russia and current President Vladimir Putin, while displaying slogans such as: "In Truth is Freedom" and "Europe Is Our Home." In 1968, tanks crushed what was known as the "Prague Spring" -- the attempt by Czechoslovak Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek to introduce liberal reforms.
PRAGUE -- Czechs and Slovaks on August 21 are marking 50 years since Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring reform movement -- an attempt by Czechoslovak Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek to put "a human face on socialism" by reforming the totalitarian regime.

It was overnight on August 20-21, 1968, that Soviet soldiers -- backed by troops and other personnel from Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland -- began an occupation that lasted until shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. At least 137 people were killed during the invasion.

Many ceremonies, concerts, and other gatherings are planned for August 21 across the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

On the evening of August 20, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the Russian Embassy in Prague to protest what they described as Russia's ongoing role as an aggressor in Europe -- pointing to Moscow's seizure and illegal annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

A tribute to victims of the occupation was organized in front of the radio station in downtown Prague on August 21 where 17 unarmed people, mostly youths, lost their lives trying to prevent Soviet soldiers from taking the building 50 years earlier.

A tribute to victims of the occupation was organized in front of the radio station in downtown Prague where about 15 unarmed people, mostly youths, died trying to prevent Soviet soldiers from taking the building.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis spoke at the event, which transformed into a protest against his government with hundreds of people booing the controversial populist billionaire and his power-sharing deal with the Communist Party.

Protesters attending Babis's speech also criticized him for the fraud charges he faces and allegations that he collaborated with the former communist-era secret police.

A free outdoor concert also was scheduled for the night of August 21 at Wenceslas Square in the center of Prague with Czech pop stars such as Marta Kubisova performing.

In 1968, Kubisova openly took part in the Prague Spring and later sang the era's most-famous song, "Prayer for Marta."

After the crackdown, with the country back in the grip of loyal communist leaders who followed Moscow's line, the powerful song was banned.

Kubisova joined the dissident movement and became close with playwright Vaclav Havel, who headed a human rights group and became the countrys first postcommunist president after the Velvet Revolution in 1989.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, and dpa
Azerbaijan has refused to allow German lawmaker Albert Weiler to accompany Chancellor Angela Merkel on her upcoming trip to Azerbaijan because he visited the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh without Baku's permission.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters on August 21 that the "position of the Azerbaijani authorities does not contribute to the dialogue around the Nagorno-Karabakh."

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Hikmat Haciyev said the same day in Baku that Weiler's name had been included on the list of individuals whose presence in Azerbaijan is undesirable since he took unsanctioned trips to "Azerbaijan's temporarily occupied territories in 2014 and 2016."

Weiler was expected to accompany Merkel in her South Caucasus tour scheduled for August 23-25.

The Nagorno-Karabakh region, populated mainly by ethnic Armenians, declared independence from Azerbaijan amid a 1988-94 war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

Since 1994, Nagorno-Karabakh has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces which Baku says include troops supplied by Armenia.

Internationally mediated negotiations involving the OSCE's so-called Minsk Group helped forge a cease-fire in the region, which is not always honored, but have failed to produce a lasting settlement of the conflict.

Based on reporting by Bild, Interfax, and Oxu.az
As more evidence came to light, it became clear that the allegations were true, and he was forced to recant and confess publicly. Heres what he said about coming to the other side of his confession. I wake up everyday  with this overwhelming sense of gratitude, because it may be that if I hadnt been knocked down in the way I was and forced to come to grips with what Id done, and the consequences of it, in such an awful way, I might not have ever had to really deal with it a hundred percent.
A man who thought to be the last World War II Nazi collaborator in the United States has been deported to Germany.

A plane carrying 95-year-old Jakiw Palij, who lived in New York City for almost 70 years after World War II, arrived in Dusseldorf, Germany, on August 21.

Justice Department officials say Palij served as an armed guard at the Trawniki death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Palij, who is ethnic Ukrainian, was born on former Polish territory in an area that is now located in Ukraine. He immigrated to the United States in 1949 and became a citizen in 1957. But he concealed his work for the Nazis at the Trawniki death camp.

The White House said on August 21 that President Donald Trump "prioritized" the removal of "this war criminal from United States soil."

"Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palij's deportation to Germany and advanced the United States' collaborative efforts with a key European ally," the White House said.

After his wartime history was uncovered in 2003, Palij was stripped of his citizenship and ordered deported by a U.S. judge in 2005. But the order was not carried out for years, in large part because neither Poland nor Ukraine agreed to take him.

Germany also did not immediately accept Palij, saying he had never been a German citizen.

It was not immediately clear whether Palij will face trial in Germany.

With reporting by dpa, AP, AFP, and ABC News
Microsoft says it has uncovered new Russian hacking attempts to target U.S. political groups ahead of the U.S. midterm elections in November.

The company said a hacking group linked to Russia's government had created fake Internet domains in order to mimic the websites of two Washington-based institutions that have been critical of the Kremlin -- the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, and the International Republican Institute, a group that promotes democracy.

It said the Russian hackers also created three fake domains designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate.

Microsoft calls the hacking group Strontium. Others call it Fancy Bear or APT28.

An indictment from U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has tied the hackers to Russian's main intelligence agency, known as the GRU, and to the 2016 e-mail hacking of both the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clintons presidential election campaign.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that the Russian government played a role in the incidents or had links to the hackers.

"We do not know what influence these alleged actions will have on future elections," Peskov told journalists in Moscow on August 21. "We do not know what hackers they are talking about, how they influenced elections, or what those conclusions were based on."

The Russian Foreign Ministry later denounced the accusations put forward by Microsoft as part of "a witch-hunt that has engulfed Washington."

Known as a "spear-phishing" attack, the fake websites noted by Microsoft attempt to persuade target victims to click on links that expose them to computer infiltration, hidden surveillance, and data theft.

Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, Brad Smith, said there was no sign the hackers successfully infiltrated either institute.

Both groups said they try to be vigilant about "spear-phishing" attacks because their global pro-democracy work often angers authoritarian governments.

The International Republican Institute is led by a board that includes six Republican senators, as well as prominent Russia critic Mitt Romney, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Utah this autumn.

Microsoft's latest announcement on Russian hackers comes less than a month after a similar discovery by Microsoft led U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat running for reelection in November, to announce that Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to break into her Senate computer network.

Microsoft has been waging a legal battle with Strontium since bringing a lawsuit in a U.S. federal court in the summer of 2016.

With court approval allowing it to seize certain fake domains, Microsoft has used the courts to shut down 84 fake websites created by the Russian hackers -- including the most recently announced websites.

Microsoft has argued in court that by setting up fake but realistic-looking domains, the hackers misuse Microsoft trademarks and services to hack into targeted computer networks, install malware, and steal sensitive e-mails and other data.

Smith said on August 21 that Microsoft was now offering free cybersecurity protection to all U.S. political candidates, campaigns, and political organizations that use Microsoft software.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and The New York Times

NOTE: This article has been amended to remove a reference to the International Republican Institute (IRI) as a "conservative think tank."
Russia's state arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, says it will begin delivering its advanced S-400 antiaircraft missile systems to Turkey in 2019.

Rosoboronexport also said on August 21 that it would stop conducting its sales to foreign customers in U.S. dollars, allowing purchases in local currencies.

The announcement comes as Turkey faces a crisis over its weakening lira currency amid worsening relations with the United States.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on August 20 that Turkey's currency crisis is the result of an "attack" on his country's economy.

Washington has voiced concern over NATO-member Turkey's purchase of Russian-made S-400 missiles, arguing that its deployment could risk the security of several U.S.-made weapons that Ankara uses -- including the F-35 warplane.

The United States has also imposed sanctions against Turkey over the continued detention in the country of an American pastor.

Washington has also increased tariffs on Turkey.

Erdogan said the aim of those he blamed for Turkey's currency crisis was to bring "Turkey and its people to their knees."

But he said Turkey had the power and ability to overcome the crisis.

U.S. President Donald Trump last week signed a defense spending bill that includes delaying the delivery of F-35 fighter jets pending a Pentagon report.

U.S. lawmakers have been working to block the delivery in response to the American pastor's arrest and Turkey's pledge to buy Russian S-400 missile systems.

With reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and RIA
Serbia has taken delivery of two Russian MiG-29 fighter jets -- the first of six planes that are part of an arms deal between Belgrade and Moscow.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic attended the ceremony on August 21 at a military airport close to Belgrade.

Russia has donated Serbia a total of six secondhand MiGs and the two that flew on August 21 have undergone extensive repair by the Russians as part of the deal.

The total cost Belgrade is paying Russia for the overhaul and maintenance of the six jets is about 185 million euros ($213 million.)

Produced between 1989 and 1991, the warplanes are somewhat newer than Serbia's four existing MiGs -- which were delivered in 1987.

Serbia claims military neutrality and formally wants to join the European Union. But it is also negotiating additional arms purchases from Russia, including attack and transport helicopters, Buk-M1 and Buk-M2 air-defense missile systems, and Tunguska antiaircraft systems.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP
KABUL -- Afghan officials say three gunmen have been killed in central Kabul after they fired a barrage of rockets while President Ashraf Ghani was making a speech to mark the start of the Islamic Eid al-Adha holiday.

In a dramatic battle in the heart of the capital, Afghan Army helicopters flew above a mosque in Kabuls old quarter on August 21 and at least one fired rockets at the militants' position.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish confirmed that the three militants were killed after they seized a building near the Eidgah Mosque.

Danish described the gunmen as "terrorists," but did not say whether they were Taliban fighters, Islamic State (IS) extremists, or militants from another group.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility regarding the militants, who fired rockets that exploded near the presidential palace in Kabul, near the U.S. Embassy compound, and near government buildings.

Ghani heard the explosions and interrupted his Eid al-Adha message to say: "If they are thinking the rocket attack will keep Afghans down, they are wrong. There are groups that continue the violence. With the firing of rockets, they cannot stop the development of the people of Afghanistan."

Altogether, officials report that at least 12 rockets exploded in the area.

Danish said there were no injuries from the rocket attacks. He said two Afghan police officers were wounded in the ensuing battle.

The clash came a day after a cease-fire offer from Ghani was rejected by Taliban commanders who vowed to continue their attacks.

Meanwhile, Afghan officials have confirmed that 20 hostages held by the Taliban in the northern province of Kunduz are members of the Afghan security forces.

A Taliban spokesman said they group were being held as prisoners.

They were among some 180 passengers who were removed from three buses that were passing through Taliban-controlled territory In Kunduz Province early on August 20.

About 160 of the hostages were freed and reached government-controlled territory by August 21.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and Tolo News


Representatives of the Afghan Taliban plan to take part in peace talks in Moscow next month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said.

Lavrov told reporters in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on August 21 that Russia had invited the Taliban to the meeting, scheduled for September 4, adding that "the initial reaction has been positive."

"I hope it [the meeting] will be productive," Lavrov also said, according to an official transcript.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Taliban that it had accepted the offer.

Abdul Kayum Kuchai, Afghanistan's ambassador in Moscow, welcomed the Taliban's involvement in the talks, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Russia had extended invitations to a dozen countries, including the United States, to the talks.

The statement added that Moscow supported the Afghan government's offer of a three-month cease-fire starting on August 20, and regretted that the Taliban, which is banned in Russia and considered a terrorist organization, rejected the offer.

Russia held talks on Afghanistan in April last year, but the United States did not attend.

And Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified U.S. State Department spokesperson as saying the United States "does not intend to participate" in the planned meeting in September.

"Based on the previous meetings in the Moscow Format, we believe this initiative is unlikely to yield any progress toward that end," the spokesperson added.

The Western-backed government in Kabul has been struggling to fend off the Taliban and other militant groups since the withdrawal of most NATO combat troops in 2014.

Taliban leaders have ignored an offer by the Afghan government of direct peace negotiations, calling instead for direct talks with the United States.

With reporting by Interfax, RIA Novosti, and TASS
PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATKSY, Russia -- Three members of the local branch of a Jehovah's Witnesses church have been detained in Russia's Far Eastern Kamchatka peninsula on extremism charges.

An official with the regional Investigative Committee, Yelena Matafonova told RFE/RL on August 21 that a married couple and an elderly woman from the town of Yelizovo were detained and placed in a pretrial detention on suspicion of "committing a crime linked to extremism," by participating in the activities of "a banned religious organization."

If found guilty, the trio faces up to 10 years in prison, Matafonova, said, adding that it was the first group of the Jehovah's Witnesses arrested in Russia's Far East peninsula.

Long viewed with suspicion in Russia for their positions on military service, voting, and government authority in general, the Jehovahs Witnesses -- which claim some 170,000 adherents in Russia and 8 million worldwide -- are among several denominations that have come under increasing pressure in recent years.

Russias Supreme Court in July 2017 upheld a ruling that the Jehovahs Witnesses should be considered an extremist organization, effectively banning the denomination from the country.

The original ruling, issued in April 2017, was the first time an entire registered religious organization had been prohibited under Russian law.

Earlier this month, the Moscow-based Memorial human rights center said that since the Supreme Court's ruling, at least 29 members of the religious community have been detained on criminal charges in Russia, of whom 23 are in detention while others are under house arrest.

According to Memorial, the Supreme Court's ruling does not cite any instance of the violation of any laws or regulations by the Jehovah's Witnesses.

In June, advisers to Russian President Vladimir Putin have questioned the legality of criminal cases opened against the Jehovah's Witnesses, asking the Prosecutor-General's office to protect the group's freedom of belief.

Also in June, the United States called on the Russian authorities to release dozens of people it says have been identified by rights groups as political prisoners, including members of the Jehovahs Witnesses who it said had been in pretrial detention for more than a year.

On June 19, some 60 Russian writers, historians, and activists signed an appeal calling on authorities to stop prosecuting the group.


U.S. President Donald Trump has said in an interview with Reuters that he isn't considering lifting sanctions on Russia, but he would consider doing so if Russia gave him something he wants in Ukraine or Syria.

"Im not considering it at all. No. I would consider it if they do something that would be good for us. But I wouldnt consider it without that," Trump said in the interview released late on August 20.

Trump then suggested areas where he could foresee making a deal with Russia over sanctions.

"We have a lot of things we can do good for each other. You have Syria. You have Ukraine. You have many other things," he said.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on August 21 the Kremlin welcomed Trump's comments indicating readiness to cooperate with Moscow, but that it would "welcome even more some kind of concrete actions."

Trump told Reuters that Putin did not ask him to lift U.S. sanctions during their summit in Helsinki last month. But he said the two in a private meeting that lasted nearly two hours did talk about Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and incursion into eastern Ukraine, as well as the Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.

"I mentioned Crimea, sure. I always mention Crimea whenever I mention Ukraine. Putin and I had a very good discussion. It was a very -- I think it was a very good discussion for both parties. I mentioned the gas pipeline going to Germany," Trump said.

'They'd Like Economic Development'

The U.S. first imposed sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea in 2014, and since then has steadily ratcheted up and expanded the sanctions, citing alleged abuses from Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to its alleged chemical weapons attack on a Russian ex-spy this year in Britain.

Washington has also threatened to impose sanctions over the Nord Stream pipeline, which it maintains will increase German and European dependence on Russian energy.

On an issue related to sanctions -- Russia's faltering economy -- Trump told Reuters that Putin seemed eager for help at the summit.

"I think they would like economic development. And that's a big thing for them," he said.

"We had a very good, I guess, close to two-hour meeting. We had another good meeting with a lot of our representatives there. We talked about Israel, we talked about insecurity for Israel, we talked about Syria, we talked about Ukraine," he said.

On other subjects during the Reuters interview, Trump said it was "most likely" that he will have a second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as the two nations negotiate over ridding the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons.

And Trump said he has worries about falling into what he called a "perjury trap" if he agrees to be interviewed by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading an investigation into ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 election campaign.

Trump said his testimony, for example, might contradict the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey, who Trump fired last year when he was leading the Russia investigation. Trump contended that Comey is a "proven liar," without providing evidence.

"So if I say something and he says something, and it's my word against his, and he's best friends with Mueller, so Mueller might say: 'Well, I believe Comey,' and even if I'm telling the truth, that makes me a liar. That's no good," Trump told Reuters.

With reporting by Reuters
The U.S. Treasury has imposed sanctions on several Russian nationals and companies as Washington warned it was ready to tighten the economic screws further on Moscow if it did not change its ways.

"Though Russia's malign activities continue, we believe its adventurism undoubtedly has been checked by the knowledge that we can bring much more economic pain to bear using our powerful range of authorities," acting Deputy Treasury Secretary Sigal Mandelker told the Senate Banking Committee on August 21.

"We will not hesitate to do so if its conduct does not demonstrably and significantly change," Mandelker added.

U.S. President Donald Trump has spoken often of improving ties with the Kremlin, but even a face-to-face meeting in Helsinki last month with Russian President Vladimir Putin has failed to turn relations around.

U.S. lawmakers have called for more action to punish Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea, involvement in conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, and what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as cyberattacks seeking to influence U.S. elections.

Putin has repeatedly rejected accusations of attempting to influence U.S. elections, including the 2016 presidential vote that brought a shock victory to Trump.

Mandelker's comments came after the Treasury announced sanctions on two Russian nationals, as well as a Russian company and a Slovak firm, for attempting to evade U.S. sanctions that target malicious cyber-related activities.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called the new sanctions groundless and promised a response from Moscow.

The Treasury said St. Petersburg-based Vela-Marine Ltd and Slovakia-based Lacno S.R.O., as well as the two individuals, Marina Igorevna Tsareva and Anton Aleksandrovich Nagibin, were linked to a previously sanctioned entity -- Divetechnoservices.

"The Treasury Department is disrupting Russian efforts to circumvent our sanctions," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement.

"Today's action against these deceptive actors is critical to ensure that the public is aware of the tactics undertaken by designated parties and that these actors remain blocked from the U.S. financial system," Mnuchin added.

Divetechnoservice, a company that builds one-man submersibles that may have been used to tap underwater communications cables, was sanctioned in June for procuring underwater equipment and diving systems for Russian government agencies, including Russia's FSB intelligence agency.

In addition, the Treasury announced sanctions on two Russian shipping companies and six vessels it said were involved in the transfer of refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels in violation of UN restrictions.
Ukrainian authorities have launched an investigation into whether former state officials paid Paul Manafort for political consulting work, the country's prosecutor-general says.

Yuriy Lutsenko told journalists in Kyiv on August 21 that Ukraine's State Fiscal Service opened criminal proceedings against ex-officials who served during Viktor Yanukovych's presidency and were suspected of paying Manafort for his work for Yanukovych and his Party of Regions.

Under Ukrainian law, state officials do not have the right to engage in business, Lutsenko said.

Lutsenko did not name any of the suspects, but at least six Ukrainian oligarchs and politicians, including four who held public office during Yanukovych's term, are alleged to have paid a total of $65.9 million to Manafort for consulting work, according to documents released by a U.S. court.

Three other cases related to Manafort's professional activities in Ukraine are currently being investigated by the country's Prosecutor General's Office. Manafort himself is not facing any charges in Ukraine.

The announcement of the new probe comes as the jury in Manafort's trial at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, entered its fourth day of deliberations.

Manafort, the former campaign chairman of U.S. President Donald Trump, faces 18 counts of tax evasion and banking fraud, with many of the charges centering on allegations that he illegally avoided taxes on some of the millions of dollars he earned from his political consulting work for Yanukovych and his party between 2010 and 2014.

If convicted, Manafort could spend the rest of his life in prison.

During his press briefing, Lutsenko cited the hundreds of documents presented by U.S. prosecutors in the trial and the testimony of one of its star witnesses, Manafort's former deputy, Rick Gates, as the reason behind the opening of the new investigation.

"There has been testimony that Manafort received funds for his consulting services for disgraced ex-President Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions from specific politicians of Ukraine," Lutsenko said, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

Gates has testified in court that those who transferred millions of dollars to a Manafort account in Cyprus included Yanukovych's former chief of staff, Serhiy Lyovochkin; ex-Infrastructure Minister Borys Kolesnikov; former National Security Council Secretary Andriy Klyuyev; and lawmaker Serhiy Tihipko.

None of the men could immediately be reached for comment.

"Therefore, we opened a criminal case into possible violations of these state officials at that time," Lutsenko said, adding that the State Fiscal Service "will obviously work with those jurisdictions in the territory of which there are mainly offshore companies mentioned during Manafort's trial."

Lutsenko conceded that the investigation will be a slog but said investigators would see it through.

"If it is proved" that any civil servant provided funds to Manafort, he said, "then he will be held liable in accordance with current Ukrainian legislation."
At the summit, a Twitter official spoke about attempts to make Twitter a more positive and healthy place. A Facebook representative talked about the importance of role modeling and encouraged those who are typing in all caps to take a step back and look at what those communications look like. And the first lady herself cautioned that social media can be destructive and harmful, and therefore young people should be taught how to conduct themselves safely in a positive manner.
Police in Ukraine's eastern region of Kharkiv have named a man who was shot dead near the Kharkiv city council early on August 20 after killing a police officer -- saying investigators also discovered the body of the gunman's slain wife.

Oleh Bekh, Kharkiv's regional deputy police chief, identified the gunman as Oleksandr Poyarkov -- a 47-year-old unemployed Kharkiv resident.

Bekh said on August 21 that investigators suspect Poyarkov also killed his wife.

Her bullet-riddled body was discovered at the couple's house after Poyarkov's shooting spree near the city council building.

Bekh said investigators also found an assault rifle, four pistols, a rifle, and a large amount of ammunition at the house.

Bekh said an autopsy showed that the Poyarkov was intoxicated when he went on the shooting rampage.

Based on reporting by UNIAN and Gordon


Poland has leveraged its authority as a European Union member to ban a Ukrainian human rights activist from the EU's 26-member Schengen zone, saying she poses a security threat.

The activist, Lyudmyla Kozlovska, the head of the Open Dialog Foundation, and her Polish husband Bartosz Kramek told media on August 20 that they consider the move punishment for their open opposition to Poland's current government.

Kozlovska told AFP she is under "intense pressure," describing how her blacklisting by Polish security agencies prompted Belgian authorities to deport her to Kyiv last week after her arrival at Belgium's airport.

"The [Polish] foreign ministry wanted to change the management of our organization and to exclude me. They didn't succeed, and so they decided to physically remove me from EU territory."

Kozlovska, whose organization has offices in Warsaw, Brussels, and Kyiv, said her group's work has largely focused on promoting democracy in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Moldova.

The organization has also lobbied the EU to place sanctions on people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Since Poland's nationalist Law and Justice party came to power in 2015 and began reshaping the country's judiciary, the activist couple has also accused the Warsaw government of violating the rule of law.

Since making those accusations, Kozlovska said she has faced political pressure, with some ruling-party members and online trolls accusing her of ties to Russia.

"There is a smear campaign against us," she told the Associated Press. "If I am a Russian agent, why would I put people around Putin on a sanctions list? It's nonsense that I am some kind of agent."

On August 20, Poland's Internal Security Agency said its counterintelligence department has "serious doubts" about the financing of Kozlovska's foundation and said the EU travel ban resulted from the agency denying her application for a long-term residency permit.

Kozlovska was stopped on August 13 at the Brussels Zaventem airport after arriving from Kyiv, held overnight, and put on an early flight back to Kyiv the next morning.

Belgian authorities acted after Poland entered her in the Schengen Information System, a database aimed at ensuring security in Europe's passport-free Schengen Area.

The move not only prevents Kozlovska, 33, from traveling within the EU, it effectively forces her and Kramek, 32, to either live apart or for him to leave Poland.

They said they believe the Polish-requested travel ban is related to an open manifesto that Kramek published last year calling for civil disobedience against the government.

In his appeal, he wrote: "Mere protests and appeals are not enough; extraordinary and resolute actions based on the idea of civil disobedience must be taken immediately. Nobody wants Maidan or bloodshed in Poland, but the escalating tension makes us take almost any unimaginable scenario into account -- and be prepared for it."

Kramek said that was a reference to his support for the Euromaidan, a wave of pro-Western demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine that began in 2013 and led to the ouster of then-President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to exile in Russia in 2014.

"I didn't call for any violence," Kramek told AP. "I was trying to explain that the Maidan was a peaceful revolution and that nobody was violent until the government tried to suppress the protesters using extreme violence."

Artur Lompart, director of the Foreign Ministry's press office, told the Associated Press in a written statement that names are put on the Schengen system "for reasons of defense, national security, or public order."

"The claims made by Mr. Kramek and his spouse that the refusal of entry into Schengen area for Ms. Kozlovska was a result of their antigovernment activities are hugely exaggerated," he said.

"Mr. Kramek openly publishes antigovernment texts, and he often actively participates in antigovernment manifestations or protests. Poland is a democratic country where there is a full freedom of opinion and expression of political views."

Many democracy activists nevertheless fear that the move is part of an effort to discredit opposition to the government after three years of frequent street protests.

Michal Szczerba, an opposition lawmaker, said Poland's authorities "are behaving like Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkey."

Poland has absorbed nearly 2 million Ukrainians in recent years, and Olena Babakova, a Ukrainian freelance journalist based in Warsaw, said the government is sending a message to the Ukrainian community there through its treatment of Kozlovska.

"This is a warning for all foreigners who think that Poland is their home and that they can take an active part in public life," she said.

With reporting by AP and AFP


The ultimate remedy, though, is to reduce demand by educating doctors and patients about the dangers of over-reliance on opioids, facilitating access to treatment and encouraging drug users to get it. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website has a feature to let those in need find treatment facilities in their ZIP codes. Some hospitals in California have begun giving overdose patients medications for managing withdrawal  which is demonstrably helpful in getting them to enter treatment afterward. Vermont has reduced overdose deaths by taking steps to better integrate such treatment into primary care.
Mexico presidential clashes arise during first transitional meeting

Mexico City, Mexico  Monday was the first day of classes in Mexico as well as the first of the transitional meetings between the current president and president-elect who announced the new educational reform by Pena Nieto will be replaced.

The announcement was made during their first meeting when president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced the change during the initial moments of the transition.

It will be replaced by a new plan that takes into account teachers and parents. Education is not a privilege, it is a right, he said.

The two have contrasting positions on the subject of education. While Pena defended the reform that was approved by his government, which he said he will push until the last day of his term, Obrador insisted that the educational reform will be canceled to implement a model that takes teachers into account.

In front of the outgoing president, Lopez Obrador emphasized that at the beginning of his government the educational reform will be canceled and that he will push in Congress the corresponding legal changes for a new educational model.

At the time we are going to present the initiatives to cancel the educational reform and publicize a different plan with a legal framework adjusted to the new circumstances, but I do want to show that the current education reform will be canceled and will be replaced by another reform that will take into account teachers and parents. We are going to abide by what is established in the laws, Obrador said.

He argued that education is not a privilege and stressed that educational reform can be improved to ensure the quality of education and expansion of coverage.

We have to convince, not beat. We have to incorporate the teachers. No educational reform can be done without the teachers. We are going to build a consensus with teachers and parents, he said.

President Enrique Pena Nieto said he respects Obradors views on the issue, although he said his government will continue to push it until the last day of the administration stressing that the next Congress will decide the future of said reform.

There is a different vision. This government promoted a framework that we have publicized widely. And we also respect a different vision to the one we have postulated.

This government will continue its impulse to what is in the law. And, having a different position, it will correspond to the new government and Congress. In one thing I am certain, that the outgoing and incoming government want a quality, secular education. In that there is no dispute, said Pena Nieto.

On Monday, as nearly 26 million kids across Mexico headed back to school, current president Pena Nieto announced his new education reform that was implemented into both private and public school systems.
Two US sargassum boats head to Cancun while barriers placed at Playa del Carmen

Cancun, Riviera Maya, Q.R.  Two sargassum boats from the US are on their way to the coast to help with the Cancun, Riviera Maya sargasso issue.

Florida, who has also had their beaches covered in the unwanted seagrass for the past several seasons, is sending two boats from the US to help the Quintana Roo region lift and remove the algae.

Alfredo Arellano

Alfredo Arellano, head of the Ministry of the Environment, announced the pair of boats will be arriving closer to the weekend. He said that the government of Quintana Roo requested about 610 million peso to acquire its own assets that will lower annual costs in the fight against sargassum, starting next year.

The seagrass is affecting beaches in the municipalities of Isla Mujeres, Benito Juarez (Cancun), Puerto Morelos, Solidaridad (Playa del Carmen), Cozumel, Tulum and Othon Pompeyo Blanco (Chetumal).

According to the official, 41 beaches have been freed of Sargasso after starting the containment and collection. We are extracting around 1,000 to 1,500 cubic meters of sargassum per day in the sea, and with the cleaning of beaches, this is an amount that will increase when the equipment arrives.

The containment barrier in front of Cancun is a test of 300 meters. The installation in Playa del Carmen has already begun, he points out.

Grupo Dakatso has begun installing a test sargasso barrier along the coast of Playa del Carmen. The barrier is 100 linear meters and approximately 150 meters from the beach.

According to Dagoberto Ruiz Lavin, CEO of the company, they are waiting for resources to install the barriers in other regions along the coast while they show the diversion barrier is a viable option adding that the Playa del Carmen test barrier will last about a week.

We will do the preliminary tests and as soon as they release the resources, these barriers will be the type that will be installed along the remainder of the coast. We are coordinated with the government, waiting for the resources to come through, he said adding, We manufacture in Quintana Roo. We are a local company.

He argued that these seaweed barriers will not affect marine life since it is not a network, as environmental groups have said.
Regarding the Aug. 20 article Afghan forces free 149 taken by Taliban in ambush; 21 hostages remain: What have insurgents like the Taliban learned from the Wests 20th-century experiences in Vietnam? In 1946, Ho Chi Minh warned French colonialists, You can kill 10 of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win. The grinding battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 proved Ho right.
How Sheena looks now

A NEGLECTED German shepherd found covered in fleas, bald and underweight is looking for a new home after making a remarkable recovery.

Six-year-old Sheena had no hair left on her body and just a thin layer of fur around her face when she was rescued from her Dinnington home by RSPCA inspectors last September.

RSPCA Inspector Sara Jordan, who responded to complaints from the public about Sheenas condition, said: A member of the public grew concerned about Sheena and a second dog, Staffordshire bull terrier Belinda, at a property in Dinnington and contacted us.

Both dogs were suffering from extensive fur loss and, when I took them to the vets, we discovered they both had severe flea infestations.

Police seized the dogs and placed them into our care while we investigated.

Sheena and eight-year-old Belinda were taken in by the RSPCAs Sheffield Animal Centre.

An RSPCA spokeswoman said: Sheena is an absolute trooper.

When she arrived in our care she was totally bald apart from a little hair around her face, and she was underweight and in very poor condition.

It was difficult to even see what type of dog she was.

After many months of love, medication and TLC she has absolutely flourished and now shes finally ready for a brand new life.

Staff used special medication to nurse Sheena and Belinda back to health and now the German shepherd looks like a different dog with a full coat of beautiful thick hair.

Sheenas previous owner, Jason Pearce (48), of Scarsdale Street, Dinnington, admitted two offences under the Animal Welfare Act at Sheffield Magistrates Court on August 7.

He was disqualified from keeping animals for ten years and was deprived of both dogs.

Pearce was fined 120 and ordered to pay 200 in costs.

The RSPCA said now the prosecution had concluded it meant Sheena could find a new home.

The spokeswoman added: This fantastic girl has been through so much yet she always brings us so much joy and happiness to everyone she meets with her amazing personality.

She loves to go exploring with you and is quite food focussed.

She is very clever and enjoys learning new skills.

For more information about Sheena, visit her online profile at https://bit.ly/2PrlOTZ or fill in a compatibility form at https://bit.ly/2vZWSLx

Alternatively, call the Sheffield Animal Centre on 01142 898050.


BlueRock secures loan to settle 230k claim made by ex-CEO

21 august 2018 News

BlueRock Diamonds, which owns and operates the Kareevlei Diamond Mine in South Africa, has entered into a loan with chairperson Paul Beck and chief executive Adam Waugh.

It said the principal amount of the loan was 231,400, comprising 50,000 from Paul Beck and 181,400 from Adam Waugh.

The funds raised were used to settle a 230,000 claim made by former chief executive Riaan Visser, who had made a court application for the liquidation of Kareevlei Mining.

However, the company reached an agreement with Visser that his application for the liquidation of Kareevlei Mining be removed from the court roll, subject to security being provided for the full amount of his alleged claim.

The company has taken this prudent action on the advice of its lawyers because, whilst the board was confident that, had the hearing proceeded, it would have been successful, it is impossible to be entirely confident of success in this or indeed any other court process, BlueRock said.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Rough&Polished




Rio Tinto celebrated on Aug 20, the opening of a fourth diamond pipe, known as A21, at the remote subarctic Diavik Diamond Mine in Canada.The A21 pipe is located adjacent to Diaviks existing mining operations at Lac de Gras. First ore was delivered in March and the pit is expected to be at full production during the fourth quarter of 2018.Diavik Diamond Mines president Patrick Boitumelo said, Our people can take great pride in their achievement to safely bring the A21 pipe from development to commercial production. This new pipe is great news for the Northwest Territories and will help to deliver economic and social benefits that will endure beyond the life of the Diavik mine.
PM Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has written to his newly elected Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan, conveying New Delhi's commitment to pursue "meaningful" and "constructive" engagement with Islamabad and emphasising the need to work for a terror-free South Asia, official sources said. In a letter to Khan on August 18, the day he was sworn in as Pakistan's 22nd prime minister, Modi also expressed India's commitment to building good neighbourly relations between the two countries while congratulating him, the sources said.

In Islamabad, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi offered "uninterrupted" dialogue with India to resolve all outstanding issues, saying it is the "only wise course" as the two countries cannot afford any "adventurism". On July 30, Modi had telephoned Khan to congratulate him on his party's victory in the general elections and expressed hope that both countries will work to open a new chapter in bilateral ties.

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Newly elected Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan

Days before Modi's phone call, Khan said he wanted to improve ties with India and resolve all the issues through talks. "If India takes one step towards us, we will take two." In the letter, Modi recalled his telephonic conversation with Khan, in which they spoke of their shared vision to bring peace, security and prosperity in the Indian subcontinent to make it free of terror and violence, the sources said, quoting from the letter.

In his letter, the prime minister also expressed the belief that the smooth transition of government in Pakistan will strengthen and cement people's belief in democracy. "PM expressed India's commitment to build good neighbourly relations between India and Pakistan and pursue meaningful and constructive engagement for the benefit of the people of the region," a source said. Ties between India and Pakistan nosedived following a spate of terror attacks on Indian military bases by Pakistan based terror groups since January 2016.

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PM expressed India's commitment to build a good neighbourly relations

Following the strikes, India announced it will not engage in talks with Pakistan, saying terror and talks cannot go hand-in-hand. Asked whether Modi's letter revived hopes for a resumption of talks between the two neighbours, former diplomat Vivek Katju said he has reiterated India's position and it is for Pakistan to create an environment for engagement by coming down hard on terror groups. "India has always been ready for talks with Pakistan provided Pakistan creates a terror-free environment," said Katju.

Modi had made an unannounced visit to Lahore in December 2015 -- the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian premier in more than 10 years. He made the surprise visit on his way back from a trip to Russia and Afghanistan. The visit had raised hope for a thaw in ties but a series of cross-border terror attacks in next few months on Indian establishment as well as India's retaliatory 'surgical strikes' put the bilateral ties under further strain. In the last one year, Pakistani forces have been resorting to frequent ceasefire violations along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir which have been retaliated "forcefully" by Indian Army.
Punjabis would never forget the generosity show to the State by the late PM: Badal

Five times chief minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patron Parkash Singh Badal today visited the residence of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and expressed his deep condolences with the late PMs family members and described the late leader as a friend of Punjabi and Punjabis.

While interacting with the late PMs family members, including daughter Namita Kaul Bhattacharya, the SAD patron said Punjabis would never forget the generosity shown to the State by the late PM. Giving two examples he said during the run-up to the 350th anniversary of the birth of the Khalsa Vajpayee not only asked the State what it wanted but also allocated Rs 100 crore to celebrate the occasion in a befitting manner.

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Parkash Singh Badal today visited the residence of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee

Mr Badal said similarly when he approached the late PM and told him how repeated Congress governments had discriminated against the State and made out a case for allocation of a refinery to Punjab, Vajpayee took a decision on this request within five days and allocated Punjab the Rs 16,000 crore Bathinda refinery project. Mr Badal also spoke about the late PMs secular nature during the course of the meeting detailing how Mr Vajpayee had opposed the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi and even paid for this by losing the subsequent election from Gwalior.

The former CM, who is still recovering from viral due to which he could not participate in the last rites of Mr Vajpayee, also recalled how the late PM had implicit faith in the SAD and vice versa. He said the former PM would often say that if there was one alliance partner whose support he could bank upon implicitly it was the SAD. He also recalled how the former PM had displayed nerves of steel by going ahead with the Pokharan nuclear test besides talking about his sterling leadership qualities during the Kargil battle. Mr Badal was accompanied by union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Rajya Sabha member Shri Naresh Gujral.
Narendra Modi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Prime Minister Narendra Modi described Atal Bihari Vajpayee as a person who neither buckled under pressure nor lost hope despite the odds. Addressing a prayer meeting in memory of the former prime minister, who died here last week, Modi said it was Vajpayee who changed the narrative when some countries were cornering India on the Kashmir issue. "Due to Vajpayee ji, terrorism became an important issue on the world stage," he said.

Narendra Modi described Atal Bihari Vajpayee as a person who neither buckled under pressure

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No party was willing to support Vajpayee when he formed the government for 13 days, Modi said, referring to the short-lived NDA government in 1996. "The government fell. He did not lose hope and remained committed to serving the people," he told the gathering and added that Vajpayee showed the way when it came to coalition politics. When the Vajpayee government created the three states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, the process was peaceful and without bitterness, the prime minister said.

Joined a prayer meeting for Atal Ji in Delhi this evening. Here is my speech. https://t.co/CQmGXAw1DE pic.twitter.com/2NKB1FHo2E  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 20, 2018

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Referring to the May 1998 nuclear tests, Modi said Vajpayee's efforts ensured that India became a nuclear power. He attributed the tests to the brilliance of India's scientists. Two days later, India tested again and showed what a strong political leadership can do, the prime minister said. "He never buckled under pressure. He was Atal after all," he said, adding that the former prime minister never compromised on his ideology.

He did not lose hope and remained committed to serving the people

He distinguished himself as a parliamentarian and was proud of parliamentary traditions, Modi said. Vajpayee died on August 16 at the age of 93 following prolonged illness. He first became prime minister in 1996 for 13 days, then in 1998 for 13 months when the National Democratic Alliance again came to power and finally in 1999. He served as prime minister for a full term before being voted out in 2004.
Punjab Cabinet has approved amendments to CrPC and IPC

The Punjab Cabinet has approved amendments to CrPC and IPC to make sacrilege of all religious texts punishable with life imprisonment, thus taking a major step towards curbing such incidents and maintaining communal harmony in the state. The decision was taken at a meeting of the cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, here on Tuesday. The Cabinet also approved a series of other Bills to be tabled before the Assembly in the forthcoming session.

According to an official spokesperson, the Cabinet has approved insertion of Section 295AA to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to provide that whoever causes injury, damage or sacrilege to Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Srimad Bhagwad Geeta, Holy Quran and Holy Bible with the intention to hurt the religious feelings of the people, shall be punished with imprisonment for life.

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The Cabinet has okayed the withdrawal of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2016 (Bill No.7-PLA-2016) and the Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2016 (Bill No.6-PLA-2016), passed in the 12th Session of 14th Vidhan Sabha, 2016. It has given its nod to the introduction of 'The Code of Criminal Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2018 and the Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2018, in the ensuing session of Punjab Vidhan Sabha.

Reservation of SC employees in promotions

Punjab Cabinet okays bill on an office of profit for MLAs

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In order to safeguard the interests of Scheduled Castes, the Cabinet has okayed the introduction of a Bill in the Vidhan Sabha for ensuring restoration of 14 percent reservation in Group A and B and 20 percent reservation in Group C and D to the members of Scheduled Castes in promotions. The enactment of the legislation would pave the way for implementation of the benefit of reservation in promotion as provided in Article 16(4)(A) of the Constitution of India with effect from February 20, 2018.

Pertinently, the Punjab and Haryana High Court in its judgment on February 20, 2018 had struck down sections 4 (3), 4(4) and 4 (8) of "The Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes (Reservation in Services) Act, 2006" following which the Punjab Government had decided to restore 14 percent reservation in Group A and B and 20 percent reservation in Group C and D to SC employees.

Constitution of Punjab State Higher Education Council

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In another move, the Cabinet has approved the constitution of Punjab State Higher Education Council by bringing a bill in Vidhan Sabha. The move is aimed at ensuring planned and coordinated development of Higher Education in the state. The Council to be headed by the Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh will have the Higher Education Minister as its Vice-Chairman and Administrative Secretary, Higher Education as Member Secretary.

The move, which would fulfill one of the pre-requisites of the next phase of Rashtriya Uchchtar Shiksha Abhiyan-2 (RUSA) for the state to be eligible for receiving grants under the Central scheme, was primarily aimed at ensuring quality higher education in Punjabs institutions by facilitating optimum sharing of resources between universities and colleges, especially for research purposes, academic and governance reforms besides monitoring and evaluation of Higher Education institutions. For the next phase of RUSA which commenced in June this year, an outlay of Rs. 174 Crores had been approved by the Project Approval Board of the MHRD in 60:40 Centre State ratio.

In addition, the Council will have on board Vice-Chancellors of State Universities, Principals of Government Colleges and eminent persons from the fields of Arts, Science, Technology, Culture, Industry etc who have made substantive and recognizable contribution to their respective fields, the official spokesperson of the Chief Ministers Office said.

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LoP allowed to use a private car

LoP allowed to use private car

The Punjab Cabinet has accepted the proposal of the Department of Parliamentary Affairs to allow leader of opposition in Punjab Vidhan Sabha to use his private car in lieu of government car, which would be returned by him to the government. The department had mooted the proposal after the former LoP had requested to allow him to use his private vehicle in lieu of government vehicle.

The cabinet has okayed the proposal to make amendment to section-8 of Salary and Allowances of Leader of Opposition in Legislative Assembly Act-1978 to facilitate this move. The necessary memorandum will now be sent to Legal Remembrance to prepare draft of the bill to be presented in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha.

Service extension for Animal Husbandry service providers

In another decision, the state has decided to extend the Contract of service providers, including 516 Veterinary pharmacists and 531 Safai Sewaks, up to March 30, 2019, to provide better services to dairy farmers in the remote rural areas, and to implement new activities and schemes of the Animal Husbandry Department. The Cabinet has approved a proposal of the Animal Husbandry Department in this regard.

The official spokesperson said the Punjab government had already transferred back 582 Civil Veterinary Hospitals to the Animal Husbandry Department. This included the transfer of 582 sanctioned posts of Rural Veterinary Officers from Rural Development and Panchayats Department.

The Chief Minister said it was imperative to strengthen the Animal Husbandry Department to provide proper healthcare facilities to the livestock to encourage farmers to diversify into dairy farming. He said that the Department of Animal Husbandry is contributing about 13% of GDP to the economic growth of Punjab, along with the Agriculture Sector.

PMIDF Act extended to 2037-38

PMIDF Act extended to 2037-38

The Cabinet also approved the proposal of the Local Government department for amending the validity of Punjab Municipal Infrastructure Development Fund (PMIDF) Act, 2011, to extend its validity till 2037-38, from the earlier 2020-21. This decision would help in availing Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) loan worth Rs.1540 crore for the completion of ongoing Water Supply & Sewerage and STP works under the Urban Mission in the state.

The Cabinet has given its nod for the presentation of the related Bill in the forthcoming session of the Vidhan Sabha. Meanwhile, the Cabinet has approved Annual Administrative Reports of the Departments of Cooperation (Audit) and Defence Services Welfare for the year 2016-17.
Tript Bajwa hands over 55 lakh cheque

The Punjab Government has decided to lay sewerage system & set up water treatment plants in villages to end the long lasting problem of sewerage water logging and disposal. The Rural Development Minister Mr. Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa disclosed this here after handing over Rs 55 lakh cheque to the Cabinet Minister Mr. Navjot Singh Sidhu for laying sewerage system in his native village 'Kakarwal' which falls in Dhuri constituency of district Sangrur.

The Public Works Department Minister Mr. Vijay Inder Singla was also present on the occasion. Mr. Tript Bajwa said that this is the first instalment of Rs 55 lakh whereas total cost of this project would be one and a half crore. He said that Mr. Navjot Sidhu had submitted a detailed project report for laying sewerage system and treatment plant in his native village. The Minister assured that this project would be completed by the end of this year.

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Mr. Bajwa said that Punjab Rural Development and Panchayat Department has decided to go for the all round development of the states villages by laying sewerage system and treatment plants. The Minister said that in the first phase this project would be implemented in five villages of every block and later on this would be extended. The Rural Development Minister said that earlier he directed all the departmental officers to study the development model of Haripur & Seechewal villages to replicate it in other villages also.

After visiting these villages the departmental officers and the Panchayati Raj engineers have prepared a proposal based on the developmental model of these villages with minor changes in the projects. The Minister further said that the department has also decided to plant trees near the village ponds where the treatment plants to be set up and the treated water to be used for water these plants and other irrigation purposes.
How Einstein's equivalence principle extends to the quantum world has been puzzling physicists for decades, but a team including a University of Queensland researcher has found the key to this question.

UQ physicist, Dr Magdalena Zych from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems, and the University of Vienna's Professor Caslav Brukner have been working to discover if quantum objects interact with gravity only through curved space-time.

"Einstein's equivalence principle contends that the total inertial and gravitational mass of any objects are equivalent, meaning all bodies fall in the same way when subject to gravity," Dr Zych said.

"Physicists have been debating whether the principle applies to quantum particles, so to translate it to the quantum world we needed to find out how quantum particles interact with gravity.

"We realised that to do this we had to look at the mass."

Mass is dynamic quantity and can have different values, and in quantum physics, mass of a particle can be in a quantum 'superposition' of two different values.

In a state unique to quantum physics, energy and mass can exist in a 'quantum superposition' -- as if they consisted of two different values 'at the same time'.

"We realised that we had to look how particles in such quantum states of the mass behave in order to understand how a quantum particle sees gravity in general," she said.

"Our research found that for quantum particles in quantum superpositions of different masses, the principle implies additional restrictions that are not present for classical particles -- this hadn't been discovered before.''

"It means that previous studies that attempted to translate the principle to quantum physics were incomplete because they focused on trajectories of the particles but neglected the mass."

The study opens a door for new experiments that are necessary to test if quantum particles obey the additional restrictions that have been found.
An algorithm-based system that identifies telltale linguistic cues in fake news stories could provide news aggregator and social media sites like Google News with a new weapon in the fight against misinformation.

The University of Michigan researchers who developed the system have demonstrated that it's comparable to and sometimes better than humans at correctly identifying fake news stories.

In a recent study, it successfully found fakes up to 76 percent of the time, compared to a human success rate of 70 percent. In addition, their linguistic analysis approach could be used to identify fake news articles that are too new to be debunked by cross-referencing their facts with other stories.

Rada Mihalcea, the U-M computer science and engineering professor behind the project, said an automated solution could be an important tool for sites that are struggling to deal with an onslaught of fake news stories, often created to generate clicks or to manipulate public opinion.

Catching fake stories before they have real consequences can be difficult, as aggregator and social media sites today rely heavily on human editors who often can't keep up with the influx of news. In addition, current debunking techniques often depend on external verification of facts, which can be difficult with the newest stories. Often, by the time a story is proven a fake, the damage has already been done.

Linguistic analysis takes a different approach, analyzing quantifiable attributes like grammatical structure, word choice, punctuation and complexity. It works faster than humans and it can be used with a variety of different news types.

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"You can imagine any number of applications for this on the front or back end of a news or social media site," Mihalcea said. "It could provide users with an estimate of the trustworthiness of individual stories or a whole news site. Or it could be a first line of defense on the back end of a news site, flagging suspicious stories for further review. A 76 percent success rate leaves a fairly large margin of error, but it can still provide valuable insight when it's used alongside humans."

Linguistic algorithms that analyze written speech are fairly common today, Mihalcea said. The challenge to building a fake news detector lies not in building the algorithm itself, but in finding the right data with which to train that algorithm.

Fake news appears and disappears quickly, which makes it difficult to collect. It also comes in many genres, further complicating the collection process. Satirical news, for example, is easy to collect, but its use of irony and absurdity make it less useful for training an algorithm to detect fake news that's meant to mislead.

Ultimately, Mihalcea's team created its own data, crowdsourcing an online team that reverse-engineered verified genuine news stories into fakes. This is how most actual fake news is created, Mihalcea said, by individuals who quickly write them in return for a monetary reward.

Study participants, recruited with the help of Amazon Mechanical Turk, were paid to turn short, actual news stories into similar but fake news items, mimicking the journalistic style of the articles. At the end of the process, the research team had a dataset of 500 real and fake news stories.

They then fed these labeled pairs of stories to an algorithm that performed a linguistic analysis, teaching itself distinguish between real and fake news. Finally, the team turned the algorithms to a dataset of real and fake news pulled directly from the web, netting the 76 percent success rate.

The details of the new system and the dataset that the team used to build it are freely available, and Mihalcea says they could be used by news sites or other entities to build their own fake news detection systems. She says that future systems could be further honed by incorporating metadata such as the links and comments associated with a given online news item.

A paper detailing the system will be presented Aug. 24 at the 27th International Conference on Computational Linguistics in Santa Fe, N.M. Mihalcea worked with U-M computer science and engineering assistant research scientist Veronica Perez-Rosas, psychology researcher Bennett Kleinberg at the University of Amsterdam and U-M undergraduate student Alexandra Lefevre.

The research was supported by U-M's Michigan Institute for Data Science and by the National Science Foundation (grant number 1344257).
Discovered more than half a century ago in Kenya and sitting in museum storage ever since, the roughly 20-million-year-old fossil Propotto leakeyi was long classified as a fruit bat.

Now, it's helping researchers rethink the early evolution of lemurs, distant primate cousins of humans that today are only found on the island of Madagascar, some 250 miles off the eastern coast of Africa. The findings could rewrite the story of just when and how they got to the island.

In a study to be published August 21 in the journal Nature Communications, researchers have re-examined Propotto's fossilized remains and suggest that the strange creature wasn't a bat, but an ancient relative of the aye-aye, the bucktoothed nocturnal primate that represents one of the earliest branches of the lemur family tree.

The reassessment challenges a long-held view that today's 100-some lemur species descended from ancestors that made their way to Madagascar in a single wave more than 60 million years ago, becoming some of the first mammals to colonize the island.

Instead, the study lends support to the idea that two lineages of lemurs split in Africa before coming to Madagascar. One lineage eventually led to the aye-aye, and the other to all other lemurs. There are no lemurs left on mainland Africa. These ancestors then colonized Madagascar independently, and millions of years later than once believed.

"One implication is that lemurs have had a much less extensive evolutionary history on Madagascar than was previously thought," said study co-author Erik Seiffert, professor of anatomy at the University of Southern California.

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When Propotto was first described in the 1960s, experts didn't agree about what they were looking at. They didn't have a lot to go on: just three lower jaw bones, each barely an inch long, and a handful of teeth less than three millimeters across.

In 1967, paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson inspected the fragments and classified the specimen as a previously unknown member of the loris family, nocturnal primates with enormous eyes. But a colleague named Alan Walker took a look and thought otherwise, eventually convincing Simpson that the bones belonged to a bat.

For nearly half a century the creature's identity appeared to have been settled, until 2016, when another paleontologist, the late Gregg Gunnell of Duke University, began taking a fresh look at the fossil. To Gunnell's eye, the creature's hind teeth were more reminiscent of a primate than a bat. He also noted the stump of a broken front tooth, just visible in cross section, which would have jutted out from its mouth like a dagger -- a trait only known in aye-ayes, the only living primates with rodent-like teeth.

"Gregg wrote to us and said, 'Tell me I'm crazy,'" Seiffert said.

To verify Propotto's place in the primate family tree, Seiffert and Steven Heritage of Duke's Division of Fossil Primates analyzed more than 395 anatomical features and 79 genes for 125 mammal species, living and extinct.

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With help from Doug Boyer, associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke, the team also compiled microCT scans of the lower molars of 42 living and extinct mammal groups, including bats, treeshrews and primates. They then used a computer program to compare the bumps, pits and ridges on the scans of Propotto's teeth to those of other animals.

The researchers found that Propotto shared a number of features with a similarly buck-toothed primate that lived 34 million years ago in Egypt called Plesiopithecus, and that both were ancient relatives of the aye-aye.

In the new study, Seiffert, Gunnell and colleagues propose that the ancestors of aye-ayes split from the rest of the lemur family tree roughly 40 million years ago, while still on the African continent, and the resulting two lineages didn't make their separate ways to Madagascar until later.

The findings suggest they arrived around the same time as other mammals, such as rodents, Malagasy mongooses and hedgehog- and shrew-like animals called tenrecs. Frogs, snakes and lizards may have made the trip around the same time.

Lemurs can't swim, so some scientists hypothesize that the small-bodied creatures crossed the 250-mile-wide channel that lies between Africa and Madagascar after being swept out to sea in a storm, by holding on to tree limbs or floating mats of vegetation before finally washing ashore.

But if the arrival were more recent, they might have had a shorter distance to travel, thanks to lower sea levels when the Antarctic ice sheet was much larger.

"It's possible that lemurs weren't in Madagascar at all until maybe the Miocene," as recently as 23 million years ago, Boyer said.

"Some of the lowest sea levels were also during this time," Heritage said.

Either way, "the fossils tell us something we never could have guessed from the DNA evidence about the history of lemurs on Madagascar," Boyer said.
Some confections, like Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Hersheys bars and Baby Ruths have been popular ever since trick-or-treating came into vogue. But other candies have gone in and out of fashion (and production). What was in your trick-or-treat bag when you were going door-to-door? To determine the top candy of every decade, The Daily Meal researched treat trends and when todays most popular candies debuted. So, take a walk down memory lane and see the newest and most beloved Halloween candies of every decade.
No one is going to argue Alfredo Soto didnt kill Mr. Alvarez, Dolak said. This trial is about the context and about the why, which will show you that the shooting was justified  and that he shot Mr. Alvarez in self-defense.
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Eric P. Lesak, Global Research, LLC (PA) and Global Research, LLC (NY) with securities fraud in their promotion of the shares of penny stock company, Axiom Holdings, Inc.

According to the complaint, between December 2015 and June 2017, the defendants pitched Axiom stock to more than 100 investors who purchased more than 1.9 million shares of stock for approximately $2.8 million, leading to losses of more than $2.3 million. The complaint alleges that Lesak and Global did not disclose to prospective investors that Lesak had been barred and had his registration suspended by the NASD, or that in 2013 he had pleaded guilty to and been convicted of both securities fraud and wire fraud related to securities transactions. Prior to March 6, 2017, the defendants did not tell prospective investors that they were being paid thousands of dollars each month - in many instances tens of thousands of dollars - to promote Axiom stock to investors. According to the complaint, to help create "traffic" in Axiom stock and the appearance of a market for its securities, Lesak personally bought and sold thousands of shares of Axiom stock in hundreds of transactions that made little economic sense and resulted in losses for Lesak.

The SEC's complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia charges Lesak and Global with violating the antifraud provisions of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. The complaint further charges Lesak with violations of the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a)(1) and (3) of the Securities Act of 1933. The SEC is seeking permanent injunctions, disgorgement plus pre-judgment and post-judgment interest, civil monetary penalties, and an order prohibiting Lesak from participating in any offering of penny stocks.

The SEC's investigation was conducted by Patricia Jo, Daniel H. Rubenstein, Era C. Calhoun, and Jessica P. Regan, and supervised by C. Joshua Felker. The SEC's litigation will be led by Christian D.H. Schultz. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a corporation and its principals with conducting a multi-million dollar offering fraud.

The SEC alleges that Nevada-based microcap issuer Intertech Solutions, Inc., which purports to be a project finance and management company for mining operations, William Scott Marshall, and David Naylor raised over $7 million from hundreds of investors throughout the United States and Canada. According to the SEC, Intertech, Marshall, and Naylor misled investors about the value of Intertechs gold mine interest, Intertechs timeframe for generating revenue, and commission payments Intertech made to securities solicitors. The complaint also alleges that, at Marshalls direction, Intertech hired numerous individuals to engage in cold-call solicitations of investors. Finally, Marshall and Naylor allegedly stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in investor funds, which they used to pay for personal expenses such as such as gym memberships, resort stays, personal medical expenses, and a car Marshall exclusively used.

The SECs complaint, filed in federal court in Nevada, charges Intertech, Marshall, and Naylor with violations of the securities registration provisions of Sections 5(a) and (c) of the Securities Act of 1933 and the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The complaint also charges Intertech and Marshall with aiding and abetting violations of the broker registration provisions of Section 15(a)(1) of the Exchange Act. Without admitting or denying the SECs allegations, Intertech, Marshall, Naylor, and relief defendant West Port Energy LLC, a company formed by Marshall and which allegedly received proceeds of the fraud, have agreed to disgorge nearly $7.4 million in proceeds from the alleged fraud, and Marshall and Naylor have agreed to pay civil penalties of $184,767 and $92,383, respectively. Intertech, Marshall, and Naylor have also agreed to permanent injunctions, and Marshall and Naylor have agreed to conduct-based injunctions and permanent officer-and-director and penny-stock bars. The settlement is subject to court approval.

The SEC wishes to thank FINRA and the various state, federal, and foreign authorities that provided valuable assistance in this matter, including the British Columbia Securities Commission and the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority.

The SECs investigation was conducted by Laurie Abbott, James Thibodeau, and Kenji Kawa, was assisted by Trial Counsel Amy Oliver, and was supervised by Regional Director Daniel Wadley of the Salt Lake Regional Office.

The SECs Office of Investor Education and Advocacy has issued an Investor Alert to encourage investors to check the background of anyone selling or offering them an investment using the free and simple search tool on Investor.gov.
The SEC filed a complaint today in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts alleging that former Constant Contact, Inc. Chief Financial Officer Harpreet Grewal hid the company's slowing customer growth from investors and inflated its publicly reported subscriber numbers.

The complaint against Grewal charges him with violating Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act") and Rule 10b-5 and 13a-14 thereunder and Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 ("Securities Act"). The complaint also alleges that Grewal aided and abetted Constant Contact's violations of Section 13 of the Exchange Act and Rules 12b20, 13a-1, 13a-11, and 13a-13 thereunder.

The case is being handled by Michael J. Vito, David M. Scheffler, Rachel E. Hershfang, Patrick Noone, and Celia D. Moore of the Boston office.
Prosecutors in six California counties, including Contra Costa, filed 13 new charges Tuesday in the high-profile Golden State Killer case and announced they will jointly prosecute Joseph James DeAngelo in Sacramento.

DeAngelo, 72, is charged with 13 murders, with district attorneys adding kidnap for robbery charges for crimes that included rapes in Sacramento and Contra Costa counties. Those rapes cant be charged due to the statute of limitations at the time, but the crime of kidnap for robbery did not have the same restrictions.

Prosecutors said its possible additional charges will be filed against DeAngelo, who is suspected in dozens of additional rapes that also run into statutes of limitation. DeAngelo is accused of being the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker, whose reign of terror in the 1970s and 80s was pieced together decades later by investigators who used DNA and the similar tactics of the suspect to link cases up and down the state attributed to a masked man with many monikers, including the Visalia Ransacker.

For decades, he evaded justice and devastated communities across California, said Contra Costa District Attorney Diana Becton. Thankfully, we can now hold someone accountable for these crimes and seek justice for our victims.

Now Playing: Prosecutors have added another murder charge against a California serial killing suspect, boosting the number of victims to 13. Video: KTVU

DeAngelos public defender, Diane Howard, declined to comment Tuesday.

The district attorneys in the six counties said at a news conference in Santa Ana that they would combine their resources to prosecute DeAngelo, referring to the team they first assembled in 2016 as Team Justice.

These counties came together with their passion, with their persistence and with their resources with one goal in mind: To bring justice for the most significant, probably the most notorious, unsolved serial rape killings in California history, said Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert. And thats what we did.

The long-sought capture of a suspect in the Golden State Killer case came after detectives used DNA evidence found at a murder scene and plugged it into an open-sourced genealogy website to identify relatives. Investigators narrowed the list of possible suspects based on the presumed age and geography of the suspect they were looking for.

Detectives then took a DNA sample from DeAngelos car door handle while he shopped at a Hobby Lobby and a second sample from a tissue found in the garbage outside his Citrus Heights home in Sacramento County, according to court documents.

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.

DeAngelo, a former police officer in Placer and Tulare counties, was arrested in April and faces charges in Sacramento, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Contra Costa counties.

Prosecutors charged DeAngelo with the 13th murder earlier this month, accusing him of killing Claude Snelling, a 45-year-old community college professor who was shot to death in Visalia (Tulare County) while trying to save his teenage daughter from a masked intruder in 1975. At the time of that crime, DeAngelo worked as a police officer in the small Tulare County town of Exeter.

Nine of the kidnap charges from rapes DeAngelo is accused of committing in the late 1970s were alleged to have occurred in Sacramento, with four in Contra Costa. A knife or gun was used in all 13 kidnapping cases, with each charge carrying a life sentence if DeAngelo is convicted.

DeAngelo is scheduled to appear Thursday at 1:30 p.m. in Sacramento County Superior Court to face the new charges.

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez
Its been a good year for women in politics in San Francisco, and Andrea Dew Steele can take some of the credit.

In 2002, a friend of hers whom you might have heard of  Kamala Harris  sought Steeles help in her run for San Francisco district attorney. Now, of course, Harris is a U.S. senator and a rumored contender for president in 2020.

Steele realized back then that too few women were considering a career in politics, and that those who did want to jump into the daunting world of campaigning didnt know how. So she co-founded Emerge America, a training ground for women in politics. It now has programs in 25 states.

Emerge graduates include Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Board of Supervisors President Malia Cohen and Supervisor Catherine Stefani. There are 730 alumnae of the program running for office in 29 states this year. One Emerge graduate whose race Steele is keeping an especially close eye on is Deb Haaland, a New Mexico community activist who could become the first American Indian woman ever elected to Congress.

I sat down with Steele in her office on California Street the other day to talk about why more women are running for office and why that matters. Steele, mother of three kids ages 9 to 14, lives in the Presidio. She has some eclectic office decor, including a mug with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg flipping the double bird above the word Dissent and a sign reading, Not today, patriarchy.

Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Can you walk me through that conversation with Kamala Harris that started this for you and how the light bulb went off that Emerge was needed?

A: Kamala came to me and said, Andrea, I want to run for office. Where do I start?

I told her to come up to my apartment  I was living in the Haight at the time. She walked up the four flights of stairs and sat at my little green desk and said, What do we need to do?

I said, Well, we need to write your bio. You cant do anything without a bio. So we typed up her bio, and she then said, OK, whats next?

I said, Well, we need to get your contacts in order because we need to start fundraising. She pulled out a Filofax. She hadnt put any of her contacts into a database. This was 2002, but still.

I realized we can make it easier for women if we can get them starting to think like a candidate earlier. At our Emerge training, the very first day, we say, Your candidacy begins today.

Q: What do you think has changed? Now San Francisco has its second woman mayor ever, which is pretty incredible, a woman running the Board of Supervisors, a majority on the board. How do you think weve turned that corner?

A: Certainly, it helps to fill the pipeline, to have women who are ready to take the plunge and run for office. Thats what weve been doing since 2002. Theres a feeling, certainly, right now that this is the moment. I dont think it hurt that Oprah Winfrey had that wonderful speech (at the Golden Globes ceremony in January) about this being the moment, particularly for black women, not just to carry the vote for Democrats, but to be in office and leading the way.

Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

Q: Kamala Harris has been outspoken against the president. She has a new memoir coming out. A lot of people think shes laying the groundwork for a presidential run. Do you think she should run?

A: Im saying what a lot of people are saying right now who work in politics. We need to be focused on 2018. Thats what Im focused on. Then I think well see what happens.

I want to be sure that we have a robust pipeline, and were not just focused on the top of the ticket. Thats whats been wrong with Democrats for too long, that weve been focused on this savior. Its not going to save us.

We need to be really working on getting great mayors in office, and we need to be focused on the 520,000 offices in this country. Thats whats really going to help us.

Q: What do you see happening in the midterm elections? Do you think its going to be a good night for Democrats?

A: Im cautiously optimistic. You never know whats going to happen in the world, right, but certainly momentum is on our side.

Q: Can you talk about why so many women have been inspired to run since President Trumps election in 2016?

A: Women woke up and realized we elected the biggest misogynist weve seen probably in politics ever. That was just such a slap in the face to us as women. How could America have done that? That was galvanizing.

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But more importantly, women run for office because of issues. They run for office because they care about the fact that children are being mowed down in school. They run for office because they want to fix their schools and their communities.

Every single issue we care about is absolutely on the line now  thats why you really see a lot of women running for office.

Those women who may have said, Oh, Im not qualified. I dont have five masters degrees and a Ph.D.  now they see how you dont have to have any experience at all. I do think that is also a factor.

Q: Do you see any difference in how women actually lead?

A: The research shows women are more collaborative. We pass more legislation, we co-sponsor more legislation. Theres no question about that, the difference we make when were at the decision-making table. We bring our personal experience to bear.

Q: How do you convince more women to run when the political atmosphere has become so nasty, especially on social media?

A: First of all, we have to stand up and say, You have to do it. Your country is depending on you. I want to take back the flag and say, Its your patriotic duty. Do you love your country? Do you want to help your community? Its now that we need really great people to step up to the plate. One thing we provide at Emerge is a sisterhood. Were going to be there for you.

Q: If you could control the future, who would be elected president in 2020?

A: Well, of course I wouldnt mind if Kamala was president  that would be amazing. I love all the women whove been mentioned. (U.S. Sen.) Kirsten Gillibrand is one of my favorites. I adore (U.S. Sen.) Elizabeth Warren. If I had my magic wand, I would like to see a woman president. I dont think that should be an unreasonable request in 2018.

Q: Also, if you had that same magic wand, what would happen to Donald Trump after 2020?

A: He would be in shackles wearing orange. No question about it.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf
President Trumps plan to roll back one of his predecessors key climate change programs, governing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, will win few fans in Sacramento.

But it will likely have little direct effect on California, because the states regulations are tougher than the federal standards that the Trump administration now wants to ease.

The long-awaited plan released Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency would replace former President Barack Obamas power-plant regulations with a looser system that give states more leeway in controlling emissions. Dubbed the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, the plan has been both attacked and praised as a way to keep coal-fired power plants open.

California, however, relies on coal for just 4 percent of its electricity, almost all of it supplied by coal-burning plants in other states. (Another 9 percent of the states electricity  all imported  comes from sources that cant be identified by grid operators but likely include some coal plants.) California regulations effectively bar utility companies from signing new long-term power purchase contracts with coal-fired plants.

And the states climate policies, taken together, are considered more stringent than the Obama administrations regulations, known as the Clean Power Plan.

California law, for example, requires utility companies to get half of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Last year, the sun, the wind, geothermal plants and small hydroelectric dams supplied 29 percent of the states electricity.

Another California law, signed in 2016, requires the state to cut its overall greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030. The state has already met its first major greenhouse gas goal, cutting emissions back to the same level as in 1990, when Californias population and economy were both smaller.

Weve already met and exceeded our target under the Clean Power Plan, so this dirty energy scam is not going to set us off-course, said Alex Jackson, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

The new EPA proposal won praise Tuesday from some business groups and conservative organizations that considered Obamas Clean Power Plan both unnecessary and a prime example of federal overreach. Several noted that market forces are already cutting emissions from Americas electricity industry now that natural gas costs less than coal, and solar and wind prices are falling.

Todays announcement is an important step toward a more collaborative process that fits within EPAs statutory authority and will result in achievable progress through more practical, state-driven programs, Karen Harbert, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerces Global Energy Institute, said in a statement. This revised approach will help continue the trend of lower electric power sector emissions while preserving Americas energy edge and respecting environmental law.

California officials and the Trump administration are already warring over environmental policy on multiple fronts, with the administration recently moving to end Californias ability to set its own emission standards for cars. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Tuesday the state would continue arguing to keep the Clean Power Plan intact.

Our families deserve clean air to breathe, he said in a statement. And our children deserve to know that we did everything possible to address the most pressing environmental issue of our time.

The EPAs move on Tuesday, however, could play into the debate over whether California should share control over its electricity grid with other states.

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California legislators have less than two weeks to decide the fate of a bill  AB813  that would create a regional organization to manage the grid in California and other Western states that wanted to join. While backers see it as an efficient way to buy and sell renewable power across state lines, opponents fear sharing control with states that rely on coal-burning power plants, or in some cases, mine coal themselves.

Liza Tucker, with the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, said the new EPA plan would give states a green light to keep their coal plants running. Her group fears that a regional grid manager would force California to accept more coal-based power.

This should be a wake-up call to lawmakers to understand the force of what theyre about to do, she said. Were just going to be sabotaging ourselves.

Jackson, however, argued that a regional grid organization could have the opposite effect, helping align neighboring states with Californias policies.

By forcing them to rein in power plant emissions, the Obama Clean Power Plan previously gave states an incentive to study and even adopt some of Californias policies. Removing it, Jackson said, eliminates that incentive.

In its absence, I think the regional grid operator offers one of the few opportunities for California to exercise leadership beyond our borders, he said.

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DavidBakerSF
San Franciscos Westin St. Francis hotel, a 1904 landmark that spans the western side of Union Square, could be sold for the third time since 2015.

Chinas Anbang Insurance Group is seeking to sell the Westin, along with 14 other hotels, to raise cash after a government takeover, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The Westin St. Francis has nearly 1,200 rooms and is the fifth-most valuable building in San Francisco, valued on the citys property-tax rolls at $718.5 million.

Now, investors will have a chance to buy one of San Franciscos top hotels, said Rick Swig, president of RSBA & Associates, a hotel consultant.

The St. Francis is a trophy property, he said. It hits on all cylinders.

Anbang bought the portfolio of 15 hotels, including the Westin St. Francis, for $5.5 billion from private equity giant Blackstone Group in 2016. The deal included the Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley in East Palo Alto and Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay, along with the Essex House in New York. Blackstone had purchased the hotels just a year earlier.

Chinese investors are pulling back after years of binging on U.S. real estate, after Beijing tightened restrictions on foreign investment in 2017.

The state government is cracking down on the private sector, said Darlene Chiu Bryant, executive director of ChinaSF, a nonprofit that works with Chinese businesses in the Bay Area. The Chinese government is not allowing any money to go overseas for investment for real estate. Theyre starting to repatriate the cash.

In the second quarter, Chinese investors sold $1.29 billion in U.S. commercial properties, while buying only $126.2 million, according to Real Capital Analytics, a real estate research firm.

Anbang grew to become Chinas third-largest insurer by assets in less than two decades, but the Chinese government took control of Anbang in February and alleged illegal management and operation activities. The government injected $9.7 billion to keep the company solvent. Former Anbang chairman Wu Xiaohui was charged with fraud and embezzlement and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Swig said the St. Francis 10 out of 10 location next to Union Square draws tourists, convention attendees and business travelers alike.

The Westin St. Francis also completed a $45 million renovation earlier this year. Its been well-maintained, he said.

The propertys main weakness is the absence of a large conference center, which modern hotels have, Swig said.

S.F.s five most valuable buildings 1. Salesforce Tower, $1.33 billion 2. 555 California St., $1.01 billion 3. 101 California St., $984 million 4. One Market Plaza, $834 million 5. Westin St. Francis, $718.5 million Note: Values reflect property tax valuation, not market price. Source: San Francisco Assessor-Recorder See More Collapse

A Westin St. Francis spokeswoman declined to comment.

The opening of Moscone Centers expansion next year will boost tourism by adding another 500,000 square feet of convention space.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

San Franciscos hotel market is already robust, with revenue per available room rising 4.7 percent between January and May to $285, according to CBRE, a real estate brokerage. The citys hotel occupancy rate was 83.1 percent in May.

The Westin St. Francis could now be worth $1 billion, or more than $830,000 per room, said Holden Lim, president of Hospitality Link International Inc., a hotel consultant. Lim was also a broker on the Westin St. Francis sale in 2000 and worked there from 1989 to 1995.

Anbang reportedly wants to sell the 15 hotels together, which would limit the buyer pool. Lim said potential buyers include sovereign wealth funds, particularly from the Middle East, and investors from Hong Kong and Singapore.

The Bay Area is seeing other retreats by Chinese investors. In June, domestic office landlord Kilroy Realty bought the 40-acre Oyster Point site in South San Francisco from a partnership that included Greenland, a major Chinese builder. The project is approved for 2.5 million square feet of new office and lab space.

Yet Chinese developers remain involved in significant projects. Oceanwide Holdings is under construction on a project at First and Mission that will be San Franciscos second-tallest tower. Gemdale Group, headquartered in Shenzhen, and its U.S. partner Lincoln Property Co. recently completed an office tower at 350 Bush St. The projects were funded before China tightened foreign investment rules in 2017.

Theres still a lot of money out there, Bryant said.

Roland Li is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: roland.li@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rolandlisf
Fire retardant dropped from an airplane into an area that should have been cleared of firefighters may have had something to do with last weeks death of a battalion chief at Northern Californias Mendocino Complex fire.

Matthew Burchett, 42, was struck and killed by falling tree debris Aug. 13 near Lake Pillsbury (Lake County) in a spot where, simultaneously, thousands of gallons of the chemical slurry used to quash flames was released, state fire officials said in a preliminary report Monday.

The report did not specify what role the retardant played in Burchetts death  for example, whether it caused tree branches to fall. But the drop appears to be at odds with safety protocol recommending that fire personnel retreat from areas where retardant is about to be used.

Mondays three-sentence report by the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, is expected to be followed by a more detailed analysis of what went wrong. Three other firefighters were injured in the incident.

Not much can be said until the investigation comes out, said Cal Fire spokesman Scott McLean.

Cliff Allen, president of the union that represents firefighters, Cal Fire Local 2881, said he was not privy to the details of last weeks accident, but said firefighting policy generally dictates that ground crews be made aware of overhead retardant drops and cleared out. He said a communication lapse may have occurred in the case of Burchett and his fellow workers.

Were trained to keep ourselves out of the area, he said. The sheer weight and velocity of the drops themselves can be dangerous. ... For whatever reason, if youre in the area, youre supposed to lay down on the ground, put your tools aside and hang onto your helmet.

The tree debris blamed for Burchetts death may have been forced down by the retardant or wind from the plane, Allen speculated, or it just could have fallen down at the same time as the drop and had little to do with it.

Burchett was the sixth firefighter killed responding to Californias historic spate of wildfires this summer. Its the most lethal season since 2008. Many say the combination of fierce fires, limited staff and fatigue has played a role.

Unfortunately, because theres so many personnel putting in long hours and so much equipment moving up and down the state, and fire itself is hazardous, it all just adds up, Allen said.

In the aftermath of Mondays report, Cal Fire officials have reiterated their directive for fire line personnel to remain clear of areas where retardant or water is being dropped.

Fire retardant is generally made up of water, fertilizer and a red coloring agent and plays a major role in helping stop the spread of a wildfire before hand crews move in to put it out. In the spot where Burchett was working, the mix was dropped from either a DC-10 or a 747, officials said.

Burchett, who is survived by his wife and 7-year-old son, worked for the Draper City Fire Department in Utah and had driven to the California wildfire with department colleagues to help out earlier this month. He died on a fire line in the Ranch Fire  the largest fire in state history, one of two wildfires that make up the Mendocino Complex. His funeral was held Monday in Utah.

At 351,557 acres, the Ranch Fire in Lake, Mendocino, Colusa and Glenn counties is the largest wildfire in California history. It was 74 percent contained as of Monday evening.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

Fire activity in the north and northeastern portions of the blaze pushed more people out of their homes Sunday and Monday as the Glenn County Sheriffs Office announced additional mandatory evacuations.

The order includes all areas north of the Glenn-Colusa county line, east of the Mendocino National Forest boundary, south of County Road 308 and west of County Road 306, according to the sheriffs alert.

Glenn Countys mandatory evacuations follow others in the neighboring counties where the fire is burning.

Meanwhile, the Carr Fire in Shasta and Trinity counties is inching closer to full containment at 88 percent Monday. The blaze had burned 229,651 acres as of Monday night. To date, the flames have destroyed 1,079 residences.

In a weekend win elsewhere, firefighters declared victory over the Ferguson Fire, announcing 100 percent containment Sunday. The Ferguson Fire devoured nearly 100,000 acres in Mariposa County and emptied out Yosemite Valley due to heavy smoke for much of the summer.

Kurtis Alexander and Megan Cassidy are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com, megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander @meganrcassidy
A homeless inmate gave birth last year in Alameda Countys jail while she lay alone in a cold, dirty concrete solitary confinement cell after guards ignored her screams for hours, according to a federal lawsuit filed Monday.

The mother was locked into the isolation cell after medical staff accused her of exaggerating complaints of pain and cramping, and deputies decided to punish her for the exaggeration, the suit says.

In isolating her, the staff at Santa Rita County Jail in Dublin ignored the fact that she was eight months into a high-risk pregnancy and was in such pain that she could only crawl on her hands and knees, according to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The cell in which the mother, Candace Steel, was placed on July 23, 2017, had not been cleaned, had only metal furniture and no blankets or towels, the suit said, and she writhed in agony for many hours before the baby girl came.

She was extremely traumatized, and she still cries when she talks about it, said Yolanda Huang, the lawyer who filed the suit for Steel. To go through labor alone in a concrete cell like that, and know youve been completely abandoned, is awful.

Huang said that the metal door to Steels cell had one small sliding window on it, and that deputies closed it to muffle the noise while Steel screamed in labor agony.

They didnt open that sliding slot window again until they heard the baby, Huang said. It was awful.

The suit seeks damages from Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern, several of his employees and California Forensic Medical Group, which was contracted to give medical care to prisoners at the jail.

Sheriffs spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly said Monday that it was unfortunate that the birth was in an isolation cell  nobody wanted that, and were not denying that it happened.

He said Steel wound up in the cell at least partly because her labor was misdiagnosed, but that the incident outlined in the suit is obviously not something that commonly happens in our jail system.

We would have much rather that she had given birth at a hospital, Kelly said. But that having been said, mother and baby were both given immediate health care once the deputies learned what was going on. And they were very compassionate. At the end of the day, were just happy the mom and the baby are healthy.

Huang said Steel had been homeless with a 2-year-old daughter in the Tri-Valley area around Dublin when she was arrested in late July 2017 on misdemeanors including child endangerment for having her daughter with her. The misdemeanors did not result in convictions, Huang said.

And though the Sheriffs Office said the birth went well after guards realized what was happening and helped her with afterbirth procedures, the suit contends there were complications.

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Plaintiffs baby was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck, the suit said. Out of pure instinct, Plaintiff put her fingers into the babys mouth to open its airways so that the baby could start breathing. After the babys birth, Plaintiff had no ... means to wash or clean the baby or herself.

That Steel had a problematic pregnancy should have been taken much more seriously, Huang said.

Just before she was jailed, Steel told medical staff at ValleyCare Hospital that she had smoked methamphetamine in her fifth month of pregnancy, smoked tobacco daily, and had smoked marijuana and drunk alcohol into her eighth month, the suit said. She also said she had experienced seizures in her previous pregnancy, had no prenatal care for her current one, and did not know her due date.

She was down on her luck back then, Huang said. Today, she said, Steel, who is in her 30s, is living in Nevada, is working in the restaurant industry and has both her children with her, she said.

But what happened in the jail ... this is what they do to you when youre poor, Huang said. Its horrible.

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron
SACRAMENTO  The Assembly passed a long-sought bill to end money bail on Monday, the same day that criminal justice reform groups that had been allies in pushing for the legislation pulled their support.

The bill, SB10, by state Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, would overhaul a system in which defendants are released depending on whether they have the money to post bail, which supporters say too often leaves low-income people in jail awaiting trial. SB10 garnered bare minimum support to pass the Assembly in a 41-27 vote and now moves back to the state Senate, which has two weeks to decide whether to send it to Gov. Jerry Browns desk.

This current broken system has created such unfairness, such injustice, said Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda. It has also failed to keep us safer, because its not based on safety. Its not based on ones risk. Its based on wealth, an arbitrary and irrelevant factor.

The American Civil Liberties Union of California and other groups that were supporters of the bill changed positions on Monday, saying amendments last week give courts too much power in deciding who should be released and will further exacerbate racial biases and disparities that permeate our justice system.

As much as we condemn the commercial for-profit system of bail, we cannot stand and let SB10 become the law of California, said Abdi Soltani, executive director of ACLU Northern California.

Lawmakers said Monday that the prospect of ending the cash bail system outweighed those concerns.

This may not be the perfect bill, said Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, who voted in favor of SB10. It may not go as far as people may want from the so-called left or the so-called right, but we have to do something. ... The system desperately needs to be reformed.

Under the legislation, California would no longer require people accused of crimes to post bail to go free while awaiting trial. Revisions to SB10 that were made on Thursday would, however, tell local courts to create their own evaluation system for deciding who can be safely released while awaiting trial or sentencing. While ankle monitors or other conditions could be required for a persons release, those conditions would have to be nonmonetary.

People accused of nonviolent misdemeanors would be released within 12 hours after being booked. But there would be exceptions: People with recent serious or violent felony convictions, multiple failures to appear or allegations involving domestic violence would not qualify. For all other cases, local courts would decide how to assess who is at low, moderate or high risk of re-offending or fleeing when determining whether someone should be released after an arrest.

The California Bail Agents Association has aggressively fought the bill  which would effectively eliminate the bail industry in the state  saying that it will lead to fewer people showing up to court. Many Republicans opposed the measure on Monday, along with three Democratic Assembly members.

Getting rid of our current bail system will only make California less safe, said Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach (Orange County). By eliminating bail, criminals will stop showing up for trial. By stripping bail bondsmen of their power to bring criminals to justice, more criminals will roam free.

Lawmakers who voted for the bill said it creates a system focused on a persons risk to the community, instead of their ability to pay bail.

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Thousands of sex offenders, rapists, murderers are let out because they simply have money, somehow we are safer by keeping that system? asked Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego.

Several groups that once stood behind SB10 say the bill will simply result in more people accused of crimes being detained, regardless of whether they can pay to get out. The California Public Defenders Association and San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachis office are among the groups that removed their support of the bill.

It gives tremendous discretion to judges to decide who to detain, and experience shows that this discretion is likely to be used in a way that over-predicts dangerousness and in a racially discriminatory manner, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean at the UC Berkeley School of Law. Eliminating money bail is essential, but this is the wrong way to do it.

Gina Clayton-Johnson, executive director of Essie Justice Group, an organization representing women with incarcerated loved ones, said lawmakers should take note that her group is opposing the revised SB10 after pursuing the bill for so long.

People are telling us you dont know how big of a deal it is to end the bail industry, Clayton-Johnson said. Let me tell you who knows how big of a deal it is to end the bail industry: Its women with incarcerated loved ones who are going into debt, putting up homes for collateral, who have been trying to bail out our loved ones for years, who have been exploited by this industry. We know what it means to end the bail industry. So you take it from us when we say this is a bad deal.

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez
(CNN)  Taiwan has lost another diplomatic ally to China, its third in a matter of months, after El Salvador announced it would sever ties with the island and switch its allegiance to Beijing.

The governments in Taipei, Beijing and San Salvador all confirmed the development Tuesday, just days after Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen visited Central and South America to cement ties with the island's remaining allies.

The loss of the Central American country reduces the number of Taipei's formal diplomatic allies to just 17. Both Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic cut ties with Taiwan in May.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his Salvadoran counterpart in Beijing on Tuesday morning and signed a joint communique to establish formal diplomatic relations.

At an emergency press conference in Taipei earlier the same day, Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu expressed "regret" over the situation and took a swipe at China for engaging in "dollar diplomacy."

Wu claimed the change came after Taiwan declined repeated requests from El Salvador to fund a large infrastructure project and the struggling ruling party's election campaign.

In a televised speech Monday, Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren called the decision "a step in the right direction, corresponding to the principles of international law, international relations and the unavoidable tendencies of our time."

Diplomatic rivalry

The Chinese government views Taiwan as the most sensitive issue in its relations with other nations.

China's Communist leadership refuses to maintain diplomatic ties with any country that recognizes the self-governed and democratic Taiwan, an island of 23 million people off China's southeastern coast that Beijing considers an integral part of its territory.

The two sides split in 1949 following the Communist victory on the Chinese mainland after a bloody civil war. Since then, Beijing and Taipei have a history of rivalry in their efforts to gain economic opportunities and diplomatic support from governments around the world.

Following Tsai's rise to power in 2016, tensions have risen between the two governments. Beijing has hardened its stance due to concerns over strong pro-independence sentiment within Taiwan's ruling party.

The Chinese military has increased drills around the island while Beijing has repeatedly warned Washington over growing closeness with Taipei under US President Donald Trump.

The Beijing government has also worked to squeeze Taipei out of gatherings of international groups, such as the World Health Organization, and ramped up pressure on global companies to drop references to Taiwan as an independent entity -- targeting the world's biggest airlines, hotels and retailers alike.

Dwindling allies

Despite Taiwan's dwindling number of formal allies globally -- with the remaining 17 mostly small and poor countries in the Pacific and the Caribbean -- the government in Taipei is not preparing for the prospect of not having any diplomatic partners.

"Some countries (that switched diplomatic allegiance to Beijing) are coming back to us and saying they didn't get what China promised, they didn't get what China promised financially and they're not getting what China promised politically," Taiwan Foreign Minister Wu told CNN in an interview last month.

The most symbolic country that still recognizes Taipei over Beijing is the Vatican, the tiny nation home to the leadership of the Catholic Church.

Since the beginning of this year, rumors have leaked out suggesting the Holy See might be close to a decision of establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing in favor of Taipei, but Wu said Taiwan still hoped the Vatican could remain its ally for the long term.

"We stay in very close contact with Vatican officials, telling them what they want is to allow freedom of religion to prevail in mainland China, and Taiwan has been serving as a beacon in that aspect," he said.

"Therefore maintaining good relations with Taiwan is the key to have Taiwan as an example to the Chinese people, especially Chinese Catholics, that they can have freedom of religion one day."

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Taiwan loses another diplomatic ally as El Salvador switches to Beijing."
A woman reported to Stanford University police that she was forcibly raped on campus, according to an alert sent to students Tuesday morning.

The sexual assault happened at an undisclosed location on the universitys main campus sometime between Sunday evening and Monday morning, school officials said.
All good barkeeps are masters of their space.

Youve seen it: One hand selects a bottle, a chilled glass, slides a menu your way, while the other hand stirs a drink. The very best bartenders gracefully do all that and break the invisible wall that separates host and guest. With a question or a story, they invite strangers to gather a little closer, to make a relaxing evening of it.

But today, many of our citys hottest new cocktail spots feel like concepts rather than gathering places, designed more for pulling Instagram likes than welcoming regulars. Sometimes it seems that the most important bar skills  the ability to carry on multiple conversations at once, to elicit a guffaw now and then, to take care of your neighbors instead of performing for them  are dying arts.

That kind of good bartending hasnt faded, though, at the Brazen Head, a dark, unmarked pub at Buchanan and Greenwich streets in the Marina thats long been popular among San Francisco cooks and bartenders. And while its not a place for precise, complex mixology or innovative garnishes, its something even more important: a time capsule of a charming, bygone San Francisco.

On a recent Tuesday around 8 p.m., the lights at the Brazen Head are low and rosy. Lively jazz dances from the speakers. The restaurants oak-paneled main dining room is a little slow, but on the other side of the red velvet curtain that shelters date-goers from a view of the drinking riffraff, every barstool at the wooden bar is taken.

The bartender  whose name, Ill learn, is Eddie Savino  is dressed in a smart white shirt and tie, half-apron around his waist. He pours Makers Mark in a glass for a guy two seats down, then sets the far side of the bar laughing before coming around to us.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

As we name our drinks  negroni, manhattan, martini  everyone gets the same question: Stem or rocks? Stem or rocks? I think, for the negroni, sure. People have their preferences. But when Savino looks at me and circles his fingers to gesture that I have to choose glassware, too, I almost cant withhold a giggle. Some people like twists, and some like olives, some like a little more or a little less vermouth. But a martini is always, always served up.

My snob moment melts into appreciation: This is a man who will give you the drink you want, without the slightest pause for judgment, even if what you want is a martini on ice.

Savino will get you a whiskey any way youd like, a Merlot, a bottle of beer  and almost freakishly quickly. He rings it up on the 80-year-old cash register. After years of accepting cash or debit only, Savino has finally come around to taking credit cards.

He will feed you, too, even if its late. You guys need some sliders? he asks. We do, and while the thinly shaved prime rib buns (three for $15) could use a tiny bit more salt, they are a wise move, comforting and beefy, dressed with a sploosh of tangy sauce. The martini ($10)  yes, served up  is nothing fancy: two jumbo olives on a pick, Cinzano dry vermouth and Bartons gin. You can sub in St. George Terroir or Junipero for an extra $2. But the standard offering, made with ample vermouth, as I requested, is cold and citrusy and good.

When did you start here? my friend asks Savino, slurping a gin and tonic. This afternoon? About 2:30, the bartender answers, a glint in his eye. Oh, when did I start here? October 1982, he grins, raising an eyebrow in our direction, as if to say Longer than youve been alive.

As I learn later, this Bronx-born barkeep owns the place. He met Marcella, now his wife of 28 years, working behind this bar. (Savino also owned Liverpool Lils for a decade, but it closed after a fire in 2015.) Early on, there was a Laundromat on the corner across from the Brazen Head. People would go in there, start their laundry, come across the street, have a beer or whatever, then go back and get their laundry, Savino explains. So local people would find us.

Back in the 80s, he adds, a lot of restaurants looked a little bit like this  cozy and dimly lit  but now none of them do. He has replaced the old 25-watt bulbs with tinted LEDs, but the tone hasnt changed much.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

Because of its late-night food service, the Brazen Head has long been a service-industry hangout. Waiters, bussers, bartenders, restaurant owners, cooks; this is where they would eat after they got off work, Savino says. Before the Yelp and the Google, it was all word of mouth. He would walk to the neighborhoods hotels and invite their front-desk staff to come in for dinner, hoping theyd recommend the spot to visitors.

Worth of mouth still matters.

Sonoma Coast winemaking pioneer David Hirsch started visiting the Brazen Head back in the 80s when he lived around the corner. After he moved, he continued to frequent the bar when staying at the Capri Motel across the street. Wed ramble in for a martini, Hirsch says. In those days, there were very few places where you could get food at midnight.

I love the feel of the place, says Isaac Shumway, beverage director at Cedar Room in Campbell, whos been stopping by for 14 years. The dim light and wood makes it feel like an old-time neighborhood restaurant and bar.

Ashley Miller, who manages the Front Porch in Bernal Heights, agrees: You are transported to another time and place hidden from the world outside. ... You can hide in a dark corner as you plot a bank heist or a liquor run over the state border.

Theres a sense of good will that sets the Brazen Head apart, adds Hirsch. While the bar always harbored locals, it felt open to tourists and first-timers, too. You never felt like there was any sort of cultural or socioeconomic pecking order there, Hirsch says. You could never think of Eddie making a judgment about somebody.

This openness is part of Savinos fundamental understanding of what bartenders do.

More Information To order: Martini ($10), prime rib sliders (3 for $15) Where: The Brazen Head, 3166 Buchanan St., San Francisco. 415-921-7600 or www.brazenheadsf.com When: 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily See More Collapse

If you take the people aspect out of our business, then we can just get the robots to do it, Savino says. We try and be a place where you are who you are, and we are happy to see ya. If you choose to wear your hat on backwards or your shoes on backwards, Im here to welcome you, Im here to feed you. You wanna wear those earrings out of your everywhere, thats up to you.

Just dont sit there messing around with your phone, or he might ask you if youre texting him your drink order. Put it away! he says. Give us a chance to say hello.

As we finish the dregs of our drinks, I take one last look around. A pair of burgers arrives from the kitchen for a pair of Stella drinkers to our left. An older woman to our right sips a glass of Chardonnay, leaning over to compliment my friends mop of Beatles-like hair. He blushes, thanking her, and we say our goodbyes, pulling our sweaters tighter as we step out from the warm bar into the cold Marina wind.

Maggie Hoffman is the author of The One-Bottle Cocktail: More than 80 Recipes With Fresh Ingredients and a Single Spirit (Ten Speed Press). Twitter:@maggiejhoffman Email: food@sfchronicle.com
I remember it well. I was 20 years old, and I had met my soon-to-be wife while traveling in Greece. She was a French Canadian from Quebec, and I was a gringo from California.

When I got home, I was telling my wise father about this new love of my life. Shes beautiful, fun and sweet, I gushed. And then, as icing on the cake, I added, and shes smart  shes fluent in both English and French!

He looked at me with a strong hint of skepticism. Do not, counseled my wise father, confuse someone who is bilingual with someone who is intelligent.

Oh. That put a bit of a damper on things. He hadnt met her yet, but he was already bursting my bubble. Maybe she wasnt as brilliant as I thought.

But then an article came out that proved my wise old father wrong. The article claimed that bilingual brains are simply more efficient than monolingual brains (like mine) because there is constant toggling that comes from having to choose between two words for every object or concept. Learning a second language can produce a nimbler mind.

I couldnt wait to tell my father. Unfortunately, I just read the article last week, 44 years after our conversation and 18 years after my fathers death. On the other hand, my wife was still around, so I figured I should let her know.

Youre smarter than I thought! I said, slapping a copy of the article down in front of her the other day. And my father was wrong about you.

She looked up from her crossword puzzle, which she was struggling with, poor girl. What did your father say?

He said just because you spoke two languages didnt mean you were smart, I answered, motioning again to the headlines of the article, which proved otherwise. If its any consolation, he hadnt met you when he said it.

Thats comforting. And now you think Im smart because of this article?

I may not be smart, but Im not stupid. I wasnt about to fall in her trap. I always thought you were smart. But this article makes you seem even smarter, just like I thought when I met you 44 years ago.

She figured out 16 down on the crossword puzzle while I talked. Brilliant. She was multitasking, just as bilingual people are supposed to do well, according to the article.

Finally, she glanced at the article, skimming it quickly. I could see she was realizing her potential as she flipped the page and read about bilingual seniors being faster and more accurate than monolinguals at familiar task-switching tests. And she beamed when she read that being bilingual could reduce the chance of developing dementia.

Looks like Im going to leave you in the dust as we get older, she remarked.

I saw an opening. Speak French to me, I pleaded. Show me how smart you are.

She went back to her crossword puzzle. Nice try.

Im always trying to get her to speak French. I dont understand much of it from my two years of high school classes, but I sure love the sound. And like most husbands, Im not always listening to the content of what shes saying in English, anyway. So if I miss most of the translation, its kind of par for the course.

Come on, throw me a bone. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi? I asked, hoping to get her started.

Non, she replied, in perfect French. And will you come up with some other phrase that doesnt come from a song, please. Im tired of that one.

It looked as though Id have to wait for our annual trip to Quebec to hear her string together those melodic French words in sentence after sentence, leaving me once again mesmerized by the language of love.

But I wasnt giving up. Je taime, I purred in my best French accent, which sounds Chinese.

Same to you, she replied, knocking out 62 across and finishing the crossword puzzle.

Tu es tres intelligente, I said, hoping I had the grammar right. For once.

You should have started learning French at birth, like me, she answered as she left me at the table. Then maybe youd have a working brain.

If I were bilingual, Im sure I would have come up with a good retort. At least I would have had double the chance.

Nick Hoppes column appears Tuesdays in Datebook. Email: NickHoppe61@gmail.com
If Mill Valley was once considered lily-white, as longtime resident and community activist Michael Vogel says, the double bill on the marquee at the Sequoia Theater in downtown Mill Valley indicates thats changed. BlacKkKlansman and Crazy Rich Asians are playing at the same time.

Jules Older overheard a couple emerging from the Century Northgate in San Rafael after a showing of Mission: Impossible  Fallout. Im very sorry, said the man. You owe me so many movies, said the woman.

The Jeopardy answer one recent night: The daughter of Indian & Jamaican immigrants, she was elected to replace Barbara Boxer in the Senate in 2016. Who is Kamala Harris?, of course, is the question. To complete the feat, says Brian Bringardner, she needs to get into the NYT crossword puzzle.

At a Moonalice show in Sebastopol recently, David Sokolsky saw a man wearing a Make America Grateful Again shirt. And at the 540 Club on Clement Street the weekend of Outside Lands, David Jensen saw the sign Inside Lands.

The Trump-inspired miliary parade has been postponed from Veterans Day, much to the relief of Neil Davis, whod been pondering what the first lady would wear for the occasion. (Perhaps Kellyanne Conways red-white-and-blue toy soldier outfit, worn only once to the inauguration, could have been borrowed?)

Meanwhile, Daniela Faggioli suggests that Omarosa Manigault Newman and Asia Argento could star in a movie remake of Chicago, with Michael Avenatti in the Richard Gere role.

Trina Robbins, a kick-ass feminist writer and artist, creator and historian of underground comics, the first woman to draw Wonder Woman, celebrated her 80th birthday on Friday, Aug. 17, at the Cartoon Art Museum near Fishermans Wharf. There was an open bar, an open food truck parked outside, some Robbins cartoons on the walls and a guest list of friends in all kinds of creative endeavors, including comics Will and Debi Durst, mystery writer Michael Kurland, whose most recent series of books feature Professor Moriarty as hero, and filmmaker Susan Stern, whos working on a documentary about celebrated underground cartoonist Spain Rodriguez.

And there was Robbins, wearing a dress Prada gave her when they used one of her cartoons for a print in a line of clothing, with her boyfriend, Steve Leialoha, who was wearing a coat that Prada had given to Robbins. (Shes a tiny woman; the coat  probably left over from a fashion shoot, she said  was way too big, so she handed it over to him; he had the sleeves lengthened and became a fashion plate.)

Anyway, we guests carried heaping plates of dinner inside, plunked ourselves down at tables, shyly began conversations and wound up having a wonderful time talking with each other.

As to the host/honoree, she isnt slowing down too much. She recently published a graphic novel, A Minyen Yidn, that was a translation of a book her father had written in Yiddish in 1938. Shes taking tap and hula lessons at ODC, and Yiddish and tai chi at the LGBT Senior Center.

Trina was, of course, the center of attention at her own party, but I think it was clear to most guests, in the most admiring way, that she would be belle of the ball anywhere.

Twix, the dachshund-about-town whose Chestnut Street strolls/food-gathering expeditions were the subject of a Sam Whiting profile two years ago, has died. The dog, adopted when he was 10 by Doug and Dana Thomas, was 17 years old.

In his glory days, Twix was known for going from store to store, unleashed, gathering treats offered by shop owners. Twix was the first dog to be on the PlumpJack website, said Doug Thomas. For his most recent trips to Chestnut Street, the dog was seated on a Tempur-Pedic pillow in a stroller often shared with the Thomases toddler daughter.

The couple has been telling neighborhood stalwarts of his demise one by one. The guys at the Marina Deli, where he got turkey, cried. Twix was his own little celebrity, said Thomas.

P.S.: The rear of a Sacramento SPCA van pointed out by Allen Matthews was emblazoned with the message, Are you tailgating or sniffing my bumper?

PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING

One minute Im hot, another Im cold. Its been such a menopausal summer.

Cashier to customer, overheard at a North Beach produce store by Ken Maley

Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, 415-777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik
The co-owner of Burma Superstar, the Bay Area mini-chain known for tea leaf salads and block-long lines on San Franciscos Clement Street, is planning to add a new restaurant on Mid-Market.

Desmond Tan, who co-owns Burma Superstar with Joycelyn Lee, is taking over the former home of Oro, the modern American restaurant in San Franciscos Mint Plaza that closed in 2016. Tan said the project is still in early stages.

Its going to be a restaurant, but we dont have a name for it yet, he said. I can just say that its definitely going to be a Burmese restaurant.

The area Tan and his team are targeting is arguably one of San Franciscos more unpredictable neighborhoods when it comes to consistent restaurant growth. According to city data, restaurant and hotel sales tax revenue in the area between Fifth Street and Van Ness Avenue rose 155 percent between 2010 and 2015  from $262,044 to $669,432.

Even so, new restaurants and bars that opened around 2015 have run into difficulties. Oro lasted just nine months before joining what was then a cascade of Mid-Market closures in 2016.

Now Playing: San Francisco Chronicle food critic Michael Bauer talks about which restaurants have been on his Top 100 list for decades. Video: SFGATE

Bon Marche, a French-inspired restaurant, bar and flower shop, opened in the neighborhood in 2015 before closing a year later. Cadence, an upscale American restaurant that was connected to the jazz bar Mr. Tipples Recording Studio, spent six months struggling to find an audience before bidding farewell. Dirty Water, the sprawling $4 million watering hole in the Twitter building on Market Street, closed last month, having lasted the longest out of the four.

Its going to be a challenge, that much we know, Tan said. Honestly, running a restaurant in San Francisco is just hard overall. Theres high rent, high labor costs, lawsuits. Its a lot to deal with.

Nonetheless, activity has surged in the area. Within the past year, Bay Area chef Nigel Jones opened the Caribbean-influenced restaurant Kaya, filling the former home of chef Daniel Pattersons Alta restaurant. Patterson, meanwhile, is opening a new Alta in the neighborhoods Yotel hotel project. San Franciscos luxury Proper Hotel welcomed an upscale rooftop bar in Charmaines.

Tan said he found the foot traffic at Mint Plaza appealing. Its already home to a Blue Bottle Coffee outpost and the Michelin Guide-recommended 54 Mint Ristorante.

Its an interesting place, Tan said. We were kind of surprised it came available to us.

Tans newly announced expansion comes on the heels of two years worth of rumors that Burma Superstar was heading to a spot near Sixth and Mission streets. The rumors, Tan said, were false.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

We werent thinking about any other place. When that came out, even I was surprised to hear it, Tan said with a laugh.

Burma Superstar already has an outpost in Oaklands Temescal neighborhood, as well as a sister restaurant called B Star in San Franciscos Richmond District.

Moving forward, Tan said he plans to do cosmetic upgrades to the Mint Plaza space, which include relocating the bar area previously in Oro and, if all goes according to plan, opening his new venture within the next four months.

We dont expect this to be easy, he said. Were not taking anything for granted. Its going to take a while for it to work, and its going to take consistency for us to have customers come in and then come back.
NEW YORK  When Chris Stratton was last seen on a pitching mound with the Giants, he was giving up six runs on 10 hits in three innings. It was Aug. 3 in Arizona, and it was clear he needed to work on his fastball command.

So he was optioned to Triple-A Sacramento and received lots of help with his mechanics, including from former Giants right-hander Ryan Vogelsong.

We have pretty similar upper-body mechanics, and he told me some cues he would do, Stratton said. Thats working out pretty well for me.  Hes been through it all.

Strattons pitches were cutting flat across the plate, making them more hittable. He hopes to incorporate what he learned when he returns to the Giants rotation Tuesday night against the Mets.

Stratton, a 2012 first-round draft pick, had good results in his two starts with Sacramento: 13 innings, two earned runs, 10 strikeouts, three walks.

I was getting too rotational with my upper body, Stratton said. When you do that, everything gets a little flatter. Its a little easier to see all your pitches coming out. Just trying to stay a little more closed and being a little more deceptive.

Stratton still leads the Giants in wins with eight.

Black optioned: Reliever Ray Black, who had 10 straight scoreless outings but gave up runs in four of his last five, was optioned to Sacramento. Hell rest a few days before getting into a game and is expected to rejoin the Giants in September.

Theres a little concern. Weve been using Black a lot, manager Bruce Bochy said. This will give him a break, with this really being his first year in the major leagues, getting used as much as hes been getting used. Hes done a great job getting his career on track. Hes dealt with some injuries, and so this will cut back some risk of any kind of injury.

Derek Law took Blacks bullpen spot. Law worked the final two innings Monday and got the win.

Briefly: Dereck Rodriguez, who pulled a hamstring in last Tuesdays Giants-Dodgers tussle at Dodger Stadium, will come off the disabled list to start Fridays homestand opener. He threw a 35-pitch bullpen session Monday. ... The Giants confirmed Casey Kelly will start Wednesday.  Jeff Samardzija (shoulder) will make Wednesdays rehab start with Double-A Richmond, not Sacramento, as initially scheduled.

John Shea is The San Francisco Chronicles national baseball writer.
Mayor London Breed blasted the director of San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency on Monday over service delays related to its Twin Peaks Tunnel closure that she said the transit systems managers should have anticipated.

In a sharply worded letter to San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency director Ed Reiskin, the mayor also chided the agency for insufficient vetting of construction contractors and a scooter permitting process that seems to blackball Uber and Lyft.

In the weeks since I took the mayoral oath of office, a number of challenges have come to light related to the SFMTA and Muni service, Breed wrote. She called for improvement in all 12 categories that the City Controller scores to evaluate San Franciscos transportation systems.

As mayor, Breed wields substantial power over the SFMTA. She fills the empty seats on its board of directors  the body that sets the citys transportation budget, determines its policy agenda and oversees department management. The board has the ability to fire Reiskin.

If thats what Breed is angling for, it would be difficult for the board to resist, said political strategist Nathan Ballard, who worked closely with the three previous mayoral administrations.

Now Playing: A Conversation with Mayor London Breed Video: Manjula Varghese

Mayors dont technically have the power to remove department heads, but thats purely a technicality, Ballard said.

Reiskin is scheduled for a performance review from the SFMTA board Tuesday. He came to the job in 2011, replacing Nathaniel Ford, who left after a well-publicized bid to run the airport authority in Washington D.C. Former SFMTA board chair Tom Nolan described Fords resignation as a joint decision between the department chief and the board.

A devoted bicyclist and bus rider, Reiskin had experience running other embattled city departments. He was director of the 311 customer service center and head of Public Works before Mayor Ed Lee tapped him to fix the citys beset transit agency. During his tenure, he has replaced aging light rail cars and steered a citywide effort to eliminate traffic fatalities.

I think the city is incredibly fortunate to have him in that leadership position, said Tom Nolan, the former chair of the SFMTA board and a fervent supporter of Reiskin.

Its a very tough job, and hes an outstanding leader, Nolan said. He has many, many critics.

The criticism escalated in recent months, with bicyclists slamming SFMTA for lagging on protected bike lanes, and Muni riders complaining about haphazard service. The public airing of Breeds letter is not a good sign for Reiskins future, Ballard said.

A healthy relationship between a mayor and a department head should include plenty of disagreements, he noted. But those disagreements should occur behind closed doors.

Breeds letter cited a string of shortcomings, beginning with SFMTAs failure to notify riders and city officials when it siphoned drivers from popular Muni bus lines and redirected them to the shuttles that loop around the closed tunnel. That patchwork service plan caused delays throughout the system.

Munis top brass knew for at least a year that the agency would need to reassign buses and drivers to the shuttles that go around the tunnel, Breed said, noting that service reductions should have been anticipated and mitigated.

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.

In a recent interview with The Chronicle, Reiskin acknowledged the delays but downplayed them. He said the Twin Peaks Tunnel closure had come at an inopportune time because Muni was training workers to drive a new set of rail cars and do other new jobs. The agency has long grappled with a shortage of drivers.

Breed also alluded to the recent death of a Twin Peaks Tunnel construction worker, saying she is seriously concerned about the lack of background checks on major construction contractors.

Shimmick Construction, the Oakland company in charge of repairing the tunnel, had been cited 39 times by Cal/OSHA for safety violations. The company did not mention those violations in pre-bidding documents filed with the SFMTA.

Breed had other admonitions as well. She said big projects like the Twin Peaks Tunnel retrofit and the long-delayed Central Subway need to be completed on time and within their allotted budgets, bicycle safety improvements need to be sped up and streetscape upgrades need to be coordinated with other public works projects.

A spotty public transit system creates severe ripple effects, Breed wrote in her letter, arguing that residents will revert to using private cars if they cant depend on municipal bus and rail.

This undermines our climate and sustainability goals and exacerbates our congestion issues, she wrote.

Reiskin responded to the letter in a low-key statement that commended the mayors attention and focus to his departments deficiencies. He promised to move the needle on SFMTAs performance metrics and improve Muni service so that our riders can feel the difference.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan
Every day at noon, Karina Garcia drives to her sons South San Francisco high school to give him a dose of cannabis oil to prevent potentially life-threatening seizures.

But she cant do it on campus. She has to take Jojo, a 19-year-old with severe epilepsy, off school grounds to squirt the drug into his mouth, then bring him back for his special-education classes.

It doesnt matter that Garcias son has a doctors note recommending he take the drug, nor that the medication is legal for both medicinal and recreational purposes in California. Marijuana use is strictly forbidden on school grounds because it violates federal law.

To go into the classroom every day and have to grab your child, walk down the block, give them a dose and return them, its so disruptive, said Garcia, 38.

She said she turned to marijuana for her son because prescription drugs failed to stop Jojos seizures and left him in a zombie-like state. But Jojo, who uses a wheelchair, cant administer the drug himself because he has developmental disabilities that prevent it, she said.

Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

Garcia is among a growing number of parents using medical marijuana to treat their sick children, often after pharmaceutical remedies have failed. In recognition of this, California is considering a law that would allow parents to administer the drug at school, a move that could set up a showdown with the federal government, whose laws make it a crime to possess, buy or sell marijuana.

Of the 31 states and Washington, D.C., that have legalized medical marijuana, at least seven have enacted laws or regulations that allow students to use it on school grounds. Although schools doing so risk losing their federal funding, the government has not penalized any of the seven states, so far.

New Jersey, Illinois, Delaware and Colorado permit parents to give their child non-smokable medicinal pot products at school. This summer, Colorado expanded its law to allow school staff to administer the medication. Washington and Florida allow school districts to decide for themselves whether to allow the drug on campuses. And Maine expanded state regulations to permit medical marijuana use at school, according to the Education Commission of the States.

Californias legislation would let school boards decide whether to allow medical cannabis at schools if a child has a doctors note. The drug cannot be formally prescribed because federal law classifies it, with limited exceptions, as one that has no accepted medical use.

More lawmakers are acknowledging this is an issue their constituents care about ... (and) are trying to address this inherent conflict between federal and state law, said Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, a national marijuana advocacy group.

State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, wrote the California bill, naming it Jojos Act after Garcias son, who suffers from the severe seizure disorder known as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. The oil Jojo takes contains the chemical cannabidiol, or CBD, and a trace amount of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, both extracted from the marijuana plant.

Its unclear how many children use medical marijuana, which is most commonly given to those with autism, seizures or cancer, said Dr. Frank Lucido, a Berkeley doctor who has treated more than 200 children for seizures or severe autism.

In the meantime, a state judge has ruled that a Santa Rosa kindergartner who takes cannabis oil for seizures can bring the drug with her to kindergarten until a court case on the issue is resolved.

But some school officials in California say the mere possibility of federal sanctions is enough to oppose opening up schools to medical pot. The funds at risk are contingent on schools being drug-free zones and include money for school breakfasts and lunches for low-income students, according to the Association of California School Administrators.

The California bill, SB1127, has cleared the state Senate and is pending in the Assembly. It would require that parents or legal guardians administer the medical marijuana. The drug couldnt be ingested via smoking or vaping. Nor could it be kept on school grounds, so parents would still have to bring the marijuana to school every day. Traditional prescription drugs, by contrast, are often stored at a school nurses office and given by a school employee.

The school administrators association argues that staffers would be put in an impossible position if the bill became law.

Were asking school administrators and other employees to comply with state and federal laws for everything, except this one time were going to turn a blind eye, Laura Preston, legislative advocate for the school administrators, told lawmakers at a hearing.

A different school group, however, is asking lawmakers to back the measure as a way to ensure more children stay in school.

As more students have started using it to address their medical issues, it becomes a larger issue for schools, said Erika Hoffman, legislative advocate for the California School Board Association. We see this as a step in trying to provide an accessible education for a child who unfortunately has severe medical issues.

Neurologists and pediatricians say success stories from parents offer patients hope, but they warn that more research is needed to prove the health benefits of medical marijuana.

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 Food and Drug Administration in June approved the first prescription drug that contains marijuana compounds after studies showed a reduction in the frequency of seizures. The medicine, called Epidiolex, contains cannabidiol and is intended to treat Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.

But Epidiolex is not expected to replace other cannabis products, which are not approved by the FDA. Jojo, for instance, continues to use another formulation of cannabis oil, his mother said.

Lucido, the Berkeley doctor, says his patients often need different combinations of CBD and THC for the treatment to be effective. Children with seizures may require multiple doses of CBD oil a day at regular intervals, he said, and allowing children to take it at school could result in better outcomes.

Medical cannabis, he added, doesnt make children intoxicated or sleepy as can many prescription anti-seizure drugs, allowing children to be more alert in class. In many cases, the marijuana product that kids receive, such as CBD oil, isnt the kind that gives users of recreational marijuana, which contains significant amounts of THC, a euphoric high.

State Sen. Hill said the decision about medical marijuana should be left to state residents.

The people of California have made it very clear what they want, he said. Were looking at the appropriate balance of that.

Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

For Garcia, all she wants is the freedom for herself and other parents to come out of the shadows and treat their children no matter where they are  especially at school.

When I first started giving him cannabis, I was scared to tell anybody, Garcia said of Jojo, who as a special needs student can stay in high school until he is 22. I kept it on the hush-hush. But then, he started improving, and I realized I had to tell people. And my story is not unique.

Samantha Young writes for California Healthline, a nonprofit news service covering health issues and published by Kaiser Health News. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
One of Painter biggest concerns is what type of business would be housed in the warehouse, which would have a parking lot on the north side of the building that extends the length of the eastern side, with 157 parking spaces.
Vice District caught on quickly after that, with the wooden picnic tables inside the industrial-chic space filling up nightly. So, a mere 18 months after opening its doors, the business started looking to expand. Tarver said a friend who worked for Cook County told him Homewood might be a good place to look. He took him at his word and came down to the village.
Even as President Trump escalated his efforts to discredit, dismiss and distance himself from the federal investigation of his campaign, convictions of his top associates Tuesday compounded its gravity and brought it to his doorstep.

All tweeting and dissembling aside, the startling facts are that the presidents onetime campaign chairman was convicted of eight counts of fraud  and that his longtime personal attorney, fixer and attack dog surrendered on eight counts of his own, including a campaign finance crime implicating Trump himself.

Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to paying pornographic actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 at Trumps direction in October 2016 to secure her silence about an extramarital affair she said they had and influence the coming election. Shortly after denying knowledge of the hush payment earlier this year, Trump acknowledged reimbursing Cohen for it in an official financial filing. Federal law requires that campaign contributions and expenditures be disclosed.

Despite having famously vowed that he would take a bullet for Trump, Cohen has more recently signaled his willingness to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller while showing off his access to damning information about the president. He has released a recording of a conversation in which the then-candidate appeared to be familiar with yet another payment to a woman who said she had an affair with him.

Cohens guilty plea in Manhattan, which also encompassed several counts of tax and bank fraud linked to his New York taxi business, was the sixth related to Muellers investigation of the Trump campaign  an inquiry that the president called a National Disgrace on Monday for reasons that would become more obvious the following day. Also on Tuesday, lawyers sought to once again delay sentencing in one of those cases, former national security adviser Michael Flynns, suggesting continuing cooperation with authorities.

In going to trial, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort became an exception to the pleas and a test for Mueller. The jury in Alexandria, Va., clearly wrestled with the complex financial charges stemming from the operatives hidden foreign income and lies to banks to get loans when the money ran out. At the end of four days of deliberations, the jurors deadlocked on 10 counts but reached a unanimous agreement to convict the defendant on the eight others, a victory for the special counsel. And Manafort still faces a separate trial in Washington, D.C., on charges of obstruction of justice, money laundering, and failing to register as a lobbyist for a foreign government.

While Manaforts crimes were not directly related to the question of the Trump campaigns relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putins regime, which is at the core of the Mueller investigation, the former campaign chairman had deep ties to Russia. Before he made a comeback working for Trump, Manafort represented Putins man in Ukraine, former President Viktor Yanukovych, who was deposed by a popular revolution in 2014. He also amassed a massive debt to a Russian oligarch.

Cohen has extensive Russian entanglements, too. Essential Consultants, the shell company he created to pay off Daniels, also accepted payments from a company linked to a Russian oligarch. And his taxi business was in partnership with Evgeny Gene Freidman, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union who has pleaded guilty to tax fraud.

Trump can be counted on to react to the intensifying investigation according to his well-established pattern of increasingly direct and dubious challenges to the probe itself. Tuesdays convictions prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Muellers investigation deserves congressional protection.

This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.
San Francisco has maintained water rights to the Tuolumne River, a pristine source that originates high in the Sierra Nevada, since the early 1900s. Now, those rights are being threatened by a state proposal to rescue the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The states plan, which was first proposed in October 2016 and released as a final draft last month, would increase water flows to the Tuolumne and other rivers that support the delta. The states laudable goal is to address sharp declines in the deltas native species and related degradation of the surrounding ecosystem.

But the state says if the delta is to be repaired, someone will have to give up some water. The state plan calls for restricting San Franciscos ability to draw water from the river. City officials are firmly opposed to the plan, which has put San Francisco on the same political side as the states conservative agricultural communities.

San Francisco has heavily invested in its water systems going back for 100 years, said Steven Ritchie, assistant general manager for water for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. We didnt do it with other peoples money. It was all because of the ratepayers in our service area.

Ritchie said the SFPUC has proposed a plan to the state that would improve habitat and fish populations without the dramatic water flow restrictions.

Under the states plan, we could see system-wide rationing in the 40-to-50- percent range, Ritchie said. Our goal is to have no more than 20 percent rationing.

The State Water Resources Control Board disagrees. In a statement, the agency said that San Franciscos proposed plan does not provide the flow-related habitat benefits that the State Water Boards flow objectives provide.

A potentially litigious standoff seems more inevitable by the day.

The state must honor its goals toward the delta, and San Franciscos water rights must be honored as well. Negotiation is the only appropriate answer to this scenario.

But the fight over the Tuolumne also offers a lesson for the entire state. As climate change inevitably places restrictions on our water supply, every community will face these kinds of challenges. The sooner water agencies plan for the future, the less chaotic it will be.

This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.
Justice Anthony Kennedys retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court presents President Trump with a rare opportunity to replace his swing vote on the nine member court with a steadfast conservative one. Trumps pick is D.C. Court of Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh. With his Ivy League pedigree and his good guy reputation, Kavanaugh seems, on the surface, like a safe bet for Trump. Vetted and approved by the conservative Federalist Society, which has provided the Trump administration with nearly all its judicial nominees to date, he likely will be the decisive vote in undermining civil liberties and civil rights and will drastically tip the tenuous balance of the court to the right.

In legal and political circles, Kavanaugh is being compared with Ronald Reagans failed 1987 Supreme Court nominee, Robert Bork. Bork, like Kavanaugh, held originalist views of constitutional law, predicated on the perceived original intent of the founders. Such an ideology inevitably leads to the exclusion and subjugation of women and minorities without due process of law. Originalism is a code word for conservatism and conflicts with the idea that the Constitution is a living document that recognizes liberty and personal dignity as animating principles of the Constitution and understands that the contemporary needs of society outweigh an adherence to outdated doctrine.

According to Gallup, Kavanaugh begins his quest for confirmation with the slimmest margin in favor of confirmation than for any nominee Gallup has measured since Borks nomination. As a D.C. circuit court judge, Kavanaugh has consistently ruled against environmental protections, opposed efforts to fight climate change, and has handed down decisions against protections for clean water.

He has called the Federal Communications Commissions net neutrality order an unlawful First Amendment violation.

Hostile to the rights of the accused, Kavanaugh applauds his first judicial hero, the late former Chief Justice William Rehnquists pursuit of expanding exceptions to the exclusionary rule  a rule that is meant to keep illegally obtained evidence out of court. In the area of religion, he again invokes Rehnquists ghost suggesting that he may be open to widening the flow of public funding to religious schools and reversing the Supreme Courts erecting a strict wall of separation between church and state.

When it comes to affirmative action, Kavanaughs record leaves little room for surprise. As a lawyer at the high-grossing, international law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, he teamed up with then-lawyer Bork and the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative think tank that opposes race-based affirmative action in college admissions, to write an anti-affirmative action brief in an unusual Hawaiian voting rule case.

Neither can Kavanaughs views on abortion be a surprise. Trump has made clear his intention to put only justices on the Supreme Court that pass his litmus test of overturning Roe vs. Wade. In a 2015 dissent, Kavanaugh argued that the Obamacare mandate for contraception coverage infringed on the rights of religious organizations. He famously dissented from a decision last fall that permitted an undocumented immigrant teen in federal custody to have an abortion. Kavanaugh felt that the judges in the majority had created a new right for undocumented immigrant minors in U.S. government custody to obtain immediate abortion on demand. He emphasized instead the governments permissible interests in favoring fetal life and refraining from facilitating abortion.

While Kavanaughs known record exposing his extreme right-wing views on a range of matters gives Trump ample reason for his nomination, perhaps the greatest benefit that Trump sees in Kavanaughs confirmation is personal. With the Mueller investigation looming, Trump, no doubt, sees Kavanaugh as his protector. Kavanaugh has indicated that he does not believe sitting presidents should be indicted and has argued for a presidents power to remove a special counsel at will. He has candidly questioned the Supreme Court ruling that ordered President Richard Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes.

What we know about Kavanaughs record makes him unsuitable for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calls attacks on Kavanaugh an extreme distortion of his record, the cold, hard facts show that the only thing extreme in the equation is Kavanaughs views. Kavanaughs ideological leanings should give anyone who is concerned about the courts future and its role in preserving the hard-fought evolution of civil rights gained in the past 50 years, pause. This is a confirmation battle of significant proportion. Kavanaughs confirmation will affect the daily lives of Americans for generations to come.

Bobbie Stein is a Bay Area criminal defense and civil rights lawyer and a member of the Board of Governors of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice.
In the basement of a homeless youth facility on a recent afternoon, Rafael Mandelman, one of San Franciscos newest supervisors, sat at a table with several young adults whose personal stories werent far off from his own.

Many had left their own families and spent months  some of them, years  shuttling from place to place until, finally, someone gave them a chance. The supervisor, who himself moved from home to home as a child, listened carefully as each shared how they ended up at Larkin Street Youth Services. After about 30 minutes, he finally spoke.

So I just got on the Board of Supervisors a month ago, and everyone in San Francisco is talking about homelessness, he told the group. And Im supposed to solve it. So I need your help.

The group laughed. But he wasnt really kidding.

As the newly elected District Eight supervisor, Mandelman, whose mother suffered from severe mental illness and became unable to care for him, is determined to help the citys sick and homeless population. But first, he said, he needs to understand the problem. So during the August recess, a month that supervisors often spend on vacation, Mandelman and his team have been touring mental health facilities, shelters and nonprofits around the city.

So far, his team  the Mandelman Operation, as he jokingly called it during a tour of Larkin Street Youth Services  has taken 15 meetings, tours and site visits around the city, with 15 to 20 more planned through the end of September. The point, he said, is to get an idea of what is and isnt currently being done in the city.

Though he eventually hopes to integrate all this knowledge into some type of legislation, he said he doesnt have any grand conclusions yet.

But he has some takeaways. The first one?

If San Franciscans knew what was being done, both by the local government and nonprofits, they may feel a little better, he said from the East Coast, where he is spending a few days off before getting back to work. There are a lot of really committed public servants that are working really hard to grapple with this problem.

About $284 million of San Franciscos $11.1 billion budget goes toward homelessness services in the city through the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. This is spent on housing, ranging from shelters to permanent housing units, as well as new Navigation Centers, outreach teams, mental health and job counselors, and shelter workers.

Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said supervisors often take tours of mental health facilities and shelters around the city, but Mandelmans efforts are some of the most extensive shes seen.

Hes taking this time to really learn the system, she said. Its a huge eye opener ... You also get the perspective that the public doesnt have of how hard people are trying to get help, and how desperate they are and how much they get moved around constantly by police.

Other tours and meetings hes attended have been with the Healthy Streets Operations Center, a project that centralized the citys efforts to respond to nonemergency homelessness complaints, as well as with Episcopal Community Services, which helps homeless and low-income people obtain services such as housing, jobs and shelter.

Still, Mandelman said hes not naive to the blight on the streets: While he was on his circuit of tours, his office was flooded with complaints from District Eight residents about tent camps, drug use and human waste in their neighborhoods. And while the city has more than 1,000 shelter beds, the wait lists are still in the thousands every day.

The outreach is happening, he said. But is this the work that is actually going to make San Francisco more livable for neighbors and for housed people?

Specific changes Mandelman has supported include adding more psych beds and more subacute treatment facilities for people who are healthy enough to leave psychiatric wards, but still need attention. He also supports Sen. Scott Wieners proposal to strengthen the states conservatorship program for the mentally ill, which would give counties more control over their own approaches to committing people.

If it passes, Mandelman suggested he would look for ways to go even further, particularly when it comes to dealing with those people who wouldnt qualify for conservatorship, but are stuck looping in and out of hospitals and jails.

One of the biggest challenges, he said, is that as a politician he will be graded based on how many homeless people continue to sleep on the streets. But, he said, there are so many other issues percolating in the background, like how many elderly people cycle in and out of shelters. He said it is unacceptable that the city does not have a safe place for every sick and elderly person.

Rafael Mandelman

As he continues to search for solutions, Mandelman said he constantly thinks back to his experience trying to help his mother, who eventually became homeless and lived in a shelter: You have to figure out what you can reasonably do, and do in a consistent way.

Even after all of these tours, Mandelman said he still doesnt have the answer. But he said hes serious about helping find one.

Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani
Five months after retiring as head of one of Californias most powerful unions, RoseAnn DeMoro is back in politics.

DeMoro, who left the California Nurses Association in March after 32 years with the organization, has been appointed to the board of the Consumer Watchdog advocacy group.

Roseanne is a hell-raisers hell-raiser, Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court told The Chronicle Monday. When shes on your board, you know that she will call you up and push you to keep going further.

In June, Consumer Watchdog named DeMoro, 69, to its Consumer Advocate Hall of Fame.

Ive loved those guys (Consumer Watchdog) for years, DeMoro, a longtime confidant of consumer rights leader Ralph Nader, said Monday. Everybody says they dont like lawyers. But these guys are focused on taking care of everyday people.

DeMoro has already started advising the organization, focusing on ensuring that insurance companies cover victims of California wildfires. The issues resonates personally with DeMoro, as eight of her Napa County neighbors lost their homes in the fires and she has twice had to evacuate her residence over the past year.

As for her political future, DeMoro said she is still deciding what role she will take in the 2020 presidential elections. She is personally close with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. The nurses associations early advocacy of Sanders was key to his campaigns unexpected success. Sanders has not yet officially decided whether to run in 2020.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
Avocado toast is all the rage nowadays and the culinary obsession over the dish knows no boundaries: not even the airline lounge.

For the last few months, American Airlines has been dishing out complimentary, made-to-order avocado toast at its Admirals Club in Terminal 2 of San Francisco International Airport.

Fliers can customize their avocado smeared toast with an expansive selection of toppings: smoked salmon, chopped hard-boiled eggs, prosciutto, and tomatoes.

The toast is offered daily during the morning only, from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m.

American actually began serving the popular breakfast/ brunch dish at a handful of is airport lounges back in Spring 2018. The entree quickly grew to become a smashing success.

The airline expanded the avocado toast bars to 21 other lounges in June, including the location at SFO' Terminal 2. It follows the successful rollout of another dish that capitalizes on the avocado-craze: guacamole.

"Last year we introduced a guacamole station in the afternoons that has been very popular and over the summer we've been testing a few new items in a handful of our lounges," an American Airlines spokesperson told SFGate. "We rely on our customers feedback and testing them in actual lounges helps us adjust and make sure we're offering something our customers will enjoy."

Some of the new items being tested have included turkey sliders and pasta dishes that have been spotted at some Admirals Club locations.

If you thought adding millennial-favorite avocado toast was an attempt to woo younger fliers to American, you'd be mistaken. Based on what frequent fliers tell us, the dish has broad appeal.

On a recent visit to the SFO club, Dr. Ian Cutress couldn't help but notice who was lining up for the complimentary food.

"On announcement the queue was already 4-5 strong, all of whom were middle-to-late aged men in suits," he said.

American Airlines

American flier Evan Behar saw something similar on a recent visit.

"Most of the people in this lounge are one to two generations older than me," he tweeted, "I don't want to hear anyone yelling about millennials and their avocado toast ever again."

The avocado toast bars should be around for the foreseeable future given the rousing reception, although when asked, American declined to comment about how long they'd be around.

Access to Admirals Clubs is limited to members, day pass holders, and certain American and OneWorld elites traveling on specific itineraries, including First or Business class customers flying on American's transcontinental flights between San Francisco and New York-Kennedy.

What do you think of the fare at AA or other airline lounges? What's the best or worst thing you've eaten at an airport club? Please leave your thoughts in the comments of on our Facebook page.

Read all recent TravelSkills posts here

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Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis.
Mokena 159 was interested in this tax measure because our district does have facility projects and needs per our 10 year Capital Plan. However, after discussing the resolution at length in multiple board of education and finance committee meetings, as well as with our mayor and village administrator, we did not believe it was the best solution for our district and our community, board president Jennifer Riedl said.
A former church worker in the North Bay is suing her former church and church pastor, accusing him of manipulating her into a sexual affair that resulted in a pregnancy and subsequent abortion, and ultimately caused her to lose her job.

The woman, Kimberly Labozzetta, and her husband were members of a church in Novato called the Quest since 2011. The couple was attempting to deal with marital issues and turned to its pastor, Joe Everly, for counseling. Five years later, while still being counseled, Labozetta took a job with the church and worked for Everly as a project manager, according to the lawsuit.

RELATED: Marin County spends $17,500 to kill 23 rodents

It was then that Labozzetta claims Everly manipulated her into an extramarital affair. Things further escalated this February, when she says she realized she had become pregnant by him (her husband had had a vasectomy years before). When she told Everly of the pregnancy, he reportedly convinced her to seek an abortion, according to the Marin Independent Journal.

Labozzetta said that Everly used meetings at work and counseling sessions to "forge a sexual relationship" with her, going so far as to say that God "approved of their relationship." He had allegedly promised her that he would leave his wife and that they could get married and have children later on.

But instead, the suit claims, Everly told the small church congregation about the affair, which "caused her to be shamed before the congregation and lose her job." He ended the relationship with Labozzetta, which the lawsuit stated left her ostracized among churchgoers, and ultimately without employment because "her reputation in the religious community was thoroughly sullied."

RELATED: Tourists, shoppers targeted in rising Marin County car break-ins

Everly resigned from the church earlier this year, after working there for 15 years.

Labozzetta is now suing Everly and the church for a number of charges, including hostile work environment, sexual assault, sexual harassment, wrongful termination and retaliation. She is seeking unspecified damages.

Labozzetta and her husband Chris have been married nine years and have children. KGO reports that she believes she "was caught off-guard in time of weakness." She adds that the two are now working through their issues.

The president of the church board, Eric Brandt, told the Marin IJ that "our hearts go out to the affected people in this. We're just doing our best to take care of the people who attend the church."

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.


Sonoma County's "Super Mama" mountain lion has welcomed a new litter of adorable kittens.

The mountain lion, known as P1, gave birth to two babies on July 22 in the Kenwood area, according to Audubon Canyon Ranch researchers.

Wildlife cameras caught the babies nursing, playing and climbing all over their mom in the animals' hidden den. If you listen closely, you can even hear the 10-day-old kittens squealing.

P1 earned the "Super Mama" title because this is her third litter of kittens in just 18 months. The first two litters did not survive to adulthood. One of the kittens from her first litter, P2, was captured and killed in December under a depredation permit, after the cat killed two livestock in Glen Ellen.

Another one of her offspring, P6, survived the Nuns Fire, which burned 56,000 acres in Napa and Sonoma counties in October, only to be hunted late last month. The mountain lion was killed with permission from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife after it preyed on a landowner's goat.

READ MORE: Famous mountain lion cub that survived North Bay fires killed with Fish and Wildlife permit

"The killing of two of seven collared lions in the past year has impacted our study of the ecology of mountain lions in the Mayacamas range," said Quinton Martins, a lead researcher of ACR's Living with Lions project.

The survival rate for mountain lion kittens is about 50 percent, according to the research organization.

MORE PHOTOS: Tiny mountain lion kittens found in Sonoma County are the cutest thing you'll see all day

P1 is tagged with a GPS collar, so researchers can track her movements and study her behavior. P1 is 12 years old, which is close to the end of the expected lifespan for a mountain lion in this area.

SFGATE staff writer Michelle Robertson contributed to this story.

Read Alix Martichoux's latest stories and send her news tips at amartichoux@sfchronicle.com.

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CHAPEL HILL, N.C.  Top leaders of the University of North Carolina system condemned the actions of protesters, who toppled a memorial known as Silent Sam that was dedicated more than 100 years ago with praise for the Confederate veterans who terrorized former slaves.

The UNC president and the chairman of the Board of Governors promised a full criminal investigation of the events of Monday night, when the figure of a Southern soldier atop a tall stone pedestal was pulled down by protesters using banners to mask their action and ropes to pull down the statue.

The safety and security of our students, faculty, and staff is paramount, President Margaret Spellings and board chairman Harry Smith said in a statement Tuesday. And the actions last evening were unacceptable, dangerous, and incomprehensible. We are a nation of lawsand mob rule and the intentional destruction of public property will not be tolerated.

The statue, erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1913, had been under constant police surveillance after being vandalized in recent months, costing the university hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Protesters appeared to outwit officers by splitting into two groups. Most marched away from the statue while a smaller group surrounded it with banners on bamboo poles, concealing efforts to tie a rope around it. Then the groups converged and yanked it down, according to videos.

House Speaker Tim Moore also criticized the protesters, saying they should be arrested and prosecuted to make clear that mob rule and acts of violence will not be tolerated in our state.

Their statements were stronger than that of Chancellor Carol Folt, who didnt call for arrests and charges in her comment Monday night. Instead, she described the protesters actions as unlawful and dangerous.

Once the bronze form was toppled, Silent Sams face down in the dirt, demonstrators kicked it and cheered, chanting Tar Heels! and Whose Campus? Our Campus! as passing cars honked in approval. After it was covered with a tarp, video showed a backhoe picking up the statue and carting it away.

North Carolina ranks among the handful of Southern states with the most Confederate monuments , and has been a focal point in the national debate over them following a deadly white nationalist protest a year ago in Charlottesville, Va.

Martha Waggoner and Jonathan Drew are Associated Press writers.
Property owners already pay more than their fair share of the costs of local government, Cibon said. To hit them up with one more form of property taxation would be an unfair burden especially for those who are purchasing a home and have not even begun their ownership here.
Dane Delli, superintendent of Glenview School District 34, said STEM classes are not elective so it is not possible to measure a gender gap in those subjects in the districts schools. He said the district is doing what it can to make sure one does not exist as students are sent to high school.
Jordon D. Linson-Currie was pulled over about 3 p.m. Thursday at Virginia Road and Darlington Lane in Crystal Lake for using an electronic device, a McHenry County Sheriffs Office news release said. When officers smelled marijuana in his car, they conducted a search and found 59 grams of individually packaged cannabis, 13 bars of prescription Xanax, a scale, packaging material and $620 in cash, the release said.
You have to have a lot of strength if youre going to hold to values like believing in yourself, respecting others, displaying self control and also saying no to bullying.
However, a solution to keep the building in the community seems to be taking shape. A group of Evanston residents, led by Rose Johnson, a former teacher and Evanston/Skokie School District 65 school board member, is raising money to buy the building and lease it back to Family Focus. The hope is to keep those social services at a key location and gathering spot in the community.
All criminal cases involving juveniles submitted this year in Alameda County are being reviewed after the county Public Defender's Office provided evidence that sheriff's deputies have been recording confidential conversations between juvenile suspects and their defense attorneys.



One case has already been thrown out because of the revelations, according to the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.



Eavesdropping on confidential attorney conversations is a felony under California law punishable by up to three years in prison. District attorney's spokeswoman Teresa Drenick said her office is investigating whether criminal charges are warranted.



"Our review of the matters is ongoing," Drenick said in an email. "Upholding the Constitution is the highest priority of this Office, including protecting the attorney/client privilege."



Public Defender Brendon Woods revealed Monday that his office had obtained evidence that deputies with the Alameda County Sheriff's Office have been recording conversations between public defenders and juvenile suspects in custody.



Woods filed a motion in a juvenile case asking an Alameda County Superior Court judge to order the sheriff's office to cease all recording of privileged communications with defense attorneys.



According to the motion, the public defender's office obtained body camera footage of a conversation between deputies as part of evidence turned over in a criminal case.



In the video, which was attached to the motion, sheriff's Sgt. James Russell tells Lt. Timothy Schellenberg that he has been recording conversations between attorneys and clients at the Eden Township Substation.



"What if he decides to molest them in there, then we're on the hook," Russell said, apparently justifying the practice.



"How is that not privileged information?" Schellenberg asks.



"Well it is, but then it just doesn't get admissible," Russell said.



"The recorded conversation between Sergeant Russell and Lieutenant Schellenberg plainly shows that the Sheriff's Department is engaged in an ongoing practice of recording privileged attorney-client conversations," the motion stated. "This appears to be felony misconduct."



The motion says that Woods sent a letter to Sheriff Gregory Ahern on July 30 asking him to stop recording attorney-client conversations, pointing out that the practice is illegal under California law. The public defender's office says Woods did not receive a response.



A spokesman for the sheriff's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment today.





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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)



A driver accused of being drunk when he fatally struck a bicyclist and then fled the scene last week in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood has pleaded not guilty to his charges.



This morning, a visibly upset Michael Smith, 41, appeared for his arraignment, keeping his head down the entire time.



Smith has been charged with murder, among other charges, for the collision that killed bicyclist Gregory Blackman, 65, at the intersection of Turk and Taylor streets at about 5:50 p.m. on Aug. 14.



Outside of court, his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Anita Nabha said, "Our deepest condolences go out to the family of Gregory Blackman and his community. This is an absolute tragedy and it was apparent to anyone in the courtroom that Michael Smith is devastated by this."



Nabha called the collision a "tragic accident" and described Smith as "a hard-working, responsible man who is moving up in the ranks of his job," adding that he's also a father to a newborn girl.



In addition to murder, Smith has been charged with gross vehicular manslaughter, driving under the influence of alcohol causing injury, driving with a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol concentration causing injury, and hit-and-run causing serious and permanent injury or death.



Court documents allege that prior to the fatal collision, Smith had been drinking in Oakland. When he decided to drive to San Francisco, Smith's wife warned him not to drive because he was drunk.



Smith instead took her BMW and drove to San Francisco, while continuing to drink wine. Court documents allege that Smith had a second wine bottle in the passenger compartment of the car.



Surveillance cameras showed that once in San Francisco, Smith made a right turn onto Turk Street from Mason Street. He then sped up as he went west on Turk Street.



Despite nearly hitting a pedestrian on the side of the street, Smith continued to speed on Turk Street as he approached Taylor Street.



At the same time, Blackman was riding his bicycle, heading north on Taylor Street. Although Blackman went against a red light at the intersection, court documents allege that traffic was moving slowly and the roadway appeared to be clear from Blackman's vantage point.



As Smith continued to speed down Turk Street, he didn't see that Blackman was riding his bike through the intersection and struck him. The impact caused Blackman to be thrown several feet into the air before he fell and hit the pavement.



As a Blackman lay in the street bleeding, Smith allegedly backed up the BMW and veered it around Blackman and continued to drive to the end of the block.



A mob of witnesses, however, chased his car and he stopped in a parking lot near Turk and Jones streets. Once police arrived, the witnesses pointed Smith out to the officers, according to court documents.



Medical personnel took Blackman to the hospital, where he died a short while later.



Smith initially denied striking Blackman, but then said to officers "I did it, I'm drunk, I drove, just take me to 850 (Bryant Street)," "now I'm in trouble, I got life in jail now," and "it's over, I am going to jail for life," according to court documents.



Smith has already had two previous DUI convictions. Additionally, he's had several other previous convictions dating as far back as 1999, which include grand theft, robbery, reckless driving, transporting a controlled substance, assault and battery, human trafficking and pimping and pandering.



Following Blackman's death, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition said it would work with police and Supervisor Jane Kim to evaluate opportunities to advocate for further safety improvements to the intersection.



Both Turk and Taylor streets have been identified by the city's Department of Public Health as high-injury corridors.



Smith remains in custody without bail and will return to court on Aug. 28.





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OAKLAND (BCN)



East Bay elected officials today called on Gov. Jerry Brown to phase out oil and gas drilling, saying they are concerned that fossil fuel production threatens the health and safety of residents in their cities.



Speaking at a news conference on the steps of Oakland City Hall, the elected officials said that if Brown doesn't act, they won't support the Global Climate Action Summit he will host in San Francisco in September.



"Despite its reputation as a global climate leader, California is one of the nation's top oil-producing states," Oakland City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan said.



"As we see the crisis of growing fires, we should take the opportunity to improve both our economy and our public health by moving toward more sustainable transportation and energy strategies that benefit our community," Kaplan said.



Kaplan said oil produced in California is some of the dirtiest and most damaging to the climate in the world, and during Brown's tenure as governor more than 20,000 permits for new drilling have been issued.



She also called on Brown to ban hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, in California, alleging that it harms the state's drinking water.



Kaplan said, "The poisoning of wells is an act of war" and said she opposes "allowing an industry to poison the wells of California."



The elected officials who spoke at the news conference said thousands of oil and gas wells operate next to homes and schools, releasing toxic air pollutants that cause cancer, asthma and other health problems.



They said drilling often occurs disproportionately in low-income communities and communities of color that already suffer from some of the worst air quality in the nation.



Richmond City Councilwoman Jovanka Beckles said many children in her city suffer from asthma, and said ending oil and gas drilling is "a matter of our very survival."



Beckles said drilling close to homes is "a huge injustice in the name of environmental racism."



Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin said problems caused by oil and gas drilling are "a public health issue and a social justice issue" and called for California to become "a truly fossil-free and carbon-free state."



Arreguin said, "We call on the governor to face the emergency that faces the planet."



Oakland City Councilman Dan Kalb said stopping oil and gas drilling is "a moral imperative."



Christian Brock of Elected Officials to Protect California said more than 150 local officials from a majority of the counties across the state are calling on Brown to phase out oil and gas drilling.



In a statement, Brown's press secretary, Evan Westrup, said, "Clearly, the world needs to curb its use of oil and the phase-out is already underway in California, where the state is committed to cutting consumption in half."



Westrup said, "At the same time, oil production in California has dropped 56 percent" since 1985.



"There's a reason the White House and fossil fuel companies fight California on almost a daily basis -- no jurisdiction in the Western Hemisphere is doing more on climate," he said.



Westrup also cited U.S. Energy Information Administration statistics that show that California has dropped to being only the No. 6 oil-producing state in the nation and last year its production declined by about 33,000 barrels per day, marking the third straight year of losses.





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By Bay City News Story



Joseph James DeAngelo, who is believed to be the Golden State Killer, is facing four felony counts of kidnapping during the course of a robbery stemming from alleged crimes that occurred in Contra Costa County, District Attorney Diana Becton said today during a news conference in Orange County with five other district attorneys.



All four of those alleged crimes involved a sexual assault, according to district attorney's spokesman Scott Alonso, but will not be charged as such due to the statute of limitations.



"We know that there were sexual assaults here in our county, but I think the bottom line is that the statute of limitations has passed," Alonso said. "We can't include any of that in the charges."



California's statute of limitations for sexual abuse was eliminated in 2016, but that only applies to crimes committed on or after Jan. 1, 2017. The alleged crimes that occurred in Contra Costa County occurred in 1978 and 1979.



"For decades he evaded justice and devastated communities across California," Becton said this morning.



"Due to the severity of these crimes, these victims often face tremendous trauma after so much time has passed," Becton said. "Thankfully we can now hold someone accountable for these crimes and seek justice for our victims."



When he goes to trial, DeAngelo could be facing up to four life sentences plus 10 additional years, and prosecutors said he is eligible for the death penalty. At minimum, he's still facing life in state prison without the possibility of parole.



The criminal complaint against Deangelo currently includes a total of 26 counts stemming from crimes to alleged to have occurred in Santa Barbara, Ventura, Tulare, and Orange counties as well as Sacramento County - where the case will go to trial.



Prosecutors said charging the crimes Deangelo allegedly committed on a statewide basis would allow for greater efficiency and swifter justice.



"It is very fitting that this journey for justice that has been sought for over 40 years ends in Sacramento," Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said this morning.



Deangelo's arrest was announced in April, and he is slated to be arraigned on an amended felony complaint on Thursday afternoon in Sacramento County Superior Court.



Denagelo allegedly committed 51 rapes and 12 murders across 10 different counties between 1976 and 1986. He worked as a police officer from 1973 to 1979.





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Gov. Jerry Brown has commuted the sentences of two men convicted of murder in Alameda County, saying he believes both men have turned their lives around.



The commutations for David Bom Le, now 34, and Virgil Holt, now 50, were among 31 commutations that Brown issued on Friday. The governor also pardoned 36 ex-convicts.



In March 2007 an Alameda County Superior Court jury convicted Le of second-degree murder and a gun-use enhancement for fatally shooting 22-year-old Chau Tran in the 1900 block of Crosby Street in Oakland on June 4, 2006, when Brown was still mayor of Oakland.



On Feb. 1, 2018, Judge Thomas Reardon sentenced Le to 40 years to life in state prison, giving him 15 years to life for second-degree murder plus 25 years to life for the gun enhancement.



Brown said that because Le was only 22 at the time of the shooting, he would have been eligible for youthful offender parole consideration in 2030 because of U.S. and California Supreme Court decisions and changes in state laws.



But Brown said he believes Le "has earned an earlier opportunity to make his case" to the state Board of Parole Hearings because he's been "a model prisoner," is working toward a college degree, has participated in self-help programs and has volunteered as a literacy tutor and student teaching assistant.



In addition, Brown said Le serves as circulation manager for the San Quentin News and has earned strong support from the prison newspaper's staff.



In his commutation application, Le said, "Recognizing the harm I have caused, I have committed myself to living upright, to come to terms with and cope with my feelings, to think twice about my decisions and to serve my community."



Le wrote, "I am committed to living a nonviolent, crime-free and productive life in the interest of my community."



Holt was convicted of murder, false imprisonment and a firearm enhancement and sentenced to life in prison without parole for fatally shooting Kwami Davis, his supervisor at a fast-food restaurant in Alameda County, on April 19, 1989, three months after Davis fired him, according to Brown.



Holt has acknowledged "the significant impact of his crime" but applied for clemency based on his record of rehabilitation, Brown said.



Holt wrote in his application, "I am no longer the out-of-control, reckless and irresponsible person that I was nearly 30 years ago."



Brown said, "I do not discount the gravity of Mr. Holt's offense, but I also cannot overlook the many strides he has made in prison."



The governor said, "It appears (Holt) has made a major change and has been seriously dedicated to turning his life around," as he has participated in self-help programs and works as a trainer for shelter dogs to prepare them for adoption.



Brown said, I believe it is appropriate to reduce his sentence so that the Board of Parole Hearings can determine whether he is suitable for parole."





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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)



A San Francisco man has been found guilty in San Francisco County Superior Court of stalking and domestic violence, having been accused of using a GPS tracking device to stalk his former boyfriend and follow him, District Attorney George Gascon announced today.



According to prosecutors, Joshua Elliott, 45, of San Francisco used a GPS device to stalk his former boyfriend and then sent him a series of threatening texts.



A jury returned its verdict Friday afternoon after five hours of deliberation.



According to prosecutors, Joshua Elliott, 45, had dated and lived with the victim for two months in 2017. However, the victim ended the relationship after he noticed increasingly possessive and controlling behavior by Elliott, Gascon said in a statement.



In December 2017, Elliott purchased a GPS tracking device and attached it to the victim's vehicle, unbeknownst to the victim. Then in early January, Elliott sent a text message to the victim suggesting he knew where the victim was.



On Jan. 17, the victim was leaving Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital around 2 a.m. when Elliott texted him. At the same time, the victim noticed that Elliott was driving by slowly and staring at him outside the hospital.



About a week later, at his home in San Pablo, the victim went out to walk his dog along with a friend. They found Elliott sitting nearby, and Elliott then confronted the victim, insisting that if the victim didn't do as Elliott told him, things were going to "get worse" for the victim, prosecutors said.



In another instance, on Feb. 16, the victim was driving across the Bay Bridge when he noticed a car driving at the same speed next to him. The victim realized the other driver was Elliott. Although the victim took a detour to avoid Elliott, when he arrived at work, Elliott was in parking lot waiting for him. Elliott then approached the victim and tried to stop him from entering his work, telling him that he "won't be doing this everyday."



When the victim asked what Elliott meant by that, he said that the victim would not be "getting up everyday" after that.



Elliott then realized that the victim was recording the confrontation with his cellphone, and when Elliott tried to take the victim's phone a struggle ensued. A bystander intervened, prompting Elliott to flee. The victim, who suffered minor injuries to his hand and back, contacted police immediately.



On Feb. 20, while the victim was at the Hall of Justice in San Francisco giving a follow-up statement to police regarding the Feb. 16 incident, Elliott sent the victim a text message.



"What do you know? While meandering around the city, I happened to see your car by the courthouse. Could be a work coincidence," Elliott's message said.



On Feb. 23, the victim, convinced he was being followed, found a magnetic box - a SpyTec tracking device - stuck to the driver's side rear wheel well of his car. The victim took photos of the device, but then placed it back onto his car, fearing what Elliott might do if he discovered the device was missing.



The next day, the victim drove to Georgetown in El Dorado County to visit his mother's property. The suspect then texted the victim: "I don't suppose I have to tell you how beautiful the property is."



On Feb. 25, while still at his mother's house, the victim noticed that the tracking device had been removed from his car.



Weeks later, on March 9, the victim received several text messages from Elliott saying, "today was the day," and that the day marked a "turning point." That same day, the victim noticed that the GPS tracking device has been put back onto his vehicle.



Terrified by what appeared to be threats, the victim again removed the GPS tracking device.



On March 21, the victim parked his car at his work's parking lot and decided to sleep. The victim had been staying at work since the incidents with Elliott began, partly because he knew there were security cameras there.



While in his car, the victim noticed a car drive by without headlights on. The victim then pulled out of the parking lot and noticed that the vehicle without headlights on was Elliott's.



As the victim called 911 to report Elliott, Elliott followed him. After following for two miles, the victim stopped to meet with officers who were dispatched to the scene.



Later that day, the victim again noticed Elliott in his car outside his work and again called police. Once again, Elliott fled.



Officers were eventually able to track him down and arrest him after obtaining a warrant.



Elliott had been tracking the victim using a geofence feature, which alerted him when the victim's car approached certain locations - in this case, the victim's mother's home, the victim's home, the victim's workplace, the victim's grandmother's home and the victim's friend's home in Roseville, according to prosecutors.



"This victim was absolutely terrorized by his stalker; he was living in fear," Gascon said in the statement. "I commend him for getting out of an abusive relationship, and I urge anyone living in fear to come forward and to contact authorities. We are here to help."



"When a decision to end a relationship is met with threats, harassment and intimidation, that is criminal, and there will be consequences," Assistant District Attorney Courtney Burris said in a statement.



Elliott is set to be sentenced on Sept. 21.





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A: Mr. Simms, played by Keith David, is hired by a racist and sexist billionaire to tell stories his robot police force can learn from. The tales are about lust, greed, pride and politics. Theres horror, comedy, and social commentary with each story completely different from the next. The creators of the original, Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott, are back writing and directing five tales with Spike Lee returning as executive producer. I edited three of the five segments  the ones written and directed by Rusty Cundieff. Before meeting Rusty, I was a big fan of his work so this opportunity was a dream come true. The movie is coming out Oct. 2 on Digital and Blu-Ray, just in time for Halloween.
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)



An 85-year-old man was arrested over the weekend after he allegedly shot his nephew during a dispute at the San Francisco apartment building where they live, according to police.



Around 8:50 a.m. Saturday, officers responded to a report of a shooting in the 1100 block of Fell Street.



There, they discovered that a 49-year-old man had confronted his uncle and during the confrontation, the uncle shot him.



The victim was taken to a hospital for a gunshot wound that was not considered life-threatening, police said.



The suspect, identified by police as Bobby Dawkins, has been booked into jail on suspicion of aggravated assault with a firearm.





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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)



San Francisco police are investigating shots that were fired into a building in the city's Potrero Hill neighborhood on Monday night.



No one was injured in the shooting, which was reported at 9:51 p.m. on Watchman Way.



A 44-year-old woman reported hearing two males talking, then heard gunshots that broke windows, according to police.



Officers responded and found spent shell casings, but no arrests have been made and no suspect information was immediately available.



Anyone with information about the case is encouraged to call the Police Department's anonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444.





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Mollie Tibbetts, a 20-year-old woman with ties to the Bay Area, is believed to have been found dead after going missing last month from the small Iowa city where she was living.



The Iowa Department of Public Safety has scheduled a news conference for this afternoon regarding the case and confirmed a body was found earlier today in rural Poweshiek County.



Tibbetts, who was a student at the University of Iowa, lived in Oakland as a child before moving to Iowa, and her father works for an architecture firm in San Francisco.



She had last been seen on the evening of July 18 while jogging in Brooklyn, Iowa.



The news conference where authorities are expected to release more information about the case is scheduled for 4 p.m. Central time at the Poweshiek County Sheriff's Office in Iowa.







All criminal cases involving juveniles submitted this year in Alameda County are being reviewed after the county Public Defender's Office provided evidence that sheriff's deputies have been recording confidential conversations between juvenile suspects and their defense attorneys.



One case has already been thrown out because of the revelations, according to the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.



Eavesdropping on confidential attorney conversations is a felony under California law punishable by up to three years in prison. District attorney's spokeswoman Teresa Drenick said her office is investigating whether criminal charges are warranted.



"Our review of the matters is ongoing," Drenick said in an email. "Upholding the Constitution is the highest priority of this Office, including protecting the attorney/client privilege."







A driver accused of being drunk when he fatally struck a bicyclist and then fled the scene last week in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood has pleaded not guilty to his charges.



This morning, a visibly upset Michael Smith, 41, appeared for his arraignment, keeping his head down the entire time.



Smith has been charged with murder, among other charges, for the collision that killed bicyclist Gregory Blackman, 65, at the intersection of Turk and Taylor streets at about 5:50 p.m. on Aug. 14.



Outside of court, his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Anita Nabha said, "Our deepest condolences go out to the family of Gregory Blackman and his community. This is an absolute tragedy and it was apparent to anyone in the courtroom that Michael Smith is devastated by this."



In addition to murder, Smith has been charged with gross vehicular manslaughter, driving under the influence of alcohol causing injury, driving with a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol concentration causing injury, and hit-and-run causing serious and permanent injury or death.







A former counselor and clinical director at the Hanna Boys Center in Sonoma was sentenced today in Sonoma County Superior Court to 21 years in prison for oral copulation with four underage boys.



Kevin Scott Thorpe, 40, of Rohnert Park, faced a trial in Sonoma County Superior Court on 64 counts of sexual abuse with three boys at the Santa Rosa Catholic Diocese's youth center and with a boy he knew outside of it between 2007 and 2017. Two of the victims who attended the youth center are brothers.



Thorpe pleaded no contest to 10 felony counts of oral copulation with boys in their early teens in June and August 2007 and one misdemeanor count of annoying a victim in 2017. The victims now are 25, 27 and 18 years old.



Thorpe's defense attorney Joseph Stogner said the charges Thorpe pleaded to involve five specific acts involving the four boys.



Thorpe declined to make a statement to the court, but Stogner said his client is truly remorseful and understands the pain and trauma he caused the victims and their families.







A man killed Sunday night in San Francisco has been identified by the city's medical examiner's office as 42-year-old Scott Turner.



Police believe Turner, a San Francisco resident, was attacked by an assailant in the 900 block of Geary Street, between Larkin and Polk streets, around 10:25 p.m.



Turner was taken to a hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.



Police said an "edged weapon" was involved but have not released further details about how he died. No arrests have been made and Turner's death is being investigated as a homicide.







A 32-year-old San Jose man was arrested following a more than four-hour standoff after he allegedly assaulted his mother and brandished a firearm at officers on Monday afternoon, according to San Jose police.



Police said the suspect, Anthony Muscarella, was taken into custody around 6:10 p.m., after his mother called police to report he had allegedly hit her at the residence in the 2200 block of Luz Avenue around 1:30 p.m.



According to police, when officers arrived, they found the mother outside the home and Muscarella came to the door with a gun and returned back inside the home.



Police said a perimeter was established around the apartment, and neighboring residences were evacuated as negotiations with Muscarella began.



Muscarella eventually surrendered without incident and has been booked into Santa Clara County Jail on suspicion of battery, resisting arrest, criminal threats and being a felon in possession of a firearm.







A motorcyclist not wearing a helmet suffered major injuries in a suspected drunk driving crash in Petaluma on Monday evening, according to police.



Petaluma police officers responded at 6:05 p.m. to a report of a motorcycle crash in the 400 block of Hopper Street and arrived to find 30-year-old Hank LaFranchi, who was taken to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.



Investigators determined LaFranchi was speeding on the motorcycle north on Hopper Street but did not navigate a turn in the road and went off the roadway, then struck a utility box and railroad tracks before coming to rest in a field, police said.



Police said it appears LaFranchi was not wearing a helmet, and the odor of alcohol was detected on him. A blood sample was obtained for analysis and LaFranchi remains at the hospital in stable condition this morning.







San Francisco police are investigating shots that were fired into a building in the city's Potrero Hill neighborhood on Monday night.



No one was injured in the shooting, which was reported at 9:51 p.m. on Watchman Way.



A 44-year-old woman reported hearing two males talking, then heard gunshots that broke windows, according to police.



Officers responded and found spent shell casings, but no arrests have been made and no suspect information was immediately available.







Cal Fire has awarded a grant of more than $1 million to help Sonoma County clear hazardous trees and vegetation along roadways in the northwest area of the county.



The $1,082,969 grant will support the county's Transportation and Public Works Department's proposed Road Safety, Fuels Reduction and Community Chipper and Engagement project for more than three years starting in October.



The county will access and remove fuel risks and tree mortality within the public right of way on 83 miles of roads in the Guerneville, Rio Nido, Monte Rio, Cazadero and Timber Cove areas. The result will be safer access and egress for firefighters and the public in the event of a wildfire, county officials said.





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SAN MATEO (BCN)



Two men were jailed over the weekend after their arrests in connection with the violent robbery of a 7-Eleven store Saturday that left a sales clerk with serious injuries, San Mateo police said.



Police were called about 4:30 a.m. Saturday to the 7-Eleven store at 600 E. Third Ave., and found the store clerk lying on the ground. The clerk was taken to a nearby hospital; police viewed security camera footage and broadcast descriptions of the two robbery suspects, police said.



Officers searching the area went to a second convenience store and gas station on Fourth Avenue a block from the 7-Eleven; as the officer walked in, a clerk there was calling police to report a man causing a disturbance. Police tried to detain that man, 21-year-old Melton Nau of San Leandro, who matched the description of one suspect on the 7-Eleven video. Police said Nau attacked an officer trying to detain him, but that he was eventually subdued and identified as a suspect in the earlier robbery.



At about 11:45 p.m. Sunday, police tracked the second suspect to the 1200 block of Polk Street in San Francisco. The suspect, identified as Talia Opeti, 18, of Hayward, was arrested there without incident. Opeti had a loaded (and stolen) firearm in his possession, police said.



Nau was arrested on suspicion of robbery (7-Eleven), attempted robbery (at the second convenience store), assault with great bodily injury, criminal threats, resisting arrest and conspiracy.



Opeti was arrested on suspicion of robbery, assault with great bodily injury, carrying a concealed weapon, being a felon in possession of a firearm and conspiracy. Both were booked into the San Mateo County Jail.









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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced today it has reached a settlement with a nonprofit housing group to resolve a claim that a wheelchair user was discriminated against when she applied for an apartment at a senior complex in Santa Cruz.



The settlement was reached with Garfield Park Village LP and its nonprofit parent company Christian Church Homes.



Christian Church Homes, based in Oakland, operates 57 affordable housing communities for about 5,000 seniors in seven states. Garfield Park Village has 94 units.



The federal agency and the unnamed rental applicant alleged Garfield Park Village discriminated against her by refusing to allow her to make some reasonable modifications in an accessible apartment it offered her.



Garfield Park Village then allegedly passed over her application and rented the unit to a family that was lower on the waiting list and had no member who needed the accessible features of the apartment.



Under the settlement, the wheelchair user will return to the top of the waiting list for an accessible unit and will receive a $7,500 payment. Christian Church Homes will consider reasonable accommodation requests such as removal of raised thresholds and installation of vinyl flooring instead of carpeting.



The organization also agreed not to rent accessible units to families not in need of accessible features when there is an applicant on the waiting list who does need those features.



The settlement document states the organization denies having discriminated, but is agreeing to the settlement to resolve the claim.



The housing department, known as HUD, contended the alleged bias violated the U.S. Fair Housing Act of 1968 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which forbid discrimination on the basis of disability in federally funded programs.



The applicant at the Santa Cruz complex had a HUD housing choice voucher, which subsidizes private marking rentals for people who are elderly, very low-income or disabled.



Anna Mara Faras, the assistant HUD secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity, said in a statement, "Requests for reasonable accommodations aren't requests for special treatment. They give persons with disabilities the opportunity to fully enjoy their homes."



She said HUD officials hope the settlement will "help other housing providers to recognize and comply with their obligation to uphold the nation's housing laws."



Christian Church Homes Chief Executive Officer Don Stump said, "Both parties are happy with the settlement," but said he could not comment on the details.



Stump said that most of the seniors his organization serves in the seven states receive some kind of financial assistance for housing from HUD.





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A suspect has been arrested and charged with the murder of Mollie Tibbetts, a 20-year-old student in Iowa with ties to the Bay Area who went missing while jogging last month.



Christian Behena Rivera, 24, was first contacted by authorities on Monday after investigators used video evidence to identify his black Chevrolet Malibu, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Rick Rahn said at a news conference today.



Rivera led investigators to a cornfield in rural Poweshiek County early this morning, where a body believed to be Tibbetts was recovered. An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday, Rahn said.



Tibbetts had last been seen jogging in Brooklyn, Iowa -- a city of about 1,500 people 70 miles east of Des Moines -- on the evening of July 18.



Her disappearance was widely reported. As many as 40 investigators were assigned to the case and a large reward was offered for information leading to her recovery. Investigators received more than 4,000 tips.



But the break in the case came from canvassing the area in Brooklyn where Tibbetts had last been seen. A resident with surveillance cameras turned over footage to investigators, who were able to use it to spot Tibbetts as well as a dark Malibu driving back and forth in the area, Rahn said.



The car was determined to be connected to Rivera. Investigators found Rivera and questioned him, and he told them he had encountered a woman running and tried to talk to her.



He parked his car, got out and started running alongside of her and behind her. Eventually she pulled out her phone and told him, "I'm gonna call the police," according to a criminal affidavit signed by Poweshiek County sheriff's Deputy Steve Kivi.



After that, Rivera said his memory was "blocked," which he told investigators happens after he gets angry or upset.



According to the affidavit, Rivera recalled regaining consciousness while driving. He made a U-turn and then drove back to an entrance to a field and into a cornfield. There was a headphone earpiece in his lap and Rivera remembered he had put the woman in his trunk, Kivi wrote.



Rivera opened the trunk and saw blood on Tibbetts' head, according to Kivi. Rivera then dragged her out of the car to a secluded area of the cornfield, covered her in leaves and left her, Kivi wrote.



After he was interviewed, investigators said that Rivera guided them to the cornfield, where they discovered a body presumed to be Tibbetts.



Rivera has been charged with first-degree murder. He was determined to be an undocumented immigrant by Homeland Security Investigations and had been in the U.S. for four to seven years, according to Rahn. He remains in custody on $1 million bail.



Tibbetts was a student at the University of Iowa. She lived in Oakland as a child before moving to Iowa, and her father works for an architecture firm in San Francisco.





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All of us use electronic communication much more frequently in our lives, said President Elizabeth Garlovsky, noting that use of email can help the board operate efficiently. Emails can be used to push out information. If we are trying to schedule a meeting, does this date work for people is a question that shouldnt require many layers of communication.
This year we have a new walking dinosaur, the dilophosaurus that interacts with children, he said. Jurassic Park labeled it as a dinosaur that spit venom out, but it did not actually do that. It was also portrayed to have a frill around its neck, but it doesnt. We like to show them the real dilophosaurus. Theyre shocked when they find out.
I do not police it, Burton said, because Lawlor is an independent elected official. Burton added that once all the receipts are in, he signs off on the account. For the past few months, he has not signed off on Lawlors account because it was missing receipts.
The Illinois State Police has just indicated that they will officially assume this investigation. During our initial discussions with ISP, they requested that their involvement in this case not be made public until they completed their internal process of formally accepting this investigation. That process has now concluded, he said in a statement.
Around 10 p.m. on July 26, an officer saw two men walking up to the Shell gas station at 901 Sheridan Road, according to a news release. Both were attempting to conceal their faces with their shirts and one was armed with a handgun, the release said.
The lab that "put the silicon in Silicon Valley" does not exist anymore  it was torn down last year to make room for a shopping center  but its lasting impact cannot be overestimated.

In 1956, William B. Shockley's semiconductor laboratory on San Antonio Road in Mountain View was a small firm developing devices for a new invention, the transistor. But it started a revolution in technology  some would argue unwittingly that touches almost every aspect of modern life. On Wednesday, the Computer History Museum in the city commemorated Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory and its legacy.

The legacy of its founder, however, remains tainted.

Shockley was a genius, the winner of the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics with two other Bell Labs scientists for co-inventing the transistor, which has been called the most important invention of the 20th century. Without it, there would be no computers, cell phones or flat-screen TVs. You wouldn't able to read this either, as there would be no Internet.

But Shockley the brilliant scientist had a another side  white supremacist and eugenics proponent. He was convinced that race-based IQ differences existed and spent most of his career after the 1960s promoting his racist theories and a high IQ-sperm bank.

As the National Geographic explains:

"In particular, he warned of 'retrogressive evolution' because he believed blacks were reproducing faster than what he considered to be intellectually superior whites. His proposed 'solutions' included replacing the welfare system with financial incentives for 'genetically disadvantaged' individuals to allow themselves to be sterilized."

Shockley was also by multiple accounts a horrible boss, paranoid and autocratic. Joel Shurkin, who wrote the Shockley biography "Broken Genius," told NPR he may have been the worst manager in the history of electronics.

The prize-winning physicist had a terrific talent for recruiting the best and brightest people, but instead of inspiring and motivating his hires, he would instead gradually undermine them and sap their confidence.

C. Sheldon Roberts, a metallurgist hand-picked by Shockley, described the process to Michael A. Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times in 2001:

"When he hired you, you were the greatest person in the world," says Roberts. "Then slowly you worked your way down the line. First you were brilliant. Then, 'You're doing a good job.' Then, 'You're capable, but I'm unsure about you ... Now I'm really unsure ... Now I think you're inadequate. I don't think you can do the job for me.' He kept a black book on everybody."

MORE: How much money do you have to make to live comfortably in SF?

Shockley's relentless micromanagement and second-guessing of his team's research made the hotshot engineers and physicists miserable. In one instance, they were ordered to take polygraph tests because Shockley was convinced the lab was being sabotaged. (It wasn't.)

The tyrannical management style led to Shockley Semiconductor's doom. Its founder's "obtuse, arbitrary decisions alienated his team and blocked it from shipping actual products," Scott Rosenberg wrote in Wired.

Ironically, Shockley was so difficult to work for, he inspired a mass revolt of his "traitorous eight" PhD graduates, who would go on to seed Silicon Valley's tech boom.

The Eight founded the pioneering firm Fairchild Semiconductor, an arm of Sherman Fairchild, before breaking away to form startups of their own. Those ventures would lead to companies that have come to define the Valley  Intel, AMD, Microchip Technology and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, to name just a few.

While his alienated underlings reaped riches and glory, Shockley lab stagnated. Shockley finally succeeded in manufacturing his pet project, the four-layer diode, but hampered by inconsistency, it failed commercially. Shockley Semiconductor was sold in 1960 and again in 1965.

Schockley didn't make a dime from his company, Shurkin says.

Shockley left to take an engineering professorship at Stanford, where he became obsessed with racial genetics despite having no training in the field. He began espousing his radical beliefs in public forums.

In 1980, he told a Playboy interviewer that he had come "inescapably to the opinion that the major cause for the American Negroes' intellectual and social deficits is . . . racially genetic in origin and thus not remediable to a major degree by practical improvements in environment."

MORE: A new breed of ski bum: Working in Silicon Valley, living in Tahoe

Two years later he ran on a eugenics platform for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat. He finished eighth.

At Stanford, people stopped talking to him. He was shunned by the faculty and abandoned by his old friends. He was even estranged from his three children, whom he thought were intellectually inferior to him.

Hiltzik writes that Shockley may not have even recognized that his most enduring contribution  inadvertent though it may have been  was launching the "defining phenomenon of Silicon Valley, its explosive proliferation of new companies begotten from old."

Read Mike Moffitt's latest stories and send him news tips at mmoffitt@sfchronicle.com.

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PRAGUE  A ceremony to honor the victims of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia on Tuesday turned into a protest against Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis.

Hundreds jeered and booed Babis arrival for a ceremony in front of the Czech public radio building in downtown Prague, a site of a fierce street battle between unarmed civilians and invading troops in the first hours of occupation where 17 people died.

Shame, shame..., the crowd chanted while blowing horns and whistles during his speech.

Babis didnt immediately react to the protest.

Babis, a populist billionaire, is a controversial figure because of a power-sharing deal with the maverick Communist Party and fraud charges he is facing. His position is also complicated by allegations he collaborated with the former communist-era secret police.

Troops from the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance formed in 1955 between the Soviet Union and seven Eastern European nations, invaded Czechoslovakia on Aug. 20, 1968 to crush liberal reforms enacted in the brief era known as the Prague Spring. The democratic reforms were led by then-under First Secretary of the Communist Party Alexander Dubcek.

Unarmed people could not stop the armies, and the occupying troops stayed for over 20 years and withdrew only after the 1989 Velvet Revolution led by the late Vaclav Havel.

According to historians, 137 people were killed by Warsaw Pact soldiers in 1968 alone, and more than 400 died during the occupation of Czechoslovakia.

The country was subsequently taken over by a hard-line Communist regime fully loyal to Moscow.

In Brussels, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that Europe isnt divided by an Iron Curtain any more.

But let us use this day of solemn commemoration to collectively remember that freedom and the respect for human rights can never be taken for granted and need to be fought for every single day, he said.

In another move related to the anniversary, which will likely anger Russia, Prague authorities unveiled a new explanatory text about the role of Soviet World War II commander Ivan Stepanovic Konev to his monument in Prague.

Marshall Konev led Red Army forces that liberated large parts of Czechoslovakia from Nazi occupation in 1945. His monument was unveiled in the Prague 6 district in 1980.

On Tuesday, Prague 6 mayor Ondrej Kolar said the authorities wanted to give people full information that would not conceal what happened.

The new text describes Konevs leading role in crushing the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, his contribution to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the preparation of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Russia and four other former Soviet republics had officially protested that.

A small group of communists condemned at the site what they called the rewriting of history.

Others demanded the monument was completely removed given what Konev had done.

Karel Janicek is an Associated Press writer.
BEIJING  Multibillion-dollar China-financed projects in Malaysia have been canceled because they arent needed and will saddle the country with an unsustainable amount of debt, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told reporters on the final day of a visit to Beijing on Tuesday.

Mahathir said both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang understood the reasons behind the cancellations and accepted them.

The projects, comprising a $20 billion East Coast Rail Link and two energy pipelines worth $2.3 billion, had already been suspended pending renegotiation.

Its all about pouring in too much money which we cannot afford, we cannot repay and also because we dont need these projects for Malaysia at this moment, Mahathir said.

While the projects could be restarted in the future if considered necessary, Malaysias current focus is on reducing the national debt, he said.

With that debt, if we are not careful we can become bankrupt, Mahathir said, blaming the stupidity of the administration of his predecessor, Najib Razak, whom he ousted in elections earlier this year and now faces charges of massive corruption.

Malaysia will still have to pay substantial penalties to extract itself from the projects and also needs to find out where money that has been paid for the projects have gone to, Mahathir said.

Days before heading to Beijing, Mahathir was already saying Malaysia didnt need the projects, part of Xis Belt and Road initiative to build ports, railways and other trade-related infrastructure across Asia.

Christopher Bodeen is an Associated Press writer.
One of the successes we had with Naf Naf was making our own bread, Sloan said. Were taking the same approach here and making our own fresh corn tortillas out of fresh masa and making our own fresh flour tortillas. Invictor will also make its own bread for the cemitas.
KABUL  More than two dozen mortar rounds landed in Kabul on Tuesday as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was addressing the nation under the trees of his palace about a cease-fire he had offered the Taliban.

Flanked by his security ministers after finishing a prayer to mark the beginning of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, Ghani braved the shells exploding nearby to once again plead for an end to the 17-year war, which is taking lives in record numbers. His ministers craned their necks to peer up at the sound of each blast.

We announced a cease-fire, but conditioned on the fact that it would be a mutual cease-fire, Ghani said. This was the consensus of our people.

Hashmat Stanikzai, a spokesman for the Kabul police, said that around 9 a.m. militants had started firing from the district behind the presidential palace. Many shells landed near the palace, with some reports suggesting that two even landed inside. Others struck the diplomatic quarter, which contains Western embassies and the NATO coalitions headquarters.

Afghan forces blocked the areas where the militants were holed up, even using helicopters to target them. Local news media reports suggested that the militants had used a truck to transport mortars to fire on different parts of the city.

Nine insurgents fired around 30 mortar rounds from two locations, according to a statement from Lt. Col. Martin ODonnell, spokesman for the NATO coalition in Afghanistan who added that Afghan forces had dealt with the threat quickly. Four of the nine insurgents were killed, he said, and the five others surrendered to Afghan forces.

An affiliate of the Islamic State claimed responsibility, saying its fighters had fired the shells that struck the heavily fortified neighborhood, the Associated Press reported. There was no immediate comment from the Taliban. Both groups have been behind major assaults on Kabul this year.

Since a rare, overlapping cease-fire two months ago brought Afghans a brief bit of quiet, Ghani and his international partners have been working toward a second lull in the fighting around Eid al-Adha. When the Taliban assaulted a major city just 90 miles from Kabul, it put the fate of a second cease-fire in limbo. Ghani went ahead with an offer, but this time conditioned on the groups reciprocating.

The Taliban have remained quiet on the offer. Instead, they abducted more than a hundred Afghans on the highway in the north of the country Monday. By the end of the day, they had released most, except for 21 who were reportedly members of security or government forces.

Taliban officials have been invited to a meeting next month in Moscow to discuss an end to the war. If it goes ahead, it would be a public display of long-standing contacts between the Taliban and Russia.

Mujib Mashal is a New York Times writer.
BERLIN  The Nazi guard lived a quiet life in New York City for decades, having lied on his U.S. visa application and immigrated as a war refugee in 1949. But Tuesday, he was deported to Germany, ending a 14-year battle to remove him from U.S. soil.

The former guard, Jakiw Palij, is believed to have been the last surviving Nazi war crimes suspect living in the United States. First tracked down in the United States by investigators in 1993 and stripped of his U.S. citizenship 10 years later, Palij has faced deportation since 2004. But for years, no country would accept him.

Germany had long refused to do so because Palij, who was born in what was Poland at the time and is now part of Ukraine, is not actually German. Poland and Ukraine refused to take him, saying he was Germanys responsibility. On Tuesday, the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, acknowledged as much.

We accept the moral obligation of Germany, in whose name terrible injustice was committed under the Nazis, Maas told the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Palij, now 95 and frail, arrived at Dusseldorf Airport Tuesday and was taken by a Red Cross ambulance to a nursing home near Munster, in northwestern Germany. Until Monday, he had been living in a two-story, red brick house in New York City with his wife, Maria, who is 86. Jewish activists had frequently staged protests outside their home.

U.S. officials and diplomats had long urged Germany to take in Palij, but the efforts appear to have intensified under President Trump. The U.S. leader regularly raised the issue in meetings with Chancellor Angela Merkel, officials said, and the new ambassador to Berlin, Richard Grenell, made it a priority in recent weeks.

Palij was trained by the Nazi special police, the SS, as an 18-year-old. He is believed to have served as an armed guard at the Trawniki labor camp in 1943.

Palij has long denied participating in any killings, saying that he had merely guarded bridges and rivers. The SS forced him to work for them, he said, threatening to kill him and his family.

I was never a collaborator, he told The New York Times in 2003.

Katrin Bennhold is a New York Times writer.
Page Content

On Aug. 10, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled that the federal Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act (RUIA) completely pre-empts the Massachusetts Earned Sick Time Law (ESTL). As a result, employers that are subject to the RUIA may not be required to comply with the requirements of the ESTL.

Background



In November 2014, Massachusetts voters approved the ESTL, which requires most employers to provide "earned paid sick time" to qualifying employees in Massachusetts. That law took effect on July 1, 2015.

In the wake of the ESTL's passage, a number of companies that operate rail transportation systems and related facilities in Massachusetts asked the state's attorney general to voluntarily agree not to enforce the ESTL against them. They based their request on the language of the RUIA, which both provides sick leave benefits for covered employees and contains a broad pre-emption provision. When the attorney general declined this invitation, the companies filed suit, seeking both a declaratory judgment that the RUIA pre-empted the ESTL and an injunction against the attorney general from enforcing or applying the ESTL against them. A number of labor unions subsequently intervened and opposed the employers' position.

The companies initially prevailed in federal court. On appeal, however, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a split decision. On the one hand, the 1st Circuit ruled that one section of ESTL was pre-empted. On the other hand, the appeals court sent the case back to the district court to decide whether other sections of the ESTL fell within the scope of the RUIA's pre-emption provision.

Decision and Takeaways



On remand, the district court entered summary judgment for the employers. The court concluded that the text of the RUIA reflects a congressional intent to ensure that the RUIA is the exclusive source of all sickness benefits for railroad employees and to preclude the employees from claiming rights to sickness benefits under any comparable state law, such as the ESTL. Therefore, the court held that the entire ESTL is pre-empted.

The attorney general or one of the labor unions that intervened in the case may appeal this decision. Further, the impact of the decision is limited, because it applies only to companies that qualify as employers under the RUIA. Employers should therefore consult experienced employment counsel when evaluating the impact of this decision on their ESTL policy.

The case is CSX Transportation Inc. v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, No. 1:15-cv-12865 (D. Mass. Aug. 10, 2018).

Chris Kaczmarek is an attorney with Littler in Boston. @ 2018 Littler. All rights reserved. Reposted with permission.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Sept. 5 is in 15 days.

That's the deadline the New York Wheel was given to take steps -- such as hiring a new contractor -- toward recommencing construction of the 630-foot observation wheel on the St. George waterfront.

But word on the project, which has been stalled since May 2017, remains mum.

In May of this year, the Wheel was given 120 days to get the project back on track after its former contractor walked off the job last year and was subsequently fired.

While an agreement was hashed out in May, spokespeople for the NY Wheel said they can't comment as to whether they are close to hiring a new contractor.

MAYOR'S OFFICE MUM TOO



Although the project is entirely funded by private investors, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a recent town hall meeting that City Hall would get involved to help see a resolution for the embattled New York Wheel.

However, Advance queries about how he plans to do that went unanswered by City Hall.

120-DAY STANDSTILL

The agreement hashed out in the spring between the Holland-based Mammoet-Starneth -- the Wheel's former contractor -- and the NY Wheel in Delaware Bankruptcy Court allowed both parties to enter a 120-day standstill period, extending through Sept. 5.

The agreement is a culmination of more than a year of court battles between the two parties.

Its purpose was to allow the NY Wheel to come up with the necessary financing to complete the project and hire a new contractor, according to court documents.

In addition, the agreement dismissed the lawsuit the NY Wheel filed against Mammoet-Starneth for breach of contract. The Wheel issued the following statement to the Advance in May:

"The New York Wheel is committed to the development and completion of the project, and the revitalization of the Staten Island waterfront destination that it will promote. The settlement paves the way for the Wheel to continue to finalize its financing arrangements, and arrangements with a new contractor, American Bridge, the builder of the new Tappan Zee Bridge, and ARUP, a world-class, global engineering firm, and complete construction," said the NY Wheel.

"Both American Bridge and ARUP have experience in building observation Wheels of this type having been involved in similar wheels in London and Las Vegas. The New York Wheel has also already commenced discussions with the suppliers that will be necessary for completion of the project," the Wheel added.

American Bridge and ARUP have not answered Advance requests for comment.

BANKRUPTCY HISTORY

Problems with the NY Wheel began when Mammoet-Starneth walked off the job on May 26, 2017, and filed for bankruptcy in December.

To date, the NY Wheel has been ordered by Delaware Bankruptcy Court to pay nearly $2 million in storage costs, according to court documents.

The payment of the storage costs was ordered by the court after Mammoet-Starneth wanted to auction off the parts of the Wheel as part of its liquidation of assets, according to court records.

Mammoet-Starneth LLC has been given an extension until Nov. 27 to accept the terms of its bankruptcy agreement, which includes severing ties with the Wheel, according public records.

"As part of the settlement, the debtor's [Mammoet-Starneth] exclusive period to file a plan was to be extended through this November 27th date. However, if [the] New York Wheel were to determine to terminate the settlement agreement, it retains the right to seek early termination of the exclusive period," said the NY Wheel in a statement.

A spokesperson for Mammoet-Starneth has not answered the Advance's repeated requests for comment.

FINANCING NEEDED

While the NY Wheel told the Advance $400 million of the $580 million allotted for the project through private investors was already spent when the project was indefinitely delayed last spring, it's unclear how much financing is needed for the project to continue.

Since this is a privately-funded project, the NY Wheel has no obligation to disclose how much financing is needed for the tourist attraction to come to fruition.

In 2015, former NY Wheel CEO Rich Marin told the Advance the project was fueled by $195 million in senior debt from the Highbridge Strategies hedge fund unit of JPMorgan Chase, $111 million in equity, and $174 million from CanAm Enterprises as part of a federal green card program known as EB-5.

MORE RECENT STORIES ABOUT THE NY WHEEL:

One NY Wheel investor's reason for pulling money out of the project

50 days into NY Wheel agreement, no word on getting project back on track

Exclusive: NY Wheel gets green light to hire new contractor

New York Wheel stalled for 10 months: How did we get here?

Exclusive: Former NY Wheel CEO Rich Marin now involved with Eye of Texas Wheel





Former contractor pushing to auction $9M NY Wheel legs, other parts

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(This is the latest edition of Island Government, a news round-up about Staten Island politics.)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- New York bolstered its criminal justice laws on Aug. 15 when Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed two bills to combat sex trafficking, which were both sponsored by state Sen. Andrew Lanza.

One of the bills automatically makes the sex trafficking of a child a criminal charge and eliminates the need to prove force, fraud, or coercion when a child under 18 engages in commercial sex.

Lanza's other bill, requires hotels, inns and motels to provide information about services -- such as the national trafficking hotline -- in public restrooms, guest rooms and near entrances.

Lanza said, "I thank Governor Cuomo for signing my bills into law. These laws will make it easier for prosecutors to bring charges against those who prey on children. I am proud to sponsor legislation that will hold criminals accountable for the disgusting and heinous crime of enslaving children for commercial sex. These laws will expand upon the landmark law from 2015, the Trafficking Victims Protection and Justice Act, that I also sponsored with Assemblymember Amy Paulin."

ASSEMBLY CANDIDATE PROPOSES 7-POINT TRANSPORTATION PLAN

Charles Fall, a Democrat, at the ferry terminal on Aug. 10. (Photo/Courtesy Charles D. Fall's campaign)

Charles Fall, one of three candidates running for the North Shore Assembly, released a transportation policy plan on Aug. 10.

The plan proposes:

A "broad" congestion pricing proposal to be debated in the state Legislature;

Gives New York City Design-Build authority for infrastructure projects;

Creates North Shore Bus Rapid Transit;

Secures a greenbelt that runs parallel to the bus route for runners and cyclists;

Overhauls the local bus network in a similar way to Staten Island's express bus network's overhaul, including bus only lanes and smart traffic signals;

Increases track and station maintenance for the Staten Island Railway;

Allows two-way tolling on the Verrazano Bridge;

Calls for a full HOV lanes on all local expressways; and

Supports half-priced MetroCards for low-income New Yorkers.

"Since the start of my campaign, I made it a priority to reach out to every constituency across the North Shore to gauge the problems that are plaguing our community," said Fall. "Whether the bus isn't showing up, the ferry being delayed, or it taking 20 minutes to drive 3 miles; it became clear that transportation was one of the paramount concerns."

The full plan can be found here.

BOBBY DIGI OLISA LEADS NORTH SHORE CANDIDATES IN CAMPAIGN CASH; PAT KANE HAULS IN 20K

Democrat Bobby Digi Olisa leads his primary opponents in fundraising in the race for the open North Shore state Assembly seat, state records show.

Olisa, a community activist and small business owner, raised $10,691 and has $31,460.86 cash-on-hand, which is the amount of campaign funds a candidate has after expenditures.

Charles Fall, chief-of-staff to city Parks Staten Island commissioner and an ex-aide to Mayor Bill de Blasio, is close behind with $28,836.89 cash-on-hand after he raised $9,475 and spent $15,378.11.

Patricia Kane, a union leader and open-heart surgery nurse, out-raised both candidates and hauled in $21,842. She has $22,853 cash-on-hand.

MICHAEL REILLY LEADS SOUTH SHORE CANDIDATES IN CAMPAIGN CASH

Republican Michael Reilly leads his primary opponents in fundraising in the race for the open South Shore state Assembly seat, state records show.

Reilly, president of Staten Island's Community Education Council, raised $14,334.42 and has $18,788.86 cash-on-hand.

Glenn Yost, an attorney and retired NYPD detective, isn't far behind with $13,895.48. He raised $10,725 and spent $25,557.32.

Ashley Zanatta, an Annadale public health advocate, has $8,215.46 cash-on-hand after raising $7,491 and spending $6,202.90.

ASSEMBLY CANDIDATE PROPOSES USING PORT AUTHORITY FUNDS TO OPEN FRESH KILLS PARK

Glenn Yost, one of three candidates running for the South Shore Assembly seat, called on Cuomo and Port Authority chair Kevin O-Toole to commit to use Port Authority of New York and New Jersey funds to improve Fresh Kills' Park road system so it can be opened to the public.

"Each year Staten Islanders pay the Port Authority an obscene amount of money in tolls," said Yost, an attorney and a retired police detective. "Today I am asking Governor Cuomo and Chairman O'Toole to use some of that revenue to improve the roads through Fresh Kills so they can be opened to through traffic."

Yost noted that the Port Authority invested $3.5 million to provide public access to the North Shore waterfront at Heritage Park, formerly called the Blissenbach Marina.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - A North Carolina man spotted placing ammunition on the ground in front of a Fort Wadsworth entrance Sunday had a small armory inside his Chevy Impala a block away, authorities allege.

Jessie Hospedales, 28, of the 4000 block of Colby Court in Fayetteville, faces charges that include criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of a firearm, possession of ammunition and unlawful possession of a loaded rifle or shotgun.

A United States Coast Guard Police officer spotted Hospedales at about noon on Sunday, placing multiple rounds of ammunition on the ground near the Bay Street entrance to Fort Wadsworth, according to allegations in the criminal complaint.

About a block away, in front of the National Park Service visitor's center, police allegedly discovered a stash of guns inside of a 2015 Chevy Impala.

"I have guns in the car too. Go ahead and check," he allegedly told cops, according to an account in the complaint.

Police seized a loaded shotgun on the passenger seat, a loaded handgun under the driver's seat and a semi-automatic rifle in the trunk, the complaint alleges. Ammunition for the rifle also was allegedly found inside the car.

Also in the vehicle, were multiple rounds of ammunition for an array of firearms, including .308-caliber bullets, Luger 9 mm bullets and Smith and Wesson .40-caliber bullets, police said.

The defendant previously served in the U.S. Army, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

Sources said the guns were registered in North Carolina, but he didn't have a license for them in New York.

Hospedales was arraigned Monday in Criminal Court in St George, and is being held on $100,000 bond, or $75,000 cash. His next court appearance is scheduled for Friday.

A former military base, In 1994, the Navy turned Fort Wadsworth over to the National Park Service's Gateway National Recreation Area. The U.S. Coast Guard also uses many buildings and housing at the location.
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My wife Debbie and I were eating at The Lantern, and we were talking with a friend (who mentioned) the 50th anniversary of the restaurant and said it would be nice to have a charity they could sponsor, Rickert said. And we said, Here we are. The support we get from this event and others helps with our mission that has three branches  helping active military, helping veterans and helping the families of the fallen.
If the major resource houses are experiencing something of a "Goldilocks" moment, the BHP result, and Rio Tintos before it, indicate it is one largely of their own making.

While stronger commodity prices are playing a role, theres been nothing exceptional about their level. The results being produced by the major miners have more to do with their relentless focus in recent years on productivity and disciplined capital allocation than windfall gains.

BHP has made good on its promise to sell its US shale business. Credit:James Davies

The BHP result illustrated how it was able to leverage those higher prices, flowing over a disciplined cost base and copper-equivalent production volume growth of 8 per cent, into a 10 per cent increase in operating cash flows to $US18.5 billion, and a 33 per cent increase in underlying earnings to $US8.93 billion.

With its balance sheet in pristine shape  net debt, at $US10.9 billion, is now at the bottom of its $US10 billion to $US15 billion targeted range  free cash flows of $US12.5 billion and no appetite for either new "mega" projects or large acquisitions, theres only one place for all that cash to be directed.
Good morning, Canberra.

Happy hump day! Rug up because we're in for a cloudy day with areas of morning frost. It dropped to minus one over night. It will reach a top of 14 degrees.

It was a busy day in Canberra yesterday, more specifically at Parliament House with the Liberal Spill. If you've been living under a rock or just want some more info, here's the latest.

In the meantime - grab that hot beverage and let's find out what's making news in the ACT.

ACT chief police officer quits
A NSW police officer investigating Salim Mehajer has allegedly discovered a forged email impersonating him on the jailed property developer's phone, a court has heard.

Detective Sergeant Matt Taylor claims he was investigating allegations Mehajer staged a car crash to avoid a court hearing when he discovered the email earlier this year.

Salim Mehajer has been denied bail. Credit:AAP

The email related to a court case involving the ATO and the Mehajer Brothers company and an image of it was sent to a third party, the police officer said in a letter read aloud at Mehajer's NSW Supreme Court bail hearing.

The email image is under investigation and the 32-year-old hasn't been charged.
Areas for employment and residential development to the immediate north and south of the Western Sydney Airport at Badgerys Creek will start to be rezoned as early as next year.

The Department of Planning and Environment on Tuesday released an initial land-use plan for the so-called Western Sydney Aerotropolis, a region earmarked to take advantage of economic activity stimulated by the airport.

An artists impression of residential neighbourhoods for the Western Sydney Aerotropolis. Credit:NSW government

The plan breaks the land around the 1780-hectare Western Sydney Airport site into nine precincts. It selects two of those precincts  Aerotropolis Core and Northern Gateway for immediate planning, with rezoning to be completed by the end of 2019. The development of other areas around the airport is to be staged.

Work on a third precinct, South Creek, which cuts through the area and is intended to be a green spine providing open space, amenity, biodiversity and wellbeing values is also intended to start soon.
A surfer has died after he was pulled unconscious from the water in Sydney's northern beaches on Tuesday morning.

Emergency services were called to South Avalon headland at Avalon Beach about 8.55am to reports a surfer was in distress.

Avalon headland as viewed from the south end of Avalon Beach. Credit:Anna Kucera

Four ambulance crews and a helicopter arrived at the scene to find surfers had pulled the 62-year-old man out of the water and begun CPR on a rock shelf, an ambulance spokesman said.

Paramedics took over the resuscitation but despite their efforts, the man died at the scene.
Before tow-truck driver Moustafa Salami was charged with being an accessory after the fact to Mahmoud Mick Hawis murder, he was the bikie boss friend.

A source close to the Hawi family said on Tuesday that Mr Salami had once been close to the ex-Comanchero boss.

Moustafa Salami was arrested in Balmain on August 17 over the murder of Mahmoud Mick Hawi in February. Credit:Seven News

They were friends, before all of this, the source said.

A long time ago, but its really crazy, really sad.
Chapman, who had formerly lived in Wisconsin, knew Giebel as a heroin addict but said in court that he did not know his friend had not used the drug in about eight months.
Trenches are being dug at night and filled in again by sunrise as Brisbane City Council works to identify what is underground where they plan to build Brisbane Metro.

The council's public transport chairman, Adrian Schrinner, said the council was getting on with the early investigation work.

Night works in Brisbane CBD for the Brisbane Metro project have started. Credit:Brisbane City Council

"On Adelaide Street, at night you will see work happening to dig trenches to test drill to determine exactly the conditions of the soil underneath the road, what underground services are in place," he said.

"We obviously have detailed plans and maps of the underground services on Adelaide Street, but invariably the testing is required because there are things under there that arent on the official plans and we need to identify those early."
Three people are believed to have been killed after a petrol tanker collided with two cars in north Queensland.

Debris was strewn across the bitumen of the Bruce Highway and into a neighbouring paddock, 4km north of Bowen, following the crash on Tuesday afternoon.

Three people have died after a tanker collided with two cars in Queensland's north. Credit:Nine News

The tanker's upturned fuel trailer jutted into the air blocking the roadway, while the truck lay on its side still attached in grass nearby.

The truck driver was uninjured in the accident, Queensland Ambulance said.
A 10-year-old boy has died after being hit by a van in Melbourne's east at the weekend. Credit:9 News Melbourne

A young boy who was hit by a van in Blackburn North at the weekend has died in hospital.

The 10-year-old from Croydon was with his six-year-old sister and a 10-year-old friend on a signalised crossing when the incident occurred about 6.30pm on Saturday.

It is believed the driver of a Toyota HiAce van collided with the boy as he crossed Springfield Road. The other two girls were not injured and the male driver stopped at the scene.

The 10-year-old Croydon boy was taken to hospital with life threatening injuries and his life support was withdrawn on Tuesday.
A last-ditch plan to exclude the big four banks from receiving a company tax cut would save taxpayers $7.4 billion over the next decade but the idea failed to convince the Senate crossbench to deliver Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull a much-needed political victory.

The proposal, which could have seen the billions of dollars denied to the Commonwealth Bank, NAB, ANZ and Westpac diverted to infrastructure and social services, has been shot down by Centre Alliance, One Nation and independent senators.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann confirmed the $7.4 billion figure was what the big four banks stood to gain under the Coalition's long-standing plan to lower the tax rate for Australia's biggest businesses. That is more than 20 per cent of the entire cost of the $35.6 billion plan and underscores the goverment's desperation to pass the package as Mr Turnbull's leadership came under increasing threat.

Senator Mathias Cormann in the Senate at Parliament House. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

Former Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton narrowly lost a Liberal leadership ballot to Mr Turnbull on Tuesday. The contest was partly fuelled by growing anxiety over the unpopularity of the tax cuts, particularly for the big four banks in the shadow of the royal commission.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been put on notice to expect a second challenge from conservative rival Peter Dutton within days as a number of ministers have quit or offered their resignations in a crisis over the governments leadership and direction.

Mr Turnbulls supporters believe the next attempt to remove him could come as soon as Thursday after he secured a narrow victory over his enemies on Tuesday, keeping his leadership by 48 to 35 votes.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the turmoil showed that Mr Turnbull was Prime Minister in name only when cabinet ministers and dozens of backbenchers had lost confidence in his leadership.

Mr Dutton did not rule out a second challenge after losing the sudden ballot on Tuesday morning and resigning as Home Affairs Minister, as his allies try to gain the seven votes they need to win a second ballot.
Dentists in the public system will strike across Melbourne on Wednesday afternoon over stalled pay negotiations and skyrocketing patient waiting lists.

The pay deal for dentists working in Victorian community health clinics expired about 14 months ago.

Dentists in the public system will strike for 30 minutes on Wednesday. Credit:Quentin Jones

Dentists based at 10 community health agencies will walk off the job after demanding a pay rise of 19.2 per cent over four years, in line with dentists employed in the hospital system.

Australian Dental Association Victorian Branch chief executive Matthew Hopcraft said waiting times have increased by 67 per cent in the past three years.
Boosting your home Wi-Fi coverage without breaking the budget, Linksys' dual-band Velop mesh Wi-Fi could be your escape from wireless hell.

Rather than simply cranking up the power on a single base station, mesh Wi-Fi networks improve coverage by relying on several base stations working in unison across your home. They appear as a single network to your devices, letting your gadgets seamlessly jump between base stations as you move around the house; just like a mobile phone jumps between towers without dropping a call.

A few mesh Wi-Fi networks have arrived in Australia over the last 18 months including the Linksys Velop, Netgear Orbi, Google WiFi and D-Link Covr. The dual-band $499 Google WiFi was the cheapest of the bunch because it only runs two networks  2.4 and 5GHz  whereas its tri-band rivals add an extra hidden 5GHz network which the base stations use to talk amongst themselves.

The new Linksys Velop drops the dedicated 5GHz backhaul network, but you're unlikely to notice.

Now Linksys has followed suit with a dual-band Velop, asking $449 for three base stations rather than $799.95 for the tri-band Velop models. You can mix dual and tri-band Velop base stations on the same network, which is handy if you want to expand an existing setup.
Beijing: Taiwan's jubilation at President Tsai Ing-wen's tour of a United States space centre has been crashed by China, which announced on Tuesday it had peeled away another Taiwanese ally, the Central American nation of El Salvador.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu accused El Salvador of demanding money from Taiwan for an "unfeasible port development", which Taiwan had refused. Wu condemned China's "easy money".

"As a responsible member of the global community Taiwan will not engage in dollar nor debt-trap diplomacy with China," Wu said.

El Salvador's Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, left, and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi shake hands at a signing ceremony to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations. Credit:AP

On Tuesday, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi signed a communique in Beijing with his El Salvadorean counterpart, Carlos Castaneda, which binds the Central American nation to recognising Taiwan as "an inalienable part of Chinese territory" and "promising not to have any official relations with Taiwan or not to conduct any official exchanges".
In August 2016, McDougal was paid $US150,000 ($203,000) by AMI, the parent company of National Enquirer, for the rights to her story, then shelved it. In October 2016, Cohen used a home-equity line of credit to finance a $US130,000 ($176,000) payment to Daniels. Loading Cohen is the fifth Trump associate to have pleaded guilty or be charged with criminal wrongdoing since Trump took office, including his former national security adviser, his deputy campaign chairman and a former campaign policy adviser. In a day of high drama for the Trump administration, cable television played Cohen's plea in an extraordinary legal split screen as a Virginia jury convicted Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, on eight counts in his bank and tax fraud trial.

Reminded that he had previously vowed to "take a bullet" or "do anything" to protect the president, Cohen told ABC in July that Trump is not his top priority. "To be crystal clear, my wife, my daughter and my son, and this country have my first loyalty," he said. Last month, Cohen attorney Lanny Davis released an audio recording of a September 2016 conversation between Trump and Cohen in which they discussed a deal that a Playboy model made to sell the rights to her story of an alleged affair with Trump. The move was seen as a dramatic turn against Trump by the Cohen camp. Loading Trump's current attorney and advisers have said he has nothing to fear from Cohen. "If he gets indicted for something that has nothing to do with the president, well, I feel sorry for Michael, although I don't know how sorry I feel for him, because he was tape recording the world and deceiving them, including his client," Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani told Fox News on Monday.

"But it has nothing to do with us," he added. Cohen's plea agreement comes just one day after the New York federal court overseeing the seizure of Cohen's records finished its review of which documents were protected by attorney-client privilege. The case against Cohen stems in part from a referral by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and examined Cohen's role in at least two episodes involving Russian interests, according to people familiar with that probe. Loading However, special-counsel investigators have indicated to federal law enforcement officials that the office does not require Cohen's cooperation for its probe, according to two people familiar with their work.

The Cohen investigation first burst into public view in April, when FBI agents searched his New York office, home and hotel room. The searches - in which agents collected all of Cohen's phones and electronic devices - set off panic in the White House that federal investigators were looking into Trump's business dealings and communications with Cohen. Since then, the probe has led to revelations about how Cohen sought to squelch negative stories about Trump and then leverage his access to the president. Loading After the raid, Giuliani acknowledged that the president had made several payments reimbursing Cohen for the $130,000 settlement with Daniels. Trump had previously denied knowledge of the payoff. Meanwhile, leaked documents showed that Cohen was paid millions last year by companies to provide advice about the new administration.

Cohen had been under scrutiny by federal prosecutors starting in the northern autumn of 2017, when Mueller's team came across some unusual financial transactions and loans Cohen had obtained. The special counsel referred the matter to the US attorney's office for the Southern District of New York, which has been looking for evidence of possible bank fraud, wire fraud or violations of campaign finance laws in Cohen's business dealings, according to people familiar with the matter. The investigation has examined loans related to Cohen's taxi medallion business and whether any laws were broken as part of an effort to stifle negative stories about Trump when he was running for president, according to people familiar with the matter. Loading A central focus of the probe has been on matters that have nothing to do with Cohen's most famous client but rather Cohen's attempts to borrow substantial sums of money against his taxi medallions and evidence suggesting he lied to get the money. On more than a dozen loan documents, according to two people familiar with investigators' work, Cohen dramatically inflated the value of his medallion business year after year, even as the industry suffered from the rise of ride-hailing businesses.

In May, a New York taxi operator and former Cohen business partner agreed to cooperate with prosecutors as part of a plea deal in a separate New York state criminal tax fraud case. Cohen is also under investigation for defrauding the IRS and failing to report his earnings, according to one person familiar with requests for information about Cohen's financial records. Cohen worked for Trump for more than a decade, starting in 2007. The raid on Cohen's office enraged the president, who claimed prosecutors were violating attorney-client privilege. Cohen also argued that prosecutors had violated attorney-client privilege by seizing what his lawyers said could be thousands or more items related to his work as a lawyer. It is unusual for investigators to seize the papers of an attorney, but in court filings federal prosecutors maintained that Cohen was doing very little legal work and that they were investigating his business dealings to search for evidence of potential crimes.

US District Judge Kimba Wood appointed a former federal judge to act as a special master and review the seized items to assess what material must be withheld from investigators because it is covered by attorney-client privilege. In the end, only a tiny fraction of the seized material was found to be covered by the privilege, according to court filings. Although Cohen has for years been portrayed as a lawyer who handled some of the most important and sensitive issues for Trump, the president has insisted to associates in recent months that Cohen was not that closely involved with him. However, Giuliani said in May that Cohen was routinely asked to handle issues that could cause personal embarrassment for Trump, such as the claim of an affair by Daniels. Trump has denied the affair, but Cohen directed that Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, be paid $130,000 just before the November 2016 election to ensure her silence, Cohen acknowledged this year.
But senators insisted on a more sceptical path. They questioned the effectiveness of sanctions passed overwhelmingly last year to target Russia's defence and intelligence sectors and tried to solicit input from the officials on how to proceed. And with the latest targets being conservative groups, concern could spread. Congress and the Trump administration are both positioned to ratchet up pressure, said Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho, the Republican chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which holds jurisdiction over sanctions law. "It's not often that Congress acts together in such a strong manner, as marked by such near-unanimous votes" last year, he said. "But, then, Russia is a menace on so many different levels, today, that Congress can be compelled to act with a single voice to find solutions that will protect America and democratic values across the world." Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the committee's top Democrat, was more forceful, calling the latest denial by the Kremlin "nonsense" and insisting that Trump do the same.

"Our government  the president and Congress together  must right now send a more powerful and direct message to Putin and those within his circles: We know what you're doing, it must stop, and if you continue, you and your government will pay a dear price," he said. He expressed optimism that the panel would work in a bipartisan way to layer on new sanctions authorities. Microsoft revealed on Monday that it had detected and seized websites that were created in recent weeks by hackers linked to the Russian military intelligence unit formerly known as the GRU. The sites appeared meant to trick people into thinking they were clicking through links managed by the conservative Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute, but were secretly redirected to webpages created by the hackers to steal passwords and other credentials. Both institutions have taken aim at Russian corruption, and on Tuesday the Hudson Institute said in a statement that it was not the first time an authoritarian regime had targeted its work, nor did it expect it to be the last. Microsoft also found websites imitating the US Senate, but not specific Senate offices or political campaigns. Loading Given the exploratory nature of the hearing, many senators conceded it is unlikely that such legislation could pass through the committee or the full Congress in time for Election Day, in November.

Elsewhere in the Senate on Tuesday, the Foreign Relations Committee had begun its own examination of US-Russia relations, with senators grilling other State Department and Treasury Department officials. And later Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to take testimony from law enforcement and intelligence officials on cyber threats to the country's critical infrastructure. All senators were scheduled to receive an additional classified briefing on Wednesday from the Homeland Security secretary, director of national intelligence and the FBI director about the Russian threat and what is being done to blunt it. Top intelligence and law enforcement officials have repeatedly warned that Russia remains active in US politics and has targeted this fall's midterm elections. The report from Microsoft sharpened those warnings. It said that the company had identified and shut down several websites linked to a Russian military intelligence unit that set out to influence the 2016 US elections. That revelation comes less than a month after Facebook disclosed that it had identified a new, ongoing political influence campaign targeting November's elections on its network that showed signs of Russian handiwork. Amid those warnings and the fallout from Trump's July summit with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, senators from both parties have been anxiously debating how to raise the pressure on Moscow.

Two approaches dominate the discussion. Senators Marco Rubio and Chris Van Hollen have drafted legislation to deter Russia from further interference, putting the Kremlin on notice that the United States will enact broad economic sanctions if it does not stand down before the November elections. The competing bill, written by Menendez and Senator Lindsey Graham would seek to immediately drop a package of what they call "crushing" new punishments on the country for actions already underway. The hearings were combative at times, with senators venting that administration officials were dodging simple questions. "One of the things I thought would come from this hearing is a recommendation or a set of recommendations of what Congress might consider legislatively for additional sanctions," said Senator Jerry Moran. "Am I to take from your unwillingness to answer that kind of question that there is opposition by the administration to additional sanctions?"
Shapiro and Andrews shared their stories of challenges with mental health and substance use disorder, and how NAMI helped them realize that recovery is possible. Shapiro said he was an OPRF alumnus, and that with NAMIs help, I began to see what recovery actually was  that things could get better.
Arlington, Virginia: Jurors in the trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort signalled on Tuesday they were struggling to reach agreement on one of the 18 counts of financial crimes he faces, in a sign they may be closer to a verdict on the fourth day of deliberations.

The jury at the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia asked Judge T.S. Ellis how to fill out a verdict form for a single count if they cannot agree on that count.

Ellis read the jurors' question aloud in court and said he would tell them to try to reach unanimous consensus on all the counts of bank and tax fraud.
New Zealand politicians have decided they're already paid pretty well and will urgently introduce a law blocking their own wage rise, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.

Wages for the country's politicians - like in Australia - are set by an independent body, a process that deliberately keeps the annual pay review at arms-length from the politicians.

Jacinda Ardern says she and other New Zealand politicians were already paid well enough and don't need a scheduled pay rise. Credit:Mick Tsikas

But Ms Ardern on Monday told reporters a 3 per cent rise that had been recommended by the Remuneration Authority this month wasn't "acceptable" and that her cabinet had voted to instead freeze wages and allowances where they were for a year.

The NZ government coalition parties had all agreed to it, and Opposition Leader Simon Bridges was informed of the decision earlier in the day. Ardern said he was also supportive.
~Nominations set for Wednesday night~

PHILIPSBURG:--- The St. Maarten Guyanese Association (SMGA) is calling for nominations as it prepares to hold an election for a new board on August 29, 2018.

SMGA President, Malcolm Mickle said persons wishing to run for office must be registered members with dues paid up for the year (January to August) and must have supported or attended at least three events hosted by the association in the election year, which started in October 2017.

Mickle stressed that elections will be done by nominations on Wednesday, August 23, 2018 during a general meeting at the 158B Back Street office in Philipsburg. Meeting time is 7:30pm. Nominees must have a good reputation in the community and only eligible voters will receive a ballot paper. He is encouraging all Guyanese to turn out and make their vote count as the board of the association stands ready to represent all residents who share Guyanese heritage.

SMGA was formed in 2015 after the St. Maarten Guyanese Foundation led by the late Courtney Gibson fell dormant. Its first board comprised Neville Mars as president, now Honorary Consul Cleveland Beresford as treasurer, and George Mars as Secretary. Today, the board is made up of a president (Malcolm Mickle), interim vice president (Maureen Fortune), treasurer (Mark Daniels), assistant treasurer (George Mars), Secretary (Aiesha Daniels), assistant secretary (Sharon Layne), public relations officer (Kim Lucas-Felix), assistant public relations officer (Milton Pieters), and members Vanessa Fraser (events coordinator), Joshua Schwiers, Bernard Inniss, and Colin Morris.

The purpose of the association, as outline in its constitution, is to look after the legal, moral, cultural, social, economic and general interest of its members. The association seeks to attain these objectives through helping with the integration into the St. Maarten community and providing support for its members in areas of need. Persons interested in learning more can contact SMGA President, Mr. Malcolm Mickle on 524-9587.
~ TEATT staff members in trouble`

PHILIPSBURG:--- Appointed staff members of several cabinets are highly upset now that Prime Minister Leona Romeo Marlin signs off on the Ministerial Beschikking (MB) which would allow VDSM to screen all political appointed staff of the Ministers cabinet.

SMN News learned that the MB was signed off last week and thus certain staff members that are currently working in the various cabinets are highly annoyed.

The TEATT cabinet has Regina Labega who failed the screening since the Prosecutors Office was investigating Labega while she was the Director of the Tourist Office. The failed screening caused Labega to lose her highly paid job at PJAIE. Another staff of the TEATT Ministry that will fail the screening is Alfred Harley since he has a murder conviction while he was a member of the Police Force of St. Kitts.

There are other appointed staff members of the other cabinets of the Romeo-Marlin 2 cabinet that are uneasy about the screening that might even leave them jobless.
The University of the Virgin Islands will lead a collaboration of four entities that received a $9 million award over five years in funding from the National Science Foundation to create the Center for the Advancement of STEM Leadership (CASL). This center is the nations first broadening participation research center. The four partner institutions involved in the execution of the grant are the University of the Virgin Islands, North Carolina A&T State University, Fielding Graduate University and Association of American Colleges and Universities.

CASLs goal is to serve as the nations premier intellectual and scholarship-generating resource for examining and determining the kind of leadership that broadens the participation of African Americans in STEM (Science, Mathematics, Engineering, Mathematics). Likewise, CASL aims to meaningfully contribute to the development of next-generation leaders who are able to preserve the legacy of HBCU success. Through its wide-ranging objectives of broadening participation research, expanding STEM education, and developing mainstream outreach and knowledge transfer, UVI will be the lead institution charged with achieving the grants research objectives.

The Universitys president David Hall expressed that through this award, the National Science Foundation is placing in the hands of UVI the future of STEM leadership within HBCUs. This $9 million grant from NSF to establish a Center for the Advancement of Leadership in STEM is an outstanding statement

about the enormous work and success of the University of the Virgin Islands in STEM fields, said Dr. Hall. Our faculty and students have perfected various models of success that must be researched, studied, compared to others and disseminated throughout the nation. To be the lead institution in this powerful consortium of institutions, and to house the Center is more compelling evidence of UVIs quest for greatness, said President Hall. I want to applaud Provost Camille McKayle for her outstanding work and leadership in achieving this accomplishment for UVI. The future of the U.S. and world economy turns on the work that is occurring in various STEM fields, and HBCUs play a critical role in attracting, developing and inspiring future leaders in this field. This is an awesome and humbling task that we and our partners are ready and willing to undertake.

UVIs provost Dr. Camille McKayle, who is principal investigator for the grant, shared that UVI is proud to be a part of this historic center, and is pleased with the homage that it will pay to the many faculty and administrators that have created a pathway to STEM greatness for so many UVI graduates. "The University of the Virgin Islands STEM programs have long produced excellent graduates who have gone on to make their mark in the classrooms as STEM teachers, in the STEM workforce, as well as, in graduate programs, earning PhDs in various STEM disciplines, said Dr McKayle. We have been able to do this consistently, in spite of having fewer resources than many other institutions. These types of stories are not uncommon at HBCUs. The Center for the Advancement of STEM Leadership seeks to honor, preserve and build on this success through rigorous research that will lead to an understanding of the type of leadership that facilitates this."
Is there a relation between fishermen death at sea to coastline length to equipment level of the fishermen and how can these events been prevented-

Posted by Publisher Telecommunication

The question is how many poor fishermen do loose their lives at sea in lower developed ?fishing nations? like India, Sri Lanka or Vietnam?

Is it possible to create a broad rule of thumb for possible death per kilometer coast length under consideration of equipment level and how can these death?s be prevented?

The main problem to find a broad thumb rule is the database. Not many countries do or have monitored well and detailed the death at sea in the last 10 years. Also, a separation between professional fishermen and pleasure boaters is mostly not made from the different nations.

After consideration of the deaths at sea from the following countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, Panama, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, UK and US the following first thumb rule estimation can be stated:

Countries with a high level of fisherman education and equipment:

In well developed country, with good equipment and educated fisherman the drown rate per kilometer coast length is about 0,08% per kilometer coast length

Countries with a minimum level of fisherman education and equipment:

As less developed and equipped the fisherman are, as higher is the drown rate per kilometer coast length. Factor is a little bit higher than ten times as in high developed countries, which equals to about 0,9% death /kilometer coast length

The above given figures should have to be investigated more in detail with university and scientific studies, but as a thumb rule it gives a good orientation about how many lives are left at sea.

Before there is an answer how these death?s can be prevented, there is the question to be asked: Why did these poor victims drown?

The question is simply answered, because they did not wear lifejackets and they had in addition no ?locator? beacon with them so that even when the Man over Board (MOB) survived the accident, the remaining crew members did not know where to search for rescue.

What can be done against drown at sea? There are 7 golden rules to be considered:

Safety begins at home with a good planning

Working Navigation equipment and spares ? key to safety

First aid kit ? never forget to carry

Make the deck of the vessel to a safer place for work and recreation

Conserve freshwater for use in an emergency

Signals, will help locate you at sea

At night, bad weather or uncomfortable conditions use a lifejacket with a locator

With reference to the 7th point, Weatherdock as manufacturer has introduced a very simple to use and very efficient ?MOB? man over board device, the easyONE-DSC. The unit has the best performance figures for transmission power, battery lifetime after activation and floating characteristics.

In event of MOB scenarios, it is most important that the person in the water is located and rescued as fast as possible. This can only be done with a distinct and persistent updated position report transmitted in real-time.

The German Weatherdock AG has done further developments to get the successful AIS MOB device easyONE even better. With added DSC functionality and a bright and strong red LED flare the new easyONE-DSC is still unique in the market and still on top of the list with best performance results.

The easyONE-DSC has got more than 1 Watt radiated transmission power, the unit is full floatable without any buoyancy support and the battery lifetime will be more than 24 hours in parallel triple mode (AIS, DSC, LED flare).

The AIS MOB easyONE-DSC is developed to use it easily with any kind of automatic life jacket. In case of automatic activation when submerged into the water, the easyONE-DSC starts to transmit a DSC distress call to the stored MMSI number to trigger the VHF radio with the distress alert. Additional to the DSC distress call a bright and strong red LED flare starts flashing which increases visibility of the victim drastically, first of all in darkness at night.

Within the first minute, an AIS MOB safety related message is send out into the AIS (Automatic Identification System) to inform every AIS receiver within range of up to 7 nautical miles about the MOB situation with current GPS position and speed/ course over ground of the victim. Parallel the next DSC distress call is transmitted to VHF radios.

The own MMSI number of the mothership?s VHF radio can be pre-programmed into the unit as well as up to 7 other MMSI numbers e.g. during flotilla sailing. Via Bluetooth with the free of charge Weatherdock app from a mobile device like smartphone or tablet this MMSI programming can be done easily.

If for example the skipper felt over board during the night shift, the crew of the own vessel is alerted within seconds by the DSC distress alert of the VHF radio. Everyone knows that something terrible happened. Within the first minute the AIS system is triggered by the AIS MOB alert. Now the crew knows where the skipper is located because of the updated AIS position report received every minute. They know how fast and which direction he might drift in the current. All other vessels in the vicinity get the same AIS alert and are able to support the rescue operation. By means of the bright red LED flare the victim is visible as much as possible in the night.

On the upcoming SMM trade fair in Hamburg, Germany from 04th to 07th of September 2018 Weatherdock is going to present the AIS MOB easyONE-DSC at the own booth B6-405. At the booth there are demo-scenarios possible to get a picture of how the unit works in real life. The crew of Weatherdock is pleased to welcome you in Hamburg at the SMM.

Weatherdock Cooperation, Germany (Founded 2003)

 World leader in AIS based, commercial vessels approved, personal locator beacons in the VHF band

 Founder of the year 2008

 Among the best 100 midsize companies in Germany (12.000 applicants for that award!)
Christopher Columbus and his Spanish colonisers brought sugarcane into the Dominican Republic at the end of the 15th century. Today, agriculture is one of the most important sectors of the Dominican Republics national economy and sugarcane is the countrys most important agricultural product.

The processing of the sugarcane stalk produces sucrose, the main product of sugarcane. Cane accounts for about 80 percent of the worlds sugar produced, while most of the remaining percentage is made from sugar beets. Named after the man who is credited with bringing the crop into the Dominican Republic, Cristobal Colon is the second largest producer of sugarcane in the country based in San Pedro de Macoris, 45 miles east of Santo Domingo.

Getting compensated accurately

The company produces sugarcane in two regions of the Dominican Republic with the second site about 30 miles west of Santo Domingo. While 95 percent of the companys revenue comes from sugarcane, Cristobal Colon also produces meats and fruits, including mangos and pineapples. Overall, Cristobal Colon owns about 23,000 hectares (or around 57,000 acres) of land, on which approximately 3,500 migrant personnel work during the harvesting season between December and May. Off-season, the company continues to employ about 1,000 people on its plantations.

With such a busy harvesting season and employees that are paid in cash, Cristobal Colon was having difficulty making sure that its workers were getting compensated accurately. The company, like many others that have large amounts of migrant workers, was relying on ID cards and managements visual verification of each person to make sure that the correct individuals were receiving their cash wages. Sometimes workers did not have their ID cards with them, and they were using another individuals ID card to collect wages that were not their own.

Espinal and his team began researching for a fail-proof way to better identify workers for cash payments out in the field

Biometrically authentication

Its a very weak way to identify people; sometimes we just had to trust that the co-worker was identifying himself correctly, said Edgar Espinal, information technology manager at Cristobal Colon. A few years ago, Espinal and his team began researching for a fail-proof way to better identify workers for cash payments out in the field. A previous failed attempt with one software developer left Espinal searching the Internet for a software company that could help, which is how he came upon HID Global and its credential verification software development division in the United States.

Cristobal Colon asked HID Global to develop a custom product that would allow them to biometrically authenticate their employees before handing them their wages, without the use of cards or certificates. Rather than a one-to-many match process to verify if a person has certificates or access to a particular site, Cristobal Colon needed a way to identify a person one-to-one, to ensure they were who they said they were.

Development of the software

Managers out in the field needed to know if the person giving them his fingerprint was in fact the exact person he claimed to be. Our basic need is to know who the person giving us their fingerprint is, said Espinal. It took about four months to fully develop.

HID Global relied upon the expertise of employee Miriam Celi, a software engineer whose native language is Spanish

To develop the solution for Cristobal Colon, HID Global relied upon the expertise of employee Miriam Celi, a software engineer whose native language is Spanish. Celi developed the software to meet the sugarcane producers specific needs, and wrote the program in Spanish, which included all of the manuals and graphical displays. When we received the call from Edgar at Cristobal Colon, we knew this was going to be a unique project, said Geri Castaldo, vice president, Business Development, Federal Identity with HID Global. Not only was it an interesting use case for biometric software, but its the first time weve developed a solution in Spanish.

Handheld mobile readers

Once HID Global developed the software to be used without cards for identification, Cristobal Colons IT staff built an interface with the companys human resources and payment systems. They tied it together using handheld mobile readers from Intermec with Edgeline Technologies PIV endcap, which includes a Sagem compact biometric module.

It is of great importance to know we are paying the right people, regardless of whether they have a personal ID with them or not, said Espinal. Employees are first enrolled on a desktop computer at the companys headquarters by taking their fingerprints and making sure there are no duplicates in the system. The fingerprints are stored in the companys HR database along with a PIN for each person.

Espinal and his team were worried that the system would run into problems identifying people, since many of the workers have worn out fingerprints

Problems identifying people

That data is pushed to Intermec handheld devices equipped with Edgeline fingerprint accessories for use in the field. Managers on the plantation sites then use the handheld devices to scan fingerprints and PIN numbers before paying the employee. If both steps are exact matches, the worker receives their wages. Initially, Espinal and his team were worried that the system would run into problems identifying people, particularly since many of the workers have worn out fingerprints or calluses on their hands from manual labour.

We were expecting violations and a lower rate of positive ID because of the nature of them working with their hands, Espinal explained. We have had a few people try to misidentify themselves, but it hasnt been possible. We have had 100% validation with no false positives or non-validations. It has exceeded our expectations.

Streamlining business practices

The sugarcane producer began with 10 mobile devices and soon after increased its count to 30. Most recently, Cristobal Colon added eight more mobile devices, and more tablet PCs and desktop stations running the software to keep up with new applications that its IT staff continues to develop. One of those new applications that Cristobal Colon has found useful is tying the biometric information it has for employees into its cafeteria payment system.

Employees validate themselves with their fingerprints in the cafeteria and it goes directly into our payroll system, Espinal explained. We are very excited about that and its something that the software made possible for us to do. As Cristobal Colons needs have expanded, the sugarcane company has found more possibilities to use its HID Global biometric verification software that go beyond paying workers in the field, and they continue to look for ways to use the software to simplify and streamline business practices even further.

Company wants to have a way to ensure they are providing the appropriate people with their allotted number of services

Expanding biometric enrolment

Cristobal Colon is currently in the process of gearing up to use the software to develop a Census application, which will expand biometric enrolment into the companys database to include family members of employees and people living in the community. The company provides a number of services to community members, such as sanitary services, education and medical services and the company wants to have a way to ensure they are providing the appropriate people with their allotted number of services, as well as making sure services are not duplicated.

We want to know every ones biometric signatures, and better track what services are being used and who is getting the services, Espinal said. These are all things that we couldnt have developed without the right partner. HID Global really worked with us to find a unique solution for our market that we couldnt find anywhere else, and together, we developed a terrific product.
Were OK with hauling [hazardous materials] because its part of our daily lives and we can haul it, Guerrero said, adding Union Pacific is proud of its safety rate. Not every tank you see is hazmat. It could be corn syrup, beef tallow, chlorine, crude oil, etc. We do have an emergency plan in place that we provide with our local communities along the line. We do plan for all those different situations and have those resources available.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration came into being on October 1, 1958. NASA announced the seven Project Mercury Astronauts on April 9, 1959, only six months later. They are: (front, l to r) Walter H. Schirra, Jr., Donald K. Slayton, John H. Glenn, Jr., and Scott Carpenter; (back, l to r) Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Virgil I. Gus Grissom, and L. Gordon Cooper.

Mercury was NASA's inaugural human spaceflight program. The program had two aims: to see if humans could function effectively in space, and to put a man in space before the Soviet Union did. While Mercury failed in the second aim, it did provide the technological basis for more challenging missions in the Gemini and Apollo programs. It also turned the seven original astronauts into superstars.

Program origins

In the late 1950s, the United States was worried about the Soviet Union's supremacy in space exploration. The Soviet Union unexpectedly sent Sputnik, the first satellite into space, on Oct. 4, 1957. The U.S. Congress urged action immediately to deal with the problem, with some politicians saying the Soviet coup might be a threat to national security.

There were some calls to create a military astronaut space program, building on the high-altitude flights that test pilots were already conducting. President Dwight Eisenhower initially agreed, but upon speaking with some advisors, he ultimately backed a proposal for a non-military space agency called NASA that would send the first astronauts into space. NASA was formed in 1958 from the former National Advisory Committee on Astronautics (NACA), and several other centers.

In 1959, the new agency selected seven astronauts from a pool of military test pilots to simplify the astronaut selection procedure, according to NASA. The first astronauts had to meet several stringent requirements: be under 40 years old; be less than 5 feet, 11 inches tall; be in excellent physical condition; have extensive engineering experience; be a test pilot school graduate; and have a minimum of 1,500 hours of flying time. Since most military test pilots were white males at the time, this meant that the first astronauts were also of that demographic group.

NASA screened 500 records, and decided that an initial group of 110 men were qualified. These men were divided equally and arbitrarily into three groups, which would receive a confidential briefing advising them of the opportunity to fly into space. However, because so many men from the first two groups agreed to participate in the astronaut program if chosen, the third group of military personnel was never called upon.

From there, the semi-finalists underwent extensive psychological and physical testing to winnow down the field. The selected seven astronauts were announced to the world on April 9, 1959. They and their families instantly became worldwide celebrities. Their fame was further enhanced with an exclusive contract with Life magazine for $500,000 (or about $4.3 million today). The stories painted the astronauts as American heroes fighting communism with their space missions.

Early Mercury flights

While the human Mercury program received most of the attention, the first living creature to fly on Mercury was not a test pilot, but a chimpanzee.

The chimp, named Ham (an acronym for Holloman Aerospace Medical Center), blasted off aboard a Mercury Redstone rocket on Jan. 31, 1961. NASA officials wanted to fly Ham first in case the flight ran into technical problems, which it did. The spacecraft flew higher and faster than anticipated and splashed down more than 400 miles off course. However, Ham emerged healthy except for mild dehydration and fatigue. [Related: Laika the Dog & the First Animals in Space]

After an uncrewed Mercury test flight on March 24, NASA felt ready to bring its first astronaut into space. The agency selected Alan Shepard, a World War II veteran and Navy test pilot. However, the Soviets beat the Americans once again, sending Yuri Gagarin into space on April 12. Three weeks later, on May 5, Shepard lifted off for a 15-minute suborbital flight.

Shepard's Freedom 7 flight was a success, but he was frustrated at not making it first. "We had 'em," Shepard is reported to have said about the Soviets at the time, according to the Neal Thompson 2007 biography, "Light This Candle: The Life and Times of Alan Shepard." "We had 'em by the short hairs, and we gave it away."

Mercury's next flight, on July 21, 1961, ran into a major snag. Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 performed relatively well on the 15-minute suborbital hop until splashdown, when the door unexpectedly blew open. Grissom found himself in the water as the recovery helicopter tried in vain to rescue the spacecraft. The cause of the door problem was never found.

In the aftermath of the debacle, some people argued that Grissom had messed up. However, a 2016 book by George Leopold, "Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom," argues that the astronaut displayed quick thinking while in the water, including trying to rescue the spacecraft at peril of his own life, according to Ars Technica. Grissom recovered from the incident and was assigned to the Apollo 1 mission, but he and his crew members died on the launch pad on Jan. 27, 1967 during a fire.

Reaching orbit

While the Mercury missions were technological feats for NASA and its contractors, they were quite short  only 15-minute arcs between Florida and the Atlantic Ocean. The Soviets, meanwhile, had already done orbital missions that circled the Earth several times  including Gagarin's historic first human spaceflight. Getting the Americans to orbit would require a more powerful rocket, among other mission changes.

So when John Glenn blasted off to circle Earth three times, his Friendship 7 spacecraft did it aboard a more powerful Mercury-Atlas rocket combination. Glenn's Feb. 20, 1962, mission was another checkout of the spacecraft, and how a human would react to several hours in space. During his five-hour mission, he also saw strange "fireflies" that were appearing to follow his spacecraft, a phenomenon later explained as ice crystals coming off the hull.

Controllers on the ground saw an indication that his landing bag had prematurely deployed. They waited to tell Glenn, then close to re-entry instructed Glenn to keep his retrorocket package strapped on to his spacecraft as a precaution. The indication turned out to be false, and Glenn was upset that he had not been told as soon as the problem arose. Glenn became a public hero following his flight; he wanted to return to space, but then-U.S. president John F. Kennedy (among others) considered him too valuable, according to the New York Times. (Glenn eventually became a senator for Ohio, then returned to space at age 77 aboard shuttle mission STS-95 in 1998.)

The next Mercury mission, Aurora 7, again ran into splashdown problems on May 24, 1962. Pilot Scott Carpenter landed about 250 miles (400 kilometers) off course after about five hours in space. Some space program officials, notably flight director Chris Kraft, blamed the problem on Carpenter's inattention during the mission.

In two oral interviews with NASA, Carpenter said it was a combination of technical problems (some sensors were malfunctioning) and excessive fuel use as Carpenter worked to solve Glenn's firefly mystery.

"There was excessive fuel use, which scared a lot of the folks on the ground," Carpernter recalled in 1998. "There was enough. There was enough for the entry. A lot of people thought there would not be. And it was anybody's guess."

Carpenter never flew again.

Closing the program

NASA was already planning for the next space program  Gemini, which would test orbital maneuvers and spacewalks in preparation for eventual moon missions during Apollo. With the two-man Gemini spacecraft heavily in development, NASA focused the last two Mercury missions on making sure that spacecraft and astronauts could be ready for missions that lasted over several days. Wally Schirra named his spacecraft Sigma 7 to honor excellence in engineering. He launched on Oct. 3, 1962, for a six-orbit mission, carefully rationing his fuel through the mission by using just small bursts of thruster fuel at a time.

By the time he was ready to go back to Earth, more than half of Schirra's fuel was left. In his autobiography "Schirra's Space," the astronaut said he had to dump the remainder. His mission drew praise in NASA; Schirra also flew on Gemini 6 and Apollo 7, becoming the only astronaut to fly in all three of NASA's manned space programs.

Schirra's success cleared the way for the final flight, Faith 7. Gordon Cooper flew successfully for 22 orbits between May 15 and 16, 1963.

Notably, Deke Slayton, an astronaut who was part of the original seven astronauts selected for Mercury, never flew during the program. He was sidelined due to a heart condition. He eventually made it into space during the July 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project spaceflight between the United States and the Soviet Union.

While Mercury is not always well-remembered in space history, it was the foundation for all space missions in the American program. Mercury's surviving astronauts continued to popularize space even after leaving NASA, including writing autobiographies and making public appearances. Its last living astronaut, John Glenn, died of natural causes in December 2016, at age 95.

Additional resource
After its famous flyby of Pluto in July 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made history a second time when it buzzed the most distant object ever explored: 2014 MU69.

"We set a record! Never before has a spacecraft explored something so far away," Alan Stern, the New Horizons principal investigator, said after the flyby. "I mean, think of it. We're a billion miles further than Pluto, and now we're going to keep going into the Kuiper Belt."

Both Pluto and 2014 MU69 lie within the Kuiper Belt, a collection of icy rocks that surrounds the outer reaches of the solar system. These objects are thought to be pristine samples from the early solar system, cast out into the boundary zone through gravitational interactions with the larger objects that would grow into planets. Examining them should reveal insight into what was happening in the solar system in the first stages of its lifetime.

Previously known by its nickname Ultima Thule (pronounced TOOL-ie), MU69, now officially named Arrokoth, was the first object in space to be explored by a spacecraft that launched before the object's discovery.

Beyond Pluto

As early as 2003, the National Academy of Sciences' Planetary Decadal Survey strongly recommended that the visit to Pluto include flybys of small Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs). Observing multiple targets would provide greater insight into the previously unexplored segment of the solar system. New Horizons launched in 2006 with extra fuel for such a flyby, and its power and communications systems are prepared to work at distances beyond Pluto's orbit for years to come.

In 2011, mission scientists used ground-based telescopes to begin searching for a second target, but none of the new discoveries were within the reach of New Horizons. In 2014, the Hubble Space Telescope joined the search, locating five potential objects. One of them was 2014 MU69, which was labeled 1110113Y after its June 26, 2014, discovery and also called PT1 ("potential target 1") after its elevation to one of two possible destinations. In August 2015, the New Horizons team selected 2014 MU69 as its next potential target.

"2014 MU69 is a great choice because it is just the kind of ancient KBO, formed where it orbits now, that the Decadal Survey desired us to fly by," Stern said in a statement. "Moreover, this KBO costs less fuel to reach [than other candidate targets], leaving more fuel for the flyby, for ancillary science, and greater fuel reserves to protect against the unforeseen."

MU69 lies about 1 billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto.

Naming 2014 MU69

In 2017, the New Horizons team requested suggestions from the public for a nickname for the KBO as part of an outreach campaign. The final decision, Ultima Thule, is a term used in medieval times that means "beyond the known world." The nickname was submitted by about 40 different people, NASA officials said.

"MU69 is humanity's next Ultima Thule," Stern said when the name was announced.

The nickname spurred controversy because of its historical use by Nazi forerunners and modern use by extremist groups. However, the New Horizons team decided to stick with the nickname despite the potentially negative connection.

"I've said it a number of times, I think New Horizons is an example  one of the best examples in our time  of raw exploration, and the term Ultima Thule, which is very old, many centuries old, possibly over a thousand years old, is a wonderful meme for exploration," Stern said after the flyby. "That's why we chose it. I would say that just because some bad guys once liked that term, we're not going to let them hijack it."

However, in November 2019, mission team members announced that the official name of 2014 MU69 would be Arrokoth, a word that means "sky" in the Powhatan/Algonquian language.

"The name 'Arrokoth' reflects the inspiration of looking to the skies and wondering about the stars and worlds beyond our own," Stern said in a statement. "That desire to learn is at the heart of the New Horizons mission, and we're honored to join with the Powhatan community and people of Maryland in this celebration of discovery."

Arrokoth, a Kuiper Belt object 4 billion miles from Earth, is seen by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft on Dec. 31, 2018, just hours before the probe's flyby closest approach on Jan. 1, 2019. It is the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft. (Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)

Before the flyby

Astronomers used the help of three different stars to study Arrokoth before its arrival. When an object like a KBO travels between Earth and a star, astronomers can use the starlight to study the distant target, a technique called stellar occultation. Arrokoth traveled between Earth and several different stars  one each day  on June 3, July 10 and July 17, 2017. Each event lasted only 2 seconds or so and was only visible from a narrow band of land and sea on Earth.

"This effort  spanning six months, three spacecraft, 24 portable ground-based telescopes and NASA's SOFIA airborne observatory  was the most challenging stellar occultation in the history of astronomy, but we did it!" Stern said. "We spied the shape and size of 2014 MU69 for the first time, a Kuiper Belt scientific treasure we will explore just over 17 months from now. Thanks to this success, we can now plan the upcoming flyby with much more confidence."

Measurements from all three of the 2017 observations revealed that Arrokoth wasn't orbiting where it was expected. And, a small blip during the July 10 observation puzzled astronomers because it looked like MU69 was actually two separate objects. Together, the results suggested that MU69 wasn't spinning through space alone. Astronomers thought that MU69 may have at least one moon, and could host even more natural satellites.

"This might be the harbinger," Stern said during a news conference at the 2017 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Meeting. "It might hint that there is actually a swarm of satellites from MU69."

The New Horizons team got one final glimpse of Arrokoth before the New Horizons flyby. On Aug. 4, 2018, a final occultation was visible from Earth, seen only in Senegal and Colombia

"This occultation will give us hints about what to expect at Ultima Thule and help us refine our flyby plans," Marc Buie, the New Horizons occultation-event leader, said in a statement.

A New Year's Eve to remember

On Jan. 1, 2019, at 12:33 a.m. EST, New Horizons made its historic flyby of MU69. Team scientists and engineers gathered at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, to ring in the New Year and cheer for the moment the spacecraft buzzed the KBO. Brian May, a mission scientist and lead guitarist for the band Queen, released a new single commemorating the event. But Ultima Thule is so far away that no one knew for sure whether or not the mission had completed a successful flyby until almost 10 hours had passed.

During the flyby, New Horizons passed Ultima Thule at a distance of about 2,000 miles (3,540 km), which was 5,800 miles (9,300 km) closer than it flew by Pluto.

After the flyby, NASA released the first resolved photos of Ultima Thule, revealing that the 21-mile-long (33 kilometers) object is composed of two roughly spherical lobes. The pair are joined tightly at the neck, where material shines more brightly than along the rest of the object.

"It's a snowman, if it's anything at all," Stern said when the first color image was released.

The team decided to call the largest lobe "Ultima" and the smallest "Thule." Both lobes appear red, likely due to discoloration from deep-space radiation, researchers said. The pair most likely started out as two separate objects that gradually came together, moving less than a mile per hour.

"If you collided with another car at those speeds, you may not even bother to fill out the insurance forms," Jeff Moore, New Horizons co-investigator from NASA's Ames Research Center in California, said during the flyby.

Ultima Thule is one of a large population of objects that fill the Kuiper Belt. Eventually, similar material combined to build up moons and planets. New Horizons' images of the KBO will help provide insight into how those pieces came together to shape the solar system.

"We think what we're looking at it is perhaps the most primitive object that has yet been seen by any spacecraft, and may represent a class of objects which are the oldest and most primitive objects that can be seen anywhere in the present solar system," Moore said.

This first color photo of the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule reveals the object's red color as seen by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft from a distance of 85,000 miles (137,000 kilometers) during a Jan. 1, 2019 flyby. From left to right: an enhanced color image, a higher-resolution black and white image, and an overlay that combines both into a more detailed view. (Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)

Far out

Before New Horizons reached its second target, details of Ultima Thule were difficult to make out, even through the lens of the Hubble Space Telescope. The tiny object is less than 1 percent the size of Pluto, which was why New Horizons' close-up look was so important.

"There's so much that we can learn from close-up spacecraft observations that we'll never learn from Earth, as the Pluto flyby demonstrated so spectacularly," New Horizons science team member John Spencer, said in a statement.

"The detailed images and other data that New Horizons could obtain from a KBO flyby will revolutionize our understanding of the Kuiper Belt and KBOs."

New Horizons snapped its first image of Ultima Thule in August 2018, on the first attempt, while still more than 100 million miles (170 million km) away. At the time, the target remained one of several dots among a field of stars.

Even as the spacecraft closed in on Ultima Thule, the object remained difficult to decipher but an unusual signal hinted at its bilobed shape and rotation angle. Even in the hours before the historic event, Ultima Thule refused to yield many of its secrets. The KBO remained unresolved, barely filling two pixels worth of images. As for its then-puzzling shape, Spencer could only say, "We know it's not round."

Only after the flyby were some of the mysteries finally resolved. It turned out that the KBO rotated much like the hands of a clock facing the spacecraft, a mystery that was only resolved just before the flyby. The close encounter revealed a roughly 15-hour rotation period.

New Horizons will take 20 months to send its data back to Earth. Scientists will pore over that data for years to come to learn as much as possible about the Kuiper Belt.

And it's likely that New Horizons won't stop retrieving information about the Kuiper Belt for quite a while. The spacecraft should have enough fuel to visit another KBO. According to Stern, New Horizons will be in the Kuiper Built until 2027 or 2028.

"It would be silly not to look for another target," Stern said.

Additional resources:

This article was updated on Sept. 22, 2020 by Space.com Reference Editor Kimberly Hickok.
An artists illustration of the U.S. militarys experimental Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) in flight. The Air Force recently awarded two contracts to Lockheed Martin for the development of two new superfast weapons systems, called the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW) and the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW).

The arms race is picking up considerable speed, and the United States doesn't want to get left behind.

Over the past four months, the U.S. Air Force has awarded two contracts for hypersonic weapons worth a maximum of $1.4 billion to aerospace giant Lockheed Martin.

The first contract, announced in April, awards $928 million to develop something called the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW). And last week, the Air Force disclosed another deal, worth up to $480 million, to begin designing the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW). [The Most Dangerous Space Weapons Ever]

"We are going to go fast and leverage the best technology available to get hypersonic capability to the war fighter as soon as possible," Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson said in a statement last week.

Hypersonic vehicles travel at least five times faster than the speed of sound (Mach 5; Mach 1 at sea level is 762 mph, or 1,226 km/h). And they're designed to be maneuverable, which differentiates them from intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and other fast-flying conventional weapons systems that follow predictable paths.

"We don't currently have effective defenses against hypersonic weapons because of the way they fly; i.e., they're maneuverable and fly at an altitude our current defense systems are not designed to operate at," Richard Speier, adjunct staff at the nonprofit RAND Corp., told CNBC in March. "Our whole defensive system is based on the assumption that you're gonna intercept a ballistic object."

Not much is known about either HCSW or ARRW. But hypersonic vehicles generally reach their tremendous speeds using supersonic combustion ramjet engines, or scramjets, whichs compress and combust air flowing in at supersonic speeds. Scramjet vehicles therefore need to hitch rides aboard, and launch from, fast motherships  typically missiles or jets.

HCSW and ARRW aren't the U.S. military's first forays into hypersonic technology. For example, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched several test flights of an unmanned hypersonic bomber prototype called the HTV-2. During one of those trials, in August 2011, the vehicle reached Mach 20 before losing control.

DARPA and the Air Force worked together from 2004 through 2013 on the $300 million X-51A program, which developed and tested a robotic scramjet vehicle known as Waverider. Waverider technology could still find its way into a hypersonic weapon, military officials have said. And the U.S. Army has flight-tested its Advanced Hypersonic Weapon as well.

These various efforts could become more streamlined soon. On June 28, a joint team consisting of Pentagon top brass and officials with the Air Force, Navy, Army and Missile Defense Agency signed a memorandum of agreement to work together on the development of "hypersonic boost glide technology."

"The Joint Team requires the right mix of agile capabilities to compete, deter and win across the spectrum of competition and conflict," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said in the same statement. "We must push the boundaries of technology and own the high ground in this era of great-power competition and beyond."

There is indeed competition in the superfast-weapon realm. Russian officials have claimed that the country will be ready to field a jet-launched hypersonic vehicle by 2020 or so, and China tested its own hypersonic wave rider, known as Xingkong-2 ("Starry Sky-2"), earlier this month. The test was a success, according to Chinese media reports; Starry Sky-2 apparently flew at Mach 5 for more than 400 seconds and reached a top speed of Mach 6.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
This image shows the distribution of surface ice at the moons south pole (left) and north pole (right), as detected by NASAs Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument, which flew aboard Indias Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Blue represents ice locations, and the gray scale corresponds to surface temperature, with darker gray representing colder areas and lighter shades indicating warmer ones.

It's official: There's water ice on the surface of the moon.

Researchers have confirmed the presence of the frozen stuff on the ground around the lunar north and south poles, a new study reports. That's good news for anyone eager to see humanity return to the moon for more than just a flag-planting mission.

"With enough ice sitting at the surface  within the top few millimeters  water would possibly be accessible as a resource for future expeditions to explore and even stay on the moon, and potentially easier to access than the water detected beneath the moon's surface," NASA officials wrote in a statement Monday (Aug. 20). [The Search for Water on the Moon in Pictures]

As that statement indicates, scientists already knew that the lunar underground isn't bone-dry. For example, in 2009, an impactor released by NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) blasted a bunch of water into space after slamming into a permanently shadowed region of Cabeus Crater, which lies near the moon's south pole.

But it wasn't clear from the LCROSS data where, exactly, that excavated ice originally lay  how much gray dirt once sat atop it. And, while several instruments have spotted tantalizing hints of exposed lunar ice over the years, these detections had remained unconfirmed until now.

"Previous observations indirectly found possible signs of surface ice at the lunar south pole, but these could have been explained by other phenomena, such as unusually reflective lunar soil," NASA officials wrote in the same statement.

Some of those observations were made by NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument, which flew aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. The pioneering Chandrayaan-1  India's first moon probe, and the first spacecraft to return compelling evidence of lunar water  studied Earth's nearest neighbor from orbit from November 2008 through August 2009.

In the new study, a team led by Shuai Li of the University of Hawaii and Brown University took a fresh look at M3 data. They spotted a distinctive signature of water ice in the reflectance spectra gathered by the instrument. [Moon Base Visions: How to Build a Lunar Colony (Images)]

This signature is present at many of the coldest and darkest spots on the lunar surface, within 20 degrees of both poles. There are differences from hemisphere to hemisphere, however. Ice is more abundant in the south, where it's found principally at the bottoms of permanently shadowed craters; in the north, the stuff is more widely, and thinly, dispersed.

Several factors might be responsible for this relative paucity of ice. For one thing, the moon's axis of rotation may have shifted more frequently over the eons than those of Mercury and Ceres, potentially exposing polar crater floors to sunlight more often, the researchers said. And it's possible that meteorite impacts have disrupted the moon's supplies of surface and near-surface ice more dramatically.

The new study was published online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
A year after the Great American Solar Eclipse, enthusiasm is high for the next go-round. Partial eclipses will cast their shadow on the United States in 2021 and 2023, and a total eclipse will once again grace the country in 2024. Last year's eclipse provided incredible science and opportunities for public outreach, and the lessons learned from the event will help to make future eclipses run even more smoothly.

"There was a very positive reaction to the eclipse, maybe more positive than we truly appreciated," Alex Young, associate director for science in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told Space.com by email. As the lead organizer for NASA's national eclipse plan, Young spent several years preparing for the astronomical event, and he continues to discuss it when he gives public talks.

"There still seems to be a lot of excitement," he said. [Here Are the Most Amazing Photos of the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse]

Heating up science

One year after the Great American Solar Eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017, data is still coming back. Here, the "diamond-ring effect" is seen during the eclipse. This photo was taken from a NASA Gulfstream III aircraft flying 25,000 feet (7,620 meters) over the Oregon coast. (Image credit: Carla Thomas/NASA)

On Aug. 21, 2017, most of the continental United States watched as the moon moved between Earth and the sun. While the bulk of the continent experienced at least a partial eclipse, those in the 70-mile (113 kilometers) path of totality that crossed 14 states experienced an incredible event as, for about 2 minutes at the path's center, the sun was completely covered.

Those fleeting moments, with the solar body hidden, revealed the tenuous outer atmosphere of the sun. During this time, scientists scrambled to make on-the-ground observations that are possible only during a total eclipse.

Matt Penn, formerly of the National Solar Observatory, studied the region of the sun's atmosphere called the corona as part of the Citizen Continental America Telescope Eclipse (CATE) Experiment. Citizen CATE set up 68 telescopes with teams of volunteers spread across the path of the eclipse.

"At all times, at least one CATE telescope was in the shadow, looking at the corona," Penn told Space.com in December 2017.

Penn, who is the project chair for Citizen CATE, and his colleagues used the eclipse as a solar filter to reveal the sun's secrets. With the help of the moon, they were able to peer closer to the solar surface than they could with space-based instruments that use an artificial coronagraph (a round shield that blocks the body of the sun), improving previous measurements by a factor of 100.

Solar astronomer and eclipse-chaser Jay Pasachoff, of Williams College in Massachusetts, also led an expedition that crossed the path of the eclipse. High-resolution images taken in the eclipse path revealed motion in the fine structure in a coronal streamer and a major change in at least one polar plume in the 65 minutes that elapsed from the first observations in Oregon to the final ones in Illinois. The results also showed a variation of coronal temperatures that Pasachoff said was expected from the changing phase of the sunspot cycle.

Shadia Habbal, a researcher at the University of Hawaii, probed the temperature, density and motion within the corona. Habbal's group identified pockets of material that were relatively cool, with temperatures like those found in the lower chromosphere levels, material that could eventually be pushed away from the sun as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). The results placed new, strong constraints on models of CMEs, Young said.

Not all observations of the sun took place on the ground. Amir Caspi, a space scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, sent telescopes into the air on refit bombers. Instead of observing the eclipse for the maximum of about 2.5 minutes, the high-speed aircraft managed to extend the observed totality for almost 8 minutes as they flew from Texas to Tennessee in the eclipse path. The cameras observed the structures of the eclipse, and the researchers are combing through the data looking for dim ripples and waves in the solar corona.

"It's going to hold a lot of interesting clues," Caspi told reporters at the end of 2017.

Map showing the path of totality for the "Great American Total Solar Eclipse," which occurred Aug. 21, 2017. (Image credit: Fred Espenak/NASA GSFC)

The solar eclipse didn't just teach us about the sun. It also gave us a chance to observe Earth's ionosphere, the ionized layer of the planet's atmosphere. The ionosphere grows and shrinks based on the amount of extreme ultraviolet radiation it receives from the sun, and during the eclipse, that loss will be sudden. According to Young, scientists in the 1970s predicted that the sun's supersonic shadow would produce a bow wave across the charged atmosphere.

"Not until the 2017 eclipse did we have the coverage necessary for definitive observations of the phenomena," Young said.

Modified weather balloons also helped scientists observe the eclipse from the air. High school and college students across the country participated in the Eclipse Ballooning Project, where they flew balloons through Earth's lower atmosphere, sending images of the eclipse to the ground for live-viewing streams. This marked the first-ever live footage of an eclipse from this part of the atmosphere. The balloons probed the changes in the atmosphere and measured the height of the planetary boundary layer, the lowest part of the planet's atmosphere whose behavior is influenced by Earth's surface. They found that temperatures in the layer dropped nearly to nighttime levels during totality.

Some of the balloons carried samples of harmless bacteria into the upper atmosphere, the high-altitude simulating pressures present on Mars. Because the Red Planet is farther from the sun, it experiences far less light than Earth. That dimness is replicated during a total solar eclipse. The team is continuing to process the results. [Here's What Scientists Have Learned From Total Solar Eclipses]

"A unique opportunity"

Public observations of the astronomical event eclipsed the widespread scientific interest. A post-eclipse study revealed that about 215 million American adults  88 percent of the adult population  watched the astronomical wonder in some form or fashion. That's nearly twice the viewership of the 2017 Super Bowl that preceded it.

"Those of the public who saw it were pleased, even overwhelmed," Pasachoff told Space.com by email. "Now perhaps the ones who didn't make it to totality will try to do so for 2024."

Young agreed that the 2018 eclipse may help to inspire viewers to make the next one. "One of the biggest issues is teaching the public about the difference between 99 percent and 100 percent totality," he said.

While an area that experiences 99 percent totality can see most of the sun covered, the small sliver that remains visible inhibits some of the unique events that occur during a total eclipse. These events include a wave of darkness racing across the landscape in the moments before the sun is blotted out, temperature shifts, and the strange darkness in the middle of the day and the confused responses of animals to it.

"It was difficult to convey that 99 percent was not 'close enough' and that 100 percent is completely different and unique," Young said.

Both Young and Pasachoff expressed hope that the realization would encourage more people to try to get in the path of the 2024 total solar eclipse. On April 8, 2024, the lunar shadow will sweep across Mexico and North America. The path of totality enters the United States in Texas and moves northeast to Maine.

Pasachoff is an eclipse veteran, holding the record for most eclipses viewed. The Great American Solar Eclipse was his 66th and his 33rd total solar eclipse. Since then, he has seen three partial eclipses, in Buenos Aires, Tasmania and Stockholm, putting his solar eclipse total at 69.

Pasachoff watched the Great American Solar Eclipse with his colleagues and tourist groups, as well as with a family group of 25 people, all of whom he said were overwhelmed.

"I am so pleased and relived that after all our hard work and planning, the sky was very clear and our equipment worked, allowing us to see the eclipse and to collect wonderful scientific data," he said.

But weather doesn't always cooperate with the best of arrangements, a fact Young learned all too well. After years of preparation, Young set up in Charleston, South Carolina, to participate in NASA's 4-hour broadcast. Unfortunately, the weather kept him from seeing any totality, and clouds even blocked the partial eclipse before and after.

"This was pretty disappointing for me," Young said, pointing to the years he had spent helping NASA to prepare for the event.

"Despite that disappointment, all the time I spent talking to the public and engaging and exciting them about the eclipse was magical, and well worth it. It was a unique opportunity to be a part of such an amazing event and to connect with so many people," he said.

Follow Nola Taylor Redd at @NolaTRedd, Facebook, or Google+. Follow us at @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
In the coming decades, as we gear up for a more in-depth search for life on Mars, as well as visits to potentially habitable ocean moons in the outer solar system, should scientists start addressing the ethical concerns of accidentally contaminating these worlds with Earthly microbes, as well as the scientific implications?

That's the question posed by a trio of scientists who are arguing for a shake-up in how we think about planetary protection.

If there is life on Mars, or in the waters of the Jupiter moon Europa or the Saturn satellite Enceladus, then we risk contaminating it with terrestrial microbes before we can even get the chance to discover that life. Despite our best efforts, no mission goes into space completely sterile, but there are requirements: the Outer Space Treaty, which was signed by all space-faring nations in 1967, stipulates that every effort must be made to protect other worlds from contamination. The Committee on Space Research(COSPAR) has guidelines that state that any mission designed to look for life on other worlds must not have a probability greater than 1-in-10,000 that a single microbe carried on board will contaminate potential extraterrestrial habitats. [6 Most Likely Places for Alien Life in the Solar System]

The requirement is dictated by the need to ensure the scientific integrity of the discovery of life. How could we be sure we have found life native to another world if we have already contaminated that world with Earthly microbes? There is, however, another aspect to planetary protection that tends to be overlooked, which is that the potential alteration of alien biospheres in the face of invasive terrestrial microbes is also an ethical issue.

Currently, the only potentially life-bearing world that could have been contaminated by microbes hitchhiking on a spacecraft is Mars. In 2012, researchers catalogued 298 strains of extreme bacteria that were able to survive the sterilization process in European Space Agency clean rooms, and it is expected that there are dormant terrestrial microbes on Mars today, although it is not suspected that any active contamination has yet taken place.

However, that could change if humans land there, or if we send spacecraft to venture into the oceans of the icy moons of the outer solar system.

Therefore, it's time to reopen the debate about the risks of "forward contamination" and its ethical implications, said Brent Sherwood and Adrian Ponce of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Michael Waltemathe of Ruhr-Universitat Bochum in Germany.

"What motivated us was what I call the pedigree and the provenance of the 1-in-10,000 number, said Sherwood, who is program manager for solar system science mission formulation at JPL.

"By pedigree I mean, where did it come from, and by provenance I mean, how has it been curated since it was written down?" he added. My co-authors and I find it unsatisfying, partly because modern biology is a moving target, and also partly because we are now entering an era where we will be exploring other worlds with vast amounts of water."

A future Europa lander would contain a subsystem that would incinerate the inside of the spacecraft once its mission has ended, sterilizing the lander's interior. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Preventing forward contamination

The current forward contamination requirement has a long history. Its story dates back to 1963, when JPL's Leonard Jaffe first presented the number in a study that was based on two rationales. The first was the likelihood that three-quarters of all life-detecting missions to Mars would fail to return useful data (this was back in the 1960s, when spaceflight was new and mission failures were common), and the second was that the chance of contaminating Mars with robotic spacecraft is much less than if humans landed on the Red Planet.

Subsequent studies categorized missions by type (are they landers or rovers, and are they designed to detect life?) as well as by a mission's target (is the spacecraft going to a possibly life-bearing world such as Mars or Europa, or a dead world like Mercury?). These subsequent studies typically still conclude that a probability of 1-in-10,000 is the most reasonable requirement. Yet the more we learn about the potential for life not only on Mars but also the ocean moons of the outer Solar System, and the more we discover about extremophile survivability and microbial interdependences  with the former arguing for a more stringent requirement and the latter for a more lax requirement, says Sherwood  the more these studies look outdated. [The Search for Life on Mars (A Photo Timeline)]

It's not just the danger of foiling our own life-detection experiments that concerns Sherwood and his colleagues. At numerous conferences, and now in a paper published in the journal Space Policy, Sherwood and his colleagues raise the issue of ethics.

"Maybe there is life out there, but can we learn about it without damaging it, and is it up to us to protect it? What obligations are we under? asked Sherwood. "The entire history of the discussion of the forward contamination requirement has been motivated only by protecting our ability to do science in the future. What it's missing is a discussion about protecting the biosphere of another world because it may not be ours to mess up, which is the ethical argument.

Saturn's moon Enceladus harbors an ocean that could contain life beneath its icy surface. A future mission to explore this ocean is therefore a serious contamination hazard that could damage any biosphere on Enceladus. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI)

Risk assessment

In their paper, the scientists cited two examples where scientific endeavors with societal and ethical consequences had risk assessments taken and a decision made as to whether to proceed.

The first was the scientific debate over the test of the first thermonuclear bomb in 1952. One concern at the time was that the explosion might ignite a chain reaction in Earth's atmosphere, incinerating it and all life on the planet. Because of the classified nature of nuclear weapons development, these deliberations took place in secret, and the decision was never placed in the wider world's hands.

The second example is the switching on of two powerful particle accelerators, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in the USA and the Large Hadron Collider on the France-Switzerland border. In both cases, it was perceived by some that there could be a tiny risk that the particle collisions could produce a black hole that could swallow the Earth. Activists ultimately took the governing bodies of the particle accelerators to court to try and prevent the switch-on of the particle accelerators.

In each case, the solution was decided by means that Sherwood would like to avoid  in secret or in a court of law. There is a case to argue that scientific dilemmas with ethical implications should be open for the whole world to debate, just like how discussions over the use of genetically modified foods or artificial intelligence have been placed on the global stage. Furthermore, Sherwood and his co-authors are calling on not just scientists, but also the public and non-technical experts, to discuss the risks of contaminating another world with terrestrial microbes and determine what an acceptable way of managing those risks would be.

"The discussion needs to include people who are not technical, it needs to be open and it needs to be ongoing, because there is no such thing as a final answer to any of this, said Sherwood.

He was referring to how our understanding of biology and astrobiology is growing so rapidly that it is beginning to outpace the evolution of our planetary protection policies. Given the length of time it takes to propose, plan and launch a planetary mission, the astrobiological sands could very well have shifted in the decade or so between planning and building a spacecraft, and launching and conducting its mission.

"Part of our motivation is the fear  that's a strong word; sorry  that having this conversation downstream would be more painful and expensive than having it upstream, Sherwood told Astrobiology Magazine. "Because these are multidecade endeavors in planetary science, the people who make the policy decisions today won't even be around when the missions occur, but the people who will inherit the societal consequences and on whose conscience it will weigh if we stumble or make a mistake aren't even at the table yet. Who speaks for them? [5 Bold Claims of Alien Life]

Communication

A recent report into planetary protection protocols from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine devoted just a few paragraphs to the discussion of the ethical implications. In the report, the committee of authors recognize that planetary protection and the resulting ethical issues are intertwined, and that their complex nature would require new policies.

The report also states, however, that "dialogue on expanding planetary protection ethics has not advanced sufficiently to permit the committee to make relevant findings and recommendations. Nor did the committee believe it had the mandate to study specifically the implications of an expanded ethical approach to planetary protection Periodic updates of ethical implications could be a way to convey norms to the international public and private space community as concerns arise; formal COSPAR policy would presumably follow.

Despite the National Academies report, Sherwood already has a mechanism in mind for tackling the ethical considerations before they become a more serious concern. He sees two stages, with the first stage being to get the problem out into the open and communicate to the world what can be done, how the risks could be managed, what our limitations are and what the 1-in-10,000 number means. This would help provide context for the global discussion to then move to the second stage, which is deciding from the options available what should be done.

Communicating those options correctly is still a problem, said Sherwood, who highlights one particular feature in a concept for a spacecraft that could one day land on the icy wastes of Jupiter's moon Europa, which hosts a global ocean somewhere below the ice. Over eons, Europa is resurfaced and eventually, as part of this resurfacing process that sees the gradual churning of surface ice, any lander would find itself subsumed by the ice and gradually work its way down toward the ocean, where there could potentially be life.

"There would be a subsystem inside the spacecraft that, when the mission is over, will incinerate the innards, which are the parts of the spacecraft that we would be unable to be sterilized before launch, Sherwood esaid. "It's a very subtle, sophisticated response to the forward contamination requirement, yet it is not clear how widespread the understanding of this approach even is yet. It starts with communication.

Given that ethical values can vary from organization to organization in the same country, never mind from country to country, there is the potential for such discussion to involve heated debate, with clashes of viewpoints. Ultimately, some people could be left disappointed by the conclusion reached by the majority, but one area that remains unclear is who ultimately makes that final decision based on the arguments presented as part of the debate. [Europa: Mysterious Icy Moon of Jupiter (Photos)]

"I don't have an answer to that! Sherwood said. "Going back to the precedent of the particle accelerators, the decisions were relegated by the courts to the jurisdictions in which the facilities were built.

The organization that has the ultimate say over space launches is the launching authority in a given country, per the Outer Space Treaty. The launching authority has responsibility for ensuring that the launch is safe, is not carrying any toxic materials that could harm life on Earth in the event of a launch failure, and is not a danger to other satellites and spacecraft already in orbit. In the United States, said Sherwood, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ultimate control over what launches and what doesn't, but the FAA does not have the personnel to assess the risks for planetary protection.

"How could they make a decision? asked Sherwood rhetorically. "So, there's sort of a mechanism in place, but it's not a complete mechanism. I think all of these issues regarding who gets the final say and how would that happen need to be decided, which again is a good reason to have the discussion. It may be that the rest of the world doesn't even care if we interfere with an alien ecosystem, but our point is not that people will care, it's that people might care, and until we ask we won't know.

This story was provided by Astrobiology Magazine, a web-based publication sponsored by the NASA astrobiology program. This version of the story published on Space.com. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+.
Poster art for director Rory Kennedy's documentary, "Above and Beyond: NASA's Journey to Tomorrow." (Image credit: Discovery)

A new feature-length documentary examining NASA's 60 years of space exploration, including the agency's on-going studies of Earth, is set for a special engagement in movie theaters this fall.

"Above and Beyond: NASA's Journey to Tomorrow," from Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning director Rory Kennedy ("Last Days of Vietnam"), will land in cinemas across the United States ahead of its broadcast debut on Discovery Channel. Tickets for the Fathom Events' screenings on Sept. 29 and Oct. 3 are now on sale.

"We are thrilled to partner with Discovery Channel to bring 'Above and Beyond: NASA's Journey to Tomorrow' to movie theaters nationwide," said Ray Nutt, CEO of Fathom Events, in a statement. "There are few events as cinematic as space travel, and the incredible stories of the men and women of NASA depicted in this remarkable documentary are well-deserving of the big screen treatment." [Building Apollo (Photos)]

"Above and Beyond" traces NASA's six decades of historic achievements, from the Apollo moon landings 50 years ago to the ongoing robotic exploration of Mars. The documentary also looks at how NASA has helped shaped our understanding of our home planet, Earth.

"Sixty years ago, my uncle put forth a great challenge. Since then, NASA has journeyed far beyond. Today, we face a greater challenge, a challenge we cannot postpone, one we simply must win," says Kennedy in a video teaser for "Above and Beyond."

In September 1962, while at Rice University in Houston, President John F. Kennedy spoke of the cost of sending missions to the moon. "We have given this program a high national priority even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us." With "Above and Beyond," his niece asks "what has become of her uncle's faith in human ingenuity, his grand vision and aspirations?"

To find the answer, Kennedy spoke with NASA leaders, scientists and astronauts, including former administrator Charles Bolden, Mars 2020 rover chief engineer Adam Steltzner and International Space Station commander Peggy Whitson. The resulting film showcases the next-generation space telescopes, the prototypes of Mars-bound spacecraft and the missions that will take astronauts further out into our solar system.

Director Rory Kennedy, niece of the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy, also produced and narrates "Above and Beyond: NASA's Journey to Tomorrow." (Image credit: Discovery)

But if her uncle once set NASA's goal as the moon, with "Above and Beyond" Rory Kennedy argues today the agency's most urgent mission is equally clear  to report back on the health of Earth. With a network of dedicated satellites, aircraft and ground teams, NASA has and continues to provide an unparalleled view of a complicated planet.

"When we look outward, when we understand the planets, when we go out into the universe, we're really still trying to look back at ourselves and say, 'How does our planet work?'" Ellen Stofan, NASA's former chief scientist and the current director of the National Air and Space Museum, tells Kennedy. "That Mars was once habitable, just like Earth, and is no longer makes clear how planetary bodies transform."

"Above and Beyond: NASA's Journey to Tomorrow" will be screened on Saturday, Sept. 29 at 12:55 p.m. and Wednesday, Oct. 3 at 7:00 p.m. (all local times) in more than 650 select movie theaters, through Fathom's Digital Broadcast Network. Following the Fathom showings, the documentary will air on Oct. 13 on Discovery Channel.

The in-cinema events will include a special introduction from Kennedy.

"It is thrilling for me to have audiences see this film on the big screen, to showcase the images that NASA has captured over the last 60 years," said Kennedy in a statement. "My uncle had the foresight to see the importance of NASA and their work. Over the years, the agency has changed not only our vision of the universe, but of our planet, and ourselves."

Watch the teaser for "Above and Beyond: NASA's Journey to Tomorrow" at collectSPACE.

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2018 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
On Aug. 21, 2017, 154 million Americans walked outside to watch the moon slide in front of the sun  and NASA hopes all those people and more will mark their calendars for April 8, 2024, when another total solar eclipse will cross from Mexico to Maine.

NASA celebrated the anniversary of the Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017 with a livestreamed science chat that highlighted the successes of last year's science and outreach programs and reminded eager eclipse chasers of what the sky promises for the next decade.

But neither the huge haul of scientific observations nor the stampede of Americans outside that day came out of nowhere. "NASA started planning for this eclipse about three years before it actually happened," Jim Green, head of NASA's Planetary Science division, said during the event. [Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017: Your Amazing Memories]

And although Green and his fellow NASA staffers didn't make any promises for 2024, it's clear the agency means to build on its success with the 2017 eclipse. The celestial geometry will also be cooperating by the time 2024 rolls around. That means that during the 2024 eclipse, totality will last longer, about 3.5 to 4 minutes total, and the totality band will be wider than it was in 2017, according to NASA solar scientist Alex Young. "This is going to be a spectacular year," he said.

But if you don't want to wait until 2024, there are several other eclipses on offer. If you're on the hunt for totality, book your tickets to Chile and Argentina, which will experience eclipses on July 2, 2019, and Dec. 14, 2020. [Solar Eclipse Guide for 2019 and Beyond! ]

To stay in North America, mark your calendar for Oct. 14, 2023, when an annular eclipse will cross from Oregon to Texas before continuing into Central and South America. An annular eclipse doesn't include totality and the corona never becomes visible because the moon is too far away to completely blot out the sun. Instead, it leaves a "ring of fire"  so be sure to wear protective eyeglasses the entire time.

And if you still have those eclipse glasses you found for last year's extravaganza in perfect condition, you can turn any day into a trip down memory lane by taking a glance at what our sun is up to. "These are not just eclipse glasses, these are solar-viewing glasses," Young said. "You don't need an eclipse, all you need is the sun, and it's out there every day."

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
Marco Langbroek captured this long-exposure photo of the Air Force's X-37B space plane streaking through the sky above Leiden, the Netherlands, on Aug. 20, 2018.

The U.S. Air Force's X-37B space plane may be secretive, but it's not invisible.

Netherlands-based satellite tracker Marco Langbroek snapped long-exposure photos of the robotic mini-shuttle zooming over the city of Leiden yesterday (Aug. 20), capturing the spacecraft's rapid trek across the night sky as a thin streak of light.

The Air Force discloses little about X-37B missions, keeping details about the plane's orbit and most of its payloads close to the vest. But Langbroek said he's confident that the light trail he photographed came from the space plane, which is also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV). [The X-37B Space Plane: 6 Surprising Facts]

Another photo by Langbroek of the X-37B's night-sky trek on Aug. 20, 2018. Also visible in this image, just below and perpendicular to the X-37Bs track, is the trail made by the French commercial imaging satellite SPOT 6. (Image credit: Marco Langbroek

"The object in question is not in the public catalogue of satellite orbits maintained by JSpOC (the U.S. military tracking network), which shows for an object this bright that it must be a 'classified' object," Langbroek told Space.com via email. "We nevertheless know where 'classified' objects like this are, because they are routinely tracked by a small network of amateur trackers, in which I takepart."

The object he photographed last night is in a very low orbit, Langbroek added: between 193 miles and 202 miles (310 to 325 kilometers). (For comparison, the International Space Station's average altitude is about 250 miles, or 400 km.) And the object actively maneuvers from time to time, so it can't be some piece of space junk about to re-enter Earth's atmosphere.

In this photo, also taken by Langbroek on Aug. 20, SPOT 6s faint track is above and to the left of the bright X-37B trail. (Image credit: Marco Langbroek

"Basically, only one type of object fits this: X-37B," Langbroek said. "Previous X-37B missions we tracked also orbited at such very low altitudes. The object also has a similar brightness to previous OTV missions."

And to really seal the deal, when you project this object's orbital plane backward in time, it passes right over Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at around 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) on Sept. 7, 2017  right when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lofted the X-37B on its current mission, called OTV-5.

The X-37B looks like a miniature version of NASA's now-retired space shuttle orbiter. The Air Force is known to possess two OTVs, both of which were built by Boeing. Each vehicle is 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and 9.6 feet (2.9 m) tall, with a payload bay the size of a pickup truck bed.

As its name suggests, OTV-5 is the fifth X-37B mission. To date, each OTV flight has spent more time in orbit than the last. OTV-1 launched in April 2010 and spent 224 days in space; OTV-2 began in March 2011 and logged 468 days in space; OTV-3 zipped around Earth for nearly 675 days after its December 2012 liftoff, and OTV-4 launched in May 2015 and landed 718 days later, in May 2017.

X-37B OTV 5 on 20 AUG 2018 from Marco Langbroek on Vimeo. (The short movie above was captured using a WATEC 902H CCTV camera equipped with an old Canon FD 1.8/50 mm lens, Langbroek said.)

Air Force officials have said that the X-37B is testing reusable-spaceflight technology and gear for future spacecraft on these missions. Experts have said this explanation makes sense, dismissing claims that the OTV may be a space weapon of some sort.

Oh, and you can spot the X-37B overhead as well, if you know where to look, Langbroek said. The spacecraft is usually quite bright  often bright enough to be naked-eye visible from the middle of Leiden, he added. (For tips on where to look, go to satellite-tracking sites such as Heavens Above or N2YO.)

"During favorable passes, the spacecraft reaches magnitude +1, which is brighter than, for example, the stars of the Big Dipper and similar to the brightness of Saturn or Mars in the sky," Langbroek said. "It is easily visible to the naked eye then, even from the urban town center I observe from."

The Aug. 20 photos were taken during an overhead pass during which the X-37B wasnt all that bright. This image, taken by Langbroek on June 25, 2018, shows the space plane during a more favorable pass. (Image credit: Marco Langbroek

Last night's pass wasn't even a particularly great one, he added. And he still used "very simple equipment: a normal DSLR (a Canon EOS 60D) with a Canon EF F2.0/35mm wide-angle lens, on a normal camera tripod. The camera was set on ISO 800, the lens wide open at F2.0, and I used an exposure time of 5 seconds."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
An artist's illustration of a radio jet spewing out fast-moving material from the quasar PSO J352.4034-15.3373, which lies about 13 billion light-years from Earth. Researchers have used two ancient quasars to provide incredible evidence for quantum entanglement.

Using two ancient galactic cores called quasars, researchers have taken a massive step forward toward confirming quantum entanglement  a concept that says that the properties of particles can be linked no matter how far apart in the universe they may be.

If quantum entanglement is valid, then a pair of entangled particles can exist billions of light-years apart from one another and actions affecting the properties of one particle will affect the properties of the other particle. Albert Einstein described this correlation between particles as "spooky action at a distance." Last year, physicists from MIT, the University of Vienna and other institutions provided strong evidence for quantum entanglement, and now, this same team of scientists has gone even further to confirm quantum entanglement.

Scientists looking to prove quantum entanglement have to show that measured correlations between particles cannot be explained by classical physics, according to a statement from MIT describing the new work. In the 1960s, physicist John Bell calculated a theoretical limit, past which correlations between particles must have a quantum, not a classical, explanation. [Time Crystals to Tetraquarks: Quantum Physics in 2017]

The distant quasar B1608+656 is smeared into bright arcs by two closer galaxies in the foreground. Researchers have used two ancient quasars, which emitted their light billions of years ago, to provide evidence for quantum entanglement. (Image credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, Suyu et al.)

But there are loopholes in this theoretical limit, in which observations of what seem to be correlated particles have a hidden, classical explanation, the MIT researchers said. One of these loopholes that scientists are working to close is known as the "freedom-of-choice" loophole, or the possibility that an unknown classical influence is affecting a measurement of an entangled particle. With this loophole, researchers observe a quantum correlation when there is none.

Last year, this team of scientists demonstrated, using 600-year-old starlight, that if the correlations they observed between particles could be explained by classical physics, this classical origin would have to stem from more than 600 years ago  before the star's light ever shone.

To close this loophole even further, these researchers have now used distant, ancient quasars  luminous, energetic galactic nuclei  to see if the correlation between particles can be explained by classical mechanics stemming from earlier than 600 years ago. In other words, they're taking the success of their study from last year and scaling it up to provide further evidence for quantum entanglement.

To do this, they chose to use two quasars that emitted light 7.8 billion years ago and 12.2 billion years ago. The researchers used light from these two quasars to determine the angle at which to tilt a polarizer, which measures the orientation of each photon's electric field.

They used telescopes located at detectors to measure the wavelength of the entangled photons (light particles) in the light coming from the quasars. If the light was redder than a reference wavelength  a measurement used for comparison that is taken at a different wavelength than those being studied  the polarizer tilted to measure the incoming photon. If the light was bluer than the reference wavelength, the polarizer would tilt to a different angle to measure the photon.

In the study performed last year, researchers used small telescopes that only allowed them to measure light from stars 600 light-years away, but by using larger, more powerful telescopes, the researchers have now managed to measure the light from much older, more distant quasars.

In studying entangled photons with these ancient quasars, the team found correlations in over 30,000 pairs of photons. These correlations went well beyond the limit set by Bell, showing that, if there were any classical explanation for the correlated particles, it would have to come from before these ancient quasars emitted light  many billions of years ago.

"If some conspiracy is happening to simulate quantum mechanics by a mechanism that is actually classical, that mechanism would have had to begin its operations  somehow knowing exactly when, where, and how this experiment was going to be done  at least 7.8 billion years ago," Alan Guth, a physicist at MIT and a co-author of the new work, said in the statement. "That seems incredibly implausible, so we have very strong evidence that quantum mechanics is the right explanation."

So, with these findings, it is "implausible" that the measured correlations have a classical explanation, the researchers said. This is strong evidence that quantum mechanics caused this correlation and that quantum entanglement is valid, they said.

"The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, so any alternative mechanism  different from quantum mechanics  that might have produced our results by exploiting this loophole would've had to be in place long before even there was a planet Earth, let alone an MIT," David Kaiser, also a physicist at MIT and a co-author of the study, added in the statement. "So we've pushed any alternative explanations back to very early in cosmic history."

The work was published Aug. 20 in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her @chelsea_gohd. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
The town submitted 1,273 signatures to the Lake County Board of Elections in August 2016, and tentatively set a Dec. 20 election for voters to weigh in on the measure. The Town Council later voted to cancel the special election until the court resolved legal challenges to the measure.
STAMFORD  A New York man who federal authorities say delivered more than 100 pounds of marijuana to a Stamford resident has been sentenced to two years in prison.

Gustavo Garcia, 30, of Queens, N.Y., was sentenced in New Haven by Judge Janet Bond Arterton for trafficking marijuana. He is required to pay a $1,000 fine, but that is only a small amount of the $93,000 in cash and another $100,000 in jewelry that law enforcement officials seized during a search of his New York home.
STAMFORD  A private day care provider has been accused of leaving six children alone in her Strawberry Hill home for about a half an hour while she ran an errand.

Bernanie Bernie Jean-Louis, 49, has been charged with six counts of risk of injury to a minor after police say a state Department of Children and Families employee discovered the children  ranging in age from 11 months to 11 years old  were alone Monday afternoon in the Wenzel Terrace home day care.

Sgt. Robert Shawinsky said the social worker was checking on a child under Jean-Louis care and called police around 4:15 p.m. after not seeing an adult for nearly half an hour while she was at the day care.

Jean-Louis, who has run Bernies Kiddys for 14 years, told the Stamford Advocate on Tuesday that the children were left unsupervised for only about a minute.

Jean-Louis said she left the children with her 21-year-old daughter while she went to the pharmacy. Jean-Louis said her daughter called and told her she needed to leave for work. Jean-Louis told the Advocate the children were only alone for the brief time it took her to drive about 200 yards from the traffic light on Hope Street to her Wenzel Terrace home.

However, Shawinsky said the DCF worker reported she was inside the house for 25 minutes before Jean-Louis returned.

The children were picked up by their parents and Jean-Louis, who is free on $5,000 bond, said she voluntarily closed the day care on Tuesday.

Jean-Louis day care has been registered with the state since 2004 with one violation reported in July 2016 for not having all of the childrens medical release forms, according to the Office of Early Childhood. The states last unannounced visit to Bernies Kiddys was on Feb. 16.

Maggie Adair, director of government and community relations for the state Office of Early Childhood, said an investigation is being conducted into this weeks incident.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com
Facebook users who say their personal data was misused, potentially to distort the last U.S. election, must wait to see if they can wring more information from Cambridge Analytica, the disappearing company that played a key role in the drama.

The political consulting firm is winding down in both Britain, its home country, and in a New York Chapter 7 bankruptcy case. Some of the dozens of Facebook users who sued both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica in U.S. district court appeared in the bankruptcy as "data breach plaintiffs" to ask if they can gather more information about the defunct company's finances.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane said Tuesday in Manhattan court that they'll have to wait until September to hear his answer, when it is hoped that more information will become clear. Meanwhile, he entered an order in their favor to preserve any records.

His back and forth with lawyers revealed how difficult it will be to get any financial compensation -- or even information -- from the firm.

"I don't know some of the basic facts, which is a bit daunting," Lane said, in a hearing that ran through a laundry list of unknowns: whether Cambridge Analytica has indeed handed over all the information it collected; whether it has or ever had Facebook user data in its possession; what the role of board member Rebekah Mercer was in pre-bankruptcy transactions; and how Cambridge Analytica's lawyers can insist there is no one at the company to subpoena or answer such questions under oath, since someone must have hired them.

"You're here today, so you clearly have an attorney-client relationship with someone," Lane told Kristine Manoukian, a lawyer for Schulte Roth & Zabel who represents Cambridge Analytica. She told the court the law firm wouldn't accept subpoenas and had no company representatives to offer for testimony, and that it might withdraw as the firm's counsel.

Salvatore LaMonica, a trustee for the estate, said there are "minimal assets" which will be depleted quickly if more litigation ensues, and said the Facebook users are "way down the line" in terms of requests for information, after those from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and several U.S. Attorneys General.

At stake in the data breach plaintiff's pending request is whether there's any value to claim if they succeed in their lawsuits, which are still in early stages. One topic of interest, the data breach group says, is Emerdata Ltd., a company that bought 89.5 percent in Cambridge Analytica from Chief Executive Officer Alexander Nix and Cambridge Analytica affiliates just before the bankruptcy.

"In any case where a debtor engages in these kinds of transactions in advance of a Chapter 7 filing, it sparks interest," Michael Etkin, a lawyer for the data breach group, said in a phone interview. Etkin declined to comment on what types of claims they could make. But under bankruptcy law, assets transferred out of an estate just before a filing can sometimes be clawed back.

Emerdata, said to be under court administration, is also a figure of interest to British lawmakers, who last month recommended it be investigated amid concerns that Kremlin-backed groups used social media to influence elections.

While Emerdata may be winding down, another company, Data Propria, has hired some former Cambridge Analytica executives. It has brought in revenue for its parent company CloudCommerce Inc. since being formed in February 2018, according to CloudCommerce's regulatory filings. The Associated Press has reported that it is run by former Cambridge Analytica officials and is working on President Donald Trump's 2020 re-election campaign. CloudCommerce didn't return a message seeking comment.

The data breach group represents only some Facebook members who have sued. In around 25 similar cases that were recently consolidated in a California court, members allege Cambridge Analytica mounted a "massive data mining campaign" on 87 million Facebook users, and may have used the data when it worked on President Trump's campaign in 2016. The suits question Facebook's role and seek damages from either company for what they say were invasion of privacy and increased risk of theft and data breaches.

Cambridge Analytica, Facebook and a trustee overseeing the case all filed objections to the data breach group's requests in bankruptcy court.

Facebook users shot back in court filings that they've identified "numerous other causes for concern" since they first made their request. They cited a lack of clarity about the company's assets in the case so far and the statement made by Chief Executive Officer Julian Wheatland that he's unsure whether he or other representatives have continued access to web-based accounts, or whether a customer list exists. Also, they noted, Wheatland was directed not to answer questions when it came to whether the company had actual possession of user information.

Cambridge Analytica's backers have included the Mercer family. Its bankruptcy petition was signed by board members Rebekah Mercer and Jennifer Mercer, daughters of former New York hedge fund manager Robert Mercer. His family backed Donald Trump for president and helped reshape American conservative politics.
A federal judge in Seattle will decide Monday whether to block a Texas-based company from making digital blueprints for 3-D printed firearms publicly available online. The legal controversy has sparked a national conversation about the implications of untraceable plastic guns and constitutional rights.

Tuesday's hearing stems from a lawsuit filed July 30 by eight attorneys general and the District of Columbia against the State Department, which had agreed to allow Defense Distributed to publish an arsenal of firearms blueprints online in a planned settlement.

The states are arguing that the release of 3-D printable designs threatens national security and abridges states' ability to pass and police gun laws. On July 31, Judge Robert Lasnik of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, citing risks to public safety, granted the attorneys general's request.

"If an injunction is not issued and the status quo alters at midnight tonight, the proliferation of these firearms will have many of the negative impacts on a state level that the federal government once feared on the international stage," Lasnik said.

Since then, 11 other state attorneys general have joined the battle against the State Department. The states requested a permanent injunction from the court, aiming to permanently ban Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson from posting the 3-D designs on the Internet.

Lasnik is expected to make a final decision by Aug. 27; the current order is in place until the following day.

"We were grateful the Court carefully considered our arguments, and look forward to the ruling," said Joshua Blackman, Wilson's attorney.

Wilson's critics say his plan could put unregulated and difficult-to-detect weapons in the wrong hands.

The legal battle over weapon-design files dates back to 2013, when Wilson manufactured the first printed handgun; his design, though plastic, used a metal firing pin. Days after Wilson made the blueprints available online, the federal government stepped in and demanded that he remove the files. Wilson did, then sued the State Department.

According to State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, the Justice Department worked with the State Department throughout the multiyear legal battle. DOJ ultimately recommended settling the suit, predicting a loss in court on First Amendment grounds. In June, the federal government entered into an agreement, permitting Wilson to publish his arsenal of firearm blueprints online. He intended to do so Aug. 1.

Hours before he planned to publish, Lasnik stopped him.

To coincide with the hearing, Wilson launched a fundraising campaign on Monday. Consumed by four pending lawsuits, he hopes to raise $400,000 in donations - by credit card, bitcoin and bitcoin Cash - to support his fight. Roger Ver of bitcoin Cash, who could not be reached for comment, intends to match contributions, according to Wilson.

"Defense Distributed is a defense contractor, only our contracts aren't with the state. We contract with the public," Wilson told The Washington Post, promising to build a new defense-type application if the public funds the litigation. "It's a statement of disruption. We can develop things that they don't know they're mad about yet."

Last Thursday, the Department of Justice filed a brief accusing the 19 attorneys general of misreading the terms of the department's settlement with Wilson.

"This case is not about the regulation of U.S. persons who wish to utilize a 3-D printer to manufacture their own small-caliber firearms. Rather, this case concerns the Department of State's delegated authority to control the export of defense articles and services, or technical data related thereto, that raise military or intelligence concerns," wrote the department. "The domestic harms about which Plaintiffs are allegedly concerned are not properly regulated by the Department under current law."

The State Department, which regulates weapons exports, does not have the power to ban dissemination of information to U.S. citizens due to some possibility a person may misuse it, according to court documents.

"Plaintiffs' allegations of harm are not reasonably attributable to the Department's regulation of exports, but rather focus on the possibility that third parties will commit violations of the Undetectable Firearms Act or other relevant laws that are not at issue in this case," wrote the department.

Still, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has reiterated that it is illegal to manufacture plastic guns that are undetectable.

"We will not stand for the evasion, especially the flouting, of current law and will take action to ensure that individuals who violate the law by making plastic firearms and rendering them undetectable, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent," Sessions said in a statement Thursday.

Gun-safety supporters, such as the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, have also argued that 3-D printed weapons - that avoid layers of federal and state gun-control policies, such as permits and background checks - are not "typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes," and, therefore, are not protected under the Second Amendment.

Other legal experts have focused on the wide-reaching First Amendment implications of a ruling that bars Wilson from releasing the files. They suggest that prohibiting publication of computer code - that has been available for download since at least 2013, according to Nauert - amounts to a violation of free speech.
From August 2017 to July 2018, the communities in Lake County cumulatively received roughly $40.4 million in road and highway funding from the state, according to the data, and received $26.4 million from August 2016 to July 2017.
F ears of a massive escalation in Donald Trumps trade war with China are already damaging the global economy and dampening demand, the boss of the worlds biggest miner, BHP Billiton, warned on Tuesday.

BHPs chief executive Andrew Mackenzies comments came hours after Trump said he did not anticipate much from this weeks talks with Beijing.

They are aimed at resolving the trade dispute which already covers more than $50 billion (39 billion) worth of Chinese imports, stretching from chemicals and copper to the presidents Make America Great again hats.

Mackenzie, who described protectionism as bad for America and bad for the world, said the tariffs are slowing global growth, raising prices and seeing consumers cut back as they become aware of the true economic costs, which will have a dampening effect on the global economy.

The miner has cut its growth expectations, warning demand for copper and steel has been hit hard on the back of escalating trade tension. But Mackenzie added that Trumps protectionism was seeing closer trade negotiations between China and other nations.

Concerns about Trump deepening the trade war with China left BHPs share price down 23p at 1622p, despite it today posting a 33% jump in annual underlying profit to $8.9 billion.

It is handing investors a record final dividend at $0.63 a share, up from $0.43 a year ago.

Mackenzie admitted trade concerns had left the miner a little more apprehensive on the outlook. Yuen Low, mining analyst at Shore Capital, said: BHPs big money-earners right now, iron ore, coking coal and copper, would all be adversely affected by a trade war. Whats bad for China is bad for BHP.

Plus, more generally speaking, tariffs hinder productivity and hit efficiency levels, which will affect global demand for metals. If the global economy doesnt grow as fast and use as much metals, that again is bad news for BHP.

BHPs warning followed similar fears from the bosses of other global firms.

Soren Skou, chief executive of the worlds biggest shipping company, Maersk, this week predicted the trade war will harm the US more than any other country, slowing the countrys trade growth by up to 4%.
I t looks like an open and shut case.

Rogue trader Kweku Adoboli was a gamble or two away from destroying UBS, Switzerlands biggest bank.

As it is he racked up losses of 1.4 billion through wildly reckless trading and was sentenced to seven years in jail for fraud.

With perfectly innocent British citizens having been deported through Theresa Mays atrocious hostile environment policy, why should we be worried about this man, whom the Home Office wants to deport to Ghana?

A sentence of four years is enough to be considered for deportation, and thousands have been. Many would argue that Adoboli, who has to report to the police at monthly intervals while he fights this, should be gone already. Hes a convicted criminal, that should be enough.

But wait just a moment.

For a start Adoboli hasnt lived in Ghana since he was four, settling in Britain when he was 12, where he has lived for the majority of his life. There is a powerful, indeed compelling, case for treating people who come here as children like that differently.

Moreover, there wouldnt seem to be much risk of his reoffending. Quite the reverse. Since being released he has given lectures and speeches to people ranging from students, to business leaders, on banking reform and how to prevent his actions from being repeated.

Ex-poachers can make for useful gamekeepers. Or, perhaps, consultant gamekeepers.

Kweku Adoboli, the banking equivalent of an ethical hacker. Now would that be such a bad thing?

Its certainly a more constructive use of ones time than trading on infamy a la Nick Leeson, the Barings rogue trader currently appearing on Celebrity Big Brother. But rules are rules in Britain. So Kwekus gotta go.

Sometimes rules are stupid, and cruel, and need to be changed. Adoboli might not be the most deserving case, given the number of entirely innocent people who have been unjustly thrown out of this country.

But if he can play a role in changing the industry then that would be another service he will have done his adopted home country, paying his debt to society.

Weve all put in for Fairburns bonus

Lifes good for Persimmon. The house builder has just posted a 516.3million profit for the six months to the end of June. We believe we are well positioned to deliver further high quality sustainable growth, says chief executive Jeff Fairburn.

With Britain in the midst of a housing shortage, and the Governments Help to Buy scheme propping up earnings, who could argue?

The only thing that wont carry on growing is boss Fairburns bonus, in the wake of the furore over him being handed the biggest payout in British corporate history.
U nder-fire accounting giant KPMG was on Monday slapped with a 3 million fine by the industry watchdog for a breach of ethical standards over its audit of fashion brand Ted Baker.

The Financial Reporting Council said the firm, which admitted it was in the wrong, should not have provided expert witness services to Ted Baker in a court case while it was also handling its books in 2013 and 2014.

This was in breach of the ethical standards and led to the loss of KPMGs independence in respect of the audits, the FRC said. In addition, there was a self-interest threat arising from the fact that the fees for the expert engagement significantly exceeded the audit fees.

The firms fine was reduced to 2.1 million for settling the case early, although the auditor was also landed with a 112,000 bill for costs.

Its senior auditor, Michael Barradell was fined 80,000, cut to 46,800 after he settled.

KPMG said: Where there are lessons to be learned, we will learn them. It added that since last year it no longer offers any expert witness work for any company it audits and stressed that the actual scrutiny of Ted Bakers books has not been called into question.

Ted Baker was at the time wrangled in a legal battle against its insurers Axa over a payout after a warehouse worker stole tonnes of clothes from the designer brand.

It cost Ted Baker nearly 5 million in lost business and legal costs.

The news comes after audit blunders have recently made headlines including outsourcer Carillions collapse, with KPMG coming in for fierce criticism. There was also the implosion of Conviviality, which revealed it had to pay an unexpected 30 million tax bill under KPMGs watch.
D ostoevskys insight that the degree of civilisation of a society can be judged by entering its prisons hails from 19th-century Russia. It puts Englands penitentiaries in 2018 in an unflattering light. The report by the chief inspector of prisons, Peter Clarke, into conditions at HM Prison Birmingham , run by the private firm G4S, is stark even by the standards of such documents.

Clarke describes the overpowering stench of home-cooked drugs, which are thought to have claimed the lives of several inmates recently, prison officers with no idea where their charges were or cowering from them, corridors awash with vomit, blood and commonplace bullying.

The Ministry of Justice has taken the prison under its control and implemented emergency measures. In addition, 30 million of emergency funding will be handed out to the 10 worst-performing jails to bring them back up to standard.

This will only scratch the surface of a problem which has eluded the grip of governments to the point where prisons have moved from the category of forgotten public service to unspoken national shame. Not unreasonably, critics of privatisation are in told-you-so mode about Birmingham.

Oddly, they were quiet when Wormwood Scrubs (run by the state) was found to be awful too  its last inspection a year ago noted problems there were intractable and prisoners were suffering not only appalling conditions but an almost complete lack of rehabilitative activity.

By January 2018, Nottingham Prison, also publicly run, was struggling to improve its dire safety record. Londons (privately-run) Pentonville prison has been slated for long-overdue closure but remains open because of the acute shortage of places.

The Government can rightly be criticised for failing to act earlier at Birmingham. But the poor conditions across state and private prisons also tell us that there is no easy argument about the superiority of one system over another. The penal system as a whole is broken and is the product of indifference at the heart of government.

Rory Stewart, the new prisons minister, has been disarmingly frank in his pledge to resign if conditions do not improve in a year. But outrage over this subject is a political parcel that gets passed around until the music stops and someone is obliged to do something. Stewart is a junior minister. In the scheme of resignation threats his is not one to add to Theresa Mays holiday nightmares. The real pressure should fall on his boss David Gauke, the Justice Secretary, to address the main sources of the present crisis.

The first is a shortage of prison places, though this was an issue in 2007 when Lord Falconer, who yesterday took aim at the Governments handling of the prisons crisis, was appointed the first Justice Secretary by Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister.

Serious drug use among prisoners has spiralled since then but a lot of that is to do with the greater ease with which synthetic drugs can be made and the ease with which drones can deliver illicit supplies to those inside.

Most of all, staff numbers have failed to rise to meet the challenge of more violent criminals being put behind bars. The pressure cooker predictably exploded in the Birmingham Prison riot of 2016.

Ideas for reform have come in fits and starts  which is nothing new. I remember writing about the stand-offs between Jack Straw and Falconer on the wisdom of early release schemes in this paper more than a decade ago. David Cameron gave a brave speech for a leader in 2016 questioning the effectiveness of having such a large prison population and the failure to reduce reoffending. Warehousing ever more prisoners, he noted, is not financially sustainable, nor is it necessarily the most cost-effective way of cutting crime.

"We all have to live with the consequences of institutions that brutalise rather than punish and reform"

Even allowing for the fact that 2016 turned out to be the Ides of March for Cameron and the May Government has been a one-stop shop of Brexit troubles since, the lack of any sustained plan for improving our prisons is lamentable.

Too many whizzy ideas, to cite an experienced prison governor, come and go. Schemes such as social impact bonds, through which investors receive dividends based on the results achieved by a project  in this case a reduction of reoffending  were trialled with a fanfare in Peterborough but quietly ended early, with only minor improvements to their name.

Liabilities ended up back with the probation and other after-prison services and the conclusion that the scheme had too small an impact (ironically) to scale up.

Overall, the Ministry of Justice is one of the departments which, as a former incumbent puts it, has more pilots than easyJet. It also churns through ministers too quickly to be effective. Chris Grayling presided over an extraordinary muddle of policies, of which the strangest was the aborted attempt to sell British expertise in prisons and probation to Saudi Arabia. His successor, Michael Gove, pushed prison literacy as part of a broader rehabilitation mission, which now languishes untended.

We are on our third Justice Secretary since then (after Liz Truss and David Lidington) with no discernible trace left by the previous incumbents.

This weeks outrage will fade because prisons are something few of us see or dwell on. Yet we all have to live with the consequences of re-offending and institutions that brutalise rather than punish and reform. Dostoevsky understood something we have forgotten: the reason to improve our jails is not because we have to but because we should.
I write in relation to your article [Jeremy Corbyn demands peace in the park, August 16].

I am a member of an organisation called The Friends of Finsbury Park, which Corbyn is the patron of, as well as being a supporter of our various goals. Not least of which is to see some sort of tangible abatement to the extent of the events that take place in Finsbury Park.

Corbyn recognises the very real pressing and stressful issues that the residents of the three surrounding local authorities to Finsbury Park face year-in, year-out due to Haringey councils insistence that not only must multiple festival-style events take part but on a seemingly ever-increasing scale, forcing residents to be subjected to the worst kinds of behaviour from those present at the festival and those being paid to attend as well.

I have seen, first hand, how some of these people acted: stewards drinking beer while sitting on a wall when on duty. Such instances of wayward yet supposedly professional stewarding can only speak to the clear disorder that surrounds events in Finsbury Park  the most pressing and shocking example of which is the two deaths which occurred as they attended this years Wireless Festival.

Corbyn is correct: the organisers were not sufficiently prepared for the events in Finsbury Park or the effects on the local community.

Iwan Williams

EDITOR'S REPLY

Dear Iwan

As a local resident I agree that its good to see Jeremy Corbyn sticking up for his constituents who have beenaffected by a summer of festivals in Finsbury Park.

He makes a valid point about the impact of thatmultiple large-scale music events on residents, with noise, anti-social behaviour and worse.

However, to paraphrase Corbyn, we should not let mismanagement and the bad behaviour of a few ruin what can be an event to be celebrated for the many.

Done properly, festivals can benefit everyone. They bring business into the area and put it on the map, with a spirit of community. Drake headlining Wireless was a coup for the area that inspired young fans.

A dialogue between Corbyn, Haringey council and the Friends of Finsbury Park should be attempted as a first resort, rather than just shutting down the event. Better curfews and more discounted tickets for residents are options.

They could consult with other London parks which host festivals well and come up with a way that everybody can enjoy the music.

Susannah Butter, Deputy Features Editor

Brangelina divorce shows parting couples how not to split up

Your article on the Jolie/Pitt divorce is a stark reminder of how not to conduct the process [Angelina Jolie pushes for divorce from Brad Pitt as she accuses him of paying no meaningful child support, August 8].

There are two basic rules to help ensure that the assets youve worked hard to build up arent eroded unnecessarily and that all members of the family are protected both emotionally and psychologically.

Silence is golden. Do not conduct your divorce on social media, or for public figures, in the media itself.

Communication is key. Try your utmost to keep good communication with your ex, however difficult. The more hostile the separation, the greater damage to be repaired.

So set an example, please, our famous couple: show the world that you are able to divorce with dignity, while inflicting the least emotional damage on the family.

Deborah Jeff

Divorce Aid

Bus cuts would not please Sadiqs dad

Politicians of all shades tell us at election times about the importance to them of public transport. Sadiq Khan seems less keen to explain the reductions he plans in bus services across the capital. TfL plans to curtail some routes and reduce the frequency of other services.

The seven per cent cut in bus miles hidden in the Mayors budget will mean fewer journeys and fewer passengers; fewer passengers will result in more cuts in future years. We need to maintain our bus capacity so long as we continue to discourage motorists and provide them with a reliable alternative.

Elected as the son of a bus driver, Mayor Khans policies will have an impact not only on passengers but will also reduce employment opportunities for drivers. I am not sure his father would be impressed.

Chris Maines

Green is right over social care crisis

Hats off to former Cabinet minister Damian Green for raising an important issue [Green says NI rise and home assets should fund social care, August 13].

Realistically, several funding mechanisms are likely to be needed. Public consultations suggest a preference for general taxation or national insurance increases because they are seen as fair but they probably would not raise enough on their own.

We all need to get used to the idea that we are going to have to put our hands in our pockets if the care crisis is to be solved.

The Government needs to match Greens vision with a bold and ambitious set of proposals for improving care, as it has promised it will do later this year.

Caroline Abrahams

Director, Age UK

Jews have a rich history in London

Although I agree with your editorial about Sadiq Khans silence [The Mayor must speak out on anti-Semitism, August 20], I would also like to add that British Jews have been in this country for hundreds of years. Their numbers also increased from the end of the 19th century, coming from Eastern Europe because of the pogroms, and during the 20th century escaping Nazism during the Second World War or as survivors from the concentration camps.

Many Jews consider themselves to be English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish rather than one Jewish community, and not all are religious.
I f you want to attract attention in the over-crowded marketplace of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival it helps if you have an angle. Catherine Bohart has three. As she says at the start of her striking debut show, Immaculate, Im the bisexual daughter of a Catholic deacon and I have OCD.

It also helps, of course, if you are witty, charismatic and destined for stardom. She ticks those boxes too. Bohart likes things to run smoothly so I arrived for our interview in an Edinburgh hotel early, only for this self-confessed control freak to have arrived even earlier. The meeting was then moved to a quieter but less aesthetically satisfying bar upstairs. The interior design did not go unnoticed. This whole space is a nightmare. Who would set up the bar in an L-shaped space? Downstairs was more symmetrical.

Bohart, 30, seems chatty and relaxed and can joke about her obsessiveness now offstage as well as onstage, though there was a time when she could barely leave the house. Her obsessive compulsive disorder was diagnosed in her early twenties.

My type of OCD is called perfectionism. It was focused around cleanliness, order and perfection, which extended to my body. I thought I had an eating disorder because my mind was so consumed by weight loss, but when I saw a psychologist it became apparent that it was part of something broader.

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She spent four months in St Patricks Hospital in Dublin, which she now says saved her life. I think its fair to say I almost died. OCD is basically a bully in your head making you want things that are unachievable if you want to function as a person. I didnt really want to get well until I was in hospital, where I saw a lot of people older than me whose lives had stalled because they hadnt acknowledged it. I didnt want to be like that for my whole life.

As she explains during her performance, there is more to her type of OCD than worrying about putting the spoons in the fork compartment. You can no more have a little OCD than you can have a little cancer. Everyone has habits. Thats not OCD unless your habits stop you leaving the house or you think somebody will die. Treatment, including cognitive behavioural therapy to change thought patterns, has helped. She also takes the anti-depressant Citalopram.

After leaving hospital she was well enough to move to London to study at the Central School of Speech & Drama. When she struggled to get acting work she tried comedy, and over the past three years her career has quickly taken off. She now shares a manager with Russell Brand and Sarah Millican and has written for the BBC2 series Frankie Boyles New World Order and The Mash Report.

She comes into her own onstage. Even without a compelling story she would hold your attention. I think in Ireland theres a culture where you have to be funny or interesting to be heard. Yet why would someone who has suffered from paralysing anxiety choose a career most people would run a mile from? On paper it shouldnt work but Im very bad at holding down a day job and I like to be in control. The flexibility works for me. At my worst I cant leave the house so I can decide when I dont come to work.

There is something about this profession that is particularly liberating: I find it a release because comedy is another space for your brain to go. And without being cheesy, six years ago this summer I was in a treatment programme  and however much stress there is in stand-up its never going to be as bad as that. Im alive and Im not in a mental hospital, even though the Fringe sometimes feels like one big mental hospital.

Her relocation to London was another bold step but a necessary one. She wanted to live somewhere where there was a more relaxed attitude about same-sex relationships. She comes from the Dublin suburb of Clonsilla, where everybody knew everybody  two churches, one of each, a garage and some gossip. Shes now in based in London and living in Kilburn. I wanted to live in a more anonymous context where nobody would look at you in the street if you were with a woman.

Funniest jokes at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe 1 /26 Funniest jokes at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Funniest jokes at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Faye Treacy I was dating an older man not because I have issues with my father, Im just really competitive with my mother. Steve Best Mawaan Rizwan I saw two male giraffes having sex and got envious of their freedom. It took me another ten years to be free enough to have sex in a zoo. Rebecca Need Menear Stevie Martin A simile is, of course, when something is like something else. For example the moon is, like, in space. Idil Sukan Archie Maddocks Me and my girlfriend are doing great. Were in a serious relationship! I know that because she told me. Tom Leishman Angela Barnes When I see Donald Trump I get the same thought in my head as I get after a particularly painful bikini wax. Bush wasn't that bad. Rosie Jones During birth, my shoulder got stuck coming out. Well, it was the eighties. Rob Carter Mr Cumcision refused his knighthood. Edward Moore Aatif Nawaz "I was cast in an EasyJet advert this year. It was one of the rare times people got excited about a Muslim on a plane. Olga Koch I have all kinds of friends - white friends, black friends; male friends, female friends; gay friends, straight friends, friends who don't like to identify as...friends. Pete Firman A professional magician never reveals his tricks, or the fact he still lives with his parents. Karla Gowett Lou Sanders I thought I was a communist and then I had to use the same toilets as everyone else at a festival. Idil Sukan Ivo Graham I'm not sure if I'm ready to be an uncle. Mainly because I insist on saying "uncle" rather than "father". Chris Turner "'Never Apologise! Never Explain!  Sorry, thats my motto. Abby Tebeau Adele Cliff I have a fear of loneliness. I can't be the only one. Rebecca Need Alice Fraser I saw my optometrist the other day. Which made him a bit redundant. Sally Sparrow Leo Kearse I saw a woman in a T-shirt with "SMASHING PATRIARCHY!" on it. Nice to see that some of them appreciate the hard work we put in. Olaf Falafel My dad caught me curing a piece of salmon  to teach me a lesson he made me smoke the whole packet. Damian Clark I have to stop saying 'new baby', because ALL babies are new. An old baby is a person. Kymann Power Christian Finnegan Have you been to a protest march? Its like spending three hours exiting a sporting event." Mindy Tucker Nick Elleray There are many ways to sexually please a snake. But I won't rattle them off. Adrian Tauss John Hastings I don't like marijuana. If I want to be hungry and think all my friends hate me all I need to do is wake up. Tim Leyes Christian Talbot I like my coffee like I like my women. Unintentionally neglected while I deal with some admin and eventually going cold on me. Matt Rees Im no good at talking to women. Im 28 and recently my Grandmother and I had the are you gay conversation. She isnt. Mark Dawson Tom Stade I like Jesus, but he loves me, so it's awkward. Kathy Lette All husbands think theyre Gods. If only their wives werent atheists.

While there were awkward times in Ireland  this was before gay marriage was legalised  she did not have a problem coming out to her parents, as she discusses in Immaculate.

I have a good relationship with my father. A lot of the time you see stories about families who are religious and the kids are queer and the kid gets kicked out or they never speak to each other again. But most families who are religious do figure it out so I wanted to get that across. My dad is a dude. Hes a Catholic so he has to forgive me!

One thing not mentioned in her show is that her girlfriend, Sarah Keyworth, is also a comedian. By complete coincidence they are performing back-to-back in the same Edinburgh venue. They have both been doing stand-up for about three years but if there was any rivalry it has mostly gone.

Maybe there was when we started and we didnt want to admit we got jealous but now there is much less. Ultimately its all going in the same pot. If she gets a job its one step closer to a new car for us so its fine by me.

Bohart has certainly made an impact. As the Fringe reaches its final week she must surely be in the running for an Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Newcomer nod. Her debut covers a lot of ground and there is plenty more where that came from. This one is about OCD, my dad and being bisexual. The next one could be about my depression, my mum and boys. If I could do Edinburgh every year for the next 20 years Id be a very happy lady.

Catherine Bohart is at the Pleasance, Edinburgh, until Sunday (0131 226 0000, edfringe.com) and will perform Immaculate in London. Dates to be confirmed
Oval Space/Pickle Factory, Cambridge Heath

Though distinct from each other, weve included these two together as theyre owned by the same group and sit opposite each other. The Pickle Factory  it was one, once  is the more intimate space with just 200 capacity, attracting a very headsy crowd who are there solely for the music (GO London once saw Floating Points there watching Soichi Terada, and if that's not a ringing endorsement, we don't know what is). Oval Space space is a much bigger affair, covering a giant 5,000 square metres. Its a multi use arena, playing all sorts of things on its first rate sound system. It does get awfully hot in there during summer, but we think that makes it all the better, in many ways. Keep an eye on their website for everything theyve on; the Oval Space runs an admirably forward thinking programme.

Lee Arruci
T he chef, restaurateur and TV judge Andi Oliver grew up with her parents and brother in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. The family also spent time in Cyprus, as her father was in the RAF. Today she lives in London, having opened her eponymous restaurant in Stoke Newington in 2017. Oliver is a judge on the BBC2 food series Great British Menu, and this month features in a four-part series, Eight Go Rallying. Here she remembers a childhood of eating well.

When someone tells you that Sunday roasts were a thing when they were growing up, you can imagine a version of the scene: the heat of the family kitchen, the sound of saucepans clattering, children jumping in to help make or eat the trimmings at the last minute, and red-faced parents or relatives standing up to carve the meat.

For the chef Andi Oliver, memories of these weekly get-togethers remain precious:

They were a real thing for us. Mum was a teacher and dad was in the RAF and theyd be working during the week but at weekends wed all cook together. It was our proper family time, a time of conviviality, where we all actually had time to enjoy the complete madness of the family. Because back then time always seemed to be of the essence, she recalls.

It was thanks to these weekly roasts that Oliver learnt to cook cauliflower cheese, which she first tried to create aged nine.

Oliver is a judge on the BBC2 food series Great British Menu / BBC/Optomen TV/Andrew Hayes-Watk

A few years after that, when I was about 12, I started having these dinner parties, too. I was that odd kid who did that! she laughs. I was obsessed with recreating pictures from books - like ones by Marguerite Patten.

From these shed make things like stuffed jacket potatoes and roast chicken which she thinks probably came out alright! I read a lot when I was a kid - I was very taken with these notions of feasting and people coming together. I was fascinated by that specific bit of English culture.

Outside of the weekends, Oliver and her brother got used to being quite independent as mum would start our tea before she went to work, and then wed carry it on later. We had a lot of rice - shed often do some with lots of fresh vegetables and chicken in it, or paella with lots of seasoning. She also did lots of pies, which my brother adored, especially the steak and kidney.

Andi Oliver, Great British Menu / BBC/Optomen TV/Andrew Hayes-Watk

As it happens, pies are on Olivers mind at the moment following a recent visit to the Holburn Dining Room restaurant in London, where executive chef Calum Franklin has opened an entire room dedicated to them.

Id heard about this place, and going there is, I think, like the epitome of a childhood feasting fantasy. We had all these beautiful pies, and then a cherry pie for pudding. Chef Calum and his team deserve all the praise and shout-outs they can get for their food - and theyre kind to each other too. I love all the care and attention that they take over everything, she describes.

Growing up, Olivers mum baked bread on a regular basis, Actually I remember her amazing hot bread rolls, especially the hot bacon rolls! And shed do these great apple turnovers, too. Basically wed always have properly cooked food - mum was not a cake out of the box type of person. You would never get a Mr Kipling cake near her!

Andi Oliver, Great British Menu / BBC/Optomen TV/Andrew Hayes-Watk

Following Olivers fathers job, the family left Suffolk for Cyprus, where she picked up a lot of the flavours and ingredients that I cook with today - there was lots of marjoram and oregano in the food and in the oil and the butter. In fact I first tried sujuk there and still use it a lot today. Its like a dry, spicy Mediterranean sausage and I put it in stuffings for roast chicken and turkey. Actually we'd quite often also go meet mum after work, and buy merguez sausages from a seller nearby and then eat them with cheese and fresh bread. They were so good.

Seafood, too - both eating and watching people catch it - was something the TV judge treasures from that period of her life.

As far as fishing was concerned, she tried it but certainly never did it with any patience or success. I just found it really boring to do - I much preferred to watch other people to do it. But today I serve platters of grilled seafood which is definitely something I got from Cyprus. I just remember going to the rocks to watch the fishermen catch fish and feeling so excited about connecting the grilling of the seafood over the charcoals to what those fishermen were doing.

It was during the final portion of her childhood - her late teens - that Oliver spent time visiting her best friend in Sweden and learnt many of her most formative cooking techniques, such as curing fish.

Andi Oliver, Great British Menu / BBC/Optomen TV/Andrew Hayes-Watk

For some reason I didnt expect it to be so food centric in the south of Sweden, she says, but it had such an incredible larder there - we had things liked cloudberries in the sauces, and there was such a clarity of flavours in the dishes that still really informs the way I cook today. Theres a heartiness, an enveloping and velvet nature to Swedish home cooking that I love. I remember my friend making these incredibly soothing meatballs. Mmm.

Aged 20 Oliver began to cure fish with fruit such as mandarins and rhubarb - a technique, she believes, that made her realise what she loved most about cooking:

Its the transformative nature. For example, with curing, you can take a naked sea bass, add a few things to it, and it turns into an inspiring moment on a plate. Thinking about it really brings me back to that time. I think thats endlessly satisfying.
Christian Jorgensen, of the St. John Republican Committee, said the group had not filed a pre-primary report and received notification it was delinquent. The pamphlet said the committee did not need to file, but knowing Indiana law, Jorgensen said, but he knew state law required one.
C lare Smyth, the chef who catered for the royal wedding, believes schools should do more to encourage girls to become chefs.

The only woman in Britain to retain three Michelin stars , the 39-year-old was recently voted the worlds best female chef.

She told the Evening Standard that a stigma surrounding the hospitality industry meant young people were being encouraged into other professions. Smyth said: How many careers teachers say, Have you considered going into hospitality? I bet none. They talk about law and accounting.

But it is a great profession and has a huge shortage of labour. Hospitality makes London an exciting place.

Royal foodies: Harry and Meghan chose Clare Smyth as their wedding chef / Reuters

Smyth earned her Michelin record during the eight years she was chef patron at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Hospital Road. Last summer she launched Core by Clare Smyth, in Notting Hill, and this year she was named best female chef at the Worlds 50 Best Restaurant Awards.

Smyth said at the time that she hopes in future there will not be a need for a gender-specific award. It is a numbers game, because so few women come in, she said. The hospitality industry is seen as not conducive to family life, but that is changing.

It is about supporting young women to enter the industry. Smyth said the perception that kitchens were hyper-masculine was outdated. On Ramsay, she said: He is actually a really easy and pleasant person to work with and a lot fun.

The chef was asked to cook for the royal couple after they met her while dining at Core. She said: They are obviously both into their food ... Meghan in particular ... so she watches what happens in London with food, and they knew exactly what they wanted.

She rubbished reports she had cooked posh burgers and made candy floss, revealing the menu was based on what we serve at Core.

London foodies will be able to sample Smyths dishes, alongside those of other London-based chefs, at a new festival aiming to give an insight into the industry next weekend.
A s summer gradually draws to a close, many of us will already be thinking about autumn getaways.

If you're you're looking for somewhere that's affordable and less overrun with tourists, then you're in luck as Post Office Travel Money has released an "Unsung Cities League" in which it reveals some of the cheapest, less visited destinations in Europe.

The report compares the price of 12 tourist costs associated with a city break in each place and compares them with more popular, nearby counterparts. Costs surveyed include a cup of coffee, bottle of beer, soft drink, glass of wine, three-course evening meal for two, public transport to and from the airport, a 48-hour travel card, sightseeing bus tour, along with entrance to a top tourist heritage attraction, museum and art gallery, plus two nights three star accommodation for a couple.

Their findings suggest it's well worth veering off the trodden path in some parts of Europe, particularly in Portugal, where a weekend in Porto is likely to cost you around a third less than Lisbon, and in Spain, where Valencia prices are estimated to be about 35 per cent lower than Barcelona.

Scroll down for nine of the cheapest, "unsung" destinations in Europe, ranked in descending order.

9. Verona, Italy  294

Verona / Photo by Alicia Steels on Unsplash

Post Office Travel Money compared prices in Verona (294), with the more popular city of Venice (460) which in recent years has struggled to cope with "overtourism." Verona worked out over 36 per cent cheaper, according to the report's calculations, which equates to a potential saving of more than 160.

8. Antwerp, Belgium  252

Antwerp / Photo by Wyron A on Unsplash

The cost of a day's exploring and weekend accommodation in Antwerp would set you back an estimated 252, which is 29 per cent cheaper than what it would cost you in Bruges, 358  which could lead to a saving of a little over 100.

7. Toulouse, France  246

Photo by Henrique Ferreira on Unsplash

Those considering a trip to Paris, may want to look to Toulouse, where costs are around 38 per cent cheaper, according to this survey. A day's expenses plus accommodation in the French capital would cost almost 400, while the same in Toulouse, which is nicknamed "The Pink City," would set you back around 246, which works out roughly 150 cheaper.

6. Valencia, Spain  245

Valencia / Photo by Janis Skribans on Unsplash

Set just a little further down the Spanish coast, Valencia makes a good alternative to the more popular destination of Barcelona, and prices are over 35 per cent cheaper according to Post Office Travel Money. A day's expenses and weekend accommodation would set you back 378 in Barcelona, compared to 245 in Valencia, equating to a potential saving of just over 130.

5. Ljubljana, Slovenia  217

The report compared city break costs in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana (217) with those of Croatia's Dubrovnik (279), which worked out at just over 23 per cent cheaper. Not only is it more affordable, but it's also under an hour's drive from the stunning fairytale-like Lake Bled.

4. Bratislava, Slovakia  203

The basket of items in Slovakia's Bratislava (203) would work out a staggering 44 per cent cheaper than in neighbouring Vienna, Austria, (362), according to the report - and the two are only around an hour apart.

3. Porto, Portugal  184

Porto / Photo by Ricardo Resende on Unsplash

Porto continues to grow in popularity as an alternative to the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, and this report suggest prices are around a third cheaper. The cost of the 12 tourist items was estimated to be 184 in Porto, while the same in Lisbon would set you back around 275, according to the survey.

2. Bucharest, Romania  175

Bucharest in Romania was the second cheapest "unsung" city surveyed in this report, where the cost of sightseeing and weekend accommodation was estimated to cost just 175, compared to Budapest, Hungary, where it would set you back an estimated 229, leaving you over 50 better off.

1. Belgrade, Serbia  149

Belgrade / Shutterstock/Vladimir Nenezic
W hatever your idea of a good time, Croatia can deliver. The countrys ragged coastline gives it the largest shore in the Mediterranean - which means mile after mile of beach, set on an a sparkling azure sea. Meanwhile, Game of Thrones fans make pilgrimages to Dubrovnik to visit the set; Split is an established party town, and its islands - among them Korcula, with its dense forests, and rocky Brac - are an adventure waiting to happen.

Its quite an itinerary - travellers might wonder if theres anything else left to discover. Oh ye of little faith: for this year, the destination on insiders radars is Pula, the capital of Istria, the countrys northern peninsular, close to the Italian border. BA started flying there last year, and EasyJet has just added a route there from Southend.

It is a lush green expanse, whose close proximity to Italy can be felt in its culture and architecture. But its not all classical refinement: ravers have known about Pula for a while, as its amphitheatre, and surrounding coastline, hosts Dimensions and Outlook festivals in late August and early September.

These are the reasons to visit.

City life

Pula is Istrias largest city, situated in the valley of seven hills, with extraordinary Adriatic views. And its a knockout to walk around: narrow cobbled streets that end, suddenly, with magnificent Roman buildings - including, notably, an enormous, spectacular amphitheatre, built to host 20,000 spectators between 27 - 68 AD, and is the only remaining Roman amphitheatre in the world with a complete circle wall.

Istria is a wine region: cloister yourself in one of the towns tavernas and try the local grapes. Cuisine is a mixture of seafood and Italian dishes - Istria was part of Italy until 1947. The restaurants on the Limski canal have the best mussels, and the region is also famous for its white truffles.

Meanwhile, its beaches are unspoiled - unlike the busier southern parts of the country - and the seas known for being calm and tranquil, which means theyre perfect for swimmers.

Pula's beautiful, unspolied beaches / CROPIX

Daytripper

If its unspoiled youre looking for, you need to visit Veli Brijun. Catch the ferry from just outside Pula - about 10km away - to visit this tiny, car-free islet. Animals roam free in its parkland, which is part of the Brijuni national park - look out for peacocks, as well as dinosaur footprints (its an ancient site). You can also visit the remains of Roman villas, and a safari park with elephants, zebras and llamas.

Venetian dream

Pula is a working port, and a gateway to the Adriatic. Make sure youre there at night, to see its light installation, Lighting Giants, which features eight towering cranes illuminated in magical colours, and lasts for an hour and a half each evening. And then book yourself onto the ferry to Venice, which runs several times a day in the summer months, and only takes three hours.

The gateway to the Adriatic / Supplied

24-hour party people

This year, thousands of ravers will descend on Pula for two festivals: Dimensions (29 August to 2 September) and Outlook (5 September to 10 September). The town is an extraordinary site for a festival: the main part takes place in the amphitheatre, which will host acts including Kraftwerk 3-D, Moodyman, and Josey Rebelle at Dimensions, and Benobo, Wiley and Stefflon Don at Outlook, but you can also expect secret tunnel raves, in a network of caves far underneath Pula, as well as beach parties on the shore and boat parties off the coast - Dimensions has more than twenty, with acts including Helena Hauff and Ben UFO, and Outlook 50, with turns from Children of Zeus and Dbridge. Theyre unbeatable parties that show off the towns raving muscle.

Outlook Festival / Supplied

Rovinj

Rent a car - its cheap in Croatia - and drive to Rovinj, about half an hour from Pula. Its yellow and pink buildings are reminiscent of Portobello Road if it were set on azure coastline, and the streets are paved with boutique hotels, chic eateries and speakeasy cocktail bars - try Caffe Bar XL, just beneath the spectacular St Euphemia Church, looking straight out to sea. Its small enough to feel like a hidden gem.

Wine oclock

Now youve got the car, meander through Istrian wineland. In the centre of the peninsula, there is the Mirna Valley, which is dotted with vineyards happy for you to try a slug of Merlot, Teran, Pinots or Sauvignon Blanc - some excited oenophiles are calling it the new Tuscany. Experts suggest making a pitstop at Meneghetti and Trapan vineyards.

Southern promise
A n ex-soldier will go on trial next year accused of murdering his girlfriend Simonne Kerr who starred on Britain's Got Talent.

Desmond Sylva, 40, allegedly stabbed nurse Simonne Kerr to death at their home in Battersea.

Police had been called to the house at 12.40pm on August 15 where they found Ms Kerr, 31, with a deep wound to her neck.

She was pronounced dead at the scene at around 1.45pm.

Simonne Kerr worked as a haematology nurse at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London / Simonne Kerr / Facebook

Mr Sylva of Rayshott Road, was subsequently arrested and charged with her murder.

The defendant made his first appearance at the Old Bailey via videolink from Wandsworth prison on Tuesday, wearing a grey sweatshirt.

He spoke only to confirm his identity and British nationality during the hearing before Judge Sarah Munro QC.

Simonne Kerr's son Kavele died from complications caused by sickle cell disease in 2015 / PA

A provisional two-week trial was set for February 11 next year with a plea hearing on November 6.

Ms Kerr had appeared on Britain's Got Talent earlier this year as part of B Positive, an NHS choir set up for those affected by blood-related conditions.

She had previously revealed how her son Kavele died from sickle cell disease at the age of six.

B Positive made it through to the Britains Got Talent final in June, where they moved the judges and audience to tears with a rendition of Rise up.

A spokeswoman from NHS Blood and Transplant described her as a "valued and respected member of the B Positive choir."

In a blog on the NHS website, she said her son was diagnosed with sickle cell disease at birth but lived as normal a life he could.

She said he woke up at 5am one day with a high temperature and vomiting. I gave Kavele medication and monitored him throughout the morning, she said.

However, he became more lethargic and I felt his condition was not improving so I called for an ambulance and was told we would have to wait up to 45 minutes. An hour later I telephoned 999 again because Kavele's breathing became more laboured.

Kavele went into cardiac arrest approximately 20 - 30 minutes after several ambulance crews started to arrive. He did not recover and passed away in hospital several hours later."

A Britain's Got Talent spokesman offered condolences to her family, and added: "We are deeply saddened and shocked to hear that Simonne Kerr has died."
S cotland Yard detectives investigating disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein have flown to the United States to interview his alleged victims, the Evening Standard can reveal.

The police team has spoken to a number of women who claim they were assaulted by Weinstein when he visited London for events such as film premieres.

Among his alleged victims is the actress Uma Thurman, who has claimed he attacked her in his Savoy hotel suite in the mid-Nineties. Scotland Yard said officers from the forces child abuse and sexual offences command have received allegations of sexual assault from 10 people.

Earlier this year Thurman, 48, alleged in an interview with the New York Times that Weinstein sexually assaulted her shortly after the London premiere of Pulp Fiction in 1994.

She said: He pushed me down. He tried to shove himself on me. He tried to expose himself. He did all kinds of unpleasant things. But he didnt actually put his back into it and force me.

Lysette Anthony / Getty Images

Police in New York and Los Angeles are already investigating allegations made against Weinstein, 66. The Metropolitan polices inquiry is separate to the US investigations.

Confirming the US trip, a Met spokeswoman said: Officers involved in this investigation travelled to the United States in June as part of their inquiries. We are not prepared to discuss further. It is not clear whether the detectives travelled to New York or Los Angeles, or both, or how many possible witnesses they have interviewed.

Others who have publicly accused Weinstein of assaulting them in London are Norwegian actress and model Natassia Malthe and British star Lysette Anthony.

Natassia Malthe / Getty Images

The Met confirmed it had opened an investigation into Weinstein last October after Ms Anthony said she was assaulted by him at her Chelsea home. The actress, 54, who has played Marnie Nightingale in Hollyoaks for 10 years, said the alleged attack had occurred in the late-Eighties.

She has already given evidence to the police investigation codenamed Operation Kaguyak.

Malthe, 44, who has appeared in films such as Elektra and Lake Placid, accused Weinstein of raping her in her room at the Sanderson Hotel, Fitzrovia, in 2008 after a Bafta awards party.

Actress Kate Beckinsale, 45, claimed she had a troubling encounter with the co-founder of the Miramax film studio at the Savoy when she was 17. The Underworld actress said in a statement she had escaped unscathed, but for years declined invitations to work on Miramax productions, a move she said resulted in the producer calling her vulgar names and threatening her.

In addition, an unnamed former Miramax employee claimed Weinstein raped her in the basement flat of his London offices in about 1992.

More than 70 women have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, including rape, in alleged attacks dating back decades. He denies all allegations of non-consensual sex. Weinstein appeared in court in New York in June to plead not guilty to rape and criminal sex act charges. In July he denied three additional sex crime charges.
A 16-year-old boy lies in a north London street as paramedics battle to save his life from a knife wound.

He was stabbed once in the chest after being chased through the streets in Archway last night. One medic holds padding to his wound, as other ambulance staff, police officers and neighbours work frantically to save him.

In another incident last night, amid a surge of violence in the capital, three people were shot and injured in a suspected gang attack outside Kingsbury Tube station. It comes after four people were stabbed to death in four days in London last week.

Freelance photographer Richard Hall, 49, who captured the scene of the stabbing in Archway, told how he heard shouts in the street and saw three youths chasing the boy through a park: I just heard screaming and thought someone was being mugged

I rushed outside and found this young lad who had been stabbed in the area of the heart. Another neighbour was there and we started giving first aid and called the police, who were there very, very quickly.

The lad was slipping in and out of consciousness. I was in the Army and am a trained first-aider and we were just trying to keep him alive and keep him awake. He was going into shock.

The scene after the shooting near Kingsbury Tube station / Lucy Young

The lad was 16 and only skinny, he could not hurt anyone. Police said they were called to Cardinals Way, Archway at 8.05pm. The teenager was taken to hospital in a life-threatening condition last night. Today he was said to be stable and his life no longer in danger. There have been no arrests.

Meanwhile, police swarmed Kingsbury Road and sealed off the busy high street after a volley of gunshots rang out outside Kingsbury station at 9.45pm. Three people  two men aged 18 and 24 and a woman aged 30  were left in the street with gunshot injuries.

Witnesses described a young man screaming in pain and trying to bandage his own wounds with a T-shirt after being shot in the leg.

Police were unable to say if the victims were targeted or were innocent passers-by caught in the gunfire.

A man who was drinking with his girlfriend across the road in Hennessys Irish pub, told the Standard: My nan and brother were outside and ran in, saying they heard a gunshot.

I ran over, just by the bus stop, there was a guy lying on the ground, he looked around mid-twenties and he didnt have a T-shirt on, it looked like he had wrapped it around his leg.

Kingsbury Tube station shooting leaves three injured in north-west London

He was moving and shouting in pain, he was holding onto his leg saying hed been shot. There was also a girl who had a graze on her hip, her leggings were cut, it was a pretty big hole in her clothes. Images on social media show police officers giving first aid to one of those injured in the street.

Video footage posted on YouTube appeared to show the aftermath of the shooting. The clips show officers arriving at the scene and a crowd of shocked passers-by trying to help the wounded victims.

The video shows many children and young people at the scene during the aftermath of the gun attack. A police officer can be seen treating on of the injured as he cries in pain on the floor.

The two men remained in hospital today and their injuries are not life-threatening. The woman was discharged after treatment.

The shooting is being investigated by the Mets Trident anti-gang crime unit. There have been no arrests.

The surge in violence led to calls yesterday by Tory mayoral challenger Shaun Bailey for the Mayor to cut the budget of the policing office to put more officers on the beat. Sadiq Khan res-ponded that the policing budget is used to fund measures to cut violent crime.

In further developments, a 29-year-old woman was being interviewed on suspicion of murder today after a pensioner was stabbed to death in south London. Leroy Edwards, 66, was knifed in the chest and neck as he sought refuge in a multi-occupancy house in Ringstead Road, Catford, at 4am on Saturday.

He was one of the four people to die in last weeks knife attacks, bringing the total number of homicides this year to 95. A neighbour in the house described Mr Edwards as a polite old gentleman who kept himself to himself.

Another neighbour said Mr Edwards had locked himself in his flat and called the police after fleeing the attack.

A man was also due in court today charged with the murder of Britains Got Talent contestant Simonne Kerr, 31, who was stabbed to death in a flat in Battersea last week. Desmond Sylva, 40, of Battersea, was due to appear at the Old Bailey.
A police constable has pleaded guilty to attacking two fellow officers during a drunken rage at her home.

Sarinda Trudy Welsh, 39, smashed a glass tumbler against a wall and swung a baking tray at Pc Emma Cross and Pc Amanda MacKerill as they conducted a welfare check on her in Belvedere, south-east London.

When the pair tried to put pyjama bottoms on Welsh to take her to the police station, she kicked Pc Cross on the shin, Bexley magistrates heard.

The previous day Welsh, a former legal secretary with 12 years service in the Metropolitan police, had been released from rehab after a period off work to treat her alcoholism.

She was found guilty of assaulting her estranged boyfriend Shane Gibson by clawing his wrist. She also admitted to communicating false information to the police that Mr Gibson had punched her in the head.

Prosecutor Denise Clewes told the court that on January 9 the officers arrived at Welshs house to discover she had been drinking. Ms Clewes said: She threw a glass tumbler that smashed against a wall and Pc MacKerill says, She was shouting and swearing.

She reached for a knife rack and one of the officers pulled her back, fearing she would cut herself or someone else.

Three months later, on April 16, officers were at the address again after Welsh called police and accused Mr Gibson of hitting her in the face. Ms Clewes said: Mr Gibson answered the door and said she was drunk upstairs and had assaulted him while he was asleep.

He said he pushed her when she tried to wake him up and she fell to the floor. She then dug her nails into his wrist, causing a number of small scratches.

She said she had been punched in the head by Mr Gibson because she was drunk and had been drinking vodka and whisky the night before and had been an alcoholic for a long time.

On another occasion, after Welsh claimed Mr Gibson had punched her in the head, he proved his innocence by showing police a receipt for a coffee he had bought on the M4 at the time of the alleged assault.

Welsh, who was suspended from work after the allegations, has since tendered her resignation from the force.

Her lawyer Heather Oliver told the court: She is a woman of impeccable character  she has expressed remorse and embarrassment and accepts she was reckless rather than having an in-tention to hurt the officers. One officer was trying to put her pyjama bottoms on and she was lashing out and caught her with her bare foot.

Welsh was sentenced to a 12-month community order, which includes a 60-day alcohol treatment requirement and a 15-day rehabilitation requirement.
R ising levels of youth violence should be treated like a disease instead of a crime, Labour MP Chuka Umunna has said.

The MP will call for a public health model to tackle the crisis as he lambasts the failure of criminalising teenagers to stop violence.

Mr Umunna, a member of the Government's Serious Violence Taskforce, will say the model has been used very successfully in Scotland.

But he will warn: "You cannot deliver that model without whole system, cultural and organisational, change with sustained political backing."

In August 2007, Mr Umunna gave a speech lamenting the 17 London teenagers shot or stabbed to death that year.

"It was grim," he will say today. "But here we are... 11 years later, and already this year 21 teenagers have been stabbed in London alone.

"A lot has changed over 15 years but it shames our society that the bloodshed continues.

"We now need to take a fresh look at this problem because we have failed to stop this tragedy."

Mr Umunna will say too many young men feel "disrespected and disenfranchised" by a society that has turned its back on them.

"We must make ending this violence a national mission," he will say, by building the opportunities "to make connections to the wider world".

This means developing relationships where "dignity depends on an inherent sense of self-worth, not status symbols and the opinion of others", Mr Umunna will say, as well as "helping them use their talent to find legitimate means of making money".

The approach will dump top-down measures and instead "start from the inside and work outward", the MP will say, in community-led projects guided by a national framework "to transform the left-out areas of our cities".

Home Office spokeswoman said: "Knife crime has devastating consequences on our communities, and our Serious Violence Strategy signals a step change in balancing a law enforcement response with a multi-agency approach."
A 55-year-old woman was left fighting for life following a collision with a lorry in Vauxhall.

Emergency services scrambled to reports of a serious incident on Wandsworth Road, opposite Vauxhall Bus Garage at around 1pm on Monday.

The woman was rushed to a south London hospital where she remains in a critical condition.

The driver stopped at the scene and is assisting police, Scotland Yard said in a statement.

Pictures shared on social media showed a number of vehicles from London Fire Brigade, London Ambulance Service and Met Police in attendance.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: "Police were called at 12.59pm on Monday, August 20 to reports of a collision involving a pedestrian and lorry on Wandsworth Road, opposite Vauxhall Bus Garage.

"The pedestrian, a 55-year-old woman was taken to a south London hospital where she remains in a critical condition.

"Detectives from the Roads and Transport Policing Command are investigating.

"They would like to speak with anyone who saw the collision occur, or who may have dash cam or mobile phone footage."

London's Air Ambulance said: Our advanced trauma team was dispatched via aircraft by London Ambulance Service at 1.06pm today to reports of a road traffic collision on Wandsworth Road.

"After treatment on scene the patient was transferred by road to a major trauma hospital accompanied by Londons Air Ambulance.

Firefighters also attended to support emergency services.
E U citizens may be allowed to come to the UK after Brexit if they have a job, a Cabinet minister suggested today.

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said freedom of movement would end when the UK quits the European Union next March.

However, he told LBC radio: I think the public would differentiate between people who come to the UK with a job, who will be contributing to the economy, and those, who under free movement, were able to come to the UK and use our public services without ever having contributed to them.

Asked by presenter Nick Ferrari if he thought Theresa Mays net immigration target of 100,000 a year was right, Mr Fox responded: Thats the governments target ... we will be reviewing what we do post-Brexit.

Pressed on the target, he added: Naturally, as a member of the Cabinet I support the Governments policy, but we do need to look in the future at how we match our employment opportunities with our migration policy.

Brexiteers fear the Government will capitulate to Brussels over freedom of movement in a bid to get a good trade deal. However, ministers are seeking to avoid damaging the economy with a hardline immigration system, which could lead to a shortage of workers.

A Government source stressed: We are not going to design a system that is harmful to our economy.

With NHS chiefs issuing warnings on the threat to services from no deal, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab tweeted he was confident we can strike a deal good for the UK and our EU partners. He was heading to Brussels for talks with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: In their hearts they want to give Britain a good deal as they know how important we have been for the security and prosperity of Europe. But, in their heads theyre worried if they give us a good deal, other countries will follow suit.

Mr Fox said he wanted Britain to leapfrog France and Italy in exports, and see the UK move from fifth in the G7 group of wealthy nations to second.

Key to achieving this will be encouraging thousands of small and medium-sized firms to sell their goods and services overseas.

Mr Fox urged businesses: Do not be afraid to sell Britains goods and services abroad. If you are willing to take that leap of faith, we will be there with you every step of the way.

The Governments Export Strategy aims to increase Britains export figure to 35 per cent of GDP.

Its four strands are:

Up to 50 billion of export finance and insurance support.

Boosting links between UK firms and overseas buyers and markets.

Better information for UK companies, including a database of tens of thousands of export opportunities.

Inspiring and encouraging more firms to export.
The Respondent is a good person who has served his profession well and with distinction. He should not be vilified. He is entitled to pity, but presently, he is emotionally paralyzed and in need of help before he further endangers himself or members of the public he serves, the recommendation states.
H ospitals could run out of drugs and disease control could suffer in the event of a no-deal Brexit, a leaked letter sent to NHS bosses has warned.

In a leaked letter from NHS Providers, it has been warned that there has been a failure to prepare for the UK's medical services if the country leaves the EU without a deal.

Disease control, could suffer, the membership association and trade organisation for medics said.

Chris Hopson, NHS Providers chief executive said: Public health and disease control co-ordination could suffer.

He added that "the entire supply chain of pharmaceuticals could be negatively affected" by a hard Brexit or no deal, adding the EU citizens who make up the workforce could be jeopardised.

Mr Hopson's letter was sent to NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens and NHS Improvement chief Ian Dalton on Friday, and has been leaked to the Times.

Mr Hopson said the possibility of a no-deal or hard Brexit "with minimal regulatory alignment appears to be growing".

"For as long as that risk remains, it is important that detailed operation planning is undertaken across the NHS," he wrote.

"Yet trusts tell us that their work in this area is being hampered by the lack of visible and appropriate communication.

"Our members have begun planning ... but they have hit a problem, in that some activities are clearly best done at a national level and, in the view of trusts, are best co-ordinated by NHS England and NHS Improvement.

"However there has been no formal communication to trusts from either of your organisations on this issue."

Mr Hopson warned it would be more "efficient and effective" for ministers and the NHS bodies to work out a national contingency plan for trusts, rather than "expecting trusts to develop contingency plans individually, in a vacuum, and have to reinvent the wheel 229 times".

Poor national co-ordination, he added, could mean "both stockpiles and shortages of medicines and medical devices".

A spokesman for NHS Providers confirmed the letter was genuine but stressed it had not been leaked by his organisation.

"We have not leaked this letter," he said. "These conversations about Brexit are obviously something that happened between ourselves and the other organisations.

"This correspondence was private but it has been leaked and we are not saying anything further about it."

Last month Mr Stevens said "extensive" planning was taking place to prepare for a no-deal scenario.

"There is immediate planning which the health department, with other parts of Government, are undertaking around securing medicine supply and equipment under different scenarios," he said.

"That will obviously crystallise when it's clear later this autumn what the UK's position will be."
J eremy Corbyn refused six times to say whether he thinks Britain will be better off outside the EU.

In a Channel 4 News interview, Labour leader Mr Corbyn was repeatedly asked the question, but sidestepped it each time.

Asked for the first time during the interview if Britain will be better off outside the EU, Mr Corbyn said: I want us to have a good relationship with the European Union.

"Thats what we have to have in order to maintain jobs in manufacturing supply chains and food processing.

That has to be the priority now, so we have that effective trading relationship including a customs union with the European Union.

The presenter then said he was only allowed to ask him one question: whether Mr Corbyn believed Britain will be better off outside the EU.

But Mr Corbyn refused to answer the question.

He said: We are negotiating a future for Britain in relationship to the EU which maintains that trading relationship. Thats what we have to do.

Jeremy Corbyn in his Islington North constituency after casting his vote in the 2016 EU referendum / Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA

We have to defend jobs and we have to have an alignment with the European Union on regulations to ensure that we maintain food environmental and employment standards.

The presenter asked the question on a further four occasions. Mr Corbyn refused to answer each time.

As a backbencher, veteran Islington North MP Mr Corbyn was a known Eurosceptic.

As Labour leader, he pushed for Britain to remain in the EU at the 2016 referendum, but was criticised for what was seen by many as lacklustre campaigning on the issue.

It led to a leadership challenge that autumn, in which Mr Corbyn emphatically beat Owen Smith.

Mr Corbyn this month faced growing pressure from his own MPs to discuss a party conference vote on whether to back a second referendum.
A crackdown on dirty Russian money in London is starting to have an impact, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt insisted today.

Only three unexplained wealth orders have reportedly been used in the six months since they were introduced, all against the wife of an allegedly corrupt banker.

Mr Hunt stressed: This is a police matter, the way that we use these unexplained wealth orders. Investigations take time, when speaking to BBC Radio 4s Today programme. But they are starting to have an impact.

Unexplained wealth orders let the authorities freeze assets and require suspects in Britain to explain their wealth. The Government ordered a clampdown after the Novichok poisoning in Salisbury in March, which targeted former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal a nd his daughter Yulia.

Mr Hunt also said: The police and our intelligence services have had no greater priority than being able to attribute as effectively as we can responsibility for the [nerve agent] attacks, adding that they are making progress. The attack killed Dawn Sturgess , 44, after she was infected from a discarded bottle. US reports say the suspected perpetrators are believed to be members of Russias GRU military intelligence service.

Calling for the EU to match fresh US sanctions against Russia, the Foreign Secretary said: We have to make it clear to countries considering using nerve agents that the price will be too high and we can only do that if we stand together with our allies in Europe and the US.

However, shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner said: Imposing new sanctions would further ratchet up international tensions. In a speech at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, Mr Hunt is due to say that under Vladimir Putin, Russias aggressive and malign behaviour undermines the international order that keeps us safe.

During his three-day visit to the US, he will say: The UK asks its allies to go further by calling on the EU to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US.

But some EU nations are reaching out to President Putins regime, with French president Emmanuel Macron having travelled to Russia to call on the country to work hand-in-hand with Europe. German chancellor Angela Merkel held talks with President Putin on Saturday.
T he UK will "move swiftly" to secure the future of EU citizens in the event of no deal being agreed, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab has said.

Following talks in Brussels, Mr Raab told the BBC on Tuesday that the UK had a "moral obligation" to people and it was "inconceivable" that they be "turfed out" of the country.

He said: "We value their position, we want [EU citizens] to stay.

"It's inconceivable that we would do anything other than make sure that they are legally in a position where they are secure to stay."

Meanwhile counterpart Michel Barnier said the European Union will not abandon its founding principles in order the facilitate a Brexit deal with the UK.

The pair shake hands during a press conference at EU headquarters on Tuesday / AP

Mr Barnier said it was possible for the UK and EU to find "common ground" and create "a partnership that has no precedent" after meeting with Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab in Brussels.

But speaking to reporters alongside the Cabinet minister he said that relationship had to "respect the single market and the foundations of the European project".

The two sides announced the speed of negotiations is to increase ahead of a self-imposed deadline of October to hammer out a deal.

It comes amid raised fears a no-deal Brexit is becoming more likely as the deadline to agree a deal looms ever closer.

Everything you need to know about new Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab

Mr Raab admitted there were still some "significant issues" to overcome, including their future trade relationship and the Northern Irish border.

Theresa May's Brexit blueprint, hammered out at a tumultuous Chequers summit in July, called for a "facilitated customs arrangement" between the EU and Britain plus a "common rule book" for trade in goods, with both already ruled out by Brussels.

Asked by a reporter why the EU seemed unwilling to give ground on its principles in order to get a deal, Mr Barnier said: "Why would we?

"The UK is leaving the European Union, it is not the other way around.

"The UK is leaving and it is their choice and we respect that choice whilst regretting it. But the European Union is based on principles and values, on rules.

"It is a whole ecosystem which is integrated of rules and laws and standards, of supervision and of certification... which the UK knows very very well because we built it together, didn't we?

"We have been building it over some 40 or so years together. So those principles will remain our principles because that is the way it is. They are the principles we have been working on and on which the single market is based."

Mr Raab, who will return to Brussels for further talks with Mr Barnier next week, said: "There are still some significant issues to overcome - yes on Northern Ireland, I think we both recognise that - but also on the future relationship.

"It's important to view the whole deal as a package. We agreed that we need to step up the intensity of the negotiations as we come into the final phase and we have agreed to meet regularly and resolve at the political level those outstanding issues that remain under technical consideration."

Mr Barnier was optimistic a deal could be struck this year.

While he would guarantee it would be by the earmarked deadline of the October European Council, he said it would be around the "beginning of November, but not much later than that certainly".
A British businessman killed with his family in a seaplane crash changed his will so 41 million was left to charity.

Richard Cousins , 58, died after the DHC-2 Beaver aircraft he was in plunged into the Hawkesbury River in Australia on New Years Eve 2017.

Emma Bowden, 48, his magazine editor fiancee, her young daughter Heather, and his sons Ed, 23, and Will, 25, also died.

The pilot Gareth Morgan, 44, was also killed when the plane crashed into the water at Jerusalem Bay on Sydneys northern outskirts and sank.

From left to right top: Emma Bowden, William Cousins, Richard Cousins. Bottom left to right: Heather Bowden , Edward Cousins and Pilot Gareth Morgan

The late chief executive of catering giant Compass had planned to leave most of his wealth in trust for his sons. However, a year before the accident he inserted a common tragedy clause, meaning the money went to Oxfam, The Sun reported.

Mr Cousins, of Hyde Heath, Buckinghamshire, had recently decided to quit his 5.6 million job as boss of Compass to spend time with his new fiancee.

Wreckage: the plane is pulled from the river where it crashed / AP

Ian Thorpe, whose sister Caroline was married to Mr Cousins for 32 years before her death from cancer in 2015, said the tycoon was tired of the stress of being a CEO.
H ome Secretary Sajid Javid has apologised to 18 members of the Windrush generation who may have been wrongfully removed or detained following the scandal.

Officials examined nearly 12,000 historical records and established that 11 people left the country voluntarily after being unable to establish continuous residence.

Some of those who departed were served with immigration enforcement papers informing them they had no right to be in the UK.

The review found that a further seven individuals were detained before being released, without being removed.

Of these 18, four were removed and two detained before May 2010 and seven were removed and five detained after that month.

Mr Javid said: "I would like to personally apologise to those identified in our review and am committed to providing them with the support and compensation they deserve.

"We must do everything we can to ensure that nothing like this happens again - which is why I have asked an independent adviser to look at what lessons we can learn from Windrush."

Jamaican immigrants are welcomed by RAF officials after landing in the UK / PA

In a statement on Tuesday, the Home Office said it had been in contact with 14 of the 18 people. Those currently not residing in the UK will be given the option to return.

They will also be guided through the compensation scheme.

Windrush generation arrive in Britain 1 /14 Windrush generation arrive in Britain Some of the pioneering Windrush generation arrive at Tilbury Docks, from Jamaica Getty Images The journey to the UK cost 28 Getty Images They arrived on June 22, 1948 Getty Images The ex-troopship 'Empire Windrush' arriving at Tilbury Docks from Jamaica, with 482 Jamaicans on board, emigrating to Britain SSPL via Getty Images The group were the first of the Windrush generation to emigrate to Britain Getty Images Arrivals scrutinise a map of the London Underground Getty Images The Windrush generation helped to rebuild post-war Britain Getty Images Members of the 55 Independent Squadron wait to board the Empire Windrush at Southampton, to fight in the Korean War Getty Images A black man walks past graffiti stating 'Powell For PM', referring to Enoch Powell who caused controversy with his outspoken attitude to black immigration and racial integration Getty Images Three Jamaicans (left to right) John Hazel, a 21-year-old boxer, Harold Wilmot, 32, and John Richards, a 22-year-old carpenter, arriving at Tilbury Docks Getty Images Nearly 1000 West Indian immigrants arrive in three boats trains at Waterloo Station. Many brought with them packing cases containing treasured possessions, 15th October 1961 Mirrorpix/Getty Images West Indian immigrants arriving in the United Kingdom, 19th May 1962 Mirrorpix/Getty Images Nearly 1000 West Indian immigrants arrive in three boats trains at Waterloo Station. Many brought with them packing cases containing treasured possessions, 15th October 1961 Mirrorpix/Getty Images 27th May 1956: Immigrants to Britain from the West Indies queuing up on arrival at Southampton holding documents Getty Images

The Windrush scandal came to light in April this year after multiple reports of immigrants who arrived from Britain between 1948 and 1971 being denied healthcare and benefits with some told that they would be removed from the country.

Many of the Windrush generation, named after the ship HMT Empire Windrush, came from African and Caribbean countries under a rule allowing freedom of movement within the Commonwealth.

Minors travelled on their parents' documents and some never registered for a passport as they did not intend to travel abroad.

HMS Empire Windrush pictured in 1954 / PA

Now, because they never asked for document proving their status, the Home Office did not automatically issue any, many are being asked to leave the UK.

The Migration Observatory at Oxford University estimates there are 500,000 people resident in the UK who arrived before 1971 from a Commonwealth country.

The home secretary at the time, Amber Rudd, offered an apology in the House of Commons for the "appalling" treatment of the Windrush veterans announcing a taskforce to resolve their immigration status as quickly as possible.
J ust six per cent of Brits actually work nine to five, a YouGov study has shown.

Dolly Parton sang about those working hours as it was seen as the norm, statistics suggest that only a minority of people do those traditional hours.

A YouGov survey commissioned by McDonalds found that just six per cent of people work such hours, with many even saying they prefer to start earlier.

The study found that more people are working flexibly nowadays, with 42 per cent of people working flexibly in one form or another, such as job sharing or compressed hours.

Workers say they now expect to have 10 jobs or more in their working lifetime.

Jobs that offer earlier starts and a shorter working week are most appealing to workers, the study found.

A huge 57 per cent of people in full-time employment would like to start earlier than 9am and finish earlier than 5pm.

In a survey of 4,000 adults in the UK, it was found that starting at 8am and finishing at 4pm was the most preferable option.

And 21 per cent of people said they would prefer to start work at 7am, finishing at 3pm.

Paul Pomroy, CEO of McDonalds UK & Ireland, said People are looking for jobs that work for them. This research reflects our belief that to attract, retain and motivate, employers need to create opportunities that genuinely work for people whatever their age, life stage, or ambition.

The business case is clear, as are the links to improved happiness and wellbeing  people simply dont want to work 9-5 anymore.

They want to work more flexibly, but that doesnt diminish ambition, desire or opportunity to progress.

The study found that a sociable workplace ties with pay as top criteria for good jobs among almost two-thirds of all adults closely followed by flexibility to work the hours and patterns that suit and a convenient location.
I talian actress Asia Argento, a leader of the #MeToo movement, has strongly denied allegations of sexual assault.

It comes after legal documents were reported to show she paid a former co-star $380,000 (298,000) after he accused her of sexually assaulting him when he was 17.

After the documents surfaced the actress, 42, said she denied the allegations, made by Jimmy Bennett, adding: I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett.

In her first public comments since the reports, first published by the New York Times, Argento said she had been linked to Bennett, who is now 22, over several years by friendship only.

In a statement shared by her Italian lawyer, she said: "I am deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false. I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett.

The Standard has approached representatives of Bennett and Argento for comment on the developments.

Responding to accusations that the newspapers reports were false, a New York Times said spokesperson said: "We are confident in the accuracy of our reporting, which was based on verified documents and multiple sources."

Argento said in her statement that Bennett had "unexpectedly made an exorbitant request of money" to her following her media exposure in the accusations of sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein.

Argento was one of the first women to publicly accuse Weinstein.

She told The New Yorker magazine last October that he had raped her during the Cannes festival in 1997 when she was 21. Weinstein has denied all claims of non-consensual sex made against him.

Since that interview, she has become an outspoken advocate in the #MeToo social media movement against sexual harassment.

She said in her statement that she and her then-boyfriend, the culinary television star Anthony Bourdain, had "decided to deal compassionately with Bennett's demand for help and give it to him".

"Anthony personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life," she added.

Bourdain killed himself in June.

Argento said she would oppose the "false allegations" against her and would assume "all necessary initiatives for my protection before all competent venues".
P olice are investigating sexual assault allegations made against Italian actress and prominent Me Too campaigner Asia Argento.

Los Angeles County sheriffs department said investigators are trying to locate actor Jimmy Bennett.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that the actor had accused Ms Argento of sexually assaulting him in 2013 when he was 17 and she was 37.

Ms Argento reportedly agreed to pay Mr Bennett $380,000 following the allegations.

Police say they have not found any police report alleging a crime.

Asia Argento / AFP/Getty Images

Captain Darren Harris said: After becoming aware of the allegations, the LASDs Special Victims Bureau is attempting to reach out to the reported victim and/or his representatives in an effort to appropriately document any potential criminal allegations.

Ms Argento, known to English audiences from the films Land of the Dead and xXx, became a prominent figure in the #MeToo movement when she alleged she was raped by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

According to the New York Times, Mr Bennet filed the claim a month after Ms Argento made her allegation against Harvey Weinstein.

Ms Argento and Mr Bennett both starred in a film called 'The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things' in 2004 where she played a teenage mum to Bennett as a young boy.

Ms Argento has claimed Harvey Weinstein raped her at the 1997 Cannes film festival, and maintained a relationship with him for four years because she was afraid of angering him. Weinstein has been charged for sex crime allegations made by three different women, but not Argento. He denies the charges and is due to appear in court on September 20.

In May she tweeted a speech, stating: "Harvey Weinstein will never be welcomed here [the Cannes film festival] ever again. He will live in disgrace, shunned by a film community that once embraced him AND provided cover for his crimes."
C omedian Jon Stewart rescued two goats spotted on subway tracks in New York .

Service was disrupted on Monday when the hungry goats wandered onto the N line tracks in Brooklyn.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which runs the New York Subway were forced to call the police and Animal Control to help remove the goats from the track.

Mr Stewart, a long-standing animal welfare activist, appeared to take part in the rescue mission as he and his wife are supporters of the Farm Sanctuary shelter where the rogue goats were taken in.

According to the MTA, train staff and police managed to move the runaway goats on to a closed track before they were tranquillised and captured at around 1pm local time (5pm UK time).

Jon Stewart and his wife Tracey, pictured attending Spingsteen on Broadway, are said to have helped out with the rescue / Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Jon Weinstein, a spokesman for the MTA, told the BBC that the goats had been munching on grass before they were caught.

A video posted on social media showed Mr Stewart helping to corral one of the cheeky goats into a truck.

At present, it is unclear how the goats came to be on the track, but there are a number of slaughterhouses in the nearby area where animals have escaped from in the past.
The situation we find ourselves in tears at our hearts and our souls and we are understandably angry and frustrated, Debbie Bosak, Diocese of Gary spokeswoman, said in an email. But we cannot let that anger and frustration turn into violence against the innocent. That is never the answer to the problem. That is not what followers of Jesus Christ would be called to do.
U S President Donald Trump has claimed he fears being made to look like a liar if he agrees to be quizzed by investigators looking into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election .

Mr Trump said he is concerned that special counsel Robert Mueller would use the interview under oath to try to bring perjury charges against him.

Any discrepancies between his account and that of others who have testified in the Russiagate probe, such as sacked former FBI director James Comey , could be used against him, the president claimed. So if I say something and he [Comey] says something, and its my word against his, and hes best friends with Mueller, so Mueller might say, Well, I believe Comey, and even if Im telling the truth, that makes me a liar.

Thats no good, he told Reuters news agency.

Mr Trump was echoing earlier claims by his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who said the president could be trapped into perjury.

The former New York Mayor was also widely ridiculed on social media for his remark that truth isnt truth. Mr Trump did not say whether he would ultimately agree to be questioned by Mr Mueller over allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russia, but he insisted he could take over the investigation if he wanted to.

He said: I can go in, and I could do whatever  I could run it if I want.

But I decided to stay out. Im totally allowed to be involved if I wanted to be. So far, I havent chosen to be involved. Ill stay out.

The president would not say if he had decided to strip Mr Mueller of his security clearance, as he did for ex-CIA chief John Brennan . I havent given it a lot of thought, he added.
I ncredible images show Muslims celebrating Eid al-Adha in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and across the world.

More than two million Muslim pilgrims are pictured moving in the Grand Mosque on the first day of the Festival Of Sacrifice.

They stand in the packed Kaaba  the cube-shaped building at the centre of the mosque  and also perform the hajj at Mount Arafat, where the Prophet Muhammed delivered his final sermon.

But other images from around the globe reveal Muslims celebrating Eid-al-Adha - from people gathering at a fairground in Burgess Park, south London, to others sacrificing animals in the Ivory Coast, Jerusalem and New Delhi.

Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad attends Eid al-Adha prayers at a mosque in Damascus / REUTERS

Syria's president Bashar Al-Assad was also pictured attending Eid-al-Adha prayers at a mosque in Damascus, Syria.

Palestinians celebrate Eid-al-Adha in Gaza City / EPA

Eid-al-Adha takes place between the 10th and 13th of the last Islamic month. It follows Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, which began on Sunday and commemorates the story of the Muslim Prophet Abrahams test of faith.

What is Eid al-Adha?

Muslims believe Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice his son, Ismail  and tradition holds that God spared the boy, replacing him with a ram.

An Indian goat seller pours water on his goat in Delhi, India / EPA

It is the holier of the two Muslim holidays celebrated each year and is ultimately a demonstration of the solidarity of the Muslim people and their submission to God.

The day is usually marked with the sacrifice of an animal  usually a sheep, goat or cow.

Ivorian Muslims pray during the first day of the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Adha in Abidjan, Ivory Coast / EPA

Photos from around the world show Muslims slaughtering sacrificial animals which are later split into three parts: one for the family, one for friends and relatives and one for the poor and needy.

One image shows people butchering cattle that were sacrificed during the Eid-al-Adha celebrations in Istanbul  commemorating prophet Abrahams readiness to sacrifice his son to show obedience to God.

The pilgrimage is a mandatory duty that must be carried out at least once in the lifetime of all adult Muslims who are can physically and financially undertake the journey.

Muslim faithfuls pray to celebrate Eid al-Adha festival at Adjame mosque in Abidjan / AFP/Getty Images

Eid-al-Adha is a pilgrimage made to Kaaba  the House of God  in the sacred city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia and represents one of the five pillars of Islam.

The rites of Hajj are performed over six days and aims to cleanse the soul of sins, instilling a sense of equality and brotherhood among Muslims.
T he father of a British woman who spent 10 hours in the sea after falling from a cruise liner said today he was trying to get to the bottom of what happened.

Kay Longstaff was pulled from the Adriatic Sea on Sunday morning, claiming she had fallen from the back of the Norwegian Star off the Croatian coast on Saturday.

Her father, Ron Longstaff, said he was still trying to establish what had happened.

Asked whether his daughter had been going through a distressing period recently, Mr Longstaff replied: Thats rubbish. I was sitting in the sun with her a few weeks ago.

Kay Longstaff with rescuers from the Croatian coastguard / REUTERS

Speaking at his home in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, he added: Im watching the news and trying to get to the bottom of what happened.

Following her rescue, Ms Longstaff, 46, said she felt very lucky to have survived the ordeal and thanked her wonderful rescuers.

She told Croatian news channel HRT: I am very lucky to be alive.

The woman thanked the "wonderful" rescuers who found her / MORH

She is reported to have told a rescuer that her fitness levels from yoga, and singing helped her survive.

David Radas, a spokesman for the Croatian ministry of maritime affairs, said by checking CCTV, rescuers knew the exact moment Ms Longstaff fell in the water.
A missing British man who disappeared in a boating accident in Portugal is feared dead by the family he was holidaying with.

Emergency services continue to hunt for Richard Chapelow, who was reportedly thrown from a banana boat on the Santa Clara Dam on Monday.

He was a guest of property tycoon Jon Hunt, the founder of Foxtons estate agency.

Mr Chapelow was part of a group of 10 Britons at the popular watersports and fishing spot, about an hour's drive north of the Algarve region, local media reported.

A statement issued on behalf of the Hunt family said: "My family and I are devastated by the loss of Richard, following a tragic accident at Santa Clara Dam.

"Our thoughts and prayers are wholly with Richard's family, and we ask that both families are given space to grieve such a painful loss.

"We will be working closely with the Portuguese authorities to understand what has happened, and are grateful to the local police and fire services for their efforts. It is a time of great sorrow."

Volunteer fire chief Mario Batista told Portuguese media four people were on a banana boat with another six on a boat towing the inflatable.

One rider disappeared after all four were thrown from the float, he said.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "We are assisting the family of a British man reported missing in Portugal and are in contact with the local authorities."
N ew NASA images show the vast 2 million acre scale of wildfires devastating California as six new blazes broke out.

The images taken from the International Space Station show huge swathes of smoke over America's west coast.

There are currently 110 large fires burning in the west coast of the United States, covering an area half the size of Wales.

Over the weekend six new large fires were reported in Idaho, Nevada and Oregon.

At least one thousand homes have been destroyed and 30,000 firefighters are still working tirelessly to battle the flames.

The huge fires have been caused by an exceptionally dry season and sustained temperatures above the average of 21C.

This year's wildfire season has been busy with a total year-to-date acreage burned well above the 10-year average.

Hotter weather attributed to climate change is drying out vegetation, creating more intense fires that spread quickly from rural areas to city subdivisions, climate and fire experts have warned.

But they also blame cities and towns that are expanding housing into previously undeveloped areas.

On Monday, a funeral was held for a firefighter from Utah who was killed last week from falling tree debris after a plane dropped thousands of gallons of flame-supressing liquid on the area where he was helping battle the the wildfire.

California Wildfires: July/August 2018 - In pictures 1 /37 California Wildfires: July/August 2018 - In pictures AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images A 747 Global Airtanker makes a drop in front of advancing flames from a wildfir AP A truck passes by flames during the Ranch Fire in Clearlake Oaks AP Alex Schenck moves flaming pallets while fighting to save his home as the Ranch Fire tears down New Long Valley Rd near Clearlake Oaks AFP/Getty Images A deer runs from flames as the Ranch Fire tears down New Long Valley Rd near Clearlake Oaks AFP/Getty Images A resident pushes personal belonging in a wheelbarrow as she evacuates ahead of the River Fire Getty Images A firefighter gathers water from a pool while battling the Ranch Fire near Clearlake Oaks AFP/Getty Images Alex Schenck carries a water bucket while fighting to save his home as the Ranch Fire tears down New Long Valley Rd near Clearlake Oaks, California AFP/Getty Images An air tanker drops fire retardant along the crest of a hill to protect homes and the firefighters protecting them in the valley below at the River Fire (Mendocino Complex) near Lakeport, California Reuters A helicopter carries water while battling the River Fire in Lakeport AP A firefighter rushes to save a home as the River Fire tears through Lakeport AP Australian fire specialists prepare to board a fight at Sydney International Airport in Sydney, New South Wales EPA A wildfire burns in Whiskeytown, California. AP The fire, stoked by hot and windy weather, raged through forests. AP The Cranston fire burns in San Bernardino National Forest, California. Getty Images An air tanker drops retardant while battling the Ferguson fire in Stanislaus National Forest. AFP/Getty Images Firefighters work as the Cranston Fire burns. Getty Images The Ferguson Fire burns along a ridgeline in unincorporated Mariposa County. AP Mara Schumann photographs a plume of smoke from the Ferguson Fire in Yosemite National Park. AP The Carr Fire burns near Highway 299. AP A burning home is reflected in a pool during the Carr fire in Redding. AFP/Getty Images The Carr Fire raced along Highway 299 near Redding. AP An historic schoolhouse burns in Shasta. AP The Carr Fire burns above Whiskeytown Lake near Whiskeytown. AP A CalFire firefighter douses flames on a burning home. AFP/Getty Images An inmate firefighter pauses during a firing operation as the Carr fire continues to burn in Redding. AFP/Getty Images The Carr Fire burns along Highway 299. AP A firefighter lights backfires during the Carr fire in Redding. AFP/Getty Images A woman surveys damage to her grandmother's house in Redding, AP Flames race across a hillside. AFP/Getty Images A home burns along Sunflower Road in Redding. Firefighters help a woman to the Mercy Medical Center emergency room. AP Firefighters discuss plans while battling the Carr Fire in Shasta. AP Residents listen during a community meeting at an auditorium in Yosemite Valley. AP Firefighters preparing for their deployment to the Ferguson Fire near Mariposa. EPA

Matthew Burchett was one of Utah's most knowledgeable wildland firefighters and was careful about his surroundings, said Ryan Love, a spokesman for the Unified Fire Authority that covers most Salt Lake City suburbs.

"This was not a lack of knowledge by any means," Love said. "It sounds like a pure accident."

Mr Burchett had been a firefighter since high school graduation and thrived in the tough conditions: sleeping on the ground, eating crew members' rations and working to protect people, his family and friends said.

They described him as a sharp, hardworking leader with an infectious grin and unassuming manner who had recovered from a stroke in 2015.

His brother and fellow firefighter Dominic Burchett said he died a hero doing what he loved.

He had an uncanny ability to "weasel' his way into extra work where the action was," his brother said with a smile.
M alaysia is searching for an industrial device containing radioactive material that is reported to have gone missing from a pickup truck, police have said.

The device contains an unknown amount of radioactive iridium, which authorities fear could cause radiation exposure or be used as a weapon by militants, according to the New Straits Times.

The 23kg (51lb) device, used in industrial radiography, went missing on a journey to Shah Alam on the outskirts of the capital Kuala Lumpur from the town Seremban  around 60km (37 miles) away.

"Yes, there is a report and we are investigating," Mazlan Mansor, police chief of the surrounding state of Selangor, told Reuters in a brief text message. He declined to elaborate.

The missing device could cause radiation exposure / AFP/Getty Images

Two employees of the firm that owned the missing equipment were arrested but later released because of insufficient evidence, it was reported.

Any loss or theft of radioactive material could put it in the hand of militants who may try to build a crude nuclear device or so-called dirty bomb, the United Nations atomic agency has warned.

It is not the first time such a device has gone missing, the countrys police chief said.

Inspector-General of Police, Mohamad Fuzi Harun, said a similar device was reported missing last year.

This incident is not the first and it is understood that it also happened last year, he told reporters on Monday.

Such a device combines nuclear material with conventional explosives to contaminate an area with radiation.
T wo toddlers survived alone for two days after they were passengers in a car crash that killed their mother in the United States.

Police in Arkansas said the older boy, 3, was found first, wandering alone on Monday along a road in Camden, about 85 miles (135 kilometers) southwest of Little Rock.

Authorities posted the boy's photo online in the hopes of identifying him and learned that his mother had not been seen for days.

Later on Monday, police returned to the area where the boy, named locally as Kylen Holliman, was found and discovered a wrecked car in a deep ravine not visible from the road.

Inside the car was the toddler's mother, Lisa Holliman, dead from her injuries, and his one-year-old brother awake and alert in his car seat.

Investigators believe the wreck happened two days earlier and that the older boy was able to climb out of the wreckage.

"They went through a pure hell, no doubt," Detective Nathan Greeley of the Ouachita County Sheriff's Office told Little Rock TV station KARK.

The boys' grandfather, James Holliman, said Kylen managed to get out of his car seat, through the sunroof then up a small hill filled with bushes.

Speaking to local station KATV, Det Greeley added: "The 3-year-old and 1-year-old being able to survive in the elements ... it's nothing short of a miracle, God's blessing, that these children were able to survive this accident."
T housands of fish have been killed by toxic algae devastating the coast of Florida.

Red Tide, a toxic algae arrived on the state's Gulf Coast killing thousands of small fish, with reports of dolphins also being washed up since it appeared last November.

Since July, 267 tonnes of marine life, including 72 groupers and a 21-foot whale shark of washed up on one beach at Sanibel Island, according to the Guardian.

Red Tide can also cause respiratory problems in humans, leading to many of the stunning beaches in Florida to be deserted.

A local, Alex Kuizon covers his face as he stands near dead fish at a boat ramp in Florida / AP

Researchers have found that respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses increase during red tide.

Hospital admissions for respiratory diagnoses jumped 54 percent for coastal residents.

Thousands of tonnes of dead fish have washed up on the coastline / AP

Heather Lam, from Venice, Florida said: "I've never seen it this bad. I feel like it cleanses your soul to go to the beach. For me not to be able to go, it's painful. I think a lot of people here take for granted when they live in Florida.

"Some people save their paychecks for a whole year to come."

The Florida Wildlife Research Institute says the number of dead and stranded sea turtles is nearly three times higher than average.

Crew clear up dead fish on Coquina Beach, Florida / AP

More than 450 stranded and dead sea turtles have been recovered in four affected counties this year.

The algae has caused Florida's governor Rick Scott to declare a state of emergency is seven counties along the Gulf Coast.

In a statement he said: "I am issuing an emergency declaration to provide significant funding and resources to the communities experiencing red tide so we can combat its terrible impacts."
O scar-winning director Danny Boyle will no longer direct Bond 25 due to creative differences, it has been announced.

The official Bond Twitter account confirmed on Tuesday that the Trainspotting boss was no longer part of the team overseeing what it tipped to be Daniel Craigs last film.

Alongside the iconic 007 image, the tweet read: Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig today announced that due to creative differences Danny Boyle has decided to no longer direct Bond 25.

No further information about the decision has been given.

Boyle was first linked to the film, scheduled for release in 2019, back in March when he hinted he was working on a script for the famous franchise.

In May, Boyle was officially confirmed to be at the helm of the hotly-anticipated film, set to go in to production in early December.

Wilson and Brocolli made the announcement, saying: We are delighted to announce that the exceptionally talented Danny Boyle will be directing Daniel Craig in his fifth outing as James Bond in the 25th installment of the franchise.

We will begin shooting Bond 25 at Pinewood Studios in December with our partners at MGM and are thrilled that Universal will be our international distributor.

Boyle worked with Craig on a short Bond film as part of the London Olympics opening ceremony back in 2012.

Titular actor Craig is set to hang up his black jacket after the November 2019 release, with the rumour mill about his replacement in full swing.
I dris Elba looked relaxed as he walked the carpet at the UK premiere of his directorial debut film Yardie.

The Luther actor opted for a dressed-down look as he rocked up to the BFI Southbank on Tuesday to promote his film Yardie, walking hand-in-hand with fiance Sabrina Dhowre.

The actor refused to give anything away in regards to recent speculation that he could be the next James Bond, although confessed he doesnt think it will happen.

He told ITV London: Ive not teased anybody. I tweeted my name  I did play a Bond remix this weekend.

Idris Elba jokes about Bond rumours on Yardie red carpet

Its such an honour to have a rumour like that surrounding you, you might as well have a laugh about it. I dont think Ill ever be Bond.

Dave Benett

Elbas first foray into directing, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year, was filmed in London and follows the story of a young Jamaican man who comes to London still devastated by personal tragedy.

Idris Elba makes his directorial debut with Yardie film

The actor turned the 1992 novel of the same name into something slightly different for his adaptation as the film focuses on two paths Dee has at his disposal, charting his journey down either the right one or the wrong one.

Of walking the yellow carpet, Elba said: Its very interesting actually, Ive dressed down because Im more relaxed. Its a very special feeling, were here in London.
At the summit, a Twitter official spoke about attempts to make Twitter "a more positive and healthy place." A Facebook representative talked about "the importance of role modeling" and encouraged those who are "typing in all caps" to "take a step back and look at what those communications look like." And the first lady herself cautioned that social media can "be destructive and harmful," and therefore young people should be taught "how to conduct themselves safely in a positive manner."
K ylie Jenner felt the wrath of Jennifer Lopez fans after she was pictured looking bored during the pop superstars MTV VMAs performance.

Lopez, 49, sang a medley of her greatest hits including On the Floor and Love Dont Cost a Thing as well as Jenny From the Block with DJ Khaled while she made a quick costume change before riding back onstage on a number six subway train  the line that serves her native Bronx.

The performance had the VIP audience on their feet as they sang and danced along to Get Right, All I Have, I Aint Your Mama, Dance Again and El Anillo.

But Jenner  and her boyfriend Travis Scott  remained seated throughout with many accusing the reality TV star of looking disinterested and being f****** disrespectful.

Stunning: Jennifer Lopez stormed through a string of her best hits / Invision/AP

One Twitter user posted: Kylie Jenner just sitting there bored during J.Lo's performance is UNACCEPTABLE.

Another tweeted: Bored @KylieJenner?! Major disrespect to @JLo these young ppl dont deserve @JLo.

Perez Hilton wrote: @KylieJenner looks so bored during @JLos performance. KYLIE IS CANCELLED! #VMAs.

Jenner wasnt the only star to come under fire at Monday nights awards bash.

Madonna was slated for her disrespectful and self-indulgent tribute to Aretha Franklin which saw her praise the late Queen of Soul for helping to launch her own musical career.

Franklins fans called for a public apology and for the person who gave the go ahead for Madonna to pay tribute to be fired.

MTV VMA's 2018 Show - In pictures 1 /30 MTV VMA's 2018 Show - In pictures Ariana Grande helps Nicki Minaj onstage as she accepts the award for 'Best Hip Hop Video' during the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards FilmMagic Jennifer Lopez accepts the Video Vanguard award at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Madonna presents a tribute to Aretha Franklin, at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott attend the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards FilmMagic Video Vanguard award winner Jennifer Lopez performs at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Ariana Grande performs "God is a woman" at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Joe Perry and Steven Tyler, of Aerosmith, perform with Post Malone at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Camila Cabello accepts the award for artist of the year at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Lani Grande, Marjorie Grande, Ariana Grande, and Joan Grandeperforms onstage during the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards Getty Images Video Vanguard award winner Jennifer Lopez performs at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Cardi B speaks onstage at the MTV Video Music Award Invision/AP Travis Scott performs at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Liam Payne and Shanina Shaik present the award for Best Latin Video PA Ariana Grande helps Nicki Minaj onstage as she accepts the award for 'Best Hip Hop Video' during the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards FilmMagic Ariana Grande on stage at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards PA Shawn Mendes performs "In My Blood" at the MTV Video Music Award Invision/AP Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively speak as The Rockettes perform onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Maluma kisses a dancer as he performs at the MTV Video Music Award Invision/AP Rita Ora poses with the award for best dance video for Avicii's "Lonely Together" at the MTV Video Music Award Invision/AP Camila Cabello hugs presenter Madonna as she accepts the award for video of the year for "Havana" at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Video Vanguard award winner Jennifer Lopez, performs at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Brendon Urie of Panic! At the Disco performs at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Ariana Grande performs "God is a woman" at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Madonna presents a tribute to Aretha Franklin at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Lenny Kravitz introduces a performance by Aerosmith and Post Malone at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively speak as The Rockettes perform onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP James Blake performs at the MTV Video Music Awards /Invision/AP Video Vanguard award winner Jennifer Lopez performs at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Cardi B Jennifer Lopez and DJ Khaled accept the award for best collaboration for "Dinero" at the MTV Video Music Awards Invision/AP Ariana Grande helps Nicki Minaj onstage as she accepts the award for 'Best Hip Hop Video' during the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall

Lopez was presented with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the event and paid tribute to her macho baby boyfriend Alex Rodriguez and her little angels Max and Emme.

It has been an incredible journey, she said on stage. When people have said, Youre doing too much, you can only do one thing, I was always a person who was like, Why not? I kind of had to forge my own path and rules.

I liked it that way for a while  just working and working and working. But it wasnt until I had two little angels come into my life that everything changed. I knew I had to be better, I had to go higher, I had to be stronger than I had been before.
T he London-based beauty concierge app Ruuby has made its first acquisition in the form of luxury mobile beauty and wellness consultancy Perfect 10 for an undisclosed sum.

Its a big moment for the business which only launched three years ago and will see Ruuby expanding its beauty services across the world.

On-demand beauty is an increasingly competitive market. Apps like Ruuby, Blow LTD and Uber-backed bgX allow customers to book different beauty treatments and sees a trained specialist arrive at their homes to carry out the treatment.

Whether its a blow dry, a manicure, or even an at-home massage, there is always a beauty stylist in London ready to book.

Perfect 10 operated a little different to these other platforms. Launched in 2011, though it offered at home treatments, it also included an elite membership division named Black Label.

For an annual fee, Black Label members could have a Perfect 10 stylist travel with them to provide beauty treatments around the globe, whilst also operating a network of stylists across the Middle East, Europe and Australia.

For Ruuby, the acquisition of its competitor will cement its position in the on-demand beauty space as well expand its network of stylists globally. Earlier this year, Ruubys CEO Venetia Archer told the Standard that she hoped to expand Ruubys services internationally and the Perfect 10 acquisition will achieve this goal.

Discussing the acquisition, Archer said: Perfect 10 enjoys a strong reputation, and has demonstrated real operational excellence in the beauty services space. We are delighted to introduce their elite Black Label membership to our platform, allowing us to deliver an unparalleled quality of beauty service in the UK and overseas.

Perfect 10s CEO Charlie McCorry, an experienced therapist and cosmetologist, will be joining Ruuby as its chief operations officer and will focus on scaling the merged operations on the Ruuby platform.
Over the last several years there have been several hundred year floods that have occurred, like, every month, that have caused significant flooding issues for many of our neighbors, Fleischhauer said. Our flooding is somewhat limited to Route 60 on the low spot near the river, but when it happens it shuts down Route 60.
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I dont have a problem with it, but I do want to clarify as to what our code says about delivering packaged liquor and food, Koch said. I know its done elsewherebut I want to make sure our ordinance is as clear as possible.
Roughly 30 other incoming freshmen and their families, all of who will navigate the double challenge of a new home and new school this year, attended as well. Some were coming from Chicago, others from across the U.S. and still others from around the globe. They all had the chance to see the campus where theyll be studying this year.
He began to get involved in Chicago politics as a college student when he worked in Ald. Ricardo Munozs campaign for his third term in the 22nd Ward, and then on Garcias commissioner race. Torrez also interned for the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute (USHLI). He then worked as a civic engagement coordinator for six years, registering people to vote across the Midwest. Shortly after, he served as a community organizer for The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) in Joliet, Illinois.
Some brief notes on the situation around the world with respect to the influence that energy has on political developments.

1. The Middle East

The Middle East continues to play a major role in the global energy scene. Notwithstanding changes that have occurred in the political situation of many countries in the area  i.e., Libya, Iraq, Qatar, and Iran  the Middle East still remains one of the most important providers of oil and natural gas in the world. This is why many global powers, namely the United States, China, and Russia, keep a close eye on developments there. Events in Iraq, Iran, and on the Arabian peninsula continue to ring alarm bells in major world capitals, since whatever happens there has severe repercussions on the price of energy. This in turn affects the economic welfare of many parts of the world and puts huge strains on the diplomatic efforts of major countries to design policies to deal with the resulting problems.

The antagonism between Saudi Arabia and Iran sets off a variety of political reverberations affecting the countries of the Persian Gulf, unsettling the situation between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, and entangling Russia and the United States in the ensuring imbroglio.

The countries of North Africa, Egypt, and of course Israel/Palestine are part of the same puzzle that mixes energy and diplomacy at every step of the way.

2. The Russian Federation

Russia plays a crucial role in the politics of global energy. Russia is one of the world's most important exporters of oil and natural gas. This means that apart from playing a pivotal role in the formation of world energy prices, its presence, behaviour, and diplomatic manoeuvring is of paramount importance when it comes to energy security and the possibility of preventing or causing peripheral animosities or establishing peace and stability.

The role of the Russian Federation cannot be viewed apart from what is happening in the energy-rich, formerly Soviet Central Asian republics. The so-called -Stans (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan) are major players in todays energy markets. Whatever they do, however, cannot be seen as separate from what Russia is doing or from Russias intentions. Although some of them, primarily Azerbaijan, have initiated projects that are not aligned with Moscow's goals, they nevertheless need to behave in ways that do not upset their powerful northern neighbour on whom they are heavily reliant, to some extent, for their welfare (due to their dependence on oil and gas pipeline networks).

Politics is therefore deeply intertwined with energy in most of those cases, bringing diplomacy front and centre as a determinant of behaviour and economic outcomes.

3. Latin America

There have been many upsets in Latin America in recent years, creating uncertainty about how energy is managed. Venezuela, for starters, embarked upon policies that unsettled markets and led to unpleasant outcomes. Under President Chavez and then his successor Maduro after the formers death, foreign companies were expelled, all energy facilities nationalized, and the decision was made to "spread all the wealth around" to the people. The end result was that all foreign investment dried up, the state went bankrupt, and foreign aid was needed to sustain some level of energy availability! Something similar happened in Bolivia, and Brazil has been rocked by scandals in its oil sector, while Petrobrazil has been dashed against the rocks, taking its countrys new socialist leadership along with it.

The rising hopes of economic well-being in the continent collapsed in the disasters that followed their newly emergent leaderships policies of nationalization, reducing those budding economies to ruins.

4. Northern Europe

Europe's problem is that, with the exception of North Sea oil and gas, it relies entirely on imports to provide it with a comfortable level of energy. Thus, events in the Middle East and the Russian stance toward the continent determines whether it is adequately supplied with energy or faces shortages.

The deposits in the North Sea have kept some European states (Britain and Scandinavia among others) well supplied for quite a while. But unfortunately there is a strong suspicion that these deposits are diminishing at a dangerous rate. As a result Europe will gradually become dependent on imports from the Middle East, North Africa, Russia, and the Atlantic (Angola, Brazil, Mexico, and the US). The situation is disquieting since Japan, and more recently, China, are seeking to buy their own supplies from the same sources.

Europe is obviously going to face difficulties in the future, but those problems can be resolved by Russia, on the one hand, and the discovery of shale gas and oil through fracking in the USA and Canada on the other. This opens up many opportunities for diplomacy to explore ways to establish new alliances and understandings. But Europe will ultimately be dependent on the goodwill of other countries.

5. The United States

After taking over the reins of world dominance from Britain, the USA continued to pay particular attention to events in the Middle East. Although the Americans had energy deposits of their own, they nevertheless wanted to safeguard the stability of world supplies, mainly to guarantee the security and welfare of most of their allies. Although their total dependence on supplies from the Gulf and North Africa never exceeded 12% of their annual needs, they were well aware of the fact that for Europe and Japan, stability in those regions was crucial for the unobstructed flow of energy. In the event of disruption, the USA would also find itself in a difficult situation. This was because its allies would be rushing to purchase oil from the same suppliers that served America's needs. Angola, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, and the North Sea would be stretched to their limits in order to quench the energy thirst of the world. And this equation has become more complicated as China and India have entered a phase of high energy consumption.

Thus, American involvement in the affairs of the Middle East has become a regular occurrence, leading to strange compromises, especially with respect to developments in the Islamic world. The defence of Saudi Arabia continued even after the attacks on 9/11, despite the fact that most of the terrorists who killed themselves were Wahabi devotees who came from the Saudi lands or from other Gulf states. The need for energy produced most of these strange bedfellows.

Things started to change after the fracking and shale gas revolution. The United States suddenly realized that it could not only became absolutely self-sufficient in oil and gas, but it also emerged as one of the most important exporters to the rest of the world. That automatically signalled two things:

a. The USA no longer needed to be a silent ally to those regimes in the Arab world that did not fully comply with American principles and ideas.

b. It was not imperative for the USA to worry so much about the supply of energy to its allies, either due to their excessive dependence on Moscow (i.e., Europe) or because they might block the USA from its own supply networks (in Angola and Latin America).

America could now establish, perhaps with Canadian help, its own supply routes and offer solutions that provided alternatives to either Russia or to some 'difficult', friendly countries in the Middle East. In the years of the Obama presidency this became very obvious, as the US turned its back on events in the Arab World and opened up corridors of communication with Iran. Under President Trump these priorities have not really changed, but the American administration has adopted a more business-oriented approach. That is, contacts have focused more on eventual 'deals' than on issues of ideology or democratic principles.

Relations are judged now more on the eventual results than on declarations of higher values and the pursuit of pure ideals. Thus, the USA cut deals with the Saudis while maintaining warm relations with Qatar, a regime detested by the Saudis. The private meeting with President Putin in Helsinki, which enraged State Department officials, may have largely focused on energy, the Arab world, and Islam.

America is also important for China's energy needs. It can prohibit access, through the Strait of Malacca in Malaysia/Indonesia, to millions of tons of oil destined daily for Chinese ports. It can also create havoc at the ports of Myanmar for supplies moving by land to southeastern China. By causing problems in the East China Sea, the US could isolate Chinese navigation and disrupt energy imports to that country.

China has now been incorporated into the global commercial system. They produce cheaply, so that the rest of the world buys freely. If the West stops buying, mainly due to higher costs (and energy is crucial among them), they stop producing. But this leads to significant unemployment. This may have devastating effects for the Chinas colossal urban network, which might not hold up under the strain 

In short the USA will play a pivotal role in energy matters in the near future, as a producer/supplier of energy, a military superpower keeping a close watch over global networks of supply, and as a world power extending its diplomatic reach to encompass issues of energy security and transport.

Energy Geopolitics

International politics today, as shown above, revolves around issues of energy. Countries enter into alliances and break off partnerships because of the energy deals they have entered into or broken away from. Countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan pivot the focus of their attentions on the global scene because of their position, either prominent or less so, within the energy matrix. Global powers, like the USA, China, and Russia, either utilize their energy deposits or are driven by their needs to embark upon foreign-policy initiatives influenced by issues relating to energy.

Energy has transformed geopolitics so that it plays out as geoeconomics, since financial gains or losses are directly related to a countrys position within the hierarchy of political influence. Today, power emanates not from the territory one can occupy, but from the spread of markets one can control or influence. To a very large extent this is due to energy. What deposits a country commands, what transportation networks it controls, and how many lesser powers or state entities depend on its abilities and resources define its role in the international community and in the overall power architecture.

The role played by energy will not diminish in the future. Under the various transformations that will emerge, resources will always be important for the lives of nations and their peoples. War and peace will continue to be decided by those sitting at the tables where energy deals are negotiated. It will be very difficult to think of geopolitics apart from energy.
Russia is updating the three legs of its strategic triad. Strategic aviation has been given a boost recently, with all Russian aircraft being radically modernized to boast new functionalities.

Russias Tupolev airspace industry, a giant in that sector, has signed a contract with the Defense Ministry to radically update its Tu-95MS strategic bombers, in order for them to meet the MSM standard. The Tu-160 and the Tu-22 M3 are also getting an upgrade to transform them into the Tu-160M2 and the TU-22 M3M.

The entire fleet will acquire new functionalities. The first Tu-95MSM supersonic, variable-wing bomber will take to the sky in late 2019. General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, has noted that the aircraft will get new avionics and engines. The electronic equipment will include only Russian-produced components. The Tu-22M3M, Tu-160M2, and the Tu-95MSM will be armed with new long-range cruise missiles that have already gone through testing and are ready for mass production.

All in all, there are around 60 Tu-22M3Ms currently in service with the Russian air force. Up to 30 will be upgraded to the M3M variant. The upgrade is comprehensive and includes new avionics, digital radio-navigation equipment, a new communications suite, and a new, updated, weapon-control system. Unlike Tu-160s and Tu-95s, it is not included in the tally under the New START. With a cruising speed of 900 km. per hour, its operational range is around 7,000 kilometers without refueling.

All varieties of weapons can be used, including the Kh-32 long-range anti-ship cruise missile with an operational range of 1,000 km. that is able to reach a maximum speed of over Mach 4 in the terminal phase of its complicated trajectory. The Raduga Kh-15 aero-ballistic hypersonic missile with an operational range of 300 km. is a weapon of choice. The Tu-22M3M can carry three KH-32s (weighing about six tons each) or 12 of the lighter Kh-15 missiles. The Tu-22M3 has recently tested the Kinzhal hypersonic missile.

According to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, an official government source, the Tu-95MSM version with an operational range of 7,000 km. (10,000 km. with air refueling) will have no bomb bay. It will carry only standoff precision-guided weapons for launching. Its prime weapon is the Kh-55 cruise missile. It can carry six of them internally plus ten more under its wings. The weapons suite can include the newest Kh-101 air-to-surface missiles, with six of them accommodated inside and 16 others carried externally. The missiles range exceeds 5,000 km. The Tu-160 and Tu-95MS have delivered 66 missile strikes against terrorist targets in Syria with high accuracy. The updated version of the aircraft will have the capability to retarget cruise missiles after the plane is already airborne. The missiles can be retargeted when they are already en route to their objectives. This is a new capability for Russian aviation.

This month, two TU-160s flew to Alaska for the first time in history. They reportedly flew about 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) from their home base in Saratov in southwestern Russia to Anadyr on the Chukotka Peninsula, which faces Alaska across the Bering Strait. Currently, the operational fleet of 16 aircraft in the arsenal of the Air Space Forces (formerly known as the Air Force) is being subjected to upgrades at various levels to extend the lifespans of those aircraft and expand their strike capabilities.

In January, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the production of Tu-160s to be reinstated. Capable of speeds of over Mach 2.0, the Tu-160 will acquire the capability to launch long-range, standoff cruise missiles, thus rendering its lack of a stealth feature fairly insignificant. Building new airframes is a milestone event in the history of Russian strategic aviation. The modernization of the Tu-160 supersonic bombers is underway and is scheduled to be complete by 2030, along with the update of the Tu-22M3M. So far, $2.8 billion have been allocated for the first batch of 10 TU-160 strategic bombers. There are plans to build fifty new Tu-160M2 aircraft at a rate of three per year.

The updates will encompass every component, making it an entirely new bomber in all but name. According to experts, itll be a whole new aircraft with a new fire control and navigation gear, an advanced system of electronic jamming, a new cockpit, and more fuel-efficient engines. The Tu-160 M2 version is to go into serial production between 2020 and 2021 with 60% of its internal equipment brought up to date, including a modern glass cockpit. The new NK-32 02 engine has been designed for the upgraded bomber. With the help of the modernized Il-78 re-fueling tanker, the Tu-160 will be able to reach any point on the planet.

All the modernized bombers will be equipped with the SVP-24 all-weather special computing subsystem for precise guidance. The system can operate even if the GLONASS receivers are jammed. It provides fire-andforget guidance, enabling the pilot to concentrate on countering threats and finding new targets to attack. Weather conditions and the time of day become irrelevant factors.

The golden days for Russias strategic aviation fleet are on their way, bringing an extensive revamping that will provide that fleet with new functionalities and propel it into first place in the world. The militarys conventional strike capability is to be augmented with the addition of relatively low-cost but efficient force multipliers. The Kh-101 far exceeds any Western analogues. The combination of a strategic bomber and a highly accurate standoff missile provides Russia with the capability to hit any target anywhere on short notice. The Russian defense industry is up to par and ready to accomplish its mission.
Senator Rand Paul has stressed the importance of normalizing relations with Russia rather than the status quo of diplomatic isolationism.
In late July 2018 Russia finally received the first (of four) Admiral Gorshkov class 5,400 ton stealth frigates. These Project 22350 ships can operate in distant waters and are replacing Cold War era destroyers, few of which can still get to sea. Like most new Russian warships the Gorshkovs arrived late and in far smaller numbers than originally planned. The original plan, from 2003, was for the first of 20 Gorshkovs to enter service in 2011. Construction began in 2006 and the first Gorshkov was launched in 2010. Oncethat the first Gorshkov was in the water it was only about half complete and work slowed down. Already there were money problems and the plan was reduced to 15, then eight and finally four of these ships. A major reason for the delays and reduction of the number of ships was the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine. That meant Russia could not get the gas turbine engines for these ships and that technology was developed and monopolized (during the Soviet period) by Ukrainian plants. It took a lot of money to develop a supplier in Russia and do it in a hurry. The second Gorshkov and its Russian gas turbines begins sea trials later in 2018 and it will be a year or so before it is known how reliable the Russian gas turbine engines are.

The Gorshkov's are armed with a 100mm gun, two Kashtan autocannon/missile systems for missile defense, 16 VLS cells for Oniks anti-ship missiles or Kaliber land attack cruise missiles, 32 VLS cells for anti-aircraft missiles (30 kilometers range), eight 533mm (21 inch) torpedo tubes and a helicopter.

Four Gorshkovs are too little too late and additional four improved models (Project 22350M) are planned but these will not enter service until the mid-2020s. That is something because until a few years ago, Russia was facing the loss of nearly all its surface warships to age and not many replacements entering service. The problem is that by 2010 most of the Cold War era warships that made up the surface fleet since the late 1980s had to be retired. These ships were falling apart, as there was not any money, since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, for repairs and upgrades. Russia came up with more money by 2010 to build enough surface ships to maintain a respectable but much smaller fleet. But there was a problem. Most of Russia's warship building capability had disappeared since 1991. To that end, the government negotiated with France to import modern warship building techniques. This was to be accomplished by purchasing two Mistral amphibious assault ship/helicopter carriers built in France and the right to build two more in Russian shipyards. During that process, Russian shipbuilders would learn how it's done in the West. From 1991 until 2010 most of the Russian construction effort went into finishing a few subs and building some surface ships for export. This plan was another casualty of the Ukraine invasion. The first two Mistrals were complete by 2014 but because of sanctions on Russia (for the Ukraine aggression) France refused to deliver, refunded Russia the billion dollars paid for those two Mistrals and then sold them to Egypt.

In 2010 the Russian surface fleet consisted of one aircraft carrier, five cruisers, 17 destroyers, eleven frigates and about fifty corvettes. There were about twenty smaller (than Mistral) amphibious ships. All these Cold War era ships suffered from years of neglect during the 1990s, and most were not in the best of shape and will be gone by 2020. The one Russian carrier is undergoing an expensive, and long overdue, refurbishment to keep it in service through the 2020s but all the other Cold War era surface ships are not worth refurbishing. The Gorshkovs were meant to replace the 32 Krivak class frigates. These 3,500 ton ships were built in the 1970s and 80s and nearly all were retired by 2010.

The Gorshkov's cost about $400 million each and will replace larger ships like the 8,400 ton Sovremenny class destroyers. These older, larger, ships, were designed for high seas operations far from Russian shores. The new Russian fleet will be a return to the traditional Russian coastal navy. Only four of the original 21 Sovremenny are still in service and one is undergoing refurbishment. These ships all were built in the 1980s and 90s. The last four built were for China. The Russian fleet could no longer afford large warships like this, but China could and is now building its own designs that are more similar to American designs.

The 30 Krirvaks and 20 Sovremennys were the primary surface warships of the Soviet high seas fleet. Two decades after the Soviet Union collapsed there will be about ten newly built stealth frigates (improved Krivaks) and nothing to replace the Sovremennys, although the four late model Sovremennys should last through the 2020s. Through the 1990s the rapidly aging Soviet Kirvaks and Sovremennys still gave Russia, at least on paper, the second largest high seas surface fleet on the planet. But after 2000 it became clear that China was going to displace Russia as the second largest surface fleet and it has.

There was one other class of replacement ships being built, a variation on the Krivaks based on a successful export design. In 2016, for the first time since the 1980s, the Russian Navy has received a new frigate (the Admiral Grigorovich) of the Project 11356M class. The 11356Ms are 4,000 ton ships with a top speed of 56 kilometers an hour, a crew of 200 and armed with eight Klub or Yakhont anti-ship missiles, a naval version of the Buk M3 anti-aircraft missiles system (36 missiles), two close-range autocannon for anti-missile defense, four torpedo tubes and a launcher for rocket-propelled depth charges and a helicopter. Delivery dates for more of these frigates were delayed because their gas turbine power plants come from Ukraine.

The 11356M is not a radical new design and is a modified version of the nine Talwar class frigates Russia designed for India in the 1990s as improved versions of the last Krivaks. Once six Talwars were delivered Russia ordered six of these Admiral Grigorovich class frigates to make up for the delayed Gorshkovs. The Grigorovich was based on the stealth Talwar. The last three Talwars were "stealth" frigates and the same size as the original Talwars India ordered in the 1990s. The Stealthy Talwars have their superstructure changed so as to reduce the radar signature (making the ship less likely to show up on enemy radars). Improved weapons and electronics are installed as well, making it a more formidable warship than the original Talwars. India built the stealth Talwars itself, as was the original plan. India is not ordering any more warships from Russia, as it has developed the capability to build what it needs locally. This now includes aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines.
A $25,000 grant for youth programme OneChance New Zealand was among more than $370,000 granted to the Rotorua community by The Southern Trust.

OneChance NZ manager Alan Tane Solomon says $5,000 will assist with a salary with the remaining $20,000 going towards the purchase of a minivan.

Having an OneChance minivan will mean much less stress for programme managers - and in some extreme cases that they wont have to borrow vehicles from friends to ensure youth can attend programmes. He says.

OneChance is very grateful to The Southern Trust for the grant. He is confident OneChance will shortly be able to confirm a further $27,000 in funding to purchase the van ahead of next year when they are extending their programmes significantly.

Between April last year and March 2018 OneChance has assisted 97 students to attain 1,441 Level 3 credits across seven NZQA Units Standards in the Social Services sector and more than 500 people have attended their community events.

Having a minivan will make it easier for OneChance to build upon this work as they will be assured they can take youth to activities around Rotorua and the country whatever the weather.

Partnerships with venues across New Zealand provide funds to assist community organisations the length and breadth of the country, says the Southern Trust CEO and trustee Karen Shea.

Our policy is to return 95% of the proceeds raised in an area back to the same area, with the remaining 5% used for national purposes.

The Trust is consistently receiving more applications for funding than there are funds available in the majority of areas.

Community organisations from Rotorua can apply for funding from The Southern Trust. The Trust continually reviews applications with most processed within 20 working days. Requests larger than $30,000 are reviewed at monthly Board of Trustees meetings.

Our team can easily advise on application criteria, which can save organisations a lot of time, says Karen.

Community organisations considering applying for funding should firstly call The Southern Trust funding team on 0800 4 CHARITY (0800 42 42 74).
Victoria Gimblett thought university was for smart, rich people and I wasnt either of those things she says with a smile and matter-of-fact shrug.

But the former Tauranga Girls College students perception changed when she applied for and won the Otumoetai Trust Undergraduate Scholarship to attend the University of Waikato.

That was 12 years ago and now, with a slew of qualifications including a Bachelor of Social Sciences with Honours in Sociology from Waikato, Victoria works as a Future Student Adviser at the Universitys Tauranga campus.

Victoria says the highlight of her job is helping people make informed decisions about their tertiary choices and shell be doing just that at the Tauranga Information Evening this Wednesday 22 August at ASB Arena.

University staff, including Victoria, will be hosting a presentation followed by an expo-style opportunity to meet and talk with representatives from each of the faculties, as well as graduates now in employment.

There will be an update on the progress of the new Tauranga campus developments for 2019, and staff will be available to explain the options and processes for scholarships and programmes of study.

As applications have recently opened for this years Otumoetai Trust Undergraduate Scholarship, Victoria will be using the opportunity to encourage eligible students to apply.

Scholarships are there to help people and youve got to be in to win, she says. Dont be ashamed of your situation. Own it. Eke out the opportunities to carve out the path you want for your future.

The Otumoetai Trust Undergraduate Scholarship was established in 1998 to assist Bay of Plenty students from Otumoetai College, Tauranga Boys College and Tauranga Girls College into tertiary study, with emphasis on supporting disadvantaged students whether that be financial, social or physical disadvantage.

The purpose of the scholarship is to provide financial support to first-year undergraduate students studying full time at the University of Waikato at either the Hamilton or Tauranga campus.

With a value of up to $9000 paid over three years, Victoria says the scholarship provided her an opportunity to bridge the gap of where she wanted to go and how to pay for it.

Who would have thought that by being honest about not coming from an ideal situation can get you a scholarship? she says.

Brought up in a single parent home with two younger brothers Victoria witnessed first-hand how her mum struggled on her own with little education behind her.

Despite wanting to be a teacher from an early age when she entered high school Victoria assumed tertiary study would be financially out of her reach. Such facts were not lost on her careers adviser Barb Young.

Halfway through year 13 straight-talking Barb insisted that Victoria was smart but had to set herself some goals and work harder to achieve them.

Barb told me about the scholarship and even helped me fill out the application forms, says Victoria. Her encouragement was pivotal to me going to uni.

Not only the first in her family to attend university, Victoria completed an Honours year before graduating.

She scored her dream job in student recruitment and clocked up more than seven years working both in Hamilton and Auckland before the lure of home saw her return to Tauranga.

Now, recently returned to her role from maternity leave, the new mum is looking forward to the opening of Waikatos new campus in Taurangas CBD.

Set to open early next year, Victoria says she enjoys seeing families get excited when they realise the options Waikato University can offer their kids in the Bay.

I hope the new campus encourages people to be Bay proud and able to see the benefits of studying here and staying on to give back to their communities, says Victoria.
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Waihi has been picked as a finalist for the Most Beautiful Small Town Award in this years Beautiful Awards, run by not-for-profit organisation Keep New Zealand Beautiful.

Waihi has been selected as a finalist because of a number of local environmentally and sustainably focused initiatives.

Community group Keep Waihi Beautiful has run a number of town-wide clean up events in which locals help to remove litter from public spaces. There has been a noticeably difference with areas from past clean ups remaining litter free.

Keep Waihi Beautiful has also helped to beautify local community spaces by removing graffiti on the A&P shed and replacing it with urban art with help from local artist Shane Walker and Waihi College students.

Waihi is not only a finalist in the Most Beautiful Small Town category, the region also features as a finalist in the community and individual categories.

CEO of Keep New Zealand Beautiful Heather Saunderson says Waihi has demonstrated a number of environmental initiatives.

Not only has the town excelled, local individuals and community groups have also demonstrated their incredible efforts towards sustainability and caring for the environment.

The Beautiful Awards, run by Keep New Zealand Beautiful, aim to celebrate environmental excellence exemplified by communities, businesses, schools and individuals in New Zealand.

All the finalists have worked hard to secure a spot in the top six.

All finalists have strong environmental initiatives across each of our four key areas. We are so pleased to see the incredible work each region is doing to build and sustain vibrant communities. This will be a difficult competition to judge, says Heather.

The last phase of judging will involve the Beautiful Awards judging panel visiting the finalist towns and cities from late August. The winners will be announced at the Beautiful Awards Gala Dinner in Auckland on Friday October 26 2018.
Click the image above to watch the video

The remains of 27 New Zealand Defence Force personnel and one child repatriated from Malaysia and Singapore have been returned to their families at a ramp ceremony at Auckland International Airport.

The New Zealand Army soldiers were serving in Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam when they died. The child was the son of a member of the Army.

The remains were returned on a chartered Air New Zealand flight and were received with a traditional Maori welcome, before the caskets were carried past a guard of honour and handed back to their families.

A short private family service was held, followed by an NZDF haka as the hearses left the airport.

The repatriations are part of the NZDF Te Auraki (The Return) project, under which Service personnel and dependents buried overseas between 1955 and 1971 will be returned to New Zealand, following a change in Government policy.

Between 1955 and 1971 NZDF personnel who died while serving overseas were interred in overseas cemeteries unless their families paid repatriation costs.

Representatives from Malaysia and Singapore attended the ramp ceremony. The NZDF also invited representatives from Veterans Affairs, the Returned and Services Association, and Vietnam and Malayan veterans organisations to witness the arrival home.

RNZAF Group Captain Carl Nixon says it's important to return the fallen personnel in a dignified manner, in accordance with NZDFs contemporary cultural, religious and military protocols.

Today we honour the memory of a child and the sacrifice of 27 soldiers who died serving their country overseas. Were bringing them home to their families, who have waited more than 60 years for this moment.

This project is about making sure the inequalities and inconsistencies of the past are put right and everyone is treated the same, regardless of wealth, rank or cause of death.

The remains will be reinterred at Service, public, or private cemeteries, depending on family preferences and the Service persons qualifying service.

Memorials (headstones or plaques) will be provided and $1000 will be given towards a headstone for those who wish for their relative to be interred in a public/private cemetery.

The NZDF will not conduct military funerals because all of the deceased had military funerals before their interment.

However, families will be provided with NZDF support, such as chaplains, buglers and pall-bearers as required.

The NZDF deployed an expert disinterment team of bioarchaeologists, forensic anthropologists and NZDF odontologists (dentists) to carry out the repatriation and identification process.

The team was led by an NZDF doctor and worked alongside the Malaysian Armed Forces, who provided logistic and forensic support.

Planning is already under way for the next two tranches of project Te Auraki, under which two personnel will be repatriated from England in September and two from the Republic of Korea in October.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Defence Minister Ron Mark at the ramp ceremony at Auckland International Airport.
Each year the Acorn Foundation distributes funding to local charities and organisations in the Western Bay of Plenty.

This year over 123 charities and organisations will receive $933,670 in the annual distribution.

This years is the largest funding to date and brings Acorns total distributions to the community more than $5.5 million since its inception in 2003.

Acorn Foundation General Manager Lori Luke says this years funding comes from 77 estates or living giving donors, with distributions coming from 29 more funds than in 2017.

It is thanks to the incredible generosity of our donors that we can make these distributions to the community.

We recognise that this money will make a significant difference to the charities and organisations that receive it, and it will enable them to better focus on the amazing work they do every day in our region.

Over $170,000 of the total goes out in scholarships and awards throughout the year, and Lori says that for many of their donors, it allows them to contribute to a range of causes.

Our donors are more than happy to support those in the community who need a helping hand, while they also love to reward those who excel at their chosen activity.

Lori says as the Acorn Foundation community fund continues to grow, the annual distributions are becoming more and more substantial.

For the first time, Acorn will donate over $50,000 to a single charity in one year. Eight donors have combined to contribute a tremendous $50,811 to Waipuna Hospice in 2018.

Also the contributions of five generous donors are providing over $39,000 to The Salvation Army-Tauranga this year.

Lori Luke says community foundations are playing an ever-increasing role across New Zealand in delivering sustainable funding to community groups and organisations and to major community projects.

Its exciting to see the Acorn Foundations fund continue to grow, as it has just passed $23 million in size.

What is also exciting is the range of ways donors are contributing to the community.

Whilst Acorn originally focused primarily on bequest giving, more and more of our donors are also opting to give while they live. Other people are setting up Giving Circles which are a social way to get involved in the community giving with like-minded friends, and we will soon be presenting workplace giving as an option for businesses in the region.

The benefit for donors of giving during their lifetime is that they can see the impact of their support, and thats often a profoundly rewarding experience for them.
Homes were damaged when a tornado roared through a New Plymouth suburb and hit Ohope in the Bay of Plenty this week.

So why do they happen?

To produce a tornado there has to be a couple of different weather conditions. Most importantly, a strong, turning wind and a thunderstorm.

"Tornadoes usually occur with thunderstorms and have to do with how the wind turns with height. This is called shear - the turning of the wind and how it speeds up as it heads up into the atmosphere," says April Clark from MetService.

"When you have thunderstorms accompanying this, that gives a really strong updraft and that creates that very distinctive corkscrew effect of a turning tornado."

Colder downdraughts of air help to bring this tunnel of rotating wind towards the ground.

The twisters are only called tornadoes if the funnel shape, or corkscrew, touches the ground.

Why are they so often in New Plymouth?

The shape of the Taranaki coastline explains why they're so likely to happen in New Plymouth.

"It's all to do with that low-level shear, when winds come up to that coast," says April.

"In the case of New Plymouth, it's nor'easterly winds that slowly turn nor'west.

"When it's coming up against the land the wind starts bunching up or building up and that's where you start to get that turning.

"Particularly in New Plymouth it's because that coastline just has a perfect topography or shape that allows and enhances that turning of the wind at a low level in the atmosphere."

New Plymouth also sees a lot of thunderstorm activity and, as it's a coastal area, it is "always close to where the predominating winds are coming from."

Was this a bad one?

Although the New Plymouth tornado caused damage to a number of properties, it was relatively weak.

Tornadoes are measured on the Fujita scale of intensity, which is mainly based on how much damage the tornado causes. The scale goes from zero, considered light damage, to five, 'incredible damage'.

The New Plymouth tornado was most likely a Fujita one event, April Clark said.

"Usually New Zealand only gets to three, so one is definitely on the low scale in terms of damaging. In the US and places that are more continental they can get up to five but we never really see that here."

Will we see more in New Plymouth?

"We are expecting a chance of thunderstorms again, especially in that Taranaki coast today, and with that tornado risk as well, so it could happen again today."

MetService has a number of weather warnings in place.

-RNZ/By Ellie Jay, Social Media Journalist
FAIRMOUNT, NY - Wegmans plans to close its only WKids Center in Central New York, located at its Fairmount store.

The WKids Center, which provided child care for young children while their parents were shopping, will close Sept. 15, Wegmans officials said.

The Fairmount center has been open since 1999. The first WKids Center opened in Penfield in 1993.

Wegmans closed the Fairmount center because fewer people were using it, said Evelyn Ingram, speaking for the company.

Some time ago, Wegmans reduced the hours of operation at Fairmount to see if that would boost use, but Ingram said that hasn't been the case.

"We have a seen an 8 percent decline in the number of customers using the center,'' she said. "From a business perspective, that's half of a half percent of the population who shop at our store."

There are 13 WKids centers across the Wegmans chain, including several in Rochester. Several are closing as use declines.
AUBURN, N.Y. -- A Utica man admitted Monday in Cayuga County Court that he had more than 38,000 untaxed, unstamped cigarettes while traveling along the Thruway a year ago, Cayuga County District Attorney Jon E. Budelmann said in a news release.

Timothy Heburn, 40, of 1204 Elm St., said he had 190 cartons of untaxed cigarettes when state police arrested him Aug. 4, 2017 on Interstate 90 in the town of Brutus, the release said.

Heburn was scheduled to go on trial Monday, but instead pleaded guilty to evading or defeating cigarette and tobacco tax, and fourth-degree criminal tax fraud, both felonies.

Prosecutors said Heburn owed $8,269.35 in taxes on the cigarettes, which he paid Monday as a condition of his sentence, according to the news release.

Acting Cayuga County Judge Mark H. Fandrich sentenced Heburn to a three-year conditional discharge with the requirement that Heburn pay an additional $2,000 fine.

State police, the state Tax Department and Cayuga County District Attorney's Office worked together on the case since November.

Cayuga County Assistant District Attorney Jesse M. Eshkol said he was eager to prosecute the case, but he was satisfied with Heburn's plea.

"We were well-prepared and ready to go," Eshkol said, adding "the evidence against this defendant was very strong."

The DA commended the investigative work of the state Department of Taxation and Finance's Criminal Investigations Division, as well as the state troopers who assisted with the vehicle stop and arrest.

In addition to Heburn's felony convictions, Budlemann said the disposition resulted in more than $10,000 returned to New York state taxpayers.

The Cayuga County's New York State Crimes Against Revenue Program (CARP) -- a grant funded through restitution and fines collected from criminal prosecutions -- covered the cost to prosecute the case so taxpayers wouldn't have to pay the bill, Budelmann said in the release.
DEWITT, N.Y. -- DeWitt police turned to Facebook on Monday to ask the public for help in identifying a man they say broke into a school and stole a donation jar meant to help Upstate Golisano Children's Hospital.

Police were called to St. Matthew's School, 214 Kinne St. in the village of East Syracuse, for a report of a burglary at about 8:45 a.m. Sunday. When officers arrived, they found someone had broken the windows to two doors inside the building to get access to different parts of the school, according to the DeWitt Police Department's Facebook post.

During the investigation, police learned cash was missing from a drawer. The donation jar to help Upstate Golisano Children's Hospital in Syracuse also had gone missing, police said.

The school's surveillance cameras captured images of the suspect, which police shared on Facebook.

DeWitt police are asking anyone who recognizes the man to email them at tips@townofdewitt.com or send them a message through Facebook.
Syracuse-born rapper Post Malone's plane has safely landed in Upstate New York after suffering an emergency in the air Tuesday.

People reports Malone and musician Andrew Watt were two of the 16 passengers aboard a private plane which lost two tires upon takeoff from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. The FAA says the Gulfstream Aerospace GLF-4 luxury jet took off around 10:50 a.m. for London, but had to begin circling the airport due to the emergency.

TMZ reports air traffic control advised the pilot to burn fuel to make a possible crash landing safer, diverting it first to Westfield Barnes Regional Airport in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Tuesday afternoon.

The plane was later diverted to Stewart International Airport, where it landed safely in the Orange County town of New Windsor. Two tires appeared deflated, but no injuries were reported; Malone and his team appeared to be talking to first responders after landing.

"i landed guys. thank you for your prayers. can't believe how many people wished death on me," Malone tweeted afterwards. "f--- you. but not today."

Malone won his first MTV Video Music Award in New York City on Monday night, taking home the Moon Person trophy for Song of the Year for "Rockstar." He also closed the 2018 VMAs show with Aerosmith, playing guitar and singing "Dream On" and "Toys in the Attic" alongside Steven Tyler and Joe Perry.

Malone released his second album, "beerbongs & bentleys," earlier this year, featuring hit singles "Rockstar," "Psycho" and "Better Now." He recently broke charts records held by The Beatles and Michael Jackson.

Post Malone was born Austin Richard Post on July 4, 1995, in Syracuse, N.Y. He lived in Central New York until he was 10, when his family moved to Texas because his father was offered a job working for the Dallas Cowboys.

His father, Rich Post, told syracuse.com the family has strong memories of their time in CNY and still owns a home in Baldwinsville. His son, however, always tells fans he was born in Syracuse but comes from Texas and "reps" Dallas -- he even has a tattoo of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in Dallas.
Syracuse, N.Y. -- Low-fare Allegiant Air will launch twice-weekly nonstop flights from Syracuse to Southwest Florida starting Nov. 15, the airline announced Tuesday.

Allegiant will operate the flights during the winter and spring from Syracuse Hancock International Airport to Punta Gorda Airport, 22 miles north of Fort Myers on Florida's gulf coast.

The airline's website shows the flights operating Sundays and Thursdays through the end of April, with some variations around the Thanksgiving holiday in November.

"We're very excited to grow again in Syracuse," Drew Wells, Allegiant vice president of planning and revenue, said in a statement. "The Syracuse community has been very supportive of Allegiant since we began service here in 2013, and we're happy to offer area residents the opportunity to enjoy the sunny shores of Southwest Florida."

With the addition of the new route, Allegiant will be serving six cities from Syracuse. (In addition to Punta Gorda, it flies to Sanford, St. Petersburg-Clearwater and Fort Lauderdale in Florida; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; and Nashville, Tenn., from Syracuse.

The airline said it will offer introductory one-way fares as low as $69 on the new route. (Tickets must be purchased by Wednesday, Aug. 22, for travel by Feb. 28, 2019.)

Allegiant's website shows one-way fares generally ranging from $69 to $145, with fares as high as $243 around the Christmas holiday, on the Syracuse to Punta Gorda route.

Allegiant's announcement comes two weeks after another low-fare carrier, Frontier Airlines, announced it will offer seasonal, nonstop flights from Syracuse to Fort Myers three days a week starting Nov. 15.

Contact Rick Moriarty anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148
Syracuse, NY -- A Guatemalan man in the center of a controversial farm raid by immigration officials will spend eight months in federal prison for illegally re-entering the country.

Marcial De Leon Aguilar pleaded guilty to illegal re-entry in federal court. He admitted being convicted of a felony offense and being deported three times in the past, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Syracuse announced.

After Aguilar's prison sentence, he will again be subject to removal or deportation proceedings, prosecutors said.

Aguilar's arrest at a Rome farm in April made headlines after the farmer accused federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement of storming his farm without a warrant, handcuffing him and taking his phone when he began to take photos and video.

ICE did not respond directly to the allegations by farmer John Collins. But they did say that Aguilar had re-entered the country illegally and had been previously convicted of reckless aggravated assault and a prior illegal re-entry.

"Aguilar was encountered during a enforcement operation in a publicly-accessible area. Federal immigration law clearly provides for the arrest of removable aliens based on administrative arrest warrants issued by authorized immigration officers," an ICE spokesman said in an email.

Collins said at the time that he did not know Aguilar had entered the country illegally and had never seen the worker to be violent.

Aguilar lived on a house at the farm with his wife, Virginia, and their children. Virginia had been caught coming across the border with the children, but had sought asylum.
Carol Decker, a former middle school teacher, lives in Fayetteville.

By Carol Decker

School is about to begin throughout the United States. Pictures on the news showed new bright red gates and metal detectors in place at a school where a mass shooting took place in May. It reminded me that in America, by May 25 of this year, there had been 23 school shootings -- an average of one a week.



I taught middle school from 1980 to 2000. Several bus loads of our 800 students lived in the poorest, toughest section of Syracuse. People were advised to lock their car doors just to drive through that section of town. Our students were dropped off at Columbus Circle in front of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, and they had to walk the rest of the way home, eight or more blocks.



As students hopped off the bus after school on a sunny January day in 1990, shots were fired. A student from our school was killed. Many of his friends witnessed the murder.



Teachers, family and friends sat in a small funeral parlor during calling hours. The low, constant beat of a drum made us realize that the life of one our own had been snuffed out.



A talented young man would never make it to high school and beyond.



Our school went into crisis mode; counselors talked with students helping them deal with the shooting. Teachers were available to students before and after school to help them cope with this tragedy. Extra time was allowed for test-taking. For the rest of that spring many students sat dazed in classes, moving like zombies, unable to focus.



In late May this year, National Public Radio interviewed students who had attended schools where shootings had occurred. A teenager from Santa Fe High School in Texas said she was afraid to go anywhere without a parent present. She didn't even want to walk out of her bedroom to go to the bathroom.



A student from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, said, "Sometimes the shooting seems years ago, yet it never leaves me." The shooting was in his memory bank like a wound that never heals.



The Florida students began a campaign for gun control. It took courage. Many people in America were proud of them and supported their efforts. Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill that raised the minimum age for buying rifles in Florida from age 18 to 21, and established waiting periods and background checks for gun buyers. Was it enough? Will the shootings stop?



Now students ready themselves for a new school year.



What have we and our leaders done to protect our young people?



Ask your candidates what they plan to do to stop mass murders in schools. Make your vote count, so that these young people have not died in vain.
Rep. John Katko is fighting a billboard critical of his support for the Republican tax overhaul by buying his own ad on the same digital billboard across from the New York State Fair.

Katko's billboard criticizes his Democratic opponent, Dana Balter, claiming she supports an increase in federal taxes.

Katko's ad began showing Tuesday on the billboard at Interstate 690 and State Fair Boulevard across from the State Fair entrance. It will be on display through Labor Day, his campaign said.

More than 1 million people are expected to travel past the billboard during the fair, which runs through Labor Day. Katko's campaign declined to disclose the cost of the ad.

Balter's photo appears on the billboard ad next to an excerpt of comments she made about her support for a "Medicare for all" national health care plan.

The billboard shows a quote from Balter: 'Um, well, you would have an increase in taxes."

The ad does not provide the context of Balter's comments, made in a podcast interview Jan. 31 posted on the website Radical Bureaucrats. The podcast is run by some of Balter's former students at Syracuse University.

Balter was asked in the interview if she would advocate for an expansion of the Medicare tax to pay for "Medicare for all" health insurance.

"Yes, I think that would be how we would have to pay for it," Balter said. "And I know that that makes people nervous because people don't want increased taxes. But what's really important to keep in the conversation is, um, while you would have an increase in taxes, you would no longer have out-of-pocket medical expenses."

Rep. John Katko's campaign paid for this billboard at Interstate 690 and State Fair Boulevard, across from the New York State Fair.

Balter said in a statement Tuesday that Katko's ad was dishonest.

"Congressman Katko edited my words out of context and he knows it," Balter said. "This is what desperate politicians do when they run out of ideas. The truth is, I want you to pay less for health care, not more."

Balter said the Medicare payroll tax would be offset by eliminating health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs for consumers.

A group aligned with House Democrats paid for an ad critical of Katko that first appeared on the billboard last week. The ad blasts Katko for supporting the Republican tax overhaul that Congress passed in 2017.

"Who's paying for Katko's tax scam? Surprise, it's you," the billboard states. It refers readers to the CostYouMore.com website run by House Majority PAC.

Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
My greatest accomplishment of this holiday so far has been to move my books from the floor to shelves. I have now filled my shelf space, which means I will either have to get over my addiction to Abebooks or start giving some away (a decision which was forced on me a few weeks ago when I had a book stolen from a pub  an event which must have involved one of the few people with a shared interest in Kierkegaards philosophy and petty theft). Nonetheless the move was a success; it not only removed an obstructive and frankly ominous ziggurat of unread tomes from the middle of my room, but gave me a chance to reflect on the titles I most value.

Lord Byron, Don Juan

I have this in a battered 70s paperback with a faded detail from a Delacroix painting on the cover. Its yellow pages immediately bring me back to where I read it: in a hostel room in rural southern Africa, where I was confined by illness for several days. With little company, as I was travelling alone, I had nothing else to occupy myself. It proved to be the perfect distraction: Byrons tale flings its hero across the globe between alluring, but powerful, women. The authors comically ingenious invention is to make Don Juan not a serial seducer, but serially seduced. His verse is not always polished or beautiful, but has a breathless verve and willingness to revel in its own limitations (he refuses in the third stanza to list any more French heroes because there are not at all adapted to my rhymes) which makes it timelessly readable.

Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars

Duffys 1992 history of Traditional Religion in England 14001580 is a classic of revisionism. Its subtitle might sound dry, but Duffys prose reveals the splendour and depth of piety which defined much pre-Reformation worship. He explores how much was lost when Henry VIII looted the thousands of monasteries and parish churches which were the centre of so many peoples social and spiritual lives. My edition is replete with dozens of illustrations, including a stunning detail from a manuscript on its cover, but the most awe-inspiring images are found in the text itself, which brings life to pews and chancels which are now so often empty.

Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices

Dr Sacks distinguished himself throughout his recently-concluded life as a writer of extraordinary empathy as well as scientific rigour, in a corpus of work which describes patients with a huge range of neurological conditions. In Seeing Voices he describes the deaf, not as people lacking a vital sense, but as their own community endowed with a wealth of shared experiences and, crucially, a language. Sacks describes sign languages richness which absolutely equals that of their spoken cousins. Grammatically, sign is far more complex than any spoken language given the far greater intricacy of a hand gesture to a spoken syllable, so that LOOK-AT may be inflected to mean stare, look at incessantly, gaze, watch, look for a long time, or look again and again  and many other permutations, including combinations of the above. I have not quoted Sacks at his most elegant, but hope this captures something of his ability to observe disinterestedly and give voice to those who are so often silenced.

John Ashbery, Selected Poems

For me this book has become a kind of Bible: often carried around, but only partially read. I will often open it to a random page and am never sure whether I will find a short lyric or towering prose poem. Whatever I read behind the rather bizarre cover (a drawing of Ashbery hunched over his typewriter, merged in collage with typed manuscript and abstract streaks of blue and red), it is sure to unveil something of the mystical and alluring in the everyday. His style is easy to parody but hard to emulate, and while he is all too often labelled a difficult poet, as Helen Vendler observes plainness is his strongest weapon. His best verse is both straight-talking and impossible to paraphrase, both concrete and ineffably vague:

Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you,

At incredible speed, traveling day and night,

Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents, through narrow passes.

But will he know where to find you,

Recognize you when he sees you,

Give you the thing he has for you?

Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

This is an extremely difficult book, not because of its language (which is limpid and direct in Robert Jeffreys translation), but because of its call to completely detact oneself from the material worlds allurements. It has appealed to a huge range of people since it was written in the 14th century, from Buddhist monks to Maggie Tulliver in George Eliots The Mill on the Floss. Despite its unabashed commitment to the power of the Roman Catholic Eucharist, it has crossed denominational and religious boundaries, often in versions which censor references to transubstantiation. It owes its continuing power to Kempis unflinching belief in a world beyond the material, so that as social currents change it offers a critique of moral dejection which will be relevant as long as we are selfish and imperfect. Those who are seeking comfort like capitalists betray themselves as being lovers of themselves, rather than of Christ no one is richer, more powerful or more free than someone who has left self and everything else behind, to sit in the lowest place.
Another years results day has been and gone. Months of anxious worrying have come to an end with the arrival of a UCAS notification. Its got me thinking back to my own results day which, although was two years ago now, remains as fresh in my mind as ever.

I woke up early without an alarm. I logged onto UCAS and read: Congratulations on your confirmed place at University of Birmingham. Birmingham: my insurance university. Not my first choice. Not Cambridge. I told my Mum with tears on my face. At school, I then had the task of opening up my envelope to see what I already knew: it was not enough. I questioned all the hard work Id put in, labouring over exams. I questioned the exams, the system: how could I have done so much, tried so hard, and yet still not have done enough? My teachers hugged me, my friends hugged me, my family hugged me. I got a lot of hugs that day. But it didnt replace the absence of a certain letter on my examination report.

So it seemed Birmingham was meant to be. Everything happens for a reason Sophie. I told myself. And so I went out on the night of results day, a celebratory night, and I celebrated.

Following that, I began organising the my soon-to-be life in Birmingham. Sorry, there is no university accommodation left. There is no guarantee if you have chosen the university as your insurance choice. You will have to find privately owned accommodation. the woman told me on the phone. So, no student halls: no real university experience it seemed. I had no choice but to ring up an estate agent and grab the first room I could find in a student house. I may not have seen the house, I may not have known the people who Id be living with, but hey, at this point, at least I had a roof and a toilet.

The day arrived that I was to move to Birmingham. University was finally here! Although things hadnt worked out how I expected, I was still excited  this was a new chapter! In the meantime, Id decided to put in some remarks of my exam papers. I knew Cambridge was a lost dream at this point, but I wanted the peace of mind. As I was driving into Birmingham, with my car loaded up, I got a phone call. My head of Sixth Form was ringing to inform me that one of my History papers had gone up by a remarkable 10 marks. My school had been in touch with Cambridge, who were going to reconsider my place at the university. Shock, anger, gratitude, and above all, hope. Maybe, just maybe, my dream wasnt over. But, I couldnt think like that. I had to be realistic. It was unlikely that the situation was going to change. So, I went to my new (horribly run down) student house. I unpacked my things, and I began my new life.

I guess you can see where this story is going now It was four days later that I got the phone call. Cambridge wanted to give me an offer. It was too late for them to give me one for the current year, but they wanted to offer me a place for the following year. Of course, without a second thought, I said yes. But I felt a mixture of emotions. Id started to make friends in Birmingham, Id started to find my feet. I now had an unplanned gap year. I had to pack up all my things again. I had to move back home. I had to pay money to get out of the privately owned house I was in. It was a lot. Of course I was elated: Id got my place. But I also had the present to deal with.

My gap year ended up being one of the best years of my life. I was lucky enough to work at my old school for a year, working with a wide variety of children. I learnt things about the education system, the care system, and most of all, about myself. My results day, and the period after it, is a strange time to look back on. I think we can all agree, that for a young person, the weight of results day is unimaginably heavy. Despite the fact Im at Cambridge now, I still had to go through the devastating experience of not getting into my first choice university. But, Ive learnt that knock backs in life really do make you stronger and I wouldnt be the person I am today if things had gone otherwise. If results day didnt go your way, or things take weird turns for you in the future, then take my word, things have a way of falling into place in the end, even if its not how you first expected.
Something to look forward to: Unless you decided to go off the grid yesterday, youre likely to know about the RTX 2000-series unveiling. But while Nvidias GPUs are Gamescoms biggest talking point, other companies are using the event to announce their own products. One of these is Samsung, which has just lifted the lid on two affordable curved gaming monitors.

The new CJG5 series is available in 27-inch and 32-inch versions. Both feature WQHD (2560 x 1440) curved VA panels with contrast ratios of 3000:1 and minimal bezels.

As these displays are aimed at gamers, they come with high refresh rates; 144Hz, to be exact. While some will argue otherwise, 1440p@144Hz (or higher) is generally regarded as the sweet spot for PC gaming.

Both monitors come with a 1800R curvaturethe same as Samsungs CFG70which the company claims minimizes eye fatigue by reducing the change in the users focal distance. Port-wise, they feature two HDMI inputs (2.0 and 1.4) and a DisplayPort. No G-Sync or FreeSync, sadly.

Due to the rapidly increasing demands of gaming monitors, we sought to offer competitively-priced gaming monitors for more users to benefit from premium technology, said Seog-gi Kim, Executive Vice President of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics.

While Samsung calls these monitors affordable, it only revealed the UK prices: 309.99 for the 27-inch and 359.99 for the 32-inch version. Converting to dollars and taking into account taxes, the smaller display should cost somewhere between $300 to $350, which isnt bad for a 27-inch monitor with this resolution and refresh rate.

For more displays of all specs and price ranges, check out our Best Gaming Monitors feature.

Full specs:

Model CJG5

Size 27, 32

Design Curved Display

Color Dark Silver

Resolution 2,560 x 1,440

Aspect Ratio 16:09

Curvature 1,800R

Panel Type VA Curved

Brightness (Typ.) 300 cd/m2

Viewing Angle 178o(H)/ 178o(V)

Refresh Rate 144Hz

Contrast Ratio (Typ.) 3,000 : 1

Response Time 4ms (GTG)

Input Signal 2x HDMI (1x 2.0, 1x 1.4)
After weeks of delays, the double-hulled canoe called the Hikianalia has officially left the shores of Hawaii for California.

The canoe, which is created using ancient Polynesian voyaging designs, is expected to complete its 2,800-mile journey across the Pacific Ocean and arrive in San Francisco on Sept. 16, in time for the Global Climate Action Summit to be held in the city.

The Hikianalia's long expedition dubbed the "Alahula Kai o Maleka", a reference to the pathway across Hawaii to California, aims to raise awareness on the importance of caring for the oceans. The canoe and its 13 crew members plan to traverse the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating island of debris and trash the size of Alaska.

Hikianalia To Study The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

"We feel that this is part of our responsibility," said Nainoa Thompson, president of the Voyaging Society, on the canoe's trip across the floating trash island. "You can't protect what you don't understand. We want to be involved and try to do something about the garbage patch."

The crew on board the Hikianalia plans to attach tracking devices to the debris they will find in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and check stomach content of marine animals. They will also partner with scientists both from Hawaii and California to conduct research on the huge collection of trash that has accumulated at the center of the North Pacific Ocean.

The crew will bring their findings, as well as an important message about the relationship between humans and nature, to the upcoming environmental summit in California. Leaders from around the world are expected to attend the Global Action Summit set to take place from Sept. 12 to 14.

Followers of the expedition can also get updates from the Hokule website or on its Facebook or Instagram accounts.

The Hikianalia's Cultural Mission

Launched in 2012, the Hikianalia was initially created as an escort to the much older Hokulea or "Star of Gladness", a replica of the double-hulled canoe used by ancient Polynesians to travel across the Pacific Ocean.

It is mostly propelled by twin sails across the water, but it also has a solar-powered motor to be used in case of emergencies. It also has a modern media center onboard to send messages from the middle of the ocean to Hawaii.

However, it does not use modern navigational equipment to travel. Crew members were trained to find their way to their destination using cues from the stars, wind, and ocean  exactly how the ancient Polynesians traveled centuries ago.

The Polynesian Voyaging Society, which is sponsoring the trek, hopes that the canoe will inspire a new generation of voyagers.

"I think wayfinding is an important thing to pass on in this day and age because it's not just locating islands and navigating across the ocean to places," said Lehua Kamalu, captain of the trip.

"It's trying to create an atmosphere and environment where people develop themselves. A traditional wayfinder is someone who is deeply connected to the world around them. You not only pay attention to the natural world, you pay attention to the people around you. "

Crew members of the Hikianalia are also training the new generation of voyagers from Hawaii, Tahiti, South Korea, and Japan.

The Hikianalia will return to Hawaii in December.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
German carmaker Audi has decided not to offer a six-speed manual transmission to its 2019 A4 and A5 couple models.

The current-generation A4 has been using a six-speed manual transmission since it debuted in 2017 in the U.S. market. The same goes for the A5 Coupe.

However, Audi will drop the six-speed manual transmission for the automatic transmission. The decision leaves Audi's line in the United States without a stick shift for 2019.

Reports indicate that Audi's reason for removing its manual transmission was because of low customer demand. Only 5 percent of A4 customers in the United States opting for the six-speed manual while the majority of them picked the model's available seven-speed dual-clutch automatic.

Unknown to many, the six-speed automatic has improved the car's performance, with the stick-shift-equipped A4 accelerating from zero to 60 in 5.1 seconds. The manual transmission's performance is one-tenth of a second quicker than the A4 equipped with a dual-clutch automatic.

2018 Model Still Available With Manual Transmission

However, drivers who still want Audi's manual transmission can still go to their nearest dealership and purchase 2018 A4 and A5 models if there is still inventory remaining.

Audi offered a six-speed manual transmission to the Quattro all-wheel-drive equipped with a standard 252-hp 2.0-liter turbo four cylinder engine. However, the stick shift could also be paired with any of the three trim levels.

Audi is not the first European automaker to drop the manual transmission in the United States. Lamborghini, Audi's sister brand, also dropped the manual transmission on its Gallardo model.

Also, Lamborghini did not include the stick shift as an option on the Huracan, Aventador or the new Urus. Luxury car Bentley and Bugatti also dropped the manual transmission from their respective models while Mercedes-Benz last put a manual transmission in its brand two years ago on the SLC model.

Some of Audi's rivals, however, have kept the manual transmission among their models. BMW continues to offer a manual transmission on certain 2, 3, 4, and 6 Series and Jaguar on its F-Type model and so as Cadillac and Hyundai on its ATS and G70 models respectively.

Audi 2019 A4 To Have Minor Facelift

Currently, Audi is showing the European version of the 2019 A4. However, it is expected that the U.S. version will carry almost the same specifications. Audi has revised the grill, front, and rear fascias and added 19-inch wheels on the latest A4.

The round exhaust tips were dropped for rectangular ones while the design of the tailgates has been updated. American customers can also avail of the optional Competition package with a sport-tuned suspension, Audi Sport 19-inch wheels, red brake calipers, LED headlights, and Turbo Blue paint.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A 3-year-old malnourished killer whale spotted swimming off the West Coast has been suffering from a parasite, scientists have discovered.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries reported that J50, also known as Scarlet, has moderate levels of parasite known as Contracaecum, a nematode commonly found in marine mammals.

Diagnosing J50

The orca has been the subject of a cross-border mission involving biologists from the United States and Canada after it showed signs of malnutrition and lethargy. Photos taken of the endangered animal showed that it lost 20 percent of its body weight. Scientists who observed the orca feared that it might not survive without intervention.

Last weekend, scientists were able to collect fecal samples from members of the whale's pod, including J50's, and submitted them to top laboratories across the country. The samples contained the parasite that has been causing the killer whale's health to decline.

"The worm is not usually a problem in healthy animals," NOAA tweeted on Saturday, Aug. 18. "But for animals that are emaciated or otherwise compromised, the parasite can penetrate the stomach lining, introducing bacterial infection to the bloodstream, or it can bore into internal organs."

While NOAA cannot say exactly whether the fecal sample collected last weekend was from J50, the organization will make an effort to kill the parasite and, hopefully, heal the killer whale. A team of veterinarians will include dewormer and antibiotic in its treatment priorities. This has been proven safe and effective when used in other cases.

J50 and her whale pod are currently swimming off the west side of Vancouver Island. Responders previously attempted to feed the orca by releasing live fish and administer antibiotics through a dart.

Killer Whale Mom Grieves For Dead Calf

The case of J50 is being monitored after another killer whale in its pod, J35, made headlines for seemingly showing grief following the death of its calf.

Last month, scientists started observing J35, an adult female orca named Tahlequah, which gave birth to a female calf on July 24. The calf, however, died a mere half an hour after its birth.

pic.twitter.com/GQteYuPsv4 We are saddened to report that a baby Southern Resident killer whale (SRKW) died a short time after it was born near Victoria, British Columbia on July 24, 2018. The newborn whale was reported alive and swimming with its mother, J35 ... https://t.co/ql0kDBU9LL  Whale Research (@CWROrcas) July 26, 2018

J35 was seen balancing the body of her dead calf on her nose for over two weeks and scientists were concerned that the orca might be putting herself at risk. The grieving mother finally dropped her dead calf after 1,000 miles on Aug. 11.

"Grief and love are not human qualities. They're things we share with some other animals," said Barbara King, a professor emeritus at the College of William and Mary, to CBC.

She added that there was evidence that whales like J35 and dolphins mark the passing of one of their own by surrounding the dead or keeping them afloat. Chimpanzees and elephants also show signs of mourning for their dead.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Arlington County Public Health has recorded its first reported case of West Nile virus in a human this year.

Local health officials announced the infection of a resident through a press release published on Friday, Aug. 18. The patient was not publicly identified.

Arlington County Issues Warning Against Mosquitoes

"West Nile Virus is spread by the bite of an infected mosquito," said Dr. Reuben Varghese, Arlington County Public Health Division. "With the virus detected in mosquitoes in the region and with the recent rains contributing to more mosquito breeding, it is important for area residents to actively prevent mosquito breeding and biting or 'Fight the Bite.'"

To avoid contracting West Nile, health officials encourage the public to follow the three Ds  drain/dump standing water where mosquitoes breed, dress in long sleeves and pants, and defend selves and loved ones by using mosquito repellents.

The Arlington County Public Health also advised the public to avoid going out during dawn and dusk when mosquitoes are most common and active.

"Well-informed and active residents are necessary partners to combat disease carrying insects in our community," added Dr. Varghese. "Please join us in fighting the bite to better yourself, your family and our community from mosquitoes and the diseases they may transmit."

West Nile Virus: Symptoms And Treatment

West Nile is a virus most commonly spread to humans via mosquito bites. In the United States, cases occur during the summer season and might extend until fall, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

People infected with the virus might exhibit fever, headache, body aches, joint pains, vomiting, diarrhea, or rashes. More serious, but rare symptoms include encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) or meningitis (inflammation of the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord).

Symptoms of severe cases include high fever, headache, stiff neck, muscle weakness, disorientation, vision loss, tremors, convulsion, coma, numbness, and paralysis.

Unfortunately, there is currently no vaccine to avoid the virus or a specific antiviral treatment available. Rather, those who are infected can take over-the-counter medicine to alleviate symptoms. Most people infected (about 8 out of 10) do not experience symptoms.

West Nile In The US

The first West Nile virus case of the year was reported in Maryland in July. According to federal health officials, the virus has been found in humans in 30 states including California this year.

There have also been recorded infections in mosquitoes, birds, and other animals in 38 states as of Aug. 7.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
China's giant panda population is growing after the country's efforts to save the rare species from going extinct, an official confirmed last week.

Giant Pandas Endangered Status Eased

The National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA) reported in a press conference that the number of giant pandas in the wild has nearly doubled from 1,114 decades ago to 1,864 today.

"The endangered status of the giant panda was further eased," said Yang Chao, an official from the NFGA.

The NFGA attributes the increase of the giant panda population to the rise of nature reserves in China. The country now has 67 nature reserves that house 66.8 percent of the wild giant panda and 53.8 percent of the total giant panda population.

Yang added that about two-thirds of the giant panda population are protected.

The East Asian superpower has also greenlighted and recently started work on a massive 27,000-square-kilometer national park (about twice the size of Yosemite) for the vulnerable species.

The giant pandas have been the face of efforts to save endangered species from extinction. The natives of China were added to the endangered list in the '90s after large areas of forests have been cleared for agriculture, human settlements, and etc. The population of giant pandas also became victims of poaching which was rampant in the '80s.

The species was removed from the endangered list in 2016.

"Evidence from a series of range-wide national surveys indicate that the previous population decline has been arrested, and the population has started to increase," stated a press release from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). "The improved status confirms that the Chinese government's efforts to conserve this species are effective."

There are an estimated 2,060 giant pandas around the world today.

The Future Of Giant Pandas

While giant pandas have gained a reputation for being bad at breeding, the nature reserves will help increase the population of the black and white bears. In captivity, the giant pandas are rarely compatible  the male often does not know how to mount the female, explained Sky News. Because of nature reserves, compatible giant pandas will be able to find each other through calls and scents and mate to their own accord.

In addition, the World Wildlife Fund in its description of the species suggests that giant pandas have reproductive rates comparable to the black bears in the United States.

China is set to hold its first giant panda week from Aug. 23 to Aug. 26.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The long lost 1967 Mustang Shelby GT500 prototype named Little Red was discovered to be hiding in plain sight, and now, it is up to the power of the internet to help restore the historic car.

Little Red had been missing for half a century, with little hope that it would ever be found. The iconic vehicle is now in the possession of restoration experts, with work cut out for them to bring Little Red back to its original glory.

Why Is The 'Little Red' Shelby Mustang An Important Find?

In the 1960s, Carroll Shelby was carrying out experiments on Ford Mustangs while formulating the legendary Mustang Shelby GT500, which changed the landscape for production performance vehicles. Part of the process involved a pair of Mustang notchback coupes, one green and one red, and installing performance parts in them to see which ones would work and eventually find their way into the production models.

When Shelby was done with the two cars, he sent them back to Ford to be destroyed, which is sadly what usually happens to experimental prototypes. The green one, unofficially named the Green Hornet, survived and is now owned by Craig Jackson of Barrett-Jackson car auctions.

It was unclear what happened with the red one, named Little Red, with many believing that unlike the Green Hornet, it was crushed as planned. Jackson, however, was able to track down the vehicle, verifying the discovery in March this year.

Jackson and classic car restoration specialist Jason Billups led the search for Little Red. Instead of trying to look for the vehicle using its Shelby serial number, which countless others have tried, the team looked up its original Ford VIN number. The VIN led Jackson and Billups to the car's original registration, and eventually to its last known owner.

On March 3, Billups, along with automotive journalist Al Rogers and Ford Mustang and Shelby specialist Todd Hollar, were granted access to a property in Dallas, Texas. There, rotting in a field, was Little Red.

What's Next For 'Little Red'?

"Finding Little Red is the discovery of a lifetime," Jackson said, adding that the next step is to restore the legendary car.

The restoration, however, will be a painful one, as much of the front part of Little Red is gone, with no engine and no front bodywork. Restorers are now turning to the power of the internet, asking the public to submit personal accounts, pictures, and stories of Little Red to a dedicated website to give them an idea of what the vehicle looked like in its prime.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
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We all want acceptance and validation for the choices we make in life. It's no different for drag queens. Drag queens must know all there is a
Authorities have given a regional commission the go-ahead to drill test wells around downtown Baton Rouge in the region's ongoing fight to keep saltwater away from supplies of water used for drinking and industry.

Baton Rouge lies atop a geological fault that runs roughly along Interstate 10. South of the fault, the aquifer is salty, and saltwater has been leaching across the fault line into the freshwater aquifer for decades. Scavenger wells intercept saltwater and inject it deep underground or pipe it out.

+2 Environmentalists claim commission isn't doing enough to protect Baton Rouge's drinking water When it comes to Baton Rouge drinking water, the foxes are guarding the hen house, according to environmental groups that want to shake up the

The Baton Rouge Water Company operates a scavenger well near its Lula Avenue pump station and deposits the saltwater into the Mississippi River, where it's diluted. Now the Capital Area Groundwater Commission wants to dig its own scavenger.

The commission's board agreed to engage landowners to purchase property for a test well during a special meeting Tuesday morning. Several test wells will be dug to explore the aquifer salinity and determine where best to place a new scavenger well, said commission executive director Anthony Duplechin.

In bid to preserve aquifer, commission considers injecting saltwater deep underground The new solution for saltwater creeping into the drinking supply: push it down where it won't be a threat.

They are considering land within a few blocks of Interstate 10 between the Interstate 110 split and the Mississippi River. Duplechin declined to discuss the budget to purchase land so as not to weaken the commission's bargaining position, but the cost to install a 2,400-feet-deep test well will run $200,000 and $250,000, he said.

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On the surface, the well will be no larger than a ten feet by ten feet concrete pad with a single pipe sticking out of the ground.

Commission members and observers have discussed at length whether scavenger wells are enough to combat the creeping saltwater.

+3 Baton Rouge Water Company says industry needs to stop drawing water from aquifer As the water supply under Baton Rouge slowly fills with salt, some officials have called on companies like ExxonMobil and Georgia Pacific to s

Some have wondered whether to further limit industrial pumping or out-of-parish sales, such as to Ascension. The Water Company has purchased land on the Mississippi in case it ever needs to draw drinking water from the river in the future.

In June, the commission agreed to hire the Water Institute to study the matter and make recommendations.
PONCHATOULA  Plans to build a $90 million resort at Port Manchac are on hold as the port's governing commission awaits an opinion from the Louisiana Attorney General on its authority to lease the property, the developer says.

"Were just sitting back and weighing our options," Terry Jones, the developer who is the spokesman for the Village at Port Manchac, said in a recent interview.

The South Tangipahoa Parish Port Commission voted at its July meeting to request the state legal opinion after its attorney raised questions about whether the port could legally turn from an industrial port to a partly residential community. Jones wants to develop a hotel, boardwalk and single-family homes on the 40-acre Port Manchac site and an adjoining 100 acres of wetlands the port has authority to market.

A top official with the state Department of Transportation and Development signed a letter, which wasn't provided to commissioners at the time, suggesting they have the legal authority to lease the property for a resort project if that's what they want to do.

Port Manchac board to seek AG's opinion on authority to proceed with snazzy resort project PONCHATOULA  A proposal to build a resort-style development at Port Manchac hit a stumbling block Tuesday afternoon when the ports governing

The commission's chairman is questioning why the letter favorable to developers wasn't presented to the board at the time.

The letter answered two of the commissioners' most pressing questions: DOTD said nothing reviewed "raises any concerns" about the port commission's authority to go forward with the development.

The letter also says DOTD would not claw back $2.9 million in funding, so long as the port retains ownership of the property.

"DOTD encourages the Port to look towards those non-traditional uses as guidance as it seeks to distinguish itself in the port community," said the letter signed by Thomas Clark, director of the Office of Multimodal Commerce.

The letter was sent the morning of the July 10 South Tangipahoa Parish Port Commission meeting. But the port's executive director, Pat Dufresne, who has opposed the vacation development, did not share it with the commissioners.

The port is currently being used for industrial purposes by a tenant that blends chemicals at the site. Until now, port officials have concentrated on upgrading the facility for more industrial uses.

Port Consultant Gary LaGrange mentioned the DOTD letter briefly in his comments at the July meeting, but Dufresne refused to give it to a reporter after the meeting, due to "conflicts in the contents."

The letter was read in full at the Aug. 14 meeting at the request of the commission's chairman, Daryl Ferrara.

"I feel the letter should have been presented before the meeting, regardless of the content. It's not for Pat to decide if it's inaccurate," Ferrara said after the August meeting.

Ferrara said, however, that the letter would not have changed his decision to seek an opinion from the Attorney General's Office.

Andre Coudrain, lawyer for the port commission, agreed. The letter does not say how DOTD came to its legal opinion and what they knew about the development, he said.

"It did not answer the question for me," Coudrain said of determining the port's legal authority to lease the property to the Village at Port Manchac group.

Ferrara said he thought DOTD should, nonetheless, have consulted the port commission and its attorney before drafting the letter.

"We weren't on the same page," Ferrara said.

At the July meeting, the port commissioners floated the idea of allowing the developers to access the property and begin their studies without a lease, but the developers have not moved forward on that proposal.

Terry Jones says he has investors ready to put up money for the resort project but has declined to name any investors beyond himself, business partner Steve Jones (no relation), Gary Solomon and engineering firm Stantech.

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While the Village at Manchac concept was first put to the port commission in May 15, developers had been shopping their vision to parish residents since at least December. They also met with Clark, the DOTD official, in early May. The locals and the state official were required to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Kim Coates, the leader of the Save Our Manchac Coalition, said Parish President Robby Miller invited her to learn about the project the day after a December meeting when she opposed a controversial graphite facility that also wanted to locate at the port.

"I decided to go, because I needed to be prepared for what was coming. I knew if I had to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) that it wasnt good, Coates said.

Commission votes against proposed battery component factory at Port Manchac PONCHATOULA  A coalition of environmentalists, fishermen and Manchac residents carried the day Tuesday when the governing body of Port Mancha

At a June 12 meeting, the developers made their pitch to the commission and faced push back from Dufresne and environmentalists. Residents questioned whether the resort branded as ecotourism would harm the area that contains undeveloped wetlands and serves as a storm surge barrier during hurricanes. They also raised fears about adding homes in a place that is struggling to keep up in terms of infrastructure and schools.

+7 Has Port Manchac's ship come in? Developers plan 'majestic property,' but some are wary Easy access to water, a cross-country railroad and an interstate highway didn't make Port Manchac the moneymaker Tangipahoa Parish wanted it to be.

Emails obtained by The Advocate through a public records request show developers Terry Jones and Steve Jones subsequently requested a meeting with Shawn Wilson, secretary of the Department of Transportation.

On June 26, Steve Jones, a registered lobbyist for SumIT Credits, a tax credit and incentive consulting firm, reached out directly to Wilson.

"Shawn," Steve Jones wrote. "Would you have time to let us show you our Resort concept plan on the South Tangipahoa Port. I think you should be aware of our concept and plan."

Wilson responded within hours, connecting the developer with his assistant for the meeting.

"I am happy to visit with you," Wilson wrote.

The developers met with Wilson and Miller on July 9, the day before the port commission's meeting to decide whether to sign an agreement with the developers.

"We were simply making inquiries and finding out where DOTD stands," developer Terry Jones said in an interview.

Meanwhile, DOTD was facing demands from Dufresne, who wanted Clark to attend the July 10 meeting "to voice our support of the state's port infrastructure," according to an email from Clark. And Miller was asking Wilson to provide a statement addressing the port's authority, after commissioners and their attorney raised questions.

"I can't make it but have asked staff to prepare a possible statement that straddles the line," Clark wrote to Wilson on June 26.

After the developers meeting with DOTD, Steve Jones followed up with the legal analysis performed by his attorney, Troy Villa, that justifies the developers' position that the port can be used for the Village at Manchac project.

Brandie Richardson, a spokeswoman for DOTD, said the agency's legal department prepared the July 10 letter after a review of the statute that created the port and the port priority funding program.

At its August meeting, the port commission addressed the Village at Port Manchac and an idea to turn the port into a container stuffing facility for polymer pellets.

Dufresne and LaGrange said they met with Wilson and Clark in the intervening month for what they described as a good exchange of information.

'Were just trying to clarify," Dufresne told the port commissioners Aug. 14. "We wouldn't want to bankrupt the port at the strike of a pen."

He was referring to the possibility that the port commission might be forced to repay the approximately $3 million DOTD has funded in port improvements.
A man accused in the 2017 string of Clinton-area fatal shootings told authorities he had plans to continue his killing spree, with 12 more "tags" left to fulfill  part of his disturbing confession where he compared killing humans to hunting deer, according to investigative documents.

Following his October 2017 arrest, Ryan Sharpe told authorities that he killed the three men to fill hunting tags issued to him by the government, according to documents filed in the East Feliciana Clerk of Court's office. He said he had already filled five tags by killing the three men and then one deer  which he said was worth two tags  but then further explained that he believed he still had 12 more tags.

"According to Sharpe, he is responsible for filling five tags for the Louisiana State Police and 12 for the FBI," a report from the East Feliciana Parish Sheriff's Department says. "He told investigators that had he not been caught on that October 2017 day, he would have been able in a couple of days to finish filling his tags and would have turned himself in."

Sharpe has been charged with the murders of the three men and the attempted murder of a fourth, all separate shootings that occurred within a 25-mile radius over a four-month period. He is accused in East Feliciana Parish of the July 2017 fatal shooting of Thomas Bass, 62; the September 2017 nonfatal shooting of Buck Hornsby, then 47; and the October fatal shooting of Brad DeFranceschi, 48. He is accused in East Baton Rouge Parish with the fatal shooting of Carroll Breeden, 66, which occurred just over the parish line.

+8 Alleged East Feliciana serial killer told authorities he killed three men to fill hunting 'tags,' filings show A man accused of killing three Clinton-area men last year told investigators he shot them because  as though he were deer hunting  he was "f

A judge in East Feliciana Parish ruled earlier this week after a sanity evaluation that Sharpe was unable to assist his counsel, halting the criminal proceedings. There has been no ruling on Sharpe's sanity at the time of the incidents.

Sharpe's confession to law enforcement detailed each of the shootings, often in painful specifics, like how he chose the victims and watched them suffer. Other documents show that Sharpe made a point to leave his phone at home or take the battery out when he went to carry out the shootings so he wouldn't be tracked, according to an East Feliciana Sheriff's Office report.

The report also says that Sharpe did indeed know his first victim, Bass. Sharpe told investigators that he had backed into Bass' driveway, asking for air in a tire before ambushing him, the report says. Sharpe also said he did not want to kill Bass, calling him a good person, but said he believed a teleconference with government officials had chosen Bass for the attack.

Sharpe also told investigators that he believed after he killed someone, he was supposed to report filling the "tag" to the government  the reason he initially called the East Feliciana Sheriff's Office and claimed responsibility for the shootings, the report says. That call was key in directing law enforcement to Sharpe as a suspect in the shootings, which soon led to his arrest.

"Its an awesome feeling to know that no matter how you resolved this issue, that it was resolved," said East Feliciana Sheriff Jeff Travis. "It was the greatest feeling in the world to know that safety was restored to our community.

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For months, terror swept the region as detectives and officers worked tirelessly to crack the investigation, and Travis said he can still feel the relief.

"When you look at everything (Sharpe) had done, there's no doubt in my mind that he was going to continue to do this if he had not been stopped," Travis said. "It didn't matter how we got him off the street, we needed him off the street."

Travis called the investigation and arrest a massive team effort, only possible with the support from many local agencies, including State Police, the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office, the West Feliciana Sheriff's Office and the FBI.

"I dont know that Ive ever seen as much fear in our community as we saw late last summer and fall," said East Feliciana Chief Deputy Greg Phares. "The random-ness of it, the fact that nobody knew who might be targeted next and the fact that people felt like they could not go about their daily business, they couldnt go to the mailbox, they couldnt cut their yard. It was really affecting peoples lives."

Three of the four men who were shot were ambushed in drive-by shootings while they were in their front lawns, two doing yard work, one exercising.

+8 Alleged East Feliciana serial killer found incompetent to stand trial, judge rules A judge in East Feliciana ruled Tuesday that alleged serial killer Ryan Sharpe is not competent to stand trial, a decision that will halt crim

"In 46 years in the business, that's about as much pressure I ever felt to solve a case," Phares said, who previously has served as sheriff of East Baton Rouge Parish and Baton Rouge police chief.

And while Travis said he wishes Sharpe was never able to do any damage to their community, he is thankful they were able to stop him when they did.

"It was very personal to all of us," Travis said. "We did everything we could until the end.  It's so nice to see East Feliciana back to where it was."
Returning from a trip to Mexico and Guatemala, U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy waved off any talk of tensions with those countries that may have been sparked by President Donald Trump's strict line on immigration.

"They may not like his rhetoric, but they certainly appreciate the issue and understand his emphasis," Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, told reporters during a press call after his return Tuesday.

Cassidy was part of a bipartisan congressional trip to meet with foreign leaders on issues related to immigration, drug trafficking and trade, among others.

"I want to understand the roots of those issues, because then you come up with a better approach to addressing those issues," said Cassidy.

U.S. Sen. John Kennedy to travel to Russia next week U.S. Sen. John Kennedy will travel to Russia next week to learn more about the country following Russias reported medling in the 2016 preside

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Cassidy was joined by Democratic U.S. Reps. Vincente Gonzalez and Ruben Kihuen, of Texas and Nevada, respectively.

Cassidy and others on the trip met with Guatemala President Jimmy Morales and members of his cabinet in Guatemala City to discuss efforts to fight drug trafficking and security issues.

"With our help Guatemala is making a major interdiction there," Cassidy said.

In Mexico City, Cassidy took part in classified briefings from the U.S. Department of Defense on counternarcotics and security cooperation. They also met with Mexican Under Secretary of Foreign Trade Juan Carlos Baker and with Alfonso Romo, chief of staff to President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez.
What impact the planned widening of Interstate 10 in Baton Rouge will have on private homes and other property is one of the key questions ahead of next week's public meetings on the $350 million expansion.

"I do know that people are concerned that there is this plan that people have to be displaced," state Rep. Patricia Smith, D-Baton Rouge, said Tuesday. "They are concerned."

Shawn Wilson, secretary for the state Department of Transportation and Development, said the public will be able to see the specifics of the widening work during what DOTD calls open houses.

"It is accurate to say that we own the vast majority of the length of the pathway," Wilson said. "The majority of what is going to be needed is just land, pieces of property, as opposed to the entire lot."

The proposal would add a new lane in each direction for much of the corridor between the Mississippi River bridge and the I-10/12 split.

The overhaul would also make changes to exits along the way, including a longer westbound on-ramp and eastbound off-ramp at Acadian Thruway; the elimination of off- and on-ramps at Perkins Road and a revamped, Dalrymple/Washington Street exit for eastbound motorists.

The work is the biggest part of Gov. John Bel Edwards' $600 million transportation plan, including about $110 million to improve access to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport by upgrading I-10 at Loyola Avenue.

The affected stretch in Baton Rouge covers roughly 3 1/2 miles.

About 80,000 cars and trucks use the route daily.

The first public display of the outline is set for Tuesday at McKinley Middle Magnet School.

On Wednesday the plans will be on display at the Addis Community Center and on Thursday at the Baton Rouge Marriott.

All three sessions are set for 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Wilson and other backers say the expansion will offer major relief for traffic-choked Baton Rouge.

Unlike previous efforts, this one is backed by a governor.

Also, supporters say another major stumbling block in the past  how to pay for the work  can be done by using federal bonds, then repaying the money yearly with a portion of federal revenue for state projects.

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Wilson has said he hopes to have the financing in place by the end of the year, with work starting in 2019.

+2 Major financing plan to widen I-10, improve N.O. airport access coming together; here are next steps The state of Louisiana expects to finalize a borrowing plan with federal officials this year to widen Interstate 10 in Baton Rouge and other w

Legislative committees and the State Bond Commission have also signed off on initial plans.

But Edwards' announcement reawakened fears from some business owners around the Perkins Road overpass area, some of whom believe the work will damage or destroy their bars, restaurants and shops.

Also, Wilson on Monday evening is set to address the Southside Civic Association, which says it represents about 1,800 households on the south side of Perkins Road.

Sal Christina, a member of the group, said Tuesday the widening project has sparked questions from members, including how it will affect traffic in the area.

"Quite frankly, we don't have all the answers for them," Christina said.

Smith, whose House district includes some of the affected area, said the plans are sparking concerns among some residents because earlier interstate work upended neighborhoods in south Baton Rouge, including areas around the Washington Street exit and McKinley Middle Magnet.

"All of that was neighborhood," she said. "All of those people were displaced because of the interstate."

The feeling in some quarters, Smith said, is "here we go again."

There are unofficial estimates that about 50 pieces of private property could be affected by the expansion.

Wilson said he does not have a number, including how many homes could be in the way. "You will be able to see all of the properties we have identified," he said of the public meetings.

Some business owners have criticized plans to remove on- and off-ramps at Perkins Road because they say it will dampen access for customers.

"That could add a great deal of capacity for parking and green space accommodations," Wilson said.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu hugs Markey Hagen, 4, as her grandmother Williana Tadlock, left, looks on after the council voted 6-1 to approve the removal of Confederate monuments in City Council chambers in New Orleans, La. Thursday, Dec. 17, 2015.
Jennifer Carwile points out incarceration rates-- from highest rates, top-- peaking at Louisiana, then the Uniten States, then other countries, during her presentation on criminal justice and police issuesat St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church , Tuesday, August 14, 2018, where Together Baton Rouge launched its 2020 Civic Vision plan to address five local issues-- poverty, education, police reform, health care and flood prevention-- in Baton Rouge over the next two years.
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A crowd packed into a meeting room at the New Orleans East public library Aug. 20, were District E Councilmember Cyndi Nguyen hosted another meeting in a series focused on rebuilding the East, putting residents in a room with developers before a plan or proposal is in place.

Residents packed the room not necessarily to pitch ideas for the one-acre lot on Warfield Street but to voice their mounting frustrations about the slow pace of redevelopment and what they see as daily reminders of City Halls abandonment of the area  from trash and old furniture on overgrown lots and streets and sidewalks to a lack of basic retail services and an over-reliance on poorly constructed subsidized housing.

It's the second in Nguyen's series of neighborhood meetings on "Rebuilding the East," which she kicked off last month within her first few months in office, which covers the East and the Lower 9th Ward.

The meetings also are a snapshot of the conversations around post-Hurricane Katrina developments in other neighborhoods, playing out more than a decade later  YIMBY and NIMBY residents arguing for and against the kinds of higher-end retail and dining that has homogenized and gentrified parts of downtown New Orleans and displaced longtime residents, while others others warn precisely against those kinds of things because of those exact consequences, and others hope at least for projects that can help deliver a better quality of life and a sense that things are normal in an area where residents have only felt neglect.

So when theres an opportunity to discuss the future of a blank slate project in the East, all those fears and frustrations understandably are brought to the table.

Developers eyeing the Warfield site said theyre considering building an assisted senior-living housing, but residents said they fear predatory developers coming into neighborhoods like theyre doing us a favor, or businesses taking advantage of tax dollars and incentives to revive properties only to abandon them later, without any enforcement from City Hall.

What should replace blighted Frenchman's Wharf? New Orleans East residents sound off District E Councilmember Cyndi Nguyen holds her first community-wide meeting since taking office to gather ideas for redevelopment.

Nguyen told the crowd she knows where the frustrations are at  she plans to hold meetings on trash abatement with every business that holds a liquor license in the East, and shes working on an ordinance to prevent party buses from entering neighborhoods and another for a moratorium on small box discount stores.

The opening of those stores and the Easts Walmart were sites of ribbon cuttings and grand openings praised by city officials. But Nguyen wants to evaluate whether those kinds of projects are what the East deserves. In June, Nguyen prompted the City Planning Commission to study the density and impact of small box and dollar discount stores, weighed against the lack of fresh food retailers in the area.

Nguyen says one of the most frequent questions she hears from her constituents is whether tax dollars spent in the East can return to the East. She says wants Walmart to direct a certain percentage of sales tax into city coffers earmarked for development in the East.

Nguyen says she could plan to attach to Walmart a tax increment financing plan, or TIF, which would support a fund for development in business corridors in the East. Nguyen says she hopes to pass the plan by the end of 2018 as a Christmas present for the residents of District E. The TIF would then begin collecting sales tax by spring 2019. The City Council would have to sign off on proposals before developers could tap into it.

She also is considering a TIF on the Dixie Beer brewery planned for Jourdan Road.

Wed be responsible so the funds are spent correctly, Nguyen said. Were not going to have the money and go buck wild. I do not look good in stripes.

Nguyens previous Rebuilding the East meeting discussed the future of the former Frenchmans Wharf apartment complex, which is likely to be rebuilt as a workplace and market-rate housing apartment building with retail and a small park. Nguyen says zoning change plans are likely to be filed by the end of the year.

Next, she hopes to tackle the Six Flags site, which under Mayor Mitch Landrieus administration had failed to gain traction or any serious interest among developers. Nguyen wants to start from scratch and come up with a design through community meetings before the city issues a request for proposals, she told Gambit.

Shell also hold meetings around redevelopment of Lincoln Beach, which some developers and residents have floated for development in tandem with construction projects along Lake Pontchartrain.

The problem with putting out the [request for proposals] was we didnt know what we wanted, she said. Sometimes what we want might not be sustainable with what other people want.  We need to have to have those conversations . and put together a design of what wed like to see there.

+6 Big plans abound for development on Lake Pontchartrain FOR DECADES, the shore of Lake Pontchartrain from West End Park to South Shore Harbor was a prime destination in New Orleans for dining, boati
What to know in New Orleans this week (Aug. 20, 2018)
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NEW YORK (AP)  An attorney for President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and "fixer" says his client has knowledge on certain subjects 
In 1983, Ella Brennan gathered some of the top names in the American food world in New Orleans for an event that helped shape the contours of its future.

A generation later, a new event led by her daughter is out to revive the conversation and recast it for the modern and rapidly changing landscape of American food.

The American Cuisine & Hospitality Symposium, scheduled for Sept. 17, is a call for innovative thought and big ideas for the future of the restaurant industry, and it will convene leaders and luminaries in the field from around the country. It is also a bid to put New Orleans in the forefront of that charge.

Hospitality is what we do in this town, its in our DNA, theres no reason why New Orleans shouldnt be a leader in this field nationally, globally, said Ti Adelaide Martin, a proprietor of the Commanders Palace Family of Restaurants, which is organizing the event.

The American Cuisine & Hospitality Symposium is a daylong conference, open to the public (tickets required), at the Orpheum Theater on Sept. 17.

Through speeches and panels, it will cover topics that are of the moment, including the rising profile of women in the restaurant industry and the changes that technology is bringing to the food world.

One segment will explore what hospitality really means for businesses, and how they can connect with the people they serve. The history and future of New Orleans food also gets its own platform. A more lighthearted segment will pit cocktails against wine as a contender for the food pairing beverage of choice (there will be a blind tasting on stage for some culinary theater).

One question, lasting impact

The upcoming conference is timed to mark the 125th anniversary of Commander's Palace and the 300th anniversary of the founding of New Orleans. It also flows directly from the original American Cuisine Symposium hosted 35 years ago at Commander's Palace by Martins mother, the late Ella Brennan. It posed a simple but then-controversial question: Did America have its own cuisine? It would prove to have a far-reaching impact.

Brennan invited leading chefs, restaurateurs, writers and others leading the charge to define American food. The conference stirred wide interest.

American cuisine: purists vs. innovators, read one headline in The New York Times.

What is American cuisine? Experts dont know, either, read another headline in the Portland Oregonian.

From those question marks, the consensus answer would emerge in the recognition of the countrys rich regional cuisines, with Louisiana's as one leading example. It helped embolden chefs to forge their own paths, rather than strive to fit European ideals.

There werent many of us pursuing this back then, so it was thrilling for us to get together, said Ruth Reichl, who attended the 1983 event would go on to become The New York Times restaurant critic, Gourmet magazine's editor and a prolific author.

For people who at the time were striving to put their own regions food riches on the map, Reichl said, it was revealing to see what other like-minded advocates were bringing to the table.

It was a different time. We were embarrassed about what we had here, she said. One thing these symposiums did was get people thinking, and saying, Wait a minute, look around at how much we really do have. It opened our eyes to what was out there and what was possible.

Leaders, then and now

Reichl is among a number of participants from that 1983 event who are returning for this years American Cuisine & Hospitality Symposium. Others include chefs who were pioneers in that critical time for American food, like Jeremiah Tower, Jonathan Waxman and Larry Forgione.

The lineup of talent represents both established legends and new leaders in the field now gaining greater national attention.

Locally, that range takes in Emeril Lagasse, Leah Chase, Donald Link, Nina Compton, Michael Gulotta and several members of the Commanders Palace crew, and author Walter Isaacson.

Others are coming from across Americas modern restaurant realm.

That includes Danny Meyer, a restaurateur widely regarded as an oracle of hospitality; and Barbara Lynch, the Boston chef who built one of the New Englands most important restaurant groups and who was named one of Time Magazines 100 Most Influential People in 2017, in part for her role in mentoring others in the field.

Another is Dominique Crenn, a Michelin starred chef in San Francisco who was named the worlds top female chef in 2016 and then caused more of a stir by questioning why such a gender-differentiated award should exist.

As the 1983 conference produced marching orders for building a new American culinary identity, Martin hopes this years gathering will help sharpen the focus on defining issues for the future.

Mom brought together the thought leaders of American cuisine 1983, were bringing together thought leaders of today, Martin said.

Reichl said this new symposium is arriving at a pivotal time for the industry and culture of American food.

It is in a much more mature phase right now than back when we were trying to define what it was, Reichl said. Were talking about where our food comes from, how it gets to us, the culture in our restaurants.

Its an important time to come together and say, all the things that are good about American food, lets move them forward, and look at all the things that are bad and toss them out. It really makes me proud that chefs and food people have been in the forefront of answering these questions.

Martin hopes that this year's symposium will be the start of an annual gathering in New Orleans addressing cuisine and hospitality as those questions around it evolve.

I have a belief that the movement progresses forward in waves, Martin said. "I think we can do something to push it forward."

The American Cuisine & Hospitality Symposium

When: Sept. 17, doors at 8:30 a.m., programs 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Where: Orpheum Theater

Tickets are $225, for details see achsymposium.com

Ian McNulty: To measure Ella Brennan's impact on New Orleans, you'll have to stick around a while Its one thing to say that a place has culture. Its another to witness how the people of that place share a culture, how they use it, how it 

Plans for a new culinary school get rolling, and some in New Orleans call it a game changer About a year from now, if all goes according to plan, the first students will walk through the doors of the New Orleans Culinary & Hospita
When the doors open for Mass at St. Patrick's Church on Camp Street, Manolito Martinez studies the faces of the flock.

As the parish's maintenance supervisor, Martinez responds to all types of crises, including those that afflict his fellow Catholics. Nearly every day, he said, someone turns to the church "as a safe haven or last hope."

"I see people coming in crying, down to their last penny and wanting to talk to a priest," Martinez said. "So many people rely on the church for their personal problems, and they look to us to set the tone."

That credibility has suffered a massive blow this summer, with one explosive revelation after another of clergy raping children and high-ranking church officials looking the other way. A grand jury in Pennsylvania released a jaw-dropping report last week outlining 70 years of abuse and cover-ups in six of the state's eight dioceses.

The full extent of the scandal may never be known. But even some of the most faithful Catholics are questioning whether the church can regain the trust it has lost after decades of broken promises. Many experts believe the current moment is the most difficult one the church has faced since the Boston Globe in 2002 lifted the veil on the systemic nature of child sex abuse by clergy.

"Everything seems like it's upside down right now," Martinez said. "You're going to have some lost sheep."

Church leaders around the country are offering familiar apologies, condemning predatory priests and vowing anew to be more transparent in response to sexual abuse allegations against clergy.

In New Orleans, Archbishop Gregory Aymond has redoubled the damage-control efforts he began several weeks ago after The Advocate revealed that George Brignac, a former deacon accused of molesting several young boys, continued serving as a lay minister decades after he was defrocked for sexual misconduct.

Brignac, 83, served as a lector at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church as recently as June, retaining the role even after the Archdiocese of New Orleans this year paid more than $500,000 to settle claims that Brignac repeatedly raped an 8-year-old altar boy at Holy Rosary School more than three decades ago.

Parishioners were not made aware of the settlement  or the archdiocese's finding that a "credible" claim of sexual abuse had been made against Brignac  until it appeared in the newspaper.

Aymond apologized Sunday to the victims of sexual abuse, asking for forgiveness and praying they would come to "know God's healing and peace." He thanked parishioners for returning to a "sinful church" and promised a period of "purification" and atonement.

"I'm very sorry that bishops, priests and deacons have let us down and have let you down," Aymond said during a homily at St. Louis Cathedral. "We, as bishops, should be held to a standard that we always act with responsibility and for the good of all. Yes, as church leaders, in many ways, we have lost your trust, and I am keenly aware of that. We want to regain that trust, and we know that it will take a long time."

The archbishop invited the public to attend a "Mass for Forgiveness and Healing" on Aug. 28 at St. Joseph Church on Tulane Avenue.

Catholics have expressed disgust at the Brignac scandal and the reports from Pennsylvania, where the grand jury found that hundreds of clergy members had sexually abused more than 1,000 victims and persuaded many of them not to report the attacks. The grand jury reported that "individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability."

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"Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades," the grand jury reported.

Silvia Glaser, a German tourist visiting New Orleans on Monday, said she has been embarrassed to tell people in recent months that she is a Catholic. She has even considered changing denominations.

"My friends make jokes about this," Glaser, of Freiburg, said in an interview outside St. Patrick's.

Steven Gonzalez, a Metairie man who no longer practices the faith, said he was disappointed in the church's failure to follow its own guidelines for responding to sexual abuse allegations.

In 2002, after the Boston Globe stories, nearly 300 American bishops met in Dallas and adopted a charter intended to protect children and prevent future cover-ups. While the church envisioned a uniform approach, archbishops were afforded vast discretion that led to inconsistencies in the way individual dioceses respond to sexual abuse claims against clergy. For instance, some archdioceses have published lists of clergy accused of sexual abuse.

Church leaders in Louisiana have chosen not to take that step, instead deciding on a case-by-case basis whether to release the name of an accused cleric. In Lafayette, the archdiocese disclosed in 2004 that 123 victims of 15 priests had received more than $24 million in legal settlements following a decade-long lawsuit that was resolved in 1998. The church still has not publicly identified those 15 priests.

"I think what bothers everyone is what looks like an intentional lack of transparency on their part: the non-reporting to police, the transfer of offenders without full disclosure and the insistence on keeping a lot of names of offenders under wraps, even after a settlement has been paid out on their behalf," Gonzalez said. "The written guidelines they have now are a good start, but, like I said, they don't seem to follow them."

Not all Catholics were outraged by the news out of Pennsylvania. Caryl Vesy, a New Orleans attorney and longtime Catholic, described the reaction to the recent scandals as "overblown," noting that many of the cases coming to light are decades old.

"I believe people make mistakes," Vesy said, "and I don't think this is happening any more."

Aymond, in his homily Sunday, referred to a new reform plan announced last week by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

DiNardo called for more input from lay people and an investigation into Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington who stepped down recently amid allegations that he sexually abused young priests and minors.

DiNardo singled out the failure of top leadership as the cause of a "moral catastrophe" in the church. The reform plan includes "new and confidential channels for reporting complaints against bishops," he said.

"We are faced with a spiritual crisis that requires not only spiritual conversion but practical changes to avoid repeating the sins and failures of the past that are so evident in the recent report," DiNardo said in a statement, referring to the Pennsylvania grand jury's report. "We firmly resolve, with the help of God's grace, never to repeat it. I have no illusions about the degree to which trust in the bishops has been damaged by these past sins and failures. It will take work to rebuild that trust."
Roy Arriola Jr. stepped down from the witness stand in a courtroom packed with his fellow first responders so he could look straight into the eyes of the two men who had admitted to roles in the murder of his daughter.

What he wanted to know from Will Reed and Jaleel Broadway was how they could have taken Milan away from her brother.

More than anything in the world, thats killing him. You guys didnt think of that, Arriola said Monday. What is it that made you make that decision? Can you please tell me that?

Silence filled the room, and Broadway hung his head.

Arriola, a New Orleans Fire Department captain who was wearing a button over his heart depicting his smiling daughter, walked away, saying he could not continue.

Milan Arriolas mother, New Orleans Police Officer Imani Ruffins, also told the court that her daughters death had plunged her into the darkest places.

I have lived in a never-ending nightmare, she said.

Reed and Broadway, both 23, entered guilty pleas more than three years after the fatal shooting of Milan Arriola on a New Orleans street. They pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and received 20-year sentences.

The killing was yet another example of how often the citys violence rips apart not just large families like Arriolas  she was also the niece of famed jazz trumpeter Kermit Ruffins  but also extended communities like the New Orleans Police and Fire Departments.

Investigators said Arriola was the passenger in a car when Reed drove up alongside it and Broadway opened fire in an attempt to kill her companion on the night of July 3, 2015. He survived, but she died.

Relative after relative stifled tears Monday as they testified about the devastating effect her death had on their close-knit family.

Arriola's death also dealt a heavy blow to her mother's police family. She died just days after Officer Daryle Holloway was killed by a man he was transporting to jail, and shortly before another officer, Vernell Brown Jr., was mortally wounded while investigating a vehicle fire on the Pontchartrain Expressway. Several of the Police Department's top-ranking officers were in court for Monday's hearing.

In an emotional open letter penned soon after the shooting, however, Imani Ruffins said that she never felt hate for her daughter's killers. On Monday, she remembered her daughter as someone who never wanted to see anyone hurt.

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Even at 20 years old, Milan was the caretaker, the forgiver and the peacemaker, she said.

Imani Ruffins said she hoped that Reed's and Broadways mothers were grateful for the luxury of being able to visit their sons in prison  and one day to see them free.

I hope that they can understand Ill never tell Milan I love her face to face, she said.

Reed and Broadway were charged with second-degree murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence. However, prosecutors agreed to amend the charges to conspiracy to commit second-degree murder under a plea agreement approved by Milan Arriolas parents.

Prosecutors did not explain their reason for agreeing to the plea deal in court, and a spokesman for the District Attorney's Office declined comment. However, there were issues with witness identifications almost from the start of the case.

Arriola was riding as a passenger inside a Chevrolet Camaro when gunshots rang out from a dark sedan at Humanity and Allen streets in an apparent ambush. She was killed and the driver, Corey Juluke, was wounded.

Investigators quickly arrested Reed based on Julukes identification. They said Reed had wanted to kill Juluke, not Arriola, as part of a feud with Reeds twin brother.

However, Juluke also identified another man as an attacker. Cracks in the case appeared when surveillance video showed that man was shopping at a Gretna mall at the time.

Ultimately, police said they believed that Reed was the driver. Another witness identified Broadway as the triggerman.

Criminal District Court Judge Tracey Flemings-Davillier, who oversaw the case and imposed the sentences, said that it was only thanks to the willingness of the dead woman's parents that the defendants will one day be released.

Theyre giving life to the two that took their daughter away. Do you understand? she said. You need to be forever grateful.

Assistant District Attorneys Angad Ghai and Tiffany Tucker prosecuted the case. Reed was represented by Kenneth Hardin and Brian Woods of the Orleans Public Defenders. Broadway was represented by attorney Mark Vicknair.
A man was shot in the leg early Sunday after showing up $80 short to a drug deal, according to New Orleans police.

Police later booked the victims alleged drug dealer, 39-year-old Travis Housey, on a count of second-degree battery.

Housey and the victim allegedly met in the 4700 block of Pontchartrain Boulevard in the Dixon neighborhood so that the victim could buy $100 worth of illicit drugs. But the victim only had $20, and Housey shot a gun at the victims car door as he drove away, police wrote in documents filed in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court.

Bullets hit the victim near his right knee and in his right hand, and he drove to the 700 block of Oaklawn Drive in Metairie to call authorities before being taken to University Medical Center for treatment, police said.

From the victims statement, police determined where the shooter lived in the 4700 block of Pontchartain. Records showed Housey lived there, and the victim picked a picture of him out from a photographic line-up of potential suspects, police said.

Police raided Houseys home on Sunday evening and found numerous illegal drugs and pharmaceuticals, including heroin, marijuana and codeine.

Police said Housey had also pleaded guilty to domestic abuse battery in 2011, which meant he was prohibited from possessing a gun. Aside from battery, Housey was also arrested on counts of illegal possession of a firearm, illegal use of a weapon, and allegations of drug dealing.

Housey was due to make his first appearance in court on Monday morning.

In other matters recently handled by local authorities:

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 A 40-year-old man was shot in the leg multiple times about 3:10 p.m. Sunday at the corner of Mandeville and Marais streets in St. Roch, New Orleans police said. The victim took a private ride to the hospital.

 About 9:35 p.m. Sunday in the 1100 block of Decatur Street in the French Quarter, a 50-year-old man was nearly robbed by another man who approached him demanding money at gunpoint, New Orleans police said. The victim ran into a nearby business for help while the robber fled without taking anything.

Police later said they arrested Shawn Hubbard, 34, as a suspect in the case, using city-owned crime cameras to identify him. Hubbard faces a count of attempted armed robbery.

 About 12:20 a.m. Monday in the 1200 block of North Claiborne Avenue in Treme, two men were fighting when one of them was stabbed multiple times, New Orleans police said. The attacker fled, and the victim was taken to University Medical Center for treatment, police said.

 Ronald Lathers, 30, is wanted on allegations that he broke into a womans home in Central City, slapped her in the face and pointed a gun at her about 9:55 a.m. on Aug. 15, New Orleans police said. Lathers also allegedly grabbed her cellphone and fled in a silver vehicle during the incident in the 2100 block of Baronne Street.

The St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriffs Office arrested Lathers in April 2017 on accusations that he punched his babys mother as well as the child during a fight over custody in LaPlace. It is unclear how that case was resolved.

 New Orleans police on Sunday arrested a suspect in a stabbing reported in Mid-City the morning of July 25.

Police allege Antonio Magee, 43, stabbed a man with whom he was arguing at the corner of South Galvez Street and Tulane Avenue. Paramedics took the victim to a hospital for treatment, and Magee faces a count of attempted second-degree murder.
The man accused of last week's deadly shooting in the Central Business District is a Marine Corps reservist based in Algiers who claims he killed the victim inadvertently during a botched drug deal, authorities said Monday.

Quan Charles, a 19-year-old lance corporal, told investigators he accidentally pulled the trigger on the gun that was used in the slaying of May Francois in Francois' car the afternoon of Aug. 14, police wrote in court records.

But Francois body had at least four gunshot wounds, leading police to conclude that Charles had intentionally killed the 34-year-old husband and father from Gretna.

Charles was booked early Sunday on one count of second-degree murder. He remained behind bars Monday in lieu of $500,000 bail.

Police documents detailing the circumstances of Charles arrest give the most complete account yet of a killing that shut down part of the CBD for a couple of hours.

About 2 p.m. on the day of the slaying, first responders found Francois badly wounded inside a dark sedan that had crashed into the Exchange Center Building at OKeefe Avenue and Gravier Street. He died later at University Medical Center.

Police officers wielding rifles and wearing body armor cordoned off the surrounding neighborhood after witnesses said three people had run from Francois car.

Investigators seized security camera footage that showed a getaway car used by at least one of those people, police wrote.

Officers said they later stopped that car and found Charles inside it. Charles waived his right to remain silent and told investigators that he had gotten into the back of Francois car for a drug deal.

Charles said he was carrying a gun that he pointed at Francois, with a finger on the trigger. Charles claimed the gun then somehow went off twice, police said.

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Charles said he still had his gun when he fled Francois' car. Police said there was no evidence suggesting more than one gun was used to kill Francois, who had bullet wounds in different parts of his body  including the head.

Police said they recovered a pair of spent bullet casings on the street next to Francois car. As of early Sunday, they were still processing the interior of the vehicle for evidence.

NOPD Homicide Detective Michael Poluikis and Sgt. Robert Barrere obtained a warrant to arrest Charles.

Charles, described as a resident of New Orleans East, faces mandatory life imprisonment if eventually convicted of second-degree murder.

He joined the Marine Corps Forces Reserves on Oct. 10, 2017. He was based at the Marine Corps Support Facility in Algiers. His commanders were notified of the arrest, Maj. Roger Hollenbeck said Monday.

Charles is not the only serviceman based at that facility who has been accused of a high-profile crime this year.

Two other Marines, along with a recent Tulane University graduate, are awaiting a decision by prosecutors on whether they will be charged on allegations that they raped two women at a home after a night of drinking at a bar near Tulanes campus in April.

Francois relatives said he was hoping for a fresh start in New Orleans while serving probation for an armed-robbery conviction in Florida. He supported five children by working at his brothers auto shop in Harvey as well as his familys Haitian restaurant in Gretna, the relatives said.

Attempts to contact Francois family following Charles arrest were unsuccessful.
Video of a young black girl walking dejectedly out of a New Orleans area Catholic school in tears after being told her hair extensions violated school policy prompted thousands of social media comments Tuesday many expressing puzzlement or outrage.

Some accused Christ the King Middle School of racism, including social activist Shaun King on Twitter and rapper T.I. on Instagram.

Can't see video below? Click here.

Sixth-grader Faith Fennidys brother Steven posted Facebook video showing her leaving school with relatives. Her braids are pulled back and hang slightly below the neckline.

Fennidys post says there are practical reasons for the hair extensions.

Extensions make the hair easier to maintain. It allows my sister to have access to the swimming pool without having to get her hair Re-done every night, his post said. He said the school wouldnt compromise.

The family told WWL-TV they are considering a discrimination lawsuit.

This policy was communicated to all parents during the summer and again before the first day of school, Archdiocese of New Orleans Schools Superintendent RaeNell Houston said in a statement to media. Furthermore, the school leadership worked with families as needed to ensure compliance.

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The Anti-Defamation League, South Central Region and the Urban League of Louisiana issued a joint statement late Tuesday voicing concern about the schools racially insensitive grooming policy.

ADL and the Urban League are deeply troubled by the policy in question as well as the manner in which the school is disciplining students of color under this policy, the statement said. The policy shows racial insensitivity and bias by the administration to students and their families.

The statement said the groups called for the school to revise the policy, withdraw current disciplinary action issued under it and apologize to the affected students. It should also implement reasonable grooming standards that foster learning while respecting diversity, as well as institute cultural competence and anti-discrimination training for all staff.

The video shows Faith Fennidy appearing to fight back tears while adults around her can be heard in a brief, contentious discussion. I dont want this to happen, a woman is heard saying. A man who refers to Faith as his daughter curtly replies, Yes, you do. Faith slips a pink backpack emblazoned with images of fern leaves and wild animals onto one shoulder and walks out of the building.

Reactions to the Facebook post were largely against the school. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her hair, was typical of many.

Some posters acknowledged the private schools authority to make such rules, but were still critical of the policy.

Others accused the school of targeting black hair styles.

Lets be clear  this is Christianity as White Supremacy, Kings tweet read.
New Orleans may finally get a presidentially appointed U.S. attorney before long.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take up the nomination of Peter Strasser on Thursday, along with about 15 other presidential nominees for various posts.

Assuming Strasser is approved by the committee and confirmed by the full Senate, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana will have a permanent leader for the first time since March 2017, when President Donald Trump sacked then-U.S. Attorney Kenneth Polite and a number of other holdovers from the Obama administration.

The local office is being overseen by acting U.S. Attorney Duane Evans.

Strassers nomination is not expected to be particularly controversial. He spent about three decades working for the U.S. Department of Justice, mostly as a federal prosecutor, before going into private practice as a defense lawyer. He works at the Chaffe McCall firm.

About the only hiccup that has come up in Strassers vetting was an incident last year in which he got into a heated argument with Myles Ranier, a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Polite has criticized Strassers behavior in the dust-up, taking to Twitter a few days ago to say that physically assaulting a prosecutor in a Louisiana courtroom should result in a criminal conviction & suspension of your law license. It should NOT result in your nomination as the next U.S. attorney.

Strassers nomination was urged by U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., who sits on the judiciary committee. Kennedys first choice for the job, local defense lawyer Kyle Schonekas, was rejected by the White House.
Australian manufacturing giant Amcor's profits have taken a hit from sharp rises in prices of the raw materials it uses to make plastic packaging for food, drinks and cigarettes at factories around the world.

Manufacturers of plastic packaging such as Amcor have been battling substantial increases in the cost of materials including resin, aluminium and liquids, Amcor chief executive Ron Delia said on Tuesday.

Amcor is poised to become the world's largest flexible plastic packaging manufacturer. Credit:Fairfax Media

With the price spikes damaging Amcor's yearly profits by $58 million, Mr Delia told investors that Amcor predicted stronger growth this year as the headwinds began to stabilise and Amcor passed higher prices onto customers.

But he warned of a "natural lag time" before the short-term pain could be fully offset.
The consumer watchdog has immediately launched a new seven-year long, rolling investigation into electricity prices and power company profits as energy companies lashed the government over policy uncertainty.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced on Tuesday it would officially monitor and report on electricity prices and energy companies profits after the government directed it to investigate the sector in the wake of Monday's dramatic dumping of the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) policy.

The ACCC recently completed an 18-month investigation and review of the sector which was released in July and which recommended ongoing pricing reporting.

The first of its ongoing reports will down early next year, with a new report on the industrys prices, profits and margins slated for at least every six months until 2025.
Commissioner Kenneth Hayne presiding over the royal commission into banking and financial services. Credit:Fairfax Media

Superannuation fund members are vulnerable, disengaged and disadvantaged by a lack of financial literacy, leaving them "readily able to be taken advantage of".

That's how counsel assisting the banking royal commission, Michael Hodge, QC, summed up the situation in his concluding remarks on Friday following the commission's two-week deep-dive into the superannuation industry.

The royal commission heard evidence of how the big banks and AMP, as well as IOOF, sought every-which-way to keep the fees flowing into their coffers.

We heard of "retail" super funds, those run by the financial institutions, taking fees from their members when no service was provided for those fees.
Journalist Joe Payne worked his way up from copy boy to become a reporter and the chief of staff at The Sun.

Joe Payne was an accomplished journalist who interviewed everyone from Hollywood sirens to a serial killer across a near 40-year career in Sydney newspapers. He was also an accomplished guitarist. Above all, Joe was a husband, father, brother and friend who will be remembered for his quick mind, fair nature and ability to laugh, even when life was toughest.

Joe was born on September 2, 1935 at the Royal Womens Hospital in Paddington to parents Zena and George. He was the third of eight children, along with siblings George, Patricia, Valda, Mabel, Lynnette, Teresa and Bill. The family grew up in Hammondville in Sydneys western suburbs. Joe attended Hammondville Primary School, then Parramatta Boys Junior High.

Joe left school at the age of 14 to become a copy boy for the now defunct The Sun newspaper in Sydney. It was the beginning of a career that would see Joe rise through the ranks to eventually become the newspaper's chief of staff.

Joe also showed talent for music from an early age. In 1943, as a boy of eight, he entered and won a national radio amateur hour competition with his older brother George. George played the guitar, Joe played the spoons. They were just simple household spoons but Joe could make them zing like castanets and beat out a rhythm like a drum.
An Indian man accused of stabbing his Melbourne wife to death smirked as he turned himself in to police and told a group of bystanders he did it because he was "sick of her", court documents show.

The man, who can't be named for legal reasons, allegedly murdered the woman, who he had married only months earlier, during an argument at her Hallam home in January.

The 44-year-old has faced a hearing in Melbourne Magistrates Court to determine if there is enough evidence to support a conviction and on Tuesday he was ordered to stand trial.

Crime scene staff on the scene after the woman was killed in her Hallam property in January. Credit:Scott McNaughton

Magistrate John Hardy granted access to court documents, including witness accounts of the events surrounding the alleged killing.
Can you dig it: Workers Wren Lakeman and Joe Page at the archaeological dig opposite St Paul's Cathedral in Swanston Street. Credit:Eddie Jim

One thousand teeth, but alas no bags of gold, are among more than half a million artefacts unearthed at two archaeological digs in Melbourne's CBD.

Halfway through the six month excavation next to Young & Jackson pub in Swanston Street, clues to our ancestors lives are being unearthed daily.

Some had appalling tooth cavities, or smoked opium in glass bongs made from cut up beer bottles.
With the near-implosion of the federal government, it looks like the National Energy Guarantee has collapsed into a "festering heap". It turns out that pragmatic policy cannot win in the power struggle within the government. And so the well-intentioned political calculations of the NEG architects failed, just like Alan Finkels recommendation for a low emissions target.

But it is by no means the end of carbon policy, it is simply sounding the bell for another round. And it may just be that the states can seize the initiative in the short term.

Time to ring the bell on the next round of energy policy. Credit:George Fetting

The prospect of a bipartisan climate and energy policy  the hope of many people who dedicated their efforts to the NEG over the last year  is dead. Perhaps it was never alive. In the struggle over the future of conservative politics in Australia, carbon policy has been taken hostage every time over the last decade.

It drives Australias business community to despair. Industry associations were scathing in their comments about Mondays dumping of the emissions component of the NEG. What all of the business community wants is greater predictability for investment conditions in energy, and what most of it wants is a steer towards a lower emissions system.
Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources David Littleproud

The company at the centre of a horrific live exports scandal involving the deaths of thousands of sheep at sea has had its licence to export animals permanently cancelled.

The Department of Agriculture announced the decision to cancel Emanuel Exports' licence late on Tuesday night saying it was for the protection of Australia's animal welfare standards.

Emanuel Exports was, until recently, run by Graham Daws and his son Nicholas. Graham Daws stepped aside as director after footage filmed on the Emanuel-operated Awassi Express live export ship showed thousands of sheep effectively "cooking" to their deaths in searing temperatures.

The Daws have three licences to export sheep and have tried to use two of them to export nearly 60,000 sheep to Kuwait. But they were forced to abandon their export when hit with a suspension of two licences over issues relating to past voyages, newly uncovered after the Awassi Express scandal.
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been found guilty on eight charges of tax and bank fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts, after a jury said it could not reach consensus on the other 10 charges against him.

Jurors, after almost four days of deliberations, found Manafort guilty of two of nine bank fraud charges, all five tax fraud charges he faced and one of four charges of failing to disclose foreign bank accounts.

Judge T.S. Ellis declared a mistrial on 10 of the 18 counts, after the jury told him it could not reach a verdict on those charges.

Manafort stood quietly while the verdict was being read by the clerk. At the conclusion, the prosecutors hugged one another and then the prosecution and the defence shook hands.
Broadway's Anastasia is kicking off its international expansion with the release of a new multilingual music video featuring the four actors playing Anya in New York and beyond: Christy Altomare (Broadway), Lila Coogan (North American tour), Judith Caspari (Stuttgart, Germany), and Jana Gomez (Madrid).

"We haven't seen a musical like this in Spain since Beauty and the Beast," Gomez told TheaterMania during a break from shooting the music video at the Broadhurst Theatre. "I think the role of Anya will become an icon to young girls, and I'm excited that little girls and boys and all the people who come see us will have a new musical that they love."

Caspari is excited to take on the epic nature of the Ahrens and Flaherty song "Journey to the Past," which you can see in the new video, on a nightly basis. "I'm really looking forward to the moment when Anya is standing there, opening her arms, singing the long note at the end, and then the Eiffel Tower appears behind her. It's such an emotional and awesome moment."

Meanwhile, Coogan is ready to travel to new cities, on stage and off. "I love having an adventure every night in a show," she explains, "and I'm really excited to travel and see a bunch of new places. That's the whole special component about touring that I haven't gotten to do yet."

As for Altomare, who has been with the musical since it opened on Broadway in 2017 and shows no sign of slowing down, she can't wait for her fellow Anyas to experience how the musical is a gift that keeps on giving. "I told them I cannot wait for you to see what Anastasia will be for you. You have Lynn and Stephen's amazing songs, Terrence's amazing writing, and a story that so many people have grown up with. You're gonna die when you see what it does for your voice and your stamina and your talent. Doing a scene is going to feel like you're flying. And wait until you see the response from people coming to see this show. "

The Madrid production of Anastasia begins performances on October 3, with the national tour kicking off on October 9 in Schenectady, New York. The Stuttgart production opens on November 15.

Watch the music video below:
Asia Argento. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

On Sunday night, the New York Times reported that actress and #MeToo activist Asia Argento made a deal to pay $380,000 to a former co-star, Jimmy Bennett, who claimed she sexually assaulted him as a minor. In a statement released on Tuesday, Argento said she strongly denies and opposes the allegation.

In the report, the Times wrote that that Argento agreed to pay Bennett  who played her son in the 2004 film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things  to settle his claim that she sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room when he was 17. (The age of consent in California is 18.) The Times stated that Argento and Bennett had taken several selfies together on the day of the alleged assault, including one in which they are in bed together; according to the report, Bennett gave the copyright of this last photo to Argento as part of their agreement. The report further stated that Argentos late boyfriend Anthony Bourdain helped her navigate the matter.

Journalist Yashar Ali shared Argentos response to Bennetts allegation on Tuesday. In the statement, Argento wrote that she was deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false. I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett. She continued:

I was linked to him during several years by friendship only, which ended when, subsequent to my exposure in the Weinstein case, Bennett  who was then undergoing severe economic problems and who had previously undertaken legal actions against his own family requesting millions in damages  unexpectedly made an exorbitant request of money from me. Bennett knew my boyfriend, Anthony Bourdain, was a man of great perceived wealth and had his own reputation as a beloved public figure to protect.

Argento went on to invoke Bourdain several times, saying that he insisted the matter be handled privately and this was also what Bennett wanted. She said that Bourdain was afraid of the negative publicity that such person, whom he considered dangerous, could have brought upon us. Argento added that Bourdain personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life.

Read the full response below.

I just received this statement from @AsiaArgento in response to the NYT story published late Sunday evening. pic.twitter.com/jAOo7TAULX  Yashar Ali  (@yashar) August 21, 2018
Chris Watts in court. Photo: Joshua Polson/AP

In August, Shanann Watts, 34, and her two daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, were reported missing from their Frederick, Colorado, home. The following day, Shananns husband Chris Watts gave an interview on the porch of his familys home in which he begged for his pregnant wife and daughters safe return.

If youre out there, just come back. If somebody has her, just please bring her back. I need to see everybody. I need to see everybody again. This house is not complete without anybody here.

Then, Chris was arrested and charged with murdering them. He ultimately plead guilty to felony charges relating to their murders, and was sentenced to life in prison.

Nearly 24 hours before Chris Watts was arrested in the disappearance of his pregnant wife and young daughters in Colorado, he stood outside his porch and pleaded for their safe return https://t.co/Puz1o2A4Od pic.twitter.com/DvqCYB8l61  CNN (@CNN) August 17, 2018

Heres a timeline of this horrific case.

Monday, August 13: Shananns friend reports her missing

Nickole Atkinson, one of Shananns close friends, told ABC News that she contacted the police on Monday, August 13, at around noon. Atkinson had dropped Shanann off at her house several hours earlier, at 2 a.m., after the two returned from a business trip together. Shanann, who was 15 weeks pregnant, didnt respond to any of Atkinsons calls or texts later that morning. Her friend said she also missed a doctors appointment to hear her fetuss heartbeat. Atkinson became concerned, and went over to her house. No one answered the door, but Atkinson saw Shananns car was still in the garage.

Atkinson called Shananns husband, Chris, who told her not to worry about it, and that his wife had taken the girls to a playdate.

He just kept saying that he didnt know where she was and that she was on a playdate. But he couldnt give us the name of the friend, Atkinson said. She told Chris she was calling the police for a welfare check, and he joined her at the house.

Inside, police found Shananns purse and keys, but she and the girls were nowhere to be found.

Tuesday, August 14: Chris pleads for his familys return

While police and canine units swept the property for clues about where Shanann and her girls may have gone, Chris spoke with a TV crew from Denver7. He confirmed that Shanann had gotten back from a business trip at 2 a.m. on Monday, and said that he went to work around 5:15 a.m., and hadnt seen her since.

He added that he and his wife had an emotional conversation before she disappeared, but didnt elaborate.

Thursday, August 16: Chris is arrested on three counts of murder; Shanann, Bella, and Celestes bodies are found

A Frederick Police Department official told Denver7 that law enforcement arrested Chris just after midnight on Thursday. He was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, and three counts of tampering with evidence.

At a press conference later that day, police said they found the body of a woman they believe to be Shanann on the property of Wattss former employer, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. The girls bodies were reportedly recovered later that day.

According to CNN, a court filing from the prosecutor says that Shanann Wattss body was recovered from a shallow grave near an oil tank, and that law enforcement recovered the bodies of defendants two daughters from inside oil tanks located near the grave of their mother.

An affidavit obtained by CNN later revealed police found Shananns body when they used a drone to survey the fields, and saw a bedsheet near the oil tanks.

The sheet matched the pattern of several pillowcases and a top sheet recovered from a kitchen trash can from [Wattss] residence early that day, the document said.

Monday, August 20: Police release Chriss arrest affidavit, in which he admits to killing Shanann, and claims she strangled their daughters; Chris is formally charged

In his arrest affidavit, released on Monday by police, Chris claimed that he went into a rage and strangled Shanann after he saw her strangling one of their daughters on a baby monitor.

Chris told police that after she got back from her business trip at 2 a.m., he told Shanann he had been having an affair with a co-worker, and that he wanted to separate. (Though he had denied having an affair in previous police interviews, authorities said they carried out a two-day investigation that confirmed he was actively involved in an affair with a co-worker before the murders.)

He said he then saw Shanann on the baby monitor, strangling their 3-year-old daughter Celeste, and that when he ran into the girls room, he saw Bella, 4, already sprawled out on the bed, and blue. Thats when he says he strangled his wife to death before loading all three bodies onto the back seat of his work truck.

#breaking Chris Watts confessed to murder of his wife but not of daughters Bella and Celeste. In fact he blames their murders on Shanann Watts, saying she's the one who strangled them after he said he wanted to separate.

He admitted he'd been having an affair w/co-worker #kdvr pic.twitter.com/vU4lNlrHK6  Rob Low (@RobLowTV) August 20, 2018

CNN reports that Chris was also charged with a total of nine criminal counts on Monday: three counts of first-degree murder, two separate counts of first-degree murder for killing a child under the age of 12, three counts of tampering with a body, and one count of first-degree unlawful termination of a pregnancy.

The couple was reportedly struggling financially

According to court documents, Chris and Shanann filed for bankruptcy in 2015, and were about $70,000 in debt. CNN also reports that a civil suit says they owed $1,533.80 to their homeowners association.

People in their lives were shocked

The Weld County district attorney Michael Rourke is not releasing many details of the case against Watts, and has said it is too early to know whether the state will press for the death penalty.

Shananns friend, Nickole Atkinson, told ABC she wasnt shocked when Chris was arrested. Anyone in their right mind will start piecing things together and think something had happened, but you dont want to go there. You want to believe the best in people.

Its really sad. Its beyond belief, really, another friend, Kris Landon, told People. And it makes you wonder about other people you know. If this couple who seemed so perfect was like this, what are the other couples like?

November 19: Chris is sentenced to life in prison

The Associated Press reports that Watts was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences on November 19, two weeks after pleading guilty to the murders of his two daughters and pregnant wife, and months after his arrest. According to USA Today, Watts plead guilty to nine felony charges relating to the murders.

At the sentencing hearing, Shanann Wattss father said to Watts: I trusted you to take care of them, not kill them. Prison is too good for you.

Chris Watts was officially sentenced to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to killing his pregnant wife Shanann and their two young daughters.



Today, we remember Shanann, Bella and Celeste as well as the family, friends who have been impacted by their deaths. pic.twitter.com/tPlt1IqU9U  NBC Charlotte (@wcnc) November 19, 2018

This is perhaps the most inhumane and vicious crime that I have handled out of the thousands of cases I have seen, presiding judge Marcelo Kopcow of Colorados 19th Judicial District Court reportedly said. Nothing less than a maximum sentence would be appropriate.

March 7, 2019: Chris admits to killing two daughters

In a prison interview from on February 18, which was made public on March 7, Watts finally admitted to Colorado Bureau of Investigations agents that he smothered his two daughters with a blanket after he forced them into the truck with their mothers body.
A foreign expert symposium on the China Book International (CBI) project was held Monday in Beijing to pool wisdom on how to share China's experience of reform and opening up with the world.

The event was attended by experts and scholars from research institutions and publishing houses from China and abroad.

Four senior publishers from the Peter Lang Publishing Group, Sage Publishing, Springer Nature and Paths International Ltd. were employed as CBI foreign experts at the event.

"We hope both domestic and overseas publishers will continue their focus on, support, research and precise interpretation of China's reform and opening up, and publish more high-level academic works that reflect the reality of China and are of world significance," said Jiang Jianguo, deputy head of the publicity department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up.

"China's experience and wisdom have injected fresh air into world governance... China's practical experience in reform and development should be turned into more academic works and elevated to norms and theories as China's contribution to the world's social sciences," said Cai Fang, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The CBI project aims to provide overseas readers with the latest Chinese publications.
A plane, reportedly containing Post Malone, blew two tires after taking off from a New Jersey airport and is being forced to make an emergency landing in New York.

Jim Peters, a spokesperson with the Federal Aviation Administration, told Variety in a statement that a Gulfstream Aerospace GLF-4 aircraft blew two tires as it took off from the runway at the Teterboro Airport.

The aircraft was carrying 16 passengers, and was originally heading to the London Luton Airport in Luton, England.

TMZ reported that Malone was on the plane, after performing at the MTV Music Awards last night. The plane was reportedly rerouted in order to burn fuel on the aircraft so it could make a safer emergency landing.
Antifa members and counter protesters gather during a rally at Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Berkeley, California on Aug. 27, 2017. (Amy Osborne/AFP/Getty Images)

Antifa Attacks Fellow Portland Protester for Carrying American Flag

Members of the domestic terrorist organization known as Antifa physically assaulted a man who describes himself as slightly progressive for carrying an American flag at a protest in Portland, Oregon, that quickly turned violent.

Paul Welch, 38, joined a counterprotest on Aug. 4 in response to a right-wing rally at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park. As he held the flag, a group of black-clad Antifa members approached and told him to dispose of the flag, which they called a fascist symbol. But Welch didnt give in to their demands.

The encounter, which was captured on video, continued with the Antifa members trying to snatch the flag from Welch, who wasnt letting go. It ended with him being clubbed in the back of the head. The video footage shows the Antifa member who dealt the blow walking away nonchalantly as Welch lay on the ground with his hands covering his bloodied head, while visibly in pain.

No one immediately came to assist Welch before the footage stops.

My bones turned to Jell-O and I just went down, Welch told The Oregonian. He believes that he was struck with a metal object on the end of the club. I remember thinking there was a very good chance that I could be beaten to death.

It took four staples to close the three-inch gash in his head, and Welch had to spend two days recovering from a concussion before returning to work, according to the newspaper. Hundreds of other Portlanders were also present at the protest.

I didnt come as a part of any group, Welch said, who describes himself as a slightly progressive leftist.

He said he felt conflicted in the days after the incident. He has since filed a police report, and Portland police are investigating.

It strikes me as the worst sort of political theater. Its kind of like youre playing into your opponents hands when you do that sort of thing. Thats not what I was there for, Welch told the newspaper.

Earlier this month, on the one-year anniversary of the Charlottesville riots, a number of Antifa members were seen on camera threatening President Donald Trump with violence and even murder. A Secret Service spokesperson previously told The Epoch Times that they were aware of the videos.

Trump wrote in a Twitter post marking the anniversary: We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!

Curbing Violence

Antifa is known for increasingly resorting to violence while donning masks or bandanas that serve to obscure their faces. Violent members may soon be held federally liable if Congress approves a bill that provides enhanced penalties against rioters who conceal their identity.

The proposed bill dubbed the Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018 states that anyone while in disguise who injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person in any State, would be fined or sent to prison for a maximum of 15 yearsor both. It was introduced in August by Rep. Daniel Donovan Jr. (R-N.Y.).

Some have criticized anti-masking bills as being an infringement of constitutional rights. But Donovan spoke out against such critics and told them to look closer at the wording.

To those predicting a doomsday totalitarian state from my Unmasking Antifa Act: please read the bill, he wrote on Twitter. It simply adds a penalty for wearing a mask while infringing on the Constitutional rights of others to assemble and speak freely.
A woman looks at the screen of her mobile phone in front of an Apple logo outside its store in Shanghai, China on July 30, 2017.

Apple Removes Illegal Lottery Apps From China Store

Apple Inc says it has pulled illegal lottery apps from its App Store in China amid tightening regulation and a barrage of criticism from state media.

According to state media, the company has recently pulled around 25,000 apps from its Chinese store in an effort to cooperate with regulators.

Apple confirmed it has recently removed gambling apps from its store, but did not confirm the number of apps or a timeline for the removals.

We have already removed many apps and developers for trying to distribute illegal gambling apps on our App Store, and we are vigilant in our efforts to find these and stop them from being on the App Store, Apple said in a statement.

State broadcaster CCTV criticized the U.S. companys management on Sunday for allowing gambling apps, which are banned in China. Its the second time the broadcaster has targeted the firm in the past month over the apps.

Official media has also recently criticized the companys iMessage service in China, saying the companys refusal to monitor communications is a hindrance to authorities.

Last year Apple began removing hundreds of virtual private network (VPN) apps on request from regulators. The apps help users bypass Chinas Great Firewall and access foreign social media and news, which are largely banned in China.

App stores run by other companies, including Baidu Inc and Tencent Holdings Ltd are also required to remove banned foreign content and gambling apps.

Apples App Store is the only major foreign-run app platform in China, where competitorsincluding Alphabet Incs Google Play storeare banned.

Apple has been subject to increasingly strict rules regarding its content in China amid a wider effort by regulators to create a clean cyberspace, which includes enhanced censorship policies.

Earlier this year the company moved cryptographic keys for its iCloud service to China under new legal requirements, raising human rights fears as the country is introducing increasingly strict digital surveillance measures.

By Cate Cadell
Britain Presses for More EU Sanctions Against Russia

LONDONBritain pressed the European Union on Aug. 21 to increase sanctions against Russia, saying it should stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States, which hit Moscow with new economic restrictions this month.

Britains foreign minister, Jeremy Hunt, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the world a more dangerous place, and that after a chemical weapons attack in the English city of Salisbury, the EU should apply more pressure to ensure Russia sticks to international rules.

Today the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the U.S., Hunt told a Washington audience in his first major speech since his appointment in July.

That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice wherever and whenever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the heart of Crimea.

Asked about Hunts speech, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Britain had too high an opinion of itself and was trying to impose its Russia policy on the EU and the United States, the RIA news agency reported.

EU officials said Britain had not yet proposed any new sanctions on Russia to the other 27 EU member states.

Britain, the EU, and the United States blame Russia for a nerve agent attack against a Russian double agent in Salisbury earlier this year. The Kremlin denies involvement.

Citing the Salisbury incident, Washington has imposed sanctions against Moscow covering national-security related goods. It has promised more hard-hitting measures unless Russia gives reliable assurances it will no longer use chemical weapons.

The sanctions sparked a sell-off across Russian markets and pushed up the countrys cost of borrowingwith both likely to worsen if a second wave of measures is enacted.

EU Divided

Britain is preparing to leave the EU next March, but currently follows EU-level sanctions policy on Russia, agreed by all member states. The EU recently agreed to renew sanctions against Russia relating to its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and other activity in the region.

But the EU has not imposed further economic sanctions specifically linked to Salisbury, although it strongly condemned Moscow and joined international action to expel Russian officials after the attack. Its measures against Russia include finance restrictions and arms exports.

Any new EU sanctions would require unanimity among all 28 states. The current economic sanctions against Russia are in place until the end of January 2019, as well as curbs on doing business with Crimea.

But while some countries such as Poland and the Baltic states back Britains hawkish stance towards Russia, some other member states including Italy, Austria and Greece advocate more engagement with Moscow.

In Aug. 21s speech, Hunt also criticized Chinalike Russia a permanent member of the U.N. Security Councilover what he sees as its inaction over Crimea and chemical weapons.

On Brexit, where negotiations have become bogged down as the deadline for reaching an exit deal with the EU approaches, Hunt repeated his call for the bloc to show flexibility.

Now is the time for the European Commission to engage with an open mind with the fair and constructive proposals made by the Prime Minister [Theresa May], he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov mocked Hunts speech saying, Our British colleagues have a rather high opinion of themselves.

He added, A nation that is leaving the European Union, in the framework of the so-called Brexit, is eager to impose its foreign policy to the European Union and, as it turns out, London wants to impose its Russia policy on Washington.

By William James
Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown speaks at an event at the National Press Club in Washington on April 17, 2018. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

California Governor Pardons Refugees Slated for Deportation

Among the pardoning of 36 criminals on Aug. 17, California Gov. Jerry Brown has included three Cambodians who face deportation.

The three Cambodians had obtained legal immigration status, but convictions for serious violent crimes triggers the forfeiture of immigration status.

The pardons mean the three have effectively been absolved of their crimes.

One man, Vanna In, came to the United States as a refugee when he was 3. At age 17, he fatally shot a rival gang member, according to the pardon document. After serving just over six years, he was released by the California Youth Authority in 2001.

After his release, Mr. In started Jobs of Hope, an organization devoted to assisting former gang members obtain jobs that helped dozens of individuals to turn away from gangs and become law-abiding, productive citizens, the pardon states.

Phal Sok lived in the United States as a lawful permanent resident for 37 years after arriving as a refugee from Cambodia when he was 3, according to the pardon document.

He was convicted for armed robbery, spent 15 years in prison, and was released from a two-year parole term in August 2017.

Sok works at a nonprofit dedicated to criminal justice reform, but is in deportation proceedings.

Heng Lao served two years in prison and three years parole for assault with a deadly weapon, according to the pardon document, which goes on to say that he now owns several businesses that employ more than 30 people.

Laos immigration status was not included in the pardon document, but Browns office confirmed to media that he is a Cambodian refugee.

Those granted pardons all completed their sentences years ago, and the majority were convicted of drug-related or other nonviolent crimes, Browns office said in a statement. Pardons are not granted unless they are earned.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has accused governors of granting pardons to aliens for political purposes.

Thomas Decker, New York field office director for ICEs Enforcement and Removal Operations, responded to the 18 pardons that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo granted last December.

While the governors pardons appear to be yet another politically driven attempt to circumvent federal immigration law, whether or not they actually have any legal effect on individual immigration cases will be reviewed by ICE, Decker said in a statement on Jan. 1.

For aliens who remain subject to final orders of removal under federal law, ICE will execute those lawful orders.

Cuomo announced on Twitter that he granted clemency to 61 individuals, including 18 pardons to immigrants facing deportation.

While the federal government continues to target immigrants, were making a more just, fair, and compassionate New York, Cuomo wrote in a tweet on Dec. 27, 2017.

Cuomo said the pardons may not automatically remove the grounds of removal for those facing deportation, but they are a necessary predicate to regaining the right to remain here in the country they call home.

Two days prior to Cuomos pardons, Brown had pardoned two aliens.

Both New York and California have created sanctuary policies to protect illegal aliens from immigration enforcement.

On Oct. 5 last year, Brown signed into law SB-54, which made the state of California a sanctuary effective Jan. 1, 2018. The new law says local and state law enforcement can be penalized for cooperating and communicating with immigration officials.
Candidate Tours California by Bike for Fair and Honest Election

For this years November election, Republican candidate, Mark Meuser, is running for the California Secretary of State and will be going on a bike tour throughout California in hopes of ensuring better election results. Meuser is biking and holding rallies across the 58 counties in California.

On the evening of Monday, August 13th, Meuser arrived in San Francisco to meet with supporters. If elected, he promises to protect citizens electoral rights from infringement.

Its [San Francisco] a little bit colder than everywhere else Ive been on this tour. Ive been doing Death Valley at 109 [degrees]; this is a little bit different, said Meuser.

As a Republican candidate, Meuser ranked second with a 31% vote in the June primary, and will challenge the current Democratic Secretary of State, Alex Padilla, in the November election. He pointed out that Californias electoral system is full of loopholes, and those who are not registered to vote are also voting.

People are waking up that Los Angeles County has a 144% voter registration, and nobody that Ive talked to thinks that 144% voter registration is a good thing, said Meuser.

Beginning in November this year, illegal immigrants and non-citizens in San Francisco will be able to participate in the election of the education committee and create a precedent for the California electoral system. Meuser said that this practice is a serious violation of the constitutional rights granted to citizens.

The Secretary of State is responsible for various elections. Meuser said that if elected, he will thoroughly check the number of voters in California and promote the voter ID card system.

If youre dead, removed them from the voter rolls, explained Meuser. If youve moved from the state of California, remove you from the voter rolls; if youre not a citizen, you need to be removed from the voter rolls; and so, we just got to do our job.

Meusers bike tour in California will end on August 23. He encourages voters to pay attention to his questions and make the electoral system more open and transparent.
Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) supporters hold placards that read "Free Kem Sokha" during a protest in Phnom Penh on September 26, 2017. Kem Sokha was the leader of the CNRP opposition party before it was dissolved. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images)

China Meddles With Elections in Other Countries Through Cyber Activities

China, an authoritarian regime under one-party rule, is flexing its cyberespionage prowess to meddle in the elections of democratic nations.

Monovithya Kem, a Cambodian political activist living in the United States, alerted U.S. cybersecurity firm FireEye, after she realized that an email she receivedpurportedly from a human-rights group expressing sympathy for her fathers jailing in Cambodiawas sent from a free account, according to an Aug. 18 report by Japanese newspaper Nikkei.

China considers the hacking experience gained in Cambodia as a trial run for influencing politics in neighboring countries in the future, according to the Nikkei report.

Kem is the daughter of Kem Sokha, former head of the now-dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), who has been imprisoned on treason charges since September 2017. Two months after his arrest, CNRP was dissolved.

The charge was based on allegations that Sokha had orchestrated a street protest in 2014. The nonprofit Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a report published Aug. 21, said the charge against Sokha was preposterous, and that he was jailed because he had the audacity to lead an opposition party. HRW called for his immediate release.

A report issued in July by FireEye concluded that an attached document in Kems email was malware that could steal Kems personal information if she were to download it. FireEye identified that the email to Kem originated from an IP address in Hainan, a province in southern China.

The sender turned out to be a China-based hacking group, Temp.Periscope, that FireEye has tracked since 2013. And Kem wasnt the only target: Temp.Periscope had an extensive interest in Cambodia politics ahead of the countrys July 29 general elections for parliament seats.

FireEye compiled a long list of government organizations and individuals in Cambodia to have been compromised by Temp.Periscope, including the National Election Commission, Ministry of the Interior, two Cambodian diplomats, and multiple Cambodian media entities.

The groups motivation is to keep Hun Sen, the pro-Beijing prime minister and leader of the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP), in power, according to Nikkei. He has served as prime minister since 1985.

On Aug. 15, electoral authorities in Cambodia announced that the CPP won all 125 parliamentary seats in the July election, which guaranteed that, as the leader of the CPP, Hun Sen would stay in power.



Exporting Election Meddling

The United States is also worried about possible election meddling. President Donald Trump indicated in an Aug. 18 Twitter post that there could be cybersecurity threats from China.

All of the fools that are so focused on looking only at Russia should start also looking in another direction, China, he wrote.

Echoing Trumps remark, national security adviser John Bolton expressed concerns about foreign influences, including China, on the 2018 U.S. midterm elections in November, during an interview with ABC that aired on Aug. 19.

Meanwhile, the democracy that would most likely come under threat of Chinese cyber-meddling is undoubtedly Taiwan. China regards Taiwan, a full-fledged democracy with its own constitution and military, as a renegade province that must be united with the mainland, by military force if necessary.

In July, the website of Taiwans ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party, was hacked. Taiwanese investigators believe the cyber-attack came from China, according to a report by the Financial Times.

We anticipate in the run-up to elections at the end of this year and continuing until the 2020 presidential elections, Taiwan will become a global hotspot for cyberattacks and fake news, a spokesperson for Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has said.

Influencing election results isnt the only thing on Chinas cyber agendathe regime is interested in obtaining intelligence on the future of its One Belt, One Road (OBOR, also known as Belt and Road) projects throughout Southeast Asia, according to an Aug. 15 report by Reuters.

Under OBOR, more than 60 countries across Asia, Europe, and Africa have partnered with China on infrastructure projects.

Citing information from FireEye, Reuters reported that Malaysia would become a typical target of Chinese state-sponsored cyber activity. Chinese cyber scrutiny was to be expected, especially after Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad halted several OBOR projects that were authorized by his predecessor, Najib Razak.

Mohamad ordered the postponements after a state investigation revealed that funds for the projects were used to repay dues to the Malaysian state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Razak is currently under investigation for his alleged role in the misappropriation of those funds.

On Aug. 21, Mohamad, while on a diplomatic visit to Beijing, announced that he had canceled two OBOR projects: a proposed railway and gas pipeline, after speaking with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, according to the New Straits Times, an English-language newspaper in Malaysia.
The Sichuan Provincial Bureau of Cultural Heritage recently said that it had inspected two ancient stone carvings of Buddha in response to an online outcry about their condition.









And it found that both the carvings had been painted by local Buddhist believers in the 1990s.





On Aug 4, a netizen who went to see the two carvings in Anyue county and Guang'an city in Sichuan complained about their condition.





The next day, the Anyue county bureau of cultural heritage issued a written statement that one of the stone carvings is located in Fengmen Temple in Yunguang village in the county's Gaosheng township.





The temple, built in the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), has 23 stone carvings of Buddha. And in June 1995, local believers raised funds to repair the temple.





When the head of the county's cultural relic administration went to the scene, he found one carving had been painted, and he stopped work on the rest, the statement said.




People using their phones in the Central district of Hong Kong on July 26, 2016. (Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images)

Chinese Criminal Gang Illegally Collected 3 Billion Items of User Data

China recently arrested five individuals in connection with the biggest data-theft case in the countrys history, with more than 3 billion items of user data stolen from 96 internet companies, including industry giants Baidu, Tencent, and Alibaba.

Police in Yuecheng District, Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province, arrested the suspects for stealing the data and profiting through marketing businesses they established. The criminal group is estimated to have earned more than 30 million yuan ($4.38 million) a year, state-run newspaper Beijing Youth Daily reported on Aug. 20.

One of the suspects was released from custody for reasons of physical well-being. Meanwhile, the groups leader, identified only by the surname Xing, is a fugitive, Chinas state-run media Xinhua reported on Aug. 20.

According to Beijing Youth Daily, many citizens and companies reported to the police that over the past two months, their social media accounts began following unfamiliar accounts or added strangers as friends. They also received spam ads, pop-ups, and text messages on their mobile phones.

The police investigated, with technical help from Alibaba, and found that the criminal group stole the data using a publicly listed firm they set up, Ruizhi Huasheng Technology Corp. in Beijingwhich, in turn, operated three companies to carry out the scheme.

Since 2014, Ruizhi Huasheng signed marketing contracts with telecoms operators such as China Unicom and China Mobile Tietong in more than 10 provinces and cities in China. Through the deals, the criminal group got the remote login permissions of these companies servers.

Having obtained access permission, the criminal group installed malicious programs on the internal servers, which automatically collected key data such as user cookies, search histories, transaction records, travel logs, and hotel check-ins, according to a report by Chinese business news site Yicai. The data was then exported to Ruizhi Huashengs multiple servers at home and abroad.

Under the guise of Ruizhi Huashengs online marketing business, the group then used the stolen information for advertising purposes on social-media platforms, such as WeChat and microblogging site Weibo, thus earning profits from the data.

During the investigation, the police found the criminal group stored large amounts of data on servers in Japan in order to escape detection. The police also said that the group deleted more than 100 million pieces of other data they had collected, in an attempt to conceal the crime.
Chinese Man Kidnapped in LA, Held on $2M Ransom: FBI

The FBI is searching for a Chinese man who was kidnapped in the Los Angeles area and held by his captors on a $2 million ransom.

Luochen Tony Liao, 28, was kidnapped by three men in San Gabriel near downtown Los Angeles on July 16, said the FBI in a statement. He was last seen getting into a dark minivan at a shopping plaza on Valley Boulevard.

Authorities said Liao, a Chinese national, attended a business meeting at the shopping plaza, CBSLA reported. The three suspects involved in the kidnapping drove two carstwo in an SUV and one in a minivanand took Liao away in the minivan.

After the kidnapping, the suspects demanded $2 million from Liaos family for his return. The money was not paid, according to the FBI.

Liao is involved in a business selling high-end luxury cars.

A witness reported seeing one of the suspects, who has been identified as David. The FBI has released a sketch of the man who they believe to be an acquaintance of Liao, AP reported.

David has been described as a Chinese male, 35 to 40 years old, who speaks Mandarin and is approximately 6 feet tall.

While the motive is unclear, investigators are looking into the possibility that Liao was involved in a business dispute.

We do know some of the individuals [Liao] has been involved with may not have been the most reputable, Gene Kowel of the FBI said during a press conference on Aug. 20.

Liaos family, who live in China, has not heard from the kidnappers for about a month, since the initial ransom demand.

Our hope is that Tony is still alive. Were operating under the premise that he is still alive, Kowel said.

However, we do become concerned as these cases progress the chance of someone remaining alive can diminish.

The family has offered a $150,000 reward for information that could lead to Liaos return. While the FBI is offering a separate reward of $25,000 in the case.

Were negotiable with the reward that were willing to pay for this. Hes a deeply loved person by his family. Hes their only child, and theyre very, very concerned for him, said Matthew Lombard, attorney for Liaos family.

From NTD.tv
A man looks at a picture, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Soviet-led invasion into former Czechoslovakia, placed on a street in Liberec, Czech Republic, Aug. 21, 2018. (Reuters/David W Cerny)

Czechs Mark Half-Century Since Soviet Invasion

PRAGUEFifty years ago Soviet tanks rolled into Prague to crush the Czechoslovak Communist governments democratic reforms, ushering in a bloody occupation whose lessons many Czechs fear have been forgotten.

The anniversary, marked in Prague and the Slovak capital Bratislava by ceremonies, exhibitions and films about the Prague Spring and its brutal suppression that began on Aug. 21, 1968, comes at a time of renewed influence for the long-marginalized Czech Communist Party in national politics.

Prominent European Union politicians said the anniversary also underlined the need to defend freedom and democracy today on a continent facing a new wave of authoritarianism in eastern Europe, as well as a more assertive Russia.

August 21 (1968) was a punch to the face, said Vladimir Hanzel, recalling the raw violence of the day when 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops  mostly Soviet but also Polish, Hungarian and Bulgarian  descended on his country.

Hanzel, then a 17-year-old student, said he made his way to the centre of Prague against his mothers advice to see the foreign troops blast the National Museum with heavy machine gunfire, mistaking the ornate building for a government office.

Amid general confusion, as the troops struggled with Czech street names, he described Prague citizens erecting barricades with trams and other vehicles, which prompted the soldiers to open fire, killing and wounding dozens.

Moscows Communist leadership had ordered the invasion to end the Czechoslovak Communist Partys reforms easing travel restrictions and censorship. This had allowed greater media freedom and exposed the regime to allegations of corruption.

The surprise invasion led to the end of Czechoslovak Communist leader Alexander Dubceks Socialism with a human face policy and to two more decades of totalitarian rule until mass peaceful protests in 1989 finally ended Communist rule.

Communists Are Back

Hanzel, who later served as personal secretary to Vaclav Havel, the countrys first post-communist president, expressed concern that, for the first time since 1989, the Czech Communists are again wielding political influence.

In July, the pro-Russian, anti-NATO Communists, who have maintained a place in parliament, helped Prime Minister Andrej Babiss minority government win a confidence vote.

It is one of todays big paradoxes that the Communists are again pushing forward and people dont mind, said Hanzel.

Babis told Reuters in an interview last month that todays Communists were a democratic party and no foreign partners had raised concerns.

Babis, a billionaire businessman, is battling in court allegations that he himself was an informer for the Communist secret police. He was greeted by protesters whistling and shouting Shame! at a ceremony to mark Tuesdays anniversary.

I dont agree that freedom is under threat today, Babis said in a speech. Freedom and democracy mean above all that I am able to accept that somebody has the right to different opinions and preferences to mine.

However, Petr Pithart, the first Czech prime minister after 1989 and then Senate speaker, said he expected protests against Babis over his cooperation with the Communists would continue.

It is massive, as if people felt threatened again, he told Reuters.

Tuesdays anniversary coincides with mounting concerns in Brussels and other western European capitals about the resilience of democracy in post-communist member states. The EU and rights groups have criticized judicial reforms in Poland and Romania and the curbing of media freedoms in Hungary.

Alluding to such worries, veteran EU lawmaker Guy Verhofstadt tweeted: 50 years ago today, the Red Army crushed the hopes of Czechs & Slovaks who sought freedom & democracy. Europeans must now stand together & reject a new wave of authoritarian influence undermining our societies again.

Slovak President Andrej Kiska also tweeted: Our most important duty is to protect freedom & ability to determine our own future without a fear that choices we make will be crushed by brute force.

Another legacy of the Soviet-led invasion is deep distrust of Russia among many in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia  which split peacefully in 1993  even though some leading politicians advocate increased economic ties.

Czech President Milos Zeman, who opposes EU sanctions on Moscow, drew criticism for declining to speak on Tuesday.

The Czech intelligence service often highlights Russian espionage activity in politics and business.

(The Russians) probably would not come with tanks today but there are other forms. They think they are a great empire, said Dana Kyndrova, curator of an exhibition of photographs from August 21, 1968.

By Robert Muller
Venezuelan migrants heading to Peru walk along the Panamerican highway in Tulcan, Ecuador on Aug. 21, 2018. Ecuador announced on August 16 that Venezuelans entering the country would need to show passports from August 18 onwards, a document many are not carrying. (LUIS ROBAYO/AFP/Getty Images)

Ecuador Imposes New Passport Requirements as Millions Flee Socialist Venezuela

Number of Venezuelans who have left country could reach 3 million by year's end

Almost 500 Venezuelan migrants traveling to Ecuador from Colombia had to halt their journey when they learned that they needed a passport to enter the country.

A mob of desperate Venezuelans numbering in the dozens, however, ignored the new requirement and simply forced their way into Ecuador without permission.

The Ecuadorian government began asking Venezuelans to show passports, rather than their national ID cards, as of Aug. 18. The move came after the daily influx of Venezuelans reached 4,000, which raised concerns among the authorities.

The Ecuadorian Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained in a statement that ID cards are easy to counterfeit. The officials argued that the change was necessary to increase security and prevent crimes such as human trafficking.

Ecuador serves as a transit country for most Venezuelan migrants, whose preferred destinations further south are Peru, Chile, and Argentina. The United Nations estimates that about 550,000 Venezuelans have entered Ecuador this year, with 72,000 of them deciding to stay.

After Mike Pences visit to Ecuador in June, the U.S. government gave $2 million to the Lenin Moreno administration to address the migration crisis. In total, the United States has provided $31 million in humanitarian and financial assistance to Venezuelan migrants, through the U.N. Refugee Agency and to other Latin American governments.

The number of Venezuelans seeking asylum abroad might reach 3 million by the end of the year.

As for the next step, were asking the regions countries to unite and seek a comprehensive solution to humanely handle the flux of these people who are desperately in need, Nancy Izzo Jackson, deputy assistant secretary at the State Departments Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, said during a press conference on July 2.

Many other Latin American governments are taking similar measures to that of Ecuador to keep Venezuelan migration under control. The United States, which received more than 27,000 asylum requests from Venezuelans in 2017, is a popular but more difficult destination because of the distance and travel costs.

For instance, Peru, the new home to more than 350,000 Venezuelans, will start requiring passports on Aug. 25. Almost 32,000 Venezuelans live in Chile, where the government is stepping up efforts to formalize their migrant status and asking them to pay $50 for a certificate of criminal record. In addition, Brazil has been deploying military troops to enhance security at its border with Venezuela for some months.

Ecuador Yields to Venezuelan Vulnerability

Just a day after Ecuador began requiring passports, a group of Venezuelans had already bent the rule. They spent the night in tents outside the Ecuadorian migration office, waiting for a response on their status. In the morning, when no answer was given to them, they crossed the border, and no officials stopped them.

We are not moving because we want to. The government is killing us on account of hunger. We are afraid to be denigrated, said one of the Venezuelan travelers, Carlos Quinteros. He implored the officials to have pity on them. We would rather die here than return. El Comercio, a Quito-based newspaper, reported that he was able to get into a pickup and move on from the border.

Later, at noon on Aug. 19, the Ecuadorian government announced four exceptions to the passport requirement, because the ombudsman of the country requested a reassessment of the situation. The exceptions are for: (1) underaged children entering with their parents or guardianswho must have a valid passport and documentation that shows their relationship, (2) married couples when one of them has a valid passport and the other does not, (3) Venezuelans who have been in Ecuador before Aug. 18 and are in family-reunification process, and (4) asylum applicants.

The government also provided a six-month grace period for Venezuelans already in Ecuador to formalize their migration status. Further, to allocate more resources and money to assistance for Venezuelan migrants, three Ecuadorian provinces have declared states of emergency.

Brazil Struggling With the Same Pain

On Aug. 5, a Brazilian federal judge in the state of Roraima, in the north of the country, ruled in favor of closing the border to Venezuelans until further notice. His idea was to open the borders once Roraima had created ideal conditions to handle the massive Venezuelan influx.

Two days later, however, the order was overturned by the Brazilian central government, since it declared that closing the borders would worsen the humanitarian conditions of Venezuelans. The closed border also went against international migration commitments.

Still, the Brazilian government deployed more security in the area120 additional menafter the confrontations between locals and Venezuelan squatters on Aug. 18. A local business owner reported that he had been robbed by a Venezuelan, so a migrant camp in the town of Pacaraima was attacked by a group of Brazilians. That forced about 1,200 migrants to return to their country.

The government of Venezuela has asked Brazil to safeguard Venezuelan citizens and take measures to secure their families and belongings. In the meantime, the Brazilian government has recommitted to supporting the Venezuelan diaspora until the migrants arrive at their planned destinations.

More than 30,000 Venezuelans live in the state of Roraima, out of the more than 77,000 in all of Brazil. About 33,000 Venezuelans have requested asylum so far this year, which is already more than the 2017 total.

No End in Sight: What to Do?

Intellectuals, political influencers, and governmental authorities have shared their opinions about the Venezuelan exodus, including Organization of American States Secretary General Luis Almagro, who overtly opposes the regime of Nicolas Maduro and has called for opening borders throughout the Americas to Venezuelans.

There is no shortage of pushback, however. Colombian political science and communications professor at the University of Pamplona Edgar Allan Nino believes the arrival of plenty of Venezuelans and even Colombians [once residing in] Venezuela multiplies exponentially the social problems that [the Colombian government has] tried to address. These problems now appear to be getting out of control given the exoduss vast dimensions.

Ian Vazquez, a Peruvian and policy analyst with the libertarian Cato Institute, encourages governments to offer a legal framework for arrival, and he argues that Venezuelan arrivals would accelerate growth in Latin American economies: It is time to promote a regional initiative to formalize the influx of Venezuelans and accept them in a legal manner, he said. Not doing this would not change the reality; Venezuelans would keep coming, but the majority would stay in an illegal manner.
Ex-Trump Lawyer Cohen Pleads Guilty in Deal With Prosecutors

President Donald Trumps former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty in New York on Aug. 21 to five counts of tax fraud, one count of making false statements to a financial institution, and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution.

Cohen agreed to a plea bargain with federal prosecutors.

The guilty pleas came in the same hour that a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, convicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort of eight charges of tax and bank fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts.

The plea deal includes a possible sentence of up to five years and three months in prison, Judge William Pauley III said during the hearing. Pauley scheduled sentencing for Dec. 12 and set bail at $500,000.

Special counsel Robert Mueller referred Cohen to federal prosecutors in New York as part of his investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. The charges to which Cohen pleaded guilty are not related to collusion between the campaign and Russia.

Cohen, who worked as Trumps personal attorney at the Trump Organization, continued to advise the president after the 2016 election. But their relationship had frayed in recent months.

Cohen pleaded guilty to one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate campaign contribution and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution.

That payment likely refers to a nondisclosure agreement Cohen secured from a woman claiming to have had an affair with Trump. The former chairman of the Federal Election Commission has said that such a payment does not constitute a campaign finance violation. If the payment did constitute a contribution, then the candidate would be obliged to make it from campaign funds in accordance with election laws.

A number of Cohens financial dealings since Trumps January 2017 inauguration have become public.

Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG has said it had paid Cohen nearly $1.2 million in a consulting deal; U.S. telecommunications company AT&T Inc. said it made payments of $600,000; and South Koreas Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd. said it hired him for $150,000.

Cohen also received $500,000 from Columbus Nova LLC, a New York company linked to Russian businessman Viktor Vekselberg. The firm has said the transaction had nothing to do with Vekselberg.

Cohen agreed to the plea deal to allow his family to move on to the next chapter, according to a statement from his lawyer, Lanny Davis.

The investigation of Cohen included a raid in April by FBI agents, who seized documents and files from his office, home, and hotel room.

The April FBI raids provoked an immediate reaction from Trumps team, who asked a judge to block prosecutors from reviewing the materials they had seized, citing attorney-client privilege. The effort was unsuccessful.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Fire Challenge Leaves Girl, 12, With Burns Over Half Her Body

A 12-year-old Michigan girl was sent to the hospital on Aug. 17 for burns she sustained while taking part in the so-called fire challenge.

Timiyah Landers became engulfed in flames while she and her friends were imitating a video they saw on YouTube, her mother told Fox2 in Detroit.

Brandi Owens, her mother, stated that she heard an explosion and saw her daughter running up [a] hallway on fire from her knees to her hair, the report said. Owenss fiancee took the girl to the bathtub and sprayed her with water.

Then, Timiyah was sent to the hospital, and her family said that nearly 50 percent of her body was burned.

I was hysterical, Owens told the Detroit News. Were driving to (Childrens Hospital). Shes the one burning, and shes trying to calm me down, and she was apologizing as she cried through the pain.

Friends of the girl said they were doing the fire challenge, which involves people applying flammable liquids to their body before setting them on fire while a video is being recorded.

Owens told the Detroit News that she is considering legal action against YouTube, where her daughter found the fire challenge video. Even though it was her decision to do it, Owens told the paper that she wants YouTube to pull the videos down.

Owens said that parents need to watch what their children are viewing online.

These kids are trying these YouTube challenges, Owens told Fox2. Monitor these kids, especially with these phones and if I could after with this happening, my kids would never be able to be on social mediano more iPhones, nothing.

Not the First

Timiyah isnt the first to be injured in the foolish challenge.

The fire challenge dates back to at least 2012 as one of the first fire challenge videos uploaded to YouTube called fire challenge was uploaded April 5, 2012, showing a person lighting his chest hair on fire.

In July 2014, a 15-year-old in Kentucky received second-degree burns after attempting the fire challenge, and a month later, a 16-year-old in California lit himself on fire after pouring nail polish remover on himself, the Washington Post noted.

Being burned alive was one of the worst things you can imagine, the California teen told KABC. Its my fault. I cant say nothing else besides it was a dumb idea.

When they look on YouTube, they see, Oh okay, wow, I want to try that, the outcome with him was okay,  Owens told the Post of the teens motivation to do it. Some kids know their right from their wrong, but they can still be curious to try something, to say that they tried it.

In July 2018, a 15-year-old teen suffered second-degree burns to his face and body after his friends apparently poured boiling water on him while he was sleeping as part of the Hot Water Challenge.

My skin just fell off my chest, and then I looked in the mirror and I had skin falling off here and, on my face, Kyland Clark, of Indianapolis, told Fox59 at the time. Clark was hospitalized for a week.

If your friends are telling you to do this, they arent good friends, Dr. Ed Bartkus, of Indiana University Health, said to the news outlet.
HHS Touts Lower Drug Prices in First 100 Days of Patients First Blueprint

The presidents blueprint for lowering drug prices, now 100 days into its implementation, is working, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said.

Speaking to reporters on Aug. 21, he attributed a year-on-year 60 percent decrease in price hikes for branded drugs to the unprecedented number of actions the administration has taken to cut drug prices. Azar also said the American Patients First plan, the Trump administration blueprint to lower drug prices and reduce out-of-pocket costs, which was introduced in May, has achieved a 50 percent decline in generic and branded drug prices compared with the same time last year.

Thirteen drug companies have committed to freezing prices for the rest of 2018, four have canceled planned increases, and two have decided to lower prices or roll back increases, HHS said in its announcement. Its unclear which companies HHS is referring to.

In July, Pfizer announced that it would freeze price increases following a conversation with President Donald Trump. Novartis announced a similar move a few days later.

Right now, in a very dynamic environment in the United States  we view it as the prudent course, Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan said at the time.

It could be too early to tell how sustained these prices decreases will be, as many manufacturers often raise prices starting in January.

HHS has been working within its ability on reforms to the system, but Azar also called on drug manufacturers and Congress to do their part to bring down drug prices.

The pharmaceutical industry can and should voluntarily begin disclosing the cost of their drugs in direct-to-consumer advertising, he said. Congress can and should act to preclude gag clauses in private insurance, as well as Medicare.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has already put health insurers and pharmacy-benefit managers on notice that it is unacceptable to include gag clauses, which prevent pharmacists from telling customers about lower-cost alternatives, in their contracts. It is already a policy that Medicare Part D patients cant pay for more expensive drugs when there is an equally effective and cheaper alternative.

CMS also announced a rule change earlier this month that allows Medicaid Advantage plans to negotiate for better drug prices. The rule change allows private insurers and pharmacy-benefit managers, which work with insurers to negotiate drug prices with manufacturers, the ability to negotiate prices for Medicare Plan B drugs, which are often administered at a hospital or in a doctors office but include some outpatient drugs as well.

As part of that announcement, CMS said half of the savings that result from these negotiations with drug manufacturers must be passed on to the almost 20 million seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans.

The Trump administration has also approved a record number of new generic drugs, which have the same active ingredients as branded drugs, but are usually less expensive. In July, the FDA approved 126 generics, the highest number for any single month in history, according to HHS.

In June, HHS approved a waiver for Oklahoma Medicaid that would allow the state to pursue a value-based rebate program with drug manufacturers. If the drugs arent effective, the state could get money back in the form of rebates.

Azar has said he is also in favor of importing drugs when drug shortages or price hikes in the U.S. make it cheaper to import the same drug from another country. Last month, he created a working group to look into these short-term imports; they have already held meetings.

Together, these actions have helped bring into focus a vision for a more competitive pharmaceutical marketplace, said Dan Best, a senior adviser to Azar for drug-pricing reform. Pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmacy-benefit managers, and other actors in the market have indicated that they recognize the scale of disruption this would involve.
A new show about the women of Chinese royal courts at a museum in the United States highlights the growing cultural ties between the two countries.









The women of the Chinese imperial court were a special group of people throughout the country's long history. As the wives of the most esteemed rulers of the land, it is easy to imagine how magnificent their lives once were, given their social standing. Yet since written records and documents focus more on the rulers, who were male, the details of the royal women's lives largely remain a mystery.





To shed some light on these untold stories of the queens, an exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, United States, opened recently. Titled Empresses of China's Forbidden City, the exhibition features hundreds of spectacular objects from the Chinese court over the centuries.





"This is the first major exhibition that explores the role of the empresses in China's last dynasty, the Qing Dynasty from 1644 to 1911. In many respects, it's quite surprising that this topic hasn't been tackled before," says Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, the James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes deputy director of the PEM, during a recent media preview of the exhibition.




Houston Communists Break the Law by Running as Democrats

The Houston Communist Party is knowingly breaking the law in Texas, where it is illegal for a communist to hold public office or even a state government job.

The local Party knows this full well. In 2011, they petitioned to have the lawTitle 5, Subtitle A, Chapter 557, Subchapter A & C as well as Sec. 557.022overturned immediately.

The Texas law was originally designed to keep violent revolutionaries out of public office. The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) does not openly advocate violence these days, because its primary means of struggle is through the Democratic Party.

Make no mistake, CPUSA is a Leninist party. Vladimir Lenins method of achieving revolution was through strategic deception. A good Leninist will feign peaceful intent when out-numbered but will unhesitatingly use force when the balance of power shifts in his favor.

To quote from volume 6 of Lenins collected works: When the [anti-government] demonstrations became consolidated, we began to call for their organization and for the arming of the masses and put forward the task of preparing a popular uprising. Without in the least denying violence and terrorism in principle, we demanded work for the preparation of such forms of violence as were calculated to bring about the direct participation of the masses and which guaranteed that participation.

To subvert Texas law, the Houston communists ran candidates for office in this election cycle who all posed as Democrats.

The communist plan to break state law was revealed in a July interview, The art and science of building the Communist Party, conducted by Communist Party USA organizational secretary Joe Sims with Houston Party chair Bernard Sampson.

In the 73-minute interview, Sampson openly acknowledges that it is illegal to run as a communist in Texas, while boasting that his Houston Communist Party Club is running four candidates for public office this cycletwo of whom he identified.

Communist Candidates

The first is a young mother, Sema Hernandez, who ran for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat Socialist and a Berniecrat in the Democratic primary against Beto ORourke.

Sampson named Hernandez as a Houston Communist Club member and, though she lost to ORourke, boasted that her impressive 250,000 vote tally was the highest ever achieved by a Texan communist. Hernandez is now a Texas leader of Rev. William Barbers communist-dominated Poor Peoples Campaign, which is currently organizing anti-Trump protests and marches across the country.

Comrade Sampson also named Penny Shaw, the Democratic candidate for Harris County Commissioner Precinct 4, as a Houston Communist Party member.

Shaw won her primary with an impressive 22,860 votes, or 75.11 percent of the vote. She will now face incumbent Jack Cagle in the November general election.

Cagle had better be prepared for a mammoth fight, because Shaw will have the Houston Communist Clubs 200-plus members working diligently door-knocking and phone-banking on her behalf. Shaw will also be supported by overlapping organizations such as Our Revolution and the Texas Organizing Project.

Shaw will also likely have the backing of the Coalition of Community Organizations, which is run by Sampson and the Rev. James Caldwell, a pastor who joined the Houston Communist Party.

Shaw addressed the July meeting of the Houston Communist Party Club. The comrades seem to have liked what they heard.

According to Sampson: The club is working in Penny Shaws election campaign.  This precinct has over a million people in it and if elected she would help decide on the distribution to working-class constituents of a budget thats well over a billion dollars a year.

While not named by Sampson, the third candidate was likely Houston bio-chemist Ali Abbas Khorasani. An open member of both the Houston Communist Party and Houston Democratic Socialists of America, Khorasani ran in the Democratic primary for Texass 2nd Congressional District. Khorasani lost the primary but still ran a respectable second place with backing from both DSA and the Communist Party.

The fourth candidate is yet to be unidentified.

Far-Left Congressional Candidate

There is, however, one local far-left Congressional candidate who bears watching.

Texas state Rep. Sylvia Garcia is running for Congress in the open 2nd District seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Gene Green. According to a 2014 CPUSA convention report from Sampson:

Comrades, Id like to talk about the growth of the Houston club in the last year and a half, and the reason for that growth.

Next, the political struggle here in Houston. We worked in the Sylvia Garcia campaign for state rep, in which she won.

Garcia is also heavily backed by the Communist Party-intermingled Texas Organizing Project and supported by Houston Rising, an alliance of the Texas Organizing Project, the communist-led Coalition of Community Organizations, the far-left Workers Defense Project, and other radical organizations.

The CPUSA runs communists on the Democratic ticket all over the country. Ohio Communist Party Chairman Rick Nagin has run several times as a Democrat, often coming close to victory. The Party has boasted that several of its members are elected officials but wont usually reveal who they are.

It is unethical for a communist to run as a Democrat, but in Texas, its illegal.

Will Texan authorities apply the law? Will they force known communists off the ballot? Will they punish the Houston Communist Party for its deliberate law-breaking? Will the Texas Democratic Party protect its integrity by expelling those who seek to exploit its good name for revolutionary purposes?

Stay tuned.
Nazi Labor Camp Guard Living in NY Deported to Germany

WASHINGTONA 95-year-old former Nazi labor camp guard who had been living in Queens, New York, for decades was deported to Germany on Aug. 20, according to U.S. officials.

Jakiw Palij worked as an armed guard at the Trawniki slave-labor camp for Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said. He hid his involvement from immigration officials, both when he immigrated from Germany in 1949 and when he subsequently became a U.S. citizen in 1957.

The United States will never be a safe haven for those who have participated in atrocities, war crimes, and human rights abuses, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement on Aug. 21. Jakiw Palij lied about his Nazi past to immigrate to this country and then fraudulently become an American citizen. He had no right to citizenship or to even be in this country.

Palij concealed his Nazi service by telling U.S. immigration officials that he had spent the war years working until 1944 on his fathers farm in his hometownwhich was previously a part of Poland and is now in Ukraineand then in a German factory, according to the DOJ.

He admitted to his past to the DOJs special investigations team in 2001that he was trained at the SS Training Camp in Trawniki, in Nazi-occupied Poland, in the spring of 1943.

Documents subsequently filed in court by the Justice Department showed that men who trained at Trawniki participated in implementing the Third Reichs plan to murder Jews in Poland, code-named Operation Reinhard, the DOJ said.

On Nov. 3, 1943, some 6,000 Jewish men, women, and children incarcerated at Trawniki were shot to death, in one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust.

Palijs U.S. citizenship was revoked in August 2003 and he was placed in removal proceedings in November 2003. In August 2004, an immigration judge ordered Palij deported to Ukraine, Poland, or Germany, or any other country that would admit him. He lost a subsequent appeal in 2005.

The State Department expressed deep appreciation to Germany for accepting Palij.

Palij is the 68th former Nazi to be removed from the United States.

A Survivors Reaction

In an Aug. 21 interview with The Epoch Times, Holocaust survivor Manny Drukier, 89, wondered about Palijs current state of mind.

As a former inmate, now 89, who was in 194245 near the place where Jakiw Palij gruesomely participated, I wonder if his experience is a burdensome load to bring with him to Munster? Drukier said.

Drukier, born in Lodz, Poland, was interned in several concentration campsKielce and Czestochowa in occupied Poland, then Buchenwald and its satellite camp Floessberg in Germany.

At wars end, Drukier emigrated to New York, but when he discovered his mother and sister were alive and living in Toronto, he joined them there. He is the author of Carved in Stone: Holocaust Yearsa Boys Tale, and a documentary film is in progress about his life. [Editors Note: Drukier is the father of Epoch Times editorial staff member Cindy Drukier.]

Drukier said whichever German community or retirement home that Palij is now joining should be made aware of his background.

Perhaps, his fellows now sharing meals with him would consider themselves deprived if not told of their seatmates past, he said.

Cindy Drukier contributed to this report.
Flash Flooding in Southern Italy Leaves at Least 10 Hikers Dead

A Dutch tourist described it as a sudden avalanche of water

Flash flooding in the Calabria region of southern Italy has left at least 10 hikers dead, while others may be missing, officials said. The hikers were hit by a sudden swell in a narrow gorge, resulting from heavy rains upstream.

The civil protection department said 23 people were rescued following the Aug. 20 flooding in Raganello Creek, part of the Pollino National Park; many of them were hospitalized.

Images carried on television show rescuers climbing down steep rocks to try to rescue the hikers from the devastating scene. The tragedy in the popular tourist spot is thought to have involved 36 hikers.

The death toll was revised down to 10 from 11, a number announced erroneously by the civil protection agency earlier on Aug. 21, according to officials.

It is really difficult terrain, filled with obstacles because of the [geological] formation of the area, said Eugenio Facciolla, the chief prosecutor of the provincial capital, Cosenza.

He said rescuers working under spotlights were trying to locate areas where some people may have survived, by ending up on small patches of shore or tiny islands in the creek.

A Sudden Avalanche

The nationalities of those who have died and were injured werent known immediately, but some people caught up in the devastation have spoken to local reporters.

A sudden avalanche of water came in. We did not have time to do anything, I was really lucky, incredible, a Dutch tourist told local media. Im really speechless and I cry for the people who could not be saved.

The main square in Civita, the closest town to the gorge, has become a center for aiding those caught up in the flood.

The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported on a heartbreaking scene in the town, in which a woman shouted through tears: Among the dead, there is a man without hair?  If theres a man without hair, tell me, its my husband.

According to the newspaper, another woman told a rescuer she had heard a roar, and then water had come and swept people away.

I managed to move and cling to a tree, but I saw bodies being dragged away with a crazy violence, she said.

Those who were injured include an 8-year-old girl, who was found suffering from hypothermia, according to the Italian newspaper Repubblica. The girl, identified only as Chiara by the newspaper, was taken to a hospital in Cosenza.

I will never forget that tremor and her hand that touched ours while we hoisted her on board, her rescuer, Pasquale Gagliardi, said in a Facebook post.

Catapulted Out

This gorge filled up with water in a really short space of time and these people were catapulted out like bullets. They ended up some three kilometers (two miles) down the valley, said Carlo Tansi, head of the civil protection department in Calabria.

Tansi said the gorge was only about four meters (13 feet) wide in some places, increasing the speed of the water and making the rescue more difficult.

He said that the rescue operations continued throughout the night.

The Public Prosecutors Office has opened an investigation into the tragedy.

Last week, a bridge collapsed in the Northern Italian city of Genoa, killing 43 people.

Reuters contributed to this report.
JPMorgan Adds to Tesla Deal Doubts

Tesla Inc shares fell nearly 4 percent on Monday as a $113 cut in JPMorgan Chases price target for the electric carmaker added to growing doubts among market players about a plan to take the company private.

Slashing its price target for Tesla Inc from $308 to $195, the brokerage said it did not believe Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk had funds for a plan announced by a tweet that said funding secured two weeks ago.

Analysts from the U.S. bank had upped its forecast from $198 to $308 after a roughly $100 surge in Tesla stock following Musks tweets on Aug. 7 and the note on Monday was the latest evidence of skepticism about the deal on Wall Street.

People familiar with the matter said on Sunday that PIF, the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund that Musk says had been pressing to help fund the buyout, is in talks to invest in aspiring Tesla rival Lucid Motors Inc.

Our interpretation of subsequent events leads us to believe that funding was not secured for a going private transaction, nor was there any formal proposal, JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman wrote in a client note.

Tesla does appear to be exploring a going private transaction, but we now believe that such a process appears much less developed than we had earlier presumed, suggesting formal incorporation into our valuation analysis seems premature at this time, Brinkman said.

JPM now targets the stock, which it continues to value at underweight, back at $195, versus Fridays close of $305.50. The median price target of the Wall Street analysts covering Tesla is $336.

Tesla shares touched a three-month low of $285 in premarket trading before recovering to trade around $290, reducing its market value back below that of General Motors as the biggest U.S. carmaker.

An interview with the New York Times, in which Musk said he was under major emotional stress in the most difficult year of his life, on Friday added to investors concerns over his leadership after a series of social media spats.

A person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters last week that the SEC has opened an inquiry related to Musks tweets on the buyout and the billionaire is also facing a class action suit from investors who lost money in the share moves.

The lack of process to (Musks) announcement has now caused governance and competency concerns which are starting to snowball, said Tigress Financial Partners analyst Ivan Feinseth.

By Sonam Rai
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (L) and China's Premier Li Keqiang attend a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China Aug. 20, 2018. (Reuters/Jason Lee)

Malaysia Cancels Megaprojects Under Chinas OBOR to Save Country From Debt

Mahathir stands firm as he asks for fair trade with China

Malaysias Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad announced the cancellation of two major Chinese state-backed infrastructure projects, valued at a total of about $23 billion, during a press conference on the final day of an official visit to China.

Mahathir canceled the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) and the Trans-Sabah Gas Pipeline (TSGP) projects, which were part of Chinas One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, saying his countrys top priority is now to minimize its debt and loans.

The projects will not go onit will be deferred until such time when we can afford, then maybe we will reduce the cost. I believe China itself does not want to see Malaysia become a bankrupt country, he said on Aug. 21, before departing for Kuala Lumpur.

Mahathir added: If we have to pay compensation, we have to pay. This is the stupidity of our negotiations before. We must find a way to exit these projects.

Mahathir was wrapping up a five-day trip to China, at the invitation of Premier Li Keqiang.

OBOR, first announced in 2013 by President Xi Jinping, is a trade and infrastructure project which currently aims to connect 70 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania to China.

Great map illustrating the scope of #China's One Belt, One Road (#OBOR) strategy. If successful, it would arguably be the largest overseas investment drive ever launched by a single country. Via @TheEconomist. pic.twitter.com/UcwjXqAhLB  Lukas Trakimavicius (@LukasTraki) June 6, 2018

The outcome of the diplomatic trip was highly anticipated around the globe after the 93-year-old leader warned last week that his government, Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope), was looking to either cancel or renegotiate the controversial Belt and Road initiative. The multibillion-dollar initiative backed by the Chinese state was signed under the administration of Datuk Seri Najib tun Razak, Mahathirs predecessor.

Malaysias Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng called the initiative completely lopsided, while Mahathir told the Associated Press last week: Where we can drop this project, we will. But we may have to postpone some because we have made agreements, and to breach the agreements will cost us a lot.

When asked by Li whether Malaysia stands together with China on free trade during a press briefing on Aug. 20, the Malaysian leader replied, Free trade should also be fair trade.

Malaysia supports free trade, but it should also be fair trade. Malaysia will not support any form of colonisation under the name of trade: PM @chedetofficial pic.twitter.com/Q7MdTL21dK  TheMalaysianReserve (@TMReserve) August 20, 2018

Mahathir warned that less developed nations should not be taken advantage of by wealthier countries.

You dont want a situation where theres a new version of colonialism happening because poor countries are unable to compete with rich countries in terms of just, open, free trade, he said.

Mahathirs Concerns About Chinas Belt and Road Initiative

Since returning to power three months ago, Mahathir has heavily criticised the $23 billion Chinese state-backed infrastructure projects signed by his predecessor amid corruption allegations. Just this month, Najib was charged with three counts of money-laundering breaches linked to state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

Malaysia is currently investigating whether Najibs coalition government, Barisan Nasional (BN), used cash intended for the multibillion infrastructure project with China to pay off its own debts.

Sums of as much as $700 million owed by 1MDB may have been paid with the funds transfered through offshore shell companies, according to government officials involved in reviewing the projects.

The charges, for which Najib pleaded not guilty, could see the former leader face up to 15 years behind bars, along with a fine of no less than five times the amount of the funds involved. In June, the former Malaysian prime minister also pleaded not guilty to charges of criminal breach of trust and corruption.

There are also increasing concerns over the Belt and Roads long-term benefits for the nation. Mahathir fears the current deals, which were agreed to by Najib, could lead to high levels of debt and financial dependence on Chinathe worlds second-largest economy.

The ambitious $20 billion ECRL project and the $2.5 billion deal for two gas pipeline projects, which were to be constructed by an arm of the state-owned energy giant China National Petroleum Corporation, are among the plans cancelled by Malaysias leader, who said they made no financial sense for the country.

OBOR May Be Harmful for Malaysia Long Term

Some countries already committed to the OBOR initiative have run into financial difficulty since their infrastructure projects began, triggering further alarm bells over how beneficial the projects would be for Malaysia.

Last year, in a debt deal, Sri Lanka handed over a major strategic port, along with 15,000 acres of land to China on a 99-year lease, after its debts to Chinese state-owned firms ballooned. The Hambantota Port was acquired by China after several months of negotiations and intense pressure.

Jens Roehrich, Professor of Supply Chain Innovation at the University of Bath, told The Epoch Times, Concerns about owing unmanageable debts to China have been raised by countries such as Sri Lanka, and with Chinas takeover of the troubled port, this has raised questions about a loss of sovereignty.

Roehrich said there are fears that Chinas slowing economy and sluggish growth may force its companies to migrate production facilities to other countries within Asia to help them build their infrastructure.

He added, This may have a negative impact on a countrys own market.

Similarly, the Pakistani component of Chinas OBOR initiativethe $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that was supposed to promise the country development and prosperityhas proven to be largely unpopular with its people.

Balochistanat the center of CPEC and Pakistans largest province by areahas seen protests led by children for being neglected by the multibillion dollar energy and infrastructure projects. Only two of the 21 planned CPEC energy projects will be installed in the area despite electricity shortages, and there are no plans to construct a six-lane highway in the region, the Financial Times reported.

#China should immediately withdraw all its investments and forces from #Balochistan or else they will continue to face Baloch youth

Rehan Baloch's message to china #Balochistanisnotpakistan #ChinaHandsOffBalochistan #FreeBalochistan pic.twitter.com/NYAoC4KbRP    (@bnymn786) August 15, 2018

Meanwhile, the China-Laos railway, which began construction in 2016, is thought to cost up to 50 percent of the countrys GDP.

Upon returning to office, Mahathir said, We cannot afford to take on too much debt from China.

Malaysias national debt currently stands at $250 billion.

Could Mahathirs Decision Compromise Malaysia-China Relations?

While addressing 400 Chinese entrepreneurs and business leaders on Aug. 19, Mahathir made clear his aims to better ties with Malaysias biggest trading partner.

Last year, Malaysias total trade with China amounted to over $92 millionover $30 million more than with Singapore, in second place, according to Bloomberg data.

Since Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is in China, have a look at this diagram. China, not Singapore, is Malaysia's biggest trading partner. pic.twitter.com/X33Bq3W5Cj  David Ingles (@DavidInglesTV) August 20, 2018

The 93-year-old told the China Entrepreneur Leaders Forum that instead of confrontation, Malaysia should focus on bettering economic ties, as Malaysia-China ties go back almost 2,000 years, he said.

Mahathir said, Were not against any Chinese companies but against Malaysians who borrow huge sums of money to carry out unnecessary projects.

Mahathir also urged Beijing to sympathise with Malaysia over its current fiscal problems during a joint press conference with Li Keqiang on Aug. 20.

In an interview with The Epoch Times, Syed Ahmad Israa, chief executive officer of the Interdisciplinary Research & International Strategy (IRIS) Institute, said he believes disagreements with China over the Belt and Road initiative wont end positive ties with the country.

Mahathir is trying to find and demand fairer terms and deals with China, so that we wont be overdependentwe will not just simply close our door to anyone because we have some disagreements, he said.

Li told Mahathir, China will not change its longterm friendly policies toward Malaysia because of changes in domestic situations.

Small Fish Welcomes Investment From Big Fish, Conditions Apply

While canceling the two projects linked to Chinas Belt and Road initiative, Mahathir insists he is open to foreign investment.

Chinese investors felt worried because I took over, people were saying I was anti-Chinese, but what I said to them is we have to look after Malaysian interests.

What we are worried about is the projects which are not viable and the huge debts that were incurred, Mahathir said in a press conference on Aug. 21.

He added: As far as being business friendly, its still on. They must conform to the normal conditions of foreign investment.

In terms of investment from China in the future, Mahathir said it would be deferred until such time when we can afford, then maybe we will reduce the cost.

Israa said, Mahathir has shown that although were smaller, and we really have to depend on Chinas finance, we still have the position and ability to determine what is the best for us, and we should not just be subservient to what China wants.
Melania Trump Announces Africa Trip

First lady Melania Trump announced that she is planning to visit Africa.

She told AP in a statement on Aug. 20, that she will visit several African countries in October.

This will be my first time traveling to Africa and I am excited to educate myself on the issues facing children throughout the continent, while also learning about its rich culture and history, she said in the statement. We are a global society and I believe it is through open dialogue and the exchanging of ideas that we have a real opportunity to learn from one another.

She also said she plans to bring light to successful humanitarian and developmental efforts underway on the continent.

The first ladys spokeswoman said Melania Trump chose Africa as her first big international destination as first lady after hearing about developmental efforts, including those that involve U.S. investment in the health and education of the children of Africa.

At a meeting with African leaders last year, President Trump praised fast economic growth in Africa and highlighted economic partnerships between African countries and the United States. The president also acknowledged some of the security challenges facing the country and sought greater peace.

The Presidents Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa also holds meetings and gives recommendations to the president on expanding economic cooperation with African countries, according to its website.

Melania Trumps only other solo international trip as first lady was to Toronto for the Invictus Games, AP reported.

She accompanied President Trump on trips to Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Brussels, Japan, South Korea, France, the United Kingdom, and Finland. She was unable to go to Singapore for the presidents meeting with North Koreas Kim Jong-un in June because of kidney surgery the month prior.

The first lady also addressed the Cyberbullying Prevention Summit in Rockville, Maryland, the same day she sent her statement to AP. She spoke about the dangers facing children using social media platforms. She also spoke about how the summits goals tie in with her Be Best initiative, of which responsible social media behavior is one of the goals.

She launched her Be Best initiative in May. According to the official White House website, the Be Best childrens initiative has three main areas of focus that include the well-being of children, their social media use habits, and combating opioid abuse.

The 48-year-old first lady was born in Slovenia, and in 2006, she became the only first lady to become a naturalized U.S. citizen, according to AMNY and the White House website. She is the second first lady born outside of the United States. The first one was Louisa Adams, wife of the sixth U.S. president John Quincy Adams. She was born in London, according to Time.

Donald and Melanias son Barron Trump is 12-years-old. He was born the same year Melania Trump became a U.S. citizen, one year after she and Donald Trump married. President Trumps other four children are older and a result of two previous marriages, AMNY reported.

From NTD.tv
#MeToo Activist Argento Alleged to Have Paid Off Own Accuser: Report

A female pioneer of the #MeToo movement, who was one of the first to accuse Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, allegedly paid off her own accuser in secret, a new report by The New York Times revealed.

Italian director and actress Asia Argento reportedly paid actor-musician Jimmy Bennett $380,000 in exchange for not suing her after she allegedly sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room in 2013. At the time of the incident, Argento was 37 years old and Bennett was still a minor at 17 years old. Californias age of consent is 18.

The payment took place just months after Argento first made public her accusations against Weinstein in October 2017.

The claims and evidence of payment were in legal documents arranged between both their lawyers. The documents were sent to the NYT through encrypted email by an unidentified party and included a selfie from May 9, 2013, of the pair lying in bed together. They had worked together before in a 2004 film titled The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, which Argento also wrote and directed. Bennett played Argentos son in the movie.

After the NYT report was published, Rose McGowan, a fellow critic of Weinstein and an ally of Argento, publicly distanced herself from Argento in an Aug. 20 tweet.

I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago, McGowan wrote. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere.

Argentos agency representative didnt respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

The 2013 incident was so traumatizing to Bennett that it affected his work, income, and mental health, according to a notice of intent to sue from Bennetts lawyer, Gordon K. Sattro, the NYT reported. The notice asked for $3.5 million in damages for the intentional infliction of emotional distress, lost wages, assault and battery.

His feelings about that day were brought to the forefront recently, when Ms. Argento took the spotlight as one of the many victims of Harvey Weinstein, Sattro wrote.
Muni Officials Say Service Is Normal On First Day Of School Year. Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash

Muni Officials Say Service Is Normal On First Day Of School Year

A San Francisco Municipal Railway spokesman said bus service is operating on schedule today on the first day of the new school year after the citys school district warned that bus driver shortages could cause delays.

A message on the San Francisco Unified School District website said, An operator shortage has resulted in Muni delays across San Francisco, which Muni is working on addressing. Students and staff who ride Muni may experience delays getting to and from school.

Muni spokesman Paul Rose said this morning that bus service has been operating as normal today, the first day of the 2018-19 school year.

On Aug. 17, Muni officials learned that 72 operators are going to make the transfer from working part-time to full-time, allowing the agency to add more than 700 additional service hours daily, Rose said.

Although the school district partners with school bus service First Student Inc. to provide yellow-bus service to and from each school, many district students ride Muni buses.

Muni officials estimate that half of the school districts 57,000 students use public buses or light-rail to get to and from school each day.
A Chinese financial regulator has vowed stronger credit support for the real economy.

The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) has encouraged banks and other financial institutions to work more vigorously to meet the financing demand of the real economy, in particular, cash-starved private and small firms, agriculture and rural regions, and lagging economic areas including infrastructure.

This came as the latest move of a government campaign to tackle corporate financing difficulties and prompt the financial sector to better serve the real economy.

China's new yuan loans stood at 1.45 trillion yuan (211 billion U.S. dollars) in July, up 627.8 billion yuan from a year ago, data from the central bank showed.

Loans to infrastructure and small firms contributed half of the total last month, a sign that the targeted credit policy has started to take effect, Wu Wen with Bank of Communications said, predicting regulators will channel more energy into the area.

Banks have been instructed to continue credit support for companies that have good records and qualifications but face temporary capital strain, as worries emerged that lenders may ask companies to pay off loans early or stop lending agreements.

The CBIRC said in a statement that banks should raise the proportion of medium- and long-term loans and set reasonable lending terms and repayment schedules to avoid the cash crunch for borrowers.

More capital will also be channeled to consumer finance and import and export enterprises, according to the statement.

The measures will let consumption play a bigger role in propelling the economy and help companies deal with the impacts from changes in foreign trade, said Dong Ximiao with Renmin University's Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies.
Australias former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speaks to the media during a news conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on Aug. 15, 2018. (AAP/Lukas Coch/via Reuters)

Prime Minister Calls Snap Contest for Party Leadership, Survives the Vote

Malcolm Turnbull remains prime minister after defeating Peter Dutton in a snap leadership spill by a vote of 48 to 35.

Turnbull declared the leadership of the Liberal party vacant on the morning of Aug. 21, challenging opponents to contest the position. Home Affairs Minister Dutton was the only contender.

Dutton, who lost the ballot by seven votes, has since resigned from the ministry and will now sit on the backbench, Sky News reports. A cabinet shuffle is now due, with a number of frontbenchers expected to move to the backbench, according to AAP.

It has been confirmed that Treasurer Scott Morrison will also now take the Department of Home Affairs under his belt as a temporary solution.

Turnbulls position remains in jeopardy despite surviving Duttons leadership challenge.

Weve seen it so often in Australian politicsthis two-stage act play in removing a prime ministerand, given how close the vote was, theres definitely more to come, said Haydon Manning, a political science professor at Flinders University in South Australia.

A Look At History

In February 2015, then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott survived a motion to spill the leadership by a vote of 61 to 39. Seven months later Malcolm Turnbull toppled Abbott, winning 54 votes to 44, becoming Australias 29th prime minister.

Julia Gillard, in February 2012, won her first leadership challenge, defeating Kevin Rudd 71 votes to 31. The following year, she won another uncontested leadership ballot in March, before finally being defeated by Rudd in June, by a vote of 57 to 45.

Back in the 1990s, Bob Hawke won his first ballot against Paul Keating 66 votes to 44 in 1991, before being defeated by him in a second spill later that year by a vote of 56 to 51.

Reuters contributed to this report.

From NTD.tv

WATCH:

Emissions Reduction Target Dumped From the NEG
John Liu and Kenneth Cole (rear) attend the 2013 Footwear Cares Community Service Week and National Volunteer Week announcement at City Hall in New York City on April 22, 2013. (Rob Kim/Getty Images)

Senator Avellas Campaign Slams Lius Double Standard Ethics Mailer

Senator Tony Avellas campaign has condemned candidate John Lius recent mailer, in which he is presented as an ethics-driven candidate, despite his extensive history of flouting campaign finance laws.

The mailer acclaims Liu wants to restore integrity and ethics in government as one of the bullet points that he will fight for. Lius previous campaign for New York mayor in 2013 fell apart after two of his staffers were convicted of federal corruption charges and sent to prison for using straw donors to illegally funnel contributions.

Liu himself was fined $26,000 last year by the Board of Elections over the scheme and was also fined over $500,000 by the Environmental Control Board for poster violationsfines that he still has not paid for. Now 5 years later, Liu is re-entering politics again and is trying to unseat Avella in the states 11th district. They both are Democrats.

Scandal-ridden John Lius mailer is his latest attempt to bait and switch voters from his sordid past of corruption, said Avella campaign spokesperson Jeff Frediani on Aug. 20. If John Liu was really interested in government integrity, he would pay back the $500,000 in fines he accumulated from the City of New York.

Avella helped pass a law to cut pensions from public officials guilty of corruption charges. Liu did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Lius aides were also found to have ties to organized crime and Chinas communist regime. His fundraiser, Xing Wu Oliver Pan, was executive vice chairman of the Fukien American Association that organizes events for visiting officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Chinatown. It is also associated with the Fuk Ching gang.

Congestion Critique

Liu has been a long-time supporter of congestion pricing, a fee system where people are charged more to enter certain heavy traffic zones during peak times. The revenue from this proposed system would then be put into repairs, such as New Yorks crippling MTA subway system.

But days ago, Avellas campaign criticized Liu for his support of the idea, arguing it would raise the fees and tolls for Queens residents.

Under the congestion pricing plan, drivers entering Manhattan from Northeast Queens would be charged $11.52 during peak hours for entering congestion Zones in Manhattan. This totals to about an additional $60 a week for the daily commute to work.

John Liu should be ashamed of himself for supporting congestion pricing, Frediani said on Aug. 15. The people of the 11th Senate District have been nickel and dimed for far too long while living in a transit desert.

If scandal-ridden John Liu wants to help pay for the MTA, he can start by paying back the $500,000 in poster violations he still owes the City of New York.
Sfusd Supe To Make Two Visits During First Day Of School. (Photo by Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash)

Sfusd Supe To Make Two Visits During First Day Of School

San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Vincent Matthews will be making two school visits this morning as students return to the classroom from summer break today.

Matthews will first visit Hillcrest Elementary School, which sits between the Excelsior and Portola districts at 810 Silver Avenue in San Francisco, from 8:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.

He will then travel to Francisco Middle School in North Beach, located at 2190 Powell Street in San Francisco, to visit with students from 10 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.

District officials said Matthews will visit a third-grade classroom at Hillcrest and a sixth- and eighth-grade classroom at Francisco.
Burned-out physicians are more likely to quit or work part-time, which in turn affects the continuity and quality of care the patients receive. The solution is a change in doctor culture. (shutterstock)

Stanfords Chief Wellness Officer Aims to Prevent Physician Burnout

Suicide and patient complaints plague physicians expected to be invincible

Stanford Medicine hired Dr. Tait Shanafelt as chief wellness officer last year, not so much for the well-being of the patients as for the well-being of the physicians.

An oncologist and hematologist by training, Shanafelt, 46, has become a national leader in the movement to end physician burnoutthe cumulative effect of years of stress that can compromise patient care and cause doctors to leave medicine. After 12 years at the Mayo Clinic, Shanafelt now heads up Stanfords WellMD Center, dedicated to physician health. He also serves as an associate dean of the Stanford University medical school.

He lives in Portola Valley, California, with his wife, a nurse, who works part-time, and their four children, ages 4 to 13.

Shanafelts goal is to address the systemic problems in medicinelong hours, a culture of blame, endless record-keepingand find solutions that go beyond yoga classes or free ice cream for doctors.

Shanafelts research has raised national awareness of physician burnout, said Dr. Christine Sinsky, an Iowa physician and vice president of professional satisfaction for the American Medical Association, who has co-authored studies with Shanafelt. Because of his work, institutional leaders now understand the importance of addressing burnout, she said. Improvement is possible.

Its a high-stakes effort, one joined by other physicians and researchers nationwide: Roughly 300 to 400 doctors die by suicide each year, and physicians rank among the occupations with the highest risk of death by suicide. A 2017 National Academy of Medicine paper, co-authored by Shanafelt, found that more than half of U.S. physicians experienced substantial symptoms of job burnout.

Shanafelt spoke to California Healthline recently about his work. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: How did you come to be interested in physician burnout and well-being?

A: Its a bit of a fluke, to be honest. As an internal medicine resident 20 years ago, I was supervising a team of interns when my supervisor asked, What are you observing? I said that burnout is affecting the care we give to patients. We did that first studyit was one of the first to show links between burnout and patient-care outcomes. It became an absolute lightning rod. It completely opened a national dialogue on the topic.

Q: How is physician burnout linked to quality of care?

A: Weve shown in a number of studies that every one point increase in burnout [as measured by a survey] increases the risk of a medical error in the next three months. Other studies have shown that if a hospitalized patient is being cared for by a doctor whos burned out, their recovery takes longer. Burned-out physicians are more likely to leave their jobs or work part-time, and thats disruptive to the continuity of care for their patients. Burned-out doctors are twice as likely to have patient complaints from the ombudsman and complaints of unprofessional behavior.

Q: What is it about the physician culture that leads to burnout?

A: The notion that physicians are superhuman and that normal human limitations dont apply to us. The way we trained physicians to do 36 hours on a shift and somehow, we thought wed be as good in hour 36 as we were in hour 1. We know thats not true for any profession. We also tend to have a culture of invincibility and a lack of vulnerability with colleagues.

Q: How have you handled burnout personally?

A: I have a clear sense of the things that really matter to me, both professionally and personally, and try to make choices that are aligned with that. I have accountability partnersone of whom is my wifewho ask, Are you living consistently with the things that matter most? Being able to recognize within yourself when you need to take a break and step away and have rest and use your vacation in a strategic way, I think about these in far more intentional ways than I did earlier in my career.

Q: What are some changes youd like to see in medical education to prevent burnout?

A: We probably need to imbue future physicians with different values about self-calibration and self-care as necessary skills. There needs to be a greater culture around vulnerability and supporting each other in the demands of the work.

We also need to understand the unique challenges and demands of each specialty. A surgeon and a radiologist have different jobs. Emergency physicians, for example, have high rates of burnout but also high rates of work-life satisfaction.

But unless we as a profession have a dialogue about burnout more broadly, all the things we do in training will have a limited impact. The minute new doctors go into practice, they look at the behavior of their more senior colleagues and theyre instantly going to adopt that behavior.

Q: How has the consolidation of health carewith fewer independent practice physiciansaffected doctor burnout?

A: Its a double-edged sword. A larger system has opportunities to think about the way work is distributed to provide more flexibility and to create systems of peer support. But by the same token, many health care organizations also restrict autonomy, and people have less flexibility than they might have had in a small group practice. Theyre held accountable for productivity expectations and expected to overwork. We need to give people a voice. We need to help leaders not treat people as cogs or widgets.

Barbara Feder Ostrov, is senior correspondent for Kaiser Health News, which publishes California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.
Trump Honors ICE and Border Patrol, Slams Open Border Extremists

WASHINGTONBorder Patrol agents referred a tractor-trailer to the secondary inspection lane at a checkpoint north of Laredo, Texas, on Aug. 11, after a K-9 alerted them to the presence of concealed humans or narcotics.

The vehicle proceeded to elude and flee the checkpoint, Border Patrol agent Adrian Anzaldua said during a White House event on Aug. 20.

Agents gave chase, and the truck was forced to stop about a mile north of the checkpoint.

I went out there and ran the dog, Anzaldua said, explaining that his K-9 again alerted the agents to the presence of drugs or humans. Subsequently, I opened the little latch on the back of the tractor-trailer and opened the door.

In the back of the locked refrigerated trailer were 78 illegal aliens, from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil, Ecuador, India, and Dominican Republic, according to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statement.

All of them were in good health, Anzaldua said.

He was one of several agents who were invited on stage by President Donald Trump during his Salute to the Heroes of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

Trump credited Anzaldua and the agents involved for saving the lives of the 78 people.

The president told the assembled audience of around 150 law enforcement officers, politicians, ICE and CBP officers, and their families that his administration will always support them.

We love you, we support you, we will always have your back. And I think you know that, Trump said. Everyone here today understands a vital truth: American is a land of opportunity because we are nation of laws.  For America to be a strong nation, we must have strong borders.

Trump hit back at politicians and open borders extremists, who he says have waged an unprecedented assault on American law enforcementour greatest people.

In major cities across the nation, these open borders radicals have blocked access to ICE buildings, defaced public property, and threatened public safety, Trump said.

In Portland, Oregon, the mayor recently ordered police officers to stand down when federal officers were facing an angry mob of protesters.

The outcry over ICE, which included calls by leading Democrats to abolish the agency, gained steam in June after the administration called for all adult illegal border crossers to be prosecuted.

Consequently, around 2,000 children were temporarily separated from their parents while the parents awaited prosecution. However, the separations were carried out by CBP, not ICE.

Trump said the vast majority of Americans support law enforcement and condemned the attacks against the agencies. Its just a small group that gets a lot of publicity because they have no courage, they have no guts, they just have big, loud mouths, he said.

Just prior to the event, Trump sent out a letter to state and local leaders asking them to publicly express their support for ICE and CBP officers.

In fiscal year 2017, ICE arrested more than 125,000 aliens with criminal records. Among the crimes were roughly 48,000 assault offenses, 12,000 sexual offenses, 11,000 weapons offenses, and 1,900 homicides, the letter said. Abolishing ICE effectively means no enforcement, and no bordersand would result in massive crime, huge loss of life, colossal economic hardship for American workers , and lawless anarchy.

Any politician who puts criminal aliens in front of American citizens should find a new line of work, Trump said.

Trumps speech was preceded by a panel discussion that included the heads of ICE and CBP, as well as Arizona border Sheriff Mark Dannels, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, Sen. David Purdue (R-Ga.), and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall.

CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said the agency was set up following 9/11, with the primary mission of counterterrorism.

He said the agency prevents an average of 10 suspected terrorists per day from entering the United States, often through the denial of visas. But the agency is also responsible for the around 1 million incoming passengers and pedestrians who enter at ports of entry every day, on average, as well as $6.3 billion worth of imported products. And its Border Patrol arm is responsible for securing the border between ports of entry.

Theres been a lot of focus on people crossing the border that dont present an obvious threat or concern, McAleenan said. But really, alongside that, is a hardened group of smuggling organizationstransnational criminal organizationsthat are violating our laws by bringing people and contraband across our borders.

Sheriff Mark Dannels from a border county, Cochise County in Arizona, has spent 34 years working in law enforcement in border communities.

He said local citizens change the way they live because of cross-border crime in their communities.

He said a 60-year-old National Parks Service cleaner was killed recently by a smuggler. She was getting cleaning supplies from her truck at a local park bathroom area when a smuggler bashed her head with a rock and left her for dead, Dannels said.

He said the man had already served time in two of Arizonas state prisons under different aliases. The man is now back in prison serving 76 years.

Anybody who thinks that criminal transnational organizations coming across this border are good for communities is 100 percent wrong, Dannels said. We talk about open bordersI am 100 percent opposed to that.

The only way were going to solve this is if we have a leader like President Trump.
Trump Moves to Lift Obama-Era Anti-Coal Regulations

The Trump administration is replacing Obama-era regulations on power-plant emissions with a new rule that hands power to the states and scraps restrictions aimed at eliminating coal as an energy source.

The acting head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, signed a proposal on Aug. 21 that would replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which was blocked from taking effect by the Supreme Court for being overly broad.

The new regulation, titled the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, is similar to the Clean Power Plan in that it would reduce carbon dioxide, while additionally reducing the compliance burden by an estimated $400 million annually, according to the EPA. In some scenarios considered under the proposal, the avoided compliance costs compared to the CPP total at $6.4 billion.

The ACE Rule would restore the rule of law and empower states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide modern, reliable, and affordable energy for all Americans, Wheeler said in a statement.

The Obama-era regulation was largely perceived as being overly broad. In addition to the stay order from the Supreme Court, a bipartisan majority in Congress formally disapproved of the plan. It also was opposed by 27 states and 24 trade associations, according to the White House.

In 2017, coal was responsible for 30.1 percent of the electricity generated in the United States, according to the Energy Information Administration. Natural gas was responsible for 31.7 percent, having surpassed coal in 2016 as the lead source of the nations electricity generation for the first time.

Nearly 40 percent of coal-powered plants are currently shut or expected to close, according to the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. By 2030, coal was projected to provide 29 percent of electricity in the United States. The decline is projected to be less steep under the new plan.

The Clean Power Plan was an expansive program to regulate an entire energy sector that inserted [the] EPA into energy policy with a clear goal to shut down coal, according to a fact sheet by the EPA. Meanwhile, the new rule returns power to the states, keeps [the] EPA focused on environmental policy, and keeps coal plants open and makes them more efficient.

In a statement timed with the release of the proposed new rule, the White House cited a study by the National Economic Research Associates that found that the Obama-era plan could have resulted in double-digit electricity price increases in 40 states.

The CPPs top-down approach to energy regulation would have unnecessarily raised electricity prices, harmed our economy, and cost jobs, the White House said in a statement.

The coal mining industry has lost 36,000 jobs since 2009, according to the White House. While on the campaign trail, Trump promised to bring those jobs back.

We will put our coal miners and steel workers back to work, Trump said on Aug. 8, 2016.

On Sept. 22, 2016, the president was more specific, promising to rescind the coal mining lease moratorium, the excessive Interior Department stream rule, and conduct a top-down review of all anti-coal regulations issued by the Obama Administration.

Weeks after winning the election, the presidents transition team promised to end the war on coal.

Trump followed through on all three promises. In February last year, the president ended the stream protection rule. The following month, the Interior Department rolled back the coal mining lease moratorium.

We are pleased that EPA has proposed a rule to replace the Clean Power Plan, especially one that allows the states to play a crucial role in determining which emission reduction measures make sense. In contrast to the illegal Clean Power Plan, EPAs proposal is based on a correct reading of the Clean Air Act, said Michelle Bloodworth, president of American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).

Rhode Island and Vermont are the only states that do not use any coal to generate electricity, according to ACCCE. Coal provides for more than half of all electricity in 13 states and for a quarter of all electricity in another 24 states.

West Virginia, Wyoming, and Missouri lead the United States for the total share of electricity produced from coal with 93, 86, and 81 of all power produced coming from coal.
National flags of Russia and the U.S. fly at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia on April 11, 2017. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

Trump Officials Say Russia Hit Hard by Sanctions, Threaten More Economic Pain

Trump administration officials told lawmakers in Congress on Aug. 21, that Washingtons sanctions on Russia are having a significant impact on the Kremlin and the oligarchy that props it up and threatened that more punitive actions are in store if Moscow refuses to change course.

The White House has targeted Russia for a broad range of malign activities around the world, including the occupation of Crimea, the enabling of the Assad regime in Syria, and the destabilization of Western democracies.

Senior officials told the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about how sanctions on Russian oligarchs have decimated their net worths, crippled their businesses, and cast them out of the international community.

Though Russias malign activities continue, we believe its adventurism undoubtedly has been checked by the knowledge that we can bring much more economic pain to bear using our powerful range of authorities and that we will not hesitate to do so if its conduct does not demonstrably and significantly change, Acting Deputy Treasury Secretary Sigal Mandelker told the lawmakers.

Unlike North Korea and Iran, which are both subject to broad sanctions from the United States, Russia has an economy that is heavily integrated with the global financial system and Americas allies in Europe. As a result, the Treasury Department has had to issue surgical sanctions that would maximize pressure on the Kremlin while minimizing while minimizing unintentional spillovers to the United States, our European allies, and the global economy, said Assistant Secretary Marshall Billingslea.

Since President Donald Trump took office, his administration sanctioned 217 Russian individuals and entities. Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued blocking sanctions on 14 Russian banks and 124 Russian financial institutions.

Members of Congress, where both chambers are controlled by Trumps fellow Republicans, have called for more actionincluding threatening sanctions from hellto punish Russia for malign activity, including alleged cyber attacks attempting to influence U.S. elections.

Treasury has made countering Russian aggression a top priority, and consequently, our actions to date have resulted in an unprecedented level of financial pressure against those working on behalf of the Kremlin and in key sectors of the Russian economy targeted by U.S. sanctions, Assistant Secretary Marshall Billingslea told lawmakers. Treasury will continue to do its part to impose costs in response to Russian malign activity, leveraging all of the tools and authorities that we have.

Russian oligarchs Oleg Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg were mentioned by two Treasury Department officials as examples of the impact that sanctions are having on the Moscow oligarchy. Since being sanctioned, Deripaskas net worth shrunk by 50 percent while shares of his investment fund, EN+, plummeted from $12.20 to $5.40 on the London Stock Exchange. Vekselbergs net worth dropped by more than $3 billion while foreign governments seized his assets abroad.

Our actions are having an impact. Research by the State Departments Office of the Chief Economist shows that on average sanctioned Russian firms see their operating revenue fall by a quarter; their total asset valuation fall by half; and are forced to fire a third of their employees, said A. Wess Mitchell, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

In separate actions on Aug. 21, the Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on two Russians, one Russian company, and one Slovakian firm over actions it said helped another Russian company avoid sanctions over cyber-related activities. The United States also announced sanctions on Russian shipping over the transfer of refined petroleum products to North Korea in violation of U.N. restrictions.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Aug. 21 that new U.S. sanctions were groundless and promised a response from Moscow.

In a statement, published on the ministry website, he also said the sanctions were introduced under a false pretense.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Trump Sends Condolences to Families of Saudi Students Who Drowned

President Donald Trump has sent letters of condolence to the families of two Saudi students who accidentally drowned in June while rescuing two small children from a fast-moving river in Massachusetts.

The letters, dated Aug. 9, were sent to the families of Jaser al-Rakah and Theeb al-Yami.

On behalf of the American people, I respectfully extend our sincere condolences, Trump wrote to the families, according to a copy of the letters posted by the official Saudi press agency on Aug 18.

Authorities said the 27-year-old al-Yami of Hartford, Connecticut, and the 25-year-old al-Rakah of Springfield drowned after being swept away by the rivers fast-moving currents during the rescue. The children survived the ordeal.

Al-Yami, a student at the University of Hartford, and al-Rakah, a student at Western New England University, were in the United States on scholarships provided by the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission, according to a statement.

The students were hailed as heroes.

Jaser [and Theeb] exemplified tremendous courage by putting [their] own life at risk to save two distressed children from drowning in the Chicopee River. [Their] heroism represents the very best of humanity, and (their) noble actions will always be remembered, Trump wrote in the letter.

He continued: Melania and I send our thoughts and prayers to you during this sorrowful time. May you find strength in the inspiring legacy of (their) selfless sacrifice.

Both students came into the U.S. to study engineering.

An earlier statement from the State Department also praised the students heroic actions.

Their heroism represents the very best of the international students who enrich communities across the United States, said spokesperson Heather Nauert. Theeb and Jaser were among the 52,000 Saudi students studying in the United States who bring greater international understanding and diverse perspectives to U.S. campuses and communities, and to Saudi Arabia when they return home.
US President Donald Trump and US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell make their way to a Senate Republican policy lunch at the US Capitol in Washington, DC on May 15, 2018. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump Urges Senate to Pass Bill That Would Crack Down on Illicit Opioid Shipments

President Donald Trump is urging the Senate to quickly pass a measure that would stop illicit synthetic opioid drugs such as fentanyl from being transported into the United States from China through the postal system.

It is outrageous that Poisonous Synthetic Heroin Fentanyl comes pouring into the U.S. Postal System from China, he wrote in an Aug. 20 Twitter post.

Fentanyl is an opioid thats 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2016, about 19,400 people died from overdoses involving synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, other than methadone.

We can, and must, END THIS NOW! The Senate should pass the STOP ACT  and firmly STOP this poison from killing our children and destroying our country. No more delay! Trump continued in the post.

In June, the House appproved the STOP Act, among a barrage of comprehensive measures to combat the opioid crisis; the Senate has yet to act on the bill.

The presidents comments come amid talk that the administration will soon release a highly anticipated report aimed at reforming the U.S. Postal Service.

The STOP Act legislation, first introduced in September 2016 by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and then-Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, strengthens postal rules and would require mail shipped through foreign postal services to send the same electronic advance data as private carriers such as United Postal Service or FedEx.

The act also highlights that most of the drugs are being sent from places such as China and India, and often via mail.

The data would enable U.S. Customs and Border Protection to better target potential illegal packages and keep these dangerous drugs from ending up in the hands of drug traffickers who want to harm our local communities.

The legislation also includes another drug called carfentanilthe same class of drug as fentanyl, only 100 times more potent. Carfentanil has been used as a sedative for large animals, and also is banned from the battlefield under the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Update: Mollie Tibbettss Father Says Body Found in Iowa Is Her

The father of Mollie Tibbetts, Rob, said that the missing 20-year-old college student was found dead, Fox News reported on Aug. 21.

The Poweshiek County Sheriffs Office said in a statement that officials are working to identify a body, CNN reported. No details will be shared until a 5 p.m. ET press conference, according to Mitch Mortvedt with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI).

Poweshiek County includes Tibbetts hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa.

Read More Mollie Tibbetts Found Dead: Fox Report

Earlier today a body was located by law enforcement authorities in rural Poweshiek County. Investigators are working to confirm the identity and will have more information available at the 4:00 p.m. press conference. There will be no further information released from law enforcement until the press conference, the Iowa DCI said in a press release on Aug. 21.

Two law enforcement sources also told Fox News that Tibbettss body was found in Iowa. Greg Willey, who is the vice president of Crime Stoppers of Central Iowa, told The Associated Press that the body found today is believed to be Tibbetts. CBS News, citing its sources, also reported that she was found dead.

No arrests have been made. No suspects have been named.

More Details

Tibbetts, a University of Iowa student, was last seen in Brooklyn, Iowa, on July 18. She was reported missing by her family the next day after she didnt show up for work at a day camp for children.

Tibbetts disappearance set off a massive search involving dozens of officers from the FBI, as well as state and local agencies. They focused much of their efforts in and around Brooklyn, searching farm fields, ponds, and homes. Investigators asked anyone who was around five locations, including a car wash, a truck stop and a farm south of town, to report if they saw anything suspicious on July 18.

Its unclear whether she returned to the home where she was dog-sitting for her boyfriend and her boyfriends brother, who have said they were both out of town. She was reported missing by her family the next day after she didnt show up for work at a day camp for children.

Last week, on Aug. 15, Vice President Mike Pence said he met with the family of Tibbetts, according to the Des Moines Register. I just want Mollies family to know: Youre on the hearts of every American, he told the paper. And we will continue to work and we will continue to pray for Mollies safe return.

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Her father said that his familys meeting with Pence was touching and genuine, and the vice president was just another father that was just hurt and bewildered by Mollies story, Fox reported. He just expressed in a very private way his compassion. It was very genuine and it was real. It was very touching, Rob Tibbetts added.

I got the sense that it was not a politician at all, it was just another father that was just hurt and bewildered by Mollies story just like everybody else in America, Tibbetts added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Chinese consumers' demand for imported food has been growing steadily as the standard of living in China improves, according to a statement from the General Administration of Customs.

China's total food imports amounted to $58.28 billion last year, up 25 percent year-on-year, while the annual average growth rate over the previous five years was 5.7 percent, data from the administration showed.

The European Union remained China's largest supplier of food, followed by the United States, New Zealand, Indonesia and Canada. Meat, oil, dairy and seafood were among the most popular food imports in China.

Chen Weinian, purchasing director at Shanghai's City Shop, said that foreign food used to be consumed mainly by foreign expatriates and is now being favored by many more Chinese.

A separate report from the National Development and Reform Commission showed that the country's Engel's coefficient, which measures food expenditure as a proportion of total household spending, dropped to 29.3 percent in 2017, below the benchmark of 30 percent set by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations for the first time and falling into the range for a wealthy life.

Although the proportion of income spent on food fell, Chinese people have become increasingly picky about their food consumption and want diversity and exotic tastes.

For instance, over the past few years, China has been increasing its fruit imports from Latin America. The country's avocado imports from Mexico, Chile and Peru in 2017 alone reached 30,000 metric tons.

China announced a series of measures to reduce tariffs and expand imports at the 2018 Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference, including a 55.9 percent average decline of the most-favored-nation treatment rates for various sectors, including food and beverages.

In addition, with the development of cross-border e-commerce and custom transportation, buying imported food is becoming more convenient and efficient.

China has identified 22 cities, including Beijing, Nanjing in Jiangsu province and Wuhan in Hubei province, as venues for comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zones.

The growth rates of imports and exports in these pilot zones remained above 100 percent in the past two years.

Platforms for cross-border e-commerce are also thriving. As of May, more than 400 third-party platforms and 20,000 transnational e-commerce enterprises had been newly established in the first 13 pilot zones.

Cainiao, a cross-border e-commerce network of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, has built 110 global warehouses and 74 cross-border logistics lines, and offers services in 224 countries and regions.

As a crucial part of food imports, Chinese customs have been striving to accelerate transportation and strengthen surveillance to ensure the quality and freshness of imported food.

"We have opened 'green channels' for imported food and simplified the import procedures for food products to limit the process from arrival to release to just one hour," said Zhang Xin, vice-chief of Zhengzhou customs in Henan province.

Zhang added that in the first half of the year, they had reduced the average time for an imported product to go through customs to 6.69 hours, down 45.8 percent year-on-year.

Safety is a priority for China's booming imported food sector. As a watchdog of food safety, the General Administration of Customs successfully prevented several major imported food safety problems in 2017.

The administration further bolstered the regulation of imported food and facilitated cooperation with its international counterparts to ensure food safety, according to its report released in July.

In 2017, a total of 49,000 tons of substandard imported food products from 94 countries and regions were seized by China's customs, according to the administration.

The administration also makes regular reports on the quality and safety of imported food to promote communication and mutual understanding between the government, enterprises and consumers.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar listens to U.S. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders introduce him during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 11, 2018. REUTERS/Leah Millis

US Health Secretary Says Agency Can Eliminate Drug Rebates

WASHINGTONU.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said it was within his agencys power to eliminate rebates on prescription drug purchases, a key element of the Trump administrations plan to lower prescription medicine costs.

Such rebates are negotiated in the United States by pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) to lower the cost of medicines for their clients, including large employers and health plans that cover tens of millions of Americans.

Drugmakers say they are under pressure to provide rebates to the few PBMs that dominate the market, which include CVS, Express Scripts, and UnitedHealths Optum, and that those payers do not pass on enough of those savings to patientsa contention the PBMs dispute. The drugmakers say the rebates force them to raise the price of their therapies overtime to preserve their business.

The Trump administration has been receptive to that argument. Azar, in an interview on Aug. 17, said rebates created a perverse incentive to continuously raise drug prices.

Azar, a former top executive at drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co, is trying to deliver on President Donald Trumps promises to lower the cost of prescription drugs for Americans, which Trump made a major priority during his 2016 presidential campaign.

The Department of Health and Human Services last month proposed regulations that would scale back protections for rebates that might otherwise be illegal under a federal anti-kickback law.

The PBM industry has challenged that move, saying HHS cannot eliminate rebates on its own and would need Congress to change the federal statute. The ultimate responsibility for high drug prices, those companies say, lies with the manufacturers who set those prices.

The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA), which represents pharmacy benefit managers, has said the administrations proposal to scale back protections for rebates raises troubling questions, but did not comment on Azars latest remarks. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) did not respond to a request for comment.

Azar contends that the current rebates are a product of previous HHS regulation. What one has created by regulation, one could address by regulation, he added.

He did not say when such new regulations, which are being reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget, might take effect. The question of rebates may very well be fundamental to the issue of how you reverse these constant incentives to higher list prices (for medicines).

Campaign Issue

The cost of health care, and prescription drugs specifically, is expected to be a major campaign issue ahead of November elections, in which Democrats are seeking to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate from Trumps Republicans.

In May, Trump unveiled a blueprint comprising dozens of proposed policies to give the government greater leverage over drug prices but did not support changes to give the federal governments Medicare health plan for seniors direct negotiating power with drugmakers. Critics say that has spared the pharmaceutical industry any real challenge to its pricing practices.

Azar defended the administrations actions, noting that more than a dozen leading drugmakers, including Pfizer Inc., Merck & Co., and Celgene Corp., had pledged to hold off on further price increases this year.

They are seeing where this is going, they are seeing that we are ticking off the blueprint items one by one, Azar said. We are not dependent on the voluntary action of pharmaceutical companies. We are not counting on their goodwill or their altruism.  Theyre just changing because they see thats the future.

Critics say the drug price pledges by major drugmakers are largely window dressing.

Since May, HHS has given Medicare Advantage health plans, which are administered by private-sector health insurers, new tools to lower prescription drug costs.

The agencys Food and Drug Administration has unveiled a plan to boost the use of biosimilars, which are cheaper versions of expensive biotech medicines. Azar has directed the FDA to establish a working group to study how to import drugs safely from other countries if a drugmaker dramatically raises prices.

The actions have already sparked concerns. Last week, a leading group of rheumatologists met with Azar to discuss concerns over changes to Medicare Advantage that could force some patients to try a less effective, cheaper medication for a period of time before their health plan would cover a more expensive therapy.

HHS said Azar emphasized the agencys interest in lowering drug prices but expressed openness to alleviating burdens that could be placed on physicians as a result of the new rule.

Azar said he spoke with Trump every few days, either in person or over the phone and that in every conversation, the president wanted to hear about progress on lowering prescription medicine costs.

I have never once had a meeting or phone call with the president where we have not talked about drug pricing, Azar said.

By Yasmeen Abutaleb
As part of an effort to bolster ties with Vietnam, the USS Carl Vinson visits Danang on March 5, 2018. (LINH PHAM/AFP/Getty Images)

US Invested in Strategy for Free and Open Indo-Pacific Region

The U.S. governments interest in a free and open Indo-Pacific region is rooted in the fact that the United States is an Indo-Pacific nation and deeply invested in the broader region, says Alice G. Wells, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs.

In remarks given at the Foreign Press Center in Washington on Aug. 20, Wells previewed her trip to the Indian Ocean Conference and offered insight on the administrations Indo-Pacific strategy.

Longstanding Commitment

The U.S. conducts about $1.4 trillion in two-way trade with the rest of Indo-Pacific, more than any other country in the world, and has provided a cumulative $805 billion in foreign direct investment, Wells said.

We naturally want to build our longstanding commitment to the region, and have taken some important steps recently to ensure the regions future is free and open and operates on a rule-based system.

Wells says the theme of the Indian Ocean Conferencebuilding regional architecturesis timely.

South Asia is the least economically connected region of the world in terms of intraregional trade, and building a stronger regional institutional architecture is one of my top priorities, she said.

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo announced at the Indo Business Forum last month that the United States is funding initiatives in digital economy, infrastructure, and energy with $113 million, including the United States first contribution to the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA).

Pompeo said these funds represent a down payment on a new era and a U.S. economic commitment to peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.

Pompeo also announced on Aug. 4 that the United States will give nearly $300 million and additional security assistance for nations spanning the Indo-Pacific, to strengthen regional security cooperation.

At the Indian Ocean Conference on Aug. 27 and 28 in Hanoi, Vietnam, Wells said she looks forward to highlighting major economic and security investments totaling over $410 million and how these contributions can support development for the region.

Wells said the Trump administration sees U.S. trade with India as a key strategic objective.

Our bilateral trade is now about $126 billion, an increase of more than 10 billion from last year including critical purchases by Indian firms in the commercial aviation, energy and defense sectors, she said.

Chinas Role

Talking about Chinas practices in the region, Wells said the U.S. government welcomes contributions by Beijing to regional development, as long as the Chinese government adheres to high standards, including transparency, rule of law, and sustainable financing.

Weve expressed concerns over projects in countries, where the countries and governments involved have not been able to sustain the repayment schedules that has resulted in effectively a loss of sovereignty over key infrastructure that theyve had to turn over to their lenders, in this instance, China, Wells said.

And so as long as China is prepared to support the integration of the region in ways that are sustainable and dont mortgage these individual countries futures to unrealistic and unsustainable loan terms, then I think theres very much a way that we can work together.

Wells said that she could see many areas in South Asia where the interests of the United States and China overlap, such as ending terrorism and obtaining peace and stability in Afghanistan. Such a basis of overlapping interests gives us a good conversation to start from.

In April, Alex N. Wong, deputy assistant secretary in the State Departments Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, gave an explanation of the United States Free and Open Indo-Pacific policy that, without mentioning China, pointed to Beijings recently aggressive role.

Free means nations in the region can be free from coercion and can pursue, in a sovereign manner, the paths they choose, while open implies open seas and open airways, because 50 percent of the worlds trade goes through the Indo-Pacific sea routes, particularly through the South China Sea, Wong said.

Open sea lanes and open airways in the Indo-Pacific are increasingly vital and important to the world, he said.
Woman Falls Off Sailboat Near Rhode Island; Husband Apparently Didnt Notice for Hours

A woman said she fell off a boat off the coast of Rhode Island, and her husband didnt apparently know that she had been overboard for hours.

The U.S. Coast Guard told CBS News that the woman said she fell off her husbands 39-foot sailboat on Aug. 17 as they sailed from Newport to East Greenwich.

The woman, who was not named in reports, was found on Prudence Island at around 4 a.m. local time on Aug. 18. The woman had mild hypothermia but refused medical treatment, according to the Providence Journal.

The man was found at around 2 a.m. in Warwick after he ran his sailboat aground. The man said that he believed his wife was in the deck below and sleeping. He didnt realize that she had gone missing, as CBS reported.

According to the Boston Globe, the man told Warwick police that he remembered hitting the Claiborne Pell Bridge at around 1 p.m. His next memory was 11 p.m. when he woke up and discovered that his boat had run aground at Conimicut Point Beach, and his wife was missing.

The man went back to the marina and called the police to report his wife missing.

Apple, iPhone, and iPad are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

The U.S. Coast Guard said that the man had been drinking alcohol and operating the boat.

It was pretty challenging because she could have been anywhere. She could have swam to another side of the bay or another buoy or another beach. She could have been anywhere, Petty Officer Sam Van Lent told WPRI-TV.

The storys a little cloudy, Lent also told the Journal.

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management said that it is investigating the incident, the Globe reported.
Woman Killed by Alligator in South Carolina Was Trying to Protect Dog

Officials said the woman killed by an alligator in South Carolina on Aug. 20 was trying to protect her dog from the gator.

In a statement on Aug. 20, the Beaufort County Sheriffs Office said it received a call at around 9:30 a.m. that someone was attacked by an alligator near the Sea Pines Plantation, a resort community on Hilton Head Island. Deputies then saw a body in a nearby lagoon.

When they arrived, fire personnel located the deceased woman inside of the lagoon and recovered her body, while deputies interviewed witnesses. Witness accounts indicate that the womanwho will be identified after her next of kin are notifiedwas walking her dog near the lagoon when she was attacked and pulled underwater by the alligator, the sheriffs office stated.

The woman was identified as Cassandra Cline, 45. She was walking her pet border collie not far from her home on the island when the gator appeared.

Officials stated that the Sheriffs Office Environmental Crimes Unit, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, and Sea Pines Security were searching for the alligator.

The gator, estimated at about eight feet in length, was captured by 11 a.m. local time and was killed, David Lucas, a spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, confirmed.

Protecting Her Dog

She was walking the dog near the lagoon and the alligator came out of the water and tried to get the dog, Lucas said. The lady tried to rescue the dog and a maintenance worker ran over to help.

Alligator attacks on humans are extremely rare, Lucas said. Since 1976, there have only been about 20 attacks on people in the state, he said. Until 2016, none of those attacks had been fatal. That year, a 90-year-old woman wandered away from a Charleston assisted living facility and was found dead in a pond.

An autopsy on Cline will be done in the coming days at the Medical University of South Carolina to confirm the cause of her death.

The dog she was trying to protect survived, officials said.

Thomas DiMaio, who rents a house near where the attack happened, said he heard shrieks when he was in the shower but mistakenly thought they were from a bird.

When he went outside 30 minutes later, he found a crowd gathering beside the road, next to a bag of treats Cline had been carrying.

One of her shoes and her hat dotted a trail leading to the water.

The Dog Was Her Child

Its really sad, DiMaio said. She didnt have any children. The dog was her child, I guess.

The Sea Pines Community Services Associates said that neighborhood officials were extremely saddened by this news, and noted that community members were alerted of the attack through Facebook.

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We are shocked and heartbroken over this loss and are praying for Ms. Clines family and loved ones during this difficult time, Sea Pines President Bret Martin added in a statement.

DiMaio said Cline and her husband divided their time between Hilton Head and their home near Syracuse, New York. DiMaio said he would see Cline and her dog walking two or three times daily, and the woman often carried a bag of treats she would feed to her pet.

She was a very pleasant woman, DiMaio said. Very friendly.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

From NTD.tv
Winchester Interconnect acquired W-Technology, a Houston company that designs rotating electrical connectors and cable assemblies among other components, with financial terms not disclosed.

Norwalk-based Winchester is owned by the private equity firm Snow Phipps Group and is in the process of being sold to Dublin-based Aptiv for $650 million.
For the first time since it took effect in statewide political campaigns back in 2010, neither candidate for governor will participate in the public financing program that was created to check corruption and eliminate special-interest money.

But the refusal of the two candidates for governor to join the voluntary Citizens Election Fund (CEF) this year does not signal the death knell of the program. In fact, its never been stronger. And the two finalists, businessman Ned Lamont of Greenwich and Bob Stefanowski of Madison, are mostly adhering to the key requirement of the CEF: contribution limits of $100.

An analysis by the State Elections Enforcement Commission shows that while they are self-funding their campaigns, only 4 percent of Lamonts contributions have exceeded the $100 limit of the CEF. Stefanowski, a former businessman who used his millions to petition his way onto the primary ballot and bombard the state with TV commercials as far back as January, has accepted about 29 percent of his contributions in excess of $100.

The SEEC said Stefanowski and Lamont are accepting virtually no contributions from state contractors or lobbyists. That was a goal of the program since the bipartisan 2005 legislation was signed into law by Gov. M. Jodi Rell after scandals including the corruption cases that sent John G. Rowland, the former Republican governor, and Ernie Newton, a Democratic state lawmaker from Bridgeport, to federal prison on corruption charges.

Grants up

Michael J. Brandi, executive director and chief counsel for the SEEC, said Tuesday that his agency, which sustained a 40 percent budget cut in 2011, saw a 32 percent increases in grants for political primaries this year compared to 2014. Candidates received a 69 percent increase in contributions compared to the 2014 race, when Gov. Dannel P. Malloy won re-election over Tom Foley, who self-funded in 2010 and participated in the CEF in 2014.

The run of the program this year is one of the most successful in history, Brandi said in an interview. When the Republicans started this process, three out of the five candidates for governor did participate.

Lamonts unsuccessful Democratic challenger, Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim, was ruled ineligible for participation in the CEF because of the earlier corruption conviction landed him in federal prison for seven years.

Although Lamont and Stefanowski arent participating, about 260 other candidates are on track to join the program this summer and fall. With no governors to fund, the program saves $1.35 million in primary support and $6.5 million for the general election, per candidate.

The narrative out there is false, Brandi said of the reported demise of public funding. Weve seen more competition in the primaries, and this year there will probably be a record number of participants.

Claims of unfairness

All five lieutenant governor candidates and four of five candidates for attorney general participated in the CEF. Originally estimated at between $29 million and $44 million, the cost of this years campaigns may end up closer to $25 million, according to the SEEC.

But Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who won the GOP endorsement at the May convention, said Monday that apparent staff shortages in the states election watchdog might have slowed down his campaign. His bigger complaint is that party rules allowed Stefanowski to avoid the traditional format of campaigning.

Its just not a good setup, Boughton said of Stefanowskis petition campaign and refusal to have his name put before the convention for a vote.

The first guy on the air wins, Boughton said. If you get your face shown around the state, youre going to win the election. So you dont have to go to the town committee meetings, the pig roasts, the dinner dances, or the convention. The current process is ruined, so we should go to a direct primary in May, so Republicans and Democrats can spend the summer meeting voters.

More Information Where's the money come from? The Citizens' Election Fund is not taxpayer-financed. The fund has three sources: surplus from prior political campaigns; contributions from state residents; and the reversion of property to the state, including bank accounts of people who die without heirs. Such accounts, known as escheats, generate about $11 million a year. See More Collapse

Yes, millionaires will be fighting amongst themselves for the top elected-official job in the state, said Cheri Quickmire, executive director of Common Cause in Connecticut, the election watchdog group. But its important to remember in all the down-ticket elections, the program remains robust. Its a strong program that offers a chance to run for those who could not otherwise.

She agreed with Boughton that in order to give candidates for governor a better chance against millionaires, the program requires revisions.

We need to make sure those in the program can get their funding earlier and actualize their campaigns before the last minute, she said. We have done nothing but de-fund the SEEC for years.

Boughton said that on April 10, he filed his request for the $1.35 million grant to run the primary under the CEF. He and other GOP candidates, including Tim Herbst of Trumbull and Steve Obsitnik of Westport, didnt get their CEF grants until July.

That was months without feedback, Boughton said, stressing that he is supporting Stefanowski. To be fair to SEEC, theyre short-staffed, I get it. But I think SEEC is broken beyond repair. Three people respected the process and other people did an end run around the process. The party didnt reward the people who respected the process.

kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT
It takes a lot of guts to believe in yourself, your business, your abilities and your dreams enough to even take a shot at running your own business. Three cheers for you!

But, once you start to get the hang of it, it becomes typical for entrepreneurs to chase every shiny object that comes into our field of vision. It's easy to get so bogged down in the minutiae that we fail to work "on" our businesses instead of only (frantically) working in them. It's so easy to bury yourself in your business and forget about anything on the outside of your personal reality. It's time to stop.

Just by reading these three ideas and giving them some real consideration, you will get today's bonus points for working on your business. They're not "shiny objects." These are gutsy, proven ways to attract more money into your coffers, more customers into your front door and gobs more "street cred."

Here are three yank-your-head-out-of-the-sand ways to grow any business exponentially ... and fast:

Related: I Started Saying 'No' to These 6 Things. My Life and My Business Got a Lot Better.

1. Start speaking.

Identify your target customers and start speaking to them, ideally live. Teach them what you know about the benefits that come from using products or services like yours. A good friend of mine runs a company that builds websites. He talks to business groups about how to create the right website to get the results they want. He averages two to three new customers from every speech -- at a price tag of at least $5K each. An artsy woman at one of my own speeches (on how to become a speaker or an author) now goes to women's groups in her state and talks about style and fashion. She brings a selection of the expensive hand-painted scarves her little company sells. She went from struggling to earning close to $180,000 in personal income last year. Yeah, impressive right?

If you're afraid of public speaking, just get over it. Take an improv or acting class. Go to Toastmasters. I've been training new and emerging speakers for what feels like a thousand years, and I can tell you that those who are scared of it often end up equally or more successful sometimes better students than those who thought they were hot stuff the day they decided to begin.

Best of all, if you get good at speaking and/or have solid content that people value, you can turn speaking into a lovely, abundant extra new revenue stream all on its own.

Related: 10 Simple Daily Practices That Will Make You Happier

2. Raise hell or high water.

Take a visible public position on a topic of local or national interest. Choose something that is in the public interest. Everybody wants safer streets, better schools, a park at the intersection of Main and Washington. Lead a cause or get on the board ... and get active and visible.

Why?

Because when the cause you are championing gets media, they will name you and your business. (Read: free advertising!) You may say, "I don't have time for charity!" but the great thing about this is that the public perception of who you are will soar, which magnetizes customers for life.

Related: 12 Scientifically Proven Ways to Reinvent Yourself

3. Run for office.

Seriously! Whether it is the school board, town council or senator, there is no better way to get visible. When you get visible, your business gets visible too. Maybe you'll win, maybe you won't, but the fundraising process, the ads, the interviews -- the "people know your name and your business' name" factor -- is unparalleled.

For all who think, "I've got too many skeletons in my closet to risk such exposure", recognize that by age 12, most people are already accumulating things they'd prefer their mothers -- and the public -- not to discover about them. Unless it is a felony conviction, you are probably fine. Journalists are unlikely to spend copious time on you unless you become a significant contender anyway.

Each of these three options -- to start speaking, raise hell and run for office -- are big ideas. They have been ranked in order from easiest to most challenging. By putting yourself out there in any of these ways, you will greatly increase your brand's identity. Whether you are selling goods or services; whether your business is regional or national; take a shot and focus on one of these and watch your business grow far faster than you can imagine.

Related:

The Boldness of Business: 3 Rare Ways to Turn Courage Into Success

A Mind-Controlling Parasite in Cat Poop Increases Your Chances of Being an Entrepreneur, Study Finds

'Tonight, We Stand Here, and It Feels Like We're Finally Winning,' Say Sexual Abuse Survivors in Inspiring Speeches at ESPY Awards



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Arianna Huffington has tried, in the kindest possible prose, to convince Elon Musk to go to bed.

"Youve come up against incredible challenges, and youve met them by being ever more rigorous and determined about applying the latest science, Huffington wrote in a open letter to Musk in response to his New York Times interview in which he admitted to being exhausted working 120 hours per week. But at the same time, youre demonstrating a wildly outdated, anti-scientific and horribly inefficient way of using human energy.

The letter is clearly from one friend to another friend she admires, but it is also in a way a letter from everybody on Earth freaked out by the worlds existential problems who is rooting for Musks outsized ambitions to solve each one. Tesla -- and the world (not to mention you and your beautiful children) -- would be better off if you regularly built in time to refuel, recharge and reconnect with your exceptional reserves of creativity and your power to innovate, Huffington wrote. Working 120-hour weeks doesnt leverage your unique qualities, it wastes them.

Related: Elon Musk Is Sounding Very Unhappy and Assumes His Life Will Get Worse

Unhappily, Musk seems much too closely in touch with his exhausted inner child to take Huffington's advice and told her so in a tweet posted Sunday morning when most of humanity not consigned to the swing shift is asleep.

Ford & Tesla are the only 2 American car companies to avoid bankruptcy. I just got home from the factory. You think this is an option. It is not.  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 19, 2018

Superlatives are terribly overused these days -- everything is great or incredible and anyone whose name you can remember is an icon. Musk, however, really might be an icon. But of what? Does working 120 hours a week (key fact: there is just 168 hours in a week) make him a icon of productivity, or just the worlds premiere workaholic? Does the scale of his ambitions -- colonize Mars, save Earth from climate catastrophe, unknot traffic jams with tunnels and vacuum tubes, radically alter the economics of space flight, etc. -- make him an entrepreneurial icon, or just somebody brilliant who cant focus?

Toughest of all, is Musk an icon of success? He certainly didnt sound like he thought of himself as a big success in his recent New York Times interview, in which he described a life with almost no room for the seminal pleasures of family and friends, human connection and, as Huffington inevitably pointed out, sleep. (Can anyone remember what Arianna Huffington was known for before she was a slumber crusader?)

Success is a slippery and malleable term. Consider Musks own icon, Nikola Tesla. He died an obscure and penniless eccentric who loved the pigeons of Bryant Park more than any person in his life, but at his zenith he profoundly influenced civilization with alternating current and the basic design of the electric motor. Was he a success, a martyr or some combination of the two?

Musk is revered by entrepreneurs, but he doesnt really have that much in common with either the typical entrepreneur who owns a business that only employs him/herself or the celebrity entrepreneurs such as Jeff Bezos, who is fantastically wealthy because he is the most successful of the millions of people in the world selling stuff on the internet. We would all likely be shopping online even if Amazon had never come into existence.

Musk is perhaps more like Steve Jobs, but even there the comparisons are limited. For all of Jobss brilliance, the world would not be fundamentally different if we didnt have Apples version of computers and cellphones. Tesla, the company, is not really about making a fortune selling a cooler car, although that is very much the focus right now. Tesla is about Musks fundamental ambition to get the global automobile industry to build electric cars fueled by renewable energy because endlessly burning gasoline in billions of cars has to end or Earth risks becoming Venus.

By that measure, it is possible Musk has already succeeded. Its been four years since Musk, explicitly citing the urgent need to stop production of gasoline fueled cars, made all of the Tesla patents public.

Related: Tesla Motors Patents Now Available To Anyone

Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport, Musk wrote in June 2014. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal.

While the sleepless Musk ceaselessly flogs himself and Tesla to meet production goals, the global auto industry is producing about 100,000 electric vehicles per year. Fueled by $150 billion in investments, the auto industry is on track to produce 13 million electric vehicles annually by 2025. Like the genius for whom he has named his troubled car company, Elon Musk may ultimately be remembered, and quite possibly revered, not for the fortune he made but for the history-changing knowledge he donated to humanity.

Related:

We Tried to Calculate How Much an Hour of Elon Musk's Time Is Worth. Here's What We Came Up With.

Here's the Biggest Lesson I Learned Working for Elon Musk at Tesla

The Future of Civilization Doesn't Depend on Elon Musk Denying Himself Sleep



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
A guideline to trust firms to implement new asset management regulation during transition period by the end of 2020 has been issued, China Securities Journal reported on Monday.

The guideline remains strict for financial institutions, but as it does not lay down any new rules it is positive for financial institutions and the market, said the news website, citing insiders.

Recently, the regulator suggested to some trusts that they can appropriately increase "channel business" to lend money to borrowers via the third-party, including securities firms, trust companies, and insurance companies. The third-party can earn commission from the "channel business".

During the submission of comments on the guideline, the regulator has divided the "channel business" to "kindness" and "malevolence", and ruled the "kindness channel business" is allowed to be carried out, but the "malevolence" is banned.

However, the rule has not been confirmed on the guideline, the news website said.

By the end of 2017, the balance of trust money reached 21.9 trillion yuan, said the news website, citing Xinhua.

The guideline said the family trust business does not come under the new asset management regulation announced on April 27.

The news website citing a report from PY Standard said nearly 30 trust companies carried out the family trust business by the end of 2017, and the size surpassed 50 billion yuan and the products amount reached 3,000 orders.

Before the guideline was published, some local banking regulatory institutions in Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu provinces and Shanghai suspended trust companies from issuing new real estate trust products, media reported.

But on Monday night, the Shanghai banking regulator said it did not suggest the suspending and the banking regulator in Ningbo also said it did not suspend the real estate trust products.
Over the weekend, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen made a brief stopover in the United States, visiting Los Angeles and Houston on her way to meet with her allies in Paraguay and Belize.

It was an unofficial "transit visit," the kind made by plenty of Taiwanese leaders before Tsai. This visit, however, seemed different, and offered a reminder that the Trump administration is willing to consider unorthodox, even provocative measures in its ongoing rivalry with China.

Such visits are usually low-profile affairs to avoid provoking China, which considers Taiwan a breakaway province rather than an independent country. But Tsai's trip was notably public, in part because of the United States lifting restrictions on Taiwanese journalists accompanying her. On social media, the Taiwanese leader shared images that made her "unofficial" stop look rather official.

In Houston, Tsai visited NASA, an agency banned by U.S. law from working with Chinese authorities because of fear of espionage. And she met U.S. lawmakers in Los Angeles, where Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., said he looked forward to welcoming the Taiwanese president in Washington.

That may be wishful thinking on Sherman's part, but radical changes to the foreign-policy status quo are hardly unusual under Trump. The president has signed the Taiwan Travel Act, which encouraged more official meetings between Taiwanese officials and their U.S. counterparts. And increased support for Taiwan could serve as a useful geopolitical tool to further the administration's moves against China.

So far, though, the Trump administration's Taiwan policy has been unpredictable. Before he even entered office, Trump made the unorthodox move of accepting a congratulatory phone call from Tsai, sparking immediate recriminations from Beijing. Experts were divided on whether the call was a simple diplomatic blunder or something that had been planned; Trump later seemed to hint it had been the latter when he suggested rethinking the "one China" policy in which Washington recognizes only Beijing as a legitimate government.

Then, in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping a few weeks after he entered the White House, Trump agreed to honor the "one China" agreement. And when he visited Beijing last November, Trump cut a deferential figure in public meetings.

The issue of Taiwan has since been overshadowed by North Korea, but the rapidly escalating trade war between Beijing and Washington may change that. Over the past few months, the United States has imposed a variety of tariffs on China, seeking to rebalance what Trump has described as an unfair trading relationship. China has fired back with its own tariffs. There seems to be little sign of a compromise anytime soon - indeed, some China watchers have suggested that the issue isn't really trade at all, but a broader geopolitical battle about the future of the region.

"The trade war has prompted thinking in China on whether a new Cold War has begun," An Gang, a senior research fellow at the Pangoal Institution, said to Bloomberg News recently. Many in Beijing believe the trade dispute "now has military and strategic implications," An said - certainly, the Trump administration has made a habit of muddying trade disputes with other foreign-policy issues.

But while U.S.-China tension looks like a boon for Taiwan, its government is no doubt aware that a sudden policy change may not necessarily be a good thing. Last November, Taiwan's minister for mainland affairs told a group of visiting journalists there were worries that Taiwan could become "a bargaining chip" in negotiations with Beijing, with U.S. support for the island swapped for Chinese cooperation on North Korea or trade.

The United States would seemingly have little to lose on trade by jettisoning Taipei. China is the island's largest commercial partner, accounting for more than 30 percent of its total trade. But its business with the United States is much smaller, and the trade surplus Taiwan enjoys there could potentially draw the ire of a U.S. president obsessed with the issue.

Politically, things may be trickier still. Many in Taiwan had hoped that, with his attention elsewhere, Xi would maintain the status quo in cross-strait relations. But despite U.S. support for Taiwan, Beijing has instead intensified its pressure campaign. It's a multipronged effort, involving economic pressure such as cutting off tourists, applying diplomatic pressure to try to steal away Taiwan's 18 remaining diplomatic allies and even attempts to induce a "brain drain" in the country. Military provocations, Beijing's time-honored tool, have also continued.

Understandably, Tsai's government has decided that it makes sense to stick close to Trump in the hopes of greater diplomatic recognition and economic help. That may be a wise bet: Even if the American president's interest in Taiwan is limited, there are those around him who favor Taipei over Beijing and want to see Taiwan be brought in closer to Washington.

But the situation is undeniably risky for Taiwan, and the riskiest element of it all is Trump himself. With her visits to the United States, Tsai is hoping to reinforce the long-term viability of her country. But Trump tends to think in the short term - and he seems to favor deals over democracy.
Government departments in China are providing an increasing number of public services through mobile devices, especially with WeChat and other social media, a report on the country's cyberspace development said on Monday.

Compared with traditional ways of posting government information, "mobile platforms are more convenient for both residents and authorities to contact each other and deal with affairs, as the steps are easier and the process is more transparent," said Zeng Yu, director of the China Internet Network Information Center, which produced the report.

The report said that about 42 percent of netizens have accessed municipal public services, such as weather reports, and searched for social insurance and tax information via WeChat and Alipay as of the end of June. The percentage continues to rise, it said.

For example, the proportion of those using WeChat to access services saw a 20 percent increase since December, it said.

By June 30, more than 137,000 government departments had registered their micro blogs on Sina Weibo; of those, more than 89,000 were administrations, including public security bureaus and medical care authorities, it said.

Unlike the burgeoning mobile platforms, the number of government websites has shrunkto less than 20,000 by the end of June, from more than 66,000 in December 2015. Part of the reason, Zeng said, is that "some that were useless or couldn't respond to public concerns in a timely manner have been shut down".

Government departments at every level were ordered in May last year to provide quick and easy services for the public. "So they also integrated some websites and transferred their information to the mobile platforms," Zeng said. Kong Yiying, a resident of Guangzhou province, applauded the change.

"Searching traffic violations and dealing with my social insurance affairs through WeChat is convenient," she said. "Every step of handling the affairs is clear and easy."

She told China Daily that lots of information posted on the WeChat accounts of the Guangdong policewith banks soon to followare useful to her, "as they can tell me the latest policies and save time searching".

Kou Fei, a Beijing resident, also welcomed the use of mobile platforms to access the city's public services, but she complained that some of the services could be given 24 hours.

"For example, when I wanted to pay for water and electricity at night, I have been informed that the service cannot be provided at that time," she said.

In addition, government departments need to arrange for some staff members to answer specific questions from the public about the mobile platforms, instead of only providing some hotlines, she said.

"Efficient, quality service is also important," she said.
The sun was strong. The wind was soft. The air was clean. The sky was blue and cloudless. The weather forecast said we could expect a maximum temperature of about 30 C, but if we stood in the sun it felt like it was raining fire.

Welcome to summer in Yulin, Shaanxi province, on the border of the Loess Plateau and the Ordos Desert, also known as the Mu Us Desert, in North China.

The only people visible were a team of environmental inspectors who braved the extreme heat as they patrolled riverbanks looking for signs of contaminated water, such as discoloration or a strong, unpleasant smell.

Soon after inspector Sun Yunhai started patrolling the Shahe River his shirt was soaked with sweat.

The river is only 3.5 kilometers long, but it took the 32-year-old almost three hours to complete a patrol to confirm or disprove the local government's claim that it had cleaned up the waterway, eradicating household and industrial waste and a foul odor.

In addition to noting inlets that discharged wastewater, Sun occasionally climbed up the steep bank to examine overhanging pipes and check if the pumping stations were working normally.

"It's one of the easiest tasks we undertake. It's much better than working in Xi'an, Shaanxi's capital, where the rivers are much longer and the temperature is even higher," he said, his forehead beaded with sweat.

National campaign

Zhang Bo, director-general of water quality management at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said it is not unusual for environmental inspectors to walk more than 20 km a day.

From May to July, Zhang oversaw the activities of 30 teams that carried out inspections in 70 cities across 30 provinces and regions as part of a national campaign undertaken by his ministry and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

According to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, 1,127 waterways - mainly rivers - in the cities had been reported for containing discolored, foul-smelling water. The campaign targeted 993 waterways that local governments claimed to have treated and cleaned up. However, 74 of them failed to pass the inspectors' assessments.

In addition to fieldwork, the inspectors scrutinized reams of government documents to identify waterways they should examine with particular attention.

The documents also showed the layout of sewage pipe networks near waterways and the locations of major drains. During the field exercises the inspectors carried shovels and crowbars so they could access the drains to check they were working properly, according to Zhang.

"Initially, many local governments tried to hide problems, but they abandoned that approach when they discovered that the inspectors walk the entire length of rivers, from their source to their end," he said.

Another important factor for the inspectors was whether local residents were satisfied with treatment work undertaken by local governments.

Before Sun and his colleagues began patrolling the Shahe River, they collected test samples from points on the upper, middle and lower reaches. After the patrol, a second team of inspectors visited local residents with questionnaires to conduct a survey.

Even if a waterway passes the lab tests and field inspections, it still may not be classified as clean if most of 100 local residents surveyed are not satisfied with the results of the treatment work.

Few people live near the Shahe River, and most of those who do work in Yulin, so when the survey team arrived during working hours there were no local residents to question.

About 10 employees of nearby companies took part in the survey, but that wasn't enough to draw an accurate picture, especially as some of those questioned do not live locally.

"Many go home when they get off work and have no idea about the state of the river at night," said Gong Jianfeng, who oversaw the survey, noting that some companies discharge waste into the water under cover of darkness when few environmental officers are on duty.

Gong said the team paid a second visit during the evening to gather responses from local residents.

Lan Jun, director of the 14-strong team of inspectors in Shaanxi, said one of the purposes of the campaign was to promote the treatment of dirty water and allow people to see the results so they will understand and welcome the improvements to the local environment.

"The inspections give priority to public satisfaction," he said.

Zhang, the director-general, said the combination of field inspections and surveys is an important way of preventing local governments from undertaking purely cosmetic cleanup campaigns and then fabricating favorable results.

Public participation

In addition to surveys, measures have also been taken to encourage public participation.

Before the inspection teams arrived in the 70 cities, their visits were publicized along with the number of a telephone hotline so people could report unclean waterways or violations of environmental regulations, Zhang said.

The campaign mainly targeted waterways in urban areas, but the inspectors also visited rural regions in response to tip-offs that contaminated water was being transported to those areas in barrels or via hidden irrigation channels as a means of disposal.

"The environment is a public asset, so public participation is needed to solve problems and protect nature," he said.

Public participation played an important role in the campaign and helped to unearth 274 contaminated waterways that had slipped under the radar.

The nationwide field inspection has finished, but people can still participate in the campaign by providing information via an official WeChat account established to push public involvement.

"Once public reports of dirty and smelly waterways are verified, the rivers will be included on a national list and treatment will be monitored to ensure a satisfactory result," Zhang said.

"The campaign will not end as long as these contaminated waterways exist."
Among many overseas returnees, a giant panda hogged the limelight after it received an invitation to be a mascot for VIPKID, an online person-to-person English learning platform for Chinese children, on Aug. 16.

Meilun, one of the returned twin pandas, was born in July, 2013 with her sister Meihuan, in Atlanta, the United States. They arrived at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding (CRBGPB) in November 2016, following quarantine.

VIPKID and the CRBGPB signed an agreement on Aug. 16, to roll out a series of open classes about pandas for 500,000 registered students, showcasing the communication between Meilun and the language teachers hired from English-speaking countries.

During the past two years, the twin pandas have been adapting to their new environment, as they are more used to the English language than Chinese  even less the Sichuan dialect. But, by taking advantage of Meilun's overseas background, VIPKID found a business opportunity for the panda to be a mascot and spice up the one-to-one English teaching classes.

"We appreciate this precious opportunity to meet and extend our friendship and love to Meilun and that's why we chose to adopt it," said Xu Zhe, special assistant to the CEO at VIPKID.
Camila Cabello walks the MTV VMA pink carpetDia Dipasupil/Getty Images for MTVAhead of Monday night's MTV Video Music Awards, stars crammed onto the pink carpet outside New York's famed Radio City Music Hall -- the location of the very first VMAs, back in 1984 -- to chat about their excitement at being part of one of the year's big pop culture moments.

The night's big winner was Camila Cabello, who was named Artist of the Year, and whose mini-movie clip for "Havana" was named Video of the Year. On the carpet, she told ABC Radio, "It's amazing how two days of shooting a video can change your life. I've always thought there's a visual aspect of my music and the music part of my music, and I think that both of those are equally important. And I think it's really cool that this award show celebrates great music videos."

"I'm honestly just honored to be a nominee, because there are so many people that I'm such a huge fan of and I can't even believe I'm in this group," the always-humble Camila added. "It's really amazing!"

Ariana Grande won Best Pop Video for "No More Tears Left to Cry" and performed "God Is a Woman," from her new album Sweetener. On the carpet, her brother, reality star Frankie Grande, told ABC Radio that the release of the album has been extremely cathartic for Ariana, coming as it does just over a year since the terrorist attack that happened after her concert in Manchester, England.

"It was very much like giving birth," Frankie said. Once it was out and the world finally got to hear it, she felt this unbelievable sense of weight lifted, and now the whole world can all share in what she's been going through and what she's put out there -- it's beautiful."

OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder teamed up with rapper Logic to perform their song "One Day," and they were joined onstage by immigrant leaders and their children. The performance echoed the video itself, which follows the story of a young immigrant teenager forcibly separated at the border from his parents and sibling. On the pink carpet, Ryan told ABC Radio, "The video made me cry. I got so perfectly uncomfortable watching it that I watched it about seven times in a row...I texted [Logic], just saying...'I don't remember the last video that made me cry, but I'm physically crying in my hotel room, watching this video."

Bebe Rexha was nominated for Best Collaboration for "Meant to Be." She didn't win but she told ABC Radio that just attending the show was enough. "I think that to be in New York City, to be nominated in the same category as The Carters, Beyonce and JAY-Z, as well as Cardi B and Bruno Mars is just incredible!" she gushed. "I was here the last two years just walking the carpet, and I'm finally here as a presenter and I'm a nominee...that's amazing. Like c'mon, like, I can't believe it! It's, like, pinch me!"

Jennifer Lopez received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the ceremony. On the pink carpet, Ashanti, who co-wrote J-Lo's smash "Ain't It Funny (Murder Remix)," told ABC Radio, "[She] is so creative and I love her videos...just fashion and...her being real...I'm just really excited and I'm happy as a woman that she's killin' it and getting what she deserves."

Iggy Azalea, who duetted with J-Lo on the song "Booty" and co-starred with her in its racy video, couldn't say enough about how deserving Jennifer was of the award.

"She reinvents herself over and over again, she's one of the best female performers, I think," Iggy told ABC Radio. "She just has never faltered or fumbled, she's had pretty much the dream career...and she's still going, she's not done yet! So I think she's the perfect candidate and I'm really happy that I can be here to see her receive the award."

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
A man is facing the death penalty after admitting to starting a fire that killed 18 people in a karaoke bar in Guangdong province in April.

Liu Chunlu, 32, was prosecuted on charges of intentional homicide and arson during a public hearing on Thursday in a court in Yingde.

The court heard that Liu arrived at the bar on Chayuan Road with friends on the evening of April 23 for a night of singing and drinking.

While there, the defendant expressed his fondness for a female staff member, surnamed Zhang, but she rejected him, according to the indictment, which was published online.

He had also failed to reach a business deal after negotiating with another man at the bar, which he blamed on interruptions by someone identified as the venue's manager, it added.

In anger, Liu went to his motorcycle, which was parked by the entrance of the karaoke bar, disconnected its fuel pipe and spread gasoline around on the ground. He then used a cigarette lighter to set the fuel ablaze, despite his friends attempts to stop him, the indictment said.

Flames quickly spread to other motorcycles, blocking the exit of people inside the bar. Fifteen men and three women died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Three other people were injured, one of them seriously.

Liu fled the scene but was caught by police on April 24.

During Thursday's hearing, a tearful Liu confessed to the charges, Nanfang Metropolis Daily reported on Sunday.

The court has yet to issue a verdict. The charge of intentional homicide carries the death penalty in China.

The trial was witnessed by relatives of both the defendant and the victims as well as political advisers, local media representatives, residents and others.

Liu Xiangfu, the head prosecutor who tried the case, said Liu's crime was grievous, as many people were killed.

"He committed intentional arson and caused serious casualties and big economic losses," he told the court. "The facts are very clear, and the defendant should be held responsible for his crimes and punished."
The 2018 Sino-foreign Literature Translation and Publishing Cooperation Workshop opened in Beijing on Monday. Forty-one translators and sinologists from 35 countries joined the workshop.

Zhu Qi, deputy director of the Bureau for External Cultural Relations of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, speaks at the opening ceremony of the 2018 Sino-foreign Literature Translation & Publishing Cooperation Workshop on Aug. 20, 2018. [Photo courtesy of Bureau for External Cultural Relations of Ministry of Culture and Tourism]

Hosted by the Bureau for External Cultural Relations under China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the one-week workshop acts as a platform for strengthening cooperation in international literary translation and publishing, promoting the dissemination of Sino-foreign excellent cultural works, and enhancing mutual understanding between Chinese and foreign people.



Zhu Qi, deputy director of the Bureau for External Cultural Relations of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, said the workshop has effectively promoted the translation and cooperation of Chinese and foreign literary works.

"It is hoped that the translators and sinologists can work side by side to deepen cooperation for creating a good environment of literary publishing and build a bridge for Chinese and foreign people via literary works, Zhu said.

Kuang Min, a translator from Myanmar, gave a speech during the opening ceremony. He said, As a translator of Chinese literature, we should do our own work to make Chinese literature more complete and more accurate for the foreign readers, so that they can see the true Chinese culture and the development of China in recent years.

In addition, the participants will have dialogues with experts and Chinese writers to discuss publishing and translation issues in later forums during the workshop.
Family members this week discovered the body of a Gratiot County man police believe died of a drug overdose.

Drug paraphernalia and suspected heroin were discovered when police responded to a call to a home in Seville Township Monday afternoon, said Gratiot County Sheriff Doug Wright.

Relatives found a 30-year-old man, who appears to have been dead for at least two days.

The investigation is ongoing, but Wright said residents should be aware that more and more, illegal drugs are a mix of unknowns.

Dealers will mix various chemicals with heroin to give an extra buzz to get you really addicted, Wright said.

Those combinations can be deadly.

These dealers are not chemists and too much can and does kill people who shoot up with heroin, the sheriff said.

More than 2,660 people died from drug intoxication in Michigan last year, a number that exceeded gun and traffic deaths combined according to the Center for Disease Control.

The increase is largely attributed to the national opioid epidemic.

In Isabella County, where overdose statistics are available quarterly, six people have died of drug overdoses in the first half of 2018, on pace to top last years total.

The majority of accidental overdoses in 2017 in mid-Michigan involved a combination of two or more drugs; 89 percent of those involved an opioid.
You are here: China

Police in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region said Tuesday that they had apprehended 16 criminal suspects of a tomb-raiding ring and retrieved 53 cultural relics.

The ring raided the ruins of a temple in Paggarxoi Village of Dagze District, the regional capital Lhasa, between June and July this year. Some of the suspects were captured at the site and others caught later.

The 53 relics retrieved include Buddha statues and bronzeware.

Local police are chasing other suspects involved, and retrieving cultural relics that have been sold.
Beaten novice monk, 9, still in coma, fights for life

KANCHANABURI: A 9-year-old novice who was brutally beaten by a senior monk has been suffering internal bleeding and is still in a deep coma, according to Dr Wasu Sriwasura, a neurosurgeon at Phaholpolpayuhasena Hospital.



By Bangkok Post

Tuesday 21 August 2018, 08:39AM

Suppachai: Admitted to assault. Photo: via Bangkok Post

Dr Wasu said Wattanapol Sisawad is in an extremely precarious condition, with falling blood pressure and weak vital signs.

Surgery was never an option as it could be fatal, he said yesterday (Aug 20).

Novice Wattanapol was hit by a senior monk at Wat Don Khamin, a community temple in Tha Maka district that his father sent him to so he could be ordained during school break.

This is a common practice among many traditionally minded Thais, who believe sending their sons to temples to study under monks can instil in them a sense of peace and self-discipline.

Wattanapol was sent to Maharaj Hospital on Saturday (Aug 18) and then immediately transferred to the largest hospital in the province later after his condition quickly deteriorated.

His mother, Sukanya Tunhin, said she was struggling to endure the tragedy after seeing his injuries, which included a severely bruised head and a broken right arm and wrist.

Im hoping for a miracle to help my son regain consciousness, even if it only means he will live a little while longer or be paralysed, the 33-year-old said, adding she was dreading being asked whether she wanted to turn off the machine keeping him alive.

Ms Sukanya said the monk had beaten her son on several previous occasions after he set things on fire for his own amusement.

During her previous visits to Wat Don Khamin, she found several bruises and wounds on his body but decided not to speak up. She said she felt indebted to the senior monk, who had often given her food as she was struggling to make ends meet.

But this time the monk overreacted [in meting out discipline] and I will not forgive him for brutally injuring my son, said the mother, adding she wanted to see him receive the maximum penalty.

Watthana Sisawad, 36, the estranged husband of Ms Sukanya and father of the novice, said he was at fault for ignoring his sons complaints about being beaten by the monk.

He said he had believed the monk was just attempting to correct the boys mischievous behaviour using corporal punishment.

The father, who worked as truck driver in Rayong province, said he approved the idea of taking the son to be ordained at the temple during the school break because he believed lead to an improvement in his behaviour.

Capt Amnat Chanbut, deputy chief of Luk Kae Police Station, said Phra Suppachai Sutthiyano, who has already been defrocked and is now referred to as Mr Suppachai, was at this stage charged with physical assault resulting in grave danger and severe injuries.

The former monk has admitted to assaulting the novice. He said he had been assigned by the abbot temple to take care of four novices. Phra Suppachai claimed novice Wattanapol was a stubborn and disobedient boy.

After investigators receive more detailed medical diagnoses on the novice other charges may be deployed against the former monk, said Capt Amnat.

Read original story here.
Ex-Loei police chief temporarily discharged over B229mn fraud scandal

LOEI: A former police chief in Loei has been temporarily discharged from service after he was sued by a regional police office for allegedly embezzling B229 million from 192 policemen.

crimepolice

By Bangkok Post

Tuesday 21 August 2018, 08:49AM

Maj Gen Suthip Palitkusolthat (left) pours water on a Buddha statue during a ceremony to celebrate the Songkran festival at the human resources office in April. Photo: www.human.police.go.th

Maj Gen Suthip Palitkusolthat had earlier been reshuffled from Loei to work as a deputy chief of the human resources office at the Royal Thai Police head office in Bangkok.

Office commissioner Lt Gen Thanat Wongsuwon said yesterday (Aug 20) that his deputy was dismissed last Friday (Aug 17) pending the investigation in an order signed by Deputy National Police Chief Gen Rungroj Saengkram.

The order came after the Provincial Police Region 4, which oversees police affairs in Loei, had pressed a fraud charge against him.

While being Loei police commander and chairman of the Loei police cooperative, Maj Gen Suthip invited 192 local policemen to borrow from the cooperative to clear debts with creditor banks. He also offered to manage the borrowed money, repaying their old debts and promising them monthly investment returns of about B5,000. The 192 policemen believed him and transferred him cash.

Maj Gen Suthip had failed to pay the promised returns since January and the 192 policemen were sued by their creditor banks.

The case was believed to have taken place last year.

Another panel has been set up to conduct a disciplinary probe on him, according to Lt Gen Thanat.

The office also dismissed Col Chalerm Yodprathum, who worked as the general staff office chief in Nong Bua Lamphu, for allegedly colluding with Maj Gen Suthip.

Maj Gen Suthip was the Nong Bua Lamphu police chief before he was transferred to Loei in October 2016. An investigation by the Provincial Police Region 4 office linked the fraud to a Ponzi network which claimed to invest in stocks and properties.

Maj Gen Suthip could not be reached for comment.

Read original story here.
More Phuket monkeys to be sterilised next month

PHUKET: The Director of the Natural and Wildlife Education Centre at Khao Phra Theaw has today confirmed that a further 250 monkeys will be sterilised as part of an ongoing project aimed at limiting the islands growing monkey population.

animalstourismsexSafety

By Chutharat Plerin

Tuesday 21 August 2018, 06:10PM

Monkeys that have already been sterilised can be identified by the P tattoo on their chest. Photo: Natural and Wildlife Education Centre

The monkey warning signs were installed at at Rang Hill, Toh Sae Hill and Koh Siray last weekend. Photo: Natural and Wildlife Education Centre

Meanwhile, the chief, Pongchart Chouehorm, has also stated that the proposed monkey warning signs in four languages  English, Thai, Chinese and Russian  that were announced by Phuket Governor Norraphat Plodthong on Aug 2 (see story here) have now been installed at Rang Hill, Toh Sae Hill and Koh Siray.

Speaking to The Phuket News Thai-language sister paper Khao Phuket today (Aug 21), Mr Pongchart said, Since the sterilisation project began, we have been monitoring the behaviour of monkeys at the designated. Most recently my team went to Koh Siray and found that the monkeys are living as normal. There has been no change in their behaviour since the sterilisation took place.

We can identify those monkeys that have already been sterilised by the P tattoo on their chest, the P stands for Phuket province, Mr Pongchart explained.

The sterilisation of the monkeys was much-needed as their behaviour was becoming annoying and a nuisance to tourists and we are satisfied with the results.

Ours next step will be to sterilise a further 250 monkeys in September, he added.

Turning his attention to the warning signs announced by Gov Norraphat earlier this month, Mr Pongchart said, Last weekend we installed signs to warn people about keeping away from the monkeys and the consequences at Rang Hill, Toh Sae Hill and Koh Siray. The signs are in four languages; Russian, Chinese, English and Thai.

Mr Pongchart added, In order to comply with the policy ordered by Phuket Governor Norraphat Poldthong, CCTV cameras will be used to monitor the areas in case tourists are disobedient. The rules will enforced and tourists must comply with them.
Phuket residents left powerless as fallen tree downs power poles

PHUKET: Residents living close to Saphan Hin Park in Phuket Town were without electricity for around eight hours when a fallen tree brought down three electricity poles.

accidentspolice

By The Phuket News

Tuesday 21 August 2018, 10:25AM

It took workers from the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) nearly eight hours to carry out repairs. Photo: PEA

It took workers from the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) nearly eight hours to carry out repairs. Photo: PEA

It took workers from the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) nearly eight hours to carry out repairs. Photo: PEA

It took workers from the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) nearly eight hours to carry out repairs. Photo: PEA

Phuket City Traffic Police Inspector Lt Col Watchara Puakjan explained, We received notice about fallen electricity poles opposite the Phuket Immigration Office in Phuket Town at 8pm last night.

When we arrived at the scene we found that a tree had collapsed on cables and this brought down three electricity poles. Lt Col Watchara explained.

We closed the street and called the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) so they could come and carry out repairs. he added.

There was no injuries or damage to property reported.

The Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) confirmed to The Phuket News today (Aug 21) that staff had to shut-off the power supply in the area in order to carry out repairs, which were complete by around 3:44am.
Student charged for posting Pattaya pool sex clip

PATTAYA: Police today (Aug 21) charged a 23-year-old student with posting on social media a sexually provocative video clip from a pool party at a local seaside hotel, and were looking for the videoed couple.

crimepolicesex

By Bangkok Post

Tuesday 21 August 2018, 02:30PM

Tatchakrit Wonglaemthong, 23, acknowledges a charge of computer crime at Pattaya Police Station in Chonburi province today (Aug 21), for posting online a video clip from a pool party last Saturday (Aug 18). Photo: Chaiyot Pupattanapong

Col Apichai Krobphet, chief of Pattaya Police Station, said Tatchakrit Wonglaemthong was charged under the Computer Crimes Act with uploading obscene pictures into a computer system and was liable to a maximum jail term of five years and/or fine of B100,000 if convicted.

Police were looking for a British man aged 33 and a Thai woman. They would be charged with obscene behaviour in a public place.

Police spared the management of the hotel and the Australian organiser of the pool party because they had no intention of any sexual activity occurring and permission had been sought for the party.

The case resulted from the personal behaviour of two individuals.

At the police station, Thatchakrit apologised for posting a video clip that tarnished the image of Pattaya and the woman involved. He was sorry the clip had a negative impact on himself and his family.

He said he travelled from Bangkok with three friends to attend the party. Each guest was charged B1,100 entry.

He took photos and broadcast the party atmosphere live via Facebook. When he saw the foreign man and the Thai woman acting as if they were having sex, he videoed them and later posted the 53-second clip on Facebook.

About two hours later he was shocked to learn how many people had shared the post. He deleted it, but other people had already downloaded it.

The pool party was organised at A-One The Royal Cruise Hotel last Saturday (Aug 18).

Organiser Coran Malony earlier told Pattaya police that his company had organised such parties seven times at seaside hotels with pools. Last Saturdays party was the second in Pattaya.

Read original story here.
Tears as North and South Koreans meet after decades

KOREAS: With tears and cries, dozens of elderly and frail South and North Korean family members met yesterday (Aug 20) for the first time since the peninsula and their relationships were torn apart by war nearly 70 years ago.

military

By AFP

Tuesday 21 August 2018, 09:29AM

Millions of people were swept apart by the 1950-53 Korean War, which separated brothers and sisters, parents and children and husbands and wives. Photo: Korea Pool / AFP

Clasping one another, they tried to bridge the decades of separation through precious physical contact and by showing each other pictures of their relatives.

Many of the North Korean women were clad in traditional dresses, known as hanbok in the South and joseon-ot in the North, and all had the ubiquitous badges of the Norths founder Kim Il Sung or his son and successor Kim Jong Il, while the Southerners wore their best suits.

As soon as 99-year-old South Korean Han Shin-ja approached their table, her two daughters  aged 69 and 72  bowed their heads deeply towards her and burst into tears.

Han also broke down, rubbing her cheeks against theirs and holding their hands tightly.

When I fled during the war... she began, choking back tears as if she were about to apologise for leaving them behind.

Millions of people were swept apart by the 1950-53 Korean War, which separated brothers and sisters, parents and children and husbands and wives.

Hostilities ceased with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically still at war and the peninsula split by the impenetrable Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), with all direct civilian exchanges  even mundane family news  banned.

The three-day reunion at Mount Kumgang, a scenic resort in North Korea, is the first for three years and follows a diplomatic thaw on the peninsula.

According to pool reports, the event began with a popular North Korean song Nice to meet you  also well known in the South  blaring out from speakers.

Lee Keum-seom, now tiny and frail at 92, met her son for the first time since she and her infant daughter were separated from him and her husband as they fled.

At the time Ri Sang Chol was aged just four. Lee shouted his name when she saw the now 71-year-old, before hugging him as both were overcome with emotion.

Her son showed her pictures of his family in the North  including her late husband  telling her: This is a photo of father.

Before leaving for the meeting, Lee said: I never imagined this day would come. I didnt even know if he was alive or not.

With time taking its toll, such parent-child reunions have become rare.

Since 2000 the two nations have held 20 rounds of reunions but most of the more than 130,000 Southerners who signed up for a reunion since the events began have since died.

More than half the survivors are over 80, with this years oldest participant Baik Sung-kyu aged 101.

South Korean Park Ki-dong, 82, met his two North Korean siblings, who had brought dozens of family photos with them.

Pak Sam Dong pointed at one of the images, telling his brother: This is you.

The older man stared at the picture silently, deep in thought, while his North Korean sister quietly wiped tears from her eyes.

Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UNs Special Rapporteur on human rights in the North, called for Seoul and Pyongyang to hold more family meetings.

Bearing in mind the ages of those affected, I encourage both sides to arrange more of these reunions as soon as possible so that more people can get together with their relatives and are allowed to remain in touch with them, he said in a statement.

The reunions are resuming after a three-year hiatus as the North accelerated its pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and relations worsened.

But after a rapid diplomatic thaw the Norths leader Kim Jong Un and the Souths President Moon Jae-in agreed to restart them at their first summit in April in the DMZ.

The two Koreas have since discussed cooperation in various fields at meetings between officials.

But while Kim and US President Donald Trump held a landmark summit in Singapore in June, Pyongyang has yet to make clear what concessions it is willing to make on its nuclear arsenal, while Washington is looking to maintain sanctions pressure on it.

Families at previous reunions have often found it a bittersweet experience, with some complaining about the short time they were allowed together and others lamenting the ideological gaps between them after decades apart.

Some of those selected for this years reunions dropped out after learning that their parents or siblings had died and they could only meet more distant relatives whom they had never seen before.

Over the next three days, the 89 families will spend only about 11 hours together, mostly under the watchful eyes of North Korean agents.

They will have only three hours in private before they are separated once again tomorrow (Aug 22), in all likelihood for the final time.
For Subscribers Nepotism probe, marijuana put spotlight on South Dakota Capitol

Legislative investigations, votes on cannabis policy and wins and losses for government transparency make for a hectic week in South Dakota politics.
Chinas ambassador to Canada said Monday he hopes to make progress on a free-trade agreement with Canada and others amid his countrys rising trade tensions with the United States.

On the background of unilateralism and trade protectionism, China sincerely hopes we can speed up the relevant negotiations process of bilateral...trade agreements, Lu Shaye said, speaking through a translator, in an interview at the Apparel Textile Sourcing Canada trade show in Toronto.

U.S. President Donald Trump slapped 25 per cent tariffs on $34 billion (U.S.) in Chinese imports in July. Taxes on an additional $16 billion are set to kick in this week and China is counterpunching with tariffs of its own.

The U.S. government is holding six days of hearings starting Monday in Washington on Trumps next round of proposed tariffs of 10 per cent to 25 per cent on $200 billion in Chinese goods that could kick in as early as next month.

Meanwhile, free trade talks between China and Canada have slowed as Canada has insisted on a progressive trade deal that would also cover some labour, environment, gender and governance issues.

The ambassador said there was little progress on issues that arent directly related to trade and he hopes they dont disrupt future discussions.

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China and Canada still remains some differences on specific issues, but I think that it is not related to trade, and I dont hope such kind of issues will influence the future talks and negotiations between China and Canada.

Trade relations between the two countries deteriorated after Canada blocked the $1.5-billion takeover of Aecon Group Inc. construction firm by a Chinese company in May, citing reasons of national security.

Shaye said Chinese companies will be more cautious about investing in Canada after the federal government blocked the deal, and that he still doesnt understand what was behind the move.

Canada could soon also impose safeguard measures to block the dumping of steel imports after the U.S. imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum on a number of countries, including Canada.

The federal government last week began exploring how best to address industry concerns that U.S. tariffs are causing a surge in steel imports.

Ottawa is seeking input from producers, users and the public as it considers imposing safeguards on the import of several steel products. The measures, if applied, could include quotas, surtaxes or a combination of both.

The White House has complained that Canada has opened a back door to the American market, allowing for an invasion of bargain-basement steel into the U.S. from places like China.

Shaye said China represents only a small percentage of Canadian steel imports but his country will be watching Canadas measures closely.

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MONTREAL  An initiative to market milkweed for the benefit of monarch butterflies  and the farmers in Quebec and Vermont who grow it  is getting a boost from a Canadian parka company that is renewing its commitment to sell coats made with the plants floss.

Its an experimental manufacturing and retailing effort, which started in 2016 when Quartz Co. made and sold a few hundred coats with milkweed fibre as the insulation. After modest growth of its distribution last year, the company is introducing its third generation in September and additional styles in October.

Having served as a testing ground, said Francois-Xavier Robert, Quartz Co.s chief operating officer, We feel like we are close to having a major product.

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Where have all the butterflies gone? Extreme weather behind drop in monarchs migrating to Canadian gardens

North Americas severely depleted population of monarchs depends for its survival on milkweed, the sole host for the eggs and only food for the caterpillars. Efforts to restore monarchs rest in part on establishing new lands for the plant to grow. Research indicates plots of milkweed in farmers fields are particularly attractive to the monarchs, perhaps more so than roadside stretches and urban patches that butterflies may or may not find.

Quebec researchers developed a way to transform fibre from the long-undesired weed into a lightweight insulation that can replace down and synthetics. But the effort has been bumpy, with the initial producer of the fibre collapsing last year. Harvesting and production technology is immature; hand-picking the crop is often required to yield the silky fibres needed for high-end clothing. Farmers harvest milkweed in the fall after the migrating monarchs have had their fill and moved south.

More than 100 farmers in Quebec and a half dozen in Vermont are growing milkweed for the Monark co-operative, tapping Quartz Co. as their only market for the clothing insulation. Parkas from Quartz, based outside Montreal, are sold in more than 275 stores in 20 countries as well as online.

Robert and his brother, Jean-Philippe Robert, the Quartz president, are entrepreneurs in their early 30s who bought the company in 2015 and built a leadership team of their own generation.

When we heard about milkweed we jumped on it, said Francois-Xavier Robert. Its part of our generation to be a bit more eco-friendly and responsible. The project seemed pretty aligned with our values.

Read more about:
SAINT JOHN, N.B. Irving Oil is expanding its reach with agreements to acquire an Irish-based energy marketing and distribution group of companies.

The New Brunswick-based Irving said Tuesday it has signed a deal with Tedcastle, which operates under the brand name Top Oil and is a leading supplier of home heating oil, petrol and diesel fuel in Ireland.

Financial terms of the deal were not immediately available.

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We are looking forward to joining Irving Oil and continuing to grow and develop our business under its umbrella, Top Oil chief executive Gerard Boylan said in a statement.

A news release from Irving said Top Oil recently expanded operations into aviation fuel, and sells more than one billion litres of fuel every year to commercial and residential consumers in Ireland.

Irving Oil said the acquisition will allow it to further expand its business across the Atlantic basin, after an earlier purchase of Irelands sole refinery in Whitegate in 2016.

Were excited about this opportunity to grow our business in Ireland and work with the Top Oil team, Irving Oil president Ian Whitcomb said in a statement.

We have worked hard to build strong customer relationships and establish meaningful community partnerships in Ireland and are delighted to continue to grow our business in this area. Its a natural fit for us.

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission in Ireland still has to approve the acquisition.

Irving Oil said it plans to continue the full operation of Top Oil and its assets if the deal is approved.

Read more about:
The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) will learn Thursday whether the Supreme Court of Canada will hear its appeal of a lower-court ruling last December that some online brokerages could publish selling prices of homes.

A federal appeal court decided last year in favour of Canadas commissioner of competition who has been arguing for more than six years that some online brokerages, who are members of the board, should be allowed to publish sold data on their password-protected websites.

If the Supreme Court agrees to hear TREBs appeal, the prohibition on publishing that information will continue until the case is decided. But if the court decides against hearing TREBs case, some companies could begin publishing the data immediately.

The real estate board has vigorously defended the traditional real estate practice of agents providing the selling price of properties to their clients directly. The competition commissioner maintains that is stifling competition in the industry.

TREBs lawyer told the Toronto Star last year that the competition commissioner failed to prove that publishing sold information would create more competition inside the industry. William Sasso said the case is about competition among real estate board members who have access to the same sold information. Publishing that data online could violate privacy laws and leave consumers vulnerable to the misuse of that information, he said.

The top court receives about 500 applications of leave to appeal lower court rulings each year. It grants about 10 per cent of those. Once an applicant is granted the right to appeal, it takes seven to nine months on average for the Supreme Court to hear the case and four to six months for the court to issue its decision.

The appeal decision comes at a time when there are new players entering the real estate industry. British flat-fee upstart Purplebricks recently announced the purchase of DuProprio/ComFree for $51 million. DuProprio holds about 20 per cent of the Quebec real estate market and ComFree only about 2 per cent of the Ontario market with a similar presence in Western Canada.

For a fixed price rather than the traditional agent commission, DuProprio/ComFree claims to save consumers money by supporting the listing, pricing and negotiation of their home sale. The company reported about 39,000 listings last year with $45.6 million in Canadian revenue.

In June, online U.S. giant Zillow announced a deal giving it a direct feed to Century 21 Canadas 26,000 listings. Zillows revenue model is based on selling ads next to real estate listings. Although it publishes sold information in many U.S. markets, it is unclear whether that will be available for the Canadian homes listed on its websites.

Even combined, those developments, including a possible Supreme Court judgment in TREBs favour, will not upend real estate practices here, say industry insiders who note the long-standing publication of sold data in the U.S. hasnt cut real estate agents role.

Consumers will still count on realtors to play the role of trusted adviser, said Re/MAX regional director Christopher Alexander.

I dont think the fundamentals of the industry are going to change, but whats concerning is that a lot of information that consumers dont ask for in todays marketplace because they dont need it, is going to be public, he said.

He is particularly worried about buyers having access to the price of sales that are still pending.

If you sell your house and it hasnt closed and you post the sale price and for some reason the deal falls apart, now consumers can see what it sold for. I have a hard time believing that sellers are going to get what was previously offered now that a buyer will have that information, said Alexander.

But the reality is when real estate agents and consumers are looking at what to pay when buying a house, theyre looking at what sold yesterday, said Toronto broker John Pasalis.

Theyre basing their analysis on pending sales, not what sold a year ago, or six years ago, he said, adding that some websites such as HouseSigma find ways of extracting sold data and posting it even without access to the real estate boards live feed.

Theyre going their own ways in pulling the data from TREB, but TREB is not giving it to them, said Toronto broker John Pasalis, who uses it to research local housing trends. The Bank of Canada cited his report on neighbourhoods that were most vulnerable to speculation and subsequent decline in the 2016 to early 2017 Toronto-area housing bubble.

The advantage (of sold data) is how companies use it and what they do with it. The differentiation happens when people use it in innovative way, he said.

If the Supreme Court declines to hear TREBs appeal, Pasalis said he doesnt think the big brokerages will move to immediately post sold data, but in theory they could and some companies will.
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.Miss America chairperson Gretchen Carlson has struck back against the reigning Miss America, saying Cara Munds allegations that Carlson and others have bullied and silenced her has led to the loss of $75,000 (U.S.) in scholarship money for this years contestants.

In a Twitter post late Sunday night whose authenticity was verified by the Miss America Organization, Carlson, the former Fox News host and the pageants winner in 1989, wrote that she was surprised and saddened beyond words by Munds letter on Friday complaining of how she has been treated during her nearly one-year reign as Miss America.

In her letter addressed to former Miss Americas, Mund wrote that she has been bullied, manipulated and silenced by the pageants current top leadership, headed by Carlson and CEO Regina Hopper. Both have denied bullying Mund and say they support her.

Actions have consequences, Carlson wrote, addressing herself directly to Mund. Friday, as an organization, we learned that $75,000 in scholarships which would have been the first scholarship increase in years is no longer on the table as a direct result of the explosive allegations in your letter.

The impact wont stop there, Carlson continued. We are already seeing a negative ripple effect across the entire organization, and I am so concerned that it will dilute the experience for the next woman selected to wear the crown.

Carlson did not specify how the scholarship money was lost. She did not immediately respond to an email seeking further comment Sunday night.

In a statement issued early Monday, the Miss America Organization said, The $75,000 referenced was a new source of funding for scholarships. The scholarships to be awarded this year are consistent with those awarded in 2018.

Karl Nilsson, a Miss America spokesperson subsequently said, The news is severely damaging the organization and is having an impact on securing future sponsorships.

The Miss America Organization told The Associated Press earlier this month it hopes to hand out at least as much this year as it did last year, approximately $500,000.

The next Miss America will be crowned at Atlantic Citys Boardwalk Hall in a nationally televised broadcast on Sept. 9. In the meantime, reaction to Carlsons Twitter post was fast and widespread among state pageant officials and former Miss Americas.

The accusation of Cara being responsible for losing a $75,000 scholarship is wrong and completely uncalled for, Kira Kazantsev wrote in a statement Monday. Gretchen, you must see that there is no way forward in this current state anymore. It is time to step down and let this organization move forward.

Mund did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Sunday and early Monday. But in her letter Friday, she said she was speaking out about how she has been treated, knowing she could be punished for doing so.

Let me be blunt: I strongly believe that my voice is not heard nor wanted by our current leadership; nor do they have any interest in knowing who I am and how my experiences relate to positioning the organization for the future, Mund wrote. Our chair and CEO have systematically silenced me, reduced me, marginalized me and essentially erased me in my role as Miss America in subtle and not-so-subtle ways on a daily basis.

Mund said shes been left out of interviews, not invited to meetings and called by the wrong name. When she obliquely hinted at trouble with pageant leadership in an interview earlier this month with the Press of Atlantic City, Mund said she was swiftly punished by having her televised farewell speech cut to 30 seconds, and was told a dress she had been approved to wear in the traditional show us your shoes parade cannot be worn.

This years competition will not include swimsuits, and pageant officials from at least 19 states have called for the current leadership to resign. Carlson and Hopper are atop a wave of women swept into power in January after previous pageant officials were revealed to have circulated emails denigrating the appearance, intellect and sex lives of former Miss Americas.

In her Twitter posting, Carlson told Mund, I have never bullied or silenced you. Weve acknowledged your grievances and taken many steps to try to make your experience a good one.
OTTAWAA new plan to help low-income Canadians will set a lofty goal of lifting more than two million people past the poverty line over the next 12 years, says a source familiar with the federal governments long-awaited strategy.

If the federal government meets the ambitious target, it would push poverty rates in Canada to historic lows.

Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, the minister in charge of the plan, will lay out details Tuesday at an event in Vancouver  including establishing the threshold that defines poverty in Canada.

The government wants to reduce the rate of poverty in Canada by 20 per cent from 2015 levels by the end of the current decade, which would require almost 850,000 fewer people living in poverty in 2020 compared to five years earlier.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet public, says the target increases to 50 per cent by 2030  a decline of 2.1 million people, including just over 534,000 children under age 18.

Legislation to be introduced later this year would require future governments to meet the goal, but likely wont carry any consequences if targets arent met.

Work on the strategy has been two years in the making, but anti-poverty groups who have taken part in consultations dont expect to hear any new spending commitments.

Indeed, documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act suggest the Liberals intend to sell the plan by referencing myriad federal programs, linking them back to efforts to reduce poverty.

Absent any new spending, the government is likely to promote efforts to better co-ordinate existing and promised federal programs, as well as better tracking of their impact.

During consultations on the anti-poverty plan, the government heard repeatedly about the need to establish an official poverty line for the country. To date, Ottawa has been using a measurement created by Duclos department in the late 1990s.

The benchmark  known as the market basket measure  tests whether a family can afford a basic standard of living by testing their income against the cost of a basket of goods and services. The measure is tailored for 50 different regions and cities, reflecting the fact that the cost of living varies between regions.

Early government work on the anti-poverty strategy flagged the measure as one favoured by Duclos in his academic work before entering politics.

An April 2016 briefing note to the top official at Employment and Social Development Canada noted the ministers stated preference for the measurement in his academic research on the economics of poverty. In one paper, Duclos argued that a range of tests using the measure showed Quebec had a lower poverty rate than the rest of the country.

Under the market-based measure, Statistics Canada found more than 4.2 million people living below that poverty line in 2015. One year later, using the same threshold, the agency recorded 3.7 million people in poverty for a rate of 10.6 per cent  the lowest recorded over the past decade.

The Liberals estimate that the measures they have introduced since coming to office in 2015  among them a new child benefit and a boost to seniors benefits  will lift some 600,000 people above the poverty line by next year.
An Ontario university has stripped a former professor of an honorary title after he wrote social media posts about Indigenous people that the school described as inflammatory and vulgar.

Brock University said its senate committee voted unanimously last week to strip former political science professor Garth Stevenson of his emeritus designation, which was given to him when he retired in 2012.

The move came after a series of vulgar, inflammatory statements, aimed at the Indigenous community and others, were posted last week on Stevensons social media pages, the St. Catharines university said in a statement.

Stevenson did not immediately respond to requests for comment but told the St. Catharines Standard that he apologizes for the posts, which included comments on the city of Victorias removal of a statue of Canadas first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald.

While my language was intemperate and offensive and I apologize for it, I think the campaign to destroy the reputation of Sir John A. Macdonald is entirely unjustified and that was the point that I was trying to make, Stevenson wrote in an email to the newspaper.

In his statement to the paper, Stevenson also called the emeritus designation a meaningless title.

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Although it might deprive me of the right to borrow books from their library, I am sure I can live without that, he wrote.

In one now-deleted tweet cited in published news reports, Stevenson wrote that Victoria was removing the statue of Macdonald to appease some snivelling aboriginals who probably never did a days work in their lives.

Macdonalds role in establishing residential schools has made him a polarizing figure in reconciliation efforts with Indigenous peoples. Victoria said it removed the statue on Aug. 11 as part of a reconciliation process with the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.

Tom Dunk, Brocks provost and vice-president academic, said that Stevensons online comments are solely his own and are not reflective of the universitys views.

Brock has no connection whatsoever with his views, and abhors comments that have been posted on his social media sites, Dunk said in a statement.

The universitys handbook states that the title of professor emeritus indicates the mutual desire of the university and the retiree to maintain an ongoing relationship.

Scott Henderson, the universitys senate chair and a social sciences professor, said the matter involving Stevenson is not a free speech issue.

We are in no position to censor Mr. Stevensons comments, Henderson said in a statement.

The concern that has been raised here is with the horrendous tone of many of the comments made online, including those that wish harm others directly, and those which openly malign the Indigenous peoples of Canada and the very First Nations on whose land we meet today.
A higher education and professional career can be the gateway to many privileges  but amidst Canadas shifting economic tides, job security isnt always one of them, according to a new study.

A survey released Tuesday of 1,000 professionals across the country found that one in five are in precarious jobs, working contract-to-contract, part-time, or freelance. More than half of those in insecure employment said their income varied significantly, and 60 per cent said they dont have pension plans or sick pay.

Conversely, 85 per cent of professionals with secure jobs had pensions and 94 per cent said they got paid if they were ill.

Regardless of job status, the study conducted by progressive think tank the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found a widespread sense of economic insecurity, with 58 per cent of all professionals surveyed reporting their job used to be more stable.

A number of the hallmarks of precarious jobs in low-wage jobs like a (lack of) pension plan, like a sick day, like a predictable income, a predictable schedule  all of those things were found in a good percentage of professional jobs, said the reports co-author Ricardo Tranjan.

The key point is that when we talk about precarious jobs in Canada we tend to think about it as something to happen to low-wage jobs, but that is not the case.

A study, completed in 2017 by two independent experts appointed by the Ontario government, found that almost half of low-income earners in the province are in precarious jobs. Research for the Law Commission of Ontario, based on 2008 data, found that workers with less than a high school diploma as well as recent immigrants, women and people of colour, are overrepresented amongst vulnerable workers.

While the CCPA study shows those with a higher education in professional careers have a better shot at stable employment, its findings challenged the idea that well-paid professionals opt for non-traditional working conditions, with 57 per cent of professionals in precarious roles saying they would prefer a better job.

When we see professions in traditional occupations (precariously employed) it really drives home the point that it is management decisions that are making jobs more precarious, he said.

Some 22 per cent of professionals surveyed in Ontario and Quebec were in precarious jobs  slightly lower than the 25 per cent reported in the Prairies. British Columbia and the Maritimes had a slightly lower rate, at 20 and 17 per cent respectively.

What are your thoughts?

Being a precarious professional comes with significant financial implications, the report found, with those in unstable careers twice as likely as those in a secure job to make less than $60,000 a year.

The study, entitled No Safe Harbour: Precarious Work and Economic Insecurity Among Skilled Professionals in Canada, defined a professional as someone who is in a job that requires specialized credentials or is considered high skilled. While the research found employment insecurity across all occupations, the report noted there was a higher proportion in education, health care and finance or administrative jobs.

Tiffany Cooper is an occasional teacher with the Waterloo Region District School Board and spent 12 years on the supply list. Along with coping with an erratic schedule, she says she rarely cleared more than $20,000 a year in her role and for eight years picked up a second job in a store.

Recently, she had major surgery, which meant she couldnt work for four months and couldnt access medical benefits.

Its extremely challenging for a lot of people and its frustrating for a lot of people, she said.

The perception (about job quality) has changed amongst teachers, she added. I dont think it has amongst the public.

Young professionals were slightly more likely to experience precarity at the outset of their career, the CCPAs research found, noting that young people were entering the job market in a period of significant change. The majority  60 per cent  of precarious professionals were women, the report said.

It feels like the economy in North America doesnt give you reasons to stick around, said Kate Fulton, 33, who recently landed her first permanent job at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

After teaching in South Korea following her graduation from the University of Guelph, she returned to Canada to put down roots, initially moving to Alberta. Although she describes her role at the Banff Centre as an awesome job, she says working contract-to-contract for two years made it difficult to put down roots or plan for the future.

Its such a different philosophy from previous generations. Emotionally, the hardest part is justifying it to family.

She says job insecurity also makes it difficult for employers to retain talented employees and institutional knowledge.

It means no one gets in the groove ... it seems like such a bad long-term plan, but of course they are looking really short term.

The CCPA report also noted a surprisingly higher incidence of job insecurity amongst older workers between 55 to 64.

There were a number of myths this report addressed. One of them is this notion that job precarity is something that impacts folks entering the job market, but eventually they gain a lot of experience and they will be fine thereafter. Thats not what we found, Tranjan said.

Tranjan said the transformation of the manufacturing sector  once precarious, now often praised for solid wages, security and benefits  offers a blueprint for improving job quality.

What happened was unions and government legislation, he said.

Last year, the Ontario government revamped its workplace laws with an eye to offering more protection to precarious workers through Bill 148, which upped the minimum wage from $11.60 to $14 an hour in 2018 and promised to increase it to $15 in 2019. It also introduced two paid emergency leave days, made it easier for some workers to unionize, and mandated equal pay for equal work for part-time, casual, and temporary employees.

The provinces new Minister of Labour Laurie Scott is now considering the recent changes made and their impact on the overall economy, said ministry spokesperson Janet Deline.

Premier Doug Ford has said his government will freeze the minimum wage at $14.
OTTAWASix months after Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus foreign policy prowess was pummelled by a disorganized state visit to India, his chief opponent is heading to New Delhi to try to repair and strengthen Canada-India relations.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer will take his team to India for nine days in October. He has plans to meet with senior government officials, business leaders and civil society and faith leaders.

Standing with a united India is Canadas gateway to unprecedented human and economic development, and an essential alliance for Canada to strengthen in the face of shared threats, Scheer said in a statement.

He also praised India for being the worlds largest democracy and having one of the fastest-growing economies, saying the country in recent years is transforming into a rising power in the vast Indo-Pacific region and beyond.

A Conservative government will dramatically expand the strategic relationship between our countries and our peoples and advance our shared security, prosperity and values. Unfortunately, Justin Trudeaus disastrous trip to India damaged this key relationship and we must now work to repair it.

Indeed, Trudeaus nine-day sojourn to India last February is likely one the Liberals wish they could erase after numerous missteps damaged Trudeaus reputation both at home and abroad.

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The choice to wear high-end Indian fashions while touring Indian landmarks with his family made for some uncomfortable optics, widely distributed via social media, that are sure to resurface as the 2019 election season rolls around, if not sooner.

But the real body blow came when a Canadian man convicted in 1986 of trying to murder an Indian politician on Vancouver Island found his way onto the guest list of two different receptions with the prime minister in Mumbai and New Delhi.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi  whose silence on the first five days of Trudeaus trip was perceived by many as a purposeful snub  salvaged the trip near the end, greeting Trudeau warmly with his signature bear hug at the presidential palace.

The two signed a number of agreements about environmental policies and trade, including a joint commitment to battle extremism that named two Sikh extremist groups, riling up the Sikh Canadian community, said Balpreet Singh, legal counsel for the World Sikh Organization of Canada.

Indias successful effort to reinvigorate fear of Sikh extremists in Canada, despite absolutely no evidence of their existence, set the community back decades in terms of their position in Canada, said Singh.

As proof, he cited two violent attacks last March on Sikhs in Canada, and the security agreement was seen among many Sikhs in Canada as a capitulation to the Indian government.

We feel this could be a threat to our community and we made sure that message was passed on loud and clear, he said.

Theres no itinerary yet available for what Conservative officials say will be a business-oriented trip by Scheer, with no Taj Mahal photo ops. Its not yet known whether he will meet with Modi.

Brock Harrison, a spokesperson for Scheer, said India is an important strategic partner for Canada for a number of reasons, adding that Scheer believes there is work to do to strengthen the relationship between the two countries.

India is one of the worlds fastest growing economies, displacing France for sixth place among the worlds nations last year, yet trade with Canada remains sluggish. In 2012, the former Conservative government set a goal of increasing two-way trade to $15 billion by 2015. In 2017, it was about $8.4 billion.

For eight years, Canadian and Indian officials have been in talks to work toward a free-trade agreement. The Conservative government said in 2011 it hoped to conclude an economic partnership agreement with India in 2013. Five years later, there is still no agreement in place.

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As many as 1,500 people had to find a place to sleep Tuesday night after a six-alarm fire blazed through a downtown highrise for at least six hours, eventually forcing the evacuation of the entire building.

One hundred firefighters and 26 fire trucks were dispatched to 650 Parliament St., south of Bloor St. E., shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday. At roughly 9:15 p.m., Toronto fire Chief Matthew Pegg confirmed the blaze had been extinguished.

The remaining smoke had also been cleared, Mayor John Tory and Pegg told reporters at nearby Wellesley Community Centre.

The community centre was set up as an emergency shelter on Tuesday.

Pegg said the fire significantly damaged the St. James Town building and that essential services were not functioning, forcing the evacuation of several hundred remaining residents. There are no lights, there are no fire protection services and there is no elevator service, Pegg said.

The building contains about 570 units, he said. The mayor estimated up to 1,500 people were displaced, but said it could be closer to 1,200 or 1,300.

He said some residents had already found places to stay, with relatives or friends.

One of the things we have said to residents is we will have accommodation for everyone tonight, whether its in a hotel, an Airbnb, some kind of donation accommodation or a community facility, Tory said. Everybody will have a place to stay tonight.

There were no serious injuries reported and emergency services were able to get everyone out unscathed. Im so proud of all the work our first responders did today, Pegg said.

He noted that only two minor injuries were reported to him. No emergency responders were hurt.

The Red Cross has equipped the Wellesley Community Centre shelter with food and mats for children to sleep on, Tory said. And he noted people would be provided with transportation to other facilities if necessary.

The city is asking people who are able to help with accommodation to email gtaresponse@redcross.ca.

According to police, the fire started in an electrical box. Pegg said it may take several days until essential services are restored.

Residents were allowed to reenter the building Tuesday night to retrieve pets and collect essentials.

Local Councillor Lucy Troisi said she spent most of the day at the highrise comforting scared residents.

Weve bought some toys, weve got some halal food and were just giving lots of hugs, she said to reporters Tuesday night.

She also commented on the great work of the first responders and how everyone, including residents, banded together.

Everyone had a role, she said. EMS was outstanding, our firefighters were great, the police was great, but so was the community.

They were so patient, they were so accommodating, they listened to all the instructions, she said.

Its been a long day.

Claire Floody is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Stars radio room in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @claire_floody

Ilya Banares is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Stars radio room in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @ilyaoverseas

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Mount Dennis resident Sophie Van Waeyenberghe and her husband awoke Tuesday, Aug. 7 to the frantic ringing of their doorbell; it was their neighbour alerting the couple that their house was flooding.

He told us to move our car out of the garage. Sewage was coming up out of the drains, Van Waeyenberghe said, describing the impact of the storm and torrential downpour that pummeled the city earlier this month. While the water was rising, there was nothing we could do but wait.

When it finally subsided, 10 inches of sewage from the roads storm drains had flooded the house on Hilldale Rd., which Van Waeyenberghe and her husband had moved into in July.

We had just finished furnishing the basement and 48 hours later, everything was flooded, she said.

Theyve had to throw out most of their belongings and rip out the drywall. If it was clean water, perhaps some items could have been salvaged.

Van Waeyenberghe had no idea their new home was at risk of flooding. They found out from a neighbour only after moving in.

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She was one of about 20 Mount Dennis residents whose homes flooded, who came out to a public meeting hosted by city councillor candidate for York South-Weston Chiara Padovani. The meetings objective was to address residents immediate needs while discussing reasons why flooding is happening and what can be done to mitigate it.

The meeting took place the same day Mayor John Tory joined local Councillor Frances Nunziata to visit residents to see the damage their homes sustained in the storm.

Im glad I was able to go out to talk to people, to see the devastation, Tory said when reached for comment the next day. The fact is, the infrastructure was put in the aftermath of Hurricane Hazel (1954) and is outdated.

The mayor said the city is seeking federal funding for infrastructure planning and emergency funding while looking into installing technology that would provide advance notice of flooding. The technology currently exists on the Don River, he said.

Residents are furious that this problem persists. Some suffered flooding in July 2013 only to have it happen again.

More than a week after the rain, some were still without hot water, air conditioning, and had broken washer and dryers; some were showering at the gym and boiling their water.

The showers at Archbishop Romero Catholic School, on Humber Blv., have opened since the meeting took place while the York Recreation Centre is open daily.

Padovani encouraged everyone to report their flooding to Toronto 311 (by calling 311 or emailing 311@toronto.ca).

This is the only way the city knows how this neighbourhood is impacted, she said, noting that this is how the city prioritizes where the greatest need is.

The city has a basement flooding prevention subsidy program, which covers up to $3,400 of the cost of such items as a backwater valve and sump pump.

An earlier study by the Toronto Region and Conservation Authority identified some possible solutions, such as building a Jane St. bridge over the Humber River, but the cost is estimated in the tens of millions of dollars.

We should be the priority when were in a high-risk area, Padovani said. Make no mistake  other parts of the city are getting funded.

Even though flooding has been a prevalent issue in the area for decades, fixing the problem needs political will, Padovani said. She referred to the sale of the flood plain-adjacent land at 200 Rockcliffe Ct. to a meat packing plant, lands that could have helped mitigate the problem.

We had land that should have been seen as valuable, to protect our homes, she said. This is the biggest example of neglect.

Van Waeyenberghe said many of her neighbours are worse off. She wasnt even upset. Not until after the meeting, when she learned of the lack of action on flooding.

Im really angry, she said.
As Premier Doug Fords decision to cut council almost in half reignites talk of the urban-suburban divide, the Star finds the old differences arent what they used to be. In a new occasional series, One Toronto, we take a look at what divides us and what we share, no matter where the ward lines fall.

Ritika Chaudhary loves Little India. Shes been in Canada for six months, and whenever she gets homesick for Delhi she heads to Gerrard St. E., where she has a part-time job.

The food, the people, the culture, it reminds me of India, she said, while helping the owners at Indian Rasoi restaurant, near Coxwell Ave., set up for lunch.

But when it came to finding a place to live, the 18-year-old Seneca student settled on Scarborough.

Next door to the restaurant in Chandan Fashion, owner Jatinder Pal Singh says he has seen lots of change in the neighbourhood.

When he opened the clothing store in 1984 there was a large Punjabi community in the area.

The community is less here now, he said. Many of his customers now live in the suburbs, he said, adding that they still come down to his shop when they need bridal or formal wear, following the stores popular Instagram account, which has more than 25,000 followers.

Toronto prides itself on being a jewel of multiculturalism, with more than half of residents now identifying as visible minorities, according to the 2016 census.

But when you break that down along the lines of Torontos six former municipalities, downtown has fallen behind, especially compared to suburbs like Scarborough.

As part of an occasional series this summer, the Star is taking a closer look at the megacity, 20 years after amalgamation, and some of its old divisions. A gulf is growing between a whiter downtown and everyone else, and that can mean downtown loses vibrancy, while ethnic enclaves further away can become isolated, says one expert.

In 1996, before amalgamation, census numbers show old Toronto had a visible minority population of 28 per cent.

By 2016 that number grew to 34 per cent. But in Scarborough over the same period it went from 51 per cent to 73 per cent, Etobicoke 29 to 43 per cent, and North York 39 to 60. East York jumped from 31 to 43 per cent, and York from 34 to 45 per cent.

Meanwhile the percentage of old Toronto residents who are immigrants fell during the same period, from 41 per cent to 33 per cent, while in Scarborough it grew from 51 to 57 per cent, and Etobicoke 43 to 46 per cent. It dipped slightly in York over the same time frame, from 50 to 48 per cent, and stayed steady in East York, at 41 per cent.

Chaudhary chose Scarborough because it still has slightly lower rent. And although you can still get Kashmiri tea, silk saris in vivid colours, and copies of the Pakistan Post in Little India, the neighbourhood, like many of downtowns ethnic enclaves, is changing.

Zhixi Zhuang, an associate professor at Ryerson Universitys school of urban and regional planning, said immigrant communities such as the South Asian one in Little India began to shift to the suburbs 20 to 30 years ago, seeking more space, and cheaper housing.

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As these ethnic communities got stronger, with their own shopping centres, places of worship and professionals who speak their language, many newcomers started bypassing downtown.

She said the risk is people may become so far apart they stop talking to each other, leading to possible tensions, isolation and inequality.

Meanwhile downtown is losing the passion, energy and entrepreneurship that newcomers, and ethnic enclaves such as Little India, bring, Zhuang said.

Theres a huge gap between the city and suburban immigrant communities that planners and officials need to figure out how to bridge, she said.

I think the bigger question for us now is, so what, how are we going to respond to this reality? Zhuang said. That really keeps me up at night.

When Shah Bukhari arrived at Pearson airport from Lahore, Pakistan, in 2001, a Punjabi taxi driver told him to head to Gerrard St.

Hes been working the counter at Kohinoor Foods, across the street diagonally from Singhs clothing store, for about a dozen years.

Before its a lot of Asian people who live in this area and Asian people have more business on Gerrard St. E., he said. Now, there are lots of people from many different communities, and a few new bars and coffee shops have opened nearby.

The Asian businessmen, they lose business, thats why they move, he said, pausing to ring up a mango for a customer.

Usha George, director of the Ryerson Centre for Immigration and Settlement, said higher housing and rental prices in Toronto proper, even in the suburbs, are already pushing new immigrants into the 905 and beyond.

But that does not necessarily mean that downtown will be devoid of that diversity that we want to have, she said.

Anecdotally, shes noticed young professional children of immigrants are moving back into the downtown core whether to rent or own, as they want to be where the centre of the action is, and can afford higher prices with some help from mom and dad.

Downtown as defined by the borders of the old city of Toronto is still more diverse than Canada (22.3 per cent visible minority), and places such as Burlington and Oshawa (both 16 per cent).

What are your thoughts?

But when looking at diversity, its Scarborough, not Toronto, that seemingly becoming the shining beacon.

While there are neighbourhoods that are largely made up of one ethnic group, there are also neighbourhoods with several different groups prominently represented, like the one where Jamaal Myers, a 35-year-old community organizer and former corporate lawyer, now lives.

Myers grew up in Scarborough and recently moved to near Neilson Rd. at Hwy. 401, a neighbourhood where over 85 per cent cent of residents identify as visible minorities: 17 per cent Black, 16 Chinese, 9 per cent Filipino, and 32 per cent South Asian, according to the 2016 census.

Scarboroughs not only diverse, but its integrated, which I think is a big part of the story that people dont see, he said. My friends growing up were Polish, Filipino, West Indian and Sri Lankan.

At the same time, theres definitely a sense that Scarborough is sort of the forgotten part of Toronto, cut off from transit infrastructure and city hall. Myers worries that disconnect will be even more stark under the new plan to combine wards.

You have the poorer visible minority area thats going to be combined with the whiter more affluent middle class area, whos interest do you think theyre going to be representing on council?

Myers spent seven and a half years in New York City, where he started to find all the neighbourhoods looked the same. He hopes Toronto is not heading in the same direction.

Im OK with gentrification, but it has to be done right, he said, such as making sure people in the neighbourhood arent forced out by high rents and prices and can enjoy some of the benefits of new development.

When youre losing the people that make the neighbourhoods interesting thats when you sort of lose your soul, he said.

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A year after government-sanctioned violence triggered the exodus of Rohingya minorities from Burma, Canadas closely knit Rohingya community is holding a vigil on Saturday to remember the victims and draw attention to the plight of those who survived the trauma and face repatriation.

We must not forget the survivors of the genocide. These are not refugees. They are survivors, said Saifullah Muhammad of the Canadian Rohingya Development Initiative, which represents the estimated 450 Rohingya across Canada and organized the event at Queens Park.

Little has changed in the past year. Our concern is these displaced people in refugee camps are going to be forced to repatriate to Myanmar (also known as Burma). Sending them back is like sending them to death.

Since Aug. 25, 2017, more than 700,000 Rohingya  a stateless minority group, most of them Muslims  have fled Rakhine State to escape what Human Rights Watch calls the militarys campaign of ethnic cleansing after the Burmese government launched a security crackdown against Rohingya militants it claimed attacked police posts and killed security force members.

Medecins Sans Frontieres estimates more than 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were killed in the first month of the crackdown, and rights groups have accused authorities in Myanmar of mass killings, sexual violence and burning down Rohingya villages  accusations Burma has repeatedly denied.

Tensions between the Rohingya minority and Burmese majority go back decades, but they intensified after a new law in 1982 effectively stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship in the country, making them one of the largest stateless populations in the world.

Muhammad and his parents fled to Bangladesh in 1992, when Burmas military junta began persecuting political opponents and targeting Muslims who supported the pro-democracy movement, then led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

Muhammad, now 30 and a resident of Kitchener, Ont., said there were only two Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh then, but the number has since ballooned to 33.

There was a repatriation agreement between Burma and the United Nations, and we have seen many Rohingya forced to return. There was nothing for them to return to. Now the same happens again, said Muhammad, who came to Canada under the federal governments refugee sponsorship program in 2016. His parents and two younger siblings are still in Bangladesh.

People live in horrible conditions at these camps. As a Rohingya, my concern is there is limited education (opportunity) for the children who grow up in the camps and they can be easily exploited.

In June, the Burmese government and the United Nations reached a repatriation agreement for the safe voluntary return of the 700,000 Rohingya refugees to their homeland.

Ahmed Ramadan of the Burma Task Force, a coalition of Canadian and U.S. organizations advocating for the rights of ethnic Rohingya, has reservations about the repatriation effort.

The 40-year genocide and suffering in Burma continues to progress, he said. Success will only truly be achieved when the Rohingya have their citizenship, peace and freedom restored and the perpetrators of such heinous crimes are held accountable.

Canada has dedicated $300 million in international aid over the next three years to support a co-ordinated response to the Rohingya crisis, pushing for a lasting political solution for the refugees safe return.

Ahmed Ullah, who led a group of Rohingya Canadian youth in producing a play that chronicles the journey of 14 refugee youth, said there has been a growing awareness in Canada about the Rohingya crisis through public education, media reports and the communitys networking with other advocacy groups.

Last October, he spent two weeks in camps in Bangladesh to visit refugees and listen to their harrowing stories of escaping from Burma.

Its very sad to see. Theres no word to describe what I saw and heard. It felt like a horrifying nightmare, said the 25-year-old, who came to Canada from Bangladesh in 2009, along with his widowed mother and two siblings, leaving behind nine uncles and aunts and their families.

Its difficult to campaign for something that people dont know anything about. The Rohingya in Bangladesh and Myanmar dont have a voice and we must speak up for them.
The Toronto Zoo is celebrating the birth of a rare and endangered pygmy hippopotamus.

Kindia, a 12-year-old female, gave birth to a female calf late Friday night.

The zoo says the species is endangered and there are only about 2,000 to 3,000 left in the wild in West Africa, mostly in Liberia. Small numbers are also found in neighbouring Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast.

Over the past 100 years, the pygmy hippos habitat has declined dramatically because of logging, farming and human settlement.

While the calf appears healthy and is feeding well, the zoo says the first 30 days are critical for both mother and calf.

Kindia arrived at the Toronto Zoo from a zoo in France in June 2016, as part of a global breeding program. This is Kindias first surviving calf and the seventh birth of a pygmy hippopotamus in Toronto Zoos history.

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York University is being taken back to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal for allegedly breaching its settlement with PhD student Mandi Gray, who had complained of failures by the university in providing supports for survivors of sexual assault.

Gray claims in documents filed at the tribunal this month that one condition of the settlement in 2016 had been that York would partner with the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic for four years to provide counselling for survivors of sexual violence on campus.

But Gray argues the university breached the settlement by ending its relationship with the clinic in June.

Its a new level of institutional betrayal, Gray told the Star this week.

Former York student Mustafa Ururyar was originally convicted in criminal court of sexually assaulting Gray, but the ruling was later overturned on appeal by a Superior Court judge who ordered a new trial. Ururyar signed a peace bond last December and no second trial took place. As a result of the peace bond, the charges were withdrawn and Ururyar made no admission of guilt, and he was barred from contacting Gray for one year.

Gray alleged in a 2015 complaint to the human rights tribunal that York had failed to provide counselling without discriminatory barriers and obstacles when she reported being sexually assaulted, and that the services provided by the university lacked expertise in sexual assault.

The eventual settlement, which came about through mediation, meant that a public hearing before the tribunal on the issues raised by Gray never took place. It contained no admission of liability by York, and no concession by Gray.

Gray expects her case will now go for a full hearing before the tribunal.

How can I trust them to go through mediation or resolve this in good faith if they havent demonstrated negotiating in good faith thus far?

York spokesperson Barbara Joy told the Star a one-year agreement with the Schlifer clinic expired in June.

We respect Ms. Gray's ongoing efforts to bring public attention to the important societal issue of sexual assault and the treatment of survivors, Joy said. York will provide the tribunal with a detailed response to Ms. Grays most recent claim. We are confident the university is in full compliance with the terms of settlement reached in 2016.

Joy said counselling supports have been enhanced in the past year, with the addition of a new counsellor who has a background in supporting survivors of sexual violence and gender-based violence and we are currently in the process of recruiting another new counsellor with a similar background. She said the university also continues to increase the number of external options available for counselling.

York had announced through a news release in August 2017 that its sexual violence response office had partnered with the Schlifer clinic to provide enhanced access to personal counselling services for community members who disclose or report sexual violence experienced while they have been registered and/or employed at York.

The release said the Schlifer clinic would provide up to 10 one-hour counselling sessions to individuals referred for services through the sexual violence response office.

Amanda Dale, the clinics executive director, told the Star the clinic had entered into two short-term contracts to provide counselling services. Both contracts were for less than a year, at Yorks insistence, and the most recent one ended in June, she said.

In the case of both contracts, the uncertainty of Yorks commitment to renew meant that counselling services were truncated and not promoted for fear of women accessing a service that would terminate before the full counselling cycle of 10 sessions was achieved, Dale said in an email.

We feared this precarity could suddenly leave women without clinically effective supports.

In her own news release issued this week, Gray says York has routinely misstated the origins of the partnership, saying it came about solely as a result of her human rights complaint. (The settlement is not mentioned in Yorks August 2017 news release.)

In filings with the tribunal, Gray alleges that aside from the August 2017 news release, the university made almost no effort to promote the services of the clinic. She also says the partnership was struck three months later than the deadline outlined in the settlement with the university.

I felt it was an additional level of external oversight in terms of what was happening on campus, Gray told the Star, referring to the need for external counselling services.

I hope to encourage other folks who may be thinking of reporting sexual violence to be very diligent, take notes, have witnesses and get legal advice, because no matter what university youre at, they cannot be trusted to respond to sexual assault.
While some councillors arrived early Monday to sign up to run in one of the new 25 wards, others are refusing to do so until a court decides if the citys original 47-ward election is the way to go.

I am committed to running for re-election, however I continue to support the 47-ward option and will not register for the 25-ward option until the legal process is complete, Councillor Joe Cressy told the Star halfway through Mondays special council meeting, called to consider what legal action the city should take against Premier Doug Fords Bill 5 to slash the size of Toronto council.

Councillor Mike Layton agreed, saying he will also wait to register and expects a court challenge will uphold the democratic process and overturn Bill 5.

City halls election office was reopened Monday for council and school board trustee candidates to register again, but this time under the new ward boundaries.

Previously, nearly 500 candidates had signed up by a July 27 deadline. Their candidacies were shelved because of Bill 5.

Councillor Jim Karygiannis, an outspoken supporter of having 25 wards, was one of the first to sign up, in Ward 22 Scarborough-Agincourt. He will run against Councillor Norm Kelly, who also registered promptly.

Lets move on and make sure it happens and stop bickering and get out there and get elected and may the best person win, Karygiannis said.

Two other incumbents squaring off are Councillor Michelle Holland and Councillor Gary Crawford for Ward 20 Scarborough Southwest.

In Ward 8 Eglinton-Lawrence, Councillor Christin Carmichael Greb faces two strong opponents in longtime former MPP Mike Colle and school board trustee Jennifer Arp.

On a break from what he called the whining in council chambers, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti registered for Ward 7 Humber RiverBlack Creek. He will likely run against Councillor Anthony Perruzza, who hasnt yet signed up.

We should be out there canvassing instead of whining about our jobs. For many councillors its their last chance to whine, said Mammoliti, who lost a motion to adjourn the special council meeting just after it had begun. I came here today to keep going with my agenda, to tackle crime issues.

The discussion going on in council chambers wasnt whining, but rather part of a democratic process in response to Fords legislation that came with no public consultation, Councillor Paul Ainslie said. We are trying to come to grips with what our province has done.

He registered to run in Ward 24 Scarborough-Guildwood, but is concerned about how, if re-elected, hell properly represent 102,000 constituents, almost double his current ward size. His strongest opponent wouldve been Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, who recently announced he wont be seeking re-election.

A steady stream of first-time council candidates also showed up to register, undeterred that boundaries have changed and theyll likely be running against more than one incumbent.

What do you think?

My platform has nothing to do with ward boundaries, said April Engelberg, who has been campaigning for what was supposed to be an open race in Ward 20, but plans to pivot to the new Ward 10 SpadinaFort York.

The 30-year-old litigation lawyers platform is centred on expanding transit through the west side of downtown. She estimates shes already spent 40 to 50 hours a week on her campaign.

Im just as excited for this election, Engelberg said. I might have initially been intimidated to run against potentially multiple incumbents, but now I know residents are responding really well to my platform.

Christina Liu had originally registered run in July, and when she heard about the change in ward boundaries, she didnt hesitate to go through the registration process a second time, this time for the new Ward 17 Don Valley North.

As a citizen of Canada, we all share a responsibility and obligation to make it a better place, and this is how I can participate and make it better, said Liu, a small-business owner.

The only change to her campaign plan is instead of knocking on 22,000 doors, shell up her goal to 44,000 in order to reach more people across the larger ward.

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A growing group of challengers is amassing to fight Premier Doug Fords cuts to Toronto council in a legal battle with a looming deadline  the scheduled Oct. 22 election day.

Until the case is heard, and likely appeals are launched, its unclear if Bill 5, the Better Local Government Act, will be struck down or how many wards, 47 or 25, will be in play for this election. The legal case also makes it uncertain whether the election will be postponed.

A Superior Court judge on Tuesday morning refused to push back the date for hearing the legal challenges, noting the cases importance to the community and pressing need to be heard without delay as the election campaign resumed this week under a 25-ward structure.

Nearly a dozen lawyers appeared before Justice Edward Belobaba at Osgoode Hall to deal with outstanding scheduling issues a day after council directed the citys legal team to fight Bill 5 in court.

Belobaba will be responsible for hearing their arguments later this month, the lawyers learned in court after they arrived.

The legal challenges were launched after Premier Doug Ford announced July 27 that his government would be unilaterally cutting the size of council from 47 to 25 wards for the upcoming Oct. 22 election without warning or consultation.

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The issue was first heard in court on Aug. 14 after lawyer and council candidate Rocco Achampong filed a notice of application seeking an injunction, which would have essentially blocked the new legislation from taking effect until arguments against it could be heard. The bill received royal assent the same day. A hearing date of Aug. 31 was set last week, skipping the injunction step and going straight to a hearing of the arguments.

After council gave them direction to do so, city lawyers will now also file an application against the province.

Also fighting the legislation is a group of three diverse residents represented by Goldblatt Partners. They are Chris Moise, a downtown candidate in the 47-ward election in the area including the Gay Village who intends to withdraw from a 25-ward election; resident and elector Ish Aderonmu; and Prabha Khosla from the Women Win TO organization that works to see more women represented on council.

Five residents represented by Paliare Roland intend to be intervenors in the case. They are candidates Lily Cheng, Jennifer Hollett and Dyanoosh Youssefi along with Sue Dexter from the Harbord Village Residents Association and Geoff Kettel from the Leaside Property Owners Association and the Federation of North Toronto Residents Associations.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation also plans to be an intervener, which means acting as a non-party who can submit materials to assist the court.

The provinces lawyer Robin Basu said he may have trouble responding to what is now an avalanche of materials from all those involved, borrowing a description from Justice Belobaba. Basu said the provinces case could be severely prejudiced if they are forced to go ahead on Aug. 31 as scheduled.

The citys lawyer, Glenn Chu, argued they were all only there because of the province, which changed the rules mid-election when the election date was already fixed, and that the province should have known the timelines would be tight.

Moving the hearing date beyond Aug. 31 would mean a decision may not even be made before the new nomination period closes on Sept. 14, Chu said.

Im not going to change the Aug. 31 date, Belobaba concluded before dismissing the large group of lawyers from the room.

Belobaba said if some bombshell were to arise that could merit the province needing an extra day or two at most, the lawyers could contact him directly. But he warned it would be highly unlikely he would allow it.

The judge also indicated he believes there are already some arguments that can be dismissed.

There are some arguments in this case that may be liable, there are some that are definitely not liable, he said.

How this case will proceed through the courts  and how quickly  is uncertain.

Already, it has been expedited to have Belobaba hear the case on its merits on Aug. 31. He will consider whether the legislation is unconstitutional and should be in force for this or any future election.

Lawyers will now exchange factums and other documents laying out their cases before the Aug. 31 hearing. After that the judge could choose to give his decision orally first with written reasons to follow or wait to issue a written decision.

At that point any of the parties could appeal the decision to the Court of Appeal, which must first agree that the appeal should be heard. In the meantime, the Court of Appeal could be asked to consider an injunction. That court could ultimately uphold Belobabas decision, change it or reverse it.

What do you think?

On Monday, council gave its legal team direction to seek a postponement of the election date if required. The citys team was also instructed to pursue any and all appeals or defend the city in them.

A Court of Appeal decision can be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which must also agree to hear the appeal. Because the Supreme Court only hears a limited number of standout cases of public importance, on questions of law or national significance, the Court of Appeal is a last resort for most cases.

It could take a substantial amount of time for the case to exhaust all legal avenues if appeals are pursued, putting the process at odds with the current election date of Oct. 22.

The issues are important enough in the abstract to go to the Supreme Court, said York University Osgoode Hall Law School professor Bruce Ryder. But that kind of appeal will take years, he said, meaning a 2018 election would be moot during that appeal.

Its unclear if an appeal to the Court of Appeal could be accommodated in time for there to be a decision before an Oct. 22 election date, he said, and is impossible to predict.

Ryder called this case unprecedented in part because of the provinces interference in an election midway through.

If the outcome of the case is only ultimately decided after the Oct. 22 election, once all appeals have been exhausted, its unlikely it would have any retroactive impact on that election, said Lorraine Weinrib, constitutional law professor at the University of Toronto.

I cant see an invalidation of an election. The election would have taken place under the then-law, she said.
BERLINA 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard who lived quietly in New York City for decades was carried out of his home on a stretcher by federal agents and flown to Germany early Tuesday in what could prove to be the last U.S. deportation of a Second World War-era war-crimes suspect.

Jakiw Palijs expulsion, at President Donald Trumps urging, came 25 years after investigators first accused Palij of lying about his wartime past to get into the U.S. But it was largely symbolic because officials in Germany have repeatedly said there is insufficient evidence to prosecute him.

Trump made it very clear he wanted Palij out of the country, and a new German government that took office in March brought new energy to expediting the matter, U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell said.

Eli Rosenbaum, the former head of the U.S. office investigating accused Nazi war criminals, said Palijs removal is a landmark victory in the U.S. governments decades-long quest to achieve a measure of justice and accountability on behalf of the victims of Nazi inhumanity.

Palij lived quietly in the U.S. for years, as a draftsman and then as a retiree, until nearly three decades ago when investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was living somewhere in America.

Palij, an ethnic Ukrainian born in a part of Poland that is now Ukraine, said on his 1957 naturalization petition that he had Ukrainian citizenship. When their investigators showed up at his door in 1993, he said: I would never have received my visa if I told the truth. Everyone lied.

A judge stripped Palijs U.S. citizenship in 2003 for participation in acts against Jewish civilians while he was an armed guard at the Trawniki camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and he was ordered deported a year later.

But because Germany, Poland, Ukraine and other countries refused to take him, he continued living in limbo in the two-storey, red brick home in Queens he shared with his late wife, Maria. His continued presence there outraged the Jewish community, attracting frequent protests over the years that featured such chants as, Your neighbour is a Nazi!

According to the Justice Department, Palij served at Trawniki in 1943, the same year 6,000 prisoners in the camps and tens of thousands of other prisoners held in occupied Poland were rounded up and slaughtered. Palij has acknowledged serving in Trawniki but denied any involvement in war crimes.

Last September, all 29 members of New Yorks congressional delegation signed a letter urging the State Department to follow through on his deportation.

Good riddance to this war criminal, said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.

The deportation came after weeks of diplomatic negotiations.

Grenell told reporters there were difficult conversations because Palij is not a German citizen and was stateless after losing his U.S. citizenship. But the moral obligation of taking in someone who served in the name of the German government was accepted, he said.

Video footage from ABC News showed federal immigration agents carrying Palij out of his home Monday on a stretcher. Palij, with a fluffy white beard and a brown, newsboy-style cap atop his head, was wrapped in a sheet as the agents carried him down a brick stairway in front of his home and into a waiting ambulance.

He ignored a reporter who shouted, Are you a Nazi? and Do you have any regrets?

Palij was flown on a specially chartered air ambulance from Teterboro, N.J., according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and arrived in Dusseldorf, Germany, at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

Palijs lawyer, Ivars Berzins, declined to comment.

The local German government in Warendorf county, near Muenster, said Palij would be taken to a care facility in the town of Ahlen.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said there is no line under historical responsibility, but added in a comment to the German daily Bild that doing justice to the memory of Nazi atrocities means standing by our moral obligation to the victims and the subsequent generations.

Jens Rommel, head of the German federal prosecutors office that investigates Nazi war crimes, said Tuesday that the deportation doesnt change the likelihood that Palij will be prosecuted for war crimes. A new investigation would only come into question if something changed in the legal evaluation or actual new evidence became known, he said.

However, Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said he hoped prosecutors would revisit the case now that Palij is in Germany.

Trawniki was a camp where people were trained to round up and murder the Jews in Poland, so theres certainly a basis for some sort of prosecution, he said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem.

The efforts invested by the United States in getting Palij deported are really noteworthy and Im very happy to see that they finally met with success, he said.

Palijs deportation is the first for a Nazi war crimes suspect since Germany agreed in 2009 to take John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio autoworker who was accused of serving as a Nazi guard. He was convicted in 2011 of being an accessory to more than 28,000 killings and died 10 months later, at age 91, with his appeal pending.

Palij, whose full name is pronounced Yah-keev PAH-lee, entered the U.S. in 1949 under the Displaced Persons Act, a law meant to help refugees from postwar Europe.

He told immigration officials that he worked during the war in a wood shop and farm in Nazi-occupied Poland, as well as at another farm in Germany and finally in a German upholstery factory. Palij said he never served in the military.

In reality, officials say, he played an essential role in the Nazi program to exterminate Jews as an armed guard at Trawniki. According to a Justice Department complaint, Palij served in a unit that committed atrocities against Polish civilians and others and then in the notorious SS Streibel Battalion, a unit whose function was to round up and guard thousands of Polish civilian forced labourers.

After the war, Palij maintained friendships with other Nazi guards who the government says came to the U.S. under similar false pretenses.

The Justice Departments special Nazi-hunting unit started piecing together Palijs past after a fellow Trawniki guard identified him to Canadian authorities in 1989. Investigators asked Russia and other countries for records on Palij beginning in 1990 and first confronted him in 1993.

It wasnt until after a second interview in 2001 that he signed a document acknowledging he had been a guard at Trawniki and a member of the Streibel Battalion. Palij suggested at one point during that interview that he was threatened with death if he refused to work as a guard, saying, If you dont show up, boom-boom.

Though the last Nazi suspect ordered deported, Palij is not the last remaining in the U.S.

Since 2017, Poland has been seeking the extradition of Ukrainian-born Michael Karkoc, an ex-commander in an SS-led Nazi unit that burned Polish villages and killed civilians during the war. But it could take years before the 99-year-old, who currently lives in Minneapolis, faces deportation. He was the subject of a series of 2013 reports by The Associated Press that led Polish prosecutors to issue an arrest warrant for him.

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ALEXANDRIA, VA.Paul Manafort, the longtime political operative who for months led Donald Trumps successful presidential campaign, was found guilty of eight financial crimes Tuesday in the first trial victory of the special counsel investigation into the presidents associates.

A judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts the jury could not agree on.

The verdict was part of a stunning one-two punch of bad news for the White House, coming as the presidents former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty in New York to campaign finance charges arising from hush money payments made to two women who say they had sexual relationships with Trump.

The jury returned the decision after deliberating four days on tax and bank fraud charges against Manafort, who led Trumps election effort during a crucial stretch of 2016, including as he clinched the Republican nomination and during the partys convention.

Manafort, who appeared jovial earlier in the day amid signs the jury was struggling in its deliberations, focused intently on the jury as the clerk read off the charges. He stared down blankly at the defence table, then looked up, expressionless, as the judge finished thanking the jury.

Mr. Manafort is disappointed of not getting acquittals all the way through or a complete hung jury on all counts, said defence lawyer Kevin Downing. He said Manafort was evaluating all his options.

Read more:

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The jury found Manafort guilty of five counts of filing false tax returns on tens of millions of dollars in Ukrainian political consulting income. He was also convicted of failing to report foreign bank accounts in 2012 and of two bank fraud charges that accused him of lying to obtain millions of dollars in loans after his consulting income dried up.

The jury couldnt reach a verdict on three other foreign bank account charges, and the remaining bank fraud and conspiracy counts.

The outcome, though not the across-the-board guilty verdicts prosecutors sought, almost certainly guarantees years of prison for Manafort. It also appears to vindicate the ability of special counsel Robert Muellers team to secure convictions from a jury of average citizens despite months of partisan attacks, including from Trump, on the investigations integrity.

The verdict also raised immediate questions of whether the president would seek to pardon Manafort, the lone American charged by Mueller to opt for trial instead of co-operate. The president has not revealed his thinking but spoke sympathetically throughout the trial of his onetime aide, at one point suggesting he had been treated worse than gangster Al Capone.

The president Tuesday called the outcome a disgrace and said the case has nothing to do with Russia collusion.

The trial did not resolve the central question behind Muellers investigation  whether Trump associates co-ordinated with Russia to influence the election. Still, there were occasional references to Manaforts work on the campaign, including emails showing him lobbying Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner on behalf of a banker who approved $16 million (U.S.) in loans because he wanted a job in the Trump administration.

Manafort urged Kushner to consider the banker, Stephen Calk, for Secretary of the Army. Though Kushner responded to Manaforts email by saying, On it! Calk ultimately did not get an administration post.

For the most part, jurors heard detailed and sometimes tedious testimony about Manaforts finances and what prosecutors allege was a years-long tax-evasion and fraud scheme.

Manafort decided not to put on any witnesses or testify himself. His attorneys said he made the decision because he didnt believe the government had met its burden of proof.

His defence team attempted to make the case about the credibility of longtime Manafort protege Rick Gates, attacking the governments star witness as a liar, embezzler and instigator of any crimes as they tried to convince jurors that Manafort didnt wilfully violate the law.

Gates spent three days on the stand, telling jurors how he committed crimes alongside Manafort for years. He admitted to doctoring documents, falsifying information and creating fake loans to lower his former boss tax bill, and also acknowledged stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars without Manaforts knowledge by filing fake expense reports.

Beyond the testimony, prosecutors used emails and other documents to try to prove that Manafort concealed from the IRS, in offshore accounts, millions of dollars in Ukrainian political consulting feeds. Overall, they said, he avoided paying more than $16 million in taxes.

Central to the governments case were depictions of an opulent lifestyle, including a $15,000 ostrich jacket, luxury suits and elaborate real estate that prosecutors say was funded through offshore wire transfers from shell companies in Cyprus and elsewhere.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III repeatedly grew impatient with prosecutors as they sought to demonstrate Manaforts garish tendencies. The clashes between the judge and the prosecutor became a sideshow of sorts during the weeks-long trial, with the judge at one point appearing to acknowledge that he had erroneously scolded them.

After the trial, Ellis complimented lawyers on both sides for zealous and effective representation. He also remarked on his surprise at the level of attention the case has received and the criticism he received for his management of the trial.

We all take brickbats in life, Ellis said.

The trial in Alexandria, Virginia, is the first of two for Manafort. He faces a trial later this year in the District of Columbia on charges of conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, making false statements and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Ukrainian interests. He is also accused of witness tampering in that case.

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Britains top diplomat accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of testing the resolve of Western nations, and praised U.S. President Donald Trump as he appealed to the European Union to step up sanctions against Moscow.

Speaking during his first visit to Washington since replacing Boris Johnson, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the EU should match the U.S. response to the poisoning of a former Russian spy on British soil this year.

Putin is testing us, hes wanting to see just how robust and how united the the West is, Hunt said in a speech to the U.S. Institute of Peace on Tuesday. Thats why its important our response is robust and united.

The attempted murder of Sergei Skripal with a nerve agent in the English town of Salisbury was an example of how Putins foreign policy has made the world a more dangerous place, Hunt said. Britain wants the EU to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the U.S.

The veiled criticism of the EU comes as the U.K. is pursuing Brexit and courting the U.S. for a favourable trade deal, an example of how foreign policy and domestic politics become entwined. Hunt took care to heap praise on Trump.

If you look at the actions of president Trump what you see is an approach to foreign policy that is different from his predecessors but is absolutely focused on upholding the international order, Hunt said. Hes prepared to be tough, tougher actually than a number of his predecessors, to make sure people get the message about vital red lines.

EU states expelled Russian diplomats following the March attack on Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. But the death last month of Dawn Sturgess, a British woman who later came into contact with the nerve agent, has raised the stakes.

Hunt drew attention to U.S. steps against Russia  including sanctions due to come into force Wednesday on electronics, lasers and some oil and gas production technologies  and said the EU should follow suit. The bloc hasnt expanded the sanctions it imposed in response to Russias annexation of Crimea in 2014.

In a further swipe at Brussels, Hunt said a failure to reach a Brexit deal with the EU would threaten cooperation across the continent.

The risk of a messy divorce, as opposed to the friendship we seek, would be a fissure in relations between European allies that would take a generation to heal  a geostrategic error for Europe at an extremely vulnerable time in our history, he said.

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WASHINGTONU.S. prosecutors announced charges Monday against two men arrested Aug. 9 and accused of acting as agents of the government of Iran, covertly monitoring a Jewish centre in Chicago and American members of an Iranian opposition group in exile in behalf of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Criminal complaints against Ahmadreza Mohammadi Doostdar, 38, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, and Majid Ghorbani, 59, an Iranian citizen and resident of California, were unsealed after an indictment was returned Monday in the District of Columbia, according to the U.S. Justice Department and U.S. attorneys office of the District.

Ghorbani is scheduled to appear for a detention hearing at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate G. Michael Harvey of the District, prosecutors said. Attorneys for the men could not immediately be identified.

Doostdar and Ghorbani are alleged to have acted on behalf of Iran, including by conducting surveillance of political opponents and engaging in other activities that could put Americans at risk, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said in a statement.

This alleged activity demonstrates a continued interest in targeting the United States, as well as potential opposition groups located in the United States, namely the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) or Peoples Mujahedin of Iran, said Michael McGarrity, acting executive assistant director of the FBIs national security branch.

Doostdar and Ghorbani were charged with acting as agents of Iran, violating U.S. sanctions and conspiracy. The charges carry maximum statutory penalties of 10 years, 20 years and five years in prison, respectively.

According to charging documents, Doostdar entered the United States in about July 2017 allegedly to gather intelligence about targets considered enemies of the Tehran government, including Israeli and Jewish interests and the MEK, a dissident group that seeks regime change in Iran and that was listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist group from 1997 until 2012.

According to an FBI affidavit, Doostdar on July 21, 2017, allegedly surveilled and photographed security features at the Rohr Chabad House  a branch of Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois that serves students at the University of Chicago-Illinois.

That December, Doostdar allegedly paid Ghorbani $2,000 in cash and received 28 photographs with names attached that Ghorbani is accused of taking of demonstrators at a Sept. 20, 2017, MEK rally against the Iranian government in New York City, the FBI said.

The pictures and a handwritten receipt for $2,000 were allegedly found concealed in Doostdars luggage as he travelled through an airport in the United States to return to Iran, the FBI affidavit said.

U.S. authorities accused the men of continuing to work together this year, with Ghorbani allegedly travelling to Iran in about March after telling Doostdar he was going there to conduct an in-person briefing, and discussing clandestine methods to provide to Iran photographs Ghorbani took of people who attended an MEK-affiliated Iran Freedom Convention for Human Rights in Washington, on May 4.

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Statues often reverentially commemorate historical figures that are meant to inspire future generations. They can also tell a story about where we came from and where we want to be.

As we enter an era of truth and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, its time to reconsider what to do with such symbols from the past. We offer a few arguments in support of the removal of a statue of Canadas first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, from the steps of Victorias city hall.

Firstly, nothing lasts forever  and this is not a historically significant statue. It only dates back to 1982, when it was gifted by the Sir John A. Macdonald Historical Society. Should gifts be displayed forever? Sculptor John Dann wants his creation back in front of city hall and argues that its a work of art, representing all humanity. We feel that humanity can be much better represented.

Second, Macdonalds legacy is more negative than positive when we look back at his treatment of Indigenous peoples and Asians. Historian Tim Stanley said,   Macdonalds were among the most extreme views of his era. He was the only politician in the parliamentary debates to refer to Canada as Aryan and to justify legalized racism on the basis not of alleged cultural practices but on the grounds that Chinese and Aryans were separate species.

Have your say

Opposing view: Should statues of Sir John A. Macdonald be removed? No

Macdonalds penchant for violence and degradation toward Indigenous people has now eclipsed his legacy as a railroad builder  like it or not.

Prior to Macdonald, there was a better understanding between European settlers and Indigenous peoples. The Two Row Wampum Treaty is a peace and friendship treaty that dates back to 1613. It signals hope for peaceful coexistence and speaks of a river journey where settlers and Indigenous peoples travel side by side, accepting each others history and laws.

Macdonald basically tore apart the Two Row Wampum, dismissed all respect for the original peoples of the land and laid aside previous understandings about peaceful coexistence.

To rid the Prairies of Indigenous peoples, Macdonald engaged in crimes against humanity, if not outright genocide. In his seminal book, Clearing the Plains, James Daschuk speaks in clear, blunt terms of how Macdonalds government deployed starvation to force Indigenous peoples onto reserves, then withheld rations in order to bring about thousands of deaths through starvation and disease (such as tuberculosis).

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission also highlighted these tactics in its Final Report, all of this designed to eliminate Indigenous peoples as nations and political actors on their own lands.

Macdonald was not shy about his murderous goals, stressing in 1885 that food would be refused until the Indians were on the verge of starvation, to reduce the expense. Daschuk later concluded that such policies were a form of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Macdonalds enmity towards Indigenous people went even further. He forcibly suppressed the so-called Northwest Rebellion and advocated for the elimination of Indigenous languages and spirituality, through the residential school system.

THE BIG DEBATE: For more opposing view columns from Toronto Star contributors, click here.

Third, the city of Victoria, voting seven to one, undertook to remove Macdonalds statue as part of a larger process of reconciliation with the Lekwungen People, the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations. If this sign of respect and forward movement helps to bring about better relations, then why is it a problem?

Despite any good that may be attributed to Macdonald, his record of cruelty, barbarism and even genocide should preclude him from receiving any honours, statues included. We cannot change Canadas past but we can, by working together, change our future for the better

Bernie M. Farber is a human-rights activist, writer and chair of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network. David B. MacDonald is professor of political science at the University of Guelph, and the author of several books on national identity, genocide and comparative Indigenous politics. Dr. Michael Dan is a philanthropist and First Nations advocate.

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Toronto has spoken.

This citys duly elected representatives made a difficult but necessary decision to fight Premier Doug Fords dictatorial move to slash council in half. On Monday, they voted to take the province to court.

They may not win. The citys solicitor has advised them that while there are legal avenues to pursue, theres no easy or obvious path to success.

And, win or lose, councils decision to fight lengthens the uncertainty around whether Octobers election will be contested across 25 or 47 wards and risks adding to the chaos, the citys clerk has warned.

But Fords Progressive Conservatives left Toronto councillors who care about this city and basic democratic principles with no choice but to fight this assault on municipal government.

For try as Ford might to paint this as an acceptable action to save money and ensure good governance, it is anything but that.

Toronto is home to nearly 3 million people, and its economic importance to Canada tops many provinces. It has never received the respect, powers or revenue tools it needs.

The City of Toronto Act was supposed to help change that. But we now know the act isnt worth the paper its printed on. Not after Ford simultaneously held it up as the latest absurd cover for why he singled out Toronto  which is still governed by its own act  and essentially ripped it up by ignoring its requirement for consultation.

Its going to be an uphill battle, but were doing the right thing, said Councillor Josh Matlow, who moved the successful motion to take the province to court.

Mayor John Tory and the majority of council  the vote was 25 to 17  who supported the motion are standing up for the right of Toronto citizens to have effective representation and not have their election, months underway, upended by the province.

And then there were the shameful seven, led by councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, who tried to do Fords bidding by having the meeting adjourned before they could even debate the issue.

Toronto is the city that many Canadians love to hate, so the specific details of what the premier has done wont matter to everyone. Some are even cheering him on.

But if a premier feels hes free to act in this arbitrary and vindictive way there may be a lot more than just Torontos future at stake in court later this month.

As Matlow says, were seeking to set a new precedent to ensure that local democracy will prevail when a premier acts like a tin-pot dictator.

Thats something that other cities may find themselves in need of before long.

As Toronto council was in the midst of its emergency meeting Monday, Ford was speaking to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. He set out to reassure other municipalities that they were safe from a similar gutting of their councils but didnt quite manage that.

No we do not  I repeat  we do not have plans for similar legislation in our near future, Ford said.

By all accounts, the Ontario PCs had no plans for Bill 5 until Ford sprung it on them in a cabinet meeting. So how much solace can it be to hear there are no plans in our near future to target others who fall on the wrong side of Fords attentions?

In a democratic system there is plenty of room to have a conversation about the most effective way to govern. And a debate on changing how Canadas largest city operates and is funded is something that would have appealed to many of the people now leading the fight against Ford.

But he didnt have the courage to have that conversation with Torontonians. Instead, Ford  and his cabinet who have gone along with this  have tried hiding behind a general provincial election slogan about reducing the size and cost of government.

And so it is clear that Fords main goal isnt a better run city. He just wants to have it his way, the consequences be damned.

Thats something the people of Toronto are right to fight against.

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VANCOUVERThe British Columbia Court of Appeal has ordered a new trial for the former leader of a religious sect who was acquitted of taking a 15-year-old girl across the U.S. border for a sexual purpose.

The Crown appealed the verdict in the case of James Oler, the former leader of a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints community in Bountiful, B.C., which practises polygamy.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge acquitted Oler last year because he was not convinced Oler did anything within Canadas borders to arrange the girls transfer to the U.S. to marry a member of the sect.

There was no evidence confirming Olers location when he received a phone call from church president Warren Jeffs in 2004 asking him to bring the girl to the U.S., and no record of either Oler or the teenager crossing the border.

But special prosecutor Peter Wilson told the Appeal Court that proof of wrongdoing inside Canada was not necessary for a conviction.

The law against removing children for a sexual purpose is designed to protect youth who are taken to another country and subjected to an offence that would be a crime under Canadian law, he argued, and it therefore applies to Olers alleged actions in the U.S.

Read more:

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The Appeal Court agreed and in a written decision released Tuesday said the trial judge erred.

It cannot be said that it would offend international comity for the Canadian criminal law to redress the harm of removing an ordinarily resident child from Canada for the purpose of activity that would be an offence in Canada, wrote Justice Mary Saunders on behalf of a three-judge panel.

Canada has a compelling interest in protecting this vulnerable subset of the public, even if the accused was not on Canadian soil when the child was removed.

However, Saunders wrote the law does require evidence that the child was in Canada when the accused arranged to have her removed.

The trial judge didnt express a conclusion as to the girls whereabouts when Oler allegedly made the arrangements, but he did note the fact that she was ordinarily resident in Canada does not prove she was in Canada at the time.

Saunders wrote that there was circumstantial evidence that might have shed light on the girls location, but the trial judge didnt explore it.

For that reason, she concluded that the Appeal Court could not simply substitute a guilty verdict for Olers acquittal and instead must order a new trial.

Oler did not have a lawyer at either the trial or the appeal hearing, so the court appointed an impartial adviser to assist the court and provide balance.

The 54-year-old was excommunicated from the church around 2012 and now lives in Alberta.

He was convicted of polygamy in a separate case and sentenced in June to three months house arrest, plus community service and probation, for having five wives.

Also on Tuesday, the court denied an appeal from Gail Blackmore, also known as Emily, who was convicted of taking a 13-year-old girl across the border to marry a member of the sect.

Her husband Brandon Blackmore was also convicted of the crime.

Gails lawyer argued her husband likely didnt tell her the reason for the rushed trip to the U.S. with the teenage girl, as wives are expected to obey husbands without question in the church.

The lawyer argued the judge determined Gail helped her husband move the girl based on an incorrect interpretation of circumstantial evidence.

But the Appeal Court dismissed the appeal, saying the judges conclusion was reasonable.

The trip was hurried, that is, taken on short notice, and it was not insignificant in distance travelled or duration. These features invite the reasonable inference of an explanatory conversation between (husband and wife), wrote Saunders.

She added that its not an answer to the charge for Gail to say anything I did, I did because I was obedient.

The identities of the two girls, who are now adults, are protected by a publication ban.

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The education of Mount Olives children has always been a top priority of the small community.

With a population of 2,600 people in the Macoupin County city and a school district of 500 students  pre-kindergarten through high school  the district continues to prosper with the help of community volunteers. More than 40 community volunteers committed to a labor of love to revitalize the Mount Olive public school library to a modern media center for students, completed this year.

The districts focus this year is ensuring that every student, from third through twelfth grade will have a school library icon on their Chromebook in order to search for books, reading teacher Mary Griffel said.

Not only in our library, but they also will have access to ten million books through the Illinois Heartland Library System, she explained to The Telegraph. In addition, students will be able to download books from the cloud to their Chromebooks to read any place, anytime.

The Mount Olive public school library remodeling occurred from spring of 2017 through this January. This will be the first year that students get to utilize the modern media center for a full academic year.

Mount Olive has a small rural district that strives to give its students a high-quality education, Griffel noted.

Teachers from the district knew that the forty-year-old library required updating, in order to facilitate personalized learning for all students, she recalled.

Grants acquired from the Illinois Heartland Library System, Mount Olive Academic Foundation and James Patterson & Scholastic Book Clubs helped to get the project started. The project started initially with volunteer-retired staff and current school board members weeding through books for those to give away; they boxed-up the remaining 7,000-plus books in spring 2017.

That summer, janitors emptied the library in order for the 20 volunteers, current teachers and administrators to apply three coats of paint on the walls. New flooring and carpet also were installed, while teachers began searching for new and gently-used comfortable furniture.

Students and teachers ideas for the librarys revitalization included a Lego wall and magnetic wall for Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) activities, as well as a Promethean Board, a listening center with comfortable seating in the elementary section and a puppet theater.

The high school/junior high library sections requests included new computers, big screen television, comfortable couches/chairs and a cafe to serve refreshments. Students said a green-screen room to produce the schools morning announcements and to create YouTube videos was a must.

Community volunteers made the green screen and curtains for the production room, while current teachers cleaned and organized the furnishings. The Illinois Heartland Library Systems grant of $6,500 provided equipment and training to the current librarian and volunteer-retired staff to begin the process of labeling and scanning all the books.

Money from the Mount Olive Academic Foundation provided five new computers, 10 new Chromebooks and equipment for the green-screen room. Also installed, were the Lego wall, magnet wall, Promethean Board, big screen television, couches, comfortable chairs and tables, and listening center.

Students couldnt wait to go to the library, Griffel said.

By the end of last September, volunteers had enough books scanned and returned to the shelves to reopen the library, including new books from the James Patterson & Scholastic Book Clubs $2,500 grant. Students could now go to the school librarys web page to quickly locate books in the library and request books from Illinois Heartland Library Systems other 499 libraries, with a selection of more than 10 million books.

In addition, students could download books from the cloud onto their own devices, such as Chromebooks and iPhones, to read any place, anytime.

As part of the Macoupin County CEO program, a Mount Olive high school student designed, organized and maintains the cafe as part of an individual project. The high school woodworking/shop classes built the cabinets, run the electrical and installed the cafes walls of counters, including those at which students hang out and use electronic devices, while in the library. The cafe is open to high school students before school starts and during lunch periods.

This past spring, volunteers had scanned and returned all the school librarys books to the shelves.

When you walk into the library now, it is no longer quiet with a handful of students reading or checking out books, Griffel said. Now, you will see older classes of students at one end, working in groups on projects using the computers and Chromebooks, another group working in the green-screen room, a third group working on STEM projects with the Lego wall and magnetic wall, and a fourth group using their Chromebooks to locate and check out books to read. This media center is truly a learning environment that excites and challenges all students, thanks to a group of caring volunteers, who were generous and kind to make a difference in students lives.

Reach Jill Moon at 618-208-6448 and Twitter @jill_moon.
As Southern Illinois University Edwardsville senior psychology and criminal justice double major Anna Miller, of Troy, returns to campus this week, she brings with her a wealth of new knowledge and a broadened perspective thanks to her high impact summer internship.

Miller interned with the Madison Countys Domestic Violence Accountability Court (DVAC) where she assisted advocates in the DVAC, helped with research and statistics, and observed the criminal felony dockets.

DVAC provided me more opportunities for my future than I could have asked for at this stage in my academic career, Miller said. Ive been provided the rare opportunity as an undergraduate to work individually with victims and apply my textbook education to real life situations.

Miller aspires to be a licensed clinical forensic psychologist and work at the federal level aiding in both victim and offender assessments, designing and implementing treatment programs, and conducting research on various topics within the legal system.

Her current and future academic studies will surely prepare her for an impactful career. But, Miller says, opportunities like her summer internship add incredible value.

No amount of assigned readings or four-hour lectures can prepare someone for the emotional component that accompanies this line of work, she explained. The emotional aspect of working with violent offenders and predominantly female victims was the biggest challenge I faced. But, my experience at DVAC helped me realize that my passion for justice can motivate change.

That passion was exemplified by the professionals Miller worked with in the DVAC.

I witnessed exhausted employees tackle each day with a positive outlook, she recalled. I watched as each judge treated an offenders case with consideration. I saw attorneys speak up for victims who felt they couldnt. The patience, focus and dedication within these individuals are undervalued.

I simply cannot show enough appreciation to those who Ive met, emphasized Miller. Id specifically like to thank my supervisor, Ann Langenstein, for allowing me this outstanding opportunity. Her wisdom, passion and energy were the inspiration I didnt know I needed.

Anna was a wonderful addition to our court this summer. She was a delight to work with, and we hated to see her go, said Langenstein, judicial assistant and DVAC Project Manager in the Third Judicial Circuit.

School of Education, Health and Human Behavior Interim Dean Paul Rose, PhD, notes that its this type of community connection that amplifies the impact of high-quality student internships. He calls them a win-win-win.

Through internships, the student gets to see academic concepts in a real-world setting while acquiring work experience, Rose explained. Meanwhile, the cooperating agency gets assistance from the intern with its programs and experience working with students who may interview later for job openings. And, the University gets to prove its value as an intellectual center that enhances quality of life in the region.

Were very excited to partner with SIUE in providing students an opportunity to get hands-on experience in the criminal justice system, Langenstein added.

With her internship completed, Miller is increasingly motivated to further her education and career preparation during her final undergraduate year.

I find it fascinating the way people can differ in their perception and behavior within similar situations, Miller said on her decision to double major. The impact that can be made through a manipulation of various factors is incredible and potentially life changing. I want to extend this power of psychology within our criminal justice system.

The SIUE School of Education, Health and Human Behavior prepares students in a wide range of fields including public health, exercise science, nutrition, instructional technology, psychology, speech-language pathology and audiology, educational administration, and teaching. Faculty members engage in leading-edge research, which enhances teaching and enriches the educational experience. The School supports the community through on-campus clinics, outreach to children and families, and a focused commitment to enhancing individual lives across the region.
JERSEYVILLE  Recent felony charges filed by the Jersey County States Attorneys Office include:

 Deborah A. Desherlia, 41, of the 700 block of E. Arch, Jerseyville, was charged Aug. 15 with unlawful possession of methamphetamine and retail theft, both Class 3 felonies. The charges stem from an incident at the Jerseyville Walmart. Bail was set at $10,000.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP)  Paul Manafort, the longtime political operative who for months led Donald Trump's winning presidential campaign, was found guilty of eight financial crimes Tuesday in the first trial victory of the special counsel investigation into the president's associates. A judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts the jury could not agree on.

The verdict was part of a stunning one-two punch of bad news for the White House, coming as the president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty in New York as part of a separate deal with prosecutors.

The jury returned the decision after deliberating four days on the charges of tax evasion and bank fraud against the former Trump campaign chairman.

The outcome almost certainly guarantees years of prison for Manafort and established the ability of special counsel Robert Mueller's team to persuade a jury of average citizens despite months of partisan attacks  including from Trump  on the investigation's integrity.

The verdict raised immediate questions of whether the president would seek to pardon Manafort, the lone American charged by Mueller to opt for trial instead of cooperate. The president has not revealed his thinking but spoke sympathetically throughout the trial of his onetime aide and at one point suggested that he had been treated worse than gangster Al Capone.

The more than two-week trial, presided over by the colorful and impatient U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, has captured Trump's attention as he works to undermine Mueller's investigation through a constant Twitter barrage and increasingly antagonistic statements from his lawyer-spokesman, Rudy Giuliani.

But Trump and his campaign were only a small part of Manafort's trial as jurors instead heard days of testimony about Manafort's finances and what prosecutors say was a years-long tax-evasion and fraud scheme.

Manafort decided not to put on any witnesses or testify himself in the trial. His attorneys said he made the decision because he didn't believe the government had met its burden of proof.

Manafort's defense team has attempted to make the case about the credibility of longtime Manafort protege, Rick Gates, who served as the government's star witness. They have attacked him as a liar, embezzler and instigator of any crimes as they try to persuade jurors that Manafort didn't willfully violate the law.

For the prosecution, Gates was the star witness, spending three days before the jury, telling them how he committed crimes alongside Manafort for years. Gates admitted to doctoring documents, falsifying information and creating fake loans to lower his former boss's tax bill. He also admitted to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars without Manafort's knowledge by filing fake expense reports.

But the government's case wasn't all about Gates. Prosecutors spent two weeks presenting a meticulous, document-based case before the jury as they sought to prove Manafort used offshore bank accounts to conceal millions of dollars in proceeds from his Ukrainian political consulting from the IRS and later turned to defrauding banks.

Overall, prosecutors say Manafort avoided paying more than $16 million in taxes over several years.

They called carpenters, landscapers and clothiers to attest to how Manafort paid for his lavish lifestyle of expensive suits and elaborate properties through offshore wire transfers from shell companies in Cyprus and elsewhere. They also brought in bankers and accountants to tell jurors how when Manafort's foreign consulting income dropped off, he turned to obtaining millions of dollars more in bank loans under false pretenses.

And perhaps most importantly, the government read from Manafort's own emails as they laid out their case, including messages where he personally directed withdrawals from the offshore accounts he never reported on his tax returns.

Some of other emails admitted into evidence in the case revealed Manafort's lobbying of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner on behalf of Stephen Calk, the chairman of Federal Savings Bank. Prosecutors say Calk approved $16 million in loans for Manafort  despite several red flags  because Calk wanted a job in the Trump administration.

The emails showed that in the weeks after the 2016 election, Manafort urged Kushner to consider Calk for Secretary of the Army, a position Calk had put at the top of his list in an earlier email to Manafort. Calk also listed seven other senior domestic appointments and 18 ambassadorships  ranked in order of preference  that he would accept.

Kushner respond to Manafort's email by saying, "On it!" But Calk ultimately did not get an administration post.

The trial in Alexandria, Virginia, is the first of two for Manafort. He faces a trial later this year in the District of Columbia on charges of conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, making false statements and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Ukrainian interests. He is also accused of witness tampering in that case.
EDWARDSVILLE  As Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville senior psychology and criminal justice double major Anna Miller, of Troy, returns to campus this week, she brings with her a wealth of new knowledge and a broadened perspective thanks to her high impact summer internship.

Miller interned with Madison Countys Domestic Violence Accountability Court (DVAC) where she assisted advocates in the DVAC, helped with research and statistics, and observed the criminal felony dockets.

DVAC provided me more opportunities for my future than I could have asked for at this stage in my academic career, Miller said. Ive been provided the rare opportunity as an undergraduate to work individually with victims and apply my textbook education to real life situations.

Miller aspires to be a licensed clinical forensic psychologist and work at the federal level aiding in both victim and offender assessments, designing and implementing treatment programs, and conducting research on various topics within the legal system.

Her current and future academic studies will surely prepare her for an impactful career. But, Miller said, opportunities like her summer internship add incredible value.

No amount of assigned readings or four-hour lectures can prepare someone for the emotional component that accompanies this line of work, she explained. The emotional aspect of working with violent offenders and predominantly female victims was the biggest challenge I faced. But, my experience at DVAC helped me realize that my passion for justice can motivate change.

That passion was exemplified by the professionals Miller worked with in the DVAC.

I witnessed exhausted employees tackle each day with a positive outlook, she recalled. I watched as each judge treated an offenders case with consideration. I saw attorneys speak up for victims who felt they couldnt. The patience, focus and dedication within these individuals are undervalued. I simply cannot show enough appreciation to those who Ive met. Id specifically like to thank my supervisor, Ann Langenstein (judicial assistant and DVAC project manager in the Third Judicial Circuit), for allowing me this outstanding opportunity. Her wisdom, passion and energy were the inspiration I didnt know I needed.

Anna was a wonderful addition to our court this summer. She was a delight to work with, and we hated to see her go, said Langenstein.

School of Education, Health and Human Behavior Interim Dean Paul Rose, PhD, notes that its this type of community connection that amplifies the impact of high-quality student internships. He calls them a win-win-win.

Through internships, the student gets to see academic concepts in a real-world setting while acquiring work experience, Rose explained. Meanwhile, the cooperating agency gets assistance from the intern with its programs and experience working with students who may interview later for job openings. And, the university gets to prove its value as an intellectual center that enhances quality of life in the region.

Were very excited to partner with SIUE in providing students an opportunity to get hands-on experience in the criminal justice system, Langenstein added.

With her internship completed, Miller is increasingly motivated to further her education and career preparation during her final undergraduate year.

I find it fascinating the way people can differ in their perception and behavior within similar situations, Miller said, on her decision to double major. The impact that can be made through a manipulation of various factors is incredible and potentially life changing. I want to extend this power of psychology within our criminal justice system.
College students will have more information on hand to make financial decisions under a new law that will require the Illinois Student Assistance Commission to develop a three-year pilot program to educate students on loan amounts, repayment and interest.

Each public university and community college will be required to send an annual letter detailing the current loan and annual repayment amounts to all students with loans.
Perfect people will never work in government. People make promises and look good in television advertisements but people are people and that always means human error.

A good person can easily say the wrong thing at the right time. Often people say things they meant at the time or didnt really mean at the time. People slip up.

An old preacher used to say that what is in the well will come up in the bucket. This is a true statement. However, if you stir up the well you will create a miry mix that will go away if you let it settle back down.

Who is one person that never thought a bad thought or said something they later regretted? I know what you are thinking we all have that one person in mind who seemed flawless and possibly that person may have been close to perfect but they were not.

According to the Bible, Jesus was the only person who lived a life without sin. The same book says all have sinned but it did not mean Jesus had sinned. Yet, Jesus said and did things in his day that got him in a lot of trouble with even the very religious devout. The religious group was very much in favor of crucifying him because they did not approve of most of what he said and did.

So, there you have it. If Jesus couldnt make everybody happy then who can make everybody happen and the answer is no one.

Lots of people do not like President Trump. Lot of people did not and do not like other past presidents. This is life and how it goes. You cant please everybody and most of the time you cant even please the majority.

Omarosa Manigault was wrong in spending most or all of her time recording the president and others. Apparently she has a lot of recordings, according to her. Sneaking around with a recorder in the White House is bad business. This is one of the places where top-secret stuff is supposed to be happening. And now she is selling a book? The publisher and Manigault should be arrested and tried for espionage. What spies would be allowed to run around in Russia, record Putin and then sell it worldwide? They would be executed. What about North Korea? You would never hear from the person again.

We believe in free speech. However, it should be a serious crime to record conversations in The White House. If the president or anyone is recording let it be known, you are being recorded, up front. If Omarosa had declared she was recording everything, I bet she would have been fired much earlier.

States have different laws about recording conversations and videotaping. In some states its okay if one person knows and in some states its not OK. However, regardless, in most cases if you secretly record someone on private property or a private setting you are most likely to get into serious trouble.

I realize we have the Nixon tapes. We heard things on the Nixon tapes from a Feb. 1, 1972, conversation between Nixon and Billy Graham about the Jewish people that were appalling. Graham was horrified by his comments when the tapes finally became public in 2002 and he asked for forgiveness. Most of us thought Billy Graham was perfect, but he slipped up at least that one time.

Most everybody slips up one time. A recorder, whether audio or video, might catch a slip, but remember everything can be edited and spun however the producer of the recording wants to spin the story.

Glenn Mollette is the author of 12 books.
The Donald is bitterly disappointed. The grand military parade he had anticipated with such childlike joy has been postponed until next year.

The local politicians who run Washington, D.C. (poorly) know a windfall when they see it. When asked to give us a price for holding a great celebratory military parade, they wanted a number so ridiculously high that I cancelled it, Trump tweeted.

After watching a parade in France to celebrate Bastille Day, Trump decided that he, too, wanted a grand parade. It was a tremendous day, and to a large extent because of what I witnessed, we may do something like that, he gushed.

But being The Donald, he wanted an even bigger parade. Were going to have to try to top it, he vowed, by having a lot of planes going over and a lot of military might.

Plans for the parade, which was scheduled for Nov. 10, indeed included aircraft and armored vehicles such as tanks. An initial estimate placed the parades cost at $12 million.

That relatively modest sum kept growing like Pinocchios nose until it reached $92 million. The Defense Department wisely decided to pull the plug on this event, although it offered Trump a conciliatory sop by stating that such a parade might be held next year.

Spending $92 million to satisfy Trumps craving for a military parade would have been an obscene waste of taxpayers money. Why not spend that money to help American veterans? A great many of them are really hurting.

About one-third of the adult homeless population has served their country in the Armed Services, according to We Honor Veterans. This organization estimates that over 100,000 veterans experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year. Approximately 45 percent of homeless veterans suffer from mental illness, while more than 70 percent struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse.

While African-Americans and Hispanics account for, respectively, just 12.7 percent and 17.8 percent of our nations population, over half of homeless veterans are either African-American or Hispanic. Approximately 53 percent of homeless veterans have disabilities, compared to just 41 percent of homeless non-veterans.

Street missions and soup kitchens can do only so much. Hunger is an unwanted companion to the homeless. A report issued last year by the Department of Housing and Urban Development stated that there were 40,056 homeless veterans.

Newsweek crunched some numbers and determined that the $92 million for Trumps parade would provide those homeless vets with three free meals each day for almost nine months. I think most of you will agree thats a better use for that sum of money than further inflating Trumps already-swollen ego with a military parade.

Homelessness isnt the only issue that plagues veterans. According to a Joint Economic Committee Senate report, our 19 million veterans are among our nations most impoverished citizens. Of veterans between the ages of 18 to 34, 12.5 percent live in poverty. A $92 million parade will not help them escape impoverishment.

Veterans are twice as likely as non-veterans to die from suicide, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Rather than a parade, we could use that $92 million to help at-risk veterans. They served our nation. We have a moral obligation to try to save their lives.

Even the American Legion refused to endorse Trumps parade proposal. We think the parade money would be better spent fully funding the Department of Veteran Affairs and giving our troops and their families the best care possible, American Legion National Commander Denise Rohan said. I wholeheartedly agree.

Trump has his fingers crossed in the hope that the parade he so craves will be held next year. He doesnt seem to understand that, unlike wine and scotch, bad ideas dont improve with age.

John J. Dunphy is the author of Lewis and Clarks Illinois Volunteers and Abolitionism and the Civil War in Southwestern Illinois. He owns The Second Reading Book Shop in Alton.
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When you enter Kiran Nadar Museum of Art's latest exhibition, Delirium/Equilibrium, on video, film and kinetic artworks from the museums collection, prepare to be besieged by a sense of uncertainty and displacement. Bukowski's book title Tales of Ordinary Madness might flash through your mind's eyenot because the show recreates wild and weird stories from a city's dark underbelly, but because it feels like an apt description to simplify a group of bewildering works which play on light, sound, shadow, noise and speech/moving objects, images and gibberish. The result is a strange, funny, complex techno-dystopic maze stretching into the inner reaches of a dark and semi-dark gallery. The experience can only be equated to wandering lost and confused in a cavernous hideout, but persisting all the same for the many fascinating finds its many nooks and crevices hold.

As curator Roobina Karode explains in her note, "The world today is disenchanting and distraught, yet alluring and demanding, desiring poise and equilibrium." The show wants to respond to our collective drive towards "mechanisation, technology and and scientific knowledge", and the need to construct new architectonic forms in a rewiring of the world. But could this assemblage of disconcerting animation works, mechanised objects, echoing speeches of leaders and quiet, determined acts of resistance as performance, also speak to the dizzying political and social climate of absurd priorities and cacophonous disinformation? Or is this the future trajectory of art, when new media will more prominently collaborate, intervene and upstage in an age of post-human development? With another mainstream gallery (Nature Morte) in Delhi already hosting a show on art and artificial intelligence, this merits some contemplation.

The exhibition presents a selection of interdisciplinary explorations, including Nalini Malanis experimental films produced in 1969-73 during the seminal Vision Exchange Workshop, Amar Kanwars Such a Morning, co-produced with the Kiran Nadar Museum Art, and Naeem Mohaiemens Two Meetings and a Funeral (first shown at Documenta 17, Kassel). There are works which are on show in India for the first time. Among the many curiosities, there's an eight-channel video installation, 45 feet long projection, an 85-minute long film and a 24-feet table-top scattered with kinetic objects whirring, screeching and jangling like on opera of machines. Essential viewing among the 16 artists participating in this exciting new exhibition include:

Ranbir Kaleka

The video work Forest has characters and figures perform ostensibly random acts in the strange wilderness of a fogged-out forest. Pieces from the video include a self-flagellating old man, a lion guarding a book-shelf on fire, lost limbs growing back, a young boy coming under a hail of arrows etc. "These disconnected metaphoric events look like fragments of a lingering dream, guiding one into the interiority of wakefulness, as if experiencing epiphanies of a restive mind... the viewer is invited to be an actor and a part of this dreaming body-apparatus itself," is the official explanation from Kaleka. Very David Lynch.

William Kentridge

The South African artist has created a playful, immersive installation in I am not me, the horse is not mine, a Russian proverb which indicates denial of guilt and responsibility. The phrase is also mentioned on the transcript of the session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, spoken by a Bolshevik revolutionary. Well versed in Russian modernism, Kentridge has installed eight projections in digital HD, 2K and 4K video to "build a bridge between the absurdism of Russian author Nikolai Gogol and the avant-gardism of Dmitri Shostakovichs operatic adaptation of The Nose (1928)". The large projection room becomes a 360 degree blur of comical black and white images with chairs placed on the carpeted floor to bask in the social and military shenanigans of Tsarist Russia. The films which constitute the whole artwork are titled as His Majesty Comrade Nose, Prayers of Apology, A Lifetime of Enthusiasm, Country Dances I (Shadow), Country Dances II (Paper), That Ridiculous Blank Space Again (A One-Minute Love Story), Commissariat for Enlightenment and The Horse is Not Mine

Kausik Mukhopadhyay

The table-top installation titled Small, Medium but not Large has an array of broken gadgets, mechanical spare parts, scrap and home appliances, including a deliciously red rotary phone. These junk machines are rearranged to perform "a delirious opera", a 30 minute interactive soundscape. It is meant to recall the peculiar protagonist of Ritwik Ghataks film Ajantrik, who becomes attached to a car like a friend. Kaushik further stretches this unusual friendship by romanticising the do-it-yourself approach, where the focus is on scrambled parts, exhorting us to reject "our fetish with the finished product".

Shahzia Sikander

Pakistani-American contemporary artist Shahzia Sikanders Parallax is an experience in itself. Originally created for the 2013 Sharjah Biennale, and borne out of her road trip through UAE, this large video installation consists of hundreds of watercolor, gouache and ink paintings, with traditional Indo-Persian miniatures, all interwoven with drawing and animation into a three-channel immersive artwork. The haunting music score is specially done by Chinese composer Du Yun who mixes new poetic compositions in classical and colloquial Arabic by three contemporary Sharjah poets. The result is a tense, eerie slow-burn sound art which features many ant-like creatures on video. The power tensions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important transit chokepoint for crude oil exports in the Middle East, is the more immediate inspiration behind the breathtaking Parallax.

Neha Choksi

Choksi's Iceboat is an uncomfortably powerful performance art. Dressed as a devotee of an imaginary sect in plastic white dress, with her head shaven, Choksi rows a boat of solid ice on Lake Pawna, near Lonavala in Maharashtra, until it completely melts, releasing her into the depths. This hour-long performance was captured in a single shot and attempts to interpret the commonly used dictum stay afloat.

The exhibition Delirium//Equilibrium is on view till 30 October at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi.
William Blake's classic poem, titled "Tyger Tyger, burning bright," beautifully delineated a splendid image about the majestic and muscular appearance of the largest of the world's cat family that captivated everyone's minds with its robust body, glistening orange fur with black stripes, radiant eyes and steadfast gaze.

But unfortunately, wild tigers are now fighting with the imminent threat of extinction throughout the world. According to the latest World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimate (2016), there are only 3,890 tigers left in the wild across 12 Asian countries and in Russia, while at the beginning of the 20th century their number exceeded 100,000.

It's a matter of great concern that over 95 percent of the world's wild tiger population has disappeared due to poaching and habitat loss from excessive logging and industrial development. As such, the dwindling population of wild tigers is a wake-up call for all tiger range governments including India and China to save this beautiful creature, a real heritage of the entire world, before it becomes merely a symbol of a bygone era.

Tigers have been part of the rich texture of both Indian and Chinese culture for centuries. The tiger is one of the 12 animal signs of the Chinese zodiac. The White Tiger is one of the four symbols of the Chinese constellation. For the Chinese, the tiger represents the masculine and rules over all the world's creatures. The Hung Ga style of Chinese martial arts imitates the tiger's movements.

Indian folklores, tales and myths are also filled with tigers. According to Hindu culture, the village people in West Bengal and Bangladesh worship the Bengal Tiger as the animal vessel of powerful goddess Durga, who protects virtue and destroys evil. The royal Bengal tiger is the iconic symbol and national animal of India, as of Bangladesh.

It should be noted here that every year, July 29 is celebrated as the Global Tiger Day to help promote the protection of wild tigers with numerous initiatives. In November 2010 in Saint Petersburg, the governments of the 13 countries home to the wild tigers, namely India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Bhutan, Nepal and Russia came together with an ambitious conservation goal named TX2, to double wild tigers by 2022  the next "Year of the Tiger" on the Chinese lunar calendar.

Although China has been paying attention to environmental and ecosystem sustainability for decades, the number of wild tigers left in China is very depressing. According to the China Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) as reported by Xinhua, there are at most 50 tigers left in the country.

About 15 Bengal tigers live in Tibet, 10 Indochinese tigers are in southwestern Yunnan Province, and around 20 Siberian tigers are in the northeast. China's Jilin Province is known as the "hometown of Siberian tigers,"also known as Amur tiger  the biggest cat species in the world. The South China tiger has been listed as "critically endangered" on the IUCN Red List since 1996 and was last seen in Guizhou's Xishui nature reserve in the 1990s.

However, China has done a huge part in rescuing the endangered Siberian tiger in recent years. Since the 2010 Chinese Year of the Tiger, China initiated a multimillion-dollar scheme under the name of China's Tiger Recovery Program (CTRP) with the World Bank and NGOs to protect the Amur tiger. The program is not only a milestone for China, but also a significant act for the world. The South China Tiger Reintroduction project run by Save China'sTigersFoundation has achieved encouraging results.

Last year China established the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, showing the government's determination to protect endangered wild cats. There are about 1,000 Siberian tigers at the world's largest Siberian tiger breeding center in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province. It can be hoped that this captive breeding program will multiply China's current wild Siberian tiger population of 20.

According to China's amended wild animal protection law and criminal law which came into force in the beginning of 2017, hunting and killing national protected animals can lead to imprisonment of up to 10 years, besides confiscation of property and huge fines. Currently, 420 species of wild animals including the Siberian tiger are considered rare or endangered by the Chinese government. China banned the international trade in tiger bones and use of tiger products in 1993.

But citing a 2014 court case of the Siberian tiger trafficking in Zhejiang province, the Global Times reported, poachers continue selling Siberian tigers' bodies for use in traditional Chinese medicine, meat, wine, rugs, and coats in "orange and black markets" in China. CCTV reported in August 2013 that a large tiger farm in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, was found to have been selling medicinal alcohol that contained tiger bones.

On the other hand, India is home to the largest population of wild tigers in the world. As per the assessment of the Status of Tigers, Co-predators and Prey (2014), the number of tigers in India is estimated at 2,226 as compared to the 2010 estimate of 1,706.

Although the National Tiger Conservation Authority of India has done a lot to protect tiger habitat in India, the country needs to put more conservation efforts to increase the habitats of wild tigers, toimprove reserve protection as well as to reduce infrastructure projects in the forest area. In spite of spreading public-awareness, in 2017, 115 tigers died in India and in 2016, the number of deaths was 122, according to official data.

The number of big cat deaths indicates that on an average nine tigers have died every month for the past two years. India may be doing well in terms of numbers of tigers but the poaching problem is getting worse. It is time for the government to look into altering the law for implementing more stringent punishments for poachers.

While most countries in the world have little or no wildlife left, both India and China can boast of their wildlife as their greatest asset which can create a healthy green economy through sustainable wildlife tourism.

The author is the cultural secretary of New Horizon Radio Listeners' Club, based in West Bengal, India.





Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.




After announcing a Rs 500 crore grant to rain-ravaged Kerala, the Union finance ministry on Tuesday exempted GST and custom duty levies on relief materials purchased for the state.

"We have a special power, using which this exemption has been granted by the finance ministry, even without consulting the GST council," said Union minister Piyush Goyal who is in charge of finance ministry.

Talking to reporters on Tuesday, Goyal said that the railways is taking special efforts to reach relief material, fuel and food to the flood affected people in the state.

"I must tell you that as of today all our lines and signals are operational. This is in both north and south Kerala," Goyal, also minister of railways, said.

The Centre is also assessing further reliefs that could be awarded to Kerala to compensate for the disaster.

"It is almost prophetic that on August 4, at the GST Council meeting, honourable Kerala finance minister Thomas Isaac had cited flood and other calamities as a reason to keep petroleum prices out of GST," Goyal who is also the chairman of the GST Council said.

Kerala, which had earlier rejected a cess to compensate sugarcane farmers, is likely to propose a cess for Kerala flood assistance in the next GST Council meeting on September 27 and 28 in Goa.
The adage that failures can teach many lessons seems quite...
The Union government on Tuesday released Rs 600 crore to flood-hit Kerala even as the the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) met again to review the rescue and relief operations in the state.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced an assistance of Rs 500 crore after he conducted an aerial survey of the flood affected areas on Saturday, while Home Minister Rajnath Singh had announced an immediate relief of Rs 100 crore.

Kerala is battling the worst flood in close to a century, which has killed at least 223 people and left thousands of others homeless since August 8. Over 8 lakh people have been forced into various relief camps across the state.

The NCMC met for the sixth time in a row on Tuesday to review the situation. Cabinet Secretary P.K. Sinha, chaired the meeting. The Chief Secretary of Kerala, who participated in the meeting via video conference, informed that the situation is now improving by and large though there are some isolated pockets still with water.

The Department of Food & Public Distribution has made additional allocation of 89,540 MT of rice as per State Governments request. The Department of Consumer Affairs, in addition to 100 MT of pulses supplied earlier, is sending additional quantities of green gram and Tur dal.

The public sector oil marketing companies have contributed Rs 25 crore to the Chief Ministers Relief Fund in Kerala. The ministry of petroleum and natural gas has opened special points in the flood affected areas of the state for LPG distribution. Permission has also been granted, in coordination with the state government, for non-certified vehicles to carry LPG cylinders. The ministry has also made available 3.2 lakh LPG cylinders and 2.2 lakh regulators, said a PIB release.

Indian Railways has so far supplied 24 lakh litres of drinking water in addition to 2.7 lakh water bottles. Another 14 lakh litres water is currently available at Ernakulam. Railways has also made arrangements for supply of bed sheets and blankets. Trains on all sections have resumed. It is also transporting relief materials from various states to Kerala free of cost.

The health ministry will supply three crore chlorine tablets in addition to one crore tablets supplied earlier. It has already sent 30 tonnes of bleaching powder and 1.76 lakh sanitary pads. No major outbreak of disease has been reported so far.

The finance ministry has decided to waive off customs duty and IGST on the relief materials being imported to aid the people in the flood-affected areas.
The Maldives government will donate $50,000 towards flood relief in Kerala authorities said.

"At this time of national distress, the government of Maldives conveys profound sympathies to the government and the people of India, in particular to those directly affected by the tragedy, as well as commiserations to the members of the bereaved families," read the statement issued by the government of Maldives.

Meanwhile, the Malayalee Association along with the Indian Community in Beijing has raised over Rs 14 lakhs for the welfare of flood victims in Kerala. At an event held on Sunday the community was able to raise about Rs 5 lakh.

Suresh Varma, president of the Beijing Malayalee Association, said the money is being routed to the Chief Minister's relief fund in Kerala through the Indian Embassy.

The funds were collected at a special platform setup at the Indian restaurant Taj Pavilion with a lunch and donated the to Kerala relief fund, said M H Pastakia, ICB member.

In Yiwu, the international consumer trade hub which has a large Indian community, raised about 80,000 yuan (Rs. eight lakh) to be donated to the relief fund.

In Shanghai, the Indian association has so far raised 20,000 yuan (Rs. two lakh) to be sent to the Kerala relief fund, member Amit Waiker said.

The Indian Embassy is helping the community to route the proceeds to the Chief Minister's welfare fund.
The United Arab Emirates government has offered about Rs 700 crore to rebuild and reconstruct flood-ravaged Kerala, said chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday. He said that the UAE has pledged $100 million for relief work in Kerala. Vijayan added that the crown prince of Abu Dhabi has spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the rescue and relief mission happening in the flood-hit state.

On Saturday, Sharjah ruler Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi donated Rs 4 crore for Kerala flood victims. The President of UAE, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has ordered the formation of an emergency committee, headed by Sheikh Mohammed, to look into providing relief assistance to people affected by floods in Kerala.

UAE and the Indian community will unite to offer relief to those affected. We have formed a committee to start immediately. We urge everyone to contribute generously towards this initiative. pic.twitter.com/7a4bHadWqa  HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) August 17, 2018 The people of Kerala have always been and are still part of our success story in the UAE. We have a special responsibility to help and support those affected, especially during this holy and blessed days pic.twitter.com/ZGom5A6WRy  HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) August 17, 2018

It is important to note that the UAE and other Gulf countries have a sizeable number of Malayalee population. Indians form a major part of the labour force in the Gulf countries. Indian expatriates make up nearly 27 per cent of the UAE population.

Over the last week, Kerala has battled unprecedented flood and rains, the worst in a century. The state has faced more than 200 deaths, property destruction, loss of goods and commodities and thousands of people have been displaced from their homes in the last one week alone. According to estimates, Kerala needs about Rs 37,000 crore to rebuild and recontruct itself. Initial assessment had put the total losses alone at Rs 20,000 crore.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he visited Kerala on Saturday and announced an immediate relief of Rs 500 crore after conducting an aerial survey of the affected areas. Home Minister Rajnath Singh had announced Rs 100 crore relief earlier in the week. This is in addition to the Rs 80 crore relief announced on July 25 by Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju after his visit.
Iran on Tuesday unveiled what it touted as its first indigenous fighter jet at a defence show in Tehran. However, a cursory glance at the 'Kowsar' fighter shows glaring similarities to the American-built F-5 fighter, of which Iran brought over a 100 variants of in the 1970s before the Iranian Revolution deposed the Shah and created the Islamic Republic.

The F-5 was designed in the US in the 1950s as a lightweight, inexpensive aircraft for export.

US F-5 Tiger | Northrop Grumman

President Hassan Rouhani sat in the cockpit of the 'Kowsar' fighter at the National Defence Industry Exhibition. Iranian state media claimed the fighter was a fourth-generation aircraft with advanced avionics and radar and was 100 per cent indigenous.

Iranian TV claimed the Kowsar had already completed testing. Interestingly, Iranian Defence Minister Amir Hatami gave few details of the Kowsar, instead focussing on how Iran's military programmes were motivated by missile attacks by Iraq during the eight-year-long war between the two countries in the 1980s as well as perceived threats from the US and Israel. Our resources are limited and we are committed to establishing security at a minimum cost, Hatami said in a televised interview.

The Kowsar's close similarities to the lightweight F-5 and F-5E fighters highlight the technological constraints Iran continues to face as it remains under US and European sanctions on defence exports. The bulk of the Iranian Air Force still consists of American-built aircraft like the F-5, F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber and the F-14 Tomcat air superiority fighter, all of which entered service before the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

While Iran has attempted to 'reverse-engineer' parts and weapon systems for these fighters, it has not been able to do a fleet-wide upgrade for over three decades even as the likes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE continue to buy billions of dollars worth of US and European weaponry. Even if the Kowsar were to be equipped with a new type of engine or radar, the aircraft's small size and old design would severely limit its capabilities against enemies equipped with advanced weaponry.

The Kowsarlike previous Iranian fighter designsappears to be obsolete before even entering service and shows why Iran will remain tempted to pursue nuclear weapons to offset its gap in conventional weapons that it faces against Saudi Arabia, UAE and Israel.

(With PTI inputs)
Defending his efforts to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons, US President Donald Trump said he would "most likely" meet again with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Despite doubts that Kim might not abandon his nuclear weapon, Trump had held a summit with Kim on June 12 where significant steps were taken towards denuclearisation of North Korea.

Trump claimed that due to the ongoing trade dispute, China was not helping as much as they used to in the matter. He made the statements in an interview with Reuters.

Trump, who faced the North Korean challenge as soon as he took office in January 2017, said he had only been working on the North Korean issue for three months whereas his predecessors had been working on it for 30 years.

I stopped (North Koreas) nuclear testing. I stopped (North Koreas) missile testing. Japan is thrilled. Whats going to happen? Who knows? Were going to see, he said.

At their summit in Singapore, Kim agreed in broad terms to work toward denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula but North Korea has given no indication it is willing to give up its weapons unilaterally as the Trump administration has demanded.

Trump has hailed the Singapore summit as a success and went as far as saying North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Beijing on Monday.

Xi expressed his appreciation for the great importance Mahathir has attached to advancing ties between the two countries and his support for the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, as well as his contributions to accelerating regional cooperation within Asia.

China is endeavoring to achieve its two centenary goals, meanwhile, Malaysia has embarked on its journey of building a new Malaysia, Xi noted, saying that bilateral ties stand at a new and pivotal point.

China and Malaysia, as major rising forces in Asia, are cooperating in providing development opportunities for each other, Xi said, voicing his hope that the two countries can strengthen strategic communication to promote bilateral ties, the rejuvenation of Asia and prosperity of the world.

Malaysia was the first country from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to establish diplomatic relations with China since the regional organization was founded.

Xi reiterated China's commitment to developing friendly ties with Malaysia and expressed his confidence in further intensifying relations in the new era.

He called on the two countries to respect one another, settle issues properly through negotiation and follow the direction of friendly cooperation, so as to achieve mutually beneficial and win-win results.

With a focus on Asia and a global perspective, the two should upgrade the quality and efficiency of China-ASEAN cooperation, speed up construction of the East Asia economic community, inject new impetus into South-South cooperation, enhance the representation and voice of developing countries, and take a firm position against unilateralism and trade protectionism, Xi said.

He noted Malaysia is an important country along the ancient Maritime Silk Road and was among the first to participate in the Belt and Road construction.

Xi called for the joint construction of the Belt and Road, which serves as a focus in pragmatic cooperation between the two countries in the new era.

China and Malaysia should increase overall planning and alignment of development strategies, push forward industrial and innovation cooperation, cultivate new bright points, expand new fields, and seek new ideas and models in their cooperation, Xi added.

He also encouraged the two countries to look for cooperation opportunities with third parties along the Belt and Road so as to inject positive energy into the economic development of the region and the world.

Saying his visit to China indicates an important step taken by Malaysia's new government, Mahathir stressed his country's friendly policy toward China remains unchanged.

Malaysia has benefited from its cooperation with China, a significant and influential country as well as Malaysia's largest trading partner, said Mahathir, adding that China's development never poses a threat to his country.

Malaysia admires the miraculous achievements China has made in industrial and commercial fields and hopes to learn from China's experience in its attempt to "Look East," he said.

China is welcome to invest more in Malaysia, the Malaysian prime minister said, expressing his hope that through this approach bilateral cooperation can be cemented and people of the two countries will benefit.

He spoke of the great Chinese navigator Zheng He's visits to Malaysia more than 600 years ago and voiced his country's support for the Belt and Road Initiative, which is expected to increase regional exchanges.

Also on Monday, Li Zhanshu, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, met with Mahathir, calling for more cooperation between the two countries' legislatures.

Mahathir is paying an official visit to China from Aug. 17 to 21.
New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) Maruti Suzuki India said today that the company along with its employees will donate Rs 3.5 crore as Kerala flood relief effort.

It has donated Rs 2 crore towards the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund to strengthen relief, rebuilding and rehabilitation efforts of the government, Maruti Suzuki India said in a statement.

In addition, employees of the company will make a contribution amounting to Rs 1.5 crore, it added.

Earlier in the day, Bajaj Auto also announced contribution of Rs 2 crore in aid of flood-hit Kerala.

While Rs 1 crore is being contributed directly to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund, the balance Rs 1 crore will be deployed by Jankidevi Bajaj Gram Vikas Sanstha (JBGVS), for distribution of survival kits, Bajaj Auto said in a statement.

Hyundai Motor India Ltd. (HMIL) and TVS Motor Company too have announced contribution of Rs 1 crore each to the state Chief Minister relief fund.

Other companies such as Tata Motors, Nissan India and BWM have announced service support to customers in the state. PTI RKL SA

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New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) Senior railway officials today ruled out any rollback of the flexi fare scheme.

Under the scheme, applicable in premium trains such as Rajdhani, Duronto and Shatabdi, the base fare increases by 10 per cent with every 10 per cent of berths sold, subject to a prescribed maximum limit.

There was, however, no change in the existing fare for first AC and Executive Class tickets.

One of the officials further said that the flexi fare scheme is only applicable in just 1.5 per cent of mail and express trains -- 168 out of 12,500.

He also refuted reports that due to the flexi fare scheme, seats in many premium trains remained vacant.

The railways had on September 9, 2016 introduced the flexi fare scheme.

But on December 19, 2016, the railways started to provide 10 per cent rebate on any seat left vacant after the preparation of the reservation chart, done a few hours before a train is to depart.

Earlier on July 20 this year, a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report highlighted that tickets on the Indian Railways' premium trains were much higher as compared to airfares.

Coming down heavily on the flexi fare scheme, the CAG report said, "For the 120 advance reservation period (ARP) of 120 days, travel by air was found to be cheapest mode in 17 directions of travel. In the remaining nine directions though, the air fare was higher and the difference in fare was only up to Rs 600."

The railways will soon float a tender for procuring CCTV cameras for 6,000 stations and will install GPS in its premium trains to know the running status real time, the official said. PTI ASG SMN

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Mumbai, Aug 21 (PTI) Bollywood star Rani Mukerji's critically acclaimed film "Hichki" is set to release in Kazakhstan on September 20.

The film had a successful run in Russia and now a version with Russian voice over will release in Kazakhstan. Russian is one of the country's official languages.

"It's truly amazing that films can cross over to different cultures and languages because of its universal story. 'Hichki' is a reflection of society, a reflection of how we all have weaknesses and we need to overcome them to make the world a better place.

"It talks about every person's determination, focus and positive spirit to win over obstacles. I'm happy that Hichki's core message is resonating with audiences across the globe. I am proud of the film, and grateful that people are enjoying it," Rani said in a statement.

Directed by Siddharth P Malhotra and produced by Maneesh Sharma, "Hichki" will be screened across 15 screens in Kazakhstan, which makes it the biggest release for a Hindi feature film in this nation since 2015. PTI SHD

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New Delhi, Aug 2 (PTI) "Xhoixobote Dhemalite" (Rainbow fields), an Assamese film dealing with the sensitive issue of children growing up in violent times, has won another award - this time for screenplay at a US festival.

The Bidyut Kotoky-directed film bagged the best screenplay award at Treasure Coast International Film Festival in Florida. It received nominations in five categories.

"The film's story is based in Assam but people from halfway across the globe are relating to it. This goes to show that emotions across the globe are same. In 'Xhoihobote Dhemlite', we always believed that we are making a film for in Assamese language for the global audience," said Mumbai-based Kotoky.

Last month, "Xhoixobote Dhemalite" became the first Assamese film to be commercially released in the US. Besides, it won three awards, including that of best film, in the Love international Film Festival, Los Angeles.

Based on true events, the film also features seasoned actors like Victor Banerjee, Nakul Vaid, Naved Aslam, Nipon Goswami and Nikumoni Barua.

The film is produced by 'India Stories', a Mumbai-based production house and co-produced by Kotoky's Dhruv Creative Productions and US-based Kurmasana Kreates.

The Treasure Coast International Film Festival (TCIFF) is dedicated to the promotion of independent and foreign films as an art form.

This year, the TCIFF Lifetime Achievement Award was given to director and industry veteran Isaac Florentine. The inaugural film of the festival was Florentine's "Acts of Vengeance", starring Antonio Banderas. PTI ZMN BK

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Mumbai, Aug 21 (PTI) Actor Maniesh Paul, who will be playing a dark character in short film "Black Briefcase", believes it is wrong to slot actors.

Paul, who is considered one of the most successful show hosts, says it becomes difficult for an actor to break from an image.

"People should stop slotting actors as a comedian, action star or a romantic hero, an actor is an actor and he/she can do everything. I think I am actor, an entertainer and I want to do films that excite me," Maniesh told PTI.

"As an actor I want to do different stuff. People know I host shows. I do lot of comedy and the films that I have done have been in comic (space) so I wanted to offer something new to them," he added.

Paul said doing "Black Briefcase" was an attempt to do something that would appeal him as an artiste.

"It is not that I was running away from comedy. It becomes difficult to break an image but I don't focus on things. I look at what I want to come out with different films. I don't want to do films just because it is coming from a good banner or has stars in it. I want to do film in which I have something to do as an actor."

In the film, produced by his brother, Vevek Paul, the actor plays the role of a terrorist.

"It is a short film of 15 minutes. It is a dark character, which I have not done earlier. It was challenging as I was entering into new zone." PTI KKP JUR BK

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Islamabad, Aug 21 (PTI) The jailed son-in-law of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Captain (retd) Muhammad Safdar, was today rushed to hospital from the high-security Adiala Jail after he complained of chest pain, his second hospitalisation within this month, media reports said.

Safdar, along with Sharif and his daughter Maryam are lodged in the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi after an accountability court sentenced the trio in one of the threee corruption cases against the former prime minister.

He was taken to the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology after complaining of chest pain, the Express News reported.

Last night, Safdar's condition deteriorated and was given medical attention inside the jail, Geo News reported.

Safdar, 55, will undergo a medical examination at the hosptial. Doctors would take a call on whether he needs to be hospitalised, the reports said.

Sources at Adiala Jail said Safdar has been complaining of stomach and chest pain. He is said to be vomiting frequently too.

On August 9, Safdar was shifted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad from the prison after his condition worsened. He had a stomach condition and his sugar level was also high at that time.

Safdar was sentenced to a year in jail by an accountability court in connection with the Avenfield flats corruption case on July 6. He was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau on July 8.

Sharif was handed down a 10-year term. Safdar's wife Maryam Nawaz was sentenced to seven years.

The accused were also disqualified to contest elections or to hold public office for a period of 10 years from the date they are released.

Yesterday, the new Pakistan government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan decided to include the names of Sharif, Safdar and Mariam in the Exit Control List, barring them from leaving the country.

The Sharif family bought four posh Avenfield flats in London through money laundering, a Pakistani anti-corruption court had found. PTI AKJ AKJ

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Washington, Aug 21 (PTI) The US has expressed concern over terrorist groups continuing to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan and is asking the country to do more against "externally oriented" extremist outfits, a top official in the Trump administration said.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Alice Wells at the same time welcomed Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's remarks on the importance of having peace on both sides of the country's borders.

"Pakistan has an important role to play in furthering stability in Afghanistan. We have expressed our concern over the fact that terrorist proxy groups continue to be able to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan. We are urging the government to do more to bring pressure to bear against these organisations, externally oriented terrorists groups," Wells told reporters yesterday.

She was asked whether the US has seen any progress in its demand that Pakistan take action against terror groups like the Haqqani network and Taliban.

Wells was addressing a Foreign Press Centre video conference from Washington on 'US Policy in the Indian Ocean Region' during which she previewed her upcoming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference hosted by the India Foundation in Hanoi on August 27-28.

Wells said the US looks forward to working with the new government of Pakistan and "we welcome the words of Prime Minister Imran Khan when he discussed the importance of having peace on both sides of Pakistans borders."

Responding to questions on Afghanistan and the security situation in the region, she said Pakistan "obviously" has a critical role to play in the stabilization of Afghanistan.

"We have encouraged Pakistan to take stronger steps to ensure that the Taliban either come to the negotiating table or expelled back into Afghanistan rather than enjoy safe haven outside of the country."

She noted that Pakistan and Afghanistan have embarked over the last several months on an effort to improve the bilateral relationship with the negotiation of a solidarity document which the US strongly supports.

"At a time when President Ashraf Ghani has been so forward leaning in putting forward a peace proposal that the international community has rallied around, at a time when the Afghan people are calling for peacethis is the time for all parties to come to the negotiating table and we very much look to Pakistan to reinforce that message, she said.

On a question on President Donald Trump's South Asia Strategy announced last year encompassing Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, the Central Asian nations and extending into Southeast Asia, Wells said the South Asia strategy "obviously pointed to the role that India can and should play in supporting the stabilisation of Afghanistan."

"I think that was one of the key new features of the strategy, tapping what has been India's three billion dollar commitment to date upto 2020 in support of Afghanistans economic development."

Wells said Afghanistan needs to be "stitched back into the region" and that includes both north-south trade as well as east-west trade.

"We welcome the fact that India has stepped up and has evinced this new commitment and enjoys a strategic relationship with Afghanistan that does not have to come at the expense of any other country in the region."

During the press briefing, Wells previewed her upcoming travel to the Indian Ocean Conference and how it supports the Trump administrations Indo-Pacific strategy. The annual conference, hosted by the India Foundation along with its partners from Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, will focus on the theme of 'Building Regional Architectures'. PTI YAS NSA

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New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) Union Tourism Minister K J Alphons today flagged the need for ready-to-eat cooked food, doctors and nurses in flood ravaged Kerala, saying people are now getting back to whatever is left of their homes with the waters receding.

The minister also issued an appeal to skilled workers like plumbers, electricians and carpenters to come to make homes livable and help the state regain normalcy.

At least 216 people have lost their lives in the rains, floods and landslides and over 7.24 lakh people been displaced.

"As the flood is receding in Kerala people have to move to whatever is left of their homes. Need ready to eat cooked food, clothes and an army of electricians, plumbers and carpenters," Alphons said on Twitter today, tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.

He issued a series of tweets highlighting the requirements of the people.

"I appeal to General Public: What Kerala requires... - pre cooked individually packed dry food, an army of electricians, plumbers, carpenters to make homes livable.

"Doctors and nurses who can go down to the villages as there is apprehension about the possibility of outbreak of deceases. New clothes, if it can be distributed through NGOs," he said.

The minister also thanked the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) for providing the state huge quantities of tetra pack milk and public sector oil companies which came together and handed Rs 25 crore to the Kerala chief minister for flood relief.

The massive flood in Kerala has been declared a calamity of severe nature, the Union Home Ministry has said.

The lakhs of displaced have been sheltered in 5,645 relief camps. PTI ASG

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New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) Following are the top stories from the northern region at 9.45 pm



CHANDIGARH DEL63 PB-4TH LD-SIDHU

Chandigarh, Aug 21 (PTI) Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu today stoutly defended hugging Pakistans army chief in Islamabad, and slammed the BJPs double standards, reminding it of peace visits to Pakistan by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi.



SRINAGAR DEL76 JK-LD-KERALA RAINS

Srinagar/Jammu: Remembering the inundation of Srinagar when heavy rains lashed the Valley in 2014, some people here have decided to reach out to the victims of the floods in Kerala.



CHANDIGARH DEL74 PB-CAB-LD OFFICE OF PROFIT

Chandigarh: The Punjab government today decided to amend a law on the office of profit to exclude several posts from its ambit, and shield MLAs from disqualification for holding them.



UTTARKASHI DEL68 UKD-RAPE-ARREST

Uttarkashi: The prime accused in the rape and killing of a minor girl in Uttarkashi, which had led to a wave of protests across Uttarakhand, has been arrested, police said today.



CHANDIGARH DEL51 PB-CAB-2NDLD-SACRILEGE

Chandigarh: The Punjab Cabinet today approved a draft bill proposing amendments to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to make desecration of religious texts in the state punishable with life imprisonment.



DEHRADUN DES15 UKD-NIVH-HARASSMENT-RESIGNATION

Dehradun: The director of Dehradun's National Institute for Visually Handicapped, Anuradha Dalmia, resigned following allegations of sexual harassment against a music teacher of the institute by girl students, officials said today.



NAINITAL LGD32 HC-LD-SLAUGHTER

Nainital: The Uttarakhand High Court today imposed a ban on slaughter of goats, sheep or buffaloes in the open or in public on the occasion of Eid-ul-Juha directing authorities to ensure it is done only in abattoirs.



JAMMU DEL18 JK-LD ACCIDENT

Jammu: A van carrying pilgrims to a temple skidded off the road and fell into the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir's Kishtwar district today, killing all 13 occupants of the vehicle, including a five-year-old girl, police said.



NAINITAL LGD31 UKD-HC-MEADOW

Nainital: The Uttarakhand High Court today directed the state government to remove all permanent structures from the alpine meadows, sub-alpine meadows and grasslands of the state within three months.



AGRA DES25 UP-SIDHU-FRINGE

Agra: A purported video in which a fringe group activist is seen announcing a reward of Rs 5 lakh on the head of Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, who recently visited Islamabad to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan as Pakistan prime minister, has surfaced.



JAMMU DES6 JK-SBM-SUSPENDED

Jammu: Five employees of the Rural Development Department (RDD) were suspended while show-cause notices issued to 80 others for "poor performance" in the implementation of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) in Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur district, officials said today.



NEWDELHI DES7 DL-HOMELESS WOMAN

New Delhi: A 50-year-old homeless woman was mowed to death by a speeding SUV, allegedly being driven by a young woman, and was dragged for close to 300 meters in posh Connaught Place area in Lutyens' Delhi, police said today.



NEWDELHI DES11 DL-MINISTER-PA-SUICIDE

New Delhi: A 31-year-old man, working as a personal assistant (PA) to Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, today allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan in south Delhi's Laxmibai Nagar, the police said.



NEWDELHI DES42 DL-AAP-BJP-RATION

New Delhi: The ruling AAP in Delhi and the opposition BJP locked horns today over the cancellation of 2.9 lakh ration cards, alleging one another of "corruption" and trying to benefit vested interests.



NEWDELHI LGD20 DL-HC- LD PUSHKAR

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court today asked the city police to file a status report on a plea challenging the anticipatory bail granted to Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in his wife Sunanda Pushkar's death case.



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New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) The BJP will take out yatras with urns carrying ashes of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in all districts and immerse those in rivers across the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with BJP chief Amit Shah, will hand over the ashes of the late leader to the party's state unit presidents, according to a statement.

The BJP said since all party workers and people across the country want to pay tributes to Vajpayee, it has decided to take out 'asthi kalash yatras' in all states.

Processions will start from state capitals and will pass through all blocks, the BJP said, adding the ashes of the BJP stalwart will be immersed in rivers across the country.

A similar procession was taken out in Haridwar on August 19, where Shah along with Union minister Rajnath Singh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his Uttrakhand counterpart Trivendra Singh were present to bid farewell to the departed leader.

Later, the ashes were immersed in the Ganga river by Vajpayee's family members and BJP leaders.

The former prime minister died in the national capital on August 16 at the age of 93. His death was announced by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital, where he was admitted on June 11 with a variety of ailments.

His mortal remains were consigned to the flames at the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal on the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi the next day. PTI JTR NSD

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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang held a telephone conversation with his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan on bilateral ties on Monday.





Li congratulated Imran Khan for taking office as Pakistani prime minister.





The two countries have enjoyed a strong strategic cooperative partnership and bilateral ties withstood the test of time, including a changing international scene, Li said, adding that the two sides always treat each other on equal footing and support each other.





Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a successful visit to Pakistan in 2015, which greatly promoted the development of the bilateral ties, Li said.





China will continue to firmly support Pakistan's efforts to preserve its national security, stability and development, Li said.





China is willing to work with Pakistan to conduct close high-level contacts, deepen pragmatic cooperation, enhance coordination on major international and regional issues, promote common development and make contributions to regional peace and prosperity, Li added.





The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is a landmark project in bilateral cooperation in the new era, Li noted, adding that China appreciates the prime minister's remarks on firmly supporting its construction, and hopes that the two sides will work out plans for its development.





China also appreciates Pakistan's great efforts in safeguarding the corridor's construction and believes that Pakistan will continue to take measures to guarantee the safety of Chinese personnel and institutions in the country as well as cooperation projects, Li said.





China is willing to strengthen cooperation in various fields with Pakistan, import more competitive and high-quality products from Pakistan and facilitate a balanced development of trade in order to bring more benefits to the two peoples, Li added.





For his part, Imran Khan said the Pakistani people have a profound friendship with the Chinese people.





China always stood on the Pakistani side when Pakistan was at its most difficult moments, he said, adding that the new Pakistani government is willing to forge stronger relations than ever with the Chinese side.





The Pakistan-China Economic Corridor brings new development opportunities for Pakistan, and the country will continue to promote its construction and take the most strictest precautions to ensure the safety of Chinese personnel and projects, he said.
New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has operationalised an eco-friendly cremation system at Green Park and Dwarka, which uses less wood than needed in a traditional pyre, officials said.

South Delhi Mayor Narendra Chawla has urged families to use this new facility as it helps in checking pollution.

The 'Mokshda green cremation system' gives control over the temperature and circulation of the air around the flames.

"The SDMC has made functional two units each of Mokshda green cremation system at Green Park and Dwarka Sector-24. This green facility consumes only around 150 kg wood instead of 450 Kg wood being used in the traditional pyre," he said.

Under Mokshda system, wood is still required, hence it is like the traditional system of cremation. So, the last rites are performed by igniting fire to a pyre, Chawla said.

The mayor, yesterday said, the Mokshda green cremation system has been installed and commissioned with the help of an energy PSU.

The SDMC staff is operating the new system, though the PSU has been requested to deploy at least one of its employees daily for smooth operation, he added. PTI KND ANB

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New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his condolences over the loss of lives and property in Kerala floods and said his country shares the grief with the "friendly people of India".

In a letter dated August 20, addressed to President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Putin said, "Kindly accept the deepest condolences over numerous human casualties caused by the devastating floods in Kerala. Russia shares grief with the friendly people of India and hopes for a speedy recovery to all those injured from this natural disaster."

Russian Ambassador to India Nikolay Kudashev praised the measures taken by the Centre and the state government in conducting rescue operations and countering the effects of this calamity.

"I hope that with the rains stopped and floodwater started receding, the soonest recovery is expected. The (Russian) embassy (in India) conveys the words of sincere sympathy and support to the families and friends of all those suffered," Kudashev said in a statement.

The devastating floods in Kerala has left 223 dead in a fortnight and forced more than 10 lakh people out of their homes. PTI PR PR ABH

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New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) A month after private steel maker JSPL bagged 20 per cent of the Rs 2,500 crore global tender by the Indian Railways to supply long rails, a senior official of the national transporter said the ministry will soon issue a similar tender for the rest of its requirement.

Indian Railways had invited the global tender for procuring around 4.87 lakh metric tonnes of rails to meet the shortfall of supply from the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL). This is the first time in three decades that rail procurement has been opened for the private sector.

"While JSPL has been given 20 per cent, we will re-tender for the rest of our requirement. Since SAIL has also increased its production, we will need to analyse the quantum of the tender based on the how much of our requirement is met by them," the official said.

Seven foreign steel companies, and JSPL had submitted their bids for the global tender. JSPL was the only Indian steel maker in the fray, and was expected to get an assured order of 20 per cent under the 'Make in India' clause.

JSPL is the only private company that produces rails in India. It was already supplying rails to various countries like Iran and Bangladesh.

"JSPL has already sent out its first consignment of rails to us on August 15 and it will now undergo trials," the official added.

Sources said the bids made by the other companies did not meet the ministry's requirements.

The foreign entities which had submitted their bids included Sumitomo Corporation, Angang Group International, Voestalpine Schienen, East Metals, CRM Hong Kong, British Steel France Rail and Atlantic Steel.

Till now, the Indian Railways was procuring rails from government-owned SAIL. It decided on an extra global tender after anticipating that SAIL would not be able to supply the 7,17,000 tonnes required for 2017-18 and 2018-19, as estimated at that time.

The national transporter is looking at 4,000 km of track renewal in each of the next two financial years, 2018-19 and 2019-20. Its estimated cost for 2018-19 is a little above Rs 10,000 crore. PTI ASG ASG DIV

DIV
New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) The Supreme Court today directed the Jammu and Kashmir government to file its response on a plea alleging custodial torture of the Kathua case witness by August 27.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud fixed the matter for further hearing in August 29.

The top court was hearing a plea by Talib Hussain, a key witness in the Kathua gang rape-and-murder case, alleging custodial torture by the state police in an alleged rape case lodged against him by his sister-in-law.

The court had earlier asked the lawyer, appearing for Hussain's cousin Mumtaz Ahmed Khan, to satisfy it on how a writ of habeas corpus (produce the body) was maintainable in the present case where the accused was in lawful police custody following an FIR being registered against him.

The counsel had referred to a Supreme Court judgement and said irrespective of the nature of detention, whether legal or illegal, such a petition could always be filed in cases of custodial torture.

The petition was opposed by the lawyer, appearing for Hussain's sister-in-law who has filed the FIR alleging rape, that there were as many as 10 FIRs against the accused and no relief should be granted without hearing the victim.

The plea seeks protection of Hussain in police custody and alleges that he had been brutally beaten up in the alleged fake rape case.

Hussain is a key witness in the Kathua case, in which an eight-year-old girl from a minority nomadic community was abducted in January and gang-raped before being killed.

The state police's Crime Branch, which probed the case, filed the main charge sheet against seven people and a separate charge sheet against a juvenile.

The charge sheet has revealed chilling details about how the girl was allegedly kidnapped, drugged and raped inside a place of worship before being killed. PTI SJK RRT MIN

MIN
New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) Animal rights body PETA has launched a campaign against the "archaic and cruel elephant ride industry" at Amer Fort in Rajasthan.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India put up a billboard in Jaipur, displaying the message "Shackled, Beaten, and Abused. Be A Compassionate Traveller: Say No To Elephant Rides", the organisation said in a statement today.

"The wrenching image of a suffering captive elephant being viciously beaten by a group of men should be enough to convince any compassionate person never to sling a leg over an elephant's back," PETA India CEO Manilal Valliyate was quoted as saying in the statement.

"PETA India's billboard is the latest step toward our work to shut down the archaic and cruel elephant ride industry at Amer Fort."

The billboard follows the release of a report in April by the Animal Welfare Board of India that revealed shocking cruelty to elephants used for rides at Amer Fort and elephant village (Hathi Gaon) and prompted PETA India to file a petition before the Jaipur Bench of the High Court of Rajasthan seeking to end illegal elephant rides at Amber Fort and the elephant village in Jaipur.

According to the report, among the 102 working elephants examined at Amer Fort, many were found to be more than 50 years old. Ten tested reactive to tuberculosis (TB) test, which can be transmitted to humans, and 19 were observed to be visually impaired, rendering them unfit to give rides because of the danger posed to both themselves and the public. PTI UZM SMN

SMN
Lucknow, Aug 21 (PTI) Three persons were arrested today on charges of narcotics smuggling and drugs, worth over Rs 2.5 cr, were seized here, police said.

They were arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) from the Polytechnic Crossing following a tip-off, they said.

The accused were identified as Mohd Salman, Mohd Taufeeq and Santosh Tiwari. The STF seized 2.5 kg of drugs, worth over Rs 2.5 cr in the international market, police said.

They were involved in narcotics smuggling in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi, they said, adding that the arrests were made at 2 am.

Police said a detailed probe is on in the matter. PTI ABN ANB

ANB
Chandigarh, Aug 21 (PTI) Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh set up three committees today to supervise the arrangements for the 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak.

Reviewing the preparations, he announced the formation of an infrastructure development committee and a celebration committee, for both rural and urban areas, besides a cultural affairs committee to draw up a comprehensive plan of events to be held at various places, an official spokesman said.

Presiding over the third meeting of the executive committee constituted for this purpose, the chief minister asked the PWD to expedite the tender process for projects worth Rs 92 crore, he said.

Giving details of the three committees, the spokesperson said the local government minister and the rural development and panchayat minister would lead the rural and urban infrastructure development committees, while the principal secretary cultural affairs will head the cultural affairs committee.

Singh, who had already submitted a detailed proposal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking financial assistance of Rs 2,145 crore for the celebrations, would soon meet Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to submit the state government's wish list for the central help in making the celebrations a success.

During the meeting, Singh ordered cleaning up of the holy Kali Bein on priority, where Guru Nanak Dev had spent many years of his early life.

He also asked Cooperation Minister Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria and Local Government Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu to involve 'sant samaj' in making the mega celebrations successful. PTI CHS DPB

DPB
New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) The seven puppies found dead under mysterious circumstances inside a residential complex in Dwarka died of respiratory arrest, a police official said today, citing the initial post-mortem report.

Doctors said in the report that the puppies died "due to respiratory arrest due to hypodermic shock".

The report did not rule out the possibility of a foul play in the case as hypodermic shock is caused due to injecting.

It also talked about about external lacerated injury (multiple injury marks) around abdominal region, including neck, the official said.

Police said footage of all CCTV cameras installed in the complex have been analysed but none of the cameras covered the site of the incident.

The site were the incident is believed to have happened is an isolated area near a community centre, the official said. PTI AMP ABH

ABH
Singapore, 21 August 2018  Thomson Reuters and the Singapore FinTech Association (SFA) have committed to join forces on projects and initiatives contributing to the development of the FinTech industry in Singapore. The collaboration will involve working closely with financial institutions, local universities and startups, focusing on leveraging emerging technologies to solve issues around financial crime.

Financial crime is a growing problem, and organisations are seeking innovative solutions to reduce its impact. According to a recent Thomson Reuters True Cost of Financial Crime report, it is estimated that companies lose USD$1.45 trillion in turnover globally from this issue, with estimated losses in Asia-Pacific amounting to approximately USD$166 billion.

The collaboration joins the technical expertise based in the Singapore unit of Thomson Reuters Labs with the network of the Singapore FinTech Association. Launched in early 2017, Thomson Reuters Labs in Singapore leverages Asias vibrant innovation and FinTech ecosystem to drive experimentation and fuel collaborative projects.

Globally, Thomson Reuters Labs is a team of data scientists, UX designers and engineers that drives experimentation with advanced data analytics and machine intelligence to solve challenges for Thomson Reuters customers. Thomson Reuters Labs provide capabilities across the disciplines of data science, artificial intelligence, blockchain engineering and data visualisation.

Chia Hock Lai, President of the Singapore FinTech Association said, Financial crime is a serious and growing issue for businesses in every industry. The Singapore FinTech Association is delighted to partner with a world-class organisation such as Thomson Reuters to find ways to tackle it together.

Sanjna Parasrampuria, Head of Thomson Reuters Labs, Asia Region said, Thomson Reuters new collaboration with the Singapore FinTech Association supports our focus on fostering open innovation and we are excited to be solving real-world problems as a part of the regional ecosystem. Financial crime remains a huge issue globally as well as in APAC, however we believe emerging technologies will help to find new solutions to combat this widespread problem.

To learn more about Thomson Reuters Labs, please click here.

FinTech Association Singapore (SFA)

SFA is a cross-industry and non-profit organization the purpose of which is to support the development of the FinTech industry in Singapore, and to facilitate collaboration among the participants and stakeholders of the FinTech ecosystem in Singapore. SFA is a member-based organization with its members representing the full range of stakeholders in the FinTech industry from early stage innovative companies to large financial players and service providers. To further its aim of developing the FinTech industry in Singapore, SFA also partners with institutions and other associations from Singapore and globally to cooperate on initiatives relating to the FinTech industry.

Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is the worlds leading source of news and information for professional markets. Our customers rely on us to deliver the intelligence, technology and expertise they need to find trusted answers. The business has operated in more than 100 countries for more than 100 years. Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges. For more information, visit www.thomsonreuters.com.



The Thomson Reuters Financial & Risk business will be known as Refinitiv following close of the strategic partnership transaction between Thomson Reuters and private equity funds managed by Blackstone.

CONTACT

Silke Marsh

Head of PR, Financial & Risk, Asia Pacific

Thomson Reuters

+61 404 763 797

silke.marsh@thomsonreuters.com

Caroline Bowler

Head of Asia Pacific

Red Flag

+65 83327688

caroline.bowler@thisisredflag.com
 Flash

Chinese peacekeepers in Lebanon carried out a free clinic on Sunday, China's first Medical Workers' Day, winning praises from local residents.





Nine medical workers, from a hospital affiliated with the multifunctional engineer unit of the 17th Chinese Peacekeeping Contingent to Lebanon, provided volunteer consultation and lectures explaining in detail how to prevent common diseases.





During the lectures, the doctors also communicated with the residents, and demonstrated emergency treatment methods for common injuries, including burns, snake and worm bites, and emergency trauma.





"Thank you very much for what you have done. You spent the rest time to provide medical assistance to us, and tried your best to help us reduce the pain of the disease," said Amina, a local resident, during the treatment.





Zhang Leilei, head of the hospital, said that after the free clinic, the hospital will continue to increase its participation in humanitarian assistance and cultivate local medical workers.





Since the 17th Chinese Peacekeeping Contingent arrived in Lebanon in May this year, the peacekeepers have contacted local clinics in surrounding villages, and provided free treatment to nearly 1,300 local residents with free medicine.
The following companies are subsidiares of General Motors: 2140879 Ontario Inc., ACAR Leasing, ACAR Leasing Ltd., ACF Investment, ACF Investment Corp., AFS SenSub, APGO Trust, Adam Opel, Adam Opel GmbH, Aftermarket (UK), AmeriCredit, AmeriCredit Consumer Loan, AmeriCredit Consumer Loan Company Inc., AmeriCredit Financial Services, AmeriCredit Financial Services Inc., AmeriCredit Funding, AmeriCredit Syndicated Warehouse Trust, Annunciata Corporation, Argonaut Holdings, Argonaut Holdings LLC, BOCO (Proprietary), BOCO (Proprietary) Limited, Banco GMAC, Banco GMAC S.A., Baylis (Gloucester), Boco Trust, Boden Brussels, CHEVYPLAN, CHEVYPLAN S.A. Sociedad Administradora de Planes de Autofinanciamiento Comercial, Cadillac, Cadillac Europe, Cadillac Europe GmbH, Carve-Out Ownership, Carve-Out Ownership Cooperative LLC, Chevrolet Deutschland GmbH, Chevrolet Sales (Thailand), Chevrolet Sales (Thailand) Limited, Chevrolet Sales India, Chevrolet Sales India Private Ltd., Chevrolet Sociedad Anonima de Ahorro para Fines Determinados, Controladora General Motors, Controladora General Motors S.A. de C.V., Cruise, DCJ1, DCJ1 LLC, DMAX, DMAX Ltd., Dealership Liquidations, Dealership Liquidations Inc., Delphi Energy and Engine Management Systems UK, Delphi Energy and Engine Management Systems UK Overseas Corporation, EDS (Electronic Data Systems), FAW-GM, Fundacion Chevrolet, G.M.A.C., GCAR Titling Ltd., GM (UK) Pension, GM (UK) Pension Trustees Limited, GM APO Holdings, GM Administradora de Bens, GM Administradora de Bens Ltda., GM Asia Pacific Regional Headquarters Ltd., GM Auslandsprojekte, GM Automotive, GM Automotive Services Belgium, GM CME, GM Canada Holdings, GM Canada Limited, GM Components Holdings, GM Components Holdings LLC, GM Cruise, GM Cruise Holdings LLC, GM Cruise LLC, GM Defense, GM Eurometals, GM Eurometals Inc., GM Europe Treasury, GM Finance, GM Finance Co. Holdings LLC, GM Financial, GM Financial AB, GM Financial Canada, GM Financial Canada Leasing, GM Financial Canada Leasing Ltd., GM Financial Colombia Holdings LLC, GM Financial Colombia S.A. Compania de Financiamiento, GM Financial Consumer, GM Financial Consumer Discount, GM Financial Consumer Discount Company, GM Financial Del Peru, GM Financial GmbH, GM Financial Holdings LLC, GM Financial Insurance Services, GM Financial Mexico Holdings, GM Financial Mexico Holdings LLC, GM Financial Real Estate, GM Financial de Mexico, GM Financial de Mexico S.A. de C.V. SOFOM E.R., GM Financial del Peru S.A.C, GM Global Business Services, GM Global Propulsion Systems -Torino S.r.l., GM Global Purchasing and Supply Chain, GM Global Technology Operations, GM Global Technology Operations LLC, GM Global Tooling, GM Global Tooling Company LLC, GM Global Treasury Centre Limited, GM Holden, GM Holden Pty Ltd., GM Holdings U.K. No.1 Limited, GM Inversiones Santiago Limitada, GM Investment Trustees Limited, GM Korea, GM Korea Company, GM LAAM Holdings, GM LAAM Holdings LLC, GM Mexico Holdings, GM Mobility Europe GmbH, GM PSA Purchasing Services, GM Personnel Services, GM Personnel Services Inc., GM Philippines Inc., GM Plats (Proprietary), GM Regional Holdings, GM Regional Holdings LLC, GM Retirees Pension Trustees, GM Retirees Pension Trustees Limited, GM Subsystems Manufacturing, GM Subsystems Manufacturing LLC, GM Technical Center Korea Ltd., GM Viet Nam Motor Company, GM-DI Leasing, GM-DI Leasing LLC, GMAC - Instituicao Financeira de Credito, GMAC Administradora de Consorcios, GMAC Administradora de Consorcios Ltda., GMAC Banque, GMAC Continental, GMAC Espana de Financiacion, GMAC Holdings (U.K.), GMAC Lease B.V. (aka Masterlease Europe), GMAC Nederland N.V., GMAC Prestadora de Servicios de Mao de Obra Ltda., GMAC Servicios, GMAC UK, GMAC de Venezuela, GMAC-Prestadora de Servios de Mo-de-Obra, GMACI Corretora de Seguros, GMACI Corretora de Seguros Ltda, GMAM Real Estate I, GMCH&SP Private Equity II, GMCH&SP Private Equity II L.P., GMF Australia Pty Ltd, GMF Europe, GMF Europe Holdco, GMF Europe LLP, GMF Floorplan Owner Revolving Trust, GMF Funding, GMF Germany Holdings, GMF Global Assignment, GMF Global Assignment LLC, GMF International, GMF International LLC, GMF Leasing LLC, GMF Leasing Warehousing Trust, GMF Wholesale Receivables, GMGP Holdings, General Motors (China) Investment Company, General Motors (China) Investment Company Limited, General Motors (Thailand), General Motors (Thailand) Limited, General Motors - Colmotores, General Motors - Colmotores S.A., General Motors Advisory Services LLC, General Motors Africa and Middle East, General Motors Africa and Middle East FZE, General Motors Asia, General Motors Asia LLC, General Motors Asia Pacific Holdings, General Motors Asia Pacific Holdings LLC, General Motors Asset Management, General Motors Asset Management Corporation, General Motors Australia, General Motors Australia Pty Ltd., General Motors Austria, General Motors Austria, General Motors Auto, General Motors Auto LLC, General Motors Automobiles Philippines, General Motors Automobiles Philippines Inc., General Motors Automotive Holdings, General Motors Automotive Holdings S.L., General Motors Belgique Automobile NV, General Motors Belgium, General Motors Chile, General Motors Chile Industria Automotriz Limitada, General Motors China LLC, General Motors Daewoo Auto and Technology, General Motors Daewoo Auto and Technology CIS LLC, General Motors East Africa, General Motors Egypt, General Motors Egypt S.A.E., General Motors Espana, General Motors Europe Holdings, General Motors Europe Limited, General Motors Financial Chile, General Motors Financial Chile Limitada, General Motors Financial Chile S.A., General Motors Financial Company, General Motors Financial Company Inc., General Motors Financial International, General Motors Financial Italia, General Motors Financial Suisse, General Motors Financial UK, General Motors Financial of Canada, General Motors Financial of Canada Ltd., General Motors Finland, General Motors France, General Motors GBS Hungary, General Motors Global Service Operations, General Motors Global Service Operations Inc., General Motors Hellas, General Motors Holden Australia, General Motors Holden Australia NSC, General Motors Holden Australia NSC Pty Ltd., General Motors Holden Australia Pty Ltd., General Motors Holdings LLC, General Motors IT Services (Ireland) Limited, General Motors India Private, General Motors India Private Limited, General Motors International Holdings, General Motors International Holdings LLC, General Motors International Operations, General Motors International Operations Pte. 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Ltd., General Motors Ireland, General Motors Israel, General Motors Israel Ltd., General Motors Italia, General Motors Japan, General Motors Japan Limited, General Motors LLC, General Motors Limited, General Motors Manufacturing Poland, General Motors Nederland, General Motors New Zealand Pensions, General Motors New Zealand Pensions Limited, General Motors Overseas, General Motors Overseas Commercial Vehicle, General Motors Overseas Commercial Vehicle Corporation, General Motors Overseas Corporation, General Motors Overseas Distribution, General Motors Overseas Distribution LLC, General Motors Peru, General Motors Peru S.A., General Motors Poland Spolka, General Motors Portugal, General Motors Powertrain (Thailand), General Motors Powertrain (Thailand) Limited, General Motors Research Corporation, General Motors South Africa, General Motors South Africa (Pty) Limited, General Motors Suisse, General Motors Taiwan, General Motors Taiwan Ltd., General Motors Technical Centre India, General Motors Technical Centre India Private Limited, General Motors Treasury Center, General Motors Treasury Center LLC, General Motors Turkiye, General Motors UK, General Motors Uruguay, General Motors Uruguay S.A., General Motors Venezolana, General Motors Ventures, General Motors Ventures LLC, General Motors Warehousing and Trading (Shanghai), General Motors Warehousing and Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., General Motors de Argentina, General Motors de Argentina S.r.l., General Motors de Mexico, General Motors de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., General Motors del Ecuador, General Motors del Ecuador S.A., General Motors do Brasil, General Motors do Brasil Ltda., General Motors of Canada, General Motors of Canada Company, General Motors-Holden's Sales, General Motors-Holden's Sales Pty. Limited, GigaPower LLC, Global Services Detroit, Global Services Detroit LLC, Global Tooling Service Company Europe, Global Tooling Service Company Europe Limited, Go Motor Retailing, Go Trade Parts, Grand Pointe Holdings, Grand Pointe Holdings Inc., Grand Pointe Park Condominium, Grand Pointe Park Condominium Association, H.S.H., Haines & Strange, Holden New Zealand, Holden New Zealand Limited, IBC Pension Trustees, IBC Pension Trustees Limited, IBC Vehicles, Lease Ownership Cooperative, Lease Ownership Cooperative LLC, Lidlington Engineering Company, Lidlington Engineering Company Ltd., Limited Liability Company "General Motors CIS", Master Lease Germany, Maven Drive, Maven Drive LLC, Millbrook Pension Management, Millbrook Pension Management Limited, Monetization of Carve-Out, Monetization of Carve-Out LLC, Motor Repris Automocio, Motors Holding, Motors Holding LLC, Motors Properties, Motors Properties (Trading), Multi-Use Lease Entity Trust, North American New Cars, North American New Cars LLC, Omnibus BB Transportes, Omnibus BB Transportes S. A., OnStar Connected Services Srl, OnStar Egypt Limited LLC, OnStar Europe, OnStar Europe Ltd., OnStar Global Services, OnStar Global Services Corporation, OnStar LLC, OnStar de Mexico, OnStar de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Opel Bank, Opel Danmark, Opel Group, Opel Group Warehousing, Opel Leasing, Opel Norge, Opel Sonderdienste, Opel Southeast Europe, Opel Sverige, Opel Szentgotthard Automotive Manufacturing, Opel Wien, P.T. G M AutoWorld Indonesia, P.T. General Motors Indonesia, PIMS, PIMS Co., PT. General Motors Indonesia Manufacturing, Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center, Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center Company Ltd., Prestadora de Servicios GMF Colombia S.A.S., Rapid Motor Vehicle Company, Reliance Motor Car Company, Riverfront Holdings III Inc., Riverfront Holdings Inc., Riverfront Holdings Phase II Inc., SAIC GM (Shenyang) Norsom Motors Co. Ltd., SAIC GM Dong Yue Motors Company Limited, SAIC GM Dong Yue Powertrain Company Limited, SAIC GM Wuling Automobile Company Limited, SAIC General Motors Corporation Limited, SAIC General Motors Investment Limited, SAIC General Motors Sales Company Limited, SAIC-GMAC Automotive Finance Company Limited, SAIC-GMF Leasing Co. Ltd., Servicios GMAC S.A. de C.V., Shanghai Chengxin Used Car Operation and Management Company Limited, Shanghai OnStar Telematics Co. Ltd., Sherwoods (Darlington) Limited, Sidecar Technologies, Skurrays Limited, Stam-Terberg Autobedrijven B. V., Strobe Inc., VHC Sub-Holdings (UK), Vauxhall Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Limited, Vehicle Asset Universal Leasing Trust, Vickers (Lakeside) Limited, Vision Motors Limited, WRE, WRE Inc., and Zona Franca Industrial Colmotores SAS.
WellCare Health Plans, Inc. provides government-sponsored managed care services. The company operates in three segments: Medicaid Health Plans, Medicare Health Plans, and Medicare Prescription Drug Plans (PDPs). The Medicaid Health Plans segment offers plans for beneficiaries of temporary assistance for needy families, supplemental security income, and aged blind and disabled residents; and other state-based programs, such as children's health insurance programs and long-term services and supports programs for qualifying families who are not eligible for Medicaid. The Medicare Health Plans segment provides Medicare, a federal program that provides eligible persons aged 65 and over, as well as some disabled persons with a range of hospital, medical, and prescription drug benefits; Medicare Advantage, a Medicare's managed care alternative to the original Medicare program, which offers individuals standard Medicare benefits directly through Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; and coordinated care plans that are administered through health maintenance organizations and require members to seek health care services and select a primary care physician from a network of health care providers. The Medicare PDPs segment provides Medicare part D PDP plans to Medicare-eligible beneficiaries. Its PDP plans offer national in-network prescription drug coverage, including a preferred pharmacy network. As of December 31, 2018, the company served approximately 5.5 million members in the United States. WellCare Health Plans, Inc. was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Tampa, Florida.

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 Flash

Premier Li Keqiang held talks with visiting Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Beijing on Monday, saying China will work with Malaysia to promote neighborly friendship to a new high.





With new governments established in the two countries this year, the development of bilateral relations was standing at a new starting point, Li said.





He said that China will follow the friendly policy towards Malaysia, and will work with Malaysia to score the long-term healthy development of bilateral ties on the basis of mutual respect, equality, and mutual benefit.





China and Malaysia have strong economic complementarity and great potential for cooperation. China is willing to better integrate the Belt and Road Initiative with Malaysia's development strategy, while promoting China-Malaysia industrial cooperation and construction of industrial parks, and strengthening cooperation in economy, trade, investment, agriculture, fisheries, and transportation infrastructure, said Li.





He said China will import more high-quality Malaysian products to cater to the needs of domestic consumers, improve the level of trade facilitation, and encourage strong and reputable companies of the two countries to expand two-way investment.





Li called on the two countries to provide a stable and sound business environment.





"China is willing to explore new cooperation with Malaysia in the fields such as science and technology innovation, automobile, finance, and e-commerce," said Li.





He also stressed the need to promote cultural exchanges, so as to lay a solid foundation of public support for cooperation.





As Malaysia is an important member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the development of China-Malaysia relations will not only benefit the two countries but also help deepen China-ASEAN relations and cooperation, said Li.





Against the background of rising unilateralism and protectionism, China is willing to work together with ASEAN countries including Malaysia to advocate multilateralism and free trade, adhere to putting development as a priority, and promote the building of an economic community in East Asia, so as to contribute to regional peace, stability, and prosperity, Li said.





Mahathir said that this is the first time he has visited a country outside ASEAN since he assumed office as Malaysian prime minister for the second time but his eighth visit to China as the prime minister.





He confirmed that the Malaysian government will continue to pursue the friendly policy toward China and look forward to further consolidating bilateral relations through this visit, realizing mutual benefit and win-win results in the economic and trade fields, and promoting the upgrading of Malaysia-China relations.





While calling trade protectionism a historical reversal, Mahathir said Malaysia hopes to export more products to China, welcomes investment from Chinese companies, and hopes that both sides will expand cooperation in tourism, innovation and research and development.





Malaysia actively supports the Belt and Road Initiative, which is conducive to promoting inter-connectivity and trade exchanges between countries and enhancing the links between the East and the West, he said.





A healthy and stable Malaysia-China relationship will not only benefit Malaysia but also contribute to regional peace, stability, and prosperity, he said.





Li and Mahathir also attended the signing of bilateral cooperative documents on economy, trade, agriculture, finance, and technology.





When meeting the press after the talks, Li said they agreed that the two countries should be partners in trade and investment, industrial cooperation, and innovation and growth.





Li said China will work with Malaysia to build a new pattern of pragmatic cooperation and open up a new space for cooperation in the fields of e-commerce, upgrading of traditional industries, and technological innovation.





The two sides also agreed to expand two-way opening up through capacity and industrial cooperation, and promote a more balanced development of bilateral trade on the basis of expanding trade scale.





Under the current international situation, the two sides agreed to jointly safeguard free trade, oppose trade protectionism, and promote the healthy development of economic globalization, according to Li.





The two sides are committed to promoting the construction of the East Asian Community, supporting ASEAN's central position in regional cooperation, and jointly sending a positive signal to the region and the world of maintaining the long-term friendship and safeguarding regional peace, stability, and development, he added.





Mahathir said Malaysia hopes to learn from China's experience and enhance the level of e-commerce and innovation cooperation.





The two countries are willing to work together to support globalization and maintain an open, free, and fair international economic system.





Also on Monday, the two sides released a joint statement, saying that standing at new historical junctures of their respective national development, China and Malaysia are optimistic about the prospect of their bilateral relations.





The statement said that during the visit, leaders of the two countries charted the course for future development of the bilateral relations, and had in-depth exchanges of views on regional and international issues of common interest in a friendly and cordial atmosphere.





It said both countries underscored the importance of maintaining peace, security and stability, as well as safety and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.





Both sides emphasized the need for all sovereign states directly concerned to resolve their differences by peaceful means through friendly consultations and negotiations, and the need for all parties to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities, and to avoid actions that would complicate or escalate tensions in the South China Sea.





China and Malaysia, together with the ASEAN Member States, will work for the full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and encourage maritime cooperation, as well as actively push forward consultations on a Code of Conduct (COC) to see early conclusion of an effective COC, the statement said.
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Colonie

Ultra-low fare carrier Allegiant announced Tuesday that it will begin serving Albany International Airport in December with year-round, nonstop flights to three Florida destinations.

Las Vegas-based Allegiant is the latest airline to launch service here, following Frontier, Elite Airways and OneJet in recent months.

Airport officials credited low per-enplanement costs and as much as $500,000 worth of marketing and operating support during the first year of Allegiant's operations with sealing the deal.

Last year, for example, the cost to airlines per enplaned passenger was $6.57 in Albany, compared to $10 in Syracuse and Rochester, and $12 in Buffalo, said airport CEO John O'Donnell.

"If we did not have the right cost structure, they would not come to this airport," O'Donnell said.

Allegiant will serve the Orlando Sanford airport on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays beginning Dec. 13; Punta Gorda airport on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays also beginning Dec. 13, and St. Pete airport on Monday's, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays beginning Dec. 12, according to its website, allegiant.com.

Albany will be the 122nd city that Allegiant serves, and the ninth city serving New York state, said Max Barrus, the carrier's director of planning.

"What we do is all about choice," Barrus said, with passengers deciding which services they want to pay for beyond the base fare, which averages $67 across Allegiant's network. "We want you to choose what you value."

Passengers will pay a fee to reserve a specific seat, for carry-on baggage and checked baggage  a small personal item such as a purse is free  for food and beverages, and for a boarding pass if they get it from an Allegiant ticket agent at the airport. There's no charge for checking in online and printing your own boarding pass, or using the app on your smartphone.

With American, Delta, United, Southwest, JetBlue and next month Frontier all serving Florida destinations, including some with nonstops from Albany, is there enough market demand?

O'Donnell believes so. He said a third of Albany's passengers are flying somewhere in Florida. That would be more than 400,000 of the 1.4 million passengers who board planes here each year.

Allegiant believes it can carry 98,000 passengers in its first year of operation here. Its load factor companywide  the average number of seats occupied  is 85 percent, Barrus said.

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"We don't leave a lot of seats empty," he added.

Allegiant has been in the news for a number of mechanical failures and maintenance issues, including a report in April on CBS's "60 Minutes" and several stories before that in the Tampa Bay Times.

"We work closely with the FAA; safety is our number one priority," said spokeswoman Michelle Whaley, when asked about safety issues.

Many of the incidents involved Allegiant's older MD-80 aircraft, a derivative of the DC-9. Whaley said Allegiant will be using new Airbus A-319 and A-320 aircraft on the services out of Albany. And the airline plans to have an all-Airbus fleet before the end of the year.

Allegiant is offering introductory fares at Albany beginning at $59 one-way. And while it's hoping to lure upstate New York and New England residents south, it also expects some Florida residents may want to see the fall foliage or seek a ski vacation.

"We announced this as a year-round route. A lot of the time we don't do that," said Barrus. " If they do well, we hope to expand very quickly."
Troy

Apprenda, the Troy cloud computing software firm that unexpectedly ceased operations last month after running into financial problems, is putting its intellectual property and other assets up for sale in a bid to repay a $6 million bank loan and possibly return some money to shareholders.

The firm, which was founded in 2007 and became one of the most successful local software startups with a list of high-profile financial services clients, is working with Sherwood Partners of Santa Clara, Calif., to manage the sale without having to go through bankruptcy.

It is unclear how much the sale of Apprenda's assets would generate. In a filing in the Court of Chancery in Delaware, an entity created by Sherwood Partners to handle the sale revealed that Apprenda has an outstanding $6 million loan with Silicon Valley Bank and that it has issued $50 million in stock to shareholders.

In many ways Apprenda represented the ideal Capital Region startup, created by three local college graduates who attracted big-time venture capital funding from around the country but chose Troy for its headquarters. It had roughly 100 local employees, as well as a New York City office.

Founders Sinclair Schuller and Abraham Sultan attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The third, Matt Ammerman, attended the University at Albany.

Repeated phone calls to Apprenda's offices to reach the founders or others have been unsuccessful. A Sherwood Partners executive didn't immediately have a comment as he was reached Tuesday while boarding a plane.

In 2014 Apprenda moved from suburban Halfmoon to Hedley Park Place, a former shirt factory on Troy's waterfront, and the following year it landed one of the biggest venture capital investments ever for the region  a $24 million commitment from Safeguard Scientifics, a Main Line Philadelphia venture capital and private equity firm.

Other investors included New Enterprise Associates and Ignition Partners, as well as the state pension fund, which put $1.2 million into the company in 2015.

Court records show that on Aug. 6, the Apprenda board of directors voted to move forward with the plan to sell, and on the same day Schuller signed over Apprenda's business assets, including its cash, patents, copyrights, source code, insurance policies and trademarks, to a subsidiary created by Sherwood Partners to handle the sale.

One item specifically exempted from the transfer is Apprenda's lease agreements.

"The assignee is hopeful that through the sale process, the assignment estate will generate substantial sale proceeds so that distributions can be made to the various stakeholders without any preference or priority..." the Delaware filing states.

Apprenda's troubles first came to light last month during a Safeguard Scientifics conference call with analysts to discuss its second-quarter earnings, which included a $6.6 million impairment charge from the complete write-off of the firm's investment in Apprenda.

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During the July 26 conference call, analysts asked Safeguard Scientific's CEO Brian Sisko what happened to Apprenda. He said Apprenda's goal was to be acquired, but when that didn't happen, the company's prospects faltered.

"At one point, there were some very significant players who were more than sniffing around the process that was being run around Apprenda," Sisko said. "I think Sinclair Schuller did a great job, but he didn't ultimately get the company to a sale point."

Sisko suggested it would be difficult for shareholders to receive much back in compensation for their stock from a sale of Apprenda's technology due to the large bank loan that has to be paid off.

"There is a possibility of some amount, but nothing that I would suggest anybody pay any time trying to figure out," Sisko told analysts.

The Delaware filing simply says that Apprenda was no longer able to pay its debts, presumably when its venture capital backers pulled their funding, which is often handed out over time instead of all at once at the beginning. Safeguard had deployed $22.1 million into Apprenda when it decided to stop putting money into the firm earlier this year, although it is unclear if that included money from a previous investment it had made in the company.

It is unclear if Apprenda's founders plan to bid on the company's assets or get back into the business by launching a new startup.

Sherwood Partners specializes in a corporate restructuring method that is known as "assignment for the benefit of creditors" in which a company uses state courts instead of federal bankruptcy court to restructure or liquidate.

The process is often favored by startup firms in fast-moving industries because it can be quicker and more flexible than bankruptcy. Apprenda was incorporated in Delaware, which is why it filed its plan in that state.
Albany

New York officials and environmental groups pushed back Tuesday on the Trump administration's plans to let states decide how to control pollution and climate-changing greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants, saying it would worsen air quality in the state and fuel ongoing climate change globally.

Weather patterns in New York generally blow from west to east, carrying emissions that can cause smog and acid rain. Several upwind states to the west have been burning more coal for power since President Donald Trump took office last year.

On Tuesday. the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced its replacement to the 2015 Clean Power Plan by the former administration of President Barack Obama that would have set federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired plants.

Now, under EPA's Affordable Clean Energy rule, states will be able to address such emissions individually and will be given three years to come up with their own proposals. It also let states relax pollution rules for power plants that need upgrades, keeping them active longer.

Critics of the new rule included Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who blasted it as a sop to the coal industry, and Acting Attorney General Barbara Underwood, who said the state will sue to block the measure as part of a 16-state coalition that supports limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

"As a downwind state, we are on the receiving end of the pollution that drifts from coal-fired power plants in neighboring states," the governor wrote in a letter to Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler urging the rule be dropped. "Many non-partisan scientists and public servants in EPA could confirm this if they were not being silenced by ideologues in the Trump administration."

New York is part of a a coalition that includes California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

While an international scientific consensus had identified the combustion of fossil fuels as driving man-made climate change, Trump has called climate change a "hoax" created by the Chinese, and early into his term announced he was pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement. He has repeatedly referenced "clean, beautiful coal" and touted the opening of coal mines during his rallies.

New York relied on coal for about 15 percent of its electricity as recently as 2007. But as natural gas production increased, more plants switched to gas and the remaining coal plants shut down; currently the state gets less than 1 percent from coal.

States upwind to the west of New York on the prevailing winds rely much more heavily on coal to generate power, including Ohio (44 percent) Indiana (67 percent) Illinois (30 percent), Michigan (35 percent), and Wisconsin (48 percent), according to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Coal use at power plants climbed by double-digit percentages in Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois between May 2017 and May 2018, according to EIA figures. It declined in Ohio and Michigan.

Power plants that burn coal produce more than 90 times as much sulfur dioxide (the source of acid rain that has damaged parts of the Adirondacks), five times as much nitrogen oxide (a source of smog) and twice as much carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas that is driving man-made climate change) as those that run on natural gas, according to the Government Accountability Office, the regulatory arm of Congress.

Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Albany-based Environmental Advocates of New York and a former commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said the new rule would result in more smog and acid rain compared to the now-abandoned Clean Power Plan.

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"This puts the health of millions of New Yorkers at risk. This is a senseless action that will cost lives," he said. "This is a senseless action that will cost lives. "It is the intention of President Trump to encourage the burning of more coal. More pollution and more disease will follow."

EPA documents outlining the new rule indicate that pollution and carbon emissions will likely rise, with an increase of between 470 and 1,400 premature deaths annually by 2030 because of increased emissions of minuscule airborne particles. Such emissions can cause and worsen symptoms in people with asthma and bronchitis.

"This proposal is an enormous step backwards, and it will have severe repercussions for public health and the climate," said Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law."In regulating greenhouse gas pollution, the EPA is legally required to use the 'best system of emission reduction,' not a mediocre or downright counterproductive system of emission reduction."

Congress member Paul Tonko, an Amsterdam Democrat who is ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said New York has "suffered the consequences of cross-state air pollution for decades. We simply cannot afford a piecemeal approach to protecting our air, our environment and the health of our families and communities."

Tonko said the best way to control greenhouse gas emissions is "directing the market to put a price on carbon ... not exposing children, seniors and the rest of us to greater health risks from pollution and extreme weather."

A Republican member of Congress who is running for reelection, Elise Stefanik, of Willsboro, said she opposed the new rule because it could expose the Adirondacks to more acid rain, according to a statement on her official Facebook page.

Stefanik wrote that such pollution policy ought to be written by Congress, not EPA, but she did not indicate how Congress might block the new rule from taking effect. Her Facebook post drew repeated expressions of incredulity from numerous commenters.

Congress member John Faso, of Kinderhook, acknowledged New York is upwind of states that could be releasing more pollute. While criticizing the Obama plan, Faso said he would "continue to work to ensure that the rules the EPA proposes build upon the positive changes that came about after the Clean Air Act of 1990, adhere to the cross-state pollution standards, and require other states to live up to the 'good neighbor' requirements of the law."
Washington

Business economists are sounding some sour notes about Trump administration policies, from trade to immigration to the budget, while expecting the short-term boost to growth from Republican tax cuts to lessen over time.

The National Association for Business Economics survey showed 91 percent of respondents said current tariffs and threats of more to come were having "unfavorable consequential impacts" on the U.S. economy, according to a report released Monday. About two-thirds saw negative effects if the U.S. withdraws from the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada.

In the wake of large tax cuts enacted in late 2017, the share of those saying fiscal policy is too stimulative rose to 71 percent from 52 percent in February, according to the responses of 251 members collected from July 19 to Aug. 2. And 81 percent said the federal deficit's share of gross domestic product should be reduced.

"In general, the panel expects the federal deficit, as a percentage of the economy, to grow in the longer term, with eight out of 10 panelists indicating that fiscal policy should help shrink the deficit as a share of the economy," said survey chair Jim Diffley, an economist at IHS Markit Ltd.

The cautious views are at odds with the President Donald Trump's upbeat assessment in tweets last week saying the U.S. economy is "better than ever." Trump has also touted low rates of youth unemployment and, recently, falling joblessness among African-American and Hispanic workers.

While survey respondents continued to see deregulation and tax cuts giving a boost to growth in the short term, they also saw the effects diminishing over time as government debt continues to rise.

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Almost two-thirds said the U.S. corporate tax system following the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was an improvement over the previous regime in terms of equity and efficiency, while 25 percent viewed it as "somewhat worse" or "far worse" than before.

Changes to personal income taxes fared worse, with only 31 percent considering the new system better in terms of equity and efficiency and about 54 percent judging it "somewhat worse" or "far worse."

Some 37 percent said the tax cuts would boost 2018 U.S. GDP growth by a quarter to half percentage point, while 24 percent saw gains of a half point to three quarters of a point, the survey showed.

Forecasters were more upbeat on the Federal Reserve, with 76 percent saying monetary policy is on the right track, the most in the semiannual survey in more than 11 years, according to NABE. Nineteen percent of respondents in the current survey said policy is "too stimulative," while 4 percent said the central bank's stance is "too restrictive."
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 Flash

Iran's missile program is a non-negotiable issue and it is not linked with the country's nuclear deal, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday.





The Iranian 2015 international nuclear deal and the country's missile program are two separate issues, Bahram Qasemi said with a reference to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's recent remarks.





Merkel earlier said that Berlin was willing to preserve the deal in the wake of U.S. withdrawal, while expressing concern over Tehran's missile program.





"She (Merkel) can express her view ... but she must know that the missile program and the nuclear deal are two separate issues," Qasemi said in his weekly press conference.





"We have declared our stance on the missile program, which is non-negotiable," he said.
ALBANY  Following days of intensive private negotiations with legislative leaders, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Monday signed a bill to create a statewide commission to investigate allegations of misconduct by district attorneys and their assistant prosecutors.

The governor's signature creating the State Commission on Prosecutorial Conduct came despite a recent analysis by the state attorney general's office that found the legislation  as then written  was poorly crafted and would likely not withstand a court challenge because of "several constitutional defects."

Cuomo's office, in announcing the bill signing on Monday evening, acknowledged the bill "suffers from several flaws," but said those issues will be handled by amending the legislation when the state Senate and Assembly return to Albany for their next session.

The state district attorneys' association has pledged to go to court to fight the law after waging an unsuccessful effort to derail the legislation. They noted there is already a system to review misconduct by attorneys, including prosecutors, and that the governor has the authority to remove a district attorney for cause.

It is unfathomable that lawmakers would author and pass a bill that has numerous constitutional flaws and violates the separation of powers," said Albany County District Attorney David Soares, president of the District Attorneys Association of New York. "It is outrageous that the governor would sign such a bill."

But Cuomo and other supporters of the legislation hailed its passage.

"Our criminal justice system must fairly convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent," Cuomo said in a statement. "When any prosecutor consciously disregards that fundamental duty, communities suffer and lose faith in the system, and they must have a forum to be heard and seek justice."

Proponents of the legislation, including state Sen. John A. DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, have said there is a critical need to create the commission and pointed to instances of people wrongfully convicted of crimes.

"Despite the good work of most prosecutors, there must be a remedy against those who violate the law," DeFrancisco said in a statement.

The state Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers also supported the bill, citing what the group said is a "lack of public accountability" by prosecutors who violate ethics rules and criminal procedure laws.

Early versions of the legislation included language that would have allowed the commission to review the conduct of nearly all state-level prosecutors, including special prosecutors and those within the ranks of the sprawling attorney general's office. But the final version of the bill targeted only district attorneys and their assistants. DeFrancisco's office did not immediately respond to questions Monday afternoon about why that section was changed.

The Aug. 13 analysis by the office of Attorney General Barbara Underwood was done at the request of Cuomo's office and prompted the recent negotiations to adjust the bill. The changes will be made as "chapter amendments," which means the Legislature will need to tweak the final language of the bill when lawmakers return in January.

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The 11-page report by Underwood's office had outlined serious issues with the breadth of the commission's authority and also raised questions about the manner in which appointments would be made, including naming judges as members.

The review also questioned whether it would be lawful for the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, to have oversight of the commission's determinations  and then make recommendations to the governor  because that court is not constitutionally authorized to do that type of work. The report described the commission, whose members would be largely appointed by the Legislature, as "an exercise of legislative power over the executive branch with no warrant in the Constitution."

Cuomo said those issues will be addressed by removing the review of the commission's findings from the Court of Appeals and not appointing "active judges" to the panel.

Underwood's office also noted that a provision empowering the commission to investigate a district attorney's handling of an open investigation could unduly influence a prosecutor's decision-making in that particular case, or interfere with an investigation.

The commission also would still have authority on closed cases to subpoena witnesses and compel district attorneys to turn over records or other evidence, but it's unclear if that would extend to grand jury materials. The report by Underwood's office noted that the commission's records could be made available to the public and that could "chill" a district attorney's deliberative process.

"The (legislation) thus creates a substantial risk that prosecutorial decision-making will be, or will appear to have been, influenced by the commission," said the analysis that was sent to Cuomo's office by Leslie B. Dubeck, Underwood's general counsel.

Cuomo acknowledged there would be a problem allowing the commission to investigate active cases, and said that language will be changed in the final version because "intrusion into active investigations would undermine, rather than support, our criminal justice system."
ALBANY  Earlier this summer, Maggie Moran became the full-time campaign manager for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's 2018 reelection bid  leaving the consulting business, at least for the moment.

A senior adviser on Cuomo's 2010 campaign, Moran went on to build a successful public relations business, which after a 2015 merger became the major firm Kivvit, where Moran is managing partner.

Moran is now on leave from Kivvit while managing Cuomo's re-election bid, according to campaign spokeswoman Abbey Collins. Still, Kivvit retains Cuomo connections: Rich Bamberger, who joined Moran's firm in 2012 after serving as Cuomo's first communications director, is a managing director.

A look at Kivvit's current and recent lobbying clients, disclosed on the website of the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics, shows a number with business before the Cuomo administration, including a gas pipeline operation, Williams Companies, which is seeking state approval for a contentious project.

Those connections were being exploited Tuesday morning by Cuomo's opponents, including by Howie Hawkins, the Green Party's candidate for governor.

Kivvit's leaders, however, say they're only registered as lobbyists because of recent actions by JCOPE  and aren't directly lobbying anyone in the Cuomo administration.

Earlier this year, JCOPE passed new regulations that greatly expanded the definition of lobbying. Now, it's not just traditional lobbyists  the kind that physically buttonhole lawmakers at the Capitol  who have to register.

According to Bamberger, Kivvit employees never set up lobbying meetings for clients, and never use their Cuomo connections to directly lobby administration officials  or any other government officials, for that matter.

In fact, it's often in their contracts that they don't do such direct lobbying, he said.

"In New York, the law has changed forcing communications firms to register as lobbyists if they create work such as digital or newspaper ads even if there is no interaction with lawmakers or state agencies which is the situation that Kivvit finds itself in," Bamberger said. "Kivvit holds itself to the highest standard and it's our hope to raise the bar on transparency and disclosure."

Under the new definition of lobbying, Kivvit, even though it's a public relations firm, has registered as a lobbyist for a long roster of clients with state government business, including:

Williams Companies

The company is seeking to build the $1 billion "Northeast Supply Enhancement" natural gas pipeline, which would go from Pennsylvania to New York. The Oklahoma-based company hired Kivvit for $5,000-a-month in September, 2017.

Cuomo has been increasingly against the construction of new natural gas infrastructure.

In April 2018, his Department of Environmental Conservation denied Williams' permit application "without prejudice" since the application was incomplete. That keeps the project alive for the moment, although DEC is also raising environmental concerns.

On Twitter on Tuesday, New York Communities for Change, a liberal grassroots group in New York City that supports Cuomo's Democratic primary challenger Cynthia Nixon, called out Moran as well for her work for Williams.

Joe Percoco's work for a private companies while managing the 2014 Cuomo campaign  while he was on leave from his top post in state government for eight months  formed the center of his corruption trial and conviction on three charges in March.

Moran's situation is different: Not only is there no indication she has engaged in any wrongdoing, but unlike Percoco, she's not expected to return to a top post in state government after the campaign. Moran has never worked in the Cuomo administration. Also, Percoco had private clients while he was campaign manager, whereas Moran is on leave from her lobbying firm.

Exelon Corp.

The Chicago-based company is benefitting from billions in subsidies that were the center of a Public Service Commission plan to bail out three struggling nuclear power plants.

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The plan, which Cuomo said would save hundreds of jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, was announced in August 2016; Exelon had retained Kivvit two months earlier, according to lobbying records.

Since then, an Exelon lobbyist has been caught bragging about his company's windfall relative to the cost of its lobbying and public relations campaign.

Labor unions

Other Kivvit clients include several building trades unions (who Cuomo did well by in 2015 negotiations over the 421-a tax abatement program used by developers) and the New York State Nurses Association.

When nurses mounted a union drive at Albany Medical Center earlier this year, Cuomo launched a probe into whether management was coercing nurses to vote against unionization. The governor in April attended a NYSNA rally celebrating the unionization victory.

On June 1, Kivvit reported being paid $1.2 million by NYSNA for a campaign for the "Safe Staffing Act." On June 22, Cuomo issued a press release stating that next legislative session, he would press for such legislation.

Crestwood Equity Partners

Here's an example where a Kivvit client did not do well with the Cuomo administration. In July, DEC rejected long-gestating plans for a propane gas storage facility that Crestwood wanted to build in the caverns of Seneca Lake.

Kivvit employees registered as lobbyists under the advice of David Grandeau, a private attorney retained by the company, who used to be New York's top lobbying official.

"In the absence of clear guidance, I advised all my public relations clients to register," Grandeau said. "I would encourage all public relations firms, especially those working for political campaigns, to disclose as much information as we do."

Senior advisors to Nixon's campaign, Bill Hyers and Rebecca Katz, work for a different major firm, Hilltop Public Solutions, which has only ever registered as a lobbyist with JCOPE for two clients.

Katz told the Times Union on Tuesday that the firm currently had "no state business."
Washington

Melania Trump is planning her first big solo international swing with a trip through several African countries in October.

The first lady told The Associated Press in a written statement Monday that she's looking forward to learning about the issues that children living on the continent face, as well as appreciating Africa's history and culture. She recently launched a U.S.-based effort focused on the well-being of children.

The first lady plans to travel without President Donald Trump, who was roundly criticized earlier this year after his private comment about "shithole countries" in Africa was leaked to journalists.

Exact dates for the trip and which African countries she will visit remain to be announced.

"This will be my first time traveling to Africa and I am excited to educate myself on the issues facing children throughout the continent, while also learning about its rich culture and history," the first lady said in the statement. "We are a global society and I believe it is through open dialogue and the exchanging of ideas that we have a real opportunity to learn from one another."

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She added that she also looks forward to highlighting successful humanitarian work and development programs underway in the African countries.

Her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said the first lady chose Africa as the destination for her first big solo international trip after she learned about some of the development programs that are underway in many of its countries. Those programs include investments by the U.S. in children's health and education, Grisham said.

The trip will be the farthest Melania Trump has traveled on her own since becoming first lady in January 2017.
HOOSICK FALLS  A health survey conducted by Bennington College, several scientists and former environmental regulators found a higher incidence of cancer in people exposed to PFOA in several local communities than had been estimated by the state Health Department.

The survey also found high rates of other serious diseases linked to PFOA exposure among residents who worked at or lived near manufacturing plants that for decades had used the toxic chemical at facilities in Hoosick Falls, Petersburgh and Bennington, Vt.

The findings, released Tuesday morning, reveal significantly more cases of cancer than had been estimated by the New York State Health Department in a June 2017 report. That study relied on data from the state cancer registry and examined current and former residents within boundaries delineated by zip codes, rather than proximity to the factories the spewed the chemical from their stacks.

Elevated levels of PFOA were found in the village of Hoosick Falls' public water system in 2014. The state Health Department and village officials were later criticized because they waited roughly 16 months  and faced pressure from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency  before they warned the public to stop drinking the water.

The discovery of the chemical in Hoosick Falls by a resident, Michael Hickey, set off a wide-ranging examination of PFOA contamination in several Rensselaer County communities and across New York and the northeast United States.

The fallout of the pollution included thousands of residents, including young children, testing positive for elevated levels of PFOA in their blood. The resulting public outrage helped pressure the EPA to lower the recommended level of PFOA in drinking water from 440 parts per trillion to 70 parts per trillion.

High levels of the toxic chemical were found at four sites in the village of Hoosick Falls, including at a manufacturing plant adjacent to the village's water treatment plant. Those areas have since been designated as Superfund sites.

The state's report examining cancer rates in the residents of residents in that area did not examine other health conditions that have been linked to long-term PFOA exposure, including colitis, preeclampsia, thyroid disease, high cholesterol and respiratory problems.

The Health Department report found no cases of testicular cancer in Hoosick Falls, where at least two manufacturing facilities had used PFOA for decades. The Bennington College report, however, confirmed nine cases of that type of cancer in current or former village residents.

The report released Tuesday by Bennington College researchers also found  in addition to 31 cases of kidney cancer and a total of 11 cases of testicular cancer  that 231 people in the three communities had been diagnosed with thyroid disease, 35 with pregnancy-induced hypertension, and 71 with ulcerative colitis.

State Health Department officials said they were supportive of the survey efforts by Bennington College and have urged the federal government to include Hoosick Falls in a broader health study.

The state's analysis looked only at people who had been reported to be diagnosed with cancer between 1994 and 2014, in part because those were the years for which electronic data was available. The Health Department's report, which was widely criticized for its methodology, revealed much lower rates of some forms of cancer linked to long-term PFOA exposure  testicular, kidney and thyroid  but revealed there were 91 cases of lung cancer during the study period, far above the expected rate of 65 for a village the size of Hoosick Falls, where the population is about 3,400 people.

David Bond, a Bennington College professor who helped lead the health survey released Tuesday, said their study was not limited to a set time period and relied on confirmation from individuals diagnosed with a disease or the accounts of their surviving relatives.

"Residents have legitimate and still unaddressed health concerns relating to PFOA exposure four years after the toxic chemical was found in their drinking water," Bond said. "The results of this questionnaire give credence to the growing health concerns of these residents."

He said some local residents afflicted with the type of cancers linked to PFOA exposure have struggled to keep up with their medical costs and, in some instances, relied on GoFundMe campaigns to help pay for their treatment.

"This is unacceptable," Bond said. "Victims of toxic pollution should never have to pay for their own medical treatment. The polluters should be required to fund the new healthcare needs PFOA has brought to these communities."

The questionnaire had generated 443 responses in which individuals or their relatives confirmed a diagnosis of one of the diseases targeted in the study.

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The grassroots survey was not sanctioned by a government agency.

Critics of the state's cancer-study methodology have said the investigation did not take into account residents diagnosed with cancer after moving away from the village. Most cancer registries  including New York's  list a person's address at the time they are diagnosed.

The Health Department last year released a letter that it signed with five other states calling on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to undertake a multi-state health study using data from a multitude of communities where perfluorinated chemicals have contaminated drinking water supplies. It's unclear whether that request resulted in a review.

Judith Enck, a former regional administrator for the federal EPA, worked with Bennington College on the informal survey and had called on the state Health Department to do more "bio-monitoring" of residents in Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh.

"We did this with students and volunteers and squeezed it in on the weekends," Enck said. "We found nine testicular cancers and 17 kidney cancers in the village of Hoosick Falls, and we think our numbers are a vast underestimate. Can you imagine if you're the state Health Department with paid staff who could have blanketed these communities with surveys?"

Enck said the results also underscore the need to conduct longterm medical monitoring of residents of the communities.

Brad Hutton, a deputy commissioner with the state Health Department, said the agency is coordinating a second round of blood testing for residents in the Hoosick Falls area. Hutton said roughly 3,000 people in that area have had their blood tested for PFOA  part of roughly 6,000 blood tests done statewide in places such as Newburgh and Long Island, where PFOA contamination has also been an issue.

"Were optimistic that well be able to demonstrate a reduction in levels (of PFOA) for residents that participated in both round 1 and round 2" of the blood testing," Hutton said. He said those results would also help reassure residents that the carbon-filtration systems are eliminating PFOA from their drinking water.

A manufacturing plant operated by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics in Hoosick Falls has been a focus of the contamination of the village's nearby underground water supply, which is now filtered to remove the contaminant. PFOA was used at the plant for decades, including by companies that operated the plant before Saint-Gobain purchased it in the late 1990s.

Taconic, a plastics company in Petersburgh, first alerted the state Department of Environmental Conservation in 2005 about its discovery of the toxic chemical in the groundwater around its plant on Route 22. At the time, the discovery did not result in any public notification or additional investigation by the state, officials said.

The EPA has no record that the company or state DEC notified the federal agency about the situation at that time.

In 2005, Taconic installed a carbon-filter system on the wells at its plant along the Little Hoosic River after discovering low levels of the chemical. The company also provided alternative water treatment systems for nearby residents. Taconic's plant makes specialty products including silicone-coated fabrics and tapes.
Rome

Pope Francis, whose slow pace of action on clerical sexual abuse has threatened lasting damage to his papacy, on Monday did what no pope had done before, issuing a letter to all Catholics condemning the "atrocities." But he offered no specific remedies.

The letter came just days after a sweeping grand jury report in Pennsylvania found that the church had covered up the abuse of more than 1,000 minors by some 300 priests over 70 years.

It was published as Francis prepared to visit Ireland, a predominantly Catholic nation where abuse scandals have contributed to a revolt over issues like abortion that would have been unthinkable just years ago.

"With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives," Francis wrote. "We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them."

As much as anything, the church's mishandling of the abuse crisis, which has affected dozens of countries, can account for its gradual erosion in the West. Over the past two decades, the church often has resisted acknowledging the scale of the crisis, or even specific sexual abuse scandals as they came to light in parishes and dioceses in many countries.

The letter offered a more candid acknowledgment and forceful condemnation of the problem by Francis since he admitted "grave errors" in the handling of cases in Chile earlier this year. Previous letters from popes were more limited.

But even as the pope said Monday that the church would spare no effort to ensure such abuses never happen again, the letter invited a fresh round of criticism from disappointed survivors, frustrated by the gap between the pope's words and actions when it comes to what is by now a well-documented, decades-old history of pedophilia by priests.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, called the pope's letter "recycled rhetoric" and "a disappointment."

"Mere words at this point deepen the insult and the pain," she wrote in a statement to the news media.

In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a letter to Ireland's Catholics when the abuse scandal came to the fore there. And earlier this year, Francis wrote to Catholics in Chile after an abuse scandal forced the ecclesiastical hierarchy there to tender their resignations.

"This is about Ireland, this is about the United States, and this is about Chile. But not only," Greg Burke, the director of the Holy See Press Office said in an audio statement. "Pope Francis has written to the people of God, and that means everyone."

But while the shift in Francis' tone has been notable since he was assailed earlier this year for defending a Chilean bishop from the "calumny" of abuse victims, critics say the pope has consistently raised expectations of remedies and then failed to deliver.

Early on, in 2013, Francis directed the Vatican to act decisively on sexual abuse cases. He instituted a Vatican commission that included victims among its members to propose "best-practice initiatives for protecting minors and vulnerable adults" from delinquent clerics, and proposed a tribunal to prosecute remiss bishops.

But the initiatives disappointed. The commission, whose term expired in December 2017, gradually lost several of its members, who quit, citing frustration at the resistance they had met from some church officials as well as reluctance in the Vatican to implement recommended changes. The Vatican tribunal to try bishops was never set up.

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Then the pope seriously mishandled the situation in Chile.

Outrage followed and the pope took note.

In February, Francis sent the Vatican's top investigator to Chile, and that led to the pope's convening of the country's bishops at the Vatican for a collective scolding. In February, too, the pope instated a new commission for the protection of minors.

In May, Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican's finance minister, became the highest-ranking Vatican official to stand trial on charges of "historical sexual offenses." Last month, a leading figure in the United States church, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, resigned after allegations that the cardinal had sexually abused minors and adult seminarians.

Responding to the Pennsylvania grand jury report, the Vatican issued a statement calling the abuses criminal and morally reprehensible. The statement sought to emphasize that the pope had the victims at heart.

"Those who have suffered are his priority, and the church wants to listen to them to root out this tragic horror that destroys the lives of the innocent," the Vatican wrote.

In his letter issued Monday, which Francis addressed to "the People of God," the pope went further, acknowledging that saying sorry was not enough. "Efforts to beg pardon" would never be sufficient, the pope wrote.

The deep wounds of the victims "never go away," he said, specifically citing the grand jury report. While most of those cases "belong to the past," he wrote, "we have realized that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death."
Washington

President Donald Trump said he won't make any concessions to Turkey to secure the freedom of a detained Christian evangelical pastor at the center of the diplomatic dispute that has rocked the NATO ally's economy.

The president also said in an interview with Reuters he wasn't concerned that higher steel and aluminum tariffs he imposed on Turkey earlier this month would have a broader impact on the European economy.

"I'm not concerned at all. I'm not concerned. This is the proper thing to do," Trump said.

The president on Friday said Turkey had made up espionage charges against Andrew Brunson, a U.S. clergyman that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government accuses of being involved in an attempted coup in 2016.

Trump has demanded Brunson's release, sanctioned Turkish officials and increased metals tariffs.

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Erdogan has in turn slapped sanctions on U.S. goods.

Last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the U.S. is ready to impose more sanctions if Turkey doesn't move to release the pastor.

Speaking Monday, Trump again reiterated his frustration that the Turkish government wasn't reciprocating after the U.S. helped gain the release of Ebru Ozkan, a Turkish citizen arrested in Israel.
ALBANY  The leaders of two unions representing state court officers urged Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Tuesday to order an independent investigation into allegations that the Office of Court Administration buried a case in which a female law clerk accused a judge of sexual harassment.

Pat Cullen, president of the state Supreme Court Officers Association, and Dennis Quirk, president of the state Court Officers Association, both characterized OCA's inspector general's office as a secretive unit they said allegedly covers up controversial cases and has few, if any, investigators with law enforcement experience.

"The lack of transparency and lack of independent spirit in an investigatory body, whether it be ours or any other agency, is troubling," Cullen said.

Their letter to Cuomo was in response to a federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court last week by a female attorney, Alexis Marquez, who said she was demoted and later fired from her job as a law clerk after accusing acting state Supreme Court Justice Douglas Hoffman of harassment. The lawsuit accused New Yorks top judicial officials of ignoring her complaints and condoning a widespread culture of silence and retaliation.

"We respectfully demand that you immediately order a thorough, independent investigation of not only these charges, but the way OCA conducts business," states the letter signed by Cullen and Quirk, whose unions represent about 3,500 court officers. "Such an investigation is the only way to restore the public's trust in our court system."

A spokesman for OCA has described the lawsuit as frivolous.

"The allegations were fully and comprehensively investigated by our inspector general," said Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for OCA. "In fact, Ms. Marquez, after several attempts were made to interview her, declined to participate in our investigation."

A spokesman for Cuomo said their office "is closely reviewing the letter and this situation, which appears to have occurred in a separate branch of government."

The 118-page complaint filed by Marquez detailed alleged civil rights violations, including retaliation and harassment, against Hoffman and 16 other officials, including the states chief administrative judge, Lawrence K. Marks, and the states chief judge, Janet DiFiore, for their handling of the case.

Anthony Vassilev, Marquez's attorney, said OCA did not fully investigate Marquezs complaints.

"First, OCAs own counsel, Lisa Evans, has publicly stated that the inspector general has no jurisdiction over complaints against judges," Vassilev said. "Second, in violation of OCAs own policies, the outcome of the inspector generals investigation was never disclosed. It is simply not possible to verify OCAs claim that any such investigation ever existed, much less to determine whether such an investigation was full and comprehensive.

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Vassilev added that Marquez urged OCA to investigate her claims and "repeatedly, on numerous occasions, submitted written statements and offered to answer any of the inspector generals questions in writing and on the record."

Cullen and Quirk both said their respective unions have been historically unable to obtain information or reports from OCA's inspector general's office regarding its investigations. They said DiFiore and Marks have been unwilling to hear their concerns about other issues, as well.

Marquez, a graduate of Fordham Law School, alleges that multiple officials within OCA, including Marks, failed to address her 11-page complaint that she filed against Hoffman last fall. The lawsuit also claims the state court system has no process for investigating sexual harassment by judges.

The complaint further accuses Marks of deleting approximately half of the court systems statewide sexual harassment policy last December, about nine days after Marquez filed her complaint alleging harassment, discrimination and retaliation by Hoffman.

The lawsuit claims that OCA's inspector generals office has been compromised and misused to conduct politically motivated investigations to shield administrators and others from complaints.
ALBANY  The state Senate's leadership is in talks with a group of former legislative aides who have been calling for a series of public hearings on the state's pending model sexual harassment policy, a spokesperson for the chamber's Republican majority has confirmed.

The Senate GOP counsel's office has reached out to the seven-member "sexual harassment working group" following a press conference held at the state Capitol last month with Democratic attorney general candidate and Fordham Law professor Zephyr Teachout, who joined their calls for public hearings.

A model sexual harassment policy is slated to be produced by the state Department of Labor and the Division of Human Rights in October, according to legislation passed in April as part of the current state budget. When the details are hashed out, public- and private-sector employers will be required to adopt the policy or to adhere to one that is similarly rigorous.

The working group, which formed in March, is comprised of women who have lodged complaints against current and former lawmakers but say their cases were mishandled. The reforms passed during this year's budget negotiations were not sufficient, they say. The group is seeking a joint legislative hearing to solicit input from victims, advocates, stakeholders and experts.

While a spokeswoman for the Republican conference did not confirm whether hearings were in the works, she said that the Senate Republicans were reviewing the working group's proposals.

"We recognize that time's not up to explore ways to build on the strong sexual harassment laws New York enacted as a result of our leadership, and we will listen and seek input from victims to keep workplaces safe," Senate Majority spokeswoman Candice Giove said in a statement.

Critics note that the state's $168 billion budget is largely decided in private meetings by three or four men in a room  in this year's case Senate Majority Leader John J. Flanagan, Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. This year, negotiations also included Sen. Jeff Klein, who until April led the now-disbanded Independent Democratic Conference. Klein is being investigated for allegedly forcibly kissing a staffer  a charge he vehemently denies.

The working group's calls for public input were largely ignored during this spring's budget negotiations, as were calls for the inclusion of Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins, the state's only female leader of a legislative conference.

In recent weeks, members of the working group participated in a series of forums, published a white paper, and launched a #harassmentfreealbany campaign. Their ideas have gained some traction in the Legislature.

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In July, 24 Assembly members and 22 state senators, mostly Democrats, signed on to a pair of letters backing the group's call for sexual harassment hearings, noting that the Legislature had not held such public forums since 1992.

Three gubernatorial candidates have also recently expressed support for the hearings: Republican nominee Marc Molinaro, Democrat and Working Families Party candidate Cynthia Nixon, and former Syracuse mayor Stephanie Minor, who is running independently.

"It's long past time for women to be heard on the issue of sexual harassment in Albany," Miner said in a statement Monday. "We must listen to victims and protect future victims. I stand ready to work with this courageous group of women."

Cuomo's office and the Assembly have not returned requests for a dialogue, according to members of the working group.

Dani Lever, a spokeswoman for the governor's office, reiterated past statements from Cuomo's office that the administration was seeking "as many voices at the table as possible."
Site investigations are due to begin at the Magcobar pit, Silvermines this autumn in order to provide valuable scientific data for the proposed hydro-electric pumped-storage facility at the site.

The investigations will be carried out by Siga Hydro in partnership with the pan-European research consortium VAMOS.

VAMOS has developed new, safe and clean technologies for the extraction of rock, monitoring of environmental conditions and geo-technical investigations in flooded mine sites.

The project is funded by the European Commission and includes industrial partners and geo-scientists from across Europe.

Siga Hydro announced plans in early 2016 for a pumped storage hydro electric power station in Silvermines, and continues to progress and develop the project.

Silvermines Hydro Electric Power Station (300MW) is supported by Irish Government policy and is a Strategic Project of National Importance and can enable Ireland to meet its climate change ambitions.

Project feasibility reports concluded Silvermines Hydro Electric Power Station is technically and economically feasible.

Siga Hydro has commenced the next phase; which will include targeted geo-technical investigations, hydro-geological studies and market analysis to enable the detailed plant design and planning consent stages.

Darren Quinn, managing director, Siga Hydro stated that "working with VAMOS will enable us leverage the latest technological advancements to complete detailed site investigations, which will in turn support the plant design and optimisation. In addition, VAMOS have a wealth of experience and knowledge gained from working on similar mining sites across the world."

The VAMOS innovative technology was previously deployed at a test site in Lee Moor, Devon, in 2017.

The system includes an automated underwater vehicle, which provided precise positioning, navigation and situational awareness information. Here the underwater vehicle was used to extract material using a novel LIBS (Laser Induced Breakdown Spectrometer) technique.

Data regarding the ground conditions at the test site was collected using the on-board cutting and dredging tools as well as simultaneously monitoring the water composition.

During the first round of testing valuable environmental data regarding the conditions at the test site were collected.

The field tests carried out by VAMOS will meet all health and safety, and environmental legislation and protocols, in line with both EU and national legislation (and policies).

The investigations planned for Silvermines will be the last in the series, as the VAMOS project concludes in January 2019.

It is hoped that the investigations will provide valuable scientific data for the proposed hydroelectric pumped-storage facility at the site, as well as useful information on the effective integration of various technologies for a number of underwater applications.
Two bus routes still have a few seats but need to be booked immediately

Special Bus Eireann inter-city services to Dublin and Knock for Pope Franciss visit have limited remaining availability and customers are urged to purchase online before bookings close this Friday afternoon.

Over 500,000 people are expected to visit Dublin City on Sunday 26th August where Mass will be celebrated by Pope Francis in the Phoenix Park.

Another 45,000 patrons are expected to attend Knock, which the Pope will visit on Sunday morning. An Garda Siochana have urged motorists and the public to use public transport to travel there.

In order to cater for anticipated demand, Bus Eireann will operate a greatly enhanced schedule which will see overall capacity increasing by over 100% this Sunday. Over 800 trips on both commuter and Expressway services will provide for over 30,000 passenger journeys to and from Dublin City on the day. All other services in the Greater Dublin Area will operate as normal with diversions and likely delays  along with restricted stops - in some cases.

Expressway intercity services to Dublin and Knock

To facilitate additional demand, a number of special Expressway intercity services will operate to and from Dublin City and Knock.

Availability on these services is limited and with tickets selling quickly, customers are advised to purchase their seat on these services as soon as possible.

Customers who book on these services can enjoy the comfort of being guaranteed a seat while enjoying shortened journey time due to limited stops.

Details on these special services are as follows:

Dublin

Route X8 Cork (0600), Fermoy (0630), Mitchelstown (0650), Cahir (0715) & Cashel (0730)

Route 12 Limerick (0630), Nenagh (0710), Roscrea (0740) & Portlaoise (0810)

All return services will depart Busarus at 19:00.

All other Bus Eireann Expressway intercity services (including those to/from Dublin) will run as normal and family return tickets represent real value. Book here at www.expressway.ie

Diversions in Dublin City Centre

Due to the scale of events taking place in Dublin city centre, customers are advised to allow extra time for their journey and thata number of our routes will be diverted and may operate from alternative stops.

Please log onto www.buseireann.ie/ popeinireland for further information.

Book now to secure your seat.
[August 20, 2018] ZhongAn International To Receive Strategic Investment From SoftBank Vision Fund

To Grow ZhongAn's Insuretech and Fintech Solutions Business in Overseas Markets SHANGHAI and HONG KONG, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co., Ltd. ("ZhongAn" or "ZhongAn Online" or the "Company", stock code: 6060 HK), the first internet-based insurer in China, today announced that its subsidiary ZhongAn International and SoftBank Vision Fund have entered into a Shareholder Agreement to boost ZhongAn's technology solutions businesses outside China. The partnership will help ZhongAn expand its Insuretech, Fintech and other technology solutions businesses in overseas markets with an initial focus on Asia. As part of this agreement, ZhongAn International will establish a new operating entity to partner with SoftBank in exploring international opportunities; SoftBank Vision Fund will participate as a strategic investor. This investment is subject to satisfaction of certain closing conditions including obtaining necessary regulatory approvals. ZhongAn International was founded in December 2017 for the purpose of exploring international business development, collaboration and investment opportunities in Fintech and Insuretech. Through this partnership, ZhongAn International will combine ZhongAn's leading-edge technology and expertise with SoftBank's extensive ecosystem. The shared platform will enable ZhongAn International to further commercialize its business across multiple markets in Asia. Kentaro Matsui, Managing Director for SoftBank Investent Advisers, said, "We are excited to collaborate with ZhongAn to build their capabilities in new and dynamic markets. I am confident that utilizing ZhongAn's existing technology and know-how alongside SoftBank's international networks will ensure it is well positioned to capitalize on the tremendous growth potential in both Fintech and Insuretech across Asia."



Jeffrey Chen, Chief Executive Officer of ZhongAn Online, said, "We are pleased to announce this partnership which will allow us to explore new and innovative ways to serve more companies and customers outside of China. SoftBank is an important business partner and we believe this collaboration will significantly boost our technology solutions businesses." Wayne Xu, Vice General Manager of ZhongAn Online, in charge of International Business, said, "Since inception, ZhongAn International has focused on building technology capacity and fostering platform cooperation to support overseas business development. Going forward, we hope the Asian markets will act as a bridgehead in expanding our business globally and SoftBank is the ideal partner."

About ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance Co., Ltd. ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance Co., Ltd. is an online-only InsureTech company in China. It started operations in October 2013 and has developed ecosystem-oriented insurance products and solutions through scenario-based settings to serve its customers. The Company primarily offers products and solutions in the context of five major ecosystems, namely lifestyle consumption, consumer finance, health, auto and travel. ZA Online was the largest insurer in China as measured by the number of insurance policies sold and policyholders and the insured served since its inception in October 2013 to 31 December 2016. In November 2016, ZA Online set up ZhongAn Technology, a wholly-owned subsidiary which focuses on the research and development of cutting-edge financial technologies to export technological capabilities to the industry. On 28 September 2017, ZA Online became the first Fintech company to be listed on the HKEX. ZA Online established ZhongAn International in Hong Kong in December 2018 to explore international business development, collaboration and investment opportunities in the areas of Fintech and Insuretech in overseas market. About SoftBank Investment Advisers At SoftBank Investment Advisers, we seek to catalyze technological progress for the benefit of humanity. Through the SoftBank Vision Fund, we are investing more than $93 billion in the businesses and technologies that we believe will enable the next stage of the information revolution. We offer the operational expertise, global network and patient, long-term capital required to help innovators build transformative companies. SOURCE ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance Co., Ltd.

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[August 20, 2018] EZTax.in Unveils Advanced Income Tax Filing Features

HYDERABAD, India, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- EZTax 100% Free, Online, straight-through Income Tax Filing solution is now equipped with an enhanced Tax Optimizer, and other India's 1st features EZTax.in, a fast-growing Online Tax Compliance Portal covering Direct (Income Tax), and In-direct (GST) Taxes through both Software, and Expert Services has announced today that they have released enhancements to its unique India's 1[st] features. Suneel Dasari, Founder and CEO @ EZTax.in said today, "The updates to the unique features are aimed to increase the confidence among self-service, or do-it-yourself tax payers, a segment that is going go grow through tax education, and financial literacy in India." He said, "The level of innovation imbedded in EZTax.in, was not seen in the Indian Tax industry so far, is a testimonial for its technology leadership in building highly automated, easiest tax filing solutions for greater good." The new enhanced features rolled out with EZTax.in include: Snap your Form16 - a feature to read Form 16 data through advanced OCR capabilities, and to fill the IT questionnaire. EZTax ITR Android App is designed to have a button that lets tax filers to capture Form16 picture. With its heuristic algorithm, the app let the user know the quality of reading. Tax Optimizer - provides recommendations to plan the income towards tax saving investments to increase refund for the next year. Also provides a comparison between current year an next year tax calculations. Creative Audit - in our survey, 60% of the Online tax filers are concerned about IT Notices due lack of knowledge on how to file their taxes correctly. This feature helps tax filer know upfront about the potential possibility of getting an IT notice through it's rule base. Tax Filer has an opportunity to correct or continue with the data. Express Filing - helps the tax filer to select a pre-defined tax profile such as "Employee", "Business", "Trader" etc. to compose a set of questionnaires to reduce uncertainty while entering the data. EZHelp - unique feature in explaining each field of the Income Tax Questionnaire with examples is to build the confidence and promote Self-Service Tax Filing. This feature is available only when filing return through PC Browser.



Suneel Dasari said, "While we have limited number of days to eFile the returns this season, 40% of the tax filings are expected to be e-filed in next 10 days, coupled with the late penalty introduced through Section 234F will certainly increase the number of tax filers substantially when compared with last year. The enhanced features rolled out now @eztax.in should make it even easier to e-File without a tax consultant's help." Future Growth

In addition to our capabilities, solutions in Domestic Taxes, we are planning to launch solutions that will help Non-Resident Population, along with Tax Savings, PMS products using Artificial Intelligence (AI) About EZTax.in EZTax.in from MYD Labs Private Limited, is an Innovative, Next generation, Fast growing, Cloud enabled Tax Compliance Provider through both Online Tax Software, and Expert Tax Services covering Income Tax, TDS, GST, Accounting, Registrations. EZTax.in aims to make tax compliance easier, quicker, affordable through innovation to help millions of Indian Tax Payers irrespective of their income levels, and/or tax complexity. Today, with its India's 1st AI enabled GST ready Accounting Software, helping Small, Medium Business in India to be GST compliant, efficient, and productive. EZTax.in is first live on Mar 2017, now offering Income Tax Filing (https://eztax.in), GST Accounting (https://eztax.in/gst), Virtual Accounting Services, Self Service TDS Filing (https://eztds.in), Tax Saving Products, and Company Registrations (https://ezfilings.in). To learn more, or file your IT Return in just few minutes or get Expert Tax Help, visit https://eztax.in Media Contact:

Suneel Dasari

suneel.dasari@mydlabs.com

+91-9849252586

Founder & CEO

MYD Labs Private Limited





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[August 21, 2018] WISeKey WISeAuthentic Blockchain for Brand Protection Integrates PKI with Hyperledger Fabric

WISeKey WISeAuthentic Blockchain for Brand Protection Integrates PKI with Hyperledger Fabric Geneva, Switzerland/New York, USA - August 21, 2018 - WISeKey International Holding Ltd ("WISeKey"), (SIX: WIHN; OTCQX: WIKYY) a cybersecurity IoT platform company, today announced that its WISeAuthentic solution for brand protection fully integrates Hyperledger Fabric. This integration aims to minimize counterfeiting and fraud by developing a trusted digital global blockchain ledger that includes the identity of the luxury object and tracks and protects any item of value.



Hyperledger is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. Hosted by The Linux Foundation, Hyperledger is a global collaboration of leaders in finance, banking, IoT, supply chain, manufacturing and technology. The blockchain technology reinforces the WISeKey patent, method and apparatus for digital authentication of valuable goods. The WISeKey patent uses strong digital identification and authentication, and combined with OISTE.ORG, allows objects on the Internet to be authenticated and monitored in real-time via trusted clouds. A full description link to patent is available at http://goo.gl/ozgOQm . WISeKey will deploy open-source Hyperledger technology and combine it with WISeKey PKI to bring it in line with the brand protection industry requirements. Using a trusted private blockchain in a closed user group environment, with strong cybersecurity technologies combined with IoT traceability on personal data controls will be strictly governed. "WISeKey has long been recognized as a leader in providing luxury and other product manufacturers with reliable means to protect their brands against counterfeiting," said Carlos Moreno, VP Corporate Alliances and Partnerships. "Combining the blockchain technology together with our WISeAuthentic PKI platform, leverage even further the unified way to shield these brands from the harmful effects of counterfeit products, while enhancing transparency into their end consumers and the entire ecosystem." Counterfeiting is a rampant and growing problem-currently the estimated worldwide market value of counterfeit goods exceeds $650 billion. The fraudulent sale of products luxury goods, textiles, wine and spirits, including pharmaceuticals, damage the revenues and reputation of targeted brands. Therefore, it is critical to continuously insure consumer confidence and increase the perception of trust. WISeKey offers a full range of anti-counterfeiting solutions that enale consumers and retailers to verify the authenticity of products before the purchase. This is achieved by scanning the label with a NFC (Near Field Communication)-enabled smartphone or device. Additionally, WISeKey solutions allow suppliers and brand owners to globally track their products and engage with consumers at the point of sale and beyond to build brand loyalty. To date, alternative anti-counterfeiting solutions have been largely ineffective because counterfeiters have been able to replicate or circumvent the security features meant to deter fraud. In a cost-effective manner, WISeKey offers the only anti-counterfeiting solution that is based upon Common Criteria (EAL4+) for object identification and FIPS 140-meaning the solution provides the same level of digital security trusted by banks, the U.S. Department of Defense and l'ANSSI in France. In other words, the consumer becomes the brand inspector!



The WISeAuthentic Blockchain platform integrates the WISeKey Semiconductors tags which are equipped with the company's VaultIC NFC secure elements family. These tags, when placed on any product and tapped by an NFC phone, securely authenticate and track the product much like an embedded ePassport and confirm the identity of the product on the blockchain ledger. WISeKey has been a pioneer in digital luxury product authentication since 2007. WISeKey's expertise in the design of NFC secure chips allied with its WISeAuthentic original platform for the identification, authentication, tracking and customer engagement of goods, provides customer-fit solutions for brand protection. Through the WISeKey WISeAuthentic platform, now available for both Apple iOS11 and Android phones, the brands have the capability to directly reach the vast majority of their end-customers and enhance the efficiency of their marketing communication, while the intuitive functioning of the application enables users to secure their data with ease.

WISeKey's patented security software is used by an extensive list of premium watch manufacturers, including Bulgari. In addition to luxury goods, this technology can be installed and used on any gadget, accessory or wearable, allowing these objects to process contactless payments, thanks to WISeKey's partnership with MasterCard(https://newsroom.mastercard.com/press-releases/mastercard-and-wisekey-to-bring-payments-to-luxury-brand-watches-and-wearables/). About WISeKey: WISeKey (SIX: WIHN; OTCQX: WIKYY) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large scale digital identity ecosystems with a patented process. WISeKey's Swiss based cryptographic Root of Trust ("RoT") provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit www.wisekey.com. To receive WISeKey's latest news, subscribe to our Newsletter or visit the WISeKey Investors Corner. Press and investor contacts: WISeKey International Holding Ltd

Company Contact: Carlos Moreira

Chairman & CEO

Tel: +41 22 594 3000

info@wisekey.com WISeKey Investor Relations (US)

Contact: Lena Cati

The Equity Group Inc.

Tel: +1 212 836-9611

lcati@equityny.com Disclaimer: This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey.

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[August 21, 2018] Wirecard and Wirelane Offer Simple Payment Solution at Thousands of E-mobility Charging Stations Across Europe

ASCHHEIM, Germany, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- - Wirecard facilitates fast and uncomplicated payments directly at nearly 6,000 Wirelane charging stations throughout the whole of Europe Wirecard, the international leader of innovation in the field of digital financial technology, is launching a rapid, barrier-free, easy-to-use payment solution together with the Munich-based specialists for e-mobility and charging infrastructure, Wirelane, which is to be rolled out at nearly 6,000 charging stations across Europe on a gradual basis. Wirelane is a provider of software and hardware for charging electric vehicles. In addition to the management and administration of charging stations, the company has developed a new high-tech charging station for both the private and public sector. This will further accelerate the charging process and make it far simpler than conventional charging pillars. The Wirelane App enables the access to 60,000 charging points across Europe. Nearly 6,000 charging points have already been fitted with Wirecard software for all downstream settlement processes. A module developed by Wirecard will in future facilitate contactless payments without any protracted registrations processes. End customers can use NFC-enabled credit cards or smartphone wallets such as Google Pay or Apple Pay to initiate the charging process with just a simple 'tap' on the station. Constantin Schwaab, CEO of Wirelane: "Together with Wirecard we are digitizing the charging process of electric vehicles, and this also includes the payment at charging stations. Our back office already enables business partners across Europe to manage their own infrastructure. End users should now also benefit from the use of charging options. Accordingly, we are pleased to hav found an excellent partner with Wirecard to allow our customers the simplest possible payment. We are excited to have found an exceptional partner in Wirecard, in order to together offer our customers the simplest possible payment experience."



Axel Puwein, Director of Products & Innovation at Wirecard CEE, adds: "Up until now, owners of electric cars have often had to deal with lengthy registration processes and had to have internet access. Wirecard is now ensuring that they can make us of a barrier-free, uncomplicated payment process directly at the charging station. The issue of e-mobility has become a future-orientated topic for the automotive industry as a whole, and we are excited to implement a fully digitized process for charging electric vehicles together with Wirelane." Interested parties can experience the innovative charging and payment solution in person at the 'Krone E-Mobility Play Days' event at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria on 29 and 30 September 2018. Wirecard and Wirelane will be showcasing how the system works in practice at the event.

About Wirecard: Wirecard (GER: WDI) is one of the world's fastest growing digital platforms in the area of financial commerce. We provide both corporate clients and consumers with a constantly expanding ecosystem of real-time value-added services built around innovative digital payments by using an integrated B2B2C approach. This ecosystem concentrates on solutions in the areas payment and risk, retail and transaction banking, loyalty and coupon programs in addition to data analytics and conversion rate enhancement across all sales channels (online, mobile, ePOS). Wirecard operates regulated financial institutions in several key markets, in addition to holding issuing and acquiring licenses from all major payment and card networks. Wirecard AG is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (TecDAX, ISIN DE0007472060). Visit us on www.wirecard.com , follow us on Twitter @wirecard and on Facebook @wirecardgroup. About Wirelane: 'Powering the future of mobility.' Wirelane is a full service provider in the field of electric mobility. The company is currently active in 5 countries (D, F, S, NL, CH) and has experience with large industrial customers (VW, Vattenfall, Bouygues and others). In addition to our software solutions, we also offer specially developed charging stations that set standards through the use of advanced technology such as radar sensors and tap payment. The company works with customers from all industry sectors to develop solutions for tomorrow's mobility needs. Wirelane is one of Europe's leading specialist providers of hardware, software and app solutions. Follow us on the way to a clean future. Visit us at www.wirelane.com , follow us on Facebook @Wirelane GmbH.

Wirecard media contact:



Wirecard AG

Jana Tilz

Tel.: +49(0)89-4424-1363

Email: jana.tilz@wirecard.com



Wirelane media contact:



Lisa-Valentina Robert

lisa-valentina.robert@wirelane.com



Nadine Mathias

Nadine.mathias@wirelane.com





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[August 21, 2018] Shenwan Hongyuan Securities chooses Itiviti's technology for ETF options market making

Itiviti services a substantial and diversified client base in China. SHANGHAI, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Itiviti, the leading global provider of multi-asset trading technology and financial infrastructure, today announced that Shenwan Hongyuan Securities Co., Limited (Shenwan Hongyuan), one of China's leading securities firms has selected Itiviti's market making solution to support its ETF options market making business. Itiviti currently services 25 buy-side and sell-side clients in mainland China, including large asset managers, securities houses, trading firms and brokerages. "We went through an intensive assessment process to ensure the selected vendor can meet our high compliance and IT standards. During this process Itiviti stood out," commented Zhibin Xu, Deputy President, Shenwan Hongyuan. "We were really impressed by Itiviti's world-class trading technology and the professionalism of their team. Shenwan Hongyuan is very much looking forward to taking advantage of Itiviti's platform to further enhance our market making capabilities." "We are pleased with Shenwan Hongyuan's assignment and their trust in our overall technological capabilities and competences," said Dennis Chen, Vice President Sales APAC, Itiviti. "The Itiviti team will provide our full support for Shenwan Hongyuan to ensure a smooth rollout of the new market making platform, and I am sure this will be a very good start to our working relationship." "Over the years, Itiviti has successfully established a solid, loyal and diversified client base in China by providing its' world class trading and execution technology solutions," commented Ofir Gefen, President APAC, Itiviti. "This is a sophisticated client base, looking for proven solutions to stay ahead of the curve, and we are delighted to partner with Shenwan Hongyuan; this further affirms our strong commitment to China as a key market in our Asia Pacific growth strategy."



In 2014, Itiviti established its first set of tier 1 Chinese securities firms by providing an ETF options market making solution; over the years and building on that solid foundation Itiviti grew its market making platform to commodity options and other asset classes. The firm is now providing unmatched trading and low-latency FIX connectivity solutions in China to address clients' needs in the ever-changing trading and regulatory landscape. For further information, please contact:

Ofir Gefen, President APAC, Itiviti, Tel: +852-2167-1950, Email: ofir.gefen@itiviti.com

Agnes Wong, Marketing Director APAC, Itiviti, Tel: +852-2167-1986, Email: agnes.wong@itiviti.com

Zhibin Xu, Deputy President, Shenwan Hongyuan Securities Co. Limited, Tel: +86-21-3338-8666, Email: xuzhibin@swhysc.com About Shenwan Hongyuan Securities Co., Ltd Shenwan Hongyuan Securities Co., Ltd. ("Shenwan Hongyuan") was formed by the merger of Shenyin Wanguo Securities Co., Ltd. and Hongyuan Securities Co., Ltd. on January 16, 2015. The company has a registered capital of 43 billion Chinese yuan, with nearly 8,000 employees. It has 34 regional branches and 303 business offices (including Western Securities) in China, and has overseas branches in Hong Kong, London, Tokyo, Singapore and Seoul. Shenwan Hongyuan Securities Co., Ltd. currently has a comprehensive securities business. It provides major services in designated areas including securities brokerage, securities investment consulting, margin financing and securities lending, financial products sales, securities investment fund sales, futures introducing broker, securities asset management, securities underwriting and sponsorship (limited to government bonds, non-financial corporations debt, policy bank bonds, corporate bond underwriting), security proprietary trading and stock options market making. About Itiviti Itiviti is a market-leading global provider of multi-asset trading technology and financial infrastructure solutions for buy-side and sell-side market participants, including NYFIX, one of the industry's largest FIX-based trading communities. Serving around 2000 clients worldwide, we provide consistent, reliable access to the most up-to-date and innovative order routing, connectivity and trading solutions available. Top-tier trading firms, banks, brokers, exchanges and institutional investors rely on our technology, solutions and expertise to streamline their daily operations, connect to their desired markets, and trade when and where they want. All while being able to comply with global regulation. With global offices in 18 locations covering all major financial centers the merger of Itiviti and ULLINK in March 2018 created a full-service technology and infrastructure provider, covering all asset classes, geographies and regulatory landscapes. For more information, please visit www.itiviti.com or www.ullink.com. Itiviti is owned by Nordic Capital Fund VII. Logo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180719/2191221-1LOGO SOURCE Itiviti

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[August 21, 2018] FICO Survey: More Than 4 Out of 10 Swedish Companies Lack Cybersecurity Insurance

STOCKHOLM, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Highlights:

43 percent of Swedish executives surveyed say their firm has no cybersecurity insurance, compared to the 24 percent average of all 11 countries surveyed

of Swedish executives surveyed say their firm has no cybersecurity insurance, compared to the 24 percent average of all 11 countries surveyed Only 36 percent of Swedish firms surveyed have cybersecurity insurance that covers all risks

surveyed have cybersecurity insurance that covers all risks Nearly 1 out of 3 respondents who have cyber insurance said it is not based on an accurate assessment of their firm's individual risk

Ovum conducted telephone surveys for FICO of security executives at 500 companies in Sweden and 10 other countries The number of Swedish firms without cybersecurity insurance is higher than other countries, shows a new cybersecurity survey from research and consultancy firm Ovum, for Silicon Valley analytics firm FICO. The survey found that the number of Swedish firms reporting to have no cybersecurity insurance is 43 percent. And among those who lack cybersecurity insurance, a full 18 percent also have no plans to take one out in the future. "As there has been a number of large-scale breaches in the last year that have proven costly to those affected, we are surprised at the number of companies in Sweden that are yet to sign up for cybersecurity insurance, not least given the country's position as a mature digital society," said Steve Hadaway, FICO general manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. More information: http://www.fico.com/en/latest-thinking/ebookthe-nordics-views-from-the-c-suite-survey-2018



Of those who do have cybersecurity insurance, the survey shows that only 36 percent state it covers all likely risks. Furthermore, 31 percent believed their insurer based their premiums on an inaccurate analysis of their risk profile. Ovum conducted the survey for FICO through telephone interviews with 500 senior executives, mostly from the IT function, in businesses from the UK, the US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, India, Finland, Norway, Sweden and South Africa. Respondents represented firms in financial services, telecommunications, retail and ecommerce, and power and utilities.

Last month, FICO announced that it is offering free subscriptions to the Portrait portal of the FICO Enterprise Risk Suite, which gives businesses access to their FICO Enterprise Security Score. The score, a machine learning-based cybersecurity rating service, can show organizations how business partners and cyber insurance underwriters see their network security, and can help them benchmark their performance. More information is at http://securityscore.fico.com. About FICO FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956 and based in Silicon Valley, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 185 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 100 countries do everything from protecting 2.6 billion payment cards from fraud, to helping people get credit, to ensuring that millions of airplanes and rental cars are in the right place at the right time. Learn more at http://www.fico.com FICO is a registered trademark of Fair Isaac Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. About Ovum Ovum is a market-leading research and consulting firm focused on helping digital service providers and their vendor partners thrive in the connected digital economy. Through its 150 analysts worldwide, it offers expert analysis and strategic insight across the IT, telecoms, and media industries. Founded in 1985, Ovum has one of the most experienced analyst teams in the industry and is a respected source of guidance for technology business leaders, CIOs, vendors, service providers, and regulators looking for comprehensive, accurate, and insightful market data, research, and consulting. With 23 offices across six continents, Ovum offers a truly global perspective on technology and media markets and provides thousands of clients with insight including workflow tools, forecasts, surveys, market assessments, technology audits, and opinion. Ovum is part of the Business Intelligence Division of Informa plc, a leading business intelligence, academic publishing, knowledge and events group listed on the London Stock Exchange. https://ovum.informa.com/ Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/450763/FICO_Logo.jpg



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[August 21, 2018] US Newspaper Publishing Revenues to Fall 2.6% Annually to 2022

CLEVELAND, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- US newspaper publishing revenues are forecast to decline 2.6% per year to 2022, according to Newspaper Publishing: United States, a report recently released by Freedonia Focus Reports. However, this rate of decline represents a significant improvement over the average annual rate recorded for the preceding decade, as digital media substitution trends run their course. That said, the widespread availability of free news content will continue to suppress subscription rates, and growing competition from other providers of advertising space  particularly social media platforms  will constrain revenues from advertising. More information about the report is available at:

https://www.freedoniafocusreports.com/Newspaper-Publishing-United-States-FF25014/ Online subscriptions, sales, and advertising will continue to represent a bright spot for US newspaper publishers. However, annual growth is expected to slow into the single digits as the market matures. These and other key insights are feaured in Newspaper Publishing: United States. This report forecasts to 2022 US newspaper publishing revenues in nominal US dollars at the publisher level. Total revenues are segmented by source in terms of:



advertising space

subscriptions and sales

printing services

distribution services

other revenue sources such as advertising and marketing services Advertising, subscription, and sales revenues, as an aggregate, are segmented by media type in terms of: print

digital

other To illustrate historical trends, total revenue and the various segments are provided in annual series from 2007 to 2017.

About Freedonia Focus Reports

Each month, The Freedonia Group  a division of MarketResearch.com  publishes over 20 new or updated Freedonia Focus Reports, providing fresh, unbiased analysis on a wide variety of markets and industries. Published in 20-30 pages, Focus Report coverage ranges from raw materials to finished manufactured goods and related services such as freight and construction. Additional Services & Industries reports can be purchased at Freedonia Focus Reports or MarketResearch.com. Analysis is intended to guide the busy reader through pertinent topics in rapid succession, including: total historical market size and industry output

segmentation by products and markets

identification of market drivers, constraints, and key indicators

segment-by-segment outlook in five-year forecasts

a survey of the supply base

suggested resources for further study Press Contact:

Corinne Gangloff

+1 440.684.9600

cgangloff@freedoniagroup.com View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-newspaper-publishing-revenues-to-fall-2-6-annually-to-2022--300699527.html SOURCE The Freedonia Group

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[August 21, 2018] TUV SUD's Textile Testing Lab in Tiruppur Gets NABL Accreditation

TIRUPPUR, India, August 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- TUV SUD's lab in Tiruppur catering to the textile and knitwear cluster for over a decade, was recently bolstered with chemical testing to make it an all-inclusive facility equipped to cater to testing, inspection and auditing needs of Tiruppur and neighbouring regions like Karur, Erode and Salem TUV SUD, a globally acclaimed German safety and quality expert, today announced that their chemical laboratory in their recently expanded textile testing facility in Tiruppur has been awarded ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accreditation by The National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL). ISO/IEC 17025:2005 specifies the general requirements for TUV SUD to undertake tests, including sampling. It includes testing and calibration performed using standard methods, non-standard methods, and laboratory-developed methods. (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/568955/TUV_SUD_South_Asia_Logo.jpg ) (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/733198/TUV_SUD_Tiruppur_NABL_Certified.jpg ) The NABL accreditation enables the laboratory to provide improved customer satisfaction, faster turnaround for test results that subsequently reduce time to market. With a strong industry reputation for quality, TUV SUD's Tiruppur lab will offer a comprehensive range of services with expertise encompassing all textile and knitwear testing requirements. TUV SUD recently enhanced its Tiruppur lab by adding extensive chemical testing capabilities to an existing world class physical and mechanical facility; thus, making it an all-inclusive testing solutions provider for international and domestic markets. The laboratory will also offer value added services like sampling pick-up, technical support and training support. With this accreditation, TUV SUD is now approed to perform the following tests, under the ISO/IEC 17025:2005 (by NABL) standard:





- Banned Amines - Chlorinated organic careers

- Phthalates - Organotin compounds





- Formaldehyde - PVC



- pH - ODOR



- APEO's - Nickel Spot & Nickel Release



- Carcinogenic - Lead, Cadmium Dyes



- Disperse Dyes - Extractable Heavy metals



- Chlorinated - Total Heavy metals

phenols



Commenting on this recognition, Mr. Ezhilan Neelan, Sr. Vice President, Product Services, TUV SUD South Asia said, "NABL accreditation is a benchmark which will provide much needed assurance for the tests carried under our chemical facility to our wide client base. Providing our expertise to the huge textile industry at Tiruppur, this accreditation comes as a testimony to our goal of enhancing our service offerings by understanding the global apparel trends and achieving dedicated customer service." NABL is a Constituent Board of Quality Council of India. NABL has been established with the objective of providing Government, Industry Associations and Industry in general with a scheme of Conformity Assessment Body's accreditation which involves third-party assessment of the technical competence of testing including medical and calibration laboratories, proficiency testing providers and reference material producers. TUV SUD with its wide network of labs and experts across key markets such as South Asia, European Union, ASEAN, US and UK has thorough knowledge of compliance in importing nations. TUV SUD's set of local experts can guide exporters with local compliance norms as well. About TUV SUD TUV SUD is a premium quality, safety, and sustainability solutions provider that specialises in testing, inspection, auditing, certification, training, and knowledge services. Since 1866, the company has remained committed to its founding principle of protecting people, property and the environment from technology-related risks. Headquartered in Munich, Germany, TUV SUD is represented in more than 1,000 locations worldwide. TUV SUD operates globally with a team of more than 24,000 multi-disciplinary experts recognised as specialists in their respective fields. By combining impartial expertise with invaluable insights, the company adds tangible value to businesses, consumers and the environment. The aim of TUV SUD is to support customers with a comprehensive suite of services worldwide to increase efficiency, reduce costs and manage risk. For further information, visit http://www.tuv-sud.com About TUV SUD South Asia TUV SUD South Asia is the leading consulting, testing, inspection and certification (TIC) company with presence across India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. With more than 1300 employees, TUV SUD South Asia has serviced over 10,000 clients to date through the past two decades. It is present at 32 locations including 19 labs across the three countries. Today, TUV SUD South Asia is internationally competent to provide TIC solutions cutting across a wide range of sectors that include management systems, conventional and renewable energy, water, sanitation, environmental technology, infrastructure, transit systems, real estate, food, supply chain, agriculture, toys, consumer electronics, textiles, leather and related products, automobile and components, and technical as well as soft-skills training Media Contact:

Sharwari Paranjape

sharwari.paranjape@edelman.com

+91-7506642862

Edelman



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[August 21, 2018] Ubisense and Quuppa Partner to Extend Reach of World-Class Industrial Location-Aware Solutions into New Sectors

Ubisense Group plc (AIM:UBI), a market leader in enterprise location intelligence solutions, today announces a new partnership with Quuppa as part of Ubisense's strategy to integrate leading location and identification technologies with its open and sensor-agnostic SmartSpace software platform, enabling customers to create a truly enterprise-wide digital twin along the entire value chain of critical manufacturing activities. Many of the world's major manufacturers benefit from Ubisense SmartSpace systems which create a real-time, operational digital twin and use it to change factory behavior based on the locations of tools, people and work-in-progress. SmartSpace allows customers to integrate a broad range of sensing capabilities to address different use cases and a wide range of ROIs, and leverage existing location technology they may already be using. By working with Quuppa to support applications where the Quuppa Intelligent Locating System offers the best ROI, Ubisense also expects to extend the reach of SmartSpace further into the logistics, construction and healthcare markets. Quuppa utilizes a unique combination of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and the Angle of Arrival (AoA) methodology, as well as advanced location algorithms that have been developed over the course of more than 15 years, to calculate highly accurate, real-time indoor positioning, even in the most demanding environments. The low-power system is a reliable, highly-customisable, scalable and cost-efficient solution for providing an accurate "dot on the map." The Quuppa solution provides another powerful source of information to drive location-aware applications within Ubisense's SmartSpace platform. It complements the many sensors already integrated with SmartSpace, including Ubisense's own maket-leading UWB location systems (Dimension 4 and AngleID), other third-party location sensors, third-party passive RFID tag (News - Alert) readers, and barcode systems.



Dr. Andy Ward, CTO at Ubisense, said: "One of the key benefits of our SmartSpace platform is the ability to integrate a wide range of data sources to facilitate building sensor-rich, industrial-scale systems, allowing us to propose the right location sensor technology for each application. We're looking forward to seeing powerful additional use cases develop as customers explore our joint capabilities with Quuppa." Thomas Hasselman, chief marketing officer at Quuppa, said: "The Quuppa Ecosystem-now more than 90 partners strong-continues to flourish, bringing the power of highly accurate, reliable and scalable location services to a growing number of companies across a variety of industries through our commitment to BLE technology. In partnering with Ubisense, we are delivering new opportunities to SmartSpace customers that are using location as a business driver."

About Ubisense Ubisense (AIM: UBI), is a global leader in Enterprise Location Intelligence Solutions that are proven to drive quality, reduce costs, manage complexity and increase productivity for customers across the world. Central to its offering are software platforms that use location from multiple sources to deliver a real-time digital twin of our customers' physical operations. Offering in-depth knowledge of the sectors in which it operates, Ubisense has long standing relationships with many customers across target markets including passenger and commercial vehicle manufacturing, aerospace and defence, communications and utilities. Founded in 2002, Ubisense is headquartered in Cambridge, England, with further offices in North America, Canada, Germany, France and Japan. www.ubisense.net About Quuppa Quuppa has raised the bar for indoor positioning, delivering one of the world's most reliable, accurate indoor location positioning technologies thanks to a unique combination of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and the Angle of Arrival (AoA) methodology, as well as advanced location algorithms that have been developed over the course of more than 15 years. The Quuppa Ecosystem has more than 90 partners around the world today who are using Quuppa's open positioning platform to deliver accurate, cost-effective indoor location solutions to companies in a range of industries, including manufacturing and logistics, retail, healthcare, sports, law enforcement and security, government and others. Visit us online today at www.quuppa.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180821005070/en/

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[August 21, 2018] NCSBN Award Ceremony Honors Outstanding Nurse Regulators

CHICAGO , Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NCSBN recognized its dedicated and exceptional membership and guests at its annual Awards ceremony during the NCSBN Annual Meeting and Delegate Assembly, held in Minneapolis, Aug. 15-17, 2018.

Specific award recipients include: Gloria Damgaard, MS, RN, FRE, executive director, South Dakota Board of Nursing, was honored with the prestigious R. Louise McManus Award. Individuals receiving this award have made sustained and significant contributions through the highest commitment and dedication to the mission and vision of NCSBN. Gregory Y. Harris, JD, former board member, Arizona State Board of Nursing, and South Dakota State Senator Deb Soholt, MS, RN, former board member, South Dakota Board of Nursing, both received the Distinguished Achievement Award. The Distinguished Achievement Award is given to individuals whose contributions or accomplishments have impacted NCSBNs mission and vision. Lois Hoell, MS, MBA, RN, commission member, Washington State Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission, and Suellyn Masek, MSN, RN, CNOR, commission member, Washington State Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission, both received the Exceptional Contribution Award, which is given for significant contribution by a member who is not a president or executive officer and demonstrated support of NCSBNs mission. The College of Nurses of Ontario was awarded the Regulatory Achievement Award that recognizes the member board or associate member that has made an identifiable, significant contribution t the mission and vision of NCSBN in promoting public policy related to the safe and effective practice of nursing in the interest of public welfare.



Former Minnesota Board of Nursing Executive Director Joyce M. Schowalter, MEd, RN, was presented with the NCSBN Founders Award during a special Founders Luncheon on Aug.15. Schowalter served as the executive officer of the Minnesota Board of Nursing from 1973 until 1999. Following the establishment of NCSBN, she was elected to the organizations first Board of Directors and later served as vice-president and president. In addition, service awards were given to the following executive officers of boards of nursing (BONs):

Five Years Kathleen Weinberg, MSN, RN, executive director, Iowa Board of Nursing

Karen C. Lyon, PhD, RN, ACNS, NEA, executive director, Louisiana State Board of Nursing

Jennifer Breton, LPN, RN, executive director, College of Licensed Practical Nurses of Manitoba

Lynn Power, MN, RN, executive director, Association of Registered Nurses of Newfoundland and Labrador

Lynsay Nair, LPN, executive director, Saskatchewan Association of Licensed Practical Nurses 10 Years Julia L. George, MSN, RN, FRE, executive director, North Carolina Board of Nursing 20 Years Paula Meyer, MSN, RN, FRE, executive director, Washington State Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission About NCSBN

NCSBN marks its 40th anniversary milestone in 2018 with the inspiring theme of Regulatory Excellence Surging Toward the Future. Founded March 15, 1978, as an independent not-for-profit organization, NCSBN was initially created to lessen the burdens of state governments and bring together boards of nursing (BONs) to act and counsel together on matters of common interest. It has evolved into one of the leading voices of regulation across the world. NCSBNs membership is comprised of the BONs in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four U.S. territories  American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and the Virgin Islands. There are also 30 associate members that are either nursing regulatory bodies or empowered regulatory authorities from other countries or territories. NCSBN Member Boards protect the public by ensuring that safe and competent nursing care is provided by licensed nurses. These BONs regulate more than 4.8 million licensed nurses. Mission: NCSBN provides education, service and research through collaborative leadership to promote evidence-based regulatory excellence for patient safety and public protection. The statements and opinions expressed are those of NCSBN and not the individual member state or territorial boards of nursing. Contact: Dawn M. Kappel

Director, Marketing and Communications

312.525.3667 direct

312.279.1034 fax

dkappel@ncsbn.org

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[August 21, 2018] In an Evil Internet Minute, $1,138,888 is Lost to Cybercrime, Reveals RiskIQ

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- With cybercriminals costing the global economy $600 billion last year alone, global digital threat management leader RiskIQ tapped proprietary and third-party research to examine the growing volume of malicious activity on the internet to reveal the latest Evil Internet Minute. The data shows that in a single evil internet minute, $1,138,888 is lost to cybercrime, and 1,861 people fall victim. Despite businesses best efforts to guard against external cyber threats, spending up to $171,233 in 60 seconds, attackers continue to proliferate and launch successful campaigns online.

As the internet and its community continue to grow at a rapid pace, the threat landscape targeting it grows at scale as well," said RiskIQ CEO Elias Manousos. "We made the vast numbers associated with it more accessible by framing them in the context of an internet minute. Leveraging the latest research as well as our own global threat intelligence, we're defining the sheer scale of attacks that take place across the internet to help businesses better understand what theyre up against on the open web. Attacker tactics range from malware to phishing to supply chain attacks targeting third-parties. Their motives include monetary gain, large-scale reputational damage, politics, and espionage. Cybercriminals continue to find success in a range of tactics including launching 1,274 pieces of unique malware and deploying more than nine malvertisements each evil internet minute. RiskIQ research has also uncovered additional malicious activity each minute, ranging from blacklisted mobile apps to malvertising:



1.5 organizations fell victim to ransomware attacks every minute with an average cost to businesses of $15,221

.17 blacklisted mobile apps

.21 new phishing domains

.07 incidents of the Magecart credit card skimmer

.1 new sites running the CoinHive cryptocurrency mining script

4 potentially vulnerable web components discovered As companies innovate online to make more meaningful touchpoints with their customers, partners, and employees, attackers prey on their lack of visibility into their internet-facing attack surface to erode users trust and access credentials and sensitive data, Manousos said. Businesses must realize that they are vulnerable beyond the firewall, all the way across the open internet." To view RiskIQs Evil Internet Minute infographic, please click here: https://www.riskiq.com/infographic/evil-internet-minute-2018/

About RiskIQ RiskIQ is the leader in digital threat management, providing the most comprehensive discovery, intelligence, and mitigation of threats associated with an organizations digital presence. With more than 75 percent of attacks originating outside the firewall, RiskIQ allows enterprises to gain unified insight and control over web, social and mobile exposures. Trusted by thousands of security analysts, RiskIQs platform combines advanced internet data reconnaissance and analytics to expedite investigations, understand digital attack surfaces, assess risk and take action to protect the business, brand and customers. Based in San Francisco, the company is backed by Summit Partners, Battery Ventures, Georgian Partners and MassMutual Ventures. Visit https://www.riskiq.com or follow us on Twitter . Try RiskIQ Community Edition for free by visiting https://www.riskiq.com/community/ .  2018 RiskIQ, Inc. All rights reserved. RiskIQ is a registered trademark of RiskIQ, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners. Contact Holly Hitchcock Front Lines Media 805-801-9798 Holly@FrontLines.io

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[August 21, 2018] Red Box Announces Voice Data Controller on the Salesforce AppExchange, the World's Leading Enterprise Apps Marketplace

LONDON, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Red Box customers can now benefit from application that enables the import into Salesforce of audio and transcripts of enterprise-wide voice conversations (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/728408/Red_Box_logo.jpg ) Red Box today announced it has launched Voice Data Controller on the Salesforce AppExchange, empowering businesses to connect with their customers, partners and employees in entirely new ways. Underpinned by Red Box's secure and resilient voice capture solution, Voice Data Controller enables customer to: - Align calls to Salesforce contacts, accounts and leads

- Search for keywords in transcripts

- Replay audio at the click of a button directly with Salesforce

- Analyse call using rich metadata fields and native Salesforce reports and dashboards Built on the Salesforce Platform, Voice Data Controller is currently available on the AppExchange at https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N3A00000EcrmWUAR Voice Data Controller

The Lightning ready application enables organisations to import into Salesforce the audio and accurate transcripts of calls captured from over 55 UC and telephony platforms. This includes PBX, UC, trading and call centre solutions as well as radio, mobile and meetings, ensuring complete visibility of customer interactions from across the business. The Voice Data Controller supports automatic assignment of calls and transcripts to a lead, account or contact record and users can then search and replay. In additio, the rich metadata fields can be used for analysis using native Salesforce reports and dashboards



Comments on the News

"Red Box already captures voice for more than 3,000 customers globally," said Kate, Hammett, Head of Global Partnerships. "Much of this is driven by compliance with regulations such as MiFID II, GDPR, Dodd Frank and PSD/PSD 2 and the integration with Salesforce provides additional capability to support their obligations. It's also of value to sales, marketing and customer service teams, providing additional insight, as well as fact verification, investigation, performance management and reporting functionality." "We are happy to welcome Red Box onto the AppExchange, as they provide customers with an exciting new way to gain visibility of customer voice interactions in a central location," said Mike Wolff, SVP, ISV Sales, Salesforce. "The exponential growth of the AppExchange underscores the enormous opportunity the entire Salesforce ecosystem has in creating cutting-edge solutions and driving customer success."

About Salesforce AppExchange

Salesforce AppExchange, the world's leading enterprise cloud marketplace, empowers companies to sell, service, market and engage in entirely new ways. With more than 5,000 solutions, five million customer installs and 70,000 peer reviews, it is the most comprehensive source of cloud, mobile, social, IoT, analytics and artificial intelligence technologies for businesses. Additional Resources Like Salesforce on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/salesforce Follow Salesforce on Twitter: https://twitter.com/salesforce Follow Red Box on Twitter: https://twitter.com/redboxrecorders Become a fan of Red Box https://www.facebook.com/redboxvoice/ Red Box on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/red-box-recorders/ Salesforce, AppExchange and others are among the trademarks of salesforce.com, inc. About Red Box

Red Box is the leading dedicated voice specialist, empowering organisations to capture, secure and unlock the value of enterprise wide voice. With the most open and connected platform, we capture and transcribe voice communications from over 55 systems (legacy and new), across global enterprises and SMEs. Our customers retain complete data sovereignty and we connect them to the broadest partner ecosystem to maximise the value of captured voice data. Working with our global reseller channel, we are trusted by leading organisations across financial, contact centre, government and public safety sectors (including six of the world's top banks, 85% of global interdealer brokers, 1,700 call centres and over 70% of UK police forces) and we capture and secure millions of calls daily for over 3,000 customers around the world. For more information visit http://www.redboxvoice.com Red Box is also exhibiting at Dreamforce 2018 in San Francisco, 25-28 September, booth 1829. SOURCE Red Box

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[August 21, 2018] Pineapple Payments Acquires Chicago Technology Company Transax

PITTSBURGH, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Pineapple Payments, a payment processing technology company, today announced that it has acquired Transax, a payments-focused software company that offers a full-service payment gateway and other omni-channel payment enablement tools for merchants and integrated software providers. Transax will remain in its offices in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, while Pineapple will continue to expand its headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh. Terms were not disclosed. Having completed four acquisitions and two significant investments over the past 10 months since closing on a $40 million Series A round led by Providence Strategic Growth, Pineapple is now poised to become a force in the payments technology industry. The firm serves more than 13,000 merchants and processes $3 billion in volume annually. With the acquisition of Transax and a growing distribution network, the company has a strategy in place to become a major player as one of the premier payment gateways within a matter of months. "Transax has a 10-year track record as an omni-processing payment gateway connecting merchants of every size to the top payment processors in the world like Worldpay and TSYS," said Pineapple Payments CEO Brian Shanahan. "When you add in its suite of products tailored for SMBs and software developers to enable payments and the platform's ability to be customized for and tailored to each individual partner or business, the conversation about where we are going to take Pineapple drastically changes. We now have the complete set of tools to compete with everyone and anyone in our industry and we plan to do just that." Based just outside of Chicago, Transax brings a strong mix of technologists, product support specialists and business development leaders to Pineapple Their team is most excited about what the acquisition means for their platform and their distribution partners. On the subject, Transax CEO Matthew Schwartz said, "We are most excited to join forces with Pineapple because of their team's extensive experience in payments and technology. With Providence Strategic Growth's support, we are confident that we can provide an even better experience for our re-sellers and their merchants. We've dedicated ourselves to our technology and our partners for a decade, and Pineapple is committed to supporting us in that same vein for years to come."



Brian Shanahan is a household name in the payments industry, having built and exited from four different payments companies over three decades. Shanahan's most recent success was as the founder and CEO of CardConnect, now a First Data company. "We are thrilled for Matthew Schwartz, Adam O'Hare and the rest of the Transax team to join us at Pineapple," said Shanahan. "We are well-positioned to grow their platform and we have big plans for bringing it to market under the Pineapple brand. It is truly unique in that it can be used out-of-the-box as it is, completely white-labeled or fully integrated via API by re-sellers and merchants alike." Shanahan has built his core team with technology in mind, having partnered with SaaS veterans Jon Halpern and Brian Gross who serve as Pineapple's president and executive vice president respectively. "We are going to invest heavily into our payments feature set and the underlying platform, as well as in our direct sales force and channel partners," said Halpern. "The most exciting thing for us with Transax is the breadth and flexibility of its functionality. It offers everything from recurring billing and invoicing to batch payment processing and fully hosted online payment pages. We are most excited about our native payments plugin for Quickbooks, which is truly a differentiator in the marketplace. With our vision for the company and strong sales and technical leadership, our future is bright."

ABOUT PINEAPPLE PAYMENTS Pineapple Payments is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based payment processing technology company that provides omni-channel payment acceptance tools for merchants of all shapes and sizes, from start-ups to large-scale enterprises. From its innovative technology solutions to its proactive payments concierge team, Pineapple truly takes a fresh approach to payment processing. In 2017, Pineapple Payments received substantial investment for accelerated growth from Providence Strategic Growth (PSG), the growth equity affiliate of Providence Equity Partners, a global private equity firm with more than $50 billion in assets under management. ABOUT TRANSAX Transax is a Rolling Meadows, Illinois-based software company focused on building payments technology tools. Their flagship product is the Transax Payment Gateway, which offers both out-of-the-box and API-driven payments solutions for merchants and integrated software vendors. Through a wholesale sales model, the payments industry's biggest players have leveraged Transax as a payment gateway to connect merchants with their backend processing platforms. Transax has partnered with more than 100 re-sellers who have driven more than 4,000 merchants to their platform. Today, the company processes over $1 billion in payment volume annually. Media Contact: Brian Gross, EVP of Pineapple Payments

Phone: 724-235-7012

Email: bgross@pineapplepayments.com Related Images brian-shanahan-and-jon-halpern.jpg

pineapple-payments-downtown.jpg View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pineapple-payments-acquires-chicago-technology-company-transax-300699127.html SOURCE Pineapple Payments

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CollegeNET Presents 2018 Social Mobility Innovator Awards to Eight Universities

CollegeNET, Inc., a leading provider of web-based on-demand technologies for higher education and the developer of the Social Mobility Index (SMI), has presented its 2018 Social Mobility Innovator Awards to eight universities across the nation. Representatives who accepted the awards on their schools' behalf included:

The 2018 Social Mobility Innovator Awards were presented in July at CollegeNET's Social Mobility Summit, in Portland, Oregon. During the Summit, the 10 university representatives participated in a roundtable discussion on best practices for student success. They provided insights and described innovative approaches for expanding economic inclusiveness and social mobility through higher education.

Jaye Padgett of the University of Califonia, Santa Cruz, for example, spoke about his school's unique student success mission, which incorporates educational equity, institutional responsibility for meeting students where they are and a holistic approach that recognizes the "whole student."







Christina Latouf of Baruch College discussed the school's "start-to-finish" philosophy, which focuses on support and professional development programs along the entire path to graduation. Services include resume writing, soft-skills training and mock interviews, mentoring from industry executives, networking, and on-campus access to business attire for students who cannot afford an outfit or have unexpected interviews.

Craig Richardson and Allonda Hawkins of Winston-Salem State University talked about their school's Center for the Study of Economic Mobility (CSEM), which brings faculty and students together as they study barriers to economic mobility in surrounding, low-income communities.

Elizabeth Adams of California State University, Northridge (CSUN) outlined how her school works to help students feel a sense of belonging through timely and sensitive communication, and build trust-based mentoring relationships between faculty and students in order to increase retention and graduation rates.

Kim Sandlin of Wichita State University provided details about her school's multi-year and institution-wide commitment to recruiting and retaining students from under-served and under-represented populations from Dallas-Fort Worth, Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Kansas City located along the I-35 corridor.

John Gunkel of Rutgers University -- Newark explained that his school has increased the number of underserved students from Newark by stressing academic excellence, as well as engagement with civic, corporate and philanthropic institutions in the city and surrounding region. Rutgers-Newark also guarantees full-tuition scholarships to graduates of local high schools and New Jersey community colleges whose families earn less than $60,000 per year.

Sylvia Alva and Lea Jarnagin of Cal Poly Pomona offered a look at their school's culture of caring and regard, which removes as many communications barriers as possible thus offering low-income students a campus community that provides support from admission through graduation.

Donald Dabdub of the University of California, Irvine emphasized the importance of a unique, personalized and scalable student support system that blends centralized support across campus with a wide range of decentralized support services at the department and school levels.

The Social Mobility Summit followed two regional events sponsored by CollegeNET that focused on student success and social mobility. These meetings took place at the University of California, Irvine and the University of California, Santa Cruz in February. Other CollegeNET-sponsored student success events are scheduled to take place at Wichita State University and the University of California, San Diego in late 2018 and 2019.

Challenging Obsolete Notions about University "Prestige"

CollegeNET also recently published an e-book on student success and social mobility in higher education. The e-book offers best practices from student success professionals who are pioneering innovative programs that support under-served and under-represented students' academic, personal and financial needs. The e-book contributing writers challenge outmoded notions about university "prestige." They affirm higher education's role as the most important rung on the ladder of economic mobility while leading their campuses toward greater diversity and economic inclusion.

Economic Inclusion Helps Spark Innovative Minds

"The current economic trends limiting access to higher education have no place in a country that has historically touted economic opportunity, sought to broadly optimize its citizens' potential and prepare them for participation in our democracy," says Jim Wolfston, CEO of CollegeNET.

"When a college offers a challenging environment populated with diverse ideas, personal backgrounds and viewpoints," adds Wolfston, "it prepares students to encounter, navigate and appreciate the unfamiliar. Given that innovation always depends upon a person's ability to consider what could be different from their own assumptions and experiences, economic inclusion is thus not only a solution to a social justice issue, it is a key strategy for sparking innovative minds."

Fifth Annual SMI Rankings will be Released this Fall

The 10 recipients of CollegeNET's 2018 Social Mobility Innovator Awards represent universities that have ranked near the top of the Social Mobility Index over the past four years.

See the complete 2017 SMI rankings. (The fifth annual SMI rankings will be published during fall 2018.)

About CollegeNET, Inc.

CollegeNET, Inc. builds on-demand SaaS (News - Alert) technologies that help institutions improve operational efficiency, enhance communication with constituents, and save money. The company's systems are used worldwide for event and academic scheduling, recruitment and admissions management, web-based tuition processing, instructor and course evaluation, web-based career services for students, cultural learning and college preparation, and electronic academic records delivery. CollegeNET also directly supports greater affordability and access to higher education through its CollegeNET.com student forum. Students cite and debate topics, vote for one another, and compete for scholarships. CollegeNET has awarded more than $2 million in college scholarships to date through this site. The company is headquartered in Portland, Oregon.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180821005151/en/
[August 21, 2018] Vish Srivastava Joins GroupBy Inc. as Country Manager of New London Office

TORONTO, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GroupBy Inc. , a leading provider of relevancy-focused eCommerce solutions, today announced sales veteran Vish Srivastava will join GroupBy as Country Manager of the companys first European office in London.

GroupBy is the first datadriven individualization platform that engages the consumer on a onetoone basis while allowing the retailer to influence its shoppers in a non-intrusive or obvious way. In his new role, Vish will be responsible for various tasks including sales, marketing and managing products and implementation, as well as educating European retailers about GroupBys differentiating factors. As GroupBy expands to Europe, Vish will play a key role in leading the companys expansion, said Roland Gossage, CEO, GroupBy. With almost 10 years of experience in the same vertical GroupBy operates in, and his previous positions in sales, marketing, site search and eCommerce, Vish is equipped to excel as our country manager, and we are thrilled to have him onboard. After spending 14 years in the eCommerce industry and 10 years in site search navigation and search engine optimization (SEO), GroupBy sparked Vishs attention due to the companys end-t-end customer experience offerings from product data mining to transparent analytics.



While many companies offer site search, GroupBys offerings excel above the competition with a comprehensive and innovative data-driven eCommerce suite that you just cant find anywhere else. Whats more, the company was founded on the principle that they are fully prepared to serve each retail customer based on their unique requirements, and to give their shoppers a superior ecommerce experience, said Vish. I am excited to serve as GroupBys country manager in Europe, and look forward to growing the London office into another major headquarters along with Toronto and Austin. Vish has held a variety of sales management positions at leading companies including SLI Systems, BE EXCELLENT GmbH and Pitney Bowes. Additionally, he has collaborated with more than 600 retailers and brings international work experience from holding various positions in India, New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Ireland and other European countries. His global background will be invaluable in his new role at GroupBy, as he will be communicating with customers and partners from Asia, India, the U.S. and Canada.

About GroupBy Inc.

GroupBy Inc. transforms the way retailers interact with their consumers online through data-driven commerce, media, and knowledge management software solutions. The company supports the online retail efforts of many of the worlds leading online retailers by driving more targeted site traffic and increases in revenue through its platform Searchandiser. GroupBys solutions provide industry-leading features for data enrichment, search, navigation, merchandising, search engine optimization (SEO) and search as you type (SAYT). Founded in 2014, GroupBy is headquartered in Toronto, Canada and has offices around the world. For more information, please visit www.groupbyinc.com . Media Contact

Mikaela Cannizzo

Ketner Group Communications (for GroupBy)

mikaela@ketnergroup.com

512-794-8876



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[August 21, 2018] SoftServe Heats Up the Cloud Market with New Dedicated Go-to-Market Strategy with Google Cloud

AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SoftServe, a digital authority and consulting company, announces a new go-to-market strategy with Google Cloud, as part of SoftServes recent acknowledgement as a Google Cloud Premier Partner.

SoftServe discusses the current state of AI.



SoftServe joined the Google Cloud Partner Program in April 2017 and has since completed extensive technical training, successfully delivered numerous complex implementations on GCP and met rigorous evaluations to achieve Google Clouds highest partner status. As part of the growing Google Cloud partner ecosystem, achieving the Premier status is a testament to SoftServes commitment to innovation that moves the needle for our clients every day on their digital journey, said Todd Lenox, Vice President, Digital Services Group at SoftServe. Our continued partnership with Google Cloud enables us to provide cutting-edge cloud expertise for the future. As part of the premier partnership, SoftServe is heating up the cloud market by executing well-coordinated, co-branded campaigns and events at the local and national level. As a result, the company has seen rapid growth and interest around the role of machin learning (ML) in addressing multi-dimensional problems that require nontraditional approaches.



In a series of joint interactive meetups held around the US, SoftServe and Google Cloud are sharing architecture design insights for ML systems. These feature gamified interactive exercises that simulate cutting edge ML design systems by analyzing business and technical requirements, selecting optimal algorithms, and teaching how to validate decisions using rapid prototyping techniques.

SoftServe, with the help of Google Cloud, is enabling organizations to move at the speed of digital to create exceptional experiences, accelerate innovation, turn data into actionable insights, and future proof business.

SoftServe offers products and services across GCP, including cloud app solutions, cloud storage solutions, large-scale computing solutions, and big data solutions. As a premier partner, SoftServe can access partner account tools that will help fuel innovation for SoftServe customers who are building on GCP. This includes access to the Cloud Connect Premier section and sandbox toolkit, as well as internal use of G Suite Business and G Suite Enterprise and product roadmap access. About SoftServe

SoftServe is a digital authority that advises and provides at the cutting-edge of technology. We reveal, transform, accelerate, and optimize the way enterprises and software companies do business. With expertise across healthcare, retail, media, financial services, software, and more, we implement end-to-end solutions to deliver the innovation, quality, and speed that our clients users expect. SoftServe delivers open innovationfrom generating compelling new ideas, to developing and implementing transformational products and services.

Our work and client experience is built on a foundation of empathetic, human-focused experience design that ensures continuity from concept to release.

We empower enterprises and software companies to (re)identify differentiation, accelerate solution development, and vigorously compete in todays digital economy. No matter where you are in your journey.

Visit our website, blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter pages.

SoftServe Media Contact

Paul Jones

Senior Manager, Analyst and Public Relations

pjone@softserveinc.com

512-796-7358 A photo accompanying this announcement is available at //www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e1bb9b77-7d6b-419a-8e31-a8c255705dae

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[August 21, 2018] United Technologies Acquires Predikto, Inc.

FARMINGTON, Conn., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) today announced it has acquired Predikto, Inc., an Atlanta-based predictive analytics software company. Predikto is known for its proven cloud-based predictive health maintenance solution, which enables customers to forecast and improve asset reliability with greater certainty. The acquisition reinforces United Technologies' global digital strategy to make strategic business investments that enhance the company's ability to deliver new forms of value for our customers, employees and shareholders The unique differentiator with Predikto is the technology platform  it is able to take hundreds of disparate industrial asset data-sets and automate up to 80 percent of the analytics process to quickly deliver actionable insights for taking pre-emptive steps to avoid issues, thereby increasing asset uptime. "Data is the lifeblood of any digital strategy and actionable data is the way forward as we deliver real customer value," said Vince Campisi, Chief Digital Officer, United Technologies. "e are incredibly excited about this announcement and the future ahead together. By harnessing the best of our combined predictive analytics skillsets, we can better connect all critical assets, understand the reliability and health of our products and ultimately deliver an improved customer experience. Predikto's capabilities will help us scale these efforts across United Technologies' businesses with speed."



Predikto recently completed serval pilots with Pratt & Whitney specifically focused on commercial engines using preexisting data. Together, as a complement to Pratt & Whitney's existing physics-based models, the models generated by Predikto identified factors related to unplanned engine events. When taken into account, these insights will further increase the predictability of future issues and inform the development of key product improvements. What would have taken engineers months to aggregate the data and create algorithms instead only took days for two data scientists to complete using the Predikto software platform. "Predictive analytics and data science have the power to change the way today's businesses run, especially in complex asset-intensive industries," said Mario Montag, CEO, Predikto. "Predikto's approach and technology has been demonstrated globally across the aviation, rail and shipping industries where unplanned downtime and unscheduled maintenance can be costly. There is great opportunity for additional applicability to many of United Technologies' products and services. We are beyond excited to join the team and begin making an impact."

Mario Montag, Predikto CEO, will assume the role of Chief Data & Analytics Officer for United Technologies, driving the strategy and direction for United Technologies' global data and analytics initiatives in support of the company's businesses. Predikto will have a presence in Atlanta, Georgia, and Brooklyn, New York. The terms of the transaction are not being disclosed. About United Technologies Corporation

United Technologies Corp., based in Farmington, Connecticut, provides high-technology systems and services to the building and aerospace industries. By combining a passion for science with precision engineering, the company is creating smart, sustainable solutions the world needs. To learn more about UTC, visit the website or follow the company on Twitter: @UTC. Media Inquiries:

860-550-1573 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/united-technologies-acquires-predikto-inc-300699895.html SOURCE United Technologies Corp.

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[August 21, 2018] Tonia DeCosimo Of P.O.W.E.R. Magazine Announces Her Exclusive Interview With Susan Lucci

MANHASSET, N.Y., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Tonia DeCosimo announces her exclusive interview with actress, author and entrepreneur Susan Lucci, which will be featured in the Summer issue of P.O.W.E.R. (Professional Organization of Women of Excellence Recognized) Magazine and can be heard on powerwoe.com. ABOUT SUSAN LUCCI AND P.O.W.E.R.

Susan Lucci is an American actress, television host, author and entrepreneur who is best known for portraying Erica Kane on the ABC daytime drama "All My Children." She exemplifies the type of woman that P.O.W.E.R. (Professional Organization of Women of Excellence Recognized) features on their website as well as in their digital and print magazine. Lucci has appeared in a number of television series and movies, music videos and competed in "Dancing with the Stars." She has received numerous awards and honors for her acting and has been named one of Barbara Walter's Ten Most FascinatingPeople. In New York City, her wax figure is prominently displayed at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, her handprint can be seen at Planet Hollywood and her caricature hangs at the famous Sardi's Restaurant. She has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, California and she appears on a billboard at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida. Susan's autobiography, "All My Life: A Memoir" placed on the New York Times Bestsellers List. In addition, she is considered a "Pilates Legend" in the fitness world and she sells the Pilates Pro Chair on QVC along with her own line of active wear.



P.O.W.E.R. Magazine was founded by Tonia DeCosimo who is the Editor-in-Chief. She is an entrepreneur, author and columnist. She founded the P.O.W.E.R. Organization/Magazine to inspire and feature professional women. Some of Tonia's previous interviews for P.O.W.E.R. include the legendary Bonnie and Anita Pointer, Carol Douglas, Carol Williams, France Joli, Doris Dalton and Mally Roncal. Tonia is the author of the recently published book, "Single and Not Settling! A Journey of Surviving the Dating World" which is a memoir and self-help book about her trials and tribulations of searching for love in the 21st century. To date, Tonia has been on 21 radio shows throughout the country and was featured in the October 2017 edition of Long Island Woman Magazine showcased under "Meet This Long Island Woman." She writes a monthly column for The Date Mix, The Web Magazine hosted by Zoosk.com, one of the largest dating sites in the U.S. The interview with Susan Lucci covers both her professional and personal life, providing answers to the questions that every woman would love to know about her. Tonia states, "Susan Lucci is one of the most down-to-earth celebrities. She is still as humble and amazing as she was 30 years ago when I had the pleasure of meeting her for the first time."

Susan Lucci's Podcast can be viewed on our website. Our magazine can be viewed digitally on powerwoe.com or contact info@powerwoe.com regarding a printed copy. ABOUT P.O.W.E.R. (PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION OF WOMEN OF EXCELLENCE RECOGNIZED) P.O.W.E.R is a website as well as a digital and print magazine featuring professional and famous women. Our mission is to provide a powerful network of empowering women who will mentor and inspire each other to be the best they can be. Through our valuable services, our members can collaborate with like-minded professionals, gain recognition and obtain knowledge from those who have already achieved success. View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tonia-decosimo-of-power-magazine-announces-her-exclusive-interview-with-susan-lucci-300699869.html SOURCE P.O.W.E.R. (Professional Organization of Women of Excellence Recognized)

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[August 21, 2018] Lucidworks Site Search Cloud App Goes International With Multiple Language Support

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Lucidworks, the leader in intelligent search and discovery, announces new features for their embeddable, easy-to-configure, out-of-the-box site search solution that runs anywhere, Lucidworks Site Search. Now with multiple language support tailorable to deployment regions, international teams using Site Search can deliver actionable intelligence faster than ever before. Site Search, an enterprise-grade application, now supports multiple European languages including French, Italian, German, Polish, Russian, and Spanish for both indexing and searching with auto-detect during web crawls. Language support has also been extended to the search UI, which is localized to support a global audience. Additional support for international customers is included with the ability to specify the region where youd like to deploy Site Search. This lowers latency and provides a more responsive, faster serch experience to customers and site visitors.



Bringing our Site Search app to a wider user base has been a major jump forward that the whole team has been looking forward to, said Will Hayes, Lucidworks CEO. We are thrilled to finally be able to roll this out so organizations have an enterprise-ready site search solution they can deploy in minutes. In addition to these features, the new upgrades to Site Search also include full access to the search API so customers can integrate the search experience with their existing infrastructure and upload bulk documents seamlessly. Teams can choose deployment regions that correspond to AWS server locations, allowing specialized access for international teams and a better end-user-experience. A rich analytics package fills out the feature set for this new release so stakeholders and admins can see current and historical usage reports, include searches over time, average response times, rate of queries per day, and other crucial metrics.

To get started using Site Search today go to http://lucidworks.com/site-search About Lucidworks



Lucidworks builds AI-powered search and discovery applications for some of the world's largest brands. Fusion, Lucidworks' advanced development platform, provides the enterprise-grade capabilities needed to design, develop, and deploy intelligent search apps at any scale. Reddit, Red Hat, Moodys, Commvault, and the US Census are just of few of the companies that rely on Lucidworks every day to power their consumer-facing and enterprise search apps. Lucidworks investors include Top Tier Capital Partners, Shasta Ventures, Granite Ventures, Silver Lake Waterman, and Walden International.



Contact:



Mike West

415-689-8574

lucidworks@codewordagency.com



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[August 21, 2018] From Tech Giant to China Startup: Westwin Explains How Big Data Drives Cross-border Marketing

SHANGHAI, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- August 2018 marks Westwin's two-year anniversary of acquiring former Microsoft Online's business and assets. Anderson Liu was the general manager of Microsoft Online two years ago; now he is the CEO of Westwin  a leading marketing consulting firm that focuses on cross-border business. Cross-border marketing is a challenging yet exciting task for brands who aim to enter foreign countries. Over the past two years, Westwin has been helping companies with strategic consultation, digital advertising solution and localization services to extend their businesses internationally. "Westwin believes that big data is the key driving force for cross-border marketing", said Anderson Liu in a recent interview. Cross-border Marketing Connect Foreign Companies to China China market offers tremendous potential for global companies. According to the latest data released by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, total volume of China's import and export trade reached US$2.21 trillion in the first half of 2018, growing 16 percent year-over-year. Many global companies are exploring opportunities and cross-border marketing strategies to break into the Chinese market. Liu thinks that understanding China's cultural differences and technology scene will have a huge impact on efficiency wen foreign companies kick off cross-border businesses in China, including brand promotion, marketing cooperation, investment and M&As.



"Despite China market brings a bright future, many foreign companies now are aware of the challenges. This motivates us to optimize our solution to better help our foreign clients in brand presence, reputation management and operation strategy." Liu, a cross-border marketing specialist himself, is leading Westwin to help foreign companies enter the Chinese market. Last month, Westwin released "2018 China Cross-border Consumption Report" - the first study to focus on Chinese cross-border consumers. With research conducted by AC Nielsen, this report is known as a guide to Chinese consumers - the interesting facts within will help retailers choose the best media channel and strategy in the Chinese market. Big Data Drives Chinese Business Expand Abroad

Over the past 40 years, many Chinese businesses have expanded overseas by implementing their own globalization strategies. More recently, the government's "Belt and Road" initiative is designed to help more Chinese firms step up overseas expansion. According to available data, Microsoft Online, the predecessor of Westwin, has provided overseas online promotion services to more than 2,000 domestic Chinese businesses. Its core business, "Bing Ads", helped a list of leading Chinese companies expand to overseas markets including Alibaba, JD.com, Air China and Ctrip. Today, Westwin still remains a key partner of Microsoft's online advertising business in mainland China. Nowadays, big data have changed mainstream technology and the methods in which data are handled and it is driving the future of business. Liu believes that advertising, whether digital or traditional, is ultimately driven by latest technology  and now the technology is big data. "When a business with overseas operations interacts with an overseas user, there must be a demand for what the brand has to offer coupled with the promotion effect," said Liu. "To meet such a demand, the product or service must be supported by data to optimize the effect." Under the wave of globalization, Liu has positioned Westwin as a data-driven marketing consulting firm focusing on cross-border business. Through customized strategy and localized platform, Westwin aims to help foreign brands gain brand awareness and acquire customers in brand new market. Talking about vision, Liu said that cross-border marketing creates an entry point for Westwin. "Eventually we will become a data-driven platform that serves cross-border business on a broader scale."

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[August 21, 2018] Derive Systems Announces New Senior Leaders in Enterprise Sales

DENVER, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Derive Systems, leader in fleet solutions, is proud to announce the hiring of telematics executive Karl Weber and sales expert Tony Ahillas. Weber joins as the Sr. Vice President of Enterprise Sales with over 15 years of experience in the industry. Derive will also add Tony Ahillas as Senior Director of Enterprise Sales. With the addition of these two sales leaders to the Derive team, the company has strengthened its ability to translate the capabilities of Derive VQ to the needs of current and future clients.

We are extremely pleased and excited to bring Karl and Tony aboard, says Derive CEO, David Thawley. One of the most important parts of ensuring customer success is having team members who know our industry inside and out so that our clients benefit to the full extent of what the Derive VQ platform can provide for them. With over 30 years of telematics experience between the two of them, Karl and Tony are great additions to the Derive team. Weber will be responsible for educating customers on how telematics solutions impact business and how Derives solution benefits fleet operations in ways others cant. Prior to joining Derive, Weber was the Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Fleetmatics for 10 years, which was acquired by Verizon. Derive is in a uniqe position to offer solutions that guarantee consistent, positive ROIs for our customers, and Im thrilled to be part of the team that is driving this change, says Weber. Im hoping to redefine the telematics industry as one that demands Derives Active Telematics solution instead of the current telematics solutions on the market today that simply collect data.



Ahillas will be responsible for introducing more fleet and technical field operations groups to the active telematics solutions of Derive. He brings 20 years of experience in telematics providing solutions to clients from all industries. Prior to joining Derive, Ahillas was the Enterprise Sales Director at NAUTO, and also worked under Weber at Fleetmatics/Verizon Telematics. Im really excited about what Ill be doing with Derive, as I think we are presenting the next step in active telematics solutions to fleet managers with all sorts of needs, says Ahillas. Were not just delivering telematics - we are offering an active solution in Derive VQ, with actionable self-management as opposed to just data. This is setting us apart, and I cant wait to work one on one with our clients and their diverse needs.

The addition of Weber and Ahillas to the sales team will add an enormous amount of value to how Derive supports its clients through the Derive VQ platform. For more information visit www.derivesystems.com . About Derive Systems

Derive Systems is a leading automotive technology provider, with over 2 million vehicles upgraded with Derives solutions. Derive connects vehicles and their engines to the digital world, enabling individuals and fleets to take control of their vehicles and optimize the way they behave. The Derive Systems platform writes directly to the engine and other vehicle control modules, integrating third party software, data, and sensors so that each vehicle performs specifically to unique requirements, preferences, and conditions. Contact Information

Rick Medeiros

510-566-3933

derive@codewordagency.com

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[August 21, 2018] Jaclyn Johnson Releases First Book, WorkParty

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Jaclyn Johnson, the CEO and Founder of Create & Cultivate, releases her first book, WorkParty. Known for bootstrapping Create & Cultivate, the popular online platform and conference for millennial women in business, from startup to multimillion dollar success, Johnson's new book offers a rallying cry for a new generation of women who are redefining the meaning of work on their own terms: WorkParty. WorkParty offers an inside look at how Johnson grew not one, but two, successful business from the ground up. Packed with information on how to overcome setbacks, hone your elevator pitch, develop tools for negotiations and more  WorkParty shares Johnson's story on how she turned distrust into determination, frustration into fuel, and heartache into hard workand how readers can too. With stories from leading entrepreneurs including Christene Barberich (co-founder of Refinery29), Alli Webb, (creator of Drybar), Morgan Debaun (founder of Blavity), Jen Gotch (founder and CCO of ban.do), and Rebecca Minkoff, readers will learn from the best in the business while cultivating the passion and happiness needed to succeed. WorkParty is launching with an accompanying podcast and nationwide tour. Season One of the WorkParty podcast will launch th. Hosted by Johnson, the weekly podcast will break down the business of being a modern working woman and feature guests including Kristen Bell, Rachel Zoe, Bobbi Brown and Sara Blakely. The tour kicks off on September 20th and will stop in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Boston, Nashville, Atlanta, Miami, and Austin. Johnson will sit down with some of the most prominent women in business including Allure Editor-in-chief, Michelle Lee, Cupcakes and Cashmere founder, Emily Schuman, celebrity hairstylist, Kristin Ess, and Kendra Scott, for live podcast recordings, panels and more.



Through the growth of Create & Cultivate, Jaclyn's own philosophy, built on female empowerment, hustling-hard and innovation have propelled her voice to the forefront of the discussion on career and has made her a new thought-leader for millennial women and Gen-Z-ers. Known for her powerful messaging and experiential events, Johnson is reshaping attitudes on female entrepreneurialism, work culture and the gig economy for women all over the world. To learn more about the movement, please visit WorkParty.com and follow along @WorkParty. The book is now available on Amazon here.

About Create & Cultivate:

Bringing women together since 2012, Create & Cultivate is now the fastest growing online platform and conference for millennial women looking to create and cultivate the career of their dreams. Over the past six years, the conference has gained global visibility, with an audience of 500,000 and over 75 events to date. The conference has featured CEO's, content creators, and celebrities like Kim Kardashian West, Chelsea Handler, Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler of SoulCycle, Gloria Steinem, Issa Rae and more. Create & Cultivate is fueling a new generation of women, nurturing community, camaraderie and career along the way. For more information, please contact: jaclyne@laruepr.com View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jaclyn-johnson-releases-first-book-workparty-300699825.html SOURCE Create & Cultivate

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[August 21, 2018] Reputation.com Announces Former DocuSign Executive Joe Fuca as Chief Executive Officer

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reputation.com , the first and only complete reputation and customer experience management platform for enterprise, today welcomes industry veteran Joe Fuca, a former DocuSign senior vice president and FinancialForce president, as its new CEO. He brings to bear deep expertise in scaling SaaS companies operating infrastructure to meet increasing global client demands that  in Reputation.coms case  have spurred more than 50-percent revenue growth year over year .

Joe Fuca, CEO of Reputation.com



Suggested Tweet: Congrats! @Reputation_Com appoints former DocuSign exec @fucaforce as #CEO as global demand for #ORM and #CX platform grows http://bit.ly/2ORh21a Fucas hiring underscores Reputation.coms commitment to extend the companys leadership position and assure its enterprise clients continuing success. With this appointment, Reputation.com founder Michael Fertik returns to his position as executive chairman of the companys board after stepping in as interim CEO during the candidate search. After conducting a very thorough search and vetting many outstanding candidates, I am delighted to announce that the boardstop choice, Joe Fuca, is taking the reins as Reputation.coms new CEO, says Michael Fertik, executive chairman of Reputation.com. He has exactly the leadership profile and proven skills the company needs to ensure we continue to lead the category we have created. I look forward to the coming expansion and even faster growth.



SaaS Company Veteran Picks Opportunities in Groundbreaking Technology Categories

A 30-year technology veteran, Fuca brings to Reputation.com a proven track record of leading multimillion-dollar businesses through worldwide growth phases. Most recently the president of worldwide field operations at FinancialForce, Fuca was responsible for all enterprise-class sales, implementation and customer success groups, growing the business 40 percent and increasing its margins every quarter. He also spearheaded substantial SaaS process, program and infrastructure improvements to ensure breakthrough client satisfaction. Before that he served as DocuSigns senior vice president of worldwide sales, where he was instrumental in defining the companys leadership in digital transaction management; building the employee base from 150 to more than 1,000; and growing recurring revenue 10-fold to $250 million. In addition, he designed DocuSigns vertical strategy, priorities and positioning; expanded its presence globally; and forged strategic partnerships with Salesforce.com, major financial services organizations and top-tier consulting firms. DocuSign saw its greatest period of growth under Joes leadership, due to his deep understanding of enterprise requirements and how to exceed them, says Keith Krach, former CEO and board chairman of DocuSign.

We invested in Fuca at DocuSign and considered him pivotal to that companys success, says Ted Schlein, general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and board director at Reputation.com. We are fully confident that Joe will bring the same level of customer focus and operational excellence to Reputation.com. David Cowan, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, which also invested in DocuSign, says, Joe is singularly focused and extraordinarily effective at building companies that support enterprise customer success. We feel fortunate to have him at the helm of Reputation.com. Fuca has also served as a senior executive for McAfee and MarketLive. New CEO Ushers in New Phase of Enterprise Client Success and Platform Scalability

I am delighted to join a great company that is redefining how large B2C enterprises shape their relationships with customers, says Joe Fuca, CEO of Reputation.com. The next big wave for B2C companies is listening and responding to customers and gaining insights from the social web to improve the customer experience. Thats where Reputation.com is the clear leader. The company serves the worlds largest and most demanding global companies  such as Ascension Health, General Motors, Enterprise Holdings and Westfield Malls  to transform reputation and customer experience. Reputation.coms clients will benefit from Fucas leadership in a wide range of ways. He will be driving new investments in process management, infrastructure and architecture to deliver improvements in data processing, uptime, security and instrumentation. Other initiatives include enhancing client service at scale; articulating Reputation.coms industry-leading position; and bolstering the companys industry and client advisory boards. About Reputation.com

Reputation.com delivers the only integrated SaaS platform that helps location-based enterprises improve their reputation with consumers online and onsite, across the entire customer journey  from finding a location on search, to conversion, to operational improvements that deliver a better customer experience. Reputation.com technology has managed tens of millions of consumer reviews, surveys and social media interactions across hundreds of thousands of online points of presence for global companies spanning 77 industry verticals, including healthcare, retail, automotive, restaurants and others. Reputation.com is a World Economic Forum Global Growth Company and is funded by the same top-tier venture capital firms that backed Google, Facebook, Cisco and Microsoft. To learn more, visit www.reputation.com . Media Contact: Brigit Valencia

BOCA Communications

360.597.4516

reputation@bocacommunications.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at //www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5234a47c-e1f4-4899-880d-4c4fef69be48

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Ping Identity Publishes Top Industry Trends and Findings, According to CISOs

Ping Identity, the leader in Identity Defined Security, today announced findings from its most recent CISO Advisory Council meeting. The Council is aimed at better understanding the challenges and opportunities impacting the modern CISO. Members have access to strategic guidance and support as they develop and grow their enterprise-wide security initiatives. This includes leveraging valuable insights and best practices related to infosecurity, privacy and compliance.

Members of the 2018 council represent organizations including American Red Cross, Cisco (News - Alert) Systems, Allegiant Travel Co., BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, PowerSchool, GCI, Cvent, Gates Corporation, Vertafore Inc., CoBank, and Greenway Health. These companies span industries including healthcare, banking, travel and leisure, fashion, technology, consulting, education and construction.

In addition to providing strategic direction and value to the CISOs of these leading organizations, their contributions are equally important to the development of Ping's identity security solutions. With a view into the company's vision, strategy and roadmap, these champions inform on product priorities, go-to-market strategies and advocate for the modern enterprise.

"Our customers are the catalysts of change in the creation of products and services at Ping Identity, so we take their feedback on innovation seriously," said Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity. "These CISOs from leading organizations view identity as a strategic imperative for succeeding as a digital company. Our priority is to help ensure our offerings continue to align with customer objectives, providing them with the business advantage they need to succeed."







About Ping Identity | The Identity Security Company

Ping Identity envisions a digital world powered by identity. As the identity security company, we simplify how the world's largest organizations prevent security breaches, increase employee and partner productivity and provide personalized customer experiences. Enterprises choose Ping for our identity expertise, open standards leadership, partnership with companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google, and collaboration with customers like Boeing (News - Alert) , Cisco, GE, Kraft Foods, Walgreens and over half of the Fortune 100. The Ping Identity Platform allows enterprises and their users to securely access cloud, mobile and on-premises applications while managing identity and profile data at scale. Architects and developers have flexible options to enhance and extend their existing applications and environments with multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, access management, directory and data governance capabilities. Visit www.pingidentity.com.

Ping Identity Corporation

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[August 21, 2018] Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) Hosts Global Student Entrepreneur Awards at University of Houston's Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship

Each year, the Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO), a global network of entrepreneurs with 13,000 entrepreneurs in 57 countries whose businesses employ more than 3.4 million people worldwide, sponsors the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) in which student entrepreneurs worldwide compete in local competitions for prizes and a chance to compete nationally and then at the global event. In Houston, the GSEA competition will be held on Thursday, November 8th from 3:00 - 6:00 pm at University of Houston's Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship. "Our Houston chapter's participation in the GSEA is part of our efforts to nurture not just an entrepreneurial spirit among Houston's college students, but also to provide real-world skills, mentorship and connections to help these highly motivated students succeed," says Houston EO Chapter President, Jarred King. The Houston GESA awards competition is open to all undergraduate and raduate college/university students who have owned and operated a business for at least six months. Selected students compete against their peers and present their business to a panel of judges. The Houston winner will win $3,500 in cash and value donated by Houston EO members and advance to the next level of competition - ultimately perhaps to the global finals in Macau. Applications to compete are due by October 20, 2018. Students may apply at gsea.org/apply.



"Houston is fortunate to have incredibly talented, creative and motivated student entrepreneurs," says Robert De Los Santos, EO's Houston GSEA Chair. "We also have some of the best educational opportunities for these students, with Princeton Review ranking University of Houston's undergraduate entrepreneurial studies program #2 in the nation, and Rice University's graduate program also #2, nipping at Harvard's heels." The Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) is an international program of Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO), a global network of entrepreneurs helping the seeds grow in Houston and throughout the world with a membership of 13,000 entrepreneurs in 57 countries and more than 3.4 million employees worldwide. In Houston alone, EO's members include 163 CEOs from just about every industry, average per-company sales of $2.5 million, and 4,802 total employees.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180821005476/en/

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[August 21, 2018] LandStar, Inc. Announces That Zacks Small Cap Research Publishes Article on Data443, Ahead of Fall Initiation

RALEIGH, N.C., Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LandStar, Inc. ( OTCPK: LDSR ) (LandStar or the Company), the parent company of Data443 Risk Mitigation, Inc. (Data443), a leading data security and privacy company, would like to share with investors an article published by Zacks Small Cap Research on Data443. In a rare occurrence, Zacks published the article yesterday, ahead of initiating coverage on Data443 later this fall. The article can be accessed at ( http://scr.zacks.com/News/Press-Releases/Press-Release-Details/2018/LDSR-Benefitting-from-Growing-Demand-for-Cybersecurity/default.aspx ) as well as in the text below:

Product development and acquisitions



Large Data Breaches Continue  Mandating Data Protection Capabilities



Raleigh, North Carolina-based Data443 Risk Mitigation, a wholly owned subsidiary of LandStar, Inc. (LDSR), is a technology company that is developing an ambitious portfolio of cyber-security products and service offerings for blockchain, cyber data security, Personal Privacy & GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), data compliance governance capabilities. In addition to products and services the company develops on its own, Data443 is also conducting an aggressive M&A campaign to complement its internally developed technologies. It has accessed the expertise of several advisors to help conduct this strategy in a time and cost sensitive way. Data443 aims to provide a broad range of data security offerings, services and solutions. 2018 has been a transformational year, in our view, as the company has completed two significant acquisitions, with others in the near- and medium-term pipeline. Although Data443s ClassiDocs is pre-revenue at this early stage, management expects that its overall M&A pipeline will produce a combined annual revenue run-rate of roughly $8-$10 million. Moreover, the terms of these acquisitions are designed to both protect the companys downside and provide incentive to the acquired management teams to help grow the combined business, as the funding is generally a combination of cash and shares. The company was formed by CEO Jason Remillard in 2017 and has accomplished much in a short time. The CEO has more than 25 years of experience in the IT field, developing technology solutions for both start-ups and Fortune 500 companies. His prior experience includes serving as VP of Security Architecture at Deutsche Bank, where he was responsible for Big Data, Security Architecture, Engineering and Analytics and as a product manager with Dell Software spearheading the development of the Enterprise Identity and Access Management portfolio. He has successfully operated several software security startups with previous exits. Towards the goal of becoming a multi-solution IT company, Data443 acquired ClassiDocs, a data classification, governance, and GDPR-compliance company that Data443s CEO founded in 2016. In the 2018 Cybersecurity Excellence awards, ClassiDocs was awarded honors for GDPR compliance, data classification and governance. GDPR regulation mandates that companies protect the personal data and privacy of European citizens for transactions that occur within EU member countries. Companies that do business in Europe will need to comply with GDPR, which could create significant opportunities for Data443. ClassiDocs is also capable of providing compliance to meet U.S. and other developing privacy laws worldwide, according to management. ClassiDocs provides solutions for GDPR compliance, as noted, including for reporting and technical control capabilities. It provides Data Subject Access Requests (DSAR) management, enabling clients to respond to DSAR demands. According to the company, failure to comply with DSARs can lead to penalties of up to 4% of global net sales or 20 million. ClassiDocs also allows clients to maintain an accurate and current data inventory across over130 database types and, importantly, leading cloud SaaS services like Salesforce, QuickBooks, Microsoft Dynamic, Facebook and others, according to management. There are a myriad small companies that cannot maintain internal IT controls and need to rely on third-party solutions such as those provided by Data443. Recently, the company secured the global technology, branding, and management rights to the WordPress GDPR Framework, which is an open-source plugin that addresses the EUs GDPR compliance requirements. WordPress is the worlds leading web hosting and content management ecosystem, according to management, powering more than 50% of the global content management and e-commerce sites. Approximately 500 new WordPress sites are constructed each day, according to the company. The company views this relationship as a crucial step forward in its ability to reach smaller companies that are subject to data privacy laws but do not have a significant internal compliance resources. This is complementary to the solutions that ClassiDocs provide. The company has already released an upgrade to its WordPress GDPR capability. The company has an internal sales team. However, to further assist with the expansion of its footprint and sales efforts, the company also developed associations with several partners, including N8 Identity, a cloud identity governance provider, Caretower, a European cyber security integrator and service provider and the Headtechnology Group global value-added distributor, among others. The company expects the relationship with Headtechnology Group to accelerate the expansion of its GDPR compliance solutions across Headtechnology Groups network. Importantly, the company also expects to close its second key acquisition before the end of Q3 2018. Data443 signed a letter of intent to acquire ARALOC, a secure digital content distribution and communication platform. The company expects the acquisition to close by the end of September 2018. Accordingto management, ARALOC generates existing recurring monthly revenues, with operating income of roughly $500,000 in 2017. Moreover, management, focused on integrating and growing the companies it has acquired, believes that combining cyber technologies could yield synergistic cross-promotional opportunities to a broad and growing customer base.



The company has also assembled a strong team of strategic advisors. Specifically, Data443 appointed industry veterans Todd Spain, Steven Mail and Philip Niedermair to its newly formed strategic advisory board. Each of these board members has significant experience that management believes can help steer the company as it advances its goals. To further assist with the execution of its strategy, the company engaged law firm Whiteford, Taylor & Preston for advice on potential business transactions, consulting and reflecting its expertise. Whiteford, Taylor & Preston is one of the largest law firms in Maryland, with more than 170 lawyers. Working initially with the Ripple Framework the company intends to be integral to blockchains, which is a decentralized and encrypted ledger that offers a secure method to store records and other information in a way that can be verified. Each block in the blockchain contains a hash  a digital fingerprint or unique identifier  and timestamped batches of prior transactions, as well as the hash of the previous block. The hash connects the blocks and prevents any block from being altered or inserted between two existing blocks. Each new block reinforces the verification of the previous block and therefore the overall blockchain. This characteristic is also believed to make it transparent if an attempted hacking tries to alter any part of the blockchain. According to IBM, blockchain architecture gives participants the ability to share a ledger that is updated, through peer-to-peer replication, every time a transaction occurs. Peer-to-peer replication means that each participant (node) in the network acts as both a publisher and a subscriber. Each node can receive or send transactions to other nodes, and the data is synchronized across the network as it is transferred.

Blockchain is viewed as a secure option for financial transactions that also provides flexibility and scalability. Blockchain technology also has broader applications beyond cryptocurrencies. Among other features, it can be used to process transactions, manage medical records, and verify and confirm proof of ownership. Blockchain can also record and track intangible assets such as intellectual property, patents, copyrights, or branding. In discussing blockchain, an article in the Harvard Business Review notes that, Contracts, transactions, and the records of them are among the defining structures in our economic, legal, and political systems. They protect assets and set organizational boundaries. With blockchain, we can imagine a world in which contracts are embedded in digital code and stored in transparent, shared databases, where they are protected from deletion, tampering, and revision. Blockchain is a public ledger technology that uses digital signatures and cryptographic hashing to provide a record of secure transactions that cannot be altered, according to TechRepublic. Specifically, blockchain is thought to be safe, immutable and transparent because no single person or party within the chain can alter the record without the agreement of all parties in the chain. Leading companies such as IBM and Mastercard have already adopted blockchain technology to protect transactions and American Express has launched instant blockchain payments for cross-border business-to-business payments. The blockchain market is forecast to grow to $7.683 billion by 2022, up from $241.9 million in 2016, according to a December 2017 study by market research firm Markets and Markets, a compound annual growth rate of 79.6%, reflecting rising demand for blockchain and valuation of cryptocurrencies. Increased regulatory oversight of cryptocurrency could drive demand for cryptocurrency accounting software and services. Cybersecurity As enterprise and individuals rely increasingly on digital data, the opportunities for security breaches multiply. There are myriad examples of high-profile cybersecurity breaches, such as the Equifax breach that impacted an estimated upwards of 143 million consumers, as illustrated in the figure below. Sensitive data that was stolen included Social Security numbers and drivers license numbers, among other metrics. In addition, eBay, JPMorgan Chase and Yahoo! have all experienced data breaches that have impacted billions of consumers. According to the 2017 Ponemon Cost of Data Breach study, the average cost of a data breach globally is $3.62 million. A 2017 Verizon Data Breach Investigations report concluded that 75% of breaches were perpetrated by outsiders, with 62% involving hacking. The Verizon report further found that 81% of the breaches leveraged stolen or weak passwords and 51% included malware. While some 24% of the companies breached were in the financial services sector, a sizable 61% of the companies were businesses that employ fewer than 1,000 people  in other words many were mid-size to small companies. View Exhibit II

Ensuring online security is therefore crucial for enterprise, as well as personal users, particularly with the rising use of mobile technology. Mobile technology penetration has grown dramatically over the past decade. Adoption rates of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have tracked significantly ahead of that of other technology platforms such as PCs or broadband. Smartphones took only eight years to reach 20+% penetration globally and, according to comScore, exceeded 80% of the U.S. mobile subscriber market by 2016. With increased mobile penetration, there has also been a growing trend towards BYOD (bring your own device), whereby employees bring their personal devices into the work environment for business and personal applications. Mobile apps have become an important way that users conduct commerce and access content both personally and professionally. The United Nations information and communication technologies agency, ITU, notes that over the last five years, mobile-broadband subscriptions have grown more than 20% per annum and reached an estimated 4.3 billion worldwide by 2017. Control over companies wired networks has also become much more difficult in a BYOD work environment and with the many technology changes, creating challenges to maintain the benefits of mobility while concurrently monitoring security needs. In turn, this has driven demand for security to monitor mobile devices. At the same time, the volume of data has increased dramatically as individuals, corporations and government organizations access content from multiple connected devices. IDC forecasts that by 2020 the volume of digital information will have grown 300-fold when compared to 2005, boosting the need for storage and content management solutions. The dramatic increase in content and data being transmitted over the internet and stored in the cloud is also placing burdens on enterprises and increasing concerns about security. Moreover, as more data storage and IP traffic moves to the cloud, cloud-based business analytics and business intelligence is also expected to grow, increasing the need for greater security, we believe. Gartner expects strong demand for all types of cloud services offerings. Market research firm Markets and Markets predicts that the cloud analytics market could reach $16.52 billion this year, which represents a 25.8% 2013-2018 CAGR. Overall, these changes have also made it that much more difficult to ensure internet privacy. Summary If Data443 can execute on its ambitious growth strategy, the company has a sizable market opportunity, as there is growing need and demand for cybersecurity services and solutions. That 61% of the companies that experienced data breaches in 2017 employ fewer than 1,000 people underscores, we believe, the opportunity that a start-up such as Data443 might have in success. The companys founder and CEO has significant IT experience, which the company likely can leverage to promote and grow its technology products. As noted earlier, there are many small and mid-sized companies that cannot maintain internal IT controls and need to rely on third-party solutions such as those that Data443 provides. The company has accomplished a lot in a short period of time, but likely is not on the radar screen yet for most investors. If Data443 can deliver on the revenue run rate of $8 million to $10 million and continue to grow the company from that base, we would expect more investors to notice and pay attention. About LandStar, Inc. LandStar, Inc. ( OTCPK: LDSR ), through its wholly owned subsidiary Data443 Risk Mitigation, Inc. , enables secure data  across local devices, network, cloud, and databases  at rest and in flight. ClassiDocs, the companys award-winning data classification and governance technology, provides GDPR compliance and DSAR management coupled with DLP, CASB, SIEM, and cloud solutions to provide user-enabled, governance-enabled, up-to-date security for every data point, every time. The WordPress-based GDPR Framework enables organizations of all sizes to comply with the GDPR and other privacy frameworks. ClassiDocs for Blockchain provides an active implementation for blockchain transactions from inadvertent disclosure and data leaks. For more information, please visit www.data443.com . Forward-Looking Statements The statements contained in this release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as may, will, could, should, expect, plan, project, intend, anticipate, believe, estimate, predict, potential, pursuant, target, continue, and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. The statements in this press release that are not historical statements, including statements regarding LandStars plans, objectives, future opportunities for LandStars services, future financial performance and operating results and any other statements regarding LandStars future expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, financial conditions, assumptions or future events or performance that are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond LandStars control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to the operations of LandStar; results of litigation, settlements and investigations; actions by third parties, including governmental agencies; volatility in customer spending; global economic conditions; ability to hire and retain personnel; loss of, or reduction in business with, key customers; difficulty with growth and in integrating acquisitions; product liability; cybersecurity risk; and, anti-takeover measures in our charter documents.

Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained, from time-to-time, in LandStars filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and postings on the OTC Markets news and information website. LandStar undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement.

Data443, ClassiDocs ARALOC are registered trademarks of Data443 Risk Mitigation, Inc.

All product names, trademarks, and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners. All company, product and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, trademarks, and brands does not imply endorsement.

All other trademarks cited herein are the property of their respective owners.

For Further Information

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Signup for our Product Newsletter: https://www.data443.com/contact/ Main Press Contact:

Susan Payne

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Porter LeVay & Rose, Inc

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212-564-4700 Photos accompanying this announcement are available at: //www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d09a3cff-9fe8-4604-b0fd-c4a8925b80fb //www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4db6d8f5-d343-48e3-a173-9d60d2d370ef

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[August 21, 2018]

Launch of BC Hydro's Seven Electric Vehicle Fast-Chargers on Vancouver Island

SIDNEY, BC, Aug. 21, 2018 /CNW/ - Electric, hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles decrease greenhouse gas emissions and in some cases can significantly reduce fuel costs. Canada continues to make strategic investments to help Canadians make greener choices and to encourage widespread adoption of electric and alternative fuel vehicles.

Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Amarjeet Sohi, was in Sidney, B.C., today to celebrate the launch of BC Hydro's seven electric vehicle fast-chargers on Vancouver Island. They will allow electric vehicle drivers to travel between Ucluelet, Campbell River and Sidney without range anxiety.

The seven locations are now open to the public:







$1.05-million

The funding builds on the Government's $182.5-million total investment to grow Canada's electric and alternative fuel vehicle infrastructure so that using electric and alternative fuel vehicles is easier and more convenient for Canadians. Canada looks forward to showcasing these and other clean technology solutions when it welcomes the world's energy leaders to Vancouver, British Columbia, in May 2019 for the Clean Energy Ministerial and Mission Innovation meetings.

Through Canada's national energy dialogue, Generation Energy, Canadians made it clear that building electric vehicles and lower-carbon fossil fuel alternatives is not a luxury but a necessity for Canada's low-carbon future. Our government continues to support green infrastructure projects that will create jobs, advance Canada's clean future and help us realize our domestic and international climate change goals.

Quotes

"We are paving the way to a low-carbon future by investing in green infrastructure. The opening of these stations is an important step toward lowering emissions and making electric and alternative fuel vehicles a viable travel option for British Columbians."

Amarjeet Sohi

Canada's Minister of Natural Resources

"We are proud to be making clean transportation more accessible for British Columbians by adding to one of Canada's largest networks of charging and fuelling stations. Later this fall, our government will be releasing a Clean Growth Strategy which will integrate the Province's climate change, energy and economic development goals, including actions to further increase the usage of zero-emission vehicles and charging infrastructure."

George Heyman

British Columbia's Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Strategy

"BC Hydro is excited to add seven new stations on Vancouver Island to our growing system of fast-chargers across the province. Electric vehicles are a great option for British Columbians looking to reduce their impact on the environment because we generate 98 percent clean electricity. They also help lower fuel costs for drivers by 75 percent."

Chris O'Riley

President and Chief Operating Officer, BC Hydro

Related Information

Government of Canada Supports Electric and Alternative Fuel Vehicle Infrastructure in B.C.

Electric Charging and Alternative Fuelling Stations Locator

Go Green With Electric Vehicles

Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Demonstrations

Follow us on Twitter: @NRCan (http://twitter.com/nrcan)

SOURCE Natural Resources Canada
[August 21, 2018] Qolsys Releases IQ Panel 2 Plus With Dual SRF Featuring PowerG and S-Line Encrypted 319.5

SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Qolsys, the leading provider of security and smarthome technology, announced today the new IQ Panel 2 Plus will be available Wednesday, August 29. IQ Panel 2 Plus supports Dual SRF featuring PowerG's industry leading range, remote programming and encryption with a radio compatible with Qolsys S-Line encrypted sensors and other legacy sensors that utilize the 319.5 MHz protocol. "PowerG takes range off the table while bringing a powerful commercial technology to the residential market including two-way communication, remote access, and banking level frequency hopping encryption," says Mike Hackett, SVP Sales and Marketing. "Dual SRF allows dealers to deploy PowerG while still providing support for the legacy devices currently installed inside the home, eliminating replacement costs associated with wireless translators and life safety devices. Dual SRF delivers the most comprehensive sensor portfolio bridging the past with the future of security." The IQ Panel 2 Plus ships with Qolsys' 2.2 software, including several new features like Install Wizard; Live View, the ability to view Alarm.com video cameras on the screen; and Live Answer, giving end users the ability to answer their SkyBell Video Doorbell from the IQ Panel's 7" HD interface inside the home. Live Answer will also work with Live View cameras that have voice capability, such as the Alarm.com 522 indoor camera. "Live View and Live Answer are exciting new features," says Anne Ferguson, Vice President of Marketing at Alarm.com. "Alarm.com fully integrates the doorbell camera with the security system and other connected devices to give our service provider partners a unique solution to bring to their customers. Seeing who is at the door from the IQ Panel, in addition to viewing and responding through the Alarm.com app, adds yet another engaging capability to the solution." The IQ Panel 2 Plus includes all the award-winning features of the IQ Panel 2: 7" HD Touchscreen, modern form factor and user experience, 5MP Panel Camera, Bluetooth Touchless Disarming, LTE and Wi-Fi Dual Path Communication, Built-in Glassbreak Sensor, best-in-class security and Z-Wave diagnostic tools and will now include the following new features: Dual SRF The IQ Panel 2 Plus simultaneously supports two radio security frequencies. Dual SRF featuring PowerG and 319.5 MHz (Qolsys S-Line/legacy Intelogix) allows dealers to retain installed sensors while adding and upgrading as needed with PowerG, the industry's most robust sensor line to address common range and functionality demands. For instances when life safety devices are already installed, the IQ Panel 2 Plus will allow dealers to retain these devices without incurring the cost, install time and maintenance of third party translators. Dual SRF featuring PowerG is designed to address the millions of legacy systems installed while reducing costs associated with upgrading to the next generation security and IoT platforms.



Starting August 29, the IQ Panel 2 Plus with PowerG and S-Line Encrypted 319.5 will be available with the choice of Verizon, AT&T or Telus LTE at Qolsys distribution locations across the US and Canada. Coming soon, two additional versions of the IQ Panel 2 Plus will be released and will support PowerG with 345 MHz (Honeywell/2Gig) and PowerG with 433 MHz (DSC).

PowerG The IQ Panel 2 Plus includes PowerG, the revolutionary 2-way wireless communication technology with an unprecedented line-up of features designed to decrease operational costs for dealers while providing ultimate reliability for end users. Multichannel, Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum technology enables the system to hop between wireless frequency channels to ensure the seamless transmission of secure communications between the devices and the control panel.

Adaptive Transmission Power translates into up to eight years of battery life for the system's devices and peripherals, reducing battery- replacement incurred costs.

High transmission ranges allow for devices to reliably communicate 4 times further than legacy wireless protocols, reducing the cost of installing additional repeaters to service larger premises.

128 bit AES encryption offers exceptionally high level of protection against analysis tools and digital attacks. On June 5, Qolsys announced that IQ Panels with PowerG were certified by Underwriters Laboratories and earned the UL Listed Mark, meeting UL's nationally recognized standards for safety. Live View Streaming live camera feeds on the IQ Panel 2 Plus is a Qolsys exclusive in the Alarm.com ecosystem. "Live View" allows supported Alarm.com indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi cameras to be viewed on the Panel's 7" HD resolution touchscreen. With a wide range of available Alarm.com video devices, dealers have expanded options for their customers to become even more connected to their smart homes and opportunities to create additional RMR. Live Answer An industry first, "Live Answer" streams the Skybell Video Doorbell direct to the IQ Panel's 7" HD touchscreen. This innovative feature replicates the mobile app experience enabling users to answer the video doorbell, remote door lock/unlock, while continuing to provide doorbell call and motion notifications sent to your smart device. Both Live View and Live Answer are part of a soft launch available to all Alarm.com dealers. Install Wizard The Install Wizard included in the 2.2 software streamlines installation by taking an installer step-by-step through set up ensuring key functions and features are properly configured before the installer leaves the home. The already fast and intuitive installation process is made even easier ensuring every install is consistent and follows best practices, resulting in a better install experience and reduced truck roles and long-term support. The new user-friendly wizard will also enable dealers to offer (DIY) self-installations, further reducing creation costs for new and current customers that need to be upgraded to LTE. Best-in-class integration with Alarm.com will increase indoor, outdoor and doorbell camera sales and improve usage and satisfaction. The IQ Panel and a full line of security and home automation devices is available today, visit www.qolsys.com to learn more, become a dealer, or find a dealer in your area. Live View Supported ADC Video Cameras Supported cameras include video only models: ADC-V722W, ADC-VC825, ADC-VC826, ADC-VC725, ADC-VC726 and the following models that also include two-way audio: ADC-V521IR, ADC-V522IR About Qolsys Qolsys is a Silicon Valley based security and smarthome manufacturer providing state of the art residential and small business solutions to security and home automation dealers across North America. Its flagship product, the IQ Panel 2, is a 7" HD touchscreen tablet with built in 5 MP Camera, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon SOC with multiple radios packed into an ultra-thin form factor with interactive services powered by Alarm.com. The IQ Panel features several industry firsts, including a 7-inch touchscreen with an intuitive graphical swipe-based user interface for security and smart home control, Dual Path and cloud connectivity over LTE and Wi-Fi for intelligent redundancy, reliability and speed. It also features a built-in panel camera to capture disarm photos, Z-Wave Plus support for lifestyle devices; two-way voice, standard 24-hour lithium-ion battery, UL-rated siren, a built in Glass Break Detector, the ability to view live video cameras on the screen, powerful system health diagnostics and over the air SW updates. The IQ Panel is the most powerful security and smarthome solution you can buy. The IQ Panel 2 was named a Top 30 Award Winner by SSI for 2017 and previously earned the prestigious 2016 TechVision Challenge award, a form of "Best in Show" at the Electronic Security Expo (ESX). Qolsys IQ Panel platforms are powered by Android and are tightly integrated with Alarm.com's market-leading connected home services platform, supporting interactive security, video monitoring, energy management and home automation, resulting in increased conversion, end-user satisfaction, fewer dealer truck rolls, improved customer support and decreased total cost of ownership. Learn more at http://qolsys.com/. Media Contacts Ken Arnold, Director of Communications, Qolsys  ken.arnold@qolsys.com, Ph: 855-476-5797 View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/qolsys-releases-iq-panel-2-plus-with-dual-srf-featuring-powerg-and-s-line-encrypted-319-5--300700235.html SOURCE Qolsys, Inc.

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[August 21, 2018] 5G Drives New Era of Technology Innovation

BELLEVUE, Wash., Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 5G will lead to a new era of technology innovation as it transforms how people and things interact in the world even as LTE capabilities expand to serve billions of subscribers.

5G Americas, the industry trade association and voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas, announced today the publication of LTE to 5G: The Global Impact of Wireless Innovation, a comprehensive 5G Americas technology whitepaper authored by Rysavy Research, clearly explaining the technical advances for the transformation of networks from LTE to 5G. LTE, the mobile broadband foundation for 5G, today with 600 network deployments worldwide (Telegeography), has an ever-expanding road of development even as new innovations for 5G have been designed to integrate with LTE networks. By 2022, Ovum forecasts 9.2 billion cellular connections, including 5.6 billion LTE and 400 million 5G connections. 2018 saw the completion of the first 5G standard in an initial version of 3GPP Release 15, making tremendous strides in defining new technical capabilities for 5G and allowing network deployment to begin as soon as late 2018. The flexible capabilities of 5G enable a wide range of business models, including fixed-wireless access, enhanced mobile broadband, and IoT support. The innovative 5G technical standard provides the specifications for harnessing new millimeter Wave (mmWave) spectrum that has never before been used for cellular technology communications. Chris Pearson, President, 5G Americas commented, The industry is rapidly changing and responding to the surge of applications, services and machines that consume even more wireless data. Operators and vendors are collaboratively working towards efficient, faster, and higher-capacity networks for the realization of 5G. By supporting new types of applications and flexible use of spectrum, 5G will provide the communications foundation for a future world of augented and virtual reality, autonomous cars, smart cities, wearable computers, Artificial Intelligence (AI), an everything-connected environment, and innovations not yet conceived. 5G IoT capabilities will connect every type of conceivable device, leading to better health, economic gains, and other numerous advantages.



5G will require low, mid and high band spectrum to fulfill its promise. By harnessing new spectrum, such as mmWave bands above 24 GHz, 5G will eventually be able to access more than ten times as much spectrum than is currently available for cellular operation. Furthermore, using radio bands of hundreds of MHz will result in multi-Gbps of throughput capabilities, stated Peter Rysavy, President of Rysavy Research and the papers author. 5G Americas whitepaper LTE to 5G: The Global Impact of Wireless Innovation captures the scope of the most important wireless developments in 2018, such as:

Completion of 3GPP Release 15 standard  5G New Radio with massive Multiple-Input Multiple Output (MIMO), scalable-width sub-channels; carrier aggregation; cloud Radio-Access Network (RAN) capability; network slicing; and co-existence with LTE

Fiber densification  hundreds of thousands of new small cells to support 5G, 3.5 GHz, and Licensed Assisted Access (LAA).

Utilization of new spectrum resources above 6 GHz for wider channels with correspondingly faster data rates, capacity gains or a combination thereof

Dramatic advantages provided by LTE-Advanced with continued improvements including Gigabit LTE, multiple methods for expanding capacity in unlicensed spectrum, new IoT capabilities, vehicle-based communications, enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (eICIC), Self-Organizing Networks (SON), and Enhanced Coordinated Multi Point (eCoMP)

Importance of low, mid, and high-band spectrum for 5G, particularly licensed spectrum

LTE operating in unlicensed spectrum

Emergence of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) tools and architectures to reduce network costs, simplify deployment of new services, reduce time for deployment, and scale networks -- all enabling 5G

Wide-scale adoption of IoT driven by improved LTE support such as low-cost and low-power modems, enhanced coverage, higher capacity and service-layer standardization. Further developed in 5G with mission-critical communications capability and network slicing LTE to 5G: The Global Impact of Wireless Innovation was written collaboratively by Peter Rysavy of Rysavy Research and 5G Americas member companies and is available for free download along with a PowerPoint presentation on the 5G Americas website. About 5G Americas: The Voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas 5G Americas is an industry trade organization composed of leading telecommunications service providers and manufacturers. The organization's mission is to advocate for and foster the advancement and full capabilities of LTE wireless technologies and their evolution to 5G, throughout the ecosystem's networks, services, applications and wirelessly connected devices in the Americas. 5G Americas is invested in developing a connected wireless community while leading 5G development for all the Americas. 5G Americas is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. More information is available at www.5gamericas.org or Twitter @5GAmericas. 5G Americas' Board of Governors members include: AT&T, Cable & Wireless, Cisco, CommScope, Ericsson, Intel, Kathrein, Mavenir, Nokia, Qualcomm Incorporated, Samsung, Shaw Communications Inc., Sprint, T-Mobile US, Inc., Telefonica and WOM. Rysavy Research has been analyzing and reporting on wireless technologies for twenty-five years. See http://www.rysavy.com Contact:

5G Americas

Vicki Livingston

Vicki.Livingston@5gamericas.org

+1 414 688 9000

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[August 21, 2018] Unissant EVP Ken Bonner promoted to President

HERNDON, Va., Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Following the recent move to a new corporate headquarters, Unissant continues to make changes for the future by promoting EVP Kenneth Bonner to the leadership role of President & Chief Growth Officer. I am thrilled to have a co-pilot! said Manish Malhotra, CEO of Unissant. Kens experience and focus will help navigate Unissant forward as we embrace the next phase of our evolution.

Ken has been involved in healthcare for over 35 years, focusing on Health IT for over 20 and spending the last 10 in the Federal contracting arena with large and small businesses. He has been deeply engaged in supporting numerous industry professional organizations like HIMSS, PSC, AFCEA and currently sits on the Executive Committee of the Industry Advisory Council as the Healthcare Portfolio Leader (part of ACT-IAC). Prior to joining Unissant he was the VP, Federal Health for Standard Technology, Inc. (STI), securing new business in the areas of medical coding, clinical documentation improvement and medical administrative staffing support for Navy Medicine and all of DHA. Before hat he was the Military Health Lead for Accenture Federal Services, focused on the growth of their Military Health practice and led their pursuit of the DHMSM Program (DoD EHR Modernization Program, now MHS Genesis).



He retired as a captain in the Medical Services Corp from the U.S. Air Force in 1997 with more than 17 years of health care administration experience. In 1996, he moved to the Medical Advanced Technology Management Office (MATMO), where he was the director of the telemedicine program development. He was the Director of Telemedicine as well as director of provider network management for DoD TRICARE Region 6 office, where he was one of the core members who started TRICARE for the MHS and awarded the first managed-care support contract. He is a Fellow of the American College of Health Care Executives (FACHE). About Unissant Inc.

Unissant is an advanced data analytics and business transformation services provider with expertise in healthcare and health IT, finance, national security, and energy. The company delivers innovative solutions to assist government agencies and private sector businesses in tackling their biggest challenges. Founded in 2006, Unissant is a prime contractor on various government vehicles such as CIO-SP3, GSA PSS, GSA HealthIT SIN, and GSA 8(a) STARS II and is a CMMI Level 3, ISO 9001 & 27001 certified company headquartered in Herndon, Virginia with a satellite office in San Antonio, Texas. In March 2017, Unissant received the Government Project of the Year award by Small and Emerging Contractors Advisory Forum (SECAF).

Contact:

John Meagher

jmeagher@unissant.com

1 703-889-8500 135

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[August 21, 2018] Masy BioServices to Distribute New Products

PEPPERELL, Mass., Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Masy BioServices announced it has added products by SenseAnywhere and Insatech to its selective portfolio of products and services. "We are excited about our partnerships with SenseAnywhere and Insatech," said Laurie Masiello, President, Masy BioServices. "The addition of these precision products to our portfolio confirms our continued commitment to offer our customers the highest quality products available." SenseAnywhere, headquartered in The Netherlands, manufactures ultra-low-power, wireless, cloud-based sensors. "SenseAnywhere's turnkey solutions," said Masiello, "are perfect for companies which require a cost-effective monitoring device and insist on precision and reliability." The sensors are easy to install, use and maintain and can measure parameters such as temperature, humidity, CO 2 , and motion. "We decided to partner with Masy BioServices because they are well recognized in the North American market with vast experience in temperature monitoring, calibration, and mapping services," said Tom Heijnen, CEO, Owner, SenseAnywhere. "Masy has a proven track record and supplies services to many renowned customers. We are excited to work with Masy to bring our unique products to North America." Insatech, based in Denmark, has created the Insacal Conductivity Standard to measure water purity. This portable device solves the problems encountered by traditional testing methods by eliminating the need for disposable liquid solutins. "Ultra-pure water compliance is critical to many of our customers' applications," said Masiello. "We chose the Insacal Conductivity Standard because it is the only portable reference standard capable of +/-0.37% cell constant accuracy."



"When we met Masy BioServices' senior management team in 2017, it was clear that Masy and Insatech had much in common," said Jabob Mller, CEO Insatech A/S. "We both strive to be best in class and we both value quality in service with high-end accreditations. We are proud to work with Masy and trust we will have a strong future together." To lease or purchase SenseAnywhere products including AiroSensor, ClimateSensor, AssetSensor, StatusSensor, and AccessPoint, or to purchase Insatech's Insacal Conductivity Standard, visit https://masy.com.

About Masy BioServices Masy BioServices, located in Pepperell, MA, has provided reliable solutions to the life sciences community for over 35 years through an array of services including: calibration of primary standards and critical test equipment, validation and IQ/OQ/PQ of environmental chambers, autoclaves, and thermal warehouse mapping, and lab equipment rental and sales. Masy is a premier cGMP biorepository, offering secure and tightly controlled temperature storage from -196C to 70C for a variety of materials including, pharmaceuticals, cell banks, tissues, compounds, vaccines and medical devices. Press Contact: Lisa Lanzilotti Marketing Manager Masy BioServices (978) 433-6279 x1458 lisa.lanzilotti@masy.com Related Images insacal-conductivity-meter.jpg

Insacal Conductivity Meter senseanywhere-airosensor.jpg

SenseAnywhere AiroSensor Related Links SenseAnywhere Insacal View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/masy-bioservices-to-distribute-new-products-300700216.html SOURCE Masy BioServices

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[August 21, 2018]

Dermavant Sciences Announces Closing of Transaction With GSK for Purchase of Rights to Tapinarof

PHOENIX, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dermavant Sciences, a subsidiary of Roivant Sciences, today announced the closing of its transaction with GSK, executed on July 10, 2018, for the purchase of all global rights to tapinarof, except in China. Tapinarof is an investigational therapeutic aryl hydrocarbon receptor modulating agent (TAMA) for the treatment of psoriasis and atopic dermatitis.



The closing of the transaction occurred on Aug. 20, 2018, and the 150 million initial payment due under the agreement has been paid to GSK.

Tapinarof is a prime example of the Dermavant mission, which is to develop and commercialize novel treatment options that improve patients lives, and we are eager to advance its development, said Jackie Fouse, Ph.D., Executive Chair of Dermavant Sciences.

Tapinarof is an exciting addition to our robust pipeline of dermatology assets, said Vine Ippolito, President and Chief Operating Officer of Dermavant Sciences. Tapinarof represents true innovation in a well-studied molecule, tested in over 600 patients. If approved, tapinarof could prove to be a valuable, first-line treatment option for patients suffering with atopic dermatitis and psoriasis, an area in which no topical new chemical entity has been introduced in decades.







About Dermavant

Dermavant Sciences is a specialty biopharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies to address unmet needs in medical dermatology. Dermavant is dedicated to realizing the full potential of biomedical research and to developing and commercializing novel, first-in-class or best-in-class therapies that improve patients lives.

For more information about Dermavant, please visit www.dermavant.com.

CONTACT:

Kara Stancell

kara.stancell@dermavant.com

520.858.0027

Ric Peterson

ric.peterson@dermavant.com

520.775.3407
[August 21, 2018] ORCL INVESTORS ALERT: Lieff Cabraser Announces Securities Class Action Against Oracle Corporation

The law firm of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP announces that class action litigation has been filed on behalf of investors who purchased or otherwise acquired the publicly traded securities of Oracle Corporation (" Oracle (News - Alert) " or the "Company") (NYSE: ORCL) between May 10, 2017 and March 19, 2018, inclusive (the "Class Period"). If you purchased or otherwise acquired Oracle's publicly traded securities during the Class Period, you may move the Court for appointment as lead plaintiff by no later than October 9, 2018. A lead plaintiff is a representative party who acts on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. Your share of any recovery in the actions will not be affected by your decision of whether to seek appointment as lead plaintiff. You may retain Lieff Cabraser, or other attorneys, as your counsel in the actions. Oracle investors who wish to learn more about the litigation and how to seek appointment as lead plaintiff should click here or contact Sharon M. Lee of Lieff Cabraser toll-free at 1-800-541-7358. Background on the Oracle Securities Class Litigation Oracle, incorporated in Delaware and with headquarters in Redwood City, California, is a multinational technology company. The action alleges that Defendants violated provisions of the Exchange Act by issuing false andmisleading press releases, filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (" SEC (News - Alert) "), and statements during investor and analyst conference calls. Throughout the Class Period, Defendants misrepresented the true drivers of the Company's cloud revenue growth. In particular, Defendants falsely attributed the Company's revenue growth in its cloud segment to a variety of factors and initiatives, including, among other things, Oracle's "unprecedented level of automation and cost savings," as well as the Company being "customer-focused" and "intimate partners with [its] customer." In truth, Oracle drove sales of cloud products using threats and extortive tactics. Among other things, the Company threatened current customers with "audits" of their use of the Company's non-cloud software licenses unless the customers agreed to shift their business to Oracle cloud programs. The use of such tactics concealed the lack of real demand for Oracle's cloud services, making the growth unsustainable and ultimately driving away customers.



Plaintiff alleges the truth was revealed on March 19, 2018, when the Company disclosed that cloud revenue growth had stagnated, and forecasted significantly slower sales growth for its cloud business than its competitors. Specifically, the Company reported that quarterly cloud revenue rose only 32% (half of the average reported quarterly growth over the past two years), and the Company projected further declines in cloud sales growth the following quarter. On this news, Oracle's stock price declined $4.90 per share, or nearly 9.5% per share, on March 20, 2018-the Company's largest single-day stock drop in over five years. Following the March 19 financial disclosures, analysts and market commentators connected Oracle's poor financial performance to its improper sales tactics. Gartner (News - Alert) , Inc.-a leading research and advisory company-observed that Oracle had to rely on coercive practices because its cloud-based offering is not as sophisticated as others on the market. About Lieff Cabraser

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, with offices in San Francisco, New York, Nashville, and Seattle, is a nationally recognized law firm committed to advancing the rights of investors and promoting corporate responsibility. The National Law Journal has recognized Lieff Cabraser as one of the nation's top plaintiffs' law firms for 15 years. In compiling the list, the NLJ examines recent verdicts and settlements and looks for firms "representing the best qualities of the plaintiffs' bar and that demonstrated unusual dedication and creativity." Law360 selected Lieff Cabraser as one of the "Top 50 Law Firms Nationwide for Litigation," highlighting our firm's "laser focus" and noting that Lieff Cabraser routinely finds itself "facing off against some of the largest and strongest defense law firms in the world." The publication separately named our firm one of five "2017 California Powerhouses," the only plaintiffs' firm on the list. Best Lawyers and U.S. News named Lieff Cabraser as a "Law Firm of the Year" from 2012 through 2016, and the firm has received a number of other recent honors, awards, and recognition, including the National Law Journal's "Elite Trial Lawyers," Law360's "Most Feared Plaintiffs' Firms," and Benchmark Litigation's "Top 10 Plaintiffs Firms in America." For more information about Lieff Cabraser and the firm's representation of investors, please visit http://www.lieffcabraser.com. This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180821005693/en/

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[August 21, 2018] Yellow Pages Limited sells RedFlagDeals.com

MONTREAL, Aug. 21, 2018 /CNW Telbec/ - Yellow Pages Limited (TSX: Y) (the "Company") announced today that its wholly owned subsidiary Yellow Pages Digital & Media Solutions Limited has entered into an agreement to sell the assets related to the operation of its RedFlagDeals division to VerticalScope Inc. for a value of $12 million payable in two $6 million tranches, the first on closing the second upon meeting certain conditions. Closing of the transaction should occur on or about August 22, 2018. "The sale of the RedFlagDeals division frees up more resources to devote to creating value and securing our core business. Under the terms of our 10.00% Senior Secured Notes, the net cash proceeds will be included in the next scheduled note redemption payment, on November 30, 2018,"said David A. Eckert, President and Chief Executive Officer.



About Yellow Pages Limited

Yellow Pages Limited (TSX: Y) is a Canadian digital media and marketing company that creates local opportunities for buyers and sellers to interact and transact in the local economy. Yellow Pages holds some of Canada's leading local online properties including YP.ca, Canada411.ca, 411.ca and Bookenda.com. The Company also holds the YP, YP Shopwise, YP Dine, Canada411 and 411 mobile applications and Yellow Pages print directories. In addition, Yellow Pages is a leader in national advertising through its businesses devoted to servicing the marketing needs of large North American brands, including Mediative and JUICE. For more information visit www.corporate.yp.ca.

SOURCE Yellow Pages Limited

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[August 21, 2018] Pebblebrook Hotel Trust Increases Terms of Offer to Merge with LaSalle Hotel Properties

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE: PEB) ("Pebblebrook") today released a letter dated August 21, 2018 to the Board of Trustees of LaSalle Hotel Properties (NYSE: LHO) ("LaSalle") in which Pebblebrook submitted an enhanced merger proposal for a strategic combination with LaSalle. Under the enhanced terms, Pebblebrook has increased the number of LaSalle common shares that may receive $37.80 in cash per share to up to 30% of LaSalle common shares in aggregate, representing a 50% increase in the number of shares that may receive cash compared to Pebblebrook's prior offer. The increased cash component of the Pebblebrook offer provides additional certainty and greater downside protection to LaSalle's shareholders while also increasing the overall value of the offer. This enhanced proposal was unanimously approved by Pebblebrook's Board of Trustees and will remain outstanding following a rejection by LaSalle shareholders of the proposed transaction between LaSalle and affiliates of The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE: BX) ("Blackstone"), which is scheduled to be voted on by LaSalle shareholders on September 6, 2018. The increased Pebblebrook offer provides LaSalle shareholders with the option to elect to receive for each LaSalle common share they own either a) a fixed amount of $37.80 in cash or b) a fixed exchange ratio of 0.92 Pebblebrook common share. Under the increased terms, the maximum amount of LaSalle shares eligible to receive cash is increased from 20% to 30% of the outstanding shares, a 50% increase, in the aggregate subject to pro rata cutbacks. The $37.80 cash option is $4.30 per share, or 13%, higher than the Blackstone cash merger price of $33.50 per share, and represents a strong anchor providing increased downside protection. Based on the closing price per Pebblebrook common share of $39.17 on August 21, 2018, and assuming 30% of the LaSalle common shares receive cash in lieu of Pebblebrook common shares, the implied price of the increased Pebblebrook offer is $36.57, or 9.2%, above the Blackstone take-under price of $33.50. With the increased cash offering, Pebblebrook common shares would have to decline by $4.76, or 12.2%, from today's closing price, in order for the premium of Pebblebrook's offer to be eliminated. The Pebblebrook proposal takes into account the $112 million cost of the termination fee LaSalle agreed to pay to Blackstone. "The terms of our enhanced offer are clearly superior to the Blackstone proposal, as was our prior offer. It provides enhanced certainty to LaSalle's shareholders through the increased fixed-cash portion, which also increases the overall value we are delivering to LaSalle's shareholders," said Jon E. Bortz, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust. "We've recently entered into an agreement to sell certain LaSalle properties in connection with the closing of a Pebblebrook-LaSalle merger. These strategic sales will allow us to continue to focus on properties and markets that are core to our go-forward strategy and also enable us to materially increase the cash component of our offer-and the overall value of our offer-without increasing our leverage compared to our prior proposal. For those who receive Pebblebrook shares, our offer continues to provide significant long-term financial and strategic upside opportunity, as well as increased dividend income, neither of which can be matched by the Blackstone take-under. The proceeds from the asset sales will effectively be delivered back to LaSalle shareholders as a benefit through the increased 30% cash component of our proposal. This proposal is not contingent on those property sales, and Pebblebrook is prepared to move forward immediately upon acceptance of our proposal by LaSalle's Board. We strongly encourage LaSalle's Board to engage in discussions with us to execute a merger agreement and seize this unique opportunity to combine our two companies to create the industry leader that shareholders so strongly desire." Raymond James and BofA Merrill Lynch are acting as financial advisors, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP is acting as legal counsel and Okapi Partners LLC is serving as information agent to Pebblebrook in connection with the proposed transaction. For more information, please visit investor.pebblebrookhotels.com. The full text of Pebblebrook's letter to LaSalle's Board of Trustees dated August 21, 2018 follows. Letter from Pebblebrook to LaSalle dated August 21, 2018 August 21, 2018 Michael D. Barnello

Stuart L. Scott

Denise M. Coll

Jeffrey T. Foland

Darryl Hartley-Leonard

Jeffrey L. Martin

Donald A. Washburn LaSalle Hotel Properties

7550 Wisconsin Avenue, 10th Floor

Bethesda, MD 20814 Ladies and Gentlemen, The commitment of the Board of Trustees of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust to executing a strategic combination with LaSalle is as strong as ever, and we are confident that a combination of our two companies will deliver both immediate value that is far superior to the proposed all-cash Blackstone transaction and, we believe, exceptional long-term upside potential. Therefore, we are providing this new, enhanced merger proposal today with a materially increased cash option component and urge you to carefully and completely consider the merits and benefits of this strategic combination to LaSalle shareholders and accept our proposal. Under our enhanced offer, LaSalle shareholders will receive consideration of substantially greater value at closing than under the Blackstone proposal and will also have the option to participate in the value creation of the combined company going forward. Revised Terms of Proposal and Form of Consideration: Each LaSalle shareholder will have the option to elect to receive for each LaSalle common share owned either a) a fixed amount of $37.80 in cash or b) a fixed exchange ratio of 0.92 Pebblebrook common share. An increased maximum of 30% of outstanding LaSalle common shares may be exchanged for cash (and elections of cash will be subject to pro rata cutbacks if holders of more than 30% of LaSalle common shares elect cash). Assuming LaSalle shareholders receive cash for 30% of the shares, the implied price of our offer now represents the following premiums to the Blackstone price: $3.07 per share, or 9.2%, based on the closing price of Pebblebrook common shares on August 21, 2018

$2.79 per share, or 8.3%, based on the 5-day VWAP of Pebblebrook common shares on August 21, 2018 1

$2.77 per share, or 8.3%, based on the 30-day VWAP of Pebblebrook common shares on August 21, 2018 2

$3.15 per share, or 9.4%, based on the 60-day VWAP of Pebblebrook common shares on August 21, 2018 3 ; and

; and $2.52 per share, or 7.5%, based on the 90-day VWAP of Pebblebrook common shares on August 21, 20184 The fixed cash price of $37.80 is $4.30, or 13%, above the Blackstone price of $33.50. The new 30% cash cap is a 50% increase in the potential cash consideration compared to our prior proposal, which is an aggregate increase in the cash consideration of approximately $420 million. This increased cash component provides LaSalle shareholders with additional certainty and greater downside protection, as well as increased overall value. Moreover, LaSalle common shareholders who exchange their LaSalle common shares for Pebblebrook common shares will do so tax-free compared to a taxable cash exchange. Since LaSalle executed its merger agreement with Blackstone on May 20, 2018, lodging industry performance has continued to improve and investor support for our merger proposal has been overwhelming. As we are sure you have learned through your conversations with LaSalle shareholders, it seems there is virtually no support from them for the existing agreement with Blackstone. LaSalle's shares have consistently traded at a substantial premium to the Blackstone price because LaSalle shareholders deem Pebblebrook's offer as significantly more attractive. In addition, Pebblebrook's shares have continued to trade at levels consistent with providing LaSalle shareholders with a very significant premium to the Blackstone price, based on our proposal, as described in detail above. Due to the substantial cash portion of our enhanced offer, which is fixed at $37.80 per share, in order for the Blackstone transaction price to be equivalent to Pebblebrook's proposal, Pebblebrook's common shares would have to decline by $4.76, or 12.2%, from today's closing price. Given the terms of our revised proposal, the rationale for agreeing to a merger with Pebblebrook is more compelling today than ever before. Our offer affords you, as the LaSalle Board, an opportunity and ability to provide increased value to LaSalle shareholders by accepting a superior proposal which is clearly in their best interest and which they have plainly communicated is what they desire. On June 11, 2018, we provided you with a merger agreement essentially identical to the Blackstone proposal, adapted only to reflect the superior economics of our offer of the same date and our merger structure. We remain willing to work with you to finalize that merger agreement, changed to reflect the increase in the cash component of the merger consideration from 20% to 30%. Working together, we believe we can complete a transaction within the next 75 to 90 days, including receiving approvals from shareholders of each company within that timeframe. Our ability to move quickly to complete a transaction, coupled with the significantly increased cash component of this enhanced offer, provides LaSalle's shareholders with a significant premium to the Blackstone transaction as well as a high degree of certainty with a low level of risk deemed completely acceptable by your shareholders. The Pebblebrook offer is a viable superior alternative and is available for you to accept. We firmly believe that LaSalle shareholders will readily approve a strategic combination of the two companies on the terms outlined in our proposal if you give them a chance to do so. We urge you to do so now. There is no reason to wait for the Blackstone merger proposal to be rejected by LaSalle's shareholders. Nevertheless, should you not choose to move forward with us now, our revised offer for a strategic combination of our two companies will remain available-for the benefit of LaSalle shareholders-on the same terms, following a rejection of the Blackstone proposal by LaSalle shareholders. We look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely yours, /s/ Jon E. Bortz

Chairman, President & CEO

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust Exhibit A Summary of Key Terms of Non-Binding Proposed Combination of

Pebblebrook Hotel Trust ("Pebblebrook") and LaSalle Hotel Properties ("LaSalle") 1. Merger Consideration (cash or shares; maximum of 30% of LaSalle common shares will receive cash): For each LaSalle common share held, each LaSalle shareholder may elect to receive: $37.80 in cash; or a fixed exchange ratio of 0.92 Pebblebrook common share

A maximum of 30% of the outstanding LaSalle shares will receive cash and shareholders' elections of cash will be subject to pro rata cutbacks in the event holders of more than 30% of LaSalle shares elect cash

Pebblebrook to exchange new preferred shares for LaSalle's existing preferred shares (with substantially identical terms) 2. Management: Pebblebrook senior executives to manage combined company 3. Financing Sources (no financing contingencies): Pebblebrook to assume or repay LaSalle's term loans and first mortgage loans 4. Due Diligence (no diligence contingencies): Proposal is not contingent on further due diligence 5. Representations, Warranties and Covenants (customary and reciprocal): Customary and reciprocal to both LaSalle and Pebblebrook 6. Break-up Fee: $112.0 million 7. Pebblebrook Board Approval: Pebblebrook's Board of Trustees has approved the terms contained herein 8. Above terms subject to the following assumptions and conditions: Termination of the Blackstone agreement and concurrent execution of a definitive merger agreement

No payments or vesting under change in control severance agreements for Pebblebrook's executive officers This summary is non-binding and neither party shall be under any legal obligation concerning a merger transaction unless and until each party executes a definitive merger agreement. About Pebblebrook Hotel Trust Pebblebrook Hotel Trust is a publicly traded real estate investment trust ("REIT") organized to opportunistically acquire and invest primarily in upper upscale, full-service hotels located in urban markets in major gateway cities. The Company owns 28 hotels, with a total of 6,973 guest rooms. The Company owns hotels located in 9 states and the District of Columbia, including: Los Angeles, California (Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and West Hollywood); San Diego, California; San Francisco, California; Washington, DC; Coral Gables, Florida; Naples, Florida; Buckhead, Georgia; Boston, Massachusetts; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Nashville, Tennessee; Columbia River Gorge, Washington; and Seattle, Washington. For more information, please visit us at www.pebblebrookhotels.com and follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) at @PebblebrookPEB. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION This communication does not constitute an offer to buy or solicitation of an offer to sell any securities. This communication relates to a proposal which Pebblebrook has made for a business combination transaction with LaSalle. In furtherance of this proposal and subject to future developments, Pebblebrook (and, if a negotiated transaction is agreed, LaSalle) may file one or more registration statements, proxy statements, tender or exchange offer statements, prospectuses or other documents with the SEC (News - Alert) . This communication is not a substitute for any proxy statement, registration statement, tender or exchange offer statement, prospectus or another document Pebblebrook or LaSalle may file with the SEC in connection with the proposed transaction. INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS OF PEBBLEBROOK AND LASALLE ARE URGED TO READ ANY SUCH PROXY STATEMENT, REGISTRATION STATEMENT, TENDER OR EXCHANGE OFFER STATEMENT, PROSPECTUS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY IF AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE AS THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION. Any definitive proxy statement or prospectus (if and when available) will be delivered to shareholders of LaSalle or Pebblebrook, as applicable. Investors and security holders will be able to obtain free copies of these documents (if and when available) and other documents filed with the SEC by Pebblebrook through the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov. Pebblebrook or LaSalle and their respective trustees and executive officers and other members of management and employees may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies in respect of the proposed transaction. You can find information about Pebblebrook's executive officers and trustees in Pebblebrook's definitive proxy statement filed with the SEC on April 27, 2018. You can find information about LaSalle's executive officers and trustees in LaSalle's definitive proxy statement filed with the SEC on March 22, 2018. Additional information regarding the interests of such potential participants will be included in one or more registration statements, proxy statements, tender or exchange offer statements or other documents filed with the SEC if and when they become available. You may obtain free copies of these documents using the sources indicated above. In connection with the proposed merger transaction between LaSalle and affiliates of Blackstone, which Pebblebrook opposes (the "Proposed BRE Merger"), LaSalle filed a definitive proxy statement with the SEC on July 30, 2018 (the "LaSalle Proxy Statement"). On July 30, 2018, Pebblebrook filed a definitive proxy statement with the SEC in opposition that proposed merger transaction (the "Pebblebrook Proxy Statement"). This communication is not a substitute for the LaSalle Proxy Statement or the Pebblebrook Proxy Statement or for any other document that LaSalle or Pebblebrook have filed or may file with the SEC or send to LaSalle shareholders in connection with the Proposed BRE Merger. BEFORE MAKING ANY VOTING DECISION, INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS OF LASALLE ARE URGED TO READ THE LASALLE PROXY STATEMENT, THE PEBBLEBROOK PROXY STATEMENT AND OTHER DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT PEBBLEBROOK, LASALLE, THE PROPOSED BRE MERGER AND RELATED MATTERS. Investors and security holders can obtain free copies of the LaSalle Proxy Statement, the Pebblebrook Proxy Statement and other documents filed by LaSalle or Pebblebrook with the SEC through the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov. Copies of the documents filed by LaSalle with the SEC are also available free of charge on LaSalle's website at www.lasallehotels.com, or by contacting LaSalle's Investor Relations Department at (301) 941-1500. Copies of the documents filed by Pebblebrook with the SEC are also available free of charge on Pebblebrook's website at www.pebblebrookhotels.com, or by contacting Pebblebrook's Investor Relations at (240) 507-1330. LaSalle and its trustees and certain of its executive officers may be considered participants in the solicitation of proxies from LaSalle's shareholders concerning the Proposed BRE Merger under the rules of the SEC. Information about the trustees and executive officers of LaSalle is set forth in LaSalle's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017, which was filed with the SEC on February 20, 2018, LaSalle's proxy statement for its 2018 annual meeting of shareholders, which was filed with the SEC on March 22, 2018, and in subsequent documents filed by LaSalle with the SEC. Additional information regarding persons who may be deemed participants in the proxy solicitations and a description of their direct and indirect interests, by security holdings or otherwise, is included in the LaSalle Proxy Statement and may be included in other relevant materials to be filed with the SEC. Pebblebrook and its trustees and executive officers and other members of management and employees may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies in respect of the Proposed BRE Merger. You can find information about Pebblebrook's executive officers and trustees in Pebblebrook's definitive proxy statement filed with the SEC on April 27, 2018. You may obtain free copies of this document as described above. This document shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. No offering of securities shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Forward-Looking Statements This communication may include "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding Pebblebrook's offer to acquire LaSalle, its financing of the proposed transaction, its expected future performance (including expected results of operations and financial guidance), and the combined company's future financial condition, operating results, strategy and plans. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of the words "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "should," "could," "would," "may," "will," "believes," "estimates," "potential," "target," "opportunity," "tentative," "positioning," "designed," "create," "predict," "project," "seek," "ongoing," "upside," "increases" or "continue" and variations or similar expressions. These statements are based upon the current expectations and beliefs of management and are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties that change over time and could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. These assumptions, risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, assumptions, risks and uncertainties discussed in Pebblebrook's most recent annual or quarterly report filed with the SEC and assumptions, risks and uncertainties relating to the proposed transaction, as detailed from time to time in Pebblebrook's and LaSalle's filings with the SEC, which factors are incorporated herein by reference. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements made in this communication are set forth in other reports or documents that Pebblebrook may file from time to time with the SEC, and include, but are not limited to: (i) the ultimate outcome of any possible transaction between Pebblebrook and LaSalle, including the possibilities that LaSalle will reject a transaction with Pebblebrook, (ii) the ultimate outcome and results of integrating the operations of Pebblebrook and LaSalle if a transaction is consummated, (iii) the ability to obtain regulatory approvals and meet other closing conditions to any possible transaction, including the necessary shareholder approvals, and (iv) the risks and uncertainties detailed by LaSalle with respect to its business as described in its reports and documents filed with the SEC. All forward-looking statements attributable to Pebblebrook or any person acting on Pebblebrook's behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any of these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. Pebblebrook undertakes no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this communication or to reflect actual outcomes. For additional information or to receive press releases via email, please visit our website at www.pebblebrookhotels.com.







______________________________ 1 Premium based on the 5-day volume-weighted average price per Pebblebrook common share on August 21, 2018 2 Premium based on the 30-day volume-weighted average price per Pebblebrook common share on August 21, 2018 3 Premium based on the 60-day volume-weighted average price per Pebblebrook common share on August 21, 2018 4 Premium based on the 90-day volume-weighted average price per Pebblebrook common share on August 21, 2018

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180821005705/en/

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Google's location-tracking practices may land the tech giant in hot water legally, as the company is now facing a lawsuit as well as increased scrutiny from Washington.

Following reports last week that Google was still tracking the movements of users even after they turned off the Location History feature, a San Diego man has filed a lawsuit against the company.

In the suit, reported on by Ars Technica, user Napoleon Patacsil alleges that Google violated both the California Invasion of Privacy Act and the state's constitutional right to privacy when it continued to access and store geolocation information even after he set Location History to off on both his iPhone and Android device.

The suit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, is seeking class action status, potentially meaning other Android and iOS users could join in on the case. The suit is asking the court for injunctive relief as well as unspecified damages.

MORE: Here's the One Gmail Setting You Should Activate Now

Google's location tracking tactics came under scrutiny last week after an Associated Press report found that Google continued to log time-stamped information about user locations even after users specifically turned off that feature. The AP report was based on testing conducted by a Princeton University data researcher. Google says it uses that information to improve user experience. (You can put a stop to that kind of data collection by turning off Web & App Activity, as we detail in this tutorial on stopping Google location tracking.)

Since the AP's initial report, Google has amended its support page to be more upfront about what data it's collecting even after Location History is turned off. According to the updated page, Location History doesn't effect Google Location Services and Find My Device, and that some location data may be saved when you uses services like Maps and Search.

That revision doesn't seem like it's going to satisfy critics of Google's practices. (In fact, the lawsuit specifically calls out Google's updated Location History help page.) In the wake of AP's report, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called for the Federal Trade Commission to look into the company's privacy practices. Blumenthal and another senator, Edward Markey (D-Mass.) had asked for an FTC probe into how Google tracks locations earlier this year, according to the Washington Post.

Google and the FTC reached a settlement in 2011 over the company's privacy practices in the wake of its launch the since-shuttered Google Buzz social network. As part of that settlement, Google was barred from "future privacy misrepresentations" and required to implement a privacy program that could be reviewed over the next 20 years.
This Windows exploit can hijack your PC and there's no fix yet  what to do now [updated]

A new attack on Windows leverages an old web-rendering format to take over PCs, even those running Windows 11. There's no fix from Microsoft yet, but you can still minimize your risk.
(Image credit: Microsoft)

U.S. intelligence agencies have continuously blamed Russia for hacking the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. Most of those hacks targeted Democrats, but now Microsoft said it has evidence that Russia is going after Republican-affiliated think tanks ahead of this year's midterm elections, which supports the idea that Russian hackers are supporting Trump specifically rather than backing the GOP and its allies.

Microsoft said it recently discovered six domains created by Strontium, a hacking group with connections to Russian intelligence agencies, with clear similarities to domains used by the Hudson Institute and International Republican Institute. Several of the domains also faked a vague connection to the U.S. Senate. The company's Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) assumed control over the domains in a bid to prevent their misuse.

The New York Times reported that Strontium hackers planned to use the domains to set up dummy websites that could steal account information from people trying to access their accounts with the Hudson Institute and IRI. (Microsoft's report on its discovery is more vague about what the hackers planned to use the domains for.)

Here's what Microsoft said to summarize its worries about this latest discovery:

"Despite last weeks steps, we are concerned by the continued activity targeting these and other sites and directed toward elected officials, politicians, political groups and think tanks across the political spectrum in the United States. Taken together, this pattern mirrors the type of activity we saw prior to the 2016 election in the United States and the 2017 election in France."

To combat those efforts, the company is expanding its Defending Democracy Program with the Microsoft AccountGuard Initiative. AccountGuard is supposed to analyze threats across personal and professional email accounts; offer "officials, campaigns, and related political organizations" guidance on how to "make their networks and email systems more secure"; and "provide preview releases of new security features."

You can learn more about the Microsoft AccountGuard Initiative in the company's blog post about it. But the gist is that Microsoft will more proactively monitor politically affiliated people and organizations while also educating them on security best practices. Most of these folks aren't going to become security experts, but at least they should prove harder to hack than they would've been without programs like Microsoft's.

Microsoft explained why that matters in its blog post:

"We can only keep our democratic societies secure if candidates can run campaigns and voters can go to the polls untainted by foreign cyberattacks. [...] Democracy requires vigilance and at times action by citizens to protect and maintain it. No individual or company can hope to meet this imperative by itself. We all need to do our part. Were committed to doing our part by helping to protect candidates and campaigns in preserving their voices and votes no matter what party they support."
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Samsung took advantage of Gamescom 2018 today by announcing a pair of affordable Quad HD (QHD aka WQHD, 2560 x 1440 resolution), curved gaming monitors with a 144Hz refresh rate that will be available in 27-inch and 32-inch sizes.

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 20-series graphics card launch was, without a doubt, the main attraction of this year's Gamescom expo. However, that didn't prevent display specialists in the likes of Dell and Samsung from launching their own gaming products. On this occasion, the South Korean electronics giant brought its CJG5 curved gaming monitor out of the oven.

Samsung's new curved gaming monitors target the 27-inch (C27JG5) and 32-inch (C32JG5) size categories. Besides the size difference, both models share an identical three-sided bezel-less design and the same technical specifications. The monitors come equipped with a curved VA (vertical alignment, high contrast) panel with a 1,800R curvature and 178 horizontal and vertical viewing angles that serve the dual purpose of providing a more immersive gaming experience and minimizing eye fatigue. The panels come in a 16:9 ratio with a brightness level of 300cd/m2. The monitors' other attributes include a 144Hz refresh rate, 3000:1 contrast ratio and 4ms GTG (gray to gray) response time.

The Samsung CJG5 has a generous amount of inputs to satisfy even the most demanding gamer. The monitor has two HDMI ports (one each of the new 2.0 standard and older 1.4 standard), one DisplayPort 1.2 output and a headphone jack.

Samsung markets the C27JG5 and C32JG5 as affordable, curved gaming monitors. The manufacturer didn't reveal U.S. pricing for the monitors, but we found them over in the United Kingdom. The 27-inch model goes for 309.99 ($398.73), while the 32-inch model costs 359.99 ($463.04), which isn't a bad deal. Although, it's important to note that while marketed as gaming monitors, they both lack adaptive refresh technologies like Nvidia G-Sync or AMD FreeSync. But then again, beggars can't be choosers. Both models will be globally available in Q3 of this year.
Burglars strike at least six gun stores in two months Federal agents want the public's help in solving a rash of gun store burglaries in the Kansas City area. There have been at least six break-ins over the past two months. The latest was Saturday, when someone stole merchandise from Frontier Justice in Kansas City, Kansas.

Here's another glimpse at the new hotness on local streets, more guns available on the black marketa reminder that robbery is also illegal but still prevalent.Read more:
Mayor Sly James stood alone behind the podium last Friday morning, his voice echoing off the marble walls of what was once the men's smoking lounge at Union Station. It was a familiar spot for the two-term mayor: Alone with an idea he believed was fully baked and ready to go.
Mizzou Sees Hopeful Sign in Enrollment Stats COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) - The University of Missouri's flagship campus in Columbia has recorded its lowest total enrollment in more than a decade, but a surge of freshmen has officials encouraged that the school appears poised to move past the slump that followed race-related protests.

Reactionaries will have a tough time remembering why, exactly, their ire was focused on MU for so many years. There was delight amid admission decline, layoffs and cutbacks and while the University still hasn't returned to former glory . . . Most forget the deets of the drama as the new school year welcomes more students who gleefully take on debt . . . Checkit:








KC Car Crime Spikes

Have a push-button start on your car? Leave your vehicle unlocked? Burglars are watching There have been more and more car burglaries reported across the Kansas City area. Most of those incidents have a single thing in common. "People are leaving their cars unlocked," said Capt. Byron Roberson with the Prairie Village Police Department. Police say that makes them easy targets - burglars don't even have to break a window to steal stuff.

City Hall Crash Report

KCMO motorist blames totaled car on slow response to downed tree A Kansas City motorist blames his totaled car on a slow response to an uprooted tree that fell across Indiana Avenue near 29th Street. City records show a KCPD officer was dispatched to the scene nearly four hours after a 911 caller reported multiple drivers had nearly hit the tree.

Rolling With Suburban Po-Po

Bike units returning to Merriam police Hide Transcript Show Transcript WEBVTT THE BIKE UNIT IS COMING BACK TO THE CITY OF MERRIAM. KELLY: OFFICERS AND BIKES HIT THE PAVEMENT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MONTH. MATT EVANS SHOWS US HOW THESE OFFICERS WILL BE PATROLLING. MATT YOU WILL SEE POLICE OFFICERS AND MERRIAM PATROLLING THE CITY IN A DIFFERENT WAY THAN WHAT YOU MIGHT BE USED TO.

Cash For Followup

Funds for WyCo Conviction Integrity Unit head to vote; community leaders urge approval KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- It's a tentative step forward for Wyandotte County's Conviction Integrity Unit as the release of funding is set for a vote. Religious and community leaders met Monday to push for the unit to be funded immediately. KCK Mayor David Alvey said that could happen within the next week.

Perfect Village Suspected Doggie Vendetta

Prairie Village homeowner says burglary suspect intentionally ran over dog A Prairie Village burglary victim said the suspects who robbed his house ran over his 12-year-old dog as they fled. The burglary happened not far from 79th Street and Mission. "I saw them through the bathroom window," Douglas Welch said. "I came out but I didn't have my glasses, on so I wasn't able to see much."

KC Booze Hound Newz

Tito's Dog Days Of Summer * KC Pet Project (KCPP) Fun news! Tito's Handmade Vodka will be matching donations made to this page up to $7,500 from now until the event. That means every dollar you donate to the page will be matched by our amazing partners at Tito's Handmade Vodka! All donations will go directly toward the care of the pets at our shelter, so please...

Local News Doggy Style

Seg. 1: Remembering Aretha Franklin. Seg. 2: Dog People And Kansas City Aretha Franklin had musical connections in Kansas City. On this episode, we learn about that history and listen to a few of her most iconic songs. Segment 2, beginning at 11:57: Dog owners have needs. Can Kansas City meet them? The modern life of a dog owner presents unique challenges.

Tonight we take a peek at aand her many talents the define the culture. Checkit:Closer to home, these local links are also worth a look:And this is thefor right now . . .




Kansas City Burns Overnight

KC firefighters battle 2 house fires early Tuesday Kansas City firefighters battled two house fires just before 4 a.m. Tuesday.

Pricey Downtown KCMO Parking Pads Sell For $16K A Space

Parking REIT Inc. sells KC lots for $4 million - Kansas City Business Journal You know downtown parking isn't cheap, but a real estate investment trust said it got $4 million for 248 spaces in Kansas City. The Parking REIT Inc. said it sold lots at 1130 Holmes St. and 1101 Cherry St. for a combined $4 million.

Deadly Morning Crash Report

Kansas City Artsy Space

Why One Kansas City Artist Feels Most Productive In A 100-Year-Old Fire Station Sculptor Tom Corbin might be best known in Kansas City for the Firefighter's Memorial sculpture and fountain on West 31st St., but more than 1,000 of his pieces are sprinkled throughout private galleries around the globe. Corbin founded his flagship studio in a sturdy brick fire house at Southwest Blvd.

Local Hit & Run Shame

Devastated family begs for driver to come forward in deadly KC hit-and-run crash KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Family members say 33-year-old Andrea Mitchell had a warm personality and a huge heart. "She was just so sweet. My sister was a really, really good person," Sylvia Mitchell-Maldonado said Monday. Now, her relatives are suddenly mourning and preparing for Mitchell's funeral.

Golden Ghetto Resolution

Police say no danger to community after 7-hour standoff end peacefully in Shawnee Police in Shawnee say a seven-hour standoff came to a peaceful ending early Tuesday morning.

Show-Me The Worst Drivers

Missouri drivers third worst in nation, according to new report Buckle up, Kansas City. According to data collected by SmartAsset, drivers in Missouri are the third worst in the country. The Show Me State tied with California, according the financial technology website, behind Mississippi and Tennessee and ahead of New Mexico.

Nobody Cares About Transparency

Open government training canceled in Kansas Training sessions were canceled in western Kansas, but two other sessions are still on

Kansas City Royals Fanboys Give Up On 2018 And Start Enjoying Baseball Again

Game CXXV Thread - The Royals of Kansas City versus the Devil Rays of St. Petersburg The Kansas City Royals venture beyond the Iron Curtain to face the dastardly Russian squad, dead-set on undermining the fabric of America's pastime with deleterious concepts like openers and bullpens lacking in clear, preassigned roles. The St. Petersburg Devil Rays pose a threat to our freedom, even when just facing a terrible team like these Royals.

Morning hotness and more insights regarding high prices seized upon by low rent brands who want to confuse discount shoppers into buying slightly less expensive social justice rather than just bargain shopping for realz . . .Closer to home, these local news links are also worth a peek: Noah Cyrus, Lil Xan - Live or Die is the song of the day and this is thefor right now . . .
Southern African trader is cautiously optimistic about a free trade area



As the marketing executive of Dairibord Zimbabwe, a stock exchange-listed exporter of food and beverages in Southern Africa, Tracy Mutaviri is looking forward to a bigger market share for her goods when the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) becomes operational.

The economies of scale of serving a larger market will mean her company can trade its beverages and food products beyond its current markets: Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia. The company may even begin to look at countries in West and East Africa.

Ms. Mutaviri is excited about the opportunities that a big market presents, particularly the benefits of standardized procedures for export. She is currently concerned about tariff and nontariff challenges to her business.

We have mostly been affected by nontariff barriers such as obtaining the necessary licences or permits for trading our goods. The process takes a long time, at times as long as three weeks, and this affects export competitiveness, she told Africa Renewal.

Countries have their own individual standards, and exporters must meet each one, she says.

The African Union and the Economic Commission for Africa, two key players in the AfCFTA push, continue to assert that mechanisms will be in place to address these tariff and nontariff barriers.

Still, Ms. Mutaviri adds that cumbersome border documentation requirements and administrative and bureaucratic delays at ports of entry can mean delays of seven days or more. To expedite clearance, she suggests a one-stop border post to harmonise the export documentation process and expedite administrative procedures.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) says that a one-stop border post would integrate different border agencies into one that would, among other benefits, reduce transit times for traders and transporters. It will lead to an effective use of available resources and assets at a lower cost, as well as improved competitiveness of goods due to reduced processing times  which, the WTO assumes, will translate into reduced costs.

Particularly cumbersome is the process of getting the necessary sanitary and phytosanitary documents. Sanitary and phytosanitary measures are plant- and pest-control requirements for exporting certain agro-based products such as tea.

Ms. Mutaviri says existing trade agreements, such as those of the Southern African Customs Union and the Economic Community of West African States, have not lowered trade barriers. In the absence of a trustworthy credit-rating agency and credit-insurance facilities, high credit risk across borders is a major hindrance to trade.

Exporting from a United States dollar-based economy into markets with softer currencies has made our prices uncompetitive amidst high competition with players from the region and from outside the region, she says.

While she embraces a free trade zone, Ms. Mutaviri fears that it may subject her company to increased competition from other African economies, given that Zimbabwes food processing sectors regional competitiveness gap is currently estimated at just 38%.

The AfCFTA, by its size, will also attract players from outside Africa and without a single currency. Countries will not compete on equal footing, she insists.

Ms. Mutaviri notes that the industrialisation agenda being pursued by various African countries may make many governments reluctant to open their borders. She hopes that a free trade area will be implemented in a way that accommodates the different levels of industrialisation in different member states.

The larger or stronger economies, if unchecked, will determine the way the reforms will be implemented, and lesser economies will be forced to adapt to the changes. Therefore, the AfCFTA governance structures must ensure fair representation from less developed economies, she says.

Infrastructural barriers may also pose a big challenge, she adds. According to the African Development Bank Group, Africas infrastructure requires investments of about $93 billion per year over the next decade. Sourcing that amount will be a huge challenge, experts say, and without a solid infrastructure base, especially adequate transportation, it will be difficult to make free trade area a reality.

This article appears in the August-November 2018 issue of Africa Renewal, published by the United Nations.
Abby Williams was welcomed back to the Brevard Chapter luncheon of P.E.O. on Aug. 13. She was a 2016 recipient of a Star Scholarship award of $2,500 and just returned from a summer archaeological dig in Peru. She is now heading back to UNC-Chapel Hill to further her education.

At the same luncheon, Lynda Jayne, chapter vice-president, was delighted to announce the PCE Scholarship award of $2,100 just given to Jessy Whited to assist towards her nursing degree at Blue Ridge Community College, an honor the club was proud to give. These two women are prime examples of how P.E.O. Internationa...
From left to right are Jim Cruickshank, president of Pisgah Forest Rotary; Isaac Owolabi, district governor of Rotary District 7670; and Paul Hoffman, president of Brevard Rotary.

Isaac Owolabi, district governor of Rotary District 7670, made two visits to Transylvania County the week of Aug. 13. Owolabi represents 48 clubs and more than 2,200 members in this Rotary district that includes Transylvania County.

He visited the Brevard Rotary Club's Tuesday noon meeting and the Rotary Club of Pisgah Forest's Wednesday breakfast meeting.

Paul Hoffman, president of the Brevard Club said, "It's an honor to have Governor Isaac here today. He's an inspiration to all of us and his positive energy and commitment to Rotary is contagious."

At each meeting, Owolabi sh...
Brevard High School Class of 1956 will meet on Sept. 8, at 5:30 p.m. at Twin Dragons Restaurant in Brevard. Meals will be either ordered from the menu individually or participants can enjoy their buffet bar.

It is not necessary to pay anything in advance, but call (404) 375-4876 to let the organizers know you will be coming.

...
With a little help from parents and others, on Friday many Brevard College students were taking part in a yearly tradition - moving-in day. (Times photo by Park Baker)

Brevard College kicked off the 2018-2019 academic year last week with a slate of events and activities.

Community representatives, faculty and staff were on hand to help welcome these new members of the Brevard community.

The college's C.R.E.E.K. (College Readiness and Experiential Education Kick-off) Week began Friday as volunteers helped first-year students move into their new campus home.

Welcome events included an Experiential Day on Saturday, when students were able to chose from exploring the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute, Pisgah National Forest, DuPont State Recreationa...
Two events last week revealed some serious transgressions of national security protocol.

The first involved Omarosa Manigault Newman, who actually produced a tape of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly firing her. She made the recording while in the Situation Room in the White House, supposedly one of the most secure venues in Washington, D.C.

Manigault Newman, whom President Trump called vicious but not smart and tweeted Aug. 13, that she was Nasty to people & would constantly miss meetings & work, should never have had a position in the White House. (Apparently the preside...
These ladies were all smiles after applying what they learned in the classroom to the field.

This September, local women interested in learning more about the great outdoors  from an accomplished outdoors-woman  can sign up with Jayne Fought for her women's backpacking class in September.

The course is an introductory class for all ages for women who want to build confidence in trip planning, equipment fit and selection, the art of camp craft, nutrition and cooking, map reading and pretty much anything any lady would need to know to get out on their own.

Her first course was in 2015, and the class has helped a number of women boost their self-reliance over a four week prog...
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM

Tribune News Service

Mohali, August 20

Sleuths of the Special Task Force (STF), Mohali, have arrested two drug peddlers, including a foreign national, with 1-kg heroin, valued around Rs 5 crore in the international market, here.

The accused have been identified as South African national David Bokaiea, who was currently staying at Vikaspuri, New Delhi, and Amaninder Singh, alias Billa, a resident of Majara Sonali village in Una, Himachal Pradesh.

Harpreet Singh, Assistant Inspector General, STF, Roopnagar Range, said both accused were on their way from Delhi to Mohali in a Swift car when they were nabbed on a tip-off.

The accused were coming from the furniture market side to the Phase 3/5 traffic light point when they were intercepted by our team. On search, we recovered 1 kg of heroin from their car, said Harpreet Singh.

During preliminary interrogation, David said he came to India on a tourist visa on May 12 this year and started staying at Vikaspuri, New Delhi. He said greed for money and bad company dragged him into the drug world, adding that Amaninder was his accomplice and both of them were supplying drugs in the Punjab area.

Amaninder, a Class XI pass-out, confessed that he was also a drug addict. He had been in the drug business for the past around eight months. Amaninder also used to take drugs, said the police.

Both of them had brought the drug from Delhi to supply it in the Mohali area to their regular customers.

The accused said they had procured the heroin from a Nigerian, identified as John.

The police have registered a case under Sections 21, 29, 61 and 85 of the NDPS Act against the duo while Section 14 of the Foreigners Act has also been slapped against David at the STF police station at Phase 4 here.

The duo was produced before a local court, which remanded them in two-day police custody.

Remanded in 2-day police custody

The accused have been identified as South African national David Bokaiea, who was currently staying at Vikaspuri, New Delhi, and Amaninder Singh, alias Billa, a resident of Majara Sonali village in Una, Himachal Pradesh. The duo was produced before a local court, which remanded them in two-day police custody.
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 20

A 30-year-old man died after reportedly falling from the roof of a hotel in Sector 17 on Sunday night.

The victim has been identified as Harkesh, a resident of Hallo Majra. The victim worked with a DJ. There was a party at the hotel and the victim was reportedly putting up lights when the incident took place.

Sources said the victim was rushed to the PGI, where he succumbed to his injuries during treatment.

The police were informed, who have initiated an investigation. Though the police have ruled out any foul play, a team of the CFSL also visited the spot.

A daily diary report (DDR) has been lodged at the Sector 17 police station.
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 20

A medical board of the GMSH, Sector 16, has denied the abortion request of a 15-year-old rape victim. The girl is now 25 weeks pregnant and the application had been moved in the court last week.

The court had formed a medical board to take a decision. According to sources, the report states that the termination of her pregnancy is not advisable now as it could pose a risk to her life.

The girl was allegedly raped multiple times over a period spanning a few months by a boy, who is a minor. After the rape survivors parents recorded their statements and she was medically examined, the juvenile was arrested and sent to a juvenile home.

According to the complaint, the parents of the minor girl alleged that the boy lived in their neighbourhood a few years ago and knew them. The girl said the accuseds mother was no more and when his father would go to work, the accused would take her to his house and rape her. This had been happening for a few months.

Her mother noticed that her menstrual cycle had stopped and when she questioned her, she said she was pregnant after having been raped by the accused. She took the survivor to the hospital and informed the police. The police got a medical examination conducted and registered a case under Sections of rape and the POCSO Act.
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 20

The Transport Ministry has approved Rs 386 crore for the construction of the Tribune flyover, the first such project in the city.

Sources said with the approval for funds, the project was likely to see the light of day soon. The approval came after Member of Parliament Kirron Kher held a meeting with Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari last month.

The sources said while the ministry was initially insisting on releasing around Rs 250 crore for the project, Kher raised the issue with the minister and succeeded in getting the amount enhanced significantly.

The UT Administration is now awaiting the revised detailed project report for the flyover from the consultant. The Mumbai-based consultant, Stup Constructions, was told to prepare the revised report after the ministry asked the Administration to construct the flyover in two phases.

Under the initial plan, the flyover had been planned from a distance of 300 metres before the GMCH, Sector 32, roundabout towards Tribune Chowk and was to descend before the railway overbridge. Further, a 4-km elevated road was to come up on the stretch from the railway overbridge to the Zirakpur flyover. However, the ministry asked the UT to curtail its length from 6.5 km to 1.5 km, which would reduce its cost.

An officer of the Engineering Department said the consultant had been asked to rework on the design and submit a fresh proposal.

The project was conceived to ease traffic on the congested Dakshin Marg, especially the Tribune roundabout. Around 1.43 lakh vehicles cross the rotary every day. Gadkari had announced the project during his visit to the city in 2016 after the demand was raised by local MP Kirron Kher.
vinaymishra188@gmail.com

Tribune News Service

Mohali, August 21

A joint team of the Mohali police and the district health authorities on Tuesday seized 2,060 kg of spurious cheese along with 3,375 kg of skimmed milk powder, 89 kg of butter, 10 kg of cream and 360 litres of a chemical, said to be sulphuric acid, from an illegal factory at Ballo Majra village near the VR Punjab mall alongside the Mohali-Kharar road.

The factory was being run by Ashok Kumar, a resident of Mauli Jagran, Chandigarh, who has been arrested by the Mohali police after the registration of a case under Sections 272, 273 and 420 of the IPC against him at the Balongi police station here.

The factory, which was being run without a name and the required licence, has also been sealed by the district health authorities here.

The spurious milk products were being prepared in unhygienic conditions. The cheese and the other milk products were found lying in refrigerators and drums. More than 10 refrigerators, a boiler and other equipment used to prepare the products were found at the factory.

Ashok Kumar said the milk products were being supplied in Kharar, Mohali, Panchkula and the Kharar area. Several dealers of these areas were my clients, said Ashok Kumar, claiming that he was not preparing synthetic milk.

I used to prepare cheese from milk, which came in a van daily, said Ashok Kumar while talking to Chandigarh Tribune. Asked where he had stored the milk on Tuesday, the accused claimed that the van broke down midway and could not reach the factory.

The accused did not reply when asked why he had stored bags of substandard skimmed milk powder. However, he claimed that the chemical was used for coagulating the milk. The accused said he had been running the factory for the past year and a half. I have seven employees, said Ashok Kumar.

Inspector Manphul Singh, Station House Officer of the Balongi police station, said the raid started in the wee hours after getting a tip-off from members of the Progressive Dairy Farmers Association, Punjab.

We were keeping vigil on illegal activities in the factory for the past couple of days. On Tuesday, we informed the police and the health authorities about the factory, said Sukhdev Singh, president of the association.

The District Health Officer, Dr Rajbir Singh Kang, who was present at the spot at the time of the raid, said after the seizure of the spurious milk products, the factory had been sealed. We have collected samples of all milk products and have sent these to a laboratory at Kharar for testing. After receiving the test reports, we will initiate legal action against the accused, said Dr Kang.

The accused would be produced before the local court on Wednesday, said Inspector Manphul Singh.

Minister pats police, health authorities

Balbir Singh Sidhu, Punjab Animal Husbandry and Dairy Development Minister and Mohali MLA, lauded the police and the health authorities for their action. Such miscreants are playing with the lives of people. I have submitted a proposal for stringent punishment in cases of food adulteration, said Sidhu, while asking officials to continue with their raids.
vinaymishra188@gmail.com

Chandigarh, August 21

A 26-year-old youth, who had 12 criminal cases against him, was stabbed to death by two miscreants at Bapu Dham Colony, Sector 26, on Monday night. Both accused, aged around 20, have been arrested in the case.

The victim, identified as Vikram, alias Vicky Rajasthani, had cases of theft, snatching, robbery and dacoity registered against him at various police stations in the city. He was out on bail.

The complainant, Parkash, a resident of Bapu Dham Colony, reported that he, along with the victim, Vicky, went to a temple around 11.30 pm when the accused, Lalit and Vishal, alias Moti, reached there.

Parkash alleged that the accused entered into an argument with Vicky following which Vishal hit Vicky on his head with an iron rod. The victim was then attacked with a trident (trishul) by Lalit.

The police said Vicky pulled out a knife which fell down during the scuffle. Lalit picked up the knife and attacked the victim again, leaving him seriously injured, said a police official.

The accused fled the spot after which the victim was rushed to the GMSH-16 where doctors declared him brought dead.

A case of murder was registered at the Sector 26 police station and later both accused were arrested. The police recovered the weapons used in the crime. The police said Vishal also had a theft case registered against him at the Sector 17 police station.

The accused were produced in a court, which remanded them in two-day police custody.

The victim, along with three other Burail jail inmates, had escaped from the District Courts, Sector 43, in 2015. The inmates, who were locked in the bakshikhana, went inside the toilet. They then broke the toilet window, climbed a water pipe to reach the fourth floor of the court and fled away.
Lt Gen Raj Kadyan (Retd)

Lt Gen Raj Kadyan (Retd)

Ex-deputy Chief of Army Staff

In a development that is unprecedented and unfortunate, over 300 Army personnel have petitioned the Supreme Court, seeking legal protection while carrying out counter-insurgency operations. The reason for this unusual step is, of course, the prosecution of defence personnel by the civil agencies.

The debate about the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) keeps surfacing, mainly at the behest of some rights activists. The background of AFSPA and its broad provisions need to be understood before we can examine the issue objectively.

Independent Indias trouble began in the Northeast when the Naga National Council (NNC) boycotted the first General Election in 1952. New provisions were needed to deal with the situation. Initially, the Assam Maintenance of Public Order Act was enacted in 1953. With the situation deteriorating further, the Assam Rifles were deployed and the Assam Disturbed Areas Act of 1955 came into force. It provided a legal framework for the paramilitary forces and the armed state police to combat insurgency. However, the situation could not be contained and the NNC formed a parallel government on March 23, 1956. The Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Powers Ordinance 1958 was then promulgated by the President on May 22, 1958. It was replaced by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act on September 11, 1958. Since then it has also been applied to other places.

There is unfortunate misinformation that AFSPA gives the Army complete immunity for its actions. Simply put, it gives the armed forces the power to maintain public order in disturbed areas. This mainly includes prohibiting a gathering of five or more persons; using force if they feel a person is in contravention of the law; arresting without warrant if reasonable doubt exists; entering or searching premises without warrant; and banning the possession of firearms.

AFSPA comes into force only in an area notified as disturbed area by the Central or the state government. Such a notification is issued when the situation deteriorates beyond the control of the states integral resources. The Act also stipulates that before prosecuting Army personnel the sanction of the Central Government is required.

The Kashmir situation has deteriorated greatly. The local population, including the civil judiciary, has been intimidated. Militants can today produce hundreds of eyewitnesses to prosecute any soldier who acts effectively against them.

AFSPA is an Act of Parliament enacted in national interest. It is an enabling Act designed to give legal cover to soldiers for actions taken in good faith. Significantly, no Army in the world gets involved in tackling insurgency without a legal cover.

Of late, there has been an increased clamour for the removal of this Act. Some of it, in J&K for example, is instigated by inimical forces across the border. The aim is to demoralise soldiers by tying them down in endless litigation, which would happen if AFSPA is removed.

In our Constitution, legislature and judiciary have distinct functions. Broadly, while the legislature makes laws, the judiciary ensures their correct application. The judiciarys role to safeguard rights is unquestionable. However, care needs to be taken to ensure that judicial judgments are not construed as a domain outreach. Unfortunately, in the case of AFSPA that perception is palpable among those involved in combating insurgency. AFSPA has been passed by Parliament as part of their functions. By retaining sanction for prosecution with the Centre, the intention of the legislature is clear that it does not want soldiers being prosecuted unjustly for actions carried out in good faith. The judiciarys role is limited to interpreting that intention and not to override it. If any lacuna is noticed in the law, the judiciary can bring it to the notice of the executive or Parliament for rectification, and in extreme cases, declare it ultra vires of the Constitution. At all costs, the perception of judiciary legislating from the Bench must be avoided.

AFSPA has already been diluted. The apex court has made an FIR mandatory in case of death even in disturbed areas. The FIR may be a routine legality, but it evokes great scare among the soldiers. The legislators are answerable to the electorate and they would themselves remove or modify the Act if the sentiment against AFSPA is popular in the country. Since the elected government has the ultimate responsibility for national security, it should also have the authority to decide on the modalities of the Act.

Let us remember that the Army has the highest stake in ensuring that the soldiers remain disciplined. Every infringement of law is investigated promptly under the Army Act and punishment meted out swiftly. We need to trust the force.

The Indian Army is known to be one of the most disciplined in the world. We have tasked them to tackle a highly volatile and risky situation. The soldier on the ground gets only a fraction of a second to decide whether to shoot or get shot, there being no third option, or a second chance. When we scrutinise his action in a detached environment, there is a danger of technicalities overshadowing ground reality. The Army that has been (involuntarily) involved in handling insurgency almost continuously since Independence needs our support and solidarity. Let us not push the soldier into a situation where the legal shackles impose an undue caution on him to operate. Of all the institutions the Army stands apart for its result-oriented ethos and for always delivering. There is no wisdom in picking at our healthiest tooth needlessly.
Devinder Sharma

Devinder Sharma

Food and Trade Analyst

There is a popular saying: people living in glasshouses should not throw stones at others. But at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), this adage has little meaning. For several years, India has been under pressure to reduce or limit its support to agriculture, keeping it within the confines of the de-minimis limit ascribed under what is called as the aggregate measure of support (AMS). While India is under tremendous pressure to reduce the minimum support price (MSP) it provides to farmers, the big boys of global trade  the US, the EU and Canada  continue to flout the norms with impunity.

Most developing countries, including India, cannot provide subsidy exceeding 10 per cent of the total value of production of a crop. For the sake of illustration, let's take the value of wheat produced in the country at Rs 500 crore. In that case, the MSP given to farmers, which for some strange reason is counted as subsidy, cannot exceed 10 per cent of the total value. In other words, the MSP cannot exceed Rs 50 crore if the total value of wheat produced in the country is Rs 500 crore. The market support for procuring wheat and rice in the form of MSP falls in the category of product-specific support.

The US Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, announced recently that it plans to drag India to the WTO for under-reporting its market support for wheat and rice, which appears to be over 60 and 70 per cent, respectively, as against the permissible limit of 10 per cent. The trade confrontation will further escalate when India's latest policy decision to provide 150 per cent higher price over the cost of production for 23 crops for which MSP is announced every year is also questioned at the WTO.

At the heart of the controversy is the AMS entitlement under the WTO. The 10 per cent limit that was prescribed for developing countries was calculated keeping the average of 1986-88 global prices as the reference price.

Since then, farm input prices have quadrupled, as a result of which the MSP has also risen accordingly. For India, MSP is a crucial policy instrument of the public policy helping small and marginal farmers. It has implications for the livelihood security for India's 600 million farmers.

Interestingly, while developing countries have a limit of 10 per cent, for the developed countries the AMS is capped at 5 per cent. This falls under what in trade parlance is called the Amber Box, which is considered to be trade-distorting.

As per a revised proposal made by China and India before the WTO, the two giants have explicitly stated that the rich counties enjoy 90 per cent of the global AMS entitlements amounting to nearly $160 billion. These subsidies are in addition to more than $200 billion farm subsidies that are provided under the Green Box, which cannot be questioned if it meets the criteria.

Anyway, based on the domestic support notifications that the developed countries have been providing, it becomes crystal clear that the US, the EU and Canada have themselves been providing a whopping product-specific support.

From the data presented, it is quite revelatory that while for some commodities/products, farmers in the developed countries are getting subsidies in excess of their value of production, in many cases the subsidies are twice the value of production.

Take the case of rice. While India is being questioned for its 60 per cent subsidy support, the US provides 82 per cent; and the EU subsidises rice growers to the tune of 66 per cent. In certain years, more than 90 per cent of the total product-specific subsidies in the US were concentrated only for milk and sugar. In the EU, over 64 per cent support for certain years was confined to just two products  butter and wheat.

In the US, some products for which support exceeds by 50 per cent are wool (215 per cent), mohair (141 per cent), rice (82 per cent), cotton (74 per cent), sugar (66 per cent), canola (61 per cent) and dry peas (57 per cent). In just seven out of the 20 years for which the data was compiled, more than 50 per cent of the product-specific support was confined to milk.

In the case of the EU, some of the products with subsidies exceeding 50 per cent of the value of production are silkworms (167 per cent), tobacco (155 per cent), white sugar (120 per cent), cucumber (86 per cent), pears for processing (82 per cent), olive oil (76 per cent), butter (71 per cent), apples (68 per cent), skimmed milk powder (67 per cent), tomatoes for processing (61 per cent).

In Canada, milk, sheep meat and corn have continuously benefited from a very high level of subsidy. In the case of tobacco, the amount of subsidy was three times the value of production.

Isn't it time for the US, the EU and Canada to first do away with $160 billion of product-specific support in agriculture? Even if it has come late, the joint proposal by China and India will help remove trade distortions which have allowed developed countries all these years to flood developing countries with cheaper imports.
vermaajay1968@gmail.com

Tribune News Service

Bhiwani, August 20

Two motorcycle-borne youth shot dead a Haryana State Cooperative Bank branch manager and injured a security guard before decamping with Rs 12 lakh cash at Milakpur village under Bawani Khera police station of Bhiwani district on Monday.

The manager, Ramphal Singh, and the guard, Dayal Singh, were returning to the bank after withdrawing cash from the banks main branch in Bhiwani when they were attacked.

As the duo proceeded toward the bank on foot from the bus stand, a bike knocked down the manager. Their faces covered with masks, the youth tried to snatch the bag with the cash, which was resisted by the manager. As a scuffle ensued, the miscreants opened fire at the manager. A bullet hit Ramphal in the head, leaving him dead on the spot.

The guard was shot in his abdomen and was shifted by villagers to the Civil Hospital in Hansi from where he was referred to Hisar.

Bhiwani SP Gangaram Punia said the bank was located 400 metres from the bus stop. The accused fired three rounds at the victims and managed to escape. A hunt is on to nab them, he added.
vermaajay1968@gmail.com

Pradeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh August 20

Indicating the enormity of the problem, the Chief Ministers of Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh on Monday firmed up a joint strategy to battle the drug menace, deciding to set up a central secretariat at Panchkula for sharing data and to hold review meetings at the CM-level every six months and at the level of the Chief Secretary/DGP every three months.

The meeting was held at the initiative of Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar. The HP CM participated through video-conferencing.

It was decided that nodal officers would be deployed at the Panchkula centre to coordinate data-sharing. Also, the Special Task Force (STF) in each of the four states would meet every month to share information on drug peddlers.

Talking to the media later, the CMs said their Uttar Pradesh counterpart would be asked to join in the efforts. Jammu and Kashmir would be involved in the strategy later. In a joint statement, the CMs stressed that data-sharing was a must if the battle against drugs was to be won.

Punjab CM Capt Amarinder Singh said the state STF had registered 19,179 cases under the NDPS Act (till August 5) and 21,571 persons, including police officials, had been arrested. A study by PGI, Chandigarh, last year had said 2.7 lakh of the states population was hooked on drugs  one out of every six persons. The problem was more acute in Punjab villages, it had said.

Khattar favoured fast-track courts to try those in the drug trade. Himachal CM Jai Ram Thakur suggested that the Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act be invoked against the drug peddlers.

Rajasthan Additional Home Secretary, who too attended the meeting, admitted that opium produced legitimately was being diverted elsewhere. Uttarakhand CM TS Rawat expressed concern over women being targeted by drug mafia.
editorial@tribune.com

Hisar, August 21

Enraged over reported ban on the usage of mobile phone on the college campus, girl students of Government Nehru College blocked the Hansi-Barwala road in front of the college in Hansi town on Tuesday.

The police removed the girls from the road and mediated between the college authorities and the girls on the issue. The college authorities denied banning the use of mobile phones. They clarified the move was to discouraged excessive use of mobile phones. The police went to the spot and placated the girls from blocking the road which had stopped the vehicular traffic. Later, he led a delegation of the students and held a meeting with college principal Savita Maan.  TNS
rajivbhatia82@gmail.com

Arun Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jammu, August 21

Jammu and Kashmir will miss NN Vohra, who steered the state during the most difficult times in the past 10 years as an astute administrator and people-friendly Governor. Many would have wanted him to stay longer to revive the grass-roots democratic institutions such as the panchayats and local bodies.

Vohra took over as Governor on June 25, 2008, when the state was burning over the communally motivated agitations triggered by the allotment of 100 acres to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board by the Ghulam Nabi Azad government. The fall of the government in less than a fortnights time after his taking over brought him face to face with the twin tasks of defusing the explosive situation that had widened the regional and political gaps as well as restoring the elected government to the state. He accomplished both challenging responsibilities before the first six months of Governors rule ended.

He has the rare distinction of having served the state for two consecutive terms of five years each and two months beyond that. His tenure was scheduled to end on June 25 this year.

Vohra was popular among people as well as politicians of different flags for his straightforward approach and impeccable integrity. His biggest contribution, as recounted by the top political leaders, was to guard the democratic institutions. He never allowed anyone to play with the democratic institutions. That was his greatness, said former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who had known him since 2003 when he became the interlocutor for the Centre in Jammu and Kashmir.

She and another former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah recalled how he steered the state through the most troubled times 2008 yatra agitation and street protests of 2010 and 2016 when he guided the elected governments with his advice. He was always there when I required hand-holding, said Mehbooba, who faced the turmoil of 2016 following the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani in a gunfight.

The years 2008, 2010 and 2016 are listed in the turmoil-stricken history of Kashmir as the times when the state was on the edge. Vohra helped the Centre and the state governments to pull back Jammu and Kashmir from imminent disaster during these years.

National Conference president and three-time Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah hailed him as a great Governor, who did his best to ensure the state walked the path of progress, and now after the fall of the (PDP-BJP) government, he steered the state towards the best direction possible. The files that had not moved for years, started moving and the administration started working.

He should have stayed longer, but probably he didnt want to.

Muzaffar Baig, senior PDP leader and Lok Sabha member, recalling Vohras tenure in the state, said: He was an astute administrator and a no-nonsense personality.

Vohra presided over the state affairs under the Governors rule four times 2008, 2015, 2016 and 2018. Two Assembly elections were held during this tenure  2008 and 2014. He saw the state through violent times and also the devastating floods of 2014.

Provincial president of the National Conference Devender Singh Rana said: Vohra left legendary footprints on the landscape of the state. He should have stayed on until the panchayat and local bodies elections were held.

This view was echoed across the state with CPM leader MY Tarigami saying that his contribution could not be summed up in words. He was a man of integrity. That was his greatness.

Major achievements under Guvs rule (four spells)

June 25 to Aug 31, 2008: In the first spell of Governors rule, Vohra defused a highly volatile situation in J&K arising out of violent agitations over the allotment of 100 acres to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board by the Ghulam Nabi Azad government

June to October 2010: Guided Omar Abdullah in handling the protests in which more than 100 people died and finally getting the situation restored for the panchayat polls with over 80% participation in 2011

September 2014: Devastating floods hit J&K, particularly the Valley. He oversaw the relief and rescue operation

November to December 2014: Assembly elections threw a fractured mandate

January 7 to March 1, 2015: In the second spell after the resignation of Omar, he steadied the state reeling under the impact of the floods and got the relief expedited

January 8 to April 4, 2016: During the third spell following the death of Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed, Vohra tackled the sensitive situation in the state

July to Dec 2016: The highly volatile atmosphere in Kashmir following the killing of Burhan Wani was handled by him by counselling Mehbooba Mufti and the Centre

June 20, 2018, to date: In the fourth spell, Vohra brought back to life a system hit by inertia. He embarked on a journey to hold panchayat and civic elections

Appreciated across political spectrum

"Vohra ji was very well versed with the affairs of J&K, first as a bureaucrat at the Centre, an interlocutor and then the Governor for more than 10 years. He is a man of integrity. No one can raise a finger at him as he has always stood by his principles."  Mehbooba Mufti, PDP president
uttara@tribuneindia.com

New Delhi, August 21

New Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satyapal Malik will be the first career politician to be appointed to the position in the last 51 years, indicating a change in the strategy of the Centre, which has so far relied on ex-bureaucrats to run the show in the troubled state.

The 72-year-old Malik has been associated with almost all political hues, starting as a socialist student leader to the vice-president of the BJP, before being appointed Bihar governor last year.

He will be the first career politician to be appointed governor of Jammu and Kashmir in 51 years after Karan Singh whose term had ended in 1967.

Since 1967, the post has been occupied only by retired civil servants, diplomats, police officers and Army generals.

His appointment may also been seen in the light of the changing political scenario with talks doing rounds about disgruntled elements in the PDP joining hands with the BJP.

Inspired by Ram Manohar Lohia, Malik started his political career as a student leader in Meerut University and became MLA of Charan Singh's Bhartiya Kranti Dal from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh in 1974.

He joined the Congress in 1984 and became its Rajya Sabha MP but resigned three years later in the background of Bofors scam. He switched to the VP Singh-led Janta Dal in 1988 and became an MP from Aligarh on its ticket in 1989.

In 2004, Malik joined the BJP and unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha elections, losing to former prime minister Charan Singh's son Ajit Singh.

Before taking oath as Bihar governor on October 4, 2017, he was in charge of the BJP's Kisan Morcha.

He was the Union minister of state, parliamentary affairs and tourism from April 21, 1990 to November 10, 1990. PTI
editorial@tribune.com

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 21

The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave one more week to the state to respond to a petition alleging custodial torture of activist Talib Hussain, who was arrested in a rape case.

Hussain is also a witness in the Kathua gang rape case, hearings of which are taking place in Pathankot (Punjab). His cousin Mumtaz A Khan has filed a habeas corpus petition on his behalf in the Supreme Court.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra posted the matter for hearing on August 29 after state counsel M Shoeb Alam sought time for filing the reply to the petition which alleged that he had been framed in the rape case lodged by his sister-in-law.

Terming the allegations as serious, Alam said the state would like to place its stand in writing.

The Bench has already allowed the complainant in the case to become a party to these proceedings. Her counsel vehemently opposed Hussains plea, saying it was a ploy to exert pressure on the trial judge. She sought his presence in the Supreme Court and alleged that his cousin, who moved the petition, was a history-sheeter and had already moved a bail application in the trial court at Jammu.

On behalf of the petitioner, senior counsel Indira Jaising said she would like to file two affidavits in a sealed cover to establish that Hussain was being tortured by the police.

The top court had on August 8 issued a notice to the state government on a petition alleging custodial torture of activist Talib Hussain, a witness in the Kathua rape and case, after he was arrested in a rape case lodged against him at the Samba police station.

The Bench had, on the last date of hearing, questioned how it was a case of habeas corpus. Hussain had already been produced before the court concerned, it had noted.

The petitioner alleged that there was a threat to Hussains life as he played an important role in exposing the accused in the Kathua rape and murder case. Hussain had been falsely implicated in the case and subjected to torture, he alleged.

The rape case was lodged against him in July by the wife of his brother-in-law. He was also booked in a dowry case lodged by his estranged wife in June.

Next hearing on Aug 29

A Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra posted the matter for hearing on August 29 after state counsel M Shoeb Alam sought time for filing the reply to the petition which alleged that Talib had been framed in the rape case lodged by his sister-in-law
vermaajay1968@gmail.com

Usha Albuquerque

In todays madly driven world people are finding it difficult to cope with increasing pressures, fierce competitiveness and other challenges, , driving them to seek professional help for their emotional, social and professional problems. Families can be a source of support, encouragement and love, but sometimes relationships within families are strained and family members feel isolated or overlooked and unhappy. Often the family becomes a source of interpersonal difficulties. Since the problem arises from within the family, the need to seek outside professional support seems right.

Family counseling helps one understand and cope better with the stresses and strains of family life. Counsellors are trained individuals, able to cope with the personal and emotional issues of their clients. Counsellors assist people with personal, family, educational, mental health, and career decisions and problems. Their duties depend on the individuals they serve and the settings in which they work.

Family counselling includes:

Giving every family member a voice and an opportunity to be heard without fear or favour.

The counselor helps the family work towards the goal of making family interactions healthy and productive, and identifying unhelpful and helpful patterns of interaction

An individuals behaviour is influenced by how the family functions. The counselor helps family members communicate with one another effectively, develop skills to resolve issues faced and enhance their relationships with each other.

Counselors help members relate to each other's feelings and then work out the differences.

Getting in

Those who aspire to become a counselor should have a background in psychology. A degree in psychology, sociology, social work, or human development studies is ideal for a career in counseling and family therapy. Most counselling and family therapists earn a masters degree in counseling with a specialisation of marriage and family therapy. They take courses in counseling techniques, human growth and development, and professional ethics, just to name a few. Certificate, diploma and PG diploma courses in guidance and counseling are also considered suitable.

These courses enhance the knowledge of students in understanding the broader socio-cultural context, come over with different family values, and varied relationship stages, understanding the ethical, family system theory and lots more in order to serve with best therapy services.

Courses available are:

MSc in counselling and family therapy  Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work, Mumbai

Certificate programme in couple and family therapy offered by TISS to candidates with masters degree in psychology, or social work.

Certificate course in child and adolescent therapy and family counselling offered by National Institute for Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS)

Post Graduate diploma in counselling and family therapy offered by IGNOU

Most masters degree programmes in psychology also cover the study of marriage and family therapy

Skills required

More than academic qualifications, counsellors must possess high physical and emotional energy to handle the array of problems they address. They must also have the emotional stability and maturity to handle other people's problems without becoming emotionally involved. They should have a strong interest in helping others, be sensitive and perceptive in assessing people and be able to inspire respect, trust, and confidence. They should be able to work independently or as part of a team. Since privacy is essential for confidential and frank discussions with clients, counsellors would need private offices. In order to be successful family therapist, one must have:

An analytical mind for diagnosing the problems

Excellent communication skills to effectively counsel patients

A lot of patience, and ability to remain cool under pressure when dealing with even difficult cases .

A genuine empathy and interest in helping people overcome their own mental/behavioural challenges

Job prospects

The contemporary social scenario has resulted in an increased need and demand for professional support in terms of counselling and family therapy. With the joint family system breaking up, increasing number of working women and less family support there is a need for counselling and family therapy professionals able to provide support in strengthening families, fostering positive parenting, and building resilience among individuals in handling social-psychological problems.

Jobs for marriage and family therapists are expected to grow faster than on average for most other careers in the coming years. This is also due in large part to peoples increasing willingness to discuss their marriage or family issues with a third party and the growing acceptance of counseling.

Many marriage and family therapists, choose to open their own private practices. A few marriage and family therapists might even make house calls, which involve visiting a household to observe the living situation.

Family counsellors and therapists are also employed in clinics, welfare departments, and with non-governmental organisations dealing with developmental problems. Counsellors also work in NGOs and social welfare organisations engaged in community improvement and social change, as well as with state and local government agencies

Work profile

Family therapy is a branch of psychotherapy that is meant to help initiate change and nurture development in intimate relationships between family members and couples. The job of the family therapist is to facilitate conversations that act as catalysts to strengthen and improve existing connections between family members and/or loved ones.

Marriage and family therapists apply family systems theory, principles, and techniques to address and treat mental and emotional disorders. In doing so, they modify peoples perceptions and behaviours, enhance communication and understanding among family members, and help to prevent family and individual crises. They may work with individuals, families, couples, and groups. Using their years of training and clinical experience, they listen to/talk with individuals, couples, or entire families to help them overcome the hurdles that may be preventing their having a healthy relationship. They help family members change unproductive behaviors so they live better in their environment and, most importantly, with each other.
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Tribune Web Desk

Chandigarh, August 21

Never had Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput thought that his act of donating Rs 1 crore for the Kerala flood victims, and that too on the plea of an Instagram user, turn him from a reel hero into a real hero.

The actor was on Tuesday tagged by the Instagram user suggesting him to help him in donation for the Kerala flood victims but the user at that same time said that he does not have the money to do so. However, Sushant was quick to transfer Rs 1 crore rupees on his behalf to the Kerala relief fund.

He wrote, @sushantsinghrajput I dont have money but I want to donate some floods, how can I donate please tell mee.

Sushant replied, I will donate 1 crore on your name, make sure that it reaches directly to our friends out their needing it and post it on my Instagram thanking you to make me do this. Thank you so much for wanting to

As promised my friend, @subhamranjan66, what you wanted to do has been done. You made me do this, so be extremely proud of yourself. You delivered exactly when it was needed.

Lots and lots of love. FLY

Cheers #MyKerala #KeralaReliefFunds pic.twitter.com/fqrFpmKNhK  Sushant Singh Rajput (@itsSSR) August 21, 2018

The actor then made a transaction of Rs 1 crore and also shared a screenshot with the user through a direct message. he posted the picture on his Twitter account.
editorial@tribune.com

Liquor seized

Ludhiana: The police seized 105 boxes of illicit liquor loaded on a commercial vehicle in the Joshi Nagar area of Haibowal Kalan on Sunday. However, the accused escaped from the spot. Constable Baljinder Singh said the liquor was seized from the Joshi Nagar area following a tip-off. He said there was no one present in the vehicle when the police seized the liquor. The police have registered a case under the Excise Act. In a similar development, the Shimlapuri police arrested two persons with 420 bottles of illicit liquor. They have been identified as Badal of Thapar Colony and Sunny of Kehar Singh Nagar in the Haibowal area.

Woman dies

A middle-aged woman was killed in an accident on the Jagraon-Jalandhar road on Monday morning. The deceased has been identified as Paramjit Kaur (50), a resident of Kothe Sher Jang village located on the outskirts of Jagraon. According to information, the accident took place when the woman, along with her relative, was coming to Jagraon bus stand on a motorcycle. As soon as they reached near Jagraon Tehsil Chowk, the motorcycle they were riding was hit by a car from behind. She died on the spot. Her relative had a miraculous escape. The car driver sped off after the accident. A team from the Jagraon Bus Stand police post reached the spot. The police handed over the body to her family after post-mortem. The investigating officer, ASI Tarsem Lal, said the police had registered a case of negligent driving against an unidentified person. TNS
shalender@tribune.com

New Delhi, August 21

The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down None of the Above (NOTA) option given to voters in Rajya Sabha elections, saying it would encourage corruption and defections.

Quashing the Election Commissions notification prescribing NOTA option in Rajya Sabha polls, a three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said, NOTA will destroy the concept of value of a vote and representation and encourage defection that shall open the doors for corruption which is a malignant disorder...

The Bench, which also included Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud, said, The introduction of NOTA in indirect elections may on a first glance tempt the intellect but on a keen scrutiny, it falls to the ground, for it completely ignores the role of an elector in such an election and fully destroys the democratic value.

The ruling came on a petition filed by Gujarat Congress leader Shailesh Manubhai Parmar challenging the Election Commissions notification for the RS polls in the state last year. NOTA option was introduced for Lok Sabha and Assembly elections by the Election Commission following a Supreme Court order in 2013. It was introduced in Rajya Sabha polls in 2014.

During the hearing, the Centre had supported the Congress in opposing NOTA for Rajya Sabha elections. The SC said Rajya Sabha polls were an indirect form meant for proportional representation of states in the council of states.  TNS
editorial@tribune.com

Seoni (MP), August 20

A 23-year-old student was killed here on Monday after she was dragged by her hair while on her way to college and her head smashed with a stone by a man who was allegedly putting pressure on her to withdraw the sexual harassment complaint against him, the police said.

The incident took place around noon when the Dalit student was walking to the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Government Girls College here, around 350 km from Bhopal, police officials said.

Narrating what had happened, they said the accused, 38-year-old Anil Mishra, got down from his motorcycle and dragged the woman to the roadside by her hair. He allegedly pushed the victim to the ground and smashed her head with a big stone lying nearby, said Kotwali police station in-charge Arvind Jain.

Some people rushed to help and overpowered Mishra. The woman, who was seriously injured and bleeding profusely, died while being taken to a hospital, Jain said.

Mishra, who has been arrested, prima facie committed the crime as the victim refused to withdraw the sexual harassment case against him, said KK Verma, Seoni sub-divisional officer (police). Both are residents of a village in Seoni district, Verma said, adding that further investigation is on.  PTI
pardeepdhull@gmail.com

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 21

Having ordered setting up of 12 special courts to try politicians involved in criminal cases, the Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to inform it about how many such courts have been constituted and have actually started functioning.

A Bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi sought to know if these special courts were courts of sessions or magisterial courts, their territorial jurisdiction and the number of cases pending before each of them.



The Bench, which also included Justice Navin Sinha and Justice KM Joseph, asked if the government intended to set up more special courts.

Directing the government to place these details before it, the Bench posted the matter for hearing on next Tuesday. The Bench said the government affidavit contained incomplete information as it said the process of compiling the information received from the states was on.

Acting on a PIL filed by Delhi BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, the Supreme Court had in December last year ordered the Centre to set up 12 special courts to exclusively try cases involving politicians. The special courts were supposed to have become operational from March 1. The Centre had earlier earmarked Rs 7.8 crore for the purpose.

The court had then said the issue of imposing a life ban on convicted politicians would be taken up for later.

The Bench had earlier pointed out that criminal cases against many politicians remained pending for more than 20 years, allowing them to complete four terms in Parliament or state Assemblies. In such a situation, demanding a ban on them towards the fag end of their political career may not achieve the desired objective, it had indicated.

The Delhi High Court has already set up two special courts to try lawmakers facing criminal cases from March 1, 2018. In an administrative order dated February 23, the High Court has designated Delhi High Judicial Service officer Arvind Kumar and Delhi Judicial Service Officer Samar Vishal as Special Judges to preside over the two special courts in the National Capital to try lawmakers.

But the Bench asked Delhi High Court Registrar General to file an affidavit by August 28 indicating the number of cases transferred to these two special courts.

The Bench also asked the Centre to furnish details regarding the queries posed by it on November 1 last year when it had sought to know how many of 1,581 cases involving MLAs and MPsas declared by them at the time of filing of the nomination papers in the 2014 electionshad been disposed of within one year as prescribed by the courts order dated March 10, 2014.

It had also sought to know how many of these cases ended in acquittal or conviction of MPs/MLAs. It also wanted to know if any further criminal cases had been lodged against any present or former legislator and, if so, the details thereof, including details about disposal of such cases between 2014 and 2017.



A report by ADR  which analyses affidavits filed by candidates at the time of filing of nominations  said 188 Lok Sabha MPs and 44 Rajya Sabha MPs had criminal cases pending against them. The number of legislators having criminal cases pending against them in various states is: Maharashtra (160), Uttar Pradesh (143), Bihar (141), West Bengal (107), Kerala (87), Andhra Pradesh (84), Tamil Nadu (75), Karnataka (73) Madhya Pradesh (70) and Telangana (67).
pardeepdhull@gmail.com

New Delhi, August 21

In a stern message to WhatsApp, the government on Tuesday said the messaging platform will need to set up a local corporate entity and find a technology solution to trace the origin of fake messages circulated through its platform.

IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, after meeting WhatsApp Head Chris Daniels, said the Facebook-owned messaging app has contributed significantly to Indias digital story but it needs to find solutions to deal with sinister developments like mob-lynching and revenge porn.

I had a very productive meeting with Chris Daniels, the CEO of WhatsApp. I complimented him for the extraordinary technological awakening which WhatsApp has led in the entire country... But there are also very sinister developments, which are provoking crimes like mob-lynching, revenge porn. You (Whatsapp) must find solutions to these challenges which are downright criminal and violation of Indian laws, he said.

Prasad said he has asked WhatsApp to set up a corporate entity in India, appoint a grievance officer and find a technical solution to tracing the origin of fake messages on its platform.

... I flagged in particular, which I had said earlier also, it does not take rocket science to locate a message being circulated in hundreds and thousands... you must have a mechanism to find a solution, he said, adding that WhatsApp could face abetment charges if no action is taken.

He said the company has assured that it is working towards complying with these points.

Daniels, however, declined to comment on the proceeds of the meeting.

I am very happy that he (Daniels) said that they are working with law enforcement agencies... they will do a campaign to educate people in India (on spread of misinformation through social media), Prasad said elaborating on the meeting.

On the issue of WhatsApps impending roll out of payments services, Prasad said the company assured the government that it will comply with the stipulated rules.

We said we have flagged attention to the RBI, namely financial data being in India. The RBI is working on the guidelines and he (Daniels) has assured me, whatever guidelines RBI comes out with, he will comply with that, Prasad said.

Daniels is visiting India this week and is likely to meet other government and business officials, as the company attempts to address concerns around fake news on its messaging platform which have led to horrific crimes like mob-lynching.

WhatsApp has drawn severe criticism over the developments. The Indian government has also sent two notices to WhatsApp, directing it to take urgent measures to curb spread of false information and rumours through its platform.

The IT Ministry had also warned that WhatsApp cannot escape its responsibility for such rampant abuse and needed to find originators of provocative messages. It had also warned that in the absence of adequate checks, it will treat the messaging platform as abettor of rumour propagation and legal consequences will follow.

In its response, WhatsApp has informed the government that it is building a local team, including India head, and has introduced new features to let its users identify forwarded messages and has restricted number of forwards at a time.

Besides, the company is also running advocacy and education programme to help people spot fake news.

According to sources, Daniels will be in India for 4-5 days and meet business and government officials during his visit.

Last month, WhatsApp top executives, including COO Matthew Idema, had also met IT Secretary and other Indian government officials to outline various steps being taken by the company to tackle fake news in India. PTI
shalender@tribune.com

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 21

In a bid to have better working relations, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will meet her Chinese counterpart Lt Gen Wei Fenghe on Thursday to discuss additional measures to ensure peace along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto boundary between the two nations.

This may include an out-of-the-box solution like a coordinated troop-patrol along LAC. This means, troops of either side inform each other before patrolling any of the 14 disputed points along the LAC.

Since this will entail a higher political decision, the matter may be discussed. However, a final outcome will have to get a political nod in either country.

Both countries have different perceptions of the LAC and overlapping claims on areas along the 3,488 km-long LAC running all along the east-west alignment of the Himalayas. The Chinese Defence Minister arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday with a 24-member high-level delegation and called on PM Narendra Modi.

A statement by India said: The PM said maintenance of peace and tranquility in the border areas is indicative of the sensitivity and maturity with which India and China handle their differences, not allowing them to become disputes.

The PM appreciated the increased momentum of high-level contacts between India and China in all spheres, including in areas of defence and military exchanges. Sources said the two sides are expected to work at having additional border personnel meeting points. At present military commanders of both sides can meet and sort out differences at five designated points. These are at DBO and Spanngur gap in eastern Ladakh; Nathu La in Sikkim; Bumla and Kibithoo in western part of Arunachal Pradesh and eastern part of Arunachal Pradesh, respectively.
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

New Delhi/Islamabad, August 20

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sent a letter to his newly elected Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan, conveying that India was looking for constructive and meaningful engagement with his country.

Modi noted that India was committed to peaceful neighbourly ties with Pakistan, official sources said, quoting from the letter.

The Prime Minister also stressed the need to work for a terror-free South Asia, they said.

The Prime Minister conveyed to Khan that India was looking for constructive and meaningful engagement with Pakistan, the sources said.

Khan was sworn in as Pakistan's 22nd Prime Minister on Friday.

Meanwhile,Pakistan on Monday clarified that PM Modi had not made an offer of a dialogue the letter to his new Pakistani counterpart.

A Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson said this in a statement issued in response to a query regarding reports in a section of the Indian media.

The spokesperson stressed that new Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had not stated that the Indian Prime Minister had made an offer of a dialogue, but had said that Modi in his letter to Khan had also mentioned something similar to what the Foreign Minister elucidated earlier that the way forward was only through constructive engagement.

The FO said the Foreign Minister was also briefed about the positivity and constructive environment prevailing during the meeting of former Pakistani Law Minister Ali Zafar with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during his visit to India on August 18 to attend the funeral of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The FO said Pakistan looks forward to a mutually beneficial, uninterrupted dialogue with India to resolve all issues.

Any attempts to instigate controversy and vitiate the environment are counterproductive and against the spirit of responsible journalism, said the spokesman.

Earlier, Qureshi in his first media interaction had also referred to the letter. PTI
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Abu Dhabi, August 21

Indian expats enthusiasm to help flood victims in Kerala should not lead them to the wrong side of the law on fund raising in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), India's Ambassador warned here.

"The feedback received from the UAE government suggested that some individuals and organisations are involved in fund raising. I have to draw the attention of fellow Indians to the local laws (on fund raising)," Navdeep Singh Suri told the media on Monday.

He said only organisations that have special permission from the UAE's Community Development authorities can collect money and remit it abroad, the Gulf News reported on Tuesday.

Suri said the UAE authorities, including the Central Bank, have given the clearance for sending money directly to the Kerala Chief Minister's Disaster Relief Fund (CMDRF), which Suri said was the best way to help the flood victims.

"We don't want well-meaning efforts for the flood victims ending up in trouble. We are very mindful and respectful of local laws," the Ambassador said.

Suri also advised community organisations not to open temporary money exchange counters at their premises since the local laws do not permit it.

Al Ansari Exchange, the UAE Exchange and Lulu Exchange are facilitating free-of-cost remittance to the CMDRF, said the Gulf News.

Urging people to refrain from sending relief materials, the Ambassador said he had discouraged people who offered to send large amount of mineral water and medicines to Kerala.

First of all sending medicines needs special permission. Moreover, India is the pharmacy of the world. You can get medicines in India at one-tenth cost in the UAE, he explained.

Following the worst flooding in a century, over one million people are now sheltered in 3,274 relief camps in Kerala. The death toll since the monsoon rains began on May 29 has been estimated at around 370.

IANS
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Smita Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 21

As Kerala grapples to rebuild itself in the aftermath of the enormous flood fury, international aid has emerged as a point of politics. From regional stations to social media, there is a speculation whether the Modi government has turned down a United Nation aid offer against the interests of tens of thousands of affected victims.

Congress Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor, who for long served United Nations as an Under Secretary-General, has ignited the row. Tharoor who travelled to Geneva following a court permission to pay tributes to the late former Secretary General Kofi Annan, tweeted earlier, Landed in Geneva to meet with UN and international humanitarian agencies for consultations on #KeralaFloods. While seeking help is the prerogative of the Govt of India, i am here, in close consultation @CMOKerala @vijayanpinarayi, to explore what help could be possible if sought.

However, sources in Kerala refuted that Tharoor has been asked to be an emissary by the Chief Minister. Sources also said Tharoor is resorting to politics on an issue where India has a stand that was adopted first by the UPA government in 2004. In December that year India told the world that it had the resources and the capacity and would politely decline bilateral international aid and assistance.

As far as the United Nation is concerned, Indias principled stand is that it is up to the country to ask for aid, not for the multilateral body to dump aid on it, said a retired diplomat.

Sources in UN suggested the world body has expressed its willingness to assist India if needed, but no offer has been made.

Global messages from Russia to Japan have poured in expressing solidarity with the people of Kerala in this dark hour of grief. The Yameen government in Maldives has offered a 50,000 USD aid to India. UAE, with its deep-rooted expatriate connection with Kerala, has announced 700 crore of relief assistance to the battered state, 200 crore more than the announcement made by Prime Minister Modi.

Kerala has a special relationship with UAE, which is a home away from home for Malayalees. We express our gratitude to UAE for their support. #KeralaFloodRelief, tweeted the CM Vijayan. The CM office also informed that this was communicated to PM Modi by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of UAEs Armed Forces himself.

Clarity from the Ministry of External Affairs is still awaited though if the foreign assistance has been accepted by the Centre. There is cooperative federalism in the country but the Central government is in-charge on this issue,said the retired diplomat.

Prior to 2004, India did accept international aid pouring in for natural disasters like ones faced in Surat in Gujarat in 2001 or Latur in Maharashtra in 1993. But in the last fourteen years, it has been a different principle. India turned down offers from countries, including the US and Japan, during the Uttarakhand floods of 2013 that claimed thousands of lives and later during the disastrous Kashmir floods.
uttara@tribuneindia.com

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, August 21

The Maharashtra Government is preparing to send a new proposal to the Union Home Ministry for enacting a ban on Hindu right-wing organisation Sanatan Sanstha, according to sources here.

Following inputs provided by the state home department, a dossier on the Sanstha along with several allied organisations like the Hindu Jangruti Samiti and about a dozen splinter outfits manned by their members will soon be provided to the Union Home Ministry, according to sources. Officials say activists of the Sanstha, who have the support

of strong group of lawyers, have registered several little-known organisations in different districts of Maharashtra ostensibly for cow-protection and other activities.

On Monday, leaders of the Congress and the NCP demanded that state and central governments ban Sanatan Sanstha for planning terror activities. Though the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra had sent two proposals to the central government seeking a ban on the Sanatan Sanstha, it was rejected by then UPA government at the Centre. Privately, sources in the Congress say then Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde wanted to go soft on the Sanatan Sanstha because it had deep roots in his constituency, Solapur.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Terror Squad of the Maharashtra Police has unearthed diaries and documents from the Sanatan Sanstha activists who were arrested in raids across the state earlier this month. Investigators suspect that members of the Sanstha may have prepared a hit list of people to be eliminated.

Police also think at least one police officer investigating the killings of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar and communist leader Govind Pansare could be targeted. A diary recovered from HJS member Amol Kale in Pune reportedly has the name of CBI's Superintendent of Police Nandkumar Nai,r who was in charge of the investigation in the murder of Dabholkar. Police officials however refused to confirm whether Nair's name was on the hit-list.

A police team investigating the murder of senior journalist Gauri Lankesh arrested Kale.
shalender@tribune.com

New Delhi/Patna, August 21

A socialist to the core from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh, Satya Pal Malik is known for taking firm stand on issues. With his appointment, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sent a political message to the people of Jammu and Kashmir which is under Governors Rule.

Malik had written to Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and the Chief Justice of Patna High Court over the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape. Expressing anguish and suggested corrective measures, he had also written to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar while backing the popular call for a CBI probe into the case.

He took over as Bihar Governor on October 4 last year. Cracking down on mushrooming BEd colleges in Bihar, he introduced a centralised common admission test for all colleges of the state in a bid to improve the education system. Malik did his B.Sc and LLB from Meerut University and also holds a diploma in Parliamentary Affairs from the Institute of Constitutional and Parliamentary Studies, New Delhi.  TNS
shalender@tribune.com

Mumbai, August 21

The Maharashtra Government on Tuesday began the process for demolishing 162 illegal bungalows belonging to Bollywood personalities, industrialists and absconding diamond merchants Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi.

These bungalows are located in Alibaug across the sea from Mumbais Gateway of India and Murud on the Western Coast. These structures are located in the CRZ zone where construction is banned.

Maharashtra Minister for Environment Ramdas Kadam said the demolition of these bungalows would commence as soon as the National Green Tribunal gives the go-ahead. Apart from having the structures demolished, their owners found guilty of violating the law will face a jail term of up to five years, Kadam said.

The government faced criticism from the Bombay HC last week after it emerged that the collector of Raigad district had exempted Nirav Modis bungalow from demolition. It also ordered a probe into the matter. According to a PIL filed in the matter, bungalows have been constructed in violation of the CRZ regulations in Varsoli, Sasvane, Kolgaon, Dokvade villages in Alibaug taluka.

Many bungalow owners, including Nirav Modi, have in the past challenged the demolition orders on the grounds that these structures existed prior to 1986 when the CRZ regulations came into effect.  TNS
uttara@tribuneindia.com

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, August 21

The Maharashtra government on Tuesday began the process for the demolition of 162 illegal bungalows belonging to top Bollywood personalities, industrialists and absconding diamond merchants Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi.



These bungalows are located in Alibaug across the sea from Mumbai's Gateway of India and Murud on the Western Coast. These structures are located in CRZ zone where construction is banned.



Maharashtra's Minister for Environment Ramdas Kadam told reporters that the demolition would begin as soon as the National Green Tribunal gives the go-ahead. Apart from having the structures demolished, owners found guilty of violating the law face a jail term of up to five years, Kadam said.



The Maharashtra government came for strong criticism from the Bombay High Court last week after it emerged that the collector of Raigad district had exempted Nirav Modi's bungalow from demolition. The ordered also ordered a probe into the matter.



According to a public interest litigation, bungalows have been constructed in violation of the CRZ regulations in villages Varsoli, Sasvane, Kolgaon, Dokvade, etc in Alibaug taluka.



Owners of many of the bungalows, including Nirav Modi, have in the past challenged the demolition orders on the grounds that these structures existed prior to 1986, when the CRZ regulations came into effect.
shalender@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 21

The cash-strapped Congress on Tuesday brought its time-tested lieutenant Ahmed Patel back as party treasurer to tide over the funding crunch ahead of the 2019 General Election.

Patel, 69, replaces 90-year-old Motilal Vora as the AICC treasurer. Party president Rahul Gandhi passed the orders accommodating Vora on a newly created post of AICC general secretary (administration).

Patels return to the Congress treasurers post comes after 18 years. He had been on this post from 1996 to 2000 under two Congress chiefs Sitaram Kesri and Sonia Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi retained him in partys treasury after assuming charge as Congress president in 1998. She soon realised Patels political heft appointing him her political secretary in 2001. Rahul Gandhi is the third Congress chief under whom Patel will serve as the AICC treasurer.

The appointment comes on his 69th birthday with leaders tight-lipped about how to view the development considering the post of AICC treasurer is less glamourous than Congress presidents political secretary.

Patel has been looking after Congress finances along with Motilal Vora for five years now. Todays appointment formalises a job he has been already doing. The appointment cannot have come at a more opportune time. The party is facing a financial crunch and he alone can reverse the situation, a senior Congress leader said.

Former member of Congress Working Committee Anil Shastri welcomed the decision saying Patel would be a skilful treasurer.

Congress has been facing a fund crunch for months now. It has had to resort to crowd funding of candidates in the recent Karnataka elections. In May, Congress official twitter handle posted a link of its crowd funding campaign seeking public donations to help the party restore democracy.

Serving 8th term as MP

Ahmed Patel is into his 8th term as an MP, including three terms in the Lok Sabha from 1977 to 1989

He was elected to the Rajya Sabha for the first time in 1993 and is currently serving his fifth term in the Upper House

Other AICC appointments
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Thiruvananthapuram, August 21

With rains easing and water receding in some areas of flood-ravaged Kerala, people started returning to their homes as Union Ministrer KJ Alphons on Tuesday appealed for cooked food and skilled workers to rehabilitate more than 10 lakh displaced people.

Though there has been some respite from the rain in the past two days, the water level has not come down in several areas of the worst-hit Ernakulam, Thrissur, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha and Kollam districts, the officials said, a day after the Union Home Ministry declared the flood a calamity of severe nature.

An estimated 223 people have lost their lives since August 8 in Keralas worst floods in decades that has caused damage worth more than Rs 20,000 crore. About 10.78 lakh people, including 2.12 lakh women and one lakh children under 12, had been sheltered in 3,200 relief camps, officials said.

Rail and road traffic services had been restored in most places, they said.

As relief agencies, local governments and people across the country banded together to put together relief supplies, the flood-hit in several parts of Kerala began returning home.

Many people found their electrical appliances and furniture ruined and thick layers of sludge and slime.

Incidents of snake bites were reported from Ernakulam and Thrissur districts.

As the flood is receding in Kerala people have to move to whatever is left of their homes. Need ready to eat cooked food, clothes and an army of electricians, plumbers and carpenters, Alphons said on Twitter, tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.

The minister, who belongs to Kerala, also issued an appeal to skilled workers like plumbers, electricians and carpenters to come to the state to make homes livable and help in the task of restoring normalcy.

Flagging the immediate needs of the people, he tweeted, Doctors and nurses who can go down to the villages as there is apprehension about the possibility of outbreak of diseases. New clothes, if it can be distributed through NGOs, he said.

The minister also thanked the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) for providing the state huge quantities of tetrapack milk and public sector oil companies which came together and handed Rs 25 crore to the Kerala Chief Minister for flood relief.

As the state began the task of recovering from the disaster one small step at a time, more relief material arrived at the Cochin port.

The Cochin Port Trust has earmarked two warehouses for free storage of relief materials, arriving from across the country, for people affected by the unprecedented floods, a port trust official said.

The first truck carrying relief materials, mobilised by all major ports under the Union Shipping Ministry, was dispatched through the VOC Port Trust in Tuticorin and would be arriving at the port here on Tuesday, he said.

Four containers of relief material sent by the shipping fraternity from Tuticorin under the initiative of the ministry was delivered for distribution on Monday, the official said.

More relief material from different parts of India has started arriving at the Cochin port through coastal shipping.

The state government and the Army have made it clear that rescue operations will continue till the last person stranded is brought to safety.

Over the past four days, more than 1.63 lakh stranded people were rescued in a joint operation conducted by police, National Disaster Response Team, Army, Navy, Air Force and a large number of volunteers.

The state government, which has called for an all-party meeting later in the day to elicit views on the package for rehabilitation, has decided to honour the fishermen community that played a vital role in rescuing people.

The state cabinet will meet on Tuesday to take stock of the situation and work out a rehabilitation package for those affected.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told reporters on Monday night that the focus of the government would be on rehabilitation.

The first priority will be to clear the houses. The government will also prepare a comprehensive health action programme to prevent the outbreak of any water-borne diseases.

The Southern Air Command has said the Indian Air Force (IAF) will continue all-out efforts in coordination with the civil administration to ensure that the people of the Kerala recover quickly from the calamity.

It has dispatched four medical teams to Thiruvalla and Chengannur for setting up medical facilities.

A total of 364 helicopter sorties were flown, 1.25 lakh kg of supplies dropped and 574 people rescued, a release said.

The state-level bankers committee has also decided to declare a moratorium on agriculture loan for one year. PTI
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 21

The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down the None of the Above (NOTA) option given to voters in the Rajya Sabha elections, saying it would encourage corruption and defections.

Quashing the Election Commissions notification prescribing NOTA option in the Rajya Sabha polls, a three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said, NOTA will destroy the concept of value of a vote and representation and encourage defection that shall open the doors for corruption which is a malignant disorder...

The Bench, which also included Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud, said, The introduction of NOTA in indirect elections may on a first glance tempt the intellect but on a keen scrutiny, it falls to the ground, for it completely ignores the role of an elector in such an election and fully destroys the democratic value.

The ruling came on a petition filed by Gujarat Congress leader Shailesh Manubhai Parmar challenging the Election Commissions notification for the RS polls in the state last year.

The NOTA option was introduced for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections by the Election Commission following a Supreme Court order in 2013. It was introduced in the Rajya Sabha polls in 2014.

During the hearing, the Centre had supported the Congress in opposing NOTA for the Rajya Sabha elections.

The top court said the Rajya Sabha polls were an indirect form meant for proportional representation of states in the council of states.

The option of NOTA may serve as an elixir in direct elections but in respect of the election to the Council of States which is a different one...it would not only undermine the purity of democracy but also serve the Satan of defection and corruption, the Bench noted.

It said NOTA may look attractive but its practical application defeats the fairness ingrained in an indirect election. More so where the electors vote has value and the value of the vote is transferrable.

where open ballot is permissible and secrecy of voting has no room and further where the discipline of the political party/parties matters, it is clear that such choice will have a negative impact, said the Bench explaining the voting process for the Council of States elections.

The Bench said, An elector, though a single voter, has a quantified value of his vote and the surplus votes are transferable. There is existence of a formula for determining the value of the vote. The concept of vote being transferable has a different connotation. It further needs to be stated that a candidate after being elected becomes a representative of the State and does not represent a particular constituency.

The cumulative effect of all these aspects clearly conveys that the introduction of NOTA to the election process for electing members of the Council of States will be an anathema to the fundamental criterion of democracy which is a basic feature of the Constitution, it noted.
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Shahira Naim

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, August 21

In a macabre incident, a family of five members was found dead inside a room in Allahabad, which appears to be a case of the man killing his wife and three daughters and then hanging himself.

When the police broke open the room on late Monday night they found the man hanging from the ceiling tied to a sari. The body of the middle daughter six-year old Shivani, with froth around her mouth, was lying on the floor.

The body of the other two daughters  eight-year-old Srishti and three-year-old Sonu were stuffed inside the almirah. The body of the youngest was neatly packed in a suitcase kept inside the almirah.

When the refrigerator was opened the body of the wife Sunita came tumbling out.

Thirty five-year-old Manoj Kushwaha, resident of Pipalgaon in Dhoomanganj area of Allahabad, was a well-to-do farmer who lived with his family, including his father Gulabchand, brother Gopal, sister-in-law Sadhna and his wife and three daughters.

According to his father, Gulabchand when he returned from the fields last evening the television was playing full blast in Manojs room, which was locked from inside.

When after repeated knocking the room did not open. A worried Gulabchand called the village Pradahn Ramanand Pal, who summoned the police.

The police broke open the door late at night and inside was this ghastly scene. The police removed all the five bodies, which have been sent for post mortem.

According to SSP Allahabad prima facie it appears that Manoj killed his family and then committed suicide by hanging.

A trace of froth around the mouth of the middle daughter suggests that the Manoj probably poisoned them before killing them most likely by strangulation, claim police sources.

In her statement to the police, the only other person present in the house at the time of the crime, Sadhna, said that the children were seen around the house till noon after which the family retired to their room, which was then locked from inside.

Hearing the loud television playing in the room Sadhna had knocked at her brother-in-laws door to find out the reason but there had been no response.

In the evening, when her father-in-law and husband returned from the field she told them about the room not opening and the loud television playing.
pardeepdhull@gmail.com

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 21

The Supreme Court was in for a shock on Tuesday after coming to know that over two lakh children lodged in thousands of child care institutions across India have gone missing, as there was huge difference between the figures in two documents submitted by the Centre before it.

The discrepancy was pointed out by advocate Aparna Bhat who is assisting the top court as amicus curiae. She told the top court that a National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) survey showed that 50,000 children in these homes were ready for adoption but government agencies were not willing to do the needful.

Bhat told a three-judge Bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur that a survey commissioned by the Centre and executed by the NCPCR in 2016-17 showed that in over 9,000 shelter homes 4.73 lakh children were lodged. But a status report filed by the Centre in March said only 2.61 lakh children were lodged in 8,734 child care institutions.

Two lakh childrenwhere are they? Where do we trace them? the Bench asked Centres counsel Balasubramanyam after he suggested that there could be an error in the NCPCR survey as the child care institutions might have given inflated figures to get more aid.

If its an inflated figured then the money involved is mindboggling. The government pays Rs 2,000 to look after every child. This would go into crores.

An apparently unconvinced Bench asked if the Centre cross-checked with states. These figures are alarming. Surveys do have errors but it cannot be 100%, it said.

As the Bench proposed to set up monitoring committees at national and state levels to look into the issue of shelter homes, the Centre expressed reservations over it. To be headed by retired Supreme Court and retired high court judges, these committees would include government officials and activists. The Bench asked the Centre to get back to it by next Tuesday.

Discussing the NCPRC survey conducted in association with NGO Child Line, Bhat told the court that biting, pinching, restriction on movement, withholding food, rest and use of toilet besides use of abusive languages were the most common methods applied in child care institutions to discipline children.

The Bench is hearing a PIL on exploitation of children in shelter homes and orphanages. NCPCR survey  which covered over 9,000 homes  found that 4,416 of these homes used these regressive methods to discipline child inmates.

Bhat said NCPCR survey also covered the Muzaffarpur shelter home where child sexual abuse has now been reported.

The Bench pulled up the West Bengal government for not setting up child welfare committees in all the districts as mandated by statutes. This is absolutely wrong... You have the issue of babies being sold in West Bengal. You must have read in newspapers and you dont have CWCs, the Bench said after coming to know that CWCs had been set up only in two districts of the state.
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 21

The state food safety teams on Tuesday seized a huge quantity of spurious milk and milk products from Amritsar and Mohali. Besides, the samples of dairy items were collected from Mansa, Pathankot, Jalandhar and Gurdaspur areas.

KS Pannu, Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration, said in two different raids in Amritsar, the teams seized 58 bags (25 kg each) of skimmed milk powder of low quality, 700 kg of desi ghee, 40 kg of curd, 20 kg of paneer and 30 kg of adulterated milk. The samples have been sent for analysis at the food testing lab in Kharar. An FIR under Section 272, 273, 336 and 420 IPC has been registered against the culprits.

In another raid on Pannu Dairy on the Ram Tirath Road, officials seized 74 bags of skimmed milk powder,18 quintals of desi ghee, 35 kg of paneer, 150 kg of curd and 150 kg of adulterated milk. The dairy has been sealed and samples sent for analysis.

In a raid at Ballomajra village in Mohali, the officials seize 2,060 kg of paneer, 3,375 kg of skimmed milk powder, 89 kg of butter, 10 kg of cream and 360 litres of a chemical said to be sulphuric acid were seized.

A team in Mansa seized 1.5 quintals of patisa. Sources said it was being supplied at a low cost of Rs 40 per kg to sweet shops.

A raid was conducted at a paneer and khoya manufacturing unit at Neem Wala Mor village in Barnala. The samples were collected even as no objectionable item was found on the spot.

A unit at Chandila village in Fatehgarh Sahib district was also raided where samples of paneer and milk were taken. The sampling of dairy products was also done in Pathankot.

In SBS Nagar, a naka was set up on the Chandigarh Road, Aansron, at 5 am. The officials intercepted vehicles carrying milk.
editorial@tribune.com

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 21

Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and his Cabinet colleagues will call upon the Prime Minister to formally request the Centre to prevail upon the Pakistani authorities to open the corridor from Indias Dera Baba Nanak to Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan on the 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev, beginning next year.

If not permanently, Punjab will seek an early opening of the corridor at least for a year, till the culmination of the celebrations. The issue came up for discussion in Tuesdays Cabinet meeting.

Tourism Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu was recently given an assurance by Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa on opening of the corridor.

The Congress government is keen on getting the corridor to Kartarpur Sahib, where Guru Nanak Dev spent 18 years of his life.

The issue also came up for discussion in a meeting of the state panel on Parkash Ustav, chaired by the Chief Minister, who is personally involved in ensuring development and infrastructural work for the celebrations at Sultanpur Lodhi, Dera Baba Nanak and Batala  holy places visited by Guru Nanak. The CM issued orders for the release of Rs 70 crore for the development of Sultanpur Lodhi.

Cooperation and Jail Minister Sukhjinder Randhawa, who is member of the state panel on Parkash Ustav, said the CM would be steering the efforts for the opening of the corridor. Punjab would also bear the expenditure of decking up the Indian part of the corridor, once it was opened.

Randhawa said the issue had been pending for long, adding that former PM Dr Manmohan Singh had also taken up the matter with the Pakistani authorities.

3 committees formed

The CM on Tuesday set up three committees (infrastructure development, celebration and cultural affairs) to supervise the arrangements for the Parkash Utsav, including development of infrastructure at holy places visited by Guru Nanak, namely Sultanpur Lodhi, Dera Baba Nanak and Batala.

Sikh shrine 2 km away, travel time via lahore 4 hrs
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 21

The Punjab cabinet on Tuesday approved the draft of the bill on increasing punishment in sacrilege cases pertaining to all religions. The amended bill will be tabled in the coming Assembly session.

During the cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh termed the act of Local Bodies Minister Navjot Sidhu hugging the Pakistani Army chief as not a nice gesture that was completely avoidable.

No cabinet minister vouched for Sidhu as he gave his explanation.
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Sangrur, August 21

Three days after a police team from Nabha allegedly thrashed a Dalit woman and her husband at Punnawal village and later booked the couple, villagers on Tuesday met the SSP to seek a probe into the case. They alleged that the cops had tried to take the woman into custody without any female cop accompanying them.

The victim, Paramjit Kaur, alleged: Manjit Singh of Nabha had kept me in illegal confinement in Chandigarh around seven months ago and later in Nabha. On August 16, I managed to escape. But he along with three cops came to my house on August 17, slapped me, my husband and children. He tried to kidnap me with the help of cops.

Hearing their cries, the villagers converged at the spot and thrashed Manjit Singh. Three videos of incident had gone viral on the social media.

On the complaint of ASI Sadha Singh of Nabha, the police registered a case against Paramjit Kaur, her husband Gurjant Singh, Kali Kaur, her husband Amrik Singh, Bhanta Singh and former sarpanch Bant Singh Punnawal. Instead of taking action against cops and Manjit, the police registered a false case against us, alleged Punnawal.

ASI Sadha Singh said they had gone to the village to serve summons to Paramjit Kaur to join investigations as Manjit had lodged a theft complaint against her, but the villagers attacked them.

Sangrur SSP Sandeep Garg said he had directed the SP (Headquarters) for a thorough investigation into the matter.
shalender@tribune.com

THE third ground on which the proposed action of the Bengal moderates is based is the danger of Mr. Montagus scheme being dropped in case of no support in India. We do not wish to minimise this danger. But are our friends sure that they are not magnifying it? They cannot be unaware that at present what the other party is asking for is not the rejection of the scheme, but its substantial modification. Is it impossible to so frame the resolutions of the Congress as to urge the need for vital modification with sufficient strength, without, at the same time, giving anyone any reason to say that India wants the scheme to be dropped? To this end, it is necessary to avoid a general characterisation of the scheme. But surely it is not impossible to persuade all parties to agree to this. And when this is done what the authors of the scheme will have to consider is how many of the modifications have the largest measure of support and how many of them it is both just and expedient for them to accept.
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Nainital, August 21

The Uttarakhand High Court on Tuesday imposed a ban on slaughter of goats in the open or in public on the occasion of Bakr-Eid.

Taking suo motu cognisance of the matter, the division bench of Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Manoj Tiwari ordered that the slaughter of goats will not take place in the open or in public during the festival and must be done in slaughter houses only.

The Court also directed that the blood should not flow in open drains and nullahs.

The order is directed towards one and all irrespective of any religion, the court said. PTI
pardeepdhull@gmail.com

Tehran, August 21

Iran unveiled its first fighter jet Kowsar at a ceremony marking the National Defence Day here on Tuesday.

The fighter jet has been designed and manufactured by Iranian engineers and will be used as a defensive tool for the country, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said. The jet, however, was by no means a threat to the region but for sustainable peace, he was quoted as saying by official news agency IRNA.

Irans preparedness for defence does not mean warmongering but signifies a durable peace, he said, adding that Tehran never invaded its regional neighbours and will never do so.

The Kowsar fighter jet made its first flight during the ceremony, marking the anniversary of Irans military industry in the presence of Rouhani, Defence Minister Brig. Gen. Amir Hatami and other senior military officials.

The jet features multi-purpose digital monitor technology, computerized ballistic calculations of weaponry and the HUD system to provide precise guidance, as well as advanced multi-objective fire control radar to improve threats detection.

Hitting out at the US, the Iranian President said: Washington imposes sanctions on Iran, but refrains from taking military action against the Islamic republic, since it is aware of the heavy costs of aggression. Any hostile move against Iran would cost the aggressors dearly, he said, according to Tasnim news agency.  IANS
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Kabul, August 21

At least one rocket struck Kabul on Tuesday, followed by several explosions, during an address to the nation by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani ahead of Eid al-Adha.

The rocket struck the Afghan capital at 9 a.m., without causing any casualties, followed by a series of unidentified blasts, police spokesperson Hashmat Stanekzai told Efe.

The sound of the blasts could be heard as Ghani spoke live on television.

"If they (militants) think this nation would bow under the rocket attacks, this is a brave, and standing nation and forever will defend its sovereignty, independence and Islamic values," Ghani said after the explosions.

He assured that Afghan security forces "have full readiness and this (explosions) and other incidents will be controlled".

"This war, suicide attacks and explosions have no religious justification," Ghani said, adding that according to a recent survey 93 per cent of Afghans favoured peace.

On Sunday, the Afghan President had proposed a ceasefire from August 20 to November 20 (birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad, or Milad-ul-Nabi), however, it remains in limbo pending a response from the insurgents.

If implemented, this would be the second ceasefire by the Afghan government during the 17 years of conflict, following one earlier in June during the Eid ul-Fitr festivities.

IANS
sanjiv@tribunemail.com

MOSCOW, August 21

The Taliban plans to take part in Afghanistan peace talks in Moscow on September 4, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency on Tuesday.

Lavrovs ministry said in a statement that Russia had invited 12 countries, including the United States, to international talks, which come as Moscow is taking a more prominent role on Afghanistan.

Moscow supported an Afghan government offer of a three-month ceasefire, and regretted that the Taliban rejected the offer on Monday, the ministry said.

Foreign Ministry official Zamir Kabulov was cited by Interfax on Monday as saying Moscow had invited the Taliban, which is banned in Russia and considered a terrorist organisation.  Reuters
Success is measured not by having a degree but by how you impact the lives of others.

This was the message to graduates of The University of the West Indies (The UWI) Faculty of Social Sciences yesterday by construction magnate Sieunarine Coosal.

Coosal, who is the executive chairman of the Coosals Group of Companies, was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws (LLD) by The UWI during the virtual graduation ceremony.
Neval Bissambhar views life and worship through the lens of an omnista person who believes in all faiths or creeds.

A born Hindu, Bissambhar follows the tenets of his familys faith. The D Rampersad INDI-ART lead singer is preparing to celebrate Divali this week. However, he says all religions have a part to play in the perpetual battle of light over darkness.
More and more Covid-19- positive people are requiring hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) treatment, and nearly all are unvaccinated.

As of yesterday, only three ICU beds were available in Trinidad, but there were seven new patients in need of ICU care.

There are only three ICU beds available in Tobago.
Beloved is an excruciatingly intense novel about the slave experience written by Toni Morrison, an acclaimed African American writer. She is the only black woman to have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. She also won a Pulitzer Prize for Beloved in 1987. In 2012, US president Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award that can be bestowed on a civilian.
Hi everybody,

I would like to let you know my recent experience with the company Australian 4wd hire.

In august 2018 we rented a car with a roof tend while travelling from Brome to Darwin across the Gib River Road.

We always took extra care about the car, driving as if the car was our own car.

As a matter of fact any damages occured and we dropped off the car in good and clean condition.

After two days we got a mail from the company who simply wrote us that the vehicle was returned with serious damage and that they would have kept all the Security Bond of $ AUS 1.500.

Please note that they even did not attach/send us the Repair Invoice. Nothing at all was given us!

We were really very disappointed about the situation and asked for more info.

They told us that according to their GPS Monitoring system we drove at inappropriate speeds for the road condition we were on and that we agreed that the vehicle will not be driven at more than 60km/h when off road.

We asked them for more explanation and we told that we did not accept the charge. They replied us that they will be happy to include us in the Federal Court order againts 2 individuals, for doing exactly what we were attempting to do.

They replied us as follow: "We strongly suggest you seek quality legal advice and stop embarrassing yourself by making ridiculous accusations against our business"

We seriously think that this a fraud: Be careful about this company , or rather stay away from this company.

We had a very bad experience and its a shame because Australian territory and above all Australian people are great people.

We really wonder why this company has not been investigated by the Government or the court yet.

We hope this proof will help you avoiding any possible agreement with the company Australian 4wd hire. Very had a bad and regrettable experience.
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itnerary for Vietnam and laos for 7 weeks

itnerary for Vietnam and laos for 7 weeks

Hello everyone,

I'm planning to travel southeast asia from the 27th of October to 15th December

Im travelling on a low budget, my main goal is to enjoy a road trip that combines: cultural experiences (home stay? of the beaten track roads. etc...), food , beaches (surfing?)

and riding (bycicle preferably) . avoiding many flights.

My flight back is from Saigon.

My first try:

Northen vietnam - 1.5 weeks (Hanoi , sa pa , halong bay,kat sa) (quicky)

Some kind of laos experience? (mekong delta?) - 2.5 weeks OR

Vietnam coast line road trip - 2.5 weeks (not to rainy?)

South islands 1 week : Phu Quoc or Cambodian islands or beaches.

Saigon and mekong delta : 2 weeks

Is it possible? Or am i covering too much ground?

Is it safe to travel solo those places?

I'll be happy to hear any additions , recommendations or just fatal mistakes i have

Thank you :)

Edited: 3 years ago
So my girlfriend and I have planned a trip for Cambodia and Vietnam in Jan/Feb 2019 were we have a total of 19 days, and we're hoping you can help us a bit with the planning. We know that less than 3 weeks isn't nothing near enough to experience both Cambodia and Vietnam, but this will have to do for this time, and it's our first time in both countries, so we need to get a little taste of as much as possible.

On the 17th of Jan we will arrive in Siem Reap, and on the 5th of Feb we will catch a flight to Singapore from Hanoi, which are the only things that can't be moved around.

So far we've planned this:

- Siem Reap 4 nights (17-21 jan)

- Phnom Penh 2 nights (21-23)

- Ho Chi Minh 3 nights (23-26)

- Hoi An 5 nights (26-1st)

- Hanoi 4 nights (1-5 feb)

We like citylife, nature, history and food. We don't want to travel around too much since we only have 19 days. Beaches are not priorities, but wouldn't hurt if it was close to some of the destinations. We think Hoi An will be a chill place to relax compared to Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi, thus we've planned some extra days there.

We've dropped:

- Sapa because of the travel time (thinking about doing a day trip to Ninh Binh from Hanoi instead to enjoy the nature).

- Halong Bay cruise because of the foggy, colder weather in the north Vietnam in Jan/Feb, and we don't feel like gambling with our days.

- Hue, but was thinking of maybe squeezing it in for one night.

- Phu Qouc, but it sure looks nice...

1) Do any of you have some recommendations or suggestions on how to structure this trip? Or any comments on our number of nights in the different cities? Taking the 19 days into consideration, is 4 nights in Siem Reap too much, should we skip Phnom Penh, is 3 nights in Ho Chi Minh not enough etc. etc.?

2) Do you think Tet 2019 will be a problem? Have read that most restaurants in Hanoi only will close down on the 4th, 5th and the days after Tet which will not be a problem for us since we're leaving on the 5th.

Thank you :-)

Edited: 3 years ago
If you want to travel from south to north you need to buy individual tickets for each section - you cannot buy one ticket and just stop on the way.

So I would start deciding which places you want to visit, and then see how much time you have. I enjoy travelling by train in Vietnam, but it can be time intensive. So I would suggest covering at least one section by train, and if you see you need more time consider flying. Some section could be travelled on the back of a motorbike (i.e. Hoi An to Hue).

Don't worry too much travelling solo. Vietnam is a pretty safe as long you keep the common sense, and you will meet people on the way.

Have a look at the travelfish.org

Also I have a blog with some information

The following website is amazing when requiring information about train travel in Vietnam

Have a look at such site and you can get a nice trip organised.

One last advice - less is more. Try not to pack too many places for a limited time in Vietnam.

Hope this helps a bit

Edited: 3 years ago
Looking for some guidance here please... my family of 3 (2 adults; 8 year old) are traveling to Japan from Seattle over the Christmas holidays. Okinawa was on our list because I am of Okinawan descent and am hoping to contact some distant cousins while I am there. My first priority is just to see and experience the okinawan islands then to contact family. Second priority is to experience Japan - mostly Kyoto, I think. we are going during the holidays because of school and work schedules. We are on a slightly limited budget.

I am partial to flying via Alaska Airlines so I can use some frequent flier miles. To do this, Japan airlines is their Asia partner.

Questions:

1) where should we fly into to start our trip? From the south and head north? I understand flying from narita to Okinawa is very expensive and accessing Okinawa from Hong Kong or Taiwan was cheaper so was wondering about starting our trip from the south... something like Seattle - Hong Kong/Taiwan (for flights) - Okinawa - Kyoto - Tokyo then fly home?

2) what Japanese airlines would you use for the Okinawa - Kyoto leg? I would like to keep it about $100USD if possible.

3) how many days would you spend in Okinawa? Id like to set aside at least 1 day to visit family. 1 day at the aquarium. 1 day just to sightsee? Is that enough?

4) i understand Christmas isnt a big deal in Japan but New Years is. So will there still be services on New Years Eve and day in Kyoto? If we follow this itinerary, wed be in Kyoto on 30 Dec-2 Jan.

5) what would be on your list for an 8 year old girl? She loves to watch Bizarre Foods so would love to take her to The fish market and other foodie tours. Any cultural must dos?

6) we are ok with going to Tokyo but dont plan to spend too much time there. We prefer non-urban environments but are ok with it if its worth the time!

Thank you for any advice!
The beef between Zari Hasssan and Hamisa Mobetto has really brought a huge buzz on social media. As we all know Zari Hasssan is the ex- wife to Diamond Platnumz who has had collaborations with big artists like Neyo, Rick Ross and many more. Diamond is stinking rich and currently he is among the top richest musicians in East Africa. Diamond is also very handsome and he also has a sense of style. However, despite the riches and a very beautiful wife and children, Diamond has been linked to various socialites . The socialites include Huddah Monroe, Wema Sepetu and currently Hamisa Mobetto This has not really affected Diamonds career but his personal life has been questionable. So let us get to the real story behind Zari Hassan and Hamisa Mobetto relationship.

Zari Hassan and Hamisa Mobetto beef

The beef between Zari the boss lady as she calls herself on social media and Hamisa started off when Zari went to South Africa to have her baby due to birth complications. Before the beef went viral, Diamond went to facebook to send some sweet messages to Zari wishing her a happy birthday and that he had bought a house in South Africa for his family with Zari. When Zari went there she found earrings belonging to Hamisa in her bedroom. Every woman is aware of the kinds of earrings she owns and surely if you find a pair that does not belong to you in your bedroom, then you will definitely get mad and this will raise questions.

Zari Hassan and Hamisa Mobetto rivalry grows sour

So when Zari saw this she did not keep quiet about it. She took it to social media and we all know how Zari loves to express herself through social media. Hamisa twerks on Diamonds video on the song Maria Salome and the earrings confirmed Zaris suspicion. Having your husband as a popular and handsome musician who has half naked video vixens on his songs well cheating is expected. After Zari took the issue to social media, Hamisa was fast to respond saying that Zari should stop arguing with kids who are more like her daughters!

Why major beef with Hamisa and not others?

This is a love triangle that has caused a lot of buzz on social media. Hamisa decided to make peace with Zari when she attended an event at Dar es Salaamke peace with Zari when she attended an event at Dar es Salaam. The event was at WCB records headquarters in Mbezi. Hamisa went on to admit that her her son to see his siblings and that beef shouldnt deny their children a chance to know each other. Zari broke up with Diamond on the 14th of February but the rivalry did not come to an end.

READ ALSO: List of the most popular socialites in Kenya - Zari Hassan inlcuded!

Hamisa Mobetto and Zari Hassan beef: Has it stopped?

Later on the beef still continued and they even hosted different parties at close proximity. Don Zella hosted a charity event and Zari hosted an all white party. Zella was told to change the dates but he refused and said that she is not a coward. She then invited Hamisa Mobetto to the party. Fans had different opinions about this as is expected.

In an article published by sde.co.ke, Diamond confirms that he is the father to Hamisa's son. Diamond put to rest this rumours. Diamond apologized to Zari through a song that he released after this beef went viral, and Diamond seems open about it.

Hamisa continues to live her life. Hamisa apologized about it to the fans, which was a bold move to that shows she respects other people. Hamisa Mobetto latest photos are gorgeous and also she moves on with her life. Zari Hassan latest photos show that she is happy and is now focused on raising her five beautiful children and running her businesses.

Hopefully the Zari and Hamisa will get over this rivalry, move on and probably become good friends.

READ ALSO: Zari Hassan concurs with a fan about dumping Diamond

Source: Tuko.co.ke
- Evidence presented in court proved the woman cut his husband's genitals with a knife while he was asleep

- The husband said he was happy with the ruling against his wife

- The woman has 14 days to appeal the ruling

An Eldoret court has given a middle-aged woman a 8-year jail term after it found her guilty of chopping off his husband's genitals while he slept.

The court heard that Erica Iminza chopped off John Kisanyas genitals on May 22, 2018, using a very sharp knife.

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READ ALSO: Bintiye Raila aonekana kwa mara ya kwanza tangu alipozirai mwaka jana

An Eldoret court has given a 8-year jail term to a middle-age women who was found guilty of chopping off his husband's genitals. Photo: UGC

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Nakuru man chops off manhood after separating with wife

Issuing the sentence, Eldoret Chief Magistrate Charles Obulutsa said the prosecution presented enough evidence against the accused which was enough prove that Erica committed the crime, eDaily reported.

Kisanya said he was happy with the ruling.

The victim who sought for medical attention to restore his manhood at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, said he had tried to settle the case out of court but his wife's family frustrated his efforts.

The mother of two has 14 days to appeal the sentence.

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- Edgar Ouko is not new to election petitions since he engaged NASA in their 2017 petition against Uhuru's win

- Edgar will now represent Zimbabwe's Opposition to identify irregularities during the July 31, election

- The Opposition filed a petition to challenge Mnangagwa's election victory

- Mnangagwa was declared winner of the election with 50.8% of the total votes

Zimbabwe's Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Alliance has hired a Kenyan professor to show alleged irregularities in a petition challenging President Emmerson Mnangagwas victory.

Edgar Otumba Ouko who is an applied statistics professor at Maseno University, will help the Opposition to justify its claims that the July 31, 2018, poll was rigged by the incumbent.

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READ ALSO: Mwanawe Raila Odinga aonekana kwa mara ya kwanza tangu alipozirai mwaka jana

The opposition alliance contracted Ouko, to justify its claims that the July 31, 2018, poll was rigged by the incumbent.

Source: Depositphotos

READ ALSO: Moses Wetangula's bodyguard sustains gunshot wounds following chaos at funeral

In his affidavit, Ouko prepared samples of double counting during the poll that the Chamisa-led outfit is relying on to punch holes on the poll's credibility.

MDC Alliance maintains it won the poll, noting the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) tampered with vote counting to hand Mnangagwa a victory.

Mnangagwa was declared winner of the election with 50.8% of the total votes against Chamisa who got 44.3%.

READ ALSO: DP Ruto's bodyguard dies in tragic motorcycle accident on Southern Bypass

MDC Alliance has maintained it won the poll, noting the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission tampered with vote counting.

Source: Facebook

Chamisa is seeking the nullification of Mnangagwas victory and wants the court to declare him the winner instead.

He claimed the election was not conducted in accordance with the law and was not free and fair.

In his response to the petition, Mnangagwa says the Oppositions petition is premised on alleged mathematical anomalies which have no factual basis.

READ ALSO: Eldoret court slaps woman with 8-year jail term for chopping off husband's manhood

Mnangagwa insisted the oppositions petition is premised on alleged mathematical anomalies.

Source: UGC

Ouko is however not new to such petitions, as he was in August 2017 engaged by Kenyas Opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) in its presidential petition.

In the case, Ouko analysed what the Opposition relied on as statistical irregularities in the Kenyan Presidential election

NASA had also in its affidavits accused the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) of altering statutory documents and forgery of forms 34A and 34B.

The Supreme Court Judges would later nullify the results of the election and order for a repeat poll.

The hearing of the Zimbabwes presidential election petition is set for Wednesday, August 22.

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- Deputy President William Ruto is synonymous with dishing out of millions during church fundraisers

- The DP visited Uganda and together with President Museveni toured and commissioned several projects

- During a visit to St Peter's Catholic Church in Kapchorwa, the DP gave out USh 350 million approximately KSh 10 million

- Ruto and Museveni also launched construction of 150km Kapchorwa-Suam road

Deputy President William Ruto has established himself as a great philanthropist who regularly dishes out millions in fund raisers and this time he extended his undisputed but controversial generosity to Uganda.

TUKO.co.ke understands Ruto flew to the East African country on Saturday, August 18, where he was feted with a Lifetime Achievement during the Young Achievers Awards held in Kampala.

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READ ALSO: Huyu ndiye afisa wa polisi mwenye macho na shepu maridadi zaidi Kenya?

DP William Ruto is synonymous with dishing out millions during fundraisers in Kenya but this time extended his generosity to Uganda. Photo: Yoweri Museveni/Twitter.

Source: Twitter

READ ALSO: William Ruto's rarely seen son steals the show during meeting with Museveni in Uganda

In a tweet by Uganda President Yoweri Museveni seen by TUKO.co.ke on Tuesday, August 21, the Head of State indicated Ruto donated USh 350 million alongside his USh 400 million during a church fundraiser.

The donations were equivalent of about KSh 10 million and KSh 11 million respectively.

The DP who recently donated KSh 8 million to All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi gave out the amount in aid of completion of construction of St Peter's Cathedral Kapchorwa, on the border town between Kenya and Uganda.

READ ALSO: Wetangula speaks after surviving gun drama at funeral

Ruto's Lifetime Achievement award ignited mixed reactions among Kenyans who mocked him for associating with Museveni who was oppressing politicians of dissenting voices like Robert Kyagulanyi popularly referred to as Bobi Wine.

The DP who had on Sunday, August 19, together with Museveni launched 150km Kapchorwa-Suam road which will link Kenya and Uganda has repeatedly defended his generosity especially contributions made to churches.

"Those who criticise my decision to give to the church should tell us where they take their offerings. I give because as a Christian this is what we are taught to do. I am investing in heaven," Ruto once told those questioning his dishing out of millions in church fundraisers.

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- Raila was accompanied by National Assembly Minority Whip Junet Mohamed

- Monica passed away on Sunday, August 19, while under Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Mwanza

- During the burial of Raila's son Fidel in 2015, Magufuli led a group of delegates from Tanzania to console the ODM leader

A plane carrying the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Raila Odinga landed safely in the neighbouring country of Tanzania on the morning of Tuesday, August 21.

The former prime minister, accompanied by the National Assembly Minority Whip Junet Mohammed will be in Tanzania for one day to attend the burial ceremony of Prsident Joseph Magufuli's sister Monica.

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READ ALSO: Huyu ndiye afisa wa polisi mwenye macho na shepu maridadi zaidi Kenya?

Raila and Magufuli have a strong family relationship given during the death of Raila's son Fidel in 2015. Photo: Zanzibar Kwetu.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Magufuli breaks down after visiting ailing sister in hospital

"President Magufuli and the Raila families are close friends. Raila has traveled to Mwanza accompanied by National Assembly Minority Whip Junet Mohammed. He is expected back in Nairobi on Wednesday,confirmed Raila's spokesperson Denis Onyango.

Monica passed away on Sunday, August 19, while under Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Bugando Medical Centre in Mwanza where she had been admitted.

During the burial of Raila's son Fidel in 2015, Magufuli led a group of delegates from Tanzania to console the ODM leader.

Monica died barely a day after the Tanzanian president paid her a visit at the hospital expressing his hope for her recovery and thanked the medical practitioners for the care they offered his sister.

READ ALSO: President John Magufuli of Tanzania given heroic welcome in Kenya

Magufuli was accompanied by other heads of state including his brother and he broke down when he saw his sister who had undergone heart surgery.

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- The Bungoma County Jubilee Chairman argues Raila has a hidden agenda in the unity pact

- He warned the Jubilee government against offering him government position

- He added the recent spat between Raila and the deputy president showed lack of trust in the handshake

Sirisia Member of Parliament (MP) John Waluke has advised President Uhuru Kenyatta to be wary of Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga in their new found friendship.

Waluke claimed Raila had a hidden agenda in the unity pact which will eventually explode before 2022.

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READ ALSO: Huyu ndiye afisa wa polisi mwenye macho na shepu maridadi zaidi Kenya?

The Bungoma County Jubilee Chairman stated Raila is untrustworthy.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Authorities probing how Somali president's ex-Chief of Staff acquired Kenyan ID and passports

Speaking during an interview on a local vernacular radio station on Tuesday, August 21, the Bungoma County Jubilee Chairman stated Raila is untrustworthy.

He also noted he was worried of Raila's recent remarks about the Deputy President William Ruto.

"If indeed Raila says that he forgot everything that took place during the 2017 repeat presidential elections, why is he fond of his remarks on stolen elections and his recent spat with Ruto?" posed the law maker.

READ ALSO: Duale in hot soup for attacking chief Kadhi as division on IDD date emerge

John Waluke categorically stated he did not trust Uhuru and Odinga's handshake.

Source: Facebook

Waluke stated he did not trust Uhuru and Odinga's handshake because the ODM leader was just hoodwinking leaders in Jubilee and Kenyans.

"Raila didn't present all his weapons during the handshake, he is hiding some cards and a knife under the table, let the head of state not entertain him too much, he is a dangerous enemy turned friend because he has a hidden agenda," said the second term legislator.

Waluke, a former close ally of Raila who has turned out to be a serious critic, advised Jubilee government not to give him any big government job.

READ ALSO: Dreaded Hessy wa Dandora gives gun-trotting Githurai woman few hours to surrender or be killed

The law maker noted the recent spat between Ruto and Raila showed lack of trust in the handshake.

Source: UGC

He argued he should be left with the 'Roaming peace ambassadorial job' which will keep him busy moving from one corner of the country to the other preaching peace.

The law maker added the recent spat between Ruto and Raila during the burial of former MP Henry Obwocha in Kisii County, showed lack of trust in the handshake.

"If in deed Raila trusts in the handshake the way he wants us to believe and is actually a peace ambassador, why is he fond of reminding Kenyans of stolen elections? Raila is still a bitter man who will collapse the Jubilee government before 2022," says Waluke.

He says his recent remarks on the possibility of changing the constitution into a three tier system through a referendum is meant to benefit him and his people and not all Kenyans.

Story by Titus Oteba, TUKO.co.ke correspondent

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Massive Demolition in Kileleshwa with JAVA House and Shell Station down - On Tuko TV

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- Hessy identified the lady as Linar Mmbone from Githurai 44 estate

- The crime buster also called out friends to reach out to Mmbone so as to surrender the weapon

- In 2017, Hessy felled pretty teenage girls who were alleged criminals after ignoring his warnings

Faceless Nairobi police better known as Hessy Wa Dandora has issued a chilling warning to a gun-wielding Githurai lady allegedly believed to be terrorising area residents.

Hessy on Monday, August 20, asked the lady identified as Linar Mmbone to surrender within few hours to the nearest police station while holding her gun.

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READ ALSO: Huyu ndiye afisa wa polisi mwenye macho na shepu maridadi zaidi Kenya?

Hessy on Monday, August 20, asked the only identified as Linar Mmbone to surrender within few hours to the nearest police station while holding her gun. Photo: Hessy wa Dandora/Facebook.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Nairobi cops issue stern warning to yet another suspected pretty Nairobi gangster

"Linar Mmbone, whether your account is deactivated or not, you have less than few hours to surrender to the nearest police station while holding that gun. Githurai 44 is not far the way you may think.

"I know your friends are here, sympathisers are also here watching, human rights activists are also here as the witnesses. You now have time to assist this lady bring back our property before things get hotter. It is only that," posted Hessy on Facebook.

The crime buster also called out friends and people who may know Mmbone to implore the suspect so as to return the gun which he said belonged to officers fighting crime.

READ ALSO: Dreaded Hessy puts Dandora pastor on hit list as another criminal pleads for mercy

Hessy wa Dandora, Hessy wa Huruma, Hessy wa Kayole and Blackest Widow are Facebook accounts believed to be managed by a group of detectives fighting organised crime in Nairobi.

In 2017, Hessy felled pretty teenage girls who were alleged criminals after ignoring his warnings.

But their way of fighting crime-through summary execution of suspects-has attracted both praise and criticism in equal measure.

Ordinarily, the criminals elements exposed and warned before they are shot dead and their bloodied bodies paraded on pages such Dandora Crime Free, Kayole Crime Free and Huruma Crime Free.

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- Transport CS Machaira and other government officials are expected to travel to China to seal the deal

- The government is yet to pay back KSh 320 billion loan it used to build phase one of the SGR connecting Mombasa and Nairobi

- Economist David Ndii and others had raised concerns the SGR project was not economically viable

- Ndii argued the project would not generate revenue enough to pay its debts and that taxpayers would be forced to pay

The government is expected to take another KSh 350 billion loan from China for the construction of phase two of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) connecting Naivasha and Kisumu.

A delegation of high level state officials, among them Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia, are reportedly expected to fly to China to seal the new multi-billion deal.

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READ ALSO: Huyu ndiye afisa wa polisi mwenye macho na shepu maridadi zaidi Kenya?

The Jubilee government spent over KSh 320 billion borrowed money to complete the first phase of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project. Photo: Railway Gazeti.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Yes, it costs KSh 1 billion every month to run Standard Gauge Railway - DP Ruto

TUKO.co.ke on Tuesday, August 21, reliably learned the Kenyan officials would meet with their Chinese counterparts for deliberations on the loan between September 1 and September 5, 2018.

According to a related report by Capital Business, the Government of China is already funding construction of Section 2A of the SGR linking Nairobi and Naivasha and the project is expected to cost KSh 150 billion.

Economist David Ndii repeatedly disagreed with the Jubilee government that the Standard Gauge Railway project would be able to generate enough profit to pay the huge loan.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Why Standard Gauge Railway Is A Grand Corruption Scheme

Kenya has already spent a whopping KSh 320 billion loan in the construction of the first phase of the SGR from Mombasa to Nairobi.

The money was borrowed from China's ExportImport Bank of the United States (Exim) and the contract awarded to China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), the same firm the government pays KSh 1 billion every month to keep the SGR's Madaraka Express running.

READ ALSO: Kenya Railways initiates investigations into mistreatment of SGR staff by Chinese bosses

Although the government insisted phase one of the SGR would start generating profit by 2020 and would be able to pay back its own loan, economists like David Ndii have repeatedly disagreed with that position.

"We evaluate investment development projects based on four criteria. First, would it make money? Second, will the economic benefits exceed cost? Third, would it promote equity? And lastly, would it be sustainable? The SGR failed on all four parameters," Ndii argued.

Kenyans have also had mixed feelings regarding the loans.

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Small Business Ideas for Kenyans With Low Investment - On Tuko TV

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- Kuria scoffed at Chebukati after claiming IEBC would reform from the ghosts of the 2017 election and oversee electoral reforms

- He said Parliament would ensure Chebukati and his team are hounded from office

- The lawmaker noted the future of Kenya would only be decided through free and fair elections at the ballot

Outspoken Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria has sounded what looks like a death knell to the troubled Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairman Wafula Chebukati.

Kuria termed as a bad joke a statement attributed to Chebukati which indicated the chairperson wished to reform IEBC from the ghosts of the 2017 bungled presidential election and further spearhead electoral reforms.

READ ALSO: Huyu ndiye afisa wa polisi mwenye macho na shepu maridadi zaidi Kenya?

Kuria termed a s bad joke a statement attributed to Chebukati which indicated the electoral body would reform itself. Photo: Moses Kuria/Facebook.

Source: Twitter

READ ALSO: IEBC manager for ICT Chris Msando deserved to die - Moses Kuria

"Now Wafula Chebukati says that his quarter Chapati of 3 IEBC commissioners and mutilated secretariat will reform itself and even spearhead electoral reforms. That is a joke. How come yesteryear's czars of electoral reform are quiet?" he posted on Tuesday, August 21.

He expressed optimism Parliament would ensure new officials are appointed noting the future of Kenya would only be decided through free and fair elections at the ballot.

"We will take the mantle to ensure we have an IEBC and electoral regime that enjoys the confidence of all Kenyans. Chebukati, time for you to board Matunda Express to Kitale is here," he added.

READ ALSO: We shall do to Raila what was done to his father should he stop the October 17 election-Moses Kuria

Chebukati's deputy Consolata Nkatha Maina, Paul Kurgat and Margaret Mwachanya called it quits on Monday, April 16, while commissioner Roslyn Akombe resigned seven days to the August 26 repeat presidential election.

The Chief Executive Officer Ezra Chiloba is still fighting his suspension for gross misconduct, this therefore left the electoral body weakened.

With two remaining commissioners, the IEBC is technically dysfunctional.

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How street Women In Kenya Deal With Periods | Tuko TV.

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- Amani National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi says Luhyas are democratic not divided

- He dismissed narrative the community would never vote in one direction saying they are usually informed by purpose not tribal affiliation

- He said other communities pointing fingers at Luhyas were selfish and had never supported political candidates from other communities

- Mudavadi stated he did not owe Deputy President William Ruto anything

- The former deputy prime minister said Ruto lied about sacrificing his position during 2007 polls stalemate

Amani National Congress (ANC) party leader Musalia Mudavadi has dismissed the narrative that Luhya community is divided.

He said it was mythical in the first place to believe the community which has had its members vote diversely over the years was divided.

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READ ALSO: Wakenya wamshambulia mwanawe Ruto kwa kuvalia 'vibaya' katika mkutano na Rais Museveni

Amani National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi denied the narrative that Luhya community was divided. Photo: William Ruto/Twitter.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Kakamega Senator Malala introduces never seen wife for the first time

Speaking during an interview with Citizen TV on Tuesday, August 21, Mudavadi said it was unfair to vilify the community which dominantly inhabits Western Kenya as divided just because everyone was allowed to exercise their democratic rights.

"Luhyas are democratic and not divided. We are the only patriotic and democratic group where everyone has liberty to make political choices based on their needs and preferences. Who said Luhyas are divided? It is a shallow myth," he explained.

The former deputy prime minister and the brainchild of the National Super Alliance (NASA) argued that Luhyas were usually united by a purpose and not tribal ties like many other communities.

Musalia Mudavadi said Luhya community was democratic and it was unfair to vilify them as divided because members had liberty to make personal political decisions. Photo: Eugene Wamalwa/Twitter.

Source: Twitter

READ ALSO: My people come first, not party positions  Jubilee chief whip Washiali

"This is the only community which pools together on uniform appeal of issues not just their tribal roots. Currently leaders from Western Kenya are working together because we have a crisis in the sugar sector which has crippled sugarcane farmers. We are pushing for a commission of inquiry. You cannot compare us to communities which are restrictive and have never supported others," he said.

In a rejoinder to allegations by Deputy President William Ruto on Saturday, August 18, Mudavadi was categorical he did not owe Ruto anything, saying politicians are the ones who owe voters as far as fulfillment of pledges made during campaigns are concerned.

Deputy President William Ruto had said Musalia Mudavadi and Opposition leader Raila Odinga owed him political support in 2022. Photo: William Ruto/Twitter.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Nyeri woman stabs drunk husband to death

"There is no debt. We can't try to bring about contexts of political debt collectors. Ruto should stop lying to the people. Heading to 2007 we had the old Constitution which did not have prime minister positions as he said thus all he alleged was a hoax," Mudavadi said.

The NASA co-principal who worked with Ruto in Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) in 2007, said even after the presidential results stalemate came about, they proposed for the prime minister and their deputies' positions but never appended names of who would take them.

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Kenya Trending News: Nazlin Umar - Ruto Is Behind The Sugar Scandal | Tuko TV.

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As of Monday, alcohol will be allowed to be served at bars and restaurants that fall under t
Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States Valeriy Chaly has said he intends to advise the president and the prime minister to consider buying modern equipment from the United States.

He said this at a press conference at Ukrinform on Tuesday.

"The Americans are expecting a two-way road from us. They are ready to continue providing military-technical assistance in such volumes. By the way, it does not have a corruption component, because this is equipment, technology, counter-battery radar systems, communications radio stations, unmanned aerial vehicles, Hummer ambulances, etc. They are ready to supply us that for free. But they have to explain to taxpayers that we also buy something from them. Therefore, I will offer the president and the head of government to consider not only France with helicopters, but also the United States. And this is a principled position," Chaly said.

As reported, Ukraine in July agreed to buy 55 helicopters from France. The amount of a contract is EUR 551 million.

op
State tests of the unguided 80mm aircraft missile Oskol were conducted at the Chernihiv firing ground on Monday, August 20, Ukrainian Military TV operator Oleksandr Shtupun has said on Facebook.

"The tests were held at the firing ground of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Chernihiv. Almost 300 RS-80 Oskol missiles were fired from a Mi-8 helicopter," reads the statement.

According to Acting Head of the State Research Institute for Testing and Certification of Arms and Military Equipment Volodymyr Bashynsky, who was quoted by Shtupun, the RS-80 Oskol is a fully domestic development, and all of its components were made in Ukraine.

Shtupun noted that the tactical and technical characteristics of these aircraft missiles and the possibility of using this type of weapons from Mi-8 helicopters had been confirmed during three-day trials.

op
Today is the 100th day since the beginning of the indefinite hunger strike of Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, announced on May 14, 2018, demanding the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners of the Kremlin.

Over the past 100 days, 42-year-old Sentsov lost about 30 kg. Sentsov has problems with his kidneys and heart, Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Liudmyla Denisova said after talk with his lawyer.

PEN International is planning to mark the 100th day of Oleg Sentsov's hunger strike with an event at Russia's Embassy in London on August 21.

In Kyiv, on August 21, the action "Solidarity with Oleg Sentsov" will be held near the Russian Embassy.

On May 11, 2014, Sentsov was detained by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation in Crimea. Later he was taken to Moscow, to a detention facility in Lefortovo. The film director was charged with terrorism and illegal possession of weapons. In the materials of the trumped-up case he was called the organizer of a subversive and terrorist group.

In August 2015, Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment in a high-security penal colony. In February 2016, he was taken to Yakutia, and from November 2017, Oleg Sentsov began to serve his term in the White Bear penal colony in Labytnangi (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District).

On August 8, his sister, Natalia Kaplan, said that Sentsov's health was catastrophic.

Russian human rights activist Zoya Svetova visited Oleg Sentsov in a penal colony in Labytnangi. He said that his condition is now "pre-critical."

UN experts called on Russian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Ukrainian film-maker Oleg Sentsov while expressing grave concern for his physical and mental integrity.

About 70 Ukrainian political prisoners are currently held in Russia and in the occupied Crimea.

ish
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine calls on international organizations and partners to increase pressure on Russia for the release of jailed Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, who has been on a hunger strike for 100 days.

Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mariana Betsa wrote this on Twitter.

"Oleg Sentsov has been on a hunger strike for 100 days, a terrible figure. Human life is the highest value. We are urging the Russian Federation to immediately release Oleg. We are calling on our partners and international organizations to increase pressure on the Russian Federation to save Oleg Sentsov and release Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia, Betsa wrote.

As Ukrinform reported, Sentsov was detained by Russian security services in Crimea in May 2014.

He was sentenced to 20 years in a penal colony in Russia for alleged "plotting acts of terrorism."

On May 14, 2018, he declared a hunger strike demanding the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners of the Kremlin.

On August 8, Sentsovs sister Natalia Kaplan said that his condition is "catastrophically bad",

About 70 Ukrainians are political prisoners in Russia and in the occupied Crimea. This list also includes Ukrinform journalist Roman Sushchenko, who was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment in a high-security penal colony on fabricated charges of "espionage."

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Croatia has reiterated its support for Ukraines aspirations to integrate into European and Euro-Atlantic structures.

This was stated at a meeting of Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin and Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovi, which was held as part of ceremonial opening of the Honorary Consulate of Ukraine in the Croatian city of Split on August 20, 2018, the ministrys press service reports.

"Klimkin thanked the Croatian side for its active position in protecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of our state. The parties also discussed the full range of bilateral cooperation and current issues on the international agenda," reads the statement.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also informed that during his stay in Split, Klimkin had a meeting with Croatian Foreign Minister Marija Pejcinovic Buric.

The Croatian side stated it is ready to continue rehabilitation of children affected by the Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine, as well as internships for military psychologists.

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The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, has written letters to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov concerning the situation of several prisoners and detainees in both countries.

She called upon the authorities of the Russian Federation and Ukraine to do their utmost and to address, as a matter of urgency, the most compelling needs of these individuals, with a view to preventing any further deterioration of their situation which may lead to irreversible consequences, the press service of the Council of Europe reported.

"I am writing to you concerning the situation of several persons who have been detained/imprisoned by the respective authorities in the Russian Federation and Ukraine since 2014. It is my firm belief that effectively safeguarding the human rights of those persons requires undertaking all necessary efforts aimed towards a satisfactory resolution of their situation, including through their release on humanitarian grounds. I understand that the situation of some of these individuals is particularly alarming and requires urgent action due to serious concerns related to their health and other issues," Dunja Mijatovic wrote in the letter dated August 9 to Sergey Lavrov.

The commissioner reminded that on June 9 a telephone conversation took place between the presidents of Ukraine and Russia, during which an agreement was reached to involve the national ombudspersons with a view to jointly resolving the above-mentioned issues of concern in a spirit of co-operation.

"I fully welcomed such co-operation between the ombudspersons, and offered, during my recent contacts with each of them, to provide any possible assistance to support their joint work," Mijatovic wrote, stressing that she continued to monitor the situation.

Today is the 100th day since the beginning of the indefinite hunger strike of Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, announced on May 14, 2018, demanding the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners of the Kremlin.

About 70 Ukrainian political prisoners are currently held in Russia and in the occupied Crimea.

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The European Union has called on Russia to release Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov and other illegally detained Ukrainians.

"Mingarelli: 100 days into a hunger strike in prison, Oleg Sentsov health condition is deteriorating rapidly. EU calls on Russia to immediately release him and all illegally detained Ukrainian citizens in Russia and on the Crimean peninsula," the EU Delegation in Ukraine wrote on Twitter.

Today is the 100th day since the beginning of the indefinite hunger strike of Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, announced on May 14, 2018, demanding the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners of the Kremlin.

Sentsov was detained by Russian security services in Crimea in May 2014.

He was sentenced to 20 years in a penal colony in Russia for alleged "plotting acts of terrorism."

On May 14, 2018, he declared a hunger strike demanding the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners of the Kremlin.

On August 8, Sentsovs sister Natalia Kaplan said that his condition is "catastrophically bad".

About 70 Ukrainians are political prisoners in Russia and in the occupied Crimea. This list also includes Ukrinform journalist Roman Sushchenko, who was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment in a high-security penal colony on fabricated charges of "espionage."

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Presidents wife Maryna Poroshenko presented the national project "Book of Peace" in Croatia and met with Ukrainian soldiers who undergo rehabilitation in the town of Split, the presidents press service reports.

During the working visit to the Republic of Croatia, Maryna Poroshenko met with children from the Ukrainian community. Together they created and filled new pages of the national project.

"For more than four years our state has been forced to protect the integrity of its borders. And courageous Ukrainian soldiers are doing everything to bring peace to their native land - for the sake of the future of Ukrainian children," Maryna Poroshenko noted, presenting the album in which Ukrainian children leave their family photos and write wishes to Ukraine about a peaceful life.

A total of 24 regions of Ukraine have already joined the national project "Book of Peace," as well as representatives of diasporas from the USA, Canada, Turkey, Portugal and Spain. On August 23, the Day of the National Flag of Ukraine, a solemn presentation of this photo album will take place in Kyiv.

The meeting was also attended by Ukrainian soldiers from Ternopil region, who participated in the anti-terrorist operation in eastern Ukraine, and now are undergoing treatment in Split.

The President's wife congratulated the Ukrainian defenders and thanked them for heroism, courage and love for Ukraine. She also wished them a speedy recovery and return home.

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The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry condemns the actions of culprits who obstruct the construction of a temple of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) in the town of Bila Tserkva, Kyiv region.

"On the night of August 17 to August 18, 2018, in the city of Bila Tserkva, a group of culprits demolished a concrete fence at the site of the construction of a temple of the Nativity of Christ - the first temple of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the city. Condemning these unlawful actions that harm the international authority of our state, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry expresses its protest and strongly opposes similar manifestations of inciting inter-religious hatred," the ministry said in a statement on August 20.

The ministry believes that the purpose of this unlawful action is to sow fear and uncertainty not only among Greek Catholics, but also among the faithful of other denominations.

The ministry said that it considered "this insidious attack as encroachment on the freedom of conscience and religion of all citizens."

The ministry expressed confidence that Ukrainian law enforcement agencies would make a proper assessment of this disgraceful act and take all necessary measures to bring to justice those who ordered and executed the crime.

A report posted on the UGCC's website says that a group of intruders in Bila Tserkva destroyed a site for the construction of the first temple of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the city.

Referring to well-informed sources, the church noted that the attack had been "committed by hired and organized criminals."

At the same time, the UGCC emphasizes that it has all legal permits for the construction of a temple in Bila Tserkva.

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08/21/2018

By Katharine Webster

Lesson No. 1 in critical thinking: The United States is a prosperous country, but ordinary people here face many of the same problems as their counterparts around the world.

I learned that people are people everywhere. For example, society is male-dominated here, not in Egypt only. We are not alone, says Eman Wally, a senior English language instructor at Cairo University who came to UMass Lowell as part of a State Department-funded exchange program this summer.

Wally was one of 25 professors and teachers of English from northern Africa, the Middle East, India, Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia who came for a two-week intensive course in teaching critical thinking skills through their American English classes, especially how to question and analyze texts such as stories and news articles.

The program, led by College of Education Prof. A.J. Angulo and Associate Dean Sharon Subreenduth, was funded by the U.S. State Departments Office of English Language Programs, part of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Photo by K. Webster Photo by K. Webster Wonseon Jang of Korea and Nupur Samuel of India look at fabric woven on a loom at Boott Cotton Mills. The participants went through a rigorous selection process with help from a nonprofit partner, FHI 360, and U.S. embassies in their home countries, Angulo says.

Its very competitive, and its an honor for them to be selected, Angulo says. Many of these educators come from disadvantaged communities. Theyre high-performing, highly motivated, very energetic, and they dont take anything for granted. Theyre here for a short period of time, and they know their experience is once in a lifetime.

The grant was highly competitive, too: UMass Lowell beat out 16 other universities to host the Critical Thinking Skills Exchange scholars, thanks to the curriculum, which takes advantage of Lowells reputation and resources as a city that welcomes immigrants from around the world.

Photo by K. Webster Photo by K. Webster Streetworker Veasna "Mao" Kang, a Cambodian-American, poses with international exchange scholar San Sam of Cambodia at UTEC. Working with faculty from the colleges of Education and Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, along with community partners including UTEC and TeenBLOCK, Angulo and Subreenduth designed a program that emphasized hands-on learning exercises and games, technology and curriculum development.

The educators stay also included educational outings to Boston, Cambridge and the Lowell National Historical Park, bowling, shopping and a youth-led urban dance festival, Dance for Peace.

Nezha Youssefi, who teaches 14- to-18-year-old midlevel students in Fez, Morocco, says she was impressed by all of the creative and expressive opportunities for young people here. At her school, she invites her students to share their talents at the end of each term by singing, dancing, acting or reading their poetry aloud, but there is little support for such activities, she says.

Photo by K. Webster Photo by K. Webster Halima Kounniba and Nezha Youssefi teach English to teenagers in Morocco. Youssefi, a teacher-trainer, hopes to change that by sharing what shes learned about student empowerment with other teachers.

My students are motivated, gifted and creative, but they dont have spaces, materials and encouragement to share their talents and gifts, she says.

Halima Kounniba, a high school teacher from Zagoura in southern Morocco, agrees that the education system in Morocco emphasizes rote learning rather than critical thinking. Students are focused on getting a degree that will guarantee them a safe job  often with the government  so they can buy a house and raise a family, she says. They lack confidence in their own creativity and abilities and also face cultural barriers.

Her biggest takeaway from the exchange program? Teaching critical thinking is about getting students to ask questions, not just acquire facts.

Its not what we teach them; its how we teach them, so that they can think and learn for themselves, she says.

Angulo, who like Subreenduth has worked on other State Department Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau grants to host international educators, says the visitors often leave with a more positive view of the United States and its people, as well as friendships and collegial relationships with each other.

Photo by K. Webster Photo by K. Webster Exchange scholars Eman Wally and Eman Gamal teach English at different universities in Egypt. San Sam, an English instructor and counselor at Pannasastra University of Cambodia, says he was impressed with the way American people help each other, whether at the grocery store or in programs like UTEC, which helps young people with criminal records leave gangs, complete their education, get vocational training and find jobs.

Its a good community here, Sam says. People can work closely, its a positive environment and people can ask for help.

Wally says she was impressed that, at the Dance for Peace, people of all racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds came together.

I like the acceptance part, that you dont judge each other according to color, religion or social standards. This is something we need to learn, she says.

Personally and professionally, Ive learned a lot. I will return a whole new person.
It turned out that the Ukrainian television channel is owned by a German national from a province and managed by a member of Viktor Medvedchuk's team.

In the summer of 2018, the number of positive mentions of Viktor Medvedchuk increased on the air of 112 Ukraine TV channel, while media market members suggested that the leader of the pro-Russian "Ukrainian Choice" movement had in fact acquired the channel.

However, Medvedchuk has denied allegations, according to RFE/RL's Skhemy [Schemes] journalistic investigation project.

The journalists found out that according to the documents, the channel is now registered on a German national, Eduard Katz, who was also presented to the channel's audience as a new beneficiary owner.

Read alsoMedvedchuk claims Russia "not aggressor state"

"However, Scheme journalists' investigation showed that Eduard Katz lives in a remote German village where he and his wife earn a living by reselling used cars, while the new management which came to the channel this summer and has close ties with Viktor Medvedchuk's political force, indicates who the actual owner is," RFE/RL wrote.

After the journalists studied the registers, databases and information from social networks, it turned out that Eduard Katz lives in a small village of Kunzell in central Germany. The Katz family is engaged in the sale of used cars. Their company has a "family name" - Exclusive Cars Katz. A total of 13 cars were available for sale at the website at the moment of the publication. The average cost is $40,000. The firm with an authorized capital of EUR 1000 is registered on Katz's wife.

As the journalists told Eduard Katz by telephone that they were preparing a report on his purchase of a Ukrainian television channel, Katz assured that he would later provide written comments. However, after that, the journalists say he never returned messages or calls.

The publication reminds that in the beginning of June the official website of the TV channel reported on hiring a new general producer, a 30-year-old Artem Marchevsky.

Read alsoJournalists investigate Medvedchuk's role in Ukraine

"Marchevsky in 2015 took part in the Kyiv City Council deputies' election. He ran for Right of the People party in the 47th constituency. It was Viktor Chornyi who headed the list of Right of the People, who also ran for the Kyiv mayor's office. In 2013, he spoke on behalf of the "Ukrainian Choice" on the need for a referendum on supporting Ukraine's accession to the then-Customs Union under the aegis of Russia," Skhemy reports.

"The fact that the channel has gone under Medvedchuk's control is evidenced not only by connection with him of the new management. In the summer of 2018, the politician's 'presence' in 112 Ukraine's showshas grown significantly. A man behind the scenes of the Ukrainian politics, Medvedchuk does not personally give interviews, at least for the time being. But the channel's broadcast is full of his quotes, while statements of his political power make separate news," journalists write.

"Media Sapiens publication drew attention not only to the sharp rise in the rate of Viktor Medvedchuk's quotes on the air of 112 Ukraine, but also to the content of these quotes: 'An spect which is significantly worse is the content of these quotes. Conditionally speaking, all Medvedchuk's statements can be divided into three types : criticism of the West, criticism of the authorities, and promotion of the Minsk agreements.' The frankly pro-Russian agenda has not yet been traced in the general editorial policy of the channel, although Denis Zharkikh, known for his participation in panel shows of Russian propaganda TV channels with criticism of the Ukrainian authorities, has been starring in his own show on this channel since summer," the investigation says.

As UNIAN reported, previously Medvedchuk's lawyer threatened to ban through court the film about a Ukrainian dissident Vasyl Stus, whose lawyer in the Soviet-era trial was Viktor Medvedchuk himself.
Moscow is hoping a new Ukrainian president to be elected in 2019 will go for providing the unrecognized "LPR/DPR" a special status within Ukraine.

Russia continues playing games with Donbas, trying to swing the socio-political situation in Ukraine with its use. The bet is clearly made on the delayed, but never forgotten "project" titled "federalization of Ukraine," according to Ihor Solovey, head of the international news department at LB.ua media outlet.

"By the order of Moscow, the so-called "elections" of the leaders of the "LPR/DPR" have been postponed from November this year to 2019," Solovey wrote on Facebook, according to the Information Resistance OSINT group.

The journalist noted a peculiar explanation Russia-controlled militants offered, including the lack of funds and "the upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine in 2019, after which Kyiv's approach to the implementation of Minsk agreements might change."

Read alsoPro-Putin politician Medvedchuk gains control over 112 Ukraine TV channel - media

This means that the "Kremlin is counting on a new president of Ukraine, who will go for federalization, providing the "LPR/DPR" a special status. Gossip in the high Donetsk offices has it that after the elections and the creation of a new political majority in Ukraine "they will hold their own 'elections' and their new 'leaders' will vote (or the referendum will be held) for joining Ukraine on federative rights," wrote the journalist.

Solovey notes that a similar process is taking place in Moldova. "They will have elections in February 2019, and the strengthening of the position of the pro-Russian [President Igor] Dodon through parliament is being prepared (now the president is bound hand and foot)."

As a result, they will try to have Transnistria accede to Moldova on a federative basis. No wonder that Dmitry Kozak became the Russian Federation's special representative for Transnistria instead of Rogozin. Kozak had earlier worked on Moldova and was infamous for the so-called "Kozak memorandum," a 2003 proposal aimed at a final settlement of relations between Moldova and Transnistria. It was seen as an extension of the 1997 Moscow Memorandum but was ultimately rejected by the then-Moldovan president Vladimir Voronin.
By Jesse Johnson, The Japan Times | Aug. 20, 2018

The International Civil Aviation Organization has denied a report that the U.N. agency was planning to send a team to North Korea to conduct "an on-site inspection" to ensure the safety of international flights from the country's missile launches, a spokesman told The Japan Times on Monday.

Citing officials with the Montreal-based ICAO, Kyodo News reported Sunday that North Korea had agreed to allow staff from the agency to conduct the inspection. That report said an official with the North's General Administration of Civil Aviation gave the assurance when high-ranking ICAO representatives visited the country in May.

It said the 192-member ICAO was now planning to send its personnel next year in order to verify what measures North Korea, which is a member of the group, has taken to keep unannounced missile launches in check as it pledged.

"Our Regional Office for the Asia Pacific just confirmed there is no such activity being planned," ICAO spokesman Anthony Philbin said in an email.

"Kyodo may be mistaken because earlier there had been talk of an ICAO safety oversight audit being scheduled in the DPRK for 2019 or 2020. This is a cyclical and very ordinary activity we undertake in all ICAO Member Countries," he said, adding that the dates for the next visit to the North had yet to be decided.

After last May's trip, the ICAO said North Korea had promised to suspend activities that represented a danger to civil aviation, including the test-firings of long-range missiles without prior notice. Pyongyang conducted numerous unannounced missile tests last year -- including two over Japan -- posing an enormous threat to airplanes flying in the region.

The danger to civilian flights was highlighted in July last year, when an Air France airliner flying from Tokyo to Paris flew past an area where a ballistic missile splashed into the Sea of Japan off Hokkaido just several minutes later.

The threat was again on display in late November, when pilots of three commercial jets reported seeing what appeared to be the re-entry of North Korea's most powerful ballistic missile to date.

Inspections by the ICAO aim to ensure that member states comply with its regulations concerning the safety of international aviation. The last review of North Korea, conducted in 2008, was not related to missile launches.

Last October, the ICAO strongly condemned North Korea's persistent launches of ballistic missiles near or over international air routes without prior notice, saying they seriously threatened the safety of international flights.

The move, which was led by Tokyo, called on the ICAO Secretariat to take measures to ensure the North complies with international standards pertaining to civil aviation safety, and resulted in the Secretariat sending senior officials to the country in May.
The Foreign Ministry appealed to Ukraine's partners and international organizations to increase pressure on Russia to release Ukrainian political prisoners.

Press secretary of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Mariana Betsa emphasized that the illegally convicted Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov has been on a hunger strike for 100 days already.

"Sentsov has been on a hunger strike for 100 days. A terrible count. Human life is the highest value. We demand that the Russian Federation immediately release Oleh," she wrote on Twitter.

The Foreign Ministry also appealed to Ukraine's partners and international organizations to increase pressure on Russia to release Ukrainian political prisoners.

Read alsoKremlin may have decided to let Sentsov die as example to others - media

UNIAN memo. Sentsov was arrested in the Russian-occupied Crimea in spring 2014, and in August 2015 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison following an unfair trial where he faced "terrorism" charges stemming from his opposition to Russia's occupation of Crimea.

He has been serving his term in a penal colony in the distant town of Labytnangi, Russia's Yamal.

Sentsov began his hunger strike on May 14, 2018, in protest against the politically motivated jailing of dozens of Ukrainians in the Russian Federation.
The meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and German chancellor Angela Merkel had a minimal effect. Putin achieved only one thing - demonstrating that he was not in full international isolation. For domestic use in Russia, it is quite a lot, but for the international audience, it's almost nothing.

Looking at the pro-Russian segment of Facebook, I noticed one illustrative thing: there instantly emerged terrifying, even panicking, reports of "total betrayal," "giving up on Ukraine," "Europe with Putin," "no blockade for Putin who is accepted at the highest level in Berlin,""Putin is accepted in Austria as their best friend," and so on. But in reality, this is just wishful thinking for the Kremlin. Even Putin spox Dmitry Peskov didn't allow himself claiming some kind of a win situation, because in reality the results of the meeting were below modest.

But for Russian domestic use, the demonstration of what Putin flying around the world as a good and respected guest, has its own effect. They also seek to sow panic in certain circles in Ukraine.

Putin himself requested the meeting from Merkel. From the very beginning, it was his initiative. Merkel had previously met with the Russian president in Sochi, where the two seemed to have discussed everything they could but still failed to agree on anything

But let's get back to the actual situation. Putin himself requested the meeting from Merkel. From the very beginning, it was his initiative. Merkel had previously met with the Russian president in Sochi, where the two seemed to have discussed everything they could but still failed to agree on anything. And it was clear that there would be little sense in the new meeting. But Putin insisted...

Merkel agreed, but firmly insisted that this meeting would have a working visit status, not an official state visit. Putin actually sought a state visit, because for him it would be a very big demonstration of a breakthrough. But he was denied.

Besides, the visit was ridiculously wrinkled. Those aware of diplomatic practice and protocol, understand that this is not how such visits are played. The meeting was held on the day off, in the evening hours, practically without any post-briefing, only with the press conference held ahead of the talks. In addition, Merkel voiced her statement that she did not expect anything from the meeting, that's adding up to a standard set of "it's still necessary to negotiate with Russia, because we want to have a normal relationship with her"

Putin, for his part, also took a shot at Merkel. Some in Ukraine are trying to see some kind of conspiracy in Putin's visit to an Austria wedding before seeing Merkel, allegedly pointing at some unification of the leaders of these states and creation of a Germany-Austria-Russia triangle. In fact, Putin quite frankly spat in Merkel's eyes. That's as if Putin told her: "Here, I'm going to pay you a visit, but it'll be just a quick stop on my way home from a wedding..." And he was late for the meeting, too.

This is quite typical for Russian diplomacy: if the other side does certain things offensive things to you, but it's too late to cancel the upcoming meeting, you can also offend them. Putin made Merkel a very unpleasant surprise by meeting with the Austrian Foreign Minister from the Austrian Freedom Party.

For Merkel, this is a painful moment, because she comes from East Germany and never tolerated various ultra-right organizations, especially those associated with Nazism. The Austrian Freedom Party was founded by the cousin of the Minister of Austria's Nazi Government. Moreover, this party never even conceals that it is the heir of the Austro-Germanic Nazis of the WW2 era.

Demonstrating special affection and love to one of the representatives of this political force, and then flying to see Merkel in Germany, where revengeism is one of the most terrible accusations, was an outright slap in the face. And Merkel was forced to take it.

The Merkel-Putin meeting yielded no results. Zero

Another important and eloquent moment was the absence of an evening briefing. Although this has become the occasion for rumors that Putin and Merkel have secretly agreed on something, it wasn't the case. When there are at least some agreements, they are reported to journalists.

So, the Merkel-Putin meeting yielded no results. Zero.

As for the agenda... Before the meeting, Merkel demonstrated that she, in particular, would insist on the discussing human rights. At the moment, there are no high profile Russian prisoners in Russia, so it was about Ukrainian political prisoners in Russian prisons. Ahead of the Putin meeting, Merkel promised Poroshenko to raise the issue during the talks.

Among other issues discussed was Russia's non-fulfillment of Minsk agreements and the topic of possible mechanisms for the introduction of UN peacekeepers. At a briefing before the meeting, Merkel said she would raise this issue with Putin.

For Putin, these were unpleasant topics which he still had to swallow that pill.

Merkel also voiced a statement that Nord Stream-2's launch should not affect Ukraine's status of a gas transit state. This is an important moment, but it remains unclear whether there are enough mechanisms to ensure this... It was not the first time Merkel said this phrase 

There's a rather high probability that Nord Stream-2 will never start operating. Although, it may as well be completed. But it's becoming a big problem

In Russia it is a completely political project, and from the German side it is about "doing business." Moreover, Merkel cannot provide guarantees even to German businesses that she will protect them from American sanctions.

Therefore, there's a rather high probability that North Stream-2 may never start operating. Although, it may as well be completed. But it's becoming a big problem. That's why Merkel is more and more trying to distance herself from the project. If Nord Stream-2 becomes a serious threat to Ukraine's security, that is, provoke Russia for more aggressive actions, Merkel seeks to be able to claim she has nothing to do with it and that she didn't lobby for it, while only businessmen wanted it built. And if the German businesses are hit, she seeks to be able to say: "What have I to do with this? I warned that it's business where anything could happen."

The Russian president was also imposing another topic, setting one more task before himself  that is, to achieve Merkel's solidarity in the war against Trump. That is, Putin's main task at this meeting could be to persuade Germany to engage in anti-American rhetoric, reach agreements with the Kremlin, act together in a common front, that is, to enjoy mutual solidarity.

But, as far as I can judge, Putin saw a complete rejection. Merkel is generally dissatisfied with Trump, his policies and today's U.S. policy. She is indignant, but the principle of "enemy of my enemy is my friend" is not working there. Western European countries have already moved away from such a unicellular perception of politics.

When it comes to Putin, he cannot be a friend. He could be someone with whom due to certain circumstances one has to maintain contact. Therefore, there is no anti-American agreement between Germany and Russia. There are no agreements on Ukraine either. But, to our great regret, there is also no progress and no result in the Sentsov case.

So, if Putin even gained something at his meeting with Merkel, it was only for domestic use in Russia, nothing else. However, unfortunately, Merkel didn't gain anything, either.

Taras Chornovil is a Ukrainian political analyst, expert on international politics, former MP
Law enforcers should do their utmost to make sure the disgraced president is brought to responsibility if the court convicts him, the official said.

Prosecutor of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office, Ruslan Kravchenko, who represents state prosecution in the treason trial of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, has offered to set up a special unit to kidnap the ex-leader from Russia.

Law enforcement agencies should do everything so that the court decision is executed in case of Yanukovych's conviction, Kravchenko said in an interview with Hromadske.

"It's possible to set up a Mossad-type unit, for example, so that special forces penetrate into Russia and bring him to Ukraine," the prosecutor said.

Read alsoYanukovych's lawyers disrupt legal debate on treason case

Mossad is Israel's intelligence agency, whose functions include performing special operations beyond the country's borders. Some of their operations have never been recognized.

As reported earlier, Yanukovych is being accused of high treason, complicity with the Russian authorities, deliberate actions aimed at altering the borders of Ukraine in the breach of the procedure established by the Constitution of Ukraine, and waging aggressive war.

On June 29, 2017, Kyiv's Obolonsky district court granted the prosecution's request for the trial in absentia in the Yanukovych case.
Ukrainian political prisoner, film director Oleh Sentsov is on the brink of life and death. He was illegally imprisoned in the Russian colony in Labytnangi and has been starving for 100 days already.

UNIAN publishes the timeline of what it took for the Kremlin prisoner so far to survive his time in the Russian dungeon.

May 8-9, 2014

Oleh Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko, Hennady Afanasyev, and Oleksiy Chirnyi were detained by the FSB in Simferopol on charges of terorism.

May 11, 2014

Sentsov was transferred to the Moscow detention center Lefortovo. According to Dmitry Dinze, Sentsov's lawyer, detectives tried to interrogate the Ukrainian, but he initially refused to testify and denied all charges.

May 19, 2014

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Serhiy Kyslytsya asked the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to give a proper assessment of the fact of the detention of the well-known Ukrainian director Oleh Sentsov and other Ukrainians by the Russian security forces in the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea.

May 26-28, 2014

At the request of the Ukrainian side, the Russian Foreign Ministry officially announced that Sentsov and other citizens of Ukraine were detained as suspects in committing crimes related to terrorism. Later, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry received a note from the Russian Federation, in which the charges were briefly announced. In particular, the text stated that Ukrainians are suspected of organizing terrorist activities, preparing crimes, illegally purchasing and carrying weapons.

"We will take all necessary measures envisaged by the conventions in order to obtain more detailed information from the Russian Federation about the place of detention of Ukrainian citizens and their charges," Yevhen Perebyinis, director of the Information Policy Department of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, said. In response, the Consular Section of the Ukrainian Embassy in Russia sent an additional request to the Federal Security Service of Russia for a consular officer to be allowed a meeting with Sentsov and two other detained Ukrainians.

May 30, 2014

The FSB officially declared that all detainees were members of the "sabotage and terrorist group," representatives of the "Right Sector," and allegedly intended to carry out a series of terrorist attacks in Simferopol, Yalta and Sevastopol, and subsequently to destroy a number of vital infrastructure facilities, railway bridges and power lines. At the same time, in homes of accused Ukrainians law enforcers allegedly found explosives, firearms, ammunition, canisters with incendiaries, and nationalist paraphernalia. The Right Sector refuted any involvement of Sentsov and other detainees in any of their activities. "He [Sentsov] is a patriot who simply wanted to live in his native Ukrainian land, and the current Kremlin regime persecutes all those who consider Crimea part of Ukraine. As far as I know, he is not a member of the Right Sector," said the then speaker for the organization, Artem Skoropadsky.

June 6, 2014

The FSB put forward an indictment against Oleg Sentsov, accusing him of "terrorism." The Ukrainian consul was denied access to the detainee.

July 4-8, 2014

The then Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Human Rights Commissioner Valeria Lutkovska twice applied to the Human Rights Commissioner of the Russian Federation, Ella Pamfilova for the protection of the rights of the detained Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov, and also drew attention to the information obtained, in particular, from Oleh's lawyer about the application of torture to the detainee, as well as the denied access of the consul of Ukraine to Sentsov, which creates obstacles in providing consular and legal assistance.

July 7, 2014

Lefortovo Court of Moscow extended Sentsov's arrest until October 11.

July 10, 2014

Lutkovskaya said that Sentsov could not meet with the Ukrainian consul, as Russia considered him a Russian citizen. "The Russian Federation, as is known, has passed legislation according to which the acquisition of Russian citizenship for Crimean residents was automatic unless the person independently renounced Russian citizenship. For such refusal, only a month was given," Lutkovska recalled. According to her, Sentsov was already in the remand center at that time and could not physically refuse from Russian citizenship, and, therefore, Russian citizenship was forcibly imposed on him.

July 17, 2014

Oleh Sentsov filed an appeal with Russian ombudsperson Ella Pamfilova with a request for assistance in the confirmation of his Ukrainian citizenship.

August 8, 2014

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry made the first statement that Sentsov and other Ukrainian citizens who are held hostage on the territory of the Russian Federation are considered political prisoners. According to the report, the Russian Federation launched a systemic attack on the rights and freedoms of Ukrainian citizens, violating universal norms and principles of international law.

August 25, 2014

Bulgarian lawyer Jonko Grozev, acting on the side of Oleh Sentsov's defense, filed a "full, justified and motivated complaint" with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) about the illegally selected preventive measure to hold the Ukrainian in custody.

According to another defender of Sentsov, Mr Dinze, the process to select a measure of restraint against his client was unlawful. "De facto and de jure, the trial was illegal. De jure, the norms of the legislation of the Federal Constitutional Law on Transitional Provisions and on the establishment of courts on the territory of the Republic of Crimea and the Prosecutor's Offices, and, accordingly, the actions of the lawyer within the framework of these courts and prosecutors, were not observed. De facto, when they all gathered in the territory of Crimea and selected a preventive measure, the transitional provisions only began to operate and work. Those who selected the measure of restraint in the form of detention  the judge, prosecutor and lawyer  they all, firstly, did not have Russian citizenship, and, secondly, did not pass qualifying exams on the knowledge of Russian legislation," he noted.

September 10, 2014

The international human rights organization Amnesty International has demanded from the Russian authorities to release Oleh Sentsov. The then Head of the SBU Valentyn Nalyvaychenko said that Sentsov was on the lists of detainees, whose exchange was envisaged by Minsk agreements.

September 29, 2014

The Lefortovo District Court ordered the extension of Sentsov's arrest for three months - until January 11, 2015. By this time, Sentsov had been imprisoned for eight months.

October 24, 2014

The Moscow City Court did not satisfy the appeal filed by the defense of Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov on the decision to extend the term of arrest.

December 21-26, 2014

The Moscow court began the consideration of the Sentsov and Kolchenko case on merits. At the hearing, Sentsov called the investigation into his case "a spiritual session in the ward for the mentally ill" and wished that 2015 be the last year for the "lying regime" of the Russian Federation. As Sentsov noted, the main evidence of his guilt is the presence of two plastic bottles with salt and metal shavings. Besides, according to the film director, he was detained a day earlier than it was recorded in the documents, and all this time he was being tortured in order to obtain confessions from him.

On December 26, the Moscow City Lefortovo District Court granted the investigator's petition and extended the detention of Oleg Sentsov until April 11, 2015. The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation recognized Sentsov and Kolchenko citizens of the Russian Federation, since after the annexation of the peninsula they "did not express the will" to retain another citizenship.

February 9, 2015

The Moscow City Court rejected the appeal of the defense and upheld the decision of the first instance court to extend Sentsov's arrest until April 11.

April 8, 2015

A hearing was held in Lefortovo District Court of Moscow to extend the measure of restraint to Sentsov. The director at the court said that the FSB investigators threatened him with imprisonment for 20 years. "I am sure that on April 10 I will be presented with a very beautiful, neat case, where 20 years will be declared, unequivocally. They named this term on the first day of my official detention. This is a settled issue, and this is constantly being said to me and my lawyer. I'm not afraid of these threats, and this period - 20 years - is not frightening to me," said Sentsov. On the same day, the court extended the arrest of the Ukrainian film director until May 11.

June 11, 2015

Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation upheld the indictment in the criminal case against Oleh Sentsov. According to the pre-trial investigation, Sentsov set up a "terrorist organization operating on the territory of the Republic of Crimea, a structural subdivision of the Right Sector organization" (its activities are banned in Russia by the court), whose goals were to destabilize the activities of the Republic's authorities and affect decision-making by the authorities Russian Federation on the withdrawal of this Republic from its composition." After that, the case was transferred to the North Caucasus District Military Court for examination on the merits.

July 21, 2015 The court began the first hearing of the Sentsov case on merits. The director did not plead guilty.

August 25, 2015

The Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov to 20 years' imprisonment, finding him guilty of crimes under six articles of the Russian Criminal Code, totaling 53 years of imprisonment.

In particular, the court found him guilty of creating a "terrorist organization, that is, a stable group of individuals who had conspired to carry out terrorist activities, as well as of leading this terrorist organization." In addition, he was found guilty of committing "two terrorist acts, committing arsons, frightening the population and creating the threat of death of a person, causing significant property damage with the aim of influencing decision-making by authorities, as part of an organized group, that is, of two crimes." And also of "preparing a terrorist act, an explosion, frightening the population, creating the threat of death of a person, causing significant property damage with the aim of destabilizing the authorities and influencing decision-making by government bodies, as part of an organized group." The Russian court also found Sentsov guilty of attempted illegal acquisition of explosive devices as part of an organized group and of the illegal acquisition of firearms... After the verdict was announced, Sentsov and Kolchenko sang the anthem of Ukraine.

September 4, 2015

Defense of the Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov filed with the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation an appeal against the verdict, according to which Sentsov was sentenced to a 20-year imprisonment. It began to be considered only in November, after which the verdict was upheld.

February 2016

Oleh Sentsov's lawyer Dmitry Dinze reported that both Ukrainians - Sentsov and Kolchenko - were sent to serve their sentence in the climate-harsh and remote regions of Russia in order to complicate the work of their defense. At the end of February, Oleh Sentsov said that he was sent to Yakutia, after which he disappeared for almost a month "from radars" - he had no contact with lawyers and the Ukrainian ombudsperson.

October 21, 2016

Russia's Ministry of Justice for the first time officially refused to extradite Sentsov, arguing that he is a citizen of the Russian Federation, and Russian legislation prohibits the extradition of Russian citizens to third countries, even if they have a second citizenship other than Russian. Although in April 2016, simultaneously with the submission of documents for the extradition of Sentsov and Kolchenko to Ukraine, the Russian ombudsperson officially confirmed their Ukrainian citizenship. "The Ukrainian citizenship of Sentsov and Kolchenko is officially confirmed and no one doubts it," said in the office of the Russian ombudsperson.

October 13, 2017

After almost a year in the Yakutia colony, Sentsov was sent to the Polar Bear colony of the town of Labytnangi in Yamal, where the Ukrainian has been kept ever since.

May 16, 2018

Sentsov announced an indefinite hunger strike, to which he had been preparing for a month and a half, demanding the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia. As Oleh's cousin Natalya Kaplan later wrote, the hunger strike came as a surprise to his family. According to Sentsov himself, he is not going to stop the hunger strike until all Ukrainian political prisoners have been released.

June 15-29, 2018

Ukrainian Ombudsperson Liudmyla Denisova headed to the colony in Labytnangi for a meeting with the Ukrainian film director. The reason for her trip was that there was information about a sharp worsening of Sentsov's health. At the same time, Russian Ombudsperson Tatyana Moskalkova arrived in Ukraine, intending to visit Russian detainees in Ukrainian prisons. But Denisova was denied access to Sentsov. In addition, she was refused information about the health status of the Kremlin's political prisoner and was asked to leave the colony. The Kremlin claimed that Oleh Sentsov, illegally convicted in Russia, was not a "detainee" and refused to answer why the Ukrainian ombudsperson was denied access. Moreover, later Tatiana Moskalkova said that her Ukrainian colleague Liudmyla Denisova went to the colony to visit Oleh Sentsov on a "personal initiative," and that her visit had not been coordinated. Denisova was even refused to see Sentsov via a video link, which was extremely alarming. The Kremlin, on a direct question on whether Oleh Sentsov is still alive, said that they "have no information." Denisova later reported that Sentsov could be forcibly fed, thus, in effect, being exposed to torture, but later his lawyer refuted the claim.

June 30, 2018

The Kremlin received two applications for Sentsov's pardon - from his mother Sentsova and Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjrn Jagland. But the Kremlin referred to the fact that Sentsov ostensibly should ask for a pardon himself, although if one takes into account the release of Nadiia Savchenko, Ilmi Umerov and Akhtem Chiygoz, this is not a prerequisite for pardon.

July 5, 2018

Sentsov's cousin Natalia Kaplan was allowed access to him. She reported that her cousin had grown very old and lost 15 kg. "They provide a dropper, a so-called supportive therapy. Without this, he would not have survived, he's aware of that. There was no force-feeding, but he does not rule out that they could apply this," Kaplan said.

August 8, 2018

Natalia Kaplan received a letter from Sentsov that his condition had deteriorated sharply. "Everything is not just bad, everything is catastrophically bad. Through his lawyer, Oleh passed me the letter. He almost does not get up from bed. He wrote that the end was near, and it was not about the release. He asks if anyone else is interested in his hunger strike. He does not receive letters. No letters! He says that he is now in an information vacuum and does not even know what is happening," Kaplan wrote on Facebook.

August 9, 2018

Russian Ombudsperson Tatyana Moskalkova sent three pictures of the illegally convicted Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov from his cell to Ukrainian Ombudsperson Liudmyla Denisova. "According to the information she was given, Oleh is active, he walks to watch TV, reads books, writes something from time to time. Everyone, I quote, is surprised how he manages to get by; his condition is satisfactory," Denisova said. Sentsov's lawyer Dmitry Dinze said that the film director, who hasd already had three crises by this time, could soon experience organ failure.

August 12, 2018

A journalist of the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Viktoriya Ivleva, said that the plane with the Ukrainian director Oleh Sentsov flew from the city of Salekhard, but the Kremlin refuted this information. In turn, Natalia Kaplan's cousin Natalia Kaplan called not to voice any information about the release of Oleh Sentsov until he actually leaves Russia.

August 14, 2018

The Federal Service for the Execution of Punishments of Russia (FSIN) allowed Russian human rights activist Zoya Svetova to visit Oleh Sentsov in the colony. According to her, she talked with the film director for two hours in the presence of the chief of the colony and two other staff. Sentzov called his state precritical.

On the same days, one and a half months after the pardon petition was filed, Sentsov's mother received a response, which, in fact, said her appeal was denied consideration.

August 16, 2018

More than ten people convicted of crimes against the sovereignty of Ukraine asked the Russian president to exchange them for Ukrainian political prisoners, in particular Oleh Sentsov. The representative of Ukraine in Minsk group, Iryna Gerashchenko, stated that Ukraine was ready to transfer 36 saboteurs, spies, terrorists and thieves in exchange for the liberation of Ukrainian political prisoners. However, there has been no response from the Russian side to the proposal.

August 19, 2018

The site of the Merlek-Putin meeting near Berlin saw rallies calling for the Kremlin to release Oleh Sentsov. Such actions are being held internationally, in any country where the Russian president appears. However, the Kremlin leader is not in a hurry to "stop the murder of Oleh Sentsov."

August 21, 2018

The illegally convicted Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov has been on hunger strike for 100 days. "Sentsov has been on a hunger strike for 100 days. A terrible count. Human life is the highest value. We demand that the Russian Federation immediately release Oleh," Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa said. In addition, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry appealed to international partners of Ukraine and international organizations to increase pressure on Russia to release Ukrainian political prisoners.

UNIAN

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Lutsenko did not name any of the suspects.

Ukrainian authorities have launched an investigation into whether former state officials paid Paul Manafort for political consulting work, the country's prosecutor-general says.

Yuriy Lutsenko told journalists in Kyiv on August 21 that Ukraine's State Fiscal Service opened criminal proceedings against ex-officials who served during Viktor Yanukovych's presidency and were suspected of paying Manafort for his work for Yanukovych and his Party of Regions, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty has said.

Under Ukrainian law, state officials do not have the right to engage in business, Lutsenko said.

Lutsenko did not name any of the suspects, but at least six Ukrainian oligarchs and politicians, including four who held public office during Yanukovych's term, are alleged to have paid a total of $65.9 million to Manafort for consulting work, according to documents released by a U.S. court.

Three other cases related to Manafort's professional activities in Ukraine are currently being investigated by the country's Prosecutor General's Office. Manafort himself is not facing any charges in Ukraine.

The announcement of the new probe comes as the jury in Manafort's trial at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, entered its fourth day of deliberations.

Read alsoManafort's ex-business partner Gates: Ukrainian clients wire millions of dollars to account in Cyprus

During his press briefing, Lutsenko cited the hundreds of documents presented by U.S. prosecutors in the trial and the testimony of one of its star witnesses, Manafort's former deputy, Rick Gates, as the reason behind the opening of the new investigation.

"There has been testimony that Manafort received funds for his consulting services for disgraced ex-President Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions from specific politicians of Ukraine," Lutsenko said, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

Gates has testified in court that those who transferred millions of dollars to a Manafort account in Cyprus included Yanukovych's former chief of staff, Serhiy Lyovochkin; ex-Infrastructure Minister Borys Kolesnikov; former National Security Council Secretary Andriy Klyuyev; and lawmaker Sergiy Tigipko.

None of the men could immediately be reached for comment, RFE/RL said.

"Therefore, we opened a criminal case into possible violations of these state officials at that time," Lutsenko said, adding that the State Fiscal Service "will obviously work with those jurisdictions in the territory of which there are mainly offshore companies mentioned during Manafort's trial."

Lutsenko conceded that the investigation will be a slog but said investigators would see it through.

"If it is proved" that any civil servant provided funds to Manafort, he said, "then he will be held liable in accordance with current Ukrainian legislation."
The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

A Kyiv businessman Boris German, who is being charged with organizing an assassination attempt on Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, has pleaded guilty and gone for a deal with the investigation.

The information was confirmed by several sources, Censor.Net reported.

However, the terms of the agreement with the investigation are not disclosed.

German's lawyer Yevhen Solodko refused to comment on the report, referring to the fact that he had signed a non-disclosure obligation.

Read alsoSBU head: Babchenko's "assassin" also tasked with planting arms caches in central Ukraine

It became known on May 29, 2018, that Babchenko was reportedly shot dead at his apartment in Kyiv. Chief of Ukraine's SBU Security Service Vasyl Hrytsak said at a follow-up briefing on May 30, that the assassination was staged to prevent the killing of Babchenko and other persons who were targets for assassination.

The SBU is investigating German pursuant to crimes under Part 1 of Article 14 (preparing a crime), Part 5 of Article 27 (abetting a crime), Part 3 of Article 258 (an act of terrorism) of Ukraine's Criminal Code.

Hrytsak said German had offered US$30,000 to an acquaintance who served in the Anti-Terrorist Operation in eastern Ukraine to assassinate Babchenko. German was said to have paid a US$15,000 advance for the crime.
There are still no suspects in the case investigated for two years already, the official said.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko says the police have been actively developing a new line in the investigation into the murder of Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet in Kyiv.

"Last month, we got a new line that may lead us to cracking the crime. I keep everything under control. Intensive investigative actions are under way. That's all. I'll say no more." Lutsenko told the Ukrainian online newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda on August 21.

At the same time, he confirmed there are still no suspects in the case investigated for two years already.

"We now have information that will probably bring us at least to perpetrators, and then to those who ordered the crime. But I emphasize the word 'probably'," he summed up.

Read alsoG7 Ambassadors call on Ukraine to bring those responsible for Sheremet's murder to justice

As UNIAN reported earlier, in June, Lutsenko acknowledged the lack of any serious results in the investigation into Sheremet's murder.

Andriy Lysenko, the press secretary of the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) on July 20 said four major theories were being considered at this stage regarding the motives for the journalist's murder. That is, his work as a journalist, personal enmity, destabilization of the situation in Ukraine, an erroneously chosen assassination target (the car was owned by co-founding editor of the Ukrayinska Pravda online newspaper, Olena Prytula).

On the same day, Deputy Chief of Ukraine's National Police, head of the criminal police Viacheslav Abroskin said the police was working on identifying a person, whom CCTV cameras spotted planting an explosive device at the bottom of the car.

UNIAN memo. Pavel Sheremet, a journalist from Belarus who was residing in Kyiv, was blown up in a car on the morning of July 20, 2016. Police opened a criminal case under Clause 5 of Part 2 of Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (felonious homicide committed in a way dangerous for many people's life).

Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko called revenge for professional activity as a major theory behind the journalist's murder. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov did not rule out Russia's involvement in the assassination. He said that the National Police is ready to pay UAH 200,000 for any information with regard to the murder.
Sentsov and Balukh are on hunger strike to demand the Russian authorities release all Ukrainian political prisoners.

United Kingdom's Minister of State for Europe and the Americas Alan Duncan has called for the immediate release of Ukrainian political prisoners held by Russia.

"On the 100th day of Oleg Sentsov's hunger strike, we remain extremely concerned for Mr Sentsov's health and treatment at the hands of the Russian authorities," he said in a statement posted on the website of the UK's Foreign & Commonwealth Office on August 21.

Duncan also mentioned Volodymyr Balukh, another Ukrainian national held in Russian detention, who is on hunger strike to demand the Russian authorities release all Ukrainian political prisoners.

"Mr Balukh is also on long term hunger strike and it is reported that the conditions of both men are rapidly deteriorating and their lives are under threat," he said.

Read alsoHundred days of hunger strike: "Sentsov case" timeline

According to Duncan, it is critical that Russia allows Ukrainian officials and international humanitarian organisations unrestricted access to Sentsov, Balukh and up to 70 other Ukrainian political prisoners.

"No one should be imprisoned for opposing the illegal annexation of Crimea. Russia must now uphold its obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law and release them immediately," he said.
Joint forces reported no casualties over the past 24 hours.

Russian-led forces mounted 23 attacks on Ukrainian troops in Donbas in the past day.

"No casualties among the Ukrainian troops have been reported over the past day. According to intelligence reports, three occupiers were killed and another two were wounded," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation said in an update on Facebook as of 07:00 Kyiv time on August 21, 2018.

Read alsoJFO: Ukraine reports 20 enemy attacks in Donbas in last day

Russian occupation forces opened aimed fire from grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms to attack the defenders of the towns of Svitlodarsk, Popasna and Maryinka, and the villages of Krymske, Hnutove, Pavlopil, Lebedynske, Vodiane and Shyrokyne. The enemy engaged Ukrainian troops outside Lebedynske using 82mm mortars. In addition, the occupiers employed120mm mortars near the village of Novoluhanske.

"Since Tuesday midnight, Russian-led forces have mounted two attacks on the Ukrainian positions outside Lebedynske and Vodiane, using weapons installed on infantry fighting vehicles, as well as heavy machine guns," the report says.
Besides, he called another meeting with North Korea's Kim "likely."

U.S. President Donald Trump says he could consider lifting sanctions imposed on Russia if the authorities in Moscow take steps toward cooperating with Washington on Syria and Ukraine.

Asked whether he would consider lifting Russia sanctions, Trump said: No. I havent thought about it. But no, Im not considering it at all. No. I would consider it if they do something that would be good for us. But I wouldnt consider it without that. In other words, I wouldnt consider it, even for a moment, unless something was go  we have a lot of things in common. We have a lot of things we can do good for each other. You have Syria. You have Ukraine. You have many other things. I think they would like economic development. And thats a big thing for them, Trump said in an Oval Office interview with Reuters.

Read alsoWashington to respond to meddling with offensive cyber operations  Trump adviser

On whether Putin asked Trump to lift the U.S. sanctions on Russia, the American president said: No, he did not. He never brought it up.

Trump also said "it's most likely we will" have another meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He did not elaborate on any timeline for such meeting.

Look, I have a good relationship with him. I like him. A lot of people will say: How could you possibly like him? I get along with him very well; we have a good chemistry. I have a good chemistry with Putin, too," the U.S. president said.
Hunt makes his first visit to the United States as foreign secretary as Washington prepares to impose fresh sanctions against Moscow after Salisbury nerve agent attack.

Jeremy Hunt is to challenge the EU to impose tougher sanctions against Russia as he urges the bloc to stand with Britain and the U.S. against Moscow's malign and aggressive behavior.

The remarks come as the U.S. State Department prepares to impose new sweeping sanctions against Vladimir Putins administration after claiming Russia had violated international law with a nerve agent attack on the streets of Britain, according to The Independent.

In his first visit to Washington as foreign secretary, Hunt will urge the EU member states to ensure the allies speak with one voice against transgressions by Moscow, whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea.

Referring to Russia, he will say: Aggressive and malign behavior undermines the international order that keeps us safe. Of course, we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt: Russias foreign policy under President Putin has made the world a more dangerous place.

Read alsoTrump names conditions for Russia sanctions lift

And today the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the U.S.

EU nations including Germany and France were among dozens of countries that expelled Russian diplomats following the nerve agent attack, but some have since reached out to Vladimir Putin, with French president Emmanuel Macron travelling to St Petersburg to call on Russia to work hand in hand with Europe, and Italy questioning whether sanctions imposed over the 2014 annexation of Crimea should continue.

The further sanctions from the U.S. are expected to take effect by August 22 and include the imposition of restrictions on the exports of sensitive technologies to Russia  followed by more draconian measures if Moscow fails to respond within 90 days to requests that it will not use chemical weapons in the future.

The Russian embassy in the U.S. denounced the move earlier this month and rejected the far-fetched accusation it was behind the poisoning of the former spy Sergei Skrpial and his daughter Yulia in March this year using the novichok nerve agent.

In his speech at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Hunt will also urge China to be supportive and criticize the decision not to oppose the annexation of Crimea or support measures aimed at strengthening the ban on chemical weapons.
Individuals and firms being used to help sanctioned companies circumvent financial blocks have been added to the sanctions list.

The U.S. Treasury has imposed fresh sanctions against Russian actors in connection with the Kremlin's aggressive cyber attacks.

The additional sanctions have been made to "disrupt Russian efforts to circumvent our sanctions" said U.S. Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, Sky News reported.

"Today's action against these deceptive actors is critical to ensure that the public is aware of the tactics undertaken by designated parties and that these actors remain blocked from the U.S. financial system," Mr Mnuchin added.

The two newly sanctioned people and firms join three other individuals and five businesses that were accused in June of providing material and technological support to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).

Read alsoMicrosoft uncovers more Russian attacks ahead of midterms  AP

One of the newly proscribed businesses, Vela-Marine, is accused of procuring equipment for the previously sanctioned Divetechnoservices which worked on the Kremlin's programme to interfere with subsea cables.

At the time of the sanctions in June, Mr Mnuchin said the U.S. was "engaged in an ongoing effort to counter malicious actors working at the behest of the Russian Federation and its military and intelligence units to increase Russia's offensive cyber capabilities.

"The entities designated today have directly contributed to improving Russia's cyber and underwater capabilities through their work with the FSB and therefore jeopardise the safety and security of the United States and our allies."

All of the property and interests in property held by the sanctioned individuals and the businesses will be blocked, and people in the U.S. will be prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.

The Kremlin continues to deny that it has engaged in any offensive cyber acts at all.

The two businesses named are Vela-Marine and Lacno, and the individuals are Marina Tsareva and Anton Nagibin, who are accused of acting for or on behalf of Divetechnoservices to help the company circumvent U.S. sanctions.

They are issued on the same day that Microsoft reported it had disrupted an attempt by Russian hackers to interfere in the U.S. midterms, although these are not believed to be related to the sanctions.

A dozen members of the GRU who were previously involved in attempts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election were named in a legal indictment in July.
He faces a maximum of 80 years in prison.

A federal jury has found Paul Manafort guilty on eight of 18 counts in the financial fraud trial of a man who just two years ago helped President Donald Trump secure the Republican nomination for the White House.

Manafort was found guilty on five counts of submitting false tax returns, one count of failing to report foreign bank and financial accounts, and two counts of bank fraud, USA Today said.

He faces a maximum of 80 years in prison.

Read alsoRFE/RL: Ukraine launches probe into suspected business dealings between ex-officials, Manafort

U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III declared a mistrial on the other 10 counts. The judge gave prosecutors a week to decide whether they would seek a retrial on those counts.

During the reading of the verdicts, Manafort faced the jury expressionless as some of the jurors looked directly at him. Manafort's wife, Kathleen Manafort, sat directly behind him in the gallery, grim-faced.

Ellis called Manafort to the podium briefly where he told the former political operative that he would not set an immediate sentencing date.

The Manafort verdict marked a victory for special counsel Robert Mueller, whose case against Manafort represented the first contested prosecution brought from the ongoing investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election.
On any given school day, over 1 billion children around the world head to class.

More children and adolescents today are enrolled in pre-primary, primary and secondary education than ever before. Yet, for many of them, schooling does not lead to learning  and this was before COVID-19 shuttered schools and disrupted learning across the globe, creating an urgent need to reimagine education.

A lack of trained teachers, inadequate learning materials, makeshift classes and poor sanitation facilities make learning difficult for many children. Others come to school too hungry, sick or exhausted from work or household tasks to benefit from their lessons.

The consequences are grave: An estimated 617 million children and adolescents around the world are unable to reach minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics, even though two thirds of them are in school.

This learning crisis is the greatest global challenge to preparing children and adolescents for life, work and active citizenship.

Schooling does not always lead to learning. Worldwide, there are more non-learners in school than out of school.

Whats more, 11 per cent of primary-school-aged children and 20 per cent of lower-secondary-aged children are not in school at all.

Children and adolescents are excluded from education for many reasons. Poverty remains one of the most obstinate barriers, with children from the poorest households almost five times more likely to be out of primary school than those from the richest.

Children with disabilities and from ethnic minorities are also more likely to be left behind.

For girls in some parts of the world, education opportunities can be especially limited. Only 49 per cent of countries have achieved gender parity in primary education. Harmful gender norms can have severe effects for boys, too.

Location also keeps children from school. Children from rural areas are more than twice as likely to be out of primary school than their urban peers. In conflict zones, 27 million children are out of school.

Without skills for lifelong learning, children face greater barriers to earning potential and employment later in life. They are more likely to suffer adverse health outcomes and less likely to participate in the decisions that affect them  threatening their ability to build a better future for themselves and their communities.
UPDATE (January 2017): The malnutrition situation in northeast Nigeria remains critical. The number of cases of children suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition is extremely high, with the crisis in Borno state most acute. In 2016, working with partners, UNICEF treated 160,000 children suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states. Although UNICEF has made significant progress in reaching children and their families with healthcare, treatment for malnutrition, safe water, sanitation and hygiene services, education and child protection, a persistent lack of funding continues to hamper the response effort. Learn more: UNICEF's Humanitarian Action for Children 2017 >



UNICEF estimates that 400,000 children in north-east Nigeria will suffer severe acute malnutrition this year. The story of 7-month old Umara shows what life-saving treatment can achieve.



MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, 13 December 2016  Fanna Mohammed is worried about her son. Seven-month-old Umara is thin and listless. He rests his head against his mother's shoulder as she carries him in her arms. It's impossible to get him to raise a smile.

The family fled their village in a rural area of Borno state earlier this year due to the ongoing Boko Haram-related crisis. Now they live in an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camp in the state capital Maiduguri. The camp is home to an estimated 20,000 people  8,000 of those are children under the age of five.

Fanna says Umara has been ill for the past few week. He is showing physically signs of severe acute malnutrition. The bones on his chest and back are prominent. The skin around his arms and legs is loose.
Many families in Romania face issues such as separating children from their parents, lack of minimum welfare payments, violence, early pregnancies, illness, school dropout or absenteeism. The UNICEF pilot model Minimum Package of Services aims to prevent these issues from ever happening.



ASAU, Romania, 8 December 2016  Andreea Ursaru has just come home from hospital with her baby Daria, but there arent any flowers to greet them. In fact, the 20-year-old Romanian mother of four hasnt ever received flowers.

Her mother left the country 10 years ago and she was left behind with her sister who she had to raise herself. Her father died 2 years ago.

She met her first husband in the seventh grade when she was 15 years old and had her first child in the eighth. Since then she jokes she had a fresh batch every year. Andreea lacks quite a lot, but not a sense of humour.

Carina is 4 years old, Andreea 3, David 18 months and Daria only 1 month. Andreea gave birth to Daria prematurely and they spent three weeks in the hospital before coming home.

Home is a tiny house with a narrow balcony and 8 square metres to live in. Its barely enough to fit two beds, a table, the stove and a cupboard where the TV sits stuck on one music TV channel.



Support where its needed

Andreea lives in Asau, a commune that is part of UNICEFs Community Services for Children programme. Covering 45 communities in the Bacau district of Romania, the programme provides families in need like Andreeas with a minimum level of social and medical services.

She received advice, encouragement and support to get birth certificates for the children and to file for social aid. It was the social worker Mihaela and the community nurse Maria who took care of her in hospital and told her about family planning.

[They] always visited me, helped me with kind words says Andreea. [They] told me to take care of the children, give them clean clothes, bathe them and feed them on time. After all, without them, I would not have known [what to do], since I did not have mom next to me.

They helped to get the papers for child support for groceries, otherwise, I dont even know how I would have gotten by, to be honest, says Andreea.
KISMAYO, Somalia, 12 December 2016  The cholera treatment centre at Kismayo General Hospital, the biggest hospital in Kismayo, hadnt had any patients since the last outbreak was brought under control. But lately it has again been inundated with patients.

This time, the outbreak is measles  a highly contagious viral disease that can lead to pneumonia, diarrhoea, encephalitis which causes brain swelling, and blindness. Since September, 419 measles cases have been officially recorded, 302 of which are children under five. In Somalia, measles is a major cause of death among children  but it can be effectively prevented with a simple vaccine.

Lying on mattresses on the floor are dozens of children. Most of them are sleeping with their bodies curled up  oblivious of the heat and flies. Some have visibly swollen eyes, leaking pus from their eyes and nose. If awake, they look dazed and listless.

Among them are Maryan, 8 months, and her brother Maseuud, 1 year and 8 months. Maryan breathes rapidly and has contracted pneumonia, a severe complication caused by measles, while Maseuud has a rash all over his body. The children are accompanied by their mother, Maano.

They have had a fever for 10 days, and also vomiting, coughing and congested chests, says Maano. We brought them here two days ago. It was only when we got here we realized that it was measles.
This is a summary of what was said by Marixie Mercado, UNICEF spokesperson in Geneva  to whom quoted text may be attributed  at today's press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.



GENEVA, 9 January 2018  I spent 6 December through 3 January in Myanmar, almost half of that time in Rakhine State. I traveled to the northern part of the state  where the violence broke out last August, driving 655,000 people, the vast majority of them Rohingya, across the border into Bangladesh. I also went to central Rakhine, where over 120,000 Rohingya have been stranded in squalid camps since 2012, and about 200,000 more live in villages where their freedom of movement and access to basic services are also increasingly restricted.



UNICEF and our partners still dont know what the true picture is of the children who remain in northern Rakhine because we dont have enough access. What we do know is deeply troubling. Prior to 25 August, we were treating 4,800 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition; these children are no longer receiving this life-saving treatment. All 12 of the outpatient therapeutic treatment centres run by our partners are closed because they were either looted, destroyed or staff cant access them. None of the five primary health care centres that we were supporting are functioning and there is nowhere near enough clean water or food aid being distributed. Partners have identified about 20 children separated from their families during the violence but estimate the total number to be at least 100, most of whom are in parts of northern Rakhine State that they still cannot access.



"Maungdow town clearly bears the scars of the recent violence  large areas have been razed and flattened by bulldozers, most stores are shuttered, few people are on the streets, very few women and even fewer children. Our best estimates indicate that only about 60,000 Rohingya remain in Maungdaw, out of a pre-August 25 population of about 440,000. The Rohingya children who do remain in rural areas are almost totally isolated. We hear of high levels of toxic fear in children from both Rohingya and Rakhine communities.



UNICEF stands ready to work with the Government of Myanmar and with the State Government of Rakhine to reach out to all children, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion, status or circumstance, to bring them the protection and assistance they need. For this, we urgently need regular and unlimited access across Rakhine State.



While the eyes of the world are on the situation in northern Rakhine and in Coxs Bazaar, over 60,000 Rohingya children remain almost forgotten, trapped in 23 camps in central Rakhine they were driven into by violence in 2012. Pre-existing restrictions on movement of people into and out of the camps were tightened first after the October 2016 outbreak of violence and again after August 2017, making it even harder for humanitarian workers to deliver aid to children, and making already poor conditions in the camps even worse.



The worst camps are in appalling condition. Nget Chaung 1 and 2 in Pauktaw Township are only reachable by boat, a four-to-five-hour ride on the local boats used to deliver supplies. The camps are below sea level, with almost no tree cover. The first thing you notice when you reach the camps is the stomach-churning stench. Parts of the camps are literally cesspools. Shelters teeter on stilts above garbage and excrement. In one camp, the pond where people draw water from is separated by a low mud wall from the sewage. You can easily see how a little bit of rainfall would wash that filth over into the pond. Children walk barefoot through the muck. One camp manager reported four deaths among children ages 3-10 within the first 18 days of December. His only ask was for proper pathways so they wouldnt have to walk through their own waste.

The restrictions also mean it is extremely difficult for Rohingya to leave their camps for medical treatment. Permission to travel to seek medical assistance is only granted where there is a justification certified by a doctor. Checkpoints and curfews mean delays. The travel authorization costs money, which most people in the camps cant afford. Relatives are often not permitted to accompany the patient. Once they are at a hospital, Rohingya are confined to a restricted area and not allowed outside contact. As a result, people are turning to traditional healers, untrained physicians or self-medicating. One UNICEF-supported caseworker told me that his daughter had committed suicide because she was unable to bear a pain in her abdomen that existing camp health services were unable to treat. Basic living conditions and access to lifesaving services need to be improved urgently.



Theres an acute level of fear between the Rakhine and Rohingya communities. I was told by parents in one Rohingya village that they hadnt had their children vaccinated against Japanese Encephalitis because the government vaccinators were accompanied by security officers  and I was told by government workers that they dared not go to Rohingya communities without security.



The movement restrictions are shrinking horizons for children in the camps  nowhere more so than in terms of education. Most of the learning takes place in poorly-resourced temporary learning classrooms, with determined volunteer teachers who have little formal training. There are nowhere near enough classrooms to accommodate students and there is only one high school in the capital, Sittwe, where most camps are located, that caters to Rohingya students between 10th and 12th grades.



Before, the more fortunate students from other camps would come to Sittwe for high school. This year however, one teacher told me that because of the movement restrictions, no student would make it out of the more remote camps. I met a 17-year-old high school graduate in a Sittwe camp whose only chance of going to university is through distance learning  with an institution that is less than a dozen kilometers from where he lives. No Muslim has been able to attend university in Rakhine state since 2012. Whats the point of learning? one mother asked me.



Rohingya children desperately need education if they are to have any kind of prospects for a better future. Temporary solutions need to be improved immediately and more durable arrangements providing children with access to formal education, provided by properly trained teachers and recognized by the education system, must be set in place quickly. Otherwise this generations future prospects will be permanently damaged.

The Government of Myanmar has established a ministerial committee tasked with implementing the recommendations of the final report of the Rakhine Advisory Commission chaired by Kofi Annan, which include addressing the stateless status of the Rohingya population and meeting priority needs.



Rohingya children need a political solution to the issue of legal identity and citizenship. In the interim they need to be recognized first and foremost as children. The Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees rights to health, education and opportunities to learn and grow to all children, irrespective of their ethnicity or status or the circumstances in which they find themselves. Ways and means must be found to deliver these rights to Rohingya children in Rakhine State today.



Ethnic Rakhine children have also been deeply affected by years of communal violence and division. We have long worked to promote more equitable and inclusive access for all children across Rakhine and Myanmnar, and we stand by our principle that a child is a child and every child in need deserves help.



The Annan Commission has provided a roadmap for a durable political solution so all childrens rights can be protected in a sustainable, open and fair manner in the longer term. UNICEF stands ready to support this crucial work. And we call on the global community, especially regional organizations and countries, to leverage their influence so children have better lives today and a future they can look forward to.



###



Notes for editors:



Multimedia assets available here: https://weshare.unicef.org/Package/2AMZIFIRJ01Q



For more information please contact:

Marixie Mercado, UNICEF Geneva, mmercado@unicef.org, +41 79 559 7172

Christophe Boulierac, UNICEF Geneva, cboulierac@unicef.org, +41 799639244





________________________________________

[1] Humanitarian Needs Overview, OCHA, November 2017. The figure they list is 61,343, sourced to the Maungdaw Inter-Agency Group.
UNICEF/UN044444/Al-Issa

NEW YORK, 16 December 2016  More than 2,700 children have been evacuated from east Aleppo in the past 24 hours, including some who were sick, wounded or without their parents.



However, hundreds of other vulnerable children, including orphans, remain trapped inside that part of the city. We are extremely concerned about their fate. If these children are not evacuated urgently, they could die.



UNICEF and our partners are on standby with transport and teams to evacuate these children to safety. We implore all parties to the conflict to let us do so safely and immediately.

###
UNICEF/UN039551/Soulaiman

AMMAN, 19 December 2016  This morning, all 47 children trapped in an orphanage in east Aleppo were evacuated to safety, with some in critical condition from injuries and dehydration.



The evacuation of these orphans, along with thousands of other children from east Aleppo in the past days is a glimmer of hope amid a grim reality for the children of Syria. Their safe departure is a testimony to the relentless efforts of humanitarians on the ground, working around the clock for children and their families.



UNICEF and partners are assisting in reunifying recently evacuated children with their families and in providing them with urgently needed medical care and winter clothes.



Many vulnerable children  including other orphans and children separated from their families  still remain in east Aleppo and need immediate protection. UNICEF reminds all parties of their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect children, wherever they may be.



The conflict in Syria is nearing its sixth year. It has uprooted millions, separated families and deprived children of the very basics for survival - and their childhood.



We call on all parties to the conflict to strive for an immediate political solution to this war. The lives of millions more children depend on it.



###
UNICEF/UNI169641/El Baba

GAZA, 19 January 2017  Today the European Union and UNICEF officially inaugurated the largest seawater desalination plant built in the Gaza Strip so far.



The 10 million plant, funded by the European Union, has the capacity of producing 6,000 m3 of potable water daily to provide around 75,000 Palestinians with safe drinking water in the southern Gaza Stripabout 35,000 people in Khan Younis and 40,000 people in Rafah.



The European Union has already granted an additional funding of 10 Million to double the capacity of the plant. The works of this second phase, which have just started, will enable the plant to produce a total of 12,000 m3 of safe drinkable water daily, serving around 150,000 Palestinians.

"It is almost ten years since Gaza was first subjected to closure  a policy which has affected every aspect of life here. We are here to say that Gaza will always be at the top of our agenda in Palestine, said Mr. Michael A. Kohler, Director for South Neighbourhood at the European Commission, as he drank his first glass of water produced on site.

"Our support covers various sectors from helping to provide clean water to solid waste management, businesses development, and strengthening civil society. These projects give hope in the midst of a very bleak reality which has to end. It is a time to bring about a fundamental change to the political, economic and security situation in Gaza," he added.

The project, which started a little over three years ago, was led in partnership with the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) and Gazas Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU).

The completion of the first phase of the plant is a testimony to what can be achieved in Gaza, and we deeply thank all who were involved in making this possible, especially to the European Union for their generous support and for playing a lead role every step of the way, said June Kunugi, UNICEF Special Representative for the State of Palestine. This plant will help meet the urgent needs of vulnerable children and families, and increase their access to safe drinking water in a sustainable manner. Water is life, and this plant is a symbol of hope, partnership, and progress in Gaza.

The plant includes solar panels but it will mainly rely on electricity. A critical challenge to ensure it can fully operate will be the energy crisis, which left Gaza's residents with barely four hours of power a day over the past weeks.

Water and sanitation are basic rights which a large portion of Gazas population of nearly two million people cannot fully enjoy, said Mr. Robert Piper, UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Development Activities. One of the UNs 17 Sustainable Development Goals reaffirms our commitment to ensure access to water and sanitation for all. The construction of this plant is part of our effort to find sustainable water and sanitation solutions for Palestinians in Gaza, which is at the core of the UNs development programmes in the coming years."

Water resources are critically scarce in the Gaza Strip; 95 percent of the water extracted from the coastal aquifer is considered unfit for human consumption. Seawater desalination is one of the strategic options chosen by the Palestinian Water Authority to help provide 2 million Palestinians in the coastal enclave  including one million children -- with safe drinking water.



The desalination of seawater from the Mediterranean is essential to curb over-extraction of groundwater from the coastal aquifer, to prevent an environmental disaster and to start the slow process of aquifer restoration.
The McEwan Hall is Edinburgh Universitys Graduation Hall and principal ceremonial space. New students attend introductory lectures there during freshers week and leaving students graduate from it.



The Hall was, however, in need of a major overhaul as its facilities did not meet contemporary expectations. LDN were, therefore, appointed by the University of Edinburgh to develop proposals that dramatically enhance the capability of the A Listed McEwan Hall to fulfil its role at the heart of University life and provide a new income stream through rental for music events and conferences.



The extraordinarily impressive auditorium has been restored and building services have been upgraded throughout the building, all sensitively integrated with the listed interiors.



New support accommodation has been created under Bristo Square around the perimeter of the building and the square itself has been upgraded. A new free-standing entrance pavilion has also been formed in the square to provide universal access to the building for the first time.



The proposals have received detailed scrutiny from statutory bodies and architectural heritage groups and LDN worked hard to build consensus and support throughout the project.
Plans for a new-build family home in Strathblane have been presented to Stirling Council planners, who are being asked to approve the build on land to the east of The Mill House, Milndavie Road..

Barclays has unveiled its new Glasgow campus on the banks of the River Clyde in Tradeston, the first element of a larger mixed-use revitalisation of the area..

The jewel in the crown of Galashiels tourism has opened with the completion of The Great Tapestry of Scotland Gallery, the custom-built home for a tapestry that brings history to life in pictorial form..

A burgeoning residential neighbourhood at Granton Harbour has taken a step toward greater cohesion with the completion of 104 affordable waterfront homes..

The University of Strathclyde has taken possession of a new Learning and Teaching Building at the heart of its Rottenrow Campus following handover by BDP Glasgow..

A suburban plot in the West Murrayfield Conservation area of West Edinburgh has been i...

Highland Architects have come together to raise awareness of places at risk from risin...

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August 21 2018

The RIAS have announced a shortlist of half a dozen practices vying to win a 10m estates development package for Camphill School Aberdeen.

Anderson Bell + Christie, Collective Architecture and Hoskins Architects will go head to head with James F Stephen Architects, JM Architects and Scott Brownrigg for the commission after being chosen from 50 UK-wide submissions.

Camphill executive director, Alex Busch said: We were extremely impressed with the interest generated in the project and with the caliber of the stage 1 submissions. We would like to thank all practices for their time and efforts at this stage and we are looking forward to the next stage of the selection process with the shortlisted practices.



The winning team will be tasked with sympathetically enhancing two of the schools three campuses at Murtle Estate and Camphill Estate.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

The United States is interested in the participation of Russian companies in shale gas and oil extraction projects in Alaska, the Russian Embassy in the United States told Sputnik.

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) The United States is interested in the participation of Russian companies in shale gas and oil extraction projects in Alaska, the Russian Embassy in the United States told Sputnik.

Alaska's Anchorage hosted the RAPP 23rd Annual Meeting on July 25-26. The event was participated by Russian and US government officials, business representatives and public organizations.

The Russian Embassy said that the US Exxon mobile and Baker Hughes oil companies had also taken part in the meeting, noting that these companies continued to operate in the Russian market, in particular in projects in the country's Far East, despite anti-Moscow sanctions.

"The United States is also showing interest in the participation of Russian businesses, including oil and gas companies, in shale gas and oil production projects in Alaska. It is difficult to say how this will be implemented in the future, but, at least the US business circles and authorities of the state of Alaska have showed interest in this sphere, in particular at this event [RAPP meeting]," the diplomatic mission said.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has allocated Rs 170 million in its annual budget to provide financial support to the needy students in form of fee-waivers.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Aug, 2018 ) :Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has allocated Rs 170 million in its annual budget to provide financial support to the needy students in form of fee-waivers.

The annual budgetary allocation to this effect has almost been doubled in the recent years, in order to ensure that the financial constraint should not be a hurdle in continuation of future study, a press release said on Tuesday.

We are fulfilling our social responsibility to take care of marginalized sections of the society, said Vice Chancellor Professor Dr. Shahid Siddiqui.

The scholarships could be availed during the on-going admissions that will continue till September 5.

The AIOU is only University in the country that had the distinction of providing free education to the disabled persons, prisoners, drop-out girls and transgender community.

The University has also announced free Matric education to the students of FATA and Baluchistan.

The University provides special scholarship to its enrolled students on scoring 75% and above marks in their latest results as its policy of encouraging talented students.

According to Director Students Advisory Affairs Rana Tariq Javed, the deserving students could contact the University's offices in their respective region to apply for the concession.

They may download application form from the link given on the University's website and send it to the relevant department in the University.

In all nine scholarship schemes are being offered by the University. These are: Earn to learn Scheme, Outreach Scholarship Scheme, Final Year Project Grant Scheme, Scholarship forCommunities, Scholarship for Women, Fee Installment Scheme and Alumni-Sponsored Scholarship.

The merit scholarships scheme is an initiative to generate competition among students and encourage brilliant students.
(@rukhshanmir)

Japanese scientists are currently preparing for human clinical trials of platelets generated from human blood cells,

TOKYO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) Japanese scientists are currently preparing for human clinical trials of platelets generated from human blood cells, which are not being rejected by body, Hiroyuki Wadahama, a representative of the Japanese Center for Induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) Cell Research and Application (CiRA) of the Kyoto University, told Sputnik on Tuesday.

The center's medical scientists used white blood cells to generate iPS cells, which are artificial multi-role cells that can serve as a base for any other cell type of the human body, and then developed megakaryocytes large bone marrow cells producing platelets. After several years of experiments on mice at labs, scientists became convinced of harmlessness of such cells' transplantation and filed an application with the Japanese Health Ministry for human clinical trial.

"Our goal is one year: to conduct the [human] clinical trial within a year. But it is just a goal ... We should take into account that, first of all, the Health Ministry should grant permission [for test conduct]. Then we should explain everything to a patient and obtain their consent. It is difficult to predict how much time it will take," Wadahama said.

The main problem with the transplantation of donor platelets is that the body of a patient, who, for example, suffers from aplastic anaemia, perceives the transplanted cells as foreign bodies and rejects them. Meanwhile, the platelets generated from the blood cells of a patient, will not provoke foreign body response.

"Now we are speaking about [blood] transfusion for only one patient. But we are going on with our research on platelets' generation in order to make possible blood transfusions for a wider range of patients. But it is a matter for the future," Wadahama indicated.

He added that the medical scientists proceeded with their research in order to use the innovative treatment for other blood deceases, including oncological ones.

In 2006, CiRA Director Shinya Yamanaka for the first time developed an iPS cell. In 2012, he was awarded a Nobel prize in Medicine for his discovery, which provided a basis for further research of medical scientists, who now use the iPS cells for the generation of heart muscle, intestinal, pancreatic, nerve cells and women's eggs.
H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ruler's Representative in Al Dhafra Region and Chairman of the Emirates Red Crescent, ERC, praised the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan to dispatch a rescue aircraft to help those affected by the floods in Sudan.

ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 21st Aug, 2018) H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ruler's Representative in Al Dhafra Region and Chairman of the Emirates Red Crescent, ERC, praised the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan to dispatch a rescue aircraft to help those affected by the floods in Sudan.

He also highlighted the directives of the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, to support countries facing natural disasters and crises.

He added that the UAE is dedicated to supporting needy people and victims, to ease their suffering, improve their current conditions, provide them with better lives, and help them overcome the effects of their crisis, by launching humanitarian and development initiatives.

Sheikh Hamdan made two phone calls to the heads of the ERCs rescue delegations in Sudan and Indonesia and was briefed about the ERCs efforts to rescue the victims of floods and earthquakes and improve their current conditions.

In Sudan, Saeed Suhail Al Mazrouei, Head of the ERC Rescue Team, briefed Sheikh Hamdan about the ERCs recent initiatives to support the victims of the floods that hit Eastern Sudan in August.

Sheikh Hamdan directed Al Mazrouei to increase his teams efforts and reinforce its programmes, to reduce the damage caused by the floods and improve local conditions, as well as to evaluate the basic requirements of victims, support them, and provide them with tents, shelter materials, blankets, food parcels and water pumps.

In Indonesia, Sheikh Hamdan was briefed by Ahmed Mohammed Al Hajeri, Head of the Team, about the conditions in the province of Lombok, which was hit by a series of earthquakes that killed hundreds of local people, leaf thousands homeless, and destroyed many houses and properties.

He was also briefed about the rescue operations in affected areas and ways of providing urgent supplies to local residents, such as tents, shelter materials, food, water, health supplies, blankets and other requirements, which are being supplied by local markets.

Sheikh Hamdan thanked the wise leadership for the efforts of the ERCs volunteers, through their presence in unstable areas to support needy and affected people while stressing that the UAEs leadership and people are proud of their humanitarian ambassadors.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

(UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 22nd Aug, 2018) KHARTOUM, 21st August 2018 (WAM) - In line with the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the follow up of H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Presidential Affairs and Chairman of the Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation, a UAE plane carrying 30 tonnes of relief aid for the people affected by the floods in Sudan arrived in Khartoum on Tuesday.

A delegation from the Khalifa Foundation also arrived to oversee a relief programme that targets assistance to thousands of families affected by the flood that recently hit Khartoum and other parts of Sudan.

Abdul Raheem Mohamed Jani, who heads the delegation, said that from the first day of the floods, the Khalifa Foundation had established contacts with the UAE Embassy in Khartoum to measure the damages.

He added that the delegation members will visit the affected areas and distribute 30 tonnes of relief aid materials, including 3,000 blankets, 700 tents, as well as insecticides and hygiene materials.

Haasn Hamed, Director of Peace and Humanitarian Affairs at the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, expressed appreciation to the leadership, government and people of the UAE, saying that the initiative reflects the deep rooted ties between the two brotherly countries.

"The UAE has always been in the forefront when it comes to humanitarian works," he said, referring to the contributions made by Khalifa Foundation all over the world.

Hamed pointed out that the aid materials will be distributed to the affected people in collaboration with the Emirati delegation, adding that the distribution had already begun in the Northern Nile and Al Haj Yousif districts of Khartoum.

Dozens of people were killed and thousands lost their homes following the heavy rains and flash floods that recently hit Khartoum and other parts of Sudan.
(@FahadShabbir)

Business community on Monday hailed economic revival plan of the government announced by Prime Minister Imran Khan in his maiden televised address to the nation and extended their full cooperation for the progress and economic development of the country.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Aug, 2018 ) :Business community on Monday hailed economic revival plan of the government announced by Prime Minister Imran Khan in his maiden televised address to the nation and extended their full cooperation for the progress and economic development of the country.

They appreciated Prime Minister's vision to pull out the country from the debt trap by introducing fundamental economic reforms and homegrown economic policies to put the country on the fast track development and prosperity.

They said that the trade bodies and chambers of commerce all across the country would fully support the government in its endeavors in revamping of the Federal Board of Revenue and simplification of the tax laws to promote corporate culture in the country and broadening the tax net to bridge the fiscal gape.

They said that the austerity plan announced by the Prime Minister would have long lasting effects on social and economic health of the country, besides it would encourage the tax payers and promote the tax culture in the country.

Prime Minister's address was a true reflection of the desires of a common man, who has been waiting for their fulfillment from the last seven decades, said President Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Shaikh Amir Waheed.

Talking to this news agency on Monday, he said that the national debt had been recorded at US$ 95 billion and the intentions of the new government to get rid of the further borrowings by taking on board the overseas Pakistanis, incentivizing the local businessmen and adopting austerity measures were appreciable.

The money saved in such way would be spent to address the major issues including food, health, education, clean drinking water and sanitation, he said adding that it would restore the confidence of people on the state and state functionaries.

The ICCI chief said that due to complicit tax laws in the country, corporate business had shrunk from 100,000 to 25,000 adding that the simplification of tax laws and introduction of business-friendly tax policies announced by the prime minister would help in the development of trade and business activities in the country.

Meanwhile, Senior Vice President SAARC CCI Iftikhar Ali Malik said that the measures announced by the Prime Minister will usher in an era of economic prosperity and bring the country on right track of economic development.

He also urged the need for promoting intra-region trade as huge potential was existing in different sectors of the economy as well as benefiting the experiences of each others for development and progress of the people of SAARC region.
(@FahadShabbir)

Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar on Monday summoned National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal and NAB Prosecutor General Asghar Haider in his chamber on August 27.

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Aug, 2018 ) :Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar on Monday summoned National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal and NAB Prosecutor General Asghar Haider in his chamber on August 27.

The Chief Justice passed the orders while hearing a suo motu notice at the Supreme Court Lahore Registry.

During the proceedings, the Chief Justice expressed his displeasure over publicity of persons being inquired by the Bureau in media. He observed that the Bureau should refrain from this practice.

If people come out clear of the charges then their reputation would be ruined due to the publicity in media, he added.

At this, Justice Ijazul Ahsan remarked that news of people summoned by NAB broke before they get their notice.

To which, the CJP said issuance of summons should not be disclosed and inquiry should be launched against those involved in exchanging information regarding investigation.

The NAB Prosecutor assured the bench that the anti-graft body had initiated an accountability drive within the organization.
(@FahadShabbir)

City Traffic Police (CTP) have chalked out a comprehensive plan for Eid ul Azha under which 693 warden officers, five DSPs, 40 Inspectors and 40 Traffic Assistants would be deployed in main city areas aimed at avoiding traffic mess on 9th Zil-Hajj and during Eid prayers.

RAWALPINDI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Aug, 2018 ) :City Traffic Police (CTP) have chalked out a comprehensive plan for Eid ul Azha under which 693 warden officers, five DSPs, 40 Inspectors and 40 Traffic Assistants would be deployed in main city areas aimed at avoiding traffic mess on 9th Zil-Hajj and during Eid prayers.

According to Chief Traffic Officer, Rawalpindi SSP Muhammad Bin Ashraf, a control room has been set up at Traffic Police Headquarters to monitor the situation. All out efforts would be made to control traffic on city roads especially on 9th Zil-Hajj, Youm-e-Arfa , he added.

One-wheelers and the car-skaters would be dealt in accordance with the law and the rules violators would be sent behind the bars, he said adding, traffic wardens have been directed to impound motorcycles of one-wheelers in respective police stations.

He urged the citizens particularly the parents to play a role to curb the activity as one wheeling, rash and negligent driving are the main causes for fatal accidents.

All the traffic officers and wardens have also been directed to remain present at their duty points so that no traffic jam could be witnessed, he added.

The CTO told that all out efforts are being made by Rawalpindi Traffic Police to facilitate the road users.

He said in view of the security of the citizens, special traffic arrangements have been made.

Parking of vehicles near Mosques, Imam Bargahs and other religious places will not be allowed during Eid prayers.

Under the plan, traffic police officers have been directed to keep a vigilant eye on suspicious vehicles. Strict action in accordance with the law has also been ordered against vehicles having tinted glasses or moving in the city without number plates, he added.

The CTO said traffic wardens have also been directed to work with dedication and commitment and ensure the traffic flow so that traffic mess particularly on congested roads could be averted and the citizens could be provided relief. CTP have also made special arrangements for Murree, he added.

The CTO said, CTP has launched a grand operation against transporters, overcharging the passengers particularly those who are going to their hometowns to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha with the near and dear ones.

The transporters have been warned to avoid overcharging, otherwise, strict action in accordance with the law would be taken.

A special cell had also been established to receive publiccomplaints and people can lodge their complaints against overcharging bytransporters through helpline 1915 and 051-9272839, he added.
(@mahnoorsheikh03)

Rs 1,139,720,000 has been received in the fund so far.

Islamabad (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News  21st August, 2018) The fund dedicated for the construction of Diamer Bhasha and Mohmand dams has so far received over Rs 1 billion from various individuals and groups.

The amount donated for the chief justice dams fund has crossed over Rs 1 billion as Rs 1,139,720,000 has been received in the fund so far.

The Fund has been established by the SBP on the directions of the Supreme Court. All the commercial and micro-finance banks, and field offices of SBP Banking Services Corporation have opened the Fund account to receive donations in cash, and through cheques, pay orders and demand drafts at all their branches across the country.

The trend was started by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar himself who donated Rs 10 lac for the construction of dams.

Following the chief justice, ISPR DG Major General Asif Ghafoor said that the officers of Pakistan Army, Navy and Air Force contributed their two-day pay, while soldiers one-day pay for this national cause.

Senate Chairman Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani also announced a donation of Rs1.5 million in the funds meant for the construction of Diamer Bhasha and Mohmand dams.

Meanwhile, Habib Bank Ltd announced to donate Rs 10 crore for the construction of dams while the employees of Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (FESCO) announced to contribute their one-day salary in the construction of Bhasha and Mohmand dams.

Officers of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government contributed their three-day salary to the fund for the construction of Diamer-Bhasha and Mohmand dams.

Caretaker Minister for Foreign Affairs Abdullah Hussain Haroon donated the entire salary of his tenure in the Fund-2018 meant for the construction of these dams.

Allama Syed Iftikhar Hussain Naqvi, a renowned scholar and member Council of the Islamic Ideology (CII) donated his one month salary for Dams Construction Fund.

Judges of Islamabad High Court (IHC) donated Rs 1 lac each while Veterans of Pakistan (formerly PESA) have also decided to contribute from their monthly pensions.

The Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) also contributed Rs20 million to Chief Justices Diamer Bhasha and Mohmand Damn Fund.

Moreover, a student from Bannu also announced to donate the money prize he received upon getting a position in Matric exams to the dams fund, a nine-year-old Ali Sher donated Rs 10,000 for the dams fund by saving his pocket money and selling his toys while a fruit seller from Kamalia donated Rs 5000 for the construction of dams.

Medical universities and institutions of Punjab on Monday donated Rs 16.943184 million for the construction of dams in the country.
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KARACHI, Aug 20 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Aug, 2018 ) :Karachi Commissioner, Muhammad Sualeh Faruqui in a meeting attended by deputy commissioners, representatives of different social and religious organizations and law enforcers finalized the code of conduct aimed at maintaining sanctity of the forthcoming Eid ul Azha in the metropolis.

Under the code of conduct, unanimously agreed by stake holders, door to door collection of cattle hide has been prohibited along with restriction on use of loud speakers to seek donations of hide or any material/money during three day festival.

Carrying weapons or stick (lathi) or any article that may be used to intimidate people in general was further agreed to be non permissible on the occasion.

Karachi Commissioner reminded the representative of social and religious organizations, as well as in-charge of different Madaris (religious school) or any one desirous to collect hide during Eid ul Azha to ensure acquiring written permission in advance from the city administration or deputy commissioners concerned.

He emphasized that organizations engaged in collection of skins of sacrificial animals must strictly comply with the code of conduct.

Commissioner Sualeh Faruqui said that donating skins of the sacrificial animals was the right of those realizing their religious obligation in form of qurbani of cattle.

"It must be ensured that such a right is not violated by anyone," he said reminding deputy commissioners and personnel of law enforcement agencies (LEAs) that implementation of code of conduct was their collective responsibility.

The meeting also attended by senior officials of the police department and Pakistan Rangers agreed that special arrangements would be made for the cleanliness of the mosques, Imambarghas, Eidgahs and open places where the Eidul Azha prayer are planned to be offered.

To enable citizens with any difficult situation during the festival, the Control Room at Commissioner's Office Karachi was decided to be reactivated, enabling people to lodge complaints, if any, via phone numbers 02199205634 and 02199203443.
Deputy Speaker National Assembly (NA) Qasim Suri, members of provincial assembly and people different from walk of life appreciated the first address of Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan.

QUETTA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Aug, 2018 ) :Deputy Speaker National Assembly (NA) Qasim Suri, members of provincial assembly and people different from walk of life appreciated the first address of Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan.

They said Imran Khan is the first Prime Minister of Pakistan who started reforms with Prime Minister House and adding that he could change the destiny of country with his determination.

Talking to APP, Deputy Speaker National Assembly Qasim Suri said Prime Minister Imran Khan addressed the nation not only covering the economic issues related to the country but also presented a strong suggestion to bring for revolutionary economic fields.

He said Imran Khan set up an example of simplify government departments in first time history of Pakistan after decreasing government's expenditure.

Qasim Suri said Prime Minister also made announcement that he would keep two guards and two servants for Prime House, saying that Imaran Khan also expressed that accountability of each political leader and officials of departments would be ensured at any cast for good governance.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Balochistan Chapter, president, MPA Sardar Yar Muhammad while expressing his views over fist speech of Prime Minister Imran Khan and said PM is commitment to end corruption and get rid of traditional politics from Pakistan.

Sardar Yar Muhammad said the traditional politics had failed addressing of public issue from several years, besides doing corruption but now time has come to overcome resources of corruption in the country.

He said Imran is new ray of hope for nation and we believe that Prime Minister Imran Khan would keep the real foundation of Pakistan.

Members of provincial assembly (MPAs) Mir Khan Muhammad Khan Jamali and Sardar Israr Tareen said Prime Minister highlighted real issues of people and expressed his commitments to address all problems including agriculture, health, education, providing clean drinking water in four provinces on merit basses throughout country.

MPAs including Nawabzada Mir Nematullah Khan Zehri, Mir Umar Khan Jamali, Mubeen Ahmed, Mir Naseebullah Khan Marri appreciated the speech of Prime Minister Imran Khan and supported marvelous steps of Prime Minister who expressed in first speech.

They hoped that the Prime Minister would make corruption free Pakistan and could bring prosperity in the country.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Nepal Pradeep Kumar Gyawali Monday telephoned Shah Mehmood Qureshi to congratulate him on assuming charge as Foreign Minister of Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Aug, 2018 ) :Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Nepal Pradeep Kumar Gyawali Monday telephoned Shah Mehmood Qureshi to congratulate him on assuming charge as Foreign Minister of Pakistan.

Foreign Minister Qureshi expressed his admiration for the resolve and determination displayed by the government and people of Nepal, as they rebuilt the country after the devastating earthquake.

He also expressed the desire for enhancing economic relations between Pakistan and Nepal to a level commensurate with the political relationship and the existing goodwill.

The foreign minister also appreciated the development of tourism in Nepal, which he stressed was a priority for Pakistan.

Qureshi also emphasized Pakistan's commitment to the principles and objectives of SAARC and its importance for regional development.

He expressed the hope that SAARC could be rejuvenated as a vibrant regional organization to build economic synergies and assist in improving the lives of the peoples of South Asia.

The foreign minister thanked his Nepalese counterpart for the telephone call and good wishes onhis assumption of office.
A young man was shot dead in Esa Khel police limits Monday late night.

Mianwali, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Aug, 2018 ) :A young man was shot dead in Esa Khel police limits Monday late night.

Police sources said Asghar Ali Shah, resident of Kot Chandana tehsil Esa Khel, had enmity with Sanaullah over certain issues. On the day of incident accused Asghar Ali along with his sons allegedly shot dead opponent Sanaullah and fled.

Police handed over the body to the heirs after autopsy and registered case against the accused.
Defense Ministers of Russia and Burkina Faso, Sergei Shoigu and Jean Claude Bouda, on Tuesday signed an agreement on military cooperation on the sidelines of the Army-2018 defense industry forum, which is currently being held in the Moscow Region

KUBINKA (Moscow Region) (UrduPoint news / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) Defense Ministers of Russia and Burkina Faso, Sergei Shoigu and Jean Claude Bouda, on Tuesday signed an agreement on military cooperation on the sidelines of the Army-2018 defense industry forum, which is currently being held in the Moscow Region.

"This will help implement the most important areas of cooperation in joint training of troops, exchanging peacekeeping experience and combating terrorism," Shoigu said.

According to the Russian minister, the agreement will serve as a basis for the development of relations between Moscow and Ouagadougou in the defense area.

"We are aware that international terrorism and regional extremism are widespread in the Sahara-Sahel area. We should fight against this common threat together," Shoigu underlined, adding that Russia regarded Burkina Faso as a prospective partner in West Africa.

Bouda, in turn, stressed that the signing of the agreement demonstrated the sustainable relationship between the two parties.

The Army-2018 forum kicked off earlier on Tuesday at the Patriot congress and exhibition center in the town of Kubinka, the Moscow Region, and will last until Sunday, August 26.
Afghanistan's military has liberated the Ai-Khanoum checkpoint on the border with Tajikistan from the Taliban, Muhammad Ulugkhodzhaev, the spokesman for the border troops department of Tajikistan's State Committee for National Security, told Sputnik.

DUSHANBE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) Afghanistan's military has liberated the Ai-Khanoum checkpoint on the border with Tajikistan from the Taliban, Muhammad Ulugkhodzhaev, the spokesman for the border troops department of Tajikistan's State Committee for National Security, told Sputnik.

Ai-Khanoum, located near Tajikistan's southern Kokul settlement, was seized by the Taliban on August 14.

"The authorities of Afghanistan have regained control over the Ai-Khanoum checkpoint on the border with Tajikistan, pulling Taliban militants out of the area .

.. Despite the liberation of the checkpoint, it has not resumed working. The border guards of the neighboring state are currently rebuilding it, and it is still not clear when it will start operating," Ulugkhodzhaev said.

According to him, the checkpoint in Kokul, separated from Afghanistan by the Panj River, is not operating either.

There is no bridge between the two checkpoints, so transportation of cargo is being done by two boats. The construction of a bridge is scheduled to start in 2019.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Angola will support Russia on the international stage, and defense industry cooperation between the two countries will continue enhancing, Angola's Secretary of State for National Defense Gaspar Santos Rufino said on Tuesday.

KUBINKA (Moscow Region) (UrduPoint news / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) Angola will support Russia on the international stage, and defense industry cooperation between the two countries will continue enhancing, Angola's Secretary of State for National Defense Gaspar Santos Rufino said on Tuesday.

"Our defense industry cooperation will continue developing," Rufino said during his meeting with Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin.

He added that although Angola was not a "big country in the sense of economy and politics yet," it was still important for its region.

"We could also support Russia in the international context, regarding certain issues. We always voice support for many Russian initiatives and decisions. And we are interested in Russia becoming stronger in order to support balance in the world," Rufino added.

Fomin praised Angola for being a reliable partner and said that he welcomed enhancing bilateral military and defense industry cooperation.

According to Russian Foreign Ministry, the two countries cooperate in numerous areas, including trade, science, economy and education.
Baku will be able remove German parliamentarian Albert Weiler from its list of personae non gratae if he submits to the Azerbaijani government a letter of apology with regard to his unauthorized visits to a contested region, spokesman for Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry Hikmet Gadzhiev said on Tuesday.

BAKU (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) Baku will be able remove German parliamentarian Albert Weiler from its list of personae non gratae if he submits to the Azerbaijani government a letter of apology with regard to his unauthorized visits to a contested region, spokesman for Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry Hikmet Gadzhiev said on Tuesday.

Weiler, deputy chairman of German parliamentary group for relations with Southern Caucasus states, was banned from entering Azerbaijan over visiting the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2014 and 2016 without securing Baku's approval. Weiler was set to be part of the German delegation that would accompany German Chancellor Angela Merkel during her visit to Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan on August 23-25.

"If persons who do not conduct any activity targeting Azerbaijan directly address [the government] with a letter of apology and express their respect for Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and laws, their removal from our list of personae non gratae can be discussed," Gadzhiev said, adding that some people had already been taken off the list.

According to him, Weiler was put on the list, which includes foreign citizens who had visited Nagorno-Karabakh without Baku's permission, in 2014.

"If this person [Weiler] addresses us, we'll be able to examine his case, but we haven't received any appeals of this kind from him yet. This is why there is a ban on his entry to the territory of Azerbaijan," Gadzhiev said.

Earlier in the day, spokesman for the German government Steffen Seibert said that Weiler would accompany Merkel during her trips to Georgia and Armenia, and that Merkel was going to discuss the issue of his entry ban with the Azerbaijani government during her visit to Baku.

Baku has been engaged in a military conflict with the predominantly Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh since 1991, when the region proclaimed its independence from the country.
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China and El Salvador established diplomatic relations Tuesday as the Central American nation ditched Taiwan in yet another victory for Beijing in its campaign to isolate the island.

Beijing, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Aug, 2018 ) :China and El Salvador established diplomatic relations Tuesday as the Central American nation ditched Taiwan in yet another victory for Beijing in its campaign to isolate the island.

Beijing has been using its economic clout to peel away international support for the democratically-ruled island, leaving it with only 17 diplomatic allies around the world.

Speaking in Beijing at the Diaoyutai Guest House, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised El Salvador's decision to "recognise there is one China in the world".

"This further goes to show the One China policy is in line with international norms, is the correct choice... and is the basis of China's relation with any country," he said.

Salvadoran Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda, after signing a document with Wang establishing relations, said his country had made a "strategic decision" and taken the "correct and beneficial path for the people of both nations".
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd August, 2018) Colombia sent a note of protest to the government of Venezuela in connection with the two military helicopters allegedly incurring into Colombian airspace, the country's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

According to the statement, two helicopters of the Venezuelan armed forces incurred into Colombian airspace on August 19.

"The Foreign Ministry, by virtue of the report on the events that provided evidence that an unauthorized military incursion in the national territory took place, presented a note expressing the strongest protest against the aforementioned facts to the Venezuelan Embassy," the statement says.

The ministry added it issued a note on instructions from the Colombian President Ivan Duque Marquez.
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Officials from 12 countries, including the United States, have been invited to attend the Moscow-format consultations on Afghanistan on September 4, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) Officials from 12 countries, including the United States, have been invited to attend the Moscow-format consultations on Afghanistan on September 4, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

"The current Moscow meeting will be the second in this format. Unlike the previous one, it will be held under the joint chairmanship of Russia and Afghanistan.

Similar to the first meeting, the invitations have sent to 12 countries, including the United States. In addition, the leadership of the political office of the Taliban Movement in Doha was invited to the meeting," the ministry said in a statement.

"The purpose of the forthcoming meeting is to help bring closer together the positions of the Afghan government and the Taliban movement on launching a direct inter-Afghan peace dialogue," the statement said.
TALLINN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd August, 2018) Estonia and Latvia will look into the possibility of demanding that Russia compensate the damages the two countries suffered while they were part of the Soviet Union, the Estonian Justice Ministry said Tuesday in a press release.

"Justice ministers of the two countries stressed in their statement that it was important to honor the memory of human losses due to the Soviet occupation and study the possibilities of asking Russia to compensate the damages, as a legal successor to the Soviet Union," the press release said.

Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser said back in December 2016 that it would be unreasonable for his country to seek reparations from Russia, to make demands that would not be understood by Estonia's key business partners.

In 2015, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian justice ministers signed a memorandum of understanding to coordinate actions in seeking reparations from Russia.

The Russian leadership has repeatedly pointed out that the Baltic countries joined the Soviet Union in accordance with the legal framework of the time. The national governments had been in place in all three countries for the duration of their USSR membership, apart from the time of the World War II occupation by Germany.
The European Commission will propose to member states to increase the target for greenhouse gas emissions reductions from 40 to 45 percent by 2030 to deal with climate change in light of the US pullout out of the Paris climate deal, Miguel Arias Canete, the European commissioner for climate, said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) The European Commission will propose to member states to increase the target for greenhouse gas emissions reductions from 40 to 45 percent by 2030 to deal with climate change in light of the US pullout out of the Paris climate deal, Miguel Arias Canete, the European commissioner for climate, said on Tuesday.

"My intention is to bring this question forward to member states later this year Based on our modelling we would de facto arrive to a 45 per cent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the EU," Canete told the German dpa news agency.

The commissioner expressed hope that the EU member states would reach an agreement on raising the target by October, so that this issue could be discussed at the upcoming 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24).

The forum will be held in December in Poland.

"In any case, the EU is in a strong position to participate in the political discussions around raising ambition at the forthcoming COP24 in Katowice," Canete pointed out.

The Paris climate deal, created within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, aims at keeping the increase in average global temperature at below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The accord was ratified by 179 countries out of 197 parties to the convention. The United States withdrew from it in 2017 under President Donald Trump.
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The Swedish Saab JAS 39 Gripen fighter jet crashed on Tuesday in the south of the country after having collided with a flock of birds, the Swedish Armed Forces said in a statement.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) The Swedish Saab JAS 39 Gripen fighter jet crashed on Tuesday in the south of the country after having collided with a flock of birds, the Swedish Armed Forces said in a statement.

"At 9:41 a.m. on Tuesday [07:41 GMT], the Jas 39 Gripen fighter jet collided with a flock of big birds near the F17 Blekinge Air Force Wing," the statement read.

The pilot had assumed that it would be impossible for him to land the jet, so he decided to eject himself from the aircraft, the statement added.

The military noted that the pilot was unharmed and had been taken to hospital to be examined. The jet crashed in woods.

Swedish military equipment manufacturer Saab Group has not yet commented on the accident.

Meanwhile, Swedish media reported, citing the countrys Transport Agency, that around 400 collisions between aircraft and birds occurred in Sweden annually.

Ingrid Cherfils, the director of the agencys Strategic Development and Management Department, told the local TT News Agency it was typical for planes and birds come in close contact with one other, but the fact that the Jas 39 Gripen jet had been so badly damaged was unusual. According to the news agency, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist expressed his sympathy to the pilot but refrained from commenting on the condition of the crashed jet.

Blekinge Wing representatives told reporters on Tuesday that pilots reported up to 10 birds collisions annually.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

The next round of talks on the United Kingdoms withdrawal from the European Union will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday and will be dedicated to the withdrawal agreement and future relations between London and Brussels.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) The next round of talks on the United Kingdoms withdrawal from the European Union will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday and will be dedicated to the withdrawal agreement and future relations between London and Brussels.

According to the talks agenda, the first day of the talks will be devoted to the future of EU-UK relations.

On Wednesday, the parties will continue their discussions on future relations and will also cover the remaining issues concerning the bilateral Brexit agreement.

The United Kingdom launched the process of leaving the European Union on March 29, 2017, beginning the two-year countdown to its withdrawal from the bloc. The Brexit talks between London and Brussels have been ongoing since June 2017. The parties are expected to come up with the final agreement in fall.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) A man claiming to be an officer of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) did not let the observers of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (OSCE SMM) to access Russian tanker Mekhanik Pogodin detained in the Ukrainian port of Kherson, OSCE SMM said on Monday.

On August 10, Ukrainian Presidential Representative in Crimea Borys Babin, based in Kherson, said that the SBU intended to detain Russian vessel Mekhanik Pogodin which was docked in the port of Kherson and belonged to a Russian company sanctioned by Kiev. Babin clarified that there was no decision yet to seize the ship. The chairman of the Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights Mikhail Fedotov called the situation with the Russian tanker detained in Ukraine a madness.

"On 17 August, the SMM followed up on reports of the Mekhanik Pogodin tanker moored in a port in the south-western outskirts of Kherson city. At the entrance gate of an oil terminal on Marii Fortus Street, a man, who introduced himself as a member of the Security Service of Ukraine, told the SMM that it needed to obtain prior permission from the port authorities to access the facility. The SMM will follow up on this matter," the mission said in its report.

According to the information on the website of V.

F. Tanker shipping company, the Mekhanik Pogodin vessel is struggling to get permission to leave the port. On August 17, the company said it had not received a list of claims, and neither the customs nor the border service had responded to the request to grant permission to leave. The captain of the port refused the request citing a letter from the border service, which has not yet been presented.

The company also reported that the ship itself had no technical obstacles to departure, as the crew is fully staffed, the port charges have been paid.

Another Russian vessel was seized in March by the Ukrainian coast guard in the neutral waters of the Sea of Azov. The vessel is registered in Crimea, which Ukraine regards as its territory. Moscow has demanded the immediate release of the "illegally detained" crew and the return of the vessel to its legitimate owner. A Ukrainian court, however, authorized the arrest of the captain, with Ukrainian border guards preventing the crew from leaving the country.

Crimea rejoined Russia in 2014. Kiev did not recognize the move, but Moscow repeatedly stated that the referendum when the overwhelming majority of Crimeans supported the move, was held in accordance with international norms.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Russia and the Central African Republic (CAR) signed on Tuesday an intergovernmental agreement on military cooperation on the sidelines of the Army-2018 defense industry forum, which is currently being held in the Moscow Region

KUBINKA (Moscow Region) (UrduPoint news / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) Russia and the Central African Republic (CAR) signed on Tuesday an intergovernmental agreement on military cooperation on the sidelines of the Army-2018 defense industry forum, which is currently being held in the Moscow Region.

The agreement was signed by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his car counterpart Marie-Noelle Koyara.

According to Shoigu, the agreement will contribute to the strengthening of the bilateral ties in the defense field.

Koyara, in turn, expressed her hope that the agreement would become a basis for the works to train the Central African Armed Forces, but has not specified whether they would be trained in Russia or in the Central African Republic with the help of Russian specialists.

The Army-2018 forum kicked off earlier on Tuesday at the Patriot congress and exhibition center in the town of Kubinka, the Moscow Region, and will last until Sunday, August 26.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Russia is ready for the development of its military and defense industry cooperation with Angola, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said on Tuesday.

KUBINKA (Moscow Region) (UrduPoint news / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) Russia is ready for the development of its military and defense industry cooperation with Angola, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said on Tuesday.

"We reaffirm our readiness and commitment to using the existing potential for the development of our cooperation in the military and defense industry areas  Angola is our long-time reliable partner," Fomin said after his talks with Angolan Secretary of State for National Defense Gaspar Santos Rufino.

Fomin noted that Russia and Angola shared approaches to dealing with modern security challenges, including terrorism.

The relations between the two states were based on equality, respect and mutual interest, Fomin noted, adding that Moscow and Luanda had no disagreements or unsolvable issues between them.

The Russian military official expressed gratitude to the Angolan military and political leadership for its commitment to the further strengthening of ties with Russia and participation in Russias International Army Games and the Army-2018 defense industry forum.

Russia has been engaged in active cooperation with many African countries, including Angola. Moscow and Luanda implement joint projects not only in the military and defense industry area but in space exploration and production of mineral resources.
(@FahadShabbir)

Russia's small arms factory in Venezuela will be commissioned in 2019, while a service center for repairs and maintenance of helicopters will open in 2018, Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport Director General Alexander Mikheev said on Tuesday

KUBINKA (Russia) (UrduPoint news / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) Russia's small arms factory in Venezuela will be commissioned in 2019, while a service center for repairs and maintenance of helicopters will open in 2018, Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport Director General Alexander Mikheev said on Tuesday.

"The small arms factory [in Venezuela] will be operational in 2019, we are working to speed up the commissioning of this enterprise. Moreover, the service center for maintenance, repairs of helicopters is expected to be commissioned this year," Mikheev told reporters on the sidelines of the Army-2018 defense industry forum.
Tehran urges the European Union to take a more serious approach toward saving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, now that the United States has withdrawn from the multilateral accord, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said Monday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th August, 2018) Tehran urges the European Union to take a more serious approach toward saving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, now that the United States has withdrawn from the multilateral accord, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said Monday.

On August 7, the United States reimposed its first round of sanctions, previously lifted under the JCPOA, three months after its withdrawal announcement. The sanctions targeted various transactions and trade activities with Iran; another wave of US sanctions on Irans energy sector is expected to be reinstated in November. The European Union, which is also a party to the agreement, is currently working on an economic package to save the deal.

"We insist European countries to make efforts more seriously and swiftly," Qassemi said, as quoted by the Islamic Republic news Agency.

European officials have been criticizing the extraterritorial nature of US sanctions. To cope with the effect of the restrictions on EU companies working with Iran, the bloc introduced legislation shielding these firms from the measures.

The JCPOA was signed in 2015 by Iran, the European Union and the P5+1 group of countries China, Germany, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The deal stipulated the gradual lifting of anti-Iran sanctions in exchange for Tehran maintaining the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.
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The United Kingdom is not interested in the return of Syrian refugees to their homes, and provides aid only to the Syrian regions controlled by militants, the Russian Embassy in London said on Tuesday.

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) The United Kingdom is not interested in the return of Syrian refugees to their homes, and provides aid only to the Syrian regions controlled by militants, the Russian Embassy in London said on Tuesday.

"We have to acknowledge that London still prefers to provide assistance only to the Syrian regions under control of the militant opposition and jihadists groups. The UK does not show any interest in the repatriation of the Syrian refugees," the press officer told reporters as quoted on the embassy's website.

The officer stressed that such an approach followed the general "pattern of Western policy," as the United States was also allocating aid only to those Syrian areas that were under control of the militants.

The diplomat noted that such an approach of the United Kingdom interferes with the needs and desires of the Syrian people.

"This is likely to be due to the desire to manipulate those vulnerable people in order to continue pressure on the Syrian government. Apparently, refugees are meant to be kept under the Western influence ... We believe that sooner or later life itself will make London change its position. Otherwise, the UK risks to be left out of the Syrian peace settlement," the officer said.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the United States was trying to artificially slow down the return of refugees to Syria by refusing to participate in the restoration of Syrian infrastructure.
WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) The United States charged two Iranians, one of them also a dual American citizen, for acting as illegal agents on behalf of the government in Tehran in conducting surveillance of Israeli facilities and spying on members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) terrorist group, the Justice Department said in a press release.

"An indictment was returned today charging Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar, 38, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, and Majid Ghorbani, 59, an Iranian citizen and resident of California, with allegedly acting on behalf of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran by conducting covert surveillance of Israeli and Jewish facilities in the United States, and collecting identifying information about American citizens and US nationals who are members of the group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK)," the release said on Monday.

The MEK is a designated terrorist organization in Iran and was a US-designated terrorist entity until then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delisted the group in 2012. The Justice Department in the release describes MEK as a group that "advocates the overthrow of the current Iranian government."

In September 20, 2017, Ghorbani is alleged to have attended a MEK rally in New York City during which he photographed individuals participating in the protest against the current Iranian regime, the release added.

Around December 2017, Doostdar contacted Ghorbani in the Los Angeles area and paid him approximately $2,000 in cash and Ghorbani delivered to him 28 photographs taken at the September 2017 MEK rally, many of which contained hand-written notes identifying the individuals, the release said.
Washington, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd Aug, 2018 ) :The US Navy is sending a hospital ship to Colombia on a mission to assist in the humanitarian crisis in neighboring Venezuela, a defense official said Tuesday.

The USNS Comfort hospital ship "will return to South America this fall," Pentagon spokeswoman Commander Sarah Higgins said.

"We are working the details in close coordination with our Colombian partners." Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, while on a trip to South America last week, said the deployment is "an effort to deal with the human cost of (Venezuelan President Nicolas) Maduro, and his increasingly isolated regime." "This is a very specific effort to try to help our neighbors, who are doing their best, I think, to help these refugees," he added.

According to Pentagon spokesman Colonel Rob Manning, the hospital ship will provide life-saving treatment and medical care to thousands of people.

"Our service members and medical professionals, doctors and nurses, will work alongside regional partners to support ongoing humanitarian response efforts to include addressing the impact of the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis," he said.

The mission marks the sixth hospital ship deployment to the region since 2007.

The United Nations estimates that 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled an economic and political crisis looking for work and to escape poverty, and Colombia has given temporary residence to more than 800,000 Venezuelans.
US authorities believe that Ibrahim al-Asiri, a Yemeni bomb maker for al-Qaeda terrorist group (banned in Russia), is dead, US media reported on Tuesday, citing an anonymous senior US official.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) US authorities believe that Ibrahim al-Asiri, a Yemeni bomb maker for al-Qaeda terrorist group (banned in Russia), is dead, US media reported on Tuesday, citing an anonymous senior US official.

According to CNN, the official voiced "confidence that he [al-Asiri] was killed."

Al-Asiri, known for his ability to create miniaturized bombs that airport security screenings fail to detect due to the little or no metal in them, was allegedly involved in the failed attack on a plane traveling to the US city of Detroit in 2009 and the failed assassination attempt on Saudi Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, which happened that same year.

CNN reported that counterterrorism analysts were skeptical about al-Asiri's death since al-Qaeda had not released a statement on the matter.

Last week, CNN reported, citing a report by the UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, that al-Asiri had possibly been killed in Yemen in the second half of 2017.

The broadcaster went on to recall that the US military had carried out 165 airstrikes on al-Qaeda positions in Yemen since 2017. The terrorist group has long been a threat to Yemen's security amid the conflict between the local government and the Houthi movement. Al-Qaeda is allegedly tied with the Saudi-led coalition that has been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at the authorities' request since 2015.
The United States will continue cooperation with Mali in the wake of its presidential election to overcome serious challenges the country faces, US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a press release on Monday.

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th August, 2018) The United States will continue cooperation with Mali in the wake of its presidential election to overcome serious challenges the country faces, US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a press release on Monday.

Mali held presidential election on July 29 and the runoff on August 12.

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has been reelected.

"We look forward to continuing to work together to overcome the serious challenges Mali faces from terrorism, to promote development, and to fully and rapidly implement the Algiers Accord for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali," Nauert said.

The United States condemns the threats and violence that prevented some citizens of Mali from voting, Nauert added.
Cambodian officials and community activists living in riverine communities have applauded the Lao government's recent decision to review all hydropower dam investments after a devastating dam breach last month caused serious effects downstream in Cambodia.

On July 23, a saddle dam in the large-scale Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydropower project in southern Laos burst its walls and flooded a vast swath of land in Attapeu province. The waters flowed into the Sekong River, a Mekong tributary, causing serious repercussions for communities in northern Cambodia along the Sekong and Mekong.

Long Socheat, a representative for the Tonle Sap Lake Community, a group of community activists who advocate protecting natural resources in freshwater lakes and rivers, told VOA Khmer that the disaster seriously concerned Cambodians whose relied on fishery resources.

He said he was delighted to hear that Laos would more carefully review dam projects, but added that the best solution for Cambodians would be to stop all plans to build more dams, which he said had a serious impact on fisheries.

If Lao suspends the construction of more dams, Cambodian people living along the river will applaud. How happy we would be, if Lao stopped building dams, he said.

According to an August 15 statement by the Mekong River Commission (MRC), which is based in the Lao capital of Vientiane, Laos will review all existing and under-construction dam projects and suspend the consideration of all new hydropower investments in the aftermath of the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy dam break.

The head of the MRC, Pham Tuan Phan, was quoted in the statement as saying, As a regional intergovernmental organization, we wholeheartedly welcome the decision and initiative of the Lao Prime Minister to review all the dams and re-examine all new hydropower investments.

Te Navuth, secretary general of the Cambodia National Mekong Committee, told VOA Khmer on Friday that Cambodia welcomed Laos more cautious new stance on dam-building.

We welcome; we welcome. Normally, [they] want to create safety. This is important for the Lao side, which formed a commission to inspect all dams that were constructed in order to avoid the kind of mistakes that we saw at Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy, which accidentally broke down. So, they need to re-check, he said.

Secondly, the Lao side said that they will suspend for a while with the new projects, and we are waiting to hear confirmation from Lao government for the dam projects that were already put into consultation with member countries, such as the Pak Lay dam project. We are waiting for more specific confirmation from them, he added.

He declined to comment on whether Cambodia should also stop building more dams after the incident in Lao, referring questions to the Ministry of Mines and Energy.

Victor Jona, a spokesman for the ministry, could not be reached for comment.

The dam breach killed more than 30 people in Laos, while more than 100 are still missing. About 5,000 people in Siem Pang district of Cambodia's Stung Treng province, which lies along the Lao border, had to be evacuated from their homes.

Meas Chanty, a fisherman from Thma Keo commune of Siem Pang district, which was flooded in the dam breach, said the accident had serious consequences for his community.

He said many rice fields were destroyed by the inundation and stressed that community members in Siem Pang hoped the Lao government would stop future dam construction.

Our side worries very much, and we dont want to continue construction because it had bad effects on us. We almost couldnt escape the flooding because we live close to Laos, he said.

He said what Cambodian fishermen really need is not electricity but fishwhich scientists say are being killed by excessive damming of the regions vital rivers.

Electricity is not really important for the families living close to the dams because [dam-building] caused a lot of effects, he said.

Meas Chanty, who also relies on fishing in the Sekong River for his livelihood, called on the Cambodian government to take firmer protective measures as it embarks on building dams on this side of the border.

When the flood occurred over the last few days, the people seem to worry and can't sleep at night time, and they can't eat food easily, he said.

I would like to request that Cambodia take any measures that could help the people, preventing such serious floods that fear could affect the lives of the people in the village, he added.

Long Socheat of the Tonle Sap Lake Community said that the Cambodian government should learn from this incident and make sure to conduct thorough studies before the construction of any future hydropower dams.

If we were in their situation, we wouldnt know what to do, because it's extremely difficult when a flood occurs, he said. It can come by accident, separating us from our families and destroying property.

He explained that flooding or natural resource destruction in the Mekong River also affects the Tonle Sap river and lake. Together, the river systems and the lake provide fish and livelihoods for millions of Cambodians.

The Mekong River is like the blood of the Tonle Sap Lake, he said. Curbing dam construction on the mainstream of the Mekong River is crucial to preserve fishery resources in Cambodias rivers.
Over 100,000 Cambodian high school students began taking graduation exams this Monday that could determine their future.

At the end of the first day of test administration, Cambodias Minister of Education, Hang Choun Naron, told journalists there were 117,061 registered exam-takers this year, up from 103,112 last year, although around 1,700 students were absent.

The number of examination centers also increased, from 150 in 2014 to 196 in 2018, he said.

This is the fifth year of test-taking after the high-school exit exams were comprehensively overhauled under the leadership of Choun Naron, who was appointed as a reformist education minister after the 2013 national election.

Previously, the exam was rife with cheating, as proctors often looked the other way or accepted bribes to allow students to use crib sheets. Starting in 2014, however, security was beefed up in an effort to ensure that only serious students could pass.

That year, around 70 percent of high school students failed the test. But last year, around two-thirds of students managed to pass, as high-schoolers apparently became acclimated to test-taking without cheating.

In interviews with VOA Khmer on Monday, two candidates both said they were optimistic after finishing the morning exam session.

Meas Chanthan, a student at Russei Keo High School, said that she could answer the test questions, but that the mood in the exam room was tense.

The proctors guarded us the whole time. They walked back and forth. I couldnt even move.

Reaksmey Darath, also from Russei Keo High School, said she felt confident.

When I walked in, I did not feel like praying because like I told you, I could answer the questions. I can say that it was what I have already learned.

The two-day exam will conclude on Tuesday evening, and the results will be released in September.
[Editors Note: Sorpong Peou is a Cambodian-born professor of political science at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. He recently spoke with VOA Khmers You Sotheary on political trust, how power is accumulated, and his new article Cambodias Hegemonic-Party System, published in the most recent edition of the Asian Journal of Comparative Politics. In the paper, Professor Peou analyzes the political structures that have enabled Prime Minister Hun Sens Cambodian Peoples Party to maintain a firm grip on power since the 1980s. He concludes that insecurity rooted in the fear of retribution is one of the biggest challenges to the process of democratization and rule-of-law institution-building in post-war countries like Cambodia.]

What is your new article about?

My article discusses how the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) has succeeded in strengthening its power, especially in recent elections. The main problem in Cambodia is distrust, but the most important argument in my paper is about personal security or party security because state institutions are weak.

You argue that Prime Minister Hun Sen has systematically increased his power through what you dub the C-3 Strategy. Could you explain more about this?

First, the political party that has greater power [in Cambodia] rules the country through controlling state institutions, which means grabbing power at the level of state institutions such as the Senate, the National Assembly, the army and the court. Leaders who have a lot of power have to control state institutions. Second, [it] has to be coercion. They have to defeat others and force others to surrender. If no surrender is made, they have to take actions to force others to surrender. The third is co-option, which is a strategy to persuade others to join a party or group by using soft techniques that are appealing to people.

Could you give an example of how the CPP has utilized this strategy in the past?

As I mentioned earlier, when we talked about control, we can reflect on what happened during the UNTAC [United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia] period in 1993. During the elections, the CPP did not allow UNTAC to control the ministries [as had been previously agreed on by all parties], such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Information. Therefore, UNTAC found it hard to create an environment conducive to free and fair elections, [because] UNTAC could not control those important institutions.

As I previously mentioned, coercion happened when agreement on power-sharing couldnt be negotiatedthus, there had to be either a division [of administrative and military powers] or civil war. For example, in 1997, there was a coup to overthrow Prince Norodom Ranariddh. That was a form of coercion through intimidation and physical power.

Co-option can often be achieved through money: leaders can buy followers hearts or give them a high position in exchange for loyalty. But, it is hard in the Cambodian context. People [in power] engaged in corruption when there was a lot of money available. In the Cambodian context, co-option is the most important strategy for leaders to use. If they use co-option, they can make others surrender without using coercion or physical power, just by using persuasion.

Why do you categorize Cambodia as a country with a hegemonic party system?

It is different from a multiparty system in which other parties can compete and hope that they can win. In a hegemonic party system, there is no hope [for other parties to win the elections]. Some people create parties just for the sake of creating them, but it is impossible for them to win or form a government.

Has Cambodia ever had a multiparty system in practice?

We used to have a multiparty system, but this system couldnt survive in Cambodia. Cambodia had a multiparty system in the 1950s, but it was weak. A democratic party system came to Cambodia after France gave us the freedom to create parties. However, it was weak. It was a bit stronger during the Republic of Kampuchea period [1970-1975] when different parties competed with each other, but General Lon Nols party was still the strongest. Thus, Cambodia on its own found it very difficult to create an environment to support a multiparty system. When the Khmer Rouge came to power, they destroyed opposition parties and allowed only a communist party. Our country has never had multiple parties with enough capacity to compete freely with a hope to win. The strongest party usually remains the strongest for an entire regime. The only way that the strongest party becomes weak is when it is completely destroyed. For example, the Khmer Rouge became weak after it was defeated by the Vietnamese military. In 1993, when UNTAC came to our country, they set up a multiparty system. But it was then transformed to a hegemonic party system after the 1997 coup.

What do you think will happen to Cambodian politics in the future? Do you think there will be a physical force to change the leader?

I dont think that will happen in the future. It is more stable. But it still cant be predicted in the long run, because a hegemonic party system fuels the anger of the powerless on the bottom. People without power will feel that they are being suppressed, and those people will stand up against the people in power to change the system. Another problem of a hegemonic party system is that there could be resistance inside the system itself. When power is highly centralized, the people inside the system will fight against each other to grab power. This could lead to crisis and fragility. Eventually, it could collapse [in a way that] has nothing to do with external forces, [but] because of the people inside the party system itself.

What do you think when some people say that Cambodia cannot move forward without Prime Minister Hun Sen?

I dont agree with this. Cambodia should share state power [more broadly] to manage state institutions. According to my research, Hun Sen has contributed a lot to the country's development. I dont think it is fair to only criticize him. But if he wants to hold power for the rest of his life, this does not bode well for Cambodia. This could fuel the anger of the powerless and poor. Those people will seek revenge.

What do you think about the view that a developing country that has weak institutions, like Cambodia, needs a group of elites to hold power to develop the country?

It will be impossible for Cambodia [to develop] if a group of elites holds all power. As I mentioned earlier, the hegemonic party system is fragile and prone to crisis. When crises occur, again and again, the country may still grow, but the growth is fragile. Cambodian economic growth depends upon foreign direct investment and foreign aid. When we have internal problems, we dont have enough time to develop our country. The leaders will use all their strategies just to maintain their power. So we will depend on external players to intervene in our internal problems. Hence, in the long run, a hegemonic party system cannot sustain its growth. Cambodia might grow over a period of 10 or 20 years, but this growth will not be sustained in the long run because we have weak foundations for the countrys economic development.

Some people say that if a country lifts up more peoples standard of living to the middle class, democracy will naturally develop. What do you think about this idea in relation to Cambodias recent economic growth?

This theory is very weak. I disagree with this theory. [Some] apply this argument to the case of Singapore. But we have to be aware that Singapore is a city-state. Another example is China. China is far bigger than Cambodia. China has increased the size of its middle class. But we have to be aware that China has strengthened its state institutions since the communist party took power after World War II. When Chinese institutions were strong, the country transformed itself. However, Singapore and China are not democratic countries. Their economies are developed, but the democracy has been held back. Thats why Cambodia should ask itself what it wants. But if the CPP were able to strengthen institutions, this would help Cambodia to develop.

I would suggest the CPP should start with combatting the systematic corruption in the country. A lesson from Singapore is that Singapore has the highest score on the corruption perception index and is regarded as one of the most corruption-free countries. If the CPP can eliminate the corruption problem in Cambodia, I believe people will support the CPP. However, Cambodians are still not convinced that the CPP can address this problem.

My last question is about trust building in the Cambodian politics. What would you suggest for Cambodian leaders to build trust among each other?

I think there should be a process of trust building. The trust-building process needs to be critical and sensitive. In 2015, we talked about the culture of dialogue. The culture of dialogue seemed good, but it didnt appear to be effective. They [the CPP and CNRP] talked, but insulted each other behind the scenes. The trust-building process is very hard. Moreover, because state institutions are weak, we lack trust. I would establish a body that is managed by independent scholars to monitor the process of trust building. But trust building is a complicated and long-term process.

The English version of this interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Cambodian authorities briefly detained a man last week after discovering more than 23 types of expired and fake medicine at his pharmaceutical import company in Phnom Penh, according to a statement from the National Polices Counter Counterfeit Committee.

According to a press release, on August 16, the Counter Counterfeit Committees special operation forces and police, working alongside court prosecutors, raided the premises of the Reaksmey Sour pharmaceutical company in a house in Sen Sok district and detained company representative Hor Chhun with more than 500 boxes of fake medicine.

In coordination with representatives of the prosecutors of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, we have found 23 kinds of medicine in 500 boxes, totaling 1,329,620 tablets, 69,105 packages and 12 kinds of expired medicine, said the Counter Counterfeit Committee statement.

The statement added: There were suspicions that the facility was packaging fake medicine and changing medicine expiry dates, stockpiling and distributing counterfeit and expired medicine, distributing medicine without legal permission and operating a company without complying with the law.

Khan Lyna, deputy chief of the Counter Counterfeit Committee, confirmed on Monday that the man detained for questioning was the owner of Reaksmey Sour. However, he said he did not know the types of drugs that had been confiscated or how they might affect peoples health.

Stay tuned for the expert to finalize first, then we will know when we get results, he said. We just detained the companys owner to interrogate him. The case is in the hands of the court, and the court will decide.

Hor Chhuns father, Chea Hor, answered a listed telephone number for the company on Tuesday. He said his son had only been briefly detained, and claimed, contrary to the government statement, that only two types of medicine were confiscated from Reaksmey Sour. He said all the medicines seized had been given back to the company already.

They have not been seized. They took only two types of medicine, aspirin and bigen, and they gave them back. They are [now] in the car.

He declined to comment further or discuss whether the seized products had actually been shoddy, saying he knew little about the companys operations.

In 2017, authorities set fire to hundreds of tons of counterfeit products confiscated in Phnom Penh and Kampong Speu, including drugs, cosmetics, beverages, and food.

In the first three months of this year, authorities arrested 10 people and confiscated more than 80 tons of fake products in Phnom Penh, including fake beer and bottled water.

The head of the Counter Counterfeit Committee, Meach Sophanna, said recently that there had been an increase in the circulation of fake products due to strong economic growth in Cambodia and rising market demand.

However, San Chhay, a social analyst, told VOA Khmer earlier this month that a more important factor in the proliferation of counterfeit goods was a lack of regulations and consistent law enforcement. He said the government needed to crack down on counterfeit products on a broader scale to have a real impact.
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday ordered two former journalists with Radio Free Asia freed on bail after they spent nine months imprisoned over murky allegations of committing treason.

The journalists, Oun Chhin and Yeang Sothearin, were arrested in November 2017 at a Phnom Penh hotel, accused of continuing to work for Radio Free Asia even after the news service abruptly shut down its Phnom Penh bureau amid a crackdown on independent media last year.

They denied the accusation, but were subsequently accused of committing treason by supplying information to a foreign state, a charge punishable by up to 15 years in prison, and have been detained at Phnom Penhs Prey Sar prison ever since. Chhin was later charged with producing pornography after police allegedly uncovered lewd digital images during his arrest.

According to an order issued Tuesday evening by Judge Pich Vicheathor, the two journalists will be freed on bail, but will have stringent conditions placed on their release.

The two of them have to stand by and show up whenever any judge calls for them, the order says. They cannot move their house or cross Cambodias borders without a permit from the judge. They have to appear at Stung Meanchey police station every first week of the month.

Y Rin, a spokesman for the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, confirmed to VOA Khmer on Tuesday afternoon that the court had decided to release the pair on bail, but would not elaborate on the reason for the decision.

Rohit Mahajan, director of public affairs for Radio Free Asia, told VOA in an email that the release was a positive step, although he called for the court to drop charges against the two men.

"This is, of course, a positive development, he said. They have suffered, and with them, their families throughout this ordeal. But we hope with their release, the court would also dismiss all charges against them.

After the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party swept all 125 parliamentary seats in Julys national election, there have been several releases of high-profile political prisoners.

In addition to the two journalists, Kim Sok, an analyst who landed in jail after sharply criticizing the government, was released on Friday, while Tep Vanny, one of Cambodias best-known land rights activists, was released on Monday night after being pardoned by the king.

The July election was expected to be hotly contested, but instead, was preceded by a ten-month-long crackdown on dissenting voices and independent media that left little room for opposition. Most crucially, the CPPs biggest competition, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, was dissolved by a court packed with CPP loyalists, and membership in the party was declared illegal.

The pre-election repression was widely decried by the international community, including some of Cambodias most important foreign benefactors.

A number of government officials have been banned from entering the US, while the EU has issued several warnings that it might suspend its Everything But Arms trade deal with Cambodia, which has helped Cambodia sell around a hundred million dollars worth of goods to European countries annually.

Meas Nee, a social researcher, and an independent political analyst suggested that journalists, land activists, and political analysts are now being released because the government is trying to ease down international pressure after the election.

It is nothing but them trying to reduce the tension, warnings, and sanction on Cambodia government, he said. Slowly, they are going for an acknowledgment from the international community, as well as internally.
U.S. President Donald Trump has praised federal immigration officers as "heroes" who keep the borders safe from infiltration of dangerous criminals. He invited about 150 members of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Custom and Border Protection and other law enforcement agents to the White House Monday to publicly recognize their effort. The event, called Salute to the Heroes, comes at a time when many Americans question the new border procedures. VOA's Zlatica Hoke reports.
Thousands of Nicaraguans are leaving the country in the midst of a political crisis that erupted more than four months ago. Daily protests against the government and violent confrontations with the police have caused an unstable situation in the country. As Cristina Caicedo Smit reports for Gesell Tobias many Nicarguans are seeking help in Costa Rica, crowding the streets and living in parks. Their presence is sparking protests.
A Syrian army offensive in the rebel-held enclave of Idlib would have a "catastrophic" humanitarian impact and cause levels of civilian suffering unprecedented in the seven-year war, aid agencies have warned.

The government has said it aims to recapture the northwestern Idlib region, a refuge for civilians and rebels displaced from other areas of Syria as well as powerful jihadist forces.

"If there is a large-scale military offensive, what we might see in Idlib in terms of death, injury or displacement is something we haven't seen before. The war is far from over," said Joelle Bassoul, spokeswoman for Care International.

"People will be stranded with nowhere to go, with no aid  what other word can we use besides catastrophic," she told Reuters by phone Tuesday from Beirut.

Her comments came a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) warned of rising rates of acute malnutrition in Idlib and said a failure to vaccinate could lead to outbreaks of disease such as polio.

"The health situation in northwest Syria is already dire and looks set to deteriorate," said WHO Regional Emergencies Director Michel Thieren in a statement on Monday as the organization appealed for more funds.

"If WHO does not receive additional funding, more than two million people caught in the cross-fire may have no access to essential health care services, including life-saving trauma care."

Bassoul said health care facilities in Idlib were already overstretched and would be unable to cope with a large military offensive.

Northwestern Syria, where Idlib is located, is the last big area still in the hands of fighters seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, after the government recaptured the area around Damascus and the southwest earlier this year.

The Syrian army dropped leaflets over Idlib earlier this month, urging people to agree to a return of state rule and telling them the war was nearing its end.

Many live in overcrowded tents and shelters with little access to clean water, food and proper health care, according to aid agencies.

The war has already killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven 11 million from their homes, and the United Nations has expressed worries that an offensive in Idlib could force 2.5 million people toward the Turkish border.

"There are no homes or other forms of shelter left really, even tents," Amany Qaddour, regional director of the humanitarian organization Syria Relief and Development, said in a statement. "Many are prepared to stay [in Idlib] as they have no other options at this point."
American Muslims on Tuesday marked the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca with the four-day festivities of Eid al-Adha, one of Islam's most important religious holidays.

As did fellow Muslims around the world, many Muslims in the United States started their celebration with a morning prayer at mosques and Islamic centers.

However, some Muslims near Washington, D.C., found themselves in a church Tuesday morning.

The Peace Islamic Center in Burke, Virginia, could not accommodate the large numbers of people who wanted to come for prayers. As it did in past years, the center arranged to hold large gatherings at nearby St. Andrew's Episcopal Church.

Yousef Zerwal, a Moroccan-American Muslim, welcomed the idea of the Eid prayer in a church.

"We were able actually to pray and accomplish our Eid prayer and our goal of getting closer to God, even though it is actually in a church. So personally, I am proud to be part of this message that, if anything, shows tolerance that exists in this community," Zerwal said.

For the Rev. Tim Heflin, the second rector of St. Andrew's, sharing the church space is a way to open up interfaith dialogue and foster tolerance.

"We are all people of the book  Jews, Muslims and Christians. And so for me, it is very easy to welcome people of the book, who worship God into our place," Heflin said.

Eid al-Adha, the "Feast of Sacrifice," follows the Hajj, or pilgrimage. It commemorates Prophet Ibrahim's test of faith.

Muslims believe Ibrahim's faith was tested when God commanded him to sacrifice his only son, Ismail. Ibrahim was prepared to submit to the command, but God spared his son with a sheep to be slaughtered instead. The teachings of both Christianity and Judaism also honor the prophet's test, although he often is called Abraham in their holy books.

For the holiday, Muslims slaughter livestock and distribute part of the meat to the poor. Eid is a time for prayer, sharing meals, handing out gifts and wishing one another well.

Omar Wali owns a halal meat company. He provides animals to be slaughtered according to Islamic teachings.

"We bought the lambs, goats and cows about a month ago and prepared them for everybody to slaughter for Eid al-Adha," he said.

Many are using the occasion of Eid to remember Muslims suffering in conflicts from Yemen to Syria and Iraq to Nigeria.

Islamic relief organizations encourage Muslim Americans to spread the joy of Eid to Muslims living in such regions.
A prominent social media activist and blogger in Bangladesh has been in hiding for the past two weeks, saying he fears for his life after the countrys intelligence agency summoned him to discuss certain issues.

Pinaki Bhattacharya, a known government critic, says he got a call from the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) soon after a week-long rally of students demanding improved road safety ended in Dhaka and the government began rounding up many on charges of inciting violence during the mass protests.

The 51-year-old activist, who has over 153,000 Facebook followers, told VOA from an unidentified hideout that "pro-ruling party goons violently attacked the protesting students. They also attacked the journalists who were covering the protests. I think the government is angry with me because my Facebook and Twitter posts covered those attacks and revealed the political identity of the attackers.

Some men claiming that they were from the DGFI came to my home and office in search of me," he said. "I know many picked up by security agents in such way in the past, disappeared without trace. I am very scared.

Bhattacharya, who is a medical doctor, is well-known in Bangladesh for his online activism.

He has long used Facebook, Twitter and his blogs to criticize the current Sheikh Hasina-led government for its alleged corruption and human rights violations, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. He has received many online death threats in the recent past.

Student protests

In late July he came out in solidarity with the mass protests held by the students demanding safer roads in Dhaka. Armed alleged pro-ruling party activists violently attacked the protesters and the journalists covering the rallies.

Bhattacharya used photos and videos of the attacks on the protesting students on Facebook and Twitter, seeking action against the attackers. However, the government announced that many were using protest-related photos and videos to spread rumor and incite violence and they would face action.

Soon after the security agencies began arresting social media users for inciting violence, Bhattacharya said he received a call on August 5 from a man who he said introduced himself as Major Farhan from the DGFI. He asked Bhattacharya to come down to the agencys headquarters for talks on certain issues.

Bhattacharya did not turn up at the DGFI headquarters and went underground that evening.

The case of Akramul Haque flashed in my mind immediately," he recalled. "I became very anxious about my safety. I have gone underground, fearing for my life.

After Akramul Haque, a municipal councillor in Teknaf was killed in May, security agencies claimed that he was an armed narcotics dealer who died in a gunfight. But, in an audio clip reportedly recorded remotely by his wife via a mobile phone, Haque is heard saying he had met the Major from the DGFI.

Security forces deny actions

Prime Minister Hasinas media advisor, Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, told The Telegraph (UK) last week that neither DGFI nor any other security agency was after Bhattacharya.

VOA called the telephone number from which Bhattacharya said he received the DGFI call. The person who answered, who would not give their name, confirmed it was the DGFI office, but said no one by the name of Major Farhan existed there. VOA was unable to get any further comment from DGFI.

From his hideout Tuesday, Bhattacharya said he believed the DGFI was still hunting for him.

I fight for the rights of the people," he said. "I raise my voice against abuses committed by the powerful on the weak. I do what a human rights activist is supposed to do. I have not committed anything criminal or illegal. Yet they are hounding me and have forced me to remain underground.



Phil Robertson, deputy director of Asia Division of Human Rights Watch said Bhattacharya was right to be afraid because Bangladesh's security and intelligence forces have a long history of torture, enforced disappearances, and extra-judicial killings and operate with near total impunity.

The government should order the DGFI to stand down and leave Pinaki alone because all he's done is use his right to freedom of expression on social media to reveal abuses and call for reforms, Robertson told VOA.

Hong Kong-based activist Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman, liaison officer of the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), said DGFI actions such as calling a citizen for a meeting or raiding his home or workplace in search of him amount to a threat to ones life and are completely illegal.

Even in the case of having a criminal case against a person," he said, "the DGFI does not have any legal jurisdiction to get involved. Even if Pinaki Bhattacharya had been an accused in any criminal case, it would have been the business of the police to be after him, not the DGFI.
Brazil won't close its border with Venezuela despite tensions that led to attacks on migrants who had fled to the border town of Pacaraima in the northern state of Roraima, an official said Monday.



Institutional Security Minister Gen. Sergio Etchegoyen told a news conference that closing the border would be illegal and wouldn't help ease the situation in the border town.



Residents of Pacaraima attacked Venezuelan immigrants on Saturday after a local storeowner was robbed, stabbed and beaten in an assault the Brazilians blamed on four immigrants. The owner  55-year-old Raimundo Nonato de Oliveira  was discharged from hospital on Sunday.



"The closing of the border is unthinkable because it is illegal," Etchegoyen said.



Political and economic turmoil has driven tens of thousands of Venezuelans across the border, straining the capacity of small towns in the area to cope.



About 510,000 Brazilians live in Roraima and 12,000 of those are in Pacaraima, a city that has received five times its population in Venezuelan migrants.



Roraima state Gov. Suely Campos has pressured Brazil's federal government and judicial authorities to close the border with Venezuela or send enough help.

On Sunday, Campos requested that Brazil's top court temporarily suspend the immigration of Venezuelans into Brazil. There is no date for a court decision on the case, but a similar request was denied in April.



"Unfortunately it took a violent episode for the federal government to understand it needs to face this issue in an effective way," Campos said in a statement on Monday.



She is asking national officials for $45 million to compensate for spending by Roraima state since 2016, when the migration began to reach crisis proportions. The governor also wants Brazil's top court to establish an "immigrant quota" for each state so they can leave impoverished Roraima.



Roraima's Attorney-General Ernani Batista said that only 820 Venezuelan immigrants have been sent to other states since April.



"We cannot host 500 to 800 Venezuelans coming a day," Batista said. "Our main point with this request (to the court) is to send Venezuelans to other states and regions in Brazil."



Campos and several other local politicians who have called for the border to be closed are running for re-election.



Camila Asano, a director at Sao Paulo-based human rights organization Conectas, said the campaign trail rhetoric is one of the reasons for Saturday's violence.



"Federal and local authorities don't know what to do and are feeding this conflict with populist suggestions to close the border and establish quotas," Asano told The Associated Press. "Sending Venezuelans to other states doesn't solve the whole problem because many will stay in Roraima anyway because they are closer to the border, to their families.''



In a document filed to Roraima authorities, Campos said there is risk of "bloodshed" in Pacaraima and said "the chaos is a result of the omission of the federal government."



Etchegoyen, however, said closing the border "wouldn't help with the humanitarian situation in any way."



The minister said the situation in Pacaraima has calmed since Saturday, but no arrests have been made yet.

Brazil's federal government is sending 120 military-style police to Roraima. Half of that contingent has arrived in Boa Vista, but the other half has no date of arrival set.

Campos has asked for federal since 2016, shortly after President Michel Temer took office due to the impeachment of his predecessor Dilma Rousseff.



A document obtained by The Associated Press shows Campos requested assistance from then federal police boss Leandro Daiello for the first time on July 6 of that year.



"Because of the aggravation of the crisis in Venezuela, crime has risen in Pacaraima and in (Roraima's capital) Boa Vista, committed chiefly by Venezuelan citizens," the letter said. "I request emergency measures for a rigorous control of the entry of foreigners in the border area."

Other requests followed, but no meaningful steps were made, local authorities said.
Britains foreign secretary is calling for traditional Western allies to join in a united front against Russias aggressive and malign behavior, expressing confidence that the United States under President Donald Trump will lead the way.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told an audience in Washington it is essential for the U.S., Britain and the European Union to stand firm against Russian President Vladimir Putins increasingly dangerous attacks on long-standing international norms.

Those who dont share our values, need to know that there will always be a serious price to pay if red lines are crossed by the territorial incursions, the use of banned weapons, or increasingly cyberattacks, Hunt said Tuesday prior to talks with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

He [Putin] is testing us, Hunt added. He is just wanting to see just how robust and how united the West is.

Actions against Russia

Hunt said there are several reasons for optimism, praising the United States for its strong stance on Russia following the March poisoning of a former Russian agent and his daughter in the British town of Salisbury.

The U.S. expelled 60 Russian diplomats and imposed sanctions, pointing to the use of a Soviet-era nerve toxin known as Novichok.

U.S. and British officials have also accused Russia of seeking to interfere with their elections.

At the same time, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on assertions that Russia sought to meddle in the U.S. election, taking to social media to dismiss an investigation into Russia's actions as a rigged witch hunt.

And in an interview Monday with the Reuters news agency, Trump said he would consider lifting sanctions against Russia in exchange for cooperation in Syria or Ukraine.

Hunt downplayed such concerns.

President Trump is the most active president on social media that theres ever been, the British foreign secretary said. Its a different style of politics, but I think its important to look at what he does as well as what he says.

What you see is an approach to foreign policy that is different to his predecessors but is absolutely focused on upholding the international order, Hunt said. If you look at his actions he is also prepared to be very tough  tougher actually than a number of his predecessors to make sure people get the message about vital red lines.

As if to back up Hunts assertions, top administration officials told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday they are prepared to impose additional sanctions on Russia if its behavior does not change.

Strategy against Russia

The administrations strategy is to continue raising the costs until Russian aggression ceases, while keeping the door open to dialogue, Assistant Secretary of State Wess Mitchell told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Already, existing sanctions are believed to have cost Russia up to $10 billion in arms sales alone, while slashing foreign investment by 80 percent.

Though Russias malign activities continue, we believe its adventurism undoubtedly has been checked by the knowledge that we can bring much more economic pain to bear, Acting Deputy Treasury Secretary Sigal Mandelker told the Senate Banking Committee. We will not hesitate to do so if its conduct does not demonstrably and significantly change.

Separately Tuesday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions against two Russian companies and a Russian individual for helping Moscow try to avoid existing sanctions due to Russias cyber activities.

It also slapped Russian shipping companies with new sanctions for violating United Nations restrictions transferring refined petroleum products to North Korea.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov responded Tuesday in a statement on the ministrys website, saying the new U.S. sanctions were groundless, promising a response from Moscow.

Still, some lawmakers and other officials are concerned Russias behavior is not changing quickly enough.

Microsoft said late Monday it had detected and disrupted efforts by the Kremlin-linked group known as Fancy Bear or APT28, to hack into or attack conservative U.S. think tanks as well as several U.S. senators.

Moscow has rejected Microsofts allegations, saying there is no evidence to support them.

Information from Reuters was used in this report.
A prominent leader of Cambodia's land rights movement and three female activists imprisoned with her were freed Monday under a royal pardon.



The pardon from King Norodom Sihamoni at the request of Prime Minister Hun Sen came less than a week after the second anniversary of Tep Vanny's imprisonment on a charge of aggravated intentional violence in connection with a March 2013 protest outside Hun Sen's residence.



Tep Vanny led protests against evictions from the capital's Boeng Kak lakeshore community, where the government granted a land concession to a Cambodian tycoon and a Chinese company to develop a luxury residential and commercial community.



Rights groups called the case against her and the other Boeng Kak activists an injustice.



Tep Vanny's return home Monday night was broadcast live on a colleague's Facebook page, showing her friends cheering her freedom and shouting that she was a hero.



She received blessings from a Buddhist monk and thanked her guests for their support.



No reason was specified for the pardons, but they came just days after a sweeping election victory by Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party was officially certified. The polls were heavily criticized as unfair because the only credible opposition party was dissolved by court order last year on a complaint by Hun Sen's government.

Hun Sen has a history of aggressive moves against his political enemies and critics, then softening the blow after accomplishing his purpose and facing international criticism.



"This is just one of many outrageous cases in which the authorities have misused Cambodia's justice system to harass and imprison peaceful land rights activists," Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said last week as right groups called for her release after two years in detention.



Human Rights Watch said the charges against Tep Vanny "had no factual basis and were apparently fabricated."



"Trial judges did not require the prosecution to present evidence to substantiate the charges, unjustifiably disallowed testimony by defense witnesses, and arbitrarily rushed proceedings to prevent cross-examination of prosecution evidence," it said.



A joint statement by 162 Cambodian civil society organizations also issued on the anniversary cited humanitarian grounds as well in calling for her release, saying her detention was a strain on her, her two children and her ailing mother.



It said she was being held "in one of Cambodia's worst prisons, where she shares a cell with more than 150 other detainees in squalid conditions."



Tep Vanny was last arrested in August 2016 at a peaceful protest against the arbitrary detention of four human rights defenders and an election official. She was convicted of "insulting a public official" and sentenced to six days in prison.



The case of her 2013 arrest was then revived, leading to her receiving a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence in February 2017.
A high-profile Cambodian land activist has been freed from prison and two jailed journalists granted bail following the ruling partys domination of an effectively uncontested election late last month.

Tep Vanny, a celebrated resistance leader in Phnom Penhs most notorious land dispute, was released from jail Monday night after receiving a pardon from Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni at the request of Prime Minister Hun Sen for a series of convictions totalling 36 months.

Three of her fellow Boeung Kak lake community activists, Heng Mom, Bo Chhorvy and Kong Chantha, also were pardoned from 2016 convictions in relation to a protest more than half a decade before.

The next day, two former Radio Free Asia journalists who were jailed on treason charges shortly after the broadcaster shuttered its local office in September last last year were granted bail.

Tep, who had severed more than two years of her first 30-month sentence, told VOA on Monday night she should have never been imprisoned for even one second, calling the charges against her unacceptable and a reflection of the countrys compromised judicial system.

More specifically, I am a normal citizen, like others in the Boeung Kak community, who have been victimized by government-approved development projects. So I should be granted warmth and justice, not a two-year jail term, she said. Its mentally and physically painful for me, posing impacts to the feelings of me and my children.

Unexpected freedom

The release came as a surprise because nothing had been communicated to her or her family, Tep said, speculating that interventions from national and international organizations must have secured her freedom.

Perhaps even more of a surprise though was the news that former RFA journalists Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin (also known as Yeang Socheameta) had been granted bail.

The judge decided to release them on bail. For the reason, the judge has already stated in the warrant. Theyll be released this evening," said Phnom Penh Municipal court spokesperson Y Rin on Tuesday.

Y was unable to provide VOA with a copy of the relevant warrant to explain the judges reasoning and the pairs lawyer, Key Vanny, did not answer his phone.

Uon and Yeang were arrested on treason charges during a sweeping pre-election press crackdown that saw more than 30 radio frequencies shutdown and critical news outlets pressured into closure.

In addition to treason, they later were charged with human trafficking and face 16 years in jail if convicted.

After her release on Monday night Vanny lent her support to the two men.

I also plea for the freedom of two former RFA journalists Uon Chhin and Yeang Socheameta, who are suffering injustice in the prison with all other jailed political activists, because they are all waiting for the freedom I was granted today, she said.

Ongoing dispute

Tep and the three other Boeung Kak activists were convicted of committing Insults Addressed to Public Officials and Obstruction of a Public Official with Aggravating Circumstances at a 2011 protest.

Tep was separately slapped with a reactivated charge of an "Intentional Act of Violence with Aggravating Circumstances stemming from a 2013 protest in front of Prime Minister Hun Sens house.

She has long stood at the forefront of a bitter land dispute with the government and Shukaku, a firm owned by Choeung Sopheap, the wife of powerful ruling party Senator Lao Meng Khin.

In 2007 Shukaku was granted a 133-hectare, 99-year land concession at Boeung Kak, where it evicted more than 4,000 families as it filled in the lake and demolished the homes of those who resisted.

Tep became one of the leaders of that resistance, mobilizing a group of almost all female activists in regular protests that eventually saw 13 of them jailed  one of three stints in prison her activism has landed her.

In a statement released on Tuesday, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights chairperson and Malaysian government MP Charles Santiago called Teps release welcome but long overdue.

Tep Vanny and her fellow activists should never have been imprisoned in the first place  they have only bravely and peacefully campaigned for the rights of their communities, he wrote.

But as delighted as we are that Tep Vanny will be reunited with her family, this does not change the big picture in Cambodia. Prime Minister Hun Sen has turned the country into a one-party state and run roughshod over human rights  short-term concessions will not fix this.

Systematic repression

In the lead up to the countrys July 29 election, in which the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party won every seat, the only viable opposition party was banned and its leader, Kem Sokha, jailed.

The Cambodia National Rescue Party leader, which is accused of orchestrating an internationally backed color revolution to overthrow the government, remains in prison with his final bail hearing set for tomorrow.

Australian filmmaker James Ricketsonalso is on trial this week on espionage charges, more than a year after he was arrested at an opposition protest where he was flying a drone.

On Friday, jailed political analyst Kim Sok was released after serving 18 months for incitement and defamation for comments he made on Facebook implying the government was complicit in the assassination of political analyst Kem Ley in 2016.
Colombia's foreign ministry said on Tuesday it had sent a letter of protest to Venezuela, accusing it of allowing helicopters and soldiers to cross the shared border without permission over the weekend.

"There was a violation to Colombia's sovereignty on the part of two military helicopters, identified with the acronym of the Bolivarian National Guard, and some 30 armed soldiers," Colombia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

The ministry sent a letter to the Venezuelan embassy in Bogota expressing its "most energetic protest" against the incident, which took place in the Tibu municipality in Norte de Santander province on Sunday, the statement added.

The Venezuelan government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Venezuelan soldiers have repeatedly crossed into Colombia without permission, exacerbating long-standing tensions between the neighbors.

Colombia is a top destination for Venezuelans fleeing food and medicine shortages amidst their country's deep economic crisis.
An FBI agent who accidentally shot a man while dancing in a Denver nightclub will be arraigned on a second-degree assault charge Oct. 18.

Chase Bishop appeared in a Denver court for a routine hearing Tuesday, The Denver Post reports. Bishop has been charged with second-degree assault in the June 2 shooting at Mile High Spirits and Distillery.

A video shot at the scene and shared with local media shows Bishop doing a back flip on the dance floor. His gun is seen falling to the floor and discharging as Bishop tries to pick it up.

A bartender was shot in the leg. He was treated and released from a local hospital.

Bishop, who lives and works in Washington, D.C., was off-duty and on vacation when the shooting occurred. He was arrested and later released to an FBI supervisor.
A lawyer for an Iranian journalist sentenced in Iran to 10 years in prison for allegedly insulting a historic religious figure says the ruling will be appealed because it was not handled by the appropriate court.

In a Monday phone interview with VOA Persian from Tehran, lawyer Hossein Ahmadinejad said Irans media court should have handled the case against journalist Amir Hossein Miresmaili, but did not do so. Suggesting the media court may have treated the journalist more leniently, he said that court would have better understood a recent Miresmaili tweet alleged to be insulting to Shiite Islams 8th Imam.

In an earlier Monday interview with Iranian state news site ISNA, Ahmadiniaz said a Tehran court for government employees handed Miresmaili a 10-year prison term, two-year bans on media activities and leaving Iran, and a cash fine. Iranian authorities had arrested the journalist, who works for the economic news site Jahane Sanat, on April 24, days after he posted a tweet mentioning the 8th Imam, also known as Imam Reza  one of 12 imams revered by many Shiites as spiritual successors to the Prophet Muhammad.

In the tweet, which he subsequently deleted, Miresmaili mocked the Friday prayer leader of the Iranian city of Mashhad, Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, for suggesting that modern-day concerts are an insult to the teachings of Imam Reza. Miresmaili tweeted that Alamolhoda was wrong, because people say Imam Reza liked to drink "grape juice"  a codename that some Iranians use for wine and other alcoholic beverages that they are forbidden to drink under Irans Islamist laws. "Imam Reza was one of us," Miresmaili wrote at the end of the tweet.

Iranian state news agency Tasnim previously reported that Miresmaili was summoned to a court on April 23 for insulting Imam Reza. Miresmaili tweeted an apology the same day, saying he did not mean to insult the historical figure. "I'm a Muslim and a Shi'a and I just wanted to criticize Alamolhoda," he wrote.

Iran's judiciary news agency said authorities arrested Miresmaili on April 24 at Tehrans airport as he was trying to take a flight to Georgia.

"Miresmaili is a prominent Iranian satirical journalist," his lawyer Ahmadiniaz told VOA Persian. "Since what he wrote (about Imam Reza) was in the context of satirical journalism, I believe his case should have been handled by Irans media court."

The media courts jury is comprised of journalists, other professionals and clerics who are selected by senior Iranian officials every two years. If the media court heard Miresmailis case, his peers would have understood that he was not trying to insult anyones faith, Ahmadiniaz said.

In his comments to ISNA, Ahmadiniaz said the Tehran court that prosecuted Miresmaili convicted the journalist of several charges: insulting Iranian state and judicial officials, insulting religious sanctities, publishing falsehoods to disturb public opinion and publishing immoral content.

Speaking to VOA Persian, Ahmadiniaz said he learned of Miresmailis sentence on Sunday and planned to file an appeal within 20 days of the sentencing  a grace period provided by law for such appeals.

"I think the Iranian establishment should look at him with leniency because he is a satirist," Ahmadiniaz said.

This report was produced in collaboration with VOAs Persian Service.
Islamic militants launched a series of attacks Monday in Russia's southern province of Chechnya, leaving five young militants dead and several police officers wounded, officials said.

The violence indicated the Islamist insurgency remains active in the mostly Muslim province despite authorities' claims that it has been eradicated. It follows an attack on a Russian Orthodox church in May that left four attackers, two policemen and a churchgoer dead.

Chechnya's regional leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, sought to downplay the attacks, saying they were quickly fended off by police. He insisted the young attackers were brainwashed by Islamic militants and don't have any public support in Chechnya.

Dzhambulat Umarov, the information minister in the regional government, told the Tass news agency the attackers were between 11 and 16 years old. He said the Islamic State has increasingly focused on teenagers in its efforts to recruit supporters in the region.

The regional police said in a statement that two knife-wielding attackers broke into a police station in the southern town of Shali and stabbed two officers. Police shot and killed them.

In another clash in Shali, two attackers tried to blow up a truck loaded with gas canisters in a suicide attack, but the vehicle failed to explode, Kadyrov spokesman Alvi Karimov said on Kommersant FM radio. He said the two were shot dead by police.

Russian news agencies also reported an attack in the village of Mesker-Yurt, outside Shali, in which an attacker blew himself up near a police checkpoint. Police were unhurt and Kadyrov said the suicide bomber survived and was hospitalized.

And in yet another attack in the regional capital of Grozny, an attacker driving a car hit two traffic police officers, injuring them, officials said. Police later shot and killed the driver.

The Kremlin has relied on the strongman Kadyrov to stabilize Chechnya after two separatist wars in the 1990s, and has provided generous subsidies to help rebuild the region.

International human rights groups, however, have accused Kadyrov of rampant rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings by his feared security forces.

Radical Islamic militants, some of whom have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group, have conducted sporadic raids in Chechnya, defying Kadyrov's assurances that the region is stable.
Charges against Manafort

The trial of Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, ended Tuesday in Alexandria, Virginia, as the 12-person jury found him guilty of eight of 18 charges, including filing false income tax returns, failing to file a report of a foreign bank account in 2012, and bank fraud.

Special counsel Robert Mueller brought this federal case against Manafort, as well as a second criminal case that will start in Washington in September.

Manafort faced 18 criminal counts of tax evasion and bank fraud. The charges are unrelated to the core of Muellers investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to subvert the 2016 U.S. presidential election in Trump's favor.

If Manafort had been found guilty on all counts, he could have spent the rest of his life in prison. His conviction on eight counts means he is looking at a sentence of several years in prison.

The charges stemmed from Manaforts decade-long lobbying and political consulting work for Ukraines former president Viktor Yanukovych.

While working for Yanukovych and his pro-Russia Party of Regions between 2006 and 2015, Manafort and his former business partner, Rick Gates, allegedly earned tens of millions of dollars in fees while hiding the income from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

To avoid paying hefty taxes, prosecutors said during the trial, Manafort and Gates set up secret shell companies and offshore accounts to funnel their Ukrainian proceeds disguised as loans to U.S. accounts to buy multimillion-dollar properties and luxury goods.

After Yanukovych was deposed in 2014 and their Ukrainian income dwindled, Manafort and Gates allegedly came up with another scheme to obtain money: use their real estate properties in the United States as collateral to fraudulently secure more than $20 million in bank loans by falsely inflating their income.

In all, prosecutors said, more than $75 million flowed through the offshore accounts Manafort and Gates set up.

Manafort maintains innocence

Manafort had pleaded not guilty to the charges in Virginia, as well as to a separate indictment in federal court in Washington.

Manafort had been under federal investigation since 2014 over suspicion of illegal lobbying and financial improprieties. But he was ensnared in the Russia investigation last year after Mueller began examining ties between Trump campaign staff and Russia.

Trump has repeatedly called the criminal and congressional probes into connections between his campaign and Russian interests a "witch hunt" used by Democrats to explain his election win over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Democratic and some Republican lawmakers have denounced Trump's allegations, saying Mueller, a former FBI director appointed by President George W. Bush, has a highly regarded professional reputation for acting apolitically.

The evidence against Manafort

Mueller has spent the past 14 months building the case against Manafort with a mountain of evidence seized from Manaforts and Gates homes, including computers and electronic devices, as well as documents obtained from financial institutions.

Prosecutors submitted a list of hundreds of exhibits, including financial documents and photographs of luxury cars and real estate properties Manafort bought with his Ukrainian income.



The special counsel enlisted dozens of witnesses to testify against Manafort, including accountants, financial advisers, tax preparers and real estate agents.

But the prosecutors star witness was Gates, who worked closely with Manafort in Ukraine and later followed him into Trumps campaign as deputy chairman. Gates testified against his former colleague, implicating him in hiding offshore accounts, bank fraud and multimillion-dollar tax evasion. Gates also admitted to the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars while on Manafort's payroll for a decade.

Gates was named as a co-defendant in the initial indictment handed down against Manafort last October. But when the special counsel hit the two men with a second indictment in February, Gates pleaded guilty to two lesser counts in exchange for cooperation.

Manafort's future

Manafort remained defiant, vowing to fight the charges.

Short of an acquittal, some legal experts said the best hope for Manafort to avoid jail time remains a presidential pardon, although Trump has given no indication hell pardon his former campaign chairman.

Other legal scholars say even a presidential pardon may not help. They say Manafort can be indicted in state court for many of the same crimes for which he's been charged by the special counsel, a circumstance for which a presidential pardon cannot be applied. Presidential pardons can only be applied to federal crimes, legal experts say.

The trial is the first courtroom test of special counsel Mueller's Russia probe, even though the case doesn't involve allegations of Russian election interference.

Manafort also faces a second trial next month in Washington, where he will face charges focused on allegations of lying to the FBI, lobbying for foreign governments and money laundering. If convicted, Manafort could receive a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Jurors in the eastern U.S. state of Virginia are in their fourth day of deliberations Tuesday on tax and bank fraud allegations against U.S. President Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

The six-man, six-woman panel has been discussing the case behind closed doors since last week in a courthouse just outside Washington.

The jury sent a note to the judge about 90 minutes after resuming deliberations asking the judge how to complete a verdict form for a single count if it is unable to reach consensus on that count.

During the two-week trial, prosecutors accused Manafort of hiding millions of dollars in offshore accounts in order to avoid paying U.S. taxes and to finance a lavish lifestyle that included the purchase of palatial mansions, cars, clothes and electronics.

They alleged much of the money came from Manafort's lobbying for deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych before joining Trump's election campaign in 2016.

Manafort's defense team, which rested its case without calling any witnesses, or Manafort, to testify, said the prosecution failed to prove Manafort's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the legal standard for a conviction in the U.S. court system.

It also worked to discredit the key prosecution witness in the case, Rick Gates, Manafort's former business associate who also was Trump's former deputy campaign manager. Gates had already pleaded guilty to helping hide millions in income from U.S. tax authorities.

The trial is the first conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors in connection with their wide-ranging investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The jury in the bank and tax fraud trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort ended its third day of deliberations on Monday without reaching a verdict.

The judge said the jury would reconvene on Tuesday morning.

The case is the first to go to trial stemming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, although the charges largely predate Manafort's five months working on Donald Trump's successful campaign.

Manafort faces five counts of filing false tax returns, four counts of failing to disclose offshore bank accounts, and nine counts of bank fraud. If convicted on all the charges, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

A conviction would undermine efforts by Trump and some Republican lawmakers to paint Mueller's Russia inquiry as a political witch hunt, while an acquittal would be a setback for the special counsel.

In a break with convention, Trump weighed in on the trial on Friday, calling the case against Manafort at the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, "very sad" and lauding his former associate as a "very good person."

On Monday, Trump accused Mueller's team of "enjoying ruining people's lives" and trying to influence the elections in November when Republicans will try to hold on to control of Congress.

"Mueller's Angry Dems are looking to impact the election.

They are a National Disgrace!" Trump wrote on Twitter.

Trump's tweet was in reference to a New York Times report that White House Counsel Don McGahn had cooperated extensively with Mueller.

Before dismissing them on Friday, Judge T.S. Ellis reminded the jurors, who are not sequestered, to refrain from discussing the case or investigating it on their own during the weekend.

Some legal experts expressed concern, however, that jurors might still see Trump's comments - inadvertently or otherwise.

Another headline from Friday that could grab the attention of jurors concerned Ellis' disclosure that he had received threats related to the trial and was being protected by U.S. marshals. The jury was not present when he made those remarks.

"In a high profile case, the general assumption is that some outside information may accidentally reach a jury, despite jurors' best efforts to avoid relevant news," said jury consultant Roy Futterman.

"Given the judge's statement, the jurors may reasonably assume that they may be at some risk, which may change the tenor of their deliberations, perhaps raising tensions or speeding things up."

On Thursday, the jury asked for a definition of "reasonable doubt" and clarification on the law governing the reporting of foreign bank accounts, but it did not ask any similar questions on Friday or Monday.

Shanlon Wu, who represented Manafort's former protege Rick Gates before he pleaded guilty in February and cooperated with the prosecution, said the lack of questions might bode better for the prosecution than the defense.

He said it suggested "they were working hard and working well together, and there was no dissension."

"I think that's a good sign for the prosecution," Wu said.

Still, he said he saw a chance of acquittals on the four counts of failing to disclose foreign bank accounts, citing the jury's technical question on Thursday about the ownership and control threshold requirements for such disclosures.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad says he has cancelled three Chinese-backed multi-billion infrastructure projects.

Mahathir made the announcement Tuesday in Beijing at the end of his five-day visit to the Chinese capital. He told a group of Malaysian reporters that he explained to Chinese President Xi Jingping and Premier Li Keqiang that his country's ballooning $250 billion debt made it impossible to continue.

"It is about borrowing too much money, which we cannot afford, we cannot repay, and also because we do not need these projects for Malaysia at this moment," Mahathir said.

Before traveling to China last week, Mahathir suspended the three projects funded with Chinese loans worth more than $20 billion, including an ambitious rail line and two energy pipelines.

During a joint news conference Monday with Premier Li, Mahathir said he hoped China will understand his country's "internal fiscal problems."

But he also warned against "a new version of colonialism happening because poor countries are unable to compete with rich countries in terms of just open free trade."

The cancelled projects were initiated under Mahathir's predecessor, Najib Razak, who has been charged with several counts of corruption in the embezzlement scandal involving the state-owned 1MDB sovereign wealth fund.

The scandal led to a stunning electoral loss in May of Najib's National Front coalition, which had ruled Malaysia uninterrupted since gaining independence in 1957  22 of those years under 92-year-old Mahathir, who led the coalition that ousted Najib and the National Front.
Paul Manafort, the longtime political operative who for months led Donald Trump's winning presidential campaign, was found guilty of eight financial crimes Tuesday in the first trial victory of the special counsel investigation into the president's associates.



A judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts the jury could not agree on.



The verdict was part of a stunning one-two punch of bad news for the White House, coming as the president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty in New York to campaign finance charges arising from hush money payments made to two women who say they had sex with Trump.



The jury returned the decision after deliberating four days on tax and bank fraud charges against Manafort, who led the Trump election effort during a crucial stretch of 2016.

Manafort, who appeared jovial earlier in the day amid signs that the jury was struggling in its deliberations, stared intently at the panel as the clerk read off the charges. He stared down blankly at the defense table, then looked up, expressionless, as the judge finished thanking the jury.



Manafort was found guilty of five counts of filing false tax returns on tens of millions of dollars in Ukrainian political consulting income. He was also convicted of failing to report a foreign bank account and of two bank fraud charges that accused him of lying to banks to obtain millions of dollars in loans after his income dried up.



The outcome, though not the across-the-board guilty verdicts the prosecutors sought, almost certainly guarantees years of prison for Manafort. It also appears to vindicate the ability of special counsel Robert Mueller's team to secure convictions from a jury of average citizens despite months of partisan attacks  including from Trump  on the investigation's integrity.



The verdict raised immediate questions of whether the president would seek to pardon Manafort, the lone American charged by Mueller to opt for trial instead of cooperate. The president has not revealed his thinking but spoke sympathetically throughout the trial of his onetime aide, at one point suggesting he had been treated worse than gangster Al Capone.



The trial, presided over by the colorful and impatient U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, captured Trump's attention as he sought to undermine Mueller's investigation through a constant Twitter barrage and increasingly antagonistic statements from his lawyer-spokesman, Rudy Giuliani.



But the Trump campaign comprised but a fraction of the trial as jurors instead heard detailed and sometimes dull testimony about Manafort's finances and what prosecutors say was a years-long tax-evasion and fraud scheme.



Manafort decided not to put on any witnesses or testify himself. His attorneys said he made the decision because he didn't believe the government had met its burden of proof.



Manafort's defense team attempted to make the case about the credibility of longtime Manafort protege Rick Gates, who served as the government's star witness. They attacked him as a liar, embezzler and instigator of any crimes as they tried to persuade jurors that Manafort didn't willfully violate the law.

Gates spent three days on the witness stand, telling jurors how he committed crimes alongside Manafort for years. Gates admitted to doctoring documents, falsifying information and creating fake loans to lower his former boss' tax bill. He also admitted to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars without Manafort's knowledge by filing fake expense reports.



But the government's case wasn't all about Gates. Prosecutors spent two weeks presenting a meticulous, document-based case before the jury as they sought to prove Manafort used offshore bank accounts to conceal millions of dollars in proceeds from his Ukrainian political consulting from the IRS and later turned to defrauding banks.



Overall, prosecutors say Manafort avoided paying more than $16 million in taxes over several years.



They called carpenters, landscapers and clothiers to attest to how Manafort paid for his lavish lifestyle of expensive suits and elaborate properties through offshore wire transfers from shell companies in Cyprus and elsewhere. They also brought in bankers and accountants to tell jurors how, when Manafort's foreign consulting income dropped off, he turned to obtaining millions of dollars more in bank loans under false pretenses.



And perhaps most importantly, the government read from Manafort's own emails as they laid out their case, including messages where he personally directed withdrawals from the offshore accounts he never reported on his tax returns.



Some of other emails admitted into evidence revealed Manafort's lobbying of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner on behalf of Stephen Calk, the chairman of Federal Savings Bank. Prosecutors say Calk approved $16 million in loans for Manafort  despite several red flags  because Calk wanted a job in the Trump administration.



The emails showed that in the weeks after the 2016 election, Manafort urged Kushner to consider Calk for Secretary of the Army, a position Calk had put at the top of his list in an earlier email to Manafort. Calk also listed seven other senior domestic appointments and 18 ambassadorships  ranked in order of preference  that he would accept.



Kushner respond to Manafort's email by saying, "On it!" But Calk ultimately did not get an administration post.



The trial in Alexandria, Virginia, is the first of two for Manafort. He faces a trial later this year in the District of Columbia on charges of conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, making false statements and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Ukrainian interests. He is also accused of witness tampering in that case.
First lady Melania Trump is planning her first big solo international trip with a visit to several African countries in October.

"This will be my first time traveling to Africa, and I am excited to educate myself on the issues facing children throughout the continent, while also learning about its rich culture and history,'' Trump said in a statement released Monday.

President Donald Trump, who has not visited Africa since taking office, will not accompany the first lady, according to The Associated Press, which first reported news of the trip.

The president created a global outcry when he reportedly used the term "s---hole countries" when speaking about immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African nations. He has since denied making the remarks.

Melania Trump's spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said the first lady chose Africa for her first major solo international trip after she learned about some of the development programs that are under way in many of its countries, especially in children's health and education.

"We are a global society, and I believe it is through open dialogue and the exchanging of ideas that we have a real opportunity to learn from one another," the statement said.

Additional details about the first lady's trip were not available.

U.S. first ladies visiting Africa to promote various issues is nothing new.

During President George W. Bush's second term, Laura Bush made five goodwill trips to Africa to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and malaria.

But not all trips were about work. In 2007, Laura Bush took her daughters, Jenna and Barbara, on a safari.

Michelle Obama also visited Africa at the end of her husband's first term. She traveled to South Africa and Botswana with her daughters, Malia and Sasha, and her mother, Marian Robinson, a niece and a nephew. During the visit, the first daughters accompanied their mother on a visit with South African leader Nelson Mandela at his home.

Michelle Obama and her daughters returned to Africa in 2016, with stops in Liberia and Morocco, as part of the Let Girls Learn initiative, a program that encouraged developing nations to educate girls.
Beginning Wednesday, journalists working in Mozambique are scheduled to start paying what may be the highest registration fees in the world.

The new fees have been widely criticized, with Human Rights Watch calling them outrageous, and Amnesty International saying they will keep the media from reporting on Mozambique.

A foreign correspondent living in the southeast African country would have to pay $8,300 a year, and a new national radio station would be charged $35,000. Local journalists reporting for foreign media would be charged $3,500 for annual accreditation in a country whose gross domestic product, per capita, is $1,200.

We think that this is completely exorbitant and out of any reasonable proportion, said Arnaud Froger, who heads the Africa desk for the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders.

It affects those media outlets with very high license fees that are very likely to kill off lots of Mozambiquan radio and TV channels, he told VOA when interviewed by phone Monday from Paris. And journalists as well are not going to be able to pay the price to report. I mean, who is going to [spend] about 2,500 U.S. dollars to go reporting for a week or two in Mozambique? Is there any foreign freelance reporter willing to pay about 8,500 U.S. dollars to settle in Mozambique?

We really fear that the country may become a kind of foreign media desert, Froger added.

He called the government move an attempt to shut down coverage of Mozambique a month before municipal elections and a year ahead of the 2019 presidential vote.

Mozambiques government has defended the fees as a response to market circumstances and the need to impose discipline on the media.

Sixty percent of the fees will go to the federal budget, with the government information office getting the rest.
Muslims at the annual haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia criticized what they described as discordant Arab leaders for failing to block President Donald Trump's decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem after he recognized the city as Israel's capital.

It was a reversal of decades of American policy and the embassy opened in May at a high-profile ceremony attended by Trump's daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, the U.S. envoy to the Middle East.

The status of Jerusalem - home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions - is one of the biggest obstacles to any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

The United Nations says the status of the ancient city - whose eastern sector was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war - can only be resolved by negotiations. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem for the capital of an independent state they seek. Israel says Jerusalem is its eternal and indivisible capital.

"This happened with the complicity of the Arab leaders," 53-year-old Saad Awad from Sudan said on Monday as he walked east of Mecca with more than 2 million fellow Muslims from around the world. "If the Arab leaders were united and adhering to the Koran and the Sunna (Islamic practice based on words and deeds of the Prophet), it would be impossible for the Americans or anyone else to do something like this."

Saudi Arabia, which stakes its reputation on its guardianship of Islam's holiest sites - Mecca and Medina - and organizing the haj, has urged pilgrims to put aside political concerns and focus on spirituality.

The five-day ritual, the world's largest annual gathering of Muslims, is a religious duty once in a lifetime for every able-bodied adherent who can afford it.

Few pilgrims openly censured the host country, but dismay among ordinary Arabs at the embassy move has been tinged with anger at regional governments - particularly those of the oil-rich Gulf monarchies - for failing to stop, or even strongly protest against, Trump's decision last December.

"The Arabs are weak and have not taken a stand on the issue of Jerusalem," said Algerian pilgrim Hilal Issa, 70.

Some critics accuse Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, of surrendering Palestinian rights for the sake of its alliance with Trump and his tough stand on Iran.

While Saudi Arabia and its fellow monarchies have previously criticized the embassy decision, they have also welcomed Trump's harder line against Iran, which has cast itself as the guardian of Palestinian rights.

In recent years the bitter regional rivalry that pits Shi'ite Muslim Iran and its allies against a bloc led by Sunni Muslim-majority Saudi Arabia has increasingly pushed the decades-old Arab-Israeli struggle into the background.

King Salman has reassured Arab allies Riyadh would not endorse any peace plan that fails to address Jerusalem's status or other key issues, Reuters reported last month, easing concerns that the kingdom might back a nascent U.S. deal which largely aligns with Israel.

"If the Arabs were united, nobody would have dared make such a move," Yemeni pilgrim Amr Ahmed Ali said of the embassy transfer. "But God willing, the Arabs will unite, and this city will unite the Arabs and Muslims behind one cause which is the Palestinian cause."
More than two million Muslim pilgrims hurled pebbles at a giant wall in a symbolic stoning of the devil on Tuesday, the start of the riskiest part of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia where hundreds died in a crush three years ago.

Clad in white robes signifying a state of purity, men and women from 165 countries converged on Jamarat to perform the ritual from a three-story bridge erected to ease congestion after earlier stampedes.



Under close supervision from Saudi authorities, the faithful carried umbrellas to block the blazing sun, with daytime temperatures topping 40 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit).

The kingdom stakes its reputation on its guardianship of Islam's holiest sites  Mecca and Medina  and organizing the world's largest annual Muslim gathering.

It has deployed more than 130,000 security forces and medics as well as modern technology including surveillance drones to maintain order.



"The police assistance and the services were all extraordinary. Praise God, I am very happy and God willing our Lord will provide for us again," said Jordanian Firas al-Khashani, 33.

Pilgrims are asked to follow carefully orchestrated schedules for performing each stage of hajj, but with more than two million participants, panic is a constant danger.

The 2015 crush killed nearly 800 people, according to Riyadh, when two large groups of pilgrims arrived together at a crossroads on a road leading to the stoning site.

Counts by countries of repatriated bodies, however, showed more than 2,000 people may have died, more than 400 of them from Iran, which boycotted hajj the following year. It was the worst disaster in at least a quarter century.



Saudi authorities said at the time that the crush may have been caused by pilgrims failing to follow crowd control rules, and King Salman ordered an investigation but the results were never announced.



Some 86,000 Iranians are attending this year amid a diplomatic rift between Tehran and Riyadh, which are locked in a struggle for regional supremacy. Their dispute was exacerbated by the 2015 crush.

'A beautiful feeling'



More than 2.37 million pilgrims, most of them from abroad, have arrived this year for the five-day ritual, a religious duty once in a lifetime for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford the journey.

"It is a beautiful feeling," said Egyptian Hazem Darweesk, 31. "The beauty of it is in the difficulty of performing it. It brings you closer to God."

King Salman arrived in Mina, east of Mecca, on Monday evening ahead of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice.

"Our country's greatest honor is to serve God's guests," the 82-year-old monarch tweeted. "On Eid al-Adha, I ask God to complete the pilgrims' hajj and to perpetuate the goodness and peace for our nation and all other countries."



King Salman and his son and heir apparent Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received well-wishers at a palace in Mina on Tuesday.

Saudi authorities have urged pilgrims to set aside politics during the hajj but violence in the Middle East, including wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya  and other global hotspots  remain on the minds of many.



Some worshippers criticized Arab leaders for failing to block President Donald Trump's decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem after he recognized the city as Israel's capital.

Pilgrimage is also the backbone of a Saudi plan to expand tourism under a drive to diversify the economy away from oil.

The hajj and year-round umrah generate billions of dollars in revenue from worshippers' lodging, transport, fees and gifts.

The authorities aim to increase the number of umrah and hajj pilgrims to 15 million and 5 million respectively by 2020, and hope to double the umrah number again to 30 million by 2030.
A 95-year old New York City man believed to be a former guard at a labor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland has arrived in Germany after being arrested and deported by U.S. immigration authorities, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

The White House said Jakiw Palij had served as a guard at the Trawniki Labor Camp, where about 6,000 Jewish men, women and children were shot dead on Nov. 3, 1943, in one of the single largest massacres of the Holocaust.

The United States had been trying to get Palij out of the country since the issue of a 2004 deportation order, but after talks with top members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government Germany agreed to take him in.

Palij was taken to a home for the elderly in the western town of Ahlen, some 130 kilometers northeast of Dusseldorf.

Born in what was then Poland but is now Ukraine, Palij emigrated to the United States in 1949, becoming a United States citizen eight years later, the White House said.

But, it added, he had concealed his Nazi service and involvement in human rights abuses, saying he had spent World War Two working on a farm and in a factory.

In 2001, Palij told Department of Justice officials that he had trained at the Nazi SS Training Camp in Trawniki, in German-occupied Poland, in 1943, the White House said.

"By serving as an armed guard ... and preventing the escape of Jewish prisoner during his Nazi service, Palij played an indispensable role in ensuring the Trawniki Jewish victims met their horrific fate at the hands of the Nazis," the White House said.

A federal judge revoked his U.S. citizenship in 2003 and he was ordered to be deported in 2004. But no European country would accept him, CNN and New York magazine reported.

Given his age and questions over his health and also a possible lack of proof, it is unclear whether German authorities will attempt to prosecute the stateless pensioner.

"In Germany, being a member of a criminal organization like the [Nazi] SS is not enough to be prosecuted. Even being trained at a camp is not sufficient," said Jens Rommel, Germany's top Nazi hunter. "The participation in or facilitation of a murder must be proven.

Moral responsibility

The U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, said the deportation was the result of a concerted effort by U.S. President Donald Trump.

"He (Trump) told me directly to make it a priority, to get the Nazi out," Grenell told reporters. "I felt very strongly that the German government had a moral obligation and they accepted that," he added, making clear it was up to Germany to decide whether to prosecute him.

Germany has a mixed record on convicting Nazi war criminals.

Critics say it let many high-ranking Nazis and SS members escaped justice only for their juniors, small cogs in the Nazi death machine, to be put on trial decades later.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who on Monday visited the Auschwitz camp, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "Germany, in whose name the worst injustice was perpetrated under the Nazis, is confronting its moral obligations.

After an international military tribunal put some top Nazi leaders, including Hermann Goering and Rudolf Hess, on trial soon after World War II in the Nuremberg Trials, little action was taken by the West German judiciary in the 1950s and 1960s.

Between 1945 and 2005, West German courts convicted 6,656 Nazi criminals out of more than 36,000 investigations into more than 170,000 suspects, a study showed in 2008.

Germany's Central Office for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Ludwigsburg is still investigating individuals after the 2011 conviction of Sobibor death camp guard John Demjanjuk gave it a new impetus. It was the first time involvement in a camp was sufficient to be found culpable even without proof of a specific crime.

"There are currently no preliminary proceedings in Germany and there is no arrest warrant," said Rommel, who heads the office. "We therefore have to wait [to see] whether there will be a new evaluation or whether new evidence appears to underpin the suspicion.... In the case of Palij we are unable to prove where, when and which unit he was in after his training.




The Vatican has confirmed that Pope Francis will meet with victims of clerical sexual abuse during his visit this week to Ireland. In the four decades since a pope last traveled to Ireland, several reports of clerical sexual abuse have rocked the Church.

Pope Francis' principal reason to visit Ireland this weekend is to take part in the World Meeting of Families, which opened Tuesday in the countrys dioceses. The event, held every three years, brings together families from around the world. He is to address families attending the meeting Saturday at Croke Park in Dublin.

The pope had been expected to meet survivors of clerical sexual abuse, but this had not been officially confirmed until today. Pope Francis has been coming under intense pressure to speak out with force about the issue of clerical sexual abuse in the Church in Ireland.

Irish abuse survivor Colm OGorman summed up how many others feel, saying I would like him to tell the damn truth. I would just like him to acknowledge the simple fact of the cover up and the Vatican's role in it and that is where then conversations can begin to happen.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said details of the private meeting with survivors in Ireland will only be made available if the survivors choose to do so. Burke added some prefer not to go public with their stories. For the pope, it is important to listen to them, he said.

Pope Francis has met with victims in Philadelphia, Chile and the Vatican.

Prayer for victims

One of the most significant moments of the popes visit will take place Saturday in St. Marys Pro-Cathedral, where Francis will pray in silence before a candle lit in memory of the victims of abuse.



The archbishop of Washington, Donald Wuerl, and the Archbishop of Boston, Sean OMalley, have withdrawn from the World Meeting of Families due to the clerical sexual abuse scandals and allegations in the United States.



This week, Pope Francis wrote an unprecedented letter to all the world's Catholics promising that no effort would be spared to prevent such situations of abuse from occurring or being covered up in the future.
Serbia might reintroduce compulsory military service, nine years after abolishing it, to help improve the combat readiness of its army in the Balkans, where tensions occasionally flare, President Aleksandar Vucic said Tuesday.

The armed forces of Serbia, which emerged as an independent state after the bloody collapse of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, were fully professionalized in 2011, but remain poorly paid and equipped.

Serbia, which is a candidate for European Union membership, has retained voluntary service and reserve units.

Vucic said Belgrade was considering reintroducing compulsory military service of between three and six months after 2020.

"We are still thinking about that. ... It depends on the finances," he told reporters at the air force base of Batajnica, just outside Belgrade.

Young people who served would have an advantage when seeking jobs in the public sector, Vucic added, without elaborating.

Serbian politicians have repeatedly floated the idea of reintroducing conscription. But many military experts say it would be too costly and that such a short period of service would contribute little to the country's defense capabilities.

Under its 2018 budget, Serbia allocated $703 million, or 1.39 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) for its 40,000-strong military, up from $693.8 million in 2017.

In recent years Serbia has sought to improve its defense capabilities through a donation of six MiG-29 fighters by Russia, with which it has strong historic and cultural ties, and through the purchase of 10 helicopters manufactured by Airbus.

Vucic and Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin have frequently spoken of procuring surplus tanks, attack helicopters and armored personnel carriers from Russia and more jet fighters from Belarus, but such deals have yet to materialize.

Serbia, which maintains military neutrality, joined NATO's Partnership for Peace program in 2006 and in 2015 it signed the Individual Partnership Action Plan  the highest level of cooperation for countries not aspiring to join the alliance.

Although it strives for a balance between Moscow and the West, Serbia in 2017 took part in more than 100 joint activities with NATO or its member states, including 13 training drills, seven bilateral activities with the United States and only two with Russia.
In Zimbabwe, war veterans who support President Emmerson Mnangagwa alleged Tuesday that the United States is encouraging the international community to back the opposition, and is seeking to reverse the outcome of the July 30 election, in which Mnangagwa was declared the winner. The war veterans made their remarks as a court prepares to hear the oppositions request to nullify the election.

Veterans who support the ruling ZANU-PF party praise Mnangagwa, and denounce former President Robert Mugabe and those they consider Zimbabwes enemies as they prepare for a press briefing in Harare.



Others chant, Down with America."



Victor Matemadanda, the war veterans' secretary, is among those who accuse the United States of interference in Zimbabwean politics.

The international community led by America is portraying that this election was not run properly," he said. "They are condemning ZEC and now they are looking at the courts to wait for a result and say this is wrong, this is right. But we are not going to take American law to determine how we run Zimbabwe. The president-elect won by 50.8 percent. Full stop. ...We know how we voted. We do not need Americas approval.



On Wednesday, the Constitutional Court is scheduled to hear a petition by Nelson Chamisa, Zimbabwes main opposition leader, seeking to overturn the official election results.



ZEC, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission declared President Mnangagwa the winner with just under 51 percent of the vote. It said Chamisa took 44 percent.



On Monday, Chamisa called those results a subversion of the will of the people.

The U.S. has not directly commented on the elections. Its embassy in Harare could not be reached for a response to Matemadanda's remarks.

Last week, the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, Brian Nichols, told reporters after a meeting with President Mnangagwa at the State House that Washington did not support the opposition. He did, however, talk about the court case.



I think that the courts will have to prove to the people of Zimbabwe that they are weighing the facts of the case and considering them carefully and rendering an impartial judgment. That is an answer that will be answered by the performance of the court, not by me or any person giving their opinion, he said.

Meanwhile, the 40-year-old Chamisa, who leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)-Alliance, said his group would follow all legal and constitutional routes available if the court does not rule in the party's favor.



His party said the war veterans have instilled fear in the court by threatening to use guns and bullets to protect Mnangagwas so-called victory.


U.S. President Donald Trump's Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh agrees with the court's Chief Justice John Roberts that the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion is settled law, Senator Susan Collins said on Tuesday.

Collins, a Republican, spoke to reporters after meeting Kavanaugh in her office.

"We talked about whether he considered Roe to be settled law. He said that he agreed with what Justice Roberts said at his nomination hearing, in which he said that it was settled law," she said.

Settled law refers to a legal position that has been consistently upheld by judges.

Speculation has centered on whether Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge with a solidly conservative judicial record, would vote to overturn a woman's right to abortion. But Senate Democrats said it was not clear how Kavanaugh's views on settled law would affect how he would decide an abortion case.

Republican President Donald Trump, who nominated Kavanaugh on July 9, promised during his campaign to appoint "pro-life justices" who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

Before Kavanaugh can assume the lifetime job on the nine-member court, the Republican-controlled Senate must vote to confirm him.

Kavanaugh's judicial record on abortion is thin, although last year he was on a panel of judges that issued an order preventing a 17-year-old illegal immigrant detained in Texas by U.S. authorities from immediately obtaining an abortion.

Collins, a moderate Republican, has said that she could not support a nominee who had demonstrated "hostility" to Roe V. Wade. She is considered a key vote, but she said Tuesday she will not make a final decision until after Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings, which start on September 4.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who has vowed to oppose Kavanaugh, said what Americans really need to know is whether Kavanaugh thought Roe v. Wade was correctly decided. He said he planned to ask Kavanaugh during a meeting later Tuesday.

"Otherwise no one can be assured he won't vote to unsettle it," Schumer told reporters.

Collins said her conversation with Kavanaugh, which lasted over two hours, covered a wide range of issues, including abortion and guns and Kavanaugh's "judicial philosophy." She called the meeting helpful, productive and informative.

Kavanaugh's confirmation will require a simple majority in the 100-seat Senate, where Republicans hold a 51-49 edge over Democrats and independents. Senator John McCain, a Republican, is at home undergoing treatment for cancer, leaving Republicans no room for error if no Democrats support Kavanaugh. Vice President Mike Pence would vote if there is a tie.
South Africa's state-owned Land Bank said on Monday a plan to allow the state to seize land without compensation could trigger defaults that could cost the government 41 billion rand ($2.8 billion) if the bank's rights as a creditor are not protected.

Land Bank is a specialist bank providing financial services to the commercial farming sector and other agricultural businesses.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Aug. 1 that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is forging ahead with plans to change the constitution to allow the expropriation of land without compensation, as whites still own most of South Africa's land more than two decades after the end of apartheid.

Land Bank Chairman Arthur Moloto said in the company's 2018 annual report that the bank has approximately 9 billion rand of debt, which includes a standard market clause on "expropriation" as an event of default.

Moloto said if expropriation without compensation were to materialize without protection of the bank's rights as a creditor, it would be required to repay 9 billion rand immediately.

"A cross default clause would be triggered should we fail to pay when these debts fall due because of inadequate liquidity or lack of alternative sources of funding," Moloto said.

"This would make our entire 41 billion rand funding portfolio due and payable immediately, which we would not be able to settle. Consequently, government intervention would be required to settle our lenders."

Moloto said the bank was generally funded by the local debt and capital markets, and more recently international multilateral institutions such as the African Development Bank and World Bank.

"A poorly executed expropriation without compensation could result in the main sources of funding drying up as investors might not be willing to continue funding Land Bank in particular, or agriculture in general," he said.

Some investors are concerned that the ANC's reforms will result in white farmers being stripped of land to the detriment of the economy, as happened in Zimbabwe, although Ramaphosa has repeatedly said any changes will not compromise food security or economic growth.

Since the end of apartheid in 1994, the ANC has followed a "willing-seller, willing-buyer" model under which the government buys white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks. Progress has been slow.

($1 = 14.6363 rand)
South Sudan's government claims the shattering five-year civil war is finally over, but there is considerable skepticism. It wasn't helped by the sight of President Salva Kiir refusing to shake the hand of rival Riek Machar after they signed a power-sharing deal this month, according to video footage seen by The Associated Press.

This latest attempt at peace already shows cracks, with the armed opposition last week saying several key issues, including reconciliation, are yet to be resolved as the warring forces prepare to merge and Machar is set to return to the capital as Kiir's deputy once more.

Machar's side won't sign a final agreement that doesn't ensure "accountability and justice and free and fair elections'' at the end of the three-year transition period, chairman Mabior Garang de Mabior told AP.

Even as negotiations continue in Sudan, which has taken the lead in peace talks as it eyes South Sudan's oil resources, the United States and many South Sudanese express deep concern that the fragile peace deal will end in violence as the previous one did in July 2016, with Machar fleeing his vice president post, and the country, on foot.

Now this East African nation, whose civil war along largely ethnic lines has created Africa's largest refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide, nervously awaits the rebel leader's return.

South Sudan's government acknowledges that some issues remain but says the current deal is genuine.

"It is the end of the war and the beginning of a new era,'' said Maal Maker Thiong, who works in the president's office.

The civil war in the world's youngest nation has killed tens of thousands of people and sent more than 2 million fleeing since the fighting erupted between supporters of Kiir and then-deputy Machar in December 2013, two years after the country won independence from Sudan. Half of the remaining population of roughly 12 million is near starvation, according to U.N. agencies.

The idea that the two men whose rivalry has caused so much destruction are now in charge of finding peace has alarmed some in the international community and on the ground.

"We are concerned that the arrangements agreed to date are not realistic or sustainable,'' the U.S., Britain and Norway said in a statement this month.

"We have seen time again that power-sharing is a recipe for more conflict in South Sudan and that Salva Kiir and Riek Machar are in fact obstacles to ending the war and not vehicles for resolving the conflict,'' said Payton Knopf, a former coordinator of the U.N. panel of experts on South Sudan and former U.S. diplomat.

As part of the new peace agreement, Machar will return as one of five vice presidents. Government and opposition forces will merge into one national army. A three-year transitional period will follow, culminating in elections. Machar is expected to return within eight months, but opposition chairman Mabior said that will happen only with signs the agreement is being carried out.

During a visit this month to one of the last opposition-held areas in South Sudan, the AP spoke with more than a dozen people. All said they were doubtful that peace would prevail.

The captain of the opposition's military intelligence for Panyijiar County, James Malieth, said he was shocked when he learned that his forces soon would have to merge with government troops.

"You can't fight with someone and then be put together with them,'' he said. "Our hearts haven't yet calmed down from war.'' It will take years before they can fight side-by-side with soldiers who killed his colleagues, he added.

News of the peace deal has filtered down to wary people in rural areas.

Seated on a straw mat outside her new home, 28-year-old Nyadet Kai cradled her small son to her chest. The mother of five said she escaped her hometown of Leer in May when government soldiers attacked, raping women and abducting children.

Kai lost her husband to the war in 2013 and has been displaced seven times since then. She now seeks shelter on a remote island in the swamps, 45 minutes by boat from the opposition-held town of Nyal in Unity state.

"In 2015 they signed something but there was fighting again,'' she said of the previous peace agreement. "I'll believe there's peace when the government removes its soldiers from my town.''

Another island resident, Mary Nyataba, playfully wrestled with her dog, which in disgust she had named after Kiir's backside.

"I called him that because the president has killed so many people,'' the 40-year-old mother of five said. Stroking the dog's nose with her thumb, she said she might change the name if peace ever comes.
Syrian refugees and aid groups, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, are concerned about a plan proposed by Russia to repatriate Syrians from Lebanon and Jordan to Syria, calling the move premature and risky, as the country is still not prepared and safe enough for the return of refugees.

Returnees receive counseling by UNHCR prior to their departure. UNHCR so far does not facilitate returns because we believe that conditions are not yet ready. But we provide counseling to those refugees that approach the government [Jordan] and UNHCR with a wish to return, Nida Yassin, of UNHCR's external relations in Jordan, told VOA.

UNHCR strongly believes it is important that refugees make their own informed decisions about returning, and that it should be completely voluntary, Yassin said.

Russia is reportedly mulling over a plan with the Syrian government and some of the countries that host Syrian refugees to facilitate the return of refugees to Syria.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin, during his visit to Germany to discuss Syria and refugee issues with German officials, stressed on the importance of returning Syrians to their country.

I remind you that there are a million refugees in Jordan and a million in Lebanon. There are 3 million refugees in Turkey. This is potentially a huge burden on Europe, so it is better to do everything possible so that they can return home, Putin told reporters in Berlin.

Russian officials have called on international donors to help support the reconstruction of war-torn Syria and facilitate the return of Syrian refugees back to their country.

Last month, Alexander Lavrentyev, Russias envoy to Syria, visited Damascus, Amman and Beirut, and urged key actors in Syria not to politicize what he called a humanitarian issue. He also called on international organizations to support the process of rebuilding Syria.

Syrian state media also reported last week that the Syrian government had created a coordination committee to help facilitate the potential return of refugees.

Political points

Some experts charge that under the pretext of humanitarian aid, Russia is actually making an effort to score political points for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad following his military gains in recent months against the countrys rebels, with the help of Russia.

Russia knows the file of refugees will be the passage to convince the rest of the world of rehabilitating the Syrian regime and start financing reconstruction, Khattar Abou Diab, a professor of international affairs at the University of Paris in France, told VOA.

Abou Diab added that with millions of Syrians displaced internally and externally, the priority should be to stabilize the country and prepare the ground for the people to return voluntarily.

There is some support for the Russian plan among regional countries. The Lebanese government welcomed it.

US stance

Russia has discussed its plan with the United States as well, but both countries failed to reach an agreement. The United States emphasized following UNHCRs procedure.

We support refugees going home under these conditions  safe, voluntary, dignified returns at the time of their choosing and when it is safe to do so, Heather Nauert, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, said during a briefing last month.

I dont think the situation, as UNHCR backs up right now, allows for that at this time. Hopefully, someday people will be able to head back home, Nauert added.

Refugees voices

Refugees such as Huda al-Khteeb are concerned they might be repatriated to Syria against their will.

I am against returning to Syria at this moment. I have my fears over retaliation and persecution, al-Khteeb, a Syrian refugee in Lebanon, told VOA.

Al-Khteeb lost her husband in 2011 after Syrian forces shot him during a peaceful protest in the Damascus countryside.

One of her sons was also killed when he tried to defect from the Syrian army in 2012. Al-Khteeb said Syrian forces killed her son in retaliation.

Al-Khteeb fled to Lebanon after her house in the Qalamoun area of northeast Damascus was destroyed during a bombing by Syrian forces.

Now, she lives in the Arsal area of northeastern Lebanon. Despite being homesick, she fears for her safety and that of another son, who was injured and paralyzed in a shelling by pro-Assad forces in 2012.

Despite the risks, some refugees still want to return to Syria, as they have experienced hardships and dire conditions in the refugee camps outside of Syria.

Political transition

Some displaced Syrians say that a political transition in Syria will give them a sense of security for returning home.

We want to go back to our homes. But after seven years of destruction and death, who will guarantee peoples safety? Khalid Ayoush, a Syrian refugee in Lebanon, told VOA. Only a political change can guarantee the return of the refugees, he said.

Ayoush said there are many unanswered questions regarding the situation of different refugee groups, including men between 18 and 45 years of age and who are by law required to sign up for two years of military service.

There is also those who defected from the army. What will be their fate? What about the young men who were called to enlist in military service, and they will probably be taken to fight on the frontlines? Ayoush asked.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed in the countrys seven-year civil war, with millions displaced internally and externally.

UNHCR estimates that the population in pre-war Syria was 22 million. Now, about 6 million have been internally displaced, and more than 5 million have left the country, temporarily settling in neighboring countries, including Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Some have also gone to Europe.
Taiwan vowed on Tuesday to fight Chinas increasingly out of control behavior after Taipei lost another ally to Beijing when El Salvador became the third country to switch allegiances to China this year.

Taiwan now has formal relations with only 17 countries worldwide, many of them small, less developed nations in Central America and the Pacific, including Belize and Nauru.

Speaking in Taipei, President Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan would not bow to pressure, describing El Salvadors decision as further evidence of Chinas efforts to squeeze the island, which have included regular Chinese bomber patrols around Taiwan.

We will turn to countries with similar values to fight together against Chinas increasingly out-of-control international behaviour, Tsai said.

Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told reporters earlier that Taipei was not willing to engage in money competition with its giant neighbor.

He said El Salvador had been continuously asking for massive funding support since last year for a port development, but Taiwan was unable to assist with the unsuitable project after assessment.

Pressure from China would only make Taiwan more determined to continue our path of democracy and freedom, he said.

Chinas rude and unreasonable behavior will certainly have negative impact to cross-strait relations. This is also not how a responsible country should behave.

Beijing considers Taiwan to be a wayward province of one China, ineligible for state-to-state relations, and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.

In Beijing, the Chinese governments top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, said El Salvador had made the right decision.

Im confident that the people of El Salvador will feel the warmth and friendship of the Chinese people and derive tangible benefits from its cooperation with China, Wang told reporters alongside his El Salvador counterpart, Carlos Castaneda, shortly after the pair signed an agreement establishing ties.

Extraordinary opportunities

El Salvadors president, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, announced in a nationally televised speech that his government had broken off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and instead established ties with China.

Sanchez Ceren said the central American country, which built ties with the Republic of China government in 1933, would see great benefits and extraordinary opportunities in the new relationship with Beijing.

Taiwans formal name is the Republic of China, whose government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists.

We are convinced this is a step in the right direction that corresponds to the principles of international law of international relations and the inevitable trends of our time, Sanchez Ceren said.

In Beijing, Castaneda said it was a strategic decision his government made to create conditions to change the historical standing of our country and to really elevate the livelihood of our people.

Taiwan has accused China of luring its friends away with offers of generous aid packages. China denies that.

The news comes as Tsai wrapped up a high-profile trip to Latin America, including stops in the United States, that drew anger from China.

China will not get unification with Taiwan by luring away our allies. What China did was to humiliate Taiwan repeatedly without getting any respect from Taiwans people, Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party wrote in a statement.

El Salvador is the fifth country Taiwan will lose as a diplomatic ally since Tsai came to office in 2016, following Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic, Sao Tome and Principe and Panama.

Amanda Mansour, spokeswoman of the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan, told Reuters in a written statement late on Tuesday that Chinas efforts were harmful and had undermined the framework that has enabled peace, stability, and development for decades.

The United States urges China to abstain from coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan, she wrote.

The U.S. ambassador in El Salvador, Jean Manes, wrote in a Twitter post on Tuesday the United States was analyzing El Salvadors worrisome decision to break ties with Taiwan.

Without a doubt, this will impact our relationship with the (Salvadoran) government. We continue supporting the Salvadoran people, she wrote without elaborating.

Ahead of next months summit between China and African leaders in Beijing, China has also been upping the pressure on Taiwans last remaining ally on the continent, eSwatini, formerly known as Swaziland, to come over to Chinas side, diplomatic sources say.

We hope the relevant country can see clearly the worlds trend, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a daily news briefing, when asked whether eSwatini would attend the summit.

Chinas hostility to Taiwan has grown since Tsais election as Beijing fears she wishes to push for the islands formal independence, a red line for China. She says she wants to maintain the status quo but will defend Taiwans democracy.
U.S. President Donald Trump is referring to opposition lawmakers, as well as local and state officials who oppose his immigration control agenda, as "a coalition of open borders extremists."

Trump at the White House on Monday afternoon accused opponents of waging "an unprecedented assault on American law enforcement  our greatest people," saying they are threatening Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) "for doing their duties."

According to the president, "They have no courage. They have no guts. They just have big, loud mouths."

The remarks came during an East Room event honoring law enforcement officials for bravery in combating smugglers, drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations.

"You're saving lives. You're saving a lot of Americans," Trump told the audience. "We don't play games," he said, lauding law enforcement's performance in strictly enforcing immigration laws. He said that CBP prevents "10 known or suspected terrorists" from entering the United States every day.

During remarks, the president repeatedly attacked political opponents against his immigration and border control policies.

The president specifically targeted those who have called for ICE to be abolished for alleged human rights abuses.

"We will not stand for the vile smears, the vicious attacks," said Trump. "It's going to stop today. We will never surrender to anarchy, chaos and crime."

The MS-13 criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles in the 1980s and has roots in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, would soon be destroyed "once and for all," predicted Trump. "We're throwing them the hell out of our country so fast your head would spin. But too many we've allowed in."

Among those attending the event, in addition to Vice President Mike Pence and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, were 150 officers from ICE, CBP and other law enforcement organizations.

During a panel on borders and immigration prior to the president's remarks, Senator David Perdue criticized those calling for the abolition of ICE.

"This is the United States of America. That's like saying, 'Let's get rid of the Marines,'" said Perdue, a Republican from the state of Georgia. "I just think it's unconscionable and, frankly, I think it's downright unpatriotic and treasonous."

Two possible prominent presidential contenders from the Democratic Party in 2020  U.S. senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York  are among those who have backed the call to get rid of ICE.

'Building the wall'

There was no mention at the White House event of the administration's controversial policy of separating families at the border. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 541 children remain in U.S. government care after being separated from their parents.

Cracking down on illegal immigration and fortifying the U.S. border with Mexico was a key campaign promise during Trump's successful 2016 presidential campaign and is a top priority of his administration.

Trump has threatened to shut down the government next month if Congress does not give him the resources he has demanded for border security.

"The wall is getting longer and taller and stronger each and every day," according to Trump. "We'll soon be spending about $3.2 billion, and we're looking for about $5 billion for this next coming year.

"We're building the wall, and it's not easy because we have a little opposition called the Democrats," said Trump. "They don't mind crime. It's pretty sad."

Midterm elections

At one point, some opposition Democrats in the Senate had offered to consent to $25 billion in funding for a border wall if Trump would agree to support eventual citizenship for 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants (the so-called "Dreamers") under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program. But a possible compromise fell apart, and a political showdown now looms just months ahead of crucial midterm elections.

Trump predicted on Monday that immigration enforcement would be a key campaign theme, and his party would prevail.

"Blue wave means crime. It means open borders," said the president, predicting in the November congressional elections "more of a red wave."

Democrats are hoping to take enough seats to flip the House of Representatives in their favor. Currently, the Republicans are the majority in both the House and the Senate, allowing the president's party to control the legislative agenda.
As the November midterm congressional elections draw closer, Republicans are keeping a close eye on President Donald Trumps public approval rating, which now stands at an average of about 42 percent.

Trump remains in the low 40s in two new surveys. The Gallup weekly poll has him at 42 percent approval, while 52 percent disapprove of his performance in office.

A new Monmouth University poll has Trumps approval at 43 percent and his disapproval at 50 percent, which Monmouth says is consistent with where his poll numbers have been since January.

Three recent surveys, however, showed the presidents approval rating falling below 40 percent, a possible red flag as Republicans look ahead to the midterm elections. Last week's Gallup poll had the president's rating down to 39 percent. July's Quinnipiac poll had Trump at 38 percent approval, while a recent NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll showed the president at 39 percent approval.

Historically, the presidents party loses more seats in midterm elections when the presidents approval rating is below 50 percent. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both lost more than 50 House seats in their first midterm election, and their approval ratings were slightly better than Trumps are at the moment.

Economic focus

The president is hoping a strong focus on the thriving U.S. economy will help Republicans keep both the House and Senate in November.

Our economy is doing better than it ever has before. It was going in the wrong direction when we came on board, and now it is doing better than ever before, Trump said at the opening of his recent Cabinet meeting in the White House.

Chief Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow also tried to drive home the message in front of the Cabinet. The single biggest event, be it political or otherwise this year, is an economic boom that most people thought would be impossible to generate.

Despite his overall weak poll rating, Trump is getting some credit from voters for the economy.

We know that Trumps highest approval rating is now for handling the economy, said Gallup pollster Frank Newport. Fifty percent approval rating on handling the economy in our latest poll, and that is pretty good, relatively speaking.

Opposition Democrats are trying to poke a few holes in the Trump record as November approaches.

While the stock market is up and the president brags about job growth, what we dont hear said, which is true, is that workers' wages have been stagnant or gone down, said Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Workers are actually making less than they were a year-and-a-half ago.

Numerous distractions

Trump has been unable to stay focused on the economy, to the dismay of many Republicans.

The recent White House distractions include more presidential venting about the Russia probe, Trumps decision to revoke the security clearance for former CIA Director John Brennan and his spat with former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman.

Democrats were alarmed by Trumps move on Brennan. To me, it smacks of Nixonian-type practices of trying to silence anyone who is willing to criticize this president. That puts us again in unchartered territory, said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner.

Trumps controversial immigration policies and criticism of his recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin may also be keeping his poll numbers low, according to University of Virginia analyst Larry Sabato.

And he is not a 50 percent president. He has never been over 50 percent in the polling averages for one single day of his presidency, Sabato told VOA via Skype.

Impact in November

A number of analysts said Trumps low approval rating could have an impact on Republicans trying to keep their congressional majorities in November.

The party of the president typically loses seats in a midterm election, said Brookings Institution scholar John Hudak. That is enhanced by a president who is unpopular, and President Trumps approval rating has historically been unpopular and it continues to be so.

Trump supporters believe, and in some cases perhaps hope, that voters will give the president credit for the strong economy in November.

Unemployment in our country, not just among middle-class white Americans like me, but Hispanics and African-Americans, are at their lowest levels since recorded history in 1973, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told VOAs Georgian service. This president should be praised for that.

Trump remains popular with his base, but whether that can stem a Democratic wave in November remains to be seen.
U.S. President Donald Trump denied a report Tuesday that said he considered denying former president Barack Obama access to intelligence briefings in response to perceived threats from Obama and other members of his administration.

"Fake News, of which there is soooo much (this time the very tired New Yorker) falsely reported that I was going to take the extraordinary step of denying Intelligence Briefings to President Obama," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Never discussed or thought of!"

The New Yorker said Trump's most ardent advocates viewed former Obama administration officials as threats to the newly sworn-in Trump and pushed to revoke their security clearances. Living former presidents, who often meet with foreign leaders, are given access to intelligence briefings.

The report said as Trump's attacks on Obama became more frequent, including in a March 4, 2017, tweet in which he called Obama a "Bad (or sick) guy!" after falsely accusing Obama of tapping his phones at Trump Tower during the 2016 election campaign, some of Trump's advisers felt Trump should deny Obama access to the briefings. The report said Trump eventually decided against it at the urging of then-national security advisor H.R. McMaster.

In an earlier tweet, Trump again disparaged former CIA director John Brennan after revoking Brennan's security clearance last week, a move that was widely considered a retaliatory move against critics of Trump's administration.

Brennan, who worked in the Obama administration for eight years, has repeatedly criticized Trump and accused him of "treasonous" behavior alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Helsinki last month. Such criticism has been considered unwarranted, even among some of Brennan's allies, including former national intelligence director James Clapper, himself a frequent Trump critic.

"John and his rhetoric have become an issue in and of itself. John is subtle like a freight train, and hes going to say whats on his mind," Clapper said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

Trump tweeted, "Even James Clapper has admonished John Brennan for having gone totally off the rails. Maybe Clapper is being nice to me so he doesnt lose his Security Clearance for lying to Congress!"

Trump's revocation of Brennan's clearance prompted 175 national security professionals to join 75 others in signing an open letter protesting Trump's action.

Trump's battle with Brennan comes as special counsel Robert Mueller investigates Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election with the intent of helping Trump win, and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians.

Trump is considering revoking the clearances of other current and former national security professionals who have criticized him or played a part in the early stages of the federal probe of potential collusion between Trump's campaign and Russian government agents. Trump has often referred to the investigation as a "witch hunt."
Two Iranian men were indicted Monday for allegedly spying for Tehran by gathering information on an Iran exile group and "conducting covert surveillance" of Jewish institutions in the U.S., the Justice Department said in a statement.

Iranians Majid Ghorbani and Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar are accused of carrying out secret surveillance of Israeli and Jewish facilities in the U.S. and collecting information on members of Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a group calling for the overthrow of the Iranian regime.

Ghorbani faces a federal detention hearing Tuesday morning in Washington, the statement said.

U.S. attorneys said the two were acting on behalf of the Iranian government and their activities may put Americans at risk.

"The National Security Division is committed to protecting the United States from individuals within our country who unlawfully act on behalf of hostile foreign nations," Assistant Attorney General John Demers said in the statement.

According to the indictment, Ghorbani, 59, who lives in California, and Doostdar, 38, who is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Iran, came to the United States last year to gather information on people and entities the Iranian government considers to be its enemies.

They allegedly staked out and photographed Hillel House and Rohr Chabad House, Jewish centers near the University of Chicago, an MEK rally in New York City, and an MEK-affiliated convention in Washington on human rights in Iran. Ghorbani appeared to have taken pictures of audience members and speakers at the convention, according to the Justice Department statement.

The two men, arrested Aug. 9, could each face as much as 35 years in prison if convicted.
Washington is prepared to impose more economic pain on Russia if it does not change its behavior, Trump administration officials said on Tuesday, as U.S. lawmakers pushed for stronger measures to counteract malign Russian activities.

Though Russias malign activities continue, we believe its adventurism undoubtedly has been checked by the knowledge that we can bring much more economic pain to bear using our powerful range of authorities  and that we will not hesitate to do so if its conduct does not demonstrably and significantly change, Acting Deputy Treasury Secretary Sigal Mandelker told the Senate Banking Committee.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he would like better ties with Moscow, but although he met Russian President Vladimir Putin last month, relations between the two countries have come under further strain.

Members of Congress, where both chambers are controlled by Trump fellow Republicans, have called for more action  including threatening sanctions from hell  to punish Russia for actions including its annexation of Crimea, involvement in Syrias civil war and cyberattacks seeking to influence U.S. elections.

Two U.S. Senate committees held simultaneous hearings on Russia on Tuesday, where some lawmakers chastised administration officials for failing to sufficiently answer their questions, and for sending conflicting messages and doing too little to change Russian behavior.

Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have criticized Trump, particularly after his summit with Putin in Helsinki last month, for failing to stand up to Moscow on issues including what they see as Trumps failure to hold the Russian president accountable for Moscows meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Microsoft Corp said late Monday that hackers linked to the Kremlin sought to launch cyberattacks on the Senate and conservative American think tanks, warning of broader attacks ahead of congressional elections in November.

The Kremlin rejected the Microsoft allegations and said there was no evidence to support them. Moscow has repeatedly denied attempting to influence U.S. elections, including the 2016 presidential vote that brought Trump into office. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 campaign, seeking to tilt the vote in Trumps favor.

Cost to Russia

U.S. administration officials told the Senate hearings that existing sanctions were having an effect on Russia's economy, despite continuing behavior that concerns Washington.

Separately, the Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on two Russians, one Russian company and one Slovakian firm over actions it said helped another Russian company avoid sanctions over cyber-related activities.

The United States also announced sanctions on Russian shipping over the transfer of refined petroleum products to North Korea in violation of U.N. restrictions.

Assistant Secretary of State Wess Mitchell told the Foreign Relations Committee that concern about sanctions has cost Russia $8 to $10 billion in arms deals. Without the American measures, Moscows behavior would be further off the charts, Mitchell said.

Mitchell also said foreign direct investment in Russia has fallen by 80 percent since 2013, which is a pretty stunning number.

I think this administration has been clear that we are prepared to take additional steps, Mitchell said. There is an escalatory ladder to sanctions. We are aware of what additional steps would be needed to make an even bigger point.

Marshall Billingslea, assistant Treasury secretary for terrorism financing, told the Foreign Relations panel it was important that European allies, particularly in eastern Europe, do more to combat money laundering.

There is an enormous amount of money that is still being exfiltrated from Russia by both organized crime and cronies surrounding Putin, Billingslea said.

In an interview with Reuters on Monday, Trump said he would only consider lifting sanctions against Russia if it were to do something positive for the United States, for instance in Syria or in Ukraine.
The U.S. Trade Representative's office Monday began six days of public hearings on President Donald Trump's plans to impose tariffs on a wider array of Chinese imports, affecting an additional $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.



More than 1,300 written comments have been submitted to the trade office, with most businesses opposing the president's plan.



Unlike previous rounds of U.S. tariffs, which mainly targeted Chinese parts, including steel and electronic components, the latest proposals would affect many consumer products directly.



The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a written statement presented at the hearing Monday that the planned escalation "dramatically expands the harm to American consumers, workers, businesses and the economy."



The hearings come as Trump administration officials and their Chinese counterparts are expected to meet later this week in Washington to discuss the trade dispute.



The talks will be the first formal discussions on the matter since June and will be led by David Malpass, U.S. undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, and China's vice commerce minister Wang Shouwen. Previous rounds of talks have made little progress in resolving the trade dispute.



The United States has already imposed tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese products, while levies on a further $16 billion are set to take effect on Thursday. China has responded by imposing retaliatory tariffs against an equivalent amount of U.S. goods.



If approved, the latest proposed round of tariffs on Chinese imports is set to take effect in late September.
U.S. President Donald Trump's national security adviser on Monday called the international nuclear agreement with Iran a "wretched deal" and said the United States is working to persuade European allies to apply more pressure on Iran.

John Bolton spoke in Jerusalem where he met for a second consecutive day with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bolton said preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon is an issue of "the highest priority" and the reason Trump decided to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal and reapply a set of economic sanctions.

The United States partnered with Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany to make that agreement with Iran, which pledged to limit its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

The group of world powers acted in response to the belief Iran was working on a nuclear weapons program, which the Iranian government denied.

Like Trump, Netanyahu was also a fierce critic of the agreement, saying it gave Iran too much in exchange for too little. He said Monday that all countries that believe in peace and security should follow the United States and increase pressure on Iran.

Before leaving for Israel, Bolton told ABC News that the U.S., Israel and Russia share the same objective  getting Iranian forces, militias and their surrogates out of Syria and Iraq. He also said Iran must end its support for Lebanese-backed Hezbollah.

Bolton will also visit Ukraine this week and meet with Russian officials in Geneva in a follow-up to Trump's talks in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

After the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal, the other signatories pledged to keep the agreement in place.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told CNN on Sunday that he believes the deal can be kept alive with the other parties.

He also criticized the U.S. approach, saying the government has an "addiction to sanctions" and that such measures do not achieve the desired political outcomes the United States seeks.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is monitoring the implementation of the deal, has said in 11 consecutive reports that Iran is in compliance and that the agreement has allowed for greater verification of Iran's nuclear activities.
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration weakened environmental controls on coal production Tuesday, overturning national regulations set by his predecessor, former President Barack Obama.

The Environmental Protection Agency said it will now allow individual coal-producing states to set their own rules for carbon emissions rather than have to adhere to an overall countrywide standard. The plan is subject to a 60-day comment period before it is finalized.

The action marks a fulfillment of a 2016 Trump campaign pledge to boost the fortunes of coal companies and coal-producing states.

It came hours before the president headed to a political rally for a Senate candidate in West Virginia, the second-biggest U.S. coal production state, where he was expected to promote the plan. During his successful run for the White House, Trump supporters in coal states often held signs saying, "Trump Digs Coal."

The EPA decision is Trump's latest effort to topple Obama's environmental legacy, following his withdrawal of the U.S. from the 2015 international Paris climate control accord championed by the former president.

At the time that he revoked U.S. participation in the agreement, Trump said, "I was elected by the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris."

The EPA said its new rule is designed to replace Obama's 2015 Clean Power Plan that targeted greenhouse gas emissions from coal plants and sought to shift power production away from coal to abundant natural gas supplies in the U.S., along with wind and solar energy. Trump's EPA called the Obama rules "overly prescriptive and burdensome."

Echoing that, Jason Bostic, vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association, told VOA, "The first thing (Trump's action) does is that it relieves an enormous amount of uncertainty over the utilities that burn coal to generate electricity in the country.

Bostic said the utilities have "invested billions of dollars over the last 15 years, in particular, to comply with other emission controls standards. And those utilities, those plant owners didn't know whether or not they could keep those plants running had the Clean Power Plan had been allowed to go into effect. So it removes the uncertainty from the utilities, they can continue to operate the plants."

The White House said the policy change will "significantly decrease bureaucratic red tape and compliance costs" for coal companies, "keeping American energy affordable and competitive on the world stage."

But environmental groups immediately attacked the Trump administration edict, with the Natural Resources Defense Council calling it a "Dirty Power Plan."

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan vowed to "take legal action to ensure the federal government does its job" to protect the environment. She is a part of a 17-state coalition and a handful of municipalities that support Obama's regulations.

Environmental advocates said the Trump policy change, assuming some states weaken their regulations compared to the current national standards, will boost emissions from coal-fired power plants and worsen global warming.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said, The Trump administrations disdain for the clean air our children breathe and the clean water they drink knows no bounds. This rule is a brazen special interest handout that poisons families health today, and threatens their security and well-being for decades to come by accelerating the climate crisis."

White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara in Charleston, West Virginia contributed to this story.
A court in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday began the trial of 12 people, including two American citizens, on subversion charges as government authorities step up a crackdown on dissent.

The official Vietnam News Agency said the defendants are accused of attempting to overthrow the government by recruiting members for a U.S.-based exile group called the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam and by engaging in anti-state activities.

Vietnam's government has labeled the little-known group a terrorist organization.

The news agency said two Vietnam-born American citizens are accused of ordering other members of the group to distribute anti-state leaflets, take over state radio stations to broadcast anti-government messages, and participate in anti-government protests. It said most of the plans were thwarted.

The news agency identified the Americans as Han James Nguyen and Angle Phan. It did not provide their hometowns.

The trial is scheduled to last three days.

"We are taking all appropriate actions to ensure Mr. Nguyen's welfare and to encourage an expeditious resolution to his case. Due to privacy concerns, we are unable to comment on any other case," a U.S. State Department official said in a statement.

In January, Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security declared the California-based group a terrorist organization, a month after 15 alleged members were convicted in a failed bombing at the country's largest airport.

The attempted attack at the Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City in April last year caused a scare but no casualties.

Last week, a court in central Vietnam sentenced an activist to 20 years in prison after finding him guilty of attempting to overthrow the government.

Despite sweeping economic reforms over the past 30 years that opened the country to foreign trade and investment and made Vietnam one of the world's fastest-growing economies, the government tolerates no challenge to its one-party rule.

Amnesty International says 97 people are serving prison sentences for violating national security laws, while Human Rights Watch counts 119.
After reflecting this evening, I am strongly opposed to giving the President any break in the questioning regarding the details of the Lewinsky relationship unless he resigns or confesses perjury, Kavanaugh wrote, continuing: He has required the urgent attention of the courts and the Supreme Court for frivolous privilege claims  all to cover up his oral sex from an intern. He has lied to his aides. He has lied to the American people. He has tried to disgrace you and this Office with a sustained propaganda campaign that would make Nixon blush.
A former engineer for jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney has filed a federal false claims lawsuit alleging the company knowingly sold "flawed" engines to the U.S. Air Force, which resulted in the likelihood of premature wear or even "catastrophic failure." Peter Bonzani Jr. filed the suit in 2016, but it was unsealed last week. Pratt & Whitey in a statement said that "there is absolutely no merit to these claims."
The effort by the notorious APT28 hacking group, which has been publicly linked to a Russian intelligence agency and actively interfered in the 2016 presidential election, underscores the aggressive role that Russian operatives are playing ahead of the midterm elections in the United States. U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that the November vote is a major focus for interference efforts. Microsoft said the sites were created over the past several months and that the company was able to catch them early, as they were being set up. It did not go into more specifics.
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Argento says she was assaulted by Weinstein in 1997, when she was 21. Her accuser said she assaulted him 16 years later. In legal documents, Bennett said Argento invited him to meet at a hotel, which is what she (and multiple other women) said Weinstein had done with her. Bennett said she performed forcible oral sex on him, which is what she said Weinstein had done to her. Several of Weinsteins accusers have said he dangled promises of movie roles as bribes to keep quiet. The same day Argento allegedly assaulted Bennett, she posted a photo of the two of them on Instagram: Jimmy is going to be in my next movie and that is a fact, dig that jack.
Frustrated: I wonder if there is a (relatively) inexpensive way you can perhaps modify your home so that you and your spouse have more privacy, while still maintaining a supportive proximity to your daughter. Some drywall and a small kitchen unit (available for less than $1,000) might transform her living space into an efficiency.
It would be easy to conclude that the news media is racially and economically biased in selecting which crimes to cover and which victims to portray, but the audience plays an important role, too, said Jeanis. The news media may create a skewed portrayal of victimhood, she said, but the audience rewards it and perpetuates it by responding to such portrayals time and again. Its hard to determine which is chicken and which is egg, she said. If theres racial bias, whos responsible for that?
Its not enough to simply replace the money and call it even. OCFs decision doesnt change what was an inappropriate contribution nor promote accountability, Allen said in a statement. The use of constituent service funds needs to be a part of comprehensive campaign finance reform  too often, the funds just reinforce a perception about the influence of money in politics that does more harm than good.
They at least have band and math together  the first two periods of the day. And the year was off to a strong start for Lakia. She would subtly dance in her chair, shimmying her shoulders and giggling with Amazing as her teacher prepped for the start of the period.
Hogan announced last month that, if reelected, he would push to expand the College Promise program to help some students who meet income and eligibility requirements to attend public four-year colleges free. It was unclear how Hogan planned to pay for the expansion of the College Promise program. At the time, he said the program, which would cost an estimated $175 million over five years, would not require a tax increase and because of Marylands improving economy he would not have to cut another program to pay for it.
Marc is the number-one proponent for the BRT system, and the Sierra Club is very much in favor of transportation investments that will enable people to get around from place to place without using their cars, Sears said.
Before Mr. Avnery sold the magazine in 1990  it closed several years later  he and its newsroom inspired frequent controversy and sometimes outright violence. He said the publications offices were bombed three times, that fingers on both his hands were once broken during a nighttime ambush, that the newsrooms archives were burned down in 1972 and that three years later he was stabbed by an alleged lunatic who tried to kill him.
Without naming the president, Chutkan said, There have been numerous allegations . . . accusations lobbed at him from the highest branches of the government, all of which have been proved to be without foundation by the FBI and the Department of Justice.
The injured girls grandmother said the student had been so excited by the start of the school year on Monday that she and her friends took selfies with her school building in the background. On Tuesday, instead of returning for her second day of class, she had to nurse her wounds. Her grandmother said doctors advised that it was too dangerous to remove the bullet from the girls leg.
In a statement Tuesday, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based group linked to the MEK, called the defendants Iranian Intelligence Ministry agents. The group, two of whose members were allegedly targeted by the operation, likened the case to those of two people arrested and charged with plotting to bomb an MEK rally in France in July and two others accused of terrorism against the group in Albania in March.
Particularly among people who have stuck with the church this long, who have been through it all, they are saying: God, we cannot go through this again,  said John Allen, who has written multiple books on the Vatican and the U.S. church and now runs the Catholic website Crux. And my read is that this crowd is not going to be satisfied with assurances. They want to see something real.
Over the summer, the department received thousands of emails and letters from residents commenting on the water quality aspect of the pipeline projects. Board members seemed most concerned about several photographs and descriptions of places where construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline had led to severe erosion, sometimes clogging streams with mud or burying surroundings under as many as 11 inches of sediment.
DeAngelos arrest in April was a stunning development in the decades-long hunt for an attacker also known as the East Area Rapist and the Original Nightstalker. Police eventually realized that the different waves of violence were carried out by one person, whom they described as cruel, malicious and able to avoid detection. DeAngelo was a police officer at the time the violence began, though he was later dismissed for shoplifting.
12 dead in Rio security operations: At least 11 suspects and one soldier died in shootouts with military personnel and police in greater Rio de Janeiro as violence erupted in several areas of the city, which hosted the Summer Olympics two years ago. The direct confrontations between soldiers and armed traffickers also marked a deepening of the military's role in Rio's security. Since being put in charge of the state's security earlier this year, the military had mostly played a supporting role to police during operations. This time, the soldiers were in the lead.
Those affected are known as the Windrush generation, after the ship Empire Windrush, which in 1948 took hundreds of Caribbean immigrants to Britain in an effort to find nurses, railway workers and others to help it rebuild after the devastation of World War II. They and other Commonwealth immigrants who arrived in Britain before 1973 had an automatic right to settle there. But some have fallen afoul of rules requiring employers and doctors to verify peoples immigration status.
They were soon joined by 60 former CIA officers, who signed a letter of their own and released it Friday evening declaring they were Spartacus. Our signatures below do not necessarily mean that we concur with the opinions expressed by former Director Brennan or the way in which he expressed them, they wrote, but the country will be weakened if there is a political litmus test applied before seasoned experts are allowed to share their views. By Tuesday, the number of signatories had grown to 177 and included former senior officials from the State, Defense and Justice departments as well as the National Security Council and even NASA.
Who is his apparent lodestar for cyberwarfare? Not his all-purpose son-in-law Jared Kushner, though Kushner does possess the rare talent of knowing how to search Amazon. No, Trumps real gizmo guru is his school-age son, whose interwebs wizardry led Trump to determine that no computer is safe. Trump said this in response to a press question about cybersecurity policy, adding that sensitive information must always instead be sent by courier like in the old days.
The president is already spinning this verdict as meaningless, noting that the charges against Manafort had nothing to do with any work he did for Trump. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III had cautioned both sides not to even mention the Russia probe during the trial. Nor was Muellers victory a clean one: Ellis declared a mistrial on 10 additional charges over which the jury had deadlocked.
Other adversaries are also delighting in cyberweapons leveling effect. U.S. intelligence agencies believe that China is cheating on its Obama-era pledge not to engage in commercial cyberespionage. North Korea has dramatically improved its capabilities, moving its best hackers to China and other countries where Internet service is better, and using them to steal from banks, as well as to threaten the United States. And Iran, which wielded its willingness to attack U.S. corporations, banks and even dams as leverage in nuclear arms talks, remains one of the most active of all the nation-state hackers followed by the cybersecurity firm FireEye. No wonder Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats recently said of these cyberthreats: The warning lights are blinking red again.
What they were trained to do was enslave and murder innocent civilians, mostly Jews. The Nazis had begun in earnest their ghastly project of rounding up Europes Jews, stealing all their possessions, exploiting them as slaves and eventually killing them. But Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, worried that much of this work might have a demoralizing effect on his elite troops, so he staffed slave labor camps and policed ghettos with Hiwis such as Palij and the notorious John Ivan the Terrible Demjanjuk.
Im outraged every day by something our president has done or said or left undone or neglected, or who he has recently bullied on Twitter or television, Clinton said. For me, sometimes, I think Im just so fundamentally my mothers daughter that Im far more outraged by the Trump administration ripping children away from their families at the border and not having reunified those children with their families now for months, than I am about anything he has ever done to my family.
Democrats lost 52 House seats in 1994 after President Bill Clinton took office, when he had an early August approval rating of 43 percent, according to the American presidency Project. Obama lost 63 House seats in 2010 with an early August approval rating of 44 percent. The only recent president to beat the trend was George W. Bush, who helped Republicans gain eight House seats a year after the 9/11 attacks. In August 2002, he had an approval rating of 66 percent.
For you having to be demeaned by people who have no idea what strength is, is really very sad, Trump said. They have no courage; they have no guts. They just have big, loud mouths. We dont want to put up with that. I just want you to know you are loved and respected.
The president later acknowledged in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he had moved against Brennan in part because of his role in the beginning of the investigation into whether Trumps campaign conspired with the Russian government. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is now leading that inquiry.
Schumer said that Kavanaughs inability to recall almost anything that happened while he was secretary for the president or while he was counsel is why we need his full record released to the American people.
Collins was at one time the largest shareholder in Innate, which is traded on the Australian Securities Exchange and in the U.S. over-the-counter market, and several of his House colleagues followed him with investments in the firm. He stepped down from Innates board of directors in May. According to his most recent financial disclosure report, Collins also serves as a director of four other companies, none of which are publicly traded.
In Wyoming, neither the Senate nor the governors race is viewed as a national Democratic priority. But state Democrats, like those in Alaska, are hoping to increase their wins in legislative races After the 2016 election, they hold just nine seats in the 60-member state House, and three seats in the 30-member state Senate. The party has not won a statewide Wyoming election since 2006.
There are several signs that Collins will vote to confirm Kavanaugh, a conservative stalwart with deep ties to the Republican establishment, to succeed retiring Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. Despite pressure from both parties, the four-term senator has never opposed a Supreme Court nominee. She voted in favor of Kavanaughs confirmation to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2006. And both Collins and Murkowski voted to confirm Neil M. Gorsuch, Trumps previous Supreme Court nominee.
This was not the reality Suu Kyi envisioned in May 2016, her second month as the de facto leader of Myanmars civilian government, when she approached Annan to lead a commission looking into the root of the Rakhine conflict. The commission was to come up with recommendations into how peace would be achieved in Rakhine state, where communal violence had erupted in 2012, driving 140,000 Rohingya Muslims into squalid camps. Members of the minority group say they are native to Myanmar, also known as Burma, but were excluded from a junta-era citizenship law, denied rights and freedom of movement, and rendered vulnerable as targets of extreme discrimination and violence.
Chinas Belt and Road Initiative has made the country popular throughout Africa and Asia. China has spent $500 billion to help redevelop key infrastructure, creating new shipping and rail lines that will speed trade. But lately, some of the countrys recipients have said the investment comes with too many strings, including closed bidding processes and unfavorable leases and deals that give China prime access to many of these projects once completed.
A visit to Moscow by the Taliban for talks would be a major coup for Russia, coming as the country regains influence on the global stage. Nearly 40 years have passed since Moscow sent its own troops into Afghanistan, beginning a disastrous decade-long war that is seen as the precursor to the countrys endemic violence today.
Today the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the U.S., Hunt said. That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice wherever and whenever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the heart of Crimea, which Russia unilaterally annexed from Ukraine.
Witnesses said Manafort spent a small fortune at the time he was cheating the IRS  more than $1 million on clothes, including a $15,000 ostrich leather jacket, more than $2 million on home entertainment systems, and millions of dollars on homes for himself and his family. One witness said Manafort spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on landscaping, including a bed of red flowers in the shape of an M in the backyard of his Hamptons home.
In January 2017, after Trumps election, he sought reimbursement for the Daniels payment from Trump. Unnamed executives at the Trump Organization directed that Cohen be paid $420,000, which would reimburse him for his payment, along with additional money for taxes and expenses and a $60,000 bonus, filings said. One executive told another to falsely describe the fees as legal expenses and describe the first two monthly payments as a retainer, according to court papers.
Meanwhile, Russian officials announced that they had invited the Taliban to attend an international meeting in Moscow on Sept. 4 related to the Afghanistan conflict and that the insurgents had accepted. They said it would be the first such meeting involving the insurgents. Taliban officials in Kabul did not comment on it. The Russians also invited U.S. officials, but the State Department said Tuesday that none would attend.
Sometimes you see the English language evolving in real time, in front of you, on social media or TV or even in older, less accelerated forms such as books.

From Norman Mailer we received the word factoid. From Dr Seuss, nerd. And from Richard Dawkins, meme. About a fortnight ago, however, I was lucky enough to see Australian English undergo a forced evolution, which is still not complete, on the sixth floor of 295 Ann Street, Brisbane, a nondescript office building housing the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

It's not without precedent: Eggslut at Los Angeles Grand Central Market. Credit:Jakob Layman

There, in a strikingly grey and featureless hearing room, a former soldier, Peter Coster, was forcing the Tribunal to ponder the nature of the word slut, and specifically whether it was drained of its offensive nature when appended to the word egg.

As in Eggslut.
Since 1986, Professor Michael Archer has asked his first-year biology students whether they thought a God had a hand in creating humanity. The answers reveal a profound change over a generation.

In 1986, 60 per cent of students believed a God in some way influenced human origins. By last year, that had fallen to 28.8 per cent. Creationists, who thought God created humans in their present form, fell from 10.4 per cent to fewer than 5 per cent.

Professor Michael Archer: "They thought nobody in their right mind would be a creationist in Australia." Credit:James Brickwood

"I am convinced we are seeing a steady erosion of the gullibility of the public," said Professor Archer, whose findings  the longest continual survey of its kind worldwide  are published on Wednesday in the journal Evolution; Education and Outreach.

"Once, you couldn't check these things. If someone in a position of power  a priest  told you this is how the world was, you didn't have the power to check that. Now [due to the internet] everyone does, and it's exposing the emperor's new clothes."
Contemptuously, he adds: "Turnbull thinks people will fall on their knees and say hallelujah! We're back to the innovation message", Turnbull's campaign theme that fell flat at the 2016 election and which he has since abandoned. "He's blind to the politics because he's obsessed with the issue." Loading But the defeat is about much more than climate change. It's an ideological and identity marker. And it has exposed Turnbull's jugular. "You can't have a government," says a Dutton advocate, "that can't rely on the House on a key piece of legislation." The majority of the conservatives have got what they wanted by destroying any move to regulate carbon emissions, but it's not enough. They are setting out to destroy Turnbull's prime ministership and replace him with one of their own, Peter Dutton. And to date they are in the ascendant. Peter Dutton in Question Time on Monday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

But Labor says it supports the NEG, and it certainly supports cutting carbon emissions. Why doesn't Turnbull reach across the aisle, negotiate with Labor and bring the NEG bill to the House? Loading Because, while the bill would doubtless pass, it would bring on a Coalition revolt on the floor of the House. "Our people just would not tolerate being photographed sitting with Tanya Plibersek and Bill Shorten to vote on a bill," says a conservative Liberal. Knowing the bill would pass in any case, many Coalition backbenchers would feel free of any of the constraints of loyalty to the Prime Minister and exercise loyalty to their ideological position. They would cross the floor in force to oppose their own government. Conservatives estimate that perhaps 20 or more would vote to oppose Turnbull, putting him in an untenable position. The fact is that he's in an untenable position anyway. The Fairfax-Ipsos poll published on Monday shows a brutal collapse in the Coalition primary vote of 6 percentage points in the space of a month, down to 33 per cent.

On a two-party basis, that puts Labor into a commanding lead of 55 per cent to the government's 45. In an election, those numbers would wipe out 21 government MPs. That is landslide stuff and terrifies many Coalition members. "A lot of our people are facing that fact that they are in the last six months of their political careers," says one worried backbencher. "They've got houses, school bills, cars that they've set up for themselves on the basis that they're earning $200,000 plus. What do they do if they're suddenly out of work?" The Fairfax-Ipsos poll also makes a clear assignment of responsibility. Turnbull's approval rating was down by 9 per centage points. His standing as preferred prime minister was down by the same margin. This may be unfair. It's Abbott and other conservatives who have revolted against Turnbull, yet Turnbull is being judged responsible. Disunity is death - Abbott delivers the disunity, Turnbull gets the death. But that's politics. The poll doesn't just expose a dramatic fall in support for the government. It feeds the conservatives' narrative in favour of Dutton in a specific way. Of the 6 per cent of voters who've abandoned the government, only 1 per cent seem to have switched to Labor and another 1 to the Greens.

Meaning? "The votes aren't going to Labor, aren't going to the left," says a Dutton supporter, "because it's our base, they're walking away from us. It's a devastating blow." And while the poll cannot definitely supply the answer, it does suggest that this is at least partly true. The poll detail shows that the biggest primary vote swing against the government was outside capital cities where support fell by 8 per cent and among people aged over 55, also down 8 per cent. These groups are more likely to be part of the Coalition conservative base. Illustration: Dionne Gain So if the problem is the loss of the Coalition's conservative base, the answer must be the leading conservative cabinet minister and leadership contender, Dutton, as his advocates are arguing. Can Dutton actually win an election for the Coalition? That seems implausible. The only member of the government with a polling-proven ability to lift the government's vote is Julie Bishop.
Genoa, Italy: Engineering experts determined in February that corrosion of the metal cables supporting the Genoa highway bridge had reduced the bridge's strength by 20 per cent - a finding that came months before it collapsed last week, Italian media reported on Monday.

Firefighters work to remove debris from the collapsed Morandi bridge. Credit:ANSA/AP

Despite the findings, news magazine Espresso wrote that "neither the ministry, nor the highway company, ever considered it necessary to limit traffic, divert heavy trucks, reduce the roadway from two to one lanes or reduce the speed" of vehicles on the key artery for the northern port city.

A large section of the Morandi Bridge collapsed on August 14 during a heavy downpour, killing 43 people and forcing the evacuation of more than 600 people living in apartment buildings beneath another section of the bridge.

Overnight, workers heard creaking noises coming from the part of the bridge that was still standing, so firefighters suspended an operation allowing evacuated residents to retrieve their belongings from apartments under the bridge.
London: Large numbers of child slaves may be working on cannabis farms in London, experts are warning after new figures emerged showing the scale of cultivation of the illegal drug.

Police have found 314 illegal cannabis farms in the British capital since 2016, according to official data obtained by the London Evening Standard newspaper, the equivalent of one every two days.

More than 300 cannabis farms have been found in London since 2016.

Experts say children are being trafficked from Vietnam and other countries to work in these farms, which are often located in residential properties, and that the scale of the problem has been vastly underestimated.

"The high number of cannabis farms across London and trafficking of Vietnamese children to work in them is extremely worrying," said Jakub Sobik, a spokesman for Anti-Slavery International.
Jerusalem: Israel's finance minister is seeking to drum up American and European support for a plan to boost the Palestinian economy in the West Bank - something he thinks will benefit Israel as well.

After more than three years of meetings with Palestinian officials, Moshe Kahlon, who is also leader of the centrist Kulanu party, is pushing a plan to build joint industrial zones, ease movement out of the West Bank and allow the Palestinian Authority to collect its own customs taxes.

From left, Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Credit:AP

He is due to discuss the plan with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Jason Greenblatt, US President Donald Trump's Mideast peace envoy, later this month in Washington. The Trump team has pushed the notion that improving Palestinians' standard of living will help create conditions for peace, and has pressed Israel for proposals.

"It isn't always visible, but the economy makes an important contribution to what's going on," Kahlon said. "I'm a great believer in political process through economy.''
In the past month, Shannon Daniels has gained new neighbors  and new consultants.

Her presentation-software startup Encaptiv moved in three weeks ago to an office within the downtown Stamford headquarters of intellectual-property law firm Whitmyer IP Group, becoming the first business in residence in WHIPs new InventLab initiative. With the partnership, the two businesses are aiming to develop and safeguard Encaptivs intellectual property to ensure it is fully prepared when its products hit the market within the next few months.

Having the expertise of someone like WHIPGroup to help us through the process and help us identify those areas in which we can protect ourselves and the products and be more successful as a company is just invaluable, Daniels, Encaptivs founder and CEO, said in an interview earlier this month at the WHIP offices at 600 Summer St. Being here in this program opens a lot of doors for us.

Daniels met the WHIP team in April when she attended a presentation in its monthly Tech Entrepreneur Meetup series. Launched at the beginning of this year, the program consists of talks for local professionals on topics including artificial intelligence, Bitcoin, cloud technology and finance.

Founded in January, Encaptiv is targeting a September beta rollout for its offerings and putting its services on the market in January.

Were really looking forward to learning all that we can about this process and building a really solid product thats protected from an IP standpoint, Daniels said.

The firm has already filed an application for a provisional patent. It is also seeking trademarks for its name  an amalgamation of engage and captivate  as well as its blue-and-purple logo and slogan, Dont present. Encaptivate.

Theyre in that stage of development where they need the intellectual-property protection, said WHIP founder Wesley Whitmyer Jr. We felt we could add value, especially by helping with their patents.

Encaptivs web-based software allows audience members to give feedback through their mobile devices during presentations and enables presenters to use the input to then customizes their lectures or sales pitches. Key user groups would include entrepreneurs and educators.

We don't want users to have to go to an app store, download an app, try to join the presentation, Daniels said. It's too much of a barrier. They just enter a specific URL or go to encaptiv.com and put in a specific presentation code and then they put their name and email address in, and it joins them into the presentation.

Encaptiv, which employs seven, plans to stay six months in the InventLab, with an option for another six months. WHIP could take in one more firm, but it would not host more than two businesses at the same time.

The stint at WHIPs offices will significantly lower the overhead of Encaptiv, which was formerly based in an office park at 76 Progress Drive, on the west side of the city. During its stay, Encaptiv will not pay rent or be billed for any office services such as printing, copying or phone calls.

Its wonderful having the space to work in this beautiful office, Daniels said. It helps the company save some money having those six months, so we dont have to stress about that.

Already, Whitmyer and his colleagues have suggested a number of potential sources of revenues for Encaptiv, including corporate licensing.

A large company may want to use this for their in-house training, Whitmyer said. They may just want to have a special version of the Encaptiv software, and maybe Shannon will license it to them for that purpose. It doesnt impact the core market.

pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott
BRIDGEPORT  State and local NAACP leaders want the Chief States Attorney to investigate recently retired Police Captain Mark Straubel for alleged hate crimes.

Youre talking about starting race wars, said Scot Esdaile, president of the Connecticut NAACP, referring to one of several text messages Straubel, who was a key aide to Police Chief Armando Perez, was accused of sending.

Perez placed Straubel on paid administrative leave in July after Ken Kubel, a retired Bridgeport police sergeant who now works for the Stratford cops, filed a complaint about Straubel in June with Bridgeports Internal Affairs office.

Straubel, who is white, in some of the texts obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media, allegedly stated that he hates African-Americans, that they are a cancer and that he hoped for a race war.

One text read: I asked (an African-American officer) if he had seen (the film) Planet of the Apes. He said yes. I asked him if it made him homesick.

In still another text, Straubel allegedly complained about having to March in an unnamed parade that he claimed involved mostly black people, and used a racist term to describe the event.

I am appalled by the allegations regarding disparaging remarks against African-Americans that were made by a senior aide in the Bridgeport Police Department, Mayor Joe Ganim said Monday. These or any comments or statements that create any impression of discrimination or divisiveness cannot and will not be tolerated.

My administration, and the community, were more than patient as this matter was being handled with a formal investigation by the Office of Internal Affairs. This investigation concluded with the permanent resignation of Captain Straubel on Aug. 14. Any further action that is allowable by law will be taken in this matter.

Lastly, again, these type of comments or behavior will not tolerated by anyone in the police department or the administration, Ganim said.

Straubel retired Aug. 13 with the internal probe still pending  a move Esdaile and Bridgeport NAACP President George Mintz said they feared would quietly put an end to the investigation.

Thats what weve been dealing with all across the country  rogue police officers retiring and not being held accountable for their actions, Esdaile told Hearst on Monday.

So he and Mintz and Tamara Lanier, who is in charge of criminal justice matters for the Connecticut NAACP, late last week wrote a letter to Chief States Attorney Kevin Kane urging his office to take up the Straubel case under state hate crime statutes.

They also suggested that Kane look into whether Perez dragged his heals in placing Straubel on leave.

Even if you try to run and get your pension and retire, that doesnt exempt you from these (hate crime) laws on the books, Esdaile said.

City officials Monday did not immediately answer a request from Hearst about whether the Internal Affairs case into Straubel ended with the captains departure from the police department.

A spokesman for Kane confirmed his office had received the NAACP letter and will respond.

Straubel has been a member of Bridgeports Finest for more than 20 years and was promoted to captain in 2016. He has been a right-hand man to Perez and often joined the chief at meetings with various officials and community leaders.

The Straubel controversy comes as Perez competes for a five-year contract in a national police chief search for Bridgeports top cop position.

What should be of interest is the relationship the chief had with Mark Straubel, said Mintz. If that has any bearing on the search  maybe it does, maybe it doesnt.
We sat down with the West End's new Genie, Michael James Scott, who has joined the cast of Aladdin after swapping with Trevor Dion Nicholas, who joins the US tour.

Find out how MJ is getting on in London and what his three wishes would be.

Scott, who has been playing the Genie in the US touring production of the show, will fill the sparkly boots at the Prince Edward Theatre until 30 September.

He returns to the West End for the first time in eight years after performing in the Broadway transfer of Hair at the Gielgud Theatre in 2010. Before performing in the touring production of Aladdin, he was the standby Genie in the original Broadway production in 2014 and originated the role in the Australian production.
Include a visit to The Dark Side of F Street in your Halloween hauntings! Take some canned foods and grocery ...

When you see the flags flying at schools, you dont generally think about who put them up or how they...
Months after soil samples were taken from their yards and gardens, South St. Boniface residents began receiving the results this week.
The company featured in the reality show Ice Road Truckers is being sued for more than $1 million by Manitoba firms it's done business with in the last year.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/8/2018 (1166 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The company featured in the reality show Ice Road Truckers is being sued for more than $1 million by Manitoba firms it's done business with in the last year.

Ice Road Truckers followed the driving exploits of truckers delivering goods to remote locations in northern Canada over frozen lakes and temporary "ice roads" carved out of the muskeg in the wilderness, according to the trucking blog Overdrive. Now the company doing the hauling, Polar Industries, is being hauled before Court of Queen's Bench in Winnipeg by plaintiffs saying they've been stiffed by the trucking firm based in the RM of Springfield.

Wintec Building Services Inc. says it's owed $57,435 by Polar Industries Ltd., its president Mark Kohaykewych and Penn-Co Construction for hauling services that Wintec provided for the construction of a school in York Landing, Man.

A statement of claim filed by Wintec on Aug. 13 says Polar Industries represented itself as a sub-contractor of Penn-Co Construction. Court documents said Wintec provided hauling services from Feb. 28 to March 19 and submitted an invoice for $57,435 to Penn-Co. Neither the construction company nor Polar Industries have paid up, the statement of claim says. A statement of defence has not yet been filed.

A statement of claim filed by Fox Lake Ventures Ltd. on May 17 says it's owed $1.2 million by Polar Industries after entering into a joint venture with the trucking company. It says Fox Lake Ventures of Bird, Man., joined up with Polar Industries in November 2017 to haul materials on a winter route from various locations along Provincial Road 280 and ultimately to Churchill under contracts entered into with third parties. They were to share expenses, profits and a bank account but keep their own salaried employees on their own payrolls, court documents say.

After entering into the deal, Fox Lake agreed to invest a further $80,312 to fund some of the initial costs and recoup that from revenue generated by the joint venture, the statement of claim says. Fox Lake, it said, contributed $187,562 in equipment toward the project that was concluded in April. Fox Lake says it incurred $277,085 in payroll expenses plus third-party costs totalling $902,034.

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It says Polar Industries signed contracts with parties to provide hauling services without the agreement of the joint venture's representatives and issued invoices that were made payable to Polar rather than to the joint venture. Court documents say Polar collected funds from third parties for hauling services but refused or neglected to deposit them into the joint venture's bank. It says Polar Industries did not reimburse Fox Lake for its salary expenses and did not return Fox Lake's equipment at the end of the project.

A statement of defence filed by Polar Industries denies Fox Lake is entitled to the $1.2 million it's claiming. It denied that Fox Lake supplied some of the equipment it said was taken. Polar Industries said in its court filing that it had an existing client base prior to the joint venture and such work wasn't subject to supervision by the joint venture. It says the payroll expenses submitted by Fox Lake were "severely inflated" in relation to the number of workers employed, the daily wage they were paid and their work performance.

Polar Industries was never invoiced by the joint venture and was never directed to deposit funds into the joint bank account after receiving payments from third parties for providing hauling services, the statement of defence said. Polar Industries filed a counter claim for an unspecified amount of damages from the "failed project," including labour costs, travel and mobilization costs and repairs to damaged equipment. It blames Fox Lake for "inattention and mismanagement of the project" and says Polar Industries suffered damages and is entitled to relief.

Fox Lake responded to the counterclaim, spelling out details of the joint venture agreement and how it says Polar Ventures was in breach of it. It says the counterclaim should be dismissed.

Meanwhile, the History Channel which ran Ice Road Truckers for 11 seasons, has not announced a twelfth season of the show.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
A longtime Winnipeg pastor is facing criminal charges in California for allegedly trying to meet with a minor for sex.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 20/8/2018 (1167 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A longtime Winnipeg pastor is facing criminal charges in California for allegedly trying to meet with a minor for sex.

The accusation has forced Nathan George Rieger to give up his job of nearly 20 years at the Winnipeg Centre Vineyard Church.

The church announced the charge against Rieger, and his decision to step down, at its Sunday service, which was attended by about 150 people.

The case is unfolding in the coastal city of Arroyo Grande, Calif., where it's believed Rieger has been since his arrest 10 days ago.

"He was charged with agreeing to arrange a meeting with a minor for a sexual act," said Winnipeg Centre Vineyard pastoral executive Andy Wood during a brief interview Monday at his Main Street office.

Nathan Rieger has been charged in California has has given up his longtime job as pastor at a Winnipeg church.

"He has voluntarily resigned his position here. Those are the facts as we know them."

Winnipeg Centre Vineyard, located at 782 Main St., is part of a global evangelical mission that has more than 2,500 churches on six continents.

The charges stunned church leaders, Wood said, who do outreach work among vulnerable and marginalized populations from inner cities to remote outposts.

Wood said he was being careful about his choice of words in an effort to state the facts, but not give away any other information that hasn't been made public.

He confirmed the arrest and its consequence for Rieger, who has held the post of pastoral executive since 1999.

"Hes been charged in California, where he is now," said Wood. "This is all unfolding now."

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES The Winnipeg Centre Vineyard Church at 782 Main St.

Rieger, 53, was on vacation in California, and details surrounding his arrest have yet to be disclosed.

The online arrest record for the Arroyo Grande Police Department confirmed Rieger was arrested Aug. 10. It also listed his date of birth, his Winnipeg address, and his profession as a church pastor. He is charged with two offences: one count of arranging to meet a minor for a sex act, and one count of meeting with a minor for a sex act.

Wood and Rieger worked closely together as the two pastoral executives for the Main Street church for years. "A team," is how Wood described their work together.

No one in the church was prepared for such news, Wood said. "There was no prior indication of anything untoward like this. We were surprised and shocked."

Winnipeg Centre Vineyard was reluctant to disclose any personal details, other than to say it believes Riegers family is with him in California.

The Arroyo Grande Police Department arrest record indicated he was held in the local county jail, but has since been released. The police department declined to release more information Monday.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Members of the Winnipeg Centre Vineyard Church on Main Street were told Sunday about charges against longtime pastor Nathan Rieger. He has been charged in California.

Rieger is known for his Facebook accounts of his work on oversea missions.

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In 2014, Rieger posted an account of his experience delivering a sermon in Kathmandu when a 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal, killing more than 1,800 people. Rieger was in Nepal as part of the Winnipeg churchs 20-year outreach program to the region.

"I just got on stage to speak to these people when the earth began to roll like the sea in a storm," Rieger recounted. That was followed by "loud praying and shouting, and the roar of the ground bucking."

The post could still be found Monday on a Facebook page for a sister congregation in the United States, however, every trace of his record online involving his former church in Winnipeg had been erased.

Wood said the church decided to go public with the information once the charges were posted online and Rieger had resigned.

"We talked about it (Sunday) to our whole congregation (and) we also emailed everyone in the church community," Wood said.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
A Winnipeg Police Service traffic official says more education is needed about the rules governing funeral processions.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 20/8/2018 (1167 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg Police Service traffic official says more education is needed about the rules governing funeral processions.

Insp. Gord Spado of the police service's traffic division said the law doesn't give a funeral procession a "carte blanche right of way," and that drivers in a procession must slow or stop as necessary for safety's sake before proceeding through an intersection.

"We do believe that education is required, as many people do not know the rules around funeral processions," he said Tuesday.

The provincial Highway Traffic Act and a city bylaw regarding required vehicle lighting for funeral processions should likely be changed, he added.

The rules say that vehicles in a procession should have their headlights on, although all modern vehicles are required to have daytime running lights.

"It is often difficult in daylight to tell the difference between daytime running lights and headlamps (as required by the legislation)," Spado said in an email. "Four-way flashers, I believe, have become the norm, but are not required under either (city or provincial) law."

In Manitoba, many lead cars in the funeral procession are equipped with a flashing purple light and the other vehicles in the procession have flags on their windows. (Martha Irvine / The Associated Press Files)

The police service was asked to respond Monday to a Free Press story about a lay minister who called for an end to traditional funeral processions in Winnipeg after his car was T-boned recently at the intersection of Inkster Boulevard and McPhillips Street.

"When you're in (a) funeral procession, you're putting your life at risk," said Thomas Novak, an Oblate brother who presides at two or three funerals and interments a week as a lay minister. His Ford Focus was totalled in the crash.

He estimated that the driver of the lead car in the procession was travelling 40 km/h at the time.

The city bylaw says that the driver of every vehicle in a funeral procession shall slow down or stop "as may be necessary for safety" upon approaching a traffic light or stop sign  and that the driver of each of the other vehicles in the procession shall have the right-of-way over all other vehicles (see box).

"There is no legislation around speeds of processions," Spado noted.

Thomas Novaks Ford Focus (right) was totaled when it was T-boned at intersection during a funeral procession Monday at Inkster Boulevard and McPhillips Street. (Submitted)

In January 2010, two people were sent to hospital with minor injuries after a vehicle turned into a funeral procession in Winnipeg.

At that time, a city police patrol sergeant called the provincial Highway Traffic Act provisions "antiquated and a danger."

What the law says A review of the provincial Highway Traffic Act and Winnipeg's traffic bylaws rules around funeral processions. click to read more A review of the provincial Highway Traffic Act and Winnipeg's traffic bylaws rules around funeral processions. Highway Traffic Act: Vehicles in funeral processions 117(4) The driver of a motor vehicle in a funeral procession shall, in so far as practicable, drive his vehicle on the extreme right-hand side of the roadway. 117(5) Notwithstanding anything in this Part, the council of a municipality may, by by-law, provide that, in the case of a funeral procession indicated as such by the headlamps of all the motor vehicles therein being lighted, or in such other manner as may be prescribed in the by-law, (a) if the driver of the leading vehicle therein has complied with sections 85 and 88, the driver of each of the other vehicles therein, upon approaching (i) a traffic control signal showing a red traffic control light or a "stop" or "arret" signal, or (ii) a "stop" or "arret" sign, shall cause the vehicle to slow down or stop as may be necessary for safety, but may then proceed cautiously past the traffic control signal or "stop" or "arret" sign; and (b) after passing the traffic control signal or "stop" or "arret" sign, the driver of each of the other vehicles in the procession shall have the right-of-way over all other vehicles upon the highway at the intersection or place where the signal or sign is situated. Winnipeg Traffic By-law 1573/77, section 36 Funeral Processions. The driver of every vehicle in a funeral procession indicated as such by the headlamps of all motor vehicles therein being lighted upon approaching a traffic control signal showing a red traffic control light, or a stop sign, shall cause the vehicle to slow down or stop as may be necessary for safety, but may then proceed cautiously past the traffic control signal or stop sign, the driver of each of the other vehicles in the procession shall have the right-of-way over all other vehicles upon the highway at the intersection or place where the signal or stop sign is situated. Close

The city's bylaw largely mirrors the wording of the Act.

At one time, police escorted funeral service processions, but they no longer guard intersections unless the funeral is a high-profile event expected to attract an unusually large number of people.

The patrol sergeant said funeral processions pose a safety risk if the vehicles are not nose-to-tail. "In many cases your sightline is next to nothing until you're at that intersection," he told the Free Press in 2010.

A provincial spokesman said while the government is not currently reviewing the section of the Act pertaining to funeral processions, it "will listen to stakeholders and individuals who raise concerns."

Funeral processions "are not a concern" for the Manitoba RCMP, a spokesman said Monday.

"Our primary concern are collisions where impaired driving, excessive speed and distracted driving are factors," Robert Cyrenne said in an email.

"These factors are responsible for most of the collisions on Manitoba roads and highways. Also very concerning is the fact that 55 per cent of fatal collisions this year involved unbelted occupants."

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Police use to escort funeral service processions, but they no longer guard intersections unless the funeral is a high-profile event expected to attract an unusually large number of people. (Seth Wenig / The Associated Press Files)

The president of the Manitoba Funeral Service Association said it does not have a specific policy regarding funeral processions.

"Typically, the expectation is to drive 10 to 20 kilometres (per hour) below the posted speed limit, so vehicles can keep up and stay close and people can see that this is a unified procession  and the vehicles are easily identified," Michael Gibbens said.

He said the problem is a lack of awareness, especially among city drivers. He sugested the issue could be covered in the training requirements for new drivers.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca
The Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF) says there can be no room for reconciliation in the province unless government officials will discuss planned litigation against them outside a courtroom.

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This article was published 21/8/2018 (1166 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF) says there can be no room for reconciliation in the province unless government officials will discuss planned litigation against them outside a courtroom.

In a letter sent to MMF president David Chartrand on Aug. 16, Minister of Crown Services Colleen Mayer and Minister of Indigenous and Northern Relations Eileen Clarke say their government is committed to advancing reconciliation with all Indigenous peoples in Manitoba, but they will not discuss the MMF's pending lawsuit, for now.

"We understand that when addressing the difficult concepts of reconciliation, consultation and accommodation, parties often have different perspectives. Different perspectives are valid and can inform communications going forward. We are optimistic that we will enjoy a successful partnership in concluding consultations regarding the Manitoba-Minnesota Transmission Project and the Lake Manitoba Outlet projects," Clarke and Mayer wrote.

"Your letter raised several issues currently before the Court," the ministers said, referring to a letter Chartrand sent in July, requesting a meeting with then-Crown Services Minister Cliff Cullen.

"As we mentioned in our June 21, 2018 letter, our lawyers are in contact about the litigation. We do not intend to address it further outside of the court process."

The letter concludes with the ministers saying their offices will be in touch to schedule a meeting with Chartrand to "continue our conversation and discuss common priorities."

On Monday, Chartrand told the Free Press a meeting would be futile if the province refuses to discuss disagreements over Manitoba Hydro and night hunting. Bill 29, the Wildlife Protection Act, seeks to set limits on night hunting, which infringes on Indigenous rights, he said.

"That clearly is unconstitutional and, in many ways, will definitely be illegal. There will definitely be court challenges on that," he said.

"So there is no reconciliation with this government. Theres never been a temporary conciliation and I dont see how they can even have the nerve to say, Lets start talking about reconciliation. You have to have something to talk about that youre trying to do to make things better and enhance and find a balance of where reconciliation matters and everything works. But if you have nothing, how can you even begin reconciliation?"

A government spokesman said neither Mayer nor Clarke would be available for interviews Tuesday to discuss why they won't talk about legal issues in their planned meeting with Chartrand.

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"MMF commenced the litigation and as such, we respect the judicial process and wont comment any further," the spokesman said by email.

The Manitoba government has hired Toronto-based law firm Osler, through its Calgary offices, to defend the province in court against a legal challenge by the MMF, who submitted a judicial review request over orders cabinet gave Manitoba Hydro on March 21 to kill a land-entitlement deal worth $67.5 million over 50 years.

Among the provisions of the agreement  which the government argues was a mere proposal  is the MMF would not oppose a proposed $453-million hydro transmission line to Minnesota that would facilitate increased U.S. sales.

 With files from Larry Kusch

jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @_jessbu
I got out of bed and followed the smell of bacon and the sound of my parents voices to the kitchen. The Eagles were harmonizing from the tape deck and I could hear laughter mixed with kissing.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/8/2018 (1167 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

I got out of bed and followed the smell of bacon and the sound of my parents voices to the kitchen. The Eagles were harmonizing from the tape deck and I could hear laughter mixed with kissing.

Following the morning routine of fathers everywhere, mine poured a cup of coffee and flipped through the morning paper. He then noticed the time, grabbed a can of Easy-Off oven cleaner and sprayed it directly down his throat.

He swallowed hard, kissed my mom goodbye, told me to be good at school and left for work.

My dad. The pill hustler.

He would spend his day rocketing his white Chevy Nova over the twisting Appalachian Mountain roads to present his Easy-Off-blistered throat to local doctors in exchange for narcotics prescriptions.

When I got home that afternoon, our tiny apartment in Oceana, W. Va., looked as if it had been picked up and shaken. There was a lingering smell of stale beer and cigarette ash. Empty pill capsules and rolled-up dollar bills littered the coffee table and floor.

My mom, Starr, was sitting in her usual place on the couch, but her makeup had slid around and formed a garish mask and her left eye was starting to swell from a jab by my dad. Her head was slowly slumping forward like a willow that had just started weeping.

This was a scene that would be played out again and again throughout my tumultuous 1980s childhood: my parents going from giddy at the prospect of scoring drugs to petulant and abusive when they ran out.

My parents. The drug addicts.

In 2012, four years after my moms overdose death, I began corresponding with my dad, Steve, then an inmate of Potomac Highlands Regional Jail.

He and I had been estranged for years. I blamed him for making my mother an addict  essentially, for killing her. However, when my husband and I became parents, I had an overwhelming need to know how my parents came to choose drugs over me. Steve was the only one left to ask.

His letters were filled with soul-shaking guilt and regret.

Despite dropping out of high school at 16, his grammar and spelling were solid from years of reading one paperback novel after another. We found we shared some favourites: No Country for Old Men, Lonesome Dove and Beloved.

Steve wrote about falling in love with my mom for the same reasons that everyone fell in love with my mom  her sparkling blue eyes and megawatt smile.

Lets see, "I was 14 and Starr was 16 when we met at school. We had to sneak around."

They would meet up in alleys and sometimes sneak off to a secluded hollow to "smoke pot and drink wine."

From his smeared southpaw scrawl, I learned that Steves stepfather was an abusive alcoholic and that he did his first "shot of dope" at 14.

"Ive never been able to shake that feeling of warmth, it just totally engulfs you, it whispers to you that everything will be all right.

"I have done every drug you can imagine... I always come back to opiates, to that warmth."

He and my mom didnt choose to be addicts, he assured me, and he was sorry for how my siblings and I were raised.

"No one would chose the hell that comes with being an addict, Sosha. No one."

When I first read this, I burned with indignation. What a cop-out. I had chosen not to be a drug addict; it really wasnt that hard.

Then I read through his letters again.

I thought about Steve as a boy who protected his mom from her abusive husband and then curled up with the warmth of dope.

I made myself admit that I had often used alcohol as an escape route.

I had not chosen addiction, but perhaps it was also that addiction hadnt chosen me.

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Ive watched addiction swallow up loved ones, people who were smart and loving and charismatic, and it still took me decades to accept that, as then-surgeon general Vivek Murthy stated in his landmark 2016 report, addiction is a chronic illness, not a moral flaw.

And it is an epidemic with a stigma attached. An estimated 20.8 million people in the United States are living with a substance abuse disorder, which is more than the number living with all cancers combined. Yet people dont pin coloured ribbons to their lapels for substance-abuse awareness or lace up their sneakers to race for the opiate cure.

We must see beyond the statistics and headlines. We must remember that buried under disease are real people and real families. And some were once just a couple of teenagers who fell in love.

Sosha Lewis lives in Charlotte, N.C.

 The Washington Post
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Freeport-McMoRan, Inc. engages in the mining of copper, gold and molybdenum. It operates through the following segments: North America Copper Mines, South America Mining; Indonesia Mining, Molybdenum Mines, Rod and Refining, Atlantic Copper Smelting and Refining and Corporate, Other and Eliminations. The North America Copper Mines segment operates open-pit copper mines in Morenci, Bagdad, Safford, Sierrita and Miami in Arizona and Chino and Tyrone in New Mexico. The South America Mining segment includes Cerro Verde in Peru and El Abra in Chile. The Indonesia Mining segment handles the operations of Grasberg minerals district that produces copper concentrate that contains significant quantities of gold and silver. The Molybdenum Mines segment includes the Henderson underground mine and Climax open-pit mine, both in Colorado. The Rod and Refining segment consists of copper conversion facilities located in North America and includes a refinery, rod mills, and a specialty copper products facility. The Atlantic Copper Smelting and Refining segment smelts and refines copper concentrate and markets refined copper and precious metals in slimes. The Corporate, Other and Eliminations segment

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The following companies are subsidiares of Jabil: AOC Technologies (Wuhan) Co. Ltd. (China), AOC Technologies Inc. (US), Badger Technologies LLC (US), Celetronix, Celetronix India Private Limited (India), Celetronix USA Inc. (US), Clothing Plus Hong Kong Ltd. (Hong Kong), Clothing Plus MBU Oy (Finland), Clothing Plus Zhejiang Ltd. (China), Clothing+, Ecologic Brands, F-I Holding Company (Cayman Islands), GET Manufacturing, Green Point (Suzhou) Technology Co. Ltd. (China), Green Point (Tianjin) Precision Electronic Co. Ltd. (China), Green Point (Wuxi) Electronic Technology Co. Ltd. (China), Green Point (Yantai) Precision Electronic Co. Ltd. (China), Green Point Industrial Co. Ltd. (British Virgin Islands), Green Point Precision (M) Sdn. Bhd. (Malaysia), Green Point Technology (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd. (China), Green Point Technology (Wuxi) Co. Ltd. (China), Green Prosperity Co. Ltd. (British Virgin Islands), Greenam Electricity (Proprietary) Limited (Namibia) (Jabil indirectly owns 79% of this entity), JN Global Holdings C.V. (Netherlands), JP Danshui Holding (BVI) Inc. (British Virgin Islands), Jabil (Mauritius) Holdings Ltd. (Mauritius), Jabil AMS LLC (US), Jabil Advanced Mechanical Solutions Inc. (US), Jabil Advanced Mechanical Solutions de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V. (Mexico), Jabil C.M. S.r.l. (Italy), Jabil Canada Corporation (Canada), Jabil Chihuahua Holding S. de R.L. de C.V. (Mexico), Jabil Circuit (BVI) Inc. (British Virgin Islands), Jabil Circuit (Beijing) Ltd. (China), Jabil Circuit (Guangzhou) Ltd. (China), Jabil Circuit (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. (China), Jabil Circuit (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (Singapore), Jabil Circuit (Wuxi) Co. Ltd. (China), Jabil Circuit Austria GmbH (Austria), Jabil Circuit Belgium N.V. (Belgium), Jabil Circuit Bermuda Ltd. (Bermuda), Jabil Circuit Cayman L.P. (Cayman Islands), Jabil Circuit China Limited (Hong Kong), Jabil Circuit Financial II Inc. (US), Jabil Circuit Holdings Limited (United Kingdom), Jabil Circuit Hong Kong Limited (Hong Kong), Jabil Circuit Hungary Contract Manufacturing Services Ltd. (Hungary), Jabil Circuit India Private Limited (India), Jabil Circuit Investment (China) Co. Ltd (China), Jabil Circuit Italia S.r.l. (Italy), Jabil Circuit Limited (United Kingdom), Jabil Circuit Luxembourg II S.a.r.l. (Luxembourg), Jabil Circuit Luxembourg S.a.r.l. (Luxembourg), Jabil Circuit Netherlands B.V. (Netherlands), Jabil Circuit SAS (France), Jabil Circuit Sdn Bhd (Malaysia), Jabil Circuit Technology LLC (Cayman Islands), Jabil Circuit Ukraine Limited (Ukraine), Jabil Circuit de Chihuahua S. de R.L. de C.V. (Mexico), Jabil Circuit de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V. (Mexico), Jabil Circuit of Michigan Inc. (US), Jabil DR S.R.L. (Dominican Republic), Jabil Defense and Aerospace Services LLC (US), Jabil Denmark Aps (Denmark), Jabil Dutch Mexico B.V. (Netherlands), Jabil Electronics (Weihai) Co. Ltd. (China), Jabil Energy (Namibia) (PTY) Ltd. (Namibia), Jabil Green Point Precision Electronics (Wuxi) Co. Ltd. (China), Jabil Green Point Technology (Huizhou) Co. Ltd. (China), Jabil Guadalajara Holding S. de R.L. de C.V. (Mexico), Jabil Holding S. de R.L. de C.V. (Mexico), Jabil Hungary LP Services Limited Liability Company (Hungary), Jabil India Manufacturing Private Limited (India), Jabil Industrial do Brasil Ltda. (Brazil), Jabil International Treasury Pte. Ltd (Singapore), Jabil Investment Pte. Ltd. (Singapore), Jabil Israel Ltd. (Israel), Jabil Japan Inc. (Japan), Jabil Korea International Limited (Republic of Korea), Jabil Limited Liability Company (Russian Federation), Jabil Luxembourg Manufacturing S.a.r.l. (Luxembourg), Jabil Mexico Holding S. de R.L. de C.V. (Mexico), Jabil Mexico Investment S. de R.L. de C.V. (Mexico), Jabil Monterrey S. de R.L. de C.V. (Mexico), Jabil Nypro Holding LLC (US), Jabil Nypro I LLC (US), Jabil Nypro II LLC (US), Jabil Nypro International B.V. (Netherlands), Jabil Optics Germany GmbH (Germany), Jabil Pension Trustees Limited (United Kingdom), Jabil Poland Sp. z.o.o. (Poland), Jabil Precision Industry (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd. (China), Jabil Science & Telecommunication Trading (Wuxi) Co. Ltd. (China), Jabil Sdn Bhd (Malaysia), Jabil Services Korea Limited (Republic of Korea), Jabil Silver Creek Inc. (US), Jabil South Africa (Pty) LTD (South Africa), Jabil Switzerland Manufacturing GmbH (Switzerland), Jabil Technology (Chengdu) Co. Ltd (China), Jabil Technology and Trading (Wuxi) Co. Ltd. (China), Jabil Torres S. de R.L. de C.V. (Mexico), Jabil Tuttlingen Manufacturing GmbH (Germany), Jabil Umkirch Manufacturing GmbH (Germany), Jabil Vietnam Company Limited (Vietnam), Jabil do Brasil Industria Eletroeletronica Ltda. (Brazil), Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices, Kasalis, Kasalis Inc. (US), Kuatro Technologies, Kuatro Ukraine LLC (Ukraine), Manna Renewable Energy Investments Two (Pty) Ltd (Namibia, NP Medical Inc. (US), NPA de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V. (Mexico), Nypro, Nypro Alabama LLC (US), Nypro Atlanta LLC (US), Nypro China Holdings Limited (Hong Kong), Nypro DR LLC (US), Nypro Deutschland GmbH (Germany), Nypro France SAS (France), Nypro Germany Holdings GmbH (Germany), Nypro Germany Verwaltungs B.V. & Co. KG (Germany), Nypro Guadalajara S.A. de C.V. (Mexico), Nypro Healthcare Baja Inc. (US), Nypro Healthcare GmbH (Germany), Nypro Healthcare LLC (US), Nypro Inc. (US), Nypro Iowa Inc. (US), Nypro JV Holdings Inc. (US), Nypro Limited (Ireland), Nypro Monterrey Management S. de R.L. de C.V. (Mexico), Nypro Plastics & Metal Products (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd. (China), Nypro Plastics & Molding Products (Suzhou) Co. Ltd. (China), Nypro Puerto Rico Inc. (US), Nypro Research and Developments Limited (Ireland), Nypro Spain Holding S.L.U. (Spain), Nypro Tool Hong Kong Limited (Hong Kong), Nypro de Amazonia (Brazil), Nypro de la Frontera S. de R.L. de C.V. (Mexico), NyproMold Chicago Inc. (US) (Jabil indirectly owns 50% of this entity), NyproMold Inc. (US) (Jabil indirectly owns 50% of this entity), NyproMold Investment Corp. (US) (Jabil indirectly owns 50% of this entity), PT Jabil Circuit Indonesia (Indonesia), Plasticast Hungary Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag (Hungary), Plasticos Castella S.A.U. (Spain), Radius Chicago LLC (US), Radius Hong Kong Limited (Hong Kong), Radius Innovation and Product Development (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. (China), Radius Product Development Inc. (US), Radius Product Development and Consultation (Beijing) Co. Ltd. (China), Roosevelt Insurance Company Ltd. (Cayman Islands), S.M.R. Metal Ltd. (Israel), Shay Motion Ltd. (Israel), Shemer Group, Shemer Motion (2009) Ltd. (Israel), Taiwan Green Point Enterprises, Taiwan Green Point Enterprises Co. Ltd. (British Virgin Islands), Taiwan Green Point Enterprises Co. Ltd. (Taiwan), Telmar Network Technology, TrueTech, Westing Green (Tianjin) Plastic Co. Ltd (China), Wolfe Engineering, Wolfe Engineering (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. (China), and Yen Investments 140 (Proprietary) Limited (Namibia).
Manulife Financial Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides financial products and services in Asia, Canada, the United States, and internationally. The company operates through Wealth and Asset Management Businesses; Insurance and Annuity Products; And Corporate and Other segments. The Wealth and Asset Management Businesses segment provides mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, group retirement and savings products, and institutional asset management services through agents and brokers affiliated with the company, securities brokerage firms, and financial advisors pension plan consultants and banks. The Insurance and Annuity Products segment offers deposit and credit products; individual life, and individual and group long-term care insurance; and guaranteed and partially guaranteed annuity products through insurance agents, brokers, banks, financial planners, and direct marketing. The Corporate and Other segment is involved in property and casualty insurance and reinsurance businesses; and run-off reinsurance operations, including variable annuities, and accident and health. It also manages timberland and agricultural portfolios; and engages in insurance agency, portfolio and mutual fund management, mutual fund dealer, life and financial reinsurance, and fund management businesses. Additionally, the company holds and manages oil and gas properties; holds oil and gas royalties, and foreign bonds and equities; and provides investment management, counseling, advisory, and dealer services. Manulife Financial Corporation was incorporated in 1887 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

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Domtar Corporation designs, manufactures, markets, and distributes communication papers, specialty and packaging papers, and absorbent hygiene products in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and internationally. It operates through two segments, Pulp and Paper, and Personal Care. The company provides business papers, including copy and electronic imaging papers used in inkjet and laser printers, photocopiers, and plain-paper fax machines, as well as computer papers, preprinted forms, and digital papers for office and home use. It also offers commercial printing and publishing papers, such as offset papers and opaques used in sheet and roll fed offset presses; publishing papers, which include tradebook and lightweight uncoated papers for publishing textbooks, dictionaries, catalogs, magazines, hard cover novels, and financial documents; and converting papers for envelopes, tablets, business forms, and data processing/computer forms. In addition, the company provides papers for thermal printing, flexible packaging, food packaging, medical packaging, medical gowns and drapes, sandpaper backing, carbonless printing, labels and other coating, and laminating applications; and papers for industrial and specialty applications, such as carrier papers, treated papers, security papers, and specialized printing and converting applications. Further, it offers absorbent hygiene products, including absorbent briefs, protective underwear, underpads, pads, washcloths, and body patches under the Attends, Indasec, IndasSlip, and Reassure brands; and baby diapers, training and youth pants, and bed mats under the Comfees, Chelino, Nene, and Bambino brand names. The company serves merchants, retail outlets, stationers, printers, publishers, converters, and end-users. Domtar Corporation was founded in 1848 and is based in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

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Cenovus Energy Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops, produces, and markets crude oil, natural gas liquids, and natural gas in Canada, the United States and the Asia Pacific region. The company operates through Oil Sands, Conventional, and Refining and Marketing segments. The Oil Sands segment develops and produces bitumen in northeast Alberta. Its bitumen assets include Foster Creek, Christina Lake, and Narrows Lake, as well as other projects in the early stages of development. The Conventional segment holds assets primarily located in Elmworth-Wapiti, Kaybob-Edson, and Clearwater operating areas of British Columbia and Alberta, as well as various interests in natural gas processing facilities. The Refining and Marketing segment transports and sells crude oil, natural gas, and NGLs. This segment owns a 50% ownership in Wood River and Borger refineries located in the United States; and owns and operates a crude-by-rail terminal in Alberta. Cenovus Energy Inc. was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

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Wall Street analysts have given SPDR Gold Shares 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 SPDR Gold Shares wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
Deutsche BArse AG operates as an exchange organization in Europe, the United States, and the Asia-Pacific. The company operates through seven segments: Eurex (Financial Derivatives), EEX (Commodities), 360T (Foreign Exchange), Xetra (Cash Equities), Clearstream (Post-Trading), IFS (Investment Fund Services), and Qontigo (index and analytics business). The company engages in the electronic trading of derivatives, electricity and gas products, emission rights, and foreign exchange; operating of Eurex Repo over the counter (OTC) trading platform and electronic clearing architecture; and operating as a central counterparty for on-and-off exchange derivatives, repo transactions, and OTC and exchange-traded derivatives. It also operates in the cash market through Xetra, BArse Frankfurt, and Tradegate trading venues; operates as a central counterparty for equities and bonds; and provides listing services. In addition, the company offers custody and settlement services for securities; investment fund services; global securities financing services; and global securities finance and collateral management, as well as secured money, market transaction, and repos and securities lending transaction services. Further, it develops and markets indices, as well as portfolio management and risk analysis software; markets licenses for trading and market signals; provides technology and reporting solutions for external customers; and offers link-up of trading participants. Deutsche BArse AG was founded in 1585 and is headquartered in Eschborn, Germany.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Accenture: 2nd Road, 2nd Road Pty Ltd., ?What If!, ?What If! China Holdings Ltd, ?What If! Holdings Limited, ?What If! Innovation Singapore Holdings Pte, ?What If! Limited, ?What If! Shanghai Co. Ltd, ?What If! USA LLC, ACN Consulting Co Ltd, AD Dialeto Agencia de Publicidade SA, AD.Dialeto (Digital Agency acquired by Accenture), AGS Business and Technology Services Limited, ASM Research Inc., ASM Research LLC, ATAN, Accenture (Beijing) Mobile Technology Co Ltd, Accenture (Botswana) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (China) Co Ltd, Accenture (Shenzhen) Technology Co. Ltd., Accenture (South Africa) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (South Africa) Pty Limited, Accenture (UK) Ltd, Accenture 2 Business Process Services S.A., Accenture 2 LLC, Accenture A/S, Accenture AB, Accenture AG, Accenture AS, Accenture Africa Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Holding B.V., Accenture Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Azerbaijan Ltd, Accenture BPM Operations Support Services S.A., Accenture BPM S.C.R.L., Accenture BV, Accenture Branch Holdings B.V., Accenture Bulgaria EOOD, Accenture Business Services for Utilities Inc, Accenture Business Services of British Columbia Limited Partnership, Accenture Business and Technology Services LLC, Accenture C.A, Accenture CAS GmbH, Accenture Canada Holdings Inc., Accenture Capital DAC, Accenture Capital Inc, Accenture Central Europe B.V., Accenture Chile Asesorias y Servicios Ltda, Accenture Cloud Services GmbH, Accenture Cloud Software Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions LLC, Accenture Cloud Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd., Accenture Communications Infrastructure Solutions Ltd, Accenture Company Ltd, Accenture Consulting Services Ltd Tanzania, Accenture Consultores de Gestao S.A., Accenture Consultoria de Industria e Consumo Ltda, Accenture Consultoria de Recursos Naturais Ltda, Accenture Credit Services LLC, Accenture Customer Services Distribution SAS, Accenture Customer Services Limited, Accenture Danismanlik Limited Sirketi, Accenture Defined Benefit Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Delivery Poland sp. z o.o., Accenture Dienstleistungen GmbH, Accenture Digital France Holdings SA, Accenture Digital Holdings GmbH, Accenture East Africa Limited, Accenture Ecuador S.A., Accenture Egypt LLC, Accenture Enterprise Development (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Accenture Federal Services LLC, Accenture Finance (Gibraltar) III Ltd, Accenture Finance GmbH, Accenture Finance GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II GmbH, Accenture Finance II GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II Ltd, Accenture Finance Limited, Accenture Finance and Accounting BPO Services S.p.A., Accenture Finance and Accounting Services Srl, Accenture Flex LLC, Accenture GP LLC, Accenture Ghana Limited, Accenture Global Holdings Ltd., Accenture Global Services Ltd, Accenture Global Solutions Ltd, Accenture GmbH, Accenture HR Services Ltd, Accenture HR Services S.p.A., Accenture Healthcare Processing Inc., Accenture Holding GmbH, Accenture Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Accenture Holding GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Holdings (Iberia) S.L., Accenture Holdings B.V., Accenture Holdings France SAS, Accenture Holdings plc, Accenture Hungary Holdings Kft, Accenture Inc, Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazylym Cozumleri Limited irketi), Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazlm Cozumleri Limited Sirketi), Accenture Industrial Software Solutions Kft, Accenture Industrial Software Solutions SA, Accenture Insurance Services LLC, Accenture Insurance Services SAS, Accenture Insurance Services SpA, Accenture International BV, Accenture International Capital SCA, Accenture International LLC, Accenture International Limited, Accenture International Sarl, Accenture Japan Ltd, Accenture Korea BV, Accenture LLC, Accenture LLP, Accenture Lanka (Private) Ltd, Accenture Limited, Accenture Ltd, Accenture Ltda, Accenture Maghreb S.a.r.l., Accenture Managed Services SRL, Accenture Managed Services SpA, Accenture Management GmbH, Accenture Middle East B.V, Accenture Middle East BV, Accenture Minority I BV, Accenture Minority III Ltd, Accenture Mozambique Limitada, Accenture Mzansi (Pty) Ltd, Accenture NV/SA, Accenture NZ Limited, Accenture Newco LLC, Accenture Nova Scotia Unlimited Liability Co., Accenture OOO, Accenture Operations Sp. z o.o., Accenture Outsourcing SRL, Accenture Outsourcing Services, Accenture Outsourcing Services S.A., Accenture Oy, Accenture Panama Inc, Accenture Participations BV, Accenture Participations II Limited, Accenture Peru S.R.L, Accenture Peru S.R.L., Accenture Post Trade Processing SAS, Accenture Post-Trade Processing Limited, Accenture Process Ltd, Accenture Product Lifecycle Services, Accenture Properties, Accenture Pte Ltd, Accenture Puerto Rico LLC, Accenture S.A., Accenture S.C., Accenture S.L., Accenture S.R.L., Accenture SAS, Accenture SG Services Pte Ltd, Accenture SRL, Accenture Saudi Arabia Limited, Accenture Sendirian Berhad, Accenture Service Center SRL, Accenture Services (Mauritius) Ltd, Accenture Services AB, Accenture Services AG, Accenture Services AS, Accenture Services GmbH, Accenture Services Ltd, Accenture Services Morocco SA, Accenture Services Oy, Accenture Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Services S.r.l., Accenture Services SRL, Accenture Services Sp. z o.o., Accenture Services Sp. z.o.o., Accenture Services and Technology Srl, Accenture Services fur Kreditinstitute GmbH, Accenture Services s.r.o., Accenture Servicos Administrativos Ltda, Accenture Servicos de Suporte de Negocios Ltda, Accenture Solutions Co Ltd, Accenture Solutions Private Limited, Accenture Solutions Pte Ltd, Accenture Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Solutions Sdn Bhd, Accenture Sp. z o.o., Accenture Sp. z.o.o., Accenture SpA, Accenture State Healthcare Services LLC, Accenture Sub II Inc., Accenture Sub Inc, Accenture Sub LLC, Accenture Systems Integration Limited, Accenture Sarl, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag KFT, Accenture Technologia, Accenture Technologia Consultoria e Outsourcing S.A., Accenture Technology Infrastructure Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (Dalian) Co Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (HK) Co. Ltd., Accenture Technology Solutions (Thailand) Co. Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas S.A., Accenture Technology Solutions GmbH, Accenture Technology Solutions Oy, Accenture Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions S.A. de C.V., Accenture Technology Solutions SAS, Accenture Technology Solutions SRL, Accenture Technology Solutions Sdn. Bhd., Accenture Technology Solutions Slovakia s.r.o., Accenture Technology Ventures BV, Accenture Technology Ventures S.P.R.L., Accenture Uruguay SRL, Accenture Vietnam Co., Accenture Vietnam Co. LTD, Accenture Zambia Limited, Accenture do Brasil Limitada, Accenture plc, Accenture s.r.o., Acceria, Acquity Customer Insight Limited, Acquity Group, Adaptly LLC, Adaptly UK Limited, AddVal Technology, Adqptly, Advantium Inc., Agave Consultants Limited, Agilex Technologies Inc., Allen International, Allen International Consulting Group Ltd, Alnova Technologies Corporation S.L., AlphaBeta Advisors, Altima, Altima Asia Ltd., Altima SAS, Altitude, Altitude LLC, Analytics 8 LP, Analytics 8 Pty Ltd, Analytics8, Aorui Advertising (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Apis, Appaloosa Technology SAS, Arca, Ariba - BPO, Arismore, Aspiro Solutions (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Avanade, Avanade (Guangzhou) Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd., Avanade (Thailand) Co Ltd, Avanade Asia Pte Ltd, Avanade Australia Pty Ltd, Avanade Belgium SPRL, Avanade Canada Inc., Avanade Denmark A/S, Avanade Denmark ApS, Avanade Deutschland GmbH, Avanade Europe Holdings Ltd, Avanade Europe Services Ltd, Avanade Federal Services LLC, Avanade Finland Oy, Avanade France SAS, Avanade GZ Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd. (SH), Avanade Guangzhou, Avanade Holdings LLC, Avanade Hong Kong Ltd, Avanade International Corporation, Avanade Ireland Limited, Avanade Italy SRL, Avanade KK, Avanade Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avanade Netherlands BV, Avanade Norway AS, Avanade Poland Sp. z o.o., Avanade Poland Sp. z.o.o., Avanade Schweiz GmbH, Avanade South Africa, Avanade South Africa Pty Ltd, Avanade Spain SL, Avanade Sweden AB, Avanade UK Ltd, Avanade do Brasil Limitada, Avanade Osterreich GmbH, AvantBiz Consulting Limited, Avenai, Axia Ltd., BABCN LLC, BCT Solutions, BCT Solutions Pty Ltd, BPO Servicos Administrativos Ltda, BRIDGE Energy Group, Beacon Consulting Group Inc., Beijing Genesis Interactive Technology Co. Ltd., Benext, Bionic, Blue Horseshoe, Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Boomerang Pharmaceuticals Communications Ireland Limited, Bow & Arrow, Brand Learning, Brand Learning Group Limited, Brand Learning LLC, Brand Learning Ltd, Brand Learning Partners Limited, Brand Learning Pte Limited, Bridge Energy Group LLC, Brightstep AB, Byte Prophecy, CAS, CRMWaypoint, CadenceQuest Inc., Capable Marketer Limited, Capgemini - North American health practice, Capital Consultancy Services Inc., Certus Solutions Consulting Services Ltd, Certus Solutions Ltd, ChangeTrack Research Pty Ltd., Chaotic Moon Studios, Chengdu Mensa Advertising Co. Ltd., Cimation, Cimation UK Limited, Cirruseo, Cirruseo SAS, Clarity Insights, Clearhead, Clearhead Group, Clearhead Group LLC, ClientHouse GmbH, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Sherpas (GA) LLC, Cloud Sherpas (SN) (PTE.) Limited, Cloud Sherpas New Zealand Ltd., Cloud Talent Limited, Cloudsherpas, Cloudsherpas Inc., Cloudworks, Codagenic Pty. Ltd., Computer Research and Telecommunications LLC, Concrete Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Ltda., Concrete Solutions, Concrete Solutions Ltda., Context Information Security, Coritel S.A., Corliant Inc., CreativeDrive, CustomerWorks Europe SL, Cutting Edge Solutions Ltd, D5 Global Holdings LLC, DAZ Systems Inc, DAZ Systems LLC, DAZSI Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd., DMA Solutions Limited, Davies Consulting, DayNine Consulting, DayNine Consulting (Australia) PTY LTD, DayNine Consulting (Deutschland) GmbH, DayNine Consulting (New Zealand) Limited, DayNine Consulting France SAS, DayNine Consulting Japan K.K., DayNine Consulting LLC, Declarative Holdings, Declarative Holdings LLC, Defense Point Security, Deja vu Security, Design Strategy and Research de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Designaffairs LLC, Digiplug S.A.S., Digiplug SAS, Digital Consulting & Software Services LLC, Droga5, Droga5 LLC, Droga5 Studios LLC, Droga5 UK Ltd., Duck Creek Technologies, Duck Creek Technologies LLC, Deja Vu Security LLC, ESR Labs, Elcurator SAS, Enaxis Consulting, Enaxis Consulting L.P., End-to-End Analytics, Energuia Web, Energuia Web S.A., Energy Management Brokers Ltd., Energy Quote Private Ltd., EnergyQuote JHA, EnergyQuote JHA Ltd., EnergyQuote Trading Ltd., Enimbos, Enkitec, Enterprise System Partners, Enterprise System Partners B.V. , Enterprise System Partners Bilisim Danismanlik Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Enterprise System Partners Global Corporation, Enterprise System Partners Limited, Enterprise System Partners PR LLC, Enterprise System Partners S.A.S., Entropia, Epylon, Ethica Consulting Group, Evopro Group, Exactside Limited, Exton Consulting, Fairway Technologies Inc, Fairway Technologies LLC, Filmproduction ApS, First Annapolis Consulting, First Annapolis Consulting Inc., First Annapolis Consulting LLC, First Annapolis International, Fjord, Focus Group Europe, Focus Group Europe Limited, Formicary, Formicary Holdings Limited, Formicary Limited, FusionX, FutureMove Automotive, Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda., Genfour, Genfour Limited, George Group Consulting L.P., Gestalt LLC, Gestion Altima Canada Inc., Gevity, Global Public Firm S.L., GlobalView SAS, GoodFilm GmbH Filmproduktion Stuttgart, H.B. Maynard and Co. Inc., HRC Retail Advisory, Hagberg Consulting Group, Hangzhou Aiyunzhe Technology Co. Ltd., Happen, Hjaltelin Stahl, Hjaltelin Stahl K/S, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Hytracc Consulting UK Limited, Hytracc Holding AS, I-Faber S.p.A., IBB Consulting, IMJ Corp, IMJ Corporation, INCAD, INSITUM, IT One Company Limited, ITBS Servicios Bancarios de Tecnologia de la Informacion SL, Icon Integration, Imagine Broadband (USA) Ltd, Imagine Broadband USA LLC, Imaginea Inc, Industrie&Co, Infoman AG, Infoman Schweiz AG, Informatica de Euskadi S.L., Infusion Development Inc., Infusion Development UK Limited, InfusionDev LLC, Innoveer Solutions India Pvt Ltd, Insitum Consultoria Argentina SRL, Insitum Consultoria Brasil LTDA, Insitum Consultoria Colombia SAS, Insitum Consultoria Europa SL, Insitum Consultoria Peru SAC, Insitum Consultoria S.A. de C.V., Intrepid, Intrigo Systems Inc, Intrigo Systems India Pvt. Limited, Intrigo Systems LLC, Inventor Advertisement (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inventor Technology Limited, InvestTech, Investtech Systems Consulting LLC, Javelin Group, Javelin Group (Bulgaria) EOOD, Javelin Group Limited (UK), Javelin Group SASU, K Comms Group Limited, KCS.net AG, KCS.net AG West, KCS.net Deutschland GmbH, KCS.net Holding AG, KCS.net Osterreich GmbH, Kaper Communications Limited, Karma Communications Debtco Limited, Karma Communications Group Limited, Karma Communications Holdings Limited, Karmarama, Karmarama Comms Limited, Karmarama Limited, Knowledge Rules Inc., Knowledgent, Knowledgent Group LLC, Kogentix, Kogentix LLC, Kogentix Ltd, Kogentix Singapore Pte. Ltd, Kogentix Technologies Private Limited, Kolle Rebbe, Kolle Rebbe GmbH, Kream Comms Limited, Kunstmaan, Kunstmaan NV, Kurt Salmon, Kurt Salmon Canada LTD, Kurt Salmon UKI, Kurt Salmon UKI Ltd., Kurt Salmon US LLC, LEXTA, LINKBYNET, LabAnswer, LabAnswer Government, LemonXL Limited, Logistics Market Place Limited (UK), Loud & Clear Creative Pty Ltd, MAXIM Systems Inc., MCG US Holdings LLC, Mackevision CG Technology and Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Mackevision Corporation, Mackevision Japan Co. Ltd., Mackevision Korea Ltd, Mackevision Medien Design, Mackevision Medien Design GmbH, Mackevision Singapore Pte. Ltd., Mackevision UK Ltd, Maglan, Maglan Information Defense Technologies Research Ltd., Maihiro, Matter, Matter Llc, Maud Corp Pty Limited, Maxamine International, Media Audits Ltd., Media Hive, Mediasenz Pty Ltd., Meredith Specialty LLC, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing Corporation, Meridian Informed Purchasing Ltd., Mindtribe, Mindtribe Product Engineering LLC, MobGen, MobGen Technology S.L, Moonrise NV, Mortgage Cadence, Mortgage Cadence an Accenture Company, Most Champion Ltd, Mudano, N3 LLC, NBS Marketing Inc., NYTEC, Nanjing Demeng Advertising Co. Ltd., Nashco Consulting, NaviSys Inc., NellArmonia, Neo Metrics Analytics S.L., Neo Metrics Chile, Neo Metrics Chile S.A., New Content, New Content Chile SpA, New Content Editora e Produtora Ltda., New Energy Aborda, New Energy Associates Ltd, New Energy Group, New Energy S.r.l., NewsPage, NewsPage (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, NewsPage China Ltd., NewsPage Pte Ltd, Nice Agency Limited, Northstream, Northstream AB, Northstream Holding AB, OCTO Technology, OPS Rules Management Consultants, Octagon Research Solutions Inc., Octo Technology LTDA, Octo Technology Pty Ltd, Octo Technology SA, Octo Technology SPRL, Octoman SAS, Odgaard ApS, Olikka, Openmind, Openminded, Operaciones Accenture S.A. de C.V., OpusLine, Orbium, Orbium Consulting Ltd, Orbium GmbH, Orbium Holding AG, Orbium Inc., Orbium International AG, Orbium International sp. z o.o., Orbium Licences AG, Orbium Limited, Orbium Pte. Ltd., Orbium Pty Ltd, Orbium Services sp. z o.o., Orbium Sarl, Origin Digital, PCO Innovation, PCO Innovation Canada Inc., PCO Innovation EURL, PIXO PUNCH Limited, PLM Systems S.r.l, POC Holdings, PRION GmbH, PT Accenture, PT Asta Catur Indra, PT Kogentix Teknologi Indonesia, Pach Invest SARL, Pach Invest SAS, PacificLink Group, PacificLink iMedia Ltd., Paja Finanssipalvelut Oy, Parker Fitzgerald Inc, Parker Fitzgerald Inc., Parker Fitzgerald International Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Limited, Parker Fitzgerald PTY Ltd, Parker Fitzgerald Services Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Solutions Limited, Partners Technology Mexico Holdings BV, Pecaso Ltd., Pegasus Production K/S, Perseroan Terbatas. Accenture, Phase One Consulting Group, Pillar Technology, Pollux, Pragsis Bidoop, Pragsis Bidoop UK Ltd, Pragsis Technologies S.L, PrimeQ, PrimeQ Australia Pty Ltd, PrimeQ Ltd, PrimeQ NZ Pty Ltd, Procurian Germany GmbH, Procurian Inc., Procurian International I LLC, Procurian International II LLC, Procurian LLC, Procurian Singapore Pte. Ltd., Procurian Switzerland GmbH, Procurian USA LLC, Proquire LLC, PureApps Ltd., Qi Jie Beijing Information Technologies Co Ltd, Radiant Services, Radiant Services LLC, Random Walk Computing Inc., Reactive Media Limited, Reactive Media Pty Ltd., Real Protect, Realworld OO Systems Ltd., Redcore, Redcore (Asia) Pte Ltd, Redcore (India) Private Limited (India), Redcore (New Zealand) Limited, Redcore Group Holdings Pty Ltd, Redcore Pty Ltd, Renacentis IT Services, Revolutionary Security, RiskControl, Rothco, Rothco Holdings Designated Activity Company, Rothco Unlimited Company, S.C. EnergyQuote S.r.l., S3 TV Technology Limited, S3 TV Technology Ltd., SEC Servizi, SEC Servizi S.p.A., SOPIA Corp., Sagacious Consultants, Sagacious Consultants LLC, Salt Solutions, Sanchez Capital Services Pvt Ltd, Schlumberger Business Consulting, Seabury Airline Planning Group, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace (UK) Limited, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace Asia (Hong Kong) Limited, Seabury Aviation Consulting LLC, Seabury Cargo Advisory B.V., Seabury Consulting, Seabury Corporate Advisors LLC, Seabury Human Capital LLC, Seabury Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Seabury Structured Finance LLC, Search Technologies BPO, Search Technologies BPO Inc., Search Technologies GmbH, Search Technologies International LLC, Search Technologies LATAM, Search Technologies LATAM S.A., Search Technologies LLC, Search Technologies Limited, Sente Partners LLC, Sentelis, Servicios Tecnicos de Programacion Accenture S.C., Shackleton, Shackleton Barcelona S.L., Shackleton Chile S.A., Shackleton Madrid S.L., Shackleton S.A., Shanghai Baiyue Advertising Co. Ltd., Shun Zhe Technology Development Co. Ltd., Silveo, Simian Pty Limited, SinnerSchrader AG, SinnerSchrader Commerce GmbH, SinnerSchrader Content GmbH, SinnerSchrader Deutschland GmbH, SinnerSchrader Praha s.r.o., SinnerSchrader Swipe GmbH, Sinnerschrader, Sistemes Consulting S.L., Solutions IQ, Solutions IQ LLC, SolutionsIQ, SolutionsIQ India Consulting Services Private Limited, Storm Digital, Storm Digital B.V., Structure Consulting Group, Structure Consulting Group LLC, Sutter Mills, Systor AG, TQuila Limited (UK), Tadata Creative Unlimited Company, Tara Insurance DAC, Tara Risk DAC, TargetST8, TargetST8 Consulting LLC, Tech - Avanade Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Tecnilogica Ecosistemas S.A., Tecnilogica Ltd., Tecnilogica, The Brand Learning Partners Limited, The Callisto Integration Corporation, The Monkeys, The Monkeys Pty Limited, The Myrtle Group, Total Logistics, Total Logistics Supply Chain Consultants Limited, Tquila, Trivadis AG, Troop Studios Pty Ltd, VanBerlo, Verax Solutions, Verax Solutions Corporation, Vertical Retail Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong, Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Ltd., Vivere Brasil Servicos e Solucoes SA, Vivere Brasil Solucoes De Credito Ltda., Wabion GmbH, Weblinc Pty Ltd, Wire Stone, Wire Stone LLC, Wire Stone Sarl, Wolox, Workforce Insight Inc, Yesler, Zag, Zenta, Zenta Global Philippines, Zenta Global Philippines Inc., Zenta Mortgage Services LLC, Zenta Recoveries Inc, Zenta US Holdings Inc., Zielpuls, Zielpuls (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zielpuls GmbH, avVenta, designaffairs, designaffairs Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., designaffairs GmbH, designaffairs group China Co. Ltd., dgroup, i4C Analytics, iDefense, and solid-serVision.com GmbH.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc is a healthcare company, which engages in the research, development, and manufacture of pharmaceutical medicines, vaccines, and consumer healthcare products. It operates through the following segments: Pharmaceuticals; Pharmaceuticals R&D; Vaccines and Consumer Healthcare. The Pharmaceuticals segment focuses on developing medicines in respiratory and infectious diseases, oncology, and immuno-inflammation. The Pharmaceuticals R&D segment focuses on science related to the immune system, the use of human genetics and advanced technologies, and is driven by the multiplier effect of Science x Technology x Culture. The Vaccines segment produces pediatric and adult vaccines to prevent a range of infectious diseases including, hepatitis A and B, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, measles, mumps and rubella, polio, typhoid, influenza, and bacterial meningitis. The Consumer Healthcare segment develops and markets brands in the oral health, pain relief, respiratory, nutrition and gastro intestinal, and skin health categories. The company was founded in 1715 and is headquartered in Middlesex, the United Kingdom.

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Thomson Reuters Corporation provides business information services in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates in five segments: Legal Professionals, Corporates, Tax & Accounting Professionals, Reuters News, and Global Print. The Legal Professionals segment offers research and workflow products focusing on legal research and integrated legal workflow solutions that combine content, tools, and analytics to law firms and governments. The Corporates segment provides a suite of content-enabled technology solutions for legal, tax, regulatory, compliance, and IT professionals. The Tax & Accounting Professionals segment offers research and workflow products focusing on tax offerings and automating tax workflows to tax, accounting, and audit professionals in accounting firms. The Reuters News segment provides business, financial, national, and international news to professionals through desktop terminals, media organizations, and industry events, as well as directly to consumers. The Global Print segment offers legal and tax information primarily in print format to legal and tax professionals, governments, law schools, and corporations. The company was formerly known as The Thomson Corporation and changed its name to Thomson Reuters Corporation in April 2008. The company was founded in 1851 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Thomson Reuters Corporation is a subsidiary of The Woodbridge Company Limited.

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GTT Communications, Inc. provides cloud networking services to multinational enterprises, carriers, and government customers in the United States, Europe, and internationally. The company offers wide area networking, such as software-defined wide area networking, multiprotocol label switching, and virtual private LAN service; high bandwidth-Internet connectivity and IP transit, as well as broadband and wireless Internet access services; managed equipment and security services; and unified communication services consisting of session initiation protocol trunking, cloud unified communication service, and traditional analog voice. It also provides transport services, such as Ethernet services that enable to design network equipment; and video transport services to support broadcast quality transmission of live events, sports entertainment, and news to media and entertainment industry. In addition, the company offers infrastructure services enabling transport of high volume data between data centers, enterprise office locations, and media hubs; wavelength services to deliver scalable high-performance optical connectivity; colocation, turnkey, duct, and dark fiber services; advanced solutions, including security, hybrid cloud, database, and application management Its IP network consists of approximately 600 points of presence. GTT Communications, Inc. markets its products and services through a network of direct sales force and indirect sales channels. The company was formerly known as Global Telecom & Technology, Inc. and changed its name to GTT Communications, Inc. in January 2014. GTT Communications, Inc. was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia.

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IGM Financial, Inc. operates as a financial services company, which engages in the management and distribution of mutual funds and other managed asset products. It operates through the following segments: Wealth Management, Asset Management, and Strategic Investments & Other. The Wealth Management segment reflects the activities of operating companies that are principally focused on providing financial planning and related services to Canadian households, which includes the activities of IG Wealth Management and Investment Planning Counsel. These firms are retail distribution organizations who serve Canadian households through their securities dealers, mutual fund dealers and other subsidiaries licensed to distribute financial products and services, which also includes the investment management activities of these organizations, including mutual fund management and discretionary portfolio management services. The Asset Management segment reflects the activities of operating companies focused on providing investment management services and represents the operations of Mackenzie Investments. Investment management services are provided to a suite of investment funds that are distribut

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Infineon Technologies AG designs, develops, manufactures, and markets semiconductors and related system solutions worldwide. Its Automotive segment offers automotive microcontrollers; 3D ToF, magnetic, and pressure sensors; discrete power semiconductors; IGBT modules; industrial microcontrollers; power and radar sensor integrated circuits (ICs); transceivers; silicon carbide diodes, MOSEFTs, and modules; and voltage regulators for use in assistance and safety systems, comfort electronics, infotainment, powertrain, and security products. The company's Industrial Power Control segment provides bare dies, discrete IGBTs, driver ICs, SIC diodes, and IGBT modules and stacks for home appliances, industrial drives, industrial power supplies, industrial robotics, industrial vehicles, and traction, as well as for energy generation, storage, and transmission. Its Power & Sensor Systems segment offers gas sensors, MEMS microphones, and pressure sensors chips; discrete low-voltage, mid-voltage, and high-voltage power MOSFETs; control ICs; customized chips; GaN power switches; GPS low-noise amplifiers; low-voltage and high-voltage driver ICs; radar sensor ICs; RF antenna switches and power transistors; transient voltage suppressor diodes; and USB controllers for use in audio amplifiers, automotive electronics, BLDC motors, cellular communications infrastructure, electric vehicle charging stations, human machine interaction, high-reliability components, Internet of Things, LED and conventional lighting systems, mobile devices, and power management applications. The company's Connected Secure Systems segment provides connectivity solutions, embedded security controllers, microcontrollers, and security controllers for authentication, automotive, consumer electronics, government identification document, Internet of Things, mobile communication, payment system, ticketing, access control, and trusted computing applications. Infineon Technologies AG is headquartered in Munich, Germany.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Archer-Daniels-Midland: ADM (Shanghai) Management Co. LTD, ADM (Thailand) Ltd, ADM Ag Holdings Ltd, ADM Agri-Industries Company, ADM Agriculture Limited, ADM Agro Iberica S. L. U., ADM Agro Indust Latur and Vizag Pvt Ltd, ADM Agro Industries India Private Limited, ADM Agro Industries KOTA and AKOLA Pvt. Ltd., ADM Agro SRL, ADM Agroinvestimentos LTDA, ADM Alliance Nutrition of Puerto Rico LLC, ADM Americas S de RL, ADM Andina Peru SRL, ADM Antwerp NV, ADM Arkady Ireland Limited, ADM Asia-Pacific Trading Pte. Ltd., ADM Australia Holdings I PTY Limited, ADM Bio Science And Technology (Tianjin) Co Ltd, ADM Bioproductos SA DE CV, ADM CZERNIN SA, ADM Caribbean Inc, ADM Chile Comercial LTDA, ADM Clinton Bioprocessing Inc, ADM DO Brasil LTDA, ADM Direct Polska SP. ZO.O, ADM Dominican Holdings Inc., ADM Dominicana SA, ADM Edible Bean Specialties Inc, ADM Europe HoldCo SL, ADM European Holdings LLC, ADM European Management Holding GMBH, ADM Export Co, ADM Food Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd., ADM France, ADM Germany GmbH, ADM Grain River System Inc., ADM Hamburg Aktiengesesllschaft, ADM Holding (Thailand) LTD, ADM Holdings LLC, ADM Hungary Agro Trading LLC, ADM Industries Centers Ltd, ADM International Holdings Inc, ADM International SARL, ADM Interoceanic LTD, ADM Investments LTD, ADM Investor Services Inc, ADM Investor Services International LTD, ADM Ireland Receivables Company Limited, ADM Israel, ADM Japan Ltd, ADM MALBORK SA, ADM Mainz GMBH, ADM Medsofts Sarl, ADM Mexico Inc, ADM Mexico SA DE CV, ADM Milling Co, ADM Milling LTD, ADM New Zealand Limited, ADM Olomouc S.R.O., ADM Paraguay SRL, ADM Protexin Limited, ADM Pura Limited, ADM Receivables LLC, ADM Rice Inc, ADM Ringaskiddy Unlimited Company, ADM Romania Logistics SRL, ADM Romania Trading SRL, ADM Specialty Ingredients - Europe BV, ADM Spyck GMBH, ADM Szamotuly SP Z O.O, ADM Trading Australia Pty. Ltd., ADM Trading Co, ADM Transportation Company, ADM Trucking Inc, ADM Vietnam CO. LTD, ADM WILD Europe GmbH and Co. KG, ADM WILD Ingredients GmbH, ADM WILD Nauen GmbH, ADM WILD Valencia S.A., ADM Wild Netherlands BV, ADM Worldwide Holdings LP, ADMIS Holding Co Inc., ADMIS Hong Kong LTD, ADMIS Singapore Pte Limited, AOR, AT Holdings II Company, Agri Port Services Investments Ltd., Agri Port Services LLC, Agricolas Madagascar SARLU, Agrinational Insurance Co, Agriserve, Agrograin LTD, Alfrebro LLC, Alfred C Toepfer International Netherlands BV, Alimenta USA, American River Transportation Company LLC, Ameriseed, Amylum Bulgaria EAD, Amylum Nisasta Sanayi Ve Ticarek Anonim Sirketi, Archer Daniels Midland (UK) Limited, Archer Daniels Midland Asia Pacific Ltd., Archer Daniels Midland Erith LTD, Archer Daniels Midland Europe BV, Archer Daniels Midland Europoort BV, Archer Daniels Midland Nederland BV, Archer Daniels Midland Singapore PTE LTD, Arinos Unlimited, Aston Foods & Food Ingredients, Balanceados Nova SA Balnova, Barbados Mills Limited, Bela Vista Bio Etanol Participacoes LTDA, Bern Aqua, BioPolis SL, Biopolis, Campa Sued GmbH & Co KG, Cattleman's Choice Loomix LLC, Chamtor, Ci ADM Colombia Ltda., Controladora ADM Sa De Cv, Crosswind Petfoods Inc., Daavision BV, Eaststarch, Eatem Corporation, Eatem Foods, Elstar Oils, English River Pellets Inc., Epicore Bionetworks INC, Epicore Networks (USA) INC, Erich Ziegler GmbH, Evialis France, Fasco Mills Co., Filozoo SRL, Florida Chemical, Florida Chemical Company LLC, GP Blanching Inc., Global Cocoa Holdings LTD, Golden Peanut Company LLC, Golden Peanut and Tree Nut Seed SA (PTY) LTD, Golden Peanut and Tree Nuts SA, Group Lysac, Guyomarc'h - VCN Company Limited, Guyomarc'h Vietnam CO LTD, HFR Shipping Company Ltd, HRA Shipping Company Ltd, HTI Shipping Company Ltd, Harvest Innovations, Hilltop Grain and Feed, Holding P and A Asia Company Limited, Hubei Meiweiyuan Biotechnology, Ilitchevskiy Maslo Extractionniy Zavod (IMEZ), Invivo NSA Asia PTE LTD, Invivo NSA Philippines Inc, Jamaica Flour Mills Limited, Julius Meijer-Alpharma BV, LLC ADM Ukraine, Liquid Feed Commodities, Malta Industries SA de CV, Malta-Texo De Mexico SA de CV, Master Mix of Trinidad LTD, Medsofts Investment Co, Medsofts L.L.C., Medsofts Trading Co, Mepla Comercio e Navegacao Ltda, NRG Inc, Naviera Chaco SRL, Neovia, Neovia Latina SL, Neovia Nutricao E Saude Animal LTDA, North Star Shipping S.R.L., P and A Marketing SA, PJSC ADM Illichivsk, PT Wirifa Sakti, Pancosma (Shanghai) Feed Additives CO LTD, Pancosma France SAS, Pancosma SA, Premiere Agri Technologies of Mexico Inc, Pura Foods LTD, Rodelle Inc., Schokinag-Schokolade-Industrie Herrmann, Sermix, Setna Nutricion SA, Societe Industrielle Des Oleagineux, Southern Cellulose Products Inc, Soy Investors LLC, Specialty Commodities, Specialty Commodities LLC, Sul Mineira Alimentos LTDA, SzSzV Kft, Toepfer International, Toepfer International Trading (Shanghai) Co. LTD., Vantage Corn Processors LLC, WILD Amazon Flavors Ltda, WILD Flavors, Wild Flavors Inc., Wild Flavors International GmbH, Wild Flavors Singapore Pte. Ltd., Wild Intermare GmbH, Wild Russia LLC, and Wisium SA (PTY) LTD.
Lloyds Banking Group plc, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of banking and financial services in the United Kingdom and internationally. It operates through three segments: Retail; Commercial Banking; and Insurance and Wealth. The Retail segment offers a range of financial service products, including current accounts, savings accounts, mortgages, motor finance, unsecured loans, leasing solutions, credit cards, and other financial services to personal and small business customers. The Commercial Banking segment provides lending, transactional banking, working capital management, risk management, and debt capital market services to small and medium-sized entities, corporates, and financial institutions. The Insurance and Wealth segment offers life, home, and car insurance products; and pension, investment, and wealth management products and services. It also provides digital and mobile banking, and telephone services, as well as advisory services for savings, investments, and planning for retirement. The company offers its products and services under the Lloyds Bank, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Scottish Widows, MBNA, Schroders Personal Wealth, Black Horse, Lex Autolease, Birmingham Midshires, LDC, IWeb, and Agricultural Mortgage Corporation brands. Lloyds Banking Group plc was founded in 1695 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

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Bank of America Corp. is a bank and financial holding company, which engages in the provision of banking and nonbank financial services. It operates through the following segments: Consumer Banking, Global Wealth and Investment Management, Global Banking, Global Markets, and All Other. The Consumer Banking segment offers credit, banking, and investment products and services to consumers and small businesses. The Global Wealth and Investment Management provides client experience through a network of financial advisors focused on to meet their needs through a full set of investment management, brokerage, banking, and retirement products. The Global Banking segment deals with lending-related products and services, integrated working capital management and treasury solutions to clients, and underwriting and advisory services. The Global Markets segment includes sales and trading services, as well as research, to institutional clients across fixed-income, credit, currency, commodity, and equity businesses. The All Other segment consists of asset and liability management activities, equity investments, non-core mortgage loans and servicing activities, the net impact of periodic revisions

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Xcel Energy, Inc. operates as a holding company, which engages in the generation, purchase, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity. It operates through the following three segments: Regulated Electric Utility, Regulated Natural Gas Utility and All Others. The Regulated Electric Utility segment generates, transmits and distributes electricity primarily in portions of generates, transmits and distributes electricity in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Texas and New Mexico. In addition, this segment includes sales for resale and provides wholesale transmission service to various entities in the United States. It also includes commodity trading operations. The Regulated Natural Gas Utility segment transports, stores, and distributes natural gas primarily in portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Michigan and Colorado. The All Others segment engages in steam, appliance repair services, nonutility real estate activities, processing solid waste into refuse-derived fuel and investments in rental housing projects that qualify for low-income housing tax credits. The company was founded in 1909 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN.

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Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI EAFE 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 EAFE ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Sealed Air: A.P.S. (Holdings) Limited, AFP Trading (China) Co. Ltd., AFPTOH LTD, APS Automated Packaging Systems GmbH & Co. KG, APS Verwaltungs-GmbH, Air Ride Pallets Hong Kong Limited, Austin Foam Plastics Inc. (dba AFP Inc.), Automated Packaging Systems, Automated Packaging Systems Asia Holding Company Limited, Automated Packaging Systems Comerciale Importacao do Brasil Ltda., Automated Packaging Systems Europe, Automated Packaging Systems LLC, Automated Packaging Systems Limited, Automated Packaging Systems Southeast Asia Co. Ltd., B+ Equipment, B+ Equipment SAS, Beacon Holdings LLC, Biosphere Industries, BluPack (New Zealand), Blue Dot Packaging Pty Ltd., Cactus (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Cryovac (Malaysia) SDN. BHD, Cryovac Brasil Ltda., Cryovac Holdings II LLC, Cryovac International Holdings Inc., Cryovac LLC*, Cryovac Leasing Corporation, Cryovac Londrina Ltda., Cryovac Packaging Portugal  Embalagens Ltda., Cryovac-Sealed Air de Costa Rica S.R.L., DELTAPLAM Embalagens Industria e Comercio, Diversey, Diversey J Trustee Limited, Diversey Trustee Limited, Entapack Pty. Ltd., Fagerdala (Chengdu) Packaging Co. Ltd, Fagerdala (Shanghai) Foams Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Shanghai) Polymer Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Suzhou) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Thailand) Limited, Fagerdala (Xiamen) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala Leamchabung Limited, Fagerdala Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Fagerdala Mexico S.A. de C.V., Fagerdala Mexico Supply Chain S.A. de C.V., Fagerdala Packaging Inc. (Indiana), Fagerdala Singapore Pte Ltd, Fagerdala Singapore Pte. Ltd., Getpacking.com GmbH, Invertol S. de R.L. de C.V., JSC Sealed Air Kaustik, KRIS Automated Packaging Systems Holding Company, Kevothermal LLC, Kevothermal Limited, Nelipak Holdings, Pack-Tiger GmbH, Polyrol Limited, Polyrol Packaging Systems LLC, ProAseptic Technologies S.L., Producembal- Producao de Embalagens LTDA, Reflectix Inc., SLD Air Packaging Paketleme Malzemeleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Saddle Brook Insurance Company, Sealed Air (Asia) Holdings BV, Sealed Air (Barbados) S.R.L., Sealed Air (Canada) Co./CIE, Sealed Air (Canada) Holdings B.V., Sealed Air (China) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air (China) Limited, Sealed Air (Israel) Ltd., Sealed Air (Korea) Limited, Sealed Air (Latin America) Holdings II LLC, Sealed Air (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Sealed Air (New Zealand), Sealed Air (Philippines) Inc., Sealed Air (Singapore) Pte. Limited, Sealed Air (Ukraine) Limited, Sealed Air Africa (Pty.) Limited, Sealed Air Americas Manufacturing S. de R.L. de C.V., Sealed Air Argentina S.A., Sealed Air Australia (Holdings) Pty. Limited, Sealed Air Australia Pty. Limited, Sealed Air Australia Real Estate Pty Ltd, Sealed Air B.V., Sealed Air Belgium N.V., Sealed Air Central America S.A., Sealed Air Chile SpA, Sealed Air Colombia Ltda., Sealed Air Corporation (US), Sealed Air Cyprus Ltd., Sealed Air Denmark A/S, Sealed Air Finance B.V., Sealed Air Finance II LLC, Sealed Air Finance Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Funding LLC, Sealed Air General Trading LLC, Sealed Air GmbH (Germany), Sealed Air GmbH (Switzerland), Sealed Air Hellas SA, Sealed Air Holding France SAS, Sealed Air Holdings (New Zealand) Pty. Ltd., Sealed Air Holdings South Africa Proprietary Limited, Sealed Air Holdings UK I Limited, Sealed Air Holdings UK Limited, Sealed Air Hong Kong Limited, Sealed Air Hungary Ltd., Sealed Air Investment and Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air Japan G.K., Sealed Air LLC, Sealed Air Limited (Ireland), Sealed Air Limited (UK), Sealed Air Luxembourg (I) S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Luxembourg (II) S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Management Holding Verwaltungs GmbH, Sealed Air Multiflex GmbH, Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) I B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) II B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands Holdings V B.V., Sealed Air Norge AS, Sealed Air OY, Sealed Air Packaging (India) Private Limited, Sealed Air Packaging (Shanghai) Co. Limited, Sealed Air Packaging (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air Packaging LLC, Sealed Air Packaging Materials (India) LLP, Sealed Air Packaging S.L.U., Sealed Air Peru S.A.C., Sealed Air Polska Sp. Zoo, Sealed Air Pty Limited, 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 UK Limited Partnership, Sealed Air US Holdings (Thailand) LLC, Sealed Air Uruguay S.A., Sealed Air Verpackungen GmbH, Sealed Air de Mexico Operations S. de RL. de C.V., Sealed Air de Venezuela S.A., Sealed Air s.r.o., Shanklin Corp, Shanklin Corporation, TTS-Ciptec, TXAFP Asia Pacific Ltd., TXAFP GP LLC, and Trigon Industries.
The following companies are subsidiares of EnerSys: ABSL Power Solutions Inc., ABSL Power Solutions Ltd., Acumuladores Industriales EnerSys SA, Alpha Alternative Energy Inc., Alpha Broadband Services Inc., Alpha Innovations Industria e Comercio de Produtos Eletronicos Ltda., Alpha Innovations Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Alpha Mexico Network Power S.A. de C.V., Alpha Tech Energy Solutions India Private Limited, Alpha Technical Services Ltd., Alpha Technologies Ltd., Alpha Technologies Pty. Ltd., Alpha Technologies Services Inc., Alphatec Technologies (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Argus Research Ltd., Batterias Hawker de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Battery Power International Pte Ltd., Coppervale Enterprises Inc., DCPM Engineering Sdn Bhd, EH Batterien AG, EH Europe GmbH, EH Global Holdings GmbH, EH Swiss Holdings GmbH, ENAS Industrial Batteries Morocco Sarl, EnerSys (Chaozhou) Huada Batteries Company Limited, EnerSys (China) Huada Batteries Company Limited, EnerSys (Chongqing) Huada Batteries Company Limited, EnerSys (Jiangsu) Huada Batteries Company Limited (94.7%) *, EnerSys (Luxembourg) Finance Sarl, EnerSys (Yangzhou) Huada Batteries Co. Ltd., EnerSys A/S, EnerSys AB, EnerSys AD, EnerSys AE, EnerSys AS, EnerSys Advanced Systems Inc., EnerSys Argentina S.A., EnerSys Asia Limited, EnerSys Australia Pty Ltd., EnerSys BV, EnerSys BVBA, EnerSys Battery Private Limited, EnerSys Brasil Ltda., EnerSys Bulgaria EOOD, EnerSys Canada Inc., EnerSys Capital Inc., EnerSys Cayman Euro L.P., EnerSys Cayman Holdings L.P., EnerSys Cayman Inc., EnerSys Delaware Inc., EnerSys Delaware LLC I, EnerSys Delaware LLC II, EnerSys Delaware LLC III, EnerSys Delaware LLC IV, EnerSys Delaware LLC V, EnerSys Energy Products Inc., EnerSys Europe Oy, EnerSys European Holding Co., EnerSys GmbH, EnerSys Holdings (Luxembourg) Sarl, EnerSys Holdings UK Ltd., EnerSys Hungaria Kft., EnerSys India Batteries Private Ltd., EnerSys JSC, EnerSys LLC, EnerSys Ltd., EnerSys Malaysia Sdn Bhd, EnerSys Mexico Holdings LLC, EnerSys Mexico Management LLC, EnerSys Participacoes Ltda., EnerSys Reserve Power Pte. Ltd., EnerSys S.r.l., EnerSys SARL, EnerSys SNC, EnerSys South East Asia Pte. Ltd., EnerSys de Mexico II S de R.L. de CV, EnerSys de Mexico S de R.L. de CV, EnerSys s.r.o., EnerSys sp. z o.o., EnerSystem Chile Ltda., Enersys Aku Sanaya Dis Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Esfinco LLC, Hawker GmbH, Hawker Power Systems Inc., Hawker Powersource Inc., Hawker Systems GmbH & Co. KG., ICS Industries Pty Ltd, ICS Industries Pty Ltd., ICS Sheet Metal Pty Ltd., Industrial Battery Holding Ltda., International Communication Shelters Australasia Pty Ltd., Lancord Pty Ltd., Lenmic Pty Ltd., MIB Energy Sdn Bhd, N Holding AB, National Infrastructure Pty Ltd., National Infrastructure Services Pty Ltd., NaviSemi Energy Pte Ltd., NaviSemi Inc., New Pacifico Realty Inc., NorthStar Battery Company LLC, NorthStar Battery Company LLC, NorthStar Battery DMCC, Outback Power Technologies Inc., Powercom (NSW) Pty Ltd., Powersonic S de R.L. de CV, Purcell Systems, Purcell Systems Inc., Purcell Systems International AB, Quallion LLC, Riverfront Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., Shenzhen Huada Power Supply Mechanical & Electrical Co. Ltd. , SiteTel Shanghai Co Ltd., SiteTel Sweden AB, Telecomponents & Supply (Hong Kong) Ltd., The Enser Corporation, UTS Holdings Sdn Bhd, UTS Technology (JB) Sdn Bhd, UTS Technology (PG) Sdn Bhd, YCI Inc., and Yecoltd S. de R.L. de CV.
Varian Medical Systems, Inc. designs, manufactures, sells, and services medical devices and software products for treating cancer and other medical conditions worldwide. It operates through Oncology Systems and Proton Solutions segments. The Oncology Systems segment offers hardware and software products for treating cancer with radiotherapy, fixed field intensity-modulated radiation therapy, image-guided radiation therapy, volumetric modulated arc therapy, stereotactic radiosurgery, stereotactic body radiotherapy, artificial intelligence based adaptive radiotherapy, and brachytherapy, as well as quality assurance equipment. Its products include linear accelerators, brachytherapy afterloaders, treatment accessories, and quality assurance software; and information management, treatment planning, image processing, clinical knowledge exchange, patient care management, decision-making support, and practice management software. This segment serves university research and community hospitals, private and governmental institutions, healthcare agencies, physicians' offices, medical oncology practices, radiotherapy centers, and cancer care clinics. The Proton Solutions segment designs, develops, manufactures, sells, and services products and systems for delivering proton therapy for the treatment of cancer. The company has a strategic agreement with McKesson Corp. to supply treatment delivery systems and planning, services, and radiotherapy information system solutions to its U.S. Oncology Network and Vantage Oncology affiliated sites of care; and a strategic partnership with Siemens AG to represent Siemens diagnostic imaging products to radiation oncology clinics in the United States and other select markets. Varian Medical Systems, Inc. was formerly known as Varian Associates, Inc. and changed its name to Varian Medical Systems, Inc. in April 1999. The company was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

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Unum Group is engaged in providing financial protection benefits. It operates through the following segments: Unum US, Unum International, Colonial Life, Closed Block and Corporate. The Unum US segment comprises of group long-term and short-term disability insurance, group life and accidental death and dismemberment products, and supplemental and voluntary lines of business. The Unum International segment engages in the operations of UK business, which includes insurance for group long-term disability, group life, and supplemental lines of business that include dental, individual disability, and critical illness products; Poland business primarily includes insurance for individual and group life with accident and health riders. The Colonial Life segment includes insurance for accident, sickness, disability products, life products, and cancer and critical illness products. The Closed Block segment consists of individual disability, group and individual long-term care, and other insurance products no longer actively marketed. The Corporate segment refers to investment income on corporate assets and other corporate income and expenses not allocated to a line of business; and interest

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The following companies are subsidiares of AON: 6824625 Canada Ltd., 7193599 Canada Inc., A.B. Insurances Limited, ADIS A/S, AIB Services Limited, AIS Affinity Insurance Agency Inc., AIS Insurance Agency Inc., AMXH LLC, ARM International Corp., ARM International Insurance Agency Corp., ARMRISK CORP., AS Holdings Inc., ASPN Insurance Agency LLC, Access Plans USA Inc., Acumen Credit Insurance Brokers Limited, Adm Administradora de Beneficios Ltda., Administradora Aon C.A., Admiseg SA, Admix, Admix - Administracao Consultoria Participacoes e Corretora de Seguros de Vida Ltda., Aeropeople Limited, Affinity Group Insurance Services Limited, Affinity Insurance Services Inc., Affinity Risk Partners (Brokers) Pty Ltd, Agenion N.V./SA, Agility Credit Insurance Brokers Limited, Alexander & Alexander Holding B.V., Alexander Clay, Alexander Insurance Managers (Netherlands Antilles) N.V., Alexander Reinsurance Intermediaries Inc., Allen Insurance Associates Inc., Alliance HealthCard Inc., Alliance HealthCard of Florida Inc., American Insurance Services Corp., American Special Risk Insurance Company, Aon (Bermuda) Ltd., Aon (CR) Insurance Agencies Company Limited, Aon (DIFC) Gulf Limited, Aon (Fiji) Ltd., Aon (Isle of Man) Limited, Aon (Thailand) Limited, Aon 180412 Limited (in liquidation), Aon ANZ Holdings Limited, Aon APAC Holdings B.V., Aon Acore Sarl, Aon Adjudication Services Limited, Aon Affinity Administradora de Beneficios Ltda., Aon Affinity Argentina S.A., Aon Affinity Chile Ltda., Aon Affinity Colombia Ltda. Agencia de Seguros, Aon Affinity Mexico Agente de Seguros y de Fianzas S.A. de C.V., Aon Affinity Mexico S.A. de C.V., Aon Affinity Servicos e Participacoes Ltda., Aon Affinity do Brasil Servicos e Corretora de Seguros Ltda., Aon Agencies Hong Kong Limited, Aon Americas Holdings BV, Aon Angola Corretores de Seguros Limitada, Aon Antillen N.V., Aon Aruba N.V., Aon Assurance Agencies Hong Kong Limited, Aon Australia Group Pty Ltd, Aon Australian Holdco 1 Pty Ltd, Aon Australian Holdco 2 Pty Ltd, Aon Australian Holdco 3 Pty Ltd, Aon Austria GmbH, Aon Bahrain W.L.L., Aon Belgium B.V.B.A., Aon Benefit Solutions Inc., Aon Benfield (Chile) Corredores de Reaseguros Ltda., Aon Benfield Argentina S.A., Aon Benfield Australia Limited, Aon Benfield Brasil Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Aon Benfield Canada ULC, Aon Benfield China Limited, Aon Benfield Colombia Limitada Corredores de Reaseguros, Aon Benfield Fac Inc., Aon Benfield Global Inc., Aon Benfield Group Limited, Aon Benfield Inc., Aon Benfield Israel Limited, Aon Benfield Italia S.p.A., Aon Benfield Japan Ltd, Aon Benfield Latin America SA, Aon Benfield Limited, Aon Benfield Malaysia Limited, Aon Benfield Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro SA de CV, Aon Benfield Middle East Limited, Aon Benfield New Zealand Limited, Aon Benfield Panama S.A., Aon Benfield Peru Corredores de Reaseguros SA, Aon Benfield Puerto Rico Inc., Aon Bermuda Holding Company Limited, Aon Bermuda QI Holdings Ltd., Aon Beteiligungsmanagement Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG, Aon Bolivia S.A. Corredores de Seguros, Aon Botswana (Pty) Ltd., Aon Brazil Holdings LLC, Aon Broking Services SA, Aon Broking Technology Limited, Aon CANZ Holdings B.V., Aon CANZ Holdings N.S. ULC, Aon Canada Holdings N.S. ULC, Aon Canada Inc., Aon Canada Intermediaries GP, Aon Captive Services Antilles N.V., Aon Captive Services Aruba N.V., Aon Cash Management B.V., Aon Central and Eastern Europe a.s., Aon Centre for Innovation and Analytics Ltd, Aon Charitable Foundation Pty Ltd, Aon Chile Holdings LLC, Aon Commercial Insurance Agencies Hong Kong Limited, Aon Commercial Services Ireland Limited, Aon Commercial Services and Operations Ireland Limited, Aon Consolidation Group Pty Ltd, Aon Consulting & Insurance Services, Aon Consulting (Chile) Limitada, Aon Consulting (Thailand) Limited, Aon Consulting Bolivia S.R.L., Aon Consulting Ecuador S.A., Aon Consulting Financial Services Limited, Aon Consulting Inc., Aon Consulting Kazakhstan LLP, Aon Consulting Limited, Aon Consulting Private Limited, Aon Consulting Romania SRL, Aon Corporate Services (Isle of Man) Limited, Aon Corporate Services Limited, Aon Corporation, Aon Corporation Australia Limited, Aon Corporation EMEA B.V., Aon Credit International Insurance Broker GmbH, Aon Cyprus Insurance Broker Company Limited, Aon DC Trustee Limited, Aon Danismanlik Hizmetleri AS, Aon Delta Bermuda Ltd., Aon Delta UK Limited, Aon Denmark A/S, Aon Deutschland Beteiligungs GmbH, Aon Direct Group Inc., Aon Edge Insurance Agency Inc., Aon Energy Caribbean Limited, Aon Enterprise Insurance Agencies Hong Kong Limited, Aon Finance Bermuda 1 Ltd., Aon Finance Bermuda 2 Ltd., Aon Finance Canada 1 Corp., Aon Finance Canada 2 Corp., Aon Finance International N.S. ULC, Aon Finance Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Aon Finance N.S. 1 ULC, Aon Finance N.S. 5 ULC, Aon Finance N.S. 8 ULC, Aon Finance US 1 LLC, Aon Finance US 2 LLC, Aon Financial & Insurance Solutions Inc., Aon Finland Oy, Aon France, Aon Global Holdings 1 Limited, Aon Global Holdings 2 Limited, Aon Global Holdings 3 Limited [In strike-off], Aon Global Holdings Limited, Aon Global Operations plc, Aon Global Risk Consulting B.V., Aon Global Risk Consulting Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Aon Global Risk Research Limited, Aon Grana Peru Corredores de Seguros SA, Aon Greece S.A., Aon Groep Nederland B.V., Aon Group (Bermuda) Ltd., Aon Group (Thailand) Limited, Aon Group Holdings International 1 B.V., Aon Group Holdings International 2 B.V., Aon Group Inc., Aon Group International N.V., Aon Group Pty Ltd, Aon Group Venezuela Corretaje de Reaseguros C.A., Aon Hewitt (Bermuda) Ltd., Aon Hewitt (Ireland) Limited, Aon Hewitt (PNG) Ltd., Aon Hewitt (Thailand) Ltd., Aon Hewitt Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Aon Hewitt Consulting Korea Inc., Aon Hewitt Financial Advice Limited, Aon Hewitt GmbH, Aon Hewitt Health Market Insurance Solutions Inc., Aon Hewitt Hong Kong Limited, Aon Hewitt Inc., Aon Hewitt Investment Consulting Inc., Aon Hewitt Investment Management Inc., Aon Hewitt Japan Ltd., Aon Hewitt Limited, Aon Hewitt Ltd., Aon Hewitt Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Aon Hewitt Management Company Limited, Aon Hewitt Middle East Limited, Aon Hewitt Risk & Consulting S.r.l., Aon Hewitt Risk & Financial Management B.V., Aon Hewitt Trust Solutions GmbH, Aon Hewitt US Holdings Limited, Aon Holding Deutschland GmbH, Aon Holdings (Isle of Man) Limited, Aon Holdings Antillen N.V., Aon Holdings Australia Pty Limited, Aon Holdings Austria GmbH, Aon Holdings B.V., Aon Holdings Botswana (Pty) Ltd, Aon Holdings Corretores de Seguros Ltda., Aon Holdings France SNC, Aon Holdings Hong Kong Limited, Aon Holdings International B.V., Aon Holdings Israel Ltd., Aon Holdings Japan Ltd, Aon Holdings Limited, Aon Holdings Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Aon Holdings Mid Europe B.V., Aon Holdings New Zealand, Aon Hong Kong Limited, Aon Hungary Insurance Brokers Risk and Human Consulting LLC, Aon Insurance Agencies (HK) Limited, Aon Insurance Agencies (Macau) Limited, Aon Insurance Brokers (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Aon Insurance Brokers (Pvt) Ltd., Aon Insurance Management Agencies (HK) Limited, Aon Insurance Managers (Antilles) N.V., Aon Insurance Managers (Barbados) Ltd., Aon Insurance Managers (Bermuda) Ltd, Aon Insurance Managers (Cayman) Ltd., Aon Insurance Managers (Dublin) Ltd., Aon Insurance Managers (Guernsey) Ltd., Aon Insurance Managers (Holdings) Ltd., Aon Insurance Managers (Isle of Man) Ltd., Aon Insurance Managers (Liechtenstein) AG, Aon Insurance Managers (Luxembourg) S.A., Aon Insurance Managers (Malta) PCC Limited, Aon Insurance Managers (Puerto Rico) Inc., Aon Insurance Managers (Shannon) Limited, Aon Insurance Managers (USA) Inc., Aon Insurance Managers (USVI) Inc., Aon Insurance Managers Gibraltar Ltd., Aon Insurance Micronesia (Guam) Inc, Aon Insurance Underwriting Agencies Hong Kong Limited, Aon Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Philippines Inc., Aon International Cooperatief U.A., Aon International Energy Inc., Aon International Holdings Inc., Aon Investment Holdings Ireland Limited, Aon Israel Insurance Brokerage Ltd., Aon Italia S.r.l., Aon Japan Ltd, Aon Jauch & Hubener Gesellschaft m.b.H., Aon Korea Inc., Aon Latam Holdings N.V., Aon Lead QI B.V., Aon Life Agency of Texas Inc., Aon Life Agente de Seguros S.A. de C.V., Aon Life Insurance Company, Aon MacDonagh Boland Group Ltd, Aon Majan LLC, Aon Management Consulting Taiwan Ltd., Aon Mauritius Holdings, Aon Meeus Assurantien B.V., Aon Mexico Business Support SA de CV, Aon Mexico Holdings LLC, Aon Mexico Holdings S. de R.L. de C.V., Aon Middle East Co LLC, Aon Nederland C.V., Aon Netherlands Operations B.V., Aon Neudorf Finance S.a.r.l., Aon New Zealand, Aon New Zealand Group ULC, Aon Norway AS, Aon Overseas Holdings Limited, Aon PHI Acquisition Corporation of California, Aon PMI International Limited, Aon Parizeau Inc., Aon Pension Trustees Limited, Aon Pensions Insurance Brokers GmbH, Aon Polska Services Sp. z o.o., Aon Polska Sp. z o.o., Aon Portugal - Consultores Unipessoal Lda., Aon Portugal - Corretores de Seguros S.A., Aon Premium Finance LLC, Aon Private Risk Management Insurance Agency Inc., Aon Private Risk Management of California Insurance Agency Inc., Aon Product Design & Development Australia Pty Limited, Aon Product Design and Development New Zealand Limited, Aon Product Risk Services Hong Kong Limited, Aon Property Risk Consulting Inc., Aon Qatar LLC, Aon Re (Thailand) Limited, Aon Re Bertoldi - Corretagem de Resseguros S.A., Aon Re Bolivia S.A. Corredores de Reaseguros, Aon Re Canada Holdings SARL, Aon Real Estate B.V., Aon Realty Services Inc., Aon Reed Stenhouse Inc., Aon Retirement Plan Advisors LLC, Aon Retirement Solutions Limited, Aon Risiko & Unternehmensberatungs GmbH, Aon Risk & Asset Management Pty Ltd, Aon Risk Consultants Inc., Aon Risk Insurance Services West Inc., Aon Risk Management (Pty) Ltd, Aon Risk Services (Chile) Corredores de Seguros Limitada, Aon Risk Services (Holdings) of Latin America Inc., Aon Risk Services (Holdings) of the Americas Inc., Aon Risk Services (NI) Limited, Aon Risk Services (PNG) Ltd., Aon Risk Services (Thailand) Limited, Aon Risk Services Argentina S.A., Aon Risk Services Australia Limited, Aon Risk Services Canada Inc., Aon Risk Services Central Inc., Aon Risk Services Colombia SA Corredores de Seguros, Aon Risk Services Companies Inc., Aon Risk Services EMEA B.V., Aon Risk Services Ecuador S.A. Agencia Asesora Productora de Seguros, Aon Risk Services Holdings (Chile ) Ltda., Aon Risk Services Inc. of Florida, Aon Risk Services Inc. of Hawaii, Aon Risk Services Inc. of Maryland, Aon Risk Services Inc. of Washington D.C., Aon Risk Services Northeast Inc., Aon Risk Services South Inc., Aon Risk Services Southwest Inc., Aon Risk Services Venezuela Corretaje de Seguros C.A., Aon Risk Solutions (Cayman) Ltd., Aon Risk Solutions Agente de Seguros y de Fianzas SA de CV, Aon Risk Solutions of Puerto Rico Inc., Aon Riskminder A/S, Aon Romania Broker de Asigurare - Reasigurare SRL, Aon Rus Insurance Brokers LLC, Aon Rus LLC, Aon S.p.A. Insurance & Reinsurance Brokers, Aon Saver Limited, Aon Securities (Hong Kong) Limited, Aon Securities Investment Management Inc., Aon Securities LLC, Aon Securities Limited, Aon Service Corporation, Aon Services (Guernsey) Ltd, Aon Services (Malta) Ltd, Aon Services Group Inc., Aon Services Hong Kong Limited, Aon Services Pty Ltd., Aon Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerligi ve A.S., Aon Soluciones S.A., Aon Soluciones S.A.C., Aon Southern Europe UK Limited, Aon Sp. z o.o., Aon Special Risk Resources Inc., Aon Superannuation (PNG) Limited, Aon Superannuation Pty Limited, Aon TC Holdings Inc., Aon Taiwan Ltd., Aon Treasury Ireland Limited, Aon Trust Company LLC, Aon Trust Corporation Limited, Aon Trust Services B.V., Aon UK Group Limited, Aon UK Holdings Intermediaries Limited, Aon UK Limited, Aon UK Trustees Limited, Aon US & International Holdings Limited, Aon US Holdings 2 Inc., Aon US Holdings Inc., Aon Ukraine LLC, Aon Underwriting Agencies (HK) Limited, Aon Underwriting Managers (Bermuda) Ltd., Aon Underwriting Managers Inc., Aon Versicherungsberatungs GmbH, Aon Versicherungsmakler Deutschland GmbH, Aon Vietnam Limited, Aon Ward Financial Corporation, Aon-COFCO Insurance Brokers Co. Ltd., Aon/Albert G. Ruben Insurance Services Inc., Asevasa Argentina S.A., Asevasa Caricam S.A., Asevasa Chile Peritaciones e Ingenieria de Riesgos S.A., Asevasa Mexico S.A. de C.V., Asevasa Panama S.A., Asian Reinsurance Underwriters Limited, Asscom Insurance Brokers S.r.l., Association of Rural and Small Town Americans, Associacao Instituto Aon, Assurance Licensing Services Inc., B E P International Corp., B.V. Assurantiekantoor Langeveldt-Schroder, BMS Insurance Agency L.L.C., Bacon & Woodrow Partnerships (Ireland) Limited, Bacon & Woodrow Partnerships Limited, Bain Hogg Group Limited (in liquidation), Baltolink UADBB, Bankassure Insurance Services Limited, Bayfair Insurance Centre Limited, Beaubien Finance Ireland Limited, Beaubien Finance Limited, Beaubien UK Finance Limited, Becketts (Trustees) Limited, Becketts Limited, Beech Hill Pension Trustees Ltd, Bekouw Mendes C.V., Benefit Marketing Solutions L.L.C., Benfield Advisory Inc., Benfield Corredores de Reaseguro Ltda., Benfield Finance (London) LLC, Benfield Group, Benfield Investment Holdings Limited, Benfield Juniperus Holdings Limited, Benfield do Brasil Participacoes Ltda. (dormant), Benton Finance Ireland Limited, Benton Finance Limited, Blanch Americas Inc., Bowes & Company Inc. of New York, CEREP III Secondary Manager LLC, CFSSG Real Estate Partners I LLC, CFSSG Real Estate Partners II LLC, CIF-H GP LLC, Cammack Health LLC, Cananwill Corporation, Cananwill Inc., Cardea Health Solutions Limited, Casablanca Intermediation Company Sarl, Celinvest Amsterdam B.V., Chapka Assurances SAS, Citadel Insurance Managers Inc., CoCubes, CoSec 2000 Limited, Coalition for Benefits Equality and Choice, Cocubes Technologies Private Limited, Coles Hewitt Partnership, Contingency Insurance Brokers Limited, Contractsure Limited, CoverWallet, Coverall S.r.l. Insurance and Reinsurance Underwriting Agency, Credit Insurance Brokers (Reynolds) Limited, Crion N.V., Custom Benefit Programs Inc., Cut-e, Cut-e (UK) Limited, Cut-e Assessment (Hong Kong) Limited, Cut-e Assessment Solutions Europe Limited, Cut-e Australia Pty Limited, Cut-e Consult DMCC, Cut-e Danmark A/S, Cut-e Finland Oy, Cut-e GmbH, Cut-e Ireland Limited, Cut-e Nordic AS, Cut-e Norge AS, Cytelligence, Delany Bacon & Woodrow Partnership, Dempsey Partners, Denney O'Hara (Life & Pensions) Limited, Doveland Services Limited, E. W. Blanch Holdings Limited, E. W. Blanch Investments Limited, E.W. Blanch Capital Risk Solutions Inc., E.W. Blanch International Inc., EW Blanch Limited, Elysium Digital IP Products LLC, Elysium Digital L.L.C., Ennis Knupp Secondary Market Services LLC, Essar Insurance Services Limited, Exploitatiemaatschappij Beukenlaan 68-72 B.V., Farmaseg - Solucoes Assistencia e Servicos Empresariais Ltda., Farmsure Limited [In strike-off], Finaccord Limited, Financial & Professional Risk Solutions Inc., Futurity Group Inc., GTCR/AAM Blocker Corp., Ge.f.it. S.r.l., Gefass S.r.l., Glenrand M I B (Mocambique) Corretores de Seguros Limitada, Global Safe Insurance Brokers S.r.l., Globe Events Management, Gotham Digital Science LLC, Gotham Digital Science Ltd., Grant Liddell Financial Advisor Services Pty Ltd, Grant Park Capital LLC, Groupe-Conseil Aon Inc., Grupo Innovac Sociedad de Correduria de Seguros SA, HIA Insurance Services Pty Ltd., Hall Rhodes Holdings Limited, Hall Rhodes Limited, Hamburger Gesellschaft zur Forderung des Versicherungswesens mbH, Harbourview West Lake Co-Invest (GP) LP, Health Index Advisors LLC, Healthy Paws Pet Insurance, Henderson Corporate Insurance Brokers Limited, Henderson Insurance Brokers Limited, Henderson Insurance Partnership Limited [In strike-off], Henderson Risk Management Limited, Hewitt Amalco 3 ULC, Hewitt Amalco 4 ULC, Hewitt Amalco 5 ULC, Hewitt Associates (a partnership), Hewitt Associates Administradora e Corretora de Seguros Ltda., Hewitt Associates Corp., Hewitt Associates Outsourcing Limited, Hewitt Associates Pty Ltd, Hewitt Associates S.C., Hewitt Associates SAS, Hewitt Associates Servicos de Recursos Humanos Ltda., Hewitt Beneficios Agente de Seguros y de Fianzas S.A. de C.V., Hewitt Holdings Canada Company, Hewitt Insurance Brokerage LLC, Hewitt Insurance Inc., Hewitt International Holdings LLC, Hewitt Management Ltd., Hewitt Risk Management Services Limited, Hewitt Western Management Amalco Inc., Hogg Group Limited, Hogg Robinson North America Inc., Huntington T. Block Insurance Agency Inc., I. Beck Insurance Agency (1994) Ltd., IAO Actuarial Consulting Services Canada Inc., INPOINT INC., IRM/GRC Holding Inc., Impact Forecasting L.L.C., Inspiring Benefits, Inspiring Benefits Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Insuractive Limited [In strike-off], Insurance Broker Aon Kazakhstan LLP, International Risk Management (Americas) Inc., International Risk Management Group Ltd, International Space Brokers Europe Limited, International Space Brokers France, International Space Brokers Inc., International Space Brokers Limited, Inversiones Benfield Chile Ltda., J H Minet Puerto Rico Inc., J. Allan Brown Consultants Inc., JDPT Manager LLC, Jenner Fenton Slade Limited, John Reynolds & Company (Credit Insurance) Limited, John Reynolds & Company (Insurances) Limited, John Reynolds & Company (Life & Pensions) Limited, Johnson Rooney Welch Inc., K & K Insurance Brokers Inc. Canada, K & K Insurance Group Inc., K & K Insurance Group of Florida Inc., K2 Technologies Inc., KVT GP LLC, Kloud S.a.r.l., Krumlin Hall Limited, Lake Erie Real Estate General Partner Limited, Lake Tahoe GP LLC, Lake Tahoe II GP LLC, Lake Tahoe III GP LLC, Lake Tahoe IV GP LLC, Lenzi Paolo Broker di Assicurazioni S.r.l., Lincolnshire Insurance Company PCC Limited, Linx Underwriting Solutions Inc., Lombard Trustee Company Limited, M.A. Shakeel Management Ltd. Amalco, MacDonagh Boland Crotty MacRedmond Ltd, Marinaro Dundas S.A., Marinaro Dundas SA, Mark Kelly Insurance and Financial Services PTY LTD, McLagan (Aon) Limited, McLagan Partners Asia Inc., McLagan Partners Inc., Membership Leasing Trust, Minet Consultancy Services Ltd, Minet Group, Minet Holdings Inc., Minet Inc., Minet Re North America Inc., Modern Survey Inc., Muirfield Underwriters Ltd., NBS Nominees Limited, National Insurance Office Ltd., Nauman Insurance Brokers Limited, Nexus Insurance Brokers Limited, One Underwriting Agency GmbH, One Underwriting B.V., One Underwriting Health B.V., One Underwriting Pty Ltd, Optica Agency A/S, Optimum Risk Solutions Limited, Ovatio Courtage SAS, P.G. Bradley & Co Limited, PGOF Manager 1 LLC, PRORUCK Ruckversicherungs Aktiengesellschaft, PT Aon Benfield Indonesia, PT Aon Hewitt Indonesia, PT Aon Indonesia, PWZ AG, Paragon Strategic Solutions Inc., PathWise Solutions LLC, Penn Square Manager 1 LLC, Penn Square Manager II LLC, Portus Consulting, Portus Consulting (Leamington) Limited, Portus Consulting Limited, Portus Online LLP, Praesidium S.p.A. - Soluzioni Assicurative per il Management, Premier Auto Finance Inc., Private Client Trustees Ltd., Private Equity Partnership Structures I LLC, Probabilitas N.V./SA, Protective Marketing Enterprises Inc., Randolph Finance Unlimited Company, Rasini Vigano Limited, Redwoods Dental Underwriters Inc., Richard Kiddle (Insurance Brokers) Limited, Risk Laboratories LLC, Riskikonsultatsioonide OU, Ronnie Elementary Insurance Agency Ltd, SA Special Situations General Partner LLC, SG IFFOXX Assekuranzmaklergesellschaft mbH, SLE Worldwide Limited, SN Re S.A., Salud Riesgos y Recursos Humanos Consultores Ltda. (former Aon Corporte Advisors Ltda.), SchneiderGolling IFFOXX Assekuranzmakler AG, SchneiderGolling Industrie Assekuranzmaklergesellschaft mbH, Scritch Inc., Shanghai Kayi Information Technology Co. Ltd, Sheppard Netherlands B.V., Specialty Benefits Inc., Sports Insure Limited [In strike-off], Strategic Manager-III LLC, Stroz Friedberg (Asia) Limited, Stroz Friedberg Inc., Stroz Friedberg LLC, Stroz Friedberg Limited, Stroz Friedberg Risk Management Limited, Superannuation Management Nominees Limited, Suresport Limited [In strike-off], Swire Blanch MSTC II SA, Swire Blanch MSTC SA, TTG BRPTP GP LLC, TTG Cayuga Bavaria Intermediate 2 S.a.r.l, TTG Core Plus Investments LLC, TTG German Investments I LLC, TTG Investments II LLC, TTG Irish Investments I LLC, TTG Manager LLC, Tecsefin S.A. en liquidacion, The Aon Ireland Mastertrustee Limited, The Aon MasterTrustee Limited, The John Reynolds Company Limited, The Key West Saxon Group LLC, The Townsend Group Inc, The Townsend Group LLC, Townsend Alpha Manager I LLC, Townsend Alpha Manager II LLC, Townsend Alpha Manager III LLC, Townsend Group Asia Limited, Townsend Group Europe Ltd., Townsend HWL GP Ltd., Townsend Holdings LLC, Townsend Lake Constance GP Limited, Townsend REF GP LLC, Townsend Re Global GP Limited, Townsend SO Manager I LLC, UAB One Underwriting, UADBB Aon Baltic, UK Credit Insurance Specialists Limited, UNIT Versicherungsmakler GmbH, US Underwriting Solutions S.r.l., USLP Underwriting Solutions LP, Underwriters Marine Services Inc., Unidelta AG, Unirobe Meeus Groep, UnitedPensions Deutschland AG, Univers Workplace Solutions, VERO Management AG, Ventiv Technology, WT Government Services LLC, WT Technologies LLC, Wannet Speciale Verzekeringen B.V., Wannet Sports Insurance GmbH, Ward Financial Group Inc., West Lake General Partner LLC, West Lake II GP LLC, Wexford Underwriting Managers Inc., White Rock Insurance (Americas) Ltd., White Rock Insurance (Europe) PCC Limited, White Rock Insurance (Gibraltar) PCC Ltd., White Rock Insurance (Guernsey) ICC Limited, White Rock Insurance (Netherlands) PCC Limited, White Rock Insurance (SAC) Ltd., White Rock Insurance Company PCC Ltd., White Rock Insurance PCC (Isle of Man) Limited, White Rock Services (Bermuda) Ltd., White Rock USA Ltd., Willis Towers Watson, Worldwide Integrated Services Company, Wrapid Specialty Inc., Zalba-Caldu Correduria de Seguros SA, and cut-e USA Inc..
Nabors Industries Ltd. engages in the provision of platform work over and drilling rigs. It operates through the following segments: U.S. Drilling, Canada Drilling, International Drilling, Drilling Solutions, and Rig Technologies. The U.S. Drilling segment includes land drilling activities in the lower 48 states and Alaska, as well as offshore operations in the Gulf of Mexico. The Canada segment consists of land-based drilling rigs in Canada. The International segment focuses in maintaining a footprint in the oil and gas market, most notably in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Argentina, Colombia, Kazakhstan, and Venezuela. The Drilling Solutions segment offers drilling technologies, such as patented steering systems and rig instrumentation software systems that enhance drilling performance and wellbore placement. The Rig Technologies segment comprises Canrig, which manufactures and sells top drives, catwalks, wrenches, drawworks, and drilling related equipment, such as robotic systems and downhole tools. The company was founded by Clair Nabors in 1952 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.

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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..
Get to know William & Marys new students

You belong: Students, staff, faculty, alumni and community members welcome W&M's newest students to campus during last year's Opening Convocation ceremony. Photo by Stephen Salpukas Photo - of - Hide Caption

This story includes expected enrollment numbers as of Aug. 21, 2018. Those figures may change slightly by the beginning of the academic year. - Ed.



The William & Mary campus will be awakened from its summertime slumber Friday as the universitys freshmen move into their residence halls. While undergraduate classes start Aug. 29, some of the graduate schools have already begun.

All of the new students  undergraduate and graduate  will be welcomed to campus on Aug. 29 at W&Ms Opening Convocation ceremony. As they enter the 325-year-old university, they bring with them a vast range of experiences, talents and interests.

This is an exciting time to be at William & Mary, and we know this group of incoming students is ready to make the most of all of the opportunities that will be placed in front of them, said Tim Wolfe, associate provost for enrollment and dean of admission.

As we learned through their applications and their stories, this is a group of students poised to make an impact. I have no doubt that the experiences and talents they have to share with our community will make W&M a better, stronger place. At the same time, I know they are ready to learn and grow. I look forward to seeing what they will accomplish as members of the Tribe in the coming years.

Undergraduates

Freshmen

William & Mary anticipates enrolling 1,540 undergraduates in the Class of 2022, including 28 in the St Andrews William & Mary Joint Degree Programme. The freshmen were selected from a pool of 14,644 applicants.

The group is diverse and academically accomplished. Students of color make up 31 percent of the class, and 10 percent are first-generation students. Additionally, 7 percent of the class is made up of international students. The SAT middle 50th percentile is 1310-1490. The ACT composite score middle 50th percentile is 30-33, and 77 percent of students with class rank graduated in the top 10 percent of their classes.

Transfer students

In addition to the entering freshmen, William & Mary expects to welcome 180 new transfer students to campus this semester.

Graduate students

Arts & Sciences

This fall, 85 new students will be entering graduate programs in Arts & Sciences, including American studies, anthropology, applied science, biology, chemistry, computer science, computational operations research, history, physics, psychological sciences and public policy.

Eighty percent of those students conducted research as undergraduates, with most receiving awards or honors for their scholarship. Approximately 89 percent have contributed to their communities through volunteer service, and more than 56 percent have been teachers or mentors to preschoolers through senior citizens.

Twenty percent of the entering Arts & Sciences graduate students self-identified as students of color, including international students from 15 countries. Among the new students are a researcher who uncovered a previously unknown parchment Declaration of Independence, a scientist turned policy maker, a Cherokee language researcher, a research arborist, a quantum mechanical researcher and several digital humanities scholars.

Business

Master of Business Administration

The full-time MBA Class of 2020 includes 112 degree candidates, including 10 in the Major General James Wright fellowship program, a partnership with the U.S. Army. Twenty-five percent of the Class of 2020 is made up of women, and 41 percent of the students are from international locations. Additionally, 22 percent of the groups members served or currently serve in the military.

The average GPA of the cohort is 3.3, and they boast an average GMAT score of 617.

The students received their undergraduate degrees from a wide range of universities, including W&M, Arizona State, Cornell, Clemson, George Mason, Northwestern, Purdue, Stanford and the U.S. Military Academy.

They come to W&M with an average of 60 months business experience, working for such companies and organizations as Accenture, Apex Clean Energy, Banco de Credito in Bolivia, Bank Rakyat in Indonesia, Barclays, Deloitte, JP Morgan, Northwestern Mutual, the U.S. Peace Corps and the U.S. Department of State.

Master of Science in Business Analytics

The Master of Science in Business Analytics program is enrolling 79 students this fall, selected from a pool of 480 applicants. The average undergraduate GPA for the group is 3.4.

Students of color make up 11 percent of the class, and international students representing Canada, China, Georgia and Taiwan  make up 39 percent.

Master of Accounting

The Master of Accounting program is welcoming 87 students with an average undergraduate GPA of 3.57.

Eleven percent of the group, which was selected from a pool of 350 applicants, is made up of students of color. International students representing Bulgaria, China, Japan, Kenya, South Africa and South Korea, make up 18 percent of the class.

Flex MBA

The fall 2018 Flex MBA cohort includes 43 students, including three students through the Flex FastStart non-degree-seeking option. The 40 fully admitted students in the part-time, evening program for working professionals boast a mean undergraduate GPA of 3.2 and an average of eight years of professional experience.

Fifty-three percent of the group is made up of women, and six of the students hail from international locations, including Brazil, India, Kenya, Nigeria and Turkey. Students of color make up approximately 28 percent of the group.

The students represent 33 different companies  such as Booz Allen Hamilton, the cities of Newport News and Virginia Beach, the Federal Bank of Richmond, Ferguson Enterprises, Riverside Health System, the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy and even W&M  and 13 industries, including construction, consulting, consumer products, K-12 and higher education, government services, military, non-profit and manufacturing.

Executive MBA

The latest Executive MBA cohort, which began in January 2018, includes about 30 students with an average of 15 years managerial experience and 17 years of working experience. The students, with an average age of 40 and average salary of $101,000, attend classes on campus Fridays and Saturdays every two weeks. The students also complete two one-week domestic residencies and two 10-day international residencies through the program.

Students hail from a radius of about 200 miles of Hampton Roads, including professionals from as far away as Washington, D.C., and Raleigh, North Carolina.

Applications for the programs Class of 2020, which will begin in January 2019, are due Sept. 15.

Online programs

Online programs at the Raymond A. Mason School of Business continue to thrive. The programs have grown to 295 students who hail from 32 states and five countries.

The Online MBA program is beginning its fourth year by welcoming 69 new students this fall. Thirty-nine percent are women and 26 percent are students of color from the United States. The students average 11 years of professional work experience and represent 65 companies. Twenty-three percent have already earned an advanced degree, including three Doctorates of Philosophy (Ph.D.), a Juris Doctorate (J.D.) and one Doctorate of Medicine (M.D.).

The Mason School is also pleased to welcome the inaugural class for the Online Masters of Business Analytics program. Fifteen student will begin the program on Aug. 27. The students average 11 years of work experience and represent 14 companies. Forty percent of the class has already earned an advanced degree, including one Ph.D. and three Masters of Business Administration. Students of color from the United States make up 40 percent of the class.

Online programs at the Mason School accept new students in the fall, spring and summer.

Education

The W&M School of Education received 531 applications for its graduate programs, and a total of 230 students are expected to enroll this fall  an admission rate of 56 percent.

Among those enrolling the average age is 31.8, the average undergraduate GPA is 3.3 and the average graduate GPA is 3.76. The average GRE verbal percentile is 68th for the group, and the average MAT percentile is 69th.

Thirty-two percent of the students are from out of state, with 5 percent coming from international locations. The counseling programs in particular saw an increase in international students this admission cycle.

Looking further into the programs in which the students enrolled, 39 are in doctoral programs and 186 are in masters programs.

New at the School of Education this year are a certificate in autism spectrum disorders, a masters program in ELS/bilingual education, a gifted education administration concentration within the Executive Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) program and a new online counseling program that just launched with concentrations in clinical mental health counseling and school counseling. The school had 42 applications for that program this fall and the first cohort begins at the end of August.

The students represent diverse backgrounds of experience, including a retired Army colonel, a Colonial Williamsburg historical interpreter, and an elections manager. Forty-one percent will be part-time students, and 25 percent self-identified as students of color.

Law

William & Mary Law School welcomed the newest class of students on Aug. 20th. The 195 members of the Juris Doctor (J.D.) Class of 2021 hail from 39 states, the District of Columbia and six countries from around the world including Canada, China, Jamaica, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and Venezuela. Additionally, three hold dual citizenship with the U.S. and Ecuador, Italy and Nigeria. The Class of 2021 boasts a median undergraduate GPA of 3.76 and a median LSAT score of 162, the 85th percentile.

Thirteen members of the class have graduate degrees including a Master of Arts (M.A.) in educational leadership & policy studies from the University of Virginia, an M.A. in conflict security and development from Kings College of London, a Master of Social Work from New York University, and an M.A. in English from Stanford. Fifteen students join us with the honor of Phi Beta Kappa from their undergraduate institutions; 45 have graduated summa cum laude.

More than half of the class have full-time work experience within the field of law and elsewhere; many have served as paralegals, legal assistants and legislative aides.

Forty-three members of the class have either participated in study-abroad programs or have received one or more degrees from international institutions; more than 60 speak 21 unique languages. These global pursuits have led to both employment and internship opportunities abroad.

The students also have a passion for serving their communities through their involvement in the military and service organizations such as AmeriCorps and City Year.

In addition to the entering J.D. students, 28 students have chosen William & Mary to continue their legal education through our Master of Laws (LL.M.) program. These students come from China, England, Korea, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia, and one is a permanent resident from Bulgaria.

Marine science

William & Marys Virginia Institute of Marine Science is expecting to enroll 14 new graduate students this semester, with five of them pursuing doctoral degrees while the others work toward their masters. Two of the doctoral students received their masters degrees from W&M.

Two of the enrolling students are from China, and the rest are from locations within the United States, from Virginia to Illinois. Eight of the students are women.

The students bring with them a diverse set of experiences, including research at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory and Scripps Institution of Oceanography as well as internships with NOAA and the Save the Bay Exploration Center.
More than 90 percent of Texas firefighters have been denied workers compensation for cancer treatments and missed time at work, according to a report released earlier this year by the Texas Department of Insurance.

Despite the passage of legislation in 2005 that was supposed to guarantee firefighters and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) health care and paid sick leave, these workerswho have an annual mean wage of $53,480 and a starting salary of just $27,500face financial ruin even as they fight for their lives.

More than a decade ago the Texas legislature voted unanimously to grant a presumption of cause to firefighters and EMTs, who are routinely exposed to cancer-causing agents in the course of their work. The law was purportedly intended to relieve affected workers and their doctors of the need to demonstrate the exact, work-related cause of their cancer before beginning treatment and receiving other benefits. Postponing medical interventions for a legal determination of cause, which can take years to wind through the courts system, is a financial and physical death sentence.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), has stated that there are three types of cancer definitely tied to occupational hazards faced by firefighters: prostate and testicular cancer, as well as non-Hodgkins lymphoma. The IARC has also noted that another 12 cancers are possibly or probably caused by firefighting.

The author of the Texas bill, physician and former state senator Robert Deuell, claimed, It was intended for any cancer caused by firefighting exposure and not limited to any particular number of cancers. However, the legislation included a few notable exceptions to presumption of cause, such as the personal use of tobacco products, pre-employment physical exams, and a threshold of five years employment for eligibility. More importantly, legislators based the law not on conclusive presumption, which cannot be rebutted, but on rebuttable presumption, which can be.

Workers compensation companies, contracted by local municipalities to manage the cancer claims of firefighters and EMTs, have denied cancer claims routinely by making use of this legal standard. Houston attorney Mike Sprain told the Houston Chronicle that the workers compensation process is so arduous that firefighters with cancer are unlikely to get a claim approved without an attorney.

Only 20 percent of Texas claimants appeal their denied claims to the Department of Insurance.

The Houston Chronicle reported in July 2018 that the city of Baytown, home of some of Exxons largest petrochemical plants, is suing Patrick Mahoney, a battalion chief for the Baytown Fire Department. Mahoney had half of his thyroid removed because of cancer and regularly undergoes hormone treatment and blood workups. He is currently paying his expenses out-of-pocket.

After his workers compensation claims were initially being denied, Mahoney successfully appealed these decisions. In May 2018, however, the city of Baytown filed a suit against the firefighter in an effort to overturn these appeals and once again deny him medical coverage. Mahoney described this action a betrayal and a slap in the face.

The workers compensation industry in Texas, on the other hand, is legally allowed to set rates to ensure profitability. Employers can even opt out of providing the benefit if they claim to have some other method to supposedly cover injured workers. According to one web site, workers compensation insurance (in Texas) is more profitable than the U.S. national average.
A state court judge ruled Monday that Nick Lyon, the executive director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, will be brought to trial for two counts of involuntary manslaughter, as well as other felony charges related to the Flint water crisis. This ruling marks the first time anyone has been ordered to stand trial for the criminal conspiracy committed against the population of this working class city north of Detroit. Lyon was appointed by Governor Rick Snyder and still holds the position as head of the state health agency.

The maximum sentence for the involuntary manslaughter charges could be as much as 30 years in prison, plus another five for misconduct in office. In a packed courtroom with standing room only, Judge David J. Goggins of the 67th District Court took 160 minutes reading through pages of his detailed notes before giving the decision.

The charges against Lyon stem from his role in concealing the outbreak of Legionnaires disease in 2014-2015 that killed at least 12 people and sickened at least another 79 people. No warning was given by Lyon in spite of residents protests about foul-smelling water producing rashes and other illnesses. Flints water source was switched from Lake Huron to the polluted Flint River in April 2014 without adding anti-corrosion controls, as part of a state-encouraged plan to move towards privatization of the water supply.

The state investigation of the Flint catastrophe, under the direction of Attorney General Bill Schuettewho is the Republican candidate to succeed Snyder in the November eletionshas been winding slowly through the legal system since January 2016. No political officials have been charged, including Republican Governor Snyder and State Treasurer Andy Dillon, a Democrat appointed by Snyder who authorized the Flint water switch.

Susan Hedman, the top federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official in the Midwest, was aware as early as April 2015 that the water being piped into the homes of Flint, Michigan residents was not being treated for corrosion control, yet said nothing. This despite the fact that it is common knowledge among water professionals that the lack of such treatment, especially with highly corrosive water like that found in the Flint River, will cause lead to leach into tap water from pipes and fixtures.

Testimony before Judge Goggins revealed that although health experts warned of the danger of Legionnaires disease and the possible link to the change in the citys water source as early as October 2014, their efforts to investigate the situation were blocked by high-placed officials in state and federal agencies. Documents made available through FOIA show Lyon was aware of the outbreak as early as January 2015, but it was not until January 2016 that Snyder announced the outbreak of Legionnaires.

Todays decision had been delayed until after the Michigan primaries, in which Schuette was opposed for the Republican nomination by Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley, who had Snyders backing. Schette used the prosecution to try to distance himself from the much-hated outgoing governor, suggesting that he would be providing justice for the people of Flint.

Already, evidence is emerging that the Flint water crisis caused more than just lead poisoning and Legionnaires disease. A PBS Frontline report released in July of 2018 indicates that, during the same period that the Flint River was used, there were 119 deaths caused by pneumonia. This is a 46 percent increase from the previous year.

Of these 119 cases, 47 occurred between May and October of 2014. During these summer months, one would expect a decline in deaths from pneumonia, which normally spikes in the winter. Epidemiologists interviewed by Frontline indicate that this is circumstantial evidence that some of these deaths may have been caused by Legionnaires disease, rather than pneumonia. Epidemiologists told Frontline that Legionnaires is misdiagnosed as pneumonia in about 40 percent of cases.

Another study by researchers David Slusky and Daniel Grossman found fetal death rates increased by 58 percent and fertility rates decreased by 12 percent after the April 2014 change in the citys water source. The researchers study demonstrated that 250 babies were not born due to the lead-in-water crisis. Less than six months after the water switch, the General Motors engine plant stopped using the Flint River after its parts became corroded, and yet no warning whatsoever was issued to the residents.

John Bursch, one of Lyons three defense attorneys, already plans to appeal the decision to bring him to trial. He claimed that Judge Goggins never referred to defense witness statements during his decision. If filed, the appeal will be heard in Genesee County Circuit Court. Immediately following Judge Goggins decision, Governor Snyder, according a tweet by his spokesperson Ari Adler, claimed that Lyon has been a strong leader.

The criminal conspiracy has continued for more than four years. All levels of government are working together to hide the vast criminal conspiracy that produced the Flint water crisis and still impacts the population today, more than four years since the switch. The decision to put Lyon on trial is significant. While he may be offered up as the sacrificial lamb, leaving those such as Snyder, Dillon, and others untouched, the political establishment is fearful of that the growing anger of the working class in Flint will join with the emergence of working class struggles in the US and internationally.
At midnight Monday, Greece formally exited eight years of European Union/International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity programmes.

Since 2010, four Greek governments have overseen three savage austerity programmes in return for receiving loans ostensibly to pay off Greeces national debt, which stood at 330.57 billion in 2010. Not a single cent of the 289 billion spent in bank bailouts has gone towards reducing Greeces debt, however. Nearly a decade later, Greeces debt has increased to almost 350 billionover 180 percent of Greeces GDP. The loans went to pay off Greeces creditors, particularly banks in Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

Predictably, European Union (EU) officials tried to present the occasion as a promise of better days to come thanks to the generosity of the EU. European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted: You did it! Congratulations Greece and its people on ending the programme of financial assistance. With huge efforts and European solidarity you seized the day.

Pierre Moscovici, EU commissioner for economic and financial affairs, said, Greece can finally turn the page in a crisis that has lasted too long. The worst is over.

The plain truth is that the banks are calculating that Greece will still be paying off these hundreds of billions of euros in debts 42 years from now, in 2060. The exit from the bailout programme only signifies that the EU expects that the Greek government will be able to borrow money from private lenders to finance its debts, as opposed to relying on the EU. In effect, it is a vote of confidence from the financial markets that the Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) government can be relied on to loot Greek workers to pay off the banks.

Any improvement in the conditions of workers in Greece will depend, now as before the bailout, on mobilizing the working class against the EU and the reactionary pseudo-left Syriza government.

Syriza Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is slated to give a speech today promoting the EU bailout exit. Significantly, he did not make any public statement yesterday on the exit or attempt to present it as a step forward for Greece.

Greeces central bank governor, Yannis Stournaras, told Kathimerini, the way forward was to continue EU austerity as far as the eye can see. Greece still has a long way to go, he said, warning that if there was any retreat on what we have agreed, now or in the future, the markets will abandon us and we will not be able to refinance maturing loans on sustainable-debt terms.

Some figures give an indication of the brutal conditions imposed in Greece:

Since 2010, 72 billion in austerity measures have been enforced against a small population of only around 11 million peoplethe equivalent of about 40 percent of Greeces entire annual economic output. Greeces real GDP has fallen by 25 percent and is almost 64 billion lower than before the onset of mass austerity.

 Household incomes declined by over 30 percent, with more than 20 percent of people unable to afford basic expenses such as rent, electricity and bank loans.

 Today, the average Greek worker receives 23 percent less in wages than he did eight years ago. One in three of those with jobs is in part-time employment, with Greeces minimum wage reduced by 22 percentfrom an already paltry 751 to 586 and by 32 percent to 511 for workers below the age of 25.

 Pensions were slashed by up to 50 percent and thousands of workers sacked as state spending and provision were decimated.

 Public-sector spending has been reduced by 26 percent, with the public health budget reduced by 50 percent, public education spending cut by nearly 36 percent and welfare spending cut by 70 percent.

 More than a third of the population is officially at risk of poverty or social exclusion. By 2012, an estimated 400,000 Greeks were visiting a soup kitchen daily.

 From September 2009 to July 2013, nearly 1.1 million jobs were lost. Today, 740,000 Greeks remain out of work since the crisis began. Twenty-five percent of public-sector workers were sacked. One third of families have at least one unemployed member. Nearly seven out of 10 unemployed people have been unemployed for more than one year and a quarter of a million people are classed as underemployed and cannot find regular full-time employment. Some 122,000 workers are classed as discouraged and have given up looking for jobs. Most new jobs are in part-time employment on poverty level pay. Nearly 360,000 part-time jobs exist today, up 100,000 since the beginning of the crisis.

 Around 500,000 young people have fled the country under conditions in which official unemployment still over hovers at around 20 percent, the highest rate in the euro zone, and is double that for youth.

Klaus Regling, the managing director of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to which Greece owes much of its debt, pledged to continue closely overseeing austerity in the country: The ESM member states and the ESM as an institution take living up to commitments very seriously. We are a very patient creditor. But we do want to be repaid. So we will follow the developments in Greece very closely.

That is, EU inspectors will continue regular visits to the Tsipras government to impose austerity policies and ensure that Greece extracts massive budget surpluses from the population for decades to come.

While Syriza is hated by Greek workers, for the global financial aristocracy, the Tsipras government is an unparalleled success story. It has carried out tens of billions of euros in additional cuts that even previous right-wing governments were unable to implement.

Three years have passed since Syriza came to office in January 2015 with mass support because they had pledged to end EU austerity. Syriza trampled these electoral promises underfoot. Ever since July 2015, they have been planning and imposing EU austerity. Last month, the Syriza-led government signed off on a further round of social cuts in exchange for a loan tranche of around 15 billion that will barely cover Greeces debt obligations for the next two years.

As well as carrying out new pension cuts, with some pensions facing additional cuts of 314 a month from next year, this monstrous party of the ruling elite mapped out a massive bonanza for the richest in society. These include a 700 million tax cut package for businesses, while the tax rate on profits will be reduced from 29 percent to 26 percent. The reduction in the highest income tax bracket for individual taxpayers will result in a 877 million tax break for 2020, and 997 million in tax breaks for 2021 and 2022.

Syriza has carried out the diktat of the super-rich so thoroughly that discussions are now being held in ruling circles on how to keep them in power at all costs, despite their rapid collapse in the polls.

The Greek daily To Vima reported last Friday the comments of New Democracy European Parliament member Giorgos Kyrtsos, who said EU officials who are influential on matters concerning Greece are examining a post-memorandum collaboration of the two largest parties. The paper reported, Kyrtsos said that a question repeatedly raised by his colleagues in Brussels is, How can there be collaboration between New Democracy and SYRIZA?

He revealed, One of the scenarios that our European partners are examining as a solution to many problems regarding the Greek programme is a ruling coalition.

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Syriza and EU plan decades of austerity measures and privatizations

[28 June 2018]
On August 11, 70,000 protesters gathered on Okinawa, Japan to denounce the central governments relocation of a US military base on the island. The demonstration took place to also mark the death of Okinawa prefectural governor, Takeshi Onaga, who died from pancreatic cancer on August 8 at the age of 67. Other rallies took place around the country, including in Tokyo.

The demonstration took place in Naha, the capital of Okinawa Prefecture. Protesters held signs that read New Henoko Base, No! and other slogans to denounce Tokyos plan. They also adopted a resolution demanding the central government cancel its plans to relocate the US base.

Okinawan residents and others opposed to the US military presence in Japan have demonstrated for years against the central governments plan to relocate the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma base from the center of the crowded Okinawan city of Ginowan to a new facility being constructed at Henoko on the islands coast.

Governor Onaga, who came to office in November 2014, fought against the base relocation, having made it a central issue of his gubernatorial campaign. However, he consistently worked to channel opposition to the base along parochial lines, exploiting locals legitimate anger towards crimes committed by US soldiers and contractors, from drinking and driving to rape and murder.

In order to block a wider political struggle against Japanese and US militarism, Onaga claimed that the base relocation issue stemmed from Japans mainlanders looking down upon and taking advantage of Okinawans, who had to bear the brunt of hosting US troops.

Onaga had been a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) until he ran as an independent for mayor of the prefectures capital Naha in 2000, an office he held for 14 years. He remained a conservative heavyweight in prefectural politics and did not oppose the US-Japan security treaty. In fact, he stated in 2015, I have served as a politician for over 30 years, and I have consistently supported the US-Japan security arrangement.

The anti-war sentiment of those who backed Onaga often went further and included the demand for the removal of US bases from Japan altogether. The protesters have often coupled their struggle against US bases with opposition to the governments agenda of remilitarization, which includes the revision of the countrys constitution to remove any barrier to the expansion and overseas deployment of the Japanese military.

Given that Okinawa is a major staging pointing for US military action in Asia, opposition to the base is intimately bound up with the struggle against militarism. On July 30, during another rally in front of Abes residence in Tokyo, one of the participants, an 81-year-old woman, drew this connection. I want to go to Okinawa, but I cant make it, so I will raise my voice against base construction here. Having a base comes down to being complicit in war, she stated.

Onagas tactics, however, represent a dead end for the struggle. The governor spent his last years working to ensnare the base issue in court and convince the population that this could block construction at Henoko.

In October 2015, Onaga withdrew the approval given by his predecessor Hirokazu Nakaima for land reclamation on the coast. This was quickly overturned by the Defense Ministrys Okinawa Defense Bureau. A fight in the courts ensued and in December 2016, Japans Supreme Court ruled that Onagas actions were illegal.

For more than year after that, the governor threatened to withdraw approval for reclamation on a new basis. This was a stalling tactic Onaga used as he negotiated with the central government. Only as anti-base opponents grew frustrated with the delay, staging sit-ins at prefectural offices, did he once again announce he would revoke the reclamation projects approval.

Onaga stated on July 27, Facts that were not yet known when land reclamation approval was given have come to light, and the appropriate and rational conditions in terms of land usage (that are required for land reclamation approval) are no longer being met.

This new revocation was meant to stop planned reclamation work from beginning on August 17, though Tokyo is holding off on the construction project in the run up to a September 30 election to choose Onagas successor.

Ultimately, Onaga, local businesses and others with commercial interests on Okinawa sought to have the base removed from the island in order to use the territory for land development that would attract businesses and tourists. At the same time, they highlighted its cheaper cost of labor compared to other areas of Japan.

The US militarys constant presence in Okinawa since the end of World War II has impeded commercial development as one-fifth of the main island in the prefecture is covered with US bases which are home to half of the 50,000 US troops in Japan.

Other establishment parties, including from the so-called left, lent political credibility to Onaga while he was in office. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) all praised him after his death.

Seiken Akamine, a JCP member of parliament in the Lower House, stated, The asset that Onaga left is the idea that we must stop the conflicts between conservatives and liberals and prevent [US military] bases from staying in Okinawa for the future of the prefecture. That the JCP attempts to build illusions in not only so-called liberal politicians, but in conservative ones as well, is an indication that the party long ago abandoned its anti-capitalist posturing.

In fact, the conservative LDP is looking towards the special election to choose Onagas replacement as a means of putting the base dispute to rest legally speaking. The party intends to run Ginowan Mayor Atsushi Sakima as its candidate. Deputy Governor Kiichiro Jahana will take over as interim governor until the September 30 election.
The Pentagons annual report on Chinas military and security released last Thursday underscores the intense drive by the United States to contain and undermine the country that it regards as the major threat to its global domination. While the report focusses on Chinas growing military capabilities and international reach, its build-up, which is dwarfed by the US military and its world-wide system of alliances and bases, is in response to Washingtons menacing stance.

The US attitude was summed up in January in its National Defence Strategy, which declared that inter-state strategic competition, not the war on terror is now the primary concern. It prioritised preparedness for war against the revisionist powers China and Russia. The targeting of China began under the Obama administrations pivot to Asia involving a massive expansion of the US military in the Indo-Pacific aimed at encircling and preparing for war against China.

Trump has increasingly targeted China as the chief threat to US interests both economically and militarily. Embroiled in allegations about Russian influence in the US elections, Trump lashed out with a tweet last weekend, declaring: All of the fools that are so focussed on looking only at Russia should start also looking in another direction, China. The political infighting in US ruling circles involves bitter divisions over which rival to confront firstRussia or China.

The Pentagon report reflects the preoccupations and calculations of the US intelligence and military establishment about Chinas rising economic and military capabilities. While the international media has dwelled largely on a small aspectdrills involving long-range Chinese nuclear bombersthe reports overriding focus is on Chinas ongoing restructuring of its land-based army to modern, integrated air, land, naval and missile forces able to counter threats, not only near China, but in Asia and internationally.

The report pays significant attention to Chinas expanding global influence, including its strategic and military relations, as part of President Xi Jinpings dream of national rejuvenation. It identifies Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), formerly known as One Belt, One Roada huge infrastructure program aimed at linking the Eurasia in particular by land and seaas a top concern.

The Pentagon states that Beijing will exploit BRI projects to align the interests of recipient countries with China as well to deter confrontation or criticism of Chinas approach to sensitive issues. It also declares that some BRI investments could create military advantages for China, including by allowing the pre-positioning of supplies necessary to sustain naval deployments in distant waters.

Chinas development of a blue-water navy and the consolidation of safe maritime corridors is hardly surprising given its heavy dependence on the importation of energy and raw materials. Even the Pentagon notes that the growth of Chinas global economic footprint makes its interests increasingly vulnerable to international and regional turmoil. Beijing is also well aware that US war plans include the use of naval power to cut off vital supplies, blockade China and thus strangle it economically.

The report highlights the opening of Chinas first overseas military base last year in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, adjacent to key shipping routes and that it may seek additional bases elsewhere. It points to the expansion of Chinas joint military exercises, including with Russia, Pakistan, Vietnam and various other mainly Asian countries and the growth of its arms exports. None of this remotely compares to the global activities of the US militarynot least of which is its involvement of a succession of illegal wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.

The Pentagon reviews key flashpoints in the region, including North Korea, Taiwan and territorial disputes involving China in the South China and East China Seas as well as the border area with India, where a dangerous standoff between Chinese and Indian troops continued for months. Washington, under Obama and now Trump, has deliberately stoked tensions by encouraging allies and partners such as Japan and India to take a more aggressive stance towards Beijings claims.

The report also emphasises Chinas developments in the area of military technology, paralleling the accusations made by the Trump administration that China is stealing technological secrets from the United States. To support this [military] modernisation, it claims, China uses a variety of methods to acquire foreign military and dual-use technologies, including targeted foreign direct investment, cyber theft and exploitation of private Chinese nationals access to these technologies.

The Trump administration is exploiting these allegations to justify an escalating barrage of trade war measures against China, not only over its trade surpluses with the US but its Made in China 2025 program to accelerate Chinese advances in key areas of technology. Earlier this month, Trump signed this years massive $716 billion defence bill containing several clauses directed against China, including controls on government contracts with the Chinese companies ZTE and Huawei.

The Chinese foreign ministry declared that it was strongly dissatisfied with Trumps signing of the defence bill, which also provocatively includes a call for the US to strengthen defence and security cooperation with Taiwanregarded by Beijing as part of China. The US, it said, should abandon its cold war mindset and zero-sum philosophy and warned that the bill could damage Sino-US relations if its negative aspects were implemented.

Likewise, China criticised the Pentagon report released last week declaring that its claims about Chinas military reform, weapons development and defence capabilities were pure guesswork. The defence ministry called on the US to view Chinas military objectively and rationally and take actual steps to promote and protect the stable development of military-to-military relations.

In fact, relations are becoming increasingly unstable as the US seeks to use its military might around the world to shore up its global dominance. Having launched into one disastrous war after another over the past 25 years, the US is now preparing for a conflict with China under conditions in which its military superiority is being eroded. The danger is that Pentagon planners are drawing the conclusion that a confrontation with China should take place sooner rather than later.
A report issued last week by Virginia state government seeks to whitewash the criminal abuse of unaccompanied immigrant children detained in the United States and held at the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center (SVJC) in northwest Virginia from 2014 through 2017.

Governor Ralph Northam, elected last year as part of a wave of Democratic Party victories that were presented in the media as a rebuke to the Trump administration, has effectively provided political cover for the criminal policies of the right-wing president.

The plight of dozens of immigrant youth at the juvenile detention facility first became known in June when a lawsuit detailing the conditions at SVJC and a similar center in Texas emerged. The lawsuit, filed last year by the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, accuses detention officials of excessive, abusive, and irreparably punitive and disciplinary practices and denial of adequate mental health care that subjects children to physical, emotional and psychological damage, in violation of fundamental constitutional norms.

The staff of the two facilities were accused of:

physically beating or striking children, often for minor infractions





engaging in psychological abuse, including solitary confinement for weeks at a time





calling children racial slurs and using other abusive language





placing children as young as 14 years old in restraining chairs in which their arms, waists and legs were bound for days at a time





stripping some children of their clothing forcibly, before putting them in harnesses





placing a mesh spit mask on detainees, leading many children to believe they were being suffocated by the guards





forcibly drugging children as young as 9 years old with antipsychotic and antidepressant medication, without permission from either the children or their parents.

In addition, youth were denied adequate meals, not informed of their rights and often denied the ability to appeal their treatment, which is referred to in the lawsuit as torture.

The revelation of brutal treatment of immigrant youth inside state detention centers is an indictment of the policies of both Democratic President Barack Obama as well as Republican President Donald Trump, as well as numerous state and local political figures. The governor of Virginia during the period covered by the lawsuit was Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, a close ally of Hillary Clinton, and a potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.

The Virginia state report, overseen by Secretary for Public Safety and Homeland Security Brian J. Moran and conducted by the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice and Department of Social Services, is a flagrant cover-up. Within the first paragraphs, the study states: The DJJ [Department of Juvenile Justice] team found SVJC in compliance with applicable regulations and certification standards and thus no evidence of abuse or neglect was found.

Using language intended to downplay the actions of officials at the SVJC, the report states: SVJC operational tenets are geared more toward a correctional philosophy and environment than a therapeutic model, suggesting the facility hire more staff with backgrounds in cognitive behavioral interventions and trauma informed care.

Elsewhere, the review suggests that, given the concerns raised by the allegations  about physical restraints more generally ... DJJ will inform and educate the Board about their use in Virginia in order that the Board may properly consider the current regulations and whether any changes might be necessary. While the report mentions that several staff members faced discipline for inappropriate use of restraints, it fails to explain the nature of the violations or if they had resulted in any injuries to the minors.

The report reveals that the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is responsible for the children, refused to allow DJJ investigators to take notes about or copy any case files for children held in the facility at any time. State investigators also could not question current detainees without an SVJC staff member ... present for all interviews. Unsurprisingly, the report finds: No residents interviewed had knowledge of the use of the restraint chair or any other such torture methods.

In addition, the youth who originally had been included in the federal class action lawsuit had been deported or transferred to a different facility prior to the investigation.

Governor Northam praised the findings: I applaud the quick and comprehensive examination conducted by the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Department of Social Services, and encourage the facility to heed their recommendations  The safety of every child being held there is of the utmost importance. Spokespeople for SVJC issued a statement praising the conclusions and stating the facility embraces the recommendations of the report.

Spokespeople for the Washington Lawyers Committee called the report deeply flawed, noting that children were interviewed without having lawyers present and that the investigators had declined to contact the childrens legal representatives, despite the ample evidence produced by their research and that of expert witnesses.

The whitewashing of abuse and torment of children by state officials occurs as the Democratic Party at the national level has dropped the plight of immigrants trapped inside the governments illegal dragnet. Despite the Trump administrations flouting a legal deadline which required that it reunite all immigrant children separated from their families under the zero tolerance policy, no Democrats have called for the prosecution of Trump or any members of his cabinet.

Rather, the opposition of Democratic Party officials and liberal commentators has focused on claims that Trump has been colluding with Russia, while denouncing all forms of social opposition to the administration as the product of foreign agents seeking to sow divisions in American society.

A recent report in the Fredricksburg Free Lance-Star noted that the state of Virginia plans to admit more immigrant detainees into its detention centers. Referencing comments by ICEs Richmond sub-office chief, the publication states detainees will begin arriving at the Caroline Detention Center soon. Virginia detention centers have housed at least 19,000 immigrant detainees since 2008.
The West Virginia Senate reconvened Monday to consider articles of impeachment against all four justices of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. Last week, the Republican-controlled House of Delegates approved 11 of 14 articles of impeachment by majority vote.

The effort to remove all members of the state supreme court is a transparently political drive to place under Republican control the last branch of state government controlled by the Democrats. The states highest court had a 3-2 majority of justices elected as Democrats, until July 27, when Justice Menis Ketchum resigned. On August 14, hours after the impeachment vote, a second Democrat, Justice Robin Davis, announced her resignation.

Both resignations have the effect of depriving Republican Governor Jim Justice of the opportunity of naming a replacement. The state constitution provides that a vacancy created more than 84 days before a general election shall be filled by voters, not the governor. Davis resigned on the 85th day before the election, after 21 years on the high court.

Under proposed draft rules pending adoption in the Senate, each justice will get a separate trial followed by a closed-door vote of the Senate. A two-thirds vote to sustain one or more of the articles against the judge will result in a conviction and removal from office. A separate vote, also requiring a two-thirds majority, will determine if the convicted justice will be barred from ever holding public office in West Virginia again. The Republican Party has a majority of 22-12 in the State Senate, meaning that at least one Democrat must support removal of the justices to achieve a two-thirds majority.

Following a two-day special session which stretched into the early morning of Tuesday, August 14, the House charged the justices with the impeachable offenses including maladministration, corruption, incompetency, neglect of duty, and other offenses, all in relation to abuse and misuse of state resources, including money, cars, computers, and furniture.

Republican chief justice Allan Loughry and Davis were impeached for their own spending, but similar charges against Republican Beth Walker and Democrat Beverly Workman were voted down, because their personal spending was much lower. However, the House nonetheless voted to impeach Walker and Workman for not restraining the spending of their fellow justices, a bizarre charge that only underscored the character of the whole operation as a right-wing political coup.

There is little doubt that several of the justices were guilty of lavish expenditure on their own offices, taking advantage of a provision in the state constitution under which the supreme court sets its own budget, not subject to review by the legislative or executive branches. The probe into alleged overspending was actually initiated by a Democratic state legislator, directed against Loughry, who is now on unpaid suspension following a 32-count statement of charges from the West Virginia Judicial Investigation Commission in June.

But the probe was effectively hijacked by the Republican majority in the state legislature, which seized on it as an opportunity to gain control of the judicial branch, following the decision last year by Governor Jim Justice, a billionaire coal boss elected as a Democrat, to switch to the Republican Party. Removing justices elected as Democrats for 12-year terms opened up the possibility of Justice appointing Republicans as their replacements, and thus placing the court under Republican control.

At her press conference announcing her resignation, Justice Davis lashed out at the Republican majority in the House of Delegates and accused them of plotting to stack the bench with conservative justices. What we are witnessing is a disaster for the rule of law, the foundation for our state and, indeed, our own society, Davis said. For when a legislative body attempts to dismantle a separate branch of government, the immediate effects, as well as the precedent it sets for the future, can only be deemed disastrous.

Since all the state supreme court justices are facing trials before the Senate, an outside jurist, Cabell County Judge Paul Farrell, a Democrat, was chosen by the court to preside over those trials.

The crisis began in November 2017 amid media reports about $3.7 million in court facility renovations, including a $32,000 couch and $7,500 floor medallion in Justice Loughrys office. At the same time, Loughry was found to have a state-owned couch, desk, and three computers in his home. The antique desk, designed by West Virginia Capitol architect Cass Gilbert, was one of five original to the court in 1932.

A legislative audit in June revealed that the Supreme Court had spent down a $29 million general revenue fund in fiscal year 2012 to a little more than $333,000 in 2016 on pay raises, new programs, rent for court offices, and office renovations. Testimony by former court administrator Steve Canterbury suggested that the spending spree was undertaken in the context of discussions of an upcoming constitutional amendment granting the state legislature more control over the judicial budget. In other words, the chief justice decided on a policy of use it or lose it, spending down the fund before the state legislator could take charge of it.

In February, the other four Supreme Court justices voted to remove Loughry as chief justice, a position they had chosen him to fill in April 2017 for the next four years. Justice Workman was chosen to replace him in the role. The move came after the justices discovered that Loughry concealed from them two federal subpoenas served on the court in December 2017 and February 2018.

On June 6, the court-appointed West Virginia Judicial Investigative Commission issued its 32-count judicial complaint against Loughry, charging him with violating the states Code of Judicial Conduct in relation to misusing state-owned property and lying about it to lawmakers, the media, and the public. However, the state case was put on hold following a federal grand jury indictment handed down two weeks later. Loughry now faces 25 federal charges, including 17 counts of wire fraud, three counts of mail fraud, three counts of making false statements to federal investigators, one count of witness tampering, and one count of obstruction of justice. Loughry has pleaded not guilty to the charges and remains free on bail awaiting trial.




According to documents obtained by the New York Times, leading #MeToo advocate Asia Argento settled an accusation of sexual assault from former child actor and musician Jimmy Bennett for the sum of $380,000 to be paid over the course of a year and a half.

The claim and resulting discussions of payment are included in documents between the lawyers for Argento and Bennett. The claim states Bennett was a little over 17 years old at the time of the alleged assault, which took place in a California hotel room when Argento was 37. The legal age of consent in California is 18.

As part of the agreement, Bennett, who is now 22, gave a selfie of he and Argento in bed and its copyright to Argento, now 42. Three people familiar with the case told the New York Times that the documents were authentic.

The lawyer for Argento who handled the settlement, Carrie Goldberg, in the documents described the money as helping Mr. Bennett.

We hope nothing like this ever happens to you again, Goldberg wrote. You are a powerful and inspiring creator and it is a miserable condition of life that you live among s-y individuals whove preyed on both your strengths and your weaknesses.

According to the documents, Bennetts initial notice of intent to sue was for $3.5 million in damages for the intentional infliction of emotional distress, lost wages, assault and battery.

Argento was one of the 13 women included in the first October 2017 New Yorker report about Harvey Weinsteins sexual harassment and assault that dated back decades.

Shes recently faced online persecution after her boyfriend, Anthony Bourdain, took his own life. Online trolls began harassing her, saying that she caused his death.

More to come

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UPDATED, with X Factor statement: Following calls for Asia Argentos ouster from the upcoming 12th cycle of X Factor Italy, the shows producers have responded. This follows the New York Times report that the Italian actress-director sexually assaulted a 17-year-old man in 2013 and arranged a deal to pay him $380,000 over the incident.

Sky Italia and FremantleMedia Italy released a statement on Twitter Monday night saying they had read with great attention and astonishment the New York Times story and noted they did not choose Argento to be a judge for her commitment to the #MeToo campaign, nor for her personal positions, rather for her musical skills and ability to manage a television role in a program of this kind.

However, they added, We want to be very clear: If what the New York Times writes were to be confirmed, this story would be completely incompatible with the ethical principles and values of Sky and therefore  in full agreement with FremantleMedia  we could only take note and cease the collaboration with Asia Argento.

See the full statement (in Italian) below.

PREVIOUS, MONDAY AM: It was with great fanfare that FremantleMedia Italy and Sky Italia revealed in May that Asia Argento would star as a judge on the upcoming season of Sky Unos X Factor Italy. The xXx star at the time called it a bittersweet return to primetime television in the country, where I was slut-shamed for months, following allegations she made against Harvey Weinstein late last year. Today, however, there may be a question mark hanging over her participation in the series as revelations about accusations against the actress were reported by the New York Times on Sunday.

Late yesterday, the Times said Argento had arranged a deal to pay actor/musician Jimmy Bennett $380,000 after he accused the Italian actress and filmmaker of sexually assaulting him when he was 17.

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A spokesperson for FremantleMedia Italy today told Deadline the company had no comment on the evolving situation.

Argento has been the top Twitter trend all day in Italy where she has been set to appear on the local X Factors 12th season beginning September 6. Argento was previously a judge on Rais dance format Forte Forte Forte and a contestant on the local version of Dancing With The Stars.

Some Twitter users in Italy are calling for Argento to be removed from the show. Author and public commentator Selvaggia Lucarelli wrote that if the moral penalty applies to everyone, Argento would be out at X Factor:

Quindi se la sanzione morale vale per tutti, Asia Argento viene segata da x factor.  Selvaggia Lucarelli (@stanzaselvaggia) August 20, 2018

Journalist Andrea Conti lamented the productions predicament:

Non saprei dire (a differenza vostra) se e giusta o sbagliata la presenza (dopo gli ultimi fatti) di #AsiaArgento nella giuria di #XF12. Penso solo alla produzione che si stara mettendo le mani nei capelli in preda alla disperazione https://t.co/Ajfjq21wrO  Andrea Conti (@IlContiAndrea) August 20, 2018

Argentos return to Italian TV would come following a period last year during which she said she left the country to escape a climate of tension and victim-blaming after she stepped forward to accuse Weinstein of sexual assault last October. In an April opinion piece for The Guardian, Argento wrote, When I spoke out about Weinstein, Italy was the only place where my story was not accepted or believed. Instead, my reputation was traduced, my story distorted, my credibility made hostage to smears.

Back in May, Nils Hartmann, director of original productions at Sky Italia, said, We are excited to welcome Asia to The X Factor family, where we are confident that the contribution of her musical culture and personality will be very important to the show.

We welcome all the [judges] of this new edition, but particularly Asia Argento, whom we are delighted to have on board, added Gabriele Immirzi, CEO of FremantleMedia Italy, in May. The X Factor 2018 will signal a more creative and productive renovation of the show, with the ambition to continue to grow and become more of a reference point for Italian and international music shows.

Heres the X Factor Italy statement:

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Likely in what was one of last times anyone saw Shanann Watts alive, she returned from a business trip with a friend early on Aug. 13 and walked into her home, in Frederick, Colorado.

Once inside, authorities now suspect, her husband, Chris Watts, likely murdered her and their two young daughters before disposing of their remains around property owned by his former employer.

In the days between his wifes reported disappearance on Monday and his arrest in their deaths Wednesday night, Chris gave multiple local news interviews where he spoke out as a grieving  even traumatized  husband.

Now he sits behind bars, charged with three counts of first-degree murder, among other crimes.

Heres what we know about the case so far.

Shanann Watts (center) and her daughters

Shanann & Her Girls Vanish

Shanann, 34, and her daughters, 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste, were missing for four days before authorities announced that all three were found dead.

Shanann was 15 weeks pregnant when she disappeared, according to investigators. She and her daughters were last seen in the Frederick area, where the family lived.

A friend of Shananns told local TV station KDVR that she dropped Shanann off at her house early on Monday, around 2 a.m., after they returned from a business trip  but then she called police later that day after not hearing from Shanann again.

According to authorities, Shanann was reported missing about 1:40 p.m.

From left: Chris and Shanann Watts

Shanann Watts (left) and one of her daughters

One of Shananns friends reportedly wrote on Facebook that she left her phone, purse, car seats and her childrens medicine at home.

Authorities initially said that Shanann, Bella and Celeste could be in danger and their suspicions were confirmed when Chris was arrested Wednesday night in connection with all three deaths. In addition to first-degree murder, he is accused of tampering with a dead body and unlawful termination of a pregnancy in the first degree.

Shananns body was found on Thursday in a shallow grave on Anadarko Petroleum Corporations property, an oil and gas company where Chris, 33, had worked until reportedly being fired the same day he was arrested.

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The remains of Bella and Celeste were located later Thursday, hidden in oil tanks near Shananns body, officials said.

A Grieving Husband?

Chris initially told news station KUSA that he was hoping right now that shes somewhere safe.

Speaking with station KDVR, Chris said his heart [was] racing a mile a minute.

Its not something I could ever, ever fathom would happen in my lifetime, and I have no inclination of where she is, he said. She said she was going to a friends house with the kids and thats the last thing I heard, and that was it. It was very vague.

Chris also shared his apparent concerns when speaking with KMGH on Tuesday, saying then that his wife returned from a work trip early on Aug. 13 and that he left for his own job about three hours later.

When I came home, walked in the house, nothing  vanished, he said. Nothing was here: She wasnt here, the kids werent here, nobody was here.

Addressing the camera directly, he said, Shanann, Bella, Celeste, if youre out there, just come back. If somebody has her, just bring her back. I need to see everybody, I need to see everybody again. This house is not complete without anybody here.

Death Inside the Home

On Thursday, prosecutors revealed that they believe Shanann and her daughters were murdered inside their home, but they declined to say more.

Speaking with KUSA before the bodies were found, Chris said their house had been scarred by the apparent disappearances.

Chris Watts

Like, this house is not the same. Last night was traumatic, he said. Last night was  I cant really stay in this house again with nobody here.

At his hearing on Thursday, Chris was ordered held without bond. He is next scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday to be advised of his formal charges.

His attorney did not respond to PEOPLEs request for comment.

Social Media Shows a Bustling Family

Before her slaying last week, Shanann was an active social media user and extensively documented her work and the life of her young family across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

She had been employed Le-Vel, a health and wellness company best known for Thrive, a series of supplements and other health products marketed as a lifestyle system to help you experience peak physical and mental levels.

Chris had worked at Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, they confirmed to PEOPLE. While a company spokeswoman declined to specify when he worked there or in what position, public records show he had been an operator after being hired around early 2015.

Shananns Facebook page shows she and Chris were apart much of the summer. In June, July and a portion of August, she and the daughters spent six weeks in North Carolina with her family.

They returned home to Colorado on Aug. 7. Shanann was home Aug. 8 and Aug. 9, then left for Scottsdale, Arizona, for a work trip, according to her Facebook. She got back on Monday.

The scene at a candlelight vigil on Friday in Frederick, Colorado, for Shanann Watts and her kids

Friend Talks Marital Problems

One friend told ABC News this week that Chris had grown distant before the triple homicide: He wasnt being the loving Chris that he normally was. He wasnt touching or hugging or doing stuff like that.

It is unclear when the couples relationship became troubled, but in earlier social media posts, Shanann expressed her love for her husband  calling him my amazing supportive hubby in one Facebook post and, on Instagram, my best friend, my soul mate.

On Valentines Day, Shanann wrote on Instagram, I love this man more than words can say! Hes my Rock, my love, my biggest fan, supporter and my husband! I couldnt of hand picked a better man to call my husband and father to our girls!

After reading the post, one of Shananns friends commented that she had a storybook life.

However, a family friend previously told PEOPLE that there was marital discord between Chris and Shanann and public records show they had faced financial issues in the past, including a bankruptcy in 2015.

More recently, it seemed, the family had returned to financial stability, the Denver Post reported, citing social media posts about their extensive travels.

Shanann Watts' daughters

Family Shares Grief and Torment

Shananns relatives have declined to comment to PEOPLE, saying they were not ready to speak, but in a statement to local media some of them shared their turmoil:

It is with deep hurt, confusion and anger to confirm our beautiful cousin Shanann Watts, her unborn child, and her two angelic daughters, Bella (4), Celeste (3) were viciously murdered by husband Chris Watts; who confessed to the killings. Please keep Shananns parents and brother in your prayers.

(Authorities have not publicly confirmed or denied allegations that Chris confessed.)

On Facebook, Shananns brother, Frank Rzucek Jr., spoke even more directly, writing in one post: I just want 30 seconds alone with that heartless psychopath.

My blood is boiling, he wrote. Nothing absolutely nothing would get in my way of taking away his life like he did mine and my ENTIRE FAMILY.

In a later post, Rzucek grieved for the deaths of his sister and his nieces: My sister and nieces meant the absolute world to me. They made me strive to be an even better man.  I wish I could go back in time and be there to keep you safe from harm. Sorry uncle couldnt save you.

According to her brother, at the time of her death, Shanann was pregnant with a boy to be named Nico.

Chris Watts (left) in court after his arrest

What We Still Dont Know  and What the Husband Says Happened

Causes of death have not yet been released, but an arrest affidavit for Chris that was unsealed Monday shows that he claimed he killed Shanann after watching her strangle one of their daughters.

He contended that he and Shanann had talked about him wanting to separate after she got back from her trip on Aug. 13 but then he walked downstairs for a moment and when he got back to their bedroom he saw, via a baby monitor, that daughter Bella was sprawled and blue on her bed  apparently already dead  while Shanann was allegedly actively strangling Celeste, the affidavit states.

At that point, Chris claimed, he went into a rage and ultimately strangled Shanann to death before loading all three bodies onto the back seat of his work truck, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit also states that, before he made this startling allegation, authorities confirmed Chris was actively involved in an affair with a coworker. (Investigators have not commented on what they suspect to be the motive for the murders.)

Speaking at a makeshift memorial last week outside the Watts home, friend Ashley Bell said she saw no signs of tension in Chris and Shananns relationship, describing them both as loving parents.

The triple slaying shattered that certainty, according to ABC News.

Bell said, I just dont understand it.

 With reporting by CHRISTINE PELISEK
Harvey Weinsteins attorney blasted Asia Argento for hypocrisy on Monday, following a report that she had settled a sexual abuse claim brought by actor James Bennett.

Argento was one of Weinsteins initial accusers, telling the New Yorkers Ronan Farrow that he forcibly performed oral sex on her 20 years ago. Argento has also been at the forefront of the movement to hold Hollywoods sexual abusers to account.

Weinsteins criminal attorney, Ben Brafman, argued in a statement that the revelations about Argento undermine her claims against Weinstein.

This development reveals a stunning level of hypocrisy by Asia Argento, one of the most vocal catalysts who sought to destroy Harvey Weinstein, Brafman said. What is perhaps most egregious, is the timing, which suggests that at the very same time Argento was working on her own secret settlement for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor, she was positioning herself at the forefront of those condemning Mr. Weinstein, despite the fact that her sexual relationship with Mr. Weinstein was between two consenting adults which lasted for more than four years. The sheer duplicity of her conduct is quite extraordinary and should demonstrate to everyone how poorly the allegations against Mr. Weinstein were actually vetted and accordingly, cause all of us to pause and allow due process to prevail, not condemnation by fundamental dishonesty.

Argento has not sued Weinstein, and her allegations are not part of the criminal case against him. Weinstein faces up to life in prison if convicted on six charges of sexual assault and rape.

Argento was accused of having sex with Bennett at a hotel room in Marina del Rey in 2013, when the actor was just 17 years old. According to the Times report, Argento agreed to pay $380,000 to settle the allegations.

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More details have emerged from the black box (Getty)

A mysterious black granite sarcophagus unearthed in Alexandria has yielded its secrets to researchers, Egyptian archaeologists have announced.

The researchers say that the three skeletons are a woman aged 20-25, a man aged 35-39 and a man aged 40-44.

One of the skeletons appeared to show signs of surgery, with a trepanation drilled into his skull.

Dr. Zeinab Hasheesh, Director of the Department of the Skeleton Remains Studies at the Ministry of Antiquities, said, This surgery is the oldest surgical intervention ever known since pre-history but was rare in Egypt.

Black sarcophagus: Archaeologists announce the approximate ages of the Egyptian mummies

Dr. Ayman Ashmawy, Head of the Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Sector said that the strange reddish water in the sarcophagus is probably from the mixing of the sewage water that filled the sarcophagus with the remains of the skeletons wrappings.

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Further tests, including DNA tests, will be carried out on the remains.

The stone casket was found buried 16 feet below ground during construction of new buildings, and dates from the Ptolemaic period 2,000 years ago.

Egyptian law means that owners have to excavate before building any new constructions.

The 16-foot sarcophagus was found by workers for the Supreme Council of Antiquities in the Sidi Gaber district of Alexandria.
WASHINGTON  Peter Berg, the director of the new action thriller Mile 22, says the project was developed before much of the intrigue unfolded over Russias attempts to interfere with the U.S. elections.

In the movie, Mark Wahlberg stars as an operative in an elite, secret CIA unit tasked with delivering a valuable asset 22 miles through a hostile southeast Asian country to safety, where he is supposed to provide valuable information. The Russians, though, are plotting to make sure that doesnt happen.

We have stumbled into something that is more current than we ever intended it to be, Berg tells Varietys PopPolitics on SiriusXM.

I dont believe that U.S. and Russia are engaged in the level of violent operations against each other that we touch upon in Mile 22,' he adds. But I am not sure. We might be.

Berg said he met with real-life members of the CIA unit, Ground Branch, and acknowledges that they can be extremely unorthodox. The group is portrayed as the third option for the U.S. government after diplomatic and military options fail.

Depending on your morality and your politics, what they do is potentially not OK, he says. I have been a big fan and subscriber to most everything I have encountered, and I have found that the members of that group were willing to talk, but not about everything.

He says he does not think Trumps post-summit press conference with Vladimir Putin was the presidents finest hour, but says he doesnt have comment on the presidents attacks on the so-called deep state or the career intelligence officials.

He thinks Putins selection of Steven Seagal as special envoy is an interesting tell of what Putin values and how he sees himself, and maybe how he wants to see himself.

Story continues

Berg said he spoke to Seagal once, and, I didnt understand a lot of what he was talking about. It was a one-sided conversation, and I didnt understand what he was telling me. But he might be operating on a level that I wasnt equipped to handle.

Listen below:

PopPolitics, hosted by Varietys Ted Johnson, airs Thursdays from 2-3 p.m. ET/11 a.m.-noon PT on SiriusXMs political channel POTUS. It also is available on demand.

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Tarana Burke, the activist who coined the phrase that started the #MeToo movement, reacted Monday to the news of Asia Argento allegedly paying off an underage sexual assault victim in 2013, saying sexual assault is about power and privilege, and that doesnt change if the perpetrator is your favorite actress, activist or professor of any gender.

She added: We wont shift the culture unless we get serious about shifting these false narratives.

The reaction in a series of tweets comes after a Sunday report in the New York Times that Argento  the Italian actress and Harvey Weinstein accuser, and outspoken sexual assault-victim advocate  made an arrangement to pay off Jimmy Bennett, an actor-musician who accused her of sexually assaulting him in a California hotel room 2013 when he was 17 years old.

According to the Times, Argento arranged a deal to pay Bennett $380,000. The Times said the alleged assault happened months past his 17th birthday; Argento was 37 at the time. In court documents, a selfie with the two lying in bed was included.

Burke was ahead of the curve creating the #MeToo hashtag, which became synonymous with the revelations of sexual abuse and misconduct that became national news with exposes on Harvey Weinstein last fall in the Times and the New Yorker. Since then, allegations and accusations have surfaced worldwide, leading to the downfalls of high-profile people of power in all walks of life.

A shift can happen, Burke said today. This movement is making space for possibility. But, it can only happen after we crack open the whole can of worms and get really comfortable with the uncomfortable reality that there is no one way to be a perpetrator. and there is no model survivor. We are imperfectly human and we all have to be accountable for our individual behavior.

Another Weinstein accuser, Rose McGowan, also weighed in Monday, saying her heart is broken. Like Burke, rather than fully distancing herself from Argento, McGowan suggested watchers be gentle as the truth of the situation is not yet known.

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Argentos lawyer has not made an official comment, and Bennett had not released a statement. Argento  whose boyfriend was the late TV host/chef Anthony Bourdain, who committed suicide in June  has not been active on Twitter since July 24.

Heres Burkes full Twitter thread from today:

Ive said repeatedly that the #metooMVMT is for all of us, including these brave young men who are now coming forward. It will continue to be jarring when we hear the names of some of our faves connected to sexual violence unless we shift from talking about individuals [+]  Tarana (@TaranaBurke) August 20, 2018

and begin to talk about power. Sexual violence is about power and privilege. That doesnt change if the perpetrator is your favorite actress, activist or professor of any gender.

And we wont shift the culture unless we get serious about shifting these false narratives.  Tarana (@TaranaBurke) August 20, 2018

My hope is that as more folks come forward, particularly men, that we prepare ourselves for some hard conversations about power and humanity and privilege and harm. This issue is less about crime & punishment and more about harm and harm reduction.  Tarana (@TaranaBurke) August 20, 2018

A shift can happen. This movement is making space for possibility. But, it can only happen after we crack open the whole can of worms and get really comfortable with the uncomfortable reality that there is no one way to be a perpetrator.  Tarana (@TaranaBurke) August 20, 2018

and there is no model survivor.

We are imperfectly human and we all have to be accountable for our individual behavior.  Tarana (@TaranaBurke) August 20, 2018

People will use these recent news stories to try and discredit this movement  dont let that happen. This is what Movement is about. Its not a spectator sport. It is people generated. We get to say this is/isnt what this movement is about!  Tarana (@TaranaBurke) August 20, 2018

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WASHINGTON  In the first trial to come out of Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation, a jury in northern Virginia convicted Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Trumps presidential campaign, of eight counts that include bank fraud and filing false tax returns. Federal district Judge T.S. Ellis III said that he would declared a mistrial on the remaining 10 counts on which the jury was unable to reach a verdict. The charges carry a sentence of as many as 240 years in prison, but will likely be far less.

The verdict marks the first courtroom victory for the Office of the Special Counsel, but it is likely not the last time Muellers team and Manafort will meet. Manafort is slated to face trial again in a federal court in the District of Columbia on a separate set of charges brought by Mueller. In that case, Manafort stands accused of engaging in conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, failing to register as an agent for a foreign principal, making false and misleading statements under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice. The second case is expected to go to trial in September.

A few hundred miles north at almost the exact same moment, Trumps former lawyer/fixer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight counts stemming from his involvement in hush money payment to women with whom the president allegedly had affairs.

Paul Pelletier, a former Justice Department prosecutor for 27 years who worked on tax fraud and white-collar cases, tells Rolling Stone that a partial conviction is a relatively common outcome in tax and financial fraud cases.

The documentary evidence of tax and banking fraud crimes was overwhelming in this case, Pelletier says. The only real question for the jury was Manaforts intent  a hurdle overcome by the testimony of numerous government witnesses who participated in the transactions (including witnesses who admitted participating in a crime from which only Manafort benefited).

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He adds, This verdict will surely be wind in the sails of the Special Counsels ship going forward.

Manaforts trial unfolded over two weeks in the phone- and internet-free confines of the Albert V. Bryan federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia. Each day, to an audience of hundreds that filled the gallery of Room 900 and a separate overflow room, federal prosecutors presented a case in which Manafort lied to keep more money when he had it and lied to get more money when he didnt, as lead prosecutor Greg Andres put it in his closing argument. The case was presided over by Judge T.S. Ellis III, who repeatedly interrupted prosecutors and chided them to move quicker. Ellis frequent interjections led to several feisty exchanges with Muellers team.

In the prosecutions version of the case, Manafort avoided paying taxes on $16.5 million that he stashed in overseas bank accounts in Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the United Kingdom. This took place, the prosecution said, at the height of Manaforts political consulting work in Ukraine between 2011 and 2014, where he and his firm earned tens of millions of dollars for work undertaken on behalf of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Russia Party of Regions.

But Yanukovychs unexpected ouster in 2014 tanked Manaforts consulting business. His firms revenue were wiped out, and he suddenly had few ways to sustain his luxurious lifestyle that included fancy cars, custom clothing and multiple homes up and down the East Coast. It was then, prosecutors alleged, that Manafort committed bank fraud in an effort to obtain loans so that he could settle debts and maintain his lifestyle.

Muellers lawyers called two-dozen witnesses that included Manaforts tax preparers, his firms bookkeeper, FBI and IRS staffers who worked on the case and employees of the luxury clothing stores where Manafort spent six-figure sums from his overseas accounts on custom suits, shirts and jackets. The revelation that Manafort had spent $15,000 on a ostrich skin jacket went viral.

But the most anticipated witness of the trial was Rick Gates, a former colleague and protege of Manaforts. Manaforts lawyers previewed their defense strategy in opening arguments by saying that Gates, not Manafort, had committed the crimes in question. Under questioning by the prosecution, Gates testified that he had only done what his former boss had asked him to do when it came to the bank and tax fraud allegations. Upon cross-examination, though, Manaforts lawyers sought to attack Gates credibility by revealing that he had embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from Manafort and suggesting that he had engaged in multiple extramarital affairs.

Lead prosecutor Greg Andres downplayed Gates testimony in his closing argument, insisting that the evidence introduced by the government confirmed what Gates had said. Indeed, the strength of the governments case lay with the documents. Ladies and gentlemen, Andres said in his closing argument, the star witness in this case is the documents.

But proving tax and bank fraud and conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt was always a tall order, and Manaforts lawyers used their closing arguments to poke enough holes in the governments case so as to sow doubt in the minds of the jurors. Thomas Westling, one of Manaforts attorneys, went further, using his final words to the jury to question whether Special Counsel Mueller overstepped his bounds in bringing the case in the first place. Nobody came forward to say, Were concerned about what were seeing here, not until the special counsel showed up and started asking questions, Westling said.

But on eight of the 10 counts, the evidence marshaled by Muellers team made all the difference.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
Rose McGowan has moved to distance herself from director-actress Asia Argento following the revelation Sunday night that Argento herself has been accused of sexual assault.

McGowan and Argento have been among the most prominent women to come forward with allegations of rape against now-disgraced film titan Harvey Weinstein, who is facing criminal charges in New York unrelated to McGowan or Argento.

McGowan has become a vocal activist on behalf of sexual assault victims. In a tweet sent early Monday, the former Charmed star said she her heart is broken by the New York Times expose published Sunday that Argento reached a $380,000 settlement with actor-musician Jimmy Bennett, who claims Argento sexually assaulted him in a hotel room when he was 17.

I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere, McGowan wrote. A few hours later, she expressed qualified support for Argento in another tweet: None of us know the truth of the situation and Im sure more will be revealed. Be gentle.

I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere.  rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) August 20, 2018

None of us know the truth of the situation and Im sure more will be revealed. Be gentle.  rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) August 20, 2018

McGowan has gained stature as a victims advocate in the year since the Weinstein allegations first broke in the New York Times and New Yorker last October. Her chaotic lifestyle was chronicled earlier this year in the four-part E! series Citizen Rose. Argento made appearances in two of the episodes.

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Argento is the daughter of famed Italian director Dario Argento.

(Pictured: Asia Argento, Rose McGowan)

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Asia Argento Settled With Sexual Assault Accuser Last Year (Report)

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Rose McGowan says her heart is broken following a report published by the New York Times on Sunday that Asia Argento had arranged a deal to pay a man who accused the Italian actress and filmmaker of sexually assaulting him when he was 17 in 2013. Rather than fully distancing herself from Argento however, activist McGowan suggests watchers be gentle as the truth of the situation surrounding Argento is not yet known.

McGowan and Argento have been steadfast allies in the past year, as staunch supporters of victims rights and the #MeToo movement. Both are also Harvey Weinstein accusers. Without directly referencing the NYT revelations, McGowan tweeted early Monday morning, I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere.

Shortly afterwards, McGowan added, None of us know the truth of the situation and Im sure more will be revealed. Be gentle.

None of us know the truth of the situation and Im sure more will be revealed. Be gentle.  rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) August 20, 2018

I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere.  rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) August 20, 2018

The NYT piece that ran online late Sunday said Argento has arranged a deal to pay actor/musician Jimmy Bennett $380,000. The Times wrote that the alleged assault happened months past Bennetts 17th birthday in a California hotel room. Argento was 37 at the time. In court documents, a selfie with the two lying in bed was included. In their agreement, Bennett gave the photo and its copyright to Argento, the Times reported.

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Argentos lawyer, Carrie Goldberg, had not made an official comment and Bennett had not released a statement as of early today. Argento has not been active on Twitter since July 24.

McGowan and Argento have been among the most public faces of the #MeToo movement since the New York Times and New Yorker ran bombshell stories about Weinstein last October and as the movement has grown in the past year.

McGowan and Argento have also publicly supported one another; notably following the suicide of Argentos boyfriend Anthony Bourdain. Argento also appeared on McGowans E! series Citizen Rose.

Related Video: Rose McGown on Asia and Anthony's Relationship

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Harvey Weinstein's lawyer slams Asia Argento for 'stunning level of hypocrisy' amid sex claims originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com

Harvey Weinstein's attorney stated Monday that the claim of sexual misconduct made against Italian actress Asia Argento should cast doubt on the allegations she's made against the disgraced producer.

Months after Argento became one of the first people to publicly accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, she's now herself accused of paying off a young male actor who accused her of sexual misconduct, according to a report in the New York Times.

The paper says it obtained documents that show Argento paid 22-year-old actor Jimmy Bennett $380,000 to settle the accusations. Bennett claims that in 2013 -- a couple of months after his 17th birthday -- a then 37-year-old Argento sexually assaulted him in a California hotel, according to The New York Times. The age of consent in California is 18.

"This development reveals a stunning level of hypocrisy by Asia Argento, said Weinstein's attorney, Benjamin Brafman, in a statement to ABC News. At the very same time Argento was working on her own secret settlement for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor, she was positioning herself at the forefront of those condemning Mr. Weinstein, despite the fact that her sexual relationship with Mr. Weinstein was between two consenting adults which lasted for more than four years."

Weinstein has been indicted on sex crime accusations involving three women, but that does not include Argento. He has denied the allegations.

According to the New York Times, a notice sent to Richard Hofstetter, the lawyer for Argento's late boyfriend, Anthony Bourdain, who was representing the actress at the time, claims Bennett made more than $2.7 million in the five years before the alleged assault, but his income has since dropped to an average of $60,000 a year as a result of trauma he suffered following the alleged "sexual battery." Argento, who lives in Rome, subsequently hired Carrie Goldberg -- a prominent lawyer for victims of online attacks -- to handle the case, according to The New York Times.

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PHOTO: Rose McGowan and Asia Argento during amfAR 'Cinema Against AIDS', May 19, 2005. ( J. Vespa/WireImage/Getty Images)

Bennett and Argento first met when he appeared at age seven in Argentos 2004 film "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things," according to the Times. They reportedly stayed in contact in the ensuing years and agreed to meet years later for a reunion. Bennett claims that at the time of the alleged May 13, 2013, incident, he arrived at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey, California, to meet Argento in her hotel room with a family member, who left the room after Argento asked to be alone with Bennett.

He alleges that Argento gave him alcohol prior to the assault, which allegedly included oral sex and intercourse.

Argento then asked to take a number of photos with Bennett, according to the documents cited by The New York Times. They, along with an Instagram post of their faces taken on that day, were included in the notice of intent to sue.

The notice of intent reportedly sought $3.5 million in damages for the intentional infliction of emotional distress, lost wages, assault and battery.

In a statement to The Associated Press on Monday, a lawyer for Bennett said the actor "does not wish to comment on the documents or the events" at this time. The statement asked for privacy and noted that Bennett would take "the next 24 hours, or longer, to prepare his response."

Argento, one of the 13 women included in the first October 2017 New Yorker report about Harvey Weinsteins alleged sexual harassment and assaults that dated back decades, has not commented on the allegation, nor have her representatives.

Rose McGowan, another of Weinstein's early accusers, stated on Twitter that the New York Times report left her heartbroken.

"I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere," she wrote. "None of us know the truth of the situation and Im sure more will be revealed. Be gentle."

Bennett's other film credits include 2003's "Daddy Day Care," "Firewall," "Evan Almighty" and "Star Trek." He most recently had a role in the Amazon TV series "Bosch."
Bystanders jump into water in California to help rescue 2 people and a dog from sinking car originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Bystanders joined rescue workers in jumping into water to save two people and a dog from a sinking car after the driver accidentally crashed through a guardrail at the marina in Long Beach, California, according to an eyewitness and authorities.

Jeff Jones, a captain with a boat-towing service at the marina, recorded video of rescuers rushing to save the passengers in the incident around 1 p.m. Saturday.

I heard a noise and turned around, and I saw a car drive right past me through a guardrail and into the water, said Jones. Im usually the person who would jump in to help but I had major surgery 10 days ago. So I ran to the long beach fire and lifeguard station, which was literally right there.

PHOTO: Good Samaritans save two people and a dog from a sinking car in Long Beach, Calif. (Jeff Jones)

Lifeguards and others from the city fire department also responded.

A statement from the Long Beach Fire Department says, "LBFD Lifeguard units responded to reports of a submerged vehicle just after 1 PM [Saturday]. Lifeguard and vessel assist personnel arrived and made water entry and extricated an elderly couple from the vehicle. Couple was treated on scene and released. Accident under investigation."

LBFD Lifeguard units responded to reports of a submerged vehicle just after 1pm today. LIfeguard and vessel assist personnel arrived and made water entry and extricated an elderly couple from the vehicle. Couple was treated on scene and released. Accident under investigation. pic.twitter.com/OaSU2kZ1mV  Long Beach Fire (CA) (@lbfd) August 19, 2018

PHOTO: Good Samaritans save two people and a dog from a sinking car in Long Beach, Calif. (Jeff Jones)

The video doesn't show the entire incident, but Jones said that the rescuers were able to pull the two people and dog through the car doors without having to break any windows.

Everything went really smoothly. I spoke to one of the passengers afterwards, and he said it felt like everything happened in slow motion. It felt like it was not a big deal, said Jones.
Michael Cohen, Trumps former longtime personal attorney, pleads guilty to illegal campaign contributions 'at the direction of a candidate for federal office' originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Michael Cohen, the former longtime fixer and personal attorney for Donald Trump, appeared in federal court in New York Tuesday afternoon, pleaded guilty to eight counts and said that he made illegal campaign contributions "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office."

The "candidate" Cohen referred to was not named in court or in the criminal information charging document but one of Cohen's lawyers, Lanny Davis, later said that Cohen had "testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime."

The campaign finance violations are associated with Cohens role in alleged hush money agreements with two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who claim to have had affairs with Trump.

While the criminal information does not name Trump, the document does identify Cohen as the personal attorney "to Individual-1, who at that point had become the President of the United States."

The information states that Cohen made a contribution to "Individual-1" and "did so by making and causing to be made an expenditure, in cooperation, consultation, and concert with, and at the request and suggestion of one or more members of the campaign, to wit, COHEN made a $130,000 payment to Woman-2 to ensure that she not publicize damaging allegation before the 2016 presidential election and thereby influence that election."

I participated in this conduct for the principal purpose of influencing an election, Cohen said.

The president's current personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was quick to react.

"There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government's charges against Mr. Cohen. It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohen's actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time, Giuliani said in a statement.

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Davis, Cohen's lawyer, countered: "Michael Cohen took this step today so that his family can move on to the next chapter."

"This is Michael fulfilling his promise made on July 2nd to put his family and country first and tell the truth about Donald Trump," Davis continued, referring to comments Cohen made in an interview with ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos.

(MORE EXCLUSIVE: Michael Cohen says family and country, not President Trump, is his 'first loyalty' )

"Today he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election. If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump? Davis said.

Cohen, wearing a dark suit and yellow tie, came in looking relaxed and even appeared to wink at the journalists behind him, but he stiffened as the hearing proceeded.

The federal judge asked him numerous questions about waiving his rights and addressed his competency to do so.

Cohen responded that in four days Ill be 52. He said he hasnt been treated for psychological problems or addiction but said last night I had a glass of Glenlivet 12 on the rocks, referring to the pricey, single malt Scotch whiskey, which he said was not his custom.

Cohen had agreed to a deal with federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York that required him to plead guilty to the violations of campaign finance law as well as several felony charges of bank fraud and tax evasion.

The tax charges stem from Cohens personal business dealings and investments in real estate and the taxi industry.

When the federal judge asked Cohen if he understood that he could get a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison if sentenced consecutively, Cohen said yes.

The government estimates Cohen would face some significant prison time under the deal, which will also require Cohen to make a substantial monetary forfeiture.

Though Cohen has been for weeks publicly signaling a willingness to consider a cooperation pact with authorities, it is unclear if there is a provision in the deal that requires Cohen to cooperate in ongoing federal investigations, either in New York or in Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

There was no immediate indication of a cooperation agreement with the government -- but the absence of a cooperation deal - while it would be notable - would not completely eliminate the possibility that Cohen could subsequently provide information to investigators that might result in a more lenient sentence.

Given Cohens proximity to Trump during the past decade, including throughout his meteoric rise from mogul and reality television star to the White House, observers consider him one of most potent legal thorns to confront Trumps presidency since he took office.

The guy who knows where all the bodies are buried, said Seth Hettena, an author and veteran journalist who has chronicled Trumps business career.

The investigation into Cohen was referred to New Yorks Southern District by special counsel Robert Mueller, and if Cohen agrees to cooperate, the information he provides could benefit the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. But it remains unclear if he has committed to cooperate.

Cohens relationship with Trump dates to the mid-2000s after Cohen, who owned condominiums in multiple Trump buildings in New York, took Trumps side in a legal dispute with the condo board at Trump World Tower on Manhattans East Side. Cohen eventually went to work for the Trump Organization, where he held the positions of executive vice president and special counsel to Donald J. Trump.

PHOTO: Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer for President Donald Trump, exits the United States District Court Southern District of New York on May 30, 2018 in New York City. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images)

"Michael Cohen has great insight into the real estate market," Trump said of Cohen in a 2007 New York Post interview. "He has invested in my buildings because he likes to make money  and he does."

In addition to working inside the Trump Organization as a lawyer and problem solver, Cohen built a diverse portfolio of investments.

At one point that included running 260 yellow cabs with a Ukrainian-born partner  a partnership that ended in 2012. He also invested millions in real estate, often turning a tidy profit. For instance, a building he bought in 2011 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for $2.1 million, sold three years later for $10 million in cash.

The FBI raid on Cohens home and office in April gave the most significant indication his business dealings could become a legal problem for him.

For more than a decade around the office in Trump Tower  and around New York  Cohens loyalty to Trump was unquestioned as he developed a reputation as Trump's "pit bull."

(MORE:Michael Cohen hints at possible cooperation with investigators)

"It means that if somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn't like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump's benefit," Cohen said in a 2011 interview with ABC News. "If you do something wrong, I'm going to come at you, grab you by the neck and I'm not going to let you go until I'm finished."

In 2010, Cohen was among the creators of a website, ShouldTrumpRun.org, that sought to encourage the New York real estate tycoon and reality television star to pursue a challenge to President Barrack Obama in the 2012 election.

"I think the world of [Trump]," Cohen told ABC News in the 2011 interview. "I respect him as a businessman, and I respect him as a boss."

Cohens dealings at the Trump family business covers a broad sweep of its global empire  including several projects that have caught the attention of federal investigators. Cohen played an integral role in early discussions about a possible Trump Tower in Moscow  negotiations that were going on during the early months of the 2016 presidential campaign.

That deal never reached fruition.

He could be extremely valuable, said Matthew G. Olsen, a former federal prosecutor and ABC News contributor. He was not just a personal lawyer but also was President Trumps so-called fixer for a number of years. So he would have had access to lots of very personal information involving his business dealings.

In January - the Wall Street Journal first revealed Cohens role in negotiating a secret non-disclosure agreement with adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels. The deal  which was executed less than two weeks prior to the November presidential election  paid Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence.

Government watchdog groups quickly filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice, asking the agencies to investigate for possible violations of campaign finance law.

Following the disclosure of the Daniels deal, Cohen insisted that he had acted on his own in the Daniels deal and that he had not been reimbursed by the campaign or the Trump Organization.

He told ABC News that the funds used to pay Daniels came from an existing home equity line of credit.

Two sources familiar with the search warrant that led to the raids on Cohen properties told ABC News in April that federal agents were hunting for records tied to Cohens personal business dealings and secret deals with Trump's alleged mistresses, media organizations during the 2016 presidential campaign.

On April 5, four days before the authorities raided Cohens properties in New York, President Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he didnt know why Cohen had paid Daniels or where he had gotten the money to pay her. The president later acknowledged, in a financial disclosure form filed last month with the Office of Government Ethics, that he had reimbursed Cohen.

Then there is Karen McDougal, who in August 2016 signed a $150,000 deal with American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, that transferred to the company the rights to her story of an alleged ten-month romantic affair with Trump in 2006. The magazine never published her story. McDougal alleged in a lawsuit filed earlier this year that Cohen had allegedly conspired with her former attorney to bury the story. McDougal settled her lawsuit.

President Trump, through his representatives, has denied the allegations of McDougal and Daniels.
Nazi death camp guard arrested by ICE, deported to Germany: Authorities originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

A man who authorities believe is the last known Nazi collaborator living in the U.S. has been arrested and deported to Germany.

PHOTO: Jakiw Palij, who served as a guard at a Nazi labor camp, is detained by ICE agents at his home in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, Aug. 20, 2018. (ABC News)

At the order of President Donald Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents removed 95-year-old Jakiw Palij from his Queens, New York, home on Monday.

Justice Department officials say Palij served as an armed guard at a death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and later lied to American immigration officials about his role in those atrocities when he entered the U.S. after the war.

Jakiw Palij, allegedly a former Nazi labor camp guard, seen in his U.S. visa photo from 1949. (U.S. Department of Justice)

(MORE: Skokie: The legacy of the would-be Nazi march in a town of Holocaust survivors)

ABC News was there when Palij was removed by wheelchair from his home on Monday, but he did not answer any questions. Looking frail with missing front teeth visible through his white beard, the only noise he made was a pained howl as agents hoisted him from his wheelchair onto the ambulance stretcher.

Representatives for Palij didn't respond to ABC News request for comment.

The administration released a statement after Palij landed in Germany early Tuesday:

"President Trump commends his Administrations comprehensive actions, especially ICEs actions, in removing this war criminal from United States soil," the statement read. "Despite a court ordering his deportation in 2004, past administrations were unsuccessful in removing Palij. To protect the promise of freedom for Holocaust survivors and their families, President Trump prioritized the removal of Palij. Through extensive negotiations, President Trump and his team secured Palijs deportation to Germany and advanced the United States collaborative efforts with a key European ally."

Palij's deportation has been a long time coming.

He'd been accused of working at the Treblinka death camp -- including on an infamous day in November 1943 in which 6,000 prisoners were killed, according to the Justice Department's Office of Legislative Affairs. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum writes that SS police unit shot all 6,000 prisoners. An attachment of Jewish laborers was brought in to burn and bury the corpses. "After completing this dreadful work, the Jewish laborers were shot and their bodies burned," the website reads.

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PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks on Capitol Hill during the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's National Days of Remembrance ceremony,April 25, 2017, in Washington. (Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo)

After falsely telling authorities he spent the war at his hometown in Germany, Palij gained entry into the U.S. in 1949. He was eventually granted U.S. citizenship in 1957.

It wasn't until 2003 that he was tracked down by federal authorities and exposed. A New York immigration judge revoked Palij's U.S. citizenship and ordered him to be deported in 2005.

At the time, Palij denied that he was a collaborator, telling The New York Times, he was conscripted at 18 when the Nazis took over his farm.

"I know what they say, but I was never a collaborator," Palij told the paper at the time.

The U.S. said in the statement about his deportation that he lied about not being involved.

"Palij had lied about being a Nazi and remained in the United States for decades," the statement said. "Palijs removal sends a strong message: The United States will not tolerate those who facilitated Nazi crimes and other human rights violations, and they will not find a safe haven on American soil."

Hillel Goldman, associate principal of the Orthodox Jewish Rambam Mesivta High School, speaks as he and students from the school protest former Nazi concentration camp guard Jakiw Palij, 94, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017, in Jackson Heights, New York. (AP)

(MORE: Germany loosens ban on Nazi symbols in video games)

The Department of Justice also lauded the deportation in an early morning email.

"Jakiw Palij lied about his Nazi past to immigrate to this country and then fraudulently become an American citizen," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in the statement. "He had no right to citizenship or to even be in this country. Today, the Justice Department -- led by Eli Rosenbaum and our fabulous team in the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, formerly the Office of Special Investigations -- successfully helped remove him from the United States, as we have done with 67 other Nazis in the past."

U.S. officials say his deportation had long been stymied by Germany's reluctance to take him in.

According to a source familiar with the matter, Trump told U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell to make Palij's deportation his number one priority when he got to Berlin.

In May, U.S. diplomats acknowledged Grenell's efforts.

In meetings with senior officials this week, Ambassador @RichardGrenell continued the 12-year U.S. government push for Germany to accept Nazi collaborator Jakiw Palij.  US-Botschaft Berlin (@usbotschaft) May 18, 2018

It's unclear if Palij will face prosecution in Germany, which had previously maintained that they were not in a position to accept him because he's not a German citizen.

Palij, who is Ukranian-born, had been living in the Jackson Heights, Queens neighborhood for 13 years. Protesters have regularly gathered outside of Palij's house and the push for his deportation has garnered bipartisan support. In 2017, every congressional member of the New York delegation wrote a letter to former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urging him to deport Palij before he dies.

The president made no mention of Palij's deportation during an event Monday honoring ICE employees.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who was among those calling for Pal's deportation told ABC News the U.S. is "no place for a war criminal."

"Im glad this man is finally being sent back. Hes a war criminal and did not deserve to live in the US. He doesnt deserve to die in the U.S., a place of freedom and equality where we respect each others differences."
Protesters knock down Confederate statue on UNC campus originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Demonstrators knocked down a controversial Confederate statue at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday, capping off a night that began as a peaceful protest, school officials said.

The university said a group of protesters toppled the "Silent Sam" Confederate monument on campus at around 9 p.m. Monday as a part of a demonstration urging officials to remove the century-old statue.

At least 250 protesters attended the rally, according to the university, but its unclear how many participated in the statues destruction.

Police stand guard after the confederate statue known as Silent Sam was toppled by protesters on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP)

UNC Chancellor Carol Folt condemned the vandalism in a statement on Twitter after the incident, but said the school understood why people were frustrated.

The monument has been divisive for years, and its presence has been a source of frustration for many people not only on our campus but throughout the community, Folt said. However, last nights actions were unlawful and dangerous, and we are very fortunate that no one was injured.

Police are investigating the incident and assessing the full extent of the damage, she added. There were no injuries reported.

Some protesters carried anti-white supremacy banners, while other uttered chants like "hey, hey, ho, ho, this racist statue has got to go."

(MORE: Charlottesville anniversary protests could draw thousands on both sides)

Banners are used to cover the statue known as Silent Sam as people gather during a rally to remove the confederate statue from campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP)

Video posted on social media showed a group draping the monument with a large white tarp, obstructing it from the cheering crowds view, before it came crashing down.

The crowd roared as the bronze figure smashed against the concrete. Dozens of police officers surrounded the statue after protesters stomped on it and covered it with dirt.

Seeing the statues empty pedestal was pretty breathtaking, Manuel Ricardo, a UNC freshman who arrived after statue fell, told The Associated Press. I heard the statue had come down, so I had to see it myself. ... I think most people here are happy. Im ecstatic.

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Silent Sam just went down? A post shared by @ maironthefair on Aug 20, 2018 at 6:29pm PDT

Gov. Roy Cooper's office said it was in contact with local police and the university in the wake of the incident.

"Governor Cooper has been in contact with local law enforcement and UNC officials regarding tonight's rally and appreciates their efforts to keep people safe, Coopers office said in a statement. "The Governor understands that many people are frustrated by the pace of change and he shares their frustration, but violent destruction of public property has no place in our communities."

(MORE: New Orleans removes 2nd Confederate-era monument)

Cooper proposed moving the Confederate-era monuments last year in the wake of a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year that left one dead and 19 others injured.

The August 2017 rally began over the planned removal of a monument of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
What Happened To Kiera Bergman? Details Missing Arizona Teen And Text She Went Before Disappearing

Kiera Bergman was last seen on Aug. 4, 2018. It's been over two weeks since she was last seen.

The 19-year-old resident of Glendale, Arizona is described by her father, Chris Bragg, as a "beautiful, intelligent person" and someone with the "biggest heart" of anybody he's ever met. He went on to say that, "She got so much joy out of making other people happy -- that's just the kind of person she is."

Kiera was last seen leaving her apartment around 1:00 p.m. on Aug. 4. Later that day, she texted her roommate, Destiny Hall-Chand, that she had plans to meet up with a man she had met at the store. When Kiera didn't return after a few days though, Hall-Chand then decided to reach out to Kiera's parents on August 6.

That was when Kiera was officially reported as missing.

RELATED: Heartbreaking Details About Khensani Maseko, The South African College Student Who Died By Suicide After Reporting Her Rape

Kiera's belongings remained at her apartment though, including her purse, wallet, and car.

Although Kiera's disappearance is suspicious, it is still being regarded as a missing persons case and not yet a criminal investigation. The police department in Phoenix, Arizona have been in charge of looking into Kiera's disappearance.

Phoenix Police Sgt. Vince Lewis told ABC News, "It was out of character for Kiera to disappear as she did."

Kiera, who had been living in Phoenix since March of 2018, is a native of San Diego, California. Bergman met her current boyfriend, Jon-Christopher Clark, back in San Diego, and the couple decided to relocate to Phoenix together. Kiera's father, who did not get along with Clark, described the young couple's relationship as "on-again, off-again."

"I do know that they did fight a lot and I do feel like the pressure of that relationship had a lot to do with her feeling ... she didnt seem as happy as she was before," Bragg added.

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No family wants to ever do this.



19-yr-old #KieraBergman has been missing since Aug 4th. She was last seen leaving her Glendale, AZ apt. Today her mom & dad are putting up flyers desperate for any information. Their emotional interview tonight on 3 TV & CBS 5 at 9 & 10 #azfamily pic.twitter.com/yen7Rt5K0s  Briana Whitney (@BrianaWhitney) August 10, 2018 

As authorities and the community continue to search for the missing teen, new developments and information have emerged, including the arrest of her live-in boyfriend, Jon-Christopher Clark.

Here are five details to know about the disappearance of Arizona teen Kiera Bergman:

1. Bergman was upset and left work early the day she went missing.

Twitter

Kiera lived in an apartment in Glendale, a neighborhood near Phoenix, with her roommate, Destiny Hall-Chand. The two girls were also co-workers at a nearby Glendale furniture store. On the day she went missing, Destiny told authorities that Kiera "became noticeably upset and left work early".

She was then picked up from work by her boyfriend, Jon-Christopher Clark.

2. Kiera's boyfriend refuses to take a lie detector test.

Twitter

Phoenix police offered Jon-Christopher Clark the opportunity to take a polygraph test in connection with Kiera's disappearance. The 23-year-old boyfriend of the missing teen, however, promptly refused to take the test.

I didnt want to do anything that would give the indication I was hiding anything but also didnt want anything on the record that would have them say I was doing anything or had any part in this," He told the Huffington Post. "I told them I would not like a lie detector test because, One, they are not admissible in court, and two, whatever you guys gather from that is basically your interpretation on my feelings. So I didnt want [investigators] to pretty much gather [their] conclusions off of something that is not guaranteed.

3. The young couple got into an argument the day she went missing.

Family and friends hold a vigil for Kiera Bergman, a 19-year-old who went missing last Saturday in Phoenix. Prayers, hugs, and tears are shared outside her Phoenix apartment, as the family continues their desperate search for answers. @azcentral pic.twitter.com/om6HOK5vlV  Bayan Wang (@bayanwang) August 12, 2018

After picking up Kiera from her job at the furniture store on Aug. 4, Clark brought the two of them back to their apartment. They then got into an argument regarding finances and an apparent misunderstanding in which Kiera had thought Jon-Christopher Clark was leaving their home in Phoenix for a job in Texas.

After the fight, Kiera left the apartment around 1:00 p.m., and that was the last time Clark was in contact with her.

When she left there was no immediate concern because we have had arguments in past where either me or her have left for an hour or a couple at a time to go clear our head. I didnt really find it unusual until she wasnt in contact with me.

RELATED: New Details About Emily Paul, The Teen Who Vanished From Her Home Five Years Ago At Age 14 And Was Just Found Safe

4. Kiera texted her roommate Destiny that she was meeting up with another man.

PLEASE HELP FIND KIERA. Even if you dont know her, one retweet or share can help bring her home. If it were your family or friend, youd be asking for answers. #FINDKIERABERGMAN #KIERABERGMAN pic.twitter.com/H48Lvjkb5f  madds (@maddyrilee) August 14, 2018

After returning home from work later that day, Kiera's roommate, Destiny, texted Bergman several times to check in. According to Crime Online, Destiny described the man Kiera was planning to meet up with as someone she had met at the store a few days prior.

She was saying that she was going to go out with some guy she met at the store a couple days ago which is something thats not like her, thats not something she would do.

5. Kiera's boyfriend was arrested on unrelated charges.

Boyfriend of missing Arizona woman Kiera Bergman arrested for identity theft, forgery https://t.co/8GfLIGcNyH pic.twitter.com/xdQD58WfGc  CBS News (@CBSNews) August 18, 2018

Although Jon-Christopher Clark is not a suspect or person of interest in Kiera's disappearance, he has since been arrested by Phoenix police on other unrelated charges including 22 counts of aggravated identity theft and two counts of forgery.

After searching Clark's car, police found personal information items that did not belong to either him or Bergman, including social security cards.

Kiera Bergman is 5'3" and weighs 145 pounds. Anyone with information can contact the Phoenix Police Department Missing Persons Unit at (602) 534-2121.

RELATED: Who Kidnapped Mollie Tibbetts? New Details About The Suspect The FBI Believes Is Hiding In Plain Sight

Jill Zwarensteyn is a writer and Michigan native. When she's not writing, Jill enjoys Zumba class, travel, and referencing classic Seinfeld episodes.

Keywords: crime, Missing, entertainment and news

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A school board for a rural school district in Virginia unanimously approved a plan that will allow teachers to be armed with guns and staff members to be armed with non-lethal weaponry like pepper spray in order to protect students in the event of an active shooter situation. The plan, which will be put in place for the upcoming school year, will affect all 11 schools in Lee County.

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The superintendent, Brian Austin, went on NPR to discuss the plan. He argued that not only was the plan to arm teachers instead of hiring a school resource officer cost-effective, but it is also not the end of school security negotiations for the district. It would cost over half a million dollars for the district to put an officer in each school. The program is also totally voluntary  although about 37 staff members and educators said they were interested in the program. Any teacher who would want to hold a firearm while educating students would have to go through two background checks, a drug screening, and a psychological evaluation.

Virginia is already a state that allows concealed carry, and given how agricultural Lee County is, most educators and people in the community already own and operate guns comfortably. Lee County will join hundreds of school districts across the country that already allow certain school employees to carry guns. As a matter of policy, at least 10 states allow staff members to have a firearm on school campuses, and each district that follows that policy does so differently: in some districts, the firearm must be in a lockbox, in others, it can remain on their person. In 100 school districts in Texas, educators are allowed to carry firearms.

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From Cosmopolitan

For every person who goes through with it, there are 280 who decide not to. Listening to them could be life-saving.

In a small tent in the middle of the Panamanian jungle, Carly Schwartz clutched a plastic bag in her hands, wrestling with the idea of killing herself. She sat cross-legged on a makeshift bed, her body shaking as tears streamed down her cheeks.



Yes, she decided. She wanted to die.

When Schwartz arrived in the Tres Brazos jungle just over a year beforehand, life had looked dramatically different. She had just turned 30, quit her job as the deputy editor at The Huffington Post, booked a one-way flight from New York to Mexico City for a microfinance fellowship, and set off on what she calls her "solo Latin American adventure."

She spent her days interviewing women in mountain villages, biking around the city, and making friends from across the world. Her Spanish got better. For the first time in a long time she felt fulfilled and free.

One opportunity led to another, and Schwartz moved to Panama to help a friend open a journalism school in the jungle. "I'd never felt more inspired, more capable, more interesting," she says. "I felt like I was reinventing journalism education. I also fell in love."

Schwartz had been taking antidepressants since college, but as time went by, she became convinced that Panama had cured her, so she abruptly stopped taking her medication, never questioning the decision or whether her depression could come back.

At first, she was fine.

Then, a few weeks later, she wasn't.

She started spending 24-hour stretches in bed pretending to be sick. Work felt daunting and she began to doubt her teaching abilities. She'd break down crying out of nowhere and at anytime. Once, when her sandal broke, she sobbed about never being able to buy another pair. Another time, she set out to clean the communal bathroom and wound up bawling on the floor, convinced she'd never finish the task.

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Schwartz went back on her antidepressants, expecting her mood to improve. She waited. For weeks. It didn't.



"It just felt like I belonged nowhere and that's the loneliest place-feeling like you don't even belong on this planet," Schwartz says. "My suicidal thoughts started to get really loud and real. I told myself that I could end everything and not be tortured by my own mind anymore. I started looking around for painless ways I could do it."

One day, as she wandered around the campsite in a daze, she saw a discarded plastic bag. That's when the idea slipped into her mind: Suffocate yourself.

Schwartz grabbed the bag and snuck into a nearby tent. It was a Thursday afternoon and everyone was swimming at the local river-no one would be looking for her. She sat for nearly 20 minutes, thinking how much easier everything would be if only she could turn off her thoughts. "I just wanted to go to sleep forever," Schwartz says.

She leaned her head into the opening. She took a few breaths. Then she froze.



"I instantly wanted to be alive," she says. "There was this moment that clicked: I didn't want to die. I just wanted help."

The fever pitch of her struggle fizzled as quickly as it came-the deflated plastic bag, limp on the ground, the only evidence of what had almost happened.

Media coverage of suicide is often slants towards the sensational. The back-to-back deaths of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade earlier this year dominated the press, which didn't hold back on the details-a phenomenon that research shows can lead to even more suicides. (After Robin Williams killed himself in 2014, the national suicide rate spiked 10 percent over the next four months.)

"When someone in the public eye kills themselves, it models the most negative way of coping with the most overwhelming emotional pain," says John Draper, Ph.D., executive director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. "If you feel suicidal in the moment or feel vulnerable and desperate, and you're drawn to a news story about the sudden, shocking loss of a person who was admired, you think, Well, if this happened to them, what hope is there for me?"

But some stories about suicide are hopeful: For every person who dies by suicide each year, another 280 people think seriously about suicide but do not kill themselves, according to data from the CDC and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Schwartz is one of them. Those near-suicide experiences hold extraordinary power, mental health experts say-and can even save lives.

"Our best answers as to why suicides happen and what we can do to prevent them are not found by focusing on the one person who died by suicide, but by focusing on the living-the other 280 who survived," Draper says. "Few of them are being asked-and fewer still are talking-about their struggles through suicidal experiences. Not talking about one's lived experience of coping through suicidality maintains the stigma that is the enemy of hope and healing."

The day after Schwartz sat in that tent contemplating suicide, she was on a flight back to New York for mental health treatment. When friends asked why she'd left Panama early, she shrugged it off, mentioning something about her depression. "I never said I was dealing with suicidal thoughts," she says.





Many people who seriously consider killing themselves cope with the aftermath silently and alone, too embarrassed to talk about their experience for fear of losing friends, family, career, reputation.

In her early 20s, while working as a research chemist in Philadelphia, Heidi Bryan found herself in an unhealthy relationship: "I was so lost and unhappy," she says. "I hated myself. I didn't know what to do with all of those feelings and tried to drink them away."

One day, after yet another fight with her boyfriend, she stood in the kitchen holding a glass of red wine, watching him storm out. Bryan had been seeing a psychiatrist and taking antidepressants, and in that moment, her first thought was to swallow her medication. She opened the bottle and poured dozens of small pink pills into the palm of her hand, then slid them into her mouth, holding them between her cheeks as they started to melt. She waited a full minute. Then she spit them out.

It wasn't until years later that she realized her experience wasn't one of shame, but of strength-an epiphany not just life-affirming for her, but potentially life-saving for others.

"People see stories all the time about those surviving breast cancer, heart disease and stroke, and we know what that recovery looks like-it helps people who are experiencing it, or someone whose mom just got diagnosed," says Shelby Rowe, a youth suicide prevention program manager for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. "So many people go through their suicidal crisis feeling completely isolated and alone, because they think they're the only ones. But they're not. There are millions of healing and recovery stories-they just haven't been shared."

For many people who seriously contemplate killing themselves, choosing to live is just as complex as wanting to die. Sometimes it's a sudden shift: The person on the verge of financial ruin sees a way out. Other times, there's a flash of hope, like getting a phone call from a friend or hearing a meaningful song on the radio.

Forty-eight hours after the news of Bourdain's suicide broke, Amanda Wang stood in the back row of her nieces' piano recital, her 2-year-old son playing at her feet, wondering if she would kill herself that day.

She'd spent the week mired in thoughts of suicide. The night she heard about Bourdain, she emailed her therapist: "He was very human and I could, in a way, relate to him. And he didn't make it. I don't know. I can feel the anguish. I just feel really awful. Sad. And compelled to kill myself." The idea of suicide kept rolling around her mind-a gun pressed to her temple, a rope jerking against her neck.

As Wang watched the recital, feeling heavy with grief and hopelessness, a girl performed the song "So Big/So Small" from the musical Dear Evan Hansen. "It was about a mother wanting to be there for her child," Wang says. "The son was afraid the mom would be taken away, and she reassured him she wasn't going anywhere. That reverberated inside of me." She looked down at her son, who was playing with a bubblegum wrapper, and started to cry.

"I realized I wasn't going anywhere either, because I have a son," she says. "The immense suffering is hard to manage at times, but when you're not feeling bad, you do everything you can to build up that reservoir of hope and resilience so that when you are in that time, you have enough to get you through it."

Bryan, too, found her way out-spitting out those pink pills-but it took her a long time to understand how to stay in the mindset of wanting to live. Years later, when she was happily married and sober, her brother took his own life. The loss devastated her and she felt a profound desire to die.

"Whatever was going through my brother's mind at the time-that our family would get over it, that we'd be better off-I wish I could have told him he was wrong," Bryan says. "It dawned on me: If that applies to him, it applies to me. If he was wrong, I'm wrong, too. I had evidence in front of me that I had to go on living."

One of the greatest tragedies around suicide prevention is that surviving a suicidal moment doesn't have to be a stroke of luck-there are techniques to cope and come out the other side. Many just don't know about them.

For years, Wang went from "psychiatrist to therapist to therapist" seeking support for her suicidal thoughts and depression. Nothing worked. Since her teens, she'd woken up many mornings wondering if she'd have "enough courage to die today," she says. She often thought about how to turn ordinary scenarios, like waiting for the subway or crossing the street, into suicide attempts. Once in her 20s, while drinking beers with friends at a stadium, she imagined falling over the edge of a balcony.

It took three hospitalizations for a doctor to finally suggest Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which treats self-harm and attempt behavior by teaching behavioral skills, such as mindfulness, that patients can use to manage painful emotions and navigate crises. "It taught me how to live with suicidal thoughts and urges," says Wang, who relies on distraction techniques like taking a cold shower, doing push-ups, and naming a fruit and vegetable for each letter of the alphabet if her mental health starts to spiral.

Wang was one of the fortunate ones.

"It's mind-bending how there's such a gap between what works-suicide-specific treatments based on the best scientific support-and what's actually done, which is to hospitalize and medicate," says David Jobes, director of the Suicide Prevention Laboratory at Catholic University and a clinician for more than 30 years. Mental health professionals, he says, worry about malpractice claims they might face if someone who hadn't been hospitalized completes a suicide so they tend to take "a better-safe-than-sorry approach" and have patients admitted.

Jobes developed a method that targets and treats problems that make people want to kill themselves called Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS), but he says it's just one of "a handful of effective psychological treatments that aren't widely used by should be."

Another treatment, Brief Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (BCBT), is a 12-session talk therapy for those who attempted suicide that focuses on how they respond to stressful situations and manage their emotions. "Suicidal individuals tend to make decisions that get them into trouble-unhelpful choices, whether drinking or withdrawing or choosing relationships that are harmful," says Craig Bryan, executive director of the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah, who has received millions of dollars in federal funds to study treatment for suicidal veterans, including BCBT. "We say, 'These thought processes and choices you're making aren't helping. They're causing you to feel stressed, and that's driving your desire to kill yourself, so let's look at the choices and what you tell yourself and let's change it.'"

Yet only half of psychological trainees and less than 25 percent of social workers are trained in suicide prevention, according to a 2012 American Association of Suicidality report. "Most therapists practice general counseling stuff-be nice, be warm, nod your head, ask the patient how certain things make them feel," Bryan says. "But they're not trained in more advanced methods proven to be effective for treating suicide risk."



It also takes 17 years for a proven treatment to get into clinical practice, Jobes points out. "That's a long uptake after science proves something works."

And even though many mental health professionals would classify suicide as a public health crisis-it's the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. (second among 10- to 34-year-olds), according to the CDC, and rates have risen in every single state except Nevada since 1999-studying it is not always a priority. Last year, the National Institutes of Health spent more money researching asthma than suicide and suicide prevention.



Ashley Womble learned to manage her suicidal thoughts using cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is similar to BCBT. A decade ago she was living her dream, working as a journalist in New York City, far away from her tumultuous childhood in rural Texas, when a close family member was diagnosed with a serious medical issue. He was refusing treatment and homeless, and she felt personally responsible. She couldn't focus at work, and when she wasn't in the office, she lay in bed, the duvet pulled over her body, imagining what it would feel like to be dead. "The fantasy of being gone was so alluring," she says. A couple months later, those fantasies morphed into real-life plans. What prescription pills would she need? How many? Would anyone miss her?

Eventually her boss pulled her aside and asked her what was wrong. The next day, Womble saw a psychiatrist who diagnosed her with depression and put her on medication. "It took awhile for that to kick in. It wasn't magical," she says. And she still struggled with her mental health. Learning CBT was a turning point-it helped her identify her triggers and disconnect from negative thoughts. Whenever it rained, Womble's gut reaction was to worry about her family member-was he out there alone, drenched and freezing? "CBT helps me think, It's just raining here. It helps knock those triggers down."

The mental health community may be slow to change, but there are more people than you realize-a friend, a coworker, a neighbor-who have faced down their darkest moments and are taking their stories into their own hands.

"I told my best friend about what happened in Panama and she burst into tears," Schwartz says. "I was like, this is far too morbid to tell anyone else." And for a long time, she didn't, but then: "One of the things that struck me most about Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade is that nobody in their lives really knew. It's just so fucked up that we live in a society where talking about mental illness is so taboo and those are suffering in the darkest of places...are doing so in silence."

So Schwartz speaks out through the Jed Foundation, a mental health nonprofit aimed at helping teens and young adults, and talks openly with her friends and co-workers about her struggles. "No one treats me any differently," she says. "It takes that perfect storm of voices to slowly reduce the shame. I'm not brave. I'm just a person talking about what I deal with."

Bryan has spent the last 20 years doing the same thing. She co-founded Prevent Suicide Pennsylvania, a statewide suicide prevention organization, and works as a suicide prevention trainer and speaker. "I didn't even know there were other people like me," she says.

There are, and their stories are worth telling not because of how they end-but because they didn't.

Abigail Jones is an award-winning journalist who often covers trauma.



If you or someone you know is considering suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8285 or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741-741.

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Photo credit: Anwar Hussein - Getty Images

From Town & Country

Despite rumors suggesting that Meghan Markle is traveling solo this week, she is not, in fact, back in Toronto, where she lived when she was an actress. Multiple royal reporters have denied that the Duchess of Sussex is in Canada, calling the speculation "inaccurate."

For example, Rebecca English, royal correspondent for the Daily Mail, posted on Twitter, "Meghan isn't in Canada or LA and won't be going there any time soon."

{% verbatim %}

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will attend a gala performance of the musical HAMILTON in support of @Sentebale at the Victoria Palace Theatre on Wednesday 29th August.

PS Meghan isn't in Canada or LA and won't be going there any time soon. - Rebecca English (@RE_DailyMail) August 20, 2018

{% endverbatim %}

And Carolyn Durrand, a royal reporter and producer for ABC, posted, "Reports that HRH The #DuchessofSussex #MeghanMarkle is in Canada are inaccurate. She is not currently in Toronto."

{% verbatim %}

Reports that HRH The #DuchessofSussex #MeghanMarkle is in Canada are inaccurate. She is not currently in Toronto. pic.twitter.com/aRQaQ2Uwaq - Carolyn Durand (@CarolynDurand) August 19, 2018

{% endverbatim %}

The rumor started when the website Royal Central reported that Meghan was flying to Toronto on Air Canada. An anonymous source told the publication Kensington Palace had requested "that no one take Meghans picture or approach her on the flight."

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It took off from there, with multiple publications citing the blog's anonymous source, with no further confirmation.

While Meghan isn't in Canada visiting her friends the Mulroneys this week, she does have exciting plans in London. She and Harry will be seeing Hamilton later this month.

Today, Kensington Palace announced that she and Prince Harry will be attending a charity performance of the musical about America's founding fathers, which is currently playing in London. The gala on August 29 will help to fund Sentebale, an organization co-founded by Harry in 2006, which supports young people affected by HIV in Lesotho and Botswana.

"The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will attend a gala performance of @HamiltonWestEnd in support of @Sentebale at the Victoria Palace Theatre on Wednesday 29th August," reads a tweet announcing the appearance. "The evening will raise awareness and funds for Sentebale's work with children and young people affected by HIV."

{% verbatim %}

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will attend a gala performance of @HamiltonWestEnd in support of @Sentebale at the Victoria Palace Theatre on Wednesday 29th August.



The evening will raise awareness and funds for Sentebale's work with children and young people affected by HIV. pic.twitter.com/N8XxUCaiSD - Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) August 20, 2018

{% endverbatim %}

Hopefully Harry won't be too offended by the portrayal of his distant relative, King George III.

The Palace also announced two other engagements. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will attend the Well Child Awards on September 4 and the 100 Days to Peace gala on September 6.

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Photo credit: Raphael Stecksen

From Town & Country

Sweden's 6-year-old Princess Estelle headed off to her first day of this school this morning with a new backpack and a big smile. In honor of the milestone, the royal family released a series of photos of her day of classes at Campus Manilla in Stockholm, including this sweet picture of her walking hand-in-hand with her mother Crown Princess Victoria and her father, Prince Daniel:

Photo credit: Raphael Stecksen

The palace also shared this picture of Estelle, who is second in line to the throne, settling in at her desk, ready to learn.

Photo credit: Raphael Stecksen

Over the past few days, we've seen several new photos of Estelle and her family. Just yesterday, the Swedish royals released a series of summer portraits.

Here is Crown Princess Victoria's family. (Yes, that is little Prince Oscar riding on a donkey.)

Photo credit: Anna Lena Ahlstrom

And here they are with King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia:

Photo credit: Anna Lena Ahlstrom

The official Swedish royal family Instagram account, @kungahuset, also shared a few candid photos of Princess Estelle and Prince Oscar taken by their parents this week. Here's a rough translation of the caption: The Crown Princess and Prince Daniel would like to share some pictures that the couple took during the summer.

The photographs were taken in Halsingland (1 and 2), on Gotland (3), on Oland (4 and 5) and Kalmarsund (6).

Estelle's British counterparts, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, don't go back to school until early September, but we're keeping our fingers crossed that Kensington Palace will also share new photos of the royal youngsters to mark the occasion.

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Where Was Mollie Tibbets' Body Found?

On July 18th, a young woman named Mollie Tibbetts disappeared from the small town of Brooklyn, Iowa. For the last five weeks, hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement officers have been searching the area for her, with no luck whatsoever.

But this morning, police confirmed that they had found the 20-year-olds body, over a month after she went missing.

Where was Mollie Tibbetts body found? Her body was located in a field not far from where she went jogging, in Poweshiek County. According to eyewitnesses in the area, a dirt road near 460th Avenue and Highway 21 was closed off and barricaded after the discovery. Authorities also looked for trucks, as the area is heavily muddy.

UPDATE

In a press conference at 5PM EST, police revealed they have a suspect in Mollie's murder: a 24-year-old undocumented immigrant named Christian Rivera.

Rivera abducted Mollie while she was out jogging, and disposed of her body in a field 15 minutes from Brooklyn, in Gurney, Iowa. He is charged with first degree murder.

Though police will not release any further details about her cause of death, its clear that this tragedy has rattled the area.

A post shared by @abc7newsbayarea on Aug 21, 2018 at 7:02am PDT

RELATED: New Details About The The Disappearance Of 10-Year-Old Lindsey Baum That Prove She Was Murdered

Tibbetts was last seen after going for an evening jog around 8 PM. At the time of her disappearance, she was staying alone at the home of her boyfriend, Dalton Jack, who was out of town at the time. Jacks brother, Blake Jack, was also out of town, and both were cleared.

Her father, Rob Tibbetts, recently went to California for a break on the advice of law enforcement, though he is not considered a suspect. He was also out of the state when she disappeared.

Police say she was likely abducted by someone she knew and that the murderer is hiding in plain sight and likely attended vigils held in her honor. Considering that her family and boyfriend were away during her disappearance, could the murderer have known that she would be alone?

Story continues

A post shared by JACLENE K MARCHE (@hrhjrc007) on Aug 21, 2018 at 6:27am PDT

So far, no arrests have been made but there has been one suspect interviewed by the police. A pig farmer named Wayne Cheney was questioned a few times, and had his property searched. Police found a red t-shirt that resembled one Tibbetts owned, but it was never confirmed whether or not it actually belonged to her.

The property is located more than 100 miles from Brooklyn, Iowa, and though the t-shirt may have implicated him, Cheney has maintained his innocence and took a polygraph test. He hasnt been charged.

RELATED: A Man Is Set To Be Executed For The Brutal Rape And Murder Of 7-Year-Old Paula Dyer  And Her Parents Want To Remind Us Of What She Went Through

According to her father, "The bottom line is somebody knows something ... you cant do anything [in Brooklyn, Iowa] without someone seeing it. And her boyfriend attested, Its Brooklyn. You dont lock your doors. We lock our doors now. Every night. Its more than likely because you know, nobody ever thought there was a reason to. Again, its Brooklyn. Nothing ever happens in Brooklyn. Thats why its such a blindsided situation.

A post shared by All Rise (@allrisepodcast) on Aug 20, 2018 at 3:34am PDT

Since her disappearance, the town has raised $400,000, initially used as a reward for any information regarding her whereabouts. According to Greg Wiley of Crime Stoppers, the money will now be used to find the person responsible for her death once they catch their breath.

Mollie Tibbetts disappearance caught the attention of the media, particularly Vice President Mike Pence. The Tibbetts family and her boyfriend had a private meeting with Pence, reaching out for support and (probably) prayers.

A post shared by Santa Cruz en el Mundo (@santacruzmundo) on Aug 11, 2018 at 4:37pm PDT

This is a developing story and will be updated.

RELATED: 6 Things To Know About Jimmy Wopo  The Second Rapper To Be Murdered In Two Days

Samantha Maffucci is an associate editor for YourTango. In her free time, you can find her obsessing about cats, wine, and all things Vanderpump Rules.

Keywords: crime, murder, mollie tibbetts, disappearance, entertainment and news

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Caleb Hammond is spending his remaining days surrounded by racing and is asking for racing stickers for his casket after ending cancer treatment. (AP)

Caleb Hammonds family recently made a devastating decision.

Painful treatments for the 11-year-olds leukemia were not working, and his family chose to pull him out of the hospital to live out the remainder of his days in the relative comfort of his Oskaloosa, Iowa home.

Dying boy wants racing stickers for his casket

Hammond, an avid race fan who has visited the Southern Iowa Speedway with his uncle Chris Playle since he was 2 years old, has asked for people to send him racing stickers to put on his casket in a story told to the Des Moines Register.

Were trying to get a bunch of them, Playle told The Register. Were trying to decorate his casket. Were just trying to do as much as we can with him while hes here.

Doctors diagnosed Hammond with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2017 when he was 9 years old. He has since undergone a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy that required Hammond to be put in a medically-induced coma and dialysis and led to heart failure, according to a GoFundMe page set up by his stepmother Kylee Hammond.

Hammond leaves hospital after failed cancer treatments

When his cancer returned aggressively after several painful treatments, his family decided to pull him out of Blank Childrens Hospital in Des Moines.

In the three-plus weeks since hes been home, Hammond has felt better, according to his uncle.

Medically, hes still pretty strong, Playle told The Register. I know later on in the evenings hes tired, hes ready to settle down He gets worn-out kind of easy. But otherwise, hes still pretty strong and spirits still pretty high.

Hammond lived dream of driving race car

Hammond felt well enough this past weekend to attend the Southern Iowa Speedway and actually got to drive a car on the dirt track with the guidance of 12-year-old racer Jacob Foster, who was riding shotgun in the hobby car.

The Oskaloosa Herald reported on the experience that saw Hammond surprised at the track with the chance to drive a race car.

Story continues

Pretty awesome, Calebs father John Hammond told the Herald. A goal of his was to be able to drive a race car when he got older. Its like a dream come true.

Dirt track, NASCAR drivers helping to gather stickers

While Hammond was racing in Iowa, driver Bryan Baker was collecting stickers for him at a Texas race track.

Meanwhile, 2018 Daytona 500 winner Austin Dillon saw Hammonds story and promised to put together some stickers for him.

Putting a package together now for you Caleb lots of stickers headed your way https://t.co/61zuoteL8C  Austin Dillon (@austindillon3) August 21, 2018

The racing experience and support from the community has lifted Hammonds spirits, according to his uncle, who told The Register that his family was trying to expose him to as much racing as possible in his remaining days.

Were just trying to get some racing in and trying to do everything we can to keep the spirit up, Playle said. The support and everything, all the cards hes receiving in the mail, its been overwhelming.

More from Yahoo Sports:

 Fan tries to fight NASCAR star following race

 NFL players call for reversal of ridiculous rule

 Jeff Passan: NL has no great teams, but a thrilling pennant race

 Charles Robinson: Will Watson pull a Wentz?


The Guardian

Since the 1950s, Marin county waters have been home to a community of mariners. Now local authorities say they have to leave Jeff Jacob Chase rows towards a friends boat in Richardson Bay in Sausalito, California. Photograph: Hardy Wilson/The Guardian For decades, a group known as the anchor-outs enjoyed a relatively peaceful existence in a corner of the San Francisco Bay. The mariners carved out an affordable, bohemian community on the water, in a county where the median home price recently
Antananarivo (AFP) - A total of 46 candidates including the incumbent president and his two predecessors are seeking to contest Madagascar's presidential polls at the end of the year, the Constitutional Court said Tuesday.

The court will now assess the candidates' eligibility and confirm by Sunday which ones will be allowed to stand in the first round of the elections.

The vote scheduled for November 7 comes after an outbreak of protests that forced President Heri Rajaonarimampianina to accept the formation of a "consensus" government tasked with organising a fresh poll.

If no candidate receives more than 50 percent in the first round, a second round of voting will be held on December 19.

Rajaonarimampianina, elected in 2013, will seek re-election as will his predecessors Andry Rajoelina, who was in power from 2009-2014, and Marc Ravalomanana, who held office from 2002 to 2009.

Opposition grandees Rajoelina and Ravalomanana were both barred from running in 2013 under a deal designed to bring stability to the impoverished Indian Ocean island.

Madagascar is a former French colony with a population of 25 million that has been beset by political instability for decades.

A standoff erupted over proposed electoral reforms that triggered mass protests and led the Constitutional Court to order a caretaker government to organise the ballot.

Demonstrators took to the capital Antananarivo's central square in April over Rajaonarimampianina's efforts to change electoral laws that opponents said were intended to favour his party.

The proposals were overturned by the courts.

But the protests morphed into a full-blown movement to oust Rajaonarimampianina. Clashes between activists and the security forces claimed two lives and left more than a dozen injured.
Rome (AFP) - Italian actress and sexual abuse campaigner Asia Argento denied Tuesday having had a sexual relationship five years ago with an underage teen, calling the allegations part of "a long-standing persecution".

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Argento, 42, a Harvey Weinstein accuser and leading figure in the #MeToo movement, had paid actor and rock musician Jimmy Bennett $380,000 over the alleged 2013 incident at a Los Angeles hotel.

Bennett was two months past his 17th birthday at the time of the alleged encounter, while Argento was 37. The legal age of consent in California is 18.

"I strongly deny and oppose the contents of the New York Times article... as circulated also in national and international news," a statement issued by her agent said.

"I am deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false. I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett," it goes on.

Argento says that she was linked to Bennett "during several years by friendship only".

The pair had acted together in the 2004 film "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things", in which Argento plays Bennett's troubled mother.

Argento said the friendship "ended when, subsequent to my exposure in the Weinstein case, Bennett... unexpectedly made an exorbitant request of money from me".

- 'Great sadness' -

Argento became a powerful voice for the #MeToo movement after accusing Hollywood producer Weinstein of raping her when she was 21 in his hotel room in 1997 during the Cannes film festival.

Argento goes on to say that her boyfriend, the late chef Anthony Bourdain, "was afraid of the possible negative publicity that such a person, whom he considered dangerous, could have brought upon us".

"We decided to deal compassionately with Bennett's demand for help and give it to him. Anthony personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life," the statement said.

Story continues

"This is, therefore, the umpteenth development of a sequence of events that brings me great sadness and that constitutes a long-standing persecution," Argento said, before pledging to take "all necessary initiatives for my protection before all competent venues".

Bennett's legal action was launched a month after Argento's accusations against Weinstein were made public, according to the New York Times report, which added that his lawyer claimed his client recalled the hotel encounter after seeing Argento present herself as a victim of sexual assault.

Argento made an emotional speech at this year's Cannes festival, telling the audience: "Things have changed. We are not going to allow you to get away with it."

Weinstein's lawyer Ben Brafman has sought to capitalise on the allegations against Argento, accusing her of "duplicity" and "a stunning level of hypocrisy".

On Monday police in California said that Argento was not currently under active investigation over the Times report but that "enquiries will be made".
Rome (AFP) - Italian actress and sexual abuse campaigner Asia Argento denied Tuesday having had a sexual relationship five years ago with an underage teen, calling the allegations part of "a long-standing persecution".

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Argento, 42, a Harvey Weinstein accuser and leading figure in the #MeToo movement, had paid actor and rock musician Jimmy Bennett $380,000 over the alleged 2013 incident at a Los Angeles hotel.

Bennett was two months past his 17th birthday at the time of the alleged encounter, while Argento was 37. The legal age of consent in California is 18.

In a statement Argento said her late boyfriend, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain who committed suicide in June, gave money to Bennett upon the condition that "we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life,"

"I strongly deny and oppose the contents of the New York Times article... as circulated also in national and international news," a statement issued by her agent said.

"I am deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false. I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett," it goes on.

Argento says that she was linked to Bennett "during several years by friendship only".

- 'Long-standing persecution' -

The pair had acted together in the 2004 film "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things", in which Argento plays Bennett's troubled mother.

Argento said the friendship "ended when, subsequent to my exposure in the Weinstein case, Bennett -- who was then undergoing severe economic problems and had previously undertaken legal actions against his own family requesting millions in damages -- unexpectedly made an exorbitant request of money from me."

Addressing the issue of the payment of money to Bennett, Argento explained that Bourdain "was afraid of the possible negative publicity that such a person, whom he considered dangerous, could have brought upon us".

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"We decided to deal compassionately with Bennett's demand for help and give it to him. Anthony personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life," the statement said.

"This is, therefore, the umpteenth development of a sequence of events that brings me great sadness and that constitutes a long-standing persecution," Argento said, before pledging to take "all necessary initiatives for my protection before all competent venues".

- 'Stunning level of hypocrisy' -

Argento became a powerful voice for the #MeToo movement after accusing Hollywood producer Weinstein of raping her when she was 21 in his hotel room in 1997 during the Cannes film festival.

Bennett's legal action was launched a month after Argento's accusations against Weinstein were made public, according to the New York Times report, which added that Bennett's lawyer claimed his client recalled the hotel encounter after seeing Argento present herself as a victim of sexual assault.

Argento made an emotional speech at this year's Cannes festival, telling the audience: "Things have changed. We are not going to allow you to get away with it."

Weinstein's lawyer Ben Brafman has sought to capitalise on the allegations against Argento, accusing her of "duplicity" and "a stunning level of hypocrisy".

On Monday police in California said that Argento was not currently under active investigation over the Times report but that "enquiries will be made".

The reality singing television show "X Factor Italy" on which Argento is a judge has said it would cut ties with her if the allegation was confirmed.
Larry M. Wortzel

Security, Asia

For China, asymmetric warfare represents a tactic with ancient roots that has been successfully applied to the contemporary age. Asymmetric warfare, as seen from Beijing, means using ones own strengths and capabilities to attack an enemys weaknesses. Doing so may involve the use of terrain, tactics, or the application of new or different technologies.

Can America Defeat China's Asymmetric Warfare Plans if Conflict Came?

Chinas focus on irregular war represents a challenge to U.S. military doctrine, and necessitates new thinking about inherent vulnerabilities in the current American way of war. To properly defend against Chinese tactics and weapons, the United States will need to protect against network and cyber penetrations by the PLA, harden its capabilities against the potential use of EMP weapons, and use legal mechanisms to challenge Beijings efforts to reshape international law. All of this, and more, should be the focus of American military planners as they contemplate how to persevere in a potential future conflict with the PRC.

For China, asymmetric warfare represents a tactic with ancient roots that has been successfully applied to the contemporary age. Asymmetric warfare, as seen from Beijing, means using ones own strengths and capabilities to attack an enemys weaknesses. Doing so may involve the use of terrain, tactics, or the application of new or different technologies.

(This first appeared last year.)

Chinese military thought on asymmetric warfare draws heavily on classical strategy. The authors of The Science of Military Strategy 2013, a leading contemporary military tract, cite Sun Tzus directive from The Art of War that in order to exact many victories, one must use asymmetric means (fei duicheng) with surprising military movements. Sun Tzu cautions that an army should employ a combination of direct, normal offensive and defensive moves, and unusual, unexpected, or sudden surprising moves in order to achieve dominance on the battlefield.

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Recommended: Would China Really Invade Taiwan?

Of particular concern to Chinese planners is the so-called Taiwan scenario, in which more powerful Chinese forces face a weaker enemy, but a still more powerful enemy force (such as the United States) could intervene in the conflict. Accordingly, Chinese strategists have argued for the use of an array of assassins mace weapons to disrupt both the economy and communications in the event of war with the United States.

One such weapon is cyber and network attacks. Chinas strategists argue that networks are the basic foundation of society and have become critical for national security, as well as a major new domain for military conflict. Researchers with the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) believe that offensive operations against an adversarys information systems can inflict serious damage on people, the economy and cause great financial losses.

China also is experimenting with taking the effects of a high-altitude detonation of a nuclear weapon that creates a highly destructive electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which could cripple and disrupt vast areas of American infrastructure and technology. There is now a serious competition underway between China and the United States to develop and refine EMP weapons, and the PLA is actively working on this area of technology.

Other forms of electrical-pulse weapons, such as radio-frequency weapons, high-power microwave and particle-beam systems, are likewise a major focus of Chinese development. Chinas military leaders see the future of warfare as dependent on such capabilities.

Chinas military is also paying greater emphasis to shaping public opinion globally. In a concept known as the three warfares, the PLA has made major investments in propaganda, psychological operations and lawfare. These three forms of political or information warfare can be performed in unison, or separately, in order to advance the objectives of Chinas leaders in peace and in war.

At the same time, China is hard at work on a variety of next-generation weapons that it believes will help it to dominate tomorrows conflicts. These include maneuvering hypersonic glide-missile reentry vehicles, which could be used as a strike weapon to penetrate missiles defenses, either on land or at sea. Additionally, like the United States, China is developing an electronic railgunsomething that represents an important arena of asymmetric technological competition, because a round from such a weapon can travel at over five thousand miles per hour and, when developed and fielded, would have far greater range than conventional or hypersonic munitions.

Finally, Beijing is focusing on dominating the space domain, which it believes will be crucial to any future war. In particular, PLA strategists believe that the U.S. dependence on satellites and information systems to deploy its forces over extended distances is a weakness that can and should be exploited in conflict.

Chinas focus on irregular war represents a challenge to U.S. military doctrine, and necessitates new thinking about inherent vulnerabilities in the current American way of war. To properly defend against Chinese tactics and weapons, the United States will need to protect against network and cyber penetrations by the PLA, harden its capabilities against the potential use of EMP weapons, and use legal mechanisms to challenge Beijings efforts to reshape international law. All of this, and more, should be the focus of American military planners as they contemplate how to persevere in a potential future conflict with the PRC.

After all, as the saying goes, in battle, the adversary also gets a vote.

Larry M. Wortzel is president of Asia Strategies and Risks, LLC, and a commissioner on the Congressionally appointed U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is the author of the China chapter in The Logic of Irregular War: Asymmetry and Americas Adversaries, out this month from Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, from which this article is drawn.

Image: Reuters.

Read full article
By Allison Lampert DENVER (Reuters) - American Airlines is cutting a route between Chicago and Shanghai, canceling the second direct flight from the U.S. city to China in four months, because of higher fuel costs and competition, the carrier said on Tuesday. The service is not sustainable with high fuel costs, Vasu Raja, American's vice president of network and schedule planning, said in a statement. "We have opportunities to be successful in other markets." American, the largest U.S. carrier by passengers, cut a flight from Chicago to Beijing in May. Hawaiian Airlines [HAII.UL] also said on Tuesday it would suspend its thrice-weekly nonstop service between Honolulu and Beijing. China's aviation regulator said in May it would ease its near decade-old "one route, one airline" policy for Chinese airlines, allowing increased competition on long-haul international routes. "U.S. airlines are at a severe disadvantage. The majority of the demand is China-generated, and that gives Chinese carriers the advantage," Mike Boyd, president of aviation forecaster Boyd Group, said, adding that fare yields are under pressure. Chinese passengers arriving at U.S. airports are expected to nearly triple from 4.3 million in 2018 to an estimated 12.8 million in 2024, and the profile is shifting from groups to independent travelers, according to a Boyd Group market forecast. United Airlines President Scott Kirby said Shanghai and Beijing had rebounded for the airline after several years of weakness, although revenue per available seat mile (RASM) was below levels of two or three years ago. "We've had several years of weakness as there was an awful lot of capacity growth out of Beijing and Shanghai," Kirby said on the sidelines of the International Aviation Forecast Summit in Denver. United offers 12 daily flights between U.S. airports and China and Hong Kong, after ending a route between Hangzhou and San Francisco in 2017. American, which took a stake in China Southern Airlines Co Ltd <600029.SS> in 2017 for $200 million, still operates daily flights to Beijing from Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. Delta Airlines has seven daily flights to China, supported by its codeshare and equity partnership with China Eastern Airlines <600115.SS>. Delta bought 3.55 percent of China Eastern for $450 million in 2015. (Reporting by Allison Lampert in Denver; Editing by David Gregorio, Susan Thomas and Richard Chang)
Pacaraima (Brazil) (AFP) - Does Edson Sanchez feel guilty about the mob violence meted out by fellow Brazilians against fleeing Venezuelans a few days ago? "No regrets," he says, bluntly. "We did what we had to do."

Like other neighboring countries around Venezuela, Brazil has opened its doors to people fleeing political unrest and extreme poverty, many of them officially designated as refugees.

But last weekend, the people of the frontier town of Pacaraima said they'd had enough.

Rampaging through tent camps, they set fire to the Venezuelans' meager shelters and belongings. Then, threatening worse, they forced 1,200 homeless people back over the remote border.

Television footage of the scenes shocked many in Brazil, but locals say their side of the story needs telling too.

The spark for the violence was a brutal attack on a local shopkeeper that was blamed on Venezuelans.

Tension, though, had been simmering for months as newcomers gradually filled this modest town of just 12,000, coming to represent 10 percent of the population.

The influx "transformed the town," said Sanchez, 21. "We didn't control anything anymore."

Cristina Gomes, another resident, agreed.

"How long were we meant to wait for the authorities to do something about it? They do nothing. We're the authorities!"

- 'Bottles and sticks' -

Of the tent camps, nothing remains now except debris -- broken bicycles, Bible tracts, food, children's flip-flops.

Sanchez insists that Brazilians are not against immigration, just that the system has broken down. "There's no xenophobia here. We're tired, that's all," he said.

But Venezuelan witnesses described vicious scenes.

"They came with bottles and sticks, shouting 'Get out!'" said Nayelis Garcia, 17, who sheltered with her one-year-old baby in a tent at the border crossing, protected now by Brazilian soldiers.

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"We had to run into the hills with our children. They were burning our things, our food, our documents, our mattresses and sheets," she said.

Another fugitive from Venezuela, Eleiser Balaza, said attackers descended like "an avalanche," armed with sticks and machetes.

"We spent two nights in the hills without food or water," he said.

- 'Live in peace!' -

Garcia is hoping to get asylum status along with her husband, aunt, sister and niece, so they can build new lives in Brazil.

Balza and his wife want to reach Boa Vista, capital of the frontier state of Roraima and from there continue to Belo Horizonte in southeastern Brazil, where they have family already putting down roots.

That hopeful future looks very far away, though, when viewed from Pacaraima.

Local priest Jesus Lopez de Bobadilla, 77, worried that politicians were fomenting trouble ahead of Brazil's October presidential and congressional elections.

"Brazil is in an extremely delicate political, economic and social situation on the eve of elections," he said.

The violence, the priest added, "was planned. It was not spontaneous. There are dark political forces trying to use the difficulties suffered by people to stir up the growing xenophobia as a factor in the elections."

But Fabio Quinco, who runs a store near one of the demolished camps, said the anger comes from the grass roots.

Even if he is "totally opposed to violence," Quinco said he understands the way Brazilians feel.

"People here exploded because they say they are being looked after less well than the Venezuelans. That could be the cause of the violence," he said.

Maybe there's still hope.

Late Monday, a convoy of some 30 vehicles drove through the center of town, distributing white balloons.

"We want to live in peace!" a woman called out over loudspeakers.
Archaeologists have identified a substance found inside an ancient Egyptian tomb: 3,200-year-old cheese.

Several years ago, a research team found a solidified whitish mass on a collection of jars in the tomb of Ptahmes, a high-ranking Egyptian official in the 13th century B.C., the BBC reports.

The discovery was significant, as no cheese had previously been found in Ancient Egypt before, and could be the oldest cheese residue on earth. The revelation was published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

The material analyzed is probably the most ancient archaeological solid residue of cheese ever found to date, said Dr. Enrico Greco, from the University of Catania. Greco worked alongside colleagues at the Cairo University in Egypt to identify the substance.

We know it was made mostly from sheeps and goats milk, but for me its really hard to imagine a specific flavor, he said.

Professor Paul Kindstedt, a cheese historian and chemistry professor, told the New York Times the cheese would have had a really, really acidy bite.

Scientists also found traces of a bacteria behind an infectious disease called brucellosis, which comes from consuming unpasteurized dairy products. If confirmed, it would be the oldest evidence of the disease, which still exists today.

The tomb is located at the Saqqara necropolis near Cairo. After being first unearthed in 1885, the tomb was lost to shifting sands until it was rediscovered in 2010.
Scientists are warning that the ice has broken up twice this year, due to warm winds and heatwaves in the northern hemisphere - Barcroft Media

The thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, experts have warned.

One meteorologist described the phenomenon - recorded for the first time this year - as scary.

Scientists said it could prove catastrophic for polar bears and seals, threatening their survival.

The sea off the north coast of Greenland had long been known as the last ice area because it was expected to be the last place to remain frozen, given it had the oldest and thickest ice.

Others said it could force scientists to revise their theories about which part of the Arctic will withstand global warming the longest.

The sea off the north coast of Greenland had long been known as the last ice area because it was expected to be the last place to remain frozen, given it had the oldest and thickest ice.

But now scientists are warning that the ice has broken up twice this year, due to warm winds and heatwaves in the northern hemisphere.

The thick old sea ice will have been pushed away from the coast, to an area where it will melt more easily

Thomas Lavergne, Norwegian Meteorological Institute

The changes could force scientists to revise their theories about which part of the Arctic will withstand global warming the longest.

Professor Peter Wadhams, who heads the Polar Ocean Physics Group at Cambridge University, said the trend would also have serious consequences for wildlife - and could prove catastrophic for polar bears and seals.

The north coast of Greenland, with its very steep cliffs, is a denning area for polar bears, Prof Wadhams said.

They dig holes in the snow and come out in the spring and go hunting. But if the pack ice has moved offshore they come out hibernation and are left without an area to hunt.

They cant swim very far. If this becomes a permanent feature with ice away from the coast, polar bears wont have any ice to hunt on. You would lose the polar bear habitat, he told The Independent.

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Ruth Mottram of the Danish Meteorological Institute said: Almost all of the ice to the north of Greenland is quite shattered and broken up and therefore more mobile.

Open water off the north coast of Greenland is unusual. This area has often been called the last ice area as it has been suggested that the last perennial sea ice in the Arctic will occur here. The events of the last week suggest that, actually, the last ice area may be further west.

How fast is the Arctic ice melting? | Meet the British scientist who risked polar bear attacks and plagues of mosquitoes to find out

Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, said: The ice there has nowhere else to go so it piles up. On average, its over four metres thick and can be piled up into ridges 20 metres thick or more. This thick, compacted ice is generally not easily moved around.

However, that was not the case this past winter (in February and March) and now. The ice is being pushed away from the coast by the winds.

Thomas Lavergne, a scientist at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, described satellite pictures of blue water penetrating white ice as scary.

Even if the water closes over in a few days, the harm will be done, he told The Guardian.

The thick old sea ice will have been pushed away from the coast, to an area where it will melt more easily.
An Argentine police officer is being praised for stepping up for a baby in need.

Officer Celeste Ayala, a new mom, took it upon herself to breastfeed a malnourished infant while she was working a shift earlier this month in Buenos Aires.

The 6-month-old baby was brought into a local hospital along with his siblings, and when the newborn wouldnt stop crying, Ayala jumped into action, reports said.

After getting permission from hospital staff, Ayala comforted and breastfed the infant.

"I want to make public this great gesture of love that you made today with that baby, who you did not know, but for who you did not hesitate to act like a mother," said Marcos Heredia, who posted the image to Facebook. "Things like that are not seen every day."

The picture has since gone viral and been shared more than 110,000 times.

Quiero hacer publico este gran gesto de amor que tuviste hoy con ese bebito, que sin conocerlo no dudaste y por un... Posted by Marcos Heredia on Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Actions like that of this cadet fill us with pride and force us to redouble our efforts, work and solidarity with our community, a local volunteer fire department wrote of Ayala on Facebook.

Ayala was promoted from officer to sergeant as a result of her sweet actions.

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Michel Barnier blasted attempts to blame the EU for faltering Brexit talks (Reuters)

EU Brexit chief Michel Barnier has said he believes that a blame game against the EU is underway in Britain over the growing possibility of a no-deal Brexit.

Speaking after his latest meeting with Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, the French politician said he was working hard to avoid what he described as the most costly form of Brexit.

But he said: I hear the debate in the UK about a no-deal etc and to be very frank I do see this blame game starting against the EU in the case of a no-deal.

The EU is not going to be impressed by that kind of blame game. Everyone should understand that.

MORE: NHS warns no deal Brexit could lead to hospital drug shortages and disease

Barnier made the claim as the UK government prepares to publish a series of reports on Thursday detailing its plans to cope with a no-deal Brexit  including assurances of supplies of food and medicines.

NHS managers warned yesterday that a cliff-edge exit would create drug shortages in hospitals and help the spread of diseases.

Raab insisted today the UK would be prepared for all eventualities and rubbished hair-raising scare stories which he said would be shown to be very far from the truth when the reports are released.

Dominic Raab and Michel Barnier speaking together in Brussels (Getty)

The pace of negotiations has increased since Raab took over the post from David Davis  he has met Barnier three times in the space of 34 days. By comparison it took Davis more than six months to have three meetings with the EU chief negotiator.

And negotiations are being stepped-up again in a bid to reach a deal by the deadline  the European Council on October.

Barnier announced that talks between negotiators from the two sides will now be continuous and Raab announced he would be back in Brussels as soon as next week.

The two sides reported progress towards an agreement on defence and security cooperation after Brexit, but Barnier said frankly that there was continued disagreement over the economic aspects of Theresa Mays Chequers plan.

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MORE: In 34 days, Raab has already met Barnier the same amount of times as Davis

Barnier said the plan contradicts his guidelines, which will be interpreted as opposition to a proposal for the UK to effectively remain in a single market for goods only.

Raab said ambition on substance, energy and compromise were needed to agree a deal by October.

He said: Were committed to that and if its matched well get a deal. Its that simple.




By Bernie Woodall

(Reuters) - A 24-year-old man was charged with murder on Tuesday after he led detectives to the body of a woman, believed to be that of a college student who went missing a month ago, in a cornfield in rural Iowa, state investigators said.

Mollie Tibbetts, 20, who attended the University of Iowa, disappeared in July while jogging.

Authorities are awaiting test results to make a positive identification, Rich Rahn, special agent in charge of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, told reporters.

Rahn declined to say whether investigators have determined how the woman was killed, saying that an autopsy would be conducted by the state medical examiner's office on Wednesday.

The suspect, Christian Rivera, told investigators he had jogged behind or beside Tibbetts, who warned him she would call police if he did not leave her alone, Rahn said at a briefing.

"He in turn chased her down and then, he tells us, that at some point in time he blacks out and then he comes to near an intersection (where) we believe he then placed Mollie, Rahn said.

After a lengthy interview, Rivera led detectives to the body of the slain woman, Rahn said.

U.S. Homeland Security officials said Rivera is an "illegal alien," and Rahn said investigators "believe he is from Mexico."

Rivera was identified in security video taken from a camera set up outside a house in Brooklyn, Iowa, where Tibbetts was last seen alive, Rahn said.

Rivera's black Chevrolet Malibu appeared in the video, helping lead investigators to him, Rahn said. Tibbetts is also seen jogging in one of the clips from the surveillance camera, Rahn said.

The woman's body was found buried under corn stalks in a cornfield about 10 miles from Brooklyn, where Tibbetts was staying at her boyfriend's residence, officials have said.

Rivera, who was arrested without incident on Monday, lived in Poweshiek County, where Brooklyn is located, for four to seven years, according to U.S. Homeland Security officials.

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Illegal immigration has been a lightning rod issue for President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly said illegal immigrants were responsible for many violent crimes.

Vice President Mike Pence commented on the arrest on Twitter, commending officials for "working in Iowa in apprehending an illegal immigrant who's now charged with first-degree murder."

Rahn said the penalty for first-degree murder in Iowa upon conviction is life in prison without the possibility of parole.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Washington (AFP) - Britain's new Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Tuesday urged the United States and European countries to do more to call out Russia's "malign behavior" and keep Vladimir Putin in check, notably by implementing tough sanctions.

"The established rules of international conduct are repeatedly being flouted by major countries like Russia," Hunt said in Washington, in his first major policy speech since succeeding Boris Johnson in July.

London has blamed Moscow for the March poisoning in southwestern England of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia -- using a Soviet-made nerve agent -- plunging the two countries into a diplomatic crisis.

"Such aggressive and malign behavior undermines the international order that keeps us safe," Hunt told an audience at the US Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan think tank.

He added that, while engagement with Moscow remains vital, Russia's foreign policy under Putin has made the world "a more dangerous place."

A number of Western countries have punished Moscow by expelling Russian diplomats in a coordinated manner. Some have gone further, with other punitive measures.

Those come on top on sanctions already in place over Russia's annexation of Crimea or Moscow's interference in foreign elections, notably in the 2016 presidential vote in the United States.

Hunt, who is to meet Wednesday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, asked London's allies to take additional action.

"The United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US," Hunt said.

"That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea."

President Donald Trump's administration has been firm with Moscow, regularly announcing new sanctions over the Skripal case, but that message is often muddied by the American leader's eagerness to improve ties with Putin.

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At his July summit with the Russian leader in Helsinki, Trump appeared conciliatory towards his counterpart and failed to call him out over Moscow's alleged subversion of the 2016 presidential election, shortly after blasting allies at a NATO summit in Brussels.

That earned the president widespread criticism at home, even angering many in his own Republican Party.

- Red lines -

For Hunt, NATO's "credibility" has taken a hit.

"Those who do not share our values need to know that there will always be a serious price to pay if red lines are crossed -- whether territorial incursions, the use of banned weapons or, increasingly, cyber attacks," he warned.

Hunt also sought to carry a tough message to Europe on Brexit, warning that a no-deal departure could threaten the continent's unity for a generation.

"One of the biggest threats to European unity would be a chaotic no-deal Brexit," he said.

Hunt, who replaced Johnson last month amid discord over how London should handle Brexit, said Britain would manage -- "we have faced many greater challenges in our history" -- but the European Union would suffer a serious blow.

"The risk of a messy divorce ... would be a fissure in relations between European allies that would take a generation to heal -- a geostrategic error for Europe at an extremely vulnerable time in our history," he said.

A deal on Britain's divorce from the bloc -- which both sides want to strike by late October, with an eye towards a formal separation on March 29, 2019 -- is still up in the air, with Brussels sticking to its own red lines.
Washington (AFP) - New British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Tuesday will urge the United States and European countries to do more to call out Russia's "malign behavior" and keep Vladimir Putin in check, notably by implementing tough sanctions.

"The established rules of international conduct are repeatedly being flouted by major countries like Russia," Hunt was to say in Washington, in his first major policy speech since succeeding Boris Johnson in July.

"Such aggressive and malign behavior undermines the international order that keeps us safe," Hunt was to tell an audience at the US Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan think tank, according to excerpts provided by the Foreign Office.

"Of course we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt: Russia's foreign policy under President Putin has made the world a more dangerous place."

London has blamed the March poisoning in southwestern England of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia -- using a Soviet-made nerve agent -- on Moscow, plunging the two countries into a diplomatic crisis.

A number of Western countries have punished Moscow by expelling Russian diplomats in a coordinated manner, and some have gone further with other punitive measures.

Those come on top on sanctions already in place over Russia's annexation of Crimea or Moscow's interference in foreign elections, notably in the 2016 presidential vote in the United States.

Hunt, who is to meet on Wednesday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, will ask London's allies to do more.

"Today, the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US," Hunt will say, according to the excerpts.

"That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea."

Story continues

The administration of US President Donald Trump has been firm with Moscow, regularly announcing new sanctions over the Skripal case, but that message is sometimes muddied by Trump's willingness to improve ties with Putin.

At his July summit with the Russian leader in Helsinki, Trump appeared to be rather conciliatory towards his counterpart, shortly after raising hackles at a NATO summit in Brussels with his contrarian stance.

That earned the president widespread criticism at home, even angering many in his own Republican Party.

For Hunt, NATO's "credibility" has taken a hit.

"Those who do not share our values need to know that there will always be a serious price to pay if red lines are crossed - whether territorial incursions, the use of banned weapons or, increasingly, cyber attacks," he was to warn.
Douala (AFP) - Cameroon's opposition leader, who will run for president in October's elections, has pointed the finger squarely at President Paul Biya for the mounting bloodshed in the country's separatist crisis.

"If the president of the republic, commander in chief of the armed forces, sends his troops to fire on Cameroonians, then he is solely responsible," Joshua Osih told AFP in the Atlantic port city of Douala.

Osih hails from the English-speaking west of the mostly Francophone country, where a political crisis which erupted in 2016 has led to armed separatist activity and a crackdown by the security forces.

Dozens of people have been killed, including at least 80 soldiers and police officers, and about 200,000 people have been forced to flee their homes.

Running as a candidate for Cameroon's Social Democratic Front (SDF), Osih was named as the party's representative in February after founder John Fru Ndi, 77, said he would not challenge Biya but instead pass the torch to a younger activist.

At 85, Biya has ruled this central African country for 35 years through his Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (RDPC) with his regime periodically facing blistering reports of corruption.

Seven other candidates are running against Biya in the October 7 election, but unlike some, Osih says he opposes any investigation of alleged human rights violations by troops against civilians in the Anglophone North-West and South-West regions.

"There's a political responsibility that is by far superior to the responsibility of simple soldiers," this 49-year-old member of parliament and business told AFP at the SDF headquarters.

- Biya 'understands nothing' -

"You can't shift the problem on to individuals on the ground while the whole (military) corps had no reason to be there. I don't want to see the whole of this army discredited because the commander in chief sent the army to fight a war that is not its own.

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"Responsibility for the violence in the so-called 'Anglophone' crisis lies with Mr Biya," said Osih, who comes from the South-West anglophone region.

"We have a president who understands nothing about what's going on in Cameroon, who spends the best part of his time abroad and who thinks that sending in the army ... will sort out this problem.

"It can't. You can kill people but you cannot kill ideas."

He said the absence of political leadership over the separatist issue had caused the situation to escalate.

"We have entered a civil war because the government is absent, we have no leadership, no president of the republic. Nature abhors a vacuum, so the situation flared up very quickly and the spiral of violence gained the upper hand," he said.

He said Biya should have travelled to the flashpoint areas to get "a close first-hand view of local realities" which could have kick-started the process of resolving the issues.

"The only way out so far has been to declare war against one's own people," he told AFP, saying some within the regime and the military were profiting from the "war economy".

"That's why we're stuck in this spiral of violence."

- Back to a federal state? -

If Biya believes the army can settle the issue, "it means he recognises either that he doesn't really govern the country, or that he still doesn't grasp that it's a political problem that calls for a political response," Osih said.

"The major institutional reform required to bring the beginnings of a solution to this crisis is federalism."

In the decade which followed independence in 1960, Cameroon was more of loose-knit federation until 1972 when it was declared a unitary state. And today, Yaounde firmly rejects any return to federalism.

Within Cameroon, there is "a linguistic community that has a genuine historical gripe and rightly believes itself to be marginalised," he said of the Anglophones who account for around a fifth of the population.

A former German colony, the country was divided under French and British rule after World War I. The French protectorate became independent in 1960, while the minority English-speaking part followed suit in 1961.

"I don't think any Cameroonian would disagree with the political demands arising from the problem of marginalisation," Osih said, adding that Anglophone citizens "have had the courage to put the problem on the table".

"Cameroonians want clear, simple and bold answers to get out of this."
The Weld County District Attorneys office filed formal charges against Christopher Lee Watts for the murder of his wife and daughters on Monday afternoon.

Michael Rourke, the Weld County District Attorney, charged Watts with three counts of first-degree murder after deliberation, two counts of first-degree murder of a child under the age of 12 by a person in a position of trust, one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased human body.

The Colorado father was arrested last Wednesday on suspicion of murdering his wife Shanann, who was 15-weeks pregnant, and their two young daughters. After the three went missing from their hometown of Fredrick, Colo. last week, Watts issued an emotional plea last Tuesday for his familys return at a press conference.

Shanann, 34, and her daughters Celeste, 3, and Bella, 4, were last seen alive on Aug. 13 before their bodies were discovered on the grounds of the Anadarko Petroleum Company where Watts used to work, according to the The Vail Daily.

Rourke said Watts will be advised of the charges and possible penalties Tuesday morning. He also said his office filed a motion Monday afternoon to unseal the warrantless arrest affidavit, which became available after the news conference and offers detailed information about the murder case.

The affidavit states that Watts claimed it was Shanann who strangled their daughters, and that he strangled her in a fit of rage after realizing what she had allegedly done. The court document also says Watts asked Shanann for a separation moments before he says the murders occurred. According to the affidavit, the police investigation also revealed that Watts was actively involved in an affair with a co-worker, but it is unclear if Shanann knew about the affair.

In the affidavit, Watts Before Rourke announced the charges against Watts, Shananns father Frank Rzucek spoke at the news conference, thanking the Frederick police department and the community for their hard work and support during the investigation.

Keep the prayers coming for our family, Rzucek said.
Washington (AFP) - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is urging its followers to drop the use of the word "Mormon" to refer to the church or its members, according to new directives issued by its leader.

A new church style guide suggests the religion be referred to on second reference as "the Church of Jesus Christ" or simply "the Church," insisting that the "Mormon Church" -- though long in common usage -- "is not an authorized title, and the Church discourages its use."

Church president Russell Nelson, who has been visiting congregations in North America to explain the move, said Saturday in Montreal: "we're not changing names. We're correcting a name."

"The Book of Mormon" is the religion's sacred text, and the name Mormon has been used to identify the church since it was established in 1830, although initially by outsiders as a derogatory term.

Nelson, 93, said the decision on the proper terminology was revealed to him by God. "The Lord has impressed upon my mind the importance of the name he has revealed for his Church," he said in a statement.

The church claims to have 16 million members and has set as its mission the re-establishment of the true church to prepare for the second coming of Jesus Christ.

It considers the "Book of Mormon," revealed to church founder Joseph Smith, to be the "restored" word of Jesus Christ.
Los Angeles (AFP) - A Colorado man who made an emotional appeal in the media for the safe return of his missing pregnant wife and daughters appeared in court Tuesday charged with their murders.

Chris Watts, 33, faces three counts of first-degree murder, plus two counts of killing children under 12, and is accused of tampering with the bodies and unlawfully terminating a pregnancy.

Watts contends that it was Shanann Watts, 34, who strangled Celeste, three, and Bella, four, after he told her he wanted them to split up -- leading him to fly into a rage and kill her.

Watts, who lived with his family in Frederick, a small town around 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Denver, was arrested last week and is in custody.

He appeared at a Weld County courtroom where he waived his right to a preliminary hearing within 35 days and didn't enter a plea. His next appearance will be in November.

Video of the hearing, posted online by local news station ABC 15 Arizona, showed Shanann's distraught father being comforted by her brother in the courthouse.

A bespectacled, bearded Watts listened intently but made no statement, speaking only to confirm that he understood the proceedings.

His wife, who was 15 weeks pregnant, was found in a shallow grave last week at a petroleum company that he had worked for, while the girls' bodies were found later in nearby oil tanks.

"Chris was presented with an aerial photograph of the tank battery area and identified three separate locations in which he placed the bodies," the affidavit reads.

Court papers showed the couple had financial troubles, and filed for bankruptcy in 2015. Investigators said they learned Watts, despite previous denials, was having an affair with a co-worker.

- Reported missing -

A friend dropped off Shanann Watts at her home from a business trip to Arizona in the small hours of the morning last Monday, according to the affadavit.

It was then that Watts told his wife he wanted to separate, he said, telling police in an interview that it was a "civil conversation and they were not arguing but were emotional".

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The affadavit says Watts saw Bella "sprawled" on her bed and looking blue, and observed his wife Shanann strangling Celeste via a baby monitor. He went into a "rage," he said, and strangled Shanann.

Shannan Watts was reported as missing when she failed to show at a doctor's appointment later that morning and a friend rang Watts when she visited the family home and could find no sign of Shanann.

Watts appealed on local television for the return of his family on Wednesday last week -- after his family disappeared but before his arrest.

"I'm just hoping right now that she's somewhere safe. I just want them home so bad," he said.
A couple proposed at the same time, not having known each others plan. (Photo: Getty Images)

A like-minded couple pulled off the perfect proposal  by popping the question simultaneously.

Video of the synchronized moment, which occurred at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., was posted to Twitter Monday by the bride-to-be, Jesse Tober, 20, who tweeted, Tell me why we just proposed to each other at the same time at our favorite place. Im speechless.

According to the tweet, which has gotten more than 721,000 views, Tober and her boyfriend, Kasey Donovan, 24, a freelance writer, stood in front of Cinderella Castle in the Magic Kingdom, prepared to propose, unbeknownst to each other. When Tober revealed a ring box, her stunned boyfriend exclaimed, Are you serious? and returned the gesture by presenting his own ring, then dropping to one knee.

TELL ME WHY WE JUST PROPOSED TO EACH OTHER AT THE SAME TIME AT OUR FAVORITE PLACE IM SPEECHLESS pic.twitter.com/UaKcQlRTnP  jesse  (@virgoprincxss) August 20, 2018

Yahoo Lifestyle could not reach Tober and Donovan for comment; however, the bride, a manager at Walgreens, told Cosmopolitan, We had no idea either of us were going to do it. It was the happiest moment, at the happiest place on Earth.

After the big moment, Tober shared some details on Twitter, starting with Just a few reminders: 1.) No, we did not plan our double proposal. She also declared, Girls proposing is not weird or a new trend

Just a few reminders:

1.) No, we did not plan our double proposal.

2.) If you do plan a double proposal, its not the fucking same.

3.) Girls proposing is not weird or a new trend so pull your nuts out of your ass and drop the fragile masculinity. Thank you!  jesse  (@virgoprincxss) August 20, 2018

Were just so in sync as a couple, Im not surprised this happened, Tober told Cosmopolitan. I dont know how to explain it, it almost seems normal that we both did this.

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Tober also shared snaps of her ring, which Donovan picked out a week ago from Enchanted Disney Fine Jewelry, Ariel Collection.

an actual engagement ring from the Disney Enchanted collection  pic.twitter.com/WvMcBpc4dp  jesse  (@virgoprincxss) August 20, 2018

According to the publication, after a few months of following each other on Twitter, the pair met IRL in August 2016 when Donovan, who lives in Salinas, Calif., visited Tober in upstate New York. Soon after, the pair vacationed at Disneyland, where they would love to celebrate their nuptials.

If we have enough money, wed love to have our wedding there, Tober told Cosmopolitan. That would be so special.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.
Crikey! Photographer gets up close with dangerous crocs A photographer with a passion for wild animals was able to get up close and personal with one of natures deadliest creatures. (Photo: Alex Suh/Caters News)

A photographer with a passion for wild animals was able to get up close and personal with one of natures deadliest creatures. Alex Suh has traveled to Mexicos Banco Chinchorro reef twice in the past three years to get into the waters and capture the crocodiles in their natural habitat after an invitation from Yucatan Dive Trek. The pictures show the photographer just inches away from the carnivorous crocs, who seem more than happy to pose for the camera. (Caters News)

See more news-related photo galleries and follow us on Yahoo News Photo Twitter and Tumblr.
Kay Longstaff was rescued after 10 hours in the water after going overboard

A cruise passenger who was rescued after spending 10 hours in the sea has been branded a stupid woman by the mother of the head of the cruise line.

Kay Longstaff went overboard from the seventh deck of the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) vessel off the coast of Croatia on Saturday.

Now the mother of Andy Stuart, the president of NCL, told The Telegraph that Miss Longstaff must have jumped from the boat, and said her son has branded reports that she fell the 75ft from the liner fake news.

I fell off the back

Kay Longstaff was pulled from the ocean on Sunday morning after spending 10 hours at sea.

Shortly after her rescue she told Croatian news channel HRT: I fell off the back of the Norwegian Star and I was in the water for 10 hours, so these wonderful guys rescued me. I am very lucky to be alive.

I was sitting at the back of the deck.

A spokeswoman for Norwegian Cruise Line said: On the morning of August 19th, a guest went overboard as Norwegian Star made her way to Venice.

The Coast Guard was notified and a search and rescue operation ensued. We are pleased to advise that the guest was found alive, is currently in a stable condition, and has been taken ashore in Croatia for further treatment.

We are very happy that the individual, who is a UK resident, is now safe and will soon be reunited with friends and family.

She didnt fall off. She jumped

Since the incident, reports have emerged that Miss Longstaff jumped deliberately from the ship after arguing with her boyfriend.

NCL President Andy Stuarts mother said: She didnt fall off. She jumped. This has cost Norwegian Cruise Line $600,000.

This stupid woman.

I spoke to Andrew at lunchtime. He phones me almost every day. What he said was this is fake news.

He said that she couldnt have fallen. You would have to take steps to climb over the railings. He said she jumped in the water.

The rescue of Kay Longstaff, a passenger aboard the Norwegian Star cruise ship, who was rescued 10 hours after falling into the Adriatic sea (PA Images)

The Daily Mail reported that another NCL employee Daniel Punch wrote on Facebook: She didnt fall, she jumped.

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It was on my ship. I spoke to her throughout the whole week.

She was arguing with her fella the whole time.

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Response from other passengers

Other passengers on board the Norwegian Star have also cast doubt on the story that Miss Longstaff fell from the ship.

One wrote online that the railings surrounding the area where she went overboard are more than waist high and there were no chairs in the vicinity.

Another passenger, Scott Bailey, wrote on Twitter: The only way you could get off the ship is by climbing over the protective barriers and then jumping.

Someone we spoke to said they had seen her crying earlier on.

A spokesman for Croatian Ministry of Maritime Affairs, said that the investigation was continuing.
Prague (AFP) - Czechs and Slovaks on Tuesday marked 50 years since Soviet tanks crushed the "Prague Spring" democratic reform drive, as protesters used the anniversary to rail against the current Czech government's ties to the Communist Party.

Hundreds paid tribute to the victims of the 1968 crackdown at ceremonies in Prague that also drew demonstrators chanting "Shame!" as populist billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babis spoke.

His minority coalition is the first government since the 1989 collapse of communism to rely on backing from the Communist Party to survive in parliament.

A party member in the 1980s, Babis has denied allegations that he served as a regime secret police agent before 1989.

"He who governs with the Communists disrespects the victims of the occupation of 1968!" read posters held by protesters in front of the radio station in downtown Prague where around 15 unarmed people, mostly youths, died trying to prevent the Soviets from taking the building.

The burgeoning "Prague Spring" movement, led by Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek, had tried to put "a human face on socialism" through democratic reforms to Czechoslovakia's totalitarian regime.

But on the night of August 20-21, 1968, Soviet soldiers backed by Bulgarian, east German, Hungarian and Polish units brutally put an end to the movement.

Around 50 Czechs and Slovaks were killed on the first day alone, while the total number of victims of the Soviet occupation was 402.

The last Soviet soldier left Czechoslovakia only in 1991, two years after the Velvet Revolution that toppled totalitarian communist rule -- and two years before the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

- 'Essence of what unites Europe' -

EU Council President Donald Tusk said on Twitter that while the Soviet invasion crushed the Prague Spring, "the desire for freedom and democracy survived and is the essence of what unites Europe today".

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At night, local pop stars such as Marta Kubisova performed an outdoor concert at Wenceslas Square in Prague.

In 1968, Kubisova openly took part in the Prague Spring and later sang the era's most famous song "Prayer for Marta," whose lyrics include: "Let peace remain with this country / Malice, envy, hate, fear and contention / Let these pass away."

With the country back in the grip of loyal communist leaders who followed Moscow's line, the song was banned and Kubisova silenced.

Kubisova joined the dissident movement and became close with playwright Vaclav Havel who headed a human rights group and later became the country's first post-communist president.

- One president speaks, one's absent -

Slovak President Andrej Kiska used the occasion to talk about democratic values and the importance of belonging to European institutions.

"Democratic political leaders have the duty today to defend our freedom, our possibility of making decisions about our future without fearing that these decisions will be suppressed by brute force," Kiska said in a statement, also aired on Czech television.

"That is why we need allies with the same values and the same respect for freedom, human rights and democracy. We have such allies and partners in the European Union and NATO, two pillars of our prosperity and security."

But Czech President Milos Zeman, an ex-communist who is known for his pro-Russian views, decided not to attend the commemoration ceremonies -- a move slammed by rightwing opposition parties.

His spokesman Jiri Ovcacek replied that Zeman already "showed his courage by publicly opposing the occupation in 1968".

"It's a crucial subject for us: the pro-Russian president, the populists' electoral win, the government backed by communists," said Tomasz Peszynski, an activist from the pro-EU citizen's initiative "Pulse of Europe".

"We can see the harmful effect of Russian propaganda, which there is a lot of in the Czech Republic."

While nearly all Czechs and Slovaks condemn the Soviet crackdown, nearly 40 percent of Russians see it as a necessary defensive measure, according to a recent survey by Russia's independent Levada think tank.

The proportion of Russians condemning the invasion dropped to 19 percent this year, down from 29 in 2013, according to the survey.

"The poll results suggest that Russia is returning to propaganda in the spirit of the era of (former Soviet leader Leonid) Brezhnev," Levada centre director Lev Gudkov said, quoted by the Czech press.
Quito (AFP) - Ecuador will organize a meeting of 13 Latin American countries to discuss the Venezuelan migrant crisis, Quito's top diplomat said on Tuesday.

More than two million people have fled economic collapse in Venezuela during a four-year recession, according to the United Nations, piling pressure on neighboring countries as well as others further afield.

Ecuador and Peru have announced tighter entry measures to control the influx of Venezuelans, leaving many stranded on those countries' northern borders with Colombia.

The latter's migration director, Christian Kruger, on Tuesday called on Colombia's southern neighbors to agree on a common strategy to address the problem.

Last week, both Ecuador and Peru announced they would require Venezuelans to show passports to enter their countries, but Kruger said he was "worried about the consequences" as around half of Venezuelans heading south through Colombia are carrying only ID cards.

Kruger told W Radio that while the migrant crisis "isn't Peru, Ecuador and Colombia's responsibility" he wants the three to "work together in a coordinated manner, employing similar policies to address this phenomenon."

Regional giants Brazil, Argentina and Mexico were among the invitees to the Ecuador meeting, as well as Venezuela itself.

Others include impacted countries such as Colombia, Peru and Chile.

Ecuador's deputy migration minister, Santiago Chavez said it was important to establish policies to "confront in the best manner and most responsible way, the unusual flux of Venezuelan citizens."

Colombia has been flooded by more than a million Venezuelans over the last 16 months and Kruger was critical of the Peruvian and Ecuadoran moves last week.

"Asking for a passport isn't going to stop migration because they're leaving their country not out of choice but out of necessity," he said.

But Chavez insisted that "the worst thing that can happen to the country is migratory chaos in which no one knows what happens to the foreign citizens that enter."

Story continues

The UN's Refugee Agency says almost 550,000 Venezuelans have entered Ecuador since the start of the year but claims that only 20 percent of those remain, with the rest continuing on to Peru and Chile.

Kruger, though, said the "worst thing that can happen to a country is having an undocumented foreign population.

"We want this migration to take place in an orderly and secure fashion and the way to do this is to identify this population."

More than 800,000 Venezuelans have been given temporary residency in Colombia since the migrant crisis began, which Kruger blames on Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro practising a deliberate "policy of expulsion" towards his own people in order to reduce the country's population and "improve the distribution of resources."
By Nelson Renteria SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - El Salvador said on Tuesday it hoped its economy would get a lift from China after it broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of Beijing, reducing the dwindling group of allies the Asian island has in Latin America. El Salvador was the third Latin American country in the past two years to switch alliances, and presidential spokesman Roberto Lorenzana said attracting investment and developing the economy were key goals behind the decision. "Fundamentally, it's an interest in betting on the growth of our country with one of the world's most booming economies," he said in a television interview following Monday's announcement. "El Salvador can't turn its back on international reality." Monday's move left Taiwan with only 17 allies, and came shortly after its president visited Belize and Paraguay, aiming to shore up diplomatic ties in the face of Chinese pressure to stamp out the island's international recognition. The decision prompted an outcry from Taiwan, which has accused China of luring smaller countries to its side with offers of generous aid. Taiwan's foreign minister has said that Taiwan will not engage in "money competition," and did not give El Salvador funds for a port development after deeming the project "unsuitable." It was unclear if China had offered any specific aid or economic incentive to El Salvador. Taiwan's formal relations are now mostly with small nations in Central America and the Pacific. Panama ditched Taiwan for China in 2017, and Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic followed early this year. The United States keeps unofficial relations with Taiwan, a source of tension with China, whose "one China" policy stipulates that Taiwan is part of the bigger nation. U.S. relations with El Salvador have been strained over President Donald Trump's threats to cut aid from countries that "do nothing" to stop MS-13 gang members from crossing illegally into the United States. The U.S. ambassador in El Salvador, Jean Manes, said at an event on Tuesday that Salvadorans should demand transparency about how their government resolved to swap diplomatic partners. "I think you should know, exactly, all the details of the negotiation," she said. Manes also posted on Twitter that the United States was analyzing the "worrisome" decision, and that it would impact relations between the two countries. She did not elaborate. Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren said in a televised address on Monday that a "careful analysis" including consultations with diverse sectors led to the decision. Representatives were already in Beijing to establish ties, he said, and would immediately begin talks on trade, investment, infrastructure, science, health, education, tourism and support for small and medium-size companies. "They will generate tangible benefits for the whole population," Sanchez Ceren said. (Reporting by Nelson Renteria, writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. (Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) unveiled a sweeping plan on Tuesday to crack down on the lawful corruption she said has infected Washington policymaking.

In a speech at the National Press Club, Warren blamed the lack of public trust in government on the undue influence of wealthy special interests and laws too toothless to curb them.

She went on to announce legislation shell offer that contains six major reforms to remedy what she termed the crisis of faith in government.

The bill would reshape the federal government by, among other things, putting a padlock on the revolving door between government and the private sector; dramatically increasing regulation of lobbyists, and in some cases scaling back their activities significantly; tightening ethics standards for lawmakers, federal agencies and federal judges; and creating a new anti-corruption agency to enforce these regulations.

Many of these ideas challenge the most fundamental assumptions about how business is currently done in our nations capital. Inside Washington, some of these proposals will be very unpopular, even with some of my friends, Warren said. Outside Washington, I expect that most people will see these ideas as no-brainers and be shocked theyre not already the law.

Warrens legislation is ambitious and far-reaching, drawing upon her focus as a senator  and before that as a civil servant and law professor  on documenting and lamenting the noxious effects of lobbyists and special interests on public policy. She has especially decried Washingtons inadequate oversight of Wall Street under the Trump administration.

Warrens bill would institute a lifetime ban on lobbying jobs for former federal elected or appointed officials. It also would require corporate lobbyists or criminally convicted CEOs to wait six years before taking a government job of any kind.

Given the current narrow definition of a registered lobbyist, however, the ban she proposes could be relatively easy to circumvent. So Warrens legislation would expand who must register with the government as a lobbyist. It would also require lobbyists and lawmakers to disclose every meeting they have with one another, and tax companies lobbying efforts beyond a certain level of spending.

Story continues

The bill would also prohibit lobbyists from contributing to federal campaigns and bar Americans from lobbying on behalf of foreign governments.

In a not-so-subtle dig at President Donald Trump, who has failed to make his tax returns public, Warrens measure would require all candidates for Congress or the White House to disclose such information.

And to prevent insider trading, she would prohibit the president, members of Congress and senior federal agency heads from trading any stocks during their public service. All federal judges, including U.S. Supreme Court justices, would likewise be forbidden from trading stocks or accepting various gifts from wealthy individuals, corporations or ideological interest groups.

The bill also would require that think tanks and industry front groups that try to influence policy-making reveal their funding sources and the editorial standards they use for research they disseminate. Offering demonstrably faulty information would become a criminal offense.

Finally, Warrens bill would create a new federal agency that she calls an independent sheriff to police all of these rules and shine floodlights on government actions through enforcement of public transparency.

The legislation notably omitted any new limits on campaign donations or campaign spending by outside groups.

Asked why she chose not to address such issues as donations by corporate political action committees, Warren said she decided to make lobbying the focus of her bill.

The heart of this is to go to the most obscene parts of how money now influences Washington. And principally its these giant corporations that are hiring armies of lobbyists, she said.

In the first part of her speech, Warren made clear that the crisis of big-money influence predated the Trump administration. But when singling out examples, Warren limited herself to actions taken during Republican administrations.

Asked by HuffPost to weigh in on the recent decision by Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez to renege on plans to ban fossil fuel industry donations to the party apparatus, Warren demurred.

What I see is the problem all the way through the system here in Washington, she said.

Pressed by another reporter to identify a single Democrat who exemplified the corruption trends she described, Warren named Mary Jo White, who chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission from 2013-2017 under then-President Barack Obama.

But while White was appointed by a Democrat, she described herself as an independent.

Warrens decision to steer clear of thorny questions that would put her at odds with Democratic colleagues and other interest groups  she also dodged a question about legislation protecting the rights of Palestinian children  reflects the delicate path she is treading as she builds her national profile.

Unlike Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a fellow New England populist and (like Warren) a rumored 2020 presidential contender, she has largely stayed out of public efforts to reform the Democratic Party as an institution and shape the ideological direction it pursues in primary contests. Warren, who is up for re-election in November, has instead used her considerable war chest to buoy official Democratic groups and  with a few exceptions  aid candidates who have already secured the partys nomination.

But Warren has been willing to lambaste fellow Democratic senators who this year voted for a significant rollback of Wall Street regulations included in the 2010 Dodd-Frank reform law. She elicited particular anger from colleagues for naming those 17 senators in a fundraising email.

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Taking Security Seriously

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) talks with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) before the start of a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing concerning the roles and responsibilities for defending the nation against cyberattacks, on Oct. 19, 2017.

With Liberty And Justice...

Members of Code Pink for Peace protest before the start of a hearing where U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions will testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on Oct. 18, 2017. Committee members questioned Sessions about conversations he had with President Donald Trump about the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, the ongoing investigation about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and other subjects.

Whispers

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), right, speaks with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) before a confirmation hearing for Christopher Sharpley, nominee for inspector general of the CIA, on Oct. 17, 2017.

Not Throwing Away His Shot

Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the musical "Hamilton," makes his way to a meeting of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies in the Rayburn Office Building during a round of meetings to urge federal funding for the arts and humanities on Sept. 13, 2017.

Medicare For All

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), center, speaks on health care as Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), left, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), right, listen during an event to introduce the Medicare for All Act on Sept. 13, 2017.

Bernie Bros

Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) pack his office on Sept. 8, 2017. Members of the "Draft Bernie for a People's Party" campaign delivered a petition with more than 50,000 signatures to urge the senator to start and lead a new political party.

McCain Appearance

Sen. John McCain, second from left, leaves the Capitol after his first appearance since being diagnosed with cancer. He arrived to cast a vote to help Republican senators narrowly pass the motion to proceed for the replacement of the Affordable Care Act on July 25, 2017.

A Narrow Win

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, center, speaks alongside Sens. John Barrasso, left, John Cornyn, right, and John Thune, rear, after the Senate narrowly passed the motion to proceed for the replacement of the Affordable Care Act on July 25, 2017.

Kushner Questioning

Jared Kushner, White House senior adviser and son-in-law to President Donald Trump, arrives at the Capitol on July 25, 2017. Kushner was interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee in a closed-door meeting about contacts he had with Russia.

Hot Dogs On The Hill

Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) prepares a hot dog during the American Meat Institute's annual Hot Dog Lunch in the Rayburn Office Building courtyard on July 19, 2017.

And Their Veggie Counterparts

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) visits the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals veggie dog giveaway on July 19, 2017, countering a National Hot Dog Day event being held elsewhere on Capitol Hill.

Poised For Questions

Callista Gingrich, wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, waits for a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on her nomination to be the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican on July 18, 2017.

Speaking Up

Health care activists protest to stop the Republican health care bill at Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on July 17, 2017.

In The Fray

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) speaks to members of the media after announcing the revised version of the Senate Republican health care bill on Capitol Hill on July 13, 2017.

Anticipation

Christopher Wray is seated with his daughter Caroline, left, as he prepares to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on his nomination to be the next FBI director on July 12, 2017.

Up In Arms

Health care activists protest to stop the Republican health care bill at Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on July 10, 2017.

Across A Table

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) meets with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Capitol Hill on June 29, 2017.

Somber Day

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks about the recent attack on the Republican congressional baseball team during her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill on June 15, 2017.

Family Matters

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), right, and his sons, Jack, 10, and Brad, arrive in the basement of the Capitol after a shooting at the Republican baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, on June 14, 2017.

A Bipartisan Pause

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), right, coach of the Republican congressional baseball team, tells the story of the shooting that occurred during a baseball practice while he stands alongside Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), left, a coach of the Democratic congressional baseball team on June 14, 2017.

Hats On

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) reacts about the shooting he was present for at a Republican congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, as he speaks with reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on June 14, 2017.

Public Testimony

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is sworn in to testify before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on June 13, 2017.

Comey's Big Day

Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election on Capitol Hill on June 8, 2017.

Conveying His Point

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats testifies at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on his interactions with the Trump White House and on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on June 7, 2017.

Selfie Time

Vice President Mike Pence takes a selfie with a tourist wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat inside the U.S. Capitol rotunda on June 6, 2017. The vice president walked through the rotunda after attending the Senate Republican policy luncheon.

Budget Queries

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney testifies before the House Budget Committee about President Donald Trump's fiscal 2018 budget proposal on Capitol Hill on May 24, 2017.

Flagged Down By Reporters

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, leaves a closed committee meeting on Capitol Hill on May 24, 2017. The committee is investigating possible Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election.

Shock And Awe

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) hold a news conference on the release of the president's fiscal 2018 budget proposal on Capitol Hill on May 23, 2017.

Seeing Double

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) arrives in the Capitol for the Senate Democrats' policy lunch on May 16, 2017.

Honoring Officers

President Donald Trump speaks at the National Peace Officers Memorial Service on the West Lawn of the Capitol on May 15, 2017.

Whispers

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), right, and ranking member Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) talk during a hearing with the heads of the U.S. intelligence agencies in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on May 11, 2017.

Skeptical

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates arrives to testify before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election on Capitol Hill on May 8, 2017.

Differing Opinions

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) gives a thumbs-up to protesters on the East Front of the Capitol after the House passed the Republicans' bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act on May 4, 2017. The protesters support the ACA.

Real Talk

United States Naval Academy Midshipman 2nd Class Shiela Craine (left), a sexual assault survivor, testifies before the House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Military Personnel with (2nd from left to right) Ariana Bullard, Stephanie Gross and Annie Kendzior in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on May 2, 2017. Kendzior, a former midshipman, and Gross, a former cadet, were both raped twice during their time at the military academies. The academy superintendents were called to testify following the release of a survey last month by the Pentagon that said 12.2 percent of academy women and 1.7 percent of academy men reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact during the 2015-16 academic year.

In Support Of Immigrants

Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), center, is joined by dozens of Democratic members of the House of Representatives to mark "Immigrant Rights Day" in the Capitol Visitor Center on May 1, 2017 in Washington, D.C. The Democratic legislators called on Republicans and President Donald Trump to join their push for comprehensive immigration reform.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
The Trump administration proposed its plan Tuesday to gut a controversial Obama-era rule to cut carbon pollution from power plants, dealing a death blow to an ambitious regulation designed to be the backbone of the United States strategy to stave off climate catastrophe.

The new regulation, which Acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler signed Monday, is called the Affordable Clean Energy rule. It gives states leeway to set their own, drastically lower greenhouse gas emissions targets and restrict what states can do to force coal plants to improve efficiency.

The rule marks one of the most significant rollbacks yet to Barack Obamas climate legacy, and  despite the Trump administrations oft-repeated calls for regulatory certainty  is expected to ignite a yearslong legal battle.

The increased carbon dioxide released under the new rule could lead to up to 1,400 premature deaths each year by 2030, according to the EPAs own analysis. When asked about the deaths during a 10 a.m. call with reporters, Bill Wehrum, the assistant administrator for the EPAs Office of Air and Radiation, sputtered through his answer, repeatedly noting that the agency had the abundant authority to make the changes it proposed.

Frankly, its quite minimal compared to the overall emissions that were dealing with here, he said. We think its enormously important in the first instance to stay within the law and implement the law as Congress requires us to do.

Wehrum called the Clean Power Plan ephemeral, and a misapplication of the Clean Air Act.

The call marked a departure in style from the kind of flashy press conference that became a hallmark of former Administrator Scott Pruitt.

Today we are fulfilling the presidents agenda, Wheeler said in opening remarks. He left the call before taking any questions from reporters.

Were ending intrusive EPA regulations that kill jobs ... and raise the price of energy so quickly and so substantially, President Donald Trump said in a statement Tuesday morning. In a tweet, he touted clean coal as he announced a rally in West Virginia on behalf of the Republican running to unseat Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

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The public will have 60 days to comment on the rule after the EPA submits it Tuesday morning to the Federal Register.

Exhaust spews from the East Bend Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant in Union, Kentucky. (Photo: Brian Snyder/Reuters)

The proposal outlines plans to cut CO2 emissions below 2005 levels by between 0.7 percent and 1.5 percent by 2030, roughly equivalent to taking between 2.5 million and 5.3 cars off the road, according to a Washington Post analysis published before the EPAs announcement. The EPAs own estimate pegged that number at 5 million cars. The plan would reduce the sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that help form smog by between 1 percent and 2 percent over the same period.

That stands in stark contrast to the 2015 rule it seeks to replace. The Clean Power Plan, as its known, aimed to slash carbon pollution from the power sector to bring it 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, equal to taking 75 million cars off the road. The policy projected cuts of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides pollution by 24 to 22 percent by the end of the decade.

In its 236-page notice to the Federal Register, the EPA questioned the continued rise of renewable energy, suggesting the trend is not certain because the industry uses subsidies. But solar and wind energy receives a fraction of the federal subsidies allotted to coal, oil and natural gas each year, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The EPA made no mention of the more than $20 billion the U.S. pays each year on fossil fuel subsidies or the roughly $34 billion the Trump administration proposed to prop up struggling coal and nuclear plants.

By comparison, the Clean Power Plan set the first national limits on carbon dioxide emissions from utilities and created a fund to match state grants for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in low-income communities. The policy took years to craft as the administration considered millions of public comments, including from industries affected by the rules restrictions.

The Obama administration calculated that the climate and health benefits of the Clean Power Plan  including 90,000 fewer asthma attacks and 3,600 fewer premature deaths per year  would total $34 billion to $54 billion. Subtracting the cost of complying with the new rules, the net benefits ranged from $26 billion to $45 billion.

But the rule never went into effect. In February 2016, the Supreme Court issued a stay, temporarily blocking the regulation. After Trump won the presidency later that year, he nominated Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general who spearheaded the lawsuit to halt the Clean Power Plan, as Environmental Protection Agency administrator. In October 2017, eight months after the Senate confirmed Pruitt, he formally proposed repealing the policy, arguing that it violated the rights of coal-producing states and cost too much.

The Obama-era regulation wasnt just bad policy, it was illegal, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement. I am glad the Trump administration is focused on getting this punishing rule off the books.

At the heart of the debate over the policys financial value is a metric called the social cost of carbon, a calculation of the damages to property, human health, economic growth and agriculture as a result of climate change. Under Obama, the EPA estimated the social cost of carbon to be between $11 and $105 per ton of carbon dioxide pollution. But the real cost could much higher, according to a study Purdue University published last year, which found that existing models relied on decades-old agricultural data.

Yet Pruitt, who, like Trump, rejected the science behind anthropogenic global warming, said rescinding the Clean Power Plan would save the U.S. $33 billion in avoided costs by 2030. To reach that number, the Trump administration narrowed the scope of the calculation to include only domestic costs of carbon and tripled the discount rate for how the cost would decrease in the future  accounting tweaks that amounted to cooking the books, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

But the EPA couldnt just scrap the policy outright. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, under the Clean Air Act. On the back of that historic decision, the EPA issued in 2009 whats known as the endangerment finding, which establishes carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act because it causes the planet to warm, a phenomenon with grave health implications. That formed the legal justification for the Clean Power Plan  which also served as the chief policy for achieving the United States emissions reduction goals pledged under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Andrew Wheeler, acting administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, at a Senate hearing in August. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)

Trump announced plans in June 2017 to withdraw from the Paris agreement. But overturning the endangerment finding would require the administration to disprove the science of climate change in court, a challenge from which the White House has shied away. As a result, the administration needed to offer a replacement.

This proposal guts a solid and sensible plan this country put forth to fight the pollution driving climate change, and replaces it with a fossil fuel handout, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the Senates leading self-styled climate hawk, said in a statement. The funding of the Republican Party by the fossil fuel industry has just reaped a rich reward.

The Affordable Clean Energy rule mentions climate change three times, including one reference to coal plants as the most carbon dioxide (CO2) intensive portion of the electricity generating fleet.

Last November, the EPA held what was originally planned as its only public hearing on the proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan in Charleston, West Virginia. Yet even in the heart of coal country, public support for the policy was overwhelming.

At one point during the hearing, Stanley Sturgill, a septuagenarian Kentucky coal miner suffering from black lung, took the microphone and pleaded with the EPA to reverse course on the repeal.

Were still dying  were still literally dying  for you to help us, he said. Just how many people must pay the supreme price of death for a few rich, greedy people to bank a few dollars?

But the loudest voice in the room proved to be Bob Murray, the chief executive of coal giant Murray Energy Corp. and a major Trump donor who in March 2017 delivered an action plan of demands, including the repeal of the Clean Power Plan, to the Trump administration. The EPA later scheduled three more public hearings, including one in Wyoming, the top coal-producing state. Yet the demise of the Clean Power Plan proved to be a foregone conclusion.

In April, the Senate confirmed Wheeler, who served as Murrays top lobbyist in Washington until the middle of last year, as the EPAs deputy administrator. That put him next in line to take over the agency when Pruitt, who by then had become embroiled in high-profile personal scandals, stepped down.

In July, days after Pruitt resigned in disgrace amid mounting federal investigations and Wheeler took over, the EPA submitted its proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan to the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The proposal ranks among the Trump administrations flashiest attempts to show fealty to coal, an increasingly powerful partisan symbol despite the industrys steady decline. The Department of Energy laid out plans to use a Cold War-era national security law to prop up failing coal and nuclear plants, arguing that relying on renewables and natural gas leaves the power grid vulnerable in a disaster. The plan could cost more than $34 billion and raise utility rates by as much as $65 billion, or about $500 more per year for the average ratepayer, according to testimony from at least one member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

You remember Hillary with the coal, right, sitting with the miners at the table? Remember? That wasnt so good for her, Trump said in a speech at a fundraiser in Utica, New York, earlier this month. So the people of West Virginia and all over, you look at Wyoming, you look at so many different places where they just, Pennsylvania, where they loved what we did.

Without mentioning the plan, often described as a bailout, Trump made the case for coals national security benefits while attacking renewable subsidies.

Coal is indestructible, Trump said. You can blow up a pipeline, you can blow up the windmills.

In a blog post published before the EPA unveiled the replacement, David Doniger, senior director of the NRDCs climate and clean energy program, called the policy a do-nothing replacement proposed as the nation and the world suffer another summer of record heat waves, devastating wildfires, and alarming weather extremes.

Carrying forward the Dirty Power Plan designed under former Administrator Scott Pruitt, we expect Wheelers proposal will be designed to ensure that power plants are required to make no meaningful carbon pollution reductions  and it may even make emissions increase, he wrote.

Even as the Trump administrations environmental deregulatory agenda suffers repeated legal setbacks, the White House appears focused on shoring up its gains. The Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, an ultraconservative with a long history of ruling in favor of corporate interests, could jeopardize not only the 2007 ruling that helped establish CO2 as a pollutant but also a legal precedent known as the Chevron doctrine, which compels courts to grant agencies leeway when interpreting the legal mandate used to craft regulations. That could hinder a future EPA administrations efforts to re-establish the Clean Power Plan or a rule like it.

As it is, the rule proposed Tuesday appears aimed at trying to force the country to rely on Congress to pass substantive laws to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, said Stan Meiburg, a former acting deputy EPA administrator who spent 39 years at the agency.

The administration is trying to create as many roadblocks for future efforts as they possibly can, he said in an email. It would sure help if our national leadership were willing to mobilize public support behind a problem that we can already see affecting our world, and that science says is only going to get worse!

The Affordable Clean Energy rule comes as the EPA is working to gut the only other major federal rule to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In April, Pruitt announced plans to reverse an Obama-era fuel economy rule that would have doubled vehicle mileage and prevented 600 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere by 2030  equivalent to the entire annual emissions of Canada. On Aug. 2, the White House proposed its replacement, a policy that would gut the existing rule and take the unprecedented step of rescinding the special waiver that allows California to set its own, stricter auto emissions standards. In the legal justification for its proposal, the administration once again argued against the already-conservative estimate for the social cost of carbon.

This story was updated to reflect the EPAs press call.

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By Brendan Pierson NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified on Tuesday that Trump directed him to commit a crime by arranging payments ahead of the 2016 presidential election to silence two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump. Cohen, 51, made the statements as he pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges in federal court in Manhattan, including tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. Cohen did not name Trump in court, but his lawyer, Lanny Davis, said afterward he was referring to the president. "Today he (Cohen) stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election," Davis said in a statement after Cohen's plea. "If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?" he said. The two payments were intended to silence two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump and were made prior to the 2016 presidential election. One was for $130,000 given to adult-film star Stormy Daniels. The other for $150,000 related to former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Trump has denied having affairs with the women. His lawyer Rudy Giuliani has said the payments were made to spare Trump and his family embarrassment and were unrelated to the campaign. Cohen, one of Trump's closest associates for more than a decade, said in court he arranged to make payments "for (the) principal purpose of influencing (the) election" at the direction of a candidate for federal office. He worked to pay money to silence two women who had information that he believed would be detrimental to the 2016 campaign and to the candidate, said Robert Khuzami, a prosecutor for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office. Khuzami told reporters Cohen sought reimbursement for the money by submitting sham invoices for legal services to the candidates company. UP TO FIVE YEARS IN PRISON The guilty pleas came in the same hour that a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, convicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort of eight charges of tax and bank fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. The Manafort conviction resulted from U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign. The probe also led to a referral from Mueller about Cohen to federal prosecutors in New York who began their own probe of the longtime Trump lawyer. Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion and has called the Mueller investigation a "witch hunt". Russia has denied meddling in the election though U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded Moscow interfered. Mueller has also brought indictments against 12 Russian intelligence officers in the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails. Cohen's plea deal includes a possible sentence of up to five years and three months in prison, Judge William Pauley III said during the hearing. Pauley scheduled sentencing for Dec. 12 and set bail at $500,000. Cohen, who worked as Trump's personal attorney at the Trump Organization, continued to advise the president after the election, but their relationship has frayed in recent months. Mueller's investigation, which began in May 2017, has resulted in the indictment of more than 30 people and five guilty pleas. (This version of the story fixes typo in paragraph six) (Reporting by Brendan Pierson and Jonathan Stempel; Writing by Jonathan Oatis and Bill Rigby; Editing by Clive McKeef)
By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump does not expect much progress from trade talks with China this week in Washington, he told Reuters on Monday. Trump said in an interview that he had "no time frame" for ending the trade dispute with China, which threatens to impose tariffs on virtually all goods traded between the world's two largest economies. "I'm like them; I have a long horizon," he added. The talks this week come as new U.S. tariffs on $16 billion of Chinese goods take effect at 12:01 a.m. (0401 GMT) on Thursday, along with retaliatory tariffs from Beijing on an equal amount of U.S. goods. The U.S. Trade Representative's Office also is holding hearings this week on proposals for tariffs on a further $200 billion of Chinese goods that will start to directly hit consumer products. Trump said Chinese negotiators would be arriving shortly, adding he did not "anticipate much" from the mid-level discussions. He said resolving the trade dispute with China will "take time because China's done too well for too long, and they've become spoiled. They dealt with people that, frankly, didn't know what they were doing, to allow us to get into this position." Trump also accused China of manipulating its yuan currency to make up for having to pay tariffs imposed by Washington, while arguing the U.S. central bank should be more accommodating. The meetings, expected to take place on Wednesday and Thursday in Washington, are the first formal U.S.-China trade talks since June, when U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross met Chinese economic adviser Liu He in Beijing but returned with no agreements. Since then, Washington and Beijing have been locked in escalating rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs, with tariffs on $50 billion in goods by each country expected to be in place by Thursday. Trump has threatened to impose duties on virtually all of the more than $500 billion of Chinese goods exported to the United States. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang, asked about Trump's comments at a regular news briefing in Beijing, reiterated that China hoped the talks could reach a "good result". "We hope that both sides can sit down quietly and steadily, and dedicate themselves to getting a good result on the basis of equality, parity and trust," Lu said. Trump's tariffs are part of his administration's effort to pressure China into making major changes to its economic policies to better protect intellectual property, end its industrial subsidy efforts and open its markets to foreign competition. Beijing denies U.S. allegations that it systematically forces the unfair transfer of U.S. technology and insists that it adheres to World Trade Organization rules. The Washington talks will be led by U.S. Treasury Undersecretary David Malpass and Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen. (Reporting Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Peter Henderson and David Lawder; Editing by James Dalgleish and Cynthia Osterman)
By Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and James Oliphant WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he would "most likely" meet again with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, while defending his efforts to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons. In an interview with Reuters, Trump, who held a landmark summit with Kim on June 12, said he believed North Korea had taken specific steps toward denuclearization, despite widespread doubts about Kim's willingness to abandon his arsenal. While insisting that "a lot of good things are happening" with North Korea, Trump complained that China was not helping as much as it had in the past because of its trade dispute with the United States. Trump, who faced the North Korean challenge as soon as he took office in January 2017, said he had only been working on the North Korean issue for three months whereas his predecessors had been working on it for 30 years. "I stopped (North Korea's) nuclear testing. I stopped (North Korea's) missile testing. Japan is thrilled. What's going to happen? Who knows? We're going to see," he said. At their summit in Singapore, Kim agreed in broad terms to work toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula but North Korea has given no indication it is willing to give up its weapons unilaterally as the Trump administration has demanded. Trump has hailed the Singapore summit as a success and went as far as saying North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat. In the interview, Trump credited his "great chemistry" with Kim for easing a nuclear standoff that last year raised fears of a new Korean war. "I like him. He likes me," he said. "There's no ballistic missiles going up, there's a lot of silence ... I have very good personal relations with Chairman Kim, and I think that's what holds it together." Asked whether another meeting with Kim was on the horizon, Trump said: "It's most likely we will, but I just don't want to comment." But he offered no details on the timing or venue. Critics say Trump made too many concessions to Kim by agreeing to hold the summit in the first place and then suspending joint U.S.-South Korea military drills while gaining little in return. Asked whether North Korea had taken specific steps to denuclearize other than blowing up its main nuclear bomb test site ahead of the summit, Trump: "I do believe they have." But he did not elaborate. He also pointed to North Korea's pre-summit handover of three American detainees. (Writing by Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom; Editing by James Dalgleish)
By Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday ruled out agreeing to any demands from Turkey to gain the release of a detained American pastor and said he was not concerned that retaliatory U.S. tariffs could end up hurting European and emerging market economies.

In a wide-ranging Oval Office interview with Reuters, Trump complained about rate hikes by the Federal Reserve Board and suggested he was having second thoughts about Jerome Powell, his choice for Fed chair. He also said he "most likely" will have a second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and indicated he would consider lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia if Moscow took some actions in return.

Trump said he thought he had a deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan when he helped persuade Israel to free a detained Turkish citizen. He had thought Erdogan would then release pastor Andrew Brunson, who denies Turkey's allegations that he was involved in a plot against Erdogan two years ago.

"I think it's very sad what Turkey is doing. I think they're making a terrible mistake. There will be no concessions," he said.

Turkey has demanded that the United States hand over Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric in the United States suspected in the coup plot against Erdogan, but the United States has balked at this.

Trump has imposed tariffs on imports of Turkish steel and aluminum in response to Erdogan's refusal to free Brunson, raising concerns of economic damage in Europe and in emerging market economies.

"I'm not concerned at all. Im not concerned. This is the proper thing to do," he said, when asked about the potential damage to other economies.

Trump said Erdogan had wanted the Turkish citizen returned from Israel.

Trump and Erdogan met in Brussels for a NATO summit in mid-July where they discussed Brunsons case and what could be the way forward to release the pastor, a senior White House official said earlier.

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Turkey had sought U.S. help to persuade the Israelis to release a Turkish woman who was being held in Israel, the senior official said. In exchange Turkey would release Brunson and other Americans being held in Turkey.

Trump said he kept his side of the bargain.

"I got that person out for him. I expect him to let this very innocent and wonderful man and great father and great Christian out of Turkey," Trump said.

The dispute threatens to intensify a split between the United States and Turkey, a key NATO ally that plans to buy Russian missiles.

Israel, which confirmed that Trump had requested Ebru Ozkans release, deported her on July 15. Ankara has denied ever agreeing to free Brunson in return.

Trump added: "I like Turkey. I like the people of Turkey very much. Until now I had a very good relationship as you know with the president. I got along with him great. I had a very good relationship. But it cant be a one-way street. Its no longer a one-way street for the United States."

PUTIN, TRUMP MEETING

Trump drew a barrage of criticism at home and abroad after he stood side-by-side with Putin at a July 16 summit in Helsinki and cast doubt on his own intelligence agencies' findings that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. elections.

In the Reuters interview, he ticked off areas that he discussed privately with Putin, including security for Israel, Syria and Russia's annexation of Crimea and incursion into eastern Ukraine, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany that will supply natural gas to Germany.

Trump said Putin did not raise with him the issue of U.S. sanctions on Russia but that he would consider lifting them if Russia took steps on such areas as Syria or Ukraine.

"I would consider it if they do something that would be good for us. But I wouldnt consider it without that," he said.

Turning to Iran, Trump showed little interest in meeting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to discuss the dispute over Iran's nuclear program after earlier this month expressing a willingness to do so.

The Iranians, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei, have dismissed the offer. Trump said it did not matter to him whether he met Iran's leaders or not and that there had been no U.S. outreach toward Iran to discuss talks.

Trump's withdrawal of the United States from the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers earlier this year has raised tensions between Washington and Tehran.

"If they want to meet thats fine, and if they dont want to meet, I couldnt care less," he said.

Trump cast doubt on whether he will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during an international Asia-Pacific summit in Papua New Guinea in November. Trump again talked up the warmth of his relationship with Xi, but said little progress has been made on his drive to rebalance the U.S.-Chinese trade relationship.

"Maybe. Im not sure that its been set up yet. Well see," he said, when asked about a possible meeting with Xi.

He also said he had "no time frame" for resolving his administration's trade dispute with China.

"I'm like them, I have a long horizon," he said.

(Reporting By Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and James Oliphant; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; editing by Ross Colvin)
For almost two years, Wells Fargo (WFC) has been under near-constant fire. It all began, of course, with the revelation that employees in bank branches, who faced immense pressure to sell, had opened fake accounts for customers. Then, the bank agreed to pay a $1 billion fine to settle allegations of abuses in its auto lending and mortgage businesses.

In the spring, the bank also disclosed that its board was conducting a review of certain activities within the banks wealth management unit, which filings describe as including fee calculations of fiduciary accounts.

In mid-July, Yahoo Finance reported on increasing sales pressure in the wealth management sector of Wellss Private Bank. Late last month, the Wall Street Journal also reported that four Wells Fargo advisors had sent a letter to the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, detailing long-standing problems in the wealth management business.

Now, former advisors in the wealth management area of the Private Bank, which caters to high-net-worth investors, are shedding light on what some of those problems may be. They expressed additional concerns to Yahoo Finance, including Wells encouraging fiduciary advisors to put client money in higher-fee options, requiring advisors to, in effect, cross-sell products like mortgages and financial planning, and push what several former advisors viewed as unnecessary financial planning fees on clients. Internal documents shared with Yahoo Finance corroborate their concerns.

In addition, the Journal reported that the broad class of Wells Fargo advisors were encouraged to funnel wealthier clients into the Private Banks wealth management area because the fees were higher. A former senior executive in this area and multiple former Wells Fargo brokers expressed that to Yahoo Finance as well.

(Illustration: David Foster)

In general, Wells Fargos interest in boosting its advisory revenue is in step with much of the industry. In the low-interest environment of the past decade, most banks have looked for other ways to bring in revenue, and wealth management products were an obvious choice for expansion. But at Wells Fargo, a number of troubling reports have emerged that cast a less-than-flattering light on this expansion.

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At Wells Fargo Wealth and Investment Management, we are committed to taking care of our clients financial needs every day and take seriously our responsibility to help them preserve and invest their hard-earned savings, says spokesperson Shea Leordeanu. Our primary goal is to be a trusted advisor to our clients and to act in their best interest.

Advisors felt pushed to add high-fee products to portfolios

Wells Fargo encouraged its advisors to put their clients money in a variety of more complex products, from so-called alternative investments  such as hedge funds or private equity funds  to separately managed accounts, which are portfolios of individual securities. Advisors were also encouraged to use financial tools like options. Some of these came with additional fees.

Such products can be in clients best interests. But because advisors say they were encouraged to reach certain quotas for all these products or face hits to their compensation, it raises a question as to whether these fiduciary advisors were serving their clients interests  or their own. Fiduciaries must put the interests of the client first.

Wells Fargo required advisors to use high-fee products for a certain amount of clients. (Yahoo Finance)

In a presentation document called IFS Summit: Be The Solution, from August 2016, Private Bank advisors were told to have At least 4 private placement purchases per Investment Strategist, at least 3 new third party SMA [separately managed accounts] per Investment Strategist, and At least 20% of accounts with $500,000 or more in equity value have OSG [options strategies group] officer assigned.

The strategy that troubled one former advisor most was for options, which carried some of the highest fees. Advisors were obligated to have an options strategy officer for 20% of accounts that had over $500,000 worth of equities, according to the documents and former advisors.

According to fee schedules, fees for options  managed collars, long calls, call and put spreads, and non-single-stock call writing  carried additional fees of 0.50%, based on the assets involved with these strategies. These fees were easily half or even two-thirds of the normal asset management fee for an account, said a former advisor.

Another former senior Wells Fargo strategist points out that an options strategy can make sense. For instance, if someone owns a significant amount of stock in one company, he or she may want to protect against a decline in that stock. My problem was with the quota, he says, because it encouraged advisors to implement an options strategy even when it didnt make sense.

The alternative investments requirement looked to several advisors like it presented potential conflicts of interest, because it could result in additional revenue for the bank. According to Wells Fargos consent form, which it gave to clients to sign off on these investments, the bank may receive compensation that is in addition to the fees that Wells Fargo receives for performing fiduciary services for your Account.

The consent form acknowledges the conflict of interest potential directly: Because of the compensation received by our affiliates in connection with the Fund, Wells Fargos investment of the Account in the Fund may be considered a conflict of interest.

Wells Fargo says that in the majority of cases, rebates are passed down to clients.

When fund managers provide a rebate of fund fees, Wells Fargo deposits the full rebate for our clients benefit, says Leordeanu. For a small number of certain funds, Wells Fargo may be compensated for services provided to the funds, as disclosed to and consented by clients prior to investment.

With separately managed accounts, where the goal was at least three new third party accounts per advisor for 2016, there were also additional fees. Separately managed accounts carried expenses of 0.30-0.80% for equity strategies, according to various fee schedules.

As part of our asset allocation strategy, we offer a variety of services to meet our clients financial needs and objectives in a properly risk adjusted portfolio and we have supervisory processes and controls in place, says Erik Davidson, the chief investment officer of Wells Fargo Wealth Management. Access to Private Placement investments, Separately Managed Accounts, and Options Strategies are among many of the benefits of being a client of Wells Fargo Private Bank. Wells Fargo investment professionals have a strong understanding of these investment solutions, which are intended to improve the risk-adjusted return outcomes of high net worth investors portfolios. We take seriously our responsibility to ensure that all of our Private Bank clients are informed and educated about the investment solutions that may be appropriate for their individual circumstances.

In addition to extra fees and expenses for options, numerous fee schedules Yahoo Finance reviewed disclosed that the bank may charge brokerage commissions on top of the annual fee clients paid for portfolio management. Former advisors told Yahoo Finance that clients frequently complained about these additional fees. Most clients who pay an annual fee do not also pay trading commissions.

Yahoo Finance reviewed five client statements in which both commissions and assets-under-managementbased fees were charged. The commissions added around single-digit basis points (between 0.04% and 0.09%) to the total amount the clients were paying, a former advisor said. Another former advisor said commissions could add up to 0.25% if there was 30% turnover of securities in a portfolio.

These fees were not kept by Wells Fargo; they were simply expenses for trading and research. However the norm for competitors of Wells Fargos Private Bank is to include commissions or trading expenses in the asset-based fee, according to sources across the financial industry with knowledge of the matter. Charging clients separately for the two types of fees would allow a bank to show clients a potentially lower and more competitive annual-fee figure against another banks commission-included fee.

Advisors faced pressure that could put client interests second

If advisors didnt meet goals of certain amounts of options, separately managed accounts, and private placement alternatives in their book of clients, their bonuses were penalized, according to advisors and documents.

Performance review documents reviewed by Yahoo Finance showed advisors being evaluated on their investment execution, which was based on utilizing alternatives, options, and private placements, and praised for using options in client portfolios because it was a significant driver of revenue.

All of a sudden if youre not doing so many separately managed accounts, your bonus was reduced, one advisor recalls.

There was also a direct link between compensation and the overall fees an advisor generated. According to the 2017 WM Compensation Plan, 25% of incentive compensation plan managerial business objectives or ICP MBO  which was internal language for sales goals  was based on fee revenue.

The compensation for Wells Fargos private bank wealth advisors was dependent on their revenue from fees as well as their adherence to companys strategy and model. (Yahoo Finance)

This could put advisors in tough situations, the advisor recalled, when they would be faced with the dilemma of putting a client in an investment that may not have been the best choice for them or risk their bonus.

In all the different parts of our Wealth and Investment Management businesses  whether retail brokerage, trust, wealth or retirement  our team members are focused on our clients and their unique financial needs, Leordeanu says. While different types of accounts have different fees, all fees are fully disclosed. We are committed to transparency as we work with our clients to help them realize their financial goals.

Indeed, Wells Fargo did not hide any of the fees. They were present in consent forms and fee schedules. However, clients were not given the internal use only documents demonstrating advisors incentives for their bonuses.

In some cases, clients were also not explicitly informed when additional fees present on the various fee schedules were activated. According to two former advisors at the Private Bank, many accounts were discretionarily managed, meaning client approval wasnt required for each move.

Where the managers went first was in the irrevocable trust, where Wells Fargo was trustee, where they can decide what to do, one said. Thats where all these strategies went first, and lots of them. Fees on fees.

For advisors trying to meet a quota but lacking enough clients they felt could benefit from SMAs, irrevocable trusts were the easiest way to meet it.

Another advisor discussing the irrevocable trust fee schedule recalled hearing a manager say, So long as you disclose it, you can charge it!

Advisors were expected to sell

In addition to the use of advanced investing options, Wells Fargo advisors in the Private Bank were also required to generate other business in the form of loans, mortgages, and wealth-planning products, or, once again, put their bonuses in jeopardy.

According to former advisors and internal documents, those ICP MBOs were also tied to getting clients to deepen their connections with Wells Fargo.

Advisors were required to have full outside line of business participation, which meant that an advisor was obligated to bring on other Wells Fargo employees from other divisions like banking, brokerage, or planning. Since bonuses depended on this, advisors were incentivized to use such services whether the client needed it or not.

Comp drives behavior, said one former advisor. Performance review documents for advisors in the private bank show execution of the Tactical Sales Process as an area of evaluation.

Wells Fargo advisors were also incentivized to pitch other Wells Fargo products themselves, according to 2016 compensation plan documents for Private Bank advisors. For referring clients to mortgages, lines of credit, loans, and estate fees, advisors would receive fee credit that counted towards bonuses.

Acknowledge the important support that Advisors provide on larger, more complex portfolio mortgages that are not sourced by an Advisor, reads a document called 2017 WM Compensation Plan. [This] is consistent with Wealth Managements philosophy of rewarding sales and sourcing activity.

This, the advisors said, was not always in the best interests of the client, something that conflicted with their responsibility as fee-compensated fiduciaries.

You had to do so many mortgages. Two or three mortgage referrals every year  one or two had to stick, the advisor said. It only behooves us to find solutions, and you might as well find solutions in-house. But when it becomes your job to find those you neglect what your clients need.

Turning to planning

Wells Fargo advisors were also instructed to get clients to do Client Discovery Reviews, or CDRs in Wells lingo. These were reviews conducted with clients that highlighted areas in which a client could use additional products or services. One former executive defends CDRs as a helpful tool, but others viewed them as a thinly veiled sales push.

According to internal presentation documents from the Wealth Regional Development Conference 2015, CDRs were introduced as a criteria for advisors bonuses that year.

We show you CDR/Planning and Full Participation [as key measurables] because even the discretionary award criteria has an expectation around these, the presentation documents read. Other internal documents, such as performance reviews, highlight planning penetration and client discovery review as critical business metrics.

While the CDR was free, it also opened the door to selling a client on a full financial plan, which was not free, or additional products. The fees for planning, according to an internal presentation called The Wealth Planning Client Experience, were significant: from $5,000 to $68,000 per year, depending on the clients assets. The CDR was the gateway for pitching the Planning Engagement, said a former advisor. It would also be used to tell the client they didnt have enough life insurance or that maybe an annuity would be a good idea based on the need for more income in retirement.

Advisors were also told they should include a Planner for client portfolios over $5 million, according to that internal presentation.

Wells Fargos motivation to increase CDRs and planning is made clear in the same document, which notes that the use of these tools results in Deeper Cross-Sell and 151% more revenue.

The Planners strive to convert each client into signing a planning engagement for 12 months during which they find other areas the client may have gaps where a product can be sold, said one former advisor.

Three of the former Wells Fargo employees interviewed complained about the ethics of the planning engagement and a culture of pushing these planning solutions on clients. In one instance, a former employee recalled that before a sales meeting with a prospect, he said a proposed plan wasnt in the best interest of a client. He was left off the call. A former colleague confirmed that this employee was eventually penalized for not selling enough.

It was a very strong sales culture, he said. It was mostly growing your book of business. Get more assets under management. Write more loans.

Another noted that advanced planning was only really necessary for clients with over $11 million, because of complexities of the estate tax.

Even as Wells Fargos public image took a beating, advisors were still being asked to look for opportunities to expand planning. On the day former CEO John Stumpf appeared in front of the Senate Banking Committee to answer for the banks retail banking sins, the thensenior director of sales Susan Mayo and senior director of planning Amy Theisen emailed the advisors to reach out to every client in your book to look for CDR opportunities.

This is a great opportunity to highlight to your clients  that we lead with Discovery, she wrote.

Of course, it made sense for Wells advisors to find a way to touch base with clients at such a precarious time. But one former advisor was horrified by the email, because he viewed it as a thinly veiled sales push for the planning process  something that sounds good on paper as part of a client experience, but was nothing more than a tool to increase revenue on every client. Indeed, if Wells truly wanted to change  and not just to advertise that it has changed  transparency about the ways employees are paid might be a way to start.



Read more:

Exclusive: Wells Fargo automated high-net-worth wealth management as advisors faced sales pressure

Every Wells Fargo consumer scandal since 2015: a timeline

Wells Fargos scandals just wont die

Bethany McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and bestselling author. Her latest book, Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How Its Changing the World, is coming out in September 2018.

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a senior writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann. You can contact him at emann@oath.com.
Austin Ross has been jailed for six years after a month-long hate campaign which included spray painting landmarks with swastikas (PA)

A far-right group supporter who undertook a month-long hate campaign which included spray painting landmarks with swastikas has been jailed for six years.

Austin Ross, 23, stuck racist posters on buildings around his home town of Newport, South Wales, as well as torching a school and a masonic lodge, causing tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage.

A court heard Ross was both a supporter of Tommy Robinson and far-right group System Resistance Network, and painted their initials SRN, as well as messages such as Free Tommy Robinson on buildings.

Swastikas and the letters SRN (System Resistance Network) were spray painted on a wall in Newport (PA)

Between May 2 and May 31 this year he spray painted Nazi symbols and stuck racist propaganda on to landmarks around his hometown.

Prosecutor Jason Howells told Newport Crown Court that Ross first targeted the citys Riverfront Theatre by posting a racially abusive poster on a window pane.

Mr Howells said: The poster was linked to the System Resistance Network, and there were swastikas spray painted next to it.

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Ross went on to post racist posters on Bethel Community Church which read Marxist maggots we remember faces, names places. SRN.

His next target was Newports multicultural Maindee Primary School, where parents reported seeing racist posters outside it referring to refugees, and the message You have been visited by the SRN.

Ross returned to the school four days later to spray paint several swastikas on its walls.

A school signs was also daubed with swastikas (PA)

The slogan 1488 was painted by Ross on to the outside wall of Gwent Probation Services  with 14 being code for We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children coined by white supremacist David Lane, and 88 being code for Heil Hitler.

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Ross also wrote Free Tommy Robinson along with graffiti of swastikas at the University of South Wales campus.

He then caused 38,000 worth of damage by causing a fire at Newports Masonic Lodge, which had a Star of David on the front of the building, and another 20,000 worth of damage by starting another fire at Bassaleg Secondary School, of which he is an ex pupil.

Ross stuck racist posters on buildings around his home town (PA)

A door was spray-painted with the Nazi symbol (PA)

Gwent Police released CCTV recordings to the public which caught Ross in the act of several of the incidents, which resulted in him being identified after an anonymous tip off.

Police raided his home and found stencils of swastikas, and posters which read Keep Britain White and Hitler was right.

His Facebook account contained links to a Hitler Youth account.

Ross was arrested and later pleaded guilty to 15 counts including arson, racially aggravated harassment and racially aggravated damage.

Ross was both a supporter of Tommy Robinson and far-right group System Resistance Network (PA)

Harry Baker, defending, said: Theres a different side to this young man. His family are concerned and upset for him.

Judge Jeremy Jenkins told Ross: Your actions were not born out of some mental disorder, but out of sheer hatred and malice, based on a perverse view of race and religion different to your own.

The judge added: People like you have no idea what living under a tyrannical regime is really like.

Ross, from Romney Close, Bettws, Newport, showed no emotion as he was jailed.
A rescue helicopter in the gorge that was hit by a flash flood - ANSA

An eight-year-old girl survived a devastating flash flood in a canyon in southern Italy but was found next to a body that rescuers believe may be one of her parents.

The girl, named as Chiara, was semi-conscious, covered in thick mud and suffering from hypothermia when she was found in the gorge in Calabria after it was hit by a tsunami of muddy water following a severe storm.

The seven-mile-long canyon, located in Pollino national park, has 2,300ft-high sheer rock walls which in some places are just 13ft apart.

At least two groups of hikers were caught up in the disaster on Monday.

While some were able to scramble to higher ground, others were engulfed by the flash flood and drowned.

Ten people were killed, with some bodies washed up to three miles downstream by the force of the torrent.

Eleven people were injured, five of them seriously.

Four children lost either one or both of their parents.

A rescue helicopter in the gorge that was hit by a flash flood Credit: Francesco Arena/Ansa

She was semi-conscious but clearly in a state of shock. We found her next to a corpse and from what we know, her parents are almost certainly among the victims, said Pasquale Gagliardi, a doctor with the local helicopter rescue service.

The little girl, who had swallowed mud and debris, was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Naples, hundreds of miles to the north.

A girl is helped by a member of the National Alpine and Caving Rescue Squad as they (right) descend the gorge Credit: ANSA/AP

Youre going to make it, little one, Dr Pasquale wrote on Facebook under a photograph of the girls hand, covered in mud, on the shoulder of an alpine rescue specialist.

The hand of the eight year old girl on the shoulder of an alpine rescue specialist Credit: Twitter

The victims included a volunteer rescue worker who helped pull people alive from a hotel in central Italy that was hit by a deadly avalanche in January 2017.

Antonio De Rasis, 32, was guiding hikers through the gorge when it was hit by the 8ft-high wall of water.

With his experience, he would definitely have tried to help the group as much as possible, said Antonio Carlomagno, the mayor of the town where Mr De Rasis came from.

The flash flood also claimed the lives of two models, Miriam Mezzolla, 27, and Claudia Giampietro, 31, who were said to be inseparable and shared a passion for burlesque dancing.

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Rescuers work in the gorge of the Raganello stream in Civita Credit: WENN.com

An investigation has been launched into the disaster, with questions asked about why people were allowed into the gorge when bad weather was forecast.

It was a real tsunami. These are events that happen once in a lifetime, said Giacomo Zanfei, a senior official with the mountain rescue service.

Italy has experienced strange weather this summer, with torrid heat building up in the mornings and then giving way to thunder, lightning and torrential rain.

Rescuers and citizens wait in the central square of Civita, a village in the Italian Calabria southern region Credit: AFP

Climate experts say the summer is becoming less dry and more tropical, with higher rainfall than before.

It is a shocking tragedy, linked to the terrible weather weve had this summer, said Mimmo Lo Polito, a local mayor.

The canyoning disaster comes just a week after the collapse of the Morandi bridge in Genoa, which killed 43 people.

Raganello gorges in Pollino National Park, Calabria Credit: DEA/V. GIANNELLA

"Italy is tired of crying for the dead. Enough," said Sergio Costa, the environment minister, during a visit to the scene. "If what happened is the result of negligence, sloppiness or a lack of awareness of the risks, we are facing a serious situation that we need to get to the bottom of."

The whole country is deeply saddened by this new tragedy, which has caused many deaths and injuries in Pollino national park, said Sergio Mattarella, Italys president.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP)  One of the founders of Argentina's leading human rights group has died. Maria Isabel Chorobik de Mariani was 95.

The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo group says that she died late Monday at a local hospital where she had been interned after suffering a stroke.

Chorobik de Mariani was instrumental in founding the group that for decades has been searching for children who were stolen from people who were killed or forcibly disappeared during Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Two former dictators were eventually convicted along with others of systematically kidnapping children. Jorge Rafael Videla died in prison in 2013. Reynaldo Bignone, who was serving time under house arrest, died earlier this year.

During the dictatorship, the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo marched weekly at Buenos Aires' main square to demand the return of their loved ones. The group says Chorobik de Mariani was a "symbol of the fight for human rights."

The Grandmothers pushed for the creation of a DNA database that enables people illegally adopted to determine their real identity. They believe that about 500 children were seized during the dictatorship and given to couples who supported the ruling military junta. The group has so far helped to identify 128 cases of stolen children.

Chorobik de Mariani, who was known as "Chicha," never found her missing granddaughter. Clara Anahi was 3 months old when she was stolen by agents of the dictatorship in 1976. The baby's mother was killed.

"Dear Chicha, we will keep searching for her, along with all the other granddaughters and grandsons who are missing," the group said.
Lille (France) (AFP) - Four Canadian soldiers killed in the First World War will finally be laid to rest Thursday in northern France, a century after their deaths, local authorities said Tuesday.

Reported missing in August 1917, the four men aged 20 to 33 were killed during fierce fighting to recapture a position from German troops near Lens in northern France, according to a Canadian ministry of defence statement.

This offensive, led by Canadian troops between August 15 and 25, left more than 10,000 dead, including over 1,300 without a known burial.

The remains of the four soldiers were found between 2010 and 2016 during an operation to destroy old munitions and on a construction site near Lens.

They will be buried on Thursday in the presence of their families in a ceremony organised by the Canadian Armed Forces at a British military cemetery in the town of Loos-en-Gohelle, the prefecture said.

The Canadian ministry of defence identified them last October using forensic anthropological analysis, historical research and DNA analysis.

Discoveries of hurridly-buried remains near the trenches are "frequent" in the local department of Pas-de-Calais, the prefecture said.

More than 20 bodies of soldiers have been exhumed since November on the site of the future Lens Hospital, according to the regional newspaper La Voix du Nord.
Berlin (AFP) - Germany's highest court declared Tuesday that a Polish ruling against German public broadcaster ZDF in a dispute sparked by a Holocaust documentary has no legal force in Germany.

It found that the ZDF could not be compelled by a Polish court in Krakow to publish a pre-worded apology as this would breach constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and opinion.

The dispute started when ZDF, in advertising a 2013 documentary, erroneously described the Nazi-run World War II death camps Auschwitz and Majdanek in occupied Poland as "Polish extermination camps".

After complaints from the Polish embassy, ZDF corrected the wording and later repeatedly apologised, but the Krakow court in 2016 ruled that it must publish a specifically-worded apology on its website.

Germany's Federal Court of Justice said that the "exercise of state coercion to publish the preformulated statement... would manifestly violate the defendant's right of freedom of expression".

The issue is highly sensitive in Poland, which this year passed a law to penalise statements that ascribe "responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich".

In the ZDF case, the court said the broadcaster had quickly changed the wording and in two letters apologised to the plaintiff, Polish citizen and camp survivor Karol Tendera.

It had also published an online correction in 2016-2017 expressing its regret over the "careless, false and erroneous formulation".

The plaintiff had however deemed this insufficient as the wording did not cover distorting the history of the Polish people.

The German court, in the statement Tuesday announcing its July 19 ruling, said it had based its decision on the "principle of proportionality", given the ZDF's repeated apologies.

It also said that a judicial ruling from another country cannot be enforced if it stands "in contradiction to the fundamental principles of the law of the executing state and its concepts of justice".
Faith Fennidy, a middle school student in Louisiana, got sent home for her hairstyle. (Photo: Facebook/steven.fennidy)

An 11-year-old middle schooler was removed from her Catholic private school on Monday, after administrators reportedly cited her hair extensions and style as a dress code violation.

Arriving to her first day of 6th grade at Christ the King Parish School, Faith Fennidy was ready to reenter the halls she had walked through for two years prior. But what she didnt know was that a change had been made to the dress code, suddenly making her back to school hairstyle a problem for the schools principal. A notice that was sent to her in class led to the tween shedding tears in the main office, before she was eventually escorted out of the building alongside her parents and brother.

Taking to Facebook, Faiths brother Steven posted a video of the incident, which has been viewed over one million times  inciting outrage over what racial implications the new rule might have.

My sister Faith and many little black girls wear extensions. Shes been attending this school for two years and wearing extensions. Over the summer the school has sneakily added in a policy that no extensions, clip-ins or weaves are allowed, he wrote. Extensions make the hair easier to maintain. It allows my sister to have access to the swimming pool without having to get her hair Re-done every night. How do you make a policy without even having a discussion. Its because you dont care and its just one more barrier to entry for black people. This decision is going to affect black children more than white children.

This particular situation is different from others that have made headlines as a result of schools making guidelines for the way that students wear their natural hair. Most recently, a 6-year-old boy in Florida was removed from his school for wearing his natural dreadlocks. However, this Louisiana-based Catholic school has allegedly said that the fact that Faiths hairstyle incorporated unnatural hair is the problem.

The Christ the King Parish School didnt immediately reply to Yahoo Lifestyles request for comment. However, the Archdiocese of New Orleans released a written statement on Tuesday from Superintendent RaeNell Billiot Houston to WGNO, which read:

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Archdiocese of New Orleans schools develop policies appropriate for their respective schools. Christ the King Elementary School has a policy that states: Boys and Girls: Only the students natural hair is permitted.

This policy was communicated to all parents during the summer and again before the first day of school, and was applied to all students. Furthermore, the school leadership worked with families as needed to ensure compliance.

School administrators additionally told the network that the family was informed of their daughters violation the week prior, when the first day of school actually took place. And although Faith had her hair re-done that Friday, it still wasnt in compliance with the dress code when she arrived the next week. At that point the parent made the decision to remove her child from the school, an administrator said.

People across the country have responded to the incident, including activist Shaun King and rapper T.I.

How do you feel that this is a proper representation of what Jesus Christ the King & how he would want us to treat our children? T.I. wrote on Instagram. You should be ashamed of yourselves

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

 Finally feeling true to myself: TV reporter goes viral for rocking her natural hair on air for the first time

 What the Navys new hair policy means to me as a black woman

 Texas high school causes outrage with dress code video targeting female students in athletic shorts

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.




Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he believes former CIA head John Brennan "crossed the line," but that he doesn't want the revocation of security clearances to become routine. (Photo: Bill Clark via Getty Images)

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said on Sunday that former CIA Director John Brennan abused his security privilege when he accused President Donald Trump of having treasonous behavior.

During an interview on Fox News Sunday, the chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs maintained that Brennan didnt need access to classified information, and said he had no issue with Trump pulling Brennans clearance.

I do believe that former CIA Director John Brennan abused his privilege, said Johnson. When you are an ex-CIA director and you are going on all the cable news shows and acting as partisan as he has and accusing the president of the United States of treasonous behavior, high crimes and misdemeanors. Last time I checked, treason was punishable by death. Youve just crossed the line.

In July, Brennan called Trumps behavior during a meeting in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin treasonous.

At the July summit, Trump stood next to the Russian leader and appeared to dismiss the assessment of his own intelligence officials that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. The moment sparked widespread outrage, but several GOP lawmakers, including Johnson, did not condemn the president directly. Earlier that month, Johnson had met with Russian officials in Moscow as part of a delegation of Senate Republicans.

Former CIA Director John Brennan testifies before the House Intelligence Committee in May 2017 on Russian active measures during the 2016 election campaign." (Photo: Kevin Lamarque / Reuters)

On Wednesday, Trump revoked Brennans clearance in what appeared to be a broader attack on former and current intelligence officials who have spoken out against him. The White House is currently reviewing the security clearances of at least nine others who have been critical the president, and it has reportedly started drafting cancellations.

Host Chris Wallace noted that some officials have likened this to an enemies list, and asked why the president would go only after his critics versus snatching clearances from all former officials.



Johnson seemed to soften his position by saying he doesnt want what happened to Brennan to become routine. The best way to handle things, he said, is just to not give people access to information.

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Its unclear what exactly Johnson meant by that distinction. Earlier in the interview, Johnson did say it was unlikely that anyone was consulting with Brennan.

He nevertheless doubled down on his assertion that Brennan went too far before going on to express deep sympathy for Trump.

Brennan really did cross a line. Hes one of the leaders of the resistance movement. I understand why President Trump is pretty frustrated, he said. Ive never seen in my lifetime a president not given any chance  no honeymoon, massive protests the weekend after the inauguration. I understand President Trumps frustration, but again, security clearance is really split between eligibility and access, and the best way to handle all of this, if you dont have confidence in them, just dont give them access to the classified information.

Earlier this week, a group of former CIA directors and deputies released a statement saying revoking Brennans clearance has nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances  and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech.

Johnson disagreed that Trump is challenging free speech, but said he doesnt want to see an enemies list. Instead, he repeated his earlier hedge, which seemed to contradict his position on Brennan.

And I will just repeat: The best way to handle this in any administration, if you dont want to consult with anybody, you dont have to yank their security clearance  just dont give them access to classified materials, he said. Its pretty simple.

Related Coverage

John Brennan: Trump Is 'Drunk On Power'  And Dangerous

Former Intel Officials Defend John Brennan In Wake Of Revoked Security Clearance

John Brennan Stands By His Claim That Trumps Behavior Is Treasonous

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Paris (AFP) - The Gulf of Guinea, where a tanker with 17 Georgian sailors aboard has been missing for a week, has in recent years become the epicentre of maritime piracy in Africa.

The siphoning of oil from hijacked cargo ships, illegal fishing, trafficking of all kinds: the 5,700-kilometre (3,541-mile) coastal zone stretching from Senegal to Angola is a happy hunting group for pirates.

It has upstaged the Gulf of Aden, where once rampant piracy has considerably diminished faced with the deployment of an international military armada.

During the first half of 2018, the crews of six ships were kidnapped by pirates around the world, all in the Gulf of Guinea, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), in a report published in late July.

In 2017, out of 16 incidents around the world in which ships came under gunfire, seven were listed in the Gulf of Guinea. Ten hostage-takings involving a total of 65 crew members were perpetrated last year in the waters off Nigeria.

Pirates operating off Nigeria, Togo and Benin are usually well-armed and violent. They sometimes hijack ships for several days, long enough to loot the holds, knocking around the crews, who are less and less willing to sail in these waters. Others release them after a ransom is paid.

In February, an oil tanker flying the flag of Panama, with 22 Indian sailors and 13,500 tonnes of fuel aboard, was held in such conditions for five days by pirates off Benin, before being released with its crew and its cargo.

Piracy in the Gulf, home to Sub-Saharan Africa's two main oil producers Nigeria and Angola, has seriously disrupted this international shipping route and cost the global economy billions of dollars.

The 17 countries in the region, whose surveillance and maritime defence capabilities are limited and disparate, have been trying for several years to bolster their means of intervention and to put in place a closer regional collaboration, with the help of the United States and France.
Rabat (AFP) - Morocco's King Mohammed VI has pardoned 11 militants of the "Hirak" protest movement on the occasion of Islam's Eid al-Adha religious feast, their lawyer said Tuesday.

The 11 names appeared on a list of 889 people granted royal pardons published Tuesday by the justice ministry, lawyer Mohamed Aghnaj told AFP.

The 11 militants were serving two to three year jail sentences, in the western city of Casablanca, for their part in the Al-Hirak al-Shaabi, or "Popular Movement" whose protests rocked the country's northern Rif region in 2016-2017, according to the National Council on Human Rights.

The total number of convictions tied to Hirak are not known, but the protests have led to more than 400 arrests, the rights council says.

The movement's leader Nasser Zafzafi, sentenced with three companions to 20 years in prison for threatening the security of the state, was not among those on the pardon list. Nor was journalist Hamid el Mahdaoui, sentenced to three years for covering the events.

The social unrest linked to Hirak began in October 2016 after the death of a fisherman and spiralled into a wave of protests demanding more development in the neglected Rif region and railing against corruption and unemployment.
Moulay Driss Zerhoun (Morocco) (AFP) - It's dubbed the "pilgrimage of the poor" -- every summer, tens of thousands of people flood this small central Moroccan town to honour a Sufi saint buried here 12 centuries ago.

Moulay Driss Zerhoun, nestled between two hills covered in olive groves, is where Idriss I, a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed who founded Morocco's first Islamic dynasty, was laid to rest in the late eighth century.

In the main square, pilgrims grouped in "brotherhoods" from a host of countries walk in a procession to mark the start of the "moussem" (season), an annual homage that lasts for over a month.

For many Moroccans it is an alternative to the major Muslim hajj pilgrimage to holy sites in Saudi Arabia.

"Those who can't afford to travel to Mecca come here to pray at the grave," says Fatmi Chbihi, who belongs to a town committee made up of descendants of Idriss I.

The faithful walk towards the green-tiled sanctuary, reciting Koranic verses with hand on heart.

Posters advertising the event are plastered across the town, while whitewashed buildings house modest shops selling candles as offerings to the saint.

Hailing from Sale, a town near Rabat and about three hours away by car, a pilgrim wearing a red fez who gave his name only as Zakaria said he has been coming for 16 years.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," Zakaria, who is in his 40s, told AFP, adding that the pilgrimage gives him a "sense of spiritual renewal".

- Developing 'spiritual tourism' -

Sufism, a mystical strand of Islam with hundreds of millions of followers, breaks with Salafism, Wahhabism and other austere interpretations of Sunni Islam that view the reverence of saints as heresy.

It advocates inner transformation, encouraging self-knowledge as a path to the understanding of others and God.

Sufism is especially popular in Morocco, which sees itself as protecting an "Islam of the middle ground".

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"The Islam practised in Morocco is... open and free of all fundamentalism," said Chbihi, dressed in an immaculate white robe.

"The brothers play a significant role in promoting this moderate Islam," he added.

A picture of King Mohammed VI hangs at the entrance in front of a white arch of Moorish-Arab inspiration.

Morocco's monarch -- the "commander of the believers" -- paid pilgrimage here after he was enthroned, as did his father Hassan II.

A sign reminds people that the site is forbidden to non-Muslims, like all of Morocco's mosques and religious sanctuaries.

Worshippers pass beneath a wooden beam that serves as a barrier and crowd in front of the tomb.

A marble commemorative plaque details the history of the mausoleum as far back as the 18th century.

Koranic inscriptions adorn the ceramic walls, while a giant copper chandelier hangs over the tomb.

Pilgrims kiss or place a hand on the gilded silk fabric covering the tomb when they seek the saint's blessing.

As night falls, the brotherhoods of pilgrims meet in private homes, taking part in ceremonies full of mystical songs and divine pleas.

Dwarfing the town's population of 12,000, the annual wave of pilgrims "reinvigorates the local economy", says guesthouse owner Zakia El Hanaoui.

But much more than that, the festivities mirror a "serenity that reigns in the town", helping to develop a "spiritual tourism", he adds.
Moscow (AFP) - Russia's foreign minister on Monday accused the UN of hampering the reconstruction of war-torn Syria, as the Moscow-backed Syrian regime calls on refugees to return to the country.

Sergei Lavrov said the United Nations' political affairs department had last year sent out "a secret directive forbidding organisations belonging to (the UN) system from any project aimed at restoring the Syrian economy".

Such organisations would only be allowed to distribute aid until progress was made on a "political transition", he said during a Moscow press conference with his Lebanese counterpart Gebran Bassil.

Lavrov asked UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres to explain why the Security Council "which directly oversees the resolution (of the Syria conflict) was not made aware".

The minister said there had been a lack of transparency and awareness of the situation on the ground as the decision was being made.

"I hope he can clear this up," Lavrov added.

Russia intervened in support of Bashar al-Assad's regime in 2015, in what was widely seen as a turning point in the seven-year conflict.

The regime now controls around two thirds of the country.

Moscow and Damascus are now working to accelerate the return of some 5.6 million Syrian refugees.

"Over the last month, around 7,000 refugees have left Lebanon for Syria. We are continuing our efforts in that direction," Lavrov said.

"The conditions for this are in place and continue to improve."

For his part, Bassil said he was "ready to cooperate with Russian authorities in the framework of several initiatives launched by Russia".

"Conditions in Syria have changed, there are more and more zones where stability and security have been reestablished," the Lebanese minister said.

Syria's war has killed more than 350,000 people and displaced millions since 2011.
Oswiecim (Poland) (AFP) - German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Monday visited the former Nazi-German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, which he called "the most horrible place on earth".

Maas has often said that the site which Nazi Germany installed in occupied Poland during World War II inspired him to go into politics.

"I saw thousands of children's shoes that were taken off them on their way to the gas chamber, tons of human hair that was taken from people before they were sent to the gas chamber," Maas said after visiting the site in the southern Polish city of Oswiecim.

"This is the most horrible place on earth. And it is here where you have to make a choice: either you lose all faith in humanity, or you gain the hope and the strength to stand up for human dignity and to work for it," he added.

"This is a place of remembrance that reminds us Germans above all of what we did to millions of people. We need this place because our responsibility will never end."

Auschwitz-Birkenau has become a symbol of Nazi Germany's genocide of European Jews, one million of whom were killed at the camp between 1940 to 1945.

More than 100,000 others including non-Jewish Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and anti-Nazi resistance fighters also died there.

Later Monday, Maas will hold talks with Polish counterpart Jacek Czaputowicz at the Maximilian Kolbe Center, a spiritual site in the nearby village of Harmeze.

Kolbe was a Polish priest who died at Auschwitz after taking the place of a condemned man. He was made a saint by the Catholic Church in 1982.
Robert Farley

Security, Asia

The Iowas certainly delivered a great deal of ordnance to target on the Korean Peninsula over the course of the war. However, the overall impact of their presence is difficult to assess.

Navy Battleships vs. North Korea: How America's Last Battlewagons Waged War

The Iowas certainly delivered a great deal of ordnance to target on the Korean Peninsula over the course of the war. However, the overall impact of their presence is difficult to assess. Communist forces quickly learned to move critical facilities and troop concentration outside of the range of the battleships guns, although the transport network was hard to shift inland. Heavy U.S. bombing of target across Korea contributed to the general destruction, making it hard to parse out how much the battleships themselves mattered. The smaller, cheaper heavy cruisers could often deliver similar levels of destruction to enemy targets. Still, the very presence of the battleships may have had some degree of psychological effect on Communist and UN forces alike.

In the final months of the Second World War, the battleships of the U.S. Navy (USN) ranged across the archipelago of Japan, bombarding industrial, military and logistical targets at will. The Japanese military lacked enough ships, planes and fuel to defend the nation, leaving coastal areas at the mercy of the steel behemoths. Although most of the credit (such that it is) for the destruction of urban Japan belongs to the bombers of the U.S. Army Air Force, the battleships and cruisers of the navy contributed their share.

Recommended: America Can't Shoot Down a North Korean Nuke

At the end of the war, most of the USNs battleships were scrapped, sunk as targets or placed into reserve. When the United States went to war again, earlier than anyone had expected, three battleships of the Iowa class returned to service, joining their sister USS Missouri off the coast of Korea. For three years, these ships would rain terror down upon North Korean and Chinese forces.

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Response and Reactivation:

The ferocity and efficiency of the North Korean offensive of June 1950 into South Korea took everyone, including the U.S. Navy, by surprise. Nevertheless, local forces quickly responded, including the Oregon City-class heavy cruiser USS Rochester, which used its eight-inch guns to soften beaches at Inchon and elsewhere. USS Missouri, the only U.S. battleship to have remained operational since World War II, arrived in Korean waters on September 19, 1950. In a few weeks she would conduct extensive shore bombardments along the coast of North Korea. Missouri continued to provide fire support after the tide of war turned in November; in December, she conducted bombardments to ensure the survival of U.S. troops retreating from the Peoples Liberation Armys surprise offensive.

Recommended: The Case for War with North Korea

Notably, the U.S. Navy decided not to transfer the three heavy cruisers of the Des Moines class, which mostly remained in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. These cruisers, carrying auto-loading eight-inch guns, could lay waste to a coastal area nearly as effectively as a battleship. However, they were regarded as too important to the mission of deterring the Soviet Union to risk transfer to the Pacific.

Recommended: China's New Stealth Fighter Has Arrived 

Instead, the U.S. government decided to reactivate the three other Iowa class battleships. Iowa, New Jersey and Wisconsin had all entered the reserve fleet before the beginning of the Korean War. All three remained in excellent condition, and required minimal modification in order to return to service. The most significant change came with the replacement of World War II-era floatplanes by helicopters. The navy recommissioned New Jersey in November 1950, Wisconsin in March 1951 and Iowa in August 1951. Several heavy cruisers also conducted tours off of Korea, but the navy declined to reactivate any of the thirteen other battleships in the reserve fleet.

Operations:

Each of the four battleships acted as a flagship at one time or another, contributing facilities necessary to the coordination of broader naval warfare efforts. More to the point, however, the battleships used both their sixteen-inch main armament and their five-inch secondary armament to pound Chinese and North Korean positions along the coast. These positions included cave systems, concealed artillery and command posts. As with the end of the Second World War, the battleships also hit strategic and operational targets, including railways, industrial parks and transport centers. These attacks, which could range up to twenty miles inland, periodically disrupted but did not stop Communist efforts to resupply their armies in the field.

Extensive mining reduced the freedom-of-action of U.S. naval forces, to the extent that the battleships only rarely operated against North Korean and Chinese positions along the Yellow Sea. Although Communist aircraft did conduct attacks against major U.S. ships early in the war, UN air and naval superiority made such sorties difficult as the war proceeded. Other than mines, the main danger to the battleships came through coastal artillery, which they regularly sparred against. However, the effectiveness of the USN in bombarding all along the peninsula showed both countries how vulnerable they were to naval attack.

After a refit beginning in March 1951, USS Missouri resumed bombardment and escort duties from October 1952 until March 1953. New Jersey carried out her first shore bombardment in May 1951, and remained in the area until November. She returned for a second tour in April 1953, and remained through the duration of the conflict. USS Wisconsin operated off Korea from November 1951 until April 1952, and USS Iowa contributed short bombardment between April and October 1952.

Reaction:

The Iowas certainly delivered a great deal of ordnance to target on the Korean Peninsula over the course of the war. However, the overall impact of their presence is difficult to assess. Communist forces quickly learned to move critical facilities and troop concentration outside of the range of the battleships guns, although the transport network was hard to shift inland. Heavy U.S. bombing of target across Korea contributed to the general destruction, making it hard to parse out how much the battleships themselves mattered. The smaller, cheaper heavy cruisers could often deliver similar levels of destruction to enemy targets. Still, the very presence of the battleships may have had some degree of psychological effect on Communist and UN forces alike.

Wrap:

By 1958, all four Iowas had returned to the reserve fleet. Although they performed their shore bombardment role effectively, but not really any more effectively than the smaller, cheaper heavy cruisers. The manning requirements were significant, however, making them very expensive ships to operate for extended periods of time. The navy would only reactivate one of the four (USS New Jersey) for the Vietnam War, and only in partial service. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the United States disposed of the remaining thirteen battleships in its inventory.

The Iowas nevertheless survived, and were finally reactivated (and modernized) in the 1980s. The legacy of the Iowas performance off Korea lived on in North Korean and Chinese naval doctrine and procurement. Both Pyongyang and Beijing became aware of their dreadful vulnerability to naval attack, and developed coastal defense capabilities intended to dissuade any foe from approaching their waters. Chinas Peoples Liberation Army Navy has grown past that stage, but the navy of the DPRK continues to concentrate on defensive operations in the littoral.

The Iowas will not, of course, participate in any future conflict on the Korean Peninsula. However, in the event of conflict USN surface ships will undoubtedly contribute significantly to the conflict by means of land attack cruise missiles. Moreover, the navy may yet provide USS Zumwalt and her sisters with the means to provide gunfire support against land targets. In such a case, North Korean coastal installations would become very vulnerable, indeed.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to the National Interest, is author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky.

This first appeared in August 2017.

Read full article
MASON, Ohio (AP)  Novak Djokovic's quest for his first Western & Southern Open title ran into a different obstacle Thursday night, with batches of rain forcing his match against defending champion Grigor Dimitrov to be suspended overnight.

Roger Federer's match against Leonardo Mayer was postponed until Friday as well, along with several others pushed back by day-long rain that made a mess of the brackets.

Djokovic came to Cincinnati hoping to build on the momentum of his Wimbledon title and get in shape for a deep run in the U.S. Open. He also dearly wants to win the only ATP Masters 1000 title that has eluded him  nobody has won all nine.

He and Dimitrov split the first two sets and then headed inside for a long rain delay. Djokovic broke Dimitrov to go up 2-1 in the third set, and more rain prompted play to be called off for the night. They'll resume in the morning.

In the women's bracket, Madison Keys used her forehand to beat Angelique Kerber  one of her toughest matchups  and advance to the quarterfinals in-between the storms.

Keys had lost five straight matches against No. 4 Kerber, but turned to her forehand to rally for a 2-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4 victory. She hit 35 forehand winners , including the match-ending shot for her first Cincinnati quarterfinals.

She's expecting a lot of attention at the U.S. Open, where she reached the final last year and lost to Sloane Stephens  her best showing in a Grand Slam event.

"I think it's the first time I'm going to have to be someone defending, getting to the finals of a Slam," she said. "I have never done it. That's going to be a new experience for me."

Stephens didn't fare so well, getting upset by Elise Mertens 7-6 (8), 6-2. The third-ranked Stephens couldn't overcome 37 unforced errors that helped Mertens get only her second career win over a Top 5 player.

Play began with three matches held over from the previous night. Top-ranked Simona Halep faced the most unusual challenge.

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Fresh off her second Rogers Cup title, Halep arrived in Cincinnati looking to extend her momentum. On Wednesday night, she appeared to aggravate her lower back on a 105 mph serve during the second set against qualifier Ajla Tomljanovic. After dropping the first three games of the final set, she took a medical timeout for treatment.

Halep returned to the court and took control, running off four straight games for a 4-3 lead when rain arrived. Seventeen hours later, she was back on court and needed only 5 minutes and eight points to complete the 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 win Thursday afternoon.

"I have learned that I don't have to give up, because anything can happen," she said.

Halep was scheduled to then face Ashleigh Barty in the final match of the day, but it, too, was rescheduled for Friday morning.

Two other second-round matches were completed on Thursday as well.

Amanda Anisimova beat qualifier Petra Martic 6-4, 6-3 in a match suspended overnight. Fourth-seeded Juan Martin del Potro beat Hyeon Chung 6-2, 6-3, finally completing the second round in late afternoon. The winners faced the challenge of playing essentially two full matches in one day.

They were spared when the late rain moved in.

___

More AP sports: https://apnews.com/tag/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Meghan Markle was last seen at the wedding of Daisy Jenks and Charlie van Straubenzee on 4 August. [Photo: Rex]

Just yesterday, it was reported that Meghan Markle had touched down in Toronto for the first leg of her transatlantic visit to see friends and family.

If reports were to be believed, the Duchess would spend a few days visiting the Mulroneys in her former hometown, before heading south to see her mother Doria in LA, and potentially visiting her father in Mexico to patch things up.

We were settled with this news. We were content. We knew Meghans agenda and a family reunion was even on the cards. Things were lovely.

To soothe our Markle cravings further, Kensington Palace even released details of the Duke and Duchesss agenda for the upcoming weeks.

After a three-week hiatus from the public eye, we were practically clawing at our keyboards for any news about the Duchesss whereabouts, almost to the point of worry.

But todays news has thrown a spanner in the works: its been reported Meghan is in fact NOT in Toronto but with her husband visiting George and Amal Clooney at their lake house at Lake Como in Italy.

And dont even get us started on the rumour she could be in Balmoral visiting the Queen.

Will someone put a GPS tracker on this woman already?

So Meghans not in Toronto or LA because she was in Como but now shes back in London or the Cotswolds, if shes not in Scotland, but she might go back to Scotland though not to Toronto or LA  confused? Me too!   Victoria Arbiter (@victoriaarbiter) August 20, 2018

Whether Meghan is in Toronto, Italy, Scotland or on Mars our hysteria does raise the question: why do we care? And dont say you dont, otherwise you wouldnt be reading this article.

Following the announcement of her engagement in November 2017, interest in Prince Harrys beau has been on a steady incline. In December 2017, Meghan Markle was named the most Googled woman in the world.

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The same levels of frenzy occurred for Kate Middleton following her wedding to Prince William in April 2011.

The Duchess of Cambridges every move was followed by the press while her influence on fashion was mind-blowing: Newsweek estimated in 2012 that the Kate Effect was worth more than 1 billion annually to the UK fashion industry.

Since Harry and Meghans May nuptials  which was the most-talked about news event in history  the publics appetite for Meghan Markle has grown in the same way.

The Duchess is barely out of the news while her effect on fashion is set to match her sister-in-laws, with economists estimating she had already pumped 200 million into British economy by the time of her wedding.

Click below to see every one of Meghan Markles looks

So, where does our obsession with Meghan stem from?

Obviously, it has a lot to do with our fascination with royal life generally, and the idea of an American actress falling in love with a prince and entering one of the oldest institutions in Britain makes it all the more enticing.

Its the stuff of fairytales and we cant get enough.

A large part of our obsession with Meghan is watching her navigate her new life as a royal: were enraptured by watching events such as her first time on the Buckingham Palace balcony, her first solo outing with the Queen, her first royal tour and her style transformation into a Duchess.

We love to read about how she is assimilating into her royal life and cheer her on when we see her doing it well.

Clinical psychologist, Dr. Amanda Tadrous, agrees, saying: Beyond her former career as an actress, she likely continues to be of interest to the public due to her reliability.

The Duchess of Sussex is an unconventional royal bride. She is of mixed ethnicity and a divorcee. She has parents who divorced when she was a child and there are publicised rifts within her family. As a woman, she is certainly no wall flower.

Will the publics interest in the Duchess ever wane?

For Dr. Tadrous its a sure set no.

I believe that the publics interest in The Duchess of Sussex will continue to grow, she says.

[The public] will be intrigued to follow the progression of her relationship with Prince Harry. Whilst many see Meghan and Harrys relationship as a fairy tale there are others who are more sceptical and will be watching to see if this will be a lasting relationship in which both get their happy ever after.

You could just look at Kate as an example: seven years after her wedding, the Duchess is still one of the most followed royals, and her selling power hasnt floundered.

Between April 2017 and May 2018, 380,000 UK internet users searched for Kate Middleton on Google, making her the second most Googled royal after Meghan Markle, currently.

Our prediction? Well be interested in Meghan Markle for many decades to come.

So, if anyone has any info on the whereabouts of Meghan Markle, you know where to find us

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.

Read more from Yahoo Style UK:

How Meghan Markle is switching up the royal fashion game

Meghan Markles style file: Every outfit the Duchess of Sussex has worn in public

Every look the Duchess of Cambridge has worn in 2018
Billy Connolly and wife Pamela Stephenson (Credit: Getty)

Pamela Stephenson and her husband Sir Billy Connolly have denied that the comedians wonderful brain has dulled, as Sir Michael Parkinson has claimed, following his diagnosis of Parkinsons Disease.

Parkinson, who memorably interviewed Connolly many times in TV, said in an interview on Saturday Morning with James Martin at the weekend that he had recently had a sad and awkward experience with Connolly at an awards dinner.

The sadness of Billy now is that wonderful brain is dulled, said the 83-year-old presenter.

I saw him recently  hes now living in America  and it was very sad, because I was presenting him with a prize at an award ceremony.

We had an awkward dinner together, because I wasnt quite sure if he knew who I was or not.

Connolly with Sir Michael Parkinson (Credit: PA)

Parky added that Connolly had asked him how long they had known each other, which made him wonder whether Connolly recognised him at all.

But Stephenson has branded Parkinson a daft old fart for making the comments, while Connolly has himself weighed in too.

I would recognise Parky if he was standing behind me  in a diving suit, said the comedian.

Mike Parkinson is a daft old fart  doesnt know what hes talking about. Billys doing great and still funny as hell, added Stephenson.

Connolly was diagnosed with Parkinsons in 2013, but continues to work, currently shooting a documentary series in which he is touring around Scotland.

He admitted the same year that he had begin to struggle with memorising his lines.

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The note left on an ambulance complained about where it had parked (PA)

An ambulance crew in Leicester were stunned to find a note from a disgruntled resident complaining about parking left on their vehicle.

East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) said they responded to a genuine emergency, during which a note was put on the windscreen.

The handwritten note said the ambulance had been blocking the neighbours driveway for 45 minutes but EMAS said the vehicle was parked as considerately as possible.

Please come and talk to us if you urgently need to leave your house and our ambulance is blocking your access  dont just leave a note! It upsets our crews and we will not see it until we leave. If we can move, we will, but the patient comes first: https://t.co/nMxAYOdsdb  East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust (@EMASNHSTrust) August 20, 2018

The service has now asked for anybody with a problem to speak to them directly if they urgently need to leave their house and their access is blocked as rude notes upsets staff.

Lee Brentnall, Paramedic and Ambulance Operations Manager for Leicestershire said: It is so disappointing to see that a rude note has yet again been left on one of our ambulances.

This upsets our dedicated ambulance crews when they are trying to help our patients and do their job.

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Leaving a note will not resolve the situation as we are unlikely to see it until we are leaving in the ambulance to take the patient to hospital or to go to our next job.

Story continues

After the note was posted on Twitter, people quickly jumped to the crews defence, offering their own drives whenever they needed it:

Dear EMAS

If you need to provide aid to one of my neighbours then feel free to park in front of my drive to do so  Stephen J (@steve_a_j) August 20, 2018

If you ever need to attend the ignorant one from that house, park about 5 minutes away and walkmake em suffer a bit, wouldnt want to be parking across someones drive while you might be saving a life would be so terrible wouldnt it? Some people dont deserve the NHS  Neil Sherratt (@AbramLatic) August 20, 2018

How infuriating this must be for your crews. I am sure most people know that they are parked in that particular location for a reason. Please keep up the fantastic work.  Carelinknel (@nelcarelink) August 20, 2018

I cant believe you have to justify yourselves when youre saving lives and have to park as close as you can to the patient. Who are these people that leave these notes on an ambulance for blocking a drive? Id stay in my house for a week if they needed to me to.   Hannah Albrighton (@hbomb85) August 20, 2018

They couldnt come speak to the crew at the time, they didnt have the spine to enable them to do so  Russell Morris (@M80Russmorris10) August 20, 2018

I sat in a car blocked in after leaving my dads late one night. Not once did I think about beeping my horn, trying to find out where they were or writing a note. I sat there and played a game on my phone, when they came out they apologised I told them no need #justdoingtheirjob  Clare (@StValDay74) August 20, 2018

Earlier this year, Kirsty Sharman was fined 120 after she admitted telling paramedics to move your f******g van and leaving a foul-mouthed note on their ambulance when they parked outside her house in Stoke-on-Trent.

Ms Brentnall said that paramedics will try to move their vehicle whenever possible.

He continued: Our crews are approachable. If you genuinely need to leave your house urgently and we are blocking your access, please come and knock on the door where the emergency is taking place.

Kirsty Sharman was fined for leaving an abusive note on an ambulance in February

Sometimes we will be able to move the vehicle, for example if we are treating a patient but they do not need both of us there at the time.

However, there will be times that we are treating someone experiencing a life-threatening and time-critical emergency and moving our ambulance will not be our priority.

In these cases, you will need to be patient as we try to save someones life.
ALEXANDRIA, Va.  Paul Manafort, President Donald Trumps former campaign chairman, was found guilty on Tuesday on eight counts including five tax fraud charges he faced at trial here.

However, the judge declared a mistrial on 10 other charges that Manafort, 69, faced in connection with allegations of tax and bank fraud after jurors could not reach a consensus on them. Jurors heard extensive testimony about Manaforts tax-free spending on luxury goods and efforts to defraud banks. The verdict came after the jury had indicated earlier in the day that they were deadlocked on at least one count.

In addition to the guilty verdict on five tax fraud charges, the jury found Manafort responsible for two counts of bank fraud and one count of failing to report foreign bank and financial accounts.

The jury did not come to a verdict on other bank fraud charges and other charges related to reporting foreign accounts.

Manafort faces a maximum of 80 years in prison from the eight charges he was found guilty of Tuesday.

The verdict marked yet another victory for the special counsel team being led by Robert Mueller, which faced its first trial after securing a string of guilty pleas from Trump campaign associates. Mueller was named as special counsel in May 2017.

Speaking to reporters in West Virginia later that day, Trump brushed off the implications of the jurys decision.

I must tell you that Paul Manaforts a good man, Trump said as he exited Air Force One.

It doesnt involve me but I still feel, you know, its a very sad thing that happened, he said. This had nothing to do with Russian collusion. ... Its a witch hunt, and its a disgrace.

Some of the most dramatic testimony of the Manafort trial came from Rick Gates, Manaforts longtime deputy who reached a plea deal with Muellers team and testified against his former boss. At closing arguments last week, prosecutors told jurors that Manafort knew the law, and he violated it anyway.

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Manafort, who was on the Trump campaign from March 2016 to August 2016, had previously worked on the presidential campaigns of Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole. But in more recent years, he had been known more for his lucrative political work in Ukraine.

The next critical question is: How will President Trump respond? Hes shown sympathy for Manaforts situation, suggesting he thought it was unfair that Manafort was held in solitary confinement pretrial and that his trial was a very sad day for our country. Manafort still faces another trial in Washington, D.C.

Hayley Miller contributed to this report.

This story has been updated with additional information about the jurys decisions and Trumps remarks.

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Ryan Reilly is HuffPosts senior justice reporter covering the Justice Department, federal law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs. Have a tip? Reach him at ryan.reilly@huffpost.com or on Signal at 202-527-9261.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Paul Manafort, former campaign manager of President Trump, was found guilty Tuesday on eight of the 18 counts brought against him by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Manafort was found guilty of five counts of tax fraud charges, one charge of hiding foreign bank accounts, and two counts of bank fraud. In total, the guilty counts could carry a lengthy prison sentence for Manafort, who is 69 years old.

o

On the fourth day of deliberations following a two-week trial in Alexandria, Va., the jury notified judge T.S. Ellis shortly before 4:30 p.m. ET that it had reached a verdict on eight of the 18 counts. Ellis then polled the jury on the likelihood of their reaching a verdict on the remaining 10 counts against Manafort, and ruled a mistrial on the remaining counts.

Prosecutors now have until Aug. 29 to decide whether they will seek a retrial for the charges on which the jury deadlocked. Manafort will remain in custody and faces another trial on Sept. 17 in a Washington courtroom, where he will be tried on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent, money laundering and obstruction of justice.

Earlier in the day, the Alexandria jury sent Ellis a note that asked, If we cannot come to a consensus on a single count, how should we fill out the jury verdict sheet for that count, and what does that mean for the final verdict?

The guilty verdict comes as another blow to President Trump, whose former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty earlier in the day to multiple charges, including campaign finance fraud stemming from hush-money payments to two of Trumps alleged mistresses.

In a Manhattan federal court, Cohen admitted to violating campaign finance law at the direction of the candidate and to having acted for the purpose of influencing the election.

(Yahoo News photo Illustration; photos: AP, Getty)

Trump, who was traveling from Washington, D.C., to Charleston, W.V., for a rally, boarded Air Force One about 10 minutes before the Manafort verdict was reported by news networks.

Story continues

Although the president often decries the Mueller investigation into Russian election meddling as a WITCH HUNT, it has so far yielded five guilty pleas in addition to the Manafort verdict. Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI last October. Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI two months later. Richard Pinedo pleaded guilty to identity fraud in February. Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer who worked with Manafort and former Trump campaign adviser Rick Gates, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators in February. That same month, Gates himself pleaded guilty to financial fraud and lying to investigators, and became a star witness in the case against Manafort.

After landing in Charleston, W.V., Trump shared his thoughts on the verdict with reporters.

It doesnt involve me, but I still feel, you know, its a very sad thing that happened, Trump said. This has nothing to do with Russian collusion. This started as Russian collusion. This has absolutely nothing to do  this is a witch hunt and its a disgrace.

Related: Cohen and Manafort legal dramas will continue for Trump

At a campaign rally Tuesday night for Republican Senate candidate Patrick Morrisey, Trump largely avoided talking about the days legal developments.

Fake news and the Russian witch hunt, Trump told his audience. Weve got a whole big combination. Where is the collusion? You know theyre still looking for collusion. Where is the collusion? Find some collusion. We want to find the collusion.

But many Democrats saw just that.

Todays guilty verdict makes it absolutely clear that the Mueller probe is a serious investigation that is rooting out corruption and Russian influence on our political system at the highest levels, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) tweeted shortly after news of the verdicts in the Manafort trial were released.

Dylan Stableford contributed to this article

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Read more from Yahoo News:
Alexandria (United States) (AFP) - Paul Manafort was riding high, raking in tens of millions of dollars as the strategic adviser to pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine.

And as fast as the Republican political consultant was making money, he was spending it: millions on luxury homes and cars, $1 million for antique rugs, another $1 million on clothes including top-of-the-line suits and an $18,500 python jacket, and more.

Just when his lavish tastes were squeezing him financially and the Ukrainian pipeline was running dry, Manafort landed a position as chairman of the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

What should have been his dream job ended up being his undoing, ultimately triggering the process that led to the 69-year-old's conviction in federal court on Tuesday on eight counts linked to making false tax declarations, bank fraud and failure to report foreign accounts.

Each of the bank fraud counts carries a significant maximum sentence and he could in theory live out the rest of his life in prison, though a legal expert contacted by AFP predicted it would in reality run to under a decade.

Fired by Trump after just three months as his campaign manager, Manafort's financial misdeeds were uncovered by Special Counsel Robert Mueller during his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

It was a brutal fall for a political insider who, in addition to Trump, worked on the White House bids of Republicans Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole.

- Political family -

Paul John Manafort Jr was born on April 1, 1949 in New Britain, Connecticut. Politics ran in the family -- his father once served as mayor of his hometown.

Manafort earned a law degree from Georgetown University, joined a law firm after school and eventually a lobbying shop known as Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly.

The "Stone" was Roger Stone, the Washington political insider who would eventually be among those recruiting Manafort to join Team Trump.

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After making a name in domestic politics, Manafort turned his talents to the lucrative practice of lobbying on behalf of questionable foreign leaders such as Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Somalia's Mohamed Siad Barre and Jonas Savimbi of Angola.

But it was his work for Viktor Yanukovych, who served as president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014, when he fled to Russia amid corruption allegations, which got him in trouble.

Prosecutors alleged during Manafort's trial that more than $75 million of Ukrainian money poured into his offshore bank accounts, most of which were based in Cyprus and managed by a Cypriot attorney referred to in court as "Dr. K."

Manafort was Tuesday convicted of five counts of making false income tax returns, two counts of bank fraud and one of failure to report foreign bank and financial accounts.

But the six-man, six-woman jury was unable to reach a verdict in 10 counts prompting Judge TS Ellis to declare a partial mistrial.

- 'Very good person' -

Besides landing him in jail, it was the Ukrainian connection which also led to Manafort's dismissal from the Trump campaign.

He resigned as Trump's campaign chairman on August 19, 2016 after investigators for the new Ukraine government released files showing secret cash payments from Yanukovych to Manafort worth $12.7 million.

"Paul is a true professional and I wish him the greatest success," Trump said at the time.

The US president has since downplayed Manafort's contribution to the campaign but has continued to come to his defense, describing him as a "very good person" and saying his trial was a "very sad day for our country."

He expressed regret after the jury's verdict Tuesday, telling reporters: "It's a very sad thing that happened, this has nothing to do with Russian collusion."

While the charges against Manafort were not related to his work for Trump, he was one of several people who attended a June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-linked lawyer who was offering the campaign damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

Legal experts believe Manafort, by going to trial and declining to enter into a plea agreement with the Special Counsel's office, may be hoping for a presidential pardon.
A month after Paul McCartney appeared on The Late Late Show's Carpool Karaoke, which has since garnered over 30 million views on Youtube, CBS turned the piece into a primetime special. The special, Carpool Karaoke: When Corden Met McCartney Live from Liverpool, added over 20 minutes of extra footage to original piece.Some of the extra footage involved Paul recounting the time he found himself in jail after being caught with marijuana at the Tokyo airport in 1980. Paul admitted to breaking the law, saying, "I still am hazy as to how that happened but it did. And in my suitcase, yes, there was some marijuana in the suitcase. And I ended up in jail."

McCartney was original sentenced to 7 years hard labor. He was released after only 9 days, about which he said "I got out 'cause of my celebrity."The famous Beetle added that the day he left coincided with bath day in the facility. Since he smelled like he'd been working in strawberry fields forever, he joined his fellow inmates for a communal bath. He said, "It was funny, you know, being in a tub with all these Japanese guys."The Late Late Show With James Corden airs weeknights at 12:37 a.m. on CBS.
A pilot was forced to land a plane without its front wheels after they failed mid flight.

Footage shows the plane making an emergency landing in Peru.

All 59 passengers and five crew members aboard the LC Peru were unharmed in the landing.

A video shows the plane sliding along the runway, sending sparks and flames as its nose was dragged along the tarmac.

It eventually comes to a stop and emergency rescue vehicles can be seen speeding towards it.

The Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 was flying between Lima and Ayacucho when the landing gear failed as it approached the airport on Sunday.

The pilots decided to return to Jorge Chavez International Airport in the capital, Lima, where the plane made an emergency landing.

The airport was closed and flights were being diverted as authorities carried out investigations.
A private plane carrying Rapper Post Malone made a successful emergency landing after blowing out its tires.

The Gulfstream Aerospace GLF-4 luxury jet left Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on Tuesday morning, according to The Associated Press.

The pilot noticed shortly afterward that the tires were damaged during takeoff and spent the next few hours circling above the tri-state area, burning fuel before making the emergency landing at New York's Stewart International Airport.

On social media, many offered prayers for Post and the others aboard. The rapper was one of 16 people on the plane.

Malone, 23, whose real name is Austin Post, posted a profane tweet that he was safe. "I landed guys. Thank you for your prayers. Can't believe how many people wished death on me on this website. F*** you. But not today."

WATCH: @PostMalones private jet makes quite a smooth emergency landing at Stewart Airport, in Newburgh, New York. The rappers jet suffered two blown out tires. @PIX11News pic.twitter.com/QqWznWnJGk  Morena (@morenabasteiro) August 21, 2018

Post performed Monday at the MTV Video Music Awards with Aerosmith.

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South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shake hands at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, South Korea, April 27, 2018. Korea Summit Press Pool/Pool via Reuters

Abby Bard

Security, Asia

Trump needs to think through how a peace treaty would work and what would be gained or lost from it.

The Pros and Cons of a Korean War Peace Treaty

In the Panmunjom Declaration, South Korean president Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un stated a goal of declaring an end to the [Korean] War, turning the armistice into a peace treaty, and establishing a permanent and solid peace regime. Rumors are intensifying that the two Koreas hope to declare an end to the Korean War at Septembers United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York City. The United States has said that North Korea needs to make progress towards denuclearization before the war can end, while North Korea has stated that ending the war is the next step that must be taken. After the end of the war is declared, the next step will be developing a peace treaty to outline the conditions of a divided post-war Korean Peninsula.

With North Korea unlikely to change its position, the United States is weighing whether declaring an end to the war will support the U.S. goal of denuclearizing North Korea. Ultimately, a declaration is a confidence-building measure with huge symbolic meaning to the people of the Korean Peninsula, but it alone will not change the security situation and build sustainable peace on the peninsula. What really matters is the substance and implementation of the peace treaty that would follow the declaration.

Declaring the end of the war and enacting a treaty will not be a straightforward process. Here are critical questions the Trump administration must ask if it wants to make sure that a treaty contributes meaningfully towards the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula:

Who signs the treaty? Representatives of the Chinese Peoples Volunteer Army, the Korean Peoples Army, and United Nations Command (which was led by the United States) signed the armistice that ended the hostilities of the Korean War in 1953. South Korea is not party to the document as its then-leader Syngman Rhee refused to accept a divided Korean peninsula. Given this, South Korean president Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said in the Panmunjom Declaration that they would work with China and the United States to get a peace treaty. The UN Security Council and General Assembly could also be required signatories. Given that each party has a different view on what a peaceful Korean peninsula looks like, there is likely to be a drawn-out negotiating process.

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What happens to the militaries? What a peace treaty means for the U.S. military presence in South Korea is the question keeping analysts and skeptics up at night. There is concern that North Korea will use the end of the war to demand that the U.S. withdraw or draw down its troops. However, ending the war does not mean that the threat is eliminated. Countries can have hostile relations without being at warjust look at India and Pakistan, or the United States and Iran. If there is to be sustainable peace, the North and South Korean militaries will also need to reevaluate their force posture.

What happens with North Koreas nuclear program? A good peace treaty should reinforce North Koreas commitment to denuclearization. North Koreas production of fissile materials and nuclear warheads is a destabilizing behavior that undermines the security of the Korean peninsula and violates the spirit of a peace regime. If it ignores North Koreas nuclear program, a peace treaty would end the war without changing the underlying security situation.

What happens with sanctions? Both Koreas have appealed to the United States for sanctions relief. South Korea cannot pursue some of its inter-Korea projects with sanctions intact, and President Moon has announced an ambitious economic integration plan for the Koreas. North Korea claims that sanctions violate the spirit of the Singapore summit. A peace treaty shouldn't affect the sanctions regime, since the end of the war is not the end of North Korea's illicit programs. However, to an unprepared diplomatic team, sanctions could easily end up entangled in the peace process.

What happens with inter-Korea relations? If both South and North Korea are recognized as valid signatories, a mutually agreed-upon treaty could be interpreted as acceptance of a two-state solution on the Korean peninsula. However, South Korea asserts its sovereignty over the entire peninsula and both Koreas have unification enshrined within their constitutions. North Korea has historically supported a federal system comprised of a North and South Korea. Furthermore, Pyongyang currently appears to support a unified Korea based on the one country, two-systems model, a la China and Hong Kong, with North Korea as China in this scenario. However, South Korea sees unification as a long-term goal built off of economic and ideological integration.

If the war ends and neither country can position the other as an illegitimate government, it will be important to track if their respective domestic policies begin acknowledging each other as sovereign nations. Will they amend their constitutions, or will unification remain a goal of both governments? If both governments still claim to seek unification, is the peace treaty a security guarantee that either Korea can accept? Is the United States also prepared to accept North Korea as its own nation and establish diplomatic ties?

Like the Panmunjom Declaration and the agreement reached in Singapore, a declaration of the end of war will mark the beginning, not the end, of a long process. However, given President Donald Trumps instinctual approach to policy and his fondness for media attention, there is a concern that the president will rush to make any deal instead of working towards a good deal. The United States should seriously consider declaring an end to the Korean War, but it must keep its eye on the prize and make sure that any subsequent treaty isnt just a photo-op. Rather, any treaty must contribute meaningfully to peace on the Korean peninsula, and go hand-in-hand with concrete measures towards North Korean denuclearization.

Abby Bard is a research assistant of Asia policy for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress.

Image: South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shake hands at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, South Korea, April 27, 2018. Korea Summit Press Pool/Pool via Reuters

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(NEW YORK)  Michael Cohen, President Donald Trumps former personal lawyer, could be charged before the end of the month with bank fraud in his dealings with the taxi industry and with committing other financial crimes, two people familiar with the federal probe said Monday.

The people confirmed reports that federal prosecutors in Manhattan were considering charging Cohen after months of speculation over a case that has been a distraction for the White House with the midterm elections approaching.

The people, who werent authorized to discuss the case and spoke on Monday on condition of anonymity, refused to answer questions about speculation that Cohen still might strike a plea deal with prosecutors requiring his cooperation.

Absent a quick resolution, its believed that prosecutors would put off a decision on how to go forward with the case until after the election in compliance with an informal Justice Department policy of avoiding bringing prosecutions that could be seen as political and influence voters.

Both the U.S. attorneys office and an attorney for Cohen, Lanny Davis, declined to comment on Monday. There was no immediate response to a message seeking comment from Sterling National Bank, one of the institutions that loaned Cohen money.

The New York Times reported Sunday, based on anonymous sources, that prosecutors have been focusing on more than $20 million in loans obtained by taxi businesses that Cohen and his family own.

Cohen had gained notoriety as Trumps loyal fixer before FBI agents raided his office and a hotel where he was staying while renovations were being done on his apartment in a Trump-developed building.

Prosecutors were initially silent about why Cohen was under investigation. Some details became public after lawyers for Cohen and Trump asked a judge to temporarily prevent investigators from viewing some of the seized material, on the grounds that it was protected by attorney-client privilege.

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The search of Cohens files sought bank records, communications with the Trump campaign and information on hush money payments made in 2016 to two women: former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who received $150,000, and the porn actress Stormy Daniels, who got $130,000.

At the time, Trump branded the raid a witch hunt, an assault on attorney-client privilege and a politically motivated attack by enemies in the FBI.

But the presidents initial support for Cohen, though, degenerated over the summer into a public feud, prompting the speculation that, in order to save himself, Cohen might be willing to tell prosecutors some of the secrets hed help Trump keep.
Protesters topple Silent Sam statue of Confederate soldier at UNC University of North Carolina police stand guard in front of the plinth upon which the toppled statue of a Confederate soldier nicknamed Silent Sam once stood, on the schools campus after a demonstration for its removal in Chapel Hill, N.C., Aug. 20, 2018. (Photo: Jonathan Drake/Reuters)

Protesters toppled a statue of a Confederate soldier on the campus of University of North Carolina on Monday, the latest move to dismantle Civil War symbols amid a fierce debate about race and the legacy of slavery in the United States.

About 300 demonstrators gathered at the base of Silent Sam, a memorial to the Confederate soldiers killed during the Civil War, at about 7 p.m. (2300 GMT) to hold a protest and march. About two hours later, the statue, which had been standing on the Chapel Hill campus since 1913, was on the ground, local media reported.

Protesters pulled the statue with rope and threw dirt on it, local media reported. The statue was face down in the mud with dirt on the back of its head and its back, according to a Reuters eyewitness. (Reuters)

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A pair of baby moccasins made by Quemeez. The company was started by Sunshine Tenasco and was eventually invested in by Dragons Den investors. (Quemeez/Facebook)

For Canadas indigenous people, entrepreneurship is already woven into the social fabric of the community, but support, resources and funding to foster that spirit still have a long way to go.

A lot of the job programs that are created today are ones that often contribute  not intentionally  to the ongoing colonialism process, says Duncan Kennedy, managing director of indigenous entrepreneur-focused accelerator Indigenext. He points to the example of a community learning program for an area where a pipeline is being built.

Great youve got a job for a couple years, but then you cant stay in your territory, theres only one pipeline that gets built, he says. (But) ecotourism in your territory is an amazing opportunity, shellfish is an interesting opportunity you can stay and work in your territory.

According to the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business, there are 43,000 indigenous entrepreneurs in Canada amongst a population of 1.4 million. With only four in ten indigenous adults having graduated from high school, and unemployment amongst indigenous people hovering around 40 per cent, entrepreneurship presents a solid alternative to the job program route.

Kennedy, who grew up in Prince George, B.C. and is of mixed Scottish-Metis ancestry, believes reconciliation through innovation  the idea that giving entrepreneurial indigenous people access to mentorship, funding, and resources  can change their life, and ripple out to the community.

Its a sentiment echoed by Sunshine Tenasco, an Anishinabe serial entrepreneur from Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, Que. Tenasco says she never really considered entrepreneurship an option before launching Quemeez, a baby moccasin company. She brought her concept to Dragons Den, where several of the shows investors bought in.

People from my own community didnt think that it was doable and these millionaires did, she says. Now shes trying to bring that message to her community.

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Tenasco has since launched Her Braids, a line of beaded pendants where a portion of proceeds go to clean drinking water for First Nations communities, as well as Pow Wow Pitch, a Dragons Den-like competition where indigenous entrepreneurs pitch their concepts at the largest pow wow in Ottawa for a chance to win mentorship and a $5,000 micro-loan.

The ripple effect of one person succeeding will affect the entire community, she says. So even if it means you employ yourself, eventually youre going to grow and you will give back.

Not so straightforward

There are some unique hurdles faced by indigenous entrepreneurs. If you need a loan and live on a First Nations community, theres no collateral so banks have a harder time lending you money, says Tenasco.

According to a report commissioned by The National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association (NACCA) and the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), the number of Aboriginal Financial Institutions has grown to 50 across Canada. The BDC has been one of the most sturdy links for indigenous people looking to fund business endeavours. Its Indigenous Entrepreneur Loan offers $250,000 for existing businesses and up to $150,000 for start-ups, regardless of whether their operations are on or off reserve, and refunds a portion of the interest paid to a registered charity of the entrepreneurs choice.

As of March 2018, the BDC has committed more than $300 million across 550 indigenous clients throughout Canada. And its continuing to grow, says Monica James, Manager of Indigenous Banking (Eastern Division) at BDC, especially when contrasted with the portfolio in 2013.

The indigenous population is growing at a rate faster than any other rate in Canada, she says. And we suspect indigenous entrepreneurship is growing at a faster rate than our non-indigenous population.

But Kennedy says it isnt necessarily money that is the actual problem, its the type of money.

He points to the CAPE Fund, a $50 million private-sector investment fund focused on mid-market opportunities with a strong degree of Aboriginal involvement and connection to Aboriginal communities throughout Canada.

Its really one of the only funds focused specifically on indigenous entrepreneurs. Kennedy suspects access to risk capital  venture funding from private equity  in the traditional startup environment where entrepreneurs try to exit their company by strategically selling it, is at odds with the indigenous approach.

Were thinking about things from a 360 point of view about the benefits to the community, he says. Its a foundational problem if you believe the exit problem isnt the goal (and) thats a bit of a rethink.

The key is to find investors interested in social entrepreneurship and impact investing, a concept less prevalent in Canada than it is south of the border.

Jonathan Araujo and Jacob Taylor, the serial entrepreneurs behind The Pontiac Group, a 100 per cent Anishinaabe-owned firm that brings First Nations and businesses together to build sustainable economic activity, see an indigenous-focused angels network of accredited investors as a viable solution.

Araujo points to the Northern Ontario Angels Network, a group of accredited investors who understand the unique challenges of living in some of the more remote regions of the promise.

We need to have something very similar for our indigenous entrepreneurs where they can access an angel network, he says. (A group that) understands what it is to be an indigenous person and to do business in an indigenous community because we dont see the bottom line as being the key objective or goal.

Araujo and Taylor are in the process of working with the City of Toronto to develop the Indigenous Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a 15,000 square-foot commercial space to collectivize resources and support for indigenous entrepreneurs. Like Indigenext, its a physical representation of a piquing interest amongst young indigenous people to start their own businesses and support their community.

In addition to its location, the Pontiac Group plans to create a digital resource that will give entrepreneurs, working remotely, access to startup tools like corporate lawyers and mentorship.

But it comes back to what Tenasco said about not knowing the resources available, a sentiment also echoed in the NACCAs report on Aboriginal financial Institutes. Thats the biggest barricade, says Taylor.

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Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera is running to replace retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., in 2018. (Photo: Roberto Koltun/El Nuevo Herald/TNS via Getty)

When I was 7, I was positive that Bigfoot not only existed but also lived in the very woods behind my childhood home (and that I would be the one to befriend him). So who am I to judge Republican House candidate Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, who believes she was abducted by aliens at that same age?

Over the weekend, Rodriguez Aguilera won an important endorsement from a major newspaper, the Miami Herald, to replace Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Congress, representing the 27th District of Florida. With that endorsement, the news of her intergalactic journey spread.

The Miami Herald wrote, We realize that Rodriguez Aguilera is an unusual candidate. Last year, she told the Miami Herald  and several Spanish-language media outlets  that she believes in extra-terrestrials. She says when she was 7, she was taken aboard a spaceship and, throughout her life, she has communicated telepathically with the beings, which remind her of the concrete Christ in Brazil. There you have it.

Perhaps we have our first possible leader of President Trumps proposed space force? She apparently already has allies.

According to Rodriguez Aguilera, three large, blond aliens visited her when she was 7. In a 2009 interview on the Spanish-language station America TeVe, the congressional candidate said, I went in [to the spaceship]. There were some round seats that were there, and some quartz rocks that controlled the ship  not like airplanes.

Rodriguez Aguilera, who did not immediately respond to Yahoo Lifestyles requests for comment, claimed the extraterrestrials also told her that the Coral Castle, a large structure made of limestone in Miami-Dade County, is an ancient Egyptian pyramid.

Coral Castle was built by reclusive Edward Leedskalnin, who, using only hand tools, moved more than 1,100 tons of coral several miles and then sculpted them into a series of stone tributes to his wife. (Photo: Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images)

For years people, including presidents like Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter and astronauts have publicly claimed to have seen unidentified flying objects and scientists like Stephen Hawking and institutions like the Vatican have stated that there are billions of galaxies in the universe and we are probably not alone, she told the Herald. I personally am a Christian and have a strong belief in God, I join the majority of Americans who believe that there must be intelligent life in the billions of planets and galaxies in the universe.

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Man, 2018 is a weird time, right? Makes you miss 2010, when a Republican senatorial candidate had to create an ad campaign that explained she wasnt a witch.

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The Union of Concerned Scientists said in a report US President Donald Trump's track record on science policy is 'abysmal': REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

A science advocacy group has hit out at Donald Trumps abysmal track record on science policy.

In a new report, the Union of Concerned Scientists surveyed scientists across 16 federal agencies, wrote that the president has been undermining long-established processes for science to inform public policy.

a year and a half into the Trump administration, its record on science policy in several agencies and departments is abysmal, the Washington DC-based organisation added.

The report said Mr Trumps policies have presented significant challenges related to the development and use of science to protect the public from environmental and public health threats.

They cite beginning the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement, repealing the Clean Power Plan, staff reductions at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), hiring freezes across agencies, and a degree of censorship in public-facing government documents and websites - like the phrase climate change being eliminated - as some of the contributing factors to their conclusion.

The Independent had interviewed scientists who had been consulting with the EPA who had either resigned in protest to the administrations policies or not had their contracts renewed in 2017. One said he did not want to be a future prop for bad science.

Regulated industries possess increasing power to influence what science is used in policymaking, while public voices are increasingly excluded, UCS wrote in the report.

In the case of the EPA consulting scientists, many had been replaced with industry professionals per the agencys own admission.

Of the scientists surveyed, UCS found there was consistent political interference in scientists work, low morale, decreased agency effectiveness, and dwindling resources.

The report found the EPA and Department of Interior far[ed] poorly but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were doing relatively well, according to the advocacy organisation.

When federal scientists cant carry out their work, its the public that suffers, Charise Johnson, a UCS research analyst, said.
The rise of the sixty-plus birth club [Photo: Getty]

Way back when I was at primary school there was something of a scandal. The headmaster didnt run off with his secretary, there was no affair, or messy break-up. Nope the salacious gossip that sent the school gate rumour mill into a complete spin was that one of my classmates mums was pregnant. At the grand old age of40.

Shock, horror right? Nowadays, 40+ mums-to-be are two a penny, but back then it was considered BIG, BIG news. My friends mum was viewed as a geriatric and people couldnt stop talking about it. How will she cope being an older mum? What about the child? Isnt it just a bit selfish? they whispered in bemusement as she waddled past with her bump.

Nowadays, those same questions are still aimed pointedly in the direction of older parents, but the age bracket of which parents are considered to be old has shifted quite dramatically.

Last month, actress Brigitte Nielson announced that she had given birth to her fifth child, a daughter named Frida, at the age of 55.

And shes certainly not the only one to be arriving somewhat late to the parenting party. Janet Jackson recently gave birth to her first child, a son Eissa, at 50, while Mick Jagger is back in the sleep-deprived haze of babyhood, having welcomed his eighth child, Deveraux Octavian Basil, back in December 2016. Hes 74 by the way. Nicole Kidman has also revealed that she may not be done with the whole giving birth thing and is still hoping for another baby at the age of 49.

Its not a trend exclusive to celebsville either. Last year, Carolyne Ness gave birth to her son Javed, at 58, after being denied IVF treatment in the UK and travelling to India for the procedure.

Back in 2016 a woman, thought to be the worlds oldest mother gave birth at the age of 70. With her 79-year-old husband, Daljinder Kaur welcomed a son into the world after two years of IVF treatment. While back in the UK Sharon Cutts, from Lincolnshire became Britains oldest mother of triplets when she gave birth to Mason, Ryan and Lily in March 2016 when she was aged 55.

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Its a trend that looks set to rise too. In June data published by the Office for National Statistics showed the number of births to 50-plus women has quadrupled over the last two decades, up from 55 in 2001 to 238 in 2016.

During the same period there were 1,859 births in the UK to women over 50, and 153 to women over 55.

The number of women having children in their 40s has also risen three fold from 4.9 live births per 1,000 in 1981 to 14.7 births per thousand today. Whats more, older mothers, who doctors describe as women aged 35 and over, now make up a fifth of all births in Britain.

My baby and me after nap time. A post shared by Janet Jackson (@janetjackson) on Apr 14, 2017 at 6:17pm PDT

So whats causing this spike in fifty or even sixty-plus parenting? Its possible that for some its a case of not being able or not feeling ready to have children in their earlier decades. The reasons have been widely discussed. From not meeting the partner they want to procreate with, to not being able to afford a baby, or wanting to get to the top of the career ladder first. Others, may just not have been able to make their minds up about wanting kids in the first place.

In the past, women whod reached their fifth decade may have assumed theyd left it too late to consider joining the mother ranks, but with the advancement of ever improving fertility treatments, motherhood in the retirement years is becoming an increasingly viable possibility.

According to Tim Child, medical director at Oxford Fertility and associate professor of reproductive medicine at the University of Oxford, it is medically possible for women to become pregnant even after the menopause.

There is no limit to the age at which eggs from a donor  or ones previously frozen  can potentially implant in a womans uterus, he told The Telegraph. So it is medically absolutely possible to achieve pregnancy after menopause but there are risks to the woman herself when she is pregnant and to the foetus, too.

As a consequence, British reproductive clinics only see women up to the natural age of menopause, between 50 and 52. But theres nothing stopping British women going abroad for treatment where the regulations arent quite as stringent. Yet, the risks are still very real.

Pregnancy in older age is associated with higher risk of miscarriage, explains Mr Narendra Pisal, Consultant Gynaecologist at London Gynaecology. This is possibly because of higher chance of chromosomal problems in embryo as the eggs get older.

There is also a higher chance of having a baby with Downs syndrome, he continues. At 35, this is 1 in 250 and increases to 1 in 100 by 40 years of age. By 45, risk of miscarriage is nearly 50% and chance of Downs syndrome baby is greater that 2%. A Noninvasive Prenatal Test (NIPT) is a blood test for mother to look at babys chromosomes and can be done from 10 weeks of gestation.

Then theres the pregnancy related complications which increase with age, such as preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, low lying placenta, placental abruption and growth problems for babies.

There is also a higher chance of difficult labour and intervention (due to above medical factors) such as induction of labour or caesarean section, advises Mr Pisal.

And even if an older mother does have the physical health and strength to cope with the demands of pregnancy and birth, what about parenthood? The sleepless nights, the chasing after a lively toddler, the play groups, the constant to-ing and fro-ing to after school clubs and beyond.

Then theres the question of mortality, which is always raised when discussing older parenting. Every child fears the death of their parent, but it could be more acute for one with older parents.

Theres also the raised eyebrows and general judgement a late parenting starter could face. The assumptions that you must be the grandparent, the confused frowns when you rock up to a baby group and are the oldest person there by at least a decade.

According to a survey for the Private Pregnancy UK Show the majority of British women believe it is unnatural to have babies over the age of 44. Their main reasons were that it could increase the risk of health complications for the child, and that it would be unfair of the child to have old parents, who may not live long enough to see them grow up.

But while theres no doubt a certain slice of society will always be skeptical about the rise of retirement parenthood, there are in fact many positive aspects to being a mature mother. Dr Natasha Bijlani, consultant psychiatrist at the Priory Hospital in Roehampton, south-west London, told Yahoo Style UK that older mothers were often more stable financially, established in their careers, and brought a maturity to the role of parenthood coupled with a more realistic expectation of what it would entail.

Often having waited for motherhood, older mums are even more prepared, and intensely grateful for the experience of raising children because they were more conscious of the issue of time passing. Many older women nowadays are also extremely healthy and fit, she said.

And lets not forget the thousands of grandparents who are effectively already bringing up children while their actual parents go out to work. Is there a difference between these grandparents as opposed to mothers of the same age raising children?

There are a lot of perks to older motherhood [Photo: Getty]

For Jenny* being an older mum didnt feel like a choice. I came from a really unhappy, dysfunctional family and had a terrible relationship with my own mother, so throughout my twenties and thirties I wasnt able to maintain any kind of stable relationship never mind have kids, she explains.

Even in my thirties I was ambiguous about having children because I was terrified of having as bad a relationship with my own children as Id had with my parents.

After divorcing in her early 40s, Jenny went on to meet someone else and have two children in her mid to late 40s. The risks to me and my babies were greater because I was old. I was at high risk of my babies having chromosomal abnormalities and I found that very stressful, she says. I also had preeclampsia both times and two emergency caesareans.

But despite the difficulties, Jenny likes being an older mum and can see the advantages of retirement parents. Motherhood has destroyed my lifestyle in terms of career, income, travel etc and if I hadnt had a successful career and travelled extensively before becoming a mum I know I would have been resentful about all the things I felt being a mum was stopping me from doing. And that would have impacted on my relationship with my kids.

Being older also means Im saner and more emotionally sorted than I was when I was younger. Im also happier now, which I think is important to be able to model for your children. I didnt feel even remotely ready to deal with the enormity of the commitment that motherhood involves before my mid forties.

But age alone doesnt determine your ability to be a great parent. You could be a fabulous parent at sixteen or sixty. So perhaps instead of focusing on the negatives of having a child when youre considered too young, or too old, perhaps we should be paying more attention to the positives. Mothers have a tough enough time as it is dealing with parenting judgement, lets not pile on the age-pressure too.

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for non-stop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyleUK.

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Take one French husband, a dreamy Spanish setting, and a figure-flattering bikini by an all-American swimwear brand, and youve got the makings of one incredible honeymoon.

Just ask Robin Wright. Less than two weeks after tying the knot with Clement Giraudet on Aug. 11, the 52-year-old bride has hit up Ibiza, Spain, for a romantic honeymoon.

Robin Wright and Clement Giraudet are honeymooning in Ibiza, Spain. (Photo: GTRES/MEGA)

The House of Cards star wore a baby-pink ribbed bikini from New York-based brand Solid & Striped as she and her new husband snuck in smooches on the beach Monday. The groom and Wrights impressively toned figure may not be up for grabs, but the swimsuit is  and on sale, no less.

Solid & Stripeds Elle ribbed bikini top and bottom are currently retailing for $44 apiece, down from $88.

Wright married Giraudet, her third husband, on Aug. 11. (Photo: GTRES/MEGA)

Wright, who has two grown children from her previous marriage to second husband Sean Penn, accessorized the beach-ready look with two gold chain necklaces. Her most notable accessory, however, was the gold wedding band she wore on her ring finger, with Giraudet sporting his own ring.

What can we say: Once a Princess Bride, always a Princess Bride.

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Charlie Gao

Security, Europe

One word: bunkers.

How Russia's Capital Plans to Survive If America Launches a Nuclear Strike

Despite the vast number of bunkers, recent advances in fuzing technology for nuclear weapons are threatening to make the minimum civil defense standard obsolete. As fuzing technology improves, such as that used on the American Super Fuze, its more likely that pressure levels experienced by the civil defense bunkers will far exceed their design rating.

According to Russias Ministry of Emergency Situations, in the event of a nuclear attack on Moscow, there is space in underground facilities for all of the population. While this is a very bold claim, Moscow is famous for the massive amount of bunkers it has available for Civil Defense ( ) and the military. The average Muscovite usually has an odd story or two about how bunkers have popped up in their daily life. But what types of bunkers are there? How protected are they?

(This first appeared last month.)

On the largest level, the bunkers in Moscow can be classified into four types: basement, metro, metro-2, and sphere. The first two types are largely used for Civil Defense. The last two are primarily used by military and government agencies.

The largest and most famous civil defense system in Russia is the Moscow Metro. The metro is specifically engineered to protect against nuclear attack, boasting not only depth but reinforcements on the tunnels and blast doors that allow for a total seal against blast pressure and fallout. These doors are usually restricted to the main stations, outlying stations may have less or no blast protection.

Newer stations are usually built with blast protection using modern military methods. Notably, the Park Pobedy station is built using armablocks and utilized upwards excavation for shafts. Normally, shafts are excavated downwards from the surface, but upwards excavation minimizes the likelihood of satellite reconnaissance finding the locations of shafts as the construction equipment and spillage cannot be seen if it is underground.

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In addition to the metro, various other civil bomb shelters are dotted around Moscow. These shelters are usually fairly shallow and feature limited protection from the overpressure of a blast. Their presence is usually found by the presence of various chimneys and air vents that feed fresh air into these bunkers. Some of these shelters have been repurposed into businesses and parking lots. These are generally of the basement type.

Details for these bunkers are public knowledge, as there are documents describing the minimum specifications. All bunkers must be able to survive an airblast of up to one hundred kilopascal and have stores of food and water for two days. Air filtration systems also are standard. Power generation is also provided to run the air filtration and lighting systems.

After a period of stagnation, the government appears to be spending money on this aspect of the infrastructure again, with a program started in 2015 that builds or renovates old civil defense bunkers. Large-scale drills were undertaken in 2016, which involved over 40 million people.

Much less information is available on the military bunkers, but they tend to be deeper than the civilian bunkers. While military bunkers were first built in the basement and metro types (the Tagansky Bunker 42 complex is a good example of an early bunker in metro style), the military moved onto sphere and metro-2 bunker types in the 1970s and 1980s.

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The sphere style of bunker was developed as a way to improve the survivability of shallow bunkers since shallow bunkers are cheaper to build than deeper ones. To attain greater survivability, an outer bunker is made in the form of a sphere. This sphere is placed inside a shallow circular shaft. Shock absorbers are placed around the sphere connecting into an internal bunker. Those absorbers cushion the occupants from the shock waves of a nuclear explosion.

Other bunkers that use similar technology in which the central bunker is suspended on shock absorbers in a central structure might also be present, with various variations on the shape of the central bunker. Cylinder and Nut bolt (hexagonal) types are also rumored to exist.

The infamous metro-2 bunker style is laid out similarly to the older metro style but is deeper underground for greater blast resistance and secrecy. It was said to be built in two phases, with the first being in the 1970s and 1980s, called D-6 ,and the second being between 19902000 by the TIS (OAO ) firm, which also builds civilian metro stations.

However, most sources reporting on Metro-2 are speculative, with the primary ones being reports of hobbyists who may have stumbled upon some Metro-2 entrances or exits or a 1990s DIA report on the system.

Despite the vast number of bunkers, recent advances in fuzing technology for nuclear weapons are threatening to make the minimum civil defense standard obsolete. As fuzing technology improves, such as that used on the American Super Fuze, its more likely that pressure levels experienced by the civil defense bunkers will far exceed their design rating.

Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues.

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Russian tanks make manoeuvres during the Zapad West 2017 war games (Picture: Rex)

Russia will stage its biggest war games since the fall of the Soviet Union, its defence ministry has said.

It has invited thousands of troops from China and Mongolia to take part in the exercises in Siberia, called Vostok 2018, next month.

In a statement, defence minister Sergi Shoigu said the war games will have an unprecedented scale both in territory and number of troops involved.

He said it would be the largest event since the Zapad-81 manoeuvres, which featured up to 150,000 troops in 1981.

In its Vostok 2014 war games, Russia used 155,000 troops, 8,000 pieces of equipment and more than 600 aircraft and 80 naval vessels.

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China is expected to send 3,200 troops, 900 weapons and 30 planes and helicopters to the war games.

They will be hosted at Russias Tsugol training range the Russia/China border between September 11 and 15.

Russian Mi-8 helicopters perform exercises during the Zapad West 2017 war games (Picture: Rex)

Ahead of the war games, General Shoigu ordered surprise inspections of airborne troops.

These inspections involve 16 special exercises with an emphasis on aviation readiness and timely deployment of military command and control bodies, CNN reported.

China is launching new warships and guided-missile destroyers, as well as a new stealth fighter.

A report by the Pentagon last week said China was likely training its pilots of missions against the US.

However, China said the report was irresponsible, insisting it only wants to protects its sovereignty and security.




Rome (AFP) - Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini remained defiant Tuesday in refusing to allow about 170 migrants to disembark from an Italian coastguard boat after it docked in Sicily for technical reasons.

The Diciotti vessel, which rescued the migrants five days ago, arrived at the port of Catania overnight "for a technical stopover".

Salvini was forced to allow the boat to dock but refused to let migrants onto land until the European Union committed to taking care of some of them.

"Either Europe begins to seriously defend its borders and shares the relocation of immigrants, or we will start taking them back to the port that they left," Salvini tweeted on Tuesday.

"Italy has already done its duty, and when it's too much, it's too much," said Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League.

He has threatened to return the migrants to Libya if other European countries did not participate in a solution.

The boat had been stuck off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa since Thursday while Italy's populist government, in power since June, battled with Malta over who should take them in.

The Maltese government says the migrants refused the help of a Maltese boat because they wanted to reach Lampedusa.

The spat between Italy and Malta is the second in just over a month. It follows a fight over 450 rescued people who were eventually allowed to disembark in Italy after five European countries agreed to take 50 each.

Last week Malta allowed 141 migrants aboard the French NGO rescue vessel Aquarius to dock after an agreement to distribute them to a number of European countries.
Teen Mom OG is getting some new blood.

Following last months announcement that Bristol Palin would join its cast, the MTV reality show has released a teaser featuring the mom of three and her own mother, Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and a vice presidential candidate in 2008.

Sarah Palin (pictured with daughter Bristol in 2010) will appear on Teen Mom OG. (Photo: Adam Larkey/ABC via Getty Images)

In the clip, Palin  who was 17 when she announced her first pregnancy during the 2008 campaign  muses about her life during a meal with her famous mom.

I was a teen mom, she tells her mother. My life is not perfect at all.

Amen, agrees the older Palin.

The 27-year-old is later shown playing with her three children and commenting that she wants to do whats best for my kids.

Palin is mom to 9-year-old Tripp, whose father, Levi Johnston, will make appearances on Teen Mom OG. The former Dancing with the Stars contestant also has two daughters, 2-year-old Sailor and 1-year-old Atlee, with ex-husband Dakota Meyer. They finalized their divorce just weeks ago.

Last month Sarah Palin expressed support for her daughters new reality TV gig, telling TMZ that shes gonna become a great messenger for overcoming a little bit of challenge and doing well in life. She remained coy about whether or not she herself would feature on the show.

The casting of Palin, who is reportedly being paid $250,000 to replace former Teen Mom OG star Farrah Abraham, has been slammed by some viewers.

It should be a new show, she is NOT an OG, read one comment in response to the new trailer. Pretty sure she and her family talked crap about this show.

Huh? This is so left field, added another viewer. Out of all the moms in the world this is what yall came up with???? I might stop watching this show now or Ill just [fast-forward] through her part.

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Cant stand her already, someone added.

Farrah Abraham was the OG girl but you replaced her with a terrible homophobe, complained another critic who cited Palins past scandals. Nothing OG about it.

Abraham herself has also cast shade Palins way. At Mondays MTV Video Music Awards, she suggested that her replacement was copying her lifestyle.

I see a girl trying to move to where I live, have a piano, have the Pomeranians, have the same spot as me.  Im actually kinda scared of that, Abraham said. So I wish them all the best, and Im happy to move on.

The new season of Teen Mom OG starts Oct. 1.

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Rome (AFP) - Italian rescuers continued their search Tuesday for possible survivors of deadly flash flooding in the Calabria region's Pollino national park, described by hikers as an "avalanche of water".

Several hiking groups were caught Monday afternoon by the torrential deluge in the Raganello river gorge in southern Cosenza province.

It is unclear whether any people are still unaccounted for, with a spokeswoman for the country's Civil Protection service telling AFP three people who were reported missing had now been found.

The death toll has been revised down to 10, as opposed to 11 as previously reported, she added.

There was a mistake in the earlier death toll of Monday's flooding due to "overlapping reports over the course of the night", the head of Calabria's civil protection unit Carlo Tansi told local media.

Local authorities say 23 people were rescued from the flooding.

They said the incident involved two groups of 18 hikers each, with powerful floodlights brought up to allow rescuers to work through the night.

Environment Minister Sergio Costa also travelled to the region on Tuesday and told journalists: "We want to know who was meant to do what. The government stands with the families but we want to know within two or three days... what didn't work and for this reason we have asked for a report from the Cosenza prefecture."

A Dutch hiker, quoted in local media, said: "A real avalanche of water came unexpectedly. We did not have time to do anything. I was lucky, it was an incredible thing."

According to Corriere della Sera, among the 23 people rescued were two children. One of them was a girl taken to hospital by helicopter with hypothermia.

On Monday, this part of Calabria experienced several hours of heavy rain and strong winds although conditions began to improve during the evening.

Authorities have warned there is a possibility of storms in the region on Tuesday as well.

The dramatic gorges carved by the Raganello river are only recommended for experienced hikers due to the many challenges posed by the route, which at certain times of the year is rendered off-limits, the AGI news agency reported.
Another Brexit referendum risks civil disobedience, according to Labours Shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner (Rex)

A second Brexit vote could cause civil disobedience and social disruption, a shadow cabinet minister has warned.

Barry Gardiner suggested people could turn to more socially-disruptive ways of expressing their views if they feel they have been denied achieving change through democratic means, adding that the extreme right would be aided by such a situation.

Pro-EU campaigners are seeking a second vote on the terms of the final Brexit deal between the UK and EU.

However, shadow international trade secretary Mr Gardiner said Remain and Leave campaigners informed people that voting in the 2016 EU referendum would determine the UKs future for the next 40 or 50 years.

Shadow Trade Secretary @BarryGardiner says a second referendum undermines democracy and could lead to civil disobedience. Full interview: https://t.co/B3ghos8l1F #r4today pic.twitter.com/d3Q76BGKNn  BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) August 21, 2018

He added to BBC Radio 4 Today programme: We meant it.

If we then go back on that, yes, it may well be  and I certainly believe  that we will in the short and medium term be worse off economically as a result of Brexit, and certainly the way the Government is going that is what is happening.

Its not about happily putting us in that position, its saying theres more to this than simple economics.

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There is also the social, the democratic principles at play here.

If you then say to people We did give you a vote and actually we, the Remainers, lost the vote, but because you were stupid enough to do what you wanted rather than what we wanted and what those people who want a second referendum are now saying, Well, because you voted in the wrong way, well give you another chance to get it right  that undermines the whole principle of democracy in this country.

You never give as much succour to the extreme right as when you cut off the mechanism of democratic change.

Remainers want a second vote on the terms of the Brexit deal (Rex)

If people want to be able to achieve change through democratic means, if they feel that that is being denied to them, they then turn to other more socially disruptive ways of expressing their views, and that is the danger here.

Pressed on what would happen if there was a second EU referendum, Mr Gardiner replied: I didnt say violence on the streets.

What Im saying is that in any situation, if people feel that the route to change is no longer a democratic route, then you look to social disruption, perhaps civil disobedience, in a different way.

Theresa May has insisted Brexit means Brexit but her Chequers proposals have faced fierce criticism from Leavers (Rex)

This is playing with our democracy  its playing with the foundations of our country in a way that is really, really damaging.

We have to respect peoples vote in that referendum. We told them we would, we must do it.

Mr Gardiner, earlier asked if it was Labours policy that under no circumstances could there be no Brexit deal, said: Absolutely. That is why we have proposed a new customs union and a strong new relationship with the single market.

Mr Gardiner said it was nonsense to suggest such a stance put all the power in the hands of the EU negotiators, adding: No deal is not in their interests either  they want a deal with us.

Im afraid Barry Gardiner in defending #Brexit whatever the cost on @BBCr4today on democratic grounds completely ignores the democratic right of the people to change their minds #BrexitShambles #PeoplesVote  Ben Bradshaw (@BenPBradshaw) August 21, 2018

Labour former minister Ben Bradshaw blasted Mr Gardiners comments.

He wrote on Twitter: Im afraid Barry Gardiner in defending #Brexit whatever the cost on @BBCr4today on democratic grounds completely ignores the democratic right of the people to change their minds #BrexitShambles #PeoplesVote.

Theresa May insisted Brexit means Brexit when she became Prime Minister but she has been accused of watering down the UKs divorce from the EU in her much-maligned Chequers proposals.
Moscow (AFP) - Ukrainian Oleg Sentsov, who was released Saturday as part of a landmark prisoner exchange with Russia, was forging a successful career as a film director when the Russian annexation of his native Crimea abruptly changed his life.

Instead of being behind a camera, the 43-year-old ended up languishing in a penal colony in the Russian Arctic after he was convicted of planning arson attacks in the annexed peninsula.

Serving a 20-year prison sentence, he was the most high-profile Ukrainian political prisoner held in Russia.

In July, Ukraine's new president Volodymyr Zelensky offered to hand over a jailed Russian state media journalist in exchange for Sentsov.

The journalist, Kyrylo Vyshynsky, was also released Saturday as part of the deal.

- Lengthy hunger strike -

In 2018, Sentsov staged a 145-day hunger strike demanding that Russia free all Ukrainian political prisoners. He finally halted it to avoid being force-fed.

Relatives and visitors reported that his health declined dramatically but he said afterwards that he was recovering quickly.

Sentsov made his first film "Gamer" in 2011, writing, directing and producing it himself on a budget of just $20,000, raised from his job running a gaming centre in Crimea's main city of Simferopol.

It was shown at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2012 as well as several other European festivals.

At the time of his arrest in 2014, he was preparing to make a new film, "Nosorog," or "Rhino" with financing from a German film fund.

He was also an opposition activist and member of protest group AutoMaidan, which held drive-by protests against Ukraine's Russia-backed then-president Viktor Yanukovych.

He took part in the Maidan popular uprising in Kiev over the winter of 2013-2014, which culminated in Yanukovych's ousting.

He was convicted in 2015 by a Russian military court of carrying out arson attacks on pro-Kremlin party offices in Crimea and plotting further attacks, including blowing up a Lenin statue in Simferopol.

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- Stars demand release -

His trial alongside co-defendant Alexander Kolchenko, who was also released on Saturday, prompted condemnation from Western countries and Kiev, with Amnesty International likening it to "Stalinist-era show trials."

Supporters say Russia wanted to make an example of him with a particularly harsh sentence.

Stars including Pedro Almodovar and Johnny Depp called for Sentsov's release, along with Western governments led by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Last year the European Parliament awarded him the prestigious Sakharov prize, worth 50,000 euros, for his "exceptional contribution" to human rights around the world.

Sentsov has two children including a son who has autism.

His mother in a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin last year begged him: "Do not destroy his life and that of his loved ones. We are waiting for him at home."
BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia might reintroduce compulsory military service, nine years after abolishing it, to help improve the combat readiness of its army in the Balkans, where tensions occasionally flare, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday. The armed forces of Serbia, which emerged as an independent state after the bloody collapse of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, were fully professionalized in 2011, but remain poorly paid and equipped. Serbia, which is a candidate for European Union membership, has retained voluntary service and reserve units. Vucic said Belgrade was considering reintroducing compulsory military service of between three and six months after 2020. "We are still thinking about that ... It depends on the finances," he told reporters at the air force base of Batajnica, just outside Belgrade. Young people who served would have an advantage when seeking jobs in the public sector, Vucic added, without elaborating. Serbian politicians have repeatedly floated the idea of reintroducing conscription. But many military experts say it would be too costly and that such a short period of service would contribute little to the country's defense capabilities. Under its 2018 budget, Serbia allocated $703 million, or 1.39 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) for its 40,000-strong military, up from $693.8 million in 2017. In recent years Serbia has sought to improve its defense capabilities through a donation of six MIG-29 fighters by Russia, with which it has strong historic and cultural ties, and through the purchase of 10 helicopters manufactured by Airbus. Vucic and Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin have frequently spoken of procuring surplus tanks, attack helicopters and armored personnel carriers from Russia and more jet fighters from Belarus, but such deals have yet to materialize. In 2006 Serbia, which maintains military neutrality, joined NATO's Partnership for Peace program and in 2015 it signed the Individual Partnership Action Plan - the highest level of cooperation for countries not aspiring to join the alliance. Although it strives for a balance between Moscow and the West, Serbia in 2017 took part in more than 100 joint activities with NATO or its member states, including 13 training drills, seven bilateral activities with the United States and only two with Russia. (Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Rosanna Arquette, at Build NYC on July 23, thinks there is more at play with the sexual assault allegations against Asia Argento. (Photo: Getty Images)

Rosanna Arquette has suspicions surrounding the sexual assault allegations that have been made against Asia Argento.

As news broke that Argento paid former child star Jimmy Bennett $380,000 to settle a sexual assault claim he made against the actress stemming from a 2013 incident, Arquette took to Twitter to defend Argento. The women were both among the first to accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct, appearing in Ronan Farrows New Yorker piece in October 2017, and Arquette publicly speculated in a series of now-deleted tweets whether the disgraced producer had anything to do with the allegations against Argento being made public in Mondays New York Times expose.

In a statement on Tuesday, Argento denied having sexual contact with Bennett, but claimed that her boyfriend, the late Anthony Bourdain, made a deal to pay off Bennett on the condition that he no longer contact Argento.

I just received this statement from @AsiaArgento in response to the NYT story published late Sunday evening. pic.twitter.com/jAOo7TAULX  Yashar Ali  (@yashar) August 21, 2018

After posting The monster is at it again, using a nickname for Weinstein, who Arquette said once propositioned her at the Beverly Hills Hotel in the early 90s, she also wrote, Stop until you hear all the facts this a set up and extortion is a problem. The first tweet remains, but the others have since been deleted.

The monster is at it again  Rosanna Arquette (@RoArquette) August 20, 2018

Still, Arquette continued to put her skepticism on display. The timing of the story is suspect, she wrote in another post. In that tweet, she also reminded her followers that wounds run deep for survivors of rape, and at the end of the day, Asia was still raped by Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein, who is facing rape charges in New York, has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex against him.

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I know many many rape and trauma survivors who act out sexually The wounds they carry run deep. I pray for them. the timing of this story is suspect. Asia was still raped by Harvey Weinstein.  Rosanna Arquette (@RoArquette) August 20, 2018

She also commented on #MeToo movement founder Tarana Burkes viral thread on the topic.

Thank you Tarana ,as you know .. trauma begets trauma ..until we heal ourselves. we are all on a path to healing ..gratitude for being the beacon that keeps us moving forward.  Rosanna Arquette (@RoArquette) August 20, 2018

Arquette then posted (twice) about how she stands with victims of sexual assault.

I stand by anyone who has been sexually abused.  Rosanna Arquette (@RoArquette) August 20, 2018

I stand by anyone who is a victim of sexual abuse I always have and I always will  Rosanna Arquette (@RoArquette) August 20, 2018

She also urged others to wait to hear the whole story.

I didnt say I didnt I said wait to hear the whole story  Rosanna Arquette (@RoArquette) August 20, 2018

On Tuesday, she clarified her comments in a longer post shared by her brother David Arquette.

Arquette isnt the first Weinstein accuser to suggest that the disgraced producer may be pulling strings behind the scenes. When Rose McGowan, who also accused Weinstein of rape, was arrested for cocaine possession, she suggested that Weinstein somehow had the drugs planted in her bag. Farrow also wrote about Weinsteins army of spies in another piece for the New Yorker. Sources claimed that the movie exec allegedly hired investigators, including former Israeli Mossad agents, in an attempt to stop accusers from going public with sexual misconduct claims against him. Weinstein also allegedly worked with American Media editor Dylan Howard to undermine accusers.

Argento and Arquette had a power brunch last year along with fellow Weinstein accuser Annabella Sciorra and investigative reporter Farrow, who broke the story about Weinsteins alleged misconduct:

Argento, who claimed Weinstein raped her but that they later had consensual sex, has been one of the most prominent voices of the #MeToo movement, delivering a fiery speech at the Cannes Film Festival in May. For that reason, the expose claiming she sexually assaulted Bennett as a minor is especially shocking. So is the fact that she made a private settlement with him after Weinsteins history of doing that with accusers had been widely criticized.

On Monday, Weinstein slammed Argento over the Bennett allegations and pay-off in a statement released by his attorney, Benjamin Brafman.

Harvey Weinstein has weighed in on the Asia Argento situation in predictably awful fashion, through his criminal lawyer. h/t @CJRosenbaum, to whom it was sent unsolicited. pic.twitter.com/bnAKnl5DiC  Kate Aurthur (@KateAurthur) August 20, 2018

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As a stone-faced Chris Watts, 33, appeared in court Tuesday to listen to the charges he faces in the killings of his pregnant wife and two young children, many questioned how he could be the same Colorado man recently lauded as a wonderful father and husband.

He was the one for me, Shanann Watts, 34, had said in a video posted to social media before her death. And he is amazing and I cant tell you how wonderful he is.

Investigators are working to determine why Watts would allegedly kill his wife Shanann, who was 15 weeks pregnant, or his daughters, 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste, who were all strangled to death.

Below is a timeline of what the investigation has so far revealed:

Monday, Aug. 13

1:48 a.m. MDT: A security camera on a neighbors home captured Shanann returning from a business trip in Arizona. A friend dropped the expectant mother of two off back at her Frederick home.

Between 4 and 5 a.m.: Police said Watts told them he awoke around this time and had an emotional but civil discussion with Shanann about his wanting to separate.

5:27 a.m.: Watts was spotted backing up his truck to his garage. Police said he initially told them he had loaded tools into his vehicle and left for work at a job site near Hudson. He told officials Shanann and his daughters were in bed when he left, an arrest affidavit said. Watts said his wife told him she was bringing the children to her friends house that day, but he said he didnt know the friends name.

1:40 p.m.: Frederick police were called to the Wattses' home to check on Shanann after the friend who dropped her off said she hadnt answered calls or texts and missed a 10 a.m. doctor appointment. Watts gave police permission to enter the home, where they found Shananns purse on a kitchen counter and cellphone lodged between two couch cushions, but no signs of foul play, according to the affidavit.

Tuesday, Aug. 14

7 a.m.: Frederick police requested the assistance of the FBI and Colorado Bureau of Investigation in the search for Shanann and the girls. The CBI issued a missing-endangered alert for the three that day.

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Tuesday afternoon: Watts spoke with KUSA-TV, saying his familys disappearance is earth-shattering.

If somebody has her just please bring her back, he said. I need to see everybody, I need to see everybody again; this house is not complete without anybody here.

Wednesday, Aug. 15

4:15 p.m.: Police used a drone to investigate an oil and gas site where they believed Shannan, Bella and Celestes bodies to be. There, they found a bedsheet matching the pattern of the pillowcases and top sheet at the Wattses home.The sheets found at the house had allegedly been thrown into a kitchen trash can. Police said they also spotted fresh movement of dirt consistent with a clandestine grave near the oil tanks.

Wednesday evening: Investigators discover that Watts was allegedly having an affair with a co-worker, which he had previously denied. In an interview with police, Watts allegedly said he would tell the truth after speaking with his dad, the affidavit said.

Police said Watts then told them that after telling Shanann he wanted a separation, he saw her on a baby monitor strangling Celeste in another room. He told police Bella was already blue and sprawled out on her bed, apparently dead, the affidavit said. Watts told police he went into a rage and ultimately strangled Shanann to death.

He said he loaded all three bodies onto the back seat of his work truck and took them to a work site, where he buried Shanann and dumped the childrens bodies into oil tanks, the affidavit said.

11:30 p.m.: Watts was arrested on suspicion of three first-degree murder charges and three charges of tampering with a deceased human body.

Thursday, Aug. 16

2:30 p.m.: Watts appeared in Weld County Court, where he was denied bond.

Thursday afternoon: Shananns body was found in a shallow grave.

Thursday evening: Celeste and Bellas bodies were found inside oil tanks near the grave of their mother.

Friday, Aug. 17

All three victims were positively identified by the Weld County coroner Friday.

Autopsies were conducted for all three victims, but the results were not immediately released.

8:30 p.m.: Hundreds gathered to take part in a candlelight vigil for Shanann and her daughters. Flowers, stuffed animals, crosses and photos adorned a makeshift memorial that was created in front of their home.

Monday, Aug. 20

4 p.m.: Watts is officially charged with three counts of first-degree murder; two counts of first-degree murder for causing the death of a person under the age of 12 while being in a position of trust; one count of unlawful termination of a pregnancy and three counts of tampering with a deceased body.

Shananns father, Frank Rzucek Sr., and brother, Frank Rzucek Jr., stood alongside prosecutors as they announced the charges.

Rzucek Sr. thanked law enforcement for their work on his daughter and granddaughters case, as well as supporters for their prayers.

They are greatly appreciated, said Rzucek Sr. Keep the prayers coming for our family.

Tuesday, Aug. 21

10 a.m.: Watts appeared in court to be formally advised of the charges against him.

He will continue to be held in Weld County jail without bond and is scheduled to appear in court again on Nov. 19.

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Kelly Marie Tran, the Star Wars: The Last Jedi actor who quit social media after being hounded by trolls, is speaking out about her experience with racism and online harassment.

The 29-year-old star, whose parents moved to the U.S. from Vietnam before she was born, has written a moving piece for the New York Times about her experience as a person of color in a white-dominated world.

Kelly Marie Tran has written a New York Times op-ed about her experiences with racism and trolls. (Photo: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

For months, I went down a spiral of self-hate, into the darkest recesses of my mind, places where I tore myself apart, where I put their words above my own self-worth, Tran wrote of being marginalized as an Asian-American woman. This is what it is to grow up as a person of color in a white-dominated world.

This is what it is to be a woman in a society that has taught its daughters that we are only worthy of love if we are deemed attractive by its sons. This is the world I grew up in, but not the world I want to leave behind.

Although she doesnt directly refer to the trolls who bombarded her Instagram account with hateful messages, its clear that she was deeply affected by their missives.

Tran rocketed to fame after starring in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. (Photo: Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

It wasnt their words, its that I started to believe them, added Tran, who portrayed Rose Tico in The Last Jedi and will appear in the upcoming Episode IX.

Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of color already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, only valid as a minor character in their lives and stories.

Tran, whose acting resume before The Last Jedi consisted of a number of short films and comedy videos, deleted all her Instagram posts back in June, even though she had 189,000 followers at the time. A so-called anti-Disney group later claimed responsibility for the online abuse campaign.

Fellow Star Wars actor Daisy Ridley, who plays lead character Rey in the new trilogy, also quit social media after receiving toxic messages.

Tran in The Last Jedi. (Photo: Disney)

Their words reinforced a narrative I had heard my whole life: that I was other, that I didnt belong, that I wasnt good enough, simply because I wasnt like them, Tran continued.

Story continues

I believed those words, those stories, carefully crafted by a society that was built to uphold the power of one type of person  one sex, one skin tone, one existence.

Thankfully, Hollywood rallied around Tran by calling out the trolls on Twitter.

If you dont like Star Wars or the characters understand that there are decisions makers and harassing the actors/ actresses will do nothing. Youre not entitled to politeness when your approach is rude. Even if you paid for a ticket!   John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) June 12, 2018

Last year I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the beautiful #KellyMarieTran at Star Wars Celebration. You would be hard pressed to find a more genuinely kind & sweet soul. I can assure you that if this is the kind of person you feel the need to harass it is you who is empty. pic.twitter.com/clGZFSe9PT  Josh Gad (@joshgad) June 5, 2018

I totally embarrassingly fanned out when I met Kelly Marie Tran. Rose Tico was unequivocally one of the highlights of The Last Jedi. Youd have to be an idiot to disagree with that.  Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) June 5, 2018

Tran wrote that she has since come to a realization that its not her with the problem  its the system. Shes now ready to start fighting back.

I had been brainwashed into believing that my existence was limited to the boundaries of another persons approval. I had been tricked into thinking that my body was not my own, that I was only beautiful if someone else believed it, regardless of my own opinion. I had been told and retold this by everyone: by the media, by Hollywood, by companies that profited from my insecurities, manipulating me so that I would buy their clothes, their makeup, their shoes, in order to fill a void that was perpetuated by them in the first place.

Tran also talks about her parents adopting American names so it was easier for others to pronounce, a change which she describes as a literal erasure of culture that left her aching to the core. This adds powerful weight to her sign-off:

You might know me as Kelly. I am the first woman of color to have a leading role in a Star Wars movie. I am the first Asian woman to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair. My real name is Loan. And I am just getting started.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:




FILE  In this Sunday, March 4, 2018 file photo,Kelly Marie Tran arrives at the Oscars, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

Kelly Marie Tran, the Star Wars: The Last Jedi actor who quit social media after being hounded by trolls, has finally spoken out about her experience of online harassment.

The 29-year-old American, whose parents moved to America from Vietnam before she was born, wrote in a moving piece for the New York Times of her experience: For months, I went down a spiral of self-hate, into the darkest recesses of my mind, places where I tore myself apart, where I put their words above my own self-worth.

This is what it is to grow up as a person of colour in a white-dominated world.

This is what it is to be a woman in a society that has taught its daughters that we are only worthy of love if we are deemed attractive by its sons. This is the world I grew up in, but not the world I want to leave behind.

Although she doesnt directly refer to the trolls who bombarded her Instagram account with hateful messages (and why should she? They dont deserve the airtime), its clear that she was deeply affected by their missives.

Actress Kelly Marie Tran poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film Star Wars: The Last Jedi in London, Tuesday, Dec. 12th, 2017. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

It wasnt their words, its that I started to believe them, Tran, who plays Rose Tico in The Last Jedi and Episode IX, writes.

Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of colour already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, only valid as a minor character in their lives and stories.

The actress, whose acting resume before The Last Jedi consisted of a number of short films and comedy videos, deleted all of her Instagram posts back in June despite having 189k followers at the time.

A so-called anti-Disney group later claimed responsibility for the abuse campaign directed at Tran. They claimed they coordinated the War on Kathleen Kennedy and her feminist soldiers in protest against the Lucasfilm president and her feminazi agenda, but its not been proven that they were the ones who forced Tran off Instagram.

Fellow Star Wars actor Daisy Ridley, who plays lead character Rey in the new trilogy, also quit social media in 2016 after receiving toxic messages from fans.

Story continues

Kelly Marie Tran in The Last Jedi (Disney)

Their words reinforced a narrative I had heard my whole life: that I was other, that I didnt belong, that I wasnt good enough, simply because I wasnt like them, Tran adds.

I believed those words, those stories, carefully crafted by a society that was built to uphold the power of one type of person  one sex, one skin tone, one existence.

Thankfully, Hollywood rallied around Tran calling out the trolls on Twitter.

If you dont like Star Wars or the characters understand that there are decisions makers and harassing the actors/ actresses will do nothing. Youre not entitled to politeness when your approach is rude. Even if you paid for a ticket!   John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) June 12, 2018

Last year I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the beautiful #KellyMarieTran at Star Wars Celebration. You would be hard pressed to find a more genuinely kind & sweet soul. I can assure you that if this is the kind of person you feel the need to harass it is you who is empty. pic.twitter.com/clGZFSe9PT  Josh Gad (@joshgad) June 5, 2018

I totally embarrassingly fanned out when I met Kelly Marie Tran. Rose Tico was unequivocally one of the highlights of The Last Jedi. Youd have to be an idiot to disagree with that.  Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) June 5, 2018

Tran says shes now come to a realisation that its not her thats the problem, its the system, and shes ready to start fighting back.

I had been brainwashed into believing that my existence was limited to the boundaries of another persons approval. I had been tricked into thinking that my body was not my own, that I was only beautiful if someone else believed it, regardless of my own opinion. I had been told and retold this by everyone: by the media, by Hollywood, by companies that profited from my insecurities, manipulating me so that I would buy their clothes, their makeup, their shoes, in order to fill a void that was perpetuated by them in the first place.

Tran also talks about her parents adopting American names so it was easier for others to pronounce, a common experience for first-generation immigrants that she describes as a literal erasure of culture that left her aching to the core. This adds powerful weight to her sign-off:

You might know me as Kelly.

I am the first woman of color to have a leading role in a Star Wars movie.

I am the first Asian woman to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair.

My real name is Loan. And I am just getting started.

Kelly Marie Tran WILL return as Rose Tico in Star Wars IX, in cinemas whether you like it or not, in 2019.

Read Kelly Marie Trans NY Times op-ed in full.





Read more

Star Wars fans have always been haters

Jar Jar Binks actor considered suicide

Pegg ashamed of toxic fandom
(WASHINGTON)  Steve Bannon has a dire warning for Republicans.

During a Sunday interview with The Associated Press, the former chief strategist to President Donald Trump said he believes the GOP would lose 35 to 40 seats in the House if the election were held today, thereby ceding their majority to Democrats hes convinced will pursue impeachment. He argued theres still time to turn that around and is launching a group, Citizens of the American Republic, to pitch the election as a vote to protect Trump from that outcome.

You cant look at this as a midterm and you cant run it out of the traditional Republican playbook. If you do that, youre going to get smoked, said Bannon, arguing that Republicans must redouble efforts against motivated Democrats.

The effort is a test of Bannons sway in the GOP a year after he was fired from his White House post. His relationship with Trump soured after a tell-all book published in January included searing quotes of Bannon portraying Trump as undisciplined and criticizing son Donald Trump Jr. His stock fell further after he stuck by Alabama Republican Roy Moores Senate campaign even after decades-old sexual misconduct allegations emerged. A reliably Republican Senate seat turned Democratic.

As he attempts a comeback, Bannon acknowledged the challenges he faces, including an invigorated Democratic base. Less than three months from Election Day, Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats to retake the House, and the party is increasingly bullish about its chances after strong turnout in a series of special elections. Bannon said Republicans can gain ground if they focus on turning out Trump supporters.

This is not about persuasion. Its too late to persuade anybody. Were 90 days away from this election. This is all about turnout and what I call base-plus, he said.

While Bannon makes his move, many Republicans view holding the House as an uphill battle. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Story continues

Bannon said his new venture will focus on rapid response and polling with the goal of framing the election as an up or down vote on Trump and impeachment. He is also releasing a movie about the president, Trump@War, geared at Trump supporters.

Bannon said he was being backed by private donors, but he did not detail who was funding the effort or how much he had raised. He said his efforts were independent of the Republican National Committee, the White House or a Trump-supporting super PAC.

In keeping with his midterm mission, Bannon defended the president on both policy and style, arguing that the president had an economic record to run on and has been making the right pitch on the campaign trail.

On trade, Bannon backed the presidents aggressive tariffs, which have drawn criticism in agricultural states crucial to Trumps victory. He argued they were a key part of Trumps nationalistic economic strategy.

People in Iowa, once its explained to them, will fully support the president in this, he said. We dont have a choice. We either win the economic war with China or were going to be a secondary, a tertiary power.

He said Trumps culture wars, which have included public attacks on women and minorities, dont present a problem, calling it his house style and saying people should separate out the signal from the noise. He argued that Trump would benefit from shutting down the government over funding for his border wall, saying it would galvanize the populist right, though he acknowledged it was a minority view.

Bannon also pushed back against the idea that a loss of the House could be a positive development for Trump as it would give him a new foil heading into the 2020 presidential election. He called such notions dangerously naive.

Looking ahead to 2020, Bannon said attorney Michael Avenatti, who is weighing a bid as a Democratic candidate, could be a contender. The combative attorney has been taking on Trump on behalf of a porn actress who claims a sexual encounter with the president, which Trump denies.

Hes a fighter and people are looking for fighters, Bannon said of Avenatti, though he believes Trump would defeat any opponent. Hes going to be a force in the primary for the simple reason that he comes across as what many of the Democrats dont, which is a fighter.
Libreville (AFP) - A tanker with 17 Georgian sailors onboard has been missing for a week off the coast of Gabon in the Gulf of Guinea, a notorious area for sea piracy, officials said Tuesday.

The ship "disappeared" from tracking screens on August 14, and the potential search area was between the Gabonese coast and the Sao Tome and Principe archipelago, a regional military source said.

Specialist websites list the 121-metre (396-feet) ship, the Pantelena, as a 7,000-tonne, 12-year-old dual-purpose oil or chemical tanker.

The vessel is Panamanian-flagged and owned by a Greek company, Lotus Shipping Co. Ltd.

Georgia's foreign ministry in Tbilisi, in a statement issued last Friday, said there were concerns for 17 Georgian sailors onboard and a search operation was being conducted with the help of the British maritime authorities.

Gabon lies on the southern part of the Gulf of Guinea -- the great bend in the coastline of West Africa -- where pirates are a major problem for shipping.

The Pantelena "turned off its locator beacon," a device that tracks a vessel's position by satellite, the military source said, adding that "the first thing that pirates do when they board a ship is to cut off this beacon".

But at this stage, it is premature to talk about an act of piracy because "it could be a simple transmission breakdown," the source added.

- 'Distress message' -

A crew member aboard a ship sailing between Gabon's capital Libreville and Port-Gentil, the country's economic hub, told AFP: "We received a distress message over the radio and we alerted the Gabonese navy."

A Gabonese navy official confirmed that it had "received an alert... about the Pantelena, but we didn't have enough information to intervene."

In Sao Tome and Principe, which is located about 260 kilometres (160 miles) from Gabon, the commander of the local coastguard, Joao Idalecio, said it had dispatched a patrol vessel with a crew of 30 to search for the tanker.

Story continues

Maritime security is a major concern in the Gulf of Guinea, with more than 5,700 kilometres of coastline and 17 countries from Senegal to Angola, as it has become an epicentre of piracy since 2016 after the pirate threat diminished off the coast of Somalia.

In February, the MT Marine Express, a Panama-registered tanker with 13,500 tonnes of gasoline, was seized with its crew as it was anchored off Benin. The ship and crew were freed several days later.

Last month, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said that its specialist piracy reporting centre had recorded 107 incidents worldwide in the first six months of 2018.

"All 25 crew kidnappings reported this year have occurred over six incidents in the Gulf of Guinea, highlighting the higher risks in this area," the IMB said.

However, the true number of incidents in the Gulf of Guinea is believed to be "significantly higher," its report added.

The pirates' mode of operation has also evolved from so-called "bunkering" -- theft of material on the boat -- "to an increase in the taking of hostages for ransom," a Gabonese patrol commander Gael Mbanda told AFP in February.
Former physician Shafeeq Sheikh awaits his sentencing at Harris County Family Law Center in Houston for the 2013 rape of a patient: Yi-Chin Lee/Houston Chronicle via AP

A doctor who raped a "heavily sedated" patient will not serve any jail time for the crime.

Shafeeq Sheikh was instead sentenced to 10 years probation and ordered to register as a sex offender. He was also fined $10,000 (7,800).

Five female and seven male jurors had recommended the sentencing after deliberating for 14 hours at the Harris County Family Law Center in Houston, Texas.

State law required Judge Terry Flenniken is required by the state's law to follow the recommendation, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Sheikh, who used to work for the Baylor College of Medicine, raped a woman in 2013, when she was a patient at the city's Ben Taub Hospital.

Later identified in local media reports as Laura, she had been placed under sedation to help with an asthma attack.

At trial, Sheikh admitted to having sexual contact with her during a night shift at the hospital but claimed it was consensual. He had not been assigned to treat her.

At sentencing, Assistant District Attorney Lauren Reeder told jurors he knew what medications Laura had been prescribed based on her medical chart.

He sought her out," she said. "He chose her to prey on".

She added: You know hes the type of man who would go in multiple times, testing the waters, seeing how far he could go and get back to his normal business after that."

Sheikh had previously admitted to entering Laura's room multiple times.

Laura testified that she had tried to alert the nurses' station but the button had been disabled. Surveillance video placed him on her floor that night and a rape kit done on Laura matched a DNA sample from Sheikh.

Sheikh continued to practice medicine at Houston Methodist Hospital until his arrest two years after the incident on 2 November 2013. It was not until then, that the state medical board revoked his license to practice medicine, citing him as a "continuing threat".

Sheikhs defence lawyer, Stanley Schneider, pleaded with the jury for a lighter sentence than prison time given his client had no prior convictions and that Sheikh's wife and four children had suffered through an ordeal. Sheikh's wife and brother also testified on his behalf during the trial.

Story continues

The dreams of a man, the childhood dream to become a doctor, were shattered by his conduct," Mr Schneider told the court. "He destroyed his own dreams. What he has done to himself and his family is punishment. They are serving his sentence with him. His children are serving his sentence with him,"

Sheikh has been free on bond since the guilty verdict.

After the sentence, Dane Schiller, spokesperson for the district attorney, said: The jury voted on behalf of the community to determine his sentence, and although prosecutors sought prison time, we respect this process, and the jurys decision, which carries with it a lifetime of registering as a sex offender.

Laura told a local television news station she felt there are more victims because Sheikh, in her estimation, "had everything very organised" regarding access to her room and unplugging the nurse call button.

"I'm not only Laura; I represent lots of women, women who've been raped and mistreated," she said.
According to LOreals UK managing director, Vismay Sharma, male-centric makeup counters could be a reality in five to seven years [Photo: Getty]

In a bid to promote gender equality in the beautysphere, Chanel has announced plans to launch a make-up line specifically designed for men.

But the debut collection  which is set to launch in 2019  has been met with divided opinion. While some took to social media to praise the beauty giant for helping to normalise mens make-up, others were confused why make-up is gendered.

Regardless of the backlash, the move is undoubtedly revolutionary and a long time coming.

According to LOreal Paris UK managing director, Vismay Sharma, male-centric make-up counters could be a reality in five to seven years due to increased demand.

With male beauty bloggers documenting their step-by-step regimes via Instagram and traditionally female beauty brands such as Charlotte Tilbury introducing tutorials for men, gender-neutral make-up might soon become the norm.

So where can men bag must-have beauty buys? From Chanels debut line to MMUK Man, these are the need-to-know labels for guys tired of borrowing from the ladies

Chanel

According to Womens Wear Daily, Chanels debut make-up range is fronted by South Korean actor Lee Dong-Wook.

The aptly named Boy de Chanel (named after Gabrielle Chanels muse-turned-lover Boy Capel) is expected to launch in Korea this November before rolling out on a global scale from January 2019.

Chanel is the latest beauty brand to launch a male beauty line [Photo: Chanel]

In a statement, the company announced: By creating Boy de Chanel, its first make-up line for men, Chanel reaffirms the ever-changing codes of an unchanging vision: beauty is not a matter of gender, it is a matter of style.

The French brands debut collection will include four hues of eyebrow pencil [Photo: Chanel]

The French giants latest collection will include a tinted fluid (available in four hues), a matte moisturising lip balm and four shades of eyebrow pencil.

Tom Ford

Tom Ford was one of the first designer labels to introduce a make-up line specifically designed for male customers to the beauty industry and its proven hugely successful.

From brow definer to concealer, the luxury grooming collection offers male customers must-have items without having to sample the womens counters.

Story continues

Over on the website, a 33 concealer is on offer in three hues while brow gel combs also prove popular.

For those hoping to maintain their Insta-worthy beard, everything from conditioning oil to combs are also up for grabs.

MMUK Man

For gents who are serious about make-up, MMUK Man delivers.

Thanks to ASOS  which started selling the label last year  the beauty line has risen in popularity and undoubtedly offers far more than other gender-specific collections aimed at the male customer.

MMUK Man is a leading makeup brand specifically designed for male consumers [Photo: MMUK Man]

Last year, it was reported that the beauty brand receives a 62,000 annual turnover with the potential to grow to 750,000.

But its hardly surprising, as the online giant offers everything from a 16 beard mascara to an 18 cream facial hair enhancer  products that really make it stand out against female make-up counters.

Alex Dalley, who founded MMUK MAN back in 2011, told Yahoo Style UK: The reasons behind the emergence of gender specific make-up include societys growing acceptance towards men taking care of their skin and the role that social media is playing in forcing men to put their best face

forward.

In a selfie obsessed world where its perceived as crucial to put yourself in the best light, the natural evolution of male grooming is following in the footsteps of the female beauty market, he continued.

Guys are no longer satisfied with borrowing their girlfriends bronzer or moisturiser and instead prefer to have products in their wash bags that are totally tailored to them.



LOreal Paris

Back in 2016, beauty blogger Gary Thompson (aka The Plastic Boy) made the history books after becoming the first man to front a major makeup campaign.

Featuring in LOreal Paris True Match Foundation advert, Thompson helped to raise awareness of the growing male market.

The beauty brands UK managing director, Vismay Sharma, told The Telegraph: Today you have a very small proportion of men who want to use make up products but that proportion is growing and it will continue to grow. I think its just awareness  two things are happening, men know they can use make up, and they know what it does when you use it.

The second thing is that the taboos are going, so between my generation and my sons generation the taboos are very different.

Currently, the French beauty giant sells a limited range of make-up designed for the male customer but has branched out into beard care and a wider selection of moisturisers.

Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein is also a pioneer in the male beauty market, as the fashion label has introduced a wide range of affordable gender-specific items.

The American fashion house offers customers everything from manscara to guyliner with prices starting from 15.

If the latest products are anything to go by, it looks as though women may soon be borrowing from the men





Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for non-stop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyleUK.

Read more from Yahoo Style UK:

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Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump's administration announced a plan Tuesday to weaken regulations on US coal plants, giving a boost to an industry that former leader Barack Obama had hoped to phase out to cut harmful emissions that drive global warming.

The Environmental Protection Agency's new Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule would allow states the flexibility to set their own standards for performance at existing coal-fired power plants, rather than follow a single federal standard.

The EPA says the measure is designed to replace Obama's 2015 Clean Power Plan, which called for cuts to greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, and a shift toward solar, wind and less polluting natural gas.

The move marks the latest effort by Trump's administration to roll back the environmental legacy of his Democratic predecessor, having already pulled out of the 2015 Paris climate accord aimed at slashing global fossil fuel emissions.

Obama's energy plan aimed to usher in the strictest anti-pollution measures in history on power plants, but was put on hold in 2016 by the US Supreme Court.

Trump, whose ascent to the presidency effectively killed off the plan, had blasted it as "intrusive" and claimed it would "kill jobs."

The president trumpeted the plan at a rally late Tuesday in the coal-producing state of West Virginia.

"We are putting our great coal miners back to work," he said, adding: "We love clean, beautiful, West Virginia coal."

Earlier, EPA acting administrator Andrew Wheeler told reporters in a call: "The era of top-down, one-size-fits-all federal mandates is over."

The new plan could take months or even years to take effect. Legal challenges are already lining up, as the proposal awaits a 60-day comment period before it can be finalized.

Critics warned the plan will boost emissions from power plants, which emit about 28 percent of US greenhouse gases, and worsen global warming.

Story continues

"Under this proposal, the air will be dirtier and we'll be less healthy as a country because President Trump is siding with a few powerful special interests," said Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer.

Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the plan called for "only modest efficiency improvements at individual power plants, which will barely make a dent in cutting heat-trapping emissions from the electricity sector, and could even, under some circumstances, lead to increased emissions depending on how much the plants are run."

Kimmell said the new rules "would also result in more pollution from nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury and other harmful pollutants."

- Coal in decline -

The White House said in a statement that, if finalized, the rule "will significantly decrease bureaucratic red tape and compliance costs, keeping American energy affordable and competitive on the world stage."

The White House claimed it would also save $6.4 billion in compliance costs for industry, compared to the Obama plan.

"We're the only country in the world doing this, looking at coal as the future instead of understanding the future is about clean air, the future is about clean energy," Gina McCarthy, who served as EPA administrator under Obama, told CNN.

Despite Trump's support for coal plants, there have been many closures.

Some 40 percent of coal plants in operation in 2010 are now closed or slated to close, according to estimates from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

According to Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, "EPA is now proposing a plan that will essentially be ignored by most of the industry."

Bill Wehrum, administrator for EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, acknowledged that the industry "continues to transform in front of our eyes."

"What we see is an ongoing significant shift in the direction of natural gas and renewable energy generation," he told reporters.

Wehrum said that because of the shifting energy landscape, he expected emissions to fall at a rate "roughly comparable" to the goals outlined under the Obama-era plan, which called for a 26 percent cut in greenhouse gases from power plants by 2025, compared to 2005 levels.

According to former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, a leading philanthropist and climate activist, coal is a losing proposition.

"Americans are demanding cleaner air and cheaper, cleaner energy -- and cities, states and businesses are delivering," he said in a statement.

"Wind, solar and other clean energy sources are beating coal in the marketplace, which is benefiting both public health and the economy. That will continue to happen even if the EPA keeps spitting in the wind."
Donald Trumps attorney Rudy Giuliani has attempted to clarify his truth isnt truth comment, made as he attempted to explain why the US president should not testify for special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian election meddling.

Taking to Twitter, the former New York City mayor wrote: My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology, but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic he said, she said puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesnt.

Mr Giuliani was widely mocked after his appearance on NBCs Meet the Press when he said he was not going to be rushed in having Mr Trump testify before Mr Mueller so he gets trapped into perjury.

The special counsel is leading the investigation into alleged collusion between Mr Trumps 2016 campaign team and Russian officials.

The president has said he is willing to speak with Mr Muellers team for an interview, while denying any collaboration with Moscow and repeatedly attacking the probe as illegitimate.

His legal team have prevented him from doing so because they believe the special counsels investigators could take what Mr Trump says, if it differs from what others have laid out, as a lie.

Asked about the probe by Meet the Press host Chuck Todd, Mr Guiliani said: Look, I am not going to be rushed into having [Donald Trump] testify so that he gets trapped into perjury. And when you tell me that, you know, he should testify because hes going to tell the truth and he shouldnt worry, well thats so silly because its somebodys version of the truth. Not the truth.

My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic he said,she said puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesnt.  Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) August 20, 2018

Mr Todd replied: Truth is truth.

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But Mr Giuliani insisted: No, it isnt truth. Truth isnt truth. The president of the United States says, I didnt 

Mr Todd said: Truth isnt truth?

Mr Giuliani responded: No, no.

Putting his hand to his forehead, Mr Todd said: This is going to become a bad meme.

Mr Giuliani was widely mocked on social media for the comments. Preet Bharara, a Democrat who was fired as federal prosecutor by the Trump administration, suggested truth isnt truth would not sound convincing in a trial.

His comments came after a jury retired to reach a verdict in the first trial resulting from the Russia investigation. Mr Trumps former campaign manager Paul Manafort is accused of 18 counts of tax evasion and bank fraud. The jury is currently on its fourth day of deliberations.

Former campaign deputy Rick Gates has already pleaded guilty to similar counts of fraud and lying to the FBI, respectively, while former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and campaign foreign affairs aide George Papadopoulos have also pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the course of the investigation.

In previous comments, Mr Giuliani suggested collusion with Russia is not necessarily a crime.
Donald Trump has insisted he never discussed or thought of denying predecessor Barack Obama access to intelligence briefings.

Fake news reports claiming I was going to cut off the Democratic former presidents access to sensitive information were not true, Mr Trump said.

The claim was made in a New Yorker story which reported that it was the president's advisers who had urged the revocation of Mr Obamas clearance.

Mr Trump made the decision not to exclude his predecessor following further counsel from HR McMaster, his then-national security adviser, the magazine reported.

Mr Trump tweeted on Tuesday: Fake News, of which there is soooo much (this time the very tired New Yorker) falsely reported that I was going to take the extraordinary step of denying Intelligence Briefings to President Obama. Never discussed or thought of!

The unnamed advisers, described by the New Yorker as the presidents most fervent supporters, were said to have considered Obama-era officials a powerful threat to his authority.

It comes after the Republican blocked John Brennan, the former CIA chief, from receiving classified briefings following his strident criticism of the administration.

The White House said it was considering extending the ban to other former government officials including James Comey, the FBI director fired by Mr Trump last year, and James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence.

Philip Mudd, a former CIA analyst, also appeared at risk of losing his clearance after Mr Trump took exception to his performance during a television debate.

Just watched former Intelligence Official Phillip Mudd become totally unglued and weird while debating wonderful @PARISDENNARD over Brennans Security Clearance. Dennard destroyed him but Mudd is in no mental condition to have such a Clearance. Should be REVOKED? @seanhannity, the president tweeted late on Monday.

Former high-ranking government employees, including presidents, retain a level of security clearance after they leave public service. Sensitive information can be shared with them so the government can continue to benefit from their advice, according to Michael Morell, a former acting CIA director.

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Its not just a courtesy, he told CBS News. Its to benefit the government. So, for example, I go into CIA regularly and I help them think through issues, I talk to people, Im there to assist in any variety of ways. I also serve on a government commission that I could not serve on without having my clearances.

Mr Brennan has been outspoken in his criticism of Mr Trump, making repeated accusations of treasonous behaviour by the Republican following his appearance alongside Russian president Vladimir Putin last month.

His statements against the president began just days into his tenure, when Mr Trump gave what the former intelligence chief called a despicable display of self-aggrandisement at CIA headquarters.

Mr Trump had made reference to the size of the crowd at his inauguration  an immediate and atmosphere-defining talking point for his administration  and criticised journalists as dishonest human beings while speaking in front of a memorial wall to slain agents.

After he was shut out of intelligence briefings Mr Brennan indicated he might sue the president over his egregious decision. I am going to do whatever I can to try and prevent these abuses occurring in the future and if that means going to court I will do that, he said on NBCs Meet the Press.

Former national intelligence director James Clapper, also a Trump critic, admitted on Sunday he thought Mr Brennan had sometimes gone too far in his opposition to the president.

The common denominator among all of us that have been speaking up, though, is genuine concern about the jeopardy or threats to our institutions and values, he told CNNs State of the Union programme, adding: But John and his rhetoric have become, I think, an issue in and of itself.
Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump on Sunday angrily denounced the federal probe of Russia's 2016 election meddling as "McCarthyism at its WORST!," as he slammed a report that the White House counsel had given investigators detailed testimony about the president's actions at key moments now under scrutiny.

In a series of early morning tweets, Trump said White House counsel Don McGahn and other aides had been encouraged to be fully transparent in their testimony to Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of an effort to bring the Russia matter to a quick close.

But he fumed at the suggestion in a front-page New York Times report that McGahn had cooperated fully to protect himself from legal jeopardy, giving Mueller's team more than the president was aware of in 30 hours of testimony over the past nine months.

Calling the story a "Fake piece," Trump seemed particularly incensed at the suggestion that McGahn could be a "RAT" like John Dean, the former White House counsel who testified against Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.

"The Failing New York Times wrote a story that made it seem like the White House Councel [sic] had TURNED on the President, when in fact it is just the opposite - & the two Fake reporters knew this. This is why the Fake News Media has become the Enemy of the People. So bad for America!" he said.

Mueller is investigating whether the president sought to obstruct justice as well as whether his campaign colluded with Russia's covert effort to sway the 2016 presidential election in Trump's favor.

"I have nothing to hide ... and have demanded transparency so that this Rigged and Disgusting Witch Hunt can come to a close," Trump tweeted.

"So many lives have been ruined over nothing - McCarthyism at its WORST!"

In another tweet, he declared: "Study the late Joseph McCarthy, because we are now in period with Mueller and his gang that make Joseph McCarthy look like a baby! Rigged Witch Hunt!"

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- 'Desperate' -

The Times said McGahn had laid out for investigators Trump's fury over the probe -- and the ways in which he asked McGahn to respond to it.

Among the episodes he testified to were Trump's firing of former FBI director James Comey, and his obsession with putting a loyalist in charge of the probe, according to the Times. It noted that McGahn played a key role in stopping Trump from firing Mueller, who was made special counsel after Comey's firing.

Trump's lawyer, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, said he had not debriefed McGahn on his testimony but that the former head of the president's legal team, John Dowd, had told him the White House counsel was "a strong witness for the president."

"The president encouraged him to testify, is happy that he did, is quite secure that there is nothing in the testimony that will hurt the president," Giuliani said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"So I believe this is a desperate special counsel who leaked this to The New York Times."

Giuliani however acknowledged that if the leak didn't come from Mueller, it may have come from McGahn.

The Times report cited a dozen unnamed current and former White House officials and "others briefed on the matter."

- 'Off base' -

The president's latest outburst against the Mueller probe comes amid a separate uproar over the president's use of security clearances to punish his critics, which also has evoked comparisons to McCarthyism.

Former senior intelligence officials have spoken out in newspaper editorial pages, on television and in petitions since Trump stripped former CIA chief John Brennan of his security clearance last week.

Brennan, who has called Trump's behavior toward Russia "treasonous" and doubled down on that assessment Sunday, has discomfited even some of his supporters with the intensity of his criticism.

But James Clapper -- the former director of national intelligence, who said Brennan was "subtle like a freight train" -- insisted on CNN that the use of security clearance to quash criticism was damaging to US institutions.

"Doing this would be really off base," agreed retired admiral Michael Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was speaking on "Fox News Sunday."

Michael Hayden, a former CIA director who was warned by the White House that he too risked losing his security clearance, warned on CNN that Trump's relationship with the intelligence community is "dangerously close to being permanently broken."
Plan would boost output from coal-fired plants and lead to as many as 1,400 premature deaths a year

The Trump administrations plan has been called a disaster for public health and the climate. Photograph: J David Ake/AP

The Trump administration has put forward a greenhouse gas emissions plan that could boost output from coal-fired power plants rather than push them towards closure and result in as many as 1,400 premature deaths each year.

Amid outcry from activists and a promise to sue from the attorney general of New York, one prominent environmentalist called the plan a disaster for public health and the climate.

The proposal, crafted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), dismantles Barack Obamas signature climate change policy and replaces it with a system that relies on states to come up with ways to make power plants more efficient.

The era of top-down, one-size-fits-all federal mandates is over, said Andrew Wheeler, acting EPA administrator.

The new approach is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by up to 1.5% by 2030, the EPA said, should all states implement effective plans.

That is well below the 32% reduction target by 2030, from 2005 levels, set by Obamas clean power plan. The Trump administration said the reductions would be comparable due to changes in the energy market.

Easing the pressure on industry will bolster coals fortunes over the next decade, compared with the clean power plan, as well as slightly reducing electricity prices.

It will also result in the release of more soot and smog-forming chemicals that will kill up to 1,400 Americans a year by 2030, EPA documents show. It will also cause an extra 40,000 cases of worsening asthma and 60,000 lost school days by 2030.

An analysis by the EPA last year showed the clean power plan would prevent about 4,500 premature deaths a year by 2030.

Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, said there were very aggressive programs to ensure Americans are not harmed by air pollution, adding that the Obama policy was an overreach that exceeded EPA authority.

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Environmentalists immediately called the new plan the dirty power scam. Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, said: Trumps latest scheme to bail out the coal industry is a disaster for public health and the climate.

The clean power plan set the first national US pollution limits on coal plants but has never come into force, after a coalition of states challenged it in court. In 2016, the US supreme court paused the plan ahead of legal arguments.

The plan was the centerpiece in an effort to lower emissions and help meet international climate change goals set out in the Paris agreement, which Trump has pledged to leave.

Barbara Underwood, attorney general of New York, promised to sue the federal government should the new EPA plan be enacted.

Climate change is real, no matter how much this administration tries to deny it, she said. We need strong, immediate action to drastically cut climate change pollution and promote affordable, clean and sustainable energy  not foot dragging and backtracking that seeks to prop up dirty, expensive power plants.

The new plan would put the health of all Americans at risk, and especially those who are most vulnerable, including children, older adults and people with asthma and heart disease, said Harold Wimmer, president of the American Lung Association.

The coal industry welcomed the move, which follows attempts by the Trump administration to pare back emissions standards for vehicles and throw open more of Americas lands and waters to mining and drilling.

Hal Quinn, president of the National Mining Association, said: The policy put forward by the previous administration was an illegal attempt to impose a political agenda on the countrys power system.
Bangui (Central African Republic) (AFP) - Turkey is ramping up pressure worldwide to shut down schools close to a network that it accuses of terrorism.

But it is facing unusual resistance in the Central African Republic (CAR), one of the poorest and most vulnerable countries in the world.

The Galaxy school, in the capital Bangui, is close to Hizmet, the group run by US-based Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen, whose supporters say he promotes a progressive form of Islam.

But Turkey blames Gulen for the attempted coup in 2016 against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It has vowed to root out his influence, at home and abroad.

Its intelligence agency MIT has staged several operations, whose nature remains mysterious, to "bring back" suspects as far afield as Kosovo, Ukraine and Gabon, where three Turks working in education were apprehended in April.

"We will never allow these vile people to walk freely," Erdogan said after the Gabon operation.

As a result, the Turkish headmaster of the Galaxy school is living as a fugitive and an exile.

"On July 15, 2016, they named me personally as belonging to the Gulen movement," said the headmaster during a tour of the premises, who asked to be identified by the pseudonym "Emre" to avoid any repercussions for his family back home.

"We're accused of being a terrorist group when what we are doing is education and humanitarian work," he said.

The school boasts equipment worthy of a well-funded facility in Europe -- a modern digital smart board and a video projector, as well as a classroom devoted to information technology.

The school, which also has playing fields and a canteen, is private. And with fees just over 100 euros ($115) per month, it caters mostly to the upper classes.

The rate of pupils passing the high school exam stands at 83 percent, compared with a national average of 12 percent. The Islamic component in its curriculum is very small, although students can ask to have additional classes.

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- 17 African nations closed schools -

Turkey's efforts have brought about the closure of such schools in at least 17 African countries -- which have either been nationalised or taken over by the Maarif foundation that is close to the authorities in Ankara.

Given CAR's vulnerability, the survival of the Galaxy school so far appears remarkable. The country has been ravaged by rival armed groups and bandit gangs since 2013, ranking last of the 188 countries in the UN's 2016 Human Development Index.

CAR's institutions of state are feeble and the country has the entrenched reputation of being a place where pretty much anything can be bought. It ranked 156th out of 180 countries in Transparency International's 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index.

For one staff member at the school, "the Central Africans have upheld their dignity", in being a country that has not ceded to Turkish pressure.

Jean Serge Bokassa, a former minister of security and territorial administration, said Turkish diplomats visited him in March last year, dangling a mixture of "verbal intimidation and promises" if he conceded to Ankara's demands.

A second minister said he too was approached and offered "presents" and trips to Turkey.

"I told them, 'If you want to help us, build an establishment instead of closing one down'," that minister said.

"They said that if I accepted, I wouldn't regret it."

- No diplomatic ties -

The school's survival "is above all because there is no Turkish embassy in the country, with few economic and diplomatic ties," according to an expert in the case.

"Moreover, the management of the school has very good relations with the government -- the deputy director is the prime minister's wife -- and the academic level is very high."

Although Bokassa says he is a political foe of President Faustin-Archange Touadera, he commends him for standing firm against Ankara.

"For the moment, I'm delighted that the president has conceded nothing."
By David Lawder and Sharay Angulo WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and Mexican officials put off until Wednesday talks aiming for a breakthrough in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), although one member of the incoming Mexican government met U.S. officials on Tuesday. Ministerial talks had been expected on Tuesday, but Mexico's top trade official, Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, would not meet with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in Washington until Wednesday, the Mexican ministry said. Instead, Jesus Seade, designated chief negotiator of Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador - who is due to take power in December - met Lighthizer. Seade said as he entered the talks that the teams were making "good progress" and "coming to the end" of their discussions. U.S. and Mexican officials have indicated they will push for a deal on reworking rules for the automotive sector that could open the door for Canada to return to negotiations as soon as this week. Since restarting last month, talks have focused on ironing out differences between Mexico and the United States which cut to the heart of U.S. President Donald Trump's gripe with NAFTA: that it has hollowed out U.S. manufacturing to Mexico's benefit. Trump has threatened to withdraw from NAFTA if it is not reworked to his satisfaction, hoping to claw back jobs and reduce the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico. Talks to rework the 24-year-old accord that underpins the bulk of foreign trade in North America have ground on for more than a year, and stalled ahead of the July 1 Mexican election as negotiators failed to make a decisive breakthrough. Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner also attended the talks with Seade on Tuesday. Kushner has been a regular participant in the NAFTA discussions. Seade, a former deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization, has referred to Lighthizer as a friend he has known for years, and said that the two have a "very good relationship." Leaving Lighthizer's offices, Seade said there was "no special reason" for his meeting and that he was supporting the government's negotiation. (Reporting by David Lawder, Sharay Angulo and Timothy Aeppel; writing & additional reporting by Anthony Esposito in Mexico City; editing by James Dalgleish and Rosalba O'Brien)
Moscow (AFP) - Western governments and activists on Tuesday stepped up pressure on Russia to free jailed Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov as he reached day 100 of a hunger strike.

Ten protesters were also arrested by Russian police in Moscow on Tuesday in a demonstration to show support for Sentsov, according to the independent monitor OVD-Info.

The 42-year-old Kremlin opponent was arrested in Crimea after Moscow's 2014 annexation of the peninsula and has been languishing in a Russian Artic prison with little hope of release.

He announced the hunger strike in May demanding the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners being held in Russia.

Sentsov's cousin Natalia Kaplan was among several dozen people demonstrating in front of the Russian embassy in Kiev Tuesday.

Sentsov "does not intend to give up his strike, nor ask (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to pardon him," she told protesters, some of whom were carrying signs that read "Free Sentsov" and "Stop Putin".

"Oleg is hanging in there... He is not broken," she added.

But in an interview with AFP last week, Kaplan painted a gloomy picture of her relative's health and state of mind.

"He wrote to me that we mustn't tell him any more that freedom is coming. He doesn't believe it any more," she said.

"He has a very weak heartbeat of 40 beats per minute. He complains that his heart hurts, that he's weak, and he tries to not get up too often to preserve his strength."

- 'Could die any minute' -

In the Czech Republic, filmmakers said they were launching a rotating hunger strike in solidarity with the director.

The French newspaper Le Monde carried a plea signed by dozens of figures from the world of culture calling for his release, saying "Oleg Sentsov could die any minute".

Ukrainian foreign ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa also demanded that Sentsov be freed.

"We call on our partners and international organisations to increase pressure on Russia to #SaveOlegSentsov and free Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia," she wrote on Twitter.

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The father of two is receiving supplements in a drip usually meant for people who are unable to eat.

Russian rights ombudswoman Tatiana Moskalkova said doctors had found that Sentsov's condition was "satisfactory", adding "he moves, gets up, and gets a special diet".

She also said Sentsov could not be part of a prisoner-swap with Ukraine because he was automatically given Russian nationality when Crimea was annexed.

"We must look for a new legal way" for such an exchange, she said.

Vice speaker of the Ukrainian parliament Iryna Gerashchenko called the statements a "farce" and "blackmail", saying the only thing needed to free Sentsov was "Putin's political will".

Sentsov was convicted of planning arson attacks on pro-Moscow party offices in Crimea after Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

He had also taken part in the Maidan protests in Kiev during the winter of 2013-2014 that culminated in Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovych fleeing the country.

- 'Stalinist' trial -

Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for terrorism and arms trafficking after a trial denounced as "Stalinist" by Amnesty International and criticised by Kiev, the EU and the US.

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Tuesday said the US was "deeply concerned" by Sentsov's deteriorating health, adding: "We renew our demand that Russia immediately release him and all Ukrainian citizens unlawfully imprisoned in Russia and on the Crimean peninsula."

"His conviction on charges of plotting terrorist acts is widely regarded to be without merit and a cynical reprisal for his opposition to Russia's occupation of Crimea."

British junior foreign minister Alan Duncan said Tuesday the charges against Sentsov had been "fabricated," adding: "No one should be imprisoned for opposing the illegal annexation of Crimea."

Journalist and activist Zoya Svetova said the prisoner told her during a visit last week he had lost 17 kilograms (38 pounds), while prison medics said he had lost 11.

Sentsov was working on his second film when he was arrested. His first film "Gamer" is about a young video game player, and was shown at several European festivals in 2012.

G7 ambassadors as well as major figures from the world of cinema, from director Jean-Luc Godard to Hollywood star Johnny Depp, have previously called for Sentsov's release.

The Kremlin has so far remained unresponsive to requests for him to be freed, saying that a request for a pardon can only be filed by the prisoner himself, which Sentsov has refused to do.

In a rare public intervention on the subject in early June, Putin showed little sympathy towards Sentsov's plight.

Sentsov was arrested because "he was planning a terrorist attack" rather than because of opposition or artistic activities, the Russian president said.

burs-ia/mtp
Washington (AFP) - The US Navy is sending a hospital ship to Colombia on a mission to assist in the humanitarian crisis in neighboring Venezuela, a defense official said Tuesday.

The USNS Comfort hospital ship "will return to South America this fall," Pentagon spokeswoman Commander Sarah Higgins said.

"We are working the details in close coordination with our Colombian partners."

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, while on a trip to South America last week, said the deployment is "an effort to deal with the human cost of (Venezuelan President Nicolas) Maduro, and his increasingly isolated regime."

"This is a very specific effort to try to help our neighbors, who are doing their best, I think, to help these refugees," he added.

According to Pentagon spokesman Colonel Rob Manning, the hospital ship will provide life-saving treatment and medical care to thousands of people.

"Our service members and medical professionals, doctors and nurses, will work alongside regional partners to support ongoing humanitarian response efforts to include addressing the impact of the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis," he said.

The mission marks the sixth hospital ship deployment to the region since 2007.

The United Nations estimates that 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled an economic and political crisis looking for work and to escape poverty, and Colombia has given temporary residence to more than 800,000 Venezuelans.
Washington (AFP) - US prisoners on Tuesday declared a nationwide strike demanding changes to correctional institutions including living conditions, pathways to parole and voting rights restoration.

The US incarceration rate is the world's highest: about 2.2 million people were behind bars at the end of 2016, a figure the American Civil Liberties Union says represents approximately one-fifth of the global population of prisoners.

The strike -- set to continue through September 9, according to organizers -- was called in response to a deadly riot in April at a maximum security prison in South Carolina, Lee Correctional Institution.

"Seven comrades lost their lives during a senseless uprising that could have been avoided had the prison not been so overcrowded from the greed wrought by mass incarceration, and a lack of respect for human life that is embedded in our nation's penal ideology," the group of incarcerated prison rights advocates leading the strike said.

"These men and women are demanding humane living conditions, access to rehabilitation, sentencing reform and the end of modern day slavery," the group, known as Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, said in a statement.

Organizers throughout the United States advised inmates to engage in peaceful sit-ins, hunger strikes and work stoppages.

Low remuneration for prisoners put to work at jobs like cooking and cleaning is high on the list of grievances released by organizers, who dubbed the practice "slavery."

Udi Ofer, who leads the ACLU Campaign for Smart Justice, praised the strikers and backed their 10 demands, particularly the right to vote for felons and prisoners.

Felon enfranchisement laws vary state by state, but in many places inmates lose voting rights for a period while incarcerated, and sometimes after release as well.

"Our country is stronger when people most marginalized and directly impacted by unjust policies raise their voices in protest and demand a different future," Ofer said in a statement. "The courageous people who are bringing focused attention to America's system of mass incarceration through the Nationwide Prison Strike deserve our admiration."

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"We urge corrections officials not to respond with retaliation," he added.

"Peaceful demonstrations challenging unjust conditions and practices do not merit placing participants into solitary confinement or adding time to their sentences."

In 2016, inmates responded to a similar call to action, with prisoners striking in states including Florida, Alabama, Texas and South Carolina.
This is the shocking moment the Genoa bridge collapsed in on itself, killing 43 people and sending tonnes of concrete hurtling to the ground.

The newly-released clip shows the exact moment that the Morandi bridge dramatically gave way during a heavy thunderstorm in the Italian port town.

Without warning, the structure can be seen collapsing as cars speed along the road, sending clouds of dust into the air.

CCTV footage shows the moment the Morandi bridge collapsed in Genoa (AP)

Debris lies scattered on the floor after the bridge collapsed (AP)

Another view appears to show a man running from the storm shortly before slabs of concrete fell to the ground above him.

A large section of the Morandi Bridge collapsed on August 14 during the heavy downpour, killing 43 people and forcing the evacuation of more than 600 others living in apartment buildings beneath another section of the bridge.

While an investigation into the cause of the collapse is taking place, it has now emerged the engineers said in February that corrosion of the metal cables supporting the bridge had reduced the its strength by 20%.

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Despite the findings, the Italian magazine Espresso wrote that neither the ministry, nor the highway company, ever considered it necessary to limit traffic, divert heavy trucks, reduce the roadway from two to one lanes or reduce the speed of vehicles.

Former transport minister Graziano Delrio told a news conference that no-one ever signalled the necessity of limiting traffic on the bridge.

Prosecutors are focusing their investigation into the cause of the bridges collapse on possible faulty maintenance or design flaws.

Experts knew that the bridge had weakened, according to a report (AP)

The work to repair the bridge will reportedly take eight months (AP)

Work is continuing to clear tonnes of bridge debris that cascaded onto a dry riverbed below (AP)

After workers heard creaking noises coming from the part of the bridge that was still standing, firefighters suspended an operation to allow evacuated residents to retrieve their belongings from apartments under the bridge.

Officials have ruled out that the sound could be caused by wind, and more checks are now under way.

Work is continuing to clear tonnes of bridge debris that cascaded onto a dry riverbed below.
For some time, many members of Catholic Church may have believed that the worst of the clerical abuse crisis was in the past. This certainly has been the Churchs intent, at least in word. But now the spotlight has returned, with the grand jury report from six Pennsylvania dioceses, which found from 70 years of documents that over 300 priests abused more than 1,000 victims  in addition to scandals involving the former Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, D.C., in the U.K., Australia, Peru and Chile, and on the verge of papal visit to Ireland, which suffered some of the worst of the worldwide priestly abuse. The head of the United Sates bishops conference has appealed to the Vatican for external assistance in conducting a blanket investigation into the continued blight of the clerical abuse crisis across the U.S.

We already know that one root cause is the failure of episcopal leadership, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo stated. The result was that scores of beloved children of God were abandoned to face an abuse of power alone. This is a moral catastrophe. While DiNardo is right about the catastrophe, his solution does not go far enough.

Pope Francis set out to make tackling he abuse crisis one of his foremost priorities upon election in 2013, significantly breaking with his two immediate predecessors. Having previously advocated a policy of zero-tolerance to clerical abuse as archbishop in Buenos Aries, he continued with the same resolve as the Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pontiff across the worlds Catholics. He quickly established a papal commission in 2014 to explore the whole range of factors and issues pertaining to the abuse crisis and to establish policies to ensure it is a stain of social sin that is removed from the church as far as possible once and for all.

And yet something went wrong. As that commissions work unfolded, it met roadblocks from within the Vatican itself. Its own recommendations were not being implemented, and communications by victims to leading Vatican departments were being ignored. It was denied vital resources to carry out its work. Irishwoman Marie Collins, a prominent survivor and member of the commission eventually resigned in protest. All of this happened before Peru and Chile and the latest U.S. revelations. Francis himself made a startling error in defending one of the Chilean bishops before perhaps knowing the full facts.

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The root and branch changes needed by the church  establishing genuine checks and balances, along with processes of accountability, transparency and truthfulness  have thus still yet to take place. And the suspicion lingers in many countries that even the child-protection processes introduced are part smokescreen used by the Church to be seen as if it were doing something, part insurance requirements and part forced upon the church by secular authorities. In all too many instances, it at times appeared as if the situation was being tackled as an issue of media crisis-management first and foremost.

It was also not a coincidence that bishops who lived continents apart, independently and in ignorance of one another, settled upon exactly the same shameful modus operandi in the face of abusive priests. This happened because guidelines on the very issue of abuse issued by Rome in 2001, 1962 and 1922 demanded secrecy as a matter of course. It was policy to keep the activities of abuser priests and members of religious orders from coming to light in the public domain. That policy was central to an institutional culture of putting the institutions reputation above the welfare of its members and the victims of its ministers. That culture still lingers within too many bishops worldwide and even amongst some Vatican officials.

This is the problem with Cardinal DiNardo asking the Vatican to come and investigate the U.S. Catholic Church. At the core of the cover-ups lie policies that were rolled out worldwide by previous Vatican administrative departments and officials themselves  and are still, it would seem, defended by some in Rome as elsewhere. If the Vaticans own papal commission on these issues has floundered amidst resignations, then there are clearly still deep-seated institutional malaises at the churchs core, of which the abuse crisis is but sadly an acute symptom. Those potentially infected by a morally malignant institutional culture are not best suited to investigate the same failings elsewhere. The church itself has a term for this, it is social sin.

This is not simply a series of individual moral failings. It is a crisis of moral corrosion and corruption embedded into the church. Values and virtues have become suppressed  even by those who teach and promote them. For instance, earlier this year, the U.S. bishops yet again resisted calls for greater episcopal accountability, a resistance witnessed all too prevalently throughout the church elsewhere.

Cardinal DiNardo spoke of rebuilding trust. To such an end, as a beginning, there would be no better and more effective step than for the U.S. bishops to do what they should have done over 15 years ago: make a collective public act of repentance and then resign en masse, as those of Chile did in the wake of their own revelations in May. This would help allow fully transparent investigations that have independent authority to proceed so that it can be determined which bishops resignations are best accepted and which bishops have proved to be beyond reproach in fighting the culture of secrecy and moral bankruptcy.

And if they dont do this on their own, Pope Francis should demand it. He should then overhaul the papal commission investigating the abuse crisis, appointing independent lay leadership that will in turn  independently  appoint all additional members. Clerics wont end the pernicious culture of clericalism that has allowed this crisis to persist and for bishops to evade responsibility and accountability across so many decades.

The pontiffs Aug. 20 letter denouncing the moral failings of the cover-ups once again and pledging solidarity in taking the side of the victims is very welcome. What he states about transforming ecclesial culture is a call, in effect, to dismantle the churchs centralized hierarchical system of governance and for the greater participation of all the faithful in transforming the church for the better. It is what so many people have been asking for across many decades now.

But, with the greatest respect, calling for prayer and fasting in response to this grave crisis, as the pope also did, is not sufficient. Words are not enough and never have been enough. The Church is bound by its own social and moral teachings to do so much more. The time has come for radical action.

Only if the church can openly own its own faults, and address its institutional, structural and organizational failings, can it genuinely begin to truly bear testimony to the gospel. The church will and should be judged by its own standards within, as much as what it does to promote justice without.

Pope Francis opened and closed his letter by quoting Pauls First Letter to the Corinthians. But Paul, in that letter, also denounced church leaders who were so bound up with their own self-importance  and the morally corrupt ways of the world  that they neglected the gospel. We have witnessed such arrogance all too often in response to the abuse crisis. Let that come to an end now.




A woman trying to protect her dog has been killed by an alligator after it pulled her into a lagoon.

Cassandra Cline, 45, of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, was walking the dog in a residential area of the private Sea Pines Resort when she was attacked, officials said.

The 8ft alligator was later found and put down, Sam Chappalear of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources told the Island Packet newspaper.

It appears the alligator went after her dog and she tried to protect it, Mr Chappalear said.

Police take pictures of the site where a woman was killed by an alligator (Picture: AP)

The dog was unharmed after the attack.

Captain Robert McCullough of the Department of Natural Resources said: Its common practice when we have an aggressive alligator like that, we put it down, but it will take some take some time to confirm its the right alligator.

Alligator attacks on humans are extremely rare, Mr Lucas added.

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Blake Smith, 34, was leaving his house when he saw police cars and fire engines in the neighbourhood.

I waited for about 30 minutes, then I started hearing rumours about what happened down the road from here, he told the newspaper.

Its odd because this is the first time weve heard about an aggressive alligator around a human in the five years that weve been living here.

Mr Smith said alligators had been spotted in yards or pools, but Sea Pines had quickly removed them.

An alligator pictured in the Florida Everglades (Picture: Rex)

Cassandra Cline was dragged into a lagoon by an alligator and killed while trying to save her dog in South Carolina (Picture: AP)

They do a good job. This is just a sad incident, he said. I have a young son, so its kind of concerning to see something like this could happen.

Sea Pines said in a statement that it is working with authorities to ensure necessary access to the site while the investigation is under way.

Since 1976, there have only been about 20 alligator attacks on people in South Carolina. Until 2016, none of the attacks had been fatal.

In 2016, a 90-year-old woman wandered away from a Charleston care home and was found dead in a pond.
On Monday, a 1998 memo written by Brett Kavanaugh was released in full by the National Archives, and it reveals sexually explicit questions proposed for President Bill Clinton about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Kavanaugh is President Trumps Supreme Court nominee and worked for Ken Starr, the independent counsel who investigated a series of scandals during Clintons presidency. The memo sheds light on Kavanaughs outlook on presidential power, and reveals he was strongly opposed to giving Clinton any break in questioning.

His memo took a hard-line approach: The President has disgraced his Office, the legal system, and the American people by having sex with a 22-year-old intern and turning her life into a shambles  callous and disgusting behavior that has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle.

During preparation for questioning Clinton, Kavanaugh wrote the memo to urge prosecutors to ask graphic questions about Clintons relationship with Lewinsky.

The shocking questions in the memo include: If Monica Lewinsky says that you inserted a cigar into her vagina while you were in the Oval Office area, would she be lying? and If Monica Lewinsky says that you ejaculated into her mouth on two occasions in the Oval Office area, would she be lying?

The Washington Post said Kavanaughs spokesman and the White House declined to comment on the memo. It also said Robert Bittman, a former Starr deputy, remembers Kavanaugh regretted the tone of the memo and recognized it as a misstep.

Next month, Kavanaugh will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justice. If hes confirmed, his view on executive power could be relevant if hes asked to rule on matters related to special counsel Robert Muellers investigation of the Trump campaign.
Presidents, prime ministers, ambassadors and ministers will be asked to participate in an online campaign against anti-Semitism which is being initiated by the Israeli delegation to the United Nations.

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The 73rd United Nations General Assembly meeting is scheduled to take place in New York next month, between September 25-28, where the Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon will launch an online campaign against anti-Semitism.





Danny Danon (Credit: UNTV)

The campaign will include slogans such as: united against anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism has no place in our world, we were not born to hate, and make your voice heard against anti-Semitism.

A kiosk will be erected at the entrance to the UN building and Ambassador Danon will ask world leaders to stop by and be photographed or videoed next to one of the campaign's slogans on display.

Antonio Guterres (Photo: AFP)

The photos and videos will be publicized on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag: #No2Antisemitism. World leaders will also be able to share the media on their own social network profiles.

The Israeli delegation enlisted the US, Canada and the EU countries to participate in the campaign and issued a general invitation for all UN member states to attend. An invitation was also sent to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and world leaders.

Israel and the Jews are still a target of anti-Semitism under the guise of anti-Zionism, said Ambassador Danon. We must act with all our resources to combat modern anti-Semitism in order to guarantee the security of the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora.

The campaign is part of Israeli hasbara (PR) efforts in the world and allows world leaders to convey an important message against anti-Semitism to their millions of social media followers."

Alongside the campaign, an event discussing combating anti-Semitism will also take place at the UN with the participation of the secretary general and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Police announced on Tuesday morning that an investigation will be launched into suspected violations of terms imposed on the funeral of a terrorist Ahmad Muhammad Mahamid, who was shot dead on Friday while attempting to carry out a stabbing attack on a police officer in Jerusalem

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As part of the terms, police placed a restriction of 150 on the number of people permitted to attend the funeral, but 1,500 showed up to the procession, which was also marked by the launching of fireworks.

Crowds chant through the street during funeral

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As a result, the police said that they will demand NIS 50,000 from the terrorists family.



As part of keeping the peace for the public and ensuring its security, and in order to guarantee public order, the Israel Police decided, in accordance with the law, on conditions that allow for transferring the body of the terrorist to his family to conduct a funeral in Umm al-Fahm, a police statement read.

As mentioned, the terms of the order, which were set up by the police, were allegedly violated illegally last night after many hundreds participated in violation of the order that defined and delineated the funeral times, the route through which his body was carried, the number of participants (up to 150 family members) and so forth.

The statement went on to say that the conditions for holding the funeral were decided upon by the police with the family and not as part of a judicial process involving the High Court of Justice or negotiations with advocacy groups representing the family.

Due to a failure to implement the terms, the police opened an investigation on suspicion of non-compliance and breach of an order and shall act to take the monetary deposit, in accordance with the provisions of the Law, the statement concluded.

Israel transferred 30-year-old Mahamids body to his family at 1:30am and fireworks were immediately launched in honor of the occasion.

During the funeral procession, participants called out slogans such as: We will sacrifice our lives for the shahid (martyr) and the hero."

Ahmad Muhammad Mahamid

Israel often sets conditions and restrictions on the funerals of terrorists to avoid processions descending into incitement gatherings, as they have done in the past.

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman also addressed the events of the funeral. You ask yourselves why Umm al-Fahm should be part of Palestine and not Israel? The sight of hundreds of people participating in the funeral of a terrorist with a Palestinian flag, and calling for in spirit and blood we redeem the martyr gives you a final answer to the question, Lieberman said.

The plan which I publicized many years ago for territorial and population swaps is more relevant than ever, he said.

Ali Mahamid, a relative of the terrorist and a resident of Umm al-Fahm, said that the body should have been transferred after he was shot.

The police delayed the transfer in order to torture the family. From our point of view, Ahmad is a hero and a martyr. Today we have Eid al-Adha (Festival of the sacrifices). Now we are even happier after we turned the funeral of a martyr into a dignified and historic procession, Ali said.

Another relative repeated the claim that had been made by the family that Mahamid had a history of mental illness, and had attempted to commit suicide on several occasions in the past.

The police murdered him in cold blood on the spot. Instead of shooting him in the leg, they gave him a field sentence and killed him, the relative said about Mahamid, who had not history of security-related crimes.

In my opinion, a special committee should be established to check the conduct of the police in the field. Yesterday, they murdered Ahmad, tomorrow theyll murder more people.

A day after the attack, Mahamid's family told Ynet that he is not a terrorist but a sick individual with serious mental health issues.

"He suffers from a mental illness and he tried several times to commit suicide. We did not know he was in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday, he never usually goes there, said Ahmads brother Naseem, in an interview.

Three people suspected of involvement in the stabbing were released to house arrest on Tuesday for a week following their hearing on Sunday on the extension of their remand, despite opposition by the police.
US President Donald Trump ruled out on Monday agreeing to any demands from Turkey regarding the release of a detained American pastor and said he was not concerned that his tough stance could end up hurting European and emerging market economies.

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The US president also spoke about a possible second meeting with North Korean leader, and showed little interest in meeting with President of Iran.

In a wide-ranging Oval Office interview with Reuters, Trump said he thought he had a deal with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan when hehelped persuade Israel to free a detained Turkish citizen.

In an article published in the Washington Post last month, Trump was said to have personally asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to release Ebru Ozkan who was suspected of helping Hamas and who had been arrested during a visit to Israel, as part of a secret deal with Turkey to secure the release of Pastor Andrew Brunson.

US President Donald Trump (Photo: Reuters)

Brunson denies Turkey's allegations that he was involved in a plot against Erdogan two years ago.

"I think it's very sad what Turkey is doing. I think they're making a terrible mistake. There will be no concessions," he said.

Turkey has demanded that the United States hand over Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric in the United States suspected in the coup plot against Erdogan, but the United States has balked at this.

Trump has imposed tariffs on imports of Turkish steel and aluminum in response to Erdogan's refusal to free Brunson, raising concerns of economic damage in Europe and in emerging market economies.

Tnesions were further raised on Monday when shots were fired at a security booth outside the US Embassy in Turkey's capital, but US officials said no one was hurt.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan (Photo: Reuters)

Brunson is currently under house arrest after spending more than a year and a half in prison. If convicted, he is facing up to 35 years in prison of espionage and terror-related charges.

Trump said he kept his side of the bargain by asking Israel to release Ozkan.





Ebru Ozkan

The woman, 27, was arrested at Ben Gurion Airport in June for "endangering national security and contacts with terrorist organizations." She was deported on July 15.

"I got that person out for him. I expect him to let this very innocent and wonderful man and great father and great Christian out of Turkey," Trump said.

Trump added: "I like Turkey. I like the people of Turkey very much. Until now I had a very good relationship as you know with the president. But it can't be a one-way street. It's no longer a one-way street for the United States."

The US began imposing tariffs on Turkish imports several days after the agreement failed.

When asked about the potential damage to other economies, the US president replied: 'I'm not concerned at all. I'm not concerned. This is the proper thing to do."

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The dispute threatens to intensify a split between the United States and Turkey, a key NATO ally that plans to buy Russian missiles.

Tump and Russian President Putin (: AFP)

Putin, Trump meeting

The US president drew a barrage of criticism at home and abroad after he stood side by side with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a July 16 summit in Helsinki and cast doubt on his own intelligence agencies' findings that Russia meddled in the 2016 US elections.

In the Reuters interview, he ticked off areas that he discussed privately with Putin, including security for Israel, Syria and Russia's annexation of Crimea and incursion into eastern Ukraine, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany that will supply natural gas to Germany.

Trump said Putin did not raise with him the issue of US sanctions on Russia but that he would consider lifting them if Russia took steps on such areas as Syria or Ukraine.

"I would consider it if they do something that would be good for us. But I wouldn't consider it without that," he said.

Turning to Iran, the American president showed little interest in meeting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to discuss the dispute over Iran's nuclear program after earlier this month expressing a willingness to do so.

"If they want to meet that's fine, and if they don't want to meet, I couldn't care less," he said.

The Iranians, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have dismissed the offer. Trump said it did not matter to him whether he met Iran's leaders and that there had been no US outreach toward Iran to discuss talks.

Trump's withdrawal of the United States from the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers earlier this year has raised tensions between Washington and Tehran.

When asked about North Korea, Trump said that he will "most likely" have a second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and indicated he would consider lifting US sanctions on Russia if Moscow took some actions in return.
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman addressed Tuesday the events of terrorist Ahmad Muhammad Mahamid's funeral who was shot dead in the Old City in Jerusalem on Friday while trying to stab a cop.

You ask ourselves why Umm al-Fahm should be part of Palestine and not Israel? The sight of hundreds of people participating in the funeral of a terrorist with a Palestinian flag, and calling for in spirit and blood we redeem the martyr gives you a final answer to the question, Lieberman said.

The plan which I publicized many years ago for territorial and population swaps is more relevant than ever, he added.
The IDF Military Advocate General (MAG) in the West Bank will appeal a recent court ruling and demand to harshen the conviction terms of terrorist Hamza Faiz, who stabbed Nirit Zmora at Gush Etzion junction in 2015

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Faiz attacked Zmora with a knife, stabbing and seriously wounding her at a parking lot at the Gush Etzion Junction, while shouting "Allahu Akbar."

Faiz convicted of aggravated battery, illegal possession of knife (Photo: Amit Shabi)

Zamora, who had been stabbed in the back, was initially said to be moderately wounded. However, by the time she had been evacuated to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem her condition deteriorated and was defined severe.

An outcry erupted as Faiz's trial commenced in the Ofer Military Court in May after the verdict acquitted the terrorist of attempted murder, and convicted him instead of aggravated battery and of the illegal possession of a knife.

Judges Lt. Col. Zvi Heilbron, Lt. Col. Eti Adar, and Maj. Haim Balilty determining it was not possible to prove Faiz had intended to murder Zmora, and argued he may have only intended to wound her.

Stabbing attack in Gush Etzion

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"There was only one stab. The cases in which the court has convicted a defendant with murder or attempted murder for a sole knife stabeven if the stab caused the victim's deathare rare," the judges explained.

"The reason for that is the difficulty to determine an intention to kill when only one stab had occurred," the judges elucidated.

Last month, Faiz was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Attorney Haim Bleicher from the National Legal Defense Organization, who accompanies Zamora and her family, criticized the decision to not convict Faiz of attempted murder.

The terrorist will have to pay his victim NIS 500,000 in compensation.

Nirit Zmora who was severely wounded during the stabbing attack in Gush Etzion (Photo: Amit Shabi)

"Just seeing the terrorist's smile when he heard the sentence was enough to understand the magnitude of the failure and the lack of deterrence," he exclaimed.

The West Bank's MAG sent the military court an official letter elaborating its intention to appeal the aforementioned sentence, noting it will submit its comprehensive position within a month.
Iran unveiled a new fighter jet on Tuesday, state media reported, as tensions rise between Tehran and regional rivals over conflicts in the Middle East.

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The fighter jet called Kowsar was fully domestic made, capable of carrying various weapons, and will be used for short aerial support missions, Tasnim news agency said.

New Iranian jet unveiled

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State television showed live pictures of a ceremony in Tehran in which the fighter jet flew in the presence of President Hassan Rouhani, a day before the country's National Defense Industry Day.

Rouhani said the Islamic Republic's military prowess was what deterred Washington from attacking it, adding that under President Trump the United States was becoming isolated even from its own allies.

"We should make ourselves ready to fight against the military powers who want to take over our territory and our resources," Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live on state television ahead of Wednesday's National Defence Industry Day.

"Why does the United States not attack us? Because of our power, because it knows the consequences," Rouhani added.

Last week, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also said the United States would avoid any military confrontation with Tehran because of Iranian military might.

Khamenei has rejected Trump's offer of unconditional talks on a new nuclear deal, prompting Trump to tell Reuters in an interview on Monday: "If they want to meet, that's fine, and if they don't want to meet, I couldn't care less.

Rouhani compared the sanctions on Iran with the US trade war with China and its new tariffs on some imports from Turkey and European countries.

"It's not only us who do not trust America. Today even Europe and China do not trust them; even American allies like Canada have lost their trust," he said.

Iran has sent weapons and thousands of soldiers to Syria to prop up President Bashar Assad in the country's seven-year-long civil war. However, due to the lack of a powerful air force Iran asked Russia to provide air power.

Iran's air force has been limited to perhaps a few dozen strike aircraft using either Russian or ageing US models acquired before the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Iran has developed a large domestic arms industry in the face of international sanctions and embargoes that have barred it from importing many weapons

Irans saber rattling is the latest act that could be interpreted by the US and Israel as a deliberate provocation as Washington ratchets up sanctions on Tehran following President Trumps withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in May.

With Iranian support for terror proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria and Houthi rebels in Yemen, the ayatollah-led regime has occupied a prominent spot on the US radar, much to the delight of Irans arch-nemesis, Israel.

On Monday, US National Security Advisor John Bolton said in Jerusalem that preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon is of the 'highest importance' for the US, while decrying the wretched nuclear accord signed under the Obama administration.

I think your analysis of the issues we have to face is right on spot target," said Bolton, who delivered his remarks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a joint press conference in Jerusalem.

In February, Netanyahu said that Israel would act against Iran, not just its allies in the Middle East, if needed, reiterating that Tehran was the world's greatest threat.

PM Netanyahu and John Bolton (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

Holding a piece of what he said was an Iranian drone after its incursion into Israeli airspace earlier that month, Netanyahu told the Munich Security Conference: "Israel will not allow the regime to put a noose of terror around our neck."

"We will act if necessary not just against Iran's proxies but against Iran itself," he said, listing the threats that Tehran poses to Israel and the world.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday the country had to develop its military forces to prevent other states taking over its territory and resources.

"We should make ourselves ready to fight against the military powers who want to take over our territory and our resources," Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live on state television on National Defence Industry Day.

Rouhani also said that the United States is not be trusted by Iran, its allies, or Europe.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that the United States does not dare to attack Iran as it is aware of the Islamic Republic's military power and the high price of conflict.

"Why the United States does not attack us? Because of our power, because it knows ...its consequences," Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live on state television.
MK Ahmad Tibi (Joint List) referred Tuesday to the funeral of the terrorist from Umm al-Fahm who tried to stab a police officer: "The police's attitude to the body is outrageous. More people attend funerals, because of the police's attempt to humiliate the dead, his family, and his town."

"In order for there to be no more Shaheedssomene should stop shooting them. Most Palestinians and Arabs who die were killed because of the occupation," Tibi said in a Ynet interview.
The Military Advocate General's Office announced on Tuesday that the IDF will launch the first two criminal investigations into the Gaza border fence's incidents.

The first incident took place in March and involves a Palestinian demonstrator , who, according to Palestinians, was shot by the IDF while running towards the Strip.

The second, relates to a June incident in which a 16-year-old Palestinian boy was shot near the fence by a Givati force.

The probe will be led by Brig. Gen. Moti Baruch, who examined the Gaza border incidents.
An edifice of a 19th century Ukrainian synagogue, known as the largest synagogue in Eastern Europe in the former Polish town of Drohobych, recently underwent a series of renovations at a cost of approximately $1 million donated by a Russian oligarch of Jewish origin.

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Following five years of reconstruction, the building was inaugurated two weeks ago.

As part of the extensive restorations, the exterior of the synagogue patched up, alongside the original interior walls. The restoration included the repair of the building's frescoes and its historical-decorative elements.

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Drohobych's Synagogue alongside Gottlieb's painting

The towering synagogue was built in the middle of the 19th century for one of the largest and most prosperous communities in Galicia, which according to its members today, was home to a population of no less than 17,000 Jews before the Holocaustabout half the city's population.

According to various sources, in 1942 and 1943, between 11,000 and 14,000 of the city's Jews were murdered by the Germans. Hundreds of Jewish families were massacred by the Nazis at the Bezec extermination camp and in Bronicki Forest near Drohobych.

'Begin got married here'

The synagogue is depicted in the famous painting of Maurycy (Moshe) Gottlieb, "Jews Pray in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur", and is now being displayed at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

'Jews Pray in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur' by Maurycy Gottlieb

According to Haim Ghiuzeli, director of the database department of the Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot in Tel Aviv, "This is indeed a synagogue from the town of Drohobych, as was painted by Maurycy Gottlieb who was inspired by his childhood memories."

"Drohobych had close to 20 synagogues and other Jewish prayer houses. Maurycy was born in 1856 in this eastern city of Galicia, which was then part of the Austrian Empire, then Poland, and western Ukraine. The famous painting depicts parts of the synagogue in the background." Ghiuzeli added.

According to members of the community, the sixth Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin, and his wife, Aliza, got married there in 1936. Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the revisionist Zionist leader who mentored Begin, was said to be among the guests at the ceremony.

The synagogue

The renovation project was the brainchild of the Ukrainian-born Russia oligarch and oil tycoon Viktor Felixovich Vekselberg, at the request of his father Felix who was born in Drohobych.

Vexelberg, also a native of the city, serves as head of the board of trustees of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow.

The renovation included a monument to those who perished in the Holocaust. Vexelberg also contributed to a memorial site built in the forest where the town's Jewish population was murdered.

In memory of the Jewish community in Drohobych

Of the thousands of Jews who once walked the city of Drohobych, a mere 150 call it their home today. The head of the city's Jewish community, Rabbi Josef Karpin, said during the synagogue's opening ceremony that "the restoration of the Great Synagogue in Drohobych is important for the commemoration of the large Jewish community that lived there before the Holocaust. This synagogue is a testimony to the tragedy that the Jews experienced here."

Daniella Mavo, the president of The Drohybycz, Boryslaw and Vicinity Survivors and Descendents Organization, noted that while the community delights in the fresh renovations of the synagogue, the community is debating how to preserve the building for future generations.

"The elders of the community are passing away, the young are partly assimilated, so we want to make the place that was so important to our parents, to a center for education for tolerance and anti-racism in Ukraine, in order to give the site a meaning that reflects the suffering of our families who were cruelly murdered there," she said.

The local community said that tours of the site can be arranged in advance.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Sunday the terror organization is on its way to ending the siege over Gaza, adding that not all humanitarian goods transported to the strip would have political consequences.

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"This is the outcome of your stance and steadfast endurance," Haniyeh told a crowd of listeners during a service marking Eid al-Adha, also known as the Festival of Sacrifice

He also noted that the Egypt-mediated negotiations are being held and monitored by the Arab and international community and that the Hamas delegations sent to Cairo have discussed the internal Palestinian conflict aiming to achieve reconciliation with the rival Fatah faction.

Ismail Haniyeh on the Gaza border fence

"We will establish a national unity government and council. General elections with full Palestinian participation will follow," he promised.

Referring to the American efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East, Hamas leader said that President Donald Trump's efforts to achieve the "ultimate deal" have failed.

"Today, on our holiday, we announce that the deal of the century has failed since the Palestinian people have rejected it," he declared.

"The 'March of Return' placed the Palestinian issue once again on the center stage and revived the right of return," he continued.

Haniyeh also demanded that the Palestinian Authority halts its security coordination with Israel.

March of Return protests (: )

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During the weekend, deputy Hamas leader in the strip Khalil al-Hayya, who took part in the Cairo talks, said that discussions on the ceasefire deal with Israel are in their final stretch.

According to al-Hayya, the potential arrangement is based on the understandings reached following Operation Protective Edge. "We are in favor of calm in Gaza so that our people can live in dignity while continuing the fight," he said.

Gaza border clashes (Photo: Reuters)

Nevertheless, the ceasefire talks ended without any concrete agreements as the Eid al-Adha put them on a temporary halt. Talks are expected to resume next week.

Lebanese TV network Al Mayadeen, which is affiliated with Hezbollah, reported that the deal will include a year-long cessation of hostilities and the creation of a maritime route between the Gaza Strip and Cyprus under Israeli security supervision.

In addition, the report said that Qatar will pay the salaries of officials in Gaza together with the Egyptians, and will also pay the electricity bills in the strip in cooperation with Israel.
President Reuven Rivlin met with US National Security Advisor John Bolton on Tuesday. The president said that the two discussed regional security matters, mainly the situation in Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian relations.

The President thanked Bolton for "all you have done for Israel so far", and added that Israel "knows you will continue to do so in the future."

"These are very challenging times for the US and Israel. I reiterate the close and warm friendship between the two countries," Bolton said.
The Military Advocate General's Office announced on Tuesday that the IDF will launch a criminal investigation into shooting incidents in which Palestinian youths were killed on the Gaza border fence in recent months.

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The probe will examine two incidents. The first took place in March, when an 18-year-old demonstrator was shot in the back while running away from the border fence and towards Gaza. The second, an incident in which a 16-year-old Palestinian boy was shot while standing near the border fence in July.

In March, 18-year-old Abdel Fattah Abdel Nabi was seen retreating with another young Palestinian from the perimeter area (the buffer zone between the Gaza Strip and the border fence) towards other demonstrators, and was shot by a sniper with his back turned to the IDF forces.

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A video of the incident shows a Palestinian protester holding a tire and running away from the border fence towards the Gaza Strip. Nabi is seen at his side, taking the tire from him.

The video then shows Nabi running away from the fence, getting hit and dropping to the ground. The video does not show Nabi's actions before his retreat. Other protesters evacuated him from the area.

In its first statement after the incident, the IDF said that "Hamas distributes various videos, including those that only show parts of events, edited and fabricated. Our forces acted according to the rules of engagement in a level-headed manner, while refraining from harming civilians whom Hamas placed on the front lines in order to embarrass Israel while endangering those civilians."

"It is the IDF's use of force that prevented a mass violation of Israeli sovereignty and a scenario in which security infrastructures are destroyed. We advise against taking Hamas's propaganda as fact," the statement read.

The second probe relates to an incident in which Osman Rami Hills, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy, was shot near the fence by a force from the IDF's Givati Brigade.

Protest in Gaza (Photo: EPA)

The IDF Spokesperson stated on Tuesday that "the Chief Military Advocate General, Maj. Gen. Sharon Afek, ordered a military police investigation into two incidents in which Palestinians were shot in the Gaza Strip by IDF forces. The first incident is the death of Abdel Fattah Abdel Nabi from IDF gunfire near the security fence east of Jabalia on March 30. The second incident involves the death of Osman Rami Hills from IDF gunfire near the security fence in the Karni crossing on July 13."

"The decision was made after examining the command debriefings, the findings of the General Staff's debriefing mechanism, and the information received by the IDF, following a suspicion that the shooting in these incidents was not in accordance with standard operating procedures. The findings will be examined by the Military Advocate General," the IDF Spokesperson added.

The General Staff's debriefing mechanism, led by Brig. Gen. Moti Baruch, examined all Gaza border incidents, codenamed in the IDF as "Gatekeepers' Alert."
MK Ahmad Tibi (Joint List) charged Tuesday that "most of the Arabs and Palestinians who are killed, are killed at the initiative of the occupation."

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Speaking following the funeral of Ahmad Muhammad Mahamid, who was shot dead after trying to stab a policeman in Jerusalem's Old City on Friday, Tibi told Ynet that "In order to not have shahids (martyrs), somebody needs to not shoot them. We don't want bloodshed."

Participants at Mahamid's funeral called to avenge his death. "Some people express their anger and sorrow through defiance," Tibi contended, adding they are motivated by "a sense of discrimination and persecution, of being cornered. It's neither the first, nor the last time" this will happen.

Ahmad Tibi (Photo: Tal Shahar)

Tibi explained why hundreds attended Mahamid's funeral, many more than permitted by the police. "The way the police handled the body and its release will always infuriate people. This is an attempt to humiliate the deceased, his family and his community," he claimed.

Tibi also attacked Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman's tweet from Tuesday morning that said Umm al-Fahm should be "part of Palestine."

I represent a message of coexistence, it's not built on violence but on a shared future, said Tibi. This message, he added, is "not on Jewish superiority and not on racist calls from the defense minister to move Umm al-Fahm, a city that hundreds of thousands of acres of its territory have already been expropriated since 1948 to the Palestinian Authority, Tibi added.

Likud MK and coalition chairman David Amsalem also slammed Lieberman, and said that I do not make populist comments. I tell the Arabs: you are supposed to be Israeli citizens like any other citizen. Theres only one conditionthat you have to be loyal to the country that you live in, like in any other country in the world.

Ahmad Muhammad Mahamid's funeral

I think the majority of Israeli Arabs want to stay in the State of Israel and coexist with the Jews, but their leaders draw them towards radicalism, Amsalem went on to say.

He also slammed the police for not being active enough in the Arab sector.

Police placed a restriction of 150 on the number of people permitted to attend the funeral of would-be terrorist Ahmad Muhammad Mahamid in Umm al-Fahm, but 1,500 showed up to the procession at around 2am, which was also marked by the launching of fireworks and calls against Israel.

Ahmad Muhammad Mahamid's funeral

Why didnt 10 police cars come to check whether there's a hundred people or 2,000? Why does everything need to be done in retrospect? If there was law enforcement, they (Arabs) would toe the line accordingly. When there's an enclave with no lawwhere they seemingly have their own rulethen thats how it looks.

And what does the police do? An occasional raid? Theres a real problem there, he added. The state and the police have invested large sums of money to bring security to the Arab sector, its a work in progress.

He concluded that there's a real problem there, there is no law, no order in the Arab sector.
Roy Erez, an Israeli sailing on his yacht from Panama toward Jamaica, was arrested Tuesday by Colombia's Navy on the suspicion he was transporting a wanted Colombian man to Jamaica.

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Erez, 38, from Tel Aviv, claims he encountered a pirate ship two days ago, and was forced at gunpoint by the crew to allow the wanted man to board. Only later did he learn the man was wanted by Colombian authorities.

Erez and his wanted passenger are being led by the Colombian Navy away from international waters and towards Colombia, and Erez fears he could face arrest upon his arrival there.

Roy Erez

In Panama, the local Chabad House introduced him to an Israeli couple for a three-day sail. After dropping them off on Monday, Erez left for Jamaica.

"When he was in international waters, a group of fishermen/pirates stopped him and forced himby threatening him with a loaded rifleto take a man he did not know to Jamaica on his boat. He was forced to oblige them out of fear for his life," Karin wrote in a Facebook post that has gone viral.

"Several hours ago, a Colombian missile ship with soldiers violently took over his boat, causing great damage. At present, they are towing the boat to Colombia, with five armed soldiers on board as well as my brother Roy Erez and the wanted passenger," she added.

Roy Erez

She went on to say that her brother "is concerned by the aggression used against him and of what might happen to him once he gets to Colombia. He's in this situation against his will and feels helpless. He's very concerned he'd be tied to a matter he has no part in."

The yacht is being towed toward the San Andres Navy base in Colombia.

"We're very worried and want to bring Roy back home safely," the sister concluded.

Erez is an aquafarmer and was on his way to Vanuatu, a South Pacific Ocean nation made up of roughly 80 islands, to open up a fish farm, his friend Liran Golob said.

"He was stopped 240 miles from San Andres. It was in international waters and they were not allowed to take over the boat," Golob said. "Roy is sailing under a German flag. He was sailing on his own."

"He's a very good guy who helps people. Sometimes he's very innocent. He said a fishing boat came near him and at gunpoint made him take in a man who later turned out to be wanted. (Roy) didn't know what (the man) was wanted for," Golob added.

Since Erez is a dual Israeli-German national, the family turned to both Israeli Foreign Ministry and to the German Embassy for help.

The Foreign Ministry said Israel's consul general in Bogota, Yuval Sharabi, is looking into the details of the incident with the help of local contacts.
BERLIN - Europe needs to set up payment systems independent of the United States if it wants to save the nuclear deal between Iran and major powers that was abandoned by President Donald Trump, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said.

"That's why it is indispensable that we strengthen European autonomy by creating payment channels that are independent of the United States, a European Monetary Fund and an independent SWIFT system," Maas wrote in the Handelsblatt business daily.

"Every day the deal is alive is better than the highly explosive crisis that would otherwise threaten the Middle East," he added in the article to be published on Wednesday.

The Belgium-based SWIFT global payment network that facilitates the bulk of the world's cross-border transactions shut out Iran in 2012 after the United States and EU agreed to impose sanctions on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear activities.
The family of Ahmad Muhammad Mahamid, who was shot dead Friday while attempting to stab a police officer in Jerusalem, was outraged Tuesday at the Israel Police's decision to appropriate NIS 50,000 in guarantee money for the violation of terms imposed on the funeral

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"We didn't commit to anything," said Mahamid's uncle, Jamal, who added the family has yet to receive notice of the police's decision. "The police said we had two hours to bury him from the moment we got the body back. We got him covered in blood and bullet holes."

As part of the terms, police placed a restriction of 150 on the number of people permitted to attend the funeral, but 1,500 showed up to the procession at around 2am, which was also marked by the launching of fireworks and calls against Israel.

Crowds chant through the street during funeral

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"When we came to the mosque, we were surprised to see so many people," Jamal said. "Could we really control them? There was no violence. We passed by the community Mei Ami and there were no disturbances or stone throwing. I even asked people to hurry, because we only had two hours to bury him."

Jamal repeated the family's claim his nephew was mentally unstable and did not act of nationalistic motivations. "The problems started four years ago. His engagement did not succeed and his situation deteriorated to the point he had to be hospitalized. The video (of the incident) shows he could have been neutralized without being killed. He was unell, but he was certainly not a terrorist," the uncle said.

The funeral procession in Umm al-Fahm

Many residents from Umm al-Fahm, where the family resides, harshly criticized police conductprimarily the fact police officers shot Mahamid to death, but also the fact the family was expected to control the number of people attending the funeral.

Mustafa Abu Majd, a former member of the Umm al-Fahm city council and a close friend of the family, said Mahamid came from a disadvantaged family, and his parents could not keep an eye on him on a regular basis. "This was the first time he went to Jerusalem, since he's not a religious man," Abu Majd said.

He also joined the criticism of the police, saying "I especially checked for the meaning of 'neutralize' in Hebrew, and it doesn't mean killing. Couldn't they neutralize him with a stick? With a shot to the leg? To neutralize is to render ineffective or harmless, but I guess that only applies to Jews. When it's an Arab, the meaning is to kill him."

Ahmad Muhammad Mahamid

Abu Majd, who helped negotiate the release of the body to the family, claimed that even though the terms were violated, the police should not appropriate the guarantee money.

"Those who caused this protest are the police, who insisted not to give back the body without terms that were doomed to fail," he said. "The protest was against the police. Is the police officer also a judge and executioner?"

He argued that "the police acted unwisely. They should've released the body on Friday and allowed a quick and modest burial with only the family present."

He allowed that "there were calls (against Israel), but it's the police conduct that caused it. We committed to hold the funeral at night, but we made it clear we won't be able to control the number of participants."

The funeral procession in Umm al-Fahm

The Israel Police said in response that "as part of keeping the peace and ensuring public safety and order, the Israel Police setunder the authority given to it by lawterms to allow the return of the body of the terrorist Ahmad Mahamid to his family for a funeral in Umm al-Fahm.

"As previously stated, the terms imposed by the police were allegedly violated yesterday in breach of the law, after many hundreds of participants were seen (at the funeral), in contravention of the police order that defined and limited the time of the funeral, the route of the procession, the number of participants (up to 150 family members) and so on.

"Due to (the family) failing to meet these terms, the police will launch an investigation on suspicion of failing to adhere to instructions and violating an order, and will also work to appropriate the money deposit in accordance with the law."
In an attempt to alleviate the damage to tourism in northern Israel in the wake of the leptospirosis scare in recent weeks, Nature and Parks Authority head Shaul Goldstein, Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Uri Ariel and Deputy Director-General of the Ministry of Health Professor Itamar Grotto took a tour of nature reserve and national parks in the Golan Heights on Tuesday to show they were safe.

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Prof. Grotto assured that all water sites in the Upper Galilee, where there is a strong flow, are entirely safe for bathing and kayaking.

After dipping their feet in one of the streams, Goldstein joked that he hopes "the minister would still be healthy in two weeks, and Ariel repliedyou'll have to wait and see, and also pray.

Officials visit northern streams (Photo: Eyal Bason)

The three went north to examine the artificial pumping of water into the streams to reduce the rate of contaminants.

The artificial pumping of water into the Daliyot stream and the Majrasa estuary began on Thursday, and was expanded on Monday to the Zavitan and Meshushim (Hexagon) streams.

They further discussed other options to fight the leptospirosis infection in the southern Golan Heights streams, and called on the public to visit the Golan Heights and bathe in the streams and springs that have been declared safe by the Health Ministry.

Artificialy pumping water to northern streams (:      )

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Parks where swimming has been prohibited so far are: Yehudiya, Zavitan, Meshushim, Zaki (Meshushim estuary), Meshushim stream, the Majrasa estuary, the Jordan Park and the Jilabun stream.

Prof. Grotto said he joined the tour Tuesday to understand the problem better, support the residents of the north and get the public to travel to the north again.

Hurshat Tal Park (Photo: The Israel Nature and Parks Authority)

Grotto added that he has given a green light to start a Tourism Ministry campaign to boost tourism in the north. So far, he added, 381 suspected cases of leptospirosis have been report, with less than 10 percent of them found to be positive.

"The Health Ministry is examining the streams, closely supervising the matter," Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman said in comments to the media ahead of the discussion. "The streams that are bad, the ministry closes. And the ones that are good, it leaves open. We think the situation is under control."

Itamar Grotto and Giora Zeltz padaling in the Jordan River (Photo: Avihu Shapira)

Health Ministry officials came up with several measures to combat the spread of leptospirosis, including regulating water and grazing areas for cattle, fencing of springs to keep cattle away, pumping water into streams by authorities, and regulating the boar populations that infect water sources.

Furthermore, it was established that infected cattle herds need to be vaccinated, and sanitation infrastructure needs to be improved by the regional authorities.

Moshe Bar Siman Tov, the director-general of the Health Ministry, assured that "things are under control, and we're monitoring both the water sources and the sickness patterns on a daily basis. Heed our instructions, because there have been a lot of unfounded, false and biased things (being said)."

Jordan River kayaking (Photo: Efi Sharir)

Leptospirosis is caused by the Leptospira bacteria, who originates in animals and is transmitted to humans. Some animals secrete the infection in their urine. The main culprits are rodents, mostly mice, but cattle, dogs and other animals can also transmit it.

Symptoms include flu like symptoms, among which are fever, headaches, muscle aches and even kidney and liver failure in severe cases.

More than a million cases are reported each year, mostly in third world countries. In Israel the infection is rare, and no more than 10 cases are reported every year.

In the last few days, it appears that visitors have begun returning north. Nature and Parks Authority reported that 50,000 people visited parks in the north on Tuesday, with some of the major parks showing an almost complete recuperation from last week.

Among these sites were the Snir stream (with 2,700 visitors Tuesday, up from only 700 on Saturday), the Tel Dan Nature Reserve (with 2,000 visitors, after it saw only 550 on Saturday), Hurshat Tal (1,500 visitors) and the famous Gan Hashlosha (1,700 visitors).

Other parks also experienced a boost, especially Caesarea, Masada and Ein Gedi.

Recooperation in tourism surprised officials in the Nature and Parks Authority, who said the numbers are high for the middle of the week. They added that some northern parks have enjoyed impressive numbers of tourists.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed an order on Tuesday to ban the import and sale of the Juul electronic cigarette in Israel.

The decision was made after Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman and the ministrys professional team warned of the dangers it poses to public health.
There is an urban legend surrounding the negotiations over the "arrangement" between Israel and Hamas about plans to build a dock for the Gaza Strip in Cyprus. But such a dock means establishing a sea port to all intents and purposes in Gaza, and I can't recall the current Israeli government agreeing to such a thing.

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If a port in Cyprus is supposed to replace the Kerem Shalom crossing, for example, then we're talking about massive amounts of goods. Just on Wednesday and Thursday of last weekby no means peak activity time at the crossing40 tons of goods went into the strip. In 2017, 160,000 trucks went into Gaza through Kerem Shalom. It's safe to assume the amount of goods coming in through a port in Cyprus would be bigger, and there is no way to unload cargo at this magnitude other than by building a sea port in Gaza.

Even if they call it a "pier" or a "harbor," it would still be a sea port and a symbol of Hamas sovereignty in Gaza. Because for cargo shipseven relatively small onesthat are laden with containers and cargoincluding gas and fuelto be able to unload their goods in the strip, a fortune would have to be invested in deepening the marina there. A dock will have to be builtwith cranes, storage spaces, communication systems, naval radar, infrastructure to guide the ships and other elements required for the operation of a sea port.

The existing Gaza port (Photo: EPA)

The sea port in Cyprus is the grandchild of the Gaza sea port idea, which was born in the Oslo Accords. At the time, the Israeli defense establishment opposed the idea of building such a port, which could be used to bring in weapons and terrorists. In 2000, construction began on a port in Sheikh Ijlin, in southern Gaza, but what was built there was bombed in the beginning of the second intifada, and the idea of the port was buried under the wreckage.

But talk of a sea port, like talk about an arrangement, pop up every time Israel is in a bind over a ceasefire with Hamas. Last time it happened immediately after Operation Protective Edge, as part of the Cairo agreements. Of course nothing came of it.

In 2016, the port idea came up again, this time in its Cypriot version. At the time it was brought back up because of concern in the IDF over how the humanitarian situation in the strip would affect the security situation.

The Navy claimed it could ensure no contraband is transported from Cyprus to Gaza. But the problem was and remains the supervision of the dock in Cyprus. Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ya'alon objected to the idea, because they believed leaving the supervision to international elements in Cyprus would be exploited by Hamas to smuggle forbidden equipment into the strip.

The existing Gaza port (Photo: EPA)

Building a dock for the strip in Cyprus would require state-of-the-art equipment and skilled international teams to check every container. Who can guarantee that Israel's demand of complete supervision is met? Who will supervise the supervisors? After all, Israel has bad experience with international supervision.

The Palestinian Authority and the Egyptians weren't too "crazy" about the idea either, as the negotiations in 2016 were held with the Erdogan government, and the idea being broached was a Palestinian dock in the Turkish Cyprus and under Turkish auspices. Since then, the Cyprus port idea has been left up in the air, like Minister Katz's artificial island idea.

In June 2017, Defense Minister Lieberman said that "a sea port in Gaza would be rewarding terrorism. We can't protect our security via remote control." In May 2018, in the wake of the inflamed tensions along the Gaza border, Lieberman traveled Cyprus, where he was reported to be discussing a Palestinian dock in Cyprusa report he didn't deny. Did something change? Has Hamas promised to stop its armament?

A port is a sign of sovereignty, and Israel does not recognize a Hamas state in the strip. This government, certainly on the eve of elections, will not make any decisions about a sea port, but will continue blowing hot air everywhere.
News

Washington, DC - Vice President Mike Pence met today with Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt of the United Kingdom. Both agreed that the strong partnership and special relationship between the two countries remains critical as we continue to face global challenges.

The Vice President expressed support for the United Kingdoms call for European solidarity regarding sanctions related to the use of chemical weapons and both agreed on the importance of upholding international norms against the use of chemical weapons. The Vice President and the Foreign Secretary reaffirmed a shared commitment to pursue a U.S.-U.K. bilateral trade agreement after the United Kingdom leaves the European Union.
Yuma News

Yuma, Arizona - On Saturday, just after 8:20 pm, a fire was reported in an apartment in the Housing Authority City of Yuma (HACY) apartments at 600 South 16th Avenue. Yuma Fire Department personnel arrived to find that a stove top fire had been extinguished by the apartments fire suppression sprinkler system. Firefighters shut down the water flow and assisted with clean up.

The fire was caused by grease that had ignited while cooking. There were no injuries and the apartment will be able to be reoccupied after additional clean up. This is at least the 3rd apartment fire this year where the fire was extinguished by the fire sprinkler system. These sprinkler systems save millions of dollars in property damage and protect the lives of those in these buildings.

Fire sprinkler systems can keep fires from spreading and can also extinguish them. Fire spreads quickly and can double in size every minute. Even small fires can cause significant damage to property and endanger those nearby. Contrary to many Hollywood portrayals, only sprinkler heads directly exposed to the heat activate, not those in the rest of the room, building, or complex.
Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business.
The following companies are subsidiares of LyondellBasell Industries: A. Schulman, A. Schulman 's-Gravendeel B.V., A. Schulman AG, A. Schulman Asia Limited, A. Schulman Belgium BVBA, A. Schulman Canada Ltd., A. Schulman Castellon S.L., A. Schulman Europe GmbH & Co. KG, A. Schulman Europe International B.V., A. Schulman Europe Verwaltungs GmbH, A. Schulman Gainsborough Ltd, A. Schulman GmbH, A. Schulman GmbH (Austrian Branch), A. Schulman Holding Company France S.A.S., A. Schulman Holdings (France) S.A.S., A. Schulman Holdings S.a.r.l., A. Schulman Inc., A. Schulman Inc. Limited, A. Schulman International Inc., A. Schulman International Services BVBA, A. Schulman Ireland Limited, A. Schulman Magyarorszag Kereskedelmi Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, A. Schulman Nordic AB, A. Schulman Plastics (Branch), A. Schulman Plastics (Dongguan) Ltd., A. Schulman Plastics (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., A. Schulman Plastics (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., A. Schulman Plastics BVBA, A. 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Ltd., Basell Advanced Polyolefins (Thailand) Company Ltd., Basell Arabie Investissements SAS, Basell Asia Pacific Limited, Basell Bayreuth Chemie GmbH, Basell Benelux B.V., Basell Chemie Koln GmbH, Basell Europe Holdings B.V., Basell Germany Holdings GmbH, Basell Holdings Middle East GmbH, Basell Iberica Poliolefinas Holdings S.L., Basell International Holdings B.V., Basell International Trading FZE, Basell Italia S.r.l, Basell Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Basell Moyen Orient Investissements SAS, Basell North America Inc., Basell Orlen Polyolefins Sp. Z.o.o., Basell Orlen Polyolefins Sprzedaz Sp. 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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.

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Adwoa Safo commonly known as Adwoa Safo Sarah is a strong Ghanaian politician and a lawyer by profession. Adwoa Safo was born on 28 December 1981 in Ashanti Bekwai, Ghana. Safo Adwoa is an intelligent and great woman that has accomplished a lot. She was the youngest ever graduate lawyer in the Ghana School of Law at age 22. Adwoa Safo has presided over many cases in different parts of Africa as well as America. She was first elected as a New Patriotic Party (NPP) member of Parliament for Dome Kwabenya constituency in 2013. Adwoa Kwabenya is currently the Deputy majority leader of Parliament and is also serving as NPP's appointed Minister of State and Government Procurement. This article will narrow down to give details of her family, children, cars, and career.

READ ALSO:The love affair of two NPP MPs as told by Adwoa Safo

Adwoa Safo Profile

Born: 28 December 1981

Age: 36 years

Origin: Ghana

Marital status: Single

Occupation: Lawyer and politician

Famous for: Strong politician, minister, and lawyer by profession

Facebook: Sarah Adwoa Safo

Instagram: Sarahadwoasafo

Contacts: +233 574- 117634

Sarah Adwoa Safo biography

Hon. Adwoa Safo is relatively young but has already achieved a lot as a lawyer and a politician.

Safo Adwoa education

Lawyer Safo Adwoa is a daughter to Apostle Dr. Kwadwo Safo, one of the greatest industrialist, and philanthropist in Ghana. As a daughter of an apostle, Adwoa got excellence educational backgrounds under the basis of religion. More interestingly, Adwoa was a home tutored student for both her primary and secondary school. Her father Dr. Kwadwo hired experienced teachers to teach her daughter from home. Adwoa did her GCE in 1998 and passed with A-level grades. She joined the University of Ghana to pursue a bachelor degree in law. Adwoa graduated in 2004 at the age 22 years being the youngest ever- graduated student from the University of Ghana School of law at that time.

Adwoa then proceeded to do her Masters degree (L.L.M) at Washington University School of law. She graduated in 2005 coming out as a competent and intelligent lawyer. Adwoa returned home late 2005 after a briefly working in Washington DC.

Safo Adwoa career

Adwoa is a lawyer by profession from Ghana School of Law and University of Washington School of Law. Before she joined politics early in 2013, Safo Adwoa has been an active lawyer fighting for the integrity of Ghanaian citizens and other countries in Africa. After her Masters program in the United States of America, she worked from the office of the Attorney General in the civil department. Afterward, while in USA, she founded the Public Procurement Authority and acted as the legal office. Through this authority, Adwoa played a leading role in introducing appeals and complaints panels, which entirely transformed the Public Procurement Board in the USA to Public Procurement Authority.

When she returned home, she worked as a mediator in the mediation committee for legal aid board of Ghana. Adwoa then worked as the first legal officer in Ghana Public Procurement Authority. She did a number of things, which led to the formation of complaints panels that consequently resulted in changing of public procurement board to Public Procurement Authority. Adwoa also served in the following dockets in Ghana;

2006-2008 legal officer in the public procurement office

2006-2007 legal practitioner in the legal aid board and

2008- 2011 legal practitioner in Zoe Akyea and Co.

Safo Adwoa political career

Hon. Safo Adwoa was first elected as a Member of Parliament for Dome Kwabenya Constituency in 2012 under the ticket of New Patriotic Party. She has been a strong and vocal parliamentarian among the female politicians in Ghana. She was re-elected to parliament in 2016. Currently, Safo Adwoa is serving as appointed minister of state and government procurement under the Government of President Nana Akufo Addo. Alongside being a minister, she is also the deputy majority leader in parliament. Adwoa was also elected as a vice chairperson in the appointments and business committees of parliament. She is among the most successful female politicians in Ghana.

Safo Adwoa family

Being the daughter of Dr. Kwadwo Safo many people have always wondered about her family life.

Safo Adwoa parents

Safo Adwoa is a daughter to the popular and wealthy Apostle Dr. Kwadwo Safo of Ghana. Adwoa Safo's father is a strong industrialist and a philanthropist whose fame has spread to all corners of Ghana. Apostle Kwadwo has frequently been described, as an African star. He founded Kantanta group of companies which assembles Kantanka brands of vehicles in Ghana. He is one of Africa's greatest diversified scientist and multi-technologist of all time. Kwadwo Safo is a proud father of Awura Adwoa Safo who is currently working as the executive director of Tantanka TV, Sarah Safo Adwoa (Prominent lawyer and Member of Parliament for Dome Kwabenya constituency) and Kwadwo Safo Junior (pilot and C.E.O of Kantanka group of companies). Adwoa Safo's father is a strong and respected man of God, and has brought up his children based on the Christian religion.

Husband of Safo Adwoa

Most Ghanaians would probably ask who is Adwoa Safo's husband. Who is the father to her two kids? The Dome Kwabenya lawmaker is not married but was in a serious relationship with a fellow politician, which resulted to the two kids. Adwoa was dating Assin North Member of Parliament Mr. Kennedy Agyapong. Even though some people say that the relationship ended on political grounds and violence, Adwoa Safo and Kennedy Agyapong affair was not sour. She says that Kennedy is still a good friend and that they were never married to begin with. She refers to him as a sweet father to her children. She says that he is not a violent man and their political difference may have forced them to part ways.

It is said that Hon. Kennedy is married with six kids apart from the two that he has with Hon. Safo Adwoa. Adwoa admitted that she was not married to Kennedy Agyapong and therefore they were still good friends even after the break-up. If it were not political or ideological differences, maybe Kennedy Agyapong would be Adwoa Safo's husband. The celebrated politician also dispelled rumours that she was dating a dancer and artist Samini. Adwoa Safo and Samini have been great friends due to the relationship between Samini and her brother.

Safo Adwoa's kids

One thing that Hon. Sarah Safo Adwoa treasures most in this life is her children. Although the charming lawyer is not married, she has two children, who are a product of a long relationship with Kennedy Agyapong. They are still very young and she takes cares of them as a single mother. The interesting thing is that she serves her roles as a lawmaker, government minister in charge of State and Government Procurement and still manages to spares enough time to spend with her young kids. The two children of Adwoa Safo are in school which makes it easy for her to carry out her duties without much interference.

Sarah Adwoa Safo's net worth

Sarah Adwoa Safo comes from a very prominent and wealthy family of Apostle Dr. Kwadwo Safo of Ghana. Her family has therefore significantly contributed to her net worth. Her primary source of income is salaries and allowances as a member of parliament. Basing on her status and family background, she is definitely rich.

Sarah Adwoa Safos house

Sarah Adwoa lives with her father- the multi-diverse researcher and technologist in Africa Dr. Kwadwo Safo. He owns a big home where he lives with his family. It is not clear if Sarah Adwoa owns her own separate house considering her position and power in the government of Ghana.

Sarah Adwoa Safo's cars

Being a daughter to Apostle Dr. Kwadwo, Hon. Adwoa has a lot to enjoy. Her father owns a vehicle-assembling company in Ghana and therefore owning expensive vehicles has never been a problem for her. Speaking to the vetting and appointment team for her appointment as a minister of State and Government Procurement in Parliament, Adwoa pointed out that she drives her fathers cars from Kantanta Automobiles Company. She added that she had never owned her car. The celebrated leader also said that her father gave her three cars; one used by her kids to take them to school, another used by her organizing secretary in the constituency and the last car is her personal car. The proud minister and lawmaker does not want any other vehicle apart from that given to her by her father.

Sarah Adwoa Safo awards

The prominent lawyer of Ghana Hon. Safo Adwoa was nominated for the annual Nobles Forum Awards in 2012. Nobels Forum Awards is usually organized by a West African international magazine. The West African Forum honors men and women who have shown great integrity in their areas of specialization. Her honor was because of her active role in the introduction and passage of procurement law in Ghana in addition to being the first woman to take the role of a secretary in drafting the bill. She was also the first woman to work as a legal officer in government procurement and assisted in developing many proposals. These drafts spearheaded the formation of appeals and complaints panels, which advocated for the change of Public Procurement Board to the Public Procurement Authority. This award contributed to her increased fame as a lawyer and a person of great integrity in Ghana.

READ ALSO: 6 clever expressions Ghanaian politicians always use

Adwoa Safo pictures

When you come across Adwoa Safo pictures, you will hardly believe that she is in her mid-30s. She looks young and brilliant, surely Adwoa Safo's age does not reflect the real Adwoa we see daily. Maybe it is because she takes proper care of herself. Here are some of her pictures.

Adwoa Safo latest news

Hon Adwoa Safo has also been making the headlines for many reasons in recent times.

Integrity in question

Why did she have to lie when she had a different way out. Is it possible that her integrity is now in question. It is unfortunate that Ghana does not take into account matters of integrity especially when it comes to political leaders. The fact that she lied about a building she owns would have been enough to have her resign or sacked if it was a developed country.

I have never been married

Even though she has two children with the same man, Safo confirmed that she was not married to the father of her children. They may have had their differences but that does not mean that they were not in good terms. In fact, she praises the man as a good dad to her children and a good friend of hers. It was imperative that they pursue different political lines and hence could not be together. They are both okay with that.

READ ALSO: Ill contest for President if youth urge me to  Shatta Wale

Source: Yen.com.gh
The need to upgrade Android devices continues to increase especially in today's world where people are becoming interested in better functioning smartphones. It is not surprising to find people investing substantial amounts of money in phones that exhibit better performance. The need for an upgrade arises from various needs with the most important one, which is to have a phone that works efficiently and effectively. It is therefore important to know how to upgrade the Android version to the latest one in the market.

Source:cdn.com

Android is a clean software developed by Google as a mobile operating system. It is a version upgrade from Linux kernel combined with different open source software. It is made for smartphones and tablets with a touch screen user interface. In the Pixel store of Google, updates of the operating system are available, which most phone users need to know about. It is also important to know how to update android OS (Operating System) to the latest Android version.

Steps to follow when upgrading Android version

There are three ways on how to manually update Android version

New Android update in the operating system Latest Android version upgrade using a computer Upgrade Android using a rooting software

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New Android update in the operating system

This is the most simplified Android upgrade technique. To achieve this, you need to have access to a fast internet connection. Follow the procedure below to get the upgrade in place.

Connect to the internet via a data connection. Your internet connection needs to be stable.

Scroll to the device settings. Its icon is usually shaped as a gear on the applications icons.

Select and press the about device on the menu. When using a tablet, the general tab leads to about the tablet.

Go to update now and tap. This is usually the software update or the Operating System update.

While the internet connection is on, check for updates.

Available updates will display on the screen. Choose the latest Android version to update.

Install and reboot your system for the software to be operational. Make sure you have given enough time for the downloading and installing procedures to be carried out to completion.

Automatic reboot is displayed after the installation process is complete.

Latest Android version upgrade using a computer

This version of upgrade requires the use of a computer. It is imperative to have a computer for you to install and manually update the Android version. You also need a stable internet connection. With these requirements in check, follow the procedure below to upgrade.

Access the internet via the computer. Make sure you are able to identify your type of Android phone. Use the desktop browser to follow the link of the devices manufacturers official website. This information is found in the devices support and download page. Access settings in your device and tap on device information. This is what will be keyed into the computer browser to reach the software updates.

Download device manager software and install. Manufactures have different names for this download. Sometimes, it is written as device management software for various device manufacturers.

Go back to the device support and download page in the official manufacturers website.

Look for updates and their versions. Choose the latest android version updates. The update file is usually in a package downloadable by the device manager software from the manufacturer.

Connect your android phone to the computer. This is done through a USB micro cable device.

Open the device manager software to operate.

Search in the tools menu to the update command. It is a tab on top of the window menu of the device manager.

Since the phone is connected to the device manager, the device is operated from the computer to update to the downloaded latest android version. This is completed by clicking the update command. The update process will automatically initiate on the phone and complete.

Reboot your Android device after disconnecting from the computer. Follow the screen display prompts on your phone to operate the new android update version.

Make sure your phones Android operating system is functioning well with the Android upgrade.

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Upgrade Android version using a rooting software

Source:cbsistatic.com

This process requires that your device is backed up before updating the Android version. Store your files on the computer. This is done to avoid losing your device data and files when rooting software freezes or stops working on your phone. It is a prevention measure for the unstable rooting software.

Steps to follow:

Use a computer for this application.

Back up the phone's files and store them on a computer or in a memory device. This is done since rooting is not supported by the device manufacturer as a warranty.

Connect the computer to the internet and browse for rooting software. For example, Kingoroot software on windows.

Download the software and install in your computer.

Connect your phone to the computer using a USB micro cable.

Open the rooting application software on the computer.

Initiate the rooting procedure and follow the screen prompts up to the end

It is possible to use the rooting software without a computer as follows.

Connect your phone to a good internet connection.

Browse and download the proper Android latest version ROM for your phones model. The model should be compatible with the device you are using, for example, the phone's description and specs. Usually, ROM is specific for all android devices.

Download rooting software, such as the KingoRoot APK root tool. This is the tool that will be useful in the rooting process.

Start the rooting APK application and root your phone.

Install the android version upgrade of the ROM downloaded earlier.

Follow through the installation prompts of the phone through rooting up to completion. An example of this is when the latest android version like Android 8.0 Oreo is installed into the device without using the Google Pixel line or a computer.

You can choose any of the three mentioned processes for your upgrade Android needs. Select a method that works for you. This may depend on what you need or could just be a matter of preference.

READ ALSO:Infinix hot S price in Ghana, specs and review

Source: Yen
Jean Mensa is a lawyer by profession, but she is currently Ghanas Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) and Coordinator of the Ghana Political Parties Programme. Jean Menesa is married with two children, and people are talking about her because she was appointed to be the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) by President Akufo-Addo. She is also a coordinator of the Ghana Political Parties Programme. She was appointed to head the Electoral Commission after former EC boss, Charlotte Osei was sacked. Below are the things that you should know about Jean Mensa.

Source:ghanaweb.com

On July 23, 2018, Ghanas President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, appointed Mrs. Jean Mensa a Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs to be the electoral commissioner of Ghana. Her appointment comes after the sacking of previous EC boss, Charlotte Osei. The former EC boss was sacked on the grounds of incompetence and misbehavior. She breached procurement laws associated with the award of various contracts before the 2016 elections. Mrs. Charlotte Osei was removed along with her deputies Georgina Opoku Amankwah and Amadu Sulley following recommendations by a committee that was developed by the Chief Justice to create a petition against them.

READ ALSO:Profile: Otiko Djaba husband, children, career and pictures

Mrs. Jean Mensa biography

How old is Mrs. Jean Mensa is a question many people have been asking after her appointment as Electoral Commissioner of Ghana. Mrs. Jean Mensa age has not been revealed to the public, but she looks like a woman that is certainly aging well. Looking at Jean Mensa pictures reveals just that.

Jean Mensa received her secondary education at St Mary's Senior High School in Korle Gonno. She studied law at the University and in 2009, she joined Ghana's Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) where she rose and became an Executive Director in 2009. She has been serving in the institute until this year when the president appointed her as a Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC). Following the appointment, she had to step down as the Executive Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).

Mrs. Mensah is the best leader when it comes to democracy and governance issues. She has carved a niche associated with policy advocacy and research including development of policy alternatives, and the Revised 1992 Constitution of Ghana (draft); the Presidential Transition Act of 2012; the Political Parties Funding Bill; and the Revised Political Parties Bill.

She advocated for the review of Ghanas 1922 constitution. Before her appointment by the president, she was a member of the Government Committee that was responsible for the preparation of Affirmative Action Bill. Jean Mensah profile includes her award-winning in 2014 as a young model in governance. The high profile individuals that have received this award include H.E. John Agyekum Kuffuor, Ghanas former president, and H.E John Dramani Mahama a former vice president of Ghana, Dr Joseph Agyapong, Dr Esi Ansah and Dr Joyce Aryee.

READ ALSO:Profile: Samira Bawumia biography and pictures

Jean Mensah Wikipedia description

Wikipedia describes Jean Mensah as a Ghanaian lawyer and also the Electoral Commission of Ghana. She is also an Executive Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), and Co-ordinator of the Ghana Political Parties Programme. The only information concerning her early life on Wikipedia is that she completed her secondary education. The information contained on Wikipedia concerning Jean Mensahs career is that she was appointed by the president to head the Electoral Commission of Ghana on 23 July 2018. In addition, she has been involved in the creation of various policies such as the Revised 1992 Constitution of Ghana (draft), the Presidential Transition Act of 2012, the Revised Political Parties Bill, and the Political Parties Funding Bill.

Many people on Twitter are claiming that the President appointed Jean Mensah because Prof. Joy Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu had turned down the job and it is not because she is competent and impartial. The president was so desperate leading to the appointment of Mrs. Mensah hoping that she will accept the job offer. The only thing that the president wanted was to salvage the mess that the government had put itself into after sacking Mrs. Charlotte Osei, which attracted international bashing evidenced by the American ambassador to Ghana, Robert Porter Jackson. Therefore, Mrs. Jean Mensah was the last option for the government because her name had never appeared during the governments consideration.

Many people claim that Professor Mensah rejected the job offer because she wanted to protect her reputation as a lecturer in law. She feared that her reputation will be challenged just like Mrs. Charlotte Osei. The appointment of Jean Adukwei Mensa has been welcomed with mixed feelings. Many people are claiming that the appointment was as a result of her closeness to the New Patriotic Party (NPP), her husbands membership of the NPP, her political utterances, the VALCO chairmanship and the appointment of her husband on NPP government-engineered jobs.

Summary of the ten (10) things about Jean Mensa

An experienced lawyer in policy research and advocacy Worked on the Government Committee on Affirmative Action Bill Executive Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) Worked on Presidential Transition Act of 2012 Served as Commissioner of Governments Constitution Review Commission Coordinator of Ghana Political Parties Programme Advocated for review of Ghanas 1992 Constitution Added so input to the revision of Political Parties' Bill An old student of St. Mary's Senior High School Advised on the revision of Political Parties' Funding Bill

READ ALSO:Profile: Kofi Kinaata girlfriend, house, cars, net worth and best songs

Source: Yen
- Strika of Beasts of No Nation fame said his manager used an amount of GHC10,000 to buy him a suit

- He was speaking on a financial malfeasance he has suffered since he starred in that movie

- Strika is currently begging for his money to be released by one Kofi Rabbit who is a signatory to his bank account.

YEN.com.gh broke the news of a young boy, Strika, who featured in the popular Beasts of No Nation movie together with Abraham Attah.

According to Strika, he still has not been given his share of the money after the movie was shot and bought by Netflix, as was the agreement he had reached with those who were taking care of his finances at that time.

Born Emmanual Nii Adom Quaye, Strika said in an earlier report by YEN.com.gh that he was promised a one percent cash after Beasts of No Nation was bought by Netflix, but because he was not yet eighteen years at that time, one Kofi Rabbit, a cast of the movie, and an Amerian cast, Zowi, decided to keep the money in the bank for him and acting as signatories.

Strika when he starred in Beasts of No Nation at age 14. Photo credit: Mashable

READ ALSO: Strika of Beasts of No Nation cries for justice as his money goes into another mans pockett

The agreement he had with the two was that the account would eventually be handed over to him when he turns eighteen years.

However, though he is almost turning nineteen years, calls to Kofi Rabbit to let him have access to his bank account have fallen on deaf ears.

That money is not the only cash that is questionable.

READ ALSO: Becca reveals why he chose a Nigerian husband overlooking Ghanaian men

In an interview with GHONE TV monitored by YEN.com.gh, Strika revealed that he starred in another movie, Jungle Justice, after shooting Beasts of No Nation.

According to him, he was paid an amount which he has forgotten how much exactly, however, his manager whose name he gave as Mawuko, told him he used 10,000 cedis out of that to get him a suit.

When asked what he used the suit for, Strika said they attended an event around the National Theartre in Accra, and he wore the suit only once.

The look on his face when he was making this narration indicated that even though he was young at that time that his manager bought the 10k suit, he had concerns with it but as a child, he couldnt voice the concerns out.

READ ALSO: Yvonne Nelson releases time for her wedding after Becca's marriage

Strika and Abraham Attah, together with another boy called Justice, were both picked on the streets to star in Beasts of No Nation.

After that movie, they were taken to a Montessori in Cape Cost but Strika couldnt continue with the schooling, and so decided to relocate to Accra, Strika said.

He then made it clear to one of their guardians whose name he gave as Mr. Sam, that he was not interested in school because no matter how much he was taught, he couldnt grasp anything.

In his own words, Strika believed that schooling is not for him, therefore he is expecting Kofi Rabbit to hand over his account details to him so that he could use his money to learn a trade or start his own business.

Strika is currently selling yam on the streets of Accra where he also begs for alms for survival.

READ ALSO: Maame Serwaa drops wild secret about her career on her birthday

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Source: Yen.com.gh
- An Ivorian, William Djedehard Anselme Boscaud Dieou, has been arrested by the police

- He has been accused of conspiracy to commit a crime and stealing

- He allegedly helped to illegally withdraw over GHC110 million from Cal Bank

The Ghana Police Service have finally apprehended a suspect, William Djedehard Anselme Boscaud Dieou, for stealing an amount of GHC110 million from Cal Bank.

Information available to YEN.com.gh shows that the suspect, using the name William Kurt Mensah, opened a bank account with a National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card.

He then remotely logged into Cal Banks system using the credentials of two employees of the bank.

David Asante-Appeatu, Inspector-General of Police Source: Supplied

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Dieou then credited his fake account with monies retrieved from the Cal Bank after remotely logging into their system.

Police investigations further revealed that an amount of GH84,991.06 was withdrawn through the use of ATM, while another amount of GH170,000 was transferred to six other bank accounts via GHIPSS Instant Transfer Online.

He however pleaded not guilty to the charges of conspiracy to commit crime and stealing.

His accomplice, Wonder Kofi Klutse Fianu, is said to be at large. The police have however previously arrested 12 other suspects connected to the crime.

The court presided over by Mrs Harriet Jane Akweley Quaye has remanded Dieou into Police custody to assist in investigations.

This follows submissions by Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) George Amega praying the court to remand Dieou into custody to enable him to assist in Police investigations.

The accused person is expected to reappear on August 30.

READ ALSO: Maame Serwaa makes wild prophecy about her career on her birthday

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Source: Yen
- Prophet Badu Kobi has vowed to beat up anyone who shows up at his church to to demand tax from him

- According to him, he will only pay tax if the country refunds all the monies the church has given out to help the needy in society

The Founder and Leader of the Glorious Waves Chapel International, Prophet Emmanuel Badu Kobi, has threatened to beat up anyone who comes to him to collect tax.

According to a video obtained from GHPage.com, the man of God revealed that he has on several occasions, declared his intention not to pay tax.

Shedding light on his position, he stated that a politician once asked him to pray for a colleague politician who was on the verge of dying.

READ ALSO: Police finally arrest Ivorian after he steals GHC110 million from Cal Bank

GHBase.com reports that Prophet Kobi asked the politician not to worry as it isnt time for the man to die, because he had prayed for him.

He went on to say that the same man later expressed his support for the call on the churches to pay tax.

He went on to say that if the country is ready to refund all the monies given by churches to those in need, the churches will gladly pay taxes without complaining.

In recent times, there has been an ongoing discussion as to whether to tax churches in the country.

This was after a government official revealed that there are plans been put in place by the government to start taxing various churches in the country.

Some men have shared their displeasure towards the new directives whiles others have expressed their willingness to pay so the government can use it to develop the country.

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Source: Yen
- WAEC has discounted publications claiming that BECE results are out

- Candidates have been warned against falling for these false reports

The West African Exams Council (WAEC) has warned all 2018 BECE candidates to reject reports of the publication of results online.

In the fake press release, 2018 BECE candidates were given a link to check and download their results.

"The management of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) Ghana has released the Basic Education Certificate Examination BECE Results in 2018 for May/June Examination  Students that wrote the exams are to follow the procedures below to check your Result on WAEC Portal," parts of the fake report read.

READ ALSO: Otiko Djaba resigns from active politics

Meanwhile, the provisional results for all BECE candidates who sat for their papers privately have been released. This is according to the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).

In a statement by the GFA, all private BECE candidates could now check their results online.

The total number of private students who wrote the exams make a total of 11,886 consisting 6,886 males and 5,000 females.

In the selection of schools, WAEC has revealed that private candidates who sat the private BECE in February this year should visit the WAECs website for the selection of senior high schools of their choice.

The BECE exams in Ghana have always been fraught with cases of exam malpractice especially when many students are always tempted with the urge to secure for themselves copies of leaked exam questions, popularly known as 'apor'.

The West African Examination Council (WAEC) warned against this especially when half a million of students across the country (509,824) sat for their BECE today, June 4th.

According to WAEC, candidates are cautioned against engaging in any examination malpractice of any form, especially collusion, which is prevalent at the BECE".

All forms of cheating, according to the exams council, can be detected by the Item Differentia Profile (IDP) in their objective tests, or in their script during marking.

READ ALSO: Ivorian arrested for stealing GHC110 million from Cal Bank

The total amount of students who sat for the BECE is 509,824. This is a sharp increase over what we had in 2017 which involved 468,060 students.

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Source: Yen
- Shatta Wale has stated that he is ready to support the government

- According to him, the development of the country doesn't depend on the government alone

Controversial dancehall artiste, Shatta Wale, has declared his readiness to support any government that comes to power.

According to a MyNewsGh.com report sighted by YEN.com.gh, the Gringo hitmaker has urged the youth to work hard.

According to him, the development of the country does not depend on the government but the people in the country and therefore there is the need for the people to rise to help develop the country.

READ ALSO: Take out love making and lots of people would have nothing to offer you - Juliet Ibrahim

Although people continue to blame the hardship in the country on politicians and the decisions they take with regards to the economy, he observed that people should not blame their miserable life on politicians.

To him, Ghanaians need to rise from their slumber and work hard towards achieving greatness.

Shatta Wale said, I pledge to support any government that comes into power just because, the development of this country depends on us ..Dont blame the politician for your miserable life ..Work!!!."

YEN.com.gh had previously reported how Shatta Wale took a swipe at President Akufo-Addo over Bank of Ghana and Menzgold brouhaha.

READ ALSO: What Becca wore for her wedding to Daniel Tobi Sanni

According to Shatta Wale, if Menzgold goes down then President Akufo-Addo doesn't care about the youth of Ghana.

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Source: Yen.com.gh
- A pastor of a Baptist Church has been killed by suspected gunmen

- The pastor, Hosea Akuchi, was killed after struggling with the gunmen when they tried kidnapping him

Suspected bandits have killed a pastor identified as Hosea Akuchi in Igabi local government of Kaduna state while attempting to resist kidnappers.

The Cable reports that Akuchi was a pastor of a Baptist Church, Guguwa, Nasira. The incident was said to have happened on Sunday, August 19.

According to NAIJ.com the deceased's wife, Talatu, was abducted by the bandits after they killed her husband.

READ ALSO: I'm ready to support the government - Shatta Wale

According to a witness, said the bandits arrived the community around 1.am and forced their way into the apartment of the clergyman after shooting sporadically in the air.

He said: The gunmen came at about 1.am; I dont know how many of them but they were shooting sporadically. We thought they were armed robbers, everybody was scared.

They wanted to kidnap the pastor, but he was resisting them by struggling with them and they shot him. After killing him, they went away with his wife.

READ ALSO: Take out love making and lots of people would have nothing to offer you - Juliet Ibrahim

The incident was confirmed by the spokesperson for the police in the state, Yakubu Sabo, who said the clergyman was shot while struggling with his attackers.

He said: In the early hours of this morning, information reaching us that some armed men storm the house of Reverend Hosea and attempted to kidnap him.

But after struggling with them, they shot him and took away his wife. It is quite unfortunate that while we are keeping the peace we are enjoying in Kaduna, some criminals are doing this to sabotage our collective efforts.

We have visited the scene of the unfortunate incident and we are trying our best to get to the root of this incident and as soon as we get more information, I will get back to you."

READ ALSO: Provisional 2018 BECE results not out - WAEC clarifies

YEN.com.gh previously reported how Nigerian pastor got arrested for killing 19 year-old girl for ritual.

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Source: Yen Newspaper
- The UCC has held the First Session of its 51st congregation

- The congregation saw 56 students of the School of Medical Sciences graduating as doctors

- A female student from Nigeria emerged as the best student

The University of Cape Coast (UCC) has graduated 56 qualified medical doctors at the First Session of the 51st Congregation dedicated to the School of Medical Sciences (SMS).

The fresh graduates made up of 35 males and 21 females were conferred with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MB, ChB) degrees after successfully completing their six-year programme.

Among the graduands was a Nigerian called Dr Lotachi Ugwunwa Onyemenam who set a record by sweeping 15 out of 21 awards which were up for grabs.

Dr Lotachi Ugwunwa Onyemenam (Photo credit: atlfmonine.com)

Some of the awards received by Dr. Ugwunwa Onyemenam are the Vice-Chancellor of UCC prize for the overall best performance, Ghana Medical Association best student, Cape Coast Teaching Hospital prize for the best student among others.

READ ALSO: Otiko Djaba rejects appointment as ambassador to Italy

The other awards went to Dr Akorfa Ama Wotordzor who received five awards with the remainder going to Dr Amanda Naa Atwei Bruce-Adjei.

Speaking at the graduation, the Vice- Chancellor of the school, Professor Joseph Ghartey Ampiah that the total number of medical doctors produced by UCCSMS is now 299 since its inception in 2007.

Prof. Ampiah revealed that the Modular System of delivering the curriculum is one of the keys and unique features of their medical school.

According to him, the adoption of the Community-Based Experience and Service (COBES) mode in the curriculum provides the students with their necessary exposure that helps them to sharpen their research skills.

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This mode, he added also builds in them the virtue of empathy as they offer services to rural communities within their service catchment area.

Prof Ghartey Ampiah said his outfit continues to gain more recognition and visibility as it continues to make strides to collaborate with top notch universities around the world in the areas of Medical education and research, and its faculty carries out extension services with Ghanaian and International Institutions.

He said the School also signed and Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Anhui University, China and continue with activities and programmes under various MOUs signed in previous years with various institutions

He observed that despite all their marvelous performance, the school still struggles with the challenge of inadequate infrastructure and appealed to the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to release funds to help complete the structures.

READ ALSO: In Adabraka: Mobile money agent killed at gunpoint by armed robbers

Prof Ghartey Ampiah urged the new doctors to go out and touch lives as well as to put smiles on the faces of patients and make an impact on society.

Do not get annoyed with patients when they ask you questions about your diagnoses of their illness or the treatment you are giving to them since it is their right to know he urged.

Prof Ghartey Ampiah again appealed to the inducted doctors not only treat their patients but also spend the time to explain the cause of their sickness to them and how they can prevent the various ailments.

On his part, the Director General of Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr.Anthony Nsiah Asare urged the doctors not to feel shy to learn from nurses to teach them how to give proper injection.

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Rally for universal access to public housing

On August 16 outside NSW Parliament, Action for Public Housing  a coalition of public housing tenants and their supporters from across Sydney  staged a rally demanding universal access to public housing. They were backed by present and retired members of the Maritime Union of Australia and Public Service Association along with the Combined Pensioners, the Tenants Union, the Sydney Alliance and other groups.

The mid-week rally, which was timed to coincide with Parliament sitting, was well attended with a crowd that made a substantial impression on the surrounding citizenry.

MC Denis Doherty from Action for Public Housing told the rally that a new system of universally accessible public housing, with rents based on ability to pay is the only way the current housing crisis can be fought.

The market should no longer be allowed to determine the availability of shelter for our people, he said. The common good is superior to the right of private property.

The rally was opened by Barney Gardner who has experienced first-hand the evictions and clear out of his neighbours from Millers Point and Dawes Point. Barney spoke of the tragedy of the removals and how the nearby massive Barangaroo development does not include any public housing.

Greens MPs Jenny Leong and Jamie Parker both spoke eloquently of the need for public housing and putting a stop to the evictions. It is time we valued public housing tenants and sought to protect them rather than vilify them, they stressed.

Jim McIlroy from the Socialist Alliance criticised the government for wanting to shed its responsibility for housing and called for far more public housing to be built.

Tania Mihaluk, ALP Shadow Minister for Social Housing, spoke of the now over 15,000 empty houses in the public housing system at a time of a massive waiting list for public housing tenants.

Alex Greenwich, Independent MP for Sydney, explained his passionate belief in relieving the homelessness situation in Sydney. He condemned the state government for leaving the purpose built social housing Sirius building empty while homelessness grows in Sydney.

Glebe public housing tenant and well-known local artist Emily Valentine blasted the governments latest build to rent plan where public land is gifted to developers in exchange for a small concession on affordable housing.

Paul McAleer, Maritime Union Sydney secretary, closed the rally, speaking on the inequalities in society and pointed out that the police should be protecting the people wanting more public housing rather than protecting the people inside Parliament who were stealing the houses of the poor and underprivileged.
Toxic banks

Farmers attending the Royal Commission have a moment of reflection.

Last week the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry heard explosive evidence about bank executives charging customers fees for no service, misleading the regulator, and then thinking up creative ways to avoid paying the money back. When all that failed they tried stalling repayments. As a result the Commission required National Australia Bank (NAB) Executive, Consumer and Wealth, Andrew Hagger, to attend the Royal Commission again to provide an explanation for the banks behaviour.

Late last week the Finance Sector Union (FSU) wrote to NAB seeking clarification about whether the fee for no service scandal extended to employee superannuation accounts.

The union says it will be writing to each of the big four banks to clarify whether they have been charging fees for no service on employee superannuation accounts: We will take all necessary steps to ensure FSU members have not been adversely affected.

Workers not the problem

Bank Executives have tried hard to make the Royal Commission all about individual workers behaving badly but its really about toxic cultural and systemic issues caused by poor leadership.

Conflicted remuneration structures are central to the communitys loss of trust and confidence in the sector. Despite the Australian Banking Association Review into product payments and commissions and their relationship to poor customer outcomes, almost 18 months on, nothing has really changed.

Conflicted remuneration

Bank workers are still reporting daily and relentless pressure to sell products regardless of the best interest of the customer. This conflicted position is bad for customers and bad for communities.

It only serves bank executives, who make millions of dollars each year in pay and bonuses as a reward for perpetuating this sales culture.

NAB executive Andrew Hagger, who oversaw the fee for no service scandal that was exposed in the Royal Commission last week, also oversaw the Beneficiary Nomination form issue.

In 2017, while overseeing these epic systemic and cultural failings, his total remuneration realised was over $2.8 million. He was graded as having achieved and as demonstrating NABs values and behaviours.

The double standard is stark.

The Commission heard evidence that, in the last four years, NAB had not provided breach notices to ASIC within 10 days as required by the Corporations Act on 84 occasions. Eighty three of these failures had been breaches arising from the Wealth Division that Hagger is in charge of. If a front-line worker had failed to act within a time limit imposed by the Corporations Act on 84 occasions, they would not be rated as highly achieved, and would not receive millions in bonuses.

Independent review

Its blatantly obvious that self-regulation is failing workers, customers and our community, says the FSU. While banks remain addicted to conflicted pay models, culture will not change.

The FSU has issued an open letter to Andrew Thorburn calling for an independent review of NAB culture. The issues identified at NAB are industry-wide. All banks have embraced pay models that incentivise the pursuit of short-term incentives and profits over good customer outcomes. NAB must first acknowledge the cultural problem created by conflicted pay models, and work with the Union on industry solutions that benefit workers and rebuild community trust and confidence.

August 13, 2018

By email: Andrew.Thorburn@nab.com.au

CC: Catherine A Delaney@nab.com.au

Mr Andrew Thorburn

Chief Executive Officer

National Australia Bank Limited

Dear Mr Thorburn

At the Royal Commission into the Banking, Financial Services and the Superannuation Industry last week, we heard almost four days of evidence about NABs behaviour in relation to superannuation funds. The evidence was alarming. As a result of the evidence you issued a statement to employees which sought to allay concerns. The statement suggested that the issues were isolated, rather than systemic.

The issues raised by the evidence before the Royal Commission are not isolated, nor were due to the conduct of front line employees. Rather there is a fundamental and ongoing crisis in management culture at NAB.

NABs cultural failure led to poor decisions such as the charging of adviser fees on superannuation accounts where there was no adviser to be paid (and then NAB keeping the money), and the charging of fees for services provided to superannuation fund members who were deceased. Critically, it also led to (and continues to lead to) an unwillingness among NAB leadership to be accountable for actions and to deal, fairly and ethically, with the consequences of errors.

NAB employees and other members of our sector viewed with shame the evidence before the Royal Commission that showed a pattern of behaviour from NAB management which focused on minimising costs to NAB, blame-shifting and downplaying the seriousness of issues rather than genuinely confronting problems and finding solutions in the interests of customers. This pattern of behaviour was on display in oral evidence given to the Commission. Both Mr Carter and Ms Smith appeared repeatedly to articulate that the mistakes were not their personal fault even where it had not been suggested they were.

The experience of successful banks internationally is that organisational culture is critical. Successful culture can be difficult to define, but involves, as set out in the Banking and Finance Oath, a focus on an industry that meets the communitys needs and has its full confidence thereby fulfilling its integral role in society.

It requires a commitment to acting in good faith, with ethical restraint, honestly, a willingness to own and address mistakes when they happen. It also requires providing all employees with the training and support so they can pro-actively contribute to a shared vision with the associated improvement in relationships of trust with consumers and each other.

Rather than downplaying problems, the union and its members ask that you recognise the opportunity that this moment presents. NAB can draw a line in the sand and commit to becoming the leader in Australian banking, with a commitment to an ethical culture of excellence.

The union believes that the first step is to identify, honestly and fairly, what issues must be acted on. Such a process must involve a thorough and detailed cultural review, that permits all staff, without fear of retribution, to openly discuss what NAB is doing well and what it can do better. The review must be done with fresh and independent eyes, and be underpinned by a commitment to make the changes to culture the evidence before the Royal Commission has demonstrated NAB needs.

Yours faithfully,

Julia Angrisano  National Secretary, Finance Sector Union of Australia
Along class lines

Remember Hiroshima!

August 6 marks the anniversary of the nuclear destruction of the Japanese city of Hiroshima. WW2 was drawing to a close. The Soviet Union  at a cost of 26 million of its citizens  had clobbered the once invincible armed forces of Nazi Germany and had acquired a new global respect that infuriated Americas new leader, Harry S Truman.

Truman was much more fiercely anti-communist than his predecessor Franklin D Roosevelt. As Truman took his place as US leader at the Potsdam Conference of the Big Three (Truman, Stalin and Atlee) after Germanys surrender, he was hoping that the super weapon that Anglo-US scientists had developed  the as-yet untested Atomic bomb  would give him what he called a big stick for those boys (the Soviets), something in fact that he and his advisers thought would allow the US to rule the post-war world.

US scientists had developed two forms of the A-bomb: Fat Boy, a fission bomb, and Little Boy, a fusion bomb. Both were capable of producing very big explosions, but they needed to be tested (or perhaps demonstrated would be more accurate) against cities of similar size and density to see which was the most destructive in practice.

At a previous meeting of war-time leaders, the USSR had agreed that 90 days after the surrender of Germany, the Soviet Union would sever its non-aggression pact with Japan and launch its powerful Red Banner Army of the Far East against Japan though Manchuria, sealing Japans fate and ending any hopes Japanese leaders had that their large military forces on the Asian mainland would be able to continue to fight on even after the fall of the home islands.

The US leadership, however, was now more concerned with ordering the post-war world. Their objective now was to prove the power of their super-weapon and cow the USSR, so on August 6, 1945, 89 days after the surrender of Germany, one day before the Soviet army was due to move against Japan, they dropped Fat Boy on Hiroshima. Two days later they dropped their other A-bomb, Little Boy on Nagasaki, two cities of roughly equal size and type, cities the US had deliberately refrained from bombing (unlike Tokyo, for example) so that there could be no confusion over the damage caused by the A-bomb when it was time to drop it.

The tests were conclusive: 140,000 lives were lost in Hiroshima, only 74,000 in Nagasaki.

The US set about building up an arsenal of Hiroshima-type A-bombs, but they were in no hurry, believing the backward Russians would never be able to match America in developing an Atomic bomb. While the US enjoyed its nuclear monopoly, its politicians behaved as one would expect. One US Senator went so far as to advise US leaders on how to deal with Russia: This should be our position  put our bellies up against theirs and say Retreat, or we advance! 

Fortunately for the worlds people, Stalin and the other leaders of the USSR held their nerve in the face intense provocation. US intelligence agencies intervened in the elections in Western Europe to prevent the election of Communists who were enjoying enormous prestige at the time thanks to their leadership of the Resistance to the Nazis throughout occupied Europe. In most countries the US supported the election of the Vatican-backed, right-wing and very anti-Communist Christian Democrats.

In Greece, the US intervened against the Communist-led Left in the civil war which erupted when Britain foisted a pro-fascist monarchy on the country at the close of WW2. In Albania, which had embraced Socialism along with the rest of Eastern Europe, a Bay of Pigs style invasion by counter-revolutionaries was organised by British Intelligence (anxious not to be outdone by the Americans) but Kim Philby  a Soviet intelligence agent working inside Britains Secret Intelligence Service  tipped off the Albanian authorities and the uprising was nipped in the bud.

However, the US did intervene successfully to defeat the Reds in the Philippines civil war and Britain intervened similarly in Malaya. The US had supported Chiang Kai Check in Chinas war against Japan and unsuccessfully tried to prevent his defeat at the hands of the Communist forces once WW2 was over. Once he fled to Taiwan the US used its navy to protect the remnants of his forces and to maintain the fiction that Nationalist China still existed.

In fact, there were so many provocations they are hard to list. France set about the brutal suppression of the independence movement in Algeria and also in Indo-China. Britain did the same in Kenya. The US and its allies were determined to roll back Communism and the USAs nuclear monopoly provided the ideal opportunity. And then, in 1949, the USSR exploded its own A-bomb. The monopoly had been broken.

The following year, the US puppet regime in South Korea provoked war on the Korean Peninsula but this effort to roll back Communism militarily ultimately failed. Although North Korea was devastated by massive bombing and invasion by the US and its allies, it was able  with the active support of Russia and China  to hold on and the invaders were driven back to their starting point at the 38th parallel. US C-i-C General Douglas MacArthur wanted to A-bomb China but now that Russia had the Bomb it was too dangerous and President Truman sacked him instead.

Russia had proposed a total ban on all forms of Atomic weapons as early as 1946 but the US dismissed the proposal as propaganda, as it did every international peace conference and all Soviet calls at the UN for such a ban.

The US remains the only country that has used nuclear weapons against other countries but their use is constantly threatened or held over all our heads as a way of asserting power. The bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were puny in comparison to the nuclear weapons developed since then.

A comprehensive ban on nuclear weapons is needed today more than ever.
Graves for US forces in Afghanistan

The dramatic, and seemingly unstoppable, surge of Taliban offensives across Afghanistan is proof that the US is fast becoming the latest foreign power to succumb to failure in a land known for being the graveyard of empires. But unlike past empires defeated in Afghanistan, the US stands out as singularly contributing to its own ill-fate through excessive blundering and its legacy of criminal duplicity.

In particular, Washingtons obsession with confronting neighbouring Iran and plotting regime change in Tehran could well be the tipping point in Afghanistan. The point, that is, where the US tips itself into a strategic, military grave it has been digging in Afghanistan over the past two decades.

After 17 years of US military occupation costing the US taxpayer trillions of dollars, the Taliban insurgents seem to be able to launch spectacular attacks at will against the Washington-backed government in Kabul. By any measure, that portends a historic defeat for Washingtons imperial ambitions. And not just in Afghanistan.

Over the past week, a strategic city, Ghazni, only 150 kilometres south from the capital was under Taliban occupation for several days before the militants appeared to make a tactical retreat to surrounding areas.

Then in the capital, Kabul the Taliban mounted a gun battle on a military-intelligence training base, as if to underline the ineffectualness of US-backed security forces. A military intelligence base caught in a surprise attack?

Further north, in Faryab province, an Afghan National Army base was reportedly over-run by militants with the apparent loss of 30 troops and the remaining 70 captured. Provincial elders said the base was easily captured by the Taliban because it lacked reinforcements, ammunition and food. So much for US support.

Recall that Afghanistan was supposed to be the Soviet Unions Vietnam. That was how US planners like Zbigniew Brzezinski gleefully referred to Afghanistan and their nefarious scheme to inflict on the Soviets what the US had ignominiously suffered in Vietnam only a few years earlier. In 1979, Soviet troops were lured into the Central Asian country to prop up an allied government in Kabul coming under attack from US-backed tribal fighters, the Mujahideen.

Like British imperial troops a century before, the Soviets suffered defeat in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan at the hands of fearless fighters.

Of course, the Soviets were not just up against Afghans. The CIA had weaponised the Mujahideen with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and other sophisticated munitions. Along with Britains MI6, the Saudis and Pakistani military intelligence, the Afghan insurgents were turned into a jihadist army which later evolved into the Al Qaeda terror network.

The irony is, however, that the Soviet Vietnam has now turned into another US quagmire  an American Vietnam redux.

Following the September 11 terror attacks in 2001 on New York City and Washington DC, the George W Bush administration rushed into Afghanistan in an act of revenge against Al Qaeda  the very organisation that the Americans had earlier helped create.

Nearly 17 years later, the US military is still bogged down in Afghanistan with no viable exit plan in sight. The war is officially Americas longest war, surpassing the duration of the Vietnam War (1964-75).

Although US casualties are much less than was incurred in Southeast Asia, the financial cost of Afghanistan to the US economy is crippling, estimated to be up to US$5 trillion, along with the Iraq war. Thats a quarter of the US total national debt of US$21 trillion.

US military operations were officially supposed to end in 2014 during the Obama administration. When Donald Trump ran for the presidency in 2016, one of his winning pledges to voters was to scale back US wars. Last year, however, Trump acceded to Pentagon advice to revamp military involvement in Afghanistan, albeit under the guise of training and support for local forces.

As this past weeks audacious attacks by the Taliban demonstrates, the US-backed government forces are fighting a losing war. Vast areas of the country are outside of their control. Even the capital appears vulnerable to heavily-mounted raids.

Moreover, the situation can only get worse for the US and its Afghan surrogates.

What may be a decisive factor is the Trump administrations criminal policy of aggression towards neighbouring Iran. In myopic fashion, Washingtons desire to squeeze Iran with crushing economic sanctions is liable to rebound, by significantly worsening the security conditions in Afghanistan for US-backed forces.

Thats because as the US imposes tougher sanctions on Iran, following Trumps abandonment of the international nuclear treaty in May this year, the deteriorating Iranian economy will have a direct deleterious impact on Afghanistan. Thousands of migrant Afghan workers rely on Iran for employment. Their salary remittances are reportedly a major lifeline for families back in Afghanistan.

With the Iranian economy already faltering under US sanctions, droves of unemployed expatriate Afghan workers can be expected to pack up and leave, cutting off the remittances that sustain much of Afghanistans economy.

A further impact from Washingtons sanctions on Iran is that landlocked Afghanistan will not be able to avail of Iranian sea ports for imports and exports. Trump is threatening secondary sanctions on any country continuing to do business with Iran. Unless, the US gives Afghanistan a waiver, it will be cut off from commercial ties with Iran and its trading routes to the Indian Ocean.

So, as the US-imposed economic pressure on Iran intensifies through ratcheting up of sanctions  Washington wants a total oil embargo by November  the inevitable result will be worsening social conditions in Afghanistan for the general population there. That lamentable outcome, it is reasonable to assume, will only boost popular support for the Taliban, making the US-backed Afghan forces even more insecure and ineffectual in their operations.

A third factor is that Iran could exercise a more malicious option by increasing military support covertly to the Taliban. Iran is reckoned to have developed a formidable arsenal of advanced missile technology. Last week, for example, Tehran showcased a new radar-evading ballistic missile.

Given that the Americans are trying to destroy the Iranian government through vicious economic measures, it would not be at all surprising if Tehran fought back by supplying the Taliban fighters with devastating fire power to hit US forces.

Thus, by running a sanctions vendetta against Iran in the calculation that the economic pain might elicit social unrest and regime change, Washington is likely to end up inflicting serious blowback on its military campaign in Afghanistan.

Americas longest overseas war could turn out to be its most ignominious and wasteful. Thats saying something given the dozens of dirty wars that the US has engaged in over the past century. The repercussions for US global standing cannot be underestimated.

It not only ran a nearly two-decade war in Afghanistan, which was arguably illegal from the very outset, resulted in tens of thousands of casualties and was financially ruinous for the US economy, but the supposed almighty US power will have been defeated in the graveyard of empires largely by its own criminality, stupidity and arrogance.

Information Clearing House